《Hitman With A Badass System》
Chapter 1 - Love And Betrayal
In a ce where there was nothing but darkness emerged three bright lights. Each light shone a thousand times brighter than the sun itself.
"Damn, where''s that bloody thing disappeared?"
One of the lights sounded furious and its voice reverberated through the surrounding emptiness.
"Rx, Omega two, the biggest threat we had is gone, now we simply need to search through the universe that we created and find that thing"
Other lights calmly said as the three lights started to glow brighter.
"Did you feel that? We are getting stronger, that means the Omega one is dead"
The third light sounded like it wasughing.
"It because of that thing it took us a hundred millennia to kill Omega one"
The furious Omega two shouted.
"We must find it before it falls into the wrongs hands, after the battle with the Omega one, I can''t fight another Omega"
"Even though the thing has the power to create another Omega, I don''t think it can do that before we find it, what if it falls into the hands of our creations? We created them and we can certainly kill them and take what''s ours"
"Now let''s each take a sector of the universe and search and don''t forget our deal"
*******************************
(Meanwhile somewhere else)
The vige was littered with gore, blood, and bodies. Red, brown, and ck were the new colors of what was once a secret hidden sanctuary, which has now be the stage of a disastrous fight.
The air which would normally be rich in scents of herbs, river, and the sounds of wildlife, now a hellish symphony of screams, explosions, and battle.
The men adorned in full battle armor were ughtering the hooded figures while more armored men surrounded thest hooded figure.
"Drop your sword Abras, without you, we wouldn''t have found this ce, the least we can do is give you a swift, painless death"
The man who wore full metal armor said as he removed his helmet and revealed his face. The evil grin and the scar on his face made him look even uglier, but Abras was not in the state to rate his face as he was riddled with wounds and fighting with the overwhelming guilt in his heart.
Looking around the dead bodies of everyone who raised him, Abras wanted to kill himself in the most painful way considering everything that happened here was his fault. For the outside world, this ce had been nothing but a myth until he fell in love with the girl who used him to reach this sanctuary.
Even though his mind told him that everything was over and the cosmic stream that they swore to protect had fallen into the hands of the King of Thusia, his heart refused to believe it and wanted to fight until he drew hisst breath.
The toll on both nature and sanctuary was enormous. It would likely take generations before this vige could recover. It was clear gore, rubble and fire had engulfed the temple he used to pray at, schools he was studying, and the small houses he and his brothers lived in.
Generations of Elders protected this ce and its secrecy but it only took a girl and his love that destroyed the sanctuary. Whoever has the cosmic stream could tip the bnce of the world and that was why the Elders of the first generation created this ce and safeguarded the stream for years.
But now, there were no more elders and he was the only protector standing alive.
"Come on kid, drop your sword, don''t make this hard"
"NO!"
Abras shouted and dashed towards the general with hisst bit of strength.
"So be it"
Booth would have had a hard time defeating Abras if he was at his peak but now, Abras was injured and lost his hope. Still, Booth was surprised by the speed of Abras''s movement as he barely evaded the sword pointed to his throat. Booth was d that the princess seduced Abras to turn him into a disease carrier and weakened the Elders.
The alchemists and healers specially created the Flu to weaken the elders and if the Elders weren''t weakened by the flu , they wouldn''t have stood a chance against them as even a student like Abras was able to threaten them.
Realizing that Abras still had some strength, Booth quickly conjured his Arch Energy and formed a golden shield around him.
"Now we can dance"
The rest of the armored guards had already started rummaging through the bodies of Abras''s friends to find valuables as Abras wiped off the blood pouring out of his mouth.
He could feel that he won''t be able to live anymore as his heartbeat started to decrease and his muscles started to give up.
Booth saw his movement slowing down and quickly dashed at him as hended a heavy blow to Abras''s ribs.
The blow sent Abras flying andnded on the ground after hitting the burning tree. Abras''s vision became clouded and coughed more blood as he heard the madugher of the armored men.
"General Booth, kill that kid, His majesty is on his way"
"Yeah, yeah"
Booth waved his hand and made his way to Abras while he tried to clear his vision.
"Forgive me, Elder Wright, forgive me, elders"
Abras could see the smiling faces of Elder Wright, his teacher, and every who raised him since he was an infant. when their faces faded away and the face of L appeared in his mind, his anger erupted like a volcano. He used to recall her face and dream about a future with her but now, he felt an overwhelming betrayal and anger.
He thought she was an innocent farm girl from the nearby vige when he first met her. As a disciple of the sanctuary, he was not supposed to interact with the outsiders but when he saw a poor girl was going to be killed by a wild panther, he saved her.
The mistake he made was, after saving her, he epted to meet her in the ce where he first saw her and began to develop feelings for her. He didn''t know why he did that, it might have been because he had no friends or interaction with the world outside other than the sanctuary or her pure innocent look charmed him.
However he wasn''t the only one who made a mistake as when Elder Wright found out about his rtionship with La, he didn''t inform the other Elders who would have given a death sentence to both of them but he gave his permission for Abras to leave the sanctuary and start a new life with her in a farawaynd from here.
Since Elder Wright was the one who found him in the middle of the forest as a baby and raised him for twenty years, he was like a father to Abras rather than a teacher. This clouded Elder Wright''s judgment and ended up in a disaster for the sanctuary as well as for the world.
Even when Elder Wright was in his bed due to the mysterious flu, he ordered Abras to leave the sanctuary and meet La as he was supposed to. He said it was hisst wish and Abras had no choice but to leave the sanctuary to meet La in the regr meeting spot.
But La wasn''t waiting for him there alone and instead of the farm girl La, the one who waited for him was Princess Victoria of Thusia. She waited for him with a battalion of soldiers and mages and even then, he simply couldn''t believe her betrayal until she put a dagger through his chest and left the ce.
She spoke nothing and there was no love in her eyes when she did that and even though the dagger didn''t pierce his heart, it was broken into a million pieces.
Abras now had nothing but guilt and anger as he decided to do thest thing he could do, the forbidden spell that Elder Wright taught him.
Chapter 2 - System Activated
(Meanwhile somewhere else)
"Ghost, can you hear me?"
Micheal heard the voice of a teenage girl through his earpiece.
"Loud and clear, pink"
Micheal said while adjusting the tie looking at the mirror. A handsome young man ofte twenties stared back at him.
"I do look good"
Micheal grinned at his reflection.
"What was that, Ghost?"
"Nothing, has the target entered the building yet?"
Micheal looked at his Rolex and asked.
"Not yet but he will, in a couple of minutes"
Pink was Micheal''s wing-woman or wingman, in case pink was using a voice modtor to sound like a girl.
In Micheal''s line of work, anonymity was extremely important. Until now, he didn''t meet or know anything about pink as she didn''t know anything about him, except his codename. The face in the mirror was just a disguise as Micheal had never revealed his true face to anyone.
"Remember, the client wants you to eliminate the target before he gives the speech"
"Roger"
Micheal took ast nce at the mirror and left the restroom. When he stepped out of the restroom, he was weed by arge crowd of rich people. Each woman seemed to wear designer clothes with essories that were specially made for them while the majority of the men dressed in ssic ck tuxedos with white shirts and bow.
Micheal would see the majority of their faces if he turned on the television or roaming through the streets as they were all celebrities, politicians, and famous sportsmen.
"Can you get me an autograph from Dicap?"
"Not for free"
Micheal put on his ck sunsses and pretended to be the security guard who he knocked down and left in the dumpster outside.
"Aw,e on Ghost, I don''t have any money to give you"
"You should have saved your two-fifty from thest job"
Micheal said and walked around the ce pretending to check the parameter.
Pink didn''t say anything as Pink knew that he wouldn''t do anything for free.
In the world of assassins, Micheal was a superstar and only a small number of people on the earth would hire an expensive hitman like him. He had a hundred percent sess rate, no other hitman in the world had such a record. Only a few of thew forces knew about his existence but they could only specte as he never left any evidence or anything to put a file on him.
And the only person who could prove his existence was pink but if a wingman like her betrayed her partner, the dark world would put a bounty on her and she would end up dead, so a person with 160 IQ level wouldn''t do anything stupid like betraying him.
"Target has entered the building"
Pink said and he noticed the special forces from various countries entering the hall.
And after a while, Micheal craned his neck and saw a simple looking old man entering the hall while armed guards surrounded him in a diamond formation. Many people in the g looked at his simplicity with admiration. The target was a newly elected prime minister of Probra after he freed his people from the clutches of the previous leader of Probra, an evil dictator who had enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the entire human race from the face of the earth.
The target had received various prizes and awards including the Nobel prize for his peaceful protest against the dictator. He was here to give a speech about ahimsa and world peace and Micheal was here to make sure the entire world see the demise of this man.
However, while everyone was looking at him like he''s the god of peace, Micheal snickered inside because the face that he was showing to the outside world was as fake as Micheal''s face. Micheal had his own moral ethic, no matter the payment, he wouldn''t kill an innocent and Libor Barnes was not an innocent.
Everyone thought Libor Barnes as the father of the free nation Probra but failed to question how he survived under the dictator while protesting under his nose against him. No matter how peaceful he protested, a dictator like Pavel would have killed him a long time ago but Libor survived.
Except the dark world, no one knew the real Libor. Pavel was the only dictator for the outside world but the real mastermind behind him was none but Libor. His simplicity was just for show as he was the richest man in the world and he made his fortune by squeezing Probra and ve trading.
Since no one could prove him guilty, some rich fold from somewhere was paying Micheal to take him out. As far as Micheal was concerned, he was getting paid to take out dirt like him for a sweet amount of a million dors.
"Tango two, take my position, loo break"
Don took out the walkie talkie and said.
"Copy that Tango one, on my way "
Someone spoke through the walkie talkie but the walkie talkie was already in the flower vase.
Micheal had done more hard assassinations than this one andpared to some of his hits, this was like a cakewalk to him. The reason for his perfect hundred percent sess rate came from his extremely careful preparation. He would only take only one or two jobs per year as he would take at least six months to prepare and n his hit. If a typical hitman had a n A and B, Micheal had ns from letter A to Z, and normally he would go for the simple n rather than theplex one.
"I will reach my position in a hundred seconds"
Micheal informed Pink and opened the staff only door.
"Roger that, no signs of people around the area"
The guards and securities were busy checking out the hot actresses and didn''t notice him a bit.
The staff only room was just there for the securities to keep the belonging in the lockers and change their clothes after work.
"Fifth locker"
There was a row of gym lockers before him as he looked at the fifth locker from the right and walked towards it.
"Is it in there?"
Pink''s curious voice rang in his ears
"No"
Micheal didn''t open the locker but jumped on the locker and slid the ceiling above him as it opened like a door.
Only the engineer who designed this five-star hotel and a few workers who knew about this until Micheal hacked hisputer and stole the original blueprints during the engineer''s visit to Tahiti with his family. The engineer had no idea that Micheal was the one who manipted the travel agency data and selected him for the free trip program to Tahiti.
"Damn, I hope these rats did not eat it"
Micheal climbed the ceiling and closed the entrance but frowned when he saw the rats running through the vent before him.
"Eat what?"
"Tell youter, how''s the parade going?"
Micheal whispered and crawled through the vent without making any noise.
"Now they are crossing the fifth avenue, five minutes till they reach your ce"
"Roger that, going radio silence, catch you in the next job"
"That much confidence huh? Alrighty, see youter, Ghost"
Pink disconnected the line while Micheal set a three-minute timer in his watch.
And after crawling through the vent for exactly one minute, Micheal saw the familiar ck bag that he left in the vent three months ago.
Reaching the ck bag, he brushed away the dust and slowly opened the zip to reveal the Kel tec rfb sniper rifle with a thermal scope. However, the sniper wasn''t made of metal and regr parts but this rifle was custom made for him using nothing but stic, so when the security firm scanned the ce with metal detectors and everything, they couldn''t find it.
Since it was made of stic, the rifle could only fire one bullet because the heat produced by firing the bullet would melt and damage the rifle and render it useless.
The bullet was made of a special type of stic that could prate through the steel without making a noise. This rifle and bullet alone cost him two hundred grand.
And besides the cost, he had only one shot to take out Libor and if he missed the shot, there wouldn''t be a chance like this again and his reputation would be tainted.
"Four minutes more"
Micheal turned on the thermal scope and aimed at the center of the hall where Libor would start his speech.
"Long Live the free nation of Probra"
Micheal heard Libor''s voice through the speakers in the hall and aimed his cross air at the head of the red figure in his thermal scope.
"Diddle, diddle, we are so little"
The moment he said the word little, he pulled the trigger, and boom, a sound like a watermelon exploded echoed through the hall.
However, before even he could let a proud grin after his excellent bullseye, his whole world around him turned white and he heard a sudden ding sound in his head.
"Ding, Badass System activated"
Chapter 3 - I Can Dominate This World
"What the hell?"
Michael was so confused and everywhere he turned, he could only see the color white like he was caged in a white box.
"What''s happening?"
He pped his face but he didn''t feel any pain.
"Huh?"
He knew he should have felt something as he tried to p himself again but his palm went right through him.
"It can''t be, just rx"
Realizing something''s very wrong, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, and opened them again.
But even then, nothing was changed.
"Am I dead? What was that voice I heard?"
He was trained to remain calm in any situation as panicking would only make things worse in his line of work.
Yet, no matter how hard he tried to calm and make sense out of this citation, he simply couldn''t.
"Am I drugged? No, my watch would have indicated if there were any unknown substances in my blood"
As he said, he lifted his wrist to look at his watch but his Rolex was nowhere to be found on his wrist, and in fact, he just realized that he was naked.
"This is serious"
He couldn''t help but frown looking at his bare naked body and even though he was naked, he couldn''t feel anything or physically touch his body.
Closing his eyes again, he tried to concentrate on what just happened and the voice he had heard, just after he pulled the trigger.
"The System is looking for a body for the host, please wait"
Just as the message rang out, he could see a window pop up before him, as information could be seen scattered across the screen.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Arch Sensing stage, level 1
Experience Points: 0/1000
Badass Points: 0
Current Skills: None
upation: None
Status: In spectral form
Goals: None
Notable Skills: Above average in marksmanship andbat
"How? What?!"
There was no one alive on earth that knew his real name but the screen was clearly showing his name and he couldn''t figure out what this information was floating before him.
"Am I transmigrated? But why am I still in this form?"
He never would have thought that he would say these things but the novels he read on earth made him.
"The system, points, the cultivation, it must be that"
He analyzed the situation calmly as he could and he could tell that there''s no other way to exin what''s happening to him.
"Ding, the system has found a body for the host"
As the ring sound appeared in his mind, the white background around him slowly started to fade away and he found himself in what seemed to be a battle site.
"Forgive me, Elder Wright, forgive me, elders"
Michael tried to step back as he could when he saw a hooded figure crawling under his feet.
"Shit"
He noticed a man in medieval Knight armor walking towards him as he quickly looked for a weapon in instinct.
But the man seemed not to notice him as his gaze was on the figure under Michael''s feet.
"Relenis Perfecasi Silicus Phantiteus Vengei Virtu"
As an assassin, he had enhanced hearing and he was able to tell that the hooded figure had said something in a foreignnguage.
And just when he said these words, everything around him seemed to be paused as the mes, the wind, the man who was walking towards him, and everything was stopped like in the movies.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
Since only the hooded figure was moving, he shouted at him.
But surprisingly, a small ball of light emerged out of the hooded figure and started to take the form of a human before him.
And when Michael saw the youth who was standing before him, he was startled and the youth also looked shocked. Michael felt like he was looking at himself from nine years ago, the youth before him resembled his younger self.
"Who are you?"
Michael asked the youth before him but the youth just shook his head.
"There''s no time to exin, I don''t know whether you''re the devil or not but please take my remaining soul energy and avenge my people, promise me"
Michael could see an immense amount of sadness in the eyes of this youth when he asked him.
"The system suggests the host promise Abras, finding a suitable body like this again would take twenty years "
The system sounded like a warning as Abras stared at him for his answer.
"It must be fate"
Michael sighed. What were the chances of him meeting his younger self in a circumstance like this and not to mention he seemed to have a system like in the novels?
"I promise"
Michael reached his hand out towards Abras as he didn''t want to wait another twenty years in this form and more than that, he couldn''t say no to him.
There was no smile or relief in Abras''s face but grief as he took ast nce at the ce around him before turning into a ball of light and flew right into Michael.
[The transmigration process has started, please wait]
The robotic voice of the system appeared again in his mind and then, he was pulled towards Abras''s body.
***************************
(After two days)
Through the heart of the forest, an idle river carried all the debris that fell in from above slowly downstream. Large branches sprouted from the trees and reached into the murky water as if trying to scoop up the swarming fish. Although the warm water was an olive color from the swirling mud and microsized organisms, one could see the underwater wildlife flourish in the shallow part. Swamp-like vegetation and old, rotting trees crept into the river''s edge and created slimy pools of debris from withered leaves and twigs. Among the debris, a body was floating and moving downstream.
And suddenly a ray of sunlight shone down and pierced through the closed eyes of Michael who was floating on the river and abruptly awoken by it.
Opening his eyes, he realized he was floating on the river and he quickly started to swim towards the shore before the river met a waterfall.
Even though he only swam for a couple of minutes, he felt very tired and exhausted as hey on the wet sand for a moment.
But when he rxed his body, he felt extreme pain in his mind as someone hitting his head with the hammer.
He clutched his head in pain while a great number of memories, both foreign and familiar, flooded his mind.
"AHHHHH!"
Michael couldn''t hold back the anger and shout at the sky with all his might.
He felt overwhelming guilt, anger, helplessness, and betrayal at the same time. These memories and feelings were so lifelike that they almost felt as if he had experienced them himself.
In a short amount of time, he experienced the whole life of Abras.
"That bitch"
After separating his own memories from those of belonging to Abras, Michael''s face was full of anger
[Transmigrationpleted, Host can now ess the system ]
The familiar sound appeared in Michael''s mind and drew his attention.
[Host has received a gift bag from the system, do you wish to open it now?]
The time around him seemed to be stopped when the screen appeared before him.
"Alright, let''s see what I''m dealing with, open the gift bag"
Instantly, the page in his vision transformed into a golden box. The box opened as several beams of light streamed out before fading away.
[Congrattions host ''Michael'' for obtaining the Initial level Experience Pill. Using the pill would give 10,000 XP]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for obtaining two healing potions. Using this potion wouldpletely heal the host and cancel out any negative effects and the host would be invulnerable to attacks for two minutes]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for obtaining the beginner''s¡]
Several dings continued to rings in his mind as the interfaces tuned red
[Ding! The system has detected that the host is too weak and insist on the host to consume the XP pill immediately]
"System, how do I use the pill?"
The interface changed when he asked
"Do you wish to"
"Yes, I do"
Michael rushed the system before it couldplete the question as in his mind, he could hear a series of messages from the system:
[ Host ''Michael'' used the Initial Experience Pill and received 10,000 experience points]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Arch Sensing Level 1]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Arch Sensing Level 2]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Arch Sensing Level 3]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Arch Sensing Level 4]
¡
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Arch Sensing Level 10]
Immediately, Michael sensed a surge of power passed through his entire body, causing his hairs to stand straight
Following that strange sensation was a feeling of extremefort. The pores all over his body opened uppletely, greedily devouring Arch Energy from all around.
[Congrattions to Host for reaching the Foundation stage level 1]
And in a matter of seconds, he could feel his body experiencing a tremendous change as his muscles became stronger and he felt strange energy around him. It was almost as if he could fight the most formidable fighters on the earth.
And soon the feeling became familiar due to Abras''s memories and then he hurriedly sifted through the memories that didn''t belong to him, gaining a clear understanding of his present circumstances.
After searching through Abras''s memories, he realized that Abras belonged to a secret group called the sanctuary that protected the legendary cosmic stream. ording to his memories, the water from the stream had purified arch energy and some kind of another energy that would boost someone''s cultivation level by many folds, cure any illnesses, keep him young forever and do many wonders as long as he or she keeps drinking the water from the stream.
But unfortunately, Abras didn''t have any contact with the outside world and had no useful information that could have made Michael''s life so much easier in this world.
Yet, that didn''t discourage him even a bit but put a wide grin on his face.
"Well, I have a system like in the novels, and unlike those fictional characters, I can dominate this world for real, let''s begin "
Chapter 4 - Badass Points
After crawling away from the river, Micheal found a big tree and sat under it to familiarize himself with the system.
"Hey system,e up"
He ordered in his mind as the interface popped up before him. He could see the tabs such as host, shop, storage, subordinates, and upgrade.
Micheal looked left and right to see if anyone or anything wasing but weirdly everything seemed paused.
"While you ess the system, the time will be momentarily slowed down until the host quit the system "
"Wow, cool"
His brows raised in surprise hearing the robotic voice.
"Open host"
the system opened the host tab and like in role-ying games, his naked body appeared before him along with his stats.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Foundation stage, level 1
Experience Points: 4000/20000
Badass Points: 0
Current Skills: None
upation: None
Status: Healthy
Goals: None
Notable Skills: Above average in marksmanship
Proficient in closebat
"Proficient huh?"
Abras''s skills merged with him so he instantly learned everything that Abras learned in his lifetime.
"Let''s see what''s in the storage"
The storage tab opened to reveal a couple of items lying before him and when he concentrated, the details and attributes of the items appeared above them.
The first item in his storage was a ck tactical knife as the knife appeared in his hand.
"Hmm, perfect bnce and very sharp"
He touched the knife''s de with his thumb and said.
Name: SOG Seal Pup Elite
de Length: 6.75 Inches
Total Length: 12.00 Inches
Total Weight: 5.40 Ounces
Special trait: Can prate the defense of anyone under Body strengthening stage, level 6.
"System, list all these cultivation level in ascending order"
The interface changed and a list of cultivation levels appeared before him.
Arch Sensing Stage
Foundation Stage
Body Refining Stage
Body Strengthening Stage
Core Formation Stage
Core Strengthening Stage
Soul Refining Stage
Fusion Stage
Half Immortal
Immortal
*System needs to be upgraded to reveal the next levels
At the end of the list, a red warningbel appeared,
"Upgrade? What level are you now? How do I upgrade you?"
"Current System version is 1.0, the system needs 10000 badass points to be upgraded to version 2.0"
"Let me guess, more functions and more shop items will be unlocked only if I upgrade you"
Micheal read enough novels in his free time to realize how the system might work.
"The host is correct"
"How do I earn these badass points? Is there a guide or how to list?"
"Whenever the host acts badass the system will reward you with badass points"
"Not to boast but I''m a badass, system, so it won''t be hard"
Micheal proudly grinned and expected an answer from the system but he didn''t get one.
He already checked the healing potion so he moved to the next item which was a blue gift box.
"Does the host want to open the box?"
"No shit sherlock, open it"
With a sh of light, the box opened and a ck dress appeared.
"Wait a minute, is this?"
Micheal didn''t need any introduction to the dress because it was one of the most iconic costumes in his world, the ck costume of Neo from the Matrix movies.
Item Name: Neo Costume
Special trait: None
Durability: Six months
"Equip it"
Since he was naked in a new world and this costume looked super cool on him, he ordered the system.
The costume fitted him perfectly but he noticed something was missing
"Hey system, where are the sunsses thate with this costume?"
"Does the host wish to buy the Neo ck sunsses?"
"Yeah, give me that"
The interface changed and entered into the shop tab where he saw the ck sunsses floating before him.
"Three hundred badass points? Shit I don''t have much"
"Then the system rmends the host to explore this world and earn more points"
"Let me browse the store for more"
The shop was categorized into weapons, potions, armors, and misceneous.
The moment he saw the weapons tab, he opened it with his mind, and a huge range of guns, knives, bows, and a lot more appeared.
"A navy colt is 10000 badass points? Hey system, isn''t that too much?"
Even though he didn''t know the value of the badass points, ten thousand for an old colt seemed to be very pricey.
"A gun is too overpowered for this world, hence the price. The system rmends the host to explore the world and earn badass points"
Considering a simple colt was this expensive, he didn''t even look at the other weapons as he moved to the misceneous tab.
There were a few cards that appeared and he looked at the first card.
Name: Surrounding scanner
Function: Scan the host''s surrounding for the presence of life
Area of effect: small
Current Level: Level 1
Next Level: Scan will identify potential threats, the area of effect will be increased.
Price: 300 badass points
"Hmm, mighte in handy, what''s next?"
He scrolled to select the next item
Name: Teleporter
Function: Teleport the Host to a different ce instantly
Distance: small
Current Level: Level 1
Next Level: The distance will be increased.
Price: 700 badass points
"Teleporter huh? Fancy, next"
Name: X Ray vision
Function: Enable the host to activate X Ray vision
Range: small
Current Level: Level 1
Next Level: The range and the effect will be increased.
Price: 1000 badass points
"Useful, but not that important"
After this card, the system required to be upgraded to view more cards and after fiddling around the system for a few more minutes, Micheal closed the system and stood up to start his adventure in this world.
"I miss that sunss "
Tying his hair in a ponytail, Micheal started to follow the river as Bear Grylls told in the channels.
"Okay first, I need to find a city or vige and gather more intel about this world. Then I should look for a way to earn more money and speaking of money, hey system, can I convert badass points into gold coins or buy coins in a shop?"
"The system needs to be upgraded to level six to unlock that feature"
He heard the robotic voice and sighed.
"It''s settled, I need to look for a way to earn money. I hope this world has hit contracts"
After walking for one hour, the clouds started to be darker and the wind was blowing like it would uproot the trees any moment from now as purple lightning cut crazy zig-zag into the dark sky.
"Storm, that''s what I need now"
Micheal sighed and looked for a house or anything that looks like a shelter but he couldn''t find any.
"It seems I need to go into the forest to take shelter"
Until now he avoided the dark forest and kept walking on the river shore however, now he had no choice but to go into the forest before getting struck by lightning.
The bare branches spiked into the sky - no sign of life was to be found anywhere. It was so dark, he was barely able to see where he was going. There were only small sounds of rustling bushes and the howl of the wind. He didn''t know whaty in this dark forest, all he knew was that it wasn''t going to be a peaceful time walking into the forest.
Fortunately, when the downspout started, Micheal found a big tree that had gigantic leaves and huge branches. He felt so tiny standing in front of the tree.
Since Abras lived his entire life in the forest, he was an expert in climbing trees and now, Micheal was able to use this skill to climb this tree and take shelter under its leaves.
Like a monkey, he wlessly climbed the tree andfortably rested on the branch.
"Hope there are no snakes in this tree"
Chapter 5 - Like The Predator
Micheal was searching his mind to find anything that could help him survive in this world while the heavy rain was pouring from the sky. On earth, he would spend most of his time preparing before actually eliminating the target. He deeply valued intel and preparation but after searching his mind, he couldn''t help but feel extremely unprepared.
"Am I missing, pink?"
He shook his head
"Hey, system, what happened to my body back in my world?"
"The host''s body was disintegrated during the crossing over"
"Well, at least my reputation won''t take a hit and those losers won''t find me"
Since his body was destroyed, the cops and the federal agents wouldn''t find him and he would still remain as a myth, a ghost to them who had a hundred percent sess rate in assassinations.
While proudly grinning about his reputation, he suddenly heard footsteps and hissing sounds.
He quickly checked the other branches near him to see if there''s a snake nearby but when he focused, he found that the sound of footsteps wasing from the ground.
As he was searching for the source, he saw a group of five strange looking creatures dragging something. If he saw these creatures on earth, he would have been shocked beyond words and even slightly terrified but because of Abras''s memory, he recognized these creatures.
"Snakemen, freaky"
Some of their upper bodies resembled the body of a snake, in particr, a cobra''s, and their lower body seemed to be human. And two of them had the head and torso of a human but had the body of a snake as their lower part.
Micheal knitted his brows when he noticed the thing they were dragging was not an object but a girl who seemed to be in herte teens.
"Datra, let''s take a break here, I''m too tired to walk in this damn rain"
One of the snakemenined and stopped his group.
"He''s right, we are walking two days straight without any break"
"But we still have a long way to the Nagnd, we can''t afford to lose her again, the queen will skin us alive if we did"
The one with a cobra head hissed but the others chuckled looking at the girl
"Look at her, Datra, the elders crippled her cultivation and now she''s harmless as a butterfly, besides how can she escape with ropes tied around her limbs"
"And she can''t turn into her true form anymore"
Micheal looked closer at the girl and found a small glimmer of snakeskin on her neck and realized that she wasn''t a human but one of them.
"Three-body refining stage level seven, one level eight and level ten "
Normally killing them with his level of cultivation would be an impossible feat however the system gave him the perfect tool to kill them if he could catch them by surprise and kill them silently one by one without alerting the others.
But before that, he decided to open the system and browse the subordinate tab. At the moment, the interface was empty and on the corner, the system showed him the maximum number of subordinates he could have.
"Three huh? For the moment, it''s enough, but system, exin how''s this subordinate thing works"
"When the host wants to make someone his subordinate, you can activate the system''s recruitment feature. The target must be willing to ept to be Host''s subordinate and if the target is willing, the system will recruit the target as Host''s subordinate"
"Can a subordinate betray me or know about you, the system?"
"Host doesn''t have to worry about that, a subordinate cannot betray or harm the host in any way, and if the subordinate acts in any way that brings harm to the host, the system would activate the countermeasure and eliminate or punish the subordinate before the subordinate could harm the host. For yourst question, except the host, none would know about the system''s existence unless the host chose to reveal it but the system strictly rmend not to do that"
"Cool, that''s what I like to hear, and im not crazy and dumb enough to say that I have a system in my mind"
He closed the system as the world before him came to life.
"Okay okay, let''s take a break here, but after this rain stops, we leave here, get it?"
Datra said as they all sighed in relief except for the girl who kept wiggling against her ropes and tried to speak but the ropes around her mouth prevented her from making any noise.
"Good, go to sleep, snakes"
Micheal watched them from above and felt like the predator from the movies.
"If I only had my sniper or an assault rifle with a silencer"
"Does the host really n to kill those snakemen?"
The system''s voice appeared in his mind
"You do give badass points and rewards for killing them right?"
"Yes"
"Then there''s your answer, I need to earn points and experience somewhere, why would I waste such a great opportunity like this? Even if things went south, I have a healing potion"
"Good"
"Huh?"
For a moment, the system sounded actually human in his mind but that feeling disappeared quickly.
Considering the branches of the tree were long and big, Micheal slowly jumped branch to branch like a monkey and checked the perimeter to see if there''s another group of snakes on their way.
While looking at the group, Micheal witnessed Datra creating fire from his hand. A stream of fire flew out of his hand and fired up the bundle of wet wood.
"Cool Magic"
Micheal''s eyes sparkled looking at this because this was the first time he had seen such a thing in real life.
"System, can I do that?"
He asked the system in his mind as the system showed him a red color card.
Skill name: Dragon fire
ss: Offensive type skill
Function: Host can send a stream of dragon fire from his hands
Range: small
Current Level: Level 1
Next Level: The range and the intensity of the fire will be increased, the host can use both hands at the same time to send the fire stream
Price: 600 badass points
"I must buy this"
A wide grin appeared on his face and he felt more motivated to kill these snake men and earn more badass points.
In his line of work, patience was crucial so he trained his mind to rey a movie whence he wants. And after reying a couple of movies, the snakes started to hiss which seemed like a yawn and the forest grew darker and darker as only the campfire and the shes of lightning provided light.
He blended perfectly with the tree like a chameleon because of his ck robes and dark environment.
"We''ll take the first watch"
Datra said and looked at the other cobra headed man.
"Fine with us"
Micheal was surprised that they didn''t put anything under them like a bedsheet or nket as they went to sleep on the wet ground.
After a few minutes, the snakes started to snore without minding the sound of thunderps while Datra and the other one kept watching the girl.
Micheal was waiting for them to look away from each other, so killing one wouldn''t alert the other but after waiting for some time, they didn''t seem to budge from their positions.
"Small distraction would do the trick"
He looked at the tree behind Datra which had a huge stem that would block the other snake''s sight if he kills Datra.
nning his next move, he leaped towards another branch and appeared right above Datra''s head. He cut a small stick from the tree using his knife that felt like cutting a banana with a hot knife.
"Thup"
Micheal threw the stick behind the tree as Datra and the other snake quickly startled by the noise.
"Go, check it"
Micheal waited for one of them to go behind the tree and just as he thought, Datra, the leader himself stood up to check it.
"Watch her, I''ll go check it"
The other snake nodded and kept his nce at the girl while Datra slowly moved towards the ideal ce where Micheal nned to jump down and stab the knife straight between the eyes.
He was d that at least Abras learned the weak points of several species from one of the elders in the sanctuary as a part of his training.
"Diddle diddle we are so"
Step by step, Datra reached the point where the other snake wouldn''t be able to see him.
"Little"
Just as he said, he jumped down from the branch and stabbed the knife between Datra''s eyes. The sound of the thunder sp and Micheal''s perfect athleticism reduced the sound of hisnding.
Even after stabbing Datra, his body violently shook but Micheal used all of his strength and held his body against the tree until he stopped moving.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 7000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
He had no time to celebrate as his full focus was on killing the rest of them.
So before the other snake got suspicious, he swiftly moved towards the next target using the bushes and darkness as cover.
"Da"
Just when the other snake opened his mouth to call for his friend, Micheal came behind him and sent his Knife through his forehead, and dragged him away from the campfire and the sleeping snakes.
The girl''s eyes widened in shock and surprise seeing the turn of events but she didn''t make any noises that could alert and wake the snakes up.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 experience points as well as 250 Badass points]
Chapter 6 - The First Subordinate
"Three more"
Micheal told himself and stealthily moved towards the remaining snakes while the girl was pretty stunned to see him and the grin he walked past her sent a cold chill running through her spine.
He slowly made his way to the three snakes and crouched behind the snake who was peacefully sleeping in the middle without any idea of the threat behind him.
"Diddle, diddle we are so little"
The moment he said it, he stabbed the snakes one by one lightning-fast.
Each of his stabs was precise and deep as the ding sounds confirmed the kills.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 7 cultivator. The reward is 5000 experience points as well as 250 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 7 cultivator. The reward is 5000 experience points as well as 250 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 7 cultivator. The reward is 5000 experience points as well as 250 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation Level 2]
The girl''s eyes widened even further when she saw him break through to the next level instantly after killing them.
But before talking to her, he opened the system
"Hey system, can you heal and make her cultivate again? "
"Yes, but the target must be the host''s subordinate and the required badass points is 3000 "
"Did you think I''m going to heal someone out of the goodness of my heart? Let''s see if she can be any help to us"
He closed the system and slowly made his way towards the girl while ying with the knife in his hand.
"Hi there"
He waved and crouched before her
"Are you going to scream if I cut your rope?"
The girl shook her head as he smiled
"Good"
"(cough) (cough) (cough)"
She coughed and took a few deep breaths
"Who the f**k are you? Where the f**k did youe from? Come on, cut these ropes human"
He was a little surprised by the wordsing out of her mouth and she sounded so arrogant and prideful.
"Ooh, feisty"
"I order you lowly human, cut the ropes now"
"Or what?"
He asked tilting his head
"Didn''t they cripple you? I don''t know how powerful you were but now, you''re nothing but a crippled serpent"
"How dare"
She became furious but before she could finish her sentence, she felt the cold de against her throat
"Come one, finish what you were going to say"
She swallowed and didnt utter a word
"What cat got your tongue?"
"What...what do you want, human?"
Since she was a predator herself, she knew a predator when she saw one and the human before her radiated an aura of an apex predator.
"Now we are talking"
Micheal took back the knife and smiled
"Since it''s obvious that you''re in a mess and I require some help from a native of thisnd, why don''t we help each other?"
"Humph"
The girl snickered
"If you can kill a core strengthening cultivator, I will dly help you, but look at you, you are just at a foundation level, that bitch''s maid is stronger than you"
"I''m not nning to be at foundation level for a long time and even if I can kill that bitch"
He air quoted the word bitch and continued
"I won''t do it for free but what I am offering to you is, if you ept to be my subordinate, I can heal your crippled cultivation when I get stronger"
She was taken back by surprise for a moment but in a few seconds, she started tough like a maniac
"You think I fall for that crap, no one can heal a crippled cultivation human"
There was a slight sadness mixed in her voice when she said.
Hearing her, he opened up the system
"Hey system, can you have anything that could make her believe that I can heal her?"
A small white pill appeared in front of him
"Basic tier revitalizing pill, the pill can partially heal the cultivation crippleness of the target"
"How much?"
He knew that the system wouldn''t give this pill for free as he needed to buy this using his badass points
"50 badass points, if host buy a hundred pill bottle, the system can make an offer of 4000 points"
"Jeez, you sound like a cheap agent, give me one"
He growled and bought a pill from the system shop.
"Crap huh?"
The girl saw a white pill appearing in his hand
"What is tha"
Before she could ask, he put the pill into her mouth and forced her to swallow the pill.
And just as she was struggling, her surge of energy appeared in her body and her eyes widened in shock
"I can¡ I can feel the Arch energy again"
A wide grin appeared on her face but her grin froze on her face when the effects disappeared.
"What the miraculous pill did you give me? Do you have more? Come one give it to me? GIVE IT TO ME!"
She moved closer, too close that he could even smell a tint of jasmine scenting out of her hair.
"Whoa, easy there tiger, it''s only a sample, agree to be my subordinate and help me get stronger, then I will give you more"
"What do you mean by a subordinate? I''d rather be dead than be someone''s ve"
Her face turned very serious as he shook his head
"Who said anything about being a ve? You just be my assistant, do you know what an assistant is?"
She still seemed unconvinced as he stood up
"Alright your loss, its seems you don''t want to revenge, I''m sure that someone wille looking for you soon, feel free to tell them what happened here"
He said and took a step forward to leave
"Hey! Wait"
He halted his step when he heard her shout and turned back
"I can ept to be your subordinate but I won''t sign any contract"
"System, does she need to sign a contract to be subordinate????
"No, the system only needs to say yes to be the host''s subordinate willingly"
She didn''t know why he was suddenly smiling
"No contract, just say the word yes, are you willing to be my subordinate?"
She was snickering inside nning to rob him in his sleep but didnt show her true feeling on her face.
"Yes, I am willing to be your subordinate"
"Does the host wish to ept Gaya as a subordinate?"
"Gaya? Nice name, yes I do system, yes I do"
In a few seconds, Gaya''s figure appeared before him alongside her stats which were nothing but zero at the moment due to her current state.
But what stat surprised him was the loyalty stat
Subordinate: Gaya
Cultivation Level: None
Race: Demi human-Naga Race
Current Skills: None
Status: Currently crippled
Loyalty towards the host: 0
"Why am I not surprised?"
And just as he was looking at her stats, a new window popped up
"Does the host wish to eliminate or punish the subordinate in case they try to harm the host?"
"Hmm, for the moment, set it to punish, I think I''ll see her getting punished very soon "
With a smile, he exited the system and went to cut her ropes
"Do you know the way to the nearest vige or town?"
He asked while shing the ropes
"Yeah, if we travel to the north, we''ll reach the port town"
She pulled herself up after he cut her ropes
"Alright, now take anything that fetches us some coins"
"You want me to loot the corpses?"
She frowned and looked disgusted
"Do you have any coins?"
"No"
"Then yes, I want you to loot the corpse,e on move your ass girl"
She furiously rolled her eyes and deeply exhaled
"I''ll make this bastard pay for this, just wait, you lowly human"
She thought to herself and walked towards the dead snakes to take their poison core which could be sold in the adventurers'' guilds.
After collecting their poison cores, the two of them started to walk north.
"So are you going to tell me your name? Or do I have to call you human every time?"
Since this was going to be a long journey, she wanted to pass the time by making a conversation with him.
"You can call me Ghost"
"Who the f**k would call himself Ghost?"
"The f**k who''s called Gaya"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50 badass points]
"I can earn points by being myself? Cool"
He was proudly grinning while Gaya stopped walking and looked rmed.
"How...how did you know my name? I didn''t say my name"
"I have my ways, now keep walking, I don''t want to spend my night in this forest"
Chapter 7 - Adventure Guild
Gaya seemed like she knew theyout of the forest like the back of her hand. After a few hours of following her, Micheal stepped out of the forest and finally saw some man-made structures for the first time in this world.
''Human, I can only apany you this far?"
Suddenly Gaya stopped walking when they saw the huge city walls and a few guards in front of the gates. Since the rain was still pouring, there was no one around them.
"Why?"
"These lowly humans are in a war with Nagas, if they see me, they''ll report me to those f**king guards and throw me in jail"
She said this but looked like she has some alternative way to this situation
"I know you have a n for this situation, Gaya, spit it out"
She grinned
"Hmm, you have some brains for a human, after all"
"I can merge with you using a special spell I know"
"System, what is she talking about?"
"The host can buy the firewall protection from the shop to protect himself from any items to hijack the host''s body or mind"
At this point, he wasn''t surprised to hear the system trying to get himself to spend badass points.
"How much?"
"200 badass points and the system will protect the system for a year"
"Like a virus guard huh? Alright, buy and use it"
A goldenyer appeared around his body on the interface as he felt a warm feeling in his body.
[Protective shield activated]
With a relieved sigh, he exited the system and looked to see what she''s nning.
"Oh, special spell huh? Are there any side effects?"
"Of course there are no side effects, human, just give me your hand"
Her acting skills were so good as she said with a sincere look on her face.
He held out his right hand while Gaya closed her eyes and chanted something under her breath. And in a few seconds, she transformed herself into a little white snake and coiled around his wrist.
Then he pulled up his sleeve and saw a tattoo of a snake on his wrist.
"Cool, tat"
He started to feel the tattoo by touching it
"Take your hands away from me, human"
"Huh? You can talk"
The tattoo didnt move but he heard Gaya''s voice crystal clear in his mind.
"Yes, I can talk and see what you see and hear what you hear"
"Well, I hope you close your eyes when I change before the mirror, hehe"
"Perv"
She growled as he chuckled and walked towards the city gate to enter the town.
"What''s this town''s name?"
"The humans call this ce the river town but I call this a shit hole"
"Don''t get me into trouble talking like this, or you''ll pay for it "
"No one will hear me except you human"
It was obvious that she didn''t like to be threatened by hearing the irritation in her voice as he reached the city gates.
There were only two guards ying some kind of dice game inside their little hut and when they noticed him approaching, the guards came out
"Hold there, what''s your purpose foring to the river town?"
"To end your pathetic lives, shitheads"
Gaya said and it was fortunate that they couldn''t hear her.
"To stay the night and look for a job, sir"
He was furious that even these guards were at the foundation level 7 and stronger than him.
"Another adventurer, why am I not surprised?"
The guard sighed and signaled the guard to open the gates.
"Go on kid, stay out of trouble"
The guard returned to his game while Micheal nodded politely and entered the town.
Rivertown looked majestic with its elmwood rooftops, limestone walls, and aromatic flowers. This town resembled the medieval fantasy towns that he had seen in the movies but it looked more beautiful in real life than in the movies.
The main attraction was the tall building at the center of the town, which seemed to be built using marble stones with beautiful architecture that slightly matched the architecture of the white house.
"Why are you looking at the adventurer guild like it''s a big deal? Compare to my pce, it''s just a shithole"
"What do you do in the pce? Clean it?"
He chuckled
"Clean it? I am a princess, you asshole, well I was until that bitch, wait why am I telling you this"
"Let''s just go sell these poison core and earn some money "
While walking towards the guild, he noticed a tavern that seemed to be the most crowded ce in the town. And the sweet aroma of hot baked loaves of bread and something else made his stomach growl.
As he reached the guild, he saw a few groups of humans gathered before the guild and discussing.they stared at him for a few seconds and then snickered and turned away.
"Look at their arrogant faces, these shitholes are only body refining stage but acts like immortals"
"Amateurs, just ignore them"
In his previous life, he met his fair share of amateurs who would act proud and arrogant afterpleting one hit. Because of their arrogance, they often ended up behind the bars but the reason for the ghost''s sess, he never let the pride and ego reach his head.
When he walked through the front door, his clothes and body were dried up by a hot wave as he felt warm and pleasant.
The inside pretty much resembled a five-star hotel and he couldn''t believe such a fancy ce exists in a small town like this. Just like the hotel, the first thing he saw was the receptionist who was busy dealing with the other adventurers.
While waiting, he roamed around the hall and looked at the painting of old people handing on the wall, and checked the marvelous fountain in the middle of it. The ground was spotless and he could even see his reflection on the marble tiles.
"Young master"
The receptionist waved at him after dealing with the others as he walked towards her and retrieved the poison cores of the snakes.
"How may I help you, young master?"
There was a tint of redness on her cheeks and Micheal had no idea why she''s blushing since he didn''t even use a single pick-up line or flirt with her.
"I need to sell these, can you help me with this?"
He retrieved the poison cores from his pocket and ced it on the table.
The girl''s eyes went wide in surprise because the cores definitely belonged to the body refining stage snake men but the youth before her was only a foundation level cultivator.
"Young master, where did you get these?"
"I killed them and took it from them"
"But?"
"Is there any problem, miss?"
He kept his smile but his stare was serious as the girl quickly shook her head
"Of course not young master, five body refining stage cores will fetch you hundred silver coins, if the young master can wait a few moments, I''ll go and bring you the coins"
"Thank you, miss, I''ll wait here"
When the girl went into the room behind her with the poison cores, he noticed a board with notices pinned to it.
"What''s this? Quest board?"
As he said, he started to read the notices to find something that was suitable for him.
[Pardon me, adventurer. I''m in need of your service.
Our crops have failed and to make matters worse, we''re constantly harassed, robbed, and sometimes even killed by those pesky brutes. Hero, would you be so kind as to get rid of those horrible miscreants. I''d love to join you, but it''ll be up to you. I don''t want to get in the way.
You are fully capable of handling those miscreants. Try to kill all those who stand in your way, we don''t need their filth in ournds.
Should you seed I will be able to repay you handsomely, it''ll be worth your troubles. Now hurry, champion, there''s no time to waste]
[''Scuse me, traveler. I need your help.
My brother is such an idiot, he keeps pulling pranks on me and I''m sick and tired of it. It''s time for payback and I know the perfect way to do it. My brother is scared of forest spirits, they''re not real, but I''m going to make him believe they are. I''ve made this wooden mask, but I need some more items to make it really scary. Would you mind collecting some for me? I need rainbow fowl feathers, some glimmer weed to make the eyes glow and a whole lot of seaweed.
I wish I could pay you far more than I can, but what I can pay isn''t less than what''s fair either.
]
[Excuse me, Adventurer. Please, lend me your hand.
I''ve been betrayed, betrayed by my own foolishness. I knew I shouldn''t have hired mercenaries, instead of fighting the bandits they joined them. Hero, teach them a lesson in honor and make sure they remember it. Curse those nasty lowlives. I''m in no state to fight, but I know you''ll manage without me.
Be careful hero, don''t underestimate those lowlives. Try to take down as many of them as possible, the less of a threat they pose the better.
Reward: 60 silver coin per head
]
"Thisst one seems interesting"
"And dangerous too, don''t get cocky human, you''re just only a foundation stage cultivator, pick something to your level, like fetching ingredients for the mask"
"The system rmends the host to take this quest, more the legend of the host grows, you''ll receive better items from the system "
"Cool"
He had already decided to take on this quest because only by killing more people, he could earn more experience points and level up.
Chapter 8 - The First Quest
"Young master"
The girl called out to him when she came back with a pouch of coins.
"Two hundred silver coins, as promised, young master, please check it"
"Two hundred silver coins"
The system''s voice rang in his mind.
"No need, I need your help with something else though"
"Please tell me, young master"
"I decided to take this quest, is there a procedure I have to take care of before taking a quest? "
The girl nodded and took out a small form from her desk
"You need to register with the adventure guild, young master, do you wish to join the guild now?"
"Yes I do"
"Wonderful"
The girl revealed all of her pearl white teeth by letting out a wide grin
"Please fill this form, young master"
The form had pretty standard stuff like name, cultivation level, party name, and party members.
Micheal didn''t n to form a party as he liked to do things alone and the only reason he was putting up with Gaya was she had knowledge about this world and he could use that knowledge to his advantage. He thought of her as pink, his aide in the earth.
But he was nning to recruit more people as his subordinates and expand his influence throughout the world, so he could sit back and enjoy the wealth created by them while growing stronger and stronger. For the time being, he liked to do things alone like a lone wolf.
So on the form, he only filled his name and cultivation level and left everything else nk.
"The Ghost?"
The girl looked perplexed looking at his name but it was quite usual for the adventurers to use names like these, therefore she didn''t ask any question.
"Young master, if you don''t know any party to join, the guild can suggest you parties that look for one more member?"
"No need, I like to work alone"
"I''m right here"
Gaya''s voice sounded in his mind
"But young master?"
"I can look after myself, miss, trust me"
"Pretty face and no brains, pity, what a handsomed but he''s going to end up dead"
The girl sighed inside and nodded.
After taking onest nce at the form, a white light appeared from the girl''s hand as she scanned the form using the light.
"Here''s your adventurer card, young master, if you lose it, you have to pay fifty silver coins at any of our branches and receive another one, each quest you sessfullyplete will give you points and added to your card, harder the quest, more points you''ll earn and more points you earn, the more high-value quest will be presented to you by the guild"
As she said, she gave him his adventurer card.
It was a yellow card the size of a credit card with his name etched on it.
"Young master, what''s the quest that you wish to take?"
He ced the notice on the table but when the girl saw the notice, her eyes widened in shock.
"Young master, this quest, are you sure you want to take this? This has marked by the disciples of the morning star sect"
"Those shitheads again, f**k"
"Can I take it or not?"
He had read enough novels to realize that most of the sects are just assholes who like to bully the weak and he didn''t like to be bullied.
"Young master, you can but"
"Let me guess, no one would take the quests that have this mark"
He pointed at the Star mark on the corner of the notice as the girl nodded.
"I''m taking this, if they have any problem with that they can find me"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50 badass points and a teleportation scroll]
"You shouldn''t have done that, human"
He didn''t mind Gaya as he put the card and the pouch in his pocket and left the guild leaving everyone who heard he was taking the morning star''s quest stunned.
"He''s dead"
"What an arrogant kid, look, he''s just at foundation stage "
"Look at his clothes, I bet he came from another kingdom and know nothing about Elen"
On his way out, he heard several people muttering about him as he exited the building and made his way towards the tavern he saw earlier.
"Shit, human, that was a dumb move, if you get killed, they''ll get me too and how can you heal me if you''re dead?"
"Rx, I''m not the one who dies, sweetheart, I''m the one who kills"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50 badass points]
"You better not die, human, I don''t want to get caught by lowly humans and sold to Nagand"
"We think about thatter, now I want to eat and get a good sleep listening to the rain and thunder"
"Lucky cat tavern"
From the outside, the tavern looks snug, intimate and warm. Large and small stones and marble stones made up most of the building''s outer structure.
It was impossible to see through the stained ss windows, but despite the sound of thunderps and rain hitting the roofs, the warm noises from within could be felt outside.
As he entered the tavern through the hard wooden door, he was weed byughing voices and the smile of a waitress.
The bartender was working hard but still managed to wee him with a smile.
It was as charming inside as it was on the outside. Several walls supported the upper floor and the rows of small candles attached to them. The walls were littered with so many different memorabilia, he was not sure if they tried going for a specific style at one time or just put up anything they liked.
The tavern itself was packed. Adventurers seemed to be the primary clientele here, which would often lead to exciting evenings. Several long tables were upied by, what must be separate groups who have bonded over great food and conversation. The other, smaller tables were also upied by people who clearly enjoy each other''spany, though they seemed to be strangers who have met here. Even most of the stools at the bar are upied, though nobody seemed to mind morepany.
Making his way through the crowd, he managed to find a seat and waved at the waitress as she came running to him with a wide grin on her face.
"Wee to Lucky cats, young master, what can I get you?"
He was surprised by the beauty of this girl because if she was in his world, she could have been a dazzling actress.she had the perfect figure and golden blonde hair toplement her rosy cheek and fairness.
But she seemed like the person who gets harassed by these adventures and strangers so he didn''t say anything about her beauty and hit on her.
"What''s on the menu?"
"pan-Fried Lemon Yak, Smoked Beets, and Lemon Mammoth
Tenderized Rice and Fish and finally today''s special Poached Creamy Mutton"
He had never heard of these dishes and couldn''t wait to try, especially the special
"Give me a special"
"That''d be ten silver, What do you want to drink? Young master, we have ale and freshly brewed beer"
"Just hot water, put some lemon and mint leaves if you have any"
The waitress seemed surprised but she nodded and ran back to the kitchen to bring his order.
"Do you want anything?"
He asked Gaya slightly brushing his wrist
"Humph, how could I eat in a ce like this? I have standards, human, unlike some"
"Even with crippled cultivation, you still act bitchy, they should have broken your mouth instead of the meridians"
"Hisss"
She hissed at him but that only made him grin.
And after a few moments, the waitress brought him his order as he gave her fifteen silver coins.
"Keep it and do you have rooms to stay the night?"
Her face brightened in delight seeing the tips
"Of course, young master, we have a few rooms avable and if you want, I can put you in our cleanest room"
"And how much would that be?"
"Five silver coins a night, young master"
He took out another five coins and handed over to her
"I''ll bring you the key and show you the room when you finish your meal, young master"
"Great"
The waitress smiled again and went to take other orders while he started to stuff the juicy meat into his mouth.
"This is delicious"
Eventually, he finished his meal as the waitress showed him his room.
The room was nothing like the fancy rooms he used to stay in his world but they more resembled the rooms of the shady motels. It had a single bed, a small table, a chair, an old mirror, and a candle holder with a half-burned candle.
"System, do you have a clean bed sheet and a pillow, I don''t want to sleep in that thing?"
He wondered if this was the cleanest room, how the other rooms would look like. The bedsheet looked ancient and the various stains on it were enough to make him spend his precious badass points.
"Five badass points"
"Yeah, I''ll buy it??
When he exited the system, he had a new thick silk bedsheet and a new fluffy cotton pillow in his hand.
After throwing away the old bedsheet and putting his new one as well as removing his boots, he jumped onto the bed.
Chapter 9 - New Skills And Abilities
"System, show me the items in the storage"
The system''s interface appeared as a couple of items were floating before him.
"What''s this?"
He zoomed the first item in the line which was a delicately made ck arm bracer.
Name: Mark 3 grappling hook
Durability: lifetime
ss: Rare
He reached out his arm and put his arm into the holographic image of the bracer.
"System, equip this"
The ck bracer adjusted its size to fit his arm while the system sent information about how to use the bracer to his mind and in a mere moment, he became familiar with the grappling hook.
"I can''t wait to try this bad boy tomorrow"
He pulled his sleeve down and looked around his arm with a grin.
After the grappling hook, there were two legendary ss long-ranged teleportation scrolls in the storage but even though they were legendary ss items, what excited him most was the XP pill.
The system showed him that he received the pill as a reward for recruiting his first subordinate.
"System, use it, use it"
He rubbed his hand and prepared to level up as the ding sound appeared.
[ Host ''Michael'' used the Second level Experience Pill and received 113,000 experience points]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation stage Level 3]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation stage Level 4]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation stage Level 5]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation stage Level 6]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation stage Level 7]
"Not bad, not bad at all, I reached this level in just a day, if I continue like this, I''ll be like the op anime mcs "
"The system suggests the host go out and explore the world than expect the system to give freebies"
"Damn you system, I said I''ll do that, just let me have my moment"
He cursed the system and opened the shop menu to buy some skills
There were three skills that he could buy at the moment with his 1100 Badass points and he listed them in front of his eyes.
Name: Surrounding scanner
Function: Scan the host''s surrounding for the presence of life
Area of effect: small
Current Level: Level 1
Next Level: Scan will identify potential threats, the area of effect will be increased.
Price: 300 badass points
Name: Teleporter
Function: Teleport the Host to a different ce instantly
Distance: small
Current Level: Level 1
Next Level: The distance will be increased.
Price: 700 badass points
Name: X-Ray vision
Function: Enable the host to activate X-Ray vision
Range: small
Current Level: Level 1
Next Level: The range and the effect will be increased.
Price: 1000 badass points
"I don''t need the X-Ray vision, at least not yet, but both the teleporter and the scanner coulde in handy, I shouldn''t buy both incase I need points to buy other stuff"
He kept looking at the teleporter and the scanner without being able to choose one and after thinking about his quest, he decided to buy the scanner.
"System, I''ll take the scanner"
[Ding, The host has sessfully acquired the level 1 Surrounding scanner]
He experienced mild pain in his head and then, he could sense the presence of lives around him for a small radius of distance.
He was able to pinpoint the exact locations of people in the inn and track their movements with his mind, and although he couldn''t exin the feeling, it felt like a seventh sense.
"Cool, now I don''t have to worry about surprise attacks"
"System, show me my stats"
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Foundation stage, level 7
Experience Points: 0/25000
Badass Points: 800
Current Skills: None
Passive Abilities: Environment scanning
upation: Adventurer
Status: Healthy
Goals: None
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 2%)
Notable Skills: Above average in marksmanship
Proficient in closebat
"800 points remaining huh, system show me the magic spells you have, I must buy something before going for the next quest"
Spell name: Felinergio
Effect: Envelope the caster''s weapon with a fiery energy
Upgradable: No
Cost: 200 Badass points
"Cool, but I need to buy a spell, offensive spells will be better, "
He waved his hand and looked at the next spell
Spell name: Araerous
Effect: Creates a barrier of frosty energy.
Upgradable: No
Cost: 200 Badass points
"Not upgradable, Nah"
Spell name: Incentenis
Effect: Summons a magical guardian spirit.
Upgradable: No
Cost: 400 Badass points
"400 for a non-upgradable spell, not a chance"
Spell name: Sileneos
Effect: Creates several bolts of frosty energy.
Upgradable: Yes
Cost: 250 Badass points
"Frosty energy huh?"
Rubbing his chin, he moved to the next spell and the next one immediately put a wide excited grin on his face.
Spell name: Ignitia
Effect: Creates several bolts of lightning
Upgradable: Yes
Cost: 300 Badass points
"System, why didn''t you show me this first?"
"The system knew the host would favor this spell but the system wanted to make the host take a look at the other spells too before the host make a decision"
"Thest spell, the lightning bolts woulde from my hand, right? I don''t want a spell that sends out bolts of lightning from my butt, I can''t even imagine that"
"Yes, from hand, host"
He noticed the system sounds different like it was annoyed by his question
"Alright, alright, take my points and give me that spell"
[Ding, The host has sessfully acquired the level 1 Ignitia]
Again like before, a mild pain appeared in the head as the system imprinted the spell''s workings in his brain.
Learning the spell, he conjured the Arch energy and created a few tiny bolts of lightning with his finger as his eyes sparkled in excitement and joy.
"COOOOOL"
He could tell that the more arch energy he uses, the more powerful the bolt would be.
"Let''s take a look at the adventurer card"
He retrieved the golden card from his pocket as a holographic image appeared from the card and showed him which seemed to be the map of this kingdom. On the map, a small area was marked by a red circle and.
"This might be the location of the quest, I should rest a few hours and go there in the night"
As he said, he closed the system andid on the bed to get a good sleep before going after the bandits and the mercenaries.
**************************
"It''s a shame to stain this bedsheet with his blood, but where did he get these?"
Gaya transformed from a tiny white snake into her human form and menacingly staring at Micheal who was peacefully sleeping.
"Do you want this princess to be your assistant? I''ll assist you by ending your pathetic human life"
She slowly took the candle holder and licked the metal to coat it with her poison.
"Huh?"
Suddenly she noticed a slight smile on his face and stopped moving.
"He must be having some happy dreams, how cute"
With an evil grin on her face, she sneaked towards him holding the candle holder in her hand.
"If I can take that miraculous pill, I can ask Sima to recreate the pill and then I will kill that bitch myself"
She said to herself and raised the candle holder to stab him in the heart but when she tried to stab him, her hands froze in the air as her body refused to move.
"What the f**k?"
And then her whole body was thrown into the wall and created a big thumping sound when she hit the wall.
"HEY, WE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!"
Someone from the next room shouted as Gaya was clenching her gut and rolled on the ground in excruciating pain.
The pain was like her organs were pierced by millions of needles and the worst part was she couldn''t open her mouth to scream.
"Well well well well, look at this"
Gaya heard Micheal''s voice and slowly looked up to see him grinning like the devil himself.
"Didn''t I say that I''m not the one who dies"
He could tell that she was in extreme pain but he didnt stop the system as he wanted her to experience the pain so she wouldn''t try anything stupid like this again.
The moment she left his body and thought about harming him, the system alerted him in his sleep but paused the system for a moment and let her think she could kill him.
"Is this how you repay me? Its seems like I have to kill you"
Gaya saw the ck knife appear in his hand as she tried to crawl away from him.
"I hope you have a good poison core, I wasted my precious pill on you after all"
Looking at his evil grin and the killing intent in his eyes made her shiver.
"No...don''t..."
The words barely escaped her mouth while he came to her and crouched before.
"Why shouldn''t I kill you? You did try to kill me"
He said as moving his knife''s end on her face.
"Please...make...it...stop...beg...you"
Little by little, she was losing her consciousness
"Hmm, what if you try to kill me again"
"I...promise...I...won''t"
"I think I can give you a second chance but If I find you do something stupid like this again, I make you feel a thousand times worse than what you feel right now, got it?"
She slowly nodded and in a sh, the painpletely disappeared but the terror she felt didn''t.
Chapter 10 - Leveling Up Again
"How much farther?"
At the moment, Micheal was walking through the mud road towards his quest.
"Two miles"
Her usual arrogant witty self was nowhere to be found as she was very silent during his journey.
"Someone''s having a bad day,e on, princess, say something"
"Leave me be, human"
Normally she would sound arrogant but now she sounded terrified.
He thought he would like her to be silent but after traveling in silence for a long time, he missed the witty and arrogant princess. However, he knew what would cheer her up
"Alright, your loss, I thought I should give you another pill or two"
"Really?!"
"Only if you stop acting like a crybaby"
"I can do that, human, now give this princess the pills"
"Damn"
He didn''t expect she would change her mind so soon but it made him smile.
"Let''s finish the job on hand, shall we? After that, I''ll give you two pills deal?"
"Deal, let''s go and kill some maggots"
"That''s my girl"
"NO, I''m NOT!"
Heughed and rushed towards his goal before the drizzle could extinguish the torch in his arm.
Eventually, Micheal came before a crossroads and saw the red mark on the map was not far away from here. On the horizon, he noticed a small vige, and near to the crossroad, the forest and thick trees made this area a perfect ambush ce for the bandits who could target the traveling merchants and the vigers on their way back to their vige from the river town.
"We should havee in the day, human, now the bandits will be in their camp"
"Exactly, now they will be at their camps drinking or sleeping which makes them vulnerable"
"Even if you kill a few of them silently, you won''t be able to kill all of them like that"
"I have a n, Gaya"
Being said, he ventured into the forest where the bandits most likely set a camp and after a few minutes walking into the forest, he sensed a group of fifteen people fifty meters away from him.
"I need a vantage point, lets see what this bad boy can do"
He aimed his grappling hook at the branch above him and like batman, he took off from the ground andnded on the branch.
"Whoa, how did you? What is this thing? Where did you get it?"
"Cool huh? It''s called mark 3 grappling hook, stick with me I show you more cool stuff"
"What''s mark three? Who named it? I bet it might be those wretched dwarves, whatever give me thatter, this princess want to try it"
"Why? Are you going to kill me with that?"
He said and moved to another branch using the hook.
"Damn you, human, I promised I won''t, besides didn''t you hurt me enough without thinking I''m a girl?"
"Oh don''t pull that card on me princess, I''m a strong believer of equality"
Just Gaya was about to reply, she saw a campfire and a group of men around it.
"This must be their camp??
Gaya said as Micheal sensed two bandits were roaming away from the main camp alone.
"Even though there are no level 10 shits like Datra, each of these bandits are level 7 or eight and counting their numbers, it won''t be easy to kill them as you did with those snakes, if they find you, they can kill both of us with a single spell"
"They won''t have time to cast any spells"
It was so much easier for him to move from branch to branch using the hook than jumping. And in a few moments, he reached his first target who was peeing without any worries.
"Gross, why did you make me see that?"
"I am a free bird (whistle) free bird"
Just as he was singing, Michealnded behind him and stopped his horrible song by slitting his throat.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 6 cultivator. The reward is 4500 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
He didn''t leave his body on the ground but took it with him and put it on the branch before moving to his next target.
"Pathetic, didn''t even put a defense spell on himself"
Gaya had no idea that even if he did have a spell on him, it wouldn''t have made any difference since his knife could ignore the defense of anyone who''s under the Body strengthening stage, level 6.
The next bandit was returning to his camp when Micheal appeared before him and slit his throat like he did to the bandit a few minutes ago.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 6 cultivator. The reward is 4500 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
"So far so good, thirteen more to go"
"How the fuck did you break through to level 7 in a single day? Did you take restoration pills?"
"Wait till you see me have another breakthrough"
He grinned and swung to a branch that was closer to the main camp.
"How are you going to kill them with your level of cultivation?"
Gaya noticed that every single bandit was drinking and singing without sleeping. She couldn''t guess how he''s going to kill thirteen body refining stage cultivators without the element of surprise or hunting them one by one like he always does.
But when she was wondering about this, she saw a small cylinder like thing appear in his hand.
"What''s this?"
"We call this, the shbang"
As he said, he removed the pin and threw it at the center of the camp, and closed his eyes and ears.
BOOM!
Just like he thought, the shbang affected the area of the camp and threw the bandits off their bnce as well as caused the much-needed chaos. Yet, he didn''t jump down right away but threw the smoke bomb he bought from the shop. Fortunately, this world seemed to have a variant of a smoke bomb and the sh-bang so the price was way cheaper than the guns.
"AH!"
The bandits shouted as Micheal plunged his knife into the throat of his third bandit.
Because of his sensing skill, he didn''t get affected by the smoke as he picked the bandits one by one with inhuman speed.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 6 cultivator. The reward is 4500 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 7 cultivator. The reward is 5000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 9 cultivator. The reward is 6500 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
Each time, he swung his knife, a ding sound appeared in his mind and he was rewarded by the system. Just when the smoke cleared, thest voice in the camp was stopped by him and Gaya was dumbfounded looking at the bandits lying on the ground with their throats slit and a stab wound on their chests.
In a few moments, he was able to do this?
He had killed 13 experienced bandits in a few mere moments and they were all level body refining stage cultivators.
How¡ How was this possible?
This human was clearly a mere level 7 of the Foundation Stage!
When she saw his reflection in the puddle of rainwater, a cold chill ran through her spine as he was bathed in water and resembled the ancient devils that she used to read about in the books.
But what made her heart skip a beat was that he leveled up, again.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation stage Level 8]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Foundation stage Level 9]
"Is he using some ancient evil cultivation technique?"
"Why didn''t you assholes have one more bandit?"
He kicked the dead body of a bandit in frustration because he could have reached level 10 if he had killed one more.
"He''s dead, human, instead of kicking him, take their badges as the proof of kill"
Hearing Gaya''s voice in his mind, he sighed and started to rip their badges. It was surprising to him that they all wore eagle embodied badges on their chests.
"What kind of bandits wear badges?"
"Be d they wore badges, human, else you would have had to cut off their ears as the proof"
"Shit"
After collecting the badges, he was able to gather another six hundred silver coins from their cache and left the area without skulking around.
"I should take a bath"
He was reeking the smell of blood and his ck robes were now almost turned red.
"Gaya, is there any waterfall nearby?"
"If you walk towards the east for three hours, there''s a beautiful waterfall I used to travel with my maids "
"Hehehe"
He giggled while turning and walking towards the east
"Did I say something funny, human?"
"No, I just thought you were going to say friends"
"Why is that? Do you think I don''t have friends?"
"I don''t think, I know you don''t have friends"
"Yes I have, I have many friends"
"Quickly name three"
He was waiting for her to speak again but he only heard a ''hmm'' sound from her.
"Thought so"
"Well, this princess doesn''t need any friends"
She rebuked and said but he could sense a slight sadness in her voice which was a big surprise to him considering her arrogant prideful self.
Chapter 11 - Infuriating Two Beauties
After following Gaya''s instruction for a few hours, the golden rays of sunlight appeared on the horizon. The sun rose like a flower opening, gifting its petals unto the world. Amid the dancing, raindrops were the blush of scarlet, the warmth of tangerine. Gazing toward the illuminated clouds, still beneath the ethereal glow, Micheal felt at home in a way he never had before.
In the distance, amid the green of the forested hills was a reflective white strip that could only the waterfall Gaya had mentioned. The waterfall had been like a silent white stream cascading over the rocky outcrops. As he had drawn closer, the noise had increased steadily until he was only a few hundred meters away. He could no longer hear anything but the deafening roar of the water. He moved until he was in the plume of water vapor that hung over the plunge pool and in only minutes, he was as wet as he would have been in any rainstorm. The hair clung to his head and around his face, but no matter how wet they became, it could not dampen his spirit and delight as he stood in awe.
"It''s beautiful"
Without wasting any time he dived into the water and began to enjoy this nature''s gift after a long night of walking and killing.
While he was swimming happily, he saw Gaya transforming into her human self swimming towards the bank to get out of the water.
And when shepletely emerged out of the water, his mouth and eyes widened in surprise. He had only seen her in dark lighting and never saw her so clearly until now.
Her tall frame and slender body were like a Victoria secret model. Her blue eyes, like the sea, were calm and emotionless. Although her hair was wet, he could see the beauty of her long, wavy raven ck hair, so smooth and silky, almost as if it was tailored from some high-end ck fabric.
Even though he had seen countless models and actresses in his previous life who were devastatingly beautiful,pared with the woman right in front of him, those models and actresses appeared to be less attractive and were no match for this woman''s imposing beauty and grace.
And when she shook the water from her hair and put it back, his heart skipped a beat as the facial features of this woman were like that of a beautiful painting. The rays of golden light glowed on the fair and smooth cheeks and her face had a tinge of a matured andposed femininity. She also had a poised and dignified grace and arrogance to her which only someone of a high position with influence and power would have.
"Why are you looking at me like that, human?"
He was d that his lower body was under the water as he swallowed a mouth full of saliva.
[Warning, the host is acting like a beta male]
"f**k you system, look at that girl, any man would drool if they saw a girl like her"
"Stop staring and give me those pills"
She shouted and waved her hands as her wet white dress transformed into golden ones.
She seemed to be purposefully unting her beauty by slowly correcting her dress and tying her hair into a ponytail.
However, he understood that if she knew that he was thinking of her as hot and beautiful, she would be more arrogant and prideful, so he decided to tease her.
"You shouldn''t have left this water, it might have done something good to your face"
"What did you say?"
Her sh of anger appeared on her face as puffs of smoke could be seening out of her nostrils.
"Are you deaf, girl? I said this water might have done something good to your face"
"YOU!"
The moment he repeated his words, her face reddened in anger as she started searching for a stone or a pebble to throw at him in anger while Micheal prevented the system from doing anything rash to her for such a minor matter as this one.
"What are you searching for, mud? To do a mud facial?"
"I''m going to kill you bastard!"
"Then you''re on the right track, by showing your ugly face to me"
He loved making her angry and continued to fan her anger as now she was on the verge of jumping into the water and biting him. Hearing him calling her ugly, she was so outraged that it wouldn''t be surprising if smoke billowed from her nostrils and mouth.
And finally, she grabbed a fist-sized pebble from the ground and threw it at him.
"I will stone you to death, you jerk"
Heughed seeing her running around and collecting stones to throw at him like a child.
While these two were ying on the surface of the water, a girl who looked graceful and beautiful was seated on the bottom of the water. Her surroundings were evidently sealed off and she was in a state of cultivation. The air around her naked body was filled with an air of power and emits a bone-chilling aura.
As if detecting a sudden movement, the girl abruptly opened her eyes.
"Who dares toe into this territory and disturb my cultivation? "
The girl''s brows furrowed as she dashed forward like a torpedo.
While on the shore, Micheal had bought two healing pills and gave it to Gaya as she swallowed the pills with an excited smile like a child eating candy.
"Alright,e to your usual ce"
He reached out his arm towards Gaya.
"I''m toozy to walk anyway"
She quickly transformed herself into a small ball of light and merged into his arm as the ck tattoo appeared again.
And just when he was about to turn and leave, he sensed someone moving towards him at high speed.
[Imminent danger!]
The system''s warning message rang loud in his mind as he jumped out of its path.
Boom!
The tree behind exploded into pieces and the after st flung him away.
"What the f**k just happened?"
Gaya shouted as he slowly pulled himself from the ground and saw a girl staring at him with a sword in her hand.
It was a 15-16 year-old young girl. She had arched eyebrows and a delicate oval face. Although she couldn''t bepared to Gaya, she was indeed beautiful. In this world ording to Abras''s study, female cultivators were very beautiful because they cultivated purer bodies.
However, at the moment, that young girl''s eyes didn''t make her look very friendly or amicable as they were filled with mes of anger.
Seeing her cultivation level, he realized why the system warned him, she was a body strengthening stage level 4 cultivator, and looking at the powerful aura she was radiating, he knew that he had no chance of defeating her, at least not at the moment.
"Who is this bitch, where did shee from? Oh shit"
Gaya''s tone indicated she has recognized this person.
"Get the fuck out of here, human, this is bad"
"Was that a mistake?"
He nced at the destroyed tree beside him and asked the girl.
Her expression hadn''t changed though and she still looked furious. Who didn''t know this was her sacred cultivation ce after all? Everyone in this kingdom knew that Rivertown green valley waterfall was hers but this
pervert had willinglye intending to peek at her training and cultivating.
And even though she was powerful and he had no chance of beating her now, he didn''t fear her.
How could he? back on the earth, the whole underworld shiver hearing his name. They even created a saying, if Ghost knows your name, it''s already toote.
"Yes, it was a mistake, it was a mistake not to kill you in the first shot"
"I don''t know who you are but I think you got the wrong person"
"That bitch won''t listen to you human, get out of here"
Gaya urged him as he looked at the girl
"Next time, know your target before attacking"
He can''t afford to lose face as he had a system called a badass system for god''s sake.
Chapter 12 - Act Like A Princess
"And where do you think you''re going?" he heard the girl''s voiceing from behind as he was leaving. The girl said that with a cold and detached voice. Micheal turned around and saw her sword vibrating in her hands.
"Where do you think?" said Micheal, looking at her angrily. He didn''t know her or has any idea why she''s acting like a bitch. It seemed like a misunderstanding and nothing more. Also, he even started to leave the ce after she tried to attack him.
She didn''t reply as she adopted a battle-ready position. She raised her sword and fired the sword which made a whistling sound. The golden sword broke the air and thrust towards Micheal.
"System, give me a defense spell"
Micheal quickly fired up the system and ordered it to purchase it for him rather than him meddling through the shop because the sword was just an inch away from him. The system would only momentarily slow down the time and it couldn''t stop the time entirely, so if he took too much time browsing through the system, the sword could prate his head and kill him because while he was using the system, he wouldn''t be able to move.
[Does the host wish to buy upgradable or nonupgradable spell?]
"Are you trying to kill me? Just buy an upgradable one"
He shouted at the system.
[Ding, the host has sessfully acquired responsive energy shield for thousand badass points]
His heart bled looking at the number of points he had to use because of this girl''s temper tantrum and became extremely furious.
[COnsidering the power gap between the host and the enemy is too big, the system rmends the host to buy the lightning dash skill for thousand badass points]
"I don''t know what is going to kill me first? Her or the outrageous price of yours"
[Does the host wish to buy the lightning dash?]
"Yes, buy it quickly"
[Ding, the host has sessfully acquired lightning dash for thousand badass points]
He felt the mild pain in his brain as the system etched the working into his mind.
At the moment, the sword was less than an inch away from his forehead, but suddenly the responsive shield activated and formed a mild blue color energy sphere around him. He closed the systems and just when he did that, the sword and his energy shield collided. The bacsh pushed him back a few meters away before he steadied himself.
"Bitch, bitch, bitch!"
Gaya was shouting in his mind in anger looking at the girl.
"Do you want to kill me?!" his voice was filled with rage because If it had been his previous life, he would have been dead already.
"Yes, so what?" the girl said as the sword flew right back into her hand.
She didn''t know what spell he used to escape her previous track but it sure did annoy and fume her anger more.
And this time when she closed her eyes, an illusory golden sword suddenly appeared above her
This huge holographic sword made a sensation of cold spread throughout his body. The holographic sword was like a guided missile which meant it could detect if someone was alive and automatically aim at breathing people.
"Shit, she''s using a morning star spell"
Gaya cursed because she knew that it was one of the spells thatmonly used by the inner and core disciples of the Morning Star sect.
"Bzzeeomm". The sword emitted a noise while it moved towards him, getting closer and closer.
The energy shield appeared again on which the golden arrow crashed, what looked like an explosion, however this time, the shield could only slow down the arrow but it was unable to stop it. The noise that came out of the explosion was scary and made Micheal''s heart skip a beat because it sounded like a nuclear bomb went off near him. The arrow wasing straight towards Micheal''s forehead.
"Do something, human"
Celena Marshall, that was her name and she stood out from her Morning Star sect''s fellow disciples and was considered to be one of the best, to be an exceptional disciple. She had reached the body strengthening stage at the age of fifteen and reached level four three years after that. With her exceptional talent, cultivation level, and powerful spell, Micheal''s shield was obviously not enough to stop her arrow.
He was flung into the tree due to the sh between his shield and the sword. As Celenia could control the arrow using her Arch energy made the sword look alive, she made it turn around and continued her efforts to kill him.
"Lightning dash" he quickly activated the skill he had just learned and suddenly, his body transformed into a bolt of lightning and dashed away from the girl.
"You will pay for this, bitch"
His distant voice stupefied Celina and she looked around the ce only to see her arrow was lying on the ground damaged. He had already disappeared from the ce at an amazing speed.
"The spell he used...ancient spell?" whispered Celina.
****************************
"What the f**k did you do to that bitch? Why was she attacking us?"
He was still moving like a lightning bolt when he heard Gaya.
"I don''t know, I think she was cultivating in there and assumed me as an intruder or something"
"You think? Obviously, she thought of you as a pervert who trespassed into her territory"
"Trespassed? Was that waterfall belongs to her? And if so, why didn''t you tell me?"
He was already annoyed by what just happened
"Of course, it doesn''t belong to that bitch, but that''s how this world work, human, the strong can take any ce they like and im it as their own, if I was at my peak, I would have ripped her into pieces and fed to the fishes in that water"
She hissed at anger and frustration as he could see the outer walls of the River town.
After running a long distance in a short amount of time, his muscles ached as he started to breathe rapidly.
"By the way, do you know her?"
He leaned on a tree and decided to take a moment to regain his energy.
"Why would I? she must be one of the Morning Star sect''s elite disciples, after seeing what that bitch can do, I advise you to stay the f**k away from her "
"No can do, we going back into the town, take as many as quests that involve killing, find her and kick her ass"
Hearing him, she jumped out of his body taking her human form, and looked furious.
"Are you mad? I know you''re using some kind of evil techniques to level up but know this, there are no shortcuts in cultivation, if you continue to use your evil techniques, you will end up dead or worse"
She seemed like an angry wife who scolds her husband on a daily basis with hands on her hip and a flushed face.
"What are you talking about? I''m not using any evil techniques, I''m just awesome"
He couldn''t help but grin and say
"f**k you, human, I''m serious"
She couldn''t afford to lose him, especially after she sensed her broken meridians getting repaired by the pills that he gave.
"Me too, you don''t have to worry about anything, I''m not using any evil techniques, alright? If you must know the truth, I''m a prodigy, I have a special body type called War God body"
He didn''t want her to get suspicious about how he''s able to level up so fast and he came up with the special body type because of his experience in reading many cultivation novels on earth.
"War God body?"
She tilted her head and started to recollect all her knowledge about special body types. And even though she didn''t have any idea about the body type of War God, she did learn that there are many mysterious body types that exist in this world that no one knew about, and besides, how could he breakthrough so quickly without using any pills or potions?
"I let you in on a secret, don''t tell anyone, okay?"
Looking at his earnest expression, she grinned
"Alright, since you''re being truthful to this princess as well as helping me, I can keep your secret"
He knew she was thinking he started to trust her and maybe use this secret to get more pills except, everything he had just told her was nothing but lies.
"Come on,e to daddy"
He raised his hands like he was asking for a hug and winked at her as she rolled her eyes
"Gross, human, I hope she kicks your ass again just for that mouth of yours"
She disappeared and appeared again as a tattoo on his arm.
"Be careful in the town, human, you already pissed off one major bitch and might have pissed off another group by taking their quest, from now on, stay the f**k away from the Morning Star sect disciples until you at least reach the body refining stage level 6 or 7"
"Jeez, do you hear yourself? f**k this f**k that, you''re a princess for god sake, try to act like one"
"Sorry big brother, I''ll be more refined anddylike from now on, I know I''ve not been always polite and respectful towards a senior like you, please forgive me"
She sounded so feminine and soft in his mind unlike before but he frowned
"Are you going to forgive me, big brother?"
He knew she was acting but it was a pleasant feeling in his mind to hear this sweet gentle voice.
"Yes?"
"Well take your forgiveness and shove it far up your ass and take it out from your f**king mouth and shove it up to your ass again and repeat this until you f**king die"
"Now she''s back"
Chapter 13 - Not Even A Shred Of Mercy
The guards in front of the gate recognized him and let him in without asking any question but they had a surprised look on their faces.
Looking at their faces, he walked towards them with a smile and retrieved ten silver coins from his pocket.
"You guys are working hard, here take this and have a good day"
He grabbed the guard''s hand and ced the coins in his hand as the guard was dumbstruck.
"Don''t spend it in one ce"
"Thank...thank you...young master"
The guard stuttered and his eyes sparkled with respect and joy.
"See you guyster"
Micheal waved at the guards as the other guard quickly opened the gate for him.
"Why did you give our coins to those idiots?"
Gaya sounded irritated as he couldn''t help but chuckle
"Since when did it be our coins?"
He emphasized the word our as she answered
"Don''t be an ungrateful bastard, human, we''re in this together aren''t we?"
"You change your colors faster than a freakin chameleon, girl"
Unlike yesterday, many shops including smithies and bakeries were open and more people were walking on the streets.
"I did that because it''s always better to have contacts in various ces, having valuable contacts is as much as important as having money"
"You bribed them, I like it"
Gaya approved with a small giggle since she too bribed many people in Nagnd to get what she wanted but the royal family of Nagand opposed her methods calling it immoral.
"Consider it as a small gift"
"Tell that to the dumb f**kers in the Nagand"
While talking with Gaya, he reached the guild building as the groups of adventures kept staring at him.
"What are you looking at? you maggot"
"You said it yourself, they can''t hear you, just ignore them"
"Please save my mum, I''ll pay you, please adventurers"
And just when he opened the front door, he saw a little girl crying in the middle of the hall. The little girl''s face was pale as her clothes were torn and dirty.
"Leave this ce peasant, you can''t afford our services, what if they destroyed your vige, you ants should have paid them"
A youth wearing fancy armor was shouting at the girl while the other adventurers looked at the scene like they were watching a cinema with popcorn.
"Please, I can pay you"
The little girl showed the youth a small silver pendant as everyone who saw the pendant started tough at her.
But soon the youth''s face turned serious
"I don''t want to get my hands dirty by throwing you out, so go"
The little girl was shivering in fear feeling the powerful aura he was radiating but she shook her head
"No, you have to help me, mum said you all are heroes who help us"
"Lightning dash"
Just when the youth lifted his leg to kick the little girl, Micheal dashed forward like a lightning bolt and grabbed his leg.
The girl squealed seeing him suddenly appear before him
"Get out of my face before I kill you"
How heartless could they be? She was only a six or seven years girl begging for their help but these people wereughing at her misery.
Even if they didn''t like to help, the least they could do was not making things worse.
Micheal pushed the youth as he stumbled back and fell on the table behind him. Looking at the little girl, he slowly wiped out the tears on her face and let out a gentle smile.
"I''ll help you, show me the way"
He didn''t take the pendant but put the pendant back on her chest
"How dare"
"Zzzzzhhhh"
When the youth stood up with a clenched jaw, Micheal pointed his hand at the youth and shot bolts of lightning at the youth.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 6 cultivator. The reward is 4500 experience points as well as 300 Badass points]
The scene dumbfounded the adventurers and the guild staff as their faces were full of shock.
Just one move was able to do this?
They saw a huge burned hole in his chest and there was still smokeing out of his dead body.
He had dispatched a Body refining stage, level 6 cultivator in a single move and he was only a Foundation stage level 9 cultivator.
How¡ How was this possible?
Micheal already closed the little girl''s eyes with his one hand and looked at the others to see if anyone dared to step forward to avenge the youth.
The remaining members of the youth''s group were shocked as well as their mouths opened wide in fear. The way they looked at him took a tremendous change. Their arrogant facial expressions gave way to that of fear as though they were looking at a strange beast
The girl who he met before was shaken as well. She gawked at Micheal, his eyes were opened extremely wide.
"Let''s go little girl"
He took the girl''s hand and walked out of the guild as little cracks of lightning still danced around his fingers.
"Where''s your vige, little girl?"
He lifted the girl up and asked as the girl pointed her fingers at the east
"It''s far east from here, adventurer...me lord, there''s a tall watchtower in our vige"
"Hold me tight"
He held the little girl tight against his chest and dashed towards the east turning his body into a bolt of lightning.
After a minute or two of running, he noticed ck smoke on the horizon as well as a burning tower that seemed like the watchtower the girl mentioned.
His face became serious when he got closer and when he stopped running, what weed him was a burning vige and burned corpses.
"NO!!!!!!"
The little girl screamed and tried her hard to jump out of his hands.
The entire vige burned in a sea of red, yellow, and orange. Micheal watched as the mes ripped their way through the buildings before him, tendrils of smoke were reaching desperately into the sky as if trying to escape the zing inferno below.
"What happened here?"
Gaya''s voice was grave and serious as he rushed towards the vige to find any survivors while the girl kept screaming for her mother.
Once a charming peaceful vige now turned into nothing but ashes and debris. The smell of burning corpses even overwhelmed his nose as he held the little girl''s head against his chest without letting her see all of this gore.
Some of the bodies had deep cuts while the others looked like they exploded as he kept walking in the hope of finding a survivor.
"Someone''s alive"
Suddenly he sensed a life sign near him in a burning house.
"Gaya,e out"
He ordered Gaya as she emerged out of his body and closed his nose and mouth due to the stench.
"Hold her"
He quickly gave the little girl to Gaya and dashed into the burning house.
"HEY!"
She shouted but he already went inside the burning home
"Our home, mum! Dada!"
The girl tried to wiggle out of Gaya''s hold but she didn''t let the girl
"This is your home, tiny human?"
Inside the house, the responsive shield had already activated and shielded him from the mes but he could feel the scorching heat.
"(cough) (cough)"
The smoke started to fill his lungs when he reached a small room where he sensed the survivor. Except through the smoke and debris, he couldn''t find someone.
But when he stepped forward to remove the wreckage, a creaking sound appeared from the ground. He didn''t waste any time and quickly cleaned the dust and ashes from the ground using his bare hand and found a handle.
"Shit"
When he opened the underground door, he found a woman holding a two or three-month baby in her hand. She had lost consciousness and barely had a heartbeat and the baby was silent and lied in her hands without moving.
He immediately lifted the woman and the baby from the hole and activated the lightning dash.
In Gaya''s hands, the girl never stopped her screaming and crying while Gaya gawked around to see if the cuprites were still around.
"HUMAN!"
Suddenly she saw Micheal rushing out of the home with another human and even tinier human in his hand.
"MUM!
"(cough) get out of here"
He held the woman in one hand and grabbed Gaya in the other.
"Lightning dash"
Chapter 14 - Massacre
"Mum wakeup!, Roomi wakeup! Uh hoo hooo"
The girl was shaking their bodies and crying.
"System, give me the healing potion"
He quickly ordered the system after doing CPR on both the woman and the baby but he couldn''t restart their stopped hearts.
Just after he ordered the system, a small vial of blue liquid appeared in his hand.
"Move"
He pushed the little girl and opened the baby''s tiny mouth
"Human, what are you doing?"
As far as Gaya was concerned their hearts stopped beating and they were long dead. But at first, he was pumping their chests and now he was pouring some liquid into the baby''s mouth, she couldn''t guess why he was doing this.
However, her eyes went wide when she saw the color returning to the baby''s body as the tiny human moved its legs. He was in no mood to rejoice. He needed to save this little girl''s mother or they would turn into orphans like him.
Without thinking about the preciousness of the healing potion, he poured everyst drop of it into the woman''s mouth and waited for her to wake up.
"(COUGH!)"
After a few seconds, the woman suddenly opened her eyes and coughed a lot of blood.
"MUM!"
"CINDY!"
The girl jumped right into her mother''s arms as the woman showered the little girl with kisses.
"Uwaaahhh"
The baby also began to cry and announced its presence to the mother.
"Roomi!"
Gaya and Micheal stood silent on the sidelines waiting for the three of them to finish crying.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for saving the people in need. The reward is 300 badass points and the windst skill]
The system''s voice appeared in his mind but before he could check out the windst skill, the woman shouted.
"THE CHILDREN!"
Suddenly the woman''s eyes widened as she cried out loud
"Young master Riyan, the children"
She was pointing in the opposite direction of the vige, to be exact the river sider.
"What? There are survivors"
"Yes, young master, please save them"
"Hey system, do I get rewards for saving people too?"
[It depend on the people or person who need help, host]
"What do you mean by that?"
[It means the system won''t reward you if you get manipted to help or the person who asks help was using the host, in such situation if the host does help that person, the system will not reward the host but take away some points as a penalty]
"Roger that system"
He was not nning to help everyone in this world like some kind of samaritan but when he saw that little girl crying for help, he couldn''t stand there and do nothing. It was a basic act of humanity and although he was not entirely a good person, he was not that cruel not to do anything when a little girl like her asking to save her mother.
"The cabin, please, young master"
The woman stuttered and kept pointing in the same direction as before.
"Stay with them"
He said and dashed towards the river leaving Gaya with the mother and daughters.
"Does he think I''m his servant?"
She was a princess and she was supposed to order this human around yet, she had to put up with him so she could get the pills from him to repair her meridians.
After reaching the river and running on the shore for a few minutes, he finally picked up a trail, and looking at the amount of blood, he hoped it didn''t belong to the kids.
The blood trail led him into the woods and atst after following the trail for some time, he saw a wooden cabin surrounded in the distance.
As he got closer, he sighed in relief sensing the life signs inside the cabin.
(Knock knock)
He knocked on the door because after hearing the murmuring voices of little children.
"The demons, they came for us"
"Shhhhh"
"What do we do?"
"Whooo hooo"
The children were sobbing and held each other tightly in fear
"Kids, don''t be afraid, I''m here to save you, open the door, hey Riyan, are you inside?"
He couldn''t open the door and realized that the door was manned from the inside.
"Brother Riyan, wake up!"
"Wake up?"
Micheal knew he must have died and sighed. He felt he could easily destroy the wooden door using his new skill, wind st but there was a chance that the debris could hurt the kids inside.
Thinking of an alternative way to enter the cabin, he looked up and fired his grappling hook to the branch near the cabin roof.
Thud
The children inside shivered hearing the thud sound on the roof and some grown-up kids picked up some stones and sticks lying on the ground to protect their brothers and sisters.
"Hey kids, I''ming in"
He announced his presence as he entered the cabin by breaking through the roof.
The moment hended on the cabin, he was weed by stones to the face but the shield protected him from these brave kids.
IF it was on the normal days, he would haveughed off at the kids or pinched their cheeks as punishment but now he couldn''t help but feel sadder for them because from now on, the world would call them orphans.
He knew that pain of being called an orphan, he would have had a different life if he had parents like many kids. Even the body transmigrated into was just like him.
Looking at the little kids, he noticed many kids wetting themselves in fear.
"Don''t be afraid, Cindy''s mother sent me"
Hearing the name Cindy, a relieved expression appeared on their little faces.
"She''s alive?"
One of the boys who was holding a long stick as a weapon asked him.
"Yes, Roomi, the baby too, now go and wait outside, I''ll bring you to them"
The kids still looked unconvinced
"If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done by now"
The kids looked at each other and finally under the leadership of the boy, the kids walked out of the cabin.
"Is he going to be alright?"
Micheal heard the voice of a little girl from behind when he walked towards Riyan, who was lying on the floor holding his wound on his gut.
Riyan was surely a teenager who barely had any chest hair on him. Michael crouched before him and closed his eyes
"You did good, kid"
Even though Micheal was in the body of a teenager like him, he reached the age of twenty-nine on the earth, so he called him a kid.
Riyan''s face was covered in blood and behind that blood, he knew that Riyan must have been a handsome youth who had a sling life to live but he lost his life by saving these kids.
"Sunrise Sect"
On his torn robes, he noticed a badge on his chest and wiping off the blood from it, he read.
"Rest in peace kid, they will suffer for this and this will be my payment"
He clutched the badge and said as he lifted Riyan''s body to bury him properly. His body was not in the condition for him to take it to his sect and bury there.
??He''s dead, isn''t he?"
When Micheal stepped out of the cabin with Riyan''s body in his arms, the boy silently asked him.
"Yes, now follow me"
The children silently followed him, they didn''t speak or utter any words.
"Brother¡.no¡.young master"
The boy left the group and came to him while he was leading the group to the vige.
"I''m not a young master kid, you can call me brother"
SImply the word young master felt awkward when it came out of this boy''s mouth so Micheal told him to call him brother.
"Oh"
The boy nodded
"Brother, what about the other kids in the vige? Did you save them too?"
The moment he heard the boy, his heart skipped a beat as he halted his steps.
Before he left the vige, he spent 50 badass points to scan the entire vige for life signs but the system did not find any except for Cindy, her mother, and the baby.
If these twenty kids weren''t the only kids in the vige, that meant only one thing, they were killed by the ones who massacred the vige or lost their lives to the fire.
Thinking about those murderers, his killing intent skyrocketed and his nails started to dig into his palms in anger.
"Wait till I get my hands on those bastards"
He gritted his teeth and continued to walk.
"System, give me a paralyzing poison"
Chapter 15 - I Am The Ghost
He was leading the kids to the vige when he saw Gaya, Cindy, her mother, and the baby in midway.
"ROY!"
"CINDY!"
The girl shouted at the boy as the children quickly ran towards Cindy and her mother crying and sobbing.
"Young master Riyan"
Cindy''s mother came to him and she couldn''t hold back her tears looking at the lifeless body of Riyan.
"It was a good thing you came here, the kids shouldn''t see the vige, they have already been through enough"
"Thank...thank you, young master"
"No"
Mich shook his head and stepped back when she crouched to grab his legs to thank him.
"Just take care of them, I will be back soon"
Gaya too followed him right behind to the vige leaving everyone behind.
"It was the Blood and bones sect, human"
"Why?"
"The reason was a surprisingly simple one, human, ording to the woman, the blood and bones sect was taking their coins in the name of protection fee"
"Protection from what?"
"From nothing, they were just using the reason to milk these vigers, and recently they raised the protection fee "
She air quoted the words protection fee and continued
"The woman said they were barely able to pay the previous fee but when they raised it, they simply couldn''t scrape together enough coins, so they asked for more time"
"They didn''t give time, did they?"
Gaya shook her head hearing him
"Yes, instead of giving them time, those f**kers decided to use the vigers as human dummies and let their students practice spells on them"
Because she was walking behind him, she was unable to see the killing intent in his eyes as she went on.
"If it wasn''t for the human in your arms who killed some of their students and led the remaining children away from the vige, those tiny humans would be dead too. What are you nning to do, human? "
"First, I should bury those people, they deserve proper burials and I will give it to them"
******************************
At the moment, Gaya felt thirsty and tired just by looking at him digging hole after hole and burying each and every viger after wrapping them in white clothing.
"Why are you doing this human? You don''t know these people, you already used a valuable healing potion by saving that tiny human and its mother"
"It''s not much Gaya, this is just a basic humanity, where Ie from, there are at least people there to give the dead a proper burial, I don''t think that''s true here, tell me I''m wrong"
"I don''t know where you came from human, but here, this how things are, in this ce, there''s only one rule, the rule of the jungle, if you are not a predator, you''re a prey"
Micheal took a deep breath and stabbed the shovel into the ground as Gaya noticed the look of unwavering determination on his face.
"Then I will be the strongest, most powerful predator this world has ever seen and hunt every dirtbag in this world"
[Ding, Congrattions to the host for setting a goal. The host will receive a reward of 450 badass points and a healing potion ]
Little by little, he started to apprehend the reason when he was sent to this world with the system. Until now, he had never thought that this world would be this much messed up where the strong could hunt down and massacre people like they were nothing.
In his previous life, every person he killed was a crook or criminal in some way that they were better dead than alive to the world, not once in his life he took an innocent life, even a hitman like him had a moral code but the cultivators in this world had nothing, not even a shred of mercy towards these poor people. He knew the little girl Cindy must have walked for hours to reach the guild and ask for help but none of them were willing to help her but only tried to chase her away.
If someone like Riyan came sooner than he did, they could have saved more lives, saved more children. If he was on earth, he would have paid a hefty sum to these people and left because he had no power back there to change the entire world, he was just a human but in this world, he had the means to be the strongest, he had the most powerful weapon in this world, the system.
The remaining bit of Abras''s soul changed the way Micheal looked at this world and influenced his mindset. After burying all these people, he understands his ce in this world and realized what he needs to do.
"I''m going to do what I do best, kill people"
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Foundation stage, level 9
Experience Points: 24500/25000
Badass Points: 2000
Current Skills: Lightning Dash - level 1
Ignitia - level 1
Wind st - level 2
Passive Abilities: Environment scanning - level 1
Responsive Energy Shield - level 1
upation: Adventurer
Status: Healthy
Goals: Be the Strongest Predator in this world
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 10%)
Notable Skills: Above average in marksmanship
Proficient in closebat
"System, how many points to upgrade the energy shield?"
[Level 2 of the Responsive Energy Shield will be able topletely block all the Body Refining stage and Body Strengthening level 2 attacks.1500 points required to upgrade to level 2]
"Do it"
He didn''t need another offensive type of skill or to upgrade the Ignitia as he had the knife to kill anyone under the Body Strengthening stage level 6.
In an all-out fight, the shield would be a lifesaver so he didn''t hesitate to spend the points and upgrade it.
"Gaya, did you ask the woman the location of the sect?"
"Don''t be rash, human, although this sect was newly founded one, the woman said the sect leader is a body strengthening level 2 cultivator"
She thought he would be afraid or at least slightly shaken but unexpectedly, he was grinning.
"It seems the universe itself want me to kill them"
When he decided to upgrade his shield, he had never guessed it would make him invincible before them. With his shield, even their strongest, the sect master himself wouldn''t be able to stop him from exterminating them.
"Gaya"
His grin disappeared and reced by a stern look
"From this moment, on my path, I will kill a whole lot of people and make many enemies, probably powerful ones, so if you want, you can leave"
He was 99.9% sure that she wouldn''t leave but he wanted to warn her and if she chose to leave, he would let her.
"What the f**k are you talking about? Without my cultivation, Nagas would eventually find and kill me or worse"
She sighed and continued
"but with you, at least I have a chance to repair my cultivation and kill that bitch, so, this princess will stay with you "
"Good choice, stick with me and I will not only heal you, but I will also help you take your revenge, deal?"
He reached his hand out as Gaya shook his hand with an ear to ear grin on her face.
After burying the final body, he cleaned the sweat and stench off his body by bathing in the well and dried his clothes and body by creating hot air around him using the Arch Energy.
"Let''s go"
He took Gaya and went on his way to meet the children and the woman on the outskirts of the vige.
"Young master, young miss"
When the woman saw him and Gaya, she came running. Most of the children were sleeping while the baby in her arms seemed tired of crying in hunger.
"Is there any ce you can take kids and settle down?"
"No...young master"
The woman shook her head as tears started to flow out from her eyes thinking about their future without her husband to provide for them.
"System, do you have grocery items and utensils to cook?"
[The host should know by now that if the host has badass points, the system can provide the host anything]
"Alright, alright"
The woman was startled looking at the vegetables, bags of rice, and utensils appearing out of nowhere before them.
"Don''t refuse, take this and start cooking, when Ie back, I will help you find a new ce to settle down"
He wiped the tears off the woman''s face as the woman nodded and let out a gentle smile.
"Young master, what do we call our savior?"
Gaya looked forward to hearing his name since he had never told her his name and obviously Ghost was not his name.
"I''m what exist and doesn''t exist, You can call me Ghost"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50 badass points and a teleportation scroll]
Chapter 16 - I鈥檓 Just Getting Started
"Sister ra, do we have to invite this sinister sect to the ceremony?"
At the moment a group of six people was dressed in silver and yellow uniforms and their flying swords soaring through the air. The group had three boys and three girls.
The prettiest red-haired girl in the group was flying in front leading the group and when her junior sister asked the question, she nodded.
"Even though they use immoral techniques to cultivate, they are still a sect and we are obligated to invite them"
If Gaya was here, she would identify them by looking at their uniforms. The six of them belonged to the renowned Morning Start sect of Bredia.
Another pretty and sweet looking girl in the group looked at the redhaired girl and spoke out softy
"Why do we have to do this? Wasn''t this Orion''s responsibility?"
"Apparently someone was dumb enough to take a quest from the guild that Orion was looking toplete, so he was searching for that fool all over the river town"
"Oh?"
The girl sounded surprised hearing the boy beside her.
"Who was he? Which sect he belongs to?"
"Sect? hmph"
The boy snickered
"He was a rogue cultivator ording to the guild and hear this, he is only a foundation level cultivator"
All the students present were astonished.
Within this Bredia Kingdom, nobody had ever raised a finger against them let alone taking their quest. Besides, this person was only at the foundation level.
"I think he must havee from another kingdom, but it doesn''t matter now, when Orion gets his hands on him, he''s dead"
The three boys'' faces were filled with smiles as the girl frowned and moved near to ra.
"Sister ra, can you do something? He was obviously made a mistake by taking Orion''s quest"
Kalra red back at the girl and shrugged
"With his puny cultivation level, he shouldn''t even go to the guild yet, not only he did go there but also took the quest without Orion''s permission, it seems he has more arrogant than Orion, so we should let him learn his lesson "
"But sister ra?"
If he wasn''t from Bredia, I''ll tell Orion to leave him alive after he finishes punishing him, okay?"
"Why are you trying to defend that fool?"
The girl showed the boys a wry smile and sighed
"I just don''t want anyone to get killed over some minor mistake, that''s all"
"Shhh, we have entered the sect''s premises"
ra looked at the empty ground in the middle of the forest and motioned them to shut up.
The minute ra and the groupnded, more than 10 shadows emerged out of the thick forest and greeted them.
"Wee, wee to the blood and bones everyone"
An old man in ragged clothing was leading a group of elders of the sect.
Their hair was disheveled as their bodies reeked of alcohol and at one nce, they looked nothing more than drunk beggars.
The two girls behind ra tried their hardest not to twitch their noses due to the stink as the boys stared at them with an awkward expression.
"Sect Master Ralphy, we are here to give you the invitation to the annual bright light ceremony"
ra took out a gold tablet from her space ring and handed it over to the old man.
the old man took the tablet from her hand before wriggling his nose and taking a deep breath, his face exuded a look of pleasure. ra felt extremely disgusted looking at the lust in their eyes but kept her calm demeanor.
After a few breaths, he licked his lips and looked at the elders, speaking in a deep voice
"Go to the next vige nearby and get our protection fee, we can''t attend the ceremony without gifts in our hands"
The two old men behind him trembled and hurriedly replied,
"Of course sect master Ralphy, we''ll gather some disciples and collect the fee before the dawn"
Seeing the elders turn to leave the ce after giving them a weird look, the girls stomached their disgust and waited for ra to get the heck out of here.
"Good"
Having said that, the old manughed but when the elders were about to leave, the girls and boys saw a person wearing full ck robes stepping out of the forest and entering the empty ground.
Looking at the direction the disciples were staring, the old man turned around to see a youth walking towards them.
He asked the Morning Star sect disciples, "Do you know him?"
The disciples shook their heads cluelessly as ra''s brows furrowed when she saw the youth''s cultivation level.
The Oldman''s expression turned cold as he smiled at the youth, killing intent radiated out from his eyes. He then waved a hand and instructed the elders, casting his nce at the youth in front of them. In a few seconds, ra and the group saw ten disciples of the blood and bone sect who wore blood-red robes appear on the empty ground and surround the ck-robed youth.
Ralphy directed his nce towards the youth andughed coldly
"You have some guts to trespass into the blood and bone sect, brat, do you have a death wish or something, why are you here?"
"I''m here to send all of you to hell"
Master Song puckered his eyebrows as the elders opened their mouths in shock.
At the same time, the group of ra had curious and suspicious expressions on their faces as well.
One of the girls asked quietly, "Sister ra, who is he? Where did hee from?"
The few of them looked at each other before shaking their heads, "I''ve no idea but he seems to be mad, walking here with his foundation level cultivation"
The few of them were thrown into a hushed discussion as they asionally nced at the ck-robed youth, each with their own thoughts formed of him.
"Since you''re so adamant in dying, let me grant your wish?"
A muscle mountain blocked Micheal''s way with a wicked smile. His biceps were bulging out holding a six feet heavy golden ax.
"Shit human, he must be eating entire boars and buffalos for breakfast"
Compared to the muscle mountain before him, he looked like a littlemb.
Pulch
But suddenly the bulky man''s eyes widened as he dropped his big ax on the ground. A few seconds after, he too dropped on his knee and the students around him saw a ck knife sticking out of his heart as blood was oozing out of the wound. When he retrieved the knife, he kicked the ax as the huge axnded in his hand.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 6 cultivator. The reward is 4500 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
Indeed, for a moment, all of them were astonished as ra''s group froze in their ces.
They watched on with gaping mouths as Micheal transformed himself into a bolt of lightning and charged straight at the group of Blood and bone Sect disciples who were surrounding him fearlessly.
Pulch Pulch Pulch
They couldn''t see Micheal''s body and the only thing they could, was the lightning bolt in the middle of the group. Every time the bolt of lightning came near a disciple, hot blood sshed onto the ground.
In a few seconds, they witnessed Micheal stop his steps as the disciples whole were surrounding him a moment ago was nowying on a puddle of their own blood.
The 6 of them from the Morning Star sect were dumbfounded as their faces were full of shock.
Just in a mere moment, he was able to do this?
"They...they are...moving"
The pretty girl behind ra pointed at the disciples and said as everyone looked closer at the disciples.
All of their legs were cut or chopped off in a most horrible way, the broken bones were sticking out of their legs and made the girls nauseated.
"BASTARD!!!"
Ralphy''s anger erupted within him like a volcano as his scream echoed through the forest and chased away all the birds resting in there.
In that instant, even without needing Ralphy to shout at them, the Blood and bone Sect disciples rushed towards Micheal with faces of evident rage.
"Chop them off, human"
With his blood dripping ax on the shoulder, Micheal stood there with an evil smile and waved at them to attack him together.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 badass points]
"Ignitia"
He fired lightning bolts from his one hand at the weaker disciples.
"AH!"
The lightning bolt was aimed at their legs and the lightning boltpletely burned their flesh as the bones started to be visible.
"Lightning dash"
Before the stronger disciples cast a shield spell, he again turned into a bolt of lightning and dashed at them.
Whoosh!
In the next moment, he appeared behind the cultivator who was trying to attack him. A wicked smile appeared on his face as he said, "I''m behind you"
"Ah" The disciple''s eyes gaped wide open as if he had just seen a ghost and was in a state of panic.
In a sh, Micheal brought the wrath of the ax down upon him, chopping his two legspletely off of his body and sent the limbs flying towards the elders.
Soon after, the lightning arcs beneath his feet seemed to jolt and dance like streaks of lightning in the sky.
He then turned to the next disciple.
"I''m just getting started"
Chapter 17 - Killing Spree
After a few breaths of moments, the empty ground was full of anguished cries of agonies and pleas for mercy as well as blood and limbs.
With a pair of bloodshot eyes, Micheal''s heart was filled with rage and killing intent. The more he chopped off their legs, the angrier he got as he released all of his pent-up rage burying those little children on these disciples. Hepletely ignored their pleas for mercy and threats.
He knew that these were animals roaming on this and all deserved to die. He knew that he had to make them feel what the vigers and the little children felt before they died.
At the same time, his mind was filled with continuous sounds and alerts made by the system.
"I WILL KILL YOU BASTARD!!!"
Ralphy couldn''t hold his anger anymore by looking at all his crippled students lying in their own pool of blood.
The elders were quite shocked seeing his weird spells and techniques but they knew if they didn''t move now, Ralphy would kill them.
"Bring it on!"
Heughed loudly as he held onto the ax and charged towards the Elders who had looks of fear and surprise etched across their faces. Looking at his speed, they halted their movement in shock and didn''t move an inch.
At the veryst moment, the elders regained their senses and started conjuring different spells in a bid to defend themselves but were still scared stiff.
Regardless of whatever spells or skills they cast, they couldn''t reach him through his shield.
After their fruitless attempts to kill him were made apparent, they stared at the golden de of the ax as they felt immense pain. At the next moment, their bodies dropped on the ground and a couple of blooded legs were lying before them.
How could their puny spell damage him, he spent 2500 badass points on the shield, and among the body refining stage cultivators, he was invincible.
ra''s group was wide-eyed,pletely astonished, and somewhat started to be afraid of him.
"He''s too strong and fast. The elders didn''t even have the chance to cast a defense spell on them"
One of the boys whispered to his friend.
"He''s too strong. He must''ve been concealing his cultivation level from everyone else!"
"Did you see that he went from foundation level to body refining stage, just like that?"
"He must be using some sort of concealing spell to hide his true cultivation level and ying mind games with them. Could he be a body strengthening cultivator?"
"Based on his powers, he has to be!"
He was chopping the legs off the rest of the disciples while Ralphy seemed to hesitate to attack him. The system was repeatedly beeping in his mind, informing him of the rewards he had received.
Cling
At the very end, Micheal mmed the ax down onto the ground and stood in the middle of the half-dead disciples and chopped legs. He then shouted out loudly at Ralphy, "Are you going to attack me or what?"
Despite his anger, his instincts told him that this youth is extremely powerful and he had a bad feeling as he red at him and asked, " Who are you?"
"You don''t have the right to know my name,"
He smiled but his eyes were full of killing intent towards Ralphy.
"Why the f**k did you do this?"
Ralphy pointed at the disciples and the elders who were crawling on the ground and asked furiously.
"Rosewood Vige"
He only said two words but his tone was deep and serious
"Isn''t that the name of the small vige nearby?"
The girl behind ra frowned and hearing the girl''s voice, Ralphy also remembered the vige.
"What of it?"
ra and her group craned their necks and waited for his answer but instead of speaking, heughed like an evil maniac.
After a few seconds, he stoppedughing and red at Ralphy
"What of it? What of it, huh? You used the vigers, the little kids as dummies to practice your spells and then you burned the whole vige to the ground, for what? A couple of hundred coins"
Ralphy clenched his fists as several veins bulged up on his forearm. He maintained an ashen face as heughed out angrily,
"Good, very good, you did that because of those worthless ants. Ever since the day, the Blood and bone sect has been established, until now, none has raised a finger against us. You are the first and shall be thest"
The next moment, he took out his sword and dashed at Micheal throwing the golden tablet away.
"He did this because of a few mortals?"
One of the boys asked the group like it wasn''t a big deal at all.
"Sister, ra what do we do?"
ra sighed and took the golden tablet from the ground.
"Let''s see how this unfolds, I don''t think he can kill Sect master Ralphy"
Ralphy was a body strengthening stage cultivator after all. A difference between the body refining stage and body strengthening stage was significantly high and it was very unlikely that a body refining stage cultivator could kill a body strengthening stage cultivator in a direct battle.
However, her face froze when she saw him lifting Ralphy by his neck.
Ralphy''s hands and legs were transformed into metal by some sort of spell but still, he couldn''t make a dent in the blue shield around the youth.
"How did you? What the f**k?"
Gaya was extremely astonished looking at his power. She was expecting a battle between him and Ralphy but now the body strengthening stage level 2 cultivator was gasping for air in the human''s hands.
"I will make you watch them suffer"
As he said, he dropped the ax and took out his knife. Gaya noticed a green shade on the de''s surface.
"Release...me¡"
Ralphy struggled to utter these works as Michealughed out coldly,
"Shall we start?"
Micheal plunged his knife into Ralphy''s right chest avoiding the major arteries and veins.
When the knife entered his body, he felt a chill run down his spine and his body turned numb except for his mouth. After paralyzing Ralphy, he put him down as the old man asked
"What did you do?"
"You should worry about what I''m GOING to do? Can you guess?"
Heughed and kicked Ralphy in the gut
"Bastard"
"I''m going to burn your precious sect members, alive "
The minute the words were spoken, everyone present froze as they were allpletely shocked and stunned.
Some of the disciples and the elders whole were crawling without legs and had looks of intense fear despite the pain they were feeling.
The girls behind ra was terrified as well as they shouted out anxiously,
"Brother, don''t be rash!"
"Please calm down and be rational!!"
"You already shed enough blood and crippled their cultivation, that''s just worse than death for a cultivator"
"If you kill and burn them, you will be no different than the blood and bone sect"
ra nodded and shouted without stepping on the blood-soaked ground.
But he had already turned himself into a bolt of lightning as they witnessed the bodies of the disciples were piling up on the center of the ground.
"Don''t listen to these bitches, human, you''re right, we must slow roast them in the fire, like chicken"
"You''re wrong"
He said when he stopped moving as ra''s group had a bad feeling looking at his face and the killing intent in his eyes
"I''m worse than them"
Red color can appeared in his hand. The girls twitched their noses smelling the strong stench when he started to pour the liquid on the growling bodies of the elders and the disciples.
"NO!!!"
The minute Ralphy screamed out in terror, the lightning bolt from Micheal''s hand hit the pile.
The group was so terrified that the two girls screamed out in horror. Their expressions were aghast, disbelieving of whatever they were looking at.
The dark red mes were burning as high as a full-grown tree while they could feel the heating from the mes.
Even ra who participated in many battles as well as the boys were horrified. It took them a long time to regain their initialposure.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 6 cultivator. The reward is 4500 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 7 cultivator. The reward is 5000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 7000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
...
Several beeps of the system kept ringing in his mind as his gaze was nownded on the main culprit, Ralphy.
Chapter 18 - End Of The Blood And Bone Sect
"I WILL KILL YOU!!... I WILL KILL YOU BASTARD!!"
Ralphy''s eyes turned blood red as he screamed at Micheal.
"Human, what are you nning to do with him?"
He didn''t answer Gaya but walked towards Ralphy with a wicked smile on his face.
"I''ll make an example out of you"
"Shut up"
Micheal punched Ralphy using his full strength as his two front teeth flew out of his mouth.
"What...what is..he going to do?"
The girls stuttered and watched him wrapping Ralphy''s body in with white clothing like a mummy.
"Aren''t we going to roast him in this fire, human?"
"No"
**************************
"Hey look, that young master ising?"
"What is he dragging?"
The two guards at the city wall noticed Micheal and came out of their little tent and waved at Micheal.
"Hey guys"
Micheal waved back at him and deeply exhaled
"Guys, give me some water"
The pair of guards were awe-stricken and stupefied hearing him.
"You don''t have some?"
"We do...but young master"
The two guards had a perplexed look on their face
"We are justmoners and you''re a noble"
One of the guards slowly said as Micheal shook his head
"f**k that, aren''t we all just human? Go bring me the water, I''m thirsty, go go go" he chased one guard and looked at the other
"And you,e help me with this"
They couldn''t talk back to him but the guards were astonished. While the guard went to bring water, the other guard stepped forward to help him.
"Were you hunting in the woods, young master?"
His clothes were full of bloodstains and the thing inside the white cloth seemed like his game.
"Sort of"
The guard saw a long pole appear before him while the other guard brought him the water in a leather sk.
Gulk gulk gulk
Taking the sk, he started to gulp the water to quench his thirst as the two guards mistook Ralphy for an animal and kept poking him.
"What kind of animal is this? It''s almost looking like a human?"
"Young master, what is this? Is this a divine beast?"
Divine beasts were animals that had the talent to cultivate and they were very different from normal beasts.
"It''s worse, it''s the headmaster of the blood and bone sect"
The two guards looked at one another, aghast. Their eyes were filled with shock and they were left speechless for a long time.
"Young Master!, you shouldn''t joke like that, if those evil people heard you, they will hunt you down"
"Tell these idiots what we have done, hehe"
Gaya giggled and she couldn''t wait to see their look when they see what''s inside the white clothing.
"Come, lift this up"
They had no idea what he nned to do by tying the thing to the pole and lifting it up. At the distance, ra''s group reached the city walls and saw Micheal hanging Ralphy on the pole in front of the city gates.
"Young master, can you tell us what is this?"
"See it yourself"
Micheal pulled the white clothing by its end and unwrapped Raplphy like a gift box. When they saw Raplphy''s face and the badge of blood and bone sect on his chest, they were speechless and their eyes widened and looked like they could pop out of their sockets any second.
"LITTLE BASTARD!!! LET ME DOWN!!"
"Young master"
They took a step back from Micheal as their bodies started to shiver in fear.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
The old man''s scream in rage echoed through the River town and people came rushing out to see what''s going on. The men and women who saw the scene were astounded as their hearts skipped a beat looking at Ralphy, the infamous sect master of the blood and bone sect.
The people widened their eyes as they stared at Micheal unbelievably, looking horrified while the system was continuously ringing in his mind and awarded him with badass points.
"Young Master, the blood and bone sect"
The guard came to say something but he raised his finger and stopped him
"There''s no more Blood and bone sect, I''ve burned them all and this scum will be next"
A ball of green glue appeared in his hand when he said. Looking at the green glue and the murderous look on his face, Ralphy tried to wriggle but his body refused to move an inch.
They didn''t expect the once cool and handsome young man would hunt down the entire blood and bone sect as well as capture its leader alive.
The guards and people couldn''t help but step back in fear, feeling the killing intent radiating from him and ra''s group themselves haven''t seen such tremendous aura from their own Seniors before. It was absolutely terrifying!
Puch
Micheal threw the green glue at Ralphy and witnessed it slowly spreading and enveloping his body. The green glue was some kind of substance he bought from the system. He wanted to burn him slowly and inflict as much as pain he could so when he asked the system to do something like that, the system rmended the green glue.
"What? What is this?"
Ralphy panicked seeing the glue spreading all over his body as he shouted at ra''s group who were looking at the scene from a distance.
"Do something! Help ME! AH!!!"
But when he was shouting, a small crack of lightning hit the green glue and started the fire.
"NO NO NO NO AHH!!!!!"
"On your way to the afterlife, apologize to everyone you killed in the Rosewood vige"
"AHHHH!!"
The women and the girls were rather traumatized looking at the scene including the two girls in ra''s group. Some people threw up due to the smell of a burning body.
The youth''s rage and resolution to kill was very vicious and bloodthirsty as any member of the blood and bone sect which left a very deep mental scar within the female disciples??? hearts.
"He killed all of them horribly and painfully. A man with such a cruel nature. We shouldn''t offend this devil" ra warned her rest of the group as they nodded.
Originally when they first heard him saying he''s going to exterminate the blood and bone sect, they thought he was a madman and going to be killed by Ralphy''s students.
Who knew that he would not only kill the elders and students but also burn Ralphy alive. Furthermore, he was just alone and they were at least thirty.
Scary...
This is too scary!
"He''s too powerful!" The few of them softly muttered in their hearts.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
¡..
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 2 cultivator. The reward is 10000 experience points as well as 300 Badass points]
"You are too cruel human, but this princess likes it"
"Guys, don''t take away this pole until everyone in the kingdom knows what happened to the blood and bone sect. I have a payment to collect from the guild"
The crowd stepped aside and made way for him as he activated the lightning dash and disappeared from the scene leaving everyone shocked.
"Oh shit, did he say guild?"
One of the boys raised his brows and asked
"Yes, why?"
"Orion will be there, we should go and warn him before he pisses this person off"
The whole sect knew about Orion''s arrogance and the tendency to make enemies out of everyone. Even in the sect, the outer disciples hated him the most because of his bullying and they didn''t want Orion to meet the one who single-handedly annihted an entire sect.
Chapter 19 - Arch Energy Filled Food
"Hey"
"Eeek"
The girl on the reception squealed and jumped back when she saw him suddenly appear before her.
"You scared the hell out of me"
The scene where he killed a powerful adventurer Keeten like a fly traumatized her and now, she was more afraid of him than attracted to him.
"Here are the bandit badges, now run along and get me my coins"
"You heard him, bring us our coin you little rat"
Gaya shouted at the girl as he chuckled.
"Right...wait here please, young master"
None of the adventurers dare to look at him directly or look down on him but rather had a slight fear in their eyes considering the one he killed was one of the powerful adventurers in the town.
"Look at these clowns"
Looking at Micheal''s gaze, the adventurers quickly turned away and didn''t dare to look at him like they first did.
"Expect them to lie down before us after they heard what we did at the city gates, hehe"
Micheal knew it would take some time for them to hear what happened at the city gates and even more time for the whole kingdom to know.
"Young master, here''s your coins"
He noticed someone sitting in front of a light orb and casting some spell.
"Hmm, he must be the person who confirms the quest is trulypleted or not"
"750 silver coins"
The system scanned the coin pouch and informed him of the number of coins inside without him opening the pouch.
"Hey girl, isn''t thirteen into sixty, seven eighty?"
Although he had a smile on his face, the girl trembled because it was not a gentle smile but a wicked one.
"Young master, four percent of the full amount was deducted by the guild as amission"
"Why don''t you just go and rob people, greedy f**kers?"
"Four percent huh? Is that a fixed amount or vary quest to quest?"
He wasn''t new to the concept ofmission, he paid a certain amount afterpleting each hit as a tax to the dark world, so he didn''t get surprised like Gaya.
"Fixed amount, young master"
"That''s good to hear, see you girlter"
The girls exhaled deeply after he disappeared and the color on her face returned.
The crowd was almost doubled in size when he stepped out of the city gates as the system started to continuously ring in his mind and award him with more badass points.
All the people were standing around the pole and murmuring while the guards saw himing towards them.
"Step aside, young master ising"
The group of people standing on his way quickly jumped out of the way and lowered their heads.
"Guys,e here"
He pointed his finger at the two guards and motioned them toe.
Like two obedient puppies, the guards came running and waited for his order
"Tell me your names?"
"Daniel, young master"
The older guards lowered his head
"Ricky, young master"
The other guards also lowered his head as Micheal threw the coin pouch at Daniel.
"The survivors of the rosewood vige need a ce to stay, take these coins and rent a ce fit for sixteen people, can you do that?"
Both of them were at a loss for words but Daniel quickly responded by nodding his head.
"It''ll be ready, but young master"
Daniel scratched the back of his head and looked curious
"You haven''t told us your name yet?"
"Don''t you dare say ghost, human"
Gaya shouted in anger as he smiled at the guards
"You can call me Ghost"
************************
Momentster, Cindy''s mother was waiting for him and Gaya with their potions of food.
At this time, she saw a crack of lighting on the ground that appeared not too far in the distance. A small smile emerged on her face as the lightning bolt changed to reveal his figure.
The children were cuddling each other and sleeping without any worries about what''s going to happen for them in this cruel world without their parents.
"Young master"
"Did you eat?"
The woman nodded and picked up a bowl of chicken rice porridge.
"It''s not much like you have eaten in your life"
A powerful youth like him couldn''t be anything but a rich young man who had enough abundant wealth and cultivation resources to be this powerful at such a young age, she thought.
"If you must know, I''m not a noble or lord of anything but amoner just like you and these children"
He took the bowl from the woman''s hand and sat on the sandy ground.
"Wow"
His eyes sparkled when the porridge touched his taste buds. He had never tasted something like this in his previous life and he had eaten in any prestigious five-star hotel and Michelin star restaurants on the earth.
But he didn''t give any fancy ingredient or anything special, yet, the woman before him turned the usual ingredients into something special.
"This is delicious,dy, what''s your name by the way?"
She was bewildered hearing hisment, it was just a normal porridge that had chicken pieces in it but looking at his expressions, she couldn''t see any sign of him lying.
"I''m Raylene Agner, young master"
She lowered her head in respect while Gaya jumped out of his body andpletely shook Raylene. Her eyes widened as she became speechless seeing her suddenly appear out of his body.
"You want this princ"
"Just shut up and eat it"
He interrupted her before she could finish her sentence and insult Raylene.
"How (growl)"
She raised his finger angrily but soon her face turned red in embarrassment because of the sounds her stomach was making breathing the aroma of the food.
"It''s not (groooowl)"
She clenched her stomach tightly and tried to silence the sounding from her stomach but she ultimately failed.
"Here, don''t embarrass yourself further"
He took another bowl and handed it over to Gaya. She was already hungry when he chucked all the food in the inn but her princess pride prevented her from asking for food. It has been almost a week since she ate something and smelling something delicious as this, she couldn''t hold her craving anymore.
Taking the bowl in her hands, she gawked around and stood still like a confused child
"Are you expecting a throne, princess?"
"Sit your ass down here"
His shout made Gaya''s knees go soft as she sat on the sand with him.
As she moved the spoon near her mouth, the fantastic smell of porridge wafted into her nose; suddenly her appetite became out of control.
She opened her mouth and took a bite and the next moment, her eyes widened in disbelief.
The delicious taste, including the scorching aroma of the chicken and the sweet-and-sour tang of the rice, tickled her taste buds instantly.
My gosh! This is too delicious!
A simple porridge like this, which was so ordinary in appearance, had be so attractive to her. However, the system notified Micheal that the ingredients it gave were extremely high quality and everything was filled with pure Arch energy molecules that made this porridge so much tastier.
How else a simple porridge like this could be this delicious?
"Gaya, how is the food?" He asked her at that moment.
However, she had no time to answer the question as she devoured the porridge quickly. It seemed as if she was still longing for more.
"It is so¡"
"Good?"
He asked her with a grin but he didn''t wait for her answer as he turned to look at Raylene.
"Raylene, we are going to the river town and i made arrangement for your stay, soon I will find a more permanent home for you guys"
Tears rolled out of her eyes thinking about everything this stranger has done for them.Her tears however disappeared when a gentle wind blew on her face.
"You shed enough tears for one day, even though it will be hard, try to forget about everything that happened "
Chapter 20 - Reputation
The sky was turning dark and the bright stars were starting toe out while the gentle breeze of the evening wind was gently blowing.
"Look over there, the young master ising"
"Who are those children behind him?"
Daniel and Ricky saw Micheal, a woman, and a group of children of different ages walking towards them.
"They must be the survivors of the rosewood vige"
As amoner who was born and raised in a vige like rosewood, Daniel felt sad for those people. Many rulers and kings wouldn''t raise a finger for a sect like blood and bone massacring themoners thinking it would damage their rtionship with the sect.
This was the first time that someone actually did something against a sect like the blood and bone. They still couldn''t believe that the bones of the sect leader are hanging from a pole outside the city gates like a weird decoration. The entire river town was in turmoil hearing the news about the extermination of the sect and by tomorrow night, the entire kingdom would know what happened to them and the person who killed them, at that time, Ghost would be just as famous as many popr adventurers and disciples.
Next to Micheal, the ones who profited more in this situation was none other than the two guards, Daniel and Ricky. Before Micheal came to Rivertown, they were just two trash soldiers in the king''s army sent to watch over this farawaynd by the king of Bredia. They had no respect among the adventurers or the disciples of the various sects whoe to the river town. In the other towns and cities, the guards had more prestige and would get a nice discount anywhere they went but here, even the tavern owner wouldn''t even give them a small discount on ale and food.
However, now their reputation and respect skyrocketed as everyone in the town started to show them overwhelming respect because of Micheal. Now Daniel and Ricky were not just guards but the minions of the ghost, the one who single-handedly massacred the infamous Blood and Bone sect and burned the sect leader alive. While they were hunting for arge ce to rent for the ghost, the people and youths came to them asking about the ghost and their association with him and unlike Daniel who tried to keep his mouth closed, Ricky bragged about their connection with the ghost.
He even bragged saying he and the ghost shared drinks which was somewhat true.
As she got closer to the city gates, Raylene saw a white skeleton hanging from a pole. She suddenly felt spooky and terrified looking at the skeleton.
"Do you see that skeleton? It''s the sect leader of the blood and bone"
In that instant, Raylenepletely fell into a daze. Every single word was punctuated clearly within her ears.
"Young Master, you...you killed him..."
"yes"
Raylene''s eyes still had that look of sheer shock as Daniel and Ricky came running.
"Young master ghost, the owner stated an outrageous price but we haggled and closed the deal for three hundred silver coins"
Ricky proudly eximed and handed over the coin pouch to Micheal.
"Good job, here keep this"
He took twenty silver coins against Gaya''s shout and gave it to Ricky.
"Share itter, now help them settle in the ce, I have to check in with the tavern"
"Brother, aren''t youing to stay with us?"
Cindy pulled his sleeve and asked him as he ruffled her head yfully
"No, but I will stay very close to you, Cindy"
"Young master but"
Raylene was already in shock after hearing that he had spent three hundred silver coins for them and why did he have to stay the night at the inn while they stay in the house he rented with his coins.
"No, it won''t be right for me to spend the night there"
People tend to spread nasty rumors when a single mother stays the night alone with a young man. It would affect both her and Cindy in the future so he decided to stay in the tavern. And if someone started to talk rubbish even after this, he would simply knock all their teeth off and shut them up for good.
"Young master Ghost is right, mydy, these people have nasty mouths"
Daniel said and it took a few moments for Raylene to think about the consequences and agree with them.
"But what if those badmene again?"
Cindy trembled tightly and held his hand remembering the things that happened before her earlier.
"They won''t, those badmen left the world and will nevere back"
"Yes"
He lifted her up and kissed her on the cheek
"Now go with these brothers and sleep, don''t cause any troubles for your mother"
"I won''t"
Unexpectedly the girl wrapped her little hands around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. His heart was warm like never before and he had no idea that his new side was also somewhat influenced by Abras''s soul fragments in his own soul.
He kissed her forehead and smiled while the guards were surprised seeing his change of moods. At this moment, he seemed extremely felt and approachable youth but a few hours ago, he looked like the devil reincarnate with the overwhelming killing intent.
Is he bad or good?
The same question was going on inside Gaya''s mind too and until now, she couldn''t find what kind of human he is.
"Take them there"
He passed the little girl to Daniel as he took the girl into his arms with a warm smile on his face.
He walked with them until he reached the tavern and then he sent them with Danial and Ricky.
"You are an orphan, aren''t you human?"
Just when the children and the guards disappeared from his sight, Gaya asked him as he froze.
"Don''t try to deny it, human, I see the way you look at them, human, it''s the look of someone who grew up without parents"
"Well, well, you do have some brain, princess, I''m surprised"
"Thanks, wait! what? How dare you!"
She screamed in anger but it was good fun for him to make her angry
While she was shouting at him, he entered the tavern and the moment the people inside saw him, the ce became dead silent as even a pin dropping sound could be heard.
Since the tavern was near the city gates, every one of them had seen what he did to Ralphy and they were terrified of him.
"Young master Ghost"
The waitress who had a wide smile on her face the other day now was shivering and trying to let out a fake smile.
"Rx guys, I only kill those who piss me off, are you guys trying to piss me off by being silent? We are in a tavern for god sake"
"No, no, young master"
The waitress quickly shook her head while the patrons in the tavern returned to their usual self little by little. Although the tavern was not as loud as before, still it was better than the dead silent.
A group of three adventurers was upying the table he sat before but seeing himing towards them, they quickly stood up and left the table.
"That''s right, bitches, run"
Chapter 21 - Heaven鈥檚 Gate Competition I
The waitress weed them attentively. She apanied to his table in the corner of the room. The way she looked at him now was a look filled with fear. This youth was really terrifying.
"Young master ghost, what would you like to order?"
"Give me the green sd and hot water with lime"
Considering he had already eaten and not very hungry, he ordered the sd on the menu before going to sleep.
"Keep the bnce"
The waitress was startled when he paid for his meals, even after bing super scary and famous. Normally powerful cultivators and adventurers not only wouldn''t pay but might demand coins using their power. The Ghost''s reputation in Rivertown after what he did outside was more than enough to make them cough out their today''s earnings but surprisingly he paid for his meals and even gave her considerable tips.
Psst
The bartender gave her a quick nce and shook his head telling her not to charge him.
"Young master, it''s¡ it''s on the house"
"Wonderful"
Gaya became happy hearing the waitress but Micheal shook his head. These people were not rich and their lives depended on the earnings of this tavern, how could he use his power and reputation for the sake of saving a couple of coins?
Wouldn''t this stain his reputation?
"No, I''m a customer in this tavern, just like everyone here, and a customer must pay for what he bought"
At the end of his words, he smiled at the waitress to loosen up her mood and ced the coins on her palms.
"Now go and bring me the order"
The waitress couldn''t help but smile back and run back to bring his meals as the adventurers gawked at him amazed.
He''s really paying for his meals?
Is he the same person who roasted Ralphy alive on the stake?
He looks so friendly now
''What the f**k, human? They should be paying US for not wrecking them"
While the adventurers were staring at him, Gaya screamed in frustration inside his mind.
"I don''t know what kind of princess you were but I don''t like to be indebted and besides what would happen to my reputation if I did not even pay for my meals"
"It''s a privilege of being powerful, human, what''s the use of cultivation if we pay themoners"
"It''s not a privilege, it''s disgusting, I''m slowly getting why they chased your snakey ass away"
"Shut up, you don''t know nothing, if you think I''m evil, just wait until see the bitch sitting on the Nagnd throne"
While Gaya and he were divulged in this conversation, the waitress brought him the sd and the hot water.
"Here''s your green sd and hot water with lime, young master Ghost"
"Thank you"
"Oh? No need, young master"
He seemed like apletely different person now. She was among the people there when he burned Ralphy alive and then, he was radiating an immense killing intent and looked terrifying.
The more they spent time with him in the same room, the more they realized that he was only cruel to his enemies but for others, he seemed warm and friendlier.
"Miss, do you know where the Sunrise sect is?"
He stopped the waitress when she was about to go to the other table and asked.
"Young master Ghost must be new to Bredia since you don''t know the Sunrise sect but young master, if you''re looking to join a sect, there are more fitting sects for you"
Hearing this, Micheal furrowed his brows
"I just want to return something that belongs to them"
"Oh?"
How could a powerful youth like him join a declined sect like the Sunrise sect?
The waitress thought.
"Young master Ghost, to go to the Sunrise Sect, you have to walk down the main road for two hours and you will see a small mountain by the river, then you''ll see the Sunrise sect"
"Alright, then I''ll go there tomorrow"
"Young master Ghost"
When he was about to eat, the waitress stopped him.
"Young master Ghost, none of them will be at their sect tomorrow, tomorrow is the bright light ceremony, they''ll all be at the heaven''s gate"
*******************
"Hey Gaya, what is this bright light ceremony?"
At this moment, he was lying in his bed while Gaya was sitting by the window. Considering the customers waiting for the waitress, he didn''t keep talking and take her time.
"That''s just a silly event that humanse to take part in the heaven''s gate and prove their power"
"Why''s that?"
"so they can easily get epted into their favorite sect if they perform well that is"
The moonlighting through the window reflected on her face and revealed an angered look on her face.
"What is this heaven''s gate?"
Her expression piqued his curiosity and he was d that this trouble maker isn''t traveling in person with him.
"I told you it''s just a silly event, why are you interested in that? Are you going to participate?"
"Just exin everything to me"
She sighed as she turned her gaze away from the moon and looked at him.
"Heaven''s gate event has two rounds, in the first round,"
She raised her pointing finger and began to exin how thepetition works to him like a teacher.
"The three big sects will each send a Level 5 Core formation cultivator and position them on top of the heaven''s gate stairway. They will then unleash their aura and soul pressure. Everyone who participates in thepetition will need to climb up from the bottom to the top, but the higher they go, the more pressure they will face. Finally, the first 24 disciples to reach the top will be chosen to participate in the second round of thepetition "
"I assume there are the requirements to participate"
She nodded hearing his question
"There are two actually, one must be under thirty years old and not more than a level 10 Body refining stage cultivator"
??This means that I meet the requirements to participate in thepetition"
"Don''t be rash human, even though thepetition is meant as an entry shot to young humans, the disciples of the sects will also participate to show their power and earn the resources given by the King of Bredia"
"Hmm"
He was still not sure to participate in thispetition but the more he heard Gaya, it seemed like a good ce to be a badass and earn more points before going to seclusion for a few days.
The system notified him that he has enough experience points to reach level four of the Body refining stage. Yet, the system required three days to upgrade his level and strengthen his body and during the three days, he wouldn''t be able to ess the system and any disturbances would cause him to fail the breakthrough as well as lose all the experience points.
How big of a loss that would be?
That was why he didn''t dare to attempt to breakthrough in this ce.
"Continue"
"Where was I? Huh the second stage, the second round is the most entertaining and what most people will look forwards to, the first 24 disciples who reached the higher number of steps will fight one on one in twelve stages"
"Huh? Didn''t you say the first 24 disciples to reach the top? Where does this higher number of stepse from?"
Her expression turned more gloomy
"No one has ever reached the top, human, that''s why they take the disciples who climbed more steps rather than waiting for them to reach the top"
"Make sense, now tell me how they arrange the fights?"
"They will give 24 cards, on top of them there will be a number from 1 to 12. You will choose one randomly and participants who get the same number will be fighting against each other on the stage.the prizes for the winners vary each time, so we''ll only know about that tomorrow "
He kept running his finger through his beardless smooth face and pondered about whether he should take part or not.
"Hey system, how many badass points do I have?"
[11000 points]
"Alright system, rmend me a way to beat thispetition? I don''t care about the second stage since I have my sweet shield, my concern is the first stage"
[Loading...]
He was waiting for the system to rmend him rather than searching through the shop because although the system would always try to take away his badass points, it would also rmend him some overpowered skills for situations like this. The Responsive Shield and the Lightning dash skill was an example of this.
After a few seconds of waiting, a golden sheet appeared before him.
Name: Energy devourer
ss: Legendary
Function: The host will be able to turn the Energy pressures into Experience points
Upgradable: Yes
Price: 9000 badass points
Looking at the amount next to the price, he deeply sighed as his heart ached to spend that many points on a single skill.
"Hold onto it, I''ll buy the skill if I need it"
Chapter 22 - Heaven鈥檚 Gate Competition II
"Human, human, wake up"
If they were to reach heaven''s gate province, they had to depart from River town before the sunrise, and even after telling him about this, when she woke up, he was still sleeping like a baby.
"He looks cute when sleeping"
This was the first time she was staying with a man in the same room.
As a princess of Nagnd and a free spirit, she had traveled to many ces and met many youths who tried to court her. Every one of them was extremely wealthy and offered an immense amount of wealth to marry her.
Her single nce would be enough to raise their heartbeats and drool but only this human on the bed had never lusted for her except he called her ugly.
Weirdly it was a nice change to her since her birth no one ever dared to disrespect her and would shower her with fakepliments due to her status as a princess. She was sick of it and this human had never done anything like that. Even after knowing she was a princess, he never cared about that and continued to scold her and ridicule her.
"I should kick his ass, literally, hehe"
She let out an evil grin and raised her leg aiming at his butt.
Thop!
"What the?"
Micheal suddenly woke up feeling the sudden kick on his butt and saw Gaya standing before him with a huge grin on her face.
"Did you kick my ass?"
The system had never warned him about it and when he asked the system, it didn''t even reply to him.
"I told you I will kick your ass if you dont wake up"
She looked so hot and beautiful right now as it made his mind go nk for a moment.
"Damn, she''s hot"
"Come on, chop chop human, we have to leave now to reach the heaven''s gate province"
"Its seems like I need to buy an rm from the system shop"
He opened up the system and bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, and face wash. Although the cultivators didn''t need them to keep their body clean, he felt weird going out before brushing his teeth. ording to Abras''s memories, themoners used some kind of powder to wash their mouths and most of them didn''t spend their coins to buy something like that.
Looking at the weird short stick and the cream he was putting on the tip of the stick confused her.
"Eek"
She jumped back when she saw him putting the stick with the paste into his mouth. The white foam inside his mouth disgusted her.
Micheal kept brushing his teeth for a few minutes and put the items back in the storage after thoroughly washing his face with the water he bought.
Gaya couldn''t help but take a deep breath of the fragrance radiating from him as her reaction reminded him of the toothpaste ads on the tv. She stepped forward smelling the wash and now she was standing just a few inches away from him.
"What is that smell, human?"
But the moment she opened her mouth, he took a step back despite her beauty. Looking at the lines on his forehead and his twitching nose, she was bewildered.
"Such a boner killer"
No one would believe that a beautiful hot girl''s mouth smells so bad but it made sense since her meridians were broken and still hadn''t been repaired to restore her Arch energy cirction through her body.
He quickly bought another toothbrush from the system and covered the head with a lot of toothpaste.
"Here, brush your teeth"
"What?"
Her face turned red guessing why he would ask that.
"do it now"
He took her hand and ced the toothbrush on her hand as she reached the verge of her patience.
"How dare you¡(cough)"
While she was screaming, Micheal reflected the airing out of her mouth against her.
In a sh, her anger turned into an embarrassment as she couldn''t believe that her mouth had be so foul smelling.
How could a princess like her mouth smell so bad?
She couldn''t look at him directly after getting embarrassed like this.
"Come on, brush your teeth"
She awkwardly put the brush into her mouth and started to move it as he did.
"Argh"
But unexpectedly, she put the brush too deep into her mouth and started to gag.
"Jeez, you''re like a baby, give me that"
He kindly grabbed her soft face and took the brush from her hand.
"Look carefully, I won''t do this again, now open your mouth"
"Aah"
Like brushing the teeth of a baby, he moved his hand in a rhythm and brushed her teeth without hitting her soft pte.
"Don''t swallow it"
He feared that since the paste had a sweet taste, she would swallow it thinking it as edible.
After thoroughly brushing her teeth and cleaning her mouth with saltwater, he made her wash her face, and then he put everything back in his system storage.
"Now say something"
"Thank you?"
She moved her head back a few inches seeing him lean closer to her.
"Good, now it''s better, but you must keep brushing your teeth two times a day, or I''ll kick your ass"
She meekly nodded since she couldn''t talk back arrogantly in this situation.
************************
The morning sunlight filled the sky, pure scattered light as its hue ambitiously illuminating each crevice of thend. Sparrows chirped an explicit background melody while he was on his way to heaven''s gate province.
Heaven''s Province was a big city in the Bredia Kingdom. It didn''t matter if it was size or power; it couldn''t bepared to the River town. As a city built through the sole efforts of the royal family of Bredia, the king had absolute control over the city.
As per Gaya''s knowledge, in this city, three big sects had their bases, and this caused endless conflicts within the city. Heaven''s gate City was built mainly for Heaven''s gatepetition which was held once every two years. The city, fortunately, didn''t have any extraordinary value or resources because if it did, more blood would be spilled.
Micheal and Gaya traveled for more than four hours from the river town before finally arriving at Heaven''s gate city. From the outside, the city itself portrayed a magnificent structure and an aristocratic atmosphere so dense that even the capital''s of some countries on earth couldn''tpare with it, not to mention the small cities and the river town.
Unlike the city wall in the River town, Heaven''s gate city wall was over forty meters tall and it wouldn''t be possible for anyone under Core Strengthening cultivator to jump over it.
When he finally arrived at the city gate, he found the city filled with peopleing towards the city from all directions. Every two years, heaven''s gatepetition attracted countless warriors and people from various kingdoms and cities of this continent.
Everyone here wanted to witness the presence of the three big sects'' genius disciples. Since the King was busy with many internal and external troubles of Bredia, he rarely made an appearance and today wouldn''t be an exception.
Those who came here were mostly rich people with high power and authority. One of the reasons why they came here was to witness the presence of these geniuses. Secondly, they were hoping for a chance to get in contact with the big sects. Thirdly, they could recruit some new talents for their house and increase their overall strength.
There were also many fans of certain disciples who had arrived here to show their support. Many youngsters of various powerful and influential families also came from many different ces in the Kingdom to get admitted into the sects by showing their talent bypeting in thepetition.
This caused their families to show their presence here as well. There were two reasons why the families woulde; the first was to show their support, while the other was to show off.
Being selected as a disciple of one of the big sects was an honor, and being able to participate in heaven''s gatepetition was an even bigger honor.
"Wow! so many people in one ce"
Micheal eximed when he stopped using the lightning dash.
"This sillypetition is a big deal for humans. Of course, it will attract many people."
Gaya said.
"Thepetition will start in a few hours! We arrived just in time, I can''t wait to see the battles"
"This is my first timeing here, so I can''t miss out on anything,e let''s go"
"Let''s rush to the city square asap. We can''t afford to miss the show!"
Chapter 23 - The Sun Rise Sect
Discussions regarding thepetition were everywhere.
Even though the City was big, it was unable to provide lodgings for so many people at once. Therefore, all of the traveler inns, taverns, and restaurants were fully booked many days ago as they all had a sign showing full outside. Luckily he didn''t need to stay the night and had the lightning dash skill to rush back to River town when he finishes his business here.
A lot of people rushed to City Square in order to find a good spot for the uing show.
"Human, follow them, the more we wait, the more humans fill these streets"
Hearing Gaya, he followed behind the crowd and eventually arrived at City Square.
"This square is really too big, It covers more than a dozen square miles"
Micheal was really surprised. This was the biggest square he had ever seen as it was more than ten to fifteen miles in circumference. This square made the earth''s biggest football stadium look like a small tennis court.
This was beyond his imagination since this world looked medieval and didn''t have any technologies.
In the middle of this open stadium called simply square by the people here, there was a fighting stage, and besides the stage, there were stairs so tall that they almost reached the clouds. In addition, there were stairs leading to tforms that were built in order to allow certain people to watch the fights more clearly.
"Heaven''s Gate Square was built by thebined efforts of his many kings and the big sects for the sole purpose of thepetition. Would it work if it was small?"
"Leave him be, he seems new to the city, what a yokel"
"Hehehe"
Gaya burst intoughter hearing some despiteful wordsing around them. But Micheal just ignored them and kept looking around the square in wonder since this square was really the biggest stadium he had ever seen.
While looking at the stadium, he also concentrated on the conversations around him to get more intel.
"Do you know the heaven''s gate stairway also called the Stairway to God?
It''s said that every step is difficult, as difficult as reaching the heavens. Imagine how difficult it is to climb to the top"
"Top? No one has ever reached thest step, my teacher said the highest record was achieved by a mysterious young woman who reached the seventieth step"
"Holy shit, she must have been so powerful to reach so high while enduring the pressure created by Core formation cultivators"
Many people were discussing about thepetition and how hard it would be. There were a lot of youngsters participating in thepetition, and this Stairway was only the first round. Those who performed outstandingly would have a chance to enter the second round of thepetition.
Some people described thepetition as a Survival of the fittest - only those with strength would be able to survive.
"I heard that people who aren''t a part of the sects can also participate in thepetition"
" There was once this girl who wasn''t a part of any of the four big sects participated and created a new record. Many sects wanted to take her as their disciples but the girl disappeared before the second round"
"It seems like a rare scenario! The requirements set by the big sects are incredibly high. Those who want to participate in thepetition cannot be more than 29 years old, and they must be at the Body refining stage, a normal person can''t reach that stage before the age of 39 let alone 29. And to be a disciple of one of the big sects, you would need to at least be one of the top 40"
"If the disciples of the big sects arentpeting, many youngsters from powerful families would even be one of the top 20, since it''s not the case, they should aim for the range between 20 to 40. To be the top twenty without any background, then they must be a genius but such geniuses would have be a disciple of one of the big sects long before this"
He understood thepetition really well after hearing these conversations and just like Gaya said, people who weren''t disciples of the big sects could participate as well, however getting good results would be incredibly hard because all the geniuses in the kingdom had already be the disciples of one of the big sects.
"Now where can I find the Sunrise Sect?"
"They should be near the stage on the other side of the square, human, go before thepetition starts"
***********************
"Sect leader ire, we searched all over the river town but we couldn''t find Riyan anywhere but"
"But what, elder Mark?"
A couple of middle-aged men wearing dark red robes were talking to a gorgeous looking youngdy who had a voice like the beautiful symphony of bells and was extremely pleasant to the ears. The youngsters behind the youngdy and the elders were looking pale and clenching their fist against their chest.
"Sect leader ire, the blood and bone sect"
The mere mention of the name made the female disciples'' heart skip a beat and even the sect leader seemed ufortable.
"What of it?"
The youngdy frowned and asked.
"The whole sect was annihted overnight, Sect Leader"
The disciples and the sect leader were taken aback by shock. Even though their Sunrise sect was declined to the point that they only had thirty disciples in total just as the blood and bone sect, they couldn''t bepared to that evil sect in terms of power. She might be the sect leader but she was only a body refining stage level 5 cultivator and the four elders were more powerful than her as they were all body refining stage level 10.
It was only because the previous sect leader, her father went missing that made her the new sect leader. Couple of elders quit the sect and joined the other sect when the four main elders chose her as the new sect leader making their sect even weaker.
"Which sect did that? Or it was the king''s army?"
"Not a sect or an army, sect leader, they were killed by one man"
Soon after, the two elders started recounting the story of how the youth called the Ghost massacred the entire sect and burned Ralphy on a stake outside the city gates. The young woman Sect Leader and Elders were stunned and bbergasted when they heard this.
"That..." The pair of other elders and the sect leader was astonished by this story. They had never heard anything as incredulous as this in their entire lives.
"It can''t be, how a young man in the body refining stage level one could kill Ralphy, a body strengthening stage cultivator?"
One of the two elders asked
"I have the same doubt, Elder Sandra but the whole River town saw him burning Ralphy alive"
Incredible it sounded, it couldn''t help with their current situation at all. Without Riyan, their core disciple, they had no hope of getting into the top 40 and getting the much-needed resources, the entire sect''s survival was depending on the resources given by the king. If Riyan did not participate and get into the top 40, they wouldn''t get anything and it''d be the end of their sect.
"If we don''t find Riyan, our sect will also be like the blood and bone, dead"
Hearing Elder Sandra, ire felt like she was going to faint on the spot. Her father trusted her with the sect and how could she let the sect die under on her watch.
"It seems this is the end of our sect"
Elder Sandra''s voice broke as tears were flowing out of her eyes.
A few decades ago, the Sunrise sect flourished beyond words and their reputation was even spread across the kingdoms nearby Bredia. Talented youngsters would line up before their sect hoping to get admitted into their sect and powerful cultivators would try to get a job as a teacher in their sect.
During their golden age, they had more than ten thousand disciples, three hundred teachers, and fifty elders. But now they were reduced to thirty disciples and four teachers who were also the elders of the sect.
Elder Sandra practically grew up in the sect since she was a baby with her mother who was an Elder. She loved the sect just as much as ire, so her heart ached to see the sect in itsst leg.
"Elder Sandra!"
Thinking about this Elder Sandra felt dizzy and stumbled back as Elder Mark quickly grabbed her hand before she hit the ground
"ELDER SANDRA!"
ire shouted looking at Elder Sandra who was lying in Elder Mark''s hands without consciousness.
"Give me some water!"
ire shouted at her disciples as they looked at each other for water and some of them rushed into the crowd to get her some water.
"You guys look like you need some help"
Suddenly they heard a voice and turned to look at a young man wearing ck robes walking towards them with a smile.
Chapter 24 - Meeting The Sunrise Sect
The disciples looked dumbstruck and looked at the young man walking towards them. Even in a desperate situation like this, the female disciples couldn''t help but stare and swallow mouths full of saliva looking at the handsome young man before them. He had a perfect facial structure and a body frame and simply, he was too cute and too hot at the same time.
"Here"
The young man held a water bottle out and waited for them to take it.
"Who are you, young man?"
The elder beside Elder Mark asked him doubtfully. He was wearing neither a badge of a sect nor a uniform.
"Elders can ask the questionster, but now take this and help her"
ire knew he''s right as she grabbed the bottle to sprinkle the water on Elder Sandra''s face.
The elders and the disciples looked suspiciously at him while he just kept his cool smile on his face. Even though the youngdy before him looked gorgeous and resembled Jennifer Lawrence, her beauty didn''t shock him as Gaya''s beauty.
"Hhuh"
When the water droplets hit her face, Elder Sandra slowly opened her eyes
"Elder Sandra!"
The tears flowing out of irended on Elder Sandra''s face with the water from the bottle.
"Sect leader ire"
He could barely hear these wordsing out of the woman''s mouth and wondered what just happened.
"Did Riyane?"
"He will, Elder Sandra, he will"
He didn''t know why they were looking for Riyan but only he knew that Riyan will note as they expect, he buried him yesterday.
"I raised you, Sect leader ire, I can tell when you''re lying. Without Riyan participating, we won''t be getting the resources, sect leader ire, you know what would happen if we don''t get that resources"
"Human, I think they are expecting the dead human to participate in thepetition representing their sect"
Looking at the saddened and hopeless faces, he decided not to be the bearer of the bad news but help them for Riyan, a kind soul who died defending those children.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Before he could speak any words, the sound of beating war drums reverberated the square and the previously noisy square immediately became silent. He guessed the beating of the war drums signified the start of thepetition.
The war drums sounded out from all four directions of the square, each beat started out loud, but would gradually fade, shaking everyone on the spot. The war drums had been passed down from many generations and remained as a symbol of battle. At the battlegrounds, warriors who heard the war drums would immediately feel their blood start boiling.
At all four sides of Heaven''s gate Square, there was a long and wide passage. On top of each passage, a few giant golden holographic words appeared.
Above the East passage was the famous Morning Star Sect while above the West passage was Golden Valley Sect. The words over the South passage were Silver Moon school andstly above the North passage had only one word written in in text ''Others''
The first three were the designated passages for the three big sects. Even though the square was crowded with people, no one dared to get close to the sections. After all, no one wanted to do anything that could disrespect those big sects, as they all knew that although thispetition was started as a recruitment ceremony for the youngsters, it was now turned into apetition between the big sects.
"Look, the disciples of the three big sects are about to arrive!" one of the girls behind ire whispered.
Following the beating of the war drums, some figures started emerging from the three passages designated for the sects. They were walking towards the center of the square with proud and arrogant expressions. Most people respected these disciples, while others envied them deeply.
Micheal noticed that some even had their eyes pointing towards the skies, expressing unparalleled pride and arrogance like he had never seen before. The respectful and envious looks of thesemon people were like a drug to them that made them high.
Every single disciple who walked out from the three passages was at the Body refining stage and even the weakest of them were level 6. He thought he would see youngsters with his level of cultivation for the fourth passage but even there, most of them were Body refining stage level 5 and only a couple of them seemed to be his level.
On the east side, where the Morning Star sect was, all of the disciples were wearing golden robes, and on their chests had an embroidered star symbol, this was the symbol of the Morning Star sect.
The Golden Valley Sect disciples wore matching in yellow robes with a long sword decorated on their chest. As for the Silver Moon Pavilion, the majority of them were girls. These girls were wearing a variety of colorful, patterned dresses. All of them looked so sexy and hot like actresses and models in Micheal''s eyes.
"Why is everyone in this world so hot and sexy?"
Their tight dresses were perfectlyplimenting their gorgeous features and their curves. Which caused the men''s testosterone level soar through in their blood as soon as they saw these girls.
"Damn! Those chicks from the Silver Moon are really sexy!"
"If you have the talent then you could just join the Valley of Happiness, then you would be able to sleep with them every single day!"
"Fool!, the Silver Moon focuses on seducing cultivation, and it is considered an hical method. They''ll turn your lust into a type of energy and use it to cultivate, the more you lust after them, the more they use you while you just slowly keep dying or worse"
"Leeches"
Gaya scowled looking at those female disciples.
...
The girls from the Silver Moon instantly attracted all eyes. Amongst the three big sects in the Kingdom, they had the least disciples, but theirbined strength was not to be underrated, especially their seduction skills, which were unparalleled.
Some of the female disciples from Silver Moon were also very slutty because by using their seduction skills, they managed to get a lot of support from the different powers. This made the Silver Moon a very influential sect in the kingdom.
"Look, it''s Evan rk from the Morning Star" someone shouted.
Upon hearing this, many people shifted their gaze towards the direction of the Morning star. Micheal also turned his gaze, and he saw thest man who was walking out of the passage. That man wearing dark greyish robes, looking handsome and tall.
All other disciples from the Morningstar sect were wearing golden robes but he was the only person wearing a greyish one. It could be considered a special case considering the fact that he was powerful and famous even amongst the other geniuses.
"Many say that he is a rare genius, and his potential is even equal to Miss Celina"
"He will most likely get first ce this time!"
The appearance of this youth caused some uproar at the scene, with his aura of a genius and handsome face, no matter where he went, he would immediately be the center of attraction, especially the girls''.
But the whole stadium made a gaping noise when they saw the girl who was walking out of the Golden Valley passage.
"Oh my god! it''s Victoria Parken from the Golden Valley! She''s sooooo beautiful"
"And powerful!"
She was wearing a set of blue robes with a hint of green. She looked angelic and as calm as the ocean. The color of her robes and the jewels she wore perfectlyplimented her physical features. Every part of her body was fascinating to the eye as she was extremely attractive, and if Micheal had to rank the beautiful girls he had seen in this world, she would only be next to Gaya.
"I''ve heard that she went directly from formation stage level 8 to Body Refining stage level 3 and I heard she learned an ancient spell from one of her elders. That''s extremely fortunate. Only a handful of people knew ancient spells and she''s now one of them. She might even be more powerful than Evan rke "
"It seems Hannah Berry and N Reid from the Silver Moon are here as well! Both of them have the ability to fight with Evan and Miss Parker, but their chances of winning are lower."
"It''s hard to predict what will happen! A lot of things have changed this year, no one can guess the final results. Last time, Miss Celina appeared out of nowhere and took the fourth ce in thepetition and she was the youngest in thepetition that year"
"And don''t forget that mysterious young girl who created a record by climbing to the seventieth step. I wonder if she will appear today, and if that happens, this will truly be exciting!"
Chapter 25 - Celebrity Disciples
Discussions were everywhere and everyone was focused on Evan rke, Victoria Parker, Hannah Berry, and N Reid. Each of the three big sects had their own representatives, and these four disciples were the most obvious ones. If nothing special happened then the top 4 spots would go to these 4 disciples.
Micheal roughly counted the youngsters on the arena. Each of the three sects had nearly 200 disciples while youngsters standing on the ''others'' passage had less with about 100-130 of them.
Although Bredia was a small Kingdom on the Elen Continent, it was still a huge and diversend, with prodigies and geniuses everywhere. In each of these big sects, there were more than five thousand disciples, and most of them were outer circle disciples at the foundation stage or early Body refining stage. Of those who came to participate in this event, many of them were only here to gain experience and to test their abilities and strength.
The rate of elimination was just too high in thispetition as apetition with more than 700 participants, only 24 of them were allowed to advance to the second round.
"All the participants are required toe to the center in five minutes"
A loud voice of a woman reverberated in the stadium while all the disciples from the big sects and the youngsters from the other passage had already walked towards the center of the square without waiting for five minutes.
"Teacher, what do we do?"
One of the Sunrise sect girls shivered and looked at ire as the elder beside Mark exhaled deeply.
"Riyan is noting, sect leader ire, we should leave this ce now, that would at least give us some dignity rather than ridiculed by the other sects"
Hearing him, Elder Sandra wiped off her tears and tried to let out a smile
"Elder Miles is right, sect leader ire, there''s nothing we can do anymore, let''s leave this ce and pack our things, I should distribute the remaining books and herbs to the children before we"
Before she could finish her sentence, her throat tightened and tears welled up in her eyes.
"You don''t have to"
Only now Elder Sandra noticed the ck-robed youth standing with them when she heard his voice.
"What if I participate in thepetition and donate my winnings to your sect?"
Everyone was dumbfounded and ire was clearly in shock.
The Elders thought he was saying this looking at their dire situation and the goodness in his heart.
"Young man, it''s kind of you to say this but we can''t put our burden on your shoulder, especially since you''re an outsider"
These people seemed extremely nice and friendly among the cultivators that he had met. Now he knew where Riyan''s kindness came from, he was taught by good people like them.
"Then I''ll join your sect, don''t take this the wrong way but you seem to have nothing to lose by letting me join, if I win, we''ll get resources to keep the sect alive"
Micheal did not beat around the bush but directly pointed out their situation and made a valid point as the elders became speechless for a moment.
"Why...why do you want to help us?"
ire asked him.
"Because I want to, now don''t go anywhere and trust me to win this thing"
Before anyone could speak anything, he started to walk towards the center leaving them stunned.
ire and the elders didn''t see any deception or bad intent in his eyes but the initiative to help them. She was affected by this stranger''s sincerity in wanting to help them even though he had just met them. This touched her to a certain degree while she was looking at the youth walking towards the center.
"Well, he''s right, we have nothing to lose, and looking at his cultivation level, he will join us sooner than he thinks"
When he reached the center, the war drums were beaten again.
Boom! Boom! Boom! ¡
The beating of war drums was getting more rapid, many people were holding their breath. They all knew that three Core Formation cultivators were about to appear on top of Heaven''s gate stairway and release their soul pressure.
And just at that moment, Four figures flew in like meteors from four different directions andnded on top of the Stairway. When the crowds saw their faces they were startled with their mouths wide open.
Because these four people were not like those from the previous year. Last year they were all just teachers from the three big sects. But now, the three people on top of the Stairway were three young men and a woman, and they were all young.
"It''s her, Celina, the youngest to reach the Body Strengthening stage and also the youngest core disciple of the Morning Star sect"
"Damn, aren''t these the top 4 of thepetition two years ago? Celina from the Morning Star, Adam Kane from the Golden Valley, Sadie Kan from the Silver Moon. OH MY GOD! Alex Fisher the Morning Star is here!"
"Wow, It''s the Alex Fisher who took the first ce two years ago"
"he is so young and he really is a rare genius! Being able to see these prodigies with my own eyes really made the trip here worth it!"
"I think they are going to be the ones assessing thepetition this year!"
"Teachers, what do we do now? Are we going to trust that stranger and wait for him?"
"I have a weird feeling about him, let''s see what he can do"
Even though his cultivation level was low, Elder Marked sensed a powerful aura around him and wanted to know whether he''s right or wrong.
"Human! Let''s get the f**k out of here! NOW!"
Just when he was about to join the crowd, Gaya shouted in his mind and her voice was full of panic.
"Shit"
Micheal realized why she was screaming as he noticed the girl on the top of the stair. She was the girl who tried to kill him for no reason at the waterfalls. Fortunately, she didn''t notice him in the crowd but he cursed his luck.
"I can??t back out now, I''m pretty sure the system would reduce my points and do something crazy"
With the arrival of the four celebrity disciples, the atmosphere immediately turned intense. Everyone was expecting to see the teachers of the big sects arrive, but, they never had expected to see these celebrities of the younger generation here today.
Micheal also couldn''t stop but stare at the four youngsters on the top as the aura around them was really remarkable and powerful.
At this point, his mind ustomed to seeing angelic beauties as Sadie Kan was one of them. Adam Kane from the Golden Valley on the other hand could be considered normalpared to Celina and the youngster standing beside her. He was wearing a pearl white fur coat matching his long silver hair that was waving in the wind, and his handsome facial features like male models making him look all-powerful as he unleashed the aura of a superior person. There was also a thinyer of golden light around his body andpared to him, none of these youngsters seemed extraordinary, even Celina.
"He must be the boyfriend of that psycho. I should be ready to use my teleportation scroll if these two try anything funny but what life without a challenge huh?"
He thought to himself as his lips curved upward. His hot blood started boiling. At first, he came here to inform the Sunrise sect about Riyan''s demise but now looking at the crowd and these geniuses, he wanted to show who''s the new boss in this kingdom. What if they were rare geniuses?
He had the system to aid him and with the help of the system, he decided to beat thispetition and earn a sweet amount of badass points.
Thinking about the badass points, his fighting spirit ignited and adrenaline started to pump up.
Alex Fisher and Celina stood in the middle of the Stairway on the top, like the leaders of this group. He casually raised his hand, then the beating of the war drums immediately stopped.
"I won''t waste my time by exining this round. As usual, we only need the top 24. I will announce the prizes for the winners,ter.
He coolly said as if he was a king giving out an order, radiating an aura of a ruler.
Chapter 26 - Standing Tall I
Where Micheal was standing, all the youngsters of the big sects were getting ready. They all looked pumped up and ready to take on the world, as their eyes were radiating fierce looks. It didn''t require a genius to figure out the rtionship between these three sects were not friendly. Especially the rtionship between the MorningStar and the Golden Valley seemed worse.
By looking at the way Evan rke and Vitoria Parker ring at each other revealed the enmity between them, therefore like the sheep following their shepherd, the disciples from both sects had started to engage in a verbal war. Not long ago, in thepetition among the three sects, Alex Fisher defeated Adam Kane of Golden Valley within five attacks and pissed off many Golden Valley disciples. Now they were looking forward to Vitoria Parker to defeat Evan rke and wipe the shame away to an extent. So the second round of thepetition would definitely be even more intense.
On the bottom of the stairway, the disciples of the sects as well as the other youngsters were looking at the four persons standing at the top, their eyes filled with envy while many boys were drooling looking at the hot girls on the top.
"Senior Alex and Miss Celina are the definition of a perfect couple, look at their demeanor, and aura around them. Only if I could have a girlfriend like her, sigh"
"And a boyfriend like Senior Alex"
"Hey, look the Golden Valley dogs drooling at the Morning Stars"
"Shut the f**k up, you scoundrels, if it wasn''t for our Senior Adam being sick that day, he would have kicked your Senior''s ass and sent him back to where he came from"
"How dare you disrespect our senior Alex? Let''s wait until our Evan rke meet your little Miss Victoria in the battleground, then we''ll see who kicks whos ass"
"Obviously Sister Victoria gonna kick his ass"
"Hey darling, I''ll visit your SilverMoon pceter"
"What the f**k, dude!?"
****************
The scene immediately became very intense. It looked like they were about to start attacking each other. The calmest person on the scene was Micheal, although he was irritated about Celina''s presence, he didn''t give a shit about the enmity among these celebrity disciples. As far as he was concerned, he''s here to earn badass points and help the Sunrise sect in the process, so he could get a secluded ce to break through. He was born narcissistic and how could he admire these disciples.
"Begin," Alex said calmly but his voice was enhanced with Arch Energy to be extremely loud, signaling the start of the first round.
Nearly 700 youngsters instantly started running up the stairway. The stairway was extremely wide and looked like even if there were more than a thousand people on it at the same time, it wouldn''t feel crowded.
There were a total of 100 stone steps on Heaven''s gate stairway, and each step was at least half a meter tall.
It seemed like anymoner could easily climb such stairways,
Let alone cultivators like themselves, in their eyes it was nothing.
Some of them were even jumping forward like rabbits after hearing Alex''s words. It was very funny looking at them as Micheal chuckled inside.
"Human, what are you doing!? If she sees you, she would go berserk again"
Ignoring Gaya''s shout, he stepped onto the first step...the second¡.the third. And just when he stepped onto the eighth step, he felt a slight pressure. More and more people started to pass him leaving behind.
"What the? am I that weak?"
He saw the others climbing the stairs easily without dropping a sweat.
"It seems he''s going to best"
One of the disciples of the Sunrise sect said looking at Micheal on the stairs. A bunch of steps above Micheal, the youngsters who went past him started to slow down feeling the pressure created by the three Core Formation cultivators.
Unlike the teachers who came to assess thepetition two years ago, these three were no ordinary cultivators but geniuses and prodigies of this young generation. Each of them was extremely talented and powerful and the soul pressure created by them was no joke and this made this year''spetition, toughest.
The higher the steps they climbed, the more pressure they felt.
"Human, you''re embarrassing yourself,e on cast your weird spell and disappear!"
Gaya couldn''t bear to look at those ridiculing eyes of the crowd.
"System, buy the Energy devourer and activate it"
[Ding! The host has sessfully acquired the level 1 Energy devouver]
[Activating the Energy devouver]
[Loading 120...119...118...]
"Shit, I need to wait two minutes?"
He exited the system and turned his hand around to see there''s no one behind him as he was thest guy standing on the fifth step.
"As long as you manage to enter the top 40, you can choose to be a disciple of any of the sects as you wish"
Even though the crowd knew this, right after the words left Sadie Kan''s mouth, the crowd became restless.
"What about the top hundred? So thatst kid could have a chance"
"hehehe"
"I TOLD YOU, HUMAN!"
Gaya could hear a few mocking wordsing in her way and she couldn''t hold her anger anymore.
Micheal tried to pay no mind to thesements but still, he became slightly irritated since he had done nothing like bragging or anything.
Surprisingly even some of the disciples who were above him started to follow the crowd by mocking him. They tried to rx their mind a bit by making fun of him.
"Look at that weakling, I bet he can''t go more than twenty steps!"
"Twenty steps? Look at him where is he standing, he''s stuck at the fifth step for god sake, I''m sure that he wouldn''t even cross the tenth step"
The scornful remarks were getting more and more intense while he was waiting for the system to activate the spell.
[30...29...28]
"Good thing he isn''t wearing our sect name"
Elder Miles sighed looking at the young man standingst with eyes closed.
"humph"
But suddenly he opened his eyes and snickered at the disciples above him.
Brushing his shoulder-length ck hair behind, he began to walk towards them step by step.
"Teachers, he''s moving"
While the disciples of the sects were sweating and trying their hardest to climb forward, he was calm and had a smile on his face.
[Experience points converted 2000]
[Experience points converted 3000]
[Experience points converted 4000]
The Legendary spell devoured the soul pressure and converted it to experience points as the invisible force he had felt a moment ago now disappeared.
In a few seconds, he reached the tenth step and looked at the girls who made fun of him before. The two girls were only a couple of steps above him and seeing him walking calmly towards them, they were utterly shocked.
"Middle finger bitches"
He simply showed his middle finger to both of the girls and walked past them as their faces turned red like beet in anger. However, they couldn''t do anything as they were trying their best not to fall down due to soul pressure.
"How dare he!"
"Shut up they deserved it"
"Arrogant bastard!"
Some of the crowd noticed what just happened at the thirteenth step and began to argue as Micheal calmly climbed the stairs.
"Human, were you ying with me a moment ago?"
Gaya asked, looking at him moving higher step by step without stopping.
Once many of them reached the twentieth step, the pressure almost doubled and started weighing down on them, each of them felt they were being crushed by a little invincible mountain. The knees started to bend as sweat wetted their shirts and trousers. The higher they climbed, the bigger the pressure, and many of them stopped moving.
"I don''t think I can move any further than this, the pressure is too strong, I can even feel my soul trembling"
"Yeah, me too"
Some of them sighed and said while wiping their sweat away. At the twentieth step, most of them who were standing were Body refining stage level 4 but when they saw Micheal who was only a Body refining stage level 1 calmly walking past them, their mouths and eyes widened in shock.
"Huh?"
From the twentieth step to the thirtieth steps, only a hundred or so youngsters were standing tallpared to the starting 700 people.
Among this 100, the geniuses like Evan rke and Victoria Parker had already reached the 30th step and still looked calm and rxed while many beside them looked exhausted.
"Elder Sandra, how is he climbing with his level of cultivation?"
Sect Leader ire opened her mouth wide looking at him and asked Elder Sandra.
"I...don''t know, it shouldn''t be possible "
Chapter 27 - Standing Tall II
Every single one of them was climbing with all their strength. Even if they couldn''t be amongst the top 40 disciples, they didn''t want to be aughing stock by falling down. Especially now that every single disciple from the big sects and their families were here.
In a prestigious and famouspetition like this, losing to their fellow disciples of the same sect was nothing to be ashamed of, yet losing to someone from the other sect was nothing but disgraceful.
" look at your pathetic faces, you all should have stayed in your dorm rooms in the first ce"
A disciple from the MorningStar who didn''t participate in thepetition shouted at the Golden Valley disciples as his fellow disciplesughed out loud and ridiculed them.
"At least we are in thispetition not like those cowards who didn''t have the guts to participate"
The Golden Valley disciples shouted back
"We prefer to be here rather than participate and bring shame to our sect, unlike you scumbags, hehe"
"Hey don''t spit such nasty words in front of the girls, hey girl, I''m not like them"
"What the f**k, dude!?"
"Hey girl, yeah you from the SilverMoon, don''t talk with those MorningStar scumbags, they have skin disease"
The stairway was in an uproar and there was no shortage of entertainment for the crowd to enjoy. Many of the disciples were cursing each other and showing all kinds of signs using their hands.
Fortunately fighting on the steps was prohibited or this ce would have already be a battleground. But that didn''t stop them from abusing each other using words and some of them took the cursing game a step ahead and scolded their dead ancestors.
However, all of them froze and shut their mouth when they noticed a ck-robed youth calmly walking past them. The SilverMoon girls almost stood there with a slightly opened mouth in shock and wanted him to look at them despite this current situation.
"Who the f**k is he?"
"Is he from our sect?"
"No, and look at his ck robes, he doesn''t belong to any sect"
Inside Micheal''s head, the system was rewarding him with badass points and converting the soul pressure into experience points. He was extremely happy as he tried his best not tough in joy.
"Oh my god! He''s only fifteen steps away from reaching Evan and Victoria"
The disciples of the Sunrise sect felt their heartbeats rising and prayed to their gods that he honor his words. They doubted Riyan, their best disciple would have reached this level as he was making climbing the steps so easy and effortless.
"Human, it''s not a shame to rest a bit"
"Rest? This is like a walk in the park to me"
"You''re an arrogant f**ker, do you know that?"
While Micheal was calmly walking towards the top,
Evan rke, Victoria Parker, Hannah Berry, and N Reid had already reached the 45th step and by the time they reached the 50th step, the previous calmness on their face and demeanor started to change. Their climbing speed dropped considerably as the pressure they were feeling increased significantly.
"Look, it''s the GHOST!"
Just when Micheal stepped on the 40th step and stood alone, someone from the crowd shouted.
"You mean the Ghost who destroyed the Blood and Bone sect?!"
"Yes! He''s the Ghost from River town!"
The moment the crowd heard this, all of their gazes left the celebrity disciples andnded on Micheal as the system continuously awarded him badass points. Not only the crowd, but the celebrity disciples also stopped the discussion among them and looked at the one the crowd calling Ghost.
His face still carried a warm smile as he walked towards the top like the soul pressure they were creating was nothing but a gentle breeze.
"Shit, we are F**ked"
Gaya sighed as Celina gritted her teeth remembering the incident that happened at the waterfalls.
"How the f**k he killed an entire sect with his cultivation level?"
"You moron!, can a normal Body refining stage level 1 cultivation reach the 45th step?"
The people who initially mocked for no reason felt a cold chill running through their spine.
"News travels fast,"
He was d that someone from the river town came here and recognized him. On earth, he made sure that no one recognizes him but here, the more people recognized, the more badass points he got from the system.
"I never expected that this young man is the famous Ghost of River town. It looks like he isn''t a normal youngster after all"
Elder Mark let out a small smile and sighed.
Looking at a youth who was younger than them climbing higher and higher, most of the disciples started to crawl towards the top using their both hands and feet, like a baby. However, Micheal still looked calm and step by step reached the 50th step and stood only ten steps away from the four celebrity disciples.
"Who is he? Where did hee from?"
Hannah Berry and N Reid were gawking at them as they tried to climb forward using all their strength.
"Pervert"
Celina''s heart was trembling in anger but she couldn''t show it in front of Alex. If Alex had done something to him because of her, both of them would be punished by the sect for disrespecting thepetition, so she could only swallow her anger and watch him showoff.
Four of them including Evan rke tried their best to move forward. Each of them took pride in being the best among their generation and didn''t want to lose to an outsider like him. Unfortunately for them, the pressure on the 60th step was just too strong, and they knew that they were at their limits. So At this point, they could only watch him calmly take one step at a time and hope that he wouldn''t reach the 60th step.
"Human, the pressure on the higher steps will be too strong, stop here, you have already reached the top 10"
Micheal could sense the nervousness in her voice but he was not in the mood to quit now, especially since the experience points and badass points were raining down on him like crazy.
"Is he going to reach the 60th step?"
"If he did, the sects would go crazy to recruit him"
"Elder Mark, do you think he would still want to join our sect?"
ire knew that at this point, the three big sects would give him an abundant amount of resources and ask him to join their sect. They even didn''t have a suitable dorm room for a talented youngster like him, let alone the resources for his cultivation.
"The people of River town said that he destroyed the blood and bone sect because they massacred a vige full ofmoners, it might sound illogical but I have a feeling that he will honor his words"
"Then the Sun will really rise in our sect"
"Do you think he''s single?"
"Look at him bitch, handsome guy like him wouldn''t be single"
"I bet he has a bunch of girlfriends"
The female disciples including the ones in the three big sects couldn''t help but admire him. The SIlver Moon disciples looked at him like they were going to eat him alive while he reached the 59th step and stood just a step away from the four celebrity disciples.
Using theirst bit of strength, Evan rke and Victoria Parker took another step and reached the 61st step leaving Hannah and N behind.
"He reached it"
"Oh my god!"
The crowd became restless when they saw him standing beside Hannah Berry and N Reid. And in a blink of an eye, he took another step and arrived beside Evan rke and Victoria Parker.
"Who are you?"
Evan rke was exhausted as he asked him breathlessly. He still looked calm like he was immune to the pressure and for the first time in his life, Evan felt inferior to someone of his age. At first, when he heard about the destruction of the blood and bone sect and the Ghost who did that, he didn''t pay much attention because, with the right n and spells, anyone could aplish that feat.
However, he had never thought that he would be this powerful and talented, especially considering his cultivation level. A nobody couldn''t reach this far and looking at his calm face, he couldn''t help but admire and respect him.
"Didn''t you hear? I''m called Ghost"
He gently patted Evan on the shoulder and continued to step forward towards the top.
"How could this be possible?"
Victoria and Evan''s eyes were wide open, and their face was full of disbelief.
"He''s only at the level 1 Body refining stage, how is he resisting the pressure?"
"He doesn''t belong to any sects but he managed to surpass us"
The three girls were startled and watching his back as he continued to move forward towards the top.
"He must have used some pill to resist the soul pressure, with weak cultivation level, I can simply st him away with one spell if we met on the battleground???
Victoria calmly said as the three of them could feel the arrogance in her voice but they also couldn''t disagree with her. There wouldn''t be much of a fight between her, a Body refining stage level 8 cultivator, and the ghost, who was only a level 1 Body refining stage cultivator. All of them were thinking that he must have used some kind of tactic to kill Ralphy and refused to believe that he could defeat Ralphy fair and square.
Chapter 28 - Standing Tall III
"Look! The Ghost is number one now! He really surpassed Evan rke and Victoria Parker, and he is still climbing towards the top"
"Holy shit, am I dreaming?! How could he surpass those prodigies?!"
"Two years ago, there was a mysterious girl, now we have him and just like her, he''s also not from any of the big sects!"
Many people were shouting in surprise as Micheal had be the center of attention. Who would have thought someone would appear out of the blue and surpass the celebrity disciples?
"Where did this young freake from? How could he be so strong?"
"Hmph! look at him, He must be using some kind of pill or potion, If he wasn''t, it would be impossible to be so calm and rxed!"
" it''s still not over yet, Evan rke and Victoria Parker will catch up soon!"
The disciples of the sects gloomily stared at him while some of them triedforting themselves by hoping that their breathless seniors, Evan rke and Victoria Parker, would move again and surpass him before he breaks the existing record by reaching the 70th step.
When Micheal stepped on the 67th step, he was still looking cool and calm.
"Is this freak going to break the record?"
Gaya was thinking to herself as he reached the 68th step and broke Celina''s record.
"Oh my god!, he broke Miss Celina''s record and only two steps away from the all-time record!"
"What a freak?!"
On top of the Stairway, Alex Fisher''s and the other three''s expressions changed as well. Especially Celina''s, who had been looking at Micheal with a mix of anger and shocked expression on her face.
" How is he able to reach the 68th step under our pressure?" Adam Kane was surprised as his brows raised automatically.
"Interesting, he is only at Body refining level 1 still he managed to reach this far. I guess he has some interesting secrets"
Sadie''s gesture was alluring and looked at him in a provocative manner. Her sweet gentle voice was enough to touch anyone''s heart as her blue eyes stared at Micheal from top to bottom. The ck robes he wore were nothing like anything she had seen and it perfectlyplemented his charming features and lean body.
"We should increase the pressure"
"Why?"
Adam Kane calmly asked Alex as Sadie answered him
"Although I hate to do this to him, Alex is right, we can''t let an outsider like him reach the 70th step. Remember what happened two years ago when an outsider like him created a record, it brought nothing but shame to our sects.by the look on his face, he would definitely surpass the 70th step if we don''t do anything"
Since she put it like that, Adam could only agree with them and increase the pressure. The four of them were the strongest of the younger generation in the Bredia Kingdom. If theybined their strength to suppress a Body Refining stage cultivator, it would be impossible for any at the same level as Micheal.
The other three unleashed their soul pressure straight away and it was mainly focused on Micheal, still, the slight increase in the pressure rendered Evan rke and Victoria Parker immobile. They were stopped at the 62nd step and could not even move a muscle in their body while some of the youngsters in the lower stairs were even pushed back by the pressure.
[System has detected a sudden increase in pressure]
[Conversion will begin in 15...14¡.]
The System suddenly informed him as he had to stop moving.
Looking at him stop moving, Alex''s lips curved, and put a cold smile on his face. In his heart, he snorted coldly, "Trying to reach the top under our soul pressure huh? Let me see how you take another step"
"I think he reached his limit"
Elder Sandra stated as the other three Elders nodded while Micheal was standing there without moving.
"Human, they increased the soul pressure and focusing it on you"
"Trying to stop me? toote bitches"
He snickered seeing the synergy devourer resumed to convert the pressure into experience points. Until now, he only wanted to reach the top because he wanted to earn as many badass points as he could but since these three intentionally increased the pressure to stop him, he couldn''t wait to reach
the top and crush their arrogance.
He wouldn''t be able to sleep if he surrendered to these three, he was the greatest assassin on earth and his pride and ego were above their arrogance.
"
Look! He stopped at the 68th step, such a shame I really thought he would break the record and create a new one"
"It''s no shame, you idiot, with his level of cultivation, he had already created a new record and proved his prowess"
"He''s moving again!"
Nobody couldn''t remain calm anymore the moment they saw him take a step towards the 69th step, everyone''s vision was on the Ghost was only a step away from breaking the record. He brushed his hair back again as it was fluttering in the wind as he smiled at the four of them on the top but this time his smile was not a warm one, rather it was an arrogant one.
"What is he doing? He is in the first ce now, if he took another step, those three would feel offended?"
Sect Leader ire said with a puzzled expression.
"that youngster possesses the aura of someone who stands above all else. He''s like the fire where his opponents are like the oil, the more the enemies, the more he zes through them"
Gaya''s heart and mind were filled with doubt and shock,
Looking at him standing on the 69th step with his low-level cultivation, she couldn''t help but start to admire him. Although he was young, he had proved himself a person who is both resourceful and powerful. Every time she thought he couldn''t do something, he would prove her wrong and surprise her. Even if he had the special body type, this shouldn''t have been possible.
"There is more to him than what meets the eye"
oooohhhhh
On top of the Stairway, thebined pressure from the three big geniuses had doubled and caused strong winds to appear.
"AH!"
Many youngsters clinging on their positions were now thrown off from the stairway.
"Give me more!"
The crowd felt goosebumps when the words escaped his mouth as the three of them were startled. More pressure meant more experience points and after he said these words, the system started to award him with more badass points.
"HE DID IT!"
Finally, he took the 70th step as the crowd went crazy and most of them stood from their seats in shock.
Behind him, Evan rke and Victoria Parker looked up at Micheal who was walking forward towards the top. Each step he took, created a new record while the crowds in the square held their breath, and stopped uttering any words as they stared at him dumbstruck.
Under the gazes of over three geniuses and Celina, he kept moving and reached the 90th.
"What the?!"
"90th step, OH MY GOD!"
Everyone gasped for air in shock and looked at the Ghost as if they were looking at a real ghost.
"Is he even human?"
"This is insane!"
Gaya became speechless and watched him take another step and reach the 91st step.
The four of them on the top felt like they were being struck by lightning.
The three of them were Core Formation stage cultivators and on top of that, Celina was also releasing her soul pressure on him, yet, a young Body Refining stage cultivator was actually able to resist the pressure unleashed by them, they simply couldn''t believe it.
Under their shocked gazes, he moved again and reached the 95th step.
"Focus every bit of pressure solely on him, I don''t believe he could withstand that"
Alex said with a cold tone as the three of them immediately focused all the pressure created by them on him.
The four geniuses increased the pressure once again, hoping to throw Micheal out of the stairs.
If he continued to step up, he would definitely reach the top ad stand beside them. Just by doing that, he would shatter their reputation and make them look weakpared to him. He had already brought shame to them by reaching the 96th step which was something impossible and never had done before.
Micheal on the other hand did not give a shit about their reputation and wanted to reach the top and earn more and more badass points and experience. Humiliating them and the girl who tried to kill him was just icing on the cake.
Step by step, he reached the 96th step, 97th, then the 98th, and finally the 99th step. If he took another step forward, he would be standing side by side with the three big geniuses and a small genius.
"Impossible!"
Chapter 29 - First Place
"If he took another step and reach the 100th step, it would definitely offend those four"
"This is exciting, really exciting! I never thought someone from my River town will create a record like this!"
Various discussions were going all over the stadium about his shocking performance. Heaven''s gatepetition had been held for so many years, but no one had ever reached the top of the stairway. And now he''s only a one-step from creating a longsting unbreakable record
The Elders of the Sunrise sect shook their heads and smiled. When they first met them, they had never thought he would be so special and a freak of nature.
However, when he was about to reach the 100th step, Celina gave a death stare and spoke in an extremely cold tone.
"DON''T!"
"You already proved your worth, don''t let your willfulness ruin your life"
Obviously, Alex was threatening him who was the greatest assassin on earth.
"With your level, I will directly make you an inner disciple at the SilverMoon and personally help you in your cultivation"
She emphasized the word personally and let out a seductiveugh.
"Bitch"
Gaya simply said.
"You have a bright future ahead, stay where you are and I will make the same offer as Sadie"
Adam smiled at him and calmly said as Alex spoke to him again
"but if you dare take one more step, then you should know the consequences of ignoring our advice"
Micheal didn''t like to bully and bullied but these four were trying to bully him. They just used different tones to make him stay where he is.
He calmly smiled and ordered the system to activate the teleportation spell if they tried to attack him. And then he stared back at Alex without a hint of fear on his face.
"Is there a rule saying I can''t reach the 100th step?"
They were shocked to see his calm and cool demeanor. Normally, youngsters like him shower them withpliments and wouldn''t dare to do something they won''t like. But he not only behaved arrogantly before them but also questioned them in front of all these people. Micheal also did not suppress his voice and made sure every single one of them in the crowd heard his question. If they dared to do something against him, there was no doubt that this would bring shame to the sects but also anger the royal family and the King of Bredia.
"No, but"
Celina gritted her teeth and tried to say something but before those words could escape her mouth, he took another step forward andnded on the final 100th step. He was now standing side by side with them
Just as he did that, Alex''s facepletely changed as a wave of terrifying aura exploded out of his body, and a bone-chilling frost started to appear around his hands.
Adam on the other hand was shocked but he didn''t be as angry as Alex. He shook his head and stood beside him since there was nothing in the rules that said someone couldn''t reach the 100th step, what he did was fair.
On the other side, Sadie suddenly let out a weird moan and looked flushed red. These girls from the SilverMoon really started to freak him out with their weird looks and actions.
Right now, the crowd who were watching the scene had be very excited. None of them ever thought that someone would break the 70th step record, let alone reaching the 100th and stand alongside the four celebrity disciples.
"Holy! He really reached the top!"
"We have just witnessed history in making guys!"
"Where did hee from? What''s his real name? Even in the sight of these four bid shots, he didn''t back down, he earned my respect!"
"From now on, the whole kingdom would know the name Ghost!"
"But he made a mistake by offending them, Just look at Alex''s expression, he looks like he''s going to kill him!"
"Offending a bigshot like him would never end in a good way, I''m sure the Morning Stars will make his life harder in the next round"
Everybody was gossiping and expressing their opinions while the Sunrise sect people started to worry about his safety.
"You just made a big mistake, human"
He didn''t pay attention to Gaya''s warning as he was looking at the experience points. He now had enough points to reach the Body refining stage level 6 and already earned back the badass points he had spent for the Energy devourer spell.
"This trip is extremely worth the risk"
He knew by taking thest step, he would offend Alex, a big shot in this kingdom but the benefits he received were worth the risk.
"No one has ever disrespected me the way you just did, Ghost, you will pay for that!"
He radiated an extreme killing intent that would scare anybody who looked at him. Yet, Micheal almostughed out when he noticed his killing intent towards him being turned into experience points for him. This spell was really legendary and overpowered, by making someone angry, he could now earn experience points with this spell.
Since the time he was born, Alex Fisher had been raised with great privileges by one of the most powerful families in Bredia. He was a child really blessed with the god as he had a great talent for cultivation, wealth, and an attractive body with a handsome face. This consciousness of being born like this had been rooted deep into his mind as ego and pride.
Who was this Ghost to disrespect him? A nobody without any background.
Thinking about this, he felt incredibly furious and couldn''t hold his anger.
"You crossed your limit!"
Celina gritted her teeth and said angrily as Micheal tilted his head like a puppy and frowned.
"Who are you again?"
"You really want to die huh?"
Alex''s expression was getting colder, and his killing intent was getting thicker as Micheal''s heart was nursing with joy looking at all the experience points.
"Alex, look around you. This is Heaven''s gatepetition, and we''re here to assess thispetition. Everything you speak or do will represent the MorningStar sect. There''s no rule in thispetition which states that someone can''t reach the top. Are you going to attack him just because he reached the top?"
Adam quickly interfered before this situation turned ugly. Although by stepping on the 100th step he tarnished their reputation, they still needed to think about their sect before doing anything that would bring shame to their sect.
"You can tell me what I can do when you defeat me within five attacks Kane"
Adam expected this reply but still, he gritted his teeth in anger.
Nevertheless, after Adam''s warning, he withdrew his killing intent and decided not to kill him. Because he knew the elders would punish him for disgracing thepetition and their sect reputation and that was the best-case scenario. The worst case was this incident reached the ears of the king and at that point, the king would definitely cripple his cultivation or sentence him to death.
"I let you live this time"
He said coldly and flew down to the ground standing on a flying spear with Celina.
"Boys"
Saide snorted and tapped Micheal''s shoulder
"My offer is still standing, I''ll even rmend the elders to make you a core disciple"
"Sorry Miss, I have already decided to join another sect"
At this point, the first round of thepetition had concluded as many disciples of the sects and youngsters were jumping off of the stairway but hearing their conversation, they all paused for a moment to hear what sect he had decided to join.
"Oh?"
Sadie was surprised since there''s no chance Alex would let him join the MorningStar and Adam seemed like he''s not nning to take him either.
Leaving those two sects, there weren''t any ces that fit for his talent except her sect.
"Which sect?"
"The SunRise Sect"
His answer almost gave the crowd a heart attack. Among all the sects, he picked the worst and declined sect to join. Even if many of these youngsters couldn''t get into the big sects, there were still other prestigious sects in the Kingdom but none of them wouldn''t even think of joining the SunRise sect.
Sadie had a weird expression on her face as many people thought he was mad to consider the Sunrise sect.
"Are you sure about that, Ghost?"
"Yes, I gave my word and I''m not going to back away now"
Sadie saw an immovable resolution in his eyes as she sighed
"So be it, but if you change your mind, my sect gates are always open for you"
"Like we join your whorehouse"
Gaya mumbled inside his mind.
Lots of disciples from the MorningStar were staring at him when he reached the bottom and their eyes were filled with enmity and hatred towards him. Since he had just taken first ce in today''spetition, and offended their seniors in front of all these people, they marked him as their enemy.
"Don''t expect the next round will be like this, on the battleground, only the cultivation level matters"
Someone walked up to Micheal and whispered to him as he turned back to look at a red-haired youth standing in front of him. And behind the red-haired youth, there was a bunch of youth who seemed like his minions.
"Who the f**k is he? When did you f**k with him?"
If someone wanted to hurt him, they must be at least Body Strengthening stage level 2 and none of these youngsters were at that level.
"Whatever"
He just shrugged and walked towards the Sunrise sect people who were looking at him like they had seen a demon.
Chapter 30 - Battle Begins
The sudden appearance of a genius like him shook the square by storm and everyone was waiting to see his battle prowess in the next round. The intense 2nd roundpetition would take ce on a fighting stage, and this is what most people were looking forward to because only the powerful ones would be able to survive and win the round.
Although he had taken first ce in the first round and set a new record by stepping on the 100th step, some people were not very optimistic about him considering his weak cultivation level. Since no one had really seen him killing the disciples of the blood and bone sect, it was logical to doubt him.
They were thinking of being able to resist some pressure doesn''t really mean that he can defeat the higher level cultivators in closebat.
Some of them were even betting on his survival since he had offended the celebrity disciples, especially Alex Fisher and Celina and neither of these two were not someone who can be easily dealt with. They were the rising stars of Bredia and heirs to two prominent families.
All the disciples of the MorningStar and Golden Valley were looking at him with jumbled emotions. Since the starting of thepetition, none of thepetitors brought shame to their sect and seniors like Ghost did, an outsider from nowhere. And even after that, he didn''t join any of their sects but actually decided to join a declined sect and this angered them to an extent.
"The first round of thepetition ispleted. All top 24 participants proceed to the fighting stage in five minutes"
Celina announced this time and the four of them flew to the next stage andnded on a high tower in the center of the square. In front of the tower, twelve 4 meter tall fighting stages were waiting for the 24 participants.
"This freak going to f**k them all up, sigh"
Gaya sighed.
Unlike these doubtful crowds, she saw him massacre each and every disciples and Ralphy without using any dirty tricks. Even a Strengthening stage level 2 cultivator couldn''t do anything to him, what these weaklings could do to him?
If there wasn''t a chance that someone might recognize her, Gaya would jump out and start making bets to get super-rich. The 24 youngsters who were in high fighting spirits didn''t take the given five-minute break but already reached the fighting stages as Micheal walked towards the Sunrise sect people.
"Everyone"
The Elders and the group of disciples came rushing to him as they surrounded him. A moment ago, he looked extremely arrogant and cold but now his demeanor took a 180 turn and looked friendly and warm.
"Young man, you..."
Elder Sandra''s voice trailed but Micheal sighed and retrieved Riyan''s blood-stained badge from his storage.
"This"
Each of their eyes widened and their bodies slightly shook looking at the bloodied badge on his hand.
"I''m sorry for your loss"
He sighed and started to tell what happened at the rosewood vige making Riyan the hero of this story. Some of the female disciples dropped on their knees hearing him as tears started to flow out of the male disciples too. Micheal was surprised to see each of them looked truly saddened by Riyan''s demise and except Elder Mark, the other elders also couldn''t hold back their tears.
"Young man, you don''t have to join us for Riyan, it''s still not toote to join the big sects for you"
"No, what use of big sects if they don''t even teach their students the basic humanity?"
At the same moment, standing on the tower, Celina took a step forward and spoke with a loud voice, "The Stairway was just a warm-up, so it doesn''t matter who took the first ce and who took thest ce. It was just a filter for the second round. Only those who have exceptional cultivation and power will be able to survive the second round"
Celine might have said this looking at the crowd, but it was definitely directed towards Micheal.
"Miss Celina, may we know what the rewards are this year?"
Someone from the crowd shouted as everyone stared at Celina for her answer.
"Yeah tell us Senior, it will be an extra motivation for us!"
A youngster from the MorningStar asked and not only did the participating disciples look up with anticipation, but even the crowd was also filled with expectations. Thepetition was organized by the Royal family and the three big sects so the reward would be no joke.
"So be it, the first ce will be rewarded with three things, Fifty thousand gold, one storage ring, and one thousand years old blood lotus"
When they heard about the three rewards, the crowd immediately became restless.
"Awesome! Fifty thousand gold! With this amount, the winner don''t even have to cultivate but spend the rest of their life like a king"
"F**k the gold, the Thousand Year old blood lotus is even more precious and valuable. When turned into the Arch pill and consumed, it would cancel the bottleneck between the Body refining and Body strengthening stage! This is a huge reward!"
"The storage ring is not a normal thing either! The storage ring is small and convenient to carry, and it can imprint a person''s soul wave, making it so that only the owner can use it!"
"The second ce will get..."
Celina started to speak but Micheal was not in the mood to listen since he was aiming for the first ce.
"I hope the rewards are worth my time"
The disciples felt like they had just been attacked by a huge hammer when they heard him and looked at his face.
"Brother Ghost, don''t tell me you don''t know the value of these things?"
"Not much"
He was still new to this world so he had no idea what he could do with fifty thousand gold. Obviously, he didn''t care about the space rings, he had the system storage for that and this was the first time he was hearing the name blood lotus.
"Young man, do you really think you can take the first ce in the second round too?"
Elder miles ask doubtfully as Micheal smiled
"I don''t think, Elder, I know I can, I have a reputation to protect, after all"
They saw no fear in his eyes but pride and confidence as the loud boom sounds of war drums appeared again.
Boom boom boom
"Good luck, young man"
"Please be safe, brother Ghost"
Micheal waved at them and went to the fighting stage where Alex was waiting for the participants.
When all the 24 participants were ready, they were now just waiting for Celina''smand and she casually waved her hand as 24 phone-sized marble tes flew out in line. Each te''s back faced each participant.
"Here''s 24 tes, on top of them there is a number from 1 to 12. Choose one randomly. Participants who get the same number will be fighting against each other on the stage." This was the same rule as Gaya said earlier.
"Pray to your god that we don''t pick the same number"
The red-haired youth from before said with an evil smile.
"Who the f**k are you?"
He didn''t even know this guy he was doing his best to get himself killed and Micheal wondered why. Hearing Micheal, a sh of anger appeared in his eyes
"You''ll know soon"
"Aside from the top three, for the rest of you, your sect will reward you individually depending on your results, therefore, everyone has to fight with all of their strength," Adam Kane said loudly.
"Let the fights begin," Celina said as all the participants walked up and chose a te.
Among the 24 participants, Eight from the MorningStar, Six from the Golden Valley, Six from the Silver Moon. In the remaining four, two picked the Morning Star and one joined the Golden Valley. Micheal was the only one who didn''te from any big background and picked the Sunrise sect.
Micheal randomly picked and flipped the te in his hands to see ''six'' was written on it. This means that the other person who had ''six'' on his te would be his opponent, and they would be fighting on the sixth fighting stage.
"Who''s the poor f**ker who got six?"
"The fights will be deathmatches, and the only way to escape death is to surrender. This is a Survival of the fittestpetition, there''s no ce for mercy here, if you have the skill and chance, kill your opponent without giving him or her the chance to surrender"
Most of the crowd frowned hearing Alex but Micheal agreed with him, these cultivators were extremely cruel and ruthless. If the roles were reversed, none of these youngsters would show him mercy or give him the chance to surrender because as far as they were concerned, he''s their enemy. However, the only thing that made him think deeper was Riyan, even though he was a cultivator just like them, he was kind and died saving those children sacrificing his life.
"Well well well, you really have such bad luck!"
Again, Micheal heard that annoying voice of the red-haired youngster and turned his head. He was standing in front of him with the marble te in his hand.
"Number six"
Chapter 31 - Killing Orion
"Hey who''s the other 1? You better run and hide littlemb"
A youngster jumped up onto the first fighting stage and called out his opponent arrogantly. He wore the uniform of the MorningStar and his face was filled with arrogance, but the next second, when he saw who his opponent was, the arrogance disappeared from his face, as he swallowed a mouth full of saliva. He felt like he was going to faint on the spot because the one who justnded in front of him was none other than Victoria Parker from the Golden Valley.
"I surrender!"
He didn''t take much time as he immediately said these words and jumped down from the fighting stage. The speed was even greater than the speed of him jumping up to the stage. Although he seemed arrogant, he knew his limits. Fighting head to head with a powerful prodigy like Vitoria Parker, was no different thanmitting suicide.
On another side, the same happened when Evan rke appeared. His opponent also didn''t dare to fight with him, so he did the logical thing, surrender.
The crowd felt disappointed not seeing Victoria and Evan in action. But their disappointment quickly vanished when theyid their eyes on the sixth stage where Ghost and the red hired youth were facing each other.
"To be honest, you surprised me by reaching the 100th step, but unfortunately you''re going to die today"
This youngster looked extremely arrogant and when Micheal took a closer look at his robe, he noticed a star embroidered on his chest, the symbol of MorningStar. His red hair fluttered in the wind as he radiated a powerful Body refining stage Level 4 cultivation level.
"Brother Orion, please don''t! We saw him massacre the entire blood and bone sect and burn their disciples alive!"
Not far from the fighting stage, someone shouted out loud, and when Micheal looked in the direction of the voice to see the group of Morning Stars he had met earlier.
"No one takes what''s mine, now I will make an example out of him to let the world know what would happen if they take what''s belongs to me, Orion Kesher "
"Human, he must be the person left the mark on the quest we took"
Hearing this, Micheal slightly shook his head and started tough which made the crowd wonder why he wasughing. Orion felt offended and frowned looking at himughing.
"Why are youughing?!"
"You really looking to fight me because I took a quest from the guild, are you dumb or something? Listen to your ssmates and surrender, I''ll let you live"
Hisugh stopped and now he looked at him coldly while releasing a slight killing intent around him.
"Brother Ghost is scary!"
One of the female disciples of the Sunrise sect became afraid of him looking at his cold face.
Micheal didn''t hold back, therefore many people in the square heard him loud and clear. The other stages quickly lost their views and everyone turned their gaze towards stage six.
"Do you believe he could have killed them without using any dirty tricks? You believe whatever you want and stand aside, I got this"
With a wave of his hand, Orion stopped ra''s group from saying anything.
Even the four geniuses on the top turned to look at stage six to see what the famous Ghost could really do.
"That good for nothing Ralphy couldn''t even kill a weakling like him, humph, he was nothing but a disgrace to call himself a sect master"
He snorted.
"Senior Orion kill him!"
"That''s right, tear him into pieces!"
Some of the fans of Celina and Alex started to shout loudly and fanned Orion''s arrogance. They didn''t believe that a Body refining stage level 5 cultivator like Orion can''t kill the one who is only at level 1.
ra felt uneasy in her mind because she had already witnessed his terrifying power before.
"DIE!"
In front of Micheal, Orion shouted as loudly as he could. Orion dashed at him with a silver sword in his hand while magical symbols appeared around the sword to enhance its power.
Swooosh!
"Kill this f**ker human!"
Yet before Orion coulde closer, the crowd saw Ghost''s body turn into a
bolt of lightning and disappear from Orion''s view. But in a sh, he appeared behind Orion, and from his fingertip, a blue lightning bolt shot through Orion''s forehead.
Ssh!
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body refining stage, level 5 cultivator. The reward is 4000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
The next moment, Orion dropped on the ground with a hole right between his eyes. The youngster who acted so high and might a moment ago did not have a chance to scream and lying on the ground dead. A puff of smoke wasing out of Orion''s wound and his eyes were still wide open, as a terrified expression could be seen on his face.
This scene terrified everyone and sent a cold chill through their spine. Killings like this on heaven''s gatepetition was a usual thing and the crowd didn''t fear the blood and deaths. However, what terrified them was how the Ghost killed Orion. He was quick as lightning and Oriond didn''t even get the chance to raise his sword at him or defend himself.
"Dumb f**ker"
Gaya sighed and cursed looking at his dead body. The loud shout was the only thing he did on the fighting stage.
Orion didn''t even have a chance at attacking, he didn''t even have the time to show hisbat skill andbat weapon. The loud shout was his only performance on the fighting stage.
Micheal''s face showed an expression of indifference and he didn''t even take a look at the dead body lying on the ground. Neglecting the thousands of shocked eyes on him, he jumped down from the fighting stage. He made living by assassinating people and killing Orion didn''t feel any different.
Micheal even gave him the chance to surrender and his ssmates told him not to fight, but he ignored all of them because of his arrogance and paid the price with his life.
"Holy shit! What just happened?! How could he be so fast?!"
" This is too shocking, just how powerful is the Ghost, he killed someone who was four levels higher than him!"
"He killed him like swatting a bug"
"That Orion kid should have surrendered"
"Did you guys see that?! The Ghost didn''t even blink his eyes when he killed, he''s actually looking down on the Morningstar Sect! Just with his attitude and courage alone, he has my respect!"
Everybody was still shocked, and the square was once again in uproar. Only ra and her group knew the oue a hundred percent sure. The fear and respect towards the Ghost had once again risen everyone''s hearts.
"Thank god that bullying son of a bitch is dead"
"Yeah I too secretly wanted him to die"
"Damn it! He killed one of us!"
Some of them from the MorningStar looked relieved while some of them looked pissed off. But many of them were looking at Evan rke, their ultimate hope and the trump card in their sleeve.
"I want him to be matched with Evan! I bet Evan will beat him inbat"
"That''s for sure! Withstanding pressure and fighting head to head is entirely two different things"
Evan rke was the representative of the MorningStar sect in thispetition and his abilities were extraordinary, unlike Orion.
After a few minutes, the first round came to an end. 12 participants had been eliminated, and the remaining 12 would continue fighting.
Just like before, they would draw tes and fight the ones who picked the same number as them.
Again Victoria Parker and Evan rke were having a field day as their opponents surrendered the moment they saw them. On the other hand, Hannah Berry and N Reid from the SilverMoon fought with the disciples of Golden Valley and killed them by beheading them without a second thought.
This time, When Micheal came to his fighting stage, he saw a level 4 Body refining stage youth standing before him. But the moment he saw him, he took a few steps back and threw his sword on the ground.
"I surrender"
After he said that, he turned around and jumped off the fighting stage. He just witnessed Orion who was a level higher than him getting killed in a second, so the youth didn''t dare to fight the Ghost. Looking at him retreating, he didn''t make fun of him or do anything but jumped off the stage.
After the second round, there were only 6 people left. Evan rke from the MorningStar, Victoria Parker, and another girl from the Golden Valley, Hannah Berry, and N Reid from the SilverMoon and the Ghost from Sunrise Sect.
The crowd felt goosebumps looking at the six of them because no matter how they paired with, it would be a battle worth watching.
"Let the fighting continue."
Celina said in a strict manner as she waved her hand and threw out another six tes again. This time, Micheal''s opponent was none other than N Reid from the SilverMoon, a prodigy.
Unlike before, the three fights didn''t happen simultaneously. And surprisingly, Victoria Parker and the girl from her sect chose the same number which resulted in the girl surrendering to Victoria. The crowd was disappointed but it was not something they weren''t expecting either. But they didn''t expect Hannah Berry to surrender to Evan rke which was a huge bummer to the crowd as they started to boo at Hannah Berry.
Chapter 32 - Final Fight I
Because of the two previous bummers, Micheal''s and N Reid''s fight had be the center of attention during this third round. Everyone''s gaze was on Micheal and N Reid. A fight between these two, who would be thest one standing? Even Evan rke and Victoria Parker were watching this with serious expressions. They all wished to know more about his abilities.
Under everyone''s gaze, two figures simultaneously jumped onto the third fighting stage, these two were Micheal who was dressed full ck and N Reid who was wearing leather trousers and a blue long fur coat.
"Who do you guys think will win?"
" it is hard to say who will win. We don''t know the extent of Ghost''s power and we have only seen him fight once"
"It''s indeed hard to tell, but N''s seduction skill is unparalleled. Her''s Seduction Skill and her ability to confuse someone''s mind is not something to take lightly"
On the fighting stage, Micheal stood opposite N. Her body was soft and curvy, she had a perfect muscle to fat ratio and a perfect structure. A pair of blue eyes checked out Micheal and scanned his body from bottom to the top.
[Warning! The opponent is trying to attack the host telepathically! Firewall activated!]
The firewall he bought to prevent Gaya from trying anything funny when she merged with him now stopped N.
[Does the host wish to eliminate the intruder or punish the intruder?]
"AH!"
Suddenly the people were startled to hear N''s scream as they saw a golden light shot out from Ghost''s eyes at N.
"What''s wrong?!"
"What happened?!"
The disciples of the Sunrise sect were confused and looking at N''s body as blood started to pour out of her eyes, nose, and mouth.
"AH!"
The crowd and the youngster became extremely shocked because he didn''t even raise a finger against her but she seemed to be in agony. Even the celebrity disciples had no idea what kind of spell he just used.
"What did he do?!"
"Oh my god!"
Another turmoil appeared in the square. Many of the people couldn''t understand the reason behind N''s agony and scream.
Just as she was screaming and rolling on the ground, Micheal slowly started to walk towards her.
"Human, what did you do?"
"Look at her carefully Gaya, if someone tried to mess with my mind, this is the result"
Gaya felt extremely afraid as she was d she didn''t try to do anything after he nearly killed her in the tavern room.
"Is he going to kill her?"
"Why is she not surrendering?!"
Sadie and the rest of the SilverMoon girls were looking and shouting at N as Micheal grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up. She was shaking and trying tond her feet on the ground but he lifted her higher with just one hand and on the other hand, the lighting cracks started to appear.
Bzzzzhhh
"Did you really think you could y with my mind?"
He asked coldly as she kept gasping for air
"Ghost, DONT!"
From standing on the top, Sadie shouted at Micheal fearing that he would kill her junior in cold blood.
"N! Surrender!"
"Give me one reason why shouldn''t I kill her"
"Human, what are you doing?"
Gaya knew it was not his style negotiating without killing her.
"I...will pay you"
Sadie remembered that Orion said Ghost took his quest and one would only take a quest from the guild for one reason, coins.
"I''m listening"
"Is he for real? He''s making a deal, on the fighting stage!"
Sadie was relieved to hear him
"Five thousand gold"
Now the crowd gasped for air hearing the amount as Micheal let out a small smile.
"Make it ten"
"How Dare you turn thispeti"
"Shut up Alex!"
Alex couldn''t bear to see these two turn this prestigiouspetition and fighting stage into a marketce but Sadie was not in the mood to take shit from Alex.
"Deal, now please let her go!"
It was not his style to let someone go after they tried to kill him but when he was about to kill her, the system warned him and rmended him to reconsider. It was the first time the system warned him like that and he also realized why the system warned him because killing N Reid would surely piss off the people of SilverMoon, especially Sadie and he was not strong enough to take on her or SilverMoon.
So he chose to use N to earn some money and the favor of Sadie because he had already messed with MorningStar and it would be good to have an alley behind him until he became stronger.
"Alright, a deal''s a deal"
As he said, he threw N towards the SilverMoon girls and Hannah Berry was there to catch her friend.
"N, are you alright?"
She was still coughing blood and trying to gasp for air.
Slowly with time, the blood flowing out of her nose and ears stopped but her face still looked frightened and pale. When shended on the fighting stage, she had immediately applied her seduction Skill on Ghost and tried to confuse him. But, she had never expected that her Seduction skill would not affect him. Not only his mental capacity was beyond her imagination but also her telepathic attack bacshed and almost took her life.
"Thank you"
N said looking at Sadie gratefully. She had already witnessed Ghost''s approach. He was not someone who would show mercy just because she was a girl. There was no doubt in her mind that if it wasn''t for Saide, he would have killed her.
"You''ve done me a great favor by sparing my junior, Ghost, if there''s anything you require my help, feel free to ask me"
Sadieughed as she said standing on the top. Her words were meant to openly seduce him.
"Lucky bastard!"
Some of the disciples from the sects cursed him looking at the way she talked to him. She was being flirty and if he wanted, he could spend the night with her alone.
However, Micheal just nodded with an uninterested smile. Compared to Gaya, these women from the SilverMoon are just some run of the mill girls.
With this battle, the finalists had been revealed and the crowd erupted in cheers for the uing fights. Until now, Victoria and Evan hadn''t fought a single battle, all of their opponents had given up before even attempting to fight.
Only Micheal, the dark horse was the treat for their eyes as he kept their spirit up without boring them. Every time he appeared on the battle stage, with his charisma and power, he would treat them with a memorable battle.
Nobody had expected him to be that strong as there was not much known about his strength previously. He had won all of his battles and after seeing his battle power, they even doubted that Evan and Victoria could defeat him because he seemed extremely powerful for a level 1 Body refining stage warrior.
"Final fight will be between Ghost vs Evan rke vs Victoria Parker" Announced Celina and just by hearing the names, the crowd felt goosebumps all over their bodies. The crowd was sure that these three would definitely fight each other without surrendering.
"Hey, do you think Ghost can defeat them?"
"I think Evan and Victoria would try to eliminate him before they fight each other, after all, if Ghost won the final, it would bring shame to both the sects"
"You''re overestimating the new guy, he''s just a level 1 cultivator while Evan and Victoria both are level 8, it''s not a small difference, is it?"
They wanted to see how Ghost wouldst against Victoria and Evan. But whoever wins thepetition, this would surely be a great battle to watch.
"The final will begin in ten minutes on the battle stage one"
Victoria and Evan were surrounded by their ssmates discussing their strategy while Micheal rxedly came to where the Sunrise people were standing.
"Brother Ghost!"
The girls and boys of Sunrise sect felt more attached to him due to his easy-going behavior while the Elders too slowly started toe to an understanding that he''s now a disciple of their sect.
"Young man, what''s your real name? Where did youe from? A genius like you can''t be a nobody"
Reaching the 100th step and defeating a genius like N without evenying a finger on her wasn''t something a normal person could do. With his low-level cultivation, it should have been impossible but the youngster before them did just that.
Hearing Elder Sandra''s question, Micheal smiled
"I don''t have a real name, I came from a very distantnd, and back there, people used to call me Ghost, so it became my real name"
Since he had to put on various disguises and lie constantly to reach his target, Micheal was very proficient at lying and because of that, the elders couldn''t see any signs of him lying as they believed everything he just said.
"What you just did, making a deal on the battle stage"
Elder Miles frowned thinking what he did was dishonorable but Micheal waved his hand
"Does this old dog want us to go to war with Silver Moon?"
Gaya was not happy with Elder Miles''s question as she shouted in Micheal''s mind.
"Elder, I think there''s a fine line between courage and stupidity, That SilverMoon girl is a genius, and killing a genius is not as simple as killing a normal disciple. If I killed her, not only they would have attempted to take revenge on me but also they would have attacked our whole sect, that won''t be a favorable situation for us, would it?
"He''s right, Elder Miles, we can''t afford to offend these people"
ire said as the other elders and the disciples nodded their heads.
"But how do you n to face Evan and rke? They won''t be easy as N and as you have said, you can''t kill them"
"I just beat the crap out of them, easy peasy"
Even though by now they had realized he''s a freak of nature, looking at him talk without a worry about the uing battle still shocked them.
"Young man, don''t be too cocky, I''ve seen them fight, they are extremely talented and have many powerful spells under in their arsenal"
"Elder, trust me, they can''t eveny a finger on me"
Chapter 33 - Final Fight II
If someone else had said this, they would have burst intoughter and knocked him on the head, but when ites to this freak of nature, they could not tell that he will lose to Evan and Victoria.
"For thest battle, the three remaining participants will step onto stage one. Thest one remaining on stage will be the winner, the battle will begin in a minute"
"Alright, it''s time to show them who''s the new boss here"
Micheal brushed away the dust on his shoulder and turned around to go to the battle stage. When he was about to take a step forward, someone grabbed him by his hand and he turned and saw the worried face of the sect leader ire.
"All the best"
If he could win the tournament and give the rewards to the sect, she could settle a portion of the debt to the debt collectors and buy some of theirnds back. With Ghost, they now had the chance to survive without closing their gates.
"Thank you, Sect Leader"
He patted the sect leader''s soft hands and smiled. Evan and Victoria were already on their way to the stage and the crowd was waiting for him.
While his ck robes and hair were fluttering in the wind, he walked towards the stage andnded on the stage with a simple leap.
Looking at the two stars of the younger generation and the dark horse of this tournament, the crowd was really excited.
Thest battle was finally going to start. Victoria''s strength was obviously incredible. And Evan was just as powerful as Victoria and when these two were fighting, their fight became more than a battle between two individuals as their fight would represent the sh of two big sects. And finally, there was the dark horse, Ghost who seemed extremely powerful and a freak. After seeing what he could do, no one underestimated him looking at his low-level cultivation.
"Step down, you two can''t defeat me," said Victoria suddenly in an extremely arrogant way, she looked like she was showing disdain for everything and everyone.
"Don''t be too arrogant, Victoria" Evan calmly replied to her.
"You never learn," said Victoria and closed her eyes for a moment. Immediately after, a gigantic golden phoenix made of Arch Energy had appeared behind her back. The phoenix looked like a holographic image but only more realistic and majestic.
"It must be the ming phoenix spell of the Golden valley"
"She learned it!"
"They said the spell can only be learned by someone who is worthy!"
People muttered and stared at Victoria with a dumbstruck look on their faces and even Evan was startled to see the powering from the phoenix.
"She definitely deserves to be called the Princess of Golden Valley. She learned the ming phoenix and it looks so strong and powerful"? The crowd was trembling but suddenly a blue light radiated from Evan''s body. On his back appeared a White tiger and then, the holographic tiger roared and trembled the entire area with its might.
"Cool," Micheal couldn''t help but be impressed by the spells cast by these two as he felt like he was watching a magic show from a front-row seat.
"The majestic tiger!"
"It must be an ancient spell, I can even feel the power the tiger is radiating!"
"This is worth the trip!"
"Evan is so strong. I still can''t predict who would win this fight" ?Many people were filled with emotion when they saw how strong Evan was and how beautiful Victoria was. They were filled with admiration and worship looking at these two. And since the crowd was mostlyposed of men, Victoria drew most of their attention with her beauty. Not only was she extremely gorgeous but she was also extremely talented. They were very excited to see how she would develop and what other powers she would show in the future.
" She''s extremely powerful and has the ming phoenix. With that spell, she would be almost invincible"
"I''m not sure. Evan hasn''t revealed his full strength yet, so it is impossible to judge"
"Hey don''t forget about the Ghost, my guts tell me that he would win this thing"
Everybody was giving their own opinion about who was going to win or lose. But many of them thought that it''s either Victoria or Evan. Only a few of them thought Ghost had a chance to win. ?Even if he was now regarded as someone extremely powerful, the crowd still thought that there were only two people who had a chance to win within the three remaining participants.
Two amazing and mighty cultivators of Bredia Kingdom: Victoria Parker and Evan. On the other side, a mysterious yet powerful youngster. ?The three of them were on the stage, each of them standing in a triangle formation as Victoria was staring at Evan from the beginning. Evan was also continuously staring at her. ?They were staring at each other as if they were fighting a one-on-one battle.
While they were engaged in a staring contest, Micheal seemed very rxed thinking about which skill to invest his badass points after upgrading his cultivation.
After a while, Victoria''s attention was finally drawn away from Evan. She had an arrogant smile on her face. ?"You''re somewhat okay, if you wish, you can leave that lowly sect and join us, the Golden Valley. If you do so, I can personally help you with cultivation once in a while." ?Victoria had a huge smile on her face. She lookedpletely arrogant, she didn''t do it on purpose, but could not hide the arrogance which had been engraved into her very soul.
Micheal didn''t like her calling the Sunrise Sect as lowly becausepared to them, they taught humanity to their students. Even though he was not a saint to preach about humanity, he was not that bad to watch innocent people get massacred without raising a finger.
In a world that was as cruel as this one, he started to value kindness andpassion more and more.
"You¡ want to help me in cultivation?" he hid his true emotions and asked. This girl seemed to have considered her as the world''s best andpletely arrogant down to thest fiber of her being, as expected.
"Indeed, I, personally, can help you in cultivation," said Victoria who didn''t know what he really meant. She even thought that he was feeling very honored.
"you have to understand that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don''t usually take on mentoring programs but for you, I can make an exception"
"Can we kill this bitch now, human?"
Victoria''s arrogance nauseated Gaya and she couldn''t wait to see him teach this arrogant girl a lesson.
Yet, Victoria''s proposition was really tempting tomon people, many ordinary cultivators would have dreamt of being offered such an opportunity. To have a mentor not only as powerful as she but also pretty and sexy, was simply a dreame true for many disciples of Golden valley.
"Imagine Victoriaing to my room to teach me..."
"Dude, you''re drooling"
"Lucky bastard getting such offers from two of my dream girls!"
Many people in the crowd envied Micheal so much and were looking on with eyes full of jealousy. But for Micheal, she was just a joke since he has the best mentor in the world, the system, and besides he already has an arrogant snake to deal with and didn''t want another one.
"Uh-huh, I should feel honored?" he asked in a joking and teasing tone. She still failed to realize his sarcasm, unlike Evan.
"Why wouldn''t you feel that way?" asked Victoria with a smaller smile on her face than before.
"I pass, you''re not good enough to teach me how to cultivate or, anything for that matter"
The moment these words left his mouth, the whole stadium went dead silent and in Evan''s eyes, he looked far more arrogant and narcissistic than Victoria. After hearing him, her face reddened in anger as she started to tremble in anger.
"How dare you!" Victoria shouted extremely aggressively in an ice-cold tone.
"Can we just fight and get this over with?"
Micheal shook his head without minding her throwing a temper tantrum and asked Evan.
" Who do you think you are? Today I will break your arrogance and your body," the ming phoenix behind her opened its mouth and breathed a stream of illusionary fire. And then immediately, her entire body was covered with a magnificent golden light looking like rays of the sun. This magnificent view stunned the eyes of the people in the crowd.
"ming Phoenix, how awesome!" said the crowd, amazed. At that moment, Victoria''s body looked majestic and radiated a divine aura around her.
"Evan rke, I will defeat you first and show who''s the real genius of our generation." her long hair was fluttering in the air and coupled with the golden aura which had surrounded her body. The eyes of the crowd sparkled at the sight of her.
"And then I will deal with you"
She didn''t even look at Micheal as now all of her focus was on Evan and the white tiger.
"Might of Phoenix"
"Supreme p"
She made an incredibly loud noise as Evan saw that she was about to attack, he did the same and started an attack with a loud shout. He didn''t think that his majestic tiger spell was going to be weaker than her ming phoenix spell.
However, when they were both going to be at each other''s throats, a bolt of lightning passed right between them breaking their confrontation.
"You two should attack me at once, I don''t want the people to think that I only beat you because you two wasted all your energy fighting each other"
"Human, what the f**k are you doing? Let them fight each other and then we can beat thest one standing"
For a moment, everyone in the stadium stopped moving and looked like statues hearing him. Logically speaking, he should have let Evan and Victoria fight first and tried to defeat the one standing because thest one standing would have wasted most of their strength defeating the other and wouldn''t have much strength to fight him.
Yet, he stopped them and asked them to attack him together and they looked at him like they were looking at the dumbest person on the.
"You''re the weirdest human I''ve ever met!"
***************
HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY WONDERFUL READERS!!!!
I MUST TELL YOU THAT YOU GUYS & GALS ARE THE BEST!!!
HAVE A PIECE OF YUMMY CAKE AND HOT CHOCOLATE
MICHEAL & GAYA WILL MEET YOU MORE OFTEN FROM JANUARY!!!
PS>>>>>>DON''T FORGET TO AND SUPPORT MY HARD WORK!!
Chapter 34 - Final Fight III
"Hahaha, are you kidding me? I started to respect you when you step on the 100th step, but it seems like you let that get to your head and turned into more like her, with your level, you''ll never be able to withstand any of my attacks" Evan rke sneered at Micheal and looked offended by him when he asked to attack him together.
"Really?" he asked indifferently and noticed the white tiger behind him growing bigger and bigger. The power the white tiger radiated made the people watching the scene shiver, but he was pretty calm and cool.
Sensing the colossal oppressing straighting from the White tiger, Victoria waited to see how Ghost was going to defend himself and until now he didn''t take his weapon out.
"Wrath of Tiger"
Evan shouted and punched the air in the direction where Micheal is standing as the tiger leaped at him.
"Lightning dash"
Looking at the tigering in his direction, he calmly activated the lightning dash skill and moved towards Evan like a lightning bolt. The lightning dash skill reminded him of the famous Dc character sh as the skill made him the sh of this world. Although he couldn''tpare to the actual speed of sh, the level 1 lightning dash made him run at an insane speed as many people could only see a bolt of lightning whenever he activated the skill.
In a few seconds, after he disappeared from where he was standing, the tiger''s gigantic paw hit the ce and emitted an extremely loud explosion.
"BOOOOOOM!"
Evan rke''s facial expression immediately changed as he sensed he struck nothing but the empty ground and felt a mild pain on his throat like he was bitten by an ant.
"What happened?"
"How is he still alive?"
When the white tiger''s figure faded away after the attack, the crowd saw Ghost was still standing there without realizing that he had already moved and attacked Evan.
When Micheal saw that Evan rke Hao had a bewildered look on his face, he said while smiling coldly, "You lost"
The crowd was confused when he said that but Victoria and Evan realized the meaning of his word.
"I..."
A small cut on Evan''s throat started to be visible and blood leaked out from his throat. If the cut was a few more inches deep, he would have died, and thinking about this, he shuddered in fear.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 badass points]
Celina and the three prodigies standing on the top saw what happened more clearly than Victoria and the crowd due to their higher cultivation level. They knew that Evan''s reaction speed was much slower and if Ghost wanted to kill him, he would have killed him.
"I lost"
After realizing that Ghost spared his life, Evan admitted the loss right away with dignity and jumped down the stage without looking at anyone. Micheal could only sigh in his heart as he just lost a huge amount of experience due to the system''s warning about killing Evan.
And Evan admitting his defeat right away was a little anticlimactic for him because Micheal had thought he would admit arrogantly and refuse to back down which could have resulted in more fight and more badass points.
"Why did he say he lost?"
"What did I miss?"
"Idiot, look at his throat, can you see he was bleeding and who do you think could have done that?"
The crowd slowly started to guess what happened when they noticed the blood leaking out of Evan''s throat and swallowed a mouth full of saliva looking at Ghost.
"How fast!"
"What kind of spell did he use?"
They used to think that even though Micheal proved himself in the battle with Orion, most of them still didn''t think he would be stronger than Evan and Victoria in terms of actual battle prowess.
However, at this moment, they really thought that he was stronger than both of them.
Elder Miles and the people of the Sunrise sect were also watching Micheal and started to think very highly of him. They had thought that Micheal wasn''t that strong before but after seeing what just happened to Evan, they realized how ignorant they had been.
"Even though we don''t know him well, he''s obviously a real genius. He must have been gifted ever since his birth. With him as our disciple, we really have a shot at reviving our sect again" First time in a long time Elder Mark breathed a sigh of relief and he really believed they could use him to revive their declined sect.
"You rely on your speed too much, and if you think you can do the same thing you did to Evan, you are going to be disappointed"
Victoria sounded arrogant and self-confident again. She had recovered from her previous emotions. Relying on her rare ming phoenix spell and a defense spell, she tried to break Micheal''s confidence.
"Speed? I don''t need to rely on the speed to defeat you, you''re thinking yourself too highly"
Just as everyone was thinking he would do the same to Victoria, he raised both hands as several bolts of lightning and a huge st of wind appeared in front of him.
"me of phoenix"
Victoria''s pupils were suddenly dted as she quickly shouted. The phoenix above her breathed a hot stream of fire and shed with his lightning bolts and wind st.
But when the fire met the wind st, it was pushed away from him and put off in a few seconds. As for the lightning bolts, it didn''t even slow down a bit as it went straight through the mes and hit her body with enormous power. The moment the lightning bolts plus the remnant force of the wind st and the goldenyer of defense she had around her body shed, a thunderous roar spread throughout the stadium.
"BOOOM!"
Victoria groaned as she was already blown backward and looked extremely fragile and weak. She slid back to the edge of the fighting stage. One more step backward and she would have fallen off.
At that moment, the crowd didn''t know what was going on anymore, they were too confused. Micheal had astonished them too many times.
Each time Micheal moved, they found him amazing, but each time, they also realized they had been underestimating him. It seemed like his strength was ever-increasing. None of them couldn''t guess the depth of his powers. At this exact moment, he bested two of the superstars of the younger generations quickly and easily.
They remembered how they had thought that either Evan rke or Victoria Parker was definitely going to win thispetition and had put no one else in their eyes.
The crowd was not the only one to think that way. Alex and Celina, but especially thetter, when she first met him, he was such a weakling and never even reached the Body refining stage. He was barely able to escape her using some weird spell, at that point, she only thought he obtained these spells through luck. When he was put up to fight with Evan and Victoria, she had never imagined that he would easily beat them.
"What a freak of nature"
Sadie''s eyes widened looking at him and she was d that he made a deal to save her junior considering even Evan and Victoria were defeated so easily by him.
"Do you still think you have the talent to teach me?" said Micheal while walking towards her as he tantly humiliated her. Micheal was filled with annoyance because of this arrogant girl''s behavior but what enraged Micheal the most was, that this girl didn''t show a shred of respect towards anyone. In her mind, she thought she was superior to everyone and expected others to worship and respect her. He couldn''t stand this arrogant and haughty girl who didn''t even withstand a single attack from him.
For the first time in her entire life, she was starting to feel ashamed of herself when she remembered what she had said. She felt like she was made a clown in front of all these people.
"Join your sect, meet you now and then, who do you think you are? What made you think that I would ever want to meet you?"
Micheal continued to talk and made her understand how ridiculous she was and that she had no right to be arrogant. Victoria had the feeling that her face was burning. She had no words to speak to refute back at him.
The crowd hadn''t been so excited as at that moment. He gradually was showing more and more strength, he was gradually bing more and more awesome. At first, he shocked the entire stage by stepping on the 100th step and creating a new record, and now, he had bested the two prodigies without breaking a sweat.
"There''s a fine line between arrogance and confidence, think about it"
The crowds looked forward to what he was going to do as he stepped closer to Victoria and stood only a step away from her.
"Ah!"
Just like in the movies, Micheal Sparta kicked her on the chest and sent her flinging from the stage.
"Sister Victoria!"
The disciples from the Golden Valley boys and girls rushed at her and caught her without letting her hit the ground.
"He won!"
"He WON!"
"GHOST!"
The crowd erupted in cheers and filled the stadium with the sound of their thunderous ps as Micheal stood there alone on the battle stage.
The four prodigies from the top saw Victoria''s unconscious body and sighed because this was the first time the rewards were going to another sect other than their three big sects.
"Brother Ghost won!"
"Sect leader ire, Elders, he won!"
Just as the disciples of the Sunrise sect became excited, they saw Celine throwing a small ring to Ghost from standing on the top.
"The rewards are in the space ring"
After she said that, she and Alex didn''t evene down as they flew away on their flying swords while Adam nodded at him and left with them.
The only person who came down to the stage was Sadie
"The gold coins of our little deal are also in that space ring, keep it safe and congrattions on your victory, Ghost"
"Thank you, Miss Kan, see youter, after all this, I need a long nap"
He was obviously the biggest winner of thispetition, an unknown rogue cultivator who appeared as a dark horse, defeating all the disciples from the three big sects and taking first ce in the first round as well as the second round. He had now be truly famous and the name Ghost would soon be spread across the entire Bredia kingdom, and everyone would know his name.
"Congrattions to master Ghost for taking first ce in Heaven''s gatepetition, We''ll be leaving first but if the master Ghost has time in the future, you''re always wee to visit the SilverMoon and we will personally give you a VIP treatment"
Hannah Berry let out an alluring smile and started to flirt with him.
"This bitch disgusts me!"
Gaya shouted angrily and the way she shouted was definitely not the way she shouts at Micheal.
As she said, she and the rest of the SilverMoon students left the square and considering he did not belong to the three big sects, none of the disciples from the three sects remained any longer.
Please join my discord server to share your ideas and thoughts(also you get to see Micheal and the characters'' photos
~~
https://discord.gg/zTgYV9x7gZ
Chapter 35 - We Can Cuddle
At the end of it all, only the people from the Sunrise sect were still staying.
"Brother Ghost! You really did it"
Compared to the boys, the girls were more excited as they surrounded him like the ants around the sugar.
Elder Mark put his hand on Micheal''s shoulder and gave a nod of appreciation.
"System, transfer Thirty-five thousand gold from the ring to the storage"
[Ding! Transfer sessful]
"I should give this to you"
After transferring the amount he received from Sadie, he gave the ring to sect leader ire. At first, she looked reluctant to take the ring but after looking at the other elders, she took the ring from him.
"No offense but just don''t ask me to wear these orange uniforms because those are fugly "
Haha...
All the disciples from the sect burst intoughter hearing him because they themselves knew the orange uniforms were far too ugly and it was good to hear someone openly saying this to the elders. Since the elders were in a good mood, they tooughed and the atmosphere became very lively.
"First, we should return to the sect and settle some of our debt"
Elder Sandra sighed.
*************************
At the moment, Micheal was following the elders to the sect through a rural road and his ck robes had a tint of brown due to the dust.
"Brother Ghost, you never told us where you came from?"
One of the girls asked him curiously.
"Well, since I was born, I never stayed in the same ce for long, I like to travel, so I can''t give a direct answer to your question"
"What about your parents, Brother Ghost?"
"I don''t have any"
Even though he answered this question too many times while he was growing up, it still hurt him to say it again. A sudden change appeared in their faces when they heard him.
"I''m sorry, Brother Ghost"
"Don''t be, it''s alright"
His gentle smile made the girl quickly forget about this and because of his easy-going behavior, they feltfortable around him and established a good rtionship with him.
"Young man, then how did you cultivate to this point? Those spells you used looked extremely rare and precious" Elder Miled joined the conversation and asked.
"As I said, Elder Mark, I traveled a lot, met many people, explored many ruins. Since I don''t have anyone to teach me or help me in the cultivation path, I have to do all that not to waste my talents"
"Worry not anymore young man, even though we don''t have many resources to provide you, we can teach you and guide you on the right path"
Elder Mark proudly said as he patted on his back. All disciples of the Sunrise felt proud looking at him, almost putting him on top of this world.
None of them were idiots, especially after witnessing what he was capable of. For such a freak of nature like him, even if he was in the three big sects, he would be amongst the top disciples, and the sect''s management would put a lot of focus on him. Besides, after today''spetition, his name would spread across the Bredia Kingdom, so he was now a superstar of the younger generation.
Since now even the worst of the outer disciples of the three big sects ridicule them and their sect as well as bully them whenever they could. However with him as their core disciple which the elders would surely make him as one, they had the means to walk head high in front of those who mocked them.
"And don''t think that you don''t have a family, young man, as Elder Miles said, we don''t have resources but we treat everyone in our sect as our family and now you have be one of us"
Elder Sandra slightly brushed his head like a mother and smiled at him. For the first time in his long life, his heart felt warm as he smiled.
He had quite a good impression of the people in the sect. They were poor in wealth but very rich in kindness. Although he was once the greatest assassin sh hitman ever lived on the earth, he was a lonely man as he had no family, no friends, no girlfriend, and no one even saw his real face except for his mentor. All he had was his job and a shit load of money in his offshore ounts and affection towards his job.
But in this life, he wanted to change that. He wanted rtives, he wanted a wife, and he wanted some people to rely on and friends. In this life, he simply didn''t want to be lonely.
"We must guide him to reach higher levels of cultivation, Alex and Celina wouldn''t let go of the fact he refused to back down and stood side by side on the top of the stairs"
Elder Mark said worriedly while walking. Everyone''s happy expression turned gloomy, even Elder Miles furrowed his brows.
"Don''t worry about them Elder Mark, it''s just a matter of time before I surpass them and then if they cross my path, I''ll kill them "
He said with a casual smile but the disciples noticed the murderous intent in his eyes and felt a little afraid.
********************
Micheal and the Sunrise sect disciples were talking along the way until they finally reached their destination.
SunRise Sect used to be an extremely prestigious and strong sect several decades ago. It was even more prestigious and powerful than the three big sects at its peak. However, since ire''s grandfather died during one of his adventures and the previous sect Leader, her father disappeared, the entire sect''s prestige fell drastically.
ire relied on her extraordinary innate talents and the scarce amount of resources at her disposal to cultivate up to her current stage. In just a short span of 26 years, she reached the Body refining stage and took the helm of the Sect Leader position after.
The entire SunRise Sect relied heavily on her and the pair of Sect Elders to uphold the entire sect. Their days were difficult and rough and the minute he stepped through the gates of the sect, their poor situation became obvious to his eyes.
Many of the buildings he had seen were broken down and old. It was clear that it had been many years since theirst renovation. Several backyards were full of dried leaves and the numerous cobwebs show how long it''s been uncared for.
During their conversation, the disciples told him that the total number of disciples within the sect was around 30. Next to him, the strongest disciples were at the Foundation stage level 8. And the rest of them were below foundation stage level 5.
Since the sun was almost down and he was pretty tired, sect leader ire gave him their best house with a yard to live in.
At this point, he was already at the first level of the Body refining Stage. But he only needed three or four days to reach level 5 of the Body refining stage with the experience points on hold.
"Brother Ghost, it''s not much but this is the best house we got"
The disciple called Jack led him to an old worn-out house and ording to him, it was their best house.
"If this is their best house, just imagine what the other house would look like, even my maids wouldn''t stay in there"
Gaya growled looking at the dried frontwn and the old house behind it.
Jack looked embarrassed but Michael smiled and gave a small pat on his shoulder.
"Its okay Jack, this is good enough for me"
With a smile and nod, Jack left him on thewn as he sighed and entered the house. The house had a small hall and a room with an attached bathhouse and that was it, there wasn''t even any furniture to sit on except the old bed in the room.
"Look at that, the tour ended before even it begins"
Gaya jumped out of his body and kicked the pebble lying on the ground.
"We can renovate the ceter, but for now"
As he said, he entered the system shop and purchased a huge white sofa, a small-sized golden silk bed along with high-end nkets, and ced them all around the room.
"What the f**k? Where did you get those? You carry these in your space ring everywhere"
Her eyes sparkled looking at the sofa and the bed in front of her. She wanted to jump into the fluffy bed considering it was too long since she everid on a bed.
Before Gaya, he jumped into the bed as an evil grin appeared on his face thinking of a new way to tease her.
"Come on, don''t be shy, the bed is small so we can sleep while cuddling each other, hehe "
"You..."
Gaya became extremely furious and shocked as she stared at him. After stuttering for a few minutes, she couldn''t find a fitting word to curse him.
As a princess and a powerful cultivator of Nagnd, she had never been shamelessly hit on like this before. And what made her even more furious way the way he asked her.
"You f**king f**kery f**ker!"
She leaped at him with mouth open like a wild dog to bite him. Yet, he moved to the side as shended face-first on the bed and when she turned around, he was on top of her.
"YOU!"
She tried to shout but her throat tightened and face turned red because this was the first time she had been this close to a man. She swallowed a mouthful of saliva and looked at his eyes while her heart started to punch against her chest as she could feel the heating from his nose and sense the fragrance of his face.
"What...are...you"
She was powerless and she knew if he wanted to take advantage of her, there was no stopping it.
"Jeez, would it kill you to apply some makeup!?"
As he asked, he moved to the side as she was frozen by hisment for a moment.
"AH!"
Micheal suddenly felt a sharp pain in his hand and looked at his arm to see she was furiously biting it in anger like a little girl.
"Did you at least brush your teeth?"
"I''ll...ka...ll...yo..."
She became even more furious when she heard him and put more strength to bite his hand.
***********************
Michealid down on the bed as he stared out of the window, watching the beautiful moon, and the beautiful girl on the sofa before him. The light from the moon reflected on her figure and made her look extraordinarily beautiful. Even if she tried to dress as a ghost to scare him, it would have been impossible due to how beautiful she is.
"Hey"
"What?"
After what happened on the bed, there was a tint of shyness in her eyes but she masked it with an annoyed expression.
"I''m going to break through, so you have to keep anyone from disrupting my cultivation" Micheal sat upright and said.
"This soon? You just had reached the Body refining stage two days ago!"
She frowned and didn''t believe he could breakthrough again but after spending time with him, she knew this freak of nature might be telling the truth.
"Cultivation is a walk in the park for a talented person like me"
He winked at her. Gaya had never met a more narcissistic self-praising human like him before as he now looked like the definition of pride.
"What can I do? Bite whoeveres knocking? You have to give me something to get back some of my power" For a moment she resembled a sly fox. As for what she meant by something, he knew she wants a healing pill to heal her meridians.
"Here, you greedy snake"
He already bought one pill from the shop as he threw it at her.
"Only one?!"
She growled when she realized he only gave her one pill and at this rate, it would take at least two hundred more pills topletely repair her broken meridians and start cultivating.
"One now and do this sessfully, I''ll give you two pills "
"Four pills"
Gaya raised four fingers and bargained
"Three pills"
"Deal"
She proudly smiled praising her bargaining talent and suddenly she remembered something.
"Why didn''t you ask those old f**kers to do this?"
"I forgot it and it''s toote to knock on their doors"
Chapter 36 - Upgrade (Mini )
And just when he was about to close his eyes and start upgrading his cultivation, he heard Gaya''s shout.
"Human, I just remembered that I can''t show my face to anyone, if someone saw im here, the whole Nagnd army would be here along with that bitch"
"Jeez, I have to take care of everything for you and you didn''t even give me a kiss on the cheek"
Micheal rolled his eyes and said like he was really disappointed with her.
"Stop ying, human! this is serious, you want me to protect you or what"
"System, do you have something for this situation?"
Hearing her dilemma, she sighed and entered the system to see if he could find anything that could solve this problem. And after a few seconds, a marble face mask appeared before his eyes.
Name: Chameleon
ss: Rare
Function: Enable the wearer to change their face to look like someone else
(Cultivators above or at the Soul refining stage would see through the effects of the mask)
Cost: 800 badass points
[Does the host wish to buy the Chameleon?]
[Only the host and the subordinates can use the Chameleon!]
"Yes, I''ll buy it"
Since now he had a lot of badass points to spend, he bought the mask without growling at the system.
"What is that?"
Gaya saw the marble mask in his eyes and frowned but without answering her question, he tossed the mask towards her.
"Wear it"
"But"
The marble mad didn''t look very special but it did look ugly in her eyes, so she was reluctant to wear this ugly thing on her face thinking that he''s asking her to hide her identity by wearing it on her face.
"Just wear the damn thing!"
But before she could make her case, he raised his voice slightly as she decided to put the mask on and curse him afterward.
However, the moment the mask touched her face, it came to life and stuck onto her face as she felt a sharp pain all over her face.
"AH!"
She screamed in pain and tried to peel the mask away from her face but she couldn''t. After a few seconds, the pain disappeared and opened her eyes to see the human was holding a mirror in front of her.
"Now better"
The mask hadpletely changed her face and lowered her beauty by many notches but even then, she looked pretty and hot as she even slightly looked like Margot Robbie with ck hair.
"How?! Where?! Forget it"
Looking at a new face staring back at her in the mirror, she ran her fingers through her face. In her mind, she felt like she could transform back into her old self and wondered where he got such a precious item.
And when she finished looking at her face, he ced his knife on her hands and said
"Use this only if you absolutely have to"
"Okay"
He didn''t want to take any chances and after consuming the pill, she would regain some of her powers and with the Knife, she could hold the fort until he woke up. And settling everything with her, he jumped on the bed and sat crossed legs to start the upgrading process.
"Let''s start"
**********************
Chapter 37 - Gaya As Bodyguard
Early morning mist began to clear as the sun rose casting orange and pink onto a thinyer of cloud. The lively chirping of the early birds filled the air.
"Brother Ghost would have woken by now, I need to hurry"
At this moment, a pair of legs rushed forward hurriedly in the direction of the lone house in the mountain.
He was no one but Jack, the disciple who settled down Michael and Gaya yesterday. Usually, Jack would feel tired if he ran from his dorms to the core disciple house, however, today he felt energetic. The number one genius of his generation now belonged to the Sunrise sect which catapulted their reputation among the sects.
"Why is the door still closed?"
Reaching Micheal''s house, Jack halted his steps to catch his breath and wondered looking at the closed doors.
Knock!
Jack knocked on the door but he was careful not to knock too loudly in case it would disturb Ghost''s cultivation.
"Brother Ghost"
There was no reply from inside as Jack knocked again and this time, he increased the sound of his knocking.
"Brother Ghost"
"Who the fuck is there?"
Jack almost jumped back when an annoyed voice came from inside.
"Huh?!"
A few seconds after his brain processed the voice, he realized the voice sounded feminine and nothing like Ghost.
"Brother Ghost?"
I must have misheard it, that''s what he thought.
Thud!
"Go away!"
Jack heard the same voice again and this time, the voice sounded even more annoyed as he heard something heavy as a stone hitting the door.
"Who is there?!"
Panic and uncertainty hit Jack''s core. He clenched his fist and shouted loudly.
"Fucking idiot, I''m gonna beat your ass for disturbing my sleep!"
Jack quickly stepped back from the door as the door opened to reveal a ck hair girl staring at him furiously.
He had no idea how the girl got in or who was she?
All he knew was Ghost came alone with them yet, there was another girl inside his house.
"Who...are..you?"
The girl didn''t answer him but stared at him while tying her ruffled hair into a ponytail. Nheless, he could tell that the girl is annoyed but he subconsciously rxed seeing that the girl is just amoner and not a cultivator.
"Who the fuck are you?"
"Wait..what?...you!"
Jack couldn''t believe what he had just heard. He never thought a delicately beautiful girl like this would have such a foul mouth.
For a moment, he had no responses as the girl walked towards him.
"Cat got your tongue? Why did you wake me up this early, you little shit? "
Jack was still in shock when Gaya flicked his forehead to make him talk
"Who are you? What are you doing in Brother Ghost''s room?"
After a few seconds, Jack was able to speak these words while caressing his forehead
"Me? I''m your Brother Ghost''s mentor, you ignorant fool"
"Hahahaha"
However, Jack couldn''t help but burst intoughter when he heard the girl. The girl before him spoke these words with a straight face and didn''t even bat an eye speaking such a huge lie. She was shameless beyond words.
How could a mortal girl who is at the Arch sensing stage teach a genius like Ghost? The Arch energy in her body was too weak and even some newborn babies would have more Arch energy inside their bodies than her.
"What the fuck?!"
Gaya didn''t expect such a reaction from this boy, she knew that she had tantly lied but he didn''t have to rub it in her face like this.
"You mentor...Brother Ghost..hahaha, AH!"
Hisughter suddenly turned into a scream as he felt a sharp pain across his butt.
He turned to see the girl holding a long stick in her hand and swinging at him with full force and before he could react, he received another attack
Chit!
"Damn! Stop AH!"
For a girl who had no Arch energy or rather too little energy, her moves were too quick and swift.
In a few seconds, his butt suffered five or six attacks and he started to fiercely stroke his rear disregarding his pride as a man in front of a beautiful girl.
"Stop it! Ouch ouch!"
Gaya wasn''t going to stop beating his ass, no matter how loud he shouted.
"Don''t make ouch...me hit you!"
His eyes already welled up and his butt turned red but still, he was taught not to hit a girl, outside of serious battles and tournaments, especially not a mortal girl like her.
"Hit me and I''ll make Ghost rip your throat out"
"At least AH! Tell me...who you..are"
Since he didn''t want to take any chance by hitting her, Jack did the next best thing, dodge, and ran away from the reach of her stick.
"I told you, I''m his mentor"
"But?"
"What''s going on here?!"
Just as Gaya was chasing Jack around with the stick in her hand, Elder Mark came to the scene.
"Jack, what did you do?"
"I didn''t do anything!"
He shouted and felt extremely wronged here considering this girl kept attacking him with the stick for no reason, he was the victim here, yet, Elder Mark asked what did he do?
"Teacher, I didn''t do anything, I came to bring Brother Ghost to the assembly hall but instead of Brother Ghost, I saw this mortal girling out of the house"
"Mortal? How dare you?!"
She shouted in anger but didn''t try to attack Jack who was hiding behind Elder Mark.
"Girl, who are you?"
"I''m Ghost''s friend"
"Friend?! You said..."
"Let the girl speak Jack"
Jack quickly shut his mouth but he was so angry and shocked seeing the honest expression she made while talking to Elder Mark.
"Where is Ghost?"
Elder Mark however seemed not to care about Jack''s protest as he asked Gaya.
"He''s attempting to break through, he asked me to don''t let anyone disturb him but Jack tried to do exactly that"
"She''s lying!"
"Breakthrough? This soon!"
Elder Mark''s brows almost touched his head when he heard Gaya and forgot about the ruckus that happened between her and Jack a moment ago.
"Yes"
But soon, Elder MArk''s reaction changed from shocked to panic as he tried to rush forward into the house.
"Hey! Stop"
Gaya jumped in front of him and stopped Elder Mark from taking any steps further
"Girl move aside, if he tried to prematurely tried to break through,it will hinder his cultivation in the future, he must first strengthen his cultivation base"
Even after hearing Elder Mark, Gaya didn''t move an inch as she put both her hands on the hip and said.
"I don''t care about that, he asked me to guard him while he''s cultivating, that''s what I''m going to do. Besides, that freak wouldn''t have entered into the breaking through process if he wasn''t sure about this. Leave him be "
"What do you, a mortal girl know about cultivation? Move or I''ll move you"
Elder Mark threatened Gaya as she took out the knife Micheal gave her angrily
"Who the fuck are you talking to? I know more about cultivation than you old fart!"
Chapter 38 - Upgrade Completed
"What did you just call me?" Elder Mark froze in his steps as Jack''s jaw dropped down in shock.
"I said you can''t go in there and disturb Ghost, he strictly ordered me not to let anyone inside" Gaya feared if he failed to breakthrough, Ghost would refuse to give her any more pills, so she stood before Elder Mark like a stone pir refusing to let Elder Mark go inside.
"How am I going to hold this old man back?" She thought to herself while Elder Mark was stunned. If she had her cultivation, she would have sent Elder Mark flying with a single spell but now, she was crippled and the only reason for her body to have a little Arch energy was the pills that Ghost gave her.
"How dare you disrespect my teacher?!" Jack clenched his fist and roared at her.
"Look, he''s deep in cultivation and already started to break through. If you stop him now, it might break his meridians and cripple him, you know that " She reduced the volume of her tone and exined it to Elder MArk before he cast a spell to throw her out of the way. In front of Gaya, when Elder Mark heard her words, he sighed because he knew she was right. Also, he didn''t decide to pursue the matter that she just called him an old fart as he didn''t want to lower himself to argue with the mortal girl with his status as an Elder.
"What''s your name, girl? And how do you know Ghost?" Since he couldn''t stop Ghost''s cultivation, Elder Mark turned his focus to the haughty girl before him and tried to get to know Ghost better.
"Pri..." She almost forgot her ce and introduced herself as Princess but she quickly swallowed the remaining words and cleared her throat.
"I''m called Aelia, I help Ghost in his cultivation by finding him ruins and ces to explore" Her words made Elder Mark slightly raise his brows but when he remembered Ghost''s previous im saying that he explored ruins and ces, what she just said made sense.
"When did youe here? I didn''t see you at thepetition"
"I was in the river town packing our stuff to move here, speaking of the river town, Ghost wanted Jack''s help with something " She slowly turned her gaze from Elder Mark to Jack as Elder Mark asked frowning
"What is it?"
"He asked Jack to go to river town and bring Raylene Agner"
"Who is that?"
"She''s one of the survivors we rescued from the Rosewood vige"
*************************
(After two days)
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Body Refining stage Level 2]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Body Refining stage Level 3]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Body Refining stage Level 4]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Body Refining stage Level 5]
Slowly, the interface appeared before Michael as the darkness that surrounded him since he started to upgrade faded away.
"Finally"
He heaved a sigh of relief looking at the interface as he ordered the system to bring him the status window.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 5
Experience Points: 0/300000
Badass Points: 15000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 2
Environment Scanning - LVL 1
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Be the strongest Predator in the world
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 18%)
[DIng! Host ''Micheal'' has received a lucky draw. Does the Host wish to ess the lucky draw? ]
While he was looking at the refined status window, another notification tab in bright blue appeared before him.
"Lucky Draw? What is that?"
[Every time System goes offline for a while, the system would offer one Lucky draw aspensation for its absence!]
"Cool, I like free stuff, open it"
As he said, the bright blue tab transformed itself into a golden box and then, the box exploded with sparks as it presented three cards wrapped in red ribbon before him.
[The host can choose one item for free. 200,000 badass points will be charged for each additional card!]
"Holy shit! 200,000, are you kidding me?!"
[No]
"It was a rhetorical question, you bastard"
The number made him go mad at the system but he soon calmed himself and inspected the first card. The red ribbon on the first card unwrapped itself and presented a beating heart with descriptions about the card.
Spell name: Seducer
Effect: Make the target instantly fall in love with the host
Upgradable: Yes
Current Level: Can affect anyone under the Core Formation stage
"Seriously?! I don''t need this, system are you ying with me?!"
He was annoyed by the spell and would have punched the system in the face if it had a physical body.
[The spell would be useful if the host wants to build a harem of beautiful maidens!]
"Harem?! It''s a glorified word for cheating and no, I don''t want to go from ce to ce collecting beauties. In every novel I read, harem would just bring the mc more troubles to deal with, so no, I''m not going to build a harem"
Pushing the card away from his view, he opened the second one hoping for something better than the previous one.
[100,000 Experience points]
The second card had no fancy effects such as beating hearts or sparkling pink letters like the previous card rather it looked simple as a card with 100,000 numbers written on it.
"Hmm, tempting, certainly better than the Seducer. Let me see thest one"
The red ribbon wrapping the third and the final card unwrapped itself as the descriptions about the card appeared.
Function name: Banker
Function: Enable the System to convert gold coins into Badass Points
Upgradable: Yes
Current Level: Conversion Rate between Gold coins and Badass points = 1000:1
He blinked in disbelief as his eyes opened wide looking at the card. Then, after a few seconds, his lips curved in an upward arc
"This is it! The one I''ve been waiting for. With this, I can earn badass points more easily"
His joy seeing the card made him ignore the outrageous conversion rate and also, he knew that the system won''t change the rate because he''s whining about it.
"System, I choose this one"
[Ding, The host has sessfully acquired the level 1 Banker]
"Awesome, System how much to upgrade this function to the next level?"
[10,000 Badass points!]
"And the conversion rate will be?"
[1000:5]
"You''re worse than those in the pawnshops, System, you know that right?"
Even though he knew about the System''s habit of taking his badass points faster than it gives him, he couldn''t help but curse the system when he saw the conversion rate for the Level 2 Banker which would cost him 10,000 badass points to upgrade from Level 1.
"Put a lid on the upgrade, first I should find a source of ie. To do that, I might need badass points"
He closed the Lucky draw window and then, he took a final nce at his status window
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 5
Experience Points: 0/300000
Badass Points: 15000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 2
Environment Scanning - LVL 1
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Be the strongest Predator in the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 1 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 1badass point(s))
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 18%)
"Time to rock this world"
He exited the system full of excitement in his heart. At this moment, his next fun-filled adventure started again.
Chapter 39 - Guest Of Sunrise Sect
The bright sun rays made him close his eyes as soon as he opened them.
"It''s great to be back" He turned his head left and right as his neck made a popping sound. Then he brushed away some dust bits on his shoulder and got up from the bed to leave the room.
Hisss! Grrrr!
Ggggrrr!
"What is that noise?" He heard some weird noisesing from outside as he made his way out to see what''s making these weird noises while looking for Gaya.
It didn''t take him long to locate the source of the noise and find Gaya. It turned out his couch was upied by the snake. She was sleeping on the couch like a drunken old man as her one leg was on the couch while the other was on the ground. He could see her knee cups and wide opened mouth, his pillows were drenched in drool. Besides her ungirly posture, there were half licked clean food bowls and cups lying around. He could tell that this snake-filled its belly full of food and drinks before going to sleep on his couch.
"Princess my ass" Looking at the snoring and drooling snake, he sighed.
"Ignitia"
He conjured a tiny bolt of lightning as he sneaked towards her to give her a shock treatment, literally.
Gaya on the other hand had no idea of the iing attack as she was walking towards her throne in the dream.
Bzzhh!
"AHHH!"
And just when she was about to sit on her throne in the dream, she was pulled back from the dream world by a sharp tingling pain in her leg.
"What?! YOU!" She gritted her teeth and quickly rubbed her feet to make the tingling pain go away as Michael chuckled.
"Did you miss me?" Instead of answering, she threw an empty bowl at him in anger as he flicked the bowl away with a smile.
"What the?! You reached the Body Refining, Level 5? How?!" when she took a closer look at him, her mind froze in shock. He just reached the Body refining stage two days ago but now in two days, he leaped from level 1 to level 5.
"It seems like you had a good time" She saw him ncing at the empty bows and cups lying around her. Yet, she was too stunned to say anything
"Come, we have work to do" he didnt wait for her as he walked towards the door and stopped, "And clean your mess," said Micheal before stepping outside.
"Im a princess, you bastard" she mumbled under her breathe but she reluctantly cleaned the bits of food on the couch while cursing him.
"Brother!"
A fluffy ball collided with him the moment he stepped outside as he looked down to see Cindy hugging his leg and trying to climb up on his body.
"Cindy? What are you doing here?" he lifted the girl up and ruffled her head yfully.
"Brother, everyone is here. That kind sister invited us here"
"Who?" Cindy tried to remember the name closing her eyes as he saw the other kids and Raylene came running to him.
"Brother"
"Young master! You''re awake"
In a few seconds, the little kids swarmed him like ants swarm sugar.
"Raylene, what are you guys doing here?"
"Sect leader ire brought us here and offered us a ce here to permemntly settle down, young master"
"She did?" he was genuinely surprised by Raylene''s words as the kids nodded their heads.
"Young master, what should we do?" asked Raylene.
"Brother, please can we stay with you?" the little girl looked at him with puppy eyes while Michael thought about this arrangement.
"It''s indeed better if they stay here," Michael said to himself and then turned his gaze away from Cindy to Raylene.
"Make yourself home, Raylene"
"Yey!" Cindy and the kids hopped in joy as he gave Cindy back to her mother.
"I''ll see you guyster" he then turned towards the house and saw Gaya finally making her appearance.
"Come, let''s go meet the Elders" He took Gaya and walked towards the direction of a group of two-story buildings.
"How long was I cultivating?" On their way, he asked Gaya.
"Three days, you freak of nature. Now give me the pills you promised"
"Deal''s a deal, here, you greedy snake" he already bought and stored the pills in the system''s storage, so he quickly retrieved the pills and gave them to her.
"You''re drooling" he made fun of her as she looked at the pills like a starved dog looking at a piece of meat. She grabbed the pills in a sh and swallowed them with a huge grin.
"You''re happy?"
"Yes, but don''t you have bigger pills?"
"She who is greedy is always in want," he said as he knocked the back of her head.
"Ouch, you bastard, where did you read that, Dumb town?"
"You mean your home town"
"Asshole"
"Bitch"
Two of them fight their way to the Elders'' ce where Michael saw a fancy carriage standing outside. Surrounding the carriage, there were a couple of men who stood guard in light blue metal armor.
"Who are they?" Obviously, Michael knew that neither the carriage nor the guards belonged to the Sunrise sect because the guards and the carriage looked so distinctpared to the worn out buildings and decayed structures of the sect.
"An alchemist''s carriage," Gaya said and pointed at a symbol of two green lives in a silver circle etched onto the carriage''s side. The guards gave them an indifferent look when they saw Michael and Gaya as the two of them entered the building to see what''s happening inside.
This hall they were in was mainly used to receive distinguished guests. Undoubtedly the one inside was a distinguished guest. As Micheal reached inside, he saw a middle-aged man sitting in the hall and drinking tea leisurely. He seemed wealthy because of the high-quality robes, the big red gem on his finger, and the rich aura he was radiating. His cultivation was
however not very higher as he was just at the Body strengthening stage, level 2.
"Lord Hart"
Micheal was surprised to see the Elders calling him as Lord and sitting on the edge of their chairs while the silver-haired man was sitting before them like he owned the ce. The reason for this was very simple. He was a two-star Alchemist and could concoct pills with 15-30% purity. In this world, cultivators were everywhere. But possessing special skills such as alchemical skills and reaching the two-star level was notmon.
Even if one''s cultivation realm was high, it was no guarantee that one would possess special abilities, but with special abilities, it would serve well the path of cultivation. Also, just possessing this profession would definitely heighten one''s status and fame.
"Lord Hart, we need your help to concoct a heart healing pill this time, you don''t need to worry regarding the price." Sect Leader ire walked over with a smile, her attitude was very humble.
The other three elders including Elder Mark and Miles were keeping a small smile on their faces.
Hearing ire, Hart said to them indifferently: "Heart healing pills are not so easy to concoct, and the cost is not low either. I have several conditions for this, if you don''tply, the deal is off."
"What conditions?" ire asked: "As long as it is within our power, we will agree"
"Actually, my conditions are very simple. The first condition is to let my students use your herbal garden" he said.
"Umm¡ ok, no problem." She thought quite hard about it, but considering their herbal garden had almost dried out and only had a few herbs growing there, she agreed to let them use the remaining herbs.
"The second condition, the price of the ingredients for the pills are expensive since you agreed to my first condition, we can continue the negotiation. As for the materials for concocting the pills, my students will buy them but you need to pay for them"
"No problem on that as well, the price of the ingredients is obviously expensive, but I do not know how much you need?"
"Not too much, with my fee, 5000 gold coins is enough" he casually stated an astonishing price.
After they heard it, they were stunned, 5000 gold, this was too expensive!
For a declined sect like theirs, five thousand gold coins were not something they could give just like that.
Chapter 40 - Alchemists
"This price¡ Can you lower it a little?" ire said embarrassedly.
Sunrise sect was not a big organization and it was declined to the point that they would have closed the doors if it wasn''t for Michael. As for the 5000 gold coins, It was not that they didn''t have that much money, but using that much at once would hinder the functional operation.
"This is the lowest price I can offer, Sect Leader ire, I believe you will understand the price of the required ingredients for the pills and the fee of a two-star Alchemist. Buying the pills outside will at least cost you 6000 to 7000 per pill,pared to that, the price I offer is way cheaper."
They were all well aware of their current condition of treasury but they needed those heart-healing pills as soon as possible, so they could only stomach the high rate and ept the price that he asked.
"Well, then, if that is the price you want¡." ire sighed and nodded.
"idiots, he''s clearly ripping them off" Gaya leisurely leaned on the wall and said looking at the Elders and ire.
"Howe?"
"You didn''t notice?" Gaya asked him with a slightly surprised face as he shook his head.
"He''s a two-star Alchemist yet, the price he asked is the price of a three-star Alchemist. And 5000 gold coins are for pills with 45percent purity which is a maximum level a three-star alchemist could reach "
Michael knew about the star levels of special abilities because Abras learned about that stuff but when Michael searched his brain for the prices, he realized that weird enough, Abras didn''t know about the prices of the pills.
"Do you know about the current rate for pills here?"
"Of course I knew, pills concocted by 1-star alchemist is 100 to 200 gold coins, 2-star alchemist 200 to 1000, 3-star alchemist is 1000-5000" She paused for a second and recollected the price for the remaining alchemist levels.
"4-star alchemist''s pills will be 5000-9000 gold coins as for the 5-star alchemist, they would often take artifacts and valuable treasures as a payment rather than gold coins, but if you want to buy a pill concocted buy 5-star alchemist with gold coins, the price will start at 10000"
"What about 6-star Alchemists?" He asked casually even though ording to Abras''s memories, 6-star Alchemists were a myth as no one could surpass the purity level 90%. But because Abras had little to no contact or knew about the outside world, he decided to ask Gaya who seemed to know everything about this world, unlike him or Abras.
"Don''t be stupid human,6-star alchemist doesn''t exist, it''s a myth"
"Hmm," He matched the prices Gaya described and the star level information in his mind when Hart stated hisst condition.
"My final condition is and this is the important one" Hart''s voice trailed as the Elders and Sect leader ire curiously looked at him.
"What is it?" her eyebrow wrinkled as this guy was really putting a lot of conditions.
" I fell in love with someone here so I wonder if she can be my concubine. If she says yes, I will concoct the pills for free!" The Elders'' expression changed drastically upon hearing hisst condition, this was obviously a sweet deal.
Concubines were basically mistresses and it was usual for a man who was rich and had high status in the society to have many concubines.
" I did not expect Lord Hart to make this request, as long as she epts to be your concubine, we do not object," Elder Mark said.
"Concubine my ass, he only wants to have sex with the girl and cast her aside. I know his type " Michael sensed a tinge of disgust in her tone as he curiously looked at Hart to see who that girl is.
"I agree with Elder Mark, as long as she epts to be your concubine, I have no problem, but who is your choice?" ire asked with patience
"It''s you, Sect Leader ire, I want you to be my concubine," Hart said with a smile.
"I knew it!" Gaya almost shouted when she heard him as Michael too raised his brows in surprise. He didn''t intervene as he wanted to hear ire''s answer but he entered into the system''s interface to turn this situation in his favor.
"System, tell me you have a way to make me an Alchemist"
[The System rmends the host to buy the book of Alchemist in the system store]
"If I buy that, what star level would I reach?"
[The host will be able to concoct pills and potions with the purity level 90%]
"So I will be a 5-star Alchemist, wonderful! Now give me the bad news, how much is it?"
[20,000 Badass points only]
He almost spat out blood when he heard the system say only with a tone of a salesperson in the tv ads. However, if he could upgrade the Banker skill to the next level, he could earn 5000 points converting 1million gold coins. And after hearing what Gaya said, a 5-star Alchemist could easily earn more than 1million gold coins. Yet, he didn''t have enough badass points to buy the book and upgrade the Banker skill to the next level.
[If the host wish, the system can give a loan to the host with an interest rate of 10%.The host can settle the loan whenever he could but the system would increase the interest rate by 5% every ten months]
"You can do that? Nevermind, I''ll take the loan. Upgrade my Banker skill to level 2 and buy the book of Alchemist" He ordered the system and prepared himself to endure the sharp pain that would appear in his mind every time he buys a new skill.
Just as he expected, he experienced a sharp tingling pain in his brain. The etched the skill of Alchemy into his brain cells as he slowly became a 5-star Alchemist. And when the pain disappeared, he felt like he could concoct pills as easy as writing and reading.
"I''m going to be so op with my sweet system" heughed heartily and praised the system. Normal people had to learn and work extremely hard to master the Alchemy skills but he became a 5-star Alchemist in a few seconds.
"Why are you smiling?" He still had a grin on his face when he exited the system and seeing the smile on his face, Gaya asked.
On the other side, ire''s body went rigid after Hart''s request. Her sect only had girls who belong to poor families, so if any one of those girls got an offer like this, their life status would be catapulted to the next level. However, she was a born noble and a sect leader, for her to be a concubine, it would be a disgrace to her family and herself.
"No, I''m sorry Lord Hart but I can''tply with your request" ire looked at him and immediately shook her head to refuse.
After this refusal, Hart''s face was twisted to a frown. He considered himself a talented Alchemist and his future achievements were limitless. He did not expect that she, a sect leader of a declined sect did not even consider his proposal and straight-up refused him.
"I am a two-star Alchemist. You''ll have a better life as my concubine than as a sect leader of this decayed sect. I will reach the 3-star in the future" his eyes were full of resentment.
"Thank you for your kindness Lord Hart, but I don''t want to be anyone''s concubine. I hope you can understand that and I''m sure there are other women who would be willing to be your concubine" even though her sect was declined, it was still her sect and she resented him for calling her sect decayed. But still, she wouldn''t show her true emotions as they needed the heart healing pills, because of that, she felt extremely helpless and the helplessness in her heart made her eyes well up.
"Humph, my maids are in a better situation than you, yet you dare to reject me!" Hart punched the sofa he was sitting on and looked at ire coldly
"If you don''t want to be my concubine, then forget the pills"
"Lord Hart, please sit down" Elder Mark hurriedly said and tried to calm Hart down but Hart threw the tea on Elder Mark''s face in anger.
"How dare you!" ire''s face turned red in anger as she shouted "I addressed you Lord as a form of respect! I didn''t expect you to be this arrogant, I''ve had enough. Leave before I throw you out!"
She was only a Body Refining stage level 5 cultivator, yet when she became angry, an intimidating aura radiated from her which surprised both Gaya and Michael. Gaya felt like the reason for ire to act so mighty because she noticed Ghost standing in the hall who had killed a Body Strengthening stage level 2 cultivator before.
Chapter 41 - If You Fail, I Will Kill You
"YOU BITCH!" Hart''s anger erupted like a volcano as he raised his hand to p ire when he saw a bolt of lightning fly between his hand and ire''s face.
"That''s enough, haven''t you heard of a phrase, no means no" the bolts of lightning danced around his fingers as he made a grand entrance to the scene.
"Sect Leader ire, I can concoct the Heart healing pills in my sleep, you don''t need him"
The moment he finished his sentence, they all froze and stared at Ghost, even Gaya looked at him with disbelief at first. Being an Alchemist was not something one can do overnight or not as easy as cultivating.
One needed to be born with a special talent toprehend the Alchemy knowledge and even with talent and resources, it was extremely hard to concoct a pill or brew a potion without practicing and learning for decades.
So when a 19-year-old youngster spoke these words, they were shocked beyond words.
"I thought he stole those magic healing pills, is he really an Alchemist?" Gaya on the other hand didn''t think that he''s boasting but actually confused hearing him.
"Brat, who are you?" Hart sneered and said, "you retarded trash, you think you can concoct pills"
"He''s dead" Gaya had already marked Hart as a dead body but surprisingly, he seemed calm and cool.
"Yes, I think I can concoct the heart healing pills better than you, any time of the day"
Hart''s eyes were full of disdain, and he felt that he was being provoked. He did not expect to be humiliated too after being rejected by ire.
"If you can''t, what then? She''ll warm my bed tonight, how is that?" Just like Gaya said, his real intention came to light as he sneered.
"She is not a tool, nor a bet!" he said coldly "If I can''t concoct a pill, I will kill myself, how is that?" If he couldn''t concoct a pill even after the system etched everything about Alchemy into his brain, he did deserve to die but Micheal knew that he could easily beat him.
"Ghost!"
Elders and ire tried to intervene but he stopped them with a wave of his hand.
"Kill yourself?" Hart smirked and said with a smile: "Alright! If you are willing to go that far. It''s a deal! Begin immediately. If you fail, then kill yourself, trash like you doesn''t deserve to live anyways! If you can''t do it, I''ll kill you myself"
"But what if you lose?"
"Lose? Lose to you? If you concoct a pill with one percent higher purity than mine, I''ll run around the kingdom naked"
"Gross" Gaya eximed as Micheal shook his head.
"Who wants to see you naked? If I beat you, I''ll kill you, how about that?" There was a sh of hesitation in Hart''s eyes but looking at Ghost from head to toe for a second, he decided to bet his life because there was no way a kid like him could concoct a pill with higher purity than him.
"No problem" Hart nodded as Micheal took a quill and paper from the desk before him and wrote all the ingredients needed for the pill.
"Gaya, I''ll need everything in this list"
They all looked dumbfounded in this scene, especially the three elders, who still couldn''t believe that he''s an Alchemist. Gaya took the list and a pouch of gold coins dumbfounded as Hart also called one of his guards and gave the list.
Obviously, this was just in impossible. Hart was forty years old and he was still at this level, it was almost unbelievable if Ghost could actually do this!
Taking the list, Gaya ran outside with eyes full of excitement to see whether he''s really an Alchemist or not. In her mind, if he was an Alchemist as he was iming, she would be one step closer to know the secrets behind how he got the pills that could heal her meridians.
"Jack! Jack you little shit, where are you?!" They were standing in awkward silence hearing Gaya''s shout outside. Micheal motioned Sect Leader ire to lead the way and after following ire, everyone came to the temporary room, which was originally built for Hart to concoct pills in peace.
***************************
After thirty minutes or so, Gaya and the guards entered the room carrying the ingredients needed to concoct the pills. During this time, the Elders and Sect Leader ire didn''t ask a question to Michael because he pretended to be in meditation. He knew that if he stood there waiting for Gaya, they would ask annoying questions as he would then need to say something to assure them.
It was easier for him to show them what he could do than tell them.
"Ghost, I brought everything you asked" Gaya gave the herbs to Micheal and a furnace, "You forgot to write furnace, here"
"I don''t need one" Hart and everyone in the hall was dumbstruck by what he said.
"You idiot, how do you n to concoct the pill without a furnace?" Hart sneered, his eyes and face showed nothing but disdain towards Michael.
"Furnace is for amateurs, I''m more of a legend when ites to Alchemy"
"So shameless!" Hart gave a death stare and sat on the floor crossed legs to start the process.
"Human, I bought you an extra badge of herbs, in case you mess it up" Gaya whispered without anyone noticing before Micheal slipped a tiny vial into Gaya''s hands.
"Slip this into the guards'' drinks"
"Is this what I think it is?" Gaya asked with an evil grin as Michael nodded.
"Let''s start shall we?" Hart gave a sneer as an answer and under the curious and worried eyes of Elders, Micheal conjured mes in one hand and took the herbs in the other.
Alongside Michael, Hart flicked his wrist as a furnace was about the size of a y pot appeared before him. The furnace had many strange inscriptions written all around it and gave off an extremely mysterious feeling.
"Sect Leader ire, we should stay back" Elder Mark eximed as the other two elders agreed with him and took a few steps back from Michael.
Indeed, pill concocting was not a joking matter but an extremely difficult process. The main difficulty of concocting pills was controlling the fire. That was why almost every alchemist would use an alchemy furnace so they could adjust the heat going to the pill through the furnace. However, Micheal had no need for a furnace because the system made him extremely talented in controlling the fire, so until he reached the six-star level where the system required him to buy a Legendary furnace and a mythical fire if he wanted to concoct Legendary pills.
The reason for the Elders to step back was if he did lose control of the fire, he might cause an entire batch of pills to go to waste. Or even worse, he might cause the furnace to explode. Should the furnace explode, they wanted to save Sect ire and themselves from getting burnt.
"If I were you, I would save myself the embarrassment and run away brat!" he cast a shield around himself and mocked Michael.
"If I were you, I would start begging because I''m going to kill you painfully because of your mouth"
"Let''s see who kills whom"
"Sect Leader ire, how many pills do you need? I can concoct four heart-healing pills with these herbs"
"Oh?! Four...four is enough..." she was overwhelmed by shock as she barely managed to speak these words.
He nodded and did something that made everyone in the hall almost faint. He threw all the herbs into the fire directly while Hart was still refining the first herb with utmost caution.
Elders were at a loss for words. Don''t tell me that your pill refining process is done so carelessly? Do you just empty the ingredients into the furnace and hope for the best?
Even though they were not trained Alchemists, they knew that each herb had a different temperature point where they would release its medicinal qualities but everyone around him was stumped.
Was there really such a method?
"This method had been lost a long time ago and is now a lost art. Many 5-Star Alchemists had tried to regain this method, but wasted many ingredients in their failed pursuit and failed to aplish anything." Elder Miles spoke out gravely in a low pitched voice.
Lost art? I have a system. With the system, I''m going to y God in this world. Just a mere pill refining art, how can it ever pose a challenge to me?
Micheal''s narcissistic self put its head out in his mind and he wanted to speak these words loudly but he controlled himself and pretended not to hear Elder Mark.
"If he''s unable to exert absolute control over the fire, it will result in an explosion big enough to kill him" Again, Elder Miles whispered this to his colleagues.
"Don''t worry Elder Miles, I can brew a potion or concoct a pill with a 100% sess rate" Micheal casually replied to Elder Miles.
"NO! Concentrate on controlling the fire" ELder Miles shouted and jumped back when he heard him talking as he feared that he would lose control of the fire and cause an explosion.
"I want to see how long you can keep this farce up!" At this moment, Hart finally refined his first herb and responded to Michael.
Michaelpletely ignored him and sensed the herbs were almost finished refining.
"Elder Miles, do you think he could do it?" the third Elder who''s called Reiner asked Elder Miles as only Elder Miles had some experience in teaching Alchemy.
"He''s a freak, we don''t know what he''s capable of, look at his cultivation level. He just reached the Body refining stage level 1 when we met him but look at him now, he reached level 5 in just two days"
"We can''t question his abilities now, for the sake of our sect leader, he must best Hart at this," said Elder Mark.
"Quit whining you oldies, he wouldn''t have put his life on the line if he wasn''t sure of his abilities" Elders turned around to see Gaya walking towards them proudly like she had done something fabulous. The two Elders and CLaire was shocked to hear her tone but Elder Mark sighed
"Ignore her manners, this girl is a friend of Ghost"
During the conversation, Hart finished refining the second herb and had only six more to refine.
"Haha, How long are you going to make a fool out of yourself? Throwing all the herbs at once in the fire, you really are dumb! Even if you want to pretend, at least make it believable!" Hart pointed at Michael''s behavior andughed.
"Watch this" this time Michael sneered as he put his hand above the fire. Then when he lifted his hand, one by one, colorful shiny beads floated up from the fire. There were eight beads floating above the fire and soon after, he started merging the beads into one fist size ball.
"This, this is impossible¡ To refine all the herbs at once... you need absolute control over the fire. This is... absolutely impossible!" Hart''s face lost all of its colors and turned pale. He thought Michael would fail but he refined all the eight herbs even before Hart could refine three herbs. Also, the beads floating above Michael''s fire were shiner and purer than the two beads before him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
...
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Body Strengthening stage, level 3 cultivator. The reward is 15000 experience points]
The sweet notification bell sound started to ring inside his mind making him grin.
Chapter 42 - The Most Dangerous Kind
"System, I''ll get experience points for Gaya''s killings too? "
[Yes, The host will receive experience points for killings of host''s subordinates]
"How many points do I need to heal her?"
[3000 points to repair her meridians, 20,000 points to restore her previous cultivation level. The system rmends the host to heal her again when the subordinate reach at least 75% loyalty level]
"I know that System, now tells me what was her original cultivation level, you know, before they crippled her?"
[Core formation stage, level 7]
"Woah! She was a prodigy? Now I understand why she acts so arrogant and overbearing. Nevermind, for now, I''ll keep giving her the pills to keep her on a leash and increase her loyalty"
When he exited the system, he raised his hands as the big silver bead split into four small fist-sized pills. Hart saw this scene and began to tremble, especially when he saw the extremely purer pills.
"90% purity! Holy shit!" Just as the words escaped Gaya''s mouth, the Elders, Sect Leader ire, and Hart felt like they were being struck by lightning. The first two had never seen a pill concocted by a 5-star Alchemist but Gaya had consumed many of those to enhance her cultivation, after all, she was a princess.
"Impossible!" Hart mumbled and stumbled back clumsily as three pills floated into Sect Leader''s hand and one floated towards Hart.
At this moment, the three elders sumbed to silence. Although they hadn''t seen pills with this much purity, they knew that the pills in ire''s hands were superior in quality as the pills radiated an extremely sweet fragrance and Arch energy.
The elders start to murmur behind him: "He''s a 5-star Alchemist?!"
They were stunned to disbelief. The whole continent had only a handful of 5-star Alchemists, finding them was not an easy task and even if they found one, their services would note cheap. Before this, they only thought of him as a genius but now, they considered him as a youngster blessed by the gods themselves. If he could reach this level at a young age then that meant his future achievements would be countless. Not only he cultivated at a monstrous speed but was also a 5-star Alchemist! How did he learn all this?
They couldn''t help but look at Gaya after staring at Michael. They thought Gaya could somehow exin his origins but she quickly shrugged.
"Don''t look at me, I didnt know he''s a freakin 5-star Alchemist"
"But you are his friend?" Elder Mark asked.
In fact, it was not only them, but even Gaya waspletely stunned. Alchemy was not easy, and that was apletely different challenge than cultivation. She thought the reason for his monstrous cultivation speed was because he had a special body type but now she realized he has more secrets than she assumed.
"Bastard kept this as a secret"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
¡.
Several ding sounds again rang inside his head.
"A puny little two-star Alchemist...look, this is how the pill concocts by me, a 5-star Alchemist would look like," Michael said with a smirk as he slowly walked towards Hart terrorizing him.
As Micheal took a step forward, Hart took a step backward in shock and despair. The three elders were stunned but slowly their minds began to jump in joy. They didn''t need to use Hart''s service any longer. Ghost could be his recement, and of course, he might not charge for his service thus reducing the cost they needed to concoct heart-healing pills for Elder Sandra. Sunrise Sect now not only had the number one genius of the younger generation as their disciple but also a 5-sta Alchemist. This was just too good to be true.
Gaya immediately grabbed one pill from ire''s hands and inspected it. After a second, she looked at the Elders and ire
"Yes, this pill is 90% pure, I''m sure"
"No!" Hart was furious, looking at Michael with full of hatred in his eyes
"I didn''t expect you to really concoct pills, you all deceived me by hiding the fact that you have an Alchemist!"
"You should have thought this before epting the challenge" He sneered.
"Now, I''m going to kill you, as I said before, painfully"
How could he let him live after Hart repeatedly insulted him? Hart''s actions earlier couldn''t be forgiven easily in his eyes
"Hahaha" Suddenly Hart stopped walking backward andughed maniacally.
"Don''t get ahead of yourself! I don''t know what stunt you just pulled with the pills. But I know you can''t kill me, you''re just a Body refining cultivator, I''m at the fucking Body strengthening stage, I can crush you, GUARDS!"
Hart stood there expecting his guards to arrive at any second with a wicked smile on his face.
Yet, there was no oneing inside the hall as Hart shouted again.
"GUARDS!"
"They are noting, asshole" Gaya stepped forward and stood beside Michael fiddling with the Knife he gave her. When Hart looked at the Knife, his heart skipped a beat as he saw the fresh bloodstains on the de.
"What did you do?!"
"A seductive smile and few flirty lines, that was all it took to make your guards drink my special tea, hehehehe" The little vial Michael gave her before he started concocting pills was the remaining paralyzing potion in his system storage.
Because of his responsive shield, he didn''t need to fear anyone under Body Strengthening stage level 2 but those guards were at level 3 and 4 which would possess a threat to Michael if he fought them head-on. So, Micheal used Gaya to paralyze them and kill them easily.
"Why did you kill one guard?" Michael asked Gaya, ignoring Hart for a moment.
"Fucker tried to get all touchy, so I stabbed him in the face after paralyzing him. Now dibs on killing this asshole"
"No, he''s mine" Michael conjured the bolts of lightning as Elders watched the scene dumbstruck. Especially, what Gaya did and trying to do stunned them considering she''s just a mortal girl, yet, she was trying to kill Hart herself.
"Ahhhhh!" Hart screamed and tried to cast a spell before a wave of wind sted him outside.
"Ghost wait!"
Sect Leader ire quickly stepped forward and tried to stop him from killing Hart.
"See ya, human!" Seeing Micheal halt his steps, Gayaughed and ran outside with full of excitement to kill Hart before he steadied himself and cast another spell.
"Don''te crying to me when he kicks your ass" Micheal shouted at the running figure of Gaya and couldn''t help butugh seeing the snake''s craze to kill Hart.
"Ghost, let him go, don''t kill him"
"No, Sect Leader ire, if he doesn''t kill Hart now, he would go back to his kingdom and bring reinforcements to take revenge" Elder Miles eximed as Michael nodded with a smile.
"Elder Miles is right, besides, I told him that I would kill him if he failed, I must keep my word, Sect Leader. Now if you excuse me, I have an Alchemist to kill" As he said, he dashed outside to kill Hart before he escaped from Gaya who had no ability to cast spells.
"What? Let''s see you cast spells now, hahaha" When Michael came outside, Hart was lying on the ground like a statue as Gaya wasughing and kicking him maniacally.
"What did you do to me?!"
"What happened to him?" The elders and ire looked confused seeing the guards'' and Hart''s rigid bodies. By looking at the green ooze on the de in Gaya''s hands, he realized that she coated the de with the paralyzing poison and cut Hart with it, hence, he was paralyzed.
"Stop ying with the prey"
"RELEASE ME!"
"Ignitia" While walking towards Hart, Michael sent a few bolts of lightning to the guards and killed them instantly.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 3 cultivator. The reward is 15000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 4 cultivator. The reward is 20000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 3 cultivator. The reward is 15000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
"Nooooooooo!" The anger in Hart''s eyes disappeared and fear clutched his heart after seeing the charcoaled bodies of his powerful guards.
"You called me a retard, idiot, and trash. Do I look anything like that to you?"
Bzzzzhhh!
The electric humming produced by the lightning bolts around his fingers struck the fear of god in Hart''s heart. Then soon after, Gaya twitched her nose and saw a wet circle forming under Hart.
"Human, I think he peed, hehehe" herughter fueled Hart''s fear and embarrassment as Micheal crouched in front of him. He then ran his finger across Hart''s face
"Diddle diddle, we are so..." the intensity of the lightning bolts increased as Hart felt his face burning.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Hart''s scream echoed through the mountains and then it was abruptly stopped.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 2 cultivator. The reward is 15000 experience points as well as 300 Badass points]
"He''s dead? So quickly?" Gaya kicked Hart''s body and said. The reason for Hart''s death was not because of the lightning bolts but overwhelming agony and fear which made his heart stop.
Looking at the scene, the elders and ire trembled in fear. The charming cool youngster seemed like a devil a second ago. He not just killed Hart but actually tortured him to death. What more terrorized them was the fact that he seemed to neither enjoy nor regret killing Hart but rather, he appeared to be cool and calm when killing people. That indicated one thing to them, he killed so many people to the point that killing became like breathing to him.
Chapter 43 - Base Of Operation I
"Use this to dispose of the bodies" Micheal retrieved the highly mmable liquid he bought from the system and handed it over to Gaya.
"And don''t forget to take their space rings if they have one, don''t call Jack this time," He said and turned his gaze towards the terrified elders and ire.
"Sect Leader ire, Elders, those heart-healing pills, who needs them?"
A sudden sadness emerged in ire''s eyes when he asked. She then sighed
"Follow us"
With ire leading the way, they arrived at a house adjacent to the building where they met Hart. A couple of girls and boys in orange uniforms respected them when they arrived. Inside the house, he was led to a room that seemed clean and well organized. Also, he immediately smelled a strong medicinal smell.
Surprisingly in the middle of the room, Elder Sandra wasid down in bed, unconscious and really pale. He could immediately sense that this was not something caused by injury but a terminal illness, like cancer. However, unlike earth, he had the ability to concoct pills to cure Elder Sandra.
"How long has she been like this? Thest time I saw her, she was fine"
He sat beside Elder Sandra on the bed and observed her condition.
"She had been like this for thest three years, she would only get better when she took a healing pill buttely the healing pills stopped working. That was why we wanted to give her the heart healing pills" ire''s words made sense as the heart pills were much effective in healing terminal illness like this better than the normal healing pills.
"Although you were right to give her healing pills, it only kept the illness from spreading to her whole body, not to cure her. Sect Leader ire, you should have used the heart healing pills in the first ce, then the illness would have gone by now "
"We can still cure her right?" ire didn''t act like a sect leader at the moment but she seemed like a helpless weak girl who was concerned about a mother figure like Sandra.
"We can''t cure her with Heart healings pills, it''s toote, we can slow down the illness "
"No! it can''t be" tears already started to well up in ire''s eyes as the elders looked worried and shocked.
"Sect Leader ire, don''t cry, I said we can''t cure her using the heart healing pills but we can use another potion topletely cure Elder Sandra"
"Really?!" She quickly wiped off the falling tears and asked with delight.
"Yes, I can brew the potion, no problem at that but it''s hard to get the required herbs and ingredients, let''s wait for my friend, she would know where can we buy and how much the prices are "
"Are you talking about me?" Gaya made a timely entrance to the scene and halted her steps when she saw Elder Sandra''s pale body
"She doesn''t look good, what happened to her?"
"ck bite" This was the terminology they used in this world for cancer and when she heard the name, her brows went up.
"Now before you say something, tell me where we can buy these and how much it would cost us?" He quickly wrote everything he needed to brew the potion that could cure Elder Sandra.
"I''ve never heard of a pill or a potion that could cure ck bite" Gaya shrugged as the elders and ire looked at Michael.
"That''s because no one knew about this potion except me"
"And what potion is that?"
"Dew of Angel lotus, DAL for short" None had any idea or never heard of such potion before, including Gaya. So they could neither deny nor confirm the existence of such potion.
"Petals of green rose, a tooth of a wyvern, Siren''s blood, virgin dew..." the more she read the items on the list, the more she was shocked. And even though the elders or ire hadn''t heard some of the items in the list, looking at Gaya''s reaction, they could tell how difficult it would be to get those items.
"I know ces where we can buy these items but it won''t be cheap, you need a small fortune to buy all these"
ire''s eyes immediately lit up when she heard that Gaya said she knew the ces to find the items, but they darkened shortly afterward hearing thest part.
"How...how small?" Elder Mark slowly asked like he was even afraid of asking this question.
"Something between 400,000 to 500,000 gold coins" What Gaya had said had stunned everyone. ire''s facial expression had turned pale, and her entire body was shivering.
"Oh my god, I''m going to faint" Elder Reiner lurched aside and held onto the wall to stop his body from falling down.
''''How are we going to get that much?"
"Ghost, please save her"
After a few moments of gawking at each other, ire swallowed the hesitation and came in front of Michael, pleadingly asking. She clutched his hands as tears rolled out of her eyes.
"Sect leader ire!" This sudden act of her really stunned him
"I will brew the potion for Elder Sandra but I really don''t have half a million gold coins in my purse " he was no longer sitting beside Elder Sandra but stood up immediately.
ire still didn''t let go of his hands while the Elders also came closer to him and surrounded him.
"Sect Leader ire, we can''t expect him to have 500,000 gold coins with him. Even if he had, we can''t ask him to give it to us "
"We can plead for a loan from King Bredia"
"Also, if we can sell the rest of ournds, we may be able to get another 60,000 gold coins"
Each elder was speaking their minds and all of them wanted to save Elder Sandra no matter the cost, this showed Michael the bond they had between them. Still, he didn''t have half a million gold coins to buy the items and even if he had, Michael wasn''t going to empty his purse for them. Saving the survivors of the Rosewood vige was a different thing as he only had to buy some upgrades which would always be a help to him in the future.
He might have helped them if he had hundreds of millions of gold coins but currently, he only had 75000 gold coins. Besides, 500,000 gold coins were equal to 2500 badass points which were more valuable to him than Elder Sandra''s survival.
[Ding! THE BASE OF OPERATION FEATURE UNLOCKED!!]
"What the?" he heard a ding sound as loud as a church bell inside his head and was instantly taken to System''s interface.
A new window that he had never seen before in the system appeared before him.
[The host now can ept the Sunrise sect as his Base of Operation!! ]
[Does the host want the Sunrise sect to be his Base of Operation?]
"Wait, what is this base of operations feature? Exin yourself System, before you ask me to do anything"
[The Base of Operations is a simr function to the Subordinate feature. The Host can acquire a whole organization as his Base of Operation]
"What''s in it for me? Even though Gaya was not a jackpot, she had proven her worth by giving me some valuable intel, and also, she''s keeping me entertained. What can a declined ce like the Sunrise sect give me ? I''ve already done them a huge favor by joining them"
[When the Status and Legend of the base of operation increase, the host will receive badass points]
His objection to making Sunrise sect his base of operation slightly wavered after he heard the system.
"Hmm, like I received experience points for Gaya''s killing?"
[Any actions like killings performed by Subordinates can only give the host experience points, not badass points. The Base of Operation can give the host both Experience and Badass points]
[Higher level the Base of Operation is, More points will be awarded to the host!]
"How many points are we talking about?"
[That depends on the level of the Base of Operations!] he was sure that he felt a tinge of irritation in the robotic voice of the system.
[The lowest level of the base of operations can give the host 50 Badass points and 500 Experience points for a week]
"The highest level?"
[...]
There was no response from the system to hisst question as he started to think about making Sunrise sect his Base of Operations.
"Tell me, I can have more than one base of operations?"
[Yes]
"System, why now? I mean I''ve been here for three days and you''ve never said anything about making the sunrise sect my base of operations"
[There are three main requirements to be met for an organization to be Host''s Base of Operation ]
[The Organization''s survival must depend on the host ]
[Every member of the Organization must be weaker than the host ]
[The Leader of the Organization must be at least have 60% loyalty to the host]
"It seems me killing Hart left a mark in the young maiden''s heart, hehe, so easy"
Chapter 44 - Base Of Operation II
"Alright, System, I''ll take this risk and ept the Sunrise sect my first base of Operations"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host, the Sunrise sect is now the Host''s Base of Operation!]
Base of Operation: The Sunrise Sect
Current Leader: ire Marigold
Level: 1
Debt: 450,000 Gold Coins
Number of Members: 34
Status: Declined
Legend: 0 / 1000 (Crappy old sect)
"System, what is this Legend, and what the hell is that debt amount?!"
[Legend is a type of evaluation points of the Base of Operation. The BOP must reach the points limit to upgrade it to the next level. As for your second question, The Current Leader can give you the answer]
The system didn''t even wait for him to close the interface but threw him out
"Fuck!" he cursed the system in his mind and the scene in front of him resumed.
"Sect Leader ire, Elders, I have an idea to get 500,000 gold coins"
"You do?" Elder Mark''s face showed a surprised expression.
"I''m going to create an Alchemy enterprise" he calmly said but in his mind, he was excited to create something huge in this word and finally start earning real coins.
What''s the point of being a 5-star Alchemist if he couldn''t get rich?
"Slow your horse, hu...Ghost, we need to talk" His excitement was brought to a stop by Gaya''s voice as everyone turned their gazes from Michael to Gaya.
"You are a 5-star Alchemist who can concoct pills with 90% purity, what does that tell you?" The Elders seemed like they had a sudden realization hearing her question but Michael just proudly grinned.
"I''m awesome" Gaya rolled her eyes and punched him in the shoulder
"It means you are the number 1 Alchemist among all four kingdoms of Elen Continent" The grin on his face got even brighter but the Elders looked frightened rather than being delighted about this. After seeing that he had no idea of what she''s talking about, Gaya deeply exhaled and said
"It means you dethroned the Alchemy King Gabriel Keswick "
"I see your point" Michael realized what she''s trying to say and the reason for the elders to be afraid.
"If he knew that you can concoct pills purer than him,best-case scenario, he would just kill you. The worst-case scenario is, he would enve you and make you concoct pills and brew potions while he''s reaping the fruits of your work. That''s what I would do" Although what she saidst shocked them slightly, they had bigger concerns now.
"Aelia is right" Elder Miles sighed and agreed with Gaya.
"Either way, you''re fucked, Ghost" She really worried about his safety, not because she cared for him but if he died or enved, she wouldn''t get the magical pills to heal her meridians. So for her sake, she had to do and say everything in her power to keep him safe.
"I assume you have a solution for this" He understood Gaya enough to know that the reason for her to worry about his safety was to get more pills from him.
"Although Gabriel can''t guarantee 100% percent sess rate of brewing positions, concocting pills, his oues are 84% pure. So, you must not reach 84%. Then, you will be second and I know him, he''s too proud to mess with the second, or at least he wouldn''t kill or enve you "
"You know him, how?" Elder Reiner suddenly asked because even many influential cultivators would try their hardest to get an appointment with Gabriel, let alone, Aelia, a mortal girl.
"I mean I heard about him during my travels, so Ghost, I suggest you aim for something between 60 to 75% purity" She swiftly changed the topic back to Michael before the Elders dig too deep into her life.
"Are you kidding me? 80%, that''s the worst I can do. It''s mentally and physically impossible for me to concoct or brew anything less pure than that" The Elders and ire opened their mouths to make him lower his level but after seeing the adamant look on his face, they shut their half-opened mouths.
"It''s settled then. Aelia, tomorrow we''ll set up our first shop" Gaya nodded as he turned back to look at ire.
"Sect Leader ire, give the heart healing pills to Elder Sandra, they would stop the ck bite from getting worse and make Elder Sandra feel better"
"I wish we had gold to help you start the shop, Ghost but..." Elder Mark''s voice trailed and the other two elders looked a little embarrassed.
"It''s fine, Elder Mark, I can take care of everything. From now on, we''ll change our sect''s future for the better" He said and walked away from the scene as Gaya followed him behind leaving the Elders and ire to worry about Elder Sandra.
**********************
It took them both a couple of minutes to reach the home given to Michael.
"Are we in the right ce?" Gaya tilted her head confused as the house in front of them looked different than what they saw an hour ago. The cobwebs and dust on the windows and wall were nowhere to be found. Little green saplings reced the dried nts on thewn. Plus, there was noiseing from the inside along with a mouth-watering aroma of cooking.
"Did we leave the door open?"
"No shit" Micheal walked towards the house when a familiar face came out to greet them both.
"Young Master, Young Miss" It was none other than Raylene and she had two sses of lemon juice on a tray.
"Thank you for cleaning the ce, Raylene"
"It''s the least I can do for you, Young Master. I should have told you before taking the liberty of cleaning the ce" Raylene smiled as Michael took the ss and drank it before scanning the drink, just in case.
Gulp!
Considering the lemons she used to make the drink was bought from the shop and had Arch energy-infused at the molecr level of the lemons, the juice was rich in fragrance and taste. Looking at Michael gulping the drink, Gaya grabbed the second cup and chugged it before he drank it himself.
"That was refreshing. Raylene, how would you like to earn some gold coins?"
"Bastard is going for it...hehehe" The smile On Raylene''s face froze hearing him while Gaya giggled inside having some nasty dirty thoughts because what can the woman actually do to earn some gold coins rather than pleasing him physically. After all, he was a youth and Raylene was a good-looking woman.
"Young Master..." Raylene''s body trembled as Michael quickly realized that she''s thinking something else.
"Soon, I''m nning to open up a few shops, and I''d like you toe and work for me as a cook, Raylene"
"Oh?!" Raylene let out a short squeal and deeply exhaled as Gaya frowned.
"Let me know what you thinkter, Raylene "
"Yes, Young Master, I will work for you" Raylene was relieved realizing that he''s not going to ask her to be his mistress as it was not unusual for a powerful youngster like him to have many mistresses.
"Good, now go and take care of Cindy, We''ll eatter" Raylene nodded and ran back inside the house to put the tray and sses back.
A few minutes after Raylene left, Gaya and Michael plunged into thefy sofa to discuss their ns for tomorrow.
"Are you going to tell me?" Gaya asked skeptically.
"Tell you what?"
"What made you suddenly change your mind and help that old woman? I saw you, Human, you would have brewed the potion to cure the old woman for free, but you had no intention to buy the items yourself, at first. But I saw you change your mind in a few seconds, so I''ll ask again, what made you change your mind in those few seconds?"
Chapter 45 - Dealing With Gaya
"Can''t you believe that I''m a good guy?" Heughed it off as she rolled her eyes.
"You''re far from a good guy, human. I know your kind, the kind who do good here and there when there''s no harm but wouldn''t raise a finger if you have to lose something or face serious consequences. You''re just a borderline viin, human, not a good guy as you made those old bastards believe" Gaya said without a doubt and urately identified his personality. She and he had more simrities than they like to admit.
"Why do you care anyway?"
"Although I hate to admit it, my survival depends on you and the pills you have. Therefore I don''t want you to get killed trying to y hero"
"You really want to know the answer?" Heid back on the couch and asked.
"Yes"
"First, answer my question, what do you really want in your life?" She was slightly taken back by surprise but she knew that she had to answer him if she wants an answer from him.
"Me? I want the throne of Nagnd"
"Let''s just say, you will get the throne, then what?" She didn''t know where he''s going with this but she decided to y along with him.
"Then I will rule Nagnd for a couple of decades and head to the lonely mountains to reach higher levels in cultivation"
The lonely mountain was a ce where cultivators head towards to enter secluded cultivation for decades or even centuries. The harsh cold environment of the mountain would push the cultivators to their limit and make them break through to the higher levels of cultivation. Of course many would die in the cold mountains and only cold-hearted, as well as talented cultivators, would choose to go to the mountain leaving all the ties to the outside world such as wealth, social status, etc.
In the world of cultivation, the higher one''s cultivation level, the higher the life span. Hence many powerful cultivators had seen their loved ones die with time but they will continue to live because of their cultivation level. This often made them severe ties with the outside world and lose their interest in mortal pleasures such as sex, money, and power after a point and would fully focus on reaching immortality to explore the universe outside.
"Do you know what I want to do with my life? I want to rule this world, control everything, enjoy everything that this world has to offer" His words expressed his ambition and startled Gaya.
"Don''t be a silly human, you have talent. If you enter the lonely mountain and cultivate for a couple of centuries, you will reach immortality"
Micheal snickered, "what''s the point of immortality if I can''t even enjoy simple pleasures. I''d rather live fifty years enjoying my life than sitting in a cold cave cultivating in the hope of reaching immortality"
With the system as his secretpanion, Michael had the resolution in his mind to reach immortality but unlike typical cultivators, he was neither going to sever his ties to the outside world nor stop enjoying the worldly pleasures.
"So I would need a ce suitable for a man like me, that ce is the Sunrise sect. You can think of this ce as a ce from where I would start to control the rest of the world"
"You are serious?" she asked with a shaky voice in shock. If these words had been spoken by someone else, she would haveughed her ass off but when it came to him, she couldn''t neglect anything. Yet, she now had more questions than answers,
"Tell me this, why choose this ce?"
"In the big sects, I''d just been another prodigy, another feather in their hat but here" he didn''t finish his sentence butid back and put his leg on the other and sat like a king.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
"If you help me achieve my dreams, I''ll not only heal you and get you the Nagnd throne you long for but also assist you to reach immortality"
"Big wordsing from a guy who''s just at the Body refining stage "
"A few days ago, you thought you had no chance of reviving your broken meridians but I proved you wrong. A few minutes ago, you thought there isn''t anyone who could reach 90% purity in Alchemy, again I proved you wrong, so tell me Gaya, you really think I can''t do everything that I said I can" She knew he was right about everything and deep down, she had already started to believe that he''s going to turn this world upside down.
Therefore she decided to stick with him and help him along while reaping some sweet rewards like the pills that can heal her meridians as well as pills and potions he would brew with 90% purity which would help her in cultivation.
"First you have to help me out here human, give me some pills to get my cultivation back, then I can really help you. You know get my juice back" she clenched her fist and punched the air frantically. Her actions however not surprised him the least as he expected her to ask for more healing pills.
He wanted her to ask for more pills so he could put his n of making her loyal to him in motion.
"First, I need to check your meridians" He lied with a straight face and controlled his urge tough.
"How are you going to do that?" seeing him stand up anding closer to her, she moved back on the couch and asked. Her face had a mix of skepticism and doubt.
"Turn back and cough"
"Huh?"
"Do as I say, turn back and cough" she stared at him for a couple of seconds confused at the point why is he asking her to do that but she turned around and coughed as he said.
(cough) (cough)
"Now breathe in and breathe out"
"Hey!" she wiggled and shouted when she felt his hand on her back
"Don''t be a baby, do you want me to check your meridians or what?" He chuckled inside and said.
"Just get it over with quickly, and FYI, thest fucker who tried to touch me ended up being burned alive" He ignored her and ran his hand around her back for a few more seconds before letting it go.
"System, how many pills do I have to give her to heal her meridians?"
[50 pills]
"Do you have a less effective pill? I want her to believe that I can heal her but I don''t want to heal her before she bes more loyal to me"
[Cheap tier Revitalizing pills]
"Great, how much?"
[500 pill bottle is 500badass points. The pill would temporarily enable her to feel her meridians and create an illusion of repairing the meridians]
"That should do the trick. The system I''ll buy the bottle"
Exiting the system, he sighed as Gaya''s face quickly turned gloomy
"What is it? I can still be cured right?" he also put his serious face and said
"Yes, but your meridians are still in bad shape. We need to carefully treat your meridians, any small error would permanently destroy them and kill you"
"Fuck! Tell me you and your pills can fix this" her hands shivered and her face lost all its color in terror. This was the first time he had seen her this much terrified.
"I thought my pills alone can cure you eventually but now that I took a closer look, I realized that I have to concoct another batch of pills, a different one than what I previously gave you. it''s very difficult to concoct the new pills" he made his voice sound worried and when she looked at his face, her fear grew even more as she tightly clenched his hands.
"Human, please heal me! I don''t want to be crippled forever" she pleaded with him.
"Don''t worry I''ll do my best to heal you, after all, you''re my assistant aren''t you?"
"Yes, I am! You can''t let your assistant die" she vigorously shook her head up and down and let out a wide smile.
"Alright, I have to check you every week and give you the newly concocted pills. Remember, you must only take two pills a week, so I will only give you two pills. If you do everything I say, you will be able to cultivate in a year, try to do anything behind my back, I will throw your ass out and you''ll stay a cripple for all your life, do you understand?"
Chapter 46 - Two Henchmen
Subordinate: Gaya
Cultivation Level: None
Race: Demi human-Naga Race
Current Skills: None
Status: Merdeans repaired - 10%
Loyalty towards the host: 25%
"Look at that, she became 25% loyal to me" He started at the subordinate interface, and looking at the increased percentage, he knew that his n was working.
"System, open my status window"
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 5
Experience Points: 65000/300000
Badass Points: 7000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 2
Environment Scanning - LVL 1
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 25%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
"Hmm, looks like my goal has changed" Previously his goal was ''Be the Strongest Predator in the world'' and now it changed to ''Control the world''.
Obviously one had to be the strongest to control the world.
So as his first step to control the world, he decided to set up an empire of pill businesses to create a steady ie flow. At the current level of the system, he could turn Gold coins into Badass points but not the other way around. Since he couldn''t use Badass points anywhere except in the system and gold coins were the universal currency in this world, he chose to earn himself some coins.
With a rough n in his mind, he exited the system and saw Gaya was licking the porridge bowl clean.
"Don''t eat the bowl"
"Fuck you!" she cursed as she kept picking up the rice grains on the bottom of the bowl and put them into her mouth.
"Come on, let''s go. We need to choose a suitable ce to set up my shop"
"But I only ate three bowls'''' Yes, she ate three bowls of porridge and showed Michael that she has a pretty big appetite. She wouldn''t have a need to eat this much if she could cultivate as the Arch energy would keep her body fed but it wasn''t the case, thus she had to eat a lot to keep her body functioning. Also, Raylene''s cooking talents and the Arch energy-infused ingredients that Michael bought from the shop increased the taste of the food several-fold.
"If you keep eating like this, you''re going to be fat" the moment these words escaped his mouth, the food in Gaya''s mouth also came out as she coughed up.
"What did you say?!" he could see her face turning red in anger and realized that even in this world, girls didn''t like to be called ''fat''
"You heard me" One could see the puffs of smokeing out of her ears and nostrils if they looked closer but suddenly, she began tough
"Hahahaha" A suddenughter surprised him
"Alright, I''ll bite, why are youughing?" she still continued tough and after a few seconds, she stopped and looked at him
"Even with all your talents, because of your mouth, you''re going to end up dying as a virgin" she paused for a moment and then said,
"unless you pay for a girl to do you, hahaha"
"Hahahaha" Now this time, Gaya was surprised to see him burst intoughter.
"Why are YOUughing?!"
"It''s just...even if you pay, no one would do you, ugly. Hahahaha"
"Hahaha, greateback, hahaha" both of theirughter echoed through the house and both felt refreshing tough like this after a long time.
**********
Michael and Gaya finished their supper and came outside of the house when the sun reached the middle of the sky. Because the sect had only a few disciples, the mountain seemed lonely.
"How far is this Bradford?"
"If we start walking now, we''ll reach Bradford in six or seven hours"
"Next option"
"We go to River town, which we can reach in thirty minutes using your speedy spell. From there, we can rent a pegasus, and fly to Bradford in two hours''"
"Flying on a pegasus, cool!" He was barely able to contain his excitement from showing on his face when he heard the words pegasus and fly.
Although he flew in airnes countless times, how could that bepared to actually flying on a pegasus, the white feathery horses!!
"Let''s go!" He was about to take Gaya''s hand and use the Lightning dash when he saw two familiar faces walking towards them.
The two familiar faces were none other than Daniel and Ricky, the two guards Michael met in River town. They looked rather tired and drenched in sweat as their light brown clothes turned into dark brown because of their sweat.
"Young master Ghost!"
"Why are you guys here?" This was the second time he asked the question today as both Daniel, the older guard, and Ricky, the younger one, breathed heavily.
"Young Master, we came to make sure Mrs.Agner and the children reached here safely and ask whether they need anything from River town" Daniel said while Ricky stared at Gaya as he had never seen a girl in his life before.
"Seriously?" Gaya questioned Ricky with an annoyed voice as he didn''t even try to hide the way he was looking at her. Michael had no intention to stop Ricky as even with the mask on to change her face, she looked pretty, hence, it was natural for a youngster like Ricky to be mesmerized at her beauty.
"Ricky!" Daniel pinched Ricky and brought him back from his stupified state.
"It''s nice of you two to do that but don''t you guys have to be at the gates, all the time?" Daniel sighed and shook his head.
"The higher-ups transferred us, Young Master Ghost. We are going to Larton today"
"Larton?! What did you two do to deserve that? Hehehe" Gaya chuckled sadistically and raised Michael''s curiosity. ording to Abras''s memories, Larton was a desert of Kingdom Bredia that had a lesser poption.
By looking at her sadisticughter and terrified face of Daniel, he could understand how bad is Larton
"If Larton is that bad, can''t you guys ask your higher-ups to reconsider? Besides, why are they transferring you?"
"It''s¡." Daniel seemed like he was hiding something as Michael turned his gaze towards Ricky who''s more talkative than Daniel.
"It''s a punishment, Young Master Ghost" as expected, Ricky talked and his tone had a tinge of anger
"Punishment? what did you do?"
"It''s because of what we did not do, Young Master. The letter we received from the higher-ups stated that we should have stopped you from burning Raplhy alive at the gates" Michael frowned after hearing Rickyin.
"Also they said we won''t get any promotion in the near future"
"You really fucked the lives of these two Ghost, weaklings like them wouldn''t survive much longer in Larton. If the beasts and poisonous creatures didn''t kill them, the scorching sun would" Gaya loved to pour hot oil into the guards'' wounds by describing the worst in Larton and Michael slightly felt guilty for these two.
But soon, he realized that he could use these two as his henchmen. Gaya was obviously not a person who would run errands for him and he couldn''t use Jack always. Daniel and Ricky seemed like good men and perfect henchmen material.
"Fuck your higher-ups, how much sry you guys are getting?" his question shocked Ricky and Daniel,
"120 gold coins"
"Per month?"
"Yeah they wish, its per year human" Gaya snickered and said
"Throw away your jobs,e work for me. I''ll pay you what you get in a year for a month" before Daniel and Ricky could respond, he retrieved two pouches and threw them to the two guards.
"This is your hiring bonus, from now on, you two work for me" Ricky and Daniel trembled in surprise and shock. Just by feeling the weight of the pouch in their hands, they could tell that there are more than 100 gold coins inside.
Ricky was the first to fall down to the ground and hug Michael''s leg.
"Fuck those old bastards in the capitol, I''ll work for you, Young Master Ghost!"
After seeing Michael''s generosity and their monthly sry under him, Daniel also knelt down and shed tears of joy.
"Alright, get up you two. Be loyal to me and you''ll know what it''s like to be rich"
****************
Alright, Character introductions and fillers are over. Uing chapters will be fast-paced, action-filled, and fun!!!!!
Chapter 47 - Opening A Store I
"So COOL!!!" At the moment, Michael was flying on a pegasus behind Gaya. Because of Gaya''s previous experience flying the pegasus, she rode it while Michael sat behind.
But that didn''t stop him from being extremely happy. His one hand was on Gaya''s shoulder to maintain his bnce while with the other hand. He constantly tried to grab the fluffy clouds even though he knew clouds are made of water vapor and dust particles in the sky.
"For god''s sake, human, you can''t catch the clouds! You''re going to fall and die if you keep trying" she screamed and elbowed him in the gut.
"Hey, Gaya!" because of the wind resistance, he had to shout.
"How much does this pegasus cost? I need one!" Pegasus were horses with wings and the mostmon color of these noble creatures was pure white. They were intelligent creatures that could understand the orders of the owner and were protected by a special spell that prevented the riders from stealing them.
Hence, the pegasus taxi owner didn''t need to travel with who hired it but simply sit in his office and let the pegasus finish its route ande back.
However, if the riders had no experience flying on pegasus, the pegasus owner would provide one with experience but that would cost additional cost. Since Gaya had the experience, Michael didn''t pay this cost but let her fly the pegasus.
"You can''t, if you want one, you have to get permission from the four kings of Elon continent"
"Seriously?! Why?"
"I don''t know, it has been amonw of Elon since forever "
"Fuck them, I''m nning to make a dragon my pet and fly on it" Ever since he found out that this world has dragons, he couldn''t wait to get his hands on a dragon baby or a grown dragon.
"Make a dragon your pet? You''re one crazy mother fucker, you know that!" Gaya shouted and now, she had grown quite familiar with his grand ideas and ns.
He would have bought one from the system if the price wasn''t in the millions.
"We''re going tond, hold tight!" she giggled evilly as the warning beep sound in his mind went crazy. She galloped the pegasus and turned the pegasus to do a barrel roll in the mid-air. Michael''s reflexes were outstanding therefore when the moment the warning sound rang in his head, he wrapped his hands around her waists and held onto her tightly.
"Bastard! Get your hands off of me!" she didn''t expect him to act quickly or wrapped his hand around her waist. She wanted to scare him off but the situation turned against her favor.
"Do it again!" He already enjoyed the ride tremendously but thest part of him touching her waist was icing on the cake.
On the contrary to his demand, she stopped barrel rolling andnded the pegasus on the ground.
"You perverted bastard!" the moment her feet touched the ground, she shouted at him as he waved her off.
"What did you expect? Me falling down from the sky? Just be d that held onto your waist" she quickly covered her chest like she was naked when she looked at where he was looking at.
Neighhhh!
The pegasus beside them neighed and took off leaving them behind at the outskirts of the marketce
Erected on the light side of Bredia, Bradford was a town led by Baron Totonk. This town wasn''t built by a mountain by ident, as it has ancestral grounds, which was of great importance to the people of Bradford and its sess.
The town itself looked imposing. With its spruce wood rooftops, limestone walls, and silent mountain range, Bradford had a pleasing atmosphere.
Bradford had a booming economy, which was mainly supported by mining, baking, and wine brewing. But their biggest strengths was the reason for Michael to be here, Alchemy.
Despite its strengths and weaknesses, Bradford was most likely headed towards a gracious future under the leadership of Baron Totonk. But this remains to be seen.
Despite their roughnding, people didn''t pay mind to Gaya and Micheal as they continued to do what they were doing. Compared to the River town, the people around Michael seemed healthy and clean. Mostdies wore at least one jewel on their body and asionally, he could seedies who had armed escorts,vish jewels, and wore fancy robes.
"These must be nobledies" The nobledies slightly looked like Roman nobledies in the Spartacus television show he watched on earth. Obviously, Michael took a few peaceful minutes to enjoy the hotdies and girls on the streets which frustrated Gaya as he never looked at her like he''s staring at these nobledies now.
"Shall we move now? Or do you need another hour to finish eye banging them?" she pitched his ears and interrupted his eyes from feasting on the beauties.
Through the bustling streets of Bradford, both of them passed many food stalls, bakeries, and various other stores. For a second, he felt like he was back in the streets of Los Angeles back on earth.
"Wow, there are only two alchemy stores" After finishing checking out all the stores on both sides of the street, Michael realized that Bradford only has two Alchemy stores owned by two and one-star alchemists. Of course, the shop keeper in those stores weren''t Alchemists but just salespersons.
"Hey, look, this building is on sale" He and Gaya came before a newly built building next to a bakery and jewelry. The building had two floors and huge ss windows that almost made the inside of the building transparent.
"Good condition and location. Because of the jewelry, we can draw the attention of nobles quickly,e let''s go see the owner of the building "
"Hey, is that Ghost?"
"Yeah, it seems like him"
"Who''s that girl with him?"
"Can we get an autograph?"
Seeing that Michael had stopped, some of the people in the crowd recognized him.
The people who had seen him stopped, and kept watching him from afar. He entered the door and saw a bald-headed man wearing golden robes sitting in the rather empty building. He was meditating and hearing the footsteps, he opened his eyes.
"How can I help you two?"
"I saw the sign outside, I''d like to buy this building, state your price" the man stood up and rubbed his shaved chin for a second.
"Young man, my price is not cheap, forgive me for being blunt but you or your friend here don''t seem very rich to me" Since Gaya said that at most, a building would cost 25,000 gold coins therefore he didn''t have to worry about the cost as he had 30,000 gold coins plus 10,000 gold coins he got from Hart''s space ring.
"Alright, 20,000 gold coins, non-negotiable" Michael looked at Gaya as she gave a nod of approval indicating he''s not ripping them off.
The shopkeeper had built this store using most of his savings to open a gem business. But his son became a father and his wife was urging him to leave Bredia to go live with his son. Therefore, he decided to sell this building and because he used most of his savings, he wanted to get most of his coins back, hence he stated a high price which left him with no buyers.
However, Gaya knew a 5-star Alchemist would earn 20,000 gold coins with a couple of pills, so she had no problem buying this ce.
"I''ll take it" Michael nodded and ordered the system to stack 20,000 gold coins in front of him.
He gave the gold coins to the shopkeeper who was quite surprised but he quickly took the coins into his space ring. The shopkeeper then gave him a contract and in a few seconds, the deal was done.
"Now we have a building, let''s go shopping for the pill ingredients"
Chapter 48 - Another Enemy?!
Sessfully buying the building to set up their Alchemy business, Michael and Gaya once again took on a stroll through Bradford.
Bradford was a huge flourishing city. As Gaya led him throughout the city, they came across several thriving streets of Bradford.
Then the two finally came to a stop right in front of a massive building with the words, "Green Heaven" written in elegant calligraphy.
"Human, this is the biggest treasure store in Bradford. If you want anything rare or valuable, you can find it here. Also, they have the biggest collection of everything we need to set up our business" He noticed that she uses the word ''we'' more often and begins to be a team yer.
"Let''s go inside then"
Within Green Heaven, many richly dressed men were walking around along with several sturdy-looking guards that were all looking with an attentive gaze at the merchandise around them.
"Look at that, idiots looking for fancy items to add to their collections, what''s the point of spending millions of gold for a single painting?" She said ring at the group of people who were checking out a fancy painting. He agreed with her in his mind as he too had the same thought when he saw people spend millions on french paintings or weird statues.
He only spent his money on mansions, guns, and video games that had a practical use.
"I miss my Xbox, yStation and my PC" he sighed inside and continued to follow Gaya.
"The first floor is mainly for useless things for rich good for nothings"
Afterward, Michael and Gaya climbed up to the second story. As Michael approached the second floor, two soldiers in full metal te armor blocked his path to the stairway. One of them looked at Michael before speaking out politely, "My Lord, mydy, show us your way of payment before entering"
"Human, take out the gold coins" She whispered to him and said to the guards
"We don''t use pay cubes, we deal with cold hard coins" Michael retrieved the remaining gold coins and stacked them before the guards.
"Can we go inside now?" Gaya said, "Of course, please enter my lord, mydy!" The two men instantly gestured for him to go past them.
Pay cubes were a way of storing and saving money, within the Elon continent, the color of the pay cube also signified one''s wealth. It was a symbol of status that was a requirement for entering some businesses.
Fortunately, Abras''s memories had some knowledge about the pay cubes so he was not entirely clueless.
"Where do I get a pay cube?" after entering through the door, he quickly asked Gaya.
"Of course you don''t know, you can''t get a pay cube whenever you want, you need to have at least 100 thousand gold coins in your pocket. And then, you can get one from a Grand spire bank branch"
"Remind me to get one"
"I''m not your notebook you know" she rolled her eyes but he knew she would do that.
Throughout the entire floor, there were many strange and bizarre nts and items on disy. Ranging from many different colored flowers to strange lumps of iron. There were even many animal parts and organs in ss bottles. Among the items, there was a small pile of iron sand. The iron sand was darkly colored and exuded a constant ck me. Nothing for fuel but the air around it, the fire burned constantly without ever being extinguished. Aside from that, there were a few other strange crystals that glowed brightly along with a few ancient looking Alchemy furnaces. In short, there were many fantastical things to be seen, some from the past and many weren''t ordinary-looking things at all.
The Second Floor of the Green Heaven didn''t have as many people as the first floor. There were only twenty expensively dressed men that casually walked around and selected an item that caught their interest.
"Stop gawking around, human, you''re embarrassing me" of course, he gawked around as a child entered a museum for the first time. Every time he thought that this world couldn''t surprise him anymore, new things would do just that. In his previous time, he had to avoid going to public ces in his free time as there was a risk of exposing himself. Even though none had seen his real face, he preferred better to be safe than sorry. So ces like these brought the child inside him. Gaya exaggerated things by saying he''s embarrassing her but in truth, she liked messing with him.
She dragged him to the counter herself after he had taken too long gawking around. Right in front of them on a counter were countless bizarre-looking nts, items, and crystals. He already decided what kind of pills and potions he''s going to make and everything he needed in his mind.
Calling over the manager of the second floor, he ced a list on the counter,
"I need everything in this list"
The manager was a white-haired elder. Although he was quite old, both of his eyes shined brightly as if both pupils were a shining star. The manager looked at the list and then him as if to size him up before speaking with a small smile,
"My lord, the items in this list, are you an apprentice of an Alchemist?" Gaya became irritated about the old manager''s inquiry as she was about to open her mouth for a snooty reply, Michael kicked her leg.
"Ouch"
"Something like that, Manager Ti"
"We have everything on the list, my lord but the total price will be rather high" Manager Ti took a few seconds to do the math and said
"How much?"
"6000" ce as big as this and popr as this wouldn''t swindle a customer like roadside stores, therefore, even though Gaya wasn''tpletely certain about the price of the items in the list, she nodded when he looked at her. Besides, she knew that the prices are fixed and no point in negotiating.
"I''ll take it"
"Stop following me! You''re irritating me to death."
He was about to take the gold coins when he heard a girl shouting. He momentarily stopped and turned back to see a few people entering the floor. He counted ten bodyguards who adorned silver ker like armor and held spears in their hands. They seemed to be following a young woman who shouted a moment ago at the young man who was trying to persuade her while following her. The girl seemed to belong to a wealthy family.
Both Gaya and him looked at the young girl. She was good-looking and suddenly, the angry girl''s eyes fell on Micheal as he was in the midst of staring at her. She shouted, "You lecher! What are you looking at?"
Michael was taken back by surprise as the young girl had decided to take out her anger on him. Although the girl seemed to be at Body refining stage 3, the guards around her were at Body Strengthening stage 2 and 3 which indicated the mighty background of this haughty girl. Hence, he decided to ignore her rather than say something that could bring unnecessary trouble.
"What is with me and angry girls?" he ignored the girl and turned his gaze at the manager back. Gaya, on the other hand, looked at the girl from top to bottom and when she noticed the symbol the guards had on their chests, she quickly turned around.
But when the young girl noticed him ignoring her without showing any emotions, she became more enraged and shouted at him, "You rascal, no point of turning your head now, I saw you gawking at me, haven''t you seen a beautiful girl before?" It was true that he was an assassin and always preferred to avoid as many troubles as possible but now, the girl crossed the line. If he didn''t say anything now, he wouldn''t be a badass, would he?
"Excuse me" Gaya knew very well that he has two sides of him, one side of him was the funny cool calm side and the other was the evil cruel killer side. Now she could tell the other side of him sticking its head out.
"I never gawked at you, I just heard you shouting and turned my head, like everyone else in this room," he said and then pointed his finger at the youngster who was following her in the first ce
"If you have one guy following you, it doesn''t mean you are the miss world and everyone is courting you" When he finished replying to the girl, everyone was dumbfounded, especially Manager Ti and the bodyguards.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
Chapter 49 - Shall We Dance?
One of her female bodyguards couldn''t keep her straight face as she looked at him in shock. In the meantime, Gaya tried to pinch his hand and let him know who the girl in front of them is before he does something that puts both of them in trouble. But Gaya couldn''t help but admire him when ites to making enemies out of beauties.
Moreover, his guts were worthy of being praised. Not many people could dare to speak in such a manner in front of the most irrational and overbearing girl in Bradford.
The girl stared at him with fierce eyes. She then said, "Do you know who I am? As you can see¡ I''m already not in a fine mood today. I can help you in getting rid of your bones¡ if you want"
"Bitch is trying to get herself killed" Gaya cursed the girl in her mind and grabbed Michael''s hand sneakily.
"Look, Lady Jane, Daughter of Baron Totonk " thest part was unnecessary but Gaya used it to reveal the identity of the girl to Michael.
He was obviously shocked and cursed at his luck but he was not going to back off as it was toote to back off without being seen as a coward.
The boy who followed the girl was startled. He recalled that this woman ¨C Jane Totonk was the biggest terror of Bradford. He had been beaten up by this girl in the past because of his love for her. The beating had been so severe that it had taken him nearly a week to get off his bed.
"Without your father''s identity as Baron, you''re just another girl who thinks too highly of herself, now if you excuse me" Michael turned to look at Manager Ti as he wanted to leave this ce as soon as possible. Michael feared that if she talks too much, he would beat her to a pulp.
Jane''s face turned red in anger and she seemed as if she was about to pounce on him and give him a good beating. ording to the things Gaya heard, the young woman had great fighting abilities even though she was extremely young. She could easily defeat a normal Body refining stage level 5 cultivator due to the powerful spells and fighting techniques she learned. However, Gaya knew that Ghost is far from normal and he could not only kill her but also her bodyguards.
"Hahaha" the girl started tough maniacally "I can''t wait to see how are you going to talk when my guards knock all your teeth out," she said to Michael and looked at her guards "I want to see him beg for mercy, as for his whore, throw her out of my store"
"Whore?! Human, kill them!" Hearing the girl call Gaya a whore, Gaya lost all her reasonings. Compared to a princess and a prodigy like her, how could a girl like Jane, a mere daughter of a baron insult her like this in front of all these people?
"Stop!" Michael raised his hand and said as the guards halted their movement.
"Don''t tell me you''re going to beg just like that" Jane held her head high, and arrogantly looked at him. "Why don''t we take this fight outside?" Since the fight is unavoidable, he wanted to make the best out of it. If he fought inside here, only twenty or so people would see, but if he fought outside, more people would see him, hence, more badass points.
Even though he knew he''s going to face some bad consequences because of this bitch, he couldn''t help but feel excited thinking about the badass points he''s going to reap from this fight.
For a moment, the girl and the bodyguards looked like a bunch of sheep walking towards the Lion without any ideas of the ughter that''s about to happen. Gaya knew that there''s no stopping him now as Jane sealed her fate by her mouth.
"Why did you have to provoke her? You''re indeed a big deal in Bradford. But, you messed with a wrong human"
An idea crossed Jane''s mind as she looked at the arrogant face of the youngster standing in front of her, "Very well, if you want the whole city to see my guards beat you, so be it" She had spoken these words without any hesitation. She was clearly an extremely bold woman.
"Miss¡" One of Jane''s female bodyguards tugged at her sleeve in an attempt to discourage her. The female guard didn''t know what was Jane''s motivation to mess with the young man but looking at his ck outfit, she seemed to recall a person called Ghost who massacred the entire Blood and Bone sect and killed the Sect Master Ralphy. The female guard also heard that Ghost wore a full ck outfit that seems unique like the ones the youngster before is her wearing.
If he was the same person who killed Ralphy, the guard wasn''t sure that she could defeat him. Also, if what she heard that happened in Heaven''s gatepetition was true, he''s a prodigy and prodigies are extremely unpredictable.
However, Jane wasn''t in the mind to care about anything. Jane said excitedly, "Come on then"
Michael was still calm and did not show any expression on his face while Jane''s bodyguards looked at each other and smiled bitterly. Then, they walked towards the door to exit the building.
The people on the floor also followed them as they didn''t want to miss the entertainment. The bodyguards were feeling pity for the youngster but no one among them was in a position to do anything. They med the youngster''s bad luck and bad mouth to mess with Jane who was renowned for being arrogant and overbearing in Bradford.
Although Gaya knew about Jane''s personality, Gaya felt like the girl wanted to pick a fight with Ghost. She wondered why and nned to ask her after he terrifies Jane by killing all her guards.
"Oh fuck, the little devil Jane! "
"Shut up, if she hears you, she will kill you"
"Het, look its Ghost"
"What is he doing with her?"
They finally arrived outside and caught the eyes of many people on the streets. Many people''s expressions changed, and their faces became as pale as a white sheet when they saw Jane.
In Bradford, Baron Totonk had more authority and power than the King of Bredia himself. It was not because of Baron Totonk''s leadership but because of Jane''s grandfather, Reginald Totonk who was a Core Formation, level 7 cultivator. He was one of the characters in the kingdom Bredia who had the capabilities to challenge Bredia''s finest warrior under King Bredia.
Jane was the only daughter of the Totonk family. She had three brothers who were serving in the military and two uncles who were also great generals in the army. Therefore, the might of the Totonk family could not be underestimated. She had been greatly pampered as she was the only daughter of the family. So, she had be spoilt and conceited. However, she was extremely skilled. Her level of cultivation in Arch Energy had reached a superior level even though she was very young.
The people had given her the nickname ''Alpha girl'' because she was blessed(or cursed) with a strong feminist mentality who looked won on all males. Most of the Young Masters present at the scene had a bitter experience with her in the past. Also, she was often seen with one of the prodigies of Bredia, Celina.
"Young man, if you want to me something, me your bad luck" There were sixteen male and female guards around Jane and one of the men said looking at Michael.
"Oh shit, they are going to fight?
"Who is that kid in ck?"
"He''s the one who won Heaven''s gatepetition, you moron, Ghost, the Ghost"
"Holy shit!"
"Ghost vs Devil!"
"Holy moly, what the hell is going on here?"
The crowd went crazy and murmured looking at the scene while walking backward away from the scene as they didn''t want to be coteral damage by standing in their way.
"Human beat them to near death but do not kill them" Gaya whispered into Michael''s ears before walking away from him. As much as he loved to disagree with Gaya, he knew she''s right. Beating them to a pulp was bad enough but if he killed them, the consequences would be disastrous, at least until he became strong enough, he couldn''t afford to be the number one target of the Baron. So for now, he had to settle for only badass points, not experience points.
"I hope you have good health insurance" His smile freaked the guard as if one was smiling at a time like this, he must be either crazy or extremely powerful. But showing the doubts aside, the guard lifted his sword and rushed towards Michael.
Michael just merely sneered as bolts of lightning rushed out of his fingers. On the opposite, a powerful aura surged from the sword andpletely enshrouded the guard''s entire body.
With the Responsive shield and his current strength, there was no need for him to use his full power unless he wanted to kill the guard. He reduced the power of the bolts of lightning and it would be enough to bring the guard to his knees and break a few bones in the process.
This was a battle between a Body Refining stage, a level 5 fighter, and a Level 2 Body Strengthening stage fighter!
The guard had just approached Michael but in an instant, an enormous force had enveloped him. His expression changed drastically as te guard realized that something was wrong.
"Lightning dash"
Thud, thud, thud!
The guard halted his steps when he saw the youngster in front of him disappear and then he felt a sharp pain all over his body. The crowd could only see a light dance around the guards as his body bled more and more. Jane''s face also turned pale because she could see what''s happening more clearly than themoners. He was punching the guard back and forth with the force enough to damage his metal armor and break his bones.
A few moments after the guard started to move his body in weird shapes, he was sent flying a few feet. He fell to the ground with a loud thud, immediately coughing up a spurt of blood and then lost his consciousness.
The whole crowd went so silent instantly that you could hear a pin drop!
"Damn" Gaya raised her brows looking at the bloodied bones sticking out of the guard''s body.
"Now, shall we dance?" Michael flicked his wrist as the blood of the guard sshed on the ground.
Chapter 50 - Breaking Bones
Boom!
Michael''s Level 5 Body refining power had been released to its full potential, to the amazement of everyone in the crowd.
"How¡ how is this possible?"
Everyone stared wide-eyed and incredulously at him, their mindspletely nk at the sight.
How could such a young fighter at the Body refining stage defeat a Body Strengthening stage warrior?
...¡
Jane''s face was full of shock and confusion as she could hardly believe what had just happened. What was even more difficult for her to ept was that it had been only a few days since hepeted in Heaven''s gatepetition as a Formation stage cultivator. How had he achieved Level 5 of the Body Refining Stage at such a terrifying speed?
"It''s impossible! It''s utterly impossible¡" muttered Jane but she quickly hid her shock and shouted at the remaining guards.
"What are you waiting for?! GO!"
The rest of the guards stepped forward and surrounded him.
"I suggest you all attack together?" jeered Michael with a snicker.
He was not surprised by them ganging up at all. It was a viable and correct strategy to deal with someone as powerful as himself. But because of the Responsive shield, he had no fear towards the guards.
"Wow, look at him, he seems so cool and calm"
"I think Jane met her match"
"Let''s wait and see, I can''t believe he can beat all the guards, after all, he''s just a Body Refining stage cultivator " The onlookers started to murmur among themselves looking at the scene as a continuous beep sound rang in Michael''s mind.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
¡.
However, instead of starting to attack Michael, they gave the injured guard a healing pill and then locked their ferocious eyes on him, ready to pounce at him.
One of them was a powerful woman who was the best amongst the other guards, at Level 4 of the Body Strengthening stage. She was Jane''s personal guardian, and she was deeply enraged by the sight of her friend''s as well as her colleague''s heavy injuries.
"System, how much for upgrading the Responsive shield to the next level?"
[The Level 3 Responsive shield will be able to block all the attacks of or under the Body Strengthening stage level 6 ]
[The upgrade cost will be 9,000 badass points]
It was a huge jump in upgrade cost as it only cost him 1500 points to upgrade the shield from level 1 to level 2. Yet, to upgrade to Level 3, he had to pay 9000 points, and also, the shield''s effect would be only increased four levels of the cultivation. Previously it was able to protect him from the attacks of Body Strengthening stage level 2 and now, at level 3, it could protect him from the attacks of Body Straightening stage, level 6.
"Upgrade the Shield, System, I don''t want to underestimate my enemies or overestimate myself" He yed far too many RPG games and movies to know what would happen when you either overestimate yourself or underestimate the opponent in a battle. Because of this and his gut feeling, he quickly upgraded the shield and exited the system to continue to reap the badass points off this fight without any worries.
"Get on your knees and apologize now!" shouted the woman angrily at him when he exited the system. Her tone was icy cold, and she seemed to be out for blood.
Many of the people in the crowd were shocked. They had never expected
Michael beat the guard to near death. He would have to wield extraordinary power to achieve such a feat!
Now all eyes turned automatically to the female guard and Michael.
Michael, however, merely smirked at the woman.
"I''ll give you the same offer, kneel down and apologize. I may leave a few bones in your bodies unbroken" His smile on his lips turned into a cold scowl.
Gasp!
Everyone in the crowd was horrified at his attitude. Even though some of them had seen what he could do in Heaven''s gatepetition, they still couldn''t believe that he could defeat a powerful warrior such as this woman in front of him.
...¡
The guards were even more enraged now and Jane was trembling in anger. Only one of them remained beside Jane, keeping her from jumping into a fight with Michael. The rest all stepped forward and unleashed their powerful swords, all simultaneously charging towards him.
A group of lions was now pouncing on a rabbit with all their might and only Gaya knew who''s the lion and rabbit in this scene.
They all knew too that his strength was not to be underestimated, so they each use their most powerful moves to besiege him.
However, he remained calm and was not the least bit afraid of the oing attack. He had every possible move in his arsenal to fight against these bastards. For instance, he could just use Ignitia and easily eliminate a few of these fighters without much effort.
He didn''t choose to use lightning bolts, though. Instead, he stomped the ground as the sword which was previously wielded by the guard flew up andnded in his hand. He then dashed straight towards the guards who were approaching him.
"Lightning dash"
Obviously, he was not going to care about gender when ites to battle. With every swing of his sword, his cuts were neat and precisely on target.
The whole crowd was so shocked by the scene that was unfolding that they could hardly blink. Many were unable to see what''s going on, including the guards because of the speed of his movements.
Ah!
At this point, the air in their surroundings grew colder and colder, as if something mysterious was closing in on them. But none of them noticed it yet.
Jane was now blinded by fury, and her face turned bright red. She had been practically ruling Bradford and everyone would tremble in front of her, yet today, her own guards were being beaten to death one by one. Moreover, her guards were struggling to evennd a single blow.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
...
Michael left the main female guard who asked him to kneel down alone for desert and only beat the others to a pulp. Seeing her colleagues and friends fall one by one bathed in their own blood, her murderous aura intensified.
"You piece of filth! I''ll break your bones with my bare hands! You''ll fucking die today!" cursed the guard as Michael deactivated the lightning dash.
Around him, the guards lied on the ground in their own pool of blood. Many bones were sticking out of their body and their faces were messed up to the point that their own mothers would have a hard time recognizing them.
"Shit!"
"Oh my god!"
The crowd trembled at the sight and weak-hearted ones looked pale. Only Gaya had a wicked smile on her face and craved some snacks.
"Let me go" on the other side, Jane tried to dash forwards and fight him herself but the guard with her didn''t let her go.
"Miss Jane, I don''t think you can defeat him, hell, I doubt even Maria could defeat him. The best move is now to leave this ce and tend to their wounds before they bleed to death" The guard told Jane and he didn''t care about Jane throwing a temper tantrum because his first priority was to protect her.
At Morningstar sect, she was ranked within the top 50 of her batch before she joined as a personal guard to Jane. She personally recruited everyone in Jane''s protection detail and trained them herself and considered the guards as her own elite students. But now, he almost killed them and prepared to do the same to her. Thinking about this, her blood boiled in anger and this was not about Jane''s order anymore but personal for her.
She stared at him furiously. "Just like what you did to them, I will break all your bones and bathe in your blood!" she snapped.
Following what she said, a flying sword materialized in front of her out of thin air. Fierce sword light appeared like mes and made the people close their eyes for a moment with its brightness.
The sword light was like an overwhelming storm that rushed fiercely towards Michael. This was beyond her level of endurance. There was no need to tolerate further!
The female guard wanted to defeat him by any means necessary as the crowd of onlookers gulped in mouthfuls of cold air, their faces looking grim.
"This sword technique¡ can it be the Sun re Art of Morningstar Sect?"
"This is too strong, such momentum, this technique clearly contains formidable sword will!"
"She''s really infuriated. By using such a potent attack, she obviously wants him dead no matter what!"
"The Morningstar sect is truly powerful!"
Many people among the crowd felt a chill that made them numb in the head. Even Gaya frowned when she noticed the formidable aura the sword is radiating.
On the other hand, Michael still wore a serene expression, facing what was toe calmly.No matter how powerful or fancy the spell, she was just a Level 4 of the Body Strengthening cultivator.
"break him, Maria!" Jane shouted as the guards dashed at Michael who had no intention to move his body.
Boom!
There was a loud collision as the sword shed with the Responsive shield. The after waves produced by the sh swept across the area and pushed many people to the ground as well as broke some ss windows around them. The crowd stared in horror as Gaya murmured,
"This bastard really is very powerful!"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 900 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
Chapter 51 - Punching Bag
When the dust rose by their sh cleared, they saw Michael standing there without even a cut on his body. Everyone''s eyesnded on him in aghast and the female guard couldn''t believe what she''s seeing.
"How could he survive that?"
"What spell he used?"
"There''s not even a cut on his body!"
This kind of power somehow seemed too formidable to the crowd. He snickered again and brushed the dust off his shoulder as badass points kept increasing in the system.
"I don''t know why your Young Miss picked a fight with me but it''s not going to end well for you"
The guard beside Jane and Jane wore severe expressions on their faces. The female guard, Maria, who had fought him was already their strongest member. She had even executed the Morningstar sect''s Sun re Art, and yet it couldn''t even touch him. They had now realized why he was calm and cool in the face of battle with them. The female guardian was so enraged that she was shaking.
Although her cultivation strength was higher than him, her sword technique had been so easily dismissed by a teenager. This was difficult for her to ept. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
However, he didn''t care about her anger at all as he casually walked towards her. Each step he took forward, she took a step backward subconsciously in fear. Gaya now strolled forward head high and her hands behind her back to join Michael to share bask in his spotlight.
"What is he nning to do?"
"Is he going to kill her?"
"Yeah I think so, he''s crazy"
"I hope he breaks that bitch Jane''s teeth"
"Shut up!"
The crowd looked at Michael with fear and excitement.
"Bastard! If you touch her!" On the other side, Jane screamed and struggled to free herself from the clutch of the guard. She didn''t expect him to be so powerful even though she was warned by Celina.
But ignoring her shout, Michael clutched Maria''s neck as she gasped for air and wiggled. She had used most of her Arch energy in herst attack and now, she didn''t have much energy left to fight him. The system''s red warning about killing a person already appeared in his mind, just like when the time at Heaven''s gatepetition.
Since he was not going to kill her, he ignored the warning and smiled at Maria wickedly. A cold chill ran through her spine when she saw his smile and before she could do anything, he punched her in the face. She felt like a hammer hitting her face and almost cked out.
"No, stop!"
Almost at the same time, a cry was heard from afar and it was Jane who seemed boiling in anger.
However, he did not stop or let Maria go. His eyes were cold and without any hesitation, he continued to use her as a punching bag. Each of his punches had enough force to break her bones, and after rapidlynding twenty or thirty punches, Mariapletely lost her consciousness and his fist started to ache.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
¡.
A long series of system messages popped up and rang in his mind, In a matter of seconds, his Badass Points skyrocketed! He checked the total number of h Points on the interface screen and discovered that in the blink of an eye, he''d umted a total of 6,000 Badass Points!
But of course, if you take into ount the 22,000 Badass Points that he still owed the system, then he was in fact still very poor¡ªbut this was indeed a good harvest.
"Bastard!" Jane cursed in an angry manner as she finally used Arch energy to break free from the guard''s clutches. She then rushed towards him and leaped at him with a fireball in her hand
"Miss Jane Stop!"
"Wind st" Michael just sneered and raised his hands to send a wave of wind to st her mid-air. Her anger and arrogance overcame her reasoning and as a price, she was sent flying before even she could attack him with the fireball.
"Ah!" The guard was quick enough to catch her in the air before she hit the ground and suffered some wounds.
"Lightning dash" And when she realized what just happened, Michael appeared before her. As much as Gaya loved to kill Jane, she knew what would happen if he killed Jane, therefore, she rushed towards Michael.
"Ah huh" the guard immediately ced his hand on his sword fearing that Michael would hurt Jane but Michael raised his finger and stopped him.
Jane''s eyes contained uncontroble anger than fear as he smiled,
"The reason I leave you alive is I don''t like wars and I''m not going to start one with your daily because of you. But if you mess with me again, you and all the Bradford will know the power behind me" He said in a rather hushed voice as only Jane and the guard could hear.
"Let''s go" He turned back and said to Gaya. She nodded and gave Jane the middle finger before following him behind. The crowd instantly moved away from his path and stared at him terrified but many youngsters who had a bitter experience with Jane looked at him with eyes full of respect and worship. He taught the little devil a true lesson today and earned their respect.
Many of course thought that he was afraid of killing her because of her status as Baron''s daughter. But those can go screw themselves as far as Michael was concerned. Beating the guards alone messed up his ns and might bring him some bitter consequences, let alone killing Jane, which would bring down the wrath of a powerful local ruler.
That was why he bluffed about the power behind him to Jane. The reason he said quietly was he didn''t want to scare off the potential badass points givers. How could he earn more badass points if everyone became afraid of him thinking that he has a mighty background?
He only wanted the Baron to think like that. A genius leader like him wouldn''t act quickly without getting all his information checked, and if Michael''s guess was right, the Baron would buy his bluff and would not do anything rash, at least for some time. Michael could use that time to grow in strength and forge powerful connections within Bredia.
"That bitch! Because of her, we couldn''t buy what we needed. Human, what do we do now?" Gaya was pissed off about Jane messing with their ns.
"You tell me, it''s obvious Green Heaven won''t sell anything to us anymore, so we have to look for another store," He said but Gaya shook her head
"You don''t understand human, no one would sell anything to you, the first thing she will do is cklist you. So good luck buying anything in Bradford unless you reveal your star level to the Baron himself"
She was right and although he was extremely frustrated at the fact that he couldn''t kill Jane, he calmed himself to think of another n. He already bought the building for 20,000 and wasn''t going to let the coins go to waste. However, he couldn''t directly reveal his secret as he nned to surprise everyone after he opens the shop.
"Hmm, Sunrise sect has a herbal garden right? I have to use that, get in" he raised his sleeve and motioned her to attach herself to him.
Yet, she seemed reluctant, "You became too powerful, your soul energy will resist"
"So you can''t attach yourself to me like before?"
"I can but it will be only for two or three hours," said Gaya.
"It''ll be enough,e get in" He was relieved to hear that she could do that as he didn''t want to buy anything from the system to remedy this situation.
She then closed her eyes and in a few seconds, she transformed into a small light ball. The light ball merged itself with Michael and when he saw his forearm, he saw the ck snake tattoo appear again.
Together they dashed towards the Sunrise sect where Daniel and Ricky were waiting for them.
Chapter 52 - Returning To The Sect
Michael activated the lightning dash and moved towards the direction of Sunrise sect like a bolt of lightning. The battle with the guards had made himpletely understand his currentbat strength and capabilities, so the battle had provided him with lots of insights on what part he needs to improve and focus on. For instance, he relied on the Responsive too much and didn''t have a powerful nonlethal attack.
"Hey Gaya, do you think I beat them enough? How long will it take the guards to heal?" he asked while dashing towards the Sunrise sect.
"Why do you ask?"
"Just curious," he said but Gaya knew that he''s brewing something evil in his mind and wanted more information from her. But when ites to evil things, she liked the way he thinks and considered him a fellow evil-doer.
"I could have beat them more and crippled their cultivation, still, you did mess them up, especially thest guard. Without any expensive healing pills or portions, it will at least take them a year to get out of the bed, even then, they have to use a wheelchair or crutches for a couple of years to move around" He had no sympathy for the guards because they would have done the same to him if he was weak.
"What if they took a healing potion brewed by me?"
"Hahaha" Suddenly Gaya burst into evilughter after hearing him,
"You''re nning to sell Healing potions to the guards, the same guards who were beaten to half death by you in the first ce, aren''t you?"
"Yes"
"There''s a 90 percent chance Jane would buy your Healing potions if you sell them in Bradford. Considering the way she was looking at the guards when you were beating them, I can tell she has a soft spot for them and hate to see her guards broken, after all, she was the reason for their state. I have to tell you human, I like the way you think"
"Thank you, snakey" he chuckled.
"Don''t call me that" she shouted at him but he loved making her angry so her shout only made him more amused.
"So thest thing you said to her, is it true?" Although his bluff to Jane before leaving the scene was hushed, Gaya heard it loud and clear.
"What do you think?" instead of answering, he questioned her to see what''s her take, after all, she wasn''t a simple-minded person.
"I think what you said is half true, you don''t have a family but you do, however, have someone powerful behind you. How else would you have learned Alchemy and these weird spells you use?" He was slightly surprised by her answer because it was spot on. The only thing she missed was the powerful person behind him is not an actual person but the system, the all-mighty badass system.
Of course, he wouldn''t tell her about the system as only a stupid person would do that.
"Am I right?" Gaya asked and he sensed a tinge of proudness in her voice.
"Maybe" was his answer and then in a few minutes, they reached the outskirts of the Sunrise sect.
The Sect was located between River town and Bradford. Until now, he didn''t pay much mind to the location but now he scanned everything while moving towards his house. It was and with splendid mountain ranges and tall mountain peaks. The natural Arch energy was rich on top of the mountainpared to the mountain base or foothills.
Everywhere he turned, he could see nothing but lush green grasnds and various sizes of mountains. The scene vaguely resembled the Torre a Castello of Italy, only greener and more hills. If this ce was on earth, it would have been a paradise for trekkers but he wondered why or how many nts surrounding the sect buildings dried up.
Adding to the beauty of the ce, the mountains were surrounded by a faint fog. This ce truly gave off a holy and noble feeling.
This mountain range was called Scarlet summit before it was named Sunrise Mountains by the founders of the Sunrise sect. Countless mountain peaks spread across the mountain range. It was said that the founder of the Sunrise Sect had discovered an underground Arch energy vein here, therefore, he upied this ce and established the Sunrise Sect. However, the energy vein of the Sunrise sect grew weaker and weaker with time and became one of the many reasons for the sect''s current situation.
The energy vein, aside from it being able to provide the best cultivation environment and gather natural energies, was also a representation of fortune. Each of the three big sects had upiednd with energy veins, this was the reason why they were eternally prosperous and had produced countless geniuses.
"This ce is beautiful!"
Stopping at the foothill, he stared at the beautiful scenery filled with light fog and couldn''t help but praise it.
"Beautiful but the Arch energy density is weak, no wonder they cant produce powerful cultivators as the other three sects"
Gaya''s voice sounded in his mind and her reaction was not like Michael''s. Her experience was much richerpared to him. A small sect like the Sunrise sect wasn''t qualified to even be ranked in Nagnd.
"Your royal highness, can you get out of my arm now?" Michael said sarcastically,
"For a moment, you sounded nice" she growled and appeared before him in her human form. Both of them started moving to walk up the mountain.
"Brother Ghost"
"Master Ghost!"
Just when they had ascended half the mountain, they heard some shouts, and then a few girls dressed in orange clothes walked towards them with a wide smile on their faces. But when some of the girls saw Gaya standing beside him, their faces lost the color and seemed discouraged.
Others quickly surrounded Gaya and curiously looked at her.
"You must be Sister Aelia"
"And who told you that?" She answered with her trademark scornful attitude as the girlsughed.
"You just like Teacher Mark said, hehe"
"And Brother Ghost, did you kill something on the way? You reek of blood"
One of the girls asked twitching her nose
"Just beat up some guards in Bradford" he casually said and continued to walk up the mountain.
"Yeah, the guards of Bradford Baron''s daughter" the girls almost tripped when they heard Gaya and looked terrified
"Oh my god, you messed with Evil Jane? Please tell me, you didn''t do anything to her"
"We left that bitch unharmed, for now," She shamelessly boasted to the girls while he chose to remain silent rather than spoiling her moment.
Since Gaya was said to be Ghost''s friend, the girls didn''t mock her for being a mortal girl as Gaya continued to describe everything that happened in Bradford and centered herself as the main character.
"Then Ghost stopped me from teaching the guard a lesson, if he didnt stop me, I would have broken a few more bones in his body" he stopped walking and stared at her but she gave him a ''let me have my moment'' look as he sighed and continued walking up the mountain.
He was really surprised at her talent of lying so convincingly as the girls had already started to believe that she fought the guards beside him despite being a mortal. Looking at the girls eating out of her hands and Michael didn''t say anything, Gaya lied through her teeth more boldly and enjoyed the worship and admiration in the girls'' eyes.
Although the girls were terrified at the fact these two just messed with one of the most influential and dangerous persons in Bredia, the girls couldn''t help but admire Ghost''s valor and after Gaya''s story, they also admired Gaya''s courage, of course, only Michael knew what Gaya boasted was nothing but hogwash.
Chapter 53 - Wakanda Forever!
"Sect Leader ire, Brother Ghost is back" Jack, who saw Michael at his home from a distance, quickly ran to ire''s mansion and informed her.
Elder Reiner and Elder Mark were busy teaching the students as only ire and Elder Miles left the building to go meet Ghost. ire was in a good and lightened mood today as Elder Sandra got better after taking the pill concocted by Michael but she didn''t know her mood was going to hit rock bottom soon.
While she and Elder Miles were following Jack to Michael''s home, Michael was busy scrolling through the cloth section of the System. He loved ck outfits and even though he filtered the section to show only ck ones, he was still left with a huge number of choices.
"Tuxedo?! I''ll look like a freakin clown in this world if I wore a tuxedo"
If he wore a tuxedo in this world, it would be like a teenage girl among a group of old women; he would be in the spotlight. He already had enough of attracting bad people like Jane.
"System, do you have ck Panther outfit?" He excitedly asked the system after recalling the ck outfit King T''cha wore in the ck Panther movie.
However, his smile froze on his face when the system showed him the ck panther''s vibranium armor that cost 500,000 badass points. Fortunately, he didn''t want the Vibranium outfit but the King T''cha robes that he wore when T''cha weed Bruce Banner to Wakanda.
"Not this armor system, the ck robes he wore in the movie" Then in a few seconds, the outfit finally appeared in front of him with its stats.
Item Name: T''Cha King Robes
Durability: 1 year
Special Traits: None
Price: 500 Badass points
"Awesome, for WAKANDA!!" heughed happily and equipped the outfit. The main reason for his purchase was the neo costume had started to reek blood and he wore it ever since he came to this world, so it''s time for him to makeover. He then wore the Mark 3 grappling hook under his sleeve and left the system.
"Young Master Ghost is taking quite a long time to change dress," Ricky, who was in an elevated mood thinking about his monthly wage, said.
"Obviously Young Master Ghost is rummaging through his clothes to choose one" Daniel replied as Gaya couldn''t wait outside anymore and rushed into the house to drag him out.
"Why is he taking this long? Is he wearing makeup or something like girls?" Gayained. She was not the kind of girl who would get ready for a few hours wearing all the makeup from top to bottom. When she was a princess, she rarely wore fancy cloth or makeup, and instead, she used the money allocated for her personal expense to bribe officials and ministers in Nagnd.
Only because of these bribes, she was able to escape the prison before her stepmother, the current Queen of Nagnd orders her henchmen to kill her.
She was already frustrated by waiting for him and when she saw him standing before a mirror and checking his hair, she became furious.
The way he looked at his reflection was like a husband enjoying his wife''s beauty for the first time.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" She shouted. Although he could see himself in the system''s status window, looking through the mirror had a unique feel, and he loved what''s in the mirror.
"Jeez, quit shouting and let me correct my hair" On earth, he had short length hair but now, he had shoulder-length hair that required some time to tie back.
"You''re weird as hell, nowe out! everyone is waiting for you" He sighed and followed her back outside where he saw the girls narrating the events to Sect Leader ire. Daniel and Ricky trembled as ire looked pale.
"Ghost is it true? Did you attack Jane''s guards?" Elder Miles asked as his voice broke in fear.
Michael however seemed calm and smiled at ire and Miles
"I didn''t attack them, they attacked me first, I just defended myself," He said with a straight face but it didn''t reduce their fear
"Sect Leader ire, I want some herbs and items from the sect, can I take them?" While ire was still in shock and Miles was searching for words, he calmly asked her.
"Yes" her mind was not properly processing what she had just heard and said instinctively.
"Daniel, Ricky, go to River town and hire me two pegasi" he ordered his newly recruited henchmen as they quickly nodded despite their shock. He then tossed a pouch of coins and gestured at Jack to lead the way to the herbal garden.
Gaya also ignored Elder Miles and the female disciples as she followed him behind.
What''s the point of worrying now?
Besides Michael hated to console ire and Miles and as far as he was concerned, these people needed to grow a spine. If one wanted to destroy this sect, they would have already done it.
"Brother Ghost..." On their way to the herbal Garden, Jack opened his mouth to ask something but Michael stopped him midway.
"Jack, no one is going to attack the sect, just let me deal with Jane"
After following Jack for a few minutes, they reached the herbal garden. There were not many herbs and even calling it a garden was a little too much. He could only see a bunch of pots with herbs and most of thend was upied by nothing but grass.
Luckily his expectation was low and therefore, he didn''t expect much from the garden. He went straight into the garden and picked all twenty herbs in the garden as Jack''s mouth opened wide because it was all they had left.
"Why are you acting so shocked? These are justmon herbs"
Plop!
Gaya pped the back of Jack''s head and said while Michael finished picking all the herbs he needed to concoct some pills. Of course, it was not the pills he initially nned but this would kick start his master n.
Among the pills, he could concoct and potions he could brew, he still needed some advice from Gaya.
"Aelia, follow me, I need to talk to you"
Plop!
"Ah!" Jack cried because she pped Jack again for no reason before following Michael into the nearby building.
"Human, what''s the n?"
"I can do many things with these pills, but I think Healing potions and Revitalizing pills would bring more crowd and money."
Revitalizing pills were pills that could cleanse the body to remove the impurities of the body which would increase cultivation speed. By taking many less pure pills and potions, cultivators'' bodies would have impurities in the bloodstream, and Revitalizing pills were a way to remove the impurities.
"Good choices, what else can you make with them?"
"Arch Energy boosters, strength enhancements, and breast ergement pills which you desperately need"
"Ok, wait WHAT?!" she clenched her fist as a sh of anger and shock swept across her face. He loved making her angry by teasing her, maybe he loved this a little too much.
"You perverted asshole!" she picked up the vase and threw it at him aiming for his face but he easily caught the vase. He then ced the vase near him.
"I don''t need those pills, you blind bastard!" Despite being angry, she didn''t miss the opportunity to proudly show off her ample bosom.
"Back to the topic at hand, which pills do you think would attract more crowds?" It took several seconds to calm her down and when she calmed down, she gave her opinion.
"Whatever a 5-star Alchemist makes, people would buy them, but considering we don''t have many ingredients to work with, I''d rmend we sell Healing potions, Revitalizing pills, and Arch Energy Boosters"
"Do you have a price point for all these pills?" she thought about the question regarding the prices for a few more seconds before answering it.
"Healing potions, 13,000 gold coins, Revitalizing pills can be sold for 11,000 and Arch Energy boosters, I''d say 10,000" For Gaya, these amounts were simple but for Michael who barely had any gold coins left became extremely happy. Besides, these were all just low-level pills and potions he had to make due to theck of ingredients but with enough Badass points, he could buy rare herb seeds from the store and grow it in the sect rather than buying them from the stores.
After seeing the outrageous price for the herbs in the system store, he decided that it would be cost-effective to buy the seeds that were way cheaper than the grown herbs and grow them in the sect''s garden.
The seed pack cost 6000 badass points and an extra 1000 for apost that would make the herbs grow in two days. The seed pack sold by the system had various rare herbs and items to concoct and brew special pills and potions.
"Alright, Gaya, time to earn some sweet gold!"
Chapter 54 - The Majestic
"Young Master Ghost, is this your shop?" Amidst the busy bustling streets of Bradford, two pegasuses(or ''pegasi'')nded on the street as two youngsters, one young girl and a man in his early thirties descended on the ground.
Obviously, the two youngsters were Michael and Ricky, the young girl was Gaya and thest was Daniel. The one who asked the question was Ricky. Apparently, Ricky''s eyes opened wide in surprise, but his surprised face turned gloomy after seeing the empty interior of the shop.
"Ricky, Daniel" Instead of directly going into the store, Michael called his two henchmen to step closer to him.
"From here on, call me Master Ghost, drop the Young, it''s really awkward, especially when you use it" He looked at Ricky when he said thest part.
Michael would have ordered them to call him ''Sir'' but apparently in this world, calling someone Master was more respectful than calling him, Sir.
For the ''Young'' part, he felt awkward when someone called him ''Young Master'', especially someone who was just a year or two older than him like Ricky.
"Huh?" Ricky and Daniel tilted their heads and looked at him confused but a few momentster, they nodded as they had no n to go against his orders considering the pay he promised.
"And I''d like to hear them call me Your Royal Highness" Gaya mumbled under her breath.
"You two put the pegasus on the side and clean this ce"
Then he bought out some decorative objects from his System store to decorate his store with. These include things like wallpaper, fancy sofa and chairs in a modern style, some decorative ornaments meant for the ss window, and some colorful lights, which had never been seen by anyone in the Cultivation World before.
"You got another one?!'''' When he put down the sofa, Gaya couldn''t hide her shock but she quicklynded her butt into the fluffy sofa.
"Quit ying ande help me with this, you damn snake" he knocked on the head as she stood up massaging her head where he knocked.
"Ah! jerk"
Daniel and Ricky missed this little quarrel as the four of them began to clean and decorate the store.
With the help of the two hardworking henchmen and onezy snake, he set about doing his job quickly. He dispersed all the beautiful, modern decorations around the store, illuminating the lights with Arch energy.
Little by little the people who were roaming on the streets noticed this and were surprised by what they had seen but because of the dark curtains covering the windows, they still couldn''t see clearly what''s going on inside.
They worked for almost two hours and though some of the onlookers left, soon, many other people arrived. After all, these objects were all very fancy and included things that they had neverid eyes on before. Even though the decorations were temporary, he did his best to make the shop look the best.
Finally, after all the decorations had been done, he bought a giant nk board and ced them on the ground.
"What do we name our shop?" Of course, he needed a badass name for the shop because he didn''t n to be done with one shop but create an empire of businesses.
"Aelia Alchemy! Aelia Alchemy!" Like the only kid who had done the homework, Gaya raised her arm and excitedly shouted. And just like the kids who never touched the homework, Ricky and Daniel gawked at each other awkwardly.
"You wish, humph"
"You have no taste!" she pouted but he ignored her and picked his mind for a better name.
"The Majestic"
"Ah...what?" Who would name a single shop The Majestic, Gaya thought, and even the two henchmen frowned.
"Yes, We name this shop The Majestic" he could imagine hundreds of branches all over this world with the name ''The Majestic''.Just by mere thought, he felt extremely excited.
A suitable name for an Alchemy empire!!!
"Are you seriously thinking to name this shop The Majestic?!" she air quoted thest two words and snickered.
"Just imagine" he stepped closer as he put his hand around her neck and surprisingly, she didn''t resist.
"Hundreds of shops, all over the world, The Majestic. And when we build our main headquarters, we can call the ce, The Majestic City, how cool is that?"
"Hmm, when you put it like that...it does sound not so bad" she said as she also put her hand around his neck. Both Daniel and Ricky scratched the back of their head looking at these two.
"Now, who''s going to write the name on the board?" He asked looking at Gaya as he expected her to write the name considering his handwriting sucks. Usually, girls would have beautiful handwritingpared to the boys, therefore, he looked at her.
"Gimme the brush" Looking at his gaze, she rolled her eyes and grabbed the brush to write the name on the board.
After a few minutes, she finished writing the name and it looked gorgeous.it even shocked Michael because her handwriting lookedputerized.
''That''s how you do it'' Pride in her work and arrogance oozed out of her face.
Without giving any snarkyments, Michael gestured at Ricky and Daniel to hang the sign outside. As soon as the people saw the sign and the store, they were greatly surprised.
Amongst all the buildings in Bradford City, it was really rare to see such a new, smart, and modern-looking store.
This store had a strange name, too¡ªThe Majestic.
...
"Hey, have you heard the news that Ghost beat up Jane''s bodyguards, in front of her?"
"I have already heard this news, he has way too many balls if you ask me!"
"Yeah, no shi but I bet he would have realized by now who he had messed with and never return to Bradford"
"That''s baloney! He just opened up a store. Its name is The Majestic."
"My God! Really? Can that guy open a store? Who would dare to visit his store?"
"Exactly! It''s a pity that his store hasn''t opened to the public yet. I wonder what its mainmodity would be."
"I''ve heard that he is nning to sell meat."
"No, I''ve heard he is going to open a brothel and the girl with him is the merchandise"
....
Michael had no idea about the rumors and the tales spreading across Bradford about his shop.
The portions and the pills were not veryplicated. As long as ingredients were avable, everything could be made easily in a few minutes.
As the main pir of the shop, Alchemist, what he could do was concoct the pills and brew the potions while Ricky and Daniel stand guard outside.
Gaya on the other hand, wrote down the effects of each pill and potion on the billboard so that the customers could ce orders ordingly.
Now, everything was ready.
"Okay, let''s set a small goal of earning three hundred thousand gold on an opening day!" He calmly said to the three in front of them.
Hearing his goal, Ricky and Daniel freaked out as they only knew that he''s an Alchemist but they had no idea what star Alchemist he is.
Is he nning to earn three hundred gold on an opening day?
How¡ how could this be possible?
Regardless of whether or not the two were believing this, he was quite confident himself, so was Gaya.
"Alright, Aelia, put the menu outside, and let''s make some money!!"
"MONEY!" Gaya shouted with vigorous spirit and paced towards the outside where a lot of curious onlookers had already gathered.
Many people were discussing themodity of the store, for the renovation style was so novelty that none of them had ever seen anything like in the past.
Also, some people were looking forward to witnessing the Baron''s wrath for beating his daughter''s bodyguards.
Finally, he ordered Ricky to remove the curtains and let the people outside bask in the glory of his new shop. Being fully surprised, all onlookers stared at the store with curiosity.
Along with the lifting of dark curtains, a typical Manhattan boutique-style shop came into view of the onlookers. All onlookers were totally shocked and dumbfounded.
"Awesome! It''s really beautiful!"
"Look at that! It really turns me on!"
"Wow look at those spotless windows and the interior!"
"Gee, look, it seems it''s an Alchemy store!"
"Woah! A healing pill cost 13000 gold?!"
"Shit, he has Revitalizing pills for sale!"
"I can''t afford this, this is day time robbery!"
''Why don''t he go rob the king?!"
As these onlookers started to read the menu on the billboards, they trembled at the sight of the prices. Their eyes widened in great shock.
"My God! This must be one wicked store!"
Chapter 55 - Ghost Is A 5-star Alchemist?!
Hearing this, Michael didn''t react at all but waited for Gaya to write thest part on the board. He lounged on the sofa and rxed his body.
The store was full of people, but no one dared to take a step forward and make an order, as everything was just so expensive.
"Oh, wait a moment, look over there!" a man suddenly yelled, pointing to the shop-sign after Gaya finished writing.
"Holy moly, 80% pure pills!"
"Oh my god, are the pills and potions made by Alchemy King Gabriel?!"
"If this is true, then the price is actually very reasonable!"
"This cannot be true! Just think, Lord Keswick didn''t have any shops anywhere"
"Yes, you are right. If this store is his, he would havee here"
¡
Besides, the prices were really high, so no one was willing to try anything.
But the written introductions were really alluring, especially for cultivators who were now experiencing a bottleneck in the development of their powers. They were desperate to ascend to a higher stage in a short time.
That was why the price of the Arch Energy boosters made by Gabriel had gone up to 15000 gold coins in the auction.
Now, one just needed to spend 10000 coins, and they could possibly enjoy the same effect as the difference between Gabriel''s pill and here, only 4%.
"Excuse me Miss, what if I fail to get into a higher stage after I take your Arch Energy booster?" asked a middle-aged man, who was at level 2 of the Body Refining Stage.
"He is the master of the Wincent family, a very influential family in Sarton. I never thought that he woulde here alone."
"It is said that he has been in a bottleneck for twenty years, I think he might never enter the next stage in this life without a powerful pill or portion"
"I guess he would like to take this opportunity."
"Anyway, he should tell us what he will do if the pill does not work."
¡
All of a sudden, everyone stared at Gaya as she scanned the man from top to bottom. After a few seconds, she agreed with the man. If this man took an Arch Energy booster purer than 80%, he would break the bottleneck and breakthrough to the next stage.
"Ghost" she turned around and nodded at Michael. He slowly sat straight on the sofa.
"ording to your current state, if you take the 80% pure Arch Energy booster, I''ll guarantee you that you''ll break through to the next level, if not, I will pay you back with ten times the pill''s value. Not only that but we also give ten times the coins you spent if the products were not 80% pure "
Seeing this, people at present took a deep breath.
"He did not only give a guarantee but also said he wouldpensate him with ten times'' the product''s original value?"
"Really?! He would pay 100,000 gold coins?"
The master was a little hesitant. After all, 10,000 gold coins was not a small amount of money. He had to think carefully before making any move but Michael''s confident voice and guarantee somewhat reassured him to take the gamble.
Right at this moment, many more onlookers came.
"Do not be tricked by him! He must be lying!"
"Yes! No one would dare to ask forpensation from him if the pill does not have the effect he ims it does."
"You all know who he really is, you can do nothing about him¡"
¡
Hearing this, all people at present were in agreement.
Yes, even if the pill was fake, no one would dare to ask forpensation from him, especially after he beat the crap out of Jane''s bodyguards.
Bang!
Gaya suddenly dashed towards the crowd with a cold look on her face.
"Ah!"
"What are you doing?!"
A few onlookers were dragged out and thrown onto the street by her while Michael sat still without stopping her because they were bad for his business.
She then stepped on their chests so hard as bone-cracking noises came from their chest. The next minute, they all began to spit out blood and passed out.
"You bastards are really brazen! How dare you speak ill of our shop, the Majestic?!" Gaya sneered and even though she was just a mortal, no one dared to raise a finger against her because of Michael.
Then she walked slowly back to the store as people backed off and got out of her way.
They realized that not only Michael but his beautiful charming girlfriend was also a cruel devil.
"If you can''t afford our products, no problem but if you dare speak ill of our establishment, I will kick the shit out of you all"
Everyone felt furious and stunned including Ricky and Daniel. Just a moment ago, she seemed so harmless and cute but in a few seconds, she turned into a scarier version of Jane or even worse.
Even with her mortal status, she''s this arrogant, and imagine, if she has the cultivation level of Ghost
Damn! even his girlfriend is exactly like him
Bitch!
How dare she treat them like this?!
But they all noticed Michael standing there calmly, so no one opened their mouth toin about Gaya''s behavior. As far as Micheal was concerned, most of these poor bastards can''t afford his price and didn''t care about their feelings. Like Gaya said, if they have the guts to speak ill of his shop, they better be ready to get their asses kicked.
"Ghost, since you are running a business, you should not treat customers like this" The Master of Wincent family said.
"In the Majestic, we put the customers first but we also do not tolerate any kind of false ims against our products" Michael calmly said as the people at present were stunned.
Put the customers first? Seriously!?
The master of the Wincent Family also shook his head. "Ghost, as a businessman, you should always be honest! You said that if the products are not 80% pure, you willpensate us with ten times the product''s original value, do you really mean it?" Everyone knew even the pills and potions made by Gabriel wouldn''t be 84% pure at all times but Michael said otherwise.
"Of course I mean it! Buy or don''t, it''s your choice." he shrugged.
"Fine! Here are 10,000 gold coins, give me the Arch Energy booster"
The Master of the Wincent family took out a grey cube and put the cube heavily on the desk beside Michael.
Michael however did not take the cube but instead, he nodded at Gaya to process the payment. Gaya quickly came to him and took the pay cube
"10,000 gold coins" she said without any kind expression on her face. The man hated their attitude but with the gritted teeth, he ced his hand on the cube as a blue holographic image of 10,000 appeared above the pay cube. In a few seconds, a neatly stacked 10,000 gold coins appeared on the table. Ricky and Daniel and every single person who saw the scene sighed and looked at the gold with sparkling eyes. For Ricky and Daniel, this was the first time they had seen a huge amount like this up close.
Micheal was extremely excited to see the sparkling gold coins but he controlled his emotions and ordered the system to take the coins into his storage.
"Wait at the waiting area until I call you" Michael said.
Ricky quickly stepped forward and gestured at the man towards the line of office chairs as the man followed Ricky.
Meanwhile, everyone waited to see the 80% pure Arch Energy pill and scanned the entire room to see where he was keeping the pills. Until now, people couldn''t find a single pill in this store and expected Michael to retrieve the pill from his space ring which he didn''t have.
The shop was divided into two halves by a ss wall. One half was the waiting area where fancy office chairs lined up for customers and argefy executive chair and table for Gaya.
The other half behind the ss door was Michael''s domain. Since this store was a temporary ce, he only ced arge sofa and nothing else.
"Oooh, I like this chair" While everyone''s gaze was at Michael, Gaya sat on her executive chair and rotated the chair yfully.
"Whoosh!" On the other side of the ss, Michael flipped his left hand, exposing his palm and revealing a bright red me, hovering on it.
"What is he doing?!"
"Is he going to concoct the pills?"
"Idiot, look there''s no furnace!"
"Then what the heck is he doing with the fire?!"
As they were looking at him confused, he tossed all the ingredient right into the me
"What?"
"What¡ What is he doing?"
"Oh my god! Is he really an Alchemist?"
"What the fuck?!"
"I''m not an Alchemist but I know enough not to throw all the ingredients directly into the me"
Everyone was stupefied by the turn of events as no one thought that he''s an Alchemist or he would try to concoct the pill himself. Their faces had looks of utter shock and disbelief.
In that next second, however, their jaws almost hit the ground and eyes bulged out of the sockets. The pearls and beads of herbal essences emerged from the mes but took no damage at all. Then the green beads merged into one round shiny pill that radiated Arch Energy and a sweet aroma.
"Holy fuck! look at the pill, it looks perfectly pure and wless."
"80% pure!"
The crowd who were seeing this remained rooted to the ground in shock. Their hearts were trembling, unable to believe whatever they were witnessing.
"5-star Alchemist!"
"Ghost is a 5-star Alchemist!"
Several people among the crowd shouted as the entire shop became dead silent.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
¡.
Finally, the moment Michael waited appeared. The sweet sound of rings of notifications rang inside his head without a stop.
Chapter 56 - Jane Is Not Done With Michael
"He''s not a genius, he''s a frickin monster¡There are no words to describe this kind of talent!"
Many people were rolling their eyes, feeling dizzy and struggling just to not fall on the ground. They simply couldn''t ept this, this was just too unbelievable.
They managed to calm themselves down after a few more minutes but the way they looked at Michael had changed. And currently, they realized one thing; he''s in a different league than the other prodigies of his generation.
The more they became shocked, the more badass points he earned.
"Daniel, take this pill to the gentleman over there." Holding the Green shiny pill in his hand, Michael called Daniel. It took several seconds for Daniel to respond as he came to Micheal.
Michael ced the pill in Daniel''s shaking hands. Before this Daniel had never even seen 30% pure Alchemy pills or potions this close, let alone an 80% pure pill. Realizing that he was holding a 10,000 gold value pill in his hand, his whole body trembled.
"Go on" Michael gave a pat on the back to move Daniel faster.
After a minute, Daniel carefully handed over the pill to the man. Receiving the pill, he could feel the warmness and the Arch Energy radiating from the pill. The fantastic smell of the pill wafted into his nose.
The onlookers were eager to know whether the pill was a real 80% pure one or not, and all tightly fixed their eyes on him.
"You will be able to feel the effect after taking the pill," Gaya stopped rolling and rotating the chair and reminded him slowly at that moment.
The master said nothing more. Either he would break through to the next level after taking the pill or receive ten times the amount he paid. Both oues were favorable to him.
Puff!
He opened his mouth and put the pill into his mouth. The next moment, the man''s eyes widened in disbelief.
The pill melted in his mouth and released a rich aroma. He could instantly sense his body devouring the Arch Energy like crazy. The master was shocked. He had been taking many pills and portions for a long time expecting a breakthrough.
"Is the pill working?" someone in the crowd shouted at that moment.
However, the master had no time to answer the question as his whole body was going through a change.
"It is so¡" He was about to open the mouth and all of a sudden, a force of energy gushed out from his meridians and rushed through his body, roaring like a tsunami.
"What?" The master was totally shocked.
He didn''t have enough time to think more. The next moment, he sat down on the ground with his legs crossed and started to draw that force in with cultivation arts.
Boom!
After a few breaths, a formless airwave gushed out from his body. Then he opened his eyes suddenly with brand new momentum. His eyes were even clearer than before and his skin became glossy.
Level 3 of the Body Refining Stage!
"I did... it?" The master murmured to himself. His mind remained unclear for a while.
Did I break the bottleneck which has entangled me for so many years?
¡
All of the onlookers were also dumbfounded!
All of them had sensed the change in the master.
"Level 3¡of the Body Refining Stage!"
"How¡how could this be possible?"
"My God! He really realized a breakthrough to the next stage!"
"That was really an 80% pure Arch Energy booster! There was no doubt about that"
"I can''t believe he''s a 5star Alchemist!"
"He''s not even thirty years old"
Everyone was eximing with disbelief.
There were no right words for them to describe their shock.
Whoosh!
The master of the Wincent family stood up immediately and bowed at him. Then he said with immense gratitude, "Thank you, Young Master Ghost! My whole Wincent family is in your debt" The man even addressed him as ''Young Master'' because he was not only a prodigy but also a 5-star Alchemist. Even the King would treat a 5star Alchemist like him with the utmost respect. Standing on the other side of the ss, Michael waved his hand calmly.
"It''s okay. The next time you need any pills or potions,e to the Majestic"
"Of course, Young Master Ghost. Can I order another ten Arch Energy boosters and a couple of Revitalizing pills for the members of my family?" The master asked excitedly. His breakthrough this time could greatly promote the status of his family and with these pills, his entire family could increase their power.
If the other elders who were also entangled with bottlenecks could also make a breakthrough, aplete transformation would happen in his family, and their status in Sarton would reach a new level.
Therefore, spending a hundred thousand or more gold coins was not a bad thing but a great investment.
Seeing this, the onlookers could hardly standstill.
"Holy shit! This is for real!" Usually normal people including the rich people couldn''t get a chance to meet a 5-star Alchemist as they were extremely rare in the Elon continent. And even those few would often deal with rare treasures and artifacts rather than gold coins, therefore, when they realized the golden opportunity in front of them in the shape of Michael, they rushed into the store and gathered in front of Gaya''s counter. Then they started to shout loudly, "I will also order five Arch Energy boosters!"
"Me too!"
"I will take three healing potions!"
"Six Revitalizing pills for me!"
Instantly the store was in chaos and Ricky and Daniel struggled to keep the people in the line.
At this moment, Gaya stood up with an evil smile and shouted,
"Behave yourselves, this is not a market! Form an orderly line and ce your orders one by one. If you don''t, we will close the shop and leave"
The crowd instantly stopped the chaos they were making and quickly formed a line. They feared that she would really close the shop and leave.
They all knew that at the same time tomorrow, the whole street would be crowded with people to buy a pill from him when the news spread. Before that happened, they wanted to buy the pills and potions. Of course, the people who had no gold coins to afford such products could only step aside and let the rich people move forward.
At the same time, a fat old man who stood in the line took a deep breath before talking to one of the young guards beside him, "Rio, I''ll stay in the line, you go and inform the Baron about this"
******************
In the main hall of the Baron''s mansion, a middle-aged man was sitting on arge chair. The man, wearing loose silk clothes, was muscr and 6 feet tall. He was the mayor of Bradford, Tobias Totonk. In front of him was a young girl who was shivering and walking back and forth with a red face.
"Father, I need him dead now! Send him 50 no...60 men, I want them to chop him up!" She was none other than Jane.
"Don''t be impatient Jane, let''s investigate the matter properly before taking any decision"
"Fuck the decision! My guards are at death''s door because of that bastard, I want justice for my people, why can''t you understand this?" her eyes slightly welled up when she talked about her guards but her anger was too great to let the tears roll out.
"If you don''t, I''ll go directly to the Capital and bring my big brother"
"I''m not saying I won''t take action against Ghost but I''m saying we can''t act on impulse, especially at a time like this," Tobias patiently exined but Jane was not in the mood to listen to him.
"What''s our war with Sarton Barron has anything to do with this? Grow a spine father!"
"Jane!" Tobias raised his voice but he soon calmed himself. Sometimes he would think he pampered her too much and spoiled her but he couldn''t get mad at his little princess as he loved her too much. Not only him, everyone in his family loved her dearly. Her mother died when she was little and because of that everyone raised her giving her everything she asked as they didn''t want her to feel motherless.
Even when she ran amok in Bradford, no one reprimanded her. The only one who kept her in line was Celina, Jane''s cousin. Jane loved her cousin like her own sister and Celina too loved her deeply since she was little.
However, no one could have known at this point that Celina will be the reason for what''s going to happen to Jane.
Chapter 57 - First Day Collection
Suddenly a guard rushed into the main hall, his face filled with excitement but when he noticed Jane, he cowered like a scared cat. The guard wouldn''t have felt excited if he knew what happened to Jane''s guards. He just reached Bradford with Minister Liam, the fat old man who was waiting in the Majestic.
"What is it, Rio?" Looking at the guard, Tobias asked.
"There''s a 5-star Alchemist in Bradford, Lord Totonk"
"WHAT?!" Tobias immediately stood up like his chair was on fire.
"Where is he? Is heing here?! Why did no one inform me? Who is he?" Tobias ignored Jane''s temper tantrum and rapidly fired questions at Rio.
"Father!"
"Lord Totonk, he opened up a shop in Bradford, Minister Liam is there to order some pills and potions"
"Let''s go meet him now" A 5-star Alchemist was not a joke, if he could form a rtionship with one, he could gain a massive advantage over Sarton Baron and who knew, he could even avoid war altogether.
"Do you know his name?"
"Lord Totonk, the people called him Ghost" and just when Tobias was about to take another step, he received a huge blow in the form of Rio''s answer.
"What did you say?!" Tobias felt like he was going to faint as he looked at Jane with the mixed emotions of anger and uncertainty.
Of all the people in Bradford, she just messed with the one person who could have saved Bradford from going to war with Sarton. Thinking about this, he wasn''t sure whether to me himself for spoiling her too much or me his bad luck.
"I don''t care if he''s a Six-star Alchemist, he must pay the price for his crimes"
"SHUT UP!" Tobias''s anger exploded and his shout echoed through the main hall. Jane stumbled back a few steps as this was the first time she had seen her father angry at her. Even when she killed a Minister''s son, he didn''t shout at her like this.
"Do you not understand the seriousness of your actions? You messed with the 5-star Alchemist, people like him wouldn''t be a nobody or some run of the mill rich brat who you can kill and punish as you wish!" The guard who escorted Jane back to the mansion informed Tobias about everything that happened at Bradford and what Michael said to Jane before he left.
''The reason I leave you alive is I don''t like wars and I''m not going to start one with your family because of you. But if you mess with me again, you and all the Bradford will know the power behind me''
The words he spoke made more sense to Tobias now than it did before.
"Gather our men, Rio, we''re going to greet this Ghost. I hope he''s not furious at us"
"As you wish, Lord Totonk"
"Father, wait I''ming with you!"
*****************
At this moment, Michael finished using thest batch of ingredients and heaved a long sigh. The ingredients might have run out on him but the crowd was much bigger than when he first started. However, he still had one batch of ingredients to brew Healing potion in his system storage as he expected the Baron to visit him soon. Arge portion of the crowd came only to see the fiasco rather than buying his expensive products.
Michael stood up with a smile and shouted, "my dear customers, we''re going to close the shop now"
Hearing that, everyone in the store was totally surprised.
"What the hell?"
"Are they going to close the store now?"
"No, Young Master Ghost, let me buy some Arch Energy boosters first."
"Yeah, I''m waiting here for so long!"
"Please! Don''t do this!"
"Did we do something wrong, Young Master Ghost?"
Many people shouted as some even begged him not to close the shop. They were cultivators who had been stuck in their current stage for many years, and most of them had lost hope in making breakthroughs. People who had severe injuries hoped to treat their wounds with healing potions, those who polluted their body with various pills and potions hoped to revitalize their bodies by using the Revitalization pills, and finally people like the lord of Wincent family had a chance to breakthrough by taking the Arch Energy Boosters.
All of them now had found hope! Their longsting problem could be solved by Michael. He was their savior!
"People, We''re not permanently closing the store but I''ve run out of ingredients and it''ll take a day to get the special items I use. So there''s nothing I can do" The crowd looked disappointed but they couldn''t argue with him as he made a valid point.
"If you want to buy our products tomorrow, I''ll be at my new shop in the Sun Rise sect. We open at seven in the morning and close at one o clock. Now leave the store in an orderly manner"
"You heard the man" Gaya stood up from her executive chair and motioned the crowd towards the door as Daniel and Ricky stepped forward to deal with the reluctant crowd.
"If you dare do or say something, we won''t do any business in Bradford again!"
"This¡" All the onlookers were tongue-tied and wearing gloomy expressions. Expressions of regret appeared in the faces of many people. They harbored bitterness in their hearts as they cursed themselves for having hesitated and noting here soon. Before such a great temptation of 80% alchemy potions and pills, none of them could wait toe back the next day.
They all wanted to ask why he was moving the store from Bradford to Sunrise sect but having heard Gaya, they didn''t dare to question Michael.
"Never mind. Let''s go to the Sunrise sect earlier tomorrow," The onlookers turned around and walked to the outside in a line.
"Don''t forget to bring your pay cubes tomorrow, we are not charity!" As they stepped out of the shop, Gaya shouted at them and chuckled happily.
"Not bad for a first day" Atst Michael sighed in relief and smiled. Honestly speaking, Gaya contributed much to the sessful first day. He was able to concoct and brew potions without worrying about the crowd only because of Gaya. The flood of people overwhelmed the two henchmen but Gaya handled the situation pretty well by keeping the crowd in line and throwing the bad crowd out of the shop. In simple words, she was like a mix between cute Manager and ruthless bouncer.
"You two go and have a break, meet us here in two hours" Michael ordered Daniel and Ricky.
"Yes, Master Ghost!" their voices now full of energy and they looked extremely happy like they hit the jackpot with this job.
After Ricky and Daniel left the shop, both Michael and Gaya plunged into the sofa. Previously he gave the space ring he got from Heaven''s gatepetition to Gaya, so she could store the gold coins inside rather than piling them in the shop before all the people.
"Tell me how much we earned?" he rubbed his hands in excitement as Gaya flicked her wrist. A bright light emerged from the silver space ring in her hand and then, huge neatly stacked gold coins appeared in front of them.
Whooow!
The glistening of the gold coins lit the room with a golden color. He had seen a stack of money before but this was the first time he saw a huge pile of gold coins this close.
"There are 359,000 gold coins. We sold 11 Arch Energy Boosters for 110,000 coins. 12 Revitalizing pills for 132,000 and 9 Healing potions for 117,000 coins. If we had more batches of ingredients, we could have milked the suckers dry" she let out a disappointed look.
"I do have onest batch of ingredients to brew healing potions"
"Good, I do expect the Baron to visit us" Gaya nodded, "And what did you ask the people toe to the Sunrise sect? What''s wrong with this ce? No one would dare to touch us now and we could even buy what we need from the Green Heaven"
"First of all, they would definitely raise their prices knowing what we are charging the people. Secondly, why should we go to the Green Heaven when we can grow our own herbs at the sect? We don''t have to pay for the ingredients and we can promote the sect more by setting up the shop there" After hearing him, she took a couple of seconds to think about this and nodded.
"You are right and I don''t think that bitch Jane would let us run a business in her city after what you had done to her guards. So what are you gonna do about the ingredients for tomorrow? We cleaned the sect''s herbal guardian clean remember?"
"Don''t worry about it, I got it covered" and when she was about to ask how, they heard galloping sounds and heavy footsteps. Michael looked outside through the dark curtain to see a group of soldiers dressed in metal tes and chainmail walking towards their shop.
"The Baron is here"
Chapter 58 - Mc + Restaurant + Girl = TROUBLE
With a wave of his hand, Michael opened the door for the Baron and his guards. Two guards in a full metal te and chainmail entered through the door first and following them, a red-haired sturdy man came inside. His fancy robes and aura gave out his identity without an introduction.
"You!" behind the Baron, Jane walked with the gritted teeth. Michaelpletely ignored her and smiled at Baron.
"Wee to the Majestic, Baron Totonk" He said and reached his hand out to shake Baron''s hand as the Baron seemed stunned for a moment before shaking Michael''s hand.
"You are Master Ghost?" The Baron didn''t expect him to be this young as he seemed like he''s neen or twenty years old. He was not wrong as Abras was only 19 years old when he died.
"Yes, Baron Totonk," Michael said. The guards quickly brought two customer chairs and ced them behind the Baron and Jane to sit.
Michael and Gaya sat on the sofa to hear the purpose of Baron''s visit.
"Master Ghost, my men said you are a 5star Alchemist?"
How could the Baron believe a boy like him is a 5 freakin star Alchemist?
Was he studying Alchemy since he was in his mother''s womb?
"Apparently I am, a lot of people ask me that. So Baron Totonk, what brought you to my shop, is it anything to do with what happened to the guards?"
"Forgive my silly daughter for what happened Master Ghost, I spoiled her too much"
"Father!" Baron knew when to raise his head and lower his head. Compared to a 5-star Alchemist, his position as Baron was nothing, even the King of Bredia would treat Ghost with the utmost respect.
Not only was he a 5star Alchemist but one who could concoct pills and brew potions with the purity of 80% which made him the second-best to Alchemy King Gabriel himself.
"Don''t worry about that, Baron Totonk, I''m not going to hold that against you but how are the guards?"
"What do you think, you devil?!"
"Jane!" Jane snapped when Michael asked about the guards but soon, she closed her mouth when Baron raised his voice at her.
"Mast"
"It''s fine, Lord Totonk. I''m a very tolerant guy"
"Tolerant my ass!"
Gaya wasughing her butt off inside when she heard this but kept a straight face.
Unlike Gaya, the veins on Jane''s face popped and her face turned ugly.
This guy nearly beat her guards to death but shameless iming that he''s a tolerant guy, how ridiculous is that?
"I''m d that you have such a big heart Master Ghost" Baron Totonk was nning how to cool him off after Jane''s little squabble with him. He was even ready to gift him a huge chunk of the treasury if that is what it takes Ghost to forgive Jane but now he sighed in relief hearing that he already forgave them.
"I would however, rmend you to buy some Healing Potions to treat the guards"
"Oh?" The Baron was again stunned by Michael. For a moment Totonk thought he saw a fox in human form. Baron understood that by rmending he''s urging him to buy Healing potions from him.
"Of course, Master Ghost" if that would make Ghost happy, Baron was willing to spend the gold for the Healing potions. Looking at the Baron''s pay cube, Gaya''s lips curved upwards
"The guards would need six Healing potions"
"That''d be 78,000 gold coins"
"Are you seriously asking us to pay for what you have done?! This is too much!" Jane screamed and puffs of smoke came out of her nostrils.
"Do you know how much it cost me to reach the point where I am now? Compared to that, this is just a drop in the ocean"
"Don''t mind my spoiled daughter, Master Ghost, here''s the pay cube" Baron Tototnk handed his pay cube as Gaya took 78,000 gold from it with a small chuckle. Gaya knew Jane must be going crazy seeing this and it made Gaya extremely happy and satisfied.
"Now wait a few minutes, Baron Totonk" Michael smiled.
He immediately took out the batch of ingredients to brew the Healing potions in front of Baron and his men, so he could gain more Badass points.
Michael merely waved his hand, and under the control of his Arch energy, all the required herbs and ingredients floated up in front of him. After that, he immediately unleashed his Arch Energy. With its aid, he would be able to gain precise control over every single herb.
Pop!
Followed by a soft vibration, the bright red fire in his hand exploded and turned into a small stream of mes that engulfed all of the herbs.
"Woah!" Baron immediately leaned back when he saw he''s brewing the potion without even a furnace.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 900 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
¡.
The beep sound of the system rang continuously in his mind. Even Jane looked stunned by the sight of his ability to brew potion without a furnace. Even though she was not an Alchemist, she knew how hard it is to practice Alchemy without a furnace as even the Alchemy Teachers in the Morning star would risk concocting pills or brewing potions without a furnace.
Under the intense heat of the me, all of the impurities within the herbs were being burnt. Although the purification process looked simple, it was an important step that couldn''t be neglected. His action of purifying dozens of herbs at once was simply shocking.
He had a calm expression. His ck hair was fluttering backward, and his eyes were brimming with vigor like a pair of dark gemstones. With all his focus, he kept staring at the sea of mes in front of him. Within the mes, all the herbs were floating in different positions and were being burned with different temperatures that suited them individually.
There were no doubts about purification being a very difficult step in alchemy. Therefore, when ordinary alchemists concocted pills or brewing potions, they would use a furnace to help control the temperature of the me. Besides, since each herb had its own melting point, the alchemist would need to purify them one at a time or purify herbs with the same melting point at the same time. If two herbs with different melting points were purified at the same time, it would usually result in impurities remaining or essence being burned off, which then makes the pill or the potion low quality.
Even the alchemists with rich experience might at most purify a few herbs together at once. The fact that he was able to purify dozens of herbs together at once was simply astounding. Only the renowned alchemists dared to do so, and none of them would be able to do it so leisurely like he was doing.
After a few minutes, six vials of green glistening liquidnded in his hand.
"Here you go, Baron Totonk" he handed over the vials to the Baron.
"If you want anything else, you have toe to the Sunrise sect, we are moving the shop"
"Why?!" The Baron was surprised and shocked at the same time.
"Master Ghost, is it because of my daughter? Why are you moving?" Although the Sunrise sect was a part of Bradford, it was an independent territory unlike here.
"It''s not Baron Totonk, staying here never was my n. The Sunrise sect is my home now and I like working from home. There''s nothing you can do or say that would make me stay here. Besides, I think it''s better if we stay off of each other" Michael looked at Jane when he said.
Baron Totonk let out a long sigh. He knew Ghost was right because he knew his daughter. It wouldn''t take Jane to find a way to mess with him if he stayed in Bradford, therefore, the Baron reluctantly epted Ghost''s move.
As far as the Baron was concerned, he''s on Ghost''s good side and he could use this to build his rtionship with him and use his reputation and status to gain an advantage over the Baron of Sarton.
"Then I will wish you luck Master Ghost and if you need anything, please just send someone to my humble house, I will do my best to help you"
"Of course, Baron Totonk"
After a few pleasant words, Baron left the store. Jane gave him a cold stare before leaving and indicated that she''s not done with him.
"437,000 gold" Looking at the disappearing figures of the Baron and his men, Gaya said.
"Not bad, not bad at all"
"Human, counting all these gold makes me hungry, let''s go grab a bite" Since she had no Arch energy to sustain her body needs, her stomach started to growl. She would literally kill to eat the porridge cooked by Raylene but she was too hungry to go to the sect.
"Alright, lead the way"
Not long after this, Michael, and Gaya arrived at a Restaurant. It was a magnificent restaurant with luxurious decorations, and on top of the entrance hung three words, ''The Ruby Cuisine'' It was a two-story building, and the decorations were magnificent and luxurious. Anyone could sense an aristocratic aura from this ce.
Obviously, those who could dine at this ce were the noblest and richest men in Bradford. It was noon, and this was the busiest time each day for the Restaurant. Many rich and famous people wearing expensive clothing kept arriving.
And on their way to here, Michael earned Badass points just by walking. It was clear that many people now recognized him and were shocked by his talents thanks to the System.
A young man who looked like a waiter was bowing and greeting the customers while shouting out orders at the door. When the waiter saw Michael and Gaya he hurriedly came forwards and greeted, "Young Master, Young Miss. Pleasee in!" the waiter said but Gaya could sense a hint of panic and fear in his voice.
Gaya nodded thinking that probably the waiter heard of Ghost''s reputation and was about to enter the restaurant when she noticed Michael standing without moving.
"What''s going on?" Michael''s environment scanning ability revealed to him that there are two extremely powerful entities inside the restaurant and made him reluctant to get in.
"Is this going to be one of the restaurant fights that would happen in novels?" He loved reading cultivation novels and in most of them, the main character would find himself in trouble whenever he enters a ce to rest or eat, especially if the mc had a beautiful girl beside him.
Of course, he knew face pping an arrogant young master in front of all the people would get him badass points but the two entities inside the restaurants seemed way out of his current league. Therefore, he had second thoughts of entering the restaurant. He would rather choose to be careful and calctive than depend on the system and his luck to save his bacon.
"Come on, I''m hungry!"
"I changed my mind, let''s head back to the sect, I''ll ask Raylene to make something for you" He had to be alive to be a badass and his instincts told him not to enter the restaurant. So he listened to his instincts and immediately turned back.
"A good man won''t let his friend go hungry, Ghost" Just when he was about to leave, a voice appeared out of nowhere and formed an invisible wall around him.
"Shit, here we go"
Chapter 59 - Gaya鈥檚 Flashback
When Michael entered the restaurant and started walking towards the tables, he could immediately feel a pair of eyes looking at him. When he turned around to look at the source of these eyes, he could see two girls staring at him. One of them was blonde and the other was red hair. Obviously, both of them were super hot but Michael was not in the mood to enjoy their beauties as they could simply kill him like swatting a fly as the blonde was at the Core Formation level 6 and the red hair was at Core Formation level 3.
At the moment, two of them were checking him out and not in a good way.
"Take a seat" the blonde one gestured at Michael. She had shiny blonde hair, perfect facial structures, and silky smooth skin. The red hair beside the blonde was even hotter and younger than the blonde.
"Huh?" but when he took a step forward, he felt a tight grip around his hand and looked at Gaya who was shivering for some reason.
Although she acted weird, he had his own problems now and walked towards the table without showing his worries on the face.
"System, at the sign of the first trouble, activate the teleportation scroll"
[Noted!]
Immediately he noticed the tension in the hall and people in the restaurant tried their best not to look at the two girls and him. The atmosphere was quiet and gloomy like everyone was afraid of these two beauties.
"Sit down," the blonde one said as Michael calmly sat before them.
"Wine?" the blonde girl asked but Michael shook his head.
"I don''t drink booze, just water for me and waiter" he signaled the waiter toe. One of the waiters slowly approached them
"Bring whatever my friend asks"
"I''m... not... hungry" The waiter was already tense and when he heard Gaya''s cold voice, he didn''t dare to talk back to her.
"What''s your name? Your real name" the blonde girl asked as Michael took a short sip of water
"Ghost, that''s my name, I know it''s hard to believe but that''s the truth" He tried hard not to sound arrogant. These two were not someone he could mess with, at least not yet.
[Warning! The system detected a telepathic intrusion! Firewall Activated]
[The system''s level is too low to retaliate!]
[The system can only stop the telepathic Intrusion!]
"This bitch is trying to hack me?"
For a moment, the blonde seemed surprised but she quickly hid her surprise.
"You made name for yourself in this small kingdom, Ghost"
"Thank you, Miss..."
"You don''t get to know my name, at least not yet"
"Okay," He didn''t know whether the blonde knows it or not but she sounded extremely overbearing.
"Is every pretty girl in this world an egoistic bitch? No, it can''t be" he sighed inside and thought.
"What do you want from me, Miss?" Since these girls didn''t even give their names, he was not in the mood for small talks.
"You don''t have anything that we don''t, Ghost" The red hair girl snickered.
"My friend is right, Ghost. We don''t want anything from you, on the contrary, we are here to give you something"
"This is different" Micheal thought in his mind and asked," what is it, Miss?"
"How''d you like to join the Guardians Guild?"
"Woah"
"Holy moly!"
"Guys, they are Guardians, holy shit!"
"I knew it"
"What are they doing in Bradford?"
"It seems they are here recruit Ghost to their guild"
The people who were staring at them silently until now began to murmur immediately when they heard the blonde girl''sst words. Unfortunately for Michael, Abras had no knowledge about the Guardian Guild; however noticing the people''s reaction, he realized that it would be suspicious if he said he didn''t know anything about the Guardian Guild.
Therefore he decided to ask questions without revealing hisck of knowledge about their guild.
"Am I not too weak to join the Guardian Guild Miss?"
"Of course you''re too weak and that''s why you won''t join the Guardians" The blonde''s words confused him and looking at his expression, the girl put the wine ss in her hand down and exined
"We are searching for promising talents and forming a group of trainees to serve the Guild and Guardians"
"Serve?" he sneered inside and wanted to punch her in the face.
"What about after training, Miss?"
"Why are you asking too many questions? You should be thankful for us to even consider you" The red-haired girl lost her temper for a second and slightly raised her voice. If it was a normal circumstance and she was weak, he would have taught her a lesson. However, these two girls were extremely powerful and seemed to have a powerful guild behind them.
Although the blonde girl didn''t seem to like him asking questions, she still had a small smile on her face.
"After training, you will continue to work with your fellow trainees and serve the guild. The Guardians will evaluate your performance and if you''re good enough, they might take you as their subordinate" The girl made it sound being a subordinate as a huge honor and opportunity but Micheal didn''t give a shit about their Guild. How could he serve someone else other than himself?
Yet, he had only onest question to ask before rejecting their offer
"Miss, can I ask you onest question?" he asked humbly because he didn''t want the two girls to get mad and attack him which would threaten his life.
"Go on" the blonde girl nodded.
"Is there any chance for a trainee to be a Guardian?"
"Hahaha" the red-haired girl''s eyes went wide for a moment as the blonde girl burst intoughter. Michael still had a calm face but he could sense Gaya was trembling.
The blonde girl stood up when she stoppedughing and put a silver round medallion on the table.
"If you want to join the Guild, bring this to the Capitol before tomorrow night" In a sh, the two girls disappeared from the ce leaving everyone stunned.
He took the medallion and saw a logo of a crown etched into the surface. After storing the medallion in the system storage, he stood up to leave the ce but saw Gaya didn''t move a muscle.
"Hey,e on, we are leaving" he shook her shoulder and felt her body trembling.
"I know something''s wrong but this is not the ce,e" He forced her up as she reluctantly followed him outside.
When they stepped outside, Michael grabbed her hand and activated the Lighting dash. In a sh, he and Gaya left the ce leaving a trail of dust.
Except for the stop he made in front of his store to leave a note for Daniel and Ricky, he dashed straight outside Bradford and reached the outskirts of the city.
"Alright, now we can walk and talk" the outskirts of the city looked deserted and they had no one but trees to apany them.
"What happened back there?" He asked but she still remained silent which was a rare thing when ites to Gaya.
He sighed "usually I don''t give a shit about your past but when ites to my subordinates, I do give a shit. So tell me before I make you"
After looking at his serious face, Gaya took a deep breath and opened her mouth "The girl back there"
"Which one? the blonde or the red hair?"
"The red hair" she gritted her teeth and said
"What about her?"
"She is the reason for my state, human, she''s my half-sister" Michael halted his steps in surprise. He never expected this twist and now that he thought about this, it really made sense.
"So that''s why you went quiet. You have to tell me what happened in Nagnd, what did you do?" She hesitated to open up but Michael knew what would cheer her up and make her talk.
He retrieved a shiny white pill from the system storage. It was the cheap tier pill that would create a false sense of repairing her crippled meridians.
"If you tell me what happened, I will give you this pill I concocted just for you" her face slightly lit up when she saw the pill and reached out to grab the pills.
"No shback no pills" the pill was too tempting for Gaya and looking at her expression, heughed inside because it was like taking candy from a baby, he manipted her easily.
"It all started..."
"Short version would do, tell me only the good bits"
Chapter 60 - Tell Me Lies, Sweet Little Lies
"After my mother died, my father married a bitch called Salesi. Together they had Xanali, the red-haired bitch "
"Xanali huh" he noted her name and continued his walk while Gaya narrated the short version of her shback.
"Since the moment she was born, she got everything I didn''t, my father''s attention, mother''s love, and everything I longed for" her voice slightly broke and revealed the sadness in her heart.
"A few years ago, I asked one of my minions to collect information the Nagand''s poption and food consumption level"
"Why?"
"Because I saw my father asking for a loan from nearby human kings, he wouldn''t have done that if he had any other choices"
"You thought it has something to do with the poption and food consumption of your people?"
"Yes, and I was right. ording to my minions and spies, my father is liquidating the assets and taking loans from the nobles to run the kingdom. That bastard was driving my mother''s kingdom to the ground and I wanted to fix the situation before he could sell the kingdom piece by piece with that Salesi bitch" It was obvious to Michael that Gaya didn''t love her father very much by her tone and expression.
"What did your minion find out?"
"That was the weird thing, from the information I gathered, I realized that most of the wealth in the treasury was going to sustain the demand for food. And what made me loathe that bastard of a king was, most of the food we bought went to the prisons, to feed the prisoners"
"Huh?"
"Shocking right? I know. My mother died when I was six months old but I learned that when she was ruling, Nagnd was prosperous and a powerful Kingdom. One of the reasons for my mother''s sess was her rules, my mother made sure that rapists, murderers who killed innocent Nagas, and all other kinds of evil bastards die painfully. Because of that everyone fearedmitting a crime which kept the prisons from overflowing with Nagas"
"What changed?" Michael asked as her face twitched in anger
"Salesi and Xanali, they canceled many of my mother''s rules saying that it was too cruel. My spineless father went along with them"
"Not all whomit a crime deserves to die, Gaya"
"But when the crimes were ****, killing innocent Nagas, and ughtering children, they deserved to die. You killed an entire sect for the Rosewood vige"
"You''re right, those deserved to die"
"Except Salesi and Xanali thought they deserve a second chance.Five years for a Naga who ughtered an innocent family and three years for serial rapists, what kind of punishment was that? Those bastards treated the prison-like a pic spot and my father sold my mother''s kingdom piece by piece to feed those evil bastards. It drove me crazy and that was why I always ventured out to calm my nerves because I feared I would kill that bitch and my half-sister if I stayed in my castle"
"You still didn''t say what you did to deserves to get your meridians broke" she took a deep breath after Michael''s question and stayed quiet for a few seconds before continuing
"I wanted to bring Nagnd back to its former glory after I take the throne which rightfully belongs to me. But when I returned to Nagnd after one of my adventures, I heard my father and most of the ministers chose Xanali as the next queen and decided to marry me to some prince of a distant kingdom"
"That''s cold, why did they choose Xanali instead of you?" It was true that Gaya is an arrogant bitch but she was also the rightful heir to the throne. From what he heard from Gaya, Michael could tell that her father is too soft to be a king and Nagnd seemed like a ce that needed a queen like Gaya rather than a softie like her father who was clearly controlled by Salesi and Xanali.
"Because my father loved her more than me and Xanali earned the people''s support with her fake charity works and donations"
"She seemed like a bitch to me back there"
"That was her real face, human. I should have killed her years ago"
"Yet, she broke your meridians, how was she able to do that? If my memory serves me right, you must have been stronger than her" Gaya''s face reddened in anger.
"When I heard they chose Xanali to be the next queen, I lost my temper and questioned my father about all the debts and revealed the kingdom''s status, crime rates, and every dirty little secret he was hiding, in front of every noble and minister. Except instead of answering, that bastard threw me out of my castle, my own fucking castle but not before I killed his fucking guards and broke his jaw" she made a boxing posture and punched the air.
"So you broke your father''s jaw, things are getting interesting" After hearing about her father and what he was nning to do, Michael couldn''t me Gaya for losing her temper.
"He wanted to feed the prisons despite the wellness of my kingdom, so I went straight to every prison in the kingdom and burned them to the ground before they could do more damages to my mother''s kingdom. When I burned down thest prison, I lost most of my Arch energy and power, that bitch Salesi and Xanali attacked me at my weakest state. They captured me and brought me to my father, do you know the sentence he gave me?"
Michael shook his head but he had a feeling that it was not amunity service. Tears already started to roll out of her eyes
"He wanted to kneel down and ask for forgiveness from the kin of the evil bastards I burned down. I''d rather die than kneel down and beg for forgiveness. And human..." she paused for a moment and when Michael looked at her face, he saw her eyes welling up.
"You were wrong human, Xanali didn''t break my meridians, my...father...did...my own father" she then stopped walking and dropped to the ground in sorrow. Her father''s betrayal and actions saddened her more than they angered her.
"I may have a father, half-sister, and half mother, human but I''m no different than you, an orphan. I was, am, and always will be" this was the first time he saw Gaya crying and honestly, it startled him to see her like this. However, he hatched a quick n to exploit this situation in his favor.
" for what it''s worth, I think of you as my family, Gaya" he wiped the tears off from her face and wrapped his hand around her shoulder to console her.
Just like he nned, her loyalty towards him jumped from 30% to 42%.
She was far from being his family but a simple lie made Gaya''s loyalty towards him increase by 12% in one go. He would only consider her as his friend when she reaches at least 70% loyalty and until then, he decided to lie to her more often to increase her loyalty.
"Now take this pill, you''ll feel better. Besides, you look horrible when you cry, hehehe" He chuckled as Gaya quickly pushed his hand around and punched him in the shoulder
"You bastard! Give me that" he honestly preferred this version of Gaya to the silent sulking Gaya. And by giving the fake pill, he managed to soothe her sadness and anger.
"So are you going to join the Guardians?" after swallowing the pill and wiping away her tears, she asked.
"About that, what is this Guardian Guild?" Surprisingly, Gaya didn''t seem shocked but let out a stifledugh"
"What would you do without me? Guardian Guild is like the Adventurer''s guild but more powerful and influential. They are thew enforcers of the Elon Continent, in other words, if you want to rule this kingdom, they will stop you unless you join them and abide by theirws"
"Law enforcers" he was allergic to that word. Back on earth, thew and thew enforcers were his biggest enemies. However, on earth, he had no power to fight thew units head-on but in this world, he had all the means to destroy them if they stood in his way. He dreamt to control and rule this world from the shadows and he wouldn''t let anyone stop him from turning that dream into reality.
"Where were they when Ralphy burned down an innocent vige?"
"They may have done something if anyone survived the massacre andined to the Guardian Guild. Even then, it was highly unlikely because the Guardian Guild would send someone to investigate and they will take their sweet time. When they finish investigating, either Ralphy would have killed the witness or he would have bribed someone in the Guild to make his case disappear. You have to be rich and powerful to get justice from the Guardian Guild, human. The Guardian Guild may have served everyone when it was found but now, it''s all politics. And that''s why no matter how great you are, you can''t be a high Guardian, at best, you can be a bronze tier Guardian"
"Typical" It was not a big surprise to him to hear about the Guardian Guild because it was like everyw enforcement unit on earth, slow, inefficient, and gued by politics. Of course, they kept everyone in order on earth and all hell would break if there wasn''t aw unit like police in a country. Considering Michael was a criminal, he never liked thew enforcers and never would.
Chapter 61 - Assassin Vs Assassins
The cloud failed to nket the sky, instead, it was irregr, chaotic in where it chooses to be thick or sparse. In the gaps, the sky had darkened; the clouds were no longer white or paler grey, instead, they were ckened shadows that shift with the wind. There were times they moved just enough to reveal the half-moon, but for the most part, there was no light in their way to the Sunrise Sect.
Eventually, both of them reached the outskirts of the sect and started to climb the steps leading to his house. During their chat, Michael learned that the Guardians is categorized into five sses or tiers: Bronze ss, Silver ss, Gold ss, tinum ss, and finally the Padium ss.
The bronze ss was the lowest in the order and the powerful ss was the Padium. The blonde he met was a Silver ss Guardian as she wore a silver pendant on her neck while Gaya''s sister managed to earn a spot in the Bronze ss but after looking at the way the blonde treated the Xanali, Michael was sure that Xanali would get promoted to the SIlver ss soon.
When they finished climbing the steps, he vaguely saw the structure of his house because of the darkness. Gaya was extremely tired after a long walk and couldn''t wait to jump on her bed and have a shut-eye. She mustered her strength and rushed towards the house but when she was about a few meters away from the door, Michael grabbed her hand and stopped her.
"Don''t make a sound,e with me" Although she couldn''t see his face clearly, she could sense the seriousness in his tone. She walked with him without making any loud noise and arrived behind a huge tree.
"Human, what is it?"
"There are assassins waiting for me in the house"
"What?! How? I didn''t see anyone, how could you tell?" Gaya''s heart skipped a beat and her body slightly trembled. She was no longer a powerful cultivator and now she had to depend on Ghost to survive.
"I can sense them, there are six powerful assassins inside the house to kill me"
"Shit, what do we do? you can kill them using some of your weird spells right?" Gaya believed that he could always perform some miracles and save the day but she vaguely saw him shook his head.
"It''s not that simple," he said and opened up the System.
"System, status window"
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 5
Experience Points: 65000/300000
Badass Points: 18000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 1
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 42%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
"System, if I upgrade the Environment Scanning to the next level, can I sense the cultivation level of the assassins inside?"
[Yes, the upgrade cost will be 9000 badass points]
"Jane you bitch! you will pay for every single badass point you''re going to cost me. System upgrade the scanner to the next level, I want to know the power level of those who are waiting to kill me '''' It didn''t take long to figure out who sent assassins to kill him. Until now, he only made two enemies, Celina and Jane. If Celina wanted him dead, she had the power to kill him herself and there was no need to send assassins after him, which left him with only one culprit, Jane.
He gritted his teeth and endured the acute pain in his mind. After Environment scanning reached level 2, he was able to sense the cultivation level of the assassins inside withoutying eyes on them.
However, when he sensed their cultivation level, dark lines appeared on his forehead.
"Six Level 10 Body Strengthening stage, hmm. System, can Level 4 Responsive shield withstand the attacks of the assassins?"
[No, the level 4 responsive shield can only withstand the attacks of anyone on or under the Body Strengthening stage level 8. Level 5 Responsive shield can withstand the attacks of the cultivators from the Body Strengthening stage level 10]
"Let me guess, I don''t have enough points"
[Yes]
This situation made him realize one of his biggest weaknesses but at the moment, he had no time to be angry at himself. He then took a deep breath and calmed himself. Just after a few seconds of picking his brain, a small grin appeared on his face
"Alchemy my darling, System, I want to buy a potion"
[ahhuh?] The system sounded curious for a moment.
"How much is the Devil''s breath potion in your store?"
[5000 points]
"How much are Bugbear Tooth, King''s Basil, Silver Bay Leaf, Serpent Barbs?"
[2000 points but the System rmends the host to buy the potion] there was a hint of tension in the System''s voice but Michael''s grin grew wide.
"No thanks, just give me the ingredients I asked"
[Does the host really wish to buy the herbs and not the potion?]
"You bloody system, are you trying to swindle me? I know what you''re up to, you wanted to make me buy the potion and an antidote separately so you could take all my badass points away, it''s not going to happen. Just give me the damn ingredients I asked, I can brew the antidote and the potion myself "
[The Devil''s breath potion from the system can weaken the enemies for 5minutes whereas the potion brewed by the host will only weaken the enemies for two minutes]
"The Devil''s breath will weaken any Body Strengthening stage cultivators by five levels, System. That means those assassins will be level 5 Body strengthening stage cultivators for two whole minutes after breathing the potion. Two minutes is more than enough for me to kill them"
"Human, what''s the n? should I scream and wake up the entire sect?"
When Michael finished his purchase and closed the system, he heard Gaya''s idea.
"I have a n that not involves you screaming"
"What is it?" she leaned forward and asked.
"Devil''s breathe" he conjured me on his hand to brew the Devil''s breath using the ingredients he bought from the system.
"I never heard of such a potion, what''s it do?" she curiously peaked at the me and the house from hiding behind the tree. Michael was cautious not to alert the waiting assassins and stood behind the tree to hide the lighting from the me.
Gaya waited curiously for another five minutes and saw him pour a dark red ooze into a ss vial and a silvery liquid into another vial before he put away the me.
"How do you feel about using the Mark 3?" he pulled his sleeves up and showed her the Grappling hook. Even though the sky was dark, she could vaguely see the silver linings on the device around his wrist.
"You want me to use this? Heck yeah! finally!"
"Shhh!" in her excitement, she almost shouted.
[Does the host wish to give the Mark 3 Grappling hook to the Subordinate Gaya?]
"Yes only for a moment" he then removed the grappling hook from his wrist and put it on Gaya''s wrist.
"Just aim at"
"I know how to use it, Human, I saw you do it," She said confidently.
"Alright, reach the top of the house and pour the potion down through the roof without alerting the assassins. They have to breathe the potion for a few seconds for the potion to work"
"What if it stinks and they run away before breathing it in?"
"The potion is odorless and the darkness will conceal the color of the potion"
"Wonderful, let''s go and kill those fuckers!"
"And Gaya" he stopped her "after pouring down the potion, barricade the back door, we don''t want our guests to escape, do we?"
"Of course, we don''t, leave that to me"
Gaya nodded excitedly and sneaked her way around the house to reach the rooftop using the Mark 3 grappling hook. He waited for her to reach the rooftop and just as she said, she used the grappling hook perfectly andnded on the rooftop without making a loud noise.
Michael then walked towards the door and before he entered the house, he drank the antidote so the devil''s breath wouldn''t weaken him. After a few seconds, he sensed the assassins'' cultivation power slowly declining.
"The devil''s breathe is working, time to greet to unwanted guests"
Creak!
The door made a creaking sound when he opened it. He didn''t forget to lock the door after entering his house. Then he took a few steps forward and retrieved his Seal Knife from the system''s storage.
"Guys you cane out from hiding, six Body strengthening level 10 assassins to kill me?! I''m honored" when the moment he sensed everyone became level 5 Body Strengthening stage cultivators, he started to countdown in his mind.
"There are two of you under my bed, one behind the sofa, one on the kitchen, and two of you are hiding behind the curtain" After a few seconds, he saw six figures appearing before him one by one.
"How did you know? It doesn''t matter, what matter is you were dumb enough to mess with you shouldn''t have and now, you''re going to lose your life" One of the assassins opened their mouth and spoke. Even though Michael couldn''t clearly see their faces, he could vaguely notice their costumes resemble the Ninja costumes back on earth. But thinking that he''s about to kill the assassins in Ninja costume, heughed.
"Hahahaha" hisughter confused the assassins
"Check your cultivation level, you''re no longer at Level 10" when he stoppedughing, his face turned serious and cold. The Assassins were initially for a second, they thought he was mumbling in fear but when they checked their cultivation level, their eyes went wide and their legs trembled in terror.
"And do you know what that means?" His grip on the Knife tightened and the killing intent in his pitch-ck eyes risen.
The devil''s breath was a dangerous potion that would lower someone''s cultivation level without even the target realizing until it''s toote. The darkness prevented Michael from seeing the terrified expressions on their faces after they checked their cultivation level.
"It means you''re shit out of luck"
Chapter 62 - Midnight Slaughter
"Diddle... diddle..." Above Michael and the assassins Gaya was watching the scene through the roof. Although she couldn''t see the scene below clearly because of the pitch ck darkness, the lightning bolts around Michael''s hand provided enough light for her to see the assassins taking out their daggers.
"We..are...so" Even though they were stunned to see their cultivation level suddenly drop by 5 levels, they refused to believe a Body Refining stage, level 5 cultivator could harm them in any way. Plus, they thought they had the advantage in numbers.
"Little" when thest word of his killing slogan escaped his mouth, he disappeared from the ce he was standing.
Pulch!
The assassins saw one of them got stabbed by Michael. The one who got stabbed quickly tried to grab Michael before he turned into a lightning bolt and disappeared again.
"He''s fast!"
"Watch your backs!"
Michael previously aimed his knife to stab the assassin in the heart but he was able to see his movements and dodge at thest movement. Yet, instead of being shocked, a small grin appeared on Michael''s face as he discovered the extent of his Lightning Dash spell''s current capabilities.
"90 seconds..." he dashed around the assassins while counting in his head.
"One! behind "
Pulch! pulch!
Michael used his full speed and stabbed one assassin in the shoulder and the neck. The pain made the assassin a little slow and when he tried to dodge again, he felt an intense pain in his neck and his legs dropped to the ground.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 40,000 experience points as well as 1000 Badass points.]
[Ding! The Host has sessfully killed a powerful cultivator above his level for the first time. The reward is one gift box!]
"Attack him together!" After seeing therade falling, the rest of the assassins circled Michael and leaped at him to attack at once.
"Why isn''t he moving?" From above Gaya saw Michael standing there without dashing away as the Assassins got closer and closer.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Because the assassins leaped at him at once, Michael easily grabbed one assassin by the hand and continuously stabbed him in the chest.
"Die!'''' However, when the rest of the assassins stabbed Michael in the back, their daggers couldn''t get to his body and they were stopped by a light blue shield around Michael''s body.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 40,000 experience points as well as 1000 Badass points.]
"60 seconds...four to go..."
Whoosh!
The remaining four assassins were momentarily stunned when they saw the shield. They quickly tried to move out of Michael''s grab and they were able to get away except one. From above Gaya fired the grappling hook at one of the assassins as the grappling hook hit the assassin in the back and slowed him down. Michael used the assassins'' momentary clumsiness and grabbed him by the neck from behind.
Then without wasting a second, he slit the assassin''s throat and kicked his body towards the remaining three assassins.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 40,000 experience points as well as 1000 Badass points.]
"50 seconds...Ignitia"
The three assassins dashed away from the body as they didnt want to be slowed down. Yet, when the body got closer to them, the body exploded and the bits and pieces sshed on their faces.
"Awesome!" Gaya never expected Micheal would st the dead body and use the blood and body parts as a distraction.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Because the sttered blood hit them on their eyes which were the only part uncovered by their costume, their vision got blurred and two assassins instinctively moved their hands to wipe off the blood.
Michael used this opportunity and stabbed both of them in the chest using the Lightning dash spell to speed his movements.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 40,000 experience points as well as 1000 Badass points.]
In his rush, he stabbed one in the throat and ended the life but the second assassin survived because he was stabbed through the ribs. Michael didn''t stop his movements to end his life but turned his focus on thest assassin who remained without suffering any wounds.
Pulch!
Pulch!
When Michael and thest assassins were dashing and fighting, Gaya used the grappling hook to hit the assassin who survived Michael''s attack.
The Grappling hook was not a weapon and it was certainly not enough to kill him but she kept firing it at the assassin''s wound to keep him from escaping or conjuring a spell.
"AH!"
Thest assassins saw Gaya torturing hisrade from above and wanted to end Michael''s life soon.
"30 seconds..." Thest assassin proved troublesome as he was able to dodge and evade Michael''s knife and Lightning bolts.
"DIE!" The assassin''s hands suddenly glowed and his dagger let out an unearthly humming sound.
"Ah"
"Human!" Gaya shouted seeing Michael''s body sent flying by thest assassin. Michael''s body hit the nearby wall and dropped to the ground.
The assassin wasted no time and dashed at him to finish him off quickly.
"(cough) (cough)" The assassin saw him struggling to get up and coughing. He thrust his dagger straight between Michael''s eyes,
Pulch!
Just when his dagger was about to touch Michael''s skin, he coughed up blood and experienced a sharp pain in his chest. He slowly looked down at his chest to see Michael''s dagger sticking out of his chest.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
"You..." When the assassins realized that Michael was faking his injury, it was toote as he coughed up more blood.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 40,000 experience points as well as 1000 Badass points.]
"I was just faking with you" Michael chuckled and withdrew his knife from the assassin''s chest. These were the words the assassin heard before closing his eyes.
"10 seconds"
"Where do you think you''re going?!"
Boom!
When Michael turned around to deal with thest assassin, he saw Gayand directly on his back.
While Gaya was crushing the assassin with her knees, he activated the lightning dash and stabbed the assassin in the back, shoulders, legs, and arms. Michael kept stabbing him in the body but he avoided going for the kill as he wanted to ask onest question.
Considering the assassin lost most of his blood and suffered many wounds, he didn''t worry about the Devil''s breath time limit.
"You''re dying but I can still hurt you," he said and stabbed the assassin in the corbone.
"Who hired you?"
"Kill...me" the assassin stuttered. Gaya punched him in the face while Michael twisted his knife to inflict more pain.
"Usually, I don''t like torturing but if you don''t give me an answer, I will make you suffer"
"AHHHHH!" the pain he felt when Michael twisted his knife was unbearable and the assassin blurted out the name in agony.
"Ja...ne..."
"Thank you" Michael took his knife from the assassin''s corbone and stabbed him right between the eyes to end his suffering.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 10 cultivator. The reward is 40,000 experience points as well as 1000 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Body Strengthening stage, level 6]
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 6
Experience Points: 5000/300000
Badass Points: 15000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 440,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 42%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
[The host has one gift remaining to open!]
"Let me deal with the bodies first" Michael exited the system. He conjured a me in his hand and saw his walls, carpet, and his sofas were painted in red with the assassins'' blood. Fortunately, he knew a potion that would get rid of the bloodstains but if he wants to get rid of the bodies, he had to get his hands dirty.
"I''ll go to the forests and bury the bodies, you stay here" Other than burying the bodies, he had another thing in his mind which he didn''t want Gaya to know.
"Aren''t you going to inform the sect?"
"No, they must not know what happened here. Until I return, don''t let anyone"
"Who woulde at this time of the night?"
"But if they do"
"Yeah, yeah, I won''t let anyone in. Don''t take too long, I can''t sleep if the house reeks of blood" Gaya twitched her nose and pointed out the mess he made.
"I know a way to clean all this blood but first, I have to deal with the bodies"
Chapter 63 - Dressing Up
Leaving Gaya back at his home, Michael rushed towards the thick forest near the sect premises. The forest was pitch ck and filled with nothing but sounds of insects. With the help of his Environment Scanning skill, he was able to move through the forest without tumbling down.
After he came quite far into the forest. Michael stopped running and climbed the top of a tree using his grappling hook. The Naga girl took a liking to the Grappling hook as she reluctantly parted with it when he took it back.
Sitting on the branch, he used the Environment Scanning to make sure there''s no one around him because he''s going to put a dangerous but important n on the motion.
"System, open the Gift Box" The blue box wrapped in red ribbons shed across his eyes, and four cards jumped out from the box.
"Two Spell learners, Special Fertilizer," he read the first two cards when his gazended on the third card, he grinned ear to ear.
"The bow of Legs" the dark wooden bow looked nothing extraordinary from the outside look but Michael knew this bow killed many powerful orcs in the Lord of the Rings movies.
[Ding! The Host must be at least 70% proficient in Archery to use the bow]
Just as he was grinning at the bow and imagining himself running around firing a volley of arrows upon his enemies, the system bombarded him with a surprise warning.
"Seriously?! Let me guess, I need to buy something from you"
[Duh!]
[Yes]
He could swear he heard a snarky reply from the system before the familiar robotic voice.
"How much?"
[The System rmends the host to buy the Archery pack which contains special types of arrows and Book of Archery. By using the Book of Archery, the host will be 80% proficient in all long-ranged weapons]
"It does sound cool but give me the price first"
[24999 Badass points only!]
"The fuck! Why don''t you round up to 25k? You sound more and more like the tv ads, System" First of all, Michael knew he has not enough points to buy the Archery pack, and second, even if he does, he wouldn''t buy the pack at the moment because he needed the Badass points to aplish more significant tasks.
Putting the Bow in his storage, he stared at the fourth and final item he got from the gift box. The card had two swords on the surface as he began to read the description.
"The host will be able to dual wield swords and gain 70% proficiency in sword mastery" he breathed out as his face brimmed with a smile for he was filled with glee.
"I always wanted to fight using swords, it seems I got my wish. Hey System, does this skille with swords?"
[No, The host have to buy the swords separately]
"Alright, my n does require a new set of skills, System, list all the swords I can buy between 5000 to 8000 badass points"
[...] he waited for a few seconds and the system showed him nothing, not a single sword.
[The system rmends the host not to be stingy with the badass points]
"Stingy? Do you know how hard it is to earn XP and Badass points without pissing off powerful people?. Doesn''t matter, how much are the least expensive swords you got?"
[10,000 Badass points]
"Does ite with the pair or do I have to buy another one to dual wield?"
[Yes, the Host has to buy two swords if you wish to dual wield] After hearing the System, he wanted to shout at the system but soon, he realized he doesn''t always depend on the system to aplish things.
"System, I can use any two swords right?"
[Yes, but the system rmends the host to buy swords from the store]
"And why is that?"
[The items brought from the system store are unique and the host will not find them in the world. Plus, the items in the store are superior in quality]
"I know system, but I have already taken a loan. So I must spend each point very carefully and I need badass points to buy something else for my grand n"
[What is that host?] Michael took a deep breath and asked the system,
"System, I need a new suit, I''m applying the following filters. The suit must be ck and under 8000 badass points"
[Does the host wish the suit to have a special ability? Special ability suits cost more]
"if there''s a suit with special ability under 8000, I''ll be d"
[The Suit with special ability starts on 20,000 Badass points]
"Then no thanks, I settle for suits with no special abilities for now"
The system started to search for the suits as he saw the loading icon before his eyes. He eagerly waited for the system toe up with the new suit. A few moments after, three iconic suits appeared before him. The Zorro costume, the X Men suit from the Xmen Last standing, and the Nightwing Suit from the Titans.
"Although I like zorro, it doesn''t suit the purpose, pun intended" he put away the Zorro costume and stared at the Xmen suit and the Nightwing suit. Compared to the Xmen suit, the Nightwing suit seemed more refined and cool. The only thing that irked him was the blue Nightwing logo on the center and the blue linings on the armor.
"Let''s put on the other items and see which one looks intimidating. System, do you have the cape of Doctor Doom?" Michael wished the system to say yes as Doctor Doom was one of his favorite Marvel characters. He always wanted to dress as Doctor Doom and go trick or treat like normal kids when he was little but until he reached this world, he didn''t have much chance to enjoy his life to the fullest.
[The ck colored Doctor Victor Von Doom cape will cost the host 1000 Badass points]
"Good! put the cape on both the suits, I need to preview before finalizing my purchase" he couldn''t hold his excitement. The System luckily cost him nothing to put the cape on the suits, therefore, he was able to design what kind of suit he needs without worry about the Badass points.
With Doctor Doom''s cape and hood, the Nightwing suit looked way better than the Xmen suit. Looking at the Nightwing suit, he almost decided to go on with this suit but he still had to buy one important piece to finalize his new suit.
"System, give me the ck mask from the Birds of Prey film"
[500 badass points]
"Thank god, I thought it''s going to cost more. System, show me how I would look in both suits" In a sh of time, two naked bodies appeared before him and then, then the System put the Xmen suit and the Nightwing suit on him. Just like his previous thought, when the cape and hood added, thetter looked way better in his opinion. As thest piece, the ck mask covered his face.
"Wow," the ck skull mask really looked intimidating under the hood and perfectly suited for his purpose which was to inflict fear into his enemies and spread his Legend.
Under the two suits, the cost of buying them emerged. The X Men suit surprisingly cost 7500 with the cape and ck mask while the Nightwing suit cost was 7000 badass points.
"System, I''ll buy the Nightwing armor and after that, I need four more items"
[Does the host wish to equip the suit of armor now?]
"Not yet, I need Roc Feather, Grim Aconite, Ent Bark, and ck metallic spray paint"
[Does the Host wish to brew the Fear potion?] He wouldn''t have thought it would be possible for him to create something simr to the fear toxin that Scarecrow used back on earth. Although Michael learned chemistry as a part of his training, he was not a master in Chemistry. However, this changed when he learned the Book of Alchemy. After bing 5Star Alchemist, he knew the properties of a vast amount of herbs and nts in this world, as well as which can be used to concoct pills or brew potions.
With this knowledge, he was able to figure out the form to a potion that would induce fear.
"Yes"
[800 Badass points]
"I''ll take them" After buying everything he needed, he exited the system and started to work on the suit. He first painted the Blue Nightwing logo with his metallic ck spray paint and then he painted everything that had blue with the help of his Alchemy me.
"Shit, I have to look for a Batcave. Working on top of a tree branch is not a straightforward thing"
Chapter 64 - The Calm Before The Storm I
"I cannot wait to wear this bad boy and terrorize my enemies, hahaha" Michael evillyughed looking at his suit of armor. He then stored the armor in his system storage and started to brew the Fear toxin. He was being extremely cautious not to inhale the toxin. As a precaution, he wore the ck mask he just bought. Unlike the Devil''s breath, the Fear toxin had no antidote, if he inhaled the toxin, he would experience hallucinations and absolute terror for a few hours.
ording to his calctions, the weaker the cultivation level, the stronger the effects would be. For an instance, the Fear toxin would affect a Body refining stage cultivator for three to five hours whereas it would affect a Body Strengthening stage cultivator for two to four hours.
After fifteen minutes of careful brewing, he took a medium-sized bottle and poured a ck goo like liquid into the bottle. The Fear toxin had a low boiling point so it would vaporize very quickly and spread to arge area in a matter of seconds which was perfect for his uing ns.
"Damn! Alchemy is so overpowered" The only thing hecked to milk full use of his Alchemy talent was the ingredients and herbs. Many powerful, overpowered pills and potions required very rare herbs and precious ingredients which he currently had only one way to get, System''s store. However, the ingredients and herbs in the System store were extremely costly. Therefore, he decided to grow them old-fashioned since he could buy the seeds from the store cheaper than the grown herbs. As for the items such as wyvern ws, dragon scales, and items he can''t grow like herbs, he nned to buy them using gold coins in auction houses.
The fight between the assassins made him realize his biggest weakness that is depending on the system too much. Anytime he could run out of Badass points and face a situation like that again and if he had to solely depend on the system, he would be screwed. Because of this, he decided to take advantage of the world and the people around him. For instance, he nned to grow arge Herbal garden at the sect for his Alchemy rather than buying from the system.
"I may as well brew the blood cleaner" Using the Grappling hook hefortablynded on the ground and began his searches for the herbs required to brew the blood cleaner. He collected most of the herbs near the area where he buried the bodies of the Assassins and now only needed a particr mushroom as thest ingredient.
"There it is" Considering the mushroom had a fluorescent effect, he was able to quickly find the mushroom. He carefully plucked a couple of glowing green mushrooms and put them into his system storage.
*********************
"Huh?" At the moment, Gaya noticed a shadow outside through the window.
In the darkness, she couldn''t make out the face but barely saw the figure with the help of the half-moon.
"Bastard didn''t even give me his Knife!" she cursed Michael and picked up the vase to defend her.
"Hey, it''s me, open the door" Only now hearing Michael''s voice, she heaved a sigh of relief.
"What''s the code?"
"There''s no code, you damn snake" she chuckled inside and continued to mess with him
"You have only two tries remaining, what''s the code?"
"Gaya is a bi" before he could finish his words, she mmed open the door with a furious expression on her face
"What did you call me?"
"I was going to say Gaya is a big girl, what did you think?" he pushed her away and entered the house.
"You fucking liar! You were going to say Gaya is a bitch, weren''t you?"
"Your words, not mine" ignoring her scowl, he took out the blood cleaner which was a milky white potion and poured it in the bloodstains.
"What is that smell?" Gaya twitch her nose and sniffed the air
"What smell?" he kept pouring the potion as the bloodstains began to disappear.
"I don''t know, it smells like paint and metaly" Michael''s hands stopped pouring the potion when he heard her and looked at hering towards him sniffing the air.
"It''sing from you but not from this potion" She walked closer to him and took his hand.
"Hey, what''re you doing?" She sniffed his hands and nodded
"Yes, it''s definitelying from you" Michael never expected a snake-like her to have a sense of smell like a dog. Even though he washed away the paint stains on his hands and could no longer smell the pain, he realized she could still smell the metallic paint.
"Of course it''sing from me. Do you think potions magically appear? One of the herbs I used to brew the Blood cleaner smells like paint, that what you''re smelling "
"Well, make it go away, it stinks'' '' she put his hand back and loafed into the sofa since the blood on it now disappeared.
"Do you smell everything that stinks?"
Thop!
She threw a piece of broken wood at him instead of answering as he chuckled a little.
When he finished pouring all the blood cleaner, he heard hissing and snoring and turned to see Gaya fell asleep on the sofa. Looking at her curled figure, he went to his room and brought her bedsheets.
"I should nt the seeds before theye in the morning" he left the house after covering Gaya with the bedsheet. He expected small gestures like these would help him increase her loyalty to him and then, he could finally cure her and get a powerful subordinate.
The herbal garden of the Sunrise sect was previously cleaned off by him and now had nothing but grass and weed.
"For now, this small garden would do but in the future, I''m going to create thergest herbal garden in Bredia'''' The herbal garden before him was only 200 square feet in size and had no protection around it. Not that someone would rob a small garden in a declined sect.
Taking out the seed pack and thepost he bought from the system, he started to get his hands dirty. Maintaining his garden would be Ricky and Daniel''s job but for now, he chose to do it.
After he finished preparing the soil, he remembered about the special fertilized he got from the system''s gift box. The fertilizer was a green powder packed inside a paper bag.
"System, tell me about this"
[The Special fertilizer will permanently increase thend''s fertility and growth speed of the herbs. ording to the System''s calction, the seeds would take two days to grow in this garden and the fertilizer would make them grow in a day]
"Then, it''s a good thing I ordered Ricky and Daniel to buy the herbs from Sarton. It''s bad for business to send back the customers on its very second day" After he met Gaya''s sister and the blonde at the restaurant, he left a note and a pouch of coins for Ricky and Daniel. On the note, he ordered them to go to Sarton and buy everything he listed as he needed the items to concoct pills and brew potions. The items were enough to keep the shop open for two days and after that, the herbs in the garden would be ready to be plucked and used to make the potions and pills.
Soon after, he left the herbal garden and made his way back to his house. Today was a very fruitful day, he broke through to the next level by killing the Assassins, he finally bought the suit of armor for his n, brewed the fear toxin, and nted the seeds to cut the purchasing cost of herbs.
Onest thing he had to do before putting his suit of armor was to get the list of all the criminals in the Kingdom. If his n to go as smoothly as he nned, he must kill some criminals and introduce his second persona to Bredia.
And when everyone starts to fear and worship his second persona, he would finally end the life of the one who sent the assassins to kill him, Jane Totonk.
"Since Ie to this world, I killed many but Jane, you''re the first person I''m going to Assassinate"
Chapter 65 - The Calm Before The Storm II
The very next morning, the sound of carriages and chattering of people interrupted Jack''s peaceful cultivation. He had no idea where this noise wasing from. On the busiest day of his sect, there would be only one or two carriages and even those belonging to the debt collectors. Yet now he heard continuousmotion and noise of carriages.
he could no longer concentrate on cultivation. He opened his eyes and walked outside to check what''s happening.
"What the hell?!" When he stepped out of his tiny room, he was weed by the sight of a huge number of people walking towards their sect. Particrly they head directly towards the ce where Ghost was staying.
"Who are all these people and why are theying here?"
"Brother Jack, do you know what''s going on?" Some of his juniors also woke up by themotions and they came asking Jack.
"I don''t know but I should go and inform the Elders"
Meanwhile, countless noblemen of Bradford and Sarton were all rallying into their mountain range after hearing about the 80% pure pills and potions. Some people from the influential factions hade too.
As time passed, more and more people came. Soon, people filled the whole area. Some people even wanted to buy ces earlier in line in front of Michael''s home, but no one was willing to sell their ce.
"What''s going on? Why on earth are there so many powerful and influential people here?" Raylene woke up early to make breakfast for the children and clean the sect building and when she saw the crowd this early in the morning, she was surprised.
¡..
Inside Michael''s house, Gaya''s eyelids twitched, and themotion outside disturbed her slumber. Soon, she heard soft knocks on the door as she finally opened her eyes.
"I swear to God if that little shit Jack!" Just as she was about to finish her curse, she remembered about the store and realized the people hade before even the morning sun.
Throwing aside her bedsheet and tying her hair into a ponytail, she went to open the door. The moment she opened the door, she was stunned by the crowd that greeted her. For a second, she stared at the sea of people before her speechlessly before talking.
"The sun hasn''t even risen yet, people! Wait a few hours, Alchemist Ghost will be here with you soon" Gaya shouted out loudly.
"Miss Aelia, I came here first, so I''ll be the first person to order!"
"I havee for the Energy boosters"
"I want Healing pills, my grandpa is dying!"
"I want five Revitalizing pills!"
Their shouts almost broke her eardrums as she shouted again
"Fine, stand in line. If anyone tries to cut in line, we won''t open the shop"
"Do not worry, we will behave ourselves."
"If anyone dares to cut in line, I will kill him."
"Yes, kill him!"
On her way to his room, she hatched a quick n in her mind. After seeing the crowd of customers at their doorsteps on the very second day, she wanted to put her fingers in the pie.
"Does asking 50% on the profit is too much?" asking this question, she kicked opened Michael''s room door to see him peacefully sleeping on the bed. She was surprised to see him sleeping rather than cultivating because only mortals had to sleep to refresh their minds and bodies. She wouldn''t have slept if she was still a cultivator as a few hours of meditations and cultivation would make her feel rested.
However, she didn''t expect a genius like Michael to sleep like a baby despite themotion outside.
"Hey! Wake up!" she came beside his bed and dragged the quilt away like an angry mother waking up her kid.
"Go away..." he didn''t let go of his quilt. Like many school students and workers, he failed to fight the ten times the gravitational effect of the bed in the early morning. If he was on earth, he had to use every minute and second honing his skills because people on earth would age and be sloppy at what they do with age. However, he was not on the earth anymore, he was in a world where he could use the system to be an immortal, therefore, he wanted to enjoy little things such as morning sleep more.
He didn''t n to go from ce to ce often, piss off powerful people and fight all the time. He intended to enjoy this life to the fullest and experience every earthly pleasure he could. However, his earthly pleasure was being currently interrupted by this princess.
"Don''t make me pour water down on you Ghost, because I will do it!"
"Give me a kiss and I will wake up" he reached out his hands as his eyes were still shut.
"Sure thing,e closer" Instead of being angry, she sounded sweet and moved closer. He could feel the hot breathing from her and a tint of jasmine. Although he knew she''s not going to kiss him, he curiously moved closer and closer to see what she''s nning.
"Ah!" his curiosity soon answered as she took a bite out of his left ear.
"That''s what you get for a kiss, you damn bastard! Now wake the fuck up Ghost, we have rich goats to milk" Finally the thought of getting richer made him jump out of his bed.
"Master Ghost!"
As Micheal and Gaya were standing in the room, Daniel and Ricky came running but when they saw Gaya, both of them halted their steps.
"Oh?! forgive...us..Master Ghost" Ricky blushed and bowed asking forgiveness as he thought Gaya and Michael were busy on the bed.
"Why the fuck are you blushing?" Gaya shouted at Ricky and when he opened his mouth, she yelled again
"No, I don''t even want to know, if I did, I would beat the shit out of you. Come, we have a business to open" She took both Ricky and Daniel to set up her executive chair that she recently fell in love with and her workce.
"Ghost go get ready!"
"Daniel wait, I have another job for you"
"Make it fast," Gaya said and walked away leaving Daniel behind.
"Daniel, I want you to go and get the list of all criminals or anyone we shouldn''t sell our products from the guild or anywhere you can" A while ago, he saw bounty posters on the Adventurer Guild notice board. Considering he needed to be here, he decided to ask Daniel to get the posters. However, the reason for this was not about selling his products but putting his ns in motion.
"As you wish, Master Ghost" Daniel didn''t ask any questions as he bowed and turned to leave as Michael stopped him
"Be discreet"
¡..
After sending Daniel on his way to the Adventurer Guild, Michael brushed his teeth and put on his Neo robes.
"Human" Gaya came looking for him before he steps out of his room again
"ire and the oldies are here"
"Let''s go meet them"
Right at the moment, ire and the Elders were standing in the hall and the sight of this much crowd outside the house stunned them. They knew the people were waiting for Michael but they didn''t know why they came here instead of going to his shop at Bradford.
When the elders and ire turned their gaze away from the crowd, they saw Michael as their mouths slightly opened.
"You had a breakthrough?! AGAIN!?" Elders Miles''s heart skipped a beat. Only yesterday he was at the Body Refining stage level 5 but just in a day, they saw him reach level 6.
"A true genius"
"Brother Ghost is a freakin monster"
"With this rate, he would reach the next stage in a couple of months"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
¡
Just by impressing the Elders and the few disciples behind them, he reaped a bunch of Badass points. While the Elders were staring at him shocked, ire had a gentle smile on her face as the more he grew, the more chance they would have to revive their sect.
"Sect leader ire, Elders" he greeted them with a wide grin and a nod
"Sorry for not informing you about this, I would have moved the shop here if it wasn''t for what happened in Bradford with Jane. I realized that if she messes with me again, I would do more than breaking her bodyguards'' bones. I didn''t want that, so I decided to move the shop here, I hope Sect Leader ire and the Elders don''t mind. I wanted to inform you yesterday but meeting with the Guardians took some time"
"Guardians?!"
"From The Guardian Guild?" Elder Miles felt the world around him spinning in shock and dropped onto the chair behind him.
"What did they talk to you about if you don''t mind us asking?" Elder Sandra asked with a soft voice.
"They asked me to be their trainee but I rejected them"
"You did what?! Oh my god, I''m going to die!" Elder Miles screamed again and fainted on the spot as the other Elders also looked quite startled.
ire heaved a sigh of relief inside. If he left the sect to join the Guardian Guild, how could she revive her sect?
"Ghost, tell us everything that happened," Elder Mark asked and the elders sat down on the sofa.
"Of course, Elders. Just give me a moment" He grinned widely because he realized that if he concocted pills and brew potions while talking to them, he would look more badass and umte the much-needed Badass points, not to mention the gold coins.
"Aelia, start taking the orders, we are opening"
Chapter 66 - The Calm Before The Storm III
"Show off" Gaya mumbled under her breath and opened the doors to the customers waiting outside.
"What are you doing?" Elder Sandra frowned. After taking the pills he gave her, Elder Sandra''splexion looked better and she seemed healthier than before.
"Multitasking, Elder Sandra. These people are waiting for me from early morning and you''re here for an exnation, I can''t make either of you wait any longer" Michael calmly exined and conjured the me on one hand while sitting on the sofa to concoct the pills.
"It''s dangerous not to solely concentrate on what you''re doing Ghost" The Elders were genuinely concerned because if he made a mistake, not only him but they would also get burned by his mistake.
"Trust me, this is a walk in the park for me. Now, where was I?"
"Rejecting the Guardians" Elder Mark said as Michael started to tell everything that happened in the restaurant except the fact Gaya''s sister is a Guardian.
"Look, he''s concocting pills while talking to the Elders!"
"I''ve never seen an Alchemist concoct pills so casually"
"Yeah, I heard even the Alchemy king wouldn''t let anyone inside his work hall as concentration is crucial in making pills and brewing potions"
"Are you saying that Ghost is better than the Alchemy King?"
"He might be because Alchemy King Gabriell is fifty years old but look at him, he''s not even twenty-five. Imagine where he would be in another twenty-five years" Just like Michael nned, the people were stunned by him multitasking and murmured among themselves.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 900 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
¡.
Inside the house, Michael heard the continuous ringing of the system notification. His heart jumped in joy looking at the Badass points increasing.
Eventually, Michael finished telling the Elders what happened with the two Guardians. The Elders and ire let out a deep breath. Because they were immersed in Michael''s story, they failed to notice the money he just made but Jack was more interested in the money than Michael''s story.
He slowly walked to Gaya''s counter and looked at the pay cubes over her shoulder. At the same, the next customer came to Gaya''s counter and ced his order
"Miss, I''d like to order, 2 Revitalizing pills, 2 Arch Energy boosters, and 3 Healing potions"
"81,000 gold"
"What do you think you''re doing?" Gaya turned back to see Jack''s eyes sparkling at the amount of gold she just took from the pay cube.
"Can I... touch it?" Jack had never seen a pile of gold coins before and in front of him, a huge pile of gold coins lighting the room with their shine.
"No, you can''t touch it you little shit, go away" Gaya shushed him away from the stack of gold coins.
Michael noticed this scene but didn''t say anything. After being shushed away by Gaya, Jack went to Ricky who was busy taking the pills and potions from Michael''s hands and delivering them to the Customers.
"Do you need any help?" Jack asked Ricky
"No, my lord. I''m doing just fine"
"I''m not a lord, I''m just like you, amoner. I''m Jack Reuban, what is your name?" Jack reached his hand out as Ricky reluctantly shook his hand because lord or not a lord, Jack was a cultivator at the Foundation stage level 4 while he was just at the Arch sensing level 3.
"Ricky, Ricky Mervan"
"So Ricky, how much are you earning working for Brother Ghost?" Ricky was surprised by Jack''s sudden blunt question but he sighed inside and answered
"120 gold, Jack"
"Per year?"
"Per month"
"Oh? Wait..what?!" Jack''s body shook for a second hearing Ricky. He was barely able to send ten or twenty gold coins once a year to his home but Ricky was earning way more than he ever could. What disturbed him more was Ricky was just a mortal while he was considered a cultivator.
"I wasted my life cultivating, oh god!" Jack mumbled continuously and went to join Elder Miles on the sofa.
*******************
"Alright people, we are closing the shop for today. We''ll open again in two days and we will have more varieties of pills and potions. Spread the news, if I see anyone knocking on my door tomorrow, I won''t be responsible for killing the one who knocks "
"Ohe on, we didn''t get to order anything"
"This is unfair!"
"I need Healing potions to save my grandma"
"If you love your grandma so much,e before anyone else!" Gaya yelled at the person who tried to use his dead grandma to buy pills.
The ones who got to buy pills and potions left the mountains with a wide grin while the people who didn''t get the chance walked away with gloomy faces.
After she shut the doors, Gaya started to count the gold coins under the shocked gazes of the Elders and ire. Jack still tried to touch the pile of gold as Elder Mark swallowed a mouth full of saliva looking at the scene.
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[Debts of the Base of Operation are increasing!]
"What the?" Michael''s smile disappeared hearing the warning beeps inside his mind. He then entered the system to see what''s going on and why is the system yelling at him.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 6
Experience Points: 5000/300000
Badass Points: 16000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 440,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 47%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
"Seriously, you''re giving me warnings about Base of operations and showing me my stats ?! open the Base of Operations"
Base of Operation: The Sunrise Sect
Current Leader: ire Marigold
Level: 1
Debt: 3,057,543 Gold Coins
Number of Members: 34
Status: Declined
Legend: 20 / 1000 (Crappy old sect where a 5 Star Alchemist resides)
"What the fuck is that debt amount? Is there a bug or something in you System?!"
[Nope]
"Then how the hell did the amount of debt go from 450,000 to 3 million?"
[The host should ask the Sect Leader. The Sect took a debt with variable interest rate. Considering the sect hasn''t even paid their interest and just a minute ago, they crossed a two-year time limit. Hence, the System calcted the total debt amount and showed it to the host]
"Variable interest rate? Two-year time limit? Fuck!"
[The System rmends the Host to pay the debt sooner thanter or the System would deduct the host''s badass points on a regr basis]
"Ohe one, why would you do that? What''s the connection between debt and you deducting me Badass points?" Michael was really frustrated by the System''s ckmail and wanted to punch the system in the face. He was nning to buy new swords and renovate his house using the gold coins he earned through hard work but now, he had to pay the debt as soon as possible.
[The answer is simpler than you think Host. You are not a badass if you are neck-deep in debt] He really tried to calm himself by closing his eyes but what the system said next almost made him lose his cool.
[Host, when are you nning to upgrade the System?] The system''s robotic voice sounded like it was messing with him.
"Let me first deal with the debt, jerk"
He exited the system with a gloomy face and Gaya noticed the change on his face. But before she could ask what''s wrong, Michael turned his gaze towards ire
"Sect Leader ire, I need to ask you something" His voice brought ire front the daze of looking at the shining pile of gold.
"What is it, Ghost?"
"How much debt are we in?" The question surprised the Elders and ire. His face didn''t have his usual smile as he looked quite serious.
"Why are you asking that?" It was quite an embarrassing subject for ire to speak in front of the disciples and outsiders like Ricky and Aelia.
Knock! Knock!
Suddenly someone knocked at the door and turned everyone''s gaze at Michael''s door.
"Because of that," Michael guessed the ones knocking on the door are the debt collectors.
"Can I have one peaceful day without someone trying to kill me or take my money?" Michael sighed inside and prepared to give all his money because Badass points are harder to earn than the gold coins and Badass points were more valuablepared to gold coins.
"The fuck?! Didn''t I say we closed the shop? Prepare yourself to get wrecked you asshole outside the door" However Gaya had zero ideas about the ones outside as she thought it''s someone who came to buy pills or potions ignoring her order. She clenched her fists and rushed angrily towards the door
"Stop Aelia, it''s not who think it is"
Chapter 67 - Lucifer Is Coming I
Before Gaya could mess with the neers, Michael waved his hand as the door opened. On the other side, he saw a group of men in fancy clothes standing and they entered his house following a plumpy middle-aged man.
Looking at the man''s big belly, a wicked smile, and bald head, Michael recognized this man as the loan shark of this world. Back on earth, he met his fair share of loan sharks. They would lend out money to anyone without asking for any official documents like a bank but after their client took the money, the loan sharks would dry them out by collecting the money with inhuman interest rate by any means necessary.
Only a few had escaped the clutches of a loan shark after taking the loan. At first, the Loan sharks would look like an angel but soon, they would turn into a devil.
"Greetings Sect Leader ire and Elders. You never told me you have a 5-star Alchemist for a disciple" Gaya counted the bodyguards behind the man and noticed all of them were at Body Strengthening stage level 2. Although Gaya was haughty, she knew when to back off, therefore, she quietly walked back and stood behind Michael.
Without even asking Michael''s permission, the fat man kept walking around his home and touched the things like he was prizing them. As usual, the bodyguards scanned every female in the room without hiding the lust in their eyes. Michael didn''t get angry at them for this because, in their line of work, they would have taken many girls as payment from their clients.
Besides, there was no harm done in the bodyguards checking out the girls.
Sweat drops appeared on ire''s face and her rosy cheeks turned pale.
"You basically have a cash cow in your backyard"
"Ew" The man licked his lips staring at Michael and it grossed Gaya. Then the man came in front of Michael and the Elders. The bodyguards dragged Michael''s sofa and ced it behind the old man to rest his bottom.
Michael watched everything calmly without uttering any words and waited for the man toe to the point.
"Nice sofa, veryfortable," The man said and moved his butt around the sofa feeling every inch of the sofa. Seeing this, Gaya almost lost her cool because only she and Michael used the sofa and at night, she used the sofa as herfy bed. The man was practically rubbing his butt all over Gaya''s bed.
"Hey, look at that, bring me that. It looksfier" The man''s eyes lit when he saw Gaya''s back executive chair and ordered his guards to bring it over to him like he owned the chair.
"Human!" Gaya gritted her teeth but Michael gently grabbed her clenched fist and calmed her down.
"Lord Vandan" ire stepped forward and said
"My legs are hurting" Ignoring ire,Vandan, the fat man pointed at thest remaining sofa.
"Does he have a fetish for sofas?" Michael said to himself as the bodyguards dragged the sofa and ced it before Vandan. The loan shark then lifted both his legs and rested them on Michael''s fancy sofa which he bought for 100 Badass points. In his mind, every badass point was precious to him and the man used his sofa as a leg rest irked Michael.
"Why are you all standing? sit down" Vandan smiled and said but the Elders frowned because there were no sofas left in the home for them to sit.
"What? Sitting on the ground do wonders for your bodies"
"System, give me the Royal Luxury corner sofa set" what kind of Badass would stand in front of a loan shark like a servant? And because the Elders and ire were members of his Base of Operation, they kinda represented him. Therefore, Michael spent 200 Badass points and bought the luxurious sofa this sect has ever seen.
When the elders were about to bend their knees to sit on the ground, Michael waved his hand as the Royal sofa set appeared behind them.
"Woah"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 badass points]
Vandan and the bodyguards opened their mouths widely looking at the pearl white sofa with golden pillows and pads. The sofa was so big as it took up most of the hall space, that''s why Micheal didn''t buy the sofa before. However, looking at the Badass points he earned by showing off, he was d that he bought the sofa.
Gaya was the first one to appreciate its beauty as well as sit. She bounced around the sofa excitedly.
"Sect Leader ire, Elders" Michael gestured at them and took the center seat on the sofa to directly face Vandan. ire and Elders felt tough when they were with Michael. ire nodded and sat beside Michael while Gaya sat on Michael''s other side. He was sitting between two beauties but his eyes were locked on the loan sharks.
Vandan stared at Michael again and a wide grin appeared on his face again.
"So how much do we owe you, Lord Vandan?" Before ire could open her mouth, Michael took the lead because this was his time to take the things into hands. He decided to turn his focus on turning this sect the other way around to start earning Badass points.
"Everything" Vandan calmly said and for the first time since Vandan came to the house, Gaya saw Michael''s expression change.
Michael frowned and asked, "what do you mean everything?"
"Take a look at this" One bodyguard retrieved a parchment and ced it on Vandan''s hand. Vandan then threw it at Michael. Gaya looked over his shoulder and read the parchment and the more she read, the more she was stunned by the stupidity of the Elders and ire.
The parchment had many paragraphs but Gaya read many reports like this when she was a princess. The Elders and ire basically put the entire sect''snd and any ie earned by the sect''snd as the security deposit for the amount of 250,000 gold coins. ording to this parchment, what they owned wasn''t theirs but Vandan''s, and technically, what Michael earned on the sect''snd belonged to Vandan.
"We needed the Gold coins to treat Elder Sandra and keep the sect''s door open" ire apologetically said to Michael as he sighed.
"Give us a number, Lord Vandan. If there''s a way for us to get released from the bonus of this agreement, I want to know"
"Hahaha, why are you worried about money? you''re a freakin 5-star Alchemist"
"Yes, I know that. But even a 5-star Alchemist cannot provide you an infinite number of gold coins and the agreement basically asks just that. Since my sect took a loan from you, I''ll settle the debt if you give me a number"
"Gho..."
"We''ll discuss thister" Michael''s stern voice made ire shut up as Vandan rubbed his chin for a moment and shook his head.
"You know, I was going to settle for measly 4miilion gold considering the sect''s status but now" he paused and grinned ear to eat.
"Now, 4millions is nowhere near enough because you''re making money on mynd and it''s only fair for you to pay me. After all, it''s my money that kept the sect''s door from closing"
"Lord Vandan"
"SHUT UP!" when Elder Mark tried to say something, Vandan''s smile instantly disappeared as he shouted at Elder Mark.
Then at the next moment, his smile returned and he looked at Michael
"I''m a reasonable man who runs a business helping people in need, so I will make you a fair deal. I''ll let you keep running your business on mynds and in return, I''ll get, hmmm, let''s just say 75% of the profits you make. You can keep all the rest to yourself"
"Are you kidding?!" Gaya finally had enough of Vandan and shouted.
"I''ll take the deal"
"Wait what?!" Gaya was stunned by Michael''s answer and not only her, everyone at the scene was stunned, including Vardan and his men. They didn''t expect him to ept the deal so quickly.
"Wonderful, this is the start of a mutually beneficial rtionship. So how much did you earn today?" Vandan had no idea what''s going on inside of Michael''s head right now and neither did anyone.
"Gaya" Michael turned his gaze at her as Gaya stared at him and Vandan for a moment. But soon, she realized Michael is probably nning something evil, so she decided to go along with it instead of questioning him.
"600,000"
"Well I take your word for it, men, take only 450,000. And Ghost,im trusting you here,dont break my trust by doing something like reporting to the Baron or leaving the sect. Of course, I can''t stop you from either of those but idents happen, you know" It was a in threat masked by Vandan''s fake smile. Yet, even after being threatened, Michael didn''t lose his cool but smiled.
"Why would I do that, Lord Vandan? If I''m right, you must have researched about me beforeing here, and I''m sure you know, Baron''s family and I are not best pals"
"I like you Ghost, let''s just keep it that way" Vandan smiled again and stood up to leave after the men took most of Michael''s hard-earned gold coins.
"Let''s shake hands for our new deal, Lord Vardan '''' Michael stepped forward and reached his hand out. Vandan was surprised by this gesture. Vandan was not a fool, he knew very well that he ckmailed and threatened the youngster before him. Vandan couldn''t figure out why he looks so calm despite his threats and ckmails. Prodigies like him are known to have a quick temper and pride as they wouldn''t like to be threatened but this youngster before him seemed not to be a typical prodigy.
However, it didn''t matter what he thought. As far as Vandan knew, Ghost had no known major power backing in Bredia and even if he did, they can''t touch Vandan and hispany because they had no headquarters or ces as Vandan''spany traveled around the continent to avoid being located by their enemies. Therefore even if Ghost had someone behind him, they wouldn''t be able to locate Vandan and his men to attack and if they try, Vandan would burn this ce to the ground when no one is expecting.
"Why not?" Vandan smiled and shook Michael''s hands before leaving the house.
*********************
Lucifer will finally make his appearance in the next chapter.....You''re going to love this!!!
Join my discord to see the character images of the novel.If you want to see how hot Gaya is or How badass Michael is, head to my discord and check the characters under Hitman with a Badass system section. And Don''t forget to shout out for me in the discord....
Chapter 68 - Lucifer Is Coming II
"So, are you going to tell us what you''re going to do?" Gaya asked the second Vandan''s figure disappeared from their sight.
"I''m not going to do anything" Everyone stared at Michael bewildered as Gaya tilted her head like a confused puppy.
"Are you fucking with me Ghost, there''s no way I''ll let that motherfucker take our money!" Michael patted Gaya''s shoulder to calm her down
"idents happen, Aelia, idents happen" after saying this, Michael turned towards his room and walked to his room but before he closes his door, he stopped for a moment
"I''m going to cultivate, don''t disturb me" He then closed his door leaving everyone with the question ''what did he mean by idents happen?''
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 6
Experience Points: 5000/300000
Badass Points: 17500
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 690,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 47%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
Inside his room, he sat in a meditation posture and closed his eyes. When he opened the system, he checked the host window
"System, I need a vial of chloroform"
[why don''t the host buy herbs and brew it yourself?]
The system sounder angry as Michael realized the system is still holding a grudge for not buying the Devil''s breath from the store. He didn''t know whether tough or yell at the system for throwing a tantrum
"Oh don''t be like that system, this time I''ll buy the chloroform from you"
[200 badass points]
"Take it" Right after, a vial with colorless liquid appeared in his hand.
"Is that bastard really cultivating?" from the other side of the door, Michael could hear Gaya mumbling and saw her gawking through the keyhole. She was probably wondering when he was going to jump out of the window and chase after Vandan. However, Michael still sat there with closed eyes and sending a stream of air with chloroform mixed in towards Gaya.
Since Chloroform had a distinct smell and Gaya had an acute sense of smell, he made sure the amount of Chloroform he vaporizes and sent towards her is limited. Eventually, when the sun disappeared below the horizon, Gaya fell asleep on the ground due to the effect of the chloroform.
"Sorry snakey, this is something I have to do alone"
When he was about to stand up and jump out of the window, the system stopped him
[does the host n to put on your new suit of armor and kill Vandan?]
"As a matter of fact, I am"
[Then you should do onest thing Host]
****************************
Amidst fark woods far away from the Sunrise sect, a small party of men was navigating through the path not by sight yet by their memory. Around them, the dark woods stand as noble ck knights, fresh from the fields of legend. Although the sound of heavy downpour reverberated the forest, the thick canopy prevented the rain from bestowing its full wrath on the group.
Despite the rain and the darkness, the group kept moving through the woods.
"Lord Vandan, do you really think that kid has no backing? Without major power behind him, how the hell did he reach the 5star level?" It was Vandan''s group, they would always use the jungle and thick forest as their preferred route instead of roads. That way, no one could follow them and guess where they were going.
"I''m positive that he has no major backing, Remus. My guess is, he stumbled upon a heavenly treasure and used it to reach the 5star level. There''s no point in asking how he reaches that level, that''s not our concern. As far im concerned, he''s our golden goose, we shouldn''t kill it but patiently take its golden egg one by one"
"What if he runs away from the sect?"
"Then we will kill the male disciples and sell the girls to the ve traders, girls like ire would fetch us a sizeable sum of money"
"After we each take turns with them" the bodyguards and Vandanughed evilly without knowing the danger upon them.
"Typical" Vandan and his group''s steps halted by a sudden unearthly voice.
"What?!"
"What is that?!"
They immediately took a defensive stance and looked around. There was fear in their eyes because the voice was not of a human but it sounded supernatural and frightening.
"It''s not dying" the creepy voice echoed through the forest again.
"Who the fuck is that?"
"Come..e out"
"That scares vermin like you" they had no clue where the voice wasing from but they were sure it did not belong to a human and that''s what scared them the most.
"But the moments before"
"It''s up there!" they noticed branches above them swaying and they all looked up branch to branch but the darkness of the forest prevented them from seeing clearly.
However, they all could vaguely see a dark shadow jumping around from branch to branch like a big spider monkey.
"That scares the most"
"Get down...you...fuck!" Vandan yelled looking up. His legs couldn''t stop shaking in overwhelming fear.
"I''m here" Vandan and his group jumped back in fear when the voice sounded very close to them. Their bodies shook violently as overwhelming fear lowered their senses. Slowly, they lowered their heads and saw a humanoid figure standing before them.
The figure had mysterious ck armor and a ck hood covered its face but they could vaguely see the skinless face. Through the holes in the ce where eyes should be, they saw two red lights staring at them. They felt like their very souls were looked at.
"Who...what...are..you?" None of them couldn''t sense its cultivation level.
Vandan and the bodyguards agitated when they saw the figure raising its hands at them.
Zzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhhhh
Another unearthly sound emerged from the figure as cracks of lighting coiled around its hand.
"What?!"
"Ho!"
The weapons they had in their hands flew directly at the figure without their control. They tried to hold back their weapons such as swords and spears but an invisible force seized the weapons from them.
The weaponsnded on the figure''s feet as it slowly stepped towards them.
"De...vi...l" the red eyes, terrifying face, and the ghostly voice made them think of the devil they heard in the stories. (Not the devil of Earth but this world''s devil)
"Devil, hahaha" the figure''s evilughter echoed through the forest. Vandan was the weakest of the group so when he heard theughter, he wet his trousers.
"You''re right, wee to hell"
"Ahhhhhh!" Vandan screamed as the figure disappeared from their sight but in the next moment, he felt something warm ssh on his face. He turned to see Remus''s headless body clumsily move around for a moment before copsing onto the ground.
Right after he saw Remus die, the figure appeared next to another bodyguard and crushed his head with its bare hand. The figure struck the fear of God in their hearts and plummeted their senses and courage. Every time the figure disappeared and appeared again, a bodyguard died a horrible death.
Vandan''s instincts told him to run without looking back but his legs refused to move. When the figure snapped hisst bodyguard''s neck like a twig, he threw the dead body away and turned its gaze towards him.
Vandan stumbled upon a log and fell down as the figure walked towards him. Each step the figure took forward made Vandan''s heart pounce against his chest.
"You...and...I" the figure spoke looking at him "are... in the same...line...of work" the figure paused every time for a moment before speaking the next word
"You collect debts'''' the figure came upon him and lifted him by his neck. Vandan''s legs floated on the air as he struggled to breathe through the figure''s grasp.
"I collect... souls" Thest thing Vandan felt before everything turned ck was the sharp pain right between his eyes.
Throwing aside Vandan''s dead body, the figure looked around to see its handy work. Then the figure gazended on the tree log that Vandan stumbled, its slowly walked at the log and crouched beside it.
On the log, the figure etched the letter ''L'' using its sharp w.
At this exact moment, coincidently, a bolt of lightning struck the nearby and following the lightning, a loud thunderp echoed through the forest.
******************
(Somewhere else in the Elon Continent)
A lonely figure sat atop the mountain peak, eyes closed. The onshore breezes climbed the mountain slopes until the air became cool enough to condense its vapor to rain and showered the mountain peak and the figure. The man''s golden hair fluttered in the icy breeze and his face was a symbolization of peace and serenity. He seemed calm as a peaceful river.
Yet, his peaceful face suddenly showed an expression of concern as he abruptly opened his eyes.
"An Evil has born"
Chapter 69 - Shameless Snake
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 6
Experience Points: 95000/200000
Badass Points: 6500
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 1
upation: Disciple of Sunrise sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 920,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 49%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
Back in Michael''s room, he was meditating but there was a small smile on his face. A few hours ago, he sessfully introduced his other persona to this world. He was going to make an entrance in Bredia but Vandan, unfortunately, made himself a target of Michael, thus ending up being the fertilizer to the dark forest.
Michael didn''t shake Vandan''s hands for anything but to ce the tracking dot he bought from the system for 200 Badass points. The tracking dot was so tiny as Vandan didn''t even feel it on his hand. When he was about to put on his new suit of armor and chase after Vandan, the system rmended he upgrade it to version 2.
He thought about it and finally decided to upgrade the system because of a few reasons. The first and the important reason was the system''s new functionality, the Mentor function. The Mentor mode enabled him to learn any spell that was not bought from the system store. The function would also improve the spell or skill''s efficiency and power. The only downside for this function was, unlike the spell or skill bought from the system, he couldn''t get to reach 100% mastery out of the box. The spell or skill learned through the Mentor function could only reach a certain percentage of mastery and if he wanted to reach 100% mastery, he had to practice the spell or skill often like normal people.
The second reason was another new functionality, the Masking function. It was the function that prevented Vandan and his group from sensing his cultivation level. However the function could only work for 10 minutes and after 10minutes, he had to wait for one hour before using it again.
He liked the two reasons but he loved the third one, which was the decrease in Experience points limit to reach the next level. The system hooked him to upgrade it when it mentioned the decrease in the XP limit from 300,000 to 200,000.
That meant he had to kill fewer people to reach the next level. Also, the system mentioned every time he upgrades it to the next version, there would be a huge decrease in the XP limit.
After he upgraded to the next version, the system was generous to gift him one coupon that let him buy a skill or spell for free and a few items. Of course, the system limited his choices as it knew he would try to buy a Legendary level spell or skill. Among the choices given by the system, he chose a skill called Death Range. The reason why he chose the skill was it perfectlyplemented the Fear Toxin. After he activated the Death range, anyone within a few radius from him would be terrified for some limit. The weaker they were, the more they would fear. Coupled with his fear toxin, the effects of the skill were almost doubled. That was not the only sweet thing about this skill, within the Death range, Michael''s strength and speed would increase by 25%. That was how he crushed a few skulls like crushing an egg.
The only downside of this skill was it could only be upgraded to level 3 where his strength and speed would increase by 50%. However as far as he was concerned, a 50% boost is not a joke.
To upgrade the system to version 3, he needed a whopping amount of 30,000 badass points. For now, he was happy with everything as it is.
Another change he noticed after the upgrade was the system''s voice. Until now, the system sounded like a robot but now, it sounded less robotic.
"System, convert 450,000 gold into Badass points"
[Starting the conversion...]
[Conversion sess...The host received 2250 Badass points]
[The host''s total Badass points is 8750]
"Alright, now I should have a talk with the Elders and ire"
He stood up and walked towards the door. Gaya was still sleeping on the floor after inhaling Chloroform. With a smile on his face, he carried her and put her on the sofa.
"Master Ghost" when he stepped out of his house, he saw Daniel was waiting for him with a stack of posters in his hand.
"Daniel, I see you got what I asked"
"Yes Master Ghost, this is all the posters of wanted criminals in Bredia we should avoid selling potions and pills" Daniel handed over the posters to Michael as he put the posters in the system storage to useter.
"I also brought this, Master Ghost" Daniel retrieved a rolled parchment and gave it to Michael.
The parchment on Michael''s hand was a high-quality paper and had some weight to it. When he opened the parchment, Michael''s brows went up in surprise because he instantly recognized the person on the poster, Gaya.
The poster didn''t mention Gaya''s crimes or her origin but it only had herst known location and the bounty amount.
"4 million gold coins and a chance to join the MorningStar sect in the Nether Realm" Although he didn''t quite understand thetter, he knew the value of the first.
"Where did you get this?"
"At the Adventurers Guild, Master Ghost. This poster is all over the Kingdom. Every sect and adventurer is searching for this girl. I thought you should see this" right this moment, Michael realized that Gaya is in real trouble now and if she removed the mask he gave her, even he wouldn''t be able to save her from being dragged back to Nagnd.
"Do you know who put the bounty on her?" The poster only mentioned that they report any information they find about her to the Adventure Guild or any sect in the kingdom but not a word about the person who put the bounty on her. Michael had some idea who would have put this bounty
"No one knows Master Ghost and I didn''t ask around too much because I wanted to be discreet as possible"
"You did great, I''ll raise both of your sriester. Now take the day off"
The tiredness of traveling faded away from Daniel''s face when he heard Michael. He bowed at Michael with utmost worship and joy
"Thank you, Master Ghost" after this, Daniel rushed to find Ricky to share this wonderful news while Michael went back inside his house. On his way, he saw Gaya yawning anding towards him.
"Did you say you are going to raise their wages?"
"Yeah" Michael chuckled inside because she had no freakin idea how deep in trouble she was.
She followed him inside and saw him leisurely sitting on the new sofa he bought.
"Since you are being so generous, I wanted to discuss something with you" she leaned on the wall and said.
"Oh? Go ahead"
"You know I''ve been working hard and turning the Majestic into a sessful business right?" Michael nodded controlling his urge to rub the poster on her arrogant face.
"And you are also generous enough to hand over most of the coins we make to that bald fucker" she was still furious about the decision he made to keep paying Vandan.
"Can you get to the point?" Michael said
"Im not going to work my ass off to pay that fuck, Ghost. If you want me to do what I''ve been doing, we should discuss my share"
"Sure,e take a seat" Michael said with an honest face like he was really going to negotiate with her.
"Huh" Gaya was surprised as she didn''t expect him to agree just like this and wondered what''s going on with him today because he was agreeing to everything since the morning.
However, she was delighted to hear him agree and hopped to the sofa as a happy bunny. She sat beside him and cleared her throat to enter the negotiating mode
"Although you are somewhat good at being an Alchemist, I''m the one who does all the heavy lifting such as crowd controlling, taking the payments, customer rtionship, maintaining a public rtion, etc, etc. Therefore after thinking long and hard, I came to a number that we can both agree on" he was an expert in lying because being a hitman required lying to maintain his cover yet even he had to admit this girl''s talent of speaking so shamelessly and lying with a straight face.
"Maintaining public rtion my ass" Michaelughed out loud in his mind but kept his real emotions from showing up on his face.
"How much are you thinking?" said Michael while Gaya took a deep breath.
"I was thinking we should split the profit by fifty-fifty"
He was stunned by this shameless snake but at the same time, he couldn''t wait to see her face when he showed her the poster.
Chapter 70 - Crappy Old Sect
"I thought we are friends who work together," Michael said and put an innocent look on his face that fooled Gaya to think he was serious.
Thinking he was really going to agree to her terms, she gently patted his hand and said,
"Of course we are human, but favors like working for free break friendships. We can share the profit and continue to taste the fruits of our friendship, what do you say?" Michael could notice even she was trying to fight the urge to burst intoughter after shamelessly lying like this.
If she was born on earth, she would have made an excellent politician.
"You''re right, friends should not continue to work for free and we shouldn''t owe each other anything, am I right?" Micheal asked as Gaya nodded with a grin.
"I will give you 50% of the profit"
"REALLY?! I mean... you will?" She almost screamed out loud in surprise but she quickly regained herposure and asked. Her face brightened and she wanted to dance around in joy.
"So when are you going to give the 5million gold you owe me?" The smile froze on Gaya''s face. she knitted her brows in confusion.
"What 5 million? What''re you talking about?" Micheal retrieved the bounty poster and showed it to her with a devilish grin on his face. Gaya''s hands started to tremble when her gaze fell on the poster. The reason for her reaction might be because of shock or fear but one thing was sure, she''s in deep shit.
"Xanali, that bitch!" she tore the poster into pieces and threw it away.
However, her anger turned into panic and fear when she saw the look on Michael''s face. She couldn''t help but swallow her saliva as she thought he''s going to hand her over to them for 4 million gold. Right this moment, she wanted to punch herself for asking 50% of the profits.
"Hu..human" she put on her best pleading face and meekly called Michael like a scared kitten.
"So when are you nning to give me the 5million gold?"
"Isn''t it 4million?"
"You said friends should not work for free right? 4miilion for not handing you over to Xanali and 1million for the pills you have swallowed until now, for free" Just as he said, she leaped at him and hugged him tightly. This reaction of her surprised him but he knew this snake was trying to use this hug as a bribe.
"Forgive me for asking 50% human. Please don''t hand me over to that bitch, you know what they do to me" she was even able to conjure enough tears to wet his shoulder. Michael was having funughing out loud in his mind and continued to mess with this shameless snake.
"But you said friends shouldn''t work for free and that would break friendships"
"Fuck what I said, I was just messing with you. I will never ask something like that for real, hoo..hoo" she sobbed hugging him
"But what about the fruits of our friendship?" he could feel her grip around his neck tighten. She continued to sob and talk
"What kind of friend charges for helping a friend. Only heartless horrible fuckers would try to take advantage of their friends"
"So you''re not going to ask for 50% of the profits?"
"Of course not, I''m happy as it is. Just don''t hand me over to them" He chuckled and hugged her back. If this snake was using this hug to her advantage, he also deserved to enjoy this hug.
"Alright then, I won''t hand you over to Xanali. But remember, you''re in deep shit. Poster like this is all over Bredia and every adventurer and wannabe disciple is searching for you" she tried to wiggle herself out of the hug but he didn''t let her
"You are safe only as long as you are with me. Without the mask I gave you, you are good as dead"
"I promise, I won''t leave you human" she tried to sound truthful as she possibly could.
"You know how many girlfriends said this before they became exes"
(No offense to my female readers, it''s Michael who said this)
Michael''s inner voice reminded him while he patted her on the back.
"I know you won''t"
"Thank you human, now can you let me go?" she tried her best to wiggle herself out but how could a mortal like her overpower someone like Michael.
"It feels good, doesn''t it? Let me hug you for a little longer"
"Speak for yourself, let...me go, you bastard" she came back to her usual self and scolded Michael. He was chuckling while she kept punching his back
"I will... bite you if you don''t...let me go" after teasing her for a few more seconds, he let her go. She stood up angrily and corrected her dress while cursing him under her breath.
However, her loyalty towards him increased and reached 50%.
"Come on, I have to meet ire and the Elders"
"Those dumb fuckers! Tell me you killed those fuckers when I was sleeping"
Michael annoyed her but Vandan and his men made her furious. Therefore when she remembered them, she forgot all about Michael''s little y with her and cursed Vandan.
"I will soon but for now, they can live. When I get stronger, I will make them suffer" Seeing his honest expression, she believed him.
"Good, I want to burn that bald fucker''s ass on fire before we kill him"
"Damn girl, hahaha" Although he didn''t want to, his brain showed him the sight of Gaya burning Vandan''s butt on fire.
"I''ve done worse" she proudly said and followed him behind to meet ire and the Elders.
*****************
it was almost in the evening where the entire sky was painted red with the setting sun. Looking at Michael and Gaya approaching the building where the Elders and ire were staying, a couple of female disciples came running.
"Brother Ghost, Sister Aelia"
"Hey you two" Michael smiled and waved at them.
"Are the Elders and sect Leader ire inside?"
"Yes, yes they are Brother Ghost. The Elders just finished their lectures"
The two girls said and tried to lead them inside
"Where are you twoing, the grownups are going to the meeting. You two little things could go and do whatever you do" Gaya pped the girls on the back and sent them away. The girls rubbed the back of their heads and ran away before they stuck their tongues out at Gaya.
"Do you really have to be such a bitch?"
"What can I say, I love bossing around, hehe" Michael knew he can''t change this snake''s personality and chose to ignore her atrocities for now.
Soon after he entered the building, he realized the sorry state of the sect. The broken wooden beams, mold-covered walls, ceiling with countless patches, and many things like that made him feel ashamed because this wasn''t only his sect but it''s also his Base of Operation. No wonder he didn''t get any Badass points from the sect yet.
"Wow, I feel like I stepped into another realm" Gaya''s nose witched as she frowned looking at the ce. There wasn''t even a proper chair for her to sit in this ce.
"Ghost" Just as they were looking around, Elder Mark came from one of the rooms. There was a hint of shame in Elder Mark''s eyes and he tried to avoid direct eye contact with Michael.
"Elder Mark, I want to talk with all the other Elders and Sect Leader ire for a moment" After settling their debts and bing a representative of the sect, Michael''s authority in the sect reached the level of ire''s. His reputation among the disciples was sky-high as they basically worshipped him.
Therefore when Michael asked Elder Mark to set up a meeting, he nodded without asking a second question. When Elder Mark went to bring the elders and ire, Michael turned his gaze towards Gaya.
"Hey, do you think you can transform this sect to look at least somewhat decent? This ce is gonna mess my reputation"
"Yeah, no shit. My ma"
"Your maids have a better ce, that''s what you were going to say right?"
"It''s the truth" Gaya shrugged and looked around the ce again before asking Michael.
"So you want me to fix this ce?"
Michael nodded, "yes, I know you must have seen many sects. So, I want you to remodel this ce and not only this ce, the entire sect. What will the people think of me if they see the current status of the sect" As a first step of getting Badass points out of his Base of Operation, he decided to renovate the sect and who else would be a better person to lead the task other than his haughty assistant?
"Hehehe, you''re right, I have seen many sects and ces. I can turn this ce around to suit my...I mean our tastes but it''s not gonna be cheap"
"Money is not the problem. Let me first have a talk with the Elders and ire about my ce in the sect first, then we can start turning this ce around"
Chapter 71 - Guardian
A few minutester, ire and the Elders appeared in the hall one by one. Since he decided to focus on developing this sect to earn more badass points through it, he took a closer look at everyone before him. Elder Mark, the powerful amongst them all looked serious and solemn. Michael could sense Elder Mark is just a few months of cultivation away from breaking through to the Body Strengthening stage. After Elder Mark, Elder Reiner stood there with a wide grin on his face for no reason. He vaguely resembled Gandalf the Grey to Michael. In Michael''s eyes, Elder Miles looked like a goofy fun-loving old man and the first to get mad. Lastly, Elder Sandra quietly stood beside ire. Even though she was sick and fighting with death every day, herposure and calm look on her face made her look like the wisest among the Elders. Unlike Elder Mark, these three were at least a year of cultivation away from reaching the next stage.
After taking a look at the Elders, his gaze fell on ire to get slightly surprised by her because, in less than a month, she went from Body Refining Stage level 5 to Level 7. When he met a few hours ago, he didn''t try to sense her cultivation level but now, he realized that ire might be a prodigy in the making.
ire''s face was not calm and in fact, she was very troubled by the events that happened a few hours ago. She knew it was her fault that made Michael pay the price, literally. Her face betrayed her and revealed her internal struggle.
"Sect Leader ire, Elders, the reason I called you everyone here is to speak about the future of the sect"
"You aren''t leaving the sect, are you?" Elder Miles jumped the gun and asked him before Michael could finish his sentence. Hearing Elder Miles, Michael shook his head and smiled.
"Of course not Elder Miles, on the contrary, I''m here to talk about my position in the sect"
"Yes, we were just talking about that Ghost. It''s not fair for you to remain as an outer disciple anymore, so we decided to make you the one and only core disciple of the Sect" Leaning on the wall, Gaya snickered. Usually in sects like the three big sects, a Body Refining stage cultivator would never get promoted to a Core disciple position no matter how talented they are.
Only after a disciple reaches the Core Formation level, they would get promoted to Core Disciple status. However, the Sunrise sect made Ghost a Core Disciple before he even reached the Body Strengthening stage.
Looking at Elder Reiner''s grin grew wide, Michael realized this was his idea.
"Elder Mark, I''m honored to be the Core Disciple but I don''t want just to be a Core Disciple, I want all of you to form a new position" Gaya''s face lit realizing Ghost is weaving some kind of n to take over this sect. She liked stuff like hostile takeovers.
The Elders were visibly troubled when they heard him but before anyone could raise a question at Michael, ire opened her mouth.
"After all you''ve done for us, we are grateful to you Ghost. So I would grant anything that''s within my power" If making him the Sect Leader would help her sect enter the golden days, she was ready to do just that.
"A position called Guardian, Sect Leader ire. For the outside world, I''ll be a Core Disciple but in secret, I''ll be the Guardian. Before any of you ask, I won''t put my nose into any day-to-day decision-making, Sect leader CLaire is a great leader and I have no intention to share the Leader Chair. I only wish to part take in important stuff"
"Like an Ancestor?" Elder Miles quickly asked him. When a current leader of the sIect or a family decided to enter the lonely mountain or secluded cultivation, they would be an Ancestor of that sect or family. All the decision-making and control of the ce would go to the next head.
An Ancestor would only make an appearance if the sect or the family in a catastrophic disaster or to take part in the utmost important ceremonies.
"Not exactly but something like that. As a Guardian, I''ll be around and look after the sect now and forever so the Sunrise sect will never decline again. From now on, our sect would only move towards glory, I''ll make sure of that. Sect Leader, Elders, are you with me on this Sect leader?"
"Hell yeah, kid, let''s do it. I''m so sick of being an Elder of a declined sect! Before I die, I want to feel how it feels to be an Elder of a prestigious sect" Elder Reinerughed happily and gave his heartfelt support to Michael.
"I''m with Elder Reiner on this one" Elder Miles knew the potential of the youngster before them. Normally, he and Elder Reiner rarely agreed on something but he knew that Sticking with a heaven blessed prodigy and a 5-star Alchemist would never go wrong unless Michael gets killed by someone.
"Elder Sandra, you are the head of the Elders, what''s your decision on this? " Instead of agreeing to Michael''s request like Leder Reiner and Miles, Elder Mark turned to ask Elder Sandra.
Gaya saw the old woman scanning everyone from top to bottom beforending her gaze at ire.
"Sect Leader ire, I think you should be the person to have the final say on this, after all, you are the Sect Leader" Michael didn''t worry about ire because he knew ire would agree to this. After this meeting, he quite liked Elder Reiner and Miles.
Her beautiful blue eyes slowly blinked as she stared at Michael without saying a word. Then, she took a deep breath,
"If making Ghost a Guardian would set our sect on the path to glory, then that''s what I must do. As the current Sect Leader, I name you Ghost as the Core Disciple and the Guardian of the Sunrise sect" A golden ray emerged from her hand and showered Michael before it vanished.
[Ding! Congrattions for the host to be the Core Disciple]
[Ding! Congrattions for the host to be the Guardian]
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 6
Experience Points: 95000/200000
Badass Points: 8750
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 1
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 470,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 50%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
"Now as a Guardian, I''ll clear all the debts of our sect in theing weeks"
"But Ghost" ire still seemed reluctant to put all the debt on his head.
"No need to worry Sect Leader, what''s mine is yours, and what''s yours is mine. Stop hesitating and worrying Sect Leader, you should be strong and tough, I got your back"
When Michael finished his words, he could see ire standing there, staring at him nkly. She then nodded with a gentle smile
"I will try to be the Leader everyone expects me to be"
*********************
"What was that human? Great leader my ass, she put the entire sect in trouble to save one person. She''s just a naive young girl, not a great leader"
Gaya threw herself on the new sofa andined while Michael prepared to make pills and potions for his customers. He could have done this in the night but he had ns for the night.
"I know, but I''m here now and this is my sect. She won''t make stupid mistakes like that again in my watch"
"So not putting your nose into day-to-day decision-making is just a lie?" she was confused as Michael smirked.
"When I be stronger, who do you think ire and Elders see as the head? Me. But I''m not the person to sit behind a table and manage this ce, that would be ire''s job. With a little nudge in the right direction, I believe she will turn into a good Sect Leader, under me" Michael continued with a smirk on his face.
Gaya realized that this was his n all along and acting as a savior of the sect was just a facade. Yet, she still didn''tpletely understand why he is putting his money and efforts into making this sect great again. In her mind, he was not the kind of a guy who would do something noble without expecting something in return.
"Tell me the truth, human, what do you really want with this ce?"
"When you be trustworthy, I might tell you the answer. Now stop asking questions and start nning to make this ce look better or I''ll take that sofa away "
"Don''t you dare!"
Chapter 72 - The Devil Of Bredia
In the early morning, daylight not only unwrapped the hues of Bradford but also the terror that struck the town. A dark alley that rarely saw more than five people hangout now had half of the town surrounding it. In front of the crowd, there were a couple of girls who wore revealing clothes to tempt the youngsters. However, no man was in the mood to enjoy the beauties as their eyes were locked on the bodies hanging on a rope between two buildings.
Many people were afraid to look at therge puddle of blood below the dead bodies. After seeing the blood stters and the terror on the faces of the dead ones, some people guessed that they weren''t killed by a person.
While the people were staring at the bodies, a girl who had perfect curves and glossy skin was looking at the nearby wall. If not for the gory scene in front of them, many men and women would drool and hope to get a glimpse of what''s under her purple dress.
"Sister Sadie, do you think whoever or whatever killed them left behind that?" The girl in the purple dress was none other than Sadie Kan, the core disciple of the Silvermoon and one of the judges of thest Heaven''s gatepetition.
Although the girl who asked the question was also a great beauty, she was overshadowed by the beauty of Sadie. If Michael was here, he would have recognized the girl as N Reid, the same girl who almost got herself killed by trying to use a telepathic attack on Michael.
"Yes, I saw the same symbol on the scene at Sarton"
"What do you think it means?"
"I don''t know but it''s not my job to know. My teacher wanted to find these guys and technically I did find them"
"Who? Teacher Hazel? what did she want with them?" N pointed her finger at the hanging dead bodies and asked.
"Apparently these guys were harassing some of Teacher Hazel''s clients and recently they took the harassment to the next level. Initially, they were a group of twenty men and when they heard the Silver Moon was searching for them, they started to run. Some of them went into hiding in Sarton and the rest of them came here only to get ughtered by someone eviler than them"
Even Sadie had a hint of fear in her eyes. She had seen many killings but this felt dark and different. These guys were given no chance to fight or even take out their weapons. Whoever killed them was quick and cruel. All of their manhoods were cut off while they were still alive yet, none of the residents nearby heard a sound. However, Sadie felt no pity for the dead ones.
"So in Sarton"
"Just like here, all of them were ughtered and hanged. Whoever killed them left no trace but this one symbol, L"
"What does it mean?"
"MOVE AWAY!" Suddenly, someone shouted from the crowd and Sadie turned to see a soldier of Bradford bringing a dirty-robed old man. Sadie could tell the old man was obviously a beggar by the look of his ragged tunic and the stinking from him.
"Miss Kan, this old man is iming that he saw what happened"
"De...vi...l..." the man stuttered something under his breath. He was pale and shivering like he''s in the middle of a snow mountain.
"Tell me what you told the people back there" the soldier shook the old man by his cor as Sadie waved him to stop.
"Old man, did you see the person who did this?" Sadie asked the old man but his mouth stuttered in the horror he witnessed the night before.
"No...per...son...de...v...i...l" the old man still sounded unclear. His voice broke and the shivering wasn''t any help.
"N" The disciples of SilverMoon were very good at psychic attacks and ying with someone''s mind. N might have picked the wrong person to use the psychic attack but the old man in front of her wasn''t a challenge.
N stared into the old man''s eyes as his eyes glowed for a second. Following this, the old man shivered less and somewhat looked better than he was.
"Tell us old man, what did you see?"
"I saw him" the crowd didn''t make a sound as everyone''s focus was on the old man.
"Saw who?"
"The devil" the moment these two words escaped the old man''s mouth, there were several gasps from the crowd and some dropped onto their knees and started to pray.
"What nonsense are you spouting?!" N had enough of this old man''s mumbling but when she was about to p some sense into the Oldman, Sadie stopped her
"Did you see his face?"
"Yes" the old man nodded but when he recalled the face he saw, N had to use her powers to calm him again.
"Red eyes, wore nothing but ck" Hearing the old man''s description, the people trembled as he continued
"He came with darkness, the whole alley turned dark. I could only see his red eyes. Mere mortals like them didn''t stand a chance against him"
"Mere mortals? All of them were Body Strengthening stage cultivators, you old fool" N yelled again but the old man shook his head.
"We all are mere mortals in front of the devil"
"Save us, God!"
"Pray to the Almighty!"
"Save Bradford!"
Many people went crazy and shouted at the sky hoping God would save them from the devil. Ignoring the people, Sadie asked a few more questions to the Old man, not because she wanted to find the person but her curiosity got the better of her.
"Did he see you? Why did he leave you alive?"
"Again?!" N Reid yelled and used her mind powers to calm the Old man again because he started to shiver after Sadie''s question. It took him longer than before to calm down.
"He...wanted me to...announce...his presence" even after N calmed him down, the old man''s voice slightly broke in overwhelming fear.
"Did he say something to you?" The old man slowly nodded and conveyed the words of the devil to everyone.
"He...said" the people stopped their shouting and prayers and looked at the old man with eyes full of fear and terror.
"He..is here...to im...the souls..of..the sinners and..." Some of the people whomitted crimes such as stealing, beating their wives, or children fainted on the spot. Because they just paved their way into the devil''s hit list.
However, the old man was not finished as he had few more words to tell the people.
"Lucifer...is...watching"
"L for Lucifer" Sadie turned her gaze towards the wall where the letter L was written on by blood. She felt a cold chill running through her spine because if he was really the devil who''s here to kill the sinners, what could the people in this world do except sent to hell by the Devil.
She didn''t even want to think about it.
"Take him to Baron Totonk, my task here ispleted" she saw no reason to hang around here at the devil''s hunting ground, so she took N and left the scene.
Because N couldn''t use a flying sword with her level of cultivation and Sadie was in the mood for horse riding to calm her nerves, both of them bought two horses to travel.
"Where to, Sister Sadie?"
"River town, I want to buy some Iron ore"
**********************
Following their departure from Bradford, Sadie and N traveled in silence thinking about the devil the old man talked about. The huge trees on both the side of the mud road supplied them with shadow and a cool breeze to calm their minds.
On their way to the River town, they saw no carriages or people. But when the outskirts of the River town was in their eyes, they also saw a trio before them. Sadie''s lips curved upwards while N swallowed saliva because they both recognized the person who was tiding before them.
"Is that who I think it is?" Sadie galloped her horse to catch up with them as N followed her behind.
"Ghost!" The one who was traveling before them was none other than Michael. Sadie ignored the blonde guy on the other horse and shouted at Michael.
"Miss Kan, what a pleasant surprise" she was surprised to see him reach the Body Refining stage level 7 in such a short amount of time.
Other than his cultivation, he looked sexier and hotter than before. Just by looking at that smile of his, she wanted to eat him up. However, unlike Michael who showed a warm smile, the girl riding behind him had rather a cold look on her face.
The girl was a mortal yet she had a noble aura around her that made Sadie feel inferior to her.
"What''s with the Miss, call me Sadie. I assume you recognize my sister here" Sadie chuckled as N''s face turned red in embarrassment
"Hiya, N"
"Hi, Ghost" He seemed to havepletely forgotten about what happened at thepetition. His smile made N feel somewhat less ashamed.
"I heard you''re a 5-star Alchemist Ghost, why didn''t you say so?" Ignoring the cold look of the girl behind him, Sadie brought her horse as close to him as possible.
"What can I say Sadie, I like to surprise people"
"Oh, you really surprised me," Saide said with a flirty smile. The blonde guy who was traveling with Michael was Jack and seeing a beauty flirting with Ghost, Jack almost fell off his horse because he was too focused on Saide and N rather than the road before him.
"Hi Miss Reid, I''m Jack"
Chapter 73 - Netherels
It was the system''s new feature that made Michael travel to River town apanying Jack. This new feature''s purpose was to help Michael choose the right person to be his subordinate and manage his existing subordinates.
Subordinate: Gaya
Cultivation Level: None
Race: Demi human-Naga Race
Current Skills: None
Status: Meridians repaired - 10%
Loyalty towards the host: 50%
Trait: Warrior
The Trait feature would inform him about the person Michael is considering to recruit as his subordinate by letting him know his/her special trait. For instance, Gaya''s trait was Warrior. He wouldn''t be able to make her an Alchemist even if he gave her the Book of Alchemy unless he changes her trait from Warrior to Alchemist for 500,000 Badass points or adds the Alchemist trait on top of her current trait for 1.5 million Badass points.
Michael had no ns to change Gaya''s trait and the reason for his departure from the sect was not Gaya but Jack. After an eventful night, Michael woke up in the morning to continue making pills and potions. While he was picking up the herbs from his new herbal garden, he met Jack and heard he was going to River town to buy scrap metal to repair his fellow disciples'' weapons.
After a small chat with Jack and the sudden notification from the System, Michael realized Jack was a cksmith. Apparently, Jack learned the trait from his uncle and even though Jack was not an expert in forging, Michael decided to give Jack a chance before he makes any decision. He could however, wait and depend on his luck to find a better cksmith who is willing to be his subordinate. Nevertheless, Michael was not the person who would depend on his luck rather than seizing the opportunity in front of him.
Besides, Jack was poor and weak, so earning his loyalty would be simple. All Michael had to do is pay him handsomely for his work and Jack would be as loyal as a puppy. With the help of the system, he could also improve Jack''s forging skills and have his own personal cksmith. Still, before officially making Jack his subordinate, he wanted to see Jack''s skill with his own eyes.
But Michael never expected to see Sadie, a remarkably hot girl on his way to River town.
"Nice to meet you, Jack" If it wasn''t for Jack seemed like Ghost''s friend, N would have given him a cold shoulder. But because of Ghost, N showed a polite smile and shook Jack''s hand.
"A, she...she... shook my hand" Jack''s eyes sparkled and he couldn''t hold his joy. He felt like he was flying.
"I''m not going to wash this hand," Jack told himself.
"So will you concoct a pill or two for me?" She came so close to Michael as both of their shoulders made contact. He didn''t blush or move away like a beta mc but enjoyed thepany of a hot girl like Sadie.
"Of course I will, you have to pay for my services of course" Gaya would have strangled him from behind if he had agreed to concoct pills for free. But hearing he would still charge her despite her seduction, Gaya calmed down.
Sadie on the other hand pouted," I thought you won''t charge me a coin, Ghost"
Michaelughed and winked at her,"e on Sadie, you know I like money and you don''tck gold coins"
"Can this sister pay you with other means? I guarantee you, It will be much better than gold coins" Her seduction skill was on the next level and any youth with a weak heart wouldn''t be able to resist her charm. Even Michael was tempted to take upon her offer but he didn''t want to mix business with pleasure.
"I believe you but let''s keep the business and pleasure apart, shall we?"
"Ah, a man of principals, I like it" she moaned for a second and continued with a seductive smile on her face.
With thepany of three hot girls, Michael had a pleasant journey towards the River town until he saw the soldiers of Baron Totonk and disciples of MorningStar swarming into the city gates.
"huh? What''s going on there?" Sadie threw a look of uncertainty and they rushed towards the town to see what''s happening. When Michael passed through the unguarded city gates, he witnessed people screaming and running around chaotically. Sights of a couple of wrecked buildings entered his eyes.
"What the hell is going on here?" N dismounted her horse and the others did the same because the streets were full of panicking people to ride through. The people seemed to have been running from the other end of the town where Michael first met Ricky and Daniel.
"Hey you!" Gaya had enough of this as she grabbed one of the men who was running for his life.
"What''s going on here and what are you running from?"
"Nether...Netherels!" he broke Gaya''s hold and ran like hell without turning back.
"Netherels? In river town" N, Sadie, Jack, and Gaya wondered why are the Netherels here at River town while Michael wondered what the hell is a Netherel.
"Hey" Michael leaned back and scratched Gaya''s shoulder
"What''s a Netherel?"
"Seriously?!e I''ll introduce them to you" Gaya led Michael towards the danger as N and Saide followed them.
While he was walking against the crowd, he noticed the Tavern he spent his first night became a ruin. The more he walked towards the forest on the other side of the town, he saw more disciples of the MorningStar and Golden Valley.
The city gates were shut close and being barricaded by some disciples of the Golden Valley. Since there was no way to see what''s happening on the other side through the gate, Michael and the group started to take the steps to stand on top of the city walls.
When he was climbing the stairs, he could smell a putrid smell in the air. The air stank rotten corpses as Gaya covered her nose with her hand.
"What the?!"
When he reached the top of the wall, his body went rigid, and felt a cold chill running through his spine.
"Zombies"
In the distance, there were hundreds of Humanoid figures and animals.
However, their skin was arctic-white and glistened in the light. Their bones were visible through the peeling skin and their maniacal eyes that burned with madness. And then, there was a yelp, a whine, and two cracks. The blood-slurping began. One of the Netherels munched his way through a deer in no time. It was spine-chilling to watch him at work, his eyes fixed on the deer as he slobbered Rottweiler drool down his chin. Soon, the nearby zombies joined him to feast on the deer.
"Zombies? Is that what you called them where you came from?" Sadie asked Michael. He had never expected to see Zombies in this world and suddenly felt like he was transmigrated into a world of walking dead.
It took him a couple of seconds to take his gaze away from the army of zombies in the distance ready to swarm River Town.
"Where in the hell THEY came from?" Michael didn''t fear many things in the world but in front of an army of zombies, he began to fear.
[The host does not need to worry much. You won''t turn into a zombie if they bite you. Netherels are just corpses reanimated by a dark power]
What system just said calmed his nerves as he took a closer look at the zombies. Gaya noticed his serious expression changing as he began to grin.
"Fro"
"Nether Realm" Gaya was interrupted by Sadie. Sadie''s interruption infuriated Gaya because it was her ce to exin things to Michael. She didn''t like being reced, especially by Sadie.
"Every three years, theyer between our world and the Nether Realm gets weakened. All the great cultivators in our world use this time to open a rift to Nether Realm so the younger generation could enter and gain experience as well as get some treasures from the Nether Realm if they are lucky. During this time, some Netherels would be able to pass through theyer ande to our world, but not this many"
"It''s because someone is using dark magic to summon them" A voice filled with arrogance sounded as they turned back in the direction of the voice to see Victoria walking towards them with her followers.
When he met her at thepetition, she was a Body Refining stage level 8 Cultivator but now she was at the Body refining stage Level 10. Despite her defeat at thepetition, she now looked more arrogant and cold. However, her cold expressions changed suddenly when she saw the face of the youth near Sadie.
"YOU!" the words he spoke to humiliate her and the sight of her sent flying from the stage shed across her eyes. In her eyes full of anger, there was also a hint of shock becausepared to the jump in his cultivation level, her aplishment was nothing. He was able to defeat her without breaking a sweat when he was just at the Body Refining stage Level 1 but now, he reached level 7, only three levels below her.
Standing behind Michael, Gaya pretended to control her urge tough at Victoria to fan her anger and mess with her mind. Michael on the other hand didn''t even take more than a second to acknowledge her presence as he started to count the zombies happily. The reason for his joy was he sensed the zombies have a cultivation level and that meant, he would get experience points by killing them.
A moment ago, the Netherels freaked him out however now, they were not walking dead but walking experience points waiting to get ughtered.
Chapter 74 - Let鈥檚 Party With The Zombies
"Calm down Victoria" another voice sounded at the scene and Gaya noticed Evan, the other one who Ghost defeated at the finals. However, unlike Victoria, he had a warm smile on his face and seemed more approachable than his rival.
"Nice to see again, Ghost" Evan reached out his hand and surprised Michael with this gesture.
"Likewise" Well, if Evan was chill about what happened before, he wasn''t going to hang on to it as he shook his hand with a gentle smile.
"Our scouts informed us that the sorcerer who is summoning them is at the ruins in the forest. Brother Alex and Sister Celina are currently on their way to apprehend the sorcerer. We should all go and help them because they need our help"
"I think I stay here and take care of the problem in front of us"
Why would he help that arrogant bitch and her boyfriend wasting his time and efforts? Besides, if Alex, a Core Formation cultivator was searching for the Sorcerer, the Sorcerer had to be at the Core Formation stage too. With his current strength, he was far from defeating a Core Formation Stage Cultivator unless he took a risk depending on his luck and the system. But taking risks and depending on luck was not something he would do, especially not when he could harvest Experience points like crazy.
His answer slightly surprised Evan as he expected Ghost to go hunt down the Sorcerer who was the root of all the problem rather than stay here and kill the Netherels.
"Our Senior Adam is on his way too and with him, the sorcerer is as good as dead" Victoria snickered as Evan looked at Sadie.
"What about you Sister Sadie, will youe with us?" Sadie stared at both Michael and Evan for a moment before letting him know her answer.
"Nah, Alex and Celina have all the backup they need. I stay here and keep the Netherels at bay" Most of the Silvermoon disciples practiced and excelled in psychic spells and mind-controlling techniques. These were their main weapons in their arsenal when ites to battle. Sadie was not an exception to this and she knew her strengths and weaknesses well. That was why she chose not to go chasing the sorcerer because the sorcerer who was summoning the Netherels must have stronger Netherels around him. Since Netherels had no consciousness or living brain, none of her mind-controlling techniques would work on them, therefore, she chose to remain on the top of the wall where it''s rtively safe, and when the timees, she decided to slip away.
"Everyone from Golden Valley, stay here and keep the Netherels at bay if they choose to attack the town. If pushes to shove, kill as many Netherels as you can and collect their cores" One of the girls who was standing behind Victoria ordered Golden Valley disciples.
Michael hid his irritation from showing on his face as he didn''t want to share the kills with anyone else. The more Netherels the disciples kill, the more XP he would lose.
"My fellow brothers and sisters from MorningStar, your priority is to keep the town safe from the Netherels. Do not go provoke the Netherel army standing outside. We must hold them until our Senior Alex and Sister Celina apprehend the Sorcerer who is summoning them "
While the disciples from Golden Valley and Morningstar were taking orders from Victoria and Evan, Michael nned to make the most out of this chaos.
"Aelia,e with me for a sec" Michael took Gaya and stepped away from the prying eyes for a moment.
"If you want anything, why don''t you ask your new friend, that bitch over there?" before even Michael could say anything, Gaya cursed Sadie.
"This is no time for temper tantrums, you jealous snake," Michael said with a low-pitched voice and knocked her on the head.
"Ah!" Michael covered her mouth before she could cry out loud as she rubbed her head where Michael knocked.
"Now listen, do you know how to handle a bow?"
"Hmm" Michael''s hand was still covering her mouth so he could only hear her muffled answer.
He took his hand back ignoring Gaya''s scowl.
"Are you any good?" Considering his subordinates'' killings also would give him XP, he nned to put the Legs Bow in Gaya''s hand and double the killing.
Hearing Michael''s question, she didn''t answer him but took two little stones from the ground. Under his gaze, she threw one stone high into the air and while the stone was in mid-air, she hit the stone with the second stone with deadly uracy.
Even Michael couldn''t stop his brows from arching up in surprise. Despite the height and the wind''s strength, she was able to hit the stone with another stone with perfect precision. As the Earth''s best assassin, he knew how difficult the feat was and acknowledged her talent. Initially, he was just hoping for her to kill some Netherels with the bow but now he realized he has a female Legs with him.
He didn''t worry about her cultivation level because she could stay on the wall and hit the Netherels in their head to kill them without stepping on the battlefield.
"Is that answered your question? if it didn''t, put a fruit upon your head and stand there" She said like she really wants him to do that but he sighed and retrieved the bow from his storage.
The rather ordinary-looking bow may have gone unnoticed in others'' eyes but the moment she saw the bow, she recognized its capability and value.
[Does the Host wish to give the Bow to Subordinate Gaya?]
"Yes"
The bow came with the quiver but not with arrows. The system already prompted him to buy 100 arrows for 1000 Badass points. Except Michael decided not to spend 1000 badass points for something that he could buy using Gold coins.
"Not bad, not bad for an umon bow. Where did you get it?"? She examined the bow and said. Every weapon and spell in this world was categorized into five types, Common, Umon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. The Legs bow was actually a Rare weapon but Michael purposefully made it release an energy signature of an Umon weapon as he didn''t want to attract many eyes towards the bow.
"In a ruin"
"You didn''t find any arrows with it?"
"I saw a cksmith store on the way. He was packing his bags, so we can probably buy what we need for a cheap price"
"Yeah, he would be grateful to unload anything before running away from this ce"
"Jack" Jack was busy using Ghost''s association to try his luck with every beautiful girl he saw. When he heard Michael''s voice, he immediately stopped flirting and came running to him. Sadie, Evan, Victoria, and everyone wondered what was Ghost nning but Evan and Victoria were busy organizing the team to go into the forest as a backup to Alex, Celina, and Adam.
"Brother Ghost"
"I need you to go to that cksmith we saw on the way and buy something for me" Michael retrieved a pouch of coins and threw it at Jack.
"Buy all the Iron headed arrows with red eagle feathers" Gaya knew her arrows and in this case, the iron-headed arrows were more effective on the Netherels than the normal arrows.
"All of them?"
"Yeah, all of them you little shit" she pped him on the back of his head and said.
"And buy two of the best swords he got" after Jack ran away to buy everything they needed, Michae gave the Mark 3 grappling hook to Gaya and joined back with Sadie.
"Isn''t it dangerous for her to fight the Netherels?" Gaya wanted to give Saide an answer in her way but Michael''s stern look stopped her from opening her mouth.
"You have no idea what she''s capable of" Gaya''s face was full of haughtiness and appreciated Ghost''s vote of confidence.
With the Mark 3 Grappling hook, she could reach the trees outside the city walls and rain arrows of death on the Netherels from a higher vantage point.
"System, I wish to learn the duel wielding of swords" He finally used the card he got from the gift box he got after killing the Assassins. As usual, an acute pain appeared in his brain and after a few moments when the pain disappeared, he achieved 70% mastery in swordsmanship.
He could further increase the power of his swords skills by learning spells and techniques associated with swords but his current state was enough to ughter these mindless Netherels.
"Why aren''t they attacking?" Evan wondered and spoke what''s in everyone''s mind.
Michael also noticed this. The Netherels were standing and munching on some poor animals of the forest but they didn''t move forward towards the River town.
"It doesn''t matter why. What matters is stopping the Sorcerer" Victoria said and prepared to leave the ce to join Adam while Jack returned carrying two bags.
"Brother Ghost, Sister Aelia" Jack handed over one bag to Michael and the other to Gaya.
"Not the best but it''ll do" Gayamented about the arrows and put them into her quiver as Michael opened his bag to see two ordinary-looking broadswords. They were nothing fancy butmon swords made of steel.
Since he liked the ck color, he approved the ck hilts of the swords.
The sight of him swinging the swords raised Sadie''s heartbeat and put a slight redness on her cheek. Evan preferred to use a spear and focused on mastering the spear but Victoria was a swordswoman, so she was surprised and shocked at the same time.
"Is he a swordsman?" Victoria thought but her train of thought was interrupted by Sadie''s shout.
"What are you doing?!" Michael was standing on the edge of the wall with a sword in each hand.
"Starting the party" As these words left his mouth, Sadie saw him throwing his swords up in the air and jumping down startling everyone on the wall.
Chapter 75 - Battlefield Romance
The fall was deep but using the Arch energy, hended with the iconic Iron man pose. When he stood up, the two swords he threw up in the airnded on his hands with the perfect timing.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 150 badass points]
¡.
The beep sound of the system ran continuously in his mind and put a grin on his face. He realized what he just made impressed many disciples and couldn''t wait to reap the benefits of this opportunity in front of him. He wanted to thank the Sorcerer for summoning an army of Netherels as now, he could not only earn XP but also precious Badass points.
With the Responsive shield and healing potions in the storage, he started to walk towards the army of Netherels fearlessly.
"What the hell is he doing?!" Sadie shouted
"What does it look like? He''s going to send those all damned creatures back to hell where they belong" Even though his intention was obvious at this point, Gaya''s answer still startled many.
"Humph, they are going to feast on him before he could even kill five or six Netherel" Victoria sneered and she couldn''t wait to see the Netherels tear him apart.
"If he had a brain, he would have brought back up, real backup rather than a mortal with a bow " Jack felt a cold chill running through his spine because he knew how nasty Aelia could be when someone pisses her off.
When he saw her lowering the bow, he swallowed a mouth full of saliva looking at the disciples of Golden Valley behind Victoria.
"You dumb bitch! while you were nning to go as a backup and suck up your senior, he just made you all his backup. You just don''t realize that" Gaya didn''t hold back her voice and yelled at her in front of all the disciples.
"YOU!" Victoria''s face turned red like a ripped tomato in anger and what made her even furious was the mortal girl was right. If Michael''s attack on the Netherels made them rush towards the city walls, they had to protect the town with all their strength because they were righteous sects and couldn''t let Netherels cross the River town into the Kingdom.
"What you? Are you going to bully a mortal girl like me? If you bitch dare touch a hair on my head, my friend there would beat the living shit out of you. He won''t go easy on you because you''re a bitch" Gaya had three reasons to speak so boldly without getting her ass kicked. One, she really believed Ghost woulde in time to save her from Victoria. Second, even if he didnt, she had a weapon that could fire an arrow before Victoria could cast a spell. Victoria was still at the Body Refining stage and that meant, her body was notpletely strengthened yet.
If Gaya were to fire an arrow through Victoria''s heart or any vital organs in her body, she would still die, no matter whether Gaya was a mortal or not. The final reason for her boldness was Sadie. Gaya didn''t like Sadie a bit but she knew Sadie would cover for her to stay on Ghost''s good side.
"How dare she talk to our Sister like that?!"
"The audacity!"
"Insolence!"
"Look over there!" while the Gaya shocked everyone on the wall, someone shouted as they turned their gaze towards Michael and the Netherels.
Sensing the uing threat, a few Netherels started to move towards Michael.
"Ignitia" when they came into the range of Ignitia, Michael sent several bolts of lightning towards the Netherels and killed them on the spot.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Refining stage, level 4 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 6 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 8 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points.]
Although he killed Netherels at various cultivation levels, he got the same XP for every Netherel. He wanted to enter the system and asked it about this but the system answered him before he could open up the system interface
[Netherels are mindless creatures that don''t use any strategies or tactics. Therefore they cant bepared to living cultivators, hence, the host won''t get the usual amount of experience points]
"But"
[Be grateful host. You''re at least getting some Experience points and Badass points]
After getting upgraded, the system became more egotistic. He was not in the ce or mood to debate an unwinnable argument with the system as he continued to ughter the Netherels.
"Lightning Dash" Considering the disciples would soon join the fight and he wouldn''t get as much XP as he thought, he decided to kill as many Netherels as he could and as fast as he could.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Just as he was shing the heads of the Netherels, a bunch of arrows brushed past him piercing through the Netherels'' heads. The arrows went straight through right between their eyes.
He never used to have someone watching his back in the field as even pink never actually came into the field but remained somewhere else and provided him information through the earbud. He felt like he could get used to this unfamiliar feeling of having someone watching his back.
The two of them wreaked havoc among the Netherel army and finally pissed off the entire army to rush towards the city walls.
"GOLDEN VALLEY ATTACK!"
"BROTHERS AND SISTERS, SHOW THEM WHAT YOU GOT!"
Following the battle cries of Victoria and Evan, all the disciples who had the guts to face the Netherels jumped out of the wall and rushed towards the approaching army of Netherels.
Many may have on the battlefield but everyone''s eyes were fixed on only three, Evan, Victoria, and Ghost. It was a rare sight to see the superstars of the younger generation fighting together against amon enemy.
Michael made sure most of their focus is on him by drawing their attention using bolts of lightning and his fancy dual-wielding sword skill.
"Where did he learn to fight like that?" without Michael''s knowledge, he astounded and drew Victoria''s attention towards him. She was studying under one of the best swordmasters in the Kingdom but she still was not at the point of using two swords simultaneously. One needed absolute concentration and talent to reach Ghost''s level and Victoria became shocked at his level of mastery in swordsmanship.
On the wall, Gaya was raining arrows on the Netherels with deadly precision and every arrow fired from her bow put down a Netherel or two.
N and a few other disciples of Silvermoon stared at Gaya like they were going to eat her. Even Sadie felt fascinated by this mortal girl but her eyes were glued to Michael.
Every time he cleaved Netherel heads, her heart would pound against her chest, and experienced tingling sensations in her body. If he wasn''t fighting the stinking Netherels, she would have surrendered to her feelings and joined him for some action.
More and more Netherels appeared from the forest to make everyone worse. However, only Michael felt excited to see more and more Netherels.
In front of the huge number of Netherels like this, even Victoria and Evan struggled to keep them from getting injured by the Netherels.
It was difficult especially for Victoria because her concentration was being messed up by Michael''s cool sword skills. Jealousy and shock prevented her from fighting with her best.
"Victoria!" Fighting on the other side, Evan noticed Victoria''s struggle but before he could do anything, one of the Netherels punched her on the chest.
"Cough" Although her armor absorbed most of the force and saved her organs inside, she still pushed away several steps backward and spurted out blood.
"Hehehe, one less annoying bitch in this world" Compared to Evan, Michael was closer to Victoria and saw everything that happened just now and had a chuckle over it.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Just when the Netherels were about to take a chunk of Victoria, the huge white tiger appeared behind Evan. The white tiger made of Evan''s arch energy crushed every single Netherel on its way to Victoria and sted away the Netherels that surrounded her.
"What the fuck is he doing?" Michael was annoyed by this saving the damsel in distress act of Evan. They were supposed to hate each other but Michael realized the haters may have just turned into lovers.
"Love is the only thing that can turn an enemy into a friend" Michael gritted his teeth and recalled the saying back on earth. He then settled his frustration on the Netherels in front of him by cutting them in halves.
"Fuck you love"
Chapter 76 - End Of Netherel Attack
"I had it under control!" Victoria''s pride didn''t allow her to say thank you to Evan for saving her from the Netherel attack. Instead, she yelled at Evan.
Meanwhile, on Michael''s side, many disciples fighting beside him had a face full of rm and shock looking at the detached heads spinning through the air as the bodies of the Netherels spasmed spaying dark goo.
At this moment he had easily killed a bunch of Body Strengthening and Body Refinish stage Netherels without taking a single scratch, allowing himself to feel more confident about his strength.
Michael quickly collected the fist-sized red cores of the Netherels he killed before anyone could put their hands on them. Not that someone would stop him, he didn''t touch the cores of the others.
Having Michael around seemed like a blessing to many disciples because they didn''t have to fight the stronger Netherels but only the Foundation stage Netherels. He focused and targeted mostly on the Body strengthening and Body Refining stage Netherels.
"Fuck you, you and you! Die you evil sons of bitches!" on the wall, Gaya was screaming excitedly and killing the Netherels with her new bow.
"Sister Aelia, Is cursing them really necessary?" Some disciples who decided to stay behind now kept staring at Jack and Gaya because of her swearing.
Jack felt very ufortable looking at all the prying eyes on him.
"Shut up, you little shit!" Only because she was busy with killing the Netherels, she forgot to p the back of his head as usual but Jack''s hand instinctively went to cover his head.
"Hey, you all want to see something cool!"? Sadie and the others'' focus on Michael momentarily halted by Gaya''s shout. All the eyes were now on Gaya as she nocked three arrows on the bowstring and turned her head away from the battlefield.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
She released the arrows without looking at the battlefield. Including Sadie they all followed the trajectory of the three arrows she fired and their eyes went wide in surprise when all the three arrows pierced the heads of three Netherels urately.
"That was so hot!"
"Now I understand why Ghost keeps her around"
"That girl is really not normal!"
If Michael was here, he would have knocked her again on the head for showing off but he was busy on a killing spree and had zero clues about Gaya''s disy of Archery.
"Sister Aelia, Where did you learn to shoot like that?" After seeing all the shocked faces of the other disciples, Jack felt proud to stand beside her even though she yelled at him and thrashed him on a regr basis.
"I taught myself" Many refused to believe her answer and thought she was lying but it was really the truth. Ever since Gaya was little, Xanali got most of the attention and love from everyone in the castle, so Gaya learned to depend on herself rather than on anyone else. Among many other reasons,ck of love and attention from her father and the death of her mother were the main issues that turned Gaya into a cold overbearing person.
Xanali''s mother always views her daughter as the next queen and Gaya as the glorious gift that could be married off to some prince in exchange for an alliance between two kingdoms. Because of that, she brought teachers to teach Xanali the arts of war and rule while nagging Gaya to learn knitting, cooking, and many other chores to satisfy her future husband and his family.
To avoid a fight with Xanali''s mother and learn what she liked, she went on many adventures and honed her skills.
Back on the battlefield, Michael continued to ughter the Netherels. The Badass points he was earning began to decrease as he was killing them for some time. He noticed this but cared little because his sole focus was to get as much as XP to reach the next cultivation level.
He deliberately told the system not to consume the experience points to breakthrough because many would be suspicious if he broke through on the battlefield just by killing the Netherels. He knew it would be badass to breakthrough now but it may or may not bring some unwanted trouble to his doorstep wondering what kind of cultivation technique he was using.
"Aoooooooo!" a shriek of howl suddenly ran out from the forest as the Netherels stopped moving.
Puff!
Puff!
Puff!
Following the howl and the Netherels stopped moving, they all started to vanish into thin air.
"Heye back, I''m not done with you!" the disciples around Michael almost spurted out blood in shock and anger when they heard him. Everyone was sighing in relief but not him, he was yelling at the disappearing Netherels and calling them back.
Evan and Victoria also speechless as they turned back to leave the battlefield. Victoria suffered some internal damage and scratches while Evan also sustained some minor injuries. Initially, they wanted to go chasing the Sorcerer But now, they needed rest and healing potions.
Many disciples were not as lucky as Evan and Victoria. After the Netherels disappeared, the battlefield was filled with groaning and cries of pain. Few had lost their friends, their limbs, or at least a chunk of flesh from their bodies. Most of them med Ghost for starting this battle with the Netherels in the first ce for their losses. However as far as Michael was concerned it was normal to suffer or lose one''s life in a battle and if they valued their lives very dear, they should have stayed back instead of following Evan and Victoria to battle.
"Go bring me a table and chair quickly" while they wereing back from the battlefield, Gaya hatched a n to turn their sufferings into gold.
"Why?"
Plop!
Since she was not firing arrows, Jack received a p from her as usual.
"Ah! I''m going" Jack ran off to find her a chair and a table immediately after receiving a p to the back of his head.
On his way back to the wall, Michael put his swords in the system storage and used the wind st after lowering its power so he wouldn''t st himself.
Whuf!
Still, the wind st was powerful enough to let out a muffled st sound and clean all the bits and pieces of the Netherels from his clothes. He then circted the Arch energy around his body and his clothes to remove the stink.
"I need a bath but it''ll do for now,"? Michael said to himself and Lightning dashed towards the wall leaving a trail of dust and a few cracks of lightning.
The disciples from the other side of the wall opened the city gates for everyone.
"What?!"
"Ha!"
"Wow"
"Finally something good came out today"
As Michael ran past the girls, they had to quickly stop their skirts from soaring up due to his speed. Now some male disciples who stayed behind med Michael less after feasting their eyes on milky white legs of some of the beauties.
When Michael halted his steps, he saw Gaya was sitting on a chair behind a table.
"What are you doing?"
"What took you so long!e on, give me all the Healing potions you got"
Both Michael and Gaya let out an evil grin as Michael put a bunch of healing potions on the table without asking a question.
"Listen up everyone!" Gaya''s shout drew the attention of everyone, including Evan and Victoria who were applying healing oils on themselves.
"Why didn''t they buy my healing potions in the first ce? What is that crap on their hands?" Michael questioned himself looking at the low-quality healing oils in Evan and Victoria''s hands. In reality, they were not at all low-quality as they were 60% pure healing oils yetpared to Michael''s 80% pure Healing potions, they were indeed low quality in his eyes.
"Hrrggrr" Gaya cleared her throat and spoke
"Did you suffer a life-threatening wound? Are you afraid of the wounds turning into ugly scars? " She sounded like the salesperson on the TV ads for Michael.
"do you want to feel less pain? Or do you simply want that chunk of flesh you lost to a Netherel?" She paused for a moment as all the eyes were now fixed on Gaya. She winked at Michael and continued her sales pitch
"Worry no more, you have the Majestic''s Healing potion with 80% purity. The first lucky fifty buyers will get a 20% discount on the price"
She scheme momentarily shocked all the onlookers. For a second, Michael and Gaya seemed like two human-sized vultures in their eyes.
Michael stood thereughing inside when he saw a MorningStar disciple who had a chunk of meat missing from his shoulder walking towards them.
The disciple''s skin was pale because of the blood loss and one could see the shoulder bone through his wound.
"How...much?" Looking at the space ring on his finger and the expensive diamond chain on his neck, both Michael and Gaya realized he is rich.
"Oh wonderful, the first customer!" Gaya greeted him with a foxy smile.
Following the injured disciple, many gathered around and behind him to buy the healing potions because all of them suffered some injury from the Netherel attack. They all wanted to be the first 50 customers to get the sweet 20% discount however what they heard next almost made them faint on the spot.
"9000 gold coins only"
Chapter 77 - Gaya鈥檚 Kindness
"What?! 9000?"
"Aren''t you selling at the same price as in your sect?"
"Yeah, where is the 20% discount you told us?"
The scene became turbulent and many disciples were expressing their frustration without holding back. Michael also waited to see how she was going to exin herself rather curiously.
"Of course the price for a Healing potion is 7200 gold coins but what about the taxes such as road tax and transport tax? Back in our sect, we don''t have to transport the products, sit under the scorching sun smelling the stink of Netherels in the air. No one is forcing you to buy" Michael could tell everyone who is here to buy had suffered a major wound and without a proper healing potion and treatment,? they would have to face nasty consequences. Therefore, if they had some brains and coins, they would buy the potion while they still can.
The 20% discount was just to rile up the crowd. Many who had only 9000 gold coins or so and suffered some minor may have decided to keep the coins if she didn''t give the 20% discount. However now, they couldn''t back off because of 1800 gold coins as that would make them look bad and hurt their image in front of all the girls.
"Tsk tsk tsk, you don''t look good," Gaya said looking at the pale body of the first disciple who came to buy the healing potion.
"Fuck it, give me the potion" the disciple gritted his teeth and gave his pay cube to Gaya. With a wide grin on her face, she took the payment and handed over the potion to the disciple.
She waited patiently for the disciple to drink the Healing potion without rushing him as it would get them free advertising. Just like Gaya nned when the others saw the nasty wound on the disciple''s shoulder closing up at a visible speed, they were stunned. The disciple''s skin slowly started to show redness as his face revealed a relieved expression. 80% purity was not a joke and at this moment, they all realized it.
"Now step away for the next customer"
"Give me one!"
"I need two!"
"Ouch! You''re stepping on me, you blind bastard!"
The disciples became restless again and now, they all wanted to get their hands on this miraculous healing potion. Many regretted not buying Healing potions from Ghost when they heard about it days ago.
"Form a line! Or we''ll close up the shop!" Gaya shouted like a dictator and looked at Jack.
"You''re in the crowd control duty! I''ll throw your ass off the wall if I see anyone jump the queue"
"Yes, Maam!" Jack saluted and started to oversee the crowd. He really believed this psycho girl would throw him off the wall if he let anyone jump the queue.
Due to the big crowd between Michael and her, Sadie couldn''t go and talk to him but she had to wait patiently. The selling was going smoothly as more and more disciples joined the queue to buy the potion. Surprisingly while Jack was bossing around the disciples using Ghost and newly found Aelia''s reputation, he saw N waiting in the line with a few of her friends.
"Jack!" when the girls and N saw Jacking towards them, they all showed a seductive smile which made Jack feel like he was flying. As a disciple of a declined sect, he had never experienced something like this. Male or female, no disciples would talk to him due to the status of his sect but now, a group of beauties were smiling and calling him.
Jack was not Michael to resist their charm. He ran towards them like a puppy dog with sparkling eyes.
"Miss Reid, why are you standing in the lie? Are you injured?"
"Oh Jack, call me N" Jack''s heart almost jumped out of his chest when he heard N''s seductive voice.
"I''m not injured but some of my friends from Golden Valley are, so can you please help us?" she said and whisked Jack''s face with the tip of her finger.
"Ow god..." Jack felt high as a kite while the male disciples from the other sects looked at him with eyes full of jealousy and envy.
"We are the ones who risked our life fighting"
"Yeah we should get the chicks"
"Lucky bastard!"
"I ever thought I would say this but now, I wish I was a disciple of the Sunrise sect"
Jack was not in the mood to hear theirments as all his focus was on the beauties before him.
"What...what can I do for you, Ny...Ny...N?" Jack stuttered before finally calling her by her first name. He was not at all used to all this.
"Oh Jack, can you use your influence to get us some Healing potions?" the smile on Jack''s face froze. He knew if he goes to Aelia asking for healing potions, she would kick his ass in front of all the people. However, this was too good an opportunity to pass. If he could get the potions for N, he may have a chance with N.
"You can do that, right?" N and the girls brushed his face with their fingers. Jack''s face turned red as his heartbeat doubled by the girls'' seduction.
"Yes...yes, I can" He decided to take the risk. Even if Aelia didn''t give him some potions, he would beg Ghost to lend him some in secret.
"I told you girls Jack will be able to help us" N giggled and ced her pay cube on Jack''s hand.
"Buy us three Healing potions Jack" Jack mustered all his courage and made his way back to Gaya.
Michael was busy showing off his Alchemy skills by brewing healing potions on the spot while Gaya was sitting on her chair with her legs up on the table. She was rxingly fiddling with pay cubs and selling the healing potions when she saw Jack walking towards her with puppy eyes.
"Didn''t I put you on crowd control?"
"Sister Aelia, please... help me" Jack swallowed air in nervousness and silently begged Gaya without allowing others to hear his plea. Looking at Jack''s eyes welling up and the shivering, Gaya thought someone had beaten him up while he was on guard duty. Micheal on the other hand didn''t stick his nose between Gaya and Jack because he noticed everything and knew why Jack is here.
"What? Did someone attack you? Who the fuck dared to attack my minion?"
"Sister Aelia please don''t shout!" Jack stopped her before she could make a big scene and spoil his image among the girls.
"Tell me who attacked you? I''ll kick their ass before I kick your ass for getting your ass kicked" Michael chuckled while all the disciples who heard her became astounded by her talent of swearing.
"No one Sister Aelia, no one attacked me. Now can you please calm down?"
"Huh? Then why are you here?" She lowered her voice and asked.
"Can I exin quietly?" he pleaded and looking at his face, she sighed and nodded. He then whispered everything that happened with N into Gaya''s ear and begged her to give him three Healing potions.
"Please please please Sister Aelia, help a brother out. I''ll do anything for you if you do this, I''ll even name my first child after you, even if it''s a boy"
"Alright, alright, here take it" after his plea and the offer to name his child after her, she decided to show some kindness to Jack.
"You better name you kids after me if you ever get married, that is"
"Really?! Oh Thank you, Sister Aelia, you''re my goddess" Jack''s face brightened hearing Gaya and if it wasn''t for the crowd, he would have kissed her feet and showed his gratitude.
"Take these and go before I regret my choice" Gaya tossed N''s pay cube back after taking the gold coins for three Healing potions.
"Hey we are standing in the queue here" some disciples expressed their objection at Gaya after they saw Jack taking three healing potions and leaving.
"Shut up, are you my minions?" she asked the disciples
"No"
"Do you want to be?" the disciples were bewildered by the question but shook their heads after a few seconds.
"No"
"Then shut the fuck up before I make you"
The sale went for another couple of minutes before Michael ran out of ingredients to brew more potions but fortunately, he had enough to sell it to all the disciples in the wall.
"You did a good job by setting up a shop here" Michael reaped more Badass points and became richer because of Gaya''s quick thinking. He patted her on the back and decided to gift her the bow as he had no use for it unless he spent his badass points buying the Book of Archery.
"You can keep the bow as my gift to you"
"It''s only fair since I''m the one who knows how to handle a bow" Despite her haughty answer, her loyalty towards him increased by 2% and that was good enough for him.
"Ghost" suddenly Michael heard Sadie''s gentle voice and turned to see her breathing heavily. Her face was red wh scanning from top to bottom.
She rushed towards him and halted her steps just a couple of inches away from him. He could feel her hot breath and her sweet scent.
"Is she your girlfriend?"
"What?! Girlfriend?! NO!" Sadie''s sudden question startled Gaya as she shouted.
"N" Before even he could say no, Sadie wrapped her hands around his neck and closed his mouth with her mouth.
Chapter 78 - Michael + Sadie
Sadie''s kiss was not at all the same as those movie stars, but one steeped in a passion that ignites. In that moment of the kiss, their chemistry became an ever-bright me and fanned the jealousy and envy of the others.
Gaya and Jack were speechless as Michael leaned back after tasting the sweetness of Sadie''s lips but Sadie''s hands were still wrapped around his neck.
"Take me Ghost" Sadie didn''t hide her feelings and the lust in her eyes at all. Michael was not a beta or shy person to blush and avoid a beauty like her but he still had to verify some things before taking the kiss to the next level.
"Are you going to use your techniques on me?" He had to ask this because it was not a secret that SilverMoon disciples used some secret techniques to harness someone''s lust into Arch Energy. Michael didn''t want to end up as a guinea pig just for a one-night pleasure.
"Only the techniques you want me to use" Sadie''s voice sounded so seductive as it instantly charmed everyone who was hearing her.
She again locked her lips with Michael''s and resumed the kiss.
"No strings attached?" He wiggled his head back from her clutch and asked, ignoring all the prying eyes on him.
"What the fuck are you two doing?!" Gaya couldn''t hold back her annoyance. The two of them were acting so shamelessly and she had enough of that.
"No strings attached, just some old-fashioned lovemaking" The moment Sadie said this, he swept her off her feet from the ground. Sadie''s both milky white legs were wrapped around his hip as she hanged onto him like a ko bear holding onto a tree branch.
"Hmmhh" Sadie''s moan from his hard kiss made the male disciples wish they were Michael.
"Get a room!" Gaya screamed as Michael showed her thumbs up. The next moment, Sadie and Michael disappeared from the wall leaving all the disciples in shock.
"Brother Ghost is...awesome!" Jack worshipped Michael and fixed him as his role model of picking up chicks. While he was trying his luck with Sadie''s junior sister N, his brother Ghost picked the Senior putting little to no effort. Everyone at the e knew Sadie was the one who made the move. Most of them thought only Core Formation guys had a chance with Sadie but Ghost proved them wrong.
"What just happened?"
"A Body Refining stage picked up a Core Formation stage beauty"
"Not a cultivator but Sadie Kan, the Sadie Kan of SilverMoon!"
Right at this moment, Michael was getting continuous rings of notification from the system as his Badass points started to increase.
"That shameless bastard and that slut" Jack saw Gaya gritting her teeth but he didn''t want to be a punching bag, so he chose not to speak a word.
"Come, we are not waiting for that bastard!" She kicked the table away and marched out from the wall furiously. Unlike Gaya who was furious at Ghost''s actions, Jack walked with his head held high and chest puffed out like he was the one who ended up with Sadie.
************************
The very next morning in a house that was abandoned due to the Netherel attack in River town, Michael opened his eyes and saw the curtains add an orange glow to the morning light, a perfect sunrise. It reminded him of the times he slept in a beach hut, watching the ocean emerge under the golden shimmer. For a moment his mind conjured the rhythmic waves, soft on the sandy shore, and felt his heartbeat at the same slow pace. He breathed in deeply and turned aside. He was weed by Sadie''s sleepy face as he brushed the strands of hair off her face. He reached his hand out to the fabric, noticing how close the light pours through every open space between fibers. The material was warm beneath his fingers, and when the sun flooded the room, painting the colors anew, he felt a little of those golden rays soak into his naked body.
"Good Morning" Sadie''s body felt weak and tired but her voice sounded quite vigorous.
Both of them had the best night of their lives.
"Goodmorning Sadie" Michael put his clothes on and raised the curtain open to let the sun rays bask Sadie''s half-naked body exposed out of the bedsheet.
"Did you have a good time?"
"Did you?" Michael asked her back.
"Very" It was the truth as Sadie didnt think someone else could satisfy her as he did.
"So what now? Are you going back to your sect?"
"Yeah, I have many things to take care of. What about you?" He leaned on the wall and asked her.
"The same, I need to tell my teacher that the people she asked me to find is dead"
"Dead? Who killed them?" It was a genuine question with curiosity because he had no idea that she was talking about his own handiwork.
"Apparently the Devil, do you believe in the Devil?"
"We all have devil and god inside us, Sadie. It''s us who decides which to let out " He had realized that she was talking about his killings and gave her an indirect answer.
"Someone decided to let the Devil out," Sadie said.
"So are you going to chase this Devil?" Michael wished Sadie won''te after him like a detective because he didn''t want to kill her. But if she decided to stand in his path, he would end her.
"Why would I? We SilverMoons don''t y good guys unlike Golden Valley and Morningstar. If they want to catch the Devil, they can go for it but SilverMoon will stay out of it" Michael sighed inside hearing her answer and by the look on her face, he could tell she was speaking honestly.
"Enough of the Devil stuff. How prepared are you to enter the Nether Realm?" He kept hearing about this Nether Realm and really became curious to find out what secrets and treasures it holds.
"I''m prepared, how about you?" Michael''s question made her chuckle
"I can''t go in there silly, only cultivators under Body Strengthening stage can enter the Nether Realm. That''s why some disciples like Evan and Victoria didn''t break through to the Body Strengthening stage"
"It makes sense now, when I saw her Victoria was so close to reaching the next stage"
"I know you''re new to this ce but you should prepare yourself well, Nether Realm is no joke. As a senior I rmend you to go to the Phoenix auction manor in Sarton, they are holding an auction just for this asion. Who knows, you might find something very useful to you in the auction"
"How big is the auction?"
"Very, there will be hundreds of people and disciples" She got him when she said hundreds. Big crowd meant anything he did would get more Badass points. Besides, he didn''tck gold coins, and if something handy appeared in the auction, he could buy it.
"Then I''ll check it out and even try to make some coins out of it" Her brows slightly furrowed
"What''s up with you and coins? We cultivators won''t have much use for gold coins when we reach higher stages. You know what they say, coins won''t buy happiness"
"Whoever said had apparently never used the money"
"Even so, what you and your friend did yesterday at the wall would have pissed off many disciples of Golden Valley and MorningStar, Ghost"
"What''re you talking about?"
"First you started the fight with the Netherels dragging everyone into the battle and then, you and that mortal girl turned their misery into gold" The more Michael spent his time with the cultivators, the more he realized the gap between the normal people and the cultivators. Sadie seemed like a cool person but even she looked down on Aelia because she was a mortal.
"That mortal girl has a name, Sadie. It''s Aelia" Gaya may have notpletely earned his trust but she was still his subordinate. He didn''t like Sadie looking down on her.
"Why do you keep her around?" Sadie noticed the change in his tone and asked. He was silent for a moment as Sadie continued but this time she referred to Gaya by her name rather than calling her ''mortal girl''
"Aelia seemed like a rather unique person but you can''t get too attached to her Ghost. She is what, twenty-six or twenty-seven, yet she still didn''t cross the Arch sensing stage. That means, she is a mortal, not a cultivator"
"So what?" Sadie had no idea Gaya was a prodigy and the Princess of Nagnd. Even if she wasn''t a prodigy and princess, if Gaya swore her loyalty to him, he would treat her as his friend.
"So she would be old and die in a couple of decades considering she didn''t get any mortal illnesses. If you get too attached to her, it''ll hurt and hinder your cultivation path"
"Dont worry about me Sadie, nothing can stop me from reaching immortality and if there''s something better after that, I''ll reach that too"
Chapter 79 - Gaya鈥檚 Feelings
"Miss Aelia" Back at Michael''s house, Raylene was trying to wake up Gaya.
Gaya would always stuff her belly with the food she put in Michael''s kitchen but when Raylene saw the food she leftst night untouched, she became worried.
She put the breakfast on the table and gently shook Gaya''s shoulder to wake her up.
"Wake up, sleepyhead sister" Cindy also apanied her mother to see Ghost and Gaya. Seeing Gaya was snoring and refusing to wake up, the little girl giggled.
After a few seconds, Gaya''s senses picked up the aroma of the breakfast as her nose twitched. Slowly she opened her eyes to see Raylene and the tiny human standing before her.
"Goodmorning Miss Aelia"
"Goodmorning Sister"
Both mother and daughter greeted her while Gaya stretched out her limbs.
"Where is big brother Ghost?" Cindy curiously gawked at Michael''s room but when Gaya heard his name, she became annoyed and angered.
"That bastard went whoring, tiny human"
"Miss Aelia!" Raylene immediately covered Cindy''s ears. The little girl tilted her head and stared at both of them confused.
"What? She''s gonna turn big one day"
"She''s still little to know those things, Miss Aelia" Raylene said and looked at Cindy
"Cindy go y with the others"
"Okey-dokey" Cindyughed and hopped outside happily.
"What happened Miss Aelia? you seem upset" Raylene knew although Gaya had a cold demeanor, she was a warm person inside. It was not like her to scold Michael in front of Cindy and go to sleep without licking the bowls clean.
"Am I jealous? Why am I feeling like this?" ever since she saw Michael and Sadie kissing on the wall, she lost her appetite and was feeling frustrated for some reason.
"That bastard can bang whoever he wants, I don''t care" She consoled herself and decided to direct her focus on the delicious breakfast before her.
Raylene was a teenager and a girl like her before and she could somehow tell what''s going on inside her mind. However, she remained silent because deep down Raylene knew a mortal girl like Aelia had no chance with a Prodigy like Ghost. She didn''t want to fan the feelings inside Aelia''s hearts with her words and gave her any wrong ideas.
She was not eating her with her usual speed but still, she kept stuffing her mouth.
"I''ll leave you to it" Raylene gave her some space and left the house leaving Gaya with her food.
******************
"See youter" Michael waved off Sadie and stepped out of the house he upied for the night. Compared to the first time he came here, now River town seemed less crowded because of the Netherel attack. But he could see many peopleing back to the town while he was taking a stroll through the streets.
"Master Ghost"
"Greetings Young Master Ghost"
The people on the streets quickly smiled and greeted him. He smiled back and gave a small nod towards them and continued his morning walk.
Before he started the attack on Netherel, some of the Netherels attacked a few buildings and left them in ruins. One of the destroyed buildings was the tavern he stayed in before.
As a citizen of earth, he knew River town is now in for taking and every destroyed building of the town is free real estate. Particrly he had his eyes on the tavern building. For some time he was nning to open up a restaurant chain and make Raylene his head chef. The grocery items needed to run the restaurant were not expensive in the System store and after the upgrade, he had seed packs for a cheaper price. Buying the seed pack and farming the vegetables needed for the restaurant was more usible than him supplying the vegetables every single day. Even if he bought the vegetables in bulk, they wouldn''t be fresh after a few days and freshness was very crucial to run a sessful restaurant.
The meat was a whole other matter. The meat he was giving Raylene to cook had Arch Energy infused in the molecr level by the System. However, if he bought the meat from outside, the taste would not be as good as the meat from the System.
If he wanted to control his world from the shadows, he needed money, and businesses like these are a great way to get a stable revenue. Ever since he came to this world with the system, he never forgot to ask himself the question ''What if the system went offline?''
He didn''t want to depend on the system too much and in his mind, the next best thing after the System was money. So he nned to invest his money to make more money.
If the system really went offline, it would indeed be a huge blowback from him but with enough wealth, he could survive and continue his path to reach Immortality.
"What should I do for the meat situation?" he kept thinking and walking towards the tavern. He knew the System would have an expensive way to solve this issue but before he asked the system, he picked his mind searching for an Alchemical solution.
After a few minutes of thinking, he came up with the potion to solve this issue but he decided not to go with the potion because it required him to set up an animal farm, growing rare herbs, and search for various ingredients that were hard to get.
"Hey snakey" Just as he was about to ask, he realized she''s not with him.
"I do miss that haughty snake it seems" Michael chuckled and continued his walk.
He desired to ask Gaya if there''s a way to keep the meat fresh for some time. Considering this world had Arch Energy and many other things that wouldn''t have existed back on earth, he wanted to find a recement for the Refrigerator.
Moments like these made Michael get mad at Abras because Abras had very limited knowledge in stuff like this. He was a very naive youngster who lived a simple peaceful life until the princess betrayed him.
[The system does have a solution for the host''s problem] Suddenly Michael heard the system''s voice inside his head without even opening the system interface.
"Oh? What is it?"
[System Store Refrigerator, it will keep the raw ingredients and food fresh for two months] In the beginning, Michael would be excited to get a solution from the system but now, he always looked at the system cautiously as he didn''t want to fall for any traps.
"How much is it?"
[Just 99,999 badass points only]
The system''s reply halted his steps and made him grit his teeth in frustration at the system. Then he took some deep breaths
"System, with enough badass points you can do anything right?"
[Of Course Host] the system eximed with a tint of pride in its voice.
"Then one day I''ll make you take a physical form and beat your ass down"
[Don''t be rude Host!] the system went silent like it was mad at Michael and didn''t speak with him.
Eventually, he came in front of the tavern which was now turned into a ruin by the Netherel attack. Before it was a two-story building where the ground floor used to be the tavern and the upper floor was allocated for guests to stay the night. Not the upper floor of the building waspletely crushed and the ground floor was missing a wall on the side.
Most of the tables and chairs were missing as probably the robbers salvaged the ce.
"Young Master Ghost?" While he was standing before the building, someone said his name and he turned back to see a girl running to him.
He remembered this golden hair girl as the waitress who served him when he was here.
Michael could tell the girl was crying by noticing her puffy eyes.
"Your name... Gloria is it?" Michael remembered her name. The girl was surprised as she nodded.
"Young Master Ghost still remembers me" Even the onlookers who were staring at Michael from a distance were shocked. No Prodigy or a celebrity of Bredia had remembered the name of amoner before yet, he recalled the name of a waitress like Gloria.
She felt honored and the image of him in many people''s hearts grew bigger.
"Young Master Ghost, as you can see the Lucky cat tavern is no more. The next tavern is in Bredia a few hours walking distance from here" He was not a hero who would go save every person in need of help but in this case, Gloria was in luck as he had nned to buy this ce.
"Who is the owner of this ce and where is he now?" Gloria didn''t know what his intentions were as she answered truthfully.
"A couple of rogue Netherels killed him, Young Master Ghost. Poor Bass tried to chase away the Netherels and defined this ce, but he didn''t stand a chance against those vile creatures."
"What are you going to do for a living now?" Michael asked. In his life, he had some moral codes and he ulstrictly followed them. One of them was, never to help those who don''t need help or don''t want to be helped and, never to help those who don''t appreciate the help, ever.
"I...don''t know, Young Master Ghost" he knew no idea about her future was the reason for her puffy eyes and probably she has a family that solely depends on her.
"Then if I want to buy this ce, who should I visit?"
Chapter 80 - Struggle Within
"Go away tiny human, I don''t want to y with you!" Since Michael was not here and they had closed their store today, Gaya was alone and bored.
She wanted to have some alone time and deeply think about the unfamiliar feelings she was having since she saw Sadie and Michael together at the wall.
However, she was getting nagged by Cindy as the little girl kept asking Gaya to y with her. No matter how many times she had shushed away the little girl, she was leaving her alone.
"Come on Sister Aelia! y with me" the little girl tightly held onto Gaya''s hands and tried to get her up from the sofa using all her strength.
Gaya lifted Cindy by the back of her cor while the little girl wasughing and trying to grab Gaya''s long hair.
"Where are your friends?"
"They are with Brother Jack"
"Jack? what is that little shit doing with them?"
"Hehehe" Cindy''s childish giggles filled the house as even Gaya couldn''t help but slightly smile looking at the little girl''sughter.
"He''s watering big brother Ghost''s herbi garden"
"Herbi garden?" Seeing Cindy couldn''t pronounce herbal, Gaya chuckled.
"It''s not Herbi garden, it''s called the herbal garden" Because of this little girl, Gaya forgot about everything for a moment and tickled Cindy.
"hehhe...sto¡.Si...hehehe"
"Don''t you want to y with me?" Cindy was wiggling like a fish out of the water but Gaya kept tickling her showing no mercy.
Just when the two of them were ying, the door opened as Michael walked in with his usual smile.
"Big brother!" Like a puppy saw its owner, Cindy wiggled out of Gaya''s grab and ran to him. The little girl leaped as Michael lifted her up.
"Who''s a good girl? yes, you are, yes you are" Micheal threw the girl up and down in the air and yed with her.
While he was ying with Cindy, Michael noticed the gloomy look on Gaya''s face.
"Cindy, go y with your friends. I have something to take care of"
"Will you y with meter?" The girl showed him the puppy eyes.
"Yes, I will y with youter, now run alone"
Cindy bounced in joy and left the house with a brightened face. After seeing the girl''s figure disappear from his sight, he turned to look at the Gaya who was sitting straight on the sofa while avoiding direct eye contact with him.
He walked to her and sat beside her to see her squirming away from him.
He again moved to sit beside her as she also again moved away from him.
Looking at her silly behavior, he grabbed her by her hand as she turned around angrily.
"So, are you going to tell me why you are in such a bad mood?"
"I''m not in a bad mood"? She was a pretty good liar but now, she lied like an amateur.
"I know what this is about, you''re mad because of what happened between me and Sadie on the wall" He was not a naive guy and in fact, he already knew Gaya was jealous and she only didn''t realize it yet.
"Why would I be mad? You can screw whoever you want, I simply don''t care"
"But you do and that''s why you''re acting like this. Why don''t you just woman up and say what''s on your mind, like a princess of Nagnd?" By speaking these words, Michael touched her nerve as she furiously took a few breaths and decided to give him a piece of her mind.
"Yes, I''m mad at you! You left me and Jack alone on the wall with that slut did you think about how we travel back to the sect carrying all the gold coins? What if I get robbed on the way? If you were my friend, you would have thought about my safety" Michael was slightly surprised by her words. Then when he noticed the 52% loyalty, he realized she has now started to consider him as a friend.
"It''s time to increase her loyalty," Michael told himself.
"Did you really think I would let anything happen to you? If I didn''t care about your safety, I would have handed you over to your sister. You think so less of me, I''m really hurt" Gaya was taken aback by surprise and shock. She didn''t think her words would impact him in such a way as she saw him really get sad.
The more she looked at his sad face, the less mad she felt at him.
"Human" she tried to console him but he stood up and went straight into his room.
"Did I really hurt him?" Staring nkly at the closed door, she asked herself.
Her anger now faded away after seeing the way he reacted. She had never seen him like this and it really bothered her.
"System, how did I do?"
[Not bad Host but you should consider buying the Book of Acting from the system store] back inside his room, Michael''s sad face was instantly reced by a proud grin. He turned the table and increased Gaya''s loyalty by 2%.
"System, in the future only rmend me things that I can actually buy"
[Noted]
For a couple of hours, Michael stayed inside and made several badges of pills of potions to restock the Majestic and keep the business going while he''s attending the auction that Sadie told him about.
"Now I should make one more pill" He picked out a few ingredients and started to concoct the pill. A few minutes after the concoction, a blood-red pill floated above his hand and radiated a pungent smell.
"No pain no gain" he mumbled and put the pill back in the system storage.
"Human" he heard Gaya''s voiceing from the other side of the door.
"Heartless girl, she took this long to make a move" he quickly put his sad face on and said
"What are you still doing here? Didn''t you say we aren''t friends anymore"
He intentionally spoke these words to make her panic.
"I never said that!" just like he nned, she mmed open the door and hastened into the room.
"You fucking liar, when did I speak those words?" she really panicked thinking he wouldn''t care for her anymore and stop making the pills to cure her.
Earlier when he sat beside her, she kept moving away from him but now, she sat very close to him on his bed. His reaction and words totally agitated her.
"I lied to you before when I said I don''t care about what happened between you and that bitch, human"
"I know but I don''t understand why you are pissed off about that?"
Hearing Michael''s question, she had no direct answer to give him as she sighed
"Honestly I don''t know why, maybe I hate those bitches in Silvermoon too much" He could tell she was telling the truth by looking at her eyes. Although Michael understood what she had been feeling was a sort of jealousy, he chose not to ponder too much, and instead, he directed the topic towards where he could exploit her jealousy to increase her loyalty.
"You hate everyone"
"No, I don''t" She pursed her lips and said. She then stared at him for a couple of seconds and said, "I don''t hate you" It took a great amount of strength for her to admit this as she had never had a friend or someone close to her before like Michael.
"So you''re saying we are still friends?" Words had power and by making her admit their friendship, he wanted to increase her loyalty.
"Yes, we are still friends"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host. Subordinate Gaya reached 60% loyalty]
"Now we are talking" the system notification made him grin inside.
"I still don''t like the fact you chose to bang Sadie. Those evil sluts will drain your Arch Energy and damage your meridians"
"Didn''t you hear what Sadie said? It was old-fashioned love making. There was no harm except the slight pain in my muscles"
"Gross, stop talking about that!" She furiously rolled her eyes and punched him on the shoulder.
"Go change your clothes you bastard, you stink of that slut"
"If you want to see me naked, you can stay here" the moment she heard these words, she leaped out of his bed and rushed outside before yelling at him with her usual haughty tone.
"Who wants to see you naked except that Sadie bitch!"
*************************
Alright, this chapter took longer than I expected to write because of all the dialogues and stuff. I know this might be boring but I had to write this chapter to keep the story flow naturally as well as show the friendship blooming between two lone wolves.
The real badass action-packed fun begins from the next chapter!!!
Chapter 81 - Body Refining Stage Level 10
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 7
Experience Points: 95000/200000
Badass Points: 18000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 1
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 78% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 700,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 60%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
"System, consume the experience points I got from the Netherels"
He rubbed his hands together and entered the system. He was excited to reach the next levels and face stronger enemies.
[The host has killed 20 Body Refining stage Netherels, 30 Body Strengthening stage Netherels, and 25 Foundation Stage Netherels]
[Ding! The host has received 100,000 Experience points for Killing 20 Body Refining stage Netherels]
[Ding! The host has received 210,000 Experience points for Killing 30 Body Strengthening stage Netherels]
[Ding! The host has received 75,000 Experience points for Killing 25 Foundation stage Netherels]
"385000 Experience points, not bad, not bad at all" He was pleased to see the amount of Experience he got after ughtering all those stinking Netherels. Even though the night with Sadie was a great bonus, it didn''t make him happy as the Experience points which would make him reach the next levels without months of cultivation.
He was not done yet as he retrieved the cores he collected from the Netherels. The fist-sized cores were extremely fragile and some of them shattered when they hit the ground. In the system store, he had 10 Bod Refining Netherel cores,18 Body Strengthening Netherel cores, and 15 Formation stage Netherel cores.
[Does the Host wish to activate the Energy devourer and consume the cores?]
[The host would get 1000-2000 Experience per one Formation Stage Core]
[The host would get 3000-4000 Experience per one Body Refining Stage Core]
[The host would get 4000-6000 Experience per one Body Strengthening Stage Core]
The system informed him of the number of Experience points he would get by consuming the cores using the Energy Devourer.
"Leave the Formation stage cores and consume the others'' '' the system soon activated the Energy Devourer and one by one, the Netherel cores disappeared from the system storage.
[Experience points converted 30,000] when all the Body Refining stage cores disappeared, the system notified him and continued to consume the rest of the cores.
[Experience points converted 90,000]
"120,000 huh? I feel like I should have gotten more from them"
[The Experience points received from the cores vary depending on the quality of the core host. Next time, consider going after the head rather than fighting the cannon folders] the system sounded like it was bothered by Michael''s decision not to go after the Sorcerer.
"I know what I''m doing, System. The Sorcerer must have been a Core formation cultivator to get pursued by Alex and Celina. If I went into the forest chasing the Sorcerer, not only I would have lost all these Experience points and Badass points, I may have also ended up in neck-deep trouble. No offense to you system but I don''t want to depend on you too much"
[Still, the host should have taken a risk]
"Agree to disagree" he didn''t want to keep arguing with the system and exin everything on his mind. He very well knew that the system wants him to take risks because risks may require him to spend more badass points.
"What are we waiting for? Let''s begin the breakthrough process"
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current stage is Body Refining stage Level 8]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current stage is Body Refining stage Level 9]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current stage is Body Refining stage Level 10]
The surge of power inside his body warmed his body. He could feel that his strength had increased by at least two times than before. Coupled with his own strength and the Responsive shield, he could defeat a Body Strengthening stage level 7 and fight without sustaining major injuries with a level 8 cultivator.
After killing all those Netherels, he had already made enormous progress in his cultivation level. Moreover, his mastery of swords went from 70% to 78%.
However what made him really excited was the number of badass points, 18000 Badass points. After earning a few more thousands of Badass points he could finally settle the debt of 22,000 Badass points he got from the system and be debt-free.
Regarding gold coins, he earned nearly 300,000 gold coins by selling the Healing potions to the injured disciples. Many disciples also bought more than they needed for future use.
Michael recalled clearly how Gaya''s evil mind had contributed significantly to his wealth. Among the 75 killings, Gaya killed almost 25 Netherels and injured many more using her new weapon, the bow of Legs. She was turning into a valuable asset and a friend to him. He couldn''t wait to see what she can do after he heals her and restore her cultivation level. At that point, he would have a Core Formation level bodyguard.
"Okay, let''s do some shopping" He opened the system''s store with another badass costume in his mind. The system automatically filtered everything and showed only the items that he could afford. In front of his eyes, there were many unique costumes as well as iconic costumes from the movies and video games. He saw Squall Leonhart''s costume, the Robin costume from the 80s, and many more, but none of them wowed him like the one particr costume that''s floating before him. It was none other than the Matrix 1999 movie costume. The current one in his storage was the Neo costume of Matrix reloaded, and the one in front of him was the Neo costume from the first installment of the Matrix series.
He had a weak spot for cool costumes and without bitching at the system, he bought theplete costume for 1000 Badass points. Yet, he was not done with shopping as he still had some tweaks to do to the costume.
"System, I need back-mounted dual sword sheath, ck of course"
Luckily the sword sheaths he asked for only cost him 200 badass points and it fitted perfectly with his new costume. He then removed gun holsters on the trouser and the sunsses because he realized he would look weird with sunsses in this world. But he didn''tpletely rule out wearing sunsses.
"This is going to make me look like such a badass" with wasting no time, he put on his new clothes and exited the system.
"Awesome!" Although the system showed him how he would look, seeing himself in the mirror still gave him goosebumps and feasted his narcissistic personality. Especially the X-shaped swords on his back made him look more badass. He realized it''s a good thing that Gaya took the bow because a quiver on his back would have messed up his style and ruined the look.
Sling!
The two swords let out a little slinging sound when he unsheathed them from the back. If he didn''t reach 78% mastery with swords, he would have cut the back of his neck or his hair when unsheathing. It was considerably difficult to unsheathe the swords from the backpared to unsheathing from the waist holder, but one couldn''t deny that it looks badass to unsheathe from the back.
"I''m still missing something" Since he would always take a long time before the mirror, he realized that something''s missing and finally found the problem.
"System, how much is tactical fingerless gloves?"
[Really?!]
[300 Badass points]
For a moment, even the system lost it''s cool seeing him take this long to get ready. He would always get yelled at by Gaya for taking a long time before the mirror, and now he even made the system mad. However, the system quickly returned to its usual self and stated the price before he changed his mind about buying the gloves.
The system presented him with the ck tactical fingerless gloves as he put them on to finish his look.
"Now I''m ready to attend this auction"
Since he already sent Daniel to assist Gloria in rebuilding the Lucky cat tavern, he left Ricky in charge of the Majestic while he and Gaya are away. If someone tried to mess with his business, then it was a job for Lucifer to take care of.
***************************
I''m receiving some cool suggestions from you readers in my discord. I hope you''ll make time to join the server and share your thoughts about the novel. Also, if you want to see how the characters in the book look like, the link is in the synopsis.
Im grateful for the power stones and the gifts you''ve been giving me my wonderful readers!!!
Chapter 82 - Phoenix Island
"Took you long enou...what the fuck?! How...shit you''re freak" when he opened the door, Gaya came rolling her eyes and started to yell but her face froze in shock. Her words stuttered as she looked at him horrified.
It took her a few seconds toe out of her shock and opened her mouth.
"War God body is so overpowered" she came closer and circled him while feeling his new clothes with her hands.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
She was impressed by his new clothes, hence, he was awarded 500 badass points. Then after circling him for a few more seconds, she came before him and put her hands on the waist, and asked,
"Does it kill you to wear something not ck?"
"I''ll stop wearing ck when someone creates a darker color," He said and made his way towards the door as she followed him behind.
"Where are you going?"
"We are going to Sarton, to participate in the Phoenix auction"
"Now?! I still haven''t eaten my lunch yet" Michael sighed hearing her protest. She was bing more and more addicted to Raylene''s cooking, and this time, he was really afraid she would get fat or worse, a heart attack.
"Besides, what''s the rush? The auction main starts on the day after tomorrow. Even if we leave from here tomorrow morning, we''ll reach Sarton by evening"
"I heard merchants from all over the kingdom will set up their shops before the main auction begins, I want to check them out"
"At least let me pack some snacks for the journey" She didn''t even wait for his answer as she began to run towards Raylene''s house. She was clearly afraid that he wouldn''t let her have her snacks.
"You''re gonna get fat soon" he shouted at her. "Fuck you!" because she had no Arch Energy to amplify her voice, she used her full-body strength to yell at him while running.
Micheal couldn''t help but chuckle and he made his way towards ire''s ce to inform her about his departure. Plus, he wanted to tell her to look after the Majestic''s business while he''s away as Ricky was still pretty weak.
************************
Right at this moment, a pegasus was soaring through the clouds carrying two persons on its back.
"Hey don''t eat all of them, leave me some you greedy bastard!" Michael was sitting behind her and let her fly the pegasus. Both of her hands on the rein and it made it easy to steal her snacks.
"Wow, this meat pie is really delicious" he intentionally teased her and took a bite out of the pie.
"I''m gonna drop you down if you don''t leave my snacks alone!"
"Snacks?! You have enough food to feed three people for three days. Let me see, apple pies, meat pies, chicken drumsticks,mb shanks, stuffed veggie rolls, egg rolls, and what are these? Biscuits and puddings?" The space ring he gave her now is stuffed with foods and he wondered how the hell is she going to finish all these foods.
"Now I understand why I have to restock the kitchen every freakin two days"
"Stop looking into my things, you creep!" She tried to grab the ring but she was unable to let go of the reins.
"This is why I didn''t tell you that I bought the Lucky Cat tavern" Earlier he told her that he bought the Lucky Cat Tavern for 5000 gold coins. At first, she growled for not discussing with her his ns but when he told her he''s nning to transform the tavern into a high-end restaurant, she stopped bitch about it.
"Then cure me quickly so I can cultivate again"
"We can''t rush your treatment. It''ll take some time but until then, don''t die by eating too much"
"With this mouth of yours, you''ll only get sluts like Sadie. Even they would chase you away if you say things that you shouldn''t say to a girl"
"But Sadie didn''t chase me away, instead"
"Gross! stop talking and at least give me a piece of the apple pie" the mouth-watering aroma was too much for Gaya to resist and wanted to stuff her mouth with that delicious pie.
"Alright alright, quit whining and open your mouth"
"AH"
Michael sighed and stuffed her mouth with the apple pie. And on the rest of the journey, both of them experienced the goodness of Raylene''s food.
*************************
"Hey, why aren''t wending?" After a few more hours of flying, Michael could see more and more human-made buildings appear below after the thick forest canopy yet Gaya kept flying towards the vast ocean on the horizon.
"The Phoenix auction Ind is on an ind"
"Oh?"
The duo continued flying with great speed, rushing toward the ocean. A few more hourster, they had arrived at the border of the ocean. In front of them was a vast ocean, and he could only see water that stretched to the ends of the earth.
While they were flying above the ocean, they bumped into a lot of people along their way. Michael maintained a low profile to avoid unnecessary troubles along the way.
"I want to travel across this Crystal ocean," Gaya said, impressed.
"Tell me more"
"What can I say, the Evetica realm is extremely vast. There are tens of thousands of territories here, and its size is unmeasurable" Although Abras learned about the territories and geography of this world called Evetica realm, Michael knew the information Abras learned might be old and wanted to get the more current information through Gaya.
"Besides the Elen, Ozer, Awor, and Midrand Continents, there are also a lot of vast oceans and tiny inds. This Crystal ocean separates the Elen continent and the Ozer Continent. We are just at the border of the Elen but there is still a great way to go until we reach Phoenix Ind" said Gaya.
"It seems like these people are also heading to the auction"
Michael threw his nce at the people flying in front of them. Most of the people were in groups of three to five men, some of them rode on flying demon beasts, and some wore the same clothes and had more people in their grouppared to the other. Those people were clearly from some big powers. This could also be seen from the prideful expressions on their faces.
"Are you searching for a dragon?" She looked over her shoulder to see him gawking at all the flying beasts and realized he''s searching for a dragon. She knew his fantasy about getting a Dragonling and she hoped he wouldn''t find one because Nagas and Dragons had a long rivalry between them.
"Stop looking for a freaking Dragon and keep your guard up. Although the ce is full of people, the Crystalocean is still a ce filled with dangers"
Ssh!
The water suddenly sshed underneath them as a huge red shark leaped out from the water with its mouth wide open.
"Holy shit" Michael realized what she meant by dangers when he saw the shark swallow a solo cultivator who was flying on a sword.
"Poor bastard leaped out of the ocean wasting energy to get that bony human" She pitied the shark instead of the man who just became an appetizer to the shark.
"Just fly faster" The shark he just saw was a Body Strengthening stage beast and although he could fight the shark, he didn''t want to because the shark had the home advantage, the sea.
...¡
"The fuck are you looking at? Never seen a girl fly a pegasus before?"
"Bitch what''s your problem?"
Along the way, she was quick enough to antagonize a few people who stared at her. Because of her low cultivation level, they threw a scornful look and she immediately replied to them in her style until Michael twitched her ear.
"Ah!"
"Keep your mouth shut, you damn snake!"
Michael felt really helpless. Fortunately the few youngsters she cursed were weaker than him. Still, Michael didn''t want to offend them because of her nasty mouth.
"It''s physically impossible for me to keep my mouth shut when they look at me like that," she said.
"Then I will shut it for you, how about that?!" he yfully choked her from behind and shook her.
"Okay okay, I''ll try to be quiet"
She said and flew with extreme speed. In just a few minutes, they had ditched all those people behind. Soon after, they saw another group of people in front of them.
The group seemed to be discussing something. Gaya and Michael sped up and eventually got closer to them.
"It''s Lord Julius who owns Phoenix auction house as well as this entire Phoenix ind. I heard he is extremely rich and has many beautiful girls in his harem" Someone said.
"Yeah, no shit. With just the trade fair between the two continents, he''s able to earn an enormous amount of wealth and resources. Despite being a demi-human, he has good rtionships with many of the influential people in both Elen and Ozer"
Chapter 83 - The Big Boys
Hearing this, Michael and Gaya exchanged nces.
"He owns the entire ind huh? " Michael started at therge ind on the distance as Gaya noticed the desire in his eyes
."Having a big ambition is good but just don''t let it consume you human. Julius holds major auctions and has many trade deals going on. Each event he holds is massive and it took them years to set up this operation. This is one of those massive events where many great warriors from different powers in the continent will participate. A lot of rare and unique treasures can be found here and many shady deals will take part on this ind. So, if you want to be rich like Julius, first you must be more powerful"
Michael nodded and agreed with Gaya. She was right; he''s still too weak to expand his businesses on a scale like the Phoenix manor.
"Man this ce is getting crowded! I''m sure most of these youngsters are going into the Nether Realm "
"Not only that, I heard this time there will be more rare treasures. Lord Julius is using this event to expand his influence, therefore, he''s putting some of his valuable possessions to attract powerful people"
"Of course, even the Big Sects will send someone over. And there might even be someone from the House of Edrene and Royal Family"
"I wonder how much is the entry fee to participate in the auction this time?"
"I bet it won''t be a small fee"
"Sigh¡ this is really making me jealous!"
...
Michael listened to the conversations around him discreetly and from these conversations alone, he gained a basic understanding of Julius and the Phoenix Ind. It had also made him want to expand his influence and businesses.
For the next few hours, more and more warriors could be seen flying toward Phoenix Ind. Most of them came from the various Kingdoms in the Elen Continent, and the rest seemed to havee from the Ozer continent as well as inds on the Crystal ocean. All of these strange men wore distinctive clothes and none of them were weak. The majority of them were Core Formation and Body Strengthening stage cultivators. All of these people were heading in the same direction for a single purpose; to participate in the main auction.
The ocean waves were rumbling, wave after wave and the asional furious roars emerged from the sea followed by people emerging from the sea. They looked like humans but when looked closer, they had a shiny thinyer on their skin.
When beasts like the red shark who were causing trouble in the ocean sensed the powerful auras radiated from the people who emerged from the sea, they immediately hid underneath the ocean surface, not daring to show their heads.
"(Whistle)" From Abras''s memories, he knew the existence of the people who live in the ocean but when he saw them with his own eyes, he was still surprised by them.
"Look at those arrogant sea fuckers'''' In front of Michael, Gaya growled at the Sea folks. They both continued to fly towards the Phoenix ind and passed a lot of inds along their way. Some of the inds had splendid sceneries and looked like paradises on top of the ocean. Michael was mind mapping all those beautiful inds as he wanted to upy at least a bunch of them.
"This ocean and all those inds look gorgeous" Michael was amazed.
"Not only that, did you feel the dense Arch energy? It''s one of the many reasons that the Crystal ocean is home to many wondrous treasures. However, I find this ce boring, I want excitement and this ce has none" She rolled her eyes and said.
A little whileter, they both came much closer to Phoenix Ind and saw the majestic ind floating on the ocean. Under the sunlight''s shine, the entire ind was glowing brightly. Floating above the ocean''s surface, with Michael''s extraordinary eyesight, he could see the Ind slightly resembles a sleeping Eagle as well as a white fog hovering in the sky above the ind.
"Wee to Phoenix Ind," Gaya said.
Michael could see the entire ind from the back of the pegasus.IT was almost a month since he came to this world and this world is still surprising him. There were no sky-high skyscrapers or man-made wonders but this world was a painting painted by mother nature herself.
The scene before him enchanted him with its beauty; lofty and strong pine trees and palm trees stood everywhere, there was a magnificent waterfall constantly pounding the rocks underneath, and white fog covered the entire ocean, causing the ind to look like a paradise on top of the ocean. On top of those, the trees with red and golden leaves added more charm and color to the scenery.? Just the view alone pleased everyone''s spirits and made their hearts feel rxed.
"Dang, I want to enjoy my immortality in a ce like this" He couldn''t help but praise.
"I can''t argue with that, this ce really does looks beautiful"
Gaya appreciated it as well. The man who picked this ind was truly someone who knows how to enjoy life.
"Right, now we have to wait for someone toe out and give permission to enter the ind" Gaya took her hands away from the rein and started to rummage through her space ring to find the right snack.
Both of them rxedly sat on top of the pegasus and munched on the food they brought...Gaya brought.
Right at this moment, more than a hundred people had gathered around the ind. They all hovered above the surface of the ocean in small groups, and there were more people arriving.
Swoosh¡ swoosh¡ swoosh¡
During the next few hours, more and more people arrived. Regardless of where they came from, none of them dared break the rules set down for Phoenix Ind. Before the trade fair started, no one would step onto the ind.
Bang!
All of a sudden, a loud explosive sound could be heard from behind. Above them, the storm clouds appeared out of nowhere and darkened the ce.
From those dark storm clouds, a figure appeared in the sky above like a sudden p of thunder. They could see that it was actually a quite majestic figure.
This man looked to be in histe thirties and seemed he was at least 7 feet tall. He adorned in dark brown robes with thick fur around his shoulders and neck while his long brown hair fluttered in the wind.
"Core Strengthening warrior" Michael mumbled as this was the first time he had seen a Core Strengthening warrior. Without even fighting him, Michael could tell this man could easily kill him.
"Victor Hagen? I never expected to see him here." Gaya recognized the person and before Michael could ask more about him, the people around him began to chatter.
"Even Victor is here"
"Is it true that he''s a lonely cultivator?"
"Yeah but no one dares to mess with him. Even the Big Sects and the noble families in Elen treat him with caution and respect"
"This time, the Nether auction is turning out to be something big"
I have a feeling that Victor isn''t the only Core Strengthening warrior will see here. Those big sects will definitely send their Core Strengthening warriors here as well"
...
Unlike before, Michael had to listen more closely as they were whispering to each other. They were scared that if they spoke too loud, they might offend Victor in some way. A Core Strengthening warrior was not someone they could afford to offend.
This was power... this was fear...
The dark storm clouds disappeared after a few moments as Victor moved towards the Ind. He didn''t even look at the crowd; he just walked toward Phoenix Ind unlike the rest of them.
None of them stopped him or dared to speak any words. When Michael looked at Gaya, even she remained quiet and stopped chewing the food inside her mouth.
"Wee to Phoenix Ind, Lord Victor"
A crystal clear voice suddenly sounded out from Phoenix Ind. In the next moment, everyone saw a bright beam shoot out from the ind. To everyone''s surprise, it was a young girl. Of course, she looked amazingly beautiful, and her two big eyes were brimming with energy. She wore a sparkling red gown and top.
What surprised Michael was not her beauty but her cultivation level. She was a Core Formation Level 7 cultivator.
"Where is your Lord?" Victor''s voice was imposing. The girl bowed towards him and smiled but Victor already moved past her before she could answer him.
"Too bad we''re not eligible for such preferential treatment like Victor"
Someone really envied Victor and the preferential treatment he received. He was personally received by someone who''s close to Julius and entered the ind paying nothing.
"Wait till you break through to the Core Strengthening stage and I''m sure you''ll get the same VIP treatment then"
Chapter 84 - Michael鈥檚 Match?
Swoosh!
All of a sudden, a loud cry was heard from a distance. When everyone nced at the source of this cry, they immediately saw a huge grey ape with a powerful aura flying toward them. It carried several men on its back and a couple of them were old men; the remaining were young men. The old men were at the Core Formation stage while the youngsters were at the Body Strengthening stage.
The leader of this group seemed to be in his fifties, and his aura was the strongest amongst the group. Michael could tell the man was just a few more months cultivation away from reaching the Core Strengthening stage level 2. Although he couldn''t bepared to Victor who was at the Core Strengthening stage level 5, he was still a mighty existence.
All of them wore the same bluish robes and their eyes were filled with anger. They didn''t seem too friendly but it was as if they could kill anyone at any time.
"Hey, who are these guys?" Michael nudged Gaya and asked.
"They are from the Spring Garden Sect. It was not as big and powerful as the three big Sects but they weren''t that weak either" She said but Michael could see the slight frown on her face.
"Why did they send their Elder to the auction instead of one of the teachers?"
"They look pissed off" She nodded hearing Michael and continued, "Their leading man is Porter Finy and you''re right, they do seem pissed off, I wonder why"
Just like the both of them, many had the same question running in their mind but fortunately, a few of them had the answer.
"You don''t know what happened? I heard some of their inner disciples were killed by someone in White jungle during some mini event organized by the Guardian Guild. All of them were Body Strengthening stage level 2 cultivators. And one of the disciples was Mn Fiy, Porter Fiy''s grandson"
"Holy shit the Guardian Guild?! and who the hell dared to kill a Fiy, whoever killed him is simply courting death! No wonder why Porter looks so mad, it''s all because his grandson was killed by someone"
People were discussing the events everywhere.
"Hehehe, finally some entertainment" Gaya giggled and watched the scene munching on those snacks like she was watching a film.
The men from the Spring Garden Sect walked off from the ape.? The grey ape furrowed its brows as if it had just smelled something familiar. The Ape gawked around the area and stared at every single one of them including Michael. After looking around for some time, the ape stopped looking. It couldn''t find anything as there were too many people around.
"You guys just wait here until the main auction starts."
Porter Fiy told the disciples from the Spring Garden Sect, then he simply floated toward the Phoenix Ind. This was the preferential treatment given to a Core Strengthening stage warrior, not only could they enter the Phoenix Ind whenever they wanted but they would also be weed to stay as long as they wish.
"What''s up y''all bitches! Your daddy Paul, Paul Berry hase to bless yall with my presence!"
Following a sudden roar ofughter, a bald old man with a couple of beauties around him came from far away andnded next to Porter.
"Yo Porter, I heard your grandson is visiting the heavens, congrattions!"
What Old Paul said nearly caused the crowd to spit out their saliva. Porter''s grandson just died but this old man not onlyughed at him but also congratted Porter.
"Get lost!"
Porter stared back at Paul like he was going to rip Paul''s throat out.
"Haha¡"
Still, Paulughed out to his heart''s content. After that, he just went straight to Phoenix Ind. Clearly, he wasn''t afraid of Porter or didn''t care about his feelings.
"This old fucker hasn''t changed a bit," Gaya said with a little chuckle.
"You know him?"
"Yeah, we crossed paths a couple of times. He''s actually a rogue cultivator, just like Victor. Thest time I met him, he was at the Core Strengthening stage level 1 and now it seems like he reached level 2 "
"He seems like a funny guy," Michaelughed.
"Don''t be fooled by his y full demeanor human, that old man is dangerous, very dangerous" Gaya warned Michael, and by the seriousness of her tone, he nodded and took a note in his mind.
"Why don''t I see any familiar faces from Bredia?"
He whispered to Gaya. He was shocked after seeing so many powerful warriors and wondered where the disciples from the Big Sects.
"What''s the big deal about Bredia? Thest time I checked, there are 5 kingdoms in Elen and Bredia is the weakest one. If this auction was exclusive for Bredia, those fuckers would havee first showing off but now, they just another disciple, not a celebrity disciple"
"Of course I''m in the weakest part in the weakest kingdom in the weakest continent" Michael rolled his eyes. Just like many main characters, he was dropped in the weakest ce possible and had to start from the bottom. However, after essing his current strength and the powerful people around him, he would rather choose to start from the bottom than getting his ass kicked in the powerful regions of the continent. Besides, he could make a name for himself quickly in Bredia and earn more badass points than if he was in powerful kingdoms.
However, he wanted to increase his strength as soon as possible and visit those powerful ces because by impressing powerful people, he could earn a significant amount of Badass pointspared to Bredia.
"Look!"
"What now?!" Both Gaya and Michael had enough of people making fancy entrances showing off their superiority and wealth.
Micheal looked at the horizon to see a huge silver sword over 30 meters long was soaring toward them. The speed of the sword caused the water to spatter like a speed boat wherever it passed. The sword''s size made Michael raise his brows as this sword was the biggest sword he had ever seen. It was over 30 meters long. A group of men and women remained firm upon the sword and each of them wore prideful expressions on their faces.
The group all wore glimmering silver clothes, and they all carried a miniature version of the huge sword on their waists.
"They are from the Aragoth! One of the powerful sects in the Entire Elen continent"
"Hurry up and make way for them, I don''t want to be in their way and skewed by that giant sword"
"Yeah let''s move away. Even the Royal Family of Elen anyone from Aragoth with respect because of their Sect Master"
"Why won''t they? He''s is one of the few people in Elen who reached the Soul Refining stage"
"I heard that a Prodigy disciple from Aragoth was killed by a young man named Winston in the Red Summit! That Winston is either really brave or stupid to offend the Aragoth"
"Aragoth isn''t the only power he dared to offend. He even killed an Elder from the house of Nickmon. The House Nickmon is one of the major powers in the Kingdom Kethen. Rumors say that this guy ruthlessly killed countless Body Refining and Body Strengthening stage cultivators from great powers inside the White jungle. What''s the most shocking thing is, he was just a Body Refining stage level 4 cultivator when he killed them"
"What a freak?!"
"Would you believe he''s also a 3-star Alchemist?"
"Are kidding me?! How old is he?"
"I heard he''s just reached 21"
" How can he be talented at such a young age? I wonder what this Winston looks like."
"Someone told me that an ice-cold angelic beauty always follows him around. If you see a young man with a girl like that, it is definitely Noah!"
...
After the men from Aragoth arrived, the topic switched to Winston and by hearing all these conversations, even Michale and Gaya were curious about him.
"Human, I think you met your match" Gaya teased him with a nudge to his elbow.
"Another Core Strengthening stage cultivator" Michael ignored Gaya''s tease and stared at the old man who was standing in front of the group.
Not long after the people of Aragoth arrived, a few more powerful auras could be sensed from a distance. Another group of men were flying toward the Ind standing on top of a circr object. These men also had the same overbearing and prideful expressions as the men and women of Aragoth.
"They are from the House Nickmon!"
"This auction is indeed turning out to be a massive event!"
Many people started eximing. A scene like this was certainly a rare one.
Chapter 85 - Rival In Badassery?
A few minutester when the sky got slightly darker, a loud explosive sound reverberated the Crystal Ocean indicating the beginning of the event.
Dozens of men wearing golden armors appeared beside the girl. All of them had imposing auras, and although their cultivation bases weren''t powerful, they were at least at the peak Body Strengthening Stage level 10. Only the leading guard who had a bigger armor was a Core Formation warrior.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Nether Auction is going to begin soon. If you want to enter Phoenix Ind and partake in the event, you''ll have to obey the rules set down by our Lord Julius and pay 50,000 gold coins as the entry fee"
The girl spoke with a crystal clear voice, making sure that every single warrior here could hear what she said.
"What, fifty thousand per person? This is ridiculous! I remember it only cost 10,000 coinsst time, why did the price go up by five times?"
"Fuck, there are so many people here! There are hundreds of people here and just by this entry fee, he''s going to be filthy rich!"
...
Just as the girl finished speaking, the entire scene became chaotic. The entrance fee was being five times higher than usual made many people growl and express their frustrations.
"This is the new rule set by our master. If you aren''t willing to pay, you can just leave now. No one here will force you to pay" The girl spoke once more and this time, she sounded cold and distant.
"Haha, It''s just measly fifty thousand coins per person, that''s not too much. Miss, here are five hundred thousand for all of us"
A Core formation youngster from the Agaroth said with a burst of proudughter. He led all the disciples from his sect to the girl, then he casually tossed the pay cube to the girl.
"We wee the Agaroth to Phoenix Ind"
The girl transferred the amount and handed over the pay cube back to the youngster. After that, she replied to the disciples with a smile on her face.
"Half a million, just like that."
Michael muttered. Compared to those superpowers like the Agaroth, he and his Base of Operation, the Sunrise sect was just too inferior.
"Yeah fuck it!"
A rogue cultivator casually walked over and handed his pay cube over to the girl. After that, he flew towards the Ind passing the girl and the guards.
Following the Aragoth and the rogue cultivator, more and more people started paying the entrance fee. Although Julius increasing the price left some people with frustration and jealousy, the majority of the people didn''t really mind that much, as they chose to pay and enter the Ind.
Since they had traveled far to get here, and no one wanted to return empty-handed because of fifty thousand gold coins.
"human, do we really have to enter the ind giving our hard-earned coins?"
Gaya asked as Michael took a deep breath.
"We didn''te all this way to return now, let''s just pay the fee and enter the ind"
Gaya sighed and took the reins to move forward towards the girl. Just when Michael and Gaya were about to pay the girl, a powerful roar reverberated through the Crystal ocean.
"Stop right there!"
With many others, Michael and Gaya also turned in the voice''s direction to see the gray ape pointing its finger at someone in the crowd.
The grey ape moved its body and arrived in front of an old man and an old woman. The duo of old people didn''t seem suspicious at all until the ape started to point fingers at them.
"They are the ones!"
The disturbance immediately alerted many of the people around as many eyes looked at the ape and the old people and wondered what the cause of the conflict was.
"Minnie, what''s going on?"
Looking at the sudden response of the grey ape, all the disciples from the Spring garden Sect came forth and threw their nces at the old man and the old woman.
"They are the ones who killed Mn and the others! They were all killed by him!"
The Ape''s words attracted almost everyone''s attention. Many people here who came from Kingdom Dradel, heard the news about Mn''s death. Most of them really wanted to know who was brave enough to kill the Spring Garden sect elder''s grandson.
Instead of showing any signs of panic or urge to flee, the old man before the ape unveiled a small grin on his face.
"I told you this is not going to work, Alicia" the old man calmly said and closed his eyes for a moment. The next moment, the wrinkles on his skin disappeared as his whole body transformed into a vigorous youth.
His raven ck hair fluttered in the wind while his brown robes became pure white. Many girls felt their heartbeat rise and many men couldn''t help but be jealous of his perfect tanned body and the jaw-dropping handsome face.
While everyone was stunned at the transformation of this youth, the old woman beside him closed her eyes. Just like what happened to the old man, she also started to transform into an angelic beauty.
"Wow," many gasped for air when they saw the golden hair beauty beside the youth. Standing on top of a flying sword, the girl radiated an aura of a goddess, and coupled with her ice-cold look, she became an unparalleled beauty in many people''s minds. Even Michael had to appreciate the youth''s tastes when ites to women. Ever since he met Gaya, he saw no girl more beautiful than her but now, he found a girl who could bepared to even Gaya in terms of beauty.
The ape was even more certain when he saw the girl. During thest few hours, it had sensed a familiar aura lingering within the air. But, because there were too many people around and the fact that both were in disguises, it couldn''t discover them. However, when the crowds started moving, it was luckily able to discover the killers of Mn and the other Spring Garden''s disciples.
"It''s you! Noah!"
"How dare you kill our brothers!"
"Go tell Elder Porter that we found his grandson''s killer!"
Spring Garden disciples were boiling in anger as their killing intent was soaring. They immediately surrounded the youth and the girl.
"He ispletely done for! Killing is prohibited inside the premises of Phoenix ind but technically they still haven''t entered the Phoenix ind, so there''s nothing stopping Porter from killing those two"
"Pass me those biscuits" the few people near Michael and Gaya raised their brows and stared at her while she was munching on the biscuits and watching the scene.
Michael who was watching the scene calmly became curious to know how Noah is going to handle the situation.
While watching the calmness on Noah''s face despite the shit he was in and the sword on his back as well as his 3-star Alchemist status made Michael think of him as his rival.
The ape then turned his eyes towards the girl and spoke
"Hahaha, we are going to have such a gre-"
But suddenly it stopped talking. Michael saw a bright beam shoot out from Noah''s body and the next moment, the pervy ape was sliced in half by the bright beam. It was separated into two parts, then it fell into the ocean, staining the surrounding water with blood.
"Respect women"
Noah only spoke those two words with a cruel tone. He had just killed another one from the Spring Garden sect, yet there was no panic or any signs of an urge to flee on his face. Just this attitude alone impressed even Michael.
No one expected this would happen. Noah was brave enough to kill another one from the Spring Garden sect on the spot. In their minds, he should be apologizing to them right now, because not only was he outnumbered, there was also a Core Strengthening stage Elder around somewhere in the ind.
Even though Noah was a Body Refining stage level 5 cultivator, Michael had a feeling that none of the Spring Garden disciples are his match. The girl named Alicia also radiated an aura of a powerful cultivator despite her Body refining stage level 4 cultivation.
In Michael''s mind, they seemed like an ideal novel mc and a female lead. One was a peerless handsome genius and the girl was an ice-cold kingdom toppling beauty.
This was the first time since he came to this world felt threatened by someone. Even when he saw Celina or Alex or any other prodigies he met, he knew they weren''t his match, and them being stronger than him was only temporary. However, Noah''s cultivation jumped from Body Refining stage level 4 to level 5 in a few days, his sword mastery, and the fact he''s a 3-star Alchemist irked Michael.
At this moment, everyone was looking at Noah. As for those Spring Garden disciples, they had clouded expressions on their faces. Although they were angrily staring at Noah and Alicia with intense killing intents, none of them dared to attack. They might be arrogant, but they were not fools as they realized they were no match for Noah despite the fact they were Body Strengthening stage level 4 cultivators.
"You killed Minnie! Arrrrghh, wait till our Elderes"
A disciple gritted his teeth.
"If you don''t want to follow Minnie into the afterlife, get out of my face" Again Noah said in a cruel tone.
"Hmph! You are dea!"
Another man coldly harrumphed but right as he was speaking, Noah attacked once again. A longsword suddenly appeared in his hand, and with a casual fling, the sword shed forward with lightning speed. It swept through the disciple''s throat, and in the next second, a severed head flew high into the sky.
"60% mastery in swords" With the speed of his movements and the way he handled the sword, Michael could sense Noah''s mastery over swords.
The disciples shouted out in disbelief. Their expressions changed dramatically in an instant. No one could have thought that this young man was such a daring maniac.
" Elder Porter!"
Another disciple immediately shouted out loudly at Phoenix Ind.
"Since I already killed Mn and Minnie, it doesn''t make a difference if I kill you all too" A cold killing intent erupted from Noah''s body and swept across the scene. With a sway of his body, he flew on his flying sword towards the group of disciples like a breeze of wind. He swung the longsword in his again as all these disciples tried to fight back with their full strength yet, none of them was a match for Noah.
Aaahhh!!! ¡
Apanied by some blood-curdling screeches, in just a few breaths of time, Noah killed every single disciple of Spring garden. Their bodies fell into the water and slowly sunk to the bottom of the ocean making the water turn red for a few seconds.
"He may be going to end up dead soon but I admire that guy''s boldness. If I were him, I would definitely do the same! He was already marked for death when he killed Miyan or whatever he''s called, killing a few others doesn''t change shit" Evan Gaya seemed like she was impressed by Noah, and looking at her reaction, Michael realized if this Noah guy had a badass system, he would have earned at least 10k points by now.
******************
Bear with me guys, I know you want to see Michael being Michael but Noah is not a passing character or just a side character. He''s a major character and he needs some screen time to mark his presence. I could have just established his character in just a few hundred words but I want my readers to read quality stuff, not some rushed work. Please be patient; when everythinges together in the future, it''ll be worth it.
Besides, Michael could only be a super badass if has some badass rivals right?!
Chapter 86 - Typical Novel MC
Bang!
Michael heard the sound of something or someone breaking the sound barrier. A powerful light beam shot up into the sky. Hearing this, Alicia coldly spoke, "Everyone, move aside!"
With a sway of her hand, Alicia arrived in front of the girl who was collecting the fee to enter the ind. Without hesitation, she handed over the pay cube from her space ring and said, "We''d like to enter the ind now"
Many people seemed like they were just realizing Noah and Alicia''s ns but as the world''s best Hitman, Michael already recognized Noah''s escape n. Noah and Alicia wouldn''t be able to outrun a Core Strengthening cultivator but if they sessfully entered the Phoenix ind, they would be under the protection of Julius as fighting or killing in Phoenix ind is prohibited. A man like Julius wouldn''t take lightly if someone broke the rules set by him.
The girl who was collecting the fee took the pay cube as she hadn''t noticed a thing that happened here,
"Young Miss, Young Master wee to Phoenix Ind"
Buzz¡
Right at this moment, the air around the Ind started twisting
"Let''s go"
Noah and Alicia dared not dy even a single second. They turned into two trails of light and dashed toward the Ind. The pretty girl stared at Noah''s back as a look of awe emerged in her eyes, "Ruthless, decisive, extremely daring; I''m sure Lord Julius will love a guy like him." The girl smiled.
Right after Noah and Alicia flew into the Phoenix Ind''s air space, Elder Porter immediately dashed out from the ind. Many powerful warriors followed him as they had sensed what was happening outside the ind and wanted to see how this incident would end.
"Why did they stop flying?" Michael barely heard Gaya as she stuffed her mouth full of biscuits. He was not interested in answering her and stared at Noah and Alicia.
When Porter arrived at the scene, he immediately stared at the spot where all his disciples were killed. He could still see blood floating on the surface of the water, and some of the dead bodies sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The ape''s body had also resurfaced from the bottom of the ocean. Looking at all this, he became extremely furious.
Swoosh!
His eyes turned blood red and veins on his body popped up. He threw a death stare at Noah and Alicia who had stopped flying.
"Rascal, you did all this?" His voice reverberated the ocean like a thunderp.
" They tried to kill me first"
Noah casually shrugged his shoulders with an unconcerned expression on his face. Even though he was facing a Core Strengthening warrior, there were no signs of nervousness on his face.
"Did you also kill my grandson, Mn?"
Michael could see the old man was burning in anger by looking at his shivering body. He seemed like he was going to explode in anger.
"He too tried to kill me" Noah indifferently said. Looking at everyone''s expression like Noah''s going to get killed made Michael crazy because they had missed the obvious.
" bastard, die now!"
Porter was really furious right now. A massive amount of energy was rolling around his body. He was preparing to attack with all his strength; he wanted to kill Noah and Alicia in an instant.
With intense killing intent, he struck out with his palm toward Noah. Michael and the others saw the surrounding air immediately ignite into mes. The mighty strength of the attack swept across like a gigantic wave as it pushed toward Noah.
Bang!
Right at this moment, another huge hand approached from Noah''s back. The two huge hands made of glimmering Arch Energy collided in the mid-air and the shock wave almost shoved Gaya''s snack away. Following a loud explosive sound, both hands were destroyed at the same time. To Michael''s surprise, he recognized the one who counter-attacked Porter. The golden-haired girl he met in the restaurant. He expected the Guardian guild to interfere because he heard Noah waspeting in some kind of test in the White jungle arranged by the Guardians. So naturally, they were searching for Guardian trainees and Noah happened to be one of their choices.
"Xanali" Soon, Michael saw the red-haired beauty appear beside the golden-haired girl and heard Gaya mumble her name in anger.
"Who are you? and how dare you get in my way?!"
Porter was so mad that he failed to notice one thing, how could a Core Formation level cultivator like this girl be able to stop his attack?
"Name is Peyton, Peyton Wright. I''m a Guardian from the Guardian guardian guild" The entire scene became deathly silent when the words escaped her mouth.
"Oh my god, a guardian!"
"Why is the guardian guild protecting Noah?"
"It doesn''t matter. Compared to the Guardian guild, the Spring Garden sect is an ant. Porter won''t dare to make a move against him unless he was extremely stupid or suicidal"
"Yeah I heard there''s a mini tournament going on in the White jungle ordered by the Guardian Guild but I thought"
"You thought what?"
"I thought they were just selecting someone toplete a quest or task for the Guardian Guild"
Just as a conversation between two cultivators from Dredel was going on, Peyton and Xanali came before Noah and faced Porter
"What does the Guardian Guild want with that bastard?! He killed my only grandson, I need to avenge him"
He had been looking for the person who murdered his grandson, and now, the murderer stood right in front of him. Furthermore, this murderer had
once again killed a lot of people from his sect.
"During the white jungle test, your grandson and his friends interfered with Noah''s testing process and tried to kill him, so he can steal the opening spot in the Guardian Guild. Interfering with the Guardian''s business is alone a crime, your grandsonmitted a crime. Noah killed your grandson and his friends in self-defense"
Again when the crowd heard the words ''opening spot in the Guardian guild'', they became restless and quietly started to chatter among themselves.
Porter''s body shivered in anger and helplessness. His grandson''s killer was standing in front of him, yet, he could even touch him. This made Porter really furious and mad.
"Respectful Guardian, he also killed my disciples before you came. Was that also in self-defense, don''t they deserve justice?" Swallowing his anger, Porter spoke these words staring at the dead bodies in the ocean.
"The Guardian Guild will investigate this matter to the full extent meanwhile, I don''t want anyone from your sect or anyone rted to you take any actions against Noah"
Peyton said and by the tone of her voice, Michael could tell that she''s going to do nothing.
"Respectful Guardians..."
Porter still didn''t want to give up.
"I don''t want to hear more of this. He''s one of us now and if he did something wrong, we''ll investigate and take appropriate actions. But if you still hold this grudge and try to do something, I can guarantee you that you''ll face the full wrath of the Guardian Guild"
Peyton coldly harrumphed and became hostile. Then, she waved, turned back, and flew back towards the Phoenix ind.
Due to controlling intense anger, Porter''s veins inside his body popped as he started to bleed through his nostrils and ears. . At the same time, his heart was pounding extremely fast. It wasn''t difficult to imagine how angry he was right now, his trip to Phoenix Ind had caused him to lose a lot. Not only had he lost a lot of disciples, he even received a huge blow to his dignity and made him feel helpless by two girls.
If he could kill someone with his gaze, Noah would have been ripped into a thousand pieces by now. Porter hated Noah to the core as he really desired to devour Noah alive. It was all because of this young man that he had lost so much including his only grandson.
"bastard, just you wait, I''ll definitely make you pay one day!" Porter gnashed his teeth in anger as he spoke.
"old fool, hurry up and get the fuck out of here" Just as the crowd was preparing to pay and move towards the Phoenix ind, they heard a childish voice.
All of them turned their gazes towards the source of the voice and saw a golden fur monkey standing on top of Noah''s shoulder and cursing at Porter.
"A golden Babaroo?!" Gaya almost shouted when her eyes saw the monkey. Although this was the first time he had seen a talking infant monkey, Gaya''s shocked tone assured him that this is not an ordinary talking monkey.
"Do you see my butt? Do you see my butt?"
The little monkey was happily bouncing around Noah''s shoulder and shouting at Porter.
"Damn it, where did this monkeye from?!"
"What the fuck? Even his monkey is at Body refining stage level 2 "
"That monkey is really showing its butt and insulting Porter, damn!"
...
Many people became speechless. This monkey was just an amazing creature. He looked cute but he seemed like a really bad monkey,
"Hmph!"
Porter could only coldly harrumph. Then, he just turned around and flew toward Phoenix ind before this monkey made him a biggerughing stock.
"Hey look at my plumpy butt!!"
The Monkey''s words caused the flying Porter to stagger, but he just continued flying without turning back.
Finally, it all came to an end. A famous yet mysterious young man had killed many disciples from the Spring Garden Sect and nearly survived a Core Strengthening cultivator. The name Noah had be pretty famous now.
"Noah you''re an extremely daring guy" Before Michael and Gaya fly past Noah and the girls around him, he heard Xanaliment on his bravery making Gaya choke on the biscuits.
"Thank you for yourpliment, Miss Xanali"
Chapter 87 - Gaya鈥檚 Crisis I
Michael and Gaya were flying at a low altitude after being separated from Noah and the girls, so low they almost touched the mountain peak while admiring the ind''s splendid scenery. The entire ind''sndscape caused them to feel extremely rxed. The more they saw, the more they felt that this Julius was someone who truly knew how to enjoy life.
"Do you know how this auction works?" While flying, Gaya asked him.
"Nope, no idea," Michael replied with a smile.
"Human, this auction fair is divided into two parts, and it willst for two days. There is a huge square on the south side of the ind, and it can hold over ten thousand men at any point in time. The first part of the auction fair is held within this square, and many humans will put treasures with hopes of selling them. Some will sell pills, potions, weapons, spell scrolls, and many other shits. If you were lucky, you could find something precious for an affordable price here"
"What about the second part?"
"The second part is the auction that''s held within Julius''s Manor. Many people who have precious treasures will entrust them to Julius, and auction them off on the second day. Of course, he will take a small cut if this treasure is sessfully sold. Unlike the first day, you''ll definitely find something precious and valuable if you can pay the price.
Those who participate in the auction are all? filthy rich men, and the treasures that appear in the auction are something that ordinary people could afford."
I do wonder, can I find a dragon baby here?" After seeing that golden fur monkey on Noah''s shoulder, he too wanted a pet so badly and not an ordinary pet but a dragon.
Gaya rolled her eyes and lightly elbowed him in the gut "what is up with you and dragons? Those thieving lizards are good for nothing except bringing trouble"
He noticed a tinge of enmity and fear deep in her tone. Although nothing she could say would make him change his mind, he did wonder why she is so adamant and trying to stop him.
"Did you see Noah and his pet? If he can have a pet, why can''t I? But I don''t want a monkey, I want a dragon. If you want me to change my mind, name something that is more badass and awesome than a dragon"
"I can name one"
"Do tell"
"A Naga" she proudly said as he put his hands on her shoulder
"So your kind is more badass and awesome than the dragons?"
"Of course, we are superior to dragons in every way" Again, she couldn''t help but show her pride on her face while talking.
"Then will you be my pet?" He moved closer and whispered in her ears.
"Arrghhh!" She never expected this question and when she heard him, her face slightly reddened in anger. However, he held her hands tightly,? therefore, she couldn''t vent his anger using her hands but only her mouth.
"How dare you! Pet? Fuck you bastard! You''ll never find a dragon in your life or a girl, I curse you!"
She looked so cute while she''s angry. Michael couldn''t help but smile and feel light whenever he teased her and made her mad. It was a new kind of feeling for him to have someone who could be a friend in the future. However, Michael didn''t know one thing, the loyalty meter in the system wasn''t as straight forwards as he was thinking, especially when he and Gaya were on the same wavelength.
"Don''t worry honey, I will find both"
"Eww, who''re you calling honey?! Don''t you ever call me that or I''ll do something to you"
"Hahaha'''' Heughed and the duonded on the ind to see a huge manor standing magnificently. Looking ahead, he could find rows of finely built buildings, green hills, and clear water almost everywhere. There was even a waterfall there. The manor reminded him of the Biltmore estate in North Carolina. He had never lived in a mansion like this and everything on the ind, including the whole ind, made him desire the life of being the wealthy powerful immortal more and more.
On the south side of the ind, there was indeed a huge and empty square. The Heaven''s gate square that held Heaven''s gatepetition was big, butpared to this square in front of him, it could only be considered a small square.
The square was filled with carriages and people wearing all kinds of dresses. He walked towards the square to check it out leaving the pegasus in Gaya''s hands.
" Come closer,e closer! 78% pure cultivation focus pill, a must-have item for all cultivators! With this pill, your concentration will go up by many folds!"
"Flying swords for rent! Only 5 gold coins and you can take a tour around the Phoenix ind despite your cultivation level!"
"Top-level umon spell scroll for only twenty thousand gold coins!"
Around him, he could see merchants and peddlers everywhere, and more and more warriors began to set up a small hut and took out items to sell.
"Old man, is that really 78% pure cultivation focus pill?"
"Of course it is! Young man, I''ve been in this business since before you were born and I never, I mean never in my life sold something that''s not what I im"
"Alright, how much is it?"
"You can have it for only forty thousand gold coins"
With a self-ttering smile, the old white-bearded man held a fist-sized pill in his hand. The pill was glowing like a shiny crystal.
"Forty thousand?! Dang that''s expensive, I''ll give you twenty"
"twenty? Do you think I''m selling fruits? Forty thousand is the best I can do. if you don''t want to buy it, move aside, I''m sure that someone will buy it"
"Fuck! You win old man, here''s your forty thousand!"
The young warrior took out his pay cube and handed them over to the old man. The Cultivation focus pill had a great effect on ordinary cultivators, it could help them focus their mind quickly and enter a state of cultivation.
Michael saw this deal from a few meters away and shook his head.
"What is it human?"
"That pill is just? 20% pure and barely worth the price that guy paid "
Gaya wasn''t looking very surprised to hear what he just said, "this ce is filled with con men and swindlers, human. if you are not smart enough, they will sell you a Gecko as a dragon"
Nodding at her, he strolled through the square to find something interesting and when they passed a shop that seemed like a female clothes shop, Gaya halted her steps.
"Human" he saw a hint of awkwardness in her eyes.
"What?"
"Can you..."
"Here" before Gaya could finish her words, he took her space ring and transferred two hundred thousand gold coins into her ring. She was not the type to horde fancy dresses and jewelry like normal girls but when Michael rummaged through her space ring, he found that she had only three pairs of dresses and one was torn in the back. So after seeing her stop in front of a clothes store, he realized her intention and gave her enough coins to buy as many clothes as she wanted.
"Go crazy. We''ll meet at the center of the square in two hours" he left her before she could say anything and when she looked into her space rings, she couldn''t help but be surprised at the amount he left her with. She wanted to ask only a couple of thousand gold coins because, with that amount, she could buy some really nice clothes but he gave her enough coins to buy the entire shop and a few more. Moreover, she could tell that he didn''t give her these coins as a loan. This gesture of him slightly warmed her heart as he let out a small smile and entered the shop.
**************
Leaving Gaya to go on a shopping spree, Michael wandered around the square in the hope of finding something interesting because most of the novel MCS would find rare and valuable things that normal people overlook in ces like this.
With more peopleing to the ce, the business was getting hotter. All sorts of things and strange items began showing up, and the entire ce became very lively.
[How long does the host n to blindly wander around the square?]
Suddenly the system''s voice appeared in his head.
"Until I find something valuable"
[4000 badass points] the system said with azy tone.
"For what?"
[To find something that host will love]
"Dragonling?" his face lit thinking about him riding a majestic and powerful dragon but the system''s silence disappointed him.
He still chose to spend two thousand badass points because if the system wants 4000 badass points, he knew he would really get something worth that price.
"Take it"
[The system marked the location on your Environmental scanning]
Just like the system said, he saw a white dot on his Environmental scanning and made his way towards it wasting no time.
When he came closer, there was a crowd gathered around the white dot as he entered the crowd before someone could buy whatever item that system marked.
In front of the crowd, he saw an old white-bearded man with a stall before him.
"Noah?" Michael''s heart jumped when he saw Noah and Alicia. His shock was because he didn''t want Noah to get his hands on the mysterious item he paid four thousand badass points.
Noah and all the crowd were looking at a rusty scrap metal on top of the stall. Clearly, it seemed like part of a broken sword in Michael''s eyes as it looked really old.
"Old man, who are you trying to fool? iming that this scrap metal is a broken piece of an Epic weapon¡ you''re nuts!"
"Yea! Isn''t that just a rusty old metal?"
"Why don''t you im it as a Legendary weapon?"
The crowd burst out intoughter.
"You guys know nothing! Although this broken sword looks terrible, it''s really a precious treasure! You guys simply don''t have enough knowledge!"
The old man wore torn clothes, but his cultivation base was quite decent. He was at level 6 of the core formation stage.
"Haha, old man, how much are you selling this scrap metal for?" Someone mockingly said.
"I''ll sell it for a rarebat weapon," The old man said.
"Fuck! A Rare Combat Weapon? You''re too greedy!"
The old man''s words caused the crowd to burst intoughter once again. It was really funny, trying to exchange a Rare Combat Weapon with just mere scrap metal. Every spell and weapon in this world was categorized into five sses;mon, umon, rare, epic, and legendary. Although a rarebat weapon may not be a big thing for a powerful sect or a family, it was eye-catching for the rogue and young cultivators who had limited resources would.
"Young Master, do you want this broken metal of an Epic weapon?" the old man turned his gaze away from Noah and asked Michael.
"I want that"
A voice sounded out from within the crowd, instantly stopping allughter.
Everyone threw their nce at the young man in ck including Noah and Alicia. When they saw the cultivation level of the young man and his young look, they knew he''s one of the monstrous talents.
Noah was the most handsome and manly man Alicia had ever seen but the youngster in the ck fell no short inparison to Noah. Both Noah and he looked like they were the same age. Noah was slightly astonished to see two swords on his back because only swordsmen with high mastery and talent in swords can wield two swords at the same time.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
"Hehe, young master surely knows the value of this treasure! You''re not going to suffer any losses by trading a Rare Combat Weapon for it" When the old man saw Michael, a ttering smile immediately emerged on his face. He knew he has an incredible cultivation base, so he already thought of him as someone filthy rich.
Noah was already prepared to buy the scrap as he took the scrap metal in his hand.
"I don''t want that, I need this" Fortunately the white dot was not the scrap metal in Noah''s hand but a book on the stall. Everyone was surprised including Alicia and Noah as they quickly took a nce at the thick old book that Michael pointed to.
"Young Master, you want this?" By the look of the old man, Michael knew the book was not as expensive as the metal scrap because if it was, the old man''s smile wouldn''t have grown smaller.
"Young Master, I found this book on an ancient ruin..."
"How much?" Michael was not in the mood to hear the old man spin a crazy story about the book as he interrupted the old man and asked.
"Ten...no..twenty thousand gold coins"
"Damn it, this old man has steel for balls. He''s even trying to sell a fucking old book for twenty thousand gold coins"
"Old man, sometimes, wanting too much will leave you with nothing. I''ll give you five thousand gold coins for this book" Most people agreed with him with a nod after hearing Michael. When the old man stuttered to name a price, he knew that the old man had no idea about the book''s value and he would be d to sell this book for anything. Although he could have simply given the twenty thousand gold coins and bought the book, the people around him would have thought of him as a fool instead of a badass.
"Five thousand it is then, here you go Young Master" as Michael said, the old man didn''t want to lose the chance of earning five thousand
Michael waved his hand as stacks of gold coins appeared beside the old man. The old man didn''t even count the coin as he respectfully handed the book to Michael, but he wasughing in his mind, "Lucky me! I sold nothing but an old book for five thousand coins, hehe"
"Sigh! Although the young man didn''t pay twenty thousand, he still paid five thousand for a book"
"I don''t know, the kid seemed to know what he''s doing"
People were puzzled by Michael''s action but they were afraid to ask for an exnation.
Noah and Alicia cautiously stared at the ck-clothed young man turning around to leave. Noah met his fair share of arrogant prodigies in Kingdom Dradel and Kethen but he never met someone like the ck-robed youngster before. He came here without bearing an arrogant look or the prideful demeanor of a prodigy, he was calm and didn''t show off his wealth even though Noah could tell he''s rich by the clothes he wore.
Usually, prodigies at his age would feel threatened by his and Alicia''s cultivation level yet Noah felt like he wasn''t threatened by them. However, it was Alicia who felt threatened by the ck-robed youngster as she only thought Noah was the only one who could match her cultivation talents.
Whoosh!
Just as they were looking at the ck-clothed young man leaving and turning their eyes back at Noah, an arrow flew straight towards the ck-robed youngster and pierced into the ground just an inch away from him.
Michael abruptly halted his movements when he saw the arrow and crouched to pick the arrow up with a frown on his face.
"Gaya?"
*****************
Normally if a chapter reaches almost 2700 words, I would split it into two chapters but now that my readers are using the free pass and other means to unlock my chapters, I didn''t want to split the chapter. Therefore, this chapter might have felt like a long read. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Chapter 88 - Gaya鈥檚 Crisis II
(A couple of moments ago)
"Fuck! I can''t find a single dress that has some tactical advantage" After separating with Ghost, she was going in and out of all the clothing stores.
Considering she wouldn''t be able to cast spells as when she was a cultivator, she needed a dress that would let her move around freely without restricting her movements when firing arrows.
All the clothing stores and the clothes they had for women were fancier but none of them were what she was looking for. After checking the 7th shop, she stepped inside the 8th clothing store. The store had red brick walls and greyish tiles to give a unique charm and several mannequins in glistening dresses. A bunch of cultivators including a few girls and boys was rummaging through the neatly hanged clothes racks while a sales girl approached to wee the new customer, Gaya.
"Wee Miss" As the girl noticed Gaya''s cultivation level and realized she was only a mortal, the brightness on the sales girl''s face dimmed.
Gaya was too tired to bicker with the girls as she had seen 7 people like this girl earlier.
"I want something less glittery and ck will be great," said Gaya.
"Follow me Miss" the girl gestured at her to follow her to the corner while a couple of youngsters in pink uniforms were adorning a pretty girl with new clothes.
The girl seemed so happy and in such a good mood seeing the boys paying all her bills. The salesgirl beside the girl was carrying new clothes up to her neck and stumbling because of the weight.
Gaya obviously ignored this and minded her own business.
"Miss, you can find less glittery clothes for women in this rack" The sales girl used Gaya''s words and pointed at a rack full of ordinary clothes.
"Hmm" If she was a princess and a cultivator, she wouldn''t have even looked at the dresses before her but now, they seemed like her only choice.
"Oh?" the sales girl''s browser arched upwards when she saw Gaya taking all the ck clothes including tops, pants, and innerwear without even checking the size or price.
"Miss..."
"Shush, my friend and I are crazy rich. so yes, I can pay for all these" the salesgirl heaved a sigh hearing Gaya''s proud confident voice.
The sales girl''s face instantly brightened thinking about themission for this sale and the high probability for a significant tip.
"Miss, if you want, you can see the new stocks over there" the girl pointed at the area where the cultivators and the girl was shopping and led Gaya there.
Up until now, the youngsters didn''t notice Gaya but when she approached the area they were in, all eyes fell on her. Ignoring the gazes, she followed the sales girl and began to check the racks. The pink uniformed girl had already taken all the glittery and expensive clothes on the rack that had no tactical advantage. However, that worked in Gaya''s favor as the girl already filtered the clothes making Gaya''s life easier.
"Why didn''t you show these to me before?" She asked the salesgirl and picked all the remaining dresses on the rack.
"Who is this peasant?" the pink uniformed youngsters were bewildered because these dresses were very costly and a peasant like her couldn''t afford it, or at least that''s what they thought.
Of course, by default, they branded her as a peasant looking at her cultivation level. The arrogance and pride of being cultivators dulled their brains.
Gaya heard the remark but she remained quiet because she didn''t want any trouble.
"Looking at this peasant buying all these clothes, I feel cheap. Who the hell is she?" the pink uniformed girl thought to herself and kept staring at Gaya with the furrowed brows.
"Solomon, give me the juice bottle," the girl asked one of the boys as he quickly retrieved the mango juice bottle from his space ring and handed it over to the girl like a servant to impress her. The girl loved the attention and wanted to be the center of everything, therefore, when the people in the store and some of her friends started to notice Gaya instead of her, she felt pissed. In simple words, the girl had a narcissistic personality disorder.
The girl took one sip and then she walked towards Gaya to turn all the attention back at her.
Plop!
"Oops," the girl pretended like she tripped and spilled the juice all over Gaya and the new clothes in her hand.
"The fuck bitch!" Gaya lost her cool when she saw the devious look on the girl''s face.
However, the devious and wicked grin on the girl''s face took a turn to the worse when she heard Gaya''s words. Gaya was not like Michael who spent years controlling his anger as she shouted at the girl.
"What did you call me?"
"I called you a bitch because you blind bitch spilled the fucking juice all over me" Although Michael was not with her, the no fight in the ind rule gave her the guts to yell at the girl without holding back her anger.
The girl''s face turned red and almost puffs of smoke came out of her nostrils in anger and embarrassment. She picked the wrong chick to mess with.
"How dare you!" the boys around the girl bared their teeth at Gaya like angered rottweilers.
"The nerve! " the girl furiously pointed her finger at Gaya and yelled, "If you don''t drop to your knees and apologize, I will cut your tongue out peasant!"
"Please calm down my lords and mydies, fighting is prohibited on the ind" Both the salesgirls beside Gaya and the bitchy girl quickly reminded them before the citation esctes.
"Even if it doesn''t, my friend will skin all you sons of bitches alive if you touch a hair in my head," Gaya said and didn''t bother to hide the arrogance in her voice.
"We''ll be in trouble only if someone alerts Lord Julius. You''re just a mortal, even if we killed you and someone did alert Lord Julius, we''ll only get a fine and that''s like a small p on the wrist" The girl spoke as Solomon ran to the entrance to shut the door and the windows.
Gaya''s face turned dark and gloomy because she knew the girl was right.
She clearly miscalcted the girl''s character but no matter what, she was not going to apologize to the girl.
How could the Princess of the Nagnd and a heavenly blessed prodigy drop to her knees and apologize to another girl?
"Five thousand gold coins for those who keep their mouth shut" the girl threw a pouch of coins to the middle of the store and made the people turn a blind eye to the situation.
Obviously, Gaya had coins to counter offer but she knew it won''t work because she''s alone and the girl had 8 Body Refining stage cultivators and one Level 4 Body Strengthening cultivator with her, therefore, even if she offered them more coins, the people wouldn''t help her especially if they were weaker than the girl''s group.
"Boys, grab her" the girl grinned evilly and ordered her minions.
"Fuck it" the bow of Legs appeared in her hands as she fired an arrow at the girl''s step at lightning speed.
"Wooh" the girl jumped back and the youngsters were taken aback by surprise. They were cultivators but even for them, her movements were too quick and caught them by surprise.
"If you take one more step, the next one will go right between your eyes" she warned the girl and carefully walked back towards the door while still aiming the arrow at the girl.
"You''re fast for a mortal but I''m faster" Just as Gaya was a few steps away from the door, the bitchy girl said and waved her hand.
p!
The next moment, the girl appeared beside Gaya and pped her. The force of her p threw Gaya up against the wall and made her spurt out blood.
"Poor girl" one of the men who were watching this mumbled.
"(cough) (cough)" Gaya''s vision blurred for a moment because of the p. Her head was spinning and if the girl used a little more force, Gaya''s neck would have broken.
"(Whistle)"
Chill!
The ss window suddenly exploded into pieces following Gaya''s whistle as the white pegasus came to the rescue. The sudden entrance of the pegasus stunned the girl and the youngsters for a moment. Gaya mustered all her strength and jumped on the pegasus to escape the store.
Pulch!
"Ah!" Just when Gaya was about to fly away, Solomon grabbed the arrow Gaya fired earlier and threw at her viciously. The arrow pierced Gaya''s chest just a couple of inches away from her heart. Blood immediately rushed out of her mouth as she gave onest weak kick to fly away.
"Get her!" the girl panicked and screamed. The girl knew if that mortal girl attracted too many eyes, they would get more than a p on the wrist because even if the girl was mortal, Julius would be forced to severely punish them to protect his reputation. Since the mortal girl jumped out of the store with her pegasus, they had to capture and kill her before she could draw more attention.
"Hit the pegasus!" The girl quickly hatched a n and screamed at Solomon. People outside didn''t see what happened inside the store, therefore, the girl nned to hit the pegasus from inside the sore and make Gaya fall to death. That way, she had the chance to pay the people inside more and cover up what happened before the shit hit the fan.
"Kiss of death!" Solomon was an expert in long-ranged attacks and learned a few handy spells to attack a target in the distance.
Pulch!
"neigh!" In the sky, the pegasus violently neighed as a long green dagger pierced straight through the pegasus''s abdomen.
"Hu..man" Gaya''s vision kept blurring as she fired onest arrow at a crowd gathered on the ground below her and hoped Michael would see the arrow by some chance.
"Shit! How is she still flying?" Solomon panicked and looked at the girl for guidance.
"Fortunately the poison is driving the pegasus crazy and taking her away from the Phoenix ind. Here''s what we''re gonna do, we''re going through the backdoor and chase her without making it obvious. And if she falls to death before leaving the ind, that''s good but if she doesn''t, we have to kill her the moment she leaves the ind"
"But Maria, do we have to chase her? We should first escape the ind before Julius hears what happened here" one of the youngsters questioned the girl.
"It''s toote, if we had killed her inside this room as I nned, no big trouble. However, now the people outside will start to question and these people inside the store will start talking. Mortal or not, Julius has to punish us for breaking the rules. Besides, I have a bad feeling about the friend she mentioned"
She was partially right. If this happened inside the four walls and only a few people witnessed a group of cultivators killing a mortal girl, Julius might have let the killers go with a small fine after making them bribe the witnesses to protect his reputation. Especially, he wouldn''t have gone to the lengths to severely punish them for a mortal. However, right at this moment, many people had seen an injured girl and a pegasus, they would start to question and the best thing Maria and her group could do was kill Gaya outside the Phoenix ind and turn the story as she broke the no fight rule first and tried to attack them first.
Chapter 89 - The Playground Of Powerful Men I
"Gaya?" Michael picked up the arrow and looked up at the sky to see a familiar pegasus clumsily flying away from the Phoenix ind.
[500 Badass points for learning how to fly an object]
[1000 Badass points for integrating the skill with Lightning dash]
"Do it!" Michael wasted no time thinking about the Badass points as he ordered the system.
"Lightning dash" He turned himself into a lightning bolt and dashed towards the stall where everyone was renting flying swords.
"Hey!" When Michael reached the stall, he didn''t even stop as he threw a pouch of coins and jumped on a flying sword. The next moment, everyone saw him turning himself into a lightning bolt andunching himself into the sky.
"Alicia, let''s go see what''s happening" Noah was curious to see like everyone else and followed the ck-robed youngster behind.
"Wow" they never expected the ck-robed youngster could fly that fast as they only saw a sh of lightning and then he disappeared from their view.
"Who is he?" Even Alicia could barely track his speed and wondered about the origin of the youngster.
In the sky, Michael saw a group of pink-robed youngsters circling around Gaya and one guy was lifting Gaya by her neck.
Zzzzzzhhhhh!
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
"Marki!" Maria screamed out loud in shock a few seconds after her friend''s body exploded into a red mist.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50 Badass points]
¡.
Michael was not in the mood toy back and enjoy the sudden outburst in badass points. His full focus was on Gaya who was bleeding and barely holding herself together without falling off the pegasus.
Whoosh!
The next moment, Maria saw a sh of lightning and then, a ck-robed youngster appeared before the mortal girl.
"Hu..ma"
"Here, drink this" Due to all the years of intense training and anger management, he was able to think clearly as he quickly retrieved a healing potion and gently poured it into her mouth. He noticed green veins spreading all over her body and realized she was poisoned.
"What is happening here?"
"Who is this girl?"
"I don''t know but I guess it has something to do with these pink uniformed youngsters"
"80% pure Healing potion"
While Michael was treating Gaya, many people surrounded them and started to gossip. Among this crowd, Noah noticed the potion and slightly raised his brows because as an Alchemist himself, he quickly realized the potion''s purity.
"Human, where."
"Shh! just drink another one" he shushed her and poured another bottle of Healing potion into her mouth.
"Neigh!" just as she was drinking the healing potion, the pure pegasus lost its consciousness and started to fall down. The flying sword Michael grabbed from the stall was fortunately big enough for two people, so he quickly saved Gaya from falling down by grabbing her by the waist.
"Maria" Solomon, Maria, and every pink-robed youngster heaved a sigh of relief seeing they were away from the air space of Phoenix ind as well as Michael''s cultivation level.
Because Maria''s personal bodyguard was a Body Straightening stage level 4 cultivator and the rest of her group was Body Refining stage level 8 Cultivators, she was confident enough to kill this ck-robed youngster, after all, he killed one of her minions named Marki.
"Who did this?" Michael asked without showing any emotions in his voice. He knew the healing potions could momentarily stop the poison from spreading further.
Although Michael knew very well about Gaya''s attitude and toxic mouth, he also knew she was not dumb enough to start a fight without him by her side. As far as he was concerned, even if she did something wrong, none had the right to kill her because for two reasons; one, he invested hundreds of Badass points on her, and two, she was his subordinate as well as his friend.
Unless Gaya went mad and massacred arge number of innocents crossing his line, he wouldn''t let anyone hurt her let alone kill her.
"All... of... them"? Considering she barely had Arch energy in her body and never came this close to death, her body kept shivering because of the shock.
Even with all those years of training to control his anger and emotions, when he saw the blood on her and the tears welled eyes, he started to get really really really angry. The reason was, back on earth he never had a friend or anyone close to him. Because he never cared about anyone except him, he never felt an emotion like he''s feeling now. This long flying journey and the interactions he had with her strengthened their friendship and helped him bond with Gaya.
He was starting to think of her as a friend and someone nearly took her away from him and that made him furious.
"This is gonna hurt," Michael said and pulled the broken piece of the arrow out of her chest.
"Ah!"
He gave another healing potion and turned back to look at all the pink-robed men with the bloodied broken arrow in his hand.
"Miss Maria, stand behind me" the Body Strengthening stage cultivator behind Maria moved in front of Maria while all the pink-robed youngsters prepared for the fight.
"Kid stay your hand" the man warned Michael when he saw the cold killing intent in his eyes.
"Diddle...diddle"
However, Michael moved towards him while silently muttering these words.
"Death Ray!" The man didn''t waste a second as he raised his hands and sent a golden scorching hot energy beam towards Michael.
"What?!"
"How is this possible?!"
"Holy!"
Many people looking at the scene thought the beam was going to turn Michael into ashes but the beam didn''t even scratch him as a light blue energy shield appeared before the beam could touch him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 Badass points]
The system continuously ran inside his head. When Noah and Alicia saw the beampletely disappear after shing with the light blue shield that appeared and vanished in a sh, they were amazed.
"Miss Maria, go ba"
"We are so little"
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
¡..
Before even the man could finish his warning and attack again, Michael suddenly dashed at him and began to stab him with the broken arrow.
"Ah Ah AAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
The blood of her bodyguards kept spattering on her face and in a few seconds, her pink top turned red because of the blood.
Many weak-hearted cultivators slightly turned away their gaze from Michael. Although Michael felt furious inside, he didn''t show his emotions on the face.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage level 4 cultivator. The reward is 18000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
"Kill him!"
"RUN!"
Among the remaining pink-robed youngsters, one could hear two shouts. A few of them including Solomon wanted to fight Michael while the rest of them wanted to flee the area rather than fighting Michael.
Whoosh!
However, Michael quickly targeted the three who were preparing to flee and dashed at them.
"Ignitia"
Zzzzzzhhhhhh!
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
With one hand, Michael sent a powerful bolt of lighting towards a youngster. The lightning bolt pierced straight through the heart of its target leaving arge hole in his body,
He had a quick death but his two friends were not so lucky as him.
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
Pulch
¡.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 900 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 Badass points]
¡.
Michael disregarded the notifications as he was busy stabbing the two youngsters to death.
The blood and pieces of organs continued to stter out of their body but he didn''t stop stabbing them. The people were terrified looking at his ruthlessness.
Thu!
After a few seconds, Michael spat some of the blood that sttered on his mouth and turned his murderous look at Solomon and the two men and the girl behind him who couldn''t help but shiver in fear.
Including some of the senior experienced cultivators, many were stunned and terrified as they watched everything without uttering a word.
"He''s too ruthless"
"He killed a Body Strengthening stage cultivator just like that"
"Where did hee from and who the heck is he?"
"Those guys are so screwed"
"They are outside the airspace of the Phoenix ind so the no killing rules won''t apply here"
The people began to chatter.
"Do...don''t..e near...us" Solomon stuttered. His face pale and his hands were shaking in fear.
"He''s the one who killed our ride, Ghost"
Boom, the moment the people heard Gaya call him Ghost, the system notifications started to repeatedly ring inside his head again.
"He''s Ghost!"
"The 5-star Alchemist of River town!"
"Holy shit!"
"The Ghost who won Heaven''s gatepetition and stepped on the 100th step?"
Noah and Alicia had a look of realization when they heard the astounding conversations around them. Noah heard nothing about Heaven''s gatepetition but he did hear about the 5-star Alchemist who could concoct pills and brew potions with 80% purity, only second to the Alchemy king Gabriel himself.
For the first time in their life, both Noah and Alicia felt threatened by someone, Michael.
Chapter 90 - The Playground Of Powerful Men II
The pink uniformed disciples looked at Michael with some hesitation as Solomon stuttered in fear, "You...you have no...idea what''ve you done. If you¡e-"
His words stoppeding out of his mouth as he saw Michael moving towards him. Overwhelming fear paralyzed the other two disciples behind him and the girl and stood there shivering.
Michael said nothing. He just stopped moving for a second before his body shook slightly before appearing instantly right in front of Solomon.
With the broken arrowhead right between his fingers, he made a fist and
mmed it into the face of Solomon with no fancy movements.
"Ah!" Solomon cried out in agony as he tried to cover his face in instinct.
However, Michael grabbed him by the neck and punched him again and again and again and again.
"AAAAHHHHHHHH!"
Zzzzzhhhhhhh!
Zzzzzhhhhhhhh!
Looking at the ravaged face of their friend, Solomon, the disciples screamed out aloud as their scream reverberated the Crystal ocean.
But two bolts of lightning through their heads cut their cries short.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 900 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 900 Badass points]
Immediately after ignoring the continued rings inside his head, his body disappeared and reappeared right in front of Maria.
"Kill...her...Ghost" From behind, Michael heard Gaya''s weak voice.
Michael still didn''t know what happened back there but he had a gut feeling that everything started because of this girl before him.
"Don''t¡.kill..." her words barely escaped her mouth as Michael''s hold around her neck tightened. Although he ughtered the male disciples, when he grabbed the girl and raised his hand, the crowd looked bbergasted.
"Stay your hand!"
At this critical moment, a loud shout echoed out from the inner area of Phoenix Ind. The shout was so loud that it sounded like a thundering roar. It swept across Phoenix Ind and stirred the ocean waves. After that, everyone saw a man with a powerful aura and grandeur rushing over with great speed. In just the blink of an eye, he appeared a few meters away from Michael.
This adult man was in his forties. Behind him stood the girl who collected the entry fee before and a group of soldiers in armor. However, his armor was much shinier and mightier than that of those soldiers behind him. The entire armor was covered with countless symbols, giving it a touch of mysteriousness. His angr face carried a domineering expression, causing him to look mighty and vigorous. His aura was actually surpassing Porter and matched the aura of Victor.
"That''s Lord Julius! Never thought he woulde here."
"Lod Julius?!, what an incredible cultivation power! Core Strengthening stage level 5"
"Since Lord Julius is here, that young girl might be safe now"
......
Lord Julius''s arrival had attracted many eyes. He was one of the most influential men in the Elon Continent and the greatest man of this auction fair. No one dared disrespect him even a bit. For those who hade here from afar, they felt their effort had just paid for itself just by getting to someone great with their own eyes.
Micheal also turned his gaze away from the girl and threw his nce at Lord Julius. The man had bulging muscles, a tall body, and long brown hair.
Michael was slightly shocked because even though Julius looked mostly human, he could sense an animalistic aura and see furry sideburns as well as a hairy neck. In Michael''s mind, he slightly resembled the beast in X-Men movies except this man had fair skin instead of blue.
Julius looked down and saw the blood on the ocean''s surface. His face turned cold and unfriendly.
"What''s happening here?"
"System, if he tried to attack us, activate the teleportation scroll and get us to safety" He opened the system to give it an order and momentarily slow the time to n his next moves.
[Yes]
Lord Julius stared at Michael with an unfriendly expression. He had held the auction fair for a long time, and the rules set by him were final; no one ever dared break them. Breaking the rules set by him was equal to disturbing the peaceful order of the trade fair, and it also meant that the person didn''t take his words seriously. The killings may have happened outside the airspace of the Phoenix ind but once they paid the entry fee, they would be a guest of the Phoenix manor and he wouldn''t let his guests kill each other because it was bad for business.
"What''s your name?"
"Ghost."
Michael replied and he had no fear on his face.
"Why did you kill them?" Julius asked and expected Michael to let go of the girl but unlike his expectation, Michael didn''t let go of Maria.
"They tried to kill my friend" He coldly answered. If he wasn''t a Core Strengthening stage cultivator, Michael would have killed him by now because they broke the no fighting on Phenix ind rules and almost killed Gaya yet Julius had done nothing to prevent that.
After Julius''s sudden appearance, the people saw more Core Strengthening cultivators who entered the ind previously also making their appearance. Noah and Alicia greeted Xanali and Peyton with a nod and stared at the scene in silence but Noah noticed the sudden change of expression on both Xanali and Peyton''s faces when they saw Ghost.
Noah could tell they knew him by looking at their face. On the other side, Paul and Victor also appeared out of nowhere but remained silent and let Julius deal with Michael.
Lord Julius was a ruthless demi-human, and he wouldn''t just stick to one style when dealing with people. Many expected him to kill Ghost on the spot because of the way he looked and answered Julius. Despite standing in front of a Core Strengthening stage cultivator, there was no anxiety or fear could be seen on his face but instead, he still seemed cold.
"Don''t you know the rules of Phoenix ind? No killing" Julius''s voice sounded loud and cold. Michael felt immense pressure building up around him.
[Energy devourer activated...]
[Experience points converted 10000]
[Experience points converted 15000]
[Experience points converted 18000]
Suddenly Michael heard the system''s voice in his mind and realized Julius was trying to suppress him by using his cultivation pressure on him. Julius''s cultivation pressure was solely focused on Michael and because of that and the way Julius controlled his Arch Energy, anyone under the Core Strengthening stage didn''t notice or feel the pressure. When Julius saw him withstand his pressure, there was a hint of shock in his eyes. Victor scanned Michael from head to toe while Paul stared at the mortal girl behind him and had a sense of familiarity.
"They tried to kill my friend on the Phoenix ind, why didn''t no one stop them?" The pressure disappeared after he questioned Julius. The question made Julius turn and look at the girl beside him who looked anxious and nervous. Soon after turning his gaze away from the girl, Julius coldly said,
"It''s me and my men who decide the punishment for such crimes, not you. Let go of the girl or"
"Or what?"
"You''ll be an enemy of the Phoenix manor!"
Lord Julius coldly harrumphed and became hostile. His words sounded so loud as they almost gave many weak-hearted cultivators a heart attack.
"Gho...st" Gaya tucked his sleeve and tried to let go of Maria. She wanted to kill Maria more than Michael but she knew it''s impossible to kill Maria now since Julius has ordered Ghost to let go of her. Besides, she had more pressing concerns than killing Maria.
"If you ask politely, we might consider helping you Ghost" Peyton moved forwards a little and snickered. Michael slowly turned his sharp gaze at Peyton.
"I don''t need the Guardians to save me" the crowd was again taken aback by the tone of his voice. He sounded colder and hostile. Before Peyton could say anything he turned to look back at Julius. For a few seconds, one could hear nothing except for the waves as they stared at Michael for his answer.
And then after a few seconds of silence, he opened his mouth
"And I don''t give a fuck about Pheonix manor. She hurt my friend, so she will die"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 4000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 Badass points]
¡.
Michael''s words brought a storm to the crowds as Julius''s face turned dark in anger.
"Oh heavens! This Ghost is really a daring guy!"
"He''s dead, he is D-E-A-D!"
"He not only offended a guardian, he even disrespected Lord Julius in front of all these people"
"You little bastard! Do you think you cane to my ind and disrespect me and leave this ce alive?" Julius''s killing intent skyrocketed as many people moved a few meters away from Julius terrified.
"Brat, are you really going to get yourself killed for a mortal girl?" Paul moved forward and asked before Julius could strike him down.
"Old man, she''s my friend and that''s all it matters to me" Paul helpless shook his head and said, "well, nice seeing yah brat"
Paul moved back to where he was before while Victor nced at Michael with a small grin on his face.
"Prepare to die!" After these words left Julius''s mouth, a gigantic bear w appeared from Julius''s hands and stunned everyone in the scene.
"What if he could leave this Crystal ocean alive Julius? " Just as everyone was staring at the gigantic bear w made of Arch Energy of a Core Strengthening cultivator, they heard a voice.
Then in a sh, Victor appeared beside Julius, "humph, if he can move? 10 meters away from where he''s standing now, I will let him and that girl live"
Michael didn''t need any help from Victor however, he knew Victor was trying to make an ally.
"Kid, do you think you can kill that girl and escape a Core Strengthening cultivator''s wrath?"
"Watch me"
Chapter 91 - Too Easy To Get = Just As Easy To Forget
"You gonna be alright" In a thick forest far away from the Phoenix ind, a girl was resting under arge tree while a young man was tending to the girl.
This girl and boy was none other than Gaya and Michael.
After Victor intervened between Michael and Julius, Michael killed Maria by breaking her neck and used the teleportation scroll and disappeared from everyone''s sight in a sh. The teleportation wasn''t anything fancy but the moment the system activated the scroll, he and Gaya vanished into thin air.
He got a crazy amount of Badass points and he wished he could see the looks on their faces. Also before their disappearance,Michael paid the system a 100 Badass points to leave a note inside Victor''s coat.
"No...I''m...not(cough)...(cough)" Gaya''s face was full of green veins as she coughed out more blood. The blood emitted a pungent smell and had a tinge of green shade to it.
"Keep drinking the healing potion" He poured another bottle of healing potion while scanning his surroundings.
"Fuck, I never thought I would be poisoned by my own poison" After drinking the healing potion, she was able to speak more clearly without vomiting blood.
"You coated the arrows with your own poison huh? This poison, where did you get it?" Michael was very interested in getting more of this poison because, from the first day he brewed Fear toxin, he was trying to make an antidote as he didn''t want to be identally affected by the Fear toxin.
To sessfully finish the fear toxin antidote, he missed one vital ingredient. The ingredient needed to be extremely potent poison, high acidity level, thicker than the blood. With his knowledge in Alchemy, he could find a few poisons matching these requirements except one, the ingredient had to be nonmmable even at an extremely high temperature. And now, he finally found it.
"I always keep a bottle of my poison in my space ring, here take it" She removed the space ring and handed it over to Michael as tears started to roll out of her eyes.
"Human, I can''t believe that I''m going to say this but the past thirty days were the happiest days of my life " Michael gently smiled as she continued,
"I only wish you bastard had cured me but it doesn''t matter now, human" she reached her hand out and grabbed Michael''s hand.
"Tell me the truth, Do you really consider me as your friend?" She squeezed his hand and weakly smiled
"I wouldn''t have offended Julius and his entire Phoenix manor if you weren''t my friend" Her loyalty had already passed the 70% and reached the 76%, therefore, he really did consider her his friend now. However, he still had one more trick up his sleeve to massively increase her loyalty.
"Bury me(cough) in Nagnd(cough)...(cough) beside my(cough) mother, human" The healing potion lost its effect and the poison in her body started to get worse.
"You''re not going to die" Michael wiped her tears and opened the system
"System, how long does it take me to heal her?"
[Host, the subordinate has been poisoned by a very potent poison. Simply healing her meridians will not save her, you have to restore her cultivation level for her body to take control over the poison]
"I hope this is thest thing I do to manipte her" Michael heaved a long sigh and took the blood-red pill he concocted before leaving the sect.
[Host, are you really going to take this pill?]
"System, what is too easy to get is also too easy to forget," He said and put the pill into his mouth.
"System, Heal her meridians and restore her cultivation level," he said before swallowing the pill and exiting the system''s interface.
"Gaya, I''m going to cure you using an ancient technique, hold my hand tight and never let go" She was bewildered by his words and before she could ask any question, he gritted his teeth like he was in extreme pain.
"Hhhhgrrr" The pill he took started to show its effects. It was a pain inducer that would activate all his pain receptors and make him feel an extreme amount of pain for a short amount of time.
He knew what he had done maybe dumb or stupid but he wanted to make sure Gaya''s loyalty get as high as it could. In the future, he has to trust herpletely, and to get to that certain trust level, he decided to go through this trail of pain in front of her. ording to his n, by seeing how much pain he''s in, she would feel grateful and be more loyal to him. Just like he said to the system, if he had healed her easily, she may or may not have forgotten it quickly and felt less grateful towards him.
He could have faked the pain but he knew she can tell the difference as he was not an oscar-winning actor.
"Human" Gaya suddenly sensed a hot wave passing through her body and felt her meridians being healed quickly.
"Arrggghhhh!" Michael growled and fought against the pain. Each and every pain receptor in his body got activated by the pill. He was experiencing a pain hundred times more than being shot by a revolver.
"Im..healed" a few seconds after, she sensed her fully healed meridians and almost shouted in delight.
[Congrattions to the host! Subordinate Gaya has reached 85% loyalty]
"Human, what is happening to you?!" She couldn''t feel happy seeing the blooding out of his nostrils and ears. She leaned forward and clenched his hands. Soon after a few moments, his hands started to twitch as Gaya reached the Body Strengthening stage. Yet, she was not in the mood to celebrate or wonder how. She was extremely worried looking at the amount of blooding out of his nostrils and ears and wanted to stop his suffering.
[Congrattions to the host! Subordinate Gaya has reached 90% loyalty]
"Human, tell me what is happening to you?! Please stop this, I''m healed!" she screamed and couldn''t stop her tears from rolling out of her eyes.
"Ghost!" There was something in that shout of hers, a pain behind it. She watched Michael''s eyes. She felt desperate, angry, and helpless seeing him go through this agony just to save her.
[Congrattions to the host! Subordinate Gaya has reached 95% loyalty]
[Congrattions to the host! Subordinate Gaya has beenpletely healed and reached the Core Formation Stage level 7]
Ten minutes after, the pain he was feeling disappeared but he was exhausted. His body betrayed him as he fell backward but instead of hitting the ground, Gaya''s ample bosom cushioned his downfall.
His face twitched when her tearsnded on his face as he let out a gentle but weak smile."I told...you not..going to die"
"You bastard!? Don''t you dare die on me" Gaya cried andughed at the same time. Right after that, the healing potion appeared in Michael''s hand and she immediately grabbed the potion and poured it into his mouth.
While the healing potion was tending to his aching organs and muscles, he opened up the system and checked his status.
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 10
Experience Points: 180000/200000
Badass Points: 78000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 1
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 78% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 685,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The number of Experience points and the Badass points eased his pain.
"The trip to the Phoenix ind is absolutely worth it"
He exited the system with an elevated mood disregarding the fact that he just made an enemy out of Julius and probably the pink-robed disciples'' families or sect.
After exiting the system, Gaya''s smiling face weed him. She removed the mask and stood before him with her real face. She was extremely beautiful even when she was just a mortal but now, she reached another level in terms of beauty and elegance.
"How are you feeling?"
"How are you feeling?"
Both of them asked the same question at the same time.
"Let me"
"Let me"
It happened again as the both of them chuckled a bit and waited a few seconds to let the other speak. However, instead of speaking, Gaya walked forward and hugged him tightly.
"Oh never expected this" Michael smiled and embraced her back. Unlike before, now she was stronger and powerful than him and he could feel it by the strength of her hug.
He knew that if she desired, she could easily crush him just with her physical strength.
"What the fuck did you expect? This is what best friends do" Michael had? never been hugged before like this. There was something so warm, something that felt right, smelt right. On the other hand, Gaya felt her body press in, soft and warm. This was something she''d waited for, prayed for. She inwardly thanked her mother and hugged all the tighter.
A friendship like this was to be cherished for life. Finally, both of them felt like they were home.
Chapter 92 - Mysterious Of The Dark Forest I
"You can let go of me now" Michael patted her on the back and said.
"Right" Finally after embracing him for a long couple of minutes, she stepped back with a wide grin on her face.
Considering she was healed and reached her peak cultivation level, there were no worries in her heart and that joy brightened her face. Moreover, she finally found a true friend who risked his life to save her twice.
"Can we go and ughter that Maria bitch''s family now? Because of that bitch, we had to leave the Phoenix ind without attending the auction" she seemed so fearless and dominant. It made her hotter than before.
"Jeez, cool down. Yes, you''re healed but it doesn''t mean you can go running around the kingdom killing people" Instead of using the flying sword, Michael felt like taking a walk through the forest as Gaya walked beside him.
"You''re right, that Xanali bitch has wider reach now since she joined the Guardians" she gritted her teeth and said
"What happened back on the ind after I left you anyways?"
"Sigh" with a long heave of sigh, Gaya began to narrate the events that happened with Maria and her group. He silently listened to her without asking a question. While hearing her story, he was mad at Julius, and his ipetence in enforcing the rules than Maria and her friends. Julius prevented not only Maria and her friends from attacking Gaya but he also tried to stop him from killing Maria who was the main reason for what happened to Gaya.
Just a few moments before Michael started to kill Maria''s group, Julius was working on a new deal with a group of people from the Ozer continent and failed to seal the deal. Julius was already frustrated by this and how Michael acted in front of him made him even more furious. He tried to take that frustration on Michael but he ultimately failed to do so.
"The fact we left Phoenix with empty hands is making me furious"
Thop!
She vented her anger on the old log on the ground by kicking it. The log of wood instantly broke into pieces and surprised Michael with her strength.
Soon, a grin appeared on his face as he stopped walking.
"What''s so funny?" seeing the grin on his face, she asked and saw an old book appear in his hand.
"Who said we left Phoenix with empty hands?" she curiously grabbed the book and opened it to see worn-out yellow pages. The words made little sense as they were written in an ancientnguage.
She continued to rummage through the book but she couldn''t find anything interesting about the book.
"Please tell me you didn''t spend a fortune on this" She shut the book frustrated and stared at Michael.
"No, I did not, just five thousand coins"
"What?! Why?!"? Although five thousand coins weren''t much, there was no way this old book in her hand worth that price.
"System, show me its secrets" Michael had zero worries about the book because he knew the book is worth more than mere 5000 gold coins.
[1000 Badass points to reveal the book''s secret]
"Again? I already paid you four thousand Badass points'''' The system didn''t even sound like asking but instead it sounded more like demanding. When ites to the system''s tricks like this, he felt so helpless.
[The host can of course try to scour this world for clues while avoiding the deadly traps, decode the book, and find its secret or you can pay 1000 badass points to know the secret now]
"This is better be worth it"
[is that a yes?]
"Yes," he gritted his teeth and said yes to the haughty system.
[Loading...] the system entered into the loading screen as he patiently waited for the system to finish decoding the book. Surprisingly it only took fifteen seconds for the system to work its magic on the book
[Bleed on the book to reveal its secrets!]
He sighed and exited the system.
"Why did you pay five freakin thousand gold coins for this book?! Didn''t I tell you that ce is filled with swindlers" she yelled at him like his mother as he grabbed the book from her hand with a smirk. Then a small crack of lightning appeared from the tip of his finger and cut his palm.
"What are you doing?"? He didn''t answer her but let his blood flow onto the book.
Zzzzz Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Suddenly the book let out an unearthly humming and began to vibrate while making their surroundings darker and darker.
"huh?!" Michael''s eyes opened wide when he saw a familiar symbol appear on the book''s cover, L.
Soon, a puff of smoke emerged from the book and transformed into a key and an old piece of paper.
"What is it?" Gaya grabbed the piece of paper while Michael grabbed the key and put the book back into the system''s storage.
She then opened the piece of paper and stared at it, "Human, it''s a map of the dark forest" her face became clouded when she mentioned the dark forest.
He could see the gloominess in her eyes and the words dark forest alone irked him differently as he couldn''t describe the feeling.
"Is it pointing towards somewhere?"
"Yes, to the middle of the dark forest" he took the paper from her hand and saw the symbol of L marked on the middle of the dark forest.
The mark of L piqued his curiosity because it seemed like the exact L he left after killing the wanted criminals as Lucifer. He couldn''t believe this is a coincidence and wanted to go to the ce on the map.
"Let''s go there now"
"Human no!" Gaya quickly grabbed his hand and stopped him. Her tone was filled with unwillingness and terror.
"Why? Are you afraid of the dark forest?"
"Who doesn''t? Even the most powerful cultivators avoid that evil ce"
As usual, Abras was taught nothing about the dark forest and Michael had to depend on Gaya to know more about the dark forest.
"And why is that?" Normally she would make fun of him for having ack of knowledge and self praise her before answering him but now, she looked like she is not in the mood for jokes.
"Because that forest is evil and haunted as hell. Only a few entered the dark forest and they never came out of the forest alive except one"
"What happened to him?"
"He lost his mind and killed himself a few days after, that''s what happened"
"Interesting, let''s talk more on the way," Michael said and took out the flying sword.
"The fuck? Didn''t you hear what I just said?"? She tried to stop him but he already jumped on the flying sword ready to fly towards the dark forest.
"If you are so afraid then you can go to the sect and wait for me," He said but he knew she woulde with him despite her fear of the dark forest.
Normally he would have also felt reluctant to enter this ce after hearing Gaya''s warning but the symbol L piqued his curiosity and the abundance of Badass points gave him the courage to do so.
She breathed heavily and looked hesitant to jump on the flying sword. Yet, after a few moments, she gritted her teeth and decided to venture into the dark forest with him.
"I''ll definitely haunt your ass forever if I die there"
"You can''t haunt the Ghost, hahaha" He chuckled and took off with Gaya. Luckily the system marked the location of the L in his environmental scanning map and therefore, he didn''t need Gaya to show the way.
"Hey, where did you learn to fly like this?!" She had to hug him from behind not to fall down because of his flying speed. They flew like a bolt of lightning.
"From Sadie" Gaya pinched him when she heard his answer making himugh out aloud.
"If I see you banging that slut again, I will burn her alive"
"Why? Are you jealous?"
"Because I don''t like her, you jerk"
"Do you know a way to hide your cultivation level? At least until you reach the Core Strengthening stage"
Obviously, it would raise questions if a mortal girl turns into a Core Formation stage cultivator in a single day and Michael didn''t want to attract the attention of the Guardians or Xanali.
"I know a spell that would mask my current cultivation level and make me look like a Body Refining stage cultivator"
"How reliable is this spell? Can Xanali or anyone find out your real cultivation level?"
"Don''t worry, it''s an epic ss spell. Only cultivators above the Soul Refining stage can see through the spell"
"Great, I will tell the people that I gave you a ten thousand years old ck lotus to revitalize your meridians and increased your cultivation level"
"Make sense" As an Alchemist he knew the medicinal qualities of all the herbs in this world and ck Lotus was a rare flower that''s used to revitalize the meridians. It would transform a mediocre cultivator into a genius.
"By the way human, how did you heal me?"
"I transferred some of my soul energy into your meridians and nearly died"
"Oh?" She embraced him more tightly thinking about what he did for her.
"Thank you, human"
Chapter 93 - Mysterious Of The Dark Forest II
"There it is, the... dark forest" After a few hours of flying away, the dark forest appeared in their eyes. Gaya stuttered in fear and Michael didn''t me her because the sight freaked him out too.
He halted flying and floated there without moving any further. When Gaya said Dark forest he didn''t expect the forest to be literally dark. Back on earth, the tallest tree was 115meters tall and in the dark forest, each tree seemed 100-150 meters tall. Each tree looked gigantic and the mist around the dark forest gave out a dreary atmosphere.
Above the dark forest, the stormy clouds and cracks of lightning added anotheryer of terror to the forest. There was nothing beautiful about this forest but terror.
"Human, do we really have to enter that evil ce? Can''t we just go back and call it a day?" He had never seen her terrified like this before as she was shivering, stuttering, and sweating continuously. He was familiar with Gaya''s symptoms.
"If you are so afraid, hold me tight," He said and slowly flew forward as sps of thunder reverberated the area.
[Warning! The firewall is failing!]
"Ah!"
"What?" suddenly he heard Gaya scream and the warning sound from the system in his mind and quickly stopped moving forward. He then turned back and saw her mouth stuttering like she was in an extremely cold ce.
"I saw...i...saw...something"
"Saw what? What the?!" he too saw something sh across him and disappear.
[Warning! The firewall is failing!]
[Rmend the host to leave the area as soon as possible!]
[The System found high traces of Fear toxin in the air!]
"Shit!" the moment he heard the word fear toxin, he turned back and bolted out of the white mist.
"Hu..man"
"You''re just seeing things, stay calm" In front of him, he saw witches and old women on brooms flying around him. This was one of his fears buried deep in his mind. When he was six years old, he broke into the orphanage library and read Hansel and Gretel at midnight. Ever since then, he was afraid of witches and freaky old women. His mentor locked him with twenty freakishly dressed-up old women in a room for weeks to get him out of his fear.
However now, the fear toxin brought one of his deepest fears and made him see old witches on brooms everywhere.
"Hey, Mickey!"
"You want some candy! Hehehehe"
"Come to grandma!"
He then soon began to hear screeching voices, "I''m hallucinating!"
"Ah! Go away!" from behind him, Gaya started to scream and fired arrows into the air.
"System!"
[want some candy¡.] even after he opened the system, he still continued to hear the voices and saw the wrinkly old faces in front of him.
"Where is it?! Got..it" he was d to see the failed fear toxin antidote and immediately grabbed it to add the onest ingredient to finish the antidote.
"Hey"
"Go away!"
Plop!
"Ah!" he pped Gaya on the back of her head to momentarily get her attention towards him.
"Give me your poison!" her eyes were opened wide. He could tell that she''s hallucinating and probably seeing something else instead of his real face.
"NOW!" Because of the firewall, he was able to remain mostly sane. Fortunately, his shout snapped out of her hallucination for a second and it was enough for her to retrieve and give him a tiny vial that contains her poison.
Shhhhhhhhhh!!
He didn''t waste any time as he immediately poured the dark green poison into the antidote vial. The poison reacted with the rest of the antidote and let out a boiling sound. Just as she was about topletely lose her mind and aim her arrow at him, he poured the antidote into her mouth and forced her to swallow.
Only then did he drink the antidote because he didn''t want Gaya, a Core Formation level warrior to go berserk on him in mid-air.
Following the intake of the antidote, the old witches on brooms started to disappear from his sight one by one.
"Come out you ugly fucking lizards!" she screamed and continued to fire arrows at nothing but air.
"Stop, it''s alright" Both of them stood on the flying swords for a couple of minutes before the effects of the fear toxinpletely disappeared. Gaya slowly lowered her bow and started to see things clearly.
"What the fuck just happened?! I told you bastard not toe here, let''s get the fuck out of here before it''s toote" she urged him and grabbed his hand to fly away but instead of flying away from the dark forest, he flew straight towards it.
"Hey! Stop!"
"Just shut up ande with me" despite her strong protest, he didn''t back off because after being affected by the fear toxin, his curiosity reached the next level. He didn''t activate the lightning dash but flew slowly and cautiously expecting more traps.
"We were poisoned and hallucinated, didn''t we?" Gaya asked and tightly grasped her bow.
"Yes and we won''t be poisoned again"
"I know all the poisons there is to know but I have never seen such a dangerous poison. Good thing you had an antidote in hand and speaking of which, did you ask for my poison?" Her memories when she was affected by the fear toxin were still blurry but she could vaguely remember him asking her poison.
"Your poison is thest ingredient I needed to finish the antidote"
"That means you were trying to create an antidote way before today and you must have known about this poison right? No one can create an antidote without having the full knowledge about the poison. How the hell did you know?"
"Because I created it, the fear toxin" His grave voice stunned her for a moment.
"You created it? Are you from the freakin dark forest? Is that why you have no knowledge about the outside world? Are you really a human or a fucking spirit? holy shit, that''s why you call yourself Ghost!" She fired questions like arrows while Michael slowly passed through the outskirts and entered the dark forest.
She became silent when they entered the dark forest. There was no sunlight or any light passing through the monstrous ckish trees and the thick canopy. The day became night, a misty bluish night as they slowly flew towards the L that was on the map.
"I can''t believe I''m in the dark forest" she vigntly looked around and whispered.
CawCah!
The sudden sound of a crow halted their flying and when they looked up in the direction of the sound, they vaguely saw a gigantic crow with blood-red eyes through the mist.
"Shit" just a second after, there were hundreds of blood-red eyes staring at them through the mist and sending a chill through their spines. What shocked them most was all these gigantic crows were at the Body Refining stage and Michael could even see a Body Refining stage level 9 crow among them.
"Even the crows are at the Body Refining stage and this is just the border of the forest " She whispered and didn''t make any sudden movements to startle the crows. The crows slowly turned their heads and watched them while they were flying forward like sentries.
The more they fly into the forest, the more dark and gloomy it got. The bone-chilling breeze, an ominous smell, gigantic webs of spiders, and asional rattling sounds apanied them through the forest.
"Hey look down, bones" through the darkness, Michael looked down to see bones lying around the ground.
"How far do we have to fly?" she questioned.
"Not far, we are near" In the Environmental map, he could see he''s getting closer to the mark but in front of him, there was nothing but giant trees.
"We are at the mark" he didn''tnd as the ground was filled with thick interwoven roots and which seemed like a of thorns.
"But there''s nothing here" She was having mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was d that there''s nothing here as she could get off this evil ce, and on the other hand, she was disappointed as she expected something more dramatic to happen.
"The key" Michael remembered the key and retrieved it back from his system storage.
Zzz Hhhhhhhhhhhhh
A few moments after he took out the key, the key vibrated and let out a humming sound but soon, the key stopped vibrating and remained still in his hand.
"That was weird, human, take out that book" it was also Michael''s thought as he took out the book.
Boom!
The moment the book came out of his storage, a loud booming sound echoed through the forest and made all the crows in the distance fly away.
Soon, they noticed the roots above the ground and the mesh of thorns slowly moved away to reveal a ck metal door with the mark L on it.
"I think that''s the ce" Gaya pointed out the door as the door let out a creaking sound and slowly opened.
Both Michael and Gaya didn''t utter a word but they descended and flew down through the door. After flying down for a couple of minutes, they finally saw the ground andnded on the cold floor.
Chapter 94 - The Abyssal I
After stepping down from the flying sword, he shifted his attention to his surroundings and began to look around.
Creak!
Right after a few seconds, the door above them let out a creaking noise and closed itself," Fuck, now we are stuck" She cursed and menacingly looked at Michael like he was to me for all this.
"Spit it out, did you build this ce too without telling me?"
"What are you talking about? The fear toxin is my own creation, I don''t know how it ended up here in such arge amount, the air was filled with fear toxin"
Gaya deeply sighed and said," obviously you were only thinking that you created it first but someone or something created it way before you "
"That seems to be the case," he said and began to walk forward while thinking about the fear toxin in the air and the mark of L on the door. The fear toxin, the mark of L, and everything in this dark forest seemed like they were all connected to his other persona, Lucifer.
Gaya conjured a ball of green fire to light their way. While walking into what seemed to be like an underground shelter, they noticed the surrounding walls around them have dense cracks on them, and several stone columns already copsed. It was clear that this ce has already corroded by time.
From the looks of things around them, Gaya was pretty sure that there is no treasure around them. However, she sensed the high density of Arch Energy as it was at least several times stronger than the outside.
"This ce is perfect for cultivation. I think, whatever this ce is has some kind of mechanism to increase the density of the Arch Energy"
Michael nodded nkly and kept walking. He was more concerned about how the dark forest has the fear toxin and the mark of Lucifer.
He followed the path in front of him and walked for quite a while until he saw a spacious hall with arge circr table in the middle.
"Wee, Lord Lucifer" suddenly a deep voice appeared.
Both of them were shocked. They didn''t expect there''s actually someone inside and Michael didn''t sense anything. Moreover, the voice clearly said Lucifer.
"Lucifer?" Gaya was confused and prepared for a battle as ck smoke started to emerge from the table before them. Soon, the ck smoke transformed into a middle-aged man. He floated above the table and then, he raised his hands and lit the torches around them. Michael tried to sense the cultivation level of the apparition before him but he simply failed and Gaya was not an exception.
"Who are you?"
"Lord Lucifer, I''m Damien Duke, thest member of the Order of Death. This is the recording I made in the year of Procavia, star position Squalus"
"Three thousand years ago?!" Gaya instantly recognized the year the recording was made. She was stunned and so was Michael.
"We lost the war with the Guardians, the Supreme Guardian, and the Elder Guardians killed all of my brothers and sisters. They destroyed all of our hideouts and this is thest one but they won''t find this one as I made sure of it" Damien Duke said and Michael could see the anger and sadness in Damien''s eyes.
"If you''re seeing this, it means the prophecy has begun. From the Ashes of the order, Lord Lucifer will rise and with Lord Lucifer, the order will once again rule the world" There was a fire in Damien''s eyes when he spoke the words.
"Lord Lucifer, the abyss will serve you as your home. Forgive your subordinate''s ipetence for leaving you nothing, the Supreme Guardian and the Elder Guardians destroyed all of our resources and secrets except the book that led you here. It''s not much but with the help of the book, you can rebuild the order to serve you in your path against the Guardians and your enemies" Michael looked at the old book in his hand, and then he noticed the hollow that was shaped like this book on the table.
"If you''re lucky, you can still find some of the ruins of the order and pige what''s left of it. Also, Lord Lucifer, be careful, the Supreme Guardian and the Elder Guardians may even still be alive the time you watch this. I don''t know whether they know about the prophecy or not but if they do, I''m sure that they are still searching for you. I did my best to protect the abyss but the beasts and the hell gas won''t stand a chance against the Elder Guardians...."
Suddenly the apparition blurred and Damien''s voice was abruptly cut off. Soon after, Damien''s figurepletely disappeared from their sight leaving with more questions than answers.
Especially Michael, he was still in shock and surprise. What he created to kill his enemies and earn experience points turned out to be a prophecy.
"System, do you have any connection with this order? And how did they know about me three thousand years ago?"
[System level is too low to answer the host''s question]
"Human, take a look at this" a few meters away from the hall, Gaya called out for him. While thinking about everything Damien said, he came to Gaya and received another shock.
"Lucifer" He mumbled and looked at the painting hanging on the wall. It was the painting of his other persona, Lucifer. In the painting, he was wearing a more enhanced and different suit of ck armor but the red eyes, as well as the skull mask, clearly indicated that the figure on the painting was none other than Lucifer.
"I have a weird feeling that you know this Lucifer, human. Besides, he said the dark forest is protected by hell gas and beasts but we saw no beasts on the way, and coincidentally, you said that you created this fear toxin" Michael could tell she''s already started to suspect him that he''s Lucifer.
"I''m Lucifer" before Gaya could beat around the bush further, Michael revealed the truth to her.
"I knew it!"
Creak!
Following her shout, another creaking sound appeared and made them quickly turn away their heads towards the round table.
She showed away all her questions aside and vigntly followed Michael behind to the table. When they came to the table, everything was the same except, there was a throne in front of the round table.
The throne resembled the iron throne except instead of swords, this throne was made of skulls and bones. The throne radiated an ominous aura that made her feel disturbed and slightly afraid. It was almost 2.5 meters in height and 2 meters in width. She silently stared at him feeling the skulls and bones on the throne as his lips began to curl upwards.
Then with the grin on his face, Michael sat on the throne and felt something powerful run through his body.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host, the abyss is now the Host''s Base of Operations!]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for bing the Lord of the Order of Death]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for acquiring a Legendary ss Item, The Abyssal throne. The Host''s skill Death range has upgraded to level 2]
The system sounded in his mind and widened his grin. He knew he can''t change what happened in the past or what has happened to the Order or why did the Guardians destroy them, however, he can decide what''s going to happen in the future as Lucifer and Ghost.
"So are you going to tell me what the hell is going on here?" Gaya came before him and leaned on the table.
"System, equip the Lucifer attire"
"Shit!" The next moment, Gaya jumped back in shock because she saw Michael transform into someone else or something else in a sh.
"Lucifer" she mumbled and stared at the red eyes. Although she was a Core Formation cultivator now, she couldn''t help but feel afraid looking at him in front of her.
"Hu...Human"
"I''m Lucifer," He said again but this time, his voice was inhumane and terrifying.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
He slowly stood up from the throne as Gaya stepped backward. She could sense the antidote in her body fighting against the fear toxin evaporating from his body and preventing her from hallucinating as well as feeling terrified again.
"What I''m about to tell you must stay between us" because the suit made him somewhat look taller and bulkier, she had to slightly look up.
Since she had reached 95% loyalty towards him, he had no problem trusting her. Therefore, he told her what happened to Vardan and the many criminals he killed in Sarton and Bradford. He obviously didn''t tell anything about the system''s involvement as he said he found the suit of armor in a cave during one of his travels.
After silently hearing everything he said, she let out a long sigh and looked directly into his red eyes.
"What''s our n here Lucifer?"
"We are going to fulfill the prophecy"
"You mean?"
"Yes, we will rebuild the order and conquer this world. I will kill anyone who stands in my way"
Chapter 95 - The Abyssal II
Inside the dark gloomy walls of the Abyssal, Michael leaned back on his throne after revealing his goal to Gaya. This was not the first time she heard him saying he wants to conquer this world and after seeing the miracles he performed, she really believed he could rule this world.
"Give me the book," She asked for the book after taking a look at the book-shaped hollow on the table. Micheal tossed the book and waited for something to happen as she ced the book on the hollow.
Tap tap!
Seeing nothing is happening, she lost her patience and dabbed the book a couple of times.
"Great, this thing is not working. It seems we have to rebuild this order from the ground up with no help " said Gaya.
"It''s alright, we don''t need any help from the people who were crushed by the guardians. Give me your hand" as he said, he stood up from his throne and came to her.
She obediently reached out her right arm. He then took his knife out and cut her palm as she slightly flinched.
"Why did you do that?" Instead of answering her, he kept a hand above the table and let her bleed on the table for a couple of seconds.
"From this day onwards, you''re my second inmand. I name you the Queen of the Abyssal" There was shock, delight, pride, and shyness hidden in her eyes when she heard his words.
"I ept your offer, human besides who else will put up with you except me?" She quickly regained herposure and said. With a pride grin on her face, she walked towards the throne to sit as a Queen of this ce.
"Auch!" however when she was about to ce her but on the throne, she was kicked away by a sudden force that emanated from the throne. The force was so great that she lost her bnce and came iling towards Michael.
"It seems you have bad luck with thrones" Her hands wrapped around his chest as she could feel his hot breath. For a few moments, she lost herself looking into his red eye and he lost himself looking into her radiant ck eyes.
He had never been in love or shared his life with anyone else before but something about this girl attracted him towards her like a ma. She was beautiful, brave, witty, moreover, she was loyal to him.
Both of them remained still very closer to each other letting their hearts rule their emotions rather than their brains.
"hhrrggr" Michael cleared his throat and stepped back as she quickly tried to hide the red blush on her.
"I''ll... go and check the ce out" This was the first time he had seen her blush and before he could fully digest this rare sight, she ran away from the hall.
Back inside the ck skull, Michael also gently smiled and went back to his throne.
***************************
"Look what I found" After staying out of his sight for almost half an hour, she came back fiddling with two identical silver rings.
"Why are you still on that creepy chair? Never mind, see this'''' Since she couldn''t sit on the throne, it became just a creepy chair to her. She tossed one ring to him and kept the other.
"A space ring? Where did you find it?"
"Not a space ring human, an interlinked space ring. Anything you store in one ring can be essed from the other. These space rings are extremely hard to forge and these are not even marked which means no one used them before" Considering she recovered her cultivation, it was time for him to give the resources she needs to cultivate as well as keep maintaining her lifestyle. Therefore he decided to put the gold coins in the space ring to share them with her. The interlinked space ring could only be essed by no one except their owners, so he didn''t need to worry about someone stealing it. Compared to gold coins, he valued badass points more and no one in this entire world could steal them from the system. Also, both of them were not someone who would let someone steal the ring.
"Gaya, what''s mine is yours, and what''s yours is mine" he imed ownership of this ring by marking the ring with his Arch Energy, and then he transferred all the gold coins into the space ring.
"I like that," Gaya said and put the ring on her finger with a smile.
"So what did you find other than these rings?"
"Follow me" Michael followed her through the dark halls passing a couple of empty rooms and after a few minutes of walking, he came before a door that had the L mark etched on it.
"I couldn''t open this door, I guess only you can" Michael wondered how Damien was able to design this ce to recognize him three thousand years after.
For now, he was d that they were able to do this because this ce is way safer than the Sunrise sect. Moreover, he could n his moves freely without worrying about someone spying on him. Simply, this was his Batcave.
Kachak!
The moment he touched the door, it shook violently and slowly opened. He could smell the ancient airing through the cracks. The air had an extremely high concentration of fear toxin and if they didn''t take the antidote before, they would have ended up dead in a matter of seconds. Damien obviously assumed that the fear toxin won''t hurt Lucifer and technically, he was right as Michael was able to finish the antidote.
Thinking about the antidote, he couldn''t help but feel thankful towards Gaya. If he hadn''t saved her from the snakemen in the forest, he couldn''t have finished the antidote. Although it was highly unlikely he would have ended up dead, he would have certainly lost a huge amount of badass points to the System buying the missing ingredients.
He stepped into the darkroom and when Gaya conjured the me to brighten the room, he was disappointed as the room seemed nothing but empty. The room was not asrge as the throne hall but it was not small either. While looking around the empty room, he frowned when he noticed another small door at the end of the room.
"What''s up there?"
"Probably another empty room?" said Gaya and followed him behind to the door.
"Wow," his disappointment disappeared in a sh because he was startled by the sight after he opened the door.
The sight was so stunning as his eyes and mouth opened wide. In front of him were a waterfall and a smallke. He looked up to see how there could be lighting considering they were actually underground. Yet, he could see the sky and the clouds.
"This is a pocket dimension" Since she was a Core Formation level cultivator, she could sense the runes around the ce and be able to recognize its true nature.
"Is it safe to be here?" What if the pocket dimension cut from the real world, this was the first question that appeared in his mind. He quickly stepped back.
"It''s perfectly safe. Once a pocket dimension gets attached to a ce, it stays there, not even an immortal could destroy it. This is definitely a work of a 5star Rune Master and a talented one at that" He sighed in relief. Looking at the beautiful waterfall as well as the blood stinking from his body, he wanted to undress and take a long rxing dip on the smallke before him.
In a sh, he entered the system''s interface and unequipped all his armor except the ck boxers he''s wearing.
"Hey!" seeing him suddenly half-naked, she screeched and turned around.
"You''re fucking naked"
"Notpletely, hehehe" heughed and dashed straight into theke to rx. After all, he deserved a day off after all the killings and trouble he went through.
"How long are you gonna stand there and watch, you perverted snake" after a couple of minutes of swimming, he teased her to make her angry.
"I''m a pervert?! Says the guy who undressed in front of a girl" She wanted to kick his ass for speaking so shamelessly but she ultimately smiled and walked towards him.
"There you go, hop in, the water is at perfect temperature"
"Don''t mind me if I do, CANNONBOLT!" Unlike he was expecting, she didn''t change her dress as she jumped straight into the water cannon bolt style.
"Don''t you have a bathrobe or something?" when she emerged from the water, he asked.
"I left all the clothes I picked at the Phoenix ind, and now I need to go shopping again. I hate that Maria bitch"
Both of them soaked in the water and enjoyed the calmness of the ce.
After a few minutes, she saw a smile on his face," what?"
"Do you know what we need to make this ce even more awesome?"
"No, don''t say it"
"A dragon"
******************************
This is one of my calm before the storm chapters and from the next chapter, the action-packed ride will begin. Also, I''m getting so many questions andments about the FL, well I will reveal the FL in the next chapter!!!!
Chapter 96 - The Dark Lord (Female Lead Reveal)
In farawaynd from Bredia, a group of four people was kneeling in front of a monument. Other than the tall silver monument, there was nothing in the room. The only light came through the hole directly above the monument and encircled the monument.
Shhhhhhh!
All of a sudden, the monument vibrated and glowed as the entire room started to brighten up. Among the four people, two of them were male and the remaining two were women, and one of the women had a long pointy ear and glowing gold hair. They were all god-like existence in the world because they were at the Fusion stage, only one stage behind reaching the Half Immortal stage. However, despite their cultivation level, they were devotedly kneeling in front of the monument with their heads down.
Soon a white smoke emerged from the monument and began to take the shape of a man, a white-haired old man. The four of them slowly looked up with eyes full of devotion and respect.
"Elder Guardian," the four of them said in harmony as the old man let out a weak smile. Behind his weak smile, there was a concern, despair, and a hint of dread in his eyes.
"Stand up Guardians, you should only kneel before the Supreme one" His voice was soft but at the same time, it sounded like an order.
The four of them didn''t disobey his order as they stood up to learn why they were summoned because no one was summoned to this room in a thousand years.
"Guardians, I know what you''re wondering" the old man looked at the four of them quietly for a few seconds and continued," before I tell you why I summoned you all here, tell me what you know about the Dark age" Each of the four had a different expression on their faces when they heard the Elder Guardian.
"And what do you know about the Dark Lord?"
The moment they heard the name Dark Lord the expressions on the guardians'' faces changed dramatically. No one spoke a word for a few moments as they all nkly stared at the Elder Guardian like they didn''t understand the meaning of his question.
Soon, the woman with the pointy ears answered with the deep frown on her face,
"Elder Guardian, we all read the grimoire about the Dark Age and the Dark Lord but..." the pointy ears woman''s voice trailed without finishing her inner thoughts. The four of them clearly didn''t believe the stories about the Dark Lord but they were afraid of telling the Elder Guardian yet, the Elder Guardian could see it on their faces.
"What you read about the Dark Age is real, very real"? His voice was grave and the four of them couldn''t help but recollect everything they read about the Dark Lord in the grimoire. For a few moments, no one uttered any words but one of the men behind the pointy ears woman slightly shivered in fear.
"Then the Dark Lord..." After a long silence, the woman next to the pointy ears woman asked the Elder Guardian as he took a long deep breath before answering them.
The Guardian guild library was one of the most secure ces in the entire world. The library was separated into four levels but only a few knew that there''s another level, a fifth level. Apart from the four guardians in this room, there were only five powerful people who had ess to the fifth level in the library. Unlike the other levels, the fifth level had no spell scrolls or skill books but it had just one book, the Grimoire. No one in the current generation of the Guardians knew who wrote the book but it was mandatory to read the book after a Guardian reaches the Alpha level.
The Grimoire contained two chapters, one chapter about the Dark Age and thest chapter was about the Dark Lord. Although the book barely had more than 3000 words, every sentence in the book described an age of Darkness and horror. For an instance, the book stated that in the Dark age, people would be stripped away of their free will and enved to one master, the Dark Lord.
"The Dark Lord is here somewhere in the world Guardians" Until now, the four of them thought the book was just something to keep the Guardians in the line by making them afraid but now looking at the Elder Guardian''s face, they realized the truth and felt a chill running through their spine. If what they had read is true, the Dark Lord''s first enemy was the Guardian guild and they couldn''t imagine a world full of ves who were stripped away of their free will.
"Elder Guardian, where is he now?!" the four of them immediately asked in rm as they now knew the threat is very real.
"I cannot sense his location, something or someone is preventing me from sensing his location. However, I can sense his powers grow by each day and he''s already gained a powerful ally to aid him in his war with us"
"Elder Guardian, how can we help you? Just say the word, the entire hunter Guardians are at your disposal"? The pointy ears woman put her hand on the chest and said.
"The Sorcerer Guardians are ready to serve justice!" One of the men who stood behind the woman stepped forward and did the same as the pointy ears woman.
"The Warrior Guardians are waiting for yourmand, Elder Guardian!"
"The Beast Guardians are at your disposal, Elder Guardian!"
There was only a weak smile that could be seen on the Elder Guardian''s face as he knew that no one in this world can stop the Dark Lord except one person, the Supreme Guardian.
However, the Supreme Guardian had sacrificed himself a long time ago to keep the Dark Lord away from this world three thousand years ago. The Supreme Guardian was not the only one who sacrificed himself for this cause as all the Elder Guardians also made the same sacrifice except the one before the Alpha Guardians.
Everyone in the Guardian guild believed the Supreme Guardian and the Elder Guardians were still alive considering they had all reached the Immortal level a long time ago. Yet, the truth was not what they believed till now.
"Elder Guardian, if what the Grimoire is real, then Elder Guardians and the Supreme Guardian can stop the Dark Lord again right?"
Hearing the Guardian leader of the Hunter Guardians, the pointy ears woman, the Elder Guardian decided that this is the time he tells them the truth before he too passes away because he was nearing the end of his life.
"You are confusing the Order of Death with the Dark Lord, Alpha Guardian. Three thousand years ago, we stopped the Order of Death, a cult with the purpose of serving the Dark Lord in his way to world domination. It''s time you know the secrets we kept from the Guardian guild all these years. Until three thousand years ago, the world was controlled by a dark cult, they called themselves, the Order of Death. They had people everywhere, even in the Guardian guild " the four of them were momentarily stunned by the words of the Elder Guardian because the Guardian guild was the hardest guild to get into as they had numerous ways to test one''s intention and purpose before making someone a Guardian. Therefore, when they heard the Guardian guild was infiltrated by the Order of Death three thousand years ago, they realized the true power and the reach of this cult.
"It took us almost a hundred years to find out all the members of the cult before waging war on them. We lost many Elder Guardians in the war but eventually because of the SUpreme Guardian, we killed all the cultists and destroyed everything they had. However, after we dismantled the cult, we eventually discovered that the cult believed, in the future, someone with godly powers will appear and begin the Age of Darkness, the Supreme Guardian called that someone the Dark Lord. For many years after the war, the Supreme Guardian went such lengths to confirm the information about the Dark Lord"
There was a small pause in the Elder Guardian''s voice as his mind recalled? that day the Supreme Guardian shared what he found. That was the day the Elder Guardians had seen the Supreme Guardian frightened for the first time in their life. Even when he fought the Leader of the order, Valerin, the Supreme Guardian wasn''t afraid but that day, they saw the fear of God in his eyes.
"The Grimoire you read is not just a book, it''s thest words of the Supreme Guardian himself" The words that came out of the Elder Guardian stunned the rest of them because they didn''t expect the Gromiure was written by their leader, the Supreme Guardian. And what shocked them most was thest part of what he said.
"Elder Guardian..."
"Yes, the Supreme Guardian is not with us, not for threest millennials. And I''m thest living Elder Guardian" The day got even worse as they received another blow to their heart by the Elder Guardian. They didn''t even know how to react to this grave news.
"Without the Supreme Guardian, how are we going to face the Dark Lord, Elder Guardian? Please guide us" The pointy ears woman imminently dropped to her knees and pleaded and soon, they all dropped to their knees because they didn''t underestimate the uing threat, a threat that was not only to the Guardians but to the entire world.
"You cannot face the Dark Lord alone, there''s only one person who could defeat the Dark Lord"
"Who is he Elder Guardian?! My hunters will scour this world to find him" The Alpha Guardian of the Hunter Guardians, the pointy ears woman said with the newfound hope in her voice.
"The ring left behind by the Supreme Guardian has already found its new master. I can sense he''s still young and he''s in the Elon continent. Find him, find your new Supreme Guardian before the Dark Lord. The fate of the world is now resting on that youngster''s shoulder" This was the Elder Guardian''sst words before he vanished from their sight and with this began the search for the new Supreme Guardian.
At this moment, they had only heard very little about the Dark Lord and the Dark age because the Supreme Guardian didn''t write everything he had seen in the future. What he wrote and mentioned about the Dark Lord was just the tip of the huge iceberg. Three thousand years ago, he knew if he had written everything he knew, the future generations would have lost all their hope and courage to fight the Dark Lord and his army. He and his Elder Guardians sacrificed themselves to the gods to cage the Dark Lord in a universe where there were billions ofs with no energy to cultivate.
He hoped the Dark Lord would be born and die on a with no energy but even the gods that helped him couldn''t stop the Dark Lord froming to his world.
*************************
Many of you have already guessed our Female Lead but I want to confirm the Female Lead myself.
Our Female Lead is none other than ....Sadie...
Hehehehe just kidding¡.It''s our beloved snakey ===>>>> GAYA !!!!!!!
Hail the QUEEN!!!!
Hope you all are happy with her being the FL and if you''re not, wait till you see the badass moments of Gaya in the future chapters!
Chapter 97 - Another Day In Noah鈥檚 Life I
At the moment, three figures were standing inside a temple atop a mountain. The lush green forests and the waterfalls made the scenery magnificent while giving them a soothing feel.
"If my guess is not wrong, they are nning to ambush us at tomorrow''s prayer ceremony" the one who said this was a young man in pure white robes. On the youngster''s shoulder, a golden furred monkey sat rxedly and munching on juicy red fruit. He was none other than Noah and behind him, Alicia was standing in silence.
"It seems Uncle Levi has no idea. Should we tell him?" The youngster beside Noah said.
"We cannot alert anyone because that will also alert the assassin. He may be an enemy of the Cooper family from a long time ago. The Cooper family is one of the prominent families in Kethen and they built this temple here. So I think the Cooper family would have some kind of protection for such a grand ceremony" Noah shook his head and exined.
"Quit worrying Abel, we will take care of everything, just keep these juicy treatsing" The golden babaroo on Noah''s shoulder swallowed thest fruit and said as it turned its gaze at Alicia with the wicked grin on his face.
"I don''t have anything for you to eat" Alicia coldly said but it didn''t stop the golden babaroo from jumping onto her shoulder.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
The ringing of arge bell resounded as soon as daybreak began. Warm sunlight shone on the big piece ofnd, the lights that struck some parts of the temple reflected off the building, as though ayer of the golden shield had covered it.
The ringing of therge bellsted longer than usual. It was because today was a special day, a day of the annual prayer ceremony.
The second head priest of the temple, Levi who was middle-aged and with red hair and a red goatee came in-person to invite Noah and his friends. The three of them followed him to the front of a big hall and stood beside a group of monks, waiting for the Cooper family members to arrive.
Soon, a harmonious cloud appeared in the sky. On top of the cloud, seven to eight people were standing, each of them was wearing a luxurious robe. The person standing at the front-most was a little girl who was merely about thirteen years old. She was wearing a silky red dress and her hair was tied into two pigtails. She looked extremely cute in her attire and had a face of an angel.
Despite her little figure, she radiated a noble aura. It wasn''t only because of her cute-looking face, but her cultivation level. A girl as young as her had already reached the Body Refining stage level 5, she was a god blessed child.
"Holy! This girl is a Body Refining stage level 5?"
Abel''s eyes widened, unable to believe what he had just seen. A Body Refining stage cultivator at the age of twelve or thirteen? There were only a few of them like her in this continent. She must have started cultivating while she was still in her mother''s womb.
"This is Lord Cooper''s daughter, Maisy Cooper. She is thirteen years old this year and has just reached Body Refining state level 5. She is recognized as the Prodigy of the Kethen" Levi exined as his words were full of pride and joy. Having a dazzling young genius in the Cooper family was truly something to be proud of. In truth, a Body Refining stage cultivator who was as young as her, not only would be a genius in Kingdom Kethen but also across the entire continent.
"The Cooper family is very fortunate to have such a genius," Noah said.
Maisy Cooper and her familynded outside of the temple. It was a rule that they had to walk from outside of the temple to the temple, they were not allowed to do the opposite, which wasnding on the internal part of the temple. The rule was set to show respect to the God of Peace.
Lord Cooper and his wife who were both Core Formation warriors had gone to seclusion. Today''s prayer ceremony would be led by the Cooper family''s genius and the heir to the Copper family, Maisy Cooper. It was the family''s honor to have her represent the Cooper family and she would be the most eligible to lead the ceremony in front of the Head Priest.
Maisy Cooper along with six others, three of them were the same grade as her and three Body Strengthening stage level 3 and they all reached the top of the mountain after a few minutes of climbing the steps.
Maisy Cooper bounced in the direction of Levi and hugged him the moment she saw him, "Uncle, I missed you so much!"
For a little girl, she possessed an inhuman strength. After wobbling her uncle for two rounds, Levi almost lost his bnce.
"Maisy, don''t mess around, this is the temple"
Levi gave Maisy Cooper a fond and affectionate look. Although he had be a priest, he couldn''t help growing very fond of this descendant of the Cooper family.
"huh? why are there so many outsiders here today?"
Maisy Cooper nced at Noah and the others in surprise. She didn''t notice the monkey on Alicia''s shoulder because the mountain and the temple were home to hundreds of monkeys.
"These are guests. Maisy, go, kneel and bow down in front of the Head Priest. I will introduce them to youter, I believe you will like them," Levi said.
"Alright¡"
Maisy Cooper hid her smile and returned to her serious face. She took big steps towards the statue. She was only twelve years old, but she was a lot more thoughtful than the other kids who were the same age as her.
Boom!
When the little girl made her first step and was just about to make the second, a rumbling as if from thunder was heard outside, which shook the entire mountain.
"They are here"
Noah squinted. The nned assassination was for the Cooper family or perhaps only for Maisy Cooper. Yesterday Noah couldn''t figure out the real intention of the assassination, but after seeing Maisy Cooper today, it all made sense to him now. An exceptional talent like her should be eliminated to clear off any obstacles in the future.
"Who is it?" the smile on Levi''s face disappeared as his face turned serious.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
As soon as Levi''s voice faded, silhouettes of different people flew out from multiple directions towards the temple. There were about twenty of them. Many of them were at the Body Strengthening stage and the rest of them were all Body Refining stage level 10 except the leading man who was a Core Formation level stage 1 warrior.
"Haha¡It seems today will be thest time of Cooper family''s annual thanksgiving ceremony."
A personughed. He seemed to be in his forties or fifties, he had a sturdy body behind his blue clothes.
"Stefan, what is the meaning of all this?"
An elder of the Cooper family gritted his teeth and said as hatred filled his face.
"What is the meaning? You stupid old man, we are here to end your pathetic lives. The surrounding areas are all sealed, so don''t even think about getting help from the Coopers outside"
Stefan announced without trying to hide his true intentions and the killing intent in his eyes. There were two major powers in the city of Oxfell in Kethen, the Cooper family and the Lane family. As the saying goes ''a forest cannot be ruled by two lions'', these two families had been in a power struggle for so long, but the Lane family had never intended to raid the temple of Peaceful valley before. This was the reason that the Cooper family permitted Maisy Cooper to lead the prayer ceremony and did not send powerful warriors as her protection. They hadn''t expected that the Lane family wouldunch a surprise attack on the temple as this ce was always considered a neutral area.
"Humph you gathered all these men just to attack a little girl, Lane family really has no shame"
"Maisy Cooper, the little genius of the Cooper family. You have grown fast and I have to admit, your existence is a threat to the Lane Family. Also, the Guardians are recruiting disciples, they have only one slot remaining, thus only one can join the Guardians guild. If you''re alive, they will definitely choose you and the Coopers will be untouchable but if you''re dead before joining the Guardians, the Lane family will have one less problem in the future"
Stefan smiled maliciously. Apparently, the Lane family had been preparing for this very day toe. They were informed that Lord Cooper and Lady Cooper had left for seclusion leaving Maisy to attend the thanksgiving, therefore they would be able to get rid of Maisy Cooper in the temple while she was vulnerable to attack.
Noah''s eyes glittered when he heard of the recruitment to join the Guardians. He and Alicia were told not to reveal their identities as the Guardians trainees while they were in Kethen because Peyton already had enough mess to clean and didn''t want Noah to make more. Therefore, if Noah wanted to save the little girl from getting killed, he had to do it without using the Guardians as his shield.
"Despicable!"
Levi''s eyes were full of rage. "You people of the Lane family are really despicable toe to the peaceful valley with such ill intentions!"
"Fuck you and your God. After I''m done with this ce, there will be nothing but ashes. Then while the Coopers were searching for their lovely daughter, we''ll make our move and finish the Coopers, once and for all"
Stefan was extremely cocky, today, he wouldn''t let anyone from the temple escape their deaths.
"Go! Kill everyone!" Stefan shouted. The warriors of the Lane Family unleashed their auras, one of the Lane family''s Body Refining stage warriors broke the parts and decorations of the big hall and stepped on the head of the statue of the God of Peace.
"Haha¡You all worship this useless God, this is ridiculous." He mocked andnded on the statue of a man, the God of Peace.
Boom!
A powerful aura suddenly rushed out from Abel''s body and shot out in all directions. Both of his eyes turned red and stared at one of the Lane family members who was stepping on his God''s head. He had crossed Abel''s line, it was totally uneptable.
"Get down this instance!."
Abel''s voice sounded like a p of thunder and his words carried a horrifying murderous aura. No one had expected that a calm and insignificant youngster would suddenly step out to fight. All the attention was shifted to him, including Maisy''s, Stefan''s, and especially the one who was stepping on the statue''s head.
Chapter 98 - Another Day In Noah鈥檚 Life II
Those of the Lane Family who were cing their attention on their arch-rivals, the Cooper family, and also on Levi, never once had they thought that a young man would get mad. As far as they were concerned, the ones that were provoked the most should be the Cooper family and Levi. They had zero clues why a nobody like him would get so furious about it, and the fiery aura unleashed by him shocked them. He was also at the Body Refining stage as the rest of the youngsters beside the little girl.
"huh? Who is this fool? It seems the Cooper girl brought some friends of her own but too bad, all of you have to die today" Stefan smiled coldly.
Abel didn''t look at him. Now he was full of rage and red at the bastard who stepped on his God''s head. He swore in his heart that he wouldn''t let this person live.
"Haha, kid Why are you so angry? Do you want to see me breaking this statue with my feet?."
The Body Strengthening stage warrior ridiculed Abel''s pointless anger. His leg began to step harder creating a creaking sound as tiny cracks started to appear on the statue''s surface.
Noah and Alicia shook their heads helplessly. They felt pity for the Body Refining stage. He was finished, no one on earth or heaven could save him anymore.
"Come and die!" Abel roared. His whole body turned into light and raced to his target. An illusion of a golden chakra struck the man who was standing atop the statue. The speed and power of Abel''s attack made the man''s expression change dramatically as he didn''t have time to react. The impact of the ferocious attack sent the man flinging from the statue.
In the mid-air, Abel gripped the man by his neck and mmed onto the ground below the statue. Abel had be like a ferocious beast.
"You dare step on our God''s statue? Die now!"
Abel exerted all of his strength and momentster, a sound of ''cracking'' noise emerged. The scene became quite gory, they were seeing a Body Strengthening stage level 8 warrior struggling and screaming in pain under Abel''s hold. Before anyone from the Lane family could make a move to save him, his entire body was torn in half as blood was pouring out from his body.
"Hiss!"
Everyone gasped in horror, especially the men from the Cooper family, their eyes widened in shock. Everyone had underestimated the youngsters because of their cultivation level but in reality, For the next hour, Noah, Alicia, and Abel could easily kill anyone under Body Strengthening stage level 9. It was because of three reasons, first, the three of them were not normal cultivators, they were freaks of nature, secondly, they had an Epic ss spell in their arsenal which boosted their power by multiple folds.
Thest reason was before they came to the temple, Noah and Alicia were chased by the hunters of Aragoth and this made Noah concoct a rare pill that enhanced their power to battle anyone under Body Strengthening stage level 9. The pill''s effect would onlyst for two hours and after two hours, they would be weak as Foundation stage level 10 cultivators for three hours. However, after killing the Lane family members, they would be perfectly safe until they recover their strength in the temple.
Abel''s power was beyond the Lane family members'' expectations. He was just at the Body Refining stage level 6, the gap between him and the man he just killed was huge.
The Cooper family members'' mouths opened wide out of surprise. They didn''t imagine a heaven-defying youngster like him hade to the temple.
Judging by his means of killing, they instantly saw through that the Cooper family''s genius, Maisy, was no match for him.
"Fuck! Kill him! Kill everyone!" Stefan couldn''t hold back his anger. The attack made by the youngster was too fast as he didn''t even have a chance to save his underling. The Lane Family had lost one valuable asset, a Body Strengthening stage warrior. He was ordered to assassinate Maisy and everyone in the temple but one of them was taken down before they could even attack their enemy, this fact made him very furious.
"Norvin, you know what to do"
While everyone was momentarily stunned and focused on Abel, Noah handed over a dark red vial to the golden babaroo. The monkey let out an evil grin and sneaked towards Stefan without making any noise.
"Crushing the statue¡You havemitted a mortal sin. None of you can leave today, I will cleanse your sins by taking all your lives" The fact he was on a super drug and Noah behind gave Abel the courage to take on them with no hesitation.
Abel''s tone was cold and serious. A thick murderous aura wasing out from him. He was unquestionably furious. Despite the fact he was studying to be a priest in the God of Peace temple, he was a cold-blooded killer who killed people without blinking his eyes. Now he couldn''t stomach the fact that his God''s statue was being disrespected.
"I will get rid of you first"
Stefan raged and thrust forward without noticing the tinge of dark red smoke under his feet. He was moving really fast but a youngster in white clothes moved faster than Stefan and blocked his way like a ghost.
"If you want to kill my friend, You have to go through me first"
The youngd in white clothes wasn''t a stranger. He was Noah, twenty years old now, slowly turning into an adult and filled with heroic spirit.
"Fuck off!"
Stefan looked down on the young man that blocked him because the youngster in front of him was just a? Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. He couldn''t find a reason to regard him as a threat as heunched a simple palm attack summoning strong wind towards Noah.
Noah confronted the attack simply by his fist, both attacks met and created an impact and a loud explosion. Lines of cracks appeared on the spatial area. Noah stood rooted at his position and didn''t move, while Stefan stepped three steps back to find his bnce.
"What?!"
Stefan eximed and stared at the white-clothed young man with his big eyes. It was like he had seen a ghost. Both families couldn''t believe what they just saw.
"Who is this dude? He is only a level 8 Body Refining stage cultivator but how did he force a Core Formation warrior to back a few steps by just using his fist?"
The members of the Cooper family were amazed. A young man with extraordinary power who was more powerful emerged in front of them before they could evene out of the shock Abel gave them.
"Wow!"
Maisy''s little mouth opened. That time when she came in, she had seen Noah, Alicia, and Abel, but she didn''t pay much attention to them, treating them casually. She hadn''t expected that they had hidden their powers so well.
When Noah was at Body Refining stage level 4, he could kill anyone under Body Strengthening stage level 6. Now that he had reached level 8 and took the strength-enhancing pill, killing anyone under Core Formation level would be effortless. In truth, Abel was never stronger than Noah even after he took the pill, but he was powerful enough to kill a Body Strengthening stage level 8 cultivator. Since the effects of the red smoke would onlyst for two minutes, Noah didn''t want to waste any time as he decided to kill Stefan as soon as possible. He left the rest of the Lane family to Alicia, Abel, and Maisy to deal with and the Golden Babaroo was another trump card that could kill any Body Refining stage cultivators with its innate abilities.
"This young man, this is between us and the Cooper family. I hope you won''t interfere." Stefan was staring at Noah.
" I can''t just stand here looking at you attack a little girl and destroy the temple. If you dare to touch anyone or anything here, I will take your souls" Noah coldly said. Sparkling light rays emerged from his palm as he thrust in the direction of Stefan.
"Mythical Ray," Stefan shouted. Strong winds blew as his palm moved, his eyes were red in anger. He couldn''t believe that a Core Formation warrior like him could not defeat a Body Refining stage cultivator.
*Bang!*
Stefan''s eyes were filled with terror when the light rays from Noah''s hand and his Mythical ray shed. It was one of the skills that he was so proud of but it wasn''t effective to Noah. His Mythical ray disappeared the moment it shed with Noah''s attack. Again, he was pushed back and stumbled. He could only find his bnce to stand again momentster, but the unpleasant feeling inside of him could not be expressed.
"Kill them all! Don''t leave anyone alive."
At this time, Maisy roared and rushed towards one of the Body Strengthening stage warriors.
"Kill!"
The Cooper family screamed, intensely and excitingly as they couldn''t help but feel excited after looking at the turn of events. They thought that they were going to die today as the Lane Family''s number was overwhelming and they had no Core Formation warrior with them to face Stefan. They hadn''t expected to see these two freakish youngsters. They were extraordinary rescuers and one of them was even made a Core Formation level warrior to his bnce. This was a big turnaround of the situation. Now they couldn''t give their enemies any chance to live.
Bang!
In the intense battle, both parties were fighting with one another with their skills, wanting to kill as many as they could. Alicia and Abel quickly cast ayer of a seal as protection for the statue of Peace God. They were afraid that the temple was going to be destroyed by all the attacks and spells in the battle.
"Argh!"
Right after they finished casting the spell, a person screamed in agony. He was a Body Refining stage who was taken down by Maisy. Her little fist went straight through his forehead, it was as violent as Abel''s. This little girl was emotionless after killing him. She possessed unlimited brute force, which was a rare attribute, this made her extremely stronger and none of her peers who were in the same grade as her could match her strength.
Levi and Alicia also attacked. With just a sway of her hand, Alicia sent a couple of ice spikes at a Body Strengthening warrior and before he could put a defense spell around him, the ice picked pierced through his heart instantly taking his life.
*********************
Don''t fret my dear readers, Overwhelming Badass moments of Michaeling on the way and this is just me setting the stage!!!!
Chapter 99 - There Is Someone Else
"Argh!"
"Argh!"
The intensity of the chaotic battle increased, followed by more screams of agony. Abel and Maisy fought like a ferocious beast as even some of the Body Strengthening level warriors were not their match. Alicia was also scared the hell out of the Lane family members with her powerful spells. Each time she moved, she took a life.
The battlefield was tragic. All the buildings in the monastery were almost destroyed, blood vaporized into the air, a stinging stench of blood could be smelled everywhere. Such a massive battle happening inside the monastery did not alert anyone outside because Stefan had sealed the entire spatial area around the temple.
In this intense battle, both parties suffered injuries and casualties, especially the Lane family, but unlike Stefan''s initial n, only a few members of the Cooper family suffered injuries. The Lane family had lost more than half of their group not very long after the battle had started. The remaining people were frightened to death as their fighting spirit had dropped to almost zero. While the Cooper family was just getting started.
As for the battle that was happening between the two strongest men, Stefan was pressed on the ground and hit by Noah. One of his arms was broken and torn away from his body, blood had soaked his clothes in a helpless situation. Although the weakening effects of the red smoke ended a couple of minutes ago, Noah had done a number on Stefan and wounded him as he could.
When Stefan raised his head to look at Noah, he could see a very rxed and easygoing expression on his face. He suddenly felt that Noah was toying with him. Noah could easily take his life at the beginning.
"How did this happen!"
Stefan spurted blood. Even until now, Stefan had no clues that he inhaled a cloud of smoke that weakened his cultivation level temporarily.
He coughed up more blood because of the injuries he suffered, both physically and mentally. As for the mental part, he felt extremely miserable to be defeated by Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator.
"Master Lane, unlock the seal now, we can''t fight anymore."
Someone shouted at Stefan while fleeing for his life from Alicia but his life was ended by Alicia the very next moment. The seal was supposed to lock the spatial area to prevent their enemies from escaping. However the situation had changed, they realized that they had trapped themselves instead, with no way to escape from the ce. The only person who could unlock the seal was Stefan.
Stefan himself also couldn''t stand the battle any longer. He summoned a talisman in his hand and threw it into the air. After it rumbled, the invisible seal in the spatial area disappeared. Stefan fled instantly, flying out from the battlefield.
"You damn kid, I will never forget this day, we will meet again!" Stefan left a vengeful message and chose to flee. Too bad, Noah wouldn''t allow him.
"If you have chosen to flee in the very beginning, I won''t be able to chase you, but with your current state, fleeing is not an option for you."
Noah''s revealed a cold smile. At the moment when he struck Stefan, he had already given him the death sentence. Noah wouldn''t allow a threatening enemy to escape from his grasp. Someone like him, a Core Formation warrior would bring trouble in the future.
Sling!
Noah shed with his Sword and his sh sent a crescent shape wave flying straight towards Stefan.
"No!!"
Stefan felt his life was endangered by the energy wave. It was too fast and strong to defend himself with his current state.
"AH!" Stefan screamed and tried to cast a defensive spell but he was too slow as the crescent shape wave cleaved his body in two halves.
"What?!"
"Stefan is dead¡We have to escape now!"
"That man is too strong. Our n has failed. Let''s run for our lives!"
.....
Stefan''s death was a fatal blow to the Lane family''s fighting spirit. From fearless fighters, they had be timid birds that flew away in all directions.
"Kill them all, Don''t let a single one from the Lane family escape!"
Maisy ordered and chased one of them at lightning speed while swaying her fists in the air, crushing his head. Even though they couldn''t fight them anymore, they still had the ability to escape. Despite the Cooper family and Abel frantically killing as much of them as possible, several of them managed to escape.
To the Cooper family, this was an amazing battle that needs to be recorded. The Cooper family was supposed to be the prey, but in the middle of the fight, they had turned the situation around and caused the Lane family to suffer many casualties, which included a Core Formation warrior, Stefan. The Lane family would really feel extremely disappointed and at the same time, they would regret the decision of this attack on Maisy.
The battle had ended, but they couldn''t calm down. They were now staring at the demolished monastery. Fortunately, Abel and Alicia''s spell protected the buildings from beingpletely destroyed by the battle. Many of them stared at Noah as this handsome and white-clothed youth was undoubtedly their savior today. They could imagine the tragedy that would happen if he did not help out today. Their lives would all be in danger despite the fact that Maisy possessed great talent.
"What''s your name, big brother?"
Maisy came to Noah''s side. Her sparkling eyes were fixed on him. It was really hard to imagine an adorable girl like her had a violent side when battling: as ferocious as a beast.
"I am Noah, Noah Winston"
Noah smiled and extended his arms to pinch Maisy''s cheek. Noah naturally felt pleased when a sweet little girl wanted to find out about his name.
"Praise the God of Peace for sending all of you to help us. If not, the consequences would have been disastrous."
Levi walked over, his words were full of gratitude. He felt very fortunate that he had invited these three guests into the monastery and gave them shelter disregarding Noah''s situation with Aragoth.
"Noah. This name is somewhat familiar."
An elder of the Cooper family tried to recall where he had heard the name before.
"You are the one who caused trouble in the western Dradel!"
One of them recalled his identity and eximed when he saw the golden babaroo and the ice-cold beauty beside him. He heard that Noah had killed a disciple of Aragoth, which was very extraordinary. There was also an angelic beauty and a monkey that was always following him. Therefore, he found the connection between them and determined that the young man is Noah.
"It seems that my name is well known, even in Kethen" Noah smiled calmly, confirming his identity.
"Wah! So that Noah is you, big brother? I have heard the things that you have done in Dradel, it was too awesome. I also heard you''re the second-best Alchemist of the young generation" Maisy cheered. Her eyes stared at Noah in admiration, as though her eyes were blinking like stars. The little girl''s words reminded Alicia the ck-robed youngster who stunned everyone during the Phoenix auction fair. The killing intent she saw in his eyes and his disappearance without even a single scratch on him after facing Julius''s attack gave her goosebumps.
"So you are brother Noah. No wonder you were able to kill a Core formation warrior. If it wasn''t for your intervention today, our Cooper family would have lost our little miss. This is a great kindness to us, please ept my gratitude."
One of the elders of the Cooper family said solemnly. The others followed his actions and also showed their gratitude to Noah. They tried to think about what would have happened if Noah wasn''t here and felt extremely grateful towards Noah for saving Maisy and them.
"Not much courtesy is needed. Big brother is one of us now."
Maisy was very mature for her age. Despite seeing Noah for the first time, she didn''t regard him as a stranger anymore and began to see him as her own brother.
Noah couldn''t help butugh. This little girl did really have a good attitude and reminded him of his little sisters. Therefore, he liked her instantly.
"I''m here you know"
Abel couldn''t stand the situation anymore. His contribution on the battlefield was not meager, but everyone turned their attention to Noah, totally neglecting his presence.
"Erm, this is Abel, he is also studying under one of the Peace God''s temples to be a priest" Noah quickly introduced him to Maisy.
"A fellow priest, wee to the peace valley Abel," said Levi. Everyone''s attention now shifted to Abel, including Maisy''s.
"What about me? If it wasn''t for me gassing Stefan, Noah couldn''t have defeated him" The golden babaroo rolled its eyes andined.
The members of the Cooper family were astonished as Alicia pitched the monkey''s cheeks to shut his mouth.
"What a cute little monkey? What''s his name?" Maisy immediately reached her hands towards Norvin to pet him with sparkling eyes.
"Hey!" Norvin tried to escape from being petted by the little girl but Alicia grabbed him by his neck and handed him over to Maisy.
"So cute!" Maisy squeezed Norvin and rubbed his head while everyone watched the little girl with a gentle smile on their faces.
"Big brother, you and I hit it off even if we just met for the very first time. All of you muste to our Cooper family and be our guest. When my mom and dad know about this, they will be more than thankful to you"
Maisy''s tone was aggressive and determined, it gave them a very hard time to decline her offer.
"Alright, since you''re being gracious, we will definitelye with you"
Noah said with a smile. He was very clear that once he entered Oxfell, he would be involved in the strife between the Lane and Cooper family. Although he had killed one of the Lane family''s members, this wasn''t the end and they wouldn''t just leave it like that. He sighed inside thinking about Peyton as she told him to stay out of trouble but he just did the opposite.
"So brother Noah, are you going into the Nether Realm?" while they were walking towards the main temple, Maisy asked curiously.
"Of course"
"Yey! We should go together" Noah was surprised but he had no intention to stop the little girl because she needed real-world experience to hone her skills and the NEther realm was a perfect ce to do so.
"Why is a little girl like you entering the Nether realm?" Norvin asked after getting tired of trying to get out of the little girl''s clutch.
"Grandma said I will find a baby dragon if I go there!"
"Eek" when she mentioned the words baby dragon, she squeezed Norvin more in excitement as Noah could tell Maisy''s desire for getting a baby dragon.
However, the little girl didn''t know there is someone else also looking for a baby dragon and would do anything to get his hands on a baby dragon.
Chapter 100 - No Secrets Between Two Best Friends
"Finally I have some time to check my stats'''' After taking a bath in the smallke in Abyssal, Michael and Gaya cleaned the ce. Of course, Gaya protested to clean the ce but after Michael agreed to let her sample the dishes in the restaurant he''s going to build, she did her part without bitching about it.
Since Michael had no need to cultivate like others, when he returned to the sect, he hit the bed and took a long nap. Gaya went to the forest to practice her archery and hunt some wild boars. She nned to hand over her hunt to Raylene and stuff her belly as usual. He was alone in his room and entered the system the moment he woke up.
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 10
Experience Points: 180000/200000
Badass Points: 78000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 80% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 685,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
He almost forgot he checked his stats after taking the pain inducer pill. The pain he felt at that time was the reason for his negligence.
"First things first, system how much I owe you?"
[22,000 badass points, Host!]
"Take it and make me debt-free" he didn''t feel upset or bad to see 22,000 badass points fade away in a second but on the contrary, he felt relieved. Now that he''s debt-free, he could take another loan if ever needed it.
"Let''s do some upgrades, Ignitia" he selected his main offensive spell and stared at the upgrade details. The next upgrade would cost him 8,000 Badass points and after upgrading it, he could fire lightning bolts from both of his hands. Plus, the power of the lightning bolts would double as anyone under Body Strengthening stage level 8 would be severely injured or killed in an instant if they didn''t cast a powerful defense spell to defend themselves from the lightning bolts.
"System, upgrade the Ignitia to level 2"
[Good choice host] he was now quite familiar with the system''s asional human-likements, he watched the badass points drop from 56,000 to 48000 and it was totally worth it as far as he was concerned.
Then he gazed at another one of his main spells, Lightning Dash. Ever since the assassins tracked his moves when he was using the Lightning dash, he wanted to upgrade the spell. Because Lightning Dash enabled him to move extremely faster than his enemies, he utilized this speed to attack his enemies before they could even react or cast a defense spell. After upgrading the Lightning dash to level 2, he could use it with the Ignitia, as usual, to be literally untouchable in a battle.
"System, upgrade it to level 2"
In a sh, another 10,000 Badass points disappeared leaving him with 38,000 Badass points. With these two upgraded spells, anyone under Body Strengthening stage level 8 had no chance of surviving a battle with Michael but he wanted to increase his power further to the point that he wanted to kill anyone in the Body Strengthening stage with not much trouble. Of course, while he was on Lucifer''s persona, no one in the Body Strengthening stage could match him because of the fear toxin and Death Range skill.
"Do I have to buy a new spell?"
Michael asked himself and began to rummage through the system''s store but not a single spell appeared to be a must-have or increased his strength.
Therefore, he decided to find or buy a new spell and learn it through the Mentor function without spending any more Badass points on spells.
"Open the Subordinates window" Right after he exited the system store, he entered the subordinates window with two people in his mind. One was Jack who had the trait of cksmith and Raylene who Michael guessed would have the trait of a Chef considering her cooking skills.
Both of them would be good investments to him, especially Raylene as he was about to open up a restaurant to make more gold coins.
"System, assume Raylene has the trait of a one-star chef, how many badass points it would cost me to make her a 3-star or a 4-star?"
[10,000 Badass points to upgrade her ability to 3-star chef and 15,000 Badass points for thetter]
"Alright, what about Jack?"
[30,000 Badass points to turn him into a 3-star cksmith and 40,000 to turn him into a 4-star cksmith. Remember Host, 3 star cksmith cannot forge anything above medium quality Rare. If you want your subordinate to forge you a high-quality Rare weapon, you have to make him a 4-star cksmith]
"What about Epic weapons and Legendary Weapons?"
[Epic weapons can only be forged by a 5-star cksmith and Legendary Weapons require a 6-star cksmith who must be at the Core Strengthening stage]
"Hmm, makes sense. For now, I''ll only take Raylene as my subordinate and make her a 4-star Chef"
The reason for the cost difference between turning Raylene into a star chef and Jack into a star cksmith was thetter had the ability to increase one''s power, unlike a chef. Fortunately, the low cost of making Raylene a 4-star chef worked in his way as he was nning to build not just one restaurant but restaurant chains all over this world.
Other than the high cost of making Jack a 3 or 4-star level cksmith, he first wanted to first enter the Nether realm and search the realm for a better weapon. Since he already bought the Lucky Cat tavern, a chef to cook delicious food took the top ce on his priority list.
"Should I make her a 5-star chef?"
[yes you should host! It''s only 20,000 Badass points]? the system sounded very excited but Michael hesitated because of Raylene''s safety. He wouldn''t always be around to save her if someone tried to capture her because of her talent.
Therefore Michael wanted to know Gaya''s thoughts before deciding because she would know more about the chefs and their demand in this world more than him.
He exited the system and jumped down from his bed to check out his herbal garden. It was time he had new pills and potions to the store other than the Revitalization pill, healing potion, and Arch Energy boosters.
Just as he was about to step out of his house, he saw Gaya dragging a huge wild boar and when she saw him, she waved and smiled at him.
She then picked out the arrow that was sticking out of the boar''s head.
"I want this boar roasted, where the heck is Raylene?"
"Walk with me," He said and began to walk in the direction of the herbal garden as Gaya followed him behind reluctantly leaving the boar behind.
"What do you know about star chefs?"
"What star-level chef are you talking about?"
"Tell me about a 4-star?"
"They are hard to find but not impossible. Back in Nagnd, we had two 4-star chefs, now that you reminded them, I''m craving for somemb chops they used to make me " Even after she was healed, she still continued to eat like usual. This very morning she ate two pies and a whole lot of biscuits before going into the forest to catch something for lunch.
"Don''t tell me you''re also a 4-star chef" Michael shook his head with a soft smile as she sighed.
"Then what about the 5-star chefs?" she became very curious and wanted to know why he was asking about the chefs.
"Those bastards are very rare, just as rare as a 5-star Alchemist. There''s only a couple of 5-star chefs in Elon, I heard there''s one in the Royalnd and one in the main branch of Ruby Cuisine in Kethen" The Ruby Cuisine was the restaurant he met Peyton and Xanali and offered to join the Guardians as their trainee.
"Let''s assume Raylene is a 5-star chef, do you think someone will try to kidnap her?" His words made her halt her steps and frown. She sensed he''s up to something and wanted to know what.
"Are you hiding something from me?" She valued honesty in this friendship and didn''t want any secrets between them. That was why she decided to reveal everything about her over a slice of juicy boar meat.
Except for the existence of the system, he too wanted to share everything with her because she regarded her as his best friend and partner in crime after she reached 95% loyalty. After seeing Damien and hearing about the prophecy, he had a feeling that there''s something more to his transmigration from the earth. His instincts told him that soon he would learn more about his transmigration and at that time, he didn''t want it to be a secret between them that might break her trust.
[Also, if you tell Gaya that you and Abras are the same person, the system will deduct badass points. Abras is a textbook beta and the system does not want the host to ept a beta persona] just as he was thinking about what to tell her and whatnot, the system sounded in his mind. It was a tone of warning and he could feel the gravity of the system''s warning.
Fortunately, he had a perfect cover story that had a mix of truth and lies that would perfectly make sense to Gaya without exposing his biggest secret, the system.
"It''s time I tell you who I am and where did Ie from"
Chapter 101 - I Will Take Everything From Him
"We are alone, now tell me about your past" the two of them were at one of the mountain peaks of the Sunrise sect, alone. Sitting on the edge, they could see the entire Sunrise sect and even the river town in the distance.
Michael used the time he spent getting to the mountain peak to piece all the lies and truths together so she wouldn''t doubt him. Looking at her face, he took a long deep breath.
"What I''m going to tell must stay between us"
"You can trust me human, I''m your friend" It wasn''t a surprise to Michael seeing the sincerity in her eyes, after all, she reached 95% loyalty. Besides, Michael regarded Gaya as his only friend nowadays.
"I''m not from this world Gaya, I came from another world"
"What?! You''re kidding me, hahaha hrious"? she began tough and it was obvious that she didn''t believe his words but herughter faded away when she stared at his serious face.
"You''re serious?" she asked with a shaky voice as Michael nodded.
"Yes, I was brought here from my world by a mysterious light" Michael saw the confusion on her face and continued, "after the light brought me to a ce called the sanctuary, where a group of people protected the-"
"The Cosmic stream" Gaya finished his sentence and began to shiver with no control over her body. For the moment Michael ignored her shock and went on, "when the light brought me there, the sanctuary was burnt to the ground by the soldiers of Thusia. One of the men they killed looked just like me, his name was Abras. Before he died, with the help of that mysterious light, he merged his soul fragment with me leaving all his memories and knowledge to me" Except for the part about the mysterious light and the truth about his original body, what Michael said was true. Gaya stared at him nkly for a few moments in silence and analyzed everything she just heard in her mind.
First of all, he didn''t look like he was lying and the more she thought about this, what he said made sense. Most people in the world had no clue about the sanctuary and the cosmic stream and only a few people had heard about the two but they considered it as a myth. However, the ancestors of the Nagas believed in the existence of the Cosmic stream and the sanctuary. Some of the ancestors were somehow able to leave clues about their existence and the treasure they were protecting. The Nagas also believed the sanctuary was home to countless secret long-lost knowledge and only the protectors were able to grasp this wisdom.
By taking all the memories of Abras, Gaya believed that Michael was able to get hold of this ancient knowledge, hence, he was able to heal her crippled cultivation and perform many unbelievable feats.
"System, do me a favor"? Gaya saw him close his eyes for a moment and then open after a few seconds.
"Close your eyes" Gaya felt his warm hand on his shoulder as she closed her eyes. The very next moment, she felt a hot surge in her brain as she started to experience Abras''s betrayal and pain. With the help of the system, Michael made Gaya feel what he feels.
"AHHHHHHH!" Soon, Gaya''s body twitched violently as she roared in anger and pain. Michael was able to control his anger and pain because of the many years of training and meditating but she had no training, therefore, when Michael made her feel Abras''s pain, she lost her mind for a few moments because of the immense grief and anger.
Following her mad roar, she started to bleed through her ears and nostrils. Michael withdrew his hand and waited for her to break out of this misery.
"Is...this..how you feel?" He saw her teary eyes and heard her stutter.
"Yes, Abras and I may be two different people but when the light merged his soul fragment with mine, I have not only his knowledge and memoirs but also his pain, grief, anger, and all of his feelings. Before he left this world, I promised him I''d avenge him and his people, no matter what"
"How are you still here and not on Thusia?" Since Gaya felt Abras''s feelings, she wanted to burn the entire Thusia to the ground and rip La into pieces.
"Because I''m not stupid. Thusia seized the cosmic stream, which means they have a powerful source of energy in their hands, the only way to get my revenge is to be stronger, stronger than King Thusia and then, I will take everything from him"
"WE will take everything from him, human" She squeezed his hand and decided to avenge Abras together after experiencing his emotions.
"But the longer we wait, the stronger they grow human, we should act sooner rather thanter" She feared that with the use of the Cosmic stream, the king of Thusia and all his men would grow exponentially stronger and be impossible to kill.
"The Cosmic stream is a source of pure energy, much much more powerful than the Arch Energy but although he has the Cosmix stream, he can''t absorb its energy continuously, unless he wants to explode into million tiny pieces"
"Still, his cultivation speed would be insane"
"Yes but don''t forget I have a Wargod body, courtesy of the mysterious light. Let him have his fun with the Cosmic Stream for now" They fist-bumped and grinned devilishly.
"Did you see the mysterious light you were talking about again?" Since she believed he told her everything, she felt happy. She could tell that he trusts her as she trusts him.
"No, after Abras''s soul fragment merged with my soul, I woke up days after near the forest of the River town. You know what happened next"
"You saved me" she grabbed his hand and held it against her chest tightly. Even to this second, she could close her eyes and recall the first time she saw him vividly in her mind. At that time, she didn''t know he would be her savior and best friend. Both of them came a long way since then and now, they were like a nail and flesh.
"Will it hurt you to turn Raylene into a star chef? Thest time you used your knowledge to heal me, you almost died" he could sense the concern in her voice and it warmed his heart because no one ever worried about him before. He wanted to treasure this feeling and her friendship. The arrogant haughty snake is his best friend now and he would do everything to protect her and he knew she would do the same for him.
"Don''t worry, it won''t but you have to keep an eye on her when I''m in the Nether realm. We don''t want to lose our head chef, do we?"
"I''ll take care of our business while you''re away, human and speaking of human, is Ghost your real name?"
"I will tell my name when you do something nice for me, until then, you have to call me Ghost"
"You ruined a perfect moment, bastard" Rolling her eyes, she punched him on the shoulder seeing she failed to know his name.
"Also, while I''m in the Nether Realm, you have to kill these people, Lucifer style" Michael retrieved a list of criminals in his list and their whereabouts and handed it over to Gaya. He wanted to spread the legend of Lucifer around the kingdom more so people woulde to believe him as a Vignte who kills the criminals and cleanse the kingdom of the sinners.
"Kill 8 random criminals and 2 enemies of our own and people would think that two as the victims of Lucifer rather than the enemies of Ghost, nice n. Do you want me to dress as Lucifer too?"
"I have something for you" Michael closed his eyes and entered the system to get her something awesome like his suits of armor.
"I put the armor you should wear in our space ring" a few seconds after, Michael opened his eyes and said. The suit of armor he chose for her was none other than a female version of his Lucifer armor. It cost him 5000 Badass coins to buy the new suit of armor for her and now he had 33,000 badass points remaining.
"Cool"
"I also put a few bottles of fear toxin inside, remember to apply the fear toxin on the suit and leave no evidence behind except the mark of Lucifer"
"Finally some action" Excitement filled her eyes and she couldn''t wait to hunt some criminals at night like her friend.
"We should go now" Since he told her everything she has to do while he''s in the Nether realm, he could enter the Nether realm with no worries. For now, the only things he had to do was turn Raylene into a 5-star chef and start his first high-end restaurant as well as making new products for the Majestic.
As for the interior and the design for the restaurant he had ristorante sponda in Italy in his mind. He dined in this fine restaurant when he was on a job in Italy and liked the elegant atmosphere. Plus the Lucky Cat tavern was a perfectly suitable ce for this makeover. During the daytime, Gaya could put together a group of talented builders to achieve his vision and continue to renovate the sect.
***************************
Now that I''m finished establishing the backstory and necessary fillers, I can jump onto the juicy action part!!!!
Nether Realm Ark / Lucifer will begin from the next chapter¡.Stay tuned!
Chapter 102 - To The Nether Realm
From the Earthes the bounty of diversity, the herbs were rising toward the sun, showing off their lush green and sparkling colors as if they were in a carnival parade. The green herbs made a green quilt for the senses upon the flower bed. Michael''s herbal garden was a sort of binary - the neat areas were very, very neat and the wild areas were very, very wild. The two extremes right next to one another enhanced one another. The garden was neither too small nor too big but it was the size of a typical green.
Because of the effects of the fertilizer Michael got from the system, the herbs had grown quicker and healthier. Some herbs grew as tall as an average man while some flowers were as big as a ten years old child.
"Don''t water the Dragon root too much and Jack, get away from the Angel Catnip" Elder Reiner who taught herbology in the Sunrise sect was walking through his new favorite ce, Michael''s herbal garden.
He was supervising the disciples and ensuring the herbs grow as healthier as they could. Ever since Michael began to grow the herbs in the garden, the old shaggynd became a lush garden that filled the surrounding air with soothing therapeutic fragrance.
While Elder Reiner was supervising the disciples, he saw sect leader ire rushing towards him.
"Elder Reiner, have you seen Ghost?"
"No-"
"Jack!"? She didn''t even wait for Elder Reiner to finish his sentence as she shouted at Jack.
"Are you searching for me, Sect Leader ire?" Just as Jack was about to point his fingers at the figures walking towards them, ire heard Michael''s voice and turned back.
"Thank god you''re here, why aren''t you at the auction fair, and WHOA!" when her eyes fell on Gaya, shock and surprise took aback ire. The mortal girl who was following around Michael had turned into a Body Refining stage level 3 cultivator in just a matter of days.
Everyone except one person swarmed around Gaya like ants around a sugar cube. Michael stepped aside and let Gaya have her moment. He knew the snake loved attention and admiration. ire and Elder Reiner stared at Gaya speechlessly while Gaya stood there with a smug face.
Michael could tell she is itching to reveal her real cultivation level.
"How do you¡?"
"I was lucky enough to find a ten thousand years Hazel lotus on my way from Phoenix ind to here. He made me a potion using it and boom, my cultivation talents went straight up" said Gaya proudly. The Hazel lotus was not a made-up herb but a real rare herb that could revitalize the Arch Energy roots in one''s body. A ten thousand years old Hazel lotus could indeed make an ipetent cultivator into a genius and although they didnt find the herb in truth, its medicinal quality helped the both of theme up with the story to cover up Gaya''s sudden transformation.
"Come here" After ire came out the shock, she let out a wide grin and reached her arms to embrace Gaya.
"Hey" Gaya tried to step back but her effort was wasted as ire took her into her arms in a loving embrace.
"Oh shit" In the scene, the only person who seemed horrified and kept his distance from Gaya was Jack. Even when she was a mortal girl, she beat him on a regr basis, and now Jack couldn''t even imagine what she would do to him. He cried inside and prayed to the gods, "Oh mighty God, please bless your child with enough strength to endure the beating he''s going to receive"
Michael chuckled inside seeing Jack praying looking at the sky.
"I''m so happy for you Aelia, we should celebrate this" ire spoke while squeezing Gaya as she tried to wiggle herself out of the hug and threw a ''help me'' nce at Michael.
"Why did you want to find me, Sect Leader ire?" Michael helped his friend by asking ire.
"Oh yes," ire seemed like she remembered something important and let go of Gaya.
"The Nether realm is not opening next week, they are opening the gates today"
"What? Why?" Gaya asked as ire sighed, "I think it''s rted to the recent Netherel attack in River town. Summoning the Netherels may have weakened theyer between our world and the Nether realm. However, it doesn''t matter why, if you want to enter the Nether realm, go to Sarton now"
"Then I guess I''m leaving now" Michael had good feelings about the Nether realm and wanted to steal all of its riches.
"Girl, are you nning to enter the Nether realm with him?" Elder Reiner looked at Gaya and asked.
"Nah, he can have this one" Considering the Nether realm has security measures against people who were above the Body Refining Stage, she didn''t dare to try to enter the Nether realm. Thest time when someone tried to enter the Nether realm hiding his Body Strengthening cultivation, he was turned into ashes the moment he stepped into the Nether Realm.
"Brother Ghost, watch out for the Broad river sect. They tend to pick a fight with our sect every time we enter the Nether realm" One of the female disciples said and drew Michael''s attention.
"Lena!" ire''s shout immediately made the girl shut her mouth before she could say more.
"Are we forgetting who he is, Sect Leader ire?" Elder Reiner asked ire and his words reminded her of Michael''s position as Guardian.
"Broad River sect huh, they are from Sarton, right? What''s their beef with you guys?" Gaya curiously asked ire.
"No reason, they just like to bully our disciples whenever they get a chance like everyone else" On earth, people needed a reason to be enemies but in this world, cultivators tend to follow the rule of the jungle, the strong prey on the weak. Michael understood the meaning of ire''s words, since the Sunrise sect was weak, it became an easy target for everyone to bully and this Broad River sect was just another bully on the block.
"Let''s hope they will cross paths with me," Michael said with a calm face but they could see the cold killing intent in his eyes. Killing them would be like hitting two birds with one stone for him as he could earn experience points and dere to everyone that not to mess with his sect.
Unlike before, Michael had a Core Formation level cultivator with him, therefore he didn''t have to worry about killing them. Only the big sects like Golden Valley or Morning star had Core Formation cultivators for the inner and core disciples but in a normal sect, Elders or the Sect Leader would be the Core formation-level cultivator.
Now that he had to leave the sect as soon as possible, there were still some things he should take care of. "System, I need a pair of long-range earpiece,"
"1000 Badass coins and you can talk to each other across realms"
"I will buy those and add a transmitter on one of them so I can keep track of Gaya"
"Sure thing but it''ll cost you another 500 badass points"
"Just take it and add her location to my Environmental scanning" Compared to 500 badass points her safety was more important to Michael. After what happened at the Phoenix ind, he didn''t want to be in the dark again when she''s in danger.
Besides, he could use her help inside the Nether realm because she told him that she entered it once. Also, if Jane tried to do something stupid again like sending assassins to kill him, he would be able to walk Gaya through what to do next.
"I''ll go see Raylene before I leave, Aeliae with me"
"Yep," He nodded at ire and Elder Reiner, and then, he gently grabbed Gaya''s hand before activating the newly upgraded Lighting Dash for the first time.
Whoosh!
Literally in a sh, both of them disappeared from their sight. Before upgrading the Lightning Dash to level 2, one could see tiny blue bolts of lightning left behind after Michael disappeared and now the blue bolts turned into gold ones. For Michael, he could feel his speed had almost tripled.
"Eeek, my head''s spinning"
"Brother Ghost!" Before even Gaya could steady herself, she heard little Cindy''s voice and looked up to see the little girl throwing herself at Michael.
Gaya couldn''t understand why this little girl became so excited and happy every time she saw Michael and he too seemed delighted to see her.
"There you are" Michael pecked on Cindy''s soft cheeks and lifted her up. Soon after seeing Michael''s sudden appearance, Raylene rushed out of her house which was given to her by ire.
"Master Ghost, Ricky said you went to Phoenix ind"
"Yeah I did, Cindy go y with your friends, your mom and I have to talk alone"
"What about Sister Aelia? Can I y with her?" Cindy excitedly asked Michael, "You can y with herter, now go y with your friends" Michael ced the little girl down and received a loving kiss on his cheek from Cindy.
Cindy then ran happily in the direction of her friends.
"Raylene,e with me" Hearing Michael, Raylene followed him and Aelia into her house. It was time he made Raylene his subordinate.
Even though the house was old and small, Raylene kept it clean and presentable. Gaya''s nose twitched because of the delicious aroma in the air and suddenly felt hungry.
"Raylene, do you trust me?" Michael asked with a serious face. The question surprised Raylene but she took a deep breath and answered honestly,
"Master Ghost, you saved us and gave us a home when I and the children had nowhere to go. The food we are eating is yours, I have nothing to give it to you except my life if you ask for it, my life is yours " Without her control, Raylene''s eyes became watery.
"Will you be my subordinate and serve me well?"
"Yes," Gaya surprised to see Raylene drop to her knees asking no questions.
[Does the host wish to ept Raylene as a subordinate?]
"Yes"
Subordinate: Raylene
Cultivation Level:
Race: Human
Status: Healthy
Trait: Cook
Loyalty towards the host: 97%
Right out of the bat, she was 97% loyal towards Michael, unlike a certain someone. He was happy to confirm her trait was indeed Cook and now he could turn her into a 5-star chef.
While she was kneeling in front of him, he ced his hand on her head
"I''m going to make you a 5-star Chef and head chef of all my future restaurants and hotel chains. I will give you 30% of the profits and the resources for you and Cindy to cultivate. Serve me well" Raylene was speechless and almost fainted on the spot
"System, make Raylene a 5-star Chef" Right after this, Gaya saw a bright light emerge from Michael''s hand and cover the body of Raylene for a few seconds as she closed her eyes.
When the light disappeared, Raylene slowly opened her eyes and looked at Michael like she was looking at a god.
"System, I need the blueprint and the interior design of ristorante sponda"
He spent another 500 Badass points and bought the blueprint and the interior design to transform the Lucky Cat tavern into a stylish high-end Restaurant.
"Here, put this in your ear" Michael then looked at Gaya and handed over the small earpiece to her. While she was staring and curiously fiddling around the earpiece, he took out the thin book that had the blueprint and the interior designs.
"Master Ghost-"
"Show your gratitude and loyalty in your actions" Michael interrupted Raylene with a wave of his hand and said.
Raylene was still in shock but the tears of overwhelming joy gushing out of her eyes like water breaking out of a dam.
"I will, Master Ghost" It took several seconds for Raylene to wipe away her tears and exim. Michael just nodded with a smile and disappeared out of her sight with Gaya.
"I want our restaurant to look like this, you can make a few changes if you want" In a few seconds, Michael reached the border of the Sunrise sect and handed over the book to Gaya.
"Just don''t die alright?" She punched him in the shoulder yfully.
"I''ll try"
Chapter 103 - Nether Realm I
"What is this thing, how can I still hear you?" While Michael was on his way to Sarton, he heard Gaya''s voice through his earbud.
"It''s called earbuds, I can talk to you even after I entered the Nether realm"
"Where did you get it?"
"It''s among the few things that mysterious light left me with. We can not only talk to each other through this but also I can find you wherever you are, so you won''t get your snakey ass kicked like at the Phoenix ind"
"You''re not going to drop this, are you?" She could tell he was enjoying teasing her.
"Nope!" She proved the much-needed entertainment on his way to Sarton.
"Now that I think about it, I don''t have to put up with your shit for five long days and I''m gonna enjoy every second of it" She sounded ted.
Yet, he knew she''s going to miss him. After running for half an hour, he began to see the outer walls of Sarton and carriages on his way. Inside the city walls, Michael could sense a fluctuation in Arch Energy and saw a crowd of people going towards the center of the city.
"Hey!"
"What was that?''
"Is that lightning?"
After a golden lightning bolt passed by them, people were stunned and they had no idea it was Michael who just ran past them. Michael''s full focus was on the center of the city where he sensed the Arch Energy fluctuations, so he didn''t stop by to look around his surroundings and enjoy the view in the daytime. Thest time he came to Sarton, he came by the night to ughter a group of criminals to spread the legend of Lucifer.
**********************
At the moment in the center of Sarton, Noah was standing in there and waiting for the portal to the Nether realm to open with his friends. Beside him, Abel was gawking around and looked extremely nervous.
"Calm down Abel, Peyton said she will take care of it and we believe her" Norvinzily lied on Noah''s shoulder and said.
Suddenly, five groups of people flew towards the crowd from different directions at a very fast speed. Many people who were in lower level cultivation such as the Body Refining stage couldn''t even catch a glimpse of their silhouettes and even Noah and his group of geniuses barely caught a glimpse of their figures. They appeared above the sky within a split second.
It was like they had made an appointment for a meeting as they had all appeared at exactly the same time.
Their emergence quietened the crowd down at the scene. An intense Aura was released from their bodies like a high tide wave in the sea, totally covering the sky. The people felt pressured by these auras that their souls shivered slightly, stirring up their sense of admiration for them. One group wore casual but noble clothes while the other four wore clothes that looked like uniforms.
The silhouettes were Gerard Atkins of the Guardians Guild, Royce Camden of the Morning Star, Hazel Belmont of the Silvermoon, Edgar Godfrey of Aragoth, and Dean Byrne of the Golden Valley. If Michael was here he would recognize his one-night stand, Sadie Kan who was standing behind Hazel Belmont, her teacher. Besides Sadie, there were also familiar faces of Evan, Victoria, and Celina among the people in the sky.
"Sigh" Abel sighed when he noticed Peyton and Xanali behind Gerard Atkins who was a dark-haired man with a sturdy body.
Everyone''s gaze fell upon them with burning eyes, especially those rogue cultivators and some disciples of minor powers. They were all excited to be able to see the legendary figures of Bredia and Elon in person. It wasn''t something that they had even dreamt of, especially seeing the famous legendary Guardian, Gerard Atkins. This matter was enough for them to boast in front of those who didn''t have the chance toe when they returned.
Edgar was wearing greyish armor on his sturdy body. After he arrived, one of the youngsters behind him murmured something in his ears looking at Noah and his group immediately after he saw them. The youngster recognized Noah by his pure white clothes and the Golden babaroo on his shoulder.
"Who the heck is Noah Winstons and how dare you kill one of my disciples?"
Edgar raged. A strong aura suddenly rushed out of his body, inciting fear among the crowd.
After his sentence was finished, everyone both in the sky andnd fixed their eyes on Noah. Gerard was the one who was surprised the most. Back when Peyton told him that she found the recement for Ghost of the River town, Noah was merely a Body Refining stage level 4 warrior. Within a short period of time, he had reached level 8, this kind of cultivation speed really startled him.
Yet, even though he was surprised by Noah, he was the calmest of all. Gerard gave a nod of approval at Peyton for finding a genius for the trainee guardian position.
"Humph! Do you think you can kill my disciples and escape the wrath of Aragoth?" Edgar made a cold humph. Heunched an attack with his palm-like w at Noah. Who wouldn''t know how powerful a Core Strengthening stage level 10 was? The powerful aura he radiated was strong enough to immobilize Noah.
To Edgar, he was a very rare genius, but he was an enemy now. He was as fragile as an ant in front of a Core Strengthening stage warrior and could be pinched to death easily.
Swoosh!
At the same time, another hand made of Arch Energy shed with Edgar''s and destroyed Edgar''s spell.
"Edgar, he''s a member of the Guardian guild, you can''t kill him as you like."
Gerard was enraged. His rtionship with Edgar hadn''t been very good, and Noah was his responsibility. If he didn''t stop Edgar from killing his subordinate, everyone wouldugh him at for his cowardice.
"Gerard, you wish to start a war with me just because of a trainee?" Edgar''s face was solemn.
"What if I am? " Gerard calmly asked him,
"Haha¡Edgar, this is too shameful. The famous Aragoth sect is bullying a kid "
Hazelughed, not willing to let go of the chance to send an insult to Edgar.
Edgar''s expression changed, he made a cold humph and stopped his attempt to attack. To personally handle a Body Refining stage cultivator by himself was really a shameful act. There were more than enough inner disciples who could get rid of him.
Edgar gave the orders secretly using his telekic Sense to his disciples. "Listen, don''t let me see this kid walk out of the Nether Realm alive."
One youngster behind him nodded and bowed at Edgar after receiving the order. Meanwhile, Hazel flicked her wrist as numerous space rings appeared in the air and each of the rings floated towards a person.
"You can''t use any space rings inside the Nether realm except the one in front of you. Utility space carefully by taking what you really want"
"Avoid fighting with each other and concentrate on getting the treasures for your cultivation" After Hazel, Royce Camden of Morning star gave a piece of advice to all the youngsters.
"Alright. No more dys. We should open the rift with no dys" Dean said after everyone grabbed the space rings.
Right after that, the five masters came together and formed a portal on the ground connecting this world to the Nether Realm.
"We are finally going to enter the Nether realm for an expedition, I have been expecting this for a long time."
"I must get something good when I enter."
.....
Many had started to feel nervous. This was the day that they had been waiting for. They have all been preparing for this big event to happen and would rush into it as soon as it was opened.
.
"Let''s go, we are going in."
Some had flown up wildly and rushed into the portal like there''s no tomorrow. The entrance of the portal was enormous, big enough for them to enter in arge group like a swarm of wasps.
The geniuses of the three big sects and disciples of Aragoth were also entering the portal excitedly. Meanwhile, Xanali and Peyton descended from the sky andnded near Noah and his group.
"Big brother, let''s go in together."
Maisy stood beside Noah.
"Who''s this little girl?"
Peyton asked with a smile on her face. She could tell that there''s a special rtionship between the two.
"This is Maisy, my good foster sister. This is my friend, Abel"
Noah introduced them to one another as Peyton seemed like she just realized something," She''s the one you rmended us to recruit, not bad, not bad at all" Peyton was slightly shocked to learn a thirteen years old little girl had reached the Body Refining stage level 5. She was a genius who could bepared to Noah or even Xanali''s step-sister.
"Ah Peyton, Xanali, this is Abel. He is also one of my good friends. We have faced life-and-death trials before."
Noah patted Abel''s shoulder while introducing him.
"Miss Peyton, Miss Xanali"
Peyton put one palm on his chest and said with respect.
"Nice to meet you Abel" Peyton and Xanali responded with a friendly smile.
"You should go. The others have already entered. You can''t be left behind" Peyton said as Noah and Alicia nodded.
"Let''s go" Right after that, he and his group rushed into the portal but just as they were about to step into the portal, they halted their steps when they saw a sh of gold lighting bolt into the portal.
"Wow, what was that?" Maisy and Abel did see nothing while Noah and Alicia barely caught a glimpse of a man in the sh of lightning.
"That was the guy who rejected our offer of joining the Guardian Guild in the first ce, Ghost " Noah and his group were stunned for a moment. They wanted to probe into this matter but Gerard''s sudden appearance pulled their attention more,
"Guardian Captain" Peyton and Xanali immediately lowered their heads and bowed with the utmost respect towards Gerard while the others awkwardly lowered their heads
"I have an important task for all of you in the Nether Realm"
Chapter 104 - Nether Realm II
After staying for one and a half hours in the portal, Michael finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
"I think I''m here" Seeing this, Michael''s spirit rose.
"Remember to take shelter in the abandoned buildings at night" He heard Gaya''s serious voice through the earpiece and agreed in his mind. ording to Gaya, powerful Netherels such as Core Formation and even Core Strengthening stage Netherels woulde out of their hiding ce at night. Therefore, roaming outside at night in the Nether realm with their Body refining stage cultivation level was nothing but suicide.
" I''ll take shelter at night," he said and reassured her. After a few seconds, the light at the end of the portal became brighter, and soon after, he finally arrived at the end of the tunnel.
Swoosh!
Michael felt a tremendous gust of force from behind and in a sh, he was falling from the sky. Fortunately, he didn''t fall from too high as hended on the groundfortably breaking none of his bones.
After leaving the portal, he heard the excited cries of people. He was standing on a vast grasnd and the sight slightly surprised him. When he first mentioned the Nether realm, he imagined it to be a deste ce with ashes in the air and streams ofva on the ground. Yet, the ce before him seemed like a perfect ce for a pic with friends.
"Let''s go towards the ends of this in field, I''m sure we''ll find some treasures there!" At the moment, someone said and ran past Michael.
Soon, more than a hundred warriors were scattered around in different locations, and all of them were rushing toward the end of this in field at the same time.
"Lightning Dash"
A few minutes, Michael overtook them and reached the end of the in field before anyone else could. A white fog suddenly emerged in front of him, and when people came closer to the fog, they discovered there were seven paths in front of them! Each path had appeared out of nowhere, and they looked illusionary, and none of them seemed to be real.
"Howe there are so many paths? How are we going to choose which to take?"
"We must be extra careful! Although this ce seems harmless, I''m sure it''s filled with great dangers. Some paths must lead to real treasures, and some must lead to great dangers."
"Precisely. Let''s wait and see. It''s best not to be too impulsive. If we enter some dangerous situation, our lives would be thrown away in vain."
...
The crowds immediately stopped moving. Everyone stared at the fork in the road, the seven paths in front of them. They did not know which path they should choose. When there was a great opportunity, the great danger would usually lurk nearby. No one wanted to risk their lives for nothing. Therefore, they had to be really careful when picking which path they should take.
White fog hovered around all seven paths and made it even more difficult to choose the right path. Everything seemed quiet and calm, but the crowds felt an eerie feeling as they looked at the seven paths and the white fog.
"Hey, there are seven paths in front of me, which one should I choose?" He asked Gaya and he also directed the question to the system.
"Choose one randomly and go, that''s what I did"
[The System level is too low to scan the paths]
Unfortunately, both Gaya and the System were unable to help Michael choose a better path, so he decided to choose a path randomly. While the others were hesitating to step forward, Michael chose the third path from his right and began to walk the path.
Tap¡ tap¡
The path he chose was really quiet, and silence filled his journey. The only sound he could hear was the sound of his footsteps. He walked the path with a solemn expression trying to be as careful as possible. He was d that he bought the Environmental scanning that''s helping him be aware of the surroundings.
"What''s happening?" Gaya asked him.
"There are cracks everywhere on this path, and it''s emanating an ancient aura. I wonder how many years it has existed, it''s really giving me a spooky feeling" He furrowed his brows.
"Just be careful and ready for a fight, you don''t know when a Netherel would jump out of the fog and drink your blood, hehe" she tried to scare him with her spooky voice but it only made him chuckle. Yet his instincts told him that this path wouldn''t be as peaceful as it seemed.
He walked forwards for nearly an hour at a consistent speed. Suddenly, he heard a miserable shriek sound out not far in front of them and his Environmental scanning alerted him that there were hostile enemies in front of him a few meters away from him.
The shriek sounded really spooky as if it came from an inhuman creature.
He sped up, and shortly after, he saw a man motionlessly lying in a pool of blood about 20 meters in front of them.
It was a shocking scene, the man''s throat hadpletely ripped off and blood flowed out from the neck.
"It seems he entered this path before me," He said, and weirdly, instead of worrying, a grin appeared on his face and his eyes lit up.
"Finally some action and XP!" Michael suddenly shouted out. With extremely fast speed, he unsheathed his sword and swung the sword around.
EEEK!
A loud shrill was heard. Michael''s sword had cut something.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 8 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
After he heard the system, he found a dark goo stter and soon found a Netherel human lying on the ground in his own pool of dark goo.
"What is it?" Gaya asked curiously.
"Just a Body Strengthening stage Netherel'''' After reaching level 10 of the Body Refining Stage, killing this Netherel felt like stepping on an ant. The Netherel was too weak and didn''t even have time to dodge Michael''s sword sh.
"There are more of them here" an evil grin surfaced on his face before golden bolts of lightning cracks began to dance around his fingers.
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
Zzzzhhhhhhhh!
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 8 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 8 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 6 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points]
¡
Michael just kept walking the path while sending bots of lightning into the fog in all directions. With the help of his Environmental scanning, every lightning bolt he fired killed a Netherel or two. The people who were walking the same path as Michael saw golden shes of light through the white fog and heard loud shrills.
"They are so weak"
"Why are you being so proud? If I was there, I could have killed them with a flick of my wrist" The proud and arrogant voice of Gaya sounded in his head.
"You better finish all your tasks when I return Gaya or I''ll take away your breakfast, second breakfast, and night snacks"
"Are you ckmailing this princess, your damn bastard?"
"Yes I am,"
During the next two hours, he continued walking this path, and it was as if there was no end to it. Along his way, he continued to kill the Netherels, and with their weak strength and Environmental scanning, no matter how good a Nethrel hid itself, it would still die.
Along the way, he had killed more than a hundred Nethrels and earned enough Experience points to reach the Body Strengthening stage. But soon, the following situation made him lose the smile on his face because the Netherels that continuously attacked him didn''t appear once more. The path had suddenly be extremely quiet. Then after a few minutes of walking, the path had finally ended. The white fog hovering around him also disappeared.
Michael continued moving forward with a sad face because of the disappearance of the Netherels. In the blink of an eye, he left the path and arrived at the mountain range.
This mountain range covered 60 kilometers in all directions, but there wasn''t a single nt on sight.
"Have you left the path?"
Buzz¡
Right after Gaya finished speaking, Michael''s lips curved upwards as hundreds of stone Netherels suddenly appeared within the mountain range. They instantly started sprinting toward Michael
"So many Netherels!"
"Those Nethrels aren''t that strong, just fly above them" Hearing Michel''s voice, she suggested flying above the Netherels to avoid being annoyed by the weak Netherels.
However, in his eyes, these Netherels appeared to be Experience farms which could make him jump from Body Strengthening stage level 1 to level 3 and also increase his sword mastery to 85%.
"I love Nether realm!"
Chapter 105 - Netherel Ash & Treasure Garden
Right at this moment, a group of youngsters was walking the path quietly. Although their journey was uneventful, their eyes were filled with terror because their path was painted with dark goo, Netherel limbs, and body parts.
"Who did this?" a girl in the group asked while tightly clenching her sword
"Shhhh" the boy who was leading the group shushed the girl as they began to hear loud shrieks in the air.
"Oh my god, Netherels" the boys in the group swallowed their saliva and the girls moved closer to each other in fear.
"Guys, I think the Netherels are fighting the group walked this path before us" the boy who was leading the group said and prepared himself for an intense fight with the Netherels.
"Come on guys, we have to help them"
"Denis wait!" The group behind him however didn''t want to fight the Netherels and tried to stop him from moving forward.
"Guys, dont be stupid, we cannot turn back aftering all this way. The fight is inevitable, let''s join the fight with that group and fight together" Despite their fear of fighting the flesh-eating Netherels, they could see the point of joining another group and fight the Netherels together rather than facing them alone.
"There''s strength in numbers guys,e on" Denis urged them and advanced to join the fight. His group soon followed him behind through the mist and after a few minutes, the white mist around them disappeared. They continued to move forward in the battle''s direction sound. The sounds of the shrieks sounded louder as the group halted their steps for a moment and took deep breaths.
"Are you guys ready?" Denis could see the battle is happening just around the corner and wanted to make sure his group is ready to face the Netherels.
"Yes," they knew it''s toote to turn back and wanted to face the Netherels with courage and valor.
"Good" Denis nodded and turned back, "FOR GLORY!"
"FOR HONOR!"
"FOR WEST VIEW!"
The group dashed forward letting out high-pitched battle cries, however,? their battle cries were cut short by the sight in front of them.
Though the terrain was covered with greyish pebbles and ashen soil, the ground wasn''t clear grey but ckish crimson color. Their eyes were fixed on the Netherels before them yet they lowered their weapons subconsciously. In front of them, they saw a mound of Netherels. They stood still staring at the golden bolt of lightning moving around the Netherels. Everywhere the golden lightning bolt traveled, they could see a Netherel fall losing either its head or half of its body or both. Soon, the mound grew bigger by one or more inanimate Netherel.
This scene continued for another ten minutes and the mound of Netherels grew bigger and bigger. The group stood there with their mouths opened as they witnessed a mob of Netherels being reduced to zero in a short amount of time.
The very next moment after killing thest Netherel, they saw the golden bolt of lightning slowing down transform into a ck-robed youngster.
Dennis and his group were stunned beyond words when they realized that all the Netherels were killed by not a group but a single person.
"My sword broke" Michael lifted one of his swords and shook the sword as a chunk of the de fell off from the sword. He picked up the chunk of the de and put it inside his space ring along with the broken sword. Since these were his first swords, they had sentimental value for him.
"Let''s burn these suckers" Michael walked towards the mound of Netherels and on his way, he saw the terrified faces of Dennis and his group.
"Hey" he waved shortly at Dennis and his group and took out a can to burn all the Netherels.
"Oh...Hi," it took several seconds for Dennis to respond but Michael was busy pouring the green liquid on the Netherels.
"What...is..he doing?" A girl behind Dennis asked him.
"Ignitia" the girl''s question was soon answered by Michael as a tiny bolt of lightning hit the mound of Netherels. Instantly, the mound was on fire and they all closed their noses due to the stench radiated from the burning Netherels.
Soon, the mound was reduced to nothing but ashes. They saw him gathering all the ashes into arge bottle and storing it in his space ring. They had no idea why he collected the Netherel ashes. Unlike the Netherels he killed in the River town, these Netherels had a special property in their body and it made their ashes one of the best fertilizers for his herbal garden.
Besides this ash, he earned enough Experience points to reach the Body Strengthening stage level 3 through killing the Netherels and absorbing their cores. He kept a bunch of cores for the Elders and ire so they could also reach the higher stages. The stronger his base of operation, the more badass points he could earn.
After collecting the ashes, he turned around and disappeared from their sight in a sh leaving them dumbstruck.
*****************************
"Did you kill them all?" After leaving the battleground, Michael heard Gaya''s voice.
"What do you think?"
"Move your ass faster human or you would lose the real treasures" she yelled at him as Michael said, "Did you forget about my wargod body? The more I kill, the stronger I would be"
"Freaky but I wish I could cultivate like you" Gaya sighed.
"Don''t worry, I''ll help you cultivate faster"
"You better" She didn''t feel ashamed of asking for his assistance but on the contrary, she felt thrilled.
While chit-chatting with Gaya, he exited the mountain range, and right before he left the mountain range, a white fog suddenly appeared in front of him again. The white mist prevented him from looking further into the distance. At the same time, he felt a cooling sensation.
"I sense no Netherels within the white fog in front of me. Once I cross this white fog, I might enter another mountain range."
Michael said with an excited smile. Thinking about another Experience farm, he began to walk forward. Soon after, he passed through the white fog. Yet, unlike his expectation, what was in front of him after passing the white mist was a great in with a bright sky. But, what attracted him wasn''t this beautiful scene, it was the huge garden that was floating high above them in the sky.
"Is that a garden?" Wasting no time, he stepped on the flying sword and dashed towards the garden.
Right at this moment, figures of warriors could be seen lingering around the garden. All of them had the same excited expressions, and some of them had even started fighting each other. Furthermore, more people were dashing out from different directions. When these people saw the garden in the sky, they immediately flew toward it. Michael knew that these people were from the other paths, and there were more people on those paths than the one he chose.
But, none of this was important. The important thing was, the temptation caused by the garden in the sky was really powerful. Even from far, he could smell the refreshing airing from it, as well as a strong smell of herbs. The smell of herbs caused all those who smelled it to feel rxed and refreshed.
"Move! I found this Cavern Petal!"
"Fuck you, I found this!"
"What is that? An Oglio root? damn!"
"Look at that! That is the Diamond Leaf! An extremely rare herb in the outside world! Oh heavens, there are rare herbs everywhere! This entire garden is a gigantic treasure!"
...
Everyone arrived at the garden in the sky and were excitedly yelling and shouting. This was because they kept finding rare herbs, herbs so rare there was no way they could see them in the outside world.
"haha, precious treasures! There are indeed precious treasures here!"
"Fuck, this garden is at least 7 kilometers long in all directions! There are herbs everywhere, and many of them look really old! If this garden was in our world, all superpowers would fight to the death for it!"
Swoosh, swoosh...
More and more people arrived and dashed toward the garden. After the first batch of youngsters came to the Nether realm, more and more warriors came from all over. As long as they survived the Netherel attack, many youngsters had the chance toe here and seek an opportunity.
Michael had noticed all these warriors as well. Some of them were clearly injured, and it looked like they had experienced a dangerous situation back on the paths they had chosen. However, it seemed like the danger they faced was less devastatingpared to Michael''s. Also, there were some paths where no one emerged from. Clearly, those who stepped onto those paths had encountered great dangers, and perhaps they wouldn''t even be able to leave that ce.
As for those warriors who didn''t encounter any dangers, they had long ago emerged from the path and were hanging around in the sky garden right now. Who knew how many benefits they had gotten so far? It took Michael several hours to reach this garden.
Regardless of which path the people emerged from; they were faced with the biggest opportunity in their lifetime. This garden in the sky by itself was a gigantic treasure. Each and every single herb here would provide significant benefits to those who obtain it. Looking at all these herbs, Michael couldn''t hold his excitement as a wide grin appeared on his face.
"Let''s begin"
Chapter 106 - One Stone, Two Birds
The eyes of the people turned red, and everyone was excitedly yelling and shouting.
"Haha, this Tiger Cress belongs to me!"
A youngster joyfully startedughing. He stretched his arm forward and tried to grab the herb. However, right before his palm could touch the herb, a light curtain suddenly appeared and stopped his hand. At the same time, he was forced 3 steps backward.
"Haha, idiot, all these herbs are protected by a defense mechanism! You won''t be able to put your hands on them without breaking the mechanism first!"
"All these neers are just idiots."
...
Some people startedughing. Those who had arrived here first had discovered how it works.
"This is strange, why are all these herbs protected by defense mechanisms?" One of the youngsters near Michael red at the herbs and wondered.
"Without it, do you think there would still be so many herbs here? Not to mention this is only a garden with a 7 km circumference. Even a 70 km circumference garden would be emptied in an instant if there were no defense mechanism. Every single herb here is protected by a defense mechanism, meaning we have to break the mechanism before we can get the herb. Also, ording to the rarity of the herb, how many years it has grown, and its value, the strength of the defense mechanism will be different as well. For the herbs with a higher value than others and who are also old, their defense mechanisms will be more difficult to break." Micheal heard someone exin how the mechanism works to the youngster who raised the previous question.
Indeed, Michael both saw many warriors restlessly working to break the defense mechanisms of those high-value herbs. One of the warriors stood in front of a Diamond Leaf, and his face had turned red. No matter how much strength he used, he just couldn''t break its defense mechanism.
Although everyone''s eyes were on the rare and oldest herbs like Tiger cress, Michael''s eyes were on the other herbs that did not attract as many eyes as the Tiger cress.
[why is the host not fighting for the Tiger Cress?]
When the system realized that Michael is not walking towards Tiger Cress or any other precious herbs, the System asked in a curious voice.
"Because I didn''t want to lose the chance of getting all these herbs fighting for one thing" As he said, he came before a herb called Wolf pepper and reached out to grab the herb.
[100 badass points to break the defense mechanism] A golden dome appeared around the herb and at the same time, he heard the system''s voice in his head.
"100 for Wolf pepper? Sigh" he sighed and paid 100 badass points to break the shield to acquire the herb.
Right after he paid the system, the golden dome dimmed and disappeared. Michael grabbed the herb while everyone was focused on Tiger cress and moved to the next one.
The herbal garden had hundreds of rare herbs but only a few of them had extremely tough defense mechanisms and attracted the most eyes. Also, the people in the garden had already begun fighting for these rare herbs ignoring the herbs that were less rare than herbs like Tiger Cress.
Michael exploited this situation and grabbed all the herbs he could without attracting the eyes of the cultivators. The other reason Michael decided to go after these herbs was the rare herbs had people from powerful sects and families fighting for.
[The host should really hunt for more rare and precious herbs]
"And start a fight with most of the major powers in the continent? No, thanks. Besides, I know what I''m doing"
As a 5-star level Alchemist, he knew everything there is to know about the surrounding herbs. For a normal cultivator, the Tiger cress would help him/her breakthrough from the Body Refining stage to the Body Strengthening stage in one go after consuming the pill concocted using the Tiger Cress as the main ingredient. However, for Michael who uses Experience points and Badass points, herbs like Tiger Cress didn''t matter too much. Also, these herbs would only have desirable medicinal quality if they matured for more than a thousand years and if not, their medicinal quality and worth would be subpar at best. Although Michael had the system, he still couldn''t fast forward the time and grow a bunch of Thousand years old Tiger cresses.
Michael''s sole intention was to get as many as the herbs he could and grow them in his herbal garden to make more varieties of pills and potions without making too many powerful enemies in the process. The herbs he was collecting could be easily grown in his herbal garden and didn''t need to mature for thousand years to get the most out of them.
"Niaba, Sotteder, Yatoth, Koneasbi, Uwogon, Autumn Licorice, Swamp Leaf, Star Cumin, Moon Oregano, Mountain Vani..." While recalling the herbs he collected, he continued to collect more and more herbs. Because of the size of the garden and Michael''s quick work on the defense mechanisms, many did not even notice him as they were busy trying to break the defense mechanisms on their own.
The system urged Michael to steal precious herbs like Tiger Cress hoping to make him piss off many powerful people so it could reap the badass points from him by helping him in battle. He did the opposite of the System''s intention and didn''t fight with anyone. Yet, it was not true for others as he could see intense battles all over the garden for rare herbs like Tiger Cress or Diamond Leaf.
"Is that who I think it is?"
"Yes, it''s that Ghost who won Heaven''s gatepetition"
"And he''s also a 5-star Alchemist"
"Fuck! He looks younger than me"
"Why isn''t he fighting for those rarest herbs?"
Many people who were from Bradford and River town instantly recognized Michael and started chit-chatting. They all wondered why he was not fighting for the rarest herbs but picking the ordinary herbs. Because of the rarest herbs, these people had forgotten that the herbs Michael was picking only became ordinary when they werepared to the rarest herbs. In the search for the rarest herbs, they were losing the chance of obtaining these ''Ordinary herbs''.
"My herbal garden is going to be awesome" the more herbs he picked, the more he felt excited.
He continued to avoid battles and collect herbs. Although the Garden was massive, with the help of Lightning dash, he covered a lot of ground and obtained hundreds of herbs. While he was obtaining these herbs, he also avoided many groups who were fighting for some herbs because the garden was so big and had thousands of herbs; there was no need for fighting.
Michael''s goal inside the Nether Realm was to collect as many treasures as he can without making too many enemies. He liked to grow stronger in shadows and only show his power when necessary until he became stronger than everyone else in this world.
"Now it''s time for some money-making"
"Oooh sounds fun!" He grinned hearing Gaya''s excited voice and walked towards the Tiger Cress where arge group of people was fighting over it.
"Tiger Cress belongs to Morning Star, we found it first!"
"I don''t see you or your sect''s name on the Tiger Cress!"
"The Tiger Cress belongs to whoever breaks this defense mechanism"
"Yes, that''s fair!"
All the major powers like Aragoth, the three big sects, and many prominent families in Elon Continent were arguing over the Tiger Cress.
"I can break this defense mechanism" Suddenly the atmosphere became silent after Michael''s voice reverberated the area. Everyone in the ce turned their head and saw a ck-robed youngster walking towards them with a small grin on his face.
"Who do you think you are?"
"What makes you think you can break this defense mechanism?"
"He''s just an attention seeker"
None of them thought Michael could break the defense mechanism and returned to bitch about how to get their hands on the herb.
"You can stand here all day trying to break the spell or let me do it for you" Michael spoke again but this time, his voice was louder and serious.
"Humph, do you really think you can break this mechanism?" A disciple from Aragoth asked arrogantly.
"Let''s assume you can break this mechanism, aren''t you going to im ownership of the herb?"
"What if you can''t break the mechanism as you said?"
They fired question after question at Michael as he just stood there with a smile, "I know I can break the mechanism and as for the ownership, I will sell the herb to the highest bidder. I will say this again, You can stand here all day trying to break the spell or let me do it for you. Whoever has the most gold coins will get the herb"
Everyone stared at the Tiger Cress and Michael for a few moments before the arrogant youngster from Aragoth spoke," Alright if you can do what you have said, you''ll be richer when we return to the outside world"
Michael knew this youngster was making a threat, but he didn''t mind his tone because he''s going to break this defense mechanism with the help of the system.
"Step aside people, it''s time to crack this baby open,"
Chapter 107 - Ultimate XP Farming Trick I
Many people including the ones who were trying to break the defense mechanism dropped what they were doing and quickly gathered around Michael and the Tiger Cress. Some of them wanted to see whether or not Michael could break the mechanism; some of them wanted to witness the entertainment of Michael getting his ass kicked in case he couldn''t break the mechanism.
Michael noticed all the various expressions and thinking about the badass points he''s going to get, he turned his focus on the tiger w-shaped fruit before him.
"System, break this baby open"
[You have to pay the system 500 Badass points] Michael''s expression was neutral but inside, he was cursing the system for its arrogant tone.
"Take it and break it," he said to the system inside. Following hismand, he closed his eyes and pretended to be drawing shapes above the herb.
"What is he doing?"
"He better breaks this defense mechanism"
"Is that Ghost of River town?"
"Ghost? The 5-star Alchemist?!"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
¡
People who went to the Majestic or from River town recognized Michael when they saw him and by hearing those people, many realized that the youngster in front of him was the famous 5-star Alchemist of Bredia.
Because of this recognition, he umted thousands of badass points in a sh without even actually breaking the mechanism or doing anything awesome.
"So he''s that 5-star Alchemist everyone was talking about?" there was a hint of surprise in the eyes of the disciples of Aragoth, including the one who talked to Michael before.
Creeekkkk!
Right at this moment, the surprise in everyone''s eyes turned into shock as they saw cracks appear on the golden dome''s surface around the Tiger Cress.
"What the fuck?!"
"The heck!"
"How did he..?"
"What?! How"
Many of the people were speechless as the number of cracks on the dome multiplied before shattering into bits of golden light.
While everyone was in shock, Michael grabbed the herb in one hand and conjured his Alchemical mes on the other.
"What are you doing?!"
"DON''T!"
The disciples of Aragoth were the first to respond as Michael said,
"As I said before,? you have to pay me for this herb, if anyone tries to do anything funny, I will burn this Tiger Cress to ashes"
By looking at the green mes in his hand and the seriousness in his eyes, they knew he wasn''t kidding.
After a few moments, the youngster from Araogth stepped forward and this time, he wasn''t as arrogant as before.
"We will honor our word. Aragoth will pay you 200,000 Gold Coins for this Tiger Cress"
"MorningStar will give you 300,000"
"350,000"
Without even Michael stating the starting bid, the bidding war began between the rich youngsters.
"Golden Valley, 450,000"
"550,000 gold coins"
"600,000"
"700,000 Gold coins plus we will hire you as our Alchemist and pay you handsomely" Finally, the youngster from Aragoth raised his voice and ced his bid, and also, he sweetened the pot by making another offer.
"Morn-"
"Sold" before even the disciples of Morning star could ce the next bet, Michael sold the Tiger Cress to Aragoth. The Morningstar Sect and he didn''t have a smooth rtionship because of his enmity between him and Celina. Moreover,? he would prefer to be on the good side of Aragoth''s rather than on MorningStar''s.
After knowing the history between the order of Death and the Guardians, Michael realized that he would need powerful people with him to fight a giant power like the Guardian Guild. Unlike Noah who antagonized many powers in Bredia, Michael preferred to work in shadows while making fewer enemies as possible. Then with the help of the system and his nning, he would be stronger and build a faction strong enough to subdue all the sects and the major powers.
In his path of world domination, he nned to make Aragoth his first ally through working with this youngster.
"Here you go" Micheal tossed the herb at the youngster and then, he reached out his hand, "Ghost, happy to help Aragoth"
"Nathen Bradley of House Bradley" The youngster shook Michael''s hand after giving a thought.
"Human, what the fuck is going on there?! You sold what?" Ignoring Gaya''s frustrated shoutings in his ears, he smiled back at Nathen and shook his hand before turning his gaze towards the Diamond Leaf which was another precious and rare herb in the garden.
"Why don''t you give me 1.8 million gold coins for Diamond Leaf, Oglio root, and Cavern Petal?" Michael asked Nathen with a wide grin while others looked at him with vexed faces.
"1 million and the Alchemy product supply contract for the outer disciple section of Aragoth is yours, if you can handle it that is"
"Deal"pared to the 800,000 gold coins, what Nathen promised was valuable and helpful to Michael because by supplying potions and pills to Aragoth, he could earn 800,000 gold coins or more in a few months. Therefore, Michael agreed to this deal immediately and bore a wide grin on his face.
"Hey, I thought you''re going to auction the herbs, not sell them to only Aragoth,"
"These are not your herbs to sell"
"This is not fair" because of Michael''s sudden change of mind and his actions, many were riled up and began to express their objection.
"Life is not fair" the smile on Michael''s face disappeared and a serious look reced his previous smile as everyone who tried to bad mouth him instantly shut their traps.
"Now that we made the deal, let''s go get you all the herbs I promised" Michael gestured to the disciples of Aragoth to follow him to the Diamond Leaf. Since many have tried to break the defense mechanism and ultimately failed to do so, they could only follow and watch Aragoth get their hands on every precious herb through Michael.
"Where did you learn to break defense spells?" while they were approaching the Diamond Leaf, Nathen curiously asked Michael.
"I traveled a lot and picked up a few tricks along the way" Fortunately Nathen didn''t ask him to reveal or teach them the tricks.
Just like its name, each leaf of Diamond Leaf herb glistened like a diamond. After consuming a pill or potion made using a Diamond Leaf, one can experience a sudden boost in their cultivation speed for an entire month or more depending on the Alchemist''s skill without polluting their body.
"Beat it" Noticing the few youngsters struggling with the defense mechanism, Nathen chased them away with the wave of his hand. Because of the sword symbol on Nathen''s chest, they didn''t dare to disobey his words as they sighed and ran away before ncing at the Diamond leaf for onest time.
"You''re a 5-star Alchemist and you also seem to possess a talent for runes, so why did you join a sect like Sunrise?" Nathen didn''t even try to hide the disdain as he asked Michael.
"It''s simple, if I''m a disciple of Aragoth, I''m just another talented disciple. But in Sunrise, I''m the only one and I can do whatever I like whenever I like" Michael answered with a smile and continued, "I value my freedom above anything, that''s why I turned down the Guardian Guild when they asked me to join as their trainee or whatever" Again, Nathen was taken aback by surprise and shock as he stared at Michael speechlessly for a few seconds.
"You did what?" The others behind Nathen also felt a chill running through their spines because being a guardian was the highest honor in this world yet he turned down that honor and merit.
"I said that I''m not interested to Peyton"
"Why?" Until now, Nathen bore a proud and arrogant look on his face but after hearing what he just said, his face showed only one expression, confusion.
"As I said, I value my freedom above anything. I don''t enjoy following orders and being a good soldier. I heard someone from Aragoth tried to join the Guardians? " Michael changed the topic to something else before Nathen asks too many questions about his actions.
Like Michael wanted, when he asked this question, Nathen''s expression changed drastically.
"Yes, his name is Lodin Otkelsson.He was brutally killed by that Noah and hisckey in the Red Summit. Aragoth will avenge Lodin by killing both of them "
"Good luck with that" Michael snickered inside because he had a feeling that Noah is not only being protected by Guardians but also something or someone else.
However, the more enemies Noah makes, the more allies Michael could have in the fight against him and the Guardian guild in the future. For now, Michael focused his efforts on bing stronger and rebuilding the Order of Death in silence rather than provoking all the major powers like Noah.
As they were speaking, the system broke the defense mechanism around the Diamond leaf leaving everyone to think that Michael broke the mechanism.
"Here you go" Michael handed over the herb to Nathen and turned his gaze towards another herb.
After taking the Diamond leaf, Michael fastened his work before the nightfall approaches. He was able to see the people leaving the garden hastily. Looking at their actions, he realized that nightfall in the Nether realm is not a joke and left the garden after setting the meeting ce with Nathen to get the coins.
This trip to the garden alone was worthy of his time as he gathered hundreds of herbs and earned a contract to supply pills and potions to one of the best sects in the continent, Aragoth. He couldn''t wait to tell Gaya about all of this and surprise her.
Chapter 108 - Ultimate XP Farming Trick II
"Ahhhhhh!" Just as Michael was dashing towards a small cave, a bunch of Netherels was feasting on a group of youngsters in the distance. Their shrikes sent a chill running through many spines who saw this scene. Michael ignored this and dashed straight into the cave wasting no time.
However before hepletely dashes into the cave, he saw a familiar ice spike prating through the Netherels saving some of the youngsters from being the appetizer for the Netherels.
The cave was small and had just enough room for him. Yet, this small cave was a sanctuary and a calm ce to stay safe. Michael sat on the ground and because of his full ck clothes, he merged with the cave''s darkness and one could not see him in the cave.
"This is mine!" When he was just about to open the system storage and count the herbs he collected, he saw a rogue cultivator rushing towards the cave.
"Leave" Michael calmly said as the cultivator halted his steps suddenly and looked closely into the cave.
Yet, instead of turning his back and leaving the cave, the cultivator decided to step in and chase the previous upant, Michael.
"Wind st"
Whoosh!
The moment he took another step towards Michael, a gust of wind sent the cultivator flung back like a kite without an anchor.
"Who the fuck dared to attack me?!" the cultivator who was attacked forgot about the approaching nightfall in anger and rushed towards the cave after picking himself up.
"Ghost" however this time when the cultivator heard the voice from the cave, he felt a cold chill running through his spine. He then immediately lowered his sword and stood there shivering in fear.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 100 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 badass points]
"Forgive me Master Ghost, I didn''t...know it was you...don''t...don''t kill me" Michael was surprised to see the cultivator dropping to his knees and starting to beg. He didn''t expect a rogue cultivator like him to know his name. He just told his name so someone from the River town or someone who knows him would recognize the name and stay out of the cave as well as want the others. However, this rogue cultivator recognized his name and even went to the lengths to beg made Michael pleased because finally, his legend has started to spread across thend.
"Leave" he hid his joy and said with a serious voice.
"Thank you Master Ghost!" the rogue cultivator groveled and ran as fast as he could from Michael''s sight.
"It feels so great to be feared at," he thought to himself, and deep down, he craved for this feeling. Ever since he was little, he didn''t root for heroes but rooted for the viins. This did not change even after he grew up. For example, his favorite characters were Sauron and Voldemort. His love for viins influenced him more than he realizes.
[Does the host fear Aragoth?] Suddenly the system asked and surprised him.
"Why do you ask?" he switched off the earpiece and asked the system.
[Because you could have taken all the herbs for yourself and showed that you''re the boss but instead, you gave all the precious herbs to Nathen and lost the chance of earning badass points]
"And also few powerful enemies. I''m not that guy Noah, system. I know what you''re trying to do, you want me to make more enemies and buy things from you to survive them. I don''t know what you are and what your end game is, but you should have known this by now, I''m not suicidal and you cannot make me do anything unless I want to" he calmly exined. The system stayed silent because it knew Michael isn''t easy to manipte as it first thought.
Now that the system stayed silent, he was able to count the herbs and n his next movements. Deep down, he was d that Noah and his group did note to the garden and even though he wasn''t afraid of Noah, he wanted to avoid the fight until he could gather enough information about Noah and the power behind him.
Joosh!
"What the?" in a sh, the light outside disappeared like someone switched off the lights of the Nether Realm. There was no dusk as it turned dark without a sign.
"When I was young my friend had an ord.
I waz kicked out without a record.
I never thought I''d see that award.
Ain''t a soul alive that could take my friend''s board.
A cruel power is quite the shower.
Thinking of death. Yaz, thinking of death" when he switched on the earpiece, he was weed by Gaya''s rap.
"I don''t know who wrote this song but I guess it''s you" Michaelughed and the moment she heard his voice, she stopped rapping.
"Where the fuck did you go?" she was annoyed when he went radio silent and he listened to her singing made her feel even more annoyed.
************************
"You did the right thing, a contract with Aragoth is more valuable than those herbs" after he exined what he did in the garden, Gaya agreed with him and supported his decision.
Just when he was about to reply, the environmental scanning detected a hostile activity nearby.
"Hello, is this thing broken again? Krk krkkkkk"
"Stop biting the earpiece, I''m sensing a Netherel horde nearby, is that normal in Nether Realm?"
"Netherel horde? Weird" by hearing her tone, he could tell that it is not normal. He wanted to check what''s going on outside but at the same time, he didn''t want to get killed because of his curiosity.
"They are marching towards somewhere, like soldiers" if the Netherels were moving chaotically, Michael would have felt this curious. They were marching towards somewhere like trained soldiers.
"Are you sure because the Netherel horde is not capable of marching like soldiers" said Gaya.
[For 1000 Badass points, the system can mask your scent and project you from getting detected by the Netherels] while he was stuck between curiosity and safety, he heard the system''s voice.
"That''s more like it" when ites to situations like this, the system had perfect solutions. Considering he had no solution of his own, he decided to get whatever the system is selling, so he could check out where the Netherels are heading.
Just after 1000 badass points disappeared from the stat menu, he felt a strange sensation in his body.
[The host is now ready to explore the Nether realm without fearing the Netherels]
"I have a way to find out what''s going on here," he said and stood up to leave the cave taking advantage of the darkness.
"Of course you do, you freak"
"I''m masking my scent using a special potion" Gaya believed him because she knew that the mysterious light and Abras''s soul blessed him with ancient knowledge which enables Michael to perform miracles like this one.
He slowly stepped forward while checking whether anyone near him and after confirming that no one would see him leave the cave, he left the cave.
He didn''t use the lightning dash as it might draw some unwanted attention and because of his ck clothes, he perfectly merged with the darkness and disappeared.
While heading towards the Netherel horde, he couldn''t see the garden in the sky. It made him realize that after nightfall, the ces which had treasures may not appear for him to loot. However, the purpose of this night visit was not looting but to unveil the mystery behind the marching Netherel horde.
"There they are" after walking in the direction of the Netherel horde, Michael saw hundreds of Netherels marching towards somewhere. Fortunately, what the system did, worked and none of the Netherels in the horde could detect him following them.
"What''s happening there?" Gaya asked in a husky voice.
"I will keep you posted, now stay silent," he said and continued to follow the Netherels. Eventually, the Netherels entered into a thick forest but the uneven ground and obstacles were unable to slow down their marching speed.
After entering the forest, Michael climbed up the trees and followed them by jumping from branch to branch using the Mark 3 grapple hook. And because of this height advantage, he noticed a bonfire at the distance,
"I bet these Netherels are heading towards there" Slightly increasing his speed, Michael moved towards the bonfire but he was cautious not to make any sounds that could bring him unwanted attention.
"Eekasn wasnenes kewannks neekkssdw llsees nifen" As he got closer to the bonfire, he began to hear someone chanting something in an unknownnguage.
"Is that...an orc?" When he got close enough, he saw a figure standing in front of a bonfire and sculptures made of bones. The figure looked just like one of the orcs from the movie Lord of the rings, ugly and evil.
"This is getting more and more interesting"
Chapter 109 - Ultimate XP Farming Trick III
"An orc with a summoner trait" Standing atop a branch, Micheal scanned the orc and identified its trait. The orc wore ragged robes and the robes had mud and bloodstains on them.
While the Netherel horde was walking towards the orc, Michael kept looking around the ce to see if there''s anything or anyone stronger than him nearby. The Orc was only at the Body Refining stage level 9 and the strongest Netherels were only at the level Body Strengthening stage level 5.
If he fought as Lucifer, no one in the Body Strengthening stage could survive the battle with him and if he fought without using Fear toxin or Death Range, only Body strengthening stage level 9 and 10 could fight him head to head.
However, now that he had enough Experience points to reach the Body Strengthening stage level 3, no one in the Body Strengthening stage could win a fight against him after he reaches the Body Strengthening stage level 3.
As he was watching the orc from above, he saw a small journal in the Orc''s hands and realized the Orc is chanting the lines in the journal.
"Come my children, kneel¡. before me" The Orc''s voice was rough and animalistic, just like in the movies. To Michael''s surprise, the entire horde of Netherels kneeled down.
"I did it! hahahahaha" The Orc''s madughter echoed through the silent hills and forest. In its eyes, Michael saw pride as well as anger.
"Father, brother I''ll avenge you. Soon, I''ll gue the world with undead and kill every single one in the Guardian Guild"
"This day gets better and better"? Seeing the orc could summon and control the Netherels, Michael already nned to start a Netherel farm and hearing that the orc has a hatred towards the Guardians was like a cherry on top.
"System, can we take this orc outside without getting detected by the Guardians?" By looking at the wounds on its body and what it just said, Michael figured out that the Orc''s life is in danger. He didn''t give a damn about the Orc''s well being but if he could save the Orc from the Guardians, he could use the orc to level up rapidly. Therefore, he wanted to stop the Orc from doing anything stupid like going to war with the Guardians and take Orc to the Abyssal where the orc could stay safe and summon Netherels for him to kill. Plus, the Abyssal may be the safest ce to summon Netherels without getting detected by the Guardians.
Of course, Michael would make sure they won''t find out anything about his little secret activity in the Dark forest with the help of the System.
"Oh oh" Suddenly Michael detected another presence nearby and it wasn''t a Netherel. When he turned in the presence''s direction, he noticed a dark red-haired youngster rushing towards the bonfire with a long spear in his hand.
"Is that the guy who was with Noah before?" Michael saw this youngster before when he dashed into the portal, he was with Noah and Alicia.
**************************
(An hour ago)
Inside a worn-out cabin, there was a group of youngsters sitting on the floor.
"Damn it Noah, I told you we should look for treasures instead of that Orc"? Norvin, the golden babaroo curled up against Maisy''s chest andined.
"I heard Ghost and some disciples of Aragoth picked all the rarest herbs in the sky garden," Abel sighed thinking about those precious herbs, and said.
"Capturing that Orc is our first priority, Abel. If we don''t, there will be another Slyhaven Massacre" Abel and the others didn''t talk back after hearing Noah''s serious voice while only Maisie looked confused,
"Big Brother Noah, what''s Slyhaven Massacre?" There was an awkward silence for a few moments before Alicia opened her mouth,
"Slyhaven was a vige far away from Kethen. A few weeks ago, someone summoned Netherels from this realm "
"Why?" asked Maisy before Alicia could finish her sentence.
"We don''t know but the Guardians suspects that the one who summoned them was practicing an evil ritual. The one who summoned picked two ces and summoned the Netherels, River town in Bredia and Slyhaven in Kethen"
"Apparently River town was just a distraction to keep the Guardians away from Slyhaven," Abel said gritting his teeth.
"The Netherels attacked the vige and massacred every single one of them. When the Guardians and the Baron''s men came, it was already toote" Just by hearing the story, Maisy felt sad for the vigers, and then, her little face reddened in anger towards the culprit who summoned the Netherels.
"Did you get the vile creature who was responsible for their death?"
"The ones who summoned the Netherels were three Orcs. Peyton and Xanali killed the two of them but thest one escaped. We must capture thest Orc and investigate it to know more about their ns and how did they manage to summon the Netherels from this realm to the outside world in the first ce" Noah said and before Maisy ask another question, he continued,
" Guardian Captain Gerard believes the third Orc somehow entered the Nether Realm and since only Body Refining cultivators can enter here, we have to search and capture the Orc before there''s another massacre"
"Oh that''s what you were talking with him," Maisy said as Noah nodded.
"Big Brother you should have said this earlier, I will help you scour through this entire Nether Realm with you to find that Orc" Maisy stood up as she put her hand on the chest and said. Noah smiled at the little girl, "I know you will Maisy"
"Big Brother, what happened in River town?" After hearing about the Slyhaven, Maisy wanted to know what happened in River town because even though Abel said it was a distraction, she wanted to know what happened to the Netherels that went to River Town.
"They were all killed by Ghost" Abel answered Maisy as Alicia scowled when she noticed a tinge of admiration in Abel''s eyes.
"He did not kill all of them, he just stupidly started a fight with Netherels without thinking about the people in River town or waiting for the Guardians to arrive. Do not admire him Abel, he''s a selfish bastard, you saw what he did to that man who tried to take shelter in the cave" Alicia spoke with a cold look on her face.
"That''s not what the River town people think of him, they say he saved him from the Netherel attack. And also, I don''t admire him, I just wish he doesn''t turn up to be another bad guy, the world has enough bad guys as it is"
"I don''t know he''s bad or not but he''s definitely not a good person "
"Stop it Alicia, what did he do to you? You''re just jealous that he''s better than your sweetheart" the golden babaroo let out an evil grin and teased Alicia.
"Shut up monkey!"
"I''m sure Big brother Noah can kick his ass any day" Maisy proudly said as everyone turned their gaze at Noah to hear his answer.
"I honestly don''t know" After seeing him kill a group of youngsters on the Phoenix ind and how he vanished after facing Julius, Noah wasn''t sure that he could defeat him. Deep down, Noah knew he''s a better swordsman than him yet, Noah also knew that it''s only temporary as Ghost doesn''t have what he does.
"You''re just ying with me big brother, I know you can beat him, hell if I get the chance I''ll show him who''s the boss" After the fight with the Lane family and the pills and potions gifted to her by Noah, she was able to reach the Body Refining stage level 8 in a matter of days. Coupled with her cultivation level and her innate ability, she was damn confident that she could face any Body Refining stage cultivators except Noah and Alicia.
In her eyes, only Noah and Alicia were powerful and people like Ghost are just overrated. Noah just smiled and didn''t answer Maisy as he was thinking about the Orc.
His train of thoughts was stopped when he saw Abel stand up to leave the cabin, "what are you up to?" asked the golden babaroo.
"Did you forget what I said to you before?" he said and showed his wrist to the monkey. On his forearm, there was a star-shaped mark and in the darkness, it glistened
"This is the mark of God, no Netherel or any evil forces can sense my presence"
"But-"
"Let him go Alicia, this is the reason I brought Abel here. Only he can go search all the caves and shelters for that Orc"? Noah interrupted Alicia. At first, they worried about Abel''s safety but after Noah exined the effects of the mark, they agreed to let Abel go outside.
"If you face any trouble that you can handle, use this" Noah tossed Abel a circle talisman.
"A long-range teleporter talisman, where did you get this?!" Looking at the glistening talisman in his hand, Abel asked in surprise.
"Xanali, now go find the Orc so we can focus on finding treasures" Noah waved him off as Abel left the cabin to search for the Orc. At this moment, Abel did not know that the Orc is not the only one he''s going to find.
Chapter 110 - Lucifer Strikes Again
Abel was roaming around and searching the shelters when he saw a horde of Netherels marching into the forest. Because of the mark on his forearm, he was fearless of the Netherels and followed them behind to see where they were going.? The Orc''sughter didn''t help it but revealed its location to Abel.
Standing on top of a branch and hiding within the darkness, Michael noticed Abel approaching the Orc with his spear raised. The distance between the Orc and Abel rapidly decreased but the Orc had no idea of the uing danger.
"What''s on his forearm?" Michael frowned looking at light radiating from Abel''s forearm.
In a few moments, Abel leaped out of the darkness andnded near the bonfire startling the Orc.
"Who?!"? The Orc stumbled back in shock and before it could order the Netherels to attack the intruder, Abel''s spear tip glowed and let out golden rays of light.
"Holy st"? the rays of light transformed into a small orb and dashed at the Orc who was still trying to stand on its feet.
Boom!
However just as the Orc was struggling to stand up, the light orb Abel sent sted the Orc and nailed it onto the tree behind.
"You will pay for all the lives you took, you filthy miscreant" Abel''s eyes were filled with rage. He was doing his best to control his anger and killing the Orc on the spot. The golden light soon wrapped around the Orc''s mouth as well as its body leaving the Orc with no room to wiggle or even move its finger.
"I''ll take care of theseter but for now, you''reing with me" Although the Orc was at Body Refining stage level 9 and Abel was at only level 8, the wounded the Orc suffered weakened it to great extent. Coupled with Abel''s attack speed and surprise entrance, he was able to capture the Orc without much trouble.
Abel looked at the Orc struggling to move but it could only move its eyes. Those eyes were filled with shock and fury. If looks could kill, Abel would have died a thousand times. Ironically, even with the army of Netherels in its control, the Orc couldn''t save itself from getting captured. It desperately tried to open its mouth and gave an order to the Netherels in front of it as without its order, the Netherels literally wouldn''t do anything.
"Hmmm hmmmmmm!" Suddenly Abel noticed the change in the Orc''s eyes. Previously they were radiation anger and shock but now, they were wide and filled with immense terror. He saw the Orc wildly wiggling its body to escape as Abel could tell the Orc''s gaze is not on him but on something behind him.
Puff!
Just as Abel was about to turn back, the bonfire doused out as the surrounding turned pitch ck.
"What¡.?" In the darkness, Able saw a pair of red eyes looking at him. With no control over his body, he began to shiver and feel overwhelming fear.
"Leave, the Orc is mine" Abel''s heart skipped a beat when he heard the unearthly voice and stumbled back. His meditation to keep himself calm despite the situation started to fail him as he couldn''t stop being afraid of the red eyes before him.
"Ahhhhhhhhh" Nheless, Abel mustered all of his courage to fight his fear and screamed.
Soon, the tip of the spear glowed again and in the light, he vaguely saw the red eyes'' face.
"HMMMMMMMMMMMM!" The Orc shook its body and fought to escape the light shackles. The skinless face, red eyes, and ghostly voice freaked out the Orc and wanted to escape before the red eyes changed their focus towards it.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Because of Abel''sck of concentration on the shackles around the Orc, they became slightly weaker and gave enough room for the Orc to smash its head against the tree.
Michael who was in his Lucifer form was surprised to see Abel fighting the Fear toxin''s effects. Michael gave Able the chance to escape but if Abel decided to fight, he had no problem killing Abel.
"The Orc is-"
Whoosh!
Michael''s words were abruptly stopped by Abel''s spear throw. Abel was fast but Michael was faster. When the spear was just an inch away from him, he caught the spear "So you''ve chosen death"
Abel''s eyes went wide in shock looking at the spear helplessly vibrate in Michael''s hand. He tried to summon the spear back to him with all his remaining courage but the spear couldn''t escape the clutches of Lucifer.
"Who...are¡.you?" Abel asked while trying to crawl back in fear. He tried to see the red eyes'' cultivation level but shockingly, he was unable to.
"Death Range" Michael knew people like Abel would have something up their sleeve so he instantly activated the Death Range which would make him 35% stronger and faster inside the range. Right after he activated the skill, Michael overpowered the spearpletely as the spear stopped trembling.
Looking at his weapon surrender itself, Abel knew he couldn''t fight the being in front of him. While fighting against the overwhelming fear in his heart with hisst bit of courage, he tried to take out the teleportation talisman that Noah gave him.
"No, you don''t" Michael was d he activated the Death range when he saw Abel take out something. Thanks to the Death Range and the speed boost, he was quick enough to prevent Abel from using the item by throwing the spear at Abel.
Pulch!
The spear soared through the darkness and struck Abel on his shoulder. The teleportation scroll slipped away from Abel''s fingers as Michael dashed at Abel to finish the job before he could use something else or Noah and his group arrive.
"Noah...will..e...fo-"
Pulch!
Before Abel could finish what he was about to say, Michael took out the spear from Abel''s shoulder and stabbed him through the chest.
"*Cough" Abel coughed out blood as Michael stabbed him again
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 8000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the ally of a powerful foe. The reward is an Epic mystery box]
Thud!
After Abel died, the light shackles that wrapped around the Orc disappeared making the Orc fall down to the ground. Michael gave no time for the Orc to act as he dashed at the Orc and lifted the Orc by its neck.
"Order them to devour his body" With the help of Arch Energy, Michael controlled the amount of Fear toxin radiating from his suit of armor and let the Orc inhale just as much as he wanted it to without killing the Orc.
The Orc could barely breathe as it slowly nodded with difficulty.
"Eat... him" The very next moment the Orc uttered these two words, the Netherels came back to life again and swarmed around Abel''s body like a pack of hungry vultures around a lump of juicy meat. In mere seconds, they chewed through Abel''s body and even ate most of his bones.
Looking at the few remaining bones of Abel, Michael didn''t regret his decision to kill Abel a bit because he gave Abel the chance to escape but it was he who chose to fight and ultimately die. He then turned his gaze back to the Orc,? "You can either die here with him ore with me to live, your choice"
"Don''t...kill...me" The Orc could barely speak these words and after grinning behind the skull mask, he activated the lightning dash and disappeared from the area taking the Orc with him.
Michael didn''t stop running until he put a few miles distance from where he killed Abel. He also didn''t forget to store Abel''s spear in the system''s store before scanning the spear for any hidden traps. As far as he was concerned, he didn''t leave any evidence that could identify him as Abel''s killer. Soon, the gates to the Nether realm would close and after that, the name Abel would be lost in the time.
Michael stopped at a ce where he was sure that there''s no one around them. He and the Orc reached a deserted cabin in the middle of the forest.
Thud!
Michael threw the Orc onto the wall and watched it stand up with difficulty. He stopped using the Fear toxin on the Orc and let it breathe the fresh air for a change.
"What..are you?" The Orc asked and stood on the corner still shivering in pain.
"You don''t need to know that just yet" He wanted to know more about the Orc before revealing his identity. Of course, he wouldn''t reveal his identity as Ghost.
"You summoned those Netherels to attack River town" By connecting the dots of controlling the Netherels, the Orc''s summoner trait, and the wounds on its body, he guessed the Orc might be the sorcerer who was chased by Celina and Alex.
"You lie, you die" Michael warned the Orc before it could spin a web of lies.
The Orc stood on the corner swallowing the saliva in terror as it even avoided looking directly into his red eyes.
"I just... helped my father and...brother"? The Orc surprised Michael with this answer and by looking into its eyes, he could tell that the Orc wasn''t lying.
"Tell me everything"
Chapter 111 - The Beginning Of The Darkness
For thest couple of minutes, the Orc told everything Michael needed to know. ording to the Orc, he was named Dr and he belonged to a long line of summoners, a faction called Death wakers. The Orc said his father and brothers were the ones who summoned the Netherels but he also said, they did that as an experiment and not to attack anyone.
Obviously, Michael was not a fool to believe thest part yet he chose not to cross-question the Orc because he didn''t bring the Orc here to punish him but use the Orc to level up quickly. As for the enmity between the Orc and the Guardians, the matter was simple; the Guardians chased and killed Dr''s father and brother as well as all their family including little orcs.
Dr said he was learning summoning from his father and brother to build a kingdom unifying all the Orc viges that were scattered throughout the continent. He somewhat believed Dr because he did see Dr let out madughter after summoning the Netherels showing Michael that it was Dr''s first time summoning Netherels. Besides, if Dr was an expert in summoning Netherels he would have summoned stronger Netherels.
In his path to world domination, he knew the Guardians would stand against him. Therefore a fight with the Guardians was inevitable and if Dr could help him in the fight, he would let Dr live to serve him as his subordinate.
"You can''t win the fight against the Guardians, you almost died back there and he was only a friend of a trainee Guardian. Now tell me Dr, do you really think you have the chance against the Guardian Guild?" Despite their look, Orc was generally an intelligent race so Dr could understand the power gap between him and the Guardians. Now that the entire Guardian Guild was searching for him, Dr realized that he needed someone powerful enough to protect him and the being in front of him looked more terrifying than any Guardian he had met.
"Serve me well and you''ll not only get to see the Guardians destroyed but also get a kingdom for your race" there was a glint of surprise hidden within Dr''s eyes but also doubt and suspicion.
"Will you serve me as my subordinate?" asked Michael. Considering he couldn''t threaten the Orc to be his subordinate, he had to offer Dr something and make him agree to be his subordinate willingly.
[WARNING!]
[WARNING!]
[WARNING!]
[WARNING!]
[WARNING!]
[SYSTEM¡.ERROR¡.!]
[OMEGA¡..THREAT¡..!]
However, the next moment, Michael''s visionpletely turned red and the system was screaming inside his mind. He instantly opened the system and saw the multiple warnings in the interface.
"System, what''s happening?" his heart was beating rapidly because, without the system, his ns and path to domination would take a huge hit.
[Need¡.1000 Points...to System...reboot...]
"Take it" he didn''t think the system was faking it but it sounded like screaming in pain. Soon after he gave permission to the system, his vision turned nk and the system''s interface faded away from his sight.
[System back online] a few seconds after, the familiar system interface appeared before him and only then he heaved a sigh of relief.
"What the heck was that?"
[System level is too low to answer the host''s question]
[System rmends the host not to make Dr his subordinate]
"Why?"
[System level is too low to answer the host''s question]
"Weird" The System''s behavior puzzled him. Dr was indeed a powerful ally but he wasn''t worth the trouble if making him a subordinate would mess up the system.
Although Michael wouldn''t be able to see Dr''s loyalty if he didn''t make him Dr his subordinate through the System, he didn''t require Dr''s utmost loyalty to use Dr''s summoning ability. However, unlike Gaya, he had to keep Dr under his sight all day to make sure the Orc doesn''t n anything on his own to rebel or betray him.
For that Michael decided to keep him locked up in the Abyssal and keep him under surveince.
"I will my lord" When Michael closed the system, he saw Dr stepping forward and kneeling down in front of him.
"Very good" As he said, Michael bought a syringe and stabbed Dr in his neck.
"Ah! What-"
"You said you opened up a secret portal toe here, open up the portal again and go to the Dark Forest''s border. You''ll meet my second inmand and she will give you the antidote or you''ll die in six hours" Dr stumbled back again and felt a cold chill running through his spine.
"Do you have a problem?" Michael released a small amount of Fear toxin to subjugate Dr and as he nned, Dr shook his head up and down rapidly after inhaling the Fear toxin.
"No...No problem..my lord" Michael very well knew that if Dr''s loyalty is due to fear, it''s not loyalty but fear disguised as loyalty. Yet for now, Dr''s fear of him would work in his favor.
"Now leave" He ordered Dr when he noticed the cultivation masking function had only a few minutes left before it stopped working and revealed his cultivation level. Therefore, Michael urged Dr to leave his sight because he didn''t want to reveal his cultivation level to Dr.
"Yes...my lord" Because Orc had natural healing ability, the wounds he suffered almost disappeared and Michael did not need to give him a healing potion. Dr picked himself up and quickly ran away from the cabin to open up the portal and reach the Dark forest before he dies.
After he saw Dr disappear from his environmental scanning, Michael also left the cabin and dashed towards the cave. On his way to the cave, he transformed from Lucifer to Ghost. The night was still dark and silent when he reached his cave. Inside the cave, Michael instantly opened the system and bought another set of suit of armor for Gaya. The armor was exactly like his Lucifer armor except he asked the system to change the armor to fit her body. He also bought another ck mask for her to hide her face. Due to the changes to the armor, he paid extra 1000 badass points but it was worth the points and he couldn''t wait to see Gaya in her new suit of armor.
**************************
After he told Gaya what happened to Abel and everything about the Orc, he opened up the system to see his current stats as well as to see what the mystery box contained which he received after killing Abel.
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 10
Experience Points: 180000/200000 (960,000 Experience points remaining to be consumed)
Badass Points: 26000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 86% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 685,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
"System, open that mystery box" He was excited because the system''s gift box would have something extremely valuable or useful to him. This time, he wanted a Legendary weapon or a new spell. Soon, a greyish box appeared in front of him and trembled before it exploded into millions of tiny pieces leaving Michael stunned, "huh? Where are my rewards?"
However soon, he saw a white spot on his environmental scanning map, just like the time when the system marked the book of Abyssal during the Phoenix manor auction fair. Surprisingly, the location was not out there in the outside world but the Nether realm.
"A point of interest eh, I wonder what I would find there. Oh speaking of locations, the system can you scan the Nether realm and reveal me the treasures in here"
[System level is too low to scan the Nether realm. But the system can tell you that treasures wouldn''t appear during the night time]
"Bad luck, I was nning to steal all the treasures overnight"? Michael sighed thinking that his n won''t work but still, his unlimited system storage space gave him the absolute advantage over everyone.
"System after I killed that guy in the forest, you said I killed an ally of a powerful foe, by a powerful foe, did you mean Noah?"
[System level is too low to answer the host''s question]
"Ohe on! Can you at least tell me yes or no" The system went radio silent hearing the question and Michael could only sigh and hope to receive an answer after he upgrades the system to the next level. For now, he decided to let the matter rest as he wanted to go check out the location that the system gave him as a gift.
Meanwhile somewhere else, Noah and his friends were waiting for Abel to return but they did not know that Abel had just left this world. By killing Abel, Michael started the age of Darkness as the Dark Lord.
How far would Michael go in the path of Darkness to achieve his goals?
How many innocents is he going to kill in the process of bing the ultimate overlord of this world?
Chapter 112 - Maisy Meets Ghost
"Stop it, stop it! That is mine!" Maisy shouted out loudly andshed out of the thick forest into a lush grasnd.
At the same time, a sound echoed from the front. The sound wasing from a puppy that was injured as it limped while it ran. A group of youngsters was chasing after the puppy and Maisy and Alicia were chasing behind them.
However, those youngsterspletely ignored Maisy. Instead, a pair of archers turned around and faced Maisy as they nocked their bows and released several arrows towards her and Alicia, all the while maintaining an eye on the puppy.
Shiu! Shiu!
At the same time, a pair of cold steel arrows darted in the air and made a whooshing sound as it soared threateningly towards both girls.
"Shit! Where did these bloody thievese from! I''ll kill? you all!" Maisy was enraged. Alicia knew she couldn''t control this little girl as she decided to let Maisy deal with these guys. Besides, she was more concerned about Abel and Noah who went to search for him.
Tightening her fist, she leaped into the air and she charged towards the pair of archers. Their faces turned serious as they retreated hurriedly. At the same time, they shouted out to their aplices, " kill them first before we decide what to do with that"
The few of them listened to the instructions and hurriedly turned to Maisy in an utter surprise of his skills.
A man held onto a sharp spear as he cast a nce at Maisy and Alicia and spoke out in shock, " what the heck? That kid''s a Body Refining level 8?!"
"Let''s just kill the kid and her friend and get the real prize"
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The pair of male archers and Maisy exchanged several blows, their faces were grave as they spoke out in fear, "Don''t underestimate her. She''s strong as fuck. Luckily, we managed to dodge her blows just by an inch. If not, we would''ve been fucked"
"Oh?" The three of them listened to his words and cast their gaze at Maisy.
Looking at all their gazes turn towards Maisy, Alicia frowned because, among the group who were chasing after the puppy, 5 of them were Body Refining stage level 9. The pair of archers were in the 8th level of the Body Refining Stage. The rest of them were level 8 Body Refining stage cultivators. Theirbined number was 20 and Maisy and she had no chance of surviving the battle without Noah with them.
Initially, only Maisy and she were chasing the puppy but because of the disciples from the Broad River sect who couldn''t keep their mouth shut, many rogue cultivators joined the fight for the puppy.
"You go after our prize and we''ll deal with them" After giving the order, the rest of the group blocked Maisy and Alicia''s path.
Maisy''s face turned red in anger as she kicked the ground and spoke out loud, "I was the one who found it first. The rest of you started chasing it without saying anything and wanted to steal it from me, run away before I''ll break all your bones"
All of them listened to the little kid speak and paused for a second before bursting out into intenseughter.
"Break our bones? Hahaha! That''s hrious. You two seemed to be one of those freaks of nature, we get it but look how many of us are here. You can''t win this fight"
"It was us who saw it first and it was you two who''s trying to steal it from us"
"Besides, so what if you saw it first? This is Nether Realm, not your house. Even if you came from a big and powerful family, you are nothing but a chicken waiting to be ughtered here"
¡
"Maisy" Alicia tried to stop Maisy before she does something rashly but the little girl was too cocky." Fine, we''ll do this the hard way then. Do you wish to battle us alone or together? I suggest all of you attack together so that I could go and break your underling''s hands before he puts his dirty hands on my pet"
The group paused again in shock at her big words. Their mouths were wide open like fools before they burst out inughter again.
"Haha! I didn''t hear wrongly did I? Did this kid ask us to attack them all together?"
"Hehe¡ Kid, please don''t assume that just because you''ve reached the Body Refining stage at this young age, you are unrivaled in this world."
"You should have taught that kid to keep her mouth shut girl"
"People who think too highly of themselves will always meet their dooms sooner rather thanter. Clearly, your time to die isn''t very far away!"
As they finished speaking, the few of them had mocking looks on their faces as it turned to coldughter as they began their assault.
Maisy''s eyes squinted as sheughed coldly as well, "Don''t worry, my death date is still very far away. However, for the rest of you, you already have one foot into the realm of the dead'''' Alicia knew it was toote to back off as she prepared to fight off them and hoped Noah woulde to their rescue. At this moment, she missed having Noah''s pills and potions to boost their power level.
"Haha! What a sharp tongue you have. What an ignorant fool, kill them!"
"Good!"
The man and woman duo acknowledged before casting their spells. Their flying swords flew up into the sky and circled around their heads before conjuring a ming ring that hovered just above them.
They both pointed towards Maisy and Alicia in unison. The pair of archers took several steps back in order to gain some distance. They summoned their Arch energy to their hands and prepared to fire arrows.
Boom!
Just as the two sides about to sh, a body came back flying while spurting out blood all over them. The body collided heavily with a boulder, some distance away, and the collision force left deep cracks onto the boulder. The sudden appearance of the body caused the ring of fire to disperse.
Everyone including Alicia and Maisy stared at the headless body as one of the arches screamed out in horror, " It''s Bowen!"
"Ghost" While the group was staring at the body, Alicia looked up to see Michael walking towards them. She also saw Maisy''s pet sittingfortably on his shoulder.
Soon one by one, everyone turned their gaze away from the body and noticed Michael.
The man wielding the spear had an ashen look as he cast a nce towards Michael, his face showed both fear and shock.
"Did you kill him!?" The pair of them spoke out furiously through gritted teeth as they nocked another arrow. Michael''s face was bright as a day because he had found it, a little baby Dragon. Yes, the puppy they were chasing was not a puppy but an actual baby dragon. Only Maisy and few others recognized it as a baby Dragon while many others thought of it as a rare magical beast cub.
When Michael reached the System marked location, he saw the baby Dragon crying for help from the clutches of Bowen. The next and thest thing Bowen saw was just a sh of light before his head was separated from his shoulders. Michael then gently picked up the Dragon and saw the wounds on its body. He immediately gave the baby dragon the healing potion and even gently poured it into its mouth. The Baby Dragon didn''t feel any ill intentions from him and after he cured its pain and made it feel safe, the baby dragon licked his face and wrapped its tail around his neck. Besides, he bought a piece of meat that the system rmended to him and fed the baby Dragon on his way to kill everyone who tried to harm his Dragon. Surprisingly more than the healing potion, it was this piece of meat that made the baby dragon love him so much in an instant.
"That''s mine!" Michael suddenly heard a childish voice and looked down to see a little girl raising her fist. Only then he saw Alicia and although he didn''t show any expression on his face, he was surprised to see Alicia.
"Let me guess, another heaven-defying genius friend of Noah" Michael sighed inside as the archers shouted at him again
"Answer the question, did you kill him!?"
"Are you stupid? of course I did" Michael mocked the archers. His answer and the way he answered pissed off the entire group as the archers released the arrows. However, even before the arrows could reach him, they saw him disappear from their sight.
Every one of them froze in shock and in a blink of an eye, they heard a sword shing sound and the ones who stood beside the archers felt a hot ssh of blood hit their faces.
Pu! Pu!
The pair of archers fell to the ground as their heads rolled off their bodies.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 cultivator. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
The next moment, he returned to the ce where he stood before killing the archers.
"You''re dead meat. You dare to kill my Broad River Sect brothers. You''re finished" The man wielding the spear stopped in his tracks and red at Michael in rage.
"Blood River Sect?! Holy shit I''m lucky, I was searching for you guys"
Chapter 113 - Bully Becomes Bullied
Why was he searching for them?
Everyone was thrown into a moment of confusion as they looked at each other. Indeed, nobody knew the meaning of his words.
Only the man who was wielding the spear red coldly at Michael and had a faint cold smile on his face.
"Searching for us? well, you drew out attention in a most stupid way"
The minute he spoke out, everyone paused to listen before they started to react.
"He killed Bowen, what are we waiting for!"
"Damn it, that''s our baby Dragon!"
"Catch him! Let''s show him what would happen to those who mess with the Broad River!"
"DIE!"
In that instant, even without their leader to instruct them, the Broad River Sect disciples rushed towards Michael with faces of evident rage.
"Stop" however their steps were halted by Michael''s voice and although he spoke quietly, the Arch Energy made his voice sound loud.
"What?!" the spear-wielding man and the archers asked Michael while Alicia looked at him curiously to see why he asked them to stop.
"Why did you scream die before attacking?"
All of them were stunned hearing Michael''s question including Alicia and Maisy. Initially, Alicia thought he''s going to talk this out because she didn''t think he could kill all of them by himself. As far as she was concerned, only Noah could kill them without anyone''s help.
The Broad River disciples and theirckeys stared at him for a few seconds before gritting their teeth in anger because they thought he was mocking them.
"DIE!"
"What did I just ask you?" They screamed Die again and surprised Michael as he sighed.
"Diddle Diddle..."
Just like before, his body disappeared from their sight in a form of a sh of lightning.
"Who is he?"
"Although he''s a Body Refining Stage level 10, he can''t beat all of them"
"He seemed familiar"
Meanwhile, those who were watching the scene from the distance wondered. Some of them watched the scene with gaping mouths as Michael transformed into a bolt of lightning and charged straight towards the Broad River Sect disciples fearlessly.
"We are...so...little"
For a few seconds, Alicia and the others heard shing sounds and saw the bolt of the lightning dash around the disciples before witnessing Michael return to his previous position.
The spear-wielding man and the few others saw their friends stand in their running posture like statues and before they could realize what just happened, their bodies fell apart from within.
"Uwakk!"
"Shit!"
"AHHHHH!"
Looking at the organs and chunks of body parts, some of the onlookers threw up on the spot while some looked pale. They didn''t see Michael swing his sword but they all now realized that he cut them like a piece of meat and he was too fast to see his motions.
"Just one move was able to do this?"
"He had killed 10 Broad River Sect disciples in a few seconds and they were all level 9, Body Refining Stage cultivators!"
"How¡ How was this possible?"
...
The remaining Broad River Sect members were shocked as their mouths were opened wide in fear. The way they looked at Micheal took a tremendous change. Their arrogant facial expressions gave way to that of fear as though they were looking at a strange beast.
Alicia was shaken as well. She gawked at him, her mouth was slightly opened in surprise and shock.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 7000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 7000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 7000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 7000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 7000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 7000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
¡
There were continuous beeps that echoed in his head and they continued to ring without stopping for a couple of seconds.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 Badass points]
¡.
His unconsumed Experience points reached almost 1million points which would let him break through to the Body Strengthening stage level 3 in one go. Also, his badass points were nearing the amount 40,000 after dazzling everyone including Alicia and Maisy.
"Are you alright, Baby Dragon?" he would have killed them all in one go but he stopped using Lightning Dash as the Baby Dragon was not very familiar with the feeling of being moving that fast. Its little face already seemed slightly green and Michael feared that it would barf on him.
"Hu, hu" He already realized that the Baby Dragon could understand the human tongue and after hearing his question, it tried to say something but only the ''huhu'' sound came out of its mouth.
"What happened to your smug faces? don''t like being bullied?" Looking at the Broad River disciples who had now lost their fighting courage, Michael snickered. Those who were watching the scene had looks of fear and surprise etched across their faces. They were standing still from shock and didn''t move an inch.
"Diddle"
With a devilish grin on his face, he stepped forward instead of using the Lightning Dash. With each step he took forward, the remaining group of Broad River Sect cultivators took a step back unconsciously due to fear.
"Diddle"
At the veryst moment, the group of Broad River Sect disciples regained their senses and started conjuring different spells in a bid to defend themselves but were still scared stiff.
"We..are...so little"
Regardless of whatever spells or skills they cast, they couldn''t touch Michael through his responsive shield.
After their futile attempts to defend themselves were made apparent, they stared right at the silver sword as it descended down upon their faces. At the next moment, everything turned ck as they bade farewell to this world.
To the future Dark Lord, all these attempts to defend themselves were pointless. The onlookers stared at him wide-eyed,pletely astonished, and somewhat fearful.
"Why is he this powerful?! Who the heck is he?"
"He must be using some epic to defend himself from their attack. Also, did you see the spell he used before, I couldn''t even see him"
"He mumbled something before attacking, that must have been the reason for his power!"
Alicia''s face showed a gloomy expression looking at Maisy and the reason she came into the Nether Realm, the Baby Dragon. Now the chance of her getting the Baby Dragon seemed much less possible. Even Noah wouldn''t fight him for the Baby Dragon because it didn''t belong to Maisy but she only found it first. She could see the Baby Dragon had already started to feel safe around him and thinking of him as its friend.
Meanwhile, Michael was killing the rest of the Broad River Sect happily as well. The system was repeatedly beeping in his mind, informing him of the rewards he had received!
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 Badass points]
¡
"Plop!"
At the very end, Michael pped thest one standing, the one who was wielding the spear. He then stood in the middle of the wreckage of dozens of bodies and grabbed the man by his neck and lifted him up. He then shouted out loudly, "what''s your name?"
The man struggled to breathe and barely managed to say his name, "Sa...nder"
"I need you to deliver this message to your sect master, Ghost of Sunrise sect asked him toe to Sunrise sect the next moment he hears this from you or the next day, there won''t be a Broad River sect " he threatened Sander and shocked everyone around him. In his mind, he had ns for this Broad River sect.
"Ghost?!" Sander hesitated for a moment as he searched his memories before realizing he had heard this name before. His eyes went wide and then slowly asked, "what''s...your..feud with...us?"
"Seriously? Do you think I don''t know your history of bullying my sect whenever you get the chance? The time of bullying my sect is over, from now on, it will be us who do the bullying" Michael chuckled while saying thetter part.
"..." Sander felt an ache in his chest as he nodded and wanted to escape with his head attached to his shoulder.
Alicia and Maisy were trying to keep their mouths closed but had weird expressions on their faces. Unlike Abel believed, after they heard what he just said, they realized that he''s not any different than an arrogant young master. Alicia thought that even if the Broad River sect had bullied the Sunrise sect before, killing them brutally like this and threatening to end their sect didn''t go well with her.
"Now run along" he patted Sander on the cheek yfully and threw him away. Sander felt extremely relieved and didn''t even take his spear from the ground as he ran as fast as he could from the sights of Michael.
"Huhu" The Baby looked happy to see him run away as it affectionately licked Michael''s face.
In Maisy''s mind, the baby dragon was her, and seeing it y with Michael made her little face turn red in anger. And just as he was about to turn and leave, Maisy stepped forward and raised her voice at Michael.
"Stop right there!"
Chapter 114 - Ghost, Maisy Cooper And Baby Dragon
Michael was surprised at the little girl and turned to face her. She was nearly Cindy''s age but in his eyes, this little girl was nowhere near Cindy as she seemed extremely arrogant and tyrannical.
"It''s mine!" Even though there was no need to raise her voice to reach him, she shouted in a domineering way. For a moment, he stared at Alicia and hoped she would warn this little girl yet, Alicia did nothing.
He kept staring at the little girl and didn''t speak a word as she stepped forward and pointed her finger at the baby dragon, "that baby dragon belongs to me, Maisy Cooper" Alicia almost forgot how domineering this little girl could be. They didn''t see this side of Maisy because when Noah was around, Maisy would behave like an obedient kitten.
Alicia would have advised Maisy to back off but she knew how much Maisy loved to have a dragon as her pet and no matter what she would say, the little girl would not back off and let go of the baby dragon. Therefore, Alicia decided to back Maisy and if pushes to shove, she would fight Ghost until Noah and Abel arrive.
"Oh?" on the other side, Maisy saw him gently grab the baby dragon and search its body for something.
"Hhhuuuhhuu" the baby dragon giggled as it felt ticklish when he lifted its wings and examined its body.
Maisy and Alicia frowned watching him before he ced the baby dragon on his shoulder again and looked at Maisy, "Nope, can''t find your name on it" Many who assumed the entertainment was over now started to believe that the real entertainment has just begun. Many chuckled inside hearing his answer and Maisy''s face turned redder in anger.
"He''s really not putting the little girl in his eyes"
"The little girl is crazy, he just killed? massacred a group in front of her eyes and she still dared to raise her voice at him"
"She''s either too stupid or belongs to a big power, let''s just wait and see" The onlookers murmured looking at him and Maisy.
"Give me my dragon before I make you, do you think I''m afraid of you?" Maisy palmed her fist and looked like she was ready to fight for the baby dragon which only made Michael chuckle.
"You should be afraid of me if you think you can take the baby dragon from me"? He didn''t raise any killing intent or looked cold but said with a calm face.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 Badass points]
¡
[The System suggests the host challenge Maisy and get the Ring of Fire] He ignored the badass points notifications but when he heard thest notification from the system, he momentarily opened the system and read it again to make sure he heard right.
"Ring of Fire? Is it a Legendary ss spell?" his eyes glistened in excitement as he saw a blue description box appear in front of his eyes.
Spell name: Ring of Fire
Effect: Creates a shockwave of mes and a ring of fire around the caster for a short amount of time.
Upgradable: Upgradable through Mentor Function
Current level: Rare
The spells from the system had no current level stat and unlike the system bought spell, he wouldn''t be able to unleash the maximum potential of the spell right out of the bat but he had to pay badass points as well as practice or use the spell more often to unleash the spell''s maximum potential.
Although Michael preferred not to hurt a little girl like Maisy, it didn''t mean that he won''t teach her a lesson and in the process, get the Ring of Fire from her by exploiting her arrogance and her yearning for the baby dragon.
"So you''re ready to fight for the baby dragon?" Michael quickly asked before she says something wrong and cross his limit.
"Yes," Alicia noticed a grin hiding behind Michael''s face and frowned thinking that he''s nning something.
"Since I don''t like bullying little kids, I''ll make you a deal. If you can make me even take a step back, I''ll give you the dragon. But if you couldn''t, you have to give me something as valuable as this baby dragon, tell me, little girl, do you think you can do this in one move? Don''t worry, I won''t move or fight back" by calling her a little girl, he med the fan of her arrogance. No one except Body Strengthening stage level 7 cultivators could touch him through the Responsive shield. Maisy was only a Body refining stage cultivator, so no matter how hard she tries or the level of spells she uses, she wouldn''t be able to even move him an inch let alone make him take a step back.
Maisy gritted her teeth and tightened her fist looking at the grin on his face. She wanted to knock his teeth out and prove him wrong by sending him flying back.
"Maisy, don''t hold back, use your strongest attack" Alicia bent over to reach Maisy''s ears and advised her. During the phoenix auction fair, she saw the battle between him and a group of youngsters. It was not even a battle but a one-sided massacre and she knew about the light blue shield that protected him from their attacks. They couldn''t even touch him through the shield but Alicia knew Maisy wasn''t like those youngsters. Maisy was blessed with the innate talent that makes her stronger than anyone in her cultivation stage.
Although Alicia doubted Maisy''s chance of winning the fight against Ghost, she believed that if Maisy used the Mystic fist skill, Maisy could break the shield and make him take a step back.
The Mystic fist was a spell that let Maisy conjure a fist made of pure Arch Energy and after Noah made some changes to the spell, the spell became stronger than it was.
"I broke many faces of people who underestimated me, your face will be the next on the list," Maisy puffed out her chest to show her courage and eximed proudly and in Michael''s eyes, arrogantly.
"This is a Rare ss spell, I''ll ce this as the bet"
"System, is that the Ring of Fire spell?"
[Scanning...]
[Yes]
After hearing the confirmation from the system, he smiled and stroked the baby dragon''s face while it showed a troubled expression on its face. The baby dragon worried that he might lose the bet and give it to the little girl but the smile on Michael''s face reassured the baby dragon.
Alicia took the spell scroll from Maisy''s hand and made her way to the middle to be the judge of this bet. Since Michael made sure that no one can take away the baby dragon from him by paying the system 5000 badass points, he handed over the baby dragon to Alicia without fretting about her escape with his dragon.
He almost felt bad for them because yesterday, he killed their friend, and now he''s going to take what the little girl desires the most, the baby dragon.
Plus, he was going to take a Rare spell scroll from her like taking candy from a baby.
"Huhuhuhu" the baby dragon reached out its ws and cried while he was handing it out to Alicia.
"Get tough baby dragon, it''ll be over in a moment" Michael patted the baby dragon in the head and said. The onlookers were surprised to see the baby dragon stop crying after hearing? Michael''s words.
"He''s so lucky!"
"Why didn''t I get a baby dragon?!"
"What a majestic creature, one of them is going to have a fully grown dragon as their pet in the future, I can''t even imagine it"
"Be d that you didn''t get a dragon, the one who''s going to end up with the dragon is in for a ride when rogue cultivators and adventurers hear about the baby dragon"
"If you ask me, neither of them can protect the baby dragon and raise it as their own. Many powerful families and sects will try to get their hands on it"
Michael heard these conversations going around him and agreed with some of them but he didn''t worry about someone stealing his dragon because if anyone tried to harm the baby dragon, the system would raise an rm and teleport the baby dragon to either Abyssal or s special storage unit of the system. Of course, he had to pay 5000 badass points per six months to keep this function activated yetpared to the baby dragon, 5000 badass points were not too much.
"You can''t fight back and if you take even one step back, the baby dragon will go to her. If not, the baby dragon and this spell scroll belongs to you, do you agree?" Alicia coldly asked Michael as he nodded and then she looked at Maisy to see her give a small nod.
"Remember, She has one move" Michael calmly said and Alicia could only nod and hope that the Mystic fist would let Maisy win the baby dragon.
"Let''s see what you got little girl"
Chapter 115 - Ultimate Face Slapping
Because of the drama and curiosity, many people stepped closer and curled Michael and Maisy. Michael was happy to see the crowd around him and expected to receive at least 2000 badass points by impressing these crowds. On the opposite side to Michael, Maisy let out a cold snort and closed her eyes to conjure the Arch Energy to use her strongest attack, the Mystic fist. Although Alicia advised her to use the Mystic fist, the main reason for her to go with Mystic fist was she wanted to humiliate Ghost who was said to be on the same stage as Noah.
She wanted to prove Abel and everyone wrong by defeating Ghost and in her mind, she really believed that she could win this bet and defeat him. Ever since she started cultivating, she never lost a battle.
Zzzzzhhhhhhhh
Just a few seconds after she closed her eyes, the onlookers felt the ground slightly trembling and heard an unearthly humming in the air. Soon, their jaws dropped and their eyes went wide as they could in shock looking and feeling the pure Arch Energy that''s being gathered around Maisy.
Alicia was not an exception to this as she also seemed amazed by the spell.
"Holy shit, is that an Epic ss spell?"
"Yes, it is, I heard only someone from the Cooper bloodline can use this spell"
"Can he really withstand this attack? He did say he won''t move or fight back"
"This spell seems like it could kill even a Body Strengthening cultivator"
"Look! The fist is taking shape"
Michael calmly watched a huge fist made out of nothing but glistening silvery Arch Energy appear above Maisy''s head. The fist was tall as a coconut tree and as wide as a couple of busses lined up and it grew bigger by the seconds.
However, there was no fear in Michael''s eyes but excitement because the more powerful and fancy the attack, the more badass points he would get after defending himself from the attack. Also, he wasughing out loud inside looking at Maisy and Alicia''s face because, unlike their expectation, the fist wouldn''t be even able to touch him let alone sending him flying back.
"Huhuhuhuh" The Baby dragon however sensed the overwhelming power of the fist and cried and tried to w its way out of Alicia''s hands to Michael.
Looking at his scaly fried being terrified by the spell, Michael turned and winked at the baby dragon to reassure it. The baby dragon seemed to have calmed down a bit as the fist reached its full power. The fist now looked gigantic and it almost reached the size of a three-story building. The Mystic fist was only able to reach this potential because of Noah who did some changes to the spell and unlocked its full potential. Of course, the downside of these changes was the time it takes to cast the spell.
Since Michael said he won''t fight back and gave her the time, Maisy didn''t worry about the casting time. The very next moment, the little girl opened her eyes and looked extremely domineering in many eyes. Alicia stepped back a few meters in case the aftershock was too powerful and pushed her away.
"Let''s step back away," Many people thought the same and rushed back away from Michael and Maisy while not taking their gazes away from them.
"Are you finished? I have ces to be" Maisy''s body shivered in anger seeing the calm and careless look on his face.
"Why is he so calm?"
"If he''s acting like he''s cool, he''s the damn best actor I''ve seen"
"I don''t think he''s acting"
"Shut up and watch!"
"If I cannot wipe that smile off your smile, my name is not Maisy Cooper!" She shouted as loud as she could and sent the fist soaring towards Michael.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhh
The gigantic fist let out an ear-piercing howling sound. Everyone''s eyes gazes were changing between Michael and the fist. Many watched the fist approaching Michael while biting their nails in anticipation.
Fifty meters¡
Forty meters...
Thirty meters¡
Ten meters¡
Michael''s raven ck hair and his long coat fluttered back in the wind and even when he stood just ten meters away from the fist, people noticed no fear or rm in his eyes.
Seven meters¡
Two meters¡
Boom!
They saw the fist strike him and create a small dust storm in the ce where he stood. Some of the people who stood rtively closer to Michael flung back due to the aftershock and the rest of them may have kept the distance but still felt the force of the aftershock. Many including Alicia were forced to take a few steps back. People saw Maisy stand a few meters back from where she stood initially and turned their gazes at the dust storm.
"What?!" Alicia''s voice was quiet but Maisy and some of them could hear her. A few seconds after, the dust storm settled and revealed Michael, and only then they realized the reason for Alicia''s shout.
Maisy, Alicia, and every single one of them who witnessed the sh stood still in utter shock because there stood Michael, neither did he have a scratch on his body nor moved an inch from where he was before the attack.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 Badass points]
¡
He expected 2000 badass points but he got double the amount than he initially thought. He thanked Maisy and Alicia for this wonderful opportunity.
"That was it? Humph" he snickered and his gaze was full of content and ridicule which shook Maisy''s pride and self-confidence.
"How...what..." Maisy couldn''t help but mumble under her breath in utter shock. Not in a million years she thought he would stand still taking the Mystic fist head-on.
What shocked her more was Noah''s words as he said no one in the same cultivation stage as she would survive the fist. But not only she was unable to kill him, she couldn''t even make him take a step back.
" arrogance has to be earned and if something needs changing-" he didn''tplete his sentence but raised his hand as the scroll and the Baby Dragon came flying into his hands.
The Baby Dragon''s eyes were filled with joy and it quickly wed its way to his shoulder from his hand and wrapped its tail around his neck to sitfortably on his shoulder.
Usually, Maisy would have a snarkye back for everything but now, no words came out of her little mouth because of the shame and shock. His words med the fans of her humiliation.
"It''s your attitude" After the onlookers digested the fact that he actually survived the Mystic fist, they looked at him with utmost admiration and respect.
"Don''t think too highly of yourself because you reached this level at a young age and have an Epic ss spell, I could have killed you hundred times before you finish casting that spell of yours" Michael continued to roast her and her face turned redder and redder. For the first time in her life, Alicia felt afraid of someone. After seeing him survive the Mystic fist without a scratch, she realized that he was right, he could have indeed killed Maisy if he wanted to.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 Badass points]
...
At this moment, she doubted even Noah could defeat him. Now she finally understood why Peyton and Xanali wanted to recruit him first. Amidst the shocked gazes, Michael gave ast nce at Maisy before turning himself into a lightning bolt and disappearing from their sight.
Even after he left the ce, no one was able to close their mouth. Right this moment, none looked at Maisy as a young genius but a loud-mouthed brat.
Michael did not know that he attracted many eyes and spread his legend across all the kingdoms in the Elon Continent.
Without Noah knowing, Michael killed one of his closest friends and destroyed the self-confidence of Maisy, the girl he thought of as his little sister.
In just two days aftering to the Nether realm, he gained a lot more than everyone else. First, he obtained most of the herbs in the sky garden, and then, he gained a contract to supply pills and potions to Aragoth and now, he got what he wanted the most ever since he came to this world, a dragon.
Besides, he gained a new underling but who knows what the orc hides beneath his ugly face. While Michael was celebrating his gains, his old enemy has begun the plot to destroy him and everything he built once and for all. Obviously, this old enemy was Jane and she had no idea that there''s someone just as bad as Ghost is waiting to mess up her revenge ns.
Now that we had enough Badassery of Michael, the Lord of Darkness, it''s time to witness the Queen of Darkness in action.
Chapter 116 - Gaya Being Gaya
"Sister Aelia!"
"Sister Aelia!"
Inside Michael''s home in the Sunrise sect, Gaya was cultivating until she heard Jack calling her out. She sensed panic in Jack''s voice as she stood up and walked towards the door. It''s been five days since Michael left as time flows differently in the outside world than the Nether realm.
For thest five days, she was busy as a bee. She spent half of her day in Majestic and half of the day overseeing the construction of their new high-end restaurant as well as the renovation of the Sunrise sect. Because of the works, she didn''t even talk to Michael through the earpiece but fully focused on the work at hand.
Today was supposed to be her holiday and nned to spend the day cultivating.
"This little shit better has a valid reason" She cursed him under her breath and opened the door to see Jack outside the door with five finger marks on his right cheek. On the corner of his mouth, there was a red smudge. All of his clothes were stained with mud and dust and there were even some scratches on his hands. He seemed like he went skating on the ground with his body.
"Sister Aelia" seeing Gaya, Jack felt relieved. Despite her cultivation, Jack thought of her as someone he could rely on or ask for help.
"What happened?" She knew the red smudge was blood and also she didn''t fail to notice his legs shiver.
"Sister Aelia, some adventurers stopped the renovation work and they are asking for more gold coins. I tried to negotiate with them but-"
"Did they do this to you?" She interrupted him before he finishes his sentence as Jack nodded his head.
"I''m going to beat the crap out of them for attacking my minion,e!" She tied her raven ck hair into a ponytail and rushed towards the student quarters because that''s the ce they were renovating.
"Sister Aelia, those adventurers have a Body Strengthening level 8 cultivator with them! We should go and get the Baron''s men" While the sect is being renovated, ire and the Elders went to Capital to meet the King of Bredia and settle their debts. Daniel and Ricky were working with the dwarven engineer to build the restaurant ording to Michael''s n.
That left the sect with Aelia and she appointed Jack as her minion and gave him the job to oversee the renovation while she''s away.
"Shut the fuck up and follow me!"
Plop!
She pped the back of his head hard and continued to walk. After he was pped and thrown away from the student quarters by those adventurers, his first instinct was to run to Ghost''s home and call Sister Aelia. He didn''t think anything about her cultivation or how weak she ispared to a Body Strengthening cultivator. For Jack, Ghost was the highest existence in his world as he basically worshipped him in his mind. Because of Ghost, he had tremendous respect towards Aelia even though she would beat him regrly whenever she gets the chance.
However, he never got mad at Aelia after a while because he knew she might be the only person who would fight for him and protect him like a big sister. He ran behind her like a little kid and hoped that she has a way to resolve this conflict with the adventurers.
A few minutes after, Gaya and Jack came to the renovation site.
"No one can work until someone pays us what they owe us" the disciples and the workers stopped what they were doing and kept their distance from a group of adventurers who just beat Jack.
All the adventurers in the group were a Body Strengthening stage level 3 cultivator except the one who was shouting orders at the workers; he was a Body Strengthening stage level 8 cultivator. In Gaya''s eyes, they all had one thing inmon, they didn''t seem like they came to do construction and renovation work as they were strong enough to get more paying quests.
Their armor alone was worth at least 100 gold coins a piece and they certainly did not need to work for 20 silver a day.
"Who hit you?" asked Gaya.
"Sister Aelia!"
"Sister Aelia is here!"
"Sister Aelia!"
Many disciples shouted the name Aelia when they saw her. The adventurers however just snickered looking at her cultivation level except for the strongest adventurer who looked Gaya with eyes filled with lust.
Many girls who saw him staring at Gaya made them feel nauseated and they prepared themselves to fight the adventurers if they dared to touch Aelia. After Ghost joined their sect, the reputation of the Sunrise sect took a turn and many who bullied them for fun now wouldn''t even dare to look at them in a wrong way. Only because of him that they were able to settle their debts and receive the needed resources to cultivate with no hindrance. Therefore, how could they let Ghost''s girlfriend be vited by these adventurers?
"It was me, pretty girl" a middle-aged man who was thin as a stick made his way towards Gaya with a wicked grin on his face.
Plop!
"Ah!" the middle-aged man halted his steps when he saw Gaya suddenly p Jack.
"Did you really let this walking stick p you?! Look at him!" Everyone was stunned by the wordsing out of Aelia, especially the thin man. He didn''t think he would be mocked by a body Refining stage girl.
"A gust of wind could have killed this fucker"
"YOU!"
"How did you even climb the stairs against the wind? Hahahaha" Gaya couldn''t keep a serious face as she burst intoughter.
"Sister Aelia" Jack tried to stop her from antagonizing the man any further as he already looked pissed off.
" Your mom was also so thin as," she saidughing "she ate a meatball and thought she''s pregnant" Gaya began to abuse the man''s family and continued "but it turned out she was really pregnant...pregnant with you, hahaha " her joke might have been a bad one but the man''s reaction made even his friends chuckle for a moment.
"How dare you..."
"Whoo"
"AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh....." however when he stepped forward at Gaya raising his fist, she let out a blow of wind, and shockingly, the wind came out of her mouth really did send him flinging away like a kite without an anchor in a storm.
The scene stunned everyone as they watched the man disappear with their mouths wide open. She only looked like a Body Refining stage cultivator but in reality, she was a Core Formation level 7 cultivator. For her, killing a Body Strengthening stage level 3 cultivator as easy as stepping on an ant.
"Was that me or the wind?" she looked at the sky and said while the rest of the adventurers stared at her speechlessly.
"Sister Aelia, you..." Gaya ignored Jack and looked at the leader,
"I heard you want more gold coins, here''s my counter offer, pay my minion''s healing cost, apologize to him and run away as fast as you can" there was no smile on her face as she said seriously.
"Healing cost? How much would that be?" the leader who was a bulky old man with a white beard asked.
"9000 gold coins plus 2000 for the psychological pain my minion experienced because of you"
"Is Sister Aelia serious?"
"Did you do that? How did she do that?"
"Am I seeing it wrong or she''s just a Body Refining stage cultivator?"
"I bet Brother Ghost gave something to her making her this powerful"
"I think so too or how could have she done that?"
"Do you think she can kill him too?"
"I don''t know that but if they hurt her, Brother Ghost will tear them to pieces"
"He''s not here, let''s hope Sister Aelia can beat their ass"
The disciples already began to chatter while the adventurers had weird looks on their faces after hearing Gaya''s words. They did not know whether she''s joking with them or not but they knew that she''s not normal.
"Are you hit on the head girl? I don''t know what you used to do what you did but-"
"Ah-ah, no buts, you either do what I told you or die" Gaya interrupted the leader with her words, and seeing the careless look on her face, the leader nced at the man on his side as he stepped forward to take care of Gaya.
"Jack keep an eye on that guy, I have a feeling that this is now what it seems to be" While the man was on his way towards Gaya, she ordered Jack and rolled her sleeves upwards.
After looking at the confidence in her eyes, Jack felt powered. He gave a quick nod and started to watch the leader as she said.
"I need to torture your leader, so I suggest you all six toe at me together. I don''t like my time being wasted" the more everyone heard her words, the more they became surprised and shocked. If anyone else was in this situation, they would be afraid but in her eyes, there was no fear, no fear at all.
"Bring me all the teeth on her mouth" The leader had enough of her. He never expected a Body Refining stage cultivator like her would mock them to this extent without showing any signs of distress.
"Good way to torture someone, I''ll pull your teeth one by one, just wait a few seconds"
Chapter 117 - Too Late To Regret
Gaya spoke with a voice like a great bell while portraying an incredibly imposing manner. The disciples heard her words and they couldn''t help but feel goosebumps all over them. Since Gaya seemed like she has a way to kill them all, they trusted Gaya instead of doubting her.
"Hmph! You''re just a small Body Refining warrior, you haven''t even reached level 8, yet you dare threaten me and kill one of my men? You''re simply courting death! Three of you, go beat the crap out of these disciples, I''ll handle her"
The leader let out a cruel snort. While giving orders to the others, he stared at Gaya with a blood-thirsty look. Once he finished speaking, he stuck his tongue out of his mouth and licked lips.
"Understood!"
The other three dashed towards the disciples at the same time. They were fast, but Gaya was faster. With no warning, Gaya blocked the way in front of an adventurer, then she smashed his skull with just a single palm strike.
"Holy!"
"Ah!"
The disciples and the workers who just saw this scene were terrified beyond words. They never thought a Body Refining stage cultivator like her could kill a Body Strengthening stage cultivator simply like this. She just pped him but his head exploded like an overfilled balloon.
After brutally and quickly killing the first person, Gaya didn''t slow down as she punched the second one through his chest. A hot ssh of blood spread across many disciples'' faces and Jack saw Gaya''s hand sticking out of the man''s back with the still-beating heart in her hand.
"What?"
The leader shouted out in disbelief, he could finally react and halted his steps. He just stood still like a statute speechlessly. He never expected that this young girl whom he looked down upon could have such a ferocious approach and kill two of his men in an instant, making their adventuring party suffer a great loss.
"You''re gonna die!"
The leader became furious. He quickly retrieved his mace and raised the mace high up into the air, then he forcefully threw it towards Gaya. With this action, he tried to save the third man''s life before she could brutally kill him. However, she grabbed the man by his neck and threw him towards the mace which was still soaring through the air.
Plop!
Blood and pieces of flesh flew off in all directions. The mace produced a buzzing sound after it collided with the man''s body. Because of the force of Gaya''s throw and the power of the mace, the mace split opened the man''s head in the mid-air. The terrified expression on everyone''s face became thicker.
None of these adventurers was Gaya''s match. Although the leader was much stronger than the men she just killed,pared to her, he was still feeble as a baby.
When she killed these men, in the Nether Realm Michael received the notifications and tried to contact her through the earpiece but she put the earpiece in her space ring while she was cultivating and didn''t put it back on.
Among his party, three were instantly killed by Gaya, and one was sent into the sky. They were hired to cause problems for Ghost while he was away and hurt his girlfriend as well as a few of the disciples in the process. But, right at this moment, he realized that he stepped into the wrong ce and met a devil in the form of this girl.
"Sister Aelia rocks!"
"Hail Sister Aelia!"
Looking at the terrified faces of the remaining adventures, some of the male disciples cheered after Jack.
"AH!"
The leader let out an angry roar, then he unleashed his full power and shed his mace at Gaya as she punched the mace covering her fist with Arch Energy.
Bam...
The mace and the fist shed with each other. The center of collision exploded and surprisingly, there appeared cracks on the mace. The leader was sent dozens of meters away from the impact while coughing blood out from his mouth.
"Hmph! Can''t even withstand a single fucking punch!"
She let out a cold snort, then she turned her attention at the remaining adventurers before they could escape and dashed at them with a wide evil grin on her face. The grin on her face not only terrified the disciples but also sent a cold chill running the adventurers'' spines.
The adventurers intended to escape but before even they could take a step, she appeared before them and started crazily attacking them.
Bam bam bam...
With every strike, a loud explosion-like sound would follow. The adventurers tried blocking the attacks with shields and their hands, but, under Gaya''s lightning-fast attacks, they could only defend for a few seconds before she broke shields and bones. She could have simply killed them one punch to each adventurer but she beat them to induce the fear of god in the leader''s heart so he would break easily when she starts investigating him. Besides, this was her first battle after a long time, therefore, she didn''t intend to end the fight so soon. If Michael was here, he would be surprised at the way she moves and fights and think of her because she fought like the female version of Bruce Lee and Ip man mixed together.
With each one of her strikes, one adventurer would spit out a mouthful of blood and drop to the ground losing their consciousness in fear and pain.
"Damn it, who is this abnormal monster and why is she so strong?"
The leader couldn''t help but curse. Today, he had personally decided to attack, and he had also brought many experienced Body Strengthening stage warriors with him. In his mind, with this strong force, he would be able to kill not only the Ghost but everyone in this sect. Yet, he had never expected he would suffer such great losses.
"Dead already, sigh.Weak as you would choose what quest? Catch goblins?" Looking at the adventures on the groundying in their own pool of blood, she sighed and asked the dead ones with a disappointed face.
Right at this moment, there was nothing but fear in the leader''s eyes. Deep down, he wanted to tear the old man who gave this quest into pieces. At first, he took this quest to cause problems for Ghost and his sect because it was great pay for an easy job such as this. But now he wanted to go back in time if he could and change his decision.
"Not good!"
Looking at the grin on her face, the leader''s legs trembled in fear, he could sense a great amount of danger from her right now. he immediately conjured all the Arch Energy in his body and tried to escape but Gaya was way too fast, it was so fast that the leader couldn''t escape at all. He could only move with instincts and raise the mace to attack. Just like before, Gaya didn''t use any fancy spells but punched the mace with her raw strength.
ng!
The mace in the leader''s hand couldn''t withstand such a heavy blow, it was finally broken in half. After that, the leader let out a horrifying cry and fainted on the spot.
"I''ll deal with youter," She said looking at the unconscious leader and turned her gaze towards Jack, "you little shit, strip all the valuables from the bodies"? Jack couldn''t help but be terrified at Aelia after witnessing the massacre that happened in front of him.
It took a few seconds for him to react to her order and he walked towards the bodies as fast as he could to do as she said. The other disciples and workers were shocked to see her order loot the bodies but they were too afraid to open their mouth against her.
Under? Gaya''s cruel ughter, except the leader, all the adventures in his group lost their lives. The area of the student quarters was filled with corpses and reeked fresh blood. After a few minutes, one girl who knew that Gaya loved attention and devotion from others started cheering from the crowd.
"Mighty Sister Aelia!"
"Mighty Sister Aelia!"
......
Soon, every single one of the disciples was cheering together. Slowly the fear in their eyes faded away and glowed as they stared at Gaya. Hearing the cheers, she stepped on the leader and looked like a goddess of war who had just descended from the skies in many disciples'' eyes. Gaya''s brutal approaches, her imposing image, had all been deeply carved into the hearts of every single disciples and workers who witnessed the scene. Right now, her heroic image had be bigger and bigger in their minds.
The battle tonight was an eye-opener for every disciple. All of them had realized why Ghost is keeping her with him all the time. A group of Body Strengthening adventurers were all killed in just a few minutes by a Body Refining stage girl. Such an incredible oue wasn''t possible even in the dreams of the people. Gaya waved his hand, then the cheering immediately quieted down. All of them looked at Gaya, awaiting her nextmand.
"This will be the oue for those who dare to mess with us"
Chapter 118 - Locked With The Devil
A few hours after the events of the Sunrise sect, nightfall illuminated by the rise of stars so at Baron Totonk''s manor in the ck. Frost grew over the windows even as the duvet kept the girl in the room warm. The girl wore a silky nightgown and watched the ice crystals grow for a while, allowing her brain to be empty. The morning would bring the beauty of the ice for sure, that crunch under the boot and the bold greeting cold air brings. Yet between now and watching her breaths rise as new white-puffed clouds, she knew that the night is going to be a cold one.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
While the girl was looking at the distant sky through the window, someone knocked on the door softly.
"Come in"? the door opened with a low creaking voice and then through the door came an old man who had his face covered with a dark hood.
"Miss Totonk, it seems there was a small hindrance to our n," the old man said as Jane turned her gaze away from the distant sky to him.
"But Howard handled the situation and brought the girl here" the seriousness and the anger within her eyes disappeared. Her mouth curved upwards to reveal a small smile.
Jane was prepared to punish the old man if he failed his task. She already had hatred towards Ghost simply because Celina hated him and she would hate anyone that Celina hates. Her mother passed away when she was just born and although Celina was just her cousin, Celina raised her like a little sister and for Jane, she was like a mother. Therefore when she heard Celina''sints about a guy who tried to perv on her at the waterfalls, Celina wanted to tear the guy into pieces. Like pouring petrol into the fire, her anger burned hotter after she heard what happened in Heaven''s gatepetition. By stepping onto the 100th step and standing beside Celina and Jack despite their strict order against it, Ghost disrespected Celina.
That was why when she heard Ghost came to Bradford through her spies, she immediately went to the Green Heaven and picked a fight with him. She thought her bodyguards could kick the crap out of him but instead, he almost killed her bodyguards.
What made her more furious was that when she told her father and asked him to punish Ghost, he sided with Ghost saying that it was her fault. Ever since she was born, he never raised his voice at her but because of GHost, he chewed her out and made her cry her eyes out. From that day, she was plotting her revenge on Ghost and when she heard he''s going into the Nether Realm, she put her ns of messing with his ns in motion.
At first, she sent a couple of goons pretending to be customers to the Majestic to destroy the reputation of his new business. Then, she hired a group of bandits and ordered them to target Ghost''s customers. As her next n, she asked the old man who is her new bodyguard to hire a group of adventurers to harass the disciples and stop their renovation. Of course, by harassing, she meant breaking their bones just like Ghost did to her previous bodyguards as well as kidnap his girlfriend. Jane was nning to either sell her in the ve market or simply kill her and me Bradia''s devil, Lucifer. Many of her father''s men were put into the night guard because of this Lucifer who''s brutally killing the criminals and crooks and leaving a horrific scene of crime behind.
Baron Totonk had already sent people to the Church of the two asking the priests and the holy guards toe to Bredia. The people were scared silly and Jane was prohibited to leave the manor in the night. Baron Totonk tried to protect the little devil from the real devil but he had no idea that she was trying to get the attention of the devil all along.
"Hahahaha, good work old man, where is that bitch?" The old man was really surprised by Jane. When he first met her, he thought she''s just a rich spoiled brat but after spending time with her, he realized that there is something ugly and rotten beneath her beautiful face.
As her bodyguard, the old man advised her to drop her revenge against Ghost because her reasoning seemed silly. After all, he didn''t live this long by holding grudges and plotting revenge against a mysterious prodigy like Ghost. The old man and her father and Celina herself told her to drop the matter between her and Ghost, but Jane was stubborn as a mule.
"I put her into one of the secret prisons and Howard is keeping an eye on her"
"Howard is keeping an eye on that bitch? What happened to his men?"
"About that..." Jane frowned looking at the old man dragging his words out.
"What? You can exin it on the way" she quickly changed her mind as she wanted to meet Ghost''s girlfriend as soon as possible. The old man nodded and followed her behind towards the secret prisons which were built under the manor.
On their way to the secret prisons, the old man exined what happened at the Sunrise sect and how Howard got captured by the girl as well as how he escaped capturing the girl. Jane was stunned by the old man''s words and the curiosity of meeting the girl rose to the peak in her mind.
Since it was nighttime and the way to the secret prison was restricted to servants and many low-level guards, they met fewer guards on their way.
The underground prison was small, Baron Totonk didn''t like to keep many prisons under here very much. Most criminals would face trial after a few days and either be released or sentenced to the main prison on the ground.
In addition to the old man, Jane''s other guards who were also the old man''s team joined them and entered the prison. The prison had a total of three levels and the walls were built out of hard granite blocks. Although Jane was the daughter of the Baron, this was her first timeing here and she noted the deeper she got, the narrower the hallway became.
"Why is this ce so wet and muddy?" Jane frowned and twitched her nose as the ground was wet and the muddy sewage was flowing down the stairs, down to thest floor.
Howard and the prisoner were at the bottom of the prison. Eachyer they went down, the stench in the air became thicker.
"Miss Totonk, please be careful dealing with that girl, we still don''t know the full extent of her abilities and strength"
It was a man following Jane who had spoken.
"You mean to say that the six of you, Core Formation level 4 warriors couldn''t handle a Body Refining stage girl?" Jane challenged.
"No, Miss Totonk, I mean ¡" the man stammered. After hearing her reply, the old man turned his head and signaled everyone not to speak a word as he knew she wouldn''t listen to them.
This floor was many times smaller than the one above, with a total of only three to four cells. The warden lit the torches on the walls and as the darkness faded, Jane saw a girl sitting on a chair in the middle of the room with Howard standing behind her. The girl had her head covered with a ck sack and Howard''s light blue armor almost turned red by his own blood.
The temperature in the dungeon was low enough to make people see white fog when they breathe out. The old man''s group circled Jane while the old man himself stood by the girl on the chair''s side in case she tried anything that would harm Jane.
His first priority was protecting Jane and he wanted to do that to the best of his ability. Yet because of Jane''s stubbornness, his job became moreplicated and difficult.
"She did that to you? Hmph," Jane snickered looking at Howard. In the light of the torches, she saw his legs trembling and couldn''t help but look down on him.
Howard on the other hand only just a few minutes ago realized that he was hired by the Baron''s daughter through the old man. He wondered what Jane was nning to do with the girl.
"Yes'''' Howard answered meekly and everyone except the old man was stunned because he was a Body Straightening cultivator while the girl was only at the Body Refining stage. Since they were not there with Howard to see how she massacred his party, they had a hard time believing him.
Of course, he would happily agree to kill this girl as she killed all of his adventuring party and tortured him till he wet his pants but although the girl was tied to the chair as well as iron shackles were around her hands and legs, she wasn''t a prisoner as they were thinking.
"She''s not our prisoner, we are hers," Howard thought to himself while struggling to stop his body from shivering, not in cold but in overwhelming fear. Looking at Jane and the guards behind her who were staring at him cluelessly, Howard could only feel pity for them.
At this moment, they did not know that they just brought the devil into their household and served themselves on a silver tter.
Chapter 119 - End Of Jane
"Where is your Ghost now bitch!?"
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Jane asked angrily and started punching Gaya violently like a crazy animal. Howard stepped back from Jane and Gaya thinking what''s going to happen to Jane.
"Miss..." While JAne was punching Gaya, the old man noticed the girl on the chair isn''t moving as she''s supposed to. He frowned and tried to stop Jane.
"What?" Jane turned her cold eyes at the old man and before the old man could say anything, she looked at Howard," You! Remove the sack, I want to see the look on her face while I break every single bone in her body" Yet even after hearing Jane''s order, Howards stood still in the corner shivering to go towards Gaya.
"Didn''t you hear what I said?!" Instead of walking forward towards Gaya, Howard stepped back further into the dark corner of the room.
Everyone including the old man was stunned to see Howard cover in fear like this. The suspicion in the old man''s heart got bigger as he himself went to remove the sack from the girl''s head.
Boom!
However, the moment he touched the sack covering her head, a st of force sent everyone in the room flying. One by one they hit the wall and the force of their collision made the old room tremble.
The force st also put down all the torches except one which didn''t burn as bright as before but let out a small shimmer of light. While they were struggling to stand up, Howard saw the chair with the girl floating in mid-air.
"Oh my god¡." like a scared little kid, Howard curled onto the corner in fear.
"Hahahahaha" Suddenly a burst of evilughter filled the room and the very next moment, the small shimmer of lighting from the torch disappeared making the room pitch ck.
"What''s happening?"
"Leave...leave me...alone..."
"Don''t¡.kill...me"
"NOOOOOO!"
The old man himself began to feel afraid and heard some of his colleagues scream. He was a devotee of the Peace God, he tried to fight the fear with the mantra he learned from the temple. Slowly while chanting the mantra in his heart, he looked through the darkness to see a pair of red eyes staring at him.
"AHHHH!" right at that moment, he felt like his soul itself getting pierced by those red eyes and screamed in terror. The old man lost all his will to fight the fear and gave up to the fear, just like his colleagues.
The very next moment, he noticed a puff of green glistening smoke traveling towards him, and in that glistening, he saw a figure standing in the darkness.
"Ghhhnnnsnn" Staring at the skinless face, he failed to respond to the puff of green smoke and inhaled it.
Covering in the corner of the room, Howard heard a muffled groaning. For the next couple of minutes, he could hear groans like this and the sound of blood sttering.
He wanted to escape the darkroom but he couldn''t even move an inch as his legs refused to move in overwhelming fear.
Puff!
Suddenly something lit one of the torches.
"AHHHHHH!" He heard a scream of a girl yet the voice didn''t belong to the girl he brought but it was Jane''s.
The golden-orange light radiating from the torch revealed the blood-stained walls and pools of blood on the ground. Jane was not a weak-hearted girl but the fear toxin she just inhaled made her lose all her courage and strength. Coupled with the terrifying figure standing in front of her and the dead bodies around her, she screamed as loud as she could in fear.
She tried to take her gaze away from the figure staring at her and saw the cold dead eyes of her bodyguards. Their eyes and mouths were still open and one could see the fear in their eyes they felt before leaving this world. They were butchered like cattle even before they could defend themselves.
After collecting herbs from the sky garden, Michael enhanced the effectiveness of the fear toxin by using some of those rare herbs. Because of the linked space ring, Michael was able to give the Fear toxin to Gaya.
Gaya never expected the fear toxin to be this effective as it scared these Core Formation cultivators to the point where they just lost their minds.
Except for the old man, none could fight the fear toxin and she simply butchered them to end their misery.
She slowly walked towards Jane without uttering a word. Jane was still screaming but she made sure that no matter how loud she screams, no one would hear her cry.
When she tortured Howard by pulling a couple of his teeth out, he confessed all about how he met the old man and what he was hired to do.
It was Michael who told her to go meet the old man as a hostage. Both Gaya and Michael had an idea that Jane might be behind the recent quarrels and bandit problem near the Sunrise sect. They also knew that if Jane was indeed behind this, she would make sure that the Baron doesn''t know about anything because he strictly ordered her to stay out of Ghost''s way.
Just like they nned, the old man used a secret tunnel to transport Howard and Jane into the underground prisons without alerting the Baron.
Instead of go looking for Jane, they made sure Jane herself came to them.
For the outside world, Howard and his group were killed by Gaya because they tried to extort more coins and harass the sect. No one would know what was his real motive or who hired as the old man did everything rted to the Sunrise sect very discreetly ording to Jane''s order.
Pulch!
Without even turning her back, Gaya kicked one of the swords on the ground and sent it straight through Howard''s head. After killing Howard, she had erased all the evidence that could trace back to her and Michael.
Now the only thing that remained her to do was kill Jane and end this feud. But before killing Jane, she wanted Jane to be sane, or at least less affected by the Fear Toxin. Therefore, she stopped radiating the Fear toxin from her suit of armor.
"A stupid bitch like you shouldn''t have tried to mess with us" The voice modtor the system ced in her suit of armor transformed her voice to sound freaky and inhuman.
Gaya grabbed Jane by her neck and lifted her up, "who...what..." Jane tried to speak but Gaya tightened the grab around Jane''s throat.
"No, the time for you to speak is over. The moment you tried to mess with my human, you sealed your fate"
Crack!
The very next moment, Gaya snapped Jane''s hand into two like a stick.
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
"Hahahaha"
Jane screamed in agony but Gayaughed looking at her pain. She knew that Jane would have done the same if she was weak and helpless. Thinking about how she beat her violently just a few moments ago, Gaya had no regret of torturing Jane.
"If you want to me someone, me the God who put the brain in your ass and shit in your head"
"Ce...li...na" Despite the pain and fear, Jane let out the name of her cousin,
"Don''t worry, that bitch is on our list" there was a sudden terror emerged in Jane''s eyes which showed the love and bond between her and Celina because even in a situation like this, Jane worried and cared for Celina.
Deep down in her heart, she hoped that Celina woulde out of nowhere and save her from this girl. She wanted Celina to be her white knight in armor but she did know that even if she appeared at the prison magically, she couldn''t save her from Gaya who was a Core Formation level 8 warrior.
At this stage, even Michael would have a hard time defeating Gaya without getting the help of the System. She was a true genius who traveled many ces and trained herself through many life and death battles, not a prodigy who would only fight in a tournament.
Crack!
She broke Jane''s other arm as Jane started to lose her consciousness due to the pain and the blood loss.
"Human?" suddenly Gaya heard Michael''s voice in her ears and nodded. She then took out the earpiece from her ear and ced it near Jane''s ear, "ytime''s over bitch!" the very next moment after Jane heard these words, everything around her became dark.
Gaya retrieved the dagger from Jane''s head and threw her body aside. With a wave of her hand, a bright beam of light appeared out of her space ring and disappeared along with all the dead bodies. Michael ordered her to ce the bodies somewhere public. He wanted the name ''Lucifer'' to be something like Voldermort, a name to be afraid of. People like Jane and cultivators should shudder in fear at the mere mention of Lucifer.
First, he wanted to clean and get rid of all the righteous hypocrites and criminals like rapists, mass innocent murders like the Blood and bones sect from this world. How could he let scum like these be in his world?
He was not nning to rule a world that is infested with criminals and such. To do that, he had to spread fear and cleanse this world, starting from Bredia.
By killing Jane and showing their bodies to the public, he had taken a big step in the path of bing the Dark Lord that the Guardians are so afraid of.
Chapter 120 - The Renovation
The very next day Gaya killed Jane, she acted as nothing had happened and resumed her normal schedule. Like first thing in the morning, she filled her stomach with all the delicacies that Raylene cooked for her. After Michael turned her into a 5-star chef, Gaya made Raylene cook everything she likes and devoured everything in a couple of minutes.
With her belly full, she would oversee the renovation of the sect. She ordered to tier down the entire quarters of the Elders and ire and build it from the ground up. Previously the Elders stayed in a single big mansion but now, she ordered the workers to build each Elder a mansion in the country manor style.
At the moment, they had almost finished three houses and were putting a foundation for the rest of them including ire''s. She selected pure white paint for the walls and royal blue for the roofs. There were also flower beds and lush greenwns in front of these mansions in Gaya''s mind but first, she wanted these mansions to be built. Also unlike before, she nned to build a separate building that would act as the main office.
Since the Sunrise sect didn''tcknd, only the time and resources like the workforce slowed her vision from bing reality. She sent Jack to hire more adventurers and people from River town to solve the workforce issue.
For the student quarters, she ordered to tier down most of the houses and build new ones. Previously, two disciples shared one house that had two rooms and a small hall but now, each student house would have two-story with two rooms on each floor. Her n was to make four students share one house to save space because in the future when the Sunrise sect bes the best, they would have thousands of students and at that time, they would run out of houses if they went with the old n.
If an engineer from earth was here, he/she would recognize the architecture for the student quarters as the Colonial architecture style. Combined with Gaya''s vision, each student house looked majestic, and when they were built, it would stun everyone with its beauty.
Other than Elder mansions and student quarters, she added new buildings to the n such as Library,bat range, state of the art ssrooms for practice alchemy, runes, and spells. Of course, it required not only millions of gold coins but also skilled workers to build many of the buildings in her mind. For now, she focused on building Elder mansions and Student quarters.
To decorate the sect and ornate the sect, she wanted to hire the elves from the elven nation rather than hiring humans because elves specialized in ornamenting a ce. For the state-of-the-art buildings, she had dwarves in her mind because just like Elves specialized in ornamenting, dwarves were specialists in building and crafting.
However hiring these two was not a simple or cheap thing, it cost her almost 400,000 gold coins to hire a 3-Star dwarven builder to build their restaurant ording to Michael''s n. She spent another 300,000 gold coins to buy the required materials and shipping costs. In simple words, she spent almost 1.2 million gold coins on renovating the sect and building the restaurant.
Fortunately, Majestic was doing extremely well as their customer base only grew bigger with each passing day. She was nning to hire more assistants to help the business but she had no time to conduct interviews.
"Good morning Sister Aelia"
"Good morning Sister Aelia!"
While she was taking a stroll around the student quarters, the disciples immediately bowed and greeted her. Some had pure fear in their eyes while others had a mix of fear and admiration. The disciples didn''t just stand there but helped the workers in any way they could. Even the kids Michael rescued along with Cindy were helping the workers by supplying water and cool beverages to them.
After her morning stroll, she came to the makeshift stable where she kept her new pegasus. Since the previous pegasus died at the phoenix ind, she had Daniel pay for the dead pegasus and hired another one.
Before they opened the Majestic for business, she decided to check the progress of the restaurant in River town. Plus, she wanted to see how the people are reacting to Jane''s demise.
"Let''s go to River town, Peggy" she patted the new pegasus on the head and mounted it to fly to River town leaving the overseeing the renovation to Jack.
*******************************
"Miss Aelia" when shended near the building site where a bunch of people was working tirelessly, Daniel and Ricky came running to greet Gaya.
"Where is that dwarf?" She saw no dwarf in the working site and asked both of them. The dwarfpletely tore down the entire building unlike Michael and Gaya expected. Because of that, they were building the restaurant from the ground up which led to more working and resources.
"Where is Raylene?" before they could answer, Gaya asked them noticing no Raylene around.
"Lord Gatmil and Lady Raylene went to Bradford, Miss Aelia" Gaya noticed a glimmer of fear in Daniel''s eyes while Ricky spoke.
"Bradford? Why?"
"Miss Aelia, you knew Jane right?" Ricky asked curiously as Gaya nodded,
"The devil of Bredia killed her and all of her bodyguards" unlike Daniel, there was no fear in Ricky''s eyes which surprised Gaya because weak people like him would be terrified in a situation like this.
"Jane is dead?! Are you serious?" She acted as she didn''t know anything about Jane. Ricky and Daniel nodded, "yes, Miss Aelia, I just came from Bredia. The entire city is in panic and the Baron sigh" Ricky sighed and felt pity for the Baron.
"The man is broken into pieces, I had never seen a man cry like that"
"Oh? Who is this devil of Bredia?"
"Lucifer" the moment the name escaped Ricky''s mouth, she noticed some people stop working and praying, looking at the sky.
"Many people call him the devil of Bredia since he first appeared in Bredia"
"Him?" she growled inside because it was her who pretended to be the hostage, punching bag of Jane and finally killed them. Yet, she was unable to take the credit, so she hid her emotions from showing on the face.
"Why do you say it was Lucifer who killed them? The Baron has many enemies"
"Sister Aelia, I saw the bodies, they wereid in a shape of L and Jane" there was a small pause in Ricky''s voice for a few seconds before he continued, "she was hanged from the top of the manor, Lucifer broke her two arms sigh...she suffered before dying"
Ricky obviously sympathized with Jane but Gaya who actually killed her didn''t feel a thing for Jane. Michael would have left her alive if she hadn''t held off a grudge against him. Before dying, she sought revenge against him by messing with his business as well as trying to kidnap Gaya.
Many including the old man and Celina advised her not to cross paths with Ghost yet she did exactly the opposite and ended up losing her life. Unfortunately, the old man and his team became coteral damage.
"Miss Aelia, if you want anything from Bradford, you should get it soon. The soldiers were talking about a lockdown"
"Entire garrison of Bradford is searching for Lucifer and I heard the Church is alsoing in case he really is the devil " Daniel added. It was no surprise to Gaya that the Church ising to Bradford because when something evil appears, they woulde to cleanse the city with their holy guards.
Aside from the garrison and the Church, she also expected the guardians to act as they would now suspect Lucifer to be the Dark Lord. With their current power, she knew they can''t face either of those three. Fortunately for her, Michael could cultivate by killing Netherels and the Orc was waiting in the Abyssal to summon Netherels for Ghost to kill.
Michael and she were nning to stop terrorizing the kingdom for a couple of weeks till the heat goes down. Besides, after Ghost came out of Nether Realm, they would be busy managing their businesses as well as getting rich.
Of course, they knew Celina would suspect him ande looking for trouble but they had already devised a n to deal with her. However, the spell Gaya was using to mask her cultivation was a Legendary spell that could only be dispelled by a half immortal. Considering Ghost was in the Nether realm while Gaya killed Jane, the garrison or the guardians wouldn''t allocate too many resources to investigate him.
"What do you think Daniel? Don''t you believe in the devil?" asked Gaya.
"Of course I do Miss Aelia but I just think this is a work of a human "
"Don''t be too sure old man, that was not a work of a human"
"Yeah no shit," Gaya thought inside as Ricky went on, "I saw those eyes, it wouldn''t be surprised if they were scared to death"
"If you don''t finish your work here, I will gouge out your eyes" Gaya kicked Ricky on the bottom and chased him away.
"I want this built before Ghost returns," Gaya ordered Daniel. There were still three days until he returns and she wanted to surprise him by giving him the new restaurant.
Chapter 121 - Last Ride I
After getting the baby dragon and the ring of fire spell from Maisy, Michael spent the day roaming around the Nether realm to find treasures. However, he had no luck finding another treasure like the sky garden or the baby dragon. When the daylight disappeared, he found another cave and decided to spend the night inside.
"Huhuhuhu" the darkness of the cave freaked out the baby dragon as it rubbed its head against Michael''s chin while groaning.
"You shouldn''t be afraid of darkness, baby dragon," he said after gently massaging the baby dragon''s head. He then bought a torch and ced it inside the cave, not because of the baby dragon''s fear of darkness but he wanted to see the baby dragon with no one interrupting.
He sat on the ground lifting up the dragon-like baby. Mud and blood stains covered its body, preventing him from seeing the baby dragon''s color.
Staring at the wonderment in his eyes, the baby dragon tilted its head.
Everything seemed like a dream to him, he never expected in a million years that he would be transmigrated to another world and presented with an opportunity to control the entire world such as this one. Holding the baby dragon in his hands brought some memories he was desperate to forget.
Yet, the prickly tongue of the baby dragon stopped his train of thought.
"Let''s clean you up," he opened the system to buy a small bathtub so he could get rid of all the blood and mud stains from the baby dragon. The baby dragon''s eyes were filled with curiosity when he ced the bathtub beside him. He then moved on to fill the tub with scented water.
"huhu" surprisingly for Michael, the baby dragon shook its head showing its reluctance to water. This act of the baby dragon reminded him of the dogs back on earth who also hated taking a bath. The scaly little bastard might be a noble dragon but acted like a spoiled puppy.
"Nope, you''re getting a bath" He flicked on its forehead ignoring the protesting of the little dragon. The baby dragon was an intelligent creature, it realized that its protests were going to be in vain.
"HrrHuu.." He felt the baby dragon''s body getting warm, the closer he took the dragon to the tub, the warmer its body got.
"Ouff"? A sudden puff of me came after he heard the dragon cough. "whoa" although he was quick enough to save his hair from getting burned, he was still surprised to see the baby dragon breathe fire.
"Do that again!" he said gleefully rubbing the baby dragon''s head.
"Hu...ouff" he heard the sound again yet unlike before, he didn''t see any stream of fire, not even a puff of smoke from the dragon''s mouth.
"ouff" the baby dragon coughed again and again and again trying its best to breathe fire except it failed to aplish this feat again.
"It''s okay, you''re still too little to breathe fire" Seeing the baby dragon struggling to breathe fire, heforted the scaly creature hiding his doubt and disappointment.
"Huuuuuu" while the dragon was distracted, he merged it in the water. The baby dragon cried in shock and fluttered its scaly wings trying to escape from the clutches of this cold water. Michael had his hands full with the little dragon who now had absolute hate for water for the next couple of minutes. He used enough force to keep the dragon still while he rubbed the dirt and blood stains off of its body. As the dirt washed up on the water, he started to see the glimmering crimson scales, the pitch-ck ws, and the thin yet tough wings. On its head, he noticed swellings, he may not be an expert on dragon anatomy but he watched enough dragons in the movies to know that swellings would soon be horns.
He lifted up the baby dragon from the bathtub only after he made sure there wasn''t a speck of single dirt on its body. The baby dragon gnawing his hand as an act of revenge but those baby teeth weren''t strong enough to hurt Michael. He cuddled the dragon giving a soft kiss on its scaly forehead. Soon, those vertical slit pupils became round, at the same time, it puppy-eyed him to make him chuckle. After ying with the dragon a little, both of them watched the darkness outside in silence until the baby dragon fell asleep curling itself on Michael''sp.
*****************************************
Right when the first light appeared, Michael left the cave searching for treasures. The baby dragon stared at every single thing like grass and tree in wonder sittingfortably on his shoulder. Michael was disappointed in the Nether realm because people said although the ce was filled with dangers, it also filled with treasures but in his experience, the only treasure he came across was the sky garden. Of course, he got the baby dragon with the help of the system yet, it wasn''t true for others.
He preferred getting out of this ce if this situation continued rather than wasting his time wandering around aimlessly. But soon, thedy luck surprised him with the sight of arge crowd in front of what seemed like an enormous cave. He walked cautiously towards the crowd and stood behind arge tree to see what''s going on before acting.
"Well then everyone, there''s not much time left. We should n ordingly now that we have six Rare Weapons here. We''ll definitely be able to destroy those magical beasts and reduce the casualties to an absolute minimum." he heard a man''s voice.
"No wonder they are called the rare weapons, their strength is far too strong¡"
"those big sects are rich as fuck"
"With a Rare weapon in their hands, each of them can battle a Body Strengthening stage beast, with the right strategy, they could even kill one"
Many of the men there began to chat among themselves in quiet voices with a fear of speaking too loud.
"There are a total of four magical beasts, each one of them is extremely dangerous and powerful. It requires two of us with a Rare weapon in order to fight one of them to a standstill. I can only guess that it would take three of us with a Rare Weapon to kill one of the magical beasts. We have six Rare Weapon users, meaning that we can kill two of them, the other two will have to be dealt with by the others." Michael recognized this voice, it belonged to Evan rke, one of the prodigies from the MorningStar. Thest time he met Evan was on the battlefield fighting the Netherels in River Town.
"We have plenty of Level 10 Body Refining warriors, with thest two magical beasts, they''ll be able to deal with them. Although no one else would have a Rare Weapon, the amount of them is enough to handle thest two beasts" another feminine voice said.
"Victoria" he instantly recognized Victoria by her voice. Knowing that these two were here, he realized that there must be something valuable inside the cave and worth exploring, not to mention he could harvest badass points by taking the spotlight from these so-called prodigies.
"That''s correct, If we all work together, then we will be able to break past the defensive line of the magical beasts"
"I agree to this n," Victoria said.
"I agree as well" Followed by Victoria''s voice, he heard Hannah Berry''s voice.
"What is she doing here? shing the Netherels to death" Michael chuckled inside.
The crowd saw three of the five experts had all agreed while the other two remained silent.
"Noah, Alicia if we may have your opinion." Evan looked at Alicia and Noah and then the little girl beside them.
"I see no problems," Both Noah and Alicia nodded their head in agreement with Evan''s n.
Seeing the strongest among them give their agreement, Evan had a look of excitement on his face. Then, taking a nce at the crowd, he spoke in a loud voice, "Everyone, now that the five experts have all united to enter the immortal''s cave, I hope that everyone will stand with us. Ourbined strength will be enough to kill the magical beasts, and whoever enters the cave will be able to take what they find!"
As soon as Evan finished his speech, everyone stood up at once and began to cheer loudly. Each one of these men was at level 10 of the Body Refining stage and with their Rare weapons, they were on par with Body Strengthening level 5 warriors.
"If you are not above at least level 7, then don''t throw your life away. We are only inviting those who at the peak level to fight with us." Victoria yelled out loud, causing those who didn''t meet the criteria to be displeased. Victoria sounded arrogant as usual, the way she spoke irked many people but they had to stay back unless they wanted to end up as magical beast turds.
After this, those who weren''t strong enough to face the magical beasts could only retreat away from the cave grounds, leaving behind around seventy men. Each of them was at or above the level 7 Body Refining stage with a strong background and a determined face.
"Good, then let''s have everyone here so we can n things out. I propose that we split up into four groups, each one will deal with a single magical beast, does anyone have any opinions?" Evan spoke.
"This n''s fine, I agree."
"I agree as well."
....
Everyone began to ask their questions.
"shouldn''t we wait for Ghost?" among the crowd, a person asked, making Michael grin.
Chapter 122 - Last Ride II
After the man asked the question, among the crowd, there were a few moments of silence. It was Victoria who broke this silence with her words, "We are not waiting for anyone. The people here are more than enough to y those four beasts!" she left no ce for anyone to talk back. Ever since he humiliated her during Heaven''s gatepetition by spartan kicking her off the stage, the seed of hate towards Ghost had grown into a giant tree in her heart. Every time she hears the name Ghost, a sh of anger would emerge from her soul itself. Hearing the name she hates the most again, deep down she hoped he had died somewhere in the Nether realm.
"That bitch didn''t change a bit," Michael said to the little dragon as it tilted its head confused.
Evan smiled, "Ghost can join the fight when hees here. For now, the inner group here has enough people to split into two groups. The rest of the men here should split into two groups as well. Does anyone have any objections?"
The inner group Evan had mentioned were all standing right next to him, all of them belonged to either one of the three sects or a powerful faction like the Guardian guild. Behind the tree, Michael was scanning the area to detect the so-called four magical beasts they were meticulously nning to defeat.
His closed eyes opened abruptly when he detected the magical beasts using his Environmental scanning.
"Four Core Formation Level 7" these beasts were not something he could handle alone, maybe with Gaya, he could have defeated one but even with her at his side, no way in hell he could have killed more than two. Fortunately, these guys were preparing to fight the beasts, leaving him to plot a n of his own.
On the other side, Evan spoke to the others, "Four magical beasts are guarding the immortal''s cave. The names of each of these strong magical beasts are the Winged Ash Snake, Golden Lightning Lion, Bearded Earthworm, and the Ground Terror. After examining them closely, we''ve already established that their strength is the same as each other. The only difference is their innate skills. The Winged Ash Snake is capable of flying and spitting out an extremely potent acid, if it takes off into the air, then it will be extremely hard to deal with. The Golden Lightning Lion has an extremely high defense because of its golden scales. As the name suggests, it can also spit out lightning as well as discharge electricity from its body, it would be best for everyone to stay away from it. The Bearded Earthworm is a special variation of an earthworm. It has an equally strong defense to the Golden Lightning Lion, but its only weakness is, it is slow. If anyone has speed spells, the Bearded Earthworm will be your best target" few of them who had speed-enhancing spells decided to take on the Bearded Earthworm.
"Thest one is the Ground Terror and our biggest headache. Its attack strength isn''t as strong as the other three, but the most annoying trait about it is that it''s fast, extremely fast. In a blinking moment, it can drill deep into the earth to evade our attacks and then strike out from underneath. It ispletely silent when it''s underground and leaves behind no trace. It can attack from underneath one''s foot at any time, and while it is the weakest in terms of attacks, its attacks are generally unblockable."
At the mention of the Ground Terror, Victoria''s eyes narrowed angrily; clearly, she had fought one before and ended up on the losing side.
"Evan, which magical beast do you think we should take on?" Noah asked from the side.
" We should target the Winged Ash Snake. We have three Rare Weapons, and one of them is a longbow. If the Winged Ash Snake were to take to the skies, then we could shoot it down. We also have a whip that can tether and restrict the snake''s mobility. At the very least, we could prevent it from taking to the skies. These two weapons are the bane of the Winged Ash Snake." Evan spoke with no hesitation.
Noah thought for a moment before nodding his head in agreement, "makes sense"
Since Abel went missing, Noah wasn''t his usual self or he would have taken the initiative to lead the group against these four magical beasts. Alicia hoped they would find Abel soon, alive and well.
After hearing Evan, Victoria spoke up, "The Bearded Earthworm has extremely strong defenses and has a lot of strength as well. The average Body Refining stage warrior wouldn''t be able to do any damage to it, and without a Rare Weapon, its defenses cannot be pierced. I will lead a group to take this one, the others can deal with Golden Lightning Lion and Ground Terror"
In a sh, the discussion was over. The most annoying magical beast, the Ground Terror who had an unavoidable and unblockable attack, and the strongest magical beast the Golden Lightning Lion were given to thest two divisions, Hanah Berry led one while a rogue cultivator led the other. Although the men in those two divisions were displeased, they weren''t able to say anything. The Winged Ash Snake was capable of flight which would render all those on the ground helpless. It would also be able to strike at the men on the ground with its potent acid, so this magical beast was best suited for the group with the longbow and whip user.
"I should pick the weakest beast" he recalled what Evan said about all the beasts, thinking which beast he should target. Without another thought, he removed the Ground Terror from his mind. That left him with three options, the Golden Lightning Lion, the Bearded Earthworm, and the Winged Ash Snake except Noah and his group picked the Winged Ash Snake. Considering he couldn''t use the long-ranged weapon as good as Gaya, he decided to leave the Winged Ash Snake to his group. Finally, after deep thinking, he chose the Bearded Earthworm as his target. He had two reasons to choose the Earthworm, first, he could use its slowness to his advantage, and second, he would be able to steal the spotlight from Victoria as well as get more Badass points from the system.
Although the Ground Terror and Golden Lightning Lion were both hard to deal with, the remaining two divisions were strong in their own right and had many people. With at least thirty Peak Body Refining Stage warriors against a single magical beast, the problem shouldn''t be that big.
After walking towards the cave for a few minutes, everyone came to a stop as they spotted the remains of a battleground. Some were engulfed by greediness, they thought they could make their way into the cave without alerting the four beats guarding the cave entrance except they couldn''t.
Suddenly, the thunderous roar of a magical beast could be heard as it shook both the heavens and the earth with an ear-splitting sound. Then, three enormous magical beasts came into view: one massive python ofrge width with a head bigger than the height of a fully matured man and ck wings¨Cthis was the Winged Ash Snake.
Right next to the Winged Ash Snake was a gigantic lion with a ferocious look and body covered with golden scales. asionally, a ripple of electricity would dance across its body¨C this was the Golden Lightning Lion.
To the side of the Golden Lightning Lion was a lizard like magical beast that was a meter tall and ten meters long. Four stumpy legs held it up from the ground and its body waspletely covered by greyish scales. The most iconic feature of this magical beast was the long beard hanging from its chin. Obviously, everyone recognized this as the Bearded Earthworm.
As these three magical beasts appeared, everyone felt a sudden surge of power in the air, pressing against their chest as if there were a heavy stone there, making them difficult to move.
"Don''t panic now, the Ground Terror might still be underground, so be careful!" Victoria said as she held up her ming sword and charged toward the Bearded Earthworm. Following straight behind, Noah, Evan, Alicia, and their group charged at their target.
Standing atop a tree branch, Michael watched the battle starting between the magical beasts and the youngsters. On his shoulder, the baby dragon craned its neck to see the battle, "huhuhu" maybe he was wrong but the baby dragon sounded like its asking why isn''t he taking part in the battle.
"Let them fight and weaken the beasts, then I will take out the weakest. Note this baby dragon, do not pick a fight that you cannot win" the baby dragon moved its head up and down acknowledging his advice. Michael had two ns, in n A, he would kill the beasts after they weakened the beasts using all their spells and attacks. In n B, he would simply dash into the cave while the four beasts were upied with the youngsters. Of course, he could ask the system to get a perfect solution but he decided to test himself to prove himself that he could survive without the system''s help because overly depending on the system might be his weakness in the future. To take out these beasts and ovee this situation, he would use his current as well as the skill set he learned as an assassin.
At that moment, aside from the Ground Terror, the other three magical beasts began to take action. He focused on the Bearded Earthworm to study all of its movements and attacks.
This is going to be a battle where Michael had to depend on himselfpletely rather than the System.
Chapter 123 - Last Ride III
"Whoosh!"
With a sh of golden light, the yellow-clothed girl in Noah''s group shot an arrow from her Solunar Bow aiming at the Winged Ash Snake.
"Bang!" The arrow collided against the Winged Ash Snake producing an explosive sound. The snake''s entire body began to spasm for a moment before settling once more. On its giant body, a single bloody hole could be seen.
With an enormous hissing sound that stung the ears, the snake focused on the girl. Those vertical slit pupils were locked onto the girl, "Use the whip to bind its body!" Evan raised his spear, roaring at the snake while keeping a safe distance from the snake.
Alicia dashed forward with a serious expression. In an instant, the whip in her hands blurred as it flew toward the snake''s body. While in midair, the whip began to extend before bing a hundred-meter-long cord that wrapped around the two wings and bound it shut, preventing the snake from flying.
"Forward!" Evan roared. With his Rare Weapon in the air, he and three other men dashed at the Winged Ash Snake. At the same time, Noah''s body blurred away as aimed his Light Wind Sword to attack.
"Bang!" An explosive sound and a billow of energy pulsed out like an ocean of energy. The surrounding area quickly went to ruins as the three other divisions began to fight as well.
"Ah~~"
As the battle continued for some time, a cry filled with pain could be heard on the battlefield as a youngster was bitten from the waist down by a creature whose head looked like a mouse, dragging him down beneath the ground.
"Ground Terror!"
"The Ground Terror is here! Everyone, be careful of the ground!"
As soon as everyone heard the yell, they all stared intently at the ground.
At that moment, right in front of the group, arge golden-colored rat-like beast flew up from the ground with the upper half of a man in its mouth.
"Be careful, the Ground Terror is here!"
"Hurry up and attack it, don''t let it escape into the ground!"
As soon as the Ground Terror appeared, everyone began to shout out loud as they charged at the Ground Terror.
The Ground Terror was extremely fast and immediately flew back into the ground after swallowing the body in its mouth. Even when Rare Weapons shed at its body, only sparks could be seen. The Ground Terror was a scaled magical beast with silvery scales all over its body. Despite its defenses not being as strong as the Bearded Earthworm, it was still stronger than what the average Body Refining stage warrior could damage.
An incredibly sharp spike arose from the ground and instantly speared through the hip of a man before he could even react.
"Ah!" The man cried out in a shrill voice before thrusting his fire attribute Rare Weapon into the ground in hopes of exposing the Ground Terror from its subterranean hiding spot. All that he hit was earth as the Ground Terror had already moved on from one area to another.
An intense purple light shed as the entire world shook all of a sudden. By the side, the Golden Lightning Lion shot out a blue spear of lightning that arced toward the closest person, reducing his body to nothing but ashes.
Several men immediately struck out at the lion with their Rare Weapons, creating a clunking sound as they smashed against its scales with some sparks and blood. Although the Golden Lightning Lion''s defenses weren''t weak, it wasn''t capable of defending against a barrage of blows of arge group without taking some damage.
An angry roar was emitted from the lion''s mouth as it swiped its sharp ws at the surrounding people attacking it. Another arc of lightning was spat out from the lion''s mouth, striking the closest person without giving him a chance to dodge. In that instant, five of the thirty warriors who attacked the Golden Lightning Lion had been shocked by the lightning and fell to the floor with charcoal ck bodies.
The Winged Ash Snake wasn''t much stronger than the Bearded Earthworm, especially with its wings restricted by Alicia''s whip. She used her and her whip''s full power to attack the snake. Although the snake was a Core Formation level beast, it wasn''t as intelligent as those who were fighting it, therefore, with three Rare weapons and good strategy, they were able to do some damage to the snake.
In the end, the snake''s strength while bound up was far less than before, which impacted it majorly, so only around sixty percent of its full power could be disyed.
The Winged Ash Snake continued to struggle fiercely against the bindings but to no avail. The wounds on its body were growing more and more severe and its temper even more violent.
Alicia''s face grew serious as she bit her lower lip and concentrated while sweat pooled over her forehead. At the moment, she waspletely focused on constraining the wings of the Winged Ash Snake.
Suddenly, the Winged Ash Snake let out a loud hiss as arge amount of corrosive acid shot from its mouth headed in every direction, "Watch out!" Noah saw the Winged Ash Snake turning its head at Alicia to fire a blob of corrosive acid which was powerful enough to melt Alicia giving her a horrible death.
Noah knew he couldn''t reach Alicia in time, the golden babaroo could have helped her but it was with Maisy back at the cabin. He felt helpless and threw his sword at the snake even though he knew it couldn''t hurt the snake.
Zzzzzzzhhhhhhh!
Zzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhh!
Alicia closed her eyes knowing it''s toote to move but at that exact time, she heard two crackling sounds.
"Hiiiiiiiiisssssssss!" she opened her eyes to see the snake shaking its head violently. There were tworge holes in its head, exactly at the ce where it had two eyes.
"Ghost!" Evan couldn''t help but shout in relief when he saw Michael before he transformed into a bolt of lightning. After blinding the snake using his upgraded Ignitia, Michael didn''t waste any time lingering around. He dashed at the snake at full speed getting closer to the snake in mere seconds.
Whoosh!
The Arch Energy as well as the speed gave him enough strength to leap into the air. Evan''s jaw slightly dropped when he saw Ghostnding directly on the Winged Ash Snake''s head,
"Keep it still!" Noah shouted at Alicia who used her full strength to keep the snake from taking off with Ghost on its head. Michael''s training as an assassin came in handy to stay on its head without falling down nheless he didn''t n to stay longer as he crouched, cing his two hands right between those two bloody eyes.
"IGNITIA!" Michael conjured all his Arch Energy. Thick cracks of lightning danced emerged from his hand dancing around his fingers.
ZZZZZZHHHHHHHHHHH!
Boom!
Everyone heard the loud crackling sound of electricity and the very next moment, a loud boom sound reverberated the area. Sshes of hot blood, organs, and dirt sttered across the area surrounding the snake. The burning smell and iron filled the air yet Evan or anyone who witnessed the Snake''s head explode into a blood-red mist didn''t twitch their noses but stood still looking at Michaelfortablynding on his feet bathed in the snake''s blood. His eyes contained a sense of aplishment and pride within while his lips curved upwards making him look like a blood demon.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation stage level 7 beast. The reward is 60000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1500 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 Badass points]
¡.
The moment the others noticed the headless snake lying on the ground in its own pool of blood and Ghost in front of it, their faces went still with shock and amazement. There were still cracks of lightning dancing around and through the snake''s body as well as greyish smoke radiating from the part where the head was.
Even Noah was no different from the rest.
Just then, the Bearded Earthworm let out a terrible sound as well before copsing to the ground. Victoria was breathing heavily while clutching her sword tightly. She had more than twenty men before the fight but now, only ten or so people stood behind her, terrified and ready to run for their life.
"Time to kill the worm," Michael thought to himself looking at the Bearded Earthworm. Although he hated Victoria, looking at the injuries and therge wounds on the Bearded Earthworm''s body, he felt grateful towards her because she just made his life better, a lot better. Until a few minutes ago, his target was this Earthworm but when he noticed the Snake struggling under the attack of Noah and his group, he changed his target to the Snake. However, it was not as simple as blinding its eyes and killing it like he did. Before he actually fired bolts of lightning at the Snake, he concocted a variant of the devil''s breath and mixed the gas in the air around the Snake using his Arch Energy.
The more everyone inhaled the air, without them knowing, they would be weak, including the Snake. Coupled with his potion and Alicia''s hard work of keeping the snake still, he got the chance to target its eyes, the weakest part in its body. His attack caught the snake in surprise, leaving no time for it to defend or dodge. Of course, he wanted to let the snake finish Alicia so he would have one less enemy in the future but unfortunately, the devil''s breath could only weaken the snake for a few precious seconds.
"Evan, give me your spear" Evan knew about his speed spell, therefore, when he asked for the spear, Evan threw the Spear to him because it would be more useful to Ghost than to him in this situation.
The Earthworm had already suffered major wounds in the battle with Victoria and her group. Since Earthworm was the weakest and Victoria used all of her powerful spells and her Rare weapons to fight it, the worm''s strength was reduced to almost 60%. Taking the spear, Michael didn''t immediately activate the lightning dash but stealthily moved towards the Earthworm while it was focusing on Victoria. If the Earthworm could kill before he reaches his desired position to attack the worm, so be it, no rush, this was his thought. While he was snaking towards the Earthworm, he signaled Noah and Evan to attack at the same time as he thought hand signs.
Noah nodded, then Evan, and finally Alicia. The trio didn''t take anyone with them to ambush the Earthworm because arge group could alert and take the worm''s attention from Victoria. Michael focusedpletely on the target before him, not at the other two magical beasts ravaging the rest of the youngsters. Inside Michael''s long coat''s pocket, the baby dragon attempted to move trying to see what''s going on outside except, Michael tapped his chest making the dragon stop moving.
Now that he dealt with this minor trouble, he conjured the Alchemy mes heating the tip of the spear. Evan saw his spear tip turning from silvery white to bright orange.
When he was just twenty meters away from the Earthworm, he stopped and showed three fingers indicating that he would attack in the count of three.
Three fingers¡
Two Fingers¡
One finger¡
"Lightning Dash" He activated the skill silently, then he dashed forward aiming the heated spear at the big ck dot in its head which seemed to be the eyes.
"Godly sh!"
"Death Frost!"
At the same time, both Noah and Alicia began their attack. A crescent-shaped golden light soared through the air towards the worm while a bone-chilling frost of ice instantly covered the Earthworm.
"Normal spear stab" just like before Michael leaped into the air muttering these three words under his breath with a small chuckle in his mind.
Boom!
The golden light Noah sent was powerful enough to cut through the worm''s strong scales and the frost spell Alicia used crystallized half of its body and the frost continued to crystallize the rest of its body.
"It''s mine!" Victoria screamed madly seeing they are going to finish the job she started. She didn''t want them to take the credit, especially Ghost except, he already stabbed the spear through the worm''s eyes making the worm shudder violently. Michael retrieved the spear to stab it again, again and again until it stopped shuddering.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation stage level 7 beast. The reward is 60000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
Just when he saw the notification did he stop stabbing the worm. Both the Winged Ash Snake and the Bearded Earthworm were dead now. Only two remained, one was the Golden Lightning Lion which was prancing about. Despite the wounds on its body, they were nowhere near killing the Lion.
The Ground Terror was the most healthy one. Scuttling about underground, it would y hide and seek with those on top as if it were a game rather than a battle. Appearing and disappearing randomly before attacking people in a single instance, it left behind no traces and only a major headache.
The groups who were fighting both the Golden Lightning Lion and the Ground Terror had taken major casualties. At least a dozen men died fighting the lion while many more had taken serious damage. As for the Ground Terror, it had already swallowed seven men while injuring a dozen others. The Ground Terror hadn''t even taken any damage yet.
"The Golden Lightning Lion is far too strong,e and help us quickly, or we won''tst much longer¡."
"Help us deal with the Ground Terror¡"
Seeing how the Winged Ash Snake and the Bearded Earthworm were killed, the others cried out for assistance with glee.
Quickly steadying himself, Noah dashed to those in need of help.
"Follow me!"
Without looking at the Earthworm''s corpse, Noah called out to the rest of the men to follow him to battle the remaining beasts, surprisingly, Evan, and Victoria followed Noah but not before Evan took his spear from Michael.
"Are these idiots expecting me to join? No thanks"
In the heat of battle, they forgot why they came here but not Michael. He had no intention to help those youngsters because the remaining two magical beasts were not harmed, not at all. Although with Noah, Evan, Victoria, and Alicia by his side, he could kill one of them or even both, he didn''te here to kill magical beasts but to take the treasures inside the cave. Just like Michael, few of them had the same thought, they were looking for the right time to dash into the cave following Michael.
Ignoring them, Michael dashed into a cave. This cave was unnaturally deep and with every single interval, there was a single night pearl emanating a white glow of light. The interior and cave walls were glossy as well, meaning that someone had used an incredible amount of strength to cut the walls evenly.
"Bang!" A loud sound could be heard up ahead as the entire passageway began to tremble.
He began to hasten his pace even more before quickly arriving at an area where a single stone door blocked his path.
Chapter 124 - Fusion Stage Skeleton
Michael ran his fingers through the old sturdy wall blocking his path. He looked around to find if there''s a mechanism to open this stone wall yet, he could find only dust and pebbles around.
"Okay, let''s do this the hard way then"
He strode forward and immediately struck the door fiercely with his fist.
With a muffled sound, the stone door continued to tower over everyone else with only some dust being shaken down.
At this sight, everyone who followed him behind was astounded. Even he had been stunned for a moment before muttering to himself, "Is this really a stone door?" he knew clearly just how much strength was put behind his fist. Even an iron door would have a hole sted through it, but this stone door wasn''t even scratched.
"Holy shit! is this really a stone door, it''s unbelievably hard!"
"This stone door definitely isn''t an ordinary one¡"
Everyone began to chat among themselves.
[Need help?] he heard the familiar robotic yet slightly human voice in his head.
"Nope, I''ll need to see how far I can get without your help!" Michael thought. He tightened his fist again to punch the stone wall again. If there was a trace of Arch Energy around the door, he would have looked for another way because it''s near impossible to break something enchanted using Arch energy but this door had no Arch Energy, which means, with enough force, he could break this door.
"Bang!"An ear-splitting sound could be heard as the entire cave shook after he punched the door again. Everyone shook their heads in pain as they steadied themselves.
After a while, the cave grew quiet once more. Everyone''s eyes remained wide open as they looked at the stone door in shock¨Cit continued to stand over them as if normal.
"Ju-just what was used to make this stone door, it''s really hard!" Michael was annoyed at these people behind him, they weren''t even helping and the only thing they were doing since they followed him to the cave was staring at the stone wall.
"Third time''s the charm"
Just as he was about to punch the door the third time, arge animalistic reverberated the cave, causing everyone''s face to lose color.
"That''s the Golden Lightning Lion and the sounds of footsteps, goddammit, they brought it here! fuck!" one of them yelled.
"Fuck it" the pitch-ck darkness of the cave and the fact these idiots bringing the lion to him gave him an idea, an idea which could work.
Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes, "Death Range" the moment, he uttered these two words, the Arch Energy in his body rushed into his veins, making every muscle in the body stronger. He could feel his strength growing exponentially and since the cave was already pitch ck, none could notice the darkness of the Death range.
Without any hesitation, he punched the stone wall, "Bang!" A loud sound could be heard as arge shockwave of energy exploded outward at an rming speed. Washing over everyone while the cave itself began to shake almost as if it was on the verge of copsing in on itself.
Upon looking at the stone door, there were several cracks, but it was still not broken.
Everyone let out a shocked gasp, the stone door was far stronger than anyone had imagined.? On the other side, he could rejoice about the durability of the immortal''s cave. Even after such a heavy blow, it still had not copsed.
"Break for me!" Michael gritted his teeth. Immediately, he punched again and this time, his punch was stronger than the one before.
Another explosive sound could be heard as stone pieces could be seen flying about and the cave echoed with the sound. After the second strike, the unbelievably strong stone door had finally been shattered but notpletely. The hole that appeared at the wall could only let one person at a time, even that person had to be slim enough to slide through the crack. Fortunately, he wasn''t a bodybuilder or fatty.
"Let''s go!"
"Move quick!"
"We can''t fight that beast in here!"
Many shouted in terror while Michael was sliding through the crack to reach the side. He desperately wanted to block this crack leaving thesezy bastards to die but time was not in his favor.
After wiggling his body through the crack, he came to the other side of the stone wall and reached the inner parts of the cave. The cave was extremelyrge and spacious. Hanging right on the ceiling of the cave was a single head-sized night pearl that illuminated the entire cave with its shiny glow.
In front of him, there was a tall bookshelf, and on top of this bookshelf, there were some neatly ced scrolls. All these scrolls were covered in dust, they had clearly been here for a long period of time. Right next to a tall bookshelf was another single haphazardly made wooden bookshelf with several books on it.
He walked up to the top bookshelf and grabbed a book with a sudden look of shock on his face. All of these books were Rare spells. He was surprised by what he just found.
"Fiery Wrath, Creates a weapon of fiery energy. This is incredible, I just picked one at random, and it was a Rare spell," Michael''s eyes were glistening in excitement
"So many scrolls! There are also books¡ this is a library!"
[No shit] the system sounded irritated but he ignored it, sending everything he picked into his system storage before the system asks rent for storage space.
"Energy Rage, Creates ws of electric energy, damn I hit the jackpot!" Michael couldn''t hold his excitement thinking how powerful he would be after learning all these spells, he would be untouchable and he saved thousands of Badass points.
[hehehe]
"Huh? System, did you justugh?" the system went silent but he could swear he heard the system chuckle.
"Clean first, thinkter" he had no time bitch with the system as Noah and those idiots woulde here soon, and then, he would have to share this loot with them unless he wanted to make some powerful enemies by fighting. That he did not want because the spells are valuable but they are not worth it if he had to make powerful enemies. Thinking about this, he fastened his pace of storing the spells in his system storage while the people behind him were reading the spell scrolls one by one to choose which one they should get considering they had limited space in their space ring.
"Baby Dragon, if we take everything here back to our sect, we will be the fourth big sect!" Michael patted his chest. He could sense the Baby Dragon had fallen asleep or it would have wed its way out of his coat to give him a dragon saliva bath.
"Need a diversion," he noticed one by one people were turning their gazes at his bookshelf. Looking at this he decided to turn their gaze towards somewhere else and to do that, what would be better than a good old-fashioned shbang. He knew one day this woulde in handy after using these to get rid of the bandits during his first quest.
He crept into the corner of the shelf where he had the cover of darkness and retrieved the shbang, " fire in the hole bitches" he snickered throwing the shbang to the faraway corner of the cave
"Bang!" The sudden sh and explosion sound shook the cave making everyone jump back in shock and surprise. Just as the shbang exploded, he waved his hand and took all the scrolls into his space ring before punching the bookshelf to make it fall to the ground.
"What was that?!" Michael shouted like he had nothing to do with the explosion, "move faster people, the ce mighte down on our head!" Like a good human being, he advised the people as everyone nodded.
Those who eyed the bookshelf could now only sigh because they preferred to take what they could easily rather than lifting this shelf up and then search for a spell.
As soon as he took all the spell scrolls, heughed inside and joined the others to look around the cave hoping to find even more treasures.
Despite the expansive cave, the items within were rtively scarce. Aside from the Rare spells, there was nothing else that made him excited as before but that didn''t mean he left thosemon and umon spells untouched. He took many of those scrolls without alerting the others as he didn''t want them to wonder where he got the space to store all the spells.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Suddenly, the silent atmosphere of the cave changed by the thundering booming sounds which seemed to being from breaking the stone wall.
Soon, Michael saw Noah and the group rushed into the cave making him curse those useless magical beasts outside, "Core Formation my ass, why couldn''t they kill them all?"
In the next second, something strange happened as the stone chess table slowly began to descend into the ground when an idiot who just came here began to investigate the table.
Immediately jumping away from the table, Noah could only look on in astonishment as the table descended deeper into the ground before eximing, "Wh¡what''s happening? he couldn''t have activated some sort of mechanism has he?"
Even as Noah spoke, the group of men in the cave all grew vignt as they began to worry whether or not the mechanism that was activated would kill them. Seeing the sudden change, Michael was ready to use the teleportation scroll he got from the system to escape the cave. He did want to see how far he could get without the help of the system but he would rather live another day to test himself than dying here.
As the table descended into the ground, it was almost as if there was indeed a mechanism as Noah had said. The cave began to shake as a muffled boom could be heard and a hidden stone door slowly started to rise up from the ground.
"There must be a treasure inside, hurry up and enter before anyone else can!"
"Hurry up and go in, there has to be some Legendary treasure inside!"
The crowded cave of people quickly began to cry out loud as they charged toward the area.
Michael didn''t hesitate for even a moment. In an instant, they quickly flew toward the stone door. In a blur of movements, he activated the Lighting dash and disappeared into the hidden door.
The area past the hidden door was quite small, only a few men could stand inside. There seemed to be a single person resting inside and right above his head was a single fist-sized night pearl that seemed to endlessly pour out a ray of light that would never cease.
As soon as several men entered this small cave, they immediately felt a tremendous amount of pressureing at them from all angles. It was enough for everyone to suddenly be serious as their hearts could feel the shock; this cave was not a normal one.
Right next to one of the walls was a single jade white bed. On the white bed, a single white skeleton could be seen maintaining a meditative position for an unknown amount of time. This entire skeleton exuded a fluorescent light from itself as well. Although it was only a skeleton, it was giving off an incredible amount of pressure. Even the faint amount of power that could be felt in the room wasing from this skeleton.
"This is the skeleton of a Fusion Stage cultivator!" Victoria shouted out loud in shock at the skeleton. Noah, Evan, Michael all showed simr signs of shock at this newfound discovery. As they discovered the skeleton and felt excitement overtake them, everyone soon quickly felt their blood begin to boil.
In a single sh of movement of Victoria that caused a squall of wind to appear, she flew toward the skeleton. At the same time, everyone including Michael charged toward it.
Everyone looked at the skeleton with their blood pounding in veins, immediately using any speed-enhancing spell they had, they tried to get closer to the skeleton before the others, except Michael who stopped at some distance from the skeleton trusting his instincts.
Chapter 125 - Light Vs Darkness
With greediness overflowing out of her eyes, Victoria reached out at the skeleton. The others were toote to react or stop Victoria, they could only watch her from behind. However just as her hand was a couple of inches away from the skeleton, an unearthly humming came from the skeleton and the next moment, a sudden force sted Victoria back.
"One person, one bone" a loud yet calm voice echoed through the cave. Many became bbergasted, looking around the cave to locate the voice but Michael could somehow sense the voice belonged to the Fusion stage cultivator.
After flying or rather stumbling back a few meters, Victoria quickly regained herposure but not before baring her teeth looking at the skeleton. She obviously avoided making eye contact with others, especially with Ghost who was ready tough at her misfortune.
"I think the cultivator only wants us to take only one bone each," Evan said, taking everyone''s focus from Victoria. Michael inwardly rolled his eyes looking at the tension between Evan and Victoria. It was not a tension of hostility but rather the tension of affection.
"No shit Sherlock" thought Michael. He was happy that he didn''t Lightning dash to the skeleton before anyone else or he would have been thrown away instead of Victoria.
He leaned on the wall and willed to activate the Energy devourer hoping to turn the pressureing from the skeleton into Experience points while these people coulde to a decision. Unlike everyone else in this world, he was unable to cultivate through the usual means, he had to rely on the system to cultivate, therefore, he did not have a choice other than using the system to earn experience points which was the only way for him to level up.
[System level is too low to break the barrier around the skeleton]
[Level 4 Energy devourer required to transform the Fusion stage Arch Energy]
His vision was blocked by these two notifications. Now that his n to screw everyone before they dismantle the skeleton, he had to wait to either fight over the skeleton or someone toe up with a peaceful way to solve this problem. Although he was not on earth, the anatomy of these cultivators was the same as the earthlings, they had 206 bones in their bodies. Obviously, he knew they wouldn''t resolve this peacefully because if they agree to take one bone as the skeleton said, people like Victoria would aim for the biggest bones in the body such as the skull or femur.
Most of the cultivators in this world tend to be greedy and vengeful, which led to unnecessary wars and fights. of course, Michael was not the one to talk about either of those because he stole all the scrolls on the top shelf just a moment ago without leaving a single scroll to the others.
"I''ll take the skull"
"Fuck you! I fought the Ground Terror, so I''ll take the skull"
"I''ll be the big man and take the spinal cord, you can have the skull"
"Spinal Cord?! You dumb fucker, there are 42 individual bones in the spinal cord"
"Stupid fuckers, where did you two learn anatomy? in the toilet? It''s not 42, it''s 33"
"What did you call me?!"
¡
As Michael expected, they began to bicker, ready to fight for a bone. Each of them looked like a rottweiler in his eyes for a moment before Noah opened his mouth, "Shut up!"
Since Noah was one of the strongest in the room, the crowd quickly stopped bickering, "Alicia, how many of us are here?"
"Forty-three"
"We''ll choose by chance" After he said, Alicia waved her hand as a quill and a paper appeared in her hand.
"Is she writing the names of all the bones in the body?" still leaning on the cave wall, he sighed. He wanted to get this over with and get out of the cave before it could copse on them.
After a few moments, with a flick of her wrist, she threw 206 small paper rolls on the ground in front of the skeleton.
"Each roll has a bone name written on it, each takes one and lets fate decide which bone one will get. Don''t worry, we''ll pickst" Alicia said before someone questioned her and Noah.
"But-"
"You have a better n?" Even after Alicia exined, somebody raised a question but that somebody was instantly shut by Noah.
"Who would go first?" Evan asked as they all shared this same question.
"I''ll go first" they all heard the voice turning their heads to see Michael finally decide to join them. He calmly walked towards the paper rolls, most of them saw him killing two Core Formation beasts had fear etched into their brain cells. Someone had to go first and they did not protest him being that someone because they admired him and most of all, they feared him.
"System, locate the femur"
[1000 badass points]
"Take it" he expected Victoria to be the bitch in the crowd but surprisingly, she kept her mouth shut while he noticed a glimmer around one particr paper roll.
He gently bent his back trying not to wake up the sleepy dragon in his pocket. All the eyes in the cave were glued to Michael, wondering whether he would be sted away like Victoria while many craned their necks to see which bone he would get.
Alicia''s enchantment kicked in when he picked the paper roll and projected the word ''Femur'' in arge glistening word above him.
"Ohe on!"
"Lucky bastard"
"He got the baby dragon, now this, he''s really lucky"
All of them bore a surprised look on their faces. Many couldn''t help but feel frustrations grow inside seeing he got thergest bone. With a small smile on his face, he made his way towards the skeleton, "I''m gonna take only one" said as he put his hand on the skeleton''s femur. Unlike before, there was no sudden st of force. The femur came to his hand after making a crackling sound, his small smile grew into a medium grin sensing the pure Arch Energy that was radiated by the femur in his hand. Although he might not be able to use this femur to level up, his snake friend certainly could.
With his ns to grow the power of his base of operations as well as himself, he needed a loyal and powerful friend like Gaya. The stronger she grew, the more protection and help he would get. Now that he had gotten the femur, he swiftly stepped back from the skeleton not trying anything funny. As far as he was concerned, he earned not only enough Experience points to level up to Body Strengthening level 5, he also got the baby dragon, rare herbs, spell scrolls, contract of Aragoth, and the bone of a Fusion stage cultivator while making fewer enemies.
The Nether realm had been kind to him until now unlike it was to Noah, Maisy, or poor Abel. Most of them lost their friends, limbs, and lives after entering the Nether realm except Michael.
"Thank you" Putting the femur in his storage ring, he gave a short nod at the skeleton. He ignored every greedy pair of eyes on him except one pair of eyes, Noah''s. His calm radiant ck eyes stared at Michael with a ting of surprise hidden within.
Michael felt something he couldn''t describe, it was a new feeling that appeared and disappeared in a sh. His neck hair tingled but he did not show his shock on his face as he walked away from the skeleton as well as the crowd towards the exit.
Some rogue cultivators wanted to simply kill him and take the femur from him without trying their luck but Michael''s dealing with Aragoth made them standstill, they were not dumb enough to mess with an ally of Aragoth.
His rtionship with Saide prevented Hannah Berry from giving him a seductive smile while he was walking past her. Coupled with Sadie, he now had two powerful allies, SilverMoon and Aragoth.
"I''ll go next" Michael heard Evan''s voice before he left through the crack. He was absolutely positive that they will soon fight again despite Noah''s solution, at that time, he didn''t want to be there.
After leaving the inner parts of the cave, he slowed down his pace scanning for any signs of the two remaining magical beasts. Luckily, his Environment scanning detected no threats in the surrounding which made him immediately use the Lightning dash to disappear before they came looking for trouble.
Shhhhhhhhhhh!
Eventually, when he was searching for another cave or treasure, he heard the howling sound of the wind on the horizon and looked up to see a bright beam of light emerge from the ground.
"Portal" he recognized the energy signature, it was the same energy signature as the portal everyone entered through into the Nether Realm.
He felt relieved and excited to leave this ce, he wanted to level up, expand his herbal garden, and most of all, he wanted to show the baby dragon to Gaya, just to see the look on her face.
"She''s going to freak the hell out, hehe" he chuckled under his breath. Despite being in the Guardian guild, Noah still made a lot of enemies ever since he came to Nether Realm and lost a dear friend but Michael, earned allies, a servant who could summon Netherels at his will.
They both were two sides of the coin, they both walked entirely different paths, one wanted to reach the top of the food chain to save people while the other wanted to rule them.
The Nether Realm was the starting ce of the war between light and darkness. However, these two individuals were just two pawns in the game of superior beings and Michael had just seen the glimpse of them when he tried to recruit the Orc as his subordinate.
***********
END OF NETHER REALM ARC...EXPECT A HUGE JUMP IN MICHAEL''S POWER....
Chapter 126 - Dragon Bloodlines
Seeing the gateway to getting out of this ce excited Michael. Compared to everyone else, he was the real winner of this event despite the treasures disappearing after the sky garden. He was told by Gaya that each day a treasured ce would appear except it didn''t.
"Lightning Dash" cing his hand on his chest pocket, he activated the speed spell turning his body into a golden bolt of lightning. The people inside the cave were still unaware of this gateway and still fighting over the skeleton.
"Hey snake, are you there?" Michael willed the earpiece to connect to Gaya and asked.
"Wait a minute...move that aside you dumb bastard! You! What the hell are you doing? Did I ask you to put that there?" she was screaming inside his head making him almost switch off the earpiece. He could tell the snake is bossing around everyone which she loved to do.
"Hiya human" after a few moments, Michael heard her voice, this time, there were no buzzing sounds of people working or Gaya screaming at somebody.
"Hiya, Snake, you seem happy without me," He said ''Hiya'' chuckling,
"Of course I am and how are you still alive?" She teased him, trying to hide the delight in her heart of hearing his voice after so long.
"Don''t get used to it, I''ming home"
"Really?!" there was an elevation in her voice yet soon, she pretended not to be happy of him returning and continued to tease him, "oh, So soon? why don''t you stay there a bit longer?"
"The portal has already opened, you ungrateful snake, I''m currently heading out there to get the hell out of here,"
"Shit, hey!" she suddenly screamed again, " I''m gonna rip off your hands and attach them to your butt!"
"You should go, I can''t hear you scream in my ears no more"
"Yeah, you do that, I have to babysit these stupid bastards or they might put the meat in the sewers" she cut off the line while he continued to run towards the portal. He couldn''t wait to see the renovation works as well as his new restaurant that Gaya was boasting about. If he wants to keep a healthy and respectable rtionship with Aragoth and major powers in the Elon Continent, he had to keep his base of operations presentable to people. The Sunrise sect he left was barely presentable as it could be looked at as a ruin. With these renovations, he hoped to receive a good amount of badass points every month as the system said.
For badass points, he got the Sunrise sect and the restaurant could provide him with a steady flow of Gold Coins. No matter which world he was in, the rich liked to spend their time and money in a ce suited to their taste and status. His two henchmen Daniel and Ricky were currently handing out flyers and hiring bards to promote the new restaurant, although he had only onepetition worth noticing, he didn''t hold off his gold coins but ordered Gaya to spend as much as she wants to promote their restaurant.
Thinking about his new schedule, he took a deep breath. In the daytime, he needed to be at the Majestic making pills and potions for the Majestic, oversee the restaurant and y with the baby dragon. In the nighttime, he had to terrorize the kingdom by killing criminals and such to keep the legend of Lucifer spread across the kingdom. However after he leaves this ce, he shouldy low because killing Jane brought the frickin Church and attracted the king''s notice ording to Gaya.
He was running towards the light beam on the horizon for hours but it felt like he was running on a treadmill, not getting closer to the light beam.
"Huhuhu" Meanwhile, the baby dragon woke and wed his chest to make him stop running.
The golden bolt of lightning slowly faded away revealing Michael.
"Huhuhuhu" it began to sower him with wet kisses, rubbing its little head against his chin.
"Alright, we''ll take a little break" Compared to everyone else in the Body Refining stage, he had triple the amount of Arch Energy in his body. Yet he was not an exception to getting tired of using all the Arch Energy in his body for example using spells like Lightning Dash.
In the daytime, powerful Netherels rarely made an appearance, at least to his knowledge. During the night time, he did detect a bunch of Core Formation and even a few Core Strengthening Netherels in his Environmental scanning. Nheless, he knew even with the masking effect and stealthy approach, it would be impossible to hunt these powerful creatures.
Having a system doesn''t mean he should get into fights half-cocked.
"Are you hungry again?" Sitting under the shade of a huge tree, he asked the baby dragon yfully.
"Huhu" those vertical slit pupils of the scaly creature instantly transformed themselves to those of a puppy looking at the juicy red slice of meat in Michael''s hand.
"Here you go," he said after throwing the piece of meat a few meters away from him. He didn''t want to spoon-feed the baby dragon spoiling the dragon.
"Hu" the baby dragon threw a little temper tantrum before hopping towards the piece of meat.
"System, open the pet window again" he willed the system, soon, the bluish interface filled his vision.
Pet Name : []
Race: Forrest Dragon
Trust: 94%
Power: Arch Sensing Stage 1
"I''lle up with a new name soon and system, is there a way to change my dragon''s race?" This question sounded so stupid in his head, however, the system did boast that it could do anything given enough Badass points.
So why the heck not?
[System level is too low to answer the host''s question] he sighed seeing the greyish notification box in front of him. ording to Abras''s memories, this world seemed to have four dragon bloodlines, Inferior Dragon, Forrest Dragon, Grim Dragon, and the noblest of them all, Royal Dragon.
Rarity and Power increased respectively from Inferior Dragon to Royal Dragon, thetter was rare to the point that only a handful of people in this world had seen them with their own eyes. If this was only Rarity and Power, Michael wouldn''t have worried about the race much but it was not. The Inferior Dragon could only reach the Core Strengthening stage, not one stage above. Forrest Dragon could reach one stage above them, the Soul Refining stage except most of them would die of old age. Only the dragon with either Royal or Grim bloodline had the chance to step into the half immortal or to the stages above them.
ording to Abras''s memory, Grim Dragons were the cheeky, pervy ones who loved to kidnap princes and princesses just for fun.They also loved to horde anything that shines in the light and to expand their treasure horde, they would usually terrorize a settlement making them hand over the valuables to it. They were practically the bandits of the dragons.
With no care of its bloodline, the baby dragon munched on the meat while asionally letting out small burps.
"I''ve been calling you Baby Dragon, what''s your gender?" He wondered trying to see if there''s any genitalia in its body yet after staring at the baby dragon for a couple of seconds, he sighed and let go of this unfruitful search.
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 10
Experience Points: 180000/200000 (1,110,000 Experience points remaining to be consumed)
Badass Points: 70000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 88% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 685,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The number of Badass pints and Experience points immediately brightened his face. He became one step closer to reach the top of the food chain. The first thing he wanted to do after getting out is upgrading the system to level 3 because it keeps telling him the system level is too low to answer many of his questions.
Thirty thousand badass points seemed humongous when he upgraded the system to level 2 but now, he could spend this amount without batting an eye.
Michael was positive that Celina woulde looking for him doubting him for Jane''s death. At that time, he wouldn''t be the same person she attacked at the waterfall, this time, he would have the strength to return the favor in case she tries to attack him.
"Come on baby dragon, let''s go" he stood up looking at the light beam again as the baby dragon came hopping to him. It then wed its way to Michael''s shoulder. In his focus at the portal, he failed to notice the greyish scale on the dragon''s belly which was crimson red before.
Eventually running for another two and half hours, finally, the light beam seemed closer to him. On the distance around the light beam, he could see a few camp tents and people who were packing up their stuff to leave the Nether Realm.
************
Now that we have finished with the Nether Realm arc, we can finally get into the interesting parts. How about an adventure?
Chapter 127 - Coming Out Of The Nether Realm
The closer he got to the campsite, he finally understood where the disciples of Aragoth went after he met them at the sky garden. They were spending their time waiting for the portal to appear.
"Stay inside," he said calmly looking at the baby dragon. The baby dragon let out a reluctant shrill before making its way into its dark home, Michael''s coat pocket.
Having a perfect way to keep the dragon safe didn''t mean he could be careless. Many prying eyes of those rogue cultivators and of those who desire to have a dragon at their disposal might try to get their hands on the baby dragon.
Obviously, he was not nning to keep the baby dragon hidden forever, what''s the point of having a dragon if he couldn''t show off to increase the badass points?
But for now, he decided to keep the baby dragon hidden. He was positive that prominent figures he met before entering the Nether realm woulde again, those people were ruthless, dangerous, and powerful enough to make him disappear overnight.
Despite the system''s nagging to explore this world, adventure out of Bredia, he was ignoring the system as his full focus was on getting stronger, stronger to the point where he doesn''t need to worry about someone taking the things he loves and cherishes. At the present moment, he might have seemed overpowered, undefeatable even but he only fought with inexperienced snotty kids like Maisy or Celina. The world was vast, there would be people who are cunning, strong yet deceitful, these people would overwhelm his advantage of having a system with their brain and actions. He was indeed the number one hitman/assassin back on earth but that certainly didn''t mean he''s the number one genius evil mastermind.
To face people of that caliber, the only foolproof way he found is bing powerful enough to defeat their tricks with overwhelming strength. This wasn''t a novel he used to read, this was his life, a life he nned to live like a god. Unlike those main characters in the novels, he self-evaluated him to find his weaknesses as well as his strengths, relying on luck or even on the system would not be one of his weaknesses.
When he approached the campgrounds, he stopped using the Lightning dash, by walking, he drew the attention of fewer eyes. One by one, the youngsters dismantled their tents, some of them were fancy, some of them were makeshift and the tent Michael was walking towards was not thetter.
The g with arge greatsword drawn on it waved in the wind majestically. Outside of the tent, a reddish-haired youngster calmly watched over his friends doing all the dirty work.
There was a hint of surprise in Nathen''s eyes when heid his eyes on Ghost. Soon, he twitched his nose because Ghost didn''t exactly smell like jasmines, he reeked blood and dust.
"Ghost"
"Nathen"? Each gave a short nod, "it''s fortunate I met you here, when we go outside,e with me to get your coins," said Nathen, making Michael grin in delight.
Renovating the sect, building the restaurant cost them more than he expected. Even as he speaks, Gaya was taking money from the Majestic and spending it on the construction works. After Nathen settles his debt, he would be a 1.7million richer.
"I didn''t see you after the sky garden, any luck finding treasures?" he probed Nathen to see him shake his head, "Our sole purpose toe here was getting rare herbs, fortunately, we got those on the very first day. So we didn''t roam around the ce looking for more treasures, besides, I heard there weren''t any treasures after the sky garden" those brown eyes of Nathen contained a hint of suspicion within them. When he first met Ghost, he didn''t reek blood and now he is, which meant, he battled something and chances were, he was trying to get a treasure.
"I was fortunate enough toe across few" Michael answered, showing hisck of interest in discussing this further. Nathen was nice enough not to ask further questions which Michael appreciated very much.
"About that contract I promised, you have toe to Aragoth and ask for me"
"Will do as soon as I break through to the Body Strengthening stage" he intentionally let these words out to milk some badass points through impressing these youngsters.
Just as he expected, he began to hear the ringing sounds of the system notification in his mind. Nathan''s mouth slightly opened in sudden surprise, he was speechless. A few moments after, he regained his previousposure, "very well then, meet me whenever you can" he said with a short nod.
"Nathan, are you an Alchemist as well?" Michael asked the question in his mind ever since he met Nathan.
Nathen seemed like he was expecting this question from him, "Yes, I''m a level 2 Alchemist, what gave me away?" for the first time, the serious expression on Nathen faded away, and instead, a small chuckle upied his face.
"You" Michael pointed at him, "you said your sole purpose ofing to Nether Realm was to find rare herbs, who else would do that except Alchemists?" Besides, Nathen didn''t exactly radiate a warrior vibe, in fact, he seemed like a person who grew up like a greenhouse flower in Michael''s eyes.
Boom!
As he finished speaking, a thunderous p could be heard. They looked at the light beam to see at the bottom, on the ground level, a greyish hole big enough to let in a group of five appear.
"The portal has opened!"
"Finally!"
"Heck yeah!"
"I''m going to drink myself to death!"
the rather silent atmosphere, the appearance of this portal instantly elevated the mood of these youngsters. They cheered, pped, and bounced in joy while a few who barely survived this ce sighed in relief.
"Shall we?" Michael gestured at Nathen to lead the way as he followed them behind to the portal, controlling the excitement of returning to his sect, his friend.
The groups with either one of the three big sects symbol on their chest entered through the portal first while everyone made way for them. Nathen and his group could have taken the first ce but Nathen just let them pass through for some reason.
"Finally" with onest look back at the Nether Realm, he stepped into the darkness letting the portal surround him.
***********************
"Surprise sucker!" The very next moment Michael stepped out of the portal, he felt a sharp pain in his hand, he turned around with a wide grin to see Gaya was standing in front of him, showing her white row of teeth.
"What are you doing here?" he didn''t expect her toe over here to wee him personally. This gesture of her truly surprised him,
"Making sure you reach our home safely" she defined the house in the sect as ''our'' with no hesitation.
"Yeah right," he rolled his eyes, turning his gaze at the crowd to locate Nathen. As time passed, the ground became more and more crowded,
"Come on, let''s find those Aragoth people and get our money"
"Wait a minute" she pulled his sleeve, she then stared at him, from his top to bottom frowning.
"Is there something you want to tell me?" Another surprise hit Michael''s core. Apparently, she was great at reading faces, even Michael''s. The baby dragon might have sensed the change in the surroundings and stopped moving, but she knew he was hiding something just by looking at the slight upcurve on the corner of his mouth.
"Nope, just keep your damn mouth shut and follow me"
Plop!
He yfully pped the back of her neck, gesturing her to follow him. She would have ripped the hands-off before even someone tries to p her but when ites to him, she loved interactions like this.
Wiggling through the crowd, he found the same g as he did before.
Nathen was surrounded by a bunch of youngsters of his age as well as a couple of older guys who wore distinctive crimson-colored clothes.
"House of Bradley" She immediately recognized those crimson-robed people as the members of House Bradley.
Seeing him and Gaya approaching them, they whispered something into Nathen''s ear as he turned around, "Uncle, he is the one I was talking about'''' From the crowd, a study-looking man stepped forward with two guards at each side. He was a level 10, Core Formation stage warrior, Michael could sense he was just a couple of months of cultivation from reaching the next stage.
"I heard you did good back there, young man" His hazel ck eyes scanned Michael from head to toe while letting out a burst of wildughter,
"It''s an honor to meet you, Sir" Michael said in return grinning ear to ear,
"Cut the Sir Crap, call me Lord Mn"
"As you wish, Lord Mn"
"Here you go" the very next moment, Mn threw him a space ring with a horse etched onto it, this was the symbol of House Bradley.
Michael did not even check inside the ring as he put the ring inside his system storage. This was a gesture to show them that he trusts them as well as to be in their good gracious. If he wanted to survive in this world full of powerful men, he had to be under the shade of powerful men like House Bradley, until he himself reached the point of being the superpower.
"I heard you are also a 5-star Alchemist, how about visit us sometime and let us pick your brain a little?"
"Of course, Lord Mn, as soon as I finish dealing with some things back at my sect, I wille to visit you" Michael was not an idiot not to notice the ulterior motive behind Mn''s invitation. Mn''s voice betrayed him, showing Michael that this man needs something from him.
"Wonderful and trust me, young man, it will be worth your time"
Chapter 128 - Omega Level Warning
"Brother Ghost is back!!!!" the moment hended on the outskirts of the Sunrise sect, a group led by Jack let out a thunderous roar. They bounced, cheered, and screamed his name making Michael smile a bit. Among the crowd of disciples, he also noticed a group of new faces who had musical instruments such as drums, berimbau, atabaque drum, and pandeiro.
Previously when he first came to the sect, the outskirts were upied with overgrown shrubs, thorns and one could definitely tell this ce was not very much looked after. However, at the present moment, nothing was overgrown, thorns hadpletely disappeared from his sight, the shrubs were reced with seedlings of flower nts.
"Brother Ghost" Jack came running bearing a face full of excitement and joy.
"Jack, you''ve leveled up" Jack moved on from Foundation stage level 4 to level 8, Michael patted him on the back making Jack grin even more.
"I gave that bastard enough pills to reach the Body Refining stage!"
Plop!
As usual, Gaya pped Jack as everyone began tough out loud.
"What are you waiting for, beat it!" Jack ordered, looking at the group with musical instruments.
Instantly the festive music reverberated the foothills of the sunrise sect, showing every single living being of Michael''s triumph return. The beats, the dance, and the festive mood that could be seen on everyone''s face slightly reminded him of the carnival of Rio de Janeiro back on earth. Unlike back on earth, he was not here to assassinate someone but to enjoy his life. The male and female disciples forgot about their gender and rocked their bodies, swaying with the beats.
"You know about this?" while making his way to the top, he asked Gaya
"Who do you think is paying for this?" she said waving her hands. Inside his pocket, the beats awaken the baby dragon. It began to scratch his chest asking him to let it out.
For the next few minutes, Michael kept patting his chest calming the baby dragon. He did not want to reveal the existence of the baby dragon just yet. Eventually, the sight of the newly renovated buildings fell in his eyes. His brows arched in surprise, the buildings were nowhere near finished but they were already looking better, much better than the previous ruins.
"Now we are talking," he thought, feeling the excitement stirring up in his heart.
"Thank you guys" Looking at the Elders and ire waiting for him in front of the teachers'' quarters, Michael said to the musicians with a short smile.
"Ghost, wee back"
"Wee back to the world of the living, young man" ire stepped forward, giving him a loving embrace, an embrace of a big sister.
Even though his full focus was on getting stronger to rule this world, people like ire added vors to his life. In his previous life, he had no people to share his happiness or sadness, now thanks to this mysterious system, he got a friend like Gaya, loving people like Elders and ire.
"You have something in your pocket?" ire asked, feeling something wiggling inside Michael''s chest.
The very next moment, everyone''s gazended on Michael''s chest. Indeed there was something wiggling, "I knew you were hiding something!" she turned him to face her pulling his shoulders, "take it out!"
"You asked for it" with a chuckle, Michael gently grabbed the baby dragon and pulled it out. A moment of stillness upied the scene before Gaya jumped back letting out a squeal.
"HUHHUUU!" like it met a lifelong enemy, the baby dragon hissed at Gaya.
The Dragons and the Nagas were two foes in nature''s order. Like a cat doesn''t need a reason to hate a mouse, these two were just like that, only inrger, bloodthirsty creatures.
"A dragon!"
"Holy fuck!"
"My god!"
None noticed the change in Gaya''s face as all their eyes were locked onto the baby dragon. The cute crimson-colored scaly created had attracted all the eyes instantly from Michael himself.
"Can¡ I?" ire''s hands trembled approaching the baby dragon, her voice stuttered.
"Huhuhu"
"It''s okay" Michael reassured the baby dragon. For a few seconds, the baby dragon hesitated, sniffing ire''s hands before finally letting her take it into her arms.
"Brother Ghost, that''s a...dragon" Jack stuttered while everyone except him crowding around ire to see the baby dragon.
"Where did you-" he couldn''t even finish his question, shock overwhelmed his ability to speak
"Where else? Nether Realm" Michael said, he then turned around to see Gaya''s face show a mix of anger and fear. He could tell she was fracking out despite her power.
"I don''t want that lizard here" she kicked the ground beneath her,
"Surprise Sucker!"
**************************
At the present moment, Michael was lying on the royal sofa. The baby dragon and Gaya were having a staring contest in front of him.
If he wanted to break through peacefully, he had to resolve this petty hostility between her and this little dragon. In the future, these two may have to fight beside each other, how could they do that if they dont trust each other?
He must root out the hate for each other from their hearts before the baby dragon grows up to be a big dragon. For Gaya, he decided to give her some tough love to realize how stupid it is to fight with this baby dragon.
"Gaya"
"What?" she asked without taking her eyes off the baby dragon.
"Doesn''t this seem childish to you?" he stepped in, giving a quick p to both on the head.
"You" Michael aimed his eyes at Gaya, "you are grown ass girl, yet, you are fighting with this baby dragon" she tried to open her lips, only to get yelled at again, " I dont give a damn about what the dragons did to Nagas or Nagas to dragons. I want you two to trust each other, no food for you two until you find a way to get along" a horrified expression could be seen on their faces, the baby dragon let out a crying ''huhu''.
He was deadly serious about starving them, she could tell that much. Now she had two choices, the first choice, trying to steal food from the restaurant but she didn''t believe she could achieve that feat with him around, the second choice, find a way to get along with the baby dragon as he said.
"Huhu"
"This is not my fault, you little asshole" she wanted to strangle the baby dragon when she heard it me her for his anger.
The baby dragon hissed ready to scratch her pretty face, it didn''t feel a bit afraid of his natural enemy, Naga. After Michael''s departure, they continued the staring contest, trying to figure out a way to get along.
*************************
Since he had to break through to the Body Strengthening stage, he ordered Gaya not to renovate the house when he was in the Nether Realm. So this worn out home remained the same, he sat on his bed, eyes closed
"System, let''s begin"
System version 2.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage, level 10
Experience Points: 180000/200000 (1,110,000 Experience points remaining to be consumed)
Badass Points: 70000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 88% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 685,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
He willed his status toe forward,staring at all the unconsumed Experience points, he began the process of breaking through,
[Does the host wish to break through to the Body Strengthening stage?]
"Yes"
[The system requires host three days to reach the next stage]
[Warning, the system will be offline for three days]
"Upgrade yourself to version 3 and then begin the breakthrough process" Michael ordered the system telepathically, the next moment, the interface in front of him faded away and darkness surrounded his mind.
In the pitch-ck darkness, Michael''s consciousness brought him the memories of earth. The way he grew up in an orphanage, an orphanage that was a front to an arms and drugs dealing operation. He was bullied and beaten by those things despite his little age every day, as a little kid, he wanted to be a teacher. Every time the thugs would ask the kids in the orphanage to smuggle drugs, Michael resisted them, in return he would be beaten to a pulp, beaten until his little heart finally gave up resisting them.
He learned to adapt, learn, bend the situation to his favor. In this life, the circumstances changed but odds against him remained the same.
(After three days)
[Congrattions to the host for reaching the next stage, the Body Strengthening stage!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 1!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 2!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 3!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 4!]
[The System has been sessfully upgraded to version 3!]
[OMEGA LEVEL WARNING!]
[ACTIVATING COUNTERMEASURES!]
[SYSTEM SAFE MODE ACTIVATED!]
Chapter 129 - New Spell
"Huh?" the system''s bluish interface flickered, soon, the bluish color turned to something grey, dark.
"What the heck happened? An omega-level warning? What is that?" Many questions riddled his mind,
[System level is too low to answer host''s question]
"Why am I not surprised?" Michael sighed, little by little, he began to realize something called Omega is messing with the system. This system was not like a system in the novels he used to read about, the badass system seemed to have a backstory of its own, enemies of its own.
The system was an absolute peak existence in his mind but now, it looked like there''s something beyond that. He was nowhere near facing threats on that scale, all he could do for now was getting stronger.
He showed this omega threat to the corner of his mind and focused on his stats,
System version 3.0 [Safe Mode]
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Strengthening stage, level 4
Experience Points: 190000/300000
Badass Points: 40000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 88% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 2 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 5 badass point(s))
Wealth: 1,685,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
"System, how much for upgrading the Banker function to level 3?"
A loading icon appeared in front of him, this was new yet he decided not to ask because he knew it might be rted to the system running on Safe mode.
[20,000 badass points, the ration will be 1000 gold coins to 10 badass points]
With no hesitation, he willed the system to upgrade the function. In a desperate situation, 100 badass points could save his life, so keeping this function upgraded would let him get those life-saving badass points.
Base of Operation: The Sunrise Sect
Current Leader: ire Marigold
Level: 1
Number of Members: 34
Status: Declined
Legend: 30 / 1000 (Still a crappy old sect where a 5 Star Alchemist resides)
Compared to before, there was no debt, and The Legend of the sect increased by 10 points. He did not feel demotivated by the measly 10 points increase, he knew the legend would grow after putting his n for the Broad River sect in motion. Besides, he still didn''t give all the spell scrolls he got from the cave, not to mention the 80-100 herbs he plucked from the sky garden.
Furthermore, he was absolutely positive that getting the contract of Aragoth would not only bring him millions of gold coins but also elevate the sect''s status.
"Time to learn a new spell" excitement overwhelmed his senses, he opened the system storage, "Ring of Fire"
Spell name: Ring of Fire
Effect: Creates a shockwave of mes and a ring of fire around the caster for a short amount of time.
Upgradable: Upgradable through Mentor Function
Current level: Rare
"System, I wish to learn this spell" In his arsenal, Ignitia acted as both closebat and long-rangebat spell. The sword mastery enhanced his closebat skill even further, the only thing hecked was an area of effect(AoE) spell.
This Ring of Fire could be the fix to that problem.
[Activating Mentor Feature]
[Scanning the Ring of Fire spell...]
[System found improvements to the spell, does the host wish to improve the spell?]
"Yes," he said without hiding the excitement in his heart,
[1000 badass points required to improve the spell]
"Oh, I thought you were going to do this for free" sarcasm overflowed in his tone, "take it"
He experienced the familiar acute pain in his brain, when he opened his eyes, his vision was blocked by a crimson red warning,
[Maximum rmended spell number reached]
[The system advice host to stop learning any more spells before reaching the next stage in cultivation]
[Exceeding the maximum spell number would result in nausea, headache, muscle pain, memory loss, etc]
"Jeez, fuck, I was kinda hoping to learn all these Rare spells to be super op!" The warning really frustrated him, he gritted his teeth and swallowed the frustration. He could not fight the system, the rational thing to do was upgrade the existing spells before learning more despite his desire to learn new spells. The Ring of Fire mastery was at the level of 50%, if he wanted to reach 100%, he had to practice the spell and use this spell more often.
"Alright, I can live with the spells I already have, hey" suddenly Michael remembered something, "System, where are my rewards for upgrading you?"
[...]
"Ohe on, why should I upgrade your ass if you won''t give me some sort of rewards?"
[...]
[Host will get rewards after the system terminates the Safe mode ]
"And when would that be?"
[...] The silence made I''m even more frustrated thinking about the 30,000 badass points he spent on upgrading this jerk of a system.
Finally, with a long sigh, he closed the system, letting his eyes bathe in the daylight.
"Sister Aelia!"
"That damn lizard tore my clothes!"
"Huhuhu"
"I''m gonna tear you apart!"
"Sister Aelia, calm down, it''s just a baby"
Outside of his room, he heard the yellings, "what now" he sighed and made his way towards the door. He opened the door to see the baby dragon in Cindy''s hands while Gaya was waving a thin needle-like stick at the baby dragon.
However, all of them paused seeing him walk out of his room.
"Brother Ghost!"
"HUHUHU!"
Cindy almost threw her hands up, dropping the baby dragon in her hands when she saw him. The baby dragon wagged its tail like a puppy, reached out its ws to shower him with kisses. He crouched down to receive a soft tender kiss from Cindy on one cheek and wet nibbling kisses on the other from the baby dragon.
"Body Strengthening stage level 4, why am I not surprised?" He was just a Body Refining stage cultivator a few weeks ago, now he turned himself into a Body Strengthening stage level 4 warrior. His speed of cultivation was really monstrous, even she couldn''t bepared to his speed. Coupled with his war god body and the orc who could summon Netherels, she knew he''s going to get even stronger. Although she had a bad feeling about this orc, they had to work with the Orc to grow their strength. The church and the guardians were still searching for Jane''s killer, she knew that Celina would soone looking for Ghost in blind anger. To face a threat like the Church or the guardians, they needed servants like this orc.
"Cindy, when did you reach the Foundation stage?" Michael pecked her on the cheek, ruffling her carefullybed hair.
"Sister Aelia is teaching me to cultivate"
"Really?" Actually, he was surprised to see the selfish snake care about Cindy.
"Huhuhuh"
"I missed you too, baby dragon" the baby dragon was relentlessly kissing all over his face, trying its absolute best to get his attention.
"Cindy, where''s your mother?" he carried the little girl in his hand while the baby dragon sat on top of his shoulder. Seeing its human has returned, the baby dragon felt safe, looking at Gaya, it stuck its tongue out giving her a? ''yeah I did tear your clothes'' look.
"Don''t be too cocky, lizard, I can still squeeze you to death" The hostility he saw the first time in their eyes now became less, at least they didn''t kill each other, he thought.
"Mother and little brother is still at River Town"
"I will meet them there, and Aelia" she waszilyying on the sofa,
"What?" she asked, "I have a gift for you" her face slightly brightened as she stood straight on the sofa. Michael retrieved the femur he got from the skeleton, instantly making everyone in the room feel the pressure.
"Whoa!" Gaya was overwhelmed by the Arch energy radiationing from the bone, she walked towards him with a slightly opened mouth,
"This is..."
"Yes, a bone of a Fusion stage cultivator" she took the bone with the utmost care from Michael''s hand, the baby dragon stared at the bone sensing the power while Cindy just scratched her little head having no idea about the bone.
"You can absorb this energy to reach the next level"
She nkly nodded, still feeling overwhelmed by the energy.
"Do you have more?" he wanted to punch this greedy snake in the face, many would kill to get their hands on a single bone yet, she was asking for more with a serious face.
"Yeah, I have a whole skeleton under my bed" he answered sarcastically, making her chuckle a bit.
"Where to?" She put the bone in her space ring and asked him on his way to the outside, "to expand our herbal garden" he would have given the herbs to Gaya three days ago but these herbs were rare and required his attention while nting, therefore, he kept the herbs until now,
"To the herbi garden!" Cindy shouted joyfully, pointing her finger towards the herbal garden''s direction.
"Yes, to the herbi garden"
Chapter 130 - Expanding The Herbal Garden
Even from hundreds of meters away from the herbal garden, one could smell the medicinal fragrance in the air. Lush green, morning sky orange, rose pink and various colors of nts weed Michael with a sway in the wind. The disciples were watering the herbs regrly under the supervision of Elder Reiner who now built a swing in the middle of the herbal garden to spend his free time in this peaceful atmosphere.
At the present moment, the herbal garden was approximately 500 square feet in area. Quite a distance from the garden area, he noticed a couple of workers digging through, "what are they doing" he asked Gaya
"We''ll build a dome covering the garden, a ss dome, it''ll be grand" her eyes sparkled with excitement talking about the dome
"Of course, we don''t have enough coins to start the construction. They are just digging the ground for the foundation" Michael nodded. Expanding the herbal garden would definitely increase the sect''s legend as well as help him make varieties of potions and pills. Since Gaya was a Core Formation warrior, he could start expanding the garden with no fear of someone stealing his herbs. He also nned to use the Aragoth as his protection charm.
"Elder Reiner" the look-alike of Gandalf was startled noticing Michael''s cultivation level, his jaws opened wide, "Young Man, when did you reach the Body Strengthening stage and how did you jump four levels?"
He came forward leaving the swing, "Nether Realm, Elder Reiner, I was lucky to find a few rare herbs, do you want to see them?" Elder Reiner''s face brightened as he nodded vigorously like a little child.
Michael flicked his wrist ordering the system to ce all the herbs in the storage in front of him. The very next moment, Ny-eight to be exact herbs appeared in a neat row, making Elder Reiner almost faint on the spot because all of them were rare, extremely rare.
He didn''t open up the matter that he gave Legendary herbs like Tiger Cress, Diamond Leaf, Oglio root, and Cavern Petal to Aragoth in exchange for the alchemy supply contract.
"SO MANY¡..HERBS!!!" Elder Reiner dropped to his knees, smelling, feeling, touching the herbs one by one. Although he didn''t recognize many herbs in here, he could sense the powerful medical Arch Energy radiating from within those herbs.
"You really had a great time there, didn''t you?" Gaya knew about his actions in the herbal garden, still, seeing these herbs with her eyes slightly shocked her.
"Pretty!" Cindy''s big eyes sparkled looking at the Ocean Jasmin, which was a transparent ocean blue flower, the sweet fragrance and the beauty of the five-petal flower overwhelmed Cindy,
"It''s called Ocean Jasmin, am I right Ghost?" Suddenly he heard the voice of ire, turning around he saw Sect Leader ire, as beautiful as the Ocean Jasmin itself walking towards him with a smile like a morning sunray.
Her golden blonde hair now became more golden and wavy, dancing in on her shoulder, "You''re right, Sect Leader ire"
"You have grown stronger" ire clutched his biceps yfully, not as stunned as Elder Reiner. After hearing what Gaya did to those adventurers and Michael''s feat during the phoenix auction fair, she herself had grown stronger, tougher. She wanted to be the leader everyone follows to death, not a sissy.
What could make her afraid when she has Ghost behind her?
His reputation had even reached the Capital city, the king of Bredia himself treated them with the utmost respect because of Ghost. He was the Guardian for all of them.
Michael didn''t fail to notice the confidence in her eyes, the woman in front of him was not the meekly soft ire he first met, this was a new person. Not only her, everyone in the sect seemed to be a new person, he affected the greater than he expected.
She gave a quick kiss to the baby dragon on his shoulder and then she looked at the little Cindy. When Michael put the little girl down, she immediately went straight to the OCean Jasmin, burying her nose onto the petals. Just as she was about to pluck the flower, ire grabbed her little hands, " Cindy, If you love a flower, don''t pluck it. Because if you pluck it, it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation"
Michael didn''t mind Cindy pluck the flower, of course, he would have reminded her of the preciousness of the flower before giving it to her because he would never spoil her, however, ire''s words made more sense,
"Yes, Teacher ire, I will not pluck any flowers I promise"
"Good" ire ruffled her head giving her a warm kiss on the forehead.
"Elder Reiner, shall we start nting them?"
***************************
For the next few hours, Elder Reiner, Michael, Jack, and many male disciples got their hands dirty nting each herb in the suitable ce following Michael''s instruction. Gaya, ire, and the girls made lemonade, keeping the workers energetic while the baby dragon yed fetch with Cindy. The scene resembled the scenes of a happy feel-good movie.
Michael mixed the Netherel ash with the soil in the right ratio to make the herbs grow faster and healthier. The previously 500 square feet garden now became almost triple the size as many of the herbs Michael brought would take a lot of ground to grow.
After finishing nting them, he plucked enough leaves, roots, flowers, and parts of the herbs to make new pills and potions.
"What are we gonna make?" Gaya came after they had done all the dirty work, though she was with ire who made lemonades for them, the snake was only there to drink them, not to work, not to help.
"Wisdom potion, Mind control pills, love potion, Elemental resistance potion, Perception pills, Hallucination potion, Camouge potion, Enhanced Healing potion and the one we talked about" thetter was the pill to counteract the lie-detecting potion, there was a chance of Celina bring this potion to test him to see if he had anything to do with Jane''s death.
This recipe to neutralize the effects of the lie-detecting potion could only be concocted by him because he bought the recipe from the system. There were two ways to see somewhen whether lying or not, that potion and the lie detector array. Thetter was better than the potion, it could even detect a half immortal''s lies but it had downsides, it cannot be transported, and extremely expensive to create one in the first ce. ording to Gaya, Nagnd has one and the Church in Kingdom Zainad.
Even an immortal couldn''t relocate or transport the array, let alone a puny Body Strengthening warrior like Celina.
"Sect Leader ire, we need to discuss something, call all the Elders'''' He was calm, collected, and radiated confidence in his eyes. Seeing his demeanor ire didn''t worry much but nodded.
"The matter about the Broad River sect, right?" Michael nodded at Gaya. He wanted to take a bath before attending the meeting with ire and the Elders because he was reeking blood, sweat, and Netherel. He then sent Cindy to help the Elders any way she can. After the little girl''s figure disappeared from their sight, Gaya spoke,
"I asked around about the Broad River sect, they are rtively a small sect that has a total of 152 disciples,10 teachers, four elders, and one sect leader who is the strongest, Core Formation level 5" Gaya served him with the information she collected about the sect, "they mainly focus on Runes but those jokers only have one 3-star Runemaster and a couple of 2-stars teaching runes"
"What about the sect''s location?" asked Michael
"Near a Broad river in Sarton, hence their name. They don''t have hugends such as us though"
"Hmm, they''ll be our first branch" Michael and Gaya grinned devilishly sharing the same thought.
"Also Gaya, I want you to teach cultivation to Cindy''s friends, we should nurture them from little to make them loyal to us, that way, they''ll make a great loyal army in the future" He turned into an assassin because those drug dealers abused him and the kids in the orphanage to smuggle drugs, it was the starting point of his path to bing an assassin. Although he would never abuse those little kids, he did decide to use them, his path to rule this world shadowed his moral codes. To be a ruler of this world, he had to sacrifice a part of his soul, the seed of the dark lord inside him had already started to sprout, more than he wanted to.
"I like the way you think, human" She returned a devilish grin of her own.
At the present moment, he did not know what he was slowly bing. He was thinking that everything''s under control, except the universe, the higher power has a different n.
However, does everything in this world is ck and white?
What makes Michael the bad guy and what makes Noah the good guy?
Is Michael really the bad guy for nning to use those innocent kids?
"There''s something you should know about the Broad River sect, Human"
Chapter 131 - Not Everything Should Be Resolved With Violence
Mathias Mills was sitting in his carriage with his hand bracing his head. A sh of anger could be seen on his tanned face, his sharp gaze stared at the lines of the tree they were passing by. In front of him, a middle-aged woman was pouring him tea. Despite the ck cloak covering her face, her movements weren''t interrupted by the cloak at all.
"Drink this tea, Sect Leader, it''ll soothe your anger," the woman said, if one was to look closely, they could see the burn mark within those shadows of the cloak.
"Nothing can soothe my anger, E" Gritting his teeth, Mathias answered.
"Well, something should, before we make it to the Sunrise sect, Sect Leader" Without letting the tea go to waste, E took a sip instead of giving him.
Mathias''s gaze turned from the scenery outside to E, who was now leisurely enjoying the tea, "I''m saying this for your own good, Sect Leader, don''t underestimate that Ghost. Nowadays these young freaks disobey thews of nature like eating breakfast"
"Meaning?" Mathias''s tone was filled with rage, she knew he is boiling in anger yet she continued with paying no mind to his mood, "Meaning, you can''t weigh him by just looking at his cultivation level, I heard he killed a Body Strengthening stage cultivator when he was at a Foundation stage. Funny thing is, he was also a Sect Leader"
"Are you implying-"
"I''m implying nothing, I just want you to be calm when we talk to him, don''t be rash" E interrupted Mathias, advising him not to be rash except she wanted him to be.
"If you don''t mind Sect Leader, let me do the talking"
A sh of anger ran through his face, he reached out, then he grabbed E by her neck as he said " I do mind because I''m the Sect Leader, not you" he was squeezing the life out of E, she was helpless. Only after a few moments of torturing her, he let go of her neck,
"Don''t think I dont know you eyeing the sect leader seat for yourself but you can''t be the face of the sect with a face like that" A murderous re could be seen in her eyes but the only thing she could do is swallow her anger and wait for the right time to strike him down.
"Just wait until I reach the Core Formation stage, I''ll rip you to pieces," thought E.
*****************************
The rest of the journey was filled with silence in the carriage until they saw lines of carriages and crowds of people. E recognized most of the carriages belonged to the noble houses of Sarton, her disciples told her about the Majestic and its business yet seeing with her own eyes surprised her nheless.
The crowd was queuing from the foothills to the Majestic which was located atop the mountain in front of them. They had to reach the mountaintop to reach their meeting spot, but their path was blocked by these carriages and crowds.
"Stop!"
Just as they were about to stop behind thest carriage in the queue to the top, they heard the voice of a teenager. E looked outside through the window to see a blonde-haired youngster waiting for them in front of the carriage.
"Sect Leader Mathias, Elder E, wee to Sunrise sect. Follow me, Sect leader ire is waiting for you" seeing there''s no way for them to reach the top in the carriage, E and Mathias stepped out of the carriage to follow this youngster.
"Why didnt iree to receive me?" the moment Mathias stepped out, he scowled at the youngster while E just stood back waiting for the events to unfold
"Sect Leader ire" the young man emphasized the words ''Sect Leader'' and continued," is handling something very important, so she sent me to personally receive you and lead you to her, if you please, follow me"
The way the youngster answered, sparked the fuel of anger inside Mathias. The youngster was just a Body Refining stage cultivator, level 1 at that yet he showed no fear seeing a Core Formation cultivator like Mathias.
"Lead the way kid" E was bouncing in joy, the more anger Mathias gets, the better the chance for him to start a battle with Ghost.
With a nod towards E, he turned around and walked towards the top of the mountain. while they were following the young man, E saw a group of girls in revealing dresses "SilverMoon girls" E recognized
The young man immediately waved his hands at them, almost like he was instructed to, "Hey, brother Ghost said he has new pills and potions that would help your Senior sister Kan, remind her to visit him"
"Will do Jack!" The girls gave a flying kiss to the young man, making all the youngsters in the crowd look at him with envy.
"So Jack, are they friends, Ghost, and Sadie, the core disciple of SilverMoon?" E pondered
"Of course, Elder E"? Jack was leading them through the long route so they could notice the renovation sites. Although Mathias paid little interest in the renovation works due to his anger, what he saw was bewildered him.
This was not the deste ce he saw a couple of years ago, everything now seemed improved. Those once cobwebbed worn-out buildings were being built and renovated, workers were reconstructing the old paths made of stones with marble tiles, another group was trimming the overgrown shrubs and bushes which previously made the area look untended.
E saw the Sunrise sect disciples before, at that time, they wore the bright orange uniforms but now, including the youngster in front of her, the disciples wore clothes that were either ck or closer to the color ck.
"Oh, I almost forgot" Jack bit his tongue, taking out two pamphlets with the Sunrise sect symbol drawn on them.
He then handed over the pamphlets to Mathias and E, without even taking a single nce, Mathias crumbled his pamphlet and threw it away. E on the other hand took a closer look, "I''d love to take a tour around your sect Jack" Mathias threw a cold nce at her as she shrugged,
"What? Since you don''t want me do the talking, let me at least do this" Mathias saw no trouble in letting her take a stroll around this ce, it was not like she could do anything by taking a tour.
"Wonderful, Elder E, we''ll begin our tour after leaving Sect Leader Mathias at Sect Leader ire''s residence" Jack pped his hands, almost sighing inside.
After taking another hundred or so steps through the construction site, they reached lines of individual houses which looked majestic, grand even. Each house was almost finished but even at this stage, that triangle roof on the front, three long chimneys on the top, that white and royal blue paint gave each house a sumptuous characteristic.
This time, Mathias''s eyes widened in surprise as he followed the youngster to the house which was just a couple of weeks from getting finished.
"Take a break, people '''' Jack shouted at the people who were cing windows, sandpapering the walls to start the painting works as well as cultivating the ground in front of the house to ornamenting the house with ns and such.
Jack''s rtionship with Gaya and Ghost gave him a certain pull within the sect. He had be the go-to guy to contact Gaya or Ghost, this increased his reputation among his fellow disciples, especially among girls.
"Sect Leader Mathias, Sect Leader ire is waiting for you inside"
*************************
"Is this where the famous Ghost of River town lives?" E asked Jack looking at the one house which had no renovation going on. Except for its worn outlook, she could see nobles and the rich going inside using the side entrance anding out with a wide grin on their faces.
"We are waiting for the rest of the buildings to get renovated, Elder E, after that, we''ll turn this shabby old house into a mansion worthy for our senior brother Ghost and senior sister Aelia" Jack wouldn''t let anyone look down on Ghost or Aelia.
"Go through the front entrance, Elder E, brother Ghost is waiting for you" E wasn''t surprised to hear Jack because, on the pamphlet he gave her before, there were three golden words flickered, ''Meet Me-Ghost''.Those words were enchanted to let only the holder, E see the words, not Mathias.
She nodded before taking slow steps towards the door. Even with a Body Strengthening level 9 cultivation, she couldn''t help but feel the seed of fear growing inside her regardless of Ghost''s cultivation level.
Creak!
With a long sigh of a mix of fear and excitement for this meeting, she opened the door to be stunned by things in front of her. From the outside, the house looked nothing but shabby, old and worn out yet on the inside, there were fancy cushions, sofas, tables, and many other things that could only be seen in a ce like King''s pce.
"Wee Elder E" her gaze moved from the fancy sofas to the direction of the voice. She saw a youngster in a ck long sleeve tunic and trousers. His raven ck hair danced around his broad shoulder, a warm smile could be seen on his perfectly structured face. Through the transparent ck long sleeves he wore, she could see the lines of the six-pack abs and big biceps.
Her eyes were momentarily glued to this handsome man she had ever met,
"How long are you nning to stand there Elder E?"
Chapter 132 - A Week Of Time
E sat on thefiest sofa she had ever rested her butt yet she couldn''t enjoy itsfort to the fullest under his gaze. Her heartbeat slightly increased, not only because of the attraction towards the opposite gender but also because of his cultivation level, Body Strengthening stage, level 4.
Cultivation speed like this was monstrous, heaven-defying, and godly.
Despite therge crowds outside, the room was silent. Soon after, a woman in her early thirties came through the door behind him carrying a tray with two cups on it.
The sweet fragranceing from those cups made E''s voice salivate to the point that she wanted to jump and gulp whatever inside the cups.
Ghost grabbed the cup with a smile and then, the woman ced the tray before E, "Please take it, Elder E" Regardless of her covered face, the woman gave her a wide grin, not a fake one but a genuine grin. E was surprised by the hospitality, "Thank you"
She couldn''t wait any longer, she brought the cup near to her nose getting overwhelmed by the fragrance. Soon, she took a short sip, just only to feel a burst of electricity run through her body. Her ck hood covered the sight of her eyes widened, this was nothing like she had tasted before, like nothing. All of her taste buds in the tongue felt alive, delighted, and overwhelmed.
"Delicious isn''t it?" After Michael upgraded the system to version 3, he was able to quickly imbue the secret element into the ingredients Raylene brought from Bredia. Although the system said the secret element was pure Arch energy, he somewhat had a hard time believing it. Anyhow, the system made changes to the ingredients in the microparticle level, and coupled with Raylene''s 5-star chef trait, anything made out of these ingredients became extremely delicious.
"This is drugs, no it''s better than drugs," Thought E, quickly finishing the tea in no time.
"Yes, it is delicious" after a few moments, E asked,
"Well, Elder E, meet the only 5-star in the entire Kingdom of Bredia" E''s mouth opened further, staring at the woman obediently standing behind Michael.
"Do you know what is the most powerful profession, Elder E?" Michael asked after cing the cup on the table in front of him.
E nkly shook her head, she was still overwhelmed by the fact the woman in front of her is a 5-star chef. She didn''t doubt this fact because no one else could have made a simple tea this delicious,
"Alchemy, there are potions and pills for nearly everything, including for those burn wounds" Michael pointed at E''s half-burned face, her heart skipped a beat, mouth became dry as she mumbled, "how-"
"Baby Dragon," E heard a squawking sound, her mind was nk due to overwhelming surprises and shock she has been receiving ever since she stepped into his home. Soon, Raylene took the cups and left the room, leaving them to their meeting.
"Wow!" she jumped back on her couch, it was a little dragon, a baby dragon. She had never seen a baby dragon before or a real dragon for that matter but she had seen paintings of dragons and the creature in front of her resemble the paintings. She felt the noble aura the creature was radiating, each of its movements was majestic, dignified.
It climbed on his shoulder with ease and dropped the thumb-sized cup it was carrying in its mouth. Michale sent the thumb-sized ceramic cup floating towards E, "Apply this cream on the wound in your wrist" Michael had seen those wounds on her forearm despite her full sleeves,
"This will go a lot smoother if you trust me, Elder E, besides you have nothing to lose by applying that cream"
"HU!" the baby dragon knew he gave her an order and it kept staring at her until she slowly took a small amount of this bluish cream and applied it to her wound.
The cream touched her skin, her burned skin had long ago lost the sense of touch. Even she wouldn''t look at her face or her naked body without feeling nauseated. Half of her body had ugly burn wounds that made her cry her eyes out every single day.
Until thirteen years ago, she was a pretty girl, even though she was not an angelic beauty who would instantly make men fall in love with them, she had a few followers. She was the one who was meant to be the next sect leader of the Broad River sect but this fact changed when she met with an ident, an ident she would never forget until she dies. That day, she was caught inside a burning room, until to this day, she had no idea how the fire started.
The fire engulfed her home and all of her servants, fortunately, her parents weren''t at home that cursed day. Because of her wounds, the Elders and the sect leader chose the next in line as the new sect leader, Mathias stating that with those wounds, she can''t be the one who leads the sect. They were right, those wounds changed her, changed her from within, she was never the same person after that night.
Men who courted her wouldn''t even take a nce at her, those who had no heart would make fun of her. Her friends left her because they couldn''t be seen with an ugly freak like her. Slowly she started to wash away her feelings and griefs in booze, drugs, and anything that could numb her brain.
This addiction of hers chased away her parents, leaving her alone. Only after a few years, she slowly began to realize what happened that night was not an ident but a nned event. The booze numbed her brain and kept her from realizing this sooner. When she started to investigate through any means necessary, she had found that it was Mathias who nned this.
However, her realization came toote as he had already reached the Core Formation while she was struggling at the Body Refining stage. The vengeance made her quit drinking and focusing solely on her cultivation. For the past ten years, she was controlling the urge to kill him and waiting for the right moment to strike.
Mathias did not know her true intentions, as far as he was concerned, she was plotting to steal the leader position from him.
"What-" She gasped the very next moment she applied the cream. The wound on the ce she put the cream vanished instantly, on that ce, new smooth skin began to appear.
She immediately pulled her sleeve up and then, she scooped the cream, trying to apply the small amount of cream everywhere. Although the cream was not enough for all the wounds on her hand, everywhere the cream touched, the wounds got healed.
It was simply a miracle because she had hired numerous healers and tried hundreds of alchemy products but not a single one of them could heal her wounds because the fire that burned her skin was not a normal fire but the holy fire.
"Your wounds will appear again after a few days but I can make them disappear forever" there was a small pause in his voice before continuing "only if you do my bidding," he said while gently rubbing the baby dragon''s chin, he looked calm and carless.
"Anything...anything" she saw those ugly wounds disappear, she felt the cold breeze brushing through her smooth skin again. She wanted this cream, she wanted it desperately.
"As we speak, Sect Leader ire is making an offer, an offer to merge your sect with mine under the leadership of Sect Leader ire. But you know the oue of this right?" She nodded knowing very well that Mathias won''t even consider this, not even in a million years.
"I can simply kill him and subdue your sect within a day but if I did that, your people will sooner orter revolt, hinder the growth of my sect" She knew he was right, Mathias may be an evil son of a bitch to her but everyone in the sect would definitely leave or revolt if Ghost forces them to join his sect.
"That''s where youe in Elder E, I know you were the next in line after your previous sect leader and I also know, Mathias is the one who did this to you. I want you to convince your people to join my sect, in return, since Sect Leader ire can''t be in two locations at once, we''ll leave the Broad River sect in your care. Plus, I''ll heal your wounds" This was a sweet deal, E would have even poisoned the entire sect for that miraculous cream if he had asked her to.
"I will do it,'''' E said with a firm resolve in her voice, making him grin wide.
Michael left all the nning and convincing stuff to E as she knew the people of the Broad River sect better than him.
***********************
Eventually, after speaking for another couple of minutes, E left his home leaving him with the baby dragon.
"What happened with E?" Gaya entered the room and plunged herself into the sofa.
"Just as we nned, how''s your end?"
"He wants you toe to his sect, apologize in front of everyone, take a hundred whips from each person''s family you''ve killed"
"How predictable" he sneered,
"He gave you a week of time, if you don''t go there by the end of this time, he said that he wille here personally to drag you there"
"Then E has a week of time to convince them"
Chapter 133 - Celina Is Here
"Alright, I have onest thing to do before going to River town," said Michael thinking about the new spell in his arsenal, the Ring of Fire spell.
"Ah the new spell, give it to me" since they shared almost everything, she came to him asking for the new spell. She also wanted to learn this new spell.
"Knock yourself out" This wasn''t a spell he bought from the system, therefore, he simply decided to share this spell with her, only with her.
"Hmm, a Rare spell"
"Baby Dragon" while Gaya was running her eyes through the spell scroll, he shouted for his pet. Up until now, he didn''te up with a badass name suitable for this dragon, so he was calling the baby dragon a baby dragon.
Of course, Gaya suggested the following names; Ugly lizard, Dicky, Assohn, Shit face, and many other weird foul names. The baby dragon had taken note in its little heart, plotting its revenge against her in the dark.
The one good thing that came up from their bickering was the baby dragon''s gender, the baby dragon was a boy which made their rivalry even worse.
The onemon thing they had was food, both of them shared an enormous appetite. He even wondered how this baby dragon''s stomach held that much food.
"Huhuhu '''' the baby dragon came hopping to him, then it wed its way to his shoulder not before sending a blob of saliva to the spell scroll in her hands.
"E, one day I''ll make you eat a boatload of shit"
"Huhu" the baby dragon chuckled but his chuckled was stopped when a tiny orb of fire hit his head.
"HUHUHUH!" he hissed looking at the orbs of fire dancing above Gaya''s fingers.
"Burn my hair, you can''t even light a candle, a rare kind of dragon you are, hehe" Unlike Michael, she perfectly understood the meaning of the baby dragon''s ''huhus''
"Stop it you two," Michael chuckled making his way to one of the construction sites. Where Michael was going to is the construction site of the office building Gaya was nning to build in the near future.
The ground was barren, only a bunch of practice dummies could be seen on the site. He asked Jack to ce these dummies to test the power of the new spell.
When he stepped outside, a gentle cold evening breeze brushed past him refreshing him from top to bottom. For a few moments, he stood still to feel the soothing breeze, bing absorbed in the music of crickets, letting the gentle energy of nature wash in. He looked up at the sky to see countless stars glistening in the sky.
"Do you need a moment?" Seeing him standing still, she asked, almost chuckling.
"Huhuhuhu" the baby dragon watched the evening sky and then, it said something brushing its scaly nose on Michael''s chin,
"What''s he saying?"
"That lizard is saying that looking at this sky makes him hungry"
"Huhu" the baby dragon nodded making puppy eyes,
"You just ate, no meat for your little scaly butt" Michael flicked the baby dragon on its forehead making Gaya grin in joy.
"Huhu!" the baby dragon protested by headbutting him as he went to the ground.
Considering the sun has long disappeared into the horizon, most of the workers went to their tents while some went into the first to hunt for fresh meat.
After reaching the construction site, Michael stood in the middle staring at all the dummies around him. Gaya kept her distance to protect her clothes from getting burned.
"Ring of Fire" he mumbled these words under his breath, controlling the Arch Energy in his body. The next moment, a golden circle with many inscriptions appeared in the form of a holograph on the ground around Michael. Soon, the golden circle disappeared as waves of zing fire swept the 5m radius area. Unlike the spells he bought from the system, he had a hard time controlling the me zes'' direction and power. Those zes didn''t sweep across the area around him in a perfect circle but swept across chaotically. While he was trying to exact control over the zes, from the ground appeared a circle of fire, turning everything into ashes within the circle except him. The zes had already charcoaled the dummies but the circle of fire was hot, too hot to the point that it turned even the mud and dirt into ash.
From afar, drops of sweat could be seen on Gaya''s face. She felt the temperature rise significantly, to the point she had to use Arch Energy to protect her skin from getting burned. What stunned her was she is a Core Formation warrior while the spell caster Michael was just a Body Strengthening stage warrior, yet, the spell had this effect on her.
Even a group of Body Strengthening stage warriors with no defense shield around them wouldn''t be able to withstand the heat for more than a couple of seconds if he used all of his Arch Energy.
At the moment, he was only using half of his energy to get the hang of this spell.
"52% mastery" Michael willed the system to show mastery over this spell. He still had a long way to go before reaching 100%.
The only way to reach 100% was to practice this spell every single day and increase the Arch Energy he put into the spell little by little.
"A bunch of Netherels would make a fine target for this spell," Michael thought. The mere thought of him killing hundreds of Netherels to farm experience points gave him goosebumps. It was the ultimate shortcut to reach the pinnacle.
"After this, you really should stop learning new spells" Gaya warned him after the hot zing fire around him faded away.
"I don''t? know you know this or not, but learning too many spells will cause your Arch Energy to be weak and damage your brain"
"How many spells should one learn?" Michael asked,
"It depends on one''s cultivation level and the power of the spell. Typically, a Body Strengthening stage cultivator should learn only four to five spells" he was an exception because of the system but even he had to stop learning any more new spells before reaching the next stage.
If not for this restriction, he would have learned all the spells he got from the cave turning into an absolute monster.
"This is for the best, I should upgrade the already existing spells before learning new spells, not that I need to learn new spells," he thought inside, for the next few seconds, he focused on all his spells before creasing his brows, " I need to figure out a way to utilize the Wind st spell"
In his arsenal, Wind st was the least used as well as least powerful spell. The system rewarded him with this spell and although he didn''t use badass points on this spell, this still upied his arsenal of spells, preventing him from learning a new spell.
"From tomorrow, you''re gonna help me train my sword skills" As a standalone spell, Wind st was a weak spell but he decided tobine this spell with his sword skills. Using one hand to swing the sword and the other to cast the wind st might be the best way to utilize the full potential of the spell. Killing the Netherels in the Abyssal might also give him a new perspective about the Wind st spell.
"Get ready to get your ass kicked, Ghost" when he uttered his name, she grinned devilishly almost certain she was going to beat the heck out of him tomorrow.
"Oh," Michael smiled inside and stepped closer to her,
"Wind st"
"Ah! The sudden st of wind almost lifted her skirt up, she was caught off guard.
"Lightning Dash"
"Stop you bastard!" she screamed, chasing him behind to make him pay for what he just did.
****************************
The halo of the horizon arrived with golden grace. On therge luxurious bed of Michael, he was sleeping with the baby dragon curled up on his chest. Last night was a great exercise making Gaya chase him around the sect, even without a spell-like Lightning Dash, the snake was damn fast. After they got tired, theyid on the green grasnd staring at the night sky before they came to their home searching for thefort of the bed.
While he was rolling on his bed, he heard knocks on his door.
"Brother Ghost, Sister Aelia wake up!" Michael opened his eyes, he knew it was Jack outside the door. His voice contained a hint of panic,
"what aw little shit" Gaya yawned slowly opening her eyes,
"Sister Aelia wake up! The Baron and his men are on their way here!" Soon, the sleepiness in their eyes disappeared, instead, an amused expression shed across their faces.
"So they finally decided to show up huh?" Michael put on his ck transparent full sleeve shirt.
"Huuuuuu!" the baby dragon also yawned, blinking his eyes, he woke up.
"Come on, baby dragon, we have a bitch to deal with" as these words escaped his mouth, he flicked his wrist as two green pills appeared in his hand.
The two pills were the size of a baby''s fist, they radiated a smell of rusted iron. The baby dragon twitched its mouth when he took a whiff. Michael tossed the pill into his mouth, swallowing the pill he made his way to receive the baron and his men.
Chapter 134 - Truth Extractor
With the baby dragon on his shoulder and Gaya behind him, he opened the door to see the panic-stricken Jack. A couple of drops of sweat could be seen on his face, "what are you afraid of? It''s just Baron and his men" Michael said, stepping out of his home, he looked at the rising sun on the horizon.
"Today sell the usual stuff, I''ll make the new pills and potionster"
"But brother-"
"Don''t worry about the Baron, I''ll deal with them"
"Get the fuck out of here" Gaya''s tone gave Jack no space to continue, he could only run away from her before she the crap out of him.
"Do you sense them?" His calm face turned cold after Jack left, Gaya nodded, the baby dragon''s round pupils became vertical slits, sensing the powerful presence around them.
"Yes, we are surrounded but I don''t know how many"
"Fifty-six powerful figures, might be more than that'''' his Environmental Scanning was just at level 2, therefore, it could only sense a limited number of powerful hostiles around him. If they were at the Core Formation stage, he would have detected their cultivation level but he was unable to sense their cultivation level which meant they were stronger than the Core Formation stage.
Among the fifty-six he could sense, some of them were concealing themselves and floating directly above them in the sky, some were hiding in the ocean of trees around them.
"Humph, do they think it''s easy to catch me?" Michael snickered inside his mind.
"Can you sense their cultivation level?" Gaya asked, she didn''t show it on her face that they noticed the presence.
"All of them are above the Core Formation stage" He had already paid the system to prevent anyone from eavesdropping on their conversation in case these unknown figures were doing just that. If they were eavesdropping, they would hear nothing but some random conversation about life and the sect.
Michael walked to the side, to a ce where the customers could clearly see the events unfold so he could earn badass points utilizing this situation.
Eventually, after waiting for the baron and his men, Michael saw arge crowd of soldiers adorning full metal armor marching up the steps, to meet him.
At the same time, he looked up to see an object soaring through the sky.
"There she is," Michael snickered, recognizing the person atop the flying sword, Celina.
The Baron and his men locked their eyes with him, they kept marching towards him until Celinanded in front of them with a loud thud. Even from a distance, he could see those bloodshot eyes, veins protruding on her face. Her neatlybed hair was disheveled. Behind Celina, an emaciated man walking with the men, Michael almost failed to recognize this man, Baron Totonk. He was walking like a zombie, there was no life in those swollen eyes of his. His previously sturdy body now became the body of a starved man.
Killing Jane really did a number on him, Michael thought. Waiting for them, he stood there, his hair fluttering back in the wind, apanied by Gaya and the baby dragon on his shoulder.
The men halted their steps, keeping a ten-meter distance from Michael and Gaya. There were a few gasps and murmurs when they saw the majestic creature sitting on his shoulder. However, Celina''s eyes didn''t look like anything or anyone but Ghost, she locked her eyes with him, within those bloodshot eyes, a sh of shock emerged and disappeared.
"Not impressed," Michael thought she would have reached at least the Core Formation stage but seeing her Body Strengthening stage level 9 cultivation level, he was disappointed.
"Young Miss, let me talk" a wrinkly old man with a slightly hunched back pressed Celina''s hand and said. The old man then turned his gaze at Michael, "Young Master Ghost, I''m Baston, a servant of the Baron, did-"
"I heard about what happened, Baston, it''s terrible" Michael calmly said. Looking at his nonchnt face, Celina shivered in rage. However, her mind refused to attack him, just like she did when dealing with those who had grudges with Jane. She attacked first and asked questionster. The first time they met, he was just a Foundation stage cultivator while she was a Body Strengthening stage warrior, at that time, she could have easily killed him but now, the tables have turned.
"Words cannot make any of you feel better, is there something I can do to help you, Baston?" Since Baron Totonk seemed lifeless, Michael decided to talk with this old man instead of the Baron himself.
"Grandpa Baston, let me deal with this bas-"
"I assume you''re not here to fight me, Celina" Michael interjected before she could finish her sentence
"Young Miss, please" the old man quickly pressed Celeina''s fist tightly and gave Michael an apologetic look,
"Young Master we are here to" the old man''s voice trailed away,
"You''re here to interrogate me right?" Michael finished the old man''s thought. The old man sighed, slowly nodding,
"Young Master Ghost, I hope you understand the situation, we only want to find the person responsible for" again, the old man didn''t finish his sentence looking at the Baron beside him. The Baron had lost all of his energy and will to live after seeing his beloved daughter hanging in front of his manor, brutally killed.
No matter how strong he was, at the end of the day, he was a loving father. Jane''s death broke him from within, the old man knew the Baron had died that day and the man with them is just a vessel.
"You''re wasting your time Baston, you very well know that I was in the Nether Realm at that time," said Michael.
"What''s happening?"
"Why is the Baron here?"
"Whoa, what''s up with the toon of men?"
"Hey I think they are suspecting brother Ghost with the murder of Jane"
"Bullshit, everyone knows it was the devil of Bredia, Lucifer who killed her"
"Brother Ghost beat the shit out of her personal guards, so it''s natural for them to investigate him"
"Except Brother Ghost was in the Nether Realm when Lucifer killed her unless Brother Ghost know a way to be in two different realms at the same time"
Seeing themotion, the disciples gathered around them. The old man and the Baron''s men heard the chattering and couldn''t help but agree with the disciples. The men knew Celina is wasting time with Ghost when she could focus the investigation on someone else.
Jane''s two uncles and three brothers were unable toe to her funeral as they were leading the army of Bredia against the war with Kingdom Lavia. Even if they wanted toe, the King wouldn''t permit them unless they are fine with getting their heads cut for abandoning their king during the war.
Only Celina and her family were there to console the Baron as well as seek justice personally for Jane.
"You''re a freak!" Celina lost her patience, she shouted in anger, "you could have found a way to kill her!"
"This is not the time" Michael simply waved his hand, ignoring her.
"Since you''re here even though you know I was in the Nether Realm, I assume you have a reason to be here" Many men behind Baron were surprised to see the way he was handling Celina and the situation. He was not like the other prodigies or the genius youths they had encountered before.
If someone else was in his shoes, they would have lost their calm because it was obvious that he didn''t kill her.
"Young Miss" the old man red at Celina, this time there was anger in his eyes. Celina swallowed her rage, giving the chance for grandpa Baston to handle the situation.
The old man flicked his situation, taking out a greenish glistening pill. As an Alchemist, he instantly recognized the pill and its purity level, 85% pure pill which meant it was concocted by the Pill King Gabriel himself.
"Truth exactor huh?" The Baron'' men tensed when the old man took out the pill. This pill was used only in situations such as murder trials, judging treason cases. Except for those who were charged with the above usations, it''s considered a privacy invasion, which was a crime punishable by either death or decades of imprisonment, if the Victim went to the king or to the Guardians toin.
The disciples stepped back a little fearing that Ghost would lose his calm and start attacking the Baron''s men. His expression changed, a cold look submerged on his face before sighing,
"I understand, I was one of the people who had quarrels with Jane. Besides, I understand the Baron''s situation and respect him, Baston, give me the pill" the old man was stunned by his words, he really thought he would decline to take the pill. Even if he refused to take the pill, they had no right to force him to, it was a crime after all.
"Ghost, you don''t have to do that!" Gaya pretended to be mad as the baby dragon hissed at the old man.
"HU!"
"It''s okay Aelia, the fewer the suspects, the closer they would get to Lucifer. Everyone has to help however they can to stop an evil like that" His image in everyone''s hearts rose up, the Baron''s men began to respect and admire this youngster, despite his ruthlessness, he wanted to be on the side of good.
[Really?] Even the system couldnt stay silent hearing him speak like an innocent upright person.
Chapter 135 - My Own Restaurant I
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
¡..
He was surprised by numerous ding sounds in his mind. "Was that badass?" he questioned himself.
Baston handed over the pill and a transparent stone to Michael with a thankful smile on his face. This stone was connected to the pill through Arch Energy, the one who took the pill had to keep the stone in his/her hand. Each lie thates out of their mouth would make the stone glow red and greed for truth.
Typically the pill''s effect wouldst for 5-10 minutes, considering this was an 85% pure pill, the effect would at leastst for 7 minutes.
While holding the stone, he felt a strange sensation in his brain but soon, the sensation disappeared.
"Let''s start with an obvious lie, shall we?" Michael smiled,
"I''m a five-legged scorpion with thousands of beauties in my harem," some of the disciples and the soldiers chuckled. The stone soon let out a bright red color indicates the obvious. For everyone witnessing the scene, they thought that the pill was working, but Michael was controlling the signals radiated from his brain, hence controlling the oue. The pill he took before he met them gave him this ability.
When the red light dimmed, he said "now the truth, I''m a 5-star Alchemist who won Heaven''s gatepetition" this time, the stone glowed in green.
"Baston, Celina, the pill is working, now you can start asking the questions rted to Jane"
"Huhu" seeing the cam look on his face, the baby dragon''s pupils returned to their usual circr shape, Michael nudged the baby dragon''s chin, waiting for Baston to question him.
"Where were you for thest couple of weeks?" Instead of Baston, the one who asked the question was Celina.
"In the Nether Realm" the stone shined in green, no one among the disciples looked surprised because they knew he was there, where else could he have gotten a baby dragon?
Celina frowned, "Did you wish to harm Jane in any way?" the old man and the baron''s men locked their eyes with the stone, waiting for his answer.
"No I did not, after Baron came to me and apologized for her actions, I dropped that matter" Again the stone shined in greed, somewhat calming the volcano of anger inside Celina but notpletely.
"Did you-"
Soon, when the stone lost its color, she asked another question but only to get interjected by Michael,
"Look, I didn''t kill Jane and I don''t know who did it, I had no fucking idea that she''s going to get killed. All of you are looking in the wrong ce, now I think this is enough proof for you" The stone kept emitting green light, making everyone around him sigh in relief. His face lost the smile, instead, a cold look could be seen on his face.
"Thank you for your understanding, Young Master Ghost" Baston bowed, giving an apologetic smile
"Now if you''ll excuse me, I have ces to be" he threw the stone towards Baston. Gaya also took the same pill as Michael to neutralize the truth extractor in case Celina asked her to take the pill, but she didn''t even look at Gaya.
"Young Miss, let''s go," Baston said. As they were turning back to leave, Micahel sensed the powerful entities around him who stayed hidden also disappearing from his Environmental scanning one by one.
"The Holy Guard" Michael mumbled, he already knew the church is investigating Jane''s murder, hoping to find Lucifer. He had heard about these holy guards from Gaya, even she knew so little about them except the holy guards are the church''s ultimate weapon.
Apparently the church worships two gods, the Sun God and the Water God.
He didn''t care much about this religious institute until now as he tried to avoid mingling himself in the petty religious conflicts until he could get to a stage where they can''t touch him.
But this had changed now, he decided to get more information about this so-called Church as well as the Holy Guards. After all, it was only a matter of time before Lucifer had to face this holy army.
"she should have asked me at least one question" she felt offended not to be noticed by Celina.
"What are you all looking at?" she shouted at the customers who were gawking at them instead of buying the pills and potions.
They immediately turned their gazes away from her, they all knew her temperament and did not want to piss off this bad-mouthed girl.
"We''ll add new products tomorrow, so don''t forget to bring your pay cubes" instantly her words caused amotion among the nobles and the rich.
"Miss, what are the new pills and potions? " one of them from the crowd shouted excitedly,
"There will be Wisdom potions, Mind control pills, Elemental resistance potions, Perception pills, Hallucination potions, Camouge potions, Enhanced Healing potion, and the potion you all younglings are desperately waiting for" she paused for a moment, staring at those eyes filled with anticipation
"The love potions"
"YAY!"
"FINALLY!"
"Hooray!"
Half of the crowd immediately threw their hands up and cheered. Most of them were single guys, obviously. However, Michal noticed some old grandpas grinning devilishly which was creepy.
Michael and Gayaughed inside seeing the expressions on their faces. Most of them were thinking love potions would make their crush love them. However, the love potions don''t work like that, the love potions would only work on someone if she/he already has some feelings for the other. Using the love potions was fairly simple, one has to put a single drop of their blood and make their crush drink, after drinking, the love potion would intensify the feelings for the other if one has any. For an instance, Celina had no feelings whatsoever for Michael, so no matter how many love potions he makes her drink, she wouldn''t fall in love with Michael.
However, it was a different matter for Gaya. During the nights, she would debate with herself to find whether she holds any feelings for him or not. It had been almost half a year since she started to be with him, he first rescued her from her fellow Nagas, helped her stay hidden, fed her, and more than anything, by curing her crippled cultivation, he saved her life.
She felt it''s natural for her to develop feelings for him but still, she wanted to make sure of it. Hence she secretly nned to use the love potion on herself. Of course, she still has notpleted her plot as the potion required Ghost''s blood, by asking him directly, she might get into trouble.
"After going home, spread the word" Finally, Gaya shouted before leaving for River town with Michael.
***************************
After the battle with the Netherels, the rumor had spread across the River town that this town is protected by Ghost, hence many people began to address Ghost as Ghost of River town.
Thanks to the rumors, more merchants and adventurers began to stop by River town. Plus, the construction of the new fancy building at the ce where Lucky Cat tavern attracted travelers and such.
For those native River town people, the building the dwarven engineer was building for Ghost was nothing but a wonder in their eyes. Even though the workers didn''t finish the construction yet, people could tell that it''s a marvelous building that would raise the River town''s prestige by many folds.
Because of the frequent merchant, adventurers, and travelers visit, the local business boomed. The River town people thanked Ghost for their prosperity though he practically did nothing for them, he killed those Netherels not from but for him.
"Hey, it''s Young master Ghost!"
"Young master Ghost is back!"
"Good morning Young master"
"He''s sooooooo handsome!"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
¡.
People on the streets of River town quickly greeted him and Gaya with a wide grin on their faces. Just by walking the streets, his reputation earned him badass points. This was why the system kept urging him to take risks, explore the world, and engage in battles.
"If this small town could give me 5000 badass points just by walking through the streets, how much would I earn in the big cities?" Michael''s eyes glistened in glee.
"Master Ghost, you''re back" just when he was nearing the Lucky Cat tavern, he heard a familiar voice and turned to see the golden-haired girl walking towards him, carrying a bunch of iron tools in her hands.
"How''re you, Gloria?"
"Thanks to master Ghost, I have no worries. Good morning Miss Aelia" She answered Michael with a bright smile and then, she greeted Gaya with the same bright smile.
"What are these?" asked Gaya.
"These are tools of Lord Fovar, I just went to the smithy to get them fixed" Michael recognized none of these weird tools, he had never even seen them before. His curiosity peaked to see the 3-star builder and the restaurant he was building for them.
Chapter 136 - My Own Restaurant II
The air was filled with hammers hitting the stones and iron, upon arriving at the construction site, Michael saw the bare bones of the building. The wooden nks, iron beams, and half-built walls which were glistening in the daylight radiated certain charm. The building resembled a rectangr prism, on the long sides, there were five arched windows, each window was approximately 3m wide and 7m in height, on the front of the building, there was one arched door between on arched windows on each side.
The building was lifted by a 3m foundation so one could enjoy the view of the river clearly. On the far end of the building, Michael noticed the vents, stoves, and ovens being built by another set of workers. Michael walked up the few stairs to enter the building when he saw a couple of carriages stopping in front of the building. Both Gaya and Michael frowned at this sight, the carriages had scratches, burn marks, and cuts all over them. It was evident these carriages were attacked, soon, people slowly came out of the carriages, wounded. This scene attracted the people of River town, few of them stepped forward to support the wounded soldiers,
Gaya''s face instantly turned cold the moment she saw the people taking out dead ones from the carriages. All the dead bodies had deep cuts, burned marks, and severed limbs.
Following the dead bodies, a short sturdy man with arge beard jumped out of the carriages, carrying a huge battle-ax. The short manpensated for hisck of height with his muscles, the man carried that huge ass battle-ax like it had no weight.
"Dwarf" Michael mumbled under his breath. This was the first time he had seen a dwarf in real life. The dwarf was exactly like one of the dwarves in the Lord of the Rings movies.
"Fovar, what happened?" Gaya asked as the dwarf put the battle-ax on the ground producing a loud thud sound.
"Bandits happened,ss, ye told us there be nae bandits between here an'' Bradford"
"Bandits? Where?" After Jane sent bandits to harass their customers, Gaya personally went to the forest surrounding the Sunrise sect as well as the forests surrounding the River town to kill every single bandit.
She was sure there are no bandits to harass them until now.
"Fucking bloody beastmen, ambushed us near tha moon goddess temple, these puny humans stood nae chance against their gori attack" cursed Fovar failing to notice Michael in the heat of the moment.
"Beastmen wouldn''t usually enter a human kingdom, Ghost we have to investigate this'' '' only when she mentioned the name Ghost, the dwarf turned his gaze at Michael. For a second, Fovar just stared at him to sense his cultivation level, soon, his eyes slightly widened in surprise.
"So ye be that famous Ghost o'' River town yeh,d, you need to do something about these bandits. They already destroyed most o'' tha materials I needed ta finish tha building"
"Destroyed the sses?! I''m gonna rip them to pieces" veins popped on Gaya''s face. Considering this n of Michael''s required more sses, even than the stones, this shipment was extremely important. These were not normal sses, the dwarf ordered them, ssmakers, to custom build the sses which cost them a huge chunk of gold coins.
"Go and check out the forests but I guess they are long gone by now"
"I have to look," she said and rushed towards the ce where they left the pegasus.
"Master Ghost" soon after Gaya left, his two henchmen came towards him. Both Daniel and Ricky suffered wounds, Daniel had a deep cut running across his chest, his brown tunic was drenched in blood while Ricky limped, holding the deep cut on his thigh.
Michael quickly willed the system to give him the healing potion in the storage, in a sh, two vials of healing potion appeared in his hand.
"Here take this'' '' both of them shuddered, the thought of a single vial of healing potions cost 9000 gold coins prevented their hands from reaching out to take the healing potions.
"Ma-"
"Drink it, it''s an order" thinking about those bandits who almost killed his two loyal men, Michael wanted to y the bandits alive. He could simply buy materials but loyal men like them were hard to find.
Daniel opened up the vial, slowly pouring the potion into his mouth. Their wounds closed up at a swift pace, the dwarf was surprised he wasted two valuable potions on these twomoners.
After their wounds healed up, Michael retrieved a couple of more healing potions, "mix them in the water and distribute the water to the wounded. For those who lost their lives" Daniel and Ricky saw arge pouch of coins appear in his hand,
"Give their families 2000 gold coins" his words instantly caused the people to go crazy, there were gasps and muttering among the crowd. Even if they were alive, they wouldn''t have earned 1000 gold coins in their lifetime by working on the construction sites, not to mention 2000 gold coins. He just changed their lives,? with this amount, their families could live their entire lives without ever going to work.
As far as he was concerned, if he didn''tpensate them with a handsome amount, workers might avoid working for him in the future as they might fear for their lives. But now, they would dly give their life thinking their families would get richer and live their life with no worries.
Many wives would dly take 2000 gold coins instead of their drunk husbands, any time of the day.
After all, for Michael, even 20,000 gold coins weren''t muchpared to his grand ns. He wanted the restaurant to be up and running as soon as possible," as for those who survived, you will receive 50 gold coins for the inconvenience" Those who survived bowed and grinned in glee despite the excruciating pain. Although it was nowhere near the amount 2000, at least they live to enjoy the 50 gold coins.
"Lad, what aboot me? ye need tapensate me too" asked Fovar, smirking.
"I willpensate you handsomely when you lose a few limbs in the next bandit attack"
*************************
"You were right, I didn''t find anything except this" while he was making new batches of pills and potions back at his home, Gaya came rushing into his room.
Michael looked at the baby dragon as he hopped towards Gaya and grabbed the medallion in her hand with his mouth. He then hooped back at Michael.
The medallion was ck, made of high-quality ck iron, on its surface, a wolf''s head etched onto its surface.
"Those who attacked Fovar is not bandits, human, it''s the Grim Reapers"
Michael did not utter a word but waited for her to exin,
"When you need beasts, bandits and problems like that disappear, you go to adventurer''s guild, when you need a noble to disappear or even a king disappear, you go to the Grim Reapers. If you have enough gold coins, no matter what evil shit you want to do, they will do it for you"
"Someone paid them to attack the shipment but who?" he scratched the baby dragon''s chin, thinking about who might have done this deed.
The only enemy he had until now was Jane, obviously, she couldn''t have hired the Grim Reapers. He didn''t think Celina would have done this either,
"You said they do anything right?"
"For the right amount," She said.
"Fovar said the ssmakers may have extra supplies we need, buy them and bring them to Fovar personally"
"What will you do?"
"For now, I will finish all these, and then, we''ll go to Aragoth to seal the deal," said Michael, showing no emotions on his face.
"So we''ll do nothing about this?" she questioned him, only to see him shake his head.
"Grim Reapers won''t tell us who hired them in the first ce, right?" The Grim Reapers sounded just like the dark underworld back on earth. Although he only killed a certain group of people, there were assassins and fixers who would kill or do anything for the right amount, but the dark underworld would not reveal anything about who hired them to do the job, to anyone.
This secrecy what made the dark underworld extremely powerful and if his instincts were correct, the Grim Reapers would follow the same rules.
His assumption was proven right when she nodded,
"Nope, those bastards value client confidentiality more than anything. If we went there asking for this information, they would either try to kill us or ban us from using their services in the future"
"Then there''s nothing we can do except trying to hire them to protect our carriages,"
"This might work if this was a one time task but if someone hired the to attack our carriages every time," her voice trailed off but the killing intent in her eyes intensified,
"Then we''ll simply hire the adventurers to do the job for now"
Gaya creased her brows," what do you mean for now?"
"Today they attacked my men, I won''t simply forget it. One day, I''ll visit them, kill every single one of the reapers who did this, not as Ghost but as Lucifer" Gaya grinned devilishly, thinking about the day they''d seek revenge against the infamous Grim Reapers.
After Gaya left the room, he finished making pills and potions enough to sustain the Majestic for a week. He stood up, the baby dragon on his shoulder,
"Ruby Cuisine branch manager" Michael mumbled under his breath, before dashing out of the room.
Chapter 137 - Doombringer I
Inside Michael''s house, the trio wasying on the sofa, munching on the egg rolls Raylene prepared for them as snacks. The baby dragon was clutching onto its roll, fretting that Gaya would steal it from him.
Both of them just came back home after getting their job done. Fortunately, the ssmakers kept extra custom-made sses to sell on the sidelines, therefore, she was able to buy the sses from them and personally deliver them to Fovar, resuming the construction work. Michael on the other hand, went to Bradford searching for the branch manager of Ruby Cuisine, his one majorpetitor. Considering the holy guards, members of the guardian guild, and soldiers were swarming the city, the branch manager came to oversee the business personally. This enabled Michael to disguise himself as passing by and ce a surveince bug he bought from the system on the branch manager. Now he had to link the bug to the monitoring orb. They were already using the monitoring orb to monitor the Orc in the Abyssal.
"Give me the orb I gave you" She was keeping the orb in the linked space ring, she flicked her wrist as a white orb filled with smoke appeared on the table before them. The baby dragon let out a hissing sound in a momentary surprise before turning his focus on the roll in his ws.
The next moment, Michael ced his hand on the orb, willing the system to establish a connection between the monitoring orb and the bug he ced.
[Connection sessfully established!]
After he heard the system''s now not so robotic voice, the white smoke inside the orb slowly faded away to reveal a neatly organized room.On the orb, Michael and Gaya saw a pair of hands up close, writing reports under the candlelight. The pair of hands belonged to the branch manager, thanks to the bug, they would see anything he sees, listen to anything he listens.
For Michael, it reminded him of the first-person games he yed back on earth.
"You didn''t ce anything on me right?" Following the branch manager, Michael willed the orb to show the Orc. Gaya ced a? bug on the Orc exactly like the bug Michael ced on the branch manager and also, with Michael''s help, she drew symbols on the walls around the Orc. These symbols were practically like the CCTV cameras, they recorded the Orc''s room, sending a live feed to the monitoring orb.
At the moment, they could see the Orc scribbling and reading parchments. Gaya bought him those parchments as he wanted them to summon Netherels into this world.
"I still don''t trust that Orc, human," said Gaya, creasing her brows.
"We don''t need to trust him, we just need his ability to summon Netherels"
After the system went haywire when he tried to recruit the Orc as his subordinate, he ultimately decided not to try that again. That didn''t mean he had no ways to make sure the Orc stays in line. As far as the Orc serves him loyally, Michael would give the Orc a seat in the organization in the future, if he didn''t, he would simply kill the Orc and be done with him, after all, killing Netherels was not only the way he could gain experience points.
"Alright, it''s time I met the Orc again"
"Huhu" realizing they were preparing to go to a new ce, the baby dragon excitedly bounced up and down,
"Sorry baby dragon, I can''t bring you with me yet, for now, stay with Sect Leader ire"
"Huuuuuu" the baby dragon protested but ultimately he nodded like an obedient child.
"Good boy" Michael patted on his scaly head. He then took the baby dragon with him to drop him off at ire''s home before going to the dark forest.
*************************
"Lord Lucifer, Your Highness" Michael was sitting on his Abyssal throne when Dr came to greet him, Gaya stood beside Michael wearing the female version of Lucifer''s suit of armor.
Seeing the two pairs of red eyes staring straight at him, Dr couldn''t help but shiver in fear. Dr sensed the overwhelming power of a Core Formation level 8 warrior radiating from the woman who called herself the ''Dark Queen'', hence he addressed her as ''Your Highness''
Michael kept gently tapping the dwarven skull attached to the throne''s handle, "Dr, how many Netherels are you able to summon here?" Even without any fear toxin, the voice of Lucifer sent a chill crawling through Dr''s spine.
"Thi...thirty Netherels, Lord Lucifer" Dr sturred, afraid of disappointing the devil in front of him. Unlike the Dark Queen beside Lucifer, Dr was unable to sense Lucifer''s cultivation level, only a handful of experts were able to hide their cultivation levelpletely, which meant Lucifer is one of those powerhouses.
When Michael upgraded the system to version 2, the Masking function''s duration was 10minutes.In version 3, the system was able to mask his cultivation for 20minutes with a cool-down period of 30 minutes.
"Their level?"
"Body strengthening stage, I can summon level 7 Netherels"
"7000 for each Netherel, 210000" Just when he was grinning behind the mask in glee, Dr opened his mouth to ruin the moment,
"For once a month, Lord Lucifer"
"Ipetent!" The moment these words escaped Dr''s mouth, he was pulled by a force towards Dark Queen. She grabbed him by the neck, lifting him in the sky,
"Your...Your Highness...anything...more-"
"Let him speak, Queen" Michael liked the name ''Dark Queen''.In the future, when he starts his shadow organization, he would be known as Dark Lord Lucifer while she would be known as ''Dark Queen''
After Michael''s order, Dr was thrown away by Gaya like a pebble. Dr slowly picked himself up, cursing the woman in his heart.
"State your reason, Dr," Michael asked without showing his disappointment in his tone.
"Anything...Summoning more than thirty Netherels in a month would alert the Guardians, Lord Lucifer. Somehow, they can detect the trace of the summoning magic" Dr exined the reason, it was a damn good reason. Though Michael was disappointed at the fact he could only earn 210,000 Experience points plus the experience points from absorbing the cores, he decided not to take any chances in greed and get caught by the Guardians. Besides, with this amount of Experience points, he would be able to level up every one or two months.
[You''re too greedy host]
"Shut up system" he scowled back at the system in his mind after hearing its snarkyment.
"How long will it take to summon the Netherels?"
"The ritual will take thirty to forty minus, Lord Lucifer"
"Start the ritual in one of the halls here, go" he dismissed Dr with a wave of his hands. After Dr disappeared from his sight, he willed the system to turn off the masking function.
"Thirty Netherels, is this enough for you to get stronger? What if we mess with his mind and exchange him for a huge ass pile of gold?" She suggested licking her lips inside the mask.
"It''s enough, Queen. That Orc is worth way more than any amount of gold" she sighed and nodded. In her mind, he would be ever wrong and even if he asked her to follow him into the deepest of hell, she would follow him asking no question.
"When are you nning to give me one like that?" her eyes were locked onto the ck metal coils around his wrist. These coils were not just coils but superconductors that had zero resistance to electrical flow. By sending the electricity created by the spell Ignitia through these superconducting coils and with the help of the system, he was able to create a super ma which was how Michael pulled from the hands of Vandan''s men.
"I need a new weapon System, I can''t be seen using a sword" he entered the system store to buy a weapon to use when he turns into Lucifer.
[what kind of weapon are you looking for, host?]
"Not a sword but I should be able to utilize my sword mastery when using this weapon" hearing Michael''s preferences, the system began its search. Soon, a glow appeared in front of Michael''s eyes as the glow slowly turned into a weapon, a Warhammer.
The Warhammer in front of him was made of entirely ck metal. It possessed one blunt dented face with a sharp beak on the opposite side of the blunt face. The Warhammer looked heavy and the glowing inscriptions, runes, and symbols on its surface gave a deadly look to the hammer.
Weapon Name: Doombringer (Heavey)
ss: Rare
Upgrade Requirements: 3-star cksmith, 3-star Runemaster, Ostium ore, the blood of a forest dragon, Underworld Fire Core / Ancient Ice Core
Price: 14000 badass points
[Does the host wish to buy the Doombringer?]
[Host can trail use the weapon for ten minutes]
A golden notification box with blue letters appeared in front of him, his eyes widened in surprise.
"System, make the Warhammer look old, ancient, and put it somewhere in my room?"
[So Gaya won''t suspect where the Doombringeres from?]
"Yes"
[then it will be 14500 badass points] The system sounded extremely excited for some reason.
"Do it" Michael long lost his drive to bitch with the system as he calmly said.
After exiting the system, he looked up at Gaya, "Go and make sure Dr isn''t trying anything funny"
"What''re you gonna do?"
"I''ll be in my room, casting the masking spell on myself again"
"Don''t take longer or I''ll start killing them, hehe" she teased him before leaving the throne hall to find Dr.
I hope you like Lucifer''s new weapon but if you feel slightly disappointed(i hope you''re not) don''t worry, check out the required materials to upgrade the Warhammer¡...
Chapter 138 - Doombringer II
"Look what I found in my room" Michael came to the northern hall in the Abyssal to meet Dr and Gaya. In his hand, she saw a heavy Warhammer. The Warhammer seemed ancient, old, and powerful, it was adorned with silvery symbols and runes from the head to tail.
"Where did you-" She asked only to get interjected by Michael.
"Behind one of the shelves, I think it was left behind by them," He said.
Gaya understood that by them, he referred to the Order of Death.
"Dr, where are the Netherels?" The hall was spacious, just like the hall where there was a smallke and waterfall, this hall was also a pocket dimension, this much space couldnt be exined otherwise.
In the center of the hall, arge 7m radius magic circle with runes could be seen. The runes on the circle were glowing, producing a mild humming sound.
"If you give the word, they will appear here, Lord Lucifer" Dr bowed deeply, Michael clutched the new Warhammer tightly, then he nodded, preparing to ughter the Netherels, so he could reach the next level.
Dr closed his eyes, muttered a few words, soon, the circle started to glow brighter and brighter.
Boom!
The next moment, the golden circle hovered above the ground before exploding into millions of tiny orbs of light. When the light faded away, thirty Netherels with human traits stood at the ce where the circle was.
"Dr, order them to attack me. '''' These Netherels wouldn''t do anything until Dr ordered them to do something. If Michael only desired Experience points, he could have simply let Gaya kill the Netherels, earning the Exp doing nothing. He didn''t want to do that, he wanted to increase his sword mastery as well as train his body and mind in a real battle.
For an assassin like him, it was essential to train vigorously to keep the skills sharp.
"Yes, Lord Lucifer" Dr bowed, "kill him" Gaya creased her brows seeing the orc issuing order to kill him instead of just attacking him. A sudden sh of murderous intent ran across Dr''s face, he quickly hid his intent but Gaya noticed it. Michael noticed this but said nothing of it, for now, he didn''t care about the Orc''s loyalty, after all, Dr had to escape the Dark forest before even thinking to betray him except if he wasn''t immune to the Fear toxin, so escaping was not an option.
"Step aside" Michael''s biceps flexed, stretching his ck suit due to the weight of the Warhammer. It was damn heavy and required all of his strength to lift it from the ground, yet, he didn''t use his both arms because in the future he wanted to swing the Warhammer in one hand and the Sword in the other or dual-wield two Warhammers.
Gaya was ready to dash forward in case they overwhelmed him with their numbers, after all, he was a Body Straightening level 4 warrior while each Netherel was at level 7.
Locking their target, all thirty Netherels rushed at him with no strategy or n hands reached out at him to tear him apart. The putrid smell of all the Netherels filled the hall, making Gaya twitch her nose.
"Death Range" The hall became darker around Michael, giving a gloomy feeling to Dr. Instantly, Michael flexed biceps loosened a bit as his body strength immediately doubled. When the Netherels came closer, he swung the Warhammer at one Netherel, the dented face contacted with the Netherel. The power and force were so great as the Netherel''s head exploded, sshing ck goo, grayish brain matter across.
"Wow," Even Michael was surprised at the raw power of this Warhammer. He felt like breaking an eggshell as he swung the Warhammer around him to send five Netheres flying. The bone-crunching, blood-sttering sound was like music to his ears.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Refining stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Refining stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 200 Badass points.]
There was no slowing in his movements, he threw the Warhammer at the remaining Netherels, his throw had enough momentum and power to bash three Netherels back to back before falling to the ground with a loud thud sound.
Dr expected without his hammer, he would be vulnerable, at least a bit but the next moment Michael lost his Warhammer, he grabbed the nearby Netherel and used the Netherel as a weapon. He swung the Netherel, forcing the other Netherels to stubble back before ripping the Netherel in his hand into two bloody pieces. His raw strength stunned Dr as began to punch the Netherels through their chest, grabbing the core in one hand and ripping their heads off in the other.
It was a devilish disy of brute strength and speed but behind that brute force, Gaya could see the finesse. Each of his moves was calcted, very well thought.
Soon, Michael punched his way through the Netherels to his Warhammer. Instead of bending his back to pick up the Warhammer, he stomped the ground as the force made the Warhammer fly right into his hand.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
With a twist, he turned the Warhammer to use the pointy head instead of the dented face. Like splitting a wood log into two, he brought down the Warhammer on one unfortunate Netherel except the head did not explode like before but the head came separately with the Warhammer.
Another swing sent the head directly toward another Netherel before Michael leaping into the air. In the mid-air, Michael grabbed the Warhammer using both of his hands, and then, he hit the ground with all of his strength, it created a huge powerful shockwave that sent all the surrounding Netherels flying into the walls, the entire hall trembled like an earthquake.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Refining stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Refining stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
¡.
Continues notifications sounded in his mind, he saw the unmoving bodies of Netherels lying on the ground in their own pool of ck goo. After the shock wave attack, there were only ten Netherels, some of them had white bloody bones sticking out of their bodies.
"Let''s finish this" Michael grabbed the handle tightly. He then moved towards the only to spiral rapidly with the Warhammer pointing at the Netherels. His body soon blurred, in Dr''s eyes, Lucifer seemed like have turned himself into a mini cyclone.
The mini cyclopes turned even darker, sttering ck goo and brain matter across when the mindless Netherels went straight into the cyclops.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Refining stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Refining stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 7 Netherel. The reward is 7,000 experience points as well as 100 Badass points.]
¡.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 5!]
After smashing all the Netherels, he lowered the Warhammer, giving his hands the much-needed rest.
"Maybe another hundred of these can give me a challenge" Dr shivered after witnessing the disy of pure strength and brute force. He was unable to pinpoint Lucifer''s true strength, even after this one side massacre. Lucifer killed those Netherels he summoned with no hassle, there was not even a scratch on his body. He used no powerful spells but the Warhammer and his own strength.
Dr could tell that those words he just spoke were nothing but true, he doubted even another hundred Nehterels could make him drop a sweat let alone kill him.
"Take this as a reward for what you did" Michael flicked his wrist, taking out a batch of Revitalizing pills and Arch Energy boosters. The batch had 10 of each pill. Since anyone could buy pills from the Majestic, he didn''t fret about Dr connecting Lucifer with Ghost.
"This will be enough for you to purify your body and help you speed up your cultivation," Michael said, sending the pills floating towards Dr.
Dr didn''t dare to refuse this, he just bowed deeply and epted the pills.
"Burn those bodies" after giving onest order to Dr, he made his way to his room with Gaya following him behind.
Chapter 139 - Arriving At Aragoth
"Man, we need a butler to maintain this ce asap" while walking through the cobwebbed corridors of the Abyssal, Gaya said.
"Why don''t you put up a sexy maid dress instead?" She froze stunned, behind the mask, he chuckled seeing her reaction.
"Why don''t you ask Sadie, your pervy fuck" Michael received a punch on the shoulder for his suggestion from Gaya.
"You''re still on that?"
"Of course I''m still on that, I won''t let you sleep around with bitches like her, don''t forget" there was a hint of possessiveness in her voice. In Michael''s eyes, she was beyond beautiful, talented, funny, moreover, she was very supportive of him. In simple terms, she was a perfect wife material for him, therefore, if she made a move on him, Michael would dly ept her as his better half. After all, he would choose her anytime over a cold bitch like Alicia any time of the day.
"Yes ma''am" he giggled in return.
"Oh?" she was surprised to hear his answer, she thought he would be a jerk and refuse. This gesture of him slightly made her feel ted, thinking that he might have feelings for her.
"Good" she put her hand around his neck before giving him a mild headbutt before they went to the teleporter to leave the Dark Forest.
***********************
The next day, Michael left the Sunrise sect before the early light putting on his Neo robes. They didn''t use the flying swords but mounted the pegasus to go to Aragoth. Of course, Gaya packed her snacks which included, varieties of appetizers, desserts, main courses, and beverages to drink.
Since this was the baby dragon''s first long trip, he was beyond excited, he showed his excitement by showering Michael with kisses and bites.
Araogoth was located in Kingdom Dradel, Although Dradel was the nearby kingdom of Bredia, it was still two weeks flying from the Sunrise Sect. The travel was mostly uneventful unless one counted the baby dragon throwing up asionally because Gaya did barrel rolls with the pegasus as well as the baby dragon biting her ears as a payback.
Two weekster, around noon, Michael, Baby Dragon, and Gaya had finally arrived at the Aragoth. Theynded at the foot of the tallest mountain that resembled the shape of a sword pointing at the sky itself.
The surrounding had splendid mountain ranges and tall mountain peaks. The natural Arch energy was rich on top of the mountain. The mountains were surrounded by light fog all year long. This ce truly gave off a divine and superior feeling.
This mountain range was called the Sword Mountains. Countless mountain peaks spread across the top of the Sword Mountain.
Just like the founder of the Sunrise sect, it was said that the founder of the Aragoth had also discovered an underground energy vein here, therefore, he upied this mountain range and established the eternally prosperous Aragoth.
The energy vein, aside from it being able to provide the best cultivation environment and gather natural energies, was also a representation of fortune. Many powerful sects and families had upiednd with energy veins, this was the reason why they were eternally prosperous and had produced countless geniuses.
"Another stunning ce!"
Michael and Baby dragon stared at the beautiful scenery filled with light fog, he couldn''t help but praise it.
"Huhu" Baby Dragon nodded basking in the beauty.
"Stop staring you two, this is nothingpared to the-"
"Nagnd, yeah I know, you''ve said this almost a hundred times now"
Michael interjected, teasing her with a chuckle. She rolled her eyes and
Descended to the ground.
"Go no further!"
Just when they had ascended half the mountain, they heard a loud shout, and then three young men dressed in white clothes with a symbol sword etched on their chests walked towards them with arrogant expressions.
"Identify yourselves and state your reason to be here at Aragoth"
"Is that a Dragon?"
Michael''s visionnded upon these three men, and he instantly discovered that they were only Body Refining stage warriors. They were probably amateurs as talented disciples of the outer circle wouldn''t be guarding the entrance here.
However, as the disciples of Aragoth, even just being a novice disciple would be enough to make anyone proud of themselves. There were talented people amongst the novice disciples, and many of the current outer circle disciples and inner circle disciples were actually novice disciples at one point.
"Hisss" the Baby Dragon hissed when he noticed the youngster reaching out to touch him, the youngster quickly took his hand back in sudden shock.
"It''s okay Baby Dragon" Michael brushed the Baby dragon''s chin reassuring him before looking back at the three disciples.
"Name is Ghost and I''m here to meet your fellow disciples, Nathen Bradley"
When hearing the names Ghost and Nathen, those who had an arrogant look on their faces immediately had a change in expression. Their faces turned grey, and they wished to p themselves a few times.
The young man in the center bowed his head, "Brother Ghost, forgive us for not recognizing you, Senior Brother Nathen told that you woulde to meet him'''' In this part of thend, Michael''s name was not as famous as Noah''s because Noah traveled to many ces, killing people, making enemies left and right. In fact, he was on the wanted list of Aragoth before he joined the Guardians.
However, these three were able to recognize Michael as they had close ties to the students of Alchemy. Although Michael was unable to keep himself hidden from the world like back on earth because of the system, he still liked to keep a low profile and make as few enemies as possible, unlike Noah.
They followed the disciples through the paved roads into the inner section of the sect. Soon, they walked under the arch of the gate to discover wonderful and magnificent pces.
"Cool" when he saw these parks, buildings, and rivers, he couldn''t help but be amazed. Everything was perfect, the architecture of each building had its own magnificent style.
Right at this moment, two outer circle disciples walked up from ahead. When they saw Michael, unlike these three, they immediately recognized him and greeted him with eyes full of admiration and awe.
"Heavens! He is Ghost, the Ghost of River town! He looks so young, perhaps only 19-20 years old!"
"What is that on his shoulder?"
"Oh my god oh my god oh my god, it''s¡ it''s a dragon!"
"I heard he killed a Body Strengthening warrior while he was only at the Foundation stage! This man looks so delicate and handsome, it''s hard to think that he is such a fierce man!"
"Oh my god, I want to hold that dragon in my hands!"
"Look at that chick beside him, she looks hot"
"I still can''t believe he''s a five freakin star Alchemist"
"Teacher Olivia won''t shut up about him"
"That''s it, I think she actually invited him here to give a special lecture to Alchemy students!"
"Lower your voice idiot, do you know how many young masters lost their lives coveting beauties like her?!"
"Wow! Ghost is so handsome, it would be nice if I could be his girlfriend!"
"Shut up slut, I heard Sadie and he has a thing between them"
"Why is he here?"
.........
The surrounding disciples'' discussions became heated. Although people weremunicating privately with quiet voices, he had good hearing, so he heard every single word spoken. He couldn''t help butugh and shake his head. Among all these conversations, Gaya''s ear twitched when she heard the two disciples mention the name Olivia. Her female instincts kicked in, thinking that Olivia might try to flirt with Ghost.
Obviously, his fame of being the 5-star Alchemist was spread across the Alchemy circle of Aragoth.
"Alright, alright, carry on with your own matters. Brother Ghost has gone through a long journey, I will need to bring him to Senior Brother Nathen''s residence. In the future, if you have any questions regarding Alchemy, I''m sure Brother Ghost will show you some guidance during his stay"
The leading disciple waved at the disciples, then he continued leading him to the inner part.
Along the way, they met several disciples who had been admiring him as a 5-star Alchemist. All of them happily greeted him and were stunned looking at the Baby dragon. The disciples of the Aragoth weren''t idiots, pleasing him may not give them any advantages, but it surely wouldn''t bring them any disadvantages either.
Eventually, they passed the area where all the living quarters of students were located. Behind the living quarters, a very fine courtyard was built. It was located at the top of the mountain, isted from the living quarters'' area. Compared to the old shaggy home of his in the Sunrise sect, the house in front of looked like a pce, it was not suitable to call it a home but a bungalow. It was surrounded by mountains and rivers, and there was even a waterfall nearby. The scene was very soothing, the natural Arch energy was rich, and it was isted from all the noiseing from the living quarters'' area. This was simply the best ce for cultivation, not that Michael needed a ce like this to cultivate.
"Wait here, Brother Ghost, I''ll go inside and bring Senior Brother Nathen"
"Cool," Michael stood there basking in the beauty while the trio of disciples went towards Nathen''s house to inform him.
"Nathen''s not home, Ryker" Michael turned his gaze away from the waterfall to see a couple of girls walking towards him, shouting at the trio of disciples who were knocking on the door.
They failed to notice Michael on the sidelines, instead, they shouted at the trio.
"Teacher Olivia is making every disciple take the potion exams, thank the Sun God we were able to escape before she locks us in the potionb"
Chapter 140 - Michael Became A Student
"Potion exams? Right now?" The trio of disciples stepped back from Nathen''s home. They walked towards the girls while Michael silently watched this scene unfold, "Holy shit then we also have to run away from Teacher Olivia, she forces every student to take these bloody Alchemy exams, even those who don''t take Alchemy, bloody hell!" there was genuine fear in those disciples'' faces.
"Brother Gho-"
"It''s okay, just point me in the direction of the potionb" Michael chuckled, asking the disciple to show him the way while they escape this dreaded exam of Olivia.
"Ghost?!"
"Whoa!"
"How long were you?!"
The three girls were stunned to hear the voice from behind, they turned back almost jumping back in shock,
"Hello" Michael gave a shot wave at the girls who were staring at him and the dragon with open mouths. Instantly their faces turned red as they started breathing heavily,
"What? You haven''t seen a guy before?" Gaya got irritated looking at these girls almost having an orgasm just by checking him out.
Her voice immediately brought back the girls from their trance, cold sweats could be seen on their rosy cheeks, they stuttered," Oh, sorry Brother Ghost...can you give us an autograph?" one of the girls reached her hand out while the other handed him over the quill,
"Sure"
"Only on hands" Gaya saw one girl lowering her top to show off her cleavage, she knew the girl was going to ask him to sign her ample chest but Gaya''s eyes made the girl correct her dress in an instant.
"Lucky bastard," thought the three male disciples, sighing in envy noticing the fire in the girls'' eyes.
"Huhuhu" after the disciples showed him the direction to go to the potionb, they ran as fast as they could to escape the exams. While he was on the way, the Baby Dragon nudged his ear, making a weak groan,
"What''s he saying?"
"He said that he wants to sleep" She didn''t even turn to look at the Baby Dragon on his shoulder, she just shrugged and said.
"Are you okay?" Michael creased his brows, asking the baby dragon to see him nod his little head,
"Well you must have been tired" Michael gently grabbed the Baby dragon, he then ced the baby dragon in his coat inner pocket, the baby dragon''s favorite cozy ce to snuggle and sleep.
"Who is this Olivia?" Michael asked surprised, a few moments ago, this ce was buzzing with disciples and life but now, it turned into a Ghost town, not a single disciple could be seen roaming outside except for Gaya and him.
"Do you think she''s beautiful?" he asked, teasing her for his timepass.
"Why do you ask?" he could hear the gritting sound of her teeth, she clenched her fist, ready to pounce him if he tried to bang Olivia, just like he did with Sadie.
"What do you think?" he said,? slyly winking at Gaya to me the fans of her jealousy. Just like he nned, she gnashed her teeth,
"You lecherous fuck!" she couldn''t control herself after seeing that wry smile on his face, she put her head into his arms and started to punch him on his gut, of course, she didn''t use her full strength but only enough to hurt him a little. Michael on the other handughed and kept knocking her on the head,
"Ouch" squealed Gaya, continuing to rain punches on his gut.
"You two!" suddenly a shout came from their back while they were ying. They immediately stopped what they were doing, they turned back to see a green-haired woman with an almost perfect hourss figure walking towards them. Her shiny lush green hair fluttered in the wind, the golden robes were contrasting to her hair, she seemed to be in her early thirties orte twenties in Michael''s eyes. She was a tad bit shorter than both Michael and Gaya, plus, she had hazel eyes behind those round sses, sharp eyebrows. She was beautiful, not on the same level with Gaya or Alicia or even ire but she was definitely prettier than Celina or N. Many loved green or pink-haired girls but he always held a thought that these hair colors are just weird and spoil a girl''s beauty.
Michael looked closer, tracing the Arch Energy in her body to find she was at Core Formation level 7, only a few months cultivation away from reaching the next level.
"Where do you think you two are going?"
"Who-"
Gaya''s question was interjected by the woman, "shut up, I don''t want to hear any excuses, you can''t escape this exam" Michael realized this woman is the famous Teacher Olivia who made the disciples shudder in fear.
"But we are-"
Again, the woman stopped Gaya before she could finish her sentence, she stared at Michael for a moment before speaking,
"You must be one of those disciples who think so highly of themselves because of their talent for cultivation" He knew there''s no stopping thisdy as she went on,
"You may know hundreds of powerful battle spells, but no spell would close a wound in your body, if you don''t have a basic knowledge of Alchemy to find a herb with healing properties, you sir will die unless of course, someone bails you. You rich kids always need saving, no self-dependence at all" Gaya wanted to p Olivia to make her stop but Olvia''s status as a teacher of Aragoth saved her from getting smacked from Gaya.
"If you don''t finish brewing a basic healing potion by the end of this day, you won''t have any resources for your cultivation for the next two months, plus, detention"
"Lady"
"Ah" the moment Gaya opened her mouth to address her as ''Lady'', Olivia grabbed the snake''s ear, twisted it,
"The girls are worse than the boys, no respect for their teachers" Michael wanted to save Gaya but his instincts told him to exploit Olivia''s misunderstandings to earn some sweet badass points.
"Shut up ande with me"
"Take your hands off me human! Ah ah ah"
"Human? What are you, Miss?" Olivia kept twisting her ears while walking towards the potionb.
"Calm down, Aelia" Michael controlled the urge to burst intoughter seeing Gaya receiving a taste of her own medicine from Olivia.
"You bastard, AHHh,dy you''re... ahh"
"What a foul-mouthed girl, it seems I need to teach you some discipline too" realizing that her human wouldn''t save her and she beat the heck out of this teacher because of her status, Gaya gritted her mouth, no more curses came out of her mouth.
"I''ming...let go" Eventually after walking for a few minutes, Olivia let go of Gaya''s ear after she asked her to. On their way to the Potionb, Olivia hunted down a few other disciples who were unfortunate enough to get caught.
Olivia chewed them down, exining why Alchemy is important for all of them regardless of which specialization the disciples preferred. Michael realized that she''s trying to make Alchemy apulsory subject in Aragoth. Many displeased seemed to disagree with Olvia''s n but Michael could only pity these ignorant disciples. Before learning Alchemy through the system, even he was ignorant of the power of Alchemy but soon, he was proven wrong, very wrong. Alchemy was such an overpowered skill to have, he knew potion or pills to ovee almost every problematic situation.
If you want to temporarily increase the cultivation level? There was a potion for that.
Are you born ugly? Don''t worry, there''s a pill to make a girl pretty and a boy, handsome.
You want to fake death? There''s a? pill for that too.
Michael thought.
If one was willing to make a necessary sacrifice, one could do anything with Alchemy. Even though many would argue that Runemastery was the most overpowered specialization, Michael would argue otherwise because his most powerful weapon was created through Alchemy, the Fear Toxin, not to mention he was earning a shitload of gold coins because of his Alchemy skills.
Of course, he couldn''t care less if they don''t want to learn Alchemy, after all, the fewer the alchemists in this world, the more the demand for him.
Intentionally walked behind all the disciples so they wouldn''t recognize him too soon, spoiling the uing badass points fest.
Olivia had no idea that her idol, the man who she was trying to meet in person ever since she heard about him, was just walking behind her. If she had known it was him, she would have freaked out.
Eventually, Michael reached a tall building with an attractivewn in front of it. Thewn itself showed the prestige of Aragoth as he saw many expensive umon herbs nted as mere decoration. They soon entered the building following Olivia, the air inside was filled with a medicinal fragrance of herbs and Alchemy ingredients, they walked into the open door to the wide hallway. Upon the walls were the paintings of older men who Michael guessed as some famous Alchemists. The floor was an old-fashioned parquet with a blend of deep homely browns and the walls were the greens of summer gardens meeting a bold white baseboard.
Finally, after walking through the corridors, they came in front of a ssroom and saw the words ''Potion ssroom'' written in beautiful calligraphy on the wall above therge green door.
"Here we go" Michael was hit by massive nostalgic memories of Harry Potter as he stepped into the potion ssroom with a faint smile on his face.
The ssroom wasrge enough to allow at least fifty students to work and its walls were lined with pickled creatures and weird-looking herbs in ss jars. In one corner of the room stood a basin into which bluish water poured from a gargoyle''s mouth, while in another was a line of six feet tall cupboards.
The students who were already inside the ssroom were so focused on the task on their hands as they even ignored looking at the neers.
On the far end of the room, one of the busy students was Nathen.
Just like others, he failed to notice Michael among the crowd. Closing the door, Olivia went straight to the long wooden table under a giant statue of a tree, she then flicked her wrist as rows of herbs and ingredients appeared on the table.
"Those who are my students, brew a disease cure potion while the others brew a basic healing potion, you can refer to the books on the cupboard over there," she said, pointing at the lines of cupboards.
Chapter 141 - You Are Ghost?!
"Keep your eyes on the cauldron!" When a few disciples looked up, taking their eyes away from their table, Olivia shouted at them, making them quickly look down.
Michael''s eyes were on Nathen but the young master of house Bradley was busy trying to figure out the right Diddia leaves to Iburry ration. For a 5-star Alchemist like Michael, the disease cure potion was a child''s y but Nathen and these disciples were not 5-star Alchemists.
"Go on, take your ingredients," Olivia said looking at her Alchemy students while the others rushed towards the cupboards cursing Olivia under their breaths.
The Alchemy students buried to the table to pick the freshest of the herbs,
"I''m partnering with him," said Gaya stubbornly.
"Alright, since you two aren''t Alchemy students, I''ll let you partner up but I want two healing potions," Olivia said, raising two fingers in the air. He just nodded at Olivia, walking to the table, he saw the leftover herbs.
"What are you doing? First, you need the basic book of Alchemy" Olivia said while Michael was looking at the herbs and ingredients before him on the table.
"I think I can brew a simple potion without a book, Teacher Olivia" He was not trying to sound arrogant but in Olivia''s eyes, his tone and look seemed extremely arrogant.
"Oh, a simple potion huh? Let me see your Alchemy prowess" It was evident she didn''t like the way he talked, she made it obvious by her sarcastic tone.
She wanted to teach this arrogant bastard a lesson after he failed miserably.
However the next moment, he surprised her by picking up the right herbs from the table.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
"Hold this" Michael handed over the herbs to Gaya, he then rolled up his sleeves before conjuring the green Alchemy mes
"Wait!" Olivia was stunned knowing that the green mes couldnt be summoned by anyone except Alchemists. Olivia''s shout broke many disciples'' concentration, they instantly looked up in the direction of themotion to see her staring at the green mes hovering above a ck-robed youth''s hands in shock.
"Don''t try this anywhere"? before Olivia could stop him, all the ingredients flew straight into the green mes,
"Ghost" from the distant Nathen recognized him immediately,
"You need a cauldron!" Olivia shouted at him but she soon closed her when a fist-sized ball of pure essence floated above the green mes.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
¡
His lips curved upwards, he would never get tired of this sweet notification sound, no matter how many times he hears it. One by one, the essence shot above the green me,
Olivia was speechless, she just stared at the pure essence above the green mes. One could not extract the essence from the herbs with this much purity unless he''s a godly level genius. Besides, he used the technique of extracting the essence using no cauldron, she didn''t know anyone who could do that except one person, Ghost. But how could he be here? She thought.
In the next moment, all the eleven essences that were floating above came closer to merge as one big ball of the essence. Michael flicked his wrist, the green mes slowly faded away,
"Bring me five vials," She said to Gaya, making her lock eyes with the girls staring at him from the front table.
She went straight to those disciples and took their vials, asking no permission
"Give me those"? the girls were too focused on Michael to protect their empty vials from Gaya.
Under the shocked gazes of Olvia as well as the disciples, Michael moved his hand, splitting the one ball of essence into five balls before sending them flying into the empty vials.
"How did he¡?"
"Look at the purity!"
"Who is he?"
"So handsome, so talented"
"Ha, I never thought I would see a day teacher Olivia shut her mouth"
"Teacher Olivia is 4-star Alchemist but I have never seen her brew that potion this quickly"
"So you''re saying..."
"I know him, he''s Ghost, Ghost of River town"
"The 5-star Alchemist of Bredia?!"
"The second best Alchemist of Bredia"
Instantly the previous silent ssroom filled with murmuring, few who recognized Michael shouted in shock. Olivia leaned on the table to prevent her body from falling down in overwhelming shock.
"You asked me two potions, here''s five" the five vials of glistening healing potions flew right into her hands as she subconsciously reached out to grab the potions.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 800 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
¡.
The notification sounds went crazy in his head making him earn almost 8000 badass points in a couple of seconds.
"You...you...are"
"Name is Ghost, Teacher Olivia, it''s a pleasure to meet you," he said with a warm smile on his face
"Well, not for me," Gaya said, rubbing her reddened ear. Olivia showed an expression of embarrassment. The dispels witnessing their teacher''s face turning red didn''t know whether tough or not. The disciples closest to Olvia knew that ever since this Ghost appeared out of nowhere and proved himself as a 5-star Alchemist, Olivia was talking non-stop about him, the method he was using to brew potions and concoct pills. She even paid a merchant a whopping amount of 12,000 gold coins for his healing potion, not because she has too many gold coins but because she wanted to get her hands on the potions as soon as possible. The only thing that stopped her from traveling to the Sunrise sect was her busy schedule, since the Alchemypetition of Kingdom Kethen was just around the corner, she had to prepare her students for thepetition.
She was studying the potion and few female disciples suspected that she was studying the potion and him. Only because Nathen was one of her closest and top disciples, he knew about her interest in Ghost''s Alchemy talents and promised him to get the contract for supplying Alchemy products for the outer circle.
Michael had no idea that he has an admirer, a die-hard fan in Aragoth.
"The pleasure is all...mine...Lord...Sir...Master" she stuttered searching for the right word to address him by,
"Ghost would do just fine, Teacher Olivia" he chuckled when calling her ''Teacher''.Although she was a 4-star Alchemist who is just a one-star away from reaching 5-star, everyone knew the gap between a 4-star and a 5-star is like heaven and hell. Only a few 4-star Alchemists reached the 5-star in their lifetime while others just died as a 4-star in old age.
Reaching the next star level was damn hard regardless of their talent. It required guidance, a humongous amount of resources, and hard work. For Olvia, thetter two weren''t a problem but the first one, guidance. That was why she was hoping to meet Ghost, she wanted to study Alchemy from him as his disciple. She was willing to pay any price except her body of course.
"I can''t" she shook her head,
"Ghost" While Olivia was struggling to find a way to ask him what she wants, Nathen came to greet Michael and also break the news to Michael,
"Nathen" Michael greeted him back with a smile, unlike the previous events, Nathen too widely grinned at him in return.
"Do you know him?" Olivia asked surprised, Nathen nodded and spoke,
"Teacher, Ghost, if you follow me"
"Lead the way" Before Olivia could ask further questions, Michael gestured at him to lead the way while Olivia followed him behind to her room which was located adjacent to the potion ssroom.
Walking behind them, Gaya creased her brows, she could tell by looking at Olivia''s bodynguage that she needed something from him. As long as it was not a ce at Michael''s heart, she might consider giving it to her, if she was willing to pay the right price.
Until she came to Aragoth, she only wanted to test herself whether she has deep feelings for Michael using the love potion but after seeing the way these girls look at him, she wanted to check if he has any feelings for her before some girl steals him from her. Having more than one wife was normal but Gaya didn''t want to share his soul mate with anyone else. She would rather kill all herpetitions than share him.
If he tried to find another love anywhere else after sealing the deal with her, she would leave him after killing that girl. In simple words, she hated harems.
After leaving Aragoth, she decided not to waste any more time. The first thing she wanted to do after reaching Sunrise sect is to find a way to make him drink the love potion.
Of course, Michael did not know what this snake was scheming inside her head. He was too busy imagining the rain of gold coins he would receive after signing the contract with Aragoth.
Chapter 142 - Each With Their Own Plan
Olivia''s room was a textbook definition of a girl''s room, alphabetically ordered book on the book rack, paintings of her role models who were some old men adorned the pinkish walls while a faint fragrant of forest roses permitted the air.
In the center of the room, a round sofa and a ss tea table could be seen.
Obviously, the sofa was not as nearly fancy or luxurious as the sofas in Michael''s room,pared to those, what was in front of them was mediocre, at best.
On the corner stood a tall table where Gaya saw lines of expensive liquors.
She then changed her gaze towards the corner, gazing at the vials of perfumes, she inhaled deeply only to be overwhelmed by the fragrance those small vials were radiating.
"Expensive liquors, Unest brand perfumes, this bitch is rich!" Thetter changed Gaya''s expression significantly because Unest was a brand used by only the richest, such as the Royal family of a powerhouse kingdom and powerful female cultivators. An ordinary noble or even a queen of a small kingdom had no chance of getting an Unest perfume. Gaya hated spending her own money in extravagances like that, instead, she always used the money to bribe ministers to extend her power in her father''s regime or bought cultivation resources. It was Xanali, her stepsister who would spend arge number of gold coins in just perfume bottles alone, because of that, Gaya knew about the cost of Unest perfumes.
After spending thest six months with Gaya closely, Michael learned to read even the smallest changes in her face, he could tell by looking at her face that she''s yelling ''Olivia seemed to be crazy rich, human!''
"Please, make yourselves home" Olivia gestured at Michael to take a seat as she went to the liquor stand to pour him a drink,
"Just hot water with a few drops of Angel lime for me and Aelia," said Michael after noticing a crown-shaped fruit in one of the herb pots
"Oh?!" Olivia was surprised but quickly grabbed one of the fruit and poured their drinks.
"What happened?" Nathen asked with a slightly amused smile on his face.
Michael began to exin the events before the potion brewing after Olivia gave him the drink with an embarrassed smile.
"Teacher, you should really stop making other disciples take Alchemy tests," Nathen said, chuckling at his teacher''s little adventure with Ghost.
"All disciples should at least have basic knowledge in Alchemy, Nathen. I keep telling this to the higher ups but they just don''t listen. In some situations, a simple potion or pill might save one''s life. Am I right?" she asked looking at Michael, her smile grew bigger seeing him nod in approval
"Speaking of Alchemy, Nathen" his voice trailed off, knowing the meaning of his words, Nathen turned his gaze towards Olivia
"Oh, the contract? Wait a sec"
"Teacher, tell me where it is, I''ll go" she quickly waved at him before he could stand up,
"It''s okay, Teacher Harms has the contract, I''ll get it" Nathen nodded realizing she wants him to open the matter of tutoring her.
After Olivia left the room, Michael opened his mouth before Nathen,
"She wants something, am I right?" Nathen was taken aback by surprise but soon, he chuckled,
"That obvious huh?"
"Yep"
"Look Ghost, I don''t like to beat around the bush, the contract is yours, Teacher Olivia is the one who decides who gets the contract and when I rmended you, she immediately signed the contract, no questions asked. If you just want this one contract for the outer circle, you can take this and go, no one will stop you but"
"But what?" Gaya asked, not showing any expression of annoyance on her face. Michael did not utter any word, he just waited for Nathen to tell him what she wanted from him.
"She''s hoping to be your disciple, Ghost"? Michael couldn''t help but be surprised by this sudden request while Gaya sighed in relief. For a moment, she thought that Oliva would like to be one of his wives.
"That''s... unexpected" Michael rubbed his chin, weighing the pros and cons of taking her in as his disciples
"Tell us about her more" Gaya took the initiative to ask Nathen, Michael sensed the snake had hatched a plot to take advantage of Olivia, this was why he loved to have her around.
"Well," Nathen started to tell them about Olivia, sighing in relief that Ghost didn''t refuse to tutor her right off the bat.
A few minutes after Nathen finished telling them about Olivia, both Michael and Gaya had a wide grin on their faces. ording to Nathen, Olivia was the daughter of Reginald Palmer, the Vice president of the Rainshade, one of the influential merchant guilds in the entire Elon continent. This exined the expensive liquors and bottles of Unest perfumes.
Taking in a Teacher of Aragoth already outweighed the cons but her status as the daughter of Reginald Palmer sealed the deal for Michael. Soon in the future, he would expand his Alchemy business, at that time, instead of building an infrastructure ofrge-scale business from the ground up, he could use the Rainshade to grow his business. After all, supplying products to all corners of the continent was not as simple as selling them in the Majestic. What made him more excited thinking about the future was Nathan''s family, the house of Bradley. The house Bradley''s main source of ie was providing security, they were basically a private security firm of this world with many powerful individuals among them. With House Bradley and Rainshade, he would be able to get his business up and running, without worrying about security or nooks and crannies of business.
Besides, by taking Olivia as his disciples, the Sunrise sect would automatically be a ce under Aragoth''s protection. He needed some kind of protection if he wanted to keep his herbal garden from getting robbed by some powerful rogue cultivators. Moreover, Olivia was at Core Formation level 7 who would definitely have some devastating spells to destroy his enemies, if he needed her to.
If everything goes ording to his ns, in the future, he would make Olivia his subordinate and appoint her as the Head of the Alchemy chains in his business empire.
Both Michael and Gaya looked at each other, a wolf-like smile shed across their faces.
"I''m back" Just in time, Olivia entered the room, her smile froze on her face after she noticed everyone''s eyes on her. She assumed that Nathen had asked Ghost about tutoring her while she was away,
"What''s it gonna be, Ghost?" Olivia''s heart began to punch against her chest, she shivered, looking at Michael. She very well knew that this could be a life-changing moment for her
"Why don''t you step forward and ask me yourself?" When he first met her, she was like a fierce lioness, scaring all the disciples but now, she turned into a meek cat.
She slowly stepped forward, praying to her Sun God that he would ept her as his disciple. For her, his age or where did he learn what he does didn''t matter, all she wanted was to learn what he knows, at least a drop of his ocean of knowledge.
Nathen almost jumped back when Olivia dropped to her knees,
"Will you please ept me as your disciple and impart your knowledge in Alchemy to me?" she bowed her head, directlying to the point without beating around the bush.
Michael looked at Gaya to see her nod and then, he spoke in a clear voice,
"If I ept you as my disciples, will you obey me and my friend here?" Nathen slightly frowned when he saw him asking Olivia, a Core Formation cultivator to obey a mere Body Refining stage cultivator but he remained silent.
"Yes" however, Olivia said, taking not even a second to think.
"Will you remain loyal to your teacher?" her heartbeat increased every passing second
"I will forever be loyal to my teacher"
"Will you disclose the knowledge you get from me without my permission?"
Again she took no time before answering him,
"I will not" Michael raised her chin to see the honesty in her eyes, in those hazel eyes, he saw nothing but a thirst for knowledge.
"Then I will ept you as my first student, Olivia Palmer" the very next second, her eyes welled up, body trembled, she was overwhelmed by joy.
Soon, tears rolled down on her rosy cheeks,
"Thank..thank you...Teacher..." despite his age or cultivation level, she uttered the word teacher with utmost respect and admiration,
"My fee is, in the future when I need, promise me that you''ll do your best to assist us" Of course, Michael was not doing this out of the goodness in his heart but he was nning to catch the big fish with the small fish, in this case, the big fish was her father''s favor while the small fish was his fee of teaching her.
"I promise you, Teacher, you can count on me" his image in her heart grew taller after hearing that he will not be greedy and sell the knowledge for gold coins. However, Nathen somewhat refused to believe Ghostpletely because he did not seem like the man who would do charities, yet Nathen said nothing. As far as he was concerned, everyone got what they wanted, Olivia became Ghost''s student, he kept his word by getting Ghost the contract he promised, this was a win-win situation for everyone.
"Nathen, give this to the Sect Leader" After wiping off the tears on her face, Olivia retrieved a letter from her space ring,
"What is that?" Michael asked before she could hand the letter over to Nathen,
"My resignation letter Teacher, I can''t teach while studying under you"
"No, you can''t resign" Michael almost blurted out blood after hearing her, she almost poured mud on his perfect n,
Chapter 143 - The Baby Dragon Is Dying
"People learn the most when teaching others" Michael quickly said calmly despite the shock he just got from Olivia.
"Until I say so, continue to teach, I''m very sure the Sect Leader won''t like losing a teacher like you"
"How hard would it be to build a one-man portal connecting Aragoth and the Sunrise sect?" Gaya asked a rhetorical question as Nathen threw an ''it''s doable'' look. In this world, a portal was used to travel from one ce to another in an instant by temporarily creating a gateway between two ces. This method of traveling was not without its downfalls, one of those downfalls was, the longer the distance and the bigger the portal, the more unstable the gateway. Also, building a portal between two ces required an immense amount of rare resources and at least a 3-star Alchemist, depending on the portal''s distance and size.
As the name suggests, the mini-portal could only let one person travel through one or two times a day. These were the reasons why Michael didn''t bother to build a portal between the Sunrise sect and the Dark forest. Moreover, there was already a teleportation array in the Abyssal, only if he could repair the array, he would be able to travel to any corner of the world in an instant as the array in Abyssal was a powerful intricate array. ording to the system, he needed either a 5-star runemaster or system-level 5.0 topletely repair the array. For now, Michael had no urgent need for this teleportation array or a portal, instead, he wanted to buy a teleportation skill and upgrade it to the level where he could travel anywhere before one could snap. Although Lightning Dash was fast, teleporting was faster and more badass.
"They are right, Teacher, Sect Master would definitely build a mini-portal for you to travel between. Besides, who would teach and prepare us for the Kethenpetition if you resigned" Nathen did not even need to ask whether Ghost would teach them or not as he already knew the answer, ''No he won''t''.
Nathen was right because Michael would rather eat, sleep and train rather than prepare a bunch of youngsters for apetition.
"How much time do you spend here teaching?" Michael asked,
"Three hours a day, I''ll spend the rest of my day cultivating and studying," Olivia said with a faint smile on her face. Just by looking at her face, Michael could tell that the higher-ups would definitely build her a portal, after all, resources and gold coins were not something Aragothcked.
"Alright, take a few days to settle everything here, I''lle pick you after I visited Nathen''s home" Nathen didn''t forget that his uncle asked Ghost to visit him as soon as he finishes cultivating. However, Nathen creased his brows after he heard him,
"Didn''t you say you were going to break through?"
"I did" the very next moment, Nathen looked closer at the flow of Ghost''s Arch Energy.
"Whoa" Nathen''s eyes widened, looking at Nathen, Olivia looked closer at Ghost to be startled by his cultivation level.
"Teacher I thought you were...teacher you...how" Olivia was speechless, she heard from NAthen that Ghost was at level 10 Body refining stage while they were in Nether Realm, it was only a few days after they came out yet, he jumped from Body Refining stage level 10 to Body Strengthening stage level 5.
This was too much!
This was a heaven-defying cultivation speed!
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1200 badass points]
Nathen''s world was spinning around him, making him hard to stand still. Olivia on the other hand was overwhelmed by shock and joy because she could not only learn Alchemy but also cultivation tricks from him.
"I hit a jackpot, I''m really lucky," Olivia said to herself. She was not the only one who felt lucky, Nathen''s inner voice reminded him about thepetition for the next head of House Bradley. If he could utilize Ghost''s friendship correctly, he might get an edge over all his rivals for the head seat. He began to plot his own ns keeping Ghost in his mind while Michael plotted to use both Olivia and Nathen to expand his influence.
Everyone in the room had their own ns, using each other, they wanted to move forward in their life. Michael would have definitely supported in any way he can to make Nathen the next head of Bradley because he would rather deal with the devil he knows than an unknown devil.
"When can we leave, Nathen?" Michael asked, bringing Nathen back from his trance.
"Tomorrow morning-"
"Huuuu" Nathen was intercepted by a sudden cry that came from Michael''s chest.
"Teacher!" Olivia jumped back when she saw something inside Michael''s chest trembling violently.
Michael''s face turned dark, feeling the baby dragon in his pocket twitching frantically. When he put his hand inside to take out the baby dragon, a warm yet cold liquid touched his skin. He gently took out the Baby Dragon to see it was bleeding, the baby dragon''s scales had be grey and he was bleeding through all of his pores on the body.
"Teacher is that...a dragon?"
"Holy shit it is," Nathen eximed.
"Baby Dragon, what''s happening to him?" Michael''s felt dread in his core staring at the baby dragon whoid on his hand eyes closed, body twitching.
In a couple of seconds, the remaining crimson scales also turned grey,
"System!" Michael screamed in his head calling the system for help.
[The system is in safe mode!]
[Unable to answer Host''s question while in safe mode!]
Michael felt his training to keep himself calm despite the situation being tested by the system at this exact moment. He took a few deep breaths after exiting the system.
"Let me see" Gaya creased her brows reaching out to feel the baby dragon''s body.
Olivia and Nathen stood there speaking no words because they knew something bad happening to the baby dragon. Since they did not know a way to help, they kept their mouth shut.
"I''ll give him a healing potion," Michael said, readying himself to use the healing potion on the baby dragon, "no, stop it" Gaya stopped him and continued to run her fingers through the blood-covered body of the baby dragon.
After a few minutes under the gazes of the three, Gaya sighed,
"Ghost, he''s a death kissed Dragon"
"What do you mean?"
"He''s dying" Michael''s heart jumped a beat hearing her. Although he only spent a short amount of time with the baby dragon, he felt deeply connected to the dragon. He could not simply forget the dragon''s face or the times he yed with him. The baby dragon made him happy, light-hearted, Michael knew the Dragon loved him more than he loved himself. Maybe it was because both of them were abandoned as a child, never knowing their parents made their bonds stronger.
"Tell me there''s a way to cure him"
"There''s no cure for Death kiss, Ghost. I thought it was weird that he could not fly or absorb Arch Energy like us " Gaya said, ever since she met this baby dragon, he couldn''t fly like any baby dragons of his age, he would always hop like a bunny to move around. She also noticed that the baby dragon would often fall asleep, spending most of the day sleeping.
However she never thought he was death kissed, it made sense why Ghost never met the mother dragon near the baby dragon, the reason for that was the mother dragon sensed the death kiss on him and threw him away. It was really unfortunate as only one dragon in a million would get death kissed.
"Teacher" Olivia called, her tone was suppressed, fearing any wrong word would make him mad.
Michael turned his gaze away from the baby dragon to Olivia while still cradling the unconscious baby dragon in his hand,
"There might be someone who could help him"
"Who?" Michael asked, finally a glimmer of hope appeared in his eyes
"In Royalnd, there''s someone called the Doctor, I heard he could perform miracles, cure many incurable diseases yet many would say he''s a myth but if he''s not, maybe he could cure him"
"I heard about him," Nathen nodded after he heard Olivia.
"I heard about him too but even if he could cure him, how do we find the Doctor? As you just said, he might be a myth"
"I have to look for him, I will look for him and if he exists, I will find him" Michael wasn''t in the mood for second-guessing, he wanted to save the baby dragon, any means necessary.
But until he could find a way to save the baby dragon permanently, he needed to keep him alive.
"How much time does he have?" Michael asked looking at Gaya who clearly knew more about dragons than the three of thembined,
"In his condition, we can keep him barely alive for another three weeks tops," Gaya said as she took out a healing potion from her space ring and poured it over the baby dragon. The greyish scales barely showed a glimpse of the crimson red underneath
"We need to do this at least ten times a day" Nathen raised his brows slightly, a single healing potion cost 9000 gold coins, this meant Ghost would spend 90,000 gold coins on the baby dragon to keep him alive. This amount was for a single day, if Ghost did this for three weeks, he would spend almost 2million, just to keep the baby dragon alive until he could find the Doctor if he exists that is.
Chapter 144 - In Search For The Doctor
Making the Royalnd his next destination, Michael left Aragoth before asking Olivia to send a message to the Sunrise sect about his sudden departure. This time Michael didn''t mount the pegasus but used his flying sword to soar through the skies with Gaya. Each and every second mattered to Michael, while on his way to the Royalnd, he tried to probe the system about a cure for the Baby dragon but the heartless system remained silent, no matter how desperate he was to save his baby dragon.
Although the system bailed on him when he needed it the most, he somewhat felt the system had no choice but to ignore him. He missed the snarkyments, the little interactions with this greedy system, he hoped the badass system would return to its normal state soon.
Good thing he met Oliva at the time when the baby dragon fell ill or he would have been clueless about how to save the scaly bastard. Surprisingly, Gaya took turns in cradling and caring for her frenemy. He could tell that she''s missing the baby dragon despite the pointless enmity between them. Her motherly instincts kicked in, making her worry about the baby dragon. Even after houses of non stop flying, she only spoke a couple of times with him, the rest of the time, she cleaned the blood off the dragon and gently poured healing potion into its mouth as well as applied the potion on its greyish scale.
"We''ll save you dicky, I promise" when Michael was looking at the distant sky, she whispered in the dragon''s ear, she then gently kissed him on the head.
"Hu" the baby dragon startled her by letting out a weak ''hu'',
"Human look!" he stopped flying after the sudden shout came from behind, he turned back to see the baby dragon lying in her hands with slightly opened eyes. Michael came to the baby dragon with a loving smile on his face, "keep fighting champ, we''ll cure you" he too put a gentle kiss on the dragon''s head
The three of them hovered in the sky like a family, she cradled the dragon-like he was her baby while Michael was the big daddy of this small family. He wanted to cherish this rtionship with her and the baby dragon.No matter how strong he became, these two would always be his family, if anyone tries to even harm a single hair on their body, he would massacre their entire bloodline.
The fire of healing the baby dragon burned brighter and hotter within their hearts as they resumed flying towards the Royalnd where the Emperor resides.
Both of them continued to fly stopping only to replenish the Arch Energy in their body, even Michel wasn''t an exception to this. During these small breaks, she did not eat anything, not even a biscuit, this showed how serious she was.
At least something good came out of all this, Michael thought looking at her cradling the baby dragon. After all, there was no real reason for them to fight in the first ce, he was a baby while she was a fully grown adult, they didn''t have to carry the torch of enmity between the two races.
The baby dragon was acting on his instincts, Gaya on the other hand just hated Dragon for no good reason but he could tell that she''s changing, at least she would no longer want him dead.
Eventually, after traveling for five continuous days, they saw the outskirts of a buzzing city surrounded by gigantic walls. Outside the walls, lush green fields, wheat fields that looked like golden nkets, crisscrossing rivers, and small yet charming houses filled thend. What made the kingdom look extremely vibrant and majestic was the ocean behind it, the rising sun painted the blue ocean and the walls with its golden rays, making the city within the walls look like a city made of gold.
However Michael was not in the mood to bask in the beauty, he wanted to get into the city and began searching for this so-called Doctor.
"Flying is prohibited in this kingdom, we have to walk" Time was in the essence but they had no choice, they descended tond on a stone-paved road. Lines of fancy carriages with various gs on top of them, groups of people, and merchant carriages moved towards the gigantic main gate made of silvery metal. The two of them barely attracted any attention as many cultivators like them descended when they reached the outskirts toply with the no-flying rule.
Michael hated to wait in the line behind all these carriages yet he could not do anything. He might be a mighty existence in the River town but here, he was like a small fish, he realized this factor after noticing numerous Core Formation cultivators going in anding out of the city.
While moving at a snail''s pace, Michael noticed shrieks and criesing from the merchant carriage in front of him. He looked through the door crack to see green humanoid creatures and vaguely saw a few human faces.
"ve Traders" Looking at the curiosity on his face, Gaya whispered.
"And those are goblins, nasty creatures" She growled. Since he could do nothing but wait patiently, he decided to ponder more about these ve traders. If he created a list of disgusting things that needed to be gotten rid of, ve traders would definitely hit the top.
"Tell me about these ve traders, can we buy elves?"
"Where did you get that idea?" his question made her raise brows,
"No, you can''t, enving another race is forbidden by the church and the Guardians" Michael was confused, if enving was forbidden what the heck is happening in front of him,
"Those are crooks and ouws, human. Those goblins were probably banished from their tribe for their crimes while those humans may be rapists, murders, or both. When theymit a crime punishable by death, some kings would give them two choices, death or envement. Many would choose the first but some prefer to live as a ve than die as a free soul, and you, do you have an elf fetish?" she pinched him hard on the shoulder, it was not a question but rather a warning.
"Nope" He shook his head,
"So does this rule apply to every kingdom in this continent?" Michael asked while running the spot she mercilessly pinched him,
"Pretty much yes, in some kingdoms in Ozer Continent? however give ves the option to be a diator in arenas for the pleasure of nobles"
"diators?" How could Michael not know who diators are? The mere mention of the word diators brought back the sweet memories of many tv shows and movies he watched, each and every diator was a badass.
"Of course, not anyone can be a diator, a rich noble should first decide to buy the ves and train them in their own school of diators. Survive long enough in the arena, a diator could get the glory, gold, and even freedom but I never heard of a diator who survived the arena to earn freedom from their masters"
At this moment, Michael wanted to go to one of the kingdoms that have arenas and diators, if he could buy a small army of diators somehow, he would be unstoppable in the future. The Dark Lord could definitely use the diators to his advantage.
"State your purpose of visiting the Royalnd" Eventually Michael was a couple of carriages behind to enter the city within the walls.
"I''m a humble merchant sir guard and I''m here to deliver the goods ordered by his royal highness, the secon-"
"Go" the head guard immediately let in the ve trader in front of Michael.
The guard did not ask any further questions as he opened the gates while Michael stepped forward to meet the guard,
"State your purpose of visiting the Royal Guard," The head guard who d in full iron ne armor asked Michael.
"This is our vacation period-"
"Fifty gold" Gaya was interjected by the guard. She didn''t seem upset though because she knew the guards had no time to listen to all their stories.
Nodding her head, she quickly ced a pouch of coins in the guard''s hand. Just by weighing the pouch in his hand, the guard guessed the amount inside. The guard behind the head guard gestured at them to enter through the small door beside the main gate, they were just toozy and sluggish to wee these travelers with any pleasantries.
The inner city of Royal Land was built along the banks of a mighty river and was truly an architectural metropolis. The skyline was littered with impressive towers and majestic buildings made of marble as well as stones that shone in the daylight and more seemed to be on their way. Its charm was matched by the backdrop of pristine skies which have helped shape the city into what it is today.
The city itself looked simply gorgeous. Many houses had pinewood rooftops, oak wood walls, and luscious gardens.
The streets were paved with stones and filled with a buzzing crowd. Since Michael had no idea of where to find the Doctor, he decided to find the ce that''s filled with rumors and actionable intel, an Inn.
Chapter 145 - One Step Closer To Finding The Doctor
cing the unconscious baby dragon inside his coat pocket, Michael walked along the bustling streets while looking for a tavern. Various shops including smithies, bakeries, bookshops and other misceneous stores were opening their doors to start the business, if this was any other day, he would have entered one or two stores to check what they were selling but today, his sole focus was to gather any information he could about the Doctor and save the baby dragon.
"Look, over there" while he was navigating through thebyrinth of streets, Gaya pointed at a name board that had the name ''Old Ship tavern'' written on it.
From the outside, the tavern looked cheerful, clean, and modest. Small stones and intricate stone carvings made up most of the building''s outer structure.
It was near impossible to see through the stained ss windows, but the entertainment from within can be felt outside.
As they entered the tavern through the heavily used, metal door, they were weed by excitement and pping hands.
The bartender was a red-haired middle-aged woman who was clearly buried in orders but still managed to wee them with a wave.
It was as enchanting inside as it was on the outside. Squared, stone beams supported the upper floor and therge candles attached to them. The walls were littered with so many different memorabilia.
The tavern itself was packed. Travelers like them seemed to be the primary clientele here, which was often a good sign. Several long tables were upied by what must be separate groups who have bonded over great food and conversation. The other, smaller tables were also upied by people who were probably starting to reach the point of having drunk too much, though nobody seemed to mind. Even most of the stools at the bar were upied, though none of them looked to be minding morepany.
The air inside the tavern was filled with freshly baked bread, boots, and ale. On the other side of therge tables, people, mostly drunks, were dancing and singing along with the band of bards.? Michael and Gaya managed to find stools before the bartender.
"What can I get you two?" the bartender woman finished serving the others and came to Michael,
"Information" Michael slid a gold coin toward the woman, he did not waste any time exchanging pleasantries given the dire situation.
"And water with lime, if you have any '''' Gaya ordered, since Michael didn''t drink any liquors, she also stopped drinking them, and instead, she got used to just hot water with lime, just like him.
Putting the gold coin into her pouch hanging on her hip, she grinned brightly,
"What do you want to know, young master?" She changed the way she addressed him because of the gold coin, obviously, amoner or a typical adventurer wouldn''t just give a gold coin just like that.
"Tell me everything you know about the Doctor"
"Another one" the man behind Michael snickered, taking a long sip from his mug.
"Ignore that one young master" the bartender red at the man, wordlessly telling him to mind his own business.
"Well young master, no one know much about the Doctor but I''ll tell you what I heard about the doctor, it might be just a hogwash or god''s honest words" Even if they were just hogwash, Michael had no choice but to listen to them.
*******************************
At the moment, Michael and Gaya were waiting in a dark alley between tworge buildings. Back at the inn, the bartender told them everything she knew and heard about the Doctor, most of what she told them seemed outright exaggeration or simply lies spewed by some drunkards because who would believe an angel with pure white wings came from the sky and healed a drunk in the alleyway. In one story the bartender told them, the Doctor brought a dead man back from death, although Michael was desperate, even he couldn''t believe that one could bring the dead back to life unless that person has a system that''s fully upgraded, which was impossible.
However, the conversation with the bartender was not all waste as Michael got the names of everyone who''s iming that they were healed by the Doctor. For another extra five gold coins, the bartender gave the names and where to find most of them.
Creak!
While they were waiting in the dark alley, a back door of the building left to Michael opened vaguely revealing a figure of an old man. Gaya stepped towards the old man with no expression on her face, despite the darkness in the alleyway and the old man''s age, he grinned instantly looking at the young girl walking towards him.
"Are you lost, little girl?"
Boom!
In a sh, Gaya''s hand grabbed the old man by his neck, mming the old man against the wall,
"Answer my questions or" she ced a dagger on the old man''s wrinkly throat,
"Any...any..thing" the old man got his hangover cure just like that,
"What do you know about the Doctor?" asked Gaya. The old man shuddered to look at the vertical slit pupils which resembled the eyes of a venomous snake glowing in the dark.
"Where and when did you meet him?" Michael asked the old man with a soothing voice to calm the old man down a bit.
"Near...near the orphanage...I saw...i...saw someone...healing...an orphan..." In the story the bartender told them, it was this old man who got healed by the Doctor, not an orphan.
"Tell me what he looked like?" Gaya still had her dagger touching the old man''s throat while asking,
"I didn''t...see...his face..." She instantly saw the old man withholding something by sensing the slight change in his voice. She had dealt with politicians and powerful cultivators ever since she was born, so she could find out when amoner like the old man was lying to her face.
"You don''t want to hold back anything, trust me," she said, this time her voice was colder,
"I...heard...music...music..."
"What kind of music?" asked Gaya, "like...like...deeeeengggg" Michael didn''t know whether tough or p this old man for his music knowledge.
"Knock him out and threw him the dumpster"
"Wh-"
Chadak!
The old man''s worldpletely became dark before he could even raise a finger. Just as he told her, she knocked the old man and threw him into the nearby dumpster.
"Next one" after many days, only now his lips slightly curved upwards because finally, he might have gotten an actual lead to finding the Doctor.
"I heard a sound"
"Music heavenly music"
"Soul soothing tune"
"I''ve never heard of something more beautiful"
After the old man, both of them continued to interrogate the people who imed to have been healed by the Doctor. They used violence for some and gold coins for some but the end result was the same, everyone had heard some kind of musicing from the Doctor.
Afterward, Michael brought all of them to a ce where the nobles of the Royalnd gather to listen to music. It cost him 2000 gold coins just to enter and stay for an hour. The garden he was walking through was filled with colorful flowers, exquisite fountains, delicately crafted benches for the nobles to sit, and the beautiful status of various musical instruments such as violin, zither, veena, etc.
The deeper he walked into the garden, the louder the music became. Michael could understand why the nobles spent so many coins here as even he felt refreshed by hearing the soul-soothing music in the air.
But he was here neither to enjoy the scenery nor listen to this soul-soothing music, he was here to find out what kind of music these people behind him heard. By identifying the musical instrument the Doctor used, he would be one step closer to finding him, of course, there was a possibility that the Doctor didn''t use any kind of musical instruments and they all just heard some kind of magical vibrations but Michael wanted to stay positive, for the sake of his baby dragon.
Just as he was crossing by a statue of the musical instrument veena, the sweet melody of a veena being yed could be heard in a nearby pavilion. Almost as if the music had an enchanting ability, the moment anyone heard this melody would feel as if their heartstrings were resonating along with the veena.
"That''s it"
"It''s the same"
Few of the people behind Michael, including the old man who got knocked off by Gaya shouted, some seemed relieved as they could finally be free from these two youngsters.
The moment Michael and Gaya heard the sound of the veena and the people behind them, they stopped walking and turned to look toward the source. They could only see a woman wearing a red colored glistening robe with her back facing them in the pavilion. Her jade white fingers could be seen dancing along the strings of the veena as the sweet melodies rang throughout the area. Few nobles sat on the bench near her, eyes closed, submerged in the ocean of music.
Walking toward the pavilion, Michael quickly approached the back of the red-robed woman. Her ck hair hung behind her shoulders down to her back. A white veil covered her face so that he couldn''t see her appearance.
The part of the girl''s face that could be seen could only be described as a stunning beauty.
In a sh, she finished ying the bad and turned to look at him. "Does my lord enjoy the sound of the veena as well?" The girl spoke with a sweet gentle voice, almost too gentle as if one wasn''t strong enough, then they would be enchanted after hearing her voice.
With a light smile, he replied, "The second sister''s ability with the veena is quite amazing. Although I would love to sit and listen to you ying, I have a life to save, so can you please answer my question?"
The girl first seemed puzzled by Michael''s words but soon, she smiled sweetly, speaking with a gentle voice, "I thank the Lord for his praise and please, ask away, anything to save a life"
He continued to smile at her, then pointing his fingers at the people behind him, he asked while carefully noticing her facial expressions, "Miss, have you met any of them before? They say they heard a piece of music that soothed their soul and surprisingly, healed their wounds" the girl looked all of them who were in ragged clothes one more time before shaking her head,
"No lord, I have never met them but what they told you is true, a piece of music that can heal, only one who achieved the realm of perfection in veena could do that" As far as Michael and Gaya could tell, the girl was not lying. The girl continued,
"I am quite fond of the four arts and studied them studiously when I was young, but I am still far from the realm of perfection, while the sounds of my veena are quite soothing, it was mostly because of the veena itself." The girl''s delicate finger stroked a string on the veena as she muttered, "Although this veena is a copy of the Angel''s Veena, it uses a variety of rare parts, including the? Soul Energy of the one who wields the Angel''s Veena, Lah Alden. If one could have done what you said, it would be her but I doubt she left the rainbow inds and came here to heal them" herst words contained a hint of scowl as she had already whiffed a smell of aleing from some of them in the group. She put it mildly to sound respectful but she seriously doubted that? Lah Alden, the wielder of Angel''s Veena gave the blessing of hearing the sound of Angel''s Veena to these drunkards who weren''t even worthy of breathing the same air as Lah Alden does.
"Angel''s Veena? Lah Alden?" Michael asked with confusion while Gaya seemed like she knew the person the girl was talking about
Chapter 146 - Lucifer In Royal Land?
"If I want to meet this Lah Alden, where do I go, Miss?" the girl shook her head, "No one can meet Lady Alden whenever they wish, Lord, even the Emperor himself yearning to get that heavenly blessing"
"We''ll see about that '''' Gaya didn''t like all these exaggerations about Lah, for Gaya, this Lah woman was just another overrated cultivator in the Elon Continent.
"Thank you for everything, Miss," Michael said, nodding before leaving the garden with Gaya. They chased away the group of people as Michael so no use in keeping them around.
"We are going to Rainbow inds," She was determined to save the baby dragon, nothing would stop them from doing so.
"Where is it?"
"In the Endless ocean, we have to find a portal, although it won''t let us travel into the Rainbow inds domain, we can reach the border. Flying would take at least four weeks, we don''t have that time" She exined, recalling everything she knew about Royalnd to find a portal.
"THE DEVIL HAS STRUCK AGAIN!"
"THE DEVIL HAS STRUCK AGAIN!"
"THE DEVIL HAS STRUCK AGAIN!"
Just as they were in deep thinking, their train of thoughts was stopped by a panicked voice. They turned their head towards the voice''s direction to see a young man who looked pale screaming as loud as he could,
"RUNAWAY, THE DEVIL HAS STRUCK AGAIN!" The young man kept screaming while the people who were strolling on the streets quickly covered in fear.
"HIDE, HIDE INSIDE YOUR HOMES, LUCIFER HAS STRUCK AGAIN!"
Michael''s body went rigid after hearing the young man screaming the name ''Lucifer''. Both of them creased their brows, looking at each other confused,
"What''s going on here?" Michael asked as he walked in the direction of the young man, the previously crowded alleyway now became grim. When he was just about to grab the young man and question, he saw a group of soldiers rushing towards something.
Michael and Gaya ignored the screaming young man and followed the soldiers to get some answers. Getting out of the alleyway, they stepped into the main street which was paved with greyish stones, while many people ran in the opposite direction of the soldiers, Michael followed the soldiers behind with a few other daredevils.
The more they followed the soldiers, the more chaos and soldiers they witnessed in the streets of Royalnd. Soon, they reached the town''s square, in the middle of the square, a group of soldiers d in full iron te armor formed a line preventing the citizens from seeing the horror behind them.
The smell of fresh blood permeated the square, through the gaps in the crowd before him, he noticed the fountain in the square was painted sshes of red.
"What''s happening?" Michael asked an old woman in front of him to know more about what''s going on here,
"It''s the devil young man, it has killed yet again" the old woman was too focused on craning her neck to see through the crowd as she didn''t even look at Michael while speaking
"Yet again?"
"Yeah, this is the devil''s fourth victim. I don''t know who the troubled soul he took this time" the old woman held onto the pendant on her chest, he knew she''s praying to the Sun God.
"Look above, the Holy Guards are here" Hearing the sudden rise in themission, Michael looked at the sky above the town square to see a group of six figures descended. All of them were covered in pure white shining armor with golden edges, each of them had a different weapon such as sword, spear, bow, staff, and even a huge battle-ax. Their armors had a symbol of the Sun painted on their chest te indicating their branch in the Church.
However it wasn''t their shiny armor or shy weapons that made Michael arch his brows, it was their cultivation level. The leading figure who had a sword on the side was a Core Strengthening level 1 warrior, the rest of them were level 10 Core Formation warriors. This group alone showed Michael the power of the Church.
"Get them all out of here" a female voice came from the Core Strengthening warrior. The guards immediately tensed up, pushing the crowd further and further away from the crime scene.
"You can''t hide the truth from us forever!"
"We need to know what''s going on"
"Are our children safe?"
"When are you going to catch that bastard?"
"Who is the victim?"
"We demand answers!"
The people weren''t a pushover, they resisted the soldiers, shouting at the Holy Guards and the soldiers. The crowd became restless, while they were protesting and trying to turn this into a riot, Michael red at Gaya, wordlessly telling her toe with him.
"Someone is copycatting us" when they put enough distance from the Holy guards, Gaya said before forming an invisible barrier around them to prevent anyone from eavesdropping on them.
"I expected this but not this soon, not here" Michael''s voice was calm yet deep down, his voice had a hint of murderous intent to it.
"You need to stay here and clean up this mess before that copycat ruins our ns"
"What?!" she growled, showing her disagreement, she wanted to save the baby dragon more than anything. Although at first, she hated the baby dragon, when she thought about everything, she realized that the baby dragon was like a family to Ghost, which made the Baby dragon a family to her. After reaching immortality, she would have to spend eternity with Ghost and the baby dragon, when the whole world turns against them, they have to have each other''s back. Compared to that, the hostility between the Nagas and Dragons seemed so puny and negligible to her.
Besides deep down, she knew the Baby dragon would do the same to her if she was in his state.
"Remember Gaya, I didn''t create Lucifer to only spread fear, I created him to be the devil who punishes evil. Only then people would believe that anyone Lucifer kills is an evil person. If we let this copycat run around killing innocents, it would ruin our entire n" Michael knew she wanted to be there when he cures the baby dragon, he too wanted to have her beside him but this copycat changed everything.
She clenched her fist, "fuck it, I''ll stay here" She could understand that what Michael had said was true and she knew that he needs her here.
"Besides, you''re a lot stronger than me now. In case there''s a fight with the Holy guards, you would be able to at the very least escape"
"Yes"
"System, can you at least give me a teleportation scroll that would get me to Rainbow inds or closer to them?"
[...]
[...]
He had no reply from the system, he was just about to close the interface when he heard the familiar voice again,
[4000 badass points]
"Take it" he could swear that he sensed the excitement in the system''s voice which went back to the old robotic voice before he upgraded it to level 3.
For now, he knew he won''t get any answers from the system, so he just retrieved the teleportation scroll he just bought from the system.
"We need to find a portal," Gaya said when he exited the system.
"No need" Since Michael couldn''t reveal the fact that he just bought the scroll from the system, he pretended to draw symbols on the scroll. With the help of the system, the ordinary-looking scroll in his hand slowly began to glow? as he was drawing symbols on them
"What are you doing?"
"Creating a teleportation scroll, I can''t create them often as it would take a toll on my mental health but I had to use this skill this time" she would have stopped him if she had a better way but time was on the essence and this seemed to be the only way to save the traveling time.
Keeping the scroll in his hand, Michael moved further into the dark alley,
"Happy hunting," He said before tearing the scroll. A golden light instantly wrapped around his body,
"If you can''t save Dicky, don''te back," she said, looking at the faint smile on his face before the golden light disappeared from her sight along with him.
"Return to me safely human, I have a confession to make" as she said, she retrieved the love potions she took from the batch he brewed. She looked at the two potions onest time before crushing them to oblivion.
During their trip to Royalnd, she felt her feelings for him had indeed grown stronger. Initially, she wanted to test herself using the love potion but now, she decided to confess to him because she couldn''t imagine a life with someone else.
Gaya was positive that he feels the same way about her, only, he didn''t seem to make the first move, so she took the matter into her own hands.
The moment hees back, she would drag him somewhere alone and confess her feelings.
"For now, I need to find that copycatting fuck and y him alive" she put her hood on before leaving the dark alley with a resolute to kill the fake Lucifer.
Chapter 147 - Rainbow Island
In the sky above the Endless oceans, a human-sized golden orb appeared, it hovered in the sky for a few seconds before exploding into millions of tiny light particles revealing a youngster in full ck armor, Ghost. He stared around locking his eyes with an ind in the distance. Other than the tiny ind on the horizon, one could see nothing but an endless ocean, hence the name Endless Ocean.
"Lightning Dash"
He utilized the spell to traverse the sky over the oceans. He had already be a bolt of lightning, soaring across the sky.
"Don''t worry baby dragon, I''ll save you" As he flew, he murmured, patting his chest where the baby dragon was resting.
Michael traveled over the Endless Ocean for another couple of hours before finally reaching the ind. The tall mountain peak which seemed like touching the sky itself stood majestically, the ind was surrounded by wildlife and numerous waterfalls. What was unique about this ind was its color. When looked at from the sky, one could see all the seven colors in the rainbow on the ind. This was the first time he saw bright blue trees.
Also, the ind was veryrge, almost half the size of the Kingdom Bredia. However, there were not many people who lived on it, only a measly few hundred thousand people, and. Arge portion of it was undeveloped wilderness. A huge, hundred-meter tall stone tablet was inserted into the ground at the harbor, and on it were tworge, finely engraved words: Rainbow Ind.
Michael descended into a dense forest on the ind before walking towards the small port town not too far away. It was the only town on the ind, and the entire poption of the ind lived there.
"I never thought there would be a poption living here," Michael thought. From what he heard from Gaya, most of the powerful cultivators liked to live in secluded inds before leaving to the Cold Mountains where they would cultivate until either reaching the higher stages of cultivation or simply die of old age.
At this very moment, the sound of horses galloping could be heard vaguely in the distance. Numerous men on extremely simple horses slowly galloped over. They wore simple clothes, dust and sshes of sand could be seen on their clothes. They all had a smile on their faces, a smile that would onlye when they achieve peace with themselves.
"Kimu, this time, we must stay in the sea for at least a month. This time I want to double our usual catch" The beefy, middle-aged man riding at the frontughed aloud.
"Damn right bro. Last time we came back from the sea too soon. If I could only catch a rare fish, I''ll increase the size of my family, you know what I mean hehe" A young man in histe twenties grinned devilishly from beside the middle-aged man. His face shone bright thinking about a good no, a great time with his wife.
¡
The men spoke as they rode their horses before quicklying across Michael. His strange armor immediately drew the attention of the men, each observing the ck-robed youngster in wonder.
The group of people stopped ten meters before him. The leader, the beefy middle-aged man spoke to him, "Oi '''' Michael slowed his pace when he heard the horse galloping to get the directions to Lah''s residence as there was no big mansion in his eyesight while he was on the air.
"You aren''t a rainbow inder, are you? Where did youe from?"
Michael nced over the men. Other than the leading middle-aged man, who was at the Body Refining stage level 8, the others were only at level 5 or level 4.
Michael waved with a smile on his face, "You are correct, brother. I''m not from Rainbow ind, I came to the ind from a small kingdom in Elon continent"
The man did not notice that Michael studied them to see their cultivation level. He said boldly, "Elon Continent huh? You''re a long way from home, oh where are my manners, name is Keenan but you can call me whatever you want. If I remember correctly, thest time an outsider came to our ind seemed to be twelve years ago. How do you want us to call you, is outside okay with you? Kenna askedughing,
"I am Jake, I came to this ind looking for Miss Lah Alden." He said politely. He did not look down on these people because of their cultivation level, who knows what their rtionship with the Doctor?
"Lady, Lady Alden '''' the man quickly corrected Michael with a smile and Michael could see their admiration and devotion these men have towards this Lah Alden. If he tried to disrespect La, he was sure that these men would fight for her honor with their pikes and fiss.
Jake, you must have won some kind ofpetition and earned the chance to see Lady Alden" Keenanpletely misunderstood the situation but from his words, Michael realized thatpetitions are going on with the price of meeting this Lah Alden, his curiosity about this woman piqued.
As Keena spoke, he pointed at the tall mountain in the distance, "Do you see that huge mountain? That''s the holy grounds of the ind, called Angel peak. That''s where the Lady Alden and her disciples live"
Michael looked towards the mountain and then gave a salute with two fingers, "Thank you brother for your help. I must see Lady Alden as soon as possible, so forgive me for bidding farewell" With that, Michael lightning dashed towards the mountain before Keenan could say a word.
Very soon, he arrived at the mountain peak. He did not hide his presence so he wouldn''t look like an intruder trying to sneak into their home besides Michael could already sense two powerful presenceing at him.
"State your name and your purpose of being here at our Angel peak" A gentle, pleasant voice originated from the sky above the mountain. With two shes of white light, two young, violet-dressed women appeared, both carrying veenas.
The two females only seemed to be twenty years old. Their appearances were fair and alluring, rare beauties in the world. They were pretty enough to rival ire, Celina, Peyton, and so on. After spending more than half a year in this world, he adjusted his mind to meet angelic beauties, so their beauty didn''t surprise him much.
However, what surprised him was that the two girls before him carried a celestial aura, like fairies. They clearly had something that those beauties he met previously never had, even Gaya
"Level 10 Core Strengthening stage"
The two girls before him were actually powerful level 10 Core Strengthening stage warriors. He quickly hid his shock, then he spoke calmly
"I am called Ghost," Michael''s instincts told him to go with the name Ghost instead of the name he gave to Keenan. Something about these girls made him believe that they could sense a lie.
"I need Lady Alden''s help to save- "
"The mistress of the ind is currently in seclusion. She cannot help you now. Pleasee back another day." Although the woman sounded soft and respectful, Michael could sense a contempt in her voice, deep within.
Michael did not show any of his inner emotions on his face, after all, it was him who needed Lah''s help, not the other way around. After a slight hesitation, he asked, "Then when will Lady Aldene out of seclusion?"
"That''s up to the mistress to decide. It may be a few days, a few months, a few years, or even a few decades." The woman continued testing Michael''s patience. If he was stronger than them, he would have wiped that smug off her pretty face with a single p but for now, he could only suppress his irritation.
"Argh!"
Suddenly, a howl filled with utmost pain reverberated from a cave on the mountain peak. With it followed various rumbles as countless rocks were sent flying from the cave. At the same time, the invisible Arch Energy in the surroundings slowly gathered towards the hole, while an extremely profound presence descended from the void. Michael felt an immense pressure building up around him, making him almost kneel to the ground, it was like an invisible mountain was dropped on him. Even though he had never witnessed a sight like this before, he learned about this happening, thanks to Abras''s memories.
"Someone is breaking through to the Soul Refining stage!" A sliver of shock had appeared in his eyes.
Unexpectedly, the expressions of the two women changed. They immediately cried out, "Oh gods, he''s woken again. Quickly, use the sound of the veena to suppress his awakenings and put him to sleep again. We can''t let him refine his soul, it''d be the end of him"
The two women no longer paid any attention to Michael. They directly sat down in the air and ced the veena they carried on theirps. Then they quickly but dexterously strum the veena''s strings, creating a faint, divine melody. The pressure around Michael slowly decreased as he exhaled deeply. The melodious sounding from the veenas echoed through the air, covering the entire Angel peak mountain. It seemed to hum with space, causing slight distortions in the surrounding space. Everything around them, the trees, the wildlife, even the small particles of mud seemed to be affected by this enchanting sound.
He couldn''t help but feel rxed, refreshed as he had juste out of a world-ss massage.
"Who are these people?"
Chapter 148 - Michael And The Two Women Vs Celestial Energy
"What a powerful music!" He was secretly surprised. This music, yed by the two women, was not even targeted at him yet he could feel the overwhelming radiation of power in the air around him. If it was targeted at him with the purpose of hurting him, he would have literally blown away from the mountain, he was sure of it.
"Junior Sister, make him fall asleep with the Mayan sleeping tune. I''ll try to keep his soul from getting refined," one of them said grimly. Although she seemed to be a powerful cultivator, it was extremely difficult to prevent someone''s soul from getting refined and reaching the Soul Refining stage.
"Yes, Senior. I''lle help you as soon as I put him to sleep" The other woman spoke sternly before abruptly changing the way she yed the veena. The music produced became much softer, and it contained a soul-soothing charm. The melodious tune could pierce through all barriers to affect the spirits of people, causing them to feel rxed and sleepy.
The other woman''s music also changed. Her tender fingers had already turned into blurs as they danced about on top of the veena strings, causing a lethal melody to fill all the surroundings. It caused the air around them to surge like a storm where the surroundings reacted to it.
Under the effect of this lethal melody, all the particles in the world and Arch Energy around the ind were affected. All kinds of energy gathered from every direction under the melody''s control before merging up to form a great, tightly-knit but invisible,yering together to seal up the entire mountain and, as a result, obstruct the Arch Energy to be used in soul refining.
In addition, silvery notes shot out from the veena one by one. They quickly flew towards the Arch Energy with a destructive aura radiating in an attempt to interfere with the Arch Energy. Michael had long sensed that the Arch Energy they were blocking was extremely powerful, it was far superior to the Arch Energy he had seen and used. This superior Arch Energy was called Celestial Energy, anyone above the Core Strengthening stage could use a small portion of Celestial energy in the world. The higher they climb up the cultivation stages after the Soul Refining stage, the more one could utilize the Celestial energy in the world to cast a spell or increase their strength.
The Celestial Energy slowly descended from the sky with an intense aura. As the destructive notes shed with the Celestial Energy, it would ripple slightly, but it did not disperse and soon collided with the huge. The could only slow down its descent, but it could not stop it.
The Celestial Energy slowly sank into the, descending towards the cave.
The woman who blocked the Celestial Energy looked grimmer than before. The melody yed by her abruptly changed, and the destructive feeling suddenly disappeared, reced by a muffled tune.
This time the woman yed the strings of her veena at a much slower speed, but with every string she struck, a muffled sound would reverberate in the sky. It contained great power as if it was capable of directly crushing the hearts of people. The surroundings were also greatly affected, and the entire region of space distorted greatly. As for where the Celestial Energy descended, space was directly annihted, creating a ck hole with a diameter of five meters in an attempt to engulf the Celestial energy.
"Holy Shit" Michael felt a cold chill crawling through his spine when he saw the ck hole in the sky swallowing the Arch Energy in the surroundings.
He did not dare to break the two girls'' concentration by opening his mouth, he just held onto a mountain wall, trying not to fly into the ck hole.
The Celestial Energy descended from the sky after passing through the various obstructions; even though there was the huge invisible created by these two girls, it continued forwards with an extremely steady pace. No matter what stood in its path, nothing could stop Celestial Energy from advancing. It directly ignored the ck hole formed from the destroyed space and passed through it, continuing onwards.
"The Celestial Energy this time is much more powerful thanst time. Junior, quickly make him fall back asleep, I can''t keep this much longer." The woman responsible for blocking the Celestial energy''s descent seemed desperate and, shortly afterward, the melodies rang out hurriedly once again. The visible waves of sound shot out with great lethality, flying towards the Celestial Energy.
But even with all of this, it was unable to stop the descent of the Celestial Energy. Currently, the Celestial Energy that slowly descended from the sky was less than a thousand meters from Angel peak Mountain.
"Argh!" A shrill cry filled with utmost pain rang out. Shortly afterward, the cave in the distance rumbled loudly a few times, causing the entire mountain to shake slightly.
"Gods! his mind and soul are resisting the tunes. I''m failing to make him fall asleep" The other woman''s expression changed greatly, shouting at her junior.
Hearing that, the face of the woman who was responsible for obstructing the Celestial Energy darkened, drops of cold sweat could be seen on her pretty face. After a few moments of silence, she spoke out, "There''s not much time left. If he doesn''t fall asleep, he''ll die for sure when the Celestial Energy reaches his soul. Use the soul-controlling melody!"
With that, the woman turned around to Michael. She requested, "Ghost, please help us fight the Celestial Energy from descending"
"Just what''s happening?" Michael asked bewildered. How could he, a mere Body Strengthening cultivator fight the Celestain Energy? At least if he had the system online, he would have felt somewhat confident in fighting the Celestial Energy but the system wasn''t online, hence he was reluctant.
"There''s no time to exin it right now. We just can''t let the Celestial Energy descend on him, or he''ll die " The woman replied with a rushed, deep voice, while she continued ying the veena. Visible powerful sound waves shot towards the Celestial Energy, slowing its descent.
After a slight deliberation, Michael did not choose to stay idle, not because of the goodness of his heart but to help himself by helping these girls. If he refused to help them, they would definitely chase him away, no questions about that. He simply couldn''t leave the mountain without meeting Lah who was the only hope he had to save the baby dragon.
"What can I do?" He asked, preparing to help these girls.
"Attack the Celestial Energy!" Just like any other energy in this world, Celestial Energy had no physical manifestation. He could only sense the high concentration of the Energy above him, shing with the barrier created by the girls.
Michael cracked his neck before stepping on his flying sword to fight the Celestial Energy. He did not however use the lightning dash to fly towards it headstrong in case the Celestial Energy was too intense for him to even get close.
[Energy Devourer activating¡.]
[System is in Safe Mode...]
[Energy Devouring failed...]
"Damn it!" His face was lit by the first notification but soon, the light was put down byter notifications. He let out his frustrations by punching the center point of the Celestial energy concentration.
Except when his fist collided with the Celestial Energy, it actually just passed through. Unlike the normal Arch Energy, the Celestial Energy was not tangible as his punch did not affect it at all.
The light in Michael''s eyes flickered. With a thought, he conjured the Arch energy in his body to surround the space before him, freezing the particles in the air in an attempt to slow down the Celestial Energy''s descending.
However, what surprised Michael was that Celestial Energypletely ignored the frozen space. It moved about freely, just as before, and slowly descended.
"Fuck it! Wind st" since he found no way of stopping the Celestial Energy, he frantically shot out sts of wind at the energy.
Surprisingly, the wind st proved more useful than his punches or freezing the air around him. Each st distributed the trajectory of the Celestial Energy, slightly, very slightly slowing the energy.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 badass points]
Michael quickly turned his gaze at the two women to see a slight shock in their eyes, it was hardly worth mentioning but it was there, a mix of shock and surprise. The 5000 badass points motivated him to fire numerous wind sts at the Celestial energy without worrying about the Arch Energy limit in his body. He always knew the wind st can''t be a useless spell and now he was proven right.
However, this did notst for very long. Although Michael''s wind sts proved to be useful against the Celestial Energy, it was not near powerful enough topete with the Celestial Energy, and since Michael was only a Body Strengthening cultivator and the spell was at level 2, the Celestial Energy continued to descend, pushing Michael further and further down.
Watching as the Celestial Energy grew closer and closer to the cave, Michael also became uneasy. He was currently pondering over whether he should keep fighting a battle that he cannot win.
Just as he was thinking, an elegant but powerful veena melody slowly appeared in the sky. It seemed to be divine, and with its appearance the entire space became blurry. Clear ripples had appeared.
At this moment, the entire region of space seemed to be a huge veena, while the ripples of space that constantly appeared were the strumming of strings. As the strings formed from the space were constantly hit, bending thews of this world and causing the space around Angel peak Mountain to be its own world, a different domain.
And in this domain, the descending Celestial Energy was forcefully halted, as if they were locked up mid-air by mysterious energy and unable to move at all.
When the two women heard the veena, they immediately rejoiced, they heaved a sigh of relief as their faces brightened. They both stopped ying and called out, "Mistress, you''ve finallye out of seclusion!"
"Argh!" A shrill cry rang out from the cave again. It was filled with pain as if it was enduring unbearable torture.
"And you''re still not sleeping!"
A gentle voice originated from the space, and it seemed to be filled with an utmost charm. With just a single sentence, it seemed to be able to make everything in the world fall asleep. With that, the cries from the cave finally stopped, and shortly afterward there was the sound of something heavy falling onto the ground, followed by nothing but silence.
The words did not only affect the person gone mad in the cave. Even Michael was greatly affected, he immediately felt refreshed and calmed. His eyelids felt heavy, and they became drowsy.
However, he returned to his senses very quickly. The charm of the sound could no longer be described as terrifying. If he was in a battle and they suddenly became distracted, as a world''s best assassin, he knew a second of distraction would cost his life.
"This is terrifying" Michael mumbled, he couldn''t help but feel a small sprout of fear growing inside him.
Chapter 149 - Eight Great Clans And The Ghost Of The Past
The almost-divine veena music continued to linger in the air. The music was gentle. It seemed like the music was using a special method to control the world itself, forcefully manipting the space.
Michael looked upwards at the blue sky, eyes filled with a mix of shock and surprise. As a cultivator, he could feel the changes in the world around him. Thews of the world were changed by the sound of a veena. Considering Abras did not live long enough to learn about thews of the world and cultivators who could manipte them, Michael had little to no knowledge about the world''sws. He could only sense the changes but couldn''t understand thempletely.
The mysterious person who yed the veena already had a terrifying level of understanding for the veena as well as thews of the world.
The descending Celestial energy was forcefully trapped by the music. They paused for a while before slowly rising up the sky, being forcefully sent out of the region. Eventually disappearing from the Angel peak mountain.
In the blink of an eye, the Celestial Energy that two Core Strengthening level 10 cultivators struggled to deal with, were nullified by a mysterious, hidden person in a couple of seconds.
Soon, a dark blue-robed woman walked over slowly and gently from the distance. She was tall and her raven ck, glossy hair fluttered in the wind. Her face was obscured by a dark yet slightly transparent veil, revealing her clear eyes. Her eyes were bright and as pretty as lotus petals. Her lean slender fingers caressed the veena strings. She had the perfect hourss structure that many women could only dream of, gracefully she descended from the sky like an angel.
She was clearly vastly different from ordinary girls. Although her appearance was hidden, it was not difficult to imagine how beautiful she was. In Michael''s heart, Gaya was the prettiest girl he has ever met but this woman dethroned even her, she was that beautiful.
He could not help but take a step backward. This was not only because the woman''s strength was terrifying, but also the skill she used to defeat the Celestial Energy itself. She used the veena to control everything in the surroundings and injure enemies. Her ability with the veena had already reached a shockingly scary level.
"I greet mistress!" The two women courteously greeted the blue-dresseddy with their veenas in their arms. Not only was she the mistress of Angel peak mountain Ind, but she was also the master of the two of them.
His eyes narrowed abruptly, and he called out huskily, "Wielder of Angel''s veena, Lady Lah Alden'''' Michael slightly bowed to show his respect, he didn''t dare to show any discourtesy as the woman was the strongest person he met ever since he came to this world, a freakin Fusion stage cultivator. The power she radiated was so great that he was only able to sense her stage, not the level.
Lah Alden stood in the air with her veena while a colorful light flickered in her captivating eyes. She shifted her gaze slightly and looked towards Michael in the distance. Instantly, a sliver of surprise shed across her calm eyes, "Hmm...a 5-star Alchemist, I don''t think we''ve met before" She said softly before silently mumbling under her breath "it can''t be a coincidence"
Lah Alden''s voice was extremely gentle, like the most pleasant tune in the world, yet also carried a bewitching charm. She was able to affect the moods of people from just her voice.
Michael''s mood was also wavered slightly by Lah Alden''s bewitching voice and what. However, with his willpower, he tried to avoid being bewitched using all of his willpower. He did not think she intended to bewitch him but the power gap between the two of them was so great that Michael felt like this.
"How did she find out?" Michael''s heart skipped a beat when she identified his specialization of Alchemy with a single nce.
"I''m called Ghost, Lady Alden, and I never got the honor of meeting you before" He had never been so respectful and courteous towards anyone until now, after all, he stood top of the world of assassins back on earth. Aftering to this world, with the system''s help, he climbed thedder fastly as he never needed to be afraid of anyone. Even when he faced Julius of Phoenix ind, he did not feel a sliver of fear because he had the system and the teleportation scroll with him to escape but now, he had neither. Therefore, he decided to be rather respectful towards this Lady Alden just like everyone else than getting kicked off the ind or worse, killed by her.
Lah Alden stared at Michael unblinkingly with her pretty eyes for a while, before speaking gently, "if I''m right, you''re a disciple of a sect called Sunrise"
"You are right, Lady Alden, I''m indeed a core disciple of the Sunrise sect" Again Michael was surprised at the fact she actually knew about a declined sect in a backwater kingdom. How did she know? The question poked Michael''s mind.
Lah Alden gave a short nod before turning her gaze towards her students., "Johana, Nerita, go have a look at his situation."
"Yes, mistress!" The two women replied courteously before flying towards the cave together and disappearing into it.
Michael''s eyes followed the two disciples as they moved, watching them disappear into the dark cave in the distance. He could not help but be curious, so he asked, "Lady Alden, just who is the person living in that cave? What just happened?"
Lah Alden gazed towards the cave in the distance, and only after a few long moments, she started speaking slowly, "He was cursed by one of the eight Great ns. An extremely powerful andplicated curse was ced in his soul, sealing his talent and preventing him from reaching the Soul Refining stage. If the Celestain energy reaches his body, it would activate the curse in his mind, turning it into a battlefield. The curse would use the Celestial energy and wipe out his soul from existence forever, not even a 6-star Healer can revive him after that"
"Eight Great ns?" Michael repeated softly, his voice filled with a sliver of confusion.
Looking at the bewildered expression on his face, she spoke gently, "Given the current situation, you should know about this. The Eight Great ns are the most powerful organizations on the four continents. Most of them have existed for an extremely long time, having already existed even before the Guardian Guild had appeared in ancient times. Of the eight ns, other than the Guardian Guild, humans have two more. Among the five, elves, dwarves, beastmen have one great n each while the seal folks have two"
Michael was stunned, he tried to look not too shocked. Until now, he thought defeating the Guardians guild would make his path to be this world''s ruler easier but now, he realized that controlling the world will be harder than he imagined. Since he never left the Elon continent and Gaya had little knowledge about the other continents, it was natural for him to be clueless about the other Great ns in this world.
Lah Alden continued, " if it was any other elves, lifting the curse would have been easier but the one who put the curse on him was an elven great mage of the Elven Great n, the ArchAngels. You may have heard of this poor soul from your Elders or your Sect Leader"
"huh?" As soon as he heard that, Michael was surprised. His expression changed several times before asking out, "Lady Alden, who is this person?"
"His name is Christopher Merigold, your sect leader''s grandfather. It seems the gods have sent you to help me save him" Lah Alden replied softly.
He waspletely stunned after hearing her words. "Wasn''t ire''s grandfather supposed to be dead?" Michael asked himself. ire herself told him her grandfather died during one of his adventures and it was her father who went missing which led to the downfall of the Sunrise sect. He always wondered how one man''s disappearance could affect an entire sect, leading to such a poor state but now, everything slowly started to make sense, if someone from a Great n like Guardian Guild put aplicated curse on ire''s grandfather, it would make sense for the great mage to hold a grudge and destroy everything the man built.
"Christopher Merigold? How can I help him? What is she talking about?"
Her lips slightly curved upwards, revealing an alluring smile
"You came here looking for me to save that death-kissed dragon, right? She pointed at her fingers and the very next moment, he felt something pulling out the baby dragon from him. The baby dragon hovered in the air without moving, his crimson red scale hadpletely turned grey except for a few scales thanks to the healing potions.
"Follow me" Lah Alden spoke softly, carrying a bewitching charm with her words. She then started to slowly descend and fly towards the cave before disappearing into the cave. Michael did not hesitate at all as he entered the cave in a sh.
The cave was filled with fist-sized luminous pearls which gave off a soft light, illuminating the entire cave. When Michael had traveled a hundred meters in, the space before him suddenly opened. He had arrived at a huge cavern of several dozen meters in radius. Currently, the walls were covered with cracks while some loose pebblesy scattered across a floor covered with ditches. It was a mess.
In the center of the cavern stood Johana and Nerita. Meanwhile, a disheveled, tattered-clothed, beggar-like old man slept soundly before them. His body was emancipated due tock of replenishment to his body and soul and on the ragged robes he wore, Michael saw the familiar symbol, a rising sun, it was without a doubt the crest of the Sunrise sect.
Michael looked at Lah to see her examining the baby dragon.
"Go on, talk to him" Her voice was extremely in, without the slightest emotion. Initially, he wanted to save only the baby dragon but now, he wanted to save this old man. It was not because he loved to see the old man reunite with his granddaughter but if he could save the old man, he would have a powerful Soul Refining stage cultivator protecting his base of operations, plus, by lifting the curse and reuniting the family would make the old man loyal to him, this would make recruiting this old man as his subordinate easier in the future.
With these thoughts in his mind, Michael gently walked over and stared fixedly at the old man on the ground. The old man''s face was ancient and haggard. He was currently sleeping peacefully.
.
"Johana, Nerita, y the song of fairies melody."
"Yes, mistress!" The two women did not hesitate to crossed-air and ce the veena on theirp. As their fingers moved slightly, a wonderful veena sound was immediately generated.
It was gentle, filled with serenity. It seemed to be able tofort the emotions of a person, to allow that person to calm down. When the music reached Michael''s ears, his slightly excited and frantic feelings also disappeared very quickly, making his mind calm.
Lah Alden touched a string of her veena with an elegant finger. With a slight trembling, a note appeared that immediately began to slowly wake the sleeping old man.
Chapter 150 - A Way To Save Them Both
The sleeping old man slowly opened his eyes while a sliver of haggardness and great exhaustion appeared on his face. As he woke up, his mind jerked. He could not help but trigger the descent of the Celestial Energy to be a Soul Refining stage cultivator, but the descent was immediately suppressed by the soft sounds of a veena.
"I thank the ind mistress for saving my life. This old man is unable to repay the mistress''s aid" The old man looked towards Lah Alden dully. His voice was extremely weak as Michael could barely hear the wordsing out of the old man''s mouth. In his exhaustion and pain, he even failed to notice the baby dragon in La''s hands.
"No problem. I''m helping you because I feel nothing but pity for you" Lah Alden spoke indifferently before turning to Michael, "Make the best use of the time you have to ask what you need to ask. This melody will only temporarily suppress him, but it can''tst very long."
The soft sound of the melody was heard by Michael and made him feel extremely calm. He hesitated slightly before pulling out a pendant made of orange stone from his space ring and showed it to the old man,
"Do you recognize this?"
When the old man saw the pendant in Michael''s hand, his expression changed greatly. He called out, "This... this is...this is... no- how could... this be?"
Michael became slightly excited, but his excitement was suppressed by the veena music. He stared fixedly at the old man before speaking "Perhaps you recognize this jade pendant?" Michael took out another pendant, unlike the previous pendant, the pendant he just took out had a glowing to it.
He received this pendent from ire after he became the Core disciple of the sect. There were various different types of pendants, and all the people, from disciples to the teachers, Elders, and guards, had one. Michael''s pendant was the pendant given to a Core Disciple.
The old man carried a mixed expression as a sliver of nostalgia appeared in his eyes. He recognized the origins of the pendant with a single nce, especially the morning sun''s orange and the aged cracks on the pendant. He would never forget it, as it was created by no one but himself, decades ago.
"Where..where...did..you get this..pendant?" The old man asked. His expression was extremelyplicated, a mess of emotions emerged in his eyes.
Right now, Michael had essentially confirmed his suspicions, he knew this man was ire''s grandfather, the previous leader of the Sunrise sect. "It was sect leader ire who gave it to me"
A gleam of light immediately shed across the old man''s eyes. He took a closer look at Michael before saying, "Are you a disciple of the Sunrise sect of Bredia?" The old man''s voice trembled gently and carried a little excitement. Currently, even the song of fairies melody could no longer suppress his emotions.
"Yes, I''m the Core disciple of the sect" Michael also became excited.
"System, can you be able to lift the curse after youe out of the safe mode?"
[yes]
Hearing the system''s answer, Michael''s excitement skyrocketed despite the fact that he still didn''t cure the baby dragon.
The old man epted the jade pendant from Michael''s hand to examine it closely. He murmured to himself, "ire, my little bear!" The old man disyed emotions of reminiscence, and two trails of murky tears slowly flowed down his face.
"Sect Leader Christopher," Michael said respectfully.
"Sect Leader Christopher!" The old man murmured before smiling at himself, "it''s been countless years since someone addressed me like that" the old man weakly smiled, behind his smile, Michael saw an immense pain.
Great shock appeared in both Johana and Nerita''s eyes as they witnessed this, both still ying the veena. The young man who appeared out of nowhere was actually a disciple of the old man''s sect. The sudden change of events greatly stunned the two of them.
Christopher wiped off the ears with great difficulty, "How...how is ire? Just how is the sect after so much time?" Christopher asked.
"Sect leader ire is doing just fine but I can tell you that she''s missing you every single day and don''t worry about the sect, everything''s perfectly fine" Michael lied because he did not want to reveal the sorry state of the sect and depress the old man even further.
"That little girl has be a sect leader" Christopher revealed a smile of relief on his sallow face. He continued, "So many years have passed, is Elder Sandra still alive?"
"You have nothing to worry about, Sect Leader, everyone is just fine," Michael reassured the old man again, he wouldn''t forgive himself if he let the old man die of a heart attack before he could recruit Christopher as his subordinate.
"Youngman, I don''t think I wouldst long enough to see my little girl" Christopher scurried the ground beside him to fish out a jade box,
"Please, give this to her, she deserves this"
Michael did not ept the jade box but asked him in concern, "Sect Leader, what happened to you? How did you get cursed by an Elven great mage?"
Michael seemed to touch on the source of Christopher''s pain. It caused his eyes to be dull, while deep sorrow appeared on his face. Only after a while did he begin speaking, "if I don''t tell you now, ire may not know what happened to her family forever" Christopher let out a long sigh. The color of reminiscence appeared in his eyes as he murmured,
"ire is not a pure-blooded human, she was born to my son and an elven general, sha of the house can" the old man''s words shook Michael''s heart, he never thought ire was a half-elf.
"Marrying a human was a forbidden act in elvennds but because the love they had for each other made sha elope with my son," Christopher said with an immense regret behind his voice.
"I helped them settle in Bredia, we were a happy family, young man" tears rolled out of the old man''s eyes, his mouth curved upwards thinking about the happiest memories.
"The day ire born was the happiest days of our life, we had everything until" the old man paused, a glimmer of anger rose within his eyes,
"Until the Elven mage found us during one of our family outings. sha fought with the mage, giving us the time to escape but the elven mage was too powerful, he captured her and cursed me and my son before teleporting to the elvennds. ire was too little at that time to remember what happened to her mother. For ire, her mother passed away. My son and I tried our best to fight the curse and rescue sha but my son died fighting the curse, it should have been me" Michael could see the pain and anger in the old man''s eyes, even he himself felt a sliver of anger at those elves. They could have simply banished sha, letting her live her own life but instead of doing that, they destroyed a happy little family.
"I never thought your family and the elves have a history, what they did to all of you is horrible," Michael said, feeling sorry for them. Then he turned his gaze towards Lah,
"Lady Alden, you said I may be able to help him, tell me what do I need to save them both" Only now the old man looked closer at Lah to see the greyish baby dragon, his eyes instantly widened in shock
Standing to one side, she watched the scene with no emotions on her face. After a slight pause, she said, "Yes, I know a way to help him and heal this dragon but it will not be an easy thing, in fact, there''s a strong possibility that you will die if you chose to help them"
When Michael and Christopher heard what she had said, both of their eyes glowed immediately while the light of hope began to shine in their hearts. Michael asked hurriedly,
"Lady Alden, if there''s something I can do to help them both, I will do it in a heartbeat" He did not back off from saving the baby dragon just because of her words, this was the time for him to take a risk. If anything goes wrong, he could always buy a teleportation scroll and escape, he was grateful to the system for at least letting him buy a teleportation scroll regardless of its current state.
[The system urges the host to take this risk] just as he was thinking about the risk, he heard the system''s voice in his head, it almost sounded like a plea. He frowned but since he already decided to take this risk, he did not ask any question to the system.
Lah said slowly, "There is something called Demon Dragon heart in The Treacherous Ocean. It''s condensed soul energy left behind by an ancient demon dragon. Although it won''t break the seal, if you can find the heart, you can temporarily suppress the curse in his soul and cure the death kiss. He can then live at least for another two hundred or three hundred years of his life without suffering"
"Treacherous ocean huh," He said with a deep voice. Shortly afterward, the light in his eyes glowed bright and brighter. For Michael two hundred years were more than enough to lift this curse because he did not n to let the system continue being on the safe mode. If he could bring the system back online and get the price of lifting the curse, he would eventually earn enough points to save the old man.
Chapter 151 - The Powerful Seafolks
"No, the Treacherous ocean is the second most dangerous ce on the Elon Continent, after the Demons Grave. Even if Soul Refiner enters it, they might not be able to return. And something as great as the heart would only grow in the depths of the Treacherous ocean. The dangers in the depths are several times deadlier than those on the outskirts. Youngman, you must not go to the Treacherous ocean. I can''t let you sacrifice your life to save this old bag," Christopher said sternly. He was a disciple of one of the great ns, he read plenty of books about the dangers of the world, including the Treacherous ocean. As a result, he knew about the Treacherous ocean extremely well.
"Sect Leader, I''m not doing this solely for you, I''m doing this for the both of you. Just like how much you love your granddaughter, I love that little dragon. If this demon Dragon heart could save him, I will get it. With the heart, I can not only save him but also suppress your curse. You can''t just give up and die Sect Leader, your granddaughter deserves better, she needs you" Michael spoke resolutely. He needed to go to the Treacherous ocean, no matter how great the dangers were to save the baby dragon. He did not fear it at all, as he had a gut feeling that this trip may bring the system back online.
"Christopher, your disciple fought the Celestial energy without getting himself blown to death. Although it is rather dangerous to him, I think he can take care of himself if he''s careful." Lah ''s nature-like voice appeared from one side.
"What? You survived fighting the Celestain energy descent?" Christopher immediately became stunned. He stared nkly at Michael while great billows blew in his heart. For Michael, he did not realize how great a feat that he survived fighting the Celestial Energy descend. If he had known before that he could have exploded into a bloody mist, he wouldn''t have chosen to even get near the Celestial Energy. It was the reason the two students of La were stunned to see him disrupt the Celestial Energy while being a mere Body Strengthening cultivator.
"I could have died? Those bitches" having heard the way Lialha talked about him surviving the Celestial Energy, he realized that it was a miracle he survived. He cursed at the two women who pushed him into the fight knowing that he could die made him want to kick the crap out of them. What if I died? The mere question put a few cold sweats on his back
Michael showed those grave thoughts behind his head, nodding slightly, "Sect? Leader, you should believe that I have the strength now. I''ll definitely find this Demon Dragon heart in the Treacherous ocean and save you both"
He reassuringly patted the old man''s hand before leaving the cave. Raising his head, he looked at the cloudless blue sky before sighing deeply, He slowly suppressed his jumpy emotions. Today''s encounters were like a dream to him; he had never thought that he would find the supposed to be the dead grandfather of ire on the Rainbow inds where he came looking for the so-called Doctor who then turned out to be Lah Alden.
"Copycat, eight great ns, Celestial Energy...damn this day has been a ride" He exhaled deeply.
"Well, why am I still thinking that this Lah is hiding something?" He rubbed his chin when he heard Lah''s voice from behind.
"You need to think this through. What you seek can only be found in the depths of the Treacherous ocean. Do you really n on going?" Lah ''s voice appeared from behind. He turned back to see her gracefully walking towards him carrying the baby dragon in her hand.
There seemed to be ripples in her eyes. They were alluring as if they could suck in the souls of people, which stunned Michael. However, with Michael''s willpower, he did not loseposure, "Please inform me of the whereabouts, Lady Alden."
Lah stared fixedly into Michael''s eyes. Michael did not show any signs of retreat and stared back at her. He remained calm throughout.
Thissted for a while before Lah finally nodded, "The Treacherous ocean is known for its illusions. Various apparitions will appear, and the deeper you go, the stronger the illusions be. If you even slightly lose focus, you will be lost within. Your willpower should be enough to barely handle ordinary illusions.? Without this death-kissed dragon, you asked me the same question,? I would have just given you a map and sent you on your way but this is a blessing in disguise"
"I knew she''s up to something" deep within those serene eyes, Michael noticed a hidden intention thanks to his ability to read people.
"You can''t notice this but this dragon radiates both the aura of the living and the dead because its soul is half a step into the realm of the dead. Using this dragon''s aura, one can avoid being detected by most of the apparitions in the Treacherous ocean. Since this decreases the danger of traveling into the ocean by several folds and the Demon Dragon''s heart is also extremely useful to me, I''lle with you" she said while caressing the baby dragon''s greyish scale, he was still lying dormant in her hands.
"Aren''t I a lucky bastard?" Hearing her words, Michael was pleasantly surprised and his confidence in this trip into the Treacherous ocean increased greatly. Although he still didn''t know the full extent of her power, she was able to change thews of the world as well as disperse the Celestial energy through her veena melody, which was shocking enough.
Soon after Lah discussed something with her students, Michael and Lah headed for the Treacherous ocean together, leaving behind Johana and Nerita to guard the ind.
The sky was fine and cloudless, it fused with the northern seas far away, as if it was a beautiful piece of art. With a slight wave of her hands, she covered both of them with Celestial Energy to soar through the sky. Michael''s body jerked before they already became faint blurs, shooting across the sky silently as there was not even a whistling of the wind.
"Lady Alden, if you don''t mind me asking, can you tell more about the Sea folk?" As they flew, Michael asked, looking towards Lah. At first, he wanted to ask why was she healing a few people of Royal Land under the name of ''The Doctor'' but weirdly, she did not ask him how did he find her identity, therefore, Michael did not choose to question her intentions in case she had her own selfish reasons that she did not want him to know.
Considering even his encyclopedia of this world, Gaya, had little to no knowledge about the so-called Sea Folk, he decided to get some info on them from Lah.
A sliver of shock shed across Lah ''s eyes. She turned and nced at Michael, asking, "why do you want to learn about the Sea Folk?"
Michael hesitated slightly before saying, "To be honest, as a guy who loves to travel around the world, I want to know more about the ces and races I have little knowledge of. People in Bredia don''t have much knowledge about the Sea Folk race, Lady Alden"
She stared at him for a moment, she could tell he was genuinely interested in knowing more about the Sea Folk and since they have a long way to go, she didn''t mind telling what she knew about the Sea Folk to pass the time.
"Their existence is simr to magical beasts. They also cultivate by absorbing the Arch energy and can take human forms and speak humannguage. They don''t possess intelligence any weaker than humans, either. The Sea Folk race inhabits the very bottom of the sea and takes up a ratherrge region of the oceans, while the entire region is encased by an extremely powerful barrier. This barrier was created personally by the Water God during primordial times, and even Fusion stage cultivators like me can''t break the barrier. Not only does it separate the seawater, it holds it back at a range of several thousand meters. At the same time, it protects the Sea Folk from invasions of another species" She paused for a moment and went on,
"To the Sea Folk, this barrier acts as if it doesn''t exist. Although it''s unbreakable to most of the people onnd, it will let anyone under the Core Strengthening stage enter the sea domain"
"Anyone under Core Strengthening stage...hmm" he took a note in his mind as she continued,
"I''ve visited the Sea Folk twice before. Although I don''t know the situation there very well, I have some rough, general knowledge like they not only hate humans, but they also disapprove of them very much. If human experts want to survive there, they must be extremely cautious. Once they offend a member of the sea folk race, they will receive the hatred and pursuit of various other Sea Folks until they die or escape from the sea domain which is very unlikely once the sea folks put a target on them"
Michael pondered in silence for a while before continuing his questions, "Lady Alden, just how powerful is the Sea Folk? Compared to the humans in the Elon Continent, are they stronger or weaker?"
"The Sea Folk is very powerful," Lah said sternly. "In the ancient times, all the races except the Sea Folks waged war with each other for resources,nds, and whatnot. All sides suffered great losses, and several half immortals fell, ending their legacies. Since the Sea Folk never took part in these ancient wars, their strengths and legacies were preserved perfectly. Although there aren''t as many Half Immortals across the entire Sea Folk as the ancient times, it''s still not something the Elon Continent or the beings living on thend can match. It''s just that the Sea Folk evolved from marine organisms, so they''re only made to inhabit the sea. In the sea, it''s much easier for them to achieve greater results in cultivation. But once they leave the sea, cultivation bes severalfold more difficult. They have always stayed in the sea and have basically nevere to thend. This is because the sea is their holynd."
Chapter 152 - Origin Of Diddle Diddle
"The SeaFolk race is split into mainly three factions, the Water God Hall, the Sea Serpent Hall, and the Arctic Hall. These three hallsbined to make one of the two Great n of SeaFolks. ording to what I''ve learned many years ago, the Water God Hall is the most powerful among the three and has an elder that has already reached the half Immortal stage. The other two halls each have one or two Fusion stage warriors as well. This was many years ago, who knows how many Fusion stage and Half Immortals or even Immortals they have among them" for the first time, he heard a sliver of awe in her voice.
"One-half immortal and two Fusion stage warriors, wow" Michael was also astonished by listening to Lah. As she said, this was years ago, he could only imagine how powerful they are now. He did not think any one of the races living on thend was weak but because the SeaFolk never took part in any wars, he knew their strength is far superior to thend crawlers.
If he could, he wanted to visit the SeaFolks soon. He had gained a rather rough understanding of the SeaFolks from Lah. After getting some ideas about the SeaFolks, he continued to ask Lah about the other races along the way, slowly expanding his knowledge about this world.
The ocean they were flying above was enormous, several timesrger than the Elon Continent. Even though The Treacherous Ocean was very close to Rainbow Ind, it took the two of them a full day and night of flying at such a speed before finally arriving.
The Treacherous Ocean was a region of sea shrouded in a dark mist and stormy clouds. The sound of thunderps reverberated the entire sea while violet streaks of lightning kept lighting the gloomy clouds.
The Ocean itself seemed endless. Currently, Michael and Lah hovered in the sky a couple of kilometers away, staring at the mist cautiously.
Lah knew that Michael''s understanding of The Treacherous Ocean was limited, so she exined, "The real dangers of the treacherous ocean lies in an ind within the thick mist. We need to pass through the mist to reach there. You must never underestimate this mist. It''s extremely powerful and strange, as soon as you enter it, all your sensory abilities will be suppressed, and your vision will also be greatly affected"
Michael nodded, immediately bing vignt. The Treacherous Ocean was a dangerous zone, second only to the Demons Grave. He could already see his Environmental scanning is being disrupted by some kind of interference.
"System, can you upgrade the Environmental Scanning?"
[Unable to upgrade spells...]
[The System is in safe mode!]
Michael kinda expected this but it did not hurt to try. Since he got no help from the system, he had to rely solely on himself, on his skills as a hitman/assassin.
"Let''s go in. Follow me closely and don''t stray away from me. You might see some illusions in the mist, but you need to remember that all of them are just illusions" Lah spoke with a soft voice, before handing over the baby dragon back to him. She then ced Angel''s Veena into her left hand and gently yed her other hand onto the strings.
Seeing how cautious Lah was, Michael raised his own vignce by taking out a few shiny bright orange pills and eating them like candy. The pills he just took were the Perception pills, he concocted these pills as the new badge using a few herbs he brought from the Sky garden.
The Perception pills had the ability to increase the consumer''s sensors and perception by approximately four times and because his Environmental scanning is being disrupted by the Treacherous ocean, these pills helped him stay keen about the surroundings. Although the pills were not as great as the Environmental scanning, taking the pills was better than nothing. It only took a couple of seconds before he felt his senses getting heightened.
He turned to see even the smallest details of Lah''s robes like those few dust particles on the robes, the teeny tiny birthmark on her slender neck that he didn''t notice before.
"Lady Alden, you want some?" He quickly stopped checking her out and asked her.
"No, thanks" she gently shook her head. He shrugged, putting the baby dragon into his pocket, and moved closer to Lah before they slowly flew towards the fog together.
As soon as he entered the fog, Michael felt like he had stepped into another world. It was misty white all over, even with his heightened vision, he could only see five meters ahead.
"Even with your dragon''s aura around us, we''ll encounter some attacks in this mist. Be careful." Lah ''s voice appeared on one side. Michael unsheathed his sword as he did not underestimate this ce, not even for a bit.
The two of them advanced carefully. They did not travel very fast, while the light in their eyes flickered, carefully observing the surroundings.
At that very moment, a white light suddenly appeared, shooting like a lightning bolt towards Lah.
"Be careful!" Michael cried out, directly shing his sword at the light.
"Ding!" However, Lah ''s reaction speed was faster than Michael''s. The finger she had ced on the veena strings plucked gently, and a note rang out. It turned into a sound wave, colliding with the white light before Michael''s sword could cut it.
The ball of white light turned into a pile of dust and fell from the sky without any sound.
Michael stared nkly at the pile of dust, "What is that?" just a moment ago he did not manage to see what the ball of white light was.
"Those are mutated fish that inhabit the nearby water. Its speed is especially quick, and this fish has already reached the strength of level 5 Body Refining beast" Lah spoke indifferently. She clearly had an extremely great understanding of the ce.
Hearing this, Michael was secretly shocked. People like Victoria were boasting about their cultivation speed when they were at the Level 5 Body Refining stage but here, even a mere fish was at that exact level. A cultivator could manage to easily kill the fish just how Lah did but Michael knew if those fishes came to attack with hundreds of its friends, they would be in deep trouble. Coupled with the limited vision thanks to the mist, even a Core Formation warrior could be killed if hundreds of these fishes attacked together.
The two of them continued their way in the mist. After the attack from the weird fish earlier, he became even more watchful of his surroundings. Thest time he checked, the Responsive shield was still working, therefore, he did not need to worry about the attacks of anything under Body Strengthening stage level 6. However, he could tell that he''s going to meet stronger foes further down in the road.
As they advanced deeper and deeper, the weird mist also became thicker and thicker. Michael''s heightened range of vision had already shrunken to two meters, crossing the two meters, he could see nothing but the misty-white screen. For others, looking through the eyes was the only way to see but for Michael, he trained to perceive the surroundings using all of his senses. He listened and smelled on top of looking to be aware of the mist. Even though Lah''s figure started to be blurrier, he followed her behind smelling the alluring fragranceing from her.
"Lady Alden, just how big is this area? How much further until we leave this damn region?"
"We need to travel roughly a hundred kilometers more to get out of this mist. With our current speed, it should take five or six hours, if we are lucky" Lah spoke calmly while her bewitching eyes flickered, vigntly observing the surroundings.
At that very moment, another few streaks of white light shot from the surroundings with lightning speed just like before, except, this time Michael had sensed them thanks to his enhanced hearing. He swiftly shed at the two streaks of white light without moving his body too much. There was no fancy move, just a? in simple sh but it was lethal enough to take two lives.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 mutated beast. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 200 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Refining stage level 8 mutated beast. The reward is 6000 Experience points and 200 Badass points]
Soon, the two white streaks of light turned into dust, falling near his feet.
Just as he lifted his sword to kill the rest of them, a clear note suddenly rang out. It turned into a visible sound wave that expanded into the surroundings. As the streaks of light came into contact with the sound wave they immediately turned into a pile of dust, ripped apart by the veena note.
Michael narrowed his eyes slightly in a way it could not be detected. His recognition for the woman''s strength increased by a level; she could disy such strength with just a casual note. Even if these fishes were at the Core Formation stage, he could tell that they would not be able to withstand the power of her notes.
Continuing onwards, Michael and Lah both suffered constant attacks from the mutated fish. With each wave of the attack, the number of fishes that attacked them increased significantly. Fortunately for Michael, they didn''t get attacked by fishes stronger than a Body Strengthening stage 5. He shed and diced them effortlessly, this put a small smile on his face as he acquired quite a lot of experience points killing these fishes. He would have killed more if Lah didn''t massacre the majority of the fishes of each wave with a single note from her veena.
The two of them flew steadily through the fog for seven continuous hours before passing through the region of fog and reaching the outskirts of The Treacherous Ocean.
The deeper they went, the thicker the mist became. After over eight kilometers, the mist had be so thick that he could barely see anything. Only the faint fragrance at Michael''s nose signified her existence. This made Michael rely on his nose to detect where she is, using the fragrance from her body.
Suddenly, Michael felt the mist before him surge violently. Shortly afterward, a blurry figure suddenly appeared, before quickly bing clearly visible. It was a man in histe sixties, he wore a ck suit and ck trousers, in one hand, he held a bloody knife while in the other, he held a silencer attached Beretta 92. Michael stared nkly at the old man who is smiling wickedly at him. His emotions were overwhelmed by disbelief. Along with disbelief, in Michael''s eyes, a cocktail of anger, fear, and respect could be seen.
"Diddle...Diddle...Diddle...we...are...so little" The old man slowly uttered these words, stirring the buried emotions deep within his heart.
"Spectre!" Michael unconsciously called out. His voice was filled with rage, and even his eyes became rather bloodshot.
Chapter 153 - Origin Of Ghost
Michael''s heart began to tremble violently, and he tightly clenched his hands. He knew that it was an illusion from the mist, so he was unable to do anything about it. All he could do was remain clear-headed and not fall into it.
At that very exact moment, Michael''s body jerked violently. To his side, he suddenly saw a redhead girl who seemed to be in herte twenties walking out of the mist to stand next to the old man. Just like the old man, she too wore a ck suit and trousers with a ck-tie but her white shirt was drenched in blood.
"You...you killed me!" Suddenly, the girl, with her bloody face, saw Michael and cried out. Her voice was extremely miserable, it contained a mix of anger as well as sadness. Soon after the girl, more and more ck-suited people drenched in blood appeared out of the mist. All of their bodies were littered with bullet holes.
Michael''s body began to tremble violently while a monstrous killing intent had already appeared in his heart. Just when he was staring at the twenty people he knew extremely well, more figures walked out of the mist, and this time, they weren''t grown men in ck suits but gentle-looking women and little children. Themonality between thetter and the ck-suited people was they all had bloody wounds.
"This is all an illusion. Spectre is dead, all of his students are dead, I killed them" Michael constantly mumbled to himself, forcing himself to calm down. Although he knew this was all just an illusion, what was happening was actually Michael''s greatest anguish.
"Aren''t you gonna save me, Michael?" the girl called out for help once again. Her despaired voice was heard by Michael, slowly piercing Michael''s heart.
"Argh!" A miserable cry came from the other side, he turned to see one of the gentle-looking women was shot in the chest by one of the ck-suited people.
The woman copsed in a pool of blood. Her clothes were dyed red by the blood, and even the ground had be red. The children were screaming in horror but it just put a wicked grin on the ck suit man''s face as he slowly made his way towards the children like a tiger hunting a group of helpless rabbits.
"Michael...Michael... save- save- save them¡" the woman who got shot by the man looked towards Michael lifelessly, and spoke weakly. The light in her eyes was quickly disappearing, soon bing dull. In the end, sheid on the ground, unmoving.
Michael''s heart trembled greatly, while overwhelming anger and sadness clenched his heart. Two streaks of sorrowful tears flowed from his eyes without any control. Although he trained himself to ovee the emotions, he failed to keep himself calm seeing the sight in front of him. It was an unimaginable mental blow to Michael to see the orphanage he grew up getting ughtered by the ck suit man. After he cleansed the arms dealing operations that put him in the path of bing a hitman, he killed every single person who had a link to the criminal organization that ran the orphanage. It was his training. After cleansing the orphanage, he really thought the orphans there could have a better life than him, yet, it was the same man who trained him who ordered the massacre of his orphanage.
Knowing that he was the reason for their deaths was Michael''s greatest grief and regret. The illusion conjured by the mist had already deeply affected Michael.
"I asked you to kill one kid, only one, Ghost. If you hadn''t refused, they would have been alive right now, well except for that one kid" Spectre, the old man said, ying with his pistol. The sight of his smiling broke the barrier that suppressing Michael''s anger.
"Argh!" Michael roared powerfully at the sky. The sound was earth-shaking, resounding in the entire region. With the roar, an immense murderous aura, along with extremely dense killing intent, began to radiate from his body, The Arch energy in his body poured steadily into the sword, causing it to glow brightly with its dark light. Afterward, Michael swung it towards the old man who was smiling at him.
Thrum!
Suddenly, a loud and clear veena sound, like a huge bell, appeared. A powerful sound wave with visible ripples collided with the sword in his hand, and the powerful strike directly forced the sword to bounce backward.
Not only did the bell-like sound block Michael''s attack, but the remaining sound waves also entered Michael''s mind. It collided with his spirit like a boulder, causing Michael to feel like his head was exploding. He could not help but cry out painfully.
"Just mere, inferior illusions got you good. This is only the very outskirts of the Treacherous Ocean; there are more powerful illusions further on in. I really wonder how you''re going to handle those." Lah''s cold voice suddenly appeared in Michael''s mind.
Michael immediately snapped back to reality. A moment ago, when he had swung his sword at the enemies that killed his orphanage, he actually swung the sword at Lah, not at the old man.
"The illusions here really are powerful," Michael mumbled gently. His emotions, affected by the illusions before, slowly began to calm down.
"The illusion wasn''t strong, your mental state is too weak. The illusion sucked you in so easily. It originates from your heart and mind, if your heart and mind are wless and free from worries, how would a mere illusion affect you? This illusion can be considered as the weakest type, there''ll be more powerful ones once you enter The Treacherous Ocean." Lah spoke coldly.
"Looks like I''m overestimating you. Perhapsing to The Treacherous Ocean with you was the wrong decision." she didn''t change her cold tone at all.
Her words really bothered him but he agreed with her. Although he trained himself to suppress his emotions, he did not achieve perfection as Spectre.
He couldn''t be evenpared with Lah in mental power, after all, he was still too young. Even with his two lifetimesbined, he was less than sixty years old. Meanwhile, people like Lah were people who had lived for centuries with enough descendants to form arge house. Michael may ovee them in terms of talent because of the system, but he was nowhere close in terms of life experience.
The illusion was able to mess him up too much because of the bond he had with the orphanage and the people who lived there. Michael treated them with too much importance, practically viewing them as more important than his own life at one point in his life. He had clearly known that the images in the mist before were illusions, yet he still could not help but fall for them; Michael still was unable to endure the things happening despite knowing it was all fake. That day, he lost everyone who knew the real him, after that day, he became Ghost. The reason he chants ''Diddle diddle'' before killing was to remind himself not to be like the man who trained him, Spectre. Never take a life without a reason and conscience, this was Michael''s code.
People like Lah on the other hand would not fall for illusions such as this as easily as Michael. They had lived for centuries, or even millennia, and had plenty of descendants. They probably have witnessed some of them dying of old age themselves. As a result, they would no longer treat the bond of the family as important and would be able to resist the illusions easily.
Illusions originated from the mind and heart. If there were concerns or obsessions, the mist would create illusions ordingly, disying your weakest point right before you.
Illusions did not test a person''s strength, but a person''s heart and mind. He may have seemed like an invulnerable perfect person, but he was just a human being with his own ws and imperfections at the end of the day.
Michael''s mind became much more resolute after experiencing what had happened before. He stared into the mist before him. The mist continued to surge, tossing about and changing around as if there was something ready toe out. However, Michael''s state of mind immediately became like still water, free of any ripples. He did not think about anything, nor did he guess about anything, the silhouettes of the people instantly vanished from his sight except the old man''s figure, he was following Michael.
Michael ignored the old man, continuing to follow Lah. After over two hours of slow-flying, he and Lah finally passed through the region of fog. The misty-white nket had finally disappeared from before them, reced by deep blue seawater.
"Haaaaa," Michael breathed out loudly. He felt much more rxed after passing through the mist. He looked around but only saw that the surroundings and sky were all a surface of white. They were enveloped by ayer of dense, yet odd, mist as if it formed the edges of a separate world. The only thing still lingered around from the mist was Spectre but Michael knew the old man was in his head, not in front of him, so he ignored Spectre.
Below him was deep blue seawater. The water was smooth, like a mirror, and without any ripples, stagnant. It was extremely strange. In the center of all that was a huge ind. It had an extremelyrge surface area and did not seem like it could be called an ind, but rather a small continent. The ind was mountainous, littered with trees, and was entirely nketed by a thinyer of fog. It was hazy, adding on ayer of mysteriousness.
Michael stared cautiously at the huge ind before him and asked, "Is this the Treacherous Ocean?"
Lah looked towards the ind before her. She was rather stern, and she said, "Correct, this is The Treacherous Ocean, as well as the holynd of the former Dragon n, Dragon Ind. Many millennials ago, there were not Eight but Nine Great ns, the strongest of them all was the Dragon n.
But something happened to them and changed the once Great Dragon n to the current Treacherous Ocean"
"What happened to all those dragons?" Michael asked in doubt.
Lah shook her head gently, "I do not know much about what happened in that age either. The very limited information on this matter all originate from rumors or those ancient records in the kingdom of Nagas. However, not a lot is recorded regarding what happened to the Dragons who lived in that age or to the Dragon Ind"
Chapter 154 - Lailah Vs Rock Golem
"Alright, let''s stop guessing about this, there''s no point. We''re currently on the outskirts of The Treacherous Ocean. Remember, the fog was not the real danger, the real dangers are on this ind. When we enter the ind, we have to be extra careful. The Demon Dragon''s heart should be in the very center of the ind."
Michael and Lah both flew towards the ind,nding on it soon after.
"In ancient times, the Dragon n filled this with formations. These formations automatically absorb the Arch Energy and even Celestial Energy to replenish themselves. Although it''s been countless centuries since they were firstid down, a few that were set by remarkable experts still remain. They may not be as powerful as before, but we still need to be on guard." Lah exined to Michael in detail about some areas that he needed to be aware of on the Ind.
Michael observed the ind as he listened to Lah talk. They had already passed through the region of mist, fortunately, his sight was no longer obstructed and much clearer now.
The two of them slowly walked forwards, both were extremely careful as they traveled.
At this very moment, the ground suddenly began to violently shake. Four rock walls rose from the ground, forming a room and trapping the two of them inside. The rock walls radiated with a faint, golden luster while extremely powerful and pure energy vaguely being radiated from the rock walls.
Soon afterward, stone spears coated in golden light began to arise from the walls. With whistling sounds, they shot towards the entrapped Michael and Lah at lightning speed.
Dense clusters of spears shot from all directions, locking the two of them out of any paths for escape. There was only the misty-white sky left for them to flee. Michael prepared himself to take off to the sky when he was stopped by Lah.
"Remember, you must never fly above ten meters in the sky. The dangers in the sky are several times greater than on the ground." Lah''s cold voice sounded in Michael''s ears as she faced the spears calmly and unperturbed. Shortly afterward, she gently struck a string with her finger, the next moment, a veena note reverberated in the area. It spread out in all directions as a visible wave of sound.
The sound wave contained an unbelievable power. Wherever it passed by, the rock spears disintegrated, turning into a pile of dust in the air.
The visible sound wave cut through the surroundings like a hot knife through butter before colliding forcefully with the rock walls that trapped them in. With a rumble, the walls trembled violently before crumbling to the ground.
The confining rock walls could only be used against anyone under the Core Formation stage, it was nothing to a Fusion Stage cultivator-like Lah. However, it would be almost guaranteed death if? Michael alone had been trapped by it.
Breaking out of the rock walls, Michael and Lah continued on their way, walking directly towards the general region of the ind.
In the following part of the journey, they both experienced constant attacks from various traps. However, these attacks were not prepared for a Fusion stage cultivator, because of that, they were unable to pose much of a threat to Lah. The journey was frightening, but not very dangerous.
Roar!
Suddenly, a loud beast roared in the distance. The ground began to shake gently as a humanoid giant of over fifteen meters in height ran towards them from afar at an exceptional speed, constantly roaring along the way.
"A Rock Golem" Lah calmly muttered. The Rock Golem ahead radiated an aura of a level 4 Core Formation warrior.
Soon, her finger moved gently on the veena string, and a sound wave immediately shot out towards the iing war beast in the shape of a sharp arrow.
Cruk!
The arrow formed from sound pierced through Rock Golem''s chest. Rock Golem''s overwhelmingly powerful defense was akin to soft butter before it, and the arrow punched a head-sized hole with no difficulty. Yet, no blood flowed out.
The Rock Golem seemed to feel no pain, continuing onwards towards the two of them with great steps as it roared mindlessly along the way.
Lah remained the same as before. Her white, elegant hands constantly danced around on the strings of her veena, producing beautiful sounds by ying it. With each note, a powerful sound wave shot out with lightning speed and struck Rock Golem''s body.
The Rock Golem did not dodge at all and continued in its charge towards the two of them in a straight line. Meanwhile, its huge, fifteen-meter-tall body was now riddled with holes while its head was already smashed to smithereens.
But even with all that, even with its head missing, the Rock Golem did not die. It did not even slow down, much less show pain. It continued charging at the two of them without any pauses.
Witnessing something so huge and dangerous as the Golem, he felt grateful towards Lah because he knew he had a very slim chance to defeat the Golem.
"Well well well, the number one hitman of the world is hiding behind a woman, I thought I taught you better" the old manughed at Michael but he ignored the old man''s ridicule.
Gentle veena sounds, concealing killing intent within, constantly rang out. Lah''s gaze remained calm throughout. Her right hand danced about on the veena strings, sending out waves of powerful sound at the huge Rock Golem.
Rock Golem''s injuries became even worse after receiving such dense attacks. Its two limbs were quickly severed, while arge portion of its chest shattered. It had shrunk to one hundred and ten meters in height from the original fifteen.
Any other magical beasts or living beings would have passed away long ago if they were in such a state. It was guaranteed death. However, the Rock Golem behaved as if it waspletely uninjured; its remaining half of the abdomen and its huge, thick legs continuing to run with huge steps. Each and every step caused the ground to tremble constantly.
Rock Golem was soon less than a kilometer away from the duo.
Looking at Rock Golem, he prepared himself for a serious battle. Tiny cracks of golden lightning had started to dance around his fingertips.
At that very moment, consecutive closely-packed and frantic veena notes rang out. Lah''s right hand had slid across the veena, ying three of the seven strings together. Immediately, a series of densely packed sound waves radiated outwards, filling up space before them with visible ripples. The ripples joined together like a spider web, before quickly shooting towards the Rock Golem like a fis.
The fis of sound passed through Rock Golem''s body without any obstructions and disappeared into the distance. Soon, the huge Rock Golem copsed loudly. Its entire body had be cubes of rock that fell to the ground, carved into countless pieces by the of sound waves.
Michael stared at the countless pieces of the Rock Golem curiously. After this battle, he couldn''t help but wonder how powerful a Fusion stage Rock would be.
"Lady Alden, is every Golem this powerful?" Michael asked Lah. His heart was filled with curiosity and awe.
After a short moment of silence, Lah replied, "No, the reason for its strength was the Treacherous Ocean itself, this ce mutates everything. The beasts here have no soul, they can''t feel any pain and they are practically an indestructible army"
"Indestructible army huh" Michael mumbled softly, imagining an army of these Golems and beasts under hismand.
"The Rock Golem in front of you cannot be killed, no matter what you do. Even if you obliterate its body, it''ll recover in no time," Lah continued.
The countless pieces of stones on the ground began to move about in one ce as soon as she finished speaking as if it was providing evidence for her statement. It condensed into the fifteen meters tall Rock Golem once again after just a short while. Its body waspletely unharmed, and even its head had recovered to how it was before without the slightest sign of injury.
Michael''s pupils narrowed to the size of a needle, and he immediately gasped coldly. He eximed in wonder, " My horizons really have been broadened today" Michael turned to Lah and asked, "Lady Alden, so how would one kill this Rock Golem?"
"Although the Golem consumes a great amount of energy every time it reconstructs its body, its strength will decrease slightly. So, there''s only one way to handle it, kill the Golem until it''s used up so much energy that it can''t rebuild its body," Lah said.
"We can always run away," She said but he felt like she was testing his knowledge
"Lady Alden, I think If we do that, it''d just keep following us. Also, I don''t think we can move around carelessly in this ce. Once we let it follow us, themotion might draw the attention of even more mutated Beasts"
"Good" she nodded as he gave an answer she wanted. After putting some distance between them and the recovering Rock Golem, Lah started to attack the Golem again and this time, Michael joined the fight by sending bolts of lightning at the Golem. Under their teamwork, the Rock Golem did notst very long at all before being obliterated once again.
However, its body quickly began to rebuild once again. It gave out an earth-trembling roar and attacked them mindlessly. For Lah, Golem''s moves were slow but it was an entirely different matter for Michael who was just a Body Strengthening stage cultivator. However, the perception pills and his natural instincts came to the y as he continued to evade Golem''s punches until it was obliteratedpletely.
The Rock Golem was destroyed into countless pieces of stones by Michael and Lah time after time. Its strength decreased greatly every time it rebuilt its body. After killing it a dozen or so times, the Rock Golem was finally unable to restore its body due to the overconsumption of energy. Its diced body partsy scattered on the ground. Since Lah was the one who dealt the final blow every time, he did not get any badass points or experience points at all but he valued his life more than the badass points or experience points.
Lah walked over leisurely from afar with her veena in her arms. She did not even look at the Rock Golem, " Let''s go. Themotion from before was too loud. Other Magical Beasts are probably going to rush over here very soon"
"Look at you, running away like a chicken" The old man''s figure appeared again behind him and snickered before they left the area.
Chapter 155 - First Killing Formation
Michael nced deeply at the countless pieces of stones of the Golem. He did not say anything and silently followed Lah away.
Just as the two of them traveled several kilometers, they immediately felt several powerful presences appear behind them. They were all from magical beasts and Golems that had reached the Core Strengthening stage. Not too long afterward, another dozen or so weaker presences appeared from behind, all of which were at the Core Formation stage.
Michael looked back. Through the thin mist, he could see several human figures and silhouettes of huge magical beasts currently pacing mindlessly around the Golem. Michael understood that they were the same as the Golem: bions that were made an unknown number of years ago by the Dragon n. They had neither intelligence nor souls and moved about ording to their instincts.
"Come closer and keep the death-kissed dragon''s aura around us and don''t make any signs to alert them. We may not fear them, but getting tangled with them will be problematic." Lah whispered to him.
"Lady Alden, I can vaguely see humanoid creatures back there, what are those?"
"They are those who ventured into the Treacherous ocean and died many millennia ago. Just like everything else here, they too have no soul and feel no pain"
"Just how many of those things are there?" Michael asked another question. His face didn''t have the usual cool smile as he seemed very serious. All these beings in The Treacherous Ocean possessed indestructible bodies. They felt no pain and had no fear. If the two of them were surrounded by these mutated beasts, it would be extremely troublesome or even life-threatening.
"The Treacherous Ocean has already existed for countless years. During that period of time, plenty of human experts and intelligent beasts have ventured into it. Some of these have fallen in search of or battling over treasure, while others have died simply because of The Treacherous Ocean. Over the years, the experts that have died in The Treacherous Ocean have already umted a terrifying number. Every person that dies here will be like them, immortal and unaging. As a result, the number of powerful beings in The Treacherous Ocean will only increase, and never decrease. Today, probably even powerful organizations like the Nine Great ns have no idea about exactly how many Fusion stages or even half immortals there are in The Treacherous Ocean. The only reason we were able to make it this far is because of the aura of the death-kissed dragon. If we weren''t surrounded by this aura, our presence would have alerted even more powerful mutated beings or the formations set by the Dragon n"
Michael felt even more heavy-hearted. No wonder Christopher became so afraid when he heard the mention of the Treacherous Ocean. While following Lah, he couldn''t help but wonder that if the second dangerous ce was like this, how terrifying the Demon Grave would be, which is said to be the most dangerous ce in this world. Even a Fusion stage cultivator survived here this long only because of the Death kissed dragon''s aura. Otherwise, they could easily face life-threatening dangers with just apse in concentration.
"Whoa!" Michael''s body jerked.
Suddenly, the scene before them changed greatly. The original ind disappeared instantly, reced by an endless desert. A ming-red sun hung in the sky, scorching the ground with terrifying heat, raising the temperature of the entire region to a terrifyingly high temperature.
" We''ve fallen into a formation" Lah furrowed her eyebrows and spoke with a deep voice.
Michael immediately unsheathed his sword and looked around for any activity vigntly. He also ate some perception pills again, preparing for another battle. He had witnessed the horrors of The Treacherous Ocean so he did not dare to be careless at all.
Suddenly, the ground began to tremble violently. The ground where Michael and Lah stood slowly began to sink into the ground and, at the same time, their feet were trapped by the moving sand, constantly sucking and dragging both of them underground.
"Fly!" Lah spoke coldly. With a flick of a finger, a sound wave immediately collided with the ground, turning the sand trapping their legs into dust. She immediately began to float.
Michael did not hesitate either. He stepped onto the flying sword and put Arch energy into the sword. The devastating force of the Arch energy turned the sand into dust, propelling him out of the ground.
The sand below the two of them constantly sank down, forming a huge ck hole. A putrid smell wafted from it. Just a breath of it was suffocating.
Soon afterward, the entire desert began to tremble violently before forming a weird but huge, almost two hundred-meter-long monster. The horrid gaping cavern below the two of them was the enormous mouth of the beast.
The monster seemed like a lizard that had been magnified countless times. It had light brown skin with countless cracks, radiating scorching hot. Its entire body seemed to have formed from sand.
"This is a region created from the fusion of a killing formation and an illusionary formation," Lah mumbled softly. She could tell that it was all an illusion with a single nce.
"The formation here was cast down by experts of the Dragon n. It''s extremely well-hidden, so it can catch peoplepletely off-guard. We need to be careful in the future. It''s fortunate that the formation just then was not as powerful as before, or it wouldn''t have been that easy to break free from it." Lah said indifferently.
Michael nodded sternly. His fear for the formations was even greater than Lah''s. The illusions of Spectre were still following him and affecting his focus as the old man was so life-like. He did not fall prey to another illusion.
Several powerful presences quickly flew over from the distance at that moment, attracted here by themotion, hurrying over from all directions.
Michael and Lah immediately flew away from the monster. The living corpses all behaved instinctively; they were unable to perceive things visually, unable to see anything. Theypletely relied on sensing foreign presences and activity to search for living organisms, thanks to the Death kissed aura, they were unable to pinpoint Michael and Lah''s location.
Michael and Lah traveled far from where they were before. Living corpses that hurried over in the meantime, from everywhere. They all stopped where the two of them were before lifelessly. They paced about mindlessly, without dispersing for a very long time.
The two of them advanced carefully, where Lah discovered traces of many formations and a few living corpses, both human and magical beast. They kept a wide distance from them, so the journey was frightening, but there weren''t any battles.
The two of them flew with their guards up, asionally stopping to look around. They had only traversed a couple of hundreds of kilometers in over half a day, yet they still remained in the outskirts of The Treacherous Ocean. They had not even reached the general region of the ind.
The sky, concealed by a thickyer of fog, darkened slowly, the darkness of night filled up The Treacherous Ocean slowly. As expected, both of them were unable to see in the darkness of The Treacherous Ocean, which caused the range of their vision to shrink constantly.
Lah traveled with her veena in her hands. She looked at the darkening sky, and her bewitching eyes became rather stern. She said, "It''s darkening. It''s not suitable for us to travel at night. We need to find a stop to rest for the night and continue tomorrow."
"Fine with me, Lady Alden," Michael replied calmly.
Eventually, Michael and Lah spent over an hour finding a cave that was spacious enough. The cave curved about inside and was about a hundred meters long, so they did not fear that they would be seen inside.
At the end of the cave, Lah produced a fist-sized luminous pearl from her Space Ring and lodged it into the roof of the cave. It shone with a gentle light, illuminating the darkness. In The Treacherous Ocean, the living corpses were extremely sensitive to any ripples of energy ripples as well as objects that never usually appeared in The Treacherous Ocean. This was why they could not light a fire. The heat and smoke would travel outside and draw in the living corpses or the Golems or any other weird beings in the area. The only way for light was through the luminous pearl.
Lah sat down and slowly closed her eyes after lodging the pearl in ce. She paid no attention to Michael while he ignored the old man sitting beside him and applied the Healing potion on the baby dragon''s greyish scales.
He then found a clean part of the ground and sat down with his legs stretched out. He nced to his side, ncing at Lah who always kept her face concealed.
"You are not the Ghost I know, kid, you have be weaker"
"Get out of my head"
Michael closed his eyes for a moment, calming himself down. Looking away from Spectre, he cast away the distracting thoughts in his mind and began to look into his situation.
He first opened up the system''s interface to see it''s still in safe mode. His remaining sword was almost on the verge of breaking because of the fight he had with the fishes and the Golem on their way. The sword''s condition was not his worry as he knew a sword alone won''t make much difference in front of these living corpses and Golems. He needed to depend on the baby dragon''s death-kissed aura and Lah to survive this ce.
"You forgot the first lesson I taught you kid, never depend on someone else other than yourself. What are you doing?"
"The rules have changed, Oldman, this is not the earth," he said, gritting his teeth.
"People like us can''t depend on others, kid"
"As I said before, this is not earth. If I wanted to rule this world, I have to depend on others"
"Hahahahah" the old man burst intoughter, although Michael could understand all of this was happening inside his mind, it felt so real.
"That''s the most childish thing I heard in my entire life, kid. Do you really believe you can rule this world? People like us don''t get a happy ending, there will be always someone on the good side to put us down, it''s only a matter of time before someone put an end to you kid"
"I know it''s not you talking but my own subconscious mind" Michael gave a short p to the back of his head and ignored the old man.
"I need some fresh air" he then stood up to take a walk.
Chapter 156 - Overpowered Michael I
"What are you trying to do?"
Just as he stood up, a chime-like voice appeared from behind him. Michael abruptly looked backward as he heard it. Lah had already opened her eyes. Her limpid eyes seemed to contain ripples like autumn water, staring at Michael with a bewitching charm.
Michael remained calm, staring back at Lah, "I''m going for a walk"
Lah slowly closed her eyes and said gently, "Remember where you are right now. You can''t make trouble, not only will you lose your life but also lose the baby dragon, our best chance to survive this ce"
"Lady Alden, don''t worry. I''m not going to mess around with my life." Michaelughed gently, before concealing his presence. He walked outside silently.
It was already pitch-ck outside the cave. The sky was dark, devoid of any stars. Michael''s vision was affected by the darkness in The Treacherous Ocean as well; it was not as bad as the fog where his hand would leave his range of vision if extended, though it was still limited to only several hundred meters because of the perception pills he took.
Deathly silence lingered in the surroundings, with no sound at all. It was as if only Lah and he were in the entirety of The Treacherous Ocean without any other traces of life.
Michael calmly stood at the cave''s mouth, staring at the ce. He did not make any sound at all.? Suddenly, Michael''s ears twitched slightly. Soon after, a gleam of light immediately flickered in his dull eyes. He suddenly raised his head and stared fixedly into the distance, bing grim in a sh.
A whileter, several dark figures slowly emerged in Michael''s vision range. They traveled on the ground, walking slowly in Michael''s direction, their movements were stiff like robots. Drops of sweat began to drip down from his head staring at the figures, they were all at Core Strengthening stage and he could even sense some Soul Refining humanoid figures among the dark figures.
Michael''s m expression was reced by a stern look. Locking his gaze with the dark figures, he slowly backed away without making a sound.
"shit, they found us" Michael was shocked, he had no time to wonder how as he rushed to the end of the cave. He needed to tell Lah about this.
Perhaps she had sensed Michael''s hurried steps, Lah had already opened her eyes when she arrived at the end of the cave. Even in a situation like this, she maintained her gracefulposure.
"Lady Alden, there''s a group of Core Strengthening and a few Soul Refining mutated creatures heading towards the cave," Michael said silently.
Hearing that, Lah''s expression changed abruptly. She stood up suddenly, eyebrows furrowed and expression grim.
She could handle a few fallen Core Strengthening mutated beings, but she seriously doubted that she could fight a group of Core Strengthening beings and a few Soul Refining beasts at the same time. The battle would alert even more mutated beings, furthermore, it was night right now. Visibility in The Treacherous Ocean was too limited, while the dangers were unknown. It was even more dangerous than fleeing in the daytime.
"Just how far are they from the cave?" Lah asked, her tone was stern.
"Around four hundred meters," Michael replied. Neither of them dared to speak aloud.
"This cave must have been where they once stayed. Quickly, we need to leave here immediately." Lah showed no hesitation, running towards the outside with the veena in her arms while Michael followed closely behind her.
Both Michael and Lah knew the oue extremely well if they met these mutated beings. Even with the baby dragon''s aura, the mutated beings still would be able to sense them if they became too close.
The two of them hurried out of the cave. They movedpletely silently, without making any sound at all. Both of their faces turned pale when they arrived at the entrance of the cave. There were seven human mutated beings, and they had already arrived within fifty meters of the cave entrance. They were all expressionless, with lifeless eyes and stiff movements like robots. Furthermore, they were all at the Core Strengthening stage.
When Michael and Lah arrived at the entrance of the cave, he scanned the area and then heaved a small sigh of relief because the Soul Refining stage mutated beings were far away from the Core Strengthening stage group, which gave Michael an idea. Powerful auras immediately began to radiate from the mutated beings'' bodies as surging energy trembled in their bodies. The region turned into a storm of energy instantly.
"Fuck it, I have to use that" he was saving that item for a dire situation and this was such a situation. He quickly promoted the system to show his storage. Inside the dark bluish system storage, a vial radiating golden rays of light appeared in front of his eyes. It was the healing potion he got by opening his first gift box aftering to this world. (Refer to Chapter 3 if you have no idea what I''m talking about)
He received two healing potions and because he had no other way, he used one to save Raylene and her baby. The one in front of him was thest healing potion that could make him immune to any attacks for two full minutes. He knew two whole minutes of immunity is a super op thing and now is the time to use the potion.
"Lady Alden, do you have a sword or anything like that to fight these things?" To get the most out of the healing potion''s effects, he needed a good sword or a weapon to kill these mutated beings. The sword on his back was in no condition for another life or death battle.
"Why? You are not strong enough to fight them"
"Trust me, Lady Alden, I have a way" seeing no other way and the confidence in his eyes, she flicked her wrist as a bunch of swords and spears appeared on the ground before Michael. All of the weapons that just appeared were either Epic or Rare, he did not have time to study them to pick the best. He just picked two swords with brown hilts and silvery des, of course, they were Epic weapons.
She creased her brows, having no idea of what''s he nning,
"Lady Alden, use your strongest attacks on the mutated beings im targeting and try to keep the others from me. Don''te closer to them, use the distance to your advantage, and after exactly two minutes, we make a break for it, hopefully before any Soul Refiners appear"
"That''s my boy," the old man beside Michael pped. Lah on the other hand furrowed her brows, "You''re going to fight them head-on? You have no chance of winning"
Roar!
All the mutated beings produced monster-like roars at the same time. They no longer remained like before with the roar, bing much more nimble. With a few blurs, the seven Core Strengthening warriors charged at Michael and Lah.
"I got this" just after these three words escaped his mouth, Lah saw him take out a golden color elixir and finish it in one gulp.
"Our time starts now" in a blink of an eye, Michael turned himself into a bolt of lightning and dashed forward, targeting one of the muted beings.
The Arch energy in Michael''s body flowed steadily into the two swords in his hands. He used the Lightning dash, arriving before one of the Core Strengthening stage warriors instantly in the form of a blur. He stabbed the sword that radiated with the energy of destruction into the corpse''s chest with lightning speed.
The living corpse did not show any intentions of dodging as it faced Michael''s attack. It paid no attention to Michael''s sword, directly throwing a punch at him. His mastery over swords and nimble body let him easily dodge the attack.
Cruk!
One of the swords passed through the person''s chest without any obstructions, reappearing on the other side. Again, there was no blood or even any signs of pain on the person''s face. Meanwhile, his fist continued towards Michael with great strength.
Michael used the lightning dash, dodging the punch in a blink of an eye. He quickly evaded to the side, shing the person using both of his swords, they directly chopped away half of the mutated person''s chest, leaving only half of his body connecting the upper torso and lower half. He did not stop from cleaving its body into two halves but continued to slice and dice the body.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage level 7 Mutated being. The reward is 90,000 experience points]
"Wind st" ignoring the notification, he raised his hand, shooting a wave of forceful wind from his palm to send the diced body parts flying in all directions.
At this very moment, another two Core Strengthening stage warriors attacked Michael at the same time from the side. Their attacks were extremely simple, bluntly hurling their fists without any fancy tricks.
Ding!
Suddenly two visible notes of music pushed the mutated beings away from Michael and disoriented them and the music was powerful enough to rip off the mutated beings'' hands-off, allowing Michael to slice and dice them before wind sting them to far away.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage level 7 Mutated being. The reward is 90,000 experience points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage level 7 Mutated being. The reward is 90,000 experience points]
The falling of the three mutated beings did not stop the rest of them from attacking Michael. They all targeted mainly Lah because she was the strongest and wasn''t covered by the death-kissed dragon''s aura. However, this didn''t stop them from throwing a few killing blows at Michael.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Lah saw he was punched in the face and the chest by two mutated beings but before she could actually react, he swung his whole body and shed the two of them like their punches did not hurt him at all. She was stunned by the sight because a normal Body Strengthening stage cultivator could t have survived those punches, she was sure of it.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10000 badass points]
The two swords swept through the air as a ck streak of light with a destructive aura, severing their heads. He had directly bisected two mutated beings.
As expected, even with severed heads, they quickly approached Michael, directly kicking at him.
Ding!
Ding!
At the same time, two more musical notes cut their bodies further before Michael sliced them up again.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage level 7 Mutated being. The reward is 90,000 experience points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage level 7 Mutated being. The reward is 90,000 experience points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 6!]
Chapter 157 - Overpowered Michael II
Michael remained expressionless regardless of reaching the next level. Lah''s musical notes again crushed the mutated being closer to Michael but still, it couldn''t stop it from punching him in the chest. Just like before, the punch did not affect him at all.
Michael felt like he was being hit by a huge hammer yet thanks to the healing potion, he experienced no pain. Swiftly, his right hand moved, shing the mutated being who just punched him countless times at devastating speed. The densely-packed blurs seemed to form a closely-knit, enveloping the mutated being''s body partsyer afteryer.
Michael exhibited the full power of his sword mastery. In that very moment, he had thrust his sword out over a hundred times with unbelievable speed. Right now, the closely-knit seemed to be like a meat grinder, directly shredding the mutated being into countless pieces of dried flesh.
Although the mutated beings were Core Strengthening stage warriors, they
couldn''t fight with their best because of the teamwork between Michael and Lah. Besides, they had no weapon and were unable to use the Arch Energy, since these mutated beings had no functioning brain, they did not even have the most basic awareness for dodging or resisting. All they knew was to attack outsiders with their fists, to ughter the outsiders. In a nutshell, these were all like Netherels.
As a result, the strength of the mutated beings was far from the time they were alive, therefore he was able to slice and dice them like veggies without much trouble.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage level 7 Mutated being. The reward is 90,000 experience points]
Finishing off the mutated being, Michael immediately used the Lightning dash, disappearing instantly.
Just when Michael disappeared, two fists brutally spaced into the empty space he was before. The power created a sonic boom.
Plop!
Suddenly, a visible note shed with the mutated being behind Michael, easily severing the limbs. Again, Michael sliced the body before wind sting the pieces far away, so the pieces won''t reform quickly in front of him. Unexpectedly, more mutated beats appeared out of nowhere, surrounding them. Michael already felt the effects of the healing potion fading away little by little.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 7!]
On the other side, while Michael was fighting the remaining mutated beings, Lah fought the four newly arrived human Core Strengthening stage mutated beings. She carried her veena in her left hand while her left hand constantly danced about on top of it. Sound waves collided with the four Core Strengthening stage warriors one after another. Every sound wave would create a great hole as they hit them and the knockback was so powerful that the four struggled to advance forwards.
Although Lah took a different path of cultivation, her strength clearly was much greater than anyone in the same stage as her. The special soundwave attacks carried a great strength, able to stop the advance of four Core Strengthening stage mutated beings without much difficulty at all. It was even enough to make the four of them retreat, unable to approach Lah no matter what.
Lah yed five of the seven strings with a rhythm. Each soundwave shot out from Angel''s Veena as her fingers moved, and whenever a soundwave would collide with one of the four core Strengthening stage beings, it would leave behind some energy of the veena in the air. Slowly, the residue energy umted and became denser and denser, and when it reached a certain level, Lah also stopped ying. She looked towards Michael and called out, "Retreat quickly!"
Hearing it, Michael did not hesitate at all. He immediately finished off hisst mutated being before turning into a chain of blurry figures and retreating to Lah ''s side.
Lah ''s finger slowly fell on the sixth string, which caused it to fluctuate gently.
The sixth veena string produced a clear sound. It began to tremble heavily, and shortly afterward, the veena energy that had umted in the air suddenly became extremely violent. With a boom, the veena energy immediately exploded, where the violent ripples directly ripped the seven Saint Ruler mutated beings to shreds.
Roar! Roar! Roar¡
Themotion of battle here had alerted the experts far away. Immediately, dozens of beast-like roars resounded from far away in all directions. The roars flooded the sky, essentially resounding throughout the entire Treacherous Ocean in the pitch-ck sky. Immediately, a dozen or so presences radiated over from different directions, and even further away, an even more powerful presence faintly appeared, including Soul Refining stage mutated beings.
"Leave here quickly," Lah said hoarsely. She could already feel the appearance of a terrifying presence, something that would even be able to cause her fear. It was a Fusion stage living corpse.
Michael also looked grim. Although his Environmental scanning was suppressed in The Treacherous Ocean, he was still able to clearly feel the presence of more and more terrifying mutated beasts. He had also discovered that at least several dozen Core Strengthening and Soul Refining stage warriors were currently nking them from all directions. Once they were trapped, the oue would be virtually disastrous. It could even attract even more experts.
Michael and Lah fled at top speed, fleeing into the distance as fast as they could. However, before they could get any further, the seven Core Strengthening stage warriors ripped into smithereens by the soundwaves had reformed. He was damn stunned to see the seven of them again, not because he expected them to stay dead but ording to his calctions, they shouldn''t be here this soon as he sted the pieces away in all directions and it should have taken some time to reform and reach the battle sight.
They all roared at the two of them, who had yet to flee far.
A sliver of cold light shed across Lah ''s eyes. She immediately ced the Angel''s Veena before her, beginning to y it.
However, with a sh from beside her, Michael had already charged at the seven Core Strengthening stage warriors using the Lightning Dash as he carried the two swords. He called out, "40 seconds" he counted the remaining time before shouting at Lah "Let''s go!"
Lah looked around the surroundings. She could feel that the experts rushing over from all directions were getting closer and closer. She said with a deep voice, "It''s extremely difficult for both of us to throw them off in an extremely short amount of time with our strength. Once the mutated beings arrive and surround us"
Michael shed his swords a dozen times instantly, dicing one of the Core Strengthening stage warriors with a mere face-off. He cried out, "we don''t have time for this. I know you can also sense the terrifying presence approaching us, let''s go, we are running out of time!"
His voice was heard by Lah clearly. For a moment, Lah ''s gaze becameplicated. She stood there in hesitation and did not leave immediately. Although she had reached the Fusion stage at a young age, he could tell she had not much battle experience as shecked the quick responses of Michael.
[The system urges the host to buy a special teleportation scroll for 10,000 badass points!]
"Do it!" He screamed in his mind and then he heard the system again,
[Only the host is allowed to teleport using the scroll] for a second, the system sounded like it was screaming with regret and anger.
"Fuck!" he cursed inside, turning his gaze at La before another mutated being coulde closer,
"I''ll hold them off, you get out of here!" he came in front of her shielding her from the mutated beings'' attacks while she was standing there, slightly traumatized.
"I can take these attacks for another 30 seconds, I''ll keep them busy while you fly away from here"
She had never thought that in the dog-eat-dog world where it was filled with malevolent people, there would actually be someone so stupid that they would take an almost fatal risk to block several dozens of powerful entities, just to earn some precious time for a stranger that they had only met several days ago to escape.
In a situation where death was virtually guaranteed, even brothers rted by blood could betray each other, let alone a stranger. However, she had no idea that she''s totally wrong, he was not being a white knight in shining armor but he didn''t want her to think that he abandoned her, after all, he still needs her help to get what he wants. Besides, he couldn''t let her see him use a teleportation scroll as she mentioned to him that no scrolls would work here, and if she sees him using one, it would definitely lead to some unpleasant questions.
On the other hand, Michael''s actions immediately caused a great change to Lah ''s gaze towards him. She stood there as the light flickered through her eyes uneasily. She did not know whether she should abandon Michael to flee for herself or to stay behind and fight with him. Although she had little chance of getting the Demon Dragon''s heart at the center of the ind without the death-kissed dragon of his, she could still survive on the outskirts before leaving the ind.
Currently, the great presences from all directions were getting closer and closer. Seeing how Lah still did not leave, Michael could not help but be mad. He called out, "What''re you staying here for!?"
"What will you do? You won''t survive"
"I have no time to exin, leave!"
Lah looked at Michael who was currently battling the several Core Strengthening stage mutated beings while counting the seconds in his mind. In the end, she gritted her teeth and made her decision, turning around and leaving. She disappeared into the darkness in the blink of an eye.
Even though her abilities with the veena were extraordinary, shecked the battle experience and the heart of steel like Michael. Once she was surrounded, she knew that it would be much more dangerous for her than Michael who certainly had a way to deal with them and escape.
Chapter 158 - Untapped Treasure Trove
After Lah departed, Michael slowly backed off from the mutated beings to use the teleportation scroll. Meanwhile, the presence from the surroundings was currently approaching where he was.
Michael kept the mutated beings around him busy all by himself. He constantly dealt terrifying sword wounds to them, but these injuries did not affect them at all.
They battled for just a few seconds, and five of the seven mutated beings were already diced up by Michael. However, their bodies rebuilt themselves immediately,? they werepletely indestructible.
"Time to escape kid" the old man''s voice sounded from behind.
"System, use the scroll now!" The very next moment he shouted, a golden light instantly covered Michael before a mutated being threw a punch aiming at his chest. He immediately moved his body to save the baby dragon from getting punched to death and took the punch directly on his left chest.
Currently, the violet-dressed Lah stood several kilometers away, staring in Michael''s direction showing mixed expressions on her face. She could clearly hear the noise of intense battle, which then gradually faded away.
"I hope youe back alive" Lah murmured gently. Afterward, she went off quickly into the distance with her veena, slowly disappearing into the darkness.
**************************
Somewhere far away in the Treacherous ocean, a golden spacial hole in the mid-air appeared. In a sh, the golden hole disappeared but one could see a ck figure screaming and falling from the sky.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuck"
Thud!
The ck figure hit the ground producing a loud thud noise.
the ck figure was no one but Michael who''s right hand now looked weird and bones sticking out because of the fall.
Michael spurted out blood, his chest was aching like he was being hammered alive. He was experiencing excruciating pain in his abdomen and chest and he could tell, he had broken a couple of ribs.
Gritting his teeth in pain, he willed the system to give the healing potions he brewed from the system storage. The healing potion appeared on the ground as he slowly reached out his left hand to pick it up, fighting the pain inside of him. The fall broke his arm, but the punch he received from the mutated being just before activating the teleportation scroll messed up his inside. Luckily, there was only a milliseconds difference between the punch and the end of the golden healing potion''s effects.
Cough!
Cough!
He coughed out a mouthful of blood again while checking to see the baby dragon''s condition. Hisst-second dodge thankfully saved the baby dragon, he heaved a sigh of relief.
"You bettere back to life stronger" he nudged the sleeping dragon with his bloodied fingers. Shockingly, the corners of the baby dragon slightly, very very slightly like it could still understand what he was saying.
This little act of the baby dragon put a smile on his face and momentarily gave him the strength to ovee his pain to swallow the healing potion.
Crack!
"AH!"
The very next moment he gulped the healing potion, he cracked his right arm to set the bones in the correct position so the healing potion would heal his wounds much more quickly and efficiently.
After getting fully healed, he did not go anywhere, sitting back down on the ground and slowly closed his eyes. He waited silently for dawn, as he always remained vignt of any activity in the surroundings.
Originally, he wanted to return and rendezvous with Lah. But traveling in the night in The Treacherous Ocean truly was a bad idea, and Lah probably had probably left the region before long ago. It would be extremely difficult to search for her with a limited range of only a few hundred meters.
''System, show my stats'' '' he ordered the system in his mind as the familiar stat window appeared in front of him.
System version 3.0 [Safe Mode]
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Body Strengthening stage, level 7
Experience Points: 30000/300000
Badass Points: 29000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 89% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Recovering
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Wealth: 1,670,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
"At this rate, I will be a Core Formation warrior in no time, this is exciting," Michael thought.
"I hope youe out of the safe mode system," Michael said, staring at the greyish interface.
[...]
[The System can vaguely feel a sliver of extremely potent energy]
After a pause, he heard the system''s voice in his mind. He sensed a sliver of excitement in the system''s voice.
"What are you talking about? what energy?"
[the system level is]
"Too low to answer the host''s question, figured" Michael finished the system''s sentence, rolling his eyes.
[The System urge the host to be extremely careful here]
"What happened to adventure out, exploring the dangers?"
[...]
The system did not utter a word after his question. To be honest, he missed having these little conversations with the system, he expected the system to be more human-like after upgrading but contrary to his expectations, the system entered into a safe mode, returning to its previous robotic nature.
Suddenly, Michael''s expression changed. He quickly exited the system, narrowing his eyes at distance. Caution flickered in his eyes "I can''t stay here for long, damn it, is this just a coincidence or they are somehow finding me?"
Several powerful presences appeared faraway, quickly approaching the area.
Pushing away all his questions to the back of his mind, he carefully ced the baby dragon into his pockets before disappearing into the dark night in the blink of an eye.
Not long afterward, numerous Core Strengthening and Soul Refining mutated beings flew over from a distance. They all stopped where Michael was, mindlessly strolling around, and did not disperse even after a very long time.
Michael''s figure appeared silently several hundred meters away. He stared closely at the mutated beings and thought, "Lah said the baby dragon''s aura will prevent the powerful mutated beings from detecting us but why do I still get the feeling that someone''s watching me?"
"Trust your instincts kid" the old man appeared beside him but Michael ignored the old man''sments and disappeared into the dark night once again with a slight movement, silently moving off into the distance.
Visibility quickly recovered as the darkness of The Treacherous Ocean receded in the morning of the next day. Slowly, the ind became fully visible once again.
Michael slowly opened his eyes in his seated position on a t meadow in The Treacherous Ocean. He had spent thetter half of the night there and the long-awaited dawn had finallye. His vision was extremely clear again without the concealment of the night. He could clearly see several kilometers away in the open area. He did not stay here much longer, following the signs of battle from the night before to continue on his way towards the depths of The Treacherous Ocean. He hoped he could find Lah who he had been separated from. Only by traveling together he
could survive this ce and get what he wants.
He hurried on his way, but his vignce did not decrease by the slightest. He would look around for any signs or hidden traps from time to time.
Along the way, he found many mutated beings wandering around mindlessly. They were all either Core Formation or Core Strengthening stage beings, but with no exception, Michael avoided all of them from afar, without evening within a thousand-meter radius. Afterst night''s events, he seriously doubted that the death-kissed aura couldpletely make him invisible to all these mutated beings.
A couple of hourster, he arrived at a mountain range. The forest on and around the mountain was slightly misty, covering arge portion of it. He paid attention to his surroundings as he walked, arriving at the location where he had been separated from Lah very soon. Afterward, he continued inwards.
An hourter, he was amidst the mountain range. This was the general region of The Treacherous Ocean, sandwiched between the outskirts and the center. Only by passing through here could he directly arrive at the depths.
He took each step with the utmost caution, expecting a surprise attack, "I wonder what else I would find in the depths of this ce?"
Suddenly, Michael paused, his eyes were locked with the boulder that was as tall as a man not too far away. On the boulder grew a nt half a meter long and from the stalk, there were two leaves and a blue flower. His neck hair stood straight up when heid his eyes on the nt.
"That''s a Blue Camellia, an extremely rare herb!" Michael immediately eximed after seeing the flower. He was overjoyed as hurried up to the nt to carefully examine it.
"This Blue Camelia seems to have grown for tens of thousands of years here. I knew there must be quite a few rare resources here, this ce is fricking dangerous but it''s also an untapped treasure trove" murmured Michael. Afterward, he gently uprooted the nt from the ground. Amateurs would have only picked the flower but he was not an amateur, he nned to grow the herb in his herbal garden. Others must wait thousands of years to get the absolute best of the herb as the medicinal qualities of the herb increased with maturity but he had the system, it could definitely make the herb be mature without having to wait thousands of years.
Chapter 159 - Breaking Formations
Michael lifted the herb gently, "I need to save Christopher and make him reach the Soul Refining stage no matter what" he then stored the herb in his system storage so its medicinal effects would not dissipate.
Michael could not help but smile when he gathered another precious herb to nt in his herbal garden. The Blue Camellia flower was extremely rare as well as hard to grow in ordinary locations, if it wasn''t for the system, he wouldn''t have uprooted the nt as he wouldn''t be able to grow it somewhere else.
"This is not the ce nor the time to go on a treasure hunt kid" Spectre''s voice appeared again as he turned to see the old man still following him.
"The mist must have some chemicals that induce hallucinations, just like the Fear Toxin. That was definitely not just an illusion" he said to himself looking at Spectre, his mentor. He was doing his best to ignore the old man but it was damn hard to neglect a lifelike person who follows him everywhere.
"Since I''m here, I might as well make the most of it" Besides following the trail of Lah, he decided to asionally deviate from his path to find more rare herbs.
Michael no longer paid any more attention to Spectre. He just used the Lightning Dash, turning into a bolt of lightning to move in the direction of Lah''s trail.
The scenery around him suddenly began to change greatly just after traveling a few kilometers. The world suddenly darkened. He discovered that he had strangely arrived at a vast starry sky. Countless stars filled every inch of the space, so densely packed that it was innumerable.
He had no sense for direction at all in the vast starry sky. It was the same everywhere, without any differences. Michael discovered that he waspletely and utterly lost when he had arrived here, actually unable to tell which direction was north or south, east or west. He could not even tell which way was up or down, left or right.
"Ohe on, another freaking illusionary formation" Michael murmured with a soft voice as he became stern. He knew that the formation this time was much more powerful and profound. It had already conjured a starry sky as soon as it appeared. Other ordinary formations could not bepared to this.
"This''ll be troublesome. I''mpletely disoriented, so I probably can''t walk out of it. Just how am I supposed to break out of this illusion? It must have been cast down by a great person from the ancient Dragon n looking at the handiwork. I might not be able to break the formation using raw strength but if I could only find its source" Michael mumbled. The memories of Abras came to help, apparently, Abras had learned about Formations in the sanctuary from the Elders. Cultivators who were on or above the Soul Refining stage could use the Celestial Energy to break most of the formations, it was the simplest and fail-proof method. Considering Michael didn''t have Celestial Energy in his body, he had to look for a source which is powering the formation. Finding the source would be pretty hard and nearly impossible for others but him, it was rtively simple thanks to the perception pills.
Inside the illusionary formation, he was surrounded by countless stars as he felt like he was floating in the middle of the freaking Milkyway.
"Alright, where are you hiding?" He looked around the stars after eating perception pills like tic tacs. Since he maintained a healthy diet, exercise, and his cultivation were regted through the system, he did not have to worry about polluting his body by taking too many pills, it was one of the perks of having a system.
After taking the perception pills, the milky way surrounding him became more lucid as he could see each star clearer. All the stars around him were flickering twice in a regr interval. Each star radiated a unique color, none looked simr to another one. Staring at thousands, even millions of stars, his head ached as he rubbed his temples. Eventually, after a few hours of studying the patterns of the flickering stars, he found a star in the distance that flickered a millisecond faster than the others, this difference would have been impossible to find out if it wasn''t for the perception pills. Locking his gaze at the star, he felt a sense of aplishment.
"There you are" he unsheathed his sword and threw the sword aiming right at the star. The sword soared through the starry sky, soon piercing the star while producing a faint humming sound.
After the sword pierced the start, he only felt the wild whistling of the wind, and soon afterward, his vision suddenly brightened. He had already left the illusion of the starry sky, returning to The Treacherous Ocean once again. Around him stood the familiar mountains and hills.
"Heck yeah!" He couldn''t help but shout with a sense of pride after breaking the formation without depending on Lah. However, he did not dare to linger any longer.
"Lightning Dash '''' he activated the spell, turning himself into a bolt of lightning before advancing through the depths of the mountain at an extremely great speed. Soon enough, he stopped before a small, three-meter-tall tree. The tree was neither too wide nor too thin, it was a healthy tree with dense leaves and thick branches, and through the dense thicket were a few, fist-sized red fruits, slightly obscured by the leaves. They were like apples but their red skin glowed.
"Silk apples'' '' His eyes sparkled in excitement. Among all the potions and pills he knew, 90% of them tasted horrible, including the perception pills he just took. When he was eating them, he felt like he was chewing a rubbery egg. Although silk apples didn''t have medicinal qualities like Blue Camelia, it was one of the very few fruits that could change a pill''s or a potion''s fragrance and taste as well as enhance the pill''s effects to a certain level. An Alchemist would pay a small fortune to get their hands on silk apples because these fruits were extremely scarce in Elon or any other continents.
Michael climbed slowly making his way up to the tree to pick the fruits. One by one, he picked all the fruits, and because the system storage would keep herbs as well as fruits like this fresh without letting the medicinal qualities dissipate, Michael cleaned the entire tree with no concerns.
A smile appeared on Michael''s face as he looked at the twenty glowing apples in the system storage. He could feel the extraordinarily great alchemical effects of the fruits. They were at least a thousand years old, or even several thousand years old.
"These fruits should be able to enhance the effects of my products by quite a lot," Michael mumbled to himself, before taking one fruit for storage and exiting the system.
Crack!
"This is good '''' he couldn''t help but praise the fruit when he took a bite. The silk apple was soft yet crunchy and juicy. The sweetness made his taste buds in the tongue dance in joy. While savoring the apple, he resumed his journey following the trail left behind Lah and he did not forget to check his surroundings for more rare fruits or herbs.
On his way following the trails, he avoided many mutated beings with the help of the baby dragon''s aura. Due to Michael''s utmost calmness and cautiousness, Spectre''s figure flickered constantly. He felt the effects of the mist fading away from his body. After a long time, he experienced calmness and breathed a sigh of relief.
However, this feeling did notst long because suddenly, many mutated beings at various stages detected Michael somehow. They produced angered roars as they began chasing him.
"Ohe on!" Michael''s mood became gloomy. He quickly unsheathed the two swords from the dual sheaths attached to his back.
Several wild beast-like roars immediately arose in response as soon as they saw a group of mutated beings following Michael''s presence. Several dozen powerful presences appeared immediately, quickly approaching the area.
The roars from the surroundings grew closer and closer. Michael could already see the figures of a dozen or so mutated beings, currently him.
He immediately filled every corner of his body with Arch Energy, making preparations for the strategic retreat aka running away.
The surroundings around Michael suddenly changed greatly. The lush mountains and forest disappeared and so did the figures of the mutated beings. He had arrived at a blood-red world, where an edgeless sea of bloodid beneath their feet. It constantly bubbled like boiling water, but there was no heat at all.
"Fuck, it''s another formation" Michael cursed realizing that he had fallen into another formation.
The sea of blood below began to surge suddenly, like a roaring wave. A big cluster of blood rose from it, slowly forming a huge dragon head.
Roar!
The dragon head,pletely made from blood, roared at the sky. Powerful sound waves rocked through the entire world of blood and shortly afterward, the head rose from the blood towards the sky, revealing a hundred-meter long crimson scaled dragon. He felt like he was in the hobbit movie, only this time, it was terrifying. Although this dragon resembled Smaug, the dragon in the hobbit movie, this dragon was at least a five-times bigger, meaner, and frightening.
A few figures flickered in the surroundings at the same time. The mutated beings who were pursuing Michael had also entered the formation. They directly charged for Michael, paying no heed to the blood dragon.
Chapter 160 - The Gorilla King Edros
Roar!
The hundred-meter-long blood dragon produced a roar that shook the sea of blood. Opening its mouth, it breathed scorching hot fire, surging directly for the corpses.
The blood dragon did not seem to exist to the mutated beings, all they had in their sight was Michael, nothing else. They did not avoid the dragon''s breath at all, they just wanted to rip? Michael apart.
The enormous dragon breath directly engulfed over ten of them. However this was not just an illusionary formation, as Lah said before, this was made of two formations, killing and illusionary formation.
Therefore the fire ate away arge portion of the mutated beings'' bodies as Michael watched on in shock. As expected, their indestructible bodies came into y soon afterward, they returned to how they were before, continuing their charge at Michael.
He immediately activated the Lightning dash and ran over the sea of blood, getting far away from the mutated beings. The blood dragon seemed to have felt seriously challenged after seeing how its dragon breath did absolutely nothing to the mutated beings. It roared angrily and swung its front ws at the mutated beings.
The blood dragon was extremely powerful as it was radiating an aura of a level 10 Soul Refining stage beast. Before the dragon''s ws, the Core Strengthening and Core Formation mutated beings were like soft butter as they were ripped in half by the dragon.
The blood dragon did not stop with just that. It suddenly turned its great head towards Michael, raising its w once again and swinging it as a blood-red blur at him.
Sensing the danger, his neck hair suddenly stood up. He immediately leaped into the air using all of his strength, which led to the w sweeping through thin air.
Just as he was in mid-air, another ten or so mutated beings appeared within the sea of blood. Their arrival immediately drew the blood dragon''s attention. Its ws swept out once again towards the mutated beings, roaring in fury.
"Shit shit shit!" he was jumping around, barely escaping both the dragon and the mutated beings. The only thing that helped him was the vast number of mutated beings that kept the blood dragon from targeting him.
He was running out of perception pills but he was not in the state to worry about that. Swallowing a couple of pills again, he focused on finding the formation''s source while evading the attacks.
"Ah!" Although he used the Lightning dash and was very agile, the mutated beings were still able tond some attacks.
"System, keep the healing potionsing AH!" he was gulping the healing potion and saving it in his mouth. Every time he sensed that he can''t evade, he would immediately swallow the healing potion in his mouth so it would keep him from being severely wounded yet, his skin has slightly turned pale due to the blood loss.
At the moment, there were numerous bloody wounds in his body and the ck neo suit was in a? very sorry state. He was soaked in blood and there was not a single ce in his body that remained untouched by his blood.
What restricted his movements more was the baby dragon in his pocket. He did not only have to evade the attacks but he also had to keep the baby dragon in his pocket safe, this whole trip would be pointless if he let the baby dragon get killed now.
"Finally!" After almost an hour of surviving the formation, he eventually found the formation''s source. The source of the formation was hidden extremely well and he doubted that he could have found it without the perception pills, the source of the formation was nothing but one of the mutated beings that pretended to be trapped inside the formation.
The moment Michael sent a bolt of lightning through its head, the sea of blood, as well as the blood dragon, disappeared. The next moment he appeared among the mountains once again.
"Give me a break!" he desperately wanted toy on the ground, healing the wounds but beast-like roars constantly resounded in the surroundings. Several dozen mutated beings had already appeared, all charging towards him.
A powerful presence thatpletely exceeded that of Soul Refining mutated beings far away at this moment. It shot towards them several times faster than the mutated beings
Michael immediately became stern. He wiped off the blood from his face, "fuck, that''s the presence of a Fusion stage" Michael''s face paled slightly.
This was not the end. Up ahead appeared another abnormally powerful presence. It was actually another Fusion stage being.
"Two Fusion stage!" Michael eximed. His face had bepletely drained of blood. He could barely survive a Soul refining stage mutated being if he was at his absolute best, in front of not one but two Fusion stage mutated beings, he did not even think he couldst a few seconds. At this moment, he wanted the system toe out of the safe mode like never before. However he did not roll down and die, he retrieved two healing potions and gulped them in one go before activating the lightning dash using all of his remaining Arch Energy.
Roar!
He quickly shot through the mountains and forests. Behind him, the two Fusion stage mutated beings remained close, pursuing them and unwilling to let them escape. They all flew just below the ten-meter threshold. He thanked himself for upgrading the Lightning Dash to level 2, if it wasn''t for this spell, the Fusion stage mutated beings would have caught him a long time ago.
Suddenly, the nearby space suddenly began to twist when the two Fusion stage beings were only a thousand meters from him, the scenery before him changed in the blink of an eye.
He was now standing in a bleak wastnd,pletely barren of any greenery. It stretched as far as the eye could see.
A towering battle intent suddenly appeared far away, so powerful that it was far beyond Michael''s reckoning. It was filled with a condescending aura as if nothing in the world seemed significant to it, where he was the overlord of the world.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Suddenly, booms began to resound from afar. Thend trembled rhythmically. Michael paled as he heard the sounds; every boom coincided with his heartbeat. It seemed mysteriously connected, causing his heart to ache painfully every time it sounded out, like someone grinding their foot on his heart. He felt like his heart was about to explode.
"Argg"
Michael clenched his chest in some pain. He had already be pale-white, while his forehead was already wet with ayer of sweat droplets. He was astounded, " what is this formation?! It''s so terrifying. Just the sounds from it are enough to suck away my strength"
An ape-like figure d in golden armor slowly appeared in the distance near the horizon. He walked over slowly, step by step, causing the ground to shake violently every time his foot fell. It seemed to be like stepping on Michael''s heart as well, causing his pain to be more intense.
The figure seemed to advance slowly, but the few steps he took covered great distances, appearing several hundred meters from Michael.
The figure resembled king kong to Michael and even from a distance, Michael could see the pair of eyes burning with surgeon battle intent. He was extremely burly, almost ten or twelve meters in height, wide and stocky.
Michael became even paler after seeing the figure. For the first time ever, he had lost all courage for battle in front of the giant. The ape''s battle intent and his aura had copsed Michael''s psychological line of defense.
Deep down in his heart, Michael was terrified.
[Warning!]
[Unknown Energy...]
[The system urges the host to leave immediately!]
His vision was suddenly filled with red warning boxes and he heard the system''s screams in his mind.
"Who''s this person? Why can''t I sense his cultivation?" Michael''s emotions tossed and turned.
Another two figures appeared in the bleak wastnd at this moment. The Fusion stage mutated beings had also entered the formation in pursuit of Michael. They charged towards him as soon as they appeared. He immediately activated the lightning dash, running away from the two Fusion stage mutated beings.
At the same time, the man moved. He slowly raised his fist, and a heavy voice boomed in the surroundings, "Death to those who dare to intrude thend of Edros!" the ape screamed, beating its chest violently, and then, it
punched the air with devastating battle intent. The entire region began to appear so weak, so fragile before the man''s fist at the same moment, time seemed topletely stop. Only the ape''srge fist moved.
In this instance, the two Fusion Stage muted beings as well as Michael all felt that they had lost control of their bodies. They could only watch on nkly as the ape''s fist grew bigger and bigger into a gigantic ethereal fist.
Swish!
Just as the ethereal fist was approaching them, a sh of blue appeared inside Michael''s head, revealing the formation''s source.
[Quick!]
The system''s voice was panic-stricken, he did not waste the precious seconds as he sent a bolt of lightning using thest of his Arch Energy towards the source which was a boulder nearby.
The scenery changed the moment the lightning bolt destroyed the boulder. Michael finally regained control of his body after he left the formation space. His forehead was littered with droplets of sweat, while his heart tossed and turned. He was extremely perturbed.
"What the fuck just happened? Edros...I know this name" The heavy voice boomed through Michael''s head again and again. His entire body began to tremble slightly.
He searched through Abras''s memories and revealed everything he knew about Edros, the King of the Beastmen race.
The beastmen race''s King, Edros, was an existence that surpassed Immortals. He was a god-like figure revered by all the beast-men as well as magical beasts.
Michael immediately turned around to look back. All he saw was the two Fusion Stage mutated beings standing nkly several hundred meters away. A few moments after, a loud boom sound could be heard as they turned into dust and disintegrated. They showed no signs of reforming even after a lengthy time.
A big droplet of dark crimson blood floated nearby that glowed brightly, several meters above the ground.
Chapter 161 - The Dragon War
"That must be that ape''s blood but how did ite here?" A question appeared in Michael''s mind as he stared at the crimson droplet of blood. He could not help but recall everything Abras studied about Edros and Edros''s time.
In ancient times, the Beastmen Races and the Dragons went to war with one another. At that time, Edros, who was the Beastmen race''s king and their strongest, ughtered many dragons. However, in the middle of the war, Edros disappeared without a trace. Edros''s disappearance changed the tide of the warpletely and the beastmen suffered a huge loss at the hands of the dragons. Eventually, the other races, mainly Nagas, organized peace talks between the two races because the war affected all the other races in the world. Since both races suffered a huge loss, they had no way but to end the war. Following Edros''s disappearance, the Dragon n in the Dragon ind also mysteriously disappeared from the face of the. Soon, the dragons slowly lessened in numbers, some died of old age while some just vanished without a trace.
Michael was positive that Edros''s disappearance has something to do with what happened to the Dragon n and this drop of blood belonged to? Edros. However, he was unsure if Edros, the greatest king of the beastmen, had left this drop of blood here willingly.
"How did the dragons turn that ape''s blood into this killing formation? Just a droplet of blood is already so powerful. It can easily kill off two Fusion stage mutated beings. No wonder ughtered countless dragons" Michael thought as he stared at the golden blood that was growing further and further away.
Suddenly, Michael seemed to think of something. His eyes narrowed abruptly and staring fixedly at the blood,
"This ape... The golden babaroo of Noah. Is that monkey somehow rted to Edros?" Michael''s heart began to beat heavily. A terrifying notion appeared in his mind as he stared deeply at the crimson blood that gradually disappeared into the distance. He eximed, "I have to return here when I''m strong enough" If that golden babaroo of Noah was Edros''s descended, he did not doubt that the monkey will be his foe in the future.
After seeing the giant ape, his fire of saving the baby dragon burned brightly in his heart. With the system''s help, he would turn the baby dragon into the biggest baddest dragon this world has ever seen.
******************************
After leaving the killing formation and the ce where he saw Edros, he found a small cave to rest and heal his wounds. Luckily, he never tripped any formations on his way to the cave. He did find several mutated beings but he was able to avoid them. Inside the cave, he wasying on the ground half-naked, his robes torn to pieces, leaving him with only one set of clothes, the casual robes of King T''cha. After cleaning his body using Arch energy, he put on the robes.
Creach!
Michael tore his ck coat to get a long strip and then, he tied the baby dragon onto his chest using the cloth. Suddenly his eyes narrowed, sensing the space several kilometers away being distorted.
"It must be Lah. She''s fallen into a formation," Michael murmured because the space being distorted was a sign of an activated formation.
Just as he was about to take a step forward, a familiar figure appeared before him, Spectre.
"Where are you going kid? Don''t risk your life trying to save a woman you barely know, it''s not your style "
"Shut up" Michael understood what the old man was trying to imply. He tried to ignore the old man as he began to walk outside of the cave
"Just let the woman, it''s easy for you isn''t it? After all, you killed the only woman you loved" his steps were halted by the old man''s words. mes of fury and sadness emerged in Michael''s eyes as he clenched his fists.
"Don''t!" his body was slightly shivering in anger, images of a girl in her bathrobes on a bed shed across his mind. The girl''s white bathrobes and the bed underneath her were turned red by her own blood, there were two bullet holes on her chest and one bullet hole right between her eyes.
He looked down to see a gun flicker in his hand, it was Michael who shot the girl.
"You killed your brothers, sisters, and the girl you loved because of a bunch of orphans" Spectre''s voice fanned the mes burning in his heart, making him lose his calm.
"They were not my brothers and sisters and she...she knew what was going to happen" he stuttered in anger, "if it wasn''t for her distracting me, I would have saved the orphanage, all those kids, and all those people. Go away!"
He shouted, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. He did not want to get distracted by Spectre as any distractions inside the formation would lead to nothing but death.
"Lightning Dash" soon after he reached the cave''s mouth, he activated the lightning dash, turning himself into a bolt of lightning. He then moved in the direction of the distorted space.
Eventually, after running for a few minutes, an indistinct violet figure attracted Michael''s attention in the blurry distorted space. Just as he guessed, it was Lah who was stuck in a formation in the distance.
Without any hesitation, he charged at the formation looking at the several Soul Refining mutated beings who were heading towards Lah.
After a couple of minutes, his surroundings turned grey and hazy in a blink of an eye indicating that he had entered the formation. Lah levitated one meter in the air with her legs crossed, while the unadorned Angel''s veenaid on her hands. Ten elegant white fingers formed blurry afterimages, quickly ying the first six strings of the veena. She produced notes after notes hurriedly, while the seventh veena string would also be struck from time to time. It would result in violent rumbles in the surroundings.
Lah became extremely grim and her forehead was already covered in ayer of sweat. She had continued into the depths after she had been separated from Michael the night before. She had identally fallen into a powerful formation, one of the powerful formations of the Dragon n. It has been well-known since ancient times. It was the absolute killing formation, the wrath of hundred dragons.
It was said that in ancient times, several half immortals of the Beastmen race died to this exact formation, achieving wide renown. It was known as one of the deadliest formations in the world.
Deafening dragon roars constantly boomed through the illusionary hazy space. The entire space was filled with huge dragons as they all used their dragon breaths, swung their ws, used various secret techniques, or just charged directly at the center.
There sat Lah in the air. She used her veena to block the attacks from all directions strenuously. Countless soundwaves shot from the veena, surging in all directions.
She had learned about formations including the wrath of hundred dragons in the Royal Library of Ozer. As a result, Lah understood this formation very well.
The wrath of hundred dragons, was just as the name suggested was a lethal formation formed from a total of hundred dragons. The formation had seven forms, in the first form, all hundred dragons were as powerful as Body Strengthening beasts. In the second form, their strength would increase to the Core Formation stage
With the third form, the hundred dragons would reach the Core Strengthening stage Beasts. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh forms would respectively make the hundred dragons reach the Soul Refining, Fusion Stage, half immortal, and immortal stage.
"I hope this formation is not aplete one" Lah prayed in her heart. She was still able to forcefully break through the third form if she burned her vitality greatly but once it reached the fourth form, it would be certain death for her.
She had already been trapped in the formation for several hours. In this time, she broke through the first and second forms of the formation by herself. She currently faced the third form.
Roar!
Suddenly, all the hundred dragons in the formation roared at the sky together and then, streams of scorching hot fire shot out of their mouths. Soft whisperings drowned the space and vast energy radiated from the dragons, filling the entire region.
"They''ve started to use the dragon''s breath!" Lah murmured. Her face was pale and seemed extremely grim. The dragon''s fire could melt the strongest metals in the world, even a Core Strengthening stage dragon''s fire was powerful enough to burn any Soul Refining stage cultivator to ashes. Hundreds of these Core Strengthening stage dragons could certainly kill not one but several Fusion stage warriors like her if they used the dragon''s breath.
Lah gritted her teeth and a sliver of determination appeared in her eyes. A slender finger gently touched the seventh and the final string. Her finger was cut as soon as she came into contact with it. Dark red blood immediately began to flow, before being absorbed by the string.
The seventh string becamepletely red after absorbing her blood. It radiated an extremely mysterious aura that seemed to contain the Celestial Energy. At the same time, a gentle, graceful veena note seemed to hum softly from beyond the sky, echoing through the entire formation space.
Lah paled from the loss of blood through her finger. This blood was not ordinary blood but it was lifeblood. Unlike the normal blood flowing in a cultivator''s body, the lifeblood can''t be reproduced quickly through any means including high purity healing potions. Once a cultivator used his or her lifeblood, they could only regain the lifeblood by consuming certain rare herbs.
Currently, Lah used her lifeblood as a price to use an abilitypletely beyond her strength.
Roar!
A hundred dragons produced an earth-shaking roar. It was filled with the endless might of dragons and seemed to be able to shatter the void. It created countless sound waves,yering upon one another in the formation space as it quickly radiated towards Lah with an aura of absolute destruction. Lah gently struck the seventh string at the same time.
Ding!
The sound produced by the veena echoed through the mountains and forests. It was only a musical note, yet it contained great power. A powerful sound wave that was visible with the naked eye began to expand in all directions at an unbelievable speed.
The soundpletely suppressed the roar of the dragons. Wherever it passed through, space would ripple, zing through anything that blocked its way. It surged towards hundred dragons like a hot knife through butter, gently colliding with them.
Soon after, all the dragons in the formation disintegrated. The third form had been broken.
Lah had yed the seventh string at the cost of her vitality. All hundred dragons fell to a single wave of sound.
The seventh string trembled violently. She had already be pale as a white paper as all blood drained from her face. Her eyes also dulled for a while, revealing the weakness she struggled to conceal.
Roar!
Suddenly, another dragon''s roar rose up. Soon afterward, vast presences appeared in the formation space. The hundred dragons had reformed their bodies and they each radiated with an aura countless times more powerful than before.
Despair immediately appeared in Lah''s eyes when she saw this. She said with endless bitterness, "The fourth form. It''s the fourth form. Looks like I''m fated to die here today"
Breaking through the third form of the formation was already her absolute limit. She possessed no more strength for any resistance against the fourth form that could simply kill a lone Fusion stage warrior like her.
Chapter 162 - Getting Closer To The Demon Dragon鈥檚 Heart I
The formation hadpleted its fourth form. All hundred dragons revived, they were now Soul Refining stage beasts. Each dragon was over seventy meters long and radiated an aura of pure destruction.
Everything looked extremely realistic even though it was all just created from a formation. The vast aura from the hundred dragons pressed against Lah to the point where she even struggled to breathe as if she was dying from asphyxiation.
Another dragon''s roar resounded as several dozen dragons charged at Lah. Their auras were like a huge mountain, brutally pressing against Lah''s soft body.
Lah was pale, she had already given up resisting. When she broke through the third form of the formation, she had already lost a great amount of lifeblood. She was so weak that she would not even have the power to face the third form again right now, much less the fourth.
Several dozen huge Soul Refining dragons aggressively charged at Lah, wanting to break her into pieces. The distance between them was decreasing rapidly.
Lah slowly closed her eyes, falling to the ground while slowly losing her consciousness. Her heart was filled with an unwillingness to give in, but she had no power to resist the fourth form.
Just when she was about to ept her fate, a golden bolt of lightning shed in the hazy space when the dragons were a hundred meters away from her.
Michael directly charged into the formation''s space, with one goal in his mind, save Lah. As soon as he entered, the scene before him changed drastically, he saw the might of the killing formation clearly. He appeared right beside Lah, so everything he saw was exactly what Lah was experiencing. A few dragons had already flown over, swinging their huge dragon ws filled with a force capable of shattering the void at him. The ws were already less than ten meters from their heads.
Time was of the essence, if he wanted to save her and escape this formation, he had to find the formation''s source. He did not have the time to say anything as he lifted her from the ground.
"Lightning Dash"
All of his hair suddenly stood up like he was zapped. He sensed the great danger rapidly drawing closer and closer with each passing second. While carrying her in his arms, he activated the Lightning Dash before swallowing the remaining perception pills he had. When Lah was surrounded by the death-kissed aura, the hundred dragons in the formation lost their target as they suddenly looked confused.
A small sigh of relief escaped his mouth when he saw the confused look on the gigantic creatures. However, he did not waste any seconds as he paid closer attention to every nook and cranny in the formation to find the source. After losing their initial target, the hundred dragons turned their attention towards the mindless mutated beings who had rushed into the formation. While the mutated beings were being disintegrated by the dragon''s breaths, Michael was searching for the source.
"There it is" Lady luck was with him this time as he found out the source sooner than he expected. The source was a small stone that wasying on the ground in in sight. Thanks to his heightened senses due to the perception pills, he identified the stone as the source before sending a bolt of lightning at the stone. The moment the bolt of lightning hit the stone, the scenery around him changed in a blink of an eye, and without him knowing, he was teleported away from where he was.
Realizing he escaped the formation and somewhat understood that he was teleported, he sucked in a deep breath, slowly calming himself. Just as he sucked in that breath, he smelt a vague fragrance. His attention, which had been focused on the experience in the formation from before, was directed toward Lah.
Currently, Lah had copsed on Michael''s body powerlessly. Her slightly warm body pressed closely to Michael''s toned chest, her face pale and her eyes dull. She was extremely weak. Breaking the third form of the formation before had cost her dearly, to the point where she did not even have the power to move. The Angel''s veena that she always carried had disappeared too, returning inside her body.
Feeling Lah''s soft body and the fragrance, his heartbeat increased a little which was not surprising because any man would tremble or at least slightly if they saw a gorgeous woman like Lah. She had always been a dignified, saintly, and divine woman to Michael. Never had he thought that they would be so physically close.
However, he was not one of those guys who would drool and turn into an absolute beta in front of beauty like her. After all, only because he was an alpha male, he got the badass system.
"Lady Alden, are you awake?" He gently ced Lah''s back against a huge tree after he looked around to see if any mutated beings were approaching them.
Lah slowly opened her eyes to see Michael staring at her. A red flush immediately appeared on her concealed face when she realized that he carried her in his arms here. However, she recovered very quickly, "you''re alive" Lah''s voice carried a sliver of surprise but it was extremely indifferent.
He lightly chuckled, "Sorry to disappoint you, Lady Alden" for a second, he saw her smile before she put an indifferent expression on her face.
"How did you escape the formation back there?" She asked, a sliver of shock was hidden within her eyes.
"It was because of this baby dragon''s aura, Lady Alden" Michael gently tapped the baby dragon on his chest.
"Surprisingly those dragons in the formation couldn''t sense you after I picked you up. After that, I just kept running before something teleported us here " he did not reveal the fact that he could find a formation''s power source because he wasn''t sure whether it''s an ancient secret part or not. He believed it''s safe not to say anything until he himself confirms this with Gaya, his most trusted advisor.
"You must have triggered something," Lah said after staring at him doubtfully for a few seconds. She couldn''t find any exnations for how he escaped as she thought that he was just lucky.
A beast-like roar suddenly appeared from the distance as Lah wanted to continue her questions. Her eyes narrowed abruptly when heard the roars.
Her face became grim once again. She said softly, "I''ve already used arge portion of my lifeblood battling those dragons. I can''t fight another battle until I regain at least some of my lost energy and lifeblood"
"It''s okay Lady Alden, can you at least move?"
As he expected, he slowly shook her head, trying not to look embarrassed.
"So Lady Alden..." he didn''t finish the sentence but she knew what he was implying and even though she understood that she had to be carried, she couldn''t help but hesitate.
The roars in the distance became louder and louder,
"Lady Alden, we cannot waste any more time, please let me" his smile disappeared from his face as a stern upied his face.he then directly lifted her up before she could even nod because this was not the time for her to y shy princess.
Her body slightly trembled in his arms while a tint of redness appeared on her rosy cheeks. He did not notice the changes on her face, he was busy running away from the mutated beings while hoping not to trigger any more formations.
Along the way, Lah witnessed the terrifying power of the movement spell he''s using. It really surprised her and made her wonder if this is an Epic or Legendary spell. Even with his Body Strengthening stage cultivation, the spell exhibited a shocking level of potential.
After he began to lose sight of the mutated beings that were following them, he stopped asionally to collect as many precious herbs as he could.
It must be mentioned that there really were many rare resources in The Treacherous Ocean. Herbs with a maturity of Thousand years were basically everywhere.
Only after running for several hours did he stop. Lah essentially spent the entire time meditating in his arms, eyes closed to regain some of her energy. She was the person most at leisure.
At dusk, Michael found another cave to settle down in.? The pitch-ck cave only had a single luminous pearl as a light source. The weakened Lah sat in a slightly dark corner, still recovering silently with her eyes closed.
"Take these Lady Alden, although it won''t help you regain your lifeblood, it will heal your body" Lah heard a warm voice. Michael squatted beside her with a few healing potions in his hand. She could not help but think of the scene where he carried her as they fled from the mutated beings earlier in the day right now.
Lah slowly opened her eyes. She looked at the healing potions in Michael''s hand calmly and gently shook her head. "I''m not injured. I''ve just expended too much of my lifeblood. I need rare herbs to recover"
"The fuck?" Her words stunned him, he collected all those herbs to expand his herbal garden as well as use them to make potions and pills for him, Gaya, and the baby dragon. He was also nning to auction some of those herbs to make a shitload of gold coins. After seeing her current condition, he sighed and took out? three thousand years old blood leaf from his Space Ring without showing the reluctance on his face.
He then passed them to Lah, "I don''t know if this is enough. If it''s not enough, I still have a few more" he said but hoped it would be enough for her to recover her strength. To cure the baby dragon and sessfully get the Demon dragon''s heart, he needed her more than she needed him. He was willing to lose a few herbs to save his baby dragon.
A sliver of surprise shed across her face. She looked at Michael with mixed emotions, before extending her soft hand to receive the blood leaves.
"Thank you."
¡
Michael did not choose to advance into the depths of The Treacherous Ocean the next day as Lah was still recovering. Instead, he carved out a new cave as a temporary dwelling and stayed there, waiting for Lah to regain at least some of her strength back.
The waitsted for two days. During that time, Lah recovered some of her lifeblood and Celestial Energy with the help of the three blood leaves. Unlike her, he recovered all of his Arch energy, returning to his peak strength. Afterward, she left the cave with Michael.
Outside the cave, he retrieved his flying sword and tossed it into the air before turning to look at the veiled Lah, "Lady Alden, we should travel together so you can save your strength, we still don''t know what danger lies ahead of us"
She looked at him for a few moments, thinking about this but after a while of deliberation, she epted his suggestion. She stepped on the floating flying sword without uttering a single word and maintained a certain distance from Michael.
Chapter 163 - Getting Closer To The Demon Dragon鈥檚 Heart II
After they departed from the cave, they were traveling towards the ind''s center where the Demon Dragon''s Heart was lying dormant. The depths of The Treacherous Ocean had almost be a paradise for powerful mutated beings, they could be seen wandering in the mountain ranges everywhere like they were taking leisure strolls. The center of the ind was covered with thick smoke, giving the area a gloomy ambiance.
In the center of the ind, a human-sized orb was radiating bright beams of light, resplendent and dazzling. Countless powerful mutated beings were wandering around the orb. The orb had a ruby red surface as from within, one could see a bright red light flickering in a rhythm. Veins and roots ran chaotically on and around the orb lessening the warm light radiated by the orb.
This was the Demon Dragon''s heart, the item Michael and Lah were searching for. Suddenly, the orb shuddered from within, glowing brighter and brighter.
Roar!
At this moment, no matter if it were the powerful mutated beings closer to the orb or those roaming on the outskirts of the ind, they all roared loudly. Several tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of mutated beings roared together, thismotion could literally be described as earth-shaking, causing mountain ranges to fall and the void to copse purely from the sound.
The roars from several tens of thousands of powerful mutated beings were filled with absolute hatred for some unknown reason.
The Treacherous Ocean''s appearance was finally changed at this very moment after countless years. The entire ind shook violently, the ground jolting and opening up chasms thousands of meters deep. Many of the surrounding mountains directly exploded as they could not withstand the roars of over ten thousand powerful mutated beings. The mountains and forests turned into a mess. Following closely, the powerful mutated beings still roaming outside roared angrily, flying toward the orb as fast as their limbs allowed them to.
While the mutated beings were chaotically running around, two figures were slowly walking through the mist towards the glowing orb.
"There it is" It was Lah who said this, pointing her fingers at the glowing orb a couple of meters before them. Michael closely followed Lah while cautiously looking at all the wandering mutated beings in the area. His heart was pounding against his chest in fear because all of the mutated beings were at least at the Soul Refining stage and he could even see a few level 10 Fusion stage mutated beings guarding the orb. He had no more saliva to swallow as his mouth became dry, any single of the mutated being could end their life right now if they detected their presence. After recalling the events that happened in the Treacherous ocean, he identified only when he was alone that the mutated beings were able to detect him but when he''s with Lah, the death-kissed aura proved to be effective.
The two of them took each step with utmost cautiousness, avoiding the gazes of the mutated beings. Currently, thousands of powerful mutated beings roared at the sky above them.
Step by step, they got closer to the orb. Michael felt the warm energying from the orb and soon, he could hear a faint heart beating sound.
"ce the dragon on the heart" she whispered to him. He grabbed the baby dragon tied to his chest as gently and silently as he could before cing the baby dragon on the orb.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!
The moment the baby dragon''s body touched the orb, it began to tremble violently producing an unearthly humming sound. His heart skipped a beat fearing themotion would draw the attention of these wandering mutated beings. Just as he was about to reach for the swords, Lah grabbed his hands, shaking her head.
"What now?" he whispered but instead of answering him back, she just gently tapped his shoulder, wordlessly telling him to wait.
Calming himself down, he just stared at the baby dragon who was lying on the orb absorbing the heating from it.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
Suddenly, the orb began to crack producing crackling noises. The veins and roots on the orb''s surface retracted themselves while the cracks got wider and wider. He started to sweat under his robes fearing that they were going to notice them but fortunately, the mutated beings were oblivious to what''s happening.
"Look" Lah tapped at his shoulder to turn his gaze away from the mutated beings to the baby dragon. His eyes immediately widened in shock and surprise as the baby dragon''s greyish scales began to revert back to their original shiny crimson red scales at a visible speed.
Just as they were witnessing the changes in the baby dragon, the orb suddenly exploded yet surprisingly, the explosion did not produce any sounds but a bright light of sh that momentarily made them blind.
When the bright light disappeared, they saw the baby dragon floating in the air a couple of meters above their heads carrying two small orbs of violet fire in its ws.
Locking her eyes with the two orbs of violet fire, Lah raised her hand at the baby dragon as he slowly flew towards her.
"Is he?"
"Yes, he''s cured," Lah said indifferently without taking her eyes off the violet fire orbs.
A relieved smile appeared on his face. He did not care for the two violet fire orbs as much as he cared for the baby dragon. After everything that he went through, he expected something dramatic to happen before curing the baby dragon but contrary to his expectation, the baby dragon got cured by the Demon Dragon''s heart in a couple of minutes.
He was cradling the baby dragon as if he was his baby and beside him, Lah immediately put the two fire orbs in her space ring.
"So those two balls of fire" his voice trailed away,
"Demon Dragon''s heart," She said, sighing in relief. Although this trip was extremely dangerous and she nearly lost her life, in the end, it was all worth it because she got not one but two Demon Dragon hearts.
To suppress Christopher''s curse, she only needed the energy of half the demon dragon heart, the remaining energy would be enough for her to break through from level 4 to level 6 of the Fusion stage.
Michael noticed the changes in her facial expression and he knew it was because of the two orbs of fires she put in her space ring. If he had the power, he would have at least taken one of them but for now, if she decided not to share them with him, he could do nothing.
For now, he wanted her to suppress the cure so he would get a Soul Refining stage cultivator to protect his base of operations and the herbal garden.
The lesson of no freebies in the world suited not only the earth but also here and in fact, it suited more for this world than earth as every cultivator he met in this world has their own schemes and they would rarely lift a finger unless they have something to gain.
The Demon Dragon hearts was her payment for leading him here though she would have died if it wasn''t for him. However, he too couldn''t have survived alone without her help so he was okay with her taking the Demon Dragon hearts.
"Let''s leave this ce"? He did not need any push as he couldn''t wait to leave this forsaken ce, at least for now. When he was about to turn back to go in the direction where they came, Lah shook her head.
"There should be an ancient teleportation array set by the Dragon n if we go in that direction," she pointed at the direction further into the ind and noticing the worried look on his face, she reassured," Don''t worry, I can sense the array''s faint energy. Besides, in this direction, there will be no more formations from here on"
The part where she said no more formation instantly made him agree to her n because he hated formation and ran out of perception pills.
"Come," she said before taking out one of the Demon Dragon hearts from her space ring so the mutated beings won''t attack them. The Demon Dragon heart substituted the death-kissed aura, only it was better and effective.
Havinge this far, he hadpleted what he needed to do in The Treacherous Ocean. No matter if it was the extremely valuable herbs or curing the baby dragon or reaching the higher levels in cultivation, he had gained more than he initially expected. The herbs, in particr, the dozens of herbs all approached thousands of years in maturity andbined with the fact that they were almost unobtainable anywhere else, it made them even more valuable. Each herb he picked was like a priceless treasure on the continent.
Soon afterward, he followed Lah behind towards the teleportation array carrying the baby dragon in his arms. When he first met the baby dragon, it was barely radiating an aura of a level 1 Arch sensing stage but now, his energy was slowly and steadily climbing high as he already reached level 8 of the Arch Sensing stage. Michael realized that it was the illness that was stopping the baby dragon from reaching a higher stage and by inspecting the baby dragon''s body, he noticed the changes in his wings. His weak and frail wings had now be strong and firm. He could tell that soon after he woke up, he could fly like an actual dragon and also Michael expected him to breathe fire.
Imagining the things he expected the baby dragon to do, he walked behind Lah further into the dragon ind.
Chapter 164 - One Step Closer To Upgrading The Doombringer
Through the gloomy mist and forest filled with gigantic ominous ck trees, Michael followed her towards the teleportation array that was supposed to teleport them back to somewhere in the Ozer Continent.
The baby dragon was still asleep in Michael''s arms having no ideas of the dangers around him. They both uttered no words as although they had the Demon Dragon heart''s aura around them, they took no chance by chit-chatting. Therefore the journey was pretty gloomy and silent.
Eventually, after walking for several hours, they walked out of the forest in the middle region of the Treacherous Ocean. After walking out of the forest, they were weed by a narrow path between two gigantic mountains.
After pondering slightly, she said, "If I recall correctly, this path between the Ostium mountains will lead us to the Twilight ground, and from there we can go to the teleportation array.? Remember it''s extremely dangerous inside it. Many Soul Refining and even Fusion Stage mutated beings will be there"
"Ostium mountains?" he was slightly surprised to hear the name because Ostium ore was one of the requirements to upgrade the Dommbringer to level 2.
"Lady Lah, is it possible for me to collect some Ostium ore here?"
After pondering slightly, she said, "Ostium ore should only exist in the Twilight ground, you can''t mine these mountains, are you looking to forge a weapon?"
Michael nodded seeing her correctly guess his intention of seeking the Ostium ore. Since she didn''t look too surprised he realized using Ostium to forge a weapon was not a rare thing in this world and it did make sense as it was required to upgrade the Doombringer to only level 2.
"Where is this Twilight ground?" he asked.
"The Twilight ground is not in the depths of the ind but under an extremely hidden cliff in the middle region. It tunnels straight into the ground and is extremely deep,"
After wiggling through the narrow cliff for another hour, they finally found the entrance of the pit under a cliff ording to the geography described by Lah.
The entrance to the pit was a huge hole a hundred meters wide. The hole directly sunk into the earth and was pitch-ck. When the duo stood at the edge of the unfathomably deep pit, they could sense a ghastly, bone-chilling wind from it.
He stood at the edge, staring into the darkness with curiosity and cautiousness. His eyebrows were furrowed and his calm expression instantly became rather stern. " When we go down, we should be cautious. I''ll help you gather some ore but remember, you can''t take too much of it as it might draw some unwanted attraction towards us"
"Understood, Lady Lah,"
"Good, let''s go down," she said confidently, before leaping down first. Following her, he jumped into the pitch-ck hole, quickly descending into the darkness.
The Twilight ground waspletely enshrouded in darkness, nothing could be seen.? After falling for several hundred kilometers, some light gradually appeared beneath their feet. The light expanded in size as he quickly descended before it finally enveloped Michael. His vision was no longer pitch-ck but filled with colorful light. It was extremely pretty as the light would glimmer from time to time. The glimmers of light were dense and they twinkled like the stars in the sky. The sight stunned Michael, he felt like he was swimming in outer space as he stared at the starry sky around him.
The two of them continued their descent down the pit at great speeds. They had no idea just how deep it was. They had fallen for at least a thousand kilometers, yet they had still not hit the bottom. Along the way, the two of them had also seen many mutated beings falling into the hole deeper and deeper but they did not detect the two of them.
With their constant descent, Michael slowly sensed that the hole seemed to be permeated with an odd energy. The temperature here would constantly change, sometimes bone-chillingly cold and other times scorching hot. It was as if they constantly traveled between two regions of opposite climates.
"What is this ce?" He couldn''t help but wonder after witnessing everything in this ce.
"This hole doesn''t seem to be naturally formed. Did this hole appear after the ind changed? Also, this hole plunges in a straight path from the surface right into the earth. It''s as if a massive object fell from the sky and carved this out."
"It''s my thought too. This tunnel is just too straight. There are no bends at all, and images of the starry sky actually appear here. If you connect these facts, it''s as if something from outer space had really collided with the ind before creating such a deep crater." Lah broke her silence and agreed with him. She too had a hint of curiosity in her eyes.
They continued their way down. Eventually, after falling for several hours, they finally hit solid ground. They had arrived at the bottom of the hole.
The pit still permeated with colorful nebe. Starlight glimmered faintly as if they were each star that floated in space. They were innumerable, filling up the entire ce.
Michael nced around and discovered that the bottom was extremelyrge. It stretched as far as the eye could see and he could feel that the weird energy was even thicker here. The surrounding temperature constantly alternated between a frigid coldness and a scorching heat.
"Just what is this weird energy? Is this Celestial energy? Nah, this is something else" he mumbled to himself as he stared at the surroundings. Even his inherited memories of Abras contained no information on the weird energy here.
At this very moment, a strand of scorching energy fused with a strand of the frigid energy mid-air.
Michael and Lah immediately focused on it with their senses. They discovered that the energy created when the extremely hot and extremely cold energies fused was indeed extremely simr to the energy radiated by the formations and the mutated beings.
"There must be some connection between this hole and what happened to the Dragon n? just how many mysteries this world holds?"
He asked himself before beginning to search the surroundings. After he traveled a hundred meters, some dust that glimmered slightly on the ground caught his attention.
Squatting down he gently grabbed a handful of the glimmering chunks of stone and closely examined it? "Don''t collect that. Collect the ores that are floating in the air." Suddenly, he heard Lah''s voiceing from behind.
. He nced at the pebbles of Ostium in his hand and then looked toward the glimmering ores that floated in mid-air like stars. Although the glimmering ores of Ostium in the air were much smaller than the ores on the ground, they glowed brighter than those on the ground.
" Those Ostium ores floating in the sky are purer than the ores on the ground." She said and then she moved away from him to quench her curiosity about this ce.
ncing at the ores in his hand, he hesitated slightly. He did not throw them away but instead, he put them into his system storage. Then, he began to collect the Ostium ores floating in the sky.
As the ores in the air were extremely well-dispersed, his speed of collecting them was not great and their small size did not help him.
A while after he was collecting the ores, Lah''s voice came from the distance
e over here"
Michael immediately stopped his collection, walking in Lah''s direction to see why she called him in the middle of his treasure hunt.
When he got there, he saw Lah standing in front of a human corpse. They did not know how long it had been dead for but its appearance had not changed at all.
Lah was examining the corpse curiously while he sensed the weird energy in the surroundings constantly entering the corpse and slowly fusing into its bones. This weird energy just happened to be produced when the extremely hot and extremely cold energies fused.
" Looking at it, he''s already been dead for thousands of years but there''s no sign of dposition at all," she said with a deep voice.
Michael too stared at the corpse with interest. "Lady Alden, I can feel that there are some changes currently urring in its body. I think this weird energy is mutating the body"
At this very moment, the corpse on the ground snapped open its eyes without any prior signs. Its eyes were dull without any signs of life. It immediately produced a great roar, echoing through the entire pit. Afterward, it slowly stood up from the ground and turned its head like it was scanning its surroundings. His hands were already reaching for the swords but Lah shook her head, wordlessly telling him not to do anything.
"Let''s back away" She whispered to him, slowly backing away from the mutated being while the mutated being started to wander around the ce mindlessly.
Although she had fulfilled what she needed ining here, she had no intention of leaving immediately unlike she pretended. She ventured onward in the Twilight ground with Michael as she was extremely curious about the transformation of the ind that urred all those years ago. Of course, she had no idea of telling him everything, especially the fact that she was leading him a long way instead of a short way to the teleportation array.
The area of the Twilight ground was unknown to Michael, therefore, he could only trust that she knew the path and follow her behind. They traveled for a dozen or so kilometers in one direction but still had not reached the end. As they traveled, figures of the mutated beings gradually appeared in their sights.
Since she said not to collect too much Ostium ores, he sighed helplessly and kept walking past all the ores floating in the sky. However, after walking behind her for several hours, he creased his brows
"We''ve actuallye back to where we were before"
Chapter 165 - The System Back Online I
Considering Michael searched the ce for Ostium ores before starting to collect the ores floating in the air, he was familiar with theyout and he instantly realized that they came back where they were before.
"Lady Alden, we were here before," he said and by the look on her face, he could tell she also noticed this phenomenon.
"This is the Mystic Disorientating Formation! How...how is this possible? Why would it appear here!?" she mumbled under her breath unconsciously and because of the perception pills, he heard her.
"Lady Alden, are you familiar with this formation?"His tone of voice contained a tint of doubt.
"Yes, I learned about this" she regained her usual calmposure hiding confusion in her eyes.
"Where-"
"Just follow my steps" She waved her hands, stopping Michael from asking any questions about the formation. He began to doubt that Lah''s intention ofing here is more than to obtain the Demon Dragon hearts.
He hesitated for a while before he followed her behind. He decided to trust Lah this once to see if she had a method to break through the formation or not.
"Pay attention to my footsteps. You must not take a step wrong. If you do, you won''t be able to break out." She warned him again. She then began to step back and forth like she was slow dancing.
There were thirty-eight steps required in total to walk out from the formation. When she took the ninth step, the surroundings immediately began to change. She discovered that she had actually arrived in a vast starry sky.
Afterward, Michael appeared behind her. When he realized he''s now in a vast starry sky, they all stared nkly. They were extremely shocked. Unlike before, at this moment, he could see outer space as his vision was filled with nebs, milky ways, bright stars, and even colorful lushs.
"Whoa! Is everything before me an illusion or have I reallye to outer space?" he said in shock. He could not tell whether what he saw right now was real or fake.
Michael observed the surroundings, frowning his eyebrows. A couple of seconds after he was staring at the scene speechlessly, Lah began to exin? "It''s not an illusion, It''s real. We''ve reallye to outer space. Whoever cast the formation must have had some terrifying level of understanding about formations. The steps we''re taking right now to walk out of the formation just happens to match the bridge that leads to the other side. Every step matches perfectly with an extremely crucial point of the bridge. Stepping wrongly would be like stepping off the bridge and falling into the water"
"What would happen if we took the wrong step?" Although what she said was like a fictitious story to him, he believed it firmly because he was not the one to doubt, after all, he has a system with him. Who would believe that?
She shrugged, "I don''t know. This formation connects worlds and is extremely profound. Everything before us is real. We''ve followed the bridge and arrived in outer space and only by following it we can reach the very end sessfully. If we take a step wrong during this time, perhaps we will return to The treacherous ocean, or maybe we will be thrown into the vast outer space or simply die a horrible death"
Hearing her words, he became rather stern. As the system went safe mode, he treated everything with utmost vignce.
"Who would have cast this formation? They actually extended it into outer space bridging outer space and the world. Unbelievable" he sighed in amazement, his inner voice filled with sincere respect and admiration.
"Let''s go," she said solemnly, continuing on her way with mystical steps.
He quickly shoved all of his curiosity and questions to the back of his mind, carefully following her steps in the empty space. With every step they took, the surrounding starry space would undergo some minute changes, as if they had crossed several hundred miles with just a couple of steps.
When the two of them took the thirteenth step, the scene before them suddenly changed. The starry space around them disappeared and they had arrived at a circr tunnel ten meters in diameter. It was chaotic around the tunnel, one could see nothing but darkness and hear an unearthly humming.
"This is the spatial tunnel," She said with a deep voice.
"What''s a spatial tunnel?" Michael asked subconsciously out of curiosity, holding the baby dragon tightly. This was the first time he had ever heard of something called a ''spatial tunnel''.
"I don''t know either." She shook her head quickly. He knew she was lying but he also knew she wouldn''t reveal anything even if he asked her. However, he couldn''t help but wonder where she got all this information about formations and everything rted to The Treacherous ocean.
They traveled through the tunnel step by step. When they reached the thirtieth step, the tunnel suddenly began to tremble violently. Soon afterward, a powerful storm of energy suddenly appeared far away and quickly rushed toward the group.
Lah''s expression changed abruptly as she cried out, " Spatial storm! We need to get out of here as soon as possible before the storm gets worse" With that, her footsteps suddenly sped up, quickly advancing forwards.
The spatial storm rushed toward them from behind, quickly surging at the two of them. It forced them to advance as fast as they could. Right now,
He waspletely focused on her steps and copying her steps to perfection. As thest step fell, Michael''s vision suddenly opened up. The spatial tunnel and the spatial storm that surged behind him all disappeared as if he had arrived in a different world. It was extremely peaceful in the surroundings, without any dangers.
However, he had no time to observe this foreign world. He hurriedly turned around to look back and only saw a ripple in space. Lah appeared before Michael, slightly panic-stricken. Her forehead was wet with sweat, clearly due to being overly anxious.
When she saw that she had finally left the damned spatial tunnel, Lah immediately rxed slightly. She roughly scanned the surroundings, before turning around and looking backward to see if there were any mutated beings nearby.
Lah sat silently nearby with her veena in her hands but she was stern. In this foreign world, there was an unknown number of dangers. After being exhausted mentally, she needed to rest a bit before continuing their journey towards the teleportation array. Even up to this point, Michael had no idea that she took the long path filled with unknown dangers and mystery rather than taking the safe and shorter path to the teleportation array.
Having no ideas of her deception, he looked around and realized that he was currently in an endless wastnd. It was deste, without any grass or signs of life. There was no sun or stars in the sky, it was a hazy-grey and did not even have clouds.
After a while, he turned his gaze to Lah who just stood up, ready to leave
"Where to next?"
After some silence in thought, she replied, "there should be a path leading to the teleportation array a couple of miles away from here, I can sense it, let''s go" She said but she herself wasn''tpletely sure about what lies next. However, since that person who cast the formation put so much effort into constructing a spatial tunnel that crosses through the stars on the dragon''s ind leading up to here, she believed that there''s some secret hidden here and she wanted to see what it is.
Michael hesitated slightly because even though they didn''t meet any mutated beings on their way here, this ce and everything gave him a bad feeling. For now, the only thing he could do was follow Lah, in hopes that she knew the way of getting out of here.
At this very moment, an ancient, deste presence appeared in the far-off distance. It was vast and boundless, quickly expanding into the distance with a soul-shaking might.
Feeling the presence, the expressions of the two changed greatly. Before the presence, they felt like even an ant was more significant than them. The pair could not even think of resisting before the presence.
Shortly afterward, two colors, red and blue, appeared beyond the horizon. They plunged into the sky like two pirs, radiating with an ancient and deste presence.
Both of them unconsciously looked at the two pirs of light. Afterward, their minds rumbled. Currently, they simultaneously envisioned a foreign scene. They witnessed the chaos before everything, as well as the birth of stars, milky ways, and even the universes.
"Wake up!"
At this very moment, a powerful shout of the system reverberated through Michael''s head. It woke him up and the previous scene of chaospletely disappeared. He returned to reality and he was not the only one who awakened. Even Lah beside him returned to her senses from the powerful shout of the system.
"System what the hell was that? What did I just see?? Did I just witness the scene where this world was created?" Michael''s mind was filled with questions, his hands were shaking uncontrobly. the scene with the primordial chaos constantly shed through his head, he had never felt this terrified in his entire life. The scene of the world creation and the presence of the two lights shook his core, making his mind go nk and weak.
[The system level is too low to answer the host''s question and the stuff on that level is not something you should know or the system can exin right now. What you just witnessed is not the creation of this world but everything. With your power level, knowing more about this will only lead you to certain death] the system said seriously, and just before he could curse the system for not telling him anything, its voice sounded again in his mind
[However]? the system''s serious tone took a one-eighty turn as it sounded like it was cooking up some n.
Lah on the other hand did not pay any attention to Michael. She just kept looking at the two pirs of light that surged toward the sky in the distance. Her expressions were mixed, grim while also pleasantly surprised.
"What are you doing?" he saw her taking out Angel''s veena from her space ring.
"I''m going to harness some energy from the pirs," she said before dashing towards the light pirs in the distance giving him no time to stop her.
"What!? " Michael was astounded. Although the system did not clearly exin the origins or anything about the two energy pirs, he got a sense that they were not something he or Lah should meddle with without proper knowledge.
[Stop her!]? he heard the system scream in rage, the sound of the system almost made him feel like his head was about to explode.
[Bitch Bitch Bitch!] Having heard of the system scream and curse like never before, he rushed behind Lah to stop her from doing something incredibly stupid, not because he wanted to save her but he didn''t want her to do something that could jeopardize his and the baby dragon''s life.
Chapter 166 - The System Back Online II
As soon as Michael approached the two light pirs, he felt intense cold energy and scorching hot energy at the same time. His body suddenly jolted and his steps came to a screeching halt. His face immediately became bright red while a terrifying heat began to radiate from his body.
He could only feel that scorching energy had entered his body, like a red-hot branding iron. It radiated with a terrifying heat that was destroying his body. Meanwhile, Lah''s expression also changed abruptly. She immediately became sheet-white. An extremely cold aura began to radiate from her and there were vague signs of the ground freezing. She had also encountered a situation like Michael, though the energy within her was frigid rather than scorching. Wherever the energy passed by, that part of her body became crystallized.
[with her level of strength, she shouldn''t have even got closer to the First Energies yet she tried to harness both the yin and yang energy from them]
As much as he loved to converse with the system, it was not the time as he struggled to keep the scorching hot energy from his body burning him from within.
[Now the yin and yang from the First energies looking for a suitable vessel and your bodies cannot handle them right now. The system can use the First Energies toe out of the safe mode but the host must transfer the excess yang energy that just entered your body to Lah]
"How?!"
The Yang energy from the First Energies radiated a terrifying heat in his body. He knew his body would not be able to withstand it for too long, his organs felt like they were on fire, producing waves of violent pain.
Outside Michael''s body, red ripples of air that were vaguely visible spread out. It was the heat from his body and it caused the surrounding temperature to skyrocket.
"Are you still fucking sleeping?" even after everything he had gone through, the baby dragon was sleeping in his arms snoring. He wanted to punch the baby dragon''s little face after hearing him snore.
Beside him, Lah sat on the ground with her eyes closed. Signs of agonizing pain could be seen on her face. She radiated with an extremely frigid coldness that formed a thickyer of ice in a meter radius around her and asionally he could feel an intense hot wave surging from her body.
Michael and Lah were each absorbing the Yang and the Yin energies from the First energies. The characteristics of the two energies were pr opposites, contrasting sharply with one another.
[There are two methods to transfer the Yin and Yang energies between your bodies]
"Just spit it out, I can''t resist much longer!" Michael said hurriedly. In his body, the Yang energy was like a burning me that slowly inched its way toward his mind while the Ying energy within his body slowly began to crystalize his skin.
[Bang her!]
He almost stumbled down when he heard the system shout ''bang her'' in his mind and for a second, he thought he misheard the system.
"Are you kidding me?!"
[Having sex with her is the quickest way to neutralize the energies in your body and help the systeme out of the safe mode. Don''t be such a wuss, just go and bang her host!]
"You said two methods, what''s... the second method?" Gritting his teeth, he tried to resist the energies from killing him, and in this struggling moment, he failed to notice the Yang energy which is positive and ming energy slowly being absorbed by the baby dragon.
[Although the second method is difficult, it''s the safest method to neutralize the energy without the host has to have sex with the woman, well kinda]
"What do..you mean...kinda?"
[This method is like having sex but without physical contact, the previous owner of this body has learned about this method of neutralizing the Ying and Yang energy] the system brought the memories hidden deep within his kind to make him remember because he was unable to recall them due to the excruciating pain he''s in.
"Spirit walking" he mumbled the name of this method but his face became even grimmer because this method was considered taboo, an act that was hated by all the cultivators. It was just like the system said, sex without physical contact, some cultivators thought that this method would pollute their souls.
However, Michael would rather choose the safest method than the quickest one. Besides, he considered having sex without the consent of the other one rape and he would never stoop that low, no matter what.
Suddenly, the muscles on Michael''s face began to spasm. His face was full of pain. The Yang energy in his body was currently burning away at his vitality and flesh. It was as if scorching mes currently flowed at his chest, drawing closer and closer to his head. Meanwhile, Michael''s entire body had be like a red-hot branding iron, now bright red.
"Argh!" A howl resounded from the side. It was filled with pain. Lah radiated a? surging coldness, the Yin energy from the First energies had already turned half of her body into an ice sculpture.
"Why is this happening? Am I going to die here today?" her face was filled with confusion and regret. She had never thought harnessing this unknown energy she learned from her mentor would prove to be this deadly.
cing the baby dragon on the ground, he slowly walked towards Lah.
"This is all because of your foolishness but I do have a method to neutralize the energies, the spirit walking"
The moment he heard the two words ''Spirit Walking'', she became torn between rage and shame. She red viciously at him, if looks could kill him, he would have shred into pieces by now.
"What! How- how... How dare you! I''d rather die than... than-" When she reached this point, her expression changed once again. She produced a moan filled with pain. The situation inside her body was worsening, she had already arrived at death''s door. All signs of life were frozen within her as the Yin energy had expanded toward her head. Even her soul would be frozen and after that, the Yang energy would burn her soul.
"Shut up! I''m not... going to die with you"
He became redder and redder, it was not only because of the Yang energy inside his body but also anger towards her. The Yang energy was roasting his body like a stove from within. If he did not have the system and the baby dragon unknowing for him absorbing the energy, this strand of Yang energy from the First energies would have dissolved his body already.
His gaze gradually became determined. Gritting his teeth, he directly lunged toward her and ced his head on her frozen forehead to start the Spirit Walking.
Lah immediately snapped open her eyes. Her alluring phoenix eyes lost the calmness from before and were now filled with panic. She tried as hard as she could to raise her arms that were frozen to the point of absolute numbness in an attempt to push him away but she just could not do so with the current condition of her body.
"What- what- what are you doing!? You bastard! Go away¡" her voice was filled with panic. She was a strong woman who protected the purity of both her body and her soul. Even if she died, she did not want to be sullied by others.
"It was all your fault, who said you to harness that fucking weird energy in the first ce," he yelled at her before his consciousness slowly began to fade away.
"You- you bastard¡ go¡ go away." She wanted to push him away from her but she was incapable of that.
He tightly grabbed her shoulders to stop her from resisting. The coldness radiating from her just happened to be the counter for the Yang energy.
When he chanted the ancient words to start the spirit walking with her, the extreme coldness and heat from their bodies came together, there were vague signs of neutralization. It weakened the rigidness and scorching heat from both of them a little.
Lah deeply frozen body also showed signs of melting. Not long afterward, all the ice on her body melted and she was returning to her previous state.
[The system is creating the omega level protection...]
[2%pleted]
[3%pleted]
Although the notifications in his mind were a piece of great news to him,he couldn''t celebrate as the danger of the Yang and? Yin energies remained.
"Argh! What are you doing!? You bastard, let me go¡" she cried out as she struggled violently. She began to resist with all she had, sensing her spirit being intruded on by his. At this very moment, the energies within them had already reached their necks. Michael did not act like Lah, for him, spirit walking was not equal to having sex. He couldnt care less of the purity of her soul, at least with his method, he was not raping her physically, that was all that mattered to him.
Ignoring Lah''s violent struggles, he immediately focused harder to keep the connection between their souls. Gradually, the scorching hot Yang energy from his body burned their clothes, revealing Michael''s toned and Lah''s silky soft milky body under her dress.
"You bastard! Release me! If you do it, I will never forgive you! Let me go immediately¡" She screamed, resisting the connection between them desperately. If it was under normal situations, the connection wouldn''t have been established sessfully but because she tried to harness both the Yang and the Ying energy, the ancient spell worked without a hitch. Besides, she had no strength left in her body to fend him off.
[38%pleted]
[The host is doing a great job. The Yin and Yang energies from the First energies are extremely pure, so once you bnce them out and absorb them, not only will it bring great benefits by increasing your strength, your body and soul will also adapt to the energy. If you ever encounter any Yin or Yang energy in the future, your bodies will have the power to resist thempletely]
"There aren''t any side effects right?" he asked the system in his mind but the answer he received almost broke the connection between him and Lah
[Kinda]
Chapter 167 - Reaching The Core Formation Stage
"What the fuck do mean kinda?"
[When you have physical sex, your seed will sprout as a new life inside your female counterpart]
"Yeah, it''s called a baby," said Michael. He wondered whether the system was trying to annoy him intentionally or not.
[Just like the physical sex, there might be a teeny tiny chance for a spirit child to appear inside her after the Spirit walking]
"Spirit child, what the heck is that?" he asked, still maintaining the connection between him and Lah.
[To put it simply, it''s a baby without a physical body but the system can make sure the spirit child inherit nothing from the host such as talents and characteristics]
"Do it" he said without even the slightest hesitation. He did not have any idea of having a kid until he reached his goal of controlling the world, besides, he was not in love with Lah and would certainly not have a kid with her, a spirit baby or a real baby.
"And can''t you stop a spirit child from forming?"
[There''s only a little chance for a spirit child to appear through spirit walking. At the moment, the system cannot stop the spirit child from forming but can leave a mark in her body that would prevent the spirit child from inheriting anything from the host]
"Whatever," he said before concentrating on keeping the connection between him and Lah and neutralizing the energies. Little by little, he began to lose consciousness.
[58%pleted]
An unearthly humming sound emerged in the deste wastnd, making the dead world slightly livelier. The sound continued for an hour, before slowly quieting down. Afterward, there were no more sounds. The wastnd recovered its deathly silence.
At the moment,
Michael and Lahy on the wastnd naked. They both had their eyes closed, currently unconscious. No one knew whether they had fallen asleep or fallen unconscious. A miniature version of the red and blue energy on the horizon appeared above their bodies before gradually fading away from the sight.
Lah''s veil was already removed, revealing her appearance. She was extremely beautiful, to the point where it could no longer be described as alluring or kingdom-toppling.
On Michael''s back, many scratches crisscrossed. They did not break through his skin but there were clearly visible marks.
The two of themy on the cold ground just like this. Whether they were in deep sleep or unconscious, they did not wake up even after a long time.
[98%pleted]
[Initializing the termination process of safe mode...]
[Absorbing the First energies...]
[Forming a shield preventing the Omegas from detecting the Creator Energy]
[Shield sessfully formed]
[The host has received a Legendary gift box]
[Found excess amount of Yang energy in the host''s body]
[Activating Energy Devourver]
[Experience points converted 50,000]
[Experience points converted 100,000]
[Experience points converted 70,000]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 8!]
¡
[Experience points converted 50,000]
¡
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 9!]
Michael waspletely unconscious and oblivious of what''s happening to him. The Energy devourer kept converting the weak excess Yang Energy remained in his body to Experience points and because the First Energy was extremely powerfulpared to the Arch Energy, the conversion directly made him breakthrough a couple of levels at once. On the other hand, Lah could only reach the next sub-level as her body couldn''t use the excess Yang energy in her body as the system did.
¡
[Experience points converted 70,000]
[Experience points converted 150,000]
¡
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Body Strengthening stage Level 10!]
From afar, the two pirs of red and blue light remained, stretching into the sky. They gave off slivers of Yin and Yang energy that slowly fused into the two. However, the energy was no longer able to cause any harm to the unconscious duo and as soon as the energy entered their bodies, it would be bnced out, turning into gentle energy before being absorbed by them. A portion fused with their bodies, while the remaining part merged with their heads. It caused some slight changes to their souls, strengthening them at the same time. However, most of the energy went straight into Michael''s body because the system sucked in as much energy as possible to enhance its protection against the Omegas.
At this very moment, the two pirs of light in the distance slowly disappeared. With their disappearance, the First Energy in the surroundings vanished instantly but the energy devourer still kept converting the excess energy in his body making him near the Core Formation stage.
[Congrattions to the host for reaching the next stage, the Core Formation stage!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core Formation stage Level 1!]
After he reached the Core Formation stage, the thinyer of light around his body slowly vanished, stopping his cultivation spree.
"Wake up, sleepyhead!"
"Wakey wakey wakey!"
Soon after Michael''s consciousness began to return, he heard a child''s voice and felt his face bing wetter and wetter. The Spirit walking put a major strain on his soul and body, therefore, he couldn''t open his eyes or move his body quickly.
"Wake up, it''s been two days, I''m hungry!"? Michael heard the child''s voice again, it was definitely a boy''s voice but he could hear a tint of roughness in the childish voice he''s been hearing.
"Give me meat! Or I''ll start eating you" as soon as the child''s voice disappeared, he felt a slight pain of something trying to take a bite out of his cheek.
The sharp pain made him move his hands to his face while slowly opening his eyes. As soon as his vision became clearer, he was weed by a pleasant surprise, the baby dragon.
"You''re awake, you''re awake, you''re awake!" the baby dragon''s crimson scales glistened brighter than before. He looked a little grown-up, like a two months old puppy. Just like a puppy who met his owner after a few days, the baby dragon bounced up and down wiggling his long tail.
"You can talk," Michael sighed before smiling at the baby dragon. He then grabbed the bouncing baby dragon, hugging the baby dragon and cing a gentle kiss on his forehead.
"Ah¡"
Hugging the baby dragon, he subconsciously wriggled slightly but when he moved, a numbing moan was heard by Michael. The voice carried some pain, Michael''s slight wriggling had finally woken up Lah.
Her eyes struggled to adjust to the light after being unconscious for a long time. After the blurriness faded away, she saw the naked Michael and the baby dragon licking his face.
Shortly afterward, all the images from a few days ago shed through her head like a film. Lah''s expression immediately became torn between rage and shame.
At this moment, she pushed Michael away using all of her physical strength which was higher than Michael''s due to her Fusion stage cultivation stage. She then immediately climbed up. When she saw that she waspletely naked under the sky, without anything covering her body and the feeling of her soul had been tainted by him, tears immediately began to well up in her beautiful eyes.
"That human is mad, what did you do?" The baby dragon stopped showering Michael''s face with kisses and climbed onto his shoulder.
Forcefully resisting her anger, Lah pulled out a new violet dress from her Space Ring and quickly draped it over herself. She stared viciously at him and the baby dragon with mes of rage, while more and more tears welled up. Her eyes were filled with misery. Sensing the hostility towards them in her eyes, the baby dragon hissed at her, ready to attack her any second.
"Wow, I''ve reached the Core Formation stage?" Just like the baby dragon, he too prepared himself not to fight her but to run as fast as he could from her because he knew she was overwhelmed by rage and she would not listen to any reason.
"System"
[Don''t worry host, the system has left a mark in her soul while you were Spirit walking. She cannot hurt you and here''s a gift for you helping the systeme out of the safe mode] the system voice now sounded more humane, the voice sounded like a man and a woman at the same time. However, the return of the system put a wide grin on Michael''s face. The very next moment, a ck outfit began to cover his body from toe to chest. If he saw himself in a mirror he would instantly recognize this iconic outfit once worn by the one and only character de, the part vampire, part human. Nheless, the outfit was not exactly the same as in the movies, the system had made some changes such as adding shiny metal chest tes, silver embodiment on the edges, and a few other noticeable changes so he wouldn''t stand out too much in the crowd.
Despite the indescribable beauty standing in front of him, he was too focused on himself.
"It''s so good to be back together," Michael said under his breath, cracking his neck and knuckles.
Looking at the grin on his face, she became furious and roared at him "You bastard, you beast, taking advantage of people. You actually used such a despicable method to take sully my soul. I will never forgive you. After I kill you and that dragon, I''ll kill myself." Lah was a woman who seemed gentle on the outside but she was actually tough on the inside. She seemed to be a rather gentle and quiet person but her personality was extremely staunch. She was unable to endure being defiled like this.
Chapter 168 - Legendary Gift Box
The Angel''s Veena appeared in her hands. She ced it mid-air and quickly began to y it with both hands. Every time she struck a note gently, it would shoot out a powerful sound wave at Michael.
"How dare you?!" the baby dragon bared his teeth seeing her attack them. His dragon instincts kicked in as his belly began to glow brighter and brighter. Michael felt his shoulder getting warmer where the baby dragon is standing, he quickly realized the baby dragon is going to use the dragon''s breath, even with the baby dragon''s breath, he knew he couldn''t hurt Lah because of the cultivation gap between them. The baby dragon was just at the level 10 Formation stage while Lah just reached level 6 of the Fusion stage after consuming the Yin energy from the First energies.
"System, the mark you left on her, will it protect the baby dragon?"
[It won''t but the baby dragon has also absorbed the Yang energy from the First energies. As a result, a few changes urred to his body. Now, if the baby dragon and she fought, it would be equivalent to Yang energy encountering the Yin energy. It would be nullified instantly, prevent the two of them from harming each other]
"As I said before, It is so awesome to be back in the game again" he was relieved to hear the answer, plus, he now really began to appreciate the system more. Thest few days had been an eye-opener for him, at first, he depended on the system too much, and then, he began to ignore the system as he didn''t want to depend on the system too much. However now, the Treacherous ocean made him realize one ultimate truth, he was put on this world with the system for a reason. In his mind the reason was to control this world, to be able to do that, unlike back on earth, he must learn to depend on not only himself but also on the system. He decided to bnce between depending on the system too much and ignoring the system, he had to find a middle ground.
"Stand down baby dragon, she cannot hurt us"
"Really?" The baby dragon immediately cooled down, trusting Michael''s words without a doubt. Michael then yfully rubbed the baby dragon''s chin before starting to slowly walk towards Lah, this was his time to be the badass.
Calm down woman, would you have rather preferred me to have sex with you than using the Spirit walking?" Michael asked, slightly moving his body to evade her attacks.
Lah''s eyes had returned to the coldness from before and she quickly yed the veena with her two hands. Each note produced was filled with killing intent, shooting toward Michael. The sound waves grew denser and denser, blotting out the surroundings. Gradually, it formed a cage that locked down Michael and cut off any route of escape.
There was nothing but a calm yet arrogant smile on his face. As the system said, the sound waves strangely transformed into energy when they collided with Michael, they just brushed past him, it could only make his hair and the long coat flutter back.
The light in his eyes flickered a few more times. He grinned looking at her fruitless attacks, letting the dense sound waves in the surroundings strike his body as he walked towards her.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
The sound waves struck Michael like moths flying to a me. However, with no exceptions whatsoever, the sound waves were unable to harm him.
"That tickles," Michael giggled yfully, driving her crazy. The baby dragon also let out an arrogant smile and stood on his shoulder, chest puffed out, head straight like he was a king standing in front of his subjects.
"How is this possible!" Seeing that her attacks were unable to harm Michael, she also revealed a shocked expression. Afterward, the melody she yed changed and she cried out, "Smiting angel,e forth!"
The Smiting angel was one of the rtively more powerful melodies that Lah knew. It used the veena to confuse people, causing their souls to vanish and disperse into the surroundings unknowingly. It was a terrifying melody that killed without any signs and it was impossible to guard against.
The gentle veena notes resounded through the surroundings. It seemed to be filled with a certain charm, calming down everything in the world at that very moment. Even the gentle breeze in the area stopped.
Michael stood thirty meters away, quietly listening to the melody. He could naturally feel that the veena notes concealed a killing intent but when he heard it, he did not feel anything. It was as if they could not affect him at all and posed no harm.
"That tickles me too, hehehehe" the baby dragonughed out loudly to make her even more furious, the baby dragon enjoyed making her mad. Michael too noticed the sadistic side of this baby dragon and realized that Gaya must be the reason as she is just like that.
Very soon, the melody progressed to its halfway point. Seeing how the baby dragon wasughing at her, Lah became shocked and her face became filled with disbelief.
The melody stopped. Lah stopped ying the veena, staring nkly at Michael. She struggled to ept this.
"No¡ no¡ no¡ this...this is impossible. How? Why is my veena unable to affect you?" Lah became rather despaired. Not only did Michael soil her purity, but he was also now immune to her veena. This prevented her from ever taking revenge. She could not ept this.
Lah did not believe it. She began ying again but no matter what she tried, it was unable to harm Michael and the baby dragon at all. They really did seem to bepletely immune to her veena.
"Impossible, why-why can''t my veena hurt you?" Lah shook her head. More and more tears welled up in her eyes, before finally rolling down her beautiful face as two streaks of crystal-like tears. She was in misery.
"It was all your fault Lah, who told you to harness the energy you have an idea about? You paid the price for what you did, it''s simple as that '''' He wasn''t going to console her or anything and if he could, he would have killed her for trying to kill him. Since that was not the case, he gave her the piece of his mind. She was shivering in anger and feeling helpless, she wanted to rip them to pieces yet she couldn''t even barely hurt them. Her face started to be redder and redder as tears of fury and misery flowed out of her bloodshot eyes.
What happened between him and Lah was definitely not an ident. As he said, it was her own fault for attracting both Yang and Ying from the First energies instead of only Yin energy. Even if she just tried to harness the Ying, she would have ended up dying because her body and soul were not at the level to handle the First energies. The system would have used a special method to harness the energies toe out of the safe mode while strengthening Michael, it was her who acted rashly and put his life in jeopardy. At that time, he had no choice. He needed to survive. Even if he could travel back in time, he would have still done the same thing. Besides, most guys would have chosen to have sex with her using her moment of vulnerability but he did not, as far as he was concerned, he did no wrong except being a gentleman to her.
"You...you bastard...how could you...use Spirit walking-"
"So what would you have wanted me to do? have sex with you? Would you have acted differently if I did that?" he continued to fire question after question at her, as an answer, she got nothing. She just stood there with no words to speak
"I did what I had to survive, be grateful that I didn''t take your virginity"
"This..this..is worse" she replied, gritting her teeth.
"For me, it''s not and as I said before, this is all your fault. So quit whining and get over it!" Looking at her standing there without an answer, he sighed and willed the system to open the interface. He knew that Lah needed to calm down right now, so he did not disturb her. Considering he too cannot hurt her even if he wanted to at the moment, he could only let matters take their course and develop as they would.
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 1
Experience Points: 100000/400000
Badass Points: 48000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 90% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Wealth: 1,670,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
Subordinates: Gaya (loyalty level 95%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
Quieting down, Michael immediately checked the conditions of his own body. A wide grin was put on his face when he looked at his stats. Although the trip to the treacherous ocean was extremely dangerous, he had gained a lot. He couldn''t wait to see the reaction on the faces of the so-called superstars of the youngest generation such as Victoria and Evan. This was the reason the system always urged him to explore the world, go out adventuring and basically piss off powerful people so he could get stronger as fast as possible. If he had to me someone for his slow pace cultivation, it should be him as he was the one ying it safe. However, ying it safe ends now because he decided to go on an adventure with Gaya after getting out of this ce.
With the increase in his cultivation level, all of his spells received a power boost although it was not as much as upgrading the spells to the next level.
After closing the stat window, he noticed the small golden box on the corner of his sight bouncing up and down. His face immediately brightened when he saw the box,
"A Legendary gift box, damn this day gets keep better and better"
[Does the host wish to open the Gift box?]
"Heck yeah!"
Chapter 169 - The Inventor Trait
The golden box grew bigger and bigger before exploding into golden bits of light revealing a silver card.
[Congrattions to the host for receiving the unique trait ''Inventor'']
As soon as finished reading the system notification, he felt the familiar sharp pain in his mind. In a blink of an eye, the pain disappeared leaving new knowledge in his brain.
[Congrattions to the host for bing the Level 1 Inventor. The host can now use the materials found in this world to build basic tools]
Michael closed his eyes for a second, studying the new knowledge. He was able to tell that he could now build tools such as batteries, torches, andpasses using the materials found in this world. Although these tools seemed almost useless to him, he did not underestimate the trait.
"System show me how many levels this trait has and what do I get in each level?"
[The Inventor trait has 6-star levels]
[Star 1 - The host will be able to build basic tools and day to day items]
[Star 2 - The host will be able to build basic gadgets such as night-vision goggles,sers, etc]
[Star 3 - The host will be able to buildplex gadgets such as eavesdropping bugs, micro cameras, and trackers, etc]
[Star 4 - The host will be able to build new and antique firearms such as crossbows, mini crossbows, limited shots revolver, cannons, etc]
[Star 5 - The host will be able to build various types of new gadgets and weapons]
[The host is required to either have a 5-star cksmith or be a 5-star cksmith to unlock the Star-6 Inventor Trait ]
His eyes sparkled looking at this overpowered trait. He couldn''t even imagine how powerful he would be after reaching the 5-sta Inventor level. Whoever had a special trait in this world would be more likely to be sessful and powerful than those who don''t have a trait.
For instance, the 5-star Alchemy had already made him super op and saved his life a couple of times yet Alchemy was not a unique trait but the Inventor trait was.
His smile grew wider in excitement, "System, quick, tell me the cost for upgrading the trait"
[Star 2 requires 10,000 badass points ]
"Do it" Although 10k points was a huge amount, he did not care about the points as he realized the potential of this trait. After he ordered the system, his 48,000 badass points were reduced to 38,000. The very next moment, he experienced a tingling sensation in his brain before the notification box appeared in front of him.
[Congrattions to the host for bing the Level 2 Inventor. The host can now use the materials found in this world to build basic gadgets]
"How much for the next level?" He asked quickly. He knew he probably doesn''t have enough badass points to reach the 5-star level but he wanted to upgrade as much as possible with the current amount of points.
[20,000 badass points]
"You know what to do" The points decreased to 18,000 while the tingling sensation appeared again and this time, it was slightly more painful than before.
[Congrattions to the host for bing the Level 3 Inventor. The host can now use the materials found in this world to buildplex gadgets]
Michael closed his eyes again and felt like he could build numerousplex gadgets using the materials found in this world, he had already started to n a few modifications and new gadgets to his Lucifer armor.
Now that he could build gadgets such as eavesdropping bugs and micro cameras, he did not need to buy them from the system.
"System, how much for the next upgrade?"
[60,000 badass points]
"Damn, I have a lot of work to do" saving his remaining points for an emergency, he closed the system before taking out a slice of meat he bought for the baby dragon from his storage.
At the moment, the baby dragon was standing on his shoulder, staring at everything around him curiously and whenever his gaze fell on Lah, puffs of smoke woulde out of his nostrils.
"Do you want this?" Michael showed the juicy red meat to the baby dragon.
"Yummy!" seeing his favorite food, the baby dragon''s eyes sparkled as he lunged at the meat.
"Slow down" he was toote as the baby dragon had already finished half of the slice in one single bite.
While the baby dragon was munching on the meat, he turned his gaze towards Lah, "How long do you n to be like this? After bncing the Yin and Yang and absorbing the energies, we both should have reaped great benefits. See it for yourself"
Currently, Lah had already begun to calm down gradually. Hearing what Michael had said, her expression remained the same. She closed her eyes skeptically, silently sensing any changes in her body.
A secondter, Lah''s eyes abruptly snapped open. They were filled with an unconceble shock but very soon, it turned into pain. She gently bit her bottom lip and she seemed down.
Her strength had indeed increased, just as he had said. However,pared to the price she had paid, she would have rather not gained this increase.
"I would have rather died than increasing my cultivation level like that" she didn''t hide the misery and anger inside her heart as she yelled at him.
Her answer however annoyed Michael.
"Then kill yourself, no one is stopping you"
"Yeah go and die, puny human!'' the baby dragon raised his ws and said disdainfully. It was obvious that the baby dragon did not like Lah and would kill her if he could.
The way the both of them acted fanned the mes of her anger yet she knew she is unable to harm them at all. However, although her heart was burning in anger at him, her mind told her that he used the Spirit walking only because he had no choice and avoided taking advantage of the situation to sully her body which many young men like him would have done in a heartbeat.
Michael did not give a shit about her feelings, he did what he had to survive. If it wasn''t for the fact she knew the way to the teleportation array and save Christopher, he would have already left her.
Seeing that she did not overreact like before, he calmly said, " Let''s see if we can find the teleportation array"
Lah sat dejectedly on the ground as if she could not hear Michael at all. She gave no reaction. He then slowly took a couple of steps towards her
"The longer we stay here, the longer that old man would suffer"
As he said that, Michael paid no more attention to her, turning around and walking off into the distance with the baby dragon.
Lah slowly raised her head. She stared at his back which constantly grew smaller with mixed emotions. Gently biting her lip, she hesitated slightly before she slowly followed Michael in the end.
The two of them maintained a distance of thirty meters between them as they traveled and they eventually arrived at a deep canal of unknown meters. This was where the two huge pirs of light were three days ago.
Standing at the canal of the canal, he did not hurry down. He focused his eyes on the very center of it. He could vaguely feel some extremely obscure ripples of energy and the ripples were so powerful that it even made him shocked.
[The system can sense the energy signature of the teleportation array] he sighed in relief seeing that he''s on the correct path.
"What''s down there? I can vaguely sense powerful energying from this hole" the baby dragon craned his neck to look into the hole before speaking.
Lah also walked up from behind. Despite the wound in her heart, she had already calmed down and her face was once again hidden by a veil. She stood three meters away from him at the edge of the canal. At the same time, she looked down into the very depths with her eyes that were still filled with misery. She could obviously feel the extremely obscure but powerful ripples of energy too.
After hearing the system and the baby dragon, he looked at the dark hole vigntly. He then willed the Arch energy to fill every corner of his body, strengthening his body to the limit.
He no longer paid any attention to Lh and her tantrum. Without even turning back to look at her, he directly leaped into the hole. While falling down, he retrieved the flying sword and hopped on it in the mid-air.
Lah followed closely after he leaped down. She tailed Michael, slowly gliding down toward the bottom too.? The two of them arrived at the bottom very quickly. The bottom was t and had a diameter of a hundred meters. Two balls of powerful light floated quietly at the center. The balls were two meters off the ground. One ball seemed to have been made of water which radiated a bright blue color while the other seemed to have been made of fire, radiating fiery red color.
[The First Energy stone] the system eximed as he was staring at the two balls of energy with interest for a while before he slowly walked over. The baby dragon and Lah also looked at the energy balls, observing them curiously.? After he sensed a slight surprise in the system''s voice, he wondered whether he could use the balls of energy to further advance in the cultivation.
However, as soon as he reached thirty meters from the energy balls, a white figure appeared silently to block Michael''s path before the baby dragon and Lah fell unconsciously on the ground.
Chapter 170 - The Supreme Guardian Meets The Dark Lord
The sudden white figure frightened Michael greatly. His instincts kicked in as he immediately activated the Lightning Dash to retreat before grabbing the unconscious baby dragon from the ground. After retreating several meters away from the figure, he stared vigntly at the figure that had just appeared.
Only now did Michael see the figure''s appearance clearly. He was a middle-aged man who seemed to be in histe or mid-forties but the man''s calm face still contained the residual handsomeness of his youth. He did not seem like the average man, his distant eyes were filled with calmness as if he had no worries. The man radiated a noble holy aura that would make amoner kneel down to worship him as a God. However, his body seemed rather ethereal. He did not seem to be corporeal.
With the appearance of the man, an indescribable pressure immediately began to permeate the surroundings. At this very moment, the entire world seemed to freeze, even time stopped. He was familiar with this feeling, it was just as whenever he entered the system.
[Warning!]
[The host is under a telepathic attack!]
[Immediate firewall against telepathic attacks rmended!]
[Does the host wish to upgrade the firewall to level 2? The upgrade will cost the host 8,000 badass points]
"Do it" He was experiencing a mind-exploding headache as someone was hitting him in the head with a hammer. The pain gradually lessened after he ordered the system to upgrade the firewalls that he previously used against the SilverMoon girls'' telepathic attract to level 2. He then sent a jolt of lightning through the baby dragon''s body to wake him up.
"And system scan the ce for the teleportation array and notify me when you''re ready to teleport me away"
"Grrr! What just happened? Whoa, what''s that?" the baby dragon hissed angrily before being shocked by the ethereal figure floating in front of them.
Lah was lying on the ground without moving. Just the pressure from the man was enough to make her lose consciousness.
Half Immortal!
This thought urred to both Michael and the baby dragon. The man floated three meters in the air. He stared fixedly at him and the baby dragon, while a sliver of shock appeared in his eyes, and soon, the surprise turned into a fit of anger.
"Dark Lord" Michael''s face immediately became grim hearing the man identify him as Dark Lord somehow. However, Michael did not n to bluff his way out because he had already sensed this man knew exactly who he was.
Knowing that there''s no point in acting innocent, Michael willed the system to equip Lucifer''s suit of armor because if this old man was looking for the Dark Lord, he should meet the Dark Lord.
This time the ethereal figure stared at him speechlessly in a sudden shock and it was not only him but the baby dragon also looked startled to see Michael in this form.
"Who am I talking to?" he asked the man while slowly walking towards him.
"The man who hunted down your followers and killed them like they were a bunch of wild dogs even before you appeared in this world. The Fifth Supreme Guardian, Andreas McLeod"
Andreas McLeod was the Supreme Guardian of the Guardian Guild. When the Elon continent was controlled by the order of death in ancient times, it was him who emerged at the most crucial moment after all the powerful and influential organizations at that time were controlled by them. He single-handedly killed many powerful members of the order and led a group of Elder Guardians to eradicate the order by himself, preventing the order from reaching out to the rest of the world. This was the reason why the continent had its current peace because the order of death was an evil organization that did countless evil deeds across the continent.
A sliver of surprise shed across Michael''s eyes,
"And the man who tried to kill me ever since I stepped into The Treacherous Ocean and failed" he sneered without even a hint of fear in his heart. Although the ethereal form in front of him was half immortal, Michael believed that he couldn''t harm him because if he could, he would have done it by now.
The pressure around Michael increased significantly but the newly upgraded firewall kept the pressure from reaching both Michael and his pet.
But quickly the pressure disappeared from the ce as an arrogant smile appeared on Andreas''s face.
"Leave this world while you still can Dark Lord"
"You have some nerve, you''re nothing but a sliver of left behind soul" the baby dragon spoke in Michael''s stead. The man turned his gaze towards the baby dragon,
"So it''s true, Edros''s descendent has a Forest dragon as his foe" he then turned his gaze back at Michael
"Thousands of years ago, the guardians eradicated the world of your followers, Dark Lord, they will do it again and this time, they will end the darkness once and for all. The world is and will be better without you"
"Hahahaha" Michael burst into evilughter after hearing the man. The man seemed to have really believed the fact that the world is in better shape now.
"Do you really think the world is better now? How long have you been stuck here?" Michael questioned the man and continued,
"And don''t even start me on the Guardians, they are now just a bunch of corrupt politicians. This world is not better, this world is sick, and I''m here to cure it and if your guardians stood in my way, I will tear them apart" The baby dragon felt the cold murderous aura he''s radiating while speaking and realized he was not kidding around.
"Humph, don''t act like you care, all you want is to control and rule this world, strip away everyone free will, make the people in this world your ves"
"I don''t know anything about stripping away free will or making people my ves but controlling and ruling the world is just what I''m going to do. The guardians can try to stop me" the man just stared at him in silence for a few seconds before replying with a calm smile,
"Don''t be too arrogant Dark Lord, the guardians may have turned into what you im but there will be guardians who would dly give their life fighting you and my sessor is already growing stronger each passing day"
Michael took a note in his mind about the next Supreme Guardian, if he could find that one, he would kill him or her and eliminate a huge threat but he already knew it won''t be that simple.
"And don''t even think about killing my sessor, I made sure he stays safe from you" Like Andreas read his mind, he spoke with utmost confidence.
"You already marked his death the moment you put him against me. If he ever tries to stop me from achieving my goals, he will die and I don''t make threats, I make promises"
"He will have an army in hismand, an army that will hunt you down and kill you. Keeping my sessor safe was not the only thing I did, Dark Lord, if you ever try to build the order of death again, the guardians will find you. So you''re just a one-man against an army"
"He is not alone," the baby dragon said roaring at Andreas,
"See, I''ve already begun to build an army to fight against the Guardians"
"Guardians are not the only ones you should be worried about Dark Lord. Each and every champion of the Great ns will unite to fight against you, Edros''s descendent, and my sessor is just one of the" Under the ck mask, Michael frowned slightly. He knew he would be eventually fighting against the guardians but after seeing the confidence in Andreas''s eyes, he was sure that each great n has its own version of supreme guardians and would fight him in the future.
However, instead of worrying, he began to feel the excitement rising in his heart because they don''t have what he has, the badass system.
"You just made my life a little easier by telling me all these pieces of information. Beforeing here, Guardians was my only target but now, I will start breaking down all the Great ns one brick at a time using any means necessary, after all, I''m the Dark fucking Lord"
The tension between them arose as they both stared at them without uttering a word. Soon afterward, Michael''s gaze fell on the two energy balls behind the ethereal figure of Andreas. Looking at his gazending the two energy balls, Andreas waved his hand as the two energy balls came floating towards him
"Let me guess, you are keeping this for your sessor"
"I can see the energy trace in this ce and around the two weird energy balls" the baby dragon spoke looking around the ce.
"The teleportation array is here and these balls of energy are connected to the array" Michael was surprised to hear the baby dragon speak like this. He had no idea that the baby dragon could really see the world in a different perspective as well as the energy traces better than any other race. The dragons were the masters of energy tracking and maniption.
"You didn''t show yourself to give me tips and tricks did you? if I''m right, the moment I activate the teleportation array, the two energy balls would be teleported to your sessor"
"And my sessor and his woman will absorb the energy to be stronger. This Godly energy will make them invincible" Andreas said arrogantly. He knew the Dark Lord can''t touch the Godly energy as he made sure of that thousands of years ago.
"System, can I absorb the energy?"
[The system''s current level is too low to absorb the First Energy]
Hearing the system, he was slightly disappointed, it would have been a great bitch p to Andreas if he could absorb the energy in front of him.
[However, the system can severe the connection between the teleportation array and the two energy balls for 3000 badass points]
"If I leave them here, anything can happen. System can you destroy them? if I can''t have them then no one should"
[Yes, the system can destroy the balls of energy for 5000 badass points]
Chapter 171 - End Of The Treacherous Ocean Arc
The moment he heard the system, an evil grin appeared behind his ck mask. Standing from the opposite side, Andreas saw a dark and extremely powerful energy gathering around the Dark Lord''s both hands. He creased his brows seeing the dark energy as the Dark Lord spoke,
"You said that you killed my followers like a bunch of wild dogs and the guardians will do the same to me. But you forgot one important thing Andreas" Michael slowly stepped forwards towards the balls of energy hovering in the sky beside Andreas, the closer he got the energy balls, the denser the dark mist around his hands became.
"When you y with the devil, you''ll end up in hell" after these words escaped his mouth, he reached out to grab the floating balls of energy.
"You-" Andreas''s eyes widened as much as they could, staring at the Dark Lord grabbing the balls of energy. The two balls struggled, vibrating violently under his grasp but the dark mist quickly surrounded them. As the dark mist surrounded the two energy balls, they started to struggle less and less before finallypletely vanishing off into the dark mist.
"How...how is...it can''t..be" Andreas stuttered, he never thought the Godly energies he spent half of his life searching could be destroyed by the Dark Lord in a couple of seconds. Just as the order of death, the guardians also had an oracle who warned them about the Dark Lord but nobody took the badass system into the equation.
Soon after Michael destroyed the two energy balls, the ethereal form of Andreas began to flicker,
"This sliver of soul is dissipating," the baby dragon said,ing out of his shock of seeing Michael destroy the two energy balls.
Andreas could only stare at the Dark Lord and pray that his sessor could defeat the Dark Lord who seems more powerful than he had imagined. At this moment, he really doubted whether what he left behind was enough to help his sessor beat the Dark Lord or not. After what he had just seen, he realized that it was definitely not enough and hoped the Gods would help his sessor on his path to defeat the darkness.
"Thank you for everything you said old man, it was really helpful" Michael waved his hands snickering before the ethereal form of Andreas disappeared from his sightpletely.
On the ground, Lah''s body slightly moved as she slowly opened her eyes, regaining consciousness. He quickly unequipped Lucifer''s armor and equipped the armor he was wearing before.
"Down" he whispered to the dragon, falling on the ground to pretend he too was unconscious. The baby dragon did not ask any questions as he followed Michael''s lead.
"What...just...happened?" Lah opened her eyes to see Ghost and the baby dragon slowly waking up.
"I don''t... know," Michael said, gently lifting the baby dragon from the ground. Both of them struggled to stand on their feet, La was really struggling while Michael and the baby dragon just pretended to be.
He let out a sigh of relief thinking about finally leaving his ce looking toward Lah. "Lah, we should leave"
Lah nced at Michael. She forcefully restrained her voice and did not say anything. Turning around, she silently walked to the ce where the two balls of energy were before.
Standing there, she closed her eyes, chanting a few words under her breath to activate the teleportation array. Soon after she started to murmur, the ground beneath them lightened up revealing blueplicated engraving.
Walking to the center of the glowing formation, Michael looked back at the fog-covered ind. He knew that from now onward, he had to work harder than ever before to achieve his goals. The short conversation he had with Andreas really opened his eyes and gave him a new perspective. Everything he said was deeply engraved into his brain, especially what he said about Edros''s descendent. Even though he had the badass system, he did not underestimate the foes he would be facing in the future. To fight them, he nned to recruit people with high potential to build an army that would fight for him. He saw what a drop of Edros''s blood could do and if the descendant has half of his ancestor''s power, he knew he must increase the baby dragon''s power as soon as possible.
Roar!
Perhaps the disappearance of the two energy balls had rmed the mutated beings roaming around the treacherous ocean as powerful roars immediately echoed. Large numbers of mutated beings all charged at the two from the surroundings.
Both of their expressions changed. Although their strength had increased substantially, they could not fight hundreds of unkible mutated beings. Moreover, there were quite a few Fusion stage mutated beings among the corpses, if they were surrounded, they would not be facing a hard battle but die in a couple of seconds.
"Let''s leave here quickly!" Michael called out to Lah, urging her to activate the teleportation array without lingering any longer in this god-forsaken ce.
Lah did not hesitate either, she immediately drew a few symbols in the air.
The very next moment, the engraving on the ground glowed brighter and brighter while the ground began to tremble. In a blink of an eye, a beam of light appeared where they were standing a second before and disappeared along with them.
********************************
At that moment, in the sky far away from the Rainbow ind, a white light appeared in the empty space without any forewarning. As it disappeared, it revealed the figures of Michael and Lah.
The two of them finally returned to the world of living from the Treacherous ocean.
As soon as they emerged from the light, Lah immediately became a blur that flew off into the distance with unbelievable speed. She disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving Michael behind, who was still floating in the sky on the flying sword with the baby dragon.
Looking at the direction in which she disappeared off, Michael remained indifferent. He knew that what happened back in the treacherous ocean had affected Lah greatly but he did not give a shit about her little feelings.
"Lightning Dash" he just activated the lightning dash, turning himself into a bolt of lightning before flying towards Angel''s peak where he met with Christopher. After a few hours of flying, he saw two figures flying to him from a distance. They were the two disciples of Lah, Johan, and Nerita.
"Ghost, you''ve finally returned. Three weeks have passed since your departure with the ind mistress. We were worried about her" Johana said from afar. Her voice was clear and pleasant just like ark''s.
"And you cured your pet dragon, wonderful" another pleasant voice followed Johana as nerita appeared behind Johana.
"Pet?! Grrr'''' the baby dragon growled after hearing Nerita call him a ''pet dragon''.Although the baby dragon never spent any time with his mother or his siblings, he did inherit all the qualities of the proud dragon race. Calling him a pet was an insult to him yet he was not stupid to show his annoyance in front of two powerful cultivators who could crush him to death in a blink of an eye.
"What happened back there? Why did the ind mistress look different? as if she is apletely different person?" Nerita asked. Her face was filled with worry and concern.
"Hehehe" the baby dragon chuckled devilishly standing on his shoulder.
"Howe?" Michael asked curiously.
"As soon as the mistress returned, she gave us the Demon Dragon''s hearts and entered the back mountain to go into seclusion. She paid no attention to us no matter how many times we tried to talk to her. All these years I studied under her, I have never seen her like this, what happened to her?"
Johana''s face was filled with the feeling of being wronged. When she reached the end of her words, she immediately became stern and her gaze toward Michael had even be filled with some threat.
Michael chuckled. "From this trip, your teacher has gained a lot. Since she reached level 5 of the Fusion stage, she must have wanted to consolidate her cultivation, I think that''s why she went straight into seclusion. You shouldn''t worry about her and disturb her"
"Is that so? Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Master''s is getting stronger and stronger. At this rate, she would be the youngest half immortal this word has ever seen"
The two of them immediately became excited with what Michael had said.
"Did she tell how to suppress the curse before she went into seclusion?" Michael asked Johana and Nerita before they could ask more about what happened back there.
"We knew the method, we just needed a powerful energy source to suppress the curse and since we have the Demon Dragon''s heart, we can finally help that pitiful person to reach the Soul refining Stage
"As long as he breaks through sessfully, the pain he suffers will be greatly reduced and if the gods desire, he can find a way to permanently lift the curse," Johana said.
"Yeah. Because of that curse in his soul from all those years ago, he has been suffering greatly. We did not have the heart to watch on. At least now we can free him from that torture. Alright, let''s not talk anymore" Nerita seemed genuinely happy as her smile was rather sincere.
Even though Johana and Nerita were Soul Strengthening stage warriors who were just a couple of years of cultivation away from reaching the Soul refining stage, they had always lived on the harmonious Rainbow Inds. Very rarely did they ever leave the ind, which allowed a sliver of good and kindness to remain in their hearts. They had not been corrupted by the disputes and deceptions present everywhere in the outside world. This was not to say they were a hundred percent pure-hearted kind people but they were just less scheming horrible people, unlike the cultivators Michael had met.
With Johana and Nerita apanying him, they arrived at Christopher''s cave. They found him sleeping on a stone bed with a disheveled appearance.
Chapter 172 - The Cult Of Lucifer
Just like before, the old man was sleeping on a stone and even though he was sleeping, his body twitched as if he was having a nightmare or he was still suffering the effect of the curse. The two girls stared at him pitifully, seeing his twitching body.
"In order to decrease his pain, we used the fairy melody to make him sleep" She then turned to Johana. "Johana, let''s wake him up"
"Yes," Johana immediately sat down with her legs crossed. She gently caressed the strings of her veena with her elegant hands, producing a piece of gentle soul-soothing music from the veena.
Nerita''s fingers also touched the strings of her veena, using a unique method to wake Christopher from his slumber. Hearing the melody, even Michael felt his exhausted body feel slightly refreshed while the baby dragon seemed unaffected by the melody at all.
"Who is he?" the baby dragon whispered into Michael''s ear.
"Sect Leader ire''s grandfather"
"Whoa, isn''t he supposed to be dead?" the baby dragon asked curiously. ire''s life was not a secret to the baby dragon who spent enough time with ire as he would often leave the baby dragon in her care and she loved to take care of the baby dragon. Although at that time the baby dragon couldn''t converse in the human tongue, he understood thenguage perfectly. Only the baby dragon knew that ire loved to talk about her feelings and everything she went through with him rather than actual human beings. She was a girl who preferred to keep the sadness in her heart and share the joy with the others, it was the overwhelming sadness buried in her heart about her family that made her pour everything out to the non talkative baby dragon when she was alone with him. To be honest, the baby dragon sympathized with ire because he too had no blood rtive family.
While he was sick, he heard how he was thrown out from the nest by his own mother due to his illness from Gaya. He could still vividly remember how he was chased through the forest by a group of humans who looked at him like a prized possession because of his race and the moment he met the human who looked at him differently than the others. When the baby dragon met Ghost, the baby dragon saw no ill intention in his eyes as he only saw joy and love. The baby dragon sensed no bad vibrations from him, he may be little but he knew it was this human who fed him and kept him safe when even his own mother rejected him.
The gratefulness and the devotion he has for the human had no bounds. Though he hated to admit it, he knew he loved the Naga and these two were like his family, despite their differences. Thinking about everything this human went through to save him, the baby dragon hugged his neck as tight as he could and began to shower him with wet kisses.
Michael was surprised to see the baby dragon starting to lick him suddenly.
"What happened to you?" he chuckled, asking the baby dragon in low voice.
"Nothing," the baby dragon said while licking his side of the face.
As the baby dragon was licking Michael''s face without stopping, Christopher slowly sat up from the stone bed. He said with a croaky voice, "Sigh, how long have I slept this time?"
"Here, give this to him" Nerita flicked her wrist, retrieving the small orb of fire that''s burning with dark purple mes. Michael gently grabbed the purple fire and surprisingly, the fire wasn''t even warm but he could feel the pulsing energy within the fire. He then walked to the old man carrying the Demon Dragon heart in his hand.
"Sect Leader, just like I told you, I got the Demon Dragon heart. We can now suppress the curse and help you breakthrough to the Soul Refining Stage" Christopher saw the purple orb of fire in his hand and the little majestic dragon sitting on his shoulder. His old eyes darted between the fire orb and the little dragon. He wasn''t sure what''s the most shocking thing, the Demon Dragon heart or the baby dragon on his student''s shoulder.
Soon afterward, he fixed his gaze on the fire orb and felt a surging excitement in his heart, extending his trembling hand to ept the Demon Dragon heart. He mumbled frantically, "Demon Dragon heart, Demon Dragon heart! This really is Demon Dragon heart! The curse in my soul can finally be suppressed! I finally have the chance of bing a Soul Refiner. I can soon see my granddaughter!"
Christopher carefully cupped the Demon Dragon heart in his hand. With the glistening of tears in his eyes, "Youngman, I never thought you''d actually seed in obtaining the Demon Dragon heart from the Treacherous ocean. It must have been a very dangerous journey and you have a noble dragon"
"Noble Dragon, I like this old human" the baby dragon mumbled under his breath as Michael just smiled, "Sect Leader, I will tell you everything that happened there on our way to the sect. For now, let''s focus on suppressing your curse and reach the Soul Refining stage. We will then find a way to permanently lift the curse in the future"
"Ghost, you cannot stay here when we suppress the curse, wait outside the cave," Johana said after taking out a few items such as metal tes, parchments, and a few books.
"Yes," Michael nodded at Johana and stood up to leave the cave,
"I''ll be waiting for your return Sect Leader"? He then walked out of the cave leaving Johana and Nerita to do whatever they would do to suppress the curse.
Outside the cave, Michael sat on arge rock while the baby dragon pped his wings and flew around him. Michael observed the movements within the cave excitedly. He couldn''t wait to bring a Soul Refining stage cultivator to his sect which would instantly protect the sect from rogues, thieves, and small sects that would have been a challenge to his sect before. Furthermore, he would not need to buy something from the system to protect his herbal garden.
Coupled with the Broad River sect takeover, he was positive that the base of operation legend would increase which could provide him with surprising benefits.
These matters aside, when he thought about the snake girl who would be waiting for him, he couldn''t help but smile looking at the horizon.
************************************
((While Michael was in the Treacherous Ocean))
The forest was humble, gloomy, and prospering. Its canopy was ruled by birch, ash, and linden, who provided just enough openings for the moonlight to pass down for a mosaic of shrubs to rule the sloping and nting ground below. Coiling vines suspended from the asional tree, and a range of flowers, which were seen asionally, added some color to the otherwise jade scenery. A disharmony of animal sounds, which were caused by rummaging critters, echoed in the air and formed a chaotic orchestra with the asional roar of arge animal trying to scare away predators. Hidden among the sea of trees, there was a campsite with severalrge huts and in the middle of the huts stood a cabin.
At the moment inside the cabin, the lighting from the torches reflected on two figures. They were hanging from the ceiling and tied with iron chains.
Slowly, the cabin door creaked open to reveal a sturdy man with two bodyguards who stood seven feet in height, they were neither too thin nor too muscr but had a lean body. The most iconic feature of these bodyguards was their faces, they resembled the wolf and one did not need a special ss to identify them as the beastmen.
"Release me! Do you know who I am?" the one who was hanging from the ceiling ruffled the chains and shouted at the man standing between the two beastmen.
"Of course I know who you are, Mister Gerty, the infamous cousin of Minister Bobby Gerty"? the man walked out of the shade cast by the two beastmen and showed his face in the torchlight. The man wore a hat with colorful feathers on it and wore an eye patch covering his right eye. From above his left eye to his chin, a long deep scar could be seen.
He slowly walked towards the man and ran his fingers through the man''s face and then he moved to the figure hanging next to him,
"Get your filthy hands off of her!" the man rattled his chains, violently shaking his body
"You have a beautiful wife, Mister Gerty, too bad she''s a first-ss bitch and a devil reincarnate." Theck of light in the room prevented anyone frompletely seeing her face but the dim light cast on her face did make the two wolves-faced beastmen lick their lips.
"I heard she loves to setmoners on fire, did she recently burn a family ofmoners alive because they came to work five minuteste?"
He said before brushing his hand on her face and the cloth wrapped around her mouth.
"Don''t! don''t you dare touch her!" Mister Gerty shouted as his wife let out a muffled groan.
"Release us! I''ll¡ I''ll pay you...I have gold...thousands of gold" Mister Gerty began to shiver in fear, he thought they would immediately release them after he told them who he is but seeing they did not give a shit about his identity, he tried to get out of captivity by paying them.
"Oh we don''t need gold Mister Gerty, we are in for this for the greater good and for our god..." there was a moment of silence after he finished his sentence. He then slowly unsheathed the short dagger hanging from his waist,
"Lucifer"
Chapter 173 - Operation New Dawn
The man with the hat was standing in front of Mister Gerty and his wife but this time, they did not even move an inch. Inside the cabin, only a sound of water drops hitting the puddle of water could be heard except it was not water and water puddle but the blood of Mister Gerty and his wife. On the corner of the room, two severed heads were still rolling and Mister Gerty''s head still had its eyes opened, overwhelmed with shock and fear.
"Captain Quinn" the cabin door creaked open to reveal another wolf-headed man but he was not as tall or dangerous-looking as the two-body guards behind the man who just killed Mister Gerty and his wife.
"What is it?" Quinn still had a calm smile on his face regardless of the fact he just beheaded a rich couple of the Royal Land. One could see no fear in Quinn''s eyes but rather he seemed excited to kill these nobles.
"Captain of the reconnaissance team has returned and he''s waiting for you in your hut," the wolf-headed guard said, lowering his head as a sign of respect and fear towards Quinn.
"Then let''s not keep him waiting" Quinn sheathed his dagger, taking a few steps toward the door.
"Leave the bodies in the usual ce," Quinn said to the newly arrived wolf-headed guard before leaving the cabin.
*********************************
((Just before the events of Mister Gerty and his wife''s killings))
Somewhere else in the Elon continent, a majestic manor made of grey stones stood between rocky mountains and a sea of trees. There were no movements or living beings around the manor, one would expect workers to work around and in the manor but there was no one except a few figures descending from the sky into the manor through the open roof.
After a while these figures entered the manor, they walked into a spacious hall where arge round table was located. Six fancy chairs made of fine wood and soft cushion situated around the table at an equal distance from each other.
Soon, one by one four of the figures who just entered the room sat on the chairs. Just after all the four figures took their seats, two more figures entered the hall.
"Senior Guardian Peyton"
"Senior Guardian Xanali"
The four of them immediately recognized the two girls entering the room. When they were about to stand up to show their respects, Peyton just waved her hands wordlessly telling them not to bother.
"Each one of you is here because you were cherry-picked by me and my junior sister Xanali to be a part of an important mission. This mission will be the first step of something greater" While Peyton was talking, Xanali flicked her wrist as a whiteboard with numerous portraits of people appeared beside Peyton.
"Now before we go over to this'' '' Peyton pointed her finger at the whiteboard and continued "let''s be clear of something, this mission is totally off the grid, only me, my junior sister, and the guardian captain Gerard know of this mission we are about to start. However, if any of you decides to open your mouths about what you''re going to hear in this room, you''ll be treated as a traitor of the Guardians and you and anyone you are close to will be either killed or exiled from Elon continent. If you want to leave, this is your chance" Peyton nced over to the four humans sitting around the table, three of them were male, and thest was a female. They all wore identical white cloaks to cover their faces as they were instructed by Peyton.
Peyton nodded as she was expecting that they won''t leave the hall. She then turned her gaze towards the whiteboard and snapped her fingers as the whiteboard became brighter revealing all the portraits of the people and a portrait with a big question mark drawn on it.
"People, wee to operation New Dawn" on the whiteboard, the portraits became clearer and if Michael was here he would have definitely recognized three of the portraits among them as three of the portraits had the faces of Gaya, her real face, Victor who is a rogue cultivator and himself.
"New Dawn is a mission to take care of the potential threats to the Guardians even before they could be a potential threat. Currently, there are seventeen threats on the boards, each of you will take four. As the first step of your mission, you will keep your targets under your surveince twenty-four seven, you will get the spells, runes, and everything you need to aplish this task"
"If your targets didn''t do anything suspicious ormit a crime, let them be and continue the surveince. But if they did something, anything like breaking aw set by the king of the ce they were at or fraternize with people marked as criminals by the guardians or even kill a bunch of uselessmoners, you have the permission to make them disappear, forever" a slight murderous aura emerged in her beautiful eyes.
"With the exception of one" Xanali spoke in a gentle manner, pointing her finger at Gaya''s portrait.
"Her name is Gaya, the most wanted criminal of Nagnd. She had killed two hundred and sixty prisoners, bribed king''s men, attempted to murder her own family, andmitted many other sins over these past years. She was crippled by the authorities of Nagnd but unfortunately, she has escaped Nagnd and is now considered to be the most wanted criminal. Although she is crippled, she''s extremely resourceful and dangerous, she is my target but if any of you see her or hear something about her, you need to contact me ASAP, her file will be given to you after this meeting"
After Gaya, Peyton described every individual on their list including Victor, and finally came to the portrait of Ghost, she wrote the name ''Ghost'' in elegant handwriting.
"Ghost? The 5-star Alchemist?" the white-cloaked girl asked Peyton and after her question, the remaining three could quickly recognize him as they too heard about him but this was the first time they were seeing his face, at least a drawing of his face.
"Senior Guardian, pardon my ignorance but why is he here? he''s just a Body Strengthening cultivator in a declined sect" following the girl, another white-cloaked figure raised a question.
"Yes, he''s just at the Body Strengthening stage but you should know, he was at the Body refining stage a month before" the girl and the man who asked the questions stared at Ghost''s portrait with their mouths slightly opened. Until now they only thought of him as a 5-star Alchemist and did not know about his heaven-defying cultivation speed. Now they realized why he is on the potential threat list because they knew if he continued to grow stronger at his rate, he would be half immortal or even immortal in a couple of decades.
At that time, it would be near impossible to neutralize him unless the guardians use the power of the entire guild.
"Whoever gets him as the target must treat this very seriously. He is extremely resourceful, cold, cunning, and dangerous. Among all of them, he''s the second most mysterious, we basically knew nothing about him except his name. By rejecting our offer of joining the Guardian guild, he already showed us that he did not like to y by the rules and people like him who don''t like to y by our rules, must be neutralized" Xanali said with a hint of killing intent in her voice
"Then why don''t we just kill him?" the girl in white cloak asked Peyton and Xanali.
"We can but we need a reason to kill him, that''s why we are here. Although we have permission from the Guardian captain to neutralize any potential threats, we cannot go killing people without a valid reason. Besides, we are dealing with a person who we know nothing about, don''t mess with a mysterious person until you gather all the crucial information about them. This is what the operation New Dawn all about, stalk and neutralize"
The white-cloaked girl licked her lips looking at Ghost''s picture, she wanted him to be her target. It was not only the girl but the remaining three also looked excited. Peyton and Xanali looked at their excited expressions, feeling proud of their decision to choose these four over numerous candidates.
These four were the most power-hungry goal-focused with an unquenchable thirst to prove themselves. Furthermore, these four proved themselves that they will get the results no matter what and they would go to any lengths to finish their missions. These were the qualities Peyton and Xanali wanted from their underlings in this operation. Just as Peyton said before, this operation was off the grid and that meant, the higher echelon of the guild won''t support or provide any kind of assistance for them and also, Peyton and her whole group will be punished for conducting this unsanctioned operation. The operation New Dawn was Peyton''s idea, it was meant to be a feather in her cap that would catapult her career and status within the guild if it proved to be sessful.
"What about that one, Senior Guardian Peyton?" they all asked, pointing at the big question mark on the whiteboard as Peyton and Xanali''s face turned serious.
"The seventeenth target is the most dangerous and mysterious one among them all" Peyton turned back to the whiteboard and slowly wrote a name under the question mark.
"Lucifer"
Chapter 174 - Gladiators
A few hours after they started the meeting, Peyton and Xanali sent the four of them on their way, giving them four files that contained the information of each of their targets.
Standing in front of the whiteboard, Xanali stared at her big step sister''s portrait, her eyes contained a tinge of hatred but also a slight sorrow.
"Xanali, don''t you have somewhere else to be right now?" Peyton noticed her junior staring at her sister''s portrait and asked. She knew the history between Xanali and Gaya, so she could understand Xanali''s feelings. Peyton also knew that although Xanali hated her stepsister for everything Gaya did, she still had a soft spot for her in her heart, after all, she was her sister.
"Yes, I have to go pick up the bodies in the usual ce" Xanali retraced her gaze away from Gaya and looked at Peyton.
"Make sure no one follows you, especially the holy guards. We need to cleanse the kingdoms using Lucifer''s name but we need to do that without leaving any trace that could lead back to Guardians" said Peyton.
"Senior, do you really think the real Lucifer will take the bait and try to send a message by killing a noble himself?"
"Im positive, people like him have an ego. If his sole purpose was to kill evil as he ims, he wouldn''t have presented his victims in a gruesome manner. He wants the people to see his handiwork and since we are hijacking his thunder, he would definitelye out of his hiding and when he does, it either us or the holy guards who would put an end to him" Peyton looked so confident as Xanali really believed that her prediction about Lucifer would be true. However, Xanali still had some lingering doubts and hesitation about Peyton''s n of killing the nobles and using them as the bait to catch Lucifer while getting rid of nobles who had prior criminal records.
Just by staring at Xanali''s eyes, Peyton could tell she''s still not a hundred percent onboard on her ns.
"Sometimes, even the good guys gotta do bad things to make the bad guys pay, do you understand me Xanali?"
"I do senior, it''s just that I quite don''t like that human Quinn"
Peyton chuckled, patting her junior on the back
"You don''t have to like the tool to get the job done. After we get what we want, we''ll just get rid of him too, after all, he''s one of the wanted criminals of Royalnd" Peyton''s beautiful smiling face quickly turned cold and murderous. Seeing her transformation even Xanali felt freaked out.
"Senior, I still think that we should have brought Noah and Alicia into this operation"
Peyton just waved her hands showing her disagreement,
"No, Noah is not the material to work outside the moral codes. He would ask too many questions, we needed people who would do what we say without asking a question, Noah and Alicia are not those people.
Besides, you''ll be emotionallypromised if I bring Noah to New Dawn '''' The sudden statement startled Xanali before a slight shade of redness emerged on her face. Peyton chuckled again,
"You like him, don''t you?"
"Senior!" Xanali stomped the ground, her facepletely turned red.
"What? Do what you want but just don''t act too quickly, your people still have resentment towards humans" Xanali nodded after hearing Peyton. The Nagas had resentment towards almost all the races because they thought they were better than everyone else. After the disappearance of the Dragon n along with thousands of dragons, the Nagas'' power increased significantly and under Gaya''s mother''s rule, Nagnd entered into a golden age where they dominated all the races and reigned supremacy.
Unfortunately, the Nagas'' supremacy started to decline after Gaya''s father took the throne and married Xanali''s mother. Xanali always believed that Gaya''s mother''s way of doing this was wrong andwless but here she''s doing exactly what she initially hated Gaya for.
************************************
((Three years before Michael''s arrival to this world))
Under the scorching hot sun and above the burning hot sand, arge group of warriors wearing only a simple leather cloth to cover their genitals. Some of the warriors had toned bodies with cut muscles while the others looked like professional bodybuilders with their beasty muscles.
Other than the simrity of no fat in their bodies, they all had cuts and bruises over their bodies, which they viewed as their prized possessions.
Among these warriors, two men stood out with their golden hair and handsome faces and once could not tell them apart because of their identical faces.
"Titus, Optimus!'''' The twins dropped their short swords to the ground and walked out from the other warriors when they heard their Doctorus who trained them to be the best diators in the entire Miral Kingdom.
The man who called them, Doctorus was a tall ck man with no hair on his head, he had a lean body and a whip was hanging from his waist.
"Dominus is calling for you" Titus and Optimus''s faces brightened immediately. They were diators of the Ludus Gallio for five years and their time has finallye to be the freemen. They did not be diators by choice but when General Quintus of Miral Kingdom invaded their homnd Wesite, they were captured along with hundreds of citizens and soldiers of Wesite. Titus and Optimus were one of the soldiers who got captured by General Quintus and sold as ves in the ve market of Miral. Because they were soldiers and good at closebat, a nobleman called Gallio Tius Cethegus bought the two of them and put them into the training to be the warriors who fight to the death for the entertainment of southerners, The diators.
Usually, a diator had no chance to be a freeman until he drew hisst breath but fortunately, Gallio offered all the diators in his Ludus the chance to be a freeman. All they needed is to win a certain amount of battles in the arena and they would be freed from very afterward. Gallio set the number of battles to fifty and the twins had won 49 battles.
After getting their freedom back, the twins nned to go to Mairid, the nearby kingdom of Miral, and search for their sister. When they were losing the war to General Quintus, the twins sent their sister to Mairid so she could escape very. It had been two years since they saw their only family, Arria. It was the thought of reuniting with their sister that kept them fighting for two years.
Now they had one more battle before they could finally on their way to search for their sister.
"One more win twins," Doctorus said with a thick ent as a small proud smile appeared on the ck man''s face. He was teaching the diators of Ludus Gallio for twenty-five years and these twins were the best he had ever trained. He felt proud and truly happy for them, he saw Ludus Gallio has been offering the same offer to all the diators in his Ludus but no one hase closer to 50 victories, not even close. The twins were the first toe this closer and he was confident they would win the next battle. Even Doctorus could only win 27 battles before he lost to a diator from another Ludus. In the battle between diators at the arena, a diator could either die or surrender which is considered being a shame and would result in back to very, therefore, a diator would rather choose death over very. Doctorus did not surrender but had a dagger sent through his chest by his opponent and deemed dead, however, he survived miraculously. Ever since that battle, Doctorus never stepped onto the arena but thrown himself into the role of Doctorus. Since he had no family or desire to be a freeman, he was happy being a teacher to the diators.
The southern continent was also known as the Awor continent and this continent resembled the ancient Rome of earth. Everything the Romans did in Rome, the southerners were doing the exact same things and more on Awor. However, although this world had energies like Arch and Celestial that enabled the people to cultivate, the southerners were unable to cultivate. Anyone who stepped into the Awor continent would immediately lose their ability to use Arch or Celestial energy no matter their cultivation level, even an immortal would turn into a mortal in Awor.
This was the reason that anyone who was born in Awor seldom travels to the other continents or vice versa. Only a few merchants used to travel to Awor from the other continents. Since the cultivators couldn''t use energy in Awor, they avoided Awor at all costs because no matter how powerful they were outside, they would bepletely powerless in Awor.
Even though the southerners could not use energy, they were not powerless as one would expect, on contrary, the southerners had the technology, education, and wealth to match up theck of energy use. Besides, just like back in ancient Rome, they had spartans, diators, and a few other super soldier units to fight any enemy.
This strange phenomenon of Awor protected the southerners from the attacks of cultivators and the remaining continents from being attacked by the southerners. The southerners thought of this as a blessing and their gods'' will. The void of energy in Awor made even the senators and great generals not form a countermeasure to deal with the cultivators. And they had no idea that thisck of nning was going to change their world forever.
Chapter 175 - The Butterfly Effect
((Two Years before Michael''s appearance and one year after Titus and Optimus''s 49th battle))
The news of someone poisoned the two elders of House Armfield and House Randal spread through the entire Kingdom of Dradel like a wildfire.
News of the two elders'' death quickly made its way to the head of the house, Nickmon. When he heard this news, he was stunned.
"But how? How is this possible? The two elders were Core Formation warriors, how did they get killed?" The head of the Nickmon Family muttered in dismay. It was very hard for him to believe this recent bit of information, and his heart was still finding it very shocking even now.
Just as he was in deep thoughts, a young girl wearing grey servant clothes walked into the room with a look of difort on her face. The girl was young and looked to be fifteen or sixteen years old. She had shoulder-length hair as well as tanned skin. Slowly making her way into the room, she ced the teapot on the table before the man.
"Master, I''ve just heard that the elders of Armfield and Randal were killed, is that true?" after a few moments of staring at the man meekly, the girl asked.
"I''m not sure, they were all Core Formation warriors. Men! Go out and investigate the truth behind this matter and report back to me." The head of the Nickmon Family shouted the order.
"Yes, my lord. We will go make the inquiries straight away." The guard stationed in the room immediately ran off to verify the reports.
It did not take long for the man toe back to give his report. With a frightened face, he said, " My lord, the news is true. The elder of House Armfield and the elder of House Randal have been poisoned. Their personal guards were too poisoned. Currently, House Armfield and House Randal is investigating the killings"
Thunderstruck by this disastrous turn of events, the head of the Nickmon Family had originally taken the news to be a rumor and didn''t believe it. Now hearing the news from the mouth of his subordinate left him with no other choice but to believe it. Despite it being hard to stomach, he simply couldn''t deny it any longer.
" Did you personally see the corpses of the two elders?" Lord Nickmon''s hands sped tightly onto the soldier''s shoulders as if trying to choke out the truth.
"Y-yes my lord. It is absolutely true. We saw the bodies with our own eyes. They were green and dead" The soldier spoke in rm. Now that two influential people of East Dradel were poisoned by someone, the soldier didn''t know what to think. They knew how hard it is to even get near the housepound let alone kill the elders in their own rooms.
The Nickmon family head then waved his hand at the two guards, wordlessly telling them to leave the room.
Dazed, the lord broke away from the soldier with an absent-minded look. His Nickmon Family was indeed a power within the East Dradel, but there were still plenty of other parties and mercenary groups that were stronger than him. Usually, if elders of rival families get themselves killed, he wouldugh in pleasure but now he couldn''t because, before their deaths, he was working with them secretly to bring an ancient artifact that could make the Nickmon family''s power skyrocket.
Now that the elders were killed, finding the artifact had be harder than ever before. His dreams of rising exponentially in power and status had been dashed, turning into nothing in a single stroke. In other words, the fall of the two elders n had meant the chance of the Nickmon Family bing the most powerful significantly fell.
When the girl heard the guards, a cold smile appeared on her face. She hated the nobles as much as she hated General Quintus for invading their homnd. As far as she was concerned, the world is better off without these nobles on it. At first, she thought the nobles of outside continents would be different from the southerners but after being brought to Elon continent by a ve merchant, she realized these cultivating nobles were just as bad as the southern nobles or even worse. Her childhood friend was killed with a single spell for just bumping into a noble two years ago, she could still hear her friend scream in agony before turning into nothing but ashes. That noble was none other than the man sitting in front of her.
She wanted to burn him, just like he did to her friend. And after killing him, she hoped to grow stronger and save her brothers. If it was two years ago, she wouldn''t even have thought of saving her brothers as she was just a helpless girl then but now, she was learning under a Grim Reaper captain.
The drastic turn of events had been a huge blow to the development of the Nickmon Family, giving the man a tremendous headache. Letting out a heavy sigh, the man walked to his desk, "Girl, fetch me a cup of tea!"
"Yes, master!" The young girl replied before moving to prepare a cup of tea for her master. Then standing behind him, she began to dutifully give him a massage as the man expected from a ve like her.
Bringing the cup up to his lips, the lord of the Nickmon Family had only just taken a sip from his cup of tea when the young girl began to suddenly radiate murderous intent. A delicate-looking dagger slid into her hand before she ruthlessly stabbed it into the back of him.
"Tsk!" Under the unflinching hand of the girl, the dagger buried itself so deeply within the man that not even the de could be seen.
The man let out a pained cry as the cup of tea in his hand fell to the table.
He was a man at the Core Strengthening stage 3 and possessed a quick reflection but the girl''s sudden attempt to take his life caught him off guard.
He immediately rose from his chair and backhanded the girl away. She flew across the room before mming into the wall on the opposite side, but the damage had been done. With a mouthful of blood, the man knew that he had been seriously injured.
Pulling out the glowing dagger that had been embedded in his back, the man looked at his ve in disbelief, "Bloody bitch! How dare you try to kill your master?"
Staggering back up, the girl''s eyes were flowing with tears as she stared hatefully at the head of the Nickmon Family. Clenching her teeth, she angrily replied, "You! You burned my friend alive. I will take revenge for her!"
Startled, the man threw down the dagger in his hand in outrage, "Fucking bitch! Have you gone mad? What in the world are you talking about?"
By now, the girl had lost all pretense of being the obedient ve she had been pretending to be. Letting out an angry shout, she said, "Two years ago, at the Weleg market, you burned a young girl like me alive because she bumped onto you. Ever since that day, I wanted to kill you, burn you alive!"
A drastic change had ovee the man''s face now as he stared gravely at his ve. Soon, his serious expression turned somewhat calm, a cold smile appeared on his face.
"I didn''t think killing a lowly ve would get me stabbed in the neck. I''ve clearly underestimated you, especially if you were able to carry on for two years with such vengeance in your heart without my detection. That in itself is worthy of being called the ve of Nickmon. Although this enchanted dagger could pierce my skin, it''s not enough to kill me. Besides, you''re not even a cultivator. What other means do you have to kill me?"
"You underestimate me too much. There''s no way I''d believe so naively that I could kill you with a single knife. I put some poison in your tea that you just drank. The poison is a dangerous one that will burn your organs within. Nickmon, you cannot escape death today!" The girl let out a coldugh as she spat out her hatred for him.
"What? You''ve poisoned my tea?!" The head of the Nickmon Family cried out with terror. Throwing himself at the girl, he roared, "Hand over the antidote at once!"
She had been prepared for such an action and training to run for two years. The moment he had charged at her, she ran for the door, quickly disappearing from sight.
He had not given chase and instead stared venomously in the direction she had disappeared. Angrily, he said, "Where did this bitch get this enchanted dagger and such colorless odorless poison? " Asking himself the questions, he hurriedly took out a bottle filled with pills from his space ring. He then swallowed the pills to alleviate the poison or at least half its current progress in his body.
After swallowing the pills, the head of the Nickmon Family stalked out of his room. Calling forth for his men, he and the hundred others immediately left the household right away.
Leaving with haste from the Nickmon familypound through the hidden path, the young girl went to the dark alleyway where she was instructed to go. Her body was in a weaker state than before since she had been struck by the head of the family. She had received no major injuries, but she was not a cultivator yet. Her body was not ustomed to taking such a blow thus, it heavily impacted her condition, causing her face to pale.
"Did you get the job done?" When she reached the dark alleyway, a voice appeared from behind, she quickly turned behind to see her mentor standing in front of her with a calm smile on his face.
Chapter 176 - Homecoming
The Sunrise mountains rose in snow-white brilliance, giving a silent invitation for the soul to ept its beauty. Upon the glimmer of sleeping sun on the horizon, the forest was so snowy white. The white nket of snow rested upon the trees, boulders, and the ground as if it were a feather cushion, soft and warm. It covered the ocean of trees in perfect white, revealing the engrained beauty of winter.
The snowke took her dance in the wintry air, pure water made all the more beautiful by her crystalline form. The rain of snowkes looked like they came to earth from heaven itself, blessing the living beings on the ground.
Amidst the rain of snowkes, two figures flying towards a snow-covered building in the distance. One of the figures looked exactly opposite to the white rain, Michael.
"It''s beautiful" Michael reached his hand out to catch the snowkes like a little kid while flying towards the sect with Christopher, who now looked vigorous and less emaciated because of his cultivation level. His greyish patches of hair grew denser and ck as his body slowly turned into look like fifty years old Sylvester Stallone.
Whoosh!
A small swirling stream of fire brushed past Michael as he turned to see the baby dragon soaring through the sky, melting the mighty snowkes with his dragon breath.
"Save your breath dicky" Michael chuckled expecting a funny reaction from the baby dragon and as he expected, the baby dragon lunged at him biting his head like a cute little puppy.
"Don''t..call me that"
While the baby dragon was exacting revenge for calling him dicky, Christopher started to slow down
"Sect Leader, are you okay?" he noticed that the closer they got to the sect, the slower Christopher flew.
"It has been fifteen years" Christopher stopped flying as he looked at the building in the distance. Unlike Michael who was excited to return, Christopher''s heart and mind fought with each other to ept the new reality.
Fifteen years ago, he left the sect with his son on a journey to search for a way to break the curse. At that time, he was afraid that the curse might transfer to ire. He knew ire would either apany them or won''t let them go, that was why they decided to leave without telling her the truth.
"What do I tell her about her father?" Christopher looked at Michael as he was really expecting an answer from Michael.
Michael sighed in his mind. Usually, he would try to avoid sticking his nose into others'' business but anything rted to the sect was his business because it would directly affect the Sect''s legend and the number of badass points he would get.
Before hearing Christopher''s story, he had a soft spot for the elves, not because the female elves looked gorgeous but in the books he read and the games he yed, the elves were portrayed as an oppressed race. For instance, many novels he read had the elves enved by humans. After transmigrating to this world, he couldn''tpletely put aside these books as just fictional books, considering he transmigrated to this world with the system.
However in this world, elves were not enved or oppressed, on the contrary, each race had its own kingdoms and empires. very was considered uwful and punishable by death in few kingdoms and although very was notpletely got ridden, it was also not as bad as some books described, at least, not in Elon Continent.
"Tell her the truth Sect Leader, she deserves it '''' Christopher took a long breath before nodding. Both of them then picked up speed, soaring through the snowkes towards the sect.
******************************
At the same time in the sunrise sect, a group of children led by Cindy and a group of disciples led by Jack was running around the building, taking cover and hiding from an unknown danger.
"Take it suckers!" a voice echoed through the area. In seconds of the warning, the air was thick with snowballs sopacted that several feet solid and icy.
"Not again," said Jack, looking at the snowball flying towards his face in slow motion. The very next moment, the snowballs made of freshly fallen snowkes burst open on the impact with his face, showering crystalline fragments that glint in the wintry light.
"Take cover!" little Cindy shouted at her little army before frantically running behind the stack of bricks and making a stockpile with her little hands to retaliate with. From the lull in the action, she knew Sister Aelia is doing the same to replenish what she already used,
"Today we white walkers are gonna win, Sister Aelia!" Cindy taunted from behind the stack of bricks.
"Today will be no different than yesterday little girl" came the calm voice of Gaya. "get ready to get your little buts kicked"
Plop!
Plop!
Plop!
Just after the voice disappeared, Cindy and the kids were hit by balls of ice with no mercy from above.
"RUN!" Cindy frantically crawled away to avoid the balls of snow while Gaya stood atop the building roof and kept hitting the little children with deadly uracy.
"Come on, attack her while she''s distracted with them" Jack had enough of getting attacked mercilessly by Aelia. He started this snow fight to exact revenge on her for constantly bashing him but ever since the snow fight started, it was him and the little kids who got their butts kicked by Aelia, it didn''t go as he nned, not at all. Furthermore, each passing day, Aelia was stepping up her game as it had be nearly impossible to hit her.
Until now, only ire managed tond a couple of hits and after that, she was buried in snow by Aelia.
"Hey Jacky, are you trying to sneak up on me?" Jack''s neck hair stood straight up hearing Gaya''s voice. He slowly turned up to see her wickedly smiling at him with watermelon-sized snowballs in each hand.
At that moment, Jack knew he had no chance to escape but to take the snowball like a man.
"Attack he-"
Plop!
Before he could even order his buddies to attack her, he received yet another snowball to his face. This time the force was so great that Jack stumbled back into the pile of snow on the ground.
"RUN!" realizing they have no chance of retaliating against her speed of attack, the disciples chose to strategically run away rather than stand there and get hit by the snowballs.
"Fear me bitches as I am the Queen of Snowball fight!" herughter of triumph echoed through the mountains.
Plop!
Just as she was evilughing stood atop the roof, a huge snowball soared through from the sky and sted her down to the ground.
"Who the fuck hit me in the back?!" she was enraged to lose her winning streak. Plus she was stunned at the attack''s speed, she did not even sense the attacking.
She quickly picked herself from the ground and stared in the direction of the snowball that just hit her down. In the sky, she saw another snowball flying towards her.
"No you don''t!" she quickly dodged out the snow ball''s way before it hit the ground where she was a second ago.
"Attack!" Cindy and her minions returned to the spot after seeing Gaya fall down and Jack too gathered his group to utilize the moment. However, they didn''t expect the rain of snowkes would be the rain of snowballs as countless snowballs rained on them, hitting their bodies.
"Show yourself damn it!" Gaya yelled while evading the snowballs but still many snowballs hit her right in the face.
"You should y with some in your size" A wide grin emerged on Gaya''s face when she heard the voice. She turned her head in the voice''s direction to see Michael descending from the sky.
"Brother Ghost!"
"Senior Brother Ghost!"
"Senior!"
"Brother Ghost is back!"
Cindy, the little kids, and all the disciples who saw Michael came running to him as hended on the ground with Christopher. For a few moments, none seemed to notice the old man. Just as they were running to Michael, the baby dragon descended on Michael''s shoulder gracefully pping his wings.
"Ghost" Gaya approached locking her eyes with Michael and the baby dragon. The baby dragon stared at her with love before quickly changing his gaze to a slight enmity.
"What took you so long?" she locked Michael with a long warm hug ignoring the old man standing beside him and staring at everything in wonder.
"Nothing big, just a few mutated beings and life-threatening dangers in the Treacherous ocean"
"What?!" her embrace tightened the moment she heard the name ''Treacherous Ocean''
"I''ll tell you everythingter" Michael gently pushed her away to look at Christopher,
"Sect Leader, you should go meet Sect Leader ire alone"
"Sect leader?" The disciples wondered as they all looked at the old man before their eyes widened in utter shock, their bodies felt weak and even Gaya took a step back further away from the old man in disbelief.
"Soul Refiner" while they were staring at Christopher speechlessly, Michael turned towards Jack.
"Jack show him Sect Leader ire''s house"
It took Jack several seconds toe out of the shock of seeing a Soul Refiner with his own eyes.
"Yes...yes...Sect Leader ire...yes..got it..." Jack stuttered.
Christopher took a deep breath before slowly following Jack towards ire''s house to meet his granddaughter after fifteen years.
They all including Michael and Gaya stared at Christopher in silence.
After his figure disappeared, Gaya turned her gaze towards the baby dragon and started an intense staring contest with the scaly creature.
"Dicky"
"Shitface" the baby dragon replied and shocked everyone around them.
"The baby dragon can talk!"
"Oh my god!"
While the female disciples were staring at the baby dragon with sparkling eyes, only Jack''s group realized the danger the baby dragon in,
"She''s going to turn that noble dragon into a foul-mouthed bastard"
"Brother!" Just after Jack and Christopher left the ce, Michael heard Cindy''s voice as he looked down with a smile to see the little girl throwing herself at him.
Chapter 177 - A Kiss To Seal The Deal
Under arge snow-covered tree, Michael was looking at the River town on the horizon. On his shoulder sat the baby dragon only he did not stare at the River town but stared at Gaya who was standing behind Michael tensed, her body was slightly shivering in a mix of both anger and shock.
Michael told her everything that happened after he left her at Royalnd except the things that the system did. She seemed stunned hearing the events that happened in the Treacherous Ocean until she heard about the part where he Spirit walked with Lah. When Gaya heard that, she had prettyplicated feelings arise inside her, jealousy, anger, a regret of not apanying him into the Treacherous ocean, and murdering intent towards Lah.
Her emotions and reactions did not surprise Michael as he was expecting this. He knew that any girl who is in love would feel exactly like her when another girles into the picture. Although Gaya never expressed her feelings for him, he knew she loved him, he was not oblivious to that fact but only waiting for her to tell him that she loves him.
It was one of the reasons that Michael chose not to have sex with Lah because he wanted to be faithful to one girl, Gaya. However if what happened between him and Lah made Gaya lose interest in him, he would not force her and hope to find his better half in the future.
"Did you know about Spirit walking?" after remaining silent and pondering about the events, Gaya asked.
"Only from the memories of Abras," He said, turning his head to look her in the eyes. Surprisingly, there was no anger in her eyes.
"Did you have any kind of feelings for that bitch?"
"If I had, I would have chosen the other method to neutralize the energies" Michael did not even take a moment to think about her question as he answered truthfully.
"Good," she said, walking towards him. When she got closer to him, closer to the point his warm breath brushed past her face. She looked him in the eyes before wrapping her hands around his neck to pull him closer to lock her lips with his.
In her kiss were the promise of years and the sweetness of waiting for real love. The kiss was not at all the same as in the movies, but one steeped in a passion that ignites. It was the promise of realness, of the primal desire that lives in us all. And with it, she told him that she is awake, connected within, that she embraces himself rather than hide as a copy of those romantic idols. There was something so heavenly about the kiss in the rain of snow, a tender moment that just wouldn''t wait. It was that burst of love that is expressed, not caring if the snowkes soak through to chill the skin. The kiss was a connection that shows the strength of the feeling, the mutual need. Nature could bring the rain of snow but their inner sunshine warmed them from within.
A few seconds after, Michael pulled her closer, slightly lifting her from the ground to show his appreciation of her. In that moment of the kiss, their chemistry became an ever-bright me. In that kiss was the sweetness of passion, a million loving thoughts condensed into a moment.
Drops of happy tears flowed down from the corners of the baby dragon''s eyes as he embraced the both of them with his stubby wings and ced his little head on their faces.
Their kisssted longer until they both ran out of air in their lungs.
"You are mine" her voice contained the right amount of love and killing intent to warn him that he can''t run around seducing girls anymore.
"And you are mine," he said gently, giving a peck on her flushed red cheek.
"You both are mine!" The baby dragon broke the romantic moment with his protest and made the both of them chuckle at the same time. They looked at the baby dragon before they gave a soft kiss on each cheek.
The baby dragon curled up against their chest like a baby smiling and feeling the warmth of family that he never felt with his own dragon family.
Michael put his arm around Gaya''s shoulder, gazing at the distance and savoring this moment in silence.
[Congrattions! Subordinate Gaya has reached 100% loyalty]
[Congrattions to the host for unlocking Mentor function level 2!]
[The host can now boost your chosen subordinate''s cultivation speed by 40%]
The smile on his face grew wider hearing the notification in his mind but he did not immediately enter the system but stood with his better half etching this moment into his brain because not everything was about power as little things like this made life worth living.
"Mother, are you looking at me from heaven?" Gaya thought as she looked at the sky, tears strolled out of her eyes. She had only a few memories of her mother, she remembers her mother would say that ''There is only one happiness in life to love and be loved''
After her mother died, she never loved or was loved by anyone, even her father paid little to no attention to her because at first, he had to rule the kingdom, and then, he married another Salesi and had Xanali together.
A few weeks after he met Gaya, even without him knowing, he started to care for her as Abras''s soul brought back the real Michael beneath the cold uncaring shield that he erupted to protect himself from getting hurt again after what happened to the orphanage he cared for.
His caring for her changed Gaya from within and made her feel what it''s like to be cared for and loved. With him, she felt the protection of a father and the love of a mother, and the affection of a yful sibling.
Looking at the tears on her face, the baby dragon moved his ws to gently wipe off them.
"Cry baby" he giggled after wiping off her tears,
"Jerk" she flicked him on the head as a return to his snarkyment before turning her gaze at Michael.
"When will you marry me?" she boldly asked.
"After I dethrone your father and make you the queen of Nagnd," he said. It was not an excuse to dy marrying her but a promise he made to himself a moment ago. He wanted to give what she always desired, the throne of Nagnd. From now onwards, she would be his better half, his soul mate, his queen and he would give anything that his queen desires and he knew she would do the same to him.
"Then you will only get kisses from me, nothing more!" she stomped the ground, she expected him to marry her today itself but seeing the love in his promise, her heartfelt warmth.
"Oh?" she pulled her closer,? "it''s more than enough," he said before savoring her lips one more time.
*******************************
After leaving the ce where they started the journey as each other''s soul mate, they returned to Michael''s home in the sect. With hot tea made by Raylene in their hands, they wereying on the sofa with the baby dragon in the middle of them.
"So did you find out who was running around pretending to be Lucifer?"
"About that, I have good news and bad news. The good news is all of the fake Lucifer''s victims were sick noble sons of bitches that we would have eventually killed. The bad news is I think it''s the guardians who are pretending to be Lucifer to catch the real Lucifer, us"
"Oh, howe?" Michael was surprised a bit by Gaya. If what she said was true, then it would show him that the guardians would y dirty to catch him.
"Because of this" she flicked her wrist as a portrait of a man wearing an eyepatch and a hat with feathers appeared in her hand.
"He goes by the name Quinn, he''s a bandit captain wanted by many kingdoms. He has arge number of powerful beastmen under hismand. A few years ago, he killed a guardian and his family which made him the priority target of the entire guild. He was hunted down by the guardians and dered dead but I saw this evil fuck alive and kicking in the forest surrounding the Royal Land"
"What''s the connection?" the baby dragon asked. Michael told the baby dragon about his Lucifer persona and everything rted to the Dark Lord as the baby dragon had to know to help Michael in the future.
"Those nobles who got killed by the fake Lucifer, they weren''t killed in the Royalnd as the Guardians and the Church is iming, they were all killed during their travels'''' After Michael left the Royalnd searching for the Doctor, Gaya discreetly collected information about the killings. While she was gathering information, she learned about the security that the nobles had and wondered how did the fake Lucifer manage to kill them deceiving all the guards and security measures.
And her question was answered when she learned about each noble''s schedule before they died through various means such as bribing and torturing the servants of the dead nobles without revealing her face.
She found out that all the victims had two things inmon, one that all of them were killed after they traveled outside the kingdom and guessed only their bodies were brought down to Royalnd to disy to the people. Second, they had all done some evil deeds that deserve nothing more than a gruesome death.
She then immediately collected information to form a list of potential victims of fake Lucifer and learn about their schedule. With this information, she identified one possible victim, the cousin of Minister Gerty.
And that''s where things got interesting...
Chapter 178 - The Fake Lucifer And Nightmare
"Since Gerty''s cousin and his wife did some fucked up shit as well as they had to leave the kingdom to attend a g at Kethen, I guessed they would be the next target. Then, I followed them but not before taking that camera thingy we were using to monitor Dr as I had a feeling I might need that. Just like I guessed, when their carriage was passing through the forest, they were attacked by a group of highly trained beastmen"
"How high?" Michael asked.
"Gerty''s cousin had four Level 10 and ten level 7 Core Formation warriors but it only took three level 8 Core Formation beastmen to take them down in just forty seconds. They came, attacked and disappeared just like that" Gaya said, snapping.
Michael''s brows raised slightly hearing Gaya. Even three of him couldn''t take fourteen Core formation warriors under forty seconds as the beastmen did ording to Gaya.
"What happened next?" the baby dragon asked her curiously.
"What do you think? I followed them to their campsite but I couldn''t get closer to the camps without alerting them as they had a magical barrier around the ce. I waited there for an entire day, waiting for them to make a move, and the next day, I saw Quinn walking out of one of the huts followed by two frickin Core Strengthening level 3 beastmen. However that wasn''t what surprised me, it was what happened next" she paused for a moment to build up the tension as the baby dragon slowly stood? up waiting for her to continue,
"Theckeys of Quinn came out of the hut carrying the bloodied bodies of Gerty''s cousin and his wife. I knew something really fucked up was going on and followed them deeper into the forest until I saw them cing the two bodies in the middle of the forest. At first, I thought they were just leaving the bodies for the predators to eat but when I tried to get closer, I sensed another buried and this time the barrier was several times stronger than before. I knew I would be attacked by the barrier or get caught by the one who set the barrier so I kept a safe distance and used the rare mind-controlling scroll on a bird"
"Why did you do that?" The baby dragon questioned Gaya to see her roll her eyes.
"To strap the camera thingy around the bird''s neck to get a bird''s eye view" Michael felt proud of her. She did the right thing because the mini camera was bought from the system store and had no magical trace to it so barriers set by the cultivators couldn''t detect the camera, this was one of the reasons that he used it to monitor Dr without the orc detecting the camera. Plus, the camera could be instantly connected to any ss orb that Gaya had in her space ring. The only downside of the camera was if it wasn''t set by Michael himself, there wouldn''t be any recording of the feed but it didn''t stop Gaya from using the camera.
"As I was waiting for something to happen, the camera thingy got a picture of a cloaked figure who picked up the bodies and disappeared in a sh. The next day, the church and guardians dered that Minister Gerty''s cousin and his wife were brutally murdered by Lucifer in their home"
"What makes you say it was the guardians who have been pretending to be Lucifer?" this time it was not the baby dragon but Michael asked the question.
"Think about it human, who could? bring the bodies into the kingdom and disy the bodies in the daylight without alerting the holy guards or the guardians unless it was the guardians themselves"
"What about the church and holy guards?" he asked again as Gaya shook her head.
"I know the church and the holy guards, they won''t go around murder people unless someone picked a fight with the church. Some of those dead nobles constantly paid donations to the church, although they were evil pieces of shit, they went to church regrly. Why would the church kill them to catch Lucifer? Besides, the priests won''t let something like this happen as it would stain their image and the fake Lucifer is throwing up on their image. So that leaves us with one possible suspect, the Guardians. I did not see the cloaked figure and have no real proof to back my im human but every fiber in my body is telling me it''s the guardians"
"I trust your judgment" Michael agreed with her because what she said made sense to him. He knew it must be either the church or the guardians who had the resources and power to disy the bodies in the daylight without alerting the guards. The good thing was all the dead nobles were evil so his image of evil killing Lucifer would not take a major hit because of the fake Lucifer but still, he had to tell the Royalnd that it''s not him, the real Lucifer who was killing the nobles.
If it was before he went to the treacherous ocean, he would have let the fake Lucifer run around as he did not have the chance to kill the nobles who were now protected by the holy guards and their own guards. However, with the Inventor Trait, he could assassinate them without getting closer to the nobles. Of course, it would require him to do a good old-fashioned stakeout, information gathering, and nning to assassinate them except he was great at those things.
"Do you still have the list of evil nobles in Royal Land?"
"Of course I still have it"
"Why are you two grinning?" the baby dragon asked, noticing the devilish grin on their faces.
"You will know soon, Dicky"
"Don''t call me Dicky!"
"Ouch,"? the baby dragon lunged at Gaya, biting her hand mercilessly in anger.
"Speaking of Dicky, we need to name him" Michael put aside the list for a moment and said, pulling the baby dragon from her hand.
"We already did, his name is Dicky, hehehehe"
"Release me, I''m gonna take a bite out of her!" The baby dragon struggled to get out of Michael''s clutch as he reached out his ws to at least scratch her. Looking at the furious baby dragon, she just stuck her tongue out to make fun of him.
Michael patted the baby dragon''s head while thinking of a badass name suitable for a mighty dragon.
"Nightmare" after deep thinking, Michael found a name for his baby dragon.
"I don''t like it, what about Asshn?"
"Bitch!"
"Hey!" Michael released the baby dragon as they both began to roll around the floor yfully fighting with each other. He grabbed the list to pick his next target.
It didn''t take him long before his eyesnded on a familiar name, Minister Gerty. He did not need to ask what Minister Gerty did to end up on Gaya''s list because if Gerty made it to the list, he must have done some evil shit, Michael knew it.
However, before he could start preparing for the assassination, he had another most important task to finish. He quickly took a piece of paper from the table before them and began to write a list of things he needed to finish the task as well as test his inverter skill.
"Dicky, you are just at the Foundation stage, you cannot hurt me," Gaya said flicking the baby dragon on the forehead.
" But I can still burn your clothes" the baby dragon revealed an evil smile as he quickly ran up to her neck and grabbed her neck from behind using his ws.
"The fuck?! Don''t you dare, I just bought these!" she felt the baby dragon''s body getting warmer and warmer, she struggled to grab him but the baby dragon easily avoided her hands thanks to his small body.
"Quit it you two" Michaelughed seeing the two y and fight like little children. Yet the two of them did not stop fighting until he used a low-powered wind st to throw them onto the sofa.
"Do you know what happened to E and Mathias? I thought he woulde here to make me apologize?" Gaya stopped fighting with the baby dragon as Nightmare flew into Michael''s hand, tired of fighting.
"After I returned to the sect, I sent potions and pills to her so she could use them to earn the support of elders and some influential disciples. Three days ago she sent me a message that she has been convincing people to join her and so far everything''s going well. Probably Mathias had forgotten about you in the midst of saving his seat"
"Make sure E stay alive, it''s most likely that Mathias wouldn''t go down without a fight"
Gaya simply nodded hearing him.
"How''s the construction work of our restaurant going on?"
"Pretty well actually. We had no ambushes after the first reapers attack, so it''s going on at full speed. The dwarf said the restaurant will be finished by the start of next week. And oh, Olivia is staying with ire, and just like I said, Aragoth built a mini-portal for her to travel between Aragoth and here. Now we have? Aragoth and a Soul Refiner to protect our sect, so we should speed up the renovations and stuff" She felt excited thinking about how rich they would be after making Sunrise sect one of the best sects in Elon.
"Yes, we have a lot of work to do"
Chapter 179 - A Storm Is Brewing I
After leaving the warmth of the house, he stepped outside into the bone-chilling cold and saw Cindy and her group making a snowman. When the little girl saw him, she dropped the snow in her hand, running towards him.
As usual, she threw herself with utmost trust that he would catch her.
"You gained some weight, Cindy. I can barely lift you" Michael pretended to be struggling as the little girlughed.
"I''ve grown stronger. Teacher ire said I would soon reach the Foundation stage" she flexed her biceps before locking her gaze with the baby dragon, her eyes sparkled as she reached her hands out to grab Nightmare.
"Brother can I please please please hug him?" she pleaded to Michael, seeing Nightmare swiftly avoiding her little hands.
"Come on Nightmare, don''t disappoint a cute little fudge like Cindy"
"Yeah, be a good pet hehehe" Gaya chuckled embarrassing Nightmare but before he could do or say anything, Michael gently grabbed the little dragon and handed him over to Cindy.
"He''s sooooooo cuuuuuteeeee!" Cindy squeezed him against her chest, showering Nightmare with kisses.
"Come on little¡.human...stop...it" but no matter how hard he protested, Cindy did not stop kissing him.
"Who would have thought a terrifying dragon would be showered with kisses by a little girl?" Nightmare pleadingly looked at Michael asking him wordlessly to save him from this embarrassment.
However, this scene was too cute for Michael to stop. He just carried Cindy in his arms, walking towards the herbal garden to nt the new rare herbs he picked from the treacherous ocean.
On his way to the herbal garden, he noticed the renovation work was 70%pleted and ready to move onto constructing new buildings. A couple of disciples ran through the snow carrying firewood from the nearby forest to their student quarters.
"How''re you doing, Senior?"
"Greetings, Sister Aelia"
"Hiya Cindy"
The disciples happily greeted them before continuing their work. None of them seemed to notice Michael''s cultivation level though or they would have freaked out immediately. He noticed the disciples weren''t wearing suitable clothes for winter but wearing their usual uniforms.
Thinking about this, he just nodded at them with a smile while Cindy gave them a short wave as she was busy squeezing Nightmare. After strolling through the snow, Michael came to his herbal garden where a group of disciples shoveled the snow from the garden under the supervision of Elder Reiner. Just like the disciples he met before, the disciples who were working in the garden too did not wear winter clothes and even Elder Reiner wore normal clothes. Although a cultivator could use Arch Energy to keep the body temperature unchanged, it was a waste of energy to constantly use it to keep the body warm rather than just simply wearing suitable clothes.
Even Michael felt it would be a waste of energy to keep his body warm using Arch energy rather than wearing winter clothes. Yet until he could actually buy some winter clothes, he had no choice but to use Arch energy so he wouldn''t freeze to death in this climate.
"Ghost, you''re back, I heard what happened to the baby dragon, is he alright now?" Elder Reiner''s eyes were filled with concern and worry. He quickly ced his palm on the baby dragon''s head like he''s checking the baby dragon''s body temperature.
"human save me!"? Elder Reiner took back his hand in lightning-fast and stared at the baby dragon trembling in shock.
"So it''s true, even the baby dragons canmunicate using human tongue"
"Of course I can talk, now help me human!" Nightmare tried to get out of Cindy''s clutches by asking elder Reiner to save him.
"Come here, little fellow"
"Let me hug him just a little more" Nightmare sighed in relief but to his shock, Elder Reiner too acted like? Cindy, squeezing him before kissing him on the forehead.
"What is... with you humans...squeezing...me?"
"Elder Reiner, I bought some new herbs, how about we nt them now?"
"Really?! Here take him" Elder Reiner''s face brightened up in excitement. He quickly gave back Nightmare to Cindy before Nightmare could escape.
"I assume you took them from the Treacherous Ocean"? Elder Reiner calmly asked and his calmness really surprised both Gaya and Michael.
"Yes, Elder Reiner. You seem awfully calm about that" Michael said.
Elder Reiner just patted Michael on the shoulder,
"Youngbloods like you need to take risks like that. Besides, I knew you would survive that ce"
It was a breath of fresh air for Michael to see Elder Reiner act so calm even after hearing that he went to the Treacherous ocean. The vote of confidence made Michael like Elder Reiner more than the other elders.
"Elder Reiner, where are the other elders? And have you seen ire?"
Gaya asked, doubting that Elder Reiner still has no idea about the return of ire''s grandfather.
"They are in seclusion, I think they won''t be avable for another three days and ire, she''s in her home. Why do you ask?"
"Because the previous sect leader, Christopher Merigold is not dead and he''s with Sect Leader ire right now" Elder Reiner halted his steps as a sliver of cold chill ran through his spine, his usual smile instantly vanished from his face and reced by a mix ofplicated emotions.
"No...it...can''t...be...how"
"It''s true, Elder Reiner, whoa" Elder Reiner stumbled on Michael as he quickly grabbed the old man to steady him.
"You, get your ass over here"? Gaya shouted at one of the disciples shoveling snow.
Not only the one who was summoned by Gaya but also every disciple who was working in the garden came running to Elder Reiner when they saw Michael holding Elder Reiner''s weak body.
"Grandpa Reiner, what happened to you?"? Cindy stopped petting Nightmare, looking at Elder Reiner, her eyes already started to well up in tears.
"This is why you never break shocking news to elders too suddenly, Aelia" Gaya shrugged hearing Michael.
"Yeah, you dum dum, you almost killed that old human" Nightmare did not let go of this opportunity to mock her while hovering above her head.
"Ghost, how... where?" Elder Reiner asked in a weak voice.
"I think it''s better if you ask the previous sect leader himself, Elder Reiner," Michael said as Elder Reiner slowly regained his normalposure to go meet the previous sect leader himself.
"Do you think I should break the news to Elder Sandra?" Gayaughed thinking that she almost gave a heart attack to Elder Reiner. The old man''s reaction saddened and shocked the others but for her, it was funny.
"No, you shouldn''t," Michael said before pping the back of her head
Plop!
"Jerk!"
****************************
After Elder Reiner went to meet Christopher and ire, Michael stepped into his garden and nted all the new herbs he brought such as Blue Camelia, Mountain Saffron, Ivory Dill, Autumn Leaves, Worm Mustard, and many others.
Since the disciples did not know much about herbs, they couldn''t recognize the value of the herbs they were nting along with Michael. However, Gaya recognized a few of the rare herbs such as Blue Camelia, and bounced up and down in excitement thinking about how much money they would make by selling the herbs to nobles and alchemists.
"If I can eat that, Ghosty, I can definitely reach Foundation stage level 3 in a few weeks" Nightmare sniffed the Ivory Dill with sparkling eyes only to get swatted by Michael.
"Go away, it''s not for you to eat, not yet"
"Hehehe" Gayaughed at Nightmare getting chased away by Michael leisurely sitting on her chair without helping Michael in the garden works.
"That was intense" While Michael was gently nting the herbs, he saw Jack walking into the garden bbergasted.
"I''ve never seen sect leader ire cry like that" Jack sighed sitting on the ground near her feet.
"Did you see Elder Reiner?"
"Yeah, he''s currently with sect leader Christopher. Brother Ghost, Sister Aelia, do you think Sect Leader ire would step down from her position?"
The disciples working with Michael looked at him waiting for his answer,
"I don''t know but I guess sect leader Christopher won''t take the position even if sect leader ire decided to give him," Michael said like it was only his guess but deep down he knew Christopher wouldn''t take the Sect leader position as he has more important things to worry about, like searching for a permanent way to lift the curse and rescue ire''s mother from the elves.
Since Michael had to face the great ns anyways, he nned to use ire''s mother as an excuse to fight the elves unless they choose to stay the fuck out of his way of conquering this world.
"Jack, I need you to hit Bradford and buy these things for me" Michael gave the list of things he needed to build his secret weapon to beat all the guardians and the church.
When he finished building what he''s nning, the church, the guardians, and all of the nobles in Gaya''s hit list wouldn''t even know what hit them.
The time for rxation was over and after returning to Abyssal, the time for bloody action would begin and Lucifer''s name would spread through the entire kingdom.
"Take the pegasus and also" Michael handed over the list to Jack before turning to look at all the disciples,
"Bring the biggest cloth merchant in Bredia to me"
********************************
Hi readers,
As usual, this chapter is about the little things that would make the story flow wlessly. From the next chapter, the next surprising arc will begin, and trust me, it''s going to be one hell of a ride packed with action and adventure.
Chapter 180 - A Storm Is Brewing II
When the sun''s light faded away and the darkness surrounded the mountains, Michael and Gaya left their home through the backdoor. They informed Jack that they are going to secluded cultivation and not to be disturbed.
After reaching the Core Formation stage, Michael''s flying speed increased significantly, it only took them five hours to reach the Dark forest.
"No matter how many times I enter this ce, it still gives me the creeps," Gaya said, staring at the dark walls of the Abyssal.
The winter climate nketed everything in white snow except the dark forest as not a single drop of snow could be seen in the forest. As usual, the dark storm clouds hovered over the forest with continuous shing purple streaks of lightning. It was a domain that stood independently radiating an evil vibe, a vibe that could be evenpared to the Treacherous ocean.
"This is home, Dark Queen," Michael who was now adorning Lucifer''s armor, said.
He truly did feel at home much as he did when he was at the sect. To be honest, he liked Abyssal more because here, he was himself. Deep down he knew Ghost was just a facade and Lucifer is the real him.
Michael did not waste any time interacting with Dr but went straight to his room on the far end of the underground.
"Dicky would love this ce" Gaya jumped onto the bed that Michael bought from the system and ced it in his room which was used by her more than him.
His room had not many things and seemed empty. Only a few things upied the space such as arge table and afy chair, two six feet tall book racks, and a spacious fancy ck bed.
"We can''t bring him here, anyone with half a brain could connect Nightmare to Ghost and guess Ghost is Lucifer," Michael said, sitting before therge table to build things.
Leisurely supporting her head using her hand, Gaya stared curiously at him to see what he was up to. Michael willed the system to take out the things Jack bought for him.
Soon afterward, on the table appeared a stack of mirrors. Each individual mirror was the size of a 24 inch monitor.
"What do you wanna do with all these mirrors, see yourself from various angles?" Gaya chuckled.
"We are going to see the entire Bredia" behind the ck mask, Gaya was stunned to hear his words. She quickly stood up and came closer to see him applying a greyish glue-like substance on one side of the mirrors.
"Let me help too," she said, taking another brush from the table to apply the greyish substance on the mirrors just like he does.
"What do you mean by seeing the entire Bredia?" while applying the glue, Gaya asked Michael.
"It''s easier to show than exin" Michael continued to apply the glue. After a few minutes, Michael used the Arch energy to lift the mirrors before cing them one after another on the wall before him.
In just a few seconds, the entire wall was filled with mirrors and reflected nothing but the images of Gaya and Michael.
"Now what?"
"Now im going to build an army of spies" Gaya''s face was full of wonder and confusion but before she could ask a question, she saw him take out a big chunk of metal ore, cogs, and gears, and quite a few other items.
"Junk metal" In a single nce at the metal ore, she identified it as the Junk metal. She took the metal ore in her hands, staring at Michael wordlessly asking him why did he buy this ore of useless metal.
"Why do you call this a Junk metal, because it has no Arch Energy radiation?" Michael asked without showing any emotions but inside, he wasughing at the people of this world thinking about their ignorance.
"Duh"
The Junk metal as its name suggests had no use whatsoever because unlike everything in this world that radiates at least a bit of Arch Energy, the Junk metal did not have the ability to contain Arch energy. Since it contained no Arch energy, the bond between the molecules was extremely weak for a metal, in other words, it did not possess the strength of an average metal and it was barely considered as a metal in this world.
"Tell me how the defense spells and arrays work?"
"Why? you already know that"
"Just enlighten me"
One could see her roll her eyes if it wasn''t for the mask yet she sighed and exined to him.
"It''s simple actually, the defense security spells and arrays work by detecting the concentration of Arch energy. For instance, a rare security array would usually detect anyone at or above the Body Strengthening stage except the people who have the mark that prevent array or spells from activating. As for the lifeless things, the array or spell would remember everything around its effective area when it was initially cast and if something new entered its space, it would identify the thing as an unknown object and activate the countermeasures as well as inform the one who cast the spell and guards"
Her words reminded Michael of his previous life. As an assassin, he often had to deal with security technologies like motion sensors, security cameras, heat sensors, and many more. In a sense, these security arrays and defense spells were the same but extremely deadlier and effective than the security on earth.
In this world, a cultivator radiated Arch energy, and no matter how powerful a cultivator bes, one could never stop the Arch energy radiating from the body, in fact, the more powerful one bes, the more the Arch energy he/she would radiate.
As Gaya exined, the arrays and spells work by detecting the Arch energy radiated from the body or a thing. This was why the assassins or thieves in this world had a hard time infiltrating and killing high-profile targets like the king or ministers and often tried to kill the targets outside their stronghold.
Since the spell or the array would activate in a very short amount of time, even killing the target from a distance using a powerful bow was not an option for assassins in this world.
"Now tell me, if I throw this Junk metal into a security array, do you think it would activate the array? "
"Of course not and do YOU think someone hasn''t tried making an arrow out of the Junk metal and killing someone from a distance?" Gaya asked, emphasizing the word you.
Michael just calmly shook his head, of course, he knew someone might have tried to use this Junk metal''s trait to break the security spells or array.
However, they did not have a system and an Inventor trait to breach the security.
"Just watch" Anticipation made Gaya jump on the table and sit there staring at what he''s doing.
Before starting to build his army of spies, he took a one feet long tubr metal and a few other parts that had runes on them. Most of these parts were used to assemble magical objects such as carriages, weapons, and tools used by people of various professions, therefore, he could directly buy the parts rather than custom building them.
After looking at him assembling the parts and gluing them together, she saw him taking the Junk metal ore and cing them before him. Under Gaya''s gaze, Michael gently caressed the long metal tube in his hand, it resembled the shape of a ballpoint pen, only it was one foot long and had a diameter of three inches.
"Let''s see, Ignitia" holding the pointy end of the metal tube at the Junk metal, Michael cast Ignitia as a bolt of lightning went straight into the metal tube.
"Wow" Gaya''s eyes immediately widened in shock and surprise seeing a bright blue color light appear out of the metal tube''s point end forming a hole in the metal ore.
"What is this?" Gaya asked curiously. This was the first time she saw a light cutting metal with this precision and ease. Normally, she knew the cksmiths would heat the metal using various means before cutting them, and even though it was a weak Junk metal, Gaya could tell the heating from the blue light could easily cut many strong metals such as iron, silver, and gold.
"It''s called Laser, with this I can build my army of little spies"
"How?" her eyes sparkled, wanting to y with theser like a child.
"You''ll see" After sessfully building aser to cut the metal in desirable shape for his first big move in taking over Bredia, he had everything he needed to build little spy cameras.
Michael''s full focus was on the task at hand as he began to cut the metal ore and assemble various parts in front of Gaya''s eyes. He felt like Batman who was creating Batarang in his Batcave.
"Spider?" After Michael assembled his first spy camera, Gaya took it gently and examined it with eyes full of curiosity and wonder. The spycam on Gaya''s hand was the size of a shirt button, it had eight tiny legs and instead of eight eyes, it had only one eye on the center of its head.
"How does it work?"
"System, connect the spyder cam to one of the mirrors" Before answering Gaya, Michael entered the system to connect his spy cam to one of the mirrors. He did build the spycam to use Arch energy and link with any orbs without the help of the system but with the help of the system, he knew that he could create a state-of-the-art surveince unit in Abyssal.
"It will cost the host 20 badass points"
"Do it"
Michael experienced a tingling sensation in his mind after he ordered the system. Soon afterward, he exited the system to feel that he could control the spyder cam using his thoughts instead of a remote.
"Whoa!" Behind the mask, Gaya''s jaw slightly dropped when one of the mirrors suddenly began to show her face. She stared at the mirror and the spyder on her palm repeatedly until Michael gently grabbed the spyder cam from her.
"With this, we can soon spy on the entire Bredia"
Chapter 181 - The Real Lucifer Is In Royal Land
"Wonderful!" Gaya joyfully pped, thinking about the opportunities these little spiders would bring them. She focused on the spiders Michael is building but no matter how hard she focused, she couldn''t even sense a trace of Arch energy from them as expected of the spiders made of Junk metal.
One by one Michael connected the spiders to the mirrors building a state-of-the-art surveince unit in the Abyssal. After building a couple of spiders, his speed increased significantly. It took him approximately two hours to build sixty spiders before finally running out of parts and materials.
"We have sixty spiders so we have to use them efficiently. Can you build more of these and how do you control them?"
"I can control them using a telepathic link and at the moment I can maximum control sixty-five spiders" the number of spiders he was able to control depended on his cultivation level, at the Core Formation stage, he could maximum control a hundred spiders when he reaches the level 10.
At level 1, sixty was his threshold but sixty spiders were more than enough for him to spy on the important nobles and figures in Bredia.
"Since that''s the case, I suggest we send some of them to the church, guardians, and the King of Bredia"
"It''s my n too but we should test our little spies first" a devilish smile could be seen behind Michael''s ck mask and the same could be said to Gaya.
At this moment, the world had not one but two Dark Lords, Lucifer, and his Queen. The two of them were made for each other as they had the same target in their minds, Minister Gerty.
"So what are we waiting for, let''s go" Gaya was excited to see the spiders in action.
"I have one more thing to do, how strong is your venom?" the sudden question slightly surprised her,
"Anyone below my cultivation stage would definitely die if my poison entered their body. The weaker they are, the faster they die"
"What about the people above your cultivation stage?"
"Core Strengthening stage beings will be weakened instantly and would die in a few days if they dont take an antidote or a potion to counteract the poison. I''m notpletely sure of what will be the effects to anyone above the Core Strengthening stage" Michael heard what she heard silently before taking out a vial and a few herbs he picked from the Treacherous Ocean and the Sky garden from his space ring.
"Spit it out"
"Okay"
Plop!
Michael lightly pped the back of her head when she was about to spit saliva into the vial instead of the poison.
"Why did you do that?"
"Spit your poison not your saliva" she punched him the shoulder and said,
"Next time use the word poison, you dumb fuck"
"Oh, I''m a dumb fuck? Just give me your poison, your royal highness" he couldn''t help but chuckle after hearing her. With the smirk on her face, she lifted the mask as her canines slightly grew longer like a vampire. Soon from the point of her two canines, dark green drops of poison dribbled into the vial permitting a nauseating stench.
After the vial was half-filled with Gaya''s poison, Michael conjured the alchemy mes above his hand and began to throw the herbs on the table into the green mes.
Gaya patiently waited for him toplete the potion brewing.
"System, can you remove the Arch energy radiation from this potion?" Michael asked the system, staring at the colorless liquid in the vial before him.
[It can be done for 1000 badass points]
"Hmm, thousand points huh?" Michael pondered for a moment before ordering the system to do it.
"Take it"
A smallyer of light that could only be seen by Michael wrapped around the vial before fading away from the eyes. The next moment, Michael could not sense any Arch energy radiation from the potion, it waspletely colorless and odorless.
"What is this?"
"A better variant of your poison" Michael handed over the poison to Gay to inspect. She took a sniff and then stuck the point of her tongue to taste test it.
"It is my poison but how can it not have any trace of Arch energy?"
"I''m a 5-star Alchemist with ancient knowledge and im awesome"
"Yes, you are" Gaya leaned closer to lift his mask before locking his face with hers to merge in a passionate kiss.
*******************************************
(A week after Michael built his spy cameras)
At the moment in Royalnd, two cloaked figures were standing far away from a mansion blending with the surrounding trees. The mansion was located in a residential area of the Royalnd, there were no buzzing crowds, line of buildings and merchant carriages could be seen in the area around the mansion.
From the outside, the mansion looked old but wonderful. It was built with tan stones and has red brick decorations. Large, octagon windows added to the overall look of the house and have been added to the house in a very symmetric way.
The mansion was square-shaped. The house was fully surrounded by ss overhanging panels. It had two floors, the second floor was smaller than the first, which allowed for a roof garden on two sides of the house. This floor had a very different style than the floor below.
The roof was low and rounded and was covered with stone bs. Tworge chimneys on each side of the manor poked out r of the roof. Severalrge windows let in plenty of light to the rooms below the roof.
The manor itself was surrounded by a gorgeous garden, including hanging grapevines, a pagoda, a pond, and many different flowers. On top of the beautiful garden, the manor was filled with soldiers in iron armour, people with staff, and archers.
Despite the heavy snowfall and the cold, the soldiers did not seem to ck off, the patrolling units were strolling through the knee-high snow without getting tired.
There was only one road that came out of the main gate and except for a group of soldiers who were patrolling, there were no carriages or people could be seen traveling on the road.
The two figures who were looking at the manor from the distance wore simple tunics, they did not stand out much and anyone who saw them would think they were just resting under the shade of trees. Besides the two cloaked figures, there were a couple of travelers and merchants who were resting before campfires to escape the cold of the winter.
"Time to let the spiders out the bag" one of the cloaked figures took a small pouch from their pocket and opened the pouch as several little spiders in various colors jumped out of the pouch. Soon the spiders changed their colors to blend in with the environment like a chameleon, some spiders on the ground changed their colors to snow-white while those that were on the grass changed their color to green.
"Creepy but I like them," the other cloaked figure said in a feminine voice.
Obviously, these two figures were Michael and Gaya who spent a week flying to Royalnd from the Dark forest. Since they were here to spy and kill Gerty, they changed their appearance by changing their clothes and the color of their hair using a simple potion brewed by Michael.
"Let''s head back to the tavern and monitor the spiders from there"? Michael paid for a room in a tavern nearest to Gerty''s manor. After moving the spiders into the pile of snow on the road to the manor, Michael and Gaya began to walk in the direction of the tavern.
The streets before Michael was nketed with snow but it did not seem to stop the people froming out of their homes. He saw many fancy carriages running through the streets while people wearing fur-covered winter clothes strolling through the snow to their work.It took Michael a few minutes of walking to exit the residential area and enter the town''s square where he saw the handiwork of fake Lucifer a few weeks ago when he was at Royal Land.
Michael and Gaya did not spend much time on the crime scene. They swiftly went to the tavern and entered their room without socializing with the crowd in the tavern.
Their room was just like any other room in a tavern, it had a bed, a table, and a chair but the room was cleaner than the tavern he used to stay in the river town.
"Shut the door"
While Michael was cing the orbs on the table, Gaya used Arch energy to keep the door shut and prevent anyone from eavesdropping from the adjacent rooms.
"Let''s see" Michael closed his eyes to connect the ten spiders he dropped from the pouch to the orbs before him.
Soon afterward, each orb showed the scenery of snow and a mansion in the distance. Michael began to control the spiders from his room,
"Damn snow, it makes patrolling so tiring"
"Shut up and do your job, we will be hanged to death if something happens to Minister Gerty" while the spiders passing the patrolling soldiers, Michael heard their conversation through the orbs.
"Lucifer really fucked up Jarod Gurty and his wife, I hate to say but they deserved it after what they did to the southerner ves"
"Why are you shedding tears for southerners? Those weaklings wouldn''t be in this position if they were blessed with the ability to cultivate"
"Don''t be an asshole, Liam. Imagine that if you were sent to another continent as a ve, that''s a worse fate one could have. Minister Gerty is one sick bastard for in the trade for southern ves" Michael hid the spiders in the snow to listen to the soldiers as they continued,
"Shhh! Are you nning to get killed? Even the Guardians or the King have no problem with importing southern ves"
"What a bunch of hypocrites, as long as the ves from the southern continent, the Guardians are fine with it huh?" Michael snickered. The more he learned about the Guardians, the more he realized that the Guardians are not what most people think they are.
*******************************
Finally done with all the info fillers for this ark. From the next chapter, expect the badass action of Lucifer!!!!
Chapter 182 - Welcome To Hell
"Fuck! I''m freezing. I cannot stand this, I''m going to use Arch energy to warm myself "? Inside Gerty''s manor, one of the soldiers patrolling through the corridorsined to his colleague.
"Keep it together man, the captain ordered us not to waste energy warming ourselves" the soldier whoined reluctantly nodded rubbing his hands together.
"Gary that lucky bastard was assigned to the hall where they have that cozy firece, why didn''t someone build a firece here?"
"Firece in a corridor near the servants''trine, yeah a great idea" the guard replied with a voice overflowing with sarcasm.
Creak!
"What is that?!" The two soldiers immediately stopped their chatter when they heard a creaking from above them. Their bodies tensed as their gripes on their spears tightened,
Squeak
Squeak
Shortly, they heard the squealing sound of a rat.
"It must be a damn rat"
"Shit I nearly wet my pants," the soldier who wasining about the firece said, letting out a breath of a sigh.
"Hey it''s time, look normal,"? the soldier said suddenly standing straight without leaning on the wall behind him.
The other one also did the same and quickly hid the difort of the cold from his face. A few minutes after they were standing straight, a group of three people in full iron te and chainmail walked towards them from the far end of the corridor. The two soldiers felt the cold in the area disappear as an overwhelming pressure made their breathing heavy.
When the trio of iron-ted warriors got closer to the two guards, they stared at the two guards and the area for a moment before walking away from them.
Only when the trio disappeared from their sight, the two soldiers could breathe normally.
"Just their presence is enough to make breathing hard"
"No shit, they are Core Formation level 10 warriors, what do you expect?"
Creak!
"It''s that damn rat aga-" before the soldier could finish his sentence, a figure leaped down from above through the ceiling and stuck a dagger into the soldier''s throat.
The figure did not give the time for the other soldier to react, in lightning-fast, the figure took out the bloodied dagger from the soldier''s throat and stabbed the other one straight through the eye, ending his life swiftly. After ending the two soldiers'' lives, the figure dragged their bodies quickly into thetrine behind. The figure then pulled away the dark clothes as the pool of blood on the ground reflected an image of a young girl with brown hair.
"I hope this is thest time I have to kill" Arria stared at the two dead bodies in the ground with eyes full of pity. She then walked out of thetrine before sticking an out of order sign on the door.
It had been four years since she became an apprentice of a Grim Reaper called Dagger. He was not only her mentor but also her master, the one who holds absolute power over her, in simple words, she was his ve.
Unlike many other masters, he gave Arria a way to earn her freedom, which was to kill his targets for him, and eventually, he would release her from the ve bond. Although he did not tell how many people she had to kill, it was still better than having no hope to get her freedom back. Plus, the fire of vengeance inside her made her do anything to kill general Quintus who invaded their homnd and captured her brothers as ves.
She never wanted any of this but to rescue her brothers, she needed to be strong and from what she heard from Dagger, she was blessed with a godly ability that let herpletely mask the Arch energy radiating from her body which would prevent the cultivators and arrays from detecting her.
She still had much to learn about this ability and use it to its maximum potential. ording to Dagger, Gerty was running a ve mine in Kethen and said killing Gerty would save hundreds of southerners from bing ves in the Elon continent.
Thinking about the ve traders, the mes of anger burned hotter inside her heart. With a cold killing intent in her eyes, she navigated through the corridors to Minister Gerty''s room.
"Get ready to go to hell, Minister Gerty" When she came before a six feet dual door that had the words ''Minister Gerty'' in delicate carving, she mumbled under her breath with a wicked smile on her face.
"Three minutes" reminding herself the remaining time before the next group of holy guards came to guard the room, she knocked on the door before taking out a vial from her chest pocket in the maid outfit she''s wearing
"Who is that?" a calm voice sounded from the other side of the door.
"My lord, Lord Rickman sent me here with the potion you asked him to get"
"Oh? Come ine in" Hiding the expression of disgust from her face, Arria opened the door to see an old man with shoulder-length white hair standing before a window. The old man turned his gaze away from the windows with a kind smile. If one did not know about the true nature of the old man, they wouldn''t think of him as the notorious ve trader and a man who loved to abuse young ves on a daily basis.
The kind smile on his face even made Arria wonder if this really Minister Gerty she read about in a file Dagger gave her.
"Give me the potion" however her doubt disappeared when she saw the kind smile turning into a wicked smile looking at the sky blue potion in her hands.
"Yes, my lord"
"This is just what I need right now" the old man grabbed his crotch, wickedly smiling at Arria.
If Michael was he would have recognized the potion, it was the potion that most of the old men at his age desire, the lizard''s dream which was used to temporarily cure erectile dysfunction and increase stamina.
This potion would give him the ability to wash away the sorrow of losing his cousin. He had to pay a hefty sum to get his hands on the potion.
"Rickman you bastard, you really know what I want" Minister Gerty took the potion from Arria''s hands like it was his baby before staring at her from head to toe.
"Come closer darling" taking a long sniff at the potion,? the old man called her.
"Yes, my lord"
She wished she could just kill him here and now but Dagger ordered her to kidnap Minister Gerty with the help of a teleportation scroll. However, it didn''t mean she cannot stab him in the gut avoiding his organs to vent her anger.
"Do you want me to undress you, my lord?" she caressed the old man''s thighs with her fingers.
And just when Minister Gerty was about to swallow the potion, Arria punched him in the balls.
"Ah-" the old man wanted to scream but Arria punched him in the throat in a blink of an eye, shutting the old man''s cry.
After what happened with Nickmon family head, she did not dare to waste any time as she quickly retrieved the teleportation scroll from her space ring.
The moment after she tore the teleportation array, a golden light wrapped both Arria and Gerty before disappearing along with them. However, in the heat of the moment, Arria failed to notice a small spyder on Gerty''s shoulder.
**************************************
Somewhere far away from the Royalnd, Arria and Minister Gerty appeared in the middle of a room. The room was decorated with cobwebs and dust. Arria could only see trees through the broken windows.
"Wee to nowhere, Minister Gerty, hehehehehe" from the dark shadows of the room, a tall figure emerged to greet Arria and Gerty.
Minister Gerty was not a powerful cultivator, he was only at the Body Refining stage so he was still feeling the excruciating pain of getting his balls punched.
He growled in pain and slowly looked up in the direction of the voice to see a tall figure wearing red robes and a clown mask.
On his chest dangled a medallion with a wolf head etched on its surface.
"Master" Arrira bowed deeply towards the clown-faced man and stepped aside from Gerty.
"Hehehehehehe, you did good my student, hehehehehe" Hisughter filled the silent room with wickedness and sent a cold chill running through Gerty''s spine.
"Who...who...are...you? What what do you...want?" Images of his cousin''s body and the victims of Lucifer shed across his mind making him think the clown is the infamous Lucifer.
"Are...are...you Lucifer?" Gerty crawled back in fear,
"Hehehehe, Lucifer? Me? People call me Dagger" In a blink of an eye, the clown took out three long jade daggers from nowhere. He yed with them by throwing and catching the daggers like in a circus.
"Don''t worry about Lucifer, hehehehe. You are perfectly safe from him or her although I don''t think Lucifer''s woman hehehehe"
"Release me! Do you know who I am?" After seeing he was not kidnapped by Lucifer, Gerty was not as afraid as he was a second ago.
"Of course I know who you are, didn''t you hear what I called you a moment ago?" Dagger stepped closer to Gerty while ying with his daggers.
"Although it''s me who''s going to kill you, it''s Lucifer who would take the me, hehehehehe"
"What-"
Chill!
Gerty''s voice was interrupted by the sound of shattering ss. Dagger immediately stopped ying with the daggers while Arria quickly took out a dagger just like the one in the clown''s hand.
"ah..ah...AHHHHHHH!"? Dagger turned his head to see Gerty''s screaming in horror, his face turned extremely pale. Dagger did see fear in Gerty''s eyes earlier but now the fear in his eyes was nothing like before.
"Go...go away!" He was about to approach Gerty when he saw Arria frantically singing her dagger in the air.
"Hehehehe, what''s happening?" Dagger was confused seeing his student act like a maniac. He looked around the room, scanning every dark corner. While he was scanning the room, he felt something moving on his shoulder,
"Whoa?!" He quickly grabbed the thing moving on his shoulder to see a flickering spider caught between his fingers.
"You gave me quite a shock spidey, heheheh"? he stared at the spider. The spider however suddenly exploded into white mist,
"Damn, an exploding spider" without his knowing, he inhaled the white mist and began to cough.
"Cough"
"Cough"
"Cough"
"What (cough)... what''s...hehehe...(cough)"
"Wee to hell, Clown" a terrifying unearthly voice appeared out of nowhere, making Dagger stumble back.
Chapter 183 - Perfect Assassin
The clown was frantically looking around the room to see where the voice wasing from.
Pulch!
"Ah!"
While he was looking around, an arrow soared through the broken window and prated his right shoulder.
"Hehehehe, who...is...that?" a terrifying fear began to sprout in his heart, making his body shiver without his control.
Minister Gerty and Arria already lost consciousness and Dagger could barely stand straight.
"Another Clown trying to use my name to kill" the voice appeared again before the door exploded into countless pieces of splinters.
Through the smoke of dust, Dagger saw not one but two figures walking out. Even in the dim lighting in the room, their red eyes shone like rubies.
When the dust settled, Dagger vaguely saw that although the two figures looked the same, he could tell one of them is a woman as her armor was curvier to fit a woman.
"He''s dead, pathetic little worm" She may be a woman but her voice sounded nothing like a woman, it sounded animalistic and terrifying.
On the ground, Minister Gertyid there unmoving, his face was as pale as white paper and blood was seeping through his nostrils, eyes, and mouth.
"Hmm, although this human is weaker than this one, she''s still alive," Gaya said, walking at Arria.
"My gut tells me that we should keep this one alive," Michael nodded. Since the girl was just at level 1 of the Body refining stage, she should have been dead with the amount of fear toxin she inhaled yet she was alive, which surprised Michael.
He quickly retrieved a small syringe containing the antidote for the fear toxin and threw it to Gaya. While she was injecting Arria, Michael''s gaze turned back to the clown in front of him. On a normal day, this clown would have given Michael and Gaya a tough fight except when the spider exploded, he inhaled the mix of Fear toxin and Gaya''s poison that Michael created back at the Abyssal. Every single spider contained this mix of toxins, he did not think it would be of such use so soon.
After he inhaled the toxins, Michael sent pure fear toxin into the room, resulting in Gerty''s death. Considering the clown was at Core Strengthening level 3, Michael and Gaya did not take any chances as she shot him with an arrow dipped in her poison. Dagger was already affected by the toxin that came out of the spider and the Fear toxin, therefore, he could not react in time to reflect the arrow as he would have in his peak form.
Now the weakened Dagger could barely be considered as a Core Formation warrior.
"Death Range" Even with all this, Michael still activated the Death Range.
The very next moment, the darkroom became darker.
"I have a few questions, answer me and I''ll let you live," Michael said, lifting the clown by his neck.
"Wh-"
Creak!
Michael snapped the clown''s right hand like a twig when he was about to ask Michael a question.
"I ask, you answer, not the other way around" Dagger tried to fight through the pain while sensing Lucifer''s cultivation level but he was unable to.
"Why did you kidnap Gerty?"
After realizing he couldn''t use a spell under his clutch, Dagger decided to spin him a story to buy enough time. He hoped either the holy guards or guardians woulde here to rescue Gerty somehow. But again, he was the one who picked this ce and surrounded it with runes in the first ce to avoid anyoneing after Gerty.
"I..received...a contract...to kill Gerty, hehehe"
"Why is heughing?" Gaya asked, reaching out at his clown mask to unmask him.
"You''re an elf"
When she removed the mask, the one who stared at Michael was a pointy ear elf. He had patches of red hair, blue eyes, and a burn wound that left a mark stretching from the top of the left cheek, running towards his right nostril and ending on his chin leaves a bad memory of his unfortunate past.
Despite the fact, he belonged to the most beautiful race in this world, there was something wicked about him. The burn wound, the way heughs made Michael wary of him and Gaya smelled a faint stenching from his body.
"Hehehehe, yes"
"Someone cursed this elf" Michael could not notice but the Nagas were blessed with a heightened sense of smell, therefore, Gaya instantly recognized the reason for the faint stench was a curse.
"I don''t care about that, who gave you the contract?" Michael asked the elf. He couldn''t care less of who cursed the elf or why because the clown was about to steal his kill and use his name Lucifer to hide his tracks and that punched Dagger the ticket straight to hell.
"I...don''t...know," Michael noticed the medallion hanging on his chest. He pulled the medallion in the other hand,
"You''re a Grim Reaper,"? Gaya said. Michael did not forget that it was a group of Grim Reapers who ambushed the dwarf who was building Michael''s restaurant.
"Then why didn''t you kill Gerty in his room, why did you teleport him here?"
"It''s...it''s..."? seeing how the elf mumbled, Michael realized that he lied about getting a contract to kill Gerty.
Creak!
"AHHH! Hehehe" Michael broke the elf''s other hand and weirdly, he screamed andughed at the same time.
"By lying, you''re just ying with your own life," Michael said while Gaya grabbed one of the daggers lying on the ground.
"Let''s just kill him and ask his student" she raised the dagger aiming at his throat when he screamed.
"Quinn! Hehehehe" Both Gaya and Michael were surprised to hear the name Quinn again. He was the one who has been killing the nobles and helping the fake Lucifer.
"System, scan Gerty''s body and teleport everyone to Abyssal!"
[The host had only 2000 badass points remaining. Scanning the body and Teleportation to the abyssal would cost the host 3000 points. Would you like a loan of 10,000 badass points?]
"Fuck, do it" Michael screamed at the system. A glimmer of light wrapped around Gerty''s body, scanning him for a rune or anything that would give the location of Abyssal to the mysterious person.
[Scanpleted]
[The system found the rune of tracking in Gerty''s body]
[2000 badass points will be required to remove the rune]
"Yes, remove it and teleport us now!" the familiar light of teleportation wrapped around everyone before disappearing from the room.
************************************
Gaya saw the throne made of skull and bones and realized she was teleported back to Abyssal by Michael. She knew something must have happened for him to use teleportation without warning her but she did not question him in front of the elf.
"What did Quinn want with Gerty?"
Teleportation was an extremely powerful spell wielded by a few handfuls of people in the world. Even in the elvennd, a mage with the ability to teleport was extremely rare and powerful. The way he instantly teleported them made Dagger realize that Lucifer might just be the real devil everyone was iming him to be.
He did not dare to lie again as his life was more important than Quinn''s.
"He called in a favor...he wanted me to kidnap and bring him to the cabin. That''s...that''s all I know...I swear, please let me and my student go" By looking in the elf''s eyes, Gaya could tell he told the truth about the favor but when he asked specifically asked him and the girl to let go, her interest in the girl peaked because an evil person like him mostly wouldn''t think about anyone else other than himself.
"I have onest question, tell me the truth and I will let you both go"
Dagger''s body loosened up a bit as a breath of sigh escaped his mouth.
"Who is that girl and how did she get past the arrays back at Gerty''s mansion?"
Michael noticed a hint of reluctance in the elf''s eyes before he opened his mouth to answer.
"She..she has..the ability to..." his voice trailed off looking at Arria who was lying on the ground unconscious. She was supposed to be his trump card and the way to rise in power but now, he had no choice but to reveal her secret.
"Ability to do what?"
"Hide the Arch energy radiationing from her body"
Behind the masks, Michael and Gaya raised their brows in surprise and shock. He used the junk metal to build spiders just for this exact reason, he thought a living being, especially a cultivator couldn''t hide their Arch energy radiation no matter what. It was supposed to be impossible, even he could only hide the cultivation level from the eyes of others for a short amount of time but his presence could still be detected by arrays and cultivators.
If what the elf said was true about the girl, she is the perfect assassin for this world until Michael upgrades the system to hide his presence.
"Dark Queen"? Michael turned his gaze at her without losing his grip around the elf''s neck.
The elf had no time to react before Gaya stabbed the dagger right between his eyes, ending the elf''s life in a blink of an eye.
Chapter 184 - A Gift From The Real Lucifer
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Core Strengthening stage level 2 cultivator. The reward is 300,000 Experience points ] the system''s voice sounded in his mind.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core Formation stage Level 2!]
"What should we do with the bodies?"
"We can burn this clown''s body, as for Minister Gerty, we need to use his body to send a message to whoever ying fake Lucifer"
"We should make the Netherels carry his body to Royalnd along with a little message," Gaya said. Unlike living beings, Netherels wouldn''t get tired and the adventurers or soldiers would inform the church instead of attacking them, this made the Netherels perfect for this task. Plus, the church or guardians won''t be able to interrogate the dead.
Also, it would be befitting to send the dead to do the devil lord''s work.
"Dr '''' His call for the orc echoed through the dark halls. In a few minutes, Dr came to the throne hall running and when he saw the bodies lying on the ground, his heart skipped a beat. Not that he never saw dead bodies but every time he saw the two devils, an overwhelming fear would energy in his heart.
He had no idea that the reason for his fear is the fear toxin emitted by Lucifer and Gaya''s suit of armor.
"Lord Lucifer, Your Highness" After a few moments of staring at the bodies in fear, he bowed deeply towards Lucifer who was sitting on his throne, and Gaya who was searching through the clown''s body.
"One locked space ringing up" Gaya threw the space ring she took from the elf''s body to Michael.
Michael caught the ring and tried to see the contents inside but something prevented his senses from essing the space ring.
"System"
"200 badass points" he did not even have to tell what he wanted the system to do as it asked for points directly.
"Take it" in a couple of seconds, the something which prevented Michael from essing the space ring disappeared, letting him search through the contents of the space ring.
Everything inside the space ring was ordinary, stuff such as daggers, robes, a couple of thousand gold coins, and few spellbooks except an ordinary-looking diary.
"Interesting" it was the diary that caught Michael''s attention the most. He took out the book as Dr''s expression immediately changed from fear to shock.
Dr knew even though the previous owner of the ring died, no one could ess its contents for at least a few days but Lucifer unlocked the ring in a matter of seconds.
"Summon the Netherels for this month and send them to Royalnd with that body" while Michael was reading through the diary, Gaya issued an order to Dr.
"Before that" Gaya ripped off Gerty''s cloth before starting to write a few letters on his bare naked body using her ws.
"Guardians stop pretending to be me, Lucifer" Gaya chuckled while writing this because even if the Guardians were responsible for the killings, this would still bring a lot of heat for them from the church and the holy guards, if they were, this would startle them.
"System, I need a firework that paints the words ''Lucifer is watching everyone in the sky when it explodes"
After a few minutes, Gaya saw him close the diary and walk towards Gerty''s body. He noticed Gaya''s handiwork on the dead body before cing his hand on Gerty''s chest.
**********************************
"Where...where am...I?" Arria opened her eyes slowly to see nothing but a gloomy dark hall.
"You''re awake" the same voice she heard before she lost consciousness sounded again from behind, sending a cold chill running through her spine.
Her hands moved towards her waist searching for the dagger yet she couldn''t find her dagger.
She cautiously turned around scanning the hall like she was trained to.
She saw tremendous braziers hanging from each of the sixteen basalt columns light up every part of the throne hall and nket everything in a dark glow.
A ck fur rug split the entire room in half and was matched by the thinner ones on either side of the hall while pointed banners with burnished plumes dangle gently from the walls. Between each banner stands a tall candle, many of them have been lit and in turn illuminate the portraits of cloaked figures.
"Arria Geta of Wesite"
At the end of the ck rug, she saw a figure leisurely sitting on a throne of skulls and bones atop an elevated tform. The woman beside him wore identical armor and both of their eyes glowed like rubies. She couldn''t see their faces through the ck skull masks they were wearing.
The throne was covered in skulls and bones of various races such as humans, orcs, and beasts. The throne itself radiated dark energy around the figure sitting on it.
"Where...where is Dagger?" she mustered her courage to speak to the figure on the throne. She could sense the absence of the ve bond.
"Dead"
Arria followed his finger to see a body lying on the ground. With a flick of a wrist, the woman behind the figure moved the body as Arria saw the familiar clown mask beside the dead body and confirmed the fact that Dagger is really dead.
Although she was finally free of the ve bond, she did not feel free. Her eyes then frantically searched for Gerty because he was the only one who could answer her questions about her brothers'' whereabouts.
Michael noticed her searching for Gerty,
"Minister Gerty is dead too" her heart skipped a beat and utter despair hit her core.
"No...no...it...can''t...be" her knees gave out as she dropped to the ground. Streaks of tears flowed out of her eyes while making her eyes redder and redder.
After reading Dagger''s personal diary, Michael very well knew about the reason behind her tears but he let Arria feel the despair before he could make a deal with her.
"You...you...killed..them" an intense killing aura exploded from her body as Michael saw the Arch energy radiationing from her bodypletely disappear.
He and Gaya were stunned by the sight of this. Arria dashed at Michael without thinking about anything else, she just wanted to kill him.
"Wind st" Michael slightly raised his hand, sending a wave of wind to st her backward.
"How far will you go to save your brothers? I know where they are"
The st of wind threw Arria off bnce but when she heard him, her body was tense.
"You have an ability that''s very useful to us, agree to serve us as a loyal subordinate and I''ll take you to your brothers"
"You...you know...where they...are?" she stuttered as tears continuously rushed out of her eyes.
Gaya wryly smiled thinking that it would be easier to get the girl to serve them than they initially expected.
"Yes, agree to be our subordinate and serve us loyally, you''ll get your brothers, freedom, and many other things you wouldn''t have even dreamed of"
She did not care about anything else but her brothers, the only family she has left. If he could really get her to them as he was saying, she would be his ve to him to see her brothers one more time.
"Save them and I''ll do anything you ask of me" Arria said. She was not dumb enough not to believe that the man on the throne is Lucifer. Although many people thought of Lucifer as an evil entity, if he could reunite her with her brothers, she would consider him as an angel because ever since she came to this continent, she did not meet a single good person. As far as she was concerned, there were no good people in this continent, especially all the cultivators she met were rotten to the core.
"Take this and go to Iridium mines in Central Kethen" Michael expected this and prepared to deal with the scenario. He quickly retrieved the teleportation scroll he bought from the system, throwing it at Arria''s feet.
"Your brothers are working in the mines as ves, use the scroll when you meet them, it will teleport you back here," said Michael.
"But if you try to do anything stupid like escaping, we will look for you, we will find you and we will kill you" Gaya spoke like female Liam Neeson from Taken. The powerful aura she just radiated made Arria''s body weak as she struggled to even take a breath.
Arria picked up the scroll at her feet while Gaya walked towards her.
"This will hurt" Arrira heard the words from the figure before she felt a sharp pain in her head.
Gaya grabbed the unconscious body of Arria,
"Put her somewhere closer to Kethen," Michael said sitting on his throne. He did not want Arria to know she was in the Dark forest until she became his subordinate.
Michael also retrieved two spiders from the system and sent them crawling towards Arria. The spiders soon crawled into her dress to hide. If she did try to escape after rescuing her brothers, Michael nned to activate the spiders to inject them with poison, ending their lives because no matter how powerful or unique she is, if she tried to betray him, he would end her life without a second thought.
With the hidden spiders, Gaya took her to the teleportation array adjacent to the throne hall that was the only way of getting out of Abyssal without breaking a wall.
Chapter 185 - House Of Winston
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 2
Experience Points: 0/400000
Badass Points: 6500 (debt 12000 badass points)
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 90% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 54% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Wealth: 1,670,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 97%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
After sending Gay to leave Arria near Kethen, Michael was staring at his status page with a gloomy face. No matter how many badass points he earned, they would disappear just like that. The stronger he got, the more badass points he needed.
"Now that I have Majestic and will soon open the restaurant, I should upgrade Banker function"
[30,000 badass points will be required to upgrade the Banker function to level 4. The conversation ratio will be 1000 gold coins to 20 badass points]
"It''d be a good idea to auction some of the herbs and spell scrolls I got from the Nether Realm" Michael decided to go to an auction hall to sell some of the less useful items in his storage. He had many Rare spell scrolls and herbs that would fetch a great price.
"Also, I have to meet Nathen''s uncle" Deciding his next two destinations, he rested on the throne waiting for Gaya to get back.
After waiting for another half an hour, she arrived at the Abyssal.
"I left her at Kethen''s border, do you think it''s a good idea sending her alone? I heard security in the ves mines are pretty tight, if she tried anything stupid, she would be killed"
"That''s why I gave her the scroll, even if she had an idea to escape, she would be forced to use the scroll because of the security"
"How do you know about her brothers anyway?"
"Surprisingly that clown had a habit of writing a diary" Michael threw the diary to Gaya.
"Reading others'' diaries is fun," she said excitedly catching the diary.
"Do you know a good ce to auction a few things?"
"Oh?" she sounded surprised,
"Why?"
"I need gold coins, a whole lot of gold coins," Michael said even though he knew that she would wonder why he needed so many gold coins.
"There''s a Phoenix auction manor branch in Kingdom Kethen, they host high-end auction on the weekends"
On the contrary to Michael''s expectations, she did not ask him why.
"You aren''t going to ask why I need so many gold coins?" Michael was really curious as he directly asked her.
She did not give an answer but calmly walked at him before sitting on hisp.
"I said we shouldn''t have any secrets between us and you still seem to have a few secrets of your own, I''m not going to ask you to reveal them all because I trust that you have a good reason not to tell me. Whatever the reason is, I know you will tell me when the time''s right"
Michael''s heart immediately warmed hearing her. He just lifted her mask and kissed her full of love and passion. If the system was just a system as he thought when he first came to the world, he would have decided to keep the system''s existence a secret from her forever but he was proved wrong, the system was not just a system. He knew that in the future he will have to fight otherworldly supreme beings to protect him and the system, at that time, whether he liked it or not, he would have to reveal the system''s existence because she was not only his soul mate but also a powerful being who could help him in the battle.
"Wow, that was...intense," Gaya said, taking her lips away from his.
"Shall we return to the sect, my queen?"
"Yes we shall, my king"
**************************************
"How dare they attack innocent people in the domain of the Winston family?!"
In the backyard of Winston''s familypound, Sabrina Winston, the second daughter of Lord Angus Winston was barking like a mad dog.
"Calm down Miss, we have already sent men to investigate the bandit attacks" Samuel, an old butler who was serving the Winston family for many decades pleaded with the young girl.
"Now that I''m back, I will personally bring those evildoers to justice" Sabrina unsheathed her sword from the sheath that was adorned with little blue roses.
"Please don''t do anything rash Young Miss, at least wait for Young Master Noah. The Young Master said he''sing here in a couple of days"
"Big brother ising?! Why didn''t you tell me this earlier?" The anger within her eyes vanished instantly when she heard the news of her brother''s arrival from Samuel.
Samuel sighed in relief thinking this would keep the young miss in the home.
"Then it''s more important for me to get rid of those bandit bastards before big brotheres. What do the other guardians think of him if his own homnd was infested with bandits?"
"At least let me put together a team, Young Miss," Samuel sighed. He thought saying her brother ising would keep her in the home but now he realized he just made her even more willful to go after the bandits. Ever since she was a little girl, she had a heroic spirit just like her other siblings.
This heroic spirit earned her a ce in the Holy Trident Academy, one of the best academies in the Elon Continent for girls. Samuel felt proud of the son and daughters of Lord Angus like they were his own grandchildren. He watched Noah grow into a capable young man and get into the Guardian Guild, he watched Young Miss Rowena, Noah''s elder sister be the holy maiden of Sky hall, an existence that could bepared to the Great Nine ns and he watched Young Miss Sabrina bes the youngest disciples of Holy Trident Academy.
While thinking about the three, a sliver of sadness emerged in Samuel''s eyes but the old butler quickly hid it before Sabrina could notice.
"Uncle Samuel, what are you waiting for? I''ll go out looking for the bandits the first thing in the morning"
"I''ll go put up a team to apany you right away, Young Miss"
Sabrina sheathed her sword, rolling her eyes
"Just make sure they don''t slow me down"
"Of course, Young Miss" Samuel bowed deeply before leaving the garden area to assemble a team to go with Sabrina. Since all the reports he received mentioned that all the bandits were at the Body Refining stage, he knew Sabrina, A Body Refining stage level 4 warrior and a team of Body Strengthening warriors would eradicate the bandit problems.
"Samuel, when will Noah arrive here?" Just as Samuel was leaving the garden area, he heard a gentle voice as he turned to see Diana Winston, the Lady of the House Winston.
She walked towards him through the garden full of flowers. Golden, long wavy hair neatly coiffed to reveal a lovely yet worried face. Big, round golden eyes, set narrowly within their sockets, one could see a faint ck circle under her eyes. Her face contained a gentle smile but also a deep sorrow.
"Mydy," Samuel bowed, greeting her with a smile.
"Young Master Noah will be here in a couple of days, you don''t have to worry mydy"
"I''ll always worry about my children, Samuel,"? Diana said, looking at thest of the sun rays at the horizon.
"Have you found an Alchemist capable of brewing the potion of phoenix?"
"I''ve already sent the men to Lord Gabriel''s house requesting his help, mydy. Considering Young Master''s status as a trainee guardian, he might help us. I also sent men to the Sunrise sect asking for their 5-star Alchemist? but I don''t think he could brew the potion of phoenix"
"It''s the young man named Ghost right?"? Diana asked Samuel as he was surprised by the fact that she knew about him.
"Yes, mydy. How do you know his name?"
"Maids love to gossip, Samuel. Why do you think he cannot brew the potion? if what I heard was right, he seemed to be a very talented young man"
"He may be a 5-star Alchemist mydy but he''s too young, he cannot bepared to Lord Gabriel who has been in the alchemy fields for decades. That young man''s age is only a quarter of Lord Gabriel''s experience"
"You cannot gauge talent with age, Samuel. You should know this better than everyone else"
"Yes mydy, forgive me for my ignorance"
Since Noah was little, he would share everything with Samuel as he considered the old man as family. Because of their rtionship, Noah admitted that he got the spot in the Guardian guild because Ghost rejected in the first ce. Although Samuel knew Noah would have gotten the spot eventually, he couldn''t help but feel a slight bitterness towards Ghost. The old man''s heart refused to believe that this Ghost is better than his Young Master.
********************************
"Boss, we received a message from our inside man. Sabrina Winston ising looking for us tomorrow morning"
"Wonderful, let see how that brat feels when I send his little sister''s head and body in two different parcels"
At the moment somewhere else in Kethen two men were plotting their revenge against Noah Winston. They prepared to give Sabrina a nasty surprise but they had no idea that someone far worse than Sabrina is on his way to Kethen...
Chapter 186 - Do Not Overestimate Yourself
The Winston family domain''s border was adorned with mother nature''s wonders such as rivers, waterfalls, ocean of trees, and grasnds. Until the Winston family''s young generation, they were a small noble house under Duke Marvin except now they had be one of the powerful and influential noble families in Pen Town.
Unlike Kingdom Bredia divided into four baronies, Kingdom Kethen was divided into four duchies: Rosegate, Pen Town, mefair, and Icefair.
The main reason for the Winston family''s ascension to power was the engagement between Noah and Alicia whose family was the most powerful family, in Icefair. The two families allied together against one of the oldest and influential families, House of Bellwatch in Pen Town to destroy them overnight.
House Bellwatch tried to engage Alicia into their family, but Noah ruined their n, resulting in a full-scale war between the two families. In the end, they were wiped out and their properties were seized by the Winston family which made them rise in power quickly.
The young generation of the Winston family was extremely talented, especially House Head Lord Angus''s children. The Eldest daughter, Rowena became the holy maiden of Sky hall, the second one, Noah got into Guardian guild and thest Sabrina became the youngest disciple of Holy Trident Academy in Kingdom Dradel.
At the border of Pen town and mefair was divided by Maple Forest, a beauty beyond words. The forest was full of red yellow and white maple trees. The forest was calm, their colors were depleted by the winter and painted with white.
At the moment, a group of riders was galloping through the snow disturbing the silent forest. The leading rider of the group was a young girl in herte teens. Her golden hair danced around her shoulder while her hazel eyes contained a hint of anger and resolution. She was neither too fair nor too dark but she had nicely tanned skin along with the perfect structure.
Her one hand was on the reins while the other was on the sheath hanging on her slender waist. It was adorned with little blue flowers, the iconic blue jasmines of Holy Trident Academy.
She stopped her horse in the middle of the forest staring at her surroundings. In her eyes, there was nothing but snow-covered trees but the usual silence of the forest had be unsettling.
"Young Miss, why did we stop?" Despite Samuel''s strong opposition, Sabrina only brought five Body Strengthening stage warriors. She thought arge group of warriors would spook the bandits into hiding.
"I know you''re there" Sabrina didn''t answer the guard but spoke while aiming her sword at a frozen maple tree thirty meters in front of them.
"No point in hiding, I can sense your presence" the five guards behind Sabrina became agitated as they quickly retrieved their weapons to protect the Young Miss.
"Well well well, I''m surprised" A figure wearing full white robes to blend with the snow stepped aside from the tree Sabrina was aiming her sword.
"Even though I was using a concealment spell to hide my presence, you still found me," the man in white said.
"No spell can hide your presencepletely, you should have known this if you went to a school or an academy instead of bing a bandit" seeing the man was only at the level 2 Body Strengthening stage, the guards behind Sabrina loosened up their bodies a bit. They knew that their young miss could take anyone under Body Strengthening stage level 4 regardless of her cultivation level. She was just a Body Refining level 6 warrior yet the spells she possessed and the training she got from the Holy Trident Academy made her a formidable warrior.
"Where''s the rest of your group? If you surrender without resisting, you won''t be sentenced to death" Sabrina said as the man shook his head, still smiling.
"What about you and I duel? if you win, I and my men will surrender"
The man said.
"Young Miss, something''s not right, we should arrest him and head back to the manor"
"Don''t worry Visir, I''ll make this duel a quick one" Sabrina waved her hand at Visir, one of the senior guards of the Winston family.
"But if you''ll lose, how about make me and my men the protectors of the? Maple forest. We like this ce"
"I ept, shall we start?" Sabrina asked, jumping down from her horse.
"Miss, please ask your men to put away their weapons, I fear they might interfere if I gain the upper hand in our duel," the man said looking at Sabrina''s men.
"Shut up you lowly thief, you can''t-"
"Tell your men to put away their weapons, Visir"
"Young Miss, please-"
"It''s an order, Visir"
Visir was shut by Sabrina before he could advise her against putting their weapons away because if they were ambushed, mere seconds of drawing their weapons back might cost their lives.
However, they couldn''t do anything against their Young Miss''s order.
Letting out a sigh of defeat, Visir signaled the men to put away their weapons.
"I can''t believe it worked" the man who challenged Sabrina mumbled under his breath.
Although he knew Sabrina was not an ordinary cultivator, he still believed that he could defeat her before they put their real n in motion.
However, when he noticed Sabrina sheathing her sword, he frowned.
"Arrogant bitch" he cursed her in his mind.
"Call of Frost!" The man cast the spell as the snow surrounding him vibrated violently before transforming into an eight feet tall snow giant.
"Pathetic" Sabrina shook her head disapprovingly looking at the rushing snow giant.
"Holy Trident de" when these three simple words escaped her mouth, a swirling tornado emerged from the ground between the snow giant and her. The tornado forced the snow giant back before settling down to reveal a six feet blue sword that sparkled radiance. The heat radiated from the de melted the snow around as it hovered in the mid air between the giant and Sabrina.
"Cut," Sabrina said waving her hand as the de cut the snow giant into two pieces leaving the bandit man startled.
The first spell was cast by a Body Strengthening warrior, the second one was created by only a Body Refining stage warrior yet thetter obliterated the first spell in just a matter of seconds. It was because the first spell was an Umon one while the spell cast by Sabrina was a Rare spell.
Normally a Body refining stage cultivator couldn''t cast a Rare category spell as it would require so much Arch energy than a usual Body Refining stage cultivator would have but Sabrina was anything but normal.
Thest couple of seconds shed across the man''s eyes over and over again. He was already warned by his leader that the girl shouldn''t be underestimated yet he did exactly just that. She did fall for his boss''s scheming but she didn''t fall for his spell.
"Ice Daggers,e forth!" Aftering out of his initial shock, he quickly cast another spell utilizing the snow around him to further strengthen his spell.
His hands shone in glimmering white as the snow beneath and around him transformed into several daggers, the number of daggers were in between fifty to sixty, all aiming their pointy end towards Sabrina.
Visir and his men gawked at the daggers, fear and worry for their Young Miss riddles their faces. Yet, there was no fear in Sabrina''s eyes, only indifference.
"Holy Trident Shield, Holy Trident Arrows" She cast two spells at the same time effortlessly.
The first spell created a translucent dome around her and then the second spell created a singlerge arrow that shone like an arrow made of gold.
"Let''s finish this, shall we?" Sabrina calmly said, raising her right hand at the man. Following her hand, the arrow slowly tilted, aiming itself at the man.
"Enough ying" his boss''s voice sounded in his mind, letting him know that he should start the real battle.
"GO!" the man screamed as the daggers soared through the cold wind except they couldn''t go through the translucent dome around her.
At the moment when he screamed, Sabrina thought he was only ordering the daggers but the very next moment, she saw several more figures emerge from the snow.
"Kill them all!" he yet again shrieked as a rain of arrows came down on Sabrina and her men. The dome kept her safe but before Visir and his men could cast a defense spell or draw their weapons, the arrow prated them, ending two of the five guards'' lives in an instant.
"It''s an ambush!" Visir screamed and rushed towards Sabrina who was standing several meters away from him.
While riding towards her in the horse, Visir grabbed a shield from one of his fallenrades to shield himself from the arrows.
"Did you really think you could catch us with only five guards? How fucking stupid can you be?" The man''sughter and his words were like fuel to Sabrina''s anger. The veins in her eyes popped to make her eyes blood red in anger,
"Holy Trident ming Palm!" the dome around her disappeared as a gigantic palm made of nothing but zing crimson red fire appeared behind her.
Compared to the heat the palm was radiating, the heat radiated by the Holy Trident Sword was nothing. The snow around her vaporized and trees caught fire.
"A Rare spell can turn the tides between a Body Strengthening and Body Refining warrior but it wouldn''t matter when a Body Refining stage warrior fights with a Core Formation warrior" suddenly another voice reverberated in the forest before a spear flew out of nowhere and struck Visir through the chest.
"Ice Storm" Before Sabrina could locate the source of the voice, a mini Ice storm emerged from the ground before Sabrina, engulfing the ming palm.
"Boss is here!"
Chapter 187 - Nightmare鈥檚 Interference
Sabrina looked up at the sky to see a man descending from the sky on his flying sword. He was tall and had sky-blue robes. On his chest, the letters B and W embroidered delicately. When Sabrina''s eyes fell on his face, she took a step back in shock, surprise, or both. Half of his face burned, only patches of burned hair upied half of his head. He seemed ugly and terrifying at the same time. It took her a few seconds to recognize him using his other half of the face.
"Alden...Alden Bellwatch"
"Oh, you recognized me. People don''t recognize me anymore because of THIS!" he pointed at his burned face, screaming at her.
"Inferno Punch!" his scream echoed through the forest. It was hard to identify his emotions by looking at his face but his voice contained uncontroble rage and agony.
A few seconds after his scream, the surrounding air began to be hotter and hotter, melting the snow into water and then vaporizing it. Suddenly, a burst of blood-red mes sted Sabrina, sending her flying away ten meters before her body hit the ground with a thud sound.
The anger within him amplified the spell''s power. The taupe-colored fur on her dress waspletely burned by the spell and if it wasn''t for her quick reflection to block the spell by covering herself with Arch energy, her wless skin would have been roasted.
"Kill them!" Alden ordered the men pointing at the three struggling guards.
"Stop!" Sabrina screamed before trying to stand up but she was toote as the bandits already slit the guards'' throats. The blood oozed out of their throats painted the white snow in red.
"They paid the price for what you and your family did to mine"
"I''m gonna tear you apart," Sabrina''s mind told her that she had zero percent chance to defeat him yet the rage within her heart wanted her to fight, it wanted her to avenge those guards.
"Boss, I cannot believe this stupid bitch epted my challenge and asked her men to stay down" the man who dueled with Sabrina chuckled. Although he chuckled, he avoided direct eye contact with Alden.
"Because she''s too arrogant, just like her brother, Noah Winston" when he said Noah''s name, the bandits around Alden felt the overwhelming murderous intent. They all just wished to devour the beauty in front of them but after seeing the murderous intent in Alden''s face, they sighed realizing that she wouldn''t be so beautiful when Alden is done with her.
Standing a few meters away from Alden, Sabrina drew her sword. Her sword''s de was azure blue that glimmered giving a unique aura to the sword.
"This is not going to be a one on one, this is going to be a gang bang" an evil grin mixed with a cruel expression appeared on his half-burned face.
"Fuck her up!"
"Really?!" The man dueled Sabrina became really excited as he looked Alden in his eyes with excitement filling his whole body.
Plop!
Alden however pped the man wiping off the excitement from his face,
"Not literally you idiot, kill her"
"Yes, boss!"
Facing twelve Body Strengthening warriors and one Core Formation warrior, Sabrina stood firm as she knew escaping from them was impossible. Even if she used her lifeblood, there was no chance ofing out of this battle alive.
"I should have listened to you, old man" She regretted her decision to only bring five guards with her.
"Frostbite"
Several dozen spears made of ice flew at her from all directions. Her grip on the hilt tightened as she swung her sword, cutting most of the ice spears but few of them already prated her. Her grey dress slowly turned red, especially around her shoulder and thighs where the ice spear went throughout rather than grazing her.
"I''m gonna send your body in? pieces to your family so they can feel how it''s like to lose someone they love"
Pulch!
Sabrina threw up mouth full of blood as her body began to turn pale. She could feel her body failing her. As her life was fading away, she just wanted to embrace her mother onest time, she wanted to see her family.
"When...my...brother..es" she stuttered, wiping off the blood from the corners of her mouth.
"I know everything about your brother. That''s why I won''t directly fight him but kill everyone he cares about, no matter how long I have to wait for an opportunity. I will strike from the shadows, taking one life at a time from your family"
"Leave her alone" just as the other bandits were about to end Sabrina''s life, a childish yet gruff voice appeared.
The very next moment, they were stunned to see a baby dragon with shiny crimson scalesnding in front of them.
"She''s now under the protection of I, Nightmare" Nightmare puffed his chest out and held his head high proudly.
"Boss, that''s a dragon!" Many of the men behind Alden screamed in unison as they subconsciously took a step back. Although after the Dragon n disappeared from the face of this, there were still many dragons living scattered around the world and all of them were extremely powerful, powerful enough to burn an entire city in a matter of hours.
However soon the fact the baby dragon was only a Foundation stage level 3 beast reached their brain as the sudden fear emerged in their heart faded away.
"Who...what...fly...away" Sabrina coughed up blood, warning the baby dragon to escape.
"Boss, let me catch that dragon. We''ll be settled for life if we auctioned this dragon" one of the men reminded Alden. They wanted to quickly finish off Sabrina and catch the dragon who''s just pitifully looking at them.
"I dont know where the fuck youe from but this is between me and her, get the fuck out of here lizard!"
Alden was in no mood to catch the dragon or sell it to the highest bidder. After what Noah did to his family, he no longer cared for anything but revenge.
"If you can interfere with an honorable duel, why can''t I interfere with your despicable attempt to kill this human girl?" Alden gritted his teeth as blood already started to seep through burned muscles in his face.
"What will you do? What CAN you do?" Alden menacingly asked Nightmare, conjuring a fireball in his hand.
"Nothing but I have two buddies. Either of them can and will end your pathetic lives in a couple of minutes tops. So if you value your lives, I suggest you start running now" Sabrina''s body nowpletely bes pale as white paper due to the blood loss. She saw the world around her spinning, dizziness finally caught up with her making standing still a challenge.
"Kill her and this lizard"
The men were disappointed with Alden''s order as they wanted to catch the dragon alive. However, they did not dare to question Alden because he was the one paying them and he already killed one of them by burning him just because he questioned Alden''s orders once.
They did not want to make the same mistake. Sabrina slowly dragged herself to shield the little dragon that tried to help her, she wanted to do onest kindness before dying.
"Stand down, you stupid girl" Nightmare sounded calm but one could sense the disappointment and bitterness in his voice.
Nightmare was hunting for meat when he saw everything that happened with Sabrina and the bandits. At first, he just wanted to leave them be but the images of him chased by humans helplessly shed across his face. He felt sympathy for the human girl, he wanted to help her just like Ghost helped him.
However, he also felt pity for the guards. If she quickly captured the man before epting the duel or brought more men, she would have had the chance to escape, or at least the guards would have survived by running away.
Because her arrogance and overconfidence made her overlook the obvious ambush, she got her guards killed and almost got herself killed. Without giving her any time to react, Nightmare pped his wings creating a st of wind that knocked down Sabrina.
"Frost-"
"What''s going on here?" Just when the men were about to cast spells to attack Nightmare, a calm voice sounded from above before Alden saw a youngster and a young girl in full ck descending from the sky.
"Whoa, you''re fucking ugly"? the men behind Alden almost tripped on their feet when they heard the young womanment on Alden''s face.
"Dicky, what the fuck are you doing here, and who the fuck is this?" Gaya pointed at the unconscious Sabrina.
Nightmare already epted being called Dicky as he knew there''s no stopping the Naga from calling that.
"Core Formation stage" Alden and the men frowned looking at Michael''s cultivation level.
After looking at the dead guards and the girl, Michael could connect the dots to see what had happened here. Nightmare quickly pped his wings, taking off from the ground. He thennded on Michael''s shoulder before exining everything from Sabrina''s duel to Alden''s ambush.
For a moment, a glint of anger appeared in Michael''s eyes, not towards Alden or his men but actually towards Nightmare. The baby dragon was not aware of this but Gaya read Michael''s expression like a book.
"Dicky put his name on the line, human. We should help him keep his word"
"Get out of my way!" Alden screamed after seeing them whisper among themselves, interrupting his perfectly plotted murder n.
Michael turned his gaze towards Alden and sighed,
"Look, I don''t care what''s the history between you two but I can tell her family did something bad to yours. You have every right to kill her, her family, and do what you like, I get that. But my familiar here put his name to protect the girl, so leave her alone this time and kill her another time"
Chapter 188 - Her Brother鈥檚 Name Is NOAH WINSTON
Despite the temptation of killing all of them, earning enough experience points to level up, Michael chose not to kill them right out of the bat and gave them a chance to escape. He did not want to meddle with Alden as he wasn''tpletely aware of Alden''s background.
Michael paid no attention to Alden anymore, he turned his gaze back at Nightmare who was standing on his shoulder.
"You got yourself into this mess, so clean out the mess"
"What do you want me to do?" Nightmare felt wronged by the way Michael talked.
"Take their bodies, put them on a horse" Michael felt no pity for Sabrina but he did feel pity for the guards who lost their lives because of her arrogance.
"Do it" Nightmare was taken aback by the seriousness of Michael''s voice. This was the first time Michael talked to Nightmare without putting on a yful voice.
"Okay," Nightmare purred like a kitten before flying into the forest to find the horses that ran away when the battle started.
"What about the girl?" Gaya asked, seeing Michael walk away from Sabrina, turning his back on Alden and his group.
"Inferno Wave!" However just as Michael was walking away, he heard Alden scream, casting a spell to kill not only Sabrina but also him, a big fucking mistake.
"Lightning Dash" before the wave of blood-red fire engulfed Sabrina, Michael activated Lightning Dash.
The crescent moon-shaped me did not stop when it hit the ground where Sabrina was but traveled unstoppably to the ce where Michael was a second ago. The snow on the ground was instantly vaporized as the trees that were hit by the me obliterated into nothing but ashes.
Whoosh!
Before Alden could confirm whether his me wave hit the targets or not, an arrow pierced straight through his chest. It was so fast that he only felt the pain after a couple of seconds the arrow went through his chest.
"Boss!" the men scream, drawing their weapons and preparing to cast spells. They saw the young woman with the bow aiming an arrow at Alden.
"That was a mistake, buddy" Alden heard the youngster''s calm voice again but now, it sounded from behind.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
¡
Continued notification sounds rang in his mind. Alden''s men were so confused and shocked to see him appear behind them in a blink of an eye.
"I gave you a chance, something that most don''t get. Yet, you chose to attack me, a big fucking mistake"
"Kill them!" Alden did not waste any moment. He yelled the order at his men while conjuring Arch energy to cast the powerful spell in his arsenal.
Alden witnessed firsthand what would happen when you underestimate your opponent when he fought Noah and he did not choose to make the same mistake again. Therefore, he chose to use his most powerful spell.
"Lightning Dash" Michael on the other hand wanted to end the battle quickly but also wanted to increase his mastery over the Ring of Fire.
Before Alden could finish his spell or his men could even start to attack him, Michael appeared at the center of Alden''s men.
"Ring of fire" Alden and his men felt warm energy pulsate from his body.
With a booming and unearthly humming sound, a wave of fire many times brighter and hotter than Alden''s inferno fire discharged from Michael''s body, burning three bandits to a crisp instantly.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 36000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 36000 Experience points and 900 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage level 9 cultivator. The reward is 36000 Experience points and 800 Badass points]
"Ahhhhh it burns!"
The remaining nine Body Strengthening warriors were squirming and screaming in agony on the ground.
"Don''t let anyone escape"
Gaya nodded before rapidly firing arrows that pierced through the bandits'' legs, making them unable to run.
Considering Michael''s mastery with Ring of fire was at only 54%, there was no perfect ring around him or pulses of me waves in circles. The waves of mes chaotically sted the bandits away.
"Frostbite"
"Frost giant!"
"Crystal rain!"
From Michael''s activation of Lightning Dash to Ring of Fire, everything happened so quickly. Only after Michael killed three of the men, the rest of them realized what just happened.
They rapidly cast spells, attacking him with all kinds of objects made of ice. Alden hand-picked thirteen warriors who specialized in ice spells that utilize the winter and the snow. However, the heating from the Ring of fire was so hot that it melted the objects created by his men to attack Michael, taking away their advantage.
Pulch!
"Boss!"
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Core Formation stage, level 4 Cultivator. The reward is 150,000 Experience points]
Just when Alden was about to attack Michael, an arrowyered with golden light pierced through Alden''s head, sttering grey brain matter all over the ground and on everyone who stood closer to him, including Michael.
"What? He was about to cast a powerful spell"
Gaya shrugged, exining the reason for her action. After Alden''s body hit the ground, the rest of the men mostly lost their will to fight. They had no time to wonder how a Body Refining stage cultivator like her killed a Core Formation warrior like Alden except they knew this is no time to wonder.
"Damn you woman, you killed him because you are fucking hungry!" Michael shouted at Gaya before sending bolts of lightning through the bandits who were running away.
"It was you dumb fucker who forgot to get my traveling pack from Raylene" She yelled back while firing rapidly firing arrows at the bandits with deadly uracy. Each arrow shot from her bow like a bullet from a gun.
In the middle of the snow-covered maple forest, screams of agony reverberated. Each time a bolt of lightning or an arrow fired, it took a life.
The sttered organs and blood had given the Maple forest its red color, only now, the red was not from red maple trees but from the bandits.
"I don''t know how a cultivator could get hungry!"
"I do!"
Michael and Gaya were quarreling like an old couple as they moved around the area, killing the bandits mercilessly.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core Formation stage Level 3!]
"Now you''re breaking through. Fuck you and your wargod body!" Hunger and envy of him breaking through by just killing people made her even more furious.
"Then why don''t you go back to the sect and get your traveling pack?" Michael air quoted the two words ''traveling pack'' which was nothing but all kinds of food prepared by Raylene for her.
"Maybe I will," she eximed. She put on her ''no talking with you'' face while Michael decided it''s not very healthy to argue with a hungry woman.
Neigh!
Michael turned his head towards the direction of the sound. He saw Nightmare leading a horse by pulling the rein using his mouth. Regardless of Nightmare''s little body, he had several times more strength than an average human being.
"You two killed them all"
"Yeah no shit, burn the bodies before someonees searching for them," Gaya said to Nightmare while avoiding eye contact with Michael.
While Nightmare was lifting the dead guards using his ws and mouth, Michael advanced towards Sabrina. Fortunately, he poured a healing potion when he initially used Lightning Dash to save her from Alden''s spell. If not for his healing potion, she would have died due to blood loss.
"Wait a minute, I know that symbol" When he lifted Sabrina from the ground, Gaya noticed the blue jasmine decorated sword sheath.
Putting her anger towards Michael aside, she came to check Sabrina''s sheath. Luckily, Alden''s spell still messed up her organs as she was still unconscious.
"It''s a sheath given to all Holy Trident disciples, where did she get it?"
"Yeah, she was using spells that had the words Holy Trident, " Nightmare said, putting thest dead body on the horse.
"Then she must be a disciple of Holy fucking Trident"
"I guess it''s a big deal" after looking at Gaya''s awestruck expression, Michael knew Holy Trident must be a very powerful ce.
"Very. Holy Trident Academy is said to be the most powerful academy in Elon. They are so powerful that they would make Aragoth look like a declined sect"
"Interesting" Finally a slight smile appeared on Michael''s face.
"Nightmare, did you find anything that could lead us to her home?"
While floating in the mid-air, Nightmare scratched his head recalling the conversation Alden had with Sabrina before his eyes lightened up.
"I heard that half-burned human say her brother''s full name, Noah Winston"
"Noah Winston?!" Even Michael was surprised to hear the familiar name.
He couldn''t believe that he just saved Noah''s sister.
"Let''s bug his home!" Gaya was excited and so was Michael. If he could bug Noah''s home, especially Noah''s room, he might give some valuable intel about Guardians and even make him carry the bug into Guardian guild headquarters.
"Next stop, Winston''s"
Chapter 189 - Ghost At Noah鈥檚 Home
After finding another horse in the frozen maple forest, the duo began their journey towards Pen Town instead of going to Icefair where the phoenix auction manor branch was located. To reach Icefair, he would have to pass through either mefair or Pen Town. Going through Pen Town would take two days while going through mefair would only take one day from the maple forest. Since there were still four days left to the auction and the girlying on the horse before him was Noah''s sister, Michael changed his initial n to going through mefair.
Gaya was unusually silent during the journey. She was still giving him the silent treatment whereas Nightmare too flew along with him without uttering a word. However, Michael did not start a conversation because he enjoyed the serenity.
The path through the snow was narrow, not more than three horses could travel side by side. Trees on each side of the path were covered in snow. The quietness Michael was enjoying got interrupted by the howling sound of the wind that was followed by a heavy downpour of snow. He was fortunate enough to buy a long winter coat that was made of ck bear coat, ording to the cloth merchant he met at the Sun Rise sect. The same merchant agreed to supply the sect with winter clothes. Michael was still considering the design for the sect''s uniform as he loathed the current orange uniform. ire was already on the task to design the new uniform and as a Guardian of the Sect, he asked her to make the uniform ck.
Even with a fur-covered winter coat, the chillness made his hair stand up. He quickly retrieved a nket he packed before covering Sabrina''s body with it. How could he let Sabrina freeze to death after saving her from Alden?
Wondering what the uniform would look like, Michael gave a mild kick to the horse to fasten the pace. After passing through frozen waterfalls, trees, and a few buildings along the way, a vague figure of a city wall appeared in his eyesight.
The heavy snow obstructed his eyesight. If not that was a problem, every breath he released turned into a cloud of white smoke, obstructing the view before him even further.
As he was riding through the snow, he felt two soft hands wrapping around his chest.
"You can use Arch energy to warm yourself" Michael responded to her burying her face on his back.
"I''m still not talking to you, jerk" she head-butted his back.
"Suit yourself, I considered? taking you out for dinner at a nice restaurant in Kethen but meh"
"You''re kidding?"
"Nope"
She was excited, tightening her grip around his waist. She never went on a real date with him. Although they spent most of their time in each other''spany, Gaya always wanted to spend some time with him, without all the nning, battle, or any kind of stress.
"I know a nice ce in Pen Town" She moved her hands from Michael''s waist and stretched his cheeks like she was ying with a chubby baby.
Flying beside them, Nightmare just rolled his eyes and continued to fly towards the city gate. When Michael''s group got closer to the city gate, a group of guards wearing surprisingly high-quality fur-coated armor.
"Halt your steps!" The guard leading the group had a sturdy body forged in battle. His long brown beard imprisoned countless snowkes, almost making his brown beard white. He wearily stared at Michael, but his mouth opened a few millimeters wide when his gaze fell on Nightmare.
However, the sight of frozen bodies on the horse led by Nightmare turned his surprise into hostility.
"Dead bodies!" The guards behind him quickly drew their weapons out. There was no fear in their eyes even though Michael, a Core Formation warrior could kill them like stepping on an ant as they were only at the Body Refining stage except the lead guard who was at Body Strengthening stage.
"Rx, they were killed by the bandits in the Maple forest," Michael said, like he did not notice the guards at all. Although the lead guard didn''t take out his spear attached to his back, he moved towards Nightmare slowly and cautiously to check the dead bodies.
The lead guard conjured a small orb of fire to melt down the snow on one of the dead bodies. Soon when the ice melted down from the dead body''s chest, the lead guard''s eyes widened. He frantically melted the snow on the other bodies before one of the guards behind him screamed,
"It''s the guards of the Winston family!"
"Sir, follow me," the lead guard said, taking the reins from Nightmare. The baby dragon was more than happy to give the rein to the guard.
"To where?" Gaya''s voice was grim but Michael patted the hands around his waist, wordlessly asking her to calm down.
"To the Winston Familypound"
"Lead the way" Michael gestured at the guard. It saved him the time to ask someone the directions to the Winston family. The lead guard overlooked Sabrina on Michael''s horse. This wasn''t unusual as the lead guard might have assumed her as another dead body.
The guards opened therge metal gates to reveal Pen Town. The first thing that caught Michael''s eyes was the tallest building in Pen Town, a clock tower that resembled London''s big ben. The rest of the buildings were covered with snow, barely revealing their oak wood walls and birch wood rooftops.
Regardless of the snow, the township itself looked gorgeous. Pen Town had a captivating atmosphere. There weren''t many civilians on the streets that arched in organic swirls around the aromatic bakery, cheerful taverns, and other buildings considering the heavy snowfall. There wasn''t a big jaw-dropping difference between any Cities in Bredia and Pen Town.
Majorities of the buildings were two-story while asionally Michael noticed three or four-story buildings. The buildings were built very close to each other like train blocks but the pavements were spacious enough to have benches and small ces to sit and eat, to rx as folk went about their day.
Michael followed the lead guard''s horse to meet the Winstons. After passing through lines of crowded buildings, the Pen Town opened up to reveal it''s inner-city where the prominent families were located.
Shortly a miniature version of the city gates appeared before him. The walls were illuminated by torches and had archers patrolling on them.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
From the other side of the walls, three loud bell sounds reverberated. Soon, Michael heard the gates open as another group of guards walked out of the gates led by an old man with neatlybed hair.
He was dressed very conservatively and formally, consisting of a waistcoat, grey striped trousers, a white shirt with a Windsor cut, and a ck tie. Without a second look, Michael knew he must be the Winston family loyal butler.
"Captain Giles, what brought you here?" Although the butler''s eyes betrayed his surprise when he saw Nightmare, he remainedposed as a butler should be.
"I brought some bad news, Samuel"
"Can we talk inside? she needs a warm ce to heal properly" Michael interrupted Captain Giles, attracting the butler''s gaze immediately.
Michael jumped down from his horse as all the guards in the vicinity tensed up. He ignored the guards, taking Sabrina into his arms
"Young Miss!" Even the sight of the dragon couldn''t make the butler act out of properposure but the sight of Sabrina lying in Michael''s hands did.
Captain Giles was stunned, he thought it was another body but in reality, it was Sabrina Winston herself.
"What happened to her?" the old butler leaped at Michael like a cheetah, checking her pulse.
"She''s fine but she won''t be if we keep standing out here in the freezing cold"
"Follow...follow me" the old butler wanted to take Sabrina from his arms but with the way the nket wrapped around her, Samuel feared that even slight exposure to cold could kill his Young Miss. Therefore, he led the way into the familypound, letting Michael carry her in his arms.
"Move out of the way!" the butler frantically waved his hands at the fancy-robed people on the way.
When everyone thought the heavy downpour couldn''t get any worse, it did. The wind caused walking difficult as Michael felt like an invisible force pushing him back while the howling wind made it almost impossible to hear the old butler.
After the struggle with mother nature, they finally entered a building to see a spacious hall where several people who wore high-quality fancy robes upied.
"Sabrina!"
"Sabi!"
"Sabi!"
From all the directions, Michael heard people shout at the girl in his arms.
"Where is her room?" Michael asked before those people could swarm him like bees.
"This way, up the stairs" the old butler led him upstairs. Nightmare saw countless eyes staring at him rather than the girl in Michael''s hands. A few of the children were reaching their hands at him, probably to pet him but Nightmare ignored those snobby little kids.
"What happened to Sabi?"
"Who is that youngster carrying Sabrina?"
"Is he one of Noah''s friends?"
"He''s so handsome"
"And powerful"
Even in a situation like this, Gaya could hear a few girls drooling looking at Michael instead of worrying about Sabrina.
The butler soon opened the first room on the second floor to reveal pink painted walls. The wall behind therge bed had a rainbow drawn on it while arge life-sized teddy bear upied the corner beside the bed.
Michael gently ced Sabrina on the bed before taking out another vial of healing potion from his space ring because by looking at the slight paleness of her skin, he knew she needed another healing potion.
However, when he was about to pour the vial into her mouth, his hand was stopped by someone. He turned back to see the one who stopped him was a golden-haired youngster in his early twenties.
"What is that you''re trying to make her drink?!" His voice was unnecessarily loud and contained a hint of murderous aura.
"It''s a healing potion, you moron" The youngster''s tone pissed Gaya off as she swatted the youngster''s hand away from Michael''s.
The situation was immediately tensed up,
"She was attacked by a powerful spell. If she doesn''t take another healing potion in the next two hours, her organs will fail" Michael looked at the old butler instead of the youngster. He wasn''t a healer but he knew that her life would be in danger if she didn''t take another healing potion. He really wondered what kind of spell Alden used that required two healing potions to heal Sabrina.
Chapter 190 - A Mother鈥檚 Love
If it wasn''t for Gaya swatting the youngster''s hand from Michael''s hand, Nightmare would have bitten or even used Dragon''s breath on him. Nightmare sensed a tinge of negative energy from the youngster towards Michael.
Michael chose not to pour the healing potion into Sabrina''s mouth but ced the potion on the table beside her bed.
"Do what you want, she''s your family"
"Please, forgive our rudeness young master" Samuel quickly bowed before taking the potion in his hand. He then took a sniff as his eyes widened in shock.
"This..this...is a healing potion and it''s 80% pure" Michael had a feeling that the old butler might know more about Alchemy than anyone else in the room.
"What do you expect? He''s a 5-star Alchemist" Gaya said loudly enough for everyone to hear her words crystal clear.
"You''re Ghost of River town, the 5-star Alchemist of Bredia" One of the guards who apanied Captain Giles shouted, making everyone stare at Michael in a new light.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
¡
It was obvious that most of the people in the room had heard his name before. Otherwise, he would have earned almost four thousand badass points just by Gaya revealing his identity.
Only Samuel focused on the task on hand as he moved closer to Sabrina to empty the healing potion into her mouth.
"Wait, what if it-" the same youngster who interrupted Michael shouted but Samuel already emitted half of the potion into her mouth.
It only took a couple of seconds for Sabrina''s body to regain the rosiness.
Samuel heaved a sigh of relief.
"Sabi!" Just as Sabrina''s body was turning from pale to fair, someone screamed her name.
Michael turned his head to see a woman in herte thirties. Tears rolled out of her beautiful face. She came running to Sabrina''s side,
"What happened to my Sabi?!" She shook Sabrina''s shoulder, it had enough force as well as gentleness.
"Mom" Sabrina slowly opened her eyes. Out of nowhere, Sabrina lunged at her mother, hugging her tightly. Sabrina too sobbed continuously without giving a damn about the audience. Although she was a brave girl, she almost died back at the Maple forest, which really shook her to the core.
"Young Master, what happened back there?" Captain Giles asked Michael. Everyone quickly turned their gazes from Sabrina to Michael, curiously looking at him for his answer.
"It was Alden...Alden Bellwatch" Sabrina''s voice contained a mix of shock and anger.
"Alden Bellwatch? The heir of House Bellwatch?!" Captain Giles asked while the people in the room seemed stunned.
Knowing he could earn badass points by telling them what happened at the Maple Forest, Michael started to exin how he saved Sabrina withouting out neither too braggy nor too humble.
The events unraveled back at the Maple forest sent chills running through everyone''s spines. The old butler almost looked like he was about to have a heart attack. His body shivered, not because of the cold but because of the thought of losing Sabrina, the little princess of the Winston family.
Michael could tell Samuel is ming himself for everything that happened but Michael didn''t give a damn. All he wanted was to milk as much as badass points from these people and bug Noah''s room.
Nightmare''s actions may have brought him an opportunity but it might also put him in danger if Alden had someone behind him, someone dangerous.
"Sabi!"
"What happened to you?!"
Another three shouts sounded in the room as three women in their early forties orte thirties entered the room. They ignored everyone else, running directly towards Sabrina.
"Aunty!" Soon, Sabrina got embraced by the threedies.
"Thank you, thank you so much, Young Master" Samuel grabbed Michael''s hand, shaking it frantically with both hands. It was true that Samuel held a bit of a grudge because Ghost was a better Alchemist than his young master, Noah. However, at this moment, all the grudge in his heart towards Ghost vanished away and was reced with gratefulness.
Samuel couldn''t even imagine what would have happened to Sabrina if Ghost did not appear when he did. He also felt grateful for the baby dragon sitting on his shoulder.
"No need to thank me but please be careful next time" Michael patted Samuel''s shoulder before turning his gaze towards Gaya.
"Aelia, let''s go" Michael began to walk out, expecting Samuel to stop him.
"Young Master, please'' just as he expected, Samuel called out to him, stopping him in his way.
"You saved out Young Miss''s life. Please let us show our gratitude" While Michael was pretending to be thinking about how he could politely decline his offer, one of the threedies who just recently arrived came to him.
Thedy had a resemnce with the woman who came first. She looked at Michael, her eyes were filled with tears and gratitude.
She grabbed Michael''s hands, squeezing them
"Thank you, thank you so much" Just as thedy was expressing her gratitude, Sabrina and the threedies, including her mother came to Michael.
Thedy who came first looked directly into his eyes. She seemed tired, a line of ck circles upied her skin under her eyes. Surprisingly, she took Michael''s face in her soft hands, like a mother grabbing her child''s face.
"Thank you"? ever since he said he saved Sabrina, everyone was thanking him but nothing felt more genuine than the words escaped her mouth. Compared to her, even Samuel''s words seemed fake.
She gently brushed his hair, "You saved our family''s happiness." Michael did not expect such a gesture from the woman but he couldn''t help feeling a warmth in his heart.
Both in his previous life or the current one, he never felt a mother''s love. This was the closest he got to a mother''s love. The woman in front of him was looking at him like she was looking at her own son.
Just as he emerged in wonder, his instincts screamed at him as he saw one of the guards behind Captain Giles drawing out a jade dagger from his waist.
"Watch out" Michael embraced Diana before turning around, showing his back at the guard.
The next moment, Michael''s Responsive shield kicked in yet he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.
"Lady Diana!"
"Diana!"
"Intruder!"
"Ghost!"
The room was thrown into chaos when the guard suddenly drew his weapon, trying to kill Diana. The guard was trained, extremely trained as he was faster than everyone else in the room except Michael. Him drawing his dagger to plunge it into Michael''s shoulder happened in just a few seconds. Even though the Responsive shield absorbed most of the force behind the guard''s stab, it still prated the shield stabbing Michael in the shoulder because the guard was at the Body Strengthening stage level 7.
Gaya lunged at the guard radiating overwhelming killing intent that pushed away many people in the room. The guard took out his dagger from Michael''s shoulder to stab him again but Michael was faster. He protected Diana in one hand and grabbed the guard in the other.
The guard may have managed to stab him the first time but Michael wasn''t going to give him a second chance.
"Ignitia" Golden bolts of lightning emerged from Michael hand that was around the guard''s neck
"AHHHHHHH!"
Pop!
The guard''s scream abruptly stopped when his head exploded into a red mist like a watermelon.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage level 7 cultivator. The reward is 28000 Experience points and 1500 Badass points]
"Ahhhh!"
"Mother!"
"Diana"
"Lady Diana!"
Various shouts sounded in Michael''s head as his hand still tightly wrapped around Diana. Only after the guards drew their weapons out and confirmed there were no more assassins in the room, Michael released Diana but bolts of lightning still danced around his hand, making crackling electricity noise.
The sudden change of events stunned Nightmare. After seeing a human plunging his dagger into Ghost, Nightmare''s heart rapidly pounded against his chest.
But Gaya''s heartbeat felt like it wanted to jump out from her chest. The whole room was dead silent for a few moments before the threedies who seemed to be Diana''s sisters surrounded her.
"Lady Diana, are you alright?"
"Diana, are you hurt?"
"Who dared to attack the Lady of Winston family?!"
"Guards!"
While everyone''s in shock, Gaya leaped at him, checking him as her eyes began to well up.
"Human"
"It''s okay," Michael reassured Gaya.
Nightmare was still in shock as no words came out of his mouth.
"I''m fine" Diana was still shivering yet she let out a smile and came to check on Michael.
"You''re bleeding!" Michael turned his gaze from Gaya to Diana when he heard the gentle-lookingdy scream.
Before even Michael could notice his bleeding shoulder, Diana tore a piece of cloth from the cape hanging from her behind. She frantically wrapped the cloth around his left shoulder.
"It was...my...fault" Tears rained down from her eyes.
Many who came out of the shock were surprised to see this gesture. The Lady of the Winston family tore her expensive dress to tend to a total stranger''s wound.
Samuel quickly nced at the house guards, wordlessly telling them to escort everyone except the closest family members outside.
Diana forgot about everything including Sabrina''s close death experience as her mind went nk seeing the blooding out of this youngster''s shoulder. Michael could easily drink the healing potion and heal his wound but he was already being led to Sabrina''s bed by Diana.
"Lady Diana, I''m fine" Michael was surprised by her motherly love. The affection, the motherly love in her eyes were genuine and pure. For the first time in his two lives, he was experiencing a mother''s love.
"You''re not!" She yelled at him, again like a mother.
Chapter 191 - Lending A Helping Hand
Realizing the woman has lost all reasoning because of shock, Gaya retrieved a healing potion from her space ring.
"Here, take it" Gaya sat on Michael''s other side, handing him over the healing potion. He was sandwiched between a loving mother and a caring girlfriend.
"Come here" while Nightmare was gawking at Diana, Sabrina plucked him up from Michael''s shoulder.
Nightmare seemed he''s still in shock as no words escaped his mouth to protest.
"Lady Diana, I''m alright. Look the bleeding stopped" Michael told her again. Even without his control, his voice sounded extremely gentle.
"Samuel, bring me Healer Adele" Diana frantically shook her head, refusing to let go of his hand.
"Yes, Lady Diana"
Michael sighed. He initially wanted to spend a few hours here so he could release the spiders into the house but now he realized that Diana is going to make him stay here for at least a few days.
"You must be tired after everything that happened. Come on Sweetie, I''ll make something for you to eat. You too sweetheart" Diana said, locking her arms with Michael''s. She then smiled beautifully at Gaya before yfully pinching Gaya''s rosy butterball of a cheek.
"Meet my sweet mother" Sabrina finally let out a chuckle, neglecting what happened a few hours ago.
**********************************
Mushroom soup, bitter greens with tomatoes the size of peas, rare roast beef slices as thin as paper, noodles in a green sauce, cheese that melts on one''s tongue served with sweet blue grapes. The servers, all young people dressed in white thick tunics withyers of fur move wordlessly to and from the table, keeping the tters and sses full.
When Diana said she''s going to make something to eat, Michael didn''t expect she would prepare a frickin feast. After seeing the various delicious-looking dishes on the table, Gaya''s face lightened up a bit.
The aroma radiating from the dishes overwhelmed both the Dragon and the Snake''s senses.They couldn''t wait to dig into the food but they had to wait for everyone to seat themselves at the table.
It was a long oak table that could easily let thirty people dine on. The throne-looking chair at the front of the table was empty which obviously belonged to the Lord of the family.
Diana seated herself next to Michael, acting like a personal maid to him.
Fortunately, Michael''s te did not have enough space to contain all the dishes Diana personally cooked.
"Lady Diana, are you nning to kill me with food?" Michael chuckled only to receive a p on the wrist from Diana.
"Noah is a really lucky guy" Michael stared at everyone at the table. The dining room was filled withughter. Everyone seemed to forget what happened earlier and emerged themselves in nothing but happiness.
Except for the youngster who stopped Michael earlier, everyone was extremely friendly towards Michael, Gaya, and the little dragon.
"So Ghost, what''s your n on Kethen?" Diana''s elder sister, Amelda asked. Just like Diana, Amelda, and her younger sister, Natalia too had golden hair. Although the threedies wereughing happily, Michael noticed a tinge of sorrow buried deep within Natalia''s eyes. Every time Natalia''s eyes fell on the chair Nightmare was sitting on, the sorrow became more obvious. Her smile would instantly disappear from her face for a moment as her eyes slightly welled up. Natalia did a good job wiping out the tears from the corners of her eyes but Michael noticed this without Natalia noticing him.
The three beautiful women were so graceful that they could make anyone respect them in a matter of seconds.
"We''re attending the weekend auction in Icefair" Michael answered, cing the spook and the knife on the te.
"Buying or selling?" Amelda questioned him.
"Let him eat in peace, Ami," Diana yfully yelled at her sister.
"Selling but if something interestinges across, I might buy it" Michael answered with a smile.
"How''s the food Aelia, Nightmare?" Diana asked. Nightmare was surprisingly good at maintaining table manors, he did not eat like a wild beast at the dining table but used his ws to pick the meat from the te and ate almost like a human.
"Good, Lady Diana" Nightmare had a good impression on Lady Diana. He politely answered her although it was nowhere close to the cooking of Raylene.
"Good" Gaya answered Diana taking a bite of the mushroom fry.
"Good?! Aunty Diana''s cooking is the best"? the same youngster rolled his eyes, making a few people at the table awkwardly smile because of his tone.
"It''s that they used to eat Raylene''s cooking, Lady Diana. She''s a 5-star chef"
"Oh...what?! A 5-star chef?!" It took several seconds for Amelda to realize the meaning of Michael''s words.
"You are all wee to the opening of our restaurant" Michael gave them an invitation as it would increase the reputation of his establishment quickly.
"Of course, we will. Now would you like some roasted pulse tetra?"
"Do I have a choice, Lady Diana?"
"No"
Theughter continued as they all talked about some boring things which Michael answered with either a smile or a nod.
"He''s just like Noah, isn''t he?" Amelda asked Diana as Gaya almost coughed up the food in her mouth. Michael was thest thing one couldpare to Noah.
"Except your choice in dress colors, am I right Samuel?"
"Yes, Lady Amelda. Young Master Noah likes to wear white whereas Young Master Ghost seemed to favor ck" The old butler said before stepping towards Michael with a bottle of wine.
"Water is enough for me. I don''t drink wine, ale, or any kind of liquor" Michael surprised everyone at the table yet again. They all stared at him like he spoke some forbidden words.
"You don''t drink liquor?" Sabrina asked. Surprise and disbelief were written all over her face.
"Yes, bad for the body and hinder your cultivation speed" As a 5-star Alchemist, Michael knew all about a cultivator''s body. It was a lucky coincidence that his non-drinking habit was actually a good thing for his current life as liquors affected the body, obstructing the energy paths in one''s body resulting in a slow cultivation level.
"That might be the reason for your cultivation speed huh?" Sabrina said. Michael could tell the girl had just taken a note in her mind and expected her to follow his habit from this day onwards.
"If you don''t mind me asking, what are you nning to sell?" Amelda seemed to like asking questions.
"A few herbs like Cold Grass, SeaWeed, Raven flower"
"Raven flower?!" Natalia almost screamed. Everyone''s gaze fell on Natalia as Michael noticed a glimpse of sorrow emerge on Diana''s face.
"Yes," Michael''s voice trailed off.
"Natalia, we already have a Raven flower, remember?" Diana asked as Natalia sighed.
"It''s just that my nephew has fallen sick to Star pox. We had to scour through the kingdom to find the Raven flower. If only Lord Gabriel epts to brew the phoenix potion" Amelda sighed.
Michael noticed Diana open and close her mouth as she had something to ask. He had already guessed what that would be but he wanted them to ask rather than offering his help.
"Sweetie, can you? '''' However, Michael''s heartpletely melted before even she could ask for his help. She had this weird effect on him ever since he saw her. He couldn''t bear to see the woman he just met a couple of hours ago plead.
"You don''t need Gabriel to brew the Phoenix potion. I can brew it in my sleep"
The whole room fell silent after the words escaped his words. Natalia''s face lightened up. She immediately stood from her chair before running to Michael.
"Can you?" Natalia squeezed his palms.
Gaya''s jaw slightly dropped, she wondered what made her selfish human offer his help like candies. First, he almost risked his life to save Diana and now, he was about to help save Natalia''s son. Their main n was to bug Noah''s room but she could tell he was deviating from the n.
" Have you got all the ingredients?"
"Yes Young Master, we got everything one needs to brew the potion"
"Wait, we only got enough ingredients to brew a potion. What if he messed up?"
"I trust him, Jacob" for the first time, Michael saw the gentle-looking Diana turning into a domineering woman. The smile on her face was reced with a stern look, her sharp gaze seemed like it could cut anything in half.
"How can we trust this guy?" Jacob protested but this time his tone was not as loud and rude as before.
"It''s that or waiting for Gabriel to ept your request. I think I don''t have to tell you about the Star pox"
"Shut up, Jacob!" Natalia snapped. All the grief buried within her exploded in the form of anger.
It was not a secret that Star pox would kill the infected in three months if left untreated. Only wealthy people like Noah''s family had the resources or the gold to get the cure, the phoenix potion. However, the potion was extremely reactive, it had to be used in a few minutes after brewing or it would react with anything such as air and lose all of its medicinal quality. This was the reason that the phoenix potion wouldn''t be avable in auction houses and needed to be brewed at the spot by an Alchemist above 3-star level.
Weirdly enough, Michael had a soft spot for the motherlydy, Diana. Only because of her, he decided to lend a helping hand instead of giving Jacob the middle finger.
Chapter 192 - Playing Good Samaritan
"Samuel, bring him the ingredients" Diana quickly ordered the old butler before the situation could escte further.
"Humph" Jacob snickered before storming out of the dining hall with a few of hisckeys following him behind.
"Jacob"
"Let him go, Amelda" Diana grabbed Amelda by her hand when she tried to stop the youngster. The previousughter in the hall waspletely gone and reced with silence. They had never seen their kind thirddy snap like that. Even after her only son fell victim to Star pox, she never showed the grief on her face as she believed her family would do absolutely everything to save her son.
It had been two months since her son was infected with star pox. If they didn''t give him the phoenix potion within the next thirty days, there was no doubt that she would lose her only son.
"Now, where is your son, Lady Natalia?" Michael wondered why Jacob wants him gone as soon as possible. He didn''t have to act that way. Michael had a feeling that Jacob is feeling threatened by his presence but couldnt find out why yet.
"This way, Young Master"
"Enjoy the rest of the day, gentleman" Diana announced looking at the people in the dining hall. Knowing the meaning of her words, they all bowed and left the dining hall.
Only the threedies, Sabrina, Samuel apanied Michael to Natalia''s son''s room. Considering there were no guards following them, Gaya retrieved a couple of spiders from her space ring before leaving them in dark corners of the corridor without anyone noticing.
Except for Michael none of them had a clue about the little spies in their home. After passing Sabrina''s room and following Samuel for a few more minutes, Michael appeared before a door that had the name Andrew written on a dark brown oak door.
Samuel opened the door to reveal an old woman was sitting on the bed. Beside the old woman, a blonde youngster sleeping peacefully. The old woman was applying a purple ornament on Andrew''s forehead.
"Healer Adele" The old woman waved her hands at Amelda as she was telling all of them to scurry off.
"Healer Adele, we have found a 5-star Alchemist," Samuel said. Only then the old woman turned her gaze away from Andrew. Soon, she locked eyes with Michael.
The system notified Michael of her healer trait. Despite the disheveled hair and rather normal-looking clothes, healer Adele was a Core Formation level 5 cultivator.
A glimmer of surprise shed across her face looking at Michael.
"Grandma" Sabrina ran to Adele like a puppy running to its owner.
"I heard what happened. I''m d you''re safe, Sabi. You should have listened to Samuel and took more men with you"
Michael ignored their conversation, walking towards Andrew to check on him. His memories from Abras contained information about star pox and the book of alchemy he used to be a 5-star alchemist made him understand not only star pox but all the diseases in this world.
Except for his forehead that had purple ointment applied on, the rest of his body was pale. Tiny marks shaped like a star riddled his body. Furthermore, his body temperature was jumping between hot and cold.
"How pure will the potion be?" Healer Adele asked while Michael was feeling Andrew''s temperature by cing his hand on Andrew''s neck.
However, instead of giving a straight answer to Adele, he questioned her.
"How long has he been like this?"
It was obvious Andrew is infected with star pox but when Michael checked his temperature, he sensed Andrew''s abnormal pulses. A patient with star pox was supposed to have a slow pulse rate but Andrew''s pulse rate was abnormally high.
"For thest two months"
"And how long has he had this high pulse rate?" He was really curious as his tone conveyed his curiosity.
"His pulse rate has been increasing sincest month"
"Nightmare, you can see energy pathways inside a body, right? Check his energy pathways"
"What''s happening to my Andrew?" hearing the conversation between Adele and Michael, Natalia''s eyes rained down tears. Amelda and Diana wrapped their hands around her to console her.
Nightmare flew towards Michael beforefortablynding on his shoulder. His ck eyes then turned blue staring at Andrew.
Everyone except Natalia who was sobbing looking at Andrew starred at Nightmare for his answer. They had no idea about Nightmare''s ability to see energy pathways in a cultivator''s body. Even Michael had no clear idea about the extent of Nightmare''s power. To learn more about dragons, he needed to travel to Ozer but for now, Michael had no desire to travel there.
The room fell silent. All the eyes were on Nightmare, expecting him to speak up.
"Energy clusters are forming inside his body, blocking the Arch energy from circting his body"
"What...what...does it mean?" It was not Natalia but Diana who questioned Nightmare. Her voice stuttered and her eyes welled up.
Healer Adele frowned but before she could speak, Michael needed to do one more thing before drawing the conclusion.
"Lady Diana, I need Daydream Bearberry, Putrid Bedonna, and Blistering Berry. I will tell you whyter"
"I will get them to you, young master" Samuele left the room. These were allmon ingredients found in any noble household as they were used to treatmon colds, flu, and wounds.
"You think..." Healer Adele however knew why he was asking for those three herbs. Her voice trailed off, she didn''t think of that particr possibility before.
"What''s happening to him?" Gaya came to his side and whispered in his ears.
Michael didn''t answer her but waited for Samuel to arrive. Soon, the old butler entered the room, carrying a tray with the three herbs on it.
"I need some space," Michael said. They quickly walked away from him to the corner of the room without asking any questions. They wanted to but they chose not to except for Sabrina.
"What are you nning to do?"
"You will see"
Michael would have answered her but he nned to show off his Alchemy skills to earn more badass points from them. If he told them what he''s about to do, they would be more focused on that rather than being awestruck by his skills.
The green mes emerged from his hand lightning the entire room in green. He then waved his other hand as the herbs flew straight into the mes.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1200 badass points]
¡
He wasughing inside happily seeing the increase in badass points. Diana and everyone were stunned to see him brew a potion without the help of the cauldron. He showed them that he''s on the next levelpared to Noah.
"Grandma, how is he?" Sabrina''s jaw dropped in shock. She questioned Adele,
"Even Gabriel can''t do this'' '' The old woman''s voice was not loud but it was loud enough for everyone to hear. Seeing that Adele addressed Gabriel by his first name without any honorifics, Michael realized that Adele might know him personally.
He snickered inside because after establishing connections with more power houses, he would show his true potential to the world. At that time, Gabriel wouldn''t be the number 1 Alchemist of Elon anymore, he would be the second.
After today''s events, he was positive that the House of Winston would support him. After all, he saved not only Sabrina but also Diana from getting assassinated in her own house.
Soon afterward, a sky blue liquid formed inside the green mes.
"If this potion changed its color from blue to green" Michael''s voice trailed off. He looked at Adele to finish his sentence.
"He was poisoned" As Michael expected Healer Adele finished his sentence.
"Poisoned?!"
"Healer Adele, what are you talking about?"
"NO!"
The room was filled with the cries of the threedies. Sabrina had an expression of shock and disbelief on her face.
Michael waved his hand, sending the sky blue liquid towards Andrew before they could ask any questions to him. He was almost certain that Andrew was poisoned and wanted to confirm his suspicion. The Winstons were already in his debt and by saving him, he would not only earn badass points but could also increase their trust.
Since the House of Winston was the most powerful family in Pen Town, he wanted them as allies. He nned to use them to expand his business empire.
The sky blue liquid spread itself on Andrew''s body like a nket. Natalia prayed to the gods asking them the potion to stay blue. She did not want to face the reality that her son might be poisoned.
However, the gods betrayed her as the sky blue potion slowly turned from blue to jade green. Diana and Amelda''s hearts skipped a beat seeing the transformation.
"He was poisoned,'' Adele was startled. If it was the star pox, she knew a talented 5-star alchemist like him could brew the phoenix potion to save Andrew. However, on top of star pox, Andrew was poisoned. This made healing Andrew a lot moreplicated.
Natalia fainted on the spot. She couldn''t bear to face this new reality.
Everyone was so stunned that they failed to notice the grin on Gaya''s face. She was already nning to ask for a permit to open businesses in Pen Town without any taxes. By saving Sabrina and Diana, they could most probably earn the permit but if Michael could cure Andrew, there was no doubt that they would receive the permit.
Little by little, she felt less annoyed with Nightmare because if it wasn''t for him sticking his nose into Sabrina''s business, it would have been difficult to get into Winstonpound, bug their house and earn the permit to operate any business without paying a single gold coin.
Plus, when Noah heard about Ghost saving his family twice in a single day, he would feel indebted to him. This might help Michael in the long run.
Chapter 193 - Actions And Consequences
"Sweetie, you can cure him right?" Diana wiped off the tears that were running out of her eyes. Michael was not a soft-hearted guy but when he saw the pain, grief, and helplessness in Natalia''s eyes, helping this helpless mother became his main objective, and taking advantage of the situation became secondary.
"First we need to find what kind of poison is in his body. A wrong antidote couldplicate the situation further" Michael did not say kill him for the sake of Natalia but everyone could tell he was sugar-coating it.
"Lady Diana, this is not a coincidence. First Alden tried to kill Sabrina and another one tried to assassinate you on the same day. Someone really wants to hurt your family"
"But Alden is dead right?" Sabrina asked.
Honestly, the threedies were in denial of the assassination attempt on Diana. However, Michael''s words shattered their wall of denial.
"Where are the men?" Gaya asked. She noticed that the majority of the people in the house were women and children and Diana seemed to be the authority. Gaya wondered where Diana''s and the other twodies'' husbands were.
"My husband and my brothers-inw were summoned by Duke de, along with most of our soldiers"
"Is there a war going on that we don''t know about?"
"Yes. Duke Marvin is at war with Duke Avon" Sabrina answered Gaya as everything made sense to Michael. Since House Winston sent most of their manpower to apany the Duke Marvin war, it became the perfect time to seek revenge by killing the people in thepound. They were basically sitting ducks to be ughtered at this point. Michael really questioned thepetence of Diana''s husband because it was pretty dumb to leave his family unprotected like this.
"Noah should take care of his family before taking care of others," Michael thought in his mind.
"We''ll be safer after Young Miss Rowena and Young Master Noah arrive"
"When will that be?" Michael wanted to leave the ce before Noah came. Michael did not like thepany Noah keeps, especially Alicia.
Besides, if Noah brought Xanali with him, it might jeopardize Gaya''s safety. He wasn''t going to take any chances when it came to Gaya''s safety.
"Healer Adele, can you find what kind of poison in his body?" Sabrina asked Adele but the old woman shook her head.
"The poison might have already mixed with Andrew''s blood. It''d be damn hard to find it now"
"No...Andrew!" Natalia began to scream. Her cry reverberated the entirepound.
"If I were you, I would start rounding up my enemies who have the motive to hurt my family," Gaya said.
"Uncle Samuel, get me a team. I''ll hunt down all our enemies" Like she learned nothing from today''s events, Sabrina volunteered for this task.
"No. We''ll ask Captain Giles to do that" Diana immediately rejected Sabrina.
"But mom"
"No buts!" Yet again, Diana raised her voice, stomping the ground. Sabrina halted her steps in shock and didn''t choose to test her mother''s patience.
"Please...save...my...son" Natalia stuttered, sobbing in grief.
"I need to be alone to find a way" Michael did know a way to identify the poison in Andrew''s body but he wanted to take time to heal him because he trusted his instincts.
Michael then stepped towards Natalia and squatted in front of her to take her hands.
"I will save your son" He then whipped off the tears running from her eyes.
He was not a goody-two-shoes who would help out anyone but something about this family made him help them. Something deep down of him couldn''t let this family suffer. There was still no doubt that Michael would kill Noah in a heartbeat if he stood in Michael''s path but Michael really wished he didn''t.
Besides by helping this family, he could build a good samaritan reputation that would hide his Lucifer persona. After all, many wouldn''t suspect a good doer to be an evildoer in the night.
"Thank you," the threedies said in unison as Samuel stepped forward to lead Michael to his room.
*******************************************
"Where did this bastarde from?" Jacob was shouting at a figure wearing a cloak to hide their face.
The veins on Jacob''s face seemed like they were about to explode. He was shaking and walking from one end of his room to another.
"It doesn''t matter. Alden is dead, we need to find another way to get what we want" the hooded figure said, taking off his clout to reveal himself.
"I know that Giles. Alden is fucking idiot who lost all his reasons after Noah killed his family. I said I could kill Andrew without all that star pox nonsense but no, he said he wanted Noah''s family to suffer"
Captain Giles listened to Jacob''s rant, stroking his beard.
"Now that he''s gone, I can finish off Andrew before that Ghost bastard cures him and moves on to kill Noah. Then, I will be the next Lord of the Family"
"Don''t forget our deal, Jacob. My employer wants Diana dead"
"What''s your employer''s beef with that bitch anyway?"
"I don''t know the exact reason but I can tell it''s something to do with Noah"
"Of course it is. That bastard runs around pissing off the powerhouses, making more enemies to House Winston. He''s more trouble than what he''s worth" Jacob''s face turned red as a fresh tomato in anger. Ever since they were little, Noah always overshadowed him by overachieving in pretty much everything. It was the sight of the girl he loved with Noah that snapped Jacob. When he firstid his eyes on the red-haired beauty, he immediately fell in love only to realize that she was a guardian who came to Pen Town apanying Noah.
Jacob never expected the red-haired beauty to fall in love with Noah. Although they acted like they were just friends, Jacob wasn''t a naive kid to believe they were just friends. The tension between Noah and the red-haired beauty was obvious to him.
Jacob now wanted to kill Noah and take over the family before the elders name him the next in line for the family head seat.
"Who was that guy who tried to kill Diana today? That was a dumb move Giles"
"I think it was Alden''s backup n to hurt Noah. Good thing that Ghost guy killed him instantly without capturing him alive" Giles heaved a sigh of relief.
"What are you gonna do about Andrew? I''d say let him be, he won''t be alive in a month anyways"
Jacob frantically shook his head, taking out a small vial of purple glistening liquid.
"I have a feeling Ghost might be able to save him. I want both Noah and Andrew to die. Only then I can get what I want without killing most of the elders"
"Is that the same venom you used to poison Andrew?"
"Yes. If it wasn''t for Alden asking me to use only a few drops, I would have used the entire bottle and killed Andrew two months ago" a devilish grin appeared on Jacob''s face.
"What about the Phoenix potion? Didn''t Alden say giving Andrew the Phoenix poison was equal to killing him?"
"Yeah, the potion and this poison would react in some sort of weird way, killing Andrew horribly"
"Then let Ghost brew the potion? Why did you try to stop him earlier?"
"Look what happened now. That fucking bastard found out Andrew''s poisoned and currently making something to save Andrew. If he hadn''t seen Andrew or tried to brew Phoenix potion, they wouldn''t have found the truth. Now I have to finish the job"
"How do you n to do that?"
"Don''t worry about that Giles. I can poison Andrew in front of Natalia and she wouldn''t even notice"
Giles saw a glimmer emerge in Jacob''s hand. He looked closer to see a tiny needlee out of the ring in Jacob''s middle finger. The needle quickly retracted itself back into the ring as Jacob willed.
"Few more drops of poison would do the trick" Jacob grinned, pouring the purple venom a few drops at a time onto his hand. The ring in his hand glimmered gain before absorbing the venom into itself.
**********************************
"I knew something was off about that guy" Inside the room given to Michael by the Winston''s, he and Gaya were watching Jacob and Gaya through the mirror connected to the spiders.
"Stupid fuck. If you want to kill someone, you shouldn''t draw all attention to yourself" Gaya shook her head like she was disappointed in Jacob.
It was Jacob''s stupidity of messing with Michael that made Michael send a few spiders to his room. If Jacob had just stayed silent all the time, Michael wouldn''t have suspected him in the first ce.
"Although we know about Jacob and Giles, we can''t go use them unless we say that yeah we bugged your entire house"
"Only people like Guardians need evidence Gaya. People like us, we create evidence"
Michael took out a paper and quill from his space ring to forge a letter that was supposed to be from Captain Giles to Jacob, implying all the information needed for the Winston''s to suspect both of them.
Michael didn''t worry about Giles''s mysterious employer because that was not his problem, it was Noah. After all, although Michael had a soft spot for this family, he knew he can''t always be there to save them.
Who knows if he was lucky, he could get a gift from the system when he cured Andrew. He did get one when he saved Raylene and the children.
Chapter 194 - Creating False Evidence
"You look cute," Michael said, squatting down to brush Gaya''s head. She was in her miniature snake form. Her scales were glimmering in violet, two round eyes with vertical slit pupils stared at Michael. In Michael''s eyes, she resembled a king cobra of earth, only she was violet and one and a half meters long.
"I''m not cute" she hissed but Michael surprised her with a kiss on her snakehead.
"For me, you are" Michael already put the letter in his interlinked space ring so she could ess the letter when she reached Jacob''s room. Then, he took out a colorless liquid and poured the liquid all over her body.
"You''re wet" He blinked at her, letting out a yful smile.
"And you are a pervert" she hissed again before leaving the room towards Jacob''s.
A few minutes after Gaya left the room, Nightmare flew through the opened window to Michael''s shoulder.
"I checked the surroundings, no intruders in the vicinity"
"It''s better to be safe than sorry"
Michael patted Nightmare on the head. He then just sat on his bed waiting for Gaya to finally put his n in motion. While sitting on his bed, he could see the shadows flicker outside the room through the gap under the door. It was obvious either one of the threedies was waiting for him outside his room.
Ignoring the person outside his room, he began to control the spiders to move to every room in the manor. From today onwards, if anything happens in Noah''s home, Michael would know it sooner than Noah himself. He did not have a clear idea about what he could learn from bugging Noah''s home but he hoped that he would get some valuable information on Guardians.
After a few minutes of waiting, the violet snake slowly advanced into the room through the opened windows before transforming into her human form.
She then looked at him, giving him a thumbs up with a wide grin on her face.
"Everything''s in ce but before we go out, we need to decide what should we ask in return for what we did to them"
"What do you have in mind?" Michael asked as Nightmare stared at her curiously.
He could tell her by looking at her face that she already has something in her mind.
"License to open businesses in Pen Town with no taxes. Free permits from the Winstons"
Although Michael had no ns to open any business in Pen Town, he knew getting these free permits would greatly help him in the future. Until now, he had no need for permits as River town is said to have belonged to the Sunrise sect. Therefore, he didn''t pay any taxes to Baron Totonk except a small percentage of the profits to the sect.
The only source of ie for the Sunrise sect was this small percentage they got from the Majestic. However, this would soon change when they merge with the Broad River sect.
"Don''t ask them before they ask what we need," Michael said.
"Alright"
Gaya knew they would try to repay Michael''s kindness somehow and when they try, she would ask for free permits.
"Let''s go"
With a n to end both Giles and Jacob''s lives, Michael walked towards the door.
"Sweetie"
The moment Michael opened the door, he saw Diana waiting for him with Amelda and Natalia.
The threedies leaned towards him. expecting his answer.
"I have found a way to save Andrew but we need to act quickly"
"Thank the gods" Diana and Amelda heaved a sigh of relief as Natalia shed tears of joy.
"Lead the way" Michael gestured at Diana with a smile as she frantically nodded before walking towards Andrews''s room. On his way to Andrew''s room, he saw arge group of guards gathered at the hall on the first floor.
Sabrina was standing in front of them and seemed to coordinate with the guards.
When Michael opened Andrews'' room, Samuel was covering Andrews with a thick wool bed sheet to prevent the cold from seeping into his body.
Sitting on the bed beside Andrews, healer Adele was applying an ointment on Andrews''s forehead. The pungent smell of the ointment overwhelmed Gaya''s sensors in her nose to make her frown. Yet, she controlled herself fromining about the smell.
"Young Master, have you..." The old butler''s voice trailed but when he saw Michael nod his head, Sameul''s face brightened up.
"I''m going to use an ancient method here so I''d appreciate it if you all kept this as a secret" Except for Healer Adele who creased her brown bushy brows, everyone in the room nodded in agreement.
He noticed Healer Adele''s expression but didn''t give a shit because he just said that to make what he was about to do more dramatic.
"Don''t panic, I need to take some blood from his body"
Natalia nodded as he said, staring directly at her.
"Aelia, dagger" Gaya retrieved the silver dagger from inside her winter coat and handed it over to him.
Michael then made a small cut in Andrew''s right palm before cing an empty vial to collect the blood. They saw him add a few other herbs into the vial with the blood and conjure the green alchemy mes.
The blood and the herbs he added started to change color under the heat provided by the mes. Soon, the blood-red transformed into a pale golden color.
"When thrown into the air, this potion will lead us to the nearest source that contains the poison in his body. If I can get my hands on the poison''s purest form, I can use it to brew the antidote, and then, the phoenix potion will cure him of the star pox as it should"
As they were staring at his potion, he waved the vial as the potion inside sshed into the air. However, the gravity couldn''t get the potion to hit the ground but the pale golden liquid floated in the air before slowly forming a trail from the room towards outside.
The trail soon began to sparkle in the air like millions of tiny fireflies leading them towards something. They were all stunned by the sight, even Healer Adele''s mouth slightly opened in surprise. She had never heard of such a method nor a potion but she knew the world is full of mysteries and new things. Therefore, she stood up from the bed, following the light trail behind Michael and thedies.
"Hmm, the trail is glowing brighter than I expected," Michael said, rubbing his chin.
"What does it mean?" Amelda asked.
"It means the source is closer" they followed the light trail through the corridors to the frontwn. The guards who saw the sudden change in the air were tensed up, but Diana waved her hands nonchntly, gesturing to calm down. Soon afterward, Sabrina joined the group to follow the light trail as she asked about the light trail from Adele.
Jacob''s room was located on the far end of the first floor. To reach his room, one had to go through the hall passing several rooms. All of them expected the light trail to go through the door leading them outside but surprisingly, the light trail took a turn going towards the elders'' rooms.
"What''s happening?" Amelda asked in surprise. Though the others didn''t utter a word, Gaya could see the shock in their faces. Fortunately, when Gaya went to Jacob''s room in her snake form, there weren''t many guards inside the house to notice a snake. She also had to thank the man or the woman who decorated the house with countless tables, flower vases, and sofas that provided her with the much-needed cover to finish her task without getting detected.
"Why is the light trail going into Jacob''s room?" Everyone was thinking about it but it was Sabrina who spoke her mind.
This was a question that only Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare knew the answer for because Michael nned it in the first ce.
"Weird" Michael pretended to be surprised.
"If my guess is correct, the poison''s source is close"
"Look at the brightness of the light trail, I guess the source is inside the house" Gaya folded her arms against her chest confidently.
Diana and Amelda''s faces lost their colors. They were bewildered about the light trail.
Michael followed the light trail until he reached Jacob''s door. Standing in front of the door, Michael could sense the fluctuations of Arch energy in the surroundings, indicating Jacob has been cultivating.
"Lady Diana," Michael said, taking a step back from the door.
"Jacob" Diana knocked on the door, calling his name.
"Jacob, open the door"
"Coming" after a few more knocks on the door, they heard Jacob''s annoyed voice.
When Jacob opened the door, his annoyed expression quickly turned into a somewhat surprised expression. Jacob took a brief moment to stare at everyone standing outside his door and noticed the light trail leading up to the middle of his room.
"Aunty, what''s going on here?" Jacob frowned.
"Ghost" Diana called out to Michael. She had no idea how the poison in Andrew''s body could be found in Jacob''s room.
"It''s here Lady Diana. Unless you have another way of saving Andrews, we can''t turn back without searching this room"
"What?! Search my room?!" Jacob was already annoyed at Ghost for hindering his ns and when he heard that he wanted to search the room, Jacob snapped.
However, Jacob could only raise his voice while making a fist because Jacob knew as a Body Strengthening level 3 warrior, he had no chance of winning against a Core Formation warrior like Ghost. Since Ghost had already saved Sabrina and Diana, Jacob knew that the Winstons would definitely protect him even if his father wanted to take any action against Ghost.
"Step aside Jacob" Sabrina pushed Jacob away before entering the room.
"I hope you know what you''re doing, Ghost," Sabrina said.
Chapter 195 - Basilisk Venom
"What is this light and why are you searching my room?!" Jacob tried to stop them but Sabrina had already shoved him aside and entered the room.
Following Sabrina, Michael, Gaya, and everyone standing outside the door entered Jacob''s room, ignoring his angry shouts.
Sabrina followed the light trail in Jacob''s room to a small two feet tall mahogany cupboard beside his bed.
"Aunty, are you going to tell me what''s going on here?" Jacob scowled at Diana,
"It depends on what we find here, Jacob," Diana replied tly. Since Jacob was little, Diana knew he was always the problem child in the family. He would always get into trouble as his father had to bail him out every time.
His behavior worsened for thest few months for some unknown reason. Last month he almost killed a strumpet by beating her to death, if not for Noah saving the poor girl and healing her in time, she would have died.
Diana could recall dozens of incidents like this in just a few seconds. Although she didn''t want to believe it, it wouldn''t be a surprise if Jacob had something to do with the poison. If he did something to do with poisoning Andrews, Diana would personally send him into the dungeon before trying him at a family trial.
"Humph, go ahead. Search all you want"? Jacob snickered before folding his arms in anger.
"The light trail ends near that cupboard" Michael pointed at the small cupboard to Sabrina.
Still, there was no change on Jacob''s face as he knew they wouldn''t find anything in his room that would incriminate him.
Sabrina opened the drawer, searching through the contents such as potions,bs, scrolls, and usual stuff that a cultivator would have. She almost closed the drawer before she noticed a glimmer of lighting from under all this stuff. She rummaged through the items to find the lighting from a letter that had no writings on the outside.
Jacob was so busy staring at Ghost, he failed to notice the veins under Sabrina''s face popping out. Her eyes instantly turned red as one could hear the sound of her gritting teeth.
Shock and disbelief upied her face,
"What is it, Sabi?" Amelda asked after sensing the killing intent radiating from Sabrina''s body.
The killing intent was so intense that it instantly drew Jacob''s attention towards her. He noticed Sabrina standing near the cupboard like she was nailed to the ground, slightly trembling.
"Jacob, everything is in ce to kill that bitch Sabrina. I''d make sure it looks like a bandit attack" Sabrina began to read the letter out loud. Her words stunned everyone, including Jacob.
"After killing Sabrina, Alden ordered me to bring an assassin into your home to kill Diana. I''ll tell you the details when we meet next. Also, keep the poison you used to poison Andrew safe, we might need it to kill Noah"
Nightmare expected someone to interrupt or ask something but all they did was stand there speechlessly. He almost rolled his eyes when he noticed Gaya pretending to be thoroughly shocked. He had to give it to the snake for her acting skills.
"Victory shall be ours, Giles"
"What?! What is that?" Jacob''s body began to shiver after Sabrina finished reading the letter. He had zero clues about how or when a letter like this reached his room.
"I don''t know anything about that letter. It''s not true!" Jacob shouted.
Even the eyes of Samuel contained a tinge of killing intent hidden within.
"So that''s why you want me gone huh?" Michael asked to fan the mes of Sabrina''s anger, so she would start attacking him. Just like he nned, she lunged at him, conjuring Arch energy around her fist.
Although she was just a Body Refining stage cultivator, she was extremely quick as Jacob didn''t have time to react before she punched him in the chest as hard as she could. If the letter had anyone''s name except Jacob''s, she would have at least doubted the words on the letter but when ites to Jacob, shepletely believed the letter. Her anger overwhelmed her brain as she almost forgot about Giles''s betrayal.
"Ah!" Since Jacob did not conjure Arch energy in time to protect himself, the force of the punch broke a few ribs and sent him flying onto the wall behind him.
"Ask him where the poison is before you vent your anger on him" Michael reminded Sabrina.
"Sabi!"
"Jacob you little bastard!" Even Amelda, the kind-lookingdy, lost herposure when it came to Jacob. It was really funny to Michael how they allpletely believed the letter he fabricated. Yet, if Jacob wanted to me someone, he had to me himself for being an asshole.
"Lady Diana!" Soon, themotion brought the guards patrolling around the house. They saw their Young Miss drawing her sword as Jacob growling on the ground.
"I know nothing...about that letter" Jacob wanted to tear Sabrina into pieces but he knew attacking her only made him look guiltier. Plus, the guards would rather attack him with Sabrina than protect him because he has a history of abusing the guards.
"Give...me...your...space ring"? Sabrina spoke with powerful killing intent. If Jacob truly had nothing to hide, he would have given the space ring to her except he really had a vial of Basilisk venom that he used on Andrew in his space ring as well as the needle ring on his left hand.
"No! This is atrocious. I have nothing to do with anything that letter mentioned"
"The Young master has nothing to worry about. Give your space ring to Young Miss and clear your name" Samuel said, waving his hand at the guards to stay put.
"Paralyzing Wave!" Suddenly, a wave of amethyst-colored wind hit Jacob. When the wave hit Jacob, his entire body froze as they all turned to see Natalia standing beside Diana with her hands reaching out at Jacob.
"Take his space ring!" Natalia''s usual soft gentle voice now sounded full of rage. Her golden hair fluttered in the cold wind, making her look domineering and powerful.
Everyone who saw her like this was stunned. Among the threedies, Natalia was the calmest and kind soul. They had never seen her angry until now.
Sabrina swiftly took the space ring from Jacob''s finger while he frantically rolled his eyes. He could not move a muscle in his body.
Michael expected Sabrina to ask his help for breaking the seal on the space ring but she surprised him when she broke the seal using a spell.
The next moment, a bunch of scrolls, ale bottles, swords, potions, and gold coins appeared on the ground. All of them were inside his space ring a moment ago.
Michael looked at all the items on the ground before his gazended on a dark purple vial among the potions.
"What do we have here?" Michael made his way to the vial and picked it up.
"Is that Basilisk venom?" Healer Adele quickly recognized the venom.
A few gasps sounded from the guards. Most of them obviously heard about Basilisk, the mere thought of the monster sent a chill running through their spines.
"Yes, this is the venom used to poison Andrews" After pretending to be studying the venom, Michael eximed.
"Exin why you have this poison in your space ring Jacob," Diana asked, gently pushing Natalia''s hands down to release Jacob from the spell.
"I¡.I..."
"So it''s true...you were plotting to kill me and my mom!"
"Wait!"
But Jacob''s cry had no effect on Sabrina as she charged at him again curling up her fist. She punched him in the face,
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes, Young Master Jacob was trying to murder Lady Diana and Young Miss Sabrina"
"Young Master Noah and Young Miss Rowena is going to shred him to pieces"
"It was fortunate that we had Ghost to save Lady Diana in time"
The guards began to chatter among themselves.
The guards didn''t know what was written on the letter and those who knew didn''t utter a word. They wanted to capture and interrogate Giles without alerting him. Samuel still couldn''tpletely believe that Captain Giles was plotting with Jacob to harm the Winstons. However, Samuel was old enough to know that people are full of surprises.
"Enough!" Just when Sabrina was about to punch him again, Jacob released a burst of Arch energy to push her away. The violent burst of Arch energy knocked everything in the room such as books,nterns, and flower vases. The items on the ground were sted away in many directions.
The burst momentarily broke the effects of the spell cast by Natalia.
"How dare you all treat me like this!" Jacob barked like a mad dog.His neatlybed hair now a mess. Bloodstains on his teeth made him look even worse.
"And you!" Jacob''s gaze turned towards Michael.
"Everything went wrong after you came here. You''re manipting them spouting lies about Andrew"
"Really Jacob?" Michael just calmly smiled,
"After all we''ve seen, you''re trying to me me?" He then looked at Sabrina,
"You should deal with him before he force my hand"
"Fur-"
"Wind st" Jacob snapped and tried to cast a spell but when he opened his mouth to cast the spell, a wave of wind from Michael''s hand sted him onto the wall again. The force of the wind was so powerful that a web of cracks formed in the wall when Jacob''s body collided with the wall.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
¡
Continued bell sounds rang in his head after he sted Jacob. Wind st was simple and quick to cast spell. Although the Wind st was still at level 2, his current cultivation level significantly did not affectboosted all of his spells'' power.
Jacob hit the ground with a thud sound but he didn''t move after falling down. The wind st knocked him out. Sabrina gave a short nod of approval at Michael. Michael only got three thousand badass points since Michael did not use any fancy spells such as Ring of Fire or Ignitia.
Yet Michael was d that he almost earned 15k badass points ever since he came to Pen Town. He wanted to do the first thing after earning a couple of more thousand badass points and settle his debt of badass points.
" Meet me at the training hall," Sabrina ordered Samuel. Amid this chaos, she didn''t forget about Giles. She wanted to interrogate Jacob more before taking any actions against Giles.
Chapter 196 - Copy Cat In Flamefair?
"The cure worked, Natalia. He''ll be fine" Healer Adele gently brushed Natalia''s head. The threedies had seated themselves on Andrews''s bed, surrounding him.
It took Michael ten minutes to brew the Basilisk venom antidote as well as the Phoenix potion. He intentionally brewed the potion in front of the guards and maids to amass more badass points. As he expected, his n worked too well as he earned a whooping 10k points by impressing the crowd.
He now had 22,000 badass points. With interest, he had to pay 13,000 badass points to the system.
"Give these to him when he wakes up" Michael ced a healing potion on the small cupboard beside the bed.
"Excuse me" He then gave a short nod at everyone in the room before leaving Andrews''s room.
They all showed Michael a smile filled with gratitude. He knew they would soone to thank him one by one but for now, he gave them the privacy they needed.
He left Andrews'' room with Gaya and Nightmare. After reaching the room given to him, Michael jumped on his bed with Gaya. She ced her head on Michael''s chest as Nightmare cuddled between them.
"Are you still mad at me?" Nightmare asked in a meek voice. For a moment, he sounded like a scared cat rather than a scary dragon. Looking at the pet dragon giving him puppy eyes, he smoothed the dragon''s warm body.
"I was" Nightmare uncurled himself and stood on Michael''s chest on four legs, staring at Michael.
"But I just wanted to help that human girl. Just like you helped me in the Nether Realm"
"This time, your choice to help her didn''t have a dire consequence. What if Alden still had a powerful family behind him? What if Sabrina really deserved to get killed? What if Alden didn''t deserve to get killed? What if Alden was stronger than us? what if Alden escaped and decided to kill everyone at the sect as an act of revenge?" Michael continued to raise questions slowly making Nightmare realize what could have happened because of his actions.
"Helping others isn''t a problem but helping without knowing everything is. If I only want to increase my own power, I could easily roam around this world, helping people, killing bad guys, and being a goody-two-shoes. But I don''t want that, I want to build a government, a government that rules everything under my leadership. That''s why I take every step carefully, thinking about every possible oue" Michael exined.
Aside from the prophecy of him being the dark lord, Michael really wanted to control this world because of the novels he had read in his previous life and his life experience.
The main characters in those novels would triumph over everything to be the peak existence but if they turned back and look at their life path, they would have nothing but a harem of beauties, if they didn''t die somehow.IF he acted like those main characters, he could have a fun-filled life with the system. Yet he knew the world would eventually forget about him and move on unless he often showed them who''s the boss. What''s the best way to do that than ruling them.
A god is only a god until he has worshippers right?
If Michael didn''t rule this world, he would just be a character in the history books. Besides, organizations like the Great CLans would eventually be strong enough to challenge him and if he was alone, his fun-filled life would definitelye to an end unless Michael built his own Great n, powerful enough to face all the others while uprooting his enemies on his behalf, he would be a god forever.
"You helped me without even knowing my name" Gaya rolled on his chest to take her eyes away from the ceiling to him.
"That was need not help"
"What do you mean?" she raised her brows. Clearly, it was not the answer she was hoping for.
"I just came to this world knowing basically nothing. Hence I needed someone to tell me everything I wanted to know. You were a crippled girl and looked kinda okay too, so I rescued you"
Her eyes twitched like she was controlling her urge to punch him in the face.
"What do you mean kinda okay?"
"My mistake, you''re not kinda okay. You''re fugly"
"What''s fugly?" Nightmare asked while she was clenching her fist.
"Fucking ugly"
"Bastard!" she started to headbutt his chest furiously as Michael and Nightmareughed out loud. Soon, he grabbed her by her hands, stopping her from wiggle. Their eyes locked in, entering a staring contest. Little by little, Gaya''s anger dissipated as she began to breathe heavily. He moved closer and closer until she could feel his warm breath on her face.
"You''re the prettiest girl in my heart"
Nightmare immediately closed his eyes with his wings when Michael locked his lips with hers. The tender kiss made him almost forget about the existence of Nightmare near them. Until they tie the knot, Gaya didnt want to have sex with him and Michael respected her decision. Although he had the prettiest girl lying beside him on a warm bed on a cold night like this, the only thing he could get was a tender kiss. Michael savored every second of the kiss.
"Lesson learned" Nightmare wiggled himself in between them, breaking the kiss with his little body.
"good" Michael moved his head away from Gaya''s. He then licked his lips, a wry smile was stered on his face.
"Let''s see what''s happening around" A tablet-sized mirror appeared in Michael''s hand from his space ring. A bright light flickered inside the mirror a few times before it showed the Winston family hall.
They saw a few guards standing in the corners and a group of guards patrolling, nothing caught Michael''s interest until the mirror showed three guards standing around a campfire at the garden outside.
"My cousin Lamar just came back from mefair and you''re not going to believe what I heard from him" Nightmare hopped on Michael''s shoulder to get a good view of the mirror.
"He said the whole town is under lockdown, he said that he had to pay his way out"
"No surprise there, mefair and Icefair always get the worst of the winter" the guard replied in a thick ent while warming his hands above the fire.
"It was not the winter that made those mefairers piss their pants, Trent. Someone is killing the wealthy cultivators in their own home and Duke Avon put the entire mefair in lockdown"
"Good Lord, do you think it''s Lucifer?" The guard''s voice stuttered in fear. The mere mention of the name Lucifer made his legs turn into jelly.
"I don''t know but he said the guardians were swarming the ce, so it''s possible"
"Then Lucifer should kill that bastard Avon and end this fucking war" The third guard replied.
"That''s not all, a few days ago, someone killed a few soldiers of Duke Avon at the ve mines"
"ve mines? Why?" the guard with a thick ent asked.
"Who knows"
"Did they catch the one who attacked?"
"Lamar said he heard the one who attacked used a teleportation scroll to escape. I guess it must be some rich brat who loves the thrill "
"So she used the teleportation scroll," Michael said. Bugging Noah''s home had already started to pay off. He never expected to find out what happened at FLamefair without even going or sending someone to mefair.
"It seems the guardians left the Royalnd toe to mefair or we have another copycat"
"Either way, I have to go to mefair"
"You mean we have to go to mefair right?"
Michael shook his head, "No, you go to Abyssal and make sure Aria put her heart into serving us"
"But-" she was about to protest when Michael put his finger on her lips
"No buts. We can''t be at two ces at the same time. You go to Abyssal and I go to the mefair"
"What about the auction at Icefair?" Nightmare asked.
"We''ll leave tomorrow morning and if you can, you meet us at the auction"
"Alright" Gaya sighed.
"Where is that Dianady? We cannot leave without getting those free permits"
"Speaking of Diana, is it me or that human seemed to be treating Ghosty differently?" Nightmare asked them. Gaya nodded at Nightmare as she noticed the way Diana acted too.
"She does look like a textbook mother but yeah, I did notice how she treated a total stranger like her own son. I mean you did save her and her daughter but still, she was way too much caring"
"What if she was way too caring? There are many good people in this world and she is one of them. I just hope Noah doesn''t get in my way, I''d really hate to make her cry"
"The way I see it, that guy is really pushing his luck. One day, he''s gonna get himself killed for pissing off the powerful people in Elon" Gaya dismissed Michael''s thought of killing Noah with a wave.
Knock!
Knock!
Just as they were speaking and cuddling each other on the bed, someone knocked on the door.
"Coming"
Just by the gentleness of the knock, he could tell it''s either one of the threedies who knocked on the door. When he opened the door, he was proven right as Diana stood outside.
********************************
Hi
This is me your author and I''m looking at you, readers of my novel in ranobs and novelgate.
First, I''m happy to see you reading my novel but I''d greatly appreciate it if you read it on the official tform, Webnovel. The coins you spend unlocking is my ie and although money is not the motivation for my writing, it does keep the lights on. So, if you cane to webnovel and read it here, it means a lot to me. Please do not encourage and enable piracy.
Enough of the nittybitty stuff. I''ve been reading yourments and realized you guys and gals have many questions for me. Some of you seemed to be wanting to know more about omegas, the background of the dark lord, and the system. Let me tell you this, I can dump all the information in a single chapter and be done with it but I won''t do it because it would spoil the mystery touch around the novel. However, I can tell that I will drop more clues in the uing chapters that will shed some light, answering a few of your questions. Next, a few of you wondered why did Ghost turn soft?
Yeah right, a cold and ruthless person like him suddenly helps strangers, it does sound contradicting to his character.Yet, you have to remember that Michael is not the Michael back on earth, his soul was merged with Abras''s, slightly changing his personality. These changes wouldn''t be visible until Michael face the things rted to Abras. You will know the answer to your question in the uing chapters, nothing is simple when ites to the Dark Lord and this world. You will begin to see the bigger picture soon. Let me finish with this, everything you expect from a ruthless cold mc will happen.
I will share the discord link in the next chapter...
Again, I''d appreciate it if you alle to Webnovel where I can easily connect with the readers.
Please do not enable or encourage piracy.
Chapter 197 - He Is My Son II
"Lady Diana, is everything alright?"
"Yes, yes. Everything''s perfectly fine, thanks to you" She said but Michael could tell there''s something else she wants to talk to him about.
"Come on, let''s go for a walk. This has been a long day" Michael nodded as Diana waved her hands at Gaya and Nightmare to follow her.
Soon, they walked through the corridors, hall and reached the garden outside. A transparent energy dome around the garden prevented the garden frompletely nketed by snow. The sky was vacant of any stars as a winter sky should be. asional glimmering stones lighted the garden as various color flowers danced in the wind. Especially a line of five-petal flowers that drew their attention with its navy blue color.
Michael walked behind Diana brushing his hand through the flowers.
"Lady Diana, it''s not safe for you here. Why don''t we go inside?" Although he sensed no hostile activity nearby, he didn''t want to stay outside because Giles was still alive and he could easily plot another n to assassinate Diana.
If the assassin was at the Core Formation level either he or Gaya could prevail, otherwise, they would be in real trouble.
"It''s fine, I feel just as safe with you as with my children"
"I guess thanks?" Michael scratched the back of his head with a doubtful smile.
Diana was in front of him so she never saw his expression.
"No, it''s us who must thank you for all you''ve done for me and my family" Diana halted her steps, turning back to look him in the eyes.
"Thank you" she took Michael''s hand and clenched it tightly.
"I don''t know how I would have faced Natalia if I let anything happen to Andrews" Glistening tears rolled out of her beautiful eyes. He desperately wanted to wipe those tears off her face. This was a new kinda feeling for him.
"Happy to help, Lady Diana"
Standing a few meters away from Diana and Michael, Gaya slightly raised her brows. She was with him for almost a year now but this was the first time she saw him vulnerable like this. Even when he was with her, he would never seem vulnerable but when he was with Diana, he acted differently.
Both of them stood under the drizzling of snowkes. No words wereing out of their words but silence enveloped them. Michael felt a calmness he never experienced before.
"Hmprh" Gaya coughed to break the silence. Finally, Diana let go of his hands and stepped back.
"Sweetie, you never told me where your parents are? They must be proud to have a son like you"
"I would have known if they stuck around to raise me " Michael just smiled but both Gaya and Diana could sense the pain behind his smile.
"I...I...I am sorry" Diana stuttered.
"Don''t be, Lady Diana" He quickly hid the pain and anger from showing on his face.
"Even if we know you for few days, you''re family to me, Sweetie"
He did not know what to tell as he just stayed silent for a few moments.
"Tomorrow, you''ll get to meet the whole gang" Diana clenched her hands together against her chest in joy. A st of happiness shed across her face.
"About that Lady Diana. I have to leave as early as possible tomorrow morning" the smile on Diana''s face froze.
"Why?"
"I must leave as soon as possible Lady Diana, trust me. I hope you understand my situation" After seeing the resolve in his eyes, Diana could only sigh.
"At least wait until Nataliaes out of Andrews''s room. She would want to speak with you and I haven''t even got you something to thank you for what you''ve done"
"You can thank us by giving us free permits" Gaya hurriedly shouted at Diana.
"Free permits?"
"Forgive my girlfriend''s enthusiasm. It just we are nning to expand our businesses and she thinks Pen Town will be a perfect ce"
"Done, just wait here for a few moments"
***************************
When the sky became brighter, Michael wrote a letter that had a few parting words for Diana. He then ced it on the table before leaving the room through the opened windows with Gaya and Nightmare. He soared up into the skies, his shadow gradually vanishing into the distance.
A few hours after Michael left the room, Diana opened the door to see the empty room. Seeing the room empty, her eyes revealed a perplexed look as if she couldn''t bear to watch him go. At the same time, tears trickled out of her eyes.
She then saw the letter which Michael had left behind. This caused her to freeze for a second before she approached the table and picked up the letter. She sat on his bed as she gazed at the words written by him.
"Lady Diana, I''m not very good with goodbyes and this is the best I could do. If fate permits, we''ll meet again soon" she muttered repeatedly.
After a long time, her expression fell as she whispered to herself, "Forgive me"
She then ced the letter down as she crawled into his bed.
Within the covers, there was still some warmth left behind by him. Dianaid down on the pillow and pressed her face deep into the pillow.
"Diana" while Diana was sobbing on Michael''s bed, Amelda entered the room. She was stunned by the empty room and her sister crying.
"Diana, what happened? Why are you crying and where are they?" Amelda asked, walking to the bed to console her sister.
When Amelda seated herself on the bed, Diana crawled to her and ced her head on Amelda''sp.
"Did he leave without even telling us?"
"He told me yesterday night. I just wanted to say goodbye to him"
"They must have had some important thing to take care of Diana but why are you crying like this?" Amelda too noticed the way she treated Michael. She didn''t want to question her sister when Michael was around and since he''s gone, she was able to ask Diana.
"Because... Ghost¡ is my son, Amelda" She burst into crying more after speaking these words. The grief, regret, and pain overwhelmed Diana''s heart.
"Diana...he''s not your son...You know he can''t be" Am''s heart began to beat faster and faster. She could still remember that night vividly every time she closed her eyes. She wanted to forget about everything that happened that night but until now, she was unable to.
"No...he IS my son...the wishing stone...it worked" Diana stood up, wiping off the tears from her face.
She then flicked her wrist as a multi-color gem appeared in her hand. It flickered a few times before losing its shine.
"This..this is the stone Noah gave you" Amelda was speechless. She was stunned when Noah gifted the stone to Diana on her birthday. It''s said that a wishing stone could grant its holder''s wishes if he or she wished from their heart and their wish wasn''t about hurting others.
Noah also said that there''s only a couple of wishing stones existing in this world.
"I wished to see my Dean and the very next day, I met Ghost. Ghost is Dean, Amelda"
"Stop it, Diana!" Amelda shouted as Diana''s face froze in shock.
"That baby couldn''t have survived, it''s dead. You have only one son and you to ept that"
"No!" Diana stomped her feet as the entire room trembled. Amelda was pushed back several feet by the arch energy exploded from Diana''s body.
"Twenty years ago, I made a mistake. I shouldn''t have trusted that oracle. A mother knows her children Amelda, he is my son"
It had been twenty years since Amelda saw her sister like this. If she didn''t stop cultivating twenty years ago to punish herself, she would have been half immortal by now. Two decades ago, she was a warrior feared by many kingdoms in the Ozer Continent. Amelda''s body shivered under the overwhelming aura radiating from Diana.
However, Amelda had to ovee this fear and calm her sister down.
"Even if he is your son, do you think he''ll be happy to meet us, the ones who left him to die on a sacrificial stage in the middle of a forest?"
The overwhelming powerful aura slowly dissipated from Diana''s body.
"You know what would the Skyhall do to him if they knew the baby survived and grew into a youngster? They will kill him" Diana''s legs gave up as she dropped to the ground.
She felt just as helpless as she felt twenty years ago. Even an animal would fight to save its child but she left her two days old baby to die. Ever since that night, Diana couldn''t stop hearing the baby''s cries.
If it wasn''t for her family, she would have already taken her own life.
"Ah" Diana cried out loud.
"Don''t speak about this with anyone, Diana. If by any chance he''s your son"
"He is," Diana sobbed as Amelda sighed, wrapping her hands around Diana to console her.
"He can''t be the son you want him to be. He''d be killed along with everyone he knew in this world, don''t do that to him"
"so...you...want me to pretend like my son doesn''t exist. Rowena and Noah can protect him, we can protect him from the Skyhall"
Amelda shook her head,
"If we tell them about Ghost, Rowena will throw away her holy maiden position and Noah will fight for his twin brother but they can''t win against the Skyhall, Diana. Even if Noah brought the entire Guardian guild with him, Skyhall will destroy them, you know this better than anyone"
Diana had no response as she knew the truth in Amelda''s words. She could only cry, that was all she could right now.
"I know how hard this is for you Diana but Dean can''t be with us unless he could be strong enough to destroy the Skyhall"
Chapter 198 - Nightcrawler, The Serial Killer
In a multitude of precious metal hues, snow clouds, silver and ck, adorned the sky as if they long to kiss thend. Under the snow clouds and rain of snowkes, Michael was flying towards mefair without a clue about what just happened back in his room. If he had enough spiders, he would have ced them in every room including in the room he stayed in. Therefore, he prioritized the hall, Noah''s room, and a few others and did not ce one in his room. If he had done that, he would have realized that Diana is his mother. More correctly, Abras''s mother.
Even beforeing to this world, he had been the reason for the separation between Diana and her son.
"How far is this mefair?" Nightmare asked, standing on his shoulder.
"I think we''ll reach the mefair town in a few hours"? The smokiness of the winter prevented him from clearly seeing the viges beneath him on thend. He could barely see structures of buildings and dim lights produced by the torches in those buildings.
"The guard was right, the winter is harsher here than in Bredia or Pen Town"
"So what should we do when we find this copycat?"
"Kill him" Michael simply shrugged.
"We have three days until the auction which means we have three days to find this copycat"
"What if it''s like Gaya said, what if this copycat is a guardian''s doing?"
If the system was on safe mode before, he may have chosen to intrude. Since it was not the case, Michael would definitely kill the one pretending to be him even if that one was a guardian.
"Then we''ll kill them too"
Michael and Nightmare continued to fly towards the north ording to the map. Soon, towering man-made structures and a gigantic city wall vaguely appeared in the distance.
"I can sense some powerful presence on the city wall, Ghosty" Nightmare informed Michael.
Although Michael could not see or sense any presence, he knew Nightmare saw the world and the energy around the world differently than any other species in this world.
Considering many cities he had been in had no flying inside the city walls rule, he descended to the ground to enter the city through the main gate.
Soon, as he was expecting, a group of soldiers approached him.
"Another Nightcrawler hunter I presume" The person who was leading the guard patrol was a woman. She stood at least seven feet tall with the structure of a professional bodybuilder. Her bulky structure seemed bulkier with the jade green armor that was covering her from her head to toe.
Regardless of her monstrous height and figure, Michael stayed calm except his heart skipped a beat when he saw the golden G etched onto her chest te.
"A Guardian" Michael''s mind quickly recognized the symbol. It was the same symbol he saw on Peyton and Xanali''s robes. He quickly willed himself to sense her cultivation level. She was just a few months of cultivation away from reaching the Core Strengthening stage.
Coupled with her physique strength and the power of her armor, he knew it would be difficult to defeat her in a one-on-one battle unless he fought her as Lucifer.
"Hahaha, look guys, he came to hunt the Nightcrawler with a fucking dragon" the womanughed pointing her gigantic hand at Nightmare.
The soldiers in iron-d armor behind her let out an awkward smile mixed with shock and surprise. The appearance of a guardian and what he heard from the guards at Noah''s home helped Michael get a good idea about what she was talking about.
Just when Michael was about to ask her a question about hunting Nightcrawler, her smile disappeared from her face and was reced by a stern look.
"I know who you are. Humph, you must be the guy who''s calling himself Ghost"? she snickered. Nightmare bore his sharp razor teeth because of the way she ridiculed Michael.
"Do I know you?" The usual calm smile on Michael''s face was nonexistent when he asked the woman. Rejecting Peyton''s offer to join them as one of theirckeys certainly made an impression about him on the guardians and Michael knew it.
"Pay 2000 gold to enter the city and hunt Nightcrawler. The city is off-limits otherwise"? the woman spoke, turning her back to Michael.
"So be it" Michael knew there''s no point in arguing with this woman as he threw a pouch containing the gold to one of the guards. The woman had already stepped through the city gates and disappeared from Michael''s eyes.
"Young Master Ghost, you''re clear to go in '''' unlike the guardian, the guards seemed to speak to Michael with the utmost respect. They barely looked at Michael and Nightmare in their eyes. It might be respect or fear but Michael didn''t care which. He just nodded with a smile before walking into the city through the main gate.
The city of mefair was built in the shadow of an enormous mountain and was truly a leading-edge wonder. Its uniqueness was matched by the backdrop of a majestic mountain that has helped shape the city into today''s city. The skyline was scattered with distinct skyscrapers and they had been designed to adorn the city and each other.
When Michael took his first step into the city, he saw the usual buildings such as smithies, bakeries, lines of houses, and clothing stores as he would have in any other city. However, what made FLamefair distinct in his eyes was how barren and empty the streets were. Even if this was the winter season, he knew arge city like this shouldn''t be this empty and lifeless. He saw zero people on the streets except for patrolling soldiers.
"Is that a dragon?"
"Who is he?"
"That''s one majestic creature"
"He''s making himself the target of the Nightcrawler, bad move"
He heard the patrolling guards murmuring while just a sight of Nightmare standing on Michael''s shoulder was enough to impress the guards and increase his badass points.
"Where to?" Nightmare asked as Michael began to walk through the snow-covered main street.
"The first ce you should go to if you want to gather information, a tavern"
It took him a couple of minutes walking before arriving in front of a two-story building made of grey stones and red bricks. A beautifully calligraphed board that had a drawing of an old plump woman with a mug was hanging above the door.
"Old Martha" Nightmare read the board as they entered the tavern through the old, metal door. He was weed by whispers and aromas of what''s probably food, hopefully. The bartender on the other end of the tavern was cleaning the mugs and when he saw Michael, he quickly smiled at him but his smile quickly froze on his face looking at Nightmare.
It was as dull inside as the streets outside. Hard wooden beams supported the upper floor and the rows of small, molten candles attached to them. The walls were decorated with mounted animal heads and small animals.
The tavern itself was almostpletely abandoned. On the walls of the tavern, Michael saw a wanted poster. Dark, curly hair clumsily hung over a skinny, frowning face. The man on the poster wore a monocle that gave rather an evil vibe.
"Nightcrawler" Nightmare read the name while Micheal grabbed the poster from the wall.
"100,000 gold coins for whoever brings the Nightcrawler to Duke''s pce, dead or alive"
"That''s a huge bounty" Michael ced the bounty poster in his system storage before walking to the bar counter.
"Young...Master...we...don''t...allow-"
"I''m sure you''ll make an exception" The bartender stuttered, staring at Nightmare. Before the bartender could finish his sentence, Michael slid a small pouch of gold count to the bartender to shut his mouth.
There were more than enough coins for the bartender to make an exception to his no pets allowed rule. Since that was the case, the bartender forced a smile out, he was still freaked out about the dragon staring at him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
¡
Just walking into the tavern with Nightmare granted Michael badass points as he always expected because having a dragon as a pet was definitely badass.
"Why so serious? Let''s light up this ce" Michael turned to look at the few people in the tavern.
"Drinks are on me, Ghost of River town!" Michael hoped they could identify him with his name and when he saw the people slightly drop their jaws, he knew they recognized him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 badass points]
¡.
"Yeah!"
"Oh my god, it''s really him!"
"The 5-star Alchemist of Bredia?"
"Heck yeah!"
Some cheered thinking about free booze while some were stunned to see a renowned figure like him at the same tavern where they are. A few daring adventurers quickly came to Michael''s side and seated themselves beside Michael.
"Keep the ale flowing, bartender!"
What was a better way to loosen their tongues than buying them free drinks? It would make them drunk and drunk people tell no lies.
"Of course, Young Master" The bartender almost forgot about the terrifying Dragon because he knew how much these people would drink if they don''t have to pay for the drink. Thanks to Ghost, he could very well sell enough drinks to make up for the drought of a week he had previously because of the Nightcrawler.
"So what brings a famous guy like yourself to mefair, especially during a fucked up time like this?" A middle-aged adventurer with a thick bushy beard asked Michael.
"Of course he came to hunt down Nightcrawler, Old man" a young adventurer shouted at the middle-aged man.
"What can you guys tell me about this Nightcrawler?"
Chapter 199 - Growing Support For Lucifer
"Not much except he started killing two weeks ago. Until the guardians decided to warn the people, the duke kept Nightcrawler''s existence a secret" One of the adventurers said, taking asional sips of ale.
"Of course, he kept it a secret. The duke of Pen Town has been kicking his ass since the beginning of this war. He didn''t want to demoralize the soldiers further by telling them about Nightcrawler. How would you feel if you''re fighting a war far away while someone might kill your family back at home?"
"I would dessert," a few of the adventurers shouted, raising their mugs together.
"Are the guardians anywhere near catching this Nightcrawler?"
"They''ve been investigating" the bushy beard middle-aged man air quotes the words showing his disappointment with the guardians.
"Who knows?it might be the guardians who were doing the killing as Lucifer said"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Everyone turned their gazes at the young man who just spoke.
"Don''t tell me none of you went to Royalnd recently," the young man asked before mming his empty mug on the table.
"Refill" he shouted at the bartender,
"Two weeks ago, I was at Royalnd, doing an escort job. And while we were passing the town square, we saw it" the youngster took a long sip.
"Saw what?!"
"A small army of Netherels. We all saw them carrying Minister Gerty''s body. The words Guardians stop pretending to be me, Lucifer was written on his body" the youngster finished his ale in one long gulp. Not only Michael but everyone in the tavern could tell that the youngster was pretty shaken up recalling the sight of a small army of Netherels.
"It might be anyone trying to me the guardians" From the corner of the tavern, someone said.
"I never said what happened next" the youngster mmed the mug again
"When the Guardians approached the body, Gerty''s body exploded and the blood formed the words, Lucifer is watching everyone in the sky"
Only Michael knew it was not blood but fireworks he brought from the system. It was obvious this youngster exaggerated thest part but exaggeration would be good for Lucifer''s reputation.
"Now tell me what or who could control the mindless Netherels and write in the sky in blood?"
"I''d say it''s Lucifer"
"Of course it''s Lucifer, I heard of Gerty. He was a real son of a bitch and I would say he got what he deserved"
"Lucifer, Nightcrawler, this world is really going towards a shit storm" a few adventurers sighed.
"What happened to the Netherels?"
"What do you think? The holy guards smote them to hell"
"It''s fucked up to even think the guardians pretended to be Lucifer and killed those nobles"
"Not for me, I always knew the Guardians were up to no good.Im d that someone or something like Lucifer is going to keep them in like"
"If you ask me, I''d say let Lucifer hunt down all those fucking noble bastards. Most of them deserve worse than dead"
Michael was slightly amused to see most of the adventurers in the tavern support Lucifer. If most people in the continent think like these adventurers, anyone Michael kills would be branded as a sinner by the people which was exactly what Michael wants.
"What more can you tell about this Nightcrawler?" Before the conversationpletely turns towards Lucifer, Michael asked the question.
"Though the guardians announced Nightcrawler''s existence, they didn''t share much except he kills people at night"
"Yeah no shit"
"How many people did he kill?" Michael asked.
"Six I think"
"Nah, with Lukan a few days ago, it''d be seven"
"If you want to know more about him, you should go ask what''s her name again" the bushy beard adventurer rubbed his beard trying to recall the name.
"Nesta, she''s the one leading the task of catching Nightcrawler"
"Yeah Nesta" the bearded adventurer eximed,
"But be careful, I heard she has quite a temper. If I were you, I don''t want to piss off that giant"
"Nesta huh?" Michael mumbled under his breath. If she was in charge of catching the Nightcrawler, Michael knew killing Nightcrawler as Lucifer would teach her a lesson. However, his first priory before starting the hunt was gathering more information about the Nightcrawler.
***************************
After getting as much as information he could from them, Michael rented a room in the same tavern. Considering Michael multiplied his business by many folds, the bartender, also the owner of the tavern, was happy to give Michael his best room for free.
Of course, Michael knew it was also a business tactic as he couldter double his prices saying that the famous 5-star Alchemist, Ghost of River town stayed at his tavern.
"System, bring up my status window" Lying on his bed, he ordered the system as the familiar window appeared before Michael''s eyes.
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 3
Experience Points: 0/400000
Badass Points: 8500
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 90% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 57% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Wealth: 2,170,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 97%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
"Hmm, I need to upgrade my spells and banker function"
[Host should really consider taking a loan and upgrading the spells]
The system sounded extremely greedy.
"Nah, for the time being, I don''t want any more loans from you," Michael said as he remembered something about Nightmare.
"Hey system, now that you''re online, can you make Nightmare a Royal Dragon"
[It would take 400,000 badass points to make a Forest dragon a Royal Dragon] he was with the system long enough to tell the greedy system was hiding something.
"Spit it out"
[what? The host should get more badass points if you want to make your pet dragon a Royal dragon]
"What the? Are you arguing with me now? I know you know a second method system"
For a moment, Michael heard a sound like the system sighing.
[Or you can find a Royal Dragon and pay the system 50,000 badass points to start the ritual to transform Nightmare into a Royal Dragon]
"That seems reasonable. See we can work it out" Michael chuckled.
"System, with my current Inventor level, I cannot make the thermal camera. So, can you do something about it like turning the camera I make into a thermal camera?"
[The host can buy a thermal chip from the system store for 200 badass points]
"Excellent"
[why does the host want a thermal camera anyways?]
"This ce is basically under lockdown, anyone who ventures outside at night will be a suspect. If I want to find out what''s going on without getting into a fight with Nesta, I have to send out a drone to first survey the area. Who knows? With a little bit of luck, I might find the Nightcrawler himself"
Michael knew that if Nightcrawler was able to venture out at night without getting detected by the guardians, he might have something interesting with him to cover his tracks. It was highly unlikely that even an assassin could kill a noble in his own room, especially after the city had been put under the surveince of the guardians.
After what happened with Gerty, if the guardians did pretend to be lucifer as Gaya said, they wouldn''t try to do the same thing again.
"Nightcrawler...what secrets do you have?" Michael already plotted a n to use Nightcrawler to his advantage.
"Hey, are you there?" When Michael closed the system''s interface, he heard Gaya''s voice sounding in his head.
"What is it?" Michael adjusted the earbud in his ear and asked Gaya.
"They really fucked up Aria''s brothers, human"
"What do you mean really fucked up?"
Nightmare quickly ced his little head over Michael''s ear to eavesdrop.
"The ve mine was not only used to mine iron but it was also used for traffic organs and sick experiments on the ves. You really need to get down here, I don''t think they''llst long"
"I''ll put some special healing potion into the interlinked space ring, give it to her. It will keep them alive until Ie"
"Got it. By the way, how''s your hunt for the killer going?"
"Still collecting information but I''ll finish it soon"
"What''s Dicky doing?"
Michael noticed the smile on Nightmare''s face. It was surprisingly beautiful, for a dragon.
"He''s here," he said.
"Keep that lizard safe. Don''t let him get into trouble while im away"
"Yes, mother" Michael chuckled and he could hear Gaya giggling on the other end.
"After giving the healing potion to them, I''m going back to the sect to see how''re things back there"
"Then I will put some instructions for Olivia to study in the ring, give them to her"
He already assigned the task of studying all the herbs and their characteristics in his herbal garden and since he couldn''t be with her all the time to guide her, Michael wrote a few pointers in a book for her to study. If she could be extremely loyal to him, he would make her the head of his Alchemy business chain as he was nning.
"Will do. Just stay safe out there" she said in a gentle voice before cutting the call.
Chapter 200 - Meeting Sadie Again
The next day Michael woke up before everyone at the tavern. When he reached the downstairs where the bar was located, he saw the adventurers were still snoring. Some were lying on the ground while some were using the long oak tables as their bed.
"Young Master Ghost" the tavern owner stopped sweeping the ce and greeted Michael with a wide grin. The joy of yesterday''s business lightened the tavern owner''s face.
"We''ll server breakfast in an hour, Young Master"
"Nah, I have to be somewhere else. We''ll meet again" Micahel saluted with two fingers with a smile before leaving the tavern. He had to get all the things to build a drone and let it survey the city. If it wasn''t for Aria''s brothers'' situation, he could have spent some time in mefair before leaving to Iceir to attend the auction except now he had to do everything in a rush.
Recalling the directions given to him by the adventures yesterday, Michael made his way to the burning star, a well-known store in mefair run by Duke''s concubine. Michael was informed that if he wants to buy whether amon item or a rare item, he should look in the burning star. The parts required to build a drone weren''t rare but could be found in any auction houses or stores like the burning star. A drone was not the only thing in his mind, he wanted to make small projectors that would be used by him to telecast what he''s going to do. That was going to be his quickie way to earn thousands of badass points as well as spread Lucifer''s reputation.
The streets were not very different from yesterday. The patrolling guards stared at him wearily but they didn''t stop him to investigate. He knew they might have been informed by Nesta to leave him alone or they were sure that Michael can''t be the Nightcrawler.
The more he walked towards the center of the city, the richer and fancier the surroundings became. Lavish water fountains with frozen water, elegant buildings made of marble stones, and painted ss upied his eyes.
Besides the rich scenery, he saw few people who weren''t soldiers in full te armor on the streets. However, they all wore colorful masquerade masks to cover their faces. On top of the masks, thedies wore feather hats while men wore long capes.
"What are they wearing?" Nightmare questioned Michael. His little dragon eyes watched them curiously.
Soon, the nobles caught the dragon checking them out and quickly began to murmur, pointing their fingers at Michael and the dragon standing on his shoulder.
"Ohh, Calpernia, look at him. Is that a dragon on his shoulder?"
"It can''t be"
"Who is he?"
The nobles were curious yet they didn''t choose to talk to Michael.
The getups amused Michael, reminding him of the masquerade balls secretly hosted by the rich people on earth. After walking on the main street and turning a few corners ording to the adventurers, a majestic tall tower appeared in his sight.
The tower was over 60 meters tall. Bright lights could be seen from every single level, and there was arge pavilion on the rooftop. It was an incredibly stylish building that resembled the shape of the Chrysler building in New york.
This single tower showed Michael the wealth of the Duke as even in this world, maintaining such a majestic building like this would require hundreds of thousand gold coins.
"One day, I''ll own a building like this" Michael said to himself as he walked towards the building, passing the guard patrols on the street.
The burning star tower looked different from close proximity. When standing near the front entrance and looking at the golden entrance, one could feel the aura of wealth and prosperity.
The burning star was the biggest trade power in mefair. They ran many different kinds of trading businesses, including an alchemy store that was exclusive to certain customers. It was run by the people of Gabriel, the alchemy king of Elon. On top of this store, many were run and owned by the Duke and his concubine.
The mefair was huge and cannot bepared with Bradford or any other three major cities in Bredia. If one stood on a mountain a few miles away, they would discover that mefair was a few hundred square miles ofnd with beautifully built buildings. The whole city was filled with a magnificent atmosphere, and even during a time of war like this, the city would still be illuminated with lights.
They entered the brightly lit burning star tower. When he opened the ss doors, he was weed by a warm wave of air. Nightmare could see the hidden arrays around therge spacious hall that were warming the air inside, so the customers would feelfortable.
The first floor was a trading space with small shops built within. These shops were not run by the Duke and his concubine. They were spots rented out, and the Duke would only collect rental payment from them.
The floor might have looked grand but nheless, it was rather empty except for a young woman standing behind a marble counter at the end of the hall.
"My lord...you...can''t bring pets inside" the girl had beautiful curly golden hair with hazel eyes. At the moment, her hazel eyes were filled with a cocktail of emotions such as fear and shock.
"Pet?! Grrrr," Nightmare growled showing his razor-sharp teeth at the girl.
"First, he''s not a pet, and second, you should put a board outside" Despite the girl''s reaction to Nightmare, Michael answered her calmly.
His warm smile slightly calmed the girl. He knew she was just doing her job and there was no need to make this a big deal.
"As you can see, he''s a dragon and I think a noble creature like him would behave himself which cannot be said to most of the humans"
"My Lord...but..."
"It''s not a good move to make the Ghost of River town, the 5-star Alchemist wait because of some petty rule, Mia" a familiar voice resounded as Michael turned to see a gorgeous girl in a violet thick thigh cut dress.
"Sadie Kan" It was none other than Core Disciple of SilverMoon and Michael''s one-night stand, Sadie Kan. Thest time he saw her was when the River town was attacked by Netherels. It was one of the best nights he ever had since he came to this world.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
"You never fail to amaze me Ghost" her voice contained a hint of shock. She tried to hide the shock behind her seductive smile.
"I have two questions, Ghost. How the hell are you cultivating? And where the fuck did you get a dragon?" she asked while slowly walking towards him like she was walking on a tramp at a fashion show.
When she got closer, she leaned forward to lip-lock but Michael avoided the kiss on the lips by giving a friendly hug.
"Huh?" Sadie creased her beautiful sharp brows.
"I didn''t expect to see you here," Michael said, pretending not to see her reaction.
"Me neither and you haven''t answered my questions Ghost"
"The answers are I''m awesome and got him from Nether Realm"? he looked so arrogant when he answered her but in Saide''s eyes, he looked so hot too.
"I need everything in this list, can you get me these?" He retrieved a paper note, sliding it towards Mia, the girl behind the counter.
After realizing the youngster in front of her was actually the famous Ghost of River town, Mia didn''t open her mouth about the burning star''s rules about bringing pets inside. They would often make exceptions to many rules for people such as him so it was not new to her.
"Of course, my lord"
Taking the list, the girl ran to the room behind her to get the items while Sadie gestured at him to follow her to the sofa. Her eyes were curiously staring at Nightmare.
"Can I?" Saide reached out to pet Nightmare after seating herselffortably on the sofa.
"No" Yet, Nightmare outrightly rejected her, moving from Michael''s right shoulder to left.
"He''s a dragon Sadie, you cannot pet him" Michael calmly said as she pouted.
"It''s still hard to believe you have a dragon and at the Core Formation stage, Ghost. You''ve reached Core Formation from Body Refining in what, six months?"
"Give or take"
"What''s your secret?" Michael knew she was trying to get his cultivation method, but even if he did tell her, she wouldn''t believe it.
"If you want to cultivate like me, you should try to venture into the Treacherous ocean"
"I heard about your little trip and who you brought back," said Sadie.
It wasn''t a big surprise for Michael as he made sure the news of Christopher''s return spread across Bredia and other kingdoms because having a Soul Refiner would make sure his base of operation stays safe from the rogue cultivators. His herbal garden was basically a small treasure trove that had the herbs that could be sold to a shit load of gold coins in trade centers.
"I guess, you''re here to get new spells or weapons for the uing tournament. I really wish you went to Iceir instead ofing here"
Those drunken bastards never mentioned anything about a tournament which now really piqued his curiosity. A tournament was the best ce for him to be badass and earn thousands of badass points.
"A tournament huh?"
"You do know about the uing Bredian championship tournament right?" His silence told Sadie that he really doesn''t know about one of the biggest tournaments in Elon.
"It''s gonna start in just three months. How could you not know about one of the biggest tournaments in Elon?"
"Please enlighten me"
Chapter 201 - The Runic Teleportation Function
"Well, the tournament has two championships. One is to choose the champion of the younger generation which mostly have Body Strengthening disciples. The second championship is the main one, this is where the core disciples of the big sectspete. Considering you''ve reached the Core Formation stage and you''re the Core disciples, you won''t bepeting with the younger generation but with us"
Michael grinned recalling the events that happened at Heaven''s gatepetition. At that time, Celena and her boyfriend Alex Fisher threatened him not to step on the 100th step, and ever since he came across Celena at the waterfall by mistake, she was looking to mess with him. This tournament looked like a good ce to kick their asses and prove to everyone that he is the number one in Elon.
Just imagining how many badass points he could reap from this award made his blood boil in excitement.
"Why are you grinning?" Sadie creased her brows, seeing the grin on his face.
"Core disciples huh? I assume Celina and her boyfriend will be there" Michael did not stop the tinge of killing intent from emerging in his eyes.
"Yes, but you can''t kill them. Killing is strictly forbidden in the tournament and it''s the referees'' job to keep thepetitors alive"
"They can try," he snickered inside. He was positive that he coulde up with a n to kill anyone he wants at thepetition with the help of his Alchemy talent and the help of the system.
"Is that so? Tell me more" However, he was not going to share his thoughts with Sadie.
"In the main championship, there will be 6 rounds. First-round, second-round, third-round, semi-final one, semi-final two, and the grand final. What type of contest and battles in each round will be decided by the tournamentmittee depending on the number of disciplespeting"
Sadie continued to exin how thepetition works. After taking mental notes, Michael asked,
"What about the first championship for the Body Strengthening stage disciples?"
"It''s pretty straightforward. First-round will be a knockout round, the second will be one on one battle and the winners will yet again battle in the final. We would know who takes the championship in a couple of days after the tournament begins"
"I know who''s going to win it, Gaya," Michael thought. Making Gaya reveal her true cultivation level topete in the second championship might cause some unwanted suspicion on her but none would suspect her if he makes her look like a Body Strengthening stage cultivator andpete in the first championship.
He doubted the spell she was using to hide her cultivation lever would be enough to fool thepetitionmittee. Hence, he nned to ask the system to help Gaya hide her true cultivation level. If they both won the championship of their league, it would catapult the sect''s reputation through the sky.
"Young Master" while they were talking about the tournament, Mia finally returned with a silver space ring in her hand.
"All the items in the list are here. The space ring is on the house" Michael took the space ring from her hand to see the items inside. One could see metal bolts, gears, various colors of stones, coils, and many otherponents inside his ring. If he gave this ring to someone else, they wouldn''t be able to make anything but thanks to his unique inventor trait, he could make hundreds of spiders and a few dozen drones.
"It''ll be 8000 gold coins, Young Master Ghost"
"Only 8000?" Sadie was taken aback by surprise. She thought he''s here to buy a weapon or potion recipe which would have definitely cost more than 20,000 gold coins yet what he bought was only 8000.
[The host should have brought all the items in the system store as it would have been high-quality items and saved you the time you''ve wasted here] The system''s annoyed voice sounded in his mind.
"I could have if your prices weren''t so outrageous. I can''t afford to spend the points on anything unnecessary for now" Michael entered the system to reply.
[Take a loan host]
"Didn''t I make myself clear before. I don''t want any more loans"
[Hehe. You will take a loan] he was stunned for a moment hearing the system''sugh. He could swear that theughter seemed sinister.
"So you can nowugh, good to know. Why do you think I''m gonna take a loan?"
However, the system did not reply as it went silent. Knowing that it wouldn''t answer him no matter how many times he asks. He just exited the system and sighed in his heart.
"The space ring alone would cost 10,000 but yeah, I can see what''s happening"
It wasn''t umon to see trade centers like the burning star give discounts or freebies like this to establish a good rtionship with figures like Michael, a 5-star Alchemist.
Michael epted their gesture with a happy smile before willing the system to ce stacks of 8300 gold coins on the ground.
"Keep the change, Mia"
"It was nice to see you again, Sadie" Michael turned his gaze away from Mia and looked at Sadie.
"Why don''t we talk in private, in my room?" Mia''s cheeks became red hearing the seductiveness of Sadie''s voice.
"I have somewhere else to be Sadie. Besides, I have a girlfriend now"
"Does it really matter?" Sadie shamelessly leaned forward but Michael took a step back. She tried to seduce him but never tried to use her telepathic abilities as she saw what happened to N when she tried to use the tactic on him during Heaven''s gatepetition.
"It does. We''ll meet again" He said as his face was void of any expression.
Looking at the way he acted, Sadie didn''t feel annoyed at him but desired to find a loyal man like him as none has ever rejected her because they have a girlfriend or boyfriend. She wanted to meet the lucky girl who got a man like him.
Sadie let out a long sigh before turning back to walk to her room. Mia was busy counting the gold coins as he failed to notice a tiny spider following Sadie.
**************************
[Does the host n to fly to the Dark forest and then fly to Iceir from there?]
"I was going to but now I know you have a better way. Am I right?"
[There is] the system said as he entered the system and saw a blue card with a golden outline floating before him.
Function name: Runic Teleporter
Function: Enable the host to instantly teleport to the base of operations and the ces marked by the system.
Upgradable: No
[Say the word and the function will be enabled] The system tried to rush him but he had a few questions.
"I have a few questions like what the heck is the price?" Michael raised his voice at the end of his sentence.
[Only 15,999 points. The host can ept a loan of 20,000 points and enable the function]
"This is what you were nning" he sighed realizing the meaning of the system''s words before. He really didn''t want to take another loan but this function was very tempting for him as it would be a great help traveling between kingdoms. However, he couldn''t help but feel there might be some catches to this function.
"I assume there are some restrictions"
[The Runic Teleportation function cannot be used during a battle. The runes can only be ced in less popted ces]
"Runes are free to ce or do I have to pay you?"
[Each rune will cost the host 4000 - 10,000 badass points depending on the distance between the host''s current location and the destinatination]
The system''s words made his brows raise as he had one more question for the system.
"Does this function only let me teleport?"
[No, the host can teleport subordinates and familiars with him for no additional cost]
"That''s a surprise," said Michael, thinking deeply about taking the loan and buying the function.
"This does save me a lot of time and energy," he said to himself before taking a deep breath.
"System, give me a loan and buy this function"
[Wonderful] The system sounded pleased to hear his answer. Soon afterward, his badass points went from 8500 to 28500 and then it decreased to 12501.
Now that he had the Runic teleporter function, a new jade green window with a list of names appeared in front of him. Currently, there were two names on the list, Sunrise sect, and the Abyssal. Both of them were his base of operations.
However, he had to ce a rune somewhere in mefair before teleporting to Abyssal. This would save him the time of flying back to mefair from the dark forest. On top of saving time, he could now be Ghost in one kingdom and be Lucifer in another with ease. If he had to find a downside of this function, he would say it''s the restriction of being unable to use the function during battle. Considering there was another upgradable teleportation spell in the system store, the restriction was understandable as if he desired to teleport during a battle, he had to buy the upgradable teleportation spell.
The reason Michael didn''t buy the teleportation spell was ording to Gaya, the teleportation spell was considered as a Legendary spell in this world. Therefore, if someone saw him teleport during a battle, it would make him a target of many. He decided to buy the teleportation spell only after he reached the Core Strengthening stage. For now, the Lightning dash was a perfect substitute for the short-range teleportation spell.
"Since I got a loan and bought the function as you rmended, can you show me the ces on mefair where I could leave a rune?"
A map of mefair appeared before him with a few golden dots on the holographic map.
"That''s the tavern" He quickly recognized the ce the golden dot was on as the tavern he spent the night.
"Good" He began to walk in the tavern''s direction while moving the spider he left at the burning star to a dark corner in Sadie''s room.
Chapter 202 - An Assassin Subordinate
"How do I ce the rune System?" Standing in a dark alley near the tavern, Michael questioned the system.
[ce your right hand on the wall before you. A prompt will appear]
"Alright," said Michael, cing his right hand on the brick wall in front of him.
[This is a suitable ce for a teleportation rune. Does the host wish to mark this area and add the location to runic teleportation locations?]
"Yes"
The very next second he agreed to the system''s prompt, a dim golden light appeared from his right hand. The dim light then transformed itself into an orb of light before it disappeared into the wall.
He opened the teleportation locations in the system to see the name mefair tavern among the list. Looking at the list, he only needed to focus his gaze on the name Abyssal as another prompt appeared.
[Does the host wish to teleport to the Abyssal?]
"Yes and equip my Lucifer armor"
An unearthly humming sound rang in his head while everything began to turn dark around him.
*********************
"Fuck!" Michael stumbled on the wall as he felt like throwing up. The world was spinning around him as every muscle in his body ached.
Teleportation was not a new experience for him. Regardless, using this function was a whole new experience for him.
[The host is feeling the aftermath of the teleportation. Your body will soon adapt to the new experience and next time you teleport, you won''t be feeling like this]
Michael''s legs trembled as he leaned on the wall, waiting for his body to feel better. After taking a few deep breaths, he looked around and realized that he''s standing in his room in Abyssal.
The fancy bed and sofa Gaya forced him to buy was a dead giveaway.
"Uwak!" Michael heard something hitting the ground as he turned to see Nightmare throwing up on the floor.
"Uwak!" his shiny crimson red scales lost their glow. Nightmare tried to speak but all that came out of his mouth was the meat he ate yesterday.
"Stay in this room. Don''te outside"
"I wish... uwak" Nightmare threw up again. Michael steadied himself before leaving the room. Navigating through the dark halls and corridors, Michael reached the throne hall.
"I should put lights on this ce"
It was a ce built by the order of the death for the dark lord but it didn''t mean the ce to be dark. He wanted to put some lights on so Abyssal could feel less gloomy and dreary.
Considering Gaya left the Abyssal to go to the sect, the throne hall was empty. Instead of calling Dr to ask where Aria is, Michael walked towards where the rooms were located.
After entering the corridors, he could feel the energy fluctuations around Dr''s room. It was obvious that the orc was cultivating and he had no intention to interrupt Dr''s cultivation.
With the help of Environmental scanning, Michael sensed a life presence in one of those rooms before him. The life presence was apanied by two faint life presences. He knew they must be Aria''s brothers.
When he got closer to the room, he could hear a muffled sobbing sounding from the room. He didn''t ask or knock on the door, but rather directly opened the door to enter.
"Ah!" He saw Aria jump back in sudden shock seeing him suddenly enter the room. If Michael wasn''t wearing his Lucifer suit of armor with a mask, she wouldn''t have been jolted like this but his ck mask and tall bulky figure freaked her out.
Instead of looking at Aria, his gaze was drawn towards the two figures lying on the bed. Both of them had neither legs nor arms, they were limbless. On top of them, he could see stitch marks and deep scars all over their bodies.
They might have looked handsome before except they were now anything but handsome. He could even see that someone had burned their hair.
"They were tortured and then experimented on," He thought to himself while walking towards them.
"She...she said...you...can...save them" Aria mustered up her courage to walk closer to Michael. She stuttered as her body shivered. It was a sign of anger and helplessness.
Aria stared at him expecting an answer yet she got nothing. Her eyes welled up slowly, losing thest bit of hope she had for saving her brothers.
"System, can we do something about them?"
After looking at their state, he realized that even his alchemy skills weren''t enough to save them.No matter how hard he thought, he couldn''t find a potion or pill that would help them grow limbs.
[The system requires 500 badass points to scan their bodies]
"Take it" ayer of light covered their bodies before vanishing. Aria couldn''t see the lightyer as Michael did.
[Besides theck of limbs, organs such as kidneys, pancreas, and energy veins were removed from them. They were removed while they were still conscious. On top of this, they were tortured to the point that pieces of their souls had already departed from their mortal bodies. The system also found residues of various chemicals in their blood and brain which could make healing them difficult]
"You can heal them right? Healing them will ensure her absolute loyalty. Plus, I have a feeling that these two will also be valuable subordinates to me in the future"
[The system can heal them for a price]
"No shit"
[50,000 badass points for healing the body and 25,000 badass points for growing legs and arms for each]
"Fuck" He cursed in his heart.150,000 badass points were not something Michale could spend leisurely. He could upgrade his spells and use the points to be stronger. This made him think that whether healing them would be worth it.
He knew that only Aria could give him the answer. Given her ability topletely hide the energy radiation from her body, if she could be a deadly assassin by training and cultivating, her loyalty would be priceless to his cause. The way to earn her absolute loyalty was by healing her brothers.
[Healing them is the best course of action] the system said but he knew the system was saying this to make sure that he would heal them thus giving the system his badass points.
Michael always trusted his guts and currently, his guts told him that Aria will be a worthy subordinate. He turned his gaze away from the bed to see Aria staring at him as tears were rolling out of her bloodshot eyes. Her parents were killed, she lost her brothers,sold to another continent as a ve, saw her best friend burned alive by a noble, served under a clown to kill nobles and when she thought she''s going to reunite with her brothers, her world was yet again turned upside down. Looking at Aria, even Michael felt pity for the girl.
"Besides theck of limbs, organs such as kidneys, pancreas, and energy veins were removed from them. They were removed while they were still conscious. On top of this, they were tortured to the point that pieces of their souls had already departed from their mortal bodies. I can also sense residues of various substances in their blood and brain which could make healing them difficult"? he repeated the words of the system to fan the mes of her emotions.
First, he wanted to feel so helpless before giving her a ray of hope. Aria''s legs failed her as she dropped to the ground after hearing his words. Anger and helplessness started to cannibalize her soul.
"Healing them is not impossible. However, it will take time" her heart skipped a beat as she looked up at him. Her mouth kept opening and closing without uttering a single word.
"Your absolute loyalty is my price for healing your brothers" Aria had nothing to give him except her body and she was ready to give herself to him if he could heal him and required her to do so.
Yet, he didn''t ask her body but loyalty.
"If I have to be a ve to him to save my brothers, so be it," Aria said to herself before kneeling in front of him.
"I will die for you if it would bring my brothers back"
"Do you ept to be my subordinate?"
"Yes, master"
[Does the host wish to ept Aria as a subordinate?]
"Yes"
Subordinate: Aria
Cultivation Level: Body Refining stage level 2
Race: Human
Status: Healthy
Trait: Assassin
Loyalty towards the host: 28%
Her loyalty level did not surprise him, after all, he hadn''t healed her brothers yet and she barely knew him.
[The system rmends the host to keep injecting them with the 90% pure healing potion to prevent any more pieces of their souls from departing]
The system''s voice sounded in his mind as he retrieved a healing potion he specifically made for him and Gaya from the system storage. He then handed it over to Aria before gesturing at her to stand up.
"Inject this to their bodies. This will keep your brothers alive and give their bodies the strength to withstand the healing process as starting the process now would kill them" Aria clenched onto the healing potion like her life depending on it.
"Meet me at the throne hall in ten minutes. I want to know more about you and the ve mine where you found your brothers" said Michael before leaving the room.
He was very curious about what kind of experiments were going on in the ve mines and who was doing these experiments on the ves. Infiltrating the mines would give him more information before deciding what to do with the mine. Besides, it would always be a great help for him to kill bad guys and earn experience points.
Whoever running the experiments on the ves had no idea that they just drew the attention of someone they shouldn''t have, Lucifer.
Chapter 203 - Hunting The Nightcrawler I
"Miss Aelia, everything''s finished. We can open the restaurant whenever you want" Daniel and Ricky were reporting the status of the restaurant to Gaya as she was munching on the cookies. Crumbs of cookies were all over her pearl white dress and the sofa yet she couldn''t care less.
"I''ll inform Ghost ande to a decision. Now go make sure there''s no problem at Majestic"
"Yes, Miss Aelia" They bowed deeply before leaving her room. With Gaya''s guidance and the pills given to them by her, Ricky and Daniel reached the Body Strengthening stage. Previously, one could count the bones in Ricky''s body but now, he developed a well-toned body. Daniel on the other hand shed all the fat as well as his bushy beard.
Their transformation was shocking to many people in River town who have known them for so long. When they quit their guard job, many thought they were making a mistake, after all, working under the king of Bredia would provide them with a stable ie and pension. However, those people who thought this became jealous as Daniel and Ricky did not only earn a handsome sry but their social status was also elevated by Ghost.
"Sister Aelia, may Ie in?" Jack asked, standing near the door.
"What is it? Is someone messing with the new girl again?"
"No no no" Jack frantically shook his head. Only yesterday, he saw Gaya beat the shit out of a guy who groped the new girl at the counter''s ass.
She was so ruthless that she set the guy''s butt on fire.
"She''s doing fine"
Considering a portion of the profit they were making in Majestic is going to the sect, Gaya hired a female disciple of the sect to be her assistant. By being Gaya''s assistant meant that the girl has to do everything that Gaya does at the Majestic, including the asional curses at the customers to keep them online. Thanks to Ghost and Gaya''s reputation, there weren''t as many unruly customers as when they first opened the Majestic.
On top of the girl, Gaya also hired a group of adventurers as the security in case someone tried to steal or attack the Majestic while she was away. Even if the adventurers couldn''t stop the attacks, they would function to slow down the enemies a bit by either getting killed or wounded.
"Miss E is here to meet you, Sister Aelia"
"Go and tell her toe in" Soon after Jack left the room, E entered the room. She was still in full ck with a hood covering her burned skin.
Seating herself on the sofa, E looked around, searching for Ghost.
"He''s col...tivating. Tell me, how''s your thing gi...ing?" Words barely escaped her mouth which was filled with biscuits.
"With everything you''ve given me, most of the disciples, teachers and elders will follow me"
"Most? You''ve got a specific number in mind?"
"We''ve 140 disciples, 23 teachers, and 6 elders. Out of them,100 disciples,15 teachers, and 4 elders are on my side. The rest of them were too loyal to Mathias"
"Or too stupid," said Gaya, cing the empty cookie jar on the table.
"Alright, I''d say we put this merger on the road. Demand the election to vote for a new sect leader now. Since you''ve got the majority of the elders and teachers at your side, you can easily win it but something tells me you would have done it by now if there isn''t a problem with that n"
E sighed, nodding her head.
"Mathias found a loophole in the document written by the founders. The election can''t be held for another couple of years"
"Fuck the elections!" Gaya punched the sofa in anger.
"Enough of this election shit. Let''s kill this fucker and be done with him"
"No way we can kill him. The only reason he''s still not killing me or my supporters is that he''s afraid of your previous sect master, the Soul Refiner. Besides, nowadays, he''s not leaving his room and always cultivating"
"This seems like a good test for Aria" Gaya remembered Aria''s ability to pass through defense arrays without triggering them. Handing over the operation to kill Mathias would be a good test for Aria, Gaya thought.
"Wait a sec," She said to E before going to the kitchen. E saw hering back with a flower vase.
"Put this near Mathias''s room. We''ll take care of the rest"
"What is this?"
"You don''t want to know. Just do what I said"
************************************
"Next time...give me...a fucking...uwak...warning..." Gaya threw up on the floor after Michael brought her to Abyssal by teleporting her.
"It''s a new teleportation scroll I just created. You''ll get used to it"
"I better be" he gave a few minutes to stabilize her body.
"Gross," Nightmare said, hovering over her head.
"Go away...uwak" she swatted Nightmare away before continuing to throw up. Considering she filled her belly with cookies, it took her a few minutes to empty her belly.
"Here" Michael gave her a bottle of water and wiped off her mouth using a kerchief.
"Don''t you have...a juice or something"
Thut!
Michael pped the back of her head, "just drink the water"
"Raylene really spoiled this snake" Nightmare ridiculed Gaya.
"Enough you two. Come we have work to do" he said walking towards the surveince monitors he glued to the wall in his room.
Soon afterward, he willed the system to show the feed of Sadie''s room.
While the system was disying the feed, he retrieved all the parts he bought from the burning star to start building the drones.
"Hey look it''s the human who tried to kiss you" Nightmare bit his tongue quickly realizing that he shouldn''t have said this. Yet it was toote as he felt a cold killing intent radiating from her body.
"What?!"
"Rx, I told her that I have a girlfriend. Nesta?" However, before Gaya could say anything, she saw him stop whatever he was doing to stare at the monitor.
"We''ll have this conversationter" she mumbled as she stared at the muscr woman on the monitor. After Nesta, a few other youngsters with guardian symbols embroidered on their chests entered Sadie''s room. All of them looked very serious.
"Is it done?" Sadie asked Nesta.
"Yes," Nesta said, throwing a file on the table before Sadie.
"I assume everyone has read this file" except for Sadie who gawked cluelessly, nodded their heads.
"What were you doing? Banging Ghost?" Nesta asked as Michael felt the air around him became colder.
"I wish. Apparently, he has a girlfriend now"
"Good for him. Alright, let me run everyone through the n again, listen carefully" Sadie leaned on the nearby wall to listen to Nesta.
"From an hour ago, we the guardians and the duke have withdrawn the troops and recalled the hunt for Nightcrawler"
"Interesting," said Michael.
"What''s the n?"
"The n is simple, Sadie. We? withdraw the men, let Nightcrawler crawl out of whatever hole he''s in, and when he does bam!" Nesta punched a hole in the wall, "we nab that bastard"
"How?"
"Take a look at all the paintings'' '' Nesta threw the file at Sadie as she began to rummage through the file. Since the spider couldn''t cover the photos inside the file, Michael had no idea what the paintings looked like.
"Those are the paintings of Nightcrawler''s victims. My team did a good job putting it all together. Can you see what they all have inmon?"
Sadie remained silent for a few moments before answering Nesta.
"They all have red hair?" Sadie said furrowing her brows in doubt.
"Exactly. That sick bastard has a thing for redheads. However, that''s not the only thing my team found. Look at the map, that''s his hunting circle"
"Although redheads are not verymon, there must be at least a fifty redheads living in this area"
"Thirty-six to be exact and all of them are being reced by my men as we speak," Nesta said and continued,
"As you all know, ever since we put the city under lockdown, there wasn''t a single new murder that matched Nightcrawler''s mo. The behavior predictors at the guild had ssified Nightcrawler as a serial killer. The longer he goes without killing, the stronger his desire to kill again. We may have still no idea how did he manage to kill those nobles who had powerful defense arrays, we now know that he will strike as soon as he feels safe"
"Are you pretending to be withdrawing the troops or..."
"No tricks. For the n to work, we really have to convince the Nightcrawler that we called off the hunt. Only then, he would emerge again and make a move on one of my thirty-six men"
"You''re taking a pretty big risk here, Nesta" Sadie said as Nestaughed.
"No risk, no reward Sadie. You know this better than anyone"
Michael swiftly moved the spider through telepathic connection to take a glimpse at Nightcrawler''s hunting area. The spider had a risk of being caught by Nesta or anyone the guardians in the room but it was worth the risk. If they did catch the spider, Michael would destroy the spider remotely so they would get nothing.
"Just a little more" Michael mumbled looking at the spider getting closer and closer to the file. If he could manage to move the spider directly above the file on the table, he would get a glimpse.
"System, the moment the filees into the sight, take a picture"
[It would be 50 badass points]
"No problem"
Fortunately, the camouge of the spider was enough to avoid getting detected by the guardians. Regardless of all the safety measures Michael built in the spider, he still treated spying using the spiders cautiously.
[Picture taken sessfully]
The moment he heard the confirmation sound from the system, he immediately moved the spider to a safe dark spot.
"Let''s hunt this Nightcrawler ourselves"
***********************
Here''s the discord link to my server where you can see the character images, listen to character theme music and have a chat with me...
https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 204 - Hunting The Nightcrawler II
The winter sky was a barrennd filled with nothing but clouds. Only the howling wind and heavy downspout of snowkes were the truepanions of the night. Ironically the city of mefaircked mes during this winter.
One could not even see the guards patrolling around the Duke''s manor. The soldiers were long gone into the barracks after leaving defense arrays activated around the manor. Not only the Duke''s manor but every single important ce was now protected by the arrays, not the guards unless they were willing to use Arch energy to keep their bodies warm.
The heavy downpour of snow soon became a merciless blizzard. The blizzard wind seemed like it was trying to replicate the sound of wolves howling at the moon.
Those who were living outside the city suffered most of the winter. Most of themcked the necessary winter clothes and cozy home. For the nobles, winter was a perfect time to increase their family size. The majority of the nobles treated the winter as their sweet little escape from reality. However, their perfect reality was messed up by a single person, Nightcrawler.
Now the nobles had to spend their nights in fear as the cold was not the only reason for their shivering.
"You messed up human, I see no shit except blue," said Gaya staring at the monitors back in Abyssal.
"It''s called thermal vision. To put it simply, my drone will pick up the heat signatures emitted by someone or something. Since Nesta withdrew the troops, leaving the mefair vulnerable, there''s a possibility that Nightcrawler would emerge from his hole"
"Ghosty but look at the blizzard there. We can''t bet this Nightcrawler would pick this night to hunt"
Nightmare was right, the blizzard might throw a wrench on Nightcrawler''s ns but Michael strongly believed that he would choose this night to hunt.
"You heard Nesta before. He''s a serial killer, if I''m right, he''s still learning the craft. Unless he learned to control his urge to kill, he will emerge from the dark"
If Michael had either personally seen the crime scenes or read the file Nesta''s team put together, he would havepletely learned that Nightcrawler is still an amateur serial killer. Michael wondered how Nightcrawler managed to get in and out of the nobles'' house without triggering any defense mechanisms. If this Nightcrawler too had an ability to hide his arch energy radiation like Aria, he would prove to be a worthy cadaver for Michael to experiment on in the future. Recruiting a serial killer had too many risks as most of the serial killers tend to work alone.
"What are those thingies you made me put in all around Bredia and Kethen?"
"It''s easier and fun to demonstrate rather than me exining"
The three of them stared at the monitors in silence before Gaya cleared her throat attempting to get Michael''s attention.
"Hrrggmm" she cleared her throat again but seeing no response from him, she grabbed Michael''s chair, turning him around to look at her.
He saw her staring at him with her hands folded against her gorgeous chest. No matter how many times he has seen her, she still mesmerized him. If she showed her original face, he knew he has to fight noble brats from morning to night as she was an angelic beauty who would turn a straight woman into a gay and gay man to straight in a few seconds.
Even when she was mad or annoyed, it only boosted her beauty.
"What?" Michael shrugged. The little dragon was slowly walking backward from Michael.
"So that bitch tried to kiss you huh?" it was not a question but rather sounded like a threat.
"I thought I made myself clear. How about the next time I see her, I''d go for the kiss?" he joked, removing the ck skull mask from his face.
"Like this'''' he pulled her closer as she stumbled on him. Without letting Gaya speak, he closed her mouth with his. The longer he kissed her, the stronger he pressed her head against his. It was a deep kiss willed with mes of passion and love.
"Look!" Nightmare''s shout broke their kiss. The little dragon raised his ws pointing at the mirrors. Gaya''s meaningless angerpletely vanished away after the kiss as she cuddled him tightly.
Cuddling on the chair, they both looked at the mirrors to see a red humanoid figure moving over the rooftops.
"Wee to the party pal" he willed the drone that''s catching the figure''s feed to follow. By looking at the thermal image of the figure, Michael could see the figure has a medium height with skinny body type.
"What''s that?" Because he was familiar with thermal images, he quickly saw the abnormal heat emission from the figure''s body. All of the figure''s body was golden yellow but his chest area was bright red. The red around his chest area was also pulsating.
"Nightmare,e here buddy" The little dragon hopped over to him as Michael put a cor around his neck. A small glimmer of light shone on the middle of the cor, it was the camera he built.
"What is this?"
"It has a built-in camera. Look there, now I see what you see" he pointed at one of the mirrors as Nightmare saw Michael''s and Gaya''s faces in the mirror.
"Plus, there''s a mic and speaker attached to the cor. These will let usmunicate regardless of the distance" He didn''t build these himself but bought from the system because it only cost him 100 badass points.
He was too busy building four drones and spiders as he decided to buy them from the system rather than building them himself to save time. Moreover, the cor had a tiny poison dart that could be fired by Michael through a telepathic connection.
"We''ll teleport to mefair. Follow him, it''s highly unlikely that someone would notice you through the blizzard. Remember, don''t get closer. I''ll talk you through this"
"Let me go with him" Gaya interrupted Michael before he could leave the chair.? "If this Nightcrawler isn''t stronger than me, I''ll shoot him with one of the knockout arrows and bring him here"
He rubbed his stubble beard he had started to grow recently. Gaya was a far better shot than him, he was good but she was better. There was certainly a possibility that he could miss the shot at Nightcrawler thanks to the blizzard yet he was confident that she could make the shot using her Legs bow.
Time was of the essence. Nightcrawler wasn''t hunting as he was probably thinking, he was being hunted by the guardians. Nightcrawler had no idea that he was going to walk straight into a trap. If Michael wanted to catch him, he must act now before it''s toote.
"Alright but if you feel something amiss, get the hell out there"
"I killed a group of grim reapers with a knife. How hard can this be?" she said, cracking her neck.
"And I killed a group of trained assassins with an ice pick but that doesn''t me we should be careless"
He stood up from his chair before putting his ck mask on. She too wore the mask that he gave her to change her face and then, she put on the ck mask to finish her female Lucifer getup.
"Oh shit, here we go again" she couldn''t help but curse, recalling how bad she felt after being teleported using his new method. She closed her eyes involuntarily.
The very next moment, she felt like she was being torn into countless pieces before a sudden chill hit her face. She opened her eyes to see she was standing in an alley knee-deep in snow.
"Go"
Gaya and Nightmare took off from the ground like a rocket leaving the ground. In their rush to find some action, they forgot to ask what Michael''s going to do.
"System, hide my presence," he said as the energy being radiated from his body became less and less until it had almost gone. Taking out a mirror from his storage, he monitored Nightcrawler who was still moving on the rooftops. The blizzard was definitely making his advancement towards his target a pain thus saving him from the guardians.
However, the guardians weren''t his only problem.
"Ghost, I can see him. He''s...he''s...just at the... Body Refining stage" Michael was thoroughly stunned to hear Nightmare''s words. He could sense the doubt and uncertainty in Nightmare''s voice.
"I see him too. What the actual fuck? How could a Body Refiner manage to kill those nobles? Does he have a special ability like Aria?"
"Take him down and we can find out his secret. Avoid hitting his chest though"? he guessed that the thing pulsating could be Nightcrawler''s secret. Therefore he didn''t want it to get damaged by Gaya''s arrow. Considering he himself brewed the knockout agent that was smothered on Gaya''s arrows, he couldn''t be more positive that it would knock him out the second the arrow hit Nightcrawler''s body.
He could feel the tension building up inside him. He had a strong feeling that this is going to lead him to something big other than a shit load of badass points he would get when he livestream killing Nightcrawler to the entire Bredia and mefair.
"Target insight"
"Take the shot" Michael took off from the ground like superman. He soared through the air towards Gaya''s location as fast as he could. He wanted to get Nightcrawler, subdue him with the help of the system before teleporting back to Abyssal.
Chapter 205 - Lucifer Is Live
[The system scan ispleted. Nightcrawler doesn''t have any means to escape Abyssal unless the host choose to let him go]
In one of the empty rooms of the Abyssal, a bold skinny man was tied to a chair that resembled the torture chairs in the movies. His ankles, feet as well as wrists were tied to the chair using barbed wire. This man was the infamous Nightcrawler who was terrorizing mefair and its citizens.
[Nightcrawler''s ability is very simr to subordinate Aria''s masking ability] The masking ability was what impressed Michael, resulting in Aria''s recruitment. At the moment, Aria could only mask her energy radiation to foolmon defense arrays and Body Refining stage cultivators. Anything above themon category and anyone above the Body Refining stage could easily detect regardless of her ability.
Michael wasn''t so clear about the masking ability because even Gaya had no knowledge of such ability. When Michael asked the system, it only informed that her ability to mask her energy radiation would grow with her cultivation level. If he wanted to know more about this ability, the system required him to upgrade it to the next level.
[However, unlike subordinate Aria, Nightcrawler''s ability seems to be originating from the artifact attached to his heart and is superior to subordinate Aria''s masking ability]
"How do I detach this artifact from his body?" he asked curiously.
[Killing him would do the trick]
"Oh I n to" he sneered, exiting the system. Nightmare was hovering around unconscious Nightcrawler while Gaya was tieing the barbed wires more tightly.
"Here crack this baby open" she threw a space ring towards Michael.
A few seconds after he paid the system the badass points, he could see the contents inside the space ring.
"A serial killer indeed" the space ring contained nothing but vials of blood. Those glittering red vials were neatly stacked in a line inside the space ring. With a single nce, he could tell these were Nightcrawler''s souvenirs taken from his victims. Unlike what he was told back at the tavern, there weren''t seven blood vials but there were a total of ten blood vials. This meant one thing, he started the killing way before the guardians had predicted.
"Anything interesting?" Gaya asked, leaning on the wall with her hands folded against her chest.
"Take a look at this yourself" he threw back the space ring to her but before she could catch the ring, Nightmare snatched the ring in the mid-air.
"Hey! Give me that" she tried to grab Nightmare but he was zigzagging around her to annoy her more. Seeing the y like this in front of an infamous serial killer like Nightcrawler made Michael frustrated and amused at the same time.
"Nightmare, give her the ring before she nails you to the wall" he warned Nightmare when he saw Gaya reaching for an arrow in her quiver.
"So easy to annoy, hehehe" the little dragon chuckled beforending on Gaya''s shoulder.
She swiftly grabbed the ring from his mouth with an annoyed look on her face. But the annoyed look was soon reced by a frown when she saw the contents inside the space ring.
"Are these?"
"Yep, the vials containing the blood of his victims"? this was the grossest thing she had seen in her life, in fact, this was not even close. Yet, this was the first time she saw a serial killer and his souvenirs with her own eyes
"Let me see" Nightmare grabbed the ring from her hand.
"How about we kill this low life and collect his blood in a vial?"
The little dragon''s soft side was slowly vanishing due to his and Gaya''s influence on him. Michael was d to see this change because a dragon-like him must be ruthless to his enemies. In the future, they would have to fight countless foes and any kind of mercy or reluctance to kill a foe would cost them their lives. Michael was sure that the guardians or any of his future foes wouldn''t show them any kind of mercy.
"Let''s wake this fucker up" NIghtmare quickly flew into Michael''s cape, attaching himself onto his back. Gaya pped Nightcrawler so hard that the pping sound echoed through the empty room.
He could swear that he even saw mr teeth bursting out of Nightcrawler''s mouth with a stter of blood and saliva.
"Where...ah!" the pain hit him only a few seconds after he opened his eyes.
Piercing gray eyes set concealed within their sockets, watching its surroundings wearily. As Nightcrawler''s vision became less blurry and realization of he had been captured reached his brain, he tried to wiggle against the barbed wire shackling him to the chair. However the more he struggled, the more he felt the excruciating pain of barbed wire sinking deep and deep into his flesh.
"Ah...let...me...go"? Both Michael and Gaya saw Nightcrawler frantically trying to move away from them without asking who they were, which meant he already knew the answer to that question. While he was struggling, Michael retrieved the drone from his storage. Gaya stepped away from the drone''s camera angle into the corner of the room to blend with the darkness. The light in the drone''s camera flickered before emitting a stable blue light, indicating to him that it''s ready to broadcast the feed to everywhere Gaya put the projector balls. The projector balls would automatically find a suitable ce in the area to project the feed so the people could see and hear Lucifer crystal clear.
At the moment, the projector balls were projecting the feed to every corner of mefair and Bredia. One of the ces the projector balls projecting the feed was the burning star building itself. With the help of the system, he built the projector balls to project the feed in the sky itself. Therefore, if there wasn''t arge wall or building nearby the balls to project, they would use the sky itself as the projector screen. Plus, the projector balls had all kinds of audio enhancement that could make his voice extremely loud which could give the otherworldly effect to Lucifer.
"System, activate the projectors,"? he said to the system, signaling Gaya to put a cloth around Nightcrawler''s mouth.
Michael stood in front of the drone with his hands behind.
"Wee to my hell, people of Bredia and mefair"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1500 badass points]
¡
A few moments after he activated the projectors through the system, badass points began to rain as he continuously heard the notification sound ringing in his mind.
"I''ve been watching you, studying you. I saw massacres, corruption in every ce, nobles and cultivators treatingmoners as worse than dirt,moners selling their bodies and stealing, very, experiments on people, and many, many more sins"
His unearthly voice reverberated through all the Bredia and mefair.
"This continent is slowly turning into a hell and in hell, you have to answer to me, Lucifer"
[wonderful] amidst the ringing sound of the notification, he heard the system''s voice that sounded extremely pleased.
"Since the people who should have protected the innocents have been failing miserably, it''s time every sinner in this continent experiences the justice served in hell" After these words escaped his mouth, he slowly stepped away sidewards for the drone camera to get Nightcrawler.
"Let me introduce the human whom you''ve known as Nightcrawler. He may elude the justice of mortals because ofck of evidence or the ipetence of the authorities. In here, I''d be the judge, jury, and the executioner" Michael let the words sink in the peoples'' hearts. After a few seconds of silence, he went on,
"He has killed ten people, four of them were innocent. They were justmoners who did their best to provide for their families. He hunted them like prey, he enjoyed killing them, every single moment of it" Michael ran his ws through Nightcrawler''s face. Everywhere his sharp ws touched Nightcrawler''s body, blood seeped through the cuts.
"In my hell, you''re all nothing but miserable preys. If your authorities had caught him, he would have been fed, given a cozy little prison cell, and then a fair trial, there''s nothing fair in giving this murderer a trial. Too much waste of time" Michael''s hand stopped running around Nightcrawler''s face as he clenched Nightcrawler''s bald head and slowly began to apply pressure.
"Mmhhhhmmmm¡." Nightcrawler violently wiggled against the barbed wires feeling the pain of his skull getting crushed by Lucifer.
"Just like he did to those innocent mortals, his death too will be slow and painful" Gaya could hear the cracking sounding from his bald head. Webs of blood seeped through the cracks appearing in his bald egg. Michael felt like he''s been slowly crushing an egg in his hand.
"Every sinner in this continent will pay for their crimes, just like those who did before Nightcrawler as well as those who were iming to be me. You can escape mortal justice but you can''t escape mine. No amount of gold or connections will save you in my hell"
Pulch!
Michael suddenly used all of his strength as Nightcrawler''s head exploded into a red mist like an exploding watermelon. Stters of grey matter oozed out of Michael''s hands to the ground as Nightcrawler''s body was still twitching.
"I will give the sinners one more chance. Within the next two months, surrender to the authorities and pay the price for your crimes. The authorities should give a most fitting punishment for their crimes or after two months, this will continue. Remember, you can''t beg for forgiveness from me"
****************
The southern continent arc will begin from the next chapter. Expect pirates, diators, and much much more...
Chapter 206 - The Top Priority Of The Guardians
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 3
Experience Points: 5000/400000
Badass Points: 66500
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 90% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 57% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
Wealth: 2,170,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 98%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 28%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
"Wonderful"? even after settling his debt, there remained 66,500 badass points. From now on, he decided to leave more projector balls everywhere he visits so the next time he goes live, he could get more badass points.
[Yes you should] as the system read his mind, it replied to him.
"How do I get the artifact from him?"
[Open his chest and you will get the artifact]
"Great" Exiting the system, he couldn''t help but roll his eyes. He was not a surgeon who could delicately open up Nightcrawler''s chest.
"Dagger"
Gaya threw the jade dagger hanging from her waist.
"What are you doing?" Nightmare asked while hovering around Nightcrawler. Gaya moved towards him avoiding the grey matter on the ground.
"I''m going to open up his chest to get what I want"
"Need a hand" she grabbed Nightcrawler''s shoulder to hold him firmly while Michael cut open the chest. Seeing her helping him, he couldn''t help smiling. She was perfect for him in every way. There weren''t many girls who would help their boyfriends cut open someone''s chest, even if the chest belonged to a killer.
Yet, Gaya was happily doing her wifely duties. Honestly, he looked forward to giving her the throne of Nagnd so he could marry this perfect girl.No matter how many people he would have to kill in Nagnd, he would do it for her.
Thinking about his bright future with her, he plunged the dagger into Nightcrawler''s abdomen. He then worked his way upwards like gutting a fish. Blood and guts oozed out of the body yet they never slowed him down.
"This is gross," Nightmaremented looking at the gore. Eventually, after a few more minutes, they could see the heart as well as a small copper cube. The cube was attached to the heart, radiating a faint light and a humming sound.
[Ding! The host has found an ancient artifact]
[The system requires 30,000 badass points to initiate a scan that could lead the host to something special]
"Do it" he never hesitated. Thest time the system asked him badass points to find something interesting, he ended up with the Abyssal, his own little Batcave. Therefore, when the system tempted him again, he jumped the gun.
[Great. Initiating the scan...]
"What the fuck is this?" Gaya poked the copper cube after Michael gently ripped it off from Nightcrawler''s heart. Nightmare stared at Michael for his answer but instead of giving Gaya the answer, he patiently waited for the system to finish scanning the artifact.
[Scanpleted. The host should get a world map]
"Gaya, do you have a map?" she took out an old worn-out parchment from her space ring. He feared that opening the parchment would crumble down the old piece of paper.
"Old Risel has been with me since I first started my adventure"
"You named your map?"
"Don''t judge me" she giggled as she handed over the map to Michael.
After delicately opening the parchment, he saw the map of this world for the first time. There were fourrge pieces ofnd, each divided by vast oceans.
Thergest continent among the four was the continent named Awor which was doubled the size of Elon and Ozer. The smallest yet farthest content from Elon was the Southern Continent also known as Midras. The Southern continent was made of four kingdoms; Lidora, Gisal, Yetopia, and the Praido Kingdom. There wasn''t much information on the map about each kingdom''s characteristics or what they have to offer.
As heid his eyes on the southern continent, a dot of blue light could be seen only by him in the Kingdom of Gisal.
"This is our next destination"
"You gonna tell me what is in there?"
"The origin of this artifact" She wanted to ask how he knew that but she decided not to. Even after he revealed most of the information about him, she could tell that it was only the tip of the iceberg as he seemed to have a secret that he couldn''t tell her.
However, she trusted him to tell her everything one day until then, she would keep her questions bottled.
"Southern content is a two-month journey from here if we get in a good condition ship"
"Ship? Why can''t we just fly there?" Nightmare asked.
"First of all, when we enter the atmosphere of the Southern continent, we won''t be able to use Arch or any kind of energy. Second of all, there is nond to take a rest in the Midras ocean. Unless you have a better way, I''d suggest we hop on a merchant ship"
She removed her mask as she stepped closer to Michael. Regardless of the blood and gore around him, he could smell the sweet fragrance radiating from her.
"I always wanted to visit the southern continent and now it''s going to be even better with you"
"It''s not gonna be our honeymoon or anything" Michael sighed remembering her no sex until marriage rule. Although he respected her wish, he would be lying if he said he don''t care about taking the kiss to the next level.
"Shh," she put her finger on his lips.
"No marriage, no fling but it doesn''t mean we have nothing to do during our journey" His eyes sparkled as his heartbeat rose. He felt like a virgin boy who just got a date to lose his virginity, he couldn''t wait to get on a ship to the Southern continent.''
"Don''t mind me" Looking at how close they were standing to each other, Nightmare rolled his eyes. And just as the little dragon expected, they locked their lips despite their rather disturbing surroundings.
"Let''s just first go to the auction and make some money"
"I''d bet they have some nice swords," Gaya purred, gently kissing her ear.
"After the auction, remind me to visit the house of Bradley. You said they are mainly in business for private security" he said recalling Nathen''s uncle, Lord Mn''s request to visit the house of Bradley.
"Yeah, not number one or anything but they have a decent operation going on"
"If everything goes smoothly, we can use them to protect our assets"
"Extra security to Raylene doesn''t hurt"
Considering Raylene was a 5-star chef and she would be more famous once they opened the restaurant, they had to make sure she stays safe. One could not say for sure that no one would harm her or try to kidnap her.
"Let Dr use his Netherels to clean up this mess and the mess you two made in my room" the snake and the dragon revealed an embarrassed smile thinking how hard they threw up in Michael''s room, especially Nightmare.
It was fortunate they have Netherels to do the dirty work. Otherwise, they knew he would make them clean up the mess.
**************************
(Somewhere else in Elon Continent)
"Did you see that, Xanali?" Peyton was watching the vast forest before her standing on the edge of a mountain.
Xanali, the red-haired princess and half-sister of Gaya, carried a face of anger as well as confusion.
"Yes, everyone in Bredia and FLamefair saw it. It won''t take too long for the news to reach the entire Elon"
"He was mocking us. The guardians were the authorities he mentioned who failed miserably" Peyton was radiating killing intent as her body was shivering in anger.
"His words, Peyton. The real questions we should ask are how did he project himself? What kind of spell was he using? Was that really Nightcrawler he killed? "
"Our mages are working on it. As for the Nightcrawler, it was that brute Nesta''s assignment. After Lucifer''s little show on Royalnd using Gerty''s body and Netherels, he just made the top of the priority list. But it also tainted our reputation, ording to our spies, more than a few really believes the nobles were killed by the guardians"
"It is the truth, Peyton. We went too far, we shouldn''t have killed those nobles"
"You never understand do you?" Peyton said coldly, turning her gaze from the horizon to Xanali.
"You can''t clean a mess without getting your hands dirty. Sometimes it''s necessary for the good guys to be the bad guys to do some good. If you think the bad guys will y by our rules, you''re naive and stupid"
Peyton didn''t hold back as her words pierced Xanali''s heart like needles. At this moment, Xanali wondered what Gaya did and said could be really the truth about this world.
"Captain Gerard almost pulled the plug of operation new dawn. We cannot afford to take any more shits thrown at us by Lucifer. Increase the recruitment process, I want every prodigy or talented kid on the block to join the Guardians. We can use their love for power to our advantage ``. Peyton''s cold words stopped Xanali''s train of thought.
"Then the championship tournaments in three months would be a good ce for some fresh blood"
"Start the screening process now. The tournament might have a chance to get dyed by a couple of months. Tell Noah about the recruitment, I''d bet he know some freaks of nature"
*******************''
Sorry for not replying to yourments as I''ve been very busytely.However, I did read all yourments.I Will soon start to reply, keep thosementsing
Chapter 207 - Icefair And The Auction
After teleporting back to mefair, they didn''t spend any time as they took off towards Icefair to go to the House of Bradley as well as attend the annual Phoenix manor auction. In the skies, the trio asionally noticed several groups of people in fancy winter clothes and mercenaries in armor flying towards Icefair. Considering the snowfall had worsened since he left mefair, Michael could barely recognize the faces in the sky through the snow.
Icefair was roughly one thousand kilometers away from mefair, and with snowstorm affecting their flying speed, it took them a full day to reach Icefair.
Among the four duchies of Kethen, Icefair was a far more aplished and fancy-looking city by farpared to the other three duchies. The constant war between the Rosegate, Pent Town, and mefair was one of the main reasons for Icefair''s development. The duke of Icefair made his fortune by selling weapons, food, and many other resources needed for a war to the other duchies. In simple words, Icefair was the oil that keeps the war between the others running.
As they approached,rge groups of travelers could be seen on the roads beneath them on the ground. As far as the eye could see, various types of people such as merchants, mercenaries,moners, and nobles could be seen sharing the roads.
When the city walls appeared in their sight, Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare descended from the sky to the ground. As usual, at the gates, several soldiers were standing in a line. They were there to make sure every single soul is paid an entrance toll before entry. After paying that entrance toll, entry to the city would be given without trouble. While standing in a line, Michael could feel many eyesnding on him and Nightmare on his shoulder yet no one openly approached him. He also saw some of the merchants paying more than the entry fee to avoid the forceful inspection of their goods.
The soldiers were agitated to see the dragon but they quickly regained theirposure. After witnessing them taking bribes and forcefully inspecting the goods of those who didn''t bribe them, he understood what kind of soldiers they were.? They were the type who loved to bully but couldn''t stand to be bullied in return. Knowing that anyone who had a dragon for a pet would not be of ordinary stature, the soldiers didn''t dare trouble Michael and Gaya. Hence, Michael''s group was easily able to enter the city without any hindrance.
Entering the city, Michael looked around the ce with observing eyes. Unlike mefair, Icefair streets were filled with people of all sses. A group of workers was constantly shoveling the snow away from the streets to make life easier for caravans and the people. The white marble stone used to construct the majority of the buildings on each side of the street gave a unique charm to the city as the asional frozen water fountains and white maple trees enhanced the beauty even further.
"The auction won''t start for another two days, let''s find an inn and eat. I''m starving"
"How could you starve? The Arch energy will keep your body sustained"
"Alright, no more meat for you then" She flicked Nightmare''s head as the little dragon quickly shouted
"No!" Nightmare feared that he wouldn''t get any more of those delicious juicy mean Ghost was giving him.
"Im surrounded by two gluttonous creatures"? It wasn''t hard to find an inn when he could let Gaya and Nightmare follow the scent of Ale and food.
Arriving at a rather decent inn within the city, Michael booked a room before the inn could run out of rooms to rent.
"I wish we could open restaurants in every city we go and make Raylene cook for us there" Michael did not even sit on the bed to rx before she started to rush him. With a sigh, he followed her to the downstairs where they were serving plenty of local delicacies. Although these dishes couldn''t hold a torch to Raylene''s cooking, a warm meal in the winter had to be appreciated.
Seated right next to Michael, Nightmare devoured a tter of roasted meat with the grace of king much to the curiosity of everyone else around them.
Michael was enjoying his sd and the warm ss of water with a smile. The reason for his smile was not the sd, it was because he was receiving badass points constantly ever since he entered the inn with a dragon.
"What a majestic creature"
"Do you know what family that young man is from?"
"I have never seen him in Icefair before"
"Who do I feel like I know of him from somewhere?"
The three of thempletely ignored the chattering around them.
Looking at the dragon, many young misses in the inn let out a depressed sigh. They stared at the dragon with a look of envy on their faces.
"Waiter, bring me another te of this roast"
"Coming right up, Miss"
Gaya didn''t even bother to look up to see Michael''s reaction as she continued to eat the tter of food in front of her. The rate at which the food was devoured was almost as she had been starved for several days.
"That sd any good?" she asked gawking at his bowl of sd after devouring the food on her side of the table.
"Why, you want this?"
"Let me take a bite" just as she was moving her hands towards his bowl, the waiter came to her with the dishes she ordered to save Michael''s sd.
Eventually, after the snake and the dragon filled their bellies, they left the inn, taking a stroll around Icefair. As they walked, Nightmare''s little head swiveled back and forth. He took in all the sights while curiosity filled him.
Plenty of people on the streets found themselves turning their heads to look at Nightmare. Plenty of surprising whispers could be heard, and many young girls made less-than-discreetments at the dragon and at Michael. There had been several young daredevils who tried to flirt with Michael but each and every one of them had been chased away by Gaya with a punch to their faces.
"For fuck sake, this city is filled with shameless horny bitches" Gaya cursed after sending a young girl flying with a kick to her butt.
At that moment, a drumming sound could be heard from the front as a group of red-robed men came striding through the city with a huge mor. The scene looked like a wedding concession with the festive celebration, but the contents of their words caused everyone on the streets to feel stunned.
"Good news everyone! Our Phoenix Auction Manor will be auctioning off two Epic ss spells in the uing annual auction¡" The man leading the group was speaking through a giant, gold horn with a st of sound that could be heard in all directions.
"What? The Phoenix Auction Manor has two Epic spells to sell, is that true?"
"Heavens, more have appeared? And there''s two of them at the same time, did I hear that right¡?"
"If the auction is going to be selling one of those, we must go and inform the lord¡"
"This annual auction is getting better and better"
"I wonder what else they have in store to auction..."
Following the announcement, the people began to chatter more and more with excitement. There was no doubt that the news of two Epic spells would soon spread farther and farther as well.
"I''d bet this is just a warm-up," Gaya said after the announcement group disappeared from their sight. Regardless of the city being full of people, Michael saw no quarrels or battles in the city. Instead, it seemed the mercenaries and the young masters of the rich families had kicked their arrogance down a notch. Even they realized that one could never be too sure if one would meet a civilian or a person one could not offend. After all, men of great strength did not need to reveal it to the public.
"Let''s get back to the inn" Eventually when the nightfall came, the snowstorm sent the people running to their homes searching for a warm ce. Considering the trio didn''te across anything worth investigating, Gaya wanted to return to the inn. Nightmare was already deep in sleep after a hearty meal.
Except for the poor soldiers who had to keep patrolling the streets, Michael saw no people in the streets on their way to the inn. His ck clothes almost turned white in the snow. After dusting all the snow off of his clothes and Gaya''s hair, he entered the inn and then to his room.
"Stop" Suddenly he stopped at the entrance to his room.
"What?" Gaya asked, seeing him raise his brows. She held the sleeping Nightmare in one hand and took out the dagger in the other.
"Someone was here before" he pointed at the ground as she saw a faint mark of a boot printing out of the room. Unless the inn appointed anyone to clean their guests'' room without their permission, she knew someone went inside their room.
"No one should have entered the rooms, especially during this auction time" she whispered.
He nodded before pushing the door open. His environmental scanning did not reveal any life signs inside the room that meant whoever was there has long gone by now.
When he entered the room causticity, the room was just as he left except for a letter with golden outlines and red wax seal. They moved towards the letter slowly.
"That''s the seal of House Bradley," she said when she saw the two-leaf symbol on the wax seal. It was the symbol of none other than the House of Bradley.
"It seems Lord Mn couldn''t wait to see you, human"
Chapter 208 - Annual Auction I
Michael picked up the letter. He could feel a metal card inside the letter.
Carefully tearing the letter open without giving a damn about a letter opener, he started to read the words written on high-quality paper in beautiful handwriting.
"Hey kiddo, little birdies told me you''re here in Icefair. If you''re here at this time, I guess you came to the auction and I liked to think you''ll also visit us. Pardon our method of reaching out to you as we are currently dealing with a delicate situation in which you can help us out. Come meet us after the auction. P.S I have left something you might need to get into the auction, Lord Mn"
He lifted the letter as a card made of silvery metalnded in his hand. The one-inch thick card had the symbol of House Bradley etched on it.
"Nice, a VIP ess card" Gaya recognized the card in a single nce. Except for the auctions that happened in Nagnd, she never had a VIP card outside. It was not because she couldn''t afford it but being a VIP kinda attracted people''s attention and she liked to be anonymous when participating in auctions.
"What did he mean by ''I need to get into the auction?" reading those words, he couldn''t help recalling his little fiasco with Lord Julius in Phoenix ind.
When he met Julius, he was a Core Strengthening stage level 5 and if he now reached level 8 or even level 10, Michael didn''t give a damn as he would reach that in a few months. He hoped Julius let go of whatever grudge he may have been holding against him as Michael would hate to kill him because he would rather use Julius and his operation to his advantage than killing him.
However, if Julius chose to do otherwise, Michael would plot a n to rece him with one of his subordinates in the future. Unlike young masters like Noah who would go on a killing rampage because of petty grudges, Michael liked to kill fewer people and use the infrastructure they''ve built over years to his own benefit. This would prove useful in the long run. For example, Julius has set up a perfect operation of trade among continents and killing Julius and all of his people would crumble this operation to dust but if Michael was to rece Julius as well as few others with his minions, the entire Phoenix auction manor would work for him.
"I''m gonna get shut-eye. Wake me up early in the morning"
"I''ll cultivate. Some of us don''t have the privilege of a War god body like some lucky bastards" He just waved off before cing a system store-bought silk quilt on the bed.
Gaya sat on the ground in a meditation posture to cultivate while the little dragon hovered between them trying to decide whether to sleep with Michael or cultivate with Gaya.
Looking at Nightmare''s dilemma, she just grabbed him by his tail.
"You''re gonna cultivate with me. It''s a shame that you''re still in Body Refining stage level 1. Slowly absorb the energying from this" She said, taking out the bone of the Fusion stage cultivator that Michael brought from the Nether Realm.
"System, can I also boost Nightmare cultivation speed by 40%?"
[Yes, familiars will get the boost as well as your chosen subordinate]
[The host''s current chosen Subordinate is Gaya]
[The host can currently boost the cultivation speed of two subordinates]
"Great. System, boost Aria''s cultivation speed. I will bring some resources to Raylene when I get back to the sect"
"I can feel it. I''ll reach level 9 in a couple of weeks, im awesome!" Gaya proudly eximed looking at Nightmare. She had no clue that her cultivation speed was being boosted by Michael. Coupled with her innate talent, the 40% boost can let her match Michael''s cultivation speed itself as he couldn''t go on a killing spree every single day.
The night quickly passed. Dawn somewhat broke the dark winter skies from the horizon, marking the opening day of the Heavenly Phoenix Auction, which had long since opened its gates. The giant gates had been decorated with ribbons andnterns as both people and workers streamed in and out of the building. In the distance, quite a few dressed-up people stood there, waiting for the auction house to open.
Today was the day of the annual auction at the Phoenix Auction Manor. In the past, this had always been the busiest day for the Phoenix Auction Manor, but today, they had the two Epic spell scrolls and various unique items for sale. This year was even livelier than the years before. Regardless of the rain of cold snowkes, there were already many people waiting by the gates.
The Phoenix auction manor building was exceptionally tall, despite being only three stories tall, it had already reached several dozen meters higher into the air than of a typical five-story building back on earth. Just like most of the buildings in ICefair, it had been also built using a marble-like shiny white stone and decorated with sky blue windows. On top of the great big gates to the auction house was a three-meter tall board that had the three words " Phoenix Auction Manor" written in fancy calligraphy.
More and more people began to gather at the Phoenix Auction Manor and filled up the nearby streets. Caravans found it extremely difficult to get by or find parking. Many people had been waiting for at least 2 hours before the ear-splitting sounds of a gong and firecrackers could be heard. This year''s annual auction had finally begun!
The auction this year wasn''t like the past auctions. In the past, there was no fee to enter the auction house either to participate in the auction or just to watch it. However, because of Epic spells and the uniqueness of the items, the admission fee this year hiked up to 50 gold coins. This was not the amount a viger or farmer could afford but again, this was not a ce for the poor.
Although this hike in prices made many people unhappy, it did not deter the people with money in their pockets. At the same time, it had gotten rid of the people who were merely there to watch the show and not buy anything. In this way, there was enough room for all the rogue cultivators and mysterious figures that were extremely interested in the items
After the gates opened up for the auction house, the people who already had tickets and waited outside for a very long time began to enter through the entrance in a straight line. On the other side of the buildings, there were much fewer people and all of them wore elegant clothes that basically screamed nobles.
"VIP''s pleasee this way" a young man was standing near the entrance, screaming his heart out. Since Michael had a VIP ess card thanks to Lord Mn, he walked towards the VIP entrance. He waited until the nobles in the line before him entered the auction house.
As he reached the inner halls of the Phoenix Auction Manor, ignoring the nobles'' shocked look at Nightmare, arge expansive area greeted his eyes. The ce was filled with neat rows of seats for as far as the eye could see. It was clear that the number of seats had surpassed 500.
The area had two stories worth of seats, and the two storiesbined had a total of over 1,000 seats. Installed on the sides of every seat were dozens of private rooms for the honored guests, each separated by a tinted ss wall. From the inside, they could still clearly see the outside, but no one on the outside could see what was happening on the inside.
"That way" Gaya showed him the stairs to get to the second floor where the private rooms for the VIP guests were located. However, just as he was about to walk the stairs, he noticed ady in red robes eyeing him and murmuring something with the young man who let Michael in. It was obvious they were talking about him as they did not take their eyes away from him. Soon afterward, thedy walked towards him with a rather stern look on her face. Gaya frowned looking at her expression because she was full of smiles when she let the other VIP guests in.
"Ghost I assume," thedy in red robes said. She was the first one topletely ignore? Nightmare as she didn''t even look at the dragon standing on his shoulder.
"Yes"
"It seems we have to check your VIP status"
"Is there a problem?" He folded his hands against his chest as a sign of irritation.
"The auction will begin in three hours.IF you want to auction your items, please seek out our manager Miss Vargas on the first floor" a voice of an elder sounded throughout the building.
"Tell them, I''ll be there in a few minutes" the red robes woman said as he realized the woman before him is the manager of this branch, Miss Vargas.
"Well this saved me the trouble of finding you to auction this"
His goal was today to auction the rare herbs he found at the Treacherous Ocean and some of the rare spells he got from the Nether Realm. By doing this, he would get richer and use the gold coins to develop his business empire. Because of this n, he first wanted to tempt thisdy for her to stop acting like a bitch. Only if she still continued to act this way he would leave this ce but if he walked out of this ce, the name Julius would certainly make its way into his kill list along with this woman.
Her stern look took a turn as her brows arched up when she saw the silk apples in Michael''s hands. The fragrance of the fruits instantly made her mouth water. Just a single nce could tell her that these fruits were at least two thousand years old. An alchemist would buy the silk apples instead of an Epic spell any time of the day and she just saw Alchemy king Gabriel''s disciples settling in one of the VIP rooms.
"Choose wisely Miss Vargas. Petty grudges and lose a valuable customer or wipe the te clean and make some sweet sweet money"
Chapter 209 - Annual Auction II
"This is..." Vargas reached out to grab one of the silk apples in the basket. Michael had a total of thirty apples but he chose to auction only five because ording to the system, it could extract the seeds from the other apples and help him grow silk apple trees after it reached version 4.0. The probability of getting healthy seeds out of a silk apple was 40% ording to the system, therefore, Michael decided to keep most of the apples instead of auctioning them.
However, before she could touch an apple, he pulled the basket away from her.
"Congrattions Master Ghost we have checked your VIP status and are honored to offer you a permanent VIP status of your own as you don''t need to carry the VIP card of the Bradley family anymore"
It was really surprising how Vargas''s expression changed in a blink of an eye. Unlike before she was now grinning ear to ear. After all, she was a businesswoman who knows what''s good for business. Her change of character wasn''t a big shock to him because after his time spending with the merchants in this world, he knew these merchants are cunning, shameless, and do almost anything if it brings profit to them at the end of the day. It also revealed Michael two things; she wasn''t under a strict order of Julius not to let him anywhere near his Phoenix auction manor houses and she wasn''t as good as she''s thinking. Otherwise, she would have behaved like this from the beginning and not like the bitch she was before.
"My assistant here will give you your VIP ess card after the auction"
"Make it ck"
"As you wish" Vargas''s grin grew wider as she sighed a sigh of relief. Michael nodded approvingly before handing over the basket of silk apples to Vargas. She grabbed the basket as her life depended on it and held it against her ample chest tightly.
"Remember we are not selling the apples, we''re auctioning them" Gaya said with a cold tone. Just like in any other auction house, the Phoenix auction manor too had two options for the sellers to choose from. They could either sell the items to the Phoenix auction manor or auction the items in events like this. By choosing thetter, the sellers had to pay a small fee before the auction and a small cut in the gold coins after sessfully auctioning the item.
Those who want to make gold coins quick and hate to pay a cut could choose the option to sell. There was no downside for this option as the Phoenix auction manor was trusted by people to give them the right price. They wouldn''t sully this reputation by swindling their customers, downying the value of the item like in pawn shops.
However if one decided to auction the item instead of selling, the starting bid price would be always somewhat less than its actual value. If bidders chose not to go for high bids and the item ended up being sold way cheaper than its actual value, there was nothing the seller could do except take the bid money. This risk would be greater when superpowerspete for the item as they would often intimidate others not to ce bids more than them if they took a liking to the said item.
Plus, selling the items instantly was always a great way to remain anonymous as the deal would happen between the auction house and the seller, no third parties included. In the method of auction, however, the bidder, the representative of the auction house, and the seller would meet in the same room for the exchange of money and item. If the bidder chose to pursue the seller or the seller chose to get the itemter on from the bidder''s corpse, there would be a problem. End of the day, it boils down to the rarity of the item, the number of gold coins, and the greediness of either party included in the deal.
"But..."
"Auctioning it is" Michael interrupted Vargas when she was about to speak.
"And put these in the auction too" The next moment, he made Vargas''s heart almost jump out in shock by taking out a few three thousand years old herbs such as Storm Leaf, Bitter Barberry, River Chicory, and Ash Bloom. He plucked these from the Treacherous ocean. Her body became rigid.
"Whoa!" Vargas gasped. Either of these herbs could go for 300,000 gold coins minimum. Yet she also knew that Alchemists like them rarely auction rare herbs such as these. She couldn''t help but wonder why he''s auctioning these herbs that most alchemists consider priceless.
For other alchemists, they were indeed priceless but for him, these were just overrated junk because he could get the same medicinal qualities these herbs provide frommon nts which weren''t even acknowledged as herbs by the alchemists in this world.
"That''s all. I''ll see you after the auction" Michael said before leaving her to get to his VIP room.
When they disappeared from Vargas''s sight, he grabbed Gaya''s hands, halting her steps.
"Go sit with the crowd"
"Why?" Nightmare asked cluelessly yer the little dragon saw an evil grin slowly emerge on their faces.
"I''ll contact you through the earbuds and keep you updated"
Gaya nodded as he ced his hand on her face.
"System change her face"
Gaya felt the familiar tingling sensation underneath her skin as she could feel her face changing.
"Change your face again before meeting me after the auction"
Even without Michael exining what he was thinking, she knew exactly what he wanted her to do. In fact, she always did that for fun when she was a rogue cultivator but now, she could have fun as well as get rich.
After Gaya went to sit with themoners and lesser nobles, he and Nightmare walked up to the stairs reaching the second floor. The second floor of the auction hall, was where all the private rooms were located. Those who had the privileges of staying in one of those rooms were all wealthy people with great influence.
"This time, we have to get something nice"
"My family gave me quite a chunk to get a weapon for the uing tournaments"
"Nice. I heard they sell some great ass weapons in the auction" Michael was the first to enter the second floor but soon many youngsters and elders reached the floor from other entrances. Michael quickly grabbed Nightmare, putting him inside his coat pocket.
Only a few of them were able to take a nce at Nightmare before he disappeared into Michael''s pockets. They stared at Michael murmuring among themselves before entering their VIP rooms.
Michael just slowly walked past each room as he soon came in front of a door that had the symbol of the Bradley family etched on it. However, he didn''t enter the room as the others did but waited for the corridors to be empty. Considering the VIPs were far less than the lesser nobles andmoners participating in the auction, after waiting for fifteen minutes, one couldn''t see a soul except Michael.
"Spy my little spiders" he retrieved the spying little spiders from his system storage and let them crawl through every VIP room in the area. Only after every single spider reached their respective room to spy, he entered the room allocated for him.
The decoration within the private room was simple. There was a long solid wood table right in the center, and in front of the table, there were a few big fancy sofas. In front of these sofas, there was crystal clear ss. He could see the entire auction hall as well as the stands on the center stage of the auction hall while sitting on the sofa. On the center stage, a bunch of youngsters, the majority of them were girls, still bringing more and more stands covered in red cloth to the stage. A few of them contained the herbs Michael gave to Vargas.
At the moment, there was a huge piece of cloth covering the majority of the stands, making everyone unable to see what was hidden underneath. After some time, the auction hall had beenpletely filled up, with everyst empty spot being crowded with people standing close together.
Just as the final seats were taken and everyone had settled down, a golden eruption of fireworks exploded overhead, instantly calming down the noise. After that, an old man in a gray robe slowly descended from above andnded right onto the stage. The old man was in his fifties, and his sleeves fluttered with every soft breeze passing by. His oily face carried a friendly smile, leaving a good impression on all those who watched him
The clothes covering the items also slowly started to ascend into the air, revealing the items to the crowd.
The elder''s eyes swept the audience as he cleared his throat and loudly announced, "Honored guests, I thank you all for participating in our Phoenix Auction Manor''s annual auction. I, Goron Lanyon, will be the host for this year''s auction, and so I hope everyone today will be able to see an item they will want to buy!"
The elder paused for a moment to clear his throat once more before continuing to speak, "This year the Phoenix Auction Manor has seen its busiest year. That is because this year, we shall be auctioning off many precious items that our Phoenix Auction Manor has already announced and many more that we just acquired. Trust me, even this old man has only heard about some of these items only in legends. I hope you''ve brought your pay cubes with you" The old man joked as a small tremor ofughter reverberated through the hall.
"What these items are, I am sure many people here are already aware of. So I will not waste any more time describing them but I will give you a detailed exnation about the new items to the best of my knowledge" When the elder was speaking, he had used his Arch Force to magnify his voice so that everyone in the auction hall would be able to hear it. The old man continued to exin the rules without stopping.
"What a talker, hurry up and start the auction!"
"Yeah, I''m going to fall asleep!"
Many people couldn''t take it anymore as they began to shout at the old man. But the old man did not give a shit until he preached every single rule about the auction.
"Alright, I think everyone should have a clear understanding of the rules now. Let the auction begin"
At the sound of the elder''s words, ten men suddenly walked toward the stand, encircling it. Their eyes stared coldly at the audience as if showing off their positions as bodyguards.
Finally, Michael stopped ying with Nightmare to take part in the auction that''s going to give him something interesting...
*********************************
Keep guessing my dear readers...keep guessing...I can give you a clue...Abyssal...
Chapter 210 - The Blackwing Saurus
"Honored guests, we shall now auction away the first item. What this hidden item is, I will reveal it to you now ``. With that, the old man extended his arm to grab the cloth and abruptly tore it away to reveal a small vial bottle. Inside the small vial, a silver liquid glowed, lighting the entire stage with its light.
"The very first item is the Radiant Soul Healer. For the honored guests who are unfamiliar with this item, it is hard toe by medicine that has the healing effect of a hundred high-quality healing potionsbined. As its name suggests, it could not only heal physical wounds but it could also heal any soul damages to a certain point"
"The starting price of the miraculous once in a lifetime item has the starting price of 50,000 gold coins! Minimum 5000 increase per new bid, you may begin bidding!"
"55,000 gold coins!"
"60,000 gold coins!"
"70,000!"
"75,000 coins!"
...
Just as the host finished speaking, the people in the audience immediately started to fight over the Radiant Soul Healer. This potion was indeed superior in every waypared to the healing potion Michael brews. This potion required extremely rare herbs to brew. He could make more gold coins by selling normal healing potions than searching for these rare herbs which was a waste of time in his opinion. Of course, he could always buy the herbs from the system store except the system''s price for each herb was ridiculously high.
As Michael sat and watched the people around him fight for the medicine, there was a faint smile on his face. He realized this auction is going to make him richer than he was initially expecting. After a fierce battle, the bottle of Radiant Healing Potion was sold to the highest bidder for a price of 95,000 gold coins.
The whole audience became silent for a few moments after the first item. Everyone stared at the auction stage, waiting for Goron to bring out the next auction item.
Surprisingly the old man didn''t give another long-winded speech or any description about the item; instead, he just pulled away the cloth revealing a glowing longsword. The longsword was constantly producing a buzzing sound, and it was trembling from within to escape the ss box.
Many people could identify that it was a Rare Weapon with a single nce.
ANy weapon that was above umon ss was extremely scarce and expensive in the Elon continent because, in the Elon Continent, there were only a handful of cksmiths who reached 3-star or star levels above it. That handful of cksmiths rarely sold anything they made in auctions like these since they all tend to sell the weapons to only a certain people they wish to.
Therefore it was very difficult for a rogue cultivator or one who doesn''t have a powerful background to obtain a Rare Weapon. Thest time Michael saw these weapons in action was at Nether Realm. They were quite powerful yet he wasn''t interested in them as the people sitting downstairs.
"This is a Rare Weapon, and the starting price is 100,000 gold coins. Each new bid must be increased by 10,000 coins. Do I have 110,000?"
"110"
"120,000 coins"
...
The audience sitting downstairs kept bidding. Some people had earned quite a lot of money during many trade fairs around the continent, and they didn''t have a Rare Weapon. Therefore, they wanted to buy one now.
The auction house did after all have to consider everyone''s feelings. If the entire auction was all about exceptional and precious items that only people in VIP rooms could afford, those people downstairs would only be bystanders. Hence, the auction started auctioning some ordinary items. It also served to make the atmosphere livelier.
The special guests on the second floor were all quiet. They didn''t pay any attention to the sword. They knew that the auction had just started, and the items shown at the initial stage would just be some ordinary items. The real deal would appearter.
"Noah, why aren''t you bidding?"
Michael was surprised to see Noah, Alicia, the golden babaroo named Norvin, and Maisy, the little girl who tried to take Nightmare for herself in the Nether Realm. He felt Nightmare''s body heat rising looking at the mirror in his hands.
"So they are also here," Michael thought. He kinda expected to see familiar faces like them, after all, this was a major event in the Elon continent.
"I don''t want another Rare weapon" Noah waved off Norvin.
In the auction hall, a rogue warrior won the Rare Weapon for 200,000 gold coins. This was basically the standard price for an ordinary Rare Weapon. There were after all different qualities amongst all Rare Weapons. For example, a Rare weapon forged by a 5-star cksmith would be far more superior and powerful than a Rare weapon forged by a 4-star cksmith.
There was nothing special about the next items, they were all some Rare category spells and some ordinary pills. The auction continued for nearly an hour, but none of the special guests on the second floor had started bidding yet. On the other hand, the atmosphere downstairs had be heated. All the warriors were yelling and shouting their bids. People began to fight over item after item, especially for the ones that were rare and very hard toe by. Among all of these items, not a single one of them interested Michael or Noah.
"Alright. All the previous treasures were mere appetizers. Next up will be the real deals. Everyone, please hold your breath, try and guess what this is!" The host suddenly stopped speaking as his eyes swept over the audience. Almost as if everyone was one huge collective consciousness, the whole audience concentrated on the stand in front of the old man. Compared to the other stands, this stand took up a lot of space on the stage.
The old man smiled, walking beside the stand. The old man looked small standing near the cloth-covered stand. The stand was at least 7ft tall and 10ft wide. "If we received this item earlier, we would have promoted it just as we did to the Epic ss spells" the audience gasped. Through the mirror, Michael could see even the VIPs standing straight taking an interest in the item. He too wasn''t an exception.
There was a huge red cloth covering whatever was inside, making it so that no one could see what was underneath it. However, a huge protrusion underneath the cloth allowed many people to guess just what was being hidden. Everyone in the auction hall had their eyes glued to the red cloth-covered thing.
As the old man slowly took the ck cloth away, the hidden object underneath was finally revealed to the eagerly anticipating crowd.
Underneath was only the pitch-ck-colored body of a magical beast that weirdly resembled the Tyrannosaurus rex. A few of the closer and more observant guests could clearly see the small ck wings on the back of the magical beast. This magical beast was just quietly lying inside the cage,pletely still. Its body was about 9ft long, 6ft tall. This was when the beast was lying, not when standing on its four legs. If it was standing, it would be at least 12ft tall.
"Don''t tell me that this is the Fusion Stage Magical Beast¡."
"Fusion Stage Magical Beasts actually look like this? It''s clearly dead but how could it still radiate Arch energy?"
"Today is the day that I finally got to see a Fusion Stage Magical Beast"
"It really is a Fusion Stage Magical Beast''s carcass. It seems like a ckwing Saurus"
...
"Human, we must get this corpse no matter what" He heard Gaya''s voice through the earbud. She sounded extremely excited.
"Definitely someone from your end will get this, just make sure you know who" he could tell she was suppressing her voice so no one near her would hear her. It was no secret to Michael that if a cultivator and a magical beast of the same stage fought, most of the time, odds were at the side of the magical beast because the magical beast has a tougher body, more resistance to spell damage, and innate abilities.
Magical Beasts were also very different from humans as they would usually stick to their own areas instead of strolling out and about. If they dide across any humans, those humans would surely die. He knew how powerful a Fusion stage cultivator could be after traveling with Lah. If it wasn''t for the system leaving a mark in her soul that prevented her from hurting him, he would have shred to pieces in a blink of an eye when she attacked him. She was the most powerful cultivator he had ever met since he came to this world. A few veena notes from her could kill a hundred Core formation warriors in a few mere moments. So he was able to imagine what damage a Fusion stage beast could do.
After the Fusion Stage Magical Beast was revealed, the originally quiet auction house instantly buzzed to life. Everyone''s gazes gathered on the Fusion Stage Magical Beast''s body lying on the stage. The sounds of intense discussion and gasps of amazement ovepped ceaselessly. Among the people present, quite a few had lived for dozens of years, yet had never seen a Fusion Stage Magical Beast before now.
"Ladies and gentlemen"
Suddenly, the old man''s voice spread throughout the entire auction house. After these words, the loud and chaotic auction house gradually calmed down.
The old man standing on the stage smiled as he looked at the hundreds of thousands of people attending the auction and loudly dered,
"Ladies and gentlemen, this magical beast in front of me is indeed the Fusion Stage Magical Beast ckwingsaurus. Although it has already lost its monster core, it is still a treasure. I''m sure that everyone sitting here knows that eating a Fusion Stage Magical Beast''s meat for a long period of time will not only strengthen your body but will also improve your cultivation speed. A talented cksmith could forge powerful weapons and items using the skin and bones of the magical beast. Don''t forget that consuming a potion or pill made using the parts of this beast would significantly decrease the chances of meeting bottlenecks in your cultivation journey. However, what I''m going to tell you next is what makes this magical beast truly special"
Including Michael, everyone was on the edge of their seats expecting the old man''s next words. Many people in this world had reached the end of their lives trying to break the bottlenecks between two cultivation stages. The chances of meeting bottlenecks after breaking through to the Core Formation stage were higher than any other stage. Because of this, many were stuck on the Core Formation stage, trying desperately to break the bottleneck to reach the next stage. Although the chances of stumbling upon a bottleneck at the Core Formation stage were higher, it doesn''t mean there are no bottlenecks in the stages after Core Formation.
"The skin of this ckwingsaurus can withstand a tremendous amount of damage. Even our warriors and mages of the Core Strengthening stage couldn''t cut through the skin, and they attacked with Rare ss spells and weapons"
After hearing the host''sst sentence, the originally calm auction house once again burst into a mor. Everyone was staring intently at the Fusion Stage Magical Beast on the stage, filled with feelings of desire and greed.
At this time, everyone imagined one thing, an armor made of ckwing Saurus skin that could make them nearly invincible before a freakin Core Strengthening stage cultivator.
Chapter 211 - Michael Is Too Poor
The very next moment, the host''s voice resonated through the air once more, "Right now, the ckwing Saurus will be auctioned. The starting bid is 300,000 gold coins. Every time a new bet is proposed, it must be at least 10,000 gold coins higher than the previous bid"
"I bid 310,000 gold coins¡"
As soon as the host finished his deration, a bid was immediately heard from one of the VIP rooms.
"320,000 gold coins¡" A voice from another VIP room dered.
"330"
"350,000 coins¡"
"400,000"
One after another, frighteningly high bids rang out from the VIP rooms in the auction house. Currently, none of the people sitting in the general area of the auction house could interject.
If one wanted to purchase the ckwing Saurus, they not only had to have enough money, they also had to have a certain amount of strength. Otherwise, as soon as they left the auction house, the ckwing Saurus would get stolen from them.
That''s why the people fighting over the ckwing Saurus right now had to have reached a certain level of power, and were not at all concerned about it being stolen from them.
"Half a million coins"
The fight over the ckwing Saurus was extremely intense. In just the blink of an eye, the price had already risen to the astronomical value of half-million gold coins. Moreover, it was still rising, without showing any signs of stopping.
"600,000 gold coins. This ckwing Saurus will be our Foxlow''s. If anyone dares to fight us for it, they''ll make the entire Foxlow n their enemy" A deep voice echoed from one of the VIP rooms. Its tone was extremely arrogant, and it was evident that the person was determined to win.
"Foxlow n, as in Kingdom Dradel''s Foxlow n?"
"It''s actually the Foxlow n. They''re Kingdom Dradel''s number one n and are extremely powerful. Even the Kingdom Dradel''s lord is extremely courteous to the Foxlow n. I didn''t think that they''de to attend this event."
Hearing the words ``Foxlow n", the auction house immediately buzzed with conversation. Although the Foxlow n was not a superpower of Kingdom Dradel, their rtionship with the King of Dradel and the important noble families of Dradel gave them enough power to be an influential house there.
"Haha, Foxlow n''s people, you can''t say that. This ce is an auction house. No matter what, it will go to the highest bidder. Our House Fisher will bid 1 million gold coins. This ckwing Saurus will be ours for sure." A slightly aged voice rang out from the opposite VIP room in response to the Foxlow n member.
"Isn''t the House Fisher a power from Royal Land? "
"The House Fisher is extremely low-profile. Even the Royal family of Royal Land avoids shes with House Fisher."
"Yea, I remember a few years back, one of the rich, spoiled princes offended a young miss of the House Fisher, and the prince was mercilessly beaten by the miss''s bodyguards. Everyone thought the Royal family would be outraged at House Fisher but instead, the Royal family issued an apology notice to House Fisher"
"No shit, it''s said that the House Fisher is actually the strongest family in Royal Land. However, because they''re extremely low-key, they normally don''t show themselves, to the point where some people have never even heard of them"
"You''re absolutely correct. I wasn''t aware of them until I went to MorningStar and met Alex Fisher"
"House Fisher...isn''t Celina''s boyfriend''s name Alex Fisher?"? Michael thought after the little quarrel among the VIPs.
After the House Fisher had spoken, the only sounds heard were of a few people discussing among themselves. For a while, nobody else bid. Even the previously determined Foxlow n had suddenly fallen mute in a period of hesitation.
"Royal Land, House Fisher" Michael took a mental note of this family. Based on the scene unfolding in front of him, he could already see that the House Fisher was quite powerful.
After a moment of silence, an extremely energetic, middle-aged man finally said from within another box, "Haha, I didn''t think that the House Fisher would be so interested in this ckwing Saurus. In that case, our House Oswen won''t enter this fight over this magical beast. I hope that the House Fisher will return the favor by not bidding for the next item"
"Haha, of course. We won''t participate in the battle over the next one." The slightly aged voice from the House Fisher could be heard once more, this time with a hint of a smile in his tone.
"In that case, our House Oswen won''t bid for this ckwing Saurus"
"Our MorningStar Sect will also give up on it¡."
....
After House Fisher''s deration, powers that weren''t at all weak began to give up on the fight over the ckwing Saurus one after another, giving the House Fisher some face.
"Hehe, I thank everyone for House Fisher" An elder from the House Fisherughed gently.
"Human, don''t bid. We''ll take the beast in some other ways'''' Michael heard Gaya''s voice. He wanted to screw them by bidding for the beast but he chose not to because this was not the time nor the ce to make a powerful enemy for the sake of petty grudge against Alex and Celina. Besides, as Gaya said, they could always steal the ckwing Saurus from them.
After everyone stopped bidding for the beast, the ckwing Saurusd was given to the House Fisher for the sessful bid of 1 million gold coins.
"We shall now proceed to auction the next item. Bring it up!"
This time the old man lifted the cloth to reveal an old worn-out spell scroll.
"This is one of the Epic spells you''ve all been waiting for. This spell will let the caster conjure a storm around the position of the caster. The storm willst for two full minutes. it can obliterate even a group Core Strengthening cultivators and heavily wound a Soul Refining cultivator" the people in both downstairs and the VIP rooms gasped in shock as the host continued,
"For the obvious reasons, we cannot let one of our mages cast the spell. But you can imagine its power from what I just said. For two whole minutes, you''ll be a God of Thunder. The starting price is 500,000 gold coins, with each minimal bid being 20,000 gold coins more.
As soon as the host finished talking, a frightening amount of prices started to be called out from the audience. Perhaps it was because this was one of the Epic ss spells, everyone started to battle it out even more intensely than before they did for the ckwing Saurus. Quickly, the original price of 500,000 had reached up to triple its amount.
"1.5million¡"
"1.6million"
In a few moments, the price of the spell had reached a price of 1.6million.
Hearing the endlessly increasing price of gold coins, the seated Michael couldn''t help signing. His total wealth was only 3.5 million but these families were willing to spend millions to acquire a spell scroll. Even if he wanted to get this spell, now he simply couldn''t.
"The House Oswen bids 1.65million¡"
"The Foxlow n bids 1.7million¡"
"The Golden Valley bids 1.73 million¡"
The prices continued to increase as many sides continued to fight bitterly over this spell and they increased the bid by more than 20,000 gold coins each time.
Quickly, the ckwing Saurus had surpassed the 1.8million coins mark.
"The Foxlow n bids 1.9million gold coins."
Immediately the Foxlow n offered the high price of 1.9million gold coins, making many gasps for air in shock.
An Epic spell was extremely rare in Elon Continent and any single Epic spell could make a cultivator dangerously powerful even if the cultivator wasn''t at higher stages of cultivation. Even the superpowers in Elon didnt have more than a couple of Epic spells under their belt and adding one more than their rival would always give them the edge. Hence, the superpowers went all in for the spell.
Before the auction house could resume its price war, another voice called out, "The House Oswen bids 2million"
The House Oswen had one-upped the pressure on the Foxlow n.
"Bang!" Then suddenly, another sound came out from the Foxlow n box.
Michael saw there are a total of 5 middle-aged men and an elder sitting in the Foxlow n VIP box. One of the middle-aged men dressed in a white robe heavily mmed his fist on the wooden table in front of him, creating an indent in it.
"House Oswen, you dare topete with us, the Foxlow n? Fine, we''ll make you regret it." The white-robed middle-aged man said through clenched teeth, a dark expression on his face.
The other people had unsightly expressions on their faces.
"If we continue fighting like this, I''m afraid that the Epic spell price will mber up to a point that even we cannot reach," The elder said with a downcast expression.
"What other choice do we have? This fucking spell has attracted quite a few people. Now, all the powers still fighting over it aren''t any weaker than our n." The white-robed middle-aged man said in exasperation.
"2.1million"
At this moment, another voice dered a price. Seeing the price climb higher and higher, the expressions of the few people from the Foxlow n became more and more unsightly.
The middle-aged man''s eyes shed fiercely, and he shouted, "Foxlow n bids 2.2million"
"Jesus Christ! I should start nning to rob these people," Michael thought, raising his brows.
[Only if the host has adventured out more, you could have found a subordinate with a forger trait. Then, you would have been able to forge a spell to make a shit load of gold coins] the system scolded Michael. Its voice was not at all friendly, in fact, it sounded extremely annoyed.
The VIPs continued to fight for the Epic spell until House Oswen won the spell for a whopping 2.5 million gold coins. Although Michael was jealous of their wealth, he was also happy thinking that his herbs had the chance to sell for more than he had been expecting.
After the ckwing Saurus and the Epic spell, everyone was at the edge of their seats waiting for the next item. Many couldn''t sit still without craning their heads to scan the stage.
"Something''s wrong" Michael could see the genuine smile on the old man''s face disappear as it was being reced by a fake one. Almost as if he was trying to smile and look calm. The old man walked to the stand which was not as big as the ckwing Saurus''s.
"Ohe on"
"Show us the item!"
"Yeah, show us!"
The people downstairs began to shout at the old man''s sloth-like movements. Finally, with a small sigh, the old man removed the cloth to reveal nothing but a round pebble.
"What the fuck?"
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I''ve been thinking about releasing two chapters a day and creating a 10 chapter privilege for 470 coins. If you show me your support by leaving chapterments saying ''GO FOR IT AUTHOR''? I''ll get straight to work.
Chapter 212 - It鈥檚 Gaya Time
When everyone looked at the round rock, they were taken aback by surprise because it radiated only the amount of energy a normal rock on the streets would. The rock had a greyish outside and no matter how close the people looked at it, they couldn''t guess what''s special about the rock.
[A Demon soul] Michael the system said with a sliver of surprise in its voice.
"A Demon soul? This world has demons too?"
[No. A demon is an extraterrestrial being]
[The system''s level is too low to exin the origins of demons]
"Thought so" he sighed.
[However, acquiring this item would earn the host a demon subordinate with 100%]
Michael''s previously disappointed face lit up brightly by the system''s words.
Yet, he was with the system long enough to know that there must be a catch behind this tempting offer. He couldn''t sense any traps from the system''s voice but he knew for sure.
[Of course, you have to pay the system to bring the demon soul back to life from its long slumber]
"I''m not even a bit surprised. just name the price"
[15,000 badass points]
"So that rock is really a demon soul?" he wasn''t surprised about the price but he was still surprised about the fact that stone is a demon soul.
[No. That''s just a rock from space. The demon soul is inside the rock. Only the system is capable of extracting the demon soul from the rock and bringing to life] the system proudly said as it almost sounded like brag to Michael.
"It''s so cliche you know. A useless looking thing in the auction ended up being the most op thing"
[It''s not cliche if no one in the entire world including the main character couldn''t use the item]
"You think I''m the main character in this world?" he chuckled.
[With the system, it''s the host''s choice to be either a hero or a viin to this world. Now go and get the demon soul]
"Jeez, you''re so demanding" he exited the system with an amused smile. Looking at the rock on the stage and recalling the system''s words about 100% loyal subordinates, he felt extremely excited as he rubbed his palms together.
"Everyone, our appraising team has found that this is a Primordial Rock. As most of you know, anything that dates back to billion years is called Primordial also known as the era of gods. Anything that belongs to that era is extremely valuable and powerful. Although you''re only witnessing a sliver of energy radiation, our appraisal team is confident that with enough time, one can bring out the true potential of this Primordial rock"
"So you guys found nothing?" someone from downstairs shouted at the host.
"I never heard someone try to make a rock sound so special"
"Gaya, go for the rock" he put his hand on his right ear, ordering Gaya to bid on the rock.
"The fuck are you talking about? That''s just a fucking rock" she growled but she focused all her senses on the rock to see if there''s something special about the rock, so did Nightmare.
"Alright if you''re interested in that rock, it must be special though I don''t see anything special. But why aren''t you bidding?"
"Because I''m in a VIP room. If I bid on the rock, the other VIPs would think it must be something special and start bidding but if someone from the downstair bid, they wouldn''t go for it"
"Plus, they would think you''re just stupid and you are" Nightmare ced his little mouth near Michael''s ear and spoke.
"I''ll strangle you lizard!"
"The starting bid for this Primordial rock is 20,000 gold coins. Each new bid must be increased by 5000 gold coins" The old man himself wouldn''t buy this rock. However, it came from the personal collection of Julius, so he believed it must be something special.
"Fuck it, 25,000" Gaya shouted from downstairs.
"Huh?"
"Who is this girl?"
"Why is she bidding on a rock?"
Gaya tried not to react to thementsing from all directions. She noticed the host himself raising his brows for a second before wiping off the surprised look from his face.
"30,000" surprisingly another gentle yet cold voice sounded from one of the VIP rooms. Michael frowned as he recognized this voice in a blink of an eye.
"Who is that?" Nightmare asked, looking at the white-clothed beauty in the mirror in Michael''s hands.
"Alicia"
"35" Gaya shouted, gritting her teeth. Just like Michael, she too recognized the voice. Gaya wanted to jump out of the auction and strangle Alicia to death because by bidding from the VIP room, she just spoiled their n.
[The host must get the item from himself before someone messes with the rock. Any energy disruptions would kill the demon soul inside]
"Alicia, why are you bidding on that rock?" Noah asked while Gaya and Alicia were fighting for the rock.
"Something tells me that''s not a normal rock"
"Stop, that''s just a rock," Noah said as Michael heaved a sigh of relief.
Noah wasn''t wrong about the rock. The system itself told Michael that only it could bring the demon soul back to life from the rock and no one else could do it. If Noah started bidding for the rock, it would have shaken Michael''s core because it could mean that Noah too has a system. However, now Michael was absolutely positive that Noah doesn''t have a system. Someone else having a system would have screwed Michael''s n big time.
"45,000" this time it wasn''t Alicia or Gaya who bid but someone from the House Oswen. This was why Michael didn''t bid as the VIPs were starting to bid for the rock. The noble houses like Oswen were too rich as they could spend even a hundred thousand or more gold coins to buy the rock just to make sure whether it''s something special or not.
"Alicia, don''t bid for the rock. We are thinking about recruiting someone from the Oswen family to the Guardians, so I would prefer if you don''t offend them for a simple rock"
Michael''s face darkened, realizing they are going to hike up the price. However, he couldn''t simply let go of this item. He prepared to go to any lengths to get an item that was rmended by the system.
"You will pay for this bitch" he gritted his teeth, looking at Alicia in the mirror.
"50,000" Gaya raised her hand. After House Oswen began to bid, no one dared tough at the bidding anymore. Except for the host who was standing on the stage with a wide grin on his face.
"100,000" the elder from House Oswen doubled the bid as the people gasped again, shocked by their wealth.
"105,000" Gaya was infuriated but never doubled or past the five thousand gold coins mark.
"150," one could say that the elder is starting to be annoyed by Gaya.
"Girl, stop bidding, you''re not going to get that rock, '''' one of the elders from House Oswen''s VIP roomughed at Gaya.
"Old fucker, I''m going to get that rock and shove it up your grandma''s ass" for a moment, everything stopped moving after her words resounded through the hall. The people were dumbstruck as their jaws almost dropped to the ground.
"What are you doing?" Michael quickly asked. He was struggling to decide whether tough or knock her on the head for her badmouth.
"I know these fucks, let me deal with this'''' she hushed Michael as he decided to let her take the lead with this. He knew she could take care of herself and after getting the rock, they could just teleport away from Icefair. Considering there was a no-fight inside the auction manor rule, House Oswen had to wait for them outside but she could just change her face to escape their wrath. Unless House Oswen brought a Soul Refiner or anyone above the Soul Refining stage, no one could see through her mask.
"How dare you!" the elders of House Oswen shouted as loud as they could in boiling anger. Their faces turned blood red as Michael saw one of them punch the table in front of him to pieces.
"155,000" Gaya ced her bid, ignoring the shouts.
"Girl, what are you doing? They are going to kill you" an old man sitting beside Gaya warned her.
"Oh my god, who is this girl?"
"She''s dead"
"No one disrespected a noble house like that in public like this"
"They are going to kill her"
"Yes, this is why I love auctions!"
Some felt afraid while many felt excited thinking about the uing killing.
"That girl is just a Body Refining stage cultivator, why did she provoke them like that?"
"Hundred and si-"
"So you old fucks want the rock for yourselves to shove it up your old asses?"
Before the elder could ce the next bid, Gaya interrupted his words by provoking them. Again, the whole hall went into death silence.
"I''ll kill you!"
"Gentleman" the host felt pity for Gaya as he knew they were going to kill her but when he saw the House Oswen was trying to start a fight, he interjected to enforce thew.
"Remember the rules, you can settle your scores outside the Phoenix manor premise. And young miss, please be respectful towards your elders"
"Unless there''s a rule saying be respectful towards the elders inside Phoenix manor auction house, shut the fuck up and do your job"
The old man quickly shut his mouth. He had no replies as there was really no rule mentioning that participants must be respectful towards anyone.
Again, they never came across provoking like this in the past.
"155,000 once"
"You are dead, you hear me? You are fucking dead!" an elder screamed from his room.
"Hundr-"
"You must love shoving rocks up your asses so much" just when the elders were about to ce the bid, she provoked them again.
"155,000 twice"
"Shut up old fucks or I''ll keep dragging your fucking family''s respect through the mud" she stood up from her chair, showing her middle fingers at House Oswen''s VIP room. She then turned her gaze at the host,
"What are you waiting for? Sell the rock to me before I find a stick to beat your old ass"
Chapter 213 - Bid War For Michael鈥檚 Herbs
"155,000 going thrice. Sold to the girl with number 21!" Finally, Michael heaved a sigh of relief. If it wasn''t for the mask, what Gaya did would have brought a cmity upon them. Thanks to the system, she only had to get the rock from the auction house, change her face somewhere private, and simply walk out of the auction house with him.
"Good, we will take the Primordial stone from her dead body after our men took turns with her"
"Not before? I fuck all your women to death" without even standing up, she just showed them the middle finger looking at the rock on the stage.
"Who is this girl?"
"Noah, I think you found your match in provoking nobles" the golden babaroo, Norvinughed.
"For a change, it''s not going to be us running for our lives," Alicia said coldly.
"I''ve never seen a stupid girl like her before," Norvin said, munching on an apple.
"Unless she has a way to escape" Noah didn''t think of the foul-mouthed girl as being stupid. On the contrary, he could sense she definitely has a way to escape.
"The next item we are going to reveal will be something that you can buy nowhere else. This is a must-buy for Alchemists but it doesn''t mean warriors have no use for them. On the contrary, any alchemist regardless of their star rank could create miraculous pills and potions with these"
The old man slowly pulled the red cloth of another stand to reveal a basket with silk apples and various rare herbs in it.
"This basket contains five four thousand years old Silk apples, two thousand years old Lake Petal, two three thousand years old Void Chervil, and five four thousand years old Queen Grass. Every single herb is extremely fresh and retains all its medicinal qualities"
Numerous outcries sounded within the auction ground when they heard the names of the herbs. Even those who weren''t familiar with the herbs'' uses, knew that anything so old must be extremely rare and valuable. Those who were Alchemists or familiar with Alchemy felt a chill running through the spines as their bodies shivered. Every single herb the host named was a Legendary herb that could be used to make powerful potions and pills. They also knew that these herbs only grew in ces that many didn''t dare to go.
"Are you interested?" Alicia saw Noah suddenly sit up straight. She guessed that since Noah himself is a 3-star Alchemist, he must be thinking to get the herbs for himself.
"Juicy '''' Norvin drooled, staring at the Silk apples. His eyes sparkled as he involuntarily reached his hands out at the apples.
Noah''s eyes stared intently at the basket. A wide grin appeared on his face, "finally something interesting"
"Host Goron, you must tell us where these herbs came from. Considering each herb''s medicinal quality is influenced by the ce they grew, an alchemist has to know about the birthce of the herb" Michael saw a youngster in forest green winter robes. Behind the youngster was a group of youngsters of his same age wearing the same forest green robes.
The old man knew the question came from one of the disciples of Alchemy king Gabriel himself. The appraisers had already given him a couple of ces these might havee from but before he could give the names, another calm voice appeared from another VIP room.
"They are from the Treacherous Ocean" the mere mention of the name Treacherous Ocean made everyone gasp in shock. Many turned their heads in the direction of the voice. They couldnt see through the ss to identify the person who just answered.
"How do you know?" the disciples asked from his VIP room
"Because I picked them from there" As he said, he retrieved theser he used in the process of making spiders. He then used theser to cut a small round in the ss.
Everyone was speechlessly staring at the round forming up in the mirror. Because the second floor was built in an open square shape, except for a few VIPs, the rest of them could see the hole along with everyone downstairs.
Soon, a little dragon came through the hole carrying a silk apple in its ws. It flew straight to the stage where it hovered above the old man''s head.
"A Dragon!"
"Oh my god!"
"Look at its ws, it''s carrying a silk apple!"
"Who is this person?"
Many mumbled among themselves. The entire auction was paused by the sudden change of events. At the moment, every pair of eyes gawking between the dragon and the VIP room it came from.
"Ghost"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2600 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 4500 badass points]
...
"He certainly knows how to make an entrance without showing himself," Norvin said as Maisy, the little girl stared at the dragon without batting an eye. Her eyes slightly welled up. Alicia gently patted the little girl on the head.
"Human, what are you doing?" Gaya asked, "promoting ourselves and if we are lucky, we might end up making friends with some of the noble houses here"
"Or enemies" she replied
"They are the same" Nightmare said and dropped the apple as the old man quickly caught the apple. They saw the little dragon flying back to the VIP room with opened mouths.
"Our appraisers did find out that these herbs could havee from the Treacherous OCean and now we have confirmation from a 5-star Alchemist, the Ghost of River town himself. It''s an honor to have you as our guest, Young Master Ghost" the old man bowed in the direction of Michael''s VIP room. He was old enough to understand why he revealed himself.
"He said he picked it from the Treacherous OCean"
"Did he venture into the Treacherous OCean?!"
"Oh my god, he must have"
"Holy shit"
Including the elders sitting in the VIP room became restless realizing the meaning of Michael''s previous words.
"Totally worth it" the badass points kept increasing without slowing down. It put a wide grin on Michael''s face. He was grateful for the disciples who asked a question that provided him with an opportunity to make an entrance.
"So he''s here" Noah stared at Michael''s VIP room. Ever since he was born, he never felt in debt to someone else other than his father and mother, However, for the first time, he felt indebted to Ghost after he heard how Ghost saved not only his sister but also his mother. When he heard everything that happened while he was away, he was shaken to the core. Noah couldn''t even imagine what could have happened to his family if it wasn''t for Ghost. Despite his slight disapproval of Ghost for being selfish and using his talents to make money instead of helping others, he wanted to thank him. Noah heard from Peyton how he used the Netherel attack in River town to his own advantage. If it was Noah, he would have given all the healing potion for free to those who were hurt instead of using their misery to make money.
Moreover, although Noah knew he didn''t steal the dragon-like Maisy wasining, his fondness for the little girl made him take a dim view of Ghost furthermore.
Regardless of what he thinks of Ghost, Noah knew one thing for certain, if it wasn''t for Ghost, his family would have been torn apart. For saving his family, he wanted to thank him regardless of Peyton''s strong disagreement.
"The starting price of the treasure basket is 400,000 gold coins. Any increase in the bid must not be less than 20,000" The old man smiled and spoke. He nced at the auction grounds where private conversations had erupted. "So¡ everyone, please ce your bid"
The expression of the old man did not change when faced with thispletely silent situation. A warm smile remained on his face as he knew the VIPs would throw their gold coins to acquire these precious herbs, especially the disciples of Gabriel.
"450,000" The silence continued for around half a minute before it was broken by a bid that was transmitted from one of the VIP rooms.
This bidding price had just sounded when it appeared to have triggered a chain reaction. Bids were cried out one after another. Within less than a couple of seconds, the price was raised to 700,000.
"Gaya, increase the price"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I''ll monitor the VIP rooms and let you know when to stop"
"800,000"
"Shit, It''s that girl again. Alright, alright, I won''t curse" she added before some nobles might back off, afraid of her bad-mouthing their family. After all, even if they did kill her, the rival families must use this to ridicule them for years. However, after hearing that she won''t curse, the VIPs somewhat felt relieved while many in the downstairs felt disappointed.
"850,000" Noah ced the bid.
The sudden leap in price immediately caused an uproar to resound across the entire auction. Michael was happy and shocked at the same time. He knew Noah''s family was not a superpower but still, Noah seemed loaded.
Compared to Michael, Noah did have way too many enemies but he also killed many and their pay cubes ended up inside Noah''s space ring. Plus, he had the financial backing of the Guardian guild, Xanali, and Alicia.
"I need those herbs no matter the price," Noah''s words put a smile on Michael''s face as he gave the signal to Gaya to increase the bid.
"880,000"
"900,000 gold coins"
"House Fisher, 950,000 gold coins" The noble houses began to start using the House names to intimidate but Michael knew Noah would back off and it worked in his favor.
Chapter 214 - Michael Is Rich Again
"House Kane bids 1 million gold coins'' '' for the first time since the auction started, House Kane entered the bidding war for the herbs.
"House Kane huh?" Michael recalled meeting Adam Kane, a prodigy of Golden Valley during Heaven''s gatepetition. He was one of the four celebrity disciples who came to judge thepetition along with Alex Fisher, Cellina, and Sadie.
"1.1 million gold coins" Noah ced the bid.
"Humph! 1.2million" an elder from House Fisher harrumphed before cing a bid of 1.2million gold coins.
"1.4million" Gaya raised the bid by 200,000 thousand after getting the signal from Michael. Sitting in his VIP room, he had no time to be happy about the ongoing bidding war as he kept monitoring each and every VIP room, trying to learn their highest bidding point.
"1.6million"
An elder from the House Kane room bid once again, and he increased the bid with another 200,000 thousand, causing the auction sight to be intense.
"1.6 million! Those noble houses are filthy rich!"
"House Kane and House Fisher are always at their throats in Royalnd. Although their rivalry runs deep, they never entered into an all-out war.
An auction ce is one of the few ces they could fight head to head without risking a war"
"We''re gonna be so rich" Nightmareughed happily looking at the bidding war.
"So House Kane finally decided to join heh?" An Elder from House Fisher teased the elders in House Kane''s room. Michael stopped jumping between the VIP rooms and focused on the quarrel between House Kane and House Fisher. Because of Celina, it was inevitable that he would fight Alex Fisher. At that time, House Fisher may have be his enemy but if there was an enmity between House Kane and House Fisher he could exploit it to be House Kane''s ally.
"We rather don''t join than begging other houses to back down"
"Humph! 2million" the elder of House Fisher''s voice became angrier after House Kane ridiculed them about the earlier event where House Fisher asked House Oswen to back down from bidding for ckwing Saurus.
After calling out his bid, House Fisher elder continued, "Let''s see who has the balls to bid against us"
"2.5million" Even before the elder could close his mouth, Gaya raised the bid by another 500,000 thousand gold coins. Many people watching this scene turned their gazes at Gaya who shouted at the host,
"What the fuck are you waiting for? Is this the way the great phoenix auction manor does things? How could you let these old fucks bully people not to bid? Shouldn''t this be a fair auction? How can we, normal people, bid if those old fucks threatened to kill us if we did?"
"Yeah! How could you?"
"The girl''s right. The Phoenix auction manor should condone actions such as this" Almost everyone in the downstairs started to yell and throw their shoes at the old man.
Seeing this, the old man''s friendly smile was reced with a cold expression, he immediately said, "Attention, friend from the house Fisher, this is a fair auction, you can''t disturb other people''s decision"
Usually, the Phoenix auction manor would let the noble houses fight or bully others because the Phoenix manor valued gold coins more than the happiness of people downstairs. End of the day, bullies brought more coins than the bullied. This was the first time a girl from the downstairs almost riled up the crowd to this point.
"House Fisher bid 3 million" As the elders did not hear the old man''s words, they ced the next bid but the people downstairs were somewhat calmed down. After seeing Gaya returning to her seat, many followed her lead to continue to enjoy the bidding war.
We have a 3million bids. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if you miss it, you''re going to regret it for the rest of your lives. Does anyone have a higher bid?"
The old man asked. When he found out that no one else wanted to bid any higher, his face contained a smile. As a qualified auctioneer, he clearly knew that this basket full of Legendary herbs and Silk apples would at least reach 5 to 5.5 million. But, because of House Fisher''s threatening words, no one else dared bid further. This really pissed the old man off.
"Since no one else is bidding, I''ll now announce; the Shangguan n wins this for 3 mill-¡"
"4 million."
Before the old man could finish speaking, a calm voice sounded out from Noah''s room. The old man was startled for a moment, then he immediately showed a joyful expression.
"Damn! Who is that person? He directly ramped the price up to 4 million, incredible!"
"I think it''s Noah who bid just now. That youngster is incredibly overbearing! Not only has he offended Aragoth and few other major powers, but he''s also now going to offend the House Fisher" some who recognized Noah''s voice said as his words spread across the entire downstairs.
"He doesn''t give a shit about them as he''s now a member of Guardian guild"
......
The audience was agitated, especially when they found out that the person who bid was that young man, Noah.? "Haha, good! VIP number 3 has just bid 4 million. Does anyone else have a higher bid? Anyone?"
The old man wasughing out loud, and his mood was instantly lightened. Within private room number three, Noah was calmly sitting on the sofa. He didn''t want any conflict to arise with House Fisher. He could let go of anything else, but not this basket of valuable herbs.
The audience burst into an uproar. The entire auction hall was filled with gasps of shock. It was hard to imagine how furious House Fisher was right now. Many noble houses had just backed off, but now there were two reckless youngsters who stood out and fought with them.
"Humph! 5 million."
The elder from House Fisher snickered coldly. As a superpower and proud noble house of Royal Land, it would be really embarrassing if they lost to either this young man or the young girl sitting downstairs. Therefore, he increased the bid by a million.
"5.5 million."
But, just after House Fisher bid, Noah''s voice sounded out from private room three once again.
"These kids are really taking House Fisher on a ride" Michael saw the elders from House Kaneughing at House Fisher. They didn''t seem like they really wanted the herbs but rather seemed like they wanted to mess with House Fisher.
"Let''s just join the party, 6.5 million" One of the elders ced the bid knowing that House Fisher would rather pay the price than losing to House Kane.
The 6.5 million bid once again sent a storm through the audience. An even greater uproar arose in the audience, no one could remain calm any longer. Even the host who stood on the auction stage was so shocked that his mouth was wide open. 6.5 million gold coins, had far exceeded the actual value of the herb basket. He didn''t expect the price to reach such heights.
Right at this moment, Noah and the young girl''s image had be huge in his mind; he was starting to fall in love with them. As an auctioneer, if he could make the price of an item exceed the actual value, he would be able to get a huge reward.
"7.5million"
"Insane! This girl is insane! 7.5 million gold coins, how can she be so rich? And why is she sitting with us instead of in one of those VIP rooms?"
"9 million" Noah silenced the crowd with his bid. While looking at Noah''s bodynguage, Michael couldn''t be 100% positive that he would go for higher bids, therefore, he ordered Gaya to stand down. Michael didn''t want to push his luck.
"It''s called being filthy rich. Looks like Noah is going to get these herbs no matter what, and he doesn''t even care that doing so is the same as offending the House Fisher. I wonder if the house Fisher will make an even higher bid."
"I don''t think so. They aren''t stupid, 9 million has exceeded the herb basket''s actual value. Furthermore, they also don''t know if Noah will make another bid"
"I don''t think that foulmouthed girl gonna go for the herbs anymore"
"Yeah, look at her. Two reckless youngsters stoodShe''s not raising her hands''''
......
The audience was heated. Everyone was discussing amongst themselves. The name Noah had once again be a hot topic.
"Good, very good!"
One of the elders of House Fisher said the word ''good'' twice, and his voice was filled with rage. Anyone could tell how angry he was, and how much he hated the young man.
"Noah, I guess you''ve managed to piss off a superpower once again after all"
Norvin, the golden babarooughed. The monkey couldn''t take his eyes from the Silk apples. On the other hand, Noah wasn''t stupid as he knew the herb basket wasn''t worth the price he paid but what the others dont know is that he has an ancient potion recipe that requires these herbs to make. Once he consumes the potion, he would certainly increase his star level in Alchemy. In other words, he paid 9 million to be a 4-star Alchemist.
A few moments after the basket disappeared from the stage, the door to the third private room was opened. The auction house branch manager Vargas carried a silver te in her hand as she walked into the room. On top of the te was a golden card
"What an astonishing deal, young master Noah"
She said with a beautiful smile on her face. "Keep this and bring it to my room on the down floors to pay and get your item"
"Will do, Miss Vargas"
Chapter 215 - Making Friends
After Michael''s herbs were sold to Noah, many items such as weapons, spell scrolls including an epic scroll, and artifacts were auctioned to the highest bidders. Most of the items ended up in the hands of noble houses as expected.
"I picked up a tail" Exiting the downstairs, Gaya saw a couple of bodyguards of House Oswen following her behind.
"I put the gold into your space ring. Just get the rock and find a ce to change your face"
"Young Master Ghost, someone is waiting to meet you," Michael said, opening the door to see the servant boy he saw when he entered the auction house.
"Who?" He wasn''t surprised and in fact, he was expecting someone to meet him. After all, he just showed everyone that he still has one Silk apple remaining. The servant boy then took out the Silk apple he gave to the host a while ago. The boy''s hands were shaking as cold drops of sweat appeared on his forehead. He tried his best not to make any sudden movements. It was obvious that the boy was terrified of Nightmare regardless of Nightmare''s cultivation level. Nightmare on the other hand just avoided making direct eye contact with the boy. The little dragon hated when people were terrified of him for no reason. On the contrary to Gaya''s advice to make people fear you, Nightmare didn''t enjoy making people terrified of him.
"The elders of House Kane and House Fisher, Young Master. House Kane is waiting for you in VIP room one and House Fisher is in VIP room two. If you say the word, I''ll lead you to them"? For a few seconds, Michael just stood there calcting the pros and cons about meeting either of them for the third time in his mind.
Taking a deep breath, he decided to go with what he always nned,
"Let''s go meet House Kane first", that being said, the servant boy began to walk towards the rooms at the far end of the second floor.
While he was following the boy, one of the oak doors mmed open as a group of middle-aged as well as old men stormed out of the room. Their ck hair with strands of grey hair was neatlybed to the back while some of them sported a ponytail. Michael could smell a faint fragrance ofvender and weirdly, the smell of hair gel. All of them wore a brown long coat with a silver embodiment of a panther on their chest. On their backs hung long golden spears that kept radiating an extremely low-frequency whistling sound.
"I want that bitch alive!"
"We have to make an example out of her!"
"I''ve already sent the men tailing her. The moment she steps out of the auction manor premise, we''ll get her" in their anger, they failed to notice Michael walking past them.
"House Oswen," Michael thought. He noticed that all of these men were at the Core Strengthening stage. If Gaya was to get into trouble with them, unless she could perform a miracle, she would be captured and probably tortured to death. Good thing, she had the mask to change her face wherever she wanted. All she had to do was find thedy''s restroom, change her face, put on new clothes, and walk out of the room as a new girl.
"They''re really pissed," Nightmaremented, staring at the disappearing figures. Gradually the sound of their boots hitting the wooden floor lessened.
The servant boy didn''t dare toment on the scene as he silently led Michael to a door that had a beautifully calligraphed number 1 was drawn on. The door was just opposite of the door that had number two drawn on.
"Young Master" the boy halted his steps, gesturing at Michael to enter the room.
"Keep it" Michael retrieved a pouch with a few gold coins in it before throwing the pouch to the boy. Just the clinking sound of the gold coins was enough to make the nervous boy smile in excitement.
"Thank you, Young Master" The boy grinned ear to ear as Michael entered the room after giving a gentle pat on the boy''s shoulder.
When he entered VIP room number one, he was weed by three elders who had the looks of an old man in his early or mid-sixties. A wide fake smile was stered on their faces. Behind those three elders stood seven bulky bodyguards. The bodyguards were armed to the teeth as Michael couldn''t see a part in their body that hadn''t been covered by metal.
Anyone with a little battle experience could tell this much armor would restrict movement speed, especially since the wearer was just at the Core Formation level. A naked eye could only see ten people in the room but Michael could see with his Environmental scanning on top of his eyes. His scanning revealed that there are five more level 10 Core Formation beings hiding in the dark corners of the room as well as above him.
Nightmare also noticed these hidden beings,
"System you know the drill. If something goes wrong, buy a teleportation scroll and activate it"
[The host means buy two teleportation scrolls right? One to teleport the host to subordinate Gaya and another one for teleport the both of you out of here]
"She can change her face and get out of here" he telepathically said to the system.
"Master Ghost, it''s nice to finally meet a gifted youngster like you. I''m Walter Kane of House Kane" the old man with a scar across his left eye greeted Michael with a wide smile.
"This is Edison and Martin, my fellow elders of House Kane" he repeated the words, House Kane, with a sense of pride and glory. Edison and Martin looked like typical old men in their sixties, nothing special about them except for the shiny letter ''K'' embroidered on their chest.
Michael shook each elder''s hand firmly as they gestured at him towards the sofa.
"Nice Dragon" Elder Edison said, staring at Nightmare. His greediness could be seen in his eyes yet the greediness quickly disappeared when his eyes fell on Michael.
"Yeah, got him from Nether Realm. So, Elders although it''s nice to see figures such as yourselves of a proud house, I can sense there''s something you wish to talk about"
"Not a person beating around the bush heh? I like it" Elder Martin chuckled approvingly towards Michael''s attitude of straightly getting into the business.
"We do have something we wish to talk to you about. But before we do that, we''d like to know more about what you said earlier, especially the part where you got the herbs from the Treacherous Ocean" Although Elder Walter had the decency not to show his doubt on his face, Michael could see the Elders'' doubt as clear as a day in their eyes.
"If you''re thinking how the hell did a Core Formation guy like me survive the Treacherous ocean, I didn''t, at least not alone. I had the help of a Fusion Stage cultivator" His words immediately shocked the elders as Michael continued,
"I cannot reveal his name as he likes his anonymity so much. Long story short, he wanted my Alchemy skills inside the Treacherous ocean in return for his word to protect me" he effortlessly lied through his teeth but as any professional liar would do, he mixed a small amount of truth into the lie to make it believable.
"A Fusion stage cultivator" Elders mumbled. After Michael''s lie, the elders slightly leaned forward instead of leaning on their back as a sign of fear and respect because anyone with a Fusion Stage cultivator as his friend must be treated with respect. The elders did know he might be lying or telling them the truth, either way, they didn''t want to get on the wrong side of this young man. If they did, the majority of House Kane would sacrifice them to avoid a conflict with a Fusion stage cultivator. After all, these elders were not part of the main Kane family. However, it didn''t mean these elders were expendable and powerless. On the contrary, these elders held quite a lot of power through connections and favors inside the family. It''s just that this power wouldn''t save them if they were to be a reason for a conflict with a Fusion stage cultivator.
"How else could I get out of the Treacherous Ocean alive?" Michael chuckled to lighten up the mood.
The elders and the bodyguards alsoughed with Michael,
" I wonder if the House Fisher will also have doubts about my adventure into the Treacherous Ocean" He asked, ying with Nightmare by gently rubbing the little dragon''s head.
"Well, we can find out when we meet them next door" Nightmare''s words caused the elders'' smiles to vanish from their faces in a blink of an eye.
"They are waiting for you?" Elder Walter asked, leaning forward. His usually calm face now seemed tensed,
"Yeah, but I chose to meet House Kane first. So elders, why am I here?"
After the elders realized that the House Fisher might be looking to meet him for the same reason they did, they chose not to waste any more time, asking irrelevant questions.
"We want to buy the Silk apple and any herbs you still have"
"If you have any," Elder Walter said after Elder Martin.
"I do have two more silk apples and a few more herbs. I''ll give them to you but I don''t want gold coins'' '' his answer didn''t put a smile on their faces, instead, it made the elders frown.
"What do you want?" Elder Walter asked
"I want to be House Kane''s friend. As you elders know, my growth is already making me quite a few enemies. I prefer to have more friends in powerful ces rather than enemies"
Surprisingly Elder Walter grinned hearing Michael''s words. In his old mind, he already decided to gamble on Ghost''s future. Looking at Ghost''s cultivation level at a young age, he was positive that Ghost would break into the Half Immortal stage or even Immortal stage. If House Kane were to ally with him from this stage, it would be House Kane who would make a powerful ally. Besides, allying with Ghost first would prevent House Fisher from gaining an ally like Ghost.
Chapter 216 - Preparing To Leave The Northern Continents I
Just by meeting House Kane first instead of House Fisher, Michael may have pissed off the elders of House Fisher. After what he witnessed in the auction, House Fisher didn''t seem like a family that ys by the rules and epts a fair defeat. It was kinda obvious that if he beat Alex in the uing tournament, he would get into the bad side of House Fisher.
"Think of this as a mutually beneficial rtionship. Although I might not look like someone who could help the great House Kane, I think you elders know my potential" the elders were surprised to see him speak what''s in their minds. If anyone else tried to be their friends by trading these herbs, the elders might not have epted the deal but when ites to Ghost, they immediately decided to ept the deal.
"Don''t worry Master Ghost, House Kane always protects their friends and you are one of them" Elder Walter stood up, reaching out his hand for a handshake.
With a grin on his face, Michael shook his hand again. He then took the silk apples and herbs.
"We have a bright future ahead," Michael said, handing over the herbs to Elder Walter. In return, Elder Walter flicked his wrist as two six feet tall silver banners with a huge ''K'' embroidered on the middle appeared beside Michael.
"Keep one to yourself and ce one in your sect. The banner will let everyone know that you and your sect are under the protection of House Kane" This banner thing worked in favor for both Michael and House Kane. As Elder Walter said, it would protect Michael and the sect but it also symbolizes House Kane''s rtionship with Michael. These elders were definitely ying the long game by offering the banner as well as gambling on Michael''s bright future.
After taking over the world to himself, he might consider giving House Kane a chunk of it because of this deal. He would neither forget nor forgive his enemies but at the same time, he would also remember his allies.
"Alright elders, I''ll see myself out "
"There''s no fun in letting you out of this room alone. Come on, I want to see their faces when they realize you chose House Kane over House Fisher, hahaha" Elder Martinughed out loud. He put his hand around Michael''s shoulder like they were best friends.
Michael didn''t mind it. If he were to be seen with the elders of House Kane in a ce like this, people would spread the word that he''s a friend of House Kane faster. Considering he would leave for the Southern continent soon, he had to make sure his sect and the herbal garden stayed safe while he was away. Coupled with the existence of Soul Refiner at Sunrise sect and House Kane banner, no one would dare to attack them.
However, contrary to their expectation, when they opened the door, they saw the door to the VIP room two is wide open. There was no one inside the room.
"Shit, bastards ran away to save themselves the shame"
*********************************
Leaving the elders of House Kane, Michael followed the nobles to Varags''s room.
"What took you so long?" Gaya was waiting for him outside, which seemed to be Vargas''s room. She was wearing new clothes and her Aelia face.
"So everything''s okay?"
"Yeah, those old fucks are still waiting outside thedies restroom, hehe"? she then tossed a space ring to Michael,
"Noah was here before someone from the guild came to take him away. I took the token from the ring and got our coins"
"Thank god. Seen with him is like asking for trouble considering the number of enemies he has" he sighed in relief. The auction blessed him with millions of gold coins and a powerful ally but if he was to be seen with Noah, it might attract the eyes of Noah''s enemies towards him.
"Let''s get out of here" They rushed out of the auction manor before House Fisher could see Michael. Plus, he was too excited to examine the Primordial rock they bought.
[A suitable ce for a runic teleportation nearby] when he stepped out of the auction house, it was already dark. The howling sound of the wind indicated to them there''s a blizzarding. Lines of carriages were waiting outside the street nketed in snow for the nobles.
"Are we teleporting?" Nightmare asked, looking at the weather.
"Oh, shit" Gaya sighed, following Michael behind. When they reached a dark alley near the auction house, she saw a golden light appear from Michael''s hand before disappearing into the wall. Before she could say anything, she felt the familiar vibration as she closed her eyes.
**********************
When she opened her eyes, she was weed by Michael''s darkroom in Abyssal.
"I need...to...lie down" Nightmare stuttered as he flew towards the bed to lie down while Gaya took some deep breath controlling the urge to throw up.
As the two were fighting with the urge to throw up, Michael took out the Primordial rock from his space ring. It looked no different than a normal rock on a street.
"You cost me 155,000 gold coins"
"It better be worth it," Gaya said.
"System, do your thing" he willed the system as the rock began to tremble. Gaya walked closer to the rock to see it''s radiating a faint whistling sound as well as a dim light.
[Extracting Demon Soul...]
[10%pleted...]
[11%pleted...]
[Estimated time forpletion is two days...]
"You never told me what''s so special about this rock?"
"There''s a soul of a demon inside"
"Yeah, WHAT?!" It took a second before she realized what he just said.
"A demon? What the fuck are you doing? Stop it!" She tried to take the stone away from Michael''s hands but he just stopped her from doing so by wrapping his one arm over her waist.
"Don''t worry" he whispered into her ear sending a chill running through her spine. Getting tightly held like this froze her body and mind. They had been kissing, cuddling, and hugging for quite a long time yet every time felt like a first time to her.
"Do you know anything about demons?" He pulled her perfectly structured body even closer to him. Although she wasn''t the type of girl to blush every single time a man touches her pinky, a red shade did appear on her cheeks.
"Not much¡ I only read about them...they are bad" her words stuttered. For themoners, a demon was nothing but a myth. However, the Great ns and kingdoms like Nagnd had records about demons that weren''t just stories.
"Aren''t we?" He put the rock on the table, turning his full focus on the beautiful woman before him.
"We are the good kind of bad. You really know what you''re doing?" he could still see some concerns in her eyes but they also contained the unwavering trust.
"Are you gonna tell me that you learned how to bring a demon back to life from the memories of Abras?"
"No. I''m sorry that I''m not telling you everything. I trust you with my life Gaya but I can''t tell you..." before he could continue, she put her finger on his lips, interrupting his words,
"We are going to be together forever so I''m sure that you''ll find the right time to share things with me" she then took the initiative to close his lips with hers regardless of Nightmare''s existence.
***********************************
"Mama, Brother Ghost, and Sister Aelia are here!" Cindy screamed as loud as she could. Raylene rushed out of the kitchen to see Ghost carrying Cindy who is carrying Nightmare in her hands.
"Master Ghost" Raylene shoved all of Cindy''s toys trying to make the ce presentable. This house was recently built and gifted to her by the sect. Regardless of the fact this is a new home, it was filled with furniture and ornaments, courtesy of Gaya.
Gaya personally decorated the house herself. The interior of the house resembled a high-end apartment. A few ss walls apanied by white marble walls gave a majestic charm to the house. Still, it was hard for Raylene to keep the house clean due to her busy schedule. She had to go to the restaurant in River town every morning to help the dwarf in the kitchen fittings, prepare food for Cindy and the children at the sect, cultivate with Sect Leader ire, learn how to write and read from Elder Mark and in the little bit of free time she has, she had to improve her cooking skills. Of course, Gaya woulde to judge her cooking by finishing all of them.
"Are you busy or something?" Michael plunged into the sofa with Cindy in his arms. Gaya didn''t sit beside him but stormed into the kitchen following the delicious smell of food.
Cindy was a year older now. The baby fat in her face was slowly disappearing but her childish behavior wasn''t going anywhere. She crawled her little body into Michael''s winter coat.
"I was just preparing dinner for well...everyone, '''' sheughed. One could see the tiredness in her voice but it was overshadowed by her happiness. Her face was brighter than usual,
"Master Ghost, when are we opening the restaurant?"
"About that, I want you to hook the customers of Majestic with your cooking skills" she gawked at him cluelessly as he began to exin,
"A fancy building isn''t going to draw the amount of crowd I want. If we are to open the restaurant with a bang, we need to spread the word of your skills to every single noble in this kingdom"
"This is...so...good" from the kitchen, Gaya howled. It was like a blind cat got into the kitchen, the sound of utensils shing came from the kitchen nonstop.
"We need to make Aelia out of every single noble," He said, letting out a sigh.
Chapter 217 - Preparing To Leave The Northern Continents II
"What do you want me to do, Master Ghost?"
"I want you to make tea and appetizers. Send them to the customers of Majestic while they were waiting for their turn, Jack and his group will take care of supplying them. By doing this, we''ll get them addicted to your cooking, then we''ll have them flood towards our restaurant when we open"
"Biscuits!"
Michael felt Cindy body stiffening after Gaya screamed joyously from the kitchen, The little girl let go of Nightmare,
"Sister Aelia, those are my biscuits!"
"Not anymore"
"Cindy!"
Cindypletely ignored Raylene''s cry, rushing towards the kitchen to save her biscuits from Gaya.
"Don''t forget to focus more on your cultivation Raylene. We have a lot to do in this world" After giving a gentle pat on her shoulder, Michael left her house leaving Gaya to finish her fight with Cindy. At this time, Raylene didn''t know the full meaning of his words.
Leaving Raylene''s house, he calmly strolled around the sect enjoying the peace and beauty of the winter. Nightmare pped his wings, taking off to the sky from his shoulder. After Nightmare''s departure, only the snowkes and the howling sound of the wind apanied him.
There were no disciples present. He knew they were either cultivating or studying under the elders. Considering they now had a stable ie as well as resources to cultivate, the disciples did not ck off but focused on cultivating.
Except for the main headquarters, a huge library and a dome around the herbal garden Gaya was nning to build, the rest of the construction works had beenpleted. Now each elder had their own mansion and cultivation halls that would rival the big sects themselves.
"She really has good taste" Even with a limited budget, she turned this ce around. One could notugh at the sect for being too shabby anymore because this ce looked anything but.
Eventually, Michael came to his herbal garden to see Olivia dusting off snow from the leaves of the herbs. The green hair beauty was too focused on her job as shepletely failed to notice Michael. She was gawking between the notebook on herp and the violet flower in her hand.
The notebook was written by Michael himself. It was like a beginner''s guide to Michael''s alchemy knowledge.
"Violet Sunflower¡ it''s so beautiful" Olivia mumbled before gently plucking the flower.
"And poisonous"
"Ah!!" she fell face-first into the pile of snow in shock when she suddenly heard Michael''s words from behind. Not a single soul was here to see Olivia''s downfall that made Michael chuckle.
She quickly wiped off the snow from her face to see Michaelughing at her. Her face turned red in embarrassment.
"Holy gods teacher! You scared the life out of me"
"I did, didn''t I?" he helped her up from the pile of snow before taking the notebook from her hand.
"Teacher, I thought you were in seclusion" Her embarrassment quickly vanished away when her thirst for knowledge overwhelmed her senses. She had too many questions to ask him after studying the notebook.
Initially, when he was ordering her to work the herbal garden with Elder Reiner, she had her doubts about his teaching methods but when she began to read the notebook, she realized how important it was to work in the herbal garden.
"I assume you have questions for me" just by looking at her eyes, he could tell she has so many questions for him. Her curiosity and the thirst for knowledge were so obvious on her face.
"Teacher in the notebook, you mentioned that we should use Galvin stone instead of Cockatrice tear in Heat-resisting potion. Can you exin why?"
"You know Heat-resisting potion requires Galvin salt which is found in Galvin stone right?"
"Hmm," She nodded,
"But Galvin stone is extremely rare hence the potion is so expensive. Galvin stone is not the only source for Galvin salt, it can be found in Cockatrice tear too, just in a different state"? He grabbed a handful of snow from the ground,
"This is water in its solid form, we call this ice. Heat it up, it will be water" the greed alchemy mes emerged from his palm, turning the ice into water
"Heat it more, the water will lose its liquid state and take the state of vapor. Three states but the same element. The same goes for Galvin salt, in Galvin stone, the salt is in its solid state. In Cockatrice tears, the salt is in its liquid state. It''s indeed a bad practice to taste the ingredients but sometimes, it''ll help you identify the items or herbs with the same qualities"
"So lick the ingredients, noted" she quickly took a mental note before getting her a gentle knock on her head,
"Just get someone who could speak and has a high tolerance for toxicity. A goblin would do the trick" Considering goblins could eat almost anything, they had a high tolerance for toxicity. Plus, they could be taught to speak themon tongue instead of a goblin.
"I hate very, so just pay the goblin a monthly sry or something he or she desires" he basically worked as a ve for drug dealers for a part of his childhood. they would always say they own him and the rest of the orphans. This made him hate the idea of owning another human being. Back on earth, very was almost abolished except for a few dark shitty parts of the earth but in this world, although very was a crime punishable by harsh sentences, one could not say it''spletely abolished. There was always someone secretly trading ves for nobles for their sick pleasures.
Thew against very was only for people of the Northern continents which were Elon and Ozer. very waspletely legal in the Northern continents if the ves are from the Southern continent also known as Midras.
Michael only saw the glimpse of the ve trading between the Northern and Southern continents through what happened to Aria''s brothers. What they did to those brothers was beyond cruel. It gave Michael the idea of what they would do to the Southern girls.
Sooner orter Michael knew he would need an army to face the Great ns and a promise to abolish very would get him the support of thousands of ves across this world. If they could help him take over this world, he would end very once and for all. He was not naive to think that he could end very single-handedly without having real control over this world.
For now, all he could do was not be the master of any ves. Although he would have to sacrifice or bend some of his moral codes in the path to conquer this world, he would always try his best not to be the things he hates.
"Let''s talk and walk" he continued to stroll around the herbal garden, answering her questions one by one. After answering every question she had, he understood which parts she must focus more on. He gave her a short lecture as well as another notebook containing more questions and assignments for her to do while he was away.
"Teacher, are you going into seclusion again? With this speed of cultivation, you''re going to be the youngest Core Strengthening stage cultivator in Elon" She said, grinning ear to ear. Even with the little time she spent with him, she got years'' worth of knowledge from him.
"Oh teacher forgot to ask, are youpeting in the Alchemy tournament?"
"How many fucking tournaments are there?" he thought.
"When is that?"
"A few months after the championship tournament. It will be like the championship tournament for Alchemists. Unlike the championship tournament, there are no age or cultivation restrictions"
"Who is going to judge the tournament?" Michael wasn''t nning to be one of thepetitors but to be one of the judges. It would be more badass to judge the Alchemists all over the world rather thanpeting in the tournament. What''s the use of being a 5-star Alchemist if he has topete with low-star Alchemists?
Her face brightened seeing that her teacher is considering joining the tournament. She wants to see himpete and win the trophy, with her being his helper of course.
"Will Gabriel be there to judge?" Michael asked,
"Yes, of course, teacher. It will be a great honor for you to show your skills in front of him andother legends in Alchemy"
"Show my skills?" Michael chuckled as Olivia gawked at him having zero clues about why he wasughing.
"If Gabriel will be there as a judge, so should I. It will be a good ce to show who the real number one Alchemist of Elon continent is"
Chapter 218 - Preparing To Leave The Northern Continents III
Leaving Olivia in one of the guesthouses that they built newly, Michael went straight towards ire''s home. From the outside, the mansion looked very elegant. It had been built with oak wood and had blue stone decorations. Large, triangr windows let in plenty of light and have been added to the house in a very symmetric way.
The mansion was equipped with a modern kitchen and onerge cultivation room and bathroom, it also had a spacious living room, five bedrooms, a small dining room, and a small storage room.
The building was shaped like a short U. The two extensions were linked by a covered patio. The second floor was smaller than the first, which allowed for a roof garden on one side of the house. This floor had a different style than the floor below.
The roof was high, triangr, andyered, and was covered with grey wood shingles. Two small chimneys sit at the side of the house. Large, skylight windows let in plenty of light to the rooms below the roof.
The house itself was surrounded by a modest garden, covered mostly in grass, a few flower patches, and a small pond. The garden waspletely nketed by the snow while the pond seemed like a ss floor.
"Brother Ghost" two male disciples who were standing outside the entrance greeted Michael when they saw him.
"I had no time for hiring professional bodyguards" Michael turned back to see Gaya gracefully walking towards him. There were still some biscuit crumbs around her cherry red lips and her grey winter fur coat.
"Let Daniel and Ricky pick suitable candidates"
"I''ll send them the message" Ricky and Daniel were guarding the restaurant as well as helping the dwarf with some finishing touches to the restaurant.
They were now like Michael''s representatives in River Town.
Stepping into the house, the howling sound of the wind finally came to a stop. The interior of the house was elegant with fancy sofas from this world, chandeliers, flower vases, and bookshelves.
"Sect Leader ire" Michael called out, standing in the hall. He could sense two life signs in the house, one was at the roof while the other was at the cultivation room.
"Ghost? Coming" ire''s gentle voice sounded from the second floor. A few minutes after, the beautiful blonde walked down the stairs with a smile. This was the first time Michael had seen her truly smile with joy. There was always a tinge of sadness deep within her eyes but now the sadness was reced by a fit of anger and motivation.
Her cultivation stage surprised him a bit because, in a few months, she had reached the Body Strengthening stage. Of course, the elders and ire must thank Michale because he was constantly supplying them with potions and pills so they could cultivate faster than usual.
" Sit down, make yourselves at home" She gestured at them towards the sofa as Michael and Gaya plunged into the sofa.
"Wow, you''re really giving your sect leader a hard time by cultivating this"
Sheughed. He expected her to sit on the opposite sofa but she seated herself right next to Michael.
The very next moment, she grabbed his hands,
"I never thanked you for saving my grandpa." The ability of ire to create tears really surprised Michael. In a blink of an eye, tears began to roll out of her eyes
"I''m not like before yet I can hold back the tears. If it wasn''t for you..." her voice trailed off,
"I did what I had to do as the Guardian of the sect. No need to thank me, Sect Leader ire"
"Just thank us by leading the sect to the golden days," Gaya said. A burst of a chuckle came out of her, defeating the tears of sorrow.
"With you guys by my side, I think I can do that" He then willed the system to take 500,000 gold coins from his storage. The moment the gold coins appeared in the hall, the golden light reflected by the gold coins lightened up their faces.
"This will be enough for you to buy everything I need to brew the potion to cure Elder Sandra"
************************************
Settling everything with ire, they went to their house to make final preparations before leaving for the Southern continent. The only thing they had left to do was visit House Bradley.
Michael informed ire that he would enter into seclusion but in reality, he would meet with Mn before leaving to the Southern Continent. He already bought a mask simr to Gaya''s to change his face.
When they opened the door to their house, they were weed by the sight of a light orb on their sofa.
"Nightmare?" They looked closer to see that it was Nightmare who''s radiating a bright light around him.
"What''s happening?" Michael frowned looking at the violent energy fluctuations around Nightmare''s body. The Arch energy was flooding into his body from the atmosphere.
"He''s going under Dragon metamorphosis. Yes! We can leave him behind" she seemed weirdly excited as she almost bounced in joy looking at Nightmare like this.
"Although I didn''t n to bring him along with us, why are you so excited about leaving him behind?"
"It''s because..." she moved closer to Michael. Their noses almost brushed each other,
"We can have some alone time" his heart skipped a beat thinking about the possibilities. The seductive voice she just used sent electricity through his spine. He couldn''t wait to get on a ship to the Southern Continent.
"Can we put him in Abyssal? It''s safer there"
"No, teleportation might interrupt the Arch energy flow. We have to leave him here"
"How long will he be like this?"
"Since this is his first metamorphosis, it''ll only take two or three months"
"System, can you teleport him to Abyssal without interrupting his metamorphosis?"
[Sure, just pay me 50,000 badass points] the system sounded so haughty as it already knew Michael''s answer.
"Nope" as the system expected, he declined its offer because the safety measure around Nightmare was still active. If anything threatened Nightmare, he would be immediately teleported to Abyssal. By cing the banner of House Kane, he made sure the sect stays safe from any hostile activity but even if someone dared to take Nightmare during his metamorphosis, Michael didn''t need to worry about Nightmare''s safety.
Sitting beside Nightmare, he took a note out from the system storage. Gaya saw him scribbling something on the note before cing it near Nightmare.
"Take care, buddy"
**************************************
Suddenly in a dark alley near the Phoenix auction manor, two figures appeared from thin air. Michael changed his usual ck armor to something from this world. A long winter grey coat with ck linen breeches. He let his shoulder-length ck hair dance in the wind instead of covering it inside a ck hood. One could now clearly see the stubble beard he started to grow recently. The cultivators in this world had control over their beard growth, most tended to stop the beard from growingpletely but not Michael, he liked to sport many looks instead of the same clean-shaven look.
They followed the signboards in the streets to the House Bradleypound. After a while navigating through thebyrinth of snow-covered streets, he saw a hugepound not far away.
As they walked closer to the house which was filled with a majestic and imposing aura, he noticed soldiers wearing various types of armor such as light armor and heavy armor patrolling the buildings on the other side of the gigantic metal gates.
Some servants were bringing what seemed to be hot beverages to the guards patrolling in the bone-chilling cold winter. Michael also noticed theck of street urchins,moners, or any merchant stalls on the premises.
Everyone he saw was either a soldier or a servant of House Bradley.
After staring at the entrance for a while, Michael and Gaya walked toward the main gate which was tightly guarded. However, before he could talk to the soldiers outside the gate, an old man, who appeared to have the position of the housekeeper, hurriedly came through the small gate beside the giant metal gate.
"Wee to House Bradley Young Master Ghost, Young Miss Aelia. Please follow me" the old man surprised both of them by quickly recognizing them. Clearly, the old man knew their identities, so Michael did not waste time asking questions like how he recognized them. He just nodded, gesturing to the old man to lead the way.
After entering through the small gate that the old man came through, a pretty female servant hurriedly walked out from one corner. After which, she gently said a few words to them before leading the way from in front.
They followed behind the female servant at neither fast nor slow pace. Gaya seemed indifferent to the luxurious mansion but his gaze swept over everything. The towering atmosphere of the buildings caused him to secretly nod his head.
Walking on a small path that was paved by rough greyish stone fragments, his eyes suddenly narrowed slightly. From his Environmental scanning ability, he noticed numerous hidden beings hiding in the dark corners of the mansion as he entered deeper into thepound. Many sharp arrowheads that were painted ck to cover the reflection were slowly moving within the mansion. Any little sign of trouble would instantly cause them to send out an attack. He could tell these secret archers and assassins were noticing his every single movement.
"Not bad..." Gaya too noticed these people and gave a small nod of approval. Following the girl, they soon came to a luxuriousrge hall. Their gaze passed through the utched door and was able to faintly see a couple of people standing within it.
The young servant girl left the hall without uttering a word leaving Michael and Gaya alone. Soon, Michael began to walk forward towards the door.
He gently pushed open the door,
"Finally, You''re here Ghost"
Chapter 219 - Preparing To Leave The Northern Continents IV
Lord Mn spread his muscr arms wide to embrace Michael into a bear hug. Since gestures like this would strengthen the bond between them, Michael too embraced Mn without avoiding the hug. Gaya searched the hall for Nathen but weirdly no one could be seen in the hall except two guards who quickly left the room after they entered.
"I heard you made a friend out of House Kane," Lord Mn asked, releasing him from the hug. Then Mn acknowledged Gaya''s presence by patting her on the shoulder.
"Word travels fast huh Lord Mn"
"Very" Lord Mn who recently reached the Core Strengthening stage gestured at them towards the sofas. Various beverages including wine and ale were ced on a round table in front of the sofas.
"Help yourselves out" Lord Mn took a ss for himself before pouring the ale into the ss. Michael nodded as he poured the grape juice into two sses. He took one ss and handed over the other to Gaya.
Lord Mn was surprised to see a heavenly blessed youngster such as Ghost treat a Body Refining normal-looking girl like this because any prodigy would have let the girl pour the drink. Ghost was not only a talented prodigy but also a 5-star Alchemist, if he wished, beauties and even princesses would be in line to be his wives. They would treat him as their king yet Mn could tell just by this simple gesture that he''s treating this girl as his queen.
Either Michael or Gaya had zero ideas that a simple gesture like pouring a juice to another made such an impression on Mn.
"So Lord Mn, how''s life treating you?" He asked, taking a sip of the grape juice.
"I assume you have something important to talk to me or you wouldn''t have sent a secret letter"
Lord Mn''s face turned serious as he sighed, "I didn''t like that method kid but I had to make sure no one sees you with anyone from House Bradley"
"What''s in your mind, Lord Mn? Im sure you have a good reason to do that"
" What do you know about House Bradley?"
"Nothing much, just the important things like House Bradley provides one of the best security services in Kethen and has numerous powerful connections across the continent" Gaya answered. Considering Mn noticed how Ghost treated the girl, he knew she must be important to Ghost. Therefore, Mn decided to give her the same respect as he was giving Ghost.
"For the outside world, House Bradley is thriving but in reality, House Bradley is in deep shit. Vultures are picking our clients one by one"
Gaya wondered why he was telling such weakness to twoplete strangers. Noble families like them tend to keep things like thispletely secret. She guessed that if he''s telling this, he might ask something huge to be done by them.
"I know you''re wondering why am I telling you all this" Mn leaned forward to refill his ss before speaking his kind.
"I''ve been watching you kid. You''re making connections and a name for yourself, I can tell you that you have ambitions other than just reaching the immortal stage" Mn let out a deep breath.
"How do you like making House Bradley your lifelong ally?" Mn asked,
"I have to say Lord Mn that I''m indeed interested in such an offer. But first, you have to tell me what do you want from me?"
"I want you to brew this undetected poison to kill my brother" Lord Mn flicked his wrist as an old worn-out scroll appeared in his hand.
"So you want us to kill the current leader? If he''s messing up, why can''t you and the elders force him to retire or something and choose a new leader?" Gaya asked while Michael was checking out the scroll.
Lord Mn sighed heavily. He was hoping for them not to ask this question because it was really embarrassing for him to answer. However, this embarrassment was nothingpared to his family''s future.
"It''s because my brother has found a loophole to hand over the leader position to someone else"
"Nathen?" Gaya asked,
"I wish. Apparently, Nathen has no interest in bing the leader, all he wants is to be an Alchemist like you" Michael did not show any expression on his face
"Then who does he want to be the next leader?"
"The whore he''s fucking" A wave of anger emerged in Mn''s eyes. He continued to curse with a gritted teeth
"He''s nning to marry that whore"
"It stinks but it happens'' '' Gaya knew the feeling too well. His father married Xanali''s mother after Gaya''s mother died. Ever since he married her, Nagnd has been declining. Once a superpower now became a kingdom with most debts to settle.
If killing her father would save her kingdom, she would do it in a heartbeat. Therefore, she sympathized with Mn who is trying to save his family from being destroyed by the mistakes of a single person.
"Lord Mn, why kill your brother when you can kill her?" Michael asked
"Him"
"Say again?"
"The whore''s him, not her" Both Gaya and Michael couldn''t help raising their brows in surprise while Mn''s eyes twitched in embarrassment. Even though it was nothing to be ashamed of, this world didn''t tolerate or taken lightly to same-sex rtionships.
The churches of various gods were strongly against same-sex marriages but there weren''t anyws against them.
"Marrying a man whore, that''s new" Gaya had traveled almost everywhere in Elon and Ozer yet this was the first time she heard that ahead of a noble family is thinking about marrying someone of the same gender.
Now she could understand more why Mn wants to kill his own brother. If word got out of this marriage and he actually married him, she was positive that House Bradley is good as dead. On one side the churches would use all of their power to make life harder for House Bradley while the other rival families would use this to poach clients from House Bradley.
"What''s stopping you from killing him, Lord Mn?" Unlike Gaya, Michael was indifferent about who''s fucking whom.
" We suspect that man whore might have some connections with one of our rival families. If we killed him, they might release some scandalous documents or something that shouldn''t be released. We cannot afford to take this risk. But if my brother were to die a natural death before he goes through with his marriage n, I''ll be the next family head and use all of the Bradley family resources to finally put an end to this fiasco"
"Natural death, that''s where this potiones huh. This is indeed a veryplex potion that can''t be brewed by anyone other than a 5-star Alchemist"
Lord Mn seemed like he already knew this.
"But there''s a problem with this poison, Lord Mn. Although it''s colorless as water, one with an acute sense of smell could smell the poison. Are you willing to take the risk, I mean if you get caught, you''ll be ended as a traitor" Lord Mn rubbed his forehead, trying to make a decision
"If you give me the ingredients, I can prove it to you" After a few minutes of pondering, Mn waved as a bunch of various ingredients appeared on the table.
He wanted to check whether Ghost''s statement about the poison was true or not. Seeing Ghost did not right out of the bat refuse to brew the poison, Lord Mn could heave a sigh of relief.
Michael ignored the badass points notification sound in his mind and focused on brewing the poison. Mn heard about Ghost''s alchemy skills but seeing Ghost brew the poison with his own eyes still stunned him. In his eyes, Ghost looked like he''s breezing through the process, showing no difficulties on his face despite the fact that this poison is one of the mostplex potions to brew.
"Here you go, take a whiff," Michael said, pouring the colorless liquid into a ss vial. He then handed over the poison to Mn
"It stinks" Gaya twitched her nose as, among the three of them, she got the most acute sense of smell.
When Mn brought the vial closer to him, he began to smell the nauseating smell. It was faint but it was there. Mn realized the meaning of Michael''s words. He knew that if he used this to poison his brother, he would definitely detect the poison''s presence.
"You know you cannot use this Lord Mn. Fortunately, I know something that could do the trick, your brother wont suspect a thing" Before Mn could react to his statement, another ss vial with a colorless liquid appeared in Michael''s hands.
This was the same poison Michael was using in his spiders to poison his enemies if he desired to. However, Michael did not remove the arch energy radiation from the poison in his hand because it would freak out Mn and even lead to his own downfall.
"This is..."
"It''s my own recipe. This poison is ten times more lethal than the poison in your hand. Plus, it''s odorless and disappears from the body in a matter of seconds, so even if a 6-star Healer came to check the body, they will find nothing"
Chapter 220 - Preparing To Leave The Northern Continents V
Lord Mn finally saw the dark side of Ghost. The usual cool smile disappeared and was reced with a cold murderous look. Even he felt slightly nervous after hearing about the poison in Ghost''s hands.
"Use this to kill your brother" Michael handed over the poison to Lord Mn.
Lord Mn took a long sniff yet he could smell nothing. It was no different than water.
"As you said earlier, I do have ambitions and I like House Bradley to be my ally. After killing your brother, you and I know that it''d take even more cleaning in the house before stabilizing the family. I''ll help any way I can to strengthen your position as the house leader"
"In other words, we''ll supply you with this poison to take care of the vultures and anyone who opposes you in House Bradley," Gaya said. Lord Mn knew that he had to kill more people after killing his own brother. Until now, he was trying to be ignorant of the fact but these two youngsters reminded him.
Michael now took the upper hand in the negotiation. Lord Mn was desperate enough to ask his help to kill his own brother, how could Michael not use this opportunity to establish a connection with House Bradley?
If he could get his arms around the leader himself, House Bradley would be as good as his own. At this time, he would help do their dirty work, in the future, however, they would be the ones doing his dirty work.
"In return, I want House Bradley to provide me the security service for all my future business empires"
"What''s your current price? 25% in profits? We''ll give you 10%" Gaya finished Michael''s sentence. Mn very well knew that the moment he revealed his desperation, they gained the upper hand. Yet, this deal did sound like a good one to regain House Bradley''s power. He heard about the Majestic and the restaurant Ghost was building; it didn''t take a genius to realize the revenue of fifty Majestic stores. If House Bradley were to protect everything Ghost builds,10% of the profits would be in millions per month. Just imagining it tempted Mn, oveing the reluctance of killing many people on his way to the throne.
"Don''t you have a single problem with my n?" Lord Mn couldn''t help asking. Thest time he saw Ghost, he was with Nathen and they seemed like good friends.
"If you''re asking me if I have a problem with killing Nathen''s father, I don''t. You approached me with a good deal and I took it, it''s how this world works Lord Mn. We have to grab the opportunities thate in our way because they don''te often"
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Finally, Michael left the House Bradleypound leaving Mn with the poison to kill his brother. How he poisons his brother didn''t bother Michael.
"So what happens to your no killing innocent rule?" while walking through the snow-covered street, Gaya asked.
"Do you really think Mn''s brother is innocent? Besides, even if he is, we cannot conquer this world without directly or indirectly killing a few innocents. I''m not stupid or naive to think we can get everything we want without sacrificing a few innocents or bending some of our moral codes"
His words made Gaya arch her brows. She gently ced her hand on his shoulder,
"You are ying Lucifer, human, you''re not him. Don''t be the evil dark lord that the guardians iming you will be"
"I know but there will always be dark before dawn" the more Michael moved forward with his ns to conquer this world, the more blurry the lines between good and bad be.
Soon, they found a dark alley to change their faces and clothes to bepletely new persons before leaving for the Southern Continent.
"Where to?"? Michael asked. He now looked like an average-looking youngster with shoulder-length raven ck hair. As the majority of the youngsters in this world, he sported the clean-shaven look instead of his current stubble beard look. His grey long-sleeved, leather jacket covered him too well below his knees and was half buttoned up slightly off-center. The sleeves of his jacket were quite narrow and reached down to well below his hands, they were decorated with a decorative band almost at the edges.
The jacket had a wide v-neck which revealed part of the stylish ck shirt worn below it and was worn with a dark rope belt, which was held together by a big belt buckle. The rope belt was mostly decorative but did serve its purpose
His ck pants were simple and quite narrow and reached down to his soft leather boots. The boots were made from pretty unusual leather but were otherwise an ordinary design.
Gaya on the other hand changed her hair from golden to dark brown and put the hair into a long ponytail instead of letting her hair free as she usually did. She wore the exact same clothes as Michael except she wore a breasts holder underneath her shirt.
"To Kingdom Dradel"
As she said, they took off from Icefair towards Kingdom Dradel. Regardless of night and day, they continuously fly towards Kingdom Dradel, taking only a few breaks for Gaya to munch on the food she brought. She was a girl who would share everything with Michael except her biscuits. However, Michael would steal some of her biscuits just to make her mad which would eventually lead him to taste her cherry lips in the mid-air.
It took them two weeks to reach the capital of Dradel. The city immediately reminded Michael of the city of Venice.
"Wee to Bay City,"? Gaya said, looking at the city on the horizon. Michael could see depots, huge ships that he only saw in fantasy movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, and buildings built-in water. Except for huge sail ships, the citypletely resembled Venice to him.
He couldn''t see a city wall around the city nor any guards.
"What are looking at? Bay City has no entree fees, fuckers milk the people by other taxes like a trading tax" they descended to the streets on the water.
The people seemed like they were ustomed to seeing new faces every single day. The women carried baskets filled with freshly baked bread while most of the men near the depot worked various chores. asionally, Michael could see fancy carriages strolling towards the harbor area. However, his eyes were focused on the gigantic man of war at the harbor. The ship had three masts, each with three to four sails. The man of war was? 60 meters long and almost had 130 guns: four at the bow, eight at the stern, and the rest in each broadside
"How much would that cost us?"
She was familiar with his desire to buy fancy things like this.
"100 million gold coins minimum. I''ll add that to the list you want to buy" she chuckled, punching him on the shoulder. Although she wouldn''t be able to get him a man of warship for 100 million gold coins without him knowing, she would definitely gift him with something just as awesome as a man of warship.
"I want a fleet of man o warships'' '' After hearing his desire to buy a bunch of inds to enjoy his weekends, this didn''t surprise Gaya very much.
He began to walk towards the harbor taking his gaze away from the man of war on the horizon.
[Upgrade your Inventor trait to Star level 6 and the host will be able to build ships that makes this man of war looks like a fishing boat]
The system''s voice made him halt his steps.
"Why are you smiling?" Gaya noticed the sudden wide grin on his face,
"We should find ourselves a loyal 5-star cksmith"
"Didn''t you say Jack could be a cksmith? He''s loyal, why don''t we kidnap him and make him work for us, I mean the other us?" She wanted to kidnap Jack to Abyssal but Michael knew this was not the right time to make a move on Jack. First, he wanted to see what it was like to be in the Southern Continent. Ifdy luck was on his side, he might be able to bring an army of diators to Abyssal.
"We can talk about that after we came back from Southern Continent"
"What do you think we''ll find in Kingdom Gisal?" Kingdom Gisal was the ce the system showed him to go to find the source of Nightcrawler''s artifact.
"I don''t know but we''ll find out soon enough," he said, walking through the crowd in the depot area. Soon after they crossed the depot area, they entered the harbor area where he saw ships of all sizes docked.
For the first time, he noticed groups of soldiers in metal armors at the far side of the harbor. On their side of the harbor, all the ships docked in were military ships that had cannons, mortars, and a few weapons Michael had no idea about.
"Ships to Kingdom Bredia!"
"We have ships going to the Ozer Continent,e to me to buy your tickets!"
"Three ces avable on a ship to the Southern continent!"
Michael turned his gaze away from the military harbor side to see a group of youngsters shouting at the crowd in front of them as loud as they could.
"What are we waiting for? let''s go"
Chapter 221 - Preparing To Leave The Northern Continents VI
Michael and Gaya approached the young boy who was shouting to get people on board a ship to the Southern Continent.
"Greeting young sir and youngdy, are you thinking about visiting the beautiful Southern Continent?" the boy quickly asked Michael and Gaya,
"You could say that" the boy''s face brightened up to see potential customers,
"Then youe to the right ce. I have three tickets to onboard Captain Lars''s majestic warship, Striker. Let me tell you this, you''ll find no safer ship to travel than the Striker" the boy said, cing his hand on the chest.
He sounded so truthful but Gaya knew he would say anything to sell the tickets.
"How much is a ticket?"
"Just 100 gold coins. If you buy two, it''ll be 180 gold coins. You should buy them quickly young sir, there aren''t any other ships going to Southern continent in this weather"
Michael looked at Gaya as she nodded. The young boy grinned ear to ear.
After he handed over the pouch containing 180 gold coins, the young boy just weighed it using his bare hands before putting it into his space ring. They were surprised to see a space ring in a young boy who wore nothing but ragged tunics that had several holes in them. Again, they understood that this young boy might be working for someone influential and powerful around this part of the city. Otherwise, he couldn''t have afforded to keep his space ring intact with his hand.
"Follow me, young sir, youngdy"? instead of giving the tickets, the young boy gestured at them to follow him behind.
"Customersing through" Surprisingly they followed the young boy to the military side of the harbor where Michael saw armed soldiers patrolling.
However, they didn''t stop them but let them through, asking no questions. Soon, they came before a galleon. The ship had a broad hull and a carved keel and figurehead of a sea dragon. The ship could easily reach the length of 50m and was armed with 30 cannons. If Michael was topare this ship to something he had previously seen, he would say this ship looks like the ck pearl.
"Here you go" the young boy took out two silver coins from his space ring.
He tossed each of the coins to Michael and Gaya.
"No spell casting on the ship" the young boy warned before running to sell the remaining ticket.
"You sure we can use Arch energy in the Southern Continent?" Gaya asked again. This was the third time she had asked the same question since they left Icefair.
However, he was unable to give her anything except a simple answer of yes. The system required him to actually reach the location where the Arch energy would be cut off from their bodies before offering him the solution.
Since the system assured him that he could afford the solution it would tell him, he wasn''t afraid of reaching the Southern continent but rather he was excited.
"Ask this question again and I''ll kick your snake butt"
"Let''s see who''s kicking whose butt, hehe" he had a bad feeling seeing her evilughter yet he threw his arm around her neck before pinching her rosy cheek.
The wooden nk creaked as they walked. When they reached the upper deck of the ship, they were weed by the sight of the ship''s crew preparing to leave the harbor. They took a second to notice Michael and Gaya before returning to their duties. They didn''t wear any kind of armor or uniform but wore open shirts and linen trousers. Themonality between all of them was the cusses hanging on their waists and the smell of the sea.
"Move yer asses maggots. I need striker cleaned an'' prepared fer leavin'' the ''arbor soon as possible, snap to it,ds" on a tform above the deck, a muscr man with a feather hat shouted at the crew standing near the rudder. In Michael''s eyes, he looked like a typical pirate with a long dirty beard, a rum bottle in one hand, and an eye patch.
"do ye ''ave the tickets?" a skinny crew member with greasy blonde hair approached Michael and Gaya.
"Yeah" they showed the coins given to them by the young kid.
"arr, mates we ''ave guests, cultivatin'' guests. This one here looks like a genius o'' some kind. Lass looks fine too"
"Why dont you get the fuck out of my face and send someone else to show us where we''ll be staying?"
The crews were stunned to see a gentle-looking girl speak the way she did.
"harr, I like that there one" the captain leaped from the rudder andnded right before them like he was trained in the circus.
"ye be wee aboard cultivators" the captain tried to imitate a noble bow sarcastically.
"the Cap''n likes them" the crewughed,
"Where we be going, yer cultivation be as jolly as shite" the captain stared at them from top to bottom before taking a long sip of his rum.
(jolly=good)
"I'' be Cap''nrs an'' this here old matey o'' mine be called Striker.do what I say an'' when I say an'' ye''ll reach southern continent alive. Try to use yer fancy spells ''ere, I''ll personally throw ye into the sea" Lars let out a burst of Arch energy to reveal his Core Strengthening stage level 7 cultivation level.
"Trent ''ere will show ye where ye''ll be stayin''" Lars leaped again to reach the rudder again as the skinny crew member whose called Trent led Michael and Gaya to their rooms in the lower deck.
"We ''ave to sleep at night so don''t do it so loudly. We won''tin if ye do to ''ehehe" Trentughed, fanning the mes of Michael''s excitement.
She expected Michael to open his mouth to say something but she turned to see him licking his lips. He then winked at her as she couldn''t help but roll her eyes.
"You wish" she flicked Michael''s forehead.
"Why be the cultivators like yourselves goin'' to the southern continent?" walking down the wooden stairs, Trent asked.
"To do business that''s called none of your fucking business" Gaya was already annoyed by Michael''s evil look and Trent''s question made her even more annoyed.
"ye ''ave some mouthss"
"I n to take full advantage of it" Michael teased her, pinching her perfectly sculpted waist.
"Ah" she squealed after he pinched her hip, throwing a re at Michael. Yet she soonughed which gave Michael a bad feeling.
"What is she nning?" He asked himself. After walking a few more steps, they came before a six feet tall wooden door. Trent opened the door to reveal a small room with two bunk beds. The room gave off a serious ustrophobic vibe as it barely had any room to move around.
"At Least we have a window," Michael sighed, looking at the small window near the bunk beds. If not for the windows, he knew they would be choked to death at night.
"We won''t be sleeping in nights anyway" Gaya entered the room shoving Trent away.
Michael couldn''t help but undress her in his mind. Although he had a bad feeling, he ignored those feelings, imagining a steamy night with her.
"Alright love birds, we serve what we catch in a few ''ours" Trent left them in the room.
Michael entered the room lowering his head to avoid hitting the door frame.
"I call the top bed" She shouted but when she was about to jump to the upper bed, he pulled her by her waist.
"Where are you going?" Michael was lying on the bed and she was on top of him. The bed creaked as both of their noses rubbed each other.
"Let me go" she tried to wiggle herself out of his hold.
"Give me a kiss," Michael chuckled. His fingers were running around her smooth back.
"Winter, small room, sea view. What a perfect time" Gaya stopped trying to get out of his hold.
"No marriage, no me" she teased him by slowly running her fingers around his chest.
"You never told me what kind of marriage you want? Simple wedding or fancy wedding?"
"Don''t you dare go for the simple one, I would kick your ass" she pinched his cheek,
"Fancy it is"
"I want our marriage to be one of a kind" she ced her head on Michael''s chest,
"Flowers, music, fireworks. I want everything to be perfect"
"Everything will be more than perfect for my more than hotwife" the word wife made her blush and at the same time, put a beautiful smile on her face.
Michael knew behind all that toughdy shell is a soft beautiful girl hiding. Only in situations like this could he see that soft girl.
If anyone asked if he ns to marry someone on earth, his answer would have been a big no. However, now he couldn''t wait to tie the knot. With her by his side, it felt magical. He couldn''t even imagine a life without her. The same thing goes for her too. She wanted to be with him forever. Even if the entire world was against him, she would stand in front of him, not behind or beside, she would stand in front of him shielding him from the world.
Michael very well knew that this is just a calm before the uing storm. Therefore, he decided to enjoy every second of these peaceful moments.
At this moment, no one except one knew the fate of the Southern Continent is going to be changed forever.
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As Michael thought, this chapter is just the calm before the storm. Get ready toe on a bumpy rollercoaster ride from the next chapter!!!
Chapter 222 - You Are Fat, Human
"What are you thinking, Lars? It''s not like this is your first time" Captain Lars was sitting in his captain''s room which was located directly under the rudder tform. He was talking to a glimmering gemstone at the center of his table. The table was a mess as other than the glimmering gem, one could see various maps, papers, and metal pieces that seemed to havee from a broken cuss.
"They do not seem like nobody cultivators. I don''t want to get into trouble with them pesky guardians. Especially when I''m thinking'' about retirin'' from everythin''" Lars leaned back on his chair, taking a long sip from the rum bottle in his hand.
The blue gemstone glimmered brightly,
"Dont worry Lars. I investigated them, they are nobodies, they have no connections with guardians. Besides, you know my deal with them, I give them information and in return, they will turn a blind eye to my hobby" a thick voice of a male appeared from the gemstone.
Lars began to rub his greasy beard before removing his hat to reveal his bald head. He put the hat on the table with a sigh,
"Then we make the transaction after we cross the void line. Don''t approach us before, I''m not riskin'' striker take any damage if that there scurvy dog decided to throw some fancy ass spells"
"We are not amateurs Lars. Just give us a sign when you want to make the transaction. Hey, forgot to mention, watch over for pirates, I heard they are attacking merchants ships quite often now"
"Let theme, I''ll show them what this badd could do" Lars snickered as the gemstone began to lose its shine and eventually dimmed outpletely.
*****************************************
Somewhere else in the ocean, something gigantic was moving in the dark depths of the ocean. It was so deep in the ocean that no mortal could venture into it without exploding due to the high pressure.
The deepest depth of the ocean only had glowing anemones for a light source.
"Hmmmmm" the moving object emitted unearthly vibrations that sent ripples across the deep ocean. One could vaguely see the structure of a warship thanks to the glowing anemones.
"Cap''n, that stinkin'' Striker be ''eadin'' this here way"? inside a darkroom in the gigantic object, a voice said.
"what good us attackin'' another ship would do?" another voice sounded tired and uninterested in attacking a ship.
"it''s what we do Cap''n, we be gentlemen o'' fortune. who knows ''ow long we''ll sleep this here time? so we must make the most out o'' this"
(gentlemen o'' fortune = pirates)
"I''m not the Cap''n, Wiley. The Cap''n be long dead" the voice said.
"ye was the quartermaster when the Cap''n died, that there makes ye the Cap''n now. So do yer captainly duty Cap''n"
"Alright, send the word fer the men to prepare. We''ll attack the Striker when I give the order. The crew should use some fun before enterin'' the long slumber"
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"I want you to take me right here, right now"? Gaya was slowly undressing, speaking in a seductive manner. She took off her winter coat, revealing the shirt she was wearing within.
Michael dashed at her and lifted her off the ground to fasten the undressing process,
"Wake the fuck up human!" Suddenly Michael''s body stopped moving as he heard a voice. The Gaya in her hand slowly disappeared into the light, he opened his eyes to realize that it was just a dream, a sweet dream.
"Couldn''t you have waited just a little bit longer? I was just undressing you in my dream"
"Fucking pervert!" She began to beat his chest like a drum but she was careful not to fall into his hold again.
"There''s nothing perverted about it, you''re my girl" heughed.
"And why are you waking up in the middle of the night? Go cultivate"
He grabbed onto his nket without any intention to give up. The sound of the waves, the cold breeze of the wind, and the small yet warm room gave his mind the peace to go for a long nap.
"Unless you want me to bath you in cold water, you''ll get up"
"Alright, alright im getting up but this is better be good snake" he rolled his eyes, finally letting go of his quilt.
"Good boy" she ruffled his head like he was a little boy before dragging him out of the door by his hand.
"So do you think the dream woulde again?"? He teased her on his way to the upper deck.
"Fuck human, what has gotten into you?" she sounded annoyed yet amused at the same time.
"A cold winter, sea, a beautiful girl who loves me in my bunk bed. You have no idea how much it would take a guy to control himself"
"Hehehe" she chuckled as they soon reached the upper deck. Michael expected to see crews running around the upper deck, making sure the ship stays in top condition but to his surprise, he saw no one. He stared at the rudder to see it automatically spinning like it was put on autopilot.
Even in the captain''s cabin, there were no lights on.
He knew everyone was probably sleeping drunk to their throats yet he was here, standing on an empty deck in the middle of a freezing winter.
"Don''t" when he was about to take his winter coat from his space ring, she stopped him.
"Are you kidding me? I''m not freezing to death" he raised his voice. Unlike him, who was standing here bare chested, she was wearing the winter coat and everything to keep her body warm without the use of Arch energy.
"I said I''d give you something special when we get on a ship to the Southern Continent right? This is it"
"This is what?"
"Training to improve your closebat skills"
Michael''s jaw dropped a couple of inches. His eyes were full of disappointment, he seemed like a kid who got robbed of his Halloween candies. Even the system began tough inside his mind. He was not expecting this kind of physical activity.
[heheheh, burn]
"But I was thinking...sigh" he sighed without finishing his sentence.
He wanted to get mad at Gaya but he couldn''t as he knew it was his fault for dreaming. She then slowly unmasked herself to show her real face which made Michael''s heart skip a beat. Raven ck hair, perfect facial features, and a goddess-level hourss figure, she was a beauty beyond words.
He could stare at her all day, she was that beautiful. Miss Universes could hold a torch against her beauty.
"I''ve seen you fight and it''s an embarrassment" Her words brought him back from staring at her beauty. Soon, he frowned
"Just a little motivation," she said, ying with her hair.
"Embarrassment huh? Why don''t we spar?" Golden tiny light bolts emerged from his body, crackling around his body. He was ready to use Lightning Dash and teach her a lesson.
Gaya immediately took a step back. She knew if he used his speed spell, it would be damn hard tond a hit on him but she was expecting him to use this spell.
"You can''t use any spells. That bitch Sadie didn''t tell you everything about the first few rounds of the championship tournaments, did she?" she asked.
"In the tournaments, there will be a round where you just have to fight, No Arch Energy, no spells, just good old fashioned brawl"
The crackles of lightning disappeared from Michael''s body. He was absolutely positive to win a brawl if he could use the Lightning Dash. However, if he was unable to use his speed spell, he wasn''t as confident as before. Without using Lightning Dash, he knew Gaya could beat him in a couple of seconds because he saw her fight, herbat techniques and skills were far superior to the techniques he learned on earth and inherited from Abras.
"System, can you use the mentor function to boost my training?"
[Yes. The system can activate the Mentor function to speed up your learning process of new fighting technique as well as improve it for a price of course]
After getting the confirmation from the system, a small smile emerged on his face. If he could learn Gaya''s fighting technique and perfect it with the help of the system, he would beat all thepetitors at the tournament ck and blue. On top of this, he was already thinking about a prototype that would ensure his victory.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Just start with free weight training to shed all that shabby fat in your body"
He was surprised because although he wasn''t as toned as some magazine models, he was lean and had noticeable muscle definition. Any girl would love to see him naked but not Gaya.
"You''re telling me this is fat," he asked, pointing at his six-packs.
"Meh" she waved off before flicking her wrist. The next moment, Michael saw numerous metal tes, logs, bags that looked freakin heavy and a bunch of unknown things appeared on the deck.
"I got these from a muscle mountain I killed. We can use these to get you into shape" she kicked one of the metal balls towards Michael''s direction,
"Remember, you can''t use Arch energy or any of your freaky things. Do this and I''ll bunk with you every night after the training"
"Done" Michael did not need any motivation other than this. It was a damn good deal if anyone asked him.
Chapter 223 - Birthday Celebration
"Come on move your ass"
"Ah, fuck!''
On the upper deck, Michael was carrying a 300kg log on his shoulder and walking from one end of the ship to another through the knee-high snow on the floor. All of his muscles were screaming as even in the cold weather, he was sweating like he was walking in the desert.
Despite his suffering, she was hitting him with a stick every time he slowed down. One could see zigzags of red lines on his fair back. During his training, she was apletely different woman. After training, although he would drink a healing potion to heal himself, she would massage his back, pour him coffee and care for him like a perfect wife.
Her care for him during the daytime was absolutely worth all this pain in his mind.
"You''re such...a...bitch"? Yet, Michael couldnt help cursing when she attacked him with a stick again.
"What did you call me?!"? she wasughing yet she put on a mad face just to make him walk faster to avoid getting hit by her. She didn''t love or take any pleasure in hitting him, it was part of training before she could actually teach him the secret fighting technique she inherited from her mother. Gaya''s mother''s father created this technique himself while Gaya''s mother fused a few other techniques and Gaya was trying to perfect the fighting technique.
Before the tournament began, she wanted to teach him the fighting technique so he could beat all the fighters in the tournament. After walking the 50th time carrying the 300kg log, he finallypleted the set. He was exhausted as he wanted to immediately lie down on the snow yet he had a lot of other workouts to do.
"Good, let''s work on your kick"? she lifted his right leg. He adjusted his body not to fall down while his left leg was on her shoulder.
"Leg work is vital to what I''ll teach you soon. Now, lift it higher"? she was lifting his leg higher and higher to the point he began to feel excruciating pain between his legs.
"keep it still for thirty minutes"
It has been a week since he started his first training. This was the second most painful week he ever had, the first one was when he was training with Spectre back on earth.
"So you did this when you were training?" he asked Gaya who was sitting on a pile of snow.
"I''m not a puny human so no, I didn''t" she retrieved her snacks from the space ring. She had enough snacks to feed an entire family of five for a whole month.
"You know, you should learn how to cook," Michael said while trying his best to keep his leg higher.
"Why is...thot?" words barely escape her biscuit-filled mouth.
"As if yo...know...hob..to cook "
"Fo your information, I do know how to cook" Michael proudly said putting his trust in the system. If pushes to shove, he would be a star chef himself. After all, personally cooking was more romantic than buying from a restaurant.
"Really?" she swallowed everything in her mouth, gawking at him in surprise.
"Then, I''ll learn"
Meanwhile down in the crew member quarters, Captain Lars was lying on a bed. He was drowning himself in rum as the crew members surrounded him, they were gossiping.
"Be they still doin'' it?"
"yeah, I''m afraid that thered might die before we ''and them o''er to the buyer"
"thatss be a fuckin'' dominatrix"
"Why be they trainin'' anyway? it''s not like ''avin'' muscles would save them after they cross the void line"
"why would they even go to the southern continent? if I born in the northern continents an'' be able to cultivate, I''d stay the fuck out o'' a ce where I cannot use me powers"
"Cultivators be evil shites. They do evil shite every single day like grabbin'' a piss. Jolly thin'' they ''ave a guardian guild to put them in the leash, just imagine a gentleman o'' fortune ship with cultivators fer the crew"
"don''t forget about the void. If it wasn''t fer the void, the northern kings would ''ave long conquered the southern continent"
Captain Lars dropped the empty rum bottle to join the conversation,
"Ye got it all wrong men. The void line isn''t savin'' the southern continent from the northern continent, it''s the other way around. The southerners make northerners look like a pissin'' little child when ites to doin'' evil shits. very, constant massacres, piracy, organ trafficking, experiments on poor bastards, an'' a shite load o'' other evil things. Oh, I forgot about the corruption, if ye ''ave gold coins, ye can do anythin'' an'' bribe anyone. Them senators be just pirates livin'' on thend"
"Speakin'' o'' gentlemen o'' fortune, Cap''n, I ''eard some powerful kingdoms in the Awor continent puttin'' to the sky a naval unit to clean up the pirates. Licky aft on pirate cove said other continents might call these pirate destroyers"
For a few moments, the crew quarters went into silence mode.
"Another reason fer me to retire. I''m too old to deal with new shits" Lars sighed,
" Cap''n, what about us?"
"After sellin'' the two cultivators, we''ll split the gold an'' go our separate way"
"I''m nnin'' to join a pirate crew, I always wanted to be a pirate"
"I''m goin'' to the pirate cove an'' drink to death"
"I just want to travel"
The crew started to discuss their future endeavors after selling Michael and Gaya to the one who called, the buyer. The cultivators would lose their connection with arch energy or any kind of energy after crossing the void line and be mortals like them, these crew would use this to sell them to the buyer. Neither the crew nor the Lars knew what would happen to those they sell but they didn''t care for them as much as they did for the gold coins.
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Meanwhile, in Pen Town, Noah''s house was lit up brighter than usual. The house sparkled with various colored light stones. The house was decorated as the house was on earth during Christmas time. The house was filled withughter and happiness.
Diana was sitting on the far end of the oak table, looking at her family and the countless delicacies on the table. A giant teddy bear-shaped cake took most of the space while on the top of the number, one could see the number 22 made of sparkling material.
The table was upied by all the Winston family members but it was the two sitting on Diana''s left side and the one sitting on her right side at the table that got the most attention. The one sitting on Diana''s left was a young girl in her mid-twenties, she had raven ck hair, a perfect jawline that made her extremely beautiful. Her hazel eyes scanned everything and everyone in the room calmly. A tiny ck mole above her lip enhanced her beauty even further.
Despite her calm look, she was the strongest in the room, Core Strengthening stage level 10. She was Noah''s big sister, Rowena Winston, the holy maiden of Skyhall.
The golden babaroo Norvin was jumping around the table, picking every delicacy he could before jumping onto Alicia''s shoulder. Maisy was enjoying the fried turkey leg while trying to catch Norvin to pet.
At the table, Natalia wasughing with a golden-haired youngster, Andrew Winston. He waspletely cured after Michael gave him the antidote for the poison and healed the star pox. Amelda was running around, bringing more and more food to the table despite Butler Samuel''s strong disagreement with her doing all the work that should be done by him.
Amelda waved off Samuel as she came to Noah carrying a huge chunk of juicy golden meat slice.
"Why am I not seeing an empty te birthday boy?"
"Aunt, no!" Noah shouted but Amelda already put the slice of meat in his ce, ruffling his hair yfully.
"Take mine too" Sabrina used this opportunity to pass the slice of meat on her te to his.
Everyoneughed seeing Noah''s helpless reaction.
"Lady Diana, may I bring you another grilled fish?" Samuel asked.
Diana was looking at her family but one could see her mind was somewhere else.
Except for Amelda, no one knew what she was thinking.
"Mom" Rowena ced her hand on Diana''s shoulder. Yet Diana seemed not to have noticed Rowena or anyone else, she just kept staring at the 22 at the top of the cake.
"Lady Diana" while she was staring at the cake, a guard covered in snow entered the room. Only now, Diana''s gaze turned away from the cake. Looking at the guard, she almost stood up
"Young Master Ghost has left the Sunrise sect to enter seclusion, Lady Diana. No one knew where he went" the liveliness that appeared in her eyes vanished away after hearing the guard''s words. Her eyes almost welled up but she was able to control them from rolling out of her beautiful eyes.
"It''s my fault. I should have invited him back at the auction" Noah sighed.
"It was either wait for him or save a vige from a rogue cultivator, Noah. I think you made the right choice" Alicia said, her voice contained a tingle of coldness.
"It''s unfortunate, I wanted to thank him for saving me" Andrews shook his head.
"And I wanted to save him for saving mom and Sabi"
"Didn''t you say he was at Core Formation level 3 when he''s here? I wonder what kind of cultivation method he''s using to breakthrough this fast" Andrew spoke while many family members gasped in surprise. His cultivation speed waspared to Rowena herself.
"Did you search everywhere?!" Diana raised her voice. This day wasn''t only Noah''s birthday but also her other son, Dean''s also known as Ghost by the world. She wanted to see her son again on his birthday yet the disappointment was turning into pointless anger inside her.
Chapter 224 - The Connection Between Ghost And Lucifer
"It''s no one''s fault,"? Amelda raised her voice and turned her gaze towards the guard standing in the doorway.
"Kim, take the day off" the guards left the dining hall after bowing in her direction.
The joyousughter vanished away as silence upied the hall.
"Is it true young master Noah that young master Ghost is a friend of House Kane? I heard from our spies that he has seen with Elder Walter at the auction house"
Samuel changed the topic to make the hall lively again. A few sounds of gasps could be heard in the hall. Most of the family members knew how hard it is to establish a connection with any of the Noble families in Royalnd let alone bing a friend of House Kane, one of the most powerful families in Royalnd.
"Then he made an enemy out of House Fisher and probably House Oswen too" Alicia snickered. Every pair of eyesnded on her expecting an exnation for her statement. Diana''s heart skipped a beat hearing her son has made an enemy out of two powerful families. If Noah pissed off any of the noble families, he had his family and Guardians to protect him but her other son had to face them alone. This made her motherly feelings to protect her son erupt in her heart. Two decades ago, she utterly failed as a mother, she wanted to redeem herself yet she wouldn''t be able with Skyhall in her way. Until Skyhall exists, her son would always be in danger unless she never reveals the fact that Ghost is her own son.
Neither her family nor Ghost was strong enough to take on the Skyhall, she knew this and this was the only thing keeping her from reuniting with her son.
"I heard he and the daughter of the second Oswen brother have some bad blood between them. Hence, he made an enemy out of House Oswen"
"What''s her name?" Andrews asked,
"Celina, Celina Oswen.Since he has reached the Core Formation stage, he would either fight Celina or her fiance, Alex, Alex Fisher. By allying with House Kane, the rival family of House Fisher, he is already on the bad side of House Fisher. Unless he loses to either of them, he would be in trouble with those families"? Alicia exined.
"Do you think either of them can defeat him in the championship tournament?" Natalia asked. Although Alicia didn''t want to believe it, she thought either Celina or Alex would be able to defeat Ghost. In her mind, only Noah could defeat him among the same generation as Ghost.
"No. I saw each of them fight. They can''t defeat him" said Noah, recalling the time when he fought with Ghost against the Core Formation beats inside the Nether Realm.
"If it wasn''t for the stupid rule that guilds cannotpete in the championship tournaments, brother Noah would have defeated him," Maisy said as many of the family members nodded in agreement.
Rowena saw the uncertainty in Noah''s eyes for the first time. Rowena trained with her little brother and she could tell that even though Noah was at the Body Strengthening stage level 10, he could beat anyone below Core Formation level 5 yet he seemed uncertain about defeating a Core Formation level 3 cultivator.
Diana heaved a sigh of relief thanking the rules preventing the guardian guild frompeting in the tournaments. Thest thing she wanted was her two sons fighting each other. If they were to face Skyhall in the future, her children must stand together rather than against each other.
"Noah, do you think you can defeat him if you fought him in the tournament?" Rowena calmly asked.
"I''m not sure. I have a feeling that he hasn''t shown the full extent of his power to the world yet. The tournament will be a good ce to study him"
"If that''s the case, I''m sure the Guardian guild is already putting up a file on him. ces like the Guardian guild dont like to deal with the unknown"
"What about Skyhall?" Sabrina asked while Rowena took a sip from her wine ss.
"Unless one reaches the Fusion stage, Skyhall wouldn''t care. We have bigger fish to fry" her face showed no expression, neither arrogance nor pride could be seen in her eyes. If Alicia was cold, Rowena was colder.
However, she loved her family the most. If she had to choose between Skyhall and her family, she would choose thetter in a heartbeat. When came to know about the assassination attempt on her sister and mother, she personally hunted down all the known associates of Giles and Jacobs without showing them a shred of mercy.
"I don''t want any of you to fight with Ghost," Diana said. It didn''t sound like a request but rather like an order. Noah saw her looking at him when she talked. He frowned because, in his mother''s eyes, he saw something that''s more than gratefulness of Ghost saving her and Sabrina.
"Allying with Ghost, a 5-star Alchemist and a prodigy is good for Winston Family"? Diana quickly said before her children started to doubt her.
"I agree with Aunt. If it was up to me, I would have given him the banner of the Winston family as a token for showing our gratitude" some of the elders nodded in approval.
Yet Noah seemed to disagree with Andrew.
"Noah?" Andrews noticed Noah''s silence and called out his name to hear his opinion.
"I think the Winston family and Ghost has some conflict of interests" Noah took a sip of wine before continuing,
"I don''t think selfish people like him would not bring any benefits to the Winston family"
"Selfish?" Diana frowned,
"Yes, he could have joined the Guardians and helped many with his talents yet he chose to get richer"
"And he stole my dragon," Maisy shouted, punching the table with her little fist.
"Noah, he saved Sabrina and Aunt on the same day. I don''t see how that''s selfish" Andrews said.
"I am grateful for what he did, there''s no denying that. But didn''t Sabi say it was the dragon who came to her rescue first" besides Noah doubted that Ghost might have something to do with Jacob''s letter because Noah doubted that Giles would be stupid enough to put his name on a letter thatpletely incriminates him.
Yet he wasn''tpletely sure about that and Giles turned out to be guilty when Rowena went on her killing spree. Although Giles escaped, Noah knew it was only a matter of time before he found him.
"Of course he came to save the dragon and ended up saving Sabrina," Alicia said. After hearing their words, Diana stomped the ground as the ground trembled,
"Stop it, all of you. We will not forget what he did. If it wasn''t for him, Sabi, Andrews, and I''m wouldn''t be here. I don''t want to hear any of you speak so ungrateful ever again in my house!" the entire hall went dead silent seeing Diana''s domineering face. It wasn''t often she would lose her cool like that.
On top of that, this was the first time they saw her raise her voice at Noah.
Even Noah himself was stunned to hear her.
"Enough of this. Today''s a celebration so let''s celebrate" Amelda quickly tried to elevate the mood in the hall.
**********************************
Inside Peyton''s manor, Xanali and Peyton were staring at a table full of documents.
"So Connor lost him?" Peyton creased her brows as Xanali shook her head.
"Ghost has been using teleportation scrolls to travel between kingdoms, Peyton. How could Connor follow him? However despite him using teleportation scrolls, I''d say Connor did a good job providing us with all this information on Ghost"
"Teleportation scrolls huh. I wonder where he is getting all those rare scrolls" Peyton rubbed her chin while Xanali put Michael''s portrait next to the portrait of a question mark.
"Lucifer said he''s giving the criminals two months. Ghost went into seclusion at the same time. Lucifer came just a few months after Ghost made his appearance at River Town. We don''t know anything about him before he came to River Town" Xanali kept listing out facts to Peyton.
"Few days before Nightcrawler was killed by Lucifer, Ghost came to mefair" Xanali paused for a moment,
"Where are you going with this Xanali?"
"I think Ghost is working for Lucifer" Peyton just stared at all the documents at the table, pondering about what Xanali just said.
"Everything you said might be just a coincidence but, we can neither confirm it nor deny your doubt. I like your theory, we just need more solid proof" Peyton was desperate to find Lucifer so she could hunt him down. His usation of them killing the nobles almost jeopardized the whole operation and brought down the wrath of a guardian captain.
"Allocate more resources to Connor and bring us the best teleportation expert in the guild. I want to know every move Ghost makes"
"As you wish. Also, I want to put a surveince team around the Sunrise sect"
"Go ahead but be careful. A Soul Refiner is living there"
Xanali nodded with a smile. She then quickly stacked all the documents on the table neatly.
"Let me guess, you were invited to Noah''s birthday party"
Chapter 225 - Death In The Family
The forest surrounding the Sunrise sect wasrge, thick, and archaic. Its canopy was ruled by monstrous linden, purple cottonwood, and gigantic chestnut. The asional beam of light that made its way through the canopy allowed bright shrubs to cultivate the rich grounds below. Coiling climbing nts grasped many trees, and a medley of flowers, which blossomed brightly, protruded from the otherwise colorless view. A variety of sounds, belonging mostly to vermin, filled the air and were out of sync with the trickling sounds of a gentle river stream.
Hiding within the thick forest, Connors was watching at a construction site a few hundred meters away. He was wearing full white clothes to blend in with the snow in the forest. At the construction site, he could see several ck-uniformed disciples helping the construction workers. Just by looking at the construction site and the tons of wood, marble stones, and sses they were bringing in, he could tell they were building not just a house but a huge mansion. The dwarf engineering was a dead giveaway showing the intricate design of the mansion.
"Where are you, Ghost?" Connors mumbled. It has been a month since he was allocated more resources to gather more information about Ghost. Considering Ghost disappeared using a teleportation scroll a month ago, he couldn''t follow him. Therefore, he was surveying the sect and his underlings were surveying Ghost''s restaurant in River Town.
Whoosh!
A shadow brought extra darkness to the forest as Connors looked upwards to see Ghost''s pet dragon hovering over the sky before flying towards the construction site. This was the third time he had seen the dragon, yet it always freaked him out regardless of its Body Strengthening cultivation level.
It wasn''t a full-grown dragon yet. The dragon was almost 3m long, almost the size of a full-grown horse. Bright scarlet red eyes sat well within the dragon''s rounded, scaled skull, which gave the creature a frightening-looking appearance. The dragon had crimson red shiny scales that made the dragon look more majestic and noble. Two small crystal growths sat atop its head, just above its thin, curved ears.
Its nose was short and had two wide, slitted nostrils and there were crystal growths on its chin. Several razor-sharp teeth poked out from the side of its mouth and gave a preview of the terror hiding inside. A wide neck ran down from its head and into a slender body. The top was covered in wide scales and a row of small tendrils runs down its spine.
The dragon''s belly was covered in radiant greyscales and shinier than the rest of its body. Four slender limbs carried its body and allowed the creature to stand sturdy and elegantly.? The most iconic feature of the dragon was its colossal wings that grew starting from just above its shoulders and ended at the end of its shoulder des. The wings were ded in structure, the skin of the wings seems to glow as if made from the fire itself and armor-like scales grow on top of the wing''s primary bones.
Its graceful tail ended in a sharp, arrowhead-shaped tip and was covered in the same scarlet red scales as its body.
"How''s the work going?" The dragon''s voice sent a chill running through Connor''s spine yet at the same time, it kindled his hunting spirit. He wanted to hunt down this creature and put its head on his wall. It would definitely increase his status among the other guardian trainees in Operation Dawn.
When Connor received Ghost as his target from Peyton, he was beyond excited because unlike Lucifer or any other targets on the list, Ghost seemed to be the most overrated yet easiest one in his eyes. The only drawback was Ghost''s teleportation. Now, Peyton allocated more resources and a team of dedicated teleportation experts working on a rune that would track Ghost''s activity even after he teleports.
If he could gather enough evidence to neutralize Ghost, this would catapult his career through the roof. His family spent millions of gold coins to help his cultivation, otherwise, he wouldn''t have reached the Core Formation stage at just 27 years old. If he could be a full-fledged guardian, he could earn what they spent in just a couple of years. As any guardian, his life would be spending nights with countless beauties as well as attending balls organized by various noble families.
Whoosh!
The dragon pped its wings, taking off from the ground. The heat radiated from its body melted the snow where it was standing a moment before. Connors quickly hid behind a chestnut tree, it was not the time for him to hunt this creature.
Connors continued to watch the construction site as well as the female disciples who were bringing hot beverages to the workers through a rune ced monocr.
Krick!
Suddenly in his interest in checking out the female disciples, he ignored the sounding from behind.
"Hey!" Connors almost dropped the monocr as his body jerked when he heard the voice. He immediately turned back to see a golden-haired youngster staring back at him. On the ground, Connors saw a basket full of chestnuts as the golden hair youngster unsheathed his sword.
"Jack" Connors knew almost every single known associate of Ghost. So, he naturally recognized the golden-haired youngster as Jack, one of the most loyalckeys of Ghost.
"What are you doing here?!" Jack saw spell scrolls, weird pieces of equipment lying around the white-clothed man. Jack couldn''t see his face through the mask yet his fully covered face only increased Jack''s suspicion.
"Calm down" Connor let out a burst of Arch energy showing his cultivation level.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?!" Jack shouted at Connors fearlessly. The image of Gaya and Ghost in his heart gave him the courage to face a Core Formation intruder.
Connors was slightly surprised to see the fearless expression on Jack''s face as he slowly stepped towards Jack.
"You sick bastard, are you spying on us?!" Jack took a step forward.
"Yes," Connors calmly said,
"Surrender peacefully" Jack threatened Connors. Unlike Michael or Gaya, Jack never had real-world battle experience. If he had, he would have called for help instead of asking Connors to surrender.
"If youe with me peacefully, I''ll ask Sister Aelia to go easy on you"
"Hahaha" Connors burst intoughter after hearing Jack''s words. Jack creased his brows, until now he didn''t think to call for others. His devotion towards Gaya and Ghost gave him blind courage.
"Aelia, the Body refining bitch of Ghost?"? Connorsughed thinking that JAck threatened him by mentioning Aelia, Ghost''s girlfriend instead of using Ghost''s name.
"How dare you!" Jack lost his cool when he heard Connors call Aelia a bitch. Although Gaya would constantly p him around, he always thought of her as his big sister. Every time he got into trouble, she would beat him silly but always got him out of the trouble at the end. Jack respected and loved Ghost as his brother but he worshipped Aelia becausepared to Ghost, he spent more time with Aelia. Even when all of his friends were against him for loving N, Aelia supported him saying he should listen to his heart rather than to others. She was his big sister he never had.
Jack leaped at Connors raising his sword. He tried to use what he learned from Ghost in sword mastery.
"Void step" Connors cast the spell as Jack saw him vanish into thin air.
The very next moment after he saw the intruder vanish, he felt a sharp pain in his chest.
pulch!
Jack coughed a mouthful of warm blood. He looked down to see a sharp dagger sticking out of his chest. Jack tried to take out a healing potion from his ring but before he could ess the ring, he felt another excruciating sharp pain in his chest.
Jack''s body lost the strength to stand straight as he stumbled down on the ground. He crawled through the snow towards a tree. Connors appeared beside Jack before kicking Jack in the gut.
The kick sent Jack flying into a tree. He coughed up more blood as his vision began to blur, he barely saw the white-masked figure squatting in front of him.
"Sister...Aelia...cough...cough...will..."
Pulch!
Jack wanted to scream in pain but all he heard was a chuckle from the masked figure.? cing his hand on Jack''s shoulder, Connors slowly thrust his dagger deeper into Jack''s heart.
"Come...for...you...cough" the words barely escaped Jack''s mouth. It was toote for Jack to realize that he should have called for help. Even in hisst moments, he believed his Sister Aelia woulde out of nowhere and save him. He refused to believe that he was dying. The snow below him turned red from the blooding out of his wounds.
"You were in the wrong ce at the wrong time," Connors said, removing Jack''s bloody hand from his chest. In hisst moments, Jack felt the embroidered symbol on the masked figure''s chest.
Connors saw Jack close his eyes but he could swear that he saw a tiny smile on the corner of Jack''s bloody mouth. Since his ce was uncovered by Jack and probably someone could soone looking for Jack, Connors immediately gathered all of his equipment, preparing to leave the ce.
Although he was dying, he didn''t worry about his family because he knew Ghost and Sister Aelia would look after them and avenge his death. An image of him getting pped around by Gaya appeared in Jack''s mind before everything turned into darkness.
Chapter 226 - Welcome To The Southern Continent
"It''s been 33 days since we left the Dradel," Michael said, watching the cloudy night sky. Today was a rest day from his hellish training. He wanted to spend the day with Gaya peacefully but she was unusually silent. She was standing on the edge of the ship, staring at the direction they came from.
"What is it?"
??
Michael came to her side to apany her in staring at the dark sea.
"I''m feeling something I''ve never felt before," she said. Her voice was quieter than usual.
"It might be seasickness," Michael just shrugged. Surprisingly she didn''tugh or give a reaction at all, she just kept staring at the horizon.
"I can''t describe this feeling, it''s like someone''s desperately calling me. Do you think something could have happened at the sect?" He shook his head.
He made sure that his sect stays safe before leaving, but even after everything he did, it''s far beyond his control if something still happened.
For now, he wanted to get the artifact rted to Nightcrawler''s artifact as soon as possible. After that, he would revive the demon soul waiting back at the Abyssal.
Instead of using words, Michael just wrapped his hand around her shoulder. She gently kissed his arm before resting her head on his shoulder. Having him beside her made her feel better.
"In a few more hours, we''ll cross the void line"
On top of her words, he could already feel the density of the Arch energy gradually decreasing in the atmosphere. He took a long breath, after crossing the void line, it was up to the system to save their bacon.
[The system will scan the atmosphere to create a solution in an hour] the system reassured Michael.
The further they moved towards the invincible void line, the force of the wind increased significantly. His long grey long coat fluttered back in the wind along with his raven ck hair.
Approximately two hourster, Michael noticed a significant decrease in the snowfall. In the distant sky above the horizon, he could see a couple of glimmering stars in the sky. He was staring at the weing sight of the cloudless sky when he noticed an object floating in the sky.
[The system has scanned the atmosphere and found that something extraterrestrial is consuming the Arch energy in the atmosphere around the Southern Continent] Michael entered the system after he heard the words.
"Extraterrestrial? Can you identify what sort of alien we are dealing with?"
[System''s level is too low]
He sighed except the system''s next words shocked him even more,
[But the system rmends not to go search for the extraterrestrial being at least the host is an Immortal]
"I thought i''m the only alien in this world but it seems I was wrong. What about the solution? If it''s consuming all the Arch energy..." his voice trailed off
[Although the extraterrestrial being is consuming the Arch energy in the atmosphere, it''s not void of Arch energy.No cultivator or a magical beat could use the tiny amount of Arch energy in the atmosphere but]
"But you can" he finished the system''s words
[Yes. So get ready to give the system 40,000 badass points to enable the Energy extractor function]
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 3
Experience Points: 5000/400000
Badass Points: 92000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 2
Responsive Shield - LVL 3
Environment Scanning - LVL 2
Ignitia - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 2
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 2
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 90% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 59% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 80% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
Wealth: 11,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 98%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 29%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
"40,000?! Jeez," he sighed in his mind before asking more about this function,
"So if I pay what you ask and enable the function, can I use my full cultivation power in the Southern Continent?"
[No. You will be able to use your cultivation power 3 hours a day. Your chosen subordinate can use their cultivation power for 2 hours a day]
"You know what? I''m not even surprised" he knew there must be a catch when ites to system''s offers. Despite the time limit restriction, he had no other choice than enabling the function for 40,000 badass points.
[Stop pondering too much host. It''s not like you have any choice] the system snickered.
"I have to stop upgrading, you sound more and more like an asshole,"? Michael said in an irritated voice after he heard the system''s words filled with arrogance. The system did not reply as it remained silent until he asked another question.
"So the function is upgradeable or not?"
[The next upgrade will let the host use your cultivation power for 5 hours and subordinates can use it for 4 hours but you''re too poor. Get me 200,000 badass points and then we''ll talk]
The system sounded more like Gaya. He could only deal one Gaya at a time so he remained calm despite the system''s tone.
"Alright, I''ll buy the function"
[Wonderful, was it so hard?]
"You''re being a jerk because I have to depend on you more to survive in the Southern Continent, aren''t you?"
[hehehe] Michael was stunned for a moment to hear the system giggle. He could tell it''s bing more and more like a human being with time and level. He wondered how human-like it would be when he upgrades it again.
A few moments after, the badass points decreased from 90,000 to 50,000.
[The system has sessfully enabled the Energy Extractor? function]
[The host can now choose a subordinate to share the energy Extractor function with]
"Do I really have to spell the name? its Gaya"
[Leave the system and ce your hand on subordinate''s forehead]
Rather than Michael exiting the system, he was thrown out of the system as everything around him began to move.
"What an asshole of a system I have" he cursed the system in his mind. He then turned his gaze away from the object to Gaya. Her face was still dull, it was obvious she''s still trying to figure out the reason for her bad feelings.
"This will cheer you up" Michael ced his hand on her forehead. She was about to ask a question when she felt a tingling sensation inside her head. Along with the tingling sensation, she was able to sense Arch energy in the atmosphere as she was back on the Northern continents.
"What?" she let out a quick bark ofughter in shock. Her mouth kept opening and closing.
"How?"
"I can use my cultivation power for 3 hours a day and you can use it for 2 hours"
When Michael thought about it, the three-hour time was not less but rather it was enough. By using spells, no one in the Southern Continent would be his match. Hence, there wouldn''t be a need for using Arch energy for three hours.
He just had to find a way to travel without flying because flying was the only thing that could require him to use Arch energy for more than three hours.
"We are gonna rule the Southern Continent!" As Michael guessed, this made Gaya forget about the bad feeling and made her bounce in joy.
He couldn''t help smiling looking at herugh.
"We still have to deal with the utmost caution, Gaya. What we are about to do will get every major power including the top heads of the Guardian guild. They might note looking for us in the Southern Continent as it would be equal to suicide, they will use every bit of their resources to watch our every step "
"Can''t we just conquer the whole Southern Continent three hours a day?" she rubbed her hands together, her eyes sparkled regardless of Michael''s statement.
"We will conquer the Southern Continent but I won''t rush it. I don''t think we can rule an entire Continent just because we can use our cultivation power. As a princess, you know more about ruling than me"
"Yeah you''re right" she took a deep breathe controlling her excitement
"It''s not that simple. Let''s just do what we always do first, recon"
He nodded, "why wage a war on a kingdom when you can just control its rulers?" said Michael with an evil grin. Michael wanted to be the shadow ruler of the Southern Continent by controlling every senate. ording to Aria, in most of the kingdoms in the Southern Continent, the kingdom was ruled by the Senate instead of a king or a queen. The Senate wasposed of ten senators and two consuls who were elected by the senators. The two consuls had the most power in the Senate. They had control of the army and the treasury, the two of the most important bureaus.
Aria also mentioned that only nobles could vote and stand as senator candidates.
The more he heard about the Southern Continent, the more it felt like ancient Rome. The arena and the diators were already a dead giveaway yet everything he heard from Aria strengthened his assumption.
"''ere ye be. We ''ave crossed the void line fer yer information" they suddenly heard the voice of Captain Lars. They turned back to see him walking towards them along with a group of his crew.
In Lars''s eyes, Michael saw a tinge of pity. Gaya didn''t look his eyes but the cuss in his hand, she creased her brows
"What do you n to do with that cuss in your hand, Captain?"
Lars didn''t answer Gaya but looked at the distant sky as everyone saw a gigantic eagle soaring through the sky towards them. The eagle carried a steel cage that had just enough space for two people.
"Lars my friend" suddenly a voice reverberated from the sky.
Chapter 227 - The Silent Reaper I
Michael looked up to see the eagle slowly descending from the sky. The steel cage was on top of the lower part of the eagle''s body while two grown men were riding the eagle by standing above its shoulder. The two men were in their mid-thirties and wearing a gold-embroidered toga. They reminded Michael of the ancient Roman noblemen.
These two men weren''t radiating zero amount of Arch energy but the amount was negligible. If they tried to walk through a defense array, they would definitely trigger the array however they would be considered as the weakest of themoners back on the Northern Continent.
??
Yet here they rode the eagle with a domineering attitude.
Kakaw!
The eagle let out a loud ear-piercing cry, it sounded like a raven somehow rather than an eagle.
Thud!
Itnded on the ship, shaking the ship for a few seconds. The eagle then turned its head to stare at Michael and Gaya menacingly.
The one wearing a toga with a purple line stepped onto the ship first while the one wearing a white toga with red lines carried a medium side chest before cing the chest before Lars.
"Trent" Lars signaled the greasy blonde crew member who weed Gaya and Michael to the ship when they first onboarded Striker.
Until now, the two noblemen wearing toga did not even look at Michael or Gaya. Trent licked his lips walking towards the medium-sized chest. His skinny hands slightly trembled approaching the chest. When he opened the chest, his face brightened up due to the glistening gold and gemstones inside the chest. Even Michael''s eyes sparkled looking at the rubies, diamonds, gold bricks, and various colors of gemstones shining inside the chest.
"3 million, as we agreed" the one wearing the toga with purple lines smiled at Lars. The crew behind Lars were looking at the chest full of goodies like starving dogs staring at the bbq.
Michael folded his arms, leaning back on the ship''s foresail wooden beam. Gaya saw his face, totally calm and cool like nothing''s going on here. Only his eyes were asionally gawking at the chest full of goodies.
"Okay guys, what''s the n here?" Finally, Michael opened his mouth after Trent closed the chest.
"Why don''t you two piggies save us the trouble and get yourselves into the cage?" the one with the red line toga waved off at them without even looking at them in the eyes. However, the one with the purple line toga who also had a bald head turned his gaze at Gaya. His blue eyes scanned Gaya from her head to toe,
"I heard cultivating women are way better than our southerndies but it seems like I heard wrong" he shook his head disappointingly.
"That was a big mistake" Michael mumbled as he could already feel a cold killing intent. It wasn''t much about what he said but the way he said it. She hated beingpared to other girls and he justpared her with northerndies, a big fucking mistake. Yet, she remained silent.
"Ye ''eard the man" Trent shouted at them. Michael saw no fear in Trent''s eyes, the fear he saw when he first met him. One didn''t need a genius to figure out that the reason for Trent and every crew members'' newfound courage is that Michael and Gaya lost their ability to cast spells.
"We be sellin'' ye daft dumb" Trentughed along with his crew members.
"We can see that" The calm look on his face began to disturb Lars. After exchanging pleasantries with Lars, the one wearing red lines toga turned his gaze towards Michael and Gaya.
"Don''t make me drag you into the cage, piggies"? the scar running across his face made his warning even more menacing. Michael was still dazed thinking why these Southerners look like Romans of the ancient time back on earth.
He was making connections in his head that he failed to notice the crew members including taking their cusses out of their sheaths.
"You should know that even without the Arch energy, we can fuck you up" Gaya cracked her knuckles. Most of the cultivators spend their time cultivating or practicing spell casting or if they had any specialization like Michael, they would use the time to improve their skills. Most of them wouldn''te to the Southern Continent, therefore, they didn''t have to think about what they would do without Arch Energy. Besides, ny-nine percent of the fighting styles required Arch energy, so theirbat skills wouldn''t be useless in the Southern Continent.
However, Serpent-Maga was not one of those fighting styles. Only four people in the world could use Serpent-Maga, Gaya, Gaya''s father, Xanali, and Michael. Among them, with the help of the system''s mentor function, he was perfecting the fighting style to unlock its maximum deadliness.
After 30 days of training, he was at the point where he could survive a fight with Gaya for more than five minutes, taking less beating from her andnding several blows to her.
"The girl got teeth. I will look forward to opening her up" Michael was surprised. There was no lust in his eyes but something evil, he had seen this evil before. It was the same look a notorious mad scientist who tried to find a cure for a brain tumor back on earth. The scientist''s cause was noble except he was kidnapping people and doing all kinds of horrible experiments on them until he kidnapped a wealthy person''s daughter and ended up getting assassinated by Michael himself. This toga-wearing man had the same look in his eyes as the mad scientist once had.
Though unlike on earth, Michael wasn''t disgusted by this look, he felt curious. This time he wanted to kidnap the evil scientist and interrogate him so he could exploit the toga-wearing southerner.
Boom!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Just when Michael was about to really use his Serpent-Maga on these poor crew members, the two roman looking guys exploded into a bloody mist.
It took them a few seconds to realize what just happened.
"Pirates!" Captain Lars screamed as Michael turned back to see a huge ship leaping out of the water like a whale. Seeing the ship that emerged from the underwater, Michael took a few steps backward in fear. He had seen this ship before, the flying dutchman. The ship floating a few hundred meters away from him looked very simr to the flying dutchman in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Three loud booming sounds reverberated the calm sea. The Eagle was still in shock but before it could even react, the iron cannonballs fired by the pirate ship turned the eagle into the third red mist of the day.
"It''s the Silent Reaper!" Lars screamed again, rushing to the rudder. Michael and Gaya leaped out of the ce where they were standing to avoid being hit by the cannonballs.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
"Get the cannons ready to fire!" Lars shouted,
"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god"
"God saves us"
"Please God, I don''t wanna die!"
The crew members were running around scared to death while avoiding the cannonballs and exploding wooden structures.
"Do you see that ship?!" Michael had to shout to ovee the sound of cannonballs exploding.
"Yeah, it''s hard to miss!" Gaya replied.
They still didn''t use Arch Energy to save time. They were hiding behind the mainsail wood beam looking at the pirate ship that resembled the flying dutchman. The crew members and Lars forgot about them after their clients exploded into a bloody mist.
"Wait here!" Michael shouted,
"Where are, Fuck!" Before she could ask, she saw him running towards the chest rolling on the deck. Lars was turning the ship to avoid getting hit by the Silent Reaper as everything loose on the deck began to roll around. The hull and the seawater shed to produce waves that soaked everyone and everything wet on the deck. One could doubt that whether it was the seawater or they actually got themselves into a storm as the booming sound was simr to thunderps and the light produced by the cannons in the Silent Reaper resembled shes of lightning.
"Don''t!" Trent saw Michael''s intention to steal the chest. He came yelling at Michael with a cuss in his hand. The other crew members were busy with keeping the ship afloat as well as cannons ready to fire once they turned the ship sidewards to the Silent Reaper.
Despite the ship shaking violently, Michael swiftly turned his body away from the trajectory of Trent''s cuss. Trent lost bnce when his sword missed its target, when he was about to stumble forwards, Michael wrapped his hands around his neck, instantly twisting it with all his strength.
Crack!
Trent''s lifeless body was thrown into the sea when Lars turned the ship suddenly. Once again, the chest rolled away from Michael''s grasp as he himself almost lost the bnce.
"That''s mine!" Lars noticed Micahel chasing the chest and yelled while turning the rudder using all his strength.
Lars shouted but didn''t order the crew members to catch or kill Michael because he knew what he was dealing with here, the infamous cursed ship, the Silent Reaper. He never expected he would run into this particr pirate ship on the day that he was supposed to make onest trade before retiring.
Hmmmmmmmmm!
Suddenly, they heard an unearthly humming sound as the Silent Reaper stopped firing.
"It''s going to dive again!" some of the crew shouted
Chapter 228 - The Silent Reaper II
Michael waspletely stunned to see a gigantic ship like the Silent Reaper diving in and out of the water like a huge whale. He couldn''t help but wonder how the pirates on the Silent Reaper survived the dive without getting thrown into the sea.
The resemnce to the Flying Dutchman, the overwhelming fear on Lars''s crew members'' faces, the way Lars himself trying to get away from the Silent Reaper showed Michael that there''s something aerie about the ship.
??
However, his full focus was on the chest that contained 3 million worth of goodies for now. As the god himself was bringing down his wrath on them, a ferocious storm surrounded them. In the distance, Michael could vaguely see a dark devastating tornadoing in their direction. A navel fight in the middle of a storm was not how he expected to spend this day.
"It''s diving!" Lars screamed, his voice contained nothing but fear. It made Larspletely ignore Michael who was chasing around the chest full of his retirement fund.
"What the fuck?!" On the other end of the ship, Gaya was holding a wooden pole to steady herself when she saw the Silent Reaper slowly sinking into the water. "What kind of ship could jump in and out of the sea?" She thought.
"Captain, get us away from that ghost ship!" The momentarily pause of not getting attacked by the Silent Reaper made the crew members take a breath. They shouted at Lars to save them.
"Got ya" The moment the ship stopped violently shaking, Michael grabbed the chest.
"Stop him!"
"That''s ours!"
Boom!
Just when some of the crew members were shouting at Michael for grabbing the chest, another loud booming sound reverberated the sea.
The ship began to vibrate as soon the vibration turned into violent shakes.
Whhhoooooooosh!
The next moment, the Silent Reaper jumped out of the sea just a couple of meters away from them. The seawater disced by the Silent Reaper drenched and even threw some of the crew members out of the ship.
The Silent Reaper cast a huge dark shadow over the Striker. Due to its enormous size, the Striker looked so weak and tiny in front of it.
The figurehead of a Reaper holding a scythe looked down on everyone on the Striker as they all lost their courage to fight. In this close, they all knew the Silent Reaper could fire some of its front cannons topletely destroy them without even giving them a chance to escape.
Only Michael stared at the Silent Reaper with curiosity and wonder without showing any fear on his face.
"This is perfect" he mumbled, staring at the figurehead of the Reaper holding a scythe. The dark greyish sails, the ck hull, and its almost 200 feet length made his eyes sparkle. Already in his mind, he started to imagine Captaining the Silent Reaper, living a pirate life.
He ignored the worn-out-looking hull, the rust-covered cannons poking through the hull, and the ship''s old condition itself. All he had in his mind was bing the captain of the Silent Reaper. This ship instantly stole his heart.
"Surrender or Die" soon, a deep voice sounded from the Silent Reaper. It felt like the ship itself was talking to them as the crew dropped the cusses, they had no courage to fight against the Silent Reaper.
Soon after they all dropped their weapons, the Silent Reaper slowly turned sidewards revealing its 25 broadside cannons that could obliterate the Strike in one go. The Striker was small for Michael to get a look at the crew of the Silent Reaper. While he was craning his head, a nk was thrown to the Striker from the Silent Reaper.
[Firewall activated...]
[Blocking telepathic attack from the Silent Reaper!]
Michael suddenly heard the system''s warnings inside his head. The warnings made sense. The Lars''s crew were so quick to give up all their hope and courage, now Michael knew why. Something from the Silent Reaper had terrified them, just like his Fear toxin except the Silent Reaper seemed to be meddling with minds telepathically.
Michael quickly turned his gaze away from the ship top Gaya. There was indeed fear in her eyes but she didn''t look pale or terrified like the rest of the crew.
"System, can you block the Silent Reaper from ying with Gaya''s mind?"
[Subordinate Gaya has enough mental strength to fight off the telepathic signalsing from the Silent Reaper]
"Fuck my luck" Lars mumbled before walking the nt to the Silent Reaper. Although he seemed less affected by the Silent Reaper, he was definitely not Captain Lars that Michael met before. One by one the crew members began to follow Captain Lars.
"Let''s go" Michael waved at Gaya.
"What the fuck just happened? First, they wanted to destroy this ship and now want everyone to surrender? And did you notice how miserable the crew became after that weird voice sounded from the ship?" She rapidly fired questions at Michael.
"Come on let''s go" Gaya was slightly surprised to see the excitement on his face. He looked like a kid who''s going to his favorite ce.
"You''re awfully excited," She asked, joining the line of the crew walking the nt to the Silent Reaper.
"The chest?"
"Inside my space ring," he answered Gaya while walking.
"Trouble really follows us huh? First, those Southern jerks wanted to buy us and now, a freaky ass ship wants us to get onboard" she had to raise her voice a bit because of the thunderps. Also, they had to walk carefully as the storm was powerful enough to push them down into the sea from the wood nk they were walking on.
"I need to cut this freakin ''hair" Michael cursed his shoulder-length hair when it became wet and flew across his eyes, blocking his vision.
In a battle, if his hair cked his vision even for a split second, he would die. He would be aughing stock if he died because of his long hair.
"Move faster" Michael almost pushed the one walking in front of him. He wanted to get the view of the Silent Repear''s crew because he really wondered whether he would meet Davy Jones himself or not.
A few minutester, Michael finally saw the crew he was waiting for. The remaining crew including Lars was surrounded by a group of dirty greasy pirates who smelled like rotten fish. The crew of the Silent Reaper came in all sizes including midgets to 7ft tall giants. They were all human unlike Michael anticipated, there was no octopus-faced crew member.
The Silent Reaper crew didn''t wear any distinctive clothes but ragged dirty clothes.
"I had to say, I''m kinda disappointed," Michael said to himself. Considering the Silent Reaper looked and functioned very simr to the Flying Dutchman, he was kinda expecting to meet a crew resembling the Flying Dutchman''s too. Yet, instead of those terrifying crew, he was weed by a crew that could bepared to Captain Barbossa''s and Jack Sparrow''s crews.
The Silent Reaper''s crew was licking their lips staring at Gaya. They seemed like starving dogs. Both Michael and Gaya ignored these dirty pirates. They just wanted to see how the situation is going to y out before revealing their secret.
"Wee to the Silent Reaper" taking his gaze away from the crew, Michael turned his head in the direction of the voice to see a tall muscr man towards them. He had dark skin as an African male, he stood almost 6'' 2" feet. This ck man had an authoritative feel about him, and he had a scar running across from his left upper eye to his right cheek.
One couldn''t see a single hair on his clean-shaven head, he had pierced both earlobes. The thigh-sized arms looked like they could crush a man to death while his torso had defined muscles. He was neither wearing something fancy nor dirty ragged like the rest of the crew but just a short-sleeved transparent tunic and khaki color breeches. He was apanied by two cusses that hung on each side of his waist.
He had the perfect thick voice for his muscr body. His dark eyes scanned everyone on board for a few seconds before theynded on Gaya and Michael.
"What do ye pirates...want?" Lars interrupted the man''s gaze by stepping forward after mustering all his courage to do so.
"Look ''ere Cap''n, a fearless one" a bald man standing only 4ftughed at Lars. Soon, the rest of the Silent Reaper crew cackled.
"What can ye offer, Cap''nrs o'' the Striker?" the ck man asked with an amusing smile on his face.
"3 million worth o'' pige, in exchange fer me an'' me crews'' lives'' '' Lars turned his head to look at Michael who was standing among his crew.
Michael smiled. He didn''t think Lars actually noticed the chest taken by him. Following Lars''s words, every pair of eyes on the ship fell on Michael and Gaya.
"Interestin'' offer an'' interestin'' people" the ck man said,
"ye took ass on board, no wonder ye ended to the sky in our sight" the short man had a surprised look on his face.
"ye don''t take ass onboard, they be bad luck" another one of the crew members eximed. This one had a bald head, a greasy beard, and teeth that were so dirty that it would make even an aged dentist raise his brows.
The ck man signaled his men to let Michael and Gayae forward.
"No one steals from me" just when he was walking past Lars, he said in a husky voice.
*********************************
Hi Readers of Ranobes and other sites,
If you are wondering why there was no update for some time, it''s because I was tested a covid positive. I had to take bed rest. Always check Webnovel for my announcements as I exined about my condition and update schedule in Webnovel.
However, now I''m 90% recovered thanks to everyone''s wishes, I''ll start updating regrly as I used to. Again, I''m sorry for not letting you all know about everything earlier.
Chapter 229 - Shortest Fight
While the Silent Reaper was engaged in a battle with the Striker, Gibson was snoring regardless of the loud cannon exploding sounds on his tiny little bed that barely had enough space to support his whole body. One could see a couple of empty rum bottles on his hairy chest. His once first body now turned bby, fat covered most of his muscles. A particrly notable feature was his missing limb. He lost his right leg when he was serving under Her Majesty many years ago. At that time, he wouldn''t even have imagined a pirate life yet here he is, sleeping in a pirate ship.
Chap!
??
He pped his own cheek in sleep to find a peanut stuck in his bushy sideburns. The empty rum bottle on his chest reflected a round face with a softly shaped jaw, a straight nose, and two sleepy brown eyes. His medium-length hair was all over the ce as some of the strands were running into his mouth.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
"What now?!" Finally Gibson couldn''t take any more of violent shakes or the loud booming sound. He picked his body from the bed before fitting the wooden leg to substitute hisck of right leg.
"Even a curse couldn''t cure the hangover of mine, hehe" Gibson chuckled, throwing away his empty rum bottles. He then picked a small leather drinking pouch,
"Thank god" he smiled seeing that there''s still some rum left in the pouch.
Pulch!
On top of his hangover, the shaking ship made walking in a straight line pain in the butt. While he was stumbling forwards, a broken splinter of wood exploded from the hull and stabbed him in his shoulder.
one would expect him to scream or atleast flinch but he didn''t even notice the six-inch splinter sticking out of his shoulder.
"We are cursed yet here we are, destroying who knows what" Gibson mumbled taking a short sip from his leather pouch. None of the crew including the current Captain Bull knew the full extent of the curse.
The curse stripped away their sense of touch, smell, pain, and touch.
On top of that, the curse asionally made the crew enter a deep slumber that couldst from a couple of months to several years and no crew of the Silent Reaper could leave the ocean, if their feet touched the ground, they would be painfully turned into ashes.
He was telling the crew that the curse is also making the Silent Reaper ying with the minds of the enemy crew but the pirates were too dumb or ignorant to listen to his theory.
If the pleasure of getting drunk was stripped away by the curse, he would have taken a boat to some ind and killed himself. Other than drinking rum, there was no pleasure in his life. It would be a lie if he said he didn''t love the life before the curse. He loved being a pirate, more than being a soldier in the royal navy under her majesty.
After the curse, the previous Captain started to pige every ship he saw, not just for gold but for more information about the curse. He believed someone could tell them how to break the curse. Although it was highly unlikely to find someone who knew about a curse put by a sea folk elder, it was better than just aimlessly roaming the ocean.
"Surrender or Die"
"Here it goes," Gibson halted his steps to take some deep breaths. After this, he wouldn''t have time to take a breath because he would be busy interrogating the hostages. Just because he was a soldier before pirates, the pirates gave him the job of interrogating. Somehow they failed to understand the fact that he was a navigator on a royal navy ship. For the pirates, everyone on a royal navy ship was a soldier.
"Pick yourself up Gibson," Gibson said to himself before taking a long sip of rum.
Stumbling through the bunk beds of his fellow pirates, he finally reached the stairs leading to the upper deck. Walking the stairs wasn''t as easy as once it was for him when he had two human legs. Now the wooden leg made even the simplest thing like climbing the stairs a pain.
"Twenty more to go Gibson, only twenty more" he looked up at the twenty steps in front of him and sighed.
"Neen"
"..."
"..."
"Eighteen"
Eventually, after fifteen whole minutes of heavy breathes and long sips of rum, he finally made it to the upper deck. Gibson saw Captain Bull staring at a young man who seemed very out of ce to Gibson. The young man looked cleaner than everyone else, he wore a long grey coat and ck breeches. After many many years, Gibson saw a clean guy. The young man had the perfect jawline and features that would make any girl''s heart beat faster. He was so handsome that he would make every prince Gibson had met pale inparison. Even with his long coat, Gibson could see the muscles hiding within.
His eyes were so focused on the youngster that he failed to notice the girl standing among the hostages. Despite being surrounded by pirates, Gibson saw no fear on the young man''s face, he saw only amusement.
"Right on time, Gibs"
"Yeah, ye be wee to the seven seas o'' livin'' gibs"
"You three sheets to the wind bastard"
"It''s time ye woke to the sky ye old fuck"
Gibson ignored his crew members'' shouts as he saw the young man turn his sharp gaze towards him. Gibson felt like the Sea Devil himself staring straight into his soul. There was something in the young man''s gaze.
"Here''s my counter offer, Captain Bull," Gibson heard the young man speak.
"Agree to serve under me or I will kill everyone here," The young man paused for a second before continuing
"one by one until you ept" Everyone including Gibson was stunned. He was surrounded by sixty pirates and one monstrous-looking Captain Bull.
"Hahahahah"
It took the pirates a couple of seconds before bursting intoughter. Even normally serious Captain Bull chuckled in amusement after the young man''s words. Not only the crew but some of the less affected hostages had a smirk on their faces.
"Now that there ye ''ave aedian an'' 3million worth o'' pige, can ye let us go?" after theughter died down, Lars opened his mouth. Because of Lars''s strong mental power, he was far less affected by the Silent Reaper than the rest of his crew.
Captain Bull however didn''t answer Lars, he just stared at the young man. Gibson limped to the side to lean on a wall to see what''s going to happen. Somehow he had a feeling that this young man was not kidding around.
"Ye want to be the Cap''n?" Bull asked as Gibson saw the young man nodded.
"Ye ''earrr thatds, ''e want to be the Cap''n o'' our cursed Silent Reaper"
"Stop wasting my time Bull. Fall in line along with your crew or I''ll kill you first to make a statement"
"''ahahaha, you''ll kill me?" Bullughed while the rest of the pirates stared at the young man with cold killing intent in their eyes.
"Alright, I''ll let ye try" Bull took out his two cusses. The crew quickly cleared the center of the stage for Captain Bull to kill the young man.
"Give him a sword," Bull said to the short man but he saw the young man shake his head walking towards the center of the deck. Every pirate and hostage on the ship stared at Michael like he was the stupidest person they had ever met. Byparing their body alone they could tell that Bull could snap the young man in half. If he had taken the weapon, he would have at least had a fighting chance but now, he seemed like dead meat in their eyes.
"No need" the young man stood a few meters away from Captain Bull without a weapon in his hand.
"What is he doing?" Gibson asked himself looking at the young man.
"Are you gonna stand there all day?" Bull was provoked by his words and the careless look on his face. He clenched his two cusses tightly to leap at the young man.
The pirates and the hostages were expecting a gory beat down when they saw the young man calmly raise his hand.
Zzzz Rrrrrrrr!
Boom!
The next moment, they were stunned beyond words to see a thick bolt of golden lightning shoot out of the young man''s hand. In a blink of an eye, the lightning bolt went straight through Captain Bull''s head as his head exploded into a red mist.
"He...he...cast...spell¡" Gibson''s body went rigid while many people lost control over their dders. They were scared shitless. For a long couple of seconds, they just stared at the headless body of Bull wandering around on the deck without uttering a word or moving a muscle.
It wasn''t a long fight with fancy moves. In fact, the fight didn''t evenst for more than a couple of seconds. From Bull raising his cusses to his head exploring happened so quickly.
What shocked everyone more than Captain Bull''s death was the lightning bolt shot out from his hand. They wanted to find another exnation except they simply couldn''t.
"How did he cast a spell inside the Void line?" This was the question that ran inside the minds of many.
"Cap''n!"
"Ca...p..."
Words barely escaped from some of the loyal pirates. It had been a long time since the pirates felt fear.
While they were about to raise their cusses, Gibson heard the young man spoke again,
"I can break your curse"
Chapter 230 - Becoming A Pirate Captain
With one swift jump. Michaelnded on the wooden edge before the ship''s rudder. He bnced himself like a professional rope walker. The very next moment, Gibson saw another figurending on the edge just beside the young man. The girl''s ck hair beautifully fluttered in the wind while the shes of lightning revealed her perfect hourss structure to every single one of them. The girl made the pirates even more terrified because the pirates think that if a girles on board a ship, it''s bad luck for all of them.
They were still in shock when Gibson saw the young man started talking,
??
"You may address me Lord Lucifer and her as Dark Queen"
The name Dark Queen somewhat felt weird yet the reason Michael chose the name was that it would be more suitable and badass in the future when he actually has an army of soldiers under hismand. Besides after he marries her, she would be his official queen, the Dark Queen.
"I know it''ll be hard but anyone who intercepts my speech will die like your Captain Bull," Michael said after sending another bolt of lightning near Bull''s bleeding headless corpse.
"You''ve all seen a glimpse of what I can do to anyone who stands against me. Now I''ll tell you what I can do to those who stand behind me" Gibson''s hangover disappeared after he saw what happened to Bull and now giving his full focus to the young man.
"I can make you rich and powerful like you''ve never even imagined" Michael flicked his wrist as the chest he stole from Lars appeared on the deck below him. The light radiated from the goodies inside the chest brightened up the faces of the pirates.
"This is just a glimpse. I also know what you desperately need now is not pige but a way to break the curse" What he just said got the interest of the pirates more than the shining chest did.
"As long as you agree to serve me, you won''t be bothered by the curse" Michael reached his hand out at the pirates as a hot wave of air brushed past them.
"I can feel the hot air" Gibson mumbled, feeling a sensation after more than a decade. Not only Gibson, but every single pirate was also dumbstruck by the sensation of feeling hot air on their faces.
Just by looking at their faces, Gaya could tell they want this feeling tost forever. Gibson never thought a simple thing such as hot air on his face would make him this happy.
"This is better than booze," Gibson said to himself. It took everything in him not to speak anything aloud. He was very positive that uttering any word would get him killed.
While Gibson was in a daze, he noticed Shorty, the 4ft pirate slowly raising his hand.
"Go ahead" Gaya really didn''t want tough at Shorty but it took so much control not tough.
"Can we go to the maind or step on anynd for that matter?"
"Yes, you can but all of these can happen only if you serve me loyally. I don''t have any ce for disloyal crew on my ship" Gibson saw a couple of pirates grin, he could tell that they already decided to join this young man''s crew. If it was for their Captain before Bull, they would have hesitated to jump the crew or even fought the young man for attacking their captain because he had won all their loyalty including Gibson''s.
Since that Captain was long dead and the young man was iming that he could break the curse, there was nothing to hesitate about. Plus, the 3 million worth of gold, diamonds, and gemstones didn''t hurt.
"Now speak your mind," Michael said, folding his hands against his chest.
The pirates stared at Michael for a few seconds, their eyes were full of fear towards Michael. Yet, Shorty stepped forward mustering his courage,
"If you join your crew, what''s our share in piges?" Both Michael and Gaya were surprised by the pirate''s question. They were expecting questions rted to the curse yet the short one asked about their share.
"What''s your share under yourte Captain Bull?"
"Before the curse, we would share in eighty twenty ratios. Eighty for Captain, twenty for us"
"You''ll get double under mymand"
"I''m in '''' the short pirate didn''t even take a second after hearing Michael''sst statement. He just awkwardly knelt down on two knees pledging his loyalty.
"System" Michael willed the system to partially break the curse in his mind. The next moment, Gibson saw a bright light beaming out of the young man''s hand. The light beam reached Shorty as his face began to show a cocktail of emotions.
Soon, tears began to roll out of his eyes,
"I can feel again, the air, the smell of the sea"
"Step aside Shorty" Gaya waved her hand as Shorty was moved aside by a gust of wind.
"You have ten seconds to decide your next move" Michael''s voice was cold rather than calm. In a short time, the pirates would be the ones getting the most out of this deal. Therefore, if they hesitated even after he exined everything he could do for them, he would kill every single one of them except Shorty.
"Yeah, fuck it" Gibson limped towards the young man. His old instincts told him that following the young man would be the best choice he could make in his life.
Gibson saw a slight smile energy on the young man''s face when he stepped forward.
"Cap''n!"
"Lord Lucifer!"
Following Gibson, every single pirate on the deck awkwardly bent their knees, pledging their loyalty to Michael. As before, the light beam shot out from his hand but this time, it enveloped all the pirates in a bubble before vanishing from the sight.
When the bubble disappeared, the pirates began to cry like little children. They were pping themselves, pinching themselves as well as tasting the saltwater on the deck.
It was eptable in Michael''s eyes. After all, they never felt sensations like this in years. He gave them the time to enjoy the moment. Tinkering with the curse dide with a cost as they lost the Silent Reaper''s ability to terrify the hostile crews. ording to the system, that was a by-product of the curse and by removing the curse partially, Michael also removed that ability. He knew it was a necessary sacrifice to earn their loyalty so it was worth the trade.
"Now I have to deal with you guys'' '' Michael turned his gaze towards LArs and his crew members who were standing still in fear and shock. Some of them even peed in their pants imagining what might happen to them.
"Let...let...us...go '''' Lars stuttered in fear. With the ability to cast spells inside the void line, Lars knew these two would be a god and goddess in the Southern Continent.No matter how powerful the spartan army was, Lars knew a couple of spells could easily decimate them.
"Let you go? Hahaha," Michael chuckled. The pirates stood up with newfound loyalty towards Michael.
"You fucker wanted to sell us" Gaya''s voice was cold.
"Tell us who your contact was and i''ll kill you quickly" Lars''s mouth kept opening and closing. To be honest, he only talked with the buyer through themunication stone. The two who came riding an eagle were just the subordinates of the buyer. They never told Lars their names or where they were from.
"You dont know" Michael could tell that Lars had no idea about the two toga-wearing Southerners by looking at his eyes. Michael disappointedly shook his head before nodding at Gaya.
"Poison grasp" She uttered the words pointing her finger at Lars and his men as a green mist began to form out from thin air. The green mist soon transformed into itself a giant hand. The giant hand then swooped the group from the floor.
"Wow"
"What is this?"
"How can they cast spells?"
"New captain and his girlfriend is awesome"
"Oh my god"
Including Gibson, every single pirate was in awe. They were speechless as Lars and his men struggled against the hold of the green giant mist hand.
Gaya pointed her fingers at the sky as the green hand ascended from the floor with the men.
"Inferno" she fired a spark of fire at the green mist.
"No!"
Lars and his men screamed. The poison already seeped into their bodies, making them cough out blood. When the fire spark hit the green mist, it instantly caught fire. Soon the green mist exploded, lighting up the night stormy sky.
Their blood rained down on the pirates making the scene horrifying. She demonstrated what she could do to inflict fear in the hearts of the pirates.
Michael just stared at the sky where the group exploded. He knew with cultivation power he could do anything in the Southern Continent but rather using his 3hr power to attack the kingdoms, he wanted to forge alliances with the senates. Controlling the Senate from the shadows seemed to be the best way to go.
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I had a fever when I wrote this chapter so please forgive me if you see any typos or errors. I barely got myself up to write. There might not be a chapter release tomorrow as my doctor said to take a day off.
Chapter 231 - A Nudge In The Right Direction
"Where am I?"? Michael opened his eyes to be weed by a blood-red sky. He was floating in the air but no matter how hard he tried to wiggle his body, he was unable to.
"System" he called out for the system yet there was no response. He couldn''t feel the system in his soul anymore.
??
"Am I dreaming?" He took a deep breath, calming his mind. Thest thing he remembers was kissing Gaya good night.
Booooooooooommmmmmm!
Suddenly an ear-piercing vibration reverberated the blood-red sky. Along with the vibrations, he was able to regain control over his body. Still floating in the middle of the sky, he looked around to see nothing but barrennd filled with dark smoke. There were no life signs, the sky was blood red, the atmosphere was dark and gloomy. He felt like he stepped into a post-apocalyptic world.
While he was staring at his surroundings, he saw a woman and two little children. They looked exhausted beyond words as the woman seemed to be walking using herst bit of strength. The two children in her hand barely had any flesh, they were just skin and bones.
As he was watching them, they stumbled down on the ground. He tried to move his body but he couldn''t. The very next moment, the scenery in front of him changed. After the scenery changed, he wasn''t floating in the sky above a barrennd. On the contrary, he was floating in a ce that seemed to be a city.
The sky was still blood red and although he could see humans walking down on the streets, they weren''t much better than the woman he saw earlier. They were all extremely skinny, in their eyes, there was no life. They seemed like zombies who had no desire to live anymore. Looking from above, these people resemble ants as they were obediently walking in a straight line.
After staring at the people for a while, he looked at all the buildings which seemed to be made of red cement. When he looked closer, he saw glimmering runes on the buildings. The more he observed the ce, the more he doubted that this was just a dream.
He was about to call the system again when he noticed a couple of people walking in the line drop dead in a blink of an eye. He expected the people to react to the people before them dropping dead, yet they walked past the dead bodies as nothing happened. Michael was unable to find a logical exnation for everything he had seen in this weird ce.
Surprisingly, Michael saw hooded figures covered in blue robes descending from the sky.
"Hey!" he shouted at them yet they didn''t seem to hear or notice Michael. The hooded figuresnded beside the dead bodies.
"Two thousand and five dead today so far"
"Yesterday I had burned four thousand bodies"
Their words made Michael frown, "this doesn''t seem very dreamy to me" he mumbled. The two hooded figures then waved their hands as crimson red mes engulfed the dead bodies on the ground.
The scenery changed again as now he was floating in the sky above arge circr stage. The stage was upied by more hooded figures he saw before, children of various ages and more skinny people. Except for the hooded figures, the others were chained and brought to their knees.
"Stealing is forbidden and it''s a crime punishable by death" Michael turned his head towards the voice''s direction to see a hooded figure holding a long scythe. Before the chained man in front of the hooded figure could react, the scythe cleaved his head right off his shoulders.
"Skipping the line is forbidden and it''s a crime punishable by death" another voice followed by beheading.
"Praying to Sun God is forbidden and it''s a crime punishable by death"
"Attempting to cultivate is forbidden and it''s a crime punishable by death"
"Using Arch Energy is forbidden and it''s a crime punishable by death"
¡.
Michael heard the hooded figures on the stage exim before they behead the people regardless of their gender. The hooded figures showed no mercy at all. Some crimes like stealing and skipping the line were hardly punishable by death, yet the hooded figures cleaved their heads off for these pitiful crimes.
The scenery changed again and again and again. One time, he saw a lifeless aerie forest, the other time, he saw people fight like animals for a water puddle. He also saw a 7ft hooded figure drop a nuke in a city.
Michael lost count of the sceneries he saw. After everything he had seen, he was sure this world had already turned into hell if it''s not already the actual hell and the hooded figures were the demons.
The real question was why and how is he seeing all this?
Suddenly everything around him turned dark as someone switched off the lights around him.
"This is what''s going to happen if you fail to conquer this world Michael" Suddenly a gentle soothing voice reverberated in the dark space.
"Who are you? And where am I?"
"What you''ve seen is the Elon Continent in four hundred years from your current time" the voice didn''t answer Michael''s first question but answered thetter.
"The future?" Michael was stunned as the voice continued,
"The events you saw are just some glimpses of the result of your failure"
The voice said. Although Michael wanted to stay calm and think rationally, what was happening to him was beyond rational.
"You have the ultimate power in your hand, use it to reshape the world before the world is engulfed by the evil"
By ultimate power, he felt like the voice was talking about the system.
"The thought of innocents dying in your war to conquer this world is holding you back from achieving your true potential and reaching your goals. After everything I showed you, it''s time for you to shed all your hesitations. Be the Dark God you meant to be" after the voice spoke these words, the scenery once again changed.
"Human, are you alright?" Michael was standing straight up on his bed, sweating bullets. He turned to see Gaya''s concerned face
"You were having nightmares," she said, gently wiping the sweat off his face with her nightgown. Instead of telling what just happened, Michael entered the system interface to question it,
"System, are you aware of what happened to me now?"
[what are you talking about?] Surprisingly, the system seemed to have zero clues.
"Something just took me four hundred years into the future and it also knew about you"
[what?!]
The system soundedpletely shocked.
[The system cannot search the host''s mind, something''s preventing me] he heard the system after a few moments of silence.
[what else is the voice mentioned?] the system asked.
Michael sighed before telling everything that happened from the beginning. Since even the system didn''t have any idea about what happened to him, he had to discuss this with the system to find some real answers or exnations.
[it can''t be one of the omegas...]
"When the fuck are you going to tell me about the omegas and you?"
[not yet host. You''re not even strong enough to face the guardians let alone omegas. If what you told me is true]
"It is true" he gritted his teeth as the system continued,
[You have to focus on taking over this world as it seems to be the crucial step in your journey towards Godhood]
"Are you telling me that I''m a god in the making?"
[Don''t get cocky host. The future is not something set in stone, anything can change the future. For now, we have to focus on your goals] the system then kicked him out to the real world without a warning.
"Fuck" he cursed in his mind as Gaya was still wiping off the sweat on his face.
"We need to talk" Considering the system was no help to him, he decided to talk with Gaya. The two of them leaned back on the bed frame before Michael began to tell everything he saw.
***********************
"There''s still a chance that what you saw was just a dream but what you said didn''t seem like a dream to me" After listening to Michael in silence, Gaya spoke.
"What could be so powerful to show you the future? Some kind of god?"
"You''re awfully calm about this'' '' Michael couldn''t help butment on her calmness. Even he was slightly freaking out, she seemed to be less affected than he was.
"Since you are a freak of nature, everything linked to you is anything but normal. Getting a glimpse of the future is freaky yet we still have the chance to prevent everything from happening" he nodded to her words,
"Whatever dragged you to the future is not something we can understand orprehend unless it allows us to. My question is, however, who were those hooded figures? The guardians? Or something else?"
Michael removed the warm quilt to leave the bed. He walked towards the windows. Just like his heart, the sea was also not calm. The storm was still ravishing the ocean violently with thepany of the heavy downpour and thunderps.
"Whoever they are, I have a feeling that we''ll meet them soon," he said looking at the dark stormy sky through the window. The shes of lightning revealed a newly found resolution in his eyes. At this moment, Gaya could tell that something''s changed within him.
Chapter 232 - The Pirates Cove
"What are you working on?" Gaya entered the captain''s cabin to see Michael leaning back on his chair fiddling with nuts and bolts.
"I just have to calibrate a few things" he was too focused on the project as he failed to notice Gaya looking at his world over his shoulder. She could see it kinda look like the grappling hook they were using but instead of hooks, she saw him ce multiple syringes on a gauntlet. The gauntlet was smaller than the grappling hook.
"Oh you''re here" Michael finally noticed Gaya.
"Give me your hand"? He didn''t even wait for her as he just took her right hand. With her hand on his hand, Michael grabbed the gauntlet before gently cing it around Gaya''s wrist.
"It''s gonna sting a bit"
"What? Ouch!" She felt a sharp pain in her wrist. It was like a couple of bees stinging at the same time. She looked at the gauntlet to see the syringes plunging themselves into her wrist beforepletely disappearing.
"Are you gonna-"
"Don''t move" She was interjected by Michael. She rolled her eyes a bit and looked at him and ced a transparent ss-like sticker on the back of her neck.
She expected it to sting as earlier but she only felt a slight tingling sensation in her brain.
"When I cut your hand, think of a healing potion" She frowned but she ultimately nodded her head. With a gentle smile, he picked the dagger hanging from her slender waist.
Carefully Michael made a cut on her left forearm as she thought of a healing potion as he instructed her to. Suddenly, she felt the syringes inside her right wrist move,
"Can you feel something?"
"Yes, those needles are moving" As she said, a wide grin emerged on Michael''s face.
"It''s working"
"When did I be a guinea pig for you?"
"A cute little guinea pig" Michael chuckled, pinching both of her soft cheeks.
"It''s my new invention, I call this APD. Automatic Potion Dispenser" Michael rummaged through the junk on the table to grab another gauntlet.
"The name is pretty exnatory. I was able to squeeze in eight syringes, fill the syringes with whatever potion we need and whenever we need it, we just have to think about it. APD will inject the potion directly into our bloodstream. The best part is, it''s made of junk metal so no energy radiation"? She could tell by his wide grin that he''s so proud of his invention. After hearing what he said, it was obvious how useful this could be in a real battle where enemies won''t wait until one takes out his potion and uses it.
"With this, it''s almost guaranteed that we''ll win the championship tournaments" Gaya''s face lit up instantly. She knew in the first couple of rounds, using potions would be forbidden. However, if they used this gadget, the judges would have no idea as it would radiate zero energy.
"It''s cheating but I like it" She revealed an evil grin.
Making the device wasn''t costly as it only required him to use somemon materials. However, what cost him more was the sticker he ced on Gaya''s neck. The sticker was an advanced metal that controls the pulses between the drive and the brain. Since his inventor trait was not high enough to buildponents that manipte biochemical signals inside the body, he had to buy it from the system. A single sticker cost him 5000 badass points and it could only allow two kinds of potions to be loaded into the APD.
"Ah...Captain...Lord" suddenly, someone awkwardly knocked on the door. He could tell it''s Gibson who is standing outside by the voice.
"What does he want?"
"Let''s go see" Michael put on the APD beneath the sleeve before leaving the captain''s cabin. When he opened the door, he saw Gibson, Shorty, and a few other pirates waiting for them.
In their eyes, there was fear more than respect. The way he killed Bull was still freaking out the pirates.
"Lord Lucifer, we''ll reach the pirate''s cove in an hour," Gibson said. The sky was unusually clear. Nodding at Gibson, Michael walked to the edge of the ship to soak in all the sunlight. After numerous days of heavy downpour, it was a wee sight to see the sun once again.
"I need you to stop drinking, Gibson" looking at the clear sky, Michael said.
"I can''t have a drunk for a first mate" his words stunned Gibson,
"This will help you stop the habit" Michael tossed a slimy purple potion to Gibson. He knew how hard it was for addicts to stop their habit. If it was on earth, recovering from addiction would take an immense amount of willpower and dedication but in this world, all Michael has to do is make a potion that would help one get rid of the addiction.
"It''s either drink this, get rid of your addiction, and get fucking rich like a king or end up as a snack for the sharks below" Michael let his words sink into Gibson''s mind for a few seconds before offering something that he won''t be able to refuse.
"Plus, I''ll get you a new leg, not some wooden artificial stuff, a real leg" Although Michael had no way of making limbs grow again at the current time, he was positive he would get the ability through the system or find a 6-star Healer subordinate to do so in the future.
Also, he didn''t give a shit about others'' drinking habits. For all he cared, they could do whatever they want with their gold coins in their free time but he wanted Gibson to stay clean.
"Lord Lucifer...you can...do that?"
"Gotcha" Michael snickered inside after seeing the excitement in Gibson''s voice.
"Yes, get clean and I''ll get you a new leg" the other pirates including Shorty also looked excited for their fellow pirate Gibson.
"Loyalty towards us is the only price you have to pay us" Gaya leaned on the ship''s mainsail beam and said.
*******************************
"That''s the pirate cove, Captain" Gibson pointed out the big ind surrounded by countless ocean boulders. The boulders acted as a natural defense against the ships as they prevented the ships from reaching the ind.
The only way to get into the ind without swimming seemed to be therge docks at the far side of the ind. Surrounding waters were filled with small fishing boats ands. In the distance, a couple of pirate sail ships with skulls and swords for gs docking at the docks.
"It''s good to be back here after all these years," Gibson eximed with a burst of joy. Gaya noticed all the pirates were bouncing in joy.
"Listen up, when you get into the ind, do not say anything about what happened to Bull or anything rted to me. I''m just a pirate like you and she''s my girlfriend. If you bber anything to anyone, I''ll personally end you"
For a few moments, the pirates looked dumbstruck but soon, they all just nodded in agreement.
"If anyone asked about the curse or Captain Bull, Captain Bull lost his life lifting the curse, that''s the story"
"Captain, it''d be hard for them to believe that you two are pirates" Gibson whispered to Michael standing beside him near the rudder.
"Just say we came from the Northern Continents"? Since it was not possible to get dirty like the rest of the pirates, Michael asked Gibson to tell the truth to cover up his real identity.
Besides, he would soon reveal himself as the Captain of the Silent Reaper to the world. He just wanted to gather more information about this part of the world before making any important steps.
"Gibson, I also want you to buy everything on the list" Michael handed over a piece of paper to Gibson with a pouch of gold coins. Gibson opened up the paper to see a list of familiar names. They were all items, metals, and things rted to the ship itself.
The closer his ship got to the docks, the clearer he could see the ind. The pirate cove was a tropical ind with various wooded buildings and asional watchtowers. Trees such as palm and coconut added a certain charm to the ind. What made the ind more beautiful was the colorful coral reefs, they were like nature''s carpet weing them into the ind.
The tv shows and movies didn''t do justice to the beauty of pirate cove in Michael''s view.
"This is gonna be fun"
The Silent Reaper slowly made its way to the docks under the shocked gazes of little children who were standing on the shore. Its ck eerie look gave chills to many citizens of the pirate cove.
Just by looking at all those fresh fishes caught by the, Gaya''s stomach started to scream for some grilled fish.
"I assume you''re all headed to a tavern"
"Of course Captain...sorry...how do we call you now?" Shorty seemed like he cannot wait to step on the shore and get drunk to his throat.
"For now, I''m David and she''s Eli"
"See you at the burning candle David, Eli " Shorty don''t wait for the ship to get docked but jumped into the water outside. The other pirates were slightly afraid of stepping onto the shore yet Shorty decided to rush towards the shore with no worries.
"He''s excited" Gaya chuckled seeing the little guy swimming like a shark chasing him behind.
"Get yourself a bath and meet me at the tavern," Michael said to Gibson before leaving him behind. Gibson took a sniff of his shirt and realized the urgency of a bath and a set of new clothes.
Chapter 233 - Trouble Will Always Find Its Way To Michael
After leaving the Silent Reaper at the docks, Michael and Gaya wandered through the sandy roads of Pirate Cove. Everywhere Michael turned, he could see tropical trees, buildings made of nothing but wood, broken fishing boards that were being used to shelter drunken pirates, and little children ying pirates. The ind was pretty lively.
"I am Captain Red Beard, bow before me!"
"If you''re Captain Red Beard, I''d be Captain Tanasha"
"Did you see the scary ship at the docks?"
"It''s the Silent Reaper, my grandpa told me stories about it"
"Who''s the captain?"
While Michael and Gaya were roaming the ind, he heard children and grown men gossip about the Silent Reaper. Because the Silent Reaper appeared at the Pirate Cove nearly three decades ago, many stories about the ship turned into rumors. Only a handful of elderly citizens in their seventies had more information about the ship, its crew, and the curse.
As he was walking, his courage was raised by the light, which streams through the palm and coconut trees lighting up the beauties of the ind, and stopped to smell the flowers and examine things, which he never thought existed.
"Cusses forged using the finest steel!"
"Rum barrels wholesale!"
"High-quality tobo and sugar!"
Under the shade of tropical trees, merchants were shouting loudly to attract the attention of newly arrived pirates.
"Not a single food stall" Gaya sighed after searching the line of merchant stalls for something to eat.
"There''s no clothing store either," Michael said. He wanted to change his clothes to blend with the natives yet wherever he looked, he couldn''t find a clothing store or a ce where he could buy some piraty clothes.
"Let''s go to the tavern, I''m beat"? Gaya was sweating as she was inside an oven. Theck of Arch energy in the atmosphere took a toll on her body.
To find the tavern, Michael didn''t have to ask for direction, he only needed to follow the grown men.
Eventually, after following some men, they reached their destination.
"The burning candle" Michael read the signboard hanging above an old wooden door. From the outside, it looked lively, folksy, and enchanting. Softwood and well-crafted wooden beams make up most of the building''s outer structure. It was near impossible to see through the dirty windows, but the sounds of dancing and singing from within could be felt outside.
As they entered the tavern through the well-crafted, wooden door, they were weed by amazing, but unknown scents andughing voices.
The bartender, who was a middle-aged woman, was a little preupied with customers but still managed to wee them with a wink.
It was as engaging inside as it was on the outside. Several walls supported the upper floor and therge candles attached to them. The walls were loaded with hundreds of small ship parts, all signed and most likely donated by fellow pirates.
The tavern itself was packed. Pirates seem to be the primary clientele here, which often led to exciting evenings. Several long tables were upied by separate groups of pirates, all enjoying themselves, but they kept to themselves. Among the tables were Michael''s crew who seemed to be losing their consciousness due to the rum they were chugging nonstop. Some were even dancing on the table while others were cheering from them by pping and yelling.
The other, smaller tables were also upied by people who were ying games and, judging by theirughter, were either telling jokes or great, perhaps embarrassing tales. Even most of the stools at the bar were upied, though nobody seemed to mind morepany.
Michael did hear tales about this tavern back on the ship, supposedly it was famous for something, but he couldn''t remember what for. Though judging by the music and how many people were dancing, it must be the live band who just started ying.
"There are some empty chairs" Gaya pointed at the few empty chairs at the far end of the room as they walked towards the table to prepare for what would undoubtedly be a great morning.
In the heat of the moment, most of Michael''s crewpletely failed to notice him until Shorty whispered something into their ears. They all gave a quick nce at Michael before resuming what they were doing.
Few of the waitresses were still busy serving the other pirates. Michael and Gaya were not in a rush so they just waited for one of the waitresses toe to them.
"How long are we gonna stay on this ind?"
"I have to make a few upgrades to our ship. Few days tops I think"
"She''s not a whore Holman, let her go" the bartender''s shout drew Michael''s attention towards a waitress near Shorty''s table. The waitress was trying to get herself free from the hold of a scar-faced pirate.
"She''s a big girl, she can decide what she''s gonna be tonight" the scar-faced pirate took out a pouch, pouring out gold coins on the table. By the look on the other pirates'' faces, Michael could see that they were fortunate enough to plunder a rich merchant ship or two. Besides, among all the people in the tavern, these guys had shinier cusses and wore cleaner clothes.
"Look for someone else, Holman" the waitress freed herself from his grab by swatting his hand away. The golden hair waitress quickly rushed back into the kitchen leaving Holman and his crew behind.
"This ce hasn''t changed a bit" Suddenly Michael heard a familiar voice as he turned to see Gibson walking towards them. Compared to the man he met before, Gibson looked like a new person.
"It''s really a wonder how a bath and a new set of clothes could do to a man" Gibson scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. Michael gestured at him to pull up the empty chair to their table.
"I''ll get us something" Gaya left the table leaving Gibson and Michael behind. Gibson would have offered to get something but she didn''t give him any time to offer his aid.
"Tell me about yourself, Gibson"
Michael noticed his hands were shaking as well as his eyes were checking the rum served by the waitresses. It was obvious he wanted a drink. Michael took his attention from the booze with the question.
"Well, I was serving under her majesty before losing my leg and bing a pirate"
"Her Majesty?"
"The Empress of Awor Continent"
The Awor Continent was thergest in this world. It wasrger than Elon and Ozer Continentbined. He knew little to nothing about Awor Continent except the fact that he had unfinished business to take care of in Awor.
"On a scale of one to ten, how powerful is Awor Continent?"
"Twenty or even thirty, Cap...David '''' Gibson almost said his real name but quickly corrected himself.
"The schrs say there are multiple magical ley lines under thend of Awor. Hence, everyone and every kingdom are fucking powerful. Also, those snobby bastards are? ridiculously rich"
"Seems like my kinda ce. We''ll go there in the future" Gibson was about to protest this idea of them visiting Awor Continent when his eyes widened in shock. He noticed Holman checking out Eli, the girl who killed a group of pirates like they were nothing. It took Michael a second to notice the change in Gibson''s eyes.
Gibson slowly turned his gaze away from Holman to Lucifer but unlike he expected, the young man remained calm. Although the mask Gaya wore significantly reduced her beauty, her perfect hourss structure, and her grace made her stand out in this crowd, especially when the tavern wascking indies.
Michael knew he can neither stop every man who checks out Gaya nor cleanse the world of perverts. Therefore, he remained calm as it wasn''t worth his time to start a fight just because he''s staring at Gaya from her top to bottom.
Right at the moment, Michael noticed another set of eyes staring at Holman and Gaya. The figure was wearing a hood to cover his face, he wore what a typical pirate would wear except his boots looked military. Now that the figure attracted Michael''s attention, he noticed the figure was sitting in front of ss bottles on the table before the bartender. For a normal person, it would raise no gs but for a highly trained assassin like Michael, it said many things about the figure.
Gibson heaved a sigh of relief when Gaya left the bar counter without giving Holman a chance to mess with her. The tavern was neutral ground and a ce under the protection of the three great pirate captains. Fighting inside the tavern was forbidden, if anyone tried to start a fight, they would be the target of three captains. Thest thing Gibson wanted was Lucifer to kill the three pirate captains and mess with the equilibrium of the Pirate world.
The figure quickly turned his gaze away from Holman as he pretended to take a sip from his mug but Michael saw him using the ss bottles in front of him to monitor everything around him. Using reflective surfaces to monitor the area was a ssic trick used by spies and assassins.
Michael couldn''t help but wonder what is a spy or an assassin doing in a tavern like this. Gaya ced a tray with three mugs filled with rum and three grilled salmon on the table before sitting beside Michael.
"It''d be weird if I ask for water to drink in this ce, so just pretend to drink the rum," she said as her eyes looked at Gibson.
"Pretend, got it Eli" Gibson mumbled as he reached out to touch the grilled salmon because he thought one of the three tes of fish was his.
Plop!
When his hand were about to touch the fish, he was swatted away by Gaya,
"Don''t even think about it" Gibson saw Lucifer chuckle while Eli began to dig into the grilled fishes.
"Fuck¡ it''s bad yet I can''t stop eating,"? she said, cleaning the fish to its bones.
While Gaya was stuffing her belly, Michael was calmly looking around the tavern, listening to all the conversations going around him.
"Who the fuck gave you this?!"
Yet again, Michael heard Holman''s voice. This time, Holman''s shout silenced the entire tavern. Every pair of eyes were on Holman as he trembled in anger.
"It was him,"? the waitress pointed her hand at none other than Michael himself. Michael was taken aback by surprise by the waitress''s words.
Everyone in the tavern including Gibson and Gaya stared at Michael.
"You!" Holman gave a kick to the table in front of him as the table violently shed with the wall. The sounds of tes and mugs scattering on the floor could be heard throughout the tavern.
Chapter 234 - How To Throw A Punch
Michael was pretty confused for a moment except when he saw the hooded figure staring at both him and Holman, he began to doubt that this might be the hooded figure''s handy work.
"He''s good" Michael couldn''t help praising the hooded figure. Although he kept his eyes on him, the hooded figure still somehow managed to orchestrate something to make Holman pissed off at him. What was on the piece of paper Holman''s holding was still a mystery for him yet it was enough to make Holman and his crew very angry.
"Ah shit here we go again" Gaya rolled her eyes. She was too focused on filling her belly that she failed to notice the hooded figure.
"Cool your pants Holman, fighting is not allowed here" the bartenderdy yet again shouted at Holman. It somewhat slowed down Holman''s walking pace towards Michael but it didn''t evaporate the anger in his eyes, not at all.
Meanwhile, everyone in the tavern seemed extremely excited to see some action, including Michael''s own crew. Unlike the rest of the pirates, his crew knew the result of the uing fight yet they wanted to see some fancy magic again.
"Oh this is gonna be good"
"Who is that guy? I''ve never seen him before"
"Look at the way he dressed, he might be someone from the Northern continent"
"Who cares where he''s from, let''s enjoy the show"
"Go get him Holman"
"Yeah fuck him up!"
The pirates were drunk, they wanted to have some fun besides drinking and what was happening right in front of them began to quench their thirst for blood and chaos.
"You and me, outside"
"The fish is tasteless anyways" she wiped her mouth with a white cloth as Gibson just stared at her stunned because there was nothing but fish skeletons on her te. She almost licked the tes clean yet she seemed so disappointed, her appetite really did shock Gibson.
"David, let me go talk to him" Gibson whispered to Michael who was still leaning back on his chair as nothing happened.
"I like where''s this going" Michael took a nce at the hooded figure sitting at the bar counter before standing up. He brushed off some of the dust on his dress as Gaya and Gibson stood up to follow him behind.
In a couple of minutes, the whole lively tavern became empty as everyone went outside to see the fight, even the bartender quickly cleaned the sses to get outside.
"Is it too early to show us who we really are?" Gaya asked while walking behind him towards the door.
"Way too early"
When Michael opened the door, he was weed by arge crowd consisting of children, pirates,dies, and surprisingly a couple of dogs. The crowd was standing in a circle, in the center of the circle was Holman. Michael immediately got all the attention when he stepped outside.
"I don''t know who set you up but I''m gonna find out" Holman removed his shirt showing his scar-filled torso. He was flexing his muscles, kicking the sandy mud on the ground and snarling his teeth at Michael. All of his gestures really made Michael wonder what the hell was on that piece of paper that Made Holman so mad.
Michael stared at the crowd, searching for the hooded figure. It took Michael a couple of seconds to find the figure standing on a balcony of the building next to the tavern. The balcony had drying clothes that helped the hooded figure hide behind.
"I don''t know what''s on the paper but I had nothing to do with it" Michael calmly said while the crowd opened up to make way for him to the center of the circle.
"Let me be the judge of it" Holman however did not listen to Michael. He seemed like he wouldn''t back off without a fight.
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
The pirates lost their patience as they began to chant the word ''fight'' over and over again. Right at the moment, Michael was standing just a couple of meters away from Holman. Gibson and Gaya were standing right behind Michael while Michael''s crew stared at the scene with a rum bottle in their hands.
"Who wants to bet? " Shorty shouted at the people, taking out a pouch of coins.
"ce your bets and win five times the coins" Shorty used the pirates'' drunk status to his advantage.
"Hell yeah"
"50 coins on Holman"
"100 on Holman"
"Five times you bastards! Take out your coins and be a man" Shorty riled up the pirates to bet more. Shorty picked up one of his fellow pirate''s hat to collect all the coins along with the bidder''s name. He was surprisingly quick to get coins from almost everyone except a couple of dogs in the crowd. After collecting the coins, Gaya saw Shorty tug her sleeves
"Can you tell Cap to take a few punches before finishing him off?"
"You are one little fucker" Gaya chuckled seeing Shorty''s courage and stupidity. He really surprised her by asking her to ask Michael to take a few punches just because Shorty wants more people to bet on Holman.
He may be a little crazy but Gaya liked his quick wits and courage.
"We''ll split the coins, fifty-fifty"
"Really? I mean yeah sure" Shorty wanted to keep everything to himself but what Gaya said freaked him out yet he had to agree with her. He was not that stupid to argue with a woman who could kill him using her pinky.
"Take a few hits" Shorty saw Gaya ce her hand on her ear, whispering something. Shorty then noticed Lucifer turn his head for a second and nod.
"Alright, are we doing this or what?" Michael asked Holman who was still flexing his muscles to attract thedies in the crowd.
"We''re doing it" Holman finally stopped flexing his muscles after hearing Michael''s words. After reaching 89% mastery over the fighting technique Gaya taught him, he could predict almost every possible move Holman would make in the next few seconds. If Michael wanted to he could knock out or kill Holman in just a kick to his neck. However, he decided to take a few punches from Holman, not because Gaya asked him to but because he wanted to see how strong are these peoplepared to those in the Northern continent.
Since they were unable to use Arch energy or any kind of energy, he wanted to see if they were blessed with some other powers such as strong bodies.
Holman rushed at Michael, slightly covering his face like a boxer. He was obviously expecting Michael to throw a punch but unlike he expected, Michael just stood there. Because he never put up his guard, Holman quickly threw a punch at Michael''s face.
Thop!
The very moment Hmn''s fist connected with Michael''s face, it produced a thopping sound as the force of the punch pushed back Michael several steps backward. At the same time, the APD kicked in, injecting the healing potion into his bloodstream.
Michael was stunned by the punch, it felt like someone hitting him with a sledgehammer using all their might. The force behind the punch gave Michael a piece of valuable information, the Southerners definitely blessed with more raw powerpared to the people of Northern Continents. This meant that although theyck the ability to cultivate, they were not as vulnerable as Michael thought.
In other words, Holman had the strength of a Body Refining stage cultivator. The pain he felt quickly disappeared thanks to the APD yet a small trickle of blood flowed out of the corner of his lips.
Michael spat the blood as a small smile emerged on his face.
"Who taught you to throw a punch? Your grandma?"
"Oooh"
The crowdughed, which made Holman more furious as he rushed at Michael again to close the gap between them.
Thop!
Thop!
This time Holman punched Michael in the jaw with his right hand andnded a blow to his left rib cage using his left hand. Yet again, Michael felt an excruciating pain for a second before the APD injected the healing potion into his bloodstream.
"You! I''ll bet 200 more on Holman"
"400 on Holman!"
"The return has gone up, ten times the coins people, ten times!" Shorty kept shouting while the pirates stupidly fell for his trick. Soon, they started to pour out the gold coins excitedly.
Meanwhile, Michael continued to take a few punches to fullyprehend the extent of Holman''s raw strength and stamina.
"Why aren''t you going down?!" Holman couldn''t believe he was smiling even after receiving his punches. He definitely felt the youngster''s rib broken by one of his punches yet he showed no expression of pain on his face.
"I''ll now show you how to throw a punch" Michael cracked his knuckles.
However, before taking a step towards Holman, he turned back to throw a nce at the hooded figure standing on the balcony.
Holman rushed at him again to finish him off while he was staring at somewhere else. As Holman threw the punch aiming straight at Michael''s nose, he swiftly evaded the fist. The next second, Michael uppercut him in the jaw using just enough force to knock him out. Considering he gauged Hmn''s strength,? he put enough Arch energy to give him the power to knock him down.
Thop!
"Ooh"
"What the?!"
The moment Michael''s fist met Holman''s jaw, he was immediately knocked out by the force. His body hit the sand producing a thud sound as the onlookers were made speechless.
"Get up!"
"Hey!"
Gibson and the crew were yet again stunned by his disy of strength. They kinda expected him to use some magic spells but they never imagined him to knock Holman out in a single punch.
"That''s how you throw a punch"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
¡
"Sweet" Michael grinned. When he killed Captain Laars and his men, he never received experience points. Considering they were not cultivators, it didn''t surprise him, he was only kinda disappointed. However now after receiving almost 3000 badass points just by knocking out Holman, he began to feel the excitement rising inside him.
Chapter 235 - Undead Island I
"Is he dead?"
"It can''t be"
"Hey get your ass up"
"Fuck me, I just ced 500 coins on him"
"My coins!"
"Stand Up!"
The pirates began to ssh whatever booze was in their hand on Holman''s unconscious body except no matter what they threw at Holman, he wasn''t waking up.
"Get him!" Suddenly, one of Holman''s friends yelled orders at the others, pointing his finger at Michael. There were a total of seven men in their early thirties who rushed at Michael to avenge Holman.
"Ca-"
"Keep your mouth shut" just when Gibson was about to call him captain and ruin their disguises, Gaya elbowed Gibson in the ribcage to shut him up. She then quickly gave a nce at the rest of the crew to stay still.
Six of Holman''s friends surrounded Michael while one knelt down to check on Holman.
"Seven versus one, the odds are against you boys," said Michael calmly.
"Pfft, you stupid?"
"We''re gonna mop the floor with you"
"Let''s teach him a lesson!"
Holman''s friends taunted Michael. Considering they were pretty drunk, they seemed to forget how he knocked out their friend Holman with a single punch. Just looking at their footwork and hand movements told him that they don''t know any special fighting technique.
"Let''s do this" Michael just raised his finger to call them up as two of Holman''s friends rushed at him from the front while one moved from Michael''s behind.
The distance between the twoing from the front was approximately 4 meters while the one trying to attack him from behind was only 2meters. Therefore, he had to deal with the closest one before dealing with the others.
When a fist came closer to him, he just stepped forward and then sideways as the guy lost his bnce due to missing the punch. Before he could stumble down, Michael kicked his right knee, instantly breaking it.
"Ah!" he screamed in agony, dropping to the ground. However, he did not give the guy any time as Michael grabbed his neck before sending a knee to the side of the guy''s face, knocking him out instantly. Plus, one could hear a jaw-breaking sound when Michael''s knee hit his face.
After dropping one guy to the ground, the two who were rushing at him from the front halted their steps in shock because everything happened so fast as many weren''t evenpletely sure of what just happened.
Although the two halted their steps, Michael did not stop as he dashed at him as fast as he could without using any Arch energy. Even without Lightning Dash, the training he underwent made him extremely agile, strong, and fast.
The booze slowed down the two guys'' reflection speed. Wasting no time, he elbowed one guy on the side of his face. The jaw was separated by the elbow as he went down without a scream. The very next moment, he twisted his body, swinging his right leg. The side whip kick instantly knocked the other guy, producing a short thud sound.
At this time, the rest of Holman''s friends began to rush at Michael from his front, left and right. With a swift kick to the gut, he sent the guying from the front stumbling back. Then he twisted his body, sending a fist into the guy''s face. Michael felt his knuckles breaking the guy''s nose. The blood sshed across the ice as well as stained Michael''s fist.
Thest guy suddenly started to walk backward in fear because he was thest one standing. The one who was checking on Holman already dragged Holman out of the way from the fight. Even after being shaken violently, Holman still did not recover his consciousness.
"I told you the odds are against you" Michael said, kicking the guy who he sent stumbling backward with a kick to the gut before, finally knocking him out.
Thop!
"Youe here!" thest guy screamed at the one who was pretending to check on Holman. One could see that the guy was freaked out seeing his friends getting knocked out one by one.
This time, Michael did not rush at him but just picked up a half-drunk rum bottle from the ground. The crowd was stunned at the scene as they now stared at Michael like he was some kind of freak. They watched Michael walk towards thest guy with the bottle in his hand.
"You..."
The guy mumbled as he tried to unsheath his cuss. Michael grabbed the guy''s hand stopping him from reaching his sword,
"Next time, run away"
Crack!
Michael smashed the bottle in the guy''s head with enough force to knock him down. Out of the seven men, six were knocked out. He turned his gaze towards thest man who was on the ground beside Holman,
"Tell your friends, this ends right here. If they try anything silly, that''d be thest thing they do" After warning the guy, he just turned around, walking towards Gaya and Gibson.
"Put this in your ear"? he ced an earpiece in Gibson''s hand, whispering to put it into his ear. Among the chaos, no one noticed the little exchange between Michael and Gibson. The onlookers were too focused on losing their money to Shorty.
After Michael left the area, Shorty did not linger around as he knew the pirates would rob him blind if he stayed. Shorty gathered his crew before running behind Gibson.
*******************************
After the fight, Michael and Gaya walked into a dark alley near the tavern. Michael had to lose the crowd as some people who lost coins because of him might try to start another fight. As much as he could, he wanted to stay off the grid without showing any of his powers before he could get aplete idea about this part of the world, getting into regr fights would ruin his n.
"Where are we going?"? Gaya asked. The ce was dark, nothing but trash to apany them in the alley. The tall buildings on either side prevented much of the sunlight from lighting the alley, hence the darkness.
"You''re gonnae down or keep following us" Michael stopped walking and shouted looking at the top of the wooden building beside him. Gaya was confused but she soon saw movements up on the roof. Just a few seconds after Michael''s shout, the hooded figure leaped down from the top of the building andnded in front of themfortably.
"Who the fuck is he?" Gaya asked Michael while he just stood there calmly, waiting for the hooded figure to start speaking.
"You made me" the hooded figure spoke with a thick ent. He was standing at least 6ft 5inches with enough muscles topete in a body-buildingpetition back on earth. Yet he seemed so agile.
"I noticed. It''d be nice if you tell me why did you choose me and what do you want"
"Call it a gut feeling. I''m putting up together a team and after what I saw, I''d say my gut feeling was right"
"It was you who set up that Holman guy, wasn''t it?" Gaya connected the dots as the hooded figure''s silence confirmed her theory.
"Team for doing what?"
"A simple retrieval. There are risks but you''ll 3million in gold before and 3million after the job''s done"
"6million for a simple retrieving, I''m interested"
He didn''t believe someone would pay 6million for a simple retrieving job. However, he wanted to learn more about this part of the world and its people. Doing this job would not only make him rich but also help him gather more information. Besides he wanted to know who''s willing to pour out that many coins and for what. Even if the team just consisted of four people and the same payday for everyone, it would cost the one running the operation 24 million. If someone was willing to pay 24 million, he knew what he wanted to be retrieved must be worth it.
"Meet me at the docks in eight hours, we''ll be headed to Gisel"
The moment the hooded figure mentioned the name Gisel, Michael''s brows arched up. Kingdom Gisel was his destination, it was where the source of Nightcrawler''s magic radiation hiding artifact. He paid the system a hefty sum to get the location, he even left the demon soul stone back at the Abyssal to get his hands on the artifact before anyone else could. Now it seemed like someone''s already putting together a team to get the artifact.
Before Michael could ask any further questions, the hooded figure used a grappling hook simr to Michael''s to reach the rooftop and disappear. The design of the grappling hook was different from Michael''s mark 3 yet he was surprised by the device. ording to Aria, the Southerners alwayspensated for theck of Arch energy with technology and science. Now that he saw the hooded figure use such a device, he began to form an idea about this part of the world.
"Gisel? It''s where we''re going. Somehow I can''t believe it''s just a coincidence"
"Either way, we''ll see this through," said Michael.
"Where do you want me?"
"Get to Gibson and follow us discreetly. I''m doing this alone" He gave a gentle pat on her shoulder before leaving the alley. Since they didn''t want the hooded figure to know the Silent Reaper belonged to them, they had to be cautious, they had to keep their cards close to their chest without revealing them because they could be used to their advantage if the hooded figure tried to double-cross them after the job was done.
Chapter 236 - Undead Island II
Dusk came sooner than expected, thest of the sun''s rays cosseted behind soft grey clouds. The sandy streets of Pirate cove took on the look of an old photograph, every familiar thing a shade of grey. Slowly the view faded to ckness and the night began, slowly letting the stars in the sky shine. The sound of waves hitting the sea boulders as well as the birds chirping radiated a soothing effect to everyone on the ind.
Right at the moment, Michael stood on the docks looking at the sun disappearing into the horizon. He felt peaceful as the time flew by without his notice. Soon when the light of the sunpletely vanished, a merchant ship sailed towards him to dock at the docks.
"Hop in" After the ship stopped, Michael saw a 7ft gigantic man throw him a nk to get on board the ship. The moment he stepped on the upper deck, he noticed a handful of crew running around the deck.
"Wee on board, new guy"? Michael had to look up to see his face. He had ruffled short-length hair, well-defined muscles like a bodybuilder. He only wore brown breeches as well as ck boots, nothing to cover his upper body. On his behind, Michael noticed a huge Warhammer hanging on.
Coupled with his dark skin, the man could give a heart attack to any soft-hearted person. Regardless of his terrifying body, he weed Michael with a genuine smile on his face. He also reached out for a handshake,
"how''re you doing?" Michael shook his hand with a smile.
"Hey gang, move your asses over here, the new guy''s here!" he shouted with his thick voice. Soon after his shout, a group of people walked out from the captain''s cabin. He saw a young short golden-haired girl with a crossbow, a brown-haired youngster with a rapier hanging on his waist, a short person with a hood covering his face, and finally, a youngster with big round sses on his face.
Michael looked around to see the hooded figure he met in the alley but he wasn''t with the group in front of him.
"So what''s your specialty?" the golden-haired girl asked. She was an average-looking girl, fair skin, square jaws, hazel eyes. the only unique thing about her was the tattoo on her neck, a tattoo of a raven. Unlike the man who weed Michael, there was no friendly smile on her face, she seemed as she was pissed off at someone.
"Depends" he just shrugged.
"That ray of sunshine is Marce" the big man began to introduce them one by one to Michael,
"He calls himself Brownie" he pointed at the brown-haired youngster,
"I think it''s something to do with his brown hair" the big man whispered with a chuckle,
After introducing Marce and Brownie, the big man pointed his finger at the short hooded figure,
"That''s Jessie," the big man said as Jessie waved his hand,
"You might wanna hide your things from him" the big man whispered again before pointing his finger at the sses-wearing youngster,
"I''m Jonah, wee...wee aboard" before the big guy could, the youngster introduced himself with an awkward smile.
"You can call me, Logan" Logan again reached out for a handshake,
"David" Once again, Michael shook his hand,
"You got quite a grip, David" Logan gave a friendly pat on Michael''s back.
"I don''t see any piece on you, David. Where we are going, you''ll need something" Marce said,
"Let''s bring him up to speed" Michael turned his head towards the captain''s cabin to see a bald muscr man with various tattoos covering his neck walking towards him. Judging by the height and the device strapped around his wrist, he knew this guy is the hooded figure he met earlier.
The man had tanned skin, a round face with small lively eyes. He was not as tall as Logan but not short as Jessie either.
"Follow me"
"That''s Ross, in case you didn''t know" they all followed Ross behind into the captain''s cabin. When they opened the door, Michael saw another man wearing full leather armor standing behind a round oak table. The armor looked sturdy. The man was an inch taller than Ross, neatlybed his short ck hair to the side. On his back, Michael saw a shiny silver round shield as well as a long sword hanging on his waist.
After everyone entered the room, Ross closed the room while the man tossed a paycube towards Michael
"Your advance is in the paycube, you can cash in any of the banks in Southern Continent"
"Alright, I assume you''re all acquainted,? so let''s start the briefing "
"What happened to Rowan? And we don''t know anything about this guy" Marce''s words slightly annoyed Michale but he let Ross handle her.
"Rowan went to the Ind with the recon team and the less we know about each other is best"
"Quit whining Marce, David seems capable to me," Logan still had a smile stered across his face yet he sounded like he doesn''t like Marce very much. In Michael''s eyes, the two of them were pr opposites, Logan seemed like a nice friendly guy while Marce seemed like a typical cold-hearted bitch.
"David, you know where we are going exactly?" the man in armor asked Michael,
"Ross said we''re going to the Gisel Kingdom for a simple retrieval job. But I know it might not be that simple, considering the payday. So bring me up to speed"
The man nodded and continued, cing his finger on the map on the table. Michael saw he was pointing at a small ind near the Kingdom Gisel.
"Harford Isle, now known as the zombie ind" Michael was genuinely surprised by the man''s words.
"You call them Netherels," Ross said.
It was obvious Ross gathered information about him at the tavern through one of his crew members. However, by the look of Ross, it was evident that the crew members kept their mouths shut about Michael using arch energy inside the void line.
"You dealt with them before?" the man asked,
"Yeah, killed a few"
" you''re okay with venturing into an ind filled with fucking undead because you killed a few" Jessie, the hooded figure opened his mouth for the first time. He had the voice of a teenager, if Michael had to guess, he would say Jessie is eighteen or neen years old.
"As some of you may know, the annual hunting of the undead starts two days from now. We''ll enter the ind as hunters, reach the center of the ind, get what we need, and get the hell out of there. This is the short version of the n"
"The longer version is, the ind is divided into three circles. The outer circle has fewer undead creatures, hence less dangerous. The deeper we move forward towards the center of the ind, the dangerous it''d be. After we get through the outer circle, we''ll meet the recon team here" Ross pointed at the river on the map
"The recon team went there with professional builders. If everything went ording to the n, there''d be a ship waiting for us "
"How did the recon team enter the ind before the hunting season begins?" Logan asked, looking at Ross and the man in armor.
"Let''s just say my employer called in some favors," said the man in the armor.
"Moving on. After we get on the boat, we''ll travel straight to the center of the ind where we believe the undead are building a temple"
Except for Marce and the man in armor, everyone else was stunned by Ross''s words. Back in Abyssal, Dr was using rituals and a mysterious book to control the Netherels to do his bidding. If what Ross said was correct, someone on this ind or something was controlling the Netherels just like Dr.
"Undead building a temple? Are you kidding us right now? Thest time I heard, undead can''t think for themselves" Logan threw his hands in the air, refusing to believe Ross''s words.
"The normal undead can''t but the alphas can," Marce said as Ross and the man in armor nodded,
"Alphas?" Michael asked as he wanted to know more about the alphas that Marce was talking about.
"New breed of Undead. We believe something in the ind is mutating the undead, the alphas are thepletely mutated ones-" Ross was intercepted by the man in armor when he was going to finish his sentence,
"As for what''s mutating the undead, it''s no one''s concern"
The others might have no idea but Michael knew what might be mutating them, the same artifact he''s looking for.
"What about the terrain of the ind?" Logan asked,
"The ind is a rainforest. Hope you''ve all brought umbres people" Ross joked.
Everyone looked gloomy except Michael. The rainforest would give him the advantage to double-cross them and disappear after getting his hands on the artifact. Plus, he firmly believed that most of these people would die before reaching the artifact because he already injected himself with the vine for Netherel bite. He had to buy a few herbs from the system but with the help of his alchemy knowledge and ample amount of Netherel samples, he was able to make the vine.
"Rain and forest, the two things I hate the most" Logan rubbed his temples.
"If you need anyst-minute supply or a weapon, go get them now. We''ll leave the docks in one hour"
Michael was the first to leave the room after Ross''s words. He had to retrieve the Doombringer and the mark 3 grappling hook from his space ring without anyone noticing.
Chapter 237 - Uninvited Guest
"I thought you were a sword kinda guy" when Michael stepped onto the upper deck, Logan came to him with a surprised look on his face. His doom bringer was majestically hanging on his behind, gently reflecting the moonlight.
"It looks heavy" Logan''s eyes were sparkling looking at the Doombringer. Michael could tell Logan''s craving to hold the Warhammer in his hand.
"It is" Michael took the Doombringer from his behind and twisted the handle stylishly. Because he was not using any Arch energy, the weight of the Doombringer made his biceps flex out. After his intense training, his body became toned and each muscle in his body had a definite definition.
"Can I hold it?" Logan looked like a big 7ft baby staring at a candy.
"Sure" Michael chuckled as he handed over the Doombringer to Logan.
The big Logan was excitedly smiling but when he grabbed the handle of Doombringer, his smile disappeared.
"Dang it, it''s so freakin heavy" Michael was slightly surprised to see a muscle mountain like Logan struggling to lift the Doombringer without using all of his strength. The weight training plus the Serpent style fighting technique changed his body from the molecr level, making him stronger and faster than most people. This was the reason why Gaya was able to break wood logs like they were eggshells, she was damn strong.
Now that he had undergone the training with the help of the system, he was stronger and faster than Gaya herself and on a different levelpared to anyone in the Southern Continent.
"Whoo, you''re stronger than you look, David" Logan said, putting down the Doombringer on the floor by its head.
"Work on your weight lifting big boy" Michael gave a friendly pat on Logan''s shoulder with a chuckle.
"Alright guys, we''re leaving" Ross stood at the helm, preparing to leave the docks. After hearing his shout, the ship''s crew began to unravel the sails.
The ship slowly started to move as they all felt a sudden jerk. Michael walked over to the edge of the ship, leaned on the edge, looking at the starry night above the peaceful ocean.
"So what do you think about the team David?" Logan leaned on the wooden railing beside him.
"No clue, what''s your take?"
"You know what, I''m d you''re here because you''re the most normal person on the ship" Michael looked over his shoulder back at the team and couldn''t help but agree with Logan. Brownie was muttering something under his breath while Jessie, the hooded figure checking the crates lined up near the mainsail pole. On the far end of the ship, Jonah appeared to be upied with the starry night. Although Marce seemed normal, Michael knew she would be thest person to talk to in the entire ship.
Logan was dead wrong about him being normal butpared to the others, he was the friendliest and normal-looking person on the ship.
"Ross is kind of the team captain here. Marce is our tracker, Jessie is the thief, I don''t know how a thief could help with our mission. I heard Brownie is some kind of undead expert and Jonah, I have no idea why we are bringing him along with us"? Michael took a mental note in his mind. If he wanted to double-cross them at the end, he needed to know everything there is to know about them.
"How do you know all this?" he asked Logan,
"Because I was the first to get recruited by Ross"
Michael nodded, "and let me guess, your specialty is killing undead"
"Undead, overgrown beasts, bandits, etcetera etcetera. The mercenary job requires killing pretty much all the above"
Being mercenary wasn''t very much different from being an adventurer. They both would get the job done for an amount. Since Logan didn''t seem like a genius guy, he made the right choice by bing a mercenary in Michael''s mind. Also, Logan seemed like a nice easy going guy.
"I guess you''re also here to keep the undead from killing the team"
"Yeah, you can say that"
"Why did youe to the Southern Continent anyways? I thought you cultivators hated crossing the void line"
"You know?" Michael was slightly surprised but he could tell Ross might have told Logan about where he came from.
"Come one, the way you dress is kinda dead give away. Besides, H and Ross told us about you"
"H? You mean the guy in armor?"
"Yeah, no one here knows his real name, he just goes by H. I don''t know what his deal is but he rubbed me the wrong way. Whatever, tell me David, do you miss being a cultivator? What could have possibly made youe here?"
Michael didn''t feel like Logan was prying but was genuinely curious about the reason for his trip to the Southern Continent. Besides, it was a logical question as cultivators rarely came to the Southern continent.? No matter how powerful a cultivator was, if he crossed the void line, he would instantly turn into a mortal.
"Well, I like to travel and always wanted to see what the Southern Continent look like"
"Let me tell you about the Southern Continent. It''s like a shiny apple that is rotten in its core. The Southern continent is infested with very, racism, war, hunger, gue, and all the evil shit you can think of. Trust me, your ce would seem like heaven after you spend a few weeks in any of the Southern Kingdoms " He saw Logan''s smile disappear from his face for the first time. He always looked like a jolly guy yet when he talked about the Southern Continent, he looked gloomy.
"As a mercenary, I saw my share of evil shits. This world has gone to hell David, all we can do is ride out the wave, you know what I''m saying?"
"It gonna sound corny but Logan, you can still clean this world, if you follow the right person"
For a moment Logan stared at Michael,
"Nah" Logan shook his head, "After getting paid for this job, I''m gonna put down my hammer, buy and, house and live the rest of my life in the most beautiful ce in this world, Aston Vige"
Michael was disappointed to hear him but he couldn''t me the guy for thinking to settle down. If Logan showed any signs to continue being a mercenary, Michael would have paid him to work under him. He knew forcing Logan to work under him was just a waste of time, so he decided to let Logan do whatever he wanted. Besides, it was unlikely for all of the team to survive on the ind. He fought Netherels and he knew how strong and deadly they could be. If the artifact was making the Netherels kinda smart, they might use the rainforest to their advantage and if they did, it would be extremely hard for the team to kill Netherels.
"Where is this Aston Vige?"
"Gisel Kingdom. Since you like to travel, I''d be thrilled to give you a tour of our humble vige after the mission. What do you think about that?"
"Sure thing"
"Wonderful" Logan gave a friendly pat on Michael''s back with a wide grin on his face.
"Everythings connected to Gisel," Michael thought to himself. Michael already decided to conquer the Gisel Kingdom first, by conquering, he wanted to control the senate or most of the senators.
He had no time or desire to y the king for now. His goal was to form two armies, a naval army using the pirates and a military using diators and the ves of the Southern Continent.
"I got to take a leak" Logan rubbed his belly before leaving the ce.
"Gaya, do you have eyes on the ship?" He established a connection to Gaya through his earpiece.
"Yep, we''re perfectly blended with the darkness and following your ship"
Michael looked around slowly except he couldn''t see the Silent Reaper or any other ships following them.
"I can''t see you which means others can''t too. It''d be tricky after the sunrise"
"Don''t worry about us, we know their destination so we''ll make it to the ind faster than you are and wait for you there" said Gaya.
After exchanging a few words with Gaya, Michael cut the connection before someone could notice him moving his mouth. Marce was always looking at everyone as she was spying on them. She seemed particrly suspicious of Michael for some reason. Michael noticed this but he chose not to make any moves on Marce because if everything went ording to his n, she wouldn''t be a problem and most probably the undead would take care of her.
Thud!
Suddenly Michael heard a loud thud sounding from one of the crates lined up near the mainsail pole. Marce immediately raised her crossbows as the others who heard the sound turned their gazes at the crates.
"Captain!"
"Did you hear that?"
"It''sing from one of those crates"
"What do you mean crates? I loaded them, there''s nothing but food in those crates"
Michael noticed Ross leaving the helm while Marce loaded a bolt into her crossbow, ready to fire at whatever was making the sound.
"Let me out!"
This time it was not a thud sound but a voice of a young girl came from the crates.
"What''s going on here?"
Michael saw H, the man in armoring out of the captain''s cabin after themotion. He looked at Marce and then at Ross,
"Someone''s in there," Marce coldly said.
"I''ming out of this bloody crate!"
Chapter 238 - Another Team Is Hunting For The Artifact
The crew members quickly unsheathed their cusses to attack the intruder as soon as she came out of the crate. Pretty much everyone had their weapon in their hand except Michael and Ross. Michael really didn''t think that whoever was inside the crate posed a threat, hence he still seemed calm. On the contrary, Ross''s face had shock and confusion stered on it.
"Don''t attack" Ross dered, his voice contained a tinge of anger as well as anxiety. Since Ross was the captain, the crew nodded as they slowly stepped back a few steps from the crates. Marce though still kept her crossbow aimed at the crates.
Soon afterward, the top of the wooden crate slowly opened as a young girl in herte teens stood up from the crate. The girl had ck hair, a beautiful oval face, round lively blue eyes, and smooth silky skin. Although the girl wasn''t a kingdom toppling beauty or something like that, she would attract many youngsters'' attention.
"Maria, what the hell are you doing here?"
Marce turned her gaze towards Ross, she was surprised. Not only Marce but everyone on the ship was surprised by Ross''s words.
"Ross, who is she?" H asked with a deep frown on his face. His voice was not as friendly as before. The girl just stared at Ross''s face, expecting him to answer the question instead of introducing herself.
"She''s my daughter and she''s leaving" Ross tried to grab her by her elbow but she swatted away Ross''s hands before he could touch her.
"Daughter?"
"Ross has a Daughter?"
"What is she doing on the ship?"
The sudden appearance of Ross''s daughter made the crew gossip as the silent atmosphere of the ship disappeared.
"How did she get into the crates?" Jessie, the thief, opened his mouth, directing the question at Ross himself.
"Maria, whatever the reason you have for being here, I don''t care. You need to leave" his words were like that of the father, caring yet strict.
"I''m not going anywhere. I''ming with you to the undead ind. Whether you like it or not"? the girl folded her arms against her chest, refusing to listen to Ross. For a few moments, no one could hear a sound except for the sound of waves hitting the ship''s hull. Everyone was stunned listening to the girl. Many wouldn''t dare to look in the way of the undead ind yet Maria was trying to go to the ind for some reason.
"Come over here" This time, Ross didn''t let her swat his arms away as he grabbed her by her elbow. Everyone saw Ross dragging the girl to a corner of the ship, away from prying eyes and ears.
"You" Marce called out one of the crew members staring at Ross and Maria. Her shout immediately brought back the crew member to his senses.
"Huh?"
"What was supposed to be in those crates?" Marce asked,
"Aw shit," the crew member cursed as some of the crew members began to sweat bullets.
Seeing their reaction to her question, Michael''s curiosity piqued,
"Food, we were keeping two days worth of ration in those crates"
Right after the crew members answered, even Michael''s calm expression changed. The ship at least contained fifty people including the team, if they didn''t have food to fill those bellies, they would be in big trouble before even reaching the ind itself. A big person like Logan would have to eat an ample amount of food to sustain his body except that they seemed to becking food.
"Tell me you keep extra ration somewhere here" Marce gritted her teeth. The crew member was shivering and walking backward in fear.
"We...we...do" Her anger somewhat lowered down by his answer,
"It could only feed everyone for a day," another crew member said. They were short on rations as the journey to the ind would take two days, if the wind was on their side rather than against them. Maria had alreadypromised the mission by throwing away their food, even Michael had to eat if he didn''t want to use precious Arch Energy to sustain his body.
H and Ross were busy talking to Maria while the rest of them looked at each other''s gloomy faces.
"You idiots!" Marce lost her temper. She yelled at the crew members,
"what were you doing when she was throwing away the food?! How about I throw your useless asses off the ship?"
"Calm down, no one''s thrown anyone off the ship" Logan interfered before the situation escted into a fight.
"We''ll just have to manage with the ration we have and try to-"
"Try to do what? You want us to fish or magically create food for all of us" Marce rebuked,
"If we could divide the ration into-"
"Shut up, sses" When Jonah tried to offer a solution, she shut him up with a shout. She was really pissing off Michael. Instead of thinking of a solution to their problem, she kept throwing temper tantrums. In other words, she was being an A grade bitch.
"Jonah, go and figure out how we should divide the rations," Brownie said, giving a friendly pat on Jonah''s shoulder.
"If anyone has prior experience of fishing, get to work. I assume you keep fishing equipment in the ship"
"Yeah we do"
On top of being an expert on the undead, Brownie seemed like a guy with good leadership skills. After the crew members ran to the lower decks, Marce returned to her quarters uttering no words.
"Do you know how to fish on a running ship, David?" Logan asked, rubbing his temple.
"Nope, how about you?"
"I was kinda hoping you would lend me some fish"? Logan chuckled, regardless of their current situation.
*****************************
"What were you thinking Maria? The undead ind is not a ce you would go to despise your father"
"I''m going because of you, to fix your mess"
Ross was stunned as she continued,
"I told you not to do anything when you found the weed in my locker but what did you do? Interrogated Johnny like he''s some kind of criminal and informed him to the academy '''' she was shivering in anger at her father. If it wasn''t for people standing nearby, she would have shouted to vent her anger.
"Every time you enter into my life, you fuck up everything. Why can''t you just be a normal father for once?" her voice broke at the end,
"I don''t regret my actions, Maria. But you will if youe to the undead ind. You''re gonna jump onto the boat and go home, end of discussion"
She stomped the wooden floor in anger, "I cane with you and you can keep me safe or I''ll go to the ind by myself and probably die. Either way, I''m going after Johnny"
After Maria''s mother died because of Netherel Bite, he always drowned himself in work,manding a spartan unit of Gisel. Maria always med Ross for killing her mother instead of locking her in a room until someone finds a cure for Netherel bite. Coupled with her anger and Ross''s separation from Maria distorted their rtionship.
"Johnny is not the right guy for you Maria. He''s not worth this risk, please for once quit being stubborn"
Ross begged her to reconsider going to the undead ind yet she seemed resolute in her decision. Since this was the hunting season, there would be many ships approaching the undead ind in the next few days and he knew she would be able to get into any of those ships to reach the ind. He would never forgive himself if he let her go alone and die, hence he reluctantly decided to bring her along with them. At Least he would be there with her to protect her.
The ind already took his wife away from him, he would never let the ind do the same to his daughter.
"You stay with me all the time" Ross took a deep breath and spoke.
"Do you have any idea where Johnny might be on the ind? We''ll be much safer with the team and they won''te looking for Johnny with us"
She retrieved a map from the bag hanging on her waist,
"My friend took this from one of the crew members of Johnny''s ship"
She handed over the map to Ross. The moment he opened the map, he was stunned because the ''X'' mark on the map was the location of the artifact he''s looking for. This meant that another team is looking for the same artifact as he is.
"He''s going to the ind''s center"
She frowned looking at her father''s serious look on his face,
"What does it mean?"
"It means he''s with the team that searching for the exact thing as we are"
While they were in the middle of the conversation, H came back. Ross handed over the map to him. H too had the same look on his face as Ross when heid his eyes on the map,
"Another team is hunting for the artifact H, do you know about this?"
H shook his head,
"Thanks to your daughter we have no food to sustain for more than a day. Now this, we have to sail faster Ross" H handed over the map back to Ross before looking at Maria,
"What are you gonna do about your daughter?"
"She''sing with us"
"You kidding me? She''s a civilian, not to mention a liability. She''s alreadypromised the mission by throwing away the food, I won''t let her jeopardize the mission further"
"This is my operation and my decision H. If you don''t like the way I do things, you can report me to the senate and we both know who they gonna support"
H knew his words were nothing but the truth. Until they could find the artifact, H knew he had to rely on Ross''s skills. The senate leaders personally appointed Ross for this mission, thest thing H wanted is to piss off the senate leaders which would piss off his employer.
"This is a bad idea," H said before walking away.
"This is" Ross said to himself. Whether he likes it or not, Ross knew H is right but because of his daughter''s stubbornness, he had no other choice.
Chapter 239 - Overpowered Doombringer
While Jonah was trying to calcte the appropriate amount of ration one should consume, Michael and Logan were sitting leisurely on the ship''s ledge with a fishing rod in their hand. Michael''s expertise in fishing came from watching others do in the movies while Logan had no expertise at all.
"Some say fishing will calm your soul"
"It is kinda rxing, Logan" the full moon in the sky, the sound of the ocean, and the slowly moving sail ship made fishing rxing regardless of Michael''s inexperience in fishing. In his previous life, he never had time to enjoy such activities. Plus, he always liked to spend his little bit of free time ying video games, improving his skills as well as watching movies or tv shows. Only since he came to this world, he was able to enjoy simple things in life like fishing.
Even if he couldn''t catch a single fish, he was enjoying peace and calm.
The little chit-chat with Logan gave him an idea about the Southern Continent.
"I heard cultivators don''t sleep or eat. It''s weird, but you don''t have to scrounge the god''s green earth just to fill your belly huh"
"It''s bs, it''s not that cultivators don''t eat or sleep, it''s that we don''t need to eat or sleep to sustain our body. Take me for example, I eat and sleep back there like you people here"
Logan started to pour out all the questions about cultivators and cultivation as Michael answered his questions one by one. He answered Logan''s questions in a manner that would tempt Logan to try to be a cultivator. Currently, it wasn''t impossible for the Southerners to be cultivators after leaving the void area aka the Southern Continent but most of them tend to have extremely slow cultivation speed as it would be difficult for their bodies to adapt to the new environment.
The time flew quickly as the sun started to rise on the horizon, painting the sky in bright orange with its golden rays. The upper deck slowly began to get filled with more and more crew members. After sleepingst night with an empty belly, they all seemed weak and exhausted.
The sun wasn''t the only thing Michael saw on the horizon, he could see a merchant galleon ship
"Look! A ship" One crew member shouted, his voice contained joy. Even Logan began to grin widely looking at a merchant ship. Merchant ships were usually filled with rations and they could buy rations to fix their current situation.
Michael put down the fishing rod on the deck as Ross came out of the captain''s cabin with his daughter. Despite the mess she caused, Maria looked refreshed after a beauty sleep. It was obvious Ross gave his potion of ration to his daughter as any good father would do.
Looking at the crew members bouncing in excitement, Ross took out his monocr to examine the merchant ship approaching them. The first thing he examined was the g flying above the sails. The white g had a symbol of lotus,
"Esmail merchants" Ross recognized the ship''s g, so did H. H heaved a sigh of relief as they would be able to buy rations from the merchant ship but Ross had ck lines on his forehead,
"They are far away from their usual routes"
Everyone had a relieved look on their faces except Ross. He knew Esmail merchants and their usual routes, this area of the ocean was far away from their routes. Hence he was skeptical, unlike others.
After talking to the team as well as some of the crew members, Ross realized one thing, they all med Maria for their situation. They were right to do so. He knew he can''t keep her absolutely safe all by himself, he would need the team''s support in keeping her safe after entering the ind. If there was bad blood between them and Maria, keeping her safe would be a difficult task.
Because of his love for Maria, he ignored all his doubts about the merchant ship. Slowly but steadily the merchant ship approached them while the crew members waved their hands at the merchant ship, calling out for help.
Since Michael had no idea about the merchant ship or its routes like Ross, he too felt relieved to see the ship approaching. Although the fishing was indeed rxing, at the end of the day he had to eat.
"I''ll go get the coins" H walked back into the captain''s cabin to bring the coins. The merchant ship was now only fifty meters or so away from them. Ross''s tensed body loosened a? bit looking at the crew members on the merchant ship. They were all wearing a shirt with the Esmail merchant logo embroidered on their chest.
Michael was watching the ship approaching from the far end of the ship with Logan. Little by little, the merchant ship''s shadow darkened the deck as the merchant ship stopped beside them. The merchant ship was perfectly aligned sidewards
Soon, a wooden nk dropped from the merchant ship to their ship. After the merchant ship came to a halt, Michael was able to see the faces of everyone on the ship clearly. As he looked at them, he couldn''t help frowning. They all seemed tense, slightly trembling. Even the one walking the nt to them had no smile on his face which was weird because a merchant would always typically smile.
Michael stared at the old man approaching them, he was partially bald and like most of the merchants, he too had a fat belly. Looking at the sweat on the old man''s face and the way the merchant ship perfectly aligned sideways, he began to have a bad feeling about this.
"Pirates!" the moment the old man stepped onto the deck, he shouted.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
But it was toote as the merchant ship bombarded their ship with cannonballs. Logan was thrown away by the force of the impact near him as Michael jumped away to cover himself.
"Open fire!"
Ross leaped towards the helm to move the ship after shouting an order at the crew. The sudden attack caught the crew memberspletely by surprise as a few of them were blown to pieces by the cannon fire.
The air reeked of gunpowder and wooden splinters flew everywhere, inflicting major and minor wounds to the crew.
Logan was crawling somewhere to hide behind a cover yet the gigantic sledgehammer on his back slowed down his movements.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The merchant ship started their second-round while Ross''s crews were busy running chaotically around the deck to save their lives.
"I want everything valuable on the ship!" Michael heard a shout as he looked at the merchant ship to see a middle-aged man with a greasy red beard at the helm. He wore a long red coat with two sabers hanging on his waist. Like every pirate he met in this world, he was dirty, spoke in a thick ent, and chugging rum like water.
"Hahahaha" also heughed like a maniac looking at the carnage he was causing.? Following his madughter, pirates who were previously hiding in the lower decks began to swarm out of the ship to pige Ross''s ship.
"Watch out!" H shouted at Logan as Michael turned his gaze away from the maniac on the opposite ship to see one of the sail poles falling in the direction of Logan.
The speed of pole falling was much greater than Logan crawling away, therefore, if one didn''t stop the pole or help Logan, he would die. Right at the moment, everyone was fighting for their lives and unable to help the others like Logan. The reason for Logan''s state was the first cannonball thatnded just near him, the force knocked out Logan. If someone else was in Logan''s ce, the force would have killed them.
The pirates easily jumped onto the ship and began to attack everyone they saw. Michale quickly took the Doombringer from his back, not to kill any pirates but to save Logan. He threw the Doombringer aiming at the sail pole that was about to crush Logan.
The Doombringer soared through the sky,
"Shit" Just when Logan was about to ept his death, he saw the sail pole sted into smithereens.
Thud!
He covered his eyes to prevent the wooden splinters from blinding him but he clearly heard a loud thud noise amidst the sound of battle. When he opened his eyes, he noticed Michael''s Doombringer lying on the floor.
"Get your ass up, big guy"? Logan saw David reaching his hand out to help him up.
Logan didn''t waste any time as he quickly stood up before another disaster hit him.
"I owe you one"
Michael just nodded, "let''s kill some pirates'' '' He clutched the Doombringer tighter. Logan also took his huge sledgehammer from his behind with a blood-thirsty look on his face. Since they almost killed him, Logan wanted to pay them back ten times back by crushing them with his sledgehammer.
Even though there were many people on the ship, one pirate picked Michael as his target. With a curved saber on his hand, he rushed at Michael.
Looking at the pirate running towards him, he swung the Doombringer as fast as he could. His speed caught the pirate off guard, the Warhammer hit the pirate''s rib cage before his saber could cut Michael. The pirate''s rib cage caved as he was sent flying off the ship. The blood, bone, and pieces of lung sttered across the deck. His death was horrible, even surprising Michael.
Until now, Michael only used Doombringer to kill Netherels. This was the first time he killed a mortal. When he attacked the pirate, it only felt as if he was crushing a bag filled with nothing but eggshells. There was no resistance as the Doombringer crushed the pirate without an effort.
Chapter 240 - Brutal Killing Spree
On the other side, Logan swung his sledgehammer, crushing two pirates'' heads. The pirates were prepared to fight light-armed people like Marce but not prepared to battle fighters with heavy weapons such as Michael or Logan. Although some pirates avoided running to Logan seeing his muscr build, there were still some daredevils who tried to kill Logan.
Michael was an unstoppable force on the ship. Everywhere he went, blood and bones sttered across. The busiest person on the ship was Ross as he was surrounded by five pirates, the pirates tried to kill the captain of the ship, ending the battle before they lose more of their brethren.
"What''s taking you all bastards this long? finish them off" the pirate captain shouted at the pirates.
More and more pirates came out from the lower deck after his shout. Michael really wondered how many pirates are hiding in the merchant ship.
"I had enough of this"? he brought down Doombringer''s wrath upon another pirate. The head exploded, spraying blood and grey matter all over Michael. His grey long coat was painted red. The blood not only drenched his face but also painted his face red. With the Doombringer in his hand, he looked like the God of War reincarnated.
Since Logan was fighting rtively nearby to Michael, he noticed a few of Michael''s brutal kills. When the blood-covered face turned towards him, Logan''s heart skipped a beat in shock, it wasn''t as he never saw someone kill pirates but the way Michael killed them and the thick blood and the broken bones on him that shocked Logan. It gave him a devilish look.
"Help Ross!"
Logan quickly finished off the pirate he was fighting. He nodded at David, quickly moving towards Ross. He thought David''s gonna cover him but his jaw dropped when he saw David leaping onto the merchant ship that was filled with pirates.
"Hey!" Logan was stupefied, he never for a second thought David would decide to take the fight to the pirates without backup. There was no one to fight beside him on the ship like on Ross''s ship. Anyone with some battle experience could tell there''s no way David would survive fighting the pirates alone.
"What''s he doing?!" Marce also noticed David jumping to the pirate ship. She screamed at Logan but Logan asked the same question to himself.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
¡
Michaelnded right on the center of the pirate ship. Unintentionally hended like the iron man which triggered the system to award him with badass points.
"What the?" Even the pirate captain never expected someone to jump onto his ship. He was surprised but looking at the blood on the young man''s body, his killing intent rose up. It was evident that the young man killed many of his men brutally to get painted in blood like this. Even the floor hended quickly had tiny puddles of blood that trickled from his body and the Doombringer.
Boom!
Before the pirates could attack him, Michael swung the Doombringer as fast as he could at the mainsail pole. As expected, when the Doombringer collided with the sail pole, the wooden pole sted into countless pieces of splinters. The force of the hit knocked back a few of the pirates standing around the sail pole while the splinters impaled some of the pirates, inflicting some amount of damage.
"Bastard" If it was his ship, he would have lost his mind if someone destroyed the mainsail pole which would cost a fortune to repair. Since it was the case as he recently captured the merchant ship and posed as merchants to pige other ships, he was mostly just annoyed to see the youngster destroy the ship.
The force also slightly pushed Michael back. Using this opportunity, one pirate quickly shed at Michael with his cuss. The training did make his body several times stronger but without using Arch energy, he wasn''t invincible or untouchable. The cuss cut his back as he felt a sharp pain across his back.
The APD quickly injected half of the healing potion into his bloodstream. While the wound was healing, Michael didn''t give the pirate another chance to cut him. When the pirate shed the cuss at him again, he bent his back as the cuss brushed past his forehead. The other pirates did not let their fellow pirates fight alone, they all rushed at Michael to overpower him.
Back on the Northern Continent, the cultivators tend to fight one by one. They often let one or two cultivators fight on the front side while some cast supportive spells from the side. The reason cultivators avoid attacking one at the same time was the spells they cast could wound their own team. The pirates were the pr opposite of cultivators, they liked to gang up on an opponent.
After evading the cuss, it was his turn to attack the pirate who cut him. He swung the Doombringer in a circle without doing any fancy moves. The pirate who cut him was unfortunate enough to wee the Doombringer''s head with his head. The head exploded into a blood mist, sttering skull pieces and grey matter across the ce. Some grey matter ended up on Michael''s face yet it was not enough to make him show an expression of disgust. However the other pirates weren''t as strong as Michael, seeing the headless body of their fellow pirate, they were momentarily stunned.
While they were stunned, Michael swung the Doombringer again at the headless body like a hammer hitting a nail. The headless bodypletely mashed by Doombringer further stunning the pirates.
It was a very brutal kill. Utilizing their shock, Michael continued to swing his Doombringer at every pirate he could see.? Although he was swinging the Doombringer chaotically, he was careful not to let any piratese close enough to cut his head off.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Many of the surrounding pirates were either killed or knocked back by the Doombringer. The more pirates he attacked, the more blood spattered across his face, obstructing his view. It slowed his move as a few of the pirates managed to strike him.
Standing on the helm tform, the pirate captain saw the young man wreaking havoc among his men. Even after he was surrounded by his men, the Warhammer in his hand, crushed everyone in its path.
"What''s happening?" he mumbled to himself. He saw his mennd more than a couple of times yet he was moving as he never suffered any wounds. One could not differentiate the young man''s blood from the blood of his men on his body. He was bathed in blood, the more blood ended up on his body, the more he looked like a devil.
When the young man firstnded on the ship, he had twenty men on the ship but now, they were reduced to seven. Looking at the dead bodies on the deck, his veins popped in anger. He wanted to call everyone on the merchant ship to kill the young man.
Yet the anger blinded his rational thinking. He unsheathed his cuss, deciding to join the fight himself. At this time, the pirate captain had no idea he was running towards his death.
"Ahhhhh!" Michael let out an evil scream continuing to crush everyone in his path. Even after killing a pirate, he never stopped swinging his Doombringer until the body turned into a bloody mess. Although three pirates lost all their courage and decided to run, he threw the Doombringer at them, knocking them down.
"Grh" the pirates who were knocked down by the Doombringer grunter in pain. The pirate captain saw the young man walking towards the three crawling pirates, he ran as fast as he could to save his men. Yet his heart skipped a beat when he saw the young man crushing their skull by stomping on them.
The young man kept stomping on the dead pirates while screaming like a mad wolf. However, suddenly he stopped stomping the pirates. The pirate captain saw the young man grinning, except for his teeth, there was no spot on his face that wasn''t covered by the blood.
Every muscle in Michael''s body ached, most of the healing potion in APD had been injected into his bloodstream. The battle was harder than he initially expected. If he used dual swords, the battle would have been much easier and received a few cuts to his body because of his 89% mastery over swordsmanship. The Doombringer was supposed to be used with his spells. Since he never used any spells, the pirates did manage tond several deep cuts.
Putting the Doombringer on his shoulder, he slowly walked towards the pirate captain. Not that he wanted to walk slowly but the exhaustion made walking difficult. At the moment, Michael ignored the battle noisesing from Ross''s ship. The killing intent he felt towards the pirate captain canceled all the noises around him. Michael wasn''t the only one with killing intent, the pirate captain radiated more killing intent than Michael because he just lost a huge chunk of his crew power to a single man. He shed violently at the young man as the de deeply cut his left cheek.
However, his mind went nk when he saw the wound closing up at a rapid speed.
"What...what the...hell are you?"? In a couple of seconds, the woundpletely disappeared.
Michael grabbed the pirate captain by his neck without giving him a chance to swing his cuss again before putting the Doombringer on the ground.
"Captain!"
The pirates who noticed the pirate captain in Michael''s clutch stopped fighting as they screamed. For a few moments, the battlepletely stopped as they all stared at Michael and the pirate captain who was being lifted up from the ground by his neck.
"Your death"
Chapter 241 - Undead Monkeys
"Drop it!" Michael''s killing intent filled voice reverberated the sea. Looking at their captain twitching in the air due tock of breathing air, not all of them but a few loyal pirates dropped their cusses in the hope of saving their captain from the blood-covered monster.
"Or he dies"
"Do... as he says!" The words barely escape the pirate captain''s mouth. Soon, one by one, the Pirates dropped their weapons. Quickly Marce and the others rounded up the pirates away from their weapons. The bodies of pirates and crew members alike were lying on the deck in their own pool of blood. Most of the bodies belonged to Ross''s crews because the pirates caught them off guard as well as killed a lot using cannon fire.
While everyone was staring at Michael to see what he''s going to do next, he threw the pirate captain to Ross.
"Your op, your rules" He let Ross deal with the pirate captain and the rest of the pirates. Every single fiber in his body ached. If the fight continued, he would be forced to use Arch energy, revealing his secret.
"Men, take everything we want from their ship"? Ross put his cuss on the pirate captain''s throat before ordering his men. They all waited for Michael to cross the wooden nk first. Only after he crossed the wooden nk, the crew members moved to the pirate ship.
On Ross''s ship, everyone moved away from Michael''s path. Many crew members were trembling at the sight of blood-covered Michael. Even Logan avoided direct eye contact with him. He was too exhausted to deal with everything else. Logan saw him sitting down on the floor.
"Where did Ross find him?" H asked himself. In his forty years of life, he had seen many great spartans and diators fight but he never saw someone as bloodthirsty as the young man. Even a spartan or a diator could kill a maximum of 10 men at a time but the young man killed almost twenty men single handedly. H was indeed terrified yet a sly grin appeared on his face because he knew the young man would be a great asset toplete the mission.
Eventually, after an hour, Ross''s crew took everything they needed from the pirate ship.
"Ross, what''re you gonna do with them?" H asked. The pirates were tied around their wrists including the pirate captain.
"You took everything, let us go" the pirate captain shamelessly spoke these words. Just an hour ago,he wanted to kill everyone and pige the ship.
"Seriously" Marce put her crossbow at the pirate captain''s forehead.
"Let''s kill these fuckers and dump their bodies into the ocean" Marce''s words made the pirates'' hearts skip a beat.
"Put them back on their ship. I had seen enough death for a day"
"Fuck!"
Almost every pirate on the deck cursed. Their mainsail was broken by Michael, so they wouldn''t be able to sail the ship. Putting them back on their ship was equal to killing them. In this part of the ocean, there weren''t many inds nearby hence swimming wasn''t an option, and getting rescued by another ship might not happen.
The pirate captain was the only one who felt relieved by their decision. He was fortunate enough to get amunication stone from Captain Redbeard himself. While Marce was leading them back to their ship, the pirate captain took a nce at the blood-covered monster. He felt extremely excited to inform everything he saw in him back to Redbeard. A person who could heal like him would be worth a whole lot of coins. Next time, he woulde chasing the young man with an entire fleet of Redbeard.
At that time, he would avenge his fallen pirates.
"He''s gonna make me so rich" Taking ast nce at Michael, the pirate captain left Ross''s ship.
*******************************
After a day and a half, the sun rose at the horizon enabling everyone to see their destination, the undead ind.? From the distance, one wouldn''t see the horror hiding in the ind among the ocean of thick trees.
"That''s the ce, David" Logan let out a heavy breath. After seeing Michael''s bloodthirsty look, Logan wasn''t as talkative with Michael as before. Not only Logan but many on the ship kept their distance from Michael.
This didn''t irritate Michael as his current dress irritated him. After bathing in blood, he had to throw away the dress and wore a typical pirate robe. At Least he found something ck to wear.
But even after changing his robes, he reeked in blood.
"Get ready team" Ross ordered as every team member began to assemble on the deck. Ross handed over the helm to someone else. Soon, Maria came out of the captain''s cabin wearing metal armor that looked too big on her. There wasn''t a spot on her body that wasn''t covered by metal. Now he realized what Ross was doing a day with all the armor they piged from the pirate ship.
He put together many pieces of armor to create armor fitting to Maria. Although the silver armor would definitely slow down her movements, it would save her from getting bitten by Netherels to an extent.
Other than Maria, Jonah also wore a full te and chainmail armor. Unlike Maria, it perfectly fitted him. Everyone else only wore leather armor which would provide some protection without restricting their movements.
Even Logan wore a mud color vest-like armor as well as arm bracers to protect himself.
"Our mission is simple, get to the center of the ind and retrieve an artifact" Ross began to speak,
"Follow my lead. If you want to survive, do what I say when I say. Recently I heard, another team might be hunting for the same thing as us. So we move as fast as we can. David cover our backs, Logan you''re on the front with Marce"
Logan nodded, moving to the front. Jessie was standing on the left side of the group while Brownie was standing on the other side. The group was formed on a pentagon shape with H and Ross leading them.
"I''m not gonna lie, we will face undeads. Aim for their head, finish them off quickly"
After listening to Ross for another ten minutes, the ship finally came to a halt. One by one, they jumped down on the shore leaving thefort of the ship.? They were standing on an artistic sandy shore as coupled with the blue sea behind them painted a beautiful picture of a scene. A line ofrge thick trees stood a couple of meters away from them like loyal soldiers guarding the ind. Even the dark rain forest had a charm to it.
"We''ll camp when the sun goes down"
H said in a low voice. All of them walked forward without breaking the pentagon formation. Michael wondered how they were gonna keep the formation after entering the forest because just from the outside, the forest looked thicker than the amazon forest itself.
It would be near impossible to walk through the vegetation without breaking the formation. Since H and Ross were leading the group, they took out a machete to cut through the thick forest.
The rainforest was far-reaching, thick, and ancient. Its canopy waspeted for by oak, sycamore, birch, and many other trees unique to this world that left barely enough light through the canopy.
There was no sound of an insect, bird, or reptile, no call of a human voice, only the steady rhythmicalp of the sea. The sound of the sea made everyone slightly shiver with fear for what''s lying in the jungle. The heat of the sun pounded down on them as they gathered up the courage and kept moving.
Silent tree limbs dropped from most trees, and a hodgepodge of flowers, which grew in abundance, enhanced the otherwise uniform backdrop. The deeper they walked into the forest, the less they heard the ocean.
A hodgepodge of animal noises, which were caused by birds and vermin, reverberated through the air along with the fresh smell of the forest ground and were apanied by the asional sounds of breaking twigs beneath the feet ofrger animals.
"Bloody mosquitos" Logan cursed, trying to swat the mosquitoesnding on him.
"I hate rainforests," Brownie spoke silently.
Even Michael who loved forests had to curse this forest when he looked down to see the leeches on his boots. He never would be grateful for a pair of boots as felt now.
As they were moving forward, suddenly Ross raised his hand, wordlessly telling them to halt their steps. Every single one of them looked around their environment vigntly, expecting a surprise attack from someone or something. Michael closed his eyes for a moment to listen to any weird sounds around him.? The more he concentrated, the more he could hear the sound of monkey chatter. If it was any other forest, a simple sound such as monkey''s chatter would have freaked them out but in the undead ind, the sound made them clutch their weapons tighter.
Keek!
Keek!
Keek!
The sound got louder and louder. They could tell they were being surrounded by probably a group of monkeys. They hoped the monkeys would not be undeads.
Abruptly the soundpletely stopped. They all had a look of confusion on their faces but soon the confusion became vignce as they saw red gemstone-like eyes ring at them through the darkness of the forest above them. Those eyes above them glowed while the air soon became putrid, overwhelmingly putrid.
Chapter 242 - The Father, Mother And The Son I
Meanwhile back on Pentown, Diana was walking around her garden, watering the nts. Tending to the garden always soothed her soul. The snow covering the garden slowly melted in the sun''s heat. The long winter was finally leaving as Spring was around the corner to wee them with beauty.
"There is my beautiful wife" A young but confident voice sounded in the garden. The voice instantly put a faint smile on Diana''sely face.
Standing 6'' 3" tall, a cream-skinned man entered the garden with a gentle smile. He had a stoic feel about him. His dark brown eyes were small and sharp as swords eyebrows on his angr face. The raven ck hair fluttered in the wind as he was walking. Just like Diana who looked young as a girl in herte twenties, despite his real age, the man seemed to be in his early thirties. Even many youths never had toned arms, a broad torso, a well-defined waist, and toned long legs like him.
He wore perfectly pressed masculine clothes. A long white winter cloth with grey wolf fur and finely made ck trousers. He put the two sheathes containing his swords on one of the benches in the garden before embracing Diana and cing a gentle kiss on her rosy cheek.
"Wee home, Ethan"
"Jeez, I missed you so much"
"Why didn''t youe earlier? You could have spent some time with the kids? "
"I wanted to Dian but the peace talk between the dukes took longer than we all expected"? Only she could see the exhaustion of battle behind his lively eyes. They had been married for so long that she could read his face like a book.
"I''m sorry Dian" his smile was reced by an apologetic look.
"For what?"
"I know what happened while I was away. It almost stopped my heart, Dian"
She could see the stoic manly wall he put around him slowly crumbling down. He was a husband long before he became the House Lord, so even if he put up a wall to look stoic to others, he would show his vulnerable side only to Diana.
"I''d never leave my family unprotected again, I promise" he squeezed her hands. She had seen the look on his face before when he fought against her brother to marry her.
She smiled to ease his pain for not being there for her,
"Im fine Ethan, the gods won''t let anything happen to us"
"Your smile would always make everything better"
The two of them made their way to the bench holding each other''s hands.
"Jacob huh? I always had a bad feeling about that little fucker. What did my brother do to deserve such trash?"? Ethan disappointedly shook his head. He was worried about his brother. Ever since he was little, his little brother always had his back. When they heard what Jacob did, his brother was shaken to the core. At Least his little brother was blessed with a good obedient daughter to wipe off the shame Jacob brought on him.
"I cannot thank Ghost enough for saving you and Sabi"
The mere mention of the name ''Ghost'' brought waves in her soul. As a mother, she wanted nothing but to reunite with her son. Her heart ached everytime she thinks about her son. She never slept ever since he met him, every time she closed her eyes, she could hear his cries, and the images of her leaving the baby on the altar shed in her mind.
To this day, she could never forgive herself for being so helpless, so weak to be made to leave her baby in the middle of a forest. The only thing that stopped her from cultivating again was the seal inside her body. It would alert Skyhall the moment she starts cultivating again.
Except for Amelda, the rest of the world was thinking that her cultivation came to an end when she was injured ten years ago but it was only a facade. Skyhall made sure the mother of the Dark Lord would never grow strong enough to challenge them or reveal anything about the Dark Lord.
If it wasn''t for Rowena''s mentor, they would have killed her the moment she gave birth to the twins. Even though the Skyhall showed her what would happen to the world if the Dark Lord was left alive, her heart and mind never epted that her son would be evil as they imed.
An evil person never would have saved Sabrina or healed Andrews or put his life in danger to save a stranger like her.
"Dian, are you alright?" he noticed the slight change in her expression,
"Thest time I heard, he was still in seclusion"
"I''ll go to his ce in person to thank him as soon as he came out of seclusion"
"Take me there too," she quickly said. Automatically a smile appeared on her face thinking about meeting her son again.
"I thought nowadays you hate traveling" he chuckled while pinching her cheek yfully.
"No, I just hate boring ces"
"My Lord" As they were speaking, a guard in full te armor entered the garden. The guard was not one of the house guards but a soldier from Ethan''s army.
"The Oracle is ready to meet you"
Ethan almost forgot about the Oracle until the guard reminded him. He left the Oracle at the guest room beforeing to meet Diana. The Oracle asked everyone to leave the room so she could meditate in silence.
"Dian, you need to see the Oracle, she''s the real deal. If it wasn''t for her, the peace talks between the dukes never would have happened"
A tinge of anger emerged in her eyes. When Noah and Ghost were in her womb, she met an Oracle who revealed that one of her sons is going to bring chaos to the world and then informed Skyhall. Hence, she didn''t want to meet another Oracle.
"Who told you to bring an Oracle here?!" Ethan was taken aback by surprise. For a moment, he saw the Diana he first met. This was the first time she had raised her voice after getting married to him.
He was confused. Except for Amelda and Diana, no one knew anything about Skyhall or what they did to Diana.
"Dian"
Diana quickly realized what just happened. Taking a deep breath, she controlled the anger boiling inside her.
"I just heard some bad stories about these fortune-tellers and I don''t trust them, that''s all"
"One could hide the truth but not bury it" Suddenly a gentle voice reverberated in the garden. Every timeThe voice sounded like a piece of soothing music, calming Diana''s anger in a blink of an eye.
The guard stepped aside to reveal a woman in full orange robes. This azure-skinned woman had a warm feeling about her.
She had a square face with a rounded jaw, a t nose, narrow lips, and her crimson eyes were sparkling with patience and mystery. Her curly long ck hair rested in a bun above her head. The golden nose stud and the piercing in her both ears added a certain charm to the woman''s grace.
She was blessed with the muscle of an athlete and the fat of a baby. She wasn''t the most beautiful woman Diana had seen but she was the most graceful woman. She was something robust and real.
She wore rudraksha bead m around her neck while a red bindi upied the center of her forehead.
"Oracle" Ethan stood up to wee her. The grace she radiated made Diana stand up unconsciously,
"I''m not an Oracle but just a guide for those who are lost or searching for ways to fix your past mistakes"
Diana felt like the woman was directly talking to her. The guard quickly ran to thedy with a chair to sit. Even the way she sat on the chair had grace to it.
"Oracle, meet my wife, Diana"
"You have everything a woman could ask for yet your heart is like an ocean, never calming for a moment" Thedy calmly said, looking at Diana.
Ethan and Diana seated themselves back on the bench. The guard took his leave after bowing towards them.
"Oracle, I don''t understand" As far as Ethan was concerned, Diana had everything. If she wanted anything, she only needed to ask and the entire Winston family would go to the edges of this world to bring what she asked.
"She does," The Oracle said. Ethan couldn''t help but look at both of their faces. His face had confusion written all over it. Diana on the other hand was lost in words. Unlike Ethan, Diana could make sense out of thedy''s words.
"Gods wouldn''t have created darkness if it was evil. The choices you made took out the darkness in your life. Hence the light in your life disappeared as light cannot exist without darkness" Ethan was stunned to see the tears rolling out of Diana''s eyes as water broke out of a dam. Her entire body was trembling.
"Dian, why are you crying? Oracle, what is happening here?" Ethan wrapped his arms around his wife while pleading to thedy.
"Don''t cry my child, fate can be such a cruel mistress. You were weak and helpless. You thought you were sacrificing the gift blessed upon you by the gods for the sake of this world and your family"
Diana dropped to her knees at thedy''s feet. Ethan was dumbstruck by the sight of his wife clutching the Oracle''s legs. He had never seen Diana cry like this as his heart started to pound against his chest. Seeing her wife like this, he could sit still, he also dropped to the ground, trying to console his wife.
"Dian...tell me...what''s going on?" He stuttered yet Diana kept crying her eyes out.
"A single drop of poison is enough to poison a pot of milk. A single secret is enough to spoil the rtionship between a husband and a wife. But know this my child" thedy looked at Ethan,
"The world is an evil ce and you are in the center of it. Anything you do without thinking it through will endanger everyone you love and care about"
Chapter 243 - Misguided Mortals And The Corrupted Ones
"Dian!" Ethan clenched Diana''s shoulder''s tight, forcing her to look him in the eyes.
"I...can''t," Diana stuttered. Realizing her wife was hiding something major from him, he felt a mix of anger, shock, and disbelief. She shook Diana by her shoulders. Yet no words escaped her mouth.
"If you...know...everything...you...should...know...why I can''t...tell him the truth" She continuously sobbed. Thedy only revealed a gentle smile.
"Let me tell you a story. Two decades ago, there was a mother who was blessed with god''s ultimate gifts" Thedy''s words turned Ethan''s gaze away from Diana. Diana wanted to stop thedy from revealing the truth as she feared for her husband''s life but no words came out of her mouth. Something prevented her from speaking.
Thedy paused for a moment while Ethan tried to make sense out of her words.
"She wanted to scream that she''s pregnant with twins standing on top of the world. That mother never thought a simple feeling as the feeling of her twins kicking her womb would make her so blissful. Bing a mother to a beautiful angel was the proudest moment in her life. The mere thought of bing a mother of twins made her the happiest woman in the world"
Ethan listened to the Oracle without uttering a word. Even when he was listening to the Oracle, he never took his arms off of Diana''s shoulders.
"The only thing she missed was her loving embrace of her husband. She was expecting her husband but the one who came was a misguided mortal"
Diana still struggled to stop thedy from revealing the truth. Except her entire body refused to move to her will.
"The misguided mortal showed the mother a vision, a glimpse of the future. What the mother saw shook her to the core. The mother refused to believe what she saw but bad things happened to her family like the misguided mortal predicted. Death in the family, sudden storms, natural disasters, and many things brought nothing but death. They weren''t enough to convince the mother her child is responsible for all the death until her husband almost lost his life, just like the misguided mortal imed" Little by little, Ethan began to connect with the story.
"When her husband came home, she wanted to tell everything. However, a powerful organization of misguided mortals put a seal on her husband before taking her away, along with two of the woman''s blood. The misguided mortals showed the woman more glimpses of the dark future awaiting the world and her family. The misguided mortals offered the woman two choices: give up her child or be killed along with her family as a punishment for bringing the darkness to the world. In the days following, the misguided mortals showed the woman the changes happening in the world. The woman didn''t want to believe it but everything seemed connected to her. The ce she first made love before conceiving with the twins was destroyed by a meteor, the time she went to after she got pregnant was crumbled into pieces and the one first told her she was pregnant died in a mysterious illness and much more"
Ethan didn''t want to believe the woman in the Oracle''s story is his wife. He refused to believe her as he wanted this to be just a story, nothing more.
"When the day of her delivery came, all the natural disasters urred at once, killing thousands of people all around the world. The beautiful twins in her hands didn''t make her happier as she expected, instead, she was afraid. Even after everything, the woman begged the misguided humans to let her raise the child to be someone else but the misguided mortals had already started the prophecy they wanted to stop. They forced the mother to make the ultimate sacrifice, leaving her child at an altar in the forest she gave birth to. The tears she shed leaving her child was the final ingredient they needed to start the ritual"
Regardless of her body''s stiffness, her eyes continued to pour out tears. The anger and sadness Diana felt when thedy paused talking couldn''t be described by words.
Just as Ethan was about to ask Diana about the Oracle''s words, his right hand glowed.
"NO!" Diana broke the invincible force that prevented her from stopping and speaking. She screamed yet the voice was muffled by thedy. Ethan felt excruciating pain as his body began to tremble.
"Save...save...him" the words barely escaped Diana''s mouth. The Skyhall ced a seal in Ethan''s body which would activate if he was to know about the existence of his other son or what his wife went through the night she gave birth to Noah. It was a powerful seal that had its own consciousness. The Oracle''s words made Ethan suspect that he has another son and it triggered the seal.
"Om" Suddenly thedy opened her mouth pointing her finger at the golden glowing on Ethan''s right hand. Another light appeared out of thedy''s hand as the light shot out at Ethan''s hand. The moment the two light''s shed, the excruciating pain he felt instantly disappeared.
"Ethan!" Diana screamed, she hugged Ethan using all of her strength.
"Dian, was it you?" Embracing his wife as tight as he could, he asked.
His mind believed that the mother in the Oracle''s story was his wife because it was obvious after seeing Diana''s reaction and what just happened yet his dumb heart was refusing to believe it. He promised himself that he would protect his family no matter the cost but now, he felt like he miserably failed to keep his family safe.
"Yes"
Ethan''s mind went ck getting hit by the truth. In a blink of an eye, the swords he left at one of the benches trembled before soaring through the air to him. His eyes turned blood red as the killing intent radiated from him sent a chill running through Diana''s spine.
"Om" thedy spoke, this time her voice was gentle and calm unlike before.
The killing intent and the anger within Ethan quickly disappeared. Both of their emotions were also calmed by thedy''s words.
Ethan released Diana from his hug, turning his gaze again at the Oracle.
"Where...where is my son?"
"What ritual?"
The first question was asked by Ethan while Diana asked thetter.
"The misguided mortals believed the child''s soul contained unimaginable power; they wanted to take it for themselves. To do that, they had to strip away the child''s soul" Diana almost copsed to the ground. Her body uncontrobly shivered while she felt an excruciating pain in her heart.
"However the ritual didn''t go as they nned and the child''s soul was split into two pieces. One part of the soul ended up in a deste ce void of any energy while the other part of the soul remained in its body"
"My son, is he...dead?" For the first time in her life, she saw a trickle of tears roll out of Ethan''s eyes. It showed her the pain he''s feeling right now.
"That''s the answer only the time could tell"? Thedy smiled but Diana shook her head,
"I know my son is alive, I met him!"
Once again, Ethan waspletely shocked by her words,
"Where? Where is my son?!" Ethan shook Diana for answers,
"Where is our son, Dian?! Where is he?!" the shaky voice reverberated through the garden.
"Ghost...Ghost is our son!"
Tears burst out of her eyes as she copsed on Ethan''s chest. There was no expression on thedy''s face, she just calmly stared at them.
"How do you know?"
"I don''t care what anyone says, I know, I know he''s our son. I''m his mother"
For a few moments, only silence filled the garden. No one uttered a word
"How are you gonna prove it to him, my child?"
After a long pause, thedy asked, breaking their embrace. Ethan saw Diana struggling to answer the Oracle''s question.
"I don''t... know...but no matter what it takes, I will show him that he''s my son"
"Proving and epting are two different things, my child. The road ahead of you is filled with thorns, may the gods be with you, protecting from the corrupted ones"
Just when Diana was about to ask for thedy''s help against the Skyhall, she turned into a golden light and disappeared into the sky, leaving them bbergasted. Ethan could tell it was not teleportation or a spell, it was something else.
*********************************
Ethan and Diana never left the garden, the sun had fallen yet they were still staring at the night sky without leaving the garden. Diana held his arms tightly, it took her a great effort to convince him not to do anything rash that would attract the Skyhall''s attention towards them. When Rowena was selected as the holy maiden of Skyhall, Ethan felt extremely proud but now, it felt like Rowena was kept as a prisoner in Skyhall.
"Even if he''s our son-"
"He is, Ethan"
"How are we gonna exin to him that we failed to protect him?"
"It was me who failed to protect my son, I was too weak"
After hearing the whole story from Diana, he didn''t me Diana or anyone else except Skyfall and himself for not being able to protect his family. Knowing that he could do nothing against the Skyfall, he felt so weak and helpless.
"When we were a happy family, our son grew up as an orphan. How many hardships would he have gone through? Why did this happen to us? How could our son be evil? Dark Lord? What does that even mean?"
Chapter 244 - Consequences Of Jack鈥檚 Death
The sky was ck tranquility married to the poetry of stars that filled the sky like pale corn into freshly turned ground. It was the softness that called the body and brain to rest and let the heart go to its steady rhythm. Night came as a reward of sorts, a restfulness above to calm anyone''s soul except it couldn''t calm Ethan''s.
The more Ethan thought about everything, the more questions emerged in his mind. Eventually, he ended up with more questions than answers. Diana''s heart bled looking at the tears running out of Ethan''s eyes. No matter how hard he tried, he was unable to stop the tears from forming in his eyes.
"How am I gonna protect House Winston when I couldn''t even protect my wife and son?"
"It''ll be alright Ethan"
"No, it won''t be Diana. You were right, we cannot go to war with Skyhall, at least not with our current strength" It took an immense amount of effort for Ethan to sit still, controlling his killing intent towards Skyhall. Every single fiber in his body wanted him to fly to Skyhall and kill the ones responsible for what happened to his family. However, years of leading the Winston family and the maturity he achieved made him think rationally rather than act on impulse. As the mysterious Oracle said, if he did anything without thinking it through would only put his loved ones in harm''s way.
"First we need to find a way to break the seal in your body. If you could cultivate again without alerting them, we''ll be one step closer to saving our son" Ethan wiped the tears off of his face as an unwavering resolution to fix his mistakes appeared in his eyes. His biggest mistake was being so weak and he decided to fix it once and for all.
"Rowena and Noah must not know about this, Dian. If they knew what the Skyhall did to you and their brother, they would wage war against him without a second thought, especially Noah" he said, gently wiping off the tears away from his wife''s face.
Although he knew winning a war against Skyhall is near to impossible, he had to look confident as a good husband and a leader should. Even if the odds were against him, he wouldn''t forgive himself if he did nothing to save his son.
"Our son, he''s staying in the Sunrise sect right?"
"Yeah, our son is the Core disciple of the sect" One could see the pride in her eyes as clear as a day. She knew her son earned that title.
"Let''s just go there" she let out a quick bark ofughter in disbelief. As much as she loved to see her son again, she didn''t want to alert the Skyhall which might be watching her every move.
"We can form an alliance with the sect. The least we can do for our son is make his life better and keep anyone from harming him. What do you say, Dian?"
"I''ll go get ready"
Her face brightened instantly like someone holding a candle in front of her face.? Before he could remind her that it''s night and they should leave in the morning, she ran back into the house to get ready.
**********************************
The mountains around the Sunrise sect looked like a majestic painting. They rose in snow-white brilliance, a silent invitation to good for the soul not to ept. Upon the rise of the sun, the forests covering the mountains were so snow-white. The forest seemed calm on the outside but under the snow-nketed canopy, a blood trail could be seen on the ground.
One could follow the blood trail to see a man running for his life. He was breathing heavily, his clothes were partially burned as well as most of the skin on his back.
Regardless of the wounds on his body, the man kept running. After running for an hour, he finally stopped running.
"Who is there?!"
The man with the wounds stumbled onto a tree in exhaustion. He stared in the direction the voice came to see a man holding a spear walking from the darkness of the forest.
"Axel!" Regardless of the wounds and blood on the man''s body, he was immediately recognized by the man holding the spear.
Finally, Axel let his body copse thinking that he''s safe from it.
"Is that Axel?!"
"What happened to him?"
"Are we under attack?"
"Ari, what happened to Axel?"
Ari, the man who was dragging Axel to the camp, was swarmed by his fellow bandits. No one knew there''s a bandit camp in this part of the forest. The ocean of trees, the thick canopy as well as the predators roaming around the forest prevented anyone from the Sunrise sect from finding out the whereabouts of their camp.
Ever since a disciple was killed in the forest, the sect was hunting every single bandit hiding in the forests. The forest was endless yet the size of the forest never stopped the sect from hunting the bandits.
Ari dragged Axel through the knee-high snow to one of the huts.
"Ari" there were three bandits inside the hut. Unlike the bandits patrolling the area around the camp, these three bandits wore thick fur-covered winter clothes, covering every part of their bodies to keep their bodies warm. It indicated their higher status among the bandits.
"Put him here" one of the three bandits pointed at the table on the hut''s center. The other two bandits quickly wiped off the maps, documents, and things lying on the table as Ari put Axel''s unconscious body on the table.
"Open his mouth" Ari forced open Axel''s mouth as one bandit poured a healing potion into his mouth. The healing potion was not as dark green or consistent as Michael''s potion. This potion was watery consistent with pale green color.
"Where''s Captain Quinn?" while the potion was slowly healing Axel''s wounds, he asked the three lieutenants.
"He went to meet a client. Do you know what happened to him? Did he say anything?"
Ari shook his head, "He copsed before I could ask what happened but isn''t it obvious, his camp must have attacked, just like the others" the three lieutenants stared at each other in silence for a second before one of them said,
"When he woke up, ask him what happened, just in case. I''ll go and bolster our security"
"Bolster the security?! Are you kidding me? We have to leave, now!"
The more camps they lost, the more tension rose among the bandits. Many started to rebel against the lieutenants while some even fled the kingdom fearing for their lives. This camp was one of the fewst camps remaining around the forests of the Sunrise sect. The only reason many bandits were still sticking around was Captain Quinn''s promise to them, he said he would take them to the main camp in the forests of the Royalnd yet they were waiting to move for two months.
"Calm down, Ari. We can''t be sure of what happened to him. Captain Quinn already sent a team to hunt it down, I''d bet they already killed it"
"He did?"
"Yes. You know Captain Quinn, he would always put his men first before the bounty"
"GRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Just when Ari''s anger was somewhat calmed down by the lieutenant''s words, a thunderous roar echoed through the forest. Ari''s body became rigid as he felt a cold chill in his spine. He dropped the spear in his hand, losing all the courage in his heart.
The lieutenant seemed no worse than him. He was shivering and mumbling something under his breath. The fear of death overwhelmed their senses.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
Soon the silent forest became chaotic. Ari could hear the screams of agony outside the camp.
"No...i...can''t...die" Ari mumbled in fear. At this moment, there was nothing more important to him than his own life. Therefore, he decided to escape, only to get stopped by the two lieutenants in the hut.
"You can''t leave. Go fight that thing, it''s an order!"
"Fuck off!" Ari shoved them away forcefully. Ari was stupid enough to stick around even after the sect started to hunt them down like prey but he was not stupid enough to obey a suicidal order.
He ran as fast as he could to the outside. The moment he stepped outside of the hut, his heart stopped looking at the embodiment of the death and carnage itself, Nightmare, the dragon of Sunrise sect.
The camp huts and trees around the camp were reduced into nothing but charcoal. The waves of heat from the dragon fire melted the many bandits'' skin off. The dragon before Ari was huge with shiny crimson scales and two horns protruded out of its head.
"Where is Quinn?!" his dder betrayed him when he heard the dragon speak. Yet the wetness around his crotch instantly disappeared due to the heating from the fire around him.
Zzzhhuuuuuuuuu
A crimson red fire that had a mix of violet streamed out of the dragon''s mouth, turning the bandits trying to escape into ashes. At the moment, only the lieutenant''s camp was not on fire.
Ari wanted to run before the dragon''s gaze could fall upon him yet his body refused to move. He stood still in overwhelming fear. Everyone he knew is dead, burned alive. Their screams filled with agony now reced by the sound of fire cracking the woods.
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
The moment the dragon''s red eyes fell on him, he screamed as loud as he could unconsciously. Thest thing Ari saw before everything turned ck was the dragon''s gigantic ws approaching him.
Chapter 245 - Our Son Has A Dragon?!
Nightmare ripped open thest remaining hut with his razor-sharp ws. Although Nightmare wasn''t as tall as a full-grown dragon, he did stand nearly nine feet tall.
"Oh my god!"
"No no no no no"
The two lieutenants stumbled backward in fear. Nightmare moved his head closer to the two lieutenants, the hot smokeing out of his nostrils brushed past the two lieutenants. Like many other bandits, they peed themselves. They never thought they would see a dragon this much closer.
The fire reflecting on its crimson red scales made him more terrifying.
"Let''s go for a ride" Nightmare''s rage-filled growl almost made the two lieutenants faint. He swept the two bandits off the ground before pping his red wings to take off. The wings sent a shock wave that was powerful enough to put out the fire around him.
Nightmare flew higher and higher into the sky. Realizing how high they are in the sky, they stopped struggling under Nightmare''s clutch. If they were to be put down by the dragon, they couldn''t even imagine the output.
"Where...where are? you...taking us?"
Nightmare didn''t answer as he continued to soar through the sky. After flying for another ten minutes, Nightmare started to descend. The bandits expected the dragon to bring them to the sect except the dragon brought them to the middle of the forest. Although they were flying for only ten minutes, they crossed several kilometers.
Everywhere the bandits turned, there was nothing but trees. The thick canopy barely let the light through, hence their surroundings were dark and gloomier. The moment Nightmare released them, their instincts to escape kicked in as they tried to crawl away.
However, an invisible force prevented them from moving any further. Soon, the force lifted them up in the air. The bandits hovered in the air while Nightmare began to interrogate them.
"Tell me where Quinn is and I''ll grant you a quick, painless death or I''ll slowly roast you two like chicken and eat you"
Nightmare''s body began to glow more and more, indicating the dragon''s me forming inside his body.
"He''s in Royalnd, meeting someone. That''s all we know!"
Nightmare was slightly taken aback by surprise. He never expected the two lieutenants to break so easily. The bandits he interrogated before either tried to fight him and died or never answered him until Nightmare roasted them alive. Ever since Jack was found dead, he was hunting the bandits day and night. He med himself for not being there when Jack was murdered. The guilt drove Nightmare crazy.
After decimating many bandits camps in the forest around the sect, Nightmare finally found the leader of these bandits, Quinn. Considering they had no leads whatsoever in the murder of Jack, Nightmare targetted the bandit leader who''s responsible for all the bandit camps around the sect. He wanted to find the murderer before Gayaes back. Jack was an annoying little brother to her. The whole sect was afraid of telling Gaya about Jack''s death. Including Nightmare, everyone knew she would go berserk.
His death affected the entire sect more than anyone would imagine. Jack was one of the disciples who never left the sect even when the sect was on the verge of closing. He was loyal to the core.
Nightmare stared at the two bandits for a few seconds. The look in their eyes told Nightmare that they weren''t lying.
"Please, let us go!"
"Please"
The bandits begged Nightmare to let them go. If it was before Jack''s murder, Nightmare would have found some mercy in his heart but after he saw Jack''s body, he felt no mercy for kings like bandits. The more he grew, the more he understood the meaning of Ghost and Gaya''s words. They always told him to be ruthless and unforgiving. After Jack''s death, he realized why. There was someone in this world who was ruthless enough to kill a kind, loving person like Jack in cold blood, so he knew what this world would do to people like Ghost, Gaya, and him.
"No" Nightmare sent a puff of hot breath towards the flowing pirates. The bandits tried to wiggle but the hot breath melted them in a blink of an eye.
Even their bones falling onto the ground were partially melted by Nightmare''s breath.
He felt no pity for the bandits. As far as he was concerned, the sect would be safer with fewer or no bandits in the forests. With another p, he took off into the sky, it was time for him to return to the sect.
************************************
Except for a few ck clouds of smokeing out from the forests, the mountains of the Sunrise sect looked calm and beautiful.
"Have we reached the sect yet Felix?" Diana was sitting on seat'' edge of the carriage with Ethan by her side.
"We will soon, mydy"
The old man driving the carriage said with a chuckle. This was the tenth time she had asked the question. After asking the old man, she opened the window to see the view outside. What she saw outside mesmerized her and Ethan. Thest days of winter always had a calming beauty to them.
The roads were previously nketed by snow but now, there were more puddles along the road than snowbanks.
The little sproutsing out of the snow-covered trees seemed like little babies waving at them. The sound of birds chirping sounded louder than the wheels of the carriage itself. Perhaps charming was the name to the effect the birds provided for them.
"Is it me or does the carriage feel less bumpy?" Ethan asked. Even when he was traveling in Pentown, the carriage would be bumpier but After they entered River town, the ride was extremelyfortable and smoother.
"It''s the paved roads, my lord. The masons who paved Royalnd, the same masons paved these roads too"
"Oh?" Ethan was pleasantly surprised. Unlike Diana, he had little idea about the sect''s current state of affairs. Diana did say the Sunrise sect was not as declined as before but he never expected the sect could afford the masons of Royalnd.
"Wow"
"Wow indeed Lord Winston. My friend''s niece recently got into the sect. She tried to get into the MorningStar first but the teachers who came to oversee the selection rejected her. The little girl was pretty heartbroken"
Every time Ethan travels with Felix, the old man would make his ears bleed with stories, gossip, and all sorts of things. Most of the time, Ethan would pretend to be cultivating or just nod without paying any attention to the old man. However, now he was genuinely interested to hear everything about his son''s sect.
"Couple of my buddies who often travel to the Sunrise sect rmended it to my friend. I don''t know how but he convinced her daughter somehow to apply for the sect and now every time he sees my buddies, he would take them to free meals "
"Why?" Ethan asked. The old man turned back for a moment sensing the genuine curiosity in Ethan''s voice. It made the talkative old man even more talkative.
"You see my lord, the girl was at the Formation core stage when MoriningStar rejected her. It wasn''t a surprise, considering those people only take the best of the best and the girl certainly isn''t one. Formation core at age twenty is mediocre at best. However, after joining the Sunrise sect, she reached the Body Refining stage level 5 in just three months and that''s on par with some of the talented noble kids. Apparently, all the disciples in the sect are getting free pills and potions to help with their cultivation. I mean, many nobles are lining up in the sect to buy those things yet the disciples getting them for free"
The old man paused for a second and went on,
"The sect has to thank Ghost for their change of fortune. I don''t think another 5-star Alchemist would be willing to give his pills and potions for free, even if they were his brothers and sisters of the same sect"
His words about Michael put a smile on Ethan''s face.
"Have you seen him, Felix?"
"No, my lord. But I heard great things about him, do you want to hear it?"
"Yes...I mean, it''s to know more about figures such as him" Ethan quickly hid his jumpiness. Wanting to pour out the stories in him, the old man didn''t notice anything weird about Ethan''s curiosity.
"Stop!" Just as the old man was about to talk about Ghost, they heard a shout as the old man stopped the carriage quickly. Diana slightly put her head outside the window to see a young man in a full ck uniform walking towards them. The young man''s ck dress kinda resembled the dress her son wore. Soon, the security carriages following Ethan''s carriage came to halt as soldiers of the Winston family surrounded Ethan''s carriage as they were trained. Yet, in front of thirty guards in full armor, there was no fear in the young man''s eyes.
"What''s all this?"
The young man asked Felix, his voice neither arrogant nor afraid. Instead of letting Felix sort everything out with the young man, Ethan himself stepped out of the carriage.
Only after seeing a Core Strengthening level 8 cultivator, the young man''s calm expression changed.
"Kid, why did you stop us?" Ethan asked,
"How may I address you, sir?"
"It''s Lord Winston of the Proud House Winston. We are going to meet with Sunrise Sect Leader ire" one of the guards answered the young man,
"With all due respect, Lord Winston, the sect is closed to outsiders. Sect Leader ire and Nightmare''s orders"
"Closed? Why?" Ethan asked with a confused face. He wondered what made them close the sect as it was pretty unusual for a growing sect to close their doors on outsiders.
"Recently one of our brothers was killed in the vicinity. Until we find who was responsible for such evil deed, the sect is closed-"
Roar!
The young man stopped talking as the Winston soldiers immediately retrieved their weapons after hearing a thunderous roar. Even Ethan clenched the sword hilts on his waist when he heard the roar.
A few seconds after the roar, a huge shadow cast down on them, darkening the area.
"What the?" Ethan''s jaw dropped as he looked up at the sky to see a dragon descending.
"Dragon!"
"Protect Lord Winston!"
''
"Dragon attack!"
"Holy gods!"
The guards immediately surrounded Ethan and the carriage with the swords in their hands. Felix the old man was as pale as a white paper looking at the dragon. When the dragonnded on the ground, Ethan saw its crimson red eyes staring at everyone.
"Stand down" the young man shouted at the guards before they could do something stupid like attacking a freakin dragon.
"Who are these people?" the dragon''s voice made the guards even more terrified,
"You''ve grown little dragon"
Nightmare''s vertical slit pupil became rounded when he heard a familiar voice. He stared at the carriage standing on his two legs.
"Lady Diana!"
"Dian, go inside" Ethan ordered but still, his wife stepped outside the carriage with a smile on her face.
"Lady Diana" Everyone was stunned to see the dragon tilt its head looking at Lady Diana. Gently brushing off Ethan''s hand, she walked forward with no fear in her heart.
************************************
((Michael''s action will be resumed in the next chapter))
Chapter 246 - Annoying Monkeys
The Winston family soldiers tried to stop Diana from walking towards the Dragon yet their efforts were in vain. Ethan didn''t stop her but followed her behind. Although the Dragon''s physique and innate ability would give the dragon an edge if they battled, he was confident enough in his strength to defeat the dragon if it tried to harm them.
"Rx everyone, I know him" Diana waved off at the guards to lower their weapons. Taking a few more steps, she came closer to the point where Ethan could sense the heat radiating from the dragon''s body. They both looked up, in Ethan''s eyes, there was a mix of amazement and caution while in Diana''s eyes, there was nothing but kindness and warmth.
She reached out as Nightmare gawked reluctantly for a moment before slowly lowering his head to graze her hand with his face. The soldiered were stunned to see Diana tame such a majestic terrifying creature.
"Good dragon" Diana gently stroked Nightmare''s scaly head. Somehow her presence made him calm.
"I guess you can go be on your way to the sect then" realizing Nightmare and the woman know each other, the young man stepped aside from the paved road.
Nightmare opened his eyes but kept his head in her hands,
"Ghost is in seclusion, Lady Diana"
"I know. We''re here to see Sect leader ire"
Finally, Nightmare took his head back from her hands. He stared at the four carriages standing behind Diana as well as the Core Strengthening man who Nightmare guessed Diana''s husband for a few seconds.
"This is my husband, Ethan Winston. Ethan meet Nightmare"
"Pleasure to meet you, Lord Winston"
"The pleasure is mine"
Ethan was surprised by the dragon''s behavior. Many would describe a dragon as ruthless, deadly, terrifying, and many other adjectives but polite would not be one of those words. However, the dragon in front of him spoke in such a cultured manner.
After being forced to sit in all the sses conducted by the elders, Nightmare shed some of the bad habits he picked from Gaya. For instance, giving respect to those who deserved it and conduct in a respectful manner.
For a couple of weeks, the disciples were terrified to sit with a dragon or to see him but after a while, they treated him like one of them. But it didn''t mean they weren''t afraid of them, they just epted to live with him.
"Follow me"
Nightmare took as the force of his wing p pushed back many guards and made the horses even more terrified.? It took them a few minutes to calm the horses before starting to follow the dragon.
"You conveniently forgot to mention he has a dragon, Dian"
"Then I wouldn''t have seen the look on your face" She giggled. Looking at his wife being happy after a rough couple of days, he was d he decided toe here.
The paved road made following the dragon much easier, even going up on the mountain never felt bumpy or difficult. Eventually, when they reached the tnd, they began to see more ck-uniformed disciples around the area. Some were ying in the snow, some sat under the trees, cultivating, some were carrying bags that looked heavy. Other than the disciples, it was the buildings and the construction sites that surprised Ethan the most.
He could tell these buildings were built in dwarven architecture as the base and modified a little. Each building was surrounded by either a garden or garden with a fountain. Instead of cutting down all the trees, they built the buildings without destroying the trees around them which was the real beauty of the sect.
Regardless of the winter, he could see the construction works going on at full speed. Many disciples including female disciples were helping however they could.
"For a sect that was declining until recently, they''re turning the ties pretty fast"
*********************************
After an exhausting day, Michael finallyid under a tree to rest. He looked up at the sky through the small gaps in the canopy. The sky was filled with dark rain clouds, the thunderps indicated the arrival of a heavy downspout. Rain was thest thing he wanted in this god-forsaken rainforest.
Others weren''t so different from Michael, they too chose a tree to rest their bodies. A few meters away from them, broken money limbs, as well as monkey dead bodies, could be seen. This was the third wave of the monkeys they fought even since they stepped into the forest. The undead monkeys were so weak and fragile as they were more of an annoyance than a threat except for people like Jonah. Surprisingly Ross''s daughter Maria was trained in the arts of the spear as she defended herself well instead of relying on her father.
Keak!
Keak!
"Ah shit, here we go again" Michael heaved a sigh of exhaustion. Even if those monkeys bit him, he wouldn''t turn into an undead but he had to put on a show so the team members suspect him of something. Especially Marce who was always keeping an eye on him for some reason. After he massacred the pirates single-handedly, she became wary of him.
The only silver lining of killing these monkeys was their colors. Never before Michael had seen colorful monkeys such as violet, pink, bright red, and green monkeys.
"Only if they stink less" these monkeys smelled so bad that he wanted to cover his nose in the middle of the fight.
Soon the little monkeys surrounded them for the fourth wave of attack. Michael looked up at the tree he was resting under to see at least ten colorful monkeys staring at him. Their skin was slowly peeling off from their bodies but that never seemed to slow down the monkeys.
To make the fight less exhausting, he pretended the monkeys were cricket balls and his Doombringer was the bat. Every time a monkey took a leap at him, he would swing the Doombringer, sending the monkeys flying into the trees. His swings contained enough force as the monkeys exploded when they hit the trees.
Keak!!
An undead monkey jumped at Michael from the tree above, screaming as loud as it could. Its skin from the face peeled away while it was in the mid-air, revealing the skeleton of its face.
"Sixer!"
He swung the Doombringer at the monkey. The moment it came into contact with the monkey, the little creature''s skull cracked open as the? brain mattered st all over his face.
"Fuck...gross!'' Michael spat in disgust. He never thought the little fucker was so fragile.
Keak!
Keak!
Keak!
The horrible death of their fellow friend not at all slowed them down from leaping at Michael. He continued to swing his Doombringer. Many swings ended up hitting the monkeys but still, some of the monkeys managed to escape the swings.
Michael quickly shook his body as he picked up a rock from the ground. He smashed the rock into the purple monkey while swinging the Doombringer in his other hand.
The rock split open the monkey''s head, killing it instantly. This time he closed his mouth so none of the disgusting bits would end up in his mouth.
Just like in the Netherels, the ck goo oozed out of the dead monkey''s body.
Marce was standing on a branch. The higher vantage point gave her a perfect spot for killing the monkeys on the ground but when the monkeys swarmed the tree she was standing on, she began to have a hard time. Michael thought since she was using a crossbow, she would have a hard time-fighting in closebat but when he saw Marce taking out a dagger and stabbing the monkeys in their head, he was proved otherwise.
The way she fought showed him that she''s a well-trained person in both long and close-rangedbat.
"Let''s move!" Ross shouted. The monkeys kepting at them. Ross knew soon they would be overwhelmed with superior numbers. The team quickly began to move deeper into the forest.
"David, Logan, hold them!" H shouted at Michael and Logan.
"Go go go!"
Michael and Logan quickly moved towards the team. The two of them fought side by side to keep the monkeys from following the rest of the team. Some of them did manage to follow the team as the monkeys used the tree branches to travel while they were on the ground.
"Damn monkeys!'' Logan screamed as he kept swinging his Sledgehammer. Coupled with his body strength, each time a monkey came into contact with the Sledgehammer, the ck ooze sttered across.
"Let''s go!" Michael shouted hearing more and more screams. He covered Logan while he was retreating back into the forest.
"David!"
"Go! I''ll follow you" Since it wasn''t the ce nor the time to argue, Logan ran deeper into the forest, following the team''s trail. After seeing David massacre a group of pirates single-handedly, he knew David is a better fighter and freak than him. Hence, he trusted David to take care of these annoying monkeys even if their numbers were in the sixties.
Michael turned back to see if they had all disappeared from his sight. He could count at least fifty monkeys surrounding him. They all weirdly targeted him.
"Time to wrap up" his lips slightly curved upwards as he put the Doombringer on the ground. He raised both his arms at the monkeys,
"Wind st"
Chapter 247 - Deeper Into The Island
The force of the wind fired out from his hands sted the monkeys in a blink of an eye. Many weak fragile monkeys exploded into ck mist before even hitting the trees. His smile turned into a disappointed look. He really wished he could get experience points from all these dead monkeys or at least some badass points. At Least he wanted to reach Core Formation level 8 somehow beforepeting in the championship tournaments.
Putting his thoughts aside, he looked around to see if there''s any monkeys remaining but there wasn''t a single monkey in the surroundings.
"I wonder if Dr will be able to control these Netherels"? He couldn''t help asking this question to himself. If Dr was able to control them, he would have an army of the dead under hismand to do his bidding.
"Is everyone alright?" somewhere deeper in the forest, finally Ross and the group stopped running. Ross asked as he noticed their missing teammate,
"Where''s David?"
"I don''t think that freak made it," Maria said. Everyone turned their gazes at Logan as he was thest person to see David.
"He''lle. It''d take more than some undead monkeys to kill him" Logan said with utmost confidence even though the overwhelming number of monkeys he saw before leaving David''s side made him question the odds of his survival.
"We''ll camp here for two hours and if he''s not here by then..." Ross did not finish his sentence but everyone knew the meaning of his words. Except for Marce and Maria, the rest had gloomy expressions on their faces. Not because they were thinking David died but because he was the strongest of them all and this part of the forest was said to be the least dangerous. If they lost their strongest in this area, they couldn''t even imagine what would happen in the center, the most dangerous ce on the ind.
"Whoo, those monkeys were annoying" they all freaked out when they heard a sudden voice. The direction the voice came was dark, they all stared at the darkness as slowly a figure merged from that darkness.
"David" Logan grinned, sighing inside.
"Did you kill them all?" It was Jonah who asked Michael the question. Michael just shook his head,
"Of course not, there were so many I had to back off. Thank gods they didn''t follow me" the overwhelming number of monkeys as well as the way he spoke made them believe him. They didn''t want to believe he could kill all those undead monkeys. After all, he was just a normal human being like the rest of them.
"Weird, normally undead won''t stop until either they''re dead or their prey is'' '' Marce threw a doubtful nce at Michael. It was obvious she didn''t believe a single worth that came out of his mouth.
"If you have doubts, you better go and ask those monkeys"
Michael couldn''t care less about what she''s thinking. After getting Ross to guide him to the artifact, he would show them his true powers. At that time, Marce might end up as another victim of Lucifer.
"Humph" Marce snickered before turning her back. Logan walked towards Michael while the others began to set up a temporary camp on the ground. After the long battle with the monkeys, they wanted to get some shut-eye, even if it''s only for two hours.
"I knew those monkeys can''t stop you"
"Yeah you bet"
The two of them fist-bumped like best friends,
"It''s your turn to watch big guy, I need some shut-eye if I''m gonna fight another undead"
"Logan is already on the job, my friend," he said, cing his hand on the chest in a funny manner. While Logan was watching over them, Michael lied down under a gigantic tree with heart-shaped leaves. The roots created a hollow ce on the ground that Michael used as the bed. The sky still looked menacing with all the dark clouds above them. If he was back in his Sunrise sect home, he would have loved the thunderps because he loves sleeping during the heavy rain. The warmth of his bed, the sound of rain droplets hitting the roof, the smell of the ground, he loved those things.
However, at this moment, he wished it would not rain. The forest was bad as it is with all the leeches and undead, thest thing he wanted was heavy rain.
"Hello, human are you there?" Just as he was about to close his eyes, he heard Gaya''s voice in his head.
"Yep," He whispered.
"I sent those pirates a rescue ship with our little Spyders"
"Good. I want them to spread rumors about me as far as they can. Where are you now?"
"We are at the far north of the ind. I cane to you if you need my help" her voice sounded like she really wanted him to say yes. If she were toe to him, it would definitelyplicate his ns. Therefore he couldn''t say yes, however, he did have a task that she could help him with.
"There''s another team hunting for the same artifact as we are. Try to locate them and kill them before they could get their hands on the artifact"
The glimpse of the future turned him more ruthless. Just his order to kill them without sparing their lives made Gaya realize this change. If it was before, she knew he would have told her to chase them away or stop them by giving them a small beating.
"You sure you want me to kill them? I could just chase them away from the ind"
"They came into this hive of undead searching for that artifact, so we can''t expect them to back off unless you can do something that really scares the shit out of them more than the undeads themselves. You think you can pull something like that?"
For a few moments, Michael heard no answer from Gaya,
"Do what you want, just keep them from reaching the artifact before me"
"Will do, just put one of those drone thingies into the interlinked space ring"
"Already done that"? After casting the Winst to kill those monkeys, Michael refilled the APD and transferred the drones to Gaya''s ring beforeing to regroup with them.
"Contact me when you''re done with them"
"What''s happening on your end?"
"I''ll tell you everythingter, now I need to get some sleep"
"Is it raining out there? It must be since you''re so desperate to sleep rather than talking to me"
"Goodbye," Michael cut the connection. He would have continued to talk to her if Logan wasn''ting in his direction. He willed the system to turn off the earpiece before closing his eyes. Ever since he saw the future, he rarely slept. When he first came to this world with the system, he really thought this was going to be some fun-filled journey of reaching the top, crushing his enemies, and having everything he wished for but now, he was forced into saving this world. Although he already decided to save this world by conquering it, he was notpletely doing it for the goodness in his heart. He was doing it for himself. The world he saw was not suitable for an immortal such as himself in the future. How could he live in a world that turned into hell?
If he wanted to live his life to the fullest, enjoying every second of it, he had to first save the world. Besides, after witnessing the future world, he definitely felt less guilty about killing people such as the other team who''s hunting for the artifact.
**********************************
"Wakey wakey" Michael slowly opened his eyes to see Logan patting his shoulders. It felt like he just closed his eyes but the two hours went by like a sh.
"Yaw" letting out a short yawn, he stood up and brushed off the dust on his dress. The rest of the teams seemed like they never slept.
"Sleep well?"
"Like a baby"
Logan''s brows arched up slightly, "only you can sleep like a baby in a ce like this"
"It''s because you were protecting us big guy" Michael patted Logan''s back chuckling.
"Haha very funny"
The rest of the team gathered their things while Ross took a nce at the map once again. If he was correct, they were eight hours walking distance from the river where the recon team would be waiting for them with a boat.
"If we go this way, we have a better chance meeting with Johnny" Maria whispered to Ross, pointing at a different path leading to the river than the one marked on Ross''s map.
"You saw those monkeys... If something happened to Johnny" her voice was mixed with anger and desperation to save her boyfriend. Ross stared between the map and his daughter.
"It''s not like this new path is less dangerous than this one" Ross convinced himself for the sake of his daughter. If he were to find Johnny first before he could reach the center the better. But he knew he can not let the team know that he''s taking a detour for his daughter, hence he decided to omit the itty bitty information of him taking a detour.
"Be at your best, people. We''ll face deadlier undeads on our way to the river"
Thankfully Ross didn''t waste time giving them any pep talks which would have bored the heck out of Michael. He wanted to get the artifact as soon as possible so he could finally quench the thirst for curiosity.
"Let''s move"
Chapter 248 - The Dark Lord鈥檚 Power Is Gonna Skyrocket
Somewhere else in the Ozer Continent, Noah, Alicia, and Maisy were flying above the clouds. As usual, Norvin wasfortably lying on Noah''s shoulder while munching on a hundred years old dragon fruit.
"Finally, we''re getting promoted to actual guardians from trainees," Maisy said excitedly. Her big round eyes sparkled thinking about being a guardian which would end all the power struggle between her family and their rivals.
"It''s time they promoted us but I still? feel like we''re just filling the shoes of that four guardians who got exiled because of this new freak roaming around calling himself Lucifer "
"I''d say we should thank him. Haven''t you seen the drop in the crime rate? It''s crazy what fear could do to petty criminals" Norvin replied to Alicia. The little girl Maisy looked up at Noah to hear his thoughts but he remained silent.
He couldn''t cultivate peacefully in thest couple of days. Every time he closed his eyes to cultivate, he could hear Abel''s voice. It had been almost seven months since Abel disappeared. Although he didn''t want to believe it, Noah had a feeling that Abel lost his life inside the Nether Realm. The guilt of failing to save his friend''s life had be a thorn in his heart.
"Shut up monkey. One day or another, an innocent person gonna up in that psychopath''s crosshairs. The world will go to hell if everyone starts to y judge jury and the executioner "
"You''re such a hypocrite. How many people have we killed so far?"
"We were defending ourselves, we didn''t go searching for people to kill or pass judgments on people. That''s what king courts and the guardian guild are for. If those scumbags where to go to the guardian guild or Kethen King''s court with theint against us instead of trying to kill us, we would have dly cooperated as we weren''t guilty of anything"
"So you''re saying unless it''s defending ourselves, we aren''t allowed to kill and seek justice with a king''s court or the guardian guild"
"Yes"
Maisy tried not to get herself into the argument between Norvin and Alicia. In her mind, they were both right as she wouldn''t be able to pick a side.
However, the little girl did hate the idea of someone running around kidnapping, torturing, and killing people in the name of justice.
"Wow" Norvin and Alicia stopped arguing when they saw a majestic pce floating above the clouds. Twelve majestic marble pirs held the triangr roof. The banner of the Guardian guild fluttered in the wind along, radiating a noble aura around the pce.
"The flying angel" Noah mumbled under his breath. He had seen countless majestic structures made by various races yet this was the most grandeurs of them all. He wondered how they made such a gigantic pce fly around.
A few other figures could be seen flying into the pce at high speed. Wasting no time, Noah and hispanions flew straight into the pce. The moment they crossed the twelve pirs, they were immediately teleported into arge spacious hall where they saw Peyton and Xanali waiting for them.
"What happened?" Noah noticed the gloominess on Xanali''s face. The usual shine on the red head''s face was nowhere to be found. Aside from Xanali, Peyton also looked very serious.
"The guardian prophet is on her way here" Peyton whispered although there were only a handful of people standing in the hall.
"Who''s she? Some kind of fortune-teller?" Norvin tilted his head bewildered.
Thop!
"Ouch"
Alicia pped the back of Norvin''s head,
"Shut your mouth, damn monkey"
"She''s someone who''s extremely important to the guild. Apparently, thest time she came out of seclusion was fifty years ago to help the Guardians put an end to Zulo, the Necromancer. If she''sing today, it must be something extremely important"
Only Noah seemed to know who Zulo is while the others had a confused look on their faces. They kept gawking at Noah and Peyton for either of them to exin except they didn''t utter a word.
Soon, more and more guardians arrived in the hall. Some were even at the Soul Refining stage.No matter how powerful one was, they all seated themselves on the ground, waiting for the Guardian Prophet to arrive.
"The Guardian Prophet has entered the Flying angel" suddenly a gentle voice echoed through the hall as the ground itself began to tremble. They all noticed the floor at the hall''s very front rising to form a stage.
"Come on,"? Peyton gestured at them to follow her. They all followed Peyton to sit at the very first row in front of the stage.
No one in the hall uttered a word, even a pin-dropping sound could be heard crystal clear.
Shhhhhhhhhh!
As they were waiting for the prophet a heavy wind appeared in the hall out of nowhere. The howling sound of the wind slowly turned into a soul-soothing melody as an orb of light emerged above the stage. Gradually the light disappeared, revealing a wrinkly old woman in ragged clothes. Her white hair was messy just like her brown robes. One would not believe she''s such an important person of the Guardian Guild as she looked no different than a beggar. But none dared to utter any words in her presence. A few seconds after her appearance, everyone''s brows slightly arched up, no matter how hard they tried to sense her cultivation level, they were unable to see it.
The old woman stared at the people sitting in front of her before raising her hand.
"Aww"
Noah heard Norvin grumble as he himself felt a sharp pain in his hand. He looked at the ce that was hurting to see blood flowing out of a cut from his right hand. The wound looked like someone cut him with a sharp de.
Every single one of them had the same cut on their hands. It was obvious the old woman was the one who cut them, they wondered why. The blood spilled from their hands flew above the old woman, forming a blood orb. Slowly the blood orb descended on the old woman''s head. Many thought the blood would drench the old woman but the blood waspletely absorbed through the messy hair into her head.
"AHHHHH!" the moment the blood orb disappeared, the old woman screeched like a canary. Her cry made many guardians close their ears.
"Stay still" just when some of the guardians tried to run towards the old woman, the same voice that announced the prophet''s arrival appeared again. This time, the voice didn''t sound as gentle as before.
Followed by the old woman''s screech, her pupils slowly moved back into her skull. In a couple of seconds, her eyespletely turned white,
"The Dark Lord has found his path" she spoke in such a horrific manner. Her voice was neither of a woman nor a human. The voice was so unearthly, nothing like Noah or anyone in the hall ever heard before.
"The Guardians failed to kill the Dark Lord when he was just wandering without any powers of the Dark Lord. Soon he''s going to get a power that will rival the powers of the gods themselves. His powers will begin to manifest" the whole building trembled as she spoke. The bright hall slowly started to grow darker and darker
"Search and destroy the evil powers scattered around the world guardians. Every time the Dark Lord obtain one of these, his powers will grow by leaps and bounds" her voice grew more and more animalistic,
"ept your destiny and you''ll be able to stop the Dark Lord, Lightbringer"
Noah felt something happening inside him, he never experienced such a warm feeling. Although the old woman''s words weremon for everyone, he felt like they were directed at him.
"The Light within you is much less powerful than the Darkness inside the Dark Lord. You must find a way to kindle the light within you. Only then, you''ll match the Dark Lord''s power"
Until now, Michael never received any powers that solely belonged to his future self, the Dark Lord. But the old woman''s visions showed her the glimpse of the powers he''s going to achieve soon.
When the old woman''s eyes turned normal, breathed heavily.
"You must¡.you...must¡.stop...him," she said in a normal voice but it was filled with fear,
The few glimpses of the Dark Lord''s powers were enough to shake the old woman to the core. Her bloodline was guiding the Guardians ever since the guild was found and the most powerful foe she faced was the necromancer, Zulo but Zulo''s total power could not hold a torch to the few glimpses of the power she saw from the Dark Lord.
She believed the words that came out of her mouth were not hers but they belonged to the gods. But she never knew that the Dark Lord himself is a god in the making.
Who is the Lightbringer?
Can he really stop the Dark Lord?
These were some of the questions that emerged in her mind. When she was disappearing into the light once again, she put aside all the doubts in her mind. To defeat evil, they had to believe in themselves.
While teleporting herself away from the Flying Angel to her cave, she closed her eyes concentrating on the blurred vision she saw before, the vision that freaked her out the most. Even after the gods left her body, that image alone stuck in her mind. It was extremely difficult for her to see the visions again but she tried, she tried her hardest to make some sense out of those images, she tried till her nose bled.
"Three heads" A shadow of three heads in a storm cloud above the sea was thest thing she saw before losing consciousness.
Chapter 249 - Michael And Team Vs A Black Panther
The team cut through the thick veins and branches towards the river. The canopy was already thick enough but coupled with the dark clouds in the sky, they barely had enough light to see what''s in front of them.
"I should have brewed the cat''s eye potion" Michael reminded himself. His face had many tiny red spots courtesy of the mosquitos in the forest. The whining sound of these blood-sucking insects proved to be more challenging than the annoying undead monkeys.
Thud!
Michael suddenly heard a thud sound like something heavy hitting the ground. He paid close attention to the front to see Jessie, the thief lying on the ground.
"Hey, you alright?" Brownie reached his hand out to help Jessie,
"Yeah, got stuck in a vein" He quickly got up with the help of Brownie.
Stumbling and falling in a ce like this was nothing out of the ordinary therefore they continued to walk forward as nothing happened. Yet, Michael''s brows creased,
"Weird"
Logan who was walking beside him was busy pping the mosquitos to pay attention to Michael''s look on his face.
Crich!
"Stop" Michael''s face muscles tightened as he ordered them to stop.
"Did you hear that?"
Crich!
"Formation"
Ross whispered as the fighters in the group such as Michael, Logan, H, and Marce surrounded the weak to protect them. They stood still instead of moving.
Crich!
This time they heard the sound of twigs breaking more clearly. Michael felt like he was inside the Predator movie. The forest in the movie was not nearly as thick as this one. Everyone looked at their surroundings. All they could see was vegetation, nothing more.
Crich!
Crich!
It was clearly the sound of something big stepping on the twigs. Marce slowly raised her crossbow higher in the direction of the sound. They prepared themselves for another battle. Michael could tell something is about to jump out from the darkness.
"Dudum dudum dum dum" he yed horror music inside his head for fun.
"Please be something big and less fast"? The team would lose their mind if they heard Michael''s wish.? The Doombringer in his hand was not suitable to kill something that tiny and agile as the undead monkeys without using the Lightning Dash. If something emerged from the darkness big and slow, he would have an easier time killing it.
"Fuck" Marce cursed as her eyes went wide in shock. the others swallowed mouths full of saliva looking at the creature standing on top of a branch.
Finally, Michael turned his head and realized his wish hade true. The creature that was standing on the branch was an undead ck panther.
No one dared to close their noses despite the stenching from the panther.
The panther''s skin wasn''ting off of its body as it was with the monkeys. It was evident that this panther has been turned into an undead recently or even a couple of hours ago. If it wasn''t for the stench and theck of pupils, they wouldn''t have assumed the panther to be an undead.
Unlike those monkeys, it didn''t mindlessly leap at them to attack but jumped from branch to branch as it was studying their strengths and weaknesses.
"What''s it doing?" Logan whispered,
"Don''t make any sudden movements" Ross whispered while holding his silver scimitar tightly. He also moved closer to Maria so he could protect her when the panther starts to attack them.
"Let''s back away, slowly" H whispered before slowly taking one step at a time.
"Grrrr," The panther growled as their bodies went stiff,
Thud!
Finally, the panther leaped down to the ground from the tree branch. Looking at the team, the panther bore its teeth menacingly.
"Come on kitty kitty" Michael raised his Doombringer as the panther scratched the ground with its paws.
"GRRRR!" Suddenly the panther leaped at them. Its drool sttered across the ground, permeating even more stench. Due to theck of pupils, they were unable to guess its target. It looked like it was targeting Michael but just when he was about to attack, the panther changed its target to Logan.
Michael swung his Doombringer but he missed it by an inch. The Doombringer brushed past the panther''s head while it lunged at Logan.
Fortunately, Logan had a quick reflex as he raised his sledgehammer to prevent the panther from taking a bit out of his neck.
"I don''t have a clear shot!" Marce shouted, trying to get a good shot at the panther. Logan and the panther rolled on the ground, the panther was trying to bite him while Logan was trying to push away the big cat on him
"Don''t move!" Michael yelled at Logan. He held the sledgehammer that''s stuck between the panther''s jaw even tighter.
Boom!''
This time, Michael didn''t miss. His Doombringer''s blunt head struck the panther''s rib cage. The panther went flying away from Logan. It then hit arge tree before falling down. The tree the panther hit trembled due to the force.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Marce used the opportunity to shoot bolt after bolt at the panther. Although every single bolt hit the panther, none could prate the thick skull of the panther.
"GRRRR!"
The panther growled again. The Doombringer caved in the panther''s rib cage. When it stood up, ck fluid started to ooze out of the wound yet it didn''t slow down the panther''s movements. With a forceful push to the ground, the panther leaped into the air.
Everyone raised their weapons to defend themselves when they saw Michael also leaping higher into the air. Their jaws almost dropped to the ground in shock, even Ross''s eyes went wide.
"What the fuck?" Logan''s eyes looked like they were about to pop out from the sockets. His mind couldn''t figure out how David could jump so high with that heavy weapon in his hand.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
¡.
BOOM!
In the mid-air, Michael and the panther shed. Michael swung the Doombringer with all his strength. The Doombringer struck the panther''s back but it wasn''t without a cost, before the attack could sin in, the panther headbutted Michael in the chest. Everything happened so quickly, the team only saw the panther hitting the ground after getting struck by Doombringer and Michael flying into a tree before hitting the ground.
"Shit!" Logan wanted to help David but in a blink of an eye, the panther stood up with its spine sticking out of its back. It lunged at them, fortunately, it was not as fast as before because of the broken spine.
The APD quickly injected a healing potion into Michael''s bloodstream, healing the wounds as well as easing his pain. Even after he waspletely healed, he didn''t stand up to join the fight. If he did otherwise, they would definitely suspect him more as a normal human being would not be able to stand up after taking such a blow. Jumping into the air was already pushing his luck but the four thousand badass points were worth the risk.
While lying on the ground pretending to be injured, he stared at the fight happening a couple of meters away from him. The more he watched the fight, the more he realized the threat within the team.
On the other side, Logan was swinging his Sledgehammer while Marce fired bolt after bolt at the panther. After seeing the endurance and the strength of its body, the others backed off from the fight, leaving Marce and Logan to deal with the panther. If any of them tried to attack the panther with a sword, they knew they would be killed in a second.
Experienced fighters such as H and Ross took an asional sh at the panther. Their experience was evident to Michael. The two guys shed at the muscles joints connecting limbs, further slowing down the panther.
The more time went by, the worse the panther looked. Countless bolts sticking out of its body and the ck fluid was oozing out of the wounds. Since the panther''s speed significantly slowed down thanks to Ross and H, Logan was able tond heavy hits on the panther.
"AHHHH!" Michael noticed Logan letting out a battle cry. His muscles flexed out, each muscle had perfect definition, especially his biceps that were bigger than many peoples'' thighs.
"Finally something interesting" Michael mumbled. He fixed his eyes on Logan who''s fighting more and more violently. It seemed like he entered a berserker mode.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
The panther was getting pounded by Logan left and right.No matter how much ck ooze spattered on his body, Logan did not slow down. He kept beating the ck panther all over its body.
"Hit its head, idiot"? Michael rolled his eyes. If Logan hadnded those hits on the panther''s head, its head would have split open by now, ending the fight.
He wanted to rest until they finally killed the panther but he had to intervene before the team got ughtered by the new threat that only Michael knew about.
"Go for its head!"
Marce screamed at Logan looking at the panther''s vulnerable state.
"Cut off its limbs!" Ross shouted at H before dashing towards the panther. The two experienced fighters in the team worked together to cut its limbs. While Logan was going berserk on the paher, they shed at its limbs as strong as they could.
"Grrrr,"
The panther growled when Ross and H cut off the four limbs. The two of them pushed their limit to move fast and cut off its limbs.
"AHHHH!" Logan roared loudly before bringing down the sledgehammer onto the panther''s head. The moment the sledgehammer collided with the panther''s head, it cracked open the head like a coconut. The brain matter exploded into a ck mist. Finally, the team was able to heave a sigh of relief looking at the panther stops moving.
Chapter 250 - Hunt For The Artifact Begins I
Gradually Logan''s flexed muscles went back into his body. He was breathing heavily when he saw David standing up.? Apart from a few sshes of red blood and ck goo on his robes, he looked perfectly fin in Logan''s eyes. The same couldn''t be said to Logan himself as he wanted to stop fighting the urge to faint.
Logan bent down, clenching his knees to support his body from falling down. The rest of the team was too spent to gawk at Michael in surprise.
"Keep your shit together big guy, we have one more thing to take care of" Michael gave a shot pat on Logan''s shoulder before walking towards the rest of the group.
On his way, Michael picked up a crossbow bolt from the ground. They all wondered what''s he doing
Bam!
Their bodies again tensed up when they saw Michael lift Jessie by his neck and m him against a tree. The tree trembled as leaves and twigs sted away by the force,
Marce immediately raised her crossbow at Michael while the others also had serious looks on their faces.
"What the hell are you doing?!" H shouted,
Instead of answering, Michael just stared at the masked face of Jessie for a few moments.
"What..." Jessie tried to speak but words barely escaped through against Michael''s clutch.
"Did anyone notice that the ck panther never targeted Jessie or attacked him?" They were all confused by Michael''s question. In the heat of the battle, they never noticed anything weird.
"He stayed out of its target range, so what?" Marce growled, refusing to let Michael manhandle Jessie like this. She knew and trusted Jessie more than Michael
Giving no answer to Marce, he just ripped off Jessie''s cloth covering his arm. The moment H and everyone saw Jessie''s right forearm, they took a step back from him. Marce''s eyes went wide as her body jerked in shock.
Jessie''s forearm had a two-inch diameter circle bite mark. The area around the mark was riddled with yellow and blue veins.
"It''s...nothing..." Jessie mumbled,
"He was already infected when the battle started, that was why the panther never targeted him, that was why he was stumbling on the way"
The first thing that raised the suspicion on Jessie was when he stumbled down. If Jessie was here, it was obvious he''s an expert thief. Otherwise, Ross or H wouldn''t have hired him. A single misstep would cost a thief''s life hence they trained themselves to take each step with utmost care no matter where they are. For an expert thief like Jessie, falling down clumsily was pretty unusual.
The next thing was when the team fought the panther, although it focused its attacks on him, Logan, and Marce, it never seemed to target Jessie. Besides, he also kept scratching his forearm instead of throwing the throwing knives hidden inside his cloak.
"How long?" H asked, gently patting Michael''s hand, wordlessly telling him to loosen his grip.
Michael did loosen his grip but didn''t let go,
"Grhh" only a menacing growl came out of Jessie''s mouth. Jonah cautiously stepped towards Jessie, adjusting his sses to examine the wound.
"Judging by the color around the wound, I''d say three hours"
"That''s approximately the time we faced the undead monkeys," said Brownie. Thinking weak undead such as the monkeys managed to bite Jessie, he just shook his head in disappointment.
"If my guess is right...he will turn undead in...one hour" he stuttered in fear. The reality of someone he knew will be undead in a matter of time freaked him out.
"Whatever he''s here for, we have to do it without him" Michael''s face was calm. There was no shock or fear on his face despite holding a soon-to-be undead in his hand. He spoke looking at H and Ross since this was their operation and only they knew the real reason to bring a thief to this ind.
H just nodded, without stating the obvious.
"Sorry dude, anyst words?"
"Grrrrah,"
"Suit yourself"
Pulch!
Michael stabbed the crossbow bolt he was holding in the other hand through right between Jessie''s eyes, killing him quickly and painlessly.
"Check yourselves, I''d hate for you to turn into an undead" H said, quickly hiding his concern from showing on his face. With the system on his side, Michael couldn''t care less about losing a thief. It was indeed a pity for the team to lose one but at the end of the day, it was expected.
"You cannot leave him like that" Maria protested against leaving Jessie''s body.
"We don''t have time to give him a proper burial" Ross sighed but the others showed no concern for Jessie''s body. After all, Jessie died and it was just the mortal shell.
"It''s the least we can do for him. Undead or not, he was a human being"
"Let''s move" H ignored the protest of this naive young girl. Michael followed H behind. Although he trusted Gaya to find and stop the other team from reaching the center, he still didn''t want to waste any time doing cores for this stupid girl.
"If you don''t, I will!" the girl stomped the ground. She looked extremely stubborn as she began to walk towards Jessie''s body. The team stared at Ross while H clenched his teeth in frustration. Not only H, but Michael also looked pissed. Unlike the rest of them, he needed to find the artifact the most, it was his real mission, not escorting them safely.
Ever since they started the mission, Maria had been nothing but trouble. If she wasn''t Ross''s daughter, they would have personally kicked her off the ship.
"It''s not a good idea to stay here any longer. The corpses might attract predators or even undeads " Jonah, the expert on undeads warned them. He was already gawking around to see if there''s any more undead creatures approaching them.
"Ross" H looked at Ross to knock some sense into his daughter,
"Maria, we''re leaving" Ross tried to stop her but she just swatted his hand before he could stop her.
"I said I will give him a proper burial he deserves!"
"You kidding me? We have to go before anyone else ends up like him" Finally Marce said something that Michael approved of.
"This is not the time for stubbornness Maria" Ross spoke in a grave voice.
"This is exactly the right time. How could you leave him like this, like he was some kind of animal? Would you leave if it was me?"
After this, the father and daughter began to argue. Michael was already annoyed at these two for dying the mission. He paid no attention to the argument. All his attention was on his surroundings but he could hear the argument heating up.
While everyone''s focus was on the father-daughter duo, he slipped behind a tree for cover.
"Fly my little bird" he gently tossed the palm-sized drone into the hair. The white drone transformed its surface into an army camouge to blend with the forest.
However before the drone could fly deeper into the forest, he controlled it to fly around them, making a rustling noise.
"Something''sing" Michael quickly stepped out from the darkness of the tree. H shouted at the team as he had nothing to do with the noise,
zzzhhhhhhh
The noise immediately stopped the arguing.
"We''re moving" This time everyone followed H, leaving Ross and Maria behind. They didnt think Ross would be dumb enough to stick around, burying Jessie. Digging a grave for Jessie at this moment was equal to digging two more graves for him and his daughter.
"You''reing with me" Ross grabbed Maria by her hand and started moving. She was still stupid enough to struggle but this time, she couldnt escape Ross''s hold.
Michael followed them behind while the drone kept making noises by flying around them. Looking at the speed they were running, he wished he used the drone earlier which would have saved them some time.
They continued to run as fast as they could. Even after a couple of hours, they never dared to stop. Eventually, after running for so long, Michael heard the sound of water flowing.
"The river is closer," H reminded them.
"Human, we have a problem" suddenly, he heard Gaya''s voice. What she said slowed his pace of running,
"What is it?"
He whispered,
"It wasn''t one team hunting for the artifact, it''s two. One group was already dead when I tracked them down"
"Where?"
The thickness of the trees suddenly declined as they stepped out of the forest to see a beautiful river.
"Near a river on the south"
Gaya answered but he already knew the answer. The shore was filled with almost twenty bodies. Their blood painted the golden sandy shore red.
"What happened here?''
The sunlight entered in abundance due to theck of canopy above them. It reflected on the dead bodies and the broken ship parts floating on the river.
The team cautiously took steps forward towards the dead bodies. Everyone was on their guard. He wished he sent three more drones so one would have surveyed this direction. The drone he sent unfortunately covered the forest quite some distance from this ce.
After slowly approaching the sight, they came to the first dead body on the shore. It was of a middle-aged man. He wore a toga just like the two southerners Michael met on Lars''s ship. He wondered what a nobleman was doing in a dangerous ce like this.
Michael squatted down beside the dead body to study the wounds inflicted on the body.
"Gaya was right, he wasn''t killed by an undead but a human" looking at the clean-cut across his throat, he could tell it was the handiwork of a human. No undead would kill with such precision or leave the body untouched.
"They were killed by humans" Marce came to the same conclusion as Michael.
Chapter 251 - Hunt For The Artifact Begins II
"Ross, you need to see this" a few meters away from Michael, Marce called out for Ross. Underneath her feet, there was a body of a blue-robed youngster. Marce''s face had an unusual frown. Ross causality walked towards Marce while constantly staring at the surroundings for any surprise attack.
Michael closely stared at Ross''s face for any expression. Just when he got close to Marce, dark lines appeared on his forehead.
"It''s Rowan" From the distance, Michael''s lip read Ross. Soon, he saw the others walking towards Marce and having the same disturbed looks on their faces as Ross.
"It must be his team then,"? said Logan, his eyes squinting at the broken ship parts floating on the river. One by one, the team members began to look gloomy.
"Even with the ship, reaching the center would be a pain. What''re we gonna do now?"? Brownie''s voice already showed his reluctance to continue the mission.
"Then we go with the n b, go through the forest" H immediately opened his mouth before anyone could ask Ross to back off from the mission. It seemed to Michael that H was more desperate toplete the mission than Ross himself.
"It''s suicide"? Ross however shook his head. They could reach the center through the forest far more quickly than traveling on the river but it was the powerful undead army living in the forest that made them go with the river.
"I agree with Ross. A single panther almost killed us and the deep forest will have hundreds of them"
Except for Jonah and H, everyone nodded their heads. Michael on the other hand, although he knew going into the forest might even threaten his life, he wasn''t going to abandon the mission like the rest of them.
[The host should build a raft]
"Long time no hear, system" Despite him sitting in the middle of dead bodies, the system''s voice put a smile on his face.
"I was already thinking that," he thought, looking at the wooden nks, bamboo trees in the forest as well as the ropes around the area. The team who killed Rowan''s team was thorough. They not only killed them all but also destroyed the ship they built. Building a ship from scratch was far beyond what Michael could do at his current Inventor trait. Even if he had the required level, he needed a cksmith toplete the ship.
Therefore, the best thing he could do was a raft, using the materials around him. While making a blueprint to build the raft in his mind, he controlled the drone to fly ahead, following the river.
"Shit" his mind yed him the visuals being captured by the drone. The smile foxy smile from his face vanished instantly. It was reced by a stern look. Crocodiles, undead, and alive crocodiles. He could count at least fifty full-grown crocodiles swarming the river ahead of them. What made him sweat a cold drop was some of the undead crocodiles were swimming against the river''s current, in other words, they wereings towards them.
"Guys, we can build a raft" Michael almost shouted. He had no time to waste anymore. The other team hunting for the artifact was rushing enough and now he had to deal with these crocs. Using Arch energy to fight them might seem like a solution but he had a feeling the stronger foes are at the temple where the artifact is.
Besides, building two rafts would not take much time considering his Inventor skills.
All of their gazes instantly turned towards Michael. Of course, doubt and disbelief of what he just said were written all over their faces.
"We have all the necessary materials to build two of them. It won''t be asfy as a ship, but it will take us to the center. That of course, if you still want to get the job done"
"You think you can build them?" Jonah''s voice contained a doubt yet also a glimmer of hope just like those brown eyes behind his sses.
"If you guys quit skulking around and help me, I can get the rafts on the water in an hour" Yet again, Michael peeked at the corner of his mind to see the crocks.
"They''re the deadliest predators in the world for a reason" Michael couldn''t help praising the crocodiles after seeing their speed. The river''s current was pretty strong yet they moved so fast and swiftly against the current.
"We''re in too deep to back off Ross"
"I won''t turn my back on Johnny"
H and Maria tried to convince Ross to move forward with the mission as Michael expected. If it wasn''t for the fact that the flying time to the center is almost four hours, he might have shown his true face. To save the precious three hours of cultivation power, Michael decided to stick with them. The more people he surrounds himself with, the less chance he would end up undead chow.
"David, what do you need from us?"
After taking a few long moments, Ross finally asked Michael. Anyone with two eyes or one eye could tell how reluctant Ross is. No one knew what''s at stake other than Ross himself.? Getting the artifact was the only way to save Gisel kingdom''s lead senator who''s the one holding the kingdom together. If he died, the whole kingdom would be thrown into chaos, the enemy kingdoms would wage war to take a piece of Gisel, thousands of people would die while many would be ves.
The desperation to save his mothend forced Ross to go with this suicide n.
"Maria, plea-"
"Not gonna happen father!"
Yet again Maria stomped the ground, refusing to listen to Ross.
"she''s stupid and stubborn as fuck" Her stubbornness truly surprised Michael. He had never seen such a stubborn and stupid girl before in his two lives. After looking at the number of crocodiles rushing towards them, it wouldn''t surprise Michael if half the team lost their lives. Since Logan could prove to be a good subordinate, he might save him if the pushes to shove.
"The rafts won''t protect us as a ship would. This is a suicide n, we should go back" Marce sounded extremely serious. Michael clenched his jaws as ck lines appeared on his forehead.
"Go back and get nothing or follow me and get thrice the payment you''ve agreed"
The moment H uttered these words, many in the team let out a surprising burst of chuckle. Their frowny faces showed a slight smile, a greedy smile except for Marce. Even Marce rubbed her chin, thinking about the coins.
Logan''s reaction was obvious as his eyes sparkled. Although Michael smiled to pretend like he was intrigued by H''s offer, somewhat he couldn''tpletely believe H''s words.
"You sly fox, you don''t believe everyone will survive" Michael snickered inside. He didn''t loathe or get mad at H though. It was a logical move considering the risk of moving forward. If most of them died, H wouldn''t have to pay them.
What made Michael wonder was whether H would double-cross the survivors or not.
"I don''t know about you guys but the payday is worth the risk. I''m following H '' Logan was the first to step towards Michael to help. While Ross was trying to convince Maria to back off, the others agreed with H one by one.
"Whatcha need me to do?" Logan asked,
"Get me as many bamboos as you can"
Logan picked up a scimitar from one of the dead bodies before going into the forest.
"What about us?" Brownie asked while Marce and Jonah stood behind him. H was discussing something with Ross. Maria surprised Michael by digging graves for the dead bodies.
"Get the wooden nks floating on the river. Do it fast, who knows what lingers around this forest?" Michael started to collect things such as ropes to start building the rafts.
****************************
After almost fifty minutes of hard work, Michael finally finished building the two rafts.
"It''s not a ship but they will get the job done"
The two bamboo rafts didn''t exactly look like a typical raft. Each raft contained threeyers of green bamboo. Michael also tied wooden barrels with the raft to make them float better. Since he knew about the uing threat, he used the wooden nks as the walls to somewhat provide protection against the crocks. In simple words, each one was a raft with three walls.
He knew the walls would be destroyed by the crocks in a few moments after meeting them but those few moments could save a life. He knew that the more people he had to fight the undead, the better his chance to obtain the artifact.
"H, Logan, Jonah, Marce on one raft. The rest of us will get on the other one"
This meant Michael, Ross, Maria, and Brownie would be on the same raft. He kinda wished Logan to be on the same raft as he is but he doubted the raft could take the big guy and his sledgehammer along with him and the Doombringer.
"I''ll go first" Michael walked towards the raft floating behind H''s raft.
"Whoo," When he jumped on the raft, it wobbled for a moment until he bnced himself.
"They''re close" When he peeked at the visuals being captured by the drone, he noticed the crocks getting closer and closer. Although he still looked calm, he was pretty serious about the uing battle.
Soon, one by one, the team jumped onto the raft.
"Sigh" only after he saw everyone standing on the rafts without drowning in the river, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Chapter 252 - An Alpha Undead
Traveling on the raft against a calm wind seemed peaceful, almost making them forget where they were. H used the long bamboo stick as a paddle to move the raft faster while on Michael''s raft, Brownie used the bamboo paddle.
"You seem tense," Maria said looking at Michael. He was surprised to see this stubborn stupid girl noticing his inner emotions.
"Is it weird considering where we are going?" he shrugged. He could have smiled yet he showed no expression on his face. After getting a question as an answer, Maria frowned before sitting on the raft to rx her muscles.
At the moment, Michael was standing behind the raft, in front of the back wall made of wooden nks. Except for Maria, no one turned back to notice what he was doing. He chose this ce so he could concentrate on controlling the drone which would let him know the whereabouts of the crocs.
While Michael was looking at the footage being captured by the drone, out of nowhere an arrow shot straight at the drone. The drone flew chaotically above the river before finally falling into the water.? But before it went down, Michael saw a humanoid figure on a boulder near the river.
"Is that an alpha?" his brows furrowed. This was another difference he found in the Netherels of the Southern continent. Back in the Northern Continent, aherel bite wouldn''t turn a cultivator into aherel, it was the exact opposite here. It was obviously theck of Arch energy in the peoples'' bodies here. If Jessie was a cultivator and had Arch energy running through his energy veins, he wouldn''t have turned into aherel or undead.
As he learned recently, the alphas were stronger and intelligent undeads who possessed intellectual equal to a human. In other words, alphas were perfect killing machines.
After the alpha undead shot down his drone, he had no way of knowing the crocks'' whereabouts or how far the undeads from their current position were.
Michael put the Doombringer on his shoulder, preparing himself for the uing battle.
"Guys, I feel like something''s heading in our way. You might wanna put your guard up" Michael warned everyone on the raft. For a few moments, Ross gawked at him doubtfully but ultimately Ross nodded.
For a few more minutes, he heard only the sound of the river''s flow, the birds chirping as well as the creaking noises produced by the rafts. It was until he started to hear the ear-piercing scream which was followed by growling noises of countless undeads.
"Watch out!" Logan shouted from his raft. Michael peeked through the wall''s holes to see either side of the river is getting swarmed by humanoid undeads and undead beasts.
"Graahhhhhh!"
"Grrrrrrrr!"
"Eeeeeeekkkkkk!"
Various terrifying noises came from all around them.
"Move move move!" H shouted as the first raft began to move faster. The undeads standing on the shore swarmed into the river, hoping to catch them mindlessly only to get stormed by the river current. Many beast undeads drowned instantly.
"Fuck crocodiles!''
Yet again Logan warned them with a shout but Michael and everyone on his raft could see the army of crocodiles swimming towards them with their jaws wide open.
[There''s no way the host could get past those crocs without using your cultivation powers]
Even the system couldnt stay silent looking at the crocks swarming the river ahead of them. He could use wind st to st the crocks away. Given the current situation, it seemed to be the only logical move. It would be nearly impossible for these rafts to go through the crocks. Probably while they were stuck with the crocks, the alpha might pick them off one by one with his bow.
Whoosh!
"Brownie!" Just when he was thinking about the alpha, an arrow went straight through Brownie''s head. The blood spattered on Ross''s face who was standing rtively close to Brownie. Michael saw Brownie''s lifeless body falling into the river. The arrow that killed Browne was extremely fast. In a blink of an eye, it took Brownie''s life. Brownie didn''t even see the arrow that took his life. He waspletely clueless.
"Get down!" Ross shouted as they all ducked down. Through the hole in the wall, Michael noticed a 6ft humanoid figure standing on a boulder with a bow in his hand. There was no skin below his neck while half of the skin had fallen off of his face. The messy patches of grey hair fluttered in the wind behind the figure. His horrifying figure sent a chill running through everyone''s spines.
"An alpha undead!" he heard Marce''s shout. Without Brownie paddling, the raft started to propel violently.
"Hang on!" Ross cautiously crawled towards the paddle. Fortunately, Marce was able to fire a couple of bolts. Her bolts made the alpha undead retrieve from the boulder to seek cover. However none couldn''t breathe a sigh of relief, the crocks were stilling on their way.
"Fuck it" Realising there was no way of getting through them without the help of Arch energy, Michael stood up to wind st the crocks.
"Need some help" Suddenly he heard the sweet melodious voice of Gaya in his ear. He had no idea what she''s doing here without tracking down the other team, still, he was d that she''s here to help them. It was still too early to reveal the fact that he could use Arch energy.
"Oh my god!"
"Watch out!"
"What is that?"
Everyone began to shout crazily, staring at the sky. He looked up at the sky to see a huge boulder flying towards the crocodiles.
Boom!
The boulder hit the crocks with tremendous force, crushing many crocks while the shock wave sted the remaining crocks away. Looking at the shock waveing in their direction, Logan paddled the rift to avoid hitting the boulder while Ross shouted at them to hold onto something.
"Hold onto something!"
Fortunately, both the rafts had sidewalls to prevent them from falling into the wall. Still, when Maria was thrown into the wall, the crash sent the wall flying away. Logan''s raft wasn''t in a good shape either. Since Logan''s raft was the first to receive the shockwave''s wrath, they lost all the walls.
Without giving a thought to what just happened, both Logan and Ross paddled the raft away from the boulder in the river a couple of yards before them.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The alpha undead rained down arrows while keeping up with their rafts. He was like an Olympic gold medalist runner on drugs merged with an Olympic archer. Despite the raft''s speed, he was able to keep up with them. The remaining side wall was able to prevent the majority of the arrows from hitting Michael''s raft but the same couldn''t be said to Logan''s raft which had no walls to protect them. If it wasn''t for Marce firing back to mess with the alpha''s uracy, they would have surely lost another teammate, most probably Logan since he was literally a huge target.
"Stop the alpha," Michael said to Gaya through the earpiece before the alpha could get lucky and kill one of them. Even Michael remained behind the wall because of the alpha undead''s precision. He headshot Brownie who was on a moving raft.
"Piece of cake" As usual, she sounded confident.
He was d she''s here. Otherwise, he would have been forced to reveal his secret. Until he could see the artifact, he didn''t want the others to know that he can use arch energy. Besides, he wanted to see what H or Ross nned to do when they finally reached the artifact. It was possible that either of them still holds an ace up their sleeves.
Right at the moment, the alpha knocked up an arrow to fire but before he could do that, another arrow came from the forest behind him. Michael saw the alpha turning his head, sensing Gaya''s presence but it was toote as the arrow went straight through the alpha''s head.
Just like Michael, everyone else
The others who saw the scene were bewildered. First, a boulder came out of nowhere, and now the alpha was killed by someone, the sudden change of events confused them.
"Who killed it?"
"Someone''s in the forest"
Ross came to the correct conclusion yet he had no idea who was in the forest helping them. Plus, no matter how hard he thought, he couldn''t find an answer to the question, how or what could have thrown the boulder with such force.
Everyone except Michael was thinking the same thing. Even the alpha''s death couldnt stop the dumb Netherels from rushing into the river. Unlike the alpha, they had no brain function whatsoever, hence they ended up either drowning immediately or flooded by the river.
They were not a threat, not at all. If they had the ship built by Rowan''s team or it wasn''t for the alpha and the crocodiles, this journey would have been a peaceful one and Brownie would have been still alive. He was a valuable team member as well as a great fighter. They needed all the fighters they could. Now they only had Logan, H, Ross, Michael, and Marce to face an army of undeads guarding the temple.
"There are still some alphas heading your way, let me take care of them," Gaya said.
Chapter 253 - Into The Pyramid I
The rest of the journey was peaceful thanks to Gaya killing the alphas before they could attack the rafts. Judging by the frown on Ross''s face, Michael could tell that doubts are rising in Ross''s heart.
"How long?" Michael asked Ross. He held the paddle bamboo in one hand and the map in the other. For a few moments, he just studied the surroundings
"If everything goes smooth, we''ll reach the center in three hours"
As far as he remembered, the river was running through the ind''s center which meant they could reach the artifact sooner thanter. The sooner he gets the artifact, the sooner he could return to dominate the Southern continent as well as meet his new demon subordinate.
"Are you hearing that?" Maria asked after everyone started to hear a faint humming noise. It was very faint yet one could hear it if focused enough.
Gradually H''s raft moved towards the shore as Ross paddled the raft to follow them to the shore.
"It''s good to be on thend" Logan let out a heavy sigh of relief. Even Michael felt relieved to step out of the raft.
"Follow my lead" Ross took the lead into the dark forest. The forest looked ancient with giant trees and lush vegetation on the ground. Apart from the faint humming noise, only the croaking of the frogs, the gurgling croak of ravens as well as trees rustling could be heard.
"The air reeks"
Logan twitched his nose. He was right, the air did reek of rotten flesh.
"Keep your guards up"
It was not like they dropped their guards yet they focused more on the surroundings after hearing Ross. Every single one of them took the next step with utmost caution. Even H who seemed to be in the rush to get the artifact walked slower.
The lush forest made following Ross difficult. In the distance, they could hear the thunderps. Pushing the foliage away, Michael and Logan followed the team behind.? Without uttering a single word, they kept walking.
They kept walking as the faint humming noise began to sound louder and louder. Michael used his Environmental Scanning senses to scan for any undeads yet he found nothing. It was surprisingly unusual. Although there were no undeads nearby, he couldn''t shake the eerie feeling. Except for the humming noise, there was no sound, not even a chirp of a bird.
After an hour of walking, the thick forest seemed to decline. They could see the lighting through the forest a few hundred meters ahead of them.
"I''m getting closer," Michael''s instincts told him that the artifact is nearby. He could vaguely feel a tremendous amount of energying from ahead of him.
When they finally stepped out of the thick forest, they were weed by a huge surprise.
"Holy fuck!"
Logan''s jaws dropped, just like the rest of them. What they saw was a pyramid, a miniature size pyramid surrounded by an army of undeads and trees. It was at least fifty feet tall and thirty feet wide. Instead of sandstones, this pyramid was built using a greyish stone that gave the pyramid a dark look.
"What is this ce?"
Logan asked as his eyes widened in shock.
"The question should be, how do we reach the inside?" Still, H''s focus was on the artifact, not on the pyramid. He had the least surprised look on his face. Even Michael was stunned by this wonder but not H.
[The system is sensing strong First energy fluctuations]
"First energy? Do you think I can use it through Energy Devourer?"
[Since your body and soul endured the First energy before, you''ll be able to use the First energy with no problem ]
"Awesome" his face brightened. When he first sucked in the First energy, he was able to get from the Body Strengthening stage to the Core Formation stage in one go. Luckily, he was again presented with the First energy source.
"What is this artifact?" He wondered. The artifact never ceased to amaze him.
"Look over there" Jonah pointed at the other side of the pyramid as they vaguely saw a rope bridge connecting to the pyramid''s top from the cliff on the other side. If they walked carefully through the edge, they could reach the other side without alerting the undeads.
"Hey is it me or do these undeads look weird ?" Logan looked down on the undeads from the cliff.
"They are hibernating,"? Jonah said, lifting his sses up. Michael heard about this phenomenon from Dr. It was like when the Netherels had nothing to attack in the vicinity, they would enter into a state that could bepared to humans sleeping. Until they could sense prey, they would remain in this state.
"Hibernating? What does that mean?" Logan scratched the back of his head.
"You can think of it as an undead version of sleeping" H quickly interfered before Jonah could start a lecture about undeads. Carefully looking at the undeads beneath them, they began to move towards the other side.
The rope bridge looked ancient, missing many wooden steps yet it was their best hope to reach the pyramid.
"Human, have you reached the rope bridge yet?" Yet again he heard Gaya''s voice.
"I''ll cover your backs" Michael let Logan and the team go first so he could talk to Gaya without them noticing. They didn''t suspect him much as they had bigger things to worry about. While they were moving forward, he slowed down, putting some distance from them.
"Not yet, where are you?"
"Keeping the other team from reaching the rope bridge. Since you''ve seen the army of undeads down there, you know what would happen if they smell blood in the air or any screams"
"Good call, we should not wake them up as long as we could" he whispered,
"How are you slowing them down?"
"I may or may not have put some bloody flux into their meals" her voice contained a sliver of devilishness.
"So you keep a bloody flux potion with you huh?''
"Of course I do and you better watch yourself human" she chuckled before cutting the connection. The bloody flux was a potion that would cause diarrhea. The fact she had a bloody flux potion with her didn''t surprise Michael very much. Anyways, he was d that her potion was able to slow down the other team. If they were affected by the bloody flux potion, he knew theirbat skills would hit low, and even if they did try to fight them which was very unlikely considering the hibernating undeads, Michael''s team would have an easy time dealing with them.
While they were walking on the edge, every single one of them did their best not to kick any pebbles down at the undeads. It was evident that if they woke one undead up, the whole army would wake up.
It took them half an hour to reach the cliff on the other side. Except for Michael, none of them knew that the other team was hiding in the forest behind them.
"They areing" Michael sensed the other team moving towards them with the help of the Environmental scanning. Their movements were slow probably due to the bloody flux. In a few minutes, Michael''s team heard a voiceing from the forest. They quickly unsheathed their weapons,
"Stop"
One by one, the other team members walked out from the forest''s darkness. They wore grey hooded robes covering every part of their body, even their eyes were covered by a ck transparent cloth. However, the one who walked out from the forestst didnt wear simr clothes. He just wore ck armor protecting his torso and brown leather breeches with ck boots. His short golden hair was messy and his face was pale.
"Johnny"? the moment Maria saw the young man, she almost shouted. Everyone''s eyes widened in shock. Maria leaped at the young man, embracing him like there''s no tomorrow.
"Maria" the young man hugged her back.
"I found you" Maria buried her head into his chest ignoring her father''s gaze. Micahel noticed the ck lines appearing on Ross''s forehead.
Johnny lifted her face slowly. Just when he was about to lock his lips with hers, Ross opened his mouth
"What are you doing here?"
"I could...ask the same"
Johnny sounded like he was too weak to speak. They all noticed this but only Michael knew the reason. He also felt pity for these guys because it would have been damn hard for them to disrobe to let whatever inside them out.
"Did you kill them?" Ross asked. His voice may not have shown the killing intent but his eyes did.
"Kill who?''
"Father" Maria tried to butt in yet Ross''s gaze was fixed on Maria''s boyfriend. Johnny creased his brows, looking confused.
"We didn''t kill anyone" Johnny shook his head.
It was them who killed Rowan''s team yet Johnny said otherwise. Michael knew either Johnny''s lying which was probably the case or the cloaked figures killed them without Johnny''s knowledge.
"It''s obvious you reached this ce before us but what are you still doing here without going into the temple?" H asked. A hint of anger and embarrassment emerged in Johnny''s eyes.
"We encountered a setback, that''s all you need to know. Now, are you going to keep interrogating me or work together to enter the temple?"
H stared at Johnny for a few moments before nodding at the team to lower their weapons.
"I have my eyes on you kid," H said in a serious tone. Johnny did not react but Maria gave H a death re which H just ignored. After this temporary truce, all of their focus turned towards the rope bridge in front of them.
Michael could feel the intense energying from the pyramid.
"Finally, this ising an end''
Chapter 254 - Into The Pyramid II
H and Ross nodded at Johnny wordlessly agreeing with him to stroll over the bridge without wasting any time. Michael walked over to the bridge to see the rope bridge''s integrity. The bridge looked ancient in which the deck of the bridge lied on two parallel load-bearing ropes that were anchored at either end. They had no towers or piers. Some of the wooden nks were missing while some looked rotten due to old age. If this was any other day, no one in the team would have agreed to walk this bridge yet in this situation, they had to take the risk.
Michael stood aside deciding to let the others use the bridge first. He noticed Johnny giving a pat to his tummy before taking the steps towards the bridge.
"Follow me" Johnny ordered his men to follow him. Although Johnny didn''t seem like a leader figure in Michael''s eyes, the cloaked figures did follow him behind only to get stopped by H,
"Stop"
"What now?" Johnny turned with his brows creased. Coupled with the bloody flux''s effects, H''s constant interference annoyed Johnny.
"Im not stupid to let your guys use the bridge first. We''ll use the bridge one by one. Ross, you go next"
After seeing the stern look on H''s face, Johnny realized there''s no point in arguing. Therefore, he just took his first step on the bridge. His first step caused the bridge to shake. Johnny quickly grabbed the two ropes on either side to bnce himself as well as stop the bridge from shaking.
One slow step at a time, Johnny moved forward. Even the thunderps from the distance were able to slightly shake this ancient rope bridge. Since his stomach was hurt by the bloody flux, he kinda limped towards the pyramid.
The rope bridge may have anchored at two ends but the wooden nks were onlyid until the pyramid''s top. After the pyramid, there were no wooden nks, just ropes. The bridge was either built on a rush or by an amateur, everyone thought.
Hggggrrrrr!
When Johnny reached the pyramid''s top, a bright light appeared, producing a weird sound. The light soon enveloped Johnny. In a blink of an eye, Johnny disappeared from the bridge. When Johnny disappeared, one would expect Maria to panic but the one who panicked was none other than Michael himself.
"I''ll go next" Michael was already standing near the bridge. Hence, before Ross could make a move, he stepped on the bridge. He was supposed to gost except they saw him cut in the line. Not only Ross but every single one of them was shocked. Yet they were unable to shout or do anything to stop him.
"Careful" Logan almost shouted when he saw the bridge violently shake. The bridge looked like it could barely take on a walking passenger but David was running on the ancient bridge. They were afraid of him copsing the bridge or worse waking up the undead army below them.
Michaelpletely ignored their fears.
Kachak!
The same blue light that enveloped Johnny appeared again to envelop Michael. The brightness made him close his eyes for a moment. The next moment, he felt light as a warmth feeling overwhelmed him.
When he opened his eyes, he was standing in an empty hall. The walls and floor were made of some kind of dark navy blue stone. Everywhere he turned, he only saw blue walls, that was it.
"Where''s Ross?" Johnny asked but Michael ignored himpletely.
"System, where''s the artifact?"
[Scanning the area]
[the artifact is directly below the hall''s center]
Michael heaved a sigh of relief after hearing the system. Atleast, he was sure of the artifact''s existence. Now he only needed to find a way to bring the artifact to the upper ground or find a way to go below.
"Hey!" Johnny got mad seeing the new guypletely ignore him.
"Where is it?" Michael looked around, walking towards the center. He was searching for some kind of mechanism like in the games to activate something.
"Wee Lord Lucifer" the moment he reached the center, the ground lit up. He was standing on a gigantic magical rune that started to rotate. Various magical symbols appeared from the thin air, they all floated around Michael.
"What...what''s happening?"
Johnny was staring at the ground as well as the floating symbols with a bewildered face.
"Lucifer?" Michael''s jaw slightly dropped recalling how the pyramid called him. It was a robotic voice yet it sounded utmost respectful when it spoke his name.
"Is this ce might be another safehold of the order of the death?"
He questioned himself while staring at the rune below him. He waited for something to happen,pletely ignoring Johnny or the cloaked figure who just appeared in the hall.
"Holy gods" Johnny saw the cloaked figure dropping to the ground, worshipping the flying symbols. After the cloaked figure appeared, someone from Ross''s team or Ross himself was supposed to appear. Yet the one who entered the hall was another cloaked figure.
"You idiots!"? The moment the cloaked figure saw Michael standing on the runic circle, he shouted at Johnny and the one who was worshipping the glowing runes.
Creak!
Johnny was about to take a step forward when the entire hall trembled. Soon afterward, a long tube containing a pitch-ck orb on top emerged from the ground before Michael.
"Stop him!" Yet again the cloaked figure screamed as his voice was full of panic rather than anger.
"Is this the artifact?" Michael felt an immense amount of pressure being radiated from the orb in front of him. The orb was neither too big nor too small; rather it was the size of any typical ss orbs used by oracles or fortune-tellers.
[Energy Devouver activated]
[Warning too much First Energy!]
[Warning!]
[Host should immediately enter into a hibernation state!]
[Energy devourer Reactivated!]
[Does the host wish to unlock the artifact?]
His mind was filled with warning sounds yet it couldn''t make Michael back off from getting the artifact.
"Yes"
Johnny and the two cloaked figures tried to reach Michael except an invisible force stopped them from doing so.
"We cannot let him take that!" the cloaked figure who previously worshiped the runes shouted. The other cloaked figure turned back to see Ross appear.
"Use it!" Johnny saw the cloaked figure who appeared second taking out a red brick with silver wires coiled around it. Johnny immediately recognized it, the red brick was a powerful explosive used by the Church of Mohdon.
"Wait" Johnny tried to stop but the cloaked figure was swift. He ced the brick as close as possible to Michael, fiddling with the wires coiled around the brick for a bit.
"Run!"
The cloaked figures screamed before running as fast as they could from the red brick. Since Johnny knew about the explosive brick, he too ran behind them to the hall''s far corner. Fortunately, the light teleported everyone to the far corner so Ross never had to run. Staring at the glowing runes and the trio running away, Ross had too many questions in his mind.
The red brick began to vibrate while its surface emitted a cloud of ck smoke. In a blink of an eye, the cloud of ck smoke transformed into a red hot me.
Boom!
The red brick exploded with an immense amount of force. The explosion created a bright light that made everyone close their eyes. The entire hall trembled as stone pieces from the ceiling crumbled down on them. When they opened their eyes, they saw the glowing runes flicker beforepletely disappearing from the hall.
"The artifact!" the two cloaked figures shouted in joy seeing the ck orb rolling on the ground where Michael was standing a moment ago. The cloaked figurespletely ignored the body lying on the ground a few meters away from the orb. It was Michael, heid on the ground face down. Puffs of smoke kept emerging from his charred clothes as well as some of his body parts.
"Johnny" Ross turned back and saw his daughter appear.
Pulch!
Pulch!
While his gaze was on Maria, he heard a familiar sound appear from the other side, he would recognize this sound in his sleep, the sound of a de piercing a body.
He immediately turned back to see the two cloaked figures lying on the ground, blood gushing out from their back. Standing beside their bodies, Johnny picked up the orb on the ground. He held the orb in one hand while a bloody dagger in his other hand.
"It''s mine" Ross saw an evil grin appear on Johnny''s pale face. Although Ross had a bad feeling about Johnny, he never imagined him backstab two people in cold blood.
When Johnny turned his murderous nce at Maria, a chill ran through Ross''s spine. He quickly stepped in front of Maria, shielding her with his body. Considering Ross had little to no idea about Johnny''s realbat ability or the artifact''s power, he feared for his daughter''s life.
"Stay back,'''' Ross said in a grave voice. Thest thing he wanted was his daughter to be coteral damage in the fight between him and Johnny. While he was shielding his daughter, H and the others appeared in the hall one by one.
Seeing the three dead bodies, H immediately unsheathed his sword. Except for the remaining cloaked figures in the hall, everyone raised their weapon at Johnny.
"What happened here? Who killed them?'' Finally one of the cloaked figures unsheathed his dagger. Because Johnny was standing so besides the dead bodies, they naturally suspected Johnny and they were right.
Chapter 255 - The Dark Lord Awakens
"Is that...David?" Logan stuttered, staring at the body a couple of meters away from Johnny. His muscles went rigid in shock. He never thought David would die while Jonah, who had no knack for the battle, is alive.
What happened before they arrived here was still a mystery to Logan but he was sure that Johnny or that two cloaked figures could have killed David unless they had used some crooked means.
"They tried to take what''s mine, so I killed them," Johnny nonchntly said while fiddling with the orb in his hand. He tried to figure out a way to activate the orb.
"You murderer!" After hearing these words from Johnny, the cloaked figures lost theirposure as they rushed at Johnny with no hesitation.
At the same time they moved, Ross felt a gust of wind passing against his back.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Everyone saw four heads rolling on the floor as the headless bodies walked around clumsily, spraying blood all over the ce before falling to the ground. The beheadings happened so quickly. None of them clearly saw the killer during the killings. They realized who killed them only after the four heads left their bodies.
"Ma...Maria" This was the first time Logan saw the terrified face of Ross. When they saw the bloody spear and the blood-sttered white clothes of her terrified them because they never imagined she possessed such a deadly side. Even her own father never had a clue about her real skills.
"Quit ying with it Johnny"? Maria ordered Johnny. Her usual sweet gentle voice was nowhere to be seen as she sounded more like a battle-hardened viiness. On the contrary, Johnny''s attitude took a one-eighty turn. He immediately knelt down, lowering his head to avoid eye contact with Maria.
He held out the orb towards Maria like he was giving an offering to a goddess. The sudden change of eventspletely stunned everyone standing in the hall.
"Maria" Ross called out to Maria but his voice was suppressed by various emotions.
"I''ll deal with you all in a sec" she said, taking the orb from Johnny''s hand.
When she looked at Ross, he could no longer see the little girl he knew. The girl in front of him was apletely different person. There was no love or kindness in her eyes, just anger and killing intent.
Ignoring Ross''s call, she walked towards Michael whose body was still smoking. The team stood there watching Maria giving a couple of kicks to David''s dead body.
"Pity, I wanted to kill you with my spear " After kicking Michael''s body, she walked away from him. Johnny didn''t stand up even after giving the orb, he just knelt down on the ground until she could tell him otherwise.
Creak!
She ripped off Johnny''s shirt yet there was no reaction from him at all.
"Now I assume you all want an exnation" Maria didn''t even look at Ross or anyone but began to clean the blood from the artifact using Johnny''s shirt. She then put the orb in her satchel hanging on her waist.
"You''re all gonna die anyway so it doesn''t hurt to tell you"
"Ross" Although the skills she disyed could make her on par with a highly trained spartan or a diator, H still believed he could defeat her with the help of the team. He knew that Marce attacked her from a distance and he and Logan nking her from either side would definitely lead the way to beat Maria.
Johnny was a variable but H believed Ross would take him down if pushes to shove. But first, even if Ross didn''t want to fight with them, H wanted Ross to stay out of their way when they fought Maria. If he tried to protect his daughter again, this fight would getplicated or simply result in H''s defeat.
"I need to know what she has to tell"? Ross slightly raised his hand, stopping H from doing anything.
"It''s simple actually. Gisel kingdom took the one thing that meant everything to me, so I''m gonna destroy it and kill all those senator scumbags with this"? she tapped the satchel. Her murderous grin showed them that she''s very serious about this n.
"It was my fault, Maria" said Ross. His eyes were full of regret. Anyone could tell he''s telling the truth.
"That''s why you''re gonna die too. You always put your duties to the kingdom first, that was why you brought an undead to our home"
Her murderous voice echoed through the empty halls. After they heard her, they gawked at Ross in disbelief.
It was Ross''s greatest regret. To the outside world, Ross''s wife died of an unknown disease except she wasn''t. It was Ross who killed her after the undead he brought home bit her. In the Southern Continent, it was strictly forbidden for any kingdom to bring undeads to the maind from the undead ind. All the senates and a few kings in the continent took the decisions together.
Nheless, five years ago, the senate and the schrs of Gisel conducted a secret operation to bring an undead from the ind for experiments. After leading the mission with Marce, Ross caught an undead alive. Since they didn''t go too deep into the forest, the operation wasn''t as dangerous as this one. But the operation wasn''t without losses either. Ross brought twelve men with him and returned with seven.
If the safe house they decided to use hadn''t caught on fire, the operation would have ended with only seven casualties. Due to theplications and the senate''s trust in Ross, they put the undead in the cer below Ross''s home. Since it was supposed to be one day, Ross reluctantly agreed to the n.
At that time, he never thought his wife would go to the cer to pick up a wine bottle for him. To this day, Ross had no idea how the undead manage to break out of its cage. Only Marcell, Maria, and himself knew what really happened to Ross''s wife. No matter how hard Ross tried, he couldn''t get the blood of his own wife off his hands.
Every time he saw Maria, he saw his wife. The guilt ate his soul itself. A whileter, he couldn''t take it anymore as he sent Maria to a sect far away from Gisel. Yet again, he never thought she would turn intopletely a different person.
"You''re right to me me but you''re not a murdered, Maria"
"You kidding me? I just killed these people" she devilishly chuckled pointing her finger at the headless bodies in the hall.
"And don''t act like you know me. You were never there for me and my mother. You failed as a father and a husband, you''re an utter failure. Who would bring an undead to their own home? And even when we started this journey, if you were a good father, no matter how stubborn your daughter was, you would have sent her away. Even then, you put your mission to serve Gisel first" Her words were spot on. He was too focused on saving his kingdom rather than his daughter. The schrs and senate were absolutely sure that they could control the undead army with this artifact, that was why he risked his life toe here. If they could control this undead army, no kingdom would stand on Gisel''s path or dare to invade them. The alphas were an example of the artifact''s power to control the undead.
"Since no man came to save me or my mother, I learned to protect myself and to destroy those who harmed me. I''d bet someone would kill the senate for me and pay millions of gold for this artifact"
"Maria this is not you" Ross''s voice broke in overwhelming regret. He tried to knock some sense into Maria.
"This is the new me, that lovey-dovey stupid girl thing was just an act to fool you. And it seems it can fool anyone, I mean you have no idea how easily you can manipte men putting up an act. Plus, you''re all fools, so it was much much easier to fool you"? seeing the young girlughing at them made everyone feel embarrassed and mad. Even H who had decades of dealing with criminals and battle experience failed to see her true face.
"But I got to give it to you guys, you''ve done a great job escorting me here. I never thought getting here would be this easy. I guess those alphas are just overrated"
If this was a better circumstance, they would dly agree with her because they did see only one alpha.
"And you, my ve, are ridiculously underrated. I cannot wait to hear how you managed to throw a boulder that size."
"Was it you who ordered to kill Rowan''s team and destroy the ship?" H suddenly asked before Maria could get an answer from Johnny.
"Why would I do that? I''m not stupid to destroy my safe ride. I don''t know who, might be someone else with the grudge against Gisel. Now enough talking, let''s get to the fun part...killing you all" She licked the spear''s de.
"I didn''t master" suddenly, her menacing eyes turned at Johnny who spoke without lifting his head up.
"What you didn''t?"
"Throwing the boulder master. It wasn''t me"
She creased her brows. Destroying the ship was a logical move for anyone with a grudge against Gisel and there were countless people who fell into that category. However, she couldn''t think of a person who would help them get to the artifact.
"Why don''t you ask me?" Maria felt a chill running through her spine when she heard an unearthly voiceing from behind.
Chapter 256 - I Am The Dark Lord
"He...he''s... moving" Jonah''s face turned pale. He stuttered pointing at Michael''s body. Everyone including Johnny and Maria turned back to see Michael''s charred body slowly starting to float from the ground. They couldnt believe their own eyes.
"What in the hell?" Maria took a step back due to the subconscious fear in her mind. Visible to the naked eye, his burnt skin on the arm, neck, and face healed. His body slowly rose up in the air.
The ck eyes soon transformed into crimson red eyes. They were staring at him in utter shock. Jonah''s body shivered like he was standing outside naked in the wintertime.
His transformation did not stop with crimson red eyes but the burnt clothes were slowly vanishing into thin air while pieces of ck armor started to cover his body from toe to neck. The armor looked like a breed between leather and metal. Up to his neck, no ce on his body was left alone, the armor covered every inch of it.
This was the first time Michael wore Lucifer armor without the cloak and mask. Logan was the tallest one in the group who stood at 6feet 7inch yet the transformation made Michael an inch taller than Logan himself. After the armor waspletely set on his body, they saw dark smoke being radiated from his body. Soon afterward, his eyes ignited with dark red fire.
These people were somewhat lucky to witness the Dark Lord''s first evolution.
"It...it can''t be...you were dead" Maria stuttered in fear. Not only her but everyone began to fear him because of the fear toxin in the air. Even if there wasn''t any fear toxin in the air, they would have reacted the same way.
They had never seen someone fly or heal this fast in the Southern continent. It was clear as a day that he''s using magic except they had no idea how.
"Don''t!" when Maria saw him moves forward towards her in the air, she shouted, taking out the orb from her satchel. She applied pressure to the orb as it began to produce creaking sounds.
"I''ll destroy it" she threatened Michael with the artifact.
"What makes you think I care?"
He just raised his finger. The next moment, a bolt of a golden lightning bolt shot towards the orb from his fingertip. The orb shattered by the lightning bolt into countless pieces.
"How...how...are you doing this?" Jonah stuttered while the others began to question their sanity.
"Magic"
"Impossible"
Michael stopped releasing the fear toxin into the air. He knew the disy of spell casting would keep them afraid. Even he himself didnt know theplete extent of his new powers. He was now at the Core Formation level 8. The system put his body into hibernation so he could absorb most of the first energy radiated by the artifact. Although his body was put into hibernation, he heard everything Maria said.
"You...you''re good"? He spoke while still floating in the air. It wasn''t just mere words, she really did surprise Michael. Even he was unable to see through her scheme.
[The artifact will be awakened in ten minutes]
The system reminded Michael. Before the st, he switched the orb with the system''s help. If he had avoided the st, Maria or Johnny wouldn''t have thought he was dead. Then they might have killed him for real as he was unable to move a muscle during the hibernation process.
Getting sted by the explosive hurt him like hell yet his hunger for power gave him the strength to endure the pain. Because he endured the pain, she left him alone without interrupting his absorption process as well as the process of opening the artifact. Meanwhile, the system was opening the artifact, he decided to test his newfound powers on the people before him.
He was currently using one of his powers, the dark smoke. Since the system was busy with opening the artifact, it never actually exined the new powers in detail to him. He was extremely curious about what the system meant by awakening his Dark Lord powers.
"Although your n wasn''t perfect, it got the job done. If I''m right, you already have a way to escape this pyramid" Maria or no one in the hall opened their mouths. They were either too scared or shocked to speak.
"I''ll let you live if you kneel down and swear your loyalty to me" He almost felt bad for killing them so he decided to offer them a choice to save themselves. Not that he expected any of them to kneel down, still he gave them a choice.
"Since even daughters want you dead, I''ll give you three seconds to make a choice"
Whoosh!
Suddenly an arrow shot towards Michael from Marce''s crossbow.
"Rude" He caught the crossbow bolt easily before it could reach him.
"Wind st" A gust of wind shot from Michael''s hand sted away the entire group into the wall behind them. They all collided with the wall before dropping to the ground.
Jonahpletely lost his consciousness after the collision, he remained on the ground without moving a muscle.
"You''re time''s up to Ross"
Maria saw the same golden lightning bolt that destroyed the artifact being fired at her father. The lightning bolt went straight through straight between Ross''s eyes, creating almost an inch wide radius holt in his forehead.
"Noooooooooooooooo!" Marce screamed looking at the blood gushing out of Ross''s head. His eyes remained open, staring at Michael with utter shock.
"Murderer, I''ll kill you!" Marce tried to pick her crossbow frantically. Because he stopped emitting fear toxin into the air, they somewhat gained the courage to fight back partially due to the adrenalin.
Seeing her father''s corpse lying beside kindled the feelings she never wanted to feel again. Initially, she thought she was ruthless enough to kill her father except when Ross was killed by the monster in front of her, tears gushed out of her eyes.
"Ignitia" He raised his finger again as another lightning bolt shot towards Marce. Marce was quick but she was not quick enough to evade the lightning bolt.
She could not even knock one bolt in her crossbow before the lightning bolt ended her life. Michael felt pity when she saw her dead body hit the ground. If she was willing, he could have used her as a subordinate.
If it was before he saw the future, he would have let them go or tried to pursue them to be his subordinates. Except now he couldn''t afford to make a mistake like keeping an unwilling subordinate even if the system could ensure they can''t do any harm to him. Besides, he knew Marce or Ross would rather die than bend their knees before him.
"You...you killed them...you...killed...my...FATHER!" Following Marce''s death, Maria''s anger erupted in her heart like a volcano. The veins in her eyes popped, turning her eyes blood red.
"Isn''t that what you wanted? Don''t tell me you''ve gone soft"
"I''ll kill you!"
"Master!"
Johnny tried to stop Marce but she had already taken her spear to kill Michael. Logan on the other side was staring at everything inplete shock. He never imagined a guy who protected them along the way would kill them. Even though he knew David for a short amount of time, he considered him as a friend and it kept him from lifting his sledgehammer against David.
"Go in peace Maria"
He wasn''t mad at Maria for what she has done until now. If he had to me someone, it would be Ross who made all the mistakes that turned Maria into this.
"Ignitia" Feeling pity for her, he fired the lightning bolt from the tip of his finger. Like before, the lightning bolt went straight through her forehead. Because Johnny stood behind her, the lightning bolt pierced his throat. In one lightning bolt, Michael took two lives.
The deaths of MAria and Johnny finally brought Logan back to reality. He mustered his courage to raise his sledgehammer against Michael though he knew he had no chance of winning against a magic caster.
Logan never really believed in gods but looking at David, he wondered if he''s a god himself came to the world to punish them.
"Stand down, Logan" Michael waved his hand as the sledgehammer in Logan''s hand flew away from the big guy''s hands.
"Back at the ship, you said you''re going to retire after this mission and live the rest of your life as a wealthy person. Swear your loyalty Logan and you''ll be richer than you''ve never even imagined"
Unlike Marce or Ross, he liked Logan. Logan was a simple-minded good guy who would never scheme against him. Because of that, he tried to convince Logan to be his subordinate.
"Who are you, David? Is David even your real name?"
Despite Logan''s look, the big guys had a soft heart. That was why Michael could see the sadness of losing Ross and Marce in his eyes.
"This world will soon turn into a living nightmare, Logan. I''m here to stop it"
"By ughtering people in cold blood? After seeing you use magic inside the void line, I dont know what to believe anymore but one thing I''m sure David, this isn''t how you save the world,"
*********************************
Note: Don''t think mc will be a self-righteous goody two shoes in world-saving drug. He''s going to change the world to his liking...
Chapter 257 - Next Phase
"You think this world doesn''t need saving? Open your eyes, What do you think would have happened if Ross gave the artifact to the Gisel senate? They will control the undead army outside, wage war against the other kingdoms, and thousands of people will die, lose their families, and end up being ves to the rich. If you by any chance thought of any of them as innocent, you''re the most naive person in the world"
These words yed again and again in Logan''s mind.
"And look around you man, if this world needs saving, it''s from you. You killed a father, a daughter, and a good friend, for what? refusing to serve you? Do you really think you''re the good guy?"
Michael heard everything without uttering a word as Logan continued,
"I might be a mercenary but I have no innocent blood on my hand. If I agree to serve you, I''ll end up just like you. So go ahead, kill me"
"You''re so full of it, big guy" Finally Michael couldn''t take any more of this bullshit Logan spouting,
"You think this world doesn''t need saving? Open your eyes, What do you think would have happened if Ross gave the artifact to the Gisel senate? They will control the undead army outside, wage war against the other kingdoms, and thousands of people will die, lose their families, and end up being ves to the rich. If you by any chance thought of any of them as innocent, you''re the most naive person in the world" Logan stared at the dead bodies around them. Deep down, he knew no one here is innocent.
"One day you''ll realize that the good guys aren''t enough to save the world "
Michael activated the Lightning Dash, appearing in front of Logan within a snap of time. Logan felt like he was hit by a big log in the face before everything turned dark.
He could have easily killed Logan like the others but his instincts told him not to. Somehow Michael believed Logan would be a loyal subordinate in the future. After knocking Logan down, his gaze turned to H who was staring at him with a pale face. Jonah was still unconscious.
"What about you H? Do you wanna serve me or die?"
Sparks of lightning danced around his fingers. Looking at the lightning sparks, H shivered.
"I¡ I''ll serve you, my lord" This was the first time Michael saw overwhelming fear in H''s face. Even when they were facing deadly odds, he never lost the courage yet the fear toxin and the power he disyed broke H''s couragepletely. Michael was d of H''s choice because people like him are easier to keep on the leash rather than people like Ross who chose death rather than bending his knees.
"What''s your real name?" Michael floated slowly towards H,
"Hei...Heinberg, my...lord" He stuttered without looking him in the eyes.
"Are you willing to be my subordinate Heinberg?" Michael doubted the system would ept him as a subordinate because Heinberg was basically forced to swear his loyalty. It was either bending his knees or death and Heinberg chose to bend the knee.
"Yes...Yes, my lord" He quickly sat in front of him on one knee swearing his loyalty.
[Warning. The target cannot be forced to be the host''s subordinate]
[The system rmends a different way to make the target swears his loyalty towards the host]
Just as he expected, the system threw him a couple of warning messages. Previously when he was recruiting someone to be his subordinate, he used a stick and carrot method except now where he only gave them the stick, not the carrot.
"He doesn''t need to be registered with you system"? He ignored the system''s messages. In the Southern Continent, he was like a god. He doubted Heinberg would be stupid enough to betray him. If Michael wanted, he could destroy the Gisel kingdom or any kingdom in the Southern Continent in a couple of days. If he brought Nightmare with him and he was able to use his dragon breath, it''d only take a day to destroy any kingdom.
"Rise, Heinberg" Somehow Michael felt like movie viins, speaking these words through the voice modtor.
Heinberg swallowed a mouthful of saliva before slowly standing up. He was loyal to the senate leader Caius but not enough to die for him. Caius always used him to do his dirty works, the only reason Heinberg world for him was Caius paid him handsomely. It was under Caius''s order he came here to retrieve the artifact, Ross knew this. However, what Ross didn''t know was his secondary objective. Heinberg was to capture one of the alpha undeads. After what happened to Ross''s wife, the Senate dropped the idea of experimenting with the undeads. They felt like it was a far greater risk than they were initially thinking. Besides, except for Ross, no one was willing to venture into this ind and capture an alpha undead.
"Tell me Heinberg, why did you bring Jonah with you?"
This was a question Michael wanted to know the answer for.
"He...he''s here to help me capture one of the alpha undeads, my lord" Heinberg didn''t dare to hide the truth from him.
"Capture an alpha undead? Under whose orders?" Michael had a hard time believing that an entire senate would be utterly stupid enough to experiment on an alpha undead that possessed the intelligence of a human and abilities of a superhuman.
"Senator Caius''s orders, he''s one of the senate leaders and Jonah is his son"
Michael frowned, staring at the unconscious Jonah. No loving father would send their child to this hell unless that father didn''t give a damn about his child.
"Senator Caius huh? I''ll meet him soon"? Caius seemed like an interesting person who would either prove useful to Michael or die.
"Dark Queen, have you finished the task?" Heinberg had no idea who he was talking to. While he was staring at David, he felt the hall tremble. Heinberg looked over his shoulder to see another figure in the dark appear. In a blink of an eye, the figure appeared beside David. Heinberg felt a chill running through his spine when he saw the figure who just appeared and what she brought with her.
Looking at the armor itself, Heinberg could tell it was a girl. She was also wearing the exact same armor as David but she didn''t radiate ck smoke around her or had crimson red eyes rather she looked normalpared to him.
The girl didn''t freak him out but it was the three figures who were standing behind the girl that made him shiver. Although the girl covered their faces with ck cloth, Heinberg could tell looking at their skinless body that stinks to high heaven, alpha undeads. She was controlling them through the chain attached to their cors like dogs. The alpha undead rattled the chains violently yet they could never escape. Heinberg took several steps back when one of the alpha undead reached its hand out to scratch him.
"Dr will have a time of his life with them," Michael said while Gaya stared at Heinberg and the dead bodies around them. Because of the mask, she was wearing, Michael couldn''t tell the shock and surprise in her eyes. It was obvious the reason for her shock was his sudden transformation yet Heinberg''s existence before they prevented her from questioning him about his new powers.
"No alpha undeads in the forest, if anymore of them is here, they would be among the army outside"
Michael nodded. The three alpha undeads would be enough for Dr or him to experiment. He knew the artifact is the reason for alpha undeads yet he wanted to know more about this new kind of undead. However, unlike Caius, he was not going to bring the undeads to the dark forest but nning to bring Dr to the Southern Continent.
"Did you get it?" her curiosity got the better of her as she asked him about the artifact. She gawked around to see it but she couldn''t find anything except dead bodies and weapons.
Heinberg too wanted to see what kind of artifact they sent them to get. Michael tapped his chest,
"It''s here, we''ll talk about it on the ship"
Gaya nodded, controlling her curiosity.
"Heinberg wake tie him up with this"
Michael threw ropes at Heinberk looking at Jonah. He still hasn''t found out what to do with Jonha but it was unnecessary to kill Jonah until he knew more about Jonah''s ability. Heinberg stared at Logan, asking what to do with them wordlessly.
"Tie him up too"
Heinberg wondered why he didn''t kill Logan. The person in front of him obviously wasn''t much of a kind-hearted guy. Otherwise, he wouldn''t have killed Ross and everyone in cold blood. Heinberg couldn''t help but question why he spared Logan. One thing was sure for Heinberg, he was nning something with the big guy. After Heinberg stepped back to tie Jonah and Logan up, Gaya began to stare at Michael from top to bottom. The ck smoke kinda looked scary to her. Plus, the crimson eyes made him look like some kind of an evil god.
"Awesome, teach me the tricks too" She whispered. Her eyes sparkled behind the mask.
[Artifact is ready to open]
[The system rmends the host send Heinberg away before opening the artifact]
A smile emerged on his face as the time to see the artifact had finallye.
Chapter 258 - Big Surprise I
Because of the system''s warning, Michael reluctantly decided to wait before opening the artifact.
"What are we gonna do with those bodies?" While Heinberg was tieing up Jonah and Logan, she asked about the dead bodies.
"We''ll give them a proper burial, they deserve it" He was not a monster to let the bodies rot or throw the bodies to the undead army outside.
"What do you think about this ce?" Michael asked Gaya. It wasn''t anything fancy, just a gigantic empty hall surrounded by old walls.
"If you think about making this ce our base in the Southern Continent, I have no objection. In fact, I was thinking the same. The pyramid has nature''s protection like the rainforest and the ocean surrounding the ind. Also, we have an undead army standing outside protecting from well... everything"
She spoke what he had in his mind. Yet he wanted to tell her something,
"This ce was built by the order of the death" Behind her mask, her brows arched up in surprise,
"The same guys who built the Abyssal?"
"Yeah, when I entered this ce first, this building or something talked. It said wee Lord Lucifer"
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure. I haven''t heard the voice after that"
"Well, for dead guys, they''d been pretty helpful for us. First, they gave us the Abyssal and now they had given us this pyramid"
She was pretty happy with the ce. Without using Arch energy, it would be nearly impossible for someone to reach this ce. If they destroyed the rope bridge outside, no one in this world could get inside unless someone could fly to the top of the pyramid and activate the teleporting light. Thinking about the teleporting light, she remembered something else,
"Hey, if they built this ce, they would have left something to control the teleporting light right? What about the artifact take it out, I want to see it"
She shook him by his elbow in curiosity
"Contain your curious snake, we''ll open it when we''re alone" he gave a gentle knock on her head.
As payback, she too gently punched him in the shoulder. Finally, after a few more minutes, Heinberg finished tying Logan and Jonah. He dragged the two of them to Michael. Logan''s face was swollen on the ce where he received Michael''s punch. Jonah on the other hand received no punches yet hepletely lost his consciousness simply due to the overwhelming fear stimted by the fear toxin he inhaled. With the bodies tied up, he still had one more thing to take care of. He flew towards the wall in front of him as he heard the system''s voice in his head,
[Does the host wish to mark this ce for runic teleportation?]
"Yep,"? A golden L symbol appeared on the wall before disappearing out of sight. Now that he had taken care of the teleportation, he came back to Heinberg
"Heinberg, hold onto them" He barely understood his words before he saw David raise his hand. Suddenly he was lifted by an invisible force. His body jerked but he was able to bnce himself by holding onto the unconscious bodies of Jonah and Logan. Heinberg looked over his shoulder while being lifted into the air to see the dead bodies also being lifted into the air.
"I''m flying," Heinberg mumbled. This was the first time he had experienced something like this. When they reached the top, the light appeared from the very top of the pyramid. Like before, the light enveloped them. The light disappeared as they appeared on the rope bridge. The sunlight haspletely disappeared but the moon provided gentle yet beautiful light along with sparkling stars. For a few moments, Michael just stared at the moonlit sky as it soothed his soul. The sky had millions of stars, sparkling in various colors. The distant milky ways added extra charm to the dark blue sky. In his focus on the sky, he overlooked the Silent Reaper docked in the sea in the distance.
"Where''s the east?"
"This world, it''s beautiful isn''t it?" he asked, still staring at the sky. It wasn''t as he had never seen such sights back on earth, it''s that something about this world that made even simple sights artistic and divine.
"Yes, my lord" the sight really made him agree with David wholeheartedly.
Previously he heard some people who traveled on flying ships boast about views. At that time, he simply thought they were boasting about their flying ship trip though now, experiencing the view himself, he realized they weren''t just bragging but telling the truth.
Heinberg pointed in the opposite direction to where they came from. Soon, Heinberg began to float again in the air. He went higher and higher as he was able to see a ck ship. The sails of the ship were up, meaning the ship was docked. He felt pity for the group who''sing for the artifact or the glory of killing the undeads. However, even from a distance, Heinberg could tell the ship wasn''t just a merchant ship, it looked like a warship.
"The world will be more beautiful when we rule it"
His heart skipped a beat after the girl spoke these words. If someone had spoken the same words, he would haveughed it off but these two could really bring down the entire Southern continent in a few days as far as he knew.
"That''s the n" he nodded before continuing his journey towards the east where the Silent Reaper is waiting for them. They flew above the army of undead and the ocean of trees beforending on a small mountain peak. From the peak, they could clearly see the ocean and the Silent Reaper. A small portion of the cliff was barren without any trees and he chose this ce to be their graves.
"Bury them here"? He quickly entered the system store to buy a shovel and two knock-out potions.
"Fear not, there aren''t any undeads near you" he threw the shovel at Heinberg as he took off from the cliff with Gaya, leaving Heinberg with the dead bodies while he took Jonah and Logan with him.
"I can see the point in sparing the big guy but why did you spare him?" she asked poking Jonah in the face.No matter how many times she poked him, he still didn''t wake up.
"Sometimes, brains can be just as useful as brawns. Let''s make this guy work with Dr. That way if Dr were to die, we''ll have another expert in undeads"
She was genuinely surprised at his words,
"You think Dr would betray us?"
Since the system went haywire when he tried to recruit Dr as his subordinate, Michael knew something was up with Dr. Hence, he put surveince cameras in Dr''s room to monitor him. Even to this day, Michael was keeping an eye on Dr. There was no denying Dr''s talent in summoning and controlling Netherels. If he was to face Guardians and probably the nine great ns, he knew he would have to use the Netherels at some point. If Jonah could learn everything there is to learn about summoning Netherels, Michael could dispose of Dr without worrying about losing the NEtherels. Of course, if Dr remained loyal to him, he wouldn''t kill the orc.
While flying towards the Silent Reaper docked in the sea, he flicked his wrist as two syringes and a vial of sparkling sky blue potion appeared in his hand. Gaya saw him filling the syringes with the potion she had never seen before. Michael soon injected each syringe into Jonah and Logan to make sure they dont wake up at least for another twelve hours as the syringes contained a powerful knockout agent. This potion would be useless against cultivators so he never bothered to brew and sell them in the majestic. Since the southerners weren''t cultivators, he could knock out anyone with this potion.
Under the moonlight, Shorty was having a peaceful walk with his good old friend called rum. The others were long gone to their beds except him. He was bored out of his mind for thest couple of weeks, he wanted to go out in the sea, plunder merchant ships.
"I hope the new captain will let us plunder as before. I mean, how could we call ourselves pirates if we don''t do any pirating? On the other hand, if the new captain wants, he could use magic to make any kingdom give what we want, is that really pirating? Huh, I''m talking to myself again!" Short pped himself. Heid on the wooden floor, looking at the moon.
"It doesn''t hurt to get yourself some rest heh Shorty" Again he spoke to himself.
"Isn''t this past your bedtime Shorty?" Shorty tripped the rum bottle he kept beside him in fear. His body jerked as he jumped up to see two figures flying towards him.
"What in the hell?" Shorty rubbed his eyes. For a second, he thought he was dreaming. The sudden fear removed the rum''s effects, his blurry vision soon cleared up to reveal the figure of Dark Queen.
"Dark...Dark Queen" No matter how many times he had seen her, she still freaked him out with her ck armor and magic. Shorty recognized her but he couldn''t recognize Michael because Shorty never saw him in his Lucifer armor.
"Lock them in a cell"
Michael was not in the mood to stay and chat with his crew. He just threw Jonah and Logan on the floor. Then, he willed the system to teleport him and Gaya back to the pyramid.
**************************************
What''s your guess about the artifact? what will it be? Let me give you a clue, it''s badass!!!!! and oh, I already gave you a clue in one of the previous chapters? the clue is in chapter 248
Chapter 259 - Big Surprise II
They both appeared inside the hall once again. The light emitted from the walls around them was enough to see the hall clearly.
"Come on, show me"
"System" he willed the system to hand him over the artifact from the system storage. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity. A small light emerged above his hand before transforming itself into a silver oval-shaped object. Although from the outside it looked like an ordinary thing, she could feel an immense amount of energy pulsating from within.
"Is that an egg?" she reached out to touch the artifact in his hand. The thing in his hand wasn''t what he expected. At first, it was a ck orb and now it just changed its color to silver.
Crack!
Just as Gaya''s hand touched the surface of the thing, cracks began to form on its surface.
"It is an egg" Michael confirmed his suspicion, sensing a heartbeat from the thing.
"Ah!"
Suddenly Gaya squealed. He was stunned by her sudden unexpected reaction. Before he could ask her why he too felt intense pain all over his body. It felt like his soul itself screaming in pain for a second. The pain quickly vanished as he saw a tiny head rising from the egg. Soon, another tiny head rose from the egg. They were stunned to see two tiny heads but to their surprise, another head rose. Under their bewildered gazes, the tiny beastpletely broke out of the shell. Another shock hit their core as they were not three beasts but the three heads shared one body.
The hand-sized beast shockingly resembled a beast on earth. Not a real living beast but a beast he saw in movies, King Ghidorah. The only different factor was the color of its scales and the eyes. Each head was covered in different color scales. The head in the center had shiny cloud silver scales while one head in the right had pure white scales and the left one had ck scales. The head in the center stared at Michael and Gaya with its rather round eyes that somewhat made the beast look cute.
"Give me something to eat, jerk"? the white head spoke in a feminine voice to break them out from their daze. The white head sounded like the child version of Gaya.
"Huh?" she was too stunned to get back at the white head.
"They are in a trauma state because this might be the first time they have seen our kind. I cannot find any references to our species in their memories" Michael saw the silver head speak in a calm voice. The ckhead however remained silent. it stared at the hall like it was surveying the surrounding.
"System, what kind of beast is this?"
[It''s one of the rarest beings in the universe, a three-headed hydra. The systemcks the necessary information to find how the three-headed hydra egg ended up in this world but the egg has been in a hibernation state for over three thousand years]
"Over three thousand years? Wow"
[The system also found that the three-headed hydra emits the same frequency of energy that has been sucking the Arch energy in the Southern Continent hence the void area]
"Do you think there might be another Hydra sleeping beneath the Southern Continent?"
[Yes the system has already informed the host about the extraterrestrial being consuming the Arch energy. Now it seems like the extraterrestrial being is a Hydra]
He remembered the system''s words. It also warned him not to go search for the being until he reached the Immortal Stage.
"Jerk? No, the word is bitch, yeah bitch...Give me something to eat bitch" the white head knarred its teeth at Gaya. She finally came back to her senses.
"Who do you calling bitch, you tiny fuck, I will rip your head off" she flicked the hydra''s white head.
"Please stop" the silver head pleaded with both of them but the white head already moved itself to take a bite out of her hand. Fortunately, the neck was not long enough for the white head to get to her hand.
"You don''t seem like a normal human in your memories" the ckhead finally opened its mouth, questioning Michael.
"Did you read our memories?"
Michael creased his brows. If the Hydra read his memories, it would know about his previous life on earth. This was too early to trust this beast with his previous life. Until now, only Gaya knew about his origin and he would like to keep it that way.
Luckily ckhead hydra shook its head,
"We didn''t read your memoirs but learned the necessary information and skills such as thenguage, the species in this world, etc"
"System?" He called out the system to check whether it''s true or not.
[The system reassures the host that the hydra cannot read one''s memories. It could only absorb certain knowledge from the being it first touches after its hatches. In this case, the hydra touched both you and Gaya, so it absorbed the knowledge necessary for its survival from your brains and also...]
The system''s voice trailed away,
"There''s always something else with you system, I''m not even surprised" he mentally prepared himself to hear what the system''s going to say next.
[A hatchling hydra would usually get its knowledge from another hydra, most of the time from its mother. However, if the hatchling hydra touched another species, on top of the necessary knowledge, it would also inherit the personality of the being it touched]
"Let me guess, the hydra inherited both mine and Gaya''s personalities"
[huh...kinda] If he could move his body while he was interacting with the system, he would have rubbed his temples. Everything wasplex when it came to him. He learned to me himself rather than the system.
"Hit me with it"
[Each head inherited each of your personalities]
"Wait a minute, there are three heads and there''s only two of us" He interrupted the system
[The white head as you may have noticed inherited Gaya''s personality. The ckhead inherited the personality of yourself on earth. The silver head inherited Abras''s personality]
"Huh?" the system confused Michael. Nothing seemed out of ce from the system''s previous exnation when it came to Gaya and the white head. He couldn''t help wondering how the hell did the silver head inherited Abras''s personality when he was not even alive.
[Trust me host, you can''t and won''tprehend the process of hydra inheritance] the system sounded somewhat overbearing when it spoke these words like it was an all-knowing person and Michael was a stupid kid
"Then simplify it system"
He tried to remain calm despite the system''s attitude,
[Well, hmm] the system went silent for a few seconds before speaking again,
[The hydra inherits the personality from the soul of the being it first touched right?]
"Yes"
[if the hydra had touched Gaya only, the hydra would have inherited only her personality as she has only one soul. But the host happens to have a split soul, one part Abras, one part you. Therefore, when it touched both of you, the inheritance process resulted in the hydra inheriting the personality of Gaya, Abras, and you. Now the three heads are the best and/or worst versions of yourselves]
Michael uttered no words but let everything sink in silence.
[What are you so upset about host? You''re extremely lucky to get your hands on a hydra. So quit whining and take the world by storm]
For better or worse, the system lightened his mood.
"Can I make the hydra my pet? Or a subordinate?"
[Yes, you can for a price]
"What price? I didn''t pay you when Nightmare became my familiar"
[because it''s a dragon and the one in your hand is a Hydra, not to mention of the powerful beings in the entire universe]
He sighed in his heart. After spending his time with the system, he had learned there''s no point in arguing with the system when ites to badass points. Hence, he decided to shut up and pay the price to make the Hydra his familiar, just like Nightmare.
"Are you gonna tell me the price or not?"
[9,999 badass points only] he wanted to p the system silly when he heard it shamelessly talked like a salesperson.
"Why don''t you round up and take 10,000?"
[Cool, will do]
"Wait, what? Fuck" it was toote for him to regret as he saw 10,000 badass points getting reduced, making his total number of badass points to 64,000.
Looking at the number, he could tell it was gradually increasing because of the sect. Since the legend of the Sunrise sect had been growing, the number of badass points he receives per month increased significantly.
For now, he had other things to worry about than the number of badass points.
He came out of the system to see Gaya and the white head looking at each other menacingly while the silver head tried to snuff out the anger fire with them. Looking at the three heads, the system''s words made more sense to him. The white head was Gaya, hungry, bad-mouthing, and ill-tempered. The silver head, Abras, kind honest loving personality. Finally the ckhead, cunning, intelligent, shrewd. Looking at the ck head''s eyes felt like he was looking at himself in the mirror. The ckhead was the Ghost before his soul merged with Abras. Among the three heads, the ckhead, it''s was the deadliest, just by looking at its eyes, Michael could tell. After all, it inherited his personality.
Chapter 260 - Two Hydras
"How long are we here? We don''t see any information regarding our species in your memories, that means we''re either extinct in this world or we came from somewhere else, another world" the ckhead was spot on. The other two heads immediately turned their gazes towards the ckhead after they heard its words.
"As far as I know, three thousand years"
"How can you tell?" The silver head which inherited Abras''s personality asked Michael.
"Can we really trust this three-headed beast? Or are these three beasts in one body? I''m confused"
"Oh I have a question too," the white head said,
"Why don''t you shut up? ouch!"Michael flicked the white head before Gaya started a fight with it again.
"I swear to gods i''m gonna crush this little shit"
The ckhead moved towards the white head, headbutting the white head to make it shut up.
"You''re hitting yourself, you idiot" the white head rebuked after getting headbutted by the ckhead. Regardless that they were just born, they began to fight like siblings.
Michael waited for them to finish fighting between them while Gaya came to his side.
"Let the man speak" the silver head broke off the fight by putting its head in between them. After a few seconds, all three heads turned towards Michael.
"Your species are called Hydra. I don''t know where you came from but the ckhead is right, you''re not a creature of this world"
"Then how did we end up here?" the silver head asked,
"My guess is three thousand years ago, an organization called the Order of the Death found you and built this pyramid to keep you safe"
"Safe from what?" the white head knarred its teeth. The silver head looked worried while the ckhead did not show any changes on its face, it remained calm and collected.
"Probably from the Guardians"
"Do you know about the Guardians?" Michael asked the hydra.
"No," said the white head.
"Then we have a lot to talk about but first, you three should know the situation you''re in" the hydra may have been born just a couple of minutes ago, but after a few interactions with it, Michael could tell it has the mental capacity of a full-grown human already. Even Nightmare wasn''t as intelligent as the Hydra when Michael took him in.
"The organization that saved you is no more but their enemies, Guardians. Now, they are one of the most powerful organizations in this world. Anything remotely rted to the Order of the Death is considered evil by them. So on top of you guys are extraterrestrial, your history with the order is enough for the Guardians to hunt you down and kill you, that''s the best case"
"You hear that? That''s the best case" Gaya devilishly chuckled looking at the white head,
"Now tell them the worst case"
"The worst case is three spend your lives in some torture room where they would do all kinds of experiments on you. You have three heads, so use your imagination"
He stopped talking for a moment to let everything sink into them. It was logical for them not to trust himpletely. However, Michael had his ways to make all three heads trust him.
"Lucky for you guys, we share the same enemy, the Guardians and you three happen to inherit our personalities"
"Wait what?" Hisst words wiped off the smile on Gaya''s face.
"Haven''t you noticed? The white head inherited your personality"
"Are you kidding?" both Gaya and the white head asked him at the same time.
Meanwhile, the ckhead and the silver head stared at each other before turning their gazes at Michael. First, they wondered whether what he said about the white head inheriting Gaya''s personality was true or not. Secondly, if what he said was true, they wondered who among the two of them inherited Michael''s personality.
"I want to ask how you know this but I''m not gonna do that. Like always, I''ll just trust you"
"Let me guess, you''re not gonna tell us how you know about us when there are no other species of our kind in your world" The ckhead saw Michael nod.
"It''s not important how I know. What''s important is, you three are connected to us"
For a few seconds, the ckhead and the silver head focused their gazes on Michael. The white head however locked in a staring contest with Gaya. Times like these made him question Gaya''s maturity level. It was like her inner child is still alive and well. First, he saw her bicker with Nightmare constantly, and now, she locked horns with the white head.
"If what you''re saying is true, who inherited your personality, you or him?"
"Both. you don''t have topletely believe me. We''re gonna suspend some quality time together and you''lle to realize the truth behind my words"? The two heads looked at Gaya and the Whitehead.
Michael then took out the artifact he got from Nightcrawler,
"Do you recognize this? Or know anything about it? This is what led us to you" Finally the white head took its gaze away from Gaya. The three heads moved towards the artifact, studying the artifact.
"Hey, I can sense some familiarity with this"
"Me too"
The Silver head and the white head whispered to each other.
"Are we gonna trust these humans?"
Michael or Gaya couldn''t hear them as the hydra''s voice was way below the frequency of the human hearing range.
"You see another way? We were just born and we still don''t have enough information about this world to survive. He was right about one thing, this world doesn''t have another one of us, so it''s likely that someone would try to capture and experiment on us" the ckhead spoke as the silver head nodded in agreement.
"They seem okay and trustworthy to me. After all, if it wasn''t for them, we wouldn''t even have been born"
"So what do we do?" the white head asked the other two. The silver head turned its gaze towards the ckhead.
"We have to be with them until we know more about everything"
The three of them agreed with a nod. Until they learn everything there is to know about their species and this world, they decided to live with Michael.
After deciding, they looked back at the artifact in front of them again.
"One of my kind" suddenly the three of them heard a voice inside their head.
"Good¡.very good" the three of them felt an intense pain inside their heads. They tried to shake the pain away but every single word the voice uttered increased the pain they were feeling.
Michael sensed the artifact in his hand slightly tremble. A couple of seconds after he felt the tremble, the three heads began to bang their heads with each other in pain.
"Something''s happening"
Gaya quickly yet gently took the hydra from Michael''s palm.
[The system has found another hydra trying to establish a telepathic connection with the three heads!]
[The system rmends the host destroy the artifact immediately!]
"Ah!"
"Get...out...of...our...heads!" the tiny hydra screamed. This time they heard its scream loud and clear. He tried to crush the artifact but no matter how hard he tried, he simplycked the strength to crush it.
"Death Range" the surroundings immediately darkened, almost pitch ck. Gaya could see the literal fire in his eyes burning brighter and brighter.
Crack!
The artifact produced a cracking sound under his crush. Soon, more cracks formed on its surface. He couldn''t know the exact extent of his power inside the death range after absorbing the First energy radiated from the hydra egg. Yet, he could feel his raw strength at least multiplied by three times.
Finally, Michael crushed the artifact into pieces. But the moment he destroyed the artifact, a monstrous shout echoed through the empty halls.
"How dare you!"
The entire pyramid trembled violently as dust and stone pieces from the ceiling began to fall down. Large cracks formed in the walls as well as the ground beneath them. For a moment, they thought the floor was gonna split open. It was a frickin earthquake on the level of Richter 9.
Quickly Michael and Gaya flew upwards to escape the pyramid. They didn''t want the pyramid to fall on their heads. Soon, the light surrounded them to teleport them outside.
When they came outside, they sawrge cracks running through the outer walls of the pyramid. The hibernating undead army had long awoken by the earthquake. The ground cracked open in several areas as many undeads fell into the cracks.
"No no no" Micahel was afraid of the pyramid crumbling down into dust. He just found a perfect base in the Southern Continent, he would hate for it to be destroyed before he could even use it for a single day.
"Are you guys alright?" Gaya asked the hydra in her hand. The three heads slowly rose up.
"Here take this, you''ll feel better"
"What is...it?"
The silver head ignored the ck head''s quest as it already opened its tiny mouth wide open to let her pour the healing potion into its mouth. Fortunately, after a few minutes, the earthquake stopped and everything remained as it was except for the several cracks on the ground surrounding the pyramid and on its surface itself.
ckhead and Whitehead felt their pain ease up after the Silver head drank the potion. They were able to take a few deep breaths after the earthquake stopped.
"It seems you guys already made another enemy"
He said, looking at the three heads,
"That might another hostile hydra"
Chapter 261 - Leaving The Undead Island
After the earthquake, they didn''t return to the pyramid but flew back to the cliff where they left Heinberg to bury the others. On his way to the cliff, Michael saw a few broken trees, cracksrge enough to get noticed from high altitude as well as flocks of birds flying out of the forest. He was hoping Heiberg survived the earthquake because Heinberg was the doorway to dominate his first target, the Kingdom of Gisel.
"So what did you say the name of this ind?"
"Undead ind. You should stay away from these nasty little fuckers"
It was weird enough to see her keeping the hydra closer to her chest like the hydra was her baby and now, she began to advise them.
"Is she nning to keep it as her pet?" he couldn''t help questioning himself.
He wouldn''t mind if she wants to keep the hydra as her familiar. Everything she has was his and everything he has was hers. He never thought Nightmare solely belonged to him and he would never be jealous if she bonded with the Hydra more than him.
Gradually Michael slowed his flying speed until he came to a stop in the mid-air.
"Why did you stop?"
Michael turned back to look at the tiny hydra in her hand. The three heads gawked at him, having no idea what he was going to say next.
"Do you think we should reveal their existence or keep it a secret?"
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''te to a solid decision. Keeping the hydra''s existence a secret will probably be safer for them until they could figure out their powers but hiding the hydra''s existence would prevent him from earning more badass points.
[Why would you hide the hydra from the world? show off, host]
The one who answered Michael was not Gaya but the system itself.
"No one likes a show-off System"
[Unless what they''re showing off is dope as fuck]
"Fuck that''s true"
"Let''s hide them when we are on the Elon continent. Here, we don''t need to hide them "
"I think we should keep our heads low" the ckhead voted for hiding from the world.
"Fuck that,im not gonna do anything. If you want to keep your ugly head down, go ahead, no one''s stopping you" the white head however disagreed with the ckhead, leaving the Silver head to break the tie.
The silver head gawked at between Gaya and Michael before finally fixing its eyes on Michael. For a few seconds, Michael pondered about the issue in his mind. Taking a deep breath, Michael made his decision
"We''ll do as she says"
Obviously, they couldn''t show the Hydra around in the cultivation continents like Elon because there were so many powerful figures who could kill Michael in a blink of an eye. However, in the Southern Continent, he was basically a god-like existence so he had no need to worry about Hydra''s safety.
"System, do the same thing you did to Nightmare"
[It would cost the host another 6000 badass points]
"Don''t act like you''re not happy about it System"? He said in his mind, cing his hand on the three heads.
"What''re you doing?" the white head chewed his palm yet Michael just ignored it.
Soon a light emerged from his hand, enveloping Hydra''s tiny body.
She was familiar with this sight as she saw him do the same to Nightmare.
"I miss that ugly lizard" When she saw the scene, her mind reminded her of Nightmare. She never thought she would miss seeing Nightmare every morning when she wakes up. No matter what she did, the dragon would always end up between them on the bed.
She wondered what he was doing back home. Ever since a couple of weeks ago, she was having nightmares about someone calling for her. When she told Michael about her feelings, he said there''s nothing to worry about.
Of course, she didn''t know Michael was checking the system to see Nightmare status. To this day, he didn''t think someone would murder Jack.
[Where does the host want the system to teleport the Hydra?]
"No, teleport them inside the pyramid. That''s safer"
The light soon disappeared from their sight,
"What was that?" the ckhead asked,
"When you''re in danger, the rune I ced on you will teleport back inside the pyramid"
"That''s wonderful, right guys?"? the Silver head grinned,
"It does sound cool" finally the three of them agreed on something.
The ckhead had its doubts but for now, it knew there''s no use in questioning him. As far as the ckhead considered, they needed to depend on the two humans to survive in this world.
"Alright let''s go" he turned back, continuing to fly towards the cliff. It took them only a couple of minutes before returning back to the cliff where they left Heinberg.
Under the moonlight, Heinberg was standing in the middle of the graves he dug. He was pretty shaken up by the earthquake, Michael could clearly see the fear in his eyes.
"So you''re still here" She wasn''tpletely sure that Heinberg would remain here instead of taking a chance to escape.? She would rather have one subordinate with a functional brain than hundreds of stupid subordinates. Heinberg was not stupid enough to escape through the forest that was filled with dangers lurking everywhere.
When Heiberg saw the three-headed creature in his hand, the fear in his eyes got reced by surprise and shock. He wondered whether the beast came out of the orb or not. No matter what, Heinberg knew there''s no chance in hell that anyone in the Southern Continent could take the artifact from these two.
"Let''s go" Michael waved his hand as Heinberg began to rise from the ground. As a sign of respect, Michael stared at their graves for a few seconds before leaving them in the cliff to their endless slumber.
"Rest in peace"
****************************************
Under the glistening moonlight, the Silent Reaper was floating on the ocean calmly. The ck warship looked more beautiful under the moonlight. The ship itself was calm but not the crew members waiting for their captain.
When Michael finally returned to the Silent Reaper, the entire crew were waiting for them on the deck, they seemed agitated. At first, they were pretty creeped out about Michael''s appearance with all the armor, the fiery eyes and the ck smoke cloud be around him. Seeing the pirates'' tensed up bodies, Gaya removed her mask,
"What''re you looking at? it''s us" Michael, Gaya, and Heinbergnded on the deck above the captain''s cabin. He found Gibson gawking at him with fear in his eyes as the rest of them. Realizing he should go stand by his captain''s side, Gibson came to Michael''s side slightly limping.
Gibson shuddered, looking at Michael''s new form,
"How''re our guests doing?"
"They''re still...unconscious Lord Lucifer" Heinberg saw enough pirates in his life to recognize the people in front of him as pirates. They reeked of rum and ocean.
He recognized their profession but not the ship itself. He rummaged through his memories but he had never seen this ship before, not in real life or in military scrolls. Michael willed the ck smoke to disappear. In a couple of seconds, the smoke and the fire in his eyes disappeared. He had no need for the pirates to be afraid of him than they already were.
"I assume we have a guest room in this ship"
"Yes, we have a bunch, Lord Lucifer"
Michael nodded. The first thing after he finished grasping the extent of his new powers, he wanted to take a tour around the ship to know itsyouts, strengths, and weaknesses. Plus, he was nning to do some upgrades to the ship, mainly to its weaponry. Although he couldn''t do any major weapon upgrades with his current Inventor trait, he could still improve the existing cannons to do more damage.
Since this was his first ship and he had taken a liking to the Silent Reaper, he would make this ship his home on the ocean as well as the most powerful ship in this entire world.
"Shorty, show him our guest room" Michael ordered Shorty who was standing in the front of the crowd.
"Aye aye Cap''n Lord Lucifer"
"Make yourself at home, we''ll depart to Gisel in the morning"
"Yes, Lord Lucifer" Heinberg bowed, addressing him the way the pirates did. It was obvious David was not his real name and he preferred to go by Lord Lucifer, so Heinberg adapted to this new situation. After all, if the unruly pirates epted him as their captain, he knew he made the right choice by bending his knees unlike Ross or the others.
"You guys can rest as well. We''ll go to Gisel in the morning" He yet again reminded the pirates before turning to look at Gibson,
"I''ll be in my room if you need me" Michael walked towards the captain''s deck with Gaya, leaving the pirates. The hydra didn''t like the way the pirates looked at them.. Yet, it remained silent in Gaya''s hand.
Chapter 262 - The Disgusting Condition Of The Silent Reaper
Although it had been some time, he never spent time in the captain''s cabin. After walking down the stairs from the upper deck, he came before the captain''s cabin.
Krkkr!
The doorknob creaked, letting him know about its old age. As he opened the door, he was weed by ackluster room. Like the doorknob itself, the room looked ancient. There was no dust or cobwebs could be seen in the room as the pirates cleaned the room recently. The slow-burning candle on the oak table in the middle illuminated the room. The room was neither too big nor small, it was nearly the size of a master bedroom.
Except for the white silk cushion on the room''s corner, everything had a worn outlook to them. He thought Gaya would have redecorated the room. When he looked over his shoulder at Gaya, she just shrugged.
"I was busy doing chores for you"
For a few seconds, he scanned everything in the room. There were two old 6ft tall books racks on either side of the room. He never expected a pirate captain to read books though. Near the book racks, one could see small bronze statues of nakeddies, covering their breasts with their hands. The room reeked of rum. For a person who never drank alcohol in his life, he would never spend a day in this room.
On the top of the book racks, he noticed more bronze statues as well as some old feather hats. Apart from these things, there was nothing in the room.
"Gibson"
It only took Gibson a couple of seconds toe to his side,
"Except that cushion and the table" he pointed at the silk cushion he bought from and presented to Gaya,
"I want everything out"
"My lord, everything?" Gibson creased his bushy brows,
"Yes everything"
Michael stepped outside the room while Gibson signaled the pirates to follow him into the room.
"Why throw everything out?" The silver head of the hydra meekly asked Gaya,
"Did you see that room? It''s not fit for a king and queen"
"I want my own ce to sleep" the white head promptly said while the ckhead remained uttering no words.
"Also tell them to clean the room, I want it spotless"
He didn''t think he could get rid of the smell without using a potion orpletely water wash. Since using a potion to clean the room was way easier than cleaning the room with water, he thought of a potion to do so.
"Show me the crew quarters"
Initially, Michael wanted to know more about his newfound powers. However, after seeing the condition of his cabin, he changed his mind. If the captain''s cabin was in that condition, he couldn''t even imagine what a horrible nightmare would be in the crew quarters.
"Lord Lucifer" Gibson dragged his voice, hesitating to step towards him.
"It can''t be that bad" Gaya avoided venturing into the crew quarters or anywhere in the ship to the matter.
"Come on Gibson, let go"? the door for the below deck was located a couple of meters in front of the mainsail pole. Michael let Gibson walk forward while he and Gaya followed him behind. The closer he got to the door, the more cold sweats appeared on his face. He was afraid of what the captain would do after seeing the mess downstairs.
Creak!
Creak!
Creak!
Every step he stepped on made a loud annoying creaking noise. It wasn''t a big surprise considering the ship''s age and the curse that condemned the ship to stay at sea forever or until they broke the curse.
There was barely any light in the downstairs,
"Just a moment, Lord Lucifer" Gibson ran his hands through every corner of his shirt to find a match to light thentern hanging on the wall.
"Don''t bother"? Michael snapped his fingers as an orb of green mes appeared above his hand. The green light illuminated the room clearly. Before him was a small pathway leading to the other end of the ship. Either side of the pathway was filled with wooden barrels and a couple of bunk beds. The below deck reeked of rum ten times more than the captain''s cabin.
He was taken aback by the number of barrels lying around. The pirates clearly didn''t bother to stack the barrels. He saw at least fifty wooden barrels before him.
"What''s in those barrels?"
Although he had a feeling that those barrels are full of rum, he still asked Gibson because he couldn''tpletelye to terms with his crew wasting gold on this much rum.
"Huh...it''s...rum, Lord Lucifer"
"I want to know how much you bastards spending on buying rum tomorrow at the earliest"
What they spent their gold on was not his business still he gave a damn about it because how could the pirates follow his orders if they were drunk to their throats. He didn''t want mindless drunks to be his crew.
He continued to venture forward with his alchemy mes lighting the way. The sight remained constant as everywhere he turned, he saw nothing but wood barrels. The barrels were taking so much space that could be used to store useful items such as gunpowder, alchemy ingredients, and rations.
"You guys ever eat or survive on only rum?" Gibson scratched the back of his head in shame. Ever since Lucifer ordered him to stop drinking and start drinking the potion, he hadn''t drunk a single drop of rum. However, the rest of the pirates began to drink more than usual in the joy of escaping the curse.
Half of the pirates spent half of their cut in buying barrels of rum. The other half spent all their gold on the rum. The pirate cove ran out of rum as they had to order a new batch just for them. Gibson knew this would eventuallye to the captain''s eyes but he never thought the day woulde this soon.
"This is worse than I thought"? they barely had enough space to walk.
After crossing countless barrels, they came before a in wooden door. Instead of opening the door, Gibson stood in front of him, hesitating to open it.
"Will this get any worse? Don''t answer me" Gaya shook her head as Michael sent a wave of wind that pushed open the door.
The moment the door opened, his nose was overwhelmed by the smell of puke and rum.
"Eww"
The three heads buried themselves in Gaya''s hand, covering their noses. If a public toilet that hadn''t been cleaned for years and a sewer had a baby, it would smell way better than what he was smelling now. He thought he had a high tolerance for stink but today, he was proven wrong.
The sheets covering the bed were turned brown from white. Obviously, the pirates didn''t wash them for decades.
"I''ll give all you batards a day to clean the fuck out of my ship"
Michael didn''t even bother to brew potions but bought detergents and chemicals from the system. Gibson saw hundreds of small bottles filling the area behind him. They all had colorfulbels, he never saw these things before in his life.
Usually, people would mix the detergents and these chemicals with water to clean the ce. However, after witnessing the ship''s condition as well as the stinking from every corner, he bought enough chemicals to wash the entire ship without the need of mixing them with water.
After giving them to Gibson, he turned back to leave. He really didn''t think he could venture into the ship any further without throwing up. If he had known the ship''s condition before, he would have let Heinberg stay on the upper deck instead of giving him the guest room. He wondered what might be the condition of the guest room.
"I pity our prisoners," Gaya chuckled.
"I don''t even want to look at the prison" Michael walked back to the upper deck without turning his back. He watched enough horrible things for one day.
When he reached the upper deck, the pirates were dragging the book racks out of the room. They almost took everything out of the room,
"Captain, where do we put these?" Shorty came running to Michael, with a proud smile on his face. His face shone like he managed to do something incredible.
"Put them on my head" Michael twisted Shorty''s ears. He directed his frustration on poor Shorty.
"Ahhhh, Cap...Lord...Ahhhh"
The other pirates stopped what they were doing and began tough at Shorty.
"Stopughing you fucking idiots. I just saw the mess you''ve been making in my ship"
The smile instantly disappeared from their faces when they heard him. They began to shudder thinking he would throw away the rum barrels just like the things in his room.
"Get the fuck out of my sight and clean the mess downstairs"? Michael wasted no time after saying this as heunched himself into the air with Gaya.
After seeing everything, he lost interest in decorating his room. How could he decorate his room while the rest of his ship smell and look like shit?
"I take it back, I want to stay as far as I can from that ship," the white head said. It didn''t bother to hide the disgust from showing in its voice.
For a few moments, he just hovered in the air, looking at his ship below until Gaya broke his focus.
"Are you gonna keep staring at the ship or show me your new powers?"
*****************************************
As usual, this is thest filler chapter( kinda a calm before the storm chappy). After all, hereon, the chapters will be filled with action, gore and BLOOOOOOODDDDD!!!!!
Chapter 263 - Unleashing The Dark Lord鈥檚 Powers
"Meanwhile let''s see what you can do now" floating in the mid-air, she spoke in a challenging manner. She wanted to see the fiery eyes and the smoke was just a disy or have any powers hidden within. Before he use his powers again, he willed the system to show his current status,
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 8
Experience Points: 5000/400000
Badass Points: 43000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 3
Responsive Shield - LVL 4
Environment Scanning - LVL 3
Ignitia - LVL 3
Lightning Dash - LVL 3
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 90% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 59% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 87% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
Wealth: 13,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 98%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 32%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 18%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 83%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Silent Reaper
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
"Whoa, how did my skill level go up?" His heart almost skipped a beat when he saw his status. The first thing he saw was his skill levels. They were raised by one level without him paying badass points to upgrade.
[The host should thank the system for converting the excess First energy you absorbed from the Hydra egg and upgrading the skills]
The system sounded extremely boastful but underneath its boastful voice, he sensed a hint of joy. He wondered why though.
"The eyes of darkness and cloud of darkness has Lucifer in brackets-"
[You can only use them in your Lucifer persona] before even he could finish his thoughts, the system answered, interrupting him.
[And yes, the system counts the entire crew of the Silent Reaper as one entity]
Yet again, the system took the liberty to answer the question he never asked but only thought.
[And no, until you name your hydra, it won''t show up under familiars]
"Are you trying to piss me off system?"
[hehehe]
Thest thing he heard was the system chuckling before getting kicked out of the system menu. After getting kicked out of the system by the fourth time, he didn''t feel as mad as he felt the first time.
Besides, he was curious to use his powers once again. Michael closed his eyes for a second, activating the cloud of darkness and the eyes of darkness. Casting those spells felt easy as breathing. Soon, Gaya saw the ck smoke enveloping him. Through the ck smoke, she saw his eyes that were literally on fire, a dark crimson red fire.
Looking into his eyes, her body slightly trembled in fear. The fear was faint yet it was there. She shook her head to break the fear in her heart.
"Is that all you got?"? she stretched her hands like she was exhausted waiting for him to show his powers.
"I don''t want to hurt your snakey ass, that''s all"
"Yeah you wish, Golden Barrier" Gaya flicked her wrist as a faint golden light enveloped her. The golden light might be faint but Michael could sense an immense amount of power thanks to his eyes of darkness. The spell she cast was very simr to his own spell, Responsive Shield, which could now stop the attacks of anyone under the Core Formation stage.
"Pretty awesome huh? This is one of the many Legendary spells I possess"
"Interesting" Michael knew this must be a legendary spell after sensing the power it radiated.
"This spell will grow stronger with my cultivation level. Currently, no one under the Core Strengthening stage could break the shield. Also, it will stun the attacker for a few seconds, giving me time to cleave his or her head off"
"Let me give it a shot"
She saw the dark smoke and the fire in his eyes vanish into thin air.
First, Michael wanted to test the strength of his powers in his normal form before transforming into his Dark Lord Form, Lucifer.
"Lightning Dash"? He closed the distance between them in a blink of an eye. Gaya was extremely surprised by his speed. Every time he uses the Lightning Dash, she could see his figure but right at this moment, she only saw a blur in the ce where he was just a second ago.
Just like Gaya, the hydra was also able to see only the after image. When he got close enough to Gaya, she punched the shield as strong as he could without using only his raw strength.
Boom!
The moment his fist connected with the shield, a loud booming sound reverberated through the open air.
"Why are they fighting?"
"Captain!"
"Sea gods bless me"
"Whoa!"
The pirates who were watching them shouted when they saw Michael flinging away from Gaya like a kite in the storm. His body only came to a stop from fifty meters away from Gaya.
His right hand hurt like hell as he looked down to see bones sticking out of his fist while blood oozed through the wounds. Despite the APD injecting healing potion into his bloodstream, he experienced excruciating pain in his right arm.
Yet on his face, one could not see an expression of someone who''s going through immense pain. On the contrary, his lips curled upwards.
"Are you alright?!"
"Of course he''s not you idiot, look at his arm"
The white head replied after Gaya shouted at Michael. The silver head showed a look of concern in its eyes. Unlike these two, the ckhead calmly watched Michael, noticing his arm recovering at an inhuman speed.
Although she knew the bacsh wouldn''t do much harm to him, looking at his arm bleed hurt her heart. Soon, she heaved a sigh of relief inside after she noticed his arm getting back to its normal shape.
"I''m not impressed!"? she shouted again to rile him up.
"I haven''t even started yet, Death Range" the area around him turned darker. He could feel his strength doubling up but he still didn''t take his full Lucifer form.
"Lightning Dash" yet again, he activated his speed spell to get closer to Gaya. The pirates watching him from the ship only saw a dark trail. Before they could blink an eye, he reached Gaya.
"Did you notice that? His speed almost doubled" the white head whispered to the other two heads.
Boom!
Wasting no time, he took another shot at the golden barrier. This time when his fist met the barrier, a couple of tiny cracks appeared in the barrier where he punched. The bacsh again sent Michael flinging away but not as bad as before. He came to a stop after twenty meters.
There was a deep shock in her eyes, noticing the cracks in the shield. This was not supposed to happen, no one except a Core Strengthening stage cultivator could damage the shield yet he managed to do just that.
"Why am I not surprised? he''s my better half for a reason" the shock in her eyes gradually got reced by pride and excitement. Plus, she was with him long enough to know that there''s nothing impossible when ites to him.
"Don''t say you''re impressed with that little show" Michael snickered.
"What if we can do all that magicky shit?"
"The fuck we can, I still have no clue how our captain and the dark queen using magic inside the void line"
"We are lucky to be his crew. Gibson said the captain is nning to take over the continent, just imagine how much gold we earn doing nothing if the captain managed to do that"
"Go captain!"
"HEY!!!"
The pirates began to cheer in excitement from the ship. Ignoring their cheers, he closed his eyes to take his full Lucifer form AKA the Dark Lord form. The ck cloud enveloped him while his eyes began to emit crimson red fire. His newfound skill let him cast spells without uttering a word. Thanks to that skill, he just had to think about Death Range as the area around him grew darker and darker. The area around him was almost pitch ck, even the sparkling moonlight couldn''t shine inside his Death Range.
To this moment, he had zero clues on how the hydra egg was able to make him stronger and unlock his Dark Lord powers. He knew eventually he would get all the answers from the system. Until then, he was d to unleash the powers within him because in this world where the strong prey on the weak, growing stronger is all that mattered to him.
Until now, he was like an antpared to his enemies. That would change from this moment as from now on, his enemies would witness what the Dark Lord is capable of.
"Whoa"
Gaya was taken aback by surprise when he suddenly appeared before her. She was waiting for him to cast the speed spell but she heard no words escaping his mouth before he appeared in front of her.
"Back away!" the ckhead shouted at Gaya, sensing the uing danger. But it was toote as Michael''s fist already connected with the golden barrier.
Boom!
This time, the barrier shattered into millions of golden dots. He stayed in the same spot except this time, the shock wave produced by the sh sent Gaya flinging away. Due to the force, she dropped the hydra in her hand before flying away
"Fuck!" the white head screamed but Michael quickly caught the hydra in his hand.
Chapter 264 - Time To Do Some Avenging
He caught the Hydra on his way to Gaya. She was throwing up blood because of the bacsh of the sh between Michael''s fist and the golden barrier. Fortunately, she had her APD filled with a 90% pure healing potion to heal her organs immediately. Otherwise, she would have suffered more than just coughing up blood.
"Impressed now?" Michael wrapped his arm around her shoulder with a gentle smile on his face. He himself never expected his power to reach the Core Strengthening stage in hisplete Lucifer form. Apparently, after activating the cloud of darkness and the eyes of darkness, he could fight head to head with a Core Strengthening stage warrior and even defeat them.
Even without taking his full Lucifer form, no one in the Core Formation stage could inflict a wound on him let alone defeat him. By breaking Gaya''s golden barrier, he grasped the extent of his current powers except for one thing. Gradually the fire in his eyes and the dark cloud around him disappeared.
"When did you bastard reach the Core Strengthening stage?" she said, spitting out the remaining blood in her mouth.
"I didn''t. It''s just my full Lucifer form temporarily boosting my power to Core Strengthening stage"
After wiping off the blood on the corner of her lips, she gave him a friendly punch in the gut.
"Give them to, you have enough op stuff as it is" she swooped the hydra off of his hand.
"Don''t you think we should name them," Michael asked. If they didn''t name the hydra, the system would keep bitch about it and never ept the hydra as Michael''s familiar.
"I''lle up with perfect names for these little fes" she yfully rubbed each of the hydra''s heads. Except for the Silver head which nudged her hand with love, the white and the ckhead tried to chew her hand with their tiny little teeth.
"Quit chewing my fingers little fuckers" she chuckled. Just by looking at the way she was looking at the hydra, he could tell that she has taken quite a liking to the hydra.? He could imagine these two fighting with Nightmare every single day after they return home.
"Hey look over there"
As they were hovering in the air, the white said, raising its voice. Michael removed his hands from Gaya''s shoulder before noticing three warships moving towards the direction of Ross''s ship.
From the distance, it seemed they were moving in a triangle formation. The ship moving in the front was slightly bigger than the two behind it. The moonlight illuminated their white gs with the symbol of two red swords in ''X shape. All three ships were galleons fully fitted with powerful cannons to do some nasty damage to any hostile ships.
"Are those pirates?" Considering she knew very little about pirates in the southern continent, she didn''t recognize ships by the gs. His crew would have if they were floating higher in the sky with them. The three ships were too far to get noticed by the normal human eyes. Plus, the night made it extremely harder for Michael''s crew to spot the ships on the horizon.
"We should follow them," Gaya said what he just thought in his mind. He wanted to see where the pirates were going in the middle of the night. Somehow he had a feeling that they weren''t sightseeing.
"Before we do that" he began to descend from the sky towards the Silent Reaper. He didn''t want to step on the stinking ship until they clean the heck out of it except now he had to warn them before following the three ships. Otherwise, there might be a chance of some other pirates ambushing the Silent Reaper while he''s away. As much as he hated to admit it, he didn''t think his crew was smart enough to survive an ambush even with a ship like the Silent Reaper. They obviously didn''t understand its full potential or value, otherwise, they would have at least kept her clean enough to be inhabited by normal human beings.
"Captain, that was awesome"
"You toody captain"
"Ow, what in the hell is that beast?"
"Shhh"
They almost forgot the task in the hand in the excitement of seeing Michael unleash his powers.
"Hmm, why am I not seeing a clean ship? I bet something''s wrong with my eyes"
The pirates looked at each other while scratching the back of their heads like clueless chickens. Their silly faces reminded him of the crew of Captain Barbosa in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. He could never get mad enough to break pirate bones.
"Gibson" he enhanced his voice through Arch energy so Gibson cleaning the below decks could hear him.
After a few minutes he called Gibson, he ran to Michael''s side with a couple of pirates. Michael was happy to see them drenched in sweat and covered in soapy bubbles.
"At Least some of you''ve been doing the cleaning" the pirates down below, fortunately, didn''t hear the noises produced by Michael and Gaya testing his powers.
Gibson and the three behind him gawked at their fellow pirates with confused looks on their faces. They stared at the upper deck to see if they''ve done any works but everything is just as they were.
"Follow me to the south side of the ind" He ordered Gibson before taking off from the ship once again. Gibson wanted to ask why but Michael was already far away from a shout reach.
"You heard the captain, man the handle!"
**************************************
Michael and Gaya were keeping a safe distance from the three ships. All three ships had a pirate on the crow''s nest as a lookout. Even though they were flying in the sky above them, there was a chance of the lookout to spot them. First, he wanted to see what the pirates are up to before he approach them.
From the sky, he could see thirty heavy cannons, two mortars, a bunch of smaller cannons on swivel posts at various positions on the top deck on each ship. Plus, each of them had thirty-five crew members on the top deck and he could guess there would be at least another thirty in the lower deck.
In total, he might face almost two hundred pirates as well as ny heavy cannons when or if they decide to pull a pretty stupid move and attack him.
After following them for another fifteen minutes, he saw a familiar shore, the shore he stepped on with Ross and his teammates. Ross''s crew were still waiting for him to return without a clue about what happened to them.
Suddenly he saw the lookouts standing on the crow''s nest whistling. Soon, thenterns lighting the ships were put out by the pirates as they went dark.
"They''re nning an ambush, aren''t they?" the white head asked as Gaya nodded. She looked at Michael to see what they should do next.
"Let''s go a little closer"
Since they put out the lights, he could move in closer without getting detected by the pirates. Not that he was afraid of them, he was just being careful as he always was. Michael silently moved towards the ship leading the formation because if there was an important figure leading the ambush, ny percent of the time, he or she would choose the bigger ship to be.
When he was directly above the ship, he looked down to see a person wearing a huge maroon color hat manning the helm.
"My my" Gaya raised her brows looking at the person at the helm. If not for the deep cleavage, she wouldn''t have guessed that the person is actually a woman. The pirate woman stood at nearly 5ft 8inches tall and she would at least weigh 100kgs. She seemed like she could smother a man between her breasts to death.
"Stop" Michael halted moving forward when the woman looked up at the sky.? The pirate woman had a round face with a softly shaped jaw, a stubby nose,rge ears, smooth cheeks, and big thick lips. Her azure eyes wererge, and she had thick eyebrows. Her dark grey hair, lightly streaked with shades of brown, was short, straight,? styled in decorative cornrows. She wore excessive foundation to hide her blemishes, pinkish lipstick, and pastel eyeliner. Even in the darkness, one could see the red coating on her lips.? Other than the excessive makeup, she had a muscr neck, wide shoulders, big chubby arms, a long torso with veryrge breasts with a defined waist, wide hips, toned legs, and average-sized feet.
She just wore simple clothes, a white full sleeve shirt rolled up to her elbow with a ck vest. Apart from the piercing on her left eyebrow, a couple of gold chains decorated her neck.
What made Michael interested in this woman was not the fact she might be the captain but there were no weapons on her body or anywhere near her.
"Interesting" Michael mumbled. Although she had no weapons, his instincts told him this woman is a dangerous person. Because when she looked up, he saw her eyes, they were the eyes of a killer. She was practically masking the cruelty in her heart from showing up on her face with all the makeup.
"Captain Marina, that''s the ship"
Michael saw a man walking towards the woman, pointing at Ross''s ship.
"Fun time" the woman slowly put a pipe in her mouth as the man quickly lit a match to lit her pipe. The light illuminated the man''s face, revealing his identity to Michael.
"So he brought friends"
"Do you know him?" Gaya asked,
"He was the pirate captain who lost more than half of his crew to me. Now it seems, he has returned to avenge them"
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You know It would be nice if you guys and gals leave ament after reading the chapter. Yourments are what drives me to write more!!!
Chapter 265 - Womano A Mano
"Humph, some fucking pirate captain you are to lose your crew to some snobby northern kid. They are practically naked after crossing the void line"
Marina snickered, showing her disappointment in Packard ''Chameleon'' Crain. His defeat brought great shame to all the other pirate captains serving Pirate Lord Corey ''Witch'' Drachen, one of the three Pirates Lords.
The Pirate Lords controlled most of the southern sea. They practically ruled the ocean as well as the many inds in the sea. The three Pirate Lords hadbined naval power higher than the southern continent kingdoms, hence, the senate avoided crossing them even though the pirates kept plundering many merchant ships.
Each Pirate Lord had several pirate captains serving them. The pirates who don''t serve anyone such as the Silent Reaper were called the rogues. The pirate captain serving a pirate lord was free to plunder the rogues as they wished. If a pirate captain serving a pirate lord attacked another pirate who served another pirate lord, the pirate lords would investigate the attack until they found the wrongdoer. The wrongdoer would then get the punishment called the sinner''s funeral. This was the only time one could see the pirate lords appear together in their ships.
No one got the sinner''s funeral in thest hundred years which showed that the pirates could follow the rules unlike the Southerners believe. One could even say that the pirates had a miniature version of democracy within them.
Just like the sinner''s funeral, no outsider has killed the pirate crew of a pirate lord in many decades until Michael massacred them mercilessly. Which was the reason Marina appeared to avenge the crew under the orders of Pirate Lord Corey. In the hierarchy of pirate captains, Maria stood at the top. She was one of the most feared pirate captains of the Southern sea.
"Captain Marina, he was not normal. How could a normal human being heal himself just like that?"
Pachard had been bbering running his mouth about Michael''s healing ability to everyone on the witch ind. The matter even reached the ears of Corey herself. To see if Packard''s been telling the truth, Corey ordered Marina to capture Michael alive.
"Let''s see if he can heal like you said when I''m done with him " she crunched her knuckles with an evil smile on her face. Something sparkled in her eyes.
"Is this gonna be another disappointment?" Marina asked herself.
They were sailing towards Ross''s ship without an idea of Michael following them from above.
"Remember our task at hand maggots, we want the one called David alive. The rest of them could go to hell"
"Aye aye, captain" the muffled cries of Marina''s pirates reverberated the ship.
The pirates quickly moved towards their posts to start the ambush. The three galleons began to circle Ross''s ship, they were going to nk the ship in a triangle shape.
"Don''t kill them" Michael nced at the two ships in the near distance, telling Gaya to take care of them.
"You sure you don''t want me to kill them? It''s no fun"? she pouted before flying towards the two ships. For a few moments, he just kept hovering over Marina''s ship before slowly descending from the sky.
"Huh? What is that?" The pirate standing on the crow''s nest noticed a ck figure moving towards them. He couldn''t clearly identify the object due to the darkness.
"A ghost?" the pirate''s hands shivered as he slowly reached for thentern hanging on the wooden pole. He wanted to light thentern to see the object in light.
But before he could light thentern, the object got too close to the ship. Since the pirates firmly believe in superstitious things, the first thing that came to his mind is the ghost.
"Ghost!" the pirate screamed until his throat hurt.? Immediately Marina''s gaze turned towards the crow''s nest. The word ghost made the other pirates shudder in fear.
"Intruder!"
When Michaelnded on the deck, they could see that they weren''t dealing with a ghost but another human being.
"Are you looking for me?" they only heard his voice. The night''s darkness prevented them from clearly seeing his face.
But that changed when Michael conjured his green alchemy mes in his hand. The green mes were bright enough to light up the entire ship.
"It''s him!" Packard pointed his finger at Michael, screaming frantically because of the sudden fear he just experienced.
"How...how did he?"
"Fire"
"What kind of fire is that?"
"Where did hee from?"
Many questions were running through their heads after seeing him suddenly appear on the deck before them. Marina left the helm while a pirate in her ship lit antern to signal the other two ships to stop.
"Well well well, I''ll be honest. I have no idea how did you manage toe here but I''d say this, you have some balls"
"Two actually" Marina saw no fear on his face. He leaned on the wooden pole leisurely while the green mes somehow hovered beside him lighting the ship jade green.
Even from standing ten meters away from him, she could feel the heat being emitted by the orb of jade-green fire. Marina slowly walked down the stairs adjusting her shirt.
The pirates slowly reached for their cusses before unsheathing them. Michael still remained calm because no matter how many cusses or crews they have, he could defeat them with a couple of wind sts.
He was curious about what Marina could do. The pirates looked so afraid of her and Michael wanted to know why they are for a woman without any weapons.
"I''ve been hearing some weird things about you kid. It seems some of them might actually be true" Just like Marina saw no fear on Michael''s face, he too saw no fear on her face which surprised Michael.
"I bet that armor of yours will fetch us a nice amount of gold. After all, that''s the least you can do for us for dragging me this far"
"Didn''t he say I literally crushed his crew to death?" a hint of fear emerged in Packard''s eyes when Michael said that. He also noticed some pirates clenching their teeth in anger. He figured that there might be some rtives among the pirates he killed.
"You''re not going to fight them, you''re going to fight me" she crunched her knuckles. He creased his brows because she acted like she wanted him to fight him hand to hand.
She removed her hat, revealing her dark grey hair.
"Stand down maggots. This will be womano a mano"? this time, Michael was stunned by her words. As far as he could tell, she''s either stupid or extremely confident in her fighting ability.
Either way, he decided to agree with the woman''s bizarre decision.
The pirates immediately lowered their weapons as an evil grin appeared on Packard''s face.
"What makes you think you can beat me?" Michael asked, smiling at her.
Boom!
Instead of answering Michael, she just punched the sail pole beside her. Her fist obliterated the wooden pole into blisters as the entire ship trembled.
The sailcloth flew into the water, leaving the ship with one less sail.
Yet again Michael was stunned by this woman. It was impossible for a normal human being to possess such strength unless she''s not normal.
At this moment, his curiosity reached a new peak. He focused his gaze on this woman but as expected, there wasn''t a single trace of Arch energy in her body.
"System, scan her body. I want to know how she managed to destroy the pole with a single punch"
[Two thousand badass points required to scan her]
"Take it"
[It will take fifteen minutes]
"So I have fifteen minutes to y with her"
The pirates moved away to make a space in the middle of the ship.
"He''s dead"
"Here we go, it has been so long since we saw captain beat the shit out of someone"
"I don''t know man, everything about him rubs me in the wrong way"
The pirates began to chit-chat while Michael walked towards the center. The woman snapped her fingers as the pirates lit all thenterns they previously put out.
Michael''s alchemy fires vanished into thin air, surprising many pirates.
"What''s going on there? I''m done with one ship"
"Get it done, I''m gonna y for a while"
"Who''re you talking to?"
"You''ll know soon. Now shall we start?"
Michael cracked his neck waiting for Marina to make her first move. Standing on the opposite side, she moved one leg behind, raising her fist like a boxer.
Whoosh!
The very next moment, she dashed at him with extreme speed. He slightly moved his body, evading her fist. Although he evaded her punch, her speed stunned him. For a big woman, she was very agile and fast.
With a swift twist, she turned her body before throwing a punch at him again. This time Michael didn''t evade her punch but raised his palm.
Boom!
The moment Michael''s palm and her big fist shed, it produced a loud booming sound. The force of the sh sent both of them sliding backward.
Michael''s hand felt numb after stopping her punch. For a moment, his brain thought he was being hit by a raging bull.
"You''re still in one piece" she sounded surprised.
"That''s all you got" Michael wanted to see the full extent of her strength so he riled her up. If Southerners could not cultivate, how was she this strong? That was the question running in his mind.
She dashed forward again but this time, she was rapidly throwing punches and kicks at him. If it was before he learned the new fighting technique from Gaya and trained himself like hell, Marina might havended some blows to him. Since that was not the case anymore, he evaded and dodged every single punch and kick of Marina. He felt like dancing with her while the other pirates stared at them in utter shock. As time went by, their fighting area expanded to the entire ship.
"AHHHHHHH!" she began to scream like an enraged beast as Michael felt her strength growing exponentially.
"Good, let it all out"
Chapter 266 - A Descendent Of The Order
Even after she went berserk, Marina was unable to hit him at least once.
While dodging and evading her punches, the two of them reached the ship''s front corner. Seeing him cornered, she grinned,
"Let''s end this little dance, shall we?"
Michael decided to end this little fight after sessfully gauging her strength.
"Death Range" He knew he couldn''t defeat her with just his raw strength. Hence, he cast the Death Range to enhance his strength. The moment he used the spell, the entire ship grew darker regardless of thentern lights.
Marina''s eyes went wide as she realized that he just used magic. The overwhelming joy and shock prevented her muscles from moving.
Boom!
Michael punched her right in the abdomen with enough force to send her flying from one end of the ship to another. She literally traveled in the air, breaking all the poles in the ship before hitting the wall beside the captain''s cabin door.
"Captain!"
"Captain Marina!"
The crew members and Packard screamed. Their bodies shuddered in shock as they stared at Marina''s body with wide eyes.
"Dark...Dark...Lord" the words barely escaped her mouth. Despite the blood flowing out of her mouth, she was smiling. Her eyes contained a tint of delight.
The others might haven''t heard the words she spoke but Michael did. Itpletely took him by surprise. He was about to take a step forward when he noticed something glowing on her chest.
[The system has finished scanning]
[The system has found a radioactive medallion on her chest. It doesn''t harm her body as a radioactive material would do on earth but this medallion strengthens her body from the molecr level]
He didn''t need help finding the medallion.it was glowing in bright jade color on her chest. Locking his eyes on the medallion, he activated the lightning dash to reach her in a blink of an eye.
"Captain!"
"Wind st"
The pirates rushed at Michael when he reached Maria as they thought he''s going to kill her. They tried to protect Maria but the wind st sted some of them into the water while the others to every corner of the ship.
He squatted down before Marina to take a closer look at the medallion.
The medallion on her neck was the size of a coin. There was no etching or designs could be seen on the surface except for one letter, L. First, he used it to spread the name of Lucifer by leaving an L mark on the crime scenes, then he realized the order of the death has been using the symbol way before he was even born as the symbol was everywhere in the Abyssal and now, he saw the same symbol once again on the medallion.
"Dark Lord...it''s...you"
"Where did you get this?"
She tried to answer yet the pain in her abdomen prevented her from speaking. He willed the system to give him a healing potion from the system storage.
"Drink this" Michael poured the healing potion into her mouth, not gently though as he needed answers quicker. Almost half of the potion trickled out of her mouth. Considering the potion was 90% pure, her pain began to dissipate in a few seconds. She started to breathe as normal. Soon, she pulled herself up to kneel before him.
Michael stood up, trying not to show the confusion in his heart on his face.
"Order of the Death, Dark Lord. This medallion had been passed onto us from our ancestors"
"Your ancestors served the order?" she still kept her head lower without looking directly into his eyes.
"Yes, Dark Lord. We''ve been waiting for you to lead us. We never stopped searching for you, if I hadn''t found you, my kin would have continued the search"
He was pretty confused about the sudden turn of events. Thest thing he expected was to find a descendent of someone who served the Order of the Death, the same order that apparently worshipped him as a god.
"Dark Lord, please take this. My father said this will prove our loyalty to you"
She presented him with the medallion after snatching it from her neck.
He took the medallion from her hand expecting some kind of change in the coin but on the contrary, he never felt anything except the coin glowed brighter in his hand. Michael willed the system to create an invisible barrier around them for 1000 badass points so none would hear their conversation.
"I, Maxine Kane, swear my loyalty to our god, the Dark Lord. From this day onwards, I''m yours tomand"
[Does the host wish to ept Maxine Kane as your subordinate?]
The system prompted him when he finished taking her oath.
"Yes"
He wanted to check her loyalty level. Although he never sensed any treachery vibe from her, he still wanted to make sure this wasn''t a trap created by those pesky old guardians.
Subordinate: Maxine Kane
Cultivation Level: Arch Sensing Stage level 2 (Cannot cast spells due to geological restrictions)
Race: Human
Status: Healthy
Trait: Warrior
Loyalty towards the host: 95%
"It is true"
There was no better proof than the system''s loyalty meter to prove Maxine''s loyalty to him. Her loyalty also showed him that what she said about her ancestors is also true. If he could, he really wanted to meet those people who worshipped him as god and searched for him for thousands of years. He wondered what made them devote themselves to him.
"Serve me well Maxine" he ced his hands on her shoulders, helping her stand up. Her eyes brimmed with joy as tears of joy already began to flow out.? She looked at him as a devotee would look like her god. He could tell that if he asked her to kill herself, she would without a second thought.
The pirates on the other hand were confused as hell witnessing their captain bending her knee to Michael. After getting sted by Michael, no one dared to utter a word and make a move. The question of how he used magic made the pirates feel dizzy.
"How long have you been searching for me?"
"Ever since I was old enough to walk, Dark Lord. My father always said that the Dark Lord will lead this world to a better age"
"Your father is correct. Where is he now?"
The smile on her face gradually faded away,
"He died of old age, Dark Lord"
He sighed inside. If the old man was still alive, he could have answered some of his questions about the order and their secrets. Still, Michael was d that he found another loyal subordinate.
"Do you know anyone else from the order?"
If Maxine, a descendent of the order was alive and still loyal to him, he wanted to see if there are more descendants like her.
"No, Dark Lord. My father said after the Supreme guardian destroyed the order, only a few survived and escaped. ording to my father, those who escaped went dark"
"It was the right decision. Otherwise, the guardians would have found them and finished what they started. However, if you''re here, we cannot say for sure there are no other descendants alive. The only question is, do they know who they are?"
Even if he were to find them, he wouldn''t force the descendants to serve him if they were unwilling. After all, he wasn''t a ve master and those descendants weren''t his ves. However, if there was a chance that those descendants were still searching for him like Maxine, he had to find them.
He would rather have a few loyal subordinates than a bunch of unloyal powerful people as his subordinates. Although Maxine would not stand a chance against cultivators, he had the system to change that.
If he couldn''t make a southerner powerful enough to face a cultivator, he wouldn''t havee to the Southern continent as there was no point in building an army that could be destroyed by a couple of cultivators.
"I assume your father told you that you cannot serve two lords"
"You''re the only one I serve, Dark Lord. I was using Pirate Lord Corey''s resources to locate you"
"Did you search for me in the other continents too?"
Yet again she shook her head,
"We believed that only the Dark Lord could break the cultivation restriction and use magic inside the void line. My father always said it''d be easier to find you here than in any other continent"
"Your father sounds like a great man" Michael genuinely praised her father. If they were to search for him anywhere but here, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. It was a different story in the Southern Continent as her father believed, he was the only one who could use and make others use Arch energy inside the void line.
"I would like to meet Pirate Lord Corey"
"It''d be my honor to take you to Corey with me, Dark Lord. I just hope we didn''t damage the ship too much" she scratched the back of her head with an embarrassed look on her face.
"It''s okay, we''ll use my ship" she looked around to see any new ships,
"Gibson, you cane out" Michael talked with Gibson through the earpiece. She was confused, wondering who he was talking to. Soon, Maxine felt a tremble under her feet as the sea around them rippled violently.
Whoosh!
Her eyes almost bulged out when a ship emerged from the sea suddenly before their eyes. Compared to the Silent Reaper, Maxine''s ship looked tiny. The ship''s look itself intimidated the pirates. Michael slowly ascended to the air.
"Meet my ship the Silent Reaper, Maxine"
Chapter 267 - A Delicate Balance
"And don''t call me Dark Lord, this is not the right time to take my mantle. Just call me Lord Lucifer" hovering in the mid-air, Michael ordered Maxine.
"Yes, Lord Lucifer '''' he didn''t fly directly to the Silent Reaper but stared at the shivering pirates on the deck. Packard''s legs kept trembling, all of his senses were overwhelmed by pure fear.
"Are they loyal to you or Corey?"
"I give you my word Lord Lucifer, they are loyal to me, no one else" without a second thought, Maxine vouched for the pirates.
"Except him I presume" he nced at Packard. As expected, Maxine nodded because Packard was not a pirate serving her but another pirate captain who served Corey.
"Kill him"
"As you wish, Lord Lucifer"
"No...no¡.Don''t kill me...Don''t"
Maxine''s gaze sent a chill running through Packard''s spine. He started to shiver frantically while walking backward. He kept walking until he tripped on a piece of wood.
"You should be proud to give your life to Lord Lucifer Packard. ept your death with dignity"
The pirates surrounded Packard, restricting him from retreating any further.
Michael calmly watched the scene without interfering. He wanted topare Maxine with the native citizens of the Southern Continent.
"Look, something''s going over there"
"Who is that fatty?"
"Shhh, do you want the captain to get more pissed off at us?"
"Why isn''t the captain making any moves? And where is the Dark Queen?"
Michael''s crew began to chit-chat looking down at Maxine''s ship. They were afraid of Michael noticing them as they still haven''t cleaned the ship yet. Still, they couldn''t stop themselves from watching the entertainment.
"I hope you shitheads are sightseeing after cleaning the ship spotless" the Silent Reaper crew felt a chill when they suddenly heard Dark Queen''s voiceing from behind. They slowly turned back to see her floating in the air above the captain''s cabin.
"Heya worms, how''s it going?" Shorty came out of the captain''s cabin with a bucket in his hand. He had no idea Gaya was floating above his head,
"I have a great idea, we should keep the door open, submerge into the sea and emerge again. Tada! captain''s cabin cleaned" Shortyughed. The other pirates rolled their eyeballs up to signal Shorty yet their efforts were in vain.
"Great fucking idea, remind me to drown you next time to make you stink less"
"What the?" Shorty''s eyes went wide as he slowly turned back to see her floating in the air.
"Hee" he let out an embarrassed smile.
"NOOOOOOO!"
Boom!
Suddenly a screaming noise reverberated in the area followed by a loud booming sound. Gaya moved forward while the pirates turned back again.
"What happened here?" the white head asked, looking at the broken poles as well as the broken wooden pieces lying on the ship''s deck before them. Along with the destroyed objects, they noticed a headless body lying in a pool of blood.
"Who is she?'' Gaya saw a chubby woman standing in front of the headless body, wiping the blood off of her fist with her shirt. Maxine''s pirates were too focused on Packard''s body as they almost failed to notice Gaya floating beside Michael.
"A descendent of the order"
Gaya was genuinely surprised after hearing Michael''s words. She scanned the plump woman from top to bottom,
"Did she have anything to prove herself?"
Instead of exining, he showed Gaya the medallion. With a single nce at the coin, she recognized the symbol.
"Trust me, she''s loyal"
"Why did she kill him?" the silver head looked at the headless body with pity in its eyes. The other two heads however remained indifferent.
"Because you should always kill your enemies, no mercy"
After killing Packard with a single punch, she turned back to see another figure in ck armor floating in the sky. She could tell the person is a female but unlike Lucifer, Maxine was unable to see her face as she wore a mask. Regardless of the mask, Maxine could feel the woman''s gaze on her. Maxine''s instincts told her that this person is just as powerful and dangerous as Lord Lucifer himself.
Her father and his ancestors only told her about the Dark Lord but not a single word about this woman.
"Tell your people toe to Gisel kingdom, we''ll go there in my ship"
Considering the damage Maxine''s ship took from the initial battle between her and Michael, he knew they can''t keep up with the Silent Reaper or the other two ships. Therefore, he ordered Maxine to get aboard his ship.
"You heard Lord Lucifer, fix the ship and move your asses to Gisel"
"Yes...yes captain!"
The next moment, Gaya flicked her wrist as Maxine felt her body be lighter. She was taken aback by surprise looking at her feet moving up from the ground.
"I''m flying," she mumbled. In a few seconds, she reached high enough in the air where the pirates looked smaller. When shended on Michael''s ship, Maxine saw the crew gawking at her curiously, especially a short guy with a bucket.
"Captain, we just need a couple of more hours to clean your cabin" Gibson came to his side drenched in water and soapy bubbles. His white shirt turned brown thanks to the mess he cleaned in lower decks.
"Lord Lucifer, is this THE Silent Reaper? the cursed ship?"
"Yes and not cursed anymore" yet again the Dark Lord made her heart skip a beat. The Silent Reaper was a legend known only for a few people. They all thought the curse was unbreakable yet here she was standing on the Silent Reaper with the Dark Lord. Her devotion towards the Dark Lord reached a new peak. She only wished her father was here to meet the Dark Lord.
While they were on the deck, Michael saw Heinberg stepping out of the lower deck. He made his way towards Michael.
"Good, you''re here. Follow me"
Gaya, Heinberg, and Maxine followed him behind into the captain''s cabin while Shorty preyed that the captain doesn''t get mad at him for doing a half-assed job of cleaning the cabin.
When Michael entered the cabin, it wasn''t as stinky as before and the cabin looked somewhat cleaner. Ignoring the room''s hygiene for a moment, Michael walked towards the oak table in the center.
"Heinberg tell me about Gisel"
************************************
ording to Heinberg, the kingdom of Gisel was a huge country with a poption of almost 25,000 including races other than humans. Bordered between a marsh to the North, a wild sea to the South, a mountain range to the East, and a marsh to the West, the kingdom of Gisel was mainly living off wood-crafting, weaponsmithing, and wine brewing.
Gisel itself was mainly covered in mountains and has a warm climate, which has led to a freely spread poption, despite the number of people, which meant most of them lived in small viges and inds.
The Kingdom''sndscape was delicate; green, open fields, sapphirekes, and mellow rivers were just a sliver of the magnificence Gisel has to offer, which was why the country is cherished among foreigners.
Heinberg told them that the citizens of Gisel, mainly the nobles, were selfish towards foreigners and tended to wee them with irritation. Apparently, they were thinking foreigners could inhibit the country''s well being.
Gisel had moderatews andw enforcement, which was fairly normal. The people were troubled due to the undead ind and they had been asking the senate to do something permanent.
Gisel''s army contained 3,000 soldiers including cavalry armed with bombs, shields, and swords. The infantry was also armed with various types of bombs such as smoke bombs, sh bombs. Other than the cavalry and infantry, Heinberg mentioned that the kingdom has two elite units, archers and spartans. The archers were equipped with various types of arrows as well as different types of bows for different types of situations. This piqued Gaya''s curiosity. She wanted to see what kind of bow they were using.
The spartans on the other hand were highly trained killing machines, ording to Heinberg. The kingdom only had 250 spartans and they would only enter the battlefield as thest resort.
The ranks were also filled with many other regiments, including allied soldiers, as well as ve soldiers, including various charging units, units of war animals, several defensive units, and many medical units.
"What about the naval army? How many warships do they have?"
"10 warships"
"Only ten?" Michael was confused.
"Lord Lucifer, this is because of the agreement between the senates and the pirate lords" seeing Michael''s confused look, Maxine exined,
"The agreement is a short one, to be honest. If a kingdom built more than ten warships, the pirate lords view it as a sign of provocation and sent their fleet to plunder their cities until the kingdom submits"
"So you''re saying the pirate lords can take over any kingdom with its naval power?" Gaya asked,
"No, unless a kingdom gives a reason such as building more than ten warships, the pirate lords don''t interfere with a kingdom''s business. That''s why the kingdoms in the Southern continent leave the pirates alone so they will do the same in return. The merchant ships and some poor bastards are just fish food to keep the shark away from their borders. Besides, some kingdoms have armies powerful enough to take on a pirate lord.No one likes war so there wasn''t one in many decades"
They all agreed with Maxine although Michael could tell the peace between the kingdoms and the pirates was a delicate one.
"There will be one soon," Gaya shrugged, ying with the hydra in her hand.
Chapter 268 - The King鈥檚 Offer
"Alright, the two of you should stay outside for the night" Only Heinberg understood the meaning of his words considering he spent some time in the guest room on the lower deck. Heinberg saw nicer prisons than their guest room. He almost wished he received a knockout drug to lose consciousness like Logan and Jonah.
"Make yourself at home, Maxine"
"I''m home, Lord Lucifer '''' her eyes welled up again. Even Gaya who didn''t have the system to show Maxine''s loyalty level could see the devotion in her eyes.
With Maxine, they took the first step in building a loyal army, a powerful loyal army. After Maxine exited the room Michael looked around at his empty room.. There were still some dust spots, cobwebs, and dirt on the walls as well as the floor, especially on the ces where the book racks and statues were before.
"You know,"? Gaya slowly walked towards him speaking in a husky voice,
"I wanted to show you something" She wrapped her hand around his chest,
he could feel her hot breath near his ear.
"I have a bad feeling about this," the white headined. When Michael turned to face her, they were stuck between them. Luckily for the hydra, Gaya put them on the table beside her before wrapping her both arms around Michael''s neck.
"Why don''t we take your mask off?" he pulled Gaya closer by her waist. His intentions were obvious at this point.
"Hmkm" she gently shook her head, while closing his lips with her fingers.
"Come with me"
She wiggled herself out of his hold. Then she scooped off the hydra from the table before walking towards the door as Michael followed her behind.
When he opened the door, the first person standing outside was Gibson with a couple of pirates behind him.
Maxine was lying on the ship''s far end with the hat covering her face. By the looks of it, she seemed deep in sleep.
"I want my room spotless when Ie back" As he said, he took off from the ship to the sky with Gaya.
"Looking at them fly gives me chills every time" Shorty looked up at them disappearing into the clouds. Until the pirates met Michael, they wished nothing but freedom from the curse. Now after witnessing the cools they did, many including Shorty wanted to be cultivators.
They would have asked them if it wasn''t for Gibson. The old man warned them that if they want to be cultivators, they should first quit drinking like animals. He also said the captain will ask you to quit drinking first before starting training them. For many pirates, quitting drinking was a deal-breaker. But not for Shorty.
*****************************************
"Where are you taking me?" Michael broke his silence after flying higher and higher into the sky.
"Be patient dear" she chuckled. Her focus was on flying higher. She could see the clouds getting closer and closer. While leading Michael to her destination, she failed to notice him slowing down.
"I like the view from here"
Michael''s gaze was fixed on Gaya''s body. The beautiful moon or the sparkling stars didn''t get his attention as much as she got. As far as he was concerned, he would be happier staring at her perfect hourss structure than appreciating nature''s beauty. Since he was too deeply focused on her body, he failed to notice the hydra climbing on her body to reach her shoulders.
"He''s checking out your butt" Not only the white head betrayed him but it also stuck its tongue out to tease him.
"What?!" Gaya immediately turned back to see his eyes were on her instead of the beautiful night sky. When he first told her that he''s liking the view, she really thought he was appreciating the night sky. Only now she realized that he was checking out her instead of enjoying what nature has to offer.
"Hey don''t me me, it was you who chose to fly before me"? he didn''t act like he wasn''t checking her out, instead, he just spoke his mind. After all, they had both epted each other as their better halves.
Staring at each other like they were in a Mexican stand-off, they flew past the clouds which spread across the blue sky like a nket of snow. The moment they flew through the snow like clouds, the vibrant light of the moon drew both their gazes like a ma.
Michael''s jaw almost dropped, looking at the view in front of him. He felt like he was inside a painting. Millions of sparkling stars decorated the bluish sky like gems. The moonlight shone tinum-gold amid the starlight heaven.
Thest couple of weeks were tense, especially to Michael. When he first came to this world, his goal was to use the system to get rich and powerful enough to enjoy his life to the fullest. Never in a million years had he thought someone put him in this world to save it. But he wasn''t going to change into aplete good guy on a savior drug. No matter what, he wouldn''t change his ns of ruling this world from the shadows, getting filthy rich, and living a long long life enjoying everything this world has to offer. The moonlight calmed his mind by making him forget everything for a moment.
"Wow, this is" Even the hydra was at a loss of words in front of mother nature''s beauty.
"Come here" She looked divine in the moonlight. He just pulled her closer before locking his lips with hers. She ran her fingers through his shoulder-length hair, pulling him closer and closer. Right at this moment, he didn''t want anything else other than a lover''s embrace. He savored her lips as well as this moment as much as he could.
"Don''t mind us, we just close our eyes"
***********************************************
Meanwhile back on the Elon continent, six elderly figures were seated around a round table. They looked like they were in theirte exiting or early seventies.
"Have the Guardians or the church found the reason for what happened?" one of the elderly people who was a man asked the others.
"They are still investigating. Apparently, only Elon and Ozer are experiencing this issue"
"My contact in the Guardians said it''s not permanent, that''s good news"
"The tournament is in three weeks and we have yet to find a way to see someone''s cultivation level" an old woman rubbed her temples. The wrinkles on her forehead increased due to recentplications.
"Well until now, you just focus on the Arch energy radiationing from someone to know their cultivation level. Who would have known that something would mask the radiation suddenly?
Not only these old people who were responsible for organizing the two championship tournaments but no one in the world knew that it was Michael who started this mess. When the hostile Hydra became mad, it let out a pulse that was hiding a cultivator''s energy radiation. In other words, the cultivators lost their ability to perceive one''s cultivation level just by looking at them. For anyone living in the Southern Continent, they felt the pulse as an earthquake but for Elon and Ozer, the pulse resulted in more than an earthquake.
"The Guardians are working with the dwarven kingdom and the elven kingdom to design a device that might solve this problem. But since thepetition is in three weeks, we might get just a rushed product"
"At this point, anything would do"
"Let the Guardians and the Church handle it. If they can''t, they should ask the Skyhall. I heard the Guardians has someone whose sister is the Skyhall''s next holy maiden"
"Noah, Noah Winston. It''s a pity that we can''t let guardianspete in the tournament" one of the old men said.
"He has the most potential to win the main tournament" an olddy with golden hair spoke.
"What about the 5-star alchemist of River town?"
"You mean Ghost? You just answered your own question Anon. He''s an alchemist, not a fighter. This is a stage for big-time warriors who have trained themselves inbat arts for years. Honestly, i don''t think he stands a chance"
"I agree with lovely Gilda here. There''s a reason the alchemist guild has a tournament of their own. They are not fighters, they are just book worms "
"Enough of your predictions, let''s talk about the prizes for each championship" another old man stopped their conversation as the old woman called Gilda said,
"About that," Gildra retrieved a parchment tied using a golden ribbon from her space ring before sliding it towards the old man who asked about the prizes.
The old man picked up the parchment, opening it carefully. The others stared at him reading what''s written on the parchment. His old eyes started to get wide. Except for Gildra who had already read the parchment, the others wondered what''s on the parchment that made the old man Morgan react this way,
"Well, what is it?"
The old man put the parchment on the table before him,
"King of Bradia wants to offer Bradford barony to the main championship tournament winner"
Their eyes went wide in surprise. Not even once in the tournament''s history did they offer something such as a barony as a final prize.
"Why in the hell would he do that?" the same old man whomented about the alchemy guild asked,
"Well, there were rumors that Baron Totonk has gone mad after his daughter''s death. This parchment seems to prove the rumors were indeed true. Why else would the King consider giving up the barony to someone else?"
"Yeah, I heard about that, nasty business. I just wish the guardians and the church finds that Lucifer before someone else gets murdered"
"Even if the Baron went mad, what about his sons? The king can make one of Totonk''s sons the next baron"
"Something''s smell fishy indeed, I" the old man who read the parchment frowned. He was old enough to sense there''s a scheme hatchery in the motion here.
Chapter 269 - The Dark Lord Has Arrived In Gisel I
Michael was standing on the helm deck, watching the sunrise at the horizon. The sun bloomed on the horizon, golden petals stretching ever outwards into the rich blue sky above the calm sea. It was the brilliant flower of the sky that warms the days. It was the invitation to a new day, that sunrise so ordinary yet extraordinary. He changed into his usual ck attire including a ck long coat, a ck shirt top two buttons opened to show the chest cut, ck trousers, and ck boots. He still wore the face mask to hide his real face, he''d rather be safe than sorry.
Thest night after spending an hour flying over the clouds, they returned back to the ship to oversee the pirates cleaning the ship. Even after almost 10 full hours of cleaning, the pirates were only able to clean a small portion of the entire ship. He guessed it would take at least three days to clean the ship to his liking.
Since he supplied all the needed items to do the cleaning, he ordered them to clean the ship while he''s spending his time in Gisel. He trusted Maxine would teach them a lesson if his crew tried to ck off.
After sailing on the peaceful sea for another hour, the sunpletely emerged from the horizon, lighting thend in the distance.. The first thing that came to his view was a tall light tower painted in white with red lines at the top and bottom.
The closer they got to the light tower, he could vaguely see the buildings, ship docks as well as merchant ships approaching the shore.
"Kingdom of Gisel," he said under his breath.
"That''s the capital of Gisel, Lord Lucifer" Heinberg came dragging the still unconscious bodies of Logan and Jonah.
"Crilta right?"
Michael remembered the city''s name Heinberg mentioned earlier.
The city of Crilta was built in the shadow of a dormant volcano located in the far north of Crilta. Through the ships docked at the docks and the somewhat tall buildings, he could vaguely see this dormant volcano in the distance. The volcano''s upper parts seemed to have been covered by snow which gave it a unique charm masking the terror hiding within.
The city''s elegance was matched by the backdrop of grand forests which have helped shape the city into what it is today. Considering the volcanic soil contained minerals and various nutrients needed for pasture, the city thrived in farming, wine production and was blessed with grand forests.
The riches the volcano brought were of great importance, but it was also influential when it came to architectural designs as the vast majority of buildings have been built with granite and travertine. In addition to these stones, marble was considered the ultimate epitome of beauty and power by Gisel as well as many other kingdoms. Compared to Elon, the Southern continent kingdoms made the main construction of brick and mortar and lined them with marble bs.
The ck warship immediately received everyone''s attention in the dock area. Michael saw little children pointing their fingers at the ship while their eyes sparkled in amazement. As the Silent Reaper approached the docking area, Gaya came to his side stretching her arms after her morning meditation. Like Michael, she too started to wear full ck clothes. She wore everything the same as him except the small satchel hanging on her waist where the Hydra is sleeping peacefully.
Because Michael lowered a pirate g that had the skull and two swords on it, a group of patrolling soldiers came to the docking area. Michael was not a historian but he watched enough movies to recognize the soldiers as legionaries with one single look. The patrol unit contained twelve soldiers who held long pointy spears in their hands. They wore red knee-length woolen tunics as well as shin guards made out of leather. They didn''t wear boots like the soldiers Michael had seen ever since he came to this world but they wore sandals.
Their torsos were vest shaped armor with round tes covering their shoulders. Each soldier wore a helmet consisting of two ps to protect their cheeks. In addition, the helm curled a little bit to protect the neck.
Only the leading soldier''s helmet was adorned with red plumes arranged in a crescent shape. Their thighs and arms were unprotected though. In simple words, they looked exactly like the legionary soldiers of ancient Rome.
Not only the soldiers, when Michael looked around the buildings, they also looked exactly the same as the buildings he saw in some Rome-rted tv shows and movies. Most of the buildings were two stories painted in white with light orange ovepping roof tiles.
The unavability of the ship g raised suspicion among the soldiers. The soldiers waited for them to leave the ship. Michael turned back to look at Heinberg,
"You sure they won''t ask a question?"
Michael would have put Jonah and Logan into a sack if it wasn''t for Heinberg who told him that he will deal with the soldiers. Until he could get the senators under his control, he decided to keep a low profile. His n was to control the Gisel Kingdom through the senators from the shadows.
However, that didnt mean he would not show his powers at all. On the contrary, he would show his powers in a suitable ce to get the maximum amount of badass points.
As the ship came to a halt, Heinberg put a ck bag on Jonah and Logan''s heads before following Michael and Gaya to the docks. When Michael was walking down the nk, three types of people came into his view. The majority of the three weremoners who wore rather in-looking clothes covering their full bodies. They didn''t wear any sparkling pieces of jewelry or any kind of essories to adorn themselves, only sweat of hard work adorned them. These people were the majority in the docks area. Most of them were unloading wooden boxes from a merchant ship at the docks a bunch of meters away from the Silent Reaper. What was inside the wooden boxes was not Michael''s concern at the moment.
The soldiers remained calm until they saw Heinberg dragging two bodies that had their heads covered by ck bags. Some of the soldiers standing behind the leading soldiers tilted their spears towards Michael as a sign of caution.
"Tell your men to move aside soldier, we are here for official business," Michael noticed Heinberg retrieving a gold ted card the size of a credit card from the inner pocket of his shirt.
This was the first time Michael saw the thing but apparently not the soldier in the front. The moment he saw the card, the soldier''s body tensed. He immediately saluted at Heinberg while his eyes showed a mix of fear and respect.
"Where is Senator Caius?"
"In his manor, Sir. Does the sir want us to escort you?" The soldier almost raised his voice like he was in a cadet walking. After Heinberg showed the gold card, the soldier didn''t even take a second look at the bodies.
"Lord Lucifer" Heinberg looked at Michael, wordlessly asking him to speak further. Michael just nodded as Heinberg gave further orders to the soldiers,
"No one goes to the ship without my say so"
"Yes Sir!"
"Tell them to leave him somewhere safe," Michael said, ncing at Logan.
"Put him somewhere safe and leave him alone"
As per Michael''s order, Heinberg moved Logan''s body towards the soldiers. The onlookers stared at the scene and the Silent Reaper for a few moments before resuming what they were doing. After all these working sses were paid for working, not for gawking.
In front of Michael, there was a straight road paved in greystones leading to the inner city. Either side of the roads had buildings and asional palm-like trees. Dragging Jonah''s body would be a pain and slow down their pace so Heinberg just lifted his body, putting him on his shoulder.
As any typical city would have, he noticed smithery, a couple of bakeries as well as ration stores along the way. In addition to those stores, he was surprised to see many Alchemy ingredient stores and agriculture supplies stores. Given that all the people in the Southern continent required food, there was a higher demand for agriculture supplies than all the other continents.
"Fresh organic eggs!"
"Fruits and vegetables for the cheapest price!"
"Come on lords anddies, take a look at our produce"
It felt like a century since he heard the cries of farmers and smelled the scent of a marketce.
"How much are these?" While walking through the streets, he forgot to turn back until he heard Gaya''s voice. She was at a fruit stall, smelling the reddish mangos on a bucker before a white-bearded old man.
"Ten mangoes for three gold coins"
"Noway, two-"
"Here"
He almost twisted her ears for trying to bargain with the old farmer for one gold coin. It was fortunate they could spend the gold coins of Elon in the Southern Continent as both the continents shared the same currency.
"Stop, let me choose" she interrupted the old farmer and started to pick the mangoes herself.
"What did she say? Oh yeah, don''t focus on the color, squeeze the mango gently and smell the stem end for a fruity aroma"
The old man just stared at Gaya while she took each mango in her hand, squeezing and smelling them.
"Yeah take your sweet time"
"I am taking it"
Shepletely ignored Michael who just rolled his eyes. Seeing the both of them, the old farmer chuckled,
"Wives eh Sir"
Heinberg felt a chill crawling through his spine when he saw the old man casually kidding the two most terrifying people in the whole Southern Continent. He thought the old man was going to die a horrible death but unlike what he expected, Heinberg saw Lucifer justugh with the Oldman while she elbowed Michael gently smiling.
Chapter 270 - The Dark Lord Has Arrived In Gisel II
"I''m really starting to regret giving you money" She had a basket in her hand full of fruits, vegetables, and meat. In her shopping spree, she forgot the one most important thing: she didn''t know how to cook. Because they were walking through the streets full of people, she was unable to put everything in her space ring.
The further they walked into the inner city, the less crowded the streets got. The paved street they were walking on opened up in a three-way junction. In the center of the junction was a beautifully built water fountain. The marble stone coupled with bright blue sparkling water made the fountain truly a majestic structure. In addition to the beautiful fountain, the buildings surrounding were fancier than the buildings near the docks.
These buildings were built using marble stones rather than granite which gave each building a unique charm. Most of the buildings were three stories with green nts hanging from the roof as decoration. Besides the buildings, the people roaming on the streets were fancier too, especially thedies.
They wore golden iid sleeveless tunics and some of them wore colorful sts.. Apart from the fancy sparkling dress, each of them had gold and gem ced pieces of jewelry adore their ears as earrings, neck as chains, and hands as bangles.
"I''m standing right here," Gaya said, gritting her teeth. Looking at him gawking at all thedies began to kindle her jealousy. There were all kinds of hot women walking around the water fountain, redheads, blondes, brtes, and even some green-haireddies.
"Ouch!'' only when he felt a sharp pain in his upper arm, his focus on the women broke.
"Were you checking them out in front of me?"
"I''m not checking them out as you think, it reminds me of something back at home" Since this ce resembled the roman tv shows he watched like Spartacus, he felt some nostalgia.
If it wasn''t the truth, she would have seen it in his eyes and began to growl about him lying to her. She was with him long enough to see that he''s really telling the truth.
"Plus, they''re hot" he teased her to make her mad. Her facial muscles twitched weirdly, making Michael chuckle. She tried to bite him in the shoulder despite the people on the streets. Fortunately, she had a heavy basket in her hand and he was quick enough to restrain her by wrapping his hand around her shoulder. He squeezed her with love mixed with childish yfulness.
Looking at them act this way really made Heinberg wonder what kind of people they are. One moment, he was killing people within a heartbeat, another moment, he was ying with his girlfriend andughing with old men to their jokes.
"Move it dog!"
A fancy-dressed woman''s voice reverberated the area. Michael noticed a man getting pped by the woman.
"ve" only took Michael a single nce at the man to recognize the man as a ve. The man had an X shape burn scar on his left chest. He wore nothing but a small piece of worn-out tunic only covering his privates.
The woman kept beating the man with a stick like he was some kind of animal. The scene gave him major nostalgia because he spent years of his childhood working for arms dealers and drug dealers as a drug mule along with the other kids in the orphanage. They were ves to those criminals which was the reason Michael hated very to the core.
Although he knew he can''t clean the very off of the earth, he killed a fair share of vers in the dark corners of the world. In this world however, he could gain the power topletely wipe off very.
"This is not the time" Gaya knew his hate towards the vers. Except for the existence of the system, he shared everything with her as she did with him. Michael calmed himself with a couple of deep breaths.
"Lead the way" He signaled Heinberg to lead the way as there were two roads across the water fountain. Heinberg nodded before taking the lead.
Michael silently followed him behind while carefully noticing everything around him.
He saw more and more ves along the way. They all shared the same burn mark. He even saw somepletely naked female ves. The nobles who owned them had no sympathy whatsoever for the ves else they would have at least given them a piece of cloth to cover their privates.
"The very is worse than I thought" Gaya felt pity for the ves.
There was no life in the ves'' eyes. They walked behind the nobles like zombies. For the moment, Michael kept walking past them without lifting a finger. After a few more minutes of following Heinberg, an elegant mansion appeared in his view.
From the outside, this mansion looked magnificent. It had been built with marble stones and had blue stone decorations. Small, half-rounded windows added to the overall style of the mansion and had been added to the house in a very asymmetric way.
The building was shaped like a T. The two extensions extended into a covered patio reaching the end of that side of the house.
The second floor was smaller than the first, which created ayered style of look inbination with the roof. This floor had a very different style than the floor below.
The roof was t and covered with brown wood shingles. Tworge chimneys sat at either side of the house. There were no windows on the roof. The mansion itself was surrounded by a gorgeous garden, including hanging grapevines, a couple of lion statues that spit water through its mouth, a pond and many different flowers.
Just like the legionary soldiers he saw at the docks, there were many groups of soldiers patrolling the mansion''s surroundings. On top of the legionaries, he could see many soldiers who wore no armor but only briefs and long red capes.? The long red cape, golden boots, and shield with the symbol v made it pretty obvious to Michael.
"Are those spartans?" still Michael asked just to rify.
"Yes they are, Lord Lucifer"? Unlike the legionaries, the spartans remained closer to the mansion entrance.
"What are you waiting for? Go ahead" Gaya ordered Heinberg. The Spartans were an elite group of soldiers who only answered to the senators. Therefore, Heinberg''s gold card meant nothing to the spartans.
Heinberg showed the gold card to the legionary soldiers while walking towards the mansion as the soldiers saluted at him before moving away from their path.
"Stop" however when they approached the front door, a spartan warrior with dark brown hair and beard stopped them. The spartan had a clear muscle definition. His face was covered by the helm but Michael could see his brows frowning looking at the body on Heinberg''s shoulder. The spartan focused on the body as he didn''t even take a nce at Michael or Gaya.
"Who is it?" The spartan didn''t address Jonah as a body. It was obvious to Michael that the spartan soldier saw enough dead bodies to differentiate a live one from a dead body.
Heinberg turned his gaze towards Michael, waiting for him to open his mouth.
"It''s Senator Caius''s son, Jonah"
"Jonah?!" the spartan soldier let out a surprised shout.
"Why is he unconscious? No matter" the spartan soldier continued before looking at Michael and Gaya from top to bottom.
"Spartans!" the spartan soldier shouted as a couple of more spartans came out of the house.
"Search them before letting them in, I''ll go see Senator Caius" the spartan soldiers went inside as the other soldiers came to search the trio. Michael let the spartan soldier search him without saying anything. After all, both Michael and Gaya had no weapons on them but they kept their weapons in the space ring.
Even though Gaya was a female, the spartan soldier never crossed his line when searching for her. Michael nodded in approval inside looking at their discipline.
"You can''t bring this inside" the spartan soldier pointed at Gaya''s basket.
"And what''s in that satchel?" She could leave the basket outside but there was no way in hell she would show the hydra to the outside world yet. She didn''t even trust Maxine with the Hydra or she would have left the little hydra in the ship.
"It''s Senator Caius''s package" Michael''s words stopped the spartan soldier from touching the satchel and probably ended up dead in her hands.
After hearing what he just said, the spartan soldier gave them a look of doubt but eventually decided not to search the satchel because it''s a crime toy hands on packages such as those of the senators. All the spartan soldiers knew about the secret operations the senators do in the shadows therefore, the soldier kept his hands off of the satchel.
"Follow me and don''t make any sudden moves" the spartan soldier warned them before leading them into the mansion.
"Humph, not a spartan in this county who could stop these two" Heinberg thought to himself. The spartan always acted so high and mighty because they were the strongest and the elite soldiers a kingdom could offer. This made many spartans extremely overbearing. Heinberg couldn''t wait to see the two of them kick some spartan asses and nor could Michael.
Chapter 271 - How To Make Spartans Mad
While following the spartan soldier, he noticed several more spartans guarding the mansion. Apart from the spartans, there were many ve maids cleaning the floors, furniture as well as walls. The mansion''s interior was just as fancy as the outside. The marble floors cleaned by the ves were spotless, reflecting the golden light produced by the miniature chandeliers on the ceiling. The corridor gradually opened up to a spacious hallway where Michael saw several paintings of a man in a toga hanging on the walls. The man looked like a typical roman nobleman with a short haircut.
A few ves cleaning the floors took a peek at Michael but they quickly turned their eyes at the floor before the spartans could notice them.
"Clean it thoroughly lowlives, the rug is worth more than your filthy lives'' '' a legionary soldier shouted at the ves cleaning the floor near a maroon carpet.? The hall was decorated with a ssic roman sofa set with a gold iid tea table as a centerpiece.? The dark brownish sofa set did not match with the white marble floor per se but it gave a unique charm to the hall along with a huge chandelier hanging directly above the tea table.
The spartan soldier threw a nce at Michael and Gaya expecting them to be shocked by the grandness of the mansion yet what he saw in their eyes was nothing but indifference.
.
Soon, the soldier led them towards the curved stairs on the far end of the hall. Heinberg walked forward on the stairs carrying Jonah on his shoulder. His heartbeat began to rise nearing the Senator''s room. To this moment, he had no idea what these two were nning to do with Senator Caius.
After they climbed the stairs, they saw a majestic two-door with golden doorknobs. The door was guarded by two spartan soldiers, one was a normally built soldier while the other looked huge, almost double the size of Logan. The soldier wore full golden metal armor from toe to head, there wasn''t a single ce in his body that wasn''t covered by metal. He was at least seven and a half feet tall with the same size spear in his hand.
"He''s the Giant, Senator Caius''s personal guard"
"Wait inside, Senator Caius will meet you in a few moments" the spartan standing beside the Giant opened up the door.
"You heard him, don''t do anything stupid while you''re inside"
No one apanied the trio inside the room. As far as the spartans concerned, who would be stupid enough to steal something when the Giant standing right outside the door. If they were caught stealing or anything that could harm Senator Caius, the Giant would rip their bodies apart. Even the spartans were afraid of the Giant.
The room they stepped in wasrge yet looked cozy with thick carpet, arge oak table with twofy chairs on the front for the guests while white throne-like sofa for the Senator. There were no windows though which was logical considering no one could assassinate the senate from a distance through the windows.
The walls were full of more paintings except this time, they weren''t the paintings of the Senator but abstract paintings.
"So much money wasted" Michael sighed looking at the paintings. He could tell the senator was a fanatic for paintings by looking at the room. Back on earth, there were rich people who would spend millions of dors on paintings. Michael never understood these people and now he knew the senator was one of them.
The table was empty without any documents or pacers on it. The golden light radiated by the chandelier lightened up the room, He wondered what''s powering up the chandeliers.
"Take the bag off" Michael ordered Heinberg as he removed the ck cloth from Jonah''s head.
"Are you gonna wake him up?" As Gaya asked, Michael lifted Jonah with one hand from Herinberg''s shoulder and put him on the chair in front of the table.
After putting JOnah on the chair, Michael''s gaze turned towards the Senator''s chair. The chair was made of some kind of glossy redwood with gold tes etched on top rails and stiles. The seat and arms were covered in dark maroon cushions to provide extrafort.
Heinberg saw Michael walking towards the Senator''s seat instead of sitting on one of the guest chairs. His heart pounded against his chest with each step he took towards the chair. Gaya followed him behind before hopping onto the table beside the chair.
The spartans outside the door still didn''t notice anything happening inside.
Standing just beside the chair, Michael willed the system to equip the Lucifer armor without the mask and hood. In a blink of an eye, Heinberg saw Lucifer put his armor on. He shivered at the sight of the ck armor.
The sight of them in their armors told him the horror of what was about to happen. Heeinbegr instincts screamed at him. His eyes were locked at the entranceway, expecting the Giant to step in any second. If it was before, Heinberg would have been afraid of the Giant but now, Lucifer and the girl freaked him out more than the Giant. He witnessed how easily Lucifer killed Ross and everyone. After witnessing what a magic spell could do, he really didn''t think even the Giant could stand a chance against Lucifer.
"Good, I was kinda getting bored. '''' Gaya closed her eyes for a second before transforming herself into Dark Queen. Unlike Michael, she put on the ck mask and the hood, making herself mysterious and eerie.
Michael finally seated himself on the senator''s chair, casually putting his legs on the table. He tilted the chair backward which caused creaking noises.
"Uneptable!" Just as Michael expected, the noises drew the spartans'' attention. The moment the two spartans entered the room, the spartan soldier standing beside the Giant shouted at Michael. The Giant however remained silent but Heinberg could feel the cold murderous auraing from the Giant.
"Grrrrrrr!"
The Giant uttered no words but growled menacingly. Heinberg''s body automatically moved towards Michael''s side away from the spartans. He knew the safest ce for him was by Lucifer''s side. However, he prayed to the gods that he won''t be coteral damage in the battle between the spartans and Lucifer.
"It''s rude to keep the guests waiting, my dear spartans" since he didn''t use a voice modtor, he sounded like himself. But what he did and said made the spartans'' blood boil in anger. Soon, several more spartans came running after hearing their fellow spartan''s initial shout.
At the moment, twelve angry spartans stood at the entrance aiming their spears at Michael and Gaya. As usual, Heinberg saw no distress on his face.
"GRRRRRR!" the Giant''s growl got louder as he took a step towards Michael. Each of his steps made the room tremble.
"What''s going on here?" The Giant halted his steps when they all heard a sudden voice. The spartans moved aside as Michael saw the old man in the paintings standing at the entrance with the spartan soldier they met before.
"What in the hell?" the spartan soldier reacted the same as the others.
"Senator Caius" Heinberg called out to the Senator to draw his attention.
"I don''t know who you are but you just made a big mistake"
However, Senator Caius was still looking at Michael. Although the senator looked calm, Michael could see the killing intent in his eyes. If gaze could kill one, he would have died by now. The senator walked towards him while the spartans surrounded the room, waiting for the senator to give the killing order.
The senator stopped by the Giant''s side. He nced at the Giant, wordlessly telling him to wait for his order.
"H, I have some questions for you. But before you answer them, you better exin to these two the crimes theymitted against the kingdom" Senator Caius could see that they have probably returned from the undead indpleting the task but what Michael did was a crime against him.
To this moment, Caius didn''t see Jonah''s face because he was facing Jonah''s back, not his face front.
"He doesn''t take orders from you anymore, Caius" Michael calmly said.
"GRRRRR!" the giant growled more after hearing Michael address Caius by his name. Addressing a Senator by his name before others was a crime and considered insolence against the kingdom itself. Therefore, the Spartans became enraged.
"Why don''t you take a seat beside your son?" Michael pointed at Jonah as Caius''s eyes went wide in shock. He slowly moved towards Jonah before looking at his face. Instead of acting happy to see his son, Senator Caius creased his frowns while scanning the room for someone.
"How did he? Where is Ross?" Finally the senator asked for Ross.
"Did you really think they would survive on that ind the second time?"
Michael''s words stunned the senator. For the first time, the anger in his old eyes faded away while a hint of panic emerged in his eyes.
"I offered him the chance to live. All he had to do was swear his loyalty to me"
"You? You killed him?" the senator gritted his teeth,
"I don''t believe it, you couldn''t have killed Ross in a million years. He''s a spartan captain" the spartan soldier yelled at Michael. To the spartans, Michael was just a youngster in fancy armor. They couldn''t even imagine him killing Ross, a highly decorated spartan.
"oh, he was a spartan?" This was a piece of new news to Michael.
"That doesn''t matter now. Let''s get onto business, shall we?"
Chapter 272 - Staring Death In The Eyes
The spartans were waiting for the Senator''s orders to kill him. The way he''s sitting legs up on the table, the way he spoke made the spartan blood boil in anger.
"If you may" Michael looked at Gaya as she flicked her wrist. The very next moment, the door mmed shut.
"How?" the senator''s mind went ck seeing the door shut itself. The spartans looked bewildered about what just happened. They had no idea what he was about to do to them if the Senator refused to ept his offer.
Initially, Michael wanted to silently make the Senator his puppet but after witnessing how the nobles treat the ves, he wanted to show the senator a glimpse of hell so he would do everything Michael says with no questions asked.
"From now on, you''re gonna do everything I tell you to"
"Senator Caius, can we kill him now?"
"GRRRRR!" The Giant growled as usual while the spartans basically trembled to kill Michael.. Yet, Senator Caius hesitated to give the order because he wanted the artifact he ordered Heinberg to get. Most of all, he didn''t want the Spartans to know about the off-the-books operation.
But it was toote for him to send the spartans out as Gaya already put a barrier around the room when she shut the door. The barrier would prevent the Spartans from leaving along with any sound.
"As you can see, my spartans are very eager to kill you. You and I both know what''s keeping me from giving the order" The senator retrieved his calmposure. He didn''t know what sort of technique they pulled to close the door but with his spartans and the Giant, he felt invincible. As far as Caius was concerned, their lives were in his hands.
"What do you think is in that bag? You can tell him H" Michael didn''t worry about confirming Caius the existence of the artifact. If Michael''s guess was right, Caius would either doubt the truth or try to get his hands on the satchel. The moment H nodded, Caius''s body shuddered.
"But it''s mine now"
"GRRRR!"
"I''m gonna give you onest chance kid, give me the artifact and beg for my mercy, I might tell Giant to go easy on you two"
"Giant that Giant this, what''s the big deal? You think he can protect you from me"
Finally Caius snickered, having enough with Michael.
"Giant"? The Giant took a step forward as the Spartans took a step back. They had all seen what the Giant would do to Caius''s targets.
"Ignitia" He aimed his index finger at the Giant''s head as a thick golden lightning bolt went straight through the Giant''s metal helmet like a hot knife through butter. For a few moments, no one uttered a single word, they were speechless.
Thud!
It took the Giant''s body a few seconds to hit the ground. Soon the Giant was lying in his own pool of blood beside Senator Caius.
"Protect the Senator!"
Only the spartan soldier Michael met first regained his senses. He immediately shouted at the other spartans realizing the danger Caius was in. Caius however stood still in shock. His brain went nk seeing magic for the first time in his life.
"Wind st" before the spartan soldier coulde to the senator''s side from where he was standing, Michael cast another spell, sting the spartans as well as the senator into the wall.
"Spartans, diators, giants no one can protect you from me if I want you dead" Michael slowly stood up from his chair. The spartans were strong but the wind st was stronger. The force of them hitting the stone wall almost knocked them out.
Senator Caius wiggled on the ground, trying to get up. Almost all the spartans on their knees while trying to get a good grip of their spears to attack Michael and defend the Senator.
Gaya walked along with him before kicking one of the spartan soldiers in the gut. She didn''t stop with one but kicked every spartan soldier. If she was a southerner, they would have dodged or evaded her kick. Since she used Arch energy to speed her movements, they could do nothing.
In a couple of moments, all the spartan soldiers were coughing up blood with broken ribs. Only Caius was lying on the ground unharmed by Gaya.
"Get up" Michael lifted the senator by his neck,
"Do you need another glimpse? I think you do" he held Caius in one hand while pointing his index finger at the spartan soldier they met first.
"Ignitia" The lightning bolt fired from Michael''s fingertip took another life in a blink of an eye. The blood sttered on Caius''s toga painting the white toga red.
"Basta-"
"Ignitia"
The spartan soldier who just opened his mouth to curse Michael received a bolt of lightning through his head.
"Argghhh" the other spartans growled in a mix of anger and shock. They wanted to stop him from killing more people. Their instincts and training told them to save Caius first before figuring out how he is using magic inside the void line.
"By sending your son to the undead ind, you issued a death warrant on him. What''s that tell you about you?" Michael''s grip around Caius''s throat tightened. The old man''s face started to turn pale,
"That you''re not a good man, in other words, you''re a bad man"? After he said that, he threw the senator to the other end of the room.
Thud!
"Senator!"
The senator hit the wall pretty hard before falling to the ground. His neatly ironed toga now looked messy with a few stains of blood.
"Stay still" when the spartans tried to stand up, Gaya began to kick them once again. This time harder than before.
Michael first went to the chair beside Jonah before dragging the senator by his neck.
"Let''s start the conversation again" Michael put the senator on the chair beside Jonah who was still in an unconscious state. He then hopped onto the table, putting his legs on the senator''s chair''s arms.
"Normally I would have killed you slowly and painfully" tiny bolts of lightning danced around Michael''s fingers. He moved his hand closer to the senator''s face so he could hear the sound of electric bolts.
"Who...who are you?"
"I''m the man who''s gonna rule this continent" Michael pulled Caius''s right arm,
"L"
"ARRRRGGGGG!"
Michael began to write his name one letter at a time on Caius''s arm using the lightning bolt. His skin began to burn as Caius screamed in agony.
"U"
"Senator!"
"Arrggghhhh!"
Because of the barrier Gaya put around, not a single sound escaped the room. Watching Lucifer torture Caius sent a chill running through Heinberg''s spine. He had seen the senator and the spartans torture and kill people before but he never imagined someone would do the same to them.
"Karma is a bitch, Senator," Heinberg sighed inside. After tattooing the letter ''F'' of his name, the senator''s eyes rolled inside the socket. He was losing his consciousness yet Michael injected a small amount of healing potion into Caius''s bloodstream to keep him awake. It was not enough to heal the burn wounds, it was just enough to keep him from losing consciousness.
"Say my name"? For the first time since he came to Caius''s house,Heinberg saw his face turn serius. Standing on the side,seeing him like this terrified the heck out of Heinberg and he could imagine how terrified the Senator would be. Senator''s body shivering was a pretty good sign of the fear in his heart.
"Say...My...Name" The intensity of the lightning bolts increased while the room began to turn darker and darker.Caius looked up growling in pain to see Lucifer''s eyes glowing in crimson red color.
"Lucifer"
The moment the senator said his name, his eyes fired up as dark smoke enveloped his bodypleting Michael''s Dark Lord form. WIth a swift kick, Michael turned Senator''s chair to face the spartans.
"I''m gonna make you a one time offer" while speaking to Caius, he pointed at a spartan.The lightning bolt brushed past Caius''s ear and ended the spartan''s life in a second.
"From now on" Yet again, he sent another lightning bolt killing another one.
"You work for me"
Heinberg saw another spartan soldier lose his life.Their eyes were still open with full of fear and shock.
"Or you and everyone you care for"? this time Michael raised both of hand as several lightning bolts shot from his hands killed all the spartans in the room. When the lightning bolts disappeared, the spartan bodies permeated smoke and burned skin smell. The sight made Caius''s blood run cold.
"Will die" Michael finished his sentence after he turned Caius''s chair to look him in the eyes.
"Their deaths were quick. Betray me or even think about it, you will beg for death"
While the senator was scared shitless, Michael willed the system to ce a teleportation rune on the table so he could teleport in and out of the room wherever he wanted discreetly.
"Clean the mess.Our Senator here will offer a generous amount of gold to the spartans'' families who unfortunately lost their lives saving the senator''s life from a group of assassins"
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Hi guys,
I''ve been ying the heck out of battlefield 2042 open beta for thest two days so that was why I couldn''t update the chapters. Sorry!! Your favourite author does deserve a day or two off
Chapter 273 - Rebels Of Grey Mountain
"Was that really necessary?" While flying above the city, Gaya asked Michael.
"Was what?"
"Killing the spartans. I thought we were just gonna beat the hell out of them" Michael stopped flying for a moment to answer Gaya.
"First, the Spartans would have told others that Caius is working for me. Second, killing all of them was the best way to scare and make Caius our bitch.Third, anyone who protects scumbags like Caius with their lives doesn''t deserve to live"
Michael never knew the spartans like Heinberg. When he killed them, he only listened to his gut feeling which said the spartans were anything but innocent.
"What''s the n now?" She wasn''t going to argue with him after noticing the cold intent in his eyes. Ever since he said he saw a glimpse of the future, she noticed many changes in him. He had be more cold-blooded.. To be honest, she wasn''t worried about his newfound changes. On the contrary, she was d because there was no way a soft-hearted person could achieve their goals.
"We''ll take a day off first. Then, we''ll kidnap all the senators and make them our bitches'''' She saw him smile coldly. Leaving Heinberg in Crilta, they continued to fly in a random direction.
After flying for an hour, they found a glossy grass field on the top of a small mountain cliff. The sun was many hours away from setting down yet their limit of Arch energy usage time made them rest for the day.
"I want this world to stay like this" standing atop the cliff, he looked at the majestic view before him. As far as his eyes could see, thend was covered with green forests, grasnds, zig zaggy rivers,kes and a chain of mountains, yet only a small portion of this vast mother nature contained man-made buildings. Although he was not into saving nature back on earth,pared to earth, this world was heaven. It was because these people coexisted with nature instead of destroying it. At first, he didn''t value nature''s beauty too much but after seeing the future world where there wasn''t a single tree or clean water source, he wanted to preserve this world as it is. If that meant fewer technologies, he was ready to sacrifice technology for nature. This was purely a decision made of selfishness as he would rather rule a beautiful fantasy world than a technologically advanced polluted.
They sat down on the grass field, feeling the gentle coldness of the dew. Gaya rested her head on his shoulder as he on her head. The hydra wiggled out of the satchel onto Gaya''sp.
"It will be more beautiful if we have someone to y with" the silver head sounded a little gloomy,
"You do have someone to y with little fe, a big scaly dumb dragon"
Hearing her words, even the white head looked surprised and even delighted for a second.
"Think of him like your big brother," said Michael.
"Where is he now?" the silver head asked with a bit of excitement hidden within its voice.
"He is at home. Don''t worry, we''ll go there soon" His purpose of visiting the Southern Continent was almost finished. The only thing he had to do was get all the senators in line so he could rule Gisel from the shadows.
"Let''s just say we control every kingdom in this world, what then?"
"If you''re asking me will I rule this world as an emperor? No, too many risks, too many responsibilities, too much exposure. I prefer living my immortal life without any of those"
"What if I want to be the Queen or the Empress?" she lifted her head from his shoulder, looking directly into his eyes. In his eyes, she seemed serious yet funny at the same time.
For a few seconds, he couldn''t find a suitable answer for her. He just stared at her pretty eyes,
"If you really want that throne, I''ll not stop you but don''t expect me to y king"
"You will be a king after you marry me, it''s destiny" she pinched his cheek yfully.
"Who said I''m gonna marry you?" her smilepletely disappeared from her face.
The rosy color of her face became redder while her eyes slightly welled up looking at the earnest expression on his face.
"I''m just messing with you" seeing her eyes watering up, he cupped her rosy cheeks yfully.
"You fucker!" she lunged at him with all her strength and rage.
"Whoa," the hydra jumped away to avoid being crushed under them as Michael and Gaya rolled on the ground. She kept drumming his chest for the prank he yed. However, Michael''s chest was like a steel te, no matter how hard she hit, he didn''t feel any pain. For him, it was great fun teasing her after a long day of work.
"You heartless son of a bitch! I will teach you a fucking lesson"
"Is that so?" Michael grabbed her both hands while she tried to wiggle out of his grab. She was on top of him which put a foxy smile on Michael''s face.
She was too angry to notice this smile as she continued to struggle.
"Stop you two!"
"There''s something going on"
The Whitehead and Silver head slid towards them. At the moment, the Hydra''s wings and legs hadn''tpletely grown yet so they moved like a snake.
While she was struggling, Michael turned his head to see the Hydra,
"Don''t you hear themotion?" the ckhead asked,
"The shoutings, the screams?"
Michael released Gaya''s hands before wrapping his hands around her waist and stood up. He then hugged her from behind, looking at the Hydra on the ground.
"I don''t hear anything"
"Release¡me"
"Stop it snake" he ced a kiss on her neck and cheeks from behind to stop her wiggle. As he expected, she stopped moving as she let out a quick bark ofughter.
"Where did you say the noise wasing from?"
"We didn''t," the white head said
"That way" the silver head turned its head further towards the forest.
Finally, Michael let go of Gaya as she seemed to have calmed down.
"Are we going or not?" the white head craned its head, wordlessly telling Gaya to pick them up.
After flying around the kingdom, they only had one hour left of their arch energy usage. Yet, the Hydra''s curiosity made them fly towards the direction pointed by the Hydra.
They were flying above the lush green mountains until they saw a city surrounded by tall walls on the horizon. Unlike Crilta, this city was smaller and surrounded by city walls. Compared to the capital city itself, this city was far more defensible. Instead ofnding and paying the guards as they would in any city, they flew directly into the city hiding among the clouds.
When they got closer to the city, they noticed the presence of soldiers was far higher than Crilta. From the sky, they could see numerous legionary soldiers, as well as spartans, patrolling in and outside the city walls.
The buildings and the architectural style were the same as Crilta though. Soon, they quickly descended from the sky onto a dark alley.
"Mommy look gods!" a boy standing on the balcony theynded shouted.
Michael just winked at the boy before walking out of the dark alley into the crowded streets.
The peoplergely consisted of women and men in fancy clothes were running toward something. There were not many ves on the streets. Michael saw only a few ves, they werepletely naked and had various burn marks on their bodies. Ignoring the ves as he was unable to do anything for them at the moment, Michael followed the crowd.
"This is what will happen if any of these strays tries to escape their masters" when they came to stop, Michael saw a stage built with three male naked ves hanging. Their eyes were bulged out as their tongues were sticking out. In addition, there were deep cut wounds all over their bodies. Many nobledies had their hands on their mouths looking at the gruesome sight. Yet, they remained there listening to the six feet tall muscr man on the stage. He wore a golden toga and had a long bloody sword in his hand.
Obviously, the blood on the sword was the ves'' and he indicated as much as pain he could to the ves before hanging them. Michael wondered why.
"No ve can rebel against their masters in any senate ruled kingdom, not in my watch. Soon, I will do the same to those rebels hiding in the grey mountains" the sudden talk about rebels piqued both Michael and Gaya''s curiosity.
"Those dogs of diators are not a match for our spartans. When the right timees, I will personally march into grey mountains and bring the traitors'' heads and that day shall be set in stone as an example!"
"Hail General Herius!"
"Hail General Herius!"
"Hail General Herius!"
The nobles cheered in joy and pride while a few of the ves stared at him with burning anger in their eyes. Michale noticed this. Unlike the ves in Cr, these ves seemed to have been wanting to be free men.
"It seems we have a diator army waiting for us" standing among the cheering crowd, Michael thought to himself before deciding to follow Herius.
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Sorry guys,
I was so focused on doing things I don''t love and missed doing what I love the most. It took me a while to find the strength needed to follow my passion instead of doing what others ask of me.
I quit my internship and decided to be a full-time writer. So good news, expect 2-3 chapters a day from November. And I hope you guys stick with me and continue to support my work.
Chapter 274 - One Cannot Avoid A Cliche Fight
The streets were filled with soldiers and nobles. Either side of the streets had various shops such as utensil shops, markets, meat shops as well as small restaurants. Despite the crowd walking in front of him, his eyes were fixed on Herius who was apanied by twenty spartans and twenty-five legionary soldiers. It''d be impossible to assassinate Herius unless the assassin is Michael who could use Arch energy.
However, it was not Michael''s n to assassinate Herius.
"Let''s just take him already" Gaya started to lose her patience after following Herius for almost half an hour. The gentle warmth of the morning sun now transformed into the scorching sun. The nobledies were frantically waving their fans to cool themselves. He felt pity for thedies who had to wear corsets and thick clothes.
"Where the fuck is he going?" She craned her neck slightly to see Herius''s party. Soon she got to know the answer for her question when she saw a four-story building with two seven feet lion statues standing outside.
.
Unlike the rest of the buildings, the one Herius was walking towards was built using decorated sses and some kind of redwood. The beams were made of wood while the walls, windows, and doors were made of ss. After Herius entered the building through the front door, Michael and Gaya reached the two lion statues.
Even among the nobles, only those who had spartans as bodyguards entered the building.
"What''s this building? An inn?"
"I don''t think so," Michael noticed the nobles showing some kind of card to the legionary soldiers standing by the door before entering the building.
"We should do the usual. Rent a room in a tavern nearby, watch his every moment using Spyders and then decide what to do with him next"
"I''m hungry" the white head''s voice came out from Gaya''s satchel. Seeing the sun was roasting them and there was no way of getting into the building without revealing their power, Michael decided to go with Gaya''s n.
Under the shade of the buildings, they strolled on the street looking for a tavern nearby. Nearly twenty meters away from the building Herius entered, they found a lively tavern called the lost castle.
From the outside, the tavern looked somewhat grand, peaceful, and cheerful. Marble stones and pirs made up most of the building''s outer structure. It was difficult to see through the small, curtained windows, but the inviting music from within can be felt outside. The music had a medieval vibe to it which was very pleasant to listen to.
"Move your ass human, something smells really nice in there" Gaya gave a light pat on the satchel hoping to shut up the white head before walking towards the door. She too felt hungry after all the walking and flying.
As they entered the tavern through the hard wooden door, they were weed byughing voices and the smile of a waitress. The bartender was a bald middle-aged man. For a moment, a small smile appeared on his face but after scanning both of them from top to bottom, that smile disappeared from his face.
Nheless, the tavern was as lovely inside as it was on the outside. Rounded, stone beams supported the upper floor and the light fixtures attached to them. The walls were decorated with mounted animal heads, hides, and small animals. It was clear the owner is an avid hunter and the smellsing from the kitchen indicated that the animals don''t go to waste.
The tavern was packed. Commoners and lesser nobles seemed to be the primary clientele here. Several long tables were upied by spartan soldiers. The other, smaller tables were also upied by legionary soldiers who seem to be enjoying their time by harassing girls in rather ragged in clothes. When Michael and Gaya stepped into the tavern, in addition to some legionary soldiers, a few toga-wearing golden-haired youngsters turned their heads towards them. Ignoring their gazes, Michael walked towards an enmity table in the far end of the tavern.
"It''s cool here" the sun''s heat could not be felt in the tavern, not even a bit. Michael looked surprisingly around the room to find how they were cooling the inside.
"She!" Despite the bartender''s hostility towards outsiders, he shouted at one of the waitresses to go to Michael''s table.
"Oh quit whining Pablo, She is serving us" a legionary soldier on the other end of the tavern from Michael''s table replied the bartender, raising his voice.
If it was Noah, he would have jumped the gun to fight the legionary soldiers for harassing a waitress. Michael was different, he remained calm but he had a feeling that a fight was ahead because just like the bartender, some of the legionary soldiers too stared at Michael and Gaya with hostile looks on their faces.
"What''s crawled into their asses?" Gaya noticed these hostile gazes on them and she did not like them. If only she wasn''t hungry, she would have beat the crap out of them. For now, answering her cravings was her first priority. She, a brown-haired girl who wore a tattered brown top and greyish skirt. The girl was amoner that meant she had a better life than the ves Michael saw. Yet in the tavern filled with legionary soldiers, lesser nobles, and few spartans, amoner like her was the lowest kind.
When Michael thought about it, the situation in the Southern Continent wasn''t much different than Elon except in Elon, there were only two kinds, cultivators and those who stuck at Arch sensing or Foundation stage all their lives who were calledmoners by the cultivators. In the southern Continent, there were three kinds, Nobles, Commoners, and ves.
In a rich city filled with nobles and lesser nobles such as this, the nobles practically treatedments like their ves, it was the girls who got the worse. It''d be a miracle if they lived through a month without being harassed or forced upon by a noble. Not that it was okay but atleast most of the cultivators would leave their victims with enough gold coins to livefortably. In the Southern continent though, the nobles were far more heartless than those cultivators.
"Honey, why don''t you serve yourself to us?"
The other waitresses were nowhere to be found while She was being harassed by some noble youngsters.
"Can we kill them already?" The white had enough of waiting. Since it inherited Gaya''s personality, it hated waiting for food.
"Fuck them up!"
"What the?" Gaya was stunned after hearing the white head''s shout.
The youngsters who were harassing She stopped what they were doing as almost everyone in the tavern looked at Gaya and Michael.
"Well I wanted to avoid a cliche restaurant fight but here we are" Michael shook his head disappointedly.
[hehehe, looks like you''re about to have a cliche fight]
The systemughed inside his head.
"At Least I don''t have to use Arch energy to beat these guys"
"Did you say fuck them up, bloody foreigners?" a legionary soldier slowly stood up from his table, menacingly looking at both Michael and Gaya. The noble youngster finally let go of She as their focus turned on Gaya, a much more beautiful girl than She.
"I had a long fucking day and im fucking hungry, so I strongly suggest you assholes reconsider what you''re about to do" Gaya removed the satchel as she put it on the table. Everyone including the few spartans waspletely surprised by her words but soon their surprise became anger. They couldn''t tolerate an outsider and a girl disrespects their fellow soldiers.
"You better get on the ground, begging for forgiveness bitch" the legionary soldier gritted his teeth,
"You got insurance for this ce?" Michael asked the bartender,
"Why do you care? It''s your bitch friend who needs one" the bartender''s answer surprised Michael and at the same time, angered him a bit. He didn''t know how they found out that they were foreigners or why the bartender was hostile towards the outsiders.
"Wrong answer" Michael slowly moved his hand back behind the chair, releasing Spyders onto the ground. Since they might take longer than they actually nned, he didn''t want Herius out of his sight. Therefore, he released the Spyders so they could get inside the building and monitor him.
"Apologize for your words or we will have to arrest you" a spartan soldier stepped forward.
"Arrest me? You''d be lucky to lift a fucking finger when im done with you" finally Gaya stood up, cracking her wrist.
"Let me take a shot, soldier" suddenly the youngster who was harassing She stepped forward with a wicked smile stered on his face.
"Oh fuck this" Gaya lost her patience as she picked up the candle holder on their table before throwing it towards the youngster. The candle holder''s round base hit the youngster''s face with enough force to make him stumble backward and fall. Her movements were so quick as the legionary soldiers standing beside the youngster had no time to react at all.
"Arrest her" the spartan soldier seemed calm despite her actions. However, the legionary soldiers and the youngster''s three noble friends got extremely mad. Their bodies shivered in anger.
"Lock the fucking door, I don''t want them running away" the legionary soldier ordered the others.
"You''re gonna regret that" Finally Michael himself stood up. At the moment, none of the soldiers or spartans knew who they were messing with.
Chapter 275 - Grey Mountains And The Rebel Within Rebellion
Somewhere else in the Southern Continent, one could see vast chains ofplex mountains. Each mountain in the chain was tall to the point that they almost touched the clouds. People called this chain of mountains, the grey mountains because at night, the trees nketing the mountains glimmered a silver light. The schrs of the Southern continent studied the trees and their leaves,ing to the conclusion that the leaves had a property that absorbs moonlight and produces a vapor that radiates in silver color. In addition to the silver light, the vapor produced by leaves had a cooling effect. The schrs and cksmiths of the Southern continent were able to create a device that absorbs this vapor, store it within and release it slowly to cool down a room or a hall depending on the device''s size.
The grey mountains spread vast as the mountains surrounded three kingdoms. Each of the three kingdoms was ruled by a king instead of a senate. Among the seven kingdoms in the continent, only these three kingdoms were ruled by kings. Over the years, the senates tried to overthrow a king''s regime, intending to rece the kings with the senate by conducting many ndestine operations yet the senates failed because the alliance between the three kings was too strong. Considering the three kingdoms were surrounded by grey mountains, it''d be near impossible for other senate-ruled kingdoms to prevail in a war against these kingdoms.
In addition to being a natural wall for the three kingdoms, the mountains provided the kingdoms with grey leaves which were one of the major economic pirs for these kingdoms. No matter how hard the senate tried to grow the grey leaves trees, they simply could not seed as the grey leaves trees were exclusive to the grey mountains..
If one tried to harm the grey mountain forests, they would not only face the wrath of the three kingdoms but also the wrath of the Elven empire in the Awor Continent because the forest was worshipped by elves all over the world. This was anotheryer of protection the three kingdoms got from the grey mountains.
No bandit camp or any threat could prevail in the grey mountains, at least that was what the rest of the world thought. In the forest of Qiven kingdom''s part of the grey mountains, a campsite containing numerous tents could be seen under the thick canopy.
But the campsite was not inhabited by bandits, it was inhabited by someone else. The campsite was surrounded by a makeshift wall made of wooden poles with a pointy end. Inside this wall, there were numerous sturdy men doing chores such as tending to the horses, chopping logs, fixing tents, and sharpening their weapons. Apart from these sturdy men, one could also see several women of various ages from young to old.
Despite their gender, all of them had many scars on their bodies including burn wounds. Every one of them in the camp was a ve. Many of them joined the diator rebellion three years ago before settling down in the grey mountains. The rebellion was led by the diator named Doctorus, the same man who trained Titus and Optimus, Aria''s brothers.
Three years ago, the diator rebellion started in Ludus Gallion in the Miral kingdom. Soon it became a ve rebellion as many ves began to rebel against their masters, fighting for their freedom.
The rebellion sparked the dormant fire within the ves to yearn for freedom. If the rebellion created a spark within the ves, it created a forest fire within the nobles. The nobles viewed this rebellion as nothing but treason. Many nobles living in the senate-ruled kingdoms began to treat the ves even worse than before after the rebellion, some of them even executed the ves to make an example out of them.
In addition to the atrocities against the ves, many luduses(schools of diators) increased security and enforced strict rules to keep their diators from rebelling.
Regardless of everything, still many diators killed their masters and joined the rebellion. Of course among those who rebelled, many died before even crossing the kingdom''s border, and those who survived suffered various injuries in the hands of legionary and spartan soldiers.
At the moment, inside a tent on the northern side of the camp, Tiberius was staring at the dagger in his hand. His hands were frantically shaking. Holding the dagger in his right hand, he touched the deep cut back of his neck. The wound was running from the neck to the middle of his back. Although he survived this deadly cut, it affected the muscle movements of his arms. He could not even hold his daggers tightly. If he did, his arms would silver uncontrobly. The dagger reflected a square-jawed man''s face covered in wavy hair.
Each passing day, his strength diminished little by little. He could tell that soon, he would not be able to fight at all.
"Tiberius"
Tiberius quickly put the dagger away when he heard someone calling him. Although most of his fellow diators noticed his illness, they didn''t say anything.
The man who came to Tiberius''s tent was another diator called Marcus.
"What is it Marcus?" Tiberius asked in a thick British ent.
"It''s time"
"Time for another bloody meeting" Tiberius made his irritation obvious but still, followed behind Marcus to Doctorus''s tent which was located in the camp''s center.
"Afternoon Marcus"
"Hiya Marcus''
"Greetings Marcus"
Almost all of the people they met on the way to Doctorus''s camp greeted Marcus with a smile but avoided eye contact with Tiberius. It was because ever since they settled here three years ago, Tiberius always had disagreements with Doctorus and many other diators.
Plus, Tiberius was short-tempered and the most feared diator among them. Unlike Doctorus who preferred to take a subtle approach with the senates and the nobles, Tiberius wanted to strike them down before the nobles could do the same to them.
As far as Tiberius was concerned, he wanted a more aggressive leader to lead them. If not for the injury he suffered two and half years ago when they attacked a Ludus in Gisal, he would have fought for the leadership. Nheless after all these two years, besides the injury, he also realized that he''s not suited for leadership. That was why he''s trying to push Doctorus to be more aggressive.
Although Tiberius didn''t like the way Doctorus does things, he respected the man. After all, Doctorus trained him and all the other diators in Ludus Gallion.
He followed Marcus, ignoring all the pleasantries for a few moments before reaching the biggest tent of their campsite. The tent wasrge enough to hold a big round table they used for meetings and Doctorus''s belongings which were not many. Other than being Doctorus''s room, the tent also served as an armory.
When Tiberius entered the tent, there were six male diators including Doctorus and two female diators were standing around the table.
"I just received a piece of news from Gisal. Herius has hanged three more people who tried to escape the kingdom"
In this camp, many avoided using the word ve. They were fighting against very and stopping using the word was their first step towards abolishing very.
"Fucking shithead" Tiberius punched the table in anger. He wanted to rip? Herius throat off
"He''s been hunting the boor bastards ever since we started this rebellion. Were those people diators or ves?" Tiberius was one of the few people who''s still using the word ve. After seeing what they did to Titus and Optimus, he hated being a ve himself yet unlike Doctorus, he didn''t believe that a simple thing like stopping using the word ve was enough to abolish very.
"Cleaners and maids" Doctorus answered,
"Let me guess, that bastard tortured them before hanging them" Tiberius did not look at any of them but Doctorus. Despite the respect he had for Doctorus, Tiberius felt his anger erupting within towards Doctorus.
Doctours remained silent while everyone took his silence as a yes.
Coupled with the frustration of his worsening condition, this piece of news med the fan of Tiberius''s anger.
"What did I tell you, Doctorus? Leaving Herius alive was a stupid decision, we should have killed him when we had the chance" he tightened his fist as his hand began to shiver.
Although the diators standing around the table didn''t agree with Tiberius on almost anything, this time was different.
"You were there with me, Tiberius. It was killing Herius or saving those girls. Even if I had to do it again, I would still do the same"
"Then what the fuck are we doing right here? We don''t have to anyone now, we must kill that fucker before he tortures and hangs more people. Give me five men and I will bring that bastard head"
"You can''t Tiberius" Doctorus immediately rejected Tiberius''s request.
"You''re not the same Tiberius you were once and im not gonna send you on a suicide mission knowing that you''ll die"
"What did you say?" The situation immediately tensed up as Tiberius walked forward towards Doctorus with intent to fight. He couldn''t control his anger after being insulted by Doctours like this in front of the others. Among everyone in the Ludus Gallion, only Titus and Optimus could fight and win him. Since they were not here, he would have been the best diator in this camp if not for his condition.
"Stop Tiberius"
Marcus and some of the diators moved in front of Tiberius, trying to stop him.
"Get out of my way" Tiberius punched Marcus in the jaw. The punch should have knocked down Marcus, instead, it did not even move Marcus''s head.
"That''s it," Marcus said before throwing a punch at Tiberius. If he was at his peak, he would have evaded Marcus''s punch but his condition slowed his movements. Doctorus shook his head disappointedly after seeing Tiberius getting knocked down by Marcus. He couldn''t help but feel pity for Tiberius.
*******************************
A few minutes after sending men carrying unconscious Tiberius, the meeting resumed. Doctorus stared at the map of Gisel with a dagger in his hand,
"Tiberius was right, we must stop Herius before he harms more people" As he said, he plunged the dagger into the table through the map of Gisel.
Right at this moment, none of the diators knew that Herius was begging for his life to the Dark Lord.
Chapter 276 - Change Is The Only Constant
In a blink of an eye, three days passed since they visited Lanercost where they saw Herius hang the ves. Thest three days were not very exciting for Gaya except when she beat the hell out of legionary soldiers, spartans, and the noble youngsters in the tavern.
"Your Highness, he''s here" while Gaya was talking to Michael through the earbud, she saw Heinberg approach her slowly. The sun had already set on the horizon leaving the darkness to envelop the kingdom. The only light source in the room was the burning candles on the table before Gaya.
The door gradually creaked open to reveal Senator Caius. The Senator''s eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. Soon, he saw Gaya sitting on his chair behind the table. He couldn''t find Lucifer when he looked around. The image of him killing his spartan soldiers was etched into his mind. Ever since that day, he has been having trouble sleeping.
"What do you know about Senator Viridius?" She didn''t even ask him to sit down, she just directly asked the question. For a few moments, the Senator stared at her in fear, his face was pale while his legs slightly shivered.
Noticing his behavior, Gaya sighed.
"Look, as long as you serve us loyally and help us get what we want, we''re not gonna hurt you. Plus, you''ll get everything you''ve dreamt of and more. Now, sit down"? she gestured at the Senator to sit down as he took a few seconds of time before sliding the chair towards him and seating himself.
"Back to my question, tell me about Senator Viridius?"
"Senator Viridius is the head of the military. He was a spartan captain until he was elected by the people"
"Hmm, what''s his connection with Herius?" Gaya noticed the surprised look in his eyes when she asked him about Herius.
"General Herius?"
"Yes"
"General Herius is Senator Viridius''s soon-to-be son-inw. He came to Gisal to make sure his weddings preparations are going well"
This time Gaya was surprised because when Michael interrogated him, he said he came to Gisal to investigate the ve rebellion and watch the diator fight in the arena.
"Funny, Herius said he came to investigate the ve rebellion and have fun watching the diators fight"
"The diator fight is a part of their wedding ceremony. The ve rebellion, it was more of his hobby. It''s his..." his voice trailed off because of the sudden realization he had.
"His what? Hobby, pleasure?" Senator Caius couldn''t see the snicker behind her mask. He knew she was right because he too heard rumors about Herius, disturbing rumors. If anyone else, Senator Caius would have kept his mouth shut. However, to her or Lucifer, he would rather tell everything he knew than keep his mouth shut when being asked a question.
"Both. I heard rumors about General Herius buying ves"
"And the ves are never to be seen after that" Gaya finished Caius''s sentence.
"Is it true that Viridius leading the operation to catch the rebels? "
Caius frowned, recalling the conversation he had with Viridius several weeks ago when they met at a g.
"When we met, he said he has someone else taking the charge"
"That someone else was Herius and Viridius is running the thing behind the curtains" by looking at Caius''s expression, she could tell Caius was telling the truth.
"Anyways, we have a golden opportunity for you Caius"
*************************************
In the middle of the night, Michael appeared inside Caius''s room where Gaya was still waiting for him. In addition to Gaya, Maxine was standing behind Gaya''s chair like a good bodyguard. Those who were in the order of death were extremely loyal to the Dark Lord despite the fact that the Dark Lord didn''t even exist in their timeline. They worshiped the Dark Lord as their god. Those who escaped the guardians still worshipped him in secret and passed their beliefs to their descendants. They did their best to make sure their descendants would find the Dark lord eventually and serve him as they would have. Luckily for Michael, Maxine was just as loyal as her ancestors who served the order.
Therefore when Michael told Maxine that Gaya will be his wife, Maxine''s loyalty towards Gaya skyrocketed because if Dark Lord is her god, the woman he marries would be her goddess.
Heinberg went to take care of his part of the n which is to make sure all the senators show up to enjoy the diator fight. Lot was riding on the uing diator fight where the entire fate of Gisel would change.
"Lord Lucifer"? Maxine went to her knees almost immediately when she saw him appear in the room out of the thin air.
"You can stand up and tell me you''ve done what I asked" Michael waved his hand as the replica of his skull and bones throne in the Abyssal appeared before him. He sat facing Gaya on the Senator''s chair,
"It''s done, Lord Lucifer"
"Good" As he said, Michael turned his eyes towards the corner of the room where there was nothing, only darkness. However, there was something in the darkness, a living person.
Maxine noticed his look as she walked towards the dark corner to retrieve the package.
"Come on darkling" Michael saw Maxine dragging out a man from the dark corner.
"Time to wake up"
p!
Maxine pped the man to wake him up. Soon, the man''s body began to wiggle as he woke up.
"Hmmmmmm" Nheless the man could utter a word because there was a cloth wrapped around his mouth preventing him from screaming.
This man was none other than General Herius himself. The building Herius entered was a local guard garrison. It was protected on the ground level as well as kept archers to prevent anyone from entering the building from above. But the archers never expected to meet someone who could fly in the sky and rain arrows on them.
It was as simple as walking through the front door after killing the archers. After entering the building, everything happened so fast as Michael and Gaya killed Herius''s guards, interrogated Herius for a while before leaving the garrison with Herius.
"Lord Lucifer, you want me to take it off?" she pointed at the mouth wrapping around Herius''s mouth.
"No need for now"
"What did you find?" Gaya suddenly asked,
"A potential recruit," Michael said, resting his head on his fist. Regardless of the uing important thing, he looked extremely calm
"Aren''t we gonna recruit the whole camp?"
"We are but this one, he''s something more. He could be something more" Michael had a smile on his face. After seeing that diator he had a feeling that this diator could be his god of war.
"Lucifer, we need a reality check before moving forward with our n. There''s a possibility that the diators wouldn''t want to fight for us. The same goes for your potential recruit"
"Not for him. He''s ill, wanting to relive his glory days, and looking for a better leader. If we can''t recruit him, we can''t recruit anyone" he then looked at Herius as a cold smile emerged on his face,
"Also he''s desperate to put an end to Herius''s reign "
"And we''re gonna gift this pig to him"
"Hmmmmmmmm" Herius wiggled frantically while trying to scream yet nothing but muffled cries escaped his mouth.
"Knock him out" After hearing Gaya''s order, Maxine knocked Herius out with a swift punch to the side of his face.
"Lord Lucifer, how long will it take for the diators to reach the arena and set up what they nned?"
"ording to Herius, they''re traveling to Morin and thening to Gisal in a merchant ship, hiding in crates. They would reach Gisal in four days"
"And Senator Viridius will be waiting for them with hundred Spartan soldiers. They are walking into a perfect trap" said Gaya.
"Maxine, you''ll be assigned to Caius''s personal maid. Stay by his side and make sure everything goes ording to the n"
"I assume we are going back to the camp" Gaya stood up with Michael. He had already left a teleportation rune so he could teleport back and forth. Considering this was nighttime, many in the camp were asleep which made walking into the campsite less noticeable.
********************************
Midnight came as perfect ck, the truepanion of every good night. The dark night was supposed to bring calmness to the soul yet to Tiberius, the calmness, the cricket noises, as well as the cold breeze, only kindled the anger me within him.
"Arghh '''' Tiberius tried to vent his anger out on a tree by punching it as hard as he could. Because of his condition, no matter how hard he tried to punch the tree, his weak muscles didn''t give him the power he needed.
He then took out the dagger from the waist, trying to sh the tree but he barely scraped the tree. Although he couldn''t clearly see the mark on the tree, he was able to see how shallow the cut was by feeling the bark.
"Damn you!"
Pulch!
Tiberius couldn''t control his anger anymore as he shed his left arm with the dagger. The dagger was extremely sharp as it made a deeper cut in his arm than it did to the tree. The blood gushed out of the cut. His anger overcame the pain,
"Having it rough huh" suddenly Tiberius heard a voiceing from the woods. He looked around to see nothing but darkness. He was standing here outside the campsite, this ce was supposed to be empty.
"Come out" with a wounded arm, he shouted at the darkness.
"I came bearing a gift for you, Tiberius" Tiberius saw a pair of red glows slowly approaching him from the darkness.
Chapter 277 - A Secret Admirer
Tiberius ignored the blood gushing out of the wound in his hand. His eyes were fixed on the red glows approaching him slowly from the woods.
Gradually Tiberius could make out a figure of a human with the help of little moonlighting through the thick canopy above.
"Hello, Tiberius" A small orb of light appeared in between them to light the surroundings. Tiberius was stunned by the light as he had never seen a floating orb of light in his life before. The pair of red glows disappeared after the light appeared.
Soon Tiberius saw another figure walking out of the darkness dragging a man whose head was covered in ck cloth.? Both of the figures wore ck skull masks to cover their faces.
"Your gift" before Tiberius could do or say anything, the second figure standing behind the tall figure kicked the man as he slid towards Tiberius.
Tiberius cautiously looked between the figure wiggling at his feet and the two figures standing a couple of meters in front of him. He had so many questions running through his mind
Pushing those questions to the corners of his mind, he slowly ced his hand on the ck cloth to remove it. His blood flowed to the person''s ck cloth, drenching it,
"Go on" Michael knew about Tiberius''s condition so he patiently waited for him to take off the cloth from Herius''s head.
Tiberius grabbed the cloth, removing it to see a bloodied swollen face. Despite the face being bruised, bloodied, and swollen to the point that it''s hard to recognize him, Tiberius was able to identify him. His body began to shiver the moment he saw the face. It was not because of his condition, it was because of the overwhelming anger burning inside him.
Two years ago, it was Herius who stabbed Tiberius in the back, causing his muscles to lose strength with time. Besides, although Tiberius was not best friends with Titus and Optimus, he respected them as diators. Titus and Optimus both fought Tiberius before their 50th battle that was supposed to earn them their freedom. Tiberius epted the defeat like a champion because he was a soldier before bing a diator, hence he valued honor. What they did to Optimus and Titus was not honorable. It was that day Tiberius realized that there''s no honor among nobles and there''s no difference between a diator and a ve. When he was a diator, he was drowned in women, glory, adrenalin rush, and attention. They kept him from realizing the state he was in, a ve, just like everyone else. In addition to Herius, he was angry with himself for being so damn stupid.
"Herius"
"Hrrhhhggghh" Herius frantically struggled to escape but his hands and legs were tied with ropes, making it easy for Tiberius to have his revenge.
Tiberius kicked Herius in the gut before getting on top of him with his dagger raised high. Looking at the dagger with eyes full of horror, Herius began to struggle more and more frantically. He could see the killing intent in Tiberius''s eyes and tell what''s about to happen.
"Arghhh" Tiberius let out a mad cry before going berserk on Herius. He shed Herius as Herius''s muffled cries began to sound wilder and wilder.
The blood gushed out of Herius with each cut. Michael saw nothing but mad anger within Tiberius''s eyes. Tiberius''s condition made each cut shallower than he intended. Therefore, Herius was put through the torture that slowly took his life. Tiberius saw Herius''s light of life gradually dimming in his eyes. Nheless, Tiberius''s speed of shing him didn''t even slow a bit.
Michael and Gaya patiently waited for Tiberius to finish without batting an eye. As far as they were concerned, Herius deserved nothing less. After all, Herius tortured and killed hundreds of ves for fun and pleasure.
After inflicting hundreds of cuts on Herius, Tiberius was bathed in blood.
"I thought I''ll feel better," Tiberius said after spitting the blood that went into his mouth when shing Herius.
"Who are you two freaks?" Tiberius turned his gaze towards Michael and Gaya
"We are building an army and we want you in it"
"Humph" Tiberius snickered, "you may have not noticed but I''m done being someone''s bitch a long time ago"
"You aren''t one now?" Michael questioned him, aiming to kindle Tiberius''s anger more.
"I''m not going to stand here and give you a golden speech. Instead, I''ll give you an option, an option to regain everything you''re desperate for"
"You...don''t...know me" Tiberius gritted his teeth,
"I know enough to know you''re losing strength in your limbs" Tiberius was surprised as Michael continued,
"You want to fight but you know you can''t anymore. Soon, you''ll be of use to no one here and die dreaming of your golden days"
"Well freak, I appreciate your gift, I really do but unless you have a miracle drug hiding in that armor of yours, you''re wasting your time"
Michael heard Gaya gritting her teeth. It was obvious she wanted to beat the hell out of Tiberius for calling him a freak.
"Calm down" he whispered,
"There is if you ept my offer"
For a few seconds, Tiberius''s eyes went wide in shock. A small glimmer of excitement and hope emerged in his eyes but it disappeared soon. Michael expected this reaction from him. ording to Heinberg, there wasn''t a cure for Tiberius''s condition, at least not one in the Southern Continent. Since the healing potions had trace amounts of Arch energy within them and any Arch energy would be absorbed by the dormant Hydra in the Southern continent, the healing potion would be useless to Tiberius unless the healing potion brewed by Michael with a few adjustments from the system.
"This is gonna sting" Before Tiberius could react, he felt a sting in his neck.
"Fuck" he quickly pped the neck where he felt a sting like swatting a mosquito to feel a needle sticking out of his neck.
"How do you feel?"
Tiberius clenched his fist. yfully pinched Xanali''s cheekA short snort ofughter escaped his mouth in utter surprise and joy. He could feel the strength returning to his arms.
"This is just a tip of what I can do Tiberius. If you want to kill more sons of bitches like Herius and live your dreams, this is your chance" Tiberius looked at Michael in a new light.
"Time to make a decision Tiberius"
Tiberius was more surprised to hear a voice of a girl from the masked figure.
"What you just gave me, is it permanent?"
"When I''m sure you''re loyal to me, I''ll give you the permanent cure. But know this, im not forcing you and one of my goals is to eradicate very, so you won''t be a ve like you were before. What I''m giving you is a choice, ``Are you willing to be my soldier?"
"Well fuck it" the feeling of his strength returning was too much to let go of. He wanted the feeling tost forever. Besides, these figures brought Herius like he was nothing when Doctorus couldn''t even get near the guy without being spotted by the spartans.
"If you can give me this and assholes like him to kill, I do whatever you want"
******************************
"Peyton" Back at Peyton manor, Xanali entered the room carrying a stack of parchments. Peyton was sitting on a white couch looking at the starry sky through the ss windows.
"Have they caught him?" Peyton didn''t even turn back to look at Xanali. She was drowned in the beauty of the star-filled sky.
"Not yet and it''s not him, it''s her" what she said got Peyton''s attention,
"A woman? How did you know?"
Xanali flicked her wrist as a vial with a few long strands of ck hair in it,
"Our schrs found that these hairs we found on one of the L marks belong to a woman" Xanali handed over the vial to Peyton,
"Why is a woman drawing L marks in various cities and viges?" Xanali sat beside Peyton,
"It''s either she''s an ardent fan of Lucifer or she has been leaving the marks in the hope of contacting Lucifer" Peyton has been scouring the continent to find Lucifer before he kills more people. She was bing obsessed with him. In five days, the time limit Lucifer offered ising to an end. The nobles were already in a panic because it was them who did the worst crimes and had reason to be afraid of him.
"What I don''t know is, how is she able to escape our men who are supposed to be on guard?"
"She''s skilled enough to do that which makes catching her difficult but we''re getting closer. In a way, this is an opportunity" Xanali smiled,
"Opportunity?"
"Yes. If we know about Lucifer, whatever she''s doing might have already gotten his attention or will soon. We get her, track her, wait for him to show up and we nail both of these criminal scums once and for all. Or..." her smile grew wider,
"Or we leave our own marks. Lucifer will see them as calling cards and she might see them as a reply from Lucifer. Either way, we''ll catch one or both"
Peyton nodded approvingly, "Get it done, I want this fiasco to end before the tournament begins. And by the way, has Noah returned from his little trip?" Peyton pinched Xanali''s cheek in a yful manner as Xanali began to blush,
"He''s still at the Rainbow inds"
Chapter 278 - Noah, The Supreme Guardian And Laila Alden
Right at the moment, Noah was standing on the edge of Angel''s peak, staring at the fishing vige on the ind.
"Stay focused Noah, I can sense the Dark Lord''s presence here. It''s faint but it''s there" One would not see anyone else standing beside Noah. Yet, someone talked to him. Only Noah could hear the voice. He looked at his ring finger to see the rusty metal ring glowing.
"We''ve been searching for this Dark Lord for two months teacher. I think it''s time for us to go home"
"We will, after finding the source of this mysterious power I''ve been sensing"
If Michael was to hear the voice, he would have recognized it as none other than the Supreme Guardian himself. Michael met him when he was inside the Treacherous ocean.? The supreme guardian''s soul living inside Noah''s ring had no way of connecting with the soul fragment Michael met. Because of that, the supreme guardian didn''t have any memory of meeting the Dark Lord.
However, the supreme guardian possessed the ability to sense powerful energy radiationing from any part of the world. This ability helped Noah find unique treasures of all kinds that helped him cultivate extremely faster than most people in the world.
"We should ask the mistress of this ind about this power directly.I have a feeling that she needs the witcher stone to deal with this energy you''ve been sensingtely " Noah touched the chest pocket to make sure the stone is still there. He traveled to the hidden dwarven vige to get this stone. Even the Supreme Guardian didn''t know anything about the stone''s use. Nheless, he told Noah that this stone holds powerful magic.
"Tread carefully Noah. The ind mistress mustn''t know about our true intentions as she might have already been tainted by the Dark Lord"
"Teacher there are people in this world who can''t be tainted no matter what. I believe Lady Alden is one of them" Noah had met the wielder of Angel veena before when he visited the Ozer Continent. Although she seemed cold and distant, Noah could tell she''s a nice person. It had been almost a year since hest saw her.
"Noah" A gentle voice called him from behind as he turned back to see Johana walking towards him carrying her veena.
"Miss Johana, when can I meet Lady Alden?" Despite the fact the two disciples prevented him from entering the cave, he wasn''t mad at them as he knew they were doing what their master asked them to.
"Mistress would like to see you now, follow me" Noah was genuinely surprised by her words. Finally, he could meet her after waiting for a week.
The sooner he finds out the source of the power his teacher has been sensing the better.
"Wonderful" Noah smiled at Johana before following her into the cave. Glowing colorful crystals illuminated the cave beautifully. It didn''t look like a cave but avish hall in Noah''s eyes. Except for the calming water flowing sounding from somewhere inside the cave, he could hear nothing.
The deeper Noah followed her into the cave, the thicker the Arch energy he felt. After silently walking behind Johana for a few long moments, he saw a stage erupted higher from the ground at the end of the cave. On top of the stage sat Lah with her eyes closed and Angel''s veena on herp. Noah was mesmerized by her angelic beauty. Her beauty and grace even surpassed Alicia.
Nerita was cleaning her veena sitting beside Lah. Because of the recent anomaly, Noah couldn''t see any of their current cultivation levels. Nheless, he could guess either of the disciples could win a fight against him easily.
Suddenly Lah opened her eyes as she sensed the witcher stone residing inside Noah''s pocket. Noah felt the witcher stone vibrate. Her beautifully cold eyes scanned him from top to bottom.although they met before, he saw her looking at him like they''re just seeing each other.
For a second, Lah thought she saw Ghost, the man who defiled her by spirit walking with her soul. Ever since that day, she was not what she used to be. Now she had responsibility, a responsibility that changed her life forever.
"Lady Alden" Noah approached the stage calmly with a gentle smile on her face.
Lah felt her anger erupt inside as Noah reminded her of Ghost.
"Name your price for the stone" Since Noah reminded of Ghost, she was extra cold towards Noah.
"No price Lady Alden. Take this as my thanks to you for helping me in Ozer"
"I sense a powerful energy radiation near her, Noah" Noah heard his teacher''s voice sound inside his head. The ring had a magical effect that connected both Noah and the Supreme Guardian telepathically. Hence, they couldmunicate using either words or telepathically, just like Michael and the system.
"You need to get closer to her"
"It''s not gonna be easy, teacher," Noah thought,
"Take this" Lah flicked her wrist as a rather in-looking talisman appeared in her hand. Like a bolt of lightning, the talisman flew to Noah,
"The talisman can be activated three times. Each time you activate it, the talisman will protect you for five minutes from any spells cast by anyone on or under the Soul Refining stage" standing beside Noah, Johana exined the use of the talisman to Noah. He was taken aback by surprise. This sounded like a Legendary talisman yet she gave it to him like it was nothing. With this talisman, one could challenge a Soul Refiner and live to tell the tale or sell it on any auction house and live the rest of the life like a king.
"Now the stone please," Johana asked, cing the talisman in Noah''s right hand,
Her voice sounded like ordering rather than asking. Noah needed to think quickly before they threw him out of the cave.
"The witcher stone must transferred ownership. Master Crach transferred ownership to me and if Lady Alden wants to use the stone, I need to transfer ownership to her" Noah lied, hoping none of them could call it a bluff. Considering the dwarves or even his teacher didn''t know anything about the stone, he gambled that they would be as clueless as everyone else.
Lah stared at Noah with perplexed eyes.
"You can do whatever you want from where you are" After what happened with Michael, Lah never let a man get close to her. Since Noah was somewhat reminded of Ghost, she wanted out of her cave as soon as possible.
"Forgive me Lady Lah but it cannot be done from here" Noah sighed a heave of relief inside seeing that she didn''t see through his lies.
"Make her believe Noah, make her believe" His teacher''s voice sounded again inside his head.
"If anyone who isn''t the owner touches the stone, it would crumble into dust"
Lah clenched her wrist as she drew a long breath.
"I need that stone for my child" Lah thought. Her heartbeat started to rise higher and higher.
"Come"
Johana nodded after hearing Lah. The two disciples had no idea what happened inside the treacherous ocean or what she''s been hiding from them. Apart from Lah, only her teacher knew about her secret and he was the one who told her about the witcher stone.
"I cannot keep this facade for longer, teacher" Noah hid the unease in his heart from showing on his face.
"You don''t have to. The moment you get close enough, I can find the source. I have a feeling that this source might give us some answers on how to defeat the Dark Lord"
There were no steps to reach the top of the stage. When Noah was about to leap, Johana grabbed his hand before leaping onto the stage. Lah remained still as before but Noah noticed her hands slightly shiver as he walked towards her.
"Little bit closer," the supreme guardian said. Both Noah''s and Lah''s hearts pounded against their chest. Noah was anxious about lying to one of the most powerful entities in the continent while Lah was anxious about starting the ritual that would keep her child alive until she finds a way to deal with Ghost.
"You can now start the transfer" Noah nodded as he sat on the ground half a meter away from her, facing her directly. Both of them avoided looking into each other''s eyes. Lah had a traumatizing experience with a man before so she felt extremely ufortable sitting in front of Noah.
Noah slowly took the witcher stone from his pocket. The stone looked like a ruby, radiating a faint red light from within. He ced the stone on the ground between them.
"Close your eyes" Noah waited for Lah to close her eyes. She seemed reluctant at first but she ultimately closed her eyes after a while.
"Teacher" Noah urged his teacher to hurry. The two disciples were watching them so he needed to finish his drama as quickly as possible before they started to doubt him.
"The energy source, it''s inside her"
*****************************************
Sorry guys,
I was so focused on doing things I don''t love and missed doing what I love the most. It took me a while to find the strength needed to follow my passion instead of doing what others ask of me.
I quit my internship and decided to be a full-time writer. So good news, expect 2-3 chapters a day from November. And I hope you guys stick with me and continue to support my work.
Note: No, this is not going to be yet another mc has a child with another woman,takes her into harem or do stupid things for his child..In fact,this is not a typical child as you may think.Wait till you hear the full story before going berserk on me
Chapter 279 - Web Of Schemes I
Having no idea of what''s happening in the Rainbow Inds, Michael was lying on Gaya''sp in the captain''s cabin as she ran her fingers through his hair. The Hydra was peacefully sleeping on his chest after a hearty meal.
The Captain''s cabin now lookedpletely different than before. His crew scrubbed every inch of the cabin spotless before cing the new sofas, chairs, beds, and beautiful candle stands made of pure silver around the room. Not only the captain''s cabin but the entire ship was scrubbed spotless. They ced the rum barrels in the storage room rather than keeping them wherever they pleased. Still, Michael needed to buy them new beds, repair the cannons and the hull as well as buy them new weapons. He was nning to do them before leaving back to Elon. In addition to the time limit he gave to the scumbags, the championship tournaments were about to start in five days.
Thanks to his runic teleportation function, he could travel between the two continents instantly rather than spending months traveling.
"I''ve been wanting to ask you something," Michael asked.
"What is it?"
"You know when I said I''m going to reveal myself at the arena, I''m reconsidering it"? At first, Michael wanted to reveal his Lucifer persona to the world. The fact that he could use Arch energy would have made him earn a load of badass points without a doubt. However, after giving it a deep thought, he started to have second thoughts.
"I assume you have a good reason for having second thoughts'''' She didn''t look surprised. On the contrary, she seemed like she was expecting this.
"If we were to reveal ourselves, we might be the number one target of the whole world. If they waged war on Gisel to capture us, we cannot fight them all with the little time we have to use the Arch Energy. Besides, we don''t have an army as we nned yet"
"And Gisal would automatically be the target of others and everyone will know that Caius is our man" As Michael paused, Gaya went on.
"Why didn''t you say anything before?" She spoke his mind yet he wondered why she didn''t advise him against revealing themselves before.
"Because I trust you. I learned that no matter what you do, you always have a reason behind it"
[Not to mention you will end up getting your ass kicked if you reveal yourself too soon]
Suddenly he heard the system mock him inside his mind. He was surprised to the point he entered the system interface to talk to the system.
"Well well well look who''s showing up to the party"
[Don''t worry. I''ll talk when I want to stop you from doing reckless things. Revealing your power to the Southerners for an instance]
"And here I''m thinking you want me to show off, earn badass points, and spend buying something from the store"
[You''re no good to me dead host. Revealing yourself at the arena would put a target on you, a target every godlike existence in this world would hunt you down]
"Why didn''t you say so before?"
The system became more and more intelligent and less and less robotic after he upgraded the system to version 3. Michael had a feeling that it would be more talkative. Also, the system now mostly addressed itself using the word I and Me instead of ''The system''.
[I was looking to know your decision. Face it host, you were an assassin who had one simple job, kill people. Now you''re on a path to conquer this world and rule it from the shadows. It''s not your domain, you''ll make mistakes. Besides, ruling the world from the shadows is more badass than bing an emperor. Upgrade me so I can be more help]
"There it is. For a moment, I thought you genuinely want to help me, not rob me" Michaelughed as the system went silent. He exited the system''s interface after a few moments.
"So let''s change our n. Instead of showing up to burn those fuckers, we''ll let the rebels finish their job safely. Then we''ll make sure they reach our ship unseen and get the hell out of Gisal '''' Gaya suggested a new n. Initially, they nned to personally go to the arena, kill Viridius''s men and save the rebels. Now the n had changed. Michael decided to let Tiberius, Heinberg, and Maxine deal with Viridius''s men.
"Has Heinberg ced the Spyders around the arena yet?" Michael asked Gaya. It was Heinberg''s task to survey the arena and ce the Spyders around as well as below the arena so Michael could watch everything happening at the arena without being there. ording to Herius, the rebels were nning to ce explosives beneath the arena where the explosives would do maximum damage.
"Yeah, the Spyders are in the ce. But he couldn''t find where Viridius was staying. His daughter''s wedding is in two days yet that asshole is ying hide and seek"
"He''s definitely nning something. Tell him to keep searching. I want all the senators on the same stage or our n won''t work"? Michael looked serious. Getting all the senators in one ce was a crucial part of his master n to conquer Gisal. If everything went ording to his n, the kingdom of Gisal would be his when returns to Elon.
*********************************************
Meanwhile, in the sewers of Lanercost, a group of men wearing dark robes and hoods was walking through the muddy water. Four of the men were carrying arge crate while two men walked forward, carrying torches to light their path. Their faces could not be seen through the dark hoods they were wearing. Regardless of their robes, one could tell that these men had sturdy muscr bodies looking at their broad shoulders and big biceps.
"Are we near Doctorus?" One of the men carrying the crate asked. They were the chosen diators who came to Lanercost to destroy the arena along with ve traders, nobles as well asnistas.
"Yes,"? Doctorus said with his thick ent.
"This ce stinks to high heaven" the diators twitched their noses because of the overwhelming stinking from the drainage water running on the ground. In addition to the stink, the rats stared at them from the dark corners with their glowing eyes. Most of them would be d not to hear the rats squeak as they move forward.
"If I''m right, we''re very close to the arena" Mark, the diator who knocked down Tiberius said while carrying the torch. The arena above them resembled the colosseum on earth. It could hold at least 45,000 spectators. Where people sat in the arena was determined by the senate. The best seats were reserved for the Senators. Behind them were the nobles, schrs, and ranking army officers respectively. A bit higher up sat the ordinary citizens and the soldiers. Since Viridius didn''t want peasants to attend the wedding ceremony, he raised the ticket price to enter the arena by several folds. Although none of themoners could afford to buy the ticket, it was not a big deal for the nobles. Hence, Viridius earned a hefty sum in ticket sales while preventing themoners from attending the wedding, two birds in one stone.
"Not that I''mining or anything but I wonder why didn''t the senators put a single guard in this ce?" Another diator who was carrying the crate asked in a husky voice.
"Because the nobles or the senators don''t know about the passage running under the arena. The schrs lost the blueprints and the maps in a fire several decades ago" Mark exined,
"When I was a little child, the soldiers managed to close many entrances to the sewage system but not all of them. My grandfather was one of the few people who knew about these passages" Doctorus said.
"Then you knew about this passage all these years. So why didn''t you try to escape?"
All the diators looked at Doctorus after that question.
"Perhaps I didn''t want to escape or perhaps I liked kicking your sorry asses"
"Look at that, Doctorus is being funny" the other diatorsughed, forgetting the pressure of this mission for a few moments. Although everyone knew that this is a suicide mission, none of them admitted out loudly. After detonating the explosives, they knew they would die in the st along with the senators and the nobles above them.
They were doing this to light the fire of freedom in all the ves, including the diators. If everything went ording to their n, this day would be a huge blow to all the senators who encourage very.
After a few minutes of walking, the narrow sewage tunnel expanded in front of them. They were standing at the entrance of a huge space. In the light of the torches, they could see numerous beams in front of them supporting the arena above them. The diators were directly under the arena.
Doctours could see several entrances with doors made of rusty iron bars. They led to the various ces in the arena as if they wanted to get to the spectators'' area, they could use thedders to climb up. But Doctorus really doubted that thedders would be still there in one piece after all these years without maintenance.
"Let''s get to work diators"
Chapter 280 - Web Of Schemes II
On the day of the wedding ceremony, Viridius was staring at Gisel''s map. There were no chandeliers to light the room or any fancy sofas suited for a senator''s room. He was not in his room in his manor though. The walls had only one thing hanging, the map. There were no pictures of him, no expensive paintings, nothing. It was Viridius, the map and his throne could be seen in the room. The room was Viridius''s fantasy. The five feet chair he was sitting on, he made it himself. He decorated the entire chair with gems, etched the chair''s arms with gold and diamonds. He saw the chair as his throne instead of a chair. One could simply sell the chair for millions.
The room was located in Crilta, beneath one of the houses in the noble district. For years, he was nning to take over Gisal from here.
"I''m the ruler of Gisel," Viridius said as a smile in between happy and evil appeared on his face. He had been repeating these words for nearly twenty years. After speaking these words, he stood up before walking towards the map. He framed the map with gold frames and high-quality ss. The ss reflected a wrinkly old man in his early eighties. He covered his bald head with a few stripes of white hair. Coupled with his hunched back,ck of three front teeth, and convex nose, he looked like an evil grandpa from a children''s storybook.
While staring at the map, he took a drinking pouch made of leather. His hands shivered due to old age while lifting the pouch towards his mouth. After he finished drinking from the pouch, his wrinkles slowly began to disappear, returning the glow to his skin once again. In a few moments, he transformed from a wrinkly old man in his eighty to a less wrinkly old man in his early seventies.
A small trickle of red liquid flowed down from the corner of his lips. It wasn''t wine though, it was blood, human blood. Of course, Viridius had his own team of schrs to experiment ande up with potions to reduce his age as well as many other nefarious things. No one except him knew that some of the undergroundbs that experiment on ves and cultivators belonged to Viridius. In fact, there was oneb in Pen town that belonged to Viridius where some schrs experimented on Aria''s brothers.
Creak!
Suddenly the door behind Viridius creaked open. He turned back with a grin to see his daughter in a wedding dress walking towards him. Even in the dim light illuminated from the candles lit on the room''s corner, the white wedding dress sparkled like stars in the midnight sky. Tiny gems, diamonds, and grains of gold decorated the dress just like his throne.
A girl with an oval-shaped face smiled at Viridius. The thin veil covering her face failed to cover her purple-colored lips or the dark eyeliners.
"The bride wants her groom papa" the girl pouted yet her tone wasn''t of a worried bride. Instead, she sounded amused.
"The Gisal will soon be your groom pool, baby girl"
The girl walked slowly towards Viridius. She then faked a frown,
"Too bad, I really liked Herius" she put her arms around Viridius, joining him to stare at the map.
"Too bad he''s dead. But don''t worry, I''m nning the biggest fireworks this kingdom has ever seen as a token of apology for killing your groom"? Viridius gently patted her hand on his shoulder.
"Speaking of killing, here''s your refill" the girl put her hands inside her corset to pull out a leather pouch just like the one in Viridius''s hand. Rather than handing it over to him, she opened up the cap before cing it into her father''s mouth. She slowly fed him the blood. She was one of the schrs who''s running the experiments. Only a few people knew about her experiment and talent.
It took her years of experiments on ves and rogue cultivators to find the form to brew the potion. Nheless, she knew the form is far from perfect. Currently, the potion would temporarily make the drinker younger. However, it had the side effect of fastening the aging process. Hence, Viridius looked like he was in his eighties when he was actually fifty years old.
"I want Caius alive papa. I heard he found something, it could be the piece I''m missing to perfect this form" A glimmer of delight emerged in Viridius''s old eyes. He turned to look at his daughter,
"You can y with him. I''ll arrange for him to be taken to one of yourbs discreetly" As Viridius was talking with his daughter, he felt themunication stone in one of his robe pockets vibrate.
Feeling the vibrations, the girl put her hands on his pocket to retrieve the stone for her father. The bluestone shone as it vibrated. She gently held it in her hand for her father to speak.
"Lord Viridius" a voice came from the stone,
"Speak"
"It''s done," the person from the other side spoke.
"Meet me at the usual ce tomorrow. The payment will be there" Viridius said.
"It''s nice doing business with you, Senator" The stone soon lost its glimmer, indicating that themunication had ended.
"Send the cleanup crew" After she put the stone back into his pocket, Viridius calmly ordered his daughter.
"No loose ends, hehehe" She chuckled evilly. She was just as cruel and ruthless as her father. In her life, there were only two important things, her father and her drive to find a cure for death. Only a few Southern continent-born people were able to cultivate after settling in the cultivation continents. Yet, none of them could live past the Body Refining Stage. Knowing the statistics, she decided to change their body from within to adapt to cultivating.
She had experimented on hundreds of lives to imbue arch energy in a cultivator''s blood without losing the energy after crossing the void line.
*********************
"I can make you cultivate Shorty but you have to quit drinking. Think you can do that?" Instead of sleeping on the bed in his room, Michael was outside with the crew. He was looking at the sun rising on the horizon while talking with Shorty and Gibson.
"Come on Cap''n. I want to do all the cool stuff you do" Michael never thought Shorty woulde to him, pleading to make him a cultivator. The idea of Shorty being a cultivator amused Michael. Michael did notpletely cut him off.
"I bet you do. But as I said, first go without drinking for a month and I''ll think about it"? the other pirates wereughing at Shorty.
They found the thought of Shorty casting spells the funniest thing they had ever imagined. Shorty heard the sound of themughing yet he seemed adamant about bing a cultivator which surprised Michael. At first, he thought Shorty wasn''t serious but that thought began to change.
" Cap''n if I do that, will you make me a cultivator?" Shorty tucked Michael''s sleeves. Michael looked down at Shorty. For the first time, he saw a serious look on Shorty''s face.
"Quit nagging Lord Lucifer you idiot" Gibson tried to interfere yet his shout didn''t even make Shorty bat an eye. Michael raised his hand as Gibson quickly shut his mouth.
"Alright, I''ll give you a chance. Go without booze for a month and I''ll make you a cultivator"
"Really? You promise?" Shorty''s face brightened up like someone lit a candle inside his head while his eyes sparkled with excitement.
"What the hell? You got my word" Michael sighed as he promised Shorty. He was going to make all of his men cultivators anyway.
"And its Lord, Lord Lucifer, Shorty" they turned back to see Gaya walking towards them. She didn''t wear any skull masks to hide the frown on her face.
Noticing the frown, Michael knew something serious came up.
"Gibson, get the crew ready and set the course for Gisal"
"Yes, Lord Lucifer"
"Aye aye Cap''n, Lord...Lord Lucifer"
Gibson addressed Michael as Lord Lucifer while Shorty addressed him as Cap''n. No matter how hard Shorty tried, he couldn''t address Michael as Lord Lucifer. Still, Shorty was trying and Michael could tell he would learn soon.
"What is it?" Michael climbed down the stairs to enter his room with Gaya.
"I have good news and bad news. The good news, Heinberg, and Tiberius found where they might have gone " Gaya rubbed her temples as she spoke.
"And the bad?"
"They might have brought their own explosives to blow the shit up" Michael realized why she had the frown. Heinberg already nted the explosives he bought from the system around the ce where the senators would sit. The explosives were nted carefully to blow up the senators but not all of them. If the diators brought their own explosives hoping to blow up the arena, the power of the explosion would be doubled, killing every single senator, including Caius. In addition to that, if the explosives the diators brought were powerful, the st could kill Tiberius, Heinberg, and Maxine along with all the nobles. Michael knew killing nobles might look like cleaning up the city but it would cripple the economy. The nobles were the backbone of the kingdom''s economy so killing them was equal to crippling the kingdom. If Michael were to destroy Gisal, he would have let the diators blow up the nobles.. Since his n was to use Gisal as his first step to conquer this world and earn gold coins, he had to stop them.
Chapter 281 - Web Of Schemes III
"Where is Heinberg and Tiberius now?" Michael asked. His voice was serious yet he remained calm. There was no expression except calmness on his face.
"Here" Gaya pointed at the far south side of Gisal where the city border meets the ocean.
"It''s where the sewage opens and I''m noting in" She firmly said. Thest thing she would do was rummage through their sewage.
"I''m not nning to take you with me. You make sure the senators are in their ces as we are nned. If I didn''t give you the signal by the time, save Caius and Maxine from the explosion first. And if you can, I can''t believe im saying this. Save the nobles"? Michael let out a peal of tiredughter. The nobles were indeed important but not as important as Caius or Maxine.
Of course, he nned to subdue the diators before they could blow up the arena using their own explosives. Nheless, he always liked to have multiple ns.
"Go, Heinberg and Tiberius will meet you at the entrance"
Michael nodded,
"And try not to stink more when you return," Sheughed.
"I''ll bring a bucket of sewage water for you to bath"
"Eww, go fuck yourself you gross bastard" Before she could throw something at him, a bright light enveloped him. In a blink of an eye, he disappeared from the room.
***********************
Michael appeared in a dark alley behind a three-story building. The alley was located near the docks. He marked this ce when he was staying in the city. Instead of walking towards the ce where Heinberg and Tiberius were waiting for him, Michael cast the lightning dash to take off from the ground. In a few seconds, he was in the air above everyone and everything else.
He could see the shipsing in and out of the docks. The sun was halfway above the horizon. The sparkling blue ocean had golden light decorating it as a gem on a crown. Calming ocean wind brushed past Michael while his raven ck hair fluttered in the wind, making his hair look messier and messier.
Michael willed the system to equip his Lucifer armor with a mask. In a sh, hepletely transformed himself into Lucifer except for the ck cloud and the red eyes.
Meanwhile, at the sewage entrance, Heinberg and Tiberius were waiting for Michael. The sewage entrance was arge circr hole with a few iron bars. Most of the iron bars were corroded leaving plenty of space for someone to enter the sewage. The entrance was located under a bridge which gave enough darkness for the two of them to avoid detection by soldiers.
"So how long have you been working for them?" Tiberius asked, leaning on the brick wall. Heinberg was watching around to see if anyone''sing when he heard Tiberius''s question.
"Couple of weeks"? Tiberius arched his brows as he was surprised.
"For a guy who has been doing this for a couple of weeks, you seem pretty loyal to them"
"Fear" Instead of giving Tiberius a long answer, Heinberg uttered only a word.
"Fear? Well, if I saw someone fly like a bird and use magic inside the void line, it''d freak me out too" Tiberius shrugged.
"You''ve only seen a glimpse of what they can do Tiberius"
Tiberius wasn''t interested in what they had done. He was more interested in what they could do to this god-forsaken continent.
"Do you think they could do what the rebels are trying to do?"
"I don''t think, I know. They will change the fate of this continent for better or worse"
"Whoa!" as they were speaking, Tiberius saw a dark figure suddenlynd before the sewage entrance. He recognized the armor yet this was the first time Tiberius saw Michael with his skull mask on.
"Let''s go find your friends" Without wasting a second, Michael leaped from the ground to enter the sewage tunnel. Like an obedient servant, Heineberg climbed up the sewage entrance following Michael. Tiberius enteredstly.
"grhhh"
Heineberg thought the stink outside was overwhelming butpared to the inside, the outside stink was nothing. He had to cover his nose while following Michael.
When Michael entered the dark forest with Gaya, he was poisoned with fear toxin. This lesson taught Michael to design his mask to filter toxins, poisons, and any particles that could harm him. With the inventor trait, his knowledge in Alchemy, and a few parts from the system, he was able to build a mini filtration device inside his mask. Fortunately, the mask filtered most of the stink but notpletely.
The further they walked into the tunnel, the less they saw what''s in front of them. There was no torcher or holes in the ceiling for the sunlight toe through. Hence, Michael had to conjure an orb of light to lighten the path.
The red orb of light soon made everything clear for Tiberius and Heinberg. While moving forward, Michael was searching for footprints yet he couldn''t see one because the sewage water cleared any footpaths or evidence of the diators who walked the path before.
After walking for a few minutes, Michael finally saw a crumbled wall. The brick wall had a holerge enough for a few men to walk side by side.
"They used some kind of explosion to blow this hole" Heinberg told Michael.
"A mini version of it anyways. We are still below the streets if the explosion wasn''t a small one, the soldiers would have felt the shake ande to check"
"That means there''s someone with knowledge in explosions was with them" Tiberius seemed like he has just realized something,
"That son of a bitch Mark. Before he was a diator, he worked as a bodyguard for a schr who specialized in explosives. He bragged about this when he was drunk"
Thinking about Mark made Tiberius''s blood boil in anger. Ever since his limbs started to shake due to the wound he suffered in the hands of Herius, Mark tried to undermine him every chance he got. After Titus, Optimus and Tiberius, Mark wiggled himself onto Doctorus''s side. Tiberius always felt a bad vibe from Mark.
"We have to stop them from blowing shit up if you want your n to work" Michael let in Tiberius with his n because he wanted everyone to be up to speed for the n to work.
Michael pointed his finger towards the hole as the orb of light flew into the hole, lighting the path. Michael could see there are numerous paths branching out at the end of the tunnel.
"Shit" Tiberius cursed.
Michael was prepared for this, that was why he brought some friends. Tiberius and Heinberg expected Michael to enter the hole searching for the diators. However, instead of stepping into the hole, Michael willed the system as several tiny drones appeared in front of him.
The drones produced a faint humming sound as they moved into the hole. Neither of them had ever seen such things before in their lives. They just stared at the drones disappearing into the darkness with their mouths slightly open. Michael closed his eyes for a second when the drones reached the junction where there were seven branching out tunnels ahead of the drones. He had a total of fourteen drones. He sent two drones in each tunnel. The drones traveled extremely fast. Controlling all of them at once took a toll on his brain as he began to feel a slight headache.
Ignoring the headache, hepletely focused on controlling the drones. Each tunnel was long, dark, and inhibited by nothing but rats and spiders. The drones flew cutting through the spiderwebs like a hot knife through butter.
Michael abruptly opened his eyes when he saw a dead body through the drone he sent into the fifth tunnel.
"Follow me" Michael stopped controlling a few drones to free his mind. He then walked into the tunnel towards the fifth tunnel where he found the dead body.
"Did you find something?" After seeing Michael choose this particr tunnel from the seven tunnels, Tiberius wondered why.
"Yes, a dead body"
Tiberius felt a chill running through his spine. Despite his disagreements with the diators, he respected all the diators and people who had the guts to rebel against their masters. Furthermore, he knew the diators who came here to blow up the arena would be the core group including Doctorus. He wouldn''t call the core group his friends yet the thought of one of them might be dead created a bad feeling in his gut.
After a few minutes of walking, the three of them began to vaguely see the dead body in the distance. The orb of light illuminated the body as well as the bloodstains on the wall.
Michael looked around for any booby traps left by the killer. They couldn''t see the face but only the stab wound on the back as the face was facing the ground. The dead one was tall, numerous paths are branchingat least six feet five inches. He had a muscr body with old burn marks on his body. In addition to the scars, under the orb of light, Michael could see that the man was ck.
"No no no no, it can''t be" Tiberius rushed at the body sshing sewage water all around him. He immediately knelt beside the body ignoring the sewage water before turning the body,
"Doctorus"
Chapter 282 - Defusing The Bombs
Michael didn''t say anything but he was indeed surprised. He heard Tiberius talk about Doctorus when he asked him about the ve rebellion. The man trained some of the best diators in the Southern Continent including Titus and Optimus. It was a pity to find this man dead. Michael nned to recruit him and make him train his own personal army of diators.
"Come on wake up old man!" Tiberius shook Doctorus''s body frantically.
"Do something!"
"He''s dead Tiberius, someone stabbed him in the back" Michael pointed out the stab wound in the back.
"We might catch whoever did this when we meet the other diators. Let''s hope they''re alive" Tiberius just realized that whoever killed Doctorus might have gone to kill the rest of them. Still, Tiberius couldn''t believe a single man could have killed Doctorus. As far as he knew, it would take ten diators to even wound Doctorus let alone kill him.
In anger and shock, Tiberius failed to see the simple yet most correct conclusion. The drone hovering above them flew further into the tunnel, searching for the diators while Tiberius stood up carrying Doctorus''s body in his arms.
"I''ll not leave him in this stinking hell"
"We''ll give him a proper burial," Michael said before following the drone''s path. Finding Doctorus dead made Michael speed up things. He drove the drone as fast as the drone could fly. It was obvious to Michael that someone among the diators was a traitor.
"Lord Lucifer" as they were walking, Heinberg called Michael.
"Speak"
"Isn''t it dangerous for us to walk into a ce that''s filled with explosives? Whoever killed him might have booby-trapped it to explode"
Tiberius was too drowned in anger and grief to listen to Heinberg. He just walked behind them carrying Doctorus''s body. All of his moments with Doctorus shed across his eyes.
"He was dead for at least three hours. That''s plenty of time to set off the explosives if he wanted to. And if I''m right, he won''t be there with the diators"
"Why do you say that?" Tiberius asked. Speaking of the killer brought Tiberius back from his shbacks. He wanted to rip the throat off of the one who killed Doctorus. Tiberius promised himself and Doctorus that he would avenge him.
"He was stabbed in the back which means Doctorus trusted this person to turn his back and drop his guard. The traitor stabbed him in the back, killed him, and it''s highly unlikely that he returned to the diators. If he had, they would have definitely asked where Doctorus is ande searching for him-" Michael abruptly stopped talking when he found the diators. They were gathered at a spacious hall where he could see several pirs going into the ceiling.
"Six diators ahead" Michael fastened his steps. Eventually, after walking for fifteen minutes, they saw the tunnel open up to a spacious hall. Several torches were lit around the hall to reveal the long pirs as well as a few sacks.
"Someone''sing"
"Who else would being other than Doctorus?"
"What was he doing out there?"
"Give the man a break, this is ourst day"
"What''s that sound?"
The diators began to murmur hearing the footsteps. Despite the drone flying above them and its very silent, the diators still heard the faint humming sound it produced. Only because the drone was flying from one dark spot to another managed to evade their eyes.
"Guys" the diators looked closer at the tunnel to see the orb of light. Soon, they became agitated seeing Michael walking out of the darkness. His full armor and the skull freaked them out. Yet, they were quick enough to draw their swords out.
"Stand down!" Tiberius'' shout reverberated the hall.
"I heard that voice before"
"It''s Tiberius"
The six remaining diators saw Tiberius walk out of the darkness. For a moment, the diators couldn''t recognize Tiberius. It was because Tiberius wore a new te armor with his long hair tied into a ponytail. Michael asked Heinberg to buy ready-made armor from a forge in Crilta for Tiberius. It was a temporary measure until he returned to Elon, made Jack his cksmith, and crafted custom-made armor for all of his subordinates.
"Tiberius!" All the diators'' faces lit up seeing Tiberius but within a snap of time, their smiles disappeared from their faces.
"Who did this?" Tiberius was not in the mood for a happy reunion. His eyes were blood red. He was basically shivering in anger. Michael and Heinberg could feel the killing intent radiating from Tiberius.
Michael stared at the diators one by one. There were six diators in front of them. All of them were between six feet and six feet five inches tall with muscr bodies. Themonality between all of them was the burn marks and the scars on their bodies.
"what...Doctorus" the diators mumbled in shock. Their weapons were raised halfway looking at Tiberius.
"Deal with them, I''ll take care of the explosives"? Michael saw the white y attached to each pir. Sensing the heating from the y through his eyes of darkness, he recognized them as the explosives set by Mark.
"Is Mark here?" While walking towards the first pir a couple of meters in front of Michael,? he asked the diators.
The diators couldn''t care less about the explosives after seeing Doctorus''s body. They all knelt beside his body overwhelmed with grief.
"Where is he?" Tiberius put Doctorus''s body on the ground, looking around for Mark yet he couldn''t see him.
"He was with Doctorus, do you think....?" one of the diators asked Tiberius. They knew Tiberius well enough to know that Tiberius wouldn''t harm his mentor. Hence, they never doubted Tiberius of killing Doctorus but Mark was another story. Despite Mark''s effort to get onto Doctorus''s side recing Tiberius, most of the diators didn''t trust him as they trusted Tiberius. Of course many disliked Tiberius due to his quick temper, arguments he had with Doctorus, and cold demeanor, yet they didn''t make Tiberius any less trustworthy.
"He was stabbed in the back"
"Mark wanted to see the sunrise onest time. We don''t know why but after a few minutes he left, Doctorus went looking for him" Tiberius''s killing intent skyrocketed hearing the diators. It became more and more evident that Doctorus was killed by Mark. He only didn''t know why Mark killed him.
"We need to find that son of a bitch" Tiberius took his gaze away from Doctorus''s face to Michael who was staring at the y mold sticking on a pir.
"I''ll rip that bastard to shreds"
"He''s mine"
"Fuck blowing up the arena, we need to kill that snake"
''The diators were riled up. They passed the grieving stage to reach the stage where they felt nothing but the pure rage of a diator.
"I have an idea who knows where he is," Michael said.
The white y sticking on the pir before him seemed nothing special in the naked eyes. At first, Michael thought he would want to ask the System''s help to diffuse but he was wrong. The white y was a chemicalpound which meant it rted to alchemy. Combined with his knowledge of alchemy and inventor traits, he began to sense how the explosives were made of and how to diffuse them.
With eyes of darkness''s help, he could see the inside of the y. Unlike most of the bombs on earth, there were neither wires nor circuits in the y. Inside the white y was a word separated through the center by a liquid. Either side of the liquid was filled with chemicalpounds that would create a reaction whening to contact with each other. The liquid was the substance that prevented thepounds from getting mixed. The white y covering the orb absorbed this liquid little by little, hence working as a timer.
"System, i need a syringe filled with coconut oil"
[50 badass points. Do you wish to buy it?]
"Yes"
The liquid just needed to be nonreactive to either of the substances in the orb. Compared to the liquid already inside the orb, coconut oil was a much better option.
In a sh, two syringes appeared in Michael''s hand. One was filled with coconut oil whereas the other was empty. Michael gently sent the needle of the syringe filled with coconut oil into the line where the liquid was. He pressed the syringe head as the liquid line began to get filled with oil. After refilling the liquid line, Michael sent the needle of the empty syringe through the y towards one of the substances before gently squeezing the substance into the empty syringe.
It took Michael a couple of seconds topletely remove the substance from the orb. After he took out the chemicalpound, there was no substance for the other one to react with. Thus, the explosive was reduced to nothing but slightly hot y.
"You''reing with me" Michael pulled out the y from the pir before storing it in his space ring. He wanted to study the explosive further to make some changes to it so he could use them in the future instead of buying explosives from the system as he did.
*********************************
I split the chapters into two to make them interesting and less draggy. Also, the southern continent arc ising to end with a bang!!
Chapter 283 - From Now On, Gisel Is Mine I
Morning arrived as a mother''s gentle hand, inviting the dreams of the night to enter the day. The sun painted the horizon with golden light. The songs of the early birds sounded better than any music. It could calm anyone''s soul. Waking up to the view of the sun rising on the horizon and the calm sea always soothed Caius''s mind. Today was different, today he was looking at hundreds of nobles gathered around him. Instead of hearing the chirping of the early birds, he heard only the cheers of people who were excited to witness the wedding ceremony of Fabia, the only daughter of Senator Viridius.
The arena could simply hold 45,000 people. Because the ceremony was meant for only the richest and the powerful, out of 45,000 seats, only 350 were filled including the senators. Many nobles from the nearby kingdoms attended the ceremony with their rtives. They were more interested in watching diators fight to the death rather than Fabia''s wedding.
On the elevated stage built for the senators, eightvish chairs were arranged in the front line while numerous less fancy chairs upied the space behind the first line. Among the seven chairs in the front, six were for the senators, one for the bride, and one for the groom. The rest of the chairs were for the Senators'' family members. Caius was the first senator toe as he wanted to seat himself on the chair where Lucifer told him to. If everything went ording to the n, this day would change his life forever.
Caius walked towards the fourth chair from the right. Standing in front of the seat, he ran his finger on the top rail until he felt a bump in the cushion covering the rail.
"Don''t worry Senator, Lord Lucifer, and the Dark Queen will protect you" Maxine entered through the doorway carrying a silver tray with wine cups on top of it. She was assigned as a personal maid so she had to do these chores to make it look real. The worst part of the job was not serving Caius but having to wear the ridiculous maid uniform. At Least she got permission for Lord Lucifer to wear arge hat that helped her hide her embarrassment.
"The others are on their way. So look normal"
Caius drew a long breath preparing himself for the big day. As she said, he needed to look normal or the other senators might get suspicious. Although the senators would look friendly to the public, they all hated each other due to the power struggle between them. They wouldn''t raise a finger if there isn''t a political benefit for them. The mere thought of getting rid of all of the senators made Caius''s blood boil in excitement. Following Lucifer seemed a very good move at this moment.
"Senator Caius" Caius was just about to reach his hand out to pick a wine ss from Maxine''s tray when he heard a familiar voice calling out his name.
Maxine turned her head to see a tall man with long brown hair walking towards them with two spartan soldiers. He was thin as a stick. With his wide grin and bony face, he really looked creepy in her eyes.
"Senator Quintis" Caius smiled but anyone could tell the smile was fake as a unicorn.
"Looks like you two has beaten me to it"
Maxine saw another man walking behind Quintis. Unlike Quintis, he was rather short and chubby.No spartan soldiers or rtives could be seen apanying this man. He came walking alone.
"Senator Kaeso" Yet again the three senators exchanged fake smiles.
"Where is that Giant of yours Senator?" Quintis asked Caius. Hepletely ignored Maxine. She could see the contempt in his eyes when he looked at her.
"Won''t he obstruct the view of the wonderful fights?" Caius said with a small grin on his face,
"He certainly will," Senator Kaeso said letting out a short burst ofughter
"What did I miss?" The three senators saw senator Sellic approaching them with his two wives, three children, and two fully armor-ted soldiers. He was neither too short nor too tall. His golden hair was short just like one of his wives. The second wife was a redhead with a beautiful hourss structure.? The senator and the golden-haired woman seemed like they were in theirte forties but the red-haired woman looked much younger. One would guess that she was in herte twenties.
The three children stayed beside the golden-haired woman. Two of them were young boys in theirte teens while the girl seemed a couple of years younger than them.
"Look who''s here, Senator Arruns'' '' Senator Kaeso weed the senator''s family with a grin. Maxine noticed the genuine smile on Kaeso''s face. His smile seemed genuine because Senator Arruns and Kaeso were nning to tie the two families with a marriage between Kaeso''s daughters and Arruns''s sons.
Just like any other continent in this world, marriages were proposed with ulterior motives. They were kind of deals and cared less about the groom and bride''s feelings. Even the Winston family arranged a marriage between Noah and Alicia to strengthen their family. Plus, in this world, a man was allowed to marry as many times as he wants. Hence, most of the cultivators and noblemen had a harem of wives. It was extremely rare to see someone like Michael who hated the idea of having a harem of wives. With his reputation and talent, he could have as many beautiful wives as he wants. In addition to his hate towards the harem, Gaya would murder anyone if one wanted to share him with her.
"So I see I''m the only one who brought the family," Senator Arrunsughed. The red-haired woman remained expressionless while the others shook hands with the senators before taking their seats.
"Where is Senator Viridius? He can''t bete to his own daughter''s wedding" Senator Quintis looked at the doorway expecting Viridius.
"Speaking of weddings, where are the bride and groom? And is Senator Marcusing to the ceremony?" Senator Kaeso asked the senators,
"I won''t be surprised if he didn''t show up considering what happened at the g,"? Senator Arruns said as the senators except Caius nodded their heads. What Senator Arruns said would have been true if Caius didn''t receive any orders from Lucifer. It was Caius''s responsibility to bring all the senators to the stage. Senator Caius had to owe Senator Marcus a favor to get him to the marriage. Since these Senators wouldn''t survive to see the next day, Caius was happy to oblige to Marcus''s demands.
"What the hell are you waiting for? Move your bby ass and go bring refreshments for everyone" Senator Quintis raised his voice at Maxine.
"Yes my lord, forgive me" Maxine quickly lowered her head hiding her anger from showing on her face. She didn''t want to disappoint Lord Lucifer because of Quintis''s remarks.
"Take a seat gentleman" Caius gestured at the senators to sit. He didn''t budge an inch away from the chair he was supposed to sit on.
"Are you alright Senator Caius?" The golden-haired woman noticed the few sweat drops appearing on Caius''s forehead. Caius knew she is more observant than the rest of them. Still, he was surprised by her question.
"Why wouldn''t I be? It''s not like my daughter''s wedding" Caius brushed off her question with a joke.
"Quickly fix your daughter''s marriage, Senator Caius. I have some excellent matches for your daughter"
"I bet you do"
The woman chuckled as Maxine returned carrying two silver trays with several wine sses on top of them. While she was serving them, everyone in the arena heard a loud rumbling noise. They looked up to see the airship slowly floating towards them in the sky.
This wasn''t the first time Maxine saw an airship. The design of the ship was very simr to the blimps on earth. Instead of helium, the schrs used Odril gas. It was produced by heating Odril ore in extreme heat.
The blimp cast a huge shadow on the arena as it was almost 150 feet long, 60 feet high, and 50 feet wide. Despite its enormous size, the blimp could only hold 20 people including two pilots and three crew members. However, there were airships in the Southern continent that could hold more people and fit with weapons for airbat.
"Senator Viridius is really showing off" Senator Kaeso snickered. The blimp continued to move at a snail pace beforeing to a halt at the top of the arena.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Right at this moment, loud bell sounds could be heard. Realizing the wedding ceremony had begun, the nobles became silent. On the fighting ground, a woman wearing a red dress walked towards the center. Her dress was extremely revealing, everyone could see her plump rosy thighs as well as her navel and cleavage. The fighting ground wasn''t paved with stone but filled with sand so the diators also had to fight the scorching hot sand on their feet. The woman however wore a heel to prevent the hot sand from hurting her feet. She fiddled with her brown hair while waving her hand at the nobles around her.? Her smooth silky skin, oval face, and hourss structure made the youngsters stare at her without taking their eyes away. She certainly enjoyed this attention, that was why she chose to host diator fights despite the blood and gore the fights apanied.
"Let''s give a loud apuse for the bride and our senator of defense, Senator Viridius" the nobles cheered, pping as loud as they could.
Soon, the senators sitting on the stage turned their heads back to see Senator Viridus walking towards them with his daughter by his side. Several spartan soldiers walked behind them as protection yet all the senators'' focus was on the beautiful bride. Her white dress sparkled with gems and gold dust, making the bride look like an angel.
"Lord Lucifer, everyone''s here" behind the spartan soldiers, Maxine noticed a tanned skin man with no hair on his head walking towards them. He was thest Senator they were looking for, Senator Marcus. With his arrival, the first phase of Lucifer''s n was over sessfully.
"Lord Lucifer, they are all here"
Chapter 284 - From Now On, Gisel Is Mine II
Senator Viridius led his daughter to their chairs which were located right next to Caius. In the power hierarchy of senators, Caius stood at the top with his head of senate position while Viridius stood only next to him with his position of senator of defense. They both held two of the most important ministries of a kingdom, Finance, and Military. The voting for electing senators was one of the important events in any senate ruled kingdom. Only noblemen had the right to vote. The number of senators in a kingdom varied from kingdom to kingdom. In Gisal, there were six senators. Hence, in Gisel, the first six candidates with the most votes would be senators. Among them who got the most votes would be the head. The Head of the senate had the power to choose a ministry for himself and assign ministries for the other senators.
Caius chose the Finance ministry becausepared to the rest of the ministries, he could swindle more money in the Finance ministry. Defense ministry was the most stressful and problematic one, therefore, he assigned it to his potential head of senate candidate, Viridius. Over the years, Caius saw how Viridius is bing older and older. He rejoiced inside because if Viridius were to die, there wouldn''t be anypetition for the head position in the future.
"Pity," Caius said to himself looking at Fabia in her wedding dress. He felt bad for the girl to die on the most important day of her life, her wedding.
"First of all, let''s congratte Miss Fabia who is about to be Lady Fabia Herius" The girl on the ground had a metal cube on her palm that amplified her voice loud enough to reach everyone in the arena.
The nobles whistled and pped as Fabia kept waving her hand at them.
"Fabia" Viridius gestured at Fabia to seat herself before sitting beside Caius. While everyone''s focus was on the bride and Viridius, Marcus took his seat without causing a ruckus. He sat on thest chair from the right beside Senator Quintis.
"I don''t see the groom, Senator Viridius" Caius leaned towards Viridius,
"He''s taking care of something for me, he''ll be here soon" Viridius whispered. Viridius ced a trio of elite killers among Herius''s security detail to kill him and the other spartans. Since Herius didn''t make it to the wedding or his spies didn''t see Heriusing out of the barracks, he thought the trio managed to do their job. WHat both Viridius and Caius didn''t know was Michael and Gaya killed all of the security detail including the three killers ced by Viridius and kidnapped Herius. The trio might be the best killers gold coins could buy yet in front of Michael and Gaya, they were as weak as babies. At that time, Gaya didn''t even notice there were three elite killers among them.
"He better be, it''s his wedding after all" Caius was concerned about Herius. He didn''t want Herius to escape and use what''s about to happen as a trump card in his campaign if Herius chose to run for senate.
"Settle down my lords, mydies. It''s time to kickstart the celebration"
"Whoooooo!"
"Yeah!"
"Release the beasts!"
"Fight"
"Fight"
"Fight"
The nobles began to scream in excitement. Even the nobledies stood up from their seats, the thrill of seeing diators fighting to death made their blood boil. The nobles became addicted to diator fights, it was their only entertainment. The nobles'' lust for blood made them invest arge sum of their wealth in luduses. Even the small Ludus had twenty highly trained diators. This was one of the reasons why very flourished in the Southern Continent. The nobles encouraged the senate to go to war with nearby kingdoms so the loser''s citizens would be ves. From these ves, strong males could be purchased to be diators by various luduses. Almost all the nobles and the rich would attend the yearly g where they would bid for ves who had the qualities to be a diator.
The girl on the ground grinned happily hearing their chant. She then stared at her left and right side. Both sides had eight feet iron gates. There were totally six-iron gates around the fighting ground. During big tournaments where six diators fight to the death, each Ludus would send one diator through one gate. They wanted the diators to meet each other only on the fighting ground.
As seconds passed by, the wind became hotter and hotter above the sand. The wind also revealed the skeletons of various animals such as bison, giant lizards, and lions buried halfway in the sand. One could even see human remains in the sand. The remains served as ornaments for the fighting ground. Some nobles even paid a hefty sum for the dead bodies of diators. They preserved various parts of the body, keeping them on a disy.
"We have two proud luduses today with us to light up the ceremony. Give your warm wee for Ludus Tulles Bantius Fuscus Of Yetopia and Ludus Drusus Vesuvius Arbutus of Lidora"
The moment the girl announced the names, the whole crowd went wild. They were two of the most prominent Luduses in the entire continent.
"Whoa, did I hear her right? Ludus Tulles and Ludus Drusus"
"Oh my god oh my god oh my god"
"Please let me see Lion Head!"
"Now I see why the ticket was priced this much"
"This is gonna be awesome!"
"Are they taking bets?"
"Do you think Ludus Tulles will let out the Lion Head to fight today?"
"Let''s hope they will"
The onlookers began to chit-chat amongst themselves. The girl uttered no words, letting the hype build-up before revealing the fighters. Even from where she was standing, she could hear the nobles dying to see Lion Head, one of the most decorated diators on the Continent.
"Senator Viridius, you really went all-in with the ceremony huh?" Senator Arruns looked very surprised. Without his control, he had arge grin stered across his face. To say the least, Senator Arruns was excited to see the diators who belonged to the most prominent luduses fight to the death for their entertainment.
Fabia, the bride, could barely hold her excitement. To her, the diators were an excellent specimen for experiments. After her failures with Titus and Optimus, she was looking for new specimens. If her father''s n went without a hitch, she would have some of the best diators to y within herb.
"Don''t get too excited Senator, this is just a glimpse of what I''ve in store for you today" Viridius smirked.
"We cannot wait to see" Senator Quintisughed without having a clue about Viridius''s real intention. While the Senators were staring at the women on the ground to announce the fighters'' names, Viridius retrieved the pocket watch from his toga pocket to check the time.
Maxine noticed Viridius''s checking the time. She knew he was checking the time to leave the stage when it''s time for the explosion. As he was looking forward to the explosion, there would be one, just not at the time he was expecting.
"I won''t take any more of your time, my lords, mydies. Let''s open the gates for Sextus, the eye gouger from Ludus Tulles" the east side iron gate slowly opened as all the eyes fell on the gateway to see the diator striding through the gateway.
The diator wore nothing but leather boxers with metal bracers and leather boots. He stood 6feet 4 inches tall. Except for the abs, he had clear muscle definition everywhere else. The half skull he wore as a hat on his head freaked out some of the people. As he was striding towards the center, he kept licking his bronze mace.
"The sweet scent of woman''s flesh" Taking his tongue off of his mace, Sextus licked his own lips staring at the announcer girl. She tried her hardest not to show the difort on her face.
"And from Ludus Drusus, I wee Lars, the lightning Whip" the west side gate slowly creaked open, getting all the attention.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
Gradually, they all saw a tall figure walking through the gateway, making cracking sounds along the way. Lars was not as muscr as Sextus, he had a lean body.? Instead of a sword or any typical weapon made of metal, he had a long barbed whip in his hand. Hence the nickname lightning whip.
As he was walking towards the center, he kept attacking the ground with his whip. Each time he swung his whip, it produced a high pitch cracking noise.
"Hmm, I thought there''ll be more audience," Lars said disappointedly looking around the nobles.
"It''s good for you. Because less crowd means less embarrassment for you when I gouge out those pretty eyes of yours" Sextus taunted Lars. He raised his voice loud enough for the metal box on the girl''s palm to amplify his voice. The nobles became excited hearing Sextus. The more blood and gore, the better for the nobles.
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
The nobles began to chant again as the announcer girl took a step back before the two diators started to fight.
"I won''t take any more of your time, gentleman. The battle will begin after the bell sound" palm
It took the girl a couple of minutes to reach the end of the fighting ground. Reaching the end, she opened up the wooden door that revealed stairs to the upper levels where she could see the fight from an elevated position.
The two diators didn''t dare to start fighting before the bell sound. It was prohibited. In the best-case scenario, they would be starved for a week, and in the worst case, they would receive a minimum of two hundred whip attacks, starvation for at least two weeks, and battle beasts. For diators like them, fighting the beasts with starving stomachs was equal to a death sentence. Therefore, they patiently waited for the bell to ring.
"Human, are you ready to blow this thing up?" At that moment, Gaya was watching the two diators from the sky. She wore a white dress to blend in with the clouds in case someone looked at the sky.
"When you''re ready" an evil grin emerged on her face after hearing Michael.
Chapter 285 - From Now On, Gisel Is Mine III
Lars and Sextus were standing on the fighting ground''s center with a few meters distance between them. The nobles could feel the hot air radiating from the sand in the fighting ground. Coupled with their excitement, they began to sweat more than the diators themselves.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Finally, the three bell sounds reverberated the arena. The moment the bell sound appeared, the nobles screamed as loud as they could.
Crack!
Lars immediately whipped his whip at Sextus before leaping back. The whip was effective in long-rangedbat, hence Lars leaped back to create a distance between them. Sextus barely dodged the barbed whip, it scraped the skin off of his shoulder. Getting his skin peeled off was extremely painful yet Sextus didn''t let the pain slow down his movements.
The blood sttered on the hot sand, producing a faint ''shhh'' sound. Lars kept whipping the barbed whip at Sextus trying to stop Sextus from getting close. Just like his nickname, Lars''s whip was lightning speed.
"Arghhh" Sextus screamed, not in agony but in anger. The agility of Lars and his quickness of attacking him made Sextus madder and madder. From the battle started, Lars had the upper hand. He was agile, quick, and kept attacking Sextus with deadly uracy. The nobles were on the edge of their seats.
"Whoa Lars is really good"
"No shit, look at Sextus. All messed up"
"Why is it that brute not getting close?"
"He''s trying but that scrawny one is not letting him"
"I never thought a whip could be this effective and dangerous"
The onlookers had different opinions about the fight. Most of them however favored Lars. They were right as even Gaya whose hovering in the sky favored Lars to win the fight if the two diators continued to fight. Every one of them could see Sextus slowing down due to the wounds he suffered.
"Kill!"
"Kill!"
"Kill!"
A group of noble youngsters began to chant. One could see the blood lust on their faces. Their chant riled up Lars as he began to attack Sextus more violently and frantically.
The cracking sound of the whip became louder and louder. Sextus''s body was painted with his own blood. His flesh and blood sttered across the hot sand. Since he blocked the whip with his hands, they suffered the most. One could even see the vague outline of the bloodied bone in his hand as the barbed whip peeled off the skin from his hands.
"ARGHH!" Sextus screamed once again but instead of dodging or blocking the whip, he let the barbed whip wrap around his rib cage.
Lars was stunned to see Sextus from his guard. Soon he realized why he did that as Sextus grabbed the barbed whip tightly. The barbs on the whip prated Sextus''s palm as blood oozed out of his hand. Nheless, Sextus didn''t let go of the whip. He held on to it as tight as he could.
"Shit" Lars tried to pull the whip away from Sextus yet he simply couldn''t. Everyone misjudged Sextus''s ability to endure pain. Just when they thought Sextus couldn''t win against Lars, he used his wit to ovee Lars''s agility.
Inch by inch, Sextus moved towards Lars while holding onto the whip. He gritted his teeth in pain as his eyes turned bloodshot. Even his brown skin became paler due to the blood loss.
"How is he doing that?"
"This is awesome"
"Look at all that blood"
"Lars is doomed"
The nobles loved the blood and gore, unlike Gaya or Maxine. Gaya had no love for the human race yet she hated seeing two humans fight to the death for the sake of the nobles'' entertainment. In the other continents, cultivators often heldpetitions like this. However, those cultivators didn''t fight for others'' entertainment, rather they fought for rare resources, treasures, and gold coins. Plus, almost all thosepetitions had the option of surrendering. If one decided to surrender, there were no consequences except they would not get the said prize.
"Human, are you sure we can''t blow these assholes to hell?" Gaya creased her brows in disgust looking at the nobles.
"Enough ying around, I''m out and Maxine is ready. Blow them up" She heard Michael''s voice in her head.
Meanwhile, Sextus had sessfullye closer to Lars. He was just a meter away from Lars who began to slightly shiver in fear.
"Pretty pretty eyes" Despite the pain, Sextus licked his lips with an evil grin on his face. His blood-covered teeth made his grin even eviler.
"Fuck-" Lars cursed realizing he would die a horrible death if he kept holding onto the whip. Therefore, he tried to let go.
"Where are you going?"
Sextus quickly grabbed Lars by his neck before Lars could step away from him.
"Kill!"
"Kill!"
"Kill!"
Yet again nobles began to shout. This time it was Sextus who riled up because of the shout. Sextus let go of the whip before grabbing Lars by his neck using both of his bloodied hands.
"Let...go" Lars wiggled frantically to escape Sextus''s hold. Soon, Lars felt his feet getting higher and higher from the ground. Lifting Lars by his neck, Sextus quickly moved forward to lick Lars''s cheek. He took his time licking Lars''s face. Many noblewomen frowned as it was pretty disgusting to see Sextus licking Lars''s face. Nheless, many nobles enjoyed this kind of freaky stuff.
"Who wants to see some EYES!?" Sextus shouted loudly. His voice reverberated the arena.
"Kill!"
"Kill!"
"Kill!"
This time, almost all the nobles except the senators stood up from their seats in excitement. They threw their hands up, screaming at Sextus.
Boom!
Just when Sextus was about to gouge Lars''s eyes out, the elevated stage where the senators were enjoying the fight exploded, producing an ear-piercing loud booming sound. A small mushroom cloud of fire appeared above the stage where they were sitting. The st wave was so powerful that it even knocked down Lars and Sextus. The arena shook as pieces of marble stones crumbled down from the arena''s walls. To the sound of the explosion came the terrible echo as if it were the anguished cry of God.
"AH!"
"Oh my god!"
Few nobles were quick to react as they began to scream.
Whee!
Whee!
Whee!
Immediately someone activated the fire rm that produced loud crying noises. diators, Spartans as well as legionary soldiers came rushing through the gates and doorways to save the senators. In addition to fire that burned with red hot mes, the dust cloud enveloped the nearby area of the stage. It prevented the nobles from seeing what''s happening inside the mes.
**********************************
Inside the bomb site, Caius was lying on the ground sideways. His vision blurred while he could not hear anything but a high pitch whistling sound. He could vaguely see a few figures lying in front of him. He couldn''t make out the identities. In addition to the smoke and me, he could see pieces of flesh and bones. Feeling the dizziness oveing his senses, he tried not to close his eyes.
"Ah"
Caius felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He let out a sharp cry. In a few seconds, his brain realized the sensation of a hand on his shoulder. He tried to turn his head yet the injuries prevented him from doing so.
"Take him to the doorway and make sure they find him first" Caius could barely hear the words.
"Swallow this" the next second, Caius felt a figure pushing a pill into his mouth. Although his vision was blurred, he could see the face of Maxine.
The moment the pill touched his tongue, he felt a cool sensation all over his body. The pain started to be less while his vision slowly cleared up.
Gaya stood among the wreckage searching for any survivors except Caius. After she had given the healing pill, Maxine dragged Caius towards the doorway. The two of them made sure the doorway was clear so the spartans could find Caius quickly.
Although the smoke hindered her eyesight, she could see no bodies moving. The explosion was more powerful than she initially expected. There were no intact dead bodies as she saw several limbs and body chunks lying around. At first, she thought she would feel pity for these people but after seeing how they enjoyed the diator fight, she felt nothing.
"Save the senators!"
"Move move move!"
While she was looking around for survivors although it was highly unlikely someone would have survived the st, she heard people rushing towards the wreckage.
"Dark Queen, it''s done" Maxine came to her side. Despite the bruises and cuts made by the wooden splinters on her face, Maxine grinned. Her face was bright like she hadpleted something important.
"Is there any chance of Viridius to survive the explosion?" Gaya heard Michael''s voice sound in her head. She looked around before locking her gaze on a charcoaled body that had no legs attached.
"Nope"
"Shame. Now get out of there before anyone sees you two. Wait for me in the Reaper"
With a final look around the wreckage, Gaya put her hand on Maxine''s shoulder.. Using the smoke as a cover, she took off from the ground in lightning-fast before disappearing into the clouds.
Chapter 286 - Preparing To Leave The Southern Continent
Onshore breezes climbed the mountain slopes until the air became cool enough to condense its vapor to rain. A lone banyan tree stood atop the mountain casting its dark shadows on the muddy ground. The rain reacted with the earth creating the scent of ground. Under the banyan tree stood several figures. One of those figures was Michael. The city of Crilta could be seen in the distance. His eyes were fixed on the smoke reaching the sky from the arena.
"It''s done," Michael said, turning back to see the fresh grave of Doctorus. The diators gather around the grave with their heads lowered. They paid theirst respect to Doctorus in silence.
Michael walked to the grave, kneeling on one knee in front of the grave. Regardless that he knew nothing about the man, he respected him because he deserved it. He started this rebellion against the nobles, he fought for freedom and died a free man. Michael paid his respect by grabbing a handful of soil and pouring it again onto the grave. It was a gesture of respect, also a sign of forgiveness for what he was about to do.
The diators including Tiberius stared at him as Michael stood up. They all noticed the smoke except they were not in the mood to rejoice. The loss of Doctorus was too overwhelming for them. They were ready to sacrifice themselves yet they never imagined Doctorus would be murdered by one of them.
"You know why he left you at the camp instead of taking you with us?" one of the diators asked. The sound of thunder rumbling, as well as the shes of lightning, apanied them along with Tiberius''s silence.
"He wanted you to lead the rebellion after him" the diator finished his thought. Tiberius just let out a hollowugh,
"Crazy bastard. Always managed to find things that I cannot agree with"? Tiberius took his gaze away from the grave to the dark cloud-filled sky. He closed his eyes, letting rain droplets wash over his face.
"I''m no leader. I never was and never will be. What we need is a leader who could do the impossible"? Tiberius gave a long and hard thought about this. Although he only knew Lucifer for a short amount of time, he saw what Lucifer is capable of. For instance, he just killed every senator except one with no casualties on his side where Doctorus''s n included them getting blown to pieces with the senators.
"You know before I met you, I met Doctorus" Tiberius''s brows arched up while the four diators looked at him bewildered.
"I made the same offer as I did to you. Follow me and I''ll help you cleanse this continent. He was a warrior to the core, there was no fear in his eyes"
The diators couldn''t help smiling,
"He said looking into my eyes, he would rather die a free man than be a ve once again"
"Sounds like him" Tiberius smiled. The fact Lucifer went to Doctorus beforeing to him didn''t surprise him the least. If he was in Lucifer''s shoes, he would have done the same. After all, Doctorus was a far better warrior and a man than him.
"I respected his wish but it''s a pity that he put his trust in the wrong man. Now it''s time for you four to make the choice for yourselves and the entire rebellion" Before they could give it a thought, Michael activated the runic teleportation to teleport back to his ship. The sudden sh of light made the diators close their eyes. When they opened them, they were standing on a ship. There was nothing but the ocean surrounding them. In the distance, they could see the familiar docks where they initiallynded with Doctorus.
"What just-"
"Uwak!"
"Uwak!"
Since this was their first teleportation experience, they immediately felt everything inside their stomach making a return trip towards their mouth. They rushed towards the ship''s edge to throw up in the ocean. Tiberius tried to fight the vomiting sensation yet after a few seconds, he too ran towards the edge.
Michael or the crew members were nowhere to be found on the upper deck. He wanted the diators to discuss in private. A few minutes passed by before they finally moved their heads away from the ocean. Including Tiberius, they drew a few deep breaths.
"How did he-"
"No idea" Tiberius answered before even the diator could finish his question.
"But that''s another reason we should follow him," Tiberius said looking at the four of them. They seemed reluctant. While they were staring at Tiberius to continue, he retrieved a small pouch and a parchment from the side pocket of his ck breeches.
Tiberius tossed the parchment at one diator while the pouch at another diator. Most of the diators were soldiers before bing a diator so they had basic training in reading and writing.
"Whoo" the diator who opened the pouch raised his brows as his mouth opened wide.
"Is this for real?" The same startled expression could be seen on the diator''s face who just read the parchment.
"It is and what''s in the pouch is only 10 percent of what he''s paying me"
The diators were dumbstruck because they could tell that there were at least 100 gold coins in the pouch. Even a Spartan soldier wouldn''t receive hundred gold coins per month let alone a diator. Also, it wasn''t hundred gold coins but thousand gold coins per month ording to Tiberius. They certainly couldn''t believe him.
"I know it''s hard to believe but this is real. Fuck that money for a moment, im not asking you to trust him, im asking you to trust me. He dont fucking need us, if we want to avenge Doctorus and make his dreame true, we need him" Tiberius paused for a moment before continuing,
"Look, you saw what he''s capable of. He just killed the senators of Gisal without a single casualty while you dumbasses went on with a suicide n"
The diators had a mix of emotions emerging on their faces. They were shocked to hear that Lucifer killed the senators without a loss while feeling slightly ashamed of their suicide n.
"Don''t make the same mistake Doctorus made. We need him. He''s gonna change this ce with or without us. I''ve already made my decision to follow him, it''s time you made yours. I''ll give you ten minutes to decide" As he said, he turned back to walk towards the captain''s cabin where Tiberius hoped to meet Michael.
After taking a few steps, he stopped, "and keep the gold for old times sake"
*********************************
Michael was currently sitting on his throne behind the oak table as Gaya rested on the sofafortably. On the table, the map of the Southern continent could be seen. A jade dagger was striking into the map where Gisal is located. The dagger was an indicator that Gisal is in his control. Behind the skull mask, he was smiling. He left a Spyder with the diators, through the spyder, he could hear everything they were talking from his throne.? Recruiting Tiberius proved to be a good move as what he said to the diators made them change their minds. Of course, they wouldn''tpletely trust him. It was expected of them. He didn''t want them to trust him, he wanted them to trust Tiberius.
"Thank you Doctorus'' '' He thanked Doctorus in his mind for giving him an army. Everything he told the diators about him meeting Doctorus and offering him a deal was nothing but lies. He had neither met nor talked with Doctorus. He just used Doctorus''s death to his advantage. His lies put a seed of doubt in the diators'' minds. They would have certainly wondered whether Doctorus would be alive if he decided to follow Lucifer.
Because of his lies, it was highly likely that the diators would choose to follow him wanting to avoid the mistake of Doctorus.
Knock!
Knock!
"Come"? the door opened after Michael''s word. Tiberius entered the cabin door.
"What have they decided?" Like he heard nothing, Michael asked Tiberius.
"Unless they have shit for the brain, they will agree to follow you"
"Good. Maxine will arrange passage for your people to reach Gisal from the grey mountains safely. At the time they reach Gisal, Caius would have announced that he''s abolishing very in Gisal. If you want, you can wait till he announces it and bring your people in small groups"
Tiberius was speechless. The rebels had to pay in blood to keep the nobles at bay and run the rebellion yet in a couple of days, Lucifer managed to do what they couldn''t do for three years. He knew Lucifer''s n, even so seeing it getting executed without a problem stunned himpletely. He only wished Doctorus should have been here to see the rebellion finally moving forward towards the goal.
"Can we really trust Caius? He''s noble to the core, what if he changes his mind?"
"We''ll kill him" Gaya waved him off casually.
"I made sure he doesn''t do such a thing. You focus on getting your people settled on. Caius will give you a piece ofnd and resources to build a vige. After he reforms the senate to my liking, the vige will receive further support to be much more. I gave them the freedom they were fighting for, from now on, their fate is in their hand"
With conquering Gisal, he finished everything he intended to in the Southern continent for the time being. He knew the Hydra would be a god-like existence in the future beside Nightmare. In addition to the diator army, he had an undead army waiting for him outside the pyramid, his second base of operation. The whole undead ind had be his domain. Soon after Caius forms a new senate, he would get a small fortune of gold coins regrly as another revenue for his future wars.
"It''s time to go home," Michael said to himself.
Chapter 287 - The Demon Butler I
"What should I wear?" Michael was rummaging through the system store to find new clothes to wear. Currently, he was wearing his Lucifer armor. When he returns to Elon, he knew he should wear new clothes instead of the usual de or Neo costume. How could a badass wear the same clothes every day?
Instead of choosing a movie costume, Michael wanted to wear something suitable to this world, medieval-style clothing. With his buffed body, no matter what he wore, it would make him extremely good-looking. Plus, unlike before, he now sported a stubble beard to further his handsomeness. Before he departed to Elon, he only needed to cut his hair short as his raven ck hair had grown past the shoulder length.
In front of his eyes, there were varieties of clothes such as tunics, shirts, braies,? metal chains, long coats, and long sleeves.
"Show me all the long coats"
[Only ck ones right?]
"Of course"
The system filtered the long coats using Michael''s parameters. Soon, numerous ck coats appeared before him. There were regr trench coats, trench coats with fur cors, double-breasted trench coats, and a few other variations of long coats. After a few minutes of pondering, he ended up picking a ck trench coat with no fur cors. The coat almost reached his feet. It had a mix of medieval and modern vibe to it.
[Do you want shirts and trousers to go along with the coat? Shit, I sound like a salesgirl in a clothing store] The system murmured as Michael chuckled.
"Nah, give me a turtleneck, trousers, and suede boots. Make them all ck"
[Aren''t you forgetting something? The dual sword sheath]
"Let me first get two new swords to my liking" Michael''s two swords were degraded, losing most of their sharpness. Because Michael knew nothing about Jack''s death, he was still nning to make Jack a cksmith and forge two new swords.
[Everything will cost you 6000 badass points. Do you wish to buy them all and store them in the system storage?]
"I''ll them all"
[Do you wish to buy the same set of clothing for Gaya? It''ll cost you additional 1000 badass points to remodel the clothing to fit her]
"She already has enough doubts, getting new clothes out of nowhere is an unnecessary risk. For now, I''ll take her to the best clothing store in Elon"
After everything they went through, Michael wanted to take a long break to clear his mind. Going on a date with her seemed like a good idea to him.
He worried less about the championship tournaments because he was extremely confident in his ability to win the tournament. Although he was at the Core Formation level 5, the First energy he absorbed from the Hydra egg upgraded his skills to the point his real strength reached level 9 of the Core Formation Stage.
To this moment, he was in the dark regarding the kills of Nightmare. It was because he was inside the void line when Nightmare killed all the bandits that he never received experience points. In addition to Nightmare, he also never received the experience of Aria''s kills.
Eventually, Michael exited the system. He was still sitting on his throne. He was not alone, in front of him stood Gibson, Maxine, Tiberius, Heinberg, and Gaya remained by his side.
"I have tasks for each of you to finish while we''re away" as he said, he turned his gaze towards Gibson.
"You said the seas out here are gued with rogue pirates. I want you to hunt them down, offer them the choice to join our ranks. If they refused, kill them all but try not to damage their ship too much" His n was to be a pirate lord. To be one,? one ship was not enough. He needed a fleet of ships. Rather than building or buying new ships and crews for a new fleet, he nned to make the rogue pirates join his ranks by force.
"Use this to repair the reaper and resupply the cannons" Michale pointed at the small chest on the corner of the table. It contained a chunk of wealth he obtained from Lars''s ship when he first reached the Southern Continent.
"As you wish, Lord Lucifer" Gibson showed no hesitation in his face. The Silent Reaper was a Legendary Ship that overpowers most of the pirate ships in a one-on-one battle. To give a fair fight to the Reaper, it would take several man o wars or the pirate lords'' ships.
Next, Michael looked at Maxine,
"Travel to the grey mountains with Tiberius. Make sure his people reach Gisal safely"
"Consider it done Lord Lucifer"? she bowed her head as Michael turned his gaze at Heinberg. Gaya just brought Heinberg from Gisal with the help of a teleportation scroll. His previous task was to monitor Caius while he was in the infirmary getting treated for the wounds he suffered in the explosion.
It was highly likely that the nearby kingdom might try to use the Gisal''s temporary crisis to their own advantage by sending assassins after Caius.
"I need you to conduct a background check on everyone in Caius''s list for the senate. Put a file on every single one. After that, find the diator named Mark" the mere mention of the name ''Mark'' made Tiberius''s veins pop out in fury. He didn''t need any proof to know that it was Mark who killed Doctorus. Initially, he wanted to hunt down Mark himself but he was talked out of the n by Lucifer. He needed to be at the Grey mountains more than on the hunt to Mark.
"As you wish, Lord Lucifer"
Michael felt proud looking at his subordinates. When he first came to this world, he had nothing. Almost a yearter, he managed to put a strong foundation to dominate this entire world in the future. He could imagine the people in this room bing his generals, powerful generals. His enemies would have to face them before evening to meet Gaya and him. They would be like the top-level bosses.
"And put these in your ear"? Michael flicked his wrist as tiny earbuds appeared on the table. The earbuds slowly began to float towards each of them except Heinberg as he already had an earbud tomunicate with Gaya and Michael.
"Always keep them in your ear. Who knows, one day it might save your lives" Gaya snickers evilly to mess with them. All of them knew she has a weird sense of humor.
"You can all go"
************************************
Eventually, after everyone left the room, only Gaya, Michael and Hydra remained in the room. He stood in front of a mirror with a hair clipper that was powered by Arch energy. He spent almost an hour in front of the mirror, cutting his hair to perfection. This was the first time he cut his hair since he came to this world.
"Ow, I like your long hair," she pouted while sitting on the sofa. The Hydra was still asleep after a hearty meal. Currently, two tiny wings were sticking out of its back. The wings indicated that the hydra would be able to fly in the future. He couldn''t help wondering how big the Hydra would grow.
"I like changing my looks often. Don''t you wanna try new looks?"? while clipping his long hair, he asked her.
"Perfection doesn''t need alteration" there was an immense amount of pride could be seen on her face. He knew she was right. She was perfect in every way. Among all the women he saw, only Lah could match Gaya in terms of beauty. Thinking about Lah, he wondered what she''s doing. He wished not to see her again in his life even though he knew the odds for that are low.
"What about your mouth? It''s far from being perfect" Michael teased her expecting her to get mad. Making her mad was one of his hobbies.
"Fuck yourself human" she was used to getting teased by Michael. Herck of anger made teasing a bit dull. In a few minutes, he shortened his hair and shaped his beard to perfection.
"How am I looking?" Michael asked. She stared at him from top to bottom before leaving the sofa toe to him. She put the Hydra on the table. To Michael''s surprise, she locked her lips with his while running her fingers through Michael''s hair. They savored each other lips for several minutes before parting from each other,
"Shall we go home?" She asked, licking her lips with an alluring smile on her face.
"Yes, we shall" the both of them yet again put the masks on to hide their faces. After she gently took the hydra from the table, Michael closed his eyes, willing the system to activate the runic teleportation. The warm feeling of teleportation rays enveloped them. Either of them couldn''t wait to return to the sect. After four months, Michael could open the restaurant. He hoped the winter had passed. More than everything, Michael wanted to unlock the demon soul from the stone. Before departing to the Southern Continent, the system said that the stone needs at least two months to stabilize before opening it.
It had been two months since he came to the Southern Continent, hence Michael knew it''s time to let out the demon and take another powerful subordinate. After several seconds, Michael opened his eyes to see the familiar dark walls, sofa, andrge bed.. Finally, he had returned to the Abyssal.
Chapter 288 - The Demon Butler II
His room in the Abyssal looked the same as left it before going to the Southern Continent. He could feel the Arch energy in the surrounding air. Compared to the air in the Southern continent, the air here felt thicker and clean. If he hadn''t gone to the Southern continent, he wouldn''t have felt the difference.
"Oh baby I missed you so much!" Gaya leaped onto the bed. Shended back first on the bed while keeping the Hydra closer to her chest. Her ample chest cushioned the force produced by the bed''s spring from hurting the tiny Hydra.
"Ahhhaaaw" Each head of the Hydra opened its eyes, yawning. It only took the hydra a couple of seconds to feel the change in the surroundings.
"Where are we?" the white head and the silver head curiously looked around the room. The ckhead however closed its eyes to sense the Arch energy in the air.
Just as they were scanning their surroundings, the Hydra began to glow from within. On the left side of the hydra was white, the middle was silver while the right side was ck to match the colors of the three heads. At that moment, all of its body gradually turned golden.
"The fuck is happening to them?" Gaya quickly sat up from the bed when she saw the Hydra glowing. She swooped the hydra into her hand to feel its body getting warmer and warmer.
"They are reaching the Foundation stage" Michael could see the Arch energy fluctuations around the Hydra. The ripple of energy was violent, meaning that the Hydra would soon reach the Foundation stage from its current stage.
"No, they aren''t"? Gaya frowned because she couldn''t see any energy fluctuations around the Hydra.
"Can''t you see the energy fluctuations around them?" Michael walked towards the bed. He then sat beside Gaya looking at the Hydra.
"I see no shit" she looked closer yet saw nothing. Usually one could see the arch energy fluctuations around them. That was how they sensed someone''s cultivation level. When the grown hydra screamed, it messed up the arch energy radiation all over the world. Because of that, one no longer had the ability to sense another''s cultivation level.
"Weird,e with me" Michael stroked his chin. He began to doubt whether it''s because of the Demon Soul in the pocket dimension attached to his room. Before departing to the Southern Continent, he ced the Demon stone in the pocket dimension. Therefore, he stood up walking towards it. All the three heads had their eyes closed. She gently picked up the hydra in her hand as she followed Michael behind.
Reaching the ck door, Michael ced his hand. He felt his hand slightly getting warmer. With a clicking noise, the door slowly opened to reveal the inside. He still had a hard time believing the scenery before him was another dimension. The beautiful water wall flowed from the miniature hill''s top forming a smallke that glistened in the sunlight peeking through the mountain cracks. Above the small pond, the Demon stone was hovering. The closer he walked towards it, the louder he heard the humming sounding from the stone.
[The Demon stone has stabilized. You can release the soul within the stone]
Because of the eyes of darkness, he could see the overwhelming energy around the stone. It wasn''t just Arch energy, the stone was radiating Celestial and First energy.
"Can you see the energy fluctuations around the stone?"
"No" she shook her head.
"Hmm" Thinking why she couldn''t see the energy around the stone, he moved closer to the stone. He reached his hand out at the stone standing on theke''s edge.? The chilling water washed over his feet as the stone slowly hovered towards him.
"Careful" she clenched his arm tightly for a moment.
"Stay behind me" Michael asked. Finally, she let go of his hand. While the stone was hovering just an arm''s reach away from him, she moved behind him.
"Time for another subordinate" Michael was excited to release the demon soul. With a flick of his wrist, he willed the stone to move closer. An invisible force kept pushing Michael''s hand away yet it couldn''t stop himpletely. Gritting his teeth, Michael used all of his strength to break this invisible barrier. His arm muscles flexed up while a web of veins emerged to upper skin.
SHHHHHHHHHHH!
With a final push, Michael grabbed the stone. The moment he touched the stone, it produced a sound like pouring water onto a hot pan. His mind went nkpletely as in a few seconds, he was floating in an empty space.
As far as his eyes could see, there was nothing. It was just a red empty space.
"System" He called out the system, hoping to get some answers from it.
However before he could hear the system, a bright light appeared in front of him out of nowhere. The bright light began to rotate faster and faster. In a few seconds, it grew brighter to the point Michael tried to close his eyes. The light was bright as a small sun.
[The Demon Soul has been released. You have to pay the system 40,000 badass points to subdue and make the demon your subordinate]
At first, whenever the system named a high price, he would be mad or atleast annoyed. However, he learned that the higher the system''s price for something, the more valuable and powerful it would be. The sheer amount of 40,000 badass points made his blood boil.
Despite his blood-boiling excitement, he had a question in his mind.
"Didn''t I pay you 15,000 badass points to bring back the Demon to life?"
Just as he said, he paid the system 15,000 badass points at the annual auction when he first bought the stone. He wondered why the system suddenly asked for another 40,000 badass points.
[15,000 badass points to bring the demon soul back to life from a long slumber. This 40,000 badass points for making the demon 100% loyal to you. Try to imagine what would happen if you wake a demon that''s not loyal to you. Also...]
"What now?" when he heard the system drag its voice, he realized it''s gonna ask for more badass points. He sighed inside. Currently, he had 70,000 badass points to spend. Initially, he nned to buy some new legendary level spells or upgrade the existing ones before the tournament.? Now it seemed like he just had to go without any new spells.
[If you throw me another 6000 points, the system can shape the demon soul to your liking. Of course, the demon will be in its ethereal form. To make the demon take a physical form, you need to either upgrade the system and buy a body for the demon or find a suitable host in this world]
"Ethereal for huh? Will it affect the demon''s power?" Although Michael didn''t have any idea about a demon or its powers, he first needed to make sure whether the ethereal form affects the demon in any way before spending 46,000 points.
[It doesn''t affect the demon''s power until it reaches the Soul Refining stage. After the Soul Refining stage, if you don''t give the demon a physical body, its cultivation progress will stop. Also, the demon will be several times powerful when it''s in a physical form]
"Don''t tell me the demon will be at the Arch sensing stage after I spend 46,000 points? Exin how the demon levels up. Also, I have another question, since the hydra and the demon are extraterrestrial species, why are they using this world''s cultivation level and energy native to this world instead of harnessing other more powerful energies? As I recall, you said the Arch energy is the least powerful energy in the universe"
[No, The Demon will be at Core Formation level because the demon has lost its power with time, ending up at Core Formation level. The answer to your next question is survival. To survive in this world, no matter the origin of the species, they need to adapt to this world. Hence, their souls will use what''s abundant in this world, that is Arch Energy. The higher they go in the cultivationdder, their souls and bodies could harness more powerful energies]
"How long the demon soul is in the slumber state?"
[The system level is currently too low to give you an exact time]
"Just low ball it"
[At least for two million years]
Michael was stunned beyond words. Even after losing its power gradually for two million years, the demon would be woken at the Core Formation stage. He couldn''t even imagine how powerful it was before entering the slumber state.
"Alright, take the 46,000 points. I have something special in mind for my demon"
[Just imagine how the demon should look like and the system will take care of the rest]
In a blink of an eye, the badass points amount dropped from 70,000 to 24,000. The very next moment, the empty red space faded away as he was standing at theke''s edge. He quickly closed his eyes, imagining how the demon should look like. He already had an image in his mind, a butler. He was imagining a ck suit-wearing butler in histe teens or early thirties.. Despite the butler''s ethereal form, he wanted the butler to look like a male with blue eyes, shoulder-length ck hair, notpletely but somewhat resembling the butler character in ck butler.
Chapter 289 - The Tournament Season Has Begun
Three days before Michael returned to Elon continent from the Southern continent. It was the same day Noah met La to give the witcher stone.
"Lady Alden, you can open your eyes. The witcher stone is yours" Noah ended his drama after the Supreme guardian located the energy source.
La looked at the red ruby on her palm. She could feel the immense power radiating from within. It was not Arch energy, it was pure Celestial energy. ording to her mentor, there were only three witcher stones in the world.
She closed her palm as a bright light appeared from her space ring enveloped the stone. The stone then disappeared along with the light.
"There''s no way of finding what''s inside her body, at least not yet" The supreme guardian talked to Noah telepathically.
"Do you think we should ask her for something that could help Andrew win the tournament?" Noah thought.
"No harm in asking, who knows she might have something"
Andrews was Noah''s cousin who was saved by Michael. Although Noah and Andrews were cousins, they were more like brothers than cousins. Noah would do anything for his cousin. In all the years Noah knew Andres, he never asked for Noah''s help until two weeks ago.
"You can take the talisman and leave" Lah coldly said.
"Ah Lady Laden, can I ask something else?" Initially, Noah nned to brew a secret potion that would have helped him if he didn''t see Ghost''s name on the tournamentpetitors list.
Among all his peers, only Ghost seemed to have the ability to beat him. Although Noah hated the fact that he''s pretty selfish, Ghost did save his family. If not for him, Noah would have lost his mother, sister, and Andrews.
Still, he needed to help Andrews defeat Ghost and everyone stands in the way to win the main championship tournament. Peyton was betting on Celina and Alex to win the tournament but deep down, Noah knew it was Ghost who had the most chance to win it.
"What?"
"I want something that temporarily makes a body strengthening cultivator a Core Formation stage cultivator in return for the witcher stone"
Nerita and Johana stared at Lah''s face. The way she looked at Noah was cold yet she didn''t say no to his request right out of the bat. His request might have been impossible to others but she did know a musical note that would transfer some of her power to the target. If she used the note targeting whoever Noah wanted to reach the Core formation stage, he or she would temporarily be one. The only downside was she needed to be in close proximity to the target.
"I assume you''re asking for someone else," La asked.
Noah was not going to hide the truth. The tournamentmittee only approved the use of the healing potion. Using anything else to gain an advantage over thepetitors was considered a vition and the vitor would be punished severely.
"Andrews, my cousin. He must win the Elon championship tournament"
"You''re asking the mistress to help your cousin cheat?!" Nerita lost her cool. Her hands tightly grabbed the veena. She seemed like she would start to attack Noah any second. Noah wasn''t afraid of them. He was sure that Lah wouldn''t let her disciples attack the man who just delivered something extremely rare and valuable to her.
Lah raised her hand as Nerital quickly shut her mouth.
"Is that what you really want?"
Noah sighed when he heard Lah''s question. In truth, Andrews wasn''t a warrior but a runemaster. Unlike him, Andrews had nobat training or experience. If Andrews wanted just topete, Noah might have let him as it would help him get some battle experience. However, Andrews asked Noah to help him win the tournament. Noah tried his best to talk him out of the idea until he heard Andrews''s reason behind his decision topete and win the tournament.
"Love makes one do crazy things, Lady Alden. Andrews always had my back ever since we were little, it''s time for me to return the favor. It''s okay if you don''t want to help me-"
"I''m not helping you, I''m just settling a debt. Go tell your cousin to be prepared, he''ll be at Core Formation when thepetition starts" She interrupted Noah before he could finish his thought. Noah was stunned for a couple of seconds. There was no concern in her eyes about the tournamentmittee.
"Thank you, Lady Alden"
**************************************
Three days before Noah ventured searching for the witcher stone, he was roaming the garden with his mother at Pen town.? Alicia was on the other side of the garden with Sabrina. She was training Sabrina for the championship tournament for those under the Core Formation level.
The golden babaroo followed Samuel the butler into the kitchen to snack on the food. Therefore, Noah was alone with his mother.
"Where''s dad?" Noah asked Diana.
"He went to the Sunrise sect to buy potions for our soldiers"
Noah frowned, "what happened to the potions in our warehouse?"
All the potions in their warehouse were brewed by Noah himself. The Winston family handed out the potions for free. If anyone needed a healing potion in Pen town, they could ask in any one of Winston''s family warehouses. Noah disliked the idea of selling potions such as healing potions for money, unlike Michael.
"They are gone two weeks ago. You were nowhere to be found to brew more so your dad decided to buy some in case of emergency" Diana said with a gentle smile. She hid her lie behind the smile. On contrary to what she said there were still a few crates of healing potions in their warehouses but the reason for Ethan''s visit was he wanted to see whether Ghost hase out of seclusion yet. Ever since Ethan heard about Jack''s murder, he put secret guards around the sect to make sure no one will hurt Ghost, his son.
It was Ethan''s way of showing his love for Ghost. Diana was unable to stop him from visiting the sect as Ethan med himself for everything that happened to Diana and Ghost. Noah couldnt see through his mother''s lies because she had never lied to him before in his life. Besides, what she said made sense to him.
asionally Diana stopped to tend to the flower nts on the side of the path they were walking. While she was tending to one of the roses, a maid came running to Diana.
"Lady Diana, the dress you ordered has arrived" The maid took deep breaths after running to Diana.
Hearing the maid, Noah was surprised. He looked at his mother with his brows arched up,
"Mother, you ordered a new dress"
Ever since Noah was little, he never saw his mother order new dresses or care for things such as jewelry, fancy clothes, unlike other nobledies. She rarely visited clothing stores, they had to force her to make here with them. Yet, right at the moment, her face lightened up hearing the maid.
"I can''t go to the tournaments looking dull" She dusted the mud on her hand before walking towards the maid.
"Really? What have you done to my mother-woman?" Noah chuckled as Diana twisted his ear for making fun of her. She was in a good mood.
"Does Sabi know you''re going to the tournament?" Noah thought the reason for his mother''s sudden interest in new clothes was Sabrina. Since it was Sabrina''s first major tournament, Noah was thinking Diana bought new clothes for the asion. Although Diana was happy to see her daughterpete in the tournament, she was more excited to see her son. She was thankful to the guardian guild for preventing the guardians frompeting. She knew she couldn''t even imagine her two sons fighting each other.
"It''s a surprise. Your father and aunts are alsoing to see the tournament" Other than Ethan, only Emelda, her elder sister knew about Ghost''s identity. Just like her, Emelda was also extremely excited to see her nephew in action. Not only Emelda, but even Sabrina was looking forward to seeing Ghost again.
"You''reing with us Noah" Diana firmly said.
"You know I like to spend time with you guys so yes, I''ming,"? Noah said as he saw Samuel walking towards him from the manor.
"Young Master, Young Master Andres is waiting for you at the apple tree"
"Huh? Did he say why?"
"No Young Master but Young Master Andres seemed odd and also, there''s a person with him" Noah frowned hearing Samuel.
"A person you say"
"That person was wearing a hood and cloak, Young Master. Young Master Andrews said not to ask the person''s identity and wanted to meet you immediately"
"The person with him, is he at the east side garden also?" Diana creased her brows. Her smile gradually disappeared from her face.
"Yes, Lady Alden. Young Master Andrews must have a good reason to bring him there"
The tree was in the east side garden. No one except the core members of their family was allowed to enter the east side garden. Noah couldn''t help wondering why Andrews brought a stranger to the garden without telling anyone else.
"Go" yet if Andrews was asking for Noah, she knew it must be something important. Therefore, she didn''t keep Noah with her as she sent him to meet Andrews. Her instincts told her that Andrews is in some kind of trouble but she trusted Noah to deal with whatever trouble Andrews was in.
After bowing his head towards his mother, Noah made his way to the apple tree.
Chapter 290 - The Princess Will Be Married To The Tournament Winner
Andrews was standing under the apple tree overlooking the small pond. Theke was at the garden''s center with countless herbs, trees, and flower nts surrounding it. The air was pungent with the fragrance of jasmine. Theke was no natural basin filled with meltwater, but a luxury addition to the garden built by Ethan''s grandfather. Theke was filled with colorful fishes such as the Japanese Koi Carp and goldfish.? They were huge and numerous, each about as long as an adult arm. He gazed across the wind-ruffed surface to the lily pads in bloom, their white or magenta petals catching the breeze. He inhaled slowly. Peace. His little piece of heaven in the Winston family manor. While an unsettling look in his eyes, he gently grabbed an apple above him.
Under the sunrise, the apples glowed rosier than they do in the day''s shine. The branches spread out as if so proud of the bounty they brought and sweetness given within each one. It was a party of colors, a perfect marriage of reds and greens, in blushes of baby pinks and dappled hues of chaos and order. It was a beauty that sprung from simple seeds blessed with mud and rain.
On normal days, this tree and the scenery around him used to calm his mind. He learned most of his runes sitting under the apple tree. However, at this moment, even the tree or the scenery couldn''t even slightly calm his nerves. The hooded person was standing beside him staring at the beautiful glisteningke. The person was about Andres''s shoulder height.
"Andrews" the hooded person spoke with a sweet feminine voice. Contrary to what Samuel was thinking, the hooded person was not a he but a she. The girl concealed all her feminine features with the oversized hood and cloak.
"What are we gonna do?" the girl asked. Her voice overflowed with worry and concern. Andrews gently patted her hand on his shoulder. He tried to hide his anxiety with a smile.
"One thing for sure, you cannot disobey your father. My family has enough problems as it is. We can''t add another one to the list. Let''s hope Noah can help us" said Andrews.
Because there were no guards inside the garden, the girl rested her head on Andrews''s shoulder after he spoke. While they were drowned in their own train of thoughts, Noah entered the garden through the Archway. They failed to hear his footsteps as they were too concerned about the uing championship tournament.
A sliver of surprise could be seen in Noah''s eyes when he saw the two of them. It was evident that the other person was a she as they both looked like couples in a park. Noah never thought Andrews had a girlfriend. He couldn''t help wondering why Andrews chose not to tell him or anyone in the family.
"Andrews" Hearing Noah''s voice, Andrews''s body jerked as the girl immediately lifted her head from his shoulder. They turned back to see Noah looking at them with a frown on his face.
"Noah" Andrews swallowed a mouth full of saliva. Gradually sweat drops started to form on his forehead thinking how he''s gonna ask Noah''s help.
"Who is that?" Noah asked as the girl lifted her hood to show herself.? The moment Noah saw her face, he was stunned. For a few seconds, Noah was speechless.
"Princess Katherine '''' the girl in front of him was the princess of Kingdom Bradia. Noah''s stomach churned seeing the princess in their garden with no royal guards around her.
The girl had a long face, a small nose, and small lips. Her hazel eyes were narrow with thin eyebrows. The golden silky hair was fluttering in the wind. There were no ws in her beauty. Every inch of her body was perfect like it was sculpted by the gods themselves.
"Guardian Noah" The princess curtsied showing her respect towards Noah.
If this was any other day and different circumstances, Noah would have shown proper etiquette by kissing her hand.
"Princess, what are you doing here? Where are the Royal guards?" Noah asked, looking around once again.
"They are in love" Noah suddenly heard his teacher''s voice in his head. The Supreme guardian chuckled.
"Noah, I don''t know how to tell you..." Andrews''s voice trailed off as he couldn''t get himself to finish his sentence. He knew just by being here with no royal guards, Katherine has endangered herself. If the king found out that she left the castle with no one knowing to meet her secret lover, not only the princess but also the Winston family would be punished.
"We are in love" Katherine bluntly said. Her voice was clear with no hesitation.
"Does aunt know about this Andrews?" after a few moments of silence, Noah asked. Andrews slowly shook his head as Noah looked at Katherine.
"I assume the king also have no idea about any of this"
She remained silent, "thought so" Noah sighed.
"Just hear us out Noah" Andrews knew he had to tell Noah everything before he asked his help. With a long sigh, Noah nodded. He knew he had to hear Andrews out before making up his mind about what to do with the situation. Besides, he wondered why Andrews chose this moment to reveal his love. If Andrews was in love with the princess, he could have asked his father and asked the king of her hand. Instead of doing that, they decided to meet in secret.
For another fifteen to twenty minutes, both of them exined from where they met first to how they ended up here. Apparently, they had met at the annual rune master''s gathering and this was not the princess''s first time leaving the castle without her guards. She attended the gathering in disguise. ording to both of them, it was love at first sight. Noah wasn''t surprised by that because Andrews was a talented runemaster as well as good-looking. It was understandable that the princess fell in love with him.
After their initial meeting, they used to meet often without both families noticing. While Andrews was infected with star pox, she went to Ozer searching for a cure.
Noah was really moved when she said she would have taken her own life if Andrews had died. She said she would rather die than marry another man in her life.? When Noah asked why didn''t Andrews ask his father to go to Bredia and ask for her hand, Noah received a surprising answer. Although the Winston family was prestigious enough to ask the princess for her hand in marriage, King Bredia was adamant about marrying the princess to a warrior who could protect his daughter. The princess said that her aunt, King Bredia''s little sister was assassinated by the Grim Reapers in front of her husband who happened to be a runemaster. King Bredia med his brother-inw for his sister''s assassination. In King Bredia''s eyes, it was because he was weak and had nobat skill that he failed to save his wife. Since that day, the king promised himself that he would never marry his daughter to a runemaster or anyone without the skills to fight and save his daughter if her life was in danger.
"So you''re telling me the King has nned to marry you to the winner of the main championship tournament?"
Now Noah realized why they revealed themselves as lovers to him. Noah hated to admit it but he knew there''s no way in hell that Andrews could win the tournament for Body Strengthening cultivators let alone the tournament of the Core Formation cultivators. Even Noah hadn''t reached the Core Formation stage yet. He was still at Body Strengthening stage level 10 and it would take him another couple of weeks of cultivation to reach the Core Formation stage.
"My father is willing to offer the Bradford barony to the winner so the winner would be a baron before marrying me"
"Court politics" Andrews sighed.
"Andrews must win this tournament, Master Noah. My father will give my hand to the winner the same day they announce the winner. I''d brother die than give my hand to another man, not in this life" As she said, she flicked her wrist. A small vial of green liquid appeared in her hand. Noah could smell the pungent smelling from the vial.
"Poison" Noah recognized the liquid with a single nce.
"If Andrews dont win this, I will drink this and die" tears started to roll out of her beautiful eyes.
"And I will follow you to the afterlife, Kathy"
Yet again, Noah was stunned by their words. He couldn''t even imagine his loving aunt losing her son. The loss of Andrews would devastate the family and Noah would never let anything happen to his family. Andrews was like a brother to him so how could he let him die?
A sliver of resolve emerged in Noah''s eyes.
"I''m not supposed to tell you this but the tournament has been postponed a week from the set date. Themittee will announce the news at the end of this week. This gives us exactly two weeks toe up with a n"
"Postponed, why?" Andrews asked. Although this did not solve their problem, seeing Noah agree to help them gave Andrews some strength.
"The schrs are still working on the device to determine one''s cultivation level"
"It must be god''s blessing that the tournament has postponed" Katherin wiped off the tears as a sliver of smile filled with hope emerged on her face.
"Master Noah-"
"Please, call me Noah princess. We are gonna be family" Noah ced his hand on Andrews''s shoulder. This was his way of showing his support. Noah''s smile filled both of them with confidence and hope.
"Noah, this might help us" With another flick of her wrist, a parchment appeared in her hand.. Noah noticed the symbol of veena on the mark.
Chapter 291 - Azazel Sebastian
Gaya''s brows arched up in shock. White and ck smoke wasing out of the demon stone gradually forming a human form. She always imagined a demon being eight to ten feet tall with muscle mountains for the body as well as two horns sticking out of its head. However, the figure in front of her seemed human-like. Moreover, the figure looked like a butler wearing a ck coat, white shirt, silver vest, and ck tie.
In her eyes, he was nowhere close to as handsome as Michael yet she knew if the ethereal form was a human in physical form, he would get many suitors including princesses.
She was positive that it''s the human who''s responsible for the demon''s current appearance. The demon butler''s ethereal form slowly became brighter and brighter. Both Michael and the demon butler''s eyes were closed. She waited for them to open their eyes. While she was waiting for them, the Hydra started to grow in size. It felt like she was holding a hot te in her hand as the hydra. Still, she never let go of the Hydra.
[Do you wish to ept the demon as your subordinate?]
"What do you think you damn system?"
The system remained silent waiting for his obvious answer.
"Yes I do" he sighed in his mind. He was too excited to meet his demon butler so he chose not to bicker with the system.? The thought of having a demon for Butler made his blood boil in excitement. He never felt this excited since he first realized he has a system and he''s in a fantasy world.
[Congrattions to the host for obtaining a demon subordinate!]
[The demon subordinate has reached 100% loyalty]
[Congrattions to the host for unlocking the bloodthirsty ability of Demon subordinate]
[The demon subordinate can absorb the blood essence of a living being to temporarily enhance its strength. The more powerful the blood essence, the stronger the demon would grow]
[Due to the Demon''s ethereal form, it''spletely immune to any physical attacks]
[You can bind the demon to yourself and one of your bases of operations]
[No one except half immortal beings could see the demon unless the host wishes to reveal the demon]
[Warning! Although the demon ispletely loyal to the host, it has its own personality]
[The system suggest you buy the book of butlers and basic knowledge of this world for the demon to learn the ways of this world]
[Does the host wish to buy the two books for 3000 badass points?]
His field of view was filled with blue notifications and warnings. He took time to go through every single one of them before buying the two books as the system suggested.
The personality warning don''t worry Michael, in fact, he was d to see his butler was not a mindless drone. He wanted all of his subordinates to act on their own for his greater good.
Subordinate: Demon Butler
Cultivation Level: Core Formation level 8
Race: Demon
Status: Healthy (In Ethereal Form)
Trait: Butler (Unique)
Loyalty towards the host: 100%
"System, list all the skills of the demon. I want to see the cool stuff he could do"
Another interface appeared before them. One by one the demon butler''s skills were listed in front of them in golden letters.
Skills :
Phantom Touch
Bind Area teleportation
Blood Thirsty
Imitator
Phantom Form
Mind Dominator
[Phantom Touch is the ability of the demon to materialize for a moment inside a physical being]
[The demon butler can bend the space around it to teleport near the host and the bound area]
[The Demon can absorb blood essence to temporarily grow stronger]
[The Demon can imitate the host''s spells and skills. The imitated skills and spells will not be as powerful as the host''s arsenal]
[The Demon can choose to hide from naked eyes. Only the host and a chosen subordinate could see the Demon when its using the Phanton form]
[The Demon''s voice could dominate weak-willed enemies'' bodies]
The system exined each skill one by one.
"Can these skills be upgraded?"
[Yes. The skills can be upgraded through badass points and reaching higher stages in cultivation]
"Cool" Michael was ready to meet his butler but he had onest thing to do.
"Buy the two books and bind him to me and the Abyssal"
[Warning!]
Suddenly his field of view turned ck as the warning beeps screamed in his mind.
[Binding the Demon to you will reveal everything about you to the demon including your previous life]
"What?!" Michael was thoroughly upset to hear this.
[Cool down host. The demon is 100% loyal and the rules for the subordinates apply to it. Hence, the demon cannot harm you or betray you in anyways]
"If he knows everything, does that include you?"
[No. The demon will not know the existence of the system]
Michael''s mind was filled with questions. Trusting the demon with his previous life didn''t seem like a good idea to him. He wanted that life to be hidden from anyone except Gaya. Only because he was nning to marry Gaya, he revealed his previous life to her. Still, he didn''tpletely divulge everything that happened on earth.
[Think of the demon as the Alfred to your Batman. Even if you wanted to, you cannot go back to earth or anyone in the universe no matter how powerful they were. So there''s no harm in letting the demon know. Trust me host, I got your back]
Somehow the system sounded trustworthy to Michael. Despite its tendency to rob him of his badass points, the system did have his back always. His gut feeling told him to listen to the system. Sooner orter, someone would definitely connect the dots between Ghost and Lucifer, Michael knew this. So letting the demon know about his two personas wasn''t a world-ending problem to him.
Revealing his life on earth seemed like a bad idea still the system assured him that the demon would not be able to betray him in anyways.
"What if I don''t bind the demon to me?"
[Then there''s a possibility of losing the demon''s loyalty slowly and if the loyalty level dropped under a certain point, the system will be forced to neutralize the demon]
The system sounded cold. After spending almost 60,000 badass points, Michael would never let the demon die in vain. With a heavy sigh, he finally decided to bind the demon.
"Go ahead, bind the demon to me and the Abyssal" Michale felt a tingling sensation within him like something was getting embedded into his soul itself.
The sensation lingered for another couple of minutes before fading away.
[Now you''re all set]
His field of view got clear of notifications and warnings as he slowly opened his eyes to see a ck-haired man in butler''s uniform kneeling in front of him. The butler looked exactly as he imagined.
"Tell me what''s going on here? Is he really a demon?" her eyes sparkled with excitement regardless of her doubts. She was used to the miracles performed by him. In her mind, this was another miracle from him.
[oh, I forgot to mention, the demon will have no recollection of its memory before entering into the slumber state. So he''s like a newborn child, take good care of him]
The system expected him to get mad. However, Michael justughed in his mind.
"That''s good" He was d that the demon has no recollection of its past. This way, the demon would focus on serving Michael rather than trying to finish whatever business it had before entering into the deep slumber.
[What the?]
The system sounded surprising. Michael did not continue to argue with him as he was busy admiring his demon butler. He was perfect, neck-length hair that looked shiny and straight, a body type that was neither too bulky with muscles nor thin, blue eyes that filled with loyalty towards Michael, neatly ironed clothes that looked crisp. In simple words, he was a perfect butler. No one in this world would recognize him as a demon in a million years.
"Should I address you as Lord Lucifer or Master Ghost, my lord?" His voice didn''t disappoint Michael. The voice was crisp, rough, mesmerizing, and gravely calm.
"How did he-"
"He had to know everything about me, that''s the price I had to pay for waking him"
"I''m not questioning you but can we really trust him? He''s a demon for god sake" She quickly whispered in his ears.
"You can trust me with your life, Lady Gaya" the butler turned his sharp gaze towards Gaya. Michael never thought the butler would also know her identity. It seemed like binding let the demon know almost everything Michael knew.
"Whoa, this is fucked up" she stared at Michael as he signaled the butler to stand up. Although the butler was in an ethereal form, it was really hard to notice theck of physical body.
"The question is how do we call you?" Michael asked. The three of them stood in silence for a few moments. She was in shock due to everything that happened while Michael was deep in thinking of a new name for his butler.
At the moment, except for the sound of the waterfall hitting the ground, there was no sound.
"Azazel"
"Sebastian"
Michael and Gaya said at the exact same time. The name Azazel was Michael''s while thetter was hers. The demon gawked at both of them with a calm smile. He kept his etiquette like a professional butler.
"What the hell? I name you Azazel Sebastian.. You''ll be called Azazel when we''re in this form and Sebastian when I''m Ghost and she''s Aelia. Until we found you a suitable physical body, avoid revealing yourself to the world"
Chapter 292 - Returning To The Sect
"You can call me Lord Lucifer here"
"Dark Queen would do"
The both of them said to their new butler.
"We can discuss about himter. Now tell me why can''t I sense their magical fluctuations?"? Gaya asked, gently brushing her hands over the hydra''s warm body. The hydra remained eyes closed.
"I think it''s his presence that stopping me from sensing the energy around them"
"I dont think so" Michael didn''t think what she said was true.
"Oh they''re waking up" Just as Michael was about to ask the system, Gaya saw the heads slowly opening their eyes. They had grown double in size. It was like they had grown from the size of a week-old puppy to a month-old puppy. Now the wings looked more noticeable than before.
"Shit I feel good"
"Me too," the silver head said after the white head. The ckhead tried to sense the changes in their body in silence.
"Come on, let''s see we can fly" In their excitement, the hydra failed to notice the demon butler as well as the gazes of Michael and Gaya. The Hydra tried to p its wings, hoping to take off from Gaya''s hand.
"Aren''t they cute?!" seeing them bouncing on her hand, Gaya''s eyes sparkled. She immediately squeezed the hydra against her chest showing them with kisses.
"Lord Lucifer, do you have any orders for me?" Azazel asked.
"Are you familiar with the Abyssal''syouts?"
"Since I''m bound to the Abyssal, I know this ce like the back of my hand. I can feel Dr and Aria in their rooms"
"Let''s go meet them shall we?" Michael made his way towards the door.
"I''ll bite your face off woman!" the white head cursed Gaya. In Gaya''s eyes, they looked cuter when they are mad. Therefore, she continued to caress them before following Michael.
Although the ethereal form of the butler let him hover above the ground, he actually moved like he was walking.
"Lord Lucifer, I should take the liberty of cleaning this ce. I might need to borrow a few undeads from Dr"? Azazel asked Michael after noticing the dust-covered walls and floor. By imagining him as a butler as well as making him learn the book of butler, Michael had turned the demon into a professional butler.
"I think you broke our demon. Why is he looking and talking like a butler?"
"Don''t you want a demon for your butler? I do" Michael said while walking towards Aria''s room which was the armory before he turned it into a room to amodate Aria and her brothers.
"I hope you''lle to love your life Azazel," Michael said.
"Serving you is what I love Lord Lucifer. Being your butler is the greatest gift a demon like me could get"
"I like him," Gaya nodded approvingly.
"Seems like you have a lot to do here demon," the white head said looking at the walls.
"I''ll transform the Abyssal in a few days, Lady..." his voice trailed off as Michael halted his steps for a moment to look at Azazel,
"How may I address the three of them Dark Queen, Lord Lucifer? As far as I know, you haven''t named them yet"
"She''s Ayag, he''s Sarba and the ck is Cain. Together, they shall be called VEDORA!" she raised her hand high beaming with pride and excitement. She made the scene as theatrical as possible with her voice and movements
"You just spelled your name backward and named her and spelled Abras backward and named him didn''t you?"
"The names sound cool, that''s all it matters" she gave a thumbs up to him.
The white head rolled its eyes yet did not disagree with its name Ayag. The silver head who got the name Sarba had sparkles in its eyes. As usual, the ckhead remained unemotional.
Since the names did sound cool, Michael epted the names. The moment he epted the names in his mind, a bell sound ringed in his mind.
[Congrattions for getting a new familiar, Vedora the three-headed hydra]
Ignoring to look at the familiar tab for the time being, Michael came to Aria''s room doorsteps. The door was closed but they could hear sobbing soundsing from inside.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
Michael knocked on the door thrice as the sobbing sound quickly stopped.
"Who''s there?"
"Who do you think?" Gaya opened the door to see Aria sitting beside therge bed where her brothers were resting. There were tubes attached to Michael''s healing potions running into their bodies. The twins slightly looked better than they were before as the scars caused by various experiments had almost disappeared from their bodies. Their hair and skin had more shininess indicating their physical recovery.
"Lord Lucifer, Dark Queen" Aria quickly stood up from the bed before kneeling down before them on one knee.
"Rise" Michael gestured to her to stand up. He then walked towards Titus and Optimus.
"Their bodies and souls are healing faster than I expected" Except for fewer scars on their bodies, he saw no difference yet he lied to make Aria feel better. He nned to heal the twins using the badass points but unfortunately, he had to spend most of his points on Azazel. Compared to the twins, waking Azazel seemed more important than the twins.
"What does that mean, Lord Lucifer?" Aria wiped off the tears from her face. Her hands and legs shivered looking at Azazel. Just his ethereal form freaked her out a little so she avoided direct eye contact with him.
"They are recovering Aria. You might see them waking up sooner than you expect but it''ll take time to regrow their limbs"
"Really?" finally her lips slightly curved upwards revealing a rxed smile.
"Now, have you finished the task I gave you?"
It had been almost five months since he met Mathias, the Broad River sect leader. He ordered E to get as many students and teachers as she can and join the Sunrise Sect. Aria''s task was to assassinate Mathias as Michael knew he would stand in his n.
"I did what you asked, Lord Lucifer" Aria flicked her wrist as an empty vial appeared in her hand. Since Aria was a Body Refining stage cultivator and Mathias was at the Core Formation stage, Michael gave a powerful poison brewed by him to Aria to kill Mathias.? He didn''t say whether to poison Mathias''s food or cut him with a de smeared with the poison because he wanted Aria to think for herself.
"Good. Practice yourbat skills using the Netherels. Since your body is adapting to the conditions here, you won''t turn into an undead if they bite you"
"But it will hurt like hell, so avoid getting bitten" Gaya gave a piece of advice to Aria. After seeing how they treated ves in the Southern continent, Gaya had a soft spot for Aria.
"Yes, Lord Lucifer" She was afraid of the undead. One could see the fear in her eyes. Yet she obeyed his orders regardless of her fears because she herself wanted to get tough. After all, she promised herself that she will never let anyone hurt her family ever again.
After giving Aria her next task, Michael left the room. While walking through the corridors towards Dr''s room,? Gaya turned her gaze at Azazel to see him open and close his mouth like he had something to ask but not sure whether he should.
"Do you have something to say Azazel?" Gaya asked,
"I prefer you speak your mind Azazel" Michael didn''t stop or turn back but said while walking.
"As you wish, Lord Lucifer. I do have something to ask"
"What do you have in mind?" Michael asked.
"I know you had a good reason to lie to Aria, can you enlighten me on the why?"
Michael was surprised to see Azazel noticing his lie. He never thought Azazel could detect his lie without even seeing his face as he had the mask on his face to cover his micro-expressions.
"Sometimes, a lie can do more good than the truth" Azazel repeated his words in his mind. Eventually, they reached the doorsteps of Dr. There was no sobbing sounding from the room but the growling sounds of the Netherels.
*************************************
After a few hours, Michael and Gaya reached the Abyssal, there were several people surrounding a bed. The house''s interior and the furniture had the difference of ck and white. The house looked ancient with several holes, long cracks in the walls, and worn-out pantries and wooden racks. However, the sofa, cushions, the tea table in the center of the hall, and the bed looked majestic. The house belonged to none other than Michael and Gaya. It was their sect house. Since Gaya ordered them not to touch anything until she returns from seclusion, the workers didn''t renovate the house.
No one would enter Ghost''s house except Raylene, little Cindy, and Nightmare. The first two would get inside the house to keep it from getting dust-covered. Nightmare usually rested with ire as he was not used to sleeping alone.
However, at the moment, several people were inside Michael''s bedroom itself.
"Please Cindy, just a little" Raylene was sitting on Michael''s bed with a tiny bowl of soup in her hand. Cindy was lying on the bed covering up to her neck with Michael''s nket. The little girl was shivering. Her usual yful child smile was nowhere to be found.
"I want big brother and sister Aelia right now!" Cindy tried to raise her voice yet only a whisper came out of her mouth. Raylene turned her head helplessly looking at ire.
"I don''t want the bad man to hurt me like he did to brother Jack"
Raylene''s eyes began to water up. Ever since ire found out Jack''s body in his own pool of blood, the little girl was severely traumatized. Not even Nightmare could calm her as the girl was asking for Ghost and Aelia. Raylene tried to take the girl home but she refused to leave Ghost''s home.
"Look, if you drink this soup, I will bring Ghost and Aelia here" ire sat beside Reylen gently brushing Cindy''s forehead.
"You said the same thing yesterday," Cindy sobbed while tightly holding onto the nket.
"Sect Leader ire" suddenly a male disciple rushed into the home. He was taking heavy deep breaths in exhaustion.
"Brother Ghost...Brother Ghost and Sister Aelia hase out of the seclusion"
*******************
Another Chapter will be up today. Stay tuned!!
Chapter 293 - Rampage
Raylene and ire immediately stood up from the bed as the bed was on fire after hearing the disciple. The disciples standing in the room with ire heaved a heavy sigh of relief, beaming in joy.
"Where are they?" ire asked. She felt like an immense amount of pressure was being lifted off her shoulder.
"They are at the foothills anding here" Instead of flying here, it was Michael''s idea tond at the foothills and take a stroll. He wanted to see how the sect has changed since he left.
"Go wake up Nightmare, he''s at my house with the baby"
"Yes, Sect Leader!" The disciple left the room in a hurry to wake up Nightmare who is sleeping with Cindy''s brother. Despite his big scally terrorizing body, Nightmare was pretty gentle with the baby. No one in the world would have believed that Nightmare, a dragon loved babysitting.
"Brother!"? Cindy jumped off the bed full of energy. Before they could stop her, she leaped out of the bed, running towards the outside.
The others couldn''t do anything but follow behind the little girl. Hearing that Ghost had returned, Cindy ran outside showing no signs of fever or exhaustion.
When ire reached outside, she saw disciples rushing towards their dormitory in fear. Only a few daredevils remained outside of Ghost''s house to see his and Aelia''s reaction to Jack''s death.
"Where are they?!" Cindy shouted at one of the disciples waiting for Michael. She kept bouncing from the ground to see the distance.
It took everyone a few minutes before vaguely noticing two figures in ck slowly walking towards them.
"Look brother Ghost is back!"
"Is that really him?"
"Wow he looks different"
"Of Course it''s brother Ghost. Who do you think walking beside him?"
"That''s sister Aelia you''ve been telling us about"
"Sister Aelia gonna lose it"
"Just let Sect Leader ire break the news"
The disciples began to chit-chat. Some seemed excited while some seemed terrified. Those who recently joined the sect from various towns had never seen GHost before. Therefore, they waited for the famous Ghost of River town with their own eyes.
"Sect Leader ire, Lady Raylene '''' ire turned back to see Daniel and Ricky rushing towards them carrying a basket full of wild mushrooms for Raylene''s soup.
"We heard Master Ghost is back," Daniel said. One could see a sliver of fear in his eyes. Ricky on the other hand looked pale as a white paper.
Both of them were more afraid of Aelia than Ghost because they knew Master Ghost is a level-headed calm person while Aelia is the exact opposite of him.
Besides, all of them knew Jack was Aelia''s handyman who followed her behind like a puppy dog. Among all the disciples, only Jack had the guts to talk to her and even ask her for favors. It was not a secret to the disciples that Jack worshipped Ghost and Aelia as his siblings.
*******************************
At that moment, Michael and Gaya were walking towards the home with the biggest frowns on their face. Along the way, they noticed several guards of the Winston family and adventurers patrolling the path to the sect. They expected a line of noble carriages from the foothills to their home to buy potions and pills yet they saw no carriages or a single person other than a disciple of the sect or a guard of the Winston family.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Michael thought to himself.
"Brother!" Suddenly he heard a high pitch shout of Cindy as he saw the little girl running towards him as fast as she could. Her cute face put a wide smile on Michael''s face. Almost twenty meters away from ire, Raylene, the disciples, and his house, he was weed by Cindy. The little girl leaped from the ground, throwing herself to Michael. His haircut, new clothes, or buffed-up physique was not enough to give the little girl a hard time recognizing Michael.
"Hey there butterball" Michael caught the little girl in the mid-air safely. He felt her wrap around his neck getting tighter and tighter.
"You''re back"? as she said, she removed her one hand to hug Gaya.
"I missed you too, tiny human, '''' Gaya giggled. She moved closer so the little girl could hug both of them at the same time. Cindy didn''t stop with the hug as she tried to climb on Michael''s chest using her tiny feet.
"Whooooo you''re back. Don''t let the bad man hurt me" she sobbed, hugging him tightly.
"I think she''s crying," Gaya said.
Michael was confused. Her sobbing didn''t seem like a cry of joy. The little girl kept trying to climb on Michael when she pulled her apart from him by lifting her by the arms. Cindy''s face was pale, there was no redness or baby fat in her face. She lost weight as Michael could see her cor bones and feel her ribs on his hands. Moreover, ck circles could be seen under her eyes because of herck of sleep.
Her transformation, what she just said about a badman and the reactions of the people around them made him realize that something bad has happened. He expected them to wee him with joy and cheers yet he only saw fear and anxiety on their faces.
"Where''s Nightmare?" Although he made sure absolutely no harm coulde to Nightmare, seeing their reactions made him automatically think of Nightmare.
"Don''t leave me again" In his arms, Cindy cried. Michael hugged her as Cindy buried her head on his chest.
"I know something''s very wrong here or you wouldn''t have closed the Majestic. Where is that little shit? He better have a valid reason like dying to make me stop from what I''m nning to do to him"
Ricky and Daniel were responsible for the restaurant in River town while it was Jack''s responsibility to keep the Majestic up and running without problems while they were away. Hence, Gaya looked for Jack having zero clues about his demise.
"Brother Jack...whooo¡.whooo" Tears began to roll out of Cindy''s eyes.
Gaya saw everyone avoiding direct eye contact with her when she mentioned Jack. Her eyes slowly turned cold as she walked towards ire.
She then grabbed ire''s shoulder,
"Where...is...Jack?"
"Teacher" While Gaya was asking ire, Michael saw Olivia running towards him from the direction of the herbal garden. Olivia too had no smile on her face.
"Spit it out!" ire felt her surrounding air turning colder. With tears filling up her eyes, ire finally opened her mouth,
"He''s dead. Jack''s dead, Aelia"
The entire surrounding became deadly silent. No one dared to utter or make a sound. Michael''s mind got filled with questions when he heard ire.
"Dead?" Gaya asked. The veins in her eyes popped, turning her eyes red. Her entire body shivered in anger.
"The bad man killed him," Cindy blurted out.
"He was murdered? Who?" Gaya asked ire.
Everyone''s gaze was locked on Gaya. Michael didn''t show his inner emotions as Gaya but he was feeling the anger boiling inside him after knowing that Jack was murdered.
"We don''t know," ire shook her head. Finally, Gaya let go of her shoulder.
"He was murdered and you don''t know who" she repeated the sentence again and again as she walked towards their house.
"Lord Lucifer, I suggest we take a few steps back. '''' Michael heard Azazel''s voice. He was standing right beside him yet no one could see the butler because of his phantom form skill.
Everyone felt the killing intent radiating from Gaya skyrocketing.
"You don''t know!'''' Suddenly she shouted, throwing her fist at the house.
Boom!''
The wall exploded into smithereens as the entire house shook. The front wall of their housepletely copsed. In a few moments, countless cracks formed in the ground beneath the house as well as on the other walls.
"HE WAS KILLED AND YOU DON''T KNOW!" Her shout almost busted their eardrums.
"Lightning Dash '''' Michael immediately covered Cindy with his coat before activating Lightning Dash. He pushed the spell to its maximum potential to save Raylene, ire, Ricky, and Daniel from getting hurt by the debris.
Gaya went mad as she kept punching the house until itpletely copsed to the ground. A mushroom cloud of dust enveloped them. Only her mad screams could be heard in the area.
"Aelia!"
"Stop!"
ire and the disciples screamed.
"Take them away!"
Thanks to Michael most of them survived Gaya''s rampage with little to no wounds while some of them had their heads opened due to the debris, hitting them. He was like sh rescuing civilians from evil superviins.
Michael was d there was no other building in the area for her to go, breaking them all. She disappeared from his sight into the dust storm.
Michael yelled at ire before handing Cindy over to Raylene. ire and the disciples did not linger around to get hit by debris. They ran away taking the injured with them.
"AHHHH!" Michale heard her mad shouting from the ruins. It was obvious shepletely lost control of her anger. Unlike Michael, she wasn''t trained to control her emotions and anger. Michael wanted to stop her before she harm others and herself.
Cracks of lightning surrounded him as he was about to rush into the ruins of his house when he saw a red ball dashing into the ruins from the skies.
"Nightmare?"
Chapter 294 - Who Killed Jack?
Michael activated the lightning dash to rush into the ruins.
"Wind st" while running into the dust cloud surrounding the ruins, he raised his hands sending several sts of wind to clear the rubble and the dust.
The powerful wind sts cleared the dust in a few seconds revealing Nightmare and Gaya. For a moment, Michael couldn''t recognize the dragon. When he left for the Southern Continent, Nightmare was the size of his hand. Now it stood almost 3 meters tall and 10meters long. He was not as big as smog but not small either. Nightmare''s crimson red scales glistened under the sunlight. Nightmare was holding down Gaya against the ground, he held onto her hands preventing her from destroying and attacking him in rage.
"Ghosty" when Nightmare saw Michael walk out of the dust, his vertical pupils became rounded. Even Nightmare''s voice became rough and gritty, suitable for a majestic dragon.
"GET OFF ME!'''' The momentary distraction was enough for Gaya to fight against Nightmare''s hold. She gritted her teeth, slowly lifting Nightmare''s hands. Both Michael and Nightmare were stunned to see her strength. Even Michael did not know she had the raw strength to lift a dragon against gravity.
Her hands slowly began to show purple scales while she began to grow in size. In addition to the scales and growth in size, Nightmare noticed her eyes transforming into those of a cobra.
Michael rushed into her side before she fully lost control of the innate ability that keeps her in human form.? Visible to the naked eyes, she was bing more and more like a snake. The purples scale had covered up to her neck while below her waist transformed into one long snake body.
"Shit, system I need a powerful sleeping potion ASAP"
"1000 badass points"
"Quick"
"I cannot hold her much longer, Ghosty" Nightmare growled as Michael came to Gaya''s side.
"You idiot" Michael cursed her before forcing the potion down her throat. She frantically wiggled, spitting the potion on both Michael''s and Nightmare''s faces. Still, she couldn''t overpower a dragon and Michael.
"Let¡.go" FInally a few seconds after Michael forced the potion down into her mouth, she started to lose consciousness. Her body gradually shrank back to her normal human form.
"Sigh, I wish we had reunited under different circumstances Ghosty" Nightmare lowered himself to rest his head on Michael''s shoulder. Michael wrapped his arm around Nightmare''s neck, gently patting his warm body.
"Me too buddy, me too"
To Michael''s surprise, Nightmare shrank himself to the size of a three-month-old German Shepherd. With a leap, hended on Michael''s shoulder.
Then he began to shower Michael with wet kisses.
"Was that your original size?"
Nightmare shook his head, "this is my original size. I can temporarily get bigger to enhance my strength. It''s one of my innate talents I got after metamorphosis"
Michael nodded, picking Gaya from the ground.
"Show me where he was killed," He asked Nightmare. Before doing anything, Michael wanted to see where Jack was killed. He didn''t think he could find the killer by just looking at the ce but still, he wanted to see it.
"Follow me" Nightmare pped his wings to ascend to the sky. With a couple of ps, he was high in the sky. Carrying Gaya in his hand, Michael took off from the ground. He stopped for a moment in the sky to look back at the ruins. Even though the house was shabby, it was his home. He couldn''t help feeling a bit sad to see it crumble into pieces. In addition to the house, Jack''s face also shed across his eyes. Jack was innocent in Michael''s mind. If Jack was Lucifer''s cksmith and killed by his enemies, Michael would have understood the reasoning behind his death. However, Jack never did no such thing as helping him kill people.
Not even before flying for five minutes, Nightmare started to descend towards the forest near his house. ck lines appeared on Michael''s forehead. He was thinking Jack was killed somewhere far from his house which would have indicated his murder wasn''t connected to Lucifer.
"He was killed near our home?" Michael asked while flying through the thick canopy.
"What was Jack doing here?" He asked another question,
"Collecting mushrooms and fruits for Raylene" Michael halted his steps. He remembered that collecting mushrooms and fruits were usually done by Cindy as she loved to help her mother. In addition to the forest being so close to Michael''s home, there was always Jack or a disciple apanying Cindy. Even Gaya would sometimes tag along with the little girl if she wanted to hunt in the forest.
"Was Cindy with Jack that day?"
The sight of his previous life shed across his eyes. Everyone in his orphanage was killed because of Spectre''s order so Michael had seen little children he cared about dying. That was the day he lost his calmness and went rampage, killing every single one of his assassin colleagues including his girlfriend and Spectre.''
The thought of Cindy might have been killed along with Jack made his blood boil. He loved Cindy because the little girl loved him unconditionally. Unlike Maisy who was a spoiled brat in his eyes, Cindy was such a sweet caring girl who wanted nothing from him. Not only Michael, but every single person in the sect also cherished her.
"She...she was the one who found his body," Nightmare said, swallowing a mouthful of saliva. He was not an exception to those who adore Cindy. Hence, Nightmare avoided thinking about scenarios that could have harmed Cindy.
Nightmare stopped walking when he reached arge oak tree.
"This is the ce"
Michael gently ced Gaya under another tree before walking to Nightmare''s side.
"System, I need Red Mint, Urchin Vein, Pegasus Hoof, Ent Bark, Leeching Buxus," He thought in his mind as the system showed him the price of 800 badass points before him.
Nightmare saw the green Alchemy mes appear above his hand,
"What are you doing?"
"There''s no perfect crime Nightmare. We can find traces of evidence if we have the right tool, in this case, a potion"
Michael threw the various ingredients into the green fire. He then made a few hand signs in one hand while holding the fire in the other. As usual, pearl-like essence began to form above the green fire before finallying together to make a liquid orb.
Without sending the potion into a vial, Michael waved his hand as the liquid sshed on the tree and the ground around the tree. The ground absorbed the liquid in a few seconds. Gradually before their eyes, the ground''s color changed from muddy brown to fluorescent blue.
"Is that-"
"Blood," Michael said as he squatted down to see any patterns on the ground. He hoped Jack would have left some clues about his killer. Although it was highly unlikely, he still hoped for a clue.
While Michael was studying the ground for clues, Nightmare noticed Gaya''s body moving.
"She''s waking up" In the split second Nightmare turned his head, Michael ruffled the ground to remove the clue from their eyes.
"GG" Michael saw two distinct marks on the ground. He knew Jack probably had written the two letters before dying. There were not many things that rted to the letters ''GG'' except Guardian Guild.
"Where...am¡ I?" She mumbled, slowly opening her eyes.
Both Michael and Nightmare remained silent without answering her question. They wanted for her topletely wake up from her sleepiness.
Gaya''s vision slowly cleared up to reveal the tree around her. Theck of sunlighting through the canopy made seeing everything around her clearly difficult.
"You dumb snake, you destroyed our home and revealed your identity to everyone in the sect"
Instead of answering Nightmare, she turned her gaze towards Michael.
"Do you know who killed him?" She asked coldly. Although she seemed not as furious as before, he could still see the murderous intent in her eyes.
"No"
What she did made Michael mad at her. She single-handedly endangered herself and him. If she was to fully reveal herself as Naga, it wouldn''t be long before Xanali finds out about her true identity. At that time, she would be killed or imprisoned along with him.
If she began to act crazy every time someone close to them was murdered, his enemies would use this to their own advantage. Keeping a calm head was always important to stay ahead of their enemies.
Until he was sure that she wouldn''t lose her mind again like that, he decided not to tell about the Guardian Guild. If she tried to attack a guardian on a rampage, the guild would destroy her and his sect. Compared to the Guardian Guild, they were like weak ants.
They still had a long way to go before starting to challenge or mess with the Guardian Guild. His full focus was on bing strong without making powerful enemies.
"Then find who murdered him. I will kill him and everyone knows about Jack''s murder. No, I won''t kill him right away, I will y him alive, piece by piece. I will make him experience hell"
She looked crazy and ominous with that evil grin on her face.
"You want to keep your secrets fine. But I want you to find the person who killed him"
If anyone could find who killed Jack, Gaya knew it''s Ghost.
Chapter 295 - Switching Gears
"Trust me I will find whoever did this but I won''t tell you anything rted to his murder until then" Michael tantly said to her face.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" She never expected this answer from Michael.
"Do I look like I''m kidding? What you did was stupid. You lost control of yourself, endangering you us and everyone around"
Nightmare agreed with Michael with a nod.
"So you expect me to stand there like a stone. I''m sorry I wasn''t trained to be as heartless as you were"
"Calm down, both of you" Nightmare tried to diffuse the situation before it escted further.
"Shut up lizard. I''m talking to him"
She quickly shut Nightmare before continuing to argue with Michael.
"I get that I might have lost control of my emotions but you look you don''t even care. Jack treated you like his own brother and he was your kind for god sake"
Michael remained in silence uttering no words. He let her pour out everything in her heart. As she said, he was trained to control his emotions.
After hearing her words he could tell that she had mistaken his calmness forck of emotions. Although he was trained to control his emotions, it didn''t mean he didn''t feel anything. He just chose not to show it outside or let the emotions cloud his judgment.
"Would you do something or be as calm as now if something happened to me?"
It was evident that her anger slowly turned towards Michael. She expected him to find the person who killed Jack without a dy, yet hearing that he had no intention to let her know anything regarding the investigation until he finds the scumbag responsible made her blood boil in anger. Moreover, she felt like he didn''t trust her after everything they went through together.
"So you''ll only trust me as long as I behave to your liking?"
She stopped talking, expecting him to say something.
"By acting the way you did, what did you gain? Did you find out who killed Jack?" Michael simply asked two questions instead of exining himself.
She kept opening and closing her mouth without an answer to give,
"You asked if I would be as calm as now if something happened to you. The answer is yes because if I start to lose my mind, anger and other emotions will cloud my judgment. Don''t mistake my calmness forck of emotions. I just don''t show my emotions the way you did. And I''m not even gonna exin myself about trusting you. I trust you with my life, that''s all you gonna get from me? "
Gaya''s eyes began to water up hearing hisst words.
"I thought you would know this after everything we went through" After speaking these words, Michael took off from the forest leaving Nightmare and Gaya behind.
He wanted some time alone to process everything that just happened. Her words hurt him, even though he hadn''t realized it yet.
"Are you happy now, snake?"
Puffs of smoke came out of Nightmare''s nostrils.
"How could you even ask him whether he trusts you or not? Has he done anything without including you? Jack would have never wanted this"
Tears began to roll out of her eyes as Nightmare continued,
"Even now he chose not to tell you anything because he wants to protect you. Hear my words snake, you won''t find someone who trusts and loves you as Ghost, not in this lifetime, not ever"
She broke down to the ground, crying. Michael''s words, Jack''s death and Nightmare''s words pierced her heart. She couldn''t hold back the tears anymore.
Seeing her break down to tears stunned Nightmare. He had never seen her like this. It was not his intention to make her cry. He slowly walked towards her before wrapping his wing around her shoulder.
"You know how it feels to have a family that treats you as their enemy?" Gaya asked Nightmare sobbing. The moments she spent with Xanali, her mother, and her father shed across Gaya''s eyes. Her stepmother or even her real father never treated her like they treated Xanali. They loved Xanali while always viewing Gaya as a stranger.
"I know how it feels to be abandoned," Nightmare said. He still clearly remember the time his mother threw him out of the nest and running from the humans who wanted to capture him for pleasure. Until he drew hisst breath, he would never forget the first time he saw Ghost. In his eyes, Nightmare only showed love and excitement. Somehow Nightmare felt safer with him.
"I always yearned for a family that loves me. This sect, you, Ghost, and everyone loves me unconditionally. You guys are my family," She looked at Nightmare with her teary eyes.
"But I wasn''t here to protect my family. I had nightmares of someone calling for my help, I didn''t take it seriously. If I returned then-" her throat tightened in sadness.
"It''s not your fault. Do not me yourself. Just trust Ghost, he will find whoever did this. When we get our hands on that filth, I''ll help you show him the hell" Nightmare chuckled to make her feel good. He shook her shoulders yfully. Despite their constant bickering and fights and the hate between the Naga race and the Dragon race, Nightmare loved Gaya and so was she. He couldn''t care less about the hate between the two races. As far as he was concerned, she was family to him.
"me yourself for destroying our home. Thanks to you, we''re homeless now"? Nightmare teased her. He didn''t let go of her as he kept her under his wings.
"It was a shabby house anyways" finally Gaya whipped off the tears from her face. A small smile emerged on her face.
"Now let''s go find Ghosty. And try not to act like a bitch this time"
"Shut you scaly fuck"
"There''s the snake I know and love"
Gaya punched Nightmare in the neck as he gave a head butt to her face. After that, they ascended to the sky searching for Ghost.
************************************
The serrated mountains loomed in the distance. Gaya and Nightmare made their way towards them searching for Michael. The trees nketed the mountains decorating the mountains in jade green. The heaven-touching apex of the mountain was drenched in brilliant light. All across their line of sight, the tips of the mountain range stuck up like a row of thorns.
Atop the tallest mountain top, Michael was standing alone. His ck coat was fluttering in the wind backward. From the mountain top, he could see the entire sect and the River town on the horizon.
He had nevere to this ce before but he regretted that seeing the calmness it gave to his soul and mind. Looking at the sky, he saw Nightmare and Gaya flying towards him.
The demon butler was standing behind him uttering no words. He let Michael enjoy peace and calmness.
After a couple of minutes, theynded behind Michael.
"Human" Michael heard Gaya''s voice. She sounded meek, gentle, and apologizing.
He kept gazing at the view before him as Nightmare and Gaya slowly made their way towards him.
"I''m sorry" she hugged him from behind, burying her head on his back.
"It''s that-"
"You don''t have to exin yourself to me" Michael interrupted her,
"You spoke your mind"
His distant words began to hurt her,
"You''re right, I''m not gonna exin myself to you. I love you and I trust you with my life too, that''s all you''re gonna get from me" She hugged him as tight as she could.
For a few minutes, they just stood there without moving until Michael turned back,
"I promise I won''t lose my mind again," Gaya said, looking him directly in the eyes.
"No, you won''t" Michael caringly embraced her. After seeing her teary eyes, he couldn''t be mad at her anymore. He loved her so much that he couldn''t see her cry.
"I will make sure no one hurts the people we care about anymore," Michael said before gently kissing the top of her head.
Eventually, Nightmare couldn''t stay back; he came to join the hug. He grew big enough to wrap both of them in his wings. He then wiggled his head in between Michael and Gaya.
"I missed this so much" Nightmare purred.
"What are you gonna do?" Gaya asked,
"We''re going to make our sect stronger than any other sect in this entire continent and it''s time this continent has seen a 6-star Alchemist"
An unwavering resolution appeared in Michael''s eyes. With the system''s help, no matter the cost, he nned to be a 6-star myth-level Alchemist. At that time, he would find an existence equal or stronger than the Guardian Guild to associate himself.
It was time he yed the offensive instead of defensive. Since they decided to mess with the people he cares about without thinking about any consequences, he would make them regret crossing his path.
"Let''s start kicking asses by winning the uing championship tournaments" Nightmare reminded them about the tournaments.
"Oh shit, I almost forgot about that. It''s tomorrow isn''t it?" Gaya took her head back from his chest,
"Nope, they postponed it by a week"
"Why?"
Nightmare just realized something as he looked at both of them,
"You don''t know, do you?"
Chapter 296 - The Alchemist Guild Invitation
"Holy fuck.That was why I couldn''t see any Arch energy radiation" Gaya''s jaw slightly dropped hearing Nightmare exin that the cultivators lost the ability to sense someone else''s cultivation level as they were used to.
Nightmare noticed Gaya and Michael keep looking at each other with their brows arched up.
"Don''t tell me that you two were somehow involved" Nightmare sighed. It didn''t really surprise him. Gaya was staring at Michael like a thief caught in the act.
"You could say that" Michael grinned,
"You''re smiling" Nightmare tilted his head in confusion. As far as he knew, there was nothing good that coulde out of the current world situation.
Ever since Hydra''s scream messed up Arch energy waves in the world, crimes of the rogue cultivators had been increased. The hydra''s scream worked like an EMP that short-circuited the energy radiation of the world, producing many known and unknown issues.
Most defense arrays relied on sensing the Arch energy radiationsing from a cultivator, since the Hydra''s scream changed the way the radiationing from someone''s body, the arrays were rendered useless. Hence, the rogue cultivators capitalized on this opportunity to thieve, murder, andmit heinous crimes around the continent.
The ability to hide the arch energy radiation was what made Aria such a valuable asset to Michael. But now, practically everyone had her ability.
"Before we tell you what happened in the Southern Continent, I have a few things to take care of. Let''s return to the sect. And thanks to you, we''re homeless now" Michael flicked her on the forehead,
"That''s what I said, hehehe" Nightmareughed as she rolled her eyes,
"You two are not gonna let this one go, are you?"
"Nope" Nightmare shook his head before taking off to the sky along with Michael and Gaya.
*******************************************
Flying for a couple of minutes from the hilltop was enough to reach the ruins of their home. Michael slowly descended from the sky to see several disciples cleaning up the ruins. The disciples were shifting through the rubbles to salvage something, yet all they could manage to salvage were big pieces of the sofa, Michael''s bed, and the board of Majestic.
"Brother Ghost"
The disciples weed Michael with fear-mixed smiles. They avoided eye contact with Gaya. After seeing what she did, they were freaked out.
"Why are you guys doing this? Get the adventurers or the constructions workers for this job"
To make the sect the strongest, almost all the disciples needed to be better than the disciples of the other sects. By better, Michael meant, powerful, disciplined, smart, hardworking, and humble unlike those pricks like Alex or Celina.
"But brother Ghost, it would cost us," a female disciple who was in the sect from its downfall said, scratching her head.
"The dwarf is gonna ask for a good chunk of coins anyways, so leave all the hard work to him and his people. He won''t give a discount because you cleaned this mess"
"That makes sense knowing Master Fovar" The disciples agreed with Ghost.
"Now go cultivate" Michael waved off the disciples before making his way towards ire''s manor. Adjacent to ire''s manor was Raylene''s home. It was not as big or fancy as CLaire''s manor because it was just a temporary residence for Raylene. Michael nned to build her a manor suitable for a 5-star chef.
Several disciples were standing in the mini garden before ire''s manor. When they saw the three of them approaching them, they made way for them.
"Brother Ghost"
"Sister Aelia"
"Nightmare"
The disciples greeted them respectfully. Michael nodded with a smile, giving some of them a pat on the shoulder on his way inside. The disciples who received the pat from Michael became electrified. Because they were new to the sect, they only heard about Ghost through the senior disciples'' stories. He was a local legend. They kinda expected him to be like the celebrity disciples like Alex, Celina or Victoria who wouldn''t even look at the ordinary disciples like them yet not only Michael smiled at them, he even patted some of them on the shoulder. It was a simple gesture from Michael''s side but for the disciples, it was a big thing.
"Wow he looks so different in close"
"Did you see that? He smiled at me!"
"He patted me on the shoulder!"
"The seniors were right about him, he''s so friendly"
"He has a dragon"
"What do you think his current cultivation level would be?"
"And how strong is the dragon and Sister Aelia?"
The disciples began to chatter among themselves looking at Michael walking into the manor. The smell of this world''s paint was sweet, kinda like roses. Even afterpleting the construction work a month ago, the smell still lingered in the air. The corridors were rather empty with no vases, paintings on the walls, or chandeliers to light the house. Only when he reached the hall, he could see a few crude sofa sets as well as a chandelier decorating the hall.
The sofa sets were made of bamboo as arge tea table made of redwood upied the space before the sofas at the center. ire and Elder Reiner were discussing something with serious faces. He saw Cindy sitting on the sofa beside ire. Cindy wrapped her hands around ire''s hand. When Cindy noticed Michael, her face brightened up like someone lit a candle in her head but when she saw Gaya, the little girl hid her face behind ire''s hand in fear.
Realizing that she made Cindy afraid of her, Gaya really regretted her actions. Cindy kept gawking at Gaya hiding behind CLaire''s hand.
"Ghost"
"Elder Reiner, you look good" Every time he saw Elder Reiner, he reminded Michael of Gandalf the white with his long white beard and white robes. If he had a staff in his hand, he would be exactly like Gandalf.
"You look different. What happened to your hair?" Elder Reinerughed. The situation somehow turned less solemn.
"Come here" To Michael''s surprise, Elder Reiner stood up to give him a hug.
"Wee back, young man"
Meanwhile, Gaya went to sit beside ir, right next to Cindy. She grabbed Cindy''s head, slowly turning it towards her.
"What? Are you afraid of me now?" Even the grown ups were terrified when Gaya lost control of her anger. Therefore, it was understandable when Cindy felt the same way as the others.
Michael and Elder Reiner sat on the sofa silently looking at them. Nightmare quickly shrunk himself so he could rest on Michael''spfortably.
"A little" Cindy said meekly.
"I''m sorry that I made you afraid Cindy. But didn''t I say I don''t like scared little girls?"
"I''m not scared" her voice sounded like a scared cat.
"But you''re scared of me" She asked, lifting Cindy from the sofa by arms. ire couldn''t help smiling seeing how Cindy was in Gaya''s arms like a puppy.
"Look at you, avoiding eye contact. I won''t speak to you again if you''re afraid of me"
"No" she quickly shook her head after getting threatened by Gaya.
"Are you scared of me?" she asked again,
"Please promise you won''t stop talking to me" Cindy pleaded with teary eyes. Cindy loved Gaya and Michael too much as she couldn''t even imagine either of them staying mad at her.
"Promise me you won''t be scared anymore and will be a strong girl"
"I promise"
"I can''t hear you"
"I promise!" Cindy raised her voice. Gaya smiled, embracing the little girl. Cindy hugged her back before giving a loving kiss on Gaya''s cheek. ire ruffled Cindy''s head as Elder Reinerughed in joy.
"Teacher, you''re here" Suddenly he heard Olivia''s voice as he turned back to see her rushing towards them with a letter in her hand.
"So have you done trying to kill us? Thanks to you, teacher is now homeless" Olivia didn''t seem afraid of Gaya but mad at her. Instead of handing over the letter to Michael, she yelled at Gaya with her hand on her waist.
Nightmare immediately burst intoughter.
"For god''s sake, this is the third time I heard he''s homeless thanks to me"? Gaya smacked her forehead,
"You can stay in the guestroom," ire said but Michael shook his head,
"Thank you Sect Leader but I''m nning to go to River town, so I''ll stay in the restaurant. I''ll also send Daniel or Ricky to bring Fovar here to build a new home and Majestic"
In addition to his trip to the river town, Michael didn''t want to stay with ire because it might create some unwanted rumors that might affect her future when ites to marriage.
"Take a seat Olivia" ire didn''t force Michael as she just nodded at him. She then turned her gaze towards Olivia. In Michael''s eyes, ire seemed different than the girl he first met. The way she was sitting, her posture, the way she talked, everything changed. Like a proper leader, she sat leaning back while keeping one leg on top of the other. They were the signs of a person with a strong heart and mind. He was d to see that the Sect Leader isn''t a scared little girl anymore, she had grown into a proper leader as he expected.
Olivia sat beside Michael, keeping some distance between them
"What''s in your hand?"? Michael asked.
"It''s from the Alchemist Guild" her eyes sparkled in excitement,
"The letter came for youst week, I think it''s THE invitation"
Her hands shivered while handing over the letter to Michael. The seal was still in ce. On top of the letter, Michael saw the green veins coiled around the letter A written in beautiful calligraphy. The crest was etched on the letter in gold showing the grandiose of the guild.
Under their gazes, Michael broke the seal to open the letter. After a few seconds, they saw Michael snicker,
"Humph, the galls" Michael threw the letter on the table as Olivia''s eyes went wide in shock. In her eyes, the Alchemy Guild was the highest existence among the Alchemists. Many would die to receive a letter from the Alchemy Guild yet he threw the letter like it was garbage.
"They want me topete in the uing Grand Alchemistspetition"
After hearing Michael''s words, they understood the reason behind his reaction.
"Compete? They should invite you to judge. Asking a 5-star Alchemist topete with amateurs is an insult" Elder Reiner raised his brows.
"So you''re not gonna go?" Olivia asked,
"I''m going to attend.. Not topete, but to show those idiots the difference between me and them. It''s time they learned who''s the real number one"
Chapter 297 - The Six Star Alchemist
"Why did they do that?" Olivia mumbled under her breath. Just like Elder Reiner said, it was an insult to ask the second-best Alchemist in the continent topete in the tournament instead of asking to judge it.
Compared to Ghost, she knew most of the alchemists are amateurs including herself. She was nowhere near his level yet she was considered one of the talented alchemists.
"I''d say we call all our allies to dinner and reveal your talents there before revealing to the Alchemist Guild. That way you have backing if things went wrong" ire suggested. It was surprising that Michael was thinking exactly the same thing.
When he first showed his talents to ire and the elders, they were declining and Michael was just an unknown kid. However, everything had changed. The Sun Rise sect wasn''t declining anymore, they were bing stronger and stronger each day with new disciples joining and more disciples reaching higher cultivation stages. Besides, no one in their right mind would mess with Ghost or the sect because of ire''s grandfather, a Soul Refining stage cultivator.
"I''ll ask Raylene to prepare the food," ire said,
"I make sure our guests have plenty to drink" Elder Reiner went outside to order wine leaving the rest of them behind.
"Since everyone''s taking the initiative, I''ll go hunt. You can''t have dinner without meat right? Now go y with your brother" Gaya put Cindy on the ground.
"What are you gonna do brother? Can I stay with you" Cindy came to Michael,
"I have a few things to take care of. We''ll yter" Michael ruffled Cindy''s head with a smile. After everyone left the hallway, only Michael, Olivia, and ire remained,
"Teacher, what did you mean by the real number one?" Olivia didn''t know Michael could reach 90% purity every time without slipping a single percentage.
"Everyone including Gabriel ims he''s the number one Alchemist in the Elon Continent. What''s his purity level?" Michael asked Olvia, leaning back on the sofa.
"84% is the highest he could reach" Olivia adjusted her sses,
"84% not bad, but it''s not this" he willed the system to give him the 90% healing potion he brewed for his personal use. Olivia was confused for a moment trying to make sense out of his words. In a blink of an eye, she saw a vial with sparkling blue potion appear in Michael''s hand. Her eyes immediately went wide as they seemed like they were about to pop out.
The sweet fragrance being radiated by the potion filled the hall.
"This¡.this¡.is" words barely escaped Olivia''s mouth.
Eighty-four percent pure potion was the highest she had ever seen. It was the better potion in her mind, evenpared to her teacher''s. However, the potion in Michael''s hand was far more superior to everything she had seen. She could feel the pure arch energy pulsating from the vial.
"90% pure healing potion" Michael finished her sentence. She looked at ire subconsciously to see her not as surprised as she was. ire received a batch of these potions from Michael in case of emergencies and for her own personal use.
"Teacher...did you..."
"What do you think?" Michael kept giving answers before she could finish off her questions. She was stuttering in shock.
Michael ced the potion beside Olivia to take a few moments with the potion. To expand his Alchemy empire, he needed Olivia''s father''s expertise. Her father was Reginald Palmer, the vice president of one of the most influential merchant guilds, the Rainshade. With Nathen''s Bradley family providing security services, if he could get Olivia''s father on board, he would be able to start distributing his potions all over the continent.
"I''ll leave you two to your Alchemy business" ire giggled looking at Olivia''s dumbstruck face.
"Ugh Sect Leader, do you know where Ricky and Daniel are?"
"They''d be at the herbal garden"
"Thanks" She gave a slight nod at Michael before leaving the hall.
"I didn''t want to reveal my true abilities for obvious reasons but it''s time to show what I can really do to this continent"
After taking in the shock for a couple of minutes, Olivia finally talked without stuttering,
"Teacher, this means you''re on the verge of bing a legend and a 6-star Alchemist. No one has seen a 6-star Alchemist since the Fifth Supreme Guardian, Andreas McLeod" The mere mention of the name kindled a bad feeling in Michael''s gut. The man eradicated the Order of Death and anyone who worshipped the Dark Lord. Thest time Michael met a sliver of soul left behind by Andreas was when he ventured into the Treacherous Ocean. Michael never knew the Supreme Guardian was a 6-star Alchemist until now.
"I thought 6-star Alchemists were myths" When he first asked Gaya about 6-star Alchemists, she said they were myths.
"Many people do say that. They are not to be med because it has been roughly three thousand years since the world has seen the Supreme Guardian. I read some notes about the Supreme Guardian, ording to those notes, he was able to achieve 98% purity"
"Hmm" Michael entered the system interface,
"System, remind me what are the requirements to be a 6-star Alchemist?"
[70,000 badass points to buy and learn the superior book of Alchemy. Primordial fire and Ancient Elven rune of fire mastery]
The system listed the requirements. He never even heard of them before.
"How much would it cost me if I bought everything from you?"
[That would be a great choice. I can give you all of them for only 800,000 badass points] the system sounded extremely excited. It really thought Michael would choose to buy them from the store instead of wasting his time and effort scouring this for the required items.
"It seems I have to wait a little longer," Michael sighed. Reaching 800,000 points would take him at least two-three years considering he avoids making unnecessary enemies. Moreover, he couldn''t help thinking about searching for the items rather than buying them from the store. Of course, it would take time or even be an impossible task yet he wanted to see whether he could find the items first before buying from the system.
[Good luck finding the Primordial fires]
The system threw him out of the interface. He saw Olvia staring at him with wide eyes. She was still in shock thinking that she''s studying under the number one Alchemist in the entire continent who might be the first 6-star Alchemist in three thousand years.
"Meet me at Raylene''s home in two hours and keep this a secret between us" Michael stood up.
"Of course. Teacher, can I ask you something?" looking at the way she was holding the potion, he knew what she''s gonna ask.
"Yeah, you can keep it. Compare the potions to this and try to find the biggest differences between them. That''s your next assignment"
"Thank you teacher!" she almost shouted in excitement. She ran like a bunny from the hall to study the potion.
**************************************
Leaving ire''s manor, he reached the herbal garden in a minute using the Lightning Dash spell. The use of the spell earned him almost three thousand badass points from the disciples.
When he reached the herbal garden, he saw dozens of disciples working the field, studying and tending to the herbs. The herbal garden was surrounded by a fence and a three-meter-wide foundation dig for the ss dome. He looked down into the dig to see a green above the ground. The was there as a safety precaution in case someone fell into the hole, especially Cindy or her friends.
Looking at the green fields nketed the ground like a jade nket, the colorful exotic flowers dancing in the wind, the glistening fruits hanging from six feet tall trees, the sprouts craning their heads from the ground as well as the saplings made him feel proud.
The air he inhaled was mixed with sweet and medicinal fragrance permeated from the herbs. He even saw several colorful flocks of birds that he had never seen in his life. Some of the birds were standing on the tree branches while some scoured through the ground for insects to eat. They were nature''s pest killers so the disciples let them do whatever they want without chasing them away. Besides, the sounds of the birds made the garden feel lively.
"Brother Ghost!"
"He''s here"
"Don''t mind me, continue your work," Michael said before the disciples start gathering around him like ants around sugar. He then searched for the garden to locate his two henchmen.
His eyes automatically stopped at the ce where he saw neatly stacked crates. Ricky was counting the crates while Daniel was writing something onto his notebook. Even after Gaya almost killed them along with the disciples when she destroyed Michael''s home, the two henchmen didn''t use it as an excuse to avoid working. They came straight to the garden to check the herb stocks. The two of them were the busiest people in the sect. In the morning, they would be at River town, supervising the cleaning and misceneous works to be done in the restaurant. In the afternoon, they had to make sure the disciples harvest the right amount of herbs from the garden as some herbs needed to be harvested and kept away from the sunshine as long as possible to increase the medicinal quality.
After finishing their work at the herbal garden, they would spend the rest of their day cultivating. Gaya made it mandatory for them to cultivate, she even allocated potions and pills for them to speed up their cultivation.
From the system storage, Michael took a white paper and quill to write down everything he needed before inviting his allies to the dinner. Lucifer had his fun. Now was time for Ghost to strengthen his alliances, start his Alchemy empire and finally, make steps towards destroying the Guardian Guild once and for all.
Chapter 298 - Preparations Before The Big Dinner
"No peeking lizard" At the moment, inside one of the rooms in Raylene''s home, Gaya was carrying Nightmare in her arms while closing his eyes using one hand.
"I''m not peeking" Nightmare lied as he tried to peek through the gap between her fingers yet he couldn''t see anything.
"Where''s the food bitch?" Nightmare suddenly heard a childish voice.
"Whoa, what is that? Is that what you call a dragon? looks small than I expected"
Nightmare continued to hear the childish voice. It somehow sounded more like Gaya, only childish.
"You ruined a good surprise little shit" He heard Gaya cursing back,
"Who is that?" Nightmare pushed down Gaya''s palm with his hands to see a creature with three heads staring at him on the table. Vedora and Nightmare entered into a staring contest as they looked at each other without even moving their heads an inch.
Gaya slowly put Nightmare on the ground. Nightmare started to circle the table cautiously before slowly moving forward towards the hydra.
"I''m Sarba, I guess you''re our brother" Nightmare was stunned again to see the silver head talk in the voice of a male child. Besides, the silver head sounded exactly opposite to the white head who reminded Gaya of him.
He then turned his gaze towards the ckhead, expecting it to speak. However, unlike the silver and the white head, the ckhead remained silent.
"Enough circling you overgrown lizard, go fetch me something to eat"
Ignoring Ayag, Nightmare approached the hydra step by step.
Creak!
Suddenly the door creaked open as Nightmare almost plummeted with the table in shock. It was Michael who entered the room. He saw Gaya having augh with Nightmare and the Hydra.
"Come here" she pulled him closer wrapping her arm around his. Both of them stood in the room''s coroner watching the Hydra and Nightmare. The scene reminded Michael of dogs meeting their cat sibling for the first time. Only Nightmare was the dog and the cat sibling was the Hydra here.
"Hey stop" Ayag growled seeing Nightmare sniffing them. Ayag kept hitting Nightmare on the face with her head.
"Who are they?" Nightmare gently picked them up from the with his hand.
"Drop us or I''ll chew your hand off" Ayag tried to wiggle herself out by chewing his hand. But Nightmare barely felt anything.
"That little shit is Ayag, the nice one in the middle is Sarba and the silent cky is Cain. Together, we call them Vedora. Do you like them?"? Gaya asked after introducing them to Nightmare.
Nightmare once again stared at them from top to bottom. Then, to everyone''s surprise, his vertical pupils became rounded as he hugged them grinning.
"I love them, they are so cute"
"Eww, stop! '''' Ayag started to shout when Nightmare began to shower them with wet kisses. Gaya couldn''t stop herself from scoping them off the floor before giving them a warm embrace. She hugged Michael with one hand while hugging the Hydra and Nightmare with another. They looked like a perfectly happy family. cing a gentle kiss on Gaya''s head, Michael willed the system to activate the runic teleportation.
**************************************
In a blink of an eye, they appeared in Michael''s room in the Abyssal. When they looked at the room, they were startled. The room was spotlessly clean. The bed was made neatly like in high-end hotels. There was not a speck of single dust or broken piece of Spyder on his work table. Even the mirrors he ced on the wall to survey the kingdom were cleaned spotless.
"Wee Lord Lucifer, Lady Gaya, Master Sarba, Miss Ayag, Master Cain"
Nightmare was yet again startled by the stranger. He bared his teeth threateningly at the Demon butler.
"It''s a pleasure to meet you again, Master Nightmare"
"Huh? I never met you before. What are you?" Nightmare was taken back by surprise.
"He''s a demon Nightmare. Just like Vedora, he came from another world. The three of you should go have a talk" Michael waved them off and went to his work table.
Gaya saw stacks of crates appear around the table. The room was lit in green after Michael conjured his Alchemy mes.
"Do you need any help?" She came to his side,
"I can manage, you go cultivate. We need to be in our best shape before the tournament starts"
"Alright" Gaya jumped on the bed to cultivate. The Fusion stage bone still had some energy left in it for her to absorb. She flicked her wrist as the femur bone appeared in her hand.
While she was cultivating, Michael began to brew potions and concoct pills for the Majestic. He continued to make pills and potions without a rest. Only Azazel apanied him as Vedora and Nightmare fell asleep while Gaya was still cultivating.
"Lord Lucifer, can I bring you anything to eat or drink? I saw bell berries in the forest"
"This is the eighth time you asked this Azazel. I''m not hungry, the arch energy keeps the body replenished"
He took thest herb from a crate. Although Michael was not hungry, he wanted to eat something or drink a mug full of coffee to chase away the sleepiness. He had been making potions and pills for thest fourteen hours without a break. It took a toll on his body as he was exhausted both mentally and physically.
"But as your faithful butler, it''s my duty to keep you in your best shape Lord Lucifer. If I only has a physical body, I would have made you something myself"
"Why don''t you try to make the undeads make me something?"
"Absolutely not Lord Lucifer. I won''t let those filthy vile creatures defile your food. Making them clean your room and the Abyssal is the highest peak of my tolerance of them"
"Keep an eye on Dr and his experiments. We can''t let the Guardians sniff out this ce"? He ordered Dr. Finally, Michael stretched his muscles yet he didn''t stand up. Azazel saw him close his eyes.? Azazel thought he had fallen asleep but after five minutes, he opened his eyes again.? A ck card appeared on the table when he opened his eyes. The card was metallic ck, it looked simple yet elegant. On the card''s center, one could see a skull embossed. A dragon simr to Nightmare coiled around the skull while the letter ''G'' could be seen behind the skull and the dragon.
"What do you think?" Michael asked Azazel.
Azazel moved a bit closer to Michael to see the card clearly.
"It''s beautiful, Lord Lucifer. I assume this is the card you''re going to give to your allies as Ghost"
"Yep," Michael nodded. He picked up the card from the table, savoring the design.? It cost him 50 badass points to design the card. To get 100 cards, he had to spend 4998 badass points. The two points were discounted by the system.
"What do you see?"
Keeping the card in his hand, he asked Azazel,
"The skull is obviously rted to your name, Ghost as the skull often represents the dead and ghosts in this world. The dragon is Master Nightmare. As for the G behind the skull, the others might think it represents your name but I think it represents Lady Gaya."
"You''re right" Michael expected nothing less from his demon butler. As he said, the skull represented him, the dragon represented Nightmare and the letter G represented Gaya. Except for the people in this room, no one could tell that the G represents Gaya. For others, the letter G was the first letter of Ghost.
************************************************
"Here''s everything you asked" Long after the sun had risen from the horizon, Gaya entered their room in Abyssal. Michael was still sitting before his work table, brewing potions and connecting pills.
She had never seen him overworking himself like this. He always used to take breaks or train with her but for thest two days, he never even moved away from his work table.
After looking into the space ring Ricky gave it to her, she could tell he''s going to be busier than now.
"I also brought something for you to eat" A mug of hot coffee, fried rice and arge piece of strawberry cake appeared on the table. The sweet smell of the coffee made him take a deep breath. His mouth automatically began water seeing the delicious food on the table. Raylene''s food always had the tendency to make him feel hungry even when he was not.
"Where''s Nightmare and Vedora?" Michael looked around the room before asking,
"They are ying in the dark forest. Do you know Vedora is immune to the fear toxin in the forest?" as she said, she took a bite from the cake.
"It might be because of Vedora''s origin. Remind me to check what else Vedora is immune toter" Michael started to eat his food before she finished off like the cake.
More than anything, he wanted the coffee to keep him awake.
"I sent the invitations to all our allies including Kane Family elders and Olivia''s father. Let''s see whether they ept our invitation toe to the sect"
"They will," Michael said. He did not doubt that. If they didn''t capitalize on an opportunity when they see one, they wouldn''t be where they are.
After finishing his food, he took a long sip of coffee. He immediately felt refreshed. While drinking, he retrieved everything inside the space ring Ricky gave to Gaya.
"You want anything else?" She asked,
"Just make sure the security has no holes"
"I''ve already hired the strongest adventure groups from the guild. I''m now going to interview them"
"Good. Before you go, how many Spyders do you think we need to monitor the entire kingdom of Bredia?"
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Finished with the fillers needed for this arc. From the next chapter onwards, we can finally dive into the good stuff!!!!
Chapter 299 - Majestic Empire I
The next day after Gaya gave the food to Michael, she came to his room to inform him about the dinner preparations. As she expected, he was still sitting in front of the worktable building Spyders. The table was filled with tiny Spyders, some of them were crawling on the table like they were alive.
"Everything''s ready for dinner tonight" She came to his side.
"Good, I''m finished here" Michael waved his hand as all the thousand Spyders on the table disappeared into the space ring in his hand.
He then tossed the space ring to Gaya,
"How fast can you fly?"
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Under a sky of perfect midnight velvet, under stars so brilliant they drew the eyes heaven bound. The night was a special kind of ckness, the kind that wants only to hold the stars and help them to shine all the brighter. It was a warm ck that hugged Michael no matter what, and within its safety, he could feel his own soul all the more clearly, that innocent inborn spark.
Whether it was because he was born to be a Dark Lord, he felt stronger and safer in the dark. He was looking at the starry sky from the mountain peak. Despite the light produced by the half-moon and the millions of stars, he was barely visible with his full ck attire.
A few minutes passed by in peace. Only the silent night apanied him until he saw a couple of pegasus flying towards the sect. He took a few steps to drop down from the mountain peak. He felt the wind gushing against him, the gravity pulled him down faster and faster before he activated the Lightning Dash to fly. In a blink of an eye, he turned himself into a bolt of lightning to reach the sect.
The dinner table was set in ire''s manor. Michaelnded before the manor to see Ricky and Daniel waiting to wee the guests. They wore gold-embroidered grey coat suits. The coat suit was not of the modern age but of the medieval era.
"Master Ghost" they bowed with absolute respect towards Michael,
"Guests are arriving. Be on your guard"
"Yes...Yes Master Ghost" Ricky stuttered. This was the first time he had been to a dinner like this. For amoner like him, it was always difficult to interact with nobles. Daniel was able to hide his anxiousness, unlike Ricky who was shivering from top to bottom.
"Rx. You just need to greet them and show them the way to the hall"
Michael patted Ricky on the shoulder to give him some confidence.
"It''s just we aremoners-"
"That doesn''t matter anymore. You work for me, that means you''re on equal foot with most of the nobles. Now, be on your guard and do what you were told"? With a final pat to Ricky''s back, Michael climbed the stairs to enter the manor.
"And Ricky, Daniel" just a few steps away from the front door, Michael turned back to call them,
"Try not to embarrass me and yourselves" As he said, he entered the manor disappearing from their view.
When Michael entered the manor, he was overwhelmed by the aroma emanating from the air. The aroma was so strong that he could basically taste the air. Following the aroma, he came to the hall where there was arge round table full of food. Mushroom soup, bitter greens with tomatoes the size of peas, rare roast beef slices as thin as paper, noodles in a green sauce, cheese that melts on your tongue served with sweet blue grapes. The disciples dressed in white tunics move wordlessly to and from the table, keeping the tters and sses full. The centerpiece of the table was a honey-zed pit-roasted forest boar. The golden-brown meat glistened under the chandelier light.
"Brother Ghost" the disciples who were working as the servers today greeted Michael.
"Continue your work, I''ll? be right back"
Michael made his way towards ire''s room to meet her and Gaya. Meanwhile, the disciples finished decorating the dinner table with delicious foods cooked by Raylene.
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Nathen was flying behind his uncle Lord Mn on the pegasus in silence. A trio of guards followed them behind. Under the darkness of the night, one couldn''t see the five of them without using a spell. It was surprising for Nathen to see how quickly his uncle postponed or canceled everything he had to do to attend the dinner hosted by Ghost. As the family head of the Bradley Family, Lord Mn barely had time to cultivate yet he made time for Ghost. Unlike his uncle, he didn''te to meet Ghost but his teacher Olivia. He wanted to ask a few questions regarding the uing Alchemists tournament.
"They really turned the sect around," Lord Mn said in surprise, looking at the buildings on the ground. Normally the buildings in this continent would be lighted using torches, only wealthy families and sects could afford to light their buildings using the chandeliers. Lord Mn didn''t expect the Sunrise sect to be using chandeliers to light almost fifty to sixty buildings. In addition, the buildings themselves looked sumptuous with their unique architecture.
For a moment, Nathen was unable to guess where they shouldnd. Looking around the area, they found a majestic building with water fountains, arge garden, and severalmps decorating it. The manor was brightly lit from all the corners as it looked like it was painted with gold and silver.
When they descended, Nathen saw two noblemen waiting at the entrance.
Their group approached the two noblemen,
"Wee to the Sunrise Sect Lord Mn, the head of House Bradley and Lord Nathen" they were slightly surprised to see the two noblemen greeting them by bowing their heads. The nobles wouldn''t bow their heads towards the other noble, Lord Mn was confused. By looking at the gold embroidered dress they were wearing, they looked like nobles.
"Please follow me this way, honored guests" Nathen saw the young one gesturing at them to follow him. Nathen could see the youngster was nervous yet he tried his best not to show it outside.
With a nod, Lord Mn started to follow Ricky behind. The moment they stepped into the manor, all of them were overwhelmed by the aroma in the air. It immediately made their mouths water and their stomachs growl.
"Hey kid, is this the magic of the 5-star chef I''m smelling?" Lord Mn asked Ricky while taking deeper breaths.
"Yes, Lord Mn. Every single dish has been cooked by Lady Raylene herself"
Taking another twenty or so steps, they finally reached the hall where several people were sitting around the dinner table filled with colorful delicious food.
Nathen saw his teacher Olivia sitting next to a middle-aged man with a brown goatee. His brown hair had patches of white hair above the ears.
Other than Olivia and the man, Nathen saw a woman in her mid-thirties upying the chair next to the Sunrise sect leader ire. She was not as beautiful as Olvia or ire yet she had a certain charm to her. Especially her skin that almost glistened, he had never seen such smooth silky skin.
When his eyes fell on the three old men enjoying their wines with broad smiles on their faces, Nathen was stunned speechless because they were the elders of House Kane, one of the most powerful families in Royal Land.
"Enjoy the dinner, honored guests" bowing his head, Ricky left the hall as Lord Mn walked towards the table with Nathen before signaling the guards to stay outside.
"Lord Mn, the new family head of Bradley" Elder Walter weed Mn with a wide grin.
"What took you so long?" Elder Martin asked while taking a long sip from his wine ss.
Elder Edison acknowledged Mn by giving a slight nod before continuing to enjoy the appetizers, Chili Lime River Shrimp Cups.
"Nice to see you again Elder Walter, Elder Martin, Elder Edison" Mn greeted each of the elders with the utmost respect. Compared to the humongous existence like House Kane, House Bradley was nothing. Sitting on the same table with them equally could already be viewed as an honor and an opportunity.
"Teacher" Nathen took a seat beside Olivia. He was thest to sit before they saw Ghost and Gaya walking towards them from the room on the other side of the hall.
Everyone except ire had a look of surprise on their faces. Ghost looked very different from thest time they saw him. Other than his choice of ck dress, everything about him was changed. In simple words, he looked like a different person.
"I''m honored to wee you all to this dinnerdies and gentlemen"
He said, raising a ss of wine towards them as the girl beside him took the empty chair.
"We''re sorry about disciple Jack, Ghost. We heard he was your friend" Elder Walter said. Michael wasn''t surprised as he knew they might be keeping a tab on him and the sect. He would have done the same if he was in their shoes.
"Me too, Elder Walter. First of all, I would like to thank you for epting my invitation and attending this dinner on such short notice despite your busy schedules" Michael said. Putting the wine ss back on the table, he flicked his wrist as small rectangr wooden boxes appeared before each of them except ire and Gaya.
"I''m good at many things but giving speeches was not one of them. So, I''ll get straight to the point without wasting your time. Ladies and gentlemen, please open the boxes in front of you "
As he said, he went straight to the point avoiding unnecessary pleasantries. With his talents and what he was about to reveal, he didn''t have to woo them with pleasantries.
The man sitting next to Olivia was the first to open the box. The moment he lifted the box''s top, his face was brightened by the lighting from inside the box.
His eyes opened as wide as humanly possible. One by one, they all opened the boxes to have the same startled look on their faces.
"90% pure potion" the man next to Olivia uttered the wordspletely shocking everyone in the hall.
Chapter 300 - Majestic Empire II
All of their minds went nk for a moment in shock. Except for Elder Walter Kane who saw a 92% pure potion in a ruin a few decades ago during his time on the Ozer Continent, no one had seen a potion with more than 85% purity.
Elder Edison gently picked up the glistening blue potion and the blood-red pill gently from the box. His hands slightly shivered holding the two.
"Where did you get these?" Elder Edison asked. Everyone''s gaze now fell on Michael expecting his answer.
"Made by yours truly" Michael let out a slight grin. He looked extremely proud, to some of their eyes, he even seemed arrogant.
"Do you like demonstration Elders?" Although he asked, he didn''t give time to answer as he already conjured the Alchemy mes.
Under their widened gazes, Michael threw the herbs into the fire. No one moved their eyes from Michael or even blinked an eye. Nathen had seen him concoct pills or brew potions without using a cauldron as all the other alchemists. No matter how many times he had seen it, his way of making pills and potions still made him speechless.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1600 badass points]
¡
The notification sounds rang continuously in his mind. He received more points than he initially expected. In a couple of minutes, a blue glistening potion resembling the one in the box floated above his hand. Every single one of them could tell that the two potions are the same, 90% pure.
The sudden rude awakening made them lose their appetite. Nathen wanted to reach Ghost''s level in the future. He knew reaching 80% purity would take him years of hard work. Yet after seeing Ghost was able to reach 90% purity, reaching his level seemed impossible.
"Since when can you make pills and potions with 90% purity?" Elder Walter asked. A shaky smile started to emerge on his face as the surprise sank in his mind.
"Since I turned 19" Michael paused for a moment before continuing,
"My mentor used to make me go into the god forsaken dungeons finding ancient techniques and books. He never wanted me to hide my talents but when I left my mentor''s care, I learned that showing heaven-defying talent without the power to protect oneself is a recipe for disaster. So I pretended to be number two"
Except for Gaya, no one knew he was lying through his teeth. By lying he had a mentor, he established a powerful figure behind him in their mind. This would make getting the Family Kane''s protection easier as they would try to get his mentor''s connection to strengthen their family. Besides, saying he had a mentor would be more logical than saying I have a system.
"Now I think it''s time to reveal my talents to the world. Since I consider all of you as my friends, I wanted to show you this first"? Everyone knew he has something of them to ask. Nheless, it felt good to be considered important, especially to the Elders of Kane family.
" Let''s be practical, great talentes with great danger. Revealing myself as the number one will put me in various dangers, no one likes to be bested by a youngster like me, especially those in the Alchemy Guild"
"And you want our protection" Elder Edison didn''t beat around the bush. He just directly asked Michael.
"More like getting into a mutually beneficial rtionship"
"Mutually what?" Elder Edison didn''t clearly get the meaning of Michael''s words.
"You help me and I help you" Elder Martin broke it down into simple words for Elder Edison.
"I have to be honest kid. Your talent is really astounding but as you said, revealing your talents to the outside world makes you a target of many powerful entities. Helping you might get us into more trouble than it''s worth" Elder Edison''s words surprised most of them. However, Michael remained calm with his usual smile on his face,
"Since you''re being direct with me, I''d be too Elder Edison. You may be right, helping me might actually put those who protect me in danger. But"
Michael took the blue potion from the table, holding it in his hand to let everyone see the vial.
"Dangers oftene with opportunities and there are many families out there that would kill to capitalize on those opportunities. I bet I can be a court Alchemist of any of the four kingdoms, even better, all of them"
The way Michael calmly talked as well as his words reminded them that he''s not desperate for their help. Rather, he was the one allowing them to help him.
"And when''s thest time you met a 5-star alchemist who takes nothing but ancient artifacts and treasures to even consider making something for you?" Gaya asked, looking at the elders. They had to agree with her. There were only a handful of 5-star Alchemists in the continent, they would all take either an ancient artifact or extremely valuable treasures as the payment for making pills or potions for them, not gold coins.
"So you''re not nning to give your services for treasures or artifacts like the rest of the 5-star Alchemists?" the man next to Olivia asked. A well-hidden interest could be seen in his eyes.
"That brings me to why I invited Lord Mn of House Bradley and you, Lord Reginald, the vice president of Rainshade Merchant guild" Michael introduced Olivia''s father in case someone didn''t know his identity.
By noticing the way Nathen''s looking at Reginald, it was obvious this was the first time he met Olivia''s father.
Like Lucifer had Maxine, Gibson, Tiberius, Heinberg as the core group, the people sitting at the dinner table were the core group of Ghost except for Nathen. In the future, they would need to work together so they needed to get acquainted.
"I''m nning to expand the Majestic and I''d like your help to do that. Lord Mn is already on board to take care of the security"
"Of course, my dad will help you, teacher. You have my word. Dad, say something" Olivia elbowed Reginald as the man revealed an embarrassed smile.
"I have to discuss with the president but I can assure you that he will get on board. We just need to iron out some financial matters-"
"Since you''re my teacher who charges not a single coin for teaching me, my dad will get you the best deal possible. Won''t you dad?" Olivia red at her father, giving him a death stare. Unlike the others, Elder Walter didn''t control hisughter,
"It seems you don''t call the shots Reginald, hehehe "
Reginald sighed.
"We can talk about this in detailter, Lord Reginald. And Elders"? Michael turned his gaze towards the three elders,
"The card I gave you is a sign of our friendship. It will give you direct ess to me and my services are free of charge, no questions asked. Take this as gratitude for offering your protection for the sect. I have onest announcement to make. As you probably know, Raylene, my friend, is a 5-star chef. We are opening a restaurant in River town next week. I''d be honored if you all came to the opening with your families. Now, please enjoy the dinner. My men outside will take you to me if you want to meet? meter"
Michael raised the wine ss one more time before leaving the dinner table. He wanted them to enjoy the dinner while making up their minds about helping him, especially the elders of House Kane. They were the biggest pieces of pawns in his game. Earlier when they agreed to offer their protection, they didn''t stand to make enemies out of the alchemists of Guild. This time, it was different, people like Gabriel might be pissed when Michael reveals himself as the number one. As far as he knew, the Alchemist Guild was unlikely to go to war with a powerful existence like House Kane.
An official alliance would have toe from people above the elders in the family hierarchy. This dinner was just a way to get the elders to make those people agree to the alliance.
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Michael and Gaya stood before a window in an empty room. They were enjoying the view of the starry sky in peace when they heard someone knocking on the door.
"Come in," Michael said.
Soon the door creaked open to reveal Ricky who was leading Reginald to him.
"Master Ghost, Elder Walter asked me to give you this" Ricky handed over a sealed letter with the House Kane crest on before leaving the room.
"Lord Reginald" Michael Shook Reginald''s hand,
"Miss Aelia" After Ghost, Reginald shook Gaya''s hand.
"I assume you''re here to talk about the financial matters"
Reginald nodded.
"How many potions and pills can you give us a month Master Ghost?"
"You''re more suited to answer that question than me, Lord Reginald"
"Assuming you want to target the entire continent, I''d say 600 potions a month would be best" Both Michael and Gaya were surprised to hear him. They expected the number to be much higher than 600.
Looking at their surprised faces, Regional smiled.
"Since you''re giving your knowledge to my daughter without charging, I''ll return the favor by letting you in on a trade secret. Always keep the demand higher than the product avability. People need to search everywhere to get their hands on your pills and potions MAster Ghost. If they could get them easily, demand would eventually dry out and price would go down"
Michael couldn''t help wondering how his products could lose demand yet he avoided arguing with Reginald because he was the merchant who knew about business more than him. Therefore, he decided to let Reginald do what he does best.
"Alright, we take your advice. Now, shall we discuss the price and your cut?" with a wave of her hand, she ced two sofas on the room for them to sit.
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I need to take this moment and thank every single one of you who reads my story and supports me. Reaching 300 chapters wouldn''t have been possible without you guys and gals. Im truly out of words to show my gratitude. The only way to show my gratitude is by giving you more quality chapters. I''ve been constantly working on improving the quality of the already published chapters and doing my best to pump out chapters with minimum errors.
Thank you again.
Yours Truly.
Chapter 301 - Ambushing Ghost
"So 20% is the lowest you can go?" Gaya asked.
"If it was up to mepletely I would not even take a cut considering what you''re doing to Olivia. However, the merchant guild rules are pretty strict, I have to convince those old muckers to invoke the golden opportunity rule to get you this 20%. I have to call in every favor"
"20% will do then" Michael knew Reginald was doing his best. The man did not seem like swindling Michael but genuinely trying to get him the best deal possible.
"20% for you, 10% for House Bradley. You said you can sell a potion or pill for the price of an average of 80,000. Hmm, 600 into 80,000 is 48million. Minusing the cuts, 14.4 million. We''ll get 33.6 million"
Michael was really surprised to see her mathematical skills. She was like a human calctor. She didn''t even blink doing the calctions.
"Since our ie will surpass 10million, we need to pay the bloody taxes. What''s the going tax rate of the kingdoms?"
It took Reginald a couple of seconds to answer as he was stunned by the girl''s skills in numbers. Only girlsing from royal families or prominent noble families received such high education. This meant, the girl obviously either ady of a powerful noble family or a princess. ording to Olivia, they knew nothing about both of their origins. Reginald however now narrowed down into two possible options for Aelia''s origins.
"5% in Bredia, 8% in Kethen, 10% in Royalnd, 7 in Dradel and 10 in Thusia"
"Fuck" Gaya punched the sofa''s arm,
"We need to give 40%?!"
"Rx, there might be some ways to reduce or even get a waiver from tax from the kings'' '' Michael patted her on the shoulder to calm her down.
"It''s impossible Master Ghost" Michael turned to see Reginald shaking his head,
"The royal families alone won''t fix the tax rate, they discuss with the noble families and agree on a tax rate together. To change the tax rate, all of them had to be on board. They won''t make an exception for you because if they did, there might be several other important figures who would start to ask for tax reduction. This willplicate things, so no matter the situation, they won''t change the tax rate for a single person. It''s either tax rate increases or decreases for the kingdom as a whole. Trust me, it''s better to pay the taxes. Besides, tax evasion is a serious crime in the eyes of the Guardian Guild"
Michael sighed inside. The bloody Guardian guild was in every step of his path to greatness. Although 40% of his ie was a huge chunk, he knew it was better to pay the tax as Reginald suggested.
"40% tax 30% cuts, that means we''ll get only 14.4million. If we take into the maintenance of our herbal garden, we''ll roughly get 14.2 million a month"
"That''s more than many noble families make a month Master Ghost. The Rainshade will take care of paying the taxes and everything. You just need to sign an? agreement and give us a payment method to put the gold each month"
Gaya nodded before turning her head to look at Michael,
"It''s time we get a paycube from the Grand spire bank"
Michael let Gaya handle the negotiations while he opened the letter given to him by the Kane family Elders.
"Come to Kane Familypound in Royalnd before the championship tournament begins" Michael read the words written on the letter in his mind.
It was obvious that the Kane family needs him to do something for them before they agree to offer their protection. He kinda expected this. After all, there was no such thing as freebies in this world.
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"The lights are out, get ready" There were three figures hiding in the forest surrounding ire''s manor. Due to the darkness, one could not see them except for several glistening stones in their hands. The stones were in a perfect diamond shape, radiating a faint navy blue light.
"They have a dragon and a Soul Refiner. We don''t need to wake either of them. Everything must be in ce before the young master arrives"
The figures were talking in husky voices as they continued to hide the stones in the bushes, under the tree roos, and on top of the branches. They continued to ce several stones deeper into the forest while keeping an eye on ire''s manor.
"It''s done, we just need to lure him out somehow. Remember we only need him"
"The sound sucking array in ce"
"Good. The Young Master said he''d be asleep after dinner. We need to do something to wake him up ande to us"
"What kind of cultivator sleeps every day like amoner?"
"Apparently he is"
"How do we wake him up without the others?"
"Shh, something''s moving"
The three figures suddenly went silent as they heard a rustling sounding from the forest.
"Have you three idiots done everything I ordered you to?"
Regardless of the Cat''s eye potion they drank, they could barely see what''s in front of them. Yet, they immediately recognized the person as their young master after hearing the voice.
"Yes, young master. We were just thinking about how to wake him up and make hime to us"
"That''s beyond the limit of your brains," the young master said. The three servants waited for him to see how their young master was going to wake Ghost up. Instead of doing what they were expecting, the young master walked towards a tree. He ced his hand on the tree as a symbol of a tortoise appeared on the tree. It glowed in gold color for a few seconds before fading away into the tree.
He continued to ce the runes in arge circle. Each time he ced a rune on the tree, it glowed brighter and brighter. The glow of the runes helped the servants see their young master clearly. He wore dark brown armor made of what looked like a magical beast skin. One of the servants who saw the armor had a look of utter shock on his face.
"Young...Young Master...is that the ckwing Saurus armor?"
"Hmm, surprisingly you''re correct. Get thousand gold in my name" the young master''s words made the servant''s heart jump out in joy. This was why they worshipped him no matter how many times he cursed or beat the crap out of them. End of the day, the young master always took care of them.
"Young master look" suddenly another servant pointed at ire''s manor. Thanks to the cat''s eye potion, they could see a figure walking out of the house.
"Well well well, the prey hase outside" Unlike the servants, the young master drank a high-quality Cat''s eye potion. He couldn''t help smiling thinking that he was stalking the person who brewed the potion in the first ce, Ghost.
"Are the recording stones well hidden?"
"Yes young master"
"Good, I want to record his every single move. Now get out of here" the servants quickly ran away from the ce leaving the young master alone.
After seeing his servants retreat to a safe distance, he flicked his wrist as a longbow appeared in his hand.
The young master raised the bow as an arrow made of sparkling silver energy materialized out of thin air. Taking a long breath to steady his aim, he released the arrow.
Whoosh!
The arrow pierced through the air at extreme speed. Just when the arrow was about to hit its target, the young master saw Ghost catch the arrow in the mid-air. The arrow shattered in his hand.
"Take the bait" the young master grinned, seeing Ghost look in the direction where the arrow came from.
As the young master calcted when he studied Ghost, he used the speed spell. It took him only a couple of seconds before hearing the cracking noise of the lightning bolts.
The young master''s bow disappeared from his hand. He remained calmly expecting his target to arrive. Suddenly, the runes he previously ced glowed brighter and brighter, producing a faint whistling sound.
Following the glowing runes, a faint dome of blue energy appeared around in a five-meter radius. Inside the dome, the lightning bolts disappeared to reveal his target, Ghost. The light produced by the golden rune revealed one to another. The young master was covered from head to toe with body-fitting ck wing Saurus armor and a thick mask covering his face. Only his eyes remained uncovered.
On the other side, Ghost stood there without a shred of fear or confusion in his eyes. He was calm despite the sudden ambush. His reaction somewhat confused the young master.
"Do you have a reason for trying to kill me?" Ghost asked,
"Trying to kill you? Nah Nah Nah. I just want to be a better, stronger fighter. And you''re gonna help me"
"How am I gonna do that?"
"By fighting me, how else?" the young master leaped at Ghost like a panther. Sharp silver ws began to grow from his fingers while the adrenaline-filled his body, making him excited.
"Where do you clownse from?" The young master saw Ghost shake his head. Despite being called a clown, the young master remained calm. He was trained to control his emotions during a battle. Therefore, Ghost''s technique of making his opponents mad wouldn''t work on him.
"Ghost, meet your exorcist" as the words escaped the young master''s mouth, the battle between them finally started.
Chapter 302 - Did He Just Defeat Ghost?
As the young master expected, two swords materialized in his hand from his space ring. The swords didn''t look like they were forged by a star-level cksmith. Rather, the sword looked in and simple.
The young master evaded all of Ghost''s shes easily. He was able to calcte each and every single move of Ghost. While evading a sh that aimed at his chest, the young masternded a kick on Ghost''s chest, pushing him backward. With swift movements, the young master jumped back to create some distance between them.
"I''m disappointed Ghost" the young master disappointingly shook his head. He could see the lightning bolts crackling around Ghost''s body yet whenever he tried to use his speed spell, the rune the young master ced on the trees stopped Ghost.
"It seems you''re just overrated," The young master said. For the first time since he met Ghost, he saw a flicker of anger emerge in Ghost''s eyes. When Ghost leaped at him, the young master flicked his wrist as two rounded shields appeared in his hands.
Cling!
Cling!
Cling!
The two shields deflected Ghost''s sword shes. The sh between the sword and the shield produced sparks of fire. Both of them moved at an extreme speed as a normal human being would be able to see nothing but a blur.
Ghost''s swords couldn''t even inflict a single cut on the young master''s body through the two shields. The young master noticed Ghost''s movements bing more and more frantic.
There was no finesse or techniques in his swordsmanship, just mad sh, and dashes.
"I''ll give you a handicap, let''s see if you can hit me then" the young master snickered before throwing away the two shields on the ground. The very next moment he threw the shields down, Ghost''s swords shed his shoulder. However, the young master never even felt a sting as the ckwing Saurus armorpletely protected him from suffering any damage.
Ghost stopped attacking to take a few steps back,
"ckwing Saurus armor, interesting"
The young master tapped his chest. Since he wore a mask, Ghost couldn''t see the snicker on his face.
"Don''t tell me you''re gonna me the armor for yourck of skills?" His disappointment in Ghost turned into anger. He expected Ghost to at least put up a decent fight yet Ghost was hardly a challenge for him.
"It seems like you can only beat little girls" the young master waved his hand as the two shields flew back to his hands. Unlike before, a symbol that looked like wings started to glow on the shields'' surface.
Giving Ghost no more time, the young master threw the two shields as they soared through the sky.
Plop!
Plop!
One shield hit Ghost in the face while the other bashed him in the chest. He was pushed back several steps behind after reciting the hit. Blood trickled down from the corner of Ghost''s mouth.
After hitting Ghost, the shields didn''t fall to the ground but flew right back into the young master''s hands like a boomerang. He continued to throw the shield, hitting Ghost again and again.
"Come cast your defense spell" The young master shouted at Ghost to see his defense spell. He studied all of Ghost''s arsenal toe up with counterattacks. He used the shields to make Ghost''s sword attacks useless while cing the tortoise rune circle to prevent him from using his speed spell. He didn''t need to use any runes for Ghost''s lightning attacks as his ckwing Saurus armor would protect him from any kind of attacks of anyone under Soul Refining stage 1.
The only spell the young master was yet to see was Ghost''s defense spell.
Ghost looked exhausted while wiping off the blood from his face. Soon, the young master realized the reason behind why he isn''t using the defense spell.
After hitting Ghost with the shield for almost the 80th time, the young master stopped for a moment.
"Let me guess, your defense spell will only protect you from the Body Strengthening stage cultivators or below. Not a good defensive spell, is it?"
The young master chuckled. Regardless fighting with Ghost was a disappointment, at least he got to improve his rune mastery as well as write off apetitor who stood in his way to win the championship.
"You should stick only to Alchemy from now on, Ghost. Atleast, you''re somewhat good at itpared to your fighting skills. I now know you pulled some kind of trick to win Heaven''s gatepetition" While Ghost was taking heavy breaths, the young master put one shield back into his space ring.
"Honestly I dont give a damn about Heaven''s gatepetition, so I won''t poke into it too much. But the championship tournaments, I do give a damn, so heed my warning. If you dare step on the ring, I won''t be as merciful as now" as thest word escaped his mouth, the young master threw the shield with enough force that sent Ghost flying back. The young turned back, slowly ascending to the air. The shield flew right back to him as he flew into the clouds without even turning back to see Ghost.
In his mind, Ghost was not a worthypetitor to him, he was just another overrated prodigy in Elon. He was not even worried about the recording stones he asked his servants to hide around the battle area. As far as he was concerned, he wasted his time studying Ghost. He knew that he would have defeated Ghost even if he didn''te up with countermeasures for Ghost''s spells.
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"The fuck was that?! Why didn''t you kill him?" Although Michael didn''t need any assistance, Gaya still came to help him up. She was shivering in anger.
Before even Michael could activate the APD, she tore a long cloth piece from her coat to wipe the blood off from his face.
"Did you do what I asked?" Michael asked. The scratches on his face quickly healed after the APD injected the healing potion into his body.
"Please tell me we''re gonna go kill him and his family" despite his wounds being healedpletely, she still gently rubbed his face with the cloth.
The love and care in her eyes really moved Michael. He forgot about the ambush for a moment to enjoy the tender care.
"Do you think he''s the one who killed Jack?" she asked,
"No. This guy gets off by defeating someone at his level or stronger. If he met Jack, he wouldn''t even acknowledge Jack as this clown is too arrogant to notice people like Jack"
"That doesn''t mean we should let him live. If you hadn''t stopped me, I would have ripped that bastard into pieces"
Because of the eyes of darkness, Michael was able to see the young master''s cultivation level. The young master was 5 levels below him, Core Formation stage level 3. Considering his rune mastery, anyone on the same level or a level or two would have a hard time defeating the young master. The young master was prepared to battle Ghost, hence he ced the right runes and came up with suitable strategies to restrict Michael''s spells and attacks. If Michael wanted to kill him, he could have simply let Gaya put an arrow through his eyes as they weren''t protected by the ckwing Saurus armor.
"Rx, I just wanted to see what a runemaster could do in a real battle. Anyone who could afford a ckwing Saurus and Rare Shields must have a powerful backing. If I didn''t stop you, you would have killed him and ended up making a powerful enemy but that doesn''t mean he gets off the hook easily" a devilish grin emerged on Michael''s face.
"What are we gonna do?" Gaya became excited to get revenge on the young master.
"You''ll see"
*******************************************
The next morning was a cloudy one.? The clouds diffused the daylight to a soft gentle sweetness; even when flying under the clouds, Michael could feel cozy under his clothes. The sunlight moved much like the ocean, showing the blue amid the whitish dove-grey, a medley of silvers that ripple outwards to adorn the sky.
He could have used the runic teleportation to reach the Royalnd. However, he wanted to spend more time with Nightmare, Vedora, and Gaya. Therefore, he decided to fly for a day before activating the runic teleportation.
"What are you munching on?" Ayag craned her neck to see what''s in Gaya''s hand. Currently, Vedora rxed in Michael''s inside coat pocket while Nightmare leisurely rested on Michael''s right shoulder.
"No...ing" she looked like a chipmunk with her cheeks bloated due to the biscuits inside her mouth. She was afraid the three of them would steal the cookies so she ate them as fast as she could.
"Don''t lie to me bitch, give us half of your hoard" Ayag threatened Gaya. If it wasn''t for the other two heads remaining calm inside Michael''s pocket, the white head would have jumped outside to steal Gaya''s cookies.
"One day, I''m gonna roast you and sell you as a delicacy in our restaurant"
"Come on, give them a cookie" Nightmare said as Gaya rolled her eyes,
"I did give them, like, two dozen cookies. Don''t fall for their tiny body, they will eat you whole if they were allowed to, especially that white little shit"
Nightmare''s eyes opened wide in surprise,
"Humph only two dozen, not two hundred" Ayag snickered.
They continued to bicker along the way while Nightmare and Michael chose not to interfere between them..? After flying for almost half a day, Michael activated the runic teleportation to reach the Royalnd.
Chapter 303 - House Of Kane
When the sun disappeared into the horizon, Michael appeared in the alley behind the ''Old Ship Tavern''. As usual, the tavern was buzzing with the crowd. Michael and Gaya put on dark hoods to cover their faces while Nightmare shrunk himself to hide within Michael''s coat pocket.
If this was any other day, Michael wouldn''t have hidden his identity but strolled around the kingdom with Nightmare on his shoulder to spread his legend as well as earn badass points. However, the letter left by the Kane family elders gave off a sense of secrecy. Showing himself to the public wouldn''t be a good idea if the Kane family wants anonymity with what they nned to ask of him.
The city seemed busier in the evening than in the morning. Gaya led him through thergene going towards the north side of the city. Both sides of thene had lines ofmps lighting thene. The street and the shops were filled with people. asional street food vendors called out to anyone who looks in their ways.
"Look at that" while walking through the crowd, Gaya pointed at a lightmp. The lightmp had a poster stuck on it. He noticed several posters on the walls, on themps, and even on billboards above some buildings.
Michael recognized the faces on the posters. Most of them had Alex Fisher''s face while the rest of the most contained Celina''s and Adam Kane''s faces.
"5 gold coins for Master Alex Fisher figurine"
"You want to dress like Miss Celina? This is the ce for youdies!"
"Get your Kane shirts to show your support for Master Adam Kane!"
"Jason Myers fan''s club is this way!"
"We have Miss Sabrina''s sword props!"
The further he walked, the more he saw the merchants selling all kinds of stuff.
"You know, I heard our faces are everywhere in the river town," Gaya said in a husky voice. Michael noticed a few disciples of the Sunrise sect running around inte hours. Before now, he thought they were dealing with their personal stuff. It seemed like the disciples and the river town people were nning something to surprise them when he visited River town to open his restaurant.
The people of River town worshiped him for several reasons. First, he protected the town from the Netherels. Second, the majestic created lots of traffic as many nobles and people traveled through the river town to get to the sect. This gave a new life to River town''s boat services and small shops. Third, everyone called Michael Ghost of River town, the name carried weight. The bandits stopped harassing the merchants and the peopleing to River town assuming that the river town is protected by Ghost. Nightmare''s recent cleaning of bandits strengthened the thought even further.
If Royalnd was the domain of powerful houses such as House Kane and House Fisher, the river town was his domain. The entire town nned to show their support for Ghost and Aelia. Considering Michael didn''t get the chance to visit the river town since he came to the sect from the southern continent, he never saw the preparations for the tournament.
While taking a look at the tournament celebrations, they came before arge junction where they saw severalnes branching out from the junction''s center. At the start of eachne, a signboard was ced with only a crest etched on it. Michael looked at each signboard for the Kane House crest. With the help of the lightmps, Michael was able to locate the signboard before walking thene to reach House Kane manor.
Unlike the street he came from, thene was void of people. Only beautiful crimson red pine trees stood like guards on either side of thene.
"Aren''t they supposed to have some guards patrol around here?" Nightmare whispered from inside his coat pocket. He was right as Michael too searched the area for guards yet he couldn''t even see a single guard.
"You won''t find guards because they have hundreds of runes ced along thisne to alert the manor the moment someone steps foot here. The Kane manor probably is watching us" Just as she said, Michael began to notice several life signs around them through his Environmental scanning map. Some of them were flying way above the clouds while some of them blended with the foliage.
Eventually, after walking for almost ten minutes on the lone road, thene opened up to reveal a hugend with a grand castle standing majestically in the distance.
When Gaya said Kane mano, he expected to see a manor, not a frickin castle. Five thin, square towers surrounded the castle in almost a perfect circle. Around this incredible castle were connected by giant, chunky walls made of white stone. Stylish windows were scattered thinly around the walls in fairly symmetrical patterns, along with symmetric holes for archers and artillery.
A huge gate with heavy wooden doors, a regr bridge, andrge crentions offered a warm haven within these cold, istednds, but it was not the only way in when one knew the castle''s secret passages.
Lush fields of crops surrounded the castle walls, providing the inhabitants with food all year round. This castle looked well preserved, but without knowing its history, it was impossible to tell if it''s a newly built castle or a well-kept one.
The castle looked majestic under the light of the moon. Not only Michale but also Nightmare peeked his head out of Michael''s coat to enjoy the castle''s beauty.
"Stop gawking you two. Compared to my castle, this is like a poor hut" As Gaya rolled her eyes, a bright light dashed towards them like a shooting star. The light gradually slowed down to reveal Elder Walter''s smiling face.
"Wee to Kane Manor kids"
"More like a castle" Michael let out a burst ofughter. The Elderughed with him proudly before leading Ghost into the castle. The three of them took off to the sky instead of walking. Michael could see the castle''s ground from the sky more clearly. As any typical beautiful castle, the Kane manor had a frontwn, spacious backyard fountains, barracks, herbal garden, and various other ornaments to decorate the castle even more. They slowly descended through a door on the roof tond on the throne hall.
Huge braziers half enclosing each of the six ivory columns light up the entire throne hall and paint the hall a range of yellows and oranges. The illustrations of a kingdom in the sky on the nted ceiling dance in the flickering light while statues look down upon the mosaic floor of this majestic hall.
If the castle was impressive, the throne hall made Michael speechless.
The vermilion rug splits the entire room in half and was matched by the thinner ones on either side of the hall while pennant banners with gilded ridges the walls. Between each banner sat a small altar full of candles, many of which have been lit and in turn illuminated the artistic depictions ofte heroes below them. Huge windows were concealed by draperies colored the same vermilion as the banners. The curtains had been adorned with fine patterns and intricate embroidery.
At the far end of the hall, a grandiose throne of obsidian remained in front of a giant painting of the kingdom and was adjoined by six equallyvish seats for the higher officials of the Kane family. The throne was covered in gilded illustrations, fixing on each of the wide armrests is a carved petal. The light pillows were a dark vermilion, these too had been adorned with adorned quilting.
Those waiting to meet the Kane Family elders could do so on the abundance of luxurious andfortable maple benches, all of which were facing the throne in a V-shape. Those of higher standing could instead take seats in the luxuriant balustrades overlooking the hall.
Elder Walter led Michael and Gaya towards the luxurious seats nearest to the throne.
"Wait here Ghost" Elder Walter gestured to Michael to take a seat before pping his hands. Soon, two young maids came running to Michael''s side.
"Take care of them" Elder Walter said to the maids before leaving the throne hall.
"I''ll take hot water with a drop of lemon please," Michael told the maids. They looked surprised as they expected him to order expensive wines or delicacies,
"Same for me too"
"Right away young master, young miss" the two maids rushed back into the kitchen leaving Michael and Gaya alone in the throne hall.
"Interesting choice of drinks" suddenly Michael heard a powerful voice reverberate in the throne hall. They looked up to see a figureing down through the roof door they came through earlier.
Standing 6'' 4" tall, this white-skinned man had an intimidating feel about him. He had a round face, a t nose, angled lips, and his brown eyes were heavy-lidded.
His light chestnut brown hair, dip-dyed almost the full length with shades of turquoise, was shoulder-length, fine, and was usually braided, and he has a handlebar mustache.
His muscr body looked as if it was sculpted from a ceramic stone. A dark tattoo of the house Kane family crest could be seen on his neck. His fine clothes were mostly earth-colored and loose and flowing.
"A Fusion stage level 1 cultivator" Michael was able to see his cultivation level. This was another shock he received since he came to the Kane manor.. Now Michael really wondered what a powerful man like him had to ask from him.
Chapter 304 - Assassination Contract
Contrary to Michael''s expectation, the man didn''t sit on the throne but took thevish chair beside the throne.
"Lord Ashton" the maids who came carrying a tray with Michael''s lemon added hot water, they immediately bowed towards the man when they saw him.
"Leave" Lord Ashton flicked his wrist as the two sses flew right into the hands of Gaya and Michael.
Even when facing a Fusion stage cultivator, Michael didn''t show any signs of worry on his face. He remained calm, pretending that he didn''t know the man''s cultivation level.
"You''re too young to be the number one Alchemist of Elon and Ozer"
"Both a blessing and a curse, Lord Ashton. But I''m nning to extract only the blessing, " Michael said slowly, taking a sip from the ss.
"How are you gonna do that? By getting the Kane family''s backing?"
"That''s the n, Lord Ashton" Michael slightly smiled,
"Hahaha, I like you kid. I''ve seen many talented youngsters getting themselves killed because they run around making enemies out of powerful people left and right. Even recently I heard someone piss off Aragoth, good thing that kid had the backing of Guardians. What was his name?" Ashton rubbed his handlebar mustache trying to remember the name.
"Noah" Gaya reminded Ashton as the light of realization appeared on Ashton''s face.
"Yeah that''s him. You two are friends with him?" Ashton''s face turned serious.
"Hell no, we dont touch him with a ten-foot pole" Gaya frantically shook her head.
"Good for you. If you were anything like that Noah, you wouldn''t be here. Speaking of which, do you know why you''re here?" Ashton looked at the both of them for a few moments,
"You got one thing correct. This world is a bad bad ce, especially for a kid with your talents. You''re a cub and you want a grown-up lion to protect you. The question is how far will you go to get the lion''s protection?" Ashton''s lips curved upwards revealing a fox-like smile. Michael was d that Ashton finally came to the point.
"What do you want me to do Lord Ashton?"
"Kill Alex Fisher"
What Ashton just said truly surprised both of them.
"How do you want him to die?" Gaya''s eyes and mouth opened wide. She was startled to see how quickly Michael agreed to kill Alex who is a prodigy of House Fisher.
Ashton grinned, "just like that. You''re not gonna even ask why?"
He had seen many youngsters over the years but there was something different about the youngster before him. Behind the young man''s calm smiling face, Ashton could see the cold killer. There was no hesitation in his eyes.
"I only need your word that Kane Family will back me up after I kill Alex Fisher, Lord Ashton"
"Kill him during the tournament in front of everyone and Adam will announce you''re his best man at his wedding. That will make you practically family. You have my word"
"And that''s good enough for me Lord Ashton" Michael nodded,
"Great, my people will make sure you and Alex get to fight. You make sure he dies'' '' Elder Ashton closed his eyes, mumbling something under his breath for a moment as a blue smoke surrounded him. In a blink of an eye, the smoke faded into thin air along with Ashton.
After spending some time alone in the throne hall, Michael was just about to stand up to leave the hall when he saw Elder Walter hastying towards them.
"Did you agree to it?"
"Agree to what?"
"Agree to kill Alex" Elder Walter seemed like he just heard from someone that Elder Ashton asked him to kill Alex Fisher. Michael just made sure that Elder Walter didn''t hear anything about killing Alex Fisher from him first.
"Elder Ashton just informed us about the n. This is big" Elder Walter was pale in shock. Michael should have been the one to get startled yet it was Elder Walter who was terrified of Ashton''s n.
"He wants you to know the importance of this task" Elder Walter handed over a space ring to Michael. He looked into the space ring to see stacks of gold coins, almost 50million in gold coins.
"Let''s walk and talk" Michael handed over the space ring to Gaya. Just like him, she was also stunned by what''s inside.
"You know about House Oswen?" while walking out of the throne hall, Elder Walter asked Michael.
"Yeah met a couple of them back on Kethen, at the annual auction"
Gaya controlled her urge tough thinking about the time she roasted the House Oswen elders when they tried to buy the demon soul stone.
"FOr more than a hundred years, both House Kane was trying to establish an alliance with House Oswen through marriage. But we were unable to due to various reasons until now. Our house head wants Adam to marry Ariana of House Oswen. If this marriage happened, House Kane and House Oswen will be lifelong allies, we''ll be stronger than all the other houses in Royal Land"
"I assume things are not going in your way," Gaya asked the Elder as he sighed,
"No. There are rumors that House Fisher is making moves to marry Alex to Ariana"
Gaya knew by rumors he meant House Kane''s informants in House Fisher.
"I thought he was gonna marry Celina"
"He is. That little bastard trying to knock down two birds with one stone"
Michael often forgot that marrying more than one girl is normal in this world.
Alex would probably be nning to marry Celina for love and Ariana for political reasons.
"If he were to marry Ariana, everything we nned to get would be House Fisher''s. That''s where youe in" they walked out of the throne hall. The three of them started at the golden paddy fields under the glistening moonlight.
"You think you can survive the tournament until you match up with Alex? The tournament is a warzone. Every noble family and powerful person uses it to take a shot at theirpetitor. Killing young talents is one of the efficient ways to cripple a noble house in the long run"
Michael didn''t answer Walter quickly. He would rather let his actions speak than exin his abilities to the Elder.
"Is Adam participating in the tournament?"? Gaya asked while Michael was remaining silent.
"No. Like I said, killing young talents is one of the efficient ways to cripple a noble house in the long run. If we''re nning to get rid of Alex, they might be nning to do the same to Adam. They won''t anticipate you to kill Alex"
"It will be done, Elder Walter"
Although Michael agreed to kill Alex, he didn''tpletely trust them enough to leave the castle without assurance. If they tried to screw them by not backing him up after killing Alex, the entire kingdom would see Elder Ashton''s conversation with him. The moment he stepped onto the castle, he let out his Spyders to record everything for insurance.
It was a risk to let the Spyders spy on a Fusion stage cultivator, yet Michael took the risk for his safety. If House Kane was to enter into an alliance with House Oswen, not only the two families but also Michael would benefit from their alliance. The stronger the Kane family, the less he needed to worry about someone messing with him.
"Wait here" Elder Walter walked back into the castle.
"Fuck 50 million coins, these guys really want Alex dead. I have a feeling this tournament is going to be one hell of a ride" she elbowed him in the hand yfully. Both of them were confident in their ability to win thepetition. Gaya would participate in the championship tournaments for Body Strengthening stage cultivators with Michael''s help to hide her cultivation from themittee while Michael nned to kick as in the main championship tournament for the Core Formation cultivators.
"Lord Lucifer" suddenly Michael heard Azazel''s voice in his head,
"What is it?" Michael asked telepathically.
"There''s figure running around River town, painting your logo on the walls"
Michael let Azazel monitor the Spyder camera he put all around the kingdom so if something interesting happens like this, he would know as soon as possible.
"Keep an eye on him. We''re on our way"
"As you wish, Lord Lucifer"
Gaya knew something was up looking at his face.
"Something''s up?"
"Yes," Michael nodded. He looked around to locate Elder Walter. Luckily for them, they saw Elder Walter walking out of the castle.
"Take this gift"
They were handing out space rings as candies. It really showed their wealth. Since Michael was in a hurry, he didn''t look into the space ring as he put it into the system storage to check outter.
"Well Elder, it''s time for us to leave. We have much to prepare"
"Yes. I''ll keep you no longer"
Michael took a few steps forward before he heard the Elder call him again. He turned back to see Elder Walter,
"And Ghost, if you get into the good side of Elder Ashton, you''ll get more than the backing of House Kane. Remember that"
Anyone with a brain would not dare to get into the bad side of a Fusion Stage cultivator. If it wasn''t for the system, Michael would have been killed by La inside the Treacherous ocean.
At this moment, Michael had no idea he''s going to meet La sooner than he wanted to. After parting ways with Elder Walter, they flew for an hour to put a good distance between them and the Kane family manor.
************************************
"Lord Lucifer, Dark Queen" Azazel greeted them with a bow when they appeared in the room before him. Gaya put the sleeping Nightmare and Vedora gently on the bed before covering them with the bedsheet.
Shen then came to join back with Michael to watch the mirrors.
"There he is," Azazel pointed his ethereal fingers at one of the mirrors. In the mirror, they saw a figure draped in full ck robes running frantically through the dark alleys in the river town, painting the letter ''L'' on the walls.
In addition to most of the people in River town beingmoners, this was the middle of the night, so there was not a single person to catch the ck-clothed figure.
"Who are you?" Michael couldn''t help asking the question.. But he nned to know the answer in a few moments.
Chapter 305 - Planning To Subdue Another Major Power
Michael and Gaya both transformed themselves into their other personas.
"Take care of them" Gaya ordered Azazel before disappearing from the room along with Michael.
The next moment, they appeared in a dark alley behind some houses.
Unlike Royalnd, the river town didn''t havemp posts to brightly light the streets. Only the rich cities could afford Vedrite stonesmps. The small towns like river towns used torches instead ofmps.
"He should be somewhere near," Gaya said while Michael willed the system to give him the drones. Soon, five drones materialized above their heads. He sent the drones in all directions. After deploying the drones, both of them ascended to the sky. Although the roofs and buildings prevented them from clearly seeing the dark alleys, one of the drones picked a figure painting the wall. The figure gawked around to see if anyone''s watching him.
The figure also looked at the sky vigntly yet the darkness covered the drone. Since Michael kept a safe distance between the figure and the drone, the faint motor sound didn''t reach the figure''s ears.
"Found him" Michael grabbed Gaya''s hands before activating the lightning dash towards the figure''s direction. The figure was halfway done painting the letter ''L'' when Michael appeared directly above him. The bow of Legs appeared in Gaya''s hands. She knocked an arrow dipped with Michael''s paralyzing poison.
Noticing the figure''s cultivation level, Michael sighed in relief as the figure was at Core Formation stage level 3. Compared to Michael, the figure was 5 levels below him, 6 levels below Gaya. In addition to the Fusion stage bone, the 40% boost given to Gaya by the system increased her cultivation speed by several times. Even without any boost, she had a monstrous cultivation speed, with Michael''s boost, she became a heaven-defying talent. With her speed, she would never fall back from Michael''s cultivation speed.
Whoosh!
The arrow soared through the air as a bullet fired from a gun. The figure barely had time to react before the arrow nailed his leg to the ground.
"Ah!"
The figure squealed in pain. The voice however, was not of a man''s but a woman''s. The paralyzing poison immediately spread through the woman''s body, making even lifting her pinky impossible. Michaelnded before the figure. She was covered in full ck clothes from top to bottom.
"It''s a woman" Gaya''s brows arched up behind her mask.
"Let''s have a chat in the forest nearby. I heard the forest at this time is particrly creepy and dark, just like we like it" Gaya chuckled evilly. Without wasting any more time, Michael paid the required badass points to teleport the three of them to the forest surrounding the river town.
The possibility of this figure might belong to the Guardians prevented him from taking her back to his secretir. He was prepared to do any means necessary to extract the reason why she is painting his symbol all around the kingdom. It was extremely risky as the church and the guardians were scouring the kingdom as they speak, to find Lucifer.
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The forest surrounding the river town was huge, misty, and verdant. Its canopy was contested by maple,rch, and holly; still, plenty of moonlight passed through their crowns for a hodgepodge of sprouts to burst from the soft, rich soils below.
Coiling branches hung from the asional tree, and a mishmash of flowers, which grew in abundance, enhanced the otherwise green forest floor. A variety of wild sounds, most of which were birds and vermin, filled the air and formed a chaotic orchestra with the sounds of several woodpeckers in the distance.
The moment Michael appeared with the figure and Gaya, he took out a bunch of Spyders from his space ring. The Spyders crawled through the forest ground towards the figure. Just imagining creepy spiders crawling into her clothes made Gaya grimace. Gaya slowly squatted beside the woman who was lying on the ground motionlessly. Conjuring an orb of fire for light, Michael patiently waited to see the woman''s face.
The moment Gaya pulled off the cloak covering the figure''s face, both Michael and Gaya were stunned.
"Sadie" the girl behind the mask was none other than the girl Michael first made love to in this world, Sadie Kan of SilverMoon. Thanks to the mask they were wearing, Sadie couldn''t see their reactions. If Michael had an expression of shock, Gaya had a mixture of shock and anger. In this whole world, she hated four-woman the most, her stepmom, Xanali, Sadie, and finally Lah. Her reason for hating thest two was that both of them slept with Michael. Of course, she knew Michael was forced to spirit walk with Lah yet she hated Lah for putting Michael in danger. Although Michael slept with Sadie way before she confessed her feelings for him, she still hated Sadie.
"Let''s kill this bitch and be done with it" She unsheathed her dagger, cing it on Sadie''s throat.
"I want to hear Sadie Kan''s reasons for summoning us" Michael also squatted beside Sadie. With a flick of his wrist, he took two potions from the system storage, healing potion, and the antidote for the paralyzing poison.
Without letting Saide see the potion, he poured the potion into her wound. Then he injected the antidote into her left arm. Gradually Sadie began to move her limbs.
"Lu...Lu...Luci...Lucifer" Gaya tried to calm her anger. After what happenedst time when she lost control, she was working on anger management.
Sadie picked herself up with difficulty. The usual yful smile or the glistening of her skin was nowhere to be found. Compared to thest time Michael saw her, she had lost several pounds to the point Michael could see her neck and cor bones. Her eyes lost their shine, they looked dull like she was crying continuously for several days.
Michael really started to wonder what pushed Sadie to this state.
"I...want to...trade...my soul" Sadie stammered. Her voice had a mixture of overwhelming sadness, anger, and fear.
"Trade your soul? For what?"
The concept of devil in this world didn''t vary too much from the concept of devil in the earth. For instance, people in both worlds believed the devil would take a soul in return for one''s desire.
"For my sisters" her eyes watered up. She went to her knees, begging Michael with her hands clenched against her chest.
"What happened to your sisters?" Michael asked.
While tears were flowing down from her eyes, Sadie retrieved a stack of posters from her space ring. She reached out to give the posters to Michael.
Gaya took the posters from her hand carefully. She could see a painting of a beautiful girl with her basic details like name, age, cultivation level, address, andst known location. Gaya flipped the poster stack to see another girl with all those details. Each poster had a face and detail of a young girl.
Gaya handed over the posters to Michael as he did the same, going through all the posters one by one. It seemed all the girls were missing. There were at least fifty posters in the stack.
"They are all missing. It''s my fault...all of them...gone...my fault..." She fell belly t to the ground. Her cry of sorrow seemed legitimate. Seeing her cry like this made even Gaya feel pity for her.
Since Michael knew the Guardians acted as the majorw organization, he asked the obvious question first although he knew the answer.
"If they are all missing, why didn''t you go to the Guardians?"
"And why isn''t your SilverMoon looking into this?" asked Gaya.
"The Guardians humph" the sorrow in Sadie''s eyes transformed into a fit of volcanic anger. Her eyes became eye-shot in a blink of an eye.
"Tell us the full story," Michael asked. Although this was not a situation he should be happy for, his mind quickly formted a n to increase his power using this unfortunate situation. If he could somehow find the missing girls, he would be able to get Sadie to his side. In the future when Sadie became the SilverMoon sect head, she would work for him. Thus, the SilverMoon would be another major power under him.
While tears gushed out of the eyes like a flood out of the floodgates, she began to tell them the story of these missing girls.
*********************************
Sadie''s story was simple yet Michael could sense a tragedy in her story. The short version of the story was the SilverMoon used to send girls to noble parties, gs, and rich people gatherings to apany rich, noblemen. Since the girls were extremely beautiful and trained to sway the men, many noblemen desired for these girls to be their partners even for one night. The SilverMoon girls would make these men happy while getting crucial information from them. Knowledge was power and SilverMoon thrived on gathering knowledge.
Noblemen asked, they SilverMoon sent girls, they came back with the information. That was the cycle until recently when something began to change. The girls Sadie sent began to go missing. Since it was not unlikely for SilverMoon girls to run away, at first, Sadie thought they ran away. Soon afterward, more and more girls began to go missing, including little girls who didn''t evene of age. Of course, the SilverMoon never sent little girls to the noblemen yet they began to go missing while going to another city or traveling with their senior sisters.
Michael dealt with human trafficking back on earth and this looked like one.
As for Michael''s question about going to Guardians, the answer was she went to Guardians, filed aint, and never heard from them again.No matter how many times she dropped by at the guild, they just gave her some half-assed answers. The sect was worse, ording to Sadie, these girls just ran away. The sect was too busy with other things to go search for the girls.
Out of desperation and guilt, she began to look for the person who said he came to punish the evildoers, Lucifer. Considering she investigated a few murders of Lucifer at the beginning, she knew about his signature. So she painted the symbol all around the kingdom to get his attention.
ying hero was not Michael''s intention. If Sadie was not in the line to be the next head of SilverMoon, he would have dropped the posters in the hands of Noah as he loved to be the good samaritan. Noah waspetent so Michael knew he would have eventually found these girls.. However, Sadie was in line to be the next head, which made Michael take this task into his own hands.
Chapter 306 - Opening Of Ghost鈥檚 Restaurant I
After Sadie finished her story, Michael and Gaya walked several meters away from her.
"If she''s telling the truth, we can make her our subordinate and control the SilverMoon in the future," Michael told her.
"What if she''s lying? What if this is a plot to catch us?"
"Then kill her and send her body to whoever put her up to this task"
He didn''t feel like Sadie was lying. Nheless, if there''s a tiny chance that Sadie was trying to y him, he would kill her in a heartbeat because he would go to any lengths to remain safe.
"Will you help me?" When they returned, Sadie pleaded with them.
"System, scan her for any threats or tracking spells"
Sadie saw Lucifer reaching his hand out towards her as warm bright light enveloped her for a couple of moments. At first, she thought he was taking her soul or something, yet even after the light disappeared, she felt nothing different in her mind or body except for the Spyders crawling out from her clothes.
[The scanpleted. You have nothing to worry about]
Only after the system confirmed that she had nothing that could be used to track him or Abyssal, Michael made his next move.
"I can find the girls but the price isn''t your soul, the price is your undying loyalty"
Regardless of Gaya''s hate towards Sadie, she was mature enough to see the big picture. She also understood what happened between Ghost and Sadie was no one''s fault but hers. If she confessed her feelings earlier to him, he wouldn''t have slept with Sadie in the first ce.
As a girl, Gaya saw the hesitation in her eyes. To be honest, she was surprised. Sadie was ready to sell her soul in a heartbeat yet she hesitated to sell her body.
"What? You want me to-"
"No sexual things involved as you might presume"? When she hesitated, Gaya interrupted her.
"Horrible things happen to innocent people every day, Sadie. You''re feeling what you''re feeling because it happened to the people you care about. I''m not an angel whoes when you call and hold your hands through your problems. I''m Lucifer, when Ie, the problem disappears. But there''s a price for calling me, in your case, the price is your loyalty. Be a part of my army, with me standing behind you, you can make sure nothing like this ever happen again"
"She will swear her loyalty to us, Lucifer. She probably has realized we are a better justice system than the Guardian Guild. In their eyes, SilverMoon girls are just glorified harlots, no one will give a shit about them if they went missing or ended up dead" Gaya said, folding her arms.
"Are you willing to be my subordinate Sadie Kan and change how the world works or remain as what you''re now, a scared little girl no one will listen to?"
"I''m willing to do whatever it takes, Lucifer"
"Lord, Lord Lucifer" Gaya reminded Sadie.
[Does the host wish to ept Maxine Kane as your subordinate?]
"Yes"
Subordinate: Sadie Kan
Cultivation Level: Core Formation Stage level 3
Race: Human
Status: Healthy
Loyalty towards the host: 15%
The loyalty level was understandable. He hadn''t saved her sisters yet so she had no reason to be loyal to him. At Least the system epted her as his subordinate.
"Good"
Sadie saw the two of them walking towards her. She tried to stand up but before she could move her body, the space around her distorted, making her close her eyes.
*********************************
When Sadie opened her eyes, she was standing on what seemed to be a throne hall. Great braziers half enclosing each of the eight onyx columns lighted up every part of the throne hall, covering the hall in dancing shadows and a dark radiance. The rtively modest chandeliers were hanging from the nted ceiling dance in the flickering light while paintings of Lucifer looked down upon the ck floor of this extravagant hall.
A dark grey rug ran down from the throne and split to encircle the entire hall while swallowtail banners with embellished needlework drooped from the walls. Between each banner sits a small altar full of candles, many of which have been lit, in turn illuminating the throne.
A throne of skull and bones sat at the end of the rug above an elevated stage. Beside the skull and bones throne, there was another identical throne but it was smaller in sizepared to the other.
Azazel transformed the throne hallpletely with the help of Netherels.
While Sadie, staring at the throne hall bbergasted, both Michael and Gaya seated themselves on their thrones.
"We should send our minions scouring the kingdom to find those girls"
Gaya suggested.
"I have a lead" Sadie swallowed her fear to speak to them. Michael saw Sadie holding a parchment in her hand,
"Azazel" Sadie heard Lucifer call the name looking beside her. The very next moment, the parchment in her hands was pulled by an invisible force. The parchment floated towards Lucifer. When the parchment reached his hand, she saw a figure materialize in front of Lucifer and the Dark Queen.
The ethereal figure looked like a butler. She had never seen ethereal figures before, she only heard of them in the books. Michael read the parchment with Gaya. He then took his gaze away from the parchment to look at her,
"Minister Magnus," Michael asked, expecting her to exin how she came to the conclusion that Minister Magnus had something to do with the girls'' disappearance.
"Shiho, the first girl who went missing, attended Magnus''s party before her disappearance. Hanako went missing after going to Magnus''s cousin''s annual g. Most of the girls went missing after attending some kind of party organized by someone rted to Magnus. He''s themon factor in all of this" Sadie clenched her fist as her nails started to prate her soft palm.
"Did you make any kind of move on Magnus to see if he really has something to do with the girls?"
Hearing Gaya, Sadie shook her head.
"He was recently promoted to take care of the military. He''s using this as an excuse to avoid meeting people. That scumbag is pretending that he has a threat to his life. I couldn''t get into or get him out of his manor"
"That shouldn''t be a problem. No matter how protected he is, he wouldn''t sleep with his guards around"
Since he needed to live stream killing criminals to boost his legend and earn badass points, he guessed he could start with Magnus. Gaya noticed Sadie open and close her mouth like she has something to say,
"What is it? spit it out"
"Rumor is he''sing to the opening of Ghost''s restaurant"
Michael''s brows arched up behind his mask. He just asked Ricky and Daniel to distribute the opening posters around the kingdom yet Sadie knew who''sing to the opening. This was why the SilverMoon sect was so sessful as they were basically a spy organization. With the right guidance and tools, Michael could turn the sect into a super-spy organization. Coupled with his Spyders spread around the kingdom, he could really see his shadow society thriving in the future.
"There are a couple of roads he could take to reach the river town. The good thing is they are alling through forests of the Sunrise sect" Gaya said as Michael took an earbud from his system storage.
With a flick of his wrist, he sent the earbud flying towards Sadie.
"Put this in your ear. Magnus will be delivered to you here"
"Meanwhile don''t do anything stupid. If whoever took the girls became suspicious, they might kill them all if they hadn''t yet"
Although Sadie knew the possibility of her sisters being dead, hearing Dark Queen say this stirred the bad feeling in her gut. Her eyes yet again watered up.
"Aria" after a few minutes he called the name, Sadie saw a petite brown-haired girl walking through the door at the throne hall''s east side.
She knelt before Lucifer on one knee,
"Coordinate with Azazel and Sadie and search the docks and borders to locate anything suspicious"
"Yes Lord Lucifer" Aria said confidently as Michael looked at Azazel,
"Tell Dr to release a few Netherels to the Royalnd, that should keep the Church and the Guardians busy for some time"
"As you wish, Lord Lucifer" Azazel bowed.
After giving them their orders, he sent them away except Sadie.
"From now on, keep away from the Guardians. They are not what they appeared to be"
********************************************
Above those tangerine mountains and sparkling long river, kissed to their heady blush by the sun, were clouds that moved in shoals. And so the sky was equal parts blue and a chorus of greys, streaked with silvers and golds.
People of River town wereing out of their homes one by one with sleepy faces. It was still early morning, so the chirping of birds overpowered the sounds of people.
Michael and Gaya were standing inside their newly built restaurant, enjoying its beauty inch by inch. Although the restaurant didn''t exactly look like the Ristorante La Sponda, it was beautiful in its own way. The river view outside the ss window added extra charm to the ce.
"Lord Fovar has really outdone himself, Master Ghost" Gloria''s eyes were full of excitement for the opening. She would have never thought her life wouldpletely change the moment she met Ghost when he first arrived at River town and stayed in Lucky Cat tavern.
She was not a mere waitress anymore, she was the manager of the most beautiful restaurant in the whole of Bradford or even in the kingdom. A few months ago if anyone said she would earn a thousand gold a month as sry, she would have told them they are crazy but it became a reality thanks to Ghost.
In a couple of months, she bought a newnd to build a new home for her family, sent her siblings to the Sunrise sect, and saved gold coins for her marriage. Many of her friends were jealous of her for working for Ghost.
"If he hadn''t, I would have hanged that little bastard by his beard," Gaya said, making Gloria giggle.
"In three days, we have several nobles and powerful people attending the opening. I want everything to be perfect"
"I won''t let you down, Master Ghost" Gloria''s voice contained a sliver of fear but it was overshadowed by her confidence.
"Good"
"We really need toe up with the name Ghost"
Chapter 307 - Opening Of Ghost鈥檚 Restaurant II
In the early morning, golden light dribbled over thend like syrup on oatmeal. The leaves shimmered like a mirror flecked mosaic and the morning dew sparkled on the jade green grass. Michael was standing on the tallest mountain peak of the Sunrise sect. He enjoyed the moment of peace and calm before the big day.
"How do I look?" He heard Gaya''s voiceing from behind. Without even turning back, he could sense her delight in her heart through her voice.
Yesterday he realized why most men hesitate to go to clothing stores with women. He at least went to twelve clothing stores in Royalnd. She spent hours in each store. It took him less than an hour to buy four sets of clothes while she took an entire day to get two. Before yesterday. Gaya never focused on menial things such as fancy clothes. However, yesterday she went all in. More than she liked shopping, she liked to chill out with Michael without worrying about their ns.
For the first time since he came to this world, Michael wore a cloth set that didnte from the system store. His long-sleeved, leather jacket covered him to just below his waist and was almostpletely buttoned up at the left side. The sleeves of his jacket were a loose fit, reaching down to well below his hands, they were decorated with a single thread lining at the sleeve ends.
The jacket had a deep, rectangr neckline which revealed part of the grey elegant shirt worn below it and was worn with a wide rope belt, which was held together by a big belt buckle. The rope belt was almost entirely a functional addition.
His pants were simple, afortable fit, reaching down to his hide boots. The boots were made from a rare hide, but otherwise amon design. Except for the shirt, everything was ck.
His sculpted muscles made him extra handsome in the clothes.
"Hellooo" She called again to get his attention. What happened yesterday kept bugging him. After she called him again, he finally turned back to be startled by her beauty.
Her fancy dress flowed from top to bottom and had a draped neckline, which lightly revealed the modest dress worn below it. The exquisite, tightly tied fabric of her dress covers her stomach where the continuous flow was broken up by a light leather belt worn quite high around her waist.
Below the leather belt, the dress opened up to the left, revealing the dress below. The front of the top dress was shorter at the front and curved outwards, the back continued to flow a short length behind her, ending in a narrow rectangle.
Her sleeves were longer than her arms and afortable fit, their flow was broken up above the elbow where they change color and where they''re divided by dark, elegant bands, these were the same fabric and color used to outline the bottom and neckline of the dress. Just like Michael, she too chose to wear ck.
Although the dress was beautiful, it was the girl who is wearing the dress that elevated the beautiful dress to artistic.his upied mind waspletely nked by her angelic beauty. He could see her real face as she didn''t wear the mask to put on Aelia''s face. Looking at her, he couldn''t help wondering if the gods personally sculpted this beauty before sending her to this world. There were no fitting adjectives to describe her beauty in his mind.
She squinted at him with one eye yfully.
"It''s natural to be speechless" she proudly said as Michael gently smiled, forgetting what was on his mind for a moment.
"You look beautiful" Michael walked towards her before pulling her closer to him by her waist.
"Scars are cool, human" she gently headbutted him.
"We''ll talk about thatter. Now let''s go open our restaurant" Both of them slowly ascended to the sky.
**************************************
The entire river town was in a festive mood. The streets were filled with people in colorful dresses, carrying name boards saying Ghost, Aelia, and Sunrise sect. The morning light didn''t stop them from painting the sky with colorful fireworks. Children sitting on the shoulders of their father wore ck dresses to look like Ghost.
When Michael arrived at river town, he saw lines of noble carriagesing towards the restaurant.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The fireworks exploded in the sky above the restaurant. In addition to carriages, numerous pegasus were flying from all directions towards the restaurant. The restaurant building was currently covered in a giant red cloth.
"Look over there!"
"HEYYYYYYY!"
"GHOST!"
"AELIA!"
"RIVER TOWN!"
"GHOST GHOST GHOST!"
The moment they descended to the point the people noticed, the cheers erupted like a bubbling volcano. The people cheered as loud as they could.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
¡
The notifications sounded just as loud as these people, almost giving him a headache. In a couple of minutes, he earned more than 20,000 badass points. The adventurers who were hired to keep the crowd in control were having trouble keeping the people in line. It has been three months since the people of the river town saw him, in three months'' time, the river town''s economy and status were elevated significantly.
The scene reminded Michael of all the red carpet events. In fact, hisst assassination back on earth had celebrities and fans who behaved just like the river town''s people. On earth, he remained in the shadows, in this world, he was standing right in the spotlight.
The restaurant was built on elevatednd so the diners could have a better view of the river. The elevatednd was designed in the shape of a heptagon with a staircase on two opposite sides. Right at the moment, the river town people were on one side while the nobles were using the other to enter the restaurant.
"Ghost Ghost Ghost!" among the crowd, a boy was screaming Michael''s name. The little kid wore the miniature version of a neo costume to cosy as him. He was standing rtively close to the front line
Before climbing the stairs, Michael reached to grab the kid. His father was stunned but didn''t stop Michael from taking the kid.
"How are you, little buddy?"
The kid was speechless as Michael retrieved a quill from his space ring.
"I want to be like you when I grow up," the kid said,
"Work hard, cause less trouble for your parents and you will be just like me," Michael said, signing his name on the kind''s shirt in white considering the kid''s clothes were ck. After handing over the kid back to his father, Michael and Gaya continued to talk to some of the people before climbing the stairs to the restaurant.
"Wind st" Michael sent a gentle gush of wind st to calm the people. The sudden wind produced a howling sound, instantly silencing the people.
"People of River town" Michael began to speak. His voice was amplitude by Arch energy to sound loud so the entire river town could hear him.
"It''s been almost a year since I came to River town. Although it''s a short amount of time, I have nothing but great memories here. That was why I decided to open my first business in River town. This is a starting point of river town''s glory as 20% of my restaurant''s earnings will be used to develop river town"
The cheers erupted the moment they heard Michael donating twenty percent of the earnings to their town.
"The Sunrise sect will build new roads, bring more job opportunities through new business, cultivating thends around the town so all the ingredients needed to run the restaurant will be cultivated and bought from river town"
The cheers kept erupting nonstop. The people became extremely excited and happy. Some of them even shed tears in overwhelming joy.
"I can list what we are nning for the river town all day. But actions speak louder than words, so let the action begin. People wee to The Majestic Hades" As he said, Michael turned back, pointing his finger at the clothes. A bolt of lightning shot from his fingertip to light red clothes in the fire. He specially bought this cloth from the system store. The bright red mes burned as it looked like the building had a crown made of mes. The mes onlysted for a few moments before fading into nothingness, showing the name board and the restaurant building.
The name ''The Majestic Hades'' was etched on the building''s top with golden letters. Finally, after six months of building and preparing for theunch, they opened up the restaurant.
"Also my dear people of the river town, you don''t need to treat me like a celebrity. I don''t want any fan clubs or this kind of parade for me every time I visit the town. Focus on your life, work hard, take care of the people around you. That will make me proud. Now carry on with your lives"
As much as Michael loved to be the badass in the spotlight, he didn''t want to be swarmed with crazy fans everywhere he goes. That would affect his productivity. Remaining in shadows would not work in his favor in this world because it wouldn''t earn him as many badass points as he actually needs. However, bing too famous at this point in his life wasn''t his n either. Expanding his power too quickly would draw out the attention of unnecessary foes. He had to make every single move with utmost caution to remain safe until he reached the point that no one could harm him.
************************************
Special shoutout to the wonderful people in my discord server for helping me in naming the restaurant!!!
Chapter 308 - Michael鈥檚 First Interview
"You''re gonna get bored of these things sooner orter, Ghost," Elder Martin said, enjoying his baked silk fish. A 5-star chef could improve the taste of any food or drink, even alcohol by 100%. In addition, food and drink made by them improved cultivation speed by 30% for the next week. Some dishes were even able to improve physical strength, defense, and concentration/focus by 5% for the next 24 hours. Of course, these were only some of the benefits in the long list. Effects or benefits varied from dish to dish.
"I assure you, Elder Martin. I won''t get bored. What''s the point of living for hundred years if we don''t enjoy everything this world has to offer"
"I agree with Master Ghost," Lord Mn who was sitting on the other side of Michael''s table said. Currently, several men and women were upying Michael''s long ss table. There was Elder Martin from the Kane family, Lord Mn of Bradley, the elders of Sunrise sect except for Elder Sandra who apparently hates gatherings, Reginald, ire, Gaya, Olivia, andstly, E the new branch leader of Sunrise sect in Broad River previously known as Broad River sect in Kingdom Kethen.
She was eternally grateful for healing her burned skin and making her good and beautiful again.
"I''d choose this over dealing with inner family bitching" Lord Mn rolled his eyes thinking about everything he had to deal with since bing the family head.
"Wee to the club, Lord Mn" E chuckled.
"You know we''re here to help anytime you want, E" ire said, taking a sip from her wine ss.
"Miss Aelia, here''s your Seared moon boar" As they were speaking, a young waitress came carrying a smoking delicious dish. The entire restaurant was full and there were countless nobles waiting in line to get into the restaurant. The restaurant had fifty tables in different sizes. Almost a hundred people couldfortably dine here. Regardless of the crowd, the waiters and waitresses trained by Gloria were doing a great job. All the twenty waiters and waitresses moved in perfect rhythm to keep the tables filled and diners happy. Gloria was training them for three months. Michael was thinking about raising Gloria''s wage because of her talent. He never expected this kind of talent in managing a restaurant and training people from a girl who worked as a waitress in a small tavern.
Cooking hundreds of dishes back to back didn''t slow down Raylene even for a bit. With the tools, machines, and the help of a few sous chefs, Raylene kept pumping out delicious food as fast as the nobles finishing their meals, which was fast, extremely fast.
"How''s preparing for the tournament going Ghost? Has anyone else besides you twopeting from your sect?"
"Sect Leader ire" Even Ghost didnt know the answer to that question. He looked at ire as did everyone else.
"They are growing stronger fast but they are not ready yet. So, these two have to win the tournaments in their respective championship" ire raised her cup towards Michael and Gaya.
"No biggie" Gaya shrugged.
"Can we bet on you two winning?" Lord Mn asked with a wide grin on his face.
"I can''t stop you if you want. I know I''m betting on ourselves" Although he said like he was joking, they could sense the confidence in his voice.
In their eyes, Gaya didn''t even look like she gives a damn about the tournament.
"Where''s Nightmare by the way?"
Lord Mn asked, looking around the restaurant. He thought the dragon would follow Ghost anywhere he goes.
"Master Ghost" Suddenly Ricky came running to Michael. Those at the table saw Ricky whisper something into Ghost''s ears.
"What is it?" ire asked,
"Apparently a newswoman from something called Royal times is asking to meet me"
Only Elder Martin remained calm continuing to enjoy the food, the others, however, raised their brows realizing Ghost has no idea what a Royal Time is. Gaya didn''t even bother to look at Michael as she knew he had no clue because she never told him anything about Royal times or the other newspapers in the continent.
"You seriously don''t know anything about Royal times?" Lord Mn asked as Michael shook his head.
"They are one of the leading newspapers in the Continent. If you want to get famous overnight, they can get it done" Lord Mn said with a serious face.
"It''s better you stay on their good side. There''s a saying among big families, the newspapers are spells that do more damage than any spells" After seeing Elder Mn offering him a piece of advice, Michael nodded, deciding to meet this newspaperwoman.
"I think you made it into the Elon prodigy rankings," everyone agreed with E with a nod. Michael didn''t need any exnations on the rankings because it was pretty obvious. When he was an assassin, the dark world always used to bribe journalists to cover their tracks. The dark world manipted everything in the newspaper rted to them. That was how they remained hidden for centuries. Therefore, Michael had little to no trust in these so-called newspapers to print the truth or the rankings precisely. He guessed there are noble families that have already paid the newspaper to get the prodigies of their family a higher ranking.
"Alright, that''s my cue" Gaya stood up from the table with her te.
"Where are you going?" Michael asked,
"Trust me, it''s better I stay away from these bitches. I have a bad tendency to break their noses. See yadies and gentlemen" she waved at the guests before running back into the kitchen.
"Shall we?" ire gestured at E to leave the table but Michael stopped them,
"No need for you guys to leave, she''s gonna interview me, not you. Let me take care of this" Michael wanted the newspaperwoman to see him with the people at this table, especially Elder Martin from Kane Family. If she were to write he has a good rtionship with the Kane family, it would pave the way for new opportunities with other noble families as well as keep the rogue and hostile cultivators away from him.
"Ricky, bring her to me" Michael wiped off the corners of his mouth with the white cloth.
"Winnie" Michael called out to the waiter who served his table. The guy was still bbergasted at the fact Michael remembered his name from the start he met him. The other prodigies wouldn''t even acknowledge the existence of waiters like Winnie yet Michael treated each and every worker with the respect they deserve.
"Does Master Ghost need anything else?"
"ss of grape juice is enough for me, what about youdies and gentlemen?"
"Bring that menu of yours kid" Elder Martin didn''t hold back filling his belly. Since everything was so delicious, everyone started to order food yet again while Michael was waiting for the newswoman.
A few minutes after Ricky left the table, he bought a woman wearing arge hat to Michael. Standing 5'' 2" tall, this dark-skinned woman had a charismatic feel about her. She had a triangr face, a straight nose, small lips, and her dark brown eyes were heavy-lidded.
Her ck hair, dyedpletely peach, was short, shiny. She wore an obvious foundation, glittery lipstick, natural-colored blush,plimentary eyeliner, and artistic eyeshadow.
"Take a seat, Miss"
"Nadia, Nadia Hall from the Royal Times" Michael stood up, shaking her hand then sat back. When she noticed the faces at the table, she was slightly surprised, especially when she met Elder Martin devouring the chicken.
"Winnie"
"Oh no no no Master Ghost. I''m filled" she said with a smile that was neither too friendly nor too cold.
"As you wish" Michael did not force her as he waved off Winnie, letting him take care of the other tables.
"Thank you for agreeing to me on such short notice, Master Ghost. Do you know why I''m here?" She spoke in a thick British ent. The fact this world has ents simr to those on earth surprised Michael.
"No sorry. I don''t quite follow the newspapers"
"So no. Let me enlighten you then. As you may or may not know, the Royal times have been watching the young talents very closely. We wanted to do a piece of the new rising start of Elon, you. What better time than now, a week before the big tournament. I know you have guests to take care of, so shall we start the interview, Master Ghost?" She ced a parchment and a quill on the table. She then closed her eyes, casting a spell on the parchment and the quill. The quill started to write itself.
"Let''s start with your name Ghost. Is there a reason behind your rather umon name?"
Michael rxedly took a short sip from the grape juice.
"People called me Ghost for some reason when I was little. It stuck with me ever since"
"People? What about your parents, Master Ghost?"
Only after this question, Elder Martin raised his head to look at Michael. Everyone was interested in knowing the answer,
"I don''t have any. I''m an orphan"
Many people who heard Michael''s answer were surprised. They never imagined an orphan reaching the stage where Ghost is.
Hiding her surprise, Nadia moved on to her next question.
"It''s difficult to make a name for oneself in the world of cultivation with a family backing you. So how did you reach this point without any family support?"
"Hard work" He simply said. On earth or on this world, Michael worked his ass off. He might have a system, but he needed to work mentally and physically to get to this point. Without hard work, no one could use the system to its full potential.
"Hard work? That''s it?"
"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn''t work hard, Miss Hall. I had to pay in blood and sweat to get everything in my life"
Chapter 309 - Scars Of Past
The nobles were having double fun. On one side, they were enjoying the delicious meal of their life. On the other hand, they were watching the interview live.
"How do you exin your talent for Alchemy? Do you think you were born with it?"
"I was fortunate to have a mentor. We used to go to all kinds of dungeons and ruins searching for ancient scripts and long-lost methods. The good all days"
Nadia''s eyes sparkled when she heard about Michael''s mentor. She immediately asked a follow-up question,
"Can you please tell us about your mentor? All our readers would be interested in the person who mentored the youngest 5-star Alchemist in the continent"
"I can''t talk much about him as he values privacy more than anything. But I can tell you this, he''s scary and much much more talented than any Alchemist I know" Michael''s answer was vague yet it had the right amount of mystery to let the others keep guessing. It would also stop people from wondering how he became a 5-star Alchemist to some extent.
"Speaking of privacy, we don''t know anything about your life before you came to the river town? Where did you grow up actually?" She asked another question that many were wondering. Even ire looked interested in knowing the answer to this question.
"Where didn''t I grow up would be the fitting question" Michael smiled, taking a sip of grape juice.
"If you want to know the answer to the question where was I beforeing to river town, the answer is Awor"
Many raised their brows in surprise. They never expected him toe from the most powerful continent in the world. The other three continents couldn''t even bepared to Awor as they were the richest,rgest powerful continents. The main reason for Awor''s prosperity was that Awor had several races living together. Although there were struggles between the races such as the enmity between dwarves and elves, they didn''t go to war with each other to prove who''s the superior ones. Instead, they developed their own kingdoms and empires to be the number one, this altogether lifted the status of the entire continent.
"Wow. You''re far away from home"
"Home? No. Home is where I am. River town and the sect is my home now" ire gently smiled as Nadia''s quill wrote every single word that came from his mouth onto the parchment.
"What made youe to the river town, Master Ghost?"
"The weather, that was my reason" chuckled Michael. As an experienced newswoman, she knew when someone''s brushing off the question. Usually, she would focus on that particr question until she got something juicy but she was experienced enough to know that Ghost is not going to exin his reason foring to the river town.
"Master Ghost, we know you like to keep it yourself and focus on" Nadia paused for a moment searching for the right word,
"umting power and money while trying to avoid making enemies" she slowly moved on to the serious topics of her interview. She obviously did her research on Michael.
"But what made a guy like you massacre an entire sect overnight including the sect leader? You actually tied the sect leader on a pole and burned him alive. Roasted him alive like a turkey that''s what the people were saying"
ire noticed his smile slightly changing into a cold one,
"Miss Nadia, you obviously did your research. So please tell? me this, do you know what the blood and bone sect did?" Michael asked Nadia. The people only knew Ghost massacred the Blood and Bone sect overnight but most of them didn''t know why he did that in the first ce.
"I think it''s because they killed the people in Rosewood vige"
Michael put down the ss in his hand, his smilepletely disappeared from his face.
"You said I massacred the sect and the sect killed the people in Rosewood vige" he emphasized the words massacred and killed,
"What the sect did was a massacre. What I did was justice. The least we cultivators could do to themoners is let them be" the waiter and waitresses who heard Michael had their respect towards him lifted to another level.
"Let''s talk about Heaven''s gatepetition Master Ghost. You''re the first person to reach the hundredth step, how did you do it?"
"It wasn''t very difficult" He could feel all the eyes on him, looking at him with both shock and surprise.
"Speaking of heaven''s gate, there are rumors you and Miss Celina have some bad blood between you two. What''s yourment on that?"
"Noment. I don''t respond to rumors"
Nadia seemed disappointed yet it didn''t stop her froming up with a follow-up question.
"We have on good authority that she personally came to interrogate you with the truth extractor pill that was concocted by Pill King Gabriel himself"
"I think what she did was out of grief. I was in the Nether Realm when her cousin was killed and everyone knows there''s no way ofing out of the Nether realm until the portal opens. It was a desperate attempt to catch the killer. I''m not ming her for doing that" He sounded truthful. However, Michael was nning to settle the score between them at the tournament once and for all.
"On the topic of tournaments, who do you think has the most chance of winning them?"
"My girlfriend Aelia will win the championship for the Body Strengthening stage and I will win the other '''' Michael said casually. For some nobles, he sounded arrogant. For some others, he sounded confident.
As far as Michael was concerned, if he couldn''t even win the tournament with the system''s help, there was no way in hell he could conquer this world. At the same time, he didn''t think it would be easy to win as he was umting badass points to buy new spells and upgrade the existing ones.
"Wow, you sound pretty confident," Nadia giggled. What he said was a good piece that would stir the heat between the youngsters who werepeting. The more hype her newspaper created for the tournament, the more the tournamentmittee would pay them.
"If your parents were to read this, what would you say to them?" He was slightly stunned by her question. He never expected her toe back to the topic of his parents.
"Is it really necessary to ask him about these things?" ire intervened. She didn''t like Nadia poking into the bad memories.
"It''s okay Sect Leader ire," Michael said before Nadia could answer ire.
"First of all, I don''t have any parents. The moment they chose to throw me away like a piece of trash they never wanted, they cease to exist in my world. I used to watch children y with their parents, you know how their mothers loved them, the fathers protected them. I envied them when I was little" Although Michael and Abras were two different persons, the pain of being an orphan was the same for both of them. He knew he was Abras, so he wanted Abras''s parents to know what he''s feeling.
"When I was seven, I still remember that day vividly. I stole a piece of bread as I didn''t eat anything for three days. The baker, who was a heartless son of a bitch caught me and gave me this" Michael slightly pulled his shirt away to reveal the burn mark near his cor bone
"He punished me for stealing by burning me with a ming charcoal piece. I cried until I had no tears left in me. There was no one there for me to" Michael felt a lump in his throat while ire''s eyes already started to well up.
"There was no one there for me to ease my pain, no matter how loud I cried, or how long I cried. I fainted crying, when I woke up, I was still there, on the side of a pavement, drenching in rain. I never asked for any of this, if they never wanted me, they shouldn''t have brought me into this world" His voice turned cold, a glint of murderous intent emerged in his eyes.
"If they were to read this, I have only four words for them. Stay away from me"
"That''s it, the interview''s over" Gaya came to Michael''s table to break the interview. Her eyes were bloodshot red due to anger and sadness.
"Please excuse us,dies and gentleman. '''' Michael left the dining hall quietly. Thankfully Gaya didn''t cause a scene.Nadia was lucky that she didn''t get her nose broken by Gaya.
********************************************
Two days after Michael''s interview with Nadia, Diana was sitting on a bench in her garden. The newspaper she was holding was drenched in her tears. No one could be seen in the garden except Diana. She sent all the guards and servants away. Because she had to leave Kethen to get something important, she couldn''t go to the river town for the restaurant opening.
So when she heard he gave an interview, she paid thousands of gold coins to get the first printed edition as she couldn''t wait to read her son''s interview.
She wasn''t crying her eyes out because he told his parents to stay away. she cried, thinking about the pain he went through when he was little.
She could feel his hate towards her and Ethan through his words.
She never wanted any of this to happen to him. Her heart bled reading his story.. If she could, she would want to go to him, tell him everything, and beg for his forgiveness.
Chapter 310 - Harriet Hunt
The greyish clouds filled the sky, preventing the sunlight froming through like border guards. The foliage slowly danced with the howling wind. The gloomy sky warned the ground about the uing heavy rain through drizzles. While the drizzles were slowly transforming into a heavy downpour, Ethan came to the garden where he saw his beloved wife sitting on the bench holding the newspaper.
He was holding the same newspaper as his wife. In her sorrow, Diana didn''t even notice Ethan sitting beside her.
"First edition eh?" Ethan tried to open with a joke.
"It''s not your fault, Diana" Ethan wrapped his arm around Diana''s shoulder.
"I lost him because I was weak. Wasn''t that my fault?"
"You weren''t weak, the sky hall was too powerful. You know that, everybody knows that. You had no choice. If anyone to be med, it''s Skyhall"
"Our son stole bread because he was hungry" shepletely broke into tears after speaking those words. Diana couldn''t even imagine what he went through. The overwhelming sadness made her heart bleed. As a man, Ethan wouldn''t cry like Diana yet even his eyes teared up when he read that.
"We''ll get through this Diana, like always, together. I promise you, we will reunite with our son" He wiped off the tears from Diana''s face while lifting her face to look her in the eyes
"You can now cultivate without Skyhall knowing. No matter how long it''ll take, we must reach the immortal stage. Then we''ll have a lifetime making up to our son"
Ethan had full confidence in Diana reaching the Immortal stage because she was the number one prodigy of the entire world. It only took her a month of cultivation to go from the Core Formation stage to the Core Strengthening stage. Her monstrous cultivation speed was what drew the attention of Skyhall in the first ce. She was meant to be the Holy Maiden.
Even to this day, the name Harriet Hunt would shake the Awor Continent. Before he heard everything that happened with Sky Hall, he thought only he and Diana''s two sisters knew that Harriet Hunt is Diana. Ethan had to fake the three sisters'' death to leave Awor continent. If anyone knew she''s still alive, it would be only a matter of days before the royal family as well as the Hunt family storm into Elon to take her away.
As far as Diana was concerned, her talent was more of a curse than a blessing. She lost too much because of her talent. To the outside world, Diana was happy for her childrens'' talent except she was more worried about them than feeling happy for them. She didn''t want her children to suffer the same fate she does because of their talent.
Diana never regretted leaving everything behind in Awor. If she hadn''t left her family, her two sisters would have been married off to some wealthy old men while she would have ended up as the Holy Maiden. Diana''s parents viewed the three of them as trophies instead of as their daughters. They wanted to use them to increase the Hunt family''s influence and power.
Because of her decision to leave Awor with her sisters, they were blessed with peace and a happy family. She never imagined the price for leaving her life on Awor behind would be her son.
"One day he will understand everything Dian" the heavy downpour came with a thunderp. shes of lightning shed across their eyes. With the climate, Diana''s mood also changed.
"Sky Hall" The veins in her eyes began to pop up, making her eyes redder and redder.
"You know Ethan, I was trying to run away from being Harriet Hunt" she stood up from the bench,
"I can''t run away from who I am" for a second when the lightning shed, Ethan could swear he saw Harriet Hunt, the raven beauty of Awor. In his mind, her golden hair transformed into raven ck while two swords appeared in her hands.
Raven ck hair, two swords, ck dress from top to bottom, that was the Harriet the entire Awor continent was afraid of. If Ethan had seen Ghost, he would have been startled to see the simrities between Harriet and Ghost.
"I''m gonna make every single one of them who hurt my son pay. I am Hunt, Harriet Hunt and I have a score to settle"
***********************************************
Meanwhile back on the Abyssal, Michael was standing in front of a giant mirror. He was in his grey sweatpants staring at his naker upper body in the mirror.
Various degrees of burn wounds, bullet wounds, and scars riddled his body. Three days ago when he woke up, the scars he had when he was on earth as well as new scars magically appeared on his body. The system asked him to upgrade it if he wanted to know how and why the scars appeared.
Those scars brought some bad memories. Moreover, Michael wondered why these scars suddenly appeared. He didn''t know the Ghost soul piece and Abras soul piece are slowly merging together into one as they were when he was born in this world. With the soul pieces merging, they brought the scars back. This change was visible to his eyes. What wasn''t visible is that his mind and heart bing one entity instead of two which were Ghost and Abras.
Until now, he thought he and Abras were two different people. The truth was however, they were the same. Only because of Sky Hall, his soul was split into two, one piece ended up on earth and grew up to be Ghost while the other grew up to be Abras. Fate had brought the two pieces together once again.
As he was staring at his body with mixed emotions, Gaya was whistling her favorite music while counting the gold coins they got from the restaurant. Nightmare was helping her by counting the stacks with her. Vedora just stood on Gaya''s shoulder, supervising the two of them.
"Hey, do you want to know the total collection or keep staring at your own body?" Michael put on his T-shirt before jumping into the bed with Gaya.
"Hit me with it"
"Good, you''re back" She pinched his cheek yfully
"Well, we earned a whopping amount of 1.2million in three days. Because of your fucking generosity, we need to give 20% of the earning to the sect so they could develop the river town. That would leave us with 960,000 gold coins"
"What about the cost of buying the ingredients and paying the wages?" He wiggled himself from the pillow to Gaya''sp. She didn''t mind as she would sometimes rest on hisp and he would do the same.
"I''ming to that. Approximately we''re spending 60,000 on both of them per month, so it''s no biggie"
"No biggie? You know how many people we could feed or help with 60,000 gold coins" Nightmare rolled his eyes
"Quit whining you big lizard. We''re swimming in millions of gold. Compared to that, 60,000 is like a drop" Ayag retorted.
"You''re a bad influence on the little girl" Michael twisted Gaya''s ear looking at Ayag.
"Who are you calling a little girl? I''ll fuck you up" Ayag bore her teeth after being called a little girl by Michael.
"She''s a bad apple, I know that" Gaya chuckled instead of defending Ayag to make the little hydra even more furious.
"Hehehe bad apple" Sarba, the silver head, chuckled with the rest of them as Ayag began to hit him in the head.
"Jokes aside, we need to cut the cost of buying the ingredients. When are they gonna start cultivating the fertilends around the river town? If we could produce what we need in the river town, it''ll save us the gold coins of buying them from the other towns and kingdoms while improving the economy of the river town" Michael asked. He let Gaya and ire handle these kinds of things as they had more knowledge and experiencepared to him.
"Old man Reiner will take care of cultivating thends so we could start producing veggies and stuff. We can improve the fishery by getting the fishermen new boats, building new docks. That still leaves us with exotic meat and seafood. There''s no way we can get them in the river town. Reginald said he will introduce some of the contacts we could use to get these things for a cheaper price. I''m thinking about letting Raylene and Gloria handle the negotiation. After all, Gloria is the manager and Raylene shoulde out of her shell"
"I agree with that. Raylene is still too timid" Nightmare agreed with Gaya''s n.
"You''re right, let them handle it"
"It''s settled then" Gayaid back on the bed with Michael. She rested her head on his hand as Nightmare and Vedora curled between them.
"I was talking to Raylene the other day, she said there are a lot of things to be done before the marriage"
"Oooh, I''m listening" Michael winked at her,
"Kids here you perverted bastard" she quickly tried to cover Nightmare and Vedora''s ears but she neither had enough hands nor time to cover their ears before they heard and realized the hidden meaning behind Michael''s words.
"Lord Lucifer" their ytime was interrupted suddenly by Aria. They heard her voice in their ears through the earbud.
"Go ahead Aria. Did you find anything?"
"Lord Lucifer, Dark Queen, I''m at the harbormaster''s office. The container I told you about, belongs to the Guardian guild. They are going to load the container into a ship"
"Do you think the girls are inside?" Gaya asked.
"I''m not sure but something''s precious inside as the container is guarded by men in full te armor. By the looks of them, they must be very powerful. Plus, they are doing constant routine checks, timed guard changes"
"Do you know where the container is going?"
"No Dark queen, no mention about where it is going in the manifest"
"Don''t engage them, we areing" Michael jumped off from the bed with Gaya. In a blink of an eye, they both transformed into Lucifer and Dark Queen.
"Let''s go hunt"
*****************************************
Check out the discord if you want to see Diana/Harriet Hunt!!!!
https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC? (If you cant copy this, type the link)
Chapter 311 - Breaking Formations With New Skill
At the edge of the cloud, there was a brilliant white patch, like a turning page catching the sun. The rest was dove grey with a subtle hint of purple, just enough to announce theing sunset. The coastline weed sea and sky, the bluest of brothers, together with a covenant of evesting beauty. Along with nature''s evening sky and coastline, the man-made harbor formed a scene that looked like a painting. The ships of all sizes floated on the water, taking the rest they deserve before starting their journey.
This was not a military harbor so there weren''t any warships like a brigade or man of war. The biggest ship that could be seen on the harbor was a merchant ship with four cannons on the top deck.? The crane with a huge wheel attached to it kept producing creaking noises. One could see almost half of the Royalnd from the crane''s top.
When thest of the sunlight faded away from the ce, two figures appeared on top of the crane. Their ck capes fluttered in the wind. The lighting from the half-moon vaguely showed their bodies.
"That''s the ship" Gaya pointed at a lone ship silently floating on the water far from the rest of the ships. It was a merchant ship but didn''t have any cannons. From the outside look, the ship looked no different than a typical merchant ship used to transport goods from one port to another except Michael could see ten Core Formation level 8 warriors on board disguised as crew members.
"Where are the armored guys Aria was talking about?" Gaya asked.
"Maybe in the below decks"
"We need to know their exact locations before doing anything human. They are not some weaklings we could waltz in and kill"
"It''s time for a new skill," Michael thought as he entered the system with a specific skill in his mind.
"System, I need you to take whatever points you need and get me the X-ray vision. Remember, I need to see what''s inside the ship and container so don''t get me a level one skill and ask me to upgrade until I have no points left"
[Jeez, I get it. I know the right thing to give you and I''ll integrate it with eyes of darkness for 2000 badass points. So the total of buying Xray vision, upgrading it to max level, and integrating it with eyes of darkness would cost you 8000 badass points ]
"Get it done"
He felt the familiar acute pain in his mind for a few moments. The moment the pain disappeared, he could feel another skill. Activating it was just as easy as breathing to him.
When he willed his mind to activate the X-ray vision, the view in front of him turned dark blue. Soon, he started to see yellow and red shapes moving around. This was not just an X-ray vision, this was a thermal vision. He willed his mind again to change his vision as his vision changed into another, the night vision.
He had a smile behind his mask as he changed his vision to X-ray vision. He could now see in three types of visions. In addition to three types of vision, he could zoom in. How cool was that?
"They are in the back, below decks. The girls are there too"
"Wait a minute. How do you know?"
[oh I forgot to mention one thing, host] When he turned to look at Gaya, he couldn''t help grinning thinking about something. However, the system read his mind and decided to crash his mental party
[You cannot see people naked using your visions, hehehe] the system let out a burst of evilughter. It kinda sounded like a cartoon superviin.
"You really are a god in the making. Can''t you give some of your powers to me?"
She trusted Michael enough to not poke into his secret that he obviously couldn''t share with her. Although she was proud and happy for him, she also felt a bit jealous.
"I''m sharing. How do you think your cultivation speed is skyrocketing?"
"Stop joking around. I''m awesome, that''s the reason for my cultivation speed" she proudly eximed. Michael wrapped his hand around Gaya with utmost care and love. From the moment he met her to this moment, everything seemed like a dream to him. He cherished every moment he spent with her.
"Let''s stay like this for a little longer" she rested her head on Michael''s shoulder. They were just about to engage in a battle yet the wind, the scenery, the quietness brought them closer.
"You know if this conquering the world doesn''t work, we could just leave this world and run off to some other worlds together"
"You said it yourself, I''m a god in the making. When was thest time you heard a god fail?"
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
While they were embracing each other, a bell ringing sound came from the harbor. Soon afterward, the ship with the Core Formation warriors slowly started to move. They didn''t jump down from the crane to reach the ship. They just waited for the ship to sail far away from the harbor so no one would be able to call for reinforcement from thend.
Until now, Michael never directly messed with the Guardians.
"What the fuck are these guardians doing with SilverMoon girls? I know they are a shady bunch unlike many humans think but this is too much"
"We can''t say for sure the entire guild has a hand on the kidnappings. Maybe a few corrupted guardians are the ones responsible for this" The guardians were Michael''s main foe yet he couldnt believe the entire guild would involve in human trafficking. A few corrupted guardians using their guild''s power to do this shady thing seemed more likely.
"Even if we hand the scumbags responsible for this on a silver tter, the guardians wouldn''t do shit to them. They''ll just tell us they would take care of the matter in-house. Best case, the scumbags will be stripped of their guardian title. At worst, they will get a p on the wrist "
"Typical" Michael snickered inside. The Guardian Guild wasn''t too different from a government in some countries where politicians rarely got punished for their crimes.
If the guardians hadn''t branded him as their foe who must be killed by any means necessary, Michael would have left them alone. Since that wasn''t the case, he needed to root out the guild before they found out about his true identity and kill him.
"Come on, we should follow them at a safe distance"? Michael slowly started to ascend to the sky with Gaya. He didn''t cast the lightning dash to speed up his pace. They just followed the ship keeping a safe distance from the ship. Due to their ck armors, it was impossible to see them in the night without casting any spells.
"Wait" while Michael was flying above the ship, he noticed several defensive arrays on the upper deck thanks to the eyes of darkness.
When he was in the treacherous ocean, he had to pop in a bunch of perception pills and depend on the system to break the illusion formations. But now, he could easily find the source points to break the formations.
Although he found the source points, destroying from where he was would reveal his location as well as alert the guards. That''s where Gaya came in. He quickly bought aser pointer from the system for 100 badass points.
"What?"
"Can you shoot that exact point from here?"
"Can I? Humph" she sneered as the bow of Legs painted in ck materialized in her hand. She knocked an arrow, feeling the wind''s direction before releasing it. The arrow soared through the arrow-like a bullet.? The moment the arrow hit the ce pointed by theser, Michael saw the defensive formation fade away. The guards were oblivious to the formation''s disappearance.
"That''s how you break a formation, find the source point, destroy it" Michael exined the reason why he asked to shoot that ce.
"How many formations are remaining?" She nodded before asking.
"One on the rudder stage, one on the crow''s nest"
"Use the ice arrows"
The first formation was located on the ship''s far back so firing an arrow did not alert the guards. However, there was a guard steering the rudder and another one would soone to take the crow''s nest so he or she could watch over the skies and the sea around. If they found the arrows, they would alert the guards which might make killing them difficult. Stealth seemed to be the best option to kill the warriors, especially the two Core Strengthening stage cultivators. Who knows what kind of spells they possess? Therefore, Michael wanted to kill them as discreetly as possible.
Because of his Alchemy trait, he created a new type of liquid. Mixing the liquid with water made the ice arrows immune to the fraction produced when flying through the air. Hence, the ice arrows won''t dissolve in the air before hitting the target. However, after hitting the target, the liquid mixed water''s molecr structure would be changed due to the collision force, resulting in immediate evaporation. The only downside of using the ice arrows as they weren''t strong enough to prate a human body.
That downside didn''t matter when it came to destroying source points.
Gaya quickly fired an arrow to the formation source point on the crow''s nest before flying to the rudder stage where they saw a Core Formation warrior steering the rudder while whistling carefree. Currently, there were five Core Formation guards roaming on the upper deck on top of the guard at the rudder. One of them reached the crow''s nest with a quick swift jump.
Boom!
Boom!
The sound of thunderps could be hearding from a distance. In addition to streaks of lightning, he saw a tornado forming in the distance.
"We should use that storm as a distraction to kill them all," She said what''s on Michael''s mind.. With a nod, Michael moved away from the ship instead of taking a risk of firing the ice arrow to the formation source point on the rudder stage.
Chapter 312 - Stealth Kills
"This is why I hate the oceans!"
"Bloody hell mate"
"Let the others know we are running into a storm"
"Secure the cargo, I don''t want anything to happen to the cargo"
The Core Formation guards on the upper deck talked to each other while staring at the brewing storm on the horizon. Among the six guards on the upper deck, two were standing on the ship''s front, one was standing on the crow''s nest, one on each side of the ship tending the sail masts, the sixth one was the guy steering the rudder. Luckily they were all staring at the storm as none kept an eye on the rudder steering guard.
Unfortunately, the source point of the formation on the rudder stage was beside the rudder steering guard. Even if she fired an ice arrow, the noise would alert the guard.
"Full Lucifer mode" the moment he ordered the system, his eyes began to shine in crimson red while the cloud of darkness, a cloud of ck smoke enveloped Michael around.
"That''s the point. Wait for my signal before firing"
Michael cast the Lightning Dash spell right when a lightning sh appeared to reach the guard. Just a second before reaching the guard, he also cast the Death Range making the rudder stagepletely dark.
"Huh?" The guard was startled by the sudden darkness around him. But before he could do anything, Michael grabbed him from behind, taking off to the sky immediately.
Crack!
Michael snapped the guard''s neck mid-way in the air. Breaking a neck was not as simple as they show in movies. It required technique, strength, and training. He had everything. The strength enhancement he got from Death range made breaking the guard''s neck as easy as breaking an egg.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
The moment he killed the guard, Gaya fired the ice arrow, breaking thest defensive formation.
"Take care of the two in the front, I''ll take the other two" Gaya nodded as she flew towards the ship''s front from the back. The guards'' focus was on the storm so they didn''t notice Gaya above them through the dark night. Plus, they were carefree because of the defensive formations as they depended on the formations to alert them if there was an intruder on the ship.
Michael was hovering directly above his two targets while Gaya stayed a few meters away from her targets so she could kill the two of them as quickly as possible.
"Go"
The moment Michael gave the signal, she fired two arrows within a second. Each of them pierced the head of its target. On the other hand, Michaelnded right between his targets before sending two lightning bolts from each hand at each target. Just like Gaya''s arrows, Michael''s lightning bolts also pierced its target''s head. The guards didn''t even have a moment to react.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points]
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core Formation stage Level 9!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core Formation stage Level 10!]
"Hey!"
Whoosh!
Zzhhhhh!
The arrow and the bolt of lightning hit the guard standing on the crow nest before he could even close his mouth.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[The system has stockpiled the excess experience points for the host to breakthroughter]
He almost forgot about the points needed to break through to the Core Strengthening stage. Hearing the system notification in his mind put a grin on his face.
Since he reached the Core Formation stage 10, his overall power increased significantly than before. Therefore, killing the two Core Strengthening stage cultivators would be much easier.
"Wait a sec," Michael said to Gaya when shended on the deck. Under her gaze, he cast the lightning dash to reach one of the guards he just killed. He quickly picked up the body, tossing it into the ocean. As he disposed of the body, he didn''t dare to steal their space rings for safety precautions.
She continued to watch him throw the bodies one by one into the raging ocean. The howling sound created by the storm became louder and louder. Since there was no one at the rudder steering the ship away from the tornado, the ship was getting pulled in like iron towards a ma. The raging sea violently hit the ship, shaking it to the point both Michael and Gaya had a hard time standing still.
"We need to finish this before that finishes everything" Gaya pointed at the giant tornado swirling in the distance.
"Don''t fret it" Michael calmly said before opening up thetch beneath him to go down to the lower decks where they were keeping the girls.
Through the creaky stairs, Michael and Gaya reached the lower decks. The howling sound of the wind became silent after closing the hatch. They were weed by a dark corridor with a couple ofnterns hanging on the wall to give just barely enough light to see what''s in front of them.
Using the X-ray vision, Michael located the remaining guards in the lower deck. The two Core Formation guards seemed to be ying a card game in one of the rooms ten meters away from Michael. The two Core Strengthening stage cultivators were sitting in a meditative position in front of the girls. The girls seemed to be in a wooden container. All the girls were tied but some of them were trying to move. The others however remained still.
Michale and Gaya slowly sneaked towards the Core Formation guards.
"Go kill the Core Strengthening guards, I''ll handle these two," said Gaya.
He knew she could kill them without a problem yet he needed to do one little thing before leaving her.
Michael squatted on the floor, looking at the space between the door and the floor. He then willed the system to give him the fear toxin vials in the storage. As he poured down the fear toxin, it evaporated into the room through the space.
"With this amount of fear toxin, it won''t freak them out as usual but it will mess with their mind"
"Be careful" After nodding, Gaya whispered.
Giving a little nod, Michael left Gaya to reach the room where the girls and thest two guards are. The wooden door to the room was shut closed. From the other side, Michael could sense the Arch energy cirction. The two guards were obviously cultivating despite the shakiness of the ship. They were oblivious to the fact the ship is heading towards a storm.
Michael scanned the room for any formations. Luckily he found no formations. Just like before, Michael squatted down to send fear toxin into the room through the space between the door and the floor. He was careful not to make any sound. In a few seconds, he poured four vials of fear toxin into the room. If there were no girls inside, he would have poured four more topletely mess with the guards'' minds. Since that was not the case, he had to be careful with the amount of fear toxin he should pour or the girls would die inhaling the toxin.
After pouring enough fear toxin, he slowly turned the doorknob to open. The door creaked open to reveal two bald men in their early forties cultivating in front of a wooden cargo container. The moment Michael closed the door behind, the two cultivators abruptly opened their eyes.
"So much for stealth," he thought.
The old door creaked more than Michael wanted. Hence, the creaking sound made the cultivators open their eyes.
"Who are you?" one of the bald men asked as they stood up.
"Lucifer"? the other one quickly recognized Michael.
The two of them suddenly shook their heads as the fear toxin started to take effect. Their pupils began to dte. Although the fear toxin would make them hallucinate and kindle the darkest fear in their hearts, it wouldn''tst long. The stronger the cultivator, the less the fear toxin''s effect on them. That was why Michael couldn''t go kill all the stronger cultivators using the fear toxin.
"Death Range"? Michael immediately cast the Death Range spell as the fear toxin''s effect would fade away in a couple of minutes max.
The room waspletely darkened by the spell.
"Lightning Dash"? while they were stunned by the fear toxin and the Death Range spell, he used the Lightning dash to close the gap between them.
Pulch!
Pulch!
"Ah"
Michael stabbed the both of them in their throats with needles dosed in his paralyzing poison.? The paralyzing poison prevented the cultivators from casting spells.
The two guards stumbled backward. Michael didn''t stop as he used the Lightning dash yet again. This time, he stabbed them with a dagger repeatedly.? Since they were Core Strengthening cultivators, he needed to use all of his strength to send the dagger into their bodies.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
The blood kept sshing on Michael''s suit of armor every time he stabbed them. He focused on their throats because throats were soft as well as stabbing them in the throat would stop them from casting spells.
It took Michael twenty stabs to make them fall down. In addition to paralyzing poison and fear toxin, Michael needed to cast Death Range as well as use the maximum speed of Lightning dash to make the two Core Strengthening stage cultivators fall down. Even after getting stabbed twenty times in the throat and chest, they were still alive.
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points]
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Core Formation stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 210,000 Experience points]
Chapter 313 - Upgrading Spree I
The ocean breathed, her surface rising and falling with rhythmic ease. The waves became her pulse that day, the echo of the souls she kept safe in her cradle of brine. Unlike the ocean he just left, the ocean in front of Michael was calm. The ocean breeze wrapped around him as the warmest of soft towels. The wind had be the orchestral conductor of the sea, sending waves into their crescendos'' all through the bad that was the night. All about us was the perfume of the salty water and the fine spray that came as boldly as any vi flurry. It was as if the life of one''s had entered the water and the energy was so great that this great pulse came upward to form a steady rhythm.? The sea is infinite blue in infinite weather patterns, yet in all this, she is the prettiest color Michael ever saw.
On the calm, the silent reaper floated like it was dancing with the ocean in a beautiful rhythm. The thrones which were previously ced in the captain''s cabin were moved to the upper deck as Michael and Gaya rested on their thrones staring at the crew and the thing that was covered in greyish cloth. No one knew what''s behind the cloth, they could only guess that whatever behind the cloth was at least six feet tall.
Since Heinberg had been working with Senator Caius to reform the senate and Tiberius was helping his people settle down in Gisal, Michael only brought Maxine to the ship to witness what he was about to do. In addition to Maxine, Sadie stood beside Maxine. Her eyes were red, her face was pale and tears kept trickling out of her eyes.
Except for Gibson who stood behind Michael''s throne, the crew members gathered around them keeping a distance. Among them, Shorty was shivering, not due to the coldness of the night but because of alcohol withdrawal. The cloudless sky let the abundance of moonlight that brighten the ship with its glimmering blue light.
Michael rested his head on his fist, reliving the battle he just fought in his mind.? By reliving the battle, he gained more knowledge about his weaknesses as well as strengths.
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 10
Experience Points: 400000/400000 (1,300,000 points remaining to be consumed)
Badass Points: 125000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 3
Responsive Shield - LVL 4
Environment Scanning - LVL 3
Ignitia - LVL 3
Lightning Dash - LVL 3
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 93% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 69% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 90% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 1,900,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 38%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 35%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Sadie (loyalty level 30%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 85%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Silent Reaper
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
After willing the system to show his status, he just stared at the status for a few moments.
"System, show me how powerful my spells are. It''s bing hard to perceive who can or cannot be killed with my spells"
[Reforming the status window will cost the host 1000 badass points]
"Take it"
[Reforming the status window]
[Showing host the spells with more information]
Skills & Spells:
Wind st (LVL 3) -? [It''s pretty self-exnatory. You can st people and mess with Celestial Energy flow]
Michael sighed seeing the system''s information about the Wind st. It was right though, he had no confusion or questions about the Wind st. The more he used the spell, the more control he achieved over the air element. In the beginning, he could only send a couple of sts of wind from one hand. Now he could send several wind sts from both of his hands. In addition, he could reshape the sts into crescent-shaped wind des. Although the crescent des were not powerful enough to cut a person in half, it was powerful enough to leave a nasty cut, especially if he attacked anyone below the Body Strengthening stage.
Responsive Shield (LVL 4) - Absorb any spell attacks from anyone on or below the stage Body Strengthening stage.
Environment Scanning (LVL 30 - The spell would detect hostiles and friendlies in a 20m radius.
Ignitia (LVL 3) - The spell can kill anyone on or below Core Formation level 3 ignoring the defensive spells belonging to the ss Rare or below. The spell''s power would be decreased by 50%, 75%? by defensive spells belonging to the ss Epic and Legendary respectively.
** After casting Death Range, Ignitia can kill anyone on or below Core Formation level 6 ignoring the defensive spells belonging to the ss Rare or below **
Lightning Dash (LVL 3) - Anyone on or under the Body Strengthening stage wouldn''t be able to spot the host but bolts of lightning. Cultivators below Core Formation 4 could make out the host''s figure in a blurry vision. To the eyes of cultivators above Core Formation 4, the host will move 30% faster.
**After casting Death Range, Anyone on or under the Core Formation level 6 stage wouldn''t be able to spot the host but bolts of lightning**
Energy Devouver (LVL 1) - Specific types of Arch energy could be absorbed and transformed into Experience points. (System level is too low to give more information)
Death Range (LVL 3) - The host''s power will rise by 30%.
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
A while after pondering, Michael decided to upgrade a few of the existing ones before buying new spells.
"Okay, I think I should first upgrade the Responsive Shield"
[Level 5 Responsive Shield will be able to absorb any spell attacks from anyone on or below the stage Core Formation level 2]
"Cost?"
[10,000 badass points for upgrading it to level 5. 15,000 badass points for upgrading it to level 6 which would? absorb any spell attacks from anyone at or below the stage Core Formation level 4]
"I''m confused, do I have to spend 25,000 to upgrade it to level 6? Or I can give you 15,000 points to jump from level 4 to level 6?"
[Yeah you wish. You need to spend 10,000 badass points to upgrade the spell from level 4 to level 5 and 15,000 points to upgrade it from level 5 to level 6]
[The system rmends the host upgrade the spell instead of being stingy with points. You have no other defense spells in your arsenal and who knows how many freaks wouldpete in the tournament]
The system was right. He couldn''t be cocky or half-prepared, especially when he knew that prodigies from all over the Elon continent woulde to the tournament. If he didn''t upgrade the spell to at least level 6, any Core Formation prodigy with Epic or Legendary spell could easily kill him.
"Upgrade the spell"
[Good decision]
The system appreciated Michael''s decision. The next moment the number of badass points decreased from 125,000 to 100,000.
"Next one should be Lightning Dash"
[In Level 4, Anyone at or under the Core Formation stage level 5 wouldn''t be able to spot the host but bolts of lightning. Cultivators from Core Formation level 6 to level 8 could make out the host''s figure in a blurry vision. To the eyes of cultivators above Core Formation 8, the host will move 40% faster]
[Upgrading it to level 4 would cost the host 20,000 badass points]
"Upgrade it," Michael said without any hesitation. After upgrading, the Responsive shield could protect him from anyone at or below Core Formation level 4. When dealing with anyone above this level, he could use Lightning Dash that would give him enough speed to escape from their offensive spell and kill them using his swords or spells.
"Next spell, Ignitia"
[In Level 4 - Ignitia can kill anyone at or below Core Formation level 5 ignoring the defensive spells belonging to the ss Rare or below. The spell''s power would be decreased by 40%, 70%? by defensive spells belonging to the ss Epic and Legendary respectively]
[The upgrade will cost you 30,000 badass points]
"I need to ask, what about people above Core Formation level 6?"
[There''s no direct answer whether you could kill them with one lightning bolt or many. It depends on the target''s defensive spell. Basically, if you''re attacking anyone above Core Formation level 6 who did not cast any defensive spell, Ignitia can wound them severely or even take their life if you aim for the vital parts. However, if they cast any defensive spells, you won''t be able to kill them with one shot]
"So what''s the point in leveling up when I can just upgrade the spells using badass points?"
[You can''t upgrade the spells if you are not strong enough. Don''t forget that your cultivation stage will affect the power of your spells. The more you level up, the more powerful your spells would be]
"Alright, upgrade Ignitia to level 4"
As he was leveling up and upgrading the spells, he realized one thing, everything had be much moreplicated than before. Moving forward, he knew he must be cautious and n everything as he did on earth.
**************************
Discord link : https://discord.gg/2db5uub4yE
I have posted the character image of Harriet Hunt with her theme music. Come check it out!!
Chapter 314 - Upgrading Spree II
After upgrading the spells, he had 50,000 badass points remaining. However, he was not finished upgrading his spells.
"System, I need you to tell me how much would it cost me to upgrade the runic teleportation so I can teleport people who are not my subordinates without buying teleportation scrolls every single time?"
Every time he teleported someone who''s not his subordinate, it cost him from 4000 badass points to 10000 points depending on the teleportation destination and number of people he had to teleport. If he could teleport people by any other means, he wouldn''t have to carry the container to the Silent Reaper.
[huh why do you want to do that?]
Michael sensed a slight panic in its voice. The system was happily selling him teleportation scrolls. Hearing him want to change his methods frightened the system as it wouldn''t get many badass points as it did before.
"Can you or can you not?"
Michael very well knew the reason for the system''s panic.
[Of Course the system can. But unlike the teleportation scrolls, the runic teleportation will be able to only teleport three people who are not the host''s subordinates at once. It would cost you 45,000 badass points. The system rmends you to keep buying teleportation scrolls as they are more time-efficient and take less toll on your body]
"Oh you rmend?" Michael chuckled,
"No need, just upgrade the runic teleportation"
[You do know that you can''t use runic teleportation while you''re in a battle right?]
"I know system. I''m not gonna keep buying your teleportation scrolls unless I absolutely have to"
[So be it] The system sounded mad. Soon his badass points decreased to 5000 points, ending his upgrade spree. He wanted to upgrade Wind st if he had enough points. Since it wasn''t the case, he decided to upgrade the spellter. Although he didn''t upgrade the spell, leveling up gave the spell enough power boost to knock out a group of weak cultivators in a few seconds.
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 10
Experience Points: 400000/400000 (1,300,000 points remaining to be consumed)
Badass Points: 125000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 3
Responsive Shield - LVL 5
Environment Scanning - LVL 3
Ignitia - LVL 4
Lightning Dash - LVL 4
Energy Devouver - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 93% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 69% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 90% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 3 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 10 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 1,900,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 38%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 35%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Sadie (loyalty level 30%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 85%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Silent Reaper
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
After taking a second look at his status window, he was satisfied. He exited the system to see everyone staring at him. His eyes were fixed on Shorty who was shivering due to the alcohol withdrawal. Shorty''s determination to be a cultivator surprised him. At first, he thought Shorty was asking him to be a cultivator for fun but his determination told Michael that fun wasn''t the only thing Shorty is looking for.
Sadie was still sobbing. Her anger was overshadowed by guilt and grief. Turning his gaze back to Shorty, Michael began to speak. He was still in his full Lucifer form so his voice wasn''t humane, it sounded unearthly.
"Gibson, tell me how many types of people there are in this world?" Michael asked Gibson who was standing behind the throne.
"Two kinds? Good and Bad?" Gibson said with uncertainty.
"Do you know the difference between them?"? Michael asked,
"Good people are good, bad people are bad?" Yet again, Gibson sounded uncertain. None of them had a clue why Michael was asking these questions including Gaya.
"That''s a textbook answer Gibson. In real life, the answer is much different than that" Michael stood up from his throne,
"Good people think if they don''t hurt others, they don''t get hurt. They try to live by a code of honor or the word of god or anything that lets them sleep at night peacefully. They don''t realize they are just prey for the bad ones." As he was speaking, he walked to Sadie,
"Even if they do realize it, they can''t do what''s necessary to protect themselves and people they care about. The code they live by, it''s a prison that hurts them forever.? If they end up in a mess, they just expect someone else to save them. The funny thing is, they expect that someone else will clean up their mess without crossing their code. If he or she did, the good ones brand them as evil, dark ones, etcetera etcetera"
Michael made his way towards the cloth wrapped thing,
"Let me show you the difference between a good person and a bad one" he took off the cloth after speaking to reveal the two bloodied Core Strengthening cultivators. They were tied up to separate poles. The cloth wrapped around their mouths prevented them from screaming or making a sound.
"These two pathetic worms helped someone kidnap forty young girls, witnessed the girls suffer unspeakable things, and finally, they tried to smuggle the girls somewhere. Probably whoever asked them to kidnap the girls nned to sell them as ves for a price"
Tears broke out of Sadie''s eyes as Michael went on,
"Twenty girls died in that container and the rest of them have been scared for the rest of their lives. Now those girls were good girls who just obeyed an order of their superior" Michael put his hand on one of the cultivators'' shoulders. He started to apply pressure as the shoulder bone began to crack.
"Hmmmmmmmm" the cultivator''s scream of agony was muffled by the cloth. The cracking sound of the bone gave a chilling to the pirates.
"Sadie here is also a good girl. She tried her absolute best to find those girls and she even went to such a height to summon me"
He flicked his wrist as a dagger materialized in Michael''s hand. He ran the dagger slowly on the cultivator''s body. The dagger was so sharp it kept making shallow cuts on the cultivator''s body wherever Michael ran the dagger.
"She thinks she did everything she could to save those girls. But what about doing something to punish the person responsible for this? Sadie, can you do what''s necessary to find the person who is responsible, from these two"? Michael asked.
Everyone turned their gazes towards Sadie. Since they didn''t see the ravaged status of the girls in the container, they didn''t feel any anger or sadness but were just curious to see what Michael was going to ask her to do.
She slowly walked towards the two cultivators. Her body shivered in anger as her eyes turned redder and redder. When she came closer, Michael ced the dagger in Sadie''s hands.
"Make them tell you who ordered the kidnapping and where they were transporting the girls. You know what to do"
Michael stepped aside. He folded his arms, waiting patiently for Sadie to start the interrogation although he knew what''s about to happen.
"Just cut them open, slowly, of course. We don''t want them to die, at least not yet" Gaya said sitting on her throne.
"Hmmmmm" the cultivators mumbled.
"I forgot to tell you, you are on the Southern continent. So no use in trying to cast spells" A glimmer of shock emerged in their eyes. Soon the glimmer of shock turned into utter helplessness. No matter how hard the cultivators struggled against the pole or the rope that tied them, they couldn''t escape.
"Come on Sadie, what are you waiting for?" Michael asked as Sadie slowly moved the dagger in her hands towards the cultivators. Her hands were shaking.
"Who...who ordered you to..." Sadie stuttered. She ced the dagger in the cultivator''s body yet she couldn''t cut his flesh. Torturing people was not her strong suit. Even though she was overwhelmingly angry at the two of them, she couldnt get herself to torture them.
"What''s the hesitation Sadie? Do you think the guys who ravaged those girls showed any hesitation?" Michael calmly asked before removing the cloth from one cultivator''s mouth.
"You''re dead! you''re all DEAD!" The moment Michael removed the cloth, the cultivator screamed.
"You stupid bitch!" he spat on Sadie''s face. Since Michael gave them enough healing potions, their wounds were all healed up.
"They kept screaming for your help until we knocked the teeth off their beautiful mouths"
Looking at his evil grin, even some of the pirates wanted to grab the dagger from Sadie''s hands and start cutting him into pieces.
"When they find you all, we do much worse to your wives, daughters, mothers! And you bitch, they are nning something real nice for you"
He said looking at Sadie with menacing eyes.
Chapter 315 - Good People Won鈥檛 Do What鈥檚 Necessary
The two cultivators almost shed their fear after hearing they are in the Southern continent because they knew they wouldn''t be able to escape. Hence, instead of begging for their lives, they antagonized everyone.
"Let me help you get started" Michael grabbed Sadie''s hand from behind. He moved the dagger towards the cultivator''s chest.
"Argg" the cultivator grumbled as Michael slowly applied pressure to the dagger. The dagger gradually prated the skin around the cultivator''s left nipples.
Michael felt Sadie trying to move the dagger back,
"I¡.I...Can''t" finally Michael let go of her hand. Sadie stumbled backward away from the cultivator before dropping the dagger on the ground. No matter how angry she was, she couldnt torture them. She did not have it in her.
"Stupid bitch" the cultivator cursed in pain.
Everything happened as Michael expected. With a gentle stomp to the ground, the dagger flew right back into his hand. He then turned back to look at his crew,
"You see, even when the scumbags who hurt her and the people she cared about are standing right in front of her, she can''t do what''s necessary. Because she''s a good person. Being a good person is not the way to go sometimes. Sometimes, you need to be bad, you need to be evil to get what you want, to get it done what must be done" as he said, he threw the dagger to Maxine.
"Show them how it''s done"
"With pleasure, Lord Lucifer" Maxine grinned evilly. Seeing the menacing look on her face, the cultivators felt a chill running through their spines.
"Another bitch!" he cursed to hide the fear in his heart.
Maxine just smiled as she got closer to him. She started from where Sadie left off.
"Who gave the order to kidnap those girls?" she asked with a smile.
"Go fu ARGH!" Maxine made a quick cut circling his nipple as the cultivator experienced a hellish pain. There was no Arch energy to ease his pain. She ripped off his nipple. Many of the pirates felt a tingling sensation witnessing the scene.
"You have many parts I could cut, including your favorite one" she tapped the bloodied dagger on his crotch. By the look in her eyes, the cultivator could tell she''s not ying around.
"I''m not gonna ask you again. I''ll just keep cutting you piece by piece until you give me an answer" she moved the dagger to the right side. A line of blood trail appeared from left to right.
"ARRGGGHHHH!"
Just like before, she made a cut around his other nipple.
"This is gonna get only worse for you" Michael reminded the cultivator while walking towards the other cultivator who was not getting tortured by Maxine.
"Don''t forget about our guest here Maxine"
"Hmmmmmm" the cultivator''s cries were muffled by the cloth.
No one felt a shed of pity for the two cultivators, especially not the ones who saw the condition of the girls. Back on earth, Michael witnessed gory scenes while dealing with human traffickers butpared to what the SilverMoon girls went through, the girls on earth had it easy.
"I''m getting bored here. How about we spice things up?" Gaya stood up from her throne. While she was walking towards Maxine, a ball of hot red me appeared above her hand.
"What do you have in mind, Dark Queen?" Maxine asked as Gaya turned back to look at Gibson,
"It''s a bit chilly here. Go bring me the oil barrel, we''re gonna have a bonfire"
"Yes Dark Queen" Gibson was one of the few people who saw the girls. After seeing those girls, he wanted everyone who had a hand in this nefarious human trafficking to suffer. He limped off to the below deck to bring the oil barrel, taking a few crew members.
"You''re all gonna pay. The Guardian Guild will hunt you down!" the cultivator screamed. Beneath his mad cry, there was a hint of fear.
"You don''t get it, do you?" Michael grabbed the cultivator by his neck,
"They are not hunting me, I''m hunting them"
The images of the ravaged girls shed across Michael''s eyes as his hold around the cultivator''s neck tightened. The cultivator''s eyes started to bulge
"The oil is here Dark Queen"
Hearing Gibson''s voice, Michael let go of the neck. The cultivator breathed heavily as the redness slowly appeared back on his face.
"Ah ah huh"
"Pour the oil on them," Gaya ordered Gibson.
"As you wish, Dark Queen" there was no hesitation in Gibson''s voice. As far as he was concerned, no amount of torture is enough for the two cultivators.
One of the pirates handed Gibson a bucket to pour the oil on the two. Michael patiently waited for Gibson to finish pouring the oil. He was d to see this side of Gibson as Michael would rather have a few ruthless subordinates than a hundred soft-hearted ones.
Sadie watched Gibson pouring the oil on the two cultivators without uttering a single word. Before actually meeting the two, she wanted to make them suffer. However, when she was given the opportunity, she simply couldn''t.
The smell of strong crude oil permeated the air.
"Whoever answers the question first lives and get to leave this ship alive and the other burns slowly"
A glimmer of hope appeared in the cultivators'' eyes.? Before escaping her home kingdom, she orchestrated many tortures in the dungeons beneath her castle. She would torture the criminals who enjoyed torturing others. Of course, Xanali and her mother strictly prohibited torture in prisons but that didnt stop Gaya from doing it secretly. Because of her prior experience, she could tell who would break and who would die before giving out the needed information. The two cultivators in front of her looked like thetter type.
Hence, she decided to give them hope of escaping as it would mostly work with their type. There was a strong possibility for the two cultivators to lie yet she wouldn''t havee this far if she couldn''t detect a lie.
"Let''s begin" Gaya snapped as the ball of fire above her hand split into two. The two orbs of fire gradually floated towards the two cultivators. Maxine removed the cloth from the other cultivator''s mouth so he could speak up.
"Shit" the cultivator who was antagonizing everyone cursed under his breath.
"I won''t tell you shit!" the cultivator shouted but the other one who didnt get tortured by Maxine had mixed emotions written on his face.
"Tik tok assholes, tik tok" Gaya snickered as the fireball got closer and closer to them.
"Will you really let me go if I tell you everything I know?"
"Shut up Carl!" the one who got tortured shouted at the other one.
Carl however, didn''t even look at him as all of Carl''s focus was on the approaching fireball.
"You have my word, Carl. Tell us everything and we will let you go" Michael reassured Carl.
Carl felt the warmth of the fire. He knew it''s only a matter of seconds before he burns alive. Getting burnt to death was not worth any amount of gold coins.
"It''s Minister Magnus!"? Since Sadie also doubted he''s the one behind all this, Michael and Gaya knew Carl is telling them the truth.
"We have a winner here boys" Gaya pped as the fireball approaching Carl disappeared while the other one lighted the oil.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" the scream of the cultivator reverberated in the sea. He kept twitching as the firepletely enveloped him. The fire burnt the ropes that tied him to the pole. He tried to roll on the ground except it was toote.
"Look at how he''s enjoying his firebath Carl" Gaya chuckled evilly,
"We can give you the same experience if you don''t tell us everything, I mean everything you know" Carl''s face waspletely pale. He saw his colleagues charred remaining on the ground, radiating smoke. Just thinking about it made Carl''s hair stand up straight.
"Maxine, bring Carl to our room"
Maxine nodded before dragging Carl behind Gaya towards the captain''s cabin. Michael on the other hand walked towards Sadie. She was still looking pale as her body kept shaking.
"If you don''te out of your shell, more people you care about will get hurt. Think about it while you bury your fallen sisters" As he walked past Sadie, Gibson came to him.
"Lord Lucifer, what about the rest of them?"
Sadie turned back. She didn''t know what to do with the girls.
"They should go to Tiberius''snd. After everything that happened to them, they need to be with people they can rte to. Coordinate with Heinberg and see to it personally"
Considering Tiberius''s people were ves who endure the abuse of their masters for years and overcame the trauma, Michael thought it would be better if the girls went there instead of Elon. Sending them back to Elon would only make everything worse for them.
"Lord...Lord Lucifer" Sadie stuttered as Michael stopped walking.
"Can I say my goodbyes to them?"
"You were responsible for them. So they will me you and your sect for everything. You can watch the girls settling down from a distance" After speaking these words, Michael entered the captain''s cabin.
"Lord Lucifer is right Miss. Those poor girls have suffered enough. You meeting them will bring back memories they must forget" Gibson gently patted Sadie''s shoulder to console her. Sadie broke down into tears. Deep down she knew they were right.
"They are going to a much better ce, Miss. That ce and the people living there will help them ovee their trauma"
****************************************
I wrote an borate sick gory torture scene but I learned that it might get gged as the novel is for the general audience.. So I cut them down. Hope you still enjoy the chapter and let me know your thoughts
Chapter 316 - Capturing The Dark Lord
A pointy ears woman was standing in front of a in ss window. She stared at the ocean beneath her. The clouds slowly brushed past the window.
"He''s there Alpha Guardian" Another pointy ears woman walked into the room. The woman put her cloak on her head before turning back.
"So the Kethen kid was right" the Alpha guardian had a surprised look on her face. She then walked towards the door with royal grace. After leaving her room, the alpha guardian saw several huge telescopes with golden runs glowing on them. Her team of guardians was looking through the telescope to keep the target in their sight. All of them were standing under an arch-shaped ss ceiling. The hall slowly moved through the clouds. One could see several runes in various shapes flickering on the ss ceiling. The bright moonlight acted as their chandelier, giving its radiant blue to light up the hall.
"Are the rune archers ready?" the alpha guardian asked her assistant.
"They are in ce, Alpha Guardian" the alpha guardian looked through the ss to see several figures dressed in white to blend with the clouds floating in the air with huge crossbows in their hands. Her gaze then locked on the ship floating on the horizon.
"Alpha Guardian" another one entered the room. The figure quickly knelt in front of the alpha guardian before taking off the cloak.
"Is your team ready, Guardian Peyton?"
"We are waiting for your order, Alpha Guardian"
"Lead them well, Guardian Peyton"
Peyton''s brows arched up in surprise. She was lost for words after hearing the Alpha Guardian.
"I cannot cross the void line as it might wake up something that shouldn''t be woken up. So I''ll trust you to lead the team"
The Alpha Guardian''s tone sounded like an order. In front of her, Peyton was meek as a house cat.
"You won''t regret this, Alpha Guardian" Peyton never looked so proud and confident in her life before. She now had the power of the entire hunter guardians behind her.
Just as Peyton was about to leave, the Alpha Guardian called her.
"Peyton, we don''t take prisoners" her words were cold, filled with murderous intent. Peyton nodded obediently before leaving the hall.
"Tiriana" after Peyton left the hall, the Alpha Guardian called her second inmand.
"Alpha Guardian"
"Shadow them and protect the Kethen kid. He''s not ready yet"
"As you wish Alpha Guardian. But why send him in at all if this is not safe for him?"
For the rest of the guardian guild, Tiriana was Alpha Guardian''s second inmand but in reality, they were best friends. Hence, only Tiriana had the guts to question the Alpha Guardian.
"Because Peyton is not a leader, he is" Before Tiriana could as another question, the Alpha Guardian answered her question as she had read Tiriana''s mind
"Peyton is expendable like all of us Tiri but not him"
*****************************************
"So shall we leave? I need a good night''s sleep before the tournament" Gaya was lying on the bed as Michael was modifying the APD to be undetectable during the tournament.
"Instead of sleeping, you should cultivate. Do not underestimate your opponents, snake"
"Have some faith, jerk. It''s not like I''m going to lose to a bunch of Body Strengthening kids" she sent a bolt of arch energy to hit him on the shoulder with a flick.
"I''m not talking about the run of the mill cultivators. I''m talking about the prodigies"
"Speaking about prodigies" Gaya turned sideways on the bed to look at him,
"You are not as mad as I thought about human trafficking. You''re awfully calm"
"What would you want me to do? Loose my screws and go berserk on Minister Magnus. You of all people know there are thousands of people who get hurt every day. We can''t stop them all or it''s not our focus right now" Michael finally fixed the APD with the help of the system. He put the APD back around his wrist.
"What happened to those girls was indeed a tragedy but every tragedyes with an opportunity. I just utilized it. If we were to go with the n of recruiting Sadie before, she would have contacted the Guardian guild in a split second. But now" Michael just grinned.
"You''re cold as fuck and that''s why I love you" she jumped up from the bed towards him. Wrapping her hands around his neck from behind, she gentlynded a soft kiss on his cheek.
Boom!
"What the?" just as she was about to reach for his lips, the entire shoo violently shook. She would have thrown off to the wall if it wasn''t for her hands around his neck.
Michael''s face immediately turned serious as he detected several hostels approaching the ship from all directions. They appeared so suddenly.
"We are under attack!"
Boom!
Boom!
The ship shook again as the booming sound continued to reverberate. Soon, the wall behind Michael''s throne was obliterated into millions of wooden splinters by a five-meter-long purple arrow.
"Lightning Dash" he immediately cast the lightning dash, sensing another arrow soaring towards them.
"Argh"
"Human!"
Michael growled as Gaya saw an arrowhead striking out from Micahel''s chest. The arrow would have pierced her if he didn''t shield her with his body.
Pulch!
"Grrr!"
Before the APD couldpletely heal the wound, another arrow pierced him from behind.
"Go put all our crew in the container and tell Gibson to submerge!"
Ignoring the pain, Michael quickly ordered Gaya. He could sense some powerful figures approaching them.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The sound of cannon fires appeared again. The ship was getting destroyed in all directions. He could see the smoke and mesing through the hole behind him. His focus was not on saving the ship but saving Gaya and the crew.
"You''reing with us!"
"Lightning Dash" As Gaya shook her head, Michael dashed away yet he was toote as another arrow pierced his shoulder. His blood sttered on Gaya''s face. She began to shiver.
"We have no time to argue GO!" Activating the death range, Michael stomped the floor as they dropped from their cabin to the below deck.
They were knee-high in water. The huge holes in the hull let the seawater rush inside the ship. He could see the ship would sink in a few hours if this attack continued.
"GO!" Pushing away Gaya, he raised his arms at her. A strong gust of wind immediately sent her flying away from him. Since Maxine left with Sadie to meet with Tiberius, the task of saving the crew fell on Gaya''s shoulder.
Michael leaped back to the cabin through the hole again. Instead of using Lightning Dash which might reveal his identity as Ghost, he flew out of the room.
The moment he stepped out of the cabin, he was weed by numerous airships hovering above them. Each of them resembled a man of war with a huge air balloon attached on top to make them fly.
Michael pulled out the three arrows sticking out of his chest one by one. He stored them in his space ring before moving towards the door to the below deck. He tried to remain calm despite being surrounded by several warships in all directions.
He ripped off a wooden piece from the wall. Then, he shoved it across the door to prevent anyone from the other side from opening.
The ship then began to vibrate as the captain''s cabin slowly moved downwards. Michael rxed a bit realizing the submerging still works. He calmly walked towards the captain''s cabin, looking at people wearing silver armor dropping from the warships above him using ropes.
"Guardians"
Everything around him moved in slow motion. The sight of his ship getting bombarded to death gave him a mixed emotion of sadness and anger. He couldn''t help wondering how the guardians managed to locate him. It seemed like someone outsmarted him or left a piece of evidence behind somewhere that led them to him.
As he was walking to his room, he noticed golden arrows soaring through the cloud. They didn''t hit him butnded on the deck in a formation. The formation soon created a translucent blue dome around the ship.
Whoosh!
In a couple of moments, the entire Silent Reaper submerged into the water.
"Human! Human, are you there?!" Gaya''s voice sounded in his head. Her voice was filled with dread and panic.
"Take all of them to the crypt. Don''te back under any circumstance"
"No! You can''t leave me" her voice stuttered,
"I''m not. Just do what I said. I''ll put airbags in your space ring, use them to breathe underwater. Unless you want me dead, do note looking for me"? Michael cut the connection between them immediately. He didn''t have time to argue with Gaya.
Entering the system store, he quickly bought airbags for the crew to breathe inside the container.
[The host cannot use runic teleportation while in a battle]
The system reminded him. Although he did not forget about this, he just tried his luck.
His room immediately flooded with seawater. He sat on his throne waiting for the ship to emerge so he could wee the guardians personally.As he was sitting on his throne, the cloud of darkness slowly faded away. He felt something blocking him from using Arch energy. The sensation was simr to what he felt during the fight with the young master. The young master used a rune formation to prevent Ghost from using the Lightning dash. This felt simr but stronger.
*************************************
After the ship emerged from the water, in addition to hearing several footsteps, he also sensed the warships circling the Silent Reaper in a diamond formation.
His X-ray vision enabled him to see through the wall. He could see at least fifty Core Strengthening stage cultivators with crossbows, spears, and swords surrounding the cabin. Among those, there were a few weak ones. Instead of the Core Strengthening warriors, it was these weak ones that kept walking towards his cabin. He just ced an orb on the table, waiting for them toe in.
Boom!
The front door exploded into bits as four figures walked into the room through the cloud of dust. Michael recognized four figures immediately. They were Peyton, Xanali, Alicia, and finally Noah Winston.
"Lucifer," Peyton said as the Core Strengthening warriors in silver armor flooded the room, surrounding Michael.
"Your game ends here"
Chapter 317 - I Am THE DARK LORD
"Took you long enough," Michael said,zily sitting on the throne.
"System, can you disable the formation around me?" he asked the system in his mind. He sensed a dome of pressure around him that prevented him from using Arch energy. Although it would be hard to kill all of them, if the system could disable the formation, he could use the runic teleportation to leave the ship.
"Did you really think if you''re inside the void line, we, the guardians cannot catch you?" Peyton snickered.
"You have no idea how we caught you, do you?"
Michael wanted to ask them about it somehow yet Peyton''s ego was so big that she herself started to exin without even Michael asking.
"There''s a saying in Elon you know" Peyton started to walk around Michael with her hands behind. Her ample chest was puffed up as she felt so proud of herself.
"Guardians can go to ces that even the air couldn''t"
[Disabling the formation would cost the host 14,000 badass points. Currently, the hostcks the required points. Do you want to take a loan from the system for a measly 30% interest?]
Despite the pickle of a situation he was in, the system had the galls to joke around.
"Yes, do it"
[Oh? Alright then] the system sounded surprised. The system thought Michael would activate the banker function to convert the gold coins into badass points instead of taking a loan. As far as Michael was concerned, earning the required 1.4 million gold coins was harder than earning 18,000 badass points to settle the debt.
[Disabling formation has begun...]
[600 seconds remaining...]
[599 seconds remaining...]
A grin appeared on his face behind the mask.
"You were too busy ying the good guy to notice a guardian hiding in the container with the SilverMoon girls. Gina" Peyton pped as a girl in ravaged clothes entered the room. She had an oval face smeared with mud, blood, and oil. It was hard to differentiate mud from her brown hair. Michael looked directly into her hazel eyes before taking his eyes away from her.
Michael saw this girl among the SilverMoon girls. Unlike Peyton was thinking, he did anticipate a spy. That was why he kept the girls alone in a separate room, not letting any of his crew except a few. He realized that Gibson failed to count the girls before sending them to Tiberius. Good thing that he always kept his crew away from the girls as Gina probably had not seen their faces.
Without seeing their faces, the chances of capturing them in the Southern continent were zero to none. It seemed that Gina used the darkness of the room to escape Gibson''s eyes. She was probably hiding in the room,municating with the guardians until now.
"So you know what happened to those girls and who was responsible?" Michael asked Peyton but directed his gaze at Noah.
"He will be punished for his crimes, just like you," Peyton calmly said.
"Will? Let me guess, you''re still investigating" Michael snickered. He couldnt believe the ipetence of the guardians.
"You don''t have to worry about that Lucifer or should I call you the Dark Lord?"? Peyton stopped walking to stare him in the eyes.
"We will catch him, just like we caught you. Justice will prevail" Xanali coldly spoke instead of Peyton.
"Hahaha" they were slightly stunned by the suddenughter escaping Michael''s mouth.
"Cut your bullshit, Naga"? Xanali clenched her fist as her mouth kept opening and closing in shock. She was quite speechless. Among the people in the room, only Peyton knew about her race. She kept her Naga origin as a well-hidden secret. She couldn''t figure out how he saw through her transformation.
"You never caught me. You''re here because of him" Michael looked at Noah. If anyone could find him in this room, he knew it would be Noah.
Noah''s calmness spoke louder than Peyton''s ego-filled words.
"I can tell that you were nning this for months. You might feel proud deep down huh Noah?"? Michaelpletely ignored Peyton and Xanali as he looked at Noah.
"I am feeling proud. Catching an evil bastard like you always makes me proud and happy" Noah walked towards Michael from the corner of the room. He flicked his wrist as a throne made of pure gold appeared before the table, directly opposite to Michael.
Everything around them slowed down, including the time itself. For a moment, Xanali saw a bright light radiating from Noah while pitch-ck darkness radiating from Lucifer.
"You just used the girls who were raped, tortured, and killed to catch me. If I''m evil, what do you think makes you? Have you ever tried to catch Minister Magnus? Or you want more dead bodies as evidence before catching him?"
"Don''t worry, after dealing with you. I''m going straight to Minister Magnus. He will pay for what he did, just like you"
"What about his partners? Do you know the containers they were using to smuggle girls had the symbol of guardians, not just the one Gina was in?"
Michael''s question stunned Noah. Unlike Michael who lived two lives, Noah was still naivepared to him.
"The Guardian Guild is not how it used to be, Andreas" the moment Michael uttered the name, Noah''s eyes went wide. Subconsciously he touched his ring. The very next moment, a faint whistling sound reverberated the room. A sudden pressure enveloped the room.
Thop!
Thop!
Thop!
One by one, the Core Strengthening warriors around Michael started to fall down. In a few moments, only Michael remained conscious as even Noah''s eyes were shut closed. Soon, an ethereal figure appeared beside Noah. The figure was a man in his early forties. He had shoulder-length white hair, stubble beard, broad shoulders as well as a mark of the rising sun right between his eyes.
"We finally meet Dark Lord"
"Supreme Guardian Andreas McLeod," Michael said. When he was on the treacherous ind, the sliver of soul left behind Andreas talked about his sessor. It was just a guess that Noah would be the sessor. He always doubted that something weird going on with Noah yet Michael never expected he had a ring with an OP grandpa in it. Moreover, the Supreme Guardian actually revealed himself to Michael instead of doing the opposite. It was a stupid move to reveal his sessor to Michael, at least Michael thought that way.
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[The host cannot kill Noah!]
[The target has a powerful mark on him. At the current system level, the system cannot protect the host from dying if you killed Noah!]
The moment Michael thought about ending Noah''s life here and now, the system began to scream in his mind. His eyesight was filled with red shes of warnings.
"I was searching for you for more than three thousand years Dark Lord"
"You shouldn''t go searching for death, Andreas"
"Humph" with a snicker, the ethereal form of Andreas faded into Noah''s body. The very next moment, the ethereal form disappeared, Noah opened his eyes. However, his pupils were not ck but shone in bright white. His white robes glimmered like they were made of white gold. Even Noah''s ck hair slowly changed white. It wouldn''t take a genius to see that Andreas just took over Noah''s body.
"I''m not the one who searched for death, Dark Lord. The moment you chose to go against the Guardian Guild, you signed your death warrant. I''m d we stopped you before you could start a war"
Michael slightly leaned forward but the Supreme Guardian flicked his wrist as numerous spikes made of Celestial energy materialized around Michael, ready to skew his body.
"Don''t even think about it. This ends now" Michael could feel any one of these spikes could end his life if Andreas wished.
"You were right about one thing though. The guardians are indeed bing idiots, they still haven''t unmasked you yet. I want to see if you''re really the devil or a traitor of the human race" an ethereal hand moved towards Michael''s mask,
"I wouldn''t do that if I were you" The hand stopped for a second,
"System, connect the video feed of Noah''s home to the orb before me"
Teleporting away from the room was one of his ns, it was n A. However, at this moment, he chose to go with n B. The moment he saw Noah, he plotted this n in his mind.
[With pleasure]
Andreas noticed the orb on the table between them suddenly glowed. Soon, the ss orb started to show him a familiar ce, Noah''s home.? The bright glow in Noah''s eyes flickered.
"I made your entire guild piss their pants before even I came to this world. I''m THE DARK LORD '''' the moment the words dark lord escaped his mouth, he willed the system to activate the cloud of darkness and the eyes of darkness, showing hisplete Lucifer form to the supreme guardian.
"You have no idea what I''m capable of" His crimson red eyes moved away from Noah to Gina who was lying on the ground unconsciously. The supreme guardian turned his neck to see Gina. Michael controlled the Spyders in the room to move to Gina. He controlled the Spyders telepathically to inject her with their poison.
A few seconds after, at first, her body twitched. Then the supreme guardian saw a white forming out of her mouth as her body started to twitch violently. The form quickly turned white to red while her eyes rolled back.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 4000 badass points]
....
Chapter 318 - Good Bye
"Look at that, they are having a family dinner" Michael evilly chuckled looking at the orb before him. Noah''s eyes flickered, indicating Noah trying to take back his body.
"By destroying the ship, you guardians made it personal. So what if I take something you love Noah? For example, your little sister" Michael slowly, just very slowly moved his finger to snap.
"Stop," Andreas said as his shout shook the entire room.
"Get this through your thick skull Andreas, you cannot stop me. I will warn you only once, back off or everyone you care about will die. You guardians say I''m bad, trust me, I''m the worst"
As he said, Michael snapped, willing the system to teleport him back to Abyssal. Michael wanted to confront him more but he could feel the dizziness oveing his senses due to the blood loss. Considering Andreas was a 6-star Alchemist, Michael didn''t dare to use APD. The Supreme Guardian would have recognized the healing potion, connecting the dots between Ghost and Lucifer.
The tight armor kept the blood loss minimal yet after a time, he had to leave the ship. It was also one of the reasons Michael left the ship without beating the crap out of the guardians when they were unconscious. After Noah''s body was overtaken by Andreas, his power skyrocketed from Core Formation stage two to Fusion Stage level 10. He knew he would not stand a chance fighting the Supreme guardian with his current status.
Fortunately, he had Spyders in Noah''s home to ckmail the Supreme Guardian. Else, Andreas wouldn''t have let him leave without a fight.
With ast nce at his Silent Reaper sinking into the sea, Michael teleported to the Abyssal. His heartfelt heavy seeing his ship sink.
******************************************
"Human!"
The moment Michael appeared in the darkroom, he heard the panic-stricken voice of Gaya. Azazel quickly waved his hand as the room immediately lightened up to reveal blood-soaked armor.
Gaya''s eyes watered up as she pulled off Michael''s skull mask. His face was pale, blood trickled down from his nostrils.
Everything hurt. Their head hurt, their chest hurt, their feet hurt. A sharp pain struck their chest from deep within him. He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. Perhaps if he could shift his focus away from the pain to Gaya''s face, it''d be easier to manage.
He took a deep breath and shifted their focus, determined to swallow the pain and keep going. Activating the APD, he struggled onwards, only to stumble on Gaya.
"Ghost!" she caught him as Nightmare wrapped his wings around him to steady Michael. Tears were rolling out of the dragon''s eyes. Vedora walked away from Michael''s bed to give him space to lie down.
A sharp pain struck his chest from deep within. One hand wrapped around Gaya''s shoulder while the other sped his chest in agony. The pain subsided at times, only to re up again and with seemingly increased intensity. It''d probably take a simple and obvious decision to either give up or keep going at this point, but that decision just didn''t seem toe.
It became harder and harder to swallow the pain, to ignore the sensations and the voices telling him to stop. On any other day, he would have used a healing potion to heal himself, but not today. The arrow pieces inside his body stopped the healing potion from healing him.
"Mydy, quickly remove his armor" Azazel instructed Gaya. Nightmare helped Michael lie down on the bed. Soon, the white mattress turned red in his blood.
"Why aren''t you using the healing potion!?" She ripped off Michael''s armor to see two wounds on his chest and one in his shoulder. She poured the healing potion into the wounds after taking a potion from her space ring.
"You...need...to(cough)" Michael tried to inform her about the arrow pieces inside his body yet when he tried to talk, he started to cough up blood.
If it wasn''t for the APD injecting him with a healing potion, he would have lost consciousnesspletely.
Seeing the blooding out of his mouth, her mind went nk.
"There''s something preventing the healing potion from healing him" Since Nightmare could see the energy flow with his eyes, he noticed the energying from the healing potion getting sucked by something inside Michael.
"Then you need to cut him open and get it out," Sarba said as the other two heads nodded.
"Yes(cough)" Michael coughed before clenching her hand tightly.
"What?! No no i... can''t"
"You have to, mydy. The rest of us don''t have hands like you"
"He''s a dying bitch, do as we say" Ayag jumped between Michael and Gaya to shout at Gaya. Nightmare saw a dagger materialize in Michael''s hand.
He picked up the dagger before handing it over to Gaya.
"What if...what if he died?" Gaya sobbed. She never felt her body shiver like this before. Her brainpletely stopped working as the fear of losing Michael hit her to the core.
"He will if you do nothing" Cain, the ckhead said, breaking his silence.
Michael quickly paid the system to light up the ces in his body where the arrow pieces were stuck. Gaya was not a doctor to operate the arrow pieces out. Therefore, he helped her by lighting up the arrow pieces'' locations in his body.
"What''s happening?" She was stunned to see the skin near the wounds radiating a golden light from within.
"The arrow pieces" with the help of the golden light, she saw the pieces stuck inside him.
As she was moving her shaking hands towards the wounds, Michael''s eyes started to close.
"Lord Nightmare, keep pouring the healing potion into his mouth" Azazel flicked his wrist as the healing potions Michael kept on his workbench flew directly into Nightmare''s hands.
Quickly the three heads of Vedora pulled out the corks of the healing potions.
"Please...please don''t leave me," Gaya cried. The lump in her throat prevented her from speaking loudly. Gently she ced the dagger on the wound to cut.
She could feel the energy pulsesing from the broken arrow pieces. In a blink of an eye, she felt all kinds of emotions like sadness, grief, anger, and resentment.
"Please hurry mydy" Azazel rushed her. She wiped off the tears from her face. Finally, she overcame her emotions realizing the dire situation. Her hands stopped shaking as she made the first cut.
Immediately blood sshed out from the wound. The piece of the rune on the arrow pulsated energy that kept gushing out Michael''s blood.
"There it is," Nightmare noticed a broken three-inch arrow piece in the wound. It was glowing dimly.
"Argh"
"What is that?" Ayag noticed a silver tool appear in Michael''s hand again. It looked like scissors in Gaya''s eyes. The cut was only an inch wide. Therefore, if she tried to pull out the arrow piece by hand, it would do more damage. When she saw the tool, she knew how to use it.
"Don''t...cry¡(cough)" Michael opened his eyes with great difficulty. He couldn''t even move a muscle in his body.
"I''ll be...fine" finally Michael let out these words with a gentle smile before closing his eyes.
"I won''t let you die" Gaya pulled out the broken arrow piece straight away without wasting any time.
The moment the broken arrow piece exited Michael''s body, the healing potion took effect. They saw the wound rapidly closing. It did not even leave a scar. Seeing the wound close up gave her the strength to move to the next wound.
************************************
Almost half an hourter, Nightmare sighed a sigh of relief. All the wounds in Michael''s bodypletely healed up. He was peacefully sleeping on the bed. With the help of Azazel, they changed the bloodied sheets and Michael''s clothes.
Everything in the room had been changed except for Gaya. She was staring at Michael with a bloodied face and hands. No one could tell what she was thinking. She just stared at Michael in silence.
"I''ll go something for you to eat," Nightmare said hovering in front of her.
"Yes," she nodded as Nightmare left the room to go collect some fruits in the dark forest.
"Go make sure this ce is secure" Gaya ordered Azazel who was standing behind her. Her eyes were fixed on Michael.
"As you wish, mydy" after Azazel disappeared, she looked around the room. After seeing no one in the room, she made her way towards Michael''s workbench.
There was a hint of resolution could be seen in her eyes like never before. She sat on the chair, taking out a parchment and a quill. Tears flowed onto the parchment while she was writing. Almost after ten minutes, she closed the parchment. Michael was oblivious to what''s happening around him as he was peacefully sleeping. He did not even notice Gaya cing a parchment beside him with the earpiece he gave her.
"Goodbye human" she gently kissed him on the forehead. Everything they went through shed across Gaya''s eyes. What she decided to do wasn''t easy. Her heart bled just to think about her decision. For almost a year, she had never left his side. Even when he was in the Nether Realm or treacherous ocean, they kept in touch through the earpiece, It never felt like they were apart.
Her smile on the face contained an immense amount of sadness.. After kissing him again on the forehead, she left the room.
Chapter 319 - I Will Love You Till The End Of Time
"Arrghh fuck" Michael growled, slowly opening his eyes. He hadpletely lost of time. Everything around him was dark. He instinctively turned his head to see if Gaya was lying beside him as usual. Except, when he turned aside, a parchment rolled out from his chest.
"Gaya" he called out for her looking around the room. He received no response. At first, he thought she went outside. However, he felt a strange void in his heart. He picked up the parchment,
"Azazel" before opening the parchment, he called out for his butler.
In a few mere moments, the demon butler appeared before Michael.
"Turn the lights on"
With a wave of his hand, the demon butler lit the room.
Michael opened the parchment to read. Azazel noticed Michael creasing his brows. A hint of shock and sadness emerged in his eyes.
Dear Human,
It''s funny that after everything we went through, I never knew your real name. I think even if I know your name, I might continue to call you human because you were the first person who actually helped when I needed help the most. I can still remember the day I met you vividly. This past year is the happiest time of my life. If I were to die today, I''d happily greet death as the happiest girl in this world. You are the best thing that happened to me
When you were bleeding on the bed, I couldn''t do anything. That feeling was worse than death. If I was only faster, stronger, I could have helped you. These words kept repeating in my mind. I don''t think I can ever go through something like that again. I''d rather die than hurt you but I must do this for both our sakes. I hope you understand how difficult it is for me to make this decision to leave your side. I''m going somewhere that I should have gone a long time ago human. I wille back to you stronger or dead, either way, I wille back to you. Please don''te searching for me unless you want me dead.? I didn''t have the courage to say this to your eyes. That''s why I''m leaving you with this letter. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. Look after Nightmare and Vedora for me.
I love you and I will love you till the end of time.
Gaya Ashton ( I hope the gods bless me to change Ashton to your name human)
Michael felt a lump in his throat after reading the letter. When he finished reading thest word, a drop of tears rolled out of his eyes without his control.
"My lord" Azazel called out as he had no idea what''s on the letter or what made Michael act this way. Her words hurt him more than the arrows did.
"System"
[The system''s level is too low to track her location without the earpiece host. Besides, there are some ces in this world that trying to track her down would backfire and kill her]
His heartbeat slowly raised to the point the veins in his eyes popped, making his eyes redder and redder. It became extremely hard to control his anger towards the guardians. If it wasn''t for them, she wouldn''t have left him. At this moment, he felt weak and helpless. He couldn''t even imagine losing her, especially when he was nning to propose to her.
He slowly walked towards the monitoring mirrors on the wall. One of the mirrors had no footage as it reflected Michael''s body.
Boom!
Michael punched the mirror as it exploded into thousands of tiny pieces. His punch formed a fist-shaped hole in the wall. He did not use any spell or skill, just punched the wall with pure anger. blood trickled out of the cuts and scratches on his fist.
"My lord" Azazel immediately waved his hand as a healing potion flew from the worktable to heal his wound.
"What''s that sound?" Nightmare flew into the room to see Michael standing in front of a broken mirror. He noticed the bloodied parchment in Ghost''s hand.
"Ghosty you''re awake, what happened?"
Michael threw the parchment to Nightmare as he caught it with his hands in the mid-air. Nightmare opened the parchment that had dots of Michael''s blood-soaked in to read while hovering in the air.
"What the hell? Sigh" Nightmare sighed. He noticed something was wrong after Gaya finished taking out the broken arrow pieces. She was awfully silent after Michael had been healed. Nightmare never thought she would actually decide to leave them.
"Ghosty" Nightmare threw the parchment on the bed before flying to Michael''s side. He put his hand on Michael''s shoulder to console him.
"Why did she leave?" Michael turned his gaze to look at Nightmare.
"She had to Ghosty" Nightmare''s answer surprised Michael.
"She was powerless to do anything when you were in trouble, she was powerless to save you when you were bleeding on the bed, moments away from dying. Just imagine yourself in her shoes, imagine what she went through. Wouldn''t you go searching for something that will make you stronger so you won''t feel powerless? I''m not saying leaving us was the right choice, I''m saying I don''t me her. And you shouldn''t do"
Michael clenched his fist again,
"I don''t me anyone but the Guardians" as he said, he walked towards the workbench. He clenched the table tightly,
"Until now, I just wanted the Guardians out of my way. Moving forward, I''ll destroy everything Andreas built, piece by piece. When I''m done with the Guardians, they won''t be anything left"
[New Goal added!]
The moment he took a resolution to destroy the guild once and for all, he heard a system notification in his mind.
"Where has she gone?" His anger towards guardians quickly faded away when his eyesnded on the room''s corner where his robes were hanging on the wall.
His ck robes brought back a sweet memory from a few days ago in front of his eyes.
*************************************
(few days ago)
"Morning" Michael slowly opened his eyes. He held the bed sheets tightly as he curled under the thick quilt. When his sleepy vision cleared, he saw Gaya sitting beside him.
Instead of greeting him with some snarkyments, she was fully focused on the task at hand. She wasn''t even blinking as her tongue stuck out above her cherry upper lip, almost brushing the tip of her nose.
The moment he saw what''s in her hand, his sleepiness instantly disappeared.
"Hey what the hell are you doing to my clothes?" He threw the quilt aside to stand up.
"What does it look like?" she said without taking her eyes from Michael''s long ck trench coat.
"Im putting on embroidery. It''s gonna look so cool when I''m done" Michael craned his neck to see his trench coat. There was an unknown shape that looked like a baby of a circle and a square.
"What is that? A kidney or something? Wait that looks like a circle with a stick in it"
Only then she took her gaze away from his trench coat. She turned her murderous gaze at him,
"It''s a ''G'' you blind asshole"
"Hahahaha, G? Who taught you embodiment?" Michael burst intoughter, making her madder and madder. She would look extremely cute when she''s mad. He couldn''t help pinching her soft cheeks while wrapping her with his arms. There was the hug of gentle arms that still gives the space to breathe; then there was the hug of strong arms that tells everything, your body, brain, and soul that they are with you. She loved both, the duvets and the human shields, each had their time. The way he hugged her at the moment was a hybrid of both hugs. His embrace was strong yet gentle, filled with love and care. She was unable to stay mad at him under his passionate hug.
"G for Ghost or Gaya?"
"Just like in our cards, G for Ghost for others but it really stands for Gaya. This way" she lifted his trench coat to show him her rather unique looking ''G''
"I''ll always be closer to your heart"
"I prefer the real thing" his hug tightened as he smooched her cheek beforending a soft kiss on her soft, rosy cheek.
"Did you put this embroidery on your clothes?" she bit her tongue, slowly wiggling herself out of his embrace.
She went to the edge of the bed. He saw a foxy smile emerge on her face,
"I didn''t want to spoil my clothes. '''' She quickly started to run after saying these words.
"I knew it, stop!"
Theirughter reverberated the walls of the Abyssal. Their happiness lit up this dark ce.
*******************************************
Michael put on his clothes to leave Abyssal. This ce never felt like home without Gaya around. He gently tapped the embodiment on his chest, reminiscing the moments with her in his mind.
"In the letter, she said take care of me and Vedroa but I saw Vedora with her when she was flying away," Nightmare said,
"You saw her leave?" Michael frowned,
"Yeah, I thought she''s going to the sect"
"At Least someone''s with her" Michael sighed in rx,
"I trust her, she wille back to me" Finally Nightmare saw his usual smile appear on his face. Nightmare was really afraid of Michael going on a rampage or going into a self-destruct mood. But after seeing his smile, he felt like an immense amount of pressure was being lifted off of his shoulder.
"Come on, we have a tournament to win"
Chapter 320 - Three Days To The Championship Tournament
"Keep monitoring Azazel, especially that house"
"I will contact you the moment if I find something amiss, Lord Lucifer" Azazel bowed his head.
"Where are Aria and Dr?"
"They are both cultivating in their rooms, Lord Lucifer. Do you wish to see them?"
Michael shook his head, "No need. Nightmare, let''s go"
He willed the system to activate the runic teleportation. In a few seconds, the space before them twisted as they felt the familiar sensation of being teleported.
***************************
"I never get used to this feeling. '''' Nightmare shook his head to calm down his nerves. After being teleported, he felt like he was about to throw up. Fortunately, he learned to control this nasty sensation.
Since Gaya destroyed their home, Michael had to leave a rune on arge oak tree near the construction site where his home used to be. There was no one working at the construction site as it seemed like early morning. The usual golden rays of sun on the horizon were nowhere to be seen. It was a chilly cloudy morning.
On this cloudy morning, there were growing patches of blue, the sort of hue that was soft and bright at the same time. Though beneath the sheet of cloud was a gray that deepens to steel, the leading edge is a brilliant white, as if it were the pages of a new book ready for any curious eye. So, on this day that could bring rain or sunshine, he hoped for heavy rain because rain plus hot coffee always calmed his soul.
In the sky, the clouds were arranged as neatly as child''s toys, scattered over blue, content to drift where they fell. The morning sun had the potential to bring a day as hot as yesterday, but those wonderful puffs of white radiated it back out into space. The air was cooler, the colors less vivid and all without a drop of rain.
Nightmare shrunk his size just enough tofortably sit on Michael''s shoulder like a bird. He wrapped his tail around Michael''s neck for extra hold as well asfort. Walking out of the forest, he made his way to ire''s home.
"Good Morning brother Ghost"
"Good Morning Nightmare"
Michael''s home was located near a green lush forest at the far end of the sect. It was rather a solitary ce just like Michael''s preference. Plus, it was built on a small hill so he had to walk the stairs to reach ire''s mansion. While climbing down the hill, he met several disciples in ck uniform who greeted them with the utmost respect in their eyes. Besides the disciples, the hill, the surrounding areas, and the staircase were filled with g poles. They hadn''t hoisted the gs yet but it seemed like the disciples were nning a huge celebration before the tournament.
"Good morning" Michael greeted them back with a small smile. He could see they were looking around him for Gaya as she was always used to being near him.
"Brother Ghost, we are betting on you to win"
"The whole sect will be there, make us proud Brother Ghost"
The disciples were extremely excited. They were brimming with smiles. Michael just nodded to their requests along the way to ire''s mansion.
After reaching the most popted area of their sect where the most buildings were, in addition to a long line of carriages hooked to two to four horses, he saw several fancy carriages with pegasi in front.
"One¡.two¡.three" He saw Ricky in the distance counting the carriages one by one. He had parchment and a quill in his hand as he marked something on the parchment every time he counted a carriage.
"Young Master Ghost"
"Young Master Ghost"
"Look it''s a dragon"
"Such a majestic creature"
"Greetings Young Master Ghost"
Along the way to Ricky, Michael was greeted by several men of various ages. They were the owners or the drivers of the carriages. They all bowed their heads slightly to show their respect to the youngest 5-star alchemist of Elon.
"Oh Master Ghost, wee back" Ricky stopped counting the carriages to greet Michael.
"What''s going on here?" Michael asked,
"Sect Leader ire hired these carriages for the disciples and the elders, Master Ghost. We are alling to witness you and sister Aelia kick ass and take the championships" as Ricky speaks with excitement, his eyes searched behind Michael to locate Gaya.
"Is everyoneing to Royalnd?"
"You betcha Master Ghost. Oh," Ricky seemed like he had a sudden realization,
"Lord Christopher is staying behind I think"
"Where is Daniel?"
"With Lady Raylene, today they are starting to cultivate thends near river town" Ricky''s eyes sparkled in delight as he was born in River town. If the river town was getting developed into a buzzling city, his family would have an even better life. With the sry he was getting from Ghost, Ricky''s family had already be one of the wealthiest families in the river town.
Ricky was not a selfish person. Hence, he wanted the entire river town to be a rich city.
"Carry on" Michael gave a pat on his back before resuming his journey to ire''s manor.
"See youter Nightmare"
"You too Ricky"
Nightmare waved his hand while lying on Michael''s shoulder. The duo continued to get greetings from the carriages drivers and owners. When Michael came to ire''s manor, he saw several youngsters in rather raggedy clothes waiting in line before ire''s manor.
"Hey look, it''s GHost!"
"Shhh, don''t let him hear you"
"Yeah call him brother Ghost like the others"
It didn''t take a genius to see they were waiting to join the sect. They were pretty nervous.
"Wee to the Sunrise sect, my fellow brothers and sisters"
A few words from Michael made them shudder in shock. Soon, their nervousness transformed into unending delight. Their eyes sparkled.
Although he knew ire was interviewing them, he wanted these poor kids to rx as ire never rejected anyone. If Michael was not a genius in Alchemy, he would have urged them toe up with a screening process to filter the youngsters ording to their talent. Since was a genius, he could provide them with potions and pills to make any mediocre youngster a genius.
At the moment, the sect needed numbers the most if they were to be the best and the biggest in Elon. Moreover, they never expected a famous legend like him to actually talk to them instead of ignoring them. Most of their families spent fearing the nobles while developing an inferiorityplex. Therefore, when he talked to them, many couldn''t believe what was happening as their minds went nk.
"We''ll talkter. Again, wee to the Sunrise? sect"
Michael patted a few youngsters who were standing in front of their shoulders. He then walked into ire''s manor, leaving the youngsters bbergasted with his presence.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
...
Just interacting with the newbies provided him with almost 3000 badass points. He didn''t talk to them for badass points, he did because that felt right at the moment.
Entering ire''s manor, he made his way to the hall where he saw Elder Sandra and Elder Reiner conducting the interview. Elder Sandra nodded when she saw him while Elder Reiner waved at him with a wide grin on his face. The young girl who was being interviewed kept staring at him with her mouth wide open. In her eyes, he was the most handsome guy she had ever seen.
"Sect Leader ire is in the west study room"
"Thank you Elder '''' Michael didn''t linger around to raise the young girl''s heartbeat.
"Go straight and take the next right" Nightmare guided Michael to the study room. This mansion of ire had a total of eight rooms not including the two rooms for the indoor garden.
Nightmare spent most of his time with ire when he was not with Michael. Therefore, he knew the house like the back of his hand. Through the brightly lit corridor, he reached the study room to be weed by a rather odd-looking room. In his mind after hearing the word study room, he imagined the room to have dull-looking paint, several book racks filled with books, scrolls as well asrge tables. At that moment, he felt like he entered the Barbie world. The walls were painted with a subtle pink paint, that was neither too bright nor too dull. There was a single bed on the corner with two-four feet flower vases on each side. In the center of the room, he saw a round table. Even the book racks were painted in pinkish color. Several books were neatly stacked on top of each other on the table. ire was reading a book while Olivia was writing something on a parchment.
"Teacher" Olivia was the first to notice Michael standing in the doorway.
"Is this a study room or a girls'' room?" Michael dragged a chair before sitting backward on the chair. Seeing ire, Nightmare bounced off from his shoulder to ire''s shoulder. He nudged his head against ire''s cheek, giving her wet kisses.
"Hiya little guy" ire stopped reading the book to y with Nightmare.
"Ask ire. She was the one sleeping here instead of her room"? Olivia giggled.
"Where is your other half teacher?" in her jolly mood, Olivia asked. She pretended like she''s searching around Michael.
"She''s gone" the joyful smile on Olivia''s face instantly disappeared after hearing him.
"Not gone gone, she went to take care of something important to her"
"Without you?" ire frowned. ire knew the bond between the two of them. They were like joined in the hips, inseparable. Even when Aelia was not with him, she would always talk about him and the fun they had together. ire couldn''t even remember thest time Aelia talked about something that didn''t involve Ghost.
Just a few days ago, Aelia even asked questions rted to engagement to her and Raylene. Suddenly hearing her leaving Michael stunned ire.
ire couldn''t care less if Aelia was unable topete in the tournament, she just didn''t want the two of them to break their wonderful rtionship.
Chapter 321 - Two Days To The Championship Tournament
"Is everything alright between you two?" ire asked. He could see the worry in her eyes. A year ago, he was the number one assassin in the world, he had no one to worry about him. Although this world put him through various life-threatening rides on a daily basis, it also gave him people like ire who genuinely cared about him.
"Yeah" ire knew Michael enough to see the sorrow behind his calm eyes.
"If you want to talk about anything, we are here for you Ghost"
"What are you talking about? Teacher looks fine to me" seeing the worried look on ire''s face, Olivia questioned her. In her eyes, there was nothing amiss with Ghost.
"Have you ever been in love Olivia?"
ire''s question Ocaught Olivia off guard. She folded her arms, creasing her brows.
"No. Why do you ask?"
"When you''re in love, your eyes speak just as loud as your mouth. It''s anguage you might not learn in your life hehehe" ire giggled.
"Hey!" Olivia pouted. She threw a quill at ire but Nightmare caught the quill with his mouth before it could hit ire. The two girls almost forgot their status and started to y like little girls.
"See, I have a little guardian angel here" ire kissed Nightmare on his forehead.
"Sec Leader ire, when are you guys leaving the sect?"
Michael''s question put a stop to their childish y. ire quickly regained her sect leaderposure,
"In the evening. We''ll travel to Sarton by carriages and from there, we''ll take the ships to Royalnd. It''s an easier, safer and far shorter journey than traveling by road"
"Cool. So Olivia, how''re your studies going on?" He dragged the chair towards their study table.
"I finished the work you gave me teacher" with a flick of her wrist, she filled therge table with parchments.
Since Michael needed to take his mind off Guardians and Gaya, he decided to spend the time until they leave for Royal with Olivia.
"Let''s stop theory stuff and move onto the practicals. Take out your cauldron out" her face immediately lit up like someone lit a candle in her head.
In a blink of an eye, a dark violet cauldron appeared on the table. On its surface, several silver runes could be seen. In addition to the runes, there were etchings of various shapes such as flowers, nts, Olivia''s name as well as a lion''s head.
"Teacher, would I be able to make pills and potions like you? I mean without the cauldron"
If Olivia asked the same question a few months ago when she started to learn from him, he would have reallyughed it off. However, after all this time studying under him, he noticed the jump in her talent. At first, she was only able to make pills and potions with 50% purity. Now she could touch the 57% purity mark. Although he became a 5-star Alchemist in a few moments, after making almost thousands of pills and potions, he knew how hard it is to get the 7% leap in a short amount of time.
However, this was not the time for her to learn his technique. First, she needed to be his subordinate who has more than 95% loyalty. Only then, Michael would think about teaching her how to control the Alchemy mes like him.
"That''s too dangerous. A simple mistake and you''ll be served rare"
"Hahaha" ire couldn''t help chuckling.
Olivia stuck her tongue out at ire but she didn''t argue with Michael. She understood himpletely.
"Whoa, before you guys y with fire, I''ll take my books and leave this ce" ire quickly collected her books,
"I don''t want to be well done" ire winked at Olivia as she rolled her eyes,
"That''s terrible"
After ire left the study room with Nightmare, Michael began to teach Olivia how to use the cauldron to its maximum potential.
********************************
As the oat field encountered a peach sky, the evening hade in stately fashion, with all the grace of a breeze in repose. In that wee amber glow the time of slower thoughts had arrived, those moments when with open eyes, Michael''s mind became as a perfect empty horizon, seeing, yet content to sit. He felt the soothing breeze birthed by the surrounding foliage, became absorbed in the music of crickets, letting the gentle energy of nature wash in.
He watched the disciples getting in the carriages from the mountain peak, his usual ce to meditate. His ck trench coat fluttered in the wind while his turtle neck gave him a unique charm. Unlike before, he wore the dual sword sheath on his back. At the moment, it was empty.
He willed the system to retrieve the space ring given to him at the House Kane.
"It''s time for you two toe out" The space ring let out a faint whistling sound before two beautifully forged swords appeared in Michael''s hand.
The two swords had a de of a gray color, with a pattern made of swirls and triangles engraved on it. The de itself was engraved. A line of text ''Ghost'' was engraved on the des, which only added to the elegance of this weapon, as well as its cost. Each de had a small, straight cross-guard, justrge enough to make sure his fingers were safe and the de would remain firmly in your hands. The cross-guard had an intricate skull on each side, he knew the cost of this weapon must have been high.
In addition to the cross guard, a fairly small pommel was engraved with the symbol of its owner, again, a skull.
The two swords belonged to the Rare weapon ss which meant they could have three runes.At the moment, there were no runes on the sword but if Michael wanted, he could find a rune master to ce runes on the swords. The system level was too low to ce runes on the swords via the system.
Swing!
Swing!
Michael tossed the sword in the air as they both dramatically flew down straight into his sheathes.
[That was cool]
Even the system was impressive. He reached sword mastery to the point the swords felt like they were part of him.
"I know" With a swift leap, he jumped off from the cliff.In the mid air, he activated the lightning dash to fly towards the sect. Within a few blinks of an eye, he came to the pathway where the carriages were waiting to depart. The disciples were entering the carriages one by one without causing a ruckus. Many among the disciples painted their faces to resemble a skull while many female disciples had the letter ''G'' written on their faces using a ck dye.
The moment they saw Michaelnd at the pathway''s start, they started to cheer,screaming his name out loud.
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 200 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 300 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 600 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 700 badass points]
...
Michael was overwhelmed by their support.It was as he was a famous sportsman who entered the arena filled with his die hard fans.
"Cast a spell!" someone among the disciples had the courage to shout out for a spell.
"Cast a spell!"
"Cast a spell!"
Soon they all started to demand in unison.
"What the heck, Ignitia" Michael raised his two hands sping towards the sky. With an electric noise, the golden cracks of lightning danced around his entire arm before shooting to the sky as a thick bolt of lightning. The light produced by the lightning bolt brightened up the pathway.It was like a beacon, screaming Michael''s location.
The badass points rained as he almost earned yet another 6000 points by just casting a spell. It was cool to show off but he didn''t want to waste his energy before the tournament. Therefore, with a swift jump he leaped into the air. Ricky was waiting for Michael near thest carriage in the line. His carriage was hooked to four horses.As Michael preferred Ricky chose the fanciest and the mostfortable carriage in Bradford. It cost him extra 60 gold coins to paint it in ck.
"Master Ghost, shall we go?" Ricky asked. Even Ricky painted his face to resemble a skull so he could show his support to Ghost. Ricky would have painted an ''A'' for Aelia on his forehead if ire didn''t announce that Aelia is not participating in the tournament for personal reasons.
"Where''s Nightmare?"
"Oh he''s traveling with Sect Leader ire, Olivia and little Cindy"
"Cool"
Michael didn''t mind Nightmare travel with them. He loved the silence anyways.
Michael opened up the carriage to see red cushion seats with a small graceful round table in the middle for Michael to dine on. An elegant cup and ser set was on the table with a pot full of coffee made by Raylene herself. Coupled with the carriage''svender scent and the coffee fragrance, the carriage put a smile on his face.
"Do you like it, Master Ghost?" Ricky was slightly nervous but when Michael nodded with a smile, he felt relieved.
"Let''s go"
Chapter 322 - Unwanted Guests
The forest they were traveling through was gigantic, thick, and thriving. Its canopy was reigned by crab apple, ash, and rhododendron, enough light shimmered through their crowns for a medley of herbs to take advantage of the rich grounds below. Curling creepers suspended from many trees, and a potpourri of flowers, which blossomed brightly, adorned the otherwise amber terrain. A mor of wild noises, most of which were fleeing animals, filled the air and drowned out the asional sounds of birds of prey gliding in the air.
Inside the carriages, Michael was calmly sipping his coffee.
"Where are you snake?" He missed Gaya so much as he was checking the seat beside him for her. The scenery outside would have been even more beautiful if she was with him.
"So Master Ghost, since Miss Aelia is notpeting, who do you think would win the championship for the Body Strengthening stage?" Ricky asked from the driver''s seat.
"Well, I don''t know many prodigies in the Body Strengthening stage except for Evan, Victoria and Sabrina"
"If you have to bet on one of them, who would be your choice Master Ghost?"
"Definitely not that bitch Victoria"
"Hahaha, bad blood huh Master Ghost" Rickyughed. It felt like it was yesterday Michael spartan kicked Victoria off the stage. Within a year of time, he had gone from a lowly Foundation stage cultivator to Core Formation stage warrior. If it wasn''t for the tournament''s rule for not letting anyone above the Core Formation stage participate, he would have a breakthrough to the Core Strengthening stage. Compared to the badass points he could earn fighting the tournament, reaching the next stage wasn''t just as important for the time being.
"Master Ghost, I heard the princess and the king of Brediaing to watch the tournament" Michael could feel the excitement in his heart through his voice.
"Princess huh?"
To be honest, even Michael felt a little curious to see a princess in real life. It was hard to believe Gaya is a princess as she was thest person one would expect to be a princess. She was a rather unique girlpared to many in this world. She would do whatever she likes, speak whatever she wants and more than anything, she helped him instead of being a trouble ma.
"Have you ever met a princess before Master Ghost?"
"Kind of" Michael couldn''t help imagining Gaya in a pink Barbie princess dress with a star wand in her eyes. He chuckled inside.
"I haven''t. Is it true that princesses eat gold shavings to enrich their hair and their hair is worth a ton of coins? Are there any princesses without golden hair?" Ricky barraged Michael with questions that sounded ridiculous yet Michael enjoyed their little chat until something showed up in his Environmental scanning map.
"I''m pretty sure there are princesses with a hair color other than golden, Ricky"
"Will their hair go for a ton of coins?"
"Do you have a hair fetish or something?" Ricky scratched the back of his hand with an embarrassed look on his face. They continued to ride through the dark forest.
He gazed at the starry sky through the windows. The bright friends of the moon and their pattern that seems so fixed yet ever-changing, distant lights to call his heart, to remind him of the conversation he had with Gaya.
********************************
"Aaawn, why are you up?" Michael yawned, opening his eyes to see Gaya staring at the night sky. They were camping out on the mountain peak as they felt like sleeping under the sky.
"I was wondering how many stars are there" she was sitting on the ground while her hands wrapped around her knees.
"Are you really asking me that in the middle of the night? Juste here"? Michael pulled her down by her waist with one swoop.
"You know if we ever leave each other''s side for some reason, we can look at the moon and know that the other is looking at the same moon"
"Well well well, look who''s being romantic" Michael showered her with kisses all over her face. She enjoyed kissing every inch of her velvety soft face. He nibbled her ear while tickling her by running his hair gently through the side of her chest. It took extreme control not to do anything spicy. He respected her wish not to engage in anything other than kissing until marriage.
"Hey that¡tickles¡hehehe¡stop¡." she wiggled to escape his hold. She tried to retaliate by trying to tickle him back yet he simply overpowered her. Soon, their yfulughter reverberated the lonely mountain peak.
*******************************************
"Master Ghost, what do you think?"
In his moment of walking through the memoryne, hepletely ignored Ricky''s questions.
"What did you ask again?"
"Three guardians said that Mark was their brother. Mark said he had no brothers. Who was lying?"
"Who asked?" Michael asked while still keeping an eye on the figures in the Environmental scanning map. They were following the carriages for some time. The question in his mind was whether they were particrly following him or not.
"Cindy. I don''t know where she is getting these questions from. She keepsing up with questions none of us can answer. I really wonder if there is an answer to each question"
"There is" Michael retrieved a drone from the system storage while Ricky was busy trying to figure out an answer to Cindy''s question. The drone flew through the window disappearing into the dark forest.
"Really? Come on tell me Master Ghost, it''s time for payback" Ricky devilishlyughed. However, Michael did not tell him the answer as Ricky was expecting.
"Master Ghost, what are you doing?" Ricky turned back to see Michael opening the carriage door through the small hole before him and Michael.
"Just some sightseeing. Don''t stop, I''ll be back soon" Michael flew out of the carriage in the direction of the figures following him.
**************************************
"I''m getting bored, let''s start killing them all" a feminine voice could be heard from the dark forest. The voice was filled with murderous intent.
"Control your blood lust reaper. We must not alert the target, not until we cut his throat" another murderous voice sounded. This time, it was a male voice.
"Dibs on thedies" Another voice filled with lust spoke.
The three figures blended perfectly with the forest. The ck clothes they were wearing helped them merge with the darkness. They flew neither too fast nor slow but just enough pace to follow the carriages without alerting any of the sect members. If one looked closer into their eyes, a din glow could be seen in their eyes. The figures took the cat potion to enable their eyes to see in darkness.
"If you''re calling dibs on thedies, I call dibs on the target. I heard he''s quite the eye-catcher"
"Oh not that again. You take too long and scream loud enough to wake the entire city" one of the male voicesined.
"It''s a moan you idiot"
"No, it''s not"
"Silence you two" Everyone stopped talking. Soon, they started to hear rustling soundsing from ahead of them. They stopped flying immediately.
"I bet it''s a wild cat or something," the female figure said,
"Magical beast perhaps"
"There are no magical beasts in this part of the forest"
The rustling sound became louder and louder. They frantically looked around them to locate the source of the sound. It sounded like it''sing from all directions at the same time. But suddenly the rustling sound stopped.
"Diddle¡Diddle" the figures heard a voice as they all looked in the direction of the voiceing to see their target walking towards them. To their shock, their target had a smile on his face.
"Ghost" the female figure unsheathed her daggers from her waist. She then slowly licked the dagger like it was a candy bar.
"We are so little"
A couple of pop sounds came out from Michael''s neck when he cracked his neck.
"Isn''t this face to face better than following me from a distance?" Because of the wolf masks they were wearing, Michael couldn''t see the surprised look on their faces.
"You guys aren''t bad. It''s just im better, in fact, I''m the best at what you do"
His words immediately kindled the killing intent hidden within the figures. They gradually formed a triangle around Michael. The two male figures stood before Micahel while the female stood behind him.
"Now I see why someone put a half a million contract on your head. You have the knack to piss of wrong people"? one of the male figures spoke,
"Half a million you say, not bad. Is there by any chance you three know the name of the person who put a contract on my head?"
"I''m gonna enjoy every second of killing you" Michael heard the woman''s voiceing from behind. She was moaning.
"No idea who put the contract huh?" Michael sighed. It was disappointing but not unexpected. They were just tools sent by the Grim Reapers guild to kill him, the assassins wouldn''t know the one who gave the task to the guild. Only the higher-ups of the guild would know that information. Unfortunately, Michael had no chance of getting that information as the Grim Reapers were a powerful guild operating in shadows, just like the dark underworld he worked back on earth.
"First you reapers destroyed a shipment of mind, nowing to kill me. I''m really starting to get pissed"
"Humph, what are you gonna do? Kill us? You don''t even stand a chance"
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Chapter 323 - The Grim Reapers Again
"You picked a night time to kill me, good choice" Michael slowly walked forwards with his hands behind. The Grim Reapers were in no rush to kill him. It seemed like they wanted to kill him slowly, especially the woman behind Michael.
"Reduced visibility, darkness will help you blend and your spells would draw less attention" Michael listed some of the pros of choosing nighttime to assassinate someone in this forest.
"But" Michael stopped walking for a moment,
"you guys made a mistake"
"And what is that?" the woman asked. She started to breathe more and more heavily.
For a few moments, Michael didn''t answer. He just let the silence envelop the ce.
"You failed to study whether? your advantage would also be your target''s"
The Cat''s eye potion would enable the drinkers to see in the night yet it wouldn''t be like natural vision. Hence, the three assassins failed to notice the changes in the surroundings. As far as they were concerned, the night couldn''t get any darker. But it did when Michael cast the Death Range.
"Alright, I cant huh ow oh¡oh¡my god. Can''t wait any longer" suddenly her moans echoed through the forest out loud. She directly lunged at Michael.
"Love shackles" in the mid-air, she cast a spell as pink giant shackles materialized in the sky above Michael.
"Frost Rage"
"Illusion Lava" Michael''s surroundings suddenly changed. The dark forest transformed into a fiery hotva. He felt like he had been teleported into a boiling volcano.
In addition to the illusions, several humanoid creatures made of frosty ice appeared around him in a five-meter radius. If they weren''t only at Core Strengthening stage level 2, Michael wouldn''t have decided to face them head-on.
"Lightning Dash" He dashed away before the shackles couldnd on him.
Just while he was dashing away, he pinpointed the illusionary formation''s source point. The source was on the ground, under the dried-out leaves beside the Grim Reaper who cast the spell.
"Ignitia" the lightning bolt hit the source point with deadly uracy. Immediately his surroundings transformed back to normal.
"Ah" when the formation got destroyed, it bacshed as a burst of Arch energy stunned the spell caster. The Grim Reaper was momentarily stunned.
"Watch out!" the Grin Reaper who cast a spell to create frost creatures shouted.
"Ignitia" Michael quickly dashed behind the grim reaper. Without wasting a second of time, he sent a bolt of lightning through the grim reaper''s heart. Because he was a core Strengthening stage cultivator, it did not one-shot him. Michael wasn''t expecting the lightning bolt to kill him with one shot. That was why he immediately stabbed the cultivator? through the wound created by the lightning bolt
Pulch!
"Wolf!" the male grim reaper shouted when he saw Michael''s sword sticking out of his colleague''s chest. Michael twisted the sword, ending his life.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage, level 2 Cultivator. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 2000 Badass points]
"That''s so hot!"
The female reaper however did not seem to care about her colleague''s demise. She just knelt on the ground, moaning loudly.
"Woman, you''re a fucking freak" Michael drew back his sword. He was d that her climax slowed her down from casting another spell.
"Kill him!" The frosty figures moved slowly but they were able to reach Michael since he stopped moving to kill the Grim Reaper.
"Ring of Fire"
What was better to fight a bunch of humanoid creatures made of ice than ming hot fire.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The ring of fire sent two pulse sts around Michael, burning everything it passed through. The ice figures did notpletely evaporate but their legs melted down. Another two pulses of the fire melted their upper body before they could reach Michael.
"Lightning Dash"
"Ice Drag-"
Boom!
Michael dashed at the grim reaper to end his life before he could cast another spell. The grim reaper was just about to finish his spell when he saw Michael lunge at him. His lightning-fast reflexes kicked in as he immediately retrieved a smoke bomb from his space ring and dropped it into the ground. The smoke bomb exploded, creating a fog of smoke around the grim reaper.
It was a neat tactic that might have worked if Michael didn''t have his X-ray vision and Environmental scanning.
"Ignitia, Ignitia, Ignitia" The grim reaper didn''t not stop moving as he kept running to escape the lightning bolts. The assassin had no time to cast a spell. He was expecting help from his colleague but she was shaking on the ground.
"Sucker" Michael chuckled inside. The male grim reaper thought Michael was attacking him to kill while the female cultivator was having a great time thinking that her target was busy with her colleague.
Michael suddenly changed his target as he dashed at the female cultivator. While she was quivering on the ground, he tried to cut her neck. Unfortunately, she was quick enough to evade a fatal bow yet the sword did cut her shoulder.
sh!
"Aaaw, you wanna y" the female reaper slowly stood up from the ground. Her legs were still shaking while her eyes radiated intense pleasure.
"Two vs one, you''re dead" the male grim reaper sighed in relief seeing his colleague finally entering the battle. He picked up a strange smell but he didnt focus too much on the smell as he thought it''sing from the forest.
"Tsk tsk tsk. You clowns should have gotten a job in a circus instead of an assassin guild"
"Now that''s hurtful" finally the female reaper''s voice showed some murderous intent instead of freaky moaning intent.
"Four¡three" the two cultivators were confused when they heard Michael start counting.
"two¡one"
"Im gonna¡(cough) aaH, what''s happening" just after taking a few steps towards Michael, the female reaper started to cough. Behind the masks, their faces slowly turned pale. Their bodies shivered, not in pleasure, their bodies shivered in fear. The female grim reaper couldn''t feel her muscles. It was because Michael smeared paralyzing poison on his swords. He really aimed for her throat to kill her instantly but as usual, he wanted to have a backup n if she evaded his attack. His backup n worked.
The fear toxin finally showed its effect. The grim reapers'' deepest fears took hold of their minds. Michael pped his hands together towards the female grim reaper. Golden lightning cracks danced around Michael''s hands. The sound of electricity crackles became louder and louder while the light radiated by the lightning cracks was so bright that it looked like someone put a light in the middle of them.
Boom!
Michael used half of his Arch energy to power up the lightning bolt. The thick bolt of lightning soared through the air. When the lightning bolt met its target, it didnt go through her but destroyed half of her body. She stood there bloodied, half of her body was gone, blood sshed from her body while skin slowly peeled off of her. Even the bones were charred as they were visible to the naked eyes.
She clung to her life but she was not in shape to fight. Finally, she fell to the ground. What happened to her didn''t horrify the other reaper as he had seen gory things like this in the past. But what terrified him more other than the fear toxin in his body was the fact that his colleagues were murdered by Core Formation stage warrior. They nned everything perfectly yet nothing went ording to the n from the beginning. To this moment, they had no idea how he found them, how he was this strong and fast, what was the sudden fear they felt.
"Chameleon attack!" while the female reaper was twitching in the ground, the other one screamed looking into the dark forest behind Michael. Any moment from now, the grim reaper expects their fourth member also known as their n b jump out of the darkness to plunge a dagger into their target''s chest from behind.
" His name was Chameleon huh?"
The Grim reaper''s heart skipped a beat, "was?" he mumbled. IT was taking everything in him to fight off the sudden fear in his heart. Hence, he hoped Chameleon would kill Michael, ending their battle.
"I killed him"
The moment Michaelpleted his diddle diddle, Chameleon lost his life due to blood loss. When Michael first noticed he was being followed, he saw not three but four hostels in his Environmental scanning map. The fourth one however did not travel with the three of them, he traveled alone, keeping his distance from the trio. Since he was alone, Michael took care of him first by stealth killing him. The Chameleon waspletely caught off guard. Michael quickly stabbed his throat a couple of times to silence him first, then he broke Chameleon''s neck using his full strength which was boosted by Death range.
The Grim Reaper saw a bloodied lizard mask appear in Ghost''s hand. Although it was bloody, he was sure that the mask belonged to the chameleon. Michael threw the bloody mask near the bloody corpse of the female grim reaper.
"Ignitia"
Michael knew the lightning bolt would hit its target without a problem because the grim reaper''s courage to fight was broken, the fear toxin was still affecting his mind, and the sight of his three dead colleagues ripped off any fighting spirit he had left in his heart. Even if the Grim Reaper tried to escape Michael could take his full Lucifer form which would boost his power to Core Strengthening stage level 4 and kill him.
"Ah"
"Ignitia, lightning dash" he fired another bolt of lightning after the first one hit. The very next moment, he activated the lightning dash to close the distance between them. The grim reaper''s instincts made him conjure another defensive spell but the distance was too short and Michael was too fast. He closed the gap between them before plunging his sword straight into the grim reaper''s throat.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage, level 2 Cultivator. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage, level 2 Cultivator. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
*****************************************************
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Chapter 324 - Who Put A Contact On Michael鈥檚 Head?
"Whoa" Ricky felt a sudden bump while driving the carriage. He heard the carriage door opening. Turning his head, he saw Ghost entering the carriage.
"Master Ghost, how''s your sightseeing?"
Ricky was not a genius but he was not stupid either. It was obvious to him that Ghost went to take care of something important. As for what, Ricky didn''t want to know. However, Ricky smelled a sweet scent that was neither too strong nor too light, it was just enough for Ricky to take a deep breath and smile. Besides when Ricky turned back to look at Ghost, in the light produced by the small orb of light inside the carriage, Ghost seemed refreshed, as he had just taken a bath.
Michael willed the system to equip his nightdress which was gray sweatpants and a ck tank top.
"It was pleasant until I had to kill a few rats"? Michaelid down on the cushion. After spending almost all of his Arch energy, he was pretty tired.
"Wake me up when we reach Sarton"? Michael closed his eyes.
"Yes, Master Ghost"
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The curtains inside the carriage added an orange glow to the morning light, every morning a perfect sunrise. It somehow reminded Michael of the times he slept in a beach hut, watching the ocean emerge under the golden shimmer. For a moment his mind conjured the rhythmic waves, soft on the sandy shore, and felt his heartbeat at the same slow pace. He breathed in deeply. A new day has begun. He reached his hand out to the fabric, noticing how up close the light pours through every open space between fibers, no different from how it once came through the beach-hut walls, illuminating like brilliant fireflies each dawn. The material was warm beneath his fingers, and when the sun flooded the carriage, painting the colors anew, he felt a little of those golden rays soak into his skin.
"Good morning snakey" After greeting her instinctively, he slowly opened his eyes, realizing she''s not with him. The beautiful morning never seemed beautiful without her. Letting out a sigh, he stood up. After stretching his arms out, he put on a ck shirt on top of his cktop before getting out of the carriage.
In his sect home, he would hear the chirping of birds in the morning. At this moment, he heard no birds sound but constant chatter of people, as well as horses galloping.
He opened up the carriage door to be weed by the city by theke, Sarton. Cast on the highest point of Merke, Sarton was a city of foreign trade. This city wasn''t built by ake by ident, as it had hidden secrets, which were of great importance to the people of Sarton and its sess.
The city itself looked sublime. With its yew wood rooftops, ceramic tile walls, and breathtaking waterfall, Sarton had a mystical atmosphere.
The main attraction was the giant statue of a Viking looking man in the center of the city, which was built 1000 years ago and designed by the dwarves.
Sarton had a booming economy, which was mainly supported by trade, mining, and leatherworking. Their biggest strengths were a strong defense and gorgeous leatherworking. However, Sartoncked people skilled in farming.
Despite its strengths and weaknesses, Sarton was most likely headed towards a horrible future under the leadership of Baron Adwell. But this was yet to be seen.
Instead of his usual ck shoes, he just wore a pair of ck slippers. Therefore, when he stepped outside, he felt the hot sand between his toes.
As far as he could see, there was nothing but people and carriages. More and More carriages were approaching where he was. No one noticed Michael as he walked around the carriage to locate the people of his sect.
What stood in front of him was a beautifulke.
The water was movie-star blue ¨C the kind of blue their eyes are. In it, the wisps of clouds were reflected just as well as the steep sides of the cial valley, all greens and grays. Again the greens of the hills as well as the buildings, the grownups were boarding ships while youngsters and children were ying on the shore as if in the most impossible of paintings, the artist painting with colors he thought would fade in time but never did. Theke was the finest of mirrors, never showing exactly what was above, but converting it to an image so beautifully smudged and broken. The weeping willow, the clouds above, all be a M, all free for the looking.
If he focused on the children, he could get various designs for a castle. Their sand castles looked way better than some real castles in this world. One of those children was Cindy. She was building a tall majestic castle with a couple of female disciples. Even among the ocean of people standing between the two of them, Cindy noticed Michael.
"Brother" her eyes widened in joy as Michael gestured to Cindy to stay where she was. Michael quickly navigated through the crowd to reach Cindy. Since he was not in his usual attire and the people were busy with boarding ships, they failed to notice? Michael.
"Here she is" As usual, the little girl threw herself up at him like a puppy who hasn''t seen its owner for quite some time.? Every single time, the girl weed Michael like this. The love she had for Michael in her heart was boundless. Gaya, Michael both loved Cindy and her brother just as Cindy loved them.
"Brother Ghost, you''re awake. Ricky just went to see your room on the ship"
"He was talking about waking you up"
"It''s okay," Michael said to the girls. He knew Ricky might be too busy making sure everything''s ording to Michael''s preference.Since Daniel was with Raylene at River town, most of the tasks rted to sect fell on Ricky''s shoulder.
"I think you guys had enough fun, take your friends and go to your ships" Michael saw what the human traffickers did to those SilverMoon girls. In this crowd, no one recognized a well-known person like Michael, how could anyone notice if a few girls like them went missing. Therefore, Michael ordered them to board the ships as soon as possible. This ce seemed like a great hunting ground for kidnappers.
"Alright, let''s go" the girls didn''t dare to stay any longer after hearing Michael. They left to find their friends. Michael noticed hundreds of ships floating on theke, waiting for the people to board.
"When will sister Aeliae back? I miss her" Cindy purred.
"Me too" Michael pinched Cindy''s cheek. She had grown up a couple of inches. The baby fat in her face slowly disappeared. Plus, she had reached Foundation stage level 7.
Cindy turned his head gently beforending a soft kiss on his cheek.
"Ouch, you have to shave brother" Cindy rubbed her lips as his stubble beard pricked her soft lips.
"Is that so?" Michael rubbed his cheek against the little girl''s cheek yfully. She wiggled, giggling in his arm.
While he was ying with Cindy, he felt someone tickling his shirt. He looked down to see a boy who seemed like eleven or twelve years old looking at him. The boy wore rather raggedy clothes with a t cap on his head.
"This is for you" the boy handed out a piece of paper to Michael.
"What is it?" Cindy looked at the boy, then she looked at Michael.
Michael took the paper from the boy''s hand to read what was written on it,
"If you want to know who put a contract on your head,e to Mary''s flowers" after reading the words, he looked down to ask the boy who gave the note but the boy had already disappeared into the crowd.
"Do you know where sect leader ire is Cindy?"
"Yes, they are over there" Michael made his way through the crowd in the direction Cindy pointed.
"Behave yourselves'' '' After a few minutes of walking, Michael finally saw ire and Olivia overseeing the disciples boarding the ships.
"Teacher, look Brother Ghost '''' one of the disciples pointed his hand at Michael as the twodies turned back.? Both of them couldn''t help but raise their brows. Through his ck tank top, they could see his perfect chiseled chest. The shirt''s hands seemed like they were about to tear due to his biceps size. His usual attire used to hide his muscles unlike what he was wearing at the moment, it was simple yet even a simple dress like this made him look striking.
"Good morning Sect Leader ire, Olivia"
"How did you sleepst night?" Olivia asked,
"Like a baby. Cindy stay with them" Michael put down Cindy,
"I have something to take care of, you guys go ahead. I''ll join youter"
"Can someone else take care of it for you teacher? You need to take as much rest as you can before the tournament"
"Yeah what she said" ire agreed with Olivia.
"It won''t take too long. Don''t worry" Michael quickly turned back, leaving the ce. He wanted to know who put the contract on his head more than rest.
If the Grim Reapers were anything like the dark underworld on earth, they would send more assassins after him.The next time, the assassins would be stronger than the four he killed. To put a stop to this, Michael needed to kill the one who put the contract on his head in the first ce, at least he hoped it would stop the reapers.
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Chapter 325 - Track Down Gaya
(Somewhere else in Ozer continent)
Xanali was standing alone in an empty room where there was nothing but arge table in the center. She had a deep frown on her face. The reason for her frown was the stuff on the table. A weak-hearted one would be freaked out to see the broken skeletons of Nagas. Under the waist, the skeleton had the bone structure of a snake, above the waist looked simr to humans except their heads resembled a skeleton of a cobra''s head.
The bones were muddy, partially dposed. She didn''t need anyone to tell her how they die, she could see a deep cut in their hyoid bones.
"These are your men" a tall figure walked out from the dark corner. He looked human but he was not, his upper body resembled a tiger, including his face. Standing almost seven-foot-tall with a muscr build and a tiger face, he would terrify people who haven''t been familiar with beast-men. Even among the beast men, people with predator genes such as golden lion, white tiger, ck panther, brown bear were extremely rare.
"sceech!"
A loud scream of an eagle could be heard in the room. Xanali looked up at the ck eagle staring back at her from his shoulder.
"Your men were killed by a cold killer," the tiger beast man said,
"Jakobe, what do you mean a cold killer?" Xanali asked. She wondered how Jakobe could tell if the killer was cold or not by looking at the partially dposed skeletons.
"The cuts, there was no hesitation. Clean, deep cuts. The killer? is either a trained killer or a murderous psychopath who killed more than fifty people or both"
"Any signs of Gaya?" Xanali asked. After hearing KAkobe describe the killer, a tinge of worry emerged in her heart. It was true that Xanali ordered her men to cripple Gaya''s cultivation but she wasn''t as heartless as Gaya thought. Xanali had to cripple her cultivation because Gaya murdered hundreds of prisons as well as bribed almost half of the king''s court.
Xanali really wanted her step-sister to reflect on the bad things she had done in her life. Xanali hoped crippling her cultivation and throwing her in prison would rehabilitate Gaya, make her a better person.
"Her tracks disappear at the River town''s border. It seems like someone from the river town helped your stepsister" Jakobe spoke with a thick ent Michael would have recognized as African.
"Can you track her down?"
"Humph, can I? I will track her down. I just want something that has the scent of her and an answer" Jakobe snickered. He gently rubbed the eagle''s neck. His animalistic grin made him look even more terrifying.
"Answer to what?"
Jakobe finally stepped out of the darkness,pletely revealing his golden fur-filled upper body that looked exactly like a Bengal tiger except for the hat on his head.
"Do you want your stepsister dead or alive?"
**************************************
After giving Jakobe what he needed to find Gaya, Xanali came back to Peyton''s manor. Xanali saw her friend resting her head on the hand which she only did when she was either pissed off or worried or both.
"Peyton, what happened?" She sat beside Peyton.
"Nothing," Peyton waved her off.
But behind her sses, Xanali could see a sliver of anger.
"Don''t give me that missy, something happened with the Alpha guardian?"
Before she went to meet with Jakobe, Xanali left Peyton at one of the guardian guild safe houses where the alpha guardian was waiting for Peyton. Apparently, Peyton had some questions regarding how the alpha guardian handled the Lucifer situation.
Although the alpha guardian put Peyton in charge of the operation, Xanali knew who led the guardian to victory, Noah. Ever since Peyton chose Noah after Ghost rejected the offer, Noah had been climbing thedderway faster than anyone ever did. In a short amount of time, he was promoted from being a trainee guardian to a guardian who had the privilege to train with the Alpha Guardian of Hunters, Isarrel.
Many guardians would die to even meet an Alpha guardian yet Noah received the privilege of training with one.
"It went fine," Peyton said. She was trying to calm her anger in silence.
"Come on Peyton, you owe me an exnation"
"Exnation? You want an exnation?!"
Finally, Xanali''s pestering broke the dam that kept Peyton''s anger in control.
"You want an exnation why the guardians failed to apprehend Lucifer? You want an exnation why the Alpha guardian is not sending her entire fleet searching for Lucifer? You want an exnation why they were thinking about promoting Noah to Guardian captain instead of me?!" she punched the table so hard that it obliterated into bits and pieces.
"Well I don''t know, why don''t you go ask your boyfriend?!"
Xanali waspletely taken aback by surprise and shock. She had never seen Peyton lose her patience like this.
"Peyton"
Peyton realized what she had done when she looked at the horrified expression on her friend''s face. Plus, the mahogany table that was reduced to nothing but a pile of splinters helped her realize what she did.
"Im sorry Xanali"
Xanali understood that Peyton wanted to be alone for some time. However, Peyton never left her side when she needed a friend to talk to. Most of the guardians didn''t like Nagas. To Xanali''s luck, a bunch of racist humans were the ones who hired Xanali''s batch of guardians. At first, they rejected Xanali just because she was not a human. It was Peyton who fought them and cashed in all her favors to recruit Xanali, just because Peyton valued Xanali''s talents more than anything.
In Peyton''s rage, she let out the matter of promotion. Xanali knew Peyton was working hard to get that promotion. It was the reason she took the risk of starting operation new dawn which was to catch Lucifer and she did. Although Noah also deserved to be promoted, Xanali knew it wasn''t fair if Peyton got passed on that promotion because of Noah. Xanali was stuck in a dilemma, one side was her best friend, on the other side, the man who stole her heart. It was impossible for her to pick either of them over another.
"It wasn''t my fault they couldn''t catch Lucifer. Let me tell you something Xanali, something happened, I don''t know what but something happened. You were there, did you remember anything before the ckout?"
"No"
After Michael teleported, the Silent Reaper sunk into the bottom of the sea. They remembered waking up on the Alpha guardian''s warship. Before Peyton lost her consciousness, she could swear she felt immense pressureing from Noah. Plus, she saw something change in Noah, she couldn''t put her fingers in what but something changed.
She told the Alpha guardian about this yet she just brushed it off instead of investigating. Peyton tried to convince the Alpha guardian to continue the search for Lucifer. However, the Alpha guardian didn''t seem like she''s going to let anyone look for the Dark Lord.
"Why aren''t we hitting the kingdoms searching for the Dark Lord? Are they waiting for him to be stronger?" Peyton asked,
"At Least they should have retrieved that evil ship from the sea to find any clues. You know they have to do a closed casket funeral for Gina, she was" Peyton couldn''t finish off her sentence. She med herself for Gina''s death. If it wasn''t for Peyton to pluck her out of the trainees to put up with the SilverMoon girls, she wouldn''t have ended up in the Dark Lord''s ship.
Because of her, Gina was murdered by Lucifer brutally yet the Alpha guardian refused to continue the search for Lucifer.
"It''s like the Alpha guardian want to nurture Noah more than catching Lucifer who murdered one of our own"
"Are you questioning the Alpha guardian Peyton?"
Peyton walked towards the window. For a few moments, she just started at the pond outside in silence,
"I dont know"
Xanali''s heart skipped a beat. In all those years she knew Peyton, she had never seen her question the decision made by the Alpha guardian. Peyton basically worshiped the Alpha guardian as she even had a picture of the Alpha guardian in her room.
"What if we take some time off, Peyton? Go see the championship tournaments. It''ll take your mind off from all these works" Just like Peyton, Xanali too needed a break, especially after knowing her sister might be with a killer.
Since no guardians were allowed to participate in the tournament, she wasn''t going to the tournament but now it seemed like a good thing as it might rx both of their minds.
"Whatever" Peyton just shrugged. She wasn''t interested in tournaments like many people. If they asked her, she would let the youngsters get survival training for three months instead of the tournament. Besides, her mind was not in the mood for tournaments. However, she knew Xanali was right, she needed to take her mind off from the Guardian business for at least a couple of days.
"So that''s a yes. Wonderful, I''ll go take care of free things before we leave" Xanali pped her hands together in joy.
After Xanali left the room, Peyton was staring at the distant sky. She could feel her belief in the Guardian Guild had been shaken.
"How could they think Noah is better than me? I recruited him, not the other way around" she talked to herself. Without even she herself knew, the fire of anger towards Noah had been lit in her heart at this exact moment.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
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Chapter 326 - Lord Information
Just like any cities he had been to, Sarton also looked medieval-ish.
Since Sarton''s main ie was trading, the gray stone road was filled with merchant carriages. Michael walked alongside the road through the crowd.
The air smelled different, like a perfume mixed with theke air.
"Apples only 3 gold coins"
"We have the freshest seafood, just caught!"
"Royal times, who killed Minister Bagru? An investigative piece inside"
"Ships to Royalnd can be hired here, we have nice discounts!"
From either side of the road, vendors called out for people. Several street urchins were standing up on a stack of crates and waving the royal times newspaper at the crowd. Michael came in front of a seafood stall where he saw blue color lobsters, tiny crabs, and fishesid on baskets. They all looked fresh, even smelled good.
"Excuse"
The vendor who was sprinkling waiter onto the fishes greeted Michael with a wide grin,
"Can you tell me where Mary''s flower shop is?"
The vendor''s smile dimmed out, realizing Michael was not here to buy.
The vendor was disappointed yet he didn''t dare to show his disappointment through any words. Although Michael was wearing normal clothes, the vendor could tell he was a cultivator. Over the years, he had seen people getting killed by the cultivators for simple reasons. Therefore, when Michael asked for direction, he just gave it to him.
"Go straight and take a left"
"Thank you" Michael nodded with a smile before leaving. Among all the stalls he picked up the seafood vendor subconsciously. When he was traveling with Gaya, she always dragged him to the stalls that sell food or anything rted to food.
It took him a few seconds to realize why he chose the seafood stall. Remembering the times he had to drag her away from the food stalls by force, he smiled. He walked in the direction the vendor showed him, the air started to smell different. He could taste the sweetness in the air, the smell of roses was overwhelming. The moment he turned left towards a small alley, he located Mary''s flowers. He didn''t even need to read the name board, the fresh colorful flowers in front of the shop were enough.
MAry''s flower was not a street stall, it was a ss building that looked elegant both outside and inside. The building was almost 3meter away from the pavement, the three-meter space between the pavement and the shop was crammed with flower vases. They had barely enough space to walk to the ss door without grazing the flowers. In addition to the flowers from the earth such as blood red roses, pink lotuses, blue dahlias as well as golden orchids, there were several flowers that solely belong to this world. For instance, one of the vases had dark gray three petal flowers.
His mind was not however in the mood to enjoy their beauty. He wanted to know who put the contract on his head so he could put an end to this threat.
"Wee to Mary''s flower, young lord" the door opened with a ding sound as Michael was weed by a young girl in her early teens. She was neither too tall nor too short. With perfect petite structure, she put her brown hair into a bun. A blue lily was sticking out of her bun.
"Send him in"? As Michael was walking towards the counter, a voice sounded out of nowhere.
"This way, young lord" the girl''s smile disappeared from her face, she now looked rather stoic.
She left the counter. Michael followed her to one of the ss racks filled with rose bouquets. Sliding the ss door, the girl pulled the bouquet in the center.
Crack!
Just a few seconds after the girl pulled the bouquet, he heard a cracking sound. Then, the ss rack before him movies slightly towards the right, leaving just enough space for one to fit in. Through the space, Michael was able to see a table and a chair in the chandelier light.
"Lord Information is waiting for you inside" the girl gestured at Michael to step forward. Without wasting a time, Michael entered the room behind the ss rack through the space.
Crack!
He heard another cracking sound as the secret door made of ss racks slowly closed behind. Michael took each step forward with caution.
"Lord Ghost" a figure greeted them sitting behind the mahogany table. Silver, shoulder-length hair hung over a full, charming face. Hollow brown eyes set concealed within their sockets, watched Michael from top to bottom with a hint of surprise, probably due to Michael''s normal attire.
The glimmering smooth shiny skin perfectlyplemented his almost perfect jaw structure. Michael couldn''t help staring at the man''s pointy ears.
"An Elf" This was the first time Michael had seen an elf in real life. The elf looked exactly as the movies portrayed them except for the sweet scent they radiated.
There was something wonderful about him, perhaps it was his friendly demeanor or perhaps the beautiful smile on the elf''s face. Nheless, Michael didn''t feel any vibe of hostility from Lord Information
Obviously, just like Michael, the elf didn''t want the others to know his real name, hence he called himself Lord Information.
"Take a seat" Lord Information lifted his arm slightly towards the chair as Michael seated himself. The elf''s gesture was neither too polite nor too rude. The elf was writing something on a parchment.
"You sent this?" Michael ced the piece of paper the boy gave him on the table,
"Words are mine" Lord Information leaned back on his chair, finally closing the parchment he was writing on. His brown eyes stared at Michael,
"What''s it gonna cost?"
The Elf''s name was a dead giveaway of what he sells. Knowledge was wealth and the elf was dealing in information. So he knew the information he wanted wouldn''t be free.
"Lord Ghost, you probably know the business I''m in. It''s safe to say nothing happens in this continent without me knowing. A piece of information that seems irrelevant to someone might be relevant to another one. With the right circumstance, one will pay anything for the information I provide"
He emphasized the word anything. What he said was true though. Nothing was more valuable to him than his own life. Michael was willing to pay any price.
"Take you for example. What you know is someone put a contract on your head for half a million gold coins. Since you''re here, that means you killed the four Core Strengthening stage reapers sent after you by the guild"
Michael was genuinely surprised. Not only the Elf knew about their cultivation stage, but he also knew how many Reapers were sent after him.
"Unfortunately for you, next time, stronger reapers wille after you. If they can''t kill you, more wille. The Grim Reapers will keep sending reapers after you until you''re dead in the ground"
As Michael feared, the Grim Reapers would send reapers after him until he died. Even with the system, defeating anyone above the Core Strengthening stage was impossible. The only viable option seemed to be running away. However, he had too much going on here for him to drop everything and run.
The Elf let out a fox-like smile, "Unless you kill the one who put the contract on your head.No paymaster, no contract"
"And you have that information"
"That''s why you''re here. Under normal circumstances, the price will be five times the bounty on your head" the elf tapped the table in a rhythm.
"I''m afraid this is not one. The price for this information aren''t gold coins, the price is a favor from you"
"Favor?" Michael was surprised yet he also sighed.
"I knew this won''t be that easy," he said to himself. IF he had to pay 2.5million gold coins, he could have easily paid to buy the information. However, the elf seemed to have a different idea in his mind.
"One of my elite clients has provided the information you need. Rest assured, it''spletely urate. The one provided this information isn''t interested in gold coins"
"They want me to do them a favor, no questions asked I presume"
Lord Information nodded,
"If it''s within my power, I''ll give what they want"
"Wonderful. It''s yours but knows this Lord Ghost, your word is your bone. If you backed out from your word¡" Before giving the information, the elf dragged his words out instead of finishing his sentence. The elf wanted to let Ghost know the consequences of going back on his word.
"I didn''t survive till now backing out of my words, Lord Information"
Michael wouldn''t dare to back out of his words as Lord Information just had to pay the Grim Reapers a visit to end his life. Right from the beginning, Michael''s intention was to be strong without making many powerful enemies. Michael would rather have Lord Information as a valuable ally at his side than as an enemy. An elf with dark secrets to sell could be the backbone of Lucifer''s rule.
Finally, the elf slid a piece of white paper towards Michael. He slowly leaned forward to pick the paper. The moment his eyes fell on the piece of paper, everything started to make sense. To this moment, he was nning various ways to kill the one who put the contract on his head. He knew someone who could pay half a million gold coins wouldn''t be easy to kill whenever he wanted. Michael was thinking about dealing with this problem as Lucifer. However, fate decided to end the problem as Ghost.
Michael read the words written on the piece of paper. The one who was willing to pay half a million to kill Ghost.
"Alex Fisher"
*******************************
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Chapter 327 - Ruthless Reaper
The light had long gone but there was no mistaking where they were. Through the moonless night came the rhythmic pounding of the waves as always the salty air moved gently over their skin, wrapping them around as the warmest of soft towels.
The sailing ship was fashioned from ancient oak, with masts that stood as tall. Instead of its once green foliage, it was adorned by sails of white to dove gray. To see the rich timbers, strong browns close to ck, brought a sense of peace inside, perhaps akin to that given by a meadow. Yet for the next few hours, the fragrance would not be of wildflowers but of the open sea, ever-changing, ever constant, ever in motion beneath the clouds who sail above.
On the edge of the ship, Michael was enjoying the view with Cindy by his side. Since he heard fishing calms one''s mind and soul, he bought fishing rods from Sarton after leaving Mary''s flowers.
"Ohe on brother Ghost, when will you catch something?"
Cindy rested her head under Michael''s arm. She tried to use his shoulder as a pillow but she was too short. Michael held the fishing rod in one hand while wrapping his other arm around Cindy so she wouldn''t fall down. His shirt was enough for Cindy to cover herself to keep warm.
"Patience Cindy. Many good things wille in your life if you know how to be patient"
"You don''t know how to fish, do you?"
"Nope"
Cindy giggled. Michael had been waiting to catch a fish for hours. Catching a fish wasn''t his goal, if it was he could simply brew a bait that would attract fishes from miles. His goal was to calm his mind and soul. Recent events had shaken his calm mind, especially Gaya leaving him. There was an eerie feeling deep down in his heart like she was in some kind of danger. His mind was telling him to let her do this alone while his heart was telling him to help her. He always went with his mind instead of his heart.
"Hey, you two" Olivia''s voice sounded from behind. She bent her waist, leaning on the edge beside Cindy.
"So Cindy, your brother managed to catch something?"
"Patience Sister Olivia. Many good things wille in your life if you know how to be patient"? Condy said with a serious voice. For a second, Olivia was stunned.
"Look at that, words of wisdom from a littledy" Olivia ruffled Cindy''s head before giving a loving kiss to her on the cheek.
"Whoa!" Suddenly Michael felt his bait being bitten by something.
"You caught it, brother caught a fish! YeY!" Michael had to tighten his grip around Cindy to keep her from falling down in excitement.
"Hold her Olivia" Michael let Olivia hold Cindy for a while as he started to slowly reel the fish in.
"I wonder what kind of fish it''ll be. Oh my god, please be orange tuna"
Just like Cindy, Olivia also started to bounce up and down pping her hands in excitement.
"Let us go pick up a bucket" Wiggling in Olivia''s arms, Cindy shouted excitedly. The scene caused many of the crew and disciples toe to watch Michael. Fortunately, it was not a big crowd as many of them went to sleep in their quarters below deck.
"Who likes campfire fish boys?!" Michael stood up on the ledge,
"What''s going on? Why aren''t you people sleeping?" ire walked out from the below deck to see a littlemotion on the upper deck. She saw Ghost was standing on the edge, eagerly reeling the fishing rod.
"Why aren''t you in your bed?" ire put her hands on her waist, shouting at Michael like a mad mother.
"For god''s sake, you have a tournament in thirteen hours" the others made way for ire. She came frowning but when she saw how hard Michael was trying to reel the rod, she was stunned. Of course, she knew he wasn''t using any Arch energy
"That might be a big fish. Let me help you" with a swift jump, shefortablynded on the edge beside Michael.
"So nice of you to join the fun, Sect Leader ire"
"You know what, this is nice" she joined in by holding the fishing rod with Michael.
"Where''s Nightmare? I haven''t seen him since morning"
"He said he''s seasick and going for a fly"
"Can dragons even get seasickness?" Michael questioned,
"Beats me"
Michael could contact Nightmare through his earpiece but he wanted Nightmare to have some alone time. Just like Michael, Nightmare also missed Gaya. Life was boring for him without Gaya to fight.
"Let''s take this bastard home"? Michael had enough with the fish. After ire nodded, they used their full strength to pull the fishing rod up against the fighting fish.
The moment the fish came out of the ocean, ire''s smile faded away into oblivion. Many of the people staring at the fish also had the same shocked expressions on their faces.
"It''s a ck tuna"
A giant 3 meter, tuna fish that was charcoal ck wiggling frantically at the end of the line. There wasn''t a single inch on its body that wasn''t ck.
For Michael, he had no idea what made ire so startled. She wasn''t even blinking anymore.
"This is bad luck"
The moment these words escaped ire''s mouth, Olivia''s scream reverberated the ship. The Arch energy rushed into his veins as he pulled off the fish with one single lift. Since the shipbuilder decided it''s a good idea to build the captain''s cabin on the center of the upper deck, ire couldn''t see what''s happening on the other end of the cabin.
"TEACHER!"
"Lightning Dash"
Bolts of golden lightning covered him before he disappeared leaving a trail of golden light. Everyone ran in the direction of Olivia''s scream.
************************************
"Brrr¡brother" Michael''s steps came to a halt as he saw a dark hooded figure holding a silver dagger against Cindy''s throat. The figure and Cindy were standing on the edge of the ship while Olivia was lying on the ground with blood trickling down from her mouth corner.
Cindy was shivering in fear yet there wasn''t a single tear that came out of her eyes. The little girl promised Gaya that she won''t cry anymore, she was holding that promise despite the cold dagger on her throat.
"Reaper" Michael clenched his fist. The reaper in front of him was one level stronger than the four reapers he killed a few days ago, Core Strengthening stage level 3. The Reaper was ruthless enough to use a little girl to finish his assassination.
The figure was even wearing robes that resembled a reaper. If the figure only had a scythe, he would look exactly the same as a reaper.
"Teacher¡teacher, he came out of nowhere" Olivia stuttered while picking herself up from the floor. Her mind still couldn''tprehend what just happened. One moment she was carrying COndu to pick up a bucket for Michael''s fish. Then she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, the next moment,
she was lying on the ground and the stranger was holding a dagger against Cindy''s throat.
"Don''t" Michael said as the reaper moved his other arm to his back to retrieve another silver dagger. The reaper threw the dagger at Michael thatnded a couple of inches in front of Michael''s feet.
"If you don''t want me to paint the floor with this piglet''s blood, pick that up"
"Cindy!" ire came running to the scene to see the reaper standing behind Cindy with a dagger on her throat. Her mind went nk in overwhelming fury.
"Stand down ire" Michael raised his hand,
"Oh my god, Cindy!"
"Who is that?''
"Brother Ghost do something"
"Who is he and how did he get here?"
Everyone was stunned. Except for a few disciples, everyone stayed away from Michael. Keeping his anger inside, Michael picked the dagger from the floor as the reaper said.
"Brother"
"It''s nothing Cindy, don''t worry"
The dagger was so sharp that a single gentle cut could end Cindy''s life.
Even if he transformed into Lucifer, the reaper could kill Cindy before he could kill the reaper.
However, it was not like Michael did not have any n. After Jack''s death, Michael made sure everyone he cared about would be safe in the face of danger.
Cindy suddenly felt something crawling on her chest. She tried not to wiggle as something slowly crawled up towards her neck. She stared straight into Michael''s eyes.
"You know what to do" after Michael picked up the dagger, the reaper said in a gritty voice.
"What is he talking about teacher? Who is he?" Olivia shivered.
"You have ten seconds," the reaper said. He gently ruffled Cindy''s head, making it hard for Michael to control his anger.
"Ghosty, I can cause a distraction"? All of a sudden, Michael''s earpiece got activated in his ear as he heard Nightmare''s voice. Looking at the sky behind the reaper, Michael activated his thermal vision to see Nightmare hovering above the clouds, ready to cause a distraction.
"I''ll DO IT IN FIVE SECONDS!" Michael emphasized the words to let Nightmare know exactly when to cause a distraction. Michael just needed the reaper to be distracted for a couple of seconds. He could use those few precious seconds to save Cindy, activate the death range, punch the reaper in the throat; he wouldn''t be able to cast a spell and kill him. In addition to the throat punch, he would make the Spyder that''s currently crawling on Cindy''s shoulder towards the reaper inject the paralyzing poison into the reaper''s bloodstream. The paralyzing poison was strong enough to paralyze the reaper for five to ten seconds.
However, everything had to work perfectly without a hitch. Otherwise, the reaper would kill Cindy in front of their eyes.
*******************************
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Chapter 328 - A Wrong Day To Be Drunk
"No one has ever suffered, as you will '''' Michael mumbled under his breath. Although he never showed what he''s feeling inside on his face, he was burning with anger.
"Hurry up, I don''t have all day" the reaper growled.
"Ghost" the word barely escaped through the gritted teeth of ire. Anger turned her rosy skin into somewhat red.
"One¡two¡three" The reaper started to count as Michael gradually moved the dagger towards his neck.
"Teacher"
"Ghost!"
Olivia and ire were startled. They trusted Michael to handle the situation yet what he was doing stirred up their fear. The disciples desperately wanted to help however they could but they saw no way of helping Ghost.
The reaper moved the dagger an inch closer to Cindy''s throat. Cindy''s legs turned to jelly, feeling the cold dagger against her throat. Every second Cindy spent fearing for her life made Michael want to torture the reaper more.
"Four¡five"
"Now!" The moment Michael shouted, a stream of fire out of nowhere hit the deck beside the reaper. The fire momentarily distracted him,
"Lightning Dash" Michael immediately cast the spell to save Cindy. Michael was not the only one waiting for a distraction. ire raised her hand as thorns protruded out of the floor beneath the reaper to coil around his limbs.
"Thorns of hell"
The thorns created by ire''s spell weren''t strong enough to immobilize the reaper forever but it was strong enough to keep the reaper from slitting Cindy''s throat until Michael reached her.
Michael pushed himself to the limit. When he reached the reaper, Michael pushed Cindy away from the dagger in one hand while clenching the dagger in the other.
"Cindy"
The moment Cindy was free of the reaper''s hold, Olivia leaped at Cindy, picked her up, and then dashed away as quickly as she could. IF it was normal fire, the reaper would have cut Cindy''s throat but it was not. A dragon''s breath burned hotter than anything. The hot st created when the fire stream hit the deck boiled the reaper''s skin as he didn''t have any defense spells cast on him. Moreover, his hands went numb after feeling a sting on his palm.
Kachak!
Michael chopped at the reaper''s throat.
"Arggh (cough) (cough)" the reaper clenched his throat in agony. While he was coughing, Michael sent a few sts of wind to the fire around them.
"Wind st"? the sts quickly put out the fire, making the ship dark again.
In addition to the fire, the people staring at the scene terrified were also sent flying away by the wind sts including ire and Olivia.
"Death Range" Michael''s strength skyrocketed after he cast the death range.
"Now we dance"
Kachak!
Kachak!
Michaelnded a couple of more chops on the reaper''s throat. His hyoid bones were already dislocated by Michael''s chops. Unless the reaper could jump to the Fusion stage and cast spells mentally, he was weak as a chicken to Michael.
"Cindy, are you alright? You poor thing, here drink this" On the other hand, Olivia embraced Cindy tightly, afraid of letting Cindy out of her reach. Cindy was still shivering when she swallowed the healing potion.
"Teacher" Olivia looked up to see Michael lifting the intruder by his neck. Due to the darkness, she couldn''t see his face. However, she could feel the cold killing intent radiating from Ghost.
"Everybody back off!"
Seeing the disciples who were sleeping in the below decks running to the scene, ire shouted at them. She did not want the disciples to be caught in the crosshairs.
"Brother" Cindy reached out her hands to Michael.
"No sweetheart, let''s get away from them" Olivia rushed away to safety carrying Cindy in her arms.
Boom!
While she was running away, she felt a st of force hitting her from behind. The force almost knocked her down. Regaining her bnce, she looked over her shoulder to see Michael mming the intruder onto the mainsail pole.
"We need to hand him over to the guardians" CLaire rushed over to Michael before the situation escted further.
"He dies" the disciples felt a chill hearing Michael''s cold words. When ire got closer, she could smell the blood and booze from the intruder. The booze smell was so overwhelming that it made her twitch her nose.
Michael couldn''t care less about the reaper''s drunk status. It was obvious the reaper made a stupid move toe here without an actual n because he was drunk. The booze slowed down the reaper''s reflexes and dimmed out his ability to fight back.
Boom!
The entire ship shook when Michael mmed the reaper against the main pole.
"Son of a b-" Michael ripped off the reaper''s in wooden mask of his face. Behind the mask, an old wrinkly face stared back at Michael. His eyes were gray, no facial hair, not even eyebrows could be seen on his face.
"Arrghhh" ire saw Michael put his hand straight into the old man''s mouth.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" the old man frantically shook his body as he was being electrocuted. ire was unable to make up her mind whether to help the old man or not.
Some of the daredevil disciples quickly lit the torches on the deck to see what Michael was doing to the old man in clear light. The torches radiated a bright orange light, revealing everything to them. They saw Ghost standing in front of an old man with his arm inside the old man''s mouth.
The man kept wiggling to escape, his gray eyes almost turned red in agony.
All of a sudden Michael pulled his arm out of his mouth as blood sttered on the ground.
"Is that?"
"Im gonna puke Arrhh!"
"Oh my god!"
"Argggggg!"
When they saw Michael''s hand which was dripping the old man''s blood, their faces turned green. Some of them immediately threw up on the spot while many female disciples screeched like banshees. It was all because of what they saw in Michael''s hand, the old man''s bloodied tongue.
"Hrrrggghhhh" the old man''s muffled cry of agony sent chills running through their spines. CLaire was nauseated while Olivia quickly closed Cindy''s eyes but she knew it was toote. Olivia felt Cindy''s body start to shiver.
Michael however didn''t stop there.
"I''m starting to get creative. Can you guess what I''m about to do next?" Michael let go of the reaper''s neck as he fell down to the floor. The old man wiggled like a fish out of the water in excruciating pain.
"Teacher stop!"
"Ghost listen"
Olivia and ire came running to Michael, hoping to bring back Ghost from his rampage.
"Oh I forgot you got no tongue" Michael devilishly chuckled before grabbing the reaper by his cor.? All of the reaper''s effort to wiggle himself out of Michael''s grab turned futile. Michael dragged him from the main pole on the ship''s center towards the captain''s cabin.
The old man left a trail of blood pouring out of his mouth. ire was running behind Michael to make him stop. Olivia on the other hand kept Cindy''s eyes closed. She herself started to fear Ghost like this. The always calm smiling youngster was nowhere to be found. Instead, she was looking at a cold-blooded monster.
The disciples were staring at Michael, their faces were pale as white paper.
"Where the hell is Nightmare?" ire looked up the sky searching for Nightmare but he was nowhere to be found.
"Hrggghhhh"
When they reached the captain''s cabin, Michael mmed the reaper against the wooden wall. His body fell down, he tried to crawl away from Michael.
"Stop!" ire screamed but it was toote as Michael stomped the reaper''s on the knee.
"HRRRHHHHHH!" Michael''s stomp shattered the reaper''s knee cap. There were pieces of broken bones sticking out of his leg. Without saying anything Michael turned back, walking towards the cabin door.
While Ghost was in the captain''s cabin doing god''s knows what, ire approached the bloody reaper. She squatted beside him before taking a healing potion out of her space ring. Unlike Michael, ire wanted the intruder to be handed over to the guardians so they could find out why he was on their ship in the first ce. If Ghost killed him, there was no way of finding out the answer. As a sect leader, she wanted to know whether he was targeting only Ghost or plotting to harm the entire sect.
"Who is he ire?" Olivia came running. She asked ire in a husky voice.
"I don''t know, where is Cindy?"
"Safe, with the disciples" Olivia''s eyes were fixed at the cabin''s door.
"What''s he gonna do?"
"Torture" Olivia''s heard Michael''s voice. The door to the cabin opened once again to reveal Michael. He walked out of the room carrying a roll of rope.
"Hrrggghhhhhhh" the reaper''s eyes opened so wide as it looked like they were about to pop out of the sockets.
"Ghost stop"
"Teacher"
The twodies tried to stop him but at the same time, their feet walked backward in subconscious fear.
"Look at you,pletely healed up" Michael grinned, not the kind one or his usual one, it was radiating murderous intent.
"Let''s fix that up" Michael lifted the reaper by his neck once again to beat the crap out of him. While holding the reaper in the air in one hand, Michaels started to punch repeatedly in the chest region, breaking his ribs one by one.
"Teacher stop!" she grabbed Michael''s hand.
Olivia couldnt keep watching Michael torture the old man. If he had killed the old man, Olivia would have understood but torturing him like this seemed wrong to her.
"Wind st" Michael sted away Olivia when she tried to stop him with a st of wind.
"No one, I mean no one can lessen the pain im about to inflict on you"
*******************************
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Chapter 329 - Reaping The Reapers
"OLIVIA!" ire shouted when she saw Olivia was sent flying away. Michael did not even linger around to see Olivia fall down. He started to drag the reaper away from the captain''s cabin to the mainsail pole.
Boom!
Halfway to the mainsail pole, he threw the reaper as the reaper mmed against the pole. The pole swayed, creating a creaking noise. The reaper struggled to stand up. He knew he was going to die but he didn''t want to go down without a fight. It took great strength to retrieve the silver dagger from his waist.
"Ssshhhhggggssss" the reaper growled. Without the tongue, no one could make a sense out of his growl. As he walked towards the reaper, Michael''s sword materialized in his hand from the system storage. He only took out one sword because one was more than enough for what''s on his mind.
The reaper barely stood straight holding the dagger at Michael.
"Stand down idiot"
"He''s dead"
"What''s his cultivation level?"
"Definitely not higher than brother Ghost"
The onlookers began to murmur among themselves. For some, it was quite entertaining and for some, the old man is getting what he deserves for trying to harm Cindy.
Michael did not focus on anything except hurting the reaper in front of him. When he was just a meter away from the old man, the old reaper shed the dagger.
ting!
With a simple flick of his sword, Michael sent the dagger flying away from the old man''s hand.
Pulch!
Michael didn''t stop with one sh, he shed his sword again. This time, he aimed at the old man''s wrist. Michael''s sword cut the old man''s wrist like a hot knife through butter.
"Hrrrrgggggggg!"
As blood was gushing out of the ce where his wrist was a moment ago, the old reaper screamed in agony. Each pulse pumped out more blood out of the wound. While the reaper was squirming in pain, Michael shed yet again, cutting his other wrist.
"HRRRGGGGGG!"
The old man''s face became paler and paler due to blood loss. After squirming for a few seconds, he fell down again to the ground. The blood formed a circle around him as heid in his own pool of blood. Even some of those disciples who initially wanted the old man to die felt a little pity for him because the Sunrise sect taught their disciples kindness andpassion.
"Get up" Michael wasn''t finished, he lifted the reaper by his blood-drenched cor.
Boom!
Michael mmed him yet another time before he used the rope he got from the captain''s cabin to tie him against the mainsail pole. Michael deliberately tied the rope with the rope that was used to hoist the g.
"Brother stop!"
Just when Michael was about to hoist the reaper like a g to make him die slowly, Cindy''s shout reverberated the ship.
"Cindy, close your eyes!" ire and Olivia came running to Cindy. Olivia tried to close Cindy''s eyes but the little girl swatted her hands away.
For the first time since Michael started to torture the reaper, he took his gaze away from the reaper.
"Brother you can''t do this to a fellow human being" Everyone was surprised to see Cindy talk with a serious face for the first time since they knew her.
"Human being? He''s not one" Michael pulled down the rope as the reaper''s body moved higher.
"Neither are you brother if you keep doing this"
"Cindy" ire''s heart skipped a beat when the little girl talked back. She tried to shush her yet Cindy didn''t back off.
"We should be kind, merciful, and caring" the words that came out of her mouth didn''t seem to belong to a little girl.
"Cindy go to your room, you''re still too little"
"No"
"No"
Both Cindy and Michael said no at the same time.
"People like him always mistake kindness for weakness Cindy. Show him kindness and he will show you the dagger. And you''re right" Michael paused for a second, looking at the reaper and Cindy,
"I''m not human when someone pisses me off " Michael pulled down the rope with enough force that catapulted the reaper''s body to the top of the mainsail pole.
"Diddle diddle"
The g of the sunrise sect now had a bloody body hanging in front.
"We are so little"
"Br¡br¡" she stuttered in shock, seeing the bloody body. The rope tied around the reaper''s body got tighter as his eyes started to bulge out. In addition to his eyes bulging out, the blood oozed down onto Michael, bathing him in blood. He looked like a demon in everyone''s eyes for a second.
"Kill or be killed Cindy, you''ll realize this when you grow up and learn how this world works," Michael said,
"Teacher, you''re sick," Olivia said to herself. Perhaps, everyone on the ship had the same thought appear in their minds.
******************************************
(Somewhere else in the Elon continent, a few hours ago)
The clouds were the kind of gray that would make any quarry rock proud as if they were so pleased to echo the ground. All the gray, all that swirling water in the sky, condensation was bound to happen sooner rather thanter. Above these gray clouds was a deste quarry. As far as one''s eyes could see, there wasn''t a single tree or any nt for that matter that could be found except for boulders and a group of angry reapers wearing nothing but ck robes. Each of the reapers looked exactly like the reaper that attacked Michaels''s ship.
The reapers were rushing from all directions towards a woman who was sitting on a pile of dead bodies. She was calmly watching the reapers while sharpening her swords by rubbing them together. Her long ck hair fluttered in the wind, revealing the drops of blood on her alluring face.
From her long coat to the fingerless glow to the boots she wore, everything was ck as the darkest night. The pile of bodies she was sitting on contained at least thirty dead reapers. All of them were Core Strengthening stage level 6 cultivators. Yet none of them could stand a chance against her.
Even when there were twenty more reapers rushing towards her with their weapons raised, there wasn''t the slightest fear in her eyes.
"Twinkle twinkle little star" she flicked her wrists as the blood on the swords sttered onto the ground, revealing the ck des of her swords.
Her voice was gentle, yet at the same time, it was filled with a murderous aura.
"How I wonder what you are" a thinyer of gold energy enveloped her body as she gracefully stood up to walk towards the live reapers.
"Up above the world so high"
As she was walking, a crimson red fire started to coil around her swords like snakes. Soon, the fire enveloped her whole body. The fire burnt so hot that even the pebbles on the ground turned into charcoal.
The reaper came to a halt when they felt the air getting hotter and hotter. They had no idea how strong the woman before them was. The only thing they knew was that she cut thirty reapers in a couple of minutes like vegetables. They didn''t even know who the hell was this woman, the reapers were minding their business as they were flying to kill Ghost. But all of a sudden, she appeared out of nowhere, ambushed them, and killed their colleagues except for one. She let one alive so he could bring backup.
"Like a diamond in the SKY!" the moment she said thest word of the rhyme, she leaped so high into the sky. She then swirled her swords as the fire formed a circle above her head.
"DIE!"
She pointed the two swords at the reapers. The circle of fire transformed into a chakra before soaring through the sky towards the reapers.
"Turtle shell!"
"Snow Prison!"
"Earth Shield!"
The reapers immediately cast defensive shields around them. However, none of their shields were protected from the fire. It melted through their shield to reduce them into nothing but ashes.
"Pathetic weaklings" The woman snickered,
With a single spell, she took out half of the reapers. Those who survived were sted by the shock wave.
"RUN!" after seeing how reality she killed the reapers, the rest of them lost the nerve to fight her.
"Hellfire circle" hovering above the reapers, she waved her hand. The very next moment, the crimson red fire turned ominous dark purple. The stream of purple fire shot out from both of her swords, forming a cage around the reapers who tried to run away.
The Grim Reapers who were feared by everyone were stuck in the cage of fire, waiting to be killed like insects. She slowly descended from the sky, the selling of the fire cage opened up to let her obediently.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
She gracefully sliced and diced the reapers who were unfortunate to be closer to her. Each of her sword shes cleaved a head clean off a shoulder.
After killing another four, she didn''t even move. She just waved her sword, creating a crescent-shaped wind de with her swords. More blood sshed across the ground, painting the gray ground red. The cage was her killing ring and the reapers were nothing but mere cattle that were waiting to be butchered.
"Why¡who¡are youdy?"
Thest remaining reaper tried to crawl away from her. His half of the body was burnt by the purple me. Before he died, he wanted to know who killed him and why. She kicked him in the gut before squatting down beside him,
"Tell your friends you guys picked up a wrong contract" the woman ran her sword through the reaper''s neck. The reaper slightly sighed inside thinking that she might let him live.
"Don''t bother, I''ll tell them myself"? the reaper''s heart skipped a beat but soon, his heart was prated by her sword, ending his life instantly.
She looked around the dead reapers for a few seconds.
"I need to find the one who put the contract on my son and end this"
She tossed the swords into the air before turning back to leave. As she was walking away, the swords fell straight into her sheath on her back.
Snap!
While walking away,she snapped her fingers as the purple me cage exploded creating a small mushroom cloud. She walked away from the explosion like in the movies.
The reapers never thought they would be massacred by a woman. They had no idea that it was Harriet Hunt who hunted them down.
*******************************
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Chapter 330 - Gaya鈥檚 Adventure
The road that led to and from Meblin vige in Kethen was unrecognizable as nature had begun reiming the now unused area. Gardens once looked after and trimmed to perfection were now rough and overgrown, returning back to their chaotic natural state.
Most doors were eitherpletely gone or mere remnants of rotten wood and rusty metal. The open doorways looked eerie as only darkness showed within. Paint crumbled off of the walls and was slowly reced by vines that crawled their way towards the rooftops.
Meblin, once nothing more than a simple, quiet town, was now a ghost town in the truest sense. The air which was once filled with the many sounds of a growingmunity had grown eerily quiet. The silence was only broken up by the asional animal sound and gust of wind. The once tranquil peace of mind people found in the park was now found by wild animals enjoying the sunshine and tall grasses. With nothing and nobody to bother them, they had grown into a hugemunity of their own.
One could go anywhere in town they wanted, walk into any home, and visit any previously private part of town, assuming it hadn''t been destroyed by nature already. But not all was lost. In a way the legacy of this town lived on through the animals that lived here now, the spirit was still alive albeit in a different manner.
Strolling through this ghost town, Gaya entered a longhouse. The house was dark but the orb of light hovering in her hand helped her navigate through the corridor which she could clearly feel was leading downwards. The corridor was pretty dark, and after having walked for fifteen minutes in silence, a steel door appeared in front of them.
"What is this ce?" Standing on Gaya''s shoulder, Ayag asked.
Vedora felt surprised. They never expected a hidden ce like this within a ruined house in a ghost town.
"There''s a portal behind this steel room" Gaya ced her hand on the dust-covered steel door,
"Portal to the fire realm?" Ayag asked. After leaving the dark forest, Gaya only told them that she''s going to a realm called the fire realm except she didn''t tell them how or why.
"That''s right."
She waved her hand, unleashed a beam of light onto the steel door. A click immediately sounded out from the door. It looked like it hadn''t been opened for quite a long time, or perhaps it had only been opened a few times, which is why it produced such a rusty sound when opening.
Behind the steel door was a spacious secret chamber, and it was sealed on all sides. Right in the middle of the secret chamber there was an illusory portal. It was floating endlessly like water while emitting bright lights.
"How do you know about this portal?" Ayag asked,
"This ce looks ancient yet this portal doesn''t look old at all" Sarba looked curiously at the portal.
"There are secret portals all over this world made by cults before the guardians wiped them out. Now that I think about it, the order of death might be one of those cults" she cautiously walked towards the portal,
"Whoever built this was really skillful with formations, the portal is different from all other kinds of portals and formations, and it''s rted to the dimensional forces. Without advanced knowledge about runes, no one would be able to build this. Definitely, the work of a six-star Runemaster" Gaya said with a calm voice.
"So are you gonna tell us your n here?"
Gaya sighed inside. Instead of stepping into the portal, she decided to let Vedora know her n. Otherwise, she knew they would keep asking the same question until she answered them. However, she had no time to briefly exin her n. Therefore, she only gave them an outline of her n.
"Here''s the gist. We go to this realm, find something called the Satanic Key, enter the Blood cave using the key, find the five-headed ancient serpent kill it, and absorb its soul"? She made it sound easy but she knew it would take everything in her to survive inside the fire realm let alone defeating the ancient serpent. However, she was resolute in getting this done. If she could absorb the ancient serpent, her body and soul would go through metamorphosis, just like Nightmare, only her metamorphosis would catapult her cultivation level to multiple stages higher
"Why do I get the feeling we''re gonna get our asses kicked soon?"
"I told you not toe" Gaya shrugged,
"Shut up and activate the portal. This ce freaks me out" Ayagined as Gaya rolled her eyes. She told Vedora not toe with her yet Ayag insisted oning with her. In fact, Ayag gave Gaya only two choices, it was either bring them along or they would tell Michael about her departure. Since Gaya didn''t want Michael toe with her as she didn''t want to endanger his life, she brought Vedora with her.
"Fine"
With a flip of her palm, she retrieved a golden-colored token from his storage ring. It was about the size of a palm, and it looked to fit right into the slot located at the center of the portal.
She took a step forward, gently cing the token into the portal. An instantter, the portal produced a buzzing sound, then it started functioning.
Swoosh swoosh¡
Followed by the activation of the portal, a wild wind swept across the entire secret chamber. Celestial energy was leaking out from the portal, making it difficult for them to breathe.
Buzz¡
Not long after that, a pitch-ck tunnel appeared right in the middle of the portal. Freezing winds immediately violently blew out from it. It was so cold that it felt like it wasing from eternal darkness, it sent a shiver down the spines of all who heard it.
Even the usually calm Cain''s expression changed upon sensing this. Gaya, however, was standing right in front of the storm with an indifferent expression. Ayag stuck her tongue out and felt excited as well. Just like Gaya, Ayag did not fear danger, she became excited upon encountering danger. Both loved thrilling adventures, they liked the feeling of excitement.
"Let''s go."
Gaya leaped forward, disappearing into the tunnel.
Click!
Right as Gaya disappeared, the tunnel instantly closed. The portal had also stopped functioning. The golden token popped out from the slot before turning into nothing but ashes.
Swoosh¡ swoosh¡
The freezing wild wind never seemed to stop.
"Whooohoooooooooo!" Ayag screamed excitedly, putting her tongue outside.
"Hold onto ussssssss" Sarba on the other hand screamed into Gaya''s ears. He wanted Gaya to hold them in her hands rather than letting them stay on her shoulders
"This is aaaaaaaaaawsome" Ayag kept screaming. She did not worry about getting thrown into the spacial tunnel. After hearing Sarba''s scream, she lifted Vedora from her shoulder to hold them tight in her hand. Only then Sarba heaved a sigh of relief.
Gaya was moving along the flow, there were whirlwinds everywhere, and the tunnel looked variegated. The whirlwinds kept blowing into the tunnel, causing her face to hurt.
The more they traveled, the more the tunnel seemed shaky and unstable, as if it was going to copse at any time.
"Quit screaming shithead, the portal isn''t stable. We better be careful. I don''t want to drift off from the tunnel because of your screams" Gaya flicked Ayag on the head,
"What will happen if we drift off from this tunnel?" Sarba politely asked. Behind his polite words, Gaya could sense fear.
"Nothing good. Best case scenario, we''ll end up Outerspace, drifting forever. Worst case, our bodies would explode into a bloody mist"
Sarba felt even more depressed after hearing her words. He looked around and found out there were ck holes everywhere. Also, from time to time, a massive dimensional typhoon would appear in their sights.
ckhole was a ce where coldness and darkness blended together. It was tough to find a dimensional node within. Even immortals wouldn''t dare to treat a ck hole carelessly. The dimensional typhoon within the ck holes was the deadliest existence. It was just a dreadful monster that would cause anything that gets dragged into it to perish.
Within the teleportation tunnel, Cain was admiring the breath-taking dimensional turbulence around him while listening to Ayag and Sarba chit-chat. He noticed Gaya often looked over her shoulder. He could tell she was looking for Ghost. Although she didn''t talk about how she''s feeling, her eyes betrayed her, revealing the sorrow within her heart to the outside.
After staying for a full day in the tunnel for an entire day, the duo finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
"We''re almost there."
Seeing this, Gaya informed Vedora
"I wonder what the me realm looks like"
Ayag was so excited that she jumped up from Gaya''s hand. The light at the end of the tunnel became brighter, and soon after, Gaya arrived at the end of the tunnel. Everyone held their breath as they were getting ready to enter the Fire Realm.
Right now, within the Fire Realm, somece within an abyss.
It was a foggy ce, and everything here looked gray. The abyss was apletely dested area, and rocks were everywhere. A monster with a body fully covered with purplish scales was roaming around in this area.
This monster was over five meters tall, its whole body was fuming with frightening red mist. It only had one eye, which was positioned vertically right in the middle top of its face. It also only had one nostril and one huge mouth below the eye. The eye, nose, mouth were all lined up in a straight line, giving it a really fearsome savage look.
The monster was roaming around, its eyeball was rolling around in full alert as if it was searching for something.
Bang!
Suddenly a loud banging sound could be heard from the skies above. It was as loud as a fierce thunder strike. A hole in the sky appeared as a figure shouted out from it. The monster was startled by the sound. It raised its head to look in the direction. In an instant, Gaya fell straight onto its head.
Plop!
Everything happened so fast that this monster didn''t even have time to react. Gaya carried a massive amount of force when she hit the monster''s head. The monster cried out horribly while rolling on the floor.
Roar!
The monster was furious. After rolling on the floor in pain, it immediately stood up on the ground to look at the being that caused the pain,
"You are one ugly son of a bitch" Gaya''s bow materialized in her hand.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 331 - The Fire Realm
"What is that thing?" Vedora stared at the beast from top to bottom in wonder. They searched through the knowledge they inherited from Gaya and Michael to find something or anything about the beast.
Bang!
While they were focusing on finding about the beast, Gaya released a golden arrow aiming at the beast''s head. The moment the arrow met the beast''s head, blood sshed everywhere, the monster''s head exploded into a mess.
Gaya felt a bit of pity for the monster. A moment ago, it was minding its own business. Fate yed a game in the monster''s life by opening the portal right above its head. Otherwise, she wouldn''t havended on the beast, making it mad
"Do you think it''s edible?"
"What is wrong with you?" Gaya felt a sudden feeling of nausea hit her core when Ayag asked. She flicked Ayag on the head couple of times,
"Ouch bitch that hurts"
Aya cursed Gaya while trying to bite her finger.
Cain ignored their bickering, "A Body Refining stage beast. I can sense its cultivation stage, so that means the hydra''s scream didn''t affect this realm"
"Are we in a different world?" Sarba asked. Finally, Gaya stopped fighting with Ayag to answer Sarba,
"No, this is one of the many realms between our world and the space outside. Some realms are above the world while some realms are inside our world" After exining, she started to walk away from the dead bodies as it might attract various other beasts to their location.
"Why does this damn abyss feel so ghastly? Gray fog everywhere. I hope this fog can''t hurt us"
Gaya''s expression became serious, she looked around as well.
"Did youe here before?" Sarba asked,
"No, but I learned what''s little out there about this ce"
"Humph, never pegged you for a learning type" Ayag snickered,
The other two heads expected a snarkyeback from Gaya yet she kept walking without uttering a word.
"Alright, this ce looks boring as it is and now you decided to go into silence mode" Ayag moved her head towards Gaya''s thumb to chew it.
She wanted to bring Gaya back from her deep train of thoughts.
"Aw," Gaya suddenly felt a sharp pain in her thumb. She looked down to see Ayag chewing her thumb viciously.
"What''s on your mind?" Sarba asked before gently knocking away Ayag from Gaya''s thumb.
"Isn''t it obvious, she''s thinking about Ghost," Ayag said.
"You should have brought him with us"
"No Cain, he has enough problems as it is. I want to do this alone. If he was with me, he''d be worrying about my safety more than getting what I need here. I need to prove it to myself that I''m worthy of him"
Vedora understood Gaya''s feeling. They unanimously decided not to ponder into her feelings too much.IF she was focusing on her feelings, her fighting intent would be lessened, they didn''t want that to happen.
Gaya learned about this ce yet she did not expect it to be such a nefarious environment.
"Look another one" Ayag noticed another beast looking exactly the same as the one Gaya killed roaming around thend almost a hundred meters in front of them.
Gaya wanted to go past the beast without killing it but even from hundred meters away, the beast found them. It turned its one eye staring at them as puffs of smoke came out of its nostril.
"What is this monster? There''s something different about these beasts"
As Sarba was letting the others know what was in his mind, Gaya fired an arrow lightning fast. The arrow soared through the air.
Boom!
Just like before, when the arrow hit the beast, its head exploded.
"The energying from it was not Arch energy, it''s different"
Getting closer to the dead body, Gaya carefully examined the monster.
Indeed she had learned about these beasts called the fire demons, but she had never seen them with her own eyes until now
"I think the energying from them is some kind of First energy. Human talked about various energies other than Arch and Celestial. Since this is not celestial, it must be First energy, at least a variant of it"
She paused for a second before going on,
"ording to the legends, these fire demons have a really strong body and incredible muscles, and its most powerful weapon is its vertical eye which can unleash a powerful light that can cause damage directly to one''s soul. These beasts only exist in ancient realms like this one. We need to be careful here, I don''t think there are only Body Refining beasts here"
Gaya sighed inwardly.
The ancient scripts she had read about ancient realms told her that the Fire Realm had suddenly appeared three thousand years ago. It was the same time the Guardianspleted a ritual that made the gods lock the Dark Lord''s seed in a universe with no magical energy, a void universe.
"Since we''re so close to this beast, we should get the monster core" Gaya put her hand inside the bloody mess on the ground. She searched for a few moments before grabbing the monster core of the beast. Vedora saw her pull a hand-sized ck orb from the bloody mess. She quickly put the core inside her space ring.
"You''re right! I, the master dog, have a copper head and iron bones! Even if the ancestor of this Fire Demon was here, it wouldn''t be able to withstand a single head m from this master dog!"
"I can sense strong energy radiation from this thing. I wonder if you can absorb this energy?" asked Cain as Gaya shook her head,
"I can''t but I bet my freaky human can" speaking about Michael put a smile on her face.
Not all beasts contained monster cores but if a monster core contained Arch energy, any individual being from any race could absorb the energy. Nevertheless, monster cores that contained anything other than Arch energy or Celestial energy couldn''t be absorbed by a being as they contained too much impure energy.? Absorbing it by force would seriously impact the person''s cultivation, and it could even make them enter a state ofa. Usually, monster cores above the Body Strengthening stage were extremely rare because any beast that reached Core Formation would choose to live in ces hidden from the hunters. Most of the time, these beasts would form a pack to keep themselves safe from hunters and get rare herbs that let them cultivate faster.
After putting the monster core in her space ring, she shot out a ball of mes and burned the body to ashes.
Roar!
Right at this moment, a loud roar sounded out from somewhere not far away from where they stood. It sounded deep, and a little hoarse, which made it extremely terrifying. They immediately turned around to look in the direction. In an instant, they saw a monster which was glowing brightly appearing not far away from them, it was slowly walking towards them.
Although she burned the body, it was toote as the monster was attracted by the smell of blood long before she burned the body.
"What kind of monster is this?"
Vedora was startled. The monster wasn''t tall, it was just a little bit taller than an average human. The body didn''t look very muscr either, but it gave them an overbearing impression. This monster had a transparent body that looked like a crystal, also it didn''t have any facial figures. No nose, no ears, and no mouth. Right in the middle of its face, there was a crystal eye, which kept staring at Gaya.
"GRRRRRR!"
The monster roared out once again. It didn''t have a mouth, but it could still roar loudly. The roar sounded like it came from its body, it was enough to send shivers down most people''s spines. If any ordinary girl saw this strange monster, she would definitely be scared to the point she screamed as loud as she could.
But Gaya didn''t move at all. Since the Hydra''s scream didn''t affect this realm, she could easily find out the cultivation level of this monster; it was only a Core Formation level 1. Although it was considered pretty strong, it couldn''t pose any threat to her. Unlike the two beasts she killed before, the beast approaching her looked nothing like the two beasts. This beast was transparent like a crystal and had only one eye, no other facial features.
" Lucky us, another ugly thing came to greet us" Ayag rolled her eyes.
"I once read a book called ''Ancient Beings''. It recorded all sorts of monsters and beings. By the look of this beast, it must be ss Wraith"
"You seemed to have read an awful lot of books for an orphan" Ayag frowned. Not only Ayag but also Sarba and Cain felt surprised by her knowledge about this world. They even saw Ghost ask her for information and he was a freak of nature who could do anything in their minds.
In the short amount of time they followed Gaya, it felt like there was nothing that she didn''t know.
"If I told you I am a princess, would you believe me?" Gaya looked at Vedora with a small smile on her face.
"You? A princess? Hahaha" Ayag burst intoughter after hearing Gaya.
"Stop ying around and kill that beast"
Roar!
The sswraith roared out once again. Somewhat Cain had a feeling that the beast wasn''t surprised to see the human in front of it. To Cain, it seemed like Gaya didn''t tell them the whole story about this ce.
The sswraith carried an extreme killing intention as it quickly sprinted towards her.
"Since this ugly fucker is tired of living, we should send him to hell"
Ayag wasughing out loudly in excitement as Gaya nocked a fire arrow on her bowstring, preparing to shoot the moment the beaste into her target area.
**************************************
One more chapter about Gaya''s adventure and we can finally start the tournament.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 332 - The Nefarious Ancient Beings
Boom!
The moment the ss Wraith came close enough for her to kill it, she released the arrow from her bow. The fire arrow left a trail of ze of fire in the air staring from Gaya''s bow to the beast''s location. The arrow hit its target creating an explosion.
She infused the arrow with her cultivation power to obliterate the ss Wraith. The Beast''s body shattered instantly because of the impact, it turned into pieces of crystals and scarred across the ce.
"humph, so weak!"
Ayag wasughing out loudly seeing how easily the arrow killed the beast. However, before she could finish having augh, her eyes went wide in shock. The three heads could see the broken crystal pieces assembling back to normal in an instant, making the ss Wraith whole again.
Roar!
"Here''s a lesson for you Ayag, neverugh too soon" Unlike Vedora, Gaya knew this would happen. To kill a ss Wraith, one had to exhaust all the energy in its soul which meant she had to kill the beast again and again until it could not resurrect again.
The ss Wraith was extremely angry. It roared out in fury as it dashed towards Vedora once again. This ss Wraith was a rare and unique life form, it didn''t possess any kind of innate ability to cast spells, it only relied on its body''s strength. It could rip anything apart. Besides, the bright light that shot out from its body could cause devastating damage. Anyone who got hit by it would either die or suffer severe injuries.
"What are you waiting for? Kill it!"
Vedora felt somewhat depressed, even humiliated when the ss Wraith resurrected.
In a blink of an eye, Gaya fired another fire arrow at the beast. Just like before, the shattered ss Wraith was restored back to its original shape, which looked and felt exactly like it did before.
"What the fuck?"
Ayag''s fury ignited. She felt like she herself was fighting the ss Wraith.
"Calm down, we need to kill the ss Wraith again and again until it has no energy left in its soul to resurrect itself" As she said, she fired another arrow before the GLass Wraith could leap towards her.
Yet again it shattered into crystal pieces before assembling its whole body again.
"What an abnormal monster.? Only we had this ability" Ayag''s eyes sparkled,
"Who would be able to kill us?" Ayag wondered.
"Stop daydreaming" After all the time they spent with Gaya, Ayag was used to getting flicked on the head. So when Gaya flicked her this time, she just ignored instead of bickering.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Gaya fired a fire arrow one after another shattering the ss Wraith again and again. After being killed several times, the ss Wraith''s energy in the monster core reached a critical point. Realizing the threat of imminent death, the beast immediately turned around, fleeing with extreme speed.
Since it was a Core Formation level beast, it possessed basic intelligence, hence, it finally understood how powerful its opponent was. If it continued fighting, it would get itself killed here.
"It''s running away, ha we got that bastard"
It didn''t take a genius to figure out why the ss Wraith was running away. Because its resurrection caused some slight humiliation to Ayag, she wanted nothing more than seeing the ss Wraith shatter into pieces and not getting resurrected again.
Gaya was not in a hurry to kill the ss Wraith. She let it run for a few more seconds before firing the arrow. The zing arrow soared through the air aiming at the ss Wraith''s back. Just as before, the arrow made the body explode but this time, the shattered pieces stayed as it is.
Buzz¡
Followed by a buzzing sound, the broken crystal pieces which were shattered around the ce formed into a fist-sized crystal ball that floated in the middle of the air.
"Is that the ss Wraith''s monster core?"
"This is something good," Vedora noticed a curious look emerging on Gaya''s face.
Gaya had quick hands. In an instant, she grabbed the crystal ball with her hand, then she said, "wow, this contains pure Arch energy and even a sliver of Celestial energy within"
"Didn''t you say the monster cores of the beasts here contain impure energies? What makes this one different?" Ayag asked.
"No one can absorb the monster cores found in the beasts here without purifying them first, but this one is different. ording to Ancient Beings, the ss Wraith is born from nature after having absorbed pure Arch energy. As I said before, not only does this core contain huge amounts of pure Arch energy, it also contains a sliver of Celestial energy which means any cultivator can absorb it directly"
"So are you gonna absorb the energies?"
Gaya shook her head, "it''d do little to no good to me. Because the core is from a Core Formation level 2 beast, I''m way stronger than the beast. No use in absorbing anything that''s not stronger than you. However"
"If we can bring it out from here, we can sell it for a fortune" She grinned, tossing the crystal a couple of times in the air and catching the core.
"Cores like this can be only found in ces like this. Out there, it''s extremely hard to get a core from a beast above Body Strengthening stage"
"So that''s why there are so many people who are risking their lives in ces such Nether Realm" Sarba had a look of realization on his face as Cain opened his mouth,
"Plus, they also get battle experience"
"Alright, I''m sure there are a lot of ss Wraith''s here, oh boy, we''re gonna be rich!"? A bright smile appeared on Ayag''s face. Although Gaya knew she could make a small fortune auctioning the cores, getting the crystal cores was no easy task.
"Only idiots venture into ancient ces looking to make money. Let''s imagine If someone bumps into a ss Wraith which is at the same level as he or she, they are fucked. Even if they were one level higher than the beast, they''ll be still fucked. Instead of one getting the beast''s core, it will get the flesh and blood of an idiot"
Gaya was not here to make money, if it was, she could have stayed with Ghost and made millions through the Majestic and Hades. Her goal was to find the five-headed serpent.? Absorbing its soul would start her metamorphosis.
ording to Nagnd''s history, only Gaya''s mother managed to in one and absorb its soul. It was the reason for her mother''s terrifying power but the power came at a cost. During the fight, Gaya''s mother was wounded by the five-headed serpent, its poison slowly spread through her body, reducing her life little by little. If only her mother knew Ghost before, he could have saved her.
"Look at the bright side, we are not idiots who are looking to make money but since we are here, it doesn''t hurt to make a fortune," Ayag said with a grin on her face.
"Alright, let''s resume our journey. I suppose this ce is only the outer perimeter, so let''s move out from this abyss and start going towards the depths of the realm. It''s better if we could bump into some edible thing. I''m starving"
"Me too" Sarba agreed with Ayag as Gaya continued to walk towards the realm''s center.
She leaped forwards, starting to fly in a straight line away from the abyss. In front of them, there was a grayish dested area with rocks scarred all over the ce. There were also some thick woods, and some strange nts growing within.
After flying for almost fifteen minutes, Ayag''s eyes lit up,
"Hey are you sensing what I''m sensing?"
"Yes. I can also sense the same energy I sensed in the ss Wraith" Sarba said
"This is nothing to be excited about. Foul monsters are everywhere and we need to be extra careful"
Cain tried to remind them that the Fire Demon and the ss Wraith were just some appetizers, the real dangers of the realm might be ahead of them.
"Shut up Cain, you''re worse than this one" Ayag hit Sarba with her head,
"No matter what kind of beastse, they will flee getting their asses kicked. Hey Gaya, just be ready with your bow" Ayag became narcissistic again.
Caw~
Just as Ayag finished showing her narcissistic grin, a huge object suddenly got in their way. It was a monstrous three-headed raven. The raven was almost 5 meters tall while fully covered with ck feathers.
Coupled with its three heads and humongous size, it could easily scare someone with its looks alone.
"You just had to open your mouth," Cain sighed.
Swoosh¡
Gaya saw a ck fog kept rising from the ck raven''s body. It was neither dark nor ominous as the smoke that would envelop Ghost when he''s in his full Dark Lord persona. Before Gaya could back away from the raven''s path, it locked on his gaze at them. The pair of evil eyes stared at Gaya and Vedora, it had decided them to be its prey.
"Damn it, what kind of monster is this one? We''ve only been here for a short time, and we have already bumped into three ugliest things in the world!"
Ayag gritted her teeth in anger. She wasn''t scared of the raven at all. Although it was stronger than the fire demon and the ss Wraith they previously fought, it was still a Core Formation level 4 beast. She knew the raven was not a match for Gaya.
However, what pissed her off was that this raven had appeared right after she boasted.. This gave the other two heads a reason to mock her when the time came.
Chapter 333 - The Championship Tournaments
The Royal Land had never been busier than today. There were only joyful faces as they headed toward the arena for the greatest tournament for warriors in Elon, music filled the air as the people felt chock full of adrenaline-pumping happiness. The vibrancy of the event, the energy of the dancing dragons, the fireworks that made an artistic canvas of the early morning sky, was looked forward to by all. The people flowed like rivers, never stopping for obstacles but swirling around them.
On those wide avenues of Royalnd with wilted trees, their leaves curled and ckened in the gentle morning heat, the buildings towered on each side. The crowd had a life of its own, their vibrant clothes shone in the morning light and the people moved like enchanting shoals of fish. There was chatter between sellers and buyers, old friends catching up, new friends making. It''s busy for sure, but the hustle and bustle brought life to this city one wouldn''t want to be without.
Among the crowd of people, half of them had their faces painted in various colors. They showed support for their star by this gesture. Even the little kidsfortably sitting on their fathers'' shoulders had their faces painted.
Life might be hard for some but today, there wasn''t a face that did not show a wide grin.
Excitement, adrenaline, fans, and a perfectly manicured turf, were all things that came to Ethan''s mind when he entered the arena through the VIP entrance. The Ataxia was one of the most impressive arenas he has ever been to. If anyone visited this arena for the first time,? they would be overwhelmed by the size, and beauty of its massive structure. The majestic arena stood almost 600 feet high and could seat 130,000 roaring fans.
The first thing Ethan noticed when entering the stadium was the ocean of crowd, he thought it would be more suitable to call them fans as there were so many of them, wearing the various colors of clothes, painted faces, and carrying boards that had their heartfelt message written on them. For people like Ethan, it was just a board but for the die-hard fans, they were like bridges that connected them with their stars. They waved the boards up in the air, hoping their stars would take notice.
The entire arena filled with people was so beautiful, it was like a painting painted by the happiest painter in the world. There was excitement and anticipation in the air as the thousands of fans started singing, and chanting for the sects and the stars they support. The noise kept getting louder and louder as other fans arrived and joined in. There were thousands of fans, cramming their way into every avable seat. The seats for anyone except VIPs were made of cold, hardwood, and painted white and yellow, the two colors that represented the Royalnd. Although the wooden seats were not reallyfortable to sit on as they were built so close together so one had to squeeze into them, the excitement in their hearts overshadowed the difort felt by their bodies.
The arena had loads of smells. Ethan could smell the gentle morning breeze. The aromas from different foods were so strong he could actually taste them in his mouth. There was also a smell of freshly brewed ale that had been spilled time and time again. The sunlight reflecting on the gigantic mirrors set all around the arena was blinding, it shone down on the field, the crowd and made everything look so bright and dazzling. In addition to the mirror, there were lights set on massive metallic structures, which held them high above the arena; they could be seen from miles as they lit up the night sky. Below the set of lights on the west side of the arena was a scoreboard. It was magnificently lit up, at the moment, the scoreboard was empty, void of names.
After looking at the amodation for the normal people, he was d he was able to buy VIP tickets. The VIP amodations were located on the east side of the arena, closer to the battle area, built on an elevated stage to give them a clear view of the fights. Moreover, their seats were not wooden chairs, they were recliner cushions. On top of better seating and view, the VIP balcony also had Ruby Cuisine stalls set up so the VIPs could get better and tastier foods and merchant stalls that sell opera sses for children and for those who have problems with their eyesight.
Ethan was carrying buckets of snacks which include honey popcorns, roasted chicken legs, fruit juices, and some other snacks he had never even heard of before to his neck. Yet he was being pushed by his wife who had nothing in her hands. The only thing Ethan took pleasure in was, every man in his family had the same fate as him.
"Walk faster Ethan, you have glue stuck up your feet or something"
"For crying out loud, I''m a lord of this family and carrying all these things like a servant."
"Well, you were the one who said it''s a waste of money to buy tickets for the servants" Diana retorted with a chuckle.
Ever since she made the promise she won''t cry anymore after reading the interview of Ghost, she had be the joyous person she used to be.
"If I knew you people would spend that money on these snacks, I would have bought tickets for everyone. At Least, I would have been spared from being a mule" Ethan rolled his eyes while navigating through the seats.
"Stop bickering you two, these are our seats" Emelda reminded both Diana and Ethan. She first let the kids take their seats while supervising the men to their seats.
In the Winston family, after Ethan''s parents and Diana, Emelda held the highest authority. All the family members looked up to her leadership when Ethan was stuck, she was a natural-born leader. Among the three hunt sisters, Diana was the rebel, Natalia was the silent child and Emelda was the opposite of both of them. She was a disciplined, outspoken child.
More than anything in the world, she loved her sisters. That was the reason that even after running away from Awor Continent, she refused to get married as she had seen marriages tear apart a family. She never wanted to be put in a situation where she had to choose between her family and her sisters. To this day, Emelda never regretted her decision not to get married, everyone in the Winston family loved and adored Emelda. The children loved just as much as they loved their mothers or even more.
"Mariam, don''t fight with your brother"
"Bernie, you take that seat over there"
"Uncle Fedor, don''t you dare stick that gum under that chair"
She was thest person to take her seat after scolding, diffusing fights, and disciplining everyone. The entire Winston family was here except for Rowena, Natalia, and her husband who refused to see their son getting beaten.
"What would we do without you?" Diana squeezed Emelda''s hand when she took her seat beside Diana.
"You guys will be like headless chickens without me" Emelda chuckled while yfully pinching Diana''s cheeks.
Suddenly Emelda''s smile became a frown,
"You look different Dian"
Diana hoped she wouldn''t notice the difference even though she deep down knew Emalda would. Diana shared everything with her two sisters however, this time, she wasn''t going to. No one must know about her leaving the house to kill the reapers. Michael met only four reapers but in reality, more than fifty reapers had picked up the contract for his head. It was Diana who kept the reapers from swarming Michael.
Of course, she knew she couldn''t keep track of every single one of them. That was why she shadowed Ghost from a distance. Even when Michael killed the four reapers in a forest and killed a reaper on his way to Royalnd, she was always there for him in case something went wrong. Seeing her son battle people ahead of his cultivation stage reminded herself of her. She was proud, but at the same time, she was also worried.
"You know I''m just excited to see him again"
Emelda knew by him, Dian meant Ghost. Diana hid her secret life by telling Emelda the truth instead of a lie.
"I hope Andrews dont get on the stage with him," Emelda sighed. They spoke in whispers so the others couldn''t hear them, not that anyone could in the cheers of the fans.
"Where are they anyway?" Emelda looked around to locate Noah and his group.
"With Maisy''s family I think," Diana said,
"Maisy''s family here?!" Emelda grinned with excitement. Ever since she met the cute little girl, she wanted to meet her family.
"Do you know Maisy hates him?" Suddenly Ethan came into the conversation. He emphasized the word him. The twodies turned their heads at the same time to look at Ethan.
"Now that you said it, I did notice the little girl frown when somethinges up about him"
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Just as Ethan was about to tell them what happened inside the Nether Realm, three loud bell sounds reverberated the arena. Immediately the crowd went silent.
"Wee to the Championship tournaments" A cheerful male voice sounded after the bell sounds. With this, the tournament has finally started.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 334 - The Format Of Championship Tournaments
Soon after the voice sounded, from inside the perfectly manicured grass field, a navy blue tubr-shaped structure made of energy emerged. Three people were sitting inside the structure. From the onlookers'' point of view, it looked like a giant pill with three people sitting inside before arge table.
On the left sat a red-haired man in his early forties, he was neither too thin nor bulky. His cheerful smile showed his yful character. On the right side was another man who seemed to be in his early sixties. On the contrary to the red-haired man, this white-haired man had a solemn look on his slightly wrinkled face. Stuck between the two was a young girl in her mid-teens. She had dull orange eyes and her elbow-length, curly, pink hair was neatly braided. Thementator pill was etched with runes that amplified their voice throughout the arena.
"First of all the championship tournamentmittee likes to convey our deepest apologies for the postponement" the red-haired man spoke in an apologetic tone.
"It''s not as if we went on a trip, they all know about the void day. Themittee needed toe up with some way to determine thepetitors'' cultivation level" the white-haired man said without hiding his over the head arrogance.
"Gentleman, I think we first need to introduce ourselves, don''t you think?" the girl let out a yful giggle before talking.
"Ladies and gentle, we are yourmentators, for both tournaments, Im Ishihara Minako"
"I am James Hall, two times Royal times bestmentator award winner," the cheery red-haired man said with augh. Everyone could sense the pride behind hisugh.
"I am Darius Russell, former swordmaster of Aragoth"
The audience began to gasp when they heard the man. No one reacted the same way as they did for Russell as they did for James because the position of Swordmaster of Aragoth outssed the bestmentator award by miles. Moreover, anyone who got the Swordmaster title held a highly esteemed position in society as even the kings would show them respect. Hence the reason for Darius''s pride.
"Now that we introduced ourselves, let''s bring the battle stage up"? Darius pped his hands together. After the runes amplified the pping sound to the entire arena, everyone heard a loud cracking noise emerging from inside the grass field.
Many people stood up to look at the grass field. They saw the grass field split open in the middle. The two halves of the grass fields slowly retracted sideways as a spacious circr stage emerged from within. In a couple of minutes, the lush green grass field was nowhere to be seen and reced by a grayish round stage. The stage could easily hold seventy to eighty people without each of them feeling crowded.
"Before we move forward, let us exin the format of thepetitions," Ishihara said in a yful voice,
"Youdies and gentlemen may already know, We have two championship tournaments. One for Body Strengthening stage cultivators and one for Core Formation stage cultivators. Both tournaments have the same format, Sword Master Darius" James looked at Darius to exin the format as the swordmaster began to talk in his serious voice.
"The tournaments have 6 rounds, thest three being quarter-final, semi-final, and grand finale respectively. 100 participants will start the tournament and fight in the first round. The second round will have 40 people" Darius said,
"You know what that meansdies and gentle, bye-bye for 60 youngsters after the first round" Hall chuckled as Darius continued,
"Out of 40, only 20 will go to the third round. At the end of the third round, the judges will eliminate 10 participants based on points and votes" Darius paused for a moment to let Hall speak,
"Due toplications during thest couple of tournaments, the tournamentmittee decided not to disclose any information about the judges. The judges will be anonymous so don''t try to find them, or worse, bribe them"
Everyone in the arena knew his words were directed to the powerful noble families. They were the ones who would try to bribe the judges to get the youngsters of their family closer to the championship titles. In the past, the tournamentmittee had to spend millions of gold coins to ensure the safety of the judges as well as the integrity of the tournaments. Some noble families had even tried to kill the judges who refused to take bribes from them.
"I''m sure nothing terrible will happen this year. Darius, please continue" Ishihara said,
"10 youngsters will enter the quarter-final. It''ll be 5 versus 5. Among the 5 winners, one will be eliminated ording to the points given by the judges"
"And worry not, although it''ll be the end of one''s journey, he or she will receive valuable treasures as a prize for reaching or surviving hehehe" Yet again, Hall finished his words with a chuckle
"Semi-final will let only the best two enter the grand final"? Darius finished exining the format. The people let the information sink into their heads for a few moments before Ishihara broke the silence with her sweet melodic voice,
"Now it''s time to go over the rules. James" she turned her gaze towards James,
"As the name itself suggest, the participants for the Body Strengthening stage tournament must be at the Body Strengthening stage while Core Formation stage participants must be at the Core Formation stage" James Hall exined as Darius continued,
"Anyone between the age of 10-23? can participate in the Body Strengthening stage tournament. Participants for the Core Formation stage tournament must be below the age of 30. we have arrays ced on the stage to determine one''s age, if you''re older than 30 and think you can participate with the help of a spell or potion, I rmend you not to unless you really want to end up like a cooked turkey"
"Hahaha," A small portion of the onlookersughed like he was kidding but the rest of them knew he was serious, deadly serious.
"We''ll not bore you with the rules for each round, it''ll be more interesting to go over them before the starting of each round"
Boom!
After James spoke, another loud booming sound reverberated the arena. The onlookers looked up at the sky to see several white-robed figures in pairs descending to the stage. Each pair was carrying a six feet mirror with a golden border. The closer the pairs got to the stage, the more the people could see the glowing runes on the mirrors. Unlike the runes, none of them were able to see the gears, nuts, and bolts behind the mirror.
In a couple of minutes, the white-robed people brought six mirrors onto the stage. They gently ced the mirrors on the stage as the people tried to figure out the purpose of the mirrors,
"Participants for the Body Strengthening stage pleasee to the stage and follow the instructions given by the coordinators'' '' While the participants were getting ready to hop onto the stage, each pair of coordinators flicked their wrist as a 12 feet tall pir beside the mirrors. The pir was made of 10 ck rocks. Each rock was separated by a thick silver lining that glowed in the light.
The onlookers immediately became excited to see the young celebrities make their entrance.
"Can you give us a rundown on how this mirror works Darius? I heard you were in the team that built these wonderful devices that gauge someone''s cultivation level" Everyone looked at Darius after hearing James.
"I doubt the people will be interested in knowing how the Biasw works with Mirateen runes to produce a Fusion effect"
"It seems like we have to settle for the short version" James chuckled
"When a participant ces his hand on the mirror, the runes will extract a sliver of Arch energy from their body. The mechanism behind the mirror will work with the runes to analyze the sliver of Arch energy and light up the pir beside the mirror"
"As we can all see, each pir has 10 separated rocks. I assume each of the rocks will represent a level of one''s cultivation stage" Ishihara asked,
"Yes, the level goes from bottom to the top. For instance, if a Body Strengthening stage level 3 cultivator ced his hand on the mirror, the third rock from the bottom would glow in green. The beauty of this device is, it will not only show one''s level but also show how pure the Arch energy in his or her body"
After Darius exined, many people gasped in startlement.
"The purer your Arch energy is, the more powerful you are. If two cultivators on the same cultivation stage and level fought with the same spells, the victor will be decided by the Arch energy purity" James Hall exined for thements who had little knowledge about Arch energy purity. The cultivators knew the importance of keeping their Arch energy pure as that was why nobles would go crazy for potions and pills that cleanse their bodies to make the Arch energy in their body pure. Michael was making a fortune selling Revitalizing pills that cleanse a cultivator''s body.
The purity of the Arch energy was the one that separates a normal cultivator from a prodigy. This was also the reason many cultivators avoid eating meat in restaurants and prefer to keep their bodies satiated with only Arch energy instead of food.
"The brightness of the glow will determine one''s arch energy purity" Darius finished exining how the mirror worked as Ishihara asked a question,
"What would happen if someone above the Body Strengthening stage touched the mirror?"
"Instead of the pir, the mirror will let out a bright red glow and the one touched the mirror will be detained for processing. Believe me, you don''t want to vite the rules set by themittee"
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 335 - Rain Of Badass Points I
After all the mirrors were set on the stage, the people heard yet another loud booming sound. Following the sound, the east side door on the ground level opened as several youngsters in armors started to walk out of the door.
Each of them wore a different type and color of armor. Themonality between all of them was their posture. Their chests were puffed up, head held high with grins radiating pride and ego. The crowd, their cheering, and the atmosphere of the arena kindled the pride of even those who were usually modest.
"There he is, Evan rke"
"Morning Star"
"Morning Star"
"Morning Star"
"Morning Star"
"Morning Star"
"Morning Star"
The fans of Evan rke and the MorningStar sect began to roar when they saw Evan rk. Of course, there were disciples from other sects who were better than Evan in all ways. However, they were from the Ozer Continent and the arena was filled with people from Elon. The majority of the people knew little about the prodigies of Ozer. Hence, it was the stars of Elon who received a big thunderous wee from the crowd.
After Evan, another celebrity disciple walked out of the door, making many onlookers gasp for air.
"Victoria Parker!" The crowd erupted when Victoria in her silver armor made her entrance. Her charming beauty captivated the audience, even those who hated Golden Valley couldn''t help drooling.
Evan waved his hand at his fans, making them roar even louder. Victoria on the other hand didn''t even look at the crowd as she made her way to the stairs leading to the stage.
"Where is Sabi?" Sitting on the VIP balcony, Ethan searched the group of youngsters on the field to find his daughter.
Sabrina was one of the few disciples who werepeting in the tournament from a sect located in the Ozer Continent. Unlike the Elon continent, most of the Ozer was plunged into chaos due to the ongoing war.
The sects in Ozer were siding with their allied kingdoms and sending disciples to the battlefield so they could get real battle experience as well as repel the kingdom''s enemies.
At this point in time, Michael was oblivious to the fact he''s connected to the ongoing war. Although Sabrina wanted to win the tournament, the biggest reason for her topete was Ghost. After Ghost saved her and her family, she had be somewhat of an admirer of Ghost. She wanted to learn more about the man who saved her and her mother in a single day.
Every time she wanted to meet him, he was either in seclusion or somewhere else no one had any idea about.
She didn''t know what but something made her feel closer to Ghost even though she knew little about him.
"Whoa is that Sabrina Winston?!"
"Shut up, it can''t be"
"Look there. It''s her, Noah Winston''s little sister"
"If she''s here, then the Holy Trident Academy is too"
"Sabrina!"
"Sabrina!"
"Sabrina!"
"Sabrina!"
"Sabrina!"
The people of Kethen, especially those from Pen Town roared as their cheers for Sabrina shook the arena. The sheer support for Sabrina startled even the Winston family.
"Our little girl has grown" A tear of joy and pride rolled out of Emelda''s eyes. They all felt proud of Sabrina.
"It seems like we have a greatpetition ahead Darius" James Hall said,
"I think so too. I want to see what these youngsters can do with swords"
Since Darius was a Swordmaster, he was more interested in seeing the youngsters'' sword mastery.
"So many young talents. I wish I was there with them" Ishihara said
"Alright participants, please go to the stage in an orderly manner and follow the instructions given by the coordinators," James said as the youngsters stopped waving at their fans to reach the stage.
Many rushed to the stage excitedly. Some evennded on the stage directly with a leap instead of climbing the stairs.
"Victoria Parker seems to be the first person to touch the mirror, let''s see what happens" As Ishiharamented, Victoria gracefully walked towards the mirror. Everyone else stood there watching her.
"Please ce your hand on the mirror, Miss" the man standing beside the mirror instructed. Victoria wasn''t worried about the device like many others. The onlookers came to the edge of their seats to see the device working. A few seconds after Victoria ced her right palm on the mirror, the mirror slightly trembled. Under their gazes, the bottom rock of the pir glowed in green for a second before the second one started to glow. One by one the rocks let out a bright green glow until the glow reached the eighth rock from the bottom.
"Body Strengthening stage level 8," the coordinator beside the mirror said.
"Whoa, she''s so young"
"A real prodigy, she was a Body Refining stage cultivator just a year ago"
"Look how brighter the rocks are glowing, her arch energy purity must be next level shit"
"The Golden Valley must be proud to have such a talented youngster among them. What do you think Darius?" James Hall asked. His voice didn''t hide his surprise.
"Her Arch energy seems to be purer than many cultivators we tested. But purity isn''t everything when ites to real battle and this tournament will be a test for her " Darius expressed his opinion as Evan walked towards another mirror.
"Please ce your hand on the mirror, Master," the coordinator said calmly, showing no emotion on his face or voice.
Just as before, a few seconds after Evan ced his hand on the mirror, the mirror slightly trembled. Soon afterward, the pirs lit up to the eighth rock just like Victoria''s. The brightness was also just the same as Victoria''s, it indicated that the two of them were at the same level.
"Yet another Body Strengthening stage level 8"
"Evan rke of MorningStar, it seems we have two cultivators with no advantages over another" Ishihara said,
"It will boil down to the arsenal of spells they have and I doubt Golden Valley or MorningStay would bring them here with some run of the mills spells"
Evan and Victoria proudly stood aside watching the rest of them getting tested by the mirrors. One by one the youngsters ced their hands on the mirror. Except for a few, many hadn''t reached Body Strengthening stage level 8. The majority of them were between level 4 to level 6. Those who crossed level 8 didn''t get the same reaction from the audience as Evan and Victoria did because of their purity. None of them were able to make the rocks glow as bright as Victoria and Evan.
After seeing almost fifty youngsters trying to beat Evan and Victoria, all the eyes fell on Sabrina.
"Finally" Ethan leaned forward to see his daughter climb the stairs to the stage. The entire arena became silent, they all watched Sabrina like Hawkes.
"Please ce your hand on the mirror, Miss" Sabrina ced her hand gently on the mirror after nodding at the coordinator. The moment her hand touched the mirror, it trembled more than it trembled when Victoria or Evan touched. In a blink of an eye, the pir lit up like a Christmas tree all the way to the 7th stone. Although she did not reach the 8th stone as Victoria or Even, the brightness the stones let out was three times more than them.
"Body Strengthening stage level 7" the coordinator confirmed.
"That''s the brightest glow I''ve seen today" James Hall raised his brows,
"She''s the youngest to get into the Holy Trident Academy for a reason" Ishihara''s words caused murmurs among the fans.
"The pir is an indicator she has a bright future ahead of her '''' Even Darius who couldn''t be easily amazed was startled.
"The Winston family is really blessed to have such monstrous prodigies as their heirs" Ethan could see James Hall looking at them,
"I bet Miss Sabrina''s parents are really proud"
For a few moments, thementators sounded like fans of Sabrina. Victoria had ck lines on her forehead seeing Sabrina taking away her spotlight.
"We are"
Diana turned her head to see Emelda staring at the stage with tears flowing out of her eyes. Not even Diana shed tears of pride and joy but Emalda did.
"We are proud of you Sabrina!"
"We are proud of you Sabrina!"
"We are proud of you Sabrina!"
"We are proud of you Sabrina!"
The people of Pen town began to chant in unison. Their thunderous cheers did not slow down until a few youngsters finished testing their cultivation level.
An hour passed by in a blink of an eye.
"We''ll take a short break before testing the Core Formation participants" the trio ofmentators left their pill to take a break while the participants remained on the stage to socialize. Many wanted to establish a friendship with Sabrina but she quickly left the stage to join her family.
*****************************************
Meanwhile, in Sarton, Michael was waiting in Lord Information''s room patiently.? He kept gently brushing Nightmare''s head as the dragon enjoyed the rub with his eyes closed.? Michael watched the door beside the book rack, expecting the elf to walk out of there with what he asked.
"Here you go, Lord Ghost"? As he was expecting, Lord Information came out of the door carrying a thick book.
"You happen to have a book containing information about the recent events"
When Michael asked Lord Information for information regarding everything that''s happening in this world, he thought the elf would sell him a bunch of parchments. He never expected a 6inch thick book,
"You''d be surprised to know how many people want to know the current happenings" Lord Information slid the book towards Michael,
"As you asked, it has everything, including insider information, rumors, and juicy tidbits that you might find useful"
With a nod, Michael flicked his wrist as a space ring appeared on the table,
"100,000 gold coins. It''s a pleasure doing business with you" Michael shook the elf''s hand before turning to leave,
"Lord Ghost" Michael turned back hearing Lord Information''s voice,
"The thing I asked, it might happen soon after the tournament ends" Lord Information seemed rather serious,
"Im looking forward to it,"
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 336 - Rain Of Badass Points II
Although thementators announced a short break, only a few left their seats. As each minute passed by, Ethan couldn''t sit still. He was biting his nails when Emelda called him out,
"Ethan, are you alright? You seem shaky"
Diana squeezed Ethan''s hand to calm him down. Unlike her, this was his first time meeting his son.
"Do you see him anywhere?" He asked, leaning closer to Diana''s ear.
"No"
"What do you mean no? You said he wille" Ethan almost shook her by her shoulder inck of patience,
"No one said otherwise, you just need to be a little more patient Ethan" Diana calmed him down. He nodded but kept searching for the people of the Sunrise sect. It didn''t even take him more than two minutes before he saw an entire pavilion of people wearing ck clothes on the opposite side of where the VIP balcony was located. Since the arena was built in a circr shape, one could see almost everyone in the arena.
Ethan would have noticed them earlier if it wasn''t for ire''s orders not to cause a ruckus until they start the Core Formation tournament to the people of river town and sunrise sect. Because of her orders, they remained, not causing anymotion.
An entire pavilion containing at least 1500 seats was filled with ardent worshippers of the Ghost and Sunrise sect. An entire town was here to show their support to Ghost, no one had the support like Ghost had.
"AH!" suddenly Emelda shouted as everyone sitting near her turned their gazes at Emelda to see a golden monkey bouncing on her head,
"Norvin, you almost gave me a heart attack" Emelda grabbed Norvin off her head to see the monkey grinning in the joy of pranking her.
"Get away from her you damn monkey" Diana saw Alicia walking towards them with Maisy.
"Fergus, move your butt over there" Emelda chased away a ten years old kid who was chugging his juice box back to his parents.? Alicia sat beside Emelda as Norvin leisurelyid on Emelda''sp.
"Where''s Noah and Andrews?" Diana looked at the way Alicia came to find Noah and Andrews yet she didn''t see them. Maisy didn''t look for empty seats as she hopped onto Diana''sp. The little girl was so cute as Diana wrapped her hands around the little teddy bear to cuddle.
"Andrews is down there"
By looking at the worried look on Alicia''s face, they sighed. It seemed like Andrews wasn''t backing down frompeting in the tournament.
"Has he reached the Core Formation stage?" Emelda whispered as Ethan leaned closer in his seat,
"Yes," Alicia said,
"Is he alright? If themittee has found something amiss with his cultivation stage, we are toast" Ethan worried about Andrews. Thest time he met Andrews, he was still at Body Strengthening stage level 3. Even Noah just reached the Core Formation stage and Noah was a freak of nature.
"Noah took care of everything Uncle. Andrews is at the Core Formation stage now, he will suffer no side effects as you may think except for headache and feebleness for a couple of weeks"
"How did he do it?"
"I''ll exin everythingter Aunty" Alicia interjected Emelda''s question. She didn''t want to exin everything to them while people were watching them.
What Noah and she did was cheat. Although Noah wasn''t happy about this, he had to do it for the sake of his cousin.
"Is your brother with Andrews?" Diana asked,
"The correct question would be will he fight Andrews if pushes to shove?"
Everyone was thinking about it but it was Norvin who spoke out loud.
"It''s gonna be a good show as your brother doesn''t like to lose and Andrews can''t lose"
Alicia had no answer to give. She knew about her brother''s character. As far as she could guess, there was no chance he would lose to Andrews intentionally. However, Noah made sure Andrews had a high chance to win the tournament by striking a deal with a Fusion Stage cultivator, La Alden.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
As they were whispering, three loud bell sounds reverberated the arena. The muttering of the crowd was silenced down by the bells. Soon, those who went to answer nature''s call came rushing to their seats.
"The break''s overdies and gentleman" Ishihara chuckled in her melodious voice,
"Now it''s time for the Core Formation stage participants to wow us"
"Finally!"
"Yes!"
"Whoooohoooooo!"
Almost the entire arena erupted, letting out their thunderous cheers. Compared to the Body Strengthening stage tournament, the Core Formation tournament was the one everyone''s more hyped out for.
It was because there were many mini-tournaments andpetitions for Body Strengthening stage cultivators but this was one of the very few tournaments there are for Core Formation stage cultivators.
Celebrity disciples like Celina or Alex rarely appeared in public events. Not these two but most of the Core Formation disciples tend to stay within their sect or in seclusion.
The crowd constantly looked up towards the skies and the field down eagerly to see the celebrity disciples.
As they were waiting eagerly, time slowly flowed by. Just as the sun had reached the middle of the sky, from the distant horizon, the sp of thunder suddenly rumbled forth.
Just as the sound of wind rang out, everyone looked up in the direction the sound came. Cultivators like Ethan could feel that all Arch Energy surrounding the arena was now slowly gravitating towards that direction.
In the sky, they saw a bright blue sh streaking through the skies like a shooting star, descending from the heavens. The streak of blue light tore through the sky like it was a piece of cloth. The streak of light was at least twenty times brighter and bigger than the bolts of golden lightning produced by the Lightning Dash spell.
When that blue sh appeared on the edges of the horizon, everyone in the arena stared at it dumbstruck. Many people were amazed by the disy.
"That''s a shy entrance. I wonder who that might be?" Thementators were no different than the onlookers. They too looked at the sky with wide eyes.
Under the numerous curious gazes, the blue sh broke through the skies at a ferocious speed. As the sh approached, the crowd was shocked to discover that the blue sh was actually a giant sword made purely out of Arch energy.
The sword flew at the speed of a jet, leaving a trail of blue light. The closer the sword got to the arena, the louder the people heard the whistling sound the sword produced.
While the giant sword was slowing down, the crowd''s gazes immediately fell on the figure standing atop the sword. Clothed in silver armor matching his hair with his hands behind his back. His shiny silver long hair drifted in the wind, he appeared to be extremely calm and rxed. A look that subdued many of thepetitors.
The set of armor he was wearing attracted the gazes like a ma. The armor was forged using a glimmering silver metal. The smith who forged the armor used gold to adorn the borders.
The shoulder tes were pointy, quite narrow, andrge. They were decorated with a star-shaped, thick, metal ornament piece.
The upper arms were protected by rounded, half-covering rerebraces which sat loosely under the shoulder tes. The lower arms were covered by vambraces which have several masterfully crafted metal sheets, shaped like dragon scales on the outer sides.
The breastte was made from manyyers of smaller metal pieces, mimicking the scales of a dragon. The armor covered him from neck to feet, protecting every inch of his body.
Atop the sword, the youngster slightly tilted his head down as his calm gaze swept over the arena below. He then withdrew his gaze, because there was nothing worthy of his attention in that ce.
"Big brother Alex Fisher has arrived!"
Suddenly the fans of MorningStar cried out in joy, excitement, and pride-filled their eyes,
"If I''m right, conjuring a sword that size would require an extreme level of mastery in controlling Arch energy,"
"The level of mastery even the Soul Refining stage cultivatorsck" Darius said to James Hall.
Alicia''s eyes stared unblinkingly at Alex Fisher, who stood atop the sword while looking down at the arena. From thetter''s gaze, she could see how little Alex thought of people below, or perhaps, it might be a type of disregard.
As annoyed as she was, she knew with his strength, he did seem to possess the right to look down on people.
Based on Alex''sposure alone, many could not help but admit that he was indeed a rarely seen prodigy.
"What do you think of Alex''s cultivation level guys?" Ishihara asked while Alex was floating in the sky,
"Definitely higher than level 5" James Hall answered,
"My guess would be level 8" Darius shocked the crowd with his answer. Reaching Core Formation level 8 at the age of 28 was a humongous feat among humans.
"You always liked to make a shy appearance, don''t you Alex?"
While the crowd was in awe of Alex, a burst of hearty thunder-like voice suddenly rumbled from the horizon. The crowd watched as a golden ray streaked across the skies, radiating a powerful aura.
The golden light broke through the skies, causing the Arch energy to surge, as it finally came to float in the horizon, transforming into a huge golden spear that was a dozen meters long. Atop the spear stood a figure in gold armor with blonde long hair that draped over his shoulders. A domineering aura soared into the skies as if it was a unique wild spear that towered over thend. The youngster wore extravagant golden armor. The shoulders were fairly oval, quite short and small in size, decorated with a metal dragon wing on each side, curved to the sides.
The upper arms were protected by squared, half-covering rerebraces which sit quite well under the shoulder tes. The lower arms were covered by vambraces which have a row of hook-like barbs attached to each outer side.
The chest te was made from onerge piece of metal but crafted to mimic the appearance of muscles. The golden armor looked sturdier than the armor Alex was wearing.
The crowd stared at the figure in gold standing atop the golden spear, as envious looks were revealed on many of their faces but none of them seemed to recognize the person as they did with Alex.
"Who is that?"
"He seems just as powerful as Alex Fisher"
"I don''t know, I have never seen him before"
"Let''s wait for thementators,im sure they will know who he is"
The crowd was thrown into confusion as the sound of people murmuring among themselves grew louder and louder.
"Aren''t you gonna wave at your brother Alicia?" Norvin asked, looking at the youngster in the golden armor.
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Chapter 337 - Rain Of Badass Points III
"That''s your brother Peter?" Ethan raised his brows, he was surprised. After engaging Alicia to Noah, the Winston family had met everyone in the Stone family except Alicia''s mysterious elder brother. None of the Winston''s met Peter except Noah until now.
Standing 6'' 1" tall, Peter had smooth fair skin. If Alex was calm, Peter radiated an aura of confidence around him. A particrly notable feature was his perfect jawline. Coupled with his hazel eyes, sharp eyebrows, and clean-shaven look, he looked stunning. His medium-length golden hair danced in the wind, raising many young girls'' heartbeats.
"I never thought you woulde here Peter" Unlike the people in the arena, Alex knew who he was. In fact, Peter was one of the few youngsters Alex respected and looked forward to battle.
"What can I say, boredom always gets the better of me" Peter shrugged,
"Pretty good spear you have, is that an Epic weapon?"
Upon hearing these words, many of them gasped in shock. They already knew that weapons, armors, and spells were divided into five categories,
Common, Umon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Alex''s armor belonged to the Rare ss while Peter''s spear belonged to the Epic ss. Even the three big sects had only a few Epic ss weapons. Alex heard rumors but seeing a rogue cultivator like Peter having an Epic ss weapon surprised him.
"Your brother has an Epic weapon" Ethan bitterlyughed in his heart.
He couldn''t help thinking about Ghost. He doubted his son had ever gotten a chance to touch an Epic weapon. Although he supported Andrews, deep down Ethan wanted his son to win the tournament. What they did to Ghost was unforgivable yet Ethan would do anything to win back Ghost''s love. Since Noah was born, Ethan provided Noah the best while his other son grew up enduring hardships a child like him shouldn''t have. Before Diana dropped the news about his other son on him, Ethan used to sleep. Nowadays, the nightmares kept him awake. Therefore, he was cultivating with full focus to get stronger. He lost his son once because of Skyhall but he would never let that happen again.
"We both know the ss of the weapon doesn''t matter" Peter calmly said.
"It''s the wielder of the weapon who does"
Just as Peter''s words faded, yet another soft chuckle slowly sounded out from the horizon. Soon after a sh of bright green light swept over from the horizon. In a blink of an eye, a trail of green light streaked across the sky.
When the green light filled the skies, the crowd swiftly cast their gazes over, only to find a majestic eagle which was dozens of metersrge, it pped its wings as it floated in the skies. An extremely formidable aura swept forth from within the eagle.
A youngster wearing leather armor unlike Alex and Peter lightly smiled as he stood atop the eagle. His face was bewitchingly handsome, such that in terms of looks, even Peter was inferior. He held a deep blue fan in his hand, as he slowly fanned himself while giving off a graceful aura of nobility.
"Who is he?"
"The third son of Oswen Family"
After hearing Alicia''s words, Ethan once again silently nodded his head.
ording to the rumors, House Kane and House Fisher were trying to forge an alliance with House Oswen through marriage. Ethan''s sources were saying House Fisher is closer to sealing the deal by marrying one of the heirs of Oswen to Alex. If the alliance went through, House FIsher would be the strongest family in Royalnd. Coupled with Celina''s family, House Fisher was on the path of domination.
"That''s a yellow beak King eagle" James Hall was stunned to see such a majestic creature. Not only him, but most of the people were also. Yellow Beak Eagles were almost as rare as dragons.
"Andrews''s chance of winning getting less and less"
Alicia rolled her eyes, after seeing what Lah could do, she really doubted anyone had the chance to defeat Andrews, not her brother, not anyone.
Every single spell in Andrews''s arsenal was enhanced by Lai''s Angel''s veena which meant Andrews had the attack power of a Fusion Stage cultivator. Alicia could feel Lah is somewhere in the arena, she didn''t know where but she could feel her presence.
"Paul, to think that a busy guy like you would also join in the fun here, heh, you''ve even bought your Oswen''s pride, the yellow beak king eagle," Alex as he shot a nce at Paul.
"I can spare a day or two. I''m pretty sure the marriage works won''te to a halt without me" Paul waved the deep blue fan in his hand and smiled slightly.
Alex had a sly grin while Peter seemed to care less about the marriage between the two families. While these three were floating in the air, many Core Formation participants made their way towards the stage.
"Let''s get this over with," Peter said, looking down on the stage to see the stage was getting crowded.
"You go ahead, I still need to wait for one more person." Alex casually smiled and said.
"Ah your girlfriend? Where is she?"
"Sorry I''mte"
As Paul''s voice faded, a gentle voice suddenly sounded out across the skies. That voice had a certain charm to it. Immediately, an intoxicated look appeared in the eyes of several people below.
"Such a beautiful girl!"
Many youths'' minds were likewise momentarily dazed when the spirited voice sounded out, however, they quickly regained their senses, as amazement filled their eyes. Hastily lifting his head, Ethan saw a golden light sweep across the skies from a distance away before finally transforming into swirling chakra
Atop the golden chakra, was a wonderfully curved figure. Her brown hair glimmered reflecting the sunlight as the red cap she wore fluted in the wind. She wore armor that made her look both formidable and sexy at the same time. Although her armor wasn''t revealing, there were still some ces such as the neck, a small portion of her shoulders left out by the armor, showing her smooth silky skin.
She slowly floated towards Alex standing atop the chakra beforending a gentle kiss on his cheek. Many became envious of Alex, they wanted to be him at this moment. He had everything many people yearned for, money, talent, a perfect angelic beauty as his girlfriend. Even those who hate Alex couldn''t help being jealous of his life. With his arm wrapped around Celina''s slim waist, he moved towards the stage.
"It''s gonna be worth the wait to see these monstrous youngsters fight to prove who is the best among them" James Hallughed with excitement.
"Just like before, follow the instructions given by the coordinators and you''re good to go" Darius informed the Core Formation stage youngsters.
Anyone of the participants could have touched the mirror while Alex''s group descended to the stage yet they waited for the four of them.
"Ladies first" Alex gestured at Celina to touch the mirror standing a meter in front of the mirror. Every pair of eyes in the arena stared at them without blinking. Even thementers went silent as they found no words to speak due to the excitement building in their heart.
With a graceful move, Celina ced her hand on the mirror. The moment her hand touched the mirror, the mirror trembled more than it ever trembled before. Half of the pir lit up like a Christmas tree, the green glow the pir radiated lit up half the stage. It was so much brighter than Victoria''s or even Sabrina''s.
"Core Formation stage level 5, amazing"? Ishihara let out a squeal of amazement before even the coordinators could confirm Celina''s cultivation level.
"Reaching level 5 of the Core Formation stage at the age of 26 is nothing but a world wowing achievement" James Hall announced as the crowd was thrown into chaos. Several gasping sounds could be heard in the arena as they stared at Celina with widened eyes.
While they were in a state of shock, Alex ced his palm on the mirror, immediately lighting up the pir up to 7th stone.? Even Alicia was stunned by Alex''s cultivation level and the bright glow the stones radiated.
"Core Formation stage level 7, this is freaking me out guys" James Hall connected,
"It seems like we have prodigies that could go to head to head with prodigies of Awor" Darius sounded proud,
"Truth to be told guys, I''ve never seen anyone reach the level there two youngsters reach until they were way past 30," Ishihara said,
"That''s why I said this tournament is something special. Let''s see what this youngster could do" James Hall talked looking at Peter walking towards the mirror.
Alicia leaned forward to witness her brother''s cultivation level. She was pretty, he''s at the level of Alex despite her brother always liked to keep everything to himself. More than anything, he loved the privacy. Because of his habit, he even avoided attending her engagement.
The moment Peter''s hand touched the mirror, the pir lit up to the 6th stone, and never seen before, half of the 7th stone glowed dimly. Up to the 6th stone though, the pir shone just as brighter as when Alex touched the mirror.
"Whoa Alicia, your brother is a prodigy too?" Emelda''s brows arched up,
Everyone kinda expected Alex to amaze them but they never even heard about Peter before. Hence when Peter showed his cultivation power through the pir, it stirred moremotion than before.
Alex knew although Peter fell one level lower than him, the armor and the spear in Peter''s hand would make up for the difference.
After Celina, Alex and Peter, the other participants waited for Paul. Like the others before Paul too stunned the audience with his Core Formation stage level 6 cultivation level.
"Do you see him anywhere?" Ethan started to lose his patience as he asked, whispering in Diana''s ear.
"No but he wille, just be patient for a little longer" Diana began to fear something might have happened to him. The threat of reapers was still lingering above Ghost''s head like a dark cloud after all.
One by one the Core Formation participants prove their cultivation level to the people. None of the participants touched the mirror after the initial four impressed the crowd as the first four did.
"Is this gonna demotivate the other participants? I mean after the first four, no one has crossed Core Formation level 4. Can it affect the mindset of the participants in any way?"
"Well, it shouldn''t. The tournament is designed to give all participants at the Body Strengthening stage and Core Formation stage a fair chance despite the level differences"
"Another Core Formation level 3" Ishihara announced as Darius continued,
"The first two rounds test someone''sbat skills, the participants are prohibited to use Arch energy. So even if you are a level 10 warrior, if you solely depend on your spells and not on yourbat skills, you will be eliminated"
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Merry Christmas Everyone!!!
Christmas is a season of enjoying the simple things that make life beautiful. May you have great memories that will permanently touch your heart. I wish you so much joy during this season and all through to the New Year
Michael will make his appearance in the next chapter. These chapters are longer than what I usually write because I didnt want you to spend your time and coins reading chapters with no MC. But it will be worth the wait trust me
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If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 338 - Rain Of Badass Points IV
An hour and a half passed by in a blink of an eye. Even though nothing interesting happened, the audience was on the edge of their seats looking at the participants touch the mirrors one by one. Some of them betted whether or not someone would cross Alex''s cultivation level. Among one of those who touched the mirror was Andrews. He didn''t draw much attention to himself as he was only at the Core Formation level 2. Many tried to establish a friendship with Andrews because of his family status yet Andrews politely ignored them with a smile before joining Sabrina who was standing on the grass field with the rest of the Body Strengthening participants. They were watching what''s happening on the stage via therge mirror attached to high poles around the arena.
Except for the pavilion where the Sunrise sect disciples and the river town people were sitting, the others poured their excitement out by waving the boards that had their favorite participant''s name on, screaming chants, and pping their hands, producing thunderous sounds.
Ethan was shaking his legs, looking at the sky as well as the pavilion of the Sunrise sect.
"Uncle, are you alright?" Seeing Ethan''s act differently than usual, Alicia asked,
"Yeah, I''m fine, are you alright?" Ethan quickly avoided her gaze, answering Alicia''s question with a question.
"Thest participant is walking towards the mirror, let''s see if he could surpass either of the first four"
Diana''s body jerked after hearing Ishihara, she turned her gaze towards the horizon as she started to pray for her son to appear.
"Core Formation level 3. Don''t be discouraged participants, as Darius said, the tournament is designed to give everyone a fair chance"
"Being on that stage proves your talent and value. Now let''s move onto inviting the special guests" As Ishihara said, she flicked her wrist as a thunderous p reverberated through the arena. It immediately silenced all the ruckus,
The grass field behind thementators'' pills once again split open as avish stage draped in red silk clothes emerged from the ground. The stage had several ornated cushion seats that would make the seats of VIPs pale inparison.
Soon after the stage emerged from the ground, several figures along with two golden chariots appeared on the horizon. The pegasi attached to the chariots pped their wings majestically. Among the figures surrounding the chariots, half of them wore full te metal armor while the rest of them wore muddy brown leather armor with long staffs in their hands. The metal armor the figures wore was milky white with delicate designs etched onto it.
"Let us give our warm wee to His Majesty, King of Bredia, Crawford Bredia the third"
"And Her Royal Highness, Princess of Bredia, Katherine Bredia" As Ishihara and James Hall announced respectively, the chariot came to a halt adjacent to the stage. The people stared at the two figures gracefully stepping on the stage from the chariot.
King Crawford was neither too tall nor short, he was a medium-built middle-aged man with a ck goatee that had patches of white hair. His hair was cropped to neck length, perhaps it was his age, or perhaps it was the pressure of ruling a kingdom, streaks of white hair sticking out of his raven ck hair. He wore a well-embellished red tunic with goldwork thread as a basic dress. On top of it was a surcoat that depicted the emblem of the Bredia family.? His dress was made with the finest silk, fur, and other expensive materials such as animal furs. In his hand, he held a scepter that was decorated with precious shiny gems and diamonds. It was decorated just as the king''s crown was. The sword hanging on his waist gave off a warrior feeling about the king.
The princess also wore a red skirt made of finest silk and fur. From neck to toe, the dress was ornate with pearls, specks of gold, and tiny gems. Her golden hair was draped with a diamond chair. She wasn''t as beautiful as Celina, Alicia, or Sabrina by any means but she had a grace that the above three did not have. Of course, coupled with her grace, she would make any man yearn for her attention, even for a single nce from her.
"Hail King Bredia!"
"Hail Princess!"
"Long live the King!"
"Long live the Princess"
Since life in Bredia wasn''t dreadful, the people, especially themoners didn''t mind showing their support for the king and princess by cheering for them. Both the Princess and the King gracefully waved their hands at the crows as the cheers became louder than before. The thunderous response put a slight smile on the King''s face.
Following the King''s chariot, the other one also came to a halt adjacent to the stage. One after another, three figures stepped onto the stage from the chariot. One of them was a blue-haired youngster in his teens, he had a feminine feel to him due to his gait and the makeup he wore. His robes glimmered while the designs of mes made him look like he''s on fire.
"It''s an honor to wee the representative of Kingdom Thusia, Lord Calvin Howard, the second cousin of His Majesty, King of Thusia, Maxim Barnes"? Calvin waved his hand at the people with a giggle.
After Calvin, a middle-aged man in his early forties wearingvish bright orange robes that were adorned with glistening gems and diamonds.
"The tournamentmittee thank you, Your Grace, Duke of mefair of Kingdom Kethen, Avon Gilkes for representing Kingdom Kethen on the behalf of His Majesty, King of Kethen, Porter Forbes" Duke Avon was a red-haired man in his early forties. The scar running across his left left eye to upper lip gave him a viinous look.Instead of wearing an eye patch to cover his left eye, he chose to show his white eye. With his red hair flutter in the wind, he just nodded at thementators before standing beside Calvin.
"What''s that bastard doing here?" Ethan clenched his fist, almost punching the seat''s handle. For thest six months, the duchy of Pentown and the duchy of mefair were at war. It has caused them thousands of lives. Duke Marvin of Pen town was prepared for peace talks except Duke Avon was adamant about continuing the war. As the duke was standing here, there were soldiers dying at the border.
The third and thest figure that stepped onto the stage was a muscr macho man with a handlebar mustache. Despite his simple robes and tousled hair, he had a swagger that none of them in the arena had. Evan Ethan paled in manlinesspared to the man.
"It''s an honor to wee you, Lord Ashton Kane of Kane Family" when addressing Ashton, Darius sounded so humble as he never did before.
"It''s really an honor to have you with us, Lord Ashton. Only on days like this, we can see a Fusion Stage cultivator with our eyes, it''s truly a blessing" James didn''t sound like he was just saying these words to butter up Ashton but really seemed to be talking from his heart. His reaction was expected because seeing a Fusion Stage cultivator was once in a lifetime opportunity for most of the cultivators unless they were at the Fusion Stage themselves.
"The pleasure is all mine" Ashton''s voice was amplified by his Celestial Energy as it sounded clearer and louder than the voice of thementators. The voice swept over the entire arena like a tsunami wave, giving them goosebumps.
Except for Alex and Peter, all the youngsters looked at Ashton with eyes full of admiration. After shaking each other''s hands, the guests took their seats.
"Shall we start the first round for the Body Strengthening stage participants?" The crowd yet again let out thunderous shouts of excitement except the fans of Ghost.
"Look over there!" suddenly the entire pavilion jumped up from their seats pointing at the horizon. Their shouts overshadowed the others'' cheers as everyone in the arena looked at the horizon. With a flick of his wrist, Ashton changed the scenery of the stage showing on the mirrors hung around the arena to broadcast the battles happening on the stage.
The moment Ashton changed the broadcast, the people saw a majestic crimson red dragon flying towards the arena. On top of the arena, they saw a young man leisurely lying down, legs crossed at knees. He had one hand behind his head while holding a book in front of him in the other.
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
Never like before, an entire pavilion shouted the name ''Ghost'' in unison. It was the loudest cheer no one until now received, not Alex, not Celina, and not even the king of Bredia himself. Every other disciple had their sect brothers and sisters as their fans, they were just fans. but only Michael had the sect and an entire town as worshippers. The atmosphere of the arena made everyone feel goosebumps over their bodies.
None of the people in the arena blinked their eyes as they stared at the mirror and the dragon approaching the arena. His entrance was not as shy as Alex, Celina, or Peter but coupled with the thunderous response he got from the sunrise sect, river town, and the coolness of his posture
turned his entrance into a badass one.
When the dragon reached the sky directly above the stage filled with Core Formation participants, instead of descending, it pped its wings before flying straight up. Michael slowly slid down due to the gravity and in a few moments, he was dropping down. His ck coat fluttered wildly in the air while Michael calmly closed the book in his hand in the mid-air before putting it into his space ring.
The people were staring at his fall with their mouths wide open. He was still falling when Michael retrieved his two swords from the system storage. Everyone expected him to sheath his sword in the mid-air but to their surprise, he threw the sword into the sky above him.
His falling speed increased with each passing second as he soared down the air like a ck meteor.? People moved their heads down seeing him getting closer and closer to the stage. The participants upying the center of the stage quickly moved away to make way for him tond. In a few blinks of an eye, Michaelnded on the stage like superman.
Inside Michael''s head, the sound of badass point notification kept rigging like crazy as he willed the system to mute the sound. It was raining badass points. He stood up giving a little shake to correct his long coat.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
Just as he stood up, the two swords he threw in the air flew straight down leaving a trail of sparks in their way. Many gasped in shock when they saw the two swords going straight into the sheathes on Michael''s back. It was unbelievable in their eyes. Even those who weren''t a fan of Ghost couldn''t help cheering. At the moment, almost 80% of the people in the arena were letting out thunderous cheers and the remaining were too stunned to open their mouths.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 339 - Everyone鈥檚 A Badass Until Michael Comes
Under the thunderous cheers of his fans, Michael made his way towards a mirror. Thementators remained speechless letting the crowd cheer as loud as they could. They didn''t need to introduce him, the fans did that task for them.
Coincidently Alex and Celina were standing beside the mirror while Peter was a few meters ahead of the mirror Michael was walking towards. Peter had an indifferent look on his face. Michael ignored the gazes on him.
"Honestly I never expected to see a 5-star Alchemist here," James Hall said after being silent for some time,
"Yeah, the Alchemists I know are pretty focused on the uing? Alchemy championship and none of them are here to participate in a tournament for warriors," Ishihara said while Michael was walking towards the mirror. The cheers were still going thunderous yet thementators'' voices reached everyones'' ears with the help of special runes crystal clear.
Despite beingte, Michael wasn''t in a rush to get his cultivation tested. Thanks to the Spyder on Cindy''s neck, he had seen everything and was ready to rock the arena.
Standing a meter away from the mirror, Michael saw Celina coldly looking at him. Alex seemed surprised but he hid his expression well putting an indifferent look on his face like Peter.
"I will make you pay"
Before Michael could touch the mirror, Celina coldly said. Only those standing near them heard her voice only to be startled by her threat.
They stared at Michael with wide eyes wondering what he did to deserve Celina''s threat.
"Are you sure?" Michael snickered as he put his hand on the mirror. The moment he put his hand on the mirror, the entire arena stopped cheering, the excitement prevented them from uttering a word.
Ssssshhhhhhh!
Unlike never before, the mirror Michael touched violently trembled. Those who stood closer to the mirror even heard the mirror producing a faint whistling noise.
The coordinates immediately grabbed the mirror by its both sides to keep it still as the entire pir beside the mirror lit up like a Christmas tree. There wasn''t a single spot that didn''t glow in the pir, from top to bottom, the pir radiated bright sparkling green light.
"Oh my god!"
"It can''t be!"
"Level 10"
Several gasps could be heard in the arena. In the VIP area, Ethan stared at Michael without even batting an eye. He felt a cocktail of emotions surging from deep within, joy, sorrow, pride, self-me, and shame.
"That is my son," Ethan mumbled under his breath. The teensy bit doubt he had about Ghost not being his son was wiped away from his mind when he saw him. Ghost looked exactly like Diana when she was Harriet Hunt. The ck dress, two ck swords, the swag, the attitude, everything about Ghost reminded him of Harriet Hunt.
"Core Formation level 10, guys are you seeing this?!" Ishihara almost shouted in shock,
No one remained calm or indifferent looking at the glowing pir. The badass points were rapidly increasing, crossing 300,000 points.
Ashton''s lips curved upwards as he knew the odds of Alex getting killed by Michael''s hands just increased out of bonds. The King on the other hand slightly leaned forward, focusing all his attention on Ghost.
"If my guess is right, he can break through to the Core Strengthening stage anytime he wants" Darius''s words sent a wave of shock to everyone''s minds. Reaching Core Formation level 7 at the age of 27 was a humongous thing in their minds. Hence, they couldn''t even believe what they were looking at.
"How old is he?" James Hall''s eyes opened as wide as they possibly could. His eyes looked like they were about to jump out of the sockets.
Whoosh!
As James Hall''s question made everyone wonder about Michael''s age, Nightmare came straight down soaring through the sky. Nightmare shrunk his size before letting out his dragon breath up in the sky. Everyone became agitated seeing the dragon breathe as the soldiers on the king''s stage immediately stepped forward to protect the king.
Soon, Nightmare''s dragon me formed the number 21 in the sky.
"Do you think the dragon is answering my question?" James Hall asked,
"I think so, let''s ask his sect leader herself" Ishihara moved her gaze from the ming 21 from the sky to ire who was joyfully pping her hands. No one would believe ire but she really thought Ghost would be stronger than Alex or any other prodigies in the arena because she knew him more than anyone here knows him. In her mind, he was the number one, not Alex, nor Celina.
The disciples turned their gazes at CLaire after hearing Ishihara''s question. Every pair of eyes fell on ire, expecting her answer.
"Yes, he is" ire amplified her voice with Arch energy to sound louder and clearer.? With a p of his wings, Nightmare soared towards ire, shrinking his size more and more.
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
The people of river town and the disciples shouted as loud as they could. When Michael saluted at the pavilion with two fingers, the crowd went crazy. His alluring smile broadcasted on the mirror captivated hundreds of young hearts.
Standing on the field down the stage, Sabrina was pping to show her support. She never thought she would be amazed like this by someone who isn''t her sibling. Contrary to Sabrina''s expression, Andrews lost all the glow on his face. His heart skipped a beat as he started to sweat. Although he had a Fusion stage cultivator helping him win the tournament, he couldn''t help being afraid of Ghost. Even Noah advised him to be careful if he had to fight Ghost head to head.
"He''s really good" in one of the VIP pavilions, Peyton and Xanali were looking at the stage. Peyton didn''t like Ghost very much as he was the first one to reject an invitation to join Guardian Guild yet even she praised him.
"Reaching Core Formation level 10 at the age of 21, this should be written on history" Ishihara praised,
"I could only think of two persons who managed to reach this level at the age of 21, one is a prodigy of Awor continent, Harriet Hunt '''' the name sent a chill running through Emelda''s spine. The name Harriet Hunt had brought them enough pain, she never wanted to hear the name again. Being Harriet Hunt had caused Diana a lifetime of pain, Emelda knew this better than anyone. Moreover, the name brought back the memories Emelda wanted to forgetpletely. The images of what happened 21 years ago shed across her eyes. Diana thought she knew what happened but in reality, only Emelda knew what really happened all those years ago.
She was afraid of telling Diana because she didn''t want Diana to feel betrayed by her own sister.
"And the other is Lah Alden, the wielder of Angel''s veena '''' just like the name Harriet Hunt depraved the delight from Emelda''s heart, the name Lah Alden messed with Michael''s joy in his heart. Every time Michael thought about Lah, the possibility of him having a spirit child with her and her intention of killing him shed across his mind.
"These are all great kids, talented prodigies. But he has the best chance of entering the Fusion stage at the age of 40" Darius said to his fellowmentators. Michael liked the refreshment of thementators ttering him.
It helped him earn more badass points. He hoped their voice would be muted during battle though. The pir slowly lost its glow after Michael took back his hand.
Finally, the coordinators could let go of the mirror as it stopped trembling. Michael looked at Alex and Celina with a smile on his face. No one saw the meaning of his smile or the real intention behind it. Only Alex could feel the murderous glow in his eyes. Until this moment, Alex wasn''t afraid of Ghost. However, after seeing his power and the murderous glim in his eyes, he started to feel afraid deep inside.
He turned back to move away from the mirror. While he was walking away, his eyes met with Peter. For a brief moment, Peter saw a smile on Michael''s face that sent a chill through his spine for no reason. It felt like Ghost knew his secret that he''s been hiding from everyone else.
"I think that''s thest of the Core Formation participants guys," Ishihara said,
"Let''s have a short break before starting the first round of Body Strengthening stage championship" James Hall informed,
"Meanwhile the Core Formation participants can join your sects or families and enjoy the show"
After Darius spoke the words, the threementators stood up and left their pill. With a swift jump, Michael leaped into the sky, slowly flying towards the pavilion ire was sitting on. Since he had almost 400,000 badass points, he decided to upgrade his spells before the battle began.
Most of the Core Formation participants were rushing to their mentors to form a n against Ghost, including Paul. Up until Michael showed his cultivation level, the biggest threat for anyone winning the championship was Alex and Celina. Then they added Paul and Peter to that list. However, they all paled inparison after Michael came into the picture.
The biggest threat to every single one of them was Ghost.
Meanwhile, on the stage, King of Bredia leaned closer to Lord Ashton
"Lord Ashton, what do you think of Ghost? Do you think he will win this tournament?"? the king asked in a husky voice,
Lord Ashton knew everything about the King''s n to marry the princess to the winner although the king himself nned to keep it a secret until the end. However, Lord Ashton pretended like he don''t know anything about the king''s n,
"Unless they participants gang up on him during the first two rounds and eliminate Ghost, he will win the championship without breaking a sweat"
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 340 - Gaya鈥檚 True Form
Time flew differently in the fire realm than in the rest of the world. Gaya lost track of time while moving towards the Fire Realm''s center. She grew tired of killing the fire demons and beasts roaming in the realm, especially the three-headed ck crows.
The Three-Headed Crows were abundant in the Fire Realm. They had very powerfulbat strength and abilities that few people could guard against. A level 2 Core Formation Three-Headed Crow was more than enough to fight a level 6 Core Formation human warrior. However, since its opponent was Gaya, it couldn''t exercise all the advantages it had. Usually, they would use their speed to hunt their prey. In Gaya''s case, her arrows were faster than the crow. The only thing that stopped her from massacring every beast and crow in her path was that she had only a finite number of arrows.
Hence she fought some while fleeing from many though she could have easily killed them all. She didn''t forget to get the cores after killing them as she wanted to give them to Michael.
Caw¡
"Look another one"
Noticing another three headed crow chasing them from behind, Ayag warned Gaya. At first, when she brought Vedora with her, she thought they might be a hindrance but she was proven wrong. They were greatpanions, best lookouts, more than anything, they cared about her, just like Michael or Nightmare. Of course, each of the three had their own way of showing their affection but Gaya knew deep down they loved her.
"Let''s move our asses before it brings more of its ugly friends" Gaya fastened her pace,
"Kill it, it''s calling its friends!" Ayag shouted loudly,
"Yes you have to kill it" Cain did not shout, he was calm as usual.
Caw¡
The crow shouted out loudly again.
"Fuck this" Gaya halted her steps as the bow materialized in her hand. In a blink of an eye, she fired an arrow from her bow that soared through the air and pierced the crow''s heart. Unlike before, she didn''t linger around for the crow to hit the ground so she could collect the core. She immediately fled the ce because she knew the crow''s group wouldn''t be very far.
A flock of Three-Headed Crows was really frightening. They were incredibly fast, and they were extremely difficult to kill. Gaya could fight one or two but if the flock of 8 or 9 came, her life would really be in danger.
They had no idea how many Three-Headed Crows lived in this area. The entire woods was probably their territory. Also, these Three-Headed Crows were actually calling for their mates. If all of a sudden more than a hundred, or even a thousand Three-Headed Crows would storm in, she would have a hard time dealing with the situation.
Besides, she still had no clue about how dangerous Fire Realm truly was. If there was even Core Strengthening stage level 8 or 9 Three Headed Crow among the herd, there was no chance of her defeating that thing. Therefore, the best strategy right now was to run away from here.
After she had fled a small distance from the scene, they heard some distant criesing out. All of a sudden, the skies above were filled with Three Headed Crows. All of them pped their wings and started crazily chasing Gaya. The leading Three-Headed Crow had a gigantic body and was at least 15 meters tall, and its cultivation base was as Gaya feared, Core Strengthening stage level 2.
"Oh my god!"
Ayag eximed, "So many Crows, good thing we ran away"
"Save your breath and increase your speed! These Crows really live in a group, I think there are more of them." Cain warned Gaya. Gaya pushed all the Arch energy to her legs to run as fast as she could. Instead of flying, she used the woods as her cover. Even then, the Crow seemed to have sensed Gaya''s presence.
"Why do I feel like he''s chasing us?" Ayag asked.
"I don''t think he will chase us forever. As long as the group stays behind we''ll be fine."
She learned to be calm from Michael. Just like him, she wanted to take any tense situation calmly without overreacting. Thest time she lost control of her anger, it almost drove her to the point she fought Ghost.
Ayag kept cursing as she was staring at the crow from Gaya''s shoulder. Ayag felt shameful to run away from an ugly crow like that. Compared to Cain or Sarba, she took more pride in being a Hydra, an otherworldly being. Unlike the Core Formation crows, the Core Strengthening stage crow was incredibly fast, and it was only because they left the area sooner they were able to run away from the crow.
The Three-Headed Crow kept chasing while letting out furious roars. Its eyes were fierce, and it kept spitting ck poisonous mist from its mouth which took the shape of a sword and pierced towards Gaya. However, the canopy above Gaya blocked the swords.
"Hmph! Keep pissing me off, once we are far away from your ugly friends, I''m gonna rip you apart" Gaya gritted her teeth.
"You want to kill it?"
Ayag was surprised. She had never seen Gaya battle a Core Strengthening stage beast before. Unlike Nightmare or Ghost, Vedora only had little idea about herbat prowess.
"Yeah the power gap between a Core Formation stage and Core Strengthening stage is huge but that doesn''t mean Core Formation warrior can''t beat thetter ever. With good n and strategy, we can kill this damn crow"
She had a meticulous mind when ites to battle because of her years of adventuring and battle experience. Even when she was in the middle of a fight, she could easily get hold of her and his enemy''s advantages and disadvantages ande out with a n to win the fight. Just like Michael, she never fought a battle where she is uncertain about the oue.
Caw!
The Three-Headed Crow kept letting out furious roars. It was furious as it kept attacking from behind. The powerful energying from his body had scared off a lot of nearby ss Wraiths and fire demons.
As for the group of Three-Headed Crows, they were ditched far behind, and couldn''t be seen anymore.
"I don''t think he will stop chasing us unless we kill him," Sarba said.
"Just let ite, we''ll show him that he just made the biggest mistake of his ugly life" A grin emerged on Ayag''s face.
Fire Realm was a really huge ce. They ran another 100 miles, yet they were still in the same dested area.
Gaya estimated that the huge group of Three Headed Crows wouldn''t catch up anytime soon, or they might have even stopped pursuing. So, she stopped and stood firmly. As long as the Core Strengthening stage crow was far away from the Three-Headed Crows'' territory, she felt safe.
The Three Headed Crow became startled upon seeing that the human had stopped fleeing. In its mind, a human should have kept running for their lives, it was really abnormal for her to suddenly stop, as it meant death.
Caw!
Nheless, the Crow didn''t care so much. It dived down through the canopy towards Gaya to kill her with a single stab with its beak.
"You three, stay here" Gaya gently picked up Vedora from her shoulder to put them high on a branch.
"Hey you have an attack n?" Sarba asked as the crow got closer and closer.
"I have a n" Gaya turned back putting her bow back inside her space ring. She looked up at the falling leaves and broken branches,
"Attack"
She unleashed her energy as countless golden specks of light enveloped her bodypletely, causing the air to tremble and ripples to spread across the scene. The bright light made Vedora close its eyes for a brief moment. When they opened their eyes, there was a gigantic 8 feet tall 10ft long snake standing in front of them where they saw Gaya a moment ago. The snake was covered in shiny dark purple scales. It was Gaya''s real form, the Naga form that resembled a cobra.
"Poison cloud!" Gaya hissed, a voice remained the same despite her transformation. A thick jade green mist of poison came rushing out of her mouth. In a few seconds, the green cloud of smoke enveloped the woods before Gaya.
Boom!
Finally, the crownded just a few meters away from Gaya. However'' its eyes went wide in shock seeing her full form. Due to the branches hitting the crow''s eyes while it was flying through the canopy, it didn''t see her transform or release poisonous clouds.
The poison had already gone into the crow''s body when it inhaled the air.
Caw!
Caw!
The crow tried to call its friends but all that came out of its mouth was rough coughs. Gaya immediately slithered towards the crow. Although Gaya was fast, the crow still managed to react to her moves despite the poison spreading in its body.
However, it was not the open sky for the crow to fly around freely. The canopy and the thick woods restricted its movements but for Gaya, the surroundings were an advantagepared to the crow.
"Look out!" Ayag couldn''t help shouting when the crow tried to attack Gaya''s eyes using its ws.
Boom!
Suddenly a powerful st of sonic wave hit the crow. It wasn''t powerful enough to knock down the crow but it was powerful enough to st every single feather the ck crow had. In a blink of an eye, the crow turned into a featherless rosy bird. Gaya was stunned yet she avoided turning back at Vedora.
Caw!
The crow was pissed off as it let out an eardrum tearing shout.
"Poison me"
Before it could shout again, Gaya spat a stream of dark-green me through her mouth. The fire shot straight into the crow''s eyes as Gaya''s fangs grewrger.
In the speed of lightning sh, she bit the crow in the skin just above its wings. Since the crow didn''t have any feathers, her fangs prated the crow''s skin without any resistance.
"I guess I have some awesome powers" As the light in the crow was slowly dimming out, Ayag said to her two brothers excitedly.
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Michael chapter next
Michael chapter - M
Gaya Chapter - G
And Do you guys and gals want me to release? M G M G M G (one Michael chapter then Gaya then Michael)
or M M M M M G G G G G
?
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 341 - Scars Of The Past
Michaelnded on the pavilion where the river town people and disciples were cheering excitedly for him. In the front two seats, he saw ire and the Elders were pping with bright smiles on their faces. Even the usually calm andposed Elder Sandra was greeting him with a wide grin.
"Brother Ghost!"
"You are at level 10?!"
"Brother Ghost, you''re so awesome!"
"The other sects are gonna be so pissed hahahaha"
The disciples were too excited, not a single disciple remained in their seats. All of them were jumping up and down waving the name boards with Ghost''s name on it in the air.
"Brothere heree here" Cindy called him, sitting on ire''sp. On ire''s right side, the elders remained seated while on her left, there was an empty seat reserved for Nightmare. Next to Nightmare''s seat sat Olivia, Ricky, and several disciples who were in the sect longer than anyone else, the seniors.
Seeing Michael approaching, Nightmare pped his wing tounch himself in the air.
"Let me get that Master Ghost" Ricky quickly came to him and removed Michael''s dual sword sheath so Michael couldfortably rest on the chair until the first round for Core Formation warriors starts.
"Thank You Ricky," Michael said after giving his swords to Ricky. He then made his way to the seat.
"Teacher, are you even a human?" When Micheal sat, Olivia asked.
Instead of answering, he just gave her a smile.
"What took you so long?" ire''s voice was mixed with giggles and concern.
"I came here as soon as I wanted to. Did I miss anything interesting?"
"It depends on what you call an interesting teacher" Olivia looked at the stage where the guests were sitting on an elevated stage on the field. Michael immediately recognized Lord Ashton. Both Michael and Ashton locked their eyes, without uttering a word, each of them just nodded, wordlessly reminding them about their agreement.
"Who are they?" Except for Asthon Michael didn''t recognize the others.
"That''s His Majesty King Bredia and Her Royal Highness Princess Katherine," Olivia said in a low voice looking at the king and the princess.
Then she turned her gaze at the red haired man,
"Sitting right to the king is His Grace Duke of mefair, Avon"
Michael took a long look at the man. He was on Lucifer''s hit list because of the ve mines. After seeing the state of Aria''s two brothers, he wanted to know what kind of experiments they were doing in the ve mines. Unfortunately, the ce was too dangerous for Michael to infiltrate at that time and he had too many things on his te. If a normal being suffered what Aria''s brothers suffered, they would have died but something kept them alive, Michael was curious to find out more about it.
It wouldn''t take a genius to figure out Duke Avon has a hand in the ve mine operations. Michael wasn''t looking to y good samaritan by cleaning up the ve mines but had a gut feeling that the ve mines might give him something useful.
"That man with a mustache is Lord Ashton, he''s an Elder of the Kane family. A frickin Fusion stage cultivator" He could feel the shock in her heart through her voice.
"Oh?" Michael pretended to be surprised,
"Who is that blue hair?" Michael quickly asked before Olivia went into details about Ashton because she seemed like she had a lot to talk about Ashton and Fusion stage.
"Lord Calvin, he''s here representing Kingdom Thusia" the moment Michael heard the word Thusia, he gritted his teeth. A sudden explosion of anger erupted in his heart like a boiling volcano. The shes of the sanctuary burning, Abras''s life, the smiles of the elders, the good memories, the betrayal of the princess, everything shed across his eyes.
For the first time in a long time, Michael sweated because of anger. He had a difficult time controlling his anger. Since the soul piece of Abras''s had merged more with Michael''s part, the pain he experienced was so intense. In his mind, he didn''t feel like someone else was betrayed but himself.
"Teacher, are you alright?" Olivia noticed Michael sweating and shivering,
"Brother"
"Ghost"
Cindy and ire turned their concerned gazes at Michael,
"Yeah, it''s just I''m feeling hot" Michael wiped the sweat off of his forehead with his hand,
"Do you need something teacher?"
"No" Michael''s voice turned cold as it sent a chill running through Olvia''s spine. ire and Nightmare who was sitting on ire''sp with Cindy could literally feel a sudden coldness around them.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Michael''s train of thoughts was suddenly interrupted by the loud bell sounds. He took the gaze away from Calvin to see a translucent red chakra rotating above the battle stage. Since the coordinators had already taken the pirs and mirrors, the stage was empty.
"This year, the two tournaments will be conducted parallel instead of one after another. That means, after finishing one round of the Body Strengthening stage tournament, the round for Core Formation will start, so on and so forth" James Hall''s voice reverberated through the arena.
"The first round of the Body Strengthening stage will now begin. Thepetitors please step onto the stage"
Michael saw youngsters in various armors jump onto the stage one by one and group by group. It took only a few more minutes before the stage got crowded with youngsters. Following the youngsters, a couple of coordinators arrived on the stage,
"Please stay still" the coordinators'' voice too had the same volume as thementators so everything heard them loud and clear.
No one dared to act otherwise after hearing the coordinators'' instructions. They remained still as the chakra above them started to glow brighter and brighter before several orbs of red, green, yellow, and blue flew down from the chakra to the participants.
The four colors of orbs of lightsnded on each participants'' body. In a blink of an eye, a thinyer of light enveloped the participants'' bodies. Some of them had a blueyer, some of them had green, the rest of them had yellow and red.
"If you are wondering or counting still, there are 25 participants covered in each color. Those who have the same coloryer would battle to be qualified for the next round" Ishihara exined,
"The rules of the first round are simple, you just need to eliminate the other participants by knocking them out or throwing them out of the battle stage. Thest remaining 10 will be qualified for the next round. Each elimination will earn you a point that will be used in theter rounds to rank you and save you from elimination" Darius exined the rules to the participants as well as the audience. Those who attend the championship tournaments were familiar with the rules yet thementators would exin the rules for people like Michael who never witnessed a tournament before.
"And when the round begins, your Arch energy will be blocked by the chakra above you, making you temporarily lose your cultivation power. As mentioned before, this round is designed to test yourbat prowess without Arch energy. You are also prohibited to take any kind of potions or pills during the battle. Taking alchemy drugs will result in disqualification and banned from participating in any tournaments that will take ce in Elon in your future" Darius''s words immediately caused amotion among the participants as well as the crowd.
Michael frowned after listening to Darius. He was expecting him to talk about the armor the participants were wearing yet Darius didn''t seem to have anything to talk about armors. He tried to sound like themittee wants the tournament to be fair but there was nothing fair about battling a participant covered in unbreakable armor like Alex.
Those who couldn''t afford to wear armor such as Alex''s or Peter''s were clearly at disadvantage. Of course, Michael was not nning to raise his voice against this unfairness. As far as he was concerned, being born poor wasn''t one''s fault but living and dying as one is.
Michael could have easily bought or hired a dwarf to forge him an armor but he chose not to because he had APD that could inject him with healing potions, strength enhancers, and the system. Wearing armor like Alex''s would certainly restrict his both hand-to-handbat and sword skills.
"Now it''s time for us to decide which group should battle first and who is better to decide this other than His Majesty" Ishihara let out a sweetugh as an orb of white light appeared from the chakra before floating towards the king.
"Your Majesty please ce your hand on the orb, choosing a color among red, blue, green, and yellow"
Under the gazes of thousands of people, the king gracefully ced his hand on the floating orb before him. In a few blinks of an eye, the white orb radiated bright blue light.
"Blue team it is, the rest of the participants please return to your ces and return to the stage when it''s your turn" Among the participants who remained on the stage, Michael spotted three familiar faces. They were Evan, Victoria, and Sabrina.
After realizing three celebrity disciples were going to fight each other, Michael got slightly interested in watching the battle. The remaining 25 disciples prepared themselves to fight. Some of them formed small groups of three quickly after murmuring among themselves while Sabrina, Victoria, Evan who had the utmost confidence in their abilities remained alone without forming any sort of alliance with the others.
"The battle will begin after the three bells. Prepare yourselves people, you''re in for a ride"
*******************************
After seeing the overwhelming response to myst question about the release order, I have decided to go with MMGGMMGG format so the battles will not be interrupted and make you go crazy on the author.
The following tournament chapters will be focused on Michael and filled with action you''ve been waiting for.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 342 - One Vs Twenty Four
"Sabrina!"
"Sabrina!"
"Sabrina!"
"Sabrina!"
"Evan"
"Evan"
"Evan"
"Evan"
"Victoria"
"Victoria"
"Victoria"
The over-excited fans of the celebrity disciples were screaming till their throats hurt. Michael''s pavilion was silent. He was sitting on his seat calmly reading the book he bought from Lord Information.? For merely fifty badass points, he changed the look of the book and the content inside. IF others looked over Michael''s shoulder, they could read about the intricacy of building a business empire.
Taking his eyes away from the book, Michael looked at the stage to see fifteen people remaining. All of them were heavily breathing, even Sabrina who seemed like having an easy time had sweat drops on her forehead.
Evan was bleeding in the corners of his mouth while Victoria had a small cut on her forearm.
"It''s getting interesting, isn''t it? Who''s gonna be thest remaining 10" Ishihara asked,
"Among those remaining on the stage, Sabrina is holding the higher number of elimination by throwing the participants off the stage. She had eliminated 4"
Michael listened to James Hallment,
"Evan stands next to her after eliminating 3 participants by knockouts and Victoria holds the record of two elimination by knockout and one by throwing off the stage"
"Look out!"
Suddenly everyone''s gaze turned at Evan when he shouted. The runes and the arrays ced on the battle stage really drew Michael''s attention. They amplified the voices of participants to make the crowd hear what they were talking about while battling. On the stage, participants could hear the crowd cheering but not thementators talking.
Michael saw Evan shouting at Victoria as a bulky muscr mountain running towards Victoria like a crazed rhino. Michael could hear the loud thud noise as he was running towards Victoria. Somewhat thinking about Victoria gonna get thrashed put a smile on Michael''s face.
However, when the man was just about to spear Victoria, Evan threw himself in the path, pushing Victoria away from the man''s path.
Boom!
When the man shed with Evan, their collision produced a loud booming sound.
"Whoa, that''s outta hurt,"? James Hall said,
"Evan!" Victoria lost herposure when she saw Evan getting knocked down by the bulky man. The other participants quickly turned their focus on Evan, it was an amateur move that was capitalized by Sabrina. She suddenly pounced at a nearby participant. When he felt a gush of wind, it was toote as Sabrina threw him out of the stage with a powerful punch to his chest.
On the other hand, Michael saw Victoria throw herself at the muscr man with enough force to make him stumble down. While the coordinators came to check whether Evan was knocked out or not, Victoria was punching the muscr man sitting on top of him.
"Knockout"
The coordinators gestured at the crowd after seeing Evan''s unconscious body.
"Idiot" Michael sighed before putting his focus on the book again.
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After three hours of the Body Strengthening stage first round and a break, they finally began the first round for the Core Formation participants.
"Core Formation participants pleasee to the stage" Michael heard Darius''s voice.
"Good luck brother Ghost!"
"Kick their ass Ghost" Elder Reiner shouted excitedly.
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
Under the showering cheers of the pavilion, Michael flew out of there towards the stage. Just like Michael, Alex and Celina too received thunderous cheers. After all, they both belonged to MorningStar, one of the biggest sects in Elon.
The sun has already fallen into the horizon yet the lights above them kept the arena as bright as a day. As Michael reached the stage, he saw thousands of eyesnding on him. There were several unknown faces that stood beside him, keeping their distance from him for some reason. No one dared to form an alliance or even talk to him. For them, he was one of the biggest threats that stood in the way of winning the tournament.
Michael couldn''t care less about what they thought. As far as he was concerned, he was going to win this thing.
"Ghost" suddenly while the participants were gathering on the stage, Michael heard someone calling his name. Michael looked in the direction of the voice to see Andrews walking towards him. Despite Andrew''s worried dull face, Michael immediately recognized him and greeted him with a smile.
"Andrews Winston"? Michael firmly shook Andrew''s hand
"I never expected to see you here. Thest time I saw you, you were still at Boyd Strengthening stage level 1 and on the verge of dying"
"Thank you for saving me Ghost, I just wished I got the chance to thank you under different circumstances," Michael noticed Andrews''s eyes moved towards the princess. Everyone looked at the princess but there was something different in the way Andrews looked at her. Then Andrews stood there beside Michael watching the fans in front of them.
"I need to win this, Ghost" Andrews''s voice sounded so serious,
"Then you shouldn''t hold back anything Andrews" Michael turned his head to look at Andrews,
"Because I won''t" Andrews couldn''t help feeling a chill running through his spine.
"Hold still everyone" As Michael turned his gaze away from Andrews''s the coordinators instructed them to hold still. Since they were on the stage, Michael couldn''t hear what thementators were talking about.
Ethan, Emelda, and Diana felt their heartache seeing Ghost and Andrews preparing to fight each other. Although it might be inevitable, they still didn''t want the two of them to end up in the same group and fight each other.
Emelda closed her eyes, praying to the gods to put Michael and Andrews in different groups.
Michael looked up at the chakra to see it rotate faster and faster before sending light orbs down. The very next moment, Michael felt a warm sensation as he looked at his hand to see a red translucentyer covering it.
The participants soon looked at the stage where the king was sitting. Just like during the Body Strengthening stage round 1, they saw a white orb traveling towards the stage but this time, it flew straight to Ashton.
It was Ashton''s end of the deal to make Michael and Alex fight each other as Michael had no control over the chakra to make it possible. Hence, Ashton had to do something to put Alex with Michael.
In a blink of an eye, the white orb of light turned red when Ashton touched the orb. Michael cracked his neck, preparing himself for the round. He looked around and saw Andrews had a blue light, Alex and Celina had a yellow light while Peter and Paul had green lightyers on them.
"Well this is disappointing" Michael sighed inside. If a celebrity disciple ended up in the same group as him, he could have beat the hell out of them to earn even more badass points.
But when he looked at the redyered participants, he noticed all of them looking at him.
"The green, yellow and blueyered participants can now leave the stage and enjoy the battle until your turnes" Michael heard Ishihara''s voice as the other participants started to leave the stage.
"Good luck Ghost" Andrews was well mannered enough to utter these words before leaving. Michael was walking to the center of the stage when he heard a cold female voiceing from behind,
"You will pay for everything"
Michael didn''t even need to turn back to recognize the person, it was a very familiar voice. Still, Micahel turned back with a cold smile to see Celina and Alex looking at him,
"Oh, I am nning to" Michael knew what he said would have reached everyone''s ears but he didn''t care because today, Alex will die.
Michael didn''t feel any pity for killing Jane and he would certainly not feel any pity killing Alex. It seemed like fate wanted Michael to take away Celina''s loved ones one by one.
"No weapons, only hand-to-handbat" the coordinators reminded them before taking off into the sky. They floated several meters above in the sky watching over the participants on the stage.
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
The fans of Michael kept cheering as loud as they could. Their thunderous cheers reverberated the arena. For a moment, Michael closed his eyes, mentally blocking all the noises to put full focus on the battle before him.? He felt a warm sensation running from his head to toe. He knew it was the runes scanning him for any potions or runes on his body to enhance his traits like strength or speed. The system made sure the APD wouldn''t be detected by any scans.
Waiting for the coordinators'' signal to begin the battle, the participants surrounded Michael forming a circle around Michael.
In the VIP pavilion, Ethan leaned closer seeing Ghost getting surrounded by the participants.
"It is not fair," He said,
"It makes sense for them to eliminate the highest threat first" Norvin, the golden babaroo said while eating an apple casually.
"One vs twenty-four huh?" Then everyone heard Michael''s calm voice.
Ethan didn''t see a tiny bit of fear or worry on his face. On the contrary, Ghost remained in the center with a calm smile.
"Guys and gals, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way," Michael said looking at the youngsters before him.
"You are in no position to say that Ghost, humph" a fully ted armor-wearing participant snickered. He even covered his head with a metal helmet that looked like the helmet of thor.
Ignoring the youngster''s words,? Michael said,
"The easy way you 24 can fight among yourselves and eliminate fifteen people yourselves"
Ethan''s eyes went wide hearing the wordsing out of Ghost''s mouth. If Ethan didn''t know Ghost was his son, he would have said Ghost is the most arrogant guy he had ever seen.
"I don''t know if he''s being serious or kidding," James Hall said,
"You might be a genius but at this moment, you''re just like the rest of us" the youngster in armor took several steps towards Michael as the others followed him. Little by little, the circle of people was getting closer to Michael.
"You clowns really think taking away my cultivation would make me you, hahaha" Michael burst into coldughter,
"Get him" Michael''s words instantly made them snap as pouring petrol into a fire. They all rushed towards Michael in all directions.? The first one to reach Michael was the armored youngster who trash talked him. He threw his fist aiming at Michael''s face to knock him out with a single punch. However, Michael evaded the punch while grabbing another youngster by his leather shirt. In lightning-fast movements, Michael tore the leather shirt and sent him away into the crowd with a swift kick. His training with Gaya and the fighting technique gave him inhumane speed even without the arch energy.
The armored youngster never expected Michael to move that fast. Before the guy could react, Michael tied his arms around his back using the leather shirt he had just torn off.
No matter how much metal armor he wore, with his hands tied behind his back, the youngster paused no threat to Michael. When the crowd came too close, Michael grabbed the armored youngster by his neck and used him as a center pole, kicking the crowd in a circle like in the matrix movie.
*******************************
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Chapter 343 - Breaking Through To The Core Strengthening Stage
Everyone was stunned to see Michael fighting twenty-four participants at the same time. Since they decided to gang up on him, Michael didn''t feel bad about using APD to lessen the pain and heal any internal wounds.
After using the armored youngster as a pole for a couple of minutes, Michael lifted him up, deciding to use the youngster as a weapon. He swung the armored youngster in a circle, pushing the participants off bnce.
"It''s time for some elimination" finally Michael got some distance from the participants. He said to himself, wiping off the blood from the corner of his mouth. Of course, he received several blows from the youngster. After all, twenty-four adrenaline-rushed youngsters ganged upon him from all directions.
Several youngsters tried to pick themselves up from the ground while some remained, thinking whether to use this moment to eliminate unsuspecting participants or not.
Either way, Michael had some time as he walked towards the armored youngster who was lying on the ground trying to rip off the leather shirt that tied his arms.
"Arrghhh, you bastard!" seeing Michael walking towards him, the armored youngster frantically wiggled to get himself out of the bind.
"Next time, pick the easy way"
Like the youngster was weighing nothing, Michael easily lifted him by the gap between the youngster''s chin and chest.
Puch!
"Argh"
Puch!
Puch!
Puch!
Puch!
Puch!
Diana felt her sister squeezing her hand looking at Ghost brutally beating the armor-wearing youngster. The big screens broadcasted the bloodied face of the younger and the blood oozing out of the youngster''s face. His face turned into a bloody pulp of mess. Emelda couldn''t get herself to look at the big screens. Even Ethan was shocked by the brutality Ghost was exhibiting. He never expected to be so brutal. Unlike Diana, he never saw his son go on a bloodthirsty rampage. What stunned Ethan more was the expressionless face of Ghost. He didn''t even flinch when beating the life out of the youngster.
"Coordinators please hurry before he kills that poor boy" James Hall reminded the coordinators who were floating above the battle stage.
The participants who were witnessing Michael''s brutality felt a chill running through their spines. For a moment, they just remained still waiting for the coordinators to stop Ghost.
Thud!
However before the coordinators coulde to him, Michael threw the half-dead body of the youngster into a trio of participants who were watching the scene standing near the stage''s edge.
Thanks to Michael''s hellish weight training with Gaya every evening, he had enough strength to throw the body with enough force to send the trio of unlucky participants staring at the scene.
"Such force, there''s four elimination including a possible KO by death," Ishihara said,
Ethan saw Ghost''s bloodied face revealing a devilish smile. Some of the girls on the stage took several steps back in fear as the other participants decided it''s better to fight others and eliminate them quickly before Ghost gets his hands on them and beats them to death.
"Let''s dance, '''' Michael snickered. He wanted to instill fear in everyone who is about to fight him in the tournament. By the looks of the youngsters in front of him, he had done a good job. But unlucky for others, this was just the beginning of Michael''s brutality.
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Gaya and Vedora finally left the woods after killing the Three-Headed crow. Due to the thick forest and Gaya''s speed, they didn''t bump into any more fire demons or beasts such as ss Wraiths and Three-Headed Crows. After the surprising show of power, Ayag and the other two heads fell asleep. They were peacefully sleeping in Gaya''s side bag while she was running through the forest. After an hour of nonstop running, she eventually found herself in a chilling and quiet valley. The hills on either side were decadent with green foliage and new-sprung buds. The ce was silent, not the calming one but an eerie one. The white fog covering the valley added an extrayer of creepiness to the valley.
"Aaaaaw, where are we?" Ayag asked, yawning and craning her head out of Gaya''s bag.
"Whoa, this ce gives me creeps. There are probably some fire demons or something hiding here" Sarba said.
"We are still at the edge of Fire Realm, the deeper we go, the more dangers we face" Gaya exined as Sarba nodded his head in agreement.
After having spent some time here, Vedora understood how dangerous this ce was. Since their arrival, they had bumped into three strange creatures; the Fire Demon, the ssWraith, and the Three-Headed ck Crow. They might even bump into weirder and rarer creatures soon. But, no matter how incredible the demons and devils were, Vedora wouldn''t feel shocked anymore.
This was Fire Realm. To any human cultivator, this ce was just a deadly hell. It was a ce of brutality, life-threatening scenarios, darkness, bloodshed, and ughter, and in order to keep one''s life here, the person could only rely on his own strength. Without incredible strength, the ce could kill the person at any time.
Gaya looked at the sky to see the dark clouds filling the sky.
"It''ll be dark soon, we need to find a safe ce to stay the night" Gaya walked forward while looking around the hills to find a cave.
"So are you gonna talk about this awesome one''s awesome powers or not?" Ayag''s voice was filled with pride and superiority.
"We will after we find a cave and I breakthrough to the Core Strengthening stage" Sarba''s eyes went wide in surprise hearing Gaya. Compare to Ayag, Sarba knew more about cultivation and this world because while Ayag sleeps, Sarba would stay awake reading books or talking to Nightmare.
He didn''t know how much Cain knew because Cain was not a very talkative being like Ayag.
The Fusion stage cultivator''s femur Michael brought from the Nether realm still had some energy left. Gaya nned to absorb itpletely to break through to the Core Strengthening stage. Untiling here, she wanted to wait, strengthening her foundation before breaking through. However, her situation changed. She had to break through if she wanted to survive this ce. Coupled with her battle experience, Michael''s arrows, and her Core Strengthening stage cultivation, she could easily kill any Core Strengthening stage beasts under level 4. To kill anything between level 4 and level 7 would require a n and strategy but it wouldn''t be impossible. Although she wouldn''t be able to kill anything above level 7, she would be able to escape with a few minor wounds.
"Damn it! Where do you have to steal my thunder?" Ayag bite Gaya''s forearm,
"We''ll talk about your newfound powers, I promise"
Gaya promised with a serious expression.
"There" Suddenly Sarba raised his voice as Gaya looked up in the hill to her right side to see a cave. Gaya made her way to the cave with a few leaps using her Arch energy.
Standing at the mouth of the cave, Gaya conjured an orb of fire to light the cave. The cave was neither too deep nor wide. Although the ground seemed wet and the roof had a purplish moth covering, the cave was clean and didn''t seem to have anything living in it. Still, Gaya closed her eyes, spreading her perception around the cave just to make sure nothing was inside.
"It''s safe," Gaya said to Vedora before walking into the cave.
"Jade shield" after entering the cave, she turned back, casting a spell. Soon, a translucent shield covered the entrance.
"Unless it''s a Core Strengthening stage beast, nothing cane in. I''ll wake up in seven hours" Gaya ced the side bag with Vedora in it aside her before retrieving the Fusion stage femur from her space ring. The bone still had its glimmer but not as bright as when Michael gave her the first time.
"Don''t fight with your brothers" Gaya flicked Ayag in the head before closing her eyes.
"Wait till I fullyprehend my powers" Aya growled as Sarba chuckled.
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After almost five hours, Gaya had leisurely absorbed 90% of the remaining energy in the femur, her energy had increased by a lot and she was on the verge of breaking through to the Core Strengthening stage. Because of the energy fluctuations around her, some unwanted guests started toe towards the cave.
Roar!
Load roars came from not far away. The thundering roars sounded out throughout the entire valley. After a few long moments, two massive creatures appeared not far away from the cave, they were two gigantic panthers. Each of them had a bot between 12 to 15 meters tall, which made them look like a small hill. Their looks and the Arch energy they radiated would frighten most people within a snap of time
Both panthers looked identical, gray stone fragments could be seen all over their bodies. On top of their heads, there was a long stone horn that glowed dimly. The eyes of these panthers were the same color as their stone, but they carried a fierce look.
"Fuck, something''sing in our direction"
Ayag cursed out silently. Vedora had no idea about the Twin Greystone panthers, beasts like these were rare to the outside world. This was not the case in ancient ces like Fire Realm.
Twin demon beasts like Greystone panthers were incredibly vicious, their minds were linked, and once they entered a fight, they could achieve absolute perfect teamwork. The perfect team was not something that should be taken lightly because with their teamwork, the Greystone panthers could hunt down bigger, meaner, and more powerful beasts than them.
Roar!
Despite the darkness, the panthers were able to see the cave in the hills.
As soon as their eyes fell on the cave, they immediately started to walk towards the cave while roaring fiercely.
*******************************
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Chapter 344 - Shocking Reveal
Vedora felt the ground trembling as they heard the roars bing louder and louder. The purplish moths covering the ceiling crumbled down on them with each roar.
"Dang it, how could we possibly kill whatever that''sing here?" Sarba blurted out,
"We need to wake her up" despite their situation Cain still sounded calm, just like Michael.
"No, the only way we can survive this ce is if she breaks through to the Core Strengthening stage. We must stall that thing and give her the time she needs" Ayag pped their tiny wings tond before Gaya.
"How are we gonna do that? Talk that thing to death?" Sarba snapped,
"Idiot, I have powers and if I do, you two meatheads must have some powers too"
Her words indeed made sense to Sarba and Cain still it seemed like a bad time to rely on their unfound powers. Even if they could find out about their powers, there was no guarantee they, a Body Refining stage level 2 beast could survive a battle with anyone above Body Strengthening stage.
"The shield is still up, let''s hope whatever''sing towards us is not a Core Strengthening beast," Sarba said,
"Man, I miss Ghost. If he was here, we could have just stood on his shoulder and enjoyed him beating the hell out of everything"
"It was her stupid decision in emotion to eave him and you dragged us with her instead of convincing her not to leave him" Cain grunted after hearing Ayag. From the very beginning, he was against the idea of Gaya leaving Michael and venturing into such a dangerous ce. Unfortunately, Sarba leaned with Ayag-so two out of three votes made Vedora apany Gaya. There was nothing Cain could do.
Ayag headbutted Cain hearing his disagreement. But in the next second, Ayag''s eyes lit up, and she blinked with a cunning look in her eyes,
"Look, in case it''s a Core Strengthening stage beast, we don''t need to kill it"
"We can''t" Sarba interjected only to get a vicious headbutt from Ayag,
"We just need to stall the beast until this half snake wakes up from her cultivation"
Ayag looked at both Cain and Sarba for their approval,
"Since getting out of here without Gaya is impossible and you won''t let us wake her up, it seems we have no other choice but hope your n would work. What do you think Cain?" Sarba asked Cain,
"We can stall the beast alright. If what Nightmare said was true, the Core Strengthening beast would possess the intellectual prowess of humans. And the sight of us, a new species would make the beast curious and reevaluate or form up a new n to deal with us. It might take time to gauge our strengths and weaknesses. If I saw a new species in front of me, that''s what I would do"
Cain''s words somehow reassured both Ayag and Sarba. With his approval, Ayag closed her eyes, trying to figure out how she managed to let out the sonic cry.
After having inherited Michael''s personality and observing Gaya and Ghost for so long, Cain had learned a lot of crafty actions, and he had gained a lot ofbat experience.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
As the seconds passed by, the ground trembled more and more violently. They were getting drenched in purplish moths, it was raining moths inside the cave. However, the moth was thest of Vedora''s problems.
"If you have any powers, now will be a great time to reveal it Cain" Sarba shivered hearing the roars getting louder and louder. He could tell whatever that''sing to them is closer than they like it to be.
"Hey, it can still be a Core Formation beast and Gaya''s barrier can save us" Sarba tried to calm himself by being optimistic. His smile was not the brightest as he still had intense fear hiding behind his smile.
"They" Cain muttered,
"What?"
"It''s not one, it''s two. Two beasts" Just as Cain uttered these words, Sarba looked through the translucent shield Gaya cast to see two huge yet majestic panthers made out of gray stones standing at the entrance.
Considering Vedora''s small stature, the panthers noticed her first before they noticed the tiny beast standing before the human. Both the panthers bore their teeth, which caused Sarba to feel a tingling sensation in his spine.
"Dazer, look there" Surprising Vedora, one panther talked in human tongue. The voice sounded so rough and animalistic as one would imagine.
Soon the panthers both closed their mouths while their slit vertical pupils that shone in silver in the darkness became rounded. The murderous look in their eyes got reced by curiosity.
"We are screwed" Sarba grunted, noticing the panthers'' cultivation level, both of them were at Core Strengthening stage level 3,? one level above the Three headed crow Gaya fought. But unlike before, the Panthers weren''t in a disadvantageous position. In fact, the Panthers had the advantage of fighting in a closed space such as the cave.
"What is that? I have never seen such a beast before" the other panther gracefully took a step forward. Looking at the shield, one panther just raised its front paw, slowly putting its paw through the shield like it was testing the shield''s power. When the panther''s paw touched the shield, it produced a ripple through the shield.
"Humph," the panther snickered after making sure the shield couldn''t stop or hurt them. Step by step, the panthers entered the cave through the shield.
"GET OUT!" Ayag''s eyes abruptly opened as she let out a powerful cry. A more powerful st of a sonic wave shot out of her mouth and soared towards the panthers. The entire cave shook violently as the panthers got pushed back several steps backward.
Although Vedora was just on the Body Refining stage level 2, the sonic cry had the power of a spell cast by a Body Strengthening stage level 7. The panthers'' eyes went wide except their eyes brimmed with more curiosity and bloodthirstiness.
"Neror, this must be some heavenly beast"
"And it must be delicious to eat"
The panthers talked to each other,
"We cannot waste a drop of blood of this beast and we must do it before that human breakthrough to the Core Strengthening stage. I can feel she''s just an hour away from breaking through"
"Then we kill the beast and devour the human before she breaks through"
"So much for your theory Cain" Ayag growled,
"Im not the idiot shouted and kindled their curiosity" Cain snapped,
"Eat these two, I''m? all bones and no flesh"
The panthers evilly grinned hearing the silver head in the middle trying to plead.
"I think we should go with Cain''s n of waking her up" Ayag swallowed a mouth full of saliva. An overwhelming threat to her life shadowed her pride and haughtiness.
Just as the panthers were only a couple of meters away from Vedora, an emerald green orb shot into the cave from somewhere. The panthers were startled as they almost jumped back in shock.
Boom!
Before Vedora could see the orbpletely, it exploded creating a muffled booming sound. Soon afterward, a green smoke filled the cave. Vedora immediately tried to close their nostrils with their small wings.
"It burns!"
"ARGGGG!"
Unlike Vedora, the panthers growled. Their voices were filled with terror and pain. Soon, they fell onto the ground, rolling frantically like they were on fire.
By now, Vedora realized the green smoke didn''t pose a threat to them since they felt nothing. As the Panthers were rolling on the ground, a golden bolt of lightning hit the panthers from outside the cave.
"Ghost!"
Vedora''s eyes went wide as they sparkled in excitement. They couldn''t help but let out a long heave of sigh. However, Cain noticed something different with the lightning bolt, he looked at the panther which got hit by the lightning bolt to see a sword sticking out of the panther''s gut.
"Swords of justice" a calm yet maic voice sounded in the cave. Vedora looked at the cave entrance to see a human in pure white robes making his way towards them with a glistening white sword in each hand.
For a moment, Vedora thought it was Ghost because the images of Ghost shed across their eyes when they saw the youngster. Except for the color choice of his dress, this youngster possessed the same swag and grace of Ghost. In simple words, he looked just as dashing and stunning as Ghost in Vedora''s eyes.
Vedora saw the youngster raise his swords at the panthers before swinging them in the air. In a snap of time, several energy swords resembling the swords in his hand appeared above the panthers.
The youngster winked at Vedora as the swords hanging above the panthers fell straight into the ground while skewering the panthers. The panthers frantically wiggled in pain, blood gushing out of their bodies. Still, no matter how hard they squirmed, they couldn''t cast a spell or escape the wrath of the swords.
Vedora waspletely stunned seeing the youngster''s prowess, they never expected a Core Formation level 4 youngster to kill not one but two Core Strengthening stage level 3 beats with such ease.
Cain could guess it was that green smoke that affected the panthers somehow making them vulnerable to the spell he cast.? Under Vedora''s shocked gazes, the youngster went closer to the panthers before ending their suffering once and for all by stabbing the panthers through their hearts using his swords. Then he squatted down to pull out the cores from the panthers'' chest.
Whoooosh!
Just after a few seconds, the youngster pulled out the cores, a strong gust of wind swirled inside the cave forming a small tornado around Gaya. An eye hurting bright light enveloped her body.
The light covered her body for a few more minutes before fading away.
"She did it, I" Ayag shouted excitedly. Gaya then abruptly opened her eyes and her sharp gaze fell on the youngster standing before her.
"Noah Winston"
Vedora saw the youngster letting out a calm smile,
"Aelia or should I call you Gaya Ashton?"
*******************************
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Chapter 345 - The Bond Between Siblings
"System, upgrade all the spells to max levels" Michael just sat there beside ire while looking at his status window. He had 500,000 badass points that were waiting to be spent.
[Wonderful. Of course, the system cant upgrade the existing spells and skills to max level]
"Not max max, just upgrade them as much as you can with the points I have"
He wouldn''t have chosen to upgrade the spells and skills if he didnt hear the MorningStar and Golden valley is prioritizing to eliminate him from the tournament. With his current self, fighting several disciples who were above the Core Formation level 5 without using his full Lucifer form was not a fight he could win.
Instead of strategizing to deal with each and every celebrity disciple like Alex or Celina, Michael decided to go with the ultimate n- power triumphing over everything.
[Upgrading the spells and skills to the max level would make the tournament boring and easy Host. You''d be invincible among Core Formation stage warriors]
"That''s a bad thing, how?"
[Just saying. Now what spells and skills do you want me to upgrade first?]
"Responsive shield, Ignitia, Lightning dash. Upgrade them in the same order"
[Wonderful. You''ll be temporarily thrown out of the system''s interface and feel a tingling pain in your brain]
"What?" Michael was stunned to hear the system. However before he could ask why, the system interface disappeared from his eyes.
"Another elimination for Alex and Celina" when he exited the system, Michael heard? James Hall''s excited voice. He looked around to see the disciples of MorningStar screaming as loud as they could to cheer Alex and Celina. On the stage, Alex and Celina moved in perfect rhythm like they were dancing. Every time they got closer to an unlucky participant, either Celina knocked out the participant with a single punch to the side of the jaw or Alex threw out the participant like the participant was a sack of cotton.
"They are really making the round one look easy," Ishihara said,
In the big mirror, Michael saw Alex look in his direction for a moment before spartan kicked one participant off the stage.
"Argh" abruptly a muffled cry escaped Michael''s mouth when he suddenly felt an excruciating pain in his head.
"Son of a b-" he almost cursed the system out loud. The damn system told him he would feel a tingling pain but what he felt was not tingling. It felt like someone stabbing his brain with a rusty nail.
"Brother, did you say something?" Cindy asked with a concerned look on her face,
"No, argh" yet again, he grunted. This time, ire turned her head,
"Excuse me" Before he could blurt out another cry of pain, Michael stood up and left his seat.
"Fuck you system" On his way to the hall below the arena where some disciples and mentors were strategizing away from the eyes of the people, he cursed the system.
He climbed down the stairs fighting the pain with all his might. Many disciples from the small sects greeted him but hepletely ignored them.
He hoped the strategizing hall would have less crowd than these stairs.
Fortunately, he had APD to inject him with healing potions that somewhat lessened the pain. Soon, he started to sweat like he was locked into an oven.
Navigating through thebyrinth of corridors, Michael finally entered a spacious hall with several groups of disciples in various armors and uniforms. They all looked extremely tense. Michael looked around the hall for a few moments before his eyes fell on a small lion''s head which spit water through its mouth. Above the little lion head, they had a mirror hanging on. Now that he looked around, he saw several structures like these. He guessed that the nervous participants could wash their faces and freshen up a little before walking to the battle stage.
"Is that Ghost?"
"Yeah, it is. What''s he doing here?"
"Stay away from him. Did you see what he did to that guy?"
"I never thought a gentle-looking guy like him would be so cruel"
"Shhh, he''s gonna hear us"
Although Michael didn''t notice her among the disciples, Sabrina noticed him. She wanted to kick those who were bad-mouthing him. Unlike most of the disciples here, Ghost earned everything through his hard work, Sabrina admired that about Ghost. Moreover, She felt immense gratitude towards Ghost for saving not only her but also her mother and Andrews.
"Arggh, fuck how long is this upgrading gonna take?" Michael gripped the edge of the sink so tightly as lines of cracks started to appear in the pearl white sink.
Letting go of the sink, Michael took a handful of clear water to wash the sweat off of his face. He kept sshing water onto his face until he saw a familiar face in the mirror standing behind him.
"Miss Sabrina '''' Michael turned back with water running from his face onto his ck turtleneck.
"Here" Before Michael could get the towel from his space ring, Sabrina reached out her handkerchief to him.
"Thank you" Michael was in too much pain to argue with Sabrina over a handkerchief. The male disciples who were dying to get Sabrina''s attention ever since they got here became so jealous of Michael.
Not only did she voluntarily go to talk to him but also gave him her handkerchief so he could wipe his face with it.
"I want to ask you something if you don''t mind" Sabrina opened and closed her mouth several times before finally speaking these words,
"Shoot" Michael felt somewhat better after washing his face. The pain in his brain slowly started to ease. Michael took out a leather drinking pouch from his space ring. While Sabrina was forming her words, he took a long sip from the pouch. He then leaned on the wall behind him.
"I know Aelia is notpeting in the tournament but if she did, do you think I still have the chance to win the championship?" Michael was genuinely surprised by her questions. Moreover, she seemed like she was looking for his approval or something. Michael was not the only one who was surprised. Her friends seemed stunned. Sabrina was kind of a girl who was independent, strong and someone would even say arrogant. However, right at this moment, she seemed so obedient and meek in front of Ghost.
They had never seen her act like this before.
"First of all, you don''t need others to tell you the odds. Second, Aelia is my girlfriend, so my judgment will be biased. Third, you''re good, you even have the chance to win this thing but if Aelia was here, that championship would have belonged to her"
Many raised their brows hearing Michael''s words. Some even expected Sabrina to get mad except her face split into a wide grin,
"Thank you for being honest with me"
"Anytime Miss Sabrina" Michael took another sip of water,
"And please call me Sabi"
Michael didn''t say anything but handed over the handkerchief back to her before leaving the hall. She stared at Michael''s figure disappearing around the corner. Just a few moments, after Michael left the hall, Andrews came to her side.
"What did you ask him?" Andrews was afraid she discussed something rted to him.
"I asked him the same question I asked Noah,? do you think I still have the chance to win the championship if Aeliapeted in the tournament with me?"
"Oh" Andrews felt stunned and relieved at the same time,
"Noah said I will win the tournament no matter who is in the tournament, I knew he was lying so I won''t feel discouraged"
"Yeah, he''s your brother, he''s supposed to motivate you" Andrews said to see Sabrina reveal a gentle smile,
"What did Ghost say?"
"He said I don''t need others to tell me the odds and because Aelia is his girlfriend, his judgment would be biased" She paused for a moment,
"And Aelia would have won the championship if she was here"
Andrews frowned. Unlike Noah, Andrews didn''t know what Aelia was capable of. As far as he believed, Sabrina would win the Body Strengthening stage championship without a doubt.
"You guys always pampered me because im family, it was refreshing to see someone telling me the truth without sugar-coating it for me"
Andrews saw the smile on her face getting brighter as she clenched the handkerchief tightly against her chest.
"What are you getting at?"
"I don''t know, he was like a brother I never got"
The bond of siblings ran deep and strong in the Hunt Family. Sabrina had the same Hunt family gene in her body. Hence she deep down felt a connection with Ghost.
Somehow Ghost reminded of Noah despite their contrasting personalities. Sabrina couldn''t shake the feeling of familiarity with Ghost.
Because of that, after the tournament, she wanted to find out about Ghost''s origins through her sister Rowena. If anyone could find out about Ghost''s parents or his past, it would be the Holy Maiden of Skyhall, her sister.
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Meanwhile, Ghost returned to his seat freshened up. The pain in his brain was still there but it was way less than before.
[Congrattions, the spell Responsive Shield has been upgraded to level 8]
[Host is nowpletely immune to any spell attacks of a Core Formation stage warrior]
[Warning, Legendary spells cast by a Core Formation level can still do some damage!]
Finally, Michael let out a grin. Resting his head on his hand, he looked at the blue-haired youngster on the same stage as Ashton.
"I''m gonna destroy your precious little Thusia brick by brick"
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Before you get mad at me for not releasing a Gaya chapter that might be interesting than the tournament to some of you, let me tell you this, the next chapter will feature the long-awaited battle- GHOST VS ALEX!!
********************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 346 - The Bloody Second Round
"Now the tournamentmittee will provide our audience with Revitalizing pills," Ishihara said,
"After taking this pill, you will feel rested and refreshed. There were severalints about fights in inns and taverns between youngsters" The people heard James Hall
"Can you believe two noble families went extinct because the youngsters in their families couldn''t wait until the chairs became avable?" James Hall sighed,
"Unfortunately it happens all over the world. The family power clouds many youngsters'' minds so they pick fights with the wrong people. There are many rogue cultivators in this world who are stronger than strongest families in some kingdoms"
Michael continued to listen to thementators'' bber about the young masters and how they got their asses kicked and families destroyed. Meanwhile, the coordinators flew around the arena sending small emerald-colored round pills to the audience. Everyone including the cultivators got a pill.
ire helped Cindy swallow the pill. The very next moment Condy swallowed the pill, the dark circles formed under her eyes due tock of sleep faded away. Her face lit up like someone put a candle inside her mind. With newfound energy, Cindy started to p her hands joyfully.
In a couple of minutes, the entire arena erupted in cheers as they did at the beginning of the tournament.
"In a few more minutes, we will begin the second round of the Body Strengthening stage championship" Darius'' voice calmed down the people.
The people leaned forward on their seats,
"The second round of the tournament will be just like the first round with one simple change. In the second round, participants can use a weapon of their choice. But they can''t change their weapons middle of the battle, you pick it, you stick with it"
"Can this weapon have runes?" Ishihara asked Darius,
"Themittee had a long talk about runes but ultimately decided not to let the participants take rune ced weapons"
If it was before, Michael would have been worried about weapons with runes. After upgrading spells and skills, unless a participant had a Legendary weapon or used a legendary spell, Michael would be invincible among the Core Formation warriors.
"Remind me when my turnes"
Unlike the rest, Michael leaned back on his chair. He took out the book he bought from Lord Information and started to read it.
"The 40 participants who qualified for the second round will be divided into four groups of ten. Among the ten, each of them will fight another participant in their group. It''ll be one on one battle" James Hall described the format of the second round.
"How does the elimination process work?" Ishihara asked,
"A participant must make his or her opponent surrender or knockout to win the battle. Remember that the part of a battle experience is knowing when to back down, many famous cultivators had surrendered in their life to live to fight another day. There is no shame in surrendering"? Michael knew Darius''s words were true yet he doubted these thick-headed young masters and young misses would choose to surrender. Many of them would rather die than surrender, for them surrendering was a shame.
"Yes, surrendering might just save your life because coordinators can''t always swoop down and save you in time," James Hall said,
"If death were to ur, the families and sects are prohibited to harm the participant in any way. If any harm is to fall on the participant by the victim''s family or sect, the Guardian Guild will take it as an action against them ande at you with full force" When everyone thought Darius couldn''t sound any more serious, he proved them wrong.
Michael was d to hear Darius. This way he wouldn''t worry about getting chased by the Fisher family after he kills Alex. Of course, he knew they might try to harm by other means. Nheless, Michael had to kill Alex, it was Alex who pushed Michael to this point by putting a contract on his head.
Also after spending some time with Lord Information, Michael began to grasp how the Grim Reapers operate. Unlike he initially thought, grim reapers wouldn''t kill anyone for money. They were picking targets with weak or no power backing them. The Grim Reapers were like a hybrid of assassins and politicians. That was why the Grim Reapers had never killed a high-value target like a king or a sect leader because they knew if they did, the guild would be decimated.
"Out honored guests and the judges would decide who faces who. Now let''s begin"
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Four hours passed in a blink of an eye. Currently, the audience was rtively less cherry looking at the battle stage. On the stage, a man wearing silver knight armor was mopping the floor with the youngster in brown leather armor.
"Why aren''t you surrendering?" Everyone heard the youngster in knight armor grunting. He lifted the golden-haired youngster by the neck and kept punching him in the face.
"This has stopped being a battle a long time ago. Why isn''t he surrendering?" Ishihara''s voice didn''t sound as cheery as always. She felt pity for the golden-haired youngster.
"It was obvious Andrewscks real battle experience but you don''t need to be forged in a battlefield to realize when to back down and surrender"
"You''re right James. Sir Ghar is offering the chance for Andrews to surrender. If anyone else was in Sir Ghar''s shoes, Andrews might have lost his life by now"
"Why is he not surrendering?" ire''s voice was filled with concern and pity.
"Love" Michael mumbled under his breath looking at Princess Katherin on the stage. The princess''s clenched fist and shaking hands were obvious signs of her being in love with Andrews. Otherwise, why should a princess look so pale and gloomy looking at Andrews bleeding on the stage? Michael lived long enough to differentiate pity from love.
The beating had been going on for almost half an hour. Michael was surprised by Andrews''s ability to take the beating. At first, Michael thought he would lose consciousness after being beaten for ten minutes but he was proven wrong.
"Arghhh" after beating the crap out of Andrews, the knight started to lose his cool. He grunted before throwing Andrews a few meters away from him. Ghar''s red-haired fluttered in the wind while the smile he wore on his face was nowhere to be seen.
While losing his patience, Ghr failed to notice Andrew grab the hilt of his sword lying beside him. Andrews rolled over to the side hiding the sword in his hand from Ghar''s eyesight.
"I''m going to stop the fight" Emelda couldn''t watch Andrews getting beaten to death anymore. She stood up from her seat, tears rolling down on her face.
Cling!
Pulch!
Suddenly a sound of metal hitting metal reverberated in the arena followed by the sound of flesh getting stabbed. Emelda wiped off the tears to make her eyesight clear. When her eyesight cleared, she saw Andrews hanging by Ghar''s hand in the air but Ghar had a sword sticking through his throat.
Everything happened so fast. At first, Ghr lifted Andrews by his neck, as usual, this time everyone thought Ghr was gonna break Andrews''s neck. In the heat of anger, Ghr failed to notice the sword Andrews''s hiding behind his back. When Ghr lifted Andrews up, Andrews used the momentum to stab Ghr in the throat.
"Argh"
Ghar let go of Andrews as he tried to get the sword out of his throat. However, the sword was too deep and before he could muster enough strength to pull out the sword, Ghar''s body gave up on him. He fell to the ground while blood gushed out of the throat. In a few moments, Ghar stopped moving once and for all.
The coordinatorsnded on the battle stage, it was toote though. After checking for a pulse, the coordinators shook their heads,
"Dead"
"Andrews Winston wins"
The crowd erupted into cheers the moment the coordinators announced. Many were still in shock, slowly letting the fact that Andrews, who was barely alive, was able to defeat a knight.
Even Michael couldn''t help giving a nod of approval at Andrews.
"Give him a healing potion!" Princess Katherin''s sudden shout stunned everyone. But most of them thought it was a princess''s gentle heart that made her care for Andrews.
************************************
It was almost midnight when the Core Formation stage championship had only one fight remaining. Before announcing thest fight,? yet again the coordinators awarded the audience with Revitalizing pills for the crowd. Even without taking the pills, the crowd was so excited for thest fight because only two participants remained to battle - Ghost and Alex.
"Now it''s time for the final battle of round two, the battle everyone including myself is looking forward to" James Hall sounded excited, just like the crowd.
"Participants Ghost and Alex, pleasee to the battle stage"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Ghost!"
"Alex!"
"Alex!"
"Alex!"
"Alex!"
"Alex!"
Both the fans of Ghost and Alex shook the arena with their thunderous cheers. Soon the cheering turned into apetition of who''s cheers sounded louder.? Under their thunderous cheers, Michael and Alexnded on the battlefield with a smile on their faces.
Alex took out a long golden spear from his back while Michael remained still. The coordinators flicked their wrists as Michael felt a warm air brushing past him. It was the runes ced on the battleground scanning him for hidden weapons or weapons with runes.
Looking at Michael, Alex let out a cold smile,
"It''s time we finish our little dispute"
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Chapter 347 - Alex Vs Ghost
As Michael and Alex stood at the edges of the battle stage, the cheers dulled down. The crowd was too excited to cheer. Michael calmly remained with his hands folded.
He didn''t unsheath his dual swords. On the other side, Alex stood with his long golden spear in his hand. The spear was nothing that would scream craftsmanship, rather it was in-looking. The entire spear looked like it was made of gold, the long point looked extremely sharp and pointy.
Despite its normal-looking, Michael could sense the overwhelming power the spear was radiating. Since the participants were not allowed to use Arch energy Michael wouldn''t be able to use Responsive shield to protect himself from the spear. Luckily, Michael trained his sword mastery to 96% and Serpent maga to 93%. Both these skills enabled him to move nimbly and at an extreme speed even without using Arch energy.
"Can we get this over with? I have a championship to win" Michael sounded bored to everyone.
"Did you hear that guys? He''s so sure" Ishiharamented,
"There''s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, we just need to wait and see which is which" James Hall answered Ishihara,
Michael''s words caused amotion among the fans of Alex.
"Beat him!"
"Beat him!"
"Beat him!"
"Beat him!"
"Beat him!"
The MorningStar dispels and fans of Alex began to chant in unison while Michael remained calm despite their cheers.
However, suddenly Michael''s brows furrowed as he saw Alex remove the armor covering his chest. The spear remained still without falling down while Alex continued to remove his armor pieces one by one.
Thud!
Alex threw the armor pieces on the ground, each time a piece hit the stage, the heavy metal produced a thud sound.
"You''re kidding me?" Michael was confused,
"What is Alex doing?"
Michael was not the only one who was confused, even Ishira couldn''t help asking the question.
"He''s throwing away his advantage over Ghost and leveling up the field" Although Darius''s words made sense, many couldn''t believe Alex.
"After I kill you, I don''t want people to say that I had an advantage" Alex coldly smiled.
His words got amplified by the runes and sent a chill running through Ethan''s spine. Diana clenched her fist while trying her best to control the killing intent from showing in her eyes.
"Kill me?" Michael tilted his head, pretending to be shocked,
"You''re not gonna beg for mercy and surrender, are you?" as he snickered, Alex removed thest piece of armor that covered his abs. Throwing the armor onto the stage, he stood flexing his wless smooth skin to the audience. Alex had a perfect upper body with six-pack abs, a chiseled chest, and perfectly ced muscles.
"Oh my god!"
"So sexy!"
"Sister Celina is really a lucky girl"
"Aww, look at his abs"
"So smooth"
With his silver hair fluttering in the wind and golden spear in one hand, Alex looked like a model for magazines. Many girls had sparkling eyes looking at Alex. Even men couldn''t help feeling jealous of his body. Granted cultivators had good bodies but Alex had a magnificent body. It was obvious he was working out in addition to cultivating or he wouldn''t have gotten such perfectly sculpted muscles.
"Let''s start this" Alex taunted Michael to step forward.
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
"Fight!"
The crowd erupted yet again seeing the both of them walking towards each other to fight. Unlike Alex, Michael still hadn''t unsheathed his swords. Diana and Ethan moved to the edge of their seats as they didn''t take their eyes away from Michael. Every single person in the arena including those who remained in the strategic hall came outside to see the battle.
Alex made a mistake by removing his armor. He gave up the advantage he had over Ghost. That was the difference between Alex and Michael. Michael would have never let go of his advantage. Thus, Michael still had APD to inject him with the potions such as healing potions. Considering APD was made of junk metal and connected with the system, the runes didn''t pick up the APD. As far as themittee and the coordinators were concerned, the APD was just a ck bracelet Michael wore for style.
When Michael and Alex got close, Alex stabbed the spear aiming at Michael''s chest. His thrust was so fast that it almost hit its target. With a sway of his body, Michael evaded the spear yet Alex was quick enough to hit Michael with the staff. Following the staff attack, Alex roundhouse kicked Michael.
Although Alex removed the armor above his waist, he still wore metal boots. Hence, when the kicknded on Michael''s shoulder, Michael had pushed away a couple of meters while Michael felt his shoulder bones hurt.
If the kick had a little more force and he didn''t have APD, his shoulder would have been dislocated.
Without giving a moment for Michael to breathe, Alex dashed at him with his spear pointing at Michael''s throat. Everyone who saw Alex''s move knew it was not his attention to make Ghost surrender but he wanted to kill him.
Shaking his aching shoulder, Michael quickly evaded the spear''s pointy end before hitting the spear on the shaft just below the de using his other hand. Just when everyone thought Alex made a mistake by getting closer, Alex pulled back the spear and grabbed the spear in the middle.
Chuk!
Chuk!
Chuk!
Chuk!
Chuk!
Chuk!
Alex started to attack Michael with a spear and his bare hand. Their sh produced continuous sounds as Michael felt like he was in a martial arts movie.
"Ouch, that has to hurt" After seeing Ghost and Alex exchange more than forty blows in a minute, James Hall opened his mouth looking at the spear cut across Ghost''s chest.
Diana clenched her fist tiger as her nails started to sink in her palm. Blood spattered on the battle stage as Alex and Ghost continued to exchange blows. As time went by, more and more cuts appeared on Ghost''s body.
Still, they were at a stalemate that irritated Alex.
"ARGH!" letting out a loud roar, Alex sent Ghost several meters back with a swift spartan kick to his chest.
[He''s good]
Even the system ttered Alex after their exchange of blows. In two minutes, they exchanged at least a hundred kicks and punches. Both of them had sweat drops on their faces.
Michael almost looked like a beggar with his long coat and turtleneck that had several cuts and holes.
"Thinking about surrendering?"
"YEEEEYYYYY!"
"ALEX!"
"ALEX!"
"ALEX!"
"ALEX!"
"ALEX!"
"ALEX!"
The thunderous cheers of Alex''s fans swept across the arena. The entire pavilion of Ghost''s fans went silent looking at his state. Ethan was speechless as she stared at the bleeding cuts on Ghost with an aching heart.
"Hahahahahahaha"
Michael suddenly burst intoughter to everyone''s surprise. Hisughter reverberated in the arena silencing the cheers.
"Guys I''m confused, why is heughing?" Just like everyone else, Ishihara was also confused,
"I don''t know" James Hall shook his head,
"Did you think I was fighting you seriously?" As he said, Michael flexed his shoulders as the long coat and sheathes that had his two swords fell off. The audience could now clearly see the definition of his muscles through the cut and torn ck turtleneck.
Diana saw Michael ripping off his already ripped and torn turtle neck, revealing his upper body. The moment she saw his body, she felt a chilling running through her spine. Unlike Alex''s body which was smooth and fine, Ghost''s body was riddled with scars. Compared to Michael''s muscle definition, Alex was nowhere close to him. Each and every muscle in Michael''s body looked created separately and glued together to form a perfect muscr body.
In addition to muscle definition, every muscle in Michael''s body was bigger than Alex''s. Diana''s heart ached to see the scars on his body. She couldn''t even imagine what her son has to go through to get all those scars.
Michael slowed down the healing potion injection through APD. He didn''t want the coordinators to suspect him of using healing potions. If the cuts disappeared to the naked eyes, they would definitely suspect something amiss. Hence, Michael let the cuts hurt and bleed.
The cuts weren''t deep enough to mortally wound Michael yet they were deep enough to make him bleed. Coupled with the blood and the scars, his body attracted all the gazes like a super ma.
The girls who had sparkles in their eyes when they saw Alex''s body had mes of passion and desire in their eyes looking at Michael. If Alex was hot like fire, Michael was hot likeva that melted the young girls'' hearts.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 4000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 badass points]
¡
The notification sound went crazy inside his head. After upgrading his spells and skill, he had 50,000 points remaining but at the moment, the points were flying past the mark of 150,000 and didn''t seem to slow down.
"I was just ying with a kid, a kid who has a spear"
As Ghost spoke these words, Alex''s smile froze on his face. The next moment, Diana saw Ghost stomp the stage beneath him as the stomp made the swords lying on the ground fly straight into his hand. It seemed like he was controlling the sword using an invincible force.
Cling!
Michael brushed his two swords together as they produced a stream of golden-red sparks. The broadcasting tunes focused on Michael''s face to broadcast his smile in the giant mirrors.
"Let''s end this"
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Sorry, I broke the chapter releasing pattern, I thought you guys and gals would love to see the fight. Let me know you want to see the fight in the very next chapter or after two Gaya chapters.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 348 - Rude Awakening
Despite the blood dripping from the cuts on his chest and shoulder, Michael walked towards Alex with an amused grin on his face. Alex''s biceps got bigger when he clenched the spear even tighter. This time Alex dashed at Michael with an extreme speed that many doubted it was even possible to move this fast without Arch energy.
From the beginning of the tournament, the arena never went silent but at this moment, not a single sound could be heard in the arena. Even thementers remained silent. All of the eyes were glued to Alex and Michael. It was the most anticipated scene that even made Norvin drop his fruit and stare at the fight.
Just when the spear was a few inches away from Ghost''s throat, he simply evaded the spear. However, he did not only evade at even greater speed but also knocked Alex on the head using the sword''s hilt.
"Too slow" Michael snickered, making Alex immediately swing his spear. Yet again, the people saw Ghost evade the spear without breaking a sweat.
This time Michael smacked Alex on the back with his sword''s surface. Before even Alex could react to the first smack, he received another smack. The force of the smacks formed two red lines on Alex''s wless smooth fair skin.
Michael was standing behind Alex so Alex tried to hit Michael in the gut with the butt of the spear. He pulled the spear closer quickly.
Ting!
No matter how fast Alex moved, Michael simply swatted the spear with the flick of his sword. The sh between Michael''s sword and Alex''s spear produced sparks with a loud ''ting'' noise.
"Surrender now Alex"? Michael snickered before smacking Alex right on his face with his two swords. Alex was losing his cool because no matter how fast he moved, Ghost moved faster.
The crowd waspletely stunned by Ghost''s speed. People who knew about swordsmanship were stunned by the level of sword mastery Michael was exhibiting. Especially the Swordmaster of Aragoth, Darius was speechless. In his seventy years of training, he couldn''t evene closer to the talent Ghost possessed in swords.
Each of Ghost''s moves seemed simple and elegant yet only people like Darius understood how difficult it was to do what he was doing. Unlike manymoners were thinking, a sword was not the most powerful de weapon, it was the spear. Spear was far superior to sword yet Ghost''s mastery over the swordpletely overshadowed Alex''s spearman ship.
It would take decades of hard work to master one-handed sword skills except Ghost was only twenty-one years old and he seemed to have mastered dual wielding. If Darius wasn''t older than Ghost and didnt have pride and ego, he would have asked Ghost to take him as his disciple.
Coupled with the fact he couldn''t even touch Ghost, his words made Alex mad.
"I am giving you a chance Alex"
Thup!
Thup!
Thup!
Alex missed each swing of his spear but kept receiving smacks from Ghost''s swords. Diana knew she had no right whatsoever to feel proud of her son yet she did. To Ethan, every single move Ghost did remind himself of Harriet.
"He''s our son alright" a tiny teardrop formed in the corner of Ethan''s eyes.
Watching Ghost toying with Alex, Celina clenched her fist as veins on her forehead started to bulge out. Her entire body shivered in fury.
"Son of a-"
Thup!
This time Ghost smacked Alex right on his mouth. Alex''s anger exploded as he swung the spear in a crescent shape only to miss Michaelpletely. Alex misjudged the athleticism of Ghost. When he swung the spear, Ghost just bent his back like his spine was made of rubber to evade the spearpletely. The spear could only brush past Ghost''s nose.
"Diddle Diddle" Ethan felt a chill running through his spine when he heard these words escape Ghost''s mouth. Harriet Hunt aka Diana used to recite a rhyme before she went for the kill.
"He''s gonna kill him" ire''s eyes went wide. She knew about Ghost''s habit of reciting the small rhyme before killing someone.
"We are so" Alex saw Ghost''s smile disappear from his face as he dashed at him. Alex tried to defend himself using his spear but ultimately failed because of Ghost''s lightning speed. In a blink of an eye, Michael closed the gap between him and Alex.
"Little"
"NO!" Celina screamed standing on the MorningStar Pavillion.
The moment the word ''little'', Alex felt an excruciating pain in his heart and throat. The very next moment, the pain multiplied by several folds as Alex felt the grip he had on his spear loosen. He lost all of his strength.
"Arghh" Alex blurted out mouth full of blood. Under everyone''s shocked gazes, Michael lifted Alex from the ground like skewered meat. The spear fell on the ground while Alex''s blood oozed on Michael, bathing him in blood.
Michael immediately twisted both the swords, leaving no chance for the coordinators to save Alex. Still, Michael didn''t rely on this as he withdrew the sword that stabbed through Alex''s throat. When he withdrew the sword, hot blood gushed out. Within a snap of time, he stabbed Alex right between the eyes.
Ending Alex''s life once and for all.
"COORDINATORS!" it took a few moments for everyone toe out of their daze including thementers and coordinators. Ishihara immediately stood from her seat while screaming at the coordinators.
Michael waspletely covered in the blood oozing out of Alex''s wounds. He looked like the devil incarnate in many peoples'' eyes.
A few moments after Alex closed his eyes, the coordinatorsnded with haste on the stage. Still, Michael didn''t put down Alex''s body. Diana''s heart skipped a beat seeing her son like this.? This was the dark side of him that she never wanted to see.
Only Ashton had a grin on his face seeing Michael like this. In the giant mirrors, the crowd started at Michael''s face without batting an eye. The dark red blood oozed on his face, painting his face red. When he smiled, many felt like fainting. It was so terrifying for the weak-hearted.
"You should warn your brother," Norvin said to Alicia with a grimace face.
"And Andrews" As silence enveloped the pavilion, Diana''s serious voice drew the attention of Alicia.
**************************************
Meanwhile back in Gaya''s cave, Noah was leaning on the cave''s wall with folded arms. Gaya had ck lines on her forehead after hearing Noah call her by her real name.
She was still wearing the mask that Ghost gave her. Despite the mask, Noah found out her identity, she wondered how. Just when she thought she couldn''t get into any more trouble, she fell into a deep pit of trouble.
Among all the people, it had to be Noah who found her secret, a guy who not only connected to guardians but also to her stepsister. In addition to her secret, he even saw the Hydra.
Killing him would solve the problem but Ghost warned her about Noah. At this moment, Gaya''s instincts told her to heed Ghost''s warning.
"Your sister and the whole Nagnd thinks they crippled your cultivation. They are in for a rude awakening" Noah chuckled while Vedora quickly pped their wings tond on Gaya''sp.
"A Three-headed Hydra, fancy" His words stunned Gaya. He sounded like he knew about Vedora''s species.
"You''re a long way from Ghost, does he know you''re here?" Noah walked towards the two dead bodies of the Panthers while still maintaining eye contact with Gaya,
"Of course, he doesn''t, if he did, he wouldn''t have sent you here. Especially if he knew, this was the ce that took your mother away from you. You know your sister and father are pretty worried about you" Noah flicked his wrist as a green gourd appeared in his hand.
On the other hand, Gaya couldn''t bear to hear his nonsense anymore,
"Humph, worried? My loving sister threw me in jail while my father of the year crippled me. So pardon me for not believing the bullshiting out of your mouth"
"Hahaha"
Unexpectedly Noah burst intoughter before pouring a green liquid from the gourd onto the dead bodies.
"Your sister is naive and your father, well I don''t talk ill about others but your father is a piece of work. I mean, what kind of father would cripple his firstborn"
Gaya was surprised to hear these words from Noah but she sensed there''s a buting,
"But you didmit crimes such as bribery, assassinations, and my favorite, mass murders" As he said, Noah threw the gourd with the dead bodies before snapping his finger. When he snapped, a park of fire appeared from his hand and shot towards the dead bodies.
The moment the sparks met the liquid, dark green mes engulfed the dead bodies,
"If you think serial rapists who raped and killed hundreds of my people, massacred innocent people in cold blood deserve a second chance, you are just as naive as Xanali " Gaya stood up, gently putting Vedora on her shoulder. Since he saw them, there was no need to hide them anyways.
"Did you know when you burned the prison to the ground, there was one family who went to say goodbye to their father and one family went there to see their brother before leaving Nagnd, hoping to start a new life?"
Gaya''s heart skipped a beat as Noah continued,
"One family had two eleven years old kids and a mother and the other had one eight years old, two fifteen years old and grandparents in their sixties. What did they do to deserve to be burned alive?"
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If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 349 - Righteous But Not Stupid
"What are you talking about?" Gaya grunted. She was unable to believe Noah. In her lifetime, she had never taken an innocent life. When she heard that she was responsible for killing several innocent people, she couldn''t even breathe normally.
"Here," Noah flicked his wrist as a parchment appeared in his hand,
He threw the parchment to Gaya. Her hands shivered. Mustering all the courage in every fiber of her body, she opened the parchment. The parchment had the crest of Nagnd, a cobra coiling around the golden dagger.
Under the crest was a long list of names. She didn''t need an introduction to those names, they were the names of people in the prison she burned down to the ground.
Their names were in red but when her eyes came to the end of the list, there were several names written in green ink. These names, she didn''t recognize,
"That was the list created by your own elites, the team your mother formed"
The crest on the top was proof enough for Gaya that this parchment was created by the elites. The crest might seem simple but it was actually a rune, hence it was damn hard to forge it elsewhere. Only the elites had the knowledge to create the logo.
The Elites was a group of highly trained Nagas that only answered to the queen. They were the symbol of courage, mercy, justice, faith, power, and hope. Gaya''s mother formed this elite group to protect the kingdom from threats inside and outside the kingdom.
When she formed the group, she wanted Gaya to lead them in the future. But her untimely demise and Gaya''s father''s second marriage let Gaya''s stepmother control the elites. Since the elites were bound by honor, they answered to Gaya''s stepmother as she was the queen of Nagnd.
A tear formed in each eye before falling onto the parchment. It was a tear of self-me and shock.
"People think me as a self-righteous prick but they fail to understand that I''m like this because I don''t want to be the reason for an innocent to suffer," Noah said in a serious tone,
"Sometimes killing one evil bes a reason for a hundred more evil to emerge. And killing one innocent is like letting hundred evil triumph"
Michael and Noah hadpletely different perspectives on this. As far as Michael was concerned, if killing a hundred evil costs one innocent life, he would kill a hundred evil. But if it was Noah, he would save that one innocent life at the cost of letting a hundred evil go.
"Why are you telling her these?" Ayag couldn''t bear to see Gaya sad.
"Don''t even think about ratting her out. Ghost will kill you"? Sarba snapped as he bore his teeth at Noah.
However Noah just smiled,
"If I wanted to rat you out, I would have done it a long time ago. Ghost saved my sister and mother, I''m grateful to him. This is me returning the favor. No one will hear from me that you are Gaya. But if you want to hide your identity forever, you need to find a better mask. Or you will end up hurting him when the elites show on your doorstep someday"
Gaya felt a chill running through her spine but when she saw Ghost''s smiling face in her mind, her fear and sadness disappeared. She trusted he would ovee anything. Unlike some girls who would only bring trouble to the guy, she wanted to stop all the troubles before they could reach Ghost.
"I bet you''re not here to tell me this" Gaya finally took her gaze away from the parchment to look at Noah,
"Your father is dying"
Gaya''s heart skipped a beat yet another time when he dropped another bomb on him.
"Only thing that can save him is the heart of the five-headed serpent. And I guess you''re here for that same five-headed serpent I''m looking for. If we look for the serpent in our own ways, we might end up getting killed but if webine our forces, we can get what we both want"
"What happened to him?"
Instead of responding to Noah''s offer to work together, Gaya asked about her father.
"Someone poisoned him"
Gaya couldn''t help clenching her fist when a sudden burst of anger exploded within her. She hated her father yet when she heard someone poisoned him, her blood boiled.
"I know you can''tplete your naga transformation without the heart-"
"You can take it" Gaya interjected Noah,
"This shall be myst filial act as his daughter. One day I will rub the fact I let him live on his face" Gaya put the parchment in her space ring instead of giving it to him back.
"Why are you here alone anyway? Where''re your Guardian buddies?"
Gaya leaned on the wall asking Noah. Although she asked casually, she wanted to learn more about Noah because she had a weird feeling about him. As far as she was concerned, he would die fighting the five-headed serpent with his Core Formation level 4 cultivation. In her mind, he would make a great distraction by being the five-headed serpent''s snack.
"Where are we going next?" Ayag asked. Ayag still didnt trust Noah but she was not stupid to let go of help in this ce.
"There is a city right in the center of the Fire Realm, Hell City," Noah said.
"Oh, so there is actually a city in this god-forsaken ce?" Ayag was surprised, she hadn''t expected this at all.
"Hell City is a unique existence. Ancient devils will not enter the city no matter what, that''s why it has be a gathering ce for all humans and other races. Supposedly, this Hell City is the safest ce in Fire Realm, and as long as you stay within the city, you won''t have to worry about being attacked by beasts, and your safety will be guaranteed. The tunnel leading to the outside world only opens once a year, therefore, Hell City has be the most important ce to protect. But now, it has be the most dangerous area in Fire Realm, no different than the deepest area of Fire Realm"
"How did that happen?" Ayag asked while Gaya remained silent, letting Noah do the exining to Ayag. She wanted to remain silent facing the various emotions surging in her heart.
"Very simple; where there are humans, there is trouble. In Fire Realm,
You can find trouble anywhere. Between ancient beasts, between humans and other races, between humans and humans. Blood is spilled everywhere, there are no rules here, only raw ughter. In order to survive in the Fire Realm, you need powerful strength. Right now, there are all kinds of bad and good people mixed in Hell City, some are vicious criminals who were exiled here by one of the Great Nine ns, or some genius disciples from some big sect who''s looking to forge themselves in the fire of real battle experience. When so many powerful people are mixed together in a single ce, conflicts are inevitable" Noah exined.
Cain carefully listened to every single one of his words. He could understand the situation here. There were no rules in Fire Realm, and the most important thing here was strength and ability. Without it, one would be nothing but prey to the strong. Although Hell City could help a person escape from the attacks of demons and devils, it couldn''t help them escape from conflicts between humans.
"There might be something that instigated the trouble in the first ce," Ayag said.
"It''s the damn Thusians"
The word ''Thusians'' stopped Gaya''s train of thoughts. The pain, the anger, the fury, and everything Ghost was feeling shed across her mind. He gave a small taste of his emotions a long time ago yet she could still feel everything like they happened to her.
"Thusians?"
"They''ve been waging war on small factions and realms like this to bolster their power. Until recently they''ve been only targeting small factions but now, they are waging war on many kingdoms in the Ozer Continent. It''s only a matter of time before they start a war in Elon"
Gaya began to worry about Ghost. She doubted he would do something suicidal yet she wanted to be there with him. Now she wanted more than anything to get stronger. If she was weaker than him, she would just be a hindrance after getting stronger, it would be a different story though.
"I thought it''s your guild''s job to stop wars" Gaya snickered,
"Guardians? Im righteous not stupid. They lost their purpose a long time ago. Now they are just corrupted politicians who wouldn''t raise a finger without getting something in return"
For a moment Gaya wasn''t sure what she just heard. She never expected Noah to loathe the guardians because he''s one of them. Seeing the stunned look on Gaya''s face, Noah smiled.
"I didn''t join guardians to earn millions of gold or get beauties. I have those. I joined Guardians because I want to reform them from the ground up. I owe it to someone"
Just when Gaya was about to ask him something, Noah interjected,
"You wanna ask why I''m telling you these right? I''m telling you this because in the future I would like to work with Ghost to help the people. I know he''s building his own empire and I want us to work together for the greater good"
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Chapter 350 - Rampage Of Gaya
The fire realm had no sunrise or beautiful morning like in the outside world. The red sky just got brighter, indicating that the dark night has gone. When the cave got brighter, Gaya and Noah ended their meditation and stood up to leave the cave.
"Stay inside" Gaya warned Vedora, especially Ayag before putting them back into her saddlebag. They soon left the cave heading towards Hell City. Considering flying might attract the crows, they chose to walk. They both knew it would take a long time but it was the safest way to reach Hell City without getting into any trouble.
"Hey, I still don''t understand why people choose toe to this dump?" Ayag craned her neck up to peek outside.
"Most of them don''t choose. Two-thirds of the people here are criminals who were exiled from various kingdoms. Even guardians sent the ruthless criminals here instead of putting them in prison" Noah said while walking in front of them.
"I thought criminals supposed to be in prisons"
"Prisons are expensive and a hassle to maintain. They would get overcrowded in a snap"
"Why can''t the rulers sentence them to death?"
"Because most of them are stupid" Gaya snickered,
"And stupidest ones believe those criminals deserve a second chance"
Noah chose not to put his head into their conversation.
"I hope you have gold coins in your ring, I''m starving and I''d literally kill someone to eat" Ayagined,
"Gold coins means shit here brat"
"What?!" Ayag almost shouted,
"People deal in beast cores here. Don''t worry, I''m sure the ss Wraith core will be enough for us to survive and treat you to a meal"
"Good because your hands are beginning to look real juicy" Ayag let out a burst of evilughter.
"Keep them hidden. Although many don''t know their species, they would still hunt you down to sell them as an exotic pet or worse, they will capture them and do experiments" Ayag frowned hearing Noah''s words,
"The guardians have a safe house in Hell City. We''ll get a takeaway"
"Whoa, slow down. I''m not gonna stay in a guardian safe house. What if it''s a trap?" Gaya stopped following Noah,
"Then rent a tavern and stay there. If I wanted to capture you, I just need to tip the elites and they will do the rest"
Hell City was located right in the center of Fire Realm. It was a huge city that covered more than a few hundred miles in circumference. It looked like a historical city with dolled colors, scars, and marks everywhere. It was the remains of time, which proved that Hell City had been around for a long period of time. At least, it had been here since the discovery of the Fire Realm.
"No fights from here" Gaya wanted patting the saddlebag.
"Just get me something to eat," Ayag whispered silently.
"I will now shut up" Gaya yelled at Ayag as they walked towards the city''s main gate.
Hell City''s main gate was actually a huge breach on the city wall, and it didn''t fit the standards of a city gate. When Noah got closer to the main his expression became a focused one, and a grin emerged on his face.
"Why are you grinning?" Gaya asked. She was kinda familiar with Noah''s expression. Every time Ghost got something good, he would smile just like this. She didn''t want to admit it but Ghost and Noah seemed the same and opposite at the same time.
"There are hidden treasures in this city, I can sense it." Instead of hiding the truth, Noah told her the truth.
"You can sense treasures? What kind of treasures?"
"The kind that helps our fight with the five-headed serpent easier"
Noah said to Gaya.
"I was thinking about why those beasts don''t attack Hell City, there must be some reason behind it, and perhaps it''s rted to this hidden treasure." He continued,
"We must get it before someone else does" Noah''s eyes lit up.
"Don''t get too excited, if no one unearthed the treasure to this day, it must be guarded or hidden carefully. I doubt with our current strength and abilities, we can get it" Gaya dampened Noah''s enthusiasm.
"I''m lucky" Noah smiled,
"Luck? Are you fucking kidding me? We can''t depend on luck. You know what Ghost said about luck"
"What?" Noah asked,
"He said that I don''t believe in luck, I believe in hard work"
"Stop right there."
Right at this moment, a group of ten middle-aged men leaped out from the dark bushes on their path, blocking Gaya and Noah.
"This is a robbery. You two, hand over all your belongings now! If not, we will take it from your corpses!"
A man with a ferocious scar on his face threatened them. Gaya looked at the ten men frowning. They were all at Core Formation stage 10. It was true that they were ten and they were two and in normal situations, ten Core Formation stage warriors had a higher chance to defeat the Core Strengthening stage cultivator if they fought with coordination.
However Gaya and Noah were not normal, they were two abnormal monsters.
Looking at them, Noah burst out intoughter. Pretty good luck for them to bump into some robbers right as they arrive in the city. These ten men had pretty strong cultivation bases, therefore he knew they would have more monster cores with them.
"Fuck you luck Noah"
"Wee to Hell City. I heard about bandits in Hell City. Some people group together and hide outside the main gate, and when they see someone with weaker cultivation bases or loners like us, they will strike and rob them.? I also heard these men are really smart, they know about all the alliances, and their strengths, in detail. They know who can be offended and who can''t be offended like the back of their palm. However, it seemed like today was their bad day" Noah still had his usual calm smile on his face.
"If you give everything you steal,? I will go easy on you. You know it''ll be hard to survive in Fire Realm with broken bones and no monster cores"
Noah shrugged his shoulders, then he looked at Gaya. He could tell she was ready to take out her bow and kill them on the spot,
"Broken bones? Since you shitheads decided to rob me, I''m gonna rob you and send you to another hell"
The ten men were startled to hear Gaya. Despite her cultivation base, the ten of them were underestimating her because she was a girl. They didn''t know what she''s capable of. The superiority of numbers on their side blinded their eyes.
"What the fuck?! How could a bitch be so aggressive?"
"Hey, what the fuck? We are the ones robbing you, not the other way around! Look carefully at the current situation and the difference between our strengths! Hurry up, hand over all your belongings, and we will spare your lives. If not¡ well, it''s perfectly normal for people to die in fire realm"
"Let''s kill him and keep the bitch alive. She could entertain us for a few days. It has been so long I felt the touch of a woman"
Noah turned to see Gaya shivering in anger. She was already in a bad mood by hearing the truth about the innocent people she killed, the state of her father, and him finding out her true identity. These guys just poured oil into her ming fury.
"Are you sure you want to piss her off more than you already have?" Noah asked, rubbing his temples.
"Damn it, looks like these idiots don''t even know how to judge a situation. Let''s teach them a lesson! Brothers, let''s do it, strip everything they got and kill him. We can keep the girl alive"
The man who looked like the leader of this group shouted out loudly. Six men dashed towards Noah while four picked Gaya as their target. They dashed at Gaya, licking their lips.
"Poison me" Gaya didn''t even try to hide her spells. She just went straight for the killing move. As far as she was concerned, Noah could run away or die of poisoning.
The four who dashed at Gaya were stunned to see the emerald green smokeing out of her mouth. However, it was toote as what they thought was a cloud of gas turned out to be a poisonous me. Noah didn''t expect her to cast such a powerful spell in such a short time too. He dashed away to avoid the me.
The emerald green mixed with her poison was too powerful as the four bandits melted in a few blinks of an eye. The other six were stunned to see their colleagues die such a horrible death in such a short time. Just as they were stunned, two silver arrows materialized in Gaya''s hands.
"DIE MOTHERFUCKERS!" she leaped into the air beforending in front of two bandits who were a couple of meters away from their colleagues.
When they realized she was in front of them, she stabbed the arrows straight into their throats.
"DIE DIE DIE!" She withdrew the arrows as blood gushed out of their throats yet she continued to stab them again and again. The blood gushed out from their bodies painted her fair skin and the silver dress red.
"Xanali was right. She is a murdering psychopath"
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Chapter 351 - Father And Son
After spending a day without going anywhere enjoying the tournament, the crowd finally got a 6hours break. Of course, the crowd was reluctant to leave as the tournament was getting better and better by rounds. Unlike thest tournament where the participants had to find their own room which led to unnecessary battles and enmity, this time the tournamentmittee gave room for each participant in their own expenses.
At the moment, Michael was sitting in avish room. Therge bed on the left side corner was neatly tied like in 5-star hotels. The room smelled of jasmine and freshness. In addition to the bed, several pieces of furniture such as arge round table, sofas, and seven feet mirrors were neatly arranged to make the room cozy yet spacious.
The golden rays of lighting from the majestic chandelier lit the room as Michael was sitting in front of the round table unting his muscr upper body.
"Damn it, I need to fix this before going to bed" Michael looked at the broken pieces of APD lying on the table. He was still drenched in the blood of Alex.
When he fought with Alex, the APD got broken by Alex''s spear. It was nothing but broken pieces of junk metal.
"And where is this lizard?" He cursed after waiting for Nightmare to show up. After waiting for half an hour, he could kinda guess that the dragon had fallen asleep with ire.
After the battles, he reeked of blood. He liked to take a shower now more than anything else but unfortunately, the room had no shower as the cultivators used Arch energy to clean their bodies. Although using Arch energy was efficient and not tiresome, Michael used to take showers. His mind always calmed when standing under the shower, letting the water droplets wash the blood and his tension away.
The most he could do at the moment was wipe off the blood from his body and use the arch energy to clean himself.
"Fuck, I have no healing potion left" Michael cursed looking into his system storage. It had been so long until he restocked the 90% pure healing potion in his system storage. He was pretty busy dealing with Guardians and Hades.
"Okay I will fix the APD first and then brew a new badge of healing potions," Michael thought in his mind. Sliding the chair back, he seated himself. A few deep breaths made him feel slightly rested.
"That snake bettere back to me in one piece" Michael mumbled while cleaning the blood off of his arms. Usually, she would take care of him by giving him yful massages and cleaning the blood off of ces he couldn''t reach.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
His train of thoughts regarding Gaya''s whereabouts got interrupted by a trio of gentle knocks on the door. He willed the system to show him the environmental map as he saw three figures waiting outside the door. He activated his X-ray eyes to see two female figures and one male figure.? One of the women was at the Core Strengthening stage level 6 which caused a frown to form on Michael''s forehead.
"Who is there?" Michael asked while pulling the swords on the table closer to him.
"Its¡It''s¡" the man outside opened his mouth, changed his mind, then closed his mouth.
"Ghost, It''s Diana, Diana Winston"
When Michael heard the familiar voice, he was surprised. However, after giving some thoughts about Andrews''s situation, he just sighed.
"Give-" Ghost wanted to say ''Give me a minute so he could put on a robe to cover his body yet the man opened the door quickly, it was more like he barged in.
Michael would have sent a bolt of lightning through the man if he didn''t know Diana. The man who abruptly opened the door was a dashing man who seemed to be in his mid-thirties orte thirties. He was wearing a rainy cloud gray V-neck shirt that covered his obvious chiseled chest. On top of the V-neck, he draped on a long white fur coat that looked cozy. His ck pants contradicting the white coat still formed an unusual alliance to make him look stunning.
Just like Michael, the man sported a stubble beard. His shoulder-length ck hair wasn''t too neatlybed nor too messy. His bright blue eyes stared at Michael while his facial muscles twitched to form a gentle smile.
The man seemed to have inherited all the good genes to be born with a perfect jawline and a handsome face. It was obvious the man was Diana''s husband, Lord Ethan Winston. There was something different about Diana though. Michael couldnt put his finger into it but he knew something''s different about her other than her shocking jump from Core Formation stage to Core Strengthening stage level 7 in such a short amount of time.
Everyone had their own secrets thus Michael chose not to mind her secret of such heaven-defying cultivation speed. Beside Diana was standing Emelda, the elder sister of Diana. For some reason, she was avoiding direct eye contact with Michael.
"Lord Ethan I presume"? Michael reached his hand out to shake but Ethan remained still looking speechless.
"Ethan" Diana stepped forwards before putting her hand on Ethan''s shoulder.
"Yeah" her touch quickly brought Ethan back from his daze,
"Ghost" Ethan shook his hand but to Michael''s surprise, he suddenly embraced him,
"Huh, what''s happening?" Michael mumbled being squeezed by Ethan,
"Ethan let him go" Emelda squealed,
"It''s just he wants to thank you for everything you did for us. He''s just feeling a little bit emotional" Diana tried to make the situation less awkward for Ghost. She didn''t want Ghost to be suspicious of them.
"You''re getting blood on your coat, Lord Ethan" Ghost said as Ethan finally realized what he had done on impulse and let Michael go.
"Please, take a seat" Michael gestured at Ethan and thedies towards the sofa beside them.
He then quickly took a towel to wipe off the blood from his body. After they seated themselves on the sofa, Michael pulled the wooden chair and sat backward on the chair.
"Congrattions for getting yourself allied with the Kane Family, Ghost" Diana smiled,
"Yeah after what happened to Alex, it would be good to have an ally like Kane family behind you" Ethan nodded after Diana.
After Michael killed Alex, everyone thought Ghost was done for as Alex was the next heir to the Fisher Family. However, as promised, Ashton personally came to the battle stage and announced that Ghost would be the best man for Adam Kane at his wedding. In addition to announcing this, Ashton also made sure everyone understood that Ghost is Kane''s family and his personal friend. Hence, even if the Fisher family tried to avenge Michael by trying to kill him, they would face the wrath of the Kane Family which would soon ally with House Oswen to be the strongest family in the Royalnd.
Celina fainted on the spot after screaming out loud Alex''s name. The MorningStar sect brought her away from the battle stage before another battle between Ghost and Celina exploded. The MorningStar sect had already lost a star disciple and they didn''t want to lose Celina too.
Many people including some disciples of MorningStar sided with Ghost though since he did give Alex the chance to surrender. Moreover, everyone knew Alex was going to kill him and never would have given Ghost the chance to surrender.
The coordinators who oversaw the battle were gonna end up biting the bullet as themittee would me them for not stopping the battle before Ghost killed Alex.
"Well Alex didn''t give me any choice, did he?" Michael was still cleaning the blood off of his arms while talking to them. He had no idea that he was talking to his father, mother, and aunt. They were his family. Diana and Ethan wanted to hug him tight as they could and say he''s their son. But how could they do that? They abandoned him, at least Diana was thinking she had abandoned him. However, only Emelda knew what really happened that night when Noah and Ghost were born.
Every scar Diana saw in his body squeezed her heart, it felt like someone slowly stabbing her heart with a rusty nail. His body was riddled with scars.
Both the scars he got from the earth and the scars Abras got started to appear on his body. He could remove those scars with the help of a potion but Michael wanted them to remain as they were because it reminded him of all the pain, struggles he went through in his life.
"I doubt you left your security detail toe here to talk about Alex," Ghost asked with a sliver of a smile on his face,
While Michael was wiping off the blood from his right chest, Ethan noticed a ''J'' shaped burn wound on Ghost''s skin. That burn wound seemed nastier than his other scars. It was almost a couple of inches inside Ghost''s skin.
"This one?" Michael looked at the scar on his right chest. It brought some bad memories back before his eyes. IF anyone else asked about it, Michael wouldn''t have answered but since Ethan and the Winston family could be another ally for him, he chose to answer them.
*******************************
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Chapter 352 - We Meet Again
"I got this scar when I was nine years old" Michael touched the scar.
"I''m not gonna tell my sad story but let''s just say, liquid hot metal is bad for skin" Michael didn''t want to say the drug dealers poured hot liquid metal on him because he dropped a pack of cocaine when he was smuggling it under his shirt.
He still remembers the pain vividly. He cried so hard that aftersting for a couple of minutes, he lost consciousness. When he woke up the next day, he had a crude badge wrapped on his chest. The drug dealers wouldn''t care about his health, they just wanted him to stay alive so they could use him as a mule in the future. Until he was fourteen years old, he lived the life of a child ve. Hence his hate for very.
"Who did this to you?" Ethan felt the air around him suddenly getting chilly. If Michael was good at hiding his killing intent, Diana was a master at it. Only because Ethan knew her so well that he could sense the killing intent. To Michael, it seemed like she was asking the question having no intention behind it.
"They are all dead," he said.
"When-" Emelda opened her mouth, changed her mind, and closed her mouth.
"Why are you here, Lord Ethan?" He asked with a smile. He wanted to know what they want even though he knew it would be rted to Andrews.
"Andrews'' '' Unexpectedly, it was Emelda who answered Michael quickly before Ethan or Diana could open their mouths.
Michael turned his gaze at the worried face of Emelda,
"Is that so?" Michael stopped wiping off the blood as he put the white towel around his neck.
"But what can I do? I already saved him once, you can''t expect me to save him every time he gets into trouble. Even if I wanted to, I can''t do anything now"
Although Ghost still had a calm smile on his face, Ethan could see the coldness in his eyes. If Andrews got in his way to get the championship, there was no doubt that Ghost would do the worst to Andrews in a heartbeat.
"But-"
"I am sorry Lady Emelda, if you really want to help Andrews, talk to him. When hees to the final to face me, if he wants what he''s fighting for, he should give his all to beat me" His words and tone were not neither too polite nor rude, it was a warning.
The images of a seven feet tall man in full ck metal armor holding a war hammer shed across Emelda''s eyes. These were the shes she wanted to forget, these were the images that kept her away for so many years, there were the images that gave nightmares to her, these were the images the Skyhall showed her, the DARK LORD.
She didn''t want to believe her sister''s son would be the dark lord yet she couldn''t help seeing the shes of the Dark Lord in Ghost.
"We are not here to ask you to lose the final Ghost. We just don''t want anything to happen to Andrews'' Diana ced her hand on Emelda''s shoulder, wordlessly telling her to calm down.
"Can we talk honestly Lady Diana, Lord Ethan, Lady Emelda?"
"That''s what we want" Ethan quickly said,
Even if he couldn''t be a father to Ghost, he at least wanted to be a good friend to him.
"The Knight Andrews killed, what about him? What about his family? There''s no right or wrong in this world. Everyone''s the hero in their own story who does what''s necessary to get what they want, just like Andrews did" The three of them had no words to rebuke, after all, Andrews did kill the knight.
"If Andrews wants to get what he wants, there is only one way" Michael paused,
"What is that?" Emelda asked after a couple of moments of awkward silence,
"Simple, he just has to kill me" Michael shrugged while the trio was stunned to hear his words,
"Because he can''t break me or make me surrender" Diana knew very well what her son is capable of long before Ethan and Emelda. However since the two of them saw what he did to Alex and how easily he killed Alex, they knew there''s no chance in hell for Andrews to defeat Ghost.
To thest round, no one could guess his real power. Except for his cultivation level, none knew what he was capable of. Even Michael did not know how powerful he is right now after upgrading all of his spells. He had spent 300,000 badass points to be immune to all the attacks of a Core Formation stage warrior. ording to the system, he could even fight with a level 3 Core Strengthening stage warrior without losing.
"What would¡you¡do to him?" Emelda asked after taking a couple of long breaths,
"There are ways to win the round without killing the opponent, Lady Emelda '''' Michael smiled which sent a chill running through Emelda''s spine. She should have felt better after hearing his answer but something caused her to be worried about Andrews more.
"Master Gho-" Suddenly Ricky entered the room only to be shocked by the three of them,
Forgive me MAster Ghost, I didn''t know you were with guests" Ricky gave a small bow towards Ethan, Diana, and Emelda,
"It''s okay, what''s the matter?" Ghost was d Ricky interrupted their conversation. It was obvious their love for Andrews would eventually lead them to ask for something he couldn''t offer them. Although Ethan and Diana didn''t seem like typical Lord and Lady, Michael still didn''t want to take a chance in pissing them off, especially after knowing Noah''s secret.
"There''s someone here to meet you, she seems like she won''t leave until she meets you"
Ethan let out an awkward weird grinning, he was thinking about his son having a one-night stand. It was pretty normal for boys like him to enjoy thepany of beauty from time to time. However, Diana frowned. Just looking at Ghost''s face, she could tell he was surprised. Moreover, Diana heard about how deeply he and Aelia are in love.
"It seems like we have to take our leave" Emelda quickly stood up. She was too freaked out by Ghost as she wanted to get out of his sight as quickly as possible.
She almost pulled Diana by her hands while Ethan walked towards Ghost. Michael also stood up to send them on their way. When Ethan got closer, he put his hand on Michael''s shoulder,
"Take care of yourself" Just as these words escaped Ethan''s mouth, a warm sensation brushed past Michael as he felt refreshed. He looked down to see all the bloodstains were gone.
"You too, Lord Ethan" Michael nodded. If Michael had known the man in front of him was his father, he would have reacted differently. Right at this moment, Ethan was a caring man in Ghost''s eyes.
After the trio left Michael''s room, he put on a ck full sleeve V Neck T-shirt and rolled the sleeves up to his elbow. He was looking at his face in the mirror while whistling some random tone that came to his mind.
Suddenly though, his whistling stopped as his brows creased. He sensed a powerful entity approaching him, he willed the system to show the Environmental scanning map to see an overwhelmingly powerful entity slowly walking towards him.
"The moment something goes wrong, buy and activate the teleportation scroll system"
[As you wish]
The system replied to his telepathic order. He didn''t turn back to see the door but took the swords in his hands just in case. In a couple of moments thatsted longer than he liked, a figure draped in dark brown robes entered the room. The figure was covered from head to toe as there wasn''t a spot that showed the figure''s skin. The darkness provided by the hood and cloakedpletely hid the face but not for long as the figure slowly removed the hood covering their head,
"Lah Alden" Michael looked at the beautiful face staring at him in the mirror. Ever since he came to this world, he had seen countless beauties yet Lah was the only one who could challenge Gaya in terms of beauty. This woman had the womanly grace that Gayacked.
"Divine wrath"
In a blink of an eye, Lah raised her hand, sending a powerful st of golden energy at Michael.
"Lightning Dash"
Despite Michael''s quick reflexes, the golden energy st hit him yet he felt nothing.
La''s cold expression soon took a turn to show the expression of utter shock. The mirror behind Michael obliterated into millions of light specks when the energy st hit the mirror.
After all these times, she hoped she could hurt him unlike when she was inside the Treacherous ocean. But she was proven wrong, he still seemed to be immune to her attacks. Regardless of her bitter understanding, she wanted to cast another spell. Yet when she moved her lips, she felt cold metal on her throat as she saw Ghost standing only a couple of inches away from her. She could feel his hot breath on her face,
"Do that again if you want me to cut Andrews into pieces"
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Chapter 353 - Good Vs Evil
Good vs Evil
A few moments after keeping the sword against her wless throat, Michael threw the swords on the bed. No matter how powerful she was, she wouldn''t be able to hurt him, he knew that. Hence, he didn''t feel threatened by her, not even a bit.
"It was a good mirror, a pity" Michael kicked the pieces of broken mirror away before stomping the ground. The force of his stomp made the chair lying on the ground stand straight as he sat looking at ire. He then put his legs on the table before him.
"How did you know?" Lah asked him in a cold voice.
"A Body Strengthening stage cultivator suddenly became Core Formation level 2 and you show up at my doorstep. I connected the dots and made a guess. It seems like I was right" Michael leaned back on the chair supporting his head with his hands,
"Why are you here La? You know you can''t hurt me"
"Yes," Lah stepped forward. Looking directly into his eyes, she snapped her fingers as the door shut close,
"I don''t know why I can''t hurt you but that doesn''t mean I can''t hurt you at all" For the first time, Michael saw her smile. Yet it was not a smile that radiated warmth. On the contrary, it was cold.
"You really seem to care about what''s her name, the little one, Cindy. I cant start with her, then kill your precious girlfriend" She walked towards the window with her hands behind her back.
"I''d probably be tired and finish off your entire sect. Their deaths will be quick and painless, after all, they don''t deserve a painful death as you do. Then you might feel how I feel after you took my purity" She turned back to see Ghost''s expression. She hoped to see him be enraged yet all she saw was a calm smile.
"Obviously I can''t stop you if you want to do everything you said. However, what I can do is remain patient. If I put my mind to it, I can be patient for years, decades, even centuries" As he was speaking, he took one sword and brushed it using the other sword. He seemed like a butcher sharpening his cleaver,
"I''ll wait for you to forget about me and be happy. Then when you areughing and being really happy, I wille for you. I will start with you precious disciples first, then everyone on your ind, then everyone you care about, next everyone who cares about you, and cherry on top, everyone you know. And all of their deaths will be long and painful"
La''s heart shuddered. She could feel that he meant every single word he spoke.
"Finally when you feel utter despair, when your heart bes numb seeing all those deaths, when you want nothing but death, I will kill you. And I can get really creative when ites to killing people" the smile he let out after finishing his words sent a chill running through her spine. She had never sensed such evilness from a person ever before. It seemed like the devil king himself was sitting in front of her.
"You are not a human, you''re a demon child"
"Hahahahaha, demon child?" Michael let out a burst of devilishughter that echoed through the room.
"Honey, sometimes devil himself sits back on his throne and admires my work, I''m his fuckingpetition" La opened her mouth, changed her mind, and stood in silence. For a few moments, she couldn''t utter a word.
"I may not be evil like you but what made you think I care about Andrews?" Lah asked. Her cold tone didn''t change at all.
"Because you belong to the category of good people. If you weren''t one, you wouldn''t have been ying the mysterious doctor in Royalnd, tending to the sick and weak"
Seeing the smirk on his face, Lah felt her anger boiling within her. She wanted nothing but to hurt him. Nheless, she knew he was right. She was not nearly as evil as him. In her whole life, she helped people, never hurt them.
"When Andrew''s step onto the battle stage, I will break him. The final isn''t going to be an interesting one, it''s going to be one-sided ass kickery"
"Humph," She snickered,
"He will defeat you because he''s fighting for love. True love can ovee anything"
"Hahahahaha"
She clenched her fist so hard seeing him burst intoughter yet again as her nails started to plunge into her soft skin.
"True love can ovee anything? Hahahaha. Are you delirious? Honey love means shit in front of power. I am gonna show it to you in the finals"
"You devil, don''t you have any feelings at all? You never showed any feelings when you took my purity, you never even flinched an eye when I told you I would kill the people who care about you. Do you even care about anyone in this world other than yourself?"? Her words get colder and colder. For a few moments, Michael remained silent as she went on,
"You act as if you care about those people but you don''t give a damn about them. You are putting up a facade, a facade to hide the darkness inside you. You want everyone to believe you''re a human yet you''re not one"
"You''re here to make a report on me?" Michael tilted his head,
"I''m gonna stop you. Until I came here, I was just returning a favor. But now, I''m going to do everything in my power to help Andrews win the championship. I''m gonna take this championship away from you"? She stomped the ground as the bits and pieces of mirror brushed past Michael, giving him a warning.
At this moment, she would do anything to wipe off that smirk from his face. After this conversation, she almost went back on her decisions that would change her life forever.
"Poor guy is gonna end up as coteral"? Michael really felt pity for Andrews. In the game between him and Lah, it''s Andrews who was going to end up hurt. As far as Michael was concerned, no matter what Lah does, he had the system with him. After upgrading the skills and spells, he was basically a god among Core Formation warriors.
"In the battle between good and evil, good always wins. Remember this" As she said, she flicked her wrist as a golden ray of light enveloped her body. The light was so bright that it made Michael close his eyes. When he opened his eyes after a couple of seconds, she was nowhere to be seen.
"Is she watching too many dramas or something?" Michael snickered.
After Lah left, Michael focused on fixing the APD and brewing another batch of healing potions. The two tasks took almost two hours as he went to bed way past midnight. His brain and body screamed at him to take a rest. He could have meditated like the rest of the world but he chose to sleep like he''s used to.? Even aftering to this world, he maintained some of the habits of the earth such as showering, sleeping, and enjoying every earthly pleasure he could. Despite breaking several peoples'' bones, brutally killing Alex and challenging Lah, when he closed his eyes on the bed, he slept like a baby.
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The next morning, the curtains added an orange glow to the morning light, every morning a perfect sunrise. The brightness of the morning made him slowly open his eyes. The scenery reminded Michael of the times he slept in a beach hut, watching the ocean emerge under the golden shimmer. For a moment his mind conjured the rhythmic waves, soft on the sandy shore, and felt his heartbeat at the same slow pace. He breathed in deeply. A new day in this world had begun. He reached his hand out to the fabric, noticing how up close the light pours through every open space between fibers, no different from how it once came through the beach-hut walls, illuminating like brilliant fireflies each dawn. The material was warm beneath his fingers, and when the sun flooded the room, painting the colors anew, he felt a little of those golden rays soak into his skin.
Getting up from the bed, Michael willed the system to give him the leather pouch that contained water. After leaving the bed, he continued his usual schedule such as brushing his teeth,bing his hair to look good in the mirror when beating the crap out of people. Since they had no shower, he cleaned himself using the Arch energy before putting up a new ck turtleneck, a new long coat, and a new pair of boots. Without a worry, he bought everything from the system as he had thousands of badass points to spend.
Although he bought a new long coat, he cut the embodiment Gaya stitched in his torn long coat and attached it to the new coat with the help of the system. It might not look like a ''G'' as she intended it to look, but it reminded Michael of Gaya. Unlike Lah said, he cared about people, especially Gaya. There wasn''t a single minute passed by without him missing the snake.? He gently brushed the embodiment on his chest as a smile emerged on his face. Soon, the smile turned into a snicker,
"We will meet soon, young master, hahahahah"
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Chapter 354 - Third Round
The arena was louder than the first day. Everyone thought the first round would be boring yet all of them were proven wrong. Because of Ghost, everyone was thrilled to witness the Core Formation tournament rather than the Body Strengthening one. As the time passed by, the crowd was settling into their seats. Just in a couple of minutes, the entire arena was filled once again. There wasn''t a single empty chair in the arena.
"Wee back to the championship tournamentsdies and gentlemen" Ishihara''s sweet voice echoed through the arena.
"Without further adieu, let''s get into the structure of the third round" James Hallmented looking at Darius.
"As you all know, twenty participants qualified for the third round. Among the twenty, just like the second round, we will have one on one battles. Ten participants will face the other ten. The winners will be qualified for the quarter-final" Darius stoppedmentating for a few moments to let the information sink into their heads.
"Until now, the rounds were designed to simte the environment of the Southern continent. Moving forward, the participants won''t be restricted from using spells, pills, and potions. In a real battle, you must use every opportunity to enhance your prowess. A single potion might decide the oue of a battle between two equally powerful cultivators"
Darius started to exin the rules and regtions of the third round.
"Can''t hear truer words. When two cultivators at the same cultivation stage and level fight, what would decide the victory is who has a better spell, who has a better weapon, and who has better armor. You''d either need money or luck to get better things. It''s not fair for everyone but life''s not fair"
Michael leaned on the wall, listening to James Hall''s words. What he said was indeed true, life is not far. He agreed with everything James Hall said except the part where he made it seem like one could get anything with money or luck. It was not true at all because without hard work, money and luck meant shit.
When Michael came to this world he had nothing, now he had an empire in the making. Of course, the system yed a crucial role but even if he hadn''t gotten the system, he would have still reached the top. What system he had when he became the number one hitman in the world?
"After recent events, the tournamentmittee decided to put a healing array on the battle stage," Darius said. His words caused amotion among the crowd. Some knew about the healing array while most of themoners didn''t even hear about a healing array before.
"Can you exin to people like me who have no idea what you are talking about Darius?" Ishihara chuckled,
"It performs a simple action actually. It''ll keep the participants from dying. If you''re badly injured and only a few inches away from walking into the death''s door, the healing array will provide just enough healing to keep you alive until helps arrives"
After Darius exined about the healing array''s function, Ishihara question,
"What about killing blows? If a participant tried to cleave the head off of another participant, will the healing array stop him or her?"
"Preventing that from happening is the coordinators'' job. Although sometimes death is inevitable inpetitions like this, we still need to do everything in our power to stop the participants from killing each other. This is apetition, not a diator arena" Darius looked at the Morning Star pavilion and Sunrise sect pavilion when he spoke those words. It was obvious he was telling this to Ghost and Celina who was burning in rage.
Thementators gave the crowd a few moments to chit-chat and be silent. After the noises died down, they moved onto the next thing
"Our VIPs and judges will determine who fights who" Michael smiled. As a small favor for killing Alex, Michael already told Ashton who he wants to fight. However, unlike his battle with Alex, the uing battle wouldn''t be very long. Michael was thinking of wiping the floor with his opponent.
Through the crowd cheering in front of him, Michael saw Lah standing among themoners with her cloak covering her face. Since no one could see a person''s cultivation level anymore, the people were thinking that Ashton was the only Fusion Stage cultivator in the arena.
"We will name the participants who will face each other. Pleasee to the battle stage after hearing your name" Ishihara said.
Everyone who was seated leaned forward in anticipation. All of their eyes were on thementators to see who they were going to call first.
"Mareese from Aragoth and Sabrina from Holdy Trident Academy"
The crowd erupted hearing the names. Both Aragoth and Holy Trident were prominent sects in their continents. Aragoth was on par with either of the three big sects in Elon while Holy Trident Academy was one of the powerful sects for girls in Ozer Continent.
Michael wasn''t even slightly interested in the battle regardless of knowing Sabrina. As Sabrina and Mareese, who was a brown-haired youngster in histe twenties walking towards the battle stage, the runes captured everyone''s expressions and broadcasted them in the giant mirrors.
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
Despite the battle being between Sabrina and Mareese, when the mirror broadcasted Michael''s face, the crowd let out thunderous cheers. Even Michael was surprised by their cheers.
"It seems like they are really loving what I''m giving them"
The badass points rapidly increased without even him lifting a finger.
"Man, I love this tournament" He reminded himself.
Standing on the opposite side of the arena, Andrews sulked seeing the response Ghost was getting. The battle prowess and brutality he showed during the fight with Alex made Andrews shudder. Yet he knew he couldn''t back down. The only thing that kept Andrews calm was the promise Lah Alden made to him.
Although Ghost was powerful, Andrews had some things that Ghostcked, a supportive family behind him and true love. Andrews believed his love would give him the strength to defeat Ghost if he was to meet him on the battle stage.
"Let the battle begin" When Sabrina and Mareese reached the battle stage, thementators announced. The cheers died down as the crowd stared at the fight making less noise.
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After the response Michael''sst fight received, the tournamentmittee put Ghost''s fight atst. This kept the crowd on the edge of their seats. Each fightsted longer than everyone expected. Hence, by the time for thest fight of the Core Formation stage, the sun had already fallen into the horizon, letting the darkness paint the sky ck.
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
The crowd couldn''t wait any longer as they started to chant the name ''Ghost''. Except for MorningStar fans, everyone else joined in the chant to produce thunderous cheers for Michael. It was evident that after this tournament, everyone woulde to know the name ''Ghost'' if they hadn''t heard it before. Plus, he would be an exception among the Alchemists.
Never before in the history of the championship tournaments has an Alchemist won the title. After all, Alchemists were believed to be weak inbat, just like the other specialists such as rune masters, healers, cksmiths.
On the VIP seatings, Alicia was shaking her legs as she felt extremely nervous despite her efforts to stay calm. Norvin liked to annoy Alicia all the time but at this moment, even he stayed quiet.
Everyone who loved Alicia shared the same nervousness. Finally, after so much wait, James Hall announced the next battle as the crowd erupted and jumped up from their seats in excitement
"Peter Stone and Ghost, pleasee to the battle stage" Even James Hall rushed the name announcing as he never even said the name Sunrise sect.
Alicia''s heart shuddered. She looked up to see her brothernding on the battle stage. She searched the sky for Ghost. It took her several seconds to see him slowly descending onto the battle stage. His ck long coat fluttered in the wind as he still wasn''t in battle armor but wore his usual ck clothes.
When Michaelnded on the battle stage, he ignored all the cheers and focused his gaze on Peter. Although Michael stunned everyone with his power, Peter seemed indifferent. He seemed like he was bored.
"I always knew Alex was just all bark and no bite" Peter sounded extremely prideful. He never even showed a shred of respect towards Alex. Even Michael respected Alex as a warrior.
If these words were spoken by someone else, the crowd would have be crazy and booed Peter. However, they all witnessed Alex''s battles. Peter held the highest number of knockouts in the first round and finished the battle in just one minute in the second round. He was the dark horse in thepetition.
"Unlike you, Alex was a true warrior. He never ambushed people in the dark and gathered information about strengths and weaknesses"
Peter''s nonchnt lookpletely took a 180 turn when he heard Ghost''s words.
"I did my research after your little visit. People call you the Young Master"
The moment Michael said this, Alicia felt a chill running through her spine.
As a Guardian, she knew about the mysterious ''Young Master''. There was a file on the young master in the Guardian Guild.
Many nobles who got ambushed and defeated by the young master were looking for his real identity. If Peter was the Young Master, he was in deep trouble.
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If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 355 - The God Of Darkness I
(21 years ago)
The forest was huge, thick, and primal. Its canopy was ruled by giant banyan, ash, buxus, giant sequoia, sitka spruce and various monstrous trees. The forest was ancient as not a shred of sunlight could peek through the canopy. One could not even tell if its day as the forest looked darker than any moonless night. Coiling branches drooped from the asional tree, and a variety of illuminating flowers, which was the only light source one could find in the forest, caught attention in the otherwise green scenery.
A mor of beastly noises, predominantly those of varmint, echoed in the air and formed a chaotic orchestra with the sounds of a fight over dominance betweenrger animals.
"Arrrgghhhhhh" suddenly the scream of a young woman disturbed the ruling silence,
"Hold on dear, I will get you help" Another woman''s voice could be heard after the first scream. In the light of blue fluorescent mushrooms and flowers, a girly on thep of another girl. The girl on the ground seemed young and extremely beautiful but at the moment, mud and dirt soiled her beauty and the raven ck hair. Her stomach had a bump, a bump that any woman would treasure with her life, her children. She was pregnant with twins. The girl holding the pregnant girl had tears gushing out of her eyes. She was holding the pregnant girl''s hand tightly to help her fight the pain.
The pregnant girl was holding the girl''s hand in one hand and holding a ck sword in the other.
The two girls were none other than Diana and Emelda. Twenty-one years old, they were Harrier and Erena.
"I can''t¡let them¡take¡my¡sons" Diana grunted in pain. The words barely escaped her mouth.
"ARGH" Diana felt her twins kicking her belly from within her. This pain should bring her joy yet at the moment, it was anything but joy.
The pain she endured was so excruciating as the veins in her eyes popped. In addition to bloodshot eyes, her nose began to bleed. Emelda shuddered to see Diana bleeding through her nose and eyes, it was not normal duringbor. However, the twins within Diana were two gods, God of Light and God of Darkness.
"ARGHH!" Diana grunted again as Emelda saw one of Diana''s eyes turnpletely white while the other turn pitch ck.
"HELP US!" Emelda''s scream echoed through the forest for miles. Yet no one heard her cry for help.
"There you are" suddenly a calm voice reverberated in the forest. The entire forest surrounding them gradually became brighter and brighter.
Slowly, three figures shrouded in white light descended through the dark canopy in front of Diana and Emelda. They radiated a holy light that made them look like deities. Soon out of the white radiance, several figures appeared. These figures were humans but wore cobalt blue armor. The armorpletely covered them from head to toe. Each armor had glistening runes and engravings. Yet it wasn''t the armor that would attract someone''s attention, it was the wings sticking out of their back. They looked like angels.
"Angels, bring her to us" One of the figures who were shrouded in the light ordered the angels. The voice sounded robotic. Hence Emelda couldn''t even tell if it was a woman or a man. She had bigger problems than finding out the gender of the figures.
The Angels rushed at Diana with a p of their wings. While they were flying towards Diana, golden swords materialized in their hands.
"NO" Despite the excruciating pain, Diana grunted while picking herself up from the ground. She was kneeling on the ground while supporting herself with the sword in her hand.
Whoosh!
Among the twelve angels, one angel swung its sword at Diana. Although Diana knew it wasn''t their intention to kill her, she would rather die than let them take her sons. When the golden sword was about to cut her in the shoulder, Diana deflected the golden sword before punching the angel in the face.
Cling!
The sh of their swords created an ear-piercing sound. Despite her weak state, Diana''s punch had enough force behind it to send the angel fluttering behind. The angel left a trail of pearl white feathers along the way. The stumbling angel soon hit another angel and fell down to the ground.
The Angels witnessed Diana''s power before, she was the best of them yet when they saw her fight in her current status, they were stunned.
"Argh"
"Harry!" Emelda shouted when she saw Diana clench her stomach with one hand.? Diana almost fell onto the ground in pain but she mustered every single bit of strength she could to stand still.
"I¡won''t¡let¡you¡" As she was grunting looking at the three figures enshrouded in the radiant light, another angel rushed at her. The three figures are still hovering in the air above her and looking at a pregnant girl''s struggle without raising a finger.
Whoosh!
With a powerful p, the angel dashed at her.
"ARGH!" Just as Diana wanted to evade, the twins inside her kicked her belly. The pain slowed her move down but her training and skill enabled her to evade the sword just in time before the golden sword pierced her chest. Although she avoided the major wound, the golden sword still cut her in the right shoulder.
The other angels also rushed at Diana from every direction. They circled her.
"Obliterenum!"? Diana held the ck sword in her both hands before stabbing the ground beneath her. The spell created a powerful beam of energy that knocked a few of the angels from the sky immediately. The energy beam produced by her sword glimmered in silver, not the usual silver but the mix of pure white and pure ck.
Five of the angels lost almost all the feathers in their wings while the rest fluttered backward due to the force of the st.
"ARGH" Diana felt her sons kick her yet again. This time, she fell down to the ground on one knee.
"HARRY!"
"Rrrr¡.run" Diana grunted the words looking at Emelda. She didn''t know how long she could hold off the angels. Right at the moment, she was prepared to sacrifice herself to save her sons. She wanted to hold them off until her mentor arrived. If anyone could save them, it was her mentor.
Clenching her pregnant stomach in one hand, Diana picked herself up once again. Her legs were shaking in pain. She could barely hold onto her sword. If she wasn''t pregnant and poisoned by her maid, she would have ripped the wings off the angels and sent them to hell. These angels trained with her but they were not at all powerful as Diana.? Although they were all at the Core Formation stage including Diana, she had the strength to fight a Soul Refining Stage warrior head to head.? She was a heaven-defying existence. Normal cultivation standards did not apply to her. That was what brought Skyhall''s attention towards her in the first ce. ording to her mentor, she somehow inherited some of the energy particles of an Ancient God, Arrora. Even her mentor had no answer how she ended up with an Ancient God''s energy particles in her body. The Skyhall was considered to be the most powerful existence yet even they knew very little about the Ancient Gods.
"Twinkle" Diana picked herself up while wiping off the blood leaking out of her nostrils.
"Twinkle" she stepped forwards towards a fallen angel. Since the angel lost most of its feathers, it struggled to stand up.? Diana recited the poem to lessen the pain as well as remind herself that there''s always light after darkness.? The fallen angel struggled violently to dash away from Diana but it was toote. Diana stomped the angel in the leg, instantly crushing the bones beneath the armor. The armor crushing the bones let out a crunching noise.
"Little STAR!"? Just as the word ''Star'' escaped Diana''s mouth, she plunged the ck sword through the angel''s helmet. Finally, the angel''s frantic struggle had been stopped by her sword.
Diana slowly pulled back her ck sword. She swung as the blood of the angel sttered on the ground. The ck long coat Diana was wearing fluttered in the wind along with her raven ck hair. Coupled with her bleeding eyes and noses formed a terrifying look as it sent a chill running through the angels'' spines.
The remaining angels finally picked themselves again to strike her down.
"Smite her" as the angels ascended to the air once again, one of the figures ordered the angels. In a blink of an eye, the golden swords in the angels'' hands disappeared. The very next moment, they all conjured a ball of the golden orb that had crackles of golden lightning dancing around.
"NO!" Seeing the angels were about to do something horrible to her little sister, Emelda ran towards Diana. The angels or the three figures didn''t seem to give a damn about Emelda. The angels raised their hands above their heads.
"Eren¡save¡yourself¡" tears gushed out of Diana''s eyes. She wanted to hold off the angels until her mentor arrived except he didn''t arrive. Diana wanted to kill herself before they took her alive but she knew if she killed herself, they would take away her sons. She was in a situation where she had no answer.? If she tried to surrender, the Skyhall would kill one of her sons. If she didn''t, they would kill her and her entire family.
Despite their threats, Diana was not ready to give up her son. She closed her eyes praying to the gods to save her sons and her family from the Skyhall.
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I strongly rmend my readers listen to Harriet Hunt theme music while reading the chapter. It''s in my discord server. Trust me, it will strike you differently.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 356 - The God Of Darkness II
"Don''t" Just as Diana was trying to stand up to save her sons inside her womb, one of the three white figures spoke.
"We can''t risk smiting her. Who knows what the Dark Lord inside her is capable of? What if he drew the angels'' energy" The white figure asked the other two as silence enveloped the forest for a few moments.
"You''re right, we''ll do this the messy way" Diana''s heart skipped a beat when she heard the white figure.
"Angels stand down" The golden orb in their hands faded away after hearing the order. The angels pped their wings to back away from Diana.
"Protem" The word reverberated through the forest as a powerful st of sonic wave appeared out of the three figures.
"Harry!" Emelda screamed when she saw the sonic waves st Diana into a tree several meters away from her. Diana hit the tree with such force that her body created a hole in the tree.
"Argrr" Diana coughed up mouth full of blood as she started to feel her consciousness drift away.
"You bastards!" Emelda''s anger exploded as she rushed at the nearby angel to attack with her hands reaching out. She was prepared to rip off the wings of the angels. In her anger, she forgot about the power gap between her and an angel.
Just as anyone would expect, when Emelda got closer to the angel, it just pped Emelda before wrapping its metal-covered arm around her. She struggled violently to free help but she was too weak and the angel was too strong.
Through her blurry vision, Diana saw the three figures floating towards her. She turned her head sideways to see her sword lying on the ground several meters away from her. She tried to move her body yet she couldn''t even move her finger.
"You made us look and behave like animals Harriet"
Diana couldn''t see which of the three white figures spoke. It took everything in her to stay awake. She knew if she closed her eyes, they would take away her sons.
"One of the twins is the Dark Lord Harriet. Why can''t you understand the danger the world is in?"
"My¡son¡is¡not¡evil" Diana coughed up blood while barely uttering the words.
"Stupid bitch, he''s gonna create hell in this world. We have seen the future" One of the three figures seemed to have lost their calmness. The overwhelming anger could be sensed in their voice.
As they got to hand''s reach distance from Diana, a white extended from the white figure floating in the middle. The white figurended on the ground as when their feet touched the ground, the white radiant around the figure slightly faded away to reveal a beautiful woman''s face. It was just for a split second but Diana saw a gracefuldy through the white light. As Diana tried to struggle, the white radiant around thedy slowly diminished. At the moment, Diana could vaguely see the human features such as hands and legs but not the entire body. The bright light prevented Diana from seeing thedy''s face.
The pair of white hands reached out for Diana''s pregnant belly. When the hands touched her belly, she felt electricity running through her entire body. She felt numb. The ck dress on her belly turned into nothing but ashes and disappeared into the air. Her pregnant belly was exposed.
"It will only hurt for a moment, Harriet"
"NO!" Em screamed as the white figure ran the white light from Diana''s belly from one end to another. The light moved slowly and gently as a trail of blood appeared on Diana''s belly. Thedy was cutting Diana open without a shred of mercy.
"HELP!" Emelda screamed as loud as she could,
"Tranqucto" While thedy was cutting Diana open, another white figure uttered the word as Emelda''s scream was cut abruptly. The very next moment, Emelda tried to scream but her lips refused to move, her entire body refused to move. She saw everything that''s happening before her but couldn''t move a muscle. Simply, she was paralyzed.
"Stop!" Suddenly another voice echoed through the forest. Thedy who was cutting open Diana froze as the figures turned back to see another white figure materialize in the air several meters away from her.
The white radiance around the newly appeared figure was several times brighter than the three. When he appeared, one could even hear a low-frequency whittling noise. The trees around them stopped waving to the wind, the time around them looked like it stopped. The newly arrived white figure slowly descended to the ground. When the figure touched the ground, the light covering the figure slowly faded away to reveal a tall, thin, and very old man. Judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a white cloak that swept the ground. His brown eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind full moon spectacles. There was a two-inch cut on his forehead as though someone cut his forehead using a sharp burning weapon.
"What are you doing here, Wulfric?" thedy who was cutting up Diana asked the old man.
"You are cutting open my disciples despite her current condition and still asking me what I am doing here?"
"Mentor" Diana''s mind finally rxed a bit seeing her mentor.
"You know who is inside her. You saw the chaos and destruction the Dark Lord will bring to this world" Thedy asked,
"Yes, I saw. But you seemed to forget the other twin, the God of Light"
Wulfric gracefully walked towards them. The three figures made way for him to reach Harriet. He knelt down before Harriet,
"What was your n, child? Kill yourself? You know if you killed yourself, they will still take away your sons" As he questioned Diana, he gently touched her forehead as the wounds started to disappear but notpletely. He seemed calm but Wulfric felt a powerful force fighting his energy from within Diana. It was dark energy, nothing like he had ever seen or sensed.
He could also sense another energy suppressing the dark energy. If it wasn''t for the suppressing energy, he doubted Diana could have survived this long.
"I won''t let them take my sons" Diana could now speak more clearly as WUlfrci healed her.
"You have a choice to make child, the Skyhall will take your son no matter what. They will kill your entire family to do that. Agree to give up your son and I will make them leave you and your family alone" These words were only heard by Diana. He talked to Diana telepathically.
"I''d rather kill my sons with my own hands and go to hell before giving up my son. Death is better for my sons than letting these monsters take them"
Diana couldn''t even imagine what they would do to her sons if she handed them over to the SKyhall. Even though they were asking for only one of her sons, she was not going to give up on her son.
"You''re a good mother, child. You still refuse to give up your son even after knowing he would grow up to be the Dark Lord"
"My son is not evil and he won''t be one. I can still kill myself and my sons with the spell you taught me mentor" Diana telepathically talked to Wulfric. He let out a gentle smile as though he was expecting Diana to fight till the end for her son.
"Would you rather kill you and your sons rather than give up one to save you and your other son?" This time, he didn''t talk telepathically. Everyone heard his words loud and clear,
"Yes. I know what Skyhall is capable of. If I gave up my son to save another, they would make my son suffer and I can''t raise another one knowing I gave up on one to save another. I won''t forgive myself. So yes, I would rather kill them both than give up my one son" tears rolled out of Diana''s eyes like a flood.
"A mother''s love" Wulfric smiled. Diana felt a warm wave surging from her toe to head. The next moment, she closed her eyes.
"She has a strong love for her sons, you can''t perform the ritual if she still had a strong bond with the Dark Lord" Wulfric turned to look at the other three white figures.
"What ritual?" thedy asked,
"I''m not talking to you" Wulfric raised his right arm as the silver ring he wore in his middle finger sparkled. Soon an ethereal form of a man in his early fifties appeared in front of them.
"I am talking to the Supreme Guardian Andreas," Considering the white radiance enveloping the three figures, no one could see the stunned look on their faces when they heard Wulfric,
"You need to perform the forbidden spell Wulfric," Andreas said, ignoring the three figures standing near him. Although he seemed to ignore them, he wanted to kill the three of them for what they did to Harriet.
The ruthlessness and inhumane way of conducting things prevented the Guardians from working with the Skyhall in the first ce.
"It seems we have no other choice" Wulfric sighed,
"Altering her memories and the mind is the only way to make her give on her son Wulfric, you know that"
"A mother''s love is not something we can change on a whim, the forbidden spell could only suppress her love for her child for a short amount of time. As time passes, her love would resurface"? He stopped for a moment to turn back and look at the unconscious Diana.
"Only if she sees her son again. The ritual can send him to a ce where he won''t return ever"
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Chapter 357 - A Mother鈥檚 Love
"What are you waiting for Wulfric? Cast the spell" Andreas floated in the air before Wulfric. Andreas talked to Wulfric as though there was no one around them. Hepletely ignored the trio of Skyhall elders and the angels.
"We might just be pushing that child onto the path to be a Dark Lord Andreas" Wulfric sighed. He looked at the unconscious Diana once again and went on,
"Every child is innocent when it''s born Andreas" ALthough Wulfric saw glimpses of a future where the world is ruled by the Dark Lord and knew he can''t change the destiny, he still felt reluctant to change Diana''s memories.
"Not this child, Wulfric, you know that. This is the only way, three thousand years ago, the gods wouldn''t have created an entire universe with no energy to trap this child if they didn''t think this child is evil beyond measures" Just reminiscing the future the gods showed the guardians made Andreas shudder in fear.
"So it''s true? There''s a prison for the Dark Lord" hearing Andreas and Wulfric from the sidelines, thedy in white light asked,
"It is true" Wulfric sighed,
"Only the gods themselves can travel into the ck universe. Prison Earth is not a ce we mortals could venture to" The mere name Earth sent a chill running through Wulfric''s spine.
He was there when the gods created an entire universe with no energy at all. They put the world named Earth in the middle of the universe. It was a prison created to hold the Dark Lord. Even after three thousand years, Andreas didn''t know why the gods could simply kill the Dark Lord. He refused to believe that the Dark Lord is stronger than the gods.
"As long as she has a bond with the Dark Lord, he can''t leave this world Wulfric. We must severe the bond between the Dark Lord and her" Andreas floated to look Wulfric in the eyes,
"As I said before, the Forbidden spell will only suppress her motherly love for a short amount of time, Andreas. A mother''s love is the most powerful spell"
"It''s enough for us toplete the ritual Wulfric"
Wulfric sighed before nodding. Andreas was preparing for this ritual for three thousand years with the Skyhall. He sacrificed his body three thousand years ago to perform the ritual. Wulfric didn''t want his sacrifice to be in vain.
After Wulfric nodded, Emelda saw Andreas''s eyes lock onto her.
"Bring her to us, we need her to perform the forbidden spell," Andreas said,
"Erael, wake her up, we have to start casting the spell before the twins are born," Andreas said looking at thedy in white. He wanted to send the Dark Lord away but wanted to keep Diana and her family safe from the Skyhall. After all, they were innocent and the other twin might be the only person alive to stop the Dark Lord if the Dark Lord somehow finds his way back to this world.
"Remember Andreas, Darkness doesn''t always mean evil, just as light doesn''t equate to good" Wulfric''s words sounded more like a warning to Andreas. If it was up to Wulfric, he would have let the child stay with its family. After all, he believed the family and the child''s mother''s love would change his destiny.
The following thirty days were hell to Emelda. She saw the spell making her sister go crazy. Even after giving birth to the twins, they only let Diana care for Noah. They kept the other one who Diana named Dean away from her. The Supreme Guardian and Wulfric spent thirty days casting the spell on Diana. They failed the first 29 days, Diana never let go of Dean, every single day she fought the angels to reach Dean. Emelda''s heart bled every time she tended to her sister''s broken bones and life-threatening wounds.
Emelda''s role in the spell was to help Wulfric alter Diana''s memories. Since Diana trusted Emelda with her life, they used Emelda to alter her memories and mess with her mind. No matter how many glimpses of a horrible future lies ahead they showed Diana, she refused to let go of Dean.
After the 10th day, Wulfric gave Dean to Diana so she could breastfeed him. The Guardians or the Skyhall didn''t know about that. It was the only time Diana had with Dean.
On the 30th day, the spell finally took hold of Diana''s mind. They changed her memories and mind as she was the one who chose to leave Dean in the middle of the forest. Regardless of the hellish pain they put her through, Emelda saw her sister smile whenever she held her sons in her arms. Skyhall wanted to erase their actions in her life but Wulfric didn''t wipe off the memories she had of Skyhall. He just deleted Andreas, Emelda, and his involvement in her mind-altering forbidden spell.
However, what Wulfric didn''t expect was how strong Diana''s love towards Dean was. Her love broke the ritual that was supposed to send the Dark Lordpletely to his prison, Earth. But Wolfric hid the truth that the ritual failed due to Diana''s motherly love from everyone. THe Skyhall had no idea that the child''s soul split into two; one soul piece was sent to earth as they nned but the other piece remained in the child''s body and Wolfric teleported the child near the Cosmic river. The soul piece that went to Earth was Michael and the other was Abras but both of them were the same person.
Unlike Michael was thinking, Abras never died and gave his body to Michael. Abras and Michael joined together, bing whole once again.
Regardless of everyone''s efforts, the Dark Lord came back to the universe he belongs from his prison and it was his mother''s true love that saved him.
If it wasn''t for Harriet''s love, the Dark Lord would have lived, died, and reincarnated for eternity without any powers.
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(The Present Day)
Gaya was sitting on the floor of an empty room in Hell''s city. Except for the four wooden walls, round table, and two chairs, there was not a thing in the room. There was not even a window, the room had few holes to let the airflow in and out of the room.
Ayag waited so long to speak these words. Since Noah was with them, she couldn''t yell at Gaya but now Noah went outside to bring them something to eat and Gaya was alone with them.
"You bitch, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Vedora stood on Gaya''sp. Ayag bit Gaya''s legs as strong as she could,
"Ouch" Gaya flicked Ayag on the head,
"What did I do now?" Gaya asked, rubbing the skin above her knee.
"What did you do? You just fucking agreed to give what you need from the five-headed serpent to Noah. And he''s gonna use that to save your lowlife father who crippled you, threw you in jail, and gave your throne to another bitch"
Gaya''s veins on her forehead bulged out as she mmed the wooden floor beneath her. A fist-shaped bump immediately appeared after she pped the wooden floor.
"You really think I forgot about everything and turned into a filial daughter all of a sudden?" Ayag frowned as Sarba looked at Gaya with a surprised face,
"I don''t want someone else to kill that bastard before me. I want to drag his ass off the throne, cripple him with my own hands throw him in the same fucking jail cell he put me in" Vedora could clearly see the cold killing intent in her eyes. She was not kidding around.
"How could I let that old fucker die without making him pay for what he did time? There is not even a shred ofpassion for him in me" Gaya clenched her fist thinking about her father,
"Every fucking day, I dream about making him pay. I''m not gonna let him die before he pays his fucking debt" Hearing Gaya''s words somewhat calmed down Ayag. Her sudden 180 turn in her personality pissed off Ayag except now she realized that Gaya wasn''t being a filial daughter all of a sudden but nning to make her father suffer more. Her cold words were calmed down Ayag, they even brought a small smile on Ayag''s face.
"What about this Noah asshole? Why are we working with him? I feel like he''s using us" Ayag said to Gaya. After listening to Ayag''sint, Gaya snickered,
"Humph, this Noah fucker rubs me in the wrong way. I can tell that even if I don''t work together with him, he has a n to defeat the five-headed serpent without my help. If he managed to defeat that thing first without our help, we''ll lose everything. This way, I''ll get most of what I want, since he''s a righteous asshole who''s addicted to saving damsels in distress, he''ll be our protective shield. Two birds one stone"
"But-" Ayag wanted to say something but Cain knocked her on the head with his head,
"We have to work with him, he knows about us and her real identity. IF he wants, he could make our lives a whole lot worse. Ghost is not here to protect us and I don''t think even he could protect us if Noah opened his mouth to the Guardians" Cain exined calmly without showing a shred of panic in his voice or face.
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," Gaya said looking at Ayag,
"Dang you talk more and more like Ghost" Ayag rolled her eyes. Hearing Ghost''s name, Gaya started to think about him. She wanted to see him, hug him, and kiss him so badly. The distance between them surprisingly brought them together closer.
"Where are you and what are you doing human?" Gaya closed her eyes, recalling his smiling face in her mind.
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Michael chapter next!!!!!
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Chapter 358 - Ghost Vs The Young Master
Peter was bbergasted to see Ghost revealing his identity to the entire world. He made sure no one knows about his identity yet somehow Ghost knows about him. He couldn''t help wondering how he knew about his identity.
"What are you bbering on?" Peter asked Ghosty with a stoic face. He couldn''t just ept he''s The Young Master. What if Ghost was really bluffing and he had no evidence, Peter thought.
"This has taken a dark turn guys" Ishiharamented after hearing Michael talk.
"using Peter of being a vignte is a serious usation," James Hall said,
"After the appearance of Lucifer, the Guardians or the Church isn''t in the mood for tolerating masked criminals who terrorize the people" THe moment Darius uttered the name ''Lucifer'', the entire arena went deadly silent. Manymoners shivered in fear while many felt a mix of fear and worship in their hearts. Conserving Lucifer''s victims were ruthless criminals who needed to be rooted out, those who suffered in the hands of those criminals worshiped Lucifer for giving them some kind of justice the authority like the Guardians didn''t.
"You know, using me of this is a serious crime, Ghost. You really wanna go down this path. I understand if you are afraid of losing but this is a new kind of low " Peter coldly said without showing any emotion on his face.
"Afraid of you, hahaha. You''re joking right?"
"Let the battle begin" the voice of the coordinators hovering above the battle stage reverberated through the arena.
Still, after hearing the words, both Peter and Michael didn''t take battle stances. Michael even turned his back on Peter and started to talk looking at the crowd,
"I am gonna make you pay for turning your back on me" Peter gritted his teeth, mumbling under his breath. He Immediately drew symbols in the air as various runes and patterns began to appear in the air. They all glowed in sparkling cobalt blue color. At least fifty tiny runes could be seen floating around in the air above the battle stage at the moment. A bunch of them continued to float in the air before disappearing into the battle stage while some faded away into the thin air.
"Although I like to make new friends and don''t like to alienate people, I''m a very private person who loves privacy. When people spy on me, I get pretty pissed" Michael talked without turning back to look at Peter,
"People who piss me off don''t get a happy ending, Peter" Alicia saw the smile on Ghost''s face disappear in the mirror. A sudden dread hit her to the core. She loved her big brother and didn''t want anything to happen to him.
Just by using Peter of being the Young Master, Ghost put her brother in the crosshairs of the Guardians. Nheless, Guardians weren''t the ones she should worry about at the moment. She witnessed how easily Ghost killed Alex who fought with her brother to a stalemate. Regardless of Peter''s talent in runes, she still feared for her brother''s life because Ghost was not someone who could be defeated so easily.
"You know when you came to fight me that night, I could have easily yed you alive and fed it to my dragon" Michael winked at Nightmare who waved at Michael standing on ire''sp.
"But where is the fun in that?"
The more he spoke, the violent the spear trembled in Peter''s hands,
"Now I get to destroy your arrogant ass in front of thousands of people, that is fun"
Many raised their brows seeing the carelessness of Ghost. This was not a round where the participants were restricted to use the Arch energy. On the contrary, they could use anything. Hence, no participant had ever turned their back on their opponent because a second of carelessness would be the reason for a major loss.
"That''s my dialogue," Peter snickered as he raised his spear at Michael,
"Ray of Spear!"? the golden spear trembled violently before soaring through the air aiming for Michael''s head.
Many people couldn''t stay seated as they stood up in bewilderment. Just when the spear was about to pierce the back of his neck, Ghost turned his head as the spear suddenly halted in the air as though the spear put a break in the middle air.
The people were stunned. It took them a few seconds to see GHost was holding the spear by its handle. The spear violently trembled yet it couldn''t escape his grip.
"Hello Peter" Michael winked at Peter,
"This is not going to be a long interesting battle," Michael felt the spear fighting his grip to go back to Peter. Nheless, he was too strong for the spear to escape. Besides, the spear lost all of its momentum when the invisible Responsive Shield absorbed its power. After upgrading the Responsive shield a couple of levels, Michael could now decide whether he wants others to see the shielding up or not.
Because Peter was trying his hardest to summon back the spear from Ghost''s hand, the veins in his eyes popped open, making his eyes red. Peter hid his difficulty of summoning the spear from showing up on his face. Still, when Michael saw Peter struggling, he tilted his head,
"Oh, you need this, here you go" Michael tossed the spear back to Peter.
"Wind steps" Peter cast another spell as he suddenly disappeared from the battle stage.
"Where did he go?" Ishihara asked. Many had the same question in their heads too.
Suddenly Peter appeared out of thin air behind Michael. Without wasting a second, Peter plunged the spear towards Michael''s back. Nevertheless, when the tip of the spear was just a few inches away from Ghost, Peter felt an invisible force stopping him. He wasn''t surprised as he knew about Ghost''s Responsive shield, he felt the force when he fought Ghost in the forest of the Sunrise sect.
However, the force he felt at the moment was far greater than the force he felt when he first fought Ghost. The next moment, GHost yet again turned back and grabbed the spear by its handle. For others, it seemed like Michael stopped the spear from stabbing him by grabbing the spear but only Peter knew that it was the spell that stopped him. The runes he ced on the battle stage were supposed to prevent Ghost from casting any spells. Peter couldn''t understand how he cast the shield spell ignoring the runes.
"The runes you ced, it will only stop me if I used any spells, and Peter" He grinned looking at Peter,
"I never said I can''t beat your silly little runes" Michael pulled the spear towards him along with Peter.
"Ring of Fire"? the moment Ghost cast the spell, a zing crimson red fire appeared around the two of them. It burned so hotly as everything above the fire looked blurry. The people had to look at the mirror to get a clear picture of what''s happening inside the fire circle.
Peter was stunned. He never expected Ghost to pinpoint the rune he ced to prevent him from casting Ring of Fire. Peter didn''t know the power of Michael''s X-ray vision which helped him pinpoint the runes. With the help of X-ray vision, Michael stepped on the invisible rune, breaking it.
Since Michael upgraded every one of his spells to the max level he could, the Ring of Fire became more powerful. He could control the fire as easily as breathing inside the fire ring. A ze of fire trailed from the fire ring and danced around Michael''s hands.
Boom!
Peter''s concentration broke for a second in shock. Michael used this opportunity as he punched Peter in the chest with his ming hand. The fist connected with Peter''s metal armor, producing a loud booming sound. Alicia saw her brother flying backward like a kite without an anchor in the storm.? A dent was formed in Peter''s armor by Michael''s fist.
Peter felt his ribs cracking inside his chest. He coughed up a mouth full of blood but soon picked himself up. Suddenly he saw Ghost stop walking towards him.
"This is where you put the rune to prevent me from using my speed spell. Am I right?" Peter saw Ghost stomp the ground. He felt the connection with the rune severed after his stomp. He knew GHost just destroyed another rune.
"He''s pinpointing the runs and destroying them. A feat many talented cultivators struggle to grasp" James Hall seemed more and more surprised by Ghost. Darius on the other hand was silent despite his job of being amentator. He waspletely focused on Ghost''s moves.
"Your brother is in trouble Alicia," Norvin said as though Alicia was not worried enough.
"Lightning Dash" After destroying the rune, there was nothing to stop him from using Lightning Dash. His extreme speed left an afterimage. As Peter stared at the after image, Ghost actually arrived in front of him.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Peter was too slow to defend himself. Michael rapidly punched him, pushing Peter backward. Every single punch targeted the weak points of the armor like the joints. Hence, the armor began to form cracks and dents.
Alicia''s blood boiled seeing her brother getting beaten by Ghost.? The crowd saw Peter trying to evade the punches yet he failed to avoid even a single punch.
In a few blinks of an eye, Peter''s armor was crushed beyond recognition.
When everyone thought Ghost might give Peter a break, he lifted Peter by his neck. After receiving so many punches, Peter was not at his peak self.
But Michael was not done with him yet
*******************************
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Chapter 359 - Literally Wiping The Floor With Peter
In the giant mirrors above the arena, everyone was seeing Ghost lifting Peter by his neck. Peter musted the little bit of strength he had in his body to punch Ghost,
"Pathetic" Ghost snickered after getting a punch from Peter,
Peter waspletely stunned by Ghost. When he first fought Ghost, his movements were slow despite the runes, his fighting technique was sloppy. Plus, his reaction time was way slower.
This time, however, Ghost fought like a new person. Peter couldn''t even evade his attacks as he was too fast. Moreover, Ghost was able to destroy the runes he ced on the battle stage without sweating a break. IT shouldn''t be possible yet somewhere Ghost destroyed them. Without the runes to restrict Ghost''s spells and skills, Peter''s n of defeating him took a nosedive.
Boom!
Suddenly Michael mmed Peter on the floor, almost forming a crater in the battle stage. The force of the m sent the spear in Peter''s hands flying away. The light in Peter''s eyes started to dim down due to the broken bones inside him.
Under everyone''s shocked gazes, Michael flicked his hand as a healing potion appeared in his hand.
"The fun is just getting started Peter" He forced the healing potion down Peter''s mouth as the internal wounds Peter suffered gradually healed. His pale face became rosy again.
GHost''s hand was still around Peter''s neck. Before Peter could stand up, he was thrown into the air by Ghost. Because Peter healed up, he was able to bnce himself in the middle andndedfortably on the battle stage.
He raised his hand as the spear came flying into his hand.
"You said something about my sword skills" With an arrogant smile, Peter saw Ghost unsheath the two swords on his back. The hate Peter had towards Ghost at this point was immeasurable. He had never felt so humiliated in his life. Thousands of people witnessed Ghost beating him mercilessly like he was a weak animal.
Michael could have easily broken Peter''s limbs and ended the fight in a couple of minutes. Yet, he chose to drag out the fight which was not his style. He always preferred to end the battle as soon as possible without giving his opponent the time to get lucky.
This time he made an exception to the rule because he wanted to show the entire continent what would happen if someone messed with him. Also, beating the crap out of Peter was his way of venting the anger boiling inside him. Every time he saw the blue-haired guy sitting next to the princess, the shes of Abras''sst moments shed across his eyes.
He never felt such anger like this for a long time. It took everything in him to keep his cool. Thest time he lost his cool, he went on a killing rampage, ending all the fellow assassins he trained with under Specter and even killing the girl he loved.
"Lightning Dash"
"Wind Steps"
Both of them cast the spells at the same time with their weapons in their hands. The nobles once again leaned forward while themoners couldn''t stay seated.
The Wind Steps was an Epic ss spell that let the caster step into the gaps between realms to teleport. It was simr to a short distance teleportation spell with quick casting time. The spell was extremely hard to master and any mishap during the spell would end the caster''s life. Those like Darius knew about the spell, theymended Peter for mastering the spell.
In a blink of an eye, Peter appeared behind Michael.
Cling!
Without even turning back, Michael cked the spear with his sword. The sh of metals produced an ear-piercing sound. The next moment, Michael turned around swinging his sword. Peter managed to block the sword as he expected.
Considering spears were not very effective in too short of a distance, Peter jumped back to get some distance between him and Ghost.
"Let me show you what a real swordsman can do in a fight against a spearman" As he said, he brushed the swords together. Each time he brushed the swords on each other, it produced sparks of fire.
"Wrath of Amear!" Peter mmed the spear onto the ground. Michael halted his steps looking at the golden spear trembling violently. Soon, he saw a glistening purple tornado appear out of the spear''s tip.
The tornado grew bigger and meaner with each passing second. The tornado gradually moved towards Michael. When the people looked at the tornado closer, they could see vague images of spears in the tornado.
"Why isn''t he moving?" Ethan worried about his son. Ethan was one of the people who knew which ss the spell belonged to, the Epic ss. Normally these spells would take a long time to cast yet Peter cast the spell in a few seconds. This was proof of Peter''s mastery over spells and runes.
Unlike Ethan, Michael didn''t worry about the tornado moving towards him. In fact, he was overjoyed. The more powerful spell Peter cast, the more badass points he would receive when walking out of the spells unscathed.
"What is he doing?" Emelda asked with wide eyes seeing Ghost walking towards the tornado instead of scurrying away from the tornado''s path.
The ck long coat fluttered violently in the air while he was slowly and calmly walking towards the tornado. All the crowd including thementators were speechless, it was too exciting.
Under the peoples'' shocked gazes, the tornado finally enveloped Ghost. No one could see his figure inside the tornado. For a few moments, only the howling noise of the tornado could be heard.
Maintaining the tornado used Peter''s Arch energy and strength in his body. After keeping the tornado from fading away for a few minutes, his legs grew weaker by the moment. Still, he maintained the tornado because he wasn''t nning to underestimate Ghost again. It was evident that Ghost intentionally hid his true power when they first fought. Peter med himself for stupidly falling for his n.? After their initial fight, Peter didn''t even take Ghost seriously. Therefore, he didnt form another strategy but came to fight with the same n he used in their first fight.
If he hadn''t underestimated Ghost, he would have created new runes to defeat Ghost and wouldn''t have gotten his ass kicked.
"Hello Peter" Suddenly, Peter felt a chill running through his spine when he heard a calm voiceing from the tornado. Many people gasped in shock when they saw Ghost stepping out of the tornado, not even a cut on his face.
"No¡impossible" Peter mumbled as his mind went nk. Granted Ghost had more cultivation power than him still it wasn''t possible even for a level 10 Core Formation stage warrior to face the tornado ande out unscathed.
"Lightning Dash" the smile on Michael''s face disappeared as he cast the spell. In a blink of an eye, he appeared before Peter as Peter raised his spear to defend himself. IT was toote as GHost swung his sword, inflicting a deep cut on his shoulder.
Gritting his teeth to fight the pain, Peter swung his spear but he once again felt pain in his other shoulder. Then, on his gut, leg, face, chest, and every ce in his body.? He couldn''t even see Ghost anymore. All he had seen were after images of Ghost swinging his sword.
Darius was speechless. Every one of his sword swings was precise, deadly, and elegant beyond words. Regardless of Peter''s suffering, Darius didn''t want Ghost to stop. On the other hand, Alicia''s heart bled seeing her brother getting yed alive.? It was true that the healing array kept Peter alive but it didn''t stop GHost from inflicting almost a hundred cuts. Peter''s armor had already fallen off as Ghost painted Peter red in blood.
"Bastard!" Alicia couldn''t hold back her anger anymore as she banged the seat''s arm. Peter fell to the ground, losing all his strength due to the blood loss. Ghost was merciless, he never gave Peter the chance to utter the words? ''I surrender''. Not that Peter would surrender, many expected Ghost to give him a chance.
Even ire frowned seeing Ghost kicking Peter in the gut while cutting him mercilessly. Sometimes Ghost freaked her out with his ruthlessness.
"STOP!" Finally, Alicia''s anger exploded. Her thunderous voice closed all the mutterings and drew the attention of the crowd including thementators, the VIP guests, and Ghost himself.
Michael put one foot on Peter''s blood-soaked face.
Seeing Alicia interrupting the battle, the tournamentmittee guards rushed to her before she could further do something stupid.
"Look, your sister is screaming up there?" Michael giggled before stomping Peter''s face yet again.
"I WILL KILL YOU!" Alicia screamed. Norvin was stunned to see her lose her patience like this. She had never been good at showing her emotions but now after seeing her brother getting beaten like this, she seemed to have lost her mind.
"You should stop her from doing something stupid" Michael looked at the coordinators floating above him and said.
"Oh too much blood" While some of the coordinators were flying in the direction of Alicia, Michael turned his focus back to Peter. He smiled at the pool of blood under Peter.
"Let''s mop the blood shall we?" Everyone felt a chill as they heard Michael. Soon, many peoples'' eyes went wide. He grabbed Peter''s right leg and lifted him up in the air before wiping the blood using Peter''s body like a mop.
"BASTARD!" Alicia''s scream reverberated the arena. However, before she could jump down from the pavilion to the battle stage, the coordinators sent an invisible force field to prevent her from doing so.
*******************************
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Chapter 360 - Do Not Mess With Ghost
The coordinators were ready toe down to the battle stage to end the battle. It was obvious at this point that there is no way Peter could defeat him. The healing array was the only thing that kept him alive.
Alicia was banging the invisible force field erupted in front of her. She saw Ghost squatting down in front of her almost dead brother. Peter couldn''t clearly see Ghost''s face with his blurry vision but he could somewhat hear his words,
"The next time you think about fighting me, don''t"? Michael ran his fingers across Peter''s bloody face with a devilish grin,
"Besides, you''re gonna be pretty busy with the Guardians'' '' After patting Peter''s bloody face, he stood up. The coordinators rushed to the battle stage. One of the coordinators lifted Peter''s hand and let go. Peter did not show any resistance as the hand dropped to the ground three times,
"Knockout, Ghost wins"? The sunrise sect pavilion erupted in cheers after hearing the coordinators. However,pared to before, the cheers were less thunderous. Many were in shock seeing the ruthlessness of Ghost. None of the participants were as brutal and merciless as Ghost. Many participants shuddered to even get on the battle stage with him. Even the disciples of the sunrise sect shivered; their respect and worship towards Ghost were slowly turning into fear.
On his way towards the battle stage''s center, he swung the two swords as the blood of Peter sttered on the ground. After unsheathing his swords, he flicked his wrist as a blue crystal appeared in his hand.
Standing on another VIP pavilion, Peyton and Xanali saw Ghost''s eyesnd on them.
"Is he looking at us?" Xanali asked Peyton.
Soon his gaze turned to Darius,
"Put this on the screen, the people and the guardians should see this" Michael sent the crystal floating towards Darius. Everyone had a look of wonder on their faces. They were curious to see what was in the crystal. Since Ghost used Peter of being the young master, few expected some kind of evidence in the crystal to prove Ghost''s im.
Alicia''s heart was beating faster and faster. She stopped banging the force field and stared at the crystal floating towards Darius,
"I am still in shock but it seems like I have to prepare for another" Ishiharamented,
"This has gone frompetition to a frickin bloodbath. His ruthlessness is hard to take in" James Hall furrowed his brow. He had been amentator for many years yet never saw such a bloodthirsty individual as Ghost. It felt like Ghost actually enjoyed hurting others and bathing in blood. In simple words, James thought of him as a devil in a human form.
Granted there were many rogue cultivators who did more cruel things than Ghost but it was something different in Ghost. James Hall deemed Ghost as a person who is capable of doing anything to his foes.
While the crystal was floating towards Darius, Peyton and Xanali stared at coordinators dragging Peter from the battle stage to the infirmary. When Ghost first rejected their offer to join the Guardians, Peyton was shocked and felt mad at him. However, after seeing his actions in the tournament, she was d he rejected their offer because it was evident he was not Guardian material. He even seemed like a borderline psychopath who has a thirst for blood and violence.
Unlike many guardians including the Alpha guardian hadn''t deemed Ghost as a threat to them. Peyton disagreed with them. The Guardians were too mingled in politics as they strayed away from their true goals; catching criminals and bringing order to the world. As far as Peyton was concerned Ghost was just as dangerous as Lucifer or even more. He was forging alliances with powerful families, making friends, and building his empire. At this moment of time, he didn''t seem like a threat to the Guardians except at this speed, he would be a threat in a couple of decades.
"If Noah said he''s a threat, they might have listened," Peyton told herself.
"He reminds me of my sister," Xanali said. Peyton sensed a hint of sadness in her voice. It was not only because her sister went missing a year ago, it was also because someone in Nagnd poisoned her father.
If it wasn''t for Noah, he would have already died. To dispel the poison in her father''s body, Noah went to one of the dangerous ces in the world; The Fire Realm. Xanali''s mother ordered Xanali not to go to the Fire Realm with Noah. Some part of Peyton wanted Noah to die in the Fire Realm. She wanted everything to go back to how it was before Noah joined the Guardians.
Peyton''s train of thought was interrupted by Xanali''s words,
"How so?" Peyton asked
"She too enjoyed such needless bloodshed, she actually enjoyed making others suffer, including her own family" Xanali''s eyes watered, thinking about her father on the verge of death and Gaya.
"It''s not like you and your family ispletely meless in Gaya''s matter Xanali"
For a moment Xanali couldn''t believe what she just heard from Peyton. She had never talked to her like this before. Peyton''s subconscious anger towards Noah got redirected towards Xanali.
"Peyton, what did you mean by that?"
"Nothing" Peyton waved her hand but Xanali didn''t let go,
"You obviously have something to tell me, so tell me Peyton. You think we were to me for what my sister did" Xanali''s voice didn''t sound like she was angry but glum and concerned,
Peyton sighed, realizing her impulse got the better of her,
"Your father took the throne which was rightfully hers and decided to give it to you instead Xanali. So anyone in your sister''s ce would feel betrayed"
Her words yet again shocked Xanali. She thought Peyton understood her but Xanali realized she thought wrong.
"I never wanted that throne Peyton, she pushed me to take the throne. You know why? If she was on the throne, there would be no need for prisons, she would y the judge, jury, and executioner, just like her mother. My sister always med me and my mother for the rising crime rate in Nagnd and said if she or her mother was on the throne, it wouldn''t be the case" Xanali paused for a second seeing Ghost leave the battle stage. Darius and some others were meddling with the crystal.
"Because she or her mother would have killed the used without a fair trial. You don''t know how many people were sentenced to death by her mother without any evidence to prove them absolutely guilty. She would go with her gut feeling. Of course no criminals, no prisons , no high crime rate. There might have been hundreds of innocents who were said guilty by her mother. Under her rule, my people lived in fear. Just like her mother Gaya would have been a dictator, I took the throne because i didn''t want my people to live in fear"
Peyton knew Xanali was right but only partially right. Gaya''s mother was indeed a dictator but under her rule, Nagnd thrived, it was one of the most powerful kingdoms. Under Gaya''s father and Xanali''s mother''s rule, the kingdom had grown weak. But everyone was getting a fair trial under the new rulers. Of course, each case would drag and waste resources. Still Xanali and her mother advocated a fair trial for everyone without anypromises. This was one of the reasons the kingdom had grown weak. Under Gaya''s mother''s rule, resources were spent to develop military power. Under Xanali''s mother''s rule, resources were spent helping war-torn countries, trials, offering refuge to refugees, and paying off debts they got to help other kingdoms.
Both queens had done good and bad, some favored Gaya''s mother while some favored Xanali''s mother. Peyton didn''t talk about who''s right and whose wrong. In fact, she had never judged Xanali''s actions until now.
"I will do what''s best for my people. And Gaya was the opposite of best. If she hates me for caring about my people, so be it. Nagnd would never be war-hungry as it once was" Peyton could see the resolve in Xanali''s eyes. Peyton was d that her sister was not what she used to be anymore. Only a few individuals could bepared with Gaya in terms of monstrous cultivation talent. Gaya was on the surveince list of Guardians for a reason.
"Look" suddenly people in the same pavilion as Peyton and Xanali shouted looking at the giant mirrors. They both looked at the mirror to see a dark room lit with nothing but a fewnterns appeared in the mirror. The arena became silent, everyone''s gaze was on the mirror. After a few moments, they saw a figure dressed in ck walking into the darkroom. The bright orange lighting from thenterns illuminated the book racks, the roundtable in the room''s center as well as the line of armor stands.
The people were staring at the figure''s back before the figure slowly turned back. Looking at the figure''s armor, Peyton was positive that this was the same figure that many noble youngsters saw when the young master ambushed them.
"It can''t be him right?" Emelda asked Norvin who was sitting on her shoulder. The golden babaroo looked worried. He desperately needed Noah here to somehow find a way to fix the mess if the young master turned out to be Alicia''s brother.
"I hope not," Norvin said. Soon after the words left his mouth, he saw the ck figure in the mirror take off the hood covering his face.
"No" Alicia''s legs turned to jelly when she saw the figure''s face. It was her brother, Peter Stone. Norvin saw Peyton and Xanali leaving their seats. He could guess they were going to make sure Peter stays in their sight until he gets healed enough to visit the guild.
"Bastard" Norving cursed Ghost. From this moment onwards, Peter''s life would not be what it used to be. The Guardians and the Church would make his life a living hell by investigations and trials. If Peter was proven guilty, that would be the end of his freedom, or worse, he would be exiled to the Southern Continent.
Ghost just utterly destroyed Peter''s life, for a private and prideful person such as Peter, what he did was worse than killing.
*******************************
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Chapter 361 - Guild Leader Position
Having turned Peter''s life upside down for attacking him, Ghost was honing his fighting skills back in his room. After Lah''s visit, the mirror in his room was gone. He didn''t buy a new mirror but bought a few punching bags and freakishly sturdy Wing Chun.
The punching bags wereying on the ground, broken and scattered. The punching bags contained pieces of stones that were simr to granite on earth. Still, they were no match for Michael''s anger. The anger wasn''t toward Peter but Thusia. Ever since he saw Calvin Howard, the representative of Thusia, he was burning with fury.
Chuk!
Chuk!
Chuk!
Chuk!
His punches to the Wing Chun became more and more violent as the wooden dummy began to vibrate violently despite its sturdiness. He never even used any Arch energy to power his punches, he just used raw strength.
"Thusians¡ Victoria Barnes¡ARGH!"
CHUCK!
CHUCK!
CHUCK!
CHUCK!
He violently punched the Wing Chun as the wooden dummy began to form cracks. Soon, pieces of wood crumbled down.? After the Wing Chun lost its shape, his punches became more frantic, they contained no techniques or finance, just random frantic punches.
"ARGH!"
Boom!
Finally, Michael roundhouse kicked the wooden dummy as it exploded into nothing but splinters.
"There are many ways to destroy an enemy. The first, forgiveness" Elder Wright''s words sounded in his mind.
"They don''t deserve it, when I''m done with Thusia, there won''t be any signs that there was a kingdom called Thusia. I am gonna massacre them" Michael breathed heavily. He sweated as he was inside an oven in anger.
Knock!
Knock!
"Master Ghost" Michael heard Ricky''s voiceing from the other side of the door,
"What is it?" Michael tried to sound calm yet it was possible Ricky might have sensed the anger in his voice.
"There is someone who wants to meet you"
"That someone have a name?" Michael wiped off the sweat before using Arch energy to clean himself.
"Lord Calvin Howard, Master Ghost"
The moment Michael heard the name, his calmed anger exploded in his heat yet again. He clenched his fist as he began to shiver.
"Send him in" His brain overpowered the anger in his heart.
"Yes Master Ghost" Ricky left the area to bring Calvin to the room while Michael entered the system''s interface to buy a couple of sofas. He knew this was not the time to be impulsive and make an enemy out of Calvin. Hence he bought furniture for Calvin to sit on instead of beating the crap out of him.
Michael then put on V-neck ck long sleeves and rolled up the sleeves to his elbows. He plunged into the sofa, giving some rest to his body. After waiting for five minutes, Michael heard loud footsteps and metal nking sounds. Soon, the door opened to reveal Ricky and a blue haired youngster who had a feminine feel to him. He walked towards Michael with a wide grin. He even walked like a female while fanning his face.
"Ghost, it''s a pleasure to meet you up close"? Michael stood up and shook Calvin''s hands. It felt like he was shaking a girl''s hand, it was so soft.
"Pleasure is all mine, Lord Calvin" Michael gestured at vin to take a seat in front of him. It took an immense amount of effort to keep his anger contained.
"Aww, call me Calvin, Lord title makes me feel old" Calvin pouted. Michael couldn''t help imagining dashed at him, ripping off his throat with his bare hands and showing it back into his mouth. He was starting to get really creative.
"Calvin it is" Michael let out a friendly smile despite the burning rage in his heart.
"I liked what you''ve been doing in thepetition so far. Letting everyone know you''re not to be messed with. That''s how the enemies should be dealt with" Despite the feminine look, gentle voice, anddy-like softness, Michael could see the cold murdered hiding within Calvin.
"Kill one enemy, I have rooted out one enemy. Torture and destroy one in front of the world, I have rooted out many" Michael said,
"You can leave the room now, Ricky" Michael sent Ricky outside with a wave. Calvin''s armored escort remained outside without getting inside the room. It was obvious Calvin had no idea who Michael really is. IF he had seen Abras before, Calvin would have recognized him by now.
Still, this meeting reminded Michael to change his appearance. Although Michael looked way different than he did when he first got Abras''s body, he decided to buy something from the system that would quickly change his face when needed.
"I heard you travel a lot and love making new friends, have you ever visited Thusia?" Calvin asked,
"I haven''t got the pleasure yet. But I heard it''s a beautiful kingdom"
"And powerful" Calvin smiled but the pride and arrogance were pretty visible in his eyes. Michael sneered inside. They weren''t powerful before the king pimped his daughter to Abras, betrayed him, and acquired the Cosmic stream.
For others, Thusia was waging war on nearby kingdoms and forging alliances with powerful organizations to defend themselves from invasion. That was the story Maxim Barnes, the king of Thusia spinning. However, Michael knew the truth. They were waging war to make sure none could take the Cosmic Stream from them or know the existence of the Cosmic stream.
People like Lord Information would eventually sniff out the existence of the Cosmic stream if Thusia remained doing nothing. The Thusian king was gambling with the Cosmic stream to ensure the future of Thusia. Many would be suspicious if Thusia grew powerful in a short amount of time but if they waged war and swallowed nearby kingdoms, people would think winning wars was the reason for the rise to power. IF Michael''s guess was right, only a small group of people in Thusia would know about the Cosmic Stream''s existence and those few would be insanely powerful. The void event that took away people''s ability to see someone''s cultivation level added extra protection to them. They didn''t need to worry about powers like the Guardian guild questioning how they suddenly became so powerful.
"I''m really surprised to see a representative of Thusia here, Calvin. I mean, the ongoing wars might keep your schedule filled right?" Michael asked without showing a shred of his true emotions on his face. He sounded like he''s really surprised to see Calvin here.
"It''s a messy business but Thusia won''t back down to war-hungry kingdoms. In fact, we are winning the wars in all directions"
"Is that so?" Michael nodded, pretending he doesn''t know this. The book he bought from Lord Information might not contain information about Cosmic Stream but it contained everything that''s happening in the world right now and the rumors surrounding each kingdom. Unlike Calvin said, Thusia wasn''t just winning, they were destroying kingdoms. ording to the rumors, Thusia was looking to shift its capital to the Ozer continent and announce itself as an empire soon.
"Despite our victory in the wars, His majesty Maxim Barnes has ordered his subordinates to strengthen the kingdom further so we won''t be vulnerable to wars in the future." Calvin paused for a moment to see the reaction on Ghost''s face. After seeing Ghost still listening to him with curiosity, Calvin continued,
"Part of our strategy was getting new talents and self-sustaining our kingdom"
"By self-sustaining, do you mean starting your own guilds?"
Michael read something about Thusias starting their own merchant guild from Olivia''s father. Connecting that with Calvin''s words, he could guess where is this going,
"Exactly and that''s why I am here. We want you to offer the Guild Leader position of TAG, Thusian Alchemists Guild"
This time, Michael''s brows raised up in genuine surprise. He expected Calvin to offer some shitty position but never expected him to offer the position of Guild Leader. Like a spider web, new ns to get revenge formed in Michael''s mind.
"Man of your caliber should be leading a guild, notpeting in sillypetitions to prove your worth" Calvin rolled his eyes. IT was evident he was talking about the Alchemists Guild and the uing Alchemistpetition organized by them. Michael didn''t need Calvin to tell him what those old alchemists did was rude and insolent. They should have invited him to be the judge of thepetition except they invited him topete in thepetition. Since Michael was hiding the fact that he''s the number one Alchemist in Elon, Gabriel could think of judging him. But what about the rest of the guild?
There wasn''t a single person in that Alchemy Guild to judge him.
"I can''t say I''m not tempted but I need to know more about this before making my decision" Michael already decided to take on the position yet still didn''t want to seem like he''s too quick to take the job.
"I did my research Ghost, you value your freedom and hate being tied to a ce.That was why you rejected the Guardians right?"
Michael nodded as Calvin continued,
"We are still in the first phase of building the guild. Wherever we build the guild, you don''t have to stay there twenty four seven. You will be the guild''s leader, appearing only to make important decisions. Day to day activities and small matters will be taken care of by the elders and your assistants if you choose to have" Seeing the interested look on Ghost''s face, Calvin let out a grin, showing his pure white sparkling teeth.
"If you choose to take the position, you will be granted ess to the Herbal garden we are nning to build, twenty million gold coins a month and the banner of kingdom Thusia as a sign of friendship and protection and many other benefits" Calvin could see the temptation in Ghost''s eyes.
"Hook, line, sink. Too easy" Calvin thought to himself. Anyone with half a brain could see Ghost would take this offer by seeing the look on his face.
Calvin was an expert in acquiring talents for Thusia. Therefore he could tell when someone is thinking about taking the offer.
However he had no idea that it was not a fish that bit his hook but a bloodthirsty shark.
*******************************
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Chapter 362 - Noah鈥檚 Secret
After leaving the safe house, Gaya and Noah were following a youngster named Eric, a fellow guardian friend of Noah. Gaya was silently following the two of them as Eric seemed to know more about the ces and routes in Fire Realm than Noah and Gayabined,
"Guardian Eric, where are Oscar and the other men?"
"It''s very easy to find them in the outer perimeter. Murdoch has upied our previous stronghold, and I''m guessing he''s keeping Oscar and men there. Let me lead you there quietly." Eric said.
"Why are we wasting our time looking for this Oscar person?" Gaya asked after they entered a dark alley.
"I don''t leave friends behind," Noah said. Speaking of friends, Noah couldn''t help thinking of Abel. It had been almost a year since Abel went missing inside the Nether Realm. Noah had a feeling that Abel is not alive, still, Noah never gave up the search. He was still researching about opening a mini-portal to the Nether realm and going searching for Abel. If Abel was alive, Noah wanted to rescue him, if not, he wanted answers to what happened to Abel.
"Just make it quick," Gaya sighed. She could tell by looking into Noah''s eyes that there''s no stopping him. Considering her chance of killing the five-headed serpent was high with Noah, she stuck with him instead of parting ways. More than that, she had a feeling that Noah was hiding something crucial and she wanted to know what.
They followed Eric as they began rushing towards the stronghold. There was no distinct difference between night and day in Inferno Hell, as there was no sun or moon, and the skies had the same crimson color all day long. It was a depressing sight.
Soon after, Eric led Noah and Gaya to a manor. The manor wasn''t huge, but there was a historical feeling to it.
"There is a secret chamber in the manor, and if my guess is correct, they should be keeping Oscar in that secret chamber. I know of an entrance behind the secret chamber, we can enter directly from there. Let''s not alert Murdoch and his men, let''s first get our men out. Otherwise, once we engage in a battle, Oscar and the other men might be coteral"
Eric said. It seemed like Eric wanted to avoid any battles in Gaya''s eyes.
Behind the manor, a seven feet beast that had the body of a dog and the head of an eagle and a pair of blood-red eyes wasying in front of the entrance to the secret chamber. It was at the level 7 Core Formation stage,
"This demon beast was caught by Murdoch, he''s using it to guard the door,"
Eric informed them in a husky voice. The trio stood behind a boulder and looked around the manor to gauge the security.
"Can you shoot it from here?" Noah asked Gaya. She wanted to be on the way to hunt the five-headed serpent, not help some random humans. Yet since she might need his help defeating the serpent, she sighed and took out her bow.
She knocked an arrow that had a green tip on the bow. The moment she fired the arrow, it soared through the air like a bullet before piercing through right between the beast''s two eyes. Its body frantically twitched for a few moments before its body stopped movingpletely. Its blood was still oozing out of the wound but not even a single sound was made.
Soon the trio opened up the narrow back door and snuck in. Behind the door, there was a tunnel that led downwards. It was pretty dark inside. At the end of the tunnel, there was an underground secret chamber.
Ahh!!
Not long after they walked in, Noah began hearing some horrible screams from the secret chamber. The screams didn''t seem to stop, and it really gave them an eerie feeling. It wasn''t hard for them to imagine what kind of pain the men inside were experiencing.
"It''s Oscar!."
Gaya saw Noah''s expression be stern. He had heard Oscar''s voice from the screams just now. He couldn''t bear it any longer, and his killing intent was unleashed from his body.
Right now, inside the underground secret chamber.
This was a huge secret chamber, and cruel torturing was being carried out right now. It was a horrible scene. Right in the middle of the secret chamber, seven men with naked upper bodies were tied onto some iron poles. Their bodies were covered with blood, their skin was split and flesh broke forth. Horrible scars could be seen everywhere, and blood kept leaking out from their terrible wounds.
Right in front of them, a luxuriously dressed adult man was sitting on afy chair, pleasantly watching the ongoing torturing as if he was viewing the nicest scenery.
"Bastard! Kill us now if you dare, kill us now!"
A young man in his mid-twenties roared out. He kept spitting out blood as he let out terrible roars. He had the most wounds and scars on his body, and his vision was blurring. Obviously, even with his strong mentality and body, he was going to pass out after going through such cruel torture for a long period of time.
This man was Oscar.
"You want me to kill you? Not that simple! You have offended young master Murdoch, and that is a crime that deserves eternal torture! Men, give me something more explosive!"
The adult man said.
There were five of Murdoch''s men in the secret chamber, but they were only at Core Formation level 2. When they heard the man''s words, a ferocious smile emerged on all their faces. One of them took out a palm-sized tube, then he walked up to Oscar and opened the tube. Immediately, a muddish brown snake swam out from it. The snake sent forth a pungent smell which told that it carried a deadly poison
"Oscar, this is a sand rattler. I think you have heard of it before."
The man said with a hideous smile on his face. After that, he ced the poisonous snake on Oscar''s body. When the snake smelled the blood, it immediately went towards one of the wounds on Oscar''s body, and tried its best to prate itself into his wound.
Ahhh!!
Even the toughest men wouldn''t be able to withstand this kind of pain. Oscar instantly let out a terrifying cry. A sizzling sound could be heard from his body, and his skin quickly turned into an emerald color. The paining from the corrosion was not something ordinary people could imagine.
Ahh!!
At the same time, terrifying screams once again sounded out throughout the entire secret chamber.
"I can''t take it anymore!"
Someone let out a painful shout and waspletely silent afterward. The deadly poison from the sand rattler was not something anybody could resist. Besides, all of them were severely injured. The pain they were experiencing was unimaginable.
"Hahaha¡"
The man who was sitting in the chair let out a burst of evilughter as if this kind of creepy scream was the most beautiful melody in this world. The pleasant feeling brought to him by torturing people could really satisfy his twisted mind, and he had learned all this from Murdoch.
Right at this moment, three figures appeared in the secret chamber. When Noah looked at Oscar, mes of fury exploded forth in his eyes, and he was unable to restrain his anger any longer.
"Who are you?
When the man saw the uninvited guests, his expression immediately became cold.
"The man who is going return the favor"
Noah''s body swayed, and he arrived in front of the man in an instant. He clenched his palm onto the man''s throat, causing the man to feel like there was a gigantic mountain pressing him, making it so that he couldn''t even breathe properly.
"Eric capture all these men, but do not kill them."
Noah ordered.
"Understood!"
Eric replied as he immediately dashed forwards. The five warriors were no match for Eric, they were pressed onto the ground in an instant.
"Oscar."
Eric walked up to Oscar and hurriedly broke the iron chains on his body, then he helped him down.
"Eric, what are you doing here?"
Oscar kept throwing up blood as he spoke. His life force was getting weaker and weaker.
"Oscar, look who is here," Eric said, pointing his finger at Noah
Noah threw the man onto the floor as he hit the floor with a loud thud sound. Noah then walked up to Oscar.
"Oscar, I''m here to rescue you. Let''s get you somewhere safe buddy" Noah said with a smile on his face.
"Noah, it really is you¡"
Cough cough¡
When Oscar saw that Noah hade to his rescue, a joyful expression emerged on his face. But, he had no idea why Noah hade to IFire Realm, or why he was with Eric.
"Don''t speak right now."
Noah ced his palm onto Oscar''s body. With a flick of his wrist, he created a beam of light around his palm and sucked out all the deadly poisons in Oscar''s body. After that, Noah did the same to the others.
Witnessing this, Eric was stunned once again. It was a deadly poison, and Noah had absorbed it all into his body, and he was still not affected by it. This was really frightening.
Ahh!!
Oscar let out another horrible cry, then he passed out instantly. When a man was relieved from a long, tense situation, he would immediately pass out.
"Noah, Oscar''s condition is really serious, he needs a healer"
Eric said. He nced at the rest of the men, they were in a worse condition than Oscar. Gaya couldnt help wondering why Murdoch''s men tortured them instead of just killing them. This made her curious.
"Hmph! They will pay for what they did to you and your men Oscar"
"Noah" Gaya heard Oscar who was lying on the ground, barely keeping his eyes open, speak Noah''s name. Oscar moved his right hand towards Noah as Gaya noticed a small glimmer inside Oscar''s forearm.
"The key¡take¡it" Gaya saw a vague shape of a three-inch key appear in Oscar''s forearm before the light moved into Noah''s arm and disappeared.
After the energy key came into his body, Noah heard his mentor''s voice in his head,
"With this key, we are one step closer to reviving the elders Noah"
*******************************
The elders Andreas mentioned were not some run-of-the-mill elders, they were the ones who destroyed the order of death three thousand years ago.
The Elites of Supreme Guardian¡
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 363 - God Of Light
While Noah was helping injured Oscar get back to his feet, Gaya heard footsteps. She slowly moved into the dark corner of the room, not to avoid a battle but to see what else Noah could do.
"You¡you¡have¡no idea¡what you''ve¡done"
"You''re dead"
Few of the men Eric captured muttered. Eric did a number on them by breaking several bones including the jaw. Hence, they had a hard time talking.
"You''re simply seeking death by killing the men in my stronghold!"
Boom!
Right at this moment, a loud shout sounded out from afar as the room''s door exploded into bits and pieces. The next moment, a figure emerged through the dust produced by the door. The man who stepped into the torture room was a man in his early thirties. He had an oval-shaped face like the full moon with two round eyes as though someone put eggs in his head instead of eyes. His body was draped in blood-red robes that swept the ground as he walked. One would expect a man capable of such cruelty would look cruel too yet this man looked gentle as a flower. However, standing in the dark corner, Gaya could see the murderous intent in his eyes. Eyes were said to be the windows to one''s soul, she could see his cruel soul through his bloodshot eyes.
"Young master!"
One of the men apprehended by Eric looked at Murdoch as if he had just found his savior. Their faces brightened up immediately.
They had witnessed Murdoch''s strength before and they knew that no matter how strong the young man in front of him was, there was no way he would be a match for Murdoch. After all, Murdoch was a Core Formation level 8 cultivator while Noah was just at the Core Formation level 2.
Murdoch turned around, looking at the dead bodies scattered across the ce. Blood was still leaking out from many of his subordinates. In an instant, fury filled his eyes.
"You did all this?"
Murdoch stared angrily at Noah.
Noah didn''t answer Murdoch''s question. Instead, Noah just stared at him with a clenched fist.
"So you are Murdoch?" Noah asked as he threw an examining look onto Murdoch.
"Young master, these guys are guardians. They ambushed us like cowards they are"
The man who tortured Oscar was called Kai. He had a frightened expression on his face, and he was unable to pull himself out of his panicked state. He couldn''t say he and his men were beaten up by two youngsters in a couple of seconds.
"Hmph! I will deal with you weaklingster. I have these two Guardians to torture and kill"
Murdoch let out a cold snort. It wasn''t easy to cultivate a group of men in Hell City. All these men had pledged loyalty to him and worked under hismand. He would always send them to hunt for monsters in the depths of Fire Realm, and he would be able to get a share of their harvest. Put it this way, as long as he had a group of men working for him, he would be able to enjoy good wealth and benefits without doing anything himself. In Fire Realm, monster cores were the currency, the more people he had working for him, the more monster cores he would get. He umted an amassed amount of monster cores over the years. Hence he was living avish life in Fire Realm. This was why he never left Fore Realm even though he had every chance to leave this ce.
Now, all his men had been injured and apprehended by guardians in such a short period of time. This was no different than messing with his life in Fire Realm. Therefore, Murdoch had every right to be pissed off.
"Murdoch, a genius from Aragoth who turned into a warlord, quite a career change. But too bad, you''ve offended someone you shouldn''t have; you hurt my friend, you messed with a Guardian. Today, I''ll bring my friend justice, and that''s the reason why I want to throw everyone in this stronghold into the deepest dungeons of the Guardian Guild, except you"
Noah slowly walked forwards with his eyes locked on Murdoch,
"You will regret messing with a guardian until the end of your days"
Noah said without hiding the cold murderous intent in his heart. Gaya was watching the scene unfold from the dark corner. To this moment, Murdoch was unaware of her existence in the room. As far as he was concerned, he only had two Guardians to deal with.
"Don''t think I dont know why he''s here. Once I sell the information I know along with him, I''m gonna be freakin rich everywhere"
Murdoch burst intoughter without giving a damn about Noah''s threat.
"Only ce you''re gonna sell any information to is the prison you''re going"
Noah shrugged. He remained standing in the same spot. Gaya saw Murdoch flicking his wrist as a? round-shaped lock that glowed in a dark light appeared in his hand. There were numerous mystical symbols carved onto the lock itself. She looked closer to see the symbols were actually patterns that resembled ancient beasts.
"ming Gori,e out now!" Murdoch suddenly shouted out loudly as he yanked the lock.
Ding-ling!
The ck lock vibrated violently before letting out a dinging sound. In a blink of an eye,? a ground-shaking roar suddenly sounded out from the depths of the stronghold. After that, a ming figure suddenly jumped out of the lock.
It was a gori with a body that looked made of volcanic stones, and its entire body was emitting a ming red light. The fire ape was over 10 meters tall, and it resembled king kong. When the fire ape saw Murdoch, an intense hatred emerged in its eyes. But when it saw the ck lock in his hand, the intense hatred was turned into fear and meekness.
The fire ape let out an angry roar as it descended from the skies. It mmed into the ground with massive force, causing an explosion to sound out, the entire stronghold to shake, and countless cracks to appear on the ground. It unleashed tremendous Arch energybined with scorching mes, enough to send fear deep into one''s heart.
"Guardian Noah, be careful, this is a ming Gori. It''s a bloody level 10 Core Formation stage beast. I don''t know how Murdoch managed to make this ming Gori obey hismand. That thing somehow makes him control the wild beasts"
Eric''s expression changed, and without any hesitation, he exined to Noah. Normally, ancient beasts all had violent tempers, and considered humans their mortal enemies or simply food, even more so for beasts who had broken through to the Core Formation stage. All of them had their own feelings of pride and dignity, and they would rather die than be controlled by a human. This ming Gori had reached level 10 of the Core Formation stage and just a few months of cultivation away from breaking through to the Core Strengthening stage, yet it was still being controlled by Murdoch. Gaya was both intrigued and confused.
Looking at the lock made Gaya feel something wired. It was like the lock was pulling her close andmanding her to get close.
"That''s a Demonic beast tamer" It took? Gaya a few seconds to recognize the lock. She had read about this artifact before but never had the chance to see one until now. ording to the texts she read, these locks were forged by a 6-star human cksmith who had deep hatred towards other races. He forged the locks to tame and enve anyone except a human.
The seven locks were said to be lost in time except she found one today.
Murdoch smiled as he raised the Demonic beast tamer in his hand and waved it towards the ming Gori, then he gave out an order, "ming Gori, kill this man for me." Murdoch pointed at Noah.
Roar!
The ming Gori was furious, and mes were shooting out from its eyes. As a beast grew up in the Fire Realm, it had its own pride and dignity, that''s why it felt extremely enraged upon being controlled by a human. However, because of the Demonic beast tamer, it was forced to obey Murdoch''smand. The appearance of Noah had given it a target to release its anger on. It wanted to vent all its anger on Noah.
Bang!
The ming Gori punched a huge hole in the ground, then it jumped into the air, forcefully throwing its majestic body which was covered in scorching mes toward Noah.
Eric''s expression changed dramatically. With his cultivation level, he could handle a fire Core Formation level 2 or 3 warriors, but not a level 10 beast like the ming Gori. A brutal opponent like this was really frightening.
"Pathetic" Noah snickered. Despite the ming Gori that''s flying towards him in rage, he remained calm. It reminded Gaya of Ghost.
"Light Range"
Noah calmly uttered the two words as Gaya saw the torture room suddenly gets brighter and brighter. The ming Gori stopped rampaging towards Noah as it started to feel threatened by the human in front of it.
"Release!"
Instead of unsheathing his words, Noah just raised his finger towards the lock and shouted. The very next moment, a bolt of bright light appeared out of Noah''s finger. The light bolt soared through the Gori without harming it but when it touched the lock, the lock trembled.
"What the?" Murdoch was stunned to see the lock trembling in his hand like never before. In a few seconds, the lock exploded into tiny bits and pieces.
The very next moment, a vortex appeared in the room that pulled the ming Gori into it.
The ming Gori let out shrill cries, all of its furs were standing up. It tried to run away from the pulling force yet its efforts were in vain because, in a few seconds, the ming Gori disappeared from the room into the vortex.
The st force produced by the destruction of the lock sent Murdoch flying into the wall behind him.
"Young Master!" Murdoch''s men shouted.
"Argh (cough)" Murdoch coughed up thick blood while Noah walked towards him.
Murdoch could vaguely see Noah through his blurry vision. He tried to stand up but he failed to do so due to internal wounds.
Gaya watched Noah putting his hand on Murdoch''s head,
"Break!"
If Ghost was here, he would have killed Murdoch by now, Gaya knew that. However, Noah didn''t seem to be interested in killing Murdoch. He just put his hand on Murdoch''s head as a bright light enveloped Murdoch in a blink of an eye.
Gaya''s eyes widened in shock, seeing Murdoch''s cultivation level gradually bing lower and lower. In a few minutes, Murdoch hit rock bottom as he became amoner.
"He crippled him" Gaya muttered in shock because it didn''t seem like typical crippling, rather, it seemed like he locked away Murdoch''s ability to cultivate or use Arch energypletely.
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If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Chapter 364 - Reaching The Semi Final
When thementators and the VIP guests returned to their seats, the sky was decorated with colorful fireworks. They painted the sky as though each firework was a master artist. The fireworks exploded into all kinds of shapes such as dragons, birds, lions, dancing men, and finally, the name Ghost. The Sunrise sect pavilion erupted into cheers when they saw the name ''Ghost'' upy all the sky above them. Nightmare flew straight into the air, decorating the golden words with his crimson red dragon breath.
The fireworks weren''t arranged by Ghost or anyone he knew. On the contrary, it was arranged by people he never knew, the merchants and the tournamentmittee. Lah was looking at the sky as the shes of light reflected in her beautifully crafted hazel eyes.
"Wee to the Quarter final,dies and gentlemen" Looking at the sky, Darius snapped as all the fireworks merged to form the words ''Quater Final''
"As usual, we will go through the rules and regtions. Just like the 3rd round, participants can use whatever is necessary to defeat their opponent. Each battle will be one on one. The judges and the guests will score the battle ording to how long the battlested, how the battle ended as if it was a knockout or surrender and the 5 winners will be ranked ording to their total score. The one with the least score will be eliminated and the first four will go to the semi-final"
"Since Miss Celina withdrew from the tournament for personal reasons, we will select a random participant among the nine and send him or her directly to the Semifinal" Ishihara said. Themoners sighed hearing the news but the nobles did not seem surprised. They expected Celina to leave the tournament. Everyone knew it wouldn''t have been her choice, rather her family forced her to withdraw from thepetition instead of facing Ghost and ended up being killed or worse.
Although there were only one of five chances for Celina to end up facing Ghost, her family didn''t want to take the risk.
Soon, the giant mirror broadcasted all the nine participants'' figures as each figure had a color coin beside them. For instance, Andrews had the color gold coin while Paul Oswen had a blue coin. Nine participants were assigned nine coins. When the mirrors broadcasted Michael''s figure, the entire arena once again let out their thunderous cheers. Coincidentally or intentionally, he was assigned a ck coin.
Under the crowds'' excited gazes, nine bright orbs emerged from the battle stage. In a few seconds, the bright light faded away to reveal the palm-sized coins.
"Her Royal Highness Katherine would pick the lucky participant who will go to the Semi-final withoutpeting in the Quarterfinal. He or She will also be safe from the elimination" James Hall said. While the coins were floating in a circle, one of the coordinatorsnded before the coins with a wooden box in his hand. He picked the coins one by one and put them into the wooden box.
The coordinator then flew towards the stage where the Princess was sitting alongside the king and the other VIPs.
"Who do you think will get the lucky chance guys?" Ishihara asked,
"It''s luck Ishihara, we can''t predict luck," James Hall said while the coordinator was flying towards the princess.
"Some would call it luck, some would call it fate, " Darius said in his rough voice,
The arena was rather silent as they were too focused on the wooden box. They wanted to see who is the lucky one. Many prayed that the princess wouldn''t take the ck coin. They wanted to see Ghost fight. Unlike many young masters, they knew they can''t see Ghost fight very often. Until this tournament, many didn''t even know he could fight. He was the least controversial prodigy in Elon who liked to mind his own business and make fewer enemies.
"Please be Andrews, please be Andrews'' '' Emelda prayed to the gods while Diana prayed to be her son. She didn''t want Andrews to get on the same stage as Ghost. Thest thing she needed was her son to kill his cousin. After destroying Skyhall and everyone who would hurt her son, Diana wanted him to have a family that he never had.
"Your Royal Highness" the coordinator bowed his head slightly, handing over the wooden box to Princess Katherine. Despite the thousands of eyes on her, Katherine sported a smile on her face. No one except a few didn''t know she was praying to pick the golden coin which was Andrew''s.
It took a few moments for her to grab a coin in the wooden box. Even though she couldn''t see the coin she grabbed, she just hoped it would be the golden coin.
"Im excited" Ishihara giggled,
Everyone''s gaze was on the princess as she slowly retrieved her hands from the wooden box.
"ck coin!" Many gasped in shock including the princess herself. Katherine''s heart skipped a beat looking at the ck coin in her hand. Drops of sweat formed on her smooth forehead. He got one step closer to marrying her.
If Andrews couldn''t defeat Ghost, her father would announce that he will marry her to Ghost. Katherine would rather die than marry that monster in human form.
"It''s decided then. Ghost will go to the semifinals directly" James Hall said as the participants felt relieved. After seeing what he did to Alex and Peter, none of them wanted to face him in a battle.
Andrews on the other hand had a mixed feeling. He was d that he didn''t have to face Ghost in the quarter-final but he was troubled thinking that he needed to eventually face him.
"Now without further dy, let''s begin the quarter-finals" Darius''s voice reverberated through the arena. As usual, the Body Strengthening stage warriors came to the battle stage to pick their opponents while Core Formation participants were busy strategizing.
***************************************
"It''s time for us to witness the final fight of the day"? The crowd wasn''t as excited as before when thest fight had Ghost.
"Let''s have thunderous cheers for ourpetitors, Paul Oswen and Andrew Winston"
"Andrew has be the dark horse of thepetition guys" Ishiharamented while waiting for Andrew and Paul toe to the battle stage.
"Yes, it''s really stunning to? see a runemaster with level 3 Core Formation stage cultivation toe this far" Ishihara nodded as James Hall continued,
"Manymoners even root for Andrew. People seemed to love underdogs"
"I can see a resolution in Andrew''s eyes. It''s like he''s fighting for something, something valuable and bigger than the championship title and the rewards" Darius''s words echoed in Katherine''s mind. Andrew was fighting for her, no one knew that except her.
"Humph, underdogs are good for entertainment but not for life" King Bredia snickered. He wanted Ghost to win the tournament so he could make him the baron of Bradford barony and marry Katherine to him. If Ghost married Katherine, he knew Ghost would protect his daughter as a good husband should. No matter what he would only marry his daughter to a warrior who could protect Katherine in all situations.
"Thest time Andrew fought, he didn''t seem like an underdog to me. He defeated his opponent with a single spell"? Ishihara reminded everyone of Andrew''s third round fight,
"Ghost had the longest fight with Peter and Alex while Andrew had the shortest fight" James Hall paused for a moment and continued,
"Everyone knew Noah Winston" the moment James Hall uttered the name Noah, the entire arena shook in thunderous cheers. Themoners screamed his name as loud as they could. The threementators had to go silent for a few moments. Michael had the undying support of River town because he took care of River town, a small town. Noah however helped and took care of several small towns, viges, and hundreds or even thousands ofmoners in his life. After bing a Guardian, he had the authority and the resources to really help people as well as punish the evil.
Hencemoners loved Noah. The admiration towards Noah was still growing up among themoners.
"Andrew''s cousin is a warrior prodigy but no one knew Andrew was just as talented as his Guardian cousin. They were both blessed with specializations too" After the cheers died down, James Hall spoke
"They are here"
Before Ishihara could speak about Paul Oswen, both the participantsnded on the battle stage.
"I always thought I would end up fighting your cousin but never thought I would face you," Paul smiled. He didn''t radiate any pride or haughtiness or arrogance.
"Life is strange that way Paul"
"The spell you used earlier, was that a Legendary one?"
Many people gasped in shock just by hearing the word Legendary. Even nobles leaned forwards to hear Andrew''s answer.
"I was not that fortunate Paul, it was an Epic spell. I enhanced it with a few runes"
Paul''s brows arched up as he nodded. He then looked up at the coordinators,
"Shall we start the battle? I have ces to be" Paul asked the coordinators before turning his gaze back to Andrew,
"There is no shame in surrendering Andrew. We, Oswens have a wedding in our family so starting it with murder will be a bad omen"
"I will give you the same advice Paul '''' Andrew''s words didn''t make Paul mad as many expected. He just smiled. Unlike many other young masters in prominent families, Paul avoided making unnecessary enemies. He forced on cultivating and minding his own business. Because of his character, some loved him while some loathed him in the Oswen family.
"Let''s begin the battle"
*******************************
Michael will be back on the next chapter. This chapter needed to be written to let the story flow smoothly.
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 365 - Hand Of The Princess
After the bell rang indicating the start of the battle, both Andrew and Paul took out their weapons from their space rings. A longbow materialized in Paul''s hand while the quiver appeared on his back with a bunch of silver arrows.? The bow looked no different than any ordinary longbow without any magical symbols or glowing runes on them. Yet no one underestimated the power of the bow after seeing Paul defeat all of his opponents easily with the bow.
On the other hand, Andrew took out his two emerald green daggers. Unlike Paul''s bow, the daggers hand glowing runes on them. There were hundreds of small runes ced on the daggers. One of them was the rune that connected Lah''s power to Andrew.
No one could see through Andrew''s cheat. Lah was a master at runes and arrays. Hence she knew how to avoid getting detected by the arrays on the battlefield. The arrays on the battle stage were actually designed by one of the students who studied under the same tutge as her.
Lah knew her attacks wouldn''t work on Ghost but she made some modifications to the runes on Andrew''s daggers. She believed it would defeat Ghost. Deep down in her heart, Lah wanted Ghost to be a good righteous man instead of being cruel and evil. She didn''t want him to change for her but for someone else.
The first step to changing him was making him understand the power of true love. Although Andrew had her power, she knew that without strong willpower, his mind and body would have literally exploded. It was love that kept Andrew alive.
On the battle stage, Paul knocked a silver arrow in the bowstring to fire at Andrew. He didn''t cast any spells but just wanted to test Andrew''s reaction time and speed.
"Ice Shield"
Andrew immediately cast a spell that formed a wall of ice before him. The arrow prated the ice shield a couple of inches but couldn''t break the shield.
"Sonic Arrow" without giving Andrew to mount up an offensive spell, Paul fired another arrow. This time, when the arrow left the bowstring, it produced a booming sound as it soared through the air towards Andrew.
Andrew immediately leaped out of the safety of the ice shield. The moment the sonic arrow touched the ice shield, the shield exploded into pieces.
Instead of falling to the ground, the arrow flew back into Paul''s hand like a boomerang.
He fired the arrow yet again at Andrew,
"Ice Shield"? the shield spell could be cast quickly, hence Andrew cast the spell again to save himself from the arrow. Since Andrew had the power of Lah, the shield stopped Paul''s arrow from prating through the shield to impale Andrew.
The ice shield grew up to seven feet from the stage. Using the split second before the arrow destroyed the shield, Andrew ced a rune on the shield. Then he dashed away from the cover of the shield.
Unaware of the rune, Paul fired the arrow yet again. The arrow pierced through the air like a bullet. When the arrow''s tip touched the ice shield, the ice shield didn''t explode but the arrow bounced back. Paul didn''t expect the arrow to bounce back. But before he could react, the arrow exploded in the mid-air, sending a shock wave at Paul.? The rune was supposed to send back a portion of the attack''s power to the attacker. Since Andrew had the power of Lah, the rune almost returned 100% power back to Paul. It was like Paul hit himself with the sonic arrow.
Paul was knocked back by the shock wave as Andrew dashed at Paul to close the gap between them. Because Paul was an archer, Andrew knew getting closer to Paul would put him in a disadvantageous position.
While running towards Paul, Andrew drew symbols in the air as the crowd saw golden runes appear in the air before disappearing into the battle stage. They saw simr runes when Peter fought Ghost. Many doubted Paul could break the runes as Ghost did.
Seeing Andrew running towards him, Paul immediately tried to take another arrow from his quiver but he was toote as Andrew leaped into the air,
"Gates of Valha!"
Cling!
In the mid-air, Andrew shouted as he smacked the two daggers together. Suddenly Paul felt an immense pressure on him like he was being crushed by an invisible mountain.
"Argh (cough) (cough)" Paul caught up blood as the pressure increased by multiple folds. At this point, Andrew almost came down on him with his full might. Paul tried to move his body yet he couldn''t move at all.
Meanwhile lying on the bed, Michael was watching the battle in a 55-inch mirror. He felt like watching television back on earth.
"So Lah is somehow enhancing his power¡interesting" Michael snickered,
[Don''t underestimate Lah. The system can sense some changes in the energy patterns. Although these energy patterns cannot kill you, it can still harm you] The system informed Michael,
"I''m pretty sure you can make me immune"
[For a price of course. But do you want the system to make you immune? You want to cheat?]
"Isn''t Andrew cheating right now? If it wasn''t for Lah, Andrew would not be here. Besides, I have bigger things to worry about than dealing with Lah''s bitchiness and petty feuds"''
Michael turned the pages of Lord Information''s book to learn more about Thusia.
[Are you thinking about taking the guild leader position?]
The system was more talkative than usual. Michael was too focused on building a revenge n against Thusia to mind the system''s talkative nature.
"Not thinking. I already decided to take the position of Guild leader"
"Aren''t you supposed to take revenge for Abras as you promised him?"
"Oh? Then how about we go to Thusia tomorrow, ask the princess and her royal family to kneel down and let me kill them" he said sarcastically,
[Sarcasm much]
"No shit. ording to this book, they are already powerful enough to wipe out Bredia and any kingdom in Elon within a few weeks. Those bastards are just dragging the war to hide their true power" Just thinking about Thusia made his blood boil. He could vividly see the princess sending a dagger through his heart that she promised to take care of. Abras gave the princess his heart and she put a dagger through it. Still, Michael didn''t know Abras was just another piece of his soul.
"I can use their resources to be stronger and I can n my revenge under their nose. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer System"
[Calvin didn''t recognize you but the princess will. And now you can''t change your face as Calvin had seen your original face]
"Abras always sported a clean shaven look with long hair. When I have to meet the princess, I can go with a long Viking beard and short hair. As far as they are concerned, they killed Abras. They won''t expect to see him again"? While talking he looked at the mirror to see Paul and Andrew still fighting. Paul seemed to be in a worse state than Andrew. Paul''s sleeves had been torn away as he had blooding out of his mouth and nose.
[They have the Cosmic stream host. The more time you waste, the stronger they would be] the system warned Michael,
"Then I will be stronger. If I wanted to kill that bitch and her family, I would have done it by now. I don''t want to kill them, death is mercy for them"
[What are you nning to do?] In his anger, Michael failed to notice the fear in the system''s voice.
"I will make the princess and everyone they care about experience hell. I dont like to torture people, but I will make an exception for them. I will enjoy every second of it. Anyone who stands in my path will die. Thusia will burn '''' the entire room became darker as he spoke. The system noticed his strength slowly increasing.
"In this world, many cultivators are doing evil shits every day. But the guardians painted me like the manifestation of evil, the Dark Lord. I will show the Guardians what I am really capable of" Michael stood up from the bed as he walked towards the mirror,
"May gods have mercy upon Thusians, cause I won''t"
At this exact moment, arge tree could be seen on a lonely mountain. Therge tree stood alone atop the mountain. One could see a figure tied to the tree. The figure was more like merged with the tree itself.
The figure''s face was covered in moths, mud, and blood. He had a gray beard and shaggy hair. His body was riddled with scars as though he was cut thousands of times by someone.
"My God is here" the figure smiled looking in the direction of the Elon continent.
Back in Michael''s room, he was staring at the mirror as Andrew stood beside Paul with his daggers against Paul''s throat.
"I surrender" Michael heard Paul utter the words. The crowd erupted in cheers as Andrew plummeted to the ground in exhaustion.
In the giant mirrors, Michael saw Emelda pping in joy with tears of joy running down on her face. He then saw the crowd cheering as loud as they could for the underdog of this tournament, Andrew. Even ire and the elders of the Sunrise sect were pping to show their support without having any idea of how Andrew managed to beat Paul.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Suddenly before the coordinators helped Andrew and Paul leave the stage, three loud bell sounds reverberated the arena. The view of the battle stage immediately changed to the VIP stage in the mirror. They all saw King Bredia stand up with a grin on his face.
"Please" He raised his hand as the crowd immediately became silent,
"I have an announcement to make. The winner of the Core Formation championship will be rewarded with the title Baron along with Bradford barony" For people like Ashton, it wasn''t a piece of surprising news but formoners, it was another story. Many sounds of gasping could be heard in the arena.
The King stayed silent for a few moment before speaking again,
"And the hand of my daughter, Princess Katherine in marriage"
*******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Chapter 366 - To The Final
On this cloudy morning, there were growing patches of blue, the sort of hue that was soft and bright at the same time. Though beneath the sheet of cloud was a gray that deepened to steel, the leading edge was a brilliant white, as if it was the pages of a new book ready for any curious eye. So, on this day that could bring rain or sunshine, no one in the arena except the VIP guests andmentators remained in their seats. Their eyes were glued to the battle stage. In the center of the battle stage, two figures wereying on the floor. One waspletely bathed in blood from head to toe. The other one was no different than the other except he knelt on the battle stage on one knee. Anyone could tell he was about to tumble down any second.
The figureid on the ground was Ducan, a rogue cultivator while the other was Andrew. This was the first fight of the Semi-final which would decide the finalist.
As Andrew was fighting with everything he got to stay awake, the coordinatorsnded on the ground to check on Ducan.
"Knockout!" the coordinator''s voice echoed through the arena as the crowd erupted into cheers for Andrew.
"Andrew has entered the final!"
"He has made history reaching the final with the lowest cultivation level!"
"That kid really put up a fight. I''m really impressed" Followed by Ishihara and James''sments, Darius also praised Andrew. The entire arena was shouting Andrew''s name as the fireworks decorated the sky along with their thunderous exploding sounds. Princess Katherine quickly wiped off the tear running out of her eyes before anyone could see her watery eyes.
"Andrew!"
"Andrew!"
"Andrew!"
"Andrew!"
"Andrew!"
"Andrew!"
The crowd kept chanting Andrew''s name. Surprisingly their cheers gave Andrew a little bit of strength to stay still instead of falling onto the ground.
The fight between Andrew and Ducan went for almost an hour and a half. Although Andrew had the power of Lah behind him, Ducan fought strategically which made defeating him difficult for Andrew.
Andrew was a Core Formation level 2 runemaster while Ducan was a level 6 Core Formation warrior. Many thought this match was the end of Andrew''s journey as the power gap between them was too wide. However, Andrew proved everyone wrong and defeated Ducan. Andrew almost died defeating Ducan.
"Andrew has proved to us that the willpower can ovee the cultivation level difference"
"Even if Andrew couldn''t win the tournament, his name will be remembered for years toe" James Hall praised Andrew,
"He will be an inspiration for many cultivators. His journey will show the others that one can ovee a cultivation difference with willpower and courage" Ishihara joined James Hall in praising Andrew. The Winstons felt extremely proud of Andrew at the moment. At first, they all doubted him and even tried to stop him frompeting in the tournament. Nheless Noah vouched for Andrew and gave his support. Even Andrew''s mother Natalia didn''t want Andrew to participate as she was afraid of him getting hurt. Natalia was the softest among the three Hunt sisters. Regardless of Andrew''s reasons topete in the tournament, Natalia tried to stop him because she couldn''t even think about losing her son.
"Help them reach the infirmary" The coordinators lifted Andrew and Ducan and flew towards the infirmary.
Eventually, after a team of maids cleaned up the blood off the battle stage, the crowd became excited again. Since the next fight would decide the finalist who is going to fight Andrew, the crowd was on the edge of their seats. Moreover, they were excited to see Ghost.
"It''s time for the battle we''ve been waiting fordies and gentlemen" Ishihara announced.
"And don''t worry people, the battle will not be stopped if it rains" Hearing Darius''s voice, many sighed in relief. The sky was filled with dark clouds and everyone could hear thunderps in the distance.? Heavy downpour was evident but no one wanted the rain to interrupt the battle.
"Participant Regan and participant Ghost of Sunrise sect pleasee to the stage"
The moment Ishihara uttered the name ''Ghost'', the arena once again let out thunderous cheers. Almost two-thirds of the arena were bouncing up and down, showing signs boards that had the letters ''We love Ghost'', waving ck gs as well as Sunrise sect gs, and shouting Ghost''s name as loud as they could.
Even those who hated Ghost such as MorningStar disciples became jealous of the support and cheers Ghost received. As the fans were cheering, Regannded on the battle stage with a swift leap.
Regan was a tall man, standing 6'' 2" tall, this bronze skinned man had a really tough feel about him. A particrly notable feature was his muscr build. His hip-length, shiny, light brown hair, currently dip-dyed at the ends with shades of sky blue, features a messy fringe. He has a uniquely styled, perfectly trimmed beard. His square face with brown eyes didn''t show any emotions looking at the cheers for his opponent, Ghost. Waiting for Ghost, Regan flicked his wrist as a 7ft war hammer appeared in his hand. Unlike the other participants, Regan wore no armor to protect himself. He just wore leather pants adorned with gray fur and long snakeskin boots.
Lah was watching Regan with the othermoners. She was in a battle with her heart and mind. After talking to her mentor and contemting what happened inside the Treacherous Ocean, she understood that Ghost was to be medpletely. She knew it was her impulse that led to the First Energies upying their bodies which led to spirit walking. He had no choice, her mind told her that but her heart was burning in fury. He took her purity, her heart couldn''t ept it.
After threatening him of destroying everyone he cares about, she felt disgusted with herself. She knew she acted like a first-ss hypocrite. How could she call him evil after she herself threatened to kill innocents?
The fact she couldn''t hurt him at all made her feel weak and helpless. She hated the feeling of being weak. In front of him, she was exactly that.
Initially, when she came to the tournament, she wanted to tell Ghost about something important that could change both of their lives forever. However, after seeing Ghost''s cruelty, ruthlessness, and blood-thirsty nature, she decided otherwise.
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
Just as she was thinking the cheers couldn''t get any louder, the arena erupted louder. The figure of Ghost in the giant mirror stopped her train of thoughts.? Weirdly, Ghost reminded her of Noah. Only Ghost didn''t have the warmth and kindness that Noah had.
Michael slowly descended onto the battle stage after winking at Nightmare who was enjoying the battle sitting on ire''sp. He was a majestic fearful dragon but when he was with ire, he would turn into a puppy.
Because Regan was a rogue cultivator, except for a very few, no one knew or heard about him before. Coupled with the fact that Regan always ended up with opponents who were weaker than him didn''t raise any support for him.
Despite the bodybuilder-like physique of Regan, Michael was not even a bit worried. Regan was just a Core Formation level 6 warrior after all. Instead of unsheathing his two swords, Michael put his hands behind his back and looked at Regan with a smile.
"Despite most peoples'' opinion about rogue cultivators, I respect you guys. I was one of you before joining the Sunrise sect" Michael''s voice was amplified by the runes to let everyone hear his voice loud and clear.
"You didn''t survive this long by fighting every battle in your way. Your life depends on every fight you pick, so don''t pick a fight you can''t win"
The crowd was not stupid not to understand the meaning behind Michael''s words. He was telling Regan to back off, his words were on the border of threat and advice. Many nobles expected a rugged man such as Regan to get mad at Ghost for speaking these words. However, Regan just sighed as the war hammer in his hand disappeared back into his space ring.
"You are right, we rogues need to know when to back down" Regan let out a sigh as he continued,
"This is a battle I cannot win"
Michael nodded with a smile,
"I hope you remember me Ghost"
"Anyone who isn''t my foe is my friend" Michael''s words put a gentle smile on Regan''s face.
He looked around the arena for a while before slowly ascending to the air,
"I hope we will meet again Ghost,"? Regan said while floating in the mid-air. He then looked at the coordinators around him,
"I forfeit," Regan said before flying away from the arena. People were stunned to see Regan quit like this. He decided to quit before even exchanging a few blows with Ghost. Many thought what he did was a shameful act and an act of cowardice.
"Guys what just happened?" Ishihara''s brows arched up,
"What do you think? Regan forfeited the battle"
The coordinators murmured among themselves while the crowd was looking at Ghost speechlessly. Even Ghost''s supporters was unable to believe what just happened. They were expecting an exchange of blows, not words.
"Ghost wins!" The coordinators announced. It took a few moments for the crowd to open their mouths again to cheer. They were stunned. Katherine''s heart skipped a beat listening to thementers announce that Ghost had reached the final.
When the crowd finally began to cheer, Ghost already left the battle stage. This was the shortest semi final they all had seen in their lives. Ghost just came, said a few words to Regan and made him forfeit the battle. Unlike Andrew who shed almost all of his blood, Ghost had entered the final without even breaking a sweat.
"I hope you don''t mind being called Lady Ghost, Kathy" King Bredia leaned closer to Katherine''s ears and said with a chuckle.
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This is it my dear readers, the chapter before the finals. Andrew vs Michael will begin from the next chapter.
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Chapter 367 - The Grand Finale
After the semi final round between Ghost and Regan, thementators announced a six hours break before the final of Body Strengthening stage cultivators. In the final, Sabrina faced Victoria. The final battlested for an hour before Sabrina overpowered Victoria and defeated her. The battle between the girls kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Even Ashton, who wasn''t very interested in the tournament, watched the fight without batting an eye.
Many expected Sabrina to give a speech after winning the championship while themoners wondered what would be the rewards. However, Sabrina just said ''thank you'' to the crowd and left the battle stage.
Taking the pegasi carriage offered to her by the Holy Trident Academy, Sabrina flew towards where Andrew was staying. The sun had almost disappeared into the horizon when she reached the manor where Andrew was staying.
"Young Miss" when her carriagended, quickly few of the guards staying outside guarding the door came to open the carriage door. They bent forwards to show their respects.
"Andrew inside?"
"Yes young miss"
Sabrina hastened inside to meet her cousin leaving the carriage under the care of the guards. At first Sabrina thought winning the championship tournament would make her feel pleased or at least something except it didn''t. Although she fought with Victoria for almost an hour, she didn''t use her full power.? IF she had defeated Aelia, she knew she would have felt different.
However, Sabrina could not think about anything at the moment except her cousin''s condition. She hastened inside the home. Entering the manor, she walked straight to the hall where she saw Andrew with several people standing around him.? She expected Andrew to be in his room taking a rest. Instead, she found him surrounded by people.? Andrew was resting on the sofa while Emelda had her hand on his shoulder. She was consoling him.
Sabrina saw her mother, aunt Emelda, a hooded person who stood in a corner of the hall, Alicia and Norvin.
"Sabi" Emelda was surprised to see Sabrina enter the hall.
All of their gazes including Andrew''s fell on Sabrina.
"You won?" Diana asked as though she already knew the answer. Sabrina gave a small nod before walking towards Andrew.
"Shouldn''t you be celebrating your win right now Sabi?" Andrew asked with a gentle smile on his face as usual. He tried to hide his worries with a smile but Sabrina could see through the facade.
"I know why you are worried Andrew" Andrew raised his brows as Sabrina smiled,
"Dad isn''t very good at keeping secrets from me, Andrew. Don''t you know that?"
"I know that" Andrew sighed as he chuckled,
"How is your brother Ali?" Sabrina asked Alicia. Alicia remained silent,
"The healers said they could only heal the physical wounds, not the mental ones'' '' Norvin answered instead of Alicia. Sabrina sighed. What Ghost did to him was cruel and ruthless. However, Sabrina also knew Peter brought it on him by himself. No one asked Peter to dress up as a vignte to ambush Ghost and other prodigies just to prove he is better than them.
"Time will heal everything," Emelda said. Alicia nodded but she knew the mental wounds of Peter would never heal unless he could defeat Ghost and humiliate him as Ghost did to him.
"Andrew, I am asking you again. Are you sure you want to do this?" Diana asked Andrew.
"Is there any other way we can convince Katherine''s father?" Emelda asked a question after Diana,
"Can Katherine tell her father she loves you?" Sabrina asked.
Andrew was getting bombarded with questions until Alicia opened her mouth,
"Why is everyone talking like he''s going to lose? When we all, including me, thought Andrew couldn''t do this, he came this far and proved us wrong. He will defeat Ghost, have some faith in him"
Everyone was speechless for a few moments. They couldn''t argue with Alicia''s words.
"It''s because I cheated," suddenly Andrew said, stunning everyone.
"Cheated? What are you talking about?" Emelda creased her brows. Except for Diana and Alicia, everyone looked bbergasted. Alicia knew about Noah''s deal with Lah and her involvement in Andrew''s victory. Diana however didn''t know anything about Lah or Noah''s deal with her but she was able to tell that something was amiss.
"If it wasn''t for Lady Alden, I wouldn''t have reached this far"
"Lady Alden? Lah Alden?" Sabrina literally started to shiver hearing the name.
"Without your mental resolution and willpower, you would have died taking my power" they all heard the melodious voice as they turned their eyes towards the hooded person. Sabrina saw the hooded one taking off her hood covering her head to reveal her angelic face.
Sabrina felt like she was going to faint. The woman in front of her was Lah Alden, one of the legends of this world. She had only seen Lah in the paintings in her Holy Trident Academy. Lah was a pride of all woman cultivators, she was the embodiment of woman power.
"How far would you go for the girl you love Andrew?" Lah asked as everyone stared at her in shock.
"I give my life for her"
p!
The moment Andrew finished speaking these words, a pping sound could be heard in the hall. Sabrina was stunned to see her always gentle and warm aunt Emelda p Andrew. No one could believe he got pped by Emelda.
"Are you really prepared to give your life for a girl you know for how long, a year? Or two years? What about us, your family? What about your mother?" Emelda was stuck between worry and anger. Her eyes were bloodshot.
"You''re gonna quit whining, go out there and defeat Ghost. Cheating or no cheating, you will defeat him. You know why? Because you have us"
Her words did not motivate Andrew but somewhat calmed the storm within him.
"If you can''t defeat him, dont be stupid to fight till you die. Just say you surrender and we will figure out how to deal with everything that followster" Norvin gave a piece of advice of his own. Unlike Emelda, Norvin doubted Andrew could really defeat Ghost. As much as Norvin wanted Andrew to defeat him, he was less optimistic about that.
Diana was in a world of her own thinking. All the people in the room thought Ghost was some kind of monster. Ever since he was born, he has faced nothing but tragedies. And he faced everything life throws at him alone. She didn''t know why they called him the Dark Lord when there are hundreds or even thousands of evil cultivators who were capable of great evil roaming the work as they speak.
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Meanwhile, in Michael''s room, he was sitting in front of Calvin reading several parchments on the ss table.
"Feel free to tell me if you have any changes to be made," Calvin said with a smile,
"No changes required Calvin. I hope you guys will have my back when the timees" Michael inked the quill to sign the parchments as he spoke,
"Don''t worry, King Bredia won''t go to war with you if you choose to reject the princess" Michael looked up at Calvin with his brows arched up. Michael was surprised to see Calvin grasp the uing problem without any exnation.
"Like I said, I did my research. I know you are not going to ept the marriage proposal. Naturally, rejecting a king''s offer would result in problems. But worry not, Thusia will have your back"
"This time, I''ll be the one stabbing you in the back," Michael thought to himself.
"It will be a pleasure to work with Thusians" As he said, Michael signed his name on the parchment. With this sign, he had officially be the guild leader of the Thusian Alchemy Guild.
Finally, Michael stood up to shake Calvin''s hands,
"Wee aboard Ghost"
After shaking Michael''s hand with a wide grin on his face, Calvin handed over a space ring to Michael.
"This contains some weing gifts from Thusia Ghost. I hope you like them"
The final day of the tournament began with a drizzle. The dark rain clouds filled the sky like marching soldiers. The thunderps in the distance implied the uing heavy downpour. The arena was filled with chit-chat from the fans. Not a single person who wasn''t in the conversation of who would win the championship. Of Course, many voted for Ghost while only a few voted for Andrew.
"Wee to the finalsdies and gentlemen ''''? Ishihara''s announcement finally brought down the volume of their chit-chat. But only for a few moments tho as the crowd yet again erupted into cheers.
"It has been a roller coaster ride,dies and gentlemen. What do you think guys?" James Hall asked,
"I think we better start the final before they start a riot" Ishihara giggled,
"Before we start the final, let us see the journey of the two finalists. Andrew Winston and Ghost" After Darius spoke, the giant mirror began to broadcast the highlights of both Ghost and Andrew''s battles. Seeing both of their battles gave goosebumps to themoners and raised their expectations to another level.
The highlight reel went for almost fifteen minutes. Looking at the reels, Alicia once again shivered in anger. She wanted to destroy the mirrors to oblivion when they showed Ghost mopping the floor with her brother.
What disturbed her more was the people who roared seeing Ghost''s ruthlessness.
Sitting on her throne, Katherin clenched her fist tightly. Her heart pounded against her chest looking at the vial in her hand. The king was too focused on Ghost''s highlights reels to notice the vial in his daughter''s hands.
"Finalists Andrew Winston and Ghost, pleasee to the battle stage"
The entire arena was shouting the names Ghost and Andrew to show their support. The majority of the crowd was waving ck gs.
Under their thunderous cheers, Andrew appeared above the battle stage and slowly descended onto the battle stage. Andrew ignored all the cheers to focus on the uing battle.
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
"GHOST!"
While Andrew was trying to ignore the shouts, he heard the arena erupt in cheers. He looked up to see Ghost slowly descending onto the battle stage with his ck long coat fluttering in the wind. Unlike Andrew, Ghost seemed calm with his usual smile on his face.
"Shall we start Andrew?"
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Chapter 368 - Michael Vs Andrew
The distant howling sound of the wind coupled with the thunderps gave off an ominous feeling. The violent wind made waving the signs and gs difficult yet the win couldn''tpletely stop them. Michael''s long ck coat fluttered in the wind behind revealing the ck turtleneck and the lines of his chest and abs.
After asking Andrew, Michael looked up at the coordinators,
"Guys, can we start the battle now? I have a barony to look"
Except for a very few, none of them thought of him as arrogant.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
"Let the battle begin"
As though the coordinators were working for him, they started the battle. Andrew stared at him with his two daggers in his hands. He was expecting Ghost to cast a spell. After watching all of Ghost''s fight and strategizing with Lah and Sabrina, Andrew was somewhat prepared.
"Andrew" Instead of unsheathing his swords, Michael smiled at Andrew.
"Dude you cane up with new ways to get what you want instead of this"
Regardless of what Noah did to the Silent Reaper, Michael didn''t want to hurt Noah''s family. They were nothing but good to him. He knew Lah was kinda using Andrew to prove to him that nothing stronger and purer than love. He couldn''t understand Lah''s logicpletely.
"This is the only way Ghost," Andrew said as Michaeel sighed,
"So be it" Michael began to walk forward towards Andrew. He didn''t cast lightning dash or any spell, he just walked towards Andrew without even taking out his swords.
"Gates of Valha" Andrew didn''t waste any time. He immediately cast one of the strongest spells he has in his arsenal. The whole arena was silent as only the thunderps and the howling sound of the wind could be heard.
They were staring at Michael and Andrew without batting an eye. Thementators were going about but Michael or Andrew didn''t hear what they were saying. ire was looking at Andrew with pity.
"Reflective shield" Michael just uttered the word while walking towards Andrew. When Andrew cast Gates of Valha on Paul Oswen, he was crushed by immense pressure. However, when Andrew cast the spell on Ghost, nothing happened.
Ghost was just a few meters away from Andrew,
"Emerald thorns!" Afterpeting in a couple of life or death battles, Andrew''s thinking and reflexes became quicker. Hence, instead of being stunned by the uselessness of the Gates of Valha, Andrew cast another spell immediately.? From the two daggers in Andrew''s hands, Michael saw emerald green spikesing towards him like arrows.
There were numerous spikes the size of an arrow pierced through the air to impale him. Andrew was shooting like he was holding two machine guns that fired spikes rapidly. Standing among the crowd, Lah''s eyes began to water up. She spent months creating runes that could change her energy patterns so she would not be defenseless against Ghost. She used those runes to give Andrew the ability to fight against Ghost hoping it would hurt him. Yet, neither the Gates of Valha nor the Emerald thorns couldn''t even graze him.
Emelda''s heart was pounding against her chest as Ghost got closer to Andrew. Ethan was rubbing his temples hoping Ghost would go easy on Andrew.
"Oh no, he''s in trouble," Norvin said with a grimaced face.
"Ice Shield" Andrew cast another spell to slow Ghost in his path,
Michael saw a seven-feel wall made of ice erupt a few meters before him. The wall seemed to be at least a meter wide and looked sturdy. Everyone including Andrew expected Michael to destroy the wall using a spell or his fist. Unexpectedly, they saw Ghost deviate from the straight line he was walking on and walked around the wall instead of destroying the wall.
Andrew, who ced an explosive rune that would bounce the attack power back to the attacker had a troubled look on his face. All the opponents Andrew faced got defeated by either of the three spells he just cast. The spell had Lah''s Fusion stage power behind it, hence, a Core Formation cultivator couldn''t take the attack of Andrew.
However, Michael was immune to Lah''s attacks. Therefore, Andrew, who had Lah''s power, couldn''t even touch him.
"Without Lah, he''s as weak as a blind sick puppy" Michael sighed inside. He actually felt pity for Andrew. After realizing long-ranged attacks were not working, Andrew changed his tactic. He activated the runes on his dagger as several golden symbols began to glow on the daggers.
"Don''t do it Andrew" Diana mumbled under her breath looking at her nephew leaping higher into the air to attack Ghost with his daggers.
Since Andrew would not be able to learn swordsmanship in a few weeks, Noah taught Andrew how to fight with daggers. It had been a big help to Andrew in the tournament against other opponents. But Diana knew against a swordsman like Ghost who seemed to have mastered the swords, Andrew was like a child.
Seeing Andrew descending upon him, Michael just shook his head disappointedly. The people were on the edge of their seats. Just when Andrew was a couple of inches away from him, Michael grabbed Andrew by his wrists in the mid-air. Andrew lost his momentum and control when Ghost grabbed him. His movement was extremely fast as Andrew didn''t even see Ghost move his hands.
Andrew''s feet touched the ground. He looked Ghost in the eyes while struggling to get out of his hold.
"If there''s a next time, don''t depend on others to fight your battles" Andrew felt his heart skip a beat hearing his words. His words sounded as though Ghost knew he was cheating in the tournament.
Chuk!
The very next moment, Andrew felt immense pain in his head. The crowd saw Ghost head butt Andrew so hard that the sound of their head shing reverberated through the silent arena.
Michael slowly trusted Andrew''s wrists as Andrew''s face muscles began to twitch in pain. He head-butted Andrew again without giving him much time to let out a cry of pain. A sound of bone cracking could be heard when Ghost head-butted Andrew. In the giant mirrors, they all saw Andrew''s nose bent weirdly sideways as blood poured out of his nostrils.
If it wasn''t for the excruciating pain in his wrists, Andrew would have fainted. The world around him started to spin. Most people expected Michael to break Andrew''s wrists but he proved them wrong by mming Andrew on the Ice Shield Andrew erupted.
Boom!
The booming noise sounded across the arena while pebbles of ice crumbled down due to the force of Andrew hitting the wall.
The force and pain immediately made Andrew cough up blood. Ghost mmed him again on the ice shield like Andrew was a rag doll. When he mmed Andrew the second time, the rune Andrew ced on the wall glowed as the Ice Shield exploded with immense force.
"Andrew!" Emelda shouted from her pavilion. The ice vaper prevented the crowd from seeing what happened to Andrew and Ghost for a few moments. When the fog created by the ice vapor faded away, they saw Ghost was standing beside Andrew who was lying on the ground, coughing up blood.
"Give up Andrew," Michael said, looking at Andrew at his feet. He didn''t even use a fraction of his power. Nheless Andrew was almost at death''s door.
To Michael''s surprise, Andrew pulled himself up after failing to stand up a couple of times. Seeing Andrew really surprised Michael. Andrew was indeed resilient.
Still, Michael just shook his head before grabbing Andrew by his neck. Half of Andrew''s face was covered in blood and swollen.
"Taking a beating doesn''t solve your problems Andrew" Despite Andrew being his opponent, Michael advised him. For some reason, Michael felt bad for beating up Andrew. Perhaps, it was because the Winstons were good to him, perhaps, it was because he pitied Andrew.
Nevertheless, he punched Andrew in the face. He didn''t use much power as he didn''t want to mess up Andrew''s brain. As long as he could, he wanted Noah and Winstons not to be his enemies.
"I¡will¡never¡surrender¡" These words barely escaped Andrew''s mouth when Michael stopped punching him.
"You''re not helping yourself Andrew" The crowd saw Michael clench his fist as veins popped up on his fist. The crowd gasped. They could guess the next punch would be several times more powerful than the previous ones.
If this was a movie or a drama, Andrew would have gotten a sudden power boost thinking about his love and escaping Michael''s hold. Since it was not the case and Andrew had no powerful being inside his ring, Andrew couldn''t even move a muscle. He could just hope he wouldn''t lose consciousness.
"Space Warp!"
Suddenly Michael heard a shout. In a blink of an eye, his hair neck stood up sensing a threat. He immediately let go of Andrew to leap into the air. In the mid air, he bent his back andnded on the battle stagefortably.
When hended on the battle stage, he saw Princess Katherine standing in the ce where he was a moment ago. She held Andrew in her hand. Tears kept rolling out of her eyes.
"Andrew, Andrew please wake up. It''s Kathy" the entire arena was stunned by the act of the princess. Even thementers or the coordinators expected Princess to suddenly appear. Not even the arrays could stop her interference because the short teleportation spell she just used was a Legendary Spell.
Michael saw a silver dagger in Katherine''s ce. His killing intent rose up realizing she would have killed him if it wasn''t for his reflexes and instincts.
"Katherine!" Finally, the king realized what just happened. He stood up from his throne along with all the VIPs beside him.
No one remained in the seats anymore. The princess caught everyone off guard.
"I¡ am¡ going¡ to kill you" Michael along with the entire arena heard the princess let out a murderous grumble.
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Chapter 369 - Princess, You Are Nothing
Princess, You Are Nothing
"Your Majesty!" The king''s guards quickly surrounded King Bredia when he tried to rush to the battle stage. The coordinators on the other hand were stunned to see the sudden appearance of Princess Katherine. Since she used a powerful Legendary level teleportation scroll, they weren''t aware of her arrival. Just as the coordinators were about tond on the battle stage, the princess leaped at Ghost with her daggers raised.
Andrew could barely lift his hand towards Michael. He wanted to utter the words ''don''t hurt her'' yet failed to do so.
"You monster!" she shouted, swinging her daggers at Michael.
Seeing the princess trying to attack Michael, Nightmare bore his teeth. ire felt the dragon''s body bing hotter and hotter.
"Little one" ire brushed the dragon''s head to calm him down. ire wasn''t worried about Ghost, she was worried about the princess.
All the nobles in the VIP pavilions along with themoners stood up from their seats. They all were either too excited or worried about the princess.
"Monster me?" Michael chuckled while evading the dagger easily.
"You heartless bastard!" she was shouting while violently swinging her daggers. Michael just kept moving his body with his hand behind his back.
He could see the king flying towards the battle stage with his royal guards.
"You have the courage for this but not for talking to your father?" Michael snickered, swiftly moving his body away from her daggers. He moved like water, swift and smooth.
"Kids shouldn''t y with these" Michael suddenly flicked the princess''s wrist as she lost the dagger. In a blink of an eye, he made her lose another dagger with another flick to her wrist.
"See how weak you are" Michael threw the daggers outside the battle stage.
"STOP!" The king''s shout echoed through the arena. The Princess''s body froze. Her anger slowly faded away while she started toe back to reality.
The king''s royal guards immediately surrounded the princess. They were all at the Core Strengthening stage level 8 and wore full metal armor from head to toe.
At the moment, they all surrounded the princess, staring at Michael through the hole in their helms. Michael didn''t dare to hurt the princess as it would turn the entire Bredia kingdom against him. However, that didn''t mean the princess would escape without paying the price for trying to kill him.
"Kathy! What is the meaning of this?!" The king''s facial muscles twitched. He shivered in anger. Since everything went into a chaotic state, the coordinators paused the battle. Immediately, Sabrina flew to the battle stage along with the Winstons.
"GHOST WON!"
Standing in the River town pavilion, Ricky, the sneaky bastard shouted, riling up Ghost''s fans. Soon, a few disciples followed Ricky''s shout, then a group started to shout and in a few moments, entire fans of Ghost were shouting in unison.
"GHOST WON!"
"GHOST WON!"
"GHOST WON!"
"GHOST WON!"
"GHOST WON!"
The badass points began to go up yet again.
"I love Andrew!" The Princess''s shout however sounded louder than the cheers. The cheers immediately stopped after hearing her words.
"You can''t make me marry another man. I will rather die than marry this monster"
The king was too stunned to utter another word. In his whole life, he had never seen Katherine act the way she was acting at the moment.
"You''re nothing but a heartless bastard, not even his parents wanted him. They threw him away like a piece of trash. How can I marry this piece of trash?!" Since Katherine couldn''t hurt him with daggers, she started to spew hurtful words.
Diana couldn''t help clenching her fist. She wasn''t the gentle Diana in her heart anymore, Harriet Hunt who was buried within her heart had returned. She wanted nothing but to rip off the princess''s throat.
"Me? Piece of trash?" Michael asked after realizing the king wouldn''t say something to shut her daughter. He was too stunned to utter any words.
"No matter how strong you be, how rich you be, you will never be someone like Andrew. You will never have thest name, you will always be someone who was abandoned by your parents!"
Michael was getting really pissed off at the princess. He had nothing to do with their little scheme. If he was Andrew, he could have found a hundred ways to get King Bredia''s permission instead of depending on Noah and Lah to do something impossible.? Of course, Michael had to give credit to Noah to put together a n that would have gotten Andrew what he wanted in a short amount of time. If it wasn''t for him, Andrew would have won thepetition.
If anyone should be med, it was Lah. As far as Michael was concerned, she should have told her vulnerability against him to Andrew or Noah.
"Let¡ me¡ go" Nightmare grumbled. ire''s hands began to hurt due to the heat Nightmare radiated. There was no doubt that if she let go of the dragon, he would go burn the battle stage in fury. Even the gentle ire began to feel anger boiling inside her after hearing the princess''s words.
Ethan creased his brows. He wanted to shout as loud as he could that Ghost is his son, not an orphan. However, he knew if he did that, the entire Skyhall woulde down on his son with their full power. Skyhall wasn''t something anyone could win against. Even the great ns wouldn''t go against the Skyhall.
While the princess was cursing at Michael, Sabrina made Andrew drink a healing potion. The wounds on the outside and the internal wounds gradually healed up as Andrew slowly opened his eyes.
"Tsk tsk tsk" Michael shook his head with a narcissistic smile on his face. He looked around the arena before turning his gaze back at the princess.
"Even though I am an orphan, I have an identity.? The Core disciple of the Sunrise sect,? a prodigy, a man who reached the 100th step in Heaven''s gatepetition, and"? Michael paused for a moment to look at the crowd once again,
"The 5-star Alchemist of Bredia,"? his cold voice sent a chill running through everyone''s spines,
The smile on his face finally disappeared as he stared at the princess,
"Without that princess title, what are you? Humph" Michael snickered.
Many gasped, hearing Michael''s question. There was no fear in his eyes. No one would dare to disrespect a princess in public yet Ghost did exactly just that in front of her father, the king, and thousands of people.
Michael wasn''t afraid of the king anymore. He now had two major powers behind him; the Kane family and the kingdom of Thusia.
"Take away that princess title and you are nothing, not even a piece of trash. NOTHING" The princess shivered in anger. Even when GHost was beating the crap out of him, Andrew never felt any anger towards Ghost. However, hearing him district the girl he loves, Andrew''s anger exploded within him.
"Katherine!"
King Bredia''s shout reverberated in the arena. He was too mad at his own daughter to the point he failed to get mad at Michael for disrespecting her. Perhaps the king deep down knew the princess deserved what she got after cursing Ghost and acting like a spoiled brat.
"I am not a puppet you can marry me to whoever you want!" Katherine stomped the ground,
"I will marry no one but Andrew. I am not afraid of you any more, father!" Katherine lost all herposure. Her attitude and her words made King Bredia''s body tremble in overwhelming fury. Guards who stood closer to the King could hear the king''s teeth grinding noise. His breathing got heavier and faster,
"You will marry this man" King Bredia pointed his finger at Ghost.
Michael was so annoyed by the father and daughter duo. This was supposed to be settled inside walls but the princess brought the family matter to the eyes of the public. Not only that, they dragged him into the middle of their family feud.
In the corner of his eyes, Michael saw Calvin give him a node, wordlessly expressing his support for Ghost. And just when Michael was about to reject the princess, Katherine began to chuckle as tears began to roll out of her hazel eyes.
She looked at Andrew who was being held back by Sabrina and Emelda.
"Forgive me father" She said looking at King Bredia. Then she turned her watery eyes towards Andrew,
"I hope I will get to live with you in the next life, Andrew. Please forgive me" As she said these words, a purplish vial appeared in her hands.
"Kathy!" Andrew shouted as she dashed forward. No one knew what was inside the vial but anyone could tell it was not something she should drink.
However, it was toote as she already chugged the entire vial. Some of the Royal guards tried to stop Andrew while the others caught the princess who was falling.
"NO!"
"KATHY!"
King Bredia and Andrew dashed at Katherine, shaking all the guards around them. In the giant mirror, the crowd saw Princess Katherine''s rosy skin slowly turning purple. Blood oozed out of her nostrils, mouth as well as her eyes. Her body violently twitched.
"HEALERS!"
King Bredia fell to the ground and lifted his daughter''s head. Andrew also came to the princess''s side. He held the princess''s hand. The king was too worried about his daughter to mind Andrew.
"No¡no¡no¡don''t¡leave¡ me" Tears rushed out of Andrew''s eyes. His tears watered Katherine''s face. Seeing his daughter''s body twitching violently in his arms, King Bredia''s heart ached in pain. The shes of him holding the princess for the first time when she was born shed across his eyes. That was the happiest day of his life. At the moment, he was not a king but a failed father.
"Well well well, this is an interesting turn of events" Unlike Andrew and the King, Michael wasn''t shedding any tears. He was looking at the princess with a nk expression. As far as he was concerned, they could just hold a funeral on the battle stage. He couldn''t care less. All he wanted was the rewards; the barony. He had a few ns for the Bradford barony,
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If you like this chapter,
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Chapter 370 - The Real King
"HEALERS!" Both Andrew and King Bredia screamed as loud as they could.
"Move" suddenly a melodious voice sounded through the battle stage.
The Royal guards immediately tensed up looking at the hooded figure slowly descending from the sky.
In the mid-air, the figure removed the cloak to reveal her angelic face. Looking at the face in the giant mirrors, hundreds of gasps sounded in the arena.
"Lah Alden" Ashton''s brows raised up. Afternding on the battle stage, she walked towards the princess.
"STOP!'''' However, the Royal guards shouted at her to stop. They didn''t know who this woman was. They perceived her as a threat to the king.
In a blink of an eye, a majestically crafted veena materialized in her hand.
Ding!
Her rosy slender finger yed one string as a powerful sonic wave hit the Royal guards. The Royal guards flung away from the battle stage as though they were hit by a powerful storm. The wave only targeted the Royal guards, hence, the others remained on the battle stage.
"Who are you?!" King Bredia asked with a shivering voice,
"Lady Alden" Andrew shouted as a mix of relief and joy hit his core. He heard Noah talk about Lah''s healing powers.
"GUARDS!" King Bredia''s mind went ck seeing the purplish body of his daughter. He didn''t want anyone else to harm his daughter. He was acting crazy in others'' eyes.
"I wouldn''t do that if I were you, King Bredia. You asked for healers and she''s the best'''' Ashton finally opened his mouth,
"The wielder of Angel''s veena, Lah Alden" King Bredia felt a chill running through his spine. He had heard about the Legend of Lah Alden but never thought he would see her in real life.
Finally, a small sliver of hope emerged in his heart. Ignoring all the shocked faces, Lah walked straight towards? She knelt on one knee beside Katherine. The Princess''s rosy smooth skin hadpletely turned purplish. Her body wasn''t twitching as it was a few moments before.
Lah ced her hand on Katherine''s forehead and closed her eyes,
"Please¡ please save her" Andrew mumbled while sobbing like a little child.
"This whole this is too stupid, overdramatic, and illogical" Michael thought inside,
It was not as he would have married her on the spot. He had everything figured out. He would have rejected the king''s offer to marry the princess and then, the king would have been forced to either postpone Katherine''s wedding or choose Andrew, the second finalist as the groom. It would have worked out if it wasn''t for Andrew and his group''s little idiotic scheme.
While Michael was thinking how stupid they were, Lah opened her eyes.
"She took one of the deadliest poisons in this world, the venom of a five-headed serpent" Lah sighed,
"That''s problematic" The King and Andrew''s turned their gazes towards Ashton to see him also sighing.
"Problematic is too weak a word, she''s at the death''s door"
"No shit" Michael chuckled inside but as she heard his mind voice, she gave him a death stare. Michael just winked at her as she quickly turned her gaze away from him.
"You¡you¡can save¡her right?" Andrew''s voice was breaking up in overwhelming sadness. He could barely utter these words through the lumped throat.
"She took the venom of the female five-headed serpent. I can keep the poison from killing her for an hour maximum. If you want to save her, you need to find a male five-headed serpent, get its venom, make an antidote and give it to her. All within the hour of time"
"Guards!" the king shouted for the royal guards. They still couldn''t pick themselves from the ground or fight the dizziness after being hit by Lah.
"Take everything you need and bring me a male five-headed serpent!" the king shouted the order,
"It''s not that simple King Bredia '''' Calvin shook his head. He didn''t feel pity but pretended to be sad. Michael could see through Calvin''s facade. Calvin might have put on a grieving face, inside, he couldn''t care less about what happened to the princess.
"Five-headed serpent is a rare creature which can only be found in the deepest pits of the Fire Realm. Even if someone goes the Fire Realm within an hour by some luck, finding it and killing it within an hour is impossible"
Just as King Bredia would shout at Calvin for being negative, Ashton also sighed,
"He is right. It''s impossible"
"I don''t care if I have to send an entire Bredian army to the Fire realm. I will not let my daughter die here" King Bredia held Katherine''s close to his chest,
"Even if you find everything in an hour, brewing the antidote would take longer than an hour," Lah said. Andrew and King Bredia felt their hopes die within them when they heard Lah. She was the best healer in the world yet even she didn''t seem like she could save Katherine.
"No no no¡Katherine¡you can''t leave me¡you all I have left in this world" the King cried.? Manymoners couldn''t help shedding tears looking at the scene. It was a tragedy and everyone felt sad.
"Unless you have me"
Suddenly they heard Ghost''s voice as everyone turned to look at him.
Michael smiled, flicking his wrist as a chair appeared on the battle stage before him. He sat on the chair backward and looked at the king, Andrew, Lah, and the Winstons.
Sitting in front of the king without asking his permission was a crime in Bredia. It was a sign of disrespect towards the king. Thus, the king could imprison Ghost if he wanted to.
However, Michael knew when to back off and when to show his ws. The king would do anything for his daughter. At this moment, Bredia wasn''t the king, it was Ghost.
"How far will you go to save your daughter, your majesty?" He asked the king with a smile,
"What do you mean?" the king was confused,
"Let me rephrase my question" Sitting on the chair, he flicked his west once again. The very next moment, a glistening silver vial appeared in his hand. Looking at the vial, Lah opened her mouth, decided not to speak anything, and closed her mouth. A long time ago, Ethan and Diana found a five-headed serpent poison antidote in a ruin. They could tell that the vial in their son''s hand is several times purer than the antidote they saw. There was no doubt in their minds that the vial in Ghost''s hand could save the princess''s life. If it was Noah, they knew he would have given the vial no matter how priceless it was to the princess to save her life. GHost''s smile on his face made them doubt he would give the vial without getting something in return.
"What price would you pay for this? The antidote that can save your daughter''s life"
"That''s¡how¡what¡" The king mumbled as Andrew stared at the antidote without batting an eye. He was speechless.
"Wow, that''s really the antidote" Calvin''s words brought King Bredia out of his confused state. Once again, the light of hope emerged in everyone''s heart.
"Give me that!" The king reached his hand out,
"Tsk tsk tsk" Michael shook his head,
"Are you telling me that the princess''s life is worth nothing?"
"GUARDS!" The king''s fury exploded within him. He shivered as he called for the royal guards. This time, they were only a few meters away from the battle stage.
Suddenly the vial cracked in Ghost''s hands. The King and Andrew''s hearts skipped a beat seeing the cracks forming in the vial. With a little bit more pressure, they knew the vial would crumble into pieces.
"NO!" Andrew shouted.
"I will give you everything¡please¡give her the antidote"
"Shut up Andrew. You have nothing to give me. This is between me and his majesty"
Lah didn''t even try to talk to GHost. However, her heart was aching to see how heartless he was.
"He can''t be my child''s father," Lah said to herself. The hopes of changing him into a better person slowly began to die inside her. Despite what he did to her, she wanted to give him a chance for the sake of her child. She knew how hard it would be for a child to grow without both parents. She didn''t want her child to feel that pain but it seemed like her child would be better off without Ghost as the father.
Michael knew nothing about what was going on inside Lah''s mind. His gaze was on the king.
"How could you y with your daughter''s life again, your majesty? You know this vial is so delicate. What if it got destroyed when your royal guardse running to me with their heavy armor"
"What..do¡you want?" King asked, gritting his teeth. Although he was burning with anger, he knew that his daughter''s life was more important than his anger. The king was willing to pay any price to save his daughter.
"You...she''s dying" Emelda couldn''t keep her mouth shut anymore,
"You''re holding her life as a bargaining chip. How..how" She began to stutter in anger,
"Could you be so¡so¡ heartless?"
"Me heartless?" Michael tilted his head,
"Just a few minutes ago, Her Royal Highness tried to kill me. You all heard what she said to me. Still, I''m willing to give the antidote to her instead of keeping the antidote a secret, I almost died getting this. And you''re calling me heartless"
The entire arena knew he was holding the princess''s life as a hostage. No one in the right mind would believe he''s not a cold heartless bastard. Yet he talked like a kind generous person. Many people were looking at him with their mouths wide open.
"Your Majesty, I only want you to keep your word. I want what''s rightfully mine and a few other things. I don''t want to make the princess''s life cheap, it''s not fair" Michael was having fun with the king. He couldn''t care less about what others would think about him. The Princess tried to kill him, the king stood there watching Katherine spew hurtful things, Andrew tried to take away what should have been his. Michael wanted everyone to pay the price.
"Throne doesn''t make you a king, power does'' '' Michael snickered inside, looking at the helpless desperate king in front of him.
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Any idea what Michael would ask from the king?
******************************
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
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Chapter 371 - Becoming A King I
Everyone single one in the arena had their eyes on Michael. They were waiting for what he was going to ask the king. No one let out a sound. If someone dropped a pin right at this moment, it would make a loud sound. The arena was deadly silent. Michael stood up from the chair, put his hand behind his back, and took several steps towards the edge of the arena.
"I dont give a damn about who wins this tournament, all I care about is the rewards. So as you promised your majesty, I want the Bradford barony"
No one gasped hearing his words as they did after his next words,
"I want you to announce Bradford, the River town, and all the surrounding areas as an independent kingdom ruled by me and the Sunrise sect"
Ashton knew Ghost is an opportunist and power-hungry young man but when he heard Ghost just ask the king to make him a king, he felt goosebumps. Calvin on the other hand praised Ghost wholeheartedly.
If King Bredia let go of Bradford, the River town and the surrounding areas as GHost asked, it would certainly make Bredia weaker. However, the king had no choice unless he was willing to let Katherine die. Any weak kingdom was a prey to be hunted and merged into the Thusia empire. Hence, Calvin supported Ghost''s ims.
"We have to do something, Peyton. Arrest him and make him give up the antidote" Xanali growled looking at Ghost. As a Guardian Peyton wanted to stop Ghost from toying with the princess''s life. Yet even without Peyton''splete realization, the seed of hatred towards Noah sprouted in her heart.
One could not me Peyton, she dedicated her life to Guardian Guild. Unlike other beauties, she had no boyfriend, she didn''t have fun, she didn''t host gs or balls, she only focused on serving the Guardian Guild. In return, she expected the Guild to treat her fairly. When everyone thought Lucifer was just a run-of-the-mill psycho killing people at night, she was the one who suspected him to be a big threat. She put together the operation that led to the destruction of his base and almost caught him. Instead of her getting praises and the rewards she deserved for the work she did, Noah ended up leading the team. Moreover, the Alpha Guardian was talking about making Noah a Guardian Captain instead of her. She was fourteen years old when she started to work for the Guardian Guild. What she couldn''t get in fourteen years, Noah got that within a year.
It was not fair, she thought.
"If we interfere, he might destroy the antidote. This is between him and the king"
"But Peyton"
"I said this is between him and the king" her voice sounded colder as Xanali quickly closed her mouth.
On the other hand, ire and the elders were speechless. ire wanted to stop Michael, ask him to give the princess the vial first, and then, negotiate with the king. ire wasn''t as hypocritical as the others. She very well knew the princess had no right to beret Ghost like she did. In the future, if he needed that antidote, he wouldn''t have one. There was no need for him to give that vial for free. However, ire pitied the King and Andrew. She wanted Ghost to first save the princess and then negotiate with the King.
But she was also not as naive as she used to be. Her mind told her that if Ghost gave the king the antidote, there was no way the king would give him everything he asked. The king could even arrest him for negotiating with him.
"She''s dying" Elder Sandra tried to stand up but was stopped by Elder Reiner,
"Did you all forget that the princess tried to kill Ghost? If he was one second slow, it would be him lying on the stage" Elder Reiner said with his usual bright smile on his face.
"Elder Reiner, we teach our disciples humanity, kindness, and forgiveness. What he''s doing is against everything we stand for" ire was in a conundrum hearing the conversation between Sandra and Reiner.
Both of them seemed to be in the right.
"Look at the king, he''s not the king of Bredia anymore, he''s just a desperate father. We should help him" Elder Sandra said,
"Elder Sandra" Elder Reiner yet again stopped her by holding her wrists,
"Do you remember the times we went to meet King Bredia asking for a loan?" Elder Reiner''s question brought back some bad memories. ire especially gritted her teeth. The Elders lost pity for the king after what Elder Reiner asked them.
"Let me refresh your memories, the king of Bredia, his majesty asked ire to be his concubine. Do you want me to spill out what he really wanted?"
The smile on Reiner''s face disappeared. For the first time in their life, some of the disciples saw Elder Reiner looking cold. He was always a warm, kind and witty person.
"And do you want me to remind the times the king ordered us to amodate a part of the Bredian army who harrassed our female disples and raped some of them?" Elder Reiner''s words got colder and colder,
"He didn''t give a damn about those girls. Those girls were traumatized for their life. Fifty gold coins, that''s what the king gave them. Kindness, humanity, and forgiveness is for only those who deserve it Elder Sandra"
Elder Sandra was out of words for a few moments,
"We can''t let the princess suffer for what her father did, she''s innocent. She tried to kill Ghost because of love"
Meanwhile, Michael was looking at the king''s trembling. Each second passed by, the king''s worry overshadowed his anger.
"A kingdom obviously can''t survive without financial and military power.? After all, your majesty won''t feel good if someone else took away something you generously offered" Michael paused for a second, looked at the people staring at him with wide-opened mouths, and continued,
"I won''t ask for much but one-third of the Bredian army and financial support for a full year until we get back on our feet " The king almost spurted out blood hearing his outrageous requests.
Financial support he could provide as Bredia was a preposterous kingdom. However, giving up one-third of the army would weaken the military power.
"I also want a peace treaty with your majesty. We can''t have some stupidly loyal general wage war against my kingdom, can we?" Some of the people of Bradford were worried about his request. They were worried that they would be led to poverty under the rule of a cruel ruthless person like him.
However, the people of River town were incredibly joyful and excited. They knew their life was much better after Ghost joined the Sunrise Sect. He wasn''t even a ruler of the town yet he did so many things that the king never bothered to.
"I won''t ask for anything else except for a little tour around your majesty''s treasury. Since I''m giving such a valuable item, I''m sure your majesty would want me to take something else in return"
"Her condition is worsening," Lah said, looking at Katherine''s body twitching violently.
"Ghost please¡I beg you¡give me the antidote" Andrew pleased,
"I will, I''m just waiting for his majesty to agree to everything I asked"
"I will, give me the antidote!" King Bredia yelled but Michael shook his head,
"I want the official documents with your sign your majesty"
"You bastard!" the king couldn''t keep his anger contained,
"Rx your majesty. What if you throw me in jail after getting the antidote. It''s better we go with official documents, am I right Calvin?" Michael turned to look at Calvin nod,
"Of course, documents are better than just words of agreement"
Meanwhile, Katherine''s were violently twitching as purplish blood oozed out of her pores. The purplish blood painted her body purple.
"Ghost it will take time to draft documents, can''t you just take his majesty''s words?" Ethan asked, trying to convince Ghost. He didn''t want his son to make an enemy out of the king. Although he still couldn''t believe how cruel and ruthless his son is, he didn''t want Ghost to be an enemy of an entire kingdom.
"Calvin" Michael turned his gaze away from Ethan to Calvin,
"How long will it take to draft the official documents for his majesty to sign?"
"If you desire, I can draft the documents in fifteen minutes"
"Of course" Michael snickered inside. Earlier when he signed the parchments rted to the Guild Leader position, Calvin did not bring with filled parchment but just wrote the uses in front of him. Thus, Michael knew vin coulde up with documents before Katherine died.
"King Bredia, shall I start preparing the documents?" Calvin asked. His inner corners of the eyebrows were angled up. He was really good at pretending to be sad.
"No¡ I¡can''t" the king mumbled under his breath. What Ghost asked was not something he could give up so easily. The nobles and the people would definitely cause a massive headache if he agreed to Ghost. It might even throw the kingdom into chaos.
At first, he wanted to say okay, get the antidote, save his daughter ande up with something to prison Ghost. That way he could have said he won''t negotiate with a criminal. However, if he signed official documents in front of thousands of people, Ghost would be a ruler of another kingdom. King Bredia had no power over another ruler. Plus, if he signed the documents, Ghost would get one-third of the Bredian army. Coupled with the Kane family''s support, Ghost would be untouchable. Even if he waged war against Ghost, Bredia would still lose their remaining troops. It would result in weaker Bredia.
"Lady Alden, how long can you hold off the poison?"
Lah didn''t even want to look at his face, still he answered him for the sake of Andrew and the princess.
"Twenty minutes" King Bredia''s heart was pounding against his chest. He started to sweat as he shivered,
"Oooh, cutting it close. Tik tok your majesty¡tik¡tok"
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Pleasement, send power stones.
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Chapter 372 - Becoming A King II
"You¡cruel bastard," the King growled. He felt utterly helpless. He wanted to rip the antidote out of his hands and hang him right in this instance.
"Kathy was right, you are a monster"
After everything that happened, the King had realized why Katherine chose to take her own life instead of marrying Ghost. Although King Bredia never wanted to marry Katherine to anyone except a warrior, he would rather marry Katherine to someone like Andrew than Ghost. The King could see the love, care, and grief in Andrew''s eyes. It was pure love.
The King med himself for not asking Katherine who she wants to marry. It was his anger and stubbornness that made his daughter drink poison.
The smile that lingered on Ghost''s face suddenly disappeared. He knelt on one knee before the king.
"Your majesty, do you think I don''t know what you asked in return for a loan my elders asked a year ago?" His voice suddenly sounded colder,
"You tried to use their desperation to take Sect Leader ire as your concubine. And we both know what''s concubine really means to a person like you"
Except for the elders of the Sunrise sect and a few nobles who were very close to the king, no one knew about the king''s request. It was Jack who told Michael about the request. At that time, Michael didn''t know he would meet the king in person and negotiate with him over the princess''s dying body. Since ire was an exceptional beauty, Michael knew it was natural for people like the king to court her. However, when the king tried to act innocent and called him a monster, he decided to let everyone know the king''s actual innocence.
The king was speechless. Something made the king shiver inside looking at Ghost''s eyes. He felt like a beast looking directly into his soul, waiting to devour him alive. The King felt so weak before him.
"And should I remind you of the time you offered 50 fucking gold coins as a remuneration for the girls who were raped by your soldiers who stayed at the sect due to your order?" Michael patted the king on the back before standing up,
"If you care about them so much, you should have found a way to punish him but you''re punishing an innocent girl" Emelda raised her voice before Andrews.
"Innocent? Hahahaha" Suddenly to all of their surprise, Michael burst intoughter,
"It was the princess who decided the price of 50 gold coins. 50 gold coins, not for each, but to all 8 girls. They were supposed to share the coins among themselves, based on what? who was raped worse? What the actual fuck?" Manymoners gasped in shock. Those who felt pity for the princess and hated Ghost now seemed to see the princess in a new light.
"The princess decided a girl''s innocence was with seven or eight gold coins. No one is innocent in this world. Everyone is a viin in someone''s eyes"
"But¡but" Andrew mumbled,
"What? If the roles were reversed and the king had the antidote, do any of you think he would have offered it to me for free?" He looked around the arena to see no one nodding,
"So why should I?"
"Ghost" Right at the moment, Calvin brought the documents. He handed over the parchments to Michael. Finally, Michael took away his gaze from the king to the contents of the parchments. He read the entire 10 page document in a minute,
"I don''t have to prove anything to anyone here. It''s your majesty who has to prove your love. You can either sign this and save your daughter or watch her slowly die in your arms. The choice is yours" Michael threw the parchments towards the king.
"I assume you have ten minutes to decide, your majesty"
"Sign the damn thing! Andrew took the parchment from the ground before throwing it on the king''s face.
The king''s hands shivered. On one hand, he had his flying daughter, on the other hand, he had something that would divide his kingdom and probably throw the kingdom in chaos.
"Your majesty, this is no time for thinking. Please, sign them and save your daughter" Ethan said,
With his shivering hand, the king finally signed the document. His heart was pounding against his chest. Ricky was feeling goosebumps along with the other disciples. It seemed like only yesterday he saw a full ck clothes youngster at the gates of River town. Now the youngster was about to be a king of his own kingdom. He wished Daniel was here to witness this historic moment.
"HAIL YOUR MAJESTY GHOST!" Ricky couldn''t hold back as he shouted as loud as he could.
"HAIL YOUR MAJESTY GHOST!"
"HAIL YOUR MAJESTY GHOST!"
"HAIL YOUR MAJESTY GHOST!"
"HAIL YOUR MAJESTY GHOST!"
"HAIL YOUR MAJESTY GHOST!"
Gradually one by one the people of River town and the Sunrise sect disciples roared in unison.
Ignoring the shouts, Michael reached his hand out as the parchments flew straight into his hands. He checked the documents for a few moments before nodding with a smile.
"Keep the end of your bargain" Lah reached out her hand
"Of course" Michael threw the antidote to Lah.
"Kid, you became a king" Ashton was still in shock. He never expected the tournament would turn out to be like this. He rejected the princess to gain a kingdom of his own. Moreover, he had also gained one-third of the Bredian army tomand.
"King Ghost¡it does have a nice ring to it"
While vin, Ghost, and Ashton were busy discussing the future, Lah gently poured the antidote into Katherine''s mouth. The moment the antidote touched Katherine''s lips, her body jerked. Soon, her body gradually started to lose the purplish color as her skin slowly turned rosy again.
"Kathy!" The tears of joy poured out of both Andrew''s and the king''s eyes.
Everyone was looking at the Princess, waiting for her to open her eyes. Only Diana looked at her son, Ghost. Most people including her own sister were thinking of him as evil but they failed to understand that if it wasn''t for her son, the Princess would have died. He saved her.
"Katherine" Andrew saw Katherine slowly open her eyes. She looked at Andrew and then the worried face of her father.
"Father"
"You brat!" King Bredia embraced so tightly and close to his chest.
Andrew couldn''t wait to hug her, tell her how much he loves him and how much she just hurt him by trying to take her own life.
Their union of love continued for a couple of minutes before Katherine saw Ghost reading a long parchment seriously without even taking a look at her.
Slowly she started to wonder how they managed to save her. She was told it was nearly impossible for someone to save her after drinking the five-headed serpent''s venom.
Lah stood up as Andrew thanked her holding her hand. Sabrina quickly came to stand by Lah''s side. The Winstons surrounded her. Lah couldn''t just chase them away. As a person who trained to fight evil, Lah developed a seventh sense that indicates her most evil being. Aside from evil beings, she could all sense darkness in someone''s heart. When she first met Ghost, she sensed the darkness in his heart. However, she ignored it as everyone in the world had darkness in their hearts. Weirdly except Noah. She didn''t find any darkness in his heart.
In the corner of her eyes, she noticed Diana Winston staring at her. Surprisingly Lah felt a chill.
"You!" Katherine gritted her teeth,
"It''s okay Katherine, everything''s fine" Andrew patted her shoulder. The King didn''t mind Andrew. He had already decided to marry Katherine to the man she truly loves; Andrew.
"Heya princess" Like nothing happened, Ghost smiled at Katherine.
Katherine saw he was brimming in joy. His face was bright as someone lit a candle inside his head. The Royal guards as well as her father stared at Ghost with their bodies shivering. Deep inside her father''s eyes, she saw immense worry and anger.
She could tell that something big had happened while she was unconscious.
"Father¡what happened?"
"Ghosty" everyone heard a childish voice as they saw the dragonnd on Ghost''s shoulder. It was not as big as before but shrunk its body to the size of a grown eagle.
ire sent off little Cindy to her mother before the final. ire didn''t want Cindy to see Ghost ruthlessly beat the hell out of Andrew. The little girl had seen enough blood and gore for her age, ire thought.
Following Nightmare, the Elders and ire came flying towards Michael. Since they all reached the Core Formation stage, they could fly without the help of flying swords. Except for Elder Reiner who had a wide grin on his face, the others looked stunned. Michael could see the reluctance in their eyes.
"Master Ghost"? Ricky came to his side on a flying sword andnded beside him.
"Oh forgive me" He quickly knelt on one knee,
"Your majesty"
Ashton chuckled lightly before patting Ghost on the shoulder,
"You have a lot to deal with. Bute by the manor in three days, we will hold a g celebrating the marriage. You muste"
"Of course, Lord Ashton" Lord Ashton immediately took off, disappearing into the skies. Soon, Calvin also left the stage before further mingling himself with the king''s problem. Although Calvin wasn''t afraid of King Bredia, he was afraid of Lah Alden. In Lah''s eyes, he saw a glimmer of anger towards Ghost before, when she looked at him. Calvin didn''t want to get onto her bad side by being too friendly with Ghost.
"We need to talk" Just as Michael was about to talk to ire and the Elders, he heard Lah''s voice.? All the eyes on the battle stage and the arena turned back to look at Lah and Ghost.
Some guessed Ghost just made Lah mad enough to get his ass kicked.
"Can we talkter? I am kinda busy here"
Many gasped in shock. They couldn''t believe he was actually ignoring a country toppling beauty. Most of all the men in Elon would die to just have a short conversation with her yet Ghost shrugged her off.
Lah however didn''t say anything more but came to his side. She grabbed his elbow. In a blink of an eye, she took off into the sky with Ghost.
Nightmare couldn''t even understand how hended on the ground. She was too fast.
"What just happened?"
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 373 - Being A Father
The breezes climbed the mountain slopes until the air became cool enough to condense its vapor to drizzle. On the mountain top, the rocky peak, everything beneath seemed so small yet beautiful. Michael and Lahnded on this lonely mountain peak. Along with thunderps, the streams of lightning on the horizon indicated theing heavy rain.
Lah stood on the edge of the mountain peak, looking at the distant horizon. Michael remained silent, expecting Lah to speak whatever was in her mind. As though she was battling a war inside her, she opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and closed her mouth again.
"I assume you don''t bring me here for sightseeing," said Michael,
"I need to tell you something"
"No shit" Michael took several steps forward to join Lah on the edge of the mountain peak.
Lah turned her head sideways to see his calm face. She just stared at his face for a couple of minutes before finally letting out a heavy breath,
"I am pregnant with a spirit child of yours" Michael almost fell down from the mountain top. His calm face immediately took a one-eighty turn. His heart started to pound against his chest as he slowly remembered what happened inside the Treacherous ocean.
"System" Michael growled in his mind,
[What? The system informed you that there is a chance of a spirit child forming inside her. The system made sure the spirit child won''t inherit any of your characteristics and talents]
"The child will see the world in a few weeks"? For the first time in a long long time, Michael''s mind went nk. Since the system told him there''s only a tiny chance of a spirit child to form inside her, he subconsciously hoped there won''t be a spirit child. Not at this moment, but he never wanted to be a father ever.
Every time Gaya talked about having children, he always changed the topic or ignored her. Thest thing he wanted was to have a kid and raise that kid in this fucked up world. Nheless, fate yed another game in his life.
"Lah¡that''s¡"
"What happened between us was my fault" while Michael stuttered, Lah opened her mouth.
"I know how hard it is to grow up without a father in this world" she turned her gaze back at the distant horizon,
"The fate and my fault together forced you to be the father of my child. I want to give my child a family, Ghost. I really do" For the first time, Michael saw Lah''s eyes tearing up in sadness. Even after he spirit walked her, she was furious but not sad, at least he didn''t see her sad.
"But you can''t be my child''s father Ghost. Not after everything I''ve seen. I would rather rise my child alone than letting the child inherit the darkness inside you"
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Michael lost his cool when he heard Lah. Although he was not perfect father material, he couldn''t keep his mouth shut when he heard her talk about darkness.
"You people are talking like I''m the only bad guy in this world. You think Andrew is a saint because he is in love with the princess and was prepared to die for her '''' His anger towards the people''s hypocrisy overshadowed his worry about the spirit child.
"Andrew killed a guy who never showed any intention to kill him with your help. So ording to you, Is it okay to kill a guy for love?" Lah sensed a murderous aura radiating from him. He was sick and tired of people judging him and branding him as the big viin. The so called Guardians had done worse things than him. If someone ranked the evil in this world, he would certainly be not first except everyone thinks he''s on the top spot. He almost mixed up his Lucifer persona with Ghost when he talked.
"No one is an innocent Ghost. I''m not naive to believe otherwise. But there''s something inside you, growing stronger every day. I''m not afraid of you, I''m afraid of that darkness inside you" Michael clenched his fist. Perhaps, it was coincident, or perhaps, it was influenced by Michael, the sky suddenly turned darker.
"When you lose to the darkness within you and you will if you continue your path, I don''t want my child to be enveloped by the same darkness surrounds you"
After these words escaped her mouth, silence enveloped the mountain top. Except for the ps of thunder, no sound could be heard in the area.
With loud booming sounds of thunder, the heavy downpour made its appearance like a sudden guest. The downpour was so heavy that each drop was asrge as a cartoon tear and they fell like gravity had been turned up a notch. In a few blinks of an eye, the two of them werepletely drenched in rain.
As though the rain had washed off the burning anger inside him, Michael sighed.
"My so-called darkness won''t harm your child Lah" Lah saw a smile dosed with gloom on his face.
"You know I never wanted to have kids of my own. Even with Aelia" He looked at the distant horizon.
"I was abandoned by my parents. Thest thing I want to do is to do the same to my kids. But you are right, the spirit child will be better off without me. I never considered that maybe my parents too abandoned me because they thought I am better off without them" The thunderps reverberated the mountain top as though they were agreeing with Michael,
"I know even you don''t understand but if your child asked about its father and why he abandoned him, tell the child I had no choice and I did it for its own good. It is the truth" Michael was almost certain that his enemies would find a way to use the child against him. He was trained to take out any potential enemies before they could be a threat to him. He always abided by this rule. Still, even when he knew the child would be turned against him by his enemies, he decided to let the child be. The child was innocent and pure.
He knew how painful it is for a child to grow without a family to feel belonged to, without a mother to love, without a father to guide and protect. Michael had already punished this child by deciding to leave the child instead of being a father to it. He couldn''t get himself to hurt the child anymore despite he knew the child might be a threat to him in the future,
"However, remember this Lah" He turned back his gaze from the distant horizon to Lah.
"Protect your child"
Lah was threatened by the sound of his grave voice,
"Protect from who?"
"Me"
Another thunderp boomed just after he said,
"Do not let your child be used against me. My enemies will stop at nothing and so do i" Michael warned. Although he decided to spare the child, if the child tried to kill him in the future, Michael would end the child''s life in a blink of an eye. Even if he didn''t, Gaya definitely would.
"Ghost, for the sake of our child, why can''t you just leave everything behind you ande with me?"
Although she already decided not to let Ghost be a part of the child''s life, after hearing him, she tried to change him onest time, for the sake of their child.
The tears drops mixed with water droplets rolled down on her rosy cheeks,
"I can''t Lah, even if I wanted to, I just can''t. Like you said, I''ll do more harm than good to the child if I''m around" while tears rushed out of her eyes without her control, she saw him walking towards her.? He lifted her palm? before cing a rather normal looking chain with a coin sized sun attached to it in her hand.
"Maybe if I didn''t meet Aelia and fall in love with her, we might have ended up different instead of being like this" Lah saw a smile that hid the sorrow in his heart.
He picked up the chain as she put it around her neck. She wanted to stop yet she simply couldn''t.
"The child is lucky to have you as its mother Lah" every single fiber in her body wanted to embrace him despite how he made her feel before. All the anger, fury, and everything faded away from her heart in an instance.
But before her heart could overpower her mind to make her embrace him, he took several steps back from her.
Both of them looked into each other''s eyes in silence for a couple of minutes. Then, Lah said,
"I want something else from you, Ghost. This will be thest thing I would ask from you" Her voice was shaking in a mix of emotions.
"Ask"
"I need your blood to give the child a physical body. That-"
Her words were interrupted when she saw him unsheathe his sword from his back. Without uttering a single word, he cut his palm with his razor-sharp sword. The thick dark blood oozed out of therge cut. A vial immediately appeared in his hand as the blood drizzled into the vial, rapidly filling it with his blood.
The vial slowly floated towards her as he turned back. The blood was still gushing out from his hand
"Spoiled milk is still white Lah. Everything you see and believe is not always right. Raise your child showing it how this world really works Lah" He looked over his shoulder to give her onest look,
"Good-Bye Lah"
As a strange emptiness and sorrow were filling up her heart, she looked at Ghost disappear into the dark clouds.
******************************
Hi my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2. I have no other means of ie so Im totally depending on my books.
And I have noticed many readers are willing to support and donate through other tforms.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 374 - King Of Bradford I
The barony of Bradford was built amidst the flora of a mighty jungle and was truly a ssic phenomenon. Its appearance was matched by the backdrop of grand forests which have helped shape the barony to what it is today. The trade resources these forests brought were of great importance, but they were also influential when it came to architectural designs as the vast majority of buildings have been built with many natural elements to keep in line with the forests.
The skyline was riddled with either elegant two-story or majestic three-story buildings. Life was great in Bradford, it had attracted a lot of attention. A few new cultures had left their mark not just on trade and rtions, but also upon the barony''s identity.
Bradford barony contained two towns; Bradford and River town. The two towns were separated by lush vast forest and Hinling River. The main road connecting the two towns was well maintained and paved with white stone. Thus, the road was called Pearl Road. Red maple trees stood on either side of the pear road as though they were the guards of the road.
At the moment, a heavy downpour was watering the maple trees as the trees kept waving in the wind. Except for two carriages pulled by pegasi, nothing could be seen on the road.
In one of the carriages was the first king of Kingdom Bradford. Unlike other kings, this king traveled with neither a battalion of soldiers nor a group of royal guards.
"It''s beautiful"? Michael pulled the curtain aside to see the dancing red maple trees. Thest time he visited Bradford, he flew above the trees. Hence, he failed to see their magnificence.
"So Ricky, what do you know about Bradford?" Michael''s question brought Ricky back to reality. He never thought he would be a right-hand man to a king. From a lowly gate guard to the right-hand man of a king, he couldn''t believe the turn his life took ever since he met Ghost.
"Well your majesty, the barony¡shit" Ricky pped himself in the back of his head,
"Kingdom of Bradford has two towns, Bradford and River town. Though they call River town a town, the town was in decline along with the Sun Rise sect until you joined the sect. However, Bradford town prospered under the rule of Baron Totonk. Sigh¡"
Michael heard Ricky let out a heavy sigh,
"What?"
"Your majesty, it''s that I feel pity for Baron Totonk"
"Is that so?" Michael asked, gently brushing the head of sleeping Nightmare on hisp,
"Rumor has it that ever since Lucifer killed and hanged Miss Jane''s body atop the manor, the baron has lost his connection with reality. People say he has gone mad"
"What do people say about Lucifer?" Michael asked as he had no idea about Lucifer.
The name Lucifer made Ricky shiver. Unlike some cultists secretly worshiping Lucifer as their god, Ricky never wanted to meet Lucifer.
The sight of Jane''s horribly mutted body gave him a nightmare. Ricky had seen his fair shares of murders and deaths but what Lucifer did to Jane was something else. Ricky doesn''t me Baron Totonk for going crazy as any father who loves their daughter would go mad in his shoes.
"Ricky" Michael called him again as Ricky came back to reality,
"Some people say he''s the devil and wanted the church and guardians to catch him so they could sleep at night again. Rumors have some people are worshiping Lucifer as their god in secret"
"Hehehe" Ricky heard Ghost chuckle from inside,
"Your majesty?" Ricky failed to what could possibly be funny about what he just said for Ghost to chuckle,
"If you know they worship Lucifer, they are not doing a good job in keeping secrets, are they? If it is true and you know it, the church and guardians know it too. There will be no surprise if both of them hunted these worshippers down"
Michael could use these worshippers to strengthen the Order of Death again. However, it was too early to recruit civilians. Next time he streams himself, he might ask for people to stop worshiping him just for their sake. If they continue to worship and end up being hunted by the guardians or the church, they should me themselves.
"Your majesty, when will the army reach Bradford?"
"In a week ording to the King Bredia"
"Your majesty, can I ask you something?" Michael sensed a sliver of reluctance in Ricky''s voice,
"Sure"
"Were you going to really let the princess die? I mean, if his majesty did not give what you wanted, what would you have done?"
"The king was lucky I didn''t kill that bitch then and there when she tried to kill me" Michael''s words stunned Ricky.
"Stupid bitch and that stupid asshole Ricky came with the most idiotic n"
"Good thing you didn''t kill either of them, your majesty. Killing the princess would have turned Bredia against you while killing young master Andrews would have made Winstons your enemies. You know, the Winstons were nothing but good to the sect"
"That''s the reason Andrew is still alive. But after everything that happened, I doubt Andrew would be grateful to me for letting him live" Michael leaned on the seat, resting his head on his fist.
"He should be Your majesty. Although the final ended up without a winner, everyone knew you would have won if it wasn''t for the princess''s interference"
"I''m thankful to that bitch though. If it wasnt for her stupid act, I wouldnt have gotten a kingdom"
Michael''s cold chuckle sent a chill running through Ricky''s spine.
"Let''s talk about you, how is your cultivation going? What stage are you on right now?" Michael could see Ricky''s cultivation stage. Still, he asked to see if Ricky lied to him or not. He was thinking about giving Ricky and Daniel some important roles in his kingdom but before deciding anything, he wanted to make sure they are absolutely loyal. Since he has the system, it was easy to determine their loyalty, he just needed to make them their subordinates.
At this level of the system, he could have a maximum of eleven subordinates. He already had Gaya, Raylene, Sadie Kan, Aria, Maxine, Azazel and Tiberius. After the tournament, he had more than enough points topletely heal Aria''s two brothers. With them, he would have nine subordinates. Michael was thinking of making Ricky and Daniel the remaining two subordinates. Although Ricky and Daniel were not as strong as most of his subordinates, they were loyal to the core and hardworking.
From this point onwards, loyalty wasn''t the only thing that mattered to Michael. He needed powerful subordinates who could fight his battles for him. In simple words, he wanted to be the final boss.
"Body Refining Stage level 10 Your Majesty. I feel like I can reach the Body Strengthening stage in a few months" Michael was d to see Ricky telling him the truth.
"What about Daniel?"
"Sigh" Ricky sighed again,
"Poor guy is stuck at Body Refining stage level 8 your majesty"
"Hmm" It was obvious to Michael Ricky and Daniel has no talent for cultivation at all. He had given them hundreds of thousands of gold coins worth the pills and potion still, they were stuck at the Body Refining stage.
If it wasn''t for the pills and potions, there was no doubt they wouldn''t have reached the Body Refining stage.
"After we settle things in Bradford,e see me with Daniel. You two are too weak. We need to fix that"
Ricky felt goosebumps all over.? Everyone in the world loved power and Ricky was not an exception. If anyone could turn Ricky and Daniel into geniuses, it was Ghost.
As the rain showered them from heaven, they made their way to Bradford town where the Baron''s manor was located. The people who didn''t attend the tournament had no idea that their barony had be a kingdom of its own and their new king is Ghost of River town.
Through the window, Michael saw the city wall in the distance. Nightmare curled on hisp, sleeping peacefully. Ricky saw a bunch of archers standing atop the city walls. Regardless of the heavy rain, they were patrolling on the wall''s top. In front of the main gate of the city, a couple of armored guards remained outside.
Since the carriages had the g of Sunrise sect on top, the armored guards didn''t dare try to be arrogant as they waited for Ricky to slow down the carriage.
"Open the gates" Ricky''s voice and demeanor were not of a meek kid anymore. He sounded as though he was ordering the armored guards to open the gates.
The armored guards wore helmets covering their faces. Thus, Ricky couldn''t see the annoyed expression that appeared on their faces.
Michael was waiting patiently for Ricky to deal with the guards. He didn''t mind how Ricky sounded. As far as he was concerned, his subordinates should not be spineless cowards.
"The Baron has ordered us not to let anyone inside or outside," one of the five armored guards said in a grumpy voice.
"Why?" Ricky frowned.
"The Guardians and the Baron are conducting an investigation. It''s our order not to let anyone in or out. Unless Baron gives us an order to let you guys in, we can''t do anything"? Another guard spoke but he wasn''t as grumpy as the guard who talked just a moment ago.
"Do you know who is inside the carriage?" Ricky had the courage to talk to the armored guards with his chest up because of Ghost. He was not the gate guard Ricky anymore, he was the right-hand man of the king himself. Soon these guards would bow their heads to him.
"Who?"
The grumpy guard couldn''t take anymore of Ricky''s arrogant attitude.
"Your King"
******************************
Hi my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2. I have no other means of ie so I''m totally dependent on my books.
And I have noticed many readers are willing to support and donate through other tforms.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 375 - King Of Bradford II
The armored guards as well as the archers who heard Ricky were stunned. They were speechless for a couple of moments. They lived long enough to know that the King of Bredia wouldn''te without royal guards and several carriages in front and back. Besides, they received no information about the kinging to Bradford.? Thest time they heard, the king was going to the tournament.
"Here, show this to them" through the gap between Ricky and him, Michael sent the parchment containing King Bredia''s seal to Ricky. Michael didn''t want to cause any e by beating the crap out of the gate guards. After all, they were just doing their jobs.
Although Michael knew they were just doing their job, he felt the urge to beat them when they were standing in his way. He could feel something is changing inside him. It was a feeling that couldn''t be described. Even Spectre and the hitmen of the dark underworld massacred the orphanage Michael loved, Michael didnt torture them. He just killed every single one of them, including the girl he loved who did not inform him about Spectre''s n.
Never before he experienced the urge to torture except when he met Calvin. He wanted to torture everyone who betrayed Abras, he wanted to cause chaos. He asked the system about his new feelings but the system had no answers. Yet, Michael could feel something different about him.
The guards saw the young man taking a parchment from whoever was inside the carriage. Since the tournament winner celebration was meant to be held tomorrow, they never thought Ghost or any participants woulde to Bradford. As far as they were concerned, the two carriages that have the g of the Sunrise sect were upied by the guests of the sect.
Ricky jumped down from the carriage while keeping the parchment under his fur coat to prevent the rain from drenching it.
"Who knows how to read?" Ricky asked as the guards looked at each other. Finally, an archer from the wall slid down from thedder toe to them.
Among the twelve guards in the vicinity, only one seemed to know how to read. Ricky wasn''t surprised though. It was not a requirement for a soldier to know how to read or write. Education was for the nobles and the rich. If it wasn''t for Ghost''s strict order to learn how to read or write, Ricky would have been just like them, illiterate.
"Here," Ricky handed over the parchment to the archer.? The armored guards were staring at the archer and the parchment in his hand. They might be illiterate but they could tell the parchment definitely came from a royal or noble seeing the quality of the parchment.
The archer opened the parchment carefully to read the content. There weren''t even minutes passed by when the archer''s hands shivered as his eyes wide opened as though they were about to pop out from their sockets.
"What is it?" the other guards asked,
Instead of answering, the archer swallowed a mouth full of saliva,
"Bradford¡Bradford has be a kingdom" The archer''s voice trembled,
"And¡and¡" the archer stuttered,
"What?" the other armored guards asked the archer after a few moments of silence. Only the sound of heavy downpour filled the area. The soldiers couldn''t believe the archer. Ricky couldn''t see the expressions on their faces but he could guess they werepletely stunned using the silence.
"Our¡new¡king" the archer kept stammering. All the soldiers had to wait for the archer to utter the name of their new king,
"Is Ghost of River town" as though the skies were waiting for the archer to utter these words, the moment he said the name, the thunderps reverberated through the city.
"What you are holding is the king''s decree and I''m one of your new king''s hands. My first order to is open the damn gates for your king, his majesty Ghost"
The armored guards looked at each other.
"Open the gates," the archer said. His look on Rickypletely changed. Each soldier had several questions running in their mind. The soldiers slowly opened the giant wooden gates to reveal the town of Bradford.
With a swift jump, Rickynded back on the carriage. After spending time as Ghost''s subordinate, Ricky picked some of Ghost''s attitudes. He even started to wear full ck clothes like Ghost.
As the carriage slowly moved forward, Michael looked at the town through the window. The streets were empty as Michael saw not a single soul on the roads. However, he could see the eyes looking at the carriage from inside the building.
When Michael looked at the sky above the town, he noticed several figures inplete golden armor flying away from the town.
"Holy Guards'' '' Michael mumbled under his breath. Although the church had not intervened in his life as much as the guardians, they were still a threat. He had been trying to establish a connection with the church to see if he could make them his ally. If they were his ally, he could spy on them, learn valuable information and turn them against the guardians.
The others including Ricky thought Michael had forgotten Jack since he doesn''t talk about Jack or his death. In truth, Michael had never even visited Jack''s grave, not even once. Gaya took care of Jack''s family. They were millionaires now as Gaya gave a million gold coins to their family as well as promised to take care of them and their bloodline. The Guardians would pay for Jack''s death. Everyone involved in Jack''s death would pay the price with their lives.
"It seems like the baron and the guardians ordered a lockdown, your majesty. But why are there no guards on the streets?" Ricky asked while looking around the town.
Like most of the towns or cities in this world, Bradford was also divided into three parts. Commoners lived in the outer part of the town. This part also contained shops such as smithy, bakery, and misceneous stores.
The middle part of the town had lesser nobles who were either declined noble families or branch families of main nobles families and rich merchants.
If one wanted to find a jewelry store or a bank, they should look for them in the middle part.
Only the ruler, royal family, and prominent noble families lived in the center. It was the richest part of any town or city. Although the difference between the town parts was not as drastic as? Royalnd or the capital of Bredia, Michael could see the buildings look majestic as they moved towards the center.
Thest time he visited Bradford, he wanted to open up a shop in Bradford. Unfortunately, Jane Totonk met him in the alchemy store in the middle part of the city. If she hadn''t met him that day, she would have been alive.
As the pegasi galloped towards the center, Michael vaguely saw what might be the baron''s manor in the distance through the window. There were several guards in full te armor patrolling the surrounding area. The structure, as well as the atmosphere of the manor, reminded Michael of Ham House in Ennd. He wondered how this world has so many simrities with earth.
*************************************
Inside the Baron''s manor, Baron Totonky on his throne with arge ale bottle in his hand. There were several ale bottles lying around him. The walls of the throne hall were void of any paintings but there were signs of paintings hung on the wall before. Only a group of fluffy armored soldiers as well as an old man with a long gray beard remained by the baron''s side. The old man had a wooden staff that had an orb of fire hovering atop.
"Lord Totonk, what should we do with them?" the old man asked, looking at the three figures kneeling in the hall. All three figures had their hands tied and heads covered with brown sacks. The brown sacks were soaked in blood.
"Our spies informed that their families have contacted the guardians and they are bringing them here"
"Did they tell you something?" Baron Totonk asked in a grumpy voice. His eyes were bloodshot. He reeked of alcohol and piss. The noble looking baron Totonk they served was nowhere to be found.? After Jane''s death, the baron had be a new man.
"Unfortunately no my lord. They seemed to know nothing about Miss Jane''s demise"
"Humph, demise? It was a fucking murder"
The baron snickered before smashing the ale bottle on the throne.
"I dont care if I have to burn this entire fucking barony to find who killed her"
Baron Totonk clumsily walked towards the three nobles kneeling on the ground.
"Lucifer, gifer horse shit. It wasn''t the devil who killed her, it was someone in this fucking barony. I can feel him, he''s here somewhere"
"Lord Totonk" when he was about to fall down due to his drunk state, the old man tried to dash towards him to catch him,
"Im fine" The baron raised his hand, stopping the old man in his path.
"Unlike my baby" tears began to roll out of the baron''s eyes. Seeing a grown man cry like a baby made the soldiers feel a heaviness in their hearts. The baron may have gone crazy since Jane died but the soldiers never left the baron''s side. The baron was a good man. They never thought such tragedy would fall on him. Although Jane was a spoiled brat, she didn''t deserve such gruesome death. Even the seasoned warriors felt nauseous seeing her mutted body.
"Since these three doesn''t know anything" the baron stood a few inches away from the three nobles.
"They can go to hell" Baron immediately drew his dagger out as the nobles let out a muffled cry through the sack.
"STOP!" Just as the baron was about to send the dagger into the noble''s neck, the manor door opened to reveal a young man.
"Who the fuck let you in?" the baron asked as the soldiers moved towards the baron to put up a defensive formation.
"By the power of your new king, I''m ordering you to lower your weapon"
"Huh?" the soldiers and the old man was stunned after hearing the wordsing out of the young man''s mouth,
"Who are you young man?" the old man asked. He could see the courage in the young man''s eyes. He lived long enough to tell that this kind of courage was only possible if someone powerful was behind this young man.
"Im one of the hands of the king, His majesty Ghost"
******************************
Hi, my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2. I have no other means of ie so I''m totally dependent on my books.
And I have noticed many readers are willing to support and donate through other tforms.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 376 - Thirst For Blood And Chaos
Ricky''s words made Baron''s Totonk''s hangover disappear for a couple of moments. The soldiers and the old mage standing beside the baron''s throne had a ''what the hell is this kid talking about'' look on their faces.
"Ghost?" The name brought back the memories of Jane trying to convince him to arrest Ghost. The baron knew she spent thest of her days being mad at Ghost. He was the only one who messed with her and remained unscathed. At that time, his duty as a baron seemed more important than caring for Jane''s tantrum. After she died, Baron Totonk couldn''t care less about this barony and his baron status. In his drunkard state, his anger shifted from the nobles to Ghost.
The Baron either interrogated or killed everyone who had the motive and reason to kill Jane except one person; Ghost. Just like Ghost, Baron Totonk also knew Lord Information. ording to the elf, there were some ancient spells that could open a temporary portal connecting the outside world and the Nether realm during the seven days. The Baron couldn''t help thinking if Ghost used some means toe outside, kill his daughter, and return to the Nether Realm. It''d be a perfect crime as no one would believe someone coulde out of the Nether Realm before the opening of the portals.
Even if Ghost had nothing to do with Jane''s death, by punishing Ghost, he could give what Jane asked him. He thought of this as herst wish.
"His Majesty Ghost? Hahaha" The baron burst intoughter. Ricky saw hisughter turning eviler by the second.
When the rumors began that the baron had gone mad, Ricky didn''t believe it. However, seeing himugh like this, Ricky started to have second thoughts.
"What kind of booze you drank? Pfft, Ghost¡King"
The old mage realized something was going on here as he walked towards the baron.
"Here''s the king''s decree" Ricky was smart enough to realize that if he continued to talk to the baron, something bad could happen.
Ricky saw drunkards start fights for no reason during his time as a gate guard.
He quickly retrieved the parchment from his space ring and handed over the decree to the old man standing beside the baron as he looked calm andposed, unlike the baron.
The baron took a long gulp of booze while the old man was reading the parchment. Soon after the old man read the parchment for a couple of seconds, a glimmer of shock and surprise appeared in his old eyes. His hands even slightly shivered.
"My Lord" with his eyes wide open, the old mage turned his gaze towards the baron.
"My Lord" the old mage called again to take away the baron''s attention from the booze bottle in his hand.
Smack!
The baron smashed the booze bottle on the head of the noble prisoner before him. Ricky was stunned as he took a step back in fear. He looked over his shoulder, waiting for Ghost to walk into the hall. Ricky kinda started to regreting here alone. He would have waited outside if it wasn''t for Ghost and ire taking a stroll around the manor to get to know thendscape more as Ghost would live here after today.
"He''s telling the truth. This is not barony anymore, its kingdom of Bradford"
"What rubbish are you bbering? Give me that" the baron pulled the parchment from the old mage''s hands.
Despite the hangover, the baron could read the metallic ck letters on the golden parchment. Ricky and the old mage both saw the veins on the baron''s forehead popping out. They could hear the sound of baron''s teeth grinding against each other. His body trembled as they sensed a cold murderous aura filling the hall.
"So this is how they repay me and the Totonk legacy?" The baron said, crumbling the parchment.
"That bastard!" Ricky wondered if the baron was cursing the king or Ghost.
Either way, Ricky knew the baron would not leave peacefully, not with his current state.
"There is nothing we can do My lord."? Compared to Ricky, the old man had so much life experience. He could tell for sure that the situation is going to escte to another level. Although what King Bredia had done was ungrateful and borderline disrespectful, they could do nothing. After signing the parchment, even King Bredia had no power in Bradford anymore.
Bradford belonged to no one but Ghost himself as he is the king from today onwards.
"Oh I disagree Yenob. I can still do this!" as he said, the baron immediately dashed at Ricky. Unlike everyone in the room, Ricky was not very experienced in battle. His reflex and reaction time was way slower as Ricky didn''t even realize what just happened until he got lifted up by his neck.
Ricky felt the grab around his neck getting tightened. He started to struggle to breathe.
"My Lord" Yenob, the old mage tried to stop the baron but was stopped in his path by a death re came for the baron.
"Let him go, Baron" suddenly a melodic voice reverberated through the throne hall. Although Ricky sighed in relief, he wanted the baron to let him go so he could breathe.
The baron and everyone saw a girl with golden hair gracefully walking towards them. Her eyes contained a sliver of anger.
"Sect Leader ire" Yenob recognized the girl. It has been almost two years since Yenob has seen ire. She didn''t seem like the girl he saw two years ago.
"Let Ricky go before hees here, Baron" ire came to stand beside Ricky. She was more concerned about what would happen to the barren and his men if Ghost saw this rather than being mad at the baron for treating Ricky like this.
"You think I''m afraid of him?" The baron was obviously not thinking it clear due to his current state, ire knew that.
"Im telling you for your own sake Baron. If you aren''t afraid of him, you should be. Now let him go before this esctes any further"
"Did he kill my Jane?"
Still, the baron hadn''t let go of Ricky as Ricky''s face started to turn purple.
"No, what are you talking about? We all know who killed her"
Whoosh!
Chapter 377 - Third Persona I
The words that came out of Michael''s mouth sounded unearthly. It sent a chill running through ire''s spine. A wave of fear hit the core of the armored soldiers. Unconsciously they took a step back.
Michael was on the verge of going berserk on them. Every being in his body wanted to ughter them mercilessly.
"Did you hurt¡my Jane?" Baron Totonk grumbled.
"You know what?" Michael was tired of people using him with no evidence. Although he ordered Gaya to kill Jane, there was no evidence that tied the murder to him. He knew even if he hadn''t done anything to Jane, these people would have used him anyway.
Everyone stared at Michael''s face to see what he was going to tell,
He took a few steps forward as ire''s heartbeat continued to rise,
"I¡don''t¡give¡a" He breathed between every word. He was battling with himself to block the thrust for chaos.
"Argh" suddenly Michael growled in pain. He lowered his head as he ced Nightmare on the ground.
"Yaaawn" the little dragon slowly opened his eyes while yawning. ire and Ricky saw the side of his face while the baron and his men could only see the top of his head. They could vaguely hear him mumble something under his breath.
"Give what?" The baron asked, gritting his teeth. His grief and booze he drank made him lose all the reasons.
"Give a fuck about what happened to that bitch"? His words stunned the baron. It took the baron a couple of seconds to sink in what he just said. Michael''s voice became more animalistic, it was unearthly.
When the words finally reached the baron''s head, he stomped the ground in anger.
"Shit something''s wrong with Ghosty" Abruptly the door to the throne hall shut closed with a loud bang.
After the door shut closed, suddenly the curtains covering the windows also began violently fluttering in the wind. The wind was so powerful that it forced Nightmare and ire to step backward.
"Ghost" ire wasn''t worried about Ghost but worried about the soldiers and the baron. Regardless of the sudden darkness that enveloped the throne hall, she walked towards Ghost to calm him down.
"ire¡let''s go" As she walked closer to Ghost, she heard his words. The violent wind somewhat calmed down. Noticing he addressed ire with no title, she knew something was wrong. She wanted to take him away from the soldiers and the baron. His voice sounded normal rather than animalistic as before.
"Ricky, we are leaving" ire ignored the baron, ordering Ricky to leave the throne hall before Ghost did something that everyone would regretter. She even doubted they would be alive to regret their decision to mess with him.
"I''m gonna rip that tongue out bastard!" Baron Totonk trembled in anger before leaping into the air.
A gigantic war hammer ted silver materialized in the baron''s hands in the mid-air.
"Moon Wave" ire stomped the ground, turning back. She pointed her finger at the baron as a sparkling crescent-shaped wave shot out of her fingers. The de gradually became wider and bigger as they flew towards the baron.
Before the baron could react to the crescent de, the wave hit the baron and sent him flying backward as though he was a kite without an anchor in the storm. Except for the old mage Yenob, the soldiers didn''t see what just happened. ire''s movements were lightning fast.
"Back off!" ire stomped the ground once again as the ground split open. The cracks formed until they reached the feet of the soldiers.
Yenob was pleasantly surprised by ire. She seemed to be at the peak of Core Formation. The old man wanted the baron to ept their fate and move on but he saw the baron stand up with shelved hair, trembling in anger. A battle was inevitable, Yenob knew.
"What are you morons looking at? Kill them"
Nightmare pped his wing to appear before ire. He immediately transformed himself. The soldiers shivered seeing an 8ft dragon staring at them with puffs of smokeing out of its nostrils. Nightmare''s crimson scales began to glow in bright orange.
"Baron¡you really don''t want to do this. I can hang you for disrespecting your king"? ire nced at Michael to let them know who he is now to them. He was still showing his back to them.
"You¡ stupid idiots" Once again, Michael''s animalistic voice echoed through the throne hall.
"You wish for death so bad" the violent stormy wind returned. The howling sound of the win gave an ominous feeling.
"Ghost" ire tried to touch his shoulder as he finally looked up, showing his face.? When he turned around, ire''s heart skipped a beat. She felt a chill running through her spine. Unconsciously she stepped back and so did Ricky.
There was no white in his eyes anymore, except for his pupils, everything turned pitch ck. His pupils were fiery red, like a demon. Lightning bolts began to form around his arms as he walked towards Baron Totonk.
He may have be a king but the soldiers and Yenob''s instincts to protect their lord kicked in. Regardless of a dragon standing before them, they rushed towards the baron.
"Ghost Stop!" ire dashed at Michael when he was just a couple of meters away from the baron.
"Don''t!" ire heard his cold beastly voice before getting sted by an invisible force.
"Meri!" Nightmare shouted when ire was sent flying by Ghost. With a p of his wing, he dashed at ire. However, the force that hit ire was far greater than anyone could imagine. She hit the wall creating a loud thud before falling down to the ground unconscious.
Michael seemed to give no shit about what happened to ire. He continued to walk towards the baron.
"Hallowing Bolt" Yenob immediately pointed his staff at Michael as a bolt of purple energy st shot out of the staff. The Responsive shield immediately appeared to absorb the st but since Yenob was at Core Strengthening stage level 3, it couldn''tpletely absorb the attack. The remaining force hit Michael, sending him sliding away from the baron.
"I will grant your wish" His pupils glowed brighter while the golden lightning bolts dancing around his arm became thicker. They produced constant crackling noises of electricity. The bolts of lightning coiled around his arm like hundreds of tiny snakes. The entire throne hall became darker. Regardless of the daylight outside, it was like evening inside the throne hall.
"Ignitia" Michael raised his arm as a bolt of powerful lightning bolt fired out of his arm towards Yenob. The death range enhanced his power exponentially. Before Yenob finish casting a defense spell, the bolt of light reached him. If it wasn''t for the old man''s quick reflex to leap just in time, he would have had a hole in his chest.
"Protect Lord Totonk!" one of the loyal soldiers shouted before dashing at Michael with his sword held high.? Ricky couldn''t help shivering looking at the soldier running towards Michael. Ricky saw Ghost remaining there without even moving an inch.
Pulch!
Just when the soldier was a couple of seconds from cutting open Michael in half, the soldier froze in his path.
"Nard!" the fellow soldiers screamed. Behind their helmets, they were horrified. A hand was sticking out of Nard''s metal-covered behind. The hand had a red oozing blop in its hand. Ricky''s face turned pale as he realized the oozing blop in Ghost''s hand was nothing but a human heart. The heart was still beating in his hand but it was soon crushed into a paste by Ghost.
"Uwah" Ricky immediately threw up.
When Michael retrieved his hand, the soldier copsed onto the ground. Looking at Ghost staring at them with blood dripping down to the ground from his hand, a dread hit the core of the soldiers.
Still, they were surrounding the baron and waiting for Yenob to help them. If anyone could help them, it was their court mage.
"Anyone who stands in my way" A devilish grin slowly emerged on Ghost''s face. It was not a smile that radiated warmth. On the contrary, it was a smile that created a tingling sensation in their spines in fear.
"Ignitia"
Just when Yenob was casting another spell, Michael sent another lightning bolt. He didn''t even look at Yenob, he just raised his hand while keeping eye contact with their soldiers.
Yet again Yenob dashed out of the lightning bolt''s trajectory. Currently, there were nine fully armored soldiers surrounding the baron. Even for someone at the Core Formation level 10, nine fully armored soldiers as well as a Core Strengthening stage mage was a huge threat but not for Michael.
The Death Range was cast by him without hismand. It catapulted his overall strength to Core Strengthening stage level 6.
One step at a time, Michael walked towards the soldiers. He kept tilting his head left and right while grinning.
"Chaos de"
"Savagery of Strength"
Two soldiers simultaneously cast spells that boosted their strength. They dashed at Michael. One soldier''s metal armor began to glow in bright golden color while the other one be bulkier like the hulk.
They dashed at Michael from both sides. Michael grabbed the sword in one soldier''s hand while grabbing the bulkier soldier by his neck. Before the two of them could wiggle, Michael simply snapped the bulkier soldier''s neck.
The bulkier soldier copsed onto the floor with a thud sound. The soldier struggled to release the sword from Ghost''s hand yet he couldn''t even move his sword an inch.
The other soldiers wanted to join the fight but they couldn''t leave the baron unprotected. Hence, they saw Ghost pull the sword from their college''s hand like taking candy from a child''s hand.
Cling!
As Michael took the sword, he snapped the sword in half.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
The soldier tried to dash backward but he was toote. Michael plunged the broken arrow directly into the soldier''s shoulder through the metal armor. Without showing a shred of mercy, Michael kept rapidly stabbing the soldier until the soldier''s lifeless body fell onto the ground.
However, his brutality didn''t stop at that. He stomped the soldier on the chest, crushing his chest.
"Death and chaos¡tsk¡tsk¡so beautiful"
******************************
Yesterday I wanted to release two chapters but this chapter wasn''t up to the usual standards. So I deleted the entire chapter and re-written it so the chapter will be worth your time and money. Sorry for not keeping my word.
****************************
Hi, my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
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Chapter 378 - Third Persona II
"Meri, open your eyes" Nightmare shrunk himself. He rubbed ire''s face with his hand to wake her up. Ricky was staring at Ghost rip the handoff of a soldier and beating another one to death with the bloody hand. He couldn''t see the brutality anymore as he turned his head towards sect leader ire. There was a hole in the wall where she hit before falling onto the ground.
"FIERY FRENZY!" While Michael was busy stopping a soldier to death, Yenob screamed, casting a powerful fire spell. Immediately a stream ofva shot towards Michael from his staff.
"Humph," His crimson rednded on Yenob. The old mage felt a chill. He could feel his soul shudder in fear.? The soldiers saw Ghost standing there without even moving an inch. In a few seconds, theva stream hit his body but weirdly the stream went through him. Only then did they realize it was an afterimage as the figure of Ghost faded into thin air.
They quickly moved closer to the baron. He was still trying to push them away and fight Ghost himself but the soldiers were manhandling the Baron to protect him.
Suddenly Yenob''s instincts kicked in as he felt someone''s behind him. He tried to dash away but a hand grabbed him by the back of his neck. Yenob opened his mouth to cast a quick spell but another hand closed his mouth.
"You should have left when you had the chance" Yenob heard Ghost''s voice. It didn''t sound like the voice of any human. It was something different, cold, murderous, and bone-chilling.
"Now you are going to die"
"NO!" The Baron screamed at Yenob but it was toote for Yenob. His head exploded into nothing but red mist.
"Lord Yenob!" The soldiers couldn''t believe he killed Yenob. Yenob was the most powerful mage in Bradford. He studied with the royal court mage of Royalnd himself. The old man settled in Bradford to live his old age in peace yet because of the baron, he died a horrible death. Two decades ago when the baron was a young man, he saved Yenob from a beast attack. The two of them be like father and son. Hence Yenob loved Jane as his own granddaughter. Hence when he heard she was murdered by Lucifer, he immediately came to Bradford. Yenob always had the feeling that the Baron was in danger. That was why he stayed by his side ever since Jane died. Also, the old man wanted to find who killed Jane.
"Shit, quick¡escort his lord outside the manor. We will hold him off"
Two soldiers came forward while the rest of them grabbed and rushed towards the door.
"Toote" As they heard his voice, the soldiers saw him disappear from Yenob''s headless body. In a blink of an eye, he appeared on their path.
"Let me go, I will kill him!" the baron tried to wiggle out of the defense formation.
"Ghosty stop, let them go" Nightmare shouted at Michael to stop him from massacring the soldiers. Unlike the baron who tried to kill him, the soldiers did nothing but their job. They were innocents and they did not deserve such brutal death,
"I will let them go" the soldiers couldn''t help sighing in relief. For a moment, they really thought the dragon saved them all. However, when they heard his next words, they were horrified
"To hell" the lightning bolts gradually disappeared as the dark crimson red me coiled around his arms. They moved around his arms as though they were tiny snakes.
Nightmare noticed he was casting spells without uttering the name of the spells. Until one reaches the Fusion Stage, they wouldn''t be able to perform chantless spells yet he was using spells without casting them. Moreover, the lightning bolts and now the me seemed like they were being manipted to his will instead of the cast using Arch energy.
If someone from the Skyhall saw Michael, they would be speechless. No one in the world except some higher-ups knew about the existence of Ancient Gods. Elemental maniption was the power wielded by the ancient god themselves. No mortal could even grasp the basics of elemental maniptions yet Ghost controlled two elements; lightning and fire.
"GO! We will buy you as much time as we can" the two brave soldiers knew they couldn''t stop him yet the oath they took to protect the baron gave them the courage to face Ghost. The one who was at the fault was the baron himself. If it wasn''t for him picking up the fight with Ghost, those soldiers and Yenob would have still been alive.
"For the baron!"
"For the baron!"
The two soldiers dashed at Michael, letting out a loud battle cry. Nightmare pped his wing to dash at Michael before he could kill the two soldiers. The dragon wanted to save Ghost from himself. The Ghost he knew would have never killed them. He was cunning and calcting. However, at the moment, he seemed like a new person. Even when he was in his Lucifer persona, Nightmare had never seen him lose his cool. He always remained level-headed.
More than ever, he missed Gaya now. If anyone could stop Ghost, it was Gaya.
"Get her out of here" Nightmare flew at Michael after instructing Ricky to get ire out of the throne hall.
"Ghost!" Nightmare was flying towards him, the soldiers were dashing at Michael, the soldiers were escorting the baron towards the door and Ricky was taking ire away from Ghost. Everything seemed like it was happening in slow motion to Michael.
He never felt this strong before. Those soldiers and everyone in the room seemed so puny.
"Feel like barbeque" As Michael grinned, he raised his arms as two scorching hot streams of fire shot from both his hands.
"ARGHHH!"
The fire enveloped the two soldiers. Their screams of agony echoed through the manor''s walls but soon, their cries disappeared. In the ce they stood before remained nothing but a pile of hot ashes and two scorched skulls.
"GHOST!" Nightmare cried. Just as the dragon was about to reach him, he turned his gaze to look at Nightmare. Seeing the crimson red eyes staring at him, Nightmare felt a chill.
In the corner of his eyes, Nightmare saw finally Ricky leave the hall with ire. He felt somewhat relieved in his heart. But the moment the door shut behind Ricky, the entire hall turned dark. Only Michael''s red eyes and Nightmare''s glowing crimson scales could be seen in the hall.
Regardless of the sudden ckout, Nightmare could see Michael''s figure. He was getting taller and bulkier. Suddenly a bright white light shed across Nightmare''s face. The light made him close his eyes and when he opened his eyes, he was lying on the bed in Lucifer''s underground mansion in the Dark Forest.
Back at the baron''s manor, Baron Totonk heard his soldiers cry in agony. The sound of bone and metal crunching lessened his hangover. The darkness in the hall coupled with what he saw made the baron feel a tingling fear in his heart.
"Fucker¡where are you?!" baron growled,
"What kind of sorcery is this?" Baron was unable toprehend how he turned the day into night.
As he was trying to cast a light spell, a wave of hot liquid sshed on his face. In a few moments, the hallpletely became silent. He could literally taste blood in his mouth. He knew the hot liquid was the blood of his men.
Once again the war hammer materialized in the baron''s hand. He was prepared to defend himself and kill Ghost. However, he didn''t see Ghost. Instead, he vaguely saw the red glowing eyes moving away from him. The Warhammer radiated a faint light that enabled the baron to vaguely see Ghost standing before the three noble prisoners.
He could hear the nobles mumble but soon, he heard the sound of a dagger slicing through flesh and blood. The baron continued to see the red glowing eyes moving around the hall as though Ghost was looking for something.
"Fucker¡face¡me like a man?"
"Tsk tsk tsk¡i''m not a man" The baron heard his voiceing from all directions. He couldn''t pinpoint where he was talking from. The baron started to wave his Warhammer all around hoping to hit Ghost.
"I am¡ much¡ much more than just a man"? The baron swung his Warhammer violently turning behind as he heard Ghost talk from behind.
"Let''s talk about what a failure of a man you are" Baron heard Ghost snicker,
"You were searching and punishing whoever might have killed your daughter"
"ARGH!" Baron swung his Warhammer yet again in the dark,
"She died because of your ipetence. As a father, you were supposed to protect her" Ghost''s words were like needles piercing through? his heart,
"You were trying to me someone else for her death¡" Baron continued to swing his Warhammer in anger,
"It was you who spoiled her. If anyone is to be med, it should be you. A failed father"
As the baron heard these words, without even his control or willingness, he lost the hold of the Warhammer. Tears flooded out of his eyes as he fell to his knees.
"You spoiled her and made what she was¡her death¡in¡on¡you"? Baron could hear the voice getting closer and closer. However, he was in no mood to fight. The words uttered by Ghost shifted the me and anger from Lucifer to himself.
"Imagine how she would have cried for her daddy¡when the life was leaving her¡she would have prayed for you¡Prayed for her father toe and save her" Baron felt a gust of wind as he looked up to see the glowing red eyes of Ghost staring directly in his eyes.
"You failed her¡you failed your baby girl¡you let her suffer¡you let her go through that pain and agony¡you killed her" the words were doing something inside the baron. He couldn''t take it anymore. The baron wanted nothing but Ghost to stop. It felt like these words torturing his soul itself. He couldn''t help imagining Jane crying for him to save her.
"Take this and take your pathetic life. At Least you will get a chance to say sorry¡ for failing her" The baron felt Ghost cing the dagger in his hand.
"Jane" the baron mumbled as he gripped the dagger tighter.
"Don''t make her wait this time"
Pulch!
As the darkness faded away from the hall, several lifeless bodies could be seen lying on the hall. One of the bodies was the baron with a long deep cut around his neck.
****************************
Hi, my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 379 - Crime Investigation
Crime Investigation
When the heavy rain finally slowed down to a drizzle, two figuresnded on the frontwn of the baron''s manor in Bradford. As they descended on the ground, they were weed by a bunch of guards in both full metal armor and leather armor. Archers were atop the manor looking at the surrounding cautiously while several groups of soldiers patrolled the manor around.
There was red tape surrounding the manor withmoners staring at the manor from behind the tape. The soldiers were struggling to keep themoners from crossing the line. Regardless of the dark clouds hovering in the sky above them, the people didn''t seem like they would leave the manor.
The soldiers didn''t dare to stop the two figures because they all knew who they were; Guardians. The two figures who came were none other than Peyton and Xanali.
"What''s going on here?"? Xanali asked Peyton, looking at the tensed faces of the soldiers.
Xanali expected the people of Bradford to be in shock but they looked more terrified than shocked.
"You will know soon" Peyton simply said instead of exining. The two of them walked towards the manor''s main door. Some of the soldiers who saw the Guardian crest on Peyton and Xanali''s clothes heaved a sigh of relief.
Along the way, the soldiers who were patrolling the manor halted their steps to bow. Giving them a simple nod, Peyton and Xanali made their way towards the manor.
The two soldiers standing near the door quickly opened up the door without a question when they saw the Guardian crest on their chests. As the door slowly opened, they saw a couple of holy guards talking to a young man.
Peyton had seen the dark-haired young man before at the arena. He dressed in full ck like Ghost but he was far cry from Ghost.
Peyton knew who he was. He was one of the Ghost''sckeys, Ricky Cruise.
Born and raised in a poor family, joined the military of Bredia when he was sixteen years old after his father retired from the post of gate guard. His life turned upside down when he met Ghost. At the moment, Ricky''s monthly wage was far greater than any soldier on the continent.? Within a year, Ricky brought his family from a small vige in Bredia to the residential area of the Sunrise sect.
Ghost was transforming the Sunrise sect mountain range into his own mini kingdom. They were creating several zones in the mountain range. The main mountain had constructions rted to the sect and academic purposes. ording to Peyton''s new dawn team, the second zone was supposed to be a residential area. Another rumor she heard about Ghost as he was searching for elven architects to work with dwarves to transform the mountain range without destroying the forests and wildlife in the mountain range. His love for nature always made Peyton really wonder about his personality. He never seemed like a person who would care for mother nature.
However, he was an Alchemist and the owner of thergest herbal garden in Bredia. Hence, his love for nature somewhat made sense. Taking her nce away from Ricky, Peyton saw several horribly mutted bodiesy on the ground. The entire hall reeked of blood and Arch energy.
"Miss Peyton" suddenly Peyton heard a calming voice from behind. She turned back to see Ghost walking towards her with a weing smile on his face.
"I wish we had met under a different circumstance"? She nodded as he turned his gaze towards Xanali,
"Miss" Xanali gave him a cold nod but he didn''t seem like he cared.
"What happened here, Ghost? Or should I call you King Ghost"
Xanali noticed the smile on Peyton''s face. It was peculiar as she thought Peyton hated Ghost to the core.
"Nah. I prefer you call me Ghost as long as I don''t have to call you Guardian Peyton. Too tongue twisty" Ghost chuckled as Peyton nodded,
"What happened here?"
The smile on Ghost''s face disappeared as he sighed after hearing Peyton''s question.
"Follow me, it''s better if I showed you" Peyton and DXanali followed him behind to the east side of the throne hall. The shadows of pirs and the curtains darkened the floor beneath. The closer they got, they saw a body lying on the ground. Compared to the rest of the bodies, the body before them was intact.
"That''s Baron Totonk" Xanali was stunned. She looked at the deep cut around his neck before turning her gaze back at Peyton. Peyton however didn''t look as shocked as her. She just adjusted her square spectacles, taking a closer look at the dagger in the baron''s hand.
"The holy guards are still doing the investigation but it seems like the baron took his life with that dagger after going mad on the poor soldiers"
Based on the cut and the baron''s body position, Peyton agreed with Ghost on the fact he took his own life.
"The holy guards took the baron''s Warhammer. Some soldiers were beaten to death with the hammer, at least it looks that way. Sigh" Ghost sighed as he continued,
"The soldiers'' family have to conduct a closed casket funeral. I will make sure their families get what they deserve and more"
Peyton nodded, "I saw two piles of ashes with skulls. I don''t think the Baron was powerful enough to cast a spell that powerful. I heard the personal guards of the baron were at Core Formation level 6. The baron was weaker than them and not a mage"
"Follow me" yet again, Xanali followed Ghost behind. They were walking towards the throne where Xanali saw a holy guard in full white metal armor standing beside. Noticing the guardians approaching, the holy guard walked away from the body.
As the holy guard moved away from the body, Xanali saw theplete body or what was left of it. In the ce where the head should have been, Xanali saw brain matter, skull pieces, and blood. She felt nauseous just by looking at it. She thought Gaya''s killing was brutal but what happened inside the throne hall was on another levelpared to the killings of Gaya.
Xanali couldn''t believe it was done by a normal being. It seemed like something much worse stormed into the hall and massacred them without a shred of mercy. Their bodies were mutted. She doubted even Ghost was capable of such violence.
"Oooohhh" Peyton whistled as she took a look at the staff in the mage''s hands.
"If i''m a gambling man, I would say this is Yenob, the baron''s court mage and he has something to do with that spell"
"Maybe" Peyton squatted near the body. She studied the body for a few moments before turning her gaze to look at the two piles of ashes. Meanwhile, Xanali and Ghost patiently stared at Peyton.
"It depends on how powerful the spell was but the distance makes sense"
"Of course it does," Michael thought. He was not a hitman in this world as he used to be but that didn''t mean, he forgot how to erase the evidence and create new ones to throw the authorities off.
It took him half an hour to rearrange the bodies and set up a new crime scene. As far as Michael was concerned, unless someone like Sherlock Holmeses to see the crime scene, no one could find any evidence that ties him to the killings.? As for Ricky and ire, he didn''t worry about them. He made Ricky his subordinate to see the loyalty level. The youngster was 95% loyal to him. In addition to being loyal, Ricky promised he won''t tell a soul what happened in the throne hall. Of course, Michael didn''t believe his words alone. Yet, Ricky was too valuable and loyal to just kill him. Hence, Michael ced a Spycam on him and ordered Azazel to monitor him all day every day.
If Ricky kept his mouth shut, he would live. ire''s situation was somewhatplicated thanks to his stupid outburst. His instincts told Michael not to harm ire but only ce a Spycam on her too. In truth, Michael didnt think ire would ever rat him out to the Guardians. Just like Ricky, she would not be harmed as long as she kept her mouth shut. Although he didn''t want to kill ire, if she ratted him out, he would have to kill her. Too much was at stake.
He was mad at himself for not being able to control his bloodthirstiness. He felt like he was caged inside his own body and someone else took over his body to kill them all. The moment he finished dealing with the guardians and the holy guards, he wanted to have a long chat with the system to find what was wrong with him.? The urge to kill was under control unlike before but he wanted to fix himself before he was being taken over.
"Ghost, did you inform the baron''s family?" Peyton asked,
"Yes, I sent the men to let his sons know what happened here. Giving the answers of what really happened here depends on holy guards and you guys. I urge you to do aplete investigation. My men and I will help in any way we can"
"Your majesty, the nobles are here" Peyton saw Ricky call for Ghost.
"Excuse? me Miss Peyton, I have kingly duties to take care of now"
"Ofcourse, we will be in touch," Peyton said.
Xanali stared at Ghost''s figure slowly disappearing from her sight. Then she asked Peyton,
"What do you think that happened here, Peyton? You buy his story?"
"I don''t" Peyton adjusted her spectacles,
"But I also don''t think he has something to do with the killings. He is a Core Formation level 10. Although he is very powerful, he couldn''t have killed all those Core Formation warriors and a Core Strengthening stage mage. I knew mage Yenob, he couldn''t have been killed by Ghost"
Peyton was not wrong though. What killed them all was not indeed Ghost. It was something much more powerful¡The sprout of the true dark lord.
****************************
Hi, my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 380 - Breakthrough To The Core Strengthening Stage
Back in the dark forest, Michael was standing in front of a mirror staring at his reflection.
"My lord, you''re here" Azazel hovered through the walls to see Michael.
The demon butler frowned, noticing the scars on Ghost''s body.
"Something happened, my lord?" Azazel asked,
Ghost was not wearing any face mask to hide his face. Azazel waspletely loyal to him. Besides, in the future, Azazel would have to work with both his personas; Ghost and Lucifer. He thought of Azazel as Alfred to his batman,
"Baron Totonk and a bunch of soldiers who were just doing their job were killed," Ghost said, throwing the long coat he was holding in his hand to the bed.
"Who killed them, my lord?"
"Me¡" Michael slowly walked towards the mirror. He put his hand on the mirror.
Boom!
Suddenly Michael punched the mirror as the ss mirror shattered into tiny pieces. The broken pieces on the ground reflected Michael''s angered face.
"Have you finished with the surveince room?"
Azazel nodded, "Yes my lord, I can now monitor your Spycams twenty-four seven"
"Good, now go. I need some time alone"
"I will be waiting for your order my lord" Bowing his head, Azazel left the room. After Azazel left the room, Michael sat on the bed. On his face, there was no sign of delight thinking about how he was going to break through to the Core Strengthening stage. Rather, he was more worried about his outburst and the third persona.
"System, what''s happening to me?" Michael entered the system interface. Staring at the status window, he asked the system.
[The system''s level is too low]
[The next upgrade will cost the host 200,000 badass points. Does the host wish to upgrade the system to 4.0?]
"Do it"
Michael was too focused on what just happened to him. He wasn''t in the mood to bitch with the system for its uselessness to this situation.
[The Experience Cap for each level in the Core Strengthening stage will be reduced by 25% after upgrading the system]
[Initial Experience Cap 800,000]
[System 4.0 Experience Cap 600,000]
[System upgrade is in progress¡]
"I hope you have an answer to my problem system"
System version 3.0
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Formation stage, level 10
Experience Points: 400000/400000 (1,800,000 points remaining to be consumed)
Badass Points: 500,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 6
Ignitia - LVL 8
Lightning Dash - LVL 6
Energy Devouver - LVL 2
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 95% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 83% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 96% Mastery
upation:? ? Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 5,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
3-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -? 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 38%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 35%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Sadie (loyalty level 30%)
Ricky (loyalty level 95%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 80%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
Kingdom of Bradford
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
While the system was upgrading itself, he noticed the 5% loyalty drop in the Silent Reaper crew. It made sense though as they were stuck in the crypt instead of piging the ships in the sea. Ever since the Guardians destroyed the Silent Reaper, Michael was keeping the pirate crew in the crypt in Undead Ind. He provided enough rations for them tost for three months. Although Maxine was there to oversee the pirates, the crypt was like a cage to the free-spirited pirates.
Michael lost track of time. In a blink of an eye, six hours passed by.
[The system upgrade ispleted]
[Current System level 4.0]
[The host has 1,600,000 Experience points left to consume. Does the host wish to consume the points?]
"Before we do that, tell me what happened to me earlier?"
[The system''s level is too low]
"What the?" Michael couldn''t believe what he just heard. He spent 200,000 badass points to upgrade the system yet he received nothing.? On top of being pissed at himself, the system''s uselessness kindled the fire of anger inside him.
"Shit, how much for the next upgrade?"
[600,000 badass points]
Michael wanted to punch the system if it had a physical body. However, he quickly controlled his anger before he might lose control again. Instead of getting consumed by anger, Michael calmed himself down. He tried to think instead of letting the anger overtake his brain.
"System, consume the points"
[The breakthrough to the Core Strengthening stage will take four days]
[Warning! The system will be offline for four days]
[Warning! The host will be in an unconscious state for four days]
[The system will notice the host if the host was in danger]
"Do it"
Michael wasn''t worried about his safety as he was in the dark forest. Besides, he let the elders handle the meeting with the nobles in Bradford.
His top priority now was to get stronger and find a cure for his new problem of losing control of his mind.
[Congrattions to the host for reaching the next stage, the Core Strengthening stage!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core For Strengthening stage Level 1!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core For Strengthening stage Level 2!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core For Strengthening stage Level 3!]
Unlike before Michael received neither gifts nor special items from the system for upgrading it to the next level or reaching the Core Strengthening stage.
For others, Michael was cultivating in a heaven-defying speed. But for him, he was moving at a snail''s pace.
In a blink of an eye, four days had passed. Slowly, Michael felt the control of his body returning to him. His consciousness returned as he slowly opened his eyes.
[In Ghost persona, the host is undefeatable to anyone under Core Strengthening stage level 5]
[In Complete Lucifer persona, the host is undefeatable to anyone under Core Strengthening stage level 7]
When he activates the Cloud of darkness and eyes of darkness, his Lucifer form would bepleted. In thatplete form, if he activated the death range in the darkness, his power would be boosted four levels higher. Hence he would be undefeatable to anyone at or under Core Strengthening stage level 7.
"I must find an answer to my problem" Michael mumbled to himself.
"Do I suffer from multiple personalities? It can''t be¡I created Lucifer to dominate the world but people had been expecting me for thousands of years" Michael did not even leave the bed as he began to ponder,
"Only thing that makes me different from the young masters like Noah is my ability to keep myself calm. I cannot lose my reasoning ever again. I need to fix myself but where do I search for answers to my problem?"
He missed Gaya now more than ever.
"I said¡no rather he said that death and chaos are so beautiful" Michael remembered what he said during the massacre. If he could find out about the persona''s characteristics, he might be able to find some answer, at least he thought.
"What if that''s the Dark Lord the Guardians were afraid of? That''s who I''m gonna be in the future? No¡No one controls my fate except me" Michael took a deep breath. An unwavering resolution emerged in his eyes.
His feet touched the ground as he cracked his neck,
"Who am I kidding? That was me¡more powerful" He remembered how powerful he felt when ughtering the guards. Although he felt pity for them, he had to admit that he was frickin powerful. Even Yenob, a? Core Strengthening stage mage, was so powerless against him.
"If I could control myself in that form¡" Michael snickered,
"My lord" Michae;''s train of thoughts was interrupted by Azazel''s voice. He heard the demon butler''s voiceing from the other side of the walls.
"Come on in Azazel" the demon butler floated towards him,
"What is it?"? As he asked, Michael took a new set of ck long coats and turtlenecks from his space ring. He put them on, adjusting the cors and sleeves before turning his gaze back at Azazel.
"While you were cultivating here, I received a request to meet you from Lady Maxine from the Crypt. Apparently, some pirates have been acting strange"
"Is that so? I think I have to return to the Southern Continent" Michael willed the system to equip Lucifer armor as well as change his face using the face mask.
"My Lord, what should I do while you''re gone?"? Azazel asked with utmost respect,
"Clean up the throne hall. It''s time i gather my minions and start the world domination"
****************************
The Tournament arc has finallye to an end with this chapter. From the next chapter onwards, we will venture into the new arc. Yes, I heard your concerns about the spirit child and Michael losing his mind.
If you''re worried about the novel going in a cliche way, it won''t. Michael was not perfect, he was far from being perfect. He would have his ups and downs.? The next arc will focus on Gaya and Michael''s character building as well as some interesting twists.
****************************
Hi, my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 381 - This Changes Everything I
Inside the Fire Realm, one could see a hot gooeyva river moving in zig zags. If one wasn''t careful and greedy, they would mistake theva river for a river of gold. Through the bubblingva river, a boat was slowly moving. A girl who had a three-headed pet on herp sat on the opposite side of the young man who was rowing the boat. Obviously, it was Gaya, Vedora, and Noah on the boat as no one else would be crazy enough to choose this route instead of a safer and longer road.
"Are you absolutely sure there are no fishes in the river?" Ayag asked, giving Gaya a puppy look.
She instead just rolled her eyes,
"You just ate thest of my cookies"
Rather than minding Gaya and the hydra''s quarrel which was going on for days, Noah focused on the surroundings. There was nothing else except for destend as far as he could see. Few boulders here and there and that''s it. The sky was as usual red while the air was filled with ash particles. The red and graybination gave off an eerie feeling to the fire realm.
"Fuck how long it has been since we came here?" Ayag asked,
"94 days to be exact" A glimmer of sadness emerged in Gaya''s eyes. She looked at the distant horizon thinking about Ghost and Nightmare. She missed the two of them like crazy.
Noah could see the sadness in her eyes. In fact, he felt happy for Ghost to find a girl who loves him like Gaya. Although she killed innocents andmitted many crimes, Noah didn''t want the two of them to be separated because of him. He believed in second chances. This was Gaya''s second chance.
They had been in the river for five days. Unlike Gaya believed, there were indeed fishes in the river along with dangerous beasts. If it wasn''t for the solution Noah applied on the boat, they would have been inside some beast''s belly.
The solution was provided to him by the Alpha guardian of Hunter Guardians herself.? After rowing for another five continuous days, Noah''s hands started to ache. Fortunately, Noah turned back to see a couple of burned trees appear in his sight.
"Hey" Noah called out to Gaya to bring her back to reality.
"That''s the entrance" Gaya followed his gaze to see two lone trees that had no leaves whatsoever. Even the lightning-struck trees wouldn''t look as ck and lifeless as those two trees.
"We can beach the boat there," Gaya pointed at the ash shore. Noah nodded before rowing the boat towards the shore. After beaching the copper boat, Gaya ced Vedora inside her satchel safely. They didn''t rush but cautiously walked towards the lone trees.
"That''s the spot," Noah said.
Vedora craned their necks out to look at the spot Noah pointed at. However, they could only see two ordinary trees, and they didn''t find anything unusual.
"What the hell are you talking about? There''s nothing but burned trees there" Ayag said,
"Weird" Cain mumbled. He was suspicious of the two lone trees, they seemed out of ce.
"Try to sense the energy fluctuations brat. There''s a natural formation between the trees " Gaya flicked the head of Ayag,.
"What? What the heck is a natural formation?"
"It''s kind of an illusion array but very different from those made by humans. A natural formation is formed by nature after gathering condensed Arch energy for thousands of years. It''s a miraculous process, and many know very little about it. Anyone can easily be trapped by it if they don''t pay enough attention" Noah exined.
His exnation made Ayag frown deeper,
"If it''s a fucking illusion array, why are you two crazy heads heading towards it instead of running away from it?"
"I said it''s a kind of Illusion array. Natural formations also act as a portal to travel around the Fire realm"
"Oh, then we are gonna finally get the fuck out of this ce. Let''s go"
Ayag changed her opinion lightning quick. She now looked excited to go between the two trees unlike a few seconds ago.
Noah too couldn''t help but sigh in relief, as if he had just seen a light carrying hope. There were many invisible natural defense mechanisms and formations existing within the depths of Fire Realm, and they came to thisva river because of a natural formation. If they could find another natural formation, they would have a chance at the river. After all, the solution couldnt fend off the beast forever. When or if they came out of the river, they were good as dead.
"Let''s go!"
Swoosh!
Both Gaya and Noah immediately dashed towards the space between the two trees.
The aura of the natural defense mechanism in this valley was pretty obvious, even Ayag could sense it as they approached. Its aura was much more powerfulpared to the formations they happened to stumble upon.
When the three of them went through the space between the trees, they disappeared from the deste valley. The scene in front of them changed dramatically once again. It was a in gray world in front of them. The eerie and chilly energies within were so much strongerpared to the deste value they just came from.
A stinking smell filled up the air within the ce, extremely unpleasant and pungent. Besides this, ck whirlwinds appeared all over the ce, and the air blowing across the ce was cutting them to the marrow. It also carried a strong corrosive characteristic.
"Congrattions, we escaped from the frying pan into the fire" Ayag couldn''t help but curse.
"Be careful, there is poisonous vapor all over the ce. A deadly toxic gas merged with the freezing vapor, causing this poisonous vapor to be formed. It''s a deadly thing that can kill any cultivator." Noah reminded.
"Is that so?" Gaya snickered as she walked towards one of the ck whirlwinds.
"Bitch stop, are you trying to kill us?!" Ayag screamed trying to stop Gaya from walking towards the poison whirlwinds.
Gay reached out to touch the whirlwind. Noah was stunned to see nothing really happened to her. Although Naga''s were resistant to most poisons, they were not immune to the poison whirlwinds of Fire Realm. However, nothing happened to Gaya when she touched the poison whirlwind. It should have entered through the finger to her brain and killed her in a few seconds. Since that never happened, there was only one exnation for this. That was Ghost made her immune to the poisons using some Legendary potions. Noah heard about potions that could be brewed by 5-star Alchemists to make someonepletely resistant to the poisons known to man.
"Huh?" Ayag opened her eyes to see nothing had happened to her like she was expecting.? As Gaya was looking smug and feeling proud of Ghost for making them both poison resistant, Noah walked towards them with a calm smile.
When he came closer to the ck whirlwind, Noah unleashed a blue barrier of me, covering his entire body. Theyer of blue me covered his body as though it was a nket.
It was a barrier formed by One of the two primordial mes; heaven''s me, which repelled all poison known to mankind. Gaya was stunned by the blue me. She had never seen such a majestic me ever before in her life. She heard Ghost talk about primordial mes and she could guess that the blue me on Noah''s body was definitely one of the two primordial mes. However, she did not let what was in her mind show on her face. Although she could tell Noah wouldn''t easily tell her where he got the me, if she could find out, it would get Ghost one step closer to reaching 6-star Alchemist status.
"This ce should be an isted space, and it doesn''t look big. We just need to find the path to the five-headed serpent''sir"
Noah said. He could feel that they were getting closer to the five-headed serpent. This ce was fully filled with toxic vapor and could be considered a naturalnd of death. It would be really bad luck if anyone ordinary identally came to this space.
He was covered by a fire barrier, while Gaya just walked next to him like it was nothing. The duo began slowly walking forward. Since the toxicity in the air was too strong, there were no beasts or bandits anywhere nearby.
The entire space was extremely quiet, and nothing could be heard except for the tornadoes'' swishing sounds. It gave the space an eerie feeling, as if they had actuallye to the real hell.
Crack!
Suddenly, a cracking sound could be heard from underneath Gaya''s foot. It sounded really loud when in this quiet environment.
"Fuck! what was that?" Ayag cursed as she was spooked by the sound
They lowered their heads, looking at the ground. Then, they saw an entire skeleton lying where Gaya had just stepped. Her foot caused a hole to appear on the skeleton''s chest.
"This is a skeleton of a Soul Strengthening stage warrior, he must have been dead for a long time. Look, all the bone has be porous, you''ve shattered it."
Noah had eagle eyes. Although the skeleton was badly corroded by the poisonous air and had turnedpletely ck, he still found that this was a Core Strengthening stage warrior''s skeleton.
"This ce sucks"
A Core Strengthening stage warrior could still survive for quite some time in this space without any poison resistance using Arch energy to shield his or her body. The only exnation for his death would be that he depleted all his arch energy in order to resist the poisonous air. He was killed by the poisonous air once he couldn''t repel the deadly poison any longer.
"Why did hee here anyway?"
Gaya wondered why the cultivator came to the Fire Realm. Noah and she were here to hunt down the five-headed serpent so Noah could save Xanali''s stepfather while she was here to absorb the blood and start her metamorphosis. If it wasn''t for the five-headed serpent, Gaya would have never even thought ofing here.
"What next?" Sarba asked after looking around the ce.
"Move forward until we find the five header serpent''s trail"
Noah smiled. With a determined look in his eyes, he said, "Just keep moving forward, until we find the five header serpent''s trail"
The following journey waspletely eventless. They kept bumping into new skeletons along their way, and all these skeletons were once Core Strengthening stage warriors. Gaya really wondered why this many Core Strengthening stage warriors ventured into the Fire Realm. She even stumbled upon a skeleton of a Soul Refining Stage warrior. This meant they were looking for something here.
The duo had walked for nearly an hour, and they kept bumping into more and more skeletons. The ce seemed really deste. After spending almost two hours of walking, they suddenly saw a light blinking in the distance.
"Look, there is light blinking in front!" Ayag informed them. She almost shouted.
"Let''s go check it out!"
Noah saw the light as well. Although the rainbow color light seemed faded, it couldn''t escape their eyes. The duo immediately dashed forward, and soon, they arrived at the source of the light.
"A human"
Ayag''s eyes lit up as she saw a man with disheveled hair was sitting with both legs crossed, not moving at all, which made him look like a stone statue. But, the weak aura emitting from his body showed that this old man was still alive.
****************************
Hi, my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
https://.buymeacoffee/donoffl
(shameless author expecting his ount to be filled with donations tomorrow)
******************************
If you like this chapter,
Pleasement, send power stones.
If you really really like this chapter and my novel,
Consider sending me gifts as it would motivate me to put out more chapters.
Any criticism,
Feel free to bash me in thements
Discord link: https://discord.gg/yMCZbVNbpC
Chapter 382 - This Changes Everything II
Both Gaya and Noah slowly approached the old man. As if he had heard something, the old man finally raised his head up, slowly. With cloudy eyes, he looked at them. Vedora quickly went inside the satchel to hide.
An old man, a really old man who was long past his prime. The robe covering his body was really loose, he had wrinkled skin on his face and an extremely thin body. He looked just like a skeleton who had nothing but skin. Pretty horrifying as he looked like a mummy.
The old man''s aura was really weak as if he was going to die at any time. And yet, he was still alive.
"Sigh¡someone is here again¡ someone is going to die soon¡ sign."
The old man let out two sighs. His voice was shrill, making it unpleasant to listen to. It looked like he had gotten used to the deaths happening here.
"A Soul Refining stage warrior"
Noah looked closer at the old man. He immediately found out the cultivation level of the old man. But, because the vital signs of the old man were really weak, and there was no Celestial energy that could be sensed in his body, as it had beenpletely depleted, he couldn''t determine which level this old man was.
"Such young sprouts. Too bad you''vee to thisnd of death."
The old man let out another sigh, then he just flicked his wrist as a golden barrier appeared around them.
"It''s been twenty years, all who came here before me have gone. Now, I''m soon going to leave as well. For twenty years, I had no one to talk to. At Least heaven''s granted me with myst wish. Pity thest person you''re gonna meet is this old man"
The old man carried a smile on his face. The despair and anger he had when he first arrived at this ce was long gone; he had seen through life and death. The old man seemed calm, no signs of grievance could be found on his face. However, from his pair of cloudy eyes, one could still tell that he is grieving.
"If this old man leaves this ce, his cultivation will take a long dip before rising back again," Noah thought to himself. After breaking through to the Soul Refining stage, a cultivator required a constant supply of Celestial energy to achieve higher levels in cultivation. If the cultivator didn''t get enough Celestial energy, his cultivation will gradually decline. Considering this old man was stuck here without Celestial energy, when or if he escaped the Fire Real, his cultivation would drop down to lower stages before returning to his previous state.
"Shit, you stayed here for twenty years. I hope what you were searching for in Fire Realm is worth it" Gaya rolled her eyes.
"Being able to stay alive in this harsh environment, you must have been at the peak of Soul Refining Stage old man. If I am right, you must havee looking for something that could help you deal with your bottleneck and reach Fusion Stage. After twenty years in this environment, the bottleneck has gone but you got stuck here" Noah said with an indifferent tone.
"Those skeletons belonged to the people who came to see what happened to you"
Hearing this, the old man''s cloudy eyes suddenly light up. He stared at Noah with a look of disbelief. He couldn''t help but start examining the young man in front of him.
Being able to discover he had a bottleneck with a single look, and also judging his real cultivation level just from knowing how long he had been here was not someone anyone could do, that''s why this old man couldn''t help being shocked. Besides, he found out that the men who died here came searching for him.
"What a keen eye¡ but, too bad¡"
The old man kept shaking his head, his eyes filled with deep regret. He could easily tell that Noah was extraordinary and had innate potential, a genius like this was supposed to be a well-known guy in the world. But now, he had to die in this shit ce. What a pity. Gaya was looking around the ce to find a way to deal with the golden barrier while the old man was talking to Noah.
"Twenty years ago, I traveled alone to Fire Realm searching for something that could help me reach Fusion Stage. My damn luck and fate, I identally stepped into this ce and activated the barrier set up by someone, and it has been twenty years since then."
The old man said in a self-mocking manner. He didn''t look at Noah, as if he was just talking to himself. But at the same time, it seemed he rather enjoyed the feeling of talking. It seemed like he hadn''t talked to anyone for quite a long time. If he could go back in time, he would stop himself from venturing into the Fire Realm.
"By estimations, my death will arrive tomorrow. But, I don''t want to be like all the other people who died here, having my body corroded by the poison, that''s too tragic. Young man, once I die tomorrow, burn my body"
This was thest request from an old man who had gone past his prime.
The old man looked at Noah, focusing on the mes dancing around his body. Gaya didn''t give a shit about the old man''s tragedy. She was busy searching for a way out of here.
Noah inwardly sighed. The man didn''t ask Noah to help him aplish any weird unfulfilled desire at thest moment of his life, and neither did he have any special orders for Noah. He only requested that Noah burn his body and allow him to have a proper death.
Noah however just calmly smiled at the old man.
"Old man, your estimation is really urate. If I didn''te, you''d be dead by tomorrow. But thedy luck smiled on you, I''m here"
Noah walked toward the old man, then he waved his hand and unleashed a me. The dancing me shot out from Noah''s body took the shape of an angel; a humanoid figure with feathery wings. It transformed into a me barrier and covered the old man within. In an instant, all the surrounding poisonous vapor was pushed away, as if it had just met its natural enemy.
Noah had decided to save this old man, not for any specific reason, but because this old man had been persistently staying alive in this ce for twenty years. Noah really respected his endurance. Besides, Noah never ignored anyone in need of help.
"What a majestic me, it actually carries a divine aura. Even the poisonous vapor from the Fire Realm doesn''t dare try to corrode it."
The old man''s eyes opened as wide as they could.
After a short shocking moment, the old man returned to his calm state. He looked at the fire barrier covering his body, and with a smile on his face, he said,
"Young man put away this me barrier, it will only consume your energy and focus. You can''t hold it for a long time. The poisonous vapor has already invaded my body, I''m dying.? You can only lessen the pain but can''t stop the inevitable."
"If you wanted to die, you could have ended your life a long time ago. You hoped to leave this ce. Don''t lose hope now. Let me help you get rid of all the poisonous miasma in your body." After saying that, Noah ced his palm on the old man''s chest.
The moment Noah ced his hand on the old man, the old man''s body swayed a little. He stared at Noah''s palm with no idea what Noah was going to do next. He knew very well about his current condition, and it was impossible to get rid of the poison that had invaded his body.
The old man who had been tense for thest twenty years had finally loosened uppletely at this moment. He saw the confidence in Noah''s eyes, and it made him feel calm, as well as hopeful yet again.
Noah unleashed the poison absorbing skill he learned from Andreas, his mentor. Heaven''s me seeped through the old man''s body. Sending a primordial me into someone else''s body was extremely dangerous. One misstep and the me would burn the body into ashes.
Yet this old man had no fear because, with his current condition, there was nothing that could scare him. After all, he was soon going to die. Besides, if Noah really was up to something bad, he could just kill the old man with a palm strike, there was no need to go through so much hassle.
Heaven''s me circted an entire round within the old man''s body. After that, it returned to Noah''s body. It only took Noah a few minutes before he hadpleted the healing process. Finally, he removed his palm from the old man''s chest.
Puh!
The old man violently trembled, and in an instant, he threw up a mouthful of ck blood and began violently coughing.
The old man coughed for some time before he returned to normal. Then, he immediately raised his head to look at Noah who was calmly smiling at him.
The old man checked his body''s condition, and he instantly found out that all the poison that had been corroding his body for thest twenty years had disappeared. His internal organs that hadpletely lost their vital signs were actually pumping with an extremely active force now.
More importantly, since all the poison was gone, the old man felt extremely rxed andfortable, as if someone had just lifted a gigantic mountain that had been weighing down on him for thest two decades.
"I¡I¡am healed"
The old man closed his eyes. He really enjoyed this moment, it was a feeling he hadn''t felt for so many years.
Twenty years, day by day, year by year, he had been suffering from constant pain. For ordinary people, suffering such severe pain for twenty years would definitely make that person crazy.
The old man did go crazy before, but in the end, he had seen through life and death. Now, Noah had restored his hope of living.
The old man was immersed in the pleasant moment, and Noah didn''t disturb him. He had absorbed all the poison in the old man''s body into his own body.
After some time, the old man finally opened up his eyes. He looked at Noah and said, "Young man, you really absorbed all the poison in my body into yours, that''s really dangerous. Yet, the poison hasn''t affected you. How is it possible? Who are you really?"
"A Guardian" Noah replied with a smile.
The old man was stunned but when he thought about it, everything made sense. Who in the world other than a Guardian would venture into a ce like this and help a stranger?
"Guardian?! Young man, you''ve saved my life today"
For the first time in many years, the old man bent his back to bow towards Noah.
" What were you searching for here?" Before the old man could start rumbling about gratitude and a way to pay him back, Noah asked him.
"The Five headed serpent"
The moment the old man spoke these words, Gaya immediately turned back. She dashed forward,
"Did you find it? Where is their? Tell me"
"Sigh" the old man sighed. He could tell by seeing the look on her face that they came looking for the five-headed serpent too just like him twenty years ago.
"A Naga killed the serpent and absorbed everything except this"? As Gaya''s heart skipped a beat, the old man flicked his wrist. A charcoaled gray stone-like thing appeared in his hand. Noah and Gaya looked closer at the thing to sense pulsesing from within.
"The heart" Noah mumbled. Suddenly Gaya grabbed the old man by his neck and lifted him up,
"Who killed the serpent?!" Regardless of him being grabbed by his neck by the girl, the old man remained calm.
Just as Noah was about to stop Gaya, the old man flicked his wrist again as a gold-ted snake-shaped pendant appeared in his hand. From top to bottom, Gaya felt an electric bolt running through her body.
She immediately let the old man go before taking the pendant from his hand,
"The Naga woman who killed the serpent left this with the heart"
Gaya couldn''t believe the wordsing from the old man''s mouth. She was shivering holding the pendent,
"It seemed like a family heirloom. If I ever get out, I wanted to return this to her kin"
"Wait¡something''s happening"
Unexpectedly Noah sensed energy fluctuations around him. It felt like the space around them was getting distorted. It was the same feeling he had when he was teleported into the Alpha Guardian''s warship but much stronger.
Boom!
In a blink of an eye, a bright light shed across Noah''s eyes, producing a loud booming sound. He couldn''t help closing his eyes. When he opened his eyes, Gaya was gone.
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On a mountain cliff filled with dancing green lush grass fields, Gaya appeared out of nowhere. The setting sun painted the ocean with its golden rays. Gaya looked around, having no idea what just happened.
There were nothing but grass fields and a calm ocean as far as she could see. While she was looking around, she felt a breeze brushing past her from behind. She turned back to see an ethereal figure gradually forming before a couple of meters ahead of her in the air.
"Mother"
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Note: The old man will y an important role in the story. Hence the long chapter about the old man and Noah. I didn''t want the chapter to be split into two. It has crossed the 2k word limit. I hope you dont feel it draggy.
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Hi, my wonderful readers,
After so much thinking and work, I have finally decided to open up a buy me a coffee ount. Your donations no matter how small it is will motivate me to release more chapters and work on Rise of the Legendary Emperor 2.
Use the link below to donate and please kindly leave a message stating your name after donating.
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Chapter 383 - Mazeroth, Academy Of The Arcane
Gaya''s eyes watered as the ethereal figure took the shape of a woman who looked extremely simr to Gaya but more dominant and majestic. Even if the figure was ethereal, her raven ck hair seemed to be fluttered in the air as though they were the wings of an angel. The woman was tall, her perfect structure was covered by metallic ck te armor from her neck to toe.? She radiated a fearsome warrior vibe all around her.? Her perfect jaw structure would make anyone think that the god themselves sculpted her personally. Regardless of her ethereal form, her green eyes glimmered, reflecting the golden sun rays of the setting sun.
Craning their necks out of the satchel, Vedora saw the woman floating a couple of meters away from them. Even Ayag was speechless and felt as if she wanted to bow towards the woman. They had never seen such a woman with elegance as the woman before them. In addition to her dominant vibe, she was someone who could be said to be a country toppling beauty. Even Lah paled inparison to the woman in terms of beauty and grace.
"Baby girl" the two words that came out of the woman''s mouth sounded like music. Gaya lost all control of her body as she copsed to the ground on her knees. Tears poured out of her eyes.
"Mo¡Mother¡" Gaya''s voice broke in overwhelming pain in her heart. The images of her mother in her mind shed across her eyes. She couldn''t utter any words through the lump in her throat.
When her mother died, Gaya was just three years old. Still, she had clear memories of her mother ying with her, teaching her to read, teaching her to fight, and showing her how to rule over people. It had been twenty-five years since shest saw her mother.
Gaya wanted to dash towards, hug her mother and never let her go.
"Baby girl, what did I tell you about crying?" Gaya looked up to see the smiling face of her mother. She couldn''t help bursting into tears. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn''t stop the tears from gushing out of her eyes. The pain in her heart exploded into tears.
"You are Gaya''s mother?" Ayag asked while Gaya was sobbing her heart out. Despite the question, Gaya''s woman didn''t even take a look at Ayag,
"She is just a soul fragment left behind. She can''t see us or hear us. It''s a recording" Cain exined to Ayag,
"Baby girl, if you are here, that means that idiot from the Fisher family was still alive. Listen to my Gaya, I don''t think how much of this message will remain at the time you''re hearing" Gaya saw the gentle smile on her mother''s face disappear,
"Since you are here, that means the prophecy has started already. Listen to me carefully baby girl" Gaya looked at her mother without batting an eye,
"You must find the Dark Lord, Gaya. You must find him" Gaya was stunned by her mother''s words.
"The Skyhall spies are everywhere Gaya. You must find him before they do. They are not what everyone thinks they are"
"Mother¡are you alive?" Gaya asked. Despite what she heard from Cain, she still hoped her mother would be alive.
As though she had heard Gaya''s question, Gaya''s mother sighed,
"Find the dark elf in the tree baby girl. He will have answers to your questions and help you find the Dark Lord. ``The ethereal form of her mother started to flicker as her voice became distorted for a few seconds.
"You can find him¡Akn Realm¡be¡Skyhall¡Tree" her voice became more and more distorted as her figure kept flickering,
"Dark Lord¡only he can save this world¡find him" Whenever Gaya''s mother uttered the words Dark Lord, Cain noticed the idolizing look in her eyes. It seemed as though she was worshiping the Dark Lord. He also noticed the vague resemnce of Ghost''s choice of ck in Gaya''s mother''s armor.
"Salesi¡Stay away¡Skyhall¡Guardians¡your father¡puppet" Gaya couldn''t make sense out of her words. However, she felt a bolt of electricity running through her spine hearing her mother talk about Salesi. Gaya was stunned to see her mother actually know about Salesi because her father married Salesi after her mother died. She shouldn''t know about Salesi yet she seemed to know about Xanali''s mother.
"Mother don''t¡don''t leave..me¡ again" Seeing the ethereal form of her mother flickering and losing its glow, Gaya quickly picked herself up to run towards her.
"I love you¡my baby girl" just as the words escaped Gaya''s mother''s mouth, her ethereal figure disappeared into thin air. Gaya''s finger touched the glow before itpletely faded away yet she couldn''t stop anything.
Gaya remained at the ce where her mother was just a few seconds ago. She picked the pendant from the ground and held it so tight in her hands. After a few moments, the tears rolling out of her eyes finally stopped. Gaya whipped off the tears off her face. She stared at the sun setting down into the distant horizon. To others it was sunset, for her, it felt like a new sunrise. The pain and grief transformed into joy because she slowly began to realize that her mother might still be alive. As far as she could remember, her mother died twenty-five years ago but clearly, her mother was in the Fire Realm twenty years ago. If she was dead, she wouldn''t have met the old man from the Fisher family.
There was no exnation except the possibility that her mother might still be alive and she faked her own death for some reason. Otherwise, she wouldn''t have known about Salesi. When she thought about everything her mother said, she ended up with more questions than answers. One of the questions was how the hell did her mother know about Ghost; The Dark Lord.
"Let''s go" Ayag pped their wings as they ascended to the air from the satchel. With a few more ps of their tiny wings, they sessfullynded on Gaya''s shoulders.
"I thought our trip to the Fire Realm was aplete failure but I''m d that I''m in the wrong" Sarba gently rubbed his head on Gaya''s face. Even Ayag moved her head towards Gaya''s face before wiping the tears off her face.
The three heads of Vedora hugged Gaya and spent a few moments in silence. Their love gave warmth and much-needed fearlessness to? Gaya.
"Where are we?"? Ayag asked while still resting her head on Gaya''s cheek.
"All I know is we are definitely out of the Fire Realm," Cain sighed. He felt safe after a long time. He couldn''t wait to go back home.
"Great. We can finally go home"
A gentle smile appeared on her face along with an unwavering remote in her eyes.
"I aming back home human. This time, we are going to find my mother together"
***************************************
While Gaya was stuck on the border of the Ozer continent, Michael was enjoying the peace and calm of the night sitting on Baron Totonk''s throne.
He initially nned to teleport back to the crypt to deal with the pirates but Azazel informed him that the king of Bredia had sent an envoy to deliver him some documents as well as the promised funds.
Michael had to return to Bradford and deal with the funds. Fortunately, Elder Sandra who was responsible for managing the sect''s financial side agreed to manage the financial side of the kingdom too. Hence, he felt relieved because she was really good at finance. If Elder Sandra was born on earth, she would have made millions or even billions managing funds through her firm.
The throne hall reminded him of his biggest mistake to the date since he came to this world. He had lost control of himself. Although it could be viewed as a weakness or potential threat to himself in the future, he saw an opportunity. That mad persona of him was indeed crazy. However, he also felt extremely powerful in that state. If he could somehow control himself in that state, he would be one step closer to ruling this world.
As he was thinking about a way to control himself in that state, a golden ball of light appeared out of nowhere in the throne hall. He was stunned as the golden ball of light dashed at him.
He almost dashed out of the throne when the golden ball of light stopped before him a couple of meters away from him. Then, the golden ball of light slowly opened to reveal a silver-ted envelope.
The envelope was glimmering in the chandelier light. It slowly floated towards Michael. Looking at the envelope, Michael frowned. Carefully after ordering the system to scan down the letter, Michael reached out to grab the letter floating in front of him.
The letter had the name ''Ghost'' written in gold with beautiful calligraphy. When he touched the envelope, it opened automatically revealing the letter inside.
Dear Mr. Ghost,
Your talent of Alchemy has been noticed by our table of elders and?
We are pleased to inform you that you have been epted at? Mazeroth, Academy Of The Arcane.?
Term begins two weeks from the time this letter reaches you. We await your arrival by noter than 31.
Your uniform, books, and other equipment will be given to you when you reach our academy grounds should you choose to ept the invitation to join Mazeroth.?
Please sign your name on the down right corner if you ept the invitation. You will be teleported to Akn Realm. When you arrive in the Akn realm, our groundskeeper Gilrine will receive you and guide you to Mazeroth, Academy Of The Arcane.?
Yours Sincerely,
Ka Martin
Deputy Headmistress
"What in the actual fuck is this?" That was the first question that appeared in Ghost''s mind after reading the letter.
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Hi my wonderful readers,
I have read all your concern about Michael losing his calmness and change in personality, I can reassure you that this is just a bump in his journey. The story has just started and the real action will begin from the next arc.
P..S - The reason for me pasting the author''s thoughts in the chapter itself was to get the readers of pirated sites to change their minds ande to WN.
Chapter 384 - Going Back To School
The crypt was as usual dark and gloomy. Gibson didn''t even know what time it was as they had no way of looking outside after locking down the crypt door. Gibson took a long deep breath looking at the crew sleeping on the floorpletely ckout drunk. Booze was the only thing that kept them from going crazy. Gibson turned his gaze to the crypt''s dark corner to see Maxine using Shorty as a dumbbell to train her biceps. She held Shorty by his belt and lifted him up and down. The little guy seemed to be in an awkward position as he avoided looking at Gibson.
Noticing Gibson walking towards him, Maxine let go of Shorty. Shorty ran away as fast he could from Gibson.
"Lady Maxine, did you talk to Lord Lucifer?" Gibson asked in a worried tone.
It had been almost three months since they were teleported into the crypt after the Guardians destroyed the Silent Reaper. Never in his life, Gibson thought the Silent Reaper would be reaped by someone else inside the void line.
"Lord Lucifer wille here in the morning," Maxine said with a grin on her face. She was excited to see Lord Lucifer after so long. She couldn''t wait to help him achieve his goals. She waspletely devoted to the cause.
If Lord Lucifer asked her of her life, she would give it to him in a blink of an eye.
"Shit, tomorrow. Lady Maxine, I would have kept them from getting this drunk" He looked at the pirates who were snoring and rolling on the floor,
"You really think we can stop them from getting drunk? That''s the only thing keeping them from killing each other"? Maxine chuckled,
"You are right" Gibson scratched the back of his head as he followed Maxine to the newly ced throne on the north end of the crypt.
Like all the thrones of Lucifer, the throne on the crypt also looked simr to the one in the Dark Forest.
"Lady Maxine, have you heard anything from Lady Sadie and Tiberius?"
Gibson asked. Maxine grabbed the white towel hanging from her waist before cleaning the dust off the throne. Then, she used the same towel to wipe off the sweat droplets on her face.
Gibson was quite used to her reverence towards Lucifer. At first, it was creepy but now it didn''t freak him out as much as it used to.
"Sadie is still with those girls and helping them settle down. I told the two of them to get here before Lord Luciferes. Lord Lucifer ordered all of us to gather here"
Gibson took a deep breath. He could tell their vacation woulde to an end soon. Also, he had a feeling that the real work begins tomorrow morning.
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Meanwhile back in Bradford, Michael was holding the eptance letter to Mazeroth, Academy Of The Arcane. He was cracking his knuckle while reading the contents of the letter.
"What is this ce? Why have I never heard the name before?"? He talked to himself. Although he had never heard the name before, by looking at the quality and the gold ting of the letter, he had a feeling that this ce was not only powerful but also wealthy.
"Your majesty" As he was deep in thought, Ricky entered the throne hall.
"What is it, Ricky?" Michael asked with a gentle smile to calm Ricky. Ever since Ricky witnessed what happened to the baron and his soldiers, he was shivering. Michael himself regretted killing Baron and his men. Jane was a spoiled brat but that didn''t mean the baron deserved to die. He was a father in pain of losing his daughter. Of course, since the baron dared to attack him for no good reason, Michael would have beaten the crap out of his soldiers and baron himself but he would have never killed the baron.
Since there was no use in meddling in the past, Michael never spent his time regretting his actions. Instead, he was thinking about how to solve the third person problem. He himself hated that persona as it was everything he hated. Killing had never been his first n. Rather, he preferred making allies and getting stronger in the shadows. Because of the Guardians and their prophecy, they pushed him on the path to be the Dark Lord.
Even the Lucifer persona was created by him to get rid of his enemies in the shadows and let someone else take the fall. He had never expected that what he had created was something the prophecy foretold three thousand years ago.
"Someone called Lord Information is here" Ricky scratched his head saying the name.
"Let him in" Ricky was surprised to see the sudden smile that appeared on Ghost''s face. It seemed like he was relieved to hear the name.
"That elf hase in a great time," He thought to himself,
"Your majesty, Sect Leader ire also is here to see you"
"Send them both in"
Michael was surprised to see ire in here. He thought she would at least stay away from him for a month or two. After Ricky left the hall, Michael leaned back on his throne experiencing the feeling of being the ruler. He had never been drunk in his life but the feeling he was experiencing kinda felt like a drug.? ''
A few minutester, Lord Information wearing rather in-looking brown robes entered the throne hall. He took off the cloak covering his face to reveal the trademark pointy ears. Lord Information held the door open for ire to enter. Giving a short nod at Lord Information, ire made her way towards the ck cushion seats Michael ced on the hall.
Considering Michael was dealing with Guardians and the holy guards, he didn''t get enough time to actually decorate the throne hall. If Gaya was here, decorating would have been her task. Since it was not the case, he just ced a few ck cushion sofas as seats for nobles and people who came to see him and put a in ck cloth as banners.
Seeing Michael sitting on the throne, Lord Information gave a nod of approval.
"Please take a seat Lord Information. Sect Leader ire, you too take a seat"
"You two have met?" Michael asked,
"Yes, we have met. It was an honor to meet such a rising star" Lord Information praised ire as she waved it off wordlessly telling him not to tter her too much in front of Ghost. The main reason for the SunRise sect''s rising was none other than Ghost, not her or the elders.
However, it was not entirely true. Although Michael brought the much-needed gold and allies to the sect, it was ire who is leading the sect in the path of sess. After all, Michael barely intervened with the sect''s business.
"Don''t sell yourself too short Sect Leader ire, your impable leadership didn''t go unnoticed among the big names in Elon"
"Is that so?" ire let out a gentle smile,
Lord Information then turned his gaze towards Michael,
"Take a look at this and name your price for telling me all I want to know" Michael sent the letter in his hand floating towards Lord Information. ire may have not noticed the change in Lord Information''s face but Michael noticed the surprise look in his eyes.
It seemed like Lord Information had guessed what the letter was about even without taking a look at it. Hiding the surprise from his face, Lord Information grabbed the letter.? Just by looking at the golden lining and paper quality itself indicated to ire that this letter came from a prestigious organization.
Lord Information patiently read the contents inside the letter.
"Before we talk about Mazeroth. King Ghost, have you heard about Skyhall?"
The mere mention of the name Skyhall sent a chill running through ire''s spine. Skyhall was the most powerful existence in the entire world. Even Guardians or any of the Great ns couldn''t bepared to Skyhall in terms of power.
"Little bit. I heard Guardian Noah''s big sister is the Holy Maiden of Skyhall?"
"Yes" Lord Information nodded,
"This world is basically governed and ruled by the Great ns. They are the most dominant existence in the world. The Skyhall can destroy not one but all the Great ns in a few days if they wanted. That''s how powerful they are"
To be honest, Michael was stunned. He was thinking the Great ns were the most powerful existences in the world and Skyhall was just another existence like Guardians but never considered as a Great n. However, it seemed like he was wrong.
"Why haven''t I seen any of the Skyhall members or their bases?" Michael asked as Lord Information just smiled, shaking his head,
"It''s because Skyhall has no bases in any of the continents. Rather, they have their own realms. This Akn realm is one of theirs"
Michael couldn''t help raising his brows. If they could create realms of their own, there was no doubt in his mind that they are the final boss of this world, not the Great ns.
"Mazeroth is a subsidiary of Skyhall. Which makes Mazeroth is the most powerful academy in the world, not Vogerth in the western continent"
Lord Information paused for a moment before continuing,
"This letter is the only way to get into Mazeroth. They only choose the best of the best and they have chosen you. As far as I know, no one has ever rejected this as this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Are you going to be an exception, King Ghost?"
Michael was thinking about rejecting their offer as he had no time or need to go to school. He wasn''t a school kid after all. However, after hearing about the Skyhall, Michael changed his mind. The best way to defeat the Guardians and the Great ns was to ally himself with someone more powerful. Until now, he never found such an existence that could go on head to head with the Great ns.
"Lord Information, Sect Leader ire, I''m going back to school"
Chapter 385 - The First Step To Becoming The Dark Lord
"Lord Information, since it''s another realm, what about the time differences?" Michael asked Lord Information. ire seemed worried, realizing Ghost is going to leave them probably for a long time.
"Your studies willst for eighteen-month in the Akn realm. The time flows three times faster there. So eighteen months there would be six months here"
"Wow, you really live up to your name, Lord Information" Michael chuckled,
"I assume you know someone who went to Mazeroth?" he asked.
Since? Michael needed to know everything he could about Mazeroth and Skyhall, he asked every question that came to his mind.? Lord Information might be the handful of few who knew this much information about Mazeroth and Skyhall. ire seemed clueless about Mazeroth. One couldn''t me ire as only a handful of people knew about the existence of Mazeroth.
"As a matter of fact, I know many. I will tell you two names whom you already know. Pill King Gabriel and the Wielder of Angel Veena, Lady Lah Alden. Both of them studied in Mazeroth"
"So you can''t stay there after studies?" Michael asked,
"As far as I know, you can. Some of them choose to stay in Akn while some return here. Why stay there and be just another guy or girl when you can be a king or queen here?"
Michael could understand. In the Akn realm, both Lah and Gabriel would have been another prodigy but in Elon, they were god-like figures. Every king and noble respects them and treats them with the utmost respect. Unlike Lah who chose to live on a secluded ind filled with poor fishermen, Gabriel was living his life to the fullest.
"Now before we get into the payment and stuff, I''m here to call in the favor you owe my client"
"Of course you are. What do you need?"
Michael didn''t mind ire being here because he was nning to tell her that it was Alex who put the bounty on his head. Enemy of him was an enemy of the sect. ire had to know the lengths their enemies would go to end their existence. As a leader, she needed to be more tough and ruthless.
Lord Information smiled seeing that Michael did not go back on his word. He would hate to lose a customer such as him. With a smile on his face, Lord Information continued,
"In an hour, King Bredia''s men would arrive here to escort you to their treasury as King Bredia promised. My client has something in that treasury that need to be retrieved"
"That''s it?" Michael was surprised. At the same time, he had a feeling that whatever the item is, it must be really important. He was curious to see what it was.
"This is what you have to get from the treasury" Lord Information flicked his wrist as a rolled parchment appeared in his hand. He then sent the parchment flying towards Michael.
After getting the parchment, Michael opened up the parchment to see a rather in-looking ck ball inside a ss cube drawn on the parchment.
"You are gonna tell me what it is?"
"Sorry King Ghost, it''s a need to know"
"Okay then. Where do I deliver the item to?"
Lord Information flicked his wrist yet again as a golden ring appeared in his hand.
"Put the item inside this space ring and it will be delivered to the client directly" As the ring flew closer to him, Michael saw golden runes glimmer on the surface of the ring.? The ring resembled the ring in Lord of the rings.
A smile formed on his face thinking about the life he had on earth.? He thought that life was pressure and he would have a breeze in this world. But even with the system, his life here was several times harder than his previous one.
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After Lord Information left the manor taking his 50,000 gold coins for the information he provided, ire was left alone with Michael.
"Ghoste here" ire called out for him in her gentle voice. She looked worried to the point he could see the tears forming up in her eyes. Looking into her eyes, he could vaguely guess what she was going to talk about and why she was worried. Still, Michael took a long breath and made his way towards her.
"Sit" ire tapped the sofa next to her. The moment Michaelnded his butt on the sofa, she grabbed his hand with both her hands. She squeezed his hand,
"What happened to you that day, Ghost? Something is happening to you. And I can see the worry in your eyes, you can hide it from others, but not from me" Michael sighed inside hearing her words. There was nothing but pure care and concern in her eyes.
"I don''t know about you but you are like a little brother to me. You are family to me. Tell me, how can I help you? I will go to hell and heaven for you"
"You have no idea what I am ire," Michael thought inside.
"Helping one person might not change the whole world but it could change the world for one person. What you did, at that time, changed my entire life. I will never forget your help" Tears began to roll out of her eyes as she continued,
"Whatever is happening to you, there must be a way to fix it. Let me help you for once. Grandpa would know what is happening to you"
With a gentle smile, Michael cupped ire''s soft face. He wiped off the tears,
"ire, I will be fine. That''s my promise to you"
"Are you afraid I would rat you out? That''s why you are not telling me what''s happening to you"
ire was not stupid. She saw the sudden darkness that chased away the light when he began to kill the Baron''s men. Although she fainted, she heard their screams.
"No matter what you are and what you do, I will stand beside you Ghost. If you have no one to stand beside you and support you, that means ire is dead"
Michael sighed. She was not the kind of person who could stand beside Lucifer. Looking at her eyes, he could tell she would still be with him even if he told her that he is Lucifer. However, he didn''t want her or the sect to be in the corsair of the Guardians. If one day the Guardians found out that Ghost is Lucifer, he wanted to protect the sect and ire from the wrath of Guardians.
Her words warmed his heart. ire leaned closer as her forehead touched his.
"ire, nothing will happen to me. We will live our immortal lives as a family since you are my big sister now" Michael chuckled to make her smile.
Ever since he came to this world, he did many things and regretted nothing except killing the baron and his men. That was his only regret and that was because of the third persona inside him. Seeing the tears in her eyes, he promised himself that he would fix himself before he puts everyone he cares about in danger.
Even if there came a day when the Guardians found out that Ghost is Lucifer, he would not let them touch the sect. His trip to the Akn realm would make sure of that.
"Dont worry too much. I''ll be fine" Michael gently head-butted her.
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Meanwhile, in a spacious room where there was nothing but hundreds of books lying around, a white orb was glowing on arge oak table. The candles lit on the candlestick illuminated the orb to reveal two figures sitting closer to each other. A little dragon the size of a peacock with pure pearl scales staring at the orb without batting an eye.
Under the little dragon, an old man in his sixties with a long white beard was leisurely sitting on the chair before the oak table. The windows behind him revealed the massive mountains floating in the sky.
His eyes behind the half-moon spectacles showed a tinge of joy and sorrow at the same time.
"Dean¡you have grown up and you look just like your mother" the old man smiled. The figures in the orb were none other than Michael and ire. The old man was watching them through the orb.
"After everything we did, he still came to this world. It seems you are wrong Andreas. We cannot avoid the inevitable" his voice sounded extremely calm despite his knowledge about the future of this world.
"His powers are starting to show up, aren''t they?" The dragon moved his lips as a melodious voice of a girl came out of its mouth.
"Unfortunately, yes. What we did twenty-one years ago has made him stronger. I doubt the Guardians will be able to stop him after a few years"
"Master, if he is going to be a threat to the entire world. Why can''t you stop him before it''s toote?" the dragon asked,
The old man could only sigh,
"When Andreas asked me to perform the forbidden spell, I told him, we might be pushing the child towards the path to bing the Dark Lord. IF the Skyhall listened to me, Dean might have be a normal child under the care and love of his family. If the gods wanted Dean to be the Dark Lord and fight with his own brother, no one can stop the battle from happening. Any interference in his life would make the situation worse for everyone" The old man took a deep breath and turned back to see the majestic view of floating mountains outside.
"Is heing here, Master?"
He kept staring at the floating mountains with his hands behind his back. Then after a few moments of being silent, he opened his mouth,
"Yes. The moment he reaches Akn, he will step on the path to be the Dark Lord"
Chapter 386 - World Domination Begins I
"My Lord" After his meeting with Lord Information, Michael came back to his hideout in Dark Forest. The moment he appeared in the dark corridors, Azazel weed him with a bow.
"Where is Aria?" Michael asked,
"In her room with her brothers, my lord" Azazel answered as Michael began to walk towards Aria''s room. It was time he healed her brothers and received her undying loyalty. Before he travels to the Akn realm, he had to tie all the loose ends.
One of those loose ends was Aria''s brothers. The system required 150,000 badass points to heal thempletely. He could now afford the points. He already had a n for the two brothers.
The closer he got to Aria''s room, the more he heard a sobbing sounding from inside the room. Obviously, Aria was as usual crying looking at her brothers. Azazel got used to her behavior. Usually, she would go outside to gather information on nobles, kings and ce the Spycams in ces such as Adventurer guild, noble houses, and army barracks to spread the eyes of Lucifer. When she returns to the hideout, she would go to her room, lock the doors and start crying, that was her schedule.
No matter how many times Azazel told her not to cry and trust Lord Lucifer, she didn''t seem to stop sobbing.
"She always cries like this?" Standing in front of the dark door, Michael asked Azazel. Her sobbing sound vanished as she probably heard the footsteps of Lucifer.
"Yes my lord"
Michael nodded at Azazel while the demon butler just flicked his wrist as the door creaked open to reveal Aria standing beside her brothers. Blue tubes were running in and out of her brothers'' bodies through mouth and chest. The scars had mostly disappeared from their bodies yet they were in no shape. It was a miracle they survived. ording to the system''s scan and his understanding, they inserted some kind of potion or substance into their bodies which kept them alive even after they lost organs such as the pancreas and livers.
"My Lord" when Michael entered the room, Aria quickly wiped the tears off her face and bowed. In her eyes, Michael could see a ray of hope glowing. The hope of saving her brothers.
With a nod, Michael moved towards therge bed where the limbless brothers were sleeping peacefully. He ced his hand on their foreheads.
"System, it''s time for us to heal them"
[System scanning initiated¡]
[Getting vital signs¡]
[Initiating healing ns¡]
The system''s voice sounded in his head,
[150,000 badass points required]
[The system requires some other items toplete the healing process. The items would cost the host additional 5000 points]
[The healing process wouldst long for a week]
The system''s voice continued to ring inside his head.
[Does the host wish to start the healing process now?] the system asked,
Instead of saying yes in his mind, he turned his gaze towards Aria. She was staring at him as her body shivered, expecting him to give her some good news about her brothers.
"Do you remember the price to heal your brothers?" Michael asked. She couldn''t see his reaction through the skull mask on his face. Taking a long breath, she looked directly into his glowing red eyes,
"I do, Lord Lucifer. IF you can heal them and give me back my brothers to me, I will dly give my life to you. I just want to see my brothers again"
"Your undying loyalty will ensure nothing happens to you or your brothers in the future. I''m giving them life¡" Michael looked at the two brothers for a second before turning his gaze back at Aria,
"And I can also take their lives¡if you betray me in any way" His cold voice sent a chill running through Aria''s spine. Her heart skipped a beat as she nodded in fear,
"System, start the healing process" he waved his hand after ordering the system. Right at the corner of the room, two ten feet ss containers filled with sparkling blue water appeared.
With another wave, he sent the bodies of the two brothers floating towards the containers. Aria watched her brothers getting submerged into the blue liquid with her body shivering.
"In a week, they will bepletely healed. Remember, their souls have been damaged. I can heal their bodies but only they can heal their souls. Unless they quench the thirst of revenge, their souls won''t heal" Michael added thest part so they won''t try any shit like forgive and forget.
Thest thing he wanted was his subordinates to turn peace pigeons.
"What¡what does¡it mean¡my lord?" Aria stuttered.
"It means they have to seek revenge on whoever was responsible for their state. Souls are magicalplicated things. Make sure you kindle the me of revenge in their hearts"
"I will¡my lord¡I am not nning to let go of those who did this to my brothers" Michael grinned inside to see the murderous look on Aria''s face. He was d to see the fire of revenge zing hot in her heart.
"Put this on and meet me at the throne hall" Michael flicked his wrist as a neatly pressed ck cloth appeared in his hand. He threw the clothes to Aria, gave her an order, and left the room. Although Aria had some questions regarding her brothers, she didn''t get the chance to as he left the room before she could ask another question.
"My Lord, are you going to the Southern Continent?"? Azazel asked while following Michael back to the throne hall.
"Yes. I have to deal with the pirates and then," Michael took a deep breath. Azazel couldn''t guess the meaning of his sigh. Perhaps he was tired or perhaps he was excited or both.
"I am going to Mazeroth, an academy in Akn realm"
"My Lord, you are going alone?"
"They want me to bring a familiar. So I''m bringing Nightmare with me"
He couldn''t help thinking about Hogwarts ever since he received the eptance letter to Mazeroth. Only this time, they invited the Dark Lord instead of the boy who survived, Noah.
"What about¡Lady Dark Queen, my lord?"
"Who knows where she is and what she''s doing?" Michael sighed. Since she put the earpiece in her space ring, Michael or the system couldnt track her as the space ring prevented the system from tracking them. Of course, the system was one level higher, it could have tracked Gaya and told Michael that she is now at Ozer Continent.
"While I am away, keep spreading the Spycams all over the continent. I want you to monitor everything that happens in Elon. Stay away from Noah''s home for now. I''m pretty sure that old smoke would havee up with a way to prevent me from spying on them by now"
"As you wish my lord"
"And give priority to the Spycam I ced on Peyton. If she gets anywhere near Noah or his family, destroy the Spycam" Michael ordered Azazel.
Paying 10,000 points to the system enabled Michael to give control over the Spycams to Azazel. He could now monitor, destroy and use the Spycam to its fullest potential alone without needing Michael.
Monitoring the hundreds of Spycam from the hideout was Azazel''s main task. Information was wealth and power, Michael had begun to hoard information like crazy. If it wasn''t for the bad vibe he got from Lord Information, Michael would have ced a Spycam in his office or on him when he came to Baron''s manor. Michael had a feeling that the elf had some kind of countermeasure to prevent others from spying on him. After all, the elf was making millions by selling secret information. He wouldn''t be careless or stay without a countermeasure against spies.
As they reached the throne hall, Michael saw several undeads cleaning up the hall as though they were professional maids. Michael even slightly chuckled behind his masks imagining the zombies in maid outfits.
He made his way towards the throne and then, leisurely sat on the throne. After a few minutes of waiting in silence, Aria finally appeared wearing the new clothes Michael gave him.
The cloth was specially tailored made for Aria by Michael with several assassin characters in games and movies in mind. The cloth was obviously ck and had a cool hood to cover her head. He even gave her a nice cape to cover the throwing daggers, hidden de on her wrists, and des attached to her legs, waist, and hands.
The dress seemed to be the child of assassins creed and de. He was nning to give all his subordinates cool outfits with benefits. Just he needed a runemaster and a cksmith to forge armors that would give them an edge in battles.
"The de work well?" Michael asked. With a nod, Aria flicked her wrist as the hidden de came out of her wrist producing a sling sound.
Aria was at Body Refining stage level 2, she was vulnerable in Elon or any other cultivation continents. The hidden des wouldn''t do much damage to the cultivators but in the Southern continent, she would be a perfect assassin with the des.
"Step closer to me. We are going to the Southern continent once again"
As Aria stepped close to him, Michael willed the system to activate the runic teleporter. A bright light shed across the hall. In a blink of an eye, Azazel saw Michael and Aria disappear from the hall.
****************************************
Maxine and Gibson were hanging out in the crypt. Currently, there were no rooms in the crypt but just arge spacious hall that could hold hundred people easily.
Currently, the hall was filled with snoring and weird sounds made by the drunk pirates.? Their snorting sounds even ovee the grumble noises made by hundreds of undeads outside the crypt.
Suddenly a white light shed across the hall as Maxine and Gibson couldn''t help but close their eyes with their hands. When they opened their eyes, they felt a chill. Lucifer was sitting on the throne with his glowing red eyes staring at them.
"My Lord!" Maxine shouted with excitement before immediately falling onto her knees.
"My Lord"
Gibson also bowed his head and went to his knees.
"My Lord"
Aria heard another meek voice. She turned her head in the direction of the voice to see Shorty running towards them. Michael was surprised to hear Shorty actually address him as ''My Lord'' instead of Cap''n.? When he saw the skull mask on his face, Shorty was stunned as a sudden nervousness upied his heart.
"Maxine, Gibson, let''s go buy ourselves a new warship"
*****************************
**Expect Pirates of the Caribbean like sea battle in the uing chapters**
Chapter 387 - World Domination Begins II
World Domination Begins II
"Swallow this" With a flick of his wrist, he took out three tiny blue pills the size of a pearl. It was odorless but shiny. Maxine took the pill without any hesitation while Gibson stared at the pills with a confused face.
"Just take it" Maxine growled as Gibson quickly took the pill and swallowed it. Shorty had no idea what the pill would do but he kinda wanted to try it for himself. He kept staring at Michael expecting that he would give him a pill too.
"Shorty" Michael called,
"You are in charge when we are away. Use this as ast resort and close your mouth and nose after using it"? Shorty saw him yet again flick his wrist. This time it wasn''t a pill that appeared in his hand but a ss vial. Shorty''s hands shivered while taking the vial. He held it close to his chest.
"Tell them to be ready, we will leave when we get back," Michael said as Shorty nodded. The very next moment, Shorty saw a bright light sh across his eyes. When Shorty opened his eyes after closing it due to the bright light, he stood in the hall alone. Gibson, Maxine, Aria, and Ghost were nowhere to be found.
Shorty stared at the vial in his hand, wondering what it could do. He had no idea it was diluted Fear Toxin that would scare the crap out of the pirates if it escaped the ss vial.
With his Inventor skill, he was able to make adjustments to his armor which enabled him to release Fear Toxin into the air whenever he wanted. However, unlike the vial in Shorty''s hands, the Fear Toxin in his armor was potent to the point it would kill anyone in Southern Continent in a few minutes while cultivators at or below Core Formation level would die of heart attack if they breathed in the toxin for more than five minutes.
*********************************
"Fuck, where are they? We have been waiting for an hour here"
Inside Senator Caius''s manor, Tiberius punched the wall, losing his patience. Caius was too focused staring at the map on his table.
"Calm down Tiberius, do you know where H is?" Another sweet gentle voice could be heard in the room. It belonged to none other than Sadie Kan. She traveled from newly found Tiberius''s kingdom to Gisel with Tiberius to the meeting with Lucifer.
It was time she returned to Elon but to return, she would have to sail by the sea which would take months. Hence, she wanted Lucifer to teleport her to Elon.
Thest couple of months had been an eye-opener for Sadie. When she was initially assigned to investigate the killings of Lucifer, she thought he was nothing but pure evil. It was rage and helplessness that pushed her to seek out Lucifer when her sisters disappeared.
Now she changed her mind about Lucifer. Although he was not exactly what someone would call good, he wasn''t as evil as the Guardians imed him to be. Because of Lucifer, the girls were alive and got a second chance at living. The former ves settled into Tiberius''s ce seemed to be really getting along with the girls. They were helping the girls ovee the trauma despite being that they had been through traumas of their own.
"Ask the Senator. He was the one who sent him to the Maven Kingdom"
"Maven?" Sadie asked bewildered. She was still not quite used to thendscape and the kingdoms of the Southern Continent.
"What are the seven kingdoms again?" She asked, hoping to get Caius''s attention. If he started talking, she hoped it would calm down Tiberius who had no patience whatsoever.
Her melodious sweet voice was indeed able to take his eyes away from the map. She stood up from her chair and walked towards Caius''s table to see the map. Sadie saw a huge piece ofnd divided into seven pieces by ck lines. The border of the continent had three adjacent kingdoms which were surrounded by mountains ording to the map.
"These are the seven kingdoms, Gisal, Maven, Bralon, Prerid" After pointing the four kingdoms on the map, he moved his fingers towards the border where the three kingdoms were surrounded by mountains
"Qiven, Xoral and Netis. These three kingdoms are known as Trident of Southern Continent because these three are ruled by kings, not senates"
"Yeah. I heard about the freedom fighters were hiding in the forests of gray mountains near Qiven"
Tiberius finally stopped punching the walls and came to join them at the table.
"So what makes you so tense?" Sadie asked. Caius sighed as he moved his finger towards Maven. The kingdom was adjacent to Gisel and almost the same size as them.
Caius''s finger rested on the border of the two kingdoms where Sadie saw a marking of a mountain. The mountain seemed to be right between the two kingdoms. Almost fifty percent inside Gisel and fifty percent inside Maven.
"This Stormveil mountain"
"What makes that a problem now? Isn''t that mountain closed for some bullshit political reasons?" Tiberius asked,
"Two decades ago, the senate of each senate agreed to close the mountain range until both senatorse into an agreement of who owns the mountain"
"This sounds silly to me, no offense. Why not simply share the mountain? Also, what do you guys want with the mountain anyway?" Sadie asked as Tiberius also nodded, looking as though he was agreeing with Sadie.
"Stormveil is not just any mountain, deep inside, there are gold veins. Anyone who owns this mountain will basically be a superpower. Hence, the other senates poked their nose into the matter and brokered a peace talk" Caius rolled his eyes. The other senates brokered the peace talks not to avoid a war but to keep both Gisel and Maven from bing superpowers. They were only keeping their hands off the mountain because they had no ims on the mountain.
"If there is an agreement, why are you worried?"
"Let me guess, you received news of MAven preparing to make their move on the mountain," Tiberius said, surprising Caius. That was exactly the truth. Caius had been receiving news of MAven spending a huge chunk of their wealth buying weapons, armors, airships as well as hiring mercenaries.
"How did you know?" Seeing Caius''s reaction, Saide could tell Tiberius guessed it correct. Therefore, she turned her gaze towards Tiberius and asked,
"It doesn''t take a genius actually. After Lord Lucifer helped out Senator here kill the previous senate, the seats of the senates are empty. Although the senate has been filled with Senator Caius''s buddies, it''s temporary. The elections areing. Gisel has to spend most of her resources ensuring the elections would be fair and the kingdom would be in a tense situation. Plus, until the elections are over, the spartans would take over the leadership. They are great soldiers but shitty leaders. The kingdom will be vulnerable without the senate to lead" Tiberius snickered as he continued,
"If they conquered the mountains first, it would be near impossible to take the mountain range back because that''s a damn good ce to defend. It''s a natural forte. Anyone who fights will have an uphill battle in their hands. Also, the Senate will have so many meetings, bickerings and when they finally get their shit together, Maven would be strong enough to wipe out Gisel from the map"
After listening to Tiberius exin, Sadie understood the seriousness of the situation. With the senate destroyed in a single day, the people of Gisel were tense as it is, they weren''t prepared to face a full-scale war.
"I could send in the spartans to defend the mountain range until the election finishes but it will be like sending them to their graves. Besides, I''m having some problems with the new Spartan captain"
"New? What happened to the old one?" Tiberius asked,
"He was injured during the explosion at the arena. A month ago he died and a new one took his ce" Caius sighed,
"Took his ce? Shouldn''t it be you who chooses the new captain?"
"Unfortunately spartans have their own rules about choosing a new captain. The senate or the senators can''t poke our noses into their matter. I can''t fight Maven and the Spartans at the same time. This is giving me a headache on top of the uing elections"
"I hope Lord Lucifer don''t get disappointed with you, Senator" Tiberius snickered,
He hated all the senators including Caius. All the senate and the senators sent their forces to shut down the rebellion. Even now, except Gisel, the other three senate-ruled kingdoms were enforcing harsh rules to put out the rebellion and hanging ves mercilessly.
Although Caius helped the rebels take refuge in Tiberius''s kingdom and gave protection, Tiberius knew he was doing that because of Lucifer''s orders, not out of the goodness in his heart. Tiberius was only thankful to Lucifer, not to anyone else.
"Don''t listen to him, Senator. Tell everything to Lord Lucifer, he might just go there and destroy their asses overnight" Sadie slightly chuckled,
Tiberius was surprised as this was the first time he saw this girl chuckle since he met her. She always had a gloomy face. He knew the reason for her sadness. After hearing their story, he came to realize that cultivators aren''t better than the nobles in the Southern continent. They both seemed evil to the core. Compared to them, Lucifer seemed to be the good guy in Tiberius''s eyes.
Swoosh!
Suddenly, a bright light shed across the room as the three of them quickly shut their eyes close. A few seconds after they opened their eyes to see Lucifer sitting on a throne made of Skull and bones behind Senator Caius.
Sadie saw Maxine and Gibson standing on each side of the throne.
"Lord Lucifer"
"Lord Lucifer"
"Lord Lucifer"
Caius was the first to kneel down, followed by Sadie. Tiberius took a few seconds before finally getting onto his one knee.
"You seem tense, Caius. Tell me everything" Michael didn''t beat around the bushes but directly asked after seeing the dread in Caius''s eyes.
"Lord Lucifer¡"
For a few minutes, Michael just listened to Caius exin the problems Gisel was having since hest saw him. Michael was too focused on the tournament and the guardians and kinda neglected Gisel. It was not because Gisel wasn''t important but any problem in the Southern continent could be fixed by brute force as Michael was a godlike existence here, especially now after upgrading himself.
"Maxine, let''s buy the warship and take a trip to Maven"
"As you wish my lord, we should destroy the senate as we did here" Maxine grinned evilly as Caius felt a chill running through his spine.
Chapter 388 - World Domination Begins III
"My Lord, Can I suggest something to you?" Maxine asked when Michael was about to leave the room. Michael turned his head to look at her,
"Go ahead"
"Instead of buying a warship from Gisel, we should buy one from the pirates yard. They have more choices"
Michael thought about it for a few seconds before turning the other side to look at Gibson,
"What do you think Gibson?"
"Lady Maxine is right, Lord Lucifer. Pirates build best warships in the entire southern continent"
What Gibson said didn''t surprise Michael much. There was an unwritten rule about a kingdom having naval power in the Southern Continent. If one kingdom began to build its naval power, the three pirate captains would wage war against the kingdom and destroy the kingdom before it could be a threat to them. This was how the pirates have been ruling the oceans of the southern continent for hundreds of years.
Thebined power of the pirate lords was not something to be taken lightly. Some senates wanted to increase their air force by building flying warships but the pirate lords made an example of them by destroying the kingdom overnight by piging and destroying the kingdom.
Each kingdom was allowed to have only a small number of warships and airships. The pirates didn''t care about soldiers and ground forces as no matter how many soldiers a kingdom had, without enough warships, they wouldn''t be able to touch the pirates in the sea.
"Since you were a pirate captain served under Corey, I assume you have some contacts in pirates yard,"
Maxine nodded,
"Speaking of Corey, who are the other two pirate lords?"
"Gibbes ''ckmane'' Jett, Hobson ''Rum Lover'' Vance" Michael took a mental note in his head. Previously he heard about the pirate lord Maxine was serving under, Pirate Lord Corey ''Witch'' Drachen.
Most of the pirates tend to have a nickname between their first andst names. The name varied from something that expressed great feats to great shame. Either way, almost 90% of the pirates had a nickname.
"Where are they now?" Michael asked. Instead of approaching them with hostility, he first wanted to try to make them his allies. Killing them would be as easy as crushing an ant to him but getting the loyalty of their underlings and dealing with the revolution afterward would be a headache to him.
"Corey is on her own ind, north of pirates cove. It''s called the witch ind"
Michael listened to her with his head resting on his fist.
"Caius, You have an airship?"
"Of course, he has," Tiberius answered before Caius could open his mouth.
"Good, then we use that and talk about solving your problem in the ship"
Michael closed his eyes behind the mask, willing the system to unequip all the Lucifer armor and equip a brown long coat, white loose shirt, ck pants, and ck boots. The system also equipped the facial mask and changed his real face to make him look like someone elsepletely.
Except for the color of his hair, everything changed, including the length of his hair. His hair instantly became shoulder length as most of the men in the Southern continent.
Sadie was stunned to see his face without the skull mask. Of course, she knew this wasn''t his real face yet she was stunned to see the face without the mask. He looked rather normal, not like someone who would catch the eyes of a girl instantly such as Ghost or Noah.
"Lead the way" As he stood up from the throne made of skulls and bones, the throne vanished into thin air. Caius quickly nodded, stood up, and then began to lead everyone towards his personal airship.
"How is your kingdom shaping up?" while following Caius out of his room towards the airship, Michael asked Tiberius. Instead of addressing it as a vige or a town, Michael addressed it as a kingdom. In the future, Tiberius''s kingdom would be a huge part of his army to conquer and defend the entire southern continent from the Guardians if they chose to attack.
"We are still at war with the senates of the other three kingdoms, Lord Lucifer. They are still hunting everyone who dares to rebel. The diator schools are spending so much fucking gold to prevent anyone from rebelling against their dominus"
"Caius" After listening to Tiberius without showing any expression on his face, Michael called out Caius as the senator turned back to look at him,
"Let''s walk and talk," Michael said, preventing Caius from halting his steps. Then they began to talk while walking.
"How long will it take to visit each of the other three senate ruled kingdoms?"
Caius could sense the air be chilly. He even slightly shuddered after hearing the question.
"Five days if we used full speed"
"I can spare five days to fix Tiberius''s problem" Michael shrugged.
No one dared to ask how, even Tiberius remained silent but he could kinda guess what was about to happen to the senators. To be honest, Tiberius couldnt care less about the corrupted politicians who supported the Spartans and dominus killing hundreds of ves all over the continent.
After taking the mantle of leading the freedom fight, he cared about every single ve. He made his life purpose to erase the very from Southern Continent.
Sometimes even Tiberius would wonder what made him like this. Perhaps, the death of Doctorus or perhaps his muscles sickness or just anger towards the nobles who enved them.
"What about you Sadie? The girls, how are they holding up?"
Sadie sighed,
"Better than they were two months ago. They are still traumatized but those girls are strong, stronger than me" Her voice stuttered,
"Of course they are. You were wasting your life in delusion. Wee to the real world" Gibson was stunned. He was kinda hoping Lucifer would say some calming words to her. Instead, he uttered the words that made Sadie''s eyes water up.
"People like Guardians will only care about you as much as they can use you. Their care and considerations end where the benefits stop. Turn the tables, use them before they use you, and throw you away like trash"
Although the SilverMoon was on the right track, they still weren''t using the SilverMoon girls to their full potential. SilverMoon was basically a huge spy agency with extreme potential to collect information about anyone or anything.? Theycked the leadership, gadgets, and tactics to extract information to their full potential. If Michael could ce Sadie as the next sect leader of SilverMoon, he would then show her the ropes and receive hundreds of spies.
"How?" Sadie asked. Her voice stuttered.
"Be the next sect leader," Michael said as though it was a simple matter. He knew SilverMoon is not a sect like Sunrise sect to change the sect leader just like that. However, with Sadie''s loyalty towards him, he could infiltrate the sect and get the sect under his thumb little by little.
Eventually, they climbed the stairs to the top floor. The Spartans were staring at them but didn''t dare to stop and question Senator Caius. After climbing the stairs for a few minutes, Michael finally saw a door blocking their way with two spartans with spears standing on each side of the white door.
"Senator"
"Senator"
The two Spartans stomped the spear on the ground as their version of bowing. Then one Spartan opened the door to reveal a giant airship on the other side.
"I never flew in a blimp, hmm" the airship in front of him reminded him of blimps. It looked exactly like a blimp. The golden paint almost hurt his eyes with its bright color. Several Spartans and guards of Caius were patrolling around the blimp. From the balcony, Michael could see half of the kingdom.
The outfit of Aria, the rugged look of Tiberius, the beauty of Sadie immediately attracted the eyes of the soldiers. Especially Sadie, few soldiers stopped patrolling for a moment to just stare at her.
Ignoring the soldiers, Michael followed Caius. When they came closer to the blimp, a servant girl wearing a brown maid dress pushed a button as steps came out from the blimp''s side.
After climbing the stairs, Michael got into the blimp and was quietly stunned by the interior. He felt like he was transported back to earth as the interior reminded him of the interior of the private jets. The golden chandeliers coupled with ss tables andfy white sofas made the spacious interior feel cozy.
Tiberius''s jaw almost dropped seeing everything before him. Unlike Michael or Sadie, he had never seen something so fancy. Michael saw a minibar with a who seemed to be the bartender, a ss round table in the center, probably for Caius to n something, several silver orbs attached to the ceiling as well as a rack filled with books and parchments.
"Everyone out" Caius ordered with a domineering voice. The maids and the bartender quickly cleared the area, leaving them alone.
"Where to, my lord?" Caius asked. Rather than taking out the throne and sitting on it, Michael sat on the single-seater sofa beside the window.
"Get us as close as you can to pirates yard"
Caius nodded before walking towards the far end of the blimp.
"Take your seats,dies and gentlemen"
One by one everyonended their butts on the sofas. Several momentster, Maxine broke the awkward silence.
"What''s the n Lord Lucifer?"
Gibson was really surprised to see how Maxine could easily talk to Lucifer. Everytime Lucifer''s eyesnd on him, he would feel a shudder in his heart.
"Nothing much. Just going to take over the four senate ruled kingdoms within five days"
The words that came out of his mouth stunned every single one of them including Maxine. Michael kept cracking his knuckles one by one looking at the figures of the soldiers gradually bing smaller and smaller.
When he took his gaze away from the window, everyone saw his eyes glow in pure crimson red for a few moments before bing normal.
It had been almost eighteen months since he came to this world and finally, he decided to be on the offensive against the guardians instead of ying defense. The Southern Continent would be the first to bow to the Dark Lord and be ruled from the shadows by Michael.
"We are the Order of Death"
Chapter 389 - Pirate Wars
In silence, they flew towards the pirates yard where the pirates had been building their pirate ships. Considering Michael lost control of his anger, leaving the third persona toe out, he decided to resume meditation. He used to meditate every day when he was on earth. Now he has started to meditate in this world too. Caius or anyone would guess whether he was sleeping or just enjoying the peace and calm with his eyes closed. Nheless, they didn''t dare to utter a word to disturb his peace.
Through the window, Tiberius saw nothing but an endless ocean. There were several ships including merchant ships, small fishermen boats as well as a man of war in the distance. Eventually, after flying for a couple of hours, clusters of little inds and rock formations began to appear in their sight. As they continued to fly, they saw several warships patrolling in formations as a gigantic ind with numerous ships docked appeared on the horizon.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Michael''s meditation was interrupted by thunderous booming sounds. Everyone except Maxine quickly looked through the window to see the patrolling warships getting into formations and firing their cannons.
"Tell your driver to stop the airship. This is as far as we can fly" Maxine calmly said without even looking outside. She just stood behind Michael''s seat as though she was his personal guard.
Finally, Michael slowly opened his eyes to see everyone looking through the window. He turned his eyes, getting a view of the pirate ships lining up to shoot the airship down if they flew any closer.
"Sadie,Tiberius and Caius stay here. We will go and deal with this"
"Really? I always wanted to fight the pirates" Tiberius sighed as Sadie elbowed him gently.
"Yes my lord, I''ll go tell the driver to put us down and prepare the boat for you" Michael nodded at Caius. While they were waiting for the pilot to lower the airship, Michael saw more and more pirate ships appear on the horizon.
"Quite a wee" Michael smiled looking at the warships waiting to destroy them. There were at least fifty warships including frigates as well as galleons.
"This airship has the crest of Gisal on it Lord Lucifer. It''s unusual for a senate ship to fly to pirates yard. Pirates tend to follow the fire first and ask questionster policy when ites to the outsiders"
Gibson nodded at Michael while Maxine was exining,
"I am pretty sure those idiots are itching to fire us down as we speak. So we better leave the airship and tell the senator to fly back to a? safe distance"
With a nod, Michael stood up from his chair, He turned his gaze towards Aria, then at Tiberius.
"You two should talk. After all, you have someone inmon"
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Leaving the airship, Michael ended up on a small boat that had only space for three people. Michael was sitting on end, Gibson on the other rowing the boat towards the warships while Maxine remained in the middle.
Since they were using a rowboat, the pirates didn''t shoot them down but waited patiently, letting the rowboat near them.
"My Lord, shall I introduce myself to them?" Maxine asked Michael. Before joining his ranks, she was an infamous pirate captain named Marina, the iron fist. Almost every pirate in the Southern continent heard or knew about her because she had sunk hundreds of merchant ships and army warships alike under the order of Pirate Lord Corey.
She was a feared pirate captain. It had been two months since she had seen her crew. Thest time she saw them, she ordered her crew to station at the pirate cover with her ship. Shemanded fifteen ships but they didn''t belong to her. Rather those ships and crew belonged to Corey.
"Go ahead before someone gets trigger happy" Michael calmly said. Gibson saw no fear in his eyes at all despite being facing fifty warships.
He was calm as the sea, no fear or any emotions could be seen on his face.
Even with spells, Gibson doubted if he could take on an armada of this size. However, after seeing his calm look, Gibson asked himself the question, "Is he more powerful than we realize?"
"Lower your cannons and let us pass through idiots" Maxine''s shout reverberated the sea.
A few moments of awkward silence filled the area while Gibson stopped rowing the boat. Suddenly the brigades blocking their path slowly moved aside, forming a path for them to the ind.
"Good, you idiots still have some brain inside ur thick skulls" Maxine yelled again before sitting back on the boat.
While rowing through the brigades Michael looked up at the ships and saw the pirates staring at Maxine with wide eyes. In their eyes, he could see fear and respect.
The pirates yard was a giant ind that had several shipyards. Everywhere he turned, he could see ships being built and repaired. The smell of oil and gunpowder overwhelmed his senses. The sweet sound of a hammer hitting the iron, log sawing and chattering of the pirates offered a rather charming experience to Michael.
They were rowing towards the dockyard where several crates were stacked on each other along with several barrels. There were hundreds of pirates running around the shipyard.
"Dock the boat here," Maxine told Gibson as he docked the ship with several other fishing boats the same size as their boat.
Michael stood up, jumped on the dock with a swift leap. Then he reached out his hand to help Maxine. She was surprised but ended up grabbing his hand to get onto the dock.
"Don''t mind me" When Gibson was about to reach his hand too, he saw Micahel and Maxine turn back to walk away. Fortunately, the water was not too deep. Therefore, he stepped out of the boat, dragged himself through the water, and climbed the few steps to reach the wooden tform.
"Lead the way," Michael said to Maxine. Since she seemed to know theyout of the ind more than him and Gibson, he let Maxine take the lead while he just followed her behind, looking at the surroundings. The ind was not much different than any tropical inds on earth but with lots of ships, barrels, drunken pirates fighting each other, and few anchors buried in the sand.
As he was following Maxine behind, he saw a lone pirate with a Cuban cigar in his mouth approaching them with a sly smile on his face. On the other hand, he had a bottle of rum.
The man had shoulder-length greasy hair that seemed like it did not see the sight of ab for at least a decade. The scare that ran from his upper left eye to the upper right corner of the mouth gave a ruthless look to him.
He unted his chiseled chest and six-packs abs while walking towards them. A tattoo of a flying eagle could be seen on his chest along with a dagger.
"It isn''t the famous captain Marina herself?" the man took the cigar out of his mouth,
"Wow, I wouldn''t have recognized you if it wasn''t for your face. What happened to you? You''ve been eating less?"
Michael did not react at all as he remained behind Maxine without uttering a word.
"Or did you be poor after deserting Pirate Lord Corey''s fleet?"
"What the fuck do you care?" Marina snickered,
Just by the exchange of these words, Gibson could tell the two of them have some bad blood between them.
"I have a hundred thousand reasons to care"? the smile on his face grew wider.
"Someone put a bounty on my head i assume" Maxine shrugged without a shred of worry,
"Aren''t you a smart one?" The man put the cigar back in his mouth,
"You can try putting your hands on me" Maxine cracked her knuckles as the man just shook his head,
"I would love to, especially now you aren''t as fat as you were. Luckily for you, Pirate Lord Vance ordered us not to take on the bounty. So if I were you, I will get on that ship of yours" he looked at the rowboat with a mocking smile on his face,
"And row as fast as you can away from the continent"
"Get out of my face, we have a ship to buy" Maxine waved her hands off as though she was shooing him away.
And just as she was about to take a step forward, the man burst intoughter,
"Buy a ship? Fuck me. You have no idea what''s going on do ya?" Maxine frowned, clenching her fists. She wanted to punch the smug off of his face,
"What?" she didn''t hide the annoyance in her voice,
"No one is selling ships here or anywhere for that matter. Every single ship''s being built is going to the Pirate Lord themselves. Since you abandoned your ship, crew, and Pirate Lord Corey, you are not getting a new ship baby, no matter how much you pay"
Michael had a weird feeling listening to the man. Also, he was getting annoyed as he wanted to grab the man by his neck, beat the hell out of him, and make him spill out what was going on.
"Some moron king from Ozer is sending a war fleet into the void line. They might be big assholes on the other side of the void line. SInce they areing to our world, we are gonna tear them a new one"
The trio was surprised, including Michael himself. He wondered who dared to cross the void line, battle with pirates and hope to win in their own territory.
"What king?" Maxine asked. This time, her voice did not show any signs of irritation but curiosity.
The man closed his eyes, looking as though he was picking his brain to remember the name,
"Masia¡Rosia¡yeah" he snapped his fingers as he opened his eyes,
"Thusia¡Kingdom Thusia"
The mere mention of the name made Michael clench his fist. His heart began to beat faster and faster. Gibson noticed Lucifer starting to breath faster as well as the clenched fist,
"Calm down Michael" Michael ordered himself in his mind before the other persona took control over his body. If that persona came outside, the entire ind would be painted in red with their blood.
Fortunately, his extreme control over himself, as well as the meditation, kept his anger under control.
Chapter 390 - New Ship
New Ship I
"So the pirate lords are going to war with a cultivation kingdom" Maxine frowned,
"They were the morons who suddenly cross the void line and sink whatever pirate ship they see" the man let out a puff of smoke as he continued,
"Anyways, it doesn''t concern you anymore. If I were you, I will get out of the Southern continent as soon as possible"
"You are not me, Sheyan. But if you don''t like being who you are now, I can remodel that ugly face of yours" Maxine cracked her knuckles. The feeling of the Dark Lord standing behind her gave her immense courage to take on not only Sheyan, a pirate captain under Pirate Lord Vance but also the pirate lords themselves.
For the pirates and anyone in the Southern continent, the pirate lords were not someone they could touch. However, in front of the Dark Lord, they were as weak as a newborn child. With a single spell, Michael could kill the pirate lords.
"You are not pirate captain Marina the Iron fist anymore, just Marina. You are not worth fighting"
Maxine clenched her fist tightly as she looked like she was about to punch him in the face. Gibson decided to take a step back, letting Maxine take care of Sheyan. However, when she was about to raise her hand, Gibson saw Michael step forward. He put his hand on Maxine''s shoulder, calming her down instantly.
"Thank you for the information you provided, have a nice day" Sheyan creased his brows. He thought the youngster behind Maxine was just ackey of hers but seeing how he ced his hand on Maxine''s shoulder and calmed her down, he realized that he was not a mereckey.
"Let''s go" Michael took the lead. Rather than wasting time with Sheyan, he walked away from the pirate, taking Maxine and Gibson with him.
While walking away from Sheyan, Michael could feel the pirate''s gaze on him. Gibson was baffled. He thought Lucifer was going to mercilessly kill Sheyan yet he did not only kill him but also talked to him with respect. He had never seen Lucifer act so modest towards someone else until now.
Still, Gibson was not stupid to think Lucifer was afraid of Sheyan. As far as Gibson was concerned, Sheyan was lucky not to get himself killed.
In silence, Maxine and Gibson walked beside Michael. A few momentster, Maxine opened her mouth, decided not to speak, and closed her mouth. She kept opening and closing her mouth. She wasn''t afraid of talking to Michael but was afraid to question him. Michael noticed the way Maxine''s been acting.
"He is just a small fry, Maxine. Killing him would unnecessarily make us enemies with Vance. He is not worth it" Michael calmly said,
"But my Lord," Maxine talked quietly,
"You can kill the pirate lords within a few seconds. Give me the order and I will take them out"
The medallion of Order of Death gave her inhuman strength, to be exact, a strength of a Body Refining stage level 3 cultivator. In the Southern continent where everyone had no cultivation power, she was a superhuman indeed. Nheless, Michael had a feeling that Maxine alone wouldn''t be able to defeat the Pirate Lords. If they were so easy to defeat, they wouldn''t have been ruling the seas for more than five decades.
"If I wanted them dead, they would have been dead by now," Michael said. The noises around them prevented anyone other than Gibson and Maxine from hearing the wordsing out of Michael''s mouth.
"Killing them would create a power vacuum, everyone under the three would want a piece of the power. Eventually, the struggle for power would create many factions, internal wars. A kingdom like Thusia would use this opportunity to either destroy the pirates once and for all or take control over them. Which would make Thusians even more powerful than they are right now" Maxine listened to his words in silence. She never thought killing the pirate lords would be a bad thing but what he said made sense.
"Also, pirate lords are the ones keeping the kingdoms in the southern continent from building their own armadas of ships. Without them to keep them under control, each kingdom would go crazy with warships. If they build a naval force, along with their air force, every kingdom would turn into a threat to us. So we need to make a subtle approach with the pirate lords"
While listening to Michael, Maxine led them through the muddy streets towards somewhere. They passed a couple of taverns where they heard loud singing sounds and smelled the overwhelming scent of booze and pirates.
"My lord, if I may¡"
"Don''t be afraid to ask questions and tell me what you think Maxine. I want to lead lions, not mindless herd of sheeps" he said, seeing Maxine being afraid to question him. She wasn''t afraid to talk to him but scared as hell to question him.
He preferred his subordinates to be more vocal, using their brain rather than following him blindly. Although Michael was an expert in nning, conquering the world wasn''t his forte. To be the Dark Lord, first, he had to be a good leader and any good leader would listen to the people under him. That was one of the differences between a leader and a dictator.
"Yes my lord" Maxine''s fear disappeared after hearing him. Gibson also felt somewhat rxed.
"How do you n to deal with the pirate lords? They won''t bend their knees, my lord. Those stubborn bastards would rather die than serve someone else"
"That''s where you are wrong Maxine. Everyone has a price and a weakness. We just need to exploit one of them/I will show you, after buying the ship, we will deal with Corey" Michael cracked his neck,
"Time to undo that bounty on your head"
In addition to Corey''s decision to put a bounty on Maxine''s head, it was her name Corey ''Witch''? Drachen that made him decide to meet her first. He was curious to see why she was being called Witch.
Since Michael encouraged them to be more expressive about their questions, Gibson wanted to ask about Thusia. When Sheyan told them about Thusia, Gibson noticed a change in his calm face.
However, before Gibson could ask Michael, Michael questioned Maxine,
"I assume you are leading us to a ce where we can still buy a ship"
Maxine nodded,
"A shipbuilder named Welton owes me a favor"
"Is it enough to disobey the rules set by the pirate lords?" Michael asked,
"It is my lord. If it wasn''t for me, he would have been shark shit by now"
With a nod, Michael followed Maxine. On his way, Michael saw several frigates, schooners, galleons, and even a man o war being built on the shipyards. Some pirates were ripping apart the hulls, cannons, and masts for spare parts.
On the other side of the streets, he noticed several weapon stores as well as forges. Almost all the forges and weapon stores were full. All the cksmiths seemed to be working on cannons, probably for the uing war.
"War is always profitable" he mumbled under his breath. Spectre, his mentor, always used to say this.
Eventually, after a few minutes of walking through the muddy streets, Michael saw a huge hanger where he saw numerous pirates running around doing various chores such as carrying wooden logs, welding iron, rolling cannons and sawing giant wooden logs.
There were two frigates inside the hangar. One was being built, it had a glossing hull, new shining brown paint job with several drawings of which seemed to be a Kraken, thick brand new sails. The ship seemed to be in thest stage before its first voyage. The other ship which remained beside the ship looked exact opposite. Compared to the ship the pirates were working on, the other one looked like a beggar. It looked ancient with its battered hull, torn sails and half-destroyed figure head which looked like a cryingdy with wings.
Nevertheless, the damaged one was bigger in sizepared to the brand new one. It could hold more cannons as well as crew members. Any sane person would choose the brand new one as the other one looked as if it would sink into the sea if being put on the water.
The pirates were too busy to notice the trio entering the hangar. Maxine led them towards the far end of the hanger. They were walking between the two frigates. Gibson was staring at both the ships. Either of them couldn''t bepared to the Silent Reaper in terms of size, power, or anything. The Silent Reaper didn''t belong to specifically any ss but many identified it as a war galleon. Thinking about Silent Reaper, Gibson sighed. The ship was stinky, nasty, and filthy yet it was his home for thest two decades. Overnight, the Guardians destroyed it into bits and pieces.
Even Gibson, who respected the Great ns, wanted to destroy the airship that destroyed the Silent Reaper. Since they were here to buy a ship, Gibson began to look at the brand new ship as hepletely ignored the old one on the left side.
Michael on the other hand was looking at the ancient-looking ship. It kinda reminded him of the ck pearl. He ran his fingers on the eh tattered hull with a smile. Usually, in the novels he read, the ignored or rather normal-looking things would end up as the ancient things that hold unlimited potential. When the main character finds the item, he or she would see the OPness of the item. It would serve the main character in the future after restoring it to its former glory.
Yet, this ship was neither OP nor an ent power. Rather, it was just a damaged frigate. If Michael wasn''t an inventor, he would have obviously gone with the brand new one. Since he was an Inventor, he was able to identify which ship could be upgraded easily. The brand new ship could be upgraded but not as much as the old one. Every singleponent of the old ship could be upgraded, unlike the brand new one.
"It''s time to put my inventor skill into more use"
Chapter 391 - 4 Star Inventor
Michael was not in a rush to meet Welton. He was patiently looking at all the nooks and crannies in the ship. The ship seemed to be armed with 42 twelve-pound cannons: 24 on the gun deck and 18 on the upper deck.
At the moment, there were only holes in the ce where the cannons should have been. Obviously, the pirates ripped her apart for parts and only kept the ship for some sentimental value or something.
Gibson was too focused on the brand new ship. He was almost certain that they were going to buy this ship. Hence, he didn''t notice Michael studying the old ship without even giving a look at the brand new ship.
As Michael was counting the cannons, they came to the back of the ship. When they turned the corner around the ship''s backside, they saw a group of three pirates discussing something. When the pirates noticed the trio approaching they quit talking. One of the three pirates opened his eyes wide the moment he saw Maxine. Nothing special about the man. He was neither too tall nor too short, medium built, wore a white loose shirt that was soiled with oil, dirt, and grease which turned the white into a brown. Looking at Maxine, he scratched his stubble brown beard with a solemn expression.
The tension was visible to the naked eyes on the man''s face.
"Welton" Maxine put a phony smile on her while greeting him with a wave.
"What the heck are you doing here?" Welton asked in a husky voice,
"Nice to see you too" Maxine rolled her eyes as Welton quickly rushed towards the other side of the old ship to hide from the others. When they disappeared behind the old ship, Welton began to talk,
"Get out of here Marina, you already fucked me up bying here" Welton didnt even look at Michael or Gibson. He seemed more focused on chasing them away,
"I''m here to call in the favor Welton. I need a ship and you''re gonna provide us one"
The moment Welton heard her, Gibson could see him literally shudder.
"You crazy? No. I can''t give you a fucking ship. They will hang me alive. Don''t you know what the fuck is going on here? All the ships are going to the pirate lord themselves. If they knew I sold a ship to you of all people, a deserter, they will skin me alive" He was frantically shaking his head,
"What about this one?" Suddenly Maxine and Gibson saw Michael stepping up into the conversation,
"Huh?" Welton was confused for a few moments. Gibson couldn''t believe Lucifer was looking at the old ship instead of the new one,
"You owe her your life but since you can''t give us a new ship which would make you lose your life, why dont you fix her up real quick and give her instead?"
Although Gibson had way too many questions including why the heck does he want the old ship which looked as though it would sink into the sea the moment being put on the water, he chose not to question him in front of Welton.? Gibson was sure that Lucifer would kill him if he questioned him in front of Welton.
"Who the fuck are you? Doesn''t matter. You have a hundred thousand bounty on your head. Although no one would touch you on this ind thanks to Pirate Lord Vance, if anyone had seen me with you, the moment I step outside this ind, I am dead" Welton said looking around,
"What about you repairing the ship for us to escape to the Southern continent and we will give you hundred thousand gold coins for your risk?"
"Whoa,dont fuck with me"
Welton was taken aback by surprise. He literally took a step back after hearing the offer. Then, the realization hit as he snickered,
"You take me for a fool? You will give me a hundred thousand gold coins for this piece of crap"
"One-time deal, take it or leave it" Welton gawked at Michael in disbelief before turning his gaze towards Maxine,
"You have my word, Welton. Do this and we will never meet again"
For a few moments, Welton just rubbed his beard, pretending to ponder. Michael was not stupid to think he was actually thinking of whether to take the deal or not. Obviously, Welton decided to take the deal. Who in the right mind would refuse such a deal.
"Looks like this is my lucky day, hehehehe" Welton chuckled inside. Gibson and Maxine were oblivious to the evil plot Welton just hatched in his mind.
"Come back with what you promised in a few hours, the old Bertha will be ready to set sail then. But remember, she won''t be battle-ready, she will only get you out of here if you don''t meet any pirates on your way"
Welton looked at Michael rather than Maxine. He could tell the youngster was the one calling the shots regardless of standing behind Maxine.
"That''s enough" Michael nodded,
"Paint her ck"
"I can do that" For the first time since they met him, Welton grinned.
He was too excited to be rich. Of course, Welton knew there was a possibility of them lying about giving him a hundred thousand gold for the old Bertha but it didn''t matter, if they wanted to get out of the Southern continent, getting a ship was the only way. And no one on the ind would give them a ship except him.
"We wille back in two hours. I assume she will be ready by then" Michael asked,
"Yes," Welton nodded excitedly,
There was no need for them to know that Bertha''s keel was split as any moment the whole ship could fall to pieces. He would just need to fix the keel enough to get them off the ind. Few logs would do the trick, he thought.
"I will be back" Michael turned back, making his way towards the outside.
When no one was around he quickly flicked his wrist as a notebook and a quill appeared in his hand.
"My lord, why did you choose this ship?" Gibson couldn''t hold the question in his mind any longer,
"She looks like if we put her in the water, she would sink any moment," Gibson said, sounding as if he was pleading not to buy the old one.
"I''m sure Lord Lucifer has seen something in that ship that we didn''t"
"In simple terms, both ships are upgradable but the new one is not as upgradeable as the old one"
Gibson had no freaking idea of what he was talking about.
"System, so the price of bing a cksmith is still 700,000 badass points?"
[Yes]
Michael sighed. Alchemy was great, it had helped him in a lot of ways. Yet it couldn''t bepared to forging. The advantages of being a cksmith outweighed the advantages of being an Alchemist. Coupled with his inventor specialization, he could do so many things. The only obstacle that prevented him from bing a cksmith was the price. To be a 1-star cksmith, he would have to pay 700,000 badass points.
This was why Michael considered recruiting a cksmith subordinate and making him or her 5-star cksmith because the cost of making a subordinate 5-star cksmith was 1.2million badass points ording to the system.
Compared to bing a cksmith himself, it was cost-effective to recruit someone and make him or her a 5-star cksmith.
"System, you said it''s 60,000 badass points to upgrade Inventor skill to the 4-star right?"
[Does the system wish to upgrade?]
"Let me see the benefits first"
[Star 1 - The host will be able to build basic tools and day to day items]
[Star 2 - The host will be able to build basic gadgets such as night-vision goggles,sers, etc]
[Star 3 - The host will be able to buildplex gadgets such as eavesdropping bugs, micro cameras, trackers, etc]
(Current Level)
[Star 4 - The host will be able to build new and antique firearms such as crossbows, mini crossbows, limited shots revolver, cannons, etc]
[Star 5 - The host will be able to build various types of new gadgets and weapons]
[The host is required to either have a 5-star cksmith or be a 5-star cksmith to unlock the Star-6 Inventor Trait ]
"Cannons, that''s just the thing I want now. System, upgrade it to the next level"
[Wonderful]
Immediately the next moment, Michael felt a sharp pain in his brain. It wasn''t enough to halt his steps but just made him crease his brows.
With this upgrade, he got 200,000 badass points.
"What''s the cost for the next upgrade?"
[180,000 badass points only]
"Shit" Michael wanted to upgrade the skill to 5-star. However, he had a feeling that he would need the badass points when he reached the Akn Realm. Hence, he decided not to upgrade the skill just yet.
"Guys, let''s go shopping"
With a grin on his face and a note in his hand, he exited the hangar to go on a shopping spree.
*******************************************
A few hourster, Welton was standing in front of Old bertha. The new ck paint job didn''t exactly make her look brand new as one could still see the sorry state of the hull and the ship as a whole. Perhaps Welton was toozy or he didn''t care enough to fix the tiny holes in the hull. He only patched up the giant holes in the hull with wooden nks and nails.
Since this was a backdoor deal, Welton didn''t keep anyone with him. He sent everyone on a break so he was alone.
Baam!
Baam!
After waiting for a while in excitement, Welton finally saw the three of them enter the hanger. The man beside the youngster and Marina carried a giant chest which instantly put a smile on Welton''s face.
"Took you long enough. Let me see the coins" Gibson put the chest on the ground, letting out a heavy breath.
Welton did not waste any time as he immediately opened the chest. The moment he opened the chest, his mouth opened wide as the chest was filled with glistening gold coins. They reflected the light making his face look golden.
Welton was drooling so much to notice Michael running his fingers through Old Bertha''s hull.
"Diddle diddle" suddenly Michael''s voice drew the attention of the three.
Welton looked over his shoulder to see the youngster smiling at him.. However, the smile was not a warm friendly kind, rather, it was cold, devilish, and murderous.
Chapter 392 - Old Bertha, The War Frigate
No one had any idea about what those words meant. It seemed like he was chanting something. Gibson felt the air around them be chilly. Moreover, Gibson saw his eyes flicker in crimson red. Gibson and Maxine unconsciously took a step back.
Welton noticed the youngster''s eyes flickering. He was confused as he saw him get closer and closer.
"We are so little" the moment these words came out of his mouth, Gibson saw Lucifer grab Welton by his neck. He lifted him off from the ground, mming him against Old Bertha''s hull.
"Hrrmmmm" Welton struggled to utter a word,
"I told you to repair her, not hide twenty-six pirates inside her to kill us" Maxine and Gibson was stunned,
Welton''s eyes opened wide in disbelief,
"You sighed the death warrant for twenty-seven pirates today"
Crack!
Welton''s frantic struggle came to a halt as his neck produced a cracking sound. His eyes were still wide open when he hit the ground.
"My Lord" Gibson shuddered,
"Maxine, get her on the water. Gibson go tell those pirates to put everything on the deck"
Michael didn''t bother telling why he killed Welton. He just gave them an order, flicked his wrist, willing the system to put the gold-filled chest into the system storage, grabbed Welton''s body, and threw it on the deck
With a swift jump, Michaelnded on Bertha''s upper deck. He walked towards the rudder before holding the rudder which reminded him of Silent Reaper. With a sigh of breath, he turned back to see a barrel on the corner.
Conveniently for Michael, when he opened up the barrel it was empty.
"Looks like this is your fancy coffin buddy" Michael snickered. He then picked up Welton by his cor, putting him inside the barrel.
After hiding the body, Michael walked around the upper deck. If it wasn''t for his X-ray eyes, he may have not found the pirates hiding in the lower decks. Those visions enabled him to see the armed pirates hiding beneath him. It was obvious Welton was nning to get the bounty amount as a price for the ship, then kill Maxine, get another hundred thousand from Corey.
Michael was not stupid or generous enough to give him a hundred thousand gold coins for the old ship. He nned to beat up Welton and then get the ship and go. However, Welton''s ambush n made Michael take his life.? As far as Michael was concerned, he could let go of hundred enemies but not a single traitor. His focus now turned towards the hooks attached to the poles. They were holding the ship from sliding through the slop to the ocean.
"You are a lucky girl Bertha" he talked to the ship while making his way to the metal hooks.
"I''m going to make you a super OP ship and avenge the Silent Reaper" he removed the first hook from the mainsail pole.
He continued to remove hooks while he saw several pirates entering the hangar carrying huge crates. Their biceps were flexing as the frowns on their faces indicated how heavy the crates are.
One by one the pirates put down the crates,
"My Lord, can you throw down that rope attached to the lever?" Gibson shouted from the ground,
"Here" With a kick, Michael sent down the roll of ropes to him.
The pirates along with Gibson tied the ropes around the crates to lift the crates up. If Michael used Arch energy, it would not even take a minute. He could just put the crates inside the space ring, jump onto the deck and retrieve the crates out of the ring.
"My Lord" suddenly, Michael heard Aria voice in his head through the earpiece,
"What is it?"
"There are several war frigates surrounding us"
"Don''t move, I''ll be there"? as he said, he jumped down.
"Gibson give them something and see them outside"
Hearing Michael''s serious voice, Gibson realized something was amiss. He quickly nodded before giving a pirate a? pouch of gold coins,
"Share the tip"
"Thanks man" the heaviness of the pouch immediately put a wide grin on the pirates'' faces. In addition to the hefty tip, it seemed like they didn''t have to put the heavy crates on the top deck which meant less work for them.
"It''s done my lord" Gibson said while Maxine walked towards the crates to help Gibson.
Both of them saw Michael wave his hand as the crates disappeared from their sight in an instance. The very next moment, he grabbed both of them by the coolers
"Ah!"
"Shiiiit!''
Both Maxine and Gibson cried out aloud when Michael leaped into the air with them. In a second, theynded on the upper deck.
"Get to the rudder, we are leaving," He said before leaping into the air once again. This time, they saw himnd on the crow''s nest.
He did not give a damn about the pirates hiding beneath. They would be thinking they are going to ambush them surprisingly. Rather than worried about war frigates surrounding the Caius''s airship, he was excited.
"Corey, is that you or one of the others?" Michael cracked his neck before clenching his fists,
Maxine made quick work on the sails. Since the hooks were off, sails were ready to open and Gibson was at the rudder, Old Bertha just needed a push to slide through the slope.
"Wind st" a powerful gust of whirlwind fired out of his hands. The whirlwind of wind st was so powerful that it shook the entire ship. The creaking noise appeared as well as they felt the ship moving.
Creakkk!
The ship purred as it slid forward slowly. The entire ship trembled, the poles and every nook and cranny in the ship let out a gust of dust.
"Is that Old Bertha?"
"What the fuck?"
"Is that Welton''s piece of crap?"
"Shit run!"
The ship immediately caused amotion on the streets when it left the hangar. Someone dashing away from the way while many were pointing out at the ship and specting.
Michael hoped Welton idiot did a better job fixing her than he did with his ambush n. He still wasn''t aware of the main issue of bertha. A ship''s keel was like the spine of a human being, if it was split in half, there was no fixing the ship.
With a few nts and metal tes, Welton patched her up temporarily. Fortunately, it was enough for Bertha to stay afloat instead of sinking into the ocean.
The sails slowly opened, putting a smile on Maxine''s face. Even Michael had a grin on his face. He couldn''t help remembering the Silent Reaper. Although the ship was nasty as hell, he missed the ship since it was his first ship.
"Back to the airship" Standing on the crow''s nest, Michael ordered Gibson.
Now that they were on the ocean, they could see tiny figures of ships on the distant horizon. The crow''s nest enabled Michael to see the airship more clearly. There were five war frigates surrounding the airship as they slowly sailed towards the airship.
Michael leaped down onto the deck without even using the arch energy. Hendedfortably.
"My Lord, the pirates¡"
"In the below decks. Kill them all and bring their bodies to me" At that moment, his eyespletely became crimson red. Michael noticed the change in his eyes. He wasn''t using eyes of Darkness yet his eyes were turning red without his control.
It was a sign of him bing the dark lord he was supposed to be.
Michael knew this. He had no problem bing the Dark Lord. Even before he knew about the prophecy, he was nning to rule the world from the shadows. However, he had problems with people judging him from prophecies and divinations. Unlike what they were thinking, he wasn''t nning to destroy the world. Why would he want to destroy the ce he ns to rule?
As far as he was concerned, if there was one ruler to the entire world, the kingdoms would stay united, no wars, no hunger, and the world would actually be peaceful.
Even to this day, Michael had no idea what the Guardians and Skyhall did twenty-one years ago to him and Diana, his birth mother. He thought he was born on earth, came to this world because of the system, and got his soul transmigrated into Abras''s body. He had no idea he was in a rude awakening after reaching the Akn realm and getting to know more about Skyhall.
For a battle-hardened warrior with the medallion that gave inhuman strength and speed, killing twenty-five pirates was not a difficult task.
"Drink this" with a flick of his wrist, Michael retrieved a vial containing a glistening blood-red potion.
Maxine did not even ask a single question as she gulped the potion in one go. He was d to see such loyalty from her.
"The potion you just drank will give you speed, strength, and quick reflexes for thirty minutes. Hunt them down"
The blood-red potion was called the berserker potion. It would temporarily enable the user to achieve a berserker state which would triple the strength, speed, and speed of reflexes. The only drawback of the potion was it could only be used by a Body Refining stage or anyone under the Body Refining stage.
After sending Maxine down decks, Michael walked towards the rudder stage. When he reached the steps, he just sat on the stairs,
"My Lord, did you go there? Some war frigates surrounding the airship"
Lucifer''s calm face gave Gibson strange confidence. Regardless he was sailing basically a naked ship towards War frigates, he wasn''t afraid at all.
Boom!
"ARGHHHH!"
"Kill her!"
"Bitch!"
"shit¡.Arhhhhhhhh!"
They began to hear cries of agonying from below decks. Gibson saw no expression on Lucifer''s face. He was looking in the airship''s direction through the spyss. The cries of agony continued to sound throughout the ship but as time passed by, the cries sounded quieter and quieter.
*********************************
"Holy fuck!"
One of the war frigates that surrounded the airship belonged to none other than Sheyan. He was at the helm when she heard one of his crew members shout.
"Cap''n you¡you have¡to see this"? the crew member came running to Sheyan with the spyss.
"What the hell happened to you?" Sheyan frowned, looking at the shivering crew member.
Grabbing the spyss from the crew member, Sheyan looked at the ship approaching them in the distance.
It took Sheyan a few moments to lock his eyes on the ship. Then, he felt a cold chill running through his spine.
"Shit"
Through his spyss, he witnessed several bleeding men hanging from the sail posts. The sight gave him a chill.. It was not because he hadn''t seen dead bodies before, those men hanging from the poles, they were his men.
Chapter 393 - The Witch Island
Old Bertha slowly approached the airship. The sun was in the middle of the sky, roasting everything under. Anyone on the sea could feel the ocean breeze getting warmer and warmer to the point it made them sweat under their loose shirts.
"You gotta be kidding me" Tiberius looked at the approaching ship through the window. He could vaguely see the sorry state of old bertha. Lucier went to buy a new ship and an old ship was sailing towards them after some time, it didn''t take a genius to figure out they bought the old ship.
"Shit" Tiberius heard Sadie curse from the window next to him. He turned to see her looking through the spyss.
"What?" Tiberius asked. She was shivering slightly. Hence he was curious.
"See for yourself" Sadie handed over the spyss to Tiberius.
Closing his one eye, Tiberius ced the spyss on the other to look through it. The surrounding war frigates looked bigger and clear as well as the old ship sailing towards them.
"I''ll be damned" Tiberius mumbled the moment he saw the bodies hanging from the sail poles. The bodies were still bleeding. Some bodies had their chests caved in, some had shoulders cut off, some had a hole in their head right between the eyes.
He moved the spyss to see Lucifer sitting leisurely on the steps with a calm face. Then he moved a couple of inches up to see Gibson holding the rudder while Maxine moved around the deck, keeping the sails intact.
He could vaguely see the blood stters on her cream-white top.
"Gotta love that woman" Tiberius could guess who was responsible for the hanging bodies.
"Whoever they are, they just called in the devil" A cold sweatdrop appeared on Sadie''s forehead,
"You believe in that shit. I mean he''s a freak of nature but I don''t think he is a god as Maxine or you people im him to be" Tiberius rolled his eyes,
"You''re either stupid or ignorant to believe otherwise. Not even an immortal can use cultivation in the southern continent but he does that. Have you heard of Guardians?" Sadie asked while he was slightly in shock of her direct approach,
"Yeah, they are some big potatoes in your part of the world right?"
"They are one of the most powerful organizations in the world. If they wanted, they could take over the world in a few weeks. Still, they started to piss their pants when he made his mark. I''m telling you Tiberius, he''s not a human. At best, he''s a god, at worst, he''s the devil" Sadie said. Her voice and face couldn''t be any more serious.
"Either way, we are here because of him" Suddenly they heard another voice. They immediately turned back and saw Aria standing in front of them
Her gratitude towards Lucifer was multiplied by several folds when he agreed to cure her brothers. In a week or so, her brothers would bepletely healed. He performed a miracle in her life. She would never forget what he did for her.
"When my brothers wake up, we are gonna dedicate our lives to his cause and get rid of all those fucking ve traders from this world" Sadie could see the murderous intent in her eyes. Her voice sounded so cold.
*******************************
Big Bertha slowly sailed towards the war frigates surrounding the airship. The cannons on the upper deck were tilted up aimed at the airship. At this close range, there was no way the airship could escape if the pirates decided to fire at will.
"That son of a bitch" Maxine came to his side before handing over the spyss to him.
"It''s Sheyan" As he was looking at Sheyan through the spyss, he heard Maxine''s annoyed voice which also had a tinge of shock.
"So they are here on Pirate Lord Vance''s orders?" Michael asked,
"No. The other ships, they belonged to Corey my lord. The eight-petal flower symbol on the gs, that''s Corey''s crest"
"Hmm, Gibson, slowly sail towards Sheyan''s ship in the front"
Michael calmly waited for their ship to get closer to Sheyan''s. Sheyan''s ship was a war frigate. The ship was almost 60 meters long and seemed to have up to 124 guns: four at the bow, eight at the stern, and 56 in each broadside. The sails were dyed in muddy brows just like the hull. Unlike the rest of the ships, Sheyan had a blood-red shark in the g.
Although Bertha was bigger than any war frigates surrounding the airship, she had zero firepower at the moment. The size of Bertha intimidated some pirates. Of course, she was not as scary as the Silent Reaper, however, she was intimidating with her sheer size and speed.
When Bertha sailed adjacent to Sheyan''s ship, Sheyan along with a couple of other pirates came to Bertha using rope swings.
"Hello Marina, ship sucks but I dig the decoration" he looked at the bleeding bodies hanging from the sail poles above them. Maxine looked at Michael, asking wordlessly for his permission to talk. He nodded, giving her permission to talk.
"What''s going on?"
"Nothing, Pirate Lord Corey just wants to meet you"
"There is no just Sheyan. Cut the crap, this is a fucking fleet. You are taking the airship hostage and what the hell are you doing here? You don''t answer to Corey"
"I think you are mistaken about the situation here MArina. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. If I were you" Sheyan snickered as he looked around the ship.
"I''d pick the easy way"
"We will pick the easy way"
"The silent queen talks" Sheyanughed when he heard Michael finally talk. He had a feeling that this youngster is the one running the show behind Marina.
"You made the right choice, now if you follow us"
"Lead the way Captain Sheyan," Michael said with a smile,
"I like you"
The respectful way Michael addressed him put a smile on his face. However, in Gibson''s eyes, Sheyan looked like a sheep calling the wolf with a wide grin on its face.
"And if you don''t mind, we will remove these decorations," Sheyan asked. It didn''t sound like a request but an order.
"Of course" Yet again Michael nodded with a smile,
"And the airshiping with us"
Maxine wanted to leap at Sheyan, rip his throat off for making too many requests at Lord Lucifer.
"As you wish"
"I like you more and more, big fe," Sheyanughed out aloud.
Michael was six foot three and almost looked six foot four with his muscr build. Even with arge shirt and long coat, his muscles were visible.
Height was another thing that changed about him. Abras was six feet tall but recently Michael had grown extra three inches. Fortunately, the system ensured Michael would grow taller unless he wanted to.
"Aria, follow us!" Sheyan saw the youngster mumble something under his breath, keeping his hand on the right ear.
"They will follow us Captain Sheyan"
Sheyan pointed his finger at the hanging bodies before jumping back onto his ship. The pirates climbed the poles as though they were human monkeys. In a few short moments, they cut down all the bodies from the ropes. As the pirates were lining up the bodies, Gibson followed Sheyan''s ship while the rest of the ships followed Sheyan''s ship. The airship also slowly moved.
"My lord, what''s the n?" Maxine whispered,
"Just go and have a nice long chat with Pirate Captain Corey"
Six hours had passed in a blink of an eye. In the six hours, Michael was inside the captain''s cabin meditating. The captain''s cabin was a dust-covered, broken mess. There was no table, chair, or anything but only broken wooden ns and empty ale bottles. The ce seemed like the go-to ce for pirate parties. The room reeked of piss and ale yet Michael controlled all his senses through meditation. He learned meditation from a Shaolin monk back on earth when he trained under Specter.
"My Lord"? He could hear the door creak open, He slowly opened his eyes to see Maxine standing by the door.
With a nod, Michael stood up. He walked towards the door, feeling the anger within him calming down. When he stepped out of the door, he was weed by a colorful ind under millions of stars and a fool golden moon.
There were countless warships lined up before the ind. The peculiar feature about the ind was the glowing flowers. The scenery looked as though the ind was a Christmas tree and the flowers were the decorations. Everywhere he turned, he could see the glowing flowers. Red, blue, orange, golden, silver, green, every color flower could be seen on the ind.
In addition to the glowing flowers, the ind''s atmosphere resembled a party. A piece of loud music reverberated the ind while the cheers of the pirates were earsplitting.
"I love this world" He took in the beautiful sight of the ind. A smile appeared on his face after a while.
"Lead the way, Maxine"? as Maxine led the way, he saw Sheyan and his crew walking in front of them. The airship was still above the same fleet that came to surround the ship earlier.
Although Michael seemed to be walking looking at the path before him, he was scanning his surroundings. Thanks to the Environmental scanning skill, he didn''t have to make a mental map like he used to.
For a few minutes, they continued to walk on the wooden tform that led to a huge manor in the center of the ind.
It was neither a castle nor a fancy manor like Bradford manor but it was huge. Three stories, a balcony where several couples of pirates were making out,wn filled with drunken pirates singing and dancing, and tiny glowing flowers decorated the entire manor like led lights.
Following Maxine and Sheyan''s group, Michael entered the manor through the main door.
From the outside, the manor looked delightful, rustic, and folksy. When he stepped inside he was weed by redwood walls and thick, stone beams as well as a sense of home and the smell of alcohol.
It was as charming inside as it is on the outside. Tree logs supported the upper floor and the sconces attached to them. The walls were decorated with veins, the same glowing followers that Michael saw outside and several pot nts. He felt like he had entered a tavern inside a botanical garden. It was clear Corey was a lover of nature.
The manor itself was packed with pirates. Several long tables were upied by separate groups of pirates, all enjoying themselves, but they kept to themselves. The other, smaller tables were also upied by people who are clearly having a good time. Even most of the stools at the bar were upied, though nobody seemed to mind morepany.
"Wee to witch ind folks" Sheyan turned around with a wide grin on his face to wee them.
Chapter 394 - Lucifer Appears
When the pirates having drinks saw Maxine, the smiles on their facespletely vanished. At the moment, the joyous mood inside the manor died down. Instead, a gloomy atmosphere took control over the area.
Gibson felt ufortable seeing the countless death res at them.
Through the ring pirates, they followed Sheyan behind. At the end of the hall, there were crescent-shaped stairs leading to the upper floors. On his way, Michael noticed the maids and female pirates licking their lips looking at him.
The face mask changed his extremely handsome face to some generic normal-looking face. There was nothing special about his facial features. However, his height and muscr build made him stand out in the crowd.
All the girls in the hall wanted a piece of him. Even some of the girls sitting on their partners''ps stared at Michael instead of their partners.
Ignoring the gazes, Michael followed Sheyan. The stairs were decorated with the same glowing flowers. The ind seemed to have glowing flowers in abundance. Everywhere he turned, he could see the flowers. The veins were coiling around the stair edges. Hence, he was able to touch the flower. Like most of the flowers, the petals were extremely soft and silky, too soft. He rubbed his fingers together to feel a powdery substance that got attached to his fingers when he touched them. Despite its powdery form, the powder seemed to stick like glue to the skin.
He then quickly took a whiff without letting the others notice him. His lips slightly curved upwards a few momentster. Listening to the cheery pirate music, they climbed the stairs. Finally when they reached the top floor where they saw a couple of pirates staying in front of a redwood door. The door had carvings of various fishes, flowers as well as a huge eye on the center.
The guards did not wear any armor. Instead, they had spears in their hands. Also, they looked huge, almost 7ft with biceps the size of a normal human being''s thighs. Any lesser man would be torn to pieces by the guards. Their stature alone freaked out Gibson. Only because he had Lucifer before, Gibson wasn''t very afraid of the guards.
Approaching the door, Sheyan nodded as though he was giving a wordless password. The guards slowly opened the door to reveal the room on the other side. The gigantic diamond-shaped chandelier hanging from the ceiling lit the room with its golden light. In the golden light, two figures appeared in their sight. The two figures were surrounded by nothing but greeneries. The wall waspletelyyered by green veins and heart-shaped leaves. There wasn''t a single spot in the room that wasn''t covered by the veins or leaves. In addition to the thick veins and leaves, the emerald green flowers riddled the room. Even the round table between Michael and the group and the two figures were covered by the veins. This was the only ce Michael saw no glowing flowers.
One of the figures on the other side of the table was a woman. At the moment, they could only see her back. She had wavy long brown hair in which she had tiny glowing flowers as a decoration. She was 6ft tall with a slender build. The smell of rustic nature permeated from her as well as the walls around them. When they stepped into the room, the guards shut the doors.
The other figure was tied to a chair. She was slowly running her fingers on her face. Michael stepped aside slightly to see the bald man struggling to speak something but his words were muffled by the cloth around his mouth.
Although Michael had no idea about the identity of the man, he knew she was one of the three pirate lords, Corey. HE still couldn''t see her front side. while? he was staring at her back, she raised her hand,
"So nice of you to return to your former lord, Marina" her sound sounded sweet and gentle. She slowly turned back to let them see the front of her.
The moment she turned around, Gibson was stunned. Her face waspletely filled with tattoos. Michael was slightly stunned too, not because her face was buried under tattoos. It was because the tattoos resembled Mayan and Aztec tattoos on the earth.
Gibson couldn''t tell she was beautiful or not so beautiful before all the tattoos. Corey smiled revealing her pearl white row of teeth looking at Michael''s fixed gaze on her.
"Like what you see handsome" she suddenly opened up her brown blouse revealing her ample bosom. Gibson''s jaw almost dropped to the ground. She removed the shirt and threw it on the floor. Just like her face, every inch of her body was decorated with tattoos.
However, Michael saw a thinyer of oil on her body. He wasn''t surprised though because he knew why exactly she applied oil on her body.
"You know who he is?" She took a step forward, then walked around the tied-up man while running her finger through his face.
When she came behind the man, she bent down to kiss the top of his head.
"My lover, soon to be ex I suppose" her hands leisurely moved towards her long gown. With a flick of her wrist, she untied theces on each side. The long gown slowly fell off, revealing her lower body. Gibson couldn''t help swallowing a mouth full of saliva. Right at the moment, Corey had nothing but a tiny piece of cloth covering her womanhood.
"Am I ugly my dear? You didn''t think I am when we made love"
"Hrrgghhhh" the man seemed to be trying to scream but all that escaped his mouth was a muffled cry.
Yet again she slowly walked to the front of the man, sat on hisp and licked his cheeks.
"Am I ugly my dear?" She whispered into the man''s ears. It was loud enough for everyone to hear.
"HRGGHHHHHHH!" The man frantically struggled against the ropes that tied his arms and legs to the chair. But no matter how hard he shook his body, he couldn''t escape.
After a few moments of licking the man''s cheeks, she stood up. Michael was patiently looking at all the drama with a smile on his face. All of their eyes were fixed on Corey, expecting what she was gonna do next. Gibson couldn''t help expecting thest piece of cloth toe down, just to see if all of her had been decorated with tattoos.
"Ummah" Corey gave the man a flying kiss. She then ced her hand on the man''s cheek. Under their gazes, she snapped her fingers. The very next moment, the mes appeared out of nowhere and enveloped the man.
"HRGHHHHHHH!" The man was on fire literally. His frantic struggle became worse by the second. Everyone waspletely in shock except Michael. Although Maxine had seen Corey perform with Chris many times, she was still stunned to see it again.
She told Michael about Corey''s ability to perform witchcraft. Yet, he had never reacted much except a smile.? Gibson was staring at the burning body in a daze. His mind was boggle trying to figure out what just happened.
"She used magic?" Gibson asked himself. Then he looked at Lucifer to see him standing therepletely indifferent. The burning smell of skin overpowered the rustic aroma in the room.
"Who feels like barbeque?" Corey chuckled before stomping the ground. The floor beneath him quickly opened up as the burning man dropped into the hole.
After burning the man alive, Corey turned to lock her eyes with Maxine. She still had an alluring smile on her face.
"You don''t scare me, Corey," Maxine calmly said. In terms of making people scared, Corey was nowhere near Lord Lucifer.
"Is that so?" Corey licked her lips.
"Enough of this circus" Finally Michael opened his mouth. Sheyan almost unsheathed his sword when he saw Lucifer pull back one of the chairs.
Corey looked at him sitting on the chair without batting an eye. Her alluring smile almost turned cold as Michael put his leg on the table.
"I have to say, you put up a good show" he chuckled,
"Pirate Lord" Sheyan tried to step forward but was stopped by the wave of Corey''s hand.
"A highly mmable spores produced by the glowing flowers" he calmly said,
"The gunpowder mixed with a tinge of iron powder under your fingernails, snap your fingers hard to create a spark" As the smile on Michael''s face grew wider, the smile on Corey''s face dimmed down.
"Everyone walking through the party will basically be bathed in invisible oil"
Maxine always wondered why there were no torches inside the manor and the pirates were prohibited to use torches. If everyone were mmable in the manor thanks to the glowing flowers, it made sense not to allow anyone to y with fire.
"Then why am I not on fire?" Corey asked,
Michael chuckled yet again looking at her confidence in her voice despite scamming people with her fake witchcraft for years,
"They might not see the oil on your body but I can. It prevents you from getting caught on fire in close range" He paused for a moment to Corey realize her scam has been exposed,
"The tattoos on your body, your gimmick of being a witch, the decorations" he looked around the room,
"You wanted to be a witch when you were little and managed to be a fake one with the help of your scams. I got to hand it to you, fake or not, you built yourself an empire, I respect that"? He nodded approvingly,
"But do you want to see real magic?" the smile on his face disappeared. Gibson felt a chill hearing his animalistic voice once again. The next moment, the room became dark despite the chandelier light. Corey''s eyes opened as wide as they could when she saw the youngster in front of her suddenly change his form.
She unconsciously took a step back seeing the dark smoke around him. His red eyes, the skull mask, the ck armor, and his voice, everything made her shiver.
The next moment, when Sheyan was still in shock, Corey saw him point his finger towards Sheyan. A bolt of lightning immediately fired out from his hand and struck Sheyan.
Boom!
Corey was taken aback by the muffled exploding sound.. It took her a few seconds to realize the red mist in the air was Sheyan.
Chapter 395 - Subduing A Pirate Lord
Corey''s legs were uncontrobly shivering. Her mind was nk. She was unable to understand what just happened. Not a single sound could be heard at the moment except the music soundsing from downstairs.
Her eyes watched him slowly stand up from the chair. She wanted to scream but not a single word came out of her mouth. Overwhelming sock hadpletely taken over her mind and body.? His every step towards her made her heartbeat increase.? With his fully Lucifer armor equipped, he almost looked 7ft tall. Thepletely Lucifer form freaked the hell out of Gibson.
Despite the chandelier light, hisplete Lucifer form darkened the room. The darkness overshadowed the light. He came behind her. With a flick of his wrist, he retrieved a normal wooden chair from the space ring.? He ced his hands on her shoulder as Corey felt a chill running through her spine.
He pushed her down to make her sit on the chair. Just like she did, he ran his fingers through her face. His sharp w-like gloves slightly hurt her skin but she didn''t utter a word.
"You have two choices darling. You can choose to scream and hope your guards arrive before you turn into our friend Sheyan there" he cupped her face before turning her neck in the direction where Sheyan was. The ground was painted with his blood, not even bits of bones remained on the ground. Sheyan waspletely turned into a bloody pulpy mess by Ignitia.
"Or you can agree to my offer and taste the power of real magic" In one hand, a golden bolt of lightning, in the other, crimson red me danced around. Corey could feel the electricity from the lightning bolts and the heat from the crimson red me on her skin.
He bent down, kissing the top of her head, just like how she did to the bald man.? Corey''s entire body shivered because of the fear toxin Michael released into the air. Not only Corey but also Maxine and Gibson shivered in fear.
The fire and lightning bolts above his palms soon faded away. A pendant appeared in his hand. He ced the pendant around her neck.
"Remove it and you will know there are things worse than death" Corey touched the tiny pendant on her neck. She felt the chill on her neck.
He took a few steps to stand in front of her. His hands ran through her shoulder, arms then he clutched the arms of the chair. Corey''s teeth chattered. She slowly tilted her head up to see him bend his back to look directly into her eyes.
"Here''s my offer darling" He willed the system to stop radiating fear toxin from his suit. Instead, he ordered the system to release the antidote so Corey''s mind would be normal. Scam or not, she used her brain to build an empire from scratch. As far as he was concerned, a brain like that was more valuable than any superweapon.
Every time he willed the system to radiate fear toxin from his suit, he had to pay 2000 badass points. It seemed like a waste to him. However, he had no other way because his inventor skill level was too low to build a device into his suit of armor which would control potion releases instead of the system. It changed after he upgraded the Inventor skill. He could now build various devices to rece the system. Ever since the system went offline, he started to n for the future without the system. He realized long ago that he shouldn''tpletely rely on the system.
Since Corey was just a mortal with no cultivation base, the antidote quickly dispelled the fear toxin from her bloodstream. Her pupils retracted as she stared into the crimson red eyes of Lucifer.
"You now serve me. You can carry on your pirate lord''s work as usual except sometimes. You answer to me or Maxine. Fail to carry your orders, and you will be reced. That''s the stick" Michael turned his gaze on the robes on the ground,
He just flicked his wrist as the cloth floated into his hands. Maxine and Gibson saw Lucifer covering Corey with her clothes,
"If you serve me well, you will get rich, powerful and a shot at immortality. That''s the carrot"
Corey couldn''t believe for a second what she just heard. She had heard of immortals in cultivation continents. Unfortunately, she was born in the Southern continent, which made her unable to cultivate to reach higher stages.
"System, imprint a simple fire conjuring spell into her brain"
Back on cultivation continents, even amoner could conjure sparks or a tiny ball of fire using arch energy. In addition to conjuring fireballs, they were also able to do simple things such as makinge small objects levitate.
Simple tasks such as these did not even require the user to cast spells. They could just manipte the arch energy with their mind and aplish that. For cultivators and even formoners, these tasks were as simple as breathing and use a negligible amount of Arch energy. Hence, Michael decided to give Corey a little taste of magic.
[They system can imprint the ability to conjure fire into her brain for just 4000 badass points]
[The system can transfer a tiny amount of Arch energy from the host''s body to Corey]
"Do it" As he ordered the system in his mind, he ced his hand on Corey''s head.
"Ahh" for the first time since Michael revealed himself as Lucifer, Corey opened her mouth. Seeing her cry, Gibson thought Lucifer was hurting Corey.
Corey felt like a bullet ant drilling through her brain. The pain gradually lessened as Corey sensed something different. She couldn''t exin the feeling but she felt a new sensation. It was natural and easy as breathing.
"What you feeling is a little taste of the power you can wield in the future¡" he took a several steps back from Corey,
"If you serve me well" Michael said as Corey lifted her hands, feeling the hot sensation building inside her palm. The very next moment, she snapped her finger like a tiny orb of fire lit up above her palm. The fire danced around her palm as Gibson and Maxine stared at Corey with their eyes wide open.
"How¡how did¡you? Shit¡I''m using magic" Corey stuttered. Her eyes were filled with joy and shock. She soon conjured a fireball in each hand.
Sheughed so wide as though she was a child ying with her favorite toy. A few momentster ying with the fire, she looked up at Lucifer,
"Who are you?" she asked shockingly,
"I am Lucifer. People call me, ``The Dark Lord" the moment the words escaped his mouth, a stream of crimson red fire and golden streaks of lightning crisscrossed around him. Coupled with the dark cloud, the fire and lightning scared the shit out of Corey.
"What''s it gonna be Pirate Lord Corey? Stick or carrot, your choice" As he spoke, Maxine made her way to stand behind Michael. Gibson too soon followed Maxine''s footsteps to stand behind him.
Corey was not dumb to refuse the offer. It was a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Besides, he didn''t give her much of a choice. She could either agree to serve him or disagree and probably die like Sheyan. She didn''t build an empire by making wrong choices and letting go of opportunities such as this.
Hence, naturally she wanted to agree.
"I agree¡Mister.."
"You will address him as my lord" Maxine interrupted Corey.
"I agree, my lord. My fleet is yours tomand" Corey knelt down on one knee. She was an opportunist, not a woman who clung onto pointless pride.
"You are going to take back the bounty you put on Maxine"
His first order to her was regarding the bounty on Maxine''s head. He would have loved to have some sea battles if old bertha had some fire power and was in a fighting condition. If he had Silent Reaper, the mere sight of that beat would have scared the shit out of the pirates.
"Yes my lord" Corey immediately agreed with him. She was d he didn''t take her life for putting Maxine''s life in danger. As far as Corey could guess, Maxine seemed like the right hand of Lucifer which kinda made Maxine her superior.
"Then I''m pretty sure you can spin some story to exin what happened to Sheyan. My existence must be kept as a secret until I tell you otherwise"
Michael did not waste his time and brain thinking about a way to exin Sheyan''s death. A woman who managed to scam the pirates for decades would be able to spin some bullshit story to cover up Sheyan''s death.
"Until I deal with the other pirate lords, don''t engage inbat with the Thusians" Maxine was slightly surprised to hear his order. She thought he would send Corey''s entire fleet to chase away the Thusians after subduing her. Instead, he did the exact opposite.
"My lord, can I ask you something?"
"Yes. Don''t be afraid to speak your mind. Your mind is a precious one, it should be used to its full potential. Only then, we can rule this entire world"
Obviously his words stunned Corey. Hence, her eyes opened as wide as they could.
"Stand up and speak your mind" Michael said, willing the system to unequip the Lucifer armor. In a blink of an eye, he transformed into his previous human form.
Corey heaved a sigh of relief inside. The normal human form was easy to talk topared to his freakish Dark Lord form.
"Can I really achieve immortality?"
Michael smiled hearing her question. He could see the thirst for power and immortality in her eyes. People like her would be easier to control than people with high morals and righteousness.
"As I said before, serve me well and? you will rule a part of this world forever"
Chapter 396 - Order Of Death Meets Guardian
At the moment somewhere else in the Southern continent, a man robbed a pearl white toga with a goldenurel on his head sitting on a throne. The man seemed to be tall but not too tall to stand out in a crowd. This fair-skinned man has a suspicious feel about him.
His greasy, light blonde hair was very short and currently dyedpletely butterscotch. His forehead got bigger as his hair seemed to be falling out.
He had a square face with a cleft chin, a long neck, broad shoulders, toned arms andrge hands, a heavy torso with no muscle tone, round hips, weak legs, and average-sized feet. He was sitting on the throne as though he was a king who rules the entire kingdom rather than a head senator.
His thirst for being a single ruler made him decorate the hall in his manor like a throne hall of a king.
In the hall, bulky braziers epassed each of the twelve marmoreal columns that light up every part of the throne hall, covering the hall in dancing shadows and a warm radiance. The intricate golden patterns on theyered ceiling danced in the flickering light while memorials and statues looked down upon the oaken floor of this sublime hall.
A jade rug was running down from the throne for a few meters beforeing to an end while forked banners with burnished tufts dangle gently from the walls. Between each banner sat a small altar full of candles, all but a few have been lit and in turn illuminated the paintings of men wearing a toga and goldenurel on their head of the world below them.
Slim windows were edged by veils colored the same jade as the banners. The curtains had been adorned with gold leaves and decorating tips.
A magnificent throne of oak sits atop a tall elevated tform and was adjoined by three in, butfortable seats for those closest to the man.
Those who wanted to be heard by the man could do so on the several long and rather bulky stone benches, all of which were facing the throne. Those of higher standing such as other senators and nobles could instead take seats in the renovated balustrades overlooking the throne.
"Your majesty" from the left side of the throne, a spartan soldier walked towards the man. The spartan soldier''s boots kept making thud sounds as he came before the man. Immediately the spartan soldier knelt on his one knee.
The man liked to be addressed as ''Your Majesty'' as though he was a king rather than ''Senator'' when they were in his manor. Those who disagreed with his request would disappear overnight. Although Maven was a senate-ruled kingdom, it was ruled by this man, this man alone. The other senators were just puppets of him. He was corrupt to the core with an insatiable thirst for power and money.
The soldier ced the spear on the ground before sliding his hand into the red cape he was wearing. In a moment, the soldier retrieved a luminous bluish crystal from his pouch. The crystal was covered in gray dust which dimmed out the crystal.
"Is that¡?" the man''s eyes glistened in excitement,
"Bring it to me" the man ordered the spartan. No one was in the throne hall except the man and the spartan soldier. The man couldn''t hold his excitement as before the spartan could reach him, he stood up, walked straight to the spartan, and grabbed the crystal from the spartan''s hand.
"Arch energy¡pure Arch energy¡I can feel it" the man grinned, feeling the pulsesing from the crystal. He clenched the crystal so tight. The longer he held the crystal in his hand, the louder hisughter became.
"It''s true, Stormveil mountain really has Arch energy crystals within. Hahahahah"? his madughter echoed through the empty throne hall.
Several minutester, the man finally stopped his madughter.
"Spartan Hostus, how many crystals those ves mined?"
"Thest time I counted, they had mined a hundred stones, your majesty. If you give me the word, I can hire the schrs and engineers to build a pulley system which would speed up the mining process your majesty"
The man rubbed his chin for a few moments after hearing the spartan,
"You can do that. But after they build everything, kill them and bury them in the mine" the man said without any remorse and hesitation.
"What about the ves, your majesty? Should I recycle them or make sure they never leave the mine until they die?" The spartan soldier was not much different than the man.
Spartan Hostus had been serving Senator Vibius Caelius Sarrius for more than a decade. In this decade of time, he had killed more than a hundred people including ves, nobles, and senators for Senator Vibius. Senator Vibius had been spending millions of gold to increase the military power of Maven in secret. No one had a clue that kingdom Maven had two or three times the size of other senate-ruled kingdoms such as Gisel.
He was amassing the military power to conquer the Stormveil mountain. Even if all the senate-ruled kingdoms formed an alliance to take the Stormveil mountain from him after they conquered it, Senator Vibius had enough military power to defend the mountain for years.
"Those idiots have no idea what they have in their hands" Senator Vibius mumbled under his breath with an evil grin on his face.
"How many ves working in the mine?" Senator asked,
"Hundred and twenty ves, your majesty"
"Killing all of them and buying a new batch of ves might raise a few eyebrows. Still, mining is a dangerous task, ten or so ves could die every month and new ves could rece them" As he said, the senator made his way back the throne,
"Make sure none of the ves currently mining leave the mine alive. The existence of these crystals must be kept secret at all costs. Also, make those schrs prepare a document saying the Stormveil mountain originally belonged to Maven, make sure the document looks ancient. Kill them after they finish the job"
The Spartan soldier wasn''t surprised at all. He expected the order before the senator actually said it.? Senator Vibius was waiting for this moment for more than a decade. As far as the people of Maven knew, Senator Vibius came from a long family line of Sarrius. However, the Sarrius family was not always called Sarrius. The first ancestor who found the family came from a secret order. Only the main bloodline knew the existence of the order and the first ancestor''s involvement in the secret order.
"Spartan Hostus, to the outside world, we are just mining iron and minerals"
"Yes, your majesty" Spartan Hostus bowed before leaving the throne hall. At the moment, the Senator was sitting on the throne alone. He looked at the crystal in his hand. Then, with the other hand, he clenched the medallion on his chest.
He pulled the medallion with force. The medallion remained in his hand, radiating a dim glow. The coin-sized ck medallion had nothing but a letter etched onto its surface; L. This medallion looked exactly the same as the medallion on Maxine''s neck.
"Order of Death" Vibius snickered. The founding ancestor of the Sarrius family was a member of the Order of Death. He was one of the few who survived the Guardians. But unlike others, Vibius''s ancestor did not escape the Guardians. Rather, he was escorted to the Southern continent safely by the Guardians because his ancestor was the man who betrayed the Order to the Guardians for wealth, power, and kingdom.
Vibiuis''s ancestor did not believe in the Dark Lord Lucifer and neither did Vibius.
As Vibius was looking at the medallion in his hand, another soldier entered the throne hall. He was not a Spartan but a normal soldier who wore full te armor and chainmail.
"Your majesty, his lord Canus is here to see you"
Vibius quickly put the medallion into his pocket before nodding at the soldier. Several minutester, Vibius saw a man wearing ck robes with a hood covering his head walking towards him.
"Lord Canus" Vibius chuckled, standing up from his throne.
"I''m sick of that name" the figure growled before slowly taking off the hood to reveal his golden shoulder-length hair, perfectly sculpted handsome face, and bluish eyes.
"I''m sorry the name your superiors picked is not as good as your real name, Guardian Connors"
Guardian Connors was none other than the man who was part of the operation new dawn organized by Peyton and Xanali. He was responsible for gathering information about Ghost and the man who killed Jack. Peyton had no idea that Connors killed Jack during his surveince. Connors was able to me the bandits in the forest. Since Operation New Dawn was an off-the-books operation, there was no investigation on Connors.? After Peyton dismantled the team, each of the team members was weed into the Guild as fully-fledged Guardians.
Afraid of Ghost finding of his involvement in Jack''s death, Connors used his connections inside the guild to get himself assigned to a top-secret mission in the Southern Continent.
"Tell me that''s THE crystal," Connors emphasized the word ''The'', raising his brows. He walked closer to Vibius to take a closer look at the crystal.
"Should this be enough to convince the Guardians?" with a snicker, Vibius tossed the crystal towards Connors.
The moment Connors caught the crystal in his hand, he felt a pulse of energy. He waspletely stunned. He could yet again feel the Arch energy running through his energy veins.
"Arch energy" Connors snapped his fingers as a spark of me appeared above his fingers,
Connors''s mind went nk.
"Impossible"? He mumbled. Though the energy inside the crystal was not enough to cast powerful spells, he could absorb the arch energy from the crystal to perform simple spells which should be impossible considering the Southern continent was void of any energies.
"Not anymore guardian Connors. Now let''s talk about how bigger the army the guardians will send here for me tomand"
Chapter 397 - Taken Prisoners
"Your majesty" Just as the two of them were about to discuss the terms of their deal, a soldier entered the throne hall. Connors quickly hid the crystal with his robes. The Senator gave the soldier a death re as the soldier''s face went pale behind his metal helmet.
"What?" Vibius growled like an animal,
"Senator Caius is here to meet you"
Vibius was taken aback by surprise. He didn''t receive any report of Caius''s visit to Maven from Gisel ambassadors or his spies.
"Why wasn''t I informed about his visit?" Vibius asked the soldier,
"Your majesty, Senator Caius just suddenly appeared with another one. They are requesting an audience with you"
Yet again Vibius was surprised by the soldier. He couldn''t help but raise his brows. Even Connors who was standing beside Vibius had a frown on his face.
"Weird" Vibius rubbed his chin,
The soldier remained in the hall waiting for Vibius''s orders. After pondering for a few moments, Connors opened his mouth,
"The other guy you mentioned, does he pose a threat to the Senator?"
"No my lord, they are both unarmed. The Spartans already confirmed they have no weapons on them" Connors listened to the soldier patiently.
"What do you think, Lord Canus?" Vibius asked Connors.
Connors was confident in hisbat ability as he was trained by the best coaches in the Guardian guild. In addition to his training, they had Spartans waiting outside the throne hall. If Caius or the other guy tried to do any harm, they would be dead before they could reach Vibius. Besides, if Connors could broker peace between the two kingdoms, his job of getting the crystals to the Guardians would be much easier. Otherwise, the guardians would have to allocate resources such as an army and weapons to Maven to fight Gisel.
"I say we should ask Caius why is he here"
Vibius racked his brain for a few minutes before nodding at the soldier. Connors quickly put the crystal deep within his inner pocket.
"Send them in but make sure the Spartans are within a shouting range" Vibius ordered the soldier as the soldier bowed before leaving the throne hall.
"What if Caius bes a problem guardian Connors?" While they were waiting for Caius to enter the throne hall, Vibius asked Connors,
"Then we deal with it in the Guardian way" Connors waved his hands casually,
"And what is that?"
"Solve the problem or make it disappear"? the cold smile that emerged on Connor''s face indicated the true meaning of his words.? Vibius was thinking the same. If Caius became too much of a nuisance, he was nning to assassinate Caius. It would be difficult to assassinate a head senator in his own kingdom but Vibius had connections with the Grim Reapers. Only a handful of few knew the existence of Grim Reapers in the Southern continent. Vibius was one of those few people.
The two of them were already nning on killing Caius. They had zero clues that the Dark Lord himself wasing to greet them. After waiting for the guests to appear for a few minutes, Vibius finally saw Caius wearing a white toga and goldenurel on his head walking towards him with a tall youngster in a long gray coat and ck pants. His dress was not of a Southern noble but was simr to Connors''s robes. He seemed like he came from one of the cultivation continents. Nheless, Vibius paid little attention to the youngster because no matter who he was or where he came from, when he stepped inside the void line, he was nothing but a mere mortal.
Vibius put on a fake smile to wee Caius. Vibius noticed the fake smile on Caius''s face as well as the cold sweat drop on his forehead.
"Senator Caius, I didn''t expect you to visit me suddenly" Vibius and Caius shook their hands as Connors stared at the youngster behind Caius. He had an uneasy feeling in his gut.
Connors noticed the youngster looking at Vibius but soon, his gaze slowly turned towards him.
"Ouch" when Vibius was shaking Caius''s hands, he suddenly let out a muffled cry. Connors was shocked. Still, before Connors could react, he saw the youngster behind Caius suddenly disappear. His mind went nk as he felt a sharp pain. Within a second after he felt the sharp pain, everything around him turned dark.
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"Argh" Connors let out a moan slowly regaining his consciousness. He tried to move his arms and legs but he simply couldn''t. He opened his eyes, fighting the pain in his head.
"Finally he''s awake" Connors was not sure what he just heard. The voice he just heard didn''t sound like a human. Struggling to move his body, he opened his eyes to see nothing but an endless ocean around him. The half-moon and the millions of stars in the sky were the only light source. He looked down at his hands to see his hands and legs are tied up with ropes.
He gritted his teeth trying to get himself out of the ropes.
"Don''t bother" While Connors was trying to get himself out of the ropes, he heard a voice from behind. This time the voice sounded human.
"Hrggh" Connors growled as he turned back to see a Spartan soldier behind him. The Spartan soldier was in no better shape than him. His hands and legs were tied using ropes too. If it wasn''t for the red cape, golden chest armor as well as a crimson red tunic, Connors wouldn''t have recognized the man as a Spartan. The red feather-covered helmet indicated that the man was not a mere soldier but someone who held high rank in the Spartan army. At the moment, the spartan''s ranking didn''t help him as he also remained a prisoner.
Connors then turned his gaze away from the Spartan and saw several other figures kneeling on the floor with their hands and legs tied. Looking at their togas and goldenurels on their heads, Connors could tell all of them were nobles.
"Vibius" Connors mumbled when he saw Vibius among the nobles. However, Vibius didn''t notice Connors as all the nobles had their eyes covered with a cloth. Except for him and the Spartan, everyone had a cloth around their eyes.
"What happened?" Connors asked himself. He tried to recall what just happened. One moment, he was in the throne hall looking at the youngster behind Caius and the next moment, he felt a sharp pain and then he woke up here.
His memory was clouded. He tried his best to clear out the fog. As he thought deeply, he remembered the youngster suddenly vanishing into thin air.
For a few moments, Connors just looked around to see where he was. Even though they were on the upper deck of a ship, Connors saw no crew members. In addition to theck of crews, he also noticed theck of cannons around him. The upper deck was void of any cannons.
"Where are we?"? Connors asked the Spartan.
The Spartan soldier looked around before sighing,
"The better question is how did we end up here? Where were you before this?" The Spartan soldier asked,
Connors didn''t immediately answer the Spartan. Despite the confusion of how he ended up here, Connors was able to tell that he was either poisoned to lose consciousness and transported here or he was teleported. But thetter possibility seemed impossible as no one could use teleportation within the void line. Hence, Connors bet on the poison theory which made sense as he felt a sharp pain like a bee sting in the back of the neck before he lost consciousness.
Connors couldn''t trust the spartan. What if the Spartan was one of those who kidnapped him?
Suddenly Connors realized something as he quickly touched his chest.
"Shit" Connors cursed out loud. When he touched his pockets, he couldn''t find the crystal inside.
"If you are searching for a weapon, don''t. They stripped all the weapons" The Spartan told Connors.
"I''m not looking for any weapon" Connors growled. His mind disregarded the possibility of him being teleported. Instead. He thought someone poisoned him and transported him with the others to the ship.
"You have no idea who you are messing with!" Suddenly Connors shouted loudly. He was so pissed as he wanted to kill whoever kidnapped him.
"I tried that" the Spartan soldier shook his head,
"Shut up Spartan" Connors snickered. As far as Connors was concerned Spartans were nothing but glorified ves to the senators. They were pawns.
"Did you hear the voice?" Connors asked the Spartan as he nodded,
"It didn''t sound human, did it?" the Spartan asked,
The Spartan seemed to be more worried about something else than escaping his bonds, unlike Connors. Connors was struggling and trying to bite the ropes that tied his arms.
"A Guardian"? While Connors was struggling to escape from the ropes, he yet again heard the animalistic voice. This time he heard the voiceing from above him. The Spartan and Connors looked at the sky as their eyes immediately went wide open. Their jaws dropped a couple of inches down inplete shock.
"What?" Connors couldn''t believe his eyes. A figure enveloped in a ck cloud of smoke was slowly descending to the ship. His heart skipped a beat as he started to shiver. He kinda recognized the figure. He had seen the vague images resembling the figure on Peyton''s board during the New Dawn operation.
"Lucifer" Connors mumbled as the dark figurended on the ship. The ck smoke enveloped the armor but Connors could vaguely see the ck armor and the crimson red eyes. Thest time he talked to Peyton before ending the New Dawn Operation, Peyton told him Lucifer had been dealt with. He believed Peyton because she also told him the Alpha guardian of Hunter Guardians herself came to apprehend Lucifer. Since the guardians kept the matter of Lucifer extremely secret, he couldn''t get any more information.. Plus, he was too busy partying and spending his time in the arms of beauties to think about Lucifer.
Chapter 398 - Dark Lord Shows No Mercy
The senators who had their eyes covered looked around bewildered after hearing Michael''s voice. Meanwhile, Connors and the spartan stared at Michael with their eyes wide open. Their eyes were glued to him as hended on the deck.
When hended on the deck, he flicked his wrist as a tall frightening throne made of skull and bones materialized on the deck.? The six senators including Vibius were trying to see what was happening.
"What? Where?" Vibius growled. He kept struggling against the ropes to free himself.
Connors couldn''t believe his eyes. He had heard about Lucifer and seen sketches of him yet in reality, he looked more menacing. The skull mask on his face was a dead giveaway of his identity as Lucifer.
Both of their eyes were glued to him. They saw him leisurely sitting on his throne, leaning back and putting his leg on the other. His crimson eyesnded on Connors.
At this moment, they heard a creaking noiseing from behind. They looked over their shoulders to see a gray-haired man walking towards Lucifer. Connors could tell the man had some kind of injury in his leg looking at the man''s gait. He was slightly limping. Surprisingly the man didn''t seem like a prisoner of Lucifer. Rather, he seemed like Lucifer''s minion.
"My Lord" He bowed standing before Lucifer,
"Take off his blind" Connors saw Lucifer pointing his finger at Vibius,
"Who are you?" Regardless of the shock, the Spartan soldier was brave enough to question Michael.
"I should ask you the same, Spartan Captain Decimus. Who are you?" Lucifer added, tilting his head.
The Spartan didn''t understand Lucifer''s question. Thus, he had a bewildered look on his face.
"Your job was to follow orders Spartan. Not poke your nose into where it doesn''t belong. When you chose to do that, you put yourself and the others in danger" Spartan''s heartbeat gradually raised as they heard another creaking voice from behind,
As Connors turned his head behind, he surprisingly saw a woman dragging another woman in a red tunic towards Lucifer. She had a baby covered in cloth in her arms.
"DILLIA!" the spartan immediately cried out loud looking at the woman in the red tunic. She was being dragged by her hand by another woman in a gray long coat. His wife didn''t move at all as she seemed to have lost consciousness.
"LET HER GO!" The Spartan growled as he violently struggled against the ropes to escape but no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn''t untie the ropes.
The senators were trying to make sense of what was happening by hearing the shouts and Lucifer''s words. At this moment, Gibson finally took off Vibius''s blindfold to let him see everything.
Vibius''s vision wasn''t clear. Everything in front of him was blurry. He also felt an urge to throw up but he was able to control the urge. When his vision finally cleared, he was stunned by the ck figure sitting on the throne.
His heart skipped a beat. The figure''s crimson red eyes were not on him but on the Spartan. Vibius did not recognize the Spartan yet he quickly recognized Connors.
"You bastard! I will kill you!"
The spartan kept screaming while Maxine was dragging the spartan''s wife towards Lucifer.
"Kill me? Hahaha," Michael burst intoughter. He grabbed the unconscious wife of the Spartan, lifting her up by her neck.? He stood up from his throne while Maxine remained by his side with the baby in her arms.
Gibson was moving his head staring at both Lucifer and the Spartan.
"It will take me less than a second to snap her neck right this instance"
Holding her in one hand, Michael ran his index finger through her face. A red line appeared along the way as blood slowly started to seep through the cut.
The Spartan was struggling more and more violently. Connors saw the Spartan trying to stand up but fell onto the floor ultimately. Still, the Spartan kept trying. Gibson felt pity for the Spartan.
"This is what happens when you try to be what you''re not supposed to be"
"DON''T HURT HER!" The spartan''s rage in his voice disappearedpletely when he saw Lucifer take the baby in his arms. Compared to his 7ft stature and bulky armor, the baby seemed tiny in his arms.
Even Gibson''s heart skipped a beat when he saw the baby in Lucifer''s arms. Michael ced his hand on the baby''s tiny head. Everyone could tell the baby and the mother was sedated as they remained without moving a muscle.
"Tell me Spartan, is the investigation more important than the lives of your beloved wife and the newborn child?"
Connors had no idea about what the hell was Lucifer talking about. However, Vibius knew about the investigation the Spartan captain was conducting. His spies reported to him about the Decimus''s investigation of what happened during Senator Viridius''s daughter''s marriage. The entire senate of Gisel was wiped off that day except for Caius.? The Spartan captain was conducting an investigation to find out what truly happened that day.
He suspected Senator Caius had a hand in that explosion which took the lives of all the Senators, their families as well as many nobles. Decimus had received threatening letters from unknown people asking him to drop the investigation. Still, Decimus continued his investigation.
"What was your end game n, Spartan Decimus?"? As he asked the Spartan, Michael lifted the wife by her neck. In one hand, he held the baby, in the other, he held the mother.
Vibius''s neck moved in the direction of Lucifer. He was too stunned to utter a word. Until now, he didn''t believe in the existence of the so-called Dark Lord whom the order of death believed in so much.
Spartan Decimus kept struggling as Lucifer came in front of him. Connors was able to see Lucifer so close. The dark cloud of smoke faded away revealing his metal armor. The intricate ck armor had a skull on the chest. The armor looked both sturdy and flexible. There was not a single ce that exposed what was underneath the armor.
Each step he took towards them produced a heavy thud sound. Maxine followed him behind.
"Get him up" Connors heard Lucifer order the woman behind him. The woman quickly stepped forward to get behind the Spartan. Then she grabbed the Spartan by his shoulder, making him stand straight up.
"Take off his helmet" The woman quickly lifted off Decimus''s helmet to reveal his clean-shaven face. Decimus had shoulder-length dirty brown hair. Due to his clean-shaven look, the scars on his face were visible. At the moment, his hazel eyes looked bloodshot red because of the overwhelming anger and helplessness.
"What are you?" Decimus growled as Michael let go of Dillia''s neck. She fell onto the wooden floor making a thud sound.
Michael could hear Decimus''s heart pound against his chest. He wanted to teach this idiot Spartan a lesson. Michael couldn''t care less of who''s getting promoted among the spartans. As far as he was concerned, they were supposed to follow the order of Caius and help him take over the southern continent in the future. Imagine his surprise when he heard from Caius that a nobody Spartan got promoted after the death of the previous Spartan Captain and started to conduct an investigation on what happened at Viridius''s daughter''s marriage.
Since there was no international court ofw in the Southern continent like on earth, he knew the Spartan Captain was collecting evidence to show the people and nobles and get himself elected as the head senator in the election. He was looking to rece Caius which made Michael kidnap Decimus and his family along with all the Senators of Maven kingdom.
"DILLIA" Yet again Decimus'' screamed looking at his wife on the ground.
Normally Michael wouldn''t hurt innocents such as the spartan''s wife or the baby but this time he made an exception, he wanted to teach Decimus a lesson.
The very next moment while Decimus was struggling to bend down and pick his wife up, Michael put his boot on her neck. He did not put any pressure but ced his boot on her neck.
"BASTA-"
Pulch!
Decimus''s shout was interrupted by a punch to his gut. The punch had enough power to create a fist shaped dent in his armor as well as cough out mouth full of blood.
The blood oozed out of Decimus''s mouth. Connors looked up at the Spartan to see his eyes closing and opening. He seemed to be struggling to stay awake.
"Look at your beloved wife under my feet. I can squeeze the life out of her in front of your very eyes"
Michale moved his boots, pretending to press her throat with his boot. However, he didn''t put any pressure at all. He would hurt Decimus for the trouble he caused for Caius but never intended to hurt innocents like Dillia or her child. However, he wanted the Spartan, Connors, and Vibius to think that he would go any length to destroy his enemies.
"Stop¡stop¡please" the spartan breathed heavily. There was no anger in his voice, he was pleading with Michael.
"I will teach you a precious lesson today, Decimus. Every action has a reaction"
When he flicked his wrist, Connors saw a ling syringe appear in his hand.
"No''
Pulch!
Decimus received another punch to his gut. This time, the blood and saliva came spraying out of his mouth. Maxine grabbed Decimus''s hair, keeping his head straight so he could look at Lucifer and the baby.
"Shit" Gibson cursed as he saw Lucifer injecting the needle into the baby''s tiny arm. He was stunnedpletely as he started to sweat. He knew Lucifer was ruthless but he had never imagined he would be cruel and ruthless enough to hurt a newborn child.
"Ple¡please" the words barely escaped Decimus''s mouth. Connors was not a big fan of Spartans but even he felt pity for Decimus at the moment.
"Your child will have the poison running through his veins all his life because of your mistake. With a snap of my fingers, I can activate the poison and end his life just like that" Connors felt a chill running through his spine. If Lucifer could do that to a baby, Connors couldn''t even imagine what he''s gonna do to the grownups like them.
"As for your wife" Michael looked down at Dillia before turning his gaze back at the Spartan,
"She will make a great snack for the sharks"
Pulch!
Before even the words could sink into Decimus''s mind, Michael punched him so hard on the head, immediately knocking him out. The Senators who heard his words including Vibius shivered in fear. Gibson''s legs kept shivering.
"You" Gibson never thought Lucifer would suddenly turn back to look at him. When his crimson red eyesnded on his, his entire body shuddered,
"Clean this up"
Michael gave a simple order before walking back to his throne. On his way to the throne, he could see the fear in Vibius''s eyes. By the look in their eyes, his tactics worked. For them, the wife''s gonna end up as shark food but in reality, Maxine would drop Decimus, his child, and the wife in a faraway kingdom from Gisel with enough gold coins to start a new life with a warning from Lucifer.
Of course, Decimus would be ced under surveince. Nheless, he would never be able to step on Gisel ever again or show his face.
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Hi my wonderful readers,
This daypletes my two years journey as an author.
I want to thank all my wonderful readers for supporting me until now.
Yourments, reviews, and criticisms not only boosted my happiness but also made me a better writer.
I am extremely happy and honored to announce that my third book, Rise of the legendary Emperor will be released 23rd of this month.
And Im happier to announce that my next adventure Dictator with a Badass System will be released this month.
I hope every one of you would continue to lend me your support. The schedule of HBS will not be affected in any way by the new novel.
Please show me your support by leaving yourment under this chapter. This is my life now so I hope everyone will stick with me and support me.
Always your goofy author,
don_offl
Chapter 399 - Arch Energy Crystal
After sending Decimus, Dillia, and their baby down into the lower decks, Michael sat on the throne. His throne was located just before the captain''s cabin. The Senators were lined up in front of him, they were made to kneel down. Connors remained a couple of meters back from the senators.
"Where are we?"
"Let us go,"
"Whoever you are, you just made a huge mistake"
Few of the senators dared to threaten Michael. Since they were blindfolded, they didn''t see his frightening figure.
At the moment, Michael''s full focus was on Vibius and Connors. Of course, Michael had no idea about Connors''s deeds. If he knew Connors killed Jack, Connors would have been bleeding on the floor. While he was waiting for Gibson and Maxine, Michael closed his eyes, calming himself down. He could feel the bloodlust inside him yet again.
"System, when will you have the answers to my problems?" Michael asked the system. When he upgraded the system, he thought he would have his answers. However, the system asked him to upgrade it once again but the system gave him no guarantee that it would have answers for his third persona problem if he upgraded it.
He was asking questions rted to his bloodlust. He got no answers except the system''s notification, asking him to upgrade it.
[Please upgrade the system!]
[System level is too low to answer the host]
"What about the other matter? Do you have the schematics and the parts?"
[Ofcourse, the schematics and the parts would cost the host 10,000 badass points]
After upgrading Inventor skill to star level 4, he got 200,000 badass points. To upgrade the skill to 5-star, the system required 180,000 points. Because he had to go to a new realm, he decided to save enough points. The 10,000 points for the schematics and the parts were absolutely necessary. The device in his mind required one important resource that hecked until now. If he could build the device, it would give him a huge advantage over the Guardians in the Southern Continent.
"If I''m right, I can build seven devices with the parts. But I still need more of them to make the device work"? As he was thinking about the new device, he saw Gibson and Maxine climb out of the lower decks. Gibson seemed more rxed. When he issued the order to kill Dillia, Michael noticed Gibson''s face be pale. Obviously, Gibson was questioning his judgment to follow Lucifer at that moment. Although Gibson was a pirate, he wasn''t cutthroat or an evil person. Michael knew he was a soldier before bing a pirate. If he ordered to kill Decimus, Gibson wouldn''t have felt a thing because Decimus was trying to screw things up for Michael. But, Dillia and the baby were innocent, they did nothing to him. Hence, when Michael ordered Maxine to kill Dillia and injected the baby with something, Gibson was startled.
As usual, Michael expected everything. Hence, he ordered Maxine to reveal everything to Gibson when they were away from the Senators.
He was ruthless but not evil to inject the baby with poison. Decimus would forever be afraid of Lucifer thinking his child could die any moment if he messed with Lucifer again. The child however was injected with nothing but water.
"It''s done, my lord" When she came to his side, Maxine said with enough volume to let everyone hear her. She stood on his right side while Gibson stood on the left side.
"Take off their blindfolds," Michael asked as Maxine nodded before making her way to the senators. In a few moments, she removed all the blindfolds, letting the Senators finally take a look at where they are and who they are dealing with.
The five senators blinked several times to make their vision clear. After a few moments, their eyesnded on Lucifer.
Gasp!
The moment they saw him sitting on his frightening throne made of skulls and bones, they gasped in shock. Their bodies began to shiver.
"Shut their mouths, they don''t need to speak" Michael ordered Maxine.
While they were still in shock, Maxine used the cloth that was used as the blindfold to cover their mouth.
"Not him and him" When she was about to wrap the blindfold around Vibius''s mouth, he stopped her.
The other senators turned sideways to see Vibius. They were slightly relieved for a moment but seeing Vibius was also tied just like the rest of them, they started to panic.
"Senator Vibius and Guardian Connors," Connors was stunned as ck lines appeared on his forehead. He couldn''t guess how Lucifer knew about his identity. Instinctively he looked down to see his space ring missing.
Michael stared at the scared faces of the senators for a few moments,
"On second thoughts" With a flick of his wrist, he took syringes filled with emerald green liquid out of his space ring.
"Hrrmmmm" some of the senators squirmed in fear. Connors and Vibius stared at the syringes slowly floating towards the senators. They stopped in the air a couple of inches away from the senators for a moment.
Pulch!
Then several secondster, each of the senators was stabbed by a syringe. In a few blinks of an eye, all the senators copsed onto the floor.
Vibius felt dread in his core. He wasn''t sure if they were alive or dead. Since he saw issuing an order to kill amoner and poisoning a baby, Vibius didn''t lean much on the side of the senators being alive.
"You''ve been a bad boy Senator Vibius. Sending troops to harass the border soldiers of Gisel, ordering the soldiers to wipe out a few viges, buying hundreds of ves, and robbing people of their freedoms, the list goes on"
He was disgusted by Vibius. The only reason Michael had not killed him yet was the item he received from Vibius. He then turned his gaze towards Connors,
"Tell me, Guardian Connors, you people calling me evil, demon, and Dark Lord. Is he not evil?" Michael pointed at Vibius,
"He would have been evil if he wasn''t much use to your guild, am I right?"
The Guardian Guild disgusted him the most, even more than Vibius or any ve traders in Southern Continent. If he could, he would wipe out the entire Guardian guild in front of Noah and Andreas''s eyes. He wanted to prove the Guardian Guild was nothing but a corrupted organization filled with scumbags. Compared to them, the Order of Death didn''t look evil at all.
Connor didn''t answer but stared at him without uttering a word. He was thinking of a way to leave this ce alive. As far as Connor could tell, if Lucifer could kill an innocent woman and poison her baby, killing him would not be hard at all.
As he was remaining without uttering a word, he saw the woman walking towards him.
Bam!
Vibius saw Connors''s two mrs flying out of his mouth along with blood and saliva. Maxine''s punch was so powerful that it made Connors''s face hit the ground hard.
"Lord Lucifer asked you a question"
"(cough) (cough) Arghh" Connors coughed up a mouth full of blood. He felt an excruciating pain in his mouth due to the sudden removal of the mrs.
"I know I am right," Michael calmly said. He didn''t mind Maxine punching Connors. Her loyalty and the way she acted made him happy. She was shaping up to be a loyal and powerful bodyguard. Her loyalty to him was unparalleled. Just his look was enough for her to understand his intentions.
She was one of the reasons that he wanted to build the device as soon as possible before he leaves for Akn Realm.
"The two of you should tell me everything you know about this"? Michael flicked his wrist yet again. This time, instead of a syringe, the crystal Vibius received appeared in his hand.
After he reached Maven, he nned to kidnap all the senators and subdue them except Vibius. When he sent the Spyders into Vibius''s manor, he was surprised to see the senator talking with a guardian. What surprised him more was the crystal he saw in Connors''s hands.
While they were unconscious, Michael was studying the crystal. It was pure Arch energy. He had never expected to see a pure Arch energy source such as the crystal. Unlike Vibius and Connors were thinking, the crystal did not contain arch energy within. The crystal itself was Arch energy. The Crystal was a crystallized form of Arch energy.
A pure source of Arch energy was the object that hecked to build a device that would enable all of Michael''s subordinates to use spells in the Southern continent. The Crystalized Arch energy could not be directly absorbedpletely. The Arch energy radiation could help cultivators cast weak spells. That''s how Connors was able to conjure fire sparks holding the crystal.
The device Michael was nning to build would help the subordinates or whoever wearing the device absorbs Arch energy. This would help them cultivate in the Southern continent without crossing the void line.
If his subordinates absorbed enough Arch energy from the crystal with the help of his device, they could reach the Body Strengthening stage. The higher stages of cultivation would require them to absorb thousands of crystal stones such as the one in his hand. Unless there was another type or more powerful crystals in the ce where Vibius got the crystal, giving subordinates thousands of crystals would not be very efficient.
"Where did you get this crystal?" Michael asked. His voice was cold as it sent a chill running through Vibius''s spine.
Vibius''s heart shuddered. The crystal was supposed to be his way to reach the top in life. He nned to use the crystals as a bargaining chip to get help from the Guardians and conquer all the Southern continent.
However, if Lucifer took over the Stormveil mountain, his dream of bing the ruler of the Southern continent would be shattered.
Vibius was stuck in a conundrum, if he didnt tell where he got the Crystal, Lucifer would take over the mountain which would make him the ruler of the Southern Continent. If he did not tell him, Lucifer would either torture him or just kill him.
"I can lie to him or tell him the truth but what if he kills me afterward?" Vibius questioned himself. In a split second, he had an idea.
"Unless I make him trust me"
The medallion of the Order of Death appeared in his mind.
Chapter 400 - Another Descendant Of The Order
"I¡I am...Order of Death¡my lord" Vibius stuttered. Michael was bewildered. Maxine stared at Vibius in shock. No one should know about the order unless they were high up in the Guardian guild. Vibius didn''t seem like he held any position in the Guardian guild.
"I can prove myself" Vibius''s words confused Connors. He was wondering what the hell Order of Death is.
"My inner pocket" Vibius looked down at his chest,
Michael gave Maxine a nod to take whatever was inside his pocket. After taking the Crystal from unconscious Connors, he was too focused on the Crystal as he didn''t bother to search Vibius. Yet he ordered Gibson to do a thorough search but it seemed Gibson failed the task a bit.
First Maxine ran her hand through Vibius''s chest, shoulder, and arms to find if he had any weapons hidden. Making sure he had none, she put her hand inside Vibius''s toga. Surprisingly Maxine found a hidden pocket in his toga. The tiny pocket was very well hidden. No wonder Gibson failed to find the pocket, Maxine thought.
"My Lord" a momentter, Michael saw Maxine''s eyes open wide in shock. He looked at her hand to see a glowing coin. The coin looked exactly the same as the medallion he found on Maxine''s neck when he first fought her.
Connors stared at the woman handing over the glowing coin to Lucifer. Gibson on the other hand wondered why Vibius was not able to rip off the ropes that tied his hands. He knew the medallion on her chest is the reason for her monstrous strength. If he used the ropes to tie Maxine, she would rip it off in a mere second.
Vibius could have done the same if he had worn the medallion from his birth. He kept the medallion in a locker instead of wearing it. His ancestor worried that the medallion was making the wearer a ve to the Dark Lord.
Hence, Vibius chose not to wear it just in case.
Plus, he never believed in the Dark Lord''s existence. In his mind, he thought it was all made up by the elders of the Order to scare people into submission. After all, he knew fear makes people submit.
For a few moments, Michael just stared at the glowing medallion on his palm. He could feel the pulsating energying from within the coin. The energy pulses were not as strong as Maxine''s coin. Somehow the medallion felt weaker than Maxine''s. Anyway, this proved Vibius was one of the descendants of the elders who survived the Guardian attack.
Before seeing the medallion, Maxine wanted to end Vibius''s life. She started to have as the medallion basically made them brother and sister in arms. Loyalty to the Dark Lord and the fellow members of the Order was what made the Order so powerful enough to rule the world from shadows for centuries.
But a betrayal from one elder copsed the entire order as though it was a house made of cards.
"Your ancestor"
"Damien Zayne. We are the Zayne family, my lord"
Vibius hoped the Dark Lord dont know about his ancestor''s secret deals with the Guardians. Only one in the world knew about Damien''s betrayal and it wasn''t the Dark Lord.
"You are a descendant of my worshippers. Hmm," Vibius saw him rub his chin,
"Since you are a descendant, I''ll let go of your sins. But only if you tell me where did you get the crystal"
Obviously, the crystal was found in Stormveil mountain. Why else would Vibius have sent his troops to upy the mountain despite the peace talks and agreements?
Still, Michael wanted to hear it from Vibius, just to make sure he was telling the truth.
"Stormveil mountain, my lord. I can show you the operation"
Vibius was not an idiot to lie to the Dark Lord. If he was right, the Dark Lord would already know about his attack on Stormveil castle. He always had a weird feeling about what happened in Gisel. The entire senate wiped out in an explosion, Caius being the sole survivor and then him recing the senate with his underlings seemed too coincidental.
The Dark Lord definitely had a hand in what happened in Gisel. Everything that happened a few moments earlier made sense to Vibius. He was able to quickly connect the dots. Caius must be Dark Lord''s man, the Dark Lord took out the senator for Caius, Decimus started an investigation to prove what happened that day, the Dark Lord found out through Caius about the investigation and the rest was history.
"How big is the operation? Who else knows about the crystals?"
"Hundred and twenty ves are mining the crystals as we speak my lord. Except you and me, only guardian Connors and my spartan captain Hostus knows about the existence of the crystals"
Michael could hear a hesitation every time Vibius addressed him as ''my lord''. He then turned his gaze towards Connors.
"Guardian Connors, did you tell anyone about the crystals?"
"Alpha Guardian of Hunter guardians know. They must be looking for me as we speak" Connors didn''t show any fear in his voice. The way he saw it, he had very little chance of getting out of the ship alive unless he could make Lucifer think he has to keep him alive. If the Alpha Guardian was searching for him, Lucifer might decide to keep him hostage.
Every Guardian undertaking a secret mission had a handler assigned to them. Connors''s handler was in Maven and every night, Connors had to report to him. If he didn''t, the handler would know something happened to him and look for him. Thest time Connors met the handler, he told the handler he was going to meet with Vibius. Hence, the handler would definitely start to look for him from Vibius''s manor.
If Vibius was spared by Lucifer, the handler would investigate him and hopefully realize something was wrong. Otherwise, the handler would investigate both Vibius and his disappearance. These investigations would often lead to calling the hunter guardians who were specialized in tracking and investigating.
Connors just hoped the hunters would somehow find him. All he had to do was stay alive until they did.
"Is that so?" Connors heard him chuckle.
Michael already decided what to do with the guardian. Therefore, he wasn''t worried about whether he was lying or not.
He turned his gaze back at Vibius,
"Are you willing to serve me and honor your ancestors, Vibius Zayne?"
Gibson had a bad feeling in his gut. When Caius was telling about what Vibius was doing to amass military power, he saw Lucifer''s eyes flicker in red. This often led to a death or multiple deaths.
"Yes, yes my lord" Vibius heaved a sigh of relief inside. He just needed to get out of the ship, sneak past the Dark Lord''s security measure if he had any, warn the guardians, and help them kill the Dark Lord.
Thousands of years ago, his ancestor destroyed the Order and now he was presented with an opportunity to cut the head of the snake. As far as Vibius was concerned, The Dark Lord pushed him to do this.
"Good good. Let me wee you to the Order with a little gift" Michael stood up from his throne.
As he was walking towards Vibius, he flicked his wrist. In a few blinks of an eye, several syringes appeared yet again. The bluish syringes immediately stabbed the senators who were on the ground in the neck.? Their eyes were abruptly opened. Their bodies shuddered as though they were hit with an electric bolt.
The senators didn''t dare to utter a word because Lucifer was standing so close to them. They were afraid of pissing off this monster.
Michael lifted Vibius from the ground by his shoulder with one hand. He then ripped off the ropes that tied his hands while a de of wind cut the ropes that tied his legs.
"Senators of Maven, we have a proposition for you" Michael ced his hand on Vibius''s shoulder, talking to the senators.
Their eyes were glued to Lucifer,
"You have two choices. The first choice, swear you loyalty to me and you will not only get out of here with your lives but also get rich and powerful"
Michael paused for a moment before continuing,
"The second choice, you can choose not to swear your loyalty and you can hope someone woulde and save you from me" Vibius saw Lucifer''s hands slowly moving from his shoulder to neck,
"Like our senator Vibius here"
The very next moment, the senators saw Lucifer clutch Vibius''s neck. He lifted Vibius off the ground by his neck as Vibius began to squirm in his hand.
"HRGGMMM" Michael''s hold was too strong as Vibius''s face turned purple in a few mere moments,
"He was hoping the guardians woulde and rescue him. The man behind you is a guardian and I see no oneing to save him"
The senators looked over their shoulders to see a woman holding a knife against the youngster''s throat.
"Let me show you what will happen when you go with the second choice" The surrounding air became a bit chilly as he spoke in his cold voice,
Pulch!
Suddenly Michael punched Vibius in the chest. For a moment, Connors''s eyes closed when the blood sshed on his face. As he opened his eyes, he felt a chill running through his spine. Lucifer''s hand was sticking out of Vibius''s back. In his hand, he saw the beating heart that oozed blood on the ground. Vibius was violently shaking in his arms but his body gradually stopped squirming as the light of light slowly left his eyes.
"AH!"
One of the senators couldn''t help shouting in fear. Michael put the lifeless body of Vibius on the ground before stepping towards the senators. The heart was still in his hand.
"Time to make your choice, Senators"
Creech!
Michael crushed the heart in his hand, spraying blood on their faces. Their faces were as pale as a white sheet. He could even see one senator wet his toga in utter terror.
"You are next darling" Connors heard the woman whisper into his ear before everything turned dark.
Chapter 401 - The Secret Of Stormveil Mountain I
In the eastern border that separated Gisel and Maven, Stormveil mountain stood tall. The mountain range was almost a thousand miles long and reached 40,000 feet at its highest point, and many of its slopes were extremely treacherous.
Most of the lower range was covered in a dense forest. Not even a single ray of sunlight peeked through the stormy clouds above the mountain. The howling sound of the wind created an ominous feel around the mountain along with the stormy weather. Hence, the name Stormveil mountain. The upper regions of the mountain frequently experienced heavy rain with violent mini cyclones.
There was no paved road to the mountain. The area around the mountain had a grayish color due to the storm clouds. The trees in the forest were frantically waving in the wind.
"My lord" Michael sat on his sofa in the airship, looking at the mountain in the distance through the window when he heard Maxine.
"Gibson has reached the witch''s ind"
After dealing with Vibius and the senators, Michael sent Gibson to the witch''s ind. They were stationed near the ind as it was a short journey for Gibson to the witch''s ind.
Michael teleported the Senators to Maven before teleporting himself and Maxine back into the airship. Currently, he was on his way to see Stormveil mountain. He took a three hour meditation break which gave enough time for the senators to withdraw the soldiers from the Stormveil mountain.
"It looks freaky, my lord" Maxine bent her back to look through the window. The howling wind coupled with thunderps and lightning streaks in the sky would make anyone feel terrific or at least some dread in their core.
The tallest peak of the mountain could not be seen as it passed through the clouds in the sky.
The tallest mountain on the earth would look like a boulder in front of Stormveil mountain. He could feel the airship begin to shake due to the stormy wind. As they got closer to the mountain, the louder the noise of heavy rain hitting the roof sounded.
Regardless that this was the middle of the day, it looked as thoughte evening because of the darkness.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Lightning shed in the dark sky and thunders shook the air. The airship soon started to shake violently. Maxine almost lost her bnce. She quickly grabbed onto the sofa and steadied herself.
"My lord, we can''t fly any further without risking a crashnding" Caius came running to them.
"Tell him to stop the airship and go back to Gisel" Michael stood up from his sofa,
"But my lord" Caius seemed reluctant to leave them in the Stormveil mountain. This mountain range was one of the most dangerous ces in the Southern continent. Countless travelers and soldiers lost their lives in the terrain.
Still, they were not Lucifer and Maxine.
"While I''m away, use this tomunicate with the other senators" With a flick of his wrist, he took an earpiece from his space ring. All the other senators were given an earpiece so they could talk to Caius. In addition to earpieces, they were also wearing Spycam pendants. Hence, Azazel could monitor them 24/7. If they tried to remove the pendant, the venom inside the Sydercam would be injected into them, taking their lives instantly.
Michael made his way towards the door as Maxine followed him behind.
He stood before the door before wrapping his arm around Maxine''s slender waist.
He pulled her closer as he opened the door. The moment the door was opened, a powerful force of wind almost pushed them backward. Without wasting any time, he jumped out of the airship
"Wind st" In the mid-air, he turned his back, sending a st of wind to shut the door behind him.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Maxine couldn''t hold her screams. She hugged him tightly and closed her eyes. Her hair and long coat were fluttering violently but they soon got drenched in the rain.
"Lightning Dash"
He cast the spell to quicken his pace. No matter how many times he flew, he could never get used to the fact that he''s actually flying like a superman.
The feeling of flying was magical.
The lush green forest below them was covered by a hazy fog. The wind and rain brushed past his face so fast that it made him close his eyes asionally.
As they got closer to the mountain, the sight of the gigantic mountain frightened him. They looked so miniature in front of the mountain.
He noticed a few figures on the ground. Quickly he flew away before anyone could notice him, not that anyone could with the stormy weather.
"Land, thank god" When her feet touched the ground, she heaved a sigh of relief.
"Get used to flying because" He let her go,
"Soon you will fly" For a moment, she looked frightened. Still, she nodded, controlling her fear of flying.
They were currently standing on a narrow path between the forest and the mountain''s footsteps. They noticed several figures in ragged clothes or naked walking out of the mountain.
"He must be Hostus" He looked at the Spartan soldier who was overseeing the ves. The soldier was staring at a parchment.
In his focus on the parchment, the Spartan almost failed to hear the footsteps of Michael and Maxine. One could not me the spartan for not hearing the footsteps because the howling sound of the wind and the heavy rain would prevent anyone from hearing the sound of footsteps.
"Spartan Hostus" The spartan shuddered hearing the sudden voice,
"Who are you? You shouldn''t be here" the spartan reached for his scimitar hanging on his waist,
"Calm down Spartan, Senator Vibius sent us" the spartan frowned. Despite the golden helmet with a huge red feather, Michael could still notice the frown on his face. Still, he couldn''t see his facepletely but he never cared about how the spartan looked under the helmet.
"I never heard anything about someone visiting the mountain from senator Vibius"
Hostus''s hand was still on the hilt of his scimitar. Obviously, he didn''t believe them.
"Senator gave us this" Michael slowly put his hand inside his coat pocket as the Spartan stared at him without batting an eye.
"See"
When Hostus saw Michael taking out the Crystal, he was stunned.
"We don''t have much time to y around Spartan. Gisel''s spartan army is on its way here."
Michael handled situations like this before back on earth. When the opposite person was in doubt, rush them, giving them no time to think. Until he learned as much as he could from Hostus about the mining operation, he didn''t want to kill him. That was the reason Hostus was still alive.
"What? Spartan army? Shit"
"You can mumbleter Spartan. Now we have a job to do. Tell me you finished evacuating the ves as your order said you to"
The parchment in Hostus''s hand contained signed letters of the senators Michael spared. It was a pity he didn''t get a signed letter from Vibius before killing him. Since he did not need Vibius for much, he didn''t bother.
Maxine thought the sole reason for Vibius''s death was his sins. However, that was only one of the reasons. The other reason was Vibius''s loyalty level. When the system prompted him whether he wanted Vibius as his subordinate or not, Vibius''s loyalty level was at 0.2%. Vibius had everything and craved too much power. Raising his loyalty would be a headache and his gut feeling told him to kill Vibius because Vibius had gone too far with his killings of innocents and ves.
There was no way Michael would make such a murderous psycho his subordinate.
"Yes, those are thest of them. The order said I have to send them to the Gisel border. What if those ves tried to escape?" Hostus asked as Michael made his way to the mine entrance.
"Don''t bother, we have bigger things to worry about. Show me the mining site inside"
Spartan Hostus fastened his steps to walk forward. As they walked deeper into the mine, the darker it became. Only a few torches hanging on the wall were their light source.
"Anything I should know before those assholese here to check the ce"
"What assholes my lord?" Hostus addressed him as my lord. Coupled with the fact his attitude, the fact that he has the crystal indicated the youngster was someone from a high ce, perhaps a noble rted to Vibius.
"There is a group of Guardiansing. Peace talk or some shit like that. We need to make sure they do not find out about the existence of these crystals"
Michael was making stuff up as he walked.
"Guardians?" Hostus was stunned,
"Nothing major my lord. Just a few ves died inside. I cleaned up their bodies, so no problem"
Michael frowned but didnt stop walking deeper into the mine.
"What''s the cause of death?" He asked the Spartan,
For a few seconds, Hostus remained silent.
"You didn''t bother to check, did you?" He sighed as the spartan scratched the back of his helmet.
Eventually, after walking for almost half an hour, they started to see a few glimmers of bluish light deeper into the mine.
Soon the narrow path opened up into arge spacious area where they saw crystals in the walls, ground, and above them. Hundreds of people could upy the area, it was enormous. He could see the crystal in various sizes. On the other side of the area, he noticed a narrow opening as well as tools such as hammers, shovels, crowbars, andrge picks.
"Where does that lead to?" Michael pointed at the narrow opening and asked Hostus,
"Deeper into the mountain my lord. Those ves died caving the pathway"
"Why did they die? What''s on the other side?"
Michael had a bad feeling in his gut. With utmost caution, he made his way to the narrow path through the rocky ground.
*****************************************
NEW CHAPTER OF ROLE? 2 IS UP!!!!!!
Link is in thements section
***************************************
Hi, my wonderful readers,
I take this moment to thank my dear friend and fan GOD OF CAT for reforming my server and being a huge help in the making of ROLE 2.
Thank you buddy for helping me thesest couple of weeks.
You''ve been a wonderful friend....
Chapter 402 - The Secret Of Stormveil Mountain II
Michael was squeezing through the narrow crack to get to the other side.
Hostus followed him behind while Maxine entered through the crackst.
As he squeezed through the crack, the torch he had in his hand got put out.
The sudden darkness worked in his favor though. Without Hostus noticing, Michael cast the Death Range spell. His strength exploded thanks to the darkness. He pushed the rock in front of him while pushing back the rock behind him using his back. The narrow crack creaked as it got wider.
Maxine could breathe a little considering the narrow crack became wider.
Although Hostus felt the crack widening, he didn''t think the youngster before him had the strength to move the mountain literally.
"My lord, can you see the other side?" Maxine breathed heavily. Even after the crack widened, she had a hard time squeezing through the crack due to her body shape.
"I can feel the air, just a bit more" he answered. He sensed tiredness in Maxine''s voice. It was weird of her to get exhausted.
"I¡I don''t¡feel very good" Just after Maxine talked, Hostus also opened his mouth.
Surprisingly the Spartan also sounded exhausted, more exhausted than Maxine.
"Quit whining, just a bit more" He focused on squeezing through the crack. When he was a little child, he had an extreme ustrophobic condition. He had that condition until he trained with Spectre. One day when Spectre knew about Michael''s fear of closed spaces, Spectre put him in a casket and buried him for an entire day.
Spectre made him face his own fears rather than running away from them. In the end, he was able to let go of the fear of closed spaces. Until Spectre went crazy and ordered assassins to kill the orphanage Michael cared about, he was not only a mentor to him but also a father figure.
Everything Michael knew, he learned from Spectre. Deep down in his heart, he still missed the old guy.
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
Suddenly his entire eight sight was filled with warning messages from the system. His train of thoughts immediately stopped by the screaming noises inside his head.
[Extreme amount of radiation!]
[the host has been exposed to an extreme amount of radiation!]
[Immediate action required]
[The system rmends the host to purchase and use 100% healing potion]
[The healing potion would prevent the radiation from permanently causing damage to the host for 30 mins]
"Shit!"
"Maxine, go back!" He was startled. Immediately turning his head towards Maxine, he shouted,
[One potion would cost the host 5000 badass points. Does the host wish to buy the healing potion?]
"Yes..fuck..do it. Buy two"
Michael shouted in his mind at the system.
"ARGHHH!"
Several seconds after the warning, he started to feel a vomiting sensation as well as muscle pain because of the radiation.? Using his remaining strength in his body, Michael began to push the mountain wall forward with his legs.
He let out a loud cry pushing the mountain back and forth. He was not strong enough to move the mountain but strong enough the widened the crack several inches more which would make escaping the narrow crack easier for Maxine,
As he made the crack open wide, the system gave him the healing potion. He wasted no time as he immediately chugged the entire potion in one gulp.
"Maxine, drink this" hepletely ignored Hostus who was between Michael and Maxine. The Spartan leaned back on the wall to stand straight. He was breathing heavily.
Completely ignoring Hostus, Michael conjured a ball of me which lightened up the dark mine. He then tossed the sparkling blue healing potion towards Maxine. The potion was sparkling as though it was liquid gold.
Maxine was having trouble standing straight. She felt her muscles be weak and had a killing headache. In addition to muscle pain and headache, she felt like she was going to faint any second. Still, mustering all the strength in her body, she raised her hand catching the potion in the mid-air.
"Wind st!"
Just like him, Maxine too chugged the healing potion in one go. The moment she finished the healing potion, Michael sent a powerful st of wind towards her. The powerful gust of wind pushed both Hostus and Maxine out of the narrow crack.
Unlike Maxine and Hostus, he didn''t run out of the narrow crack but pushed himself deeper into the crack.
"Lightning Dash" he cast the spell and willed the system to equip his Lucifer armor.
In a split second, he transformed into hisplete lucifer form. The metal tes attached to the armor scratched with the rough walls on either side, creating sparks of fire. If it wasn''t for the armor, the skin on his arms would have been scrapped off like a carrot by the rough walls.
With the help of Lightning Dash, he pushed himself out of the crack.
"Whoa!"
Michael''s reflexes saved him yet again as he was just an inch away from falling down into a pit below him. The ground ended after several meters from the narrow path opening. What in front of him was nothing but an endless dark pit.
"Wow" He looked down into the dark pit. The hole was asrge as the meteor crater of Arizona or wider. He could not see the end of the dark pit. It was pitch ck.
"What is this ce?" He looked around in shock. Above the crater, he was able to see countless crystals brighter than the one he got from Vibius on the roof. These crystals were blood red and bigger in size.
However, Michael was afraid to fly to the crystals and mine them without knowing what was lying inside the hole.
"System, if something went wrong, buy a teleportation scroll and teleport me and Maxine to a safe distance"
[Is the host nning to jump into the endless pit?]
"Of course not"
He took out a drone from his space ring. Standing on the edge of the crater, he looked down once again before sending the drone flying down into the deep dark pit.
His heart was pounding against his chest. The mere sight of the gigantic pitch-ck pit freaked him out.
"Azazel, are you seeing the footage of the drone I just deployed?"
"Yes my lord" Azazel''s grim voice sounded in his head.
"System, record everything"
He could see the footage being captured by the drone in his mind. The drone disappeared from his eyesight yet he noticed nothing but darkness.
"Grmmmmmmm"
Suddenly a ground-shaking groan emerged deep from the pit. The very next moment, the drone footage disappeared before glitching. The drone crumbled into bits and pieces.
"Shit shit shit" Michael''s legs took steps backward in fear,
"Lightning Dash" he immediately cast the spell, wasting no time. Under his skull mask, his face was pale as he was drenched in sweat.
He never felt overwhelmingly terrified before in his life.
He ran away from the pit without even turning back.
Screech!
The armor collided with the walls, producing sparks as he dashed away from the pit. The armor waspletely disfigured and lost its shiny metallic ck color.
Boom!
As he exited the narrow crack, he stumbled down and went sliding for a couple of meters before stopping.
"My Lord!" Maxine shouted seeing himing out crashing down.
However, before she could run towards him, Michael kicked up. He didn''t stand still but yet again activated a lightning dash towards the narrow crack opening.
This time when he reached the opening, he didn''t squeeze through. He grabbed the two sides of the mountain and pulled them closer using all of his strength.
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" his shout echoed through the mine. Every single muscle in his body popped up as the armor began to crack. There were also cracks formed up in the walls of the mountain on either side of the narrow opening.
Maxine waspletely stunned by his show of raw strength. She saw the narrow opening-closing up inch by inch. It seemed like he was moving the mountain itself. Closing the opening was not easy at all, he could feel his consciousness drifting away. Yet, he pushed himself to the absolute limit because what he saw was nothing but death. He stared death in its eyes and came back.
Boom!
Eventually, after several seconds, the crack finally shut, producing a booming sound. Maxine came running to him when he copsed down to the ground.
She didn''t worry about Hostus because the spartan bled to death. It was a horrible death, he bled through all the pores and holes in his body. He kept twitching like a fish out of the water before losing his life forever.
"My lord, what happened?!" Maxine knelt on his side before taking his head in her hand. She ced his head on herp,
"System¡"? Michael mumbled under his breath using thest bit of his strength,
"Teleport¡dark¡forest"
Maxine felt the air around her be chilly. She had experienced this before. Hence, she held Michael closer and closed her eyes.
***********************************
When she opened her eyes, she was in a dark cozy room.
"What happened?"
"Fuck!" Maxine shouted. She was startled by Azazel''s sudden appearance.
"What the fuck are you?"
"It''s not important. Put my lord on the bed" Azazel pointed at the bed. His ethereal face had a worried look. Maxine growled, lifting Michael. With his armor, he was a little too heavy.
"Careful" Azazel eximed,
She almost copsed onto the bed with him because of his weight.
"The moment you go back to the mountain, close the area you were in '''' Maxine didn''t know what the hell is the figure floating before her but she could sense the fear in his voice.
"Do you know what happened and why Lord Lucifer closed the opening?"
"Dorment Hydra"
Both of them heard Michael''s voice. They turned their heads to the bed to see Lucifer standing up.
"The hydra is in Stormveil mountain"
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Hi my wonderful readers,
This daypletes my two years journey as an author.
I want to thank all my wonderful readers for supporting me until now.
Yourments, reviews, and criticisms not only boosted my happiness but also made me a better writer.
I am extremely happy and honored to announce that my third book, Rise of the legendary Emperor will be released 23rd of this month.
And Im happier to announce that my next adventure Dictator with a Badass System will be released this month.
I hope every one of you would continue to lend me your support. The schedule of HBS will not be affected in any way by the new novel.
Please show me your support by leaving yourment under this chapter. This is my life now so I hope everyone will stick with me and support me.
Always your goofy author,
don_offl
*****************************************
NEW CHAPTER OF ROLE? 2 IS UP!!!!!!
Link is in thements section
Chapter 403 - Ancient Monster
"Hydra? My lord, I thought Vedora is the only Hydra in this world" Maxine muttered. Michael removed his mask as well as his chest armor to breathe a little.
"I have to see something" Michael walked out of the room as Maxine and Azazel followed him behind.
As usual, theherels were cleaning the corridors as though they were professional maids. Azazel attached blue orbs on the ceiling to lighten up the ce. They didn''t provide light like eclectic bulbs but they provided enough to make navigating through the corridors easier.
After a while of walking, they reached a grayish door that stood 7ft tall. The door had intricate carvings which seemed like Lucifer battling several soldiers on a battlefield filled with skulls.
Michael pushed the door open to see a spacious room. All four walls had mirrors the size of a 24 inch monitor glued to them. Each monitor showed a view. Previously this room was used as the armory by the Order of Death. The weapons they stored in the room were corroded and rusted with time. They became unusable. Except for the mirrors, there was a glistening white orb that remained in the center of the room on a 4ft pir.
"Wee to the ce of power, Maxine" Michael greeted Maxine with a smile. He then walked towards the center of the room. He took a minute toprehend the potential of the surveince room. Currently from this room, he could watch over Bredia, some ces in Kethen and Royalnd. If he could deploy thousands of Spyders all over the world, he would have a bigger surveince system than anyone in the world.
The white orb worked as a hard disk. It stored every single footage. If required, Michael could ess the footage through the system. Other than him, only Azazel had ess to the footage.
"My Lord, is that¡" Maxine pointed at one of the mirrors. Her voice trailed away,
Michael looked at the mirror pointed by Maxine to see Pirate Lord Corey sleeping on afy bed with a naked man. Then Maxine turned her head to the mirror next to see Shorty picking his nose. She even saw her old crew having a party on her ship anchored at the pirate cove. In her shock, she failed to notice the ck mirror that had no footage on the corner of the wall.
She couldn''t help feeling her privacy being invaded.
"Are you feeling like your privacy is being invaded, Maxine?"
As though he was a mind reader, Michael asked what she was feeling. Maxine was stunned by his question. She wanted to shake her head but she hesitated,
"Can you see the footage of your room in those mirrors?"
Maxine looked around the room, staring at every single mirror including the ck mirror. Eventually after several momentster, she found no mirror that showed the footage of her room in bertha or her old ship,
"I don''t spy on people I trust. And if I did, it''s for your own safety. The Guardians and my enemies will use the people closest to me to get to me. If I don''t watch over them, best case they will die. Worst case, they will be tortured until they are broken" His words were somehow soothed her down.
It also made sense to her, if she was captured by Guardians, she would want Lucifer to locate her ande to her rescue.
"Take this" Maxine saw the pendant they previously gave to the senators appear in his hand,
"When you don''t want to be watched, remove it and ce it somewhere safe" He handed over the Spycam pendant to Maxine.
"Yes my lord"
She could feel that Lucifer really trusts her. That warmed her heart deeply. Just as he exined, he wasn''t spying on his loyal subordinates because he could see their loyalty in the system window. Yet he was watching over them in case they got into trouble.
After she wore the pendant around her neck, Michael waved his hand as every single mirror in front of them went ck.
"System, y the footage captured by the drone" He willed the system. Azazel and Maxine stared at the flickering screens in front of them.
"y it in slow motion," he ordered the system. Without uttering a word, they all stared at the screens. At the moment, all the mirrors worked as a single gigantic screen.
For several moments, the screens showed nothing but pitch-ck darkness. Then, for a split second, Maxine noticed three pairs of crimson red glow deep within the dark pit. The very next moment, the screens glitched and stopped moving.
"y it again slower"
The footage started again. This time, Maxine didn''t even blink. She looked closer at the red glows that appeared for a brief second.
Michael let out a deep breath. It was dark and the red glow appeared only for a split second but he knew what he saw, they were not just red glows or glitches in the footage. They were pairs of eyes, three pairs of eyes. The three pairs of eyes, the high radiation, the size of the eyes, and his gut feeling told him that it was the hydra resting at the end of the dark pit.
If his guess was correct, the hydra would be three times the size of King Ghidorah. Just imagining it terrified him to the core. The hydra might be the most powerful existence in this world. Fighting a monster such as this hydra was nothing but asking for death. He realized why the system told him not to search for the hydra until he could reach the immortal stage.
"Are those eyes, my lord?"After seeing the footage in extreme slow motion, Maxine kinda guessed it.
"Yes. That hydra is the reason no one in Southern continent can be cultivators" Maxine''s jaw slightly dropped,
"It''s sucking all the Arch energy in the atmosphere" As he said, he flicked his wrist, taking the crystal out from his space ring,
"These crystals must be the by product of Arch energy gathering into the mountain"
Azazel was hovering behind him. When he saw the crystal he floated towards him in curiosity. He stared at the crystal for a moment,
"My lord, this is pure arch energy" the demon butler eximed,
"There must be purer Arch energy crystals within the pit" he stood there looking at the screens with hands behind his back,
Yet again, he yed the footage to see the crimson eyes of the Hydra.
"Not worth the risk of waking that monster up. Azazel"
"My lord"
"Tell Dr to summon as many asherels he could. We are going to mine the shit out of that mountain"? He then turned his gaze towards Maxine,
"Maxine, make sure no one opens that pathway to the pit. If that Hydra wakes up, it will be game over for us"
Maxine nodded, hearing his serious voice. She had never seen him serious such as this before.
"I will teleport theherels into the mountain. Maxine will store all the crystals for me"
"How my lord?"
"Go look how are Aria''s brothers doing?"
Instead of answering how she would be able to store the crystals, Michael asked her to check on Aria''s brothers,
After she left the room, he waved his hand as the dark footage changed into lively scenery. A woman standing on the top of a boulder could be seen. her eyes were closed. Behind her was a majestic waterfall. The water sprayed by the waterfall coupled with the sunlight produced a beautiful miniature rainbow behind the woman.
"Lah Alden" Azazel could recognize her with a single look despite her pregnant belly. The pendant Michael gave Lah was a special one. It had the spyder he built as well as a tiny fly that could detach from itself from the pendant and fly around, taking footage of Lah from all angles. He bought it from the system as hecked the materials and tools to build such a tiny camera.
If one knew what happened between Lah and him, they would definitely mark him as a hypocrite. He was infuriated at his parents for abandoning him but he did the same to the spirit child. Except, he didn''t abandon the child or La. He was watching over them. Only Michael was able to ess the footage of La. Hence one mirror remained dark showing no footage.
He just remained there watching Lah in silence.
"Take care of yourself and the kid La"
Taking ast look at Lah, he waved his hand again as the mirrors went back to their normal state. He then left the surveince room to resume his work of shadow ruling the world.
When he reached his room, he sat on the table and ced the crystal in front of him.
"Bracelet or pendant?" He asked himself before starting to build the device that would make his subordinates overpowered in the Southern Continent.
**********************************
Right at the moment, Maxine was standing before the tubr contaminants in Aria''s room. She was staring at the two muscr men submerged in the sparkling blue liquid. Their limbs seemed to be growing which was surprising for her. She knew this was another miracle the Dark Lord could perform.
As she was staring at them, she heard the door behind her creak open. She turned back to see Lucifer entering the room. She quickly bowed,
"Give me your hand"
She reached out her right hand without asking a question. He took out a dark metal bracelet before putting it on her hand,
"Ouch!" she let out a burst of cry when she suddenly felt a sharp pain around her wrist. It felt as though the bracelet pierced her wrist with hundreds of tiny needles.
The pain quickly disappeared as he took out a red vial.
"Drink"
The red portion was not as watery as the potions she had drank before. It was thick, almost like jelly. It took her a second to swallow the tasteless odorless jelly.
Several secondster, she felt an electric bolt running through her veins. She jolted as her entire body shivered. In addition, she was sweating.
"Put this ring and concentrate on it"
Taking a few deep breaths, she steadied herself. As he said, after she put the ring on, she began to concentrate on the ring.
"Are you feeling a connection with the space ring?"
Maxine nodded. She was still getting used to the new experience,
"Put this inside" he then threw a healing potion towards her and waited for Maxine to put the healing potion into her space ring.
Dark lines formed on her forehead due to her concentration but after several seconds, the healing potion in her hand finally disappeared.
"And that''s how you gonna store the crystals"
******************************
IF everything went to n, you will see Gaya in the next two chapters.
Chapter 404 - Princess Victoria Of Thusia
As Michael was building bracelets that allow his subordinates to use Arch energy, four horses were pulling a fancy carriage through a thick forest. The forest was far-reaching,pact, and budding. Its canopy was eclipsed by a magnolia, asp, and dogwood, still, plenty of light passed through their crowns for a plethora of sprouts to make use of the insect-riddled soils below. Curving branches waved from every tree, and a potpourri of flowers, which grew in abundance, shed with the otherwise amber terrain. In addition to the horses galloping, a variety of animal sounds, most belonging to rummaging critters, reverberated through the air, and almostpletely muffled the asional roar of arge animal trying to scare away predators.
From the outside, the carriage seemed rather generic, nothing special about it at all. However, the inside was exactly the opposite. It was fancier than the interior of Caius''s private airship. Two gorgeous young girls were sitting gracefully in the carriage.
One of them wore a white, jade embroidered robe and had her silky hair draping down all the way to her shoulders. A jade hairpin was stuck within her bun of hair. Her face was alluring and friendly because of the warmth smile on her face. Those hazel eyes of her exuded an elegant and intelligent demeanor which caused everyone around her to like her instantly.
The young girl infront of her was prettier and had sharper features than her. Her red hair was tied up in a high bun and her skin was smooth and wless. However, she had a certain cold and icy look in her eyes which almost seemed like she could see through anyone and anything. Her posture and aura indicated an arrogant elite demeanor.
The girl in white robes whose face was full of smiles asked softly, "Victoria, you seem to be bothered by something. From the moment our journey back to Thusia began, your expression was so sullen. Be careful that wrinkles don''t sprout out since you''ve been frowning."
If Michael was to see the girl, a blood bath would have happened inside the carriage. THis Victoria wasn''t the Victoria of GoldenValley sect, this Victoria was the one who pretended to be a farm girl, made Abras fall in love and betrayed him by sending a dagger through his heart. Abras knew her as Emily until General Booth revealed her identity as the Princess of Kingdom Thusia, Victoria Barnes.
Ofcourse, her hairstyle, hair color as well as her dress was way different than the girl Abras used to know. Still, he would recognize the face anywhere anytime. Her face was etched into his very soul, the soul that now merged with Michael and bing whole.
In his memories, the Princess wasn''t so cold and arrogant back then. In fact, she was a warm and adorable girl in the past. Unlike Michael, Abras had no connection with the outside world. Therefore, she was able to fool him easily with her phony love and sweet talks.
"Do you believe in this Lucifer figure?" Victoria asked the girl in white robes softly.
The warm smile on Edith''s face faded away after her question. A solemn expression reced her warm smile
"I don''t know Vikki. It seemed he appeared when we were in Awor. I think people are exaggerating things. I don''t know if Lucifer is real or not, but I certainly know he''s neither the devil nor a god as some im him to be. Why do you ask?"
"I have this weird feeling in my gut, Edith. Like, something dark follows me"
"Huh? What are you talking about? Lucifer might be just some punk running around killing people Vikki. If you ask me, he''s either not real or he''s a murderous psychopath that Guardians needs to apprehend as soon as possible"
"Is it a coincidence? Lucifer appears iming he''s the devil after we took over the Cosmic Stream. What if his sudden appearance and Cosmic stream are connected?" Her one eyebrow raised like a sharp sword as she talked,
"You are overthinking Vikki. I heard how you guys took the Cosmic Stream.If you want to me something, me the flu that wiped out the people who protected the stream"
"No. The flu wasn''t natural Edith, it was made by our Alchemists and healers, to subdue the elders protected the Cosmic Stream" Victoria shook her head gently, her expression was nk, "Since we are going to be family and form an alliance, you deserve to know the truth"
Victoria began to narrate the events that led to the capture of Cosmic Stream. She did not hide anything from her best friend? because Victoria trusted her friend more than anyone.
"What?" Edith widened her eyes and spoke in shock, "why? Why did you do that?" Her hazel eyes contained a tinge of fury,
Victoria sighed, "It was not by choice Edith. I can''t tell you everything but trust me, we were forced. It was either taking over the Cosmic stream or cleaning up thousands of corpses, corpses of my people"
Edith remained silent for a couple of minutes.She took a several deep breaths, looking at her best friend''s eyes,
"Do you regret it Vikki?"
Victoria shook her head, "I feel bad for everyone who lost their lives but i don''t regret it. They could have helped millions of people with the stream yet they chose not to share with the world, kept it as a secret. Because of what we did, thousands of people are alive now" Victoria replied nonchntly.
"What would you have done in my situation, Edith? Would you have chosen to save them and let thousands of innocents die? Being rulers is not always fancy Edith, we need to make tough choices such as this" Victoria calmly spoke,
"Your sister wiped out an entire army of the orcs to save a kingdom. The orcs were just following orders but if your sister didn''t do anything because they were just following orders, thousands of humans would have lost their lives that day"
Edith''s pupils constricted as she became silent for a little while before letting out a sigh.
"I guess you and my sister are a lot stronger than me. I couldn''t have made the choices you two made. But what about him Vikki? The guy you pretended to love?"
"What about him? If it wasn''t him, I would have done the same to someone else. He was an orphan who was thrown away by his parents.The elders raised him but a couple of days of a woman''s warmth was enough for him to betray them and run away. As far as I was concerned, I gave him a quick death. They all died quickly and painlessly" Victoria said dully. She showed no regret or emotions at all. Her face and voice sounded cold
Victoria remained unmoved and without any sign of emotions, saying apathetically, "Everybody has their own fate. There are way too many pitiful people in this world besides him. Moreover, his death wasn''t anything important. After absorbing the energy from the Cosmic Stream, my father quickly reached Fusion stage. If he continues his cultivation, he would enter the immortal stage which would bring peace and prosperity to not only Thusia but also to the entire world"
"Sigh¡" Edith closed her eyes,sighing briefly. She did not speak for a couple of moments
"Enough of talking about my feelings. How do you feel Edith? I heard you may have met your soulmate"
Instantly Edith''s face became redder than a ripe tomato. Even the cold beauty such as Victoria gently smiled looking at her best friend blush.
"Shut up Vikki, it''s not anything like that. Noah is just a friend"
"Is that his name? Noah, nice" Victoria said as though she was hearing his name for the first time.
"Does he know who you are really?" Victoria asked as Edith let out a deep breath,
"If he''s just a friend, you don''t have to tell him anything.Otherwise, its better you tell him you are an Alden, better yet, little sister of Lah Alden, the wielder of Angel''s veena"
*********************************
(Two hourster)
Rustle!
Rustle!
Rustle!
Among the trees in the forest, a girl wasying on a thick branch up high from the ground. She used one hand as her pillow and the other to cover her face. Her snoring sound was interrupted by a childish voice.
"Hey hey wake up"
"Fuck, lets just bite her face" Another childish voice of a girl sounded,
"Snake wake up" This time, the voice belonged to a boy but the voice sounded calmer and more mature than the two previous voices.
"Aaaaaww" the girl yawned as she moved her hand away. Her eyes slowly opened,
"Didn''t I tell you three shitheads I need rest?"
This girl was none other than Gaya herself. She was taking a long nap after continuously flying for three days. She was craving for snacks and exhausted. Despite her deep thinking about her mother, she was able to sleep due to her exhaustion. As Ghost always used to say ''sleep is not only for the body but also for the brain'', she decided to sleep before continuing her journey. She wanted to look at her mother''s disappearance with a fresh mind yet for some reason, the hydra woke her up in the middle of her sleep. Just as she was about to p each of the heads for waking her up, her ear twitched a little. Not too far off, there was a faint noise.
She turned her head in the direction of the noise to see six silhouettes running through the forest. They were wearingpletel ck clothes along with a wolf mask, only exposing a pair of eyes filled with murderous intent.
"Not here. Continue to search. That princess bitch dies today!"
The six people didn''t notice Gaya on top of them. They just continued to search the forest.
"What the fuck?" Gaya was stunned,
"Are they searching for you?" she frowned after hearing Sarba''s question.She had the same doubt but she had no idea who they are except they belonged to the Grim Reaper guild,
"We better follow them silently. I have some weird feeling about this" She stood up to follow them behind,
"I can sense the energy fluctuations around them, they are definitely weaker than you" Sarba eximed.Since recently, Gaya learned that each of the heads is developing new powers. Ayag was able to create a powerful sonic st that distorts people while Sarba developed some kind of sense that let him see the energy radiations. With this skill, Sarba couldpare cultivators in terms of power and determine their cultivation stage.
Only Cain was yet to show his powers but Gaya was sure his powers would soone to light.
"Let''s see what these idiots upto" Gaya rolled her eyes,
"Yeah and I wanna see who that bitch princess they were talking about"? Ayag chuckled.
Gaya took off from the branch into the sky. When she was high in the sky, she was able to see some smokeing from not too far from her location. It took her a few minutes to reach the ce. When she descended onto the path through the canopy she saw a horse carriage. Surrounding the carriage were many corpses with fresh blood flowing all over the ground.
She walked to the carriages and squatted down to look for some footprints if there were any.
"I hear heart beats" Suddenly Cain opened his mouth. Hydra''s senses were extremely sharper than anyone in this world.
"How many?"
"Two" Cain said, looking in the direction of the heartbeats,
"Killing Grim Reapers is always a great exercise to mind and body.. It will calm you down" Gaya devilishly chuckled before dashing into the forest.
Chapter 405 - Gaya Vs Jacobe I
At the same time, not too far from the stream, under the shade of some tall and old trees, two figures were hiding behind a thick bush. It was Edith and Victoria who barely escaped the Grim Reapers after their initial ambush.
However, the two of them looked way different than before because of their disguise. They used themoners'' robes from their space ring and wore them to look like they were from a vige. In addition to their raggedy clothes, they also smudged some mud over their fair skin to hide the glow.
In their disguise, it would be extremely difficult for someone to recognize them as royalty and noble.
The two of them kept looking around with frowns on their faces. They didn''t dare to make a single sound.
"If I only had my cultivation" Victoria gritted her teeth.
"Whoever put the contract on our head would have sent more powerful reapers or they wouldn''t have put the contract at all" Edith whispered.
Both of their cultivation was reset by a powerful spell. Absorbing the energy from the Cosmic Stream required the individual to start cultivating from the beginning. That was one of the reasons that either of them had no cultivation power. They were just at the Arch sensing stage.
"Who else knew about our trip? This is definitely an inside job" Edith tightly gripped her tiny hands and eximed while gritting her teeth.
"When I find out who, i''m gonna show how Thusians deal with traitors"
An intent to kill shed past Victoria''s eyes. She coldly replied, "They are definitely at the Core Formation stage, I can feel it" She then clutched the dragon pendant hanging around her neck. A din glow could be seen within the dragon pendant.
"That doesn''t change anything. If they managed to find us¡" Edith''s voice trailed away as her expression became gloomy
"Hideo sent a distress signal before they killed him. We just need to hide from them until General Boothes with the men and ughters them" Victoria said with a cold tone.
Edith''s tiny face turned pale in fear of losing some color, "What if they didn''t get the signal?. Vikki, we can''t hide here forever, we should make a run for it and look for a vige of something"
Victoria went quiet for a while and sighed, "Edith, their target is only me. There is a vige nearby in the north, I will run in the opposite distracting them, you make a run for the vige"
"Victoria Barnes," Edith frowned. Instead of calling her Vikki as she used her full name with a stern look on her face.
Victoria tried to open her mouth but turned into a bitterugh. She nodded, "You''ve always said that with my personality, I''ll never find my guy who would want me. But with your temperament, you are not too far off from me"
Edith giggled, "No. I was just kidding with you in the past. In reality, many guys wish to court you. If all of them were to line up, they would definitely make a circle around the capital. It''s just that you are interested in none of them."
"They might be the same age as me but the guys who tried to court me are either spoiled brats or weaklings. The highest cultivation among them was only Core Formation stage level 4. None of them were qualified to be my prince" Victoria replied unenthusiastically.
Edith lightly sighed, "why do you always judge people with their strengths? After you rebuild your cultivation with Cosmic energy, no one in the world would be on the same level as you. Alignment of hearts is more important in marriage life than the cultivation stage. Love Vikki, if he loves you and you loves him, it''s enough" The two girls forgot about the danger for a moment and started to discuss life,
"You know, I heard about someone who might interest you"
"Who?"
"He goes by the name Ghost, apparently he''s a 5-star Alchemist in the age of 21 and he''s at Core Formation stage level 10" For a moment, Edith saw a glint of surprise emerge in her eyes,
"That is somewhat impressive but I''ve seen more talented people in Awor and i''m sure we will meet monstrous talents where we are going"
"So if you find someone with the qualities you look for there, you will take him as your husband?"
Victoria snickered, "I will still look for some qualities such as when I need him, he must always appear on time. It''s not that I need his help but he should be at my side when I need him"
Edith couldn''t help rolling her eyes, "For god sake Vikki. You are soplicated and stubborn. I doubt I would be still alive to see you get your ideal bodyguard"
"It''s not like I have to get married, me and my father will reach immortality and rule over Thusia forever. I don''t need to provide an heir for the throne after me" Victoria nonchntly said,
"Look at your sister, did she marry anyone? A woman can get married but it''s not a must, women should learn to live independently without needing a man. We don''t need to be married or mothers to beplete"
"I dont overthink marriage like you Vikki. If I love someone and he loves me as much as I love him, I''ll marry him and be happy "
Victoria, with creased brows, said, "I''m not against marriage Edith. I''m just saying it''s better to marry the right personter than the wrong one earlier because our families force us to"
"Whoosh!" At this time, amidst their conversation, an abrupt movement could be heard from the woods ahead.
"What the fuck are you two doing here?"
Edith felt a chill running through her spine when she heard the sudden voiceing from behind. They immediately turned around to see a golden-haired girl wearing a gray long coat and ck turtleneck and ck leather pants walking towards them. On her back, they saw a longbow and quiver filled with arrows.
She wasn''t as beautiful as either of them but Edith noticed a grace in her movements. Her golden hair danced around her shoulder as she walked towards them.
Whoosh!
As they were staring at the girl, a man wearing a creepy wolf mask jumped out of the trees.? The man looked at Victoria and Edith for a few moments. He looked as though he was scanning them. Thanks to their disguise, the reaper failed to recognize them. However, the reaper thought Gaya was the princess they were searching for as she looked clean and nobler than the other two girls.
"You!" the masked reaper raised his hand at Gaya,
"You, what you you you?" Gaya mimicked the reaper''s voice to make fun of him.? Meanwhile, Edith was standing by the side with face still in astonishment. Victoria was also surprised at the girl''s courage to make fun of the reaper.
The reaper was furious as he leaped at Gaya with the dagger in his hand. In the mid hair, he cast a spell that enabled his dagger to be enveloped in bluish fire,
Bang!
The very next moment, Edith and Victoria saw the reaper''s head explode into red mist in the mid air. They were unsure of what just happened. When they looked at the girl, she had the long bow in her hand instead of on her back. They were stunned by her lightning quick speed. They did not even see her taking out her bow, knocking an arrow and fire at the reaper.
"Space ring" Gaya noticed the space ring in the reaper''s hand. She ignored the two girls to go loot the body.
After Gaya walked some distance away, Edith suddenly snapped out of her astonishment. She looked at Victoria and said, "Vikki, did you see that? She killed the reaper just like that. If we could ask for her protection, we might be able to escape from here"
Victoria frowned, creasing her brows, "If I, the dignified Princess, were to put down my pride and seek protection from a stranger, it would taint my name. Also, this reaper might be a scout with weak cultivation levels. Edith, General Booth would have already received my distress signal and ising here to over. We should hide for a little while more!"
"This forest is so far from the outpost Vikki. Even if General Booth has sent help, it would take a very long time for them to reach here and locate us amidst the forest," Edith thought for a while and suddenlyughed,
"Vikki, I have an idea. What if we tell her the truth and tell her we would pay her handsomely if she escorts us to the outpost?"
After Victoria listened, as if a little swayed, she knitted her brows and contemted.
"No Edith," She shook her head,
"No time for arguing Vikki, follow me" While talking, Edith pulled along her hand and walked towards Gaya? who was busy looting the reaper
"Sister, could you please do us a favor?" Edith asked with a pleading tone,
"Just get out of here before more of these assholese here"? Gaya didn''t even turn back to look at them. Which made Victoria clench her fist in anger.
Gaya would have recognized them as nobles if they hadn''t reseted their cultivation level. ording to Sarba, they were at the Arch sensing stage. Therefore, coupled with their disguise, Gaya really thought the two girls weremoners.
However, very quickly, she hid the bitterness. Her eyes regained their apathetic look and her expression became icy cold once again.
Regardless of Gaya''s behavior, Edith continued to plead,
"To be honest, my¡ my sister and I are working for a young noble in the city of Cadena. A few days ago, we came out to collect herbs for our young master but were attacked by these guys on the way. They seemed like they were searching for someone. They killed the servants and guards but? we managed to escape up ''till this point. The young master has an outpost nearby. Could you please protect and escort us back to the outpost? If we manage to return, the young master will definitely give you a satisfying reward"
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Just as Gaya was about to answer, she saw four reapers leaping out of the darkness and surrounding them.
Chapter 406 - Gaya Vs Jacobe II
The four reapers who surrounded Gaya had their gazes locked on Gaya. They were all wearing wolf masks hence Victoria and Edith couldn''t see how they looked behind the mask. The repairs weren''t sure whether the girl in front of them or the two near the bushes were their targets. However, just to be sure, they decided to kill all of them.
"Energy Whip" one of the reapers quickly cast a spell as sparkling blue energy whip materialized in his hands. The whip produced a crackling sound of electricity.
"Shield of Shadows" another reaper cast a spell that formed a thinyer of dark smoke around all of the four reapers. It was obvious this was a defense spell but Gaya couldn''t care less. She was at the Core Strengthening stage and these reapers were just at Core Formation level 4 or 5 ording to Sarba.
"Lightning arms" the third one cast a spell as the reaper''s hands illuminated blue because of the lightning bolts coiling his arms.
Gaya patiently waited for them to finish casting spells. She wanted to evaluate how powerful she has be after breaking through to the Core Strengthening stage.
The best way to find out was to battle and push herself to the limits. She wasn''t worried about getting herself killed though. If she couldn''t defeat four Core Formation stage reapers with her Core Strengthening stage cultivation, she wasn''t worthy of being her mother''s daughter, and certainly wasn''t worthy of being with Ghost.
"What about you? Aren''t you gonna cast any spells?" Gaya asked the reaper who hadn''t cast any spells yet.
The reaper remained silent as Gaya cracked her neck. Victoria and Edith were stunned. If Victoria was in the girl''s shoes, she would have attacked them before they could finish casting spells. It was the most sensible strategy. Gaya would have also done that if she didn''t want to assess herself.
"Suit yourself," said Gaya,
"Shall we start?"
The moment these words escaped Gaya''s mouth, the reaper with the energy whip in his hand leaped at her. He swung the whip violently as she immediately leaped into the air, evading the whip.
Boom!
Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!
In the mid-air, she shot an arrow into the ground beside the reaper. They reached her target within a second. It exploded creating a muffled booming sound. Soon thick white smoke began to emerge from the ce where the arrow hit.
"Fuck" She cursed at herself. Instead of firing an explosive arrow, she mistakenly took the smoke arrow from her quiver. The thick smoke enveloped the area a few seconds after.
"Edith, this is our chance" Victoria immediately grabbed Edith''s hands before running in the opposite direction of the reapers. Because of the smoke, the reapers didn''t notice the girls running. The smoke irritated their eyes and almostpletely blocked their views.
"Hmm, surprising" Right at the moment, a figure was standing on a tree branch from quite a distance from the reapers and Gaya. The figure wore metal armor covering his chest and legs but he exposed his beefy arms.
If one was to see him at the moment, they would definitely think of him as a predator because he wasn''t a human but a beast-man. A rare breed of beastmen, striped tiger. His orange shiny fur had ck stripes which gave him the look of a Bengal tiger.
This man was tasked to find Gaya by Xanali. He was one of the best trackers in the world. His services cost millions. For Xanali, one million gold wasn''t a big chunk. With his tracking skills and superior senses, he was able to follow her scent to a broken portal in a ghost town. Then her scent disappeared as Jacobe could guess she had traveled to another realm. He was waiting for her toe back as his instincts told him she would.
"It seems like she''s wearing a mask to disguise herself, a powerful magical artifact," He said, licking his ws.
On the other side, Gaya had no idea she was being watched. After firing the smoke arrow, she dashed away from the attacks of the reapers. Currently, only two reapers were attacking; the one with the whish and the other with the lightning bolts covered fists. The whish one swung his whip from a distance while the other one leaped into the sky to fight her in closebat.
THud!
Thud!
Thud!
In the mid-air, she fought the reaper. She used the bow to avoid his lightning bolts covered fist.? The bolts of lightning reminded Gaya of Ghost. However,pared to Ghost''s Ignitia spell, the lightning spell the reaper cast was weak as hell.
Both of them kept exchanging blows as Gaya managed to avoid the whip while fighting the reaper.
"Pathetically weak" After a few minutes, Gaya memorized the reaper''s fighting style. Hence, she was able to form a deadly counterattack.
While dashing left to avoid the whip, she saw the reaper throwing an upper hook at her. She was expecting it as she simply bent back to avoid the punch. Then with a lightning quick movement, she took out an arrow from her quiver and stabbed the reaper in the neck.
"AH!" the reaper let out a muffled cry. Although the reaper had a dark shield to absorb attacks, it wasn''t powerful enough topletely save him from her stab. The Warrior trait enabled her to infuse her arch energy into any weapon she wielded. Only the warriors were able to infuse 100% of their arch energy power into their weapons. This special trait allowed a warrior to inflict maximum damage without casting a spell. Michael was able to infuse his arch energy power into his swords because of the dual-wielding skill he bought from the system. Even he wouldn''t be able to infuse his arch energy power into every weapon like Gaya or any other warriors without the special trait.
Her Core Strengthening arch energy broke through the shield covering the reaper. Blood sprayed out of the wound as Gaya twisted the arrow to end his life. The reaper fell out of the sky dead. After killing the reaper who fought her in closebat, the rest of the reapers became an easy target for her. Of course, if she used her spells, the fight would have ended in a few seconds but she always avoided using her spells as much as she could to avoid revealing her identity.
"Meteo¡Grk!" The reaper who cast the shields around them tried to cast another spell. But his spell casting was abruptly stopped by an arrow through his throat.
Bang!
Another arrow impaled his head before even he could grab the arrow sticking through his throat. The next second, the arrow exploded along with his head. The red mist above a headless body put a smile on Gaya''s face.
The remaining two reapers stared at Gaya without moving a muscle. For a few moments, the area was filled with an awkward silence. Only the noises of crickets and the rustling sound of the dried leaves could be heard.
"Elemental Summ-"
Bang!
The one who remained without casting a spell finally opened his mouth to cast a spell only to get struck by Gaya''s explosive arrow. The reaper looked down at his chest and saw an arrow sticking through. He tried to remove the arrow but it exploded with a loud bang.
"You are a summoner, nice killing ya"? Gaya saluted him with two fingers, chuckling. Thest remaining reaper who had the whip shivered in fear. It was toote for the reapers to realize her true strength.
The whip in his hand dematerialized quickly. He tried to turn back and run.
"Leaving the party soon, a. Toote fucker!"
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
As the reaper was running for his life, Gaya rapidly fired arrows one after another. Each of the four arrows hit the running reaper with deadly uracy. Taking an arrow to each leg,one in the back and one through the head ended the reaper''s life in a matter of seconds.
After killing all the reapers, Gaya descended to the ground to loot their bodies.
"So those bitches made a run for it huh? Damn it, what about my reward?" She looked around, cursing the girls.
She then made her way towards thest victim of hers to loot the body when her ears twitched.
Boom!
Just as she was about to turn her head in the direction of the rustling noise, she was hit by a powerful st of energy. It was not lethal but it sent Gaya flying. She hit the tree before falling onto the ground. Her strong physical strength saved her organs but it couldn''t prevent her from getting mad as hell.
She immediately kicked herself up to see a seven feet beast man standing near the dead reaper with a chain in his hand.
"Whoa you are one ugly cat!" Gaya cracked her fist,
"Hey you both seemed to be on the same level" She heard Sarba''s whisper. Surprisingly, it sounded like the voice wasing from her voice, asthough Sarba was talking to her through telepathically.
"Says the snake in human disguise,"? Jacobe said in a gruff voice. Gaya was stunned by his words.? She was about to deny when Jacobe spoke again,
"Gaya Ashton, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either way, you''reing with me to meet your step sister"? Jacobe swung the silver chain in his hand. Gaya noticed the glowing symbols on the chain. It seemed like the chain was strengthened by runes which would be problematic if she was tied by the chain.
"Is that so?" She snickered,
"Tell my sister she can go fuck herself. Oh wait, you can''t, because you''re gonna die" As these words escaped her mouth, she removed the satchel with Vedora in it and put it on the ground. The very next second, an emerald green smoke enveloped her body.. When the smoke disappeared, a seven feet purple cobra with a terrifying presence stood before Jacobe.
Chapter 407 - Battle Concludes
Gaya''s instincts told her the beastman in front of her shouldn''t be underestimated. Hence, she transformed into her true form which enhances her power by multiple folds.
Any weak-minded person would have been scared to death if they had seen Gaya''s true form. She was terrifying with her shining dark purple scales, the two long fangs, the blood-red eyes with pitch-ck vertical pupils. Except Jacobe wasn''t a weak minded person at all. In his life of hunting criminals and wrongdoers, he dealt with countless terrifying people who were more terrifying than her. Apprehending a criminal didn''tpletely depend on the cultivation stage. If it did, he wouldn''t have been able to catch criminals more powerful than him.
Hunting was an art and he loved to hunt the predators. Hunting a more powerful prey was always more stimting.? Evey hunt required Jacobe to be prepared to the maximum. He was taught not to underestimate the prey because even the weakest prey would be powerful when it was pushed into a corner. He was provided with tools and essories to hunt even the stronger prey.
In addition to tools and essories, Jacobe had the knowledge of every strength and weakness of all races including Nagas. For instance, Nagas were extremely dangerous in closebat, they would spray their poison to surround themselves. If the foe was trapped within the poisonous cloud, the foe would rapidly lose strength which would lead to the ultimate death.
"Poison Cloud!" Gaya hissed as the thick jade green poison gas shot out of her mouth. The poisonous cloud surrounded the area within a couple of seconds. However, Jacobe didn''t even budge. Gaya noticed a translucent mask on his face which covered his nose and earspletely.
Gaya hissed before slithering aside while carefully watching Jacobe. Her vertical pupils were locked on Jacobe.
Whoosh!
Jacobe suddenly swung the chain in his hand at her. The chain flew towards her making a sharp ear piercing sound. She quickly dodged the chain as the chain hit the tree behind her. The poor tree exploded into countless wooden splinters.
Both of them were stunned. Gaya was surprised by the speed of the chain while Jacobe was surprised by the speed of her reflex.
"Poison me" Gaya dashed at him, breathing dark-green me. The stream of green me burnt everything it touched to ashes. Jacobe ran as fast as he could from the fire. He wasn''t afraid of using the trees to climb and leap to another tree like a monkey.
Gaya''s aim was perfect yet Jacobe was able to avoid getting roasted by the me because of his agility, extreme training, as well as the innate ability he had as a big cat. As a beastman who belonged to the tiger family, he inherited all the abilities of a cat.
The green me torched every single tree that it touched. Soon, a 5 meter radius forest was burned to ashes. Considering there was no canopy above them, the moonlight lightened up the ce as though it was a giant chandelier in the sky.
"(Cough) (cough)" Gaya''s green me finally stoppeding out of her mouth. The next moment, she coughed a couple of times.
Whoosh!
Jacobe immediately swung his chain at Gaya yet again. In a split second, she tilted her head sideways to evade the chain. She was quick enough to avoid the chain but the chain managed to graze her neck. Her purple scales were scorched by the chain. The scorched scales became darkish ck losing their purple shine. Moreover, she felt excruciating pain.
Bang!
The chain grew longer in size in the mid-air and hit the tree behind her. Just like before, the tree exploded into countless pieces. As they were battling, Vedora peeked through the satchel to see what was happening outside.
"Look a giant cat" Ayag whispered,
"Shhh" Cain shushed her immediately,
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The two of them continued to battle as the sound of explosions reverberated the forest. Gaya spitballs of poison at Jacobe while he kept swinging his chain.? Both of them were at a stalemate.
"Fuck, we have to help her" AYag tried to move but only to be stopped by Cain,
"No, that beastman has no advantage over her yet. If we reveal ourselves, he would capture us and use us as hostages"
Although Cain''s words made sense, Ayag couldn''t stay still and watch Gaya fight alone. She gritted her teeth, feeling a surge of power building within her.
"Don''t do anything stupid Ayag" Cain''s voice became cold and serious,
"Ayag, he''s right, he always is," Sarba said before quickly turning his gaze towards Cain.
"Do you have any idea to help her?"
"Your poison reserves will soon be empty, Princess" Jacobe eximed. He sounded like he was amused. The smugness on his face indicated that he enjoys the thrill of hunting.
"Shit" Gaya cursed. Jacobe saw she finally stopped breathing mes. He jumped down from the tree with a smirk on his face. He could see her breathing heavily as the shininess on her scales dimmed down which meant she only had a little bit of arch energy left in her body.
As he was walking towards Gaya, she slithered backward. Her vertical pupils became round.
"Fuck this, im gonna help her" Ayag tried to jump out. But Cain and Sarba stopped her from moving. She bit Sarba on the neck in anger. Cain quickly head-butted Ayag with enough force to make her let go of Sarba''s neck.
"It''s over Princess. You put up a good fight, not impressive but meh" Jacobe grinned for the first time since he came. Gaya looked tired. She? saw himing towards her with his chain swinging in his hand,
Rather than throwing the chain at Gaya, he kept walking towards her. Since she was weak and exhausted, he thought he could simply apprehend her without wasting the charge in the chain. After tying a person using the chain, it required one month of charging before it could be used again. Jacobe didn''t think it was unnecessary to use the chain on Gaya and wait a month. He could use this month of time to hunt another one, the big one; Lucifer.
As Ayag struggled to jump out of the satchel, Jacobe almost reached Gaya. He stood a few meters away from her with a smirk on his face,
"IGNITIA!" Suddenly Gaya shouted, firing an emerald green lightning bolt at Jacobe.
Bang!
The bolt of lightning was way faster than Jacobe''s reflexes. The lightning bolt sent Jacobe flying for several meters before he hit the tree and fell down. His chest armor had a hole in it as he felt excruciating pain. He looked down to see the fur on the pce where the lightning bolt hit and got charcoaled. The smell of burned hair slowly permeated the air.
"Whoa! That''s Ghost''s spell. When did she learn that?" Sarba was surprised.
"IGNITIA!"
"IGNITIA!"
"IGNITIA!"
"IGNITIA!"
On the other side, Gaya kept firing bolts of lightning one after another at Jacobe. Several bolts hit him precisely. If it wasn''t for his strong physics and the armor, he would have been dead by now. He kept running chaotically. The shininess on her scales came back. He couldn''t help cursing at himself when he saw the shininess on her scales return. Obviously, she used some kind of technique to pretend she was exhausted and fooled him.
"I never wanted to do this, you pushed me!" Jacobe growled while running.
"Shit shit shit" Cain suddenly began to curse. The other two heads were confused, they had no idea what made Cain upset. As far as they could tell, Gaya was kicking Jacobe''s butt.
However soon they realized what made Cain upset when they saw Jacobe running towards them. They quickly put their heads back into the satchel.
"Fuck!" Gaya realized what was his n but it was toote for her to stop him. With a final leap, Jacobended near the satchel.
Just as she was about to dash towards him, he grabbed the satchel. Jacobe saw the look in her eyes, she was worried sick. His guess was right. When he was watching her fight the reapers, she kept touching the satchel with one hand. Then they started the battle, she didn''t throw away the satchel but gently ced it on the ground.
He noticed how she cared for the satchel. Evidently, he came to the concussion that she has something she cares about within the satchel.
"What do you have in here?" In his hand, the satchel seemed so little. Gaya''s heart was pounding against her chest as he grabbed the satchel.
"A pet it seems" Jacobe felt something inside squirm against his hold. He was curious to see what was inside but first, he wanted to apprehend Gaya before opening the satchel. After all, he didn''t want another surprise from her.
"Transform and kneel!" Jacobe''s thunderous roar echoed through the forest. She hesitated as he started to squeeze the satchel with his big hands.
"No!" Gaya quickly transformed herself back to her human form. She was shivering in anger yetpared to the life of Vedora, her anger seemed worthless.
"Tiger Punch!"
He cast a spell that formed an ethereal fist of a striped tiger behind Gaya. The very next moment, the fist hit her in the back with enough force that stomped her to the ground.
"Ah"
She growled as blood started to drip down from her mouth. He then flicked his wrist. The ethereal fist moved ording to the flick of his wrist. It grabbed Gaya before picking her from the ground. Her eyes were blood red in anger, her entire body was shivering. But she controlled herself for the sake of Vedora.
After making her kneel, Jacobe let out an arrogant grin. The chain once again materialized in his hand,
"Game over Snake"? As he said, he swung the chain at her. She closed her eyes instinctively. She expected to feel something but nothing happened. The chain never touched her. She opened her eyes to see the chain remain still as though it was stopped by something in the mid-air. She looked up to see a hand holding the chain,
The anger in her eyes immediately disappeared as her eyes began to water up. Her lips curved upwards, finally, she heaved a sigh of relief. Her heart pounded against her chest, this time, it was because of joy,
"Ghost"
Chapter 408 - No Escape From Death
Michael held the chain in one hand and looked down at Gaya. A gentle smile merged on his face regardless of the burning anger within his heart.
"I will take care of this" With the other hand, he ruffled her head yfully,
Then, he stepped forward, shielding her with his body. Jacobe furrowed his creases. He didn''t sense or hear someoneing, rather he just suddenly appeared behind Gaya.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 6000 badass points]
Jacobe wasn''t threatened by his appearance though. Because he did his research on Ghost. Jacobe''s n A was to separate Gaya from Ghost and deal with her alone. His job got a lot easier when he met Gaya in Ozer far away from Ghost and her friends.? The sudden appearance of Ghost would make apprehending Gaya difficult as he would have to either subdue Ghost or kill him. Nheless, it wasn''t impossible. He would just need to switch to his n B.
"Put that down" Michael''s voice was rough. It was filled with cold murderous intent. Seeing the blood dripping down her lips, he was on the verge of losing control of himself.
"Ignitia '''' the bolt of lightning hit Jacobe''s wrist with deadly uracy. He dropped the satchel in pain.
"So quick" Jacobe waspletely stunned by his speed,
Gaya quickly reached out her hand towards the satchel as the satchel came flying to her. Michael did not cast any spell but walked towards Jacobe with absolute killing intent in his eyes.
"Tige-"
Boom!
Before even Jacobe could finish his spell casting, Michael appeared in front of him and punched him in the gut with enough force to send him flying.
"ARGGH!"
A deep fist shaped dent formed by Michael''s punch in Jacobe''s armor.? The armor was forged to endure a tremendous amount of attacks. Yet, a single punch deformed the armor. In addition to the dent, Jacobe''s felt the pain of his ribs breaking.
He tried to pick himself up when Ghost dashed at him again.
Boom!
This time, Michael kicked Jacobe in the gut. The force of the kick sent Jacobe flying yet again. He hit a tree hard before falling down.
"Rage Shield!" Ignoring the sharp pain in his gut due to the kick, Jacobe cast a defense spell. Immediately a glistening fiery red bubble materialized around him.
Without giving Ghost the time to cast another spell, Jacobe jumped up to stand on his feet. He saw Ghost was walking towards him with his fist clenched.? Jacobe noticed the half-moon in the sky. The area should be bright but everything around him was darker than it was supposed to be.
"Tiger w!"
"Fist of Justice!"
"Elemental Spikes!"
Jacobe cast spell after spell. The first spell formed a crimson red w the size of a grown elephant directly above Michael. On his side, a fist the same size as the w materialized. As the name suggests, the elemental spikes spell sent sharp spikes made of elements such as fire, ice, earth, and lightning.
Boom!
Boom!
Simultaneously the w and fist hit Ghost. Jacobe saw Ghost neither move nor evade to avoid the w and the fist. The force of the attacks created an ash cloud around Ghost, preventing both Gaya and Jacobe from looking at Ghost.
"Wind st" Jacobe suddenly heard Ghost''s voice. The very next second, a gust of strong wind sted away the ash cloud. Ghost revealed himself, there was not a scratch on his body.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
Jacobe couldn''t believe what he had just seen. Looking directly into Jacobe''s eyes for a second, Michael raised his hand.
"Ignitia"
"Ignitia"
"Ignitia"
"Ignitia"
Several bolts of lightning shot towards Jacobe. He tried to evade them and he did manage to avoid one but when he avoided one bolt of lightning, another hit him in the rib cage. The moment of slowness resulted in Jacobe getting bombarded with lightning bolts.
Michael focused on his limbs, especially on his legs.
"ARGHH!"
"ARGHH!"
"ARGHH!"
Jacobe kept growling. No matter how hard he tried to escape, he simply couldn''t. His rage shield was prated by the lightning bolts like a hot knife cutting through butter. There was no stopping the lightning bolts.
Instead of going for the kill shot, Michael kept barraging Jacobe with lightning bolts. His fury found no bound when he saw Gaya kneeling.
Jacobe was just a Core Strengthening stage level 2 cultivator. On the other hand, Michael was at level 3 which made him stronger than Jacobe by default. With all his spell upgrades, he would be undefeatable to anyone under Core Strengthening stage level 5 in his Ghost persona. In hisplete Lucifer form, anyone under Core Strengthening stage level 7 had no chance of defeating or even hurting him a little.
The distance between Jacobe and Ghost grew shorter and shorter. Still, Michael did not stop attacking him with lightning bolts. All of Jacobe''s assessment of Ghost became wrong, way wrong. He was being overpowered by Ghost and saw no chance of escaping unless he could use the chains on Ghost and render him powerless.
Puff!
Suddenly Jacobe used all of his strength to grab a handful of sand beneath him before throwing it at Ghost''s face. It was an underhanded technique but everything was fair in a life or death battle. Ghost momentarily closed his eyes as Jacobe immediately called out the chain. In a blink of an eye, the chain materialized in his hand. He wasted no time as he immediately wrapped the chain around Ghost. He ran the chain around him a couple of times to make sure he was tightly tied.
"You!" Gaya burned in anger. She was just about to dash at jacobe when she saw Ghost rip off the chain as though it was a hemp rope. There was no slow motion, no fancy movements, and no dialogues. He just ripped off the chain in a second.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 badass points]
The chain lost its glimmer in his hand,
"What?!" Jacobe cried out in shock,
"Argh!" In his momentary shock, he received an elbow to his gut from Ghost.
The next moment, Jacobe was being wrapped around by the chain.
Pow!
Pow!
Pow!
Pow!
Pow!
¡.
Michael grabbed Jacobe''s throat and began to punch him in the face with all his strength. The blood spurted out more and more with each punch. The skull of Jacobe began to cave in.The light of life slowly faded away yet Michael did not even slow down the speed of his punches.
He lifted Jacobe from the ground while punching him. In his fury, he was walking towards a? tree.
Bam!
Michael mmed Jacobe against a tree as therge tree shuddered.It lost almost half of its leaves due to the force. One could see Michael''s eyes flicker in red.
The rage Michael kept within him exploded like a volcano. Even Gaya who was enjoying the beatdown began to freak out when she saw Ghost keep punching Jacobe mercilessly. The Ghost she knew before leaving for the Fire Realm would have killed Jacobe by now. However, he just kept going.
He even began to miss his punches.Those missed punchesnded onto the tree. The tree caved in because of his punches.
"Argh!"
The cry didn''te out of Jacobe but from Michael. He was in rage mode. The lingering light in Jacobe''s eyes enraged Michael. He wanted to beat Jacobe to death.
Because of his rage, he failed to notice the small grenade appear in Jacobe''s hands.
"Human!" Gaya however noticed the grenade. She shouted,dashing towards Michael. However, it was toote as the bomb explded with a loud bang.
The ear piercing sound coupled with a bright sh of light disoriented Gaya. She stumbled down. For a few moments, the world around her spinned unstoppingly.
Fortunately, the bomb Jacobe used was a stun grenade. While Ghost and Gaya were in a disoriented state, he mustered the leftover strength in his body to run. The first thing he did was chug a healing potion. The punches broke his jaw but he still managed to drink a healing potion. Obviously one healing potion was not enough yet it gave him enough strength to run away. The healing potion he drank was extremely powerful. It was brewed by none other than Ghost himself.
He was dashing into the forest and just when he was about to take off, an invisible energy force sted him off.
"Argh!" Jacobe growled. He was just a few minutes away from escaping.
"Only" suddenly out of nowhere a gruff voice echoed through the forest. The next moment, arge dragon descended through the canopy andnded directly beside Jacobe. The dragon stomped Jacobe as he spurted out mouth full of blood,
"I can hit her" Jacobe struggled to breathe under the feet of Nightmare,
Jacobe''s eyes opened as wide as they could. He began to struggle violently because he saw the dragon''s body begin to glow brighter and brighter. It was the indication of the dragon''s breath.
Whoosh!
"ARGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Jacobe lost his calmposure. When the dragon''s breath came out of Nightmare''s mouth, he screamed like a scared cat. His scream of agony reverberated the forest.
Although he was a Core Strengthening stage level 2 cultivator, he was injured by Michael to the point of death.Coupled with that point, Nightmare was able to overpower Jacobe with his Core Formation level 6 cultivation. His superior physical size and strength gave him an advantage over Jacobe.
Finally, the dragon''s breath ended Jacobe''s life.
Chapter 409 - Reunion
Chapter 409 - Reunion
The moon was showering thend beneath with its sparkling blue light. The millions of stars generously provided their light, partnering with the moon. Under the two natural light sources, the forest remained in silence. Except for the songs of night crickets and the rustling of flora, there was no sound to be heard. In the scorched area of the forest, Michael and Gaya were standing on opposite sides. They spoke no words for a few minutes. Their eyes were locked onto each other. Either of them had so many things to say to the other. However, no words came out of their mouths, at least from Gaya''s mouth.
Her eyes watered with a mix of joy and worry. She was afraid of how he might act. After all, she disappeared leaving a simple letter. Michael noticed her Core Strengthening stage level 2 cultivation. Granted he expected her to be stronger but at the moment, he couldn''t care less about cultivation levels. He was d and ted to see her back in one piece.
"Snakey" Michael smiled, breaking the silence between them.
"Human" Gaya just dashed at him as fast as she could, dropping the satchel with Vedora in it on the ground. She came running to him before leaping at him like a tiger. She wrapped her legs around his waist and hugged him with all her might. He returned the favor as he hugged her as tight as he could. Both of them embraced each other without any intention to let the other go. They both missed the warmth of the other. Deep down both of them yearned for the other one''s touch. All of their senses were having a st. They took in each other''s smell, touch, warmth, and embrace to the fullest. Gaya frantically began to shower him with kisses. The stubble beard did not stop her fromnding passionate kisses on his cheeks. She cupped his face and kept kissing him without uttering a word.
Vedora crawled out of the satchel to see Michael and Gaya locked into passionate kissing. Soon she changed her target from cheeks to his lips. Her kiss was fueled with passion and wild heated love. He could not hold back as he ran his fingers through her hair to grab her by the head. He pulled her closer, ming the fire of their love. They savored each second of the kiss. Nothing bothered them for long minutes. They forgot about their worries and enjoyed the moment. Gaya pulled Michael towards her with both her hands and legs that wrapped around his waist.
While the lovers were enjoying the passionate moment of tenderness, Nightmare''s vertically slit pupils became rounded, noticing Vedora in the distance. Immediately Nightmare shrunk himself to the size of a puppy before running towards the three-headed Hydra to wee them back home. For Nightmare, Cain and Sarba were the little brothers as Ayag was a bratty little sister. He loved them dearly and they too loved Nightmare.
"Ayag, Cain, Sarba" Nightmare reached Vedora in a few blinks of an eye.
"Hey brother" Sarba greeted Nightmare with a wide grin,
"Come here you big lizard" Ayag seemed more excited than Sarba. She was bouncing. When he got closer, Both Sarba and Ayag coiled around Nightmare''s neck. They licked him and so did Nightmare. As usual, Cain remained expressionless yet he too gave a gentle headbutt as a gesture of his love towards Nightmare.
"I missed you three so much" Nightmare gently lifted them off the ground.
"We too. You won''t believe the shit we''ve seen inside the Fire Realm" Ayag said excitedly.
"Fire Realm?" Nightmare was surprised,
"We will talk about thatter. After we reach dark forest" Cain felt bad for breaking up their reunion but the appearance of Jacobe and the reapers made him go home as fast as he could before they received any more surprises.
"We aren''t going anywhere until those two get tired" Ayag chuckled at Cain,
As though Gaya and Michael heard them, they finally ended their kissing. Their heads moved a few inches away from the other. Looking directly into Gaya''s eyes, Michael spoke.
"Next time you pull a stunt like this, I will chase you down and kick your snakey ass"
"Aww, my human is worried about me" She giggled. The tears of joy couldn''t be stopped from rolling out of her eyes. She then gently kissed him on the forehead. Finally, after several minutes of clinging onto him, she let go of her legs tond on her feet on the ground.
"I''m worried about them, not you" Michael pinched her cheeks with an intention to make her pout. It had been so long since he messed with her. Felt good to y with her after a long time.
"You are still a jerk" in return, she pinched his nose frowning.
Whoosh!
As Gaya was pinching his nose, Nightmare dashed at her. He was too fast as even Gaya noticed him after he came colliding with her.
"Stupid Naga" Nightmare brushed his warm head onto her cheeks. He embraced her with his feathery wings.
"I missed ripping off your ugly clothes," Nightmare said, continuing to rub his head on her face.
"I missed kicking your scaly butt every single day" Gaya brushed his head gently with a smile on her face. Nightmare opened his feathery wings to embrace Ghost and Gaya together. Vedora felt cozy between the three of them.
"Sorry to break our reunion guys but we should hurry back home" Cain drew their attention to him. He really hated to break the group hug but he liked to be safe rather than sorry. Removing himself from the hug, Michael looked around at the dead bodies of the reapers as well as the charcoaled body of Jacobe for a moment. The dead bodies of the reapers were beyond recognizable. They were deep into the forest and if he was correct, their bodies would dpose before even anyone could find them.
"Let''s go," Michael said. There was no point in searching Jacobe''s body because the space ring as well as the armor was melted by the dragon''s breath. Nightmare could have gone easy on Jacobe. The dragon was too mad and Michael couldn''t me him. Even he was losing his control and rational thought because of what Jacobe tried to do.
With Vedora in his hands, Nightmare pped his wings while Gaya and Michael took off from the ground creating a shock wave due to their speed.
"We should fly instead of teleporting" Sarba raised his concern in the mid-air,
"Yeah, I for one would love to listen to everything that happened since we left"
Michael and Gaya nodded agreeing with Ayag and Sarba. It didn''t seem like a bad idea to fly rather than teleport. If something happened, Michael could always teleport back to a dark forest. Else, flying under the beautiful starry sky seemed to be the best ce to tell each other everything that happened.
*******************************
"My Lord" Eventually when they returned to the dark forest, Azazel greeted Michael as usual with a deep bow.
"My Lady, you are back!" Azazel''s eyes sparkled in joy when he saw Gaya and Vedora. His ethereal face lit up,
"Before you start celebrating my return, leave us the room" Gaya''s face was serious just like her voice.
"Yes, yes, of course, mydy" Azazel could tell the reason for her concern must be Dark Lord''s recent problem.
After Azazel left the room, Gaya sat on the edge of the bed while Michael sat beside her. Nightmare and Vedora took Michael''s working chair in front of his workbench where there were blueprints, various metal parts, and tools lying around.
"So we are fucked in so many ways" she looked at him with a worried face. However, Michael just smiled. No matter how worried she was, seeing him smile always reassured her. It gave her an immense amount of courage. She missed this feeling when she was in Fire Realm.
"Noah knowing your identity is not a biggie"
"What do you mean not a biggie? You just told us Noah is the disciple of Andreas who happens to be the Supreme Guardian and very very very powerful" Ayag asked,
Michael told her everything that happened from what happened inside the captain''s cabin of the Silent Reaper to his invitation to Mazeroth to the appearance of the third persona. At the moment, she was equally worried about both Ghost and her mother.
"Noah is a self-righteous guy. He feels indebted to me for saving his family. Guy like him hate to be indebted. By keeping your secret, he feels he has settled his debt, and trust me, he will keep his word. After all, he''s the next Supreme Guardian" Michael calmly exined. They couldn''t understand himpletely but his words somewhat made sense to them, especially to Cain who also thought like Michael.
"The problem is the tiger attacked you"
"Was a problem" Nightmare growled after hearing Michael,
"If he could find her identity, then we have to assume, more trackers like him can too"
"Killing Xanali and her mother will solve the problem," Cain coldly said. He wasn''t too happy about being held hostage by someone. He felt disgusted, not at Jacobe but with himself for being too weak.
"I agree with cky here. Let''s go kill those bitches" Ayag snickered.
"I hate to admit it but it seems to be the quick and the right way" Finally Sarba raised his opinion. Both Nightmare and Gaya were stunned. It was extremely rare for the three heads to agree on something.
As much as she loved to see them agree on something without biting each other, she couldn''t agree on killing Xanali and her stepmother. Especially after her mother warned her about Xanali''s mother.
"If I only had 200,000 badass points" Michael sighed inside. If he had the amount, the system would have ced a rune on Gaya''s body preventing anyone from tracking her down. ording to the system, no one could track her down using any methods after cing the rune on her. However, Michael did not have 200,000 badass points. Hecked 40,000 points.
"System, can you create a teleportation scroll to teleport Gaya with me to Mazeroth?"
[Of Course the system can. For 100,00 badass points, the system can create an invitation just like the one you received for Gaya]
Chapter 410 - Next level of the relationship
Chapter 410 - Next level of the rtionship
"Yes, do that" Michael willed the system to create an invitation for Gaya. He could face the problems thrown at him by others but it would be difficult to face those problems when he was dealing with a problem within. The third persona problem had to be solved before doing anything.
"So your mother is still alive?" Nightmare asked Gaya. She sighed but several seconds after deep thinking, she reluctantly nodded,
"I think so. Human do something and bring me with you to the Akn realm. Let''s go beat the crap out of that elf. He might know a way to get there without the invitation"
Since he told her about the invitation he received to join Mazeroth, she wanted toe with him to the Akn realm. She waspletely stunned when she first heard him. Perhaps it was luck or perhaps it was a coincidence, either way, Gaya was surprised to the core.
"Getting you to the Akn realm is not a problem"
He shook his head,
"The problem is dealing with Xanali and hiding your identity"
After spending 100,000 badass points on creating an invitation to Gaya, he had 60,000 badass points left. The special rune which would hide Gaya''s identity cost 200,000 badass points. Therefore, he needed 140,000 badass points immediately. He could earn that if he remained in Elon and made an appearance in the Alchemypetition. However, time was of the essence. The longer he spent in Elon, the more problems would ur. Gaya was not safe anymore. The best way seemed like visiting the Akn realm with Gaya, finding the dark elf Gaya''s mother told her about, trying to find answers, and leaving the realm as soon as possible.
"We may or may not face some problems if we go to the Akn realm" Cain calmly spoke,
"But your third persona will definitely be a problem for all of us if we stay here. We should take the risk and go find that dark elf and try to find a fix for your problem as well as some clues about her mother" Cain had exactly the same thoughts as Michael.
"It''s indeed a risk, especially after her mother spoke something about Skyhall spies. We can''t stay here"
If Gaya was with him, in case a dangeres to her, he could use the system to save both of them. He wouldn''t be able to do that if he was in another realm without her. Moreover, he had a gut feeling that the Akn realm might have the answers he desperately needs and more.
"The we don''t include the three of you" Gaya sternly said looking at the three of them. Except for Cain, both Sarba and Ayag scowled.
"What do you mean? We areing with you!" Ayag raised her voice.
"No, it''s already a risk I''m going with him. If you, an otherworldly creature came with us, we''d be in big trouble. Stay here and cultivate while we are away"
"NO WAY!" Ayag shouted regardless of Gaya''s deathly gaze.
"Ghost say something, bring us with you" Unlike Ayag, Sarba took a more subtle approach. He just pleaded with Ghost.
However, Ghost also shook his head,
"It''s better if you three stay here" He had enough to worry about already. Thest thing he wanted was someone in the Akn realm to find out about Vedora. They epted familiars but he doubted the list of familiars would include a Hydra.
He wanted to protect Vedora. If the dormant Hydra came out of its slumber one day, the entire world would be in danger. That day, he knew he might have to fight the hydra along with Nightmare and Vedora. With the system''s help, he could make the Vedora more powerful than the Hydra in Stormveil mountain. Otherwise, that hydra would crush everyone and everything under its feet.
Approximately three hourster, Michael was standing under a gigantic banyan tree. There were hundreds of giant trees in the dark forest. They literally prevented any sunlight from peeking through the canopy. Hence, the name dark forest. In addition to the massive trees, there were always storm clouds above the dark forest. To others, the forest was a freaky horrifying ce but for Michael, it felt like home.
Currently, he stood under the tree calming himself. The illuminating mushrooms and the flowers were the only light source he had. He didn''t want to conjure fireballs and disturb the sea of crows watching him from the branches.
"Human"
Michael heard Gaya from behind. He turned back to see her approaching him slowly. Her fist was curled as though she was holding something in her hand that she didn''t want him to see.
"How are they?" Michael asked. Ayag and Sarba weren''t very happy about being left behind and Michael was not in the mood to tend to their tantrums.
He was more focused on the risks of traveling to the Akn realm.
"Not very thrilled but I managed to convince them to be here while we are away" She sighed.
"I¡You¡something¡shit" She soon began to stutter for some reason. Her toes shoveled the soil beneath her while she kept avoiding direct eye contact with him.
"What? You being shy?" Regardless of all the concerns in his mind, when he saw her, he couldn''t help smiling.
"No, I''m not shy. You''re shy, what the fuck are you talking about? Shit im rumbling" She bbered. He wondered why she was acting weird all of a sudden.
Nheless, he could tell she was about to tell him something important by looking at her behavior.
"Fuck it" Gaya took a deep breath before lifting her head to look him in the eyes, With several steps forward, she closed the gap between them. At the moment, she stood only a couple of inches away from him.
While he was wondering what she was nning, she grabbed his hand, putting a ring on his finger to his surprise. Michael was startled by what she did. The ring was not a very fancy one but a silver ring with a tiny round sapphire in the center.
"Kneel down and ask me to marry you right this instant" She ced a ring that looked exactly the same as the one in his ring in his hand.
For a few moments, his mind went nk. No words escaped his mouth as he just stared at her in shock. Gaya''s heart was pounding against her chest looking at his stunned face.
"Did I rush this? What if he rejects me? What if he''s not ready? What if I''m being too pushy? What if¡" there were so many questions running inside her mind.
Only when she saw a smile emerge on his face, did the storm in her heart and mind calm down. He knelt down on one knee. She began to shiver although she expected this to happen when she handed over the ring to him,
"Gaya Ashton, will you marry me?"
This was not how he imagined proposing to Gaya, not at all. He loved her dearly and she loved him. That was all that mattered to Michael.
"Yes, yes I will" She gave her right hand for him to put the ring on her finger. Like a flood breaking out of a dam, tears of joy gushed out of her eyes. She did not even wait for him to stand up but wrapped her hands around his neck as tight as she could.
They spoke nothing to each other as they just stood in the middle of the dark forest in each other''s embrace.
"I will marry you despite the fact you have a fricking spirit child with that bitch" She said in his ears.
"I won''t share you with her but if that child needs a father, you can be there for the kid"
Thest thing Gaya wanted was Ghost to abandon his child as they abandoned him. She knew better than anyone how much Ghost hated his parents for throwing him away. By leaving the spirit child, he kinda did the same. Deep down Gaya couldn''t help thinking he left La and the child because he was in love with her.
Unlike the men in this world, he hated the idea of having multiple spouses.
In truth, Gaya could not even imagine sharing him with another woman.
That didnt mean she wouldn''t let him be a father to the spirit child. As far as she was concerned, that child did nothing wrong. She did not want to be the reason for Ghost to abandon the child.
"It''s better this way Gaya. I will watch over them but I won''t be a father to that child. The child is better off with its mother" Michael said while brushing her back to reassure her. He knew she was ming herself deep down for what happened to the child.
Words were the only thing he had to reassure her. He just hoped La would raise the child away from the guardians, away from the outside world. This time he didn''t kill the child because the child did no wrong. However, if the child somehow became a pawn of the guardians, he would have no choice but to neutralize the child. Of course, he would give the child an exnation and a chance. His life was gettingplicated with each passing day. He had more problems to deal with than being around the kid who may or may not be a threat in the future.
"Don''t worry, we will make sure no one brainwashes that child against you" Gaya reassured him,
After they cleared the air about the spirit child, she bite his ear yfully,
"Are you gonna tell me your real name fiance?" She chuckled, regardless of her yful tone, he knew she was really hoping for him to answer. She wanted him to know his name. It was the level of trust she wanted for him, her future husband.
"Michael, my name is Michael"
Chapter 411 - Close to Avenging Jack鈥檚 Death
Chapter 411 - Close to Avenging Jack''s Death
"Michael," Gaya said. Countless emotions got stirred up by the word. It had been decades since someone called him Michael.
"Michael" Yet again she called him. She did not let go of him as she still had him locked in her embrace.
"Michael"
Again and again, she called him by his name until Michael began to chuckle,
"Okay okay," he took his head off her shoulder and cupped her head. With a bright grin on his face, he yfully rubbed his nose on her nose before giving her a gentle head butt. His soft kiss on her forehead warmed her heart.
"Still I like to call you human," As Michael put his arm around her neck, she pinched his cheek.
Forgetting all of his problems for a while, he walked around the forest with Gaya. Being with her felt different than being alone. It was like all of his problems became puny when he was with her. Moreover, the blood lust diminished from his heart.
He wondered if Gaya leaving him was the reason for the third persona to appear.
"Did I tell you that we have a guardian to interrogate?"
"Yeah. Let''s go celebrate our special day with good old-fashioned torture, hehehe" She chuckled. Her reaction made Michael chuckle too,
"You are so evil. Are you sure you don''t have any alternate personas within you?"
"I have and you will see them after marriage" She sounded like a cartoon viin. Her evilughter echoed through the forest.
Regardless of his problems, he couldn''t helpughing with her. It was so funny. On their way back to the underground mansion, they did not fly but just walked, enjoying each other''spany. For Michael, it felt like he was taking a walk in the park with his fiance. All the way to the mansion, he had his arm around her neck while her hand was around his waist.
When it came to romantic gestures, Ghost beat Noah every time. Noah''s love was spread to multiple girls but Ghost only loved Gaya. All of his love was directed towards Gaya. That didnt mean Noah didn''t love the girls in his harem. However, he was too busy solving every single girls'' problems instead of actually spending time with them. No matter how busy Michael was, he always made time for Gaya. Sometimes Gaya wondered how they could call him evil.
When they entered the mansion, Azazel appeared before them to greet them.
"How are they?" Gaya asked,
"They are sleeping with Lord Nightmare, mydy" Gaya nodded on her way to their room. She stayed outside making zero noise. Then she slowly opened the door to peek through the gap to see Vedora cuddling with Nightmare. They were sleeping under Nightmare''s wings. Ayag''s head was on Nightmare''s face with her mouth wide open. Sarba and Cain slept peacefully under Nightmare''s warm body.
"I can''t believe they will soon grow up" She smiled as Michael put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her. For a few moments, she rested her head on his hand and watched them sleeping.
"Azazel, tell Dr toe to the guardian''s chamber with an undead" Michael let Gaya take the lead as torturing was not his strong suit. He preferred to kill instead of torture.
At the moment, Connors was tied to a tree in the pocket dimension attached to the mansion. He was unconscious. Michael injected enough knockout potion into his body to keep him unconscious for several days.
In addition to the potion, he had to buy specialized chains from the system store to tie him up. Usually, the guardians used a chain with specialized runes to keep a cultivator tied. These chains were extremely expensive.
This was why Runemastery was the highest-paid skill in the world. They could make a piece of junk into an enhanced magical item.
Since Michael had no time to go shopping and it would raise suspicions if his underlings bought these expensive chains, Michael decided to buy them from the system store.
"Hrmmm" Connors''s consciousness slowly returned to him. He felt a sharp pain on his cheek. While growling, he opened his eyes. Thest thing he remembered was getting knocked down by the woman with Lucifer back on a ship.
His eyes twitched due to seeing a light after a long time. as his blurry vision cleared up, he saw Lucifer standing in front of him. The surroundings surprised Connors. He was outside as he could hear the sound of a waterfall in the distance, birds chirping and as far as he could see, there was not a single man-made structure. The tall mountains stood around as though they were guards of Lucifer.
Connors tried to move his limbs but he noticed he had been tied to the chair. He looked at his wrists to see the silver chains. The chains gave him some hope because he recognized the chain. If Lucifer was using the chains, that meant they were no longer on the Southern continent.
"Our guardian is awake. Wonderful" Connors''s body jerked when he heard a voice all of a sudden.
He couldn''t turn back but soon he saw another figure walking from his behind. The figure wore armor simr to Lucifer but the figure looked feminine. The shape of the armor indicated whoever wearing the armor was a woman.
Connors was staggered by the two of them. The guardians were thinking Lucifer was working alone. They did not even suspect there might be two Lucifers, let alone one woman and one man.
"Guardian Connors"
Regardless of her feminine look, the figure sounded exactly the same as Lucifer. The unearthly animalistic voice still freaked him out no matter how many times he had heard it before.
"We have some questions for you. And you''re gonna answer them like a good boy"
Connors didn''t know how many days he''d been out. The faith in the guardians was not as strong as before. He joined guardians to climb the ranks and live long enjoying a wealthy life. Getting tortured was not in his mind. He had two choices, he could try to stall them and hope for the guardians to appear but the possibility of that to happen was extremely slim. The second choice was to answer their questions and hope they won''t torture him and let him live.
"What¡what do you want to know?"
Gaya was surprised. Behind her mask, one could see her brows arch up. She did not expect the guardian to drop his shield just like that. Again, when she thought about it, it wasn''t much of a surprise to her as she knew the guardians valued their lives more than their duty as a guardian. Only a few handfuls of guardians valued the principles of the guild more than their lives such as Noah, Peyton, and probably Xanali.
"Tell us everything about operation New Dawn," Lucifer asked as Connors was startled to the core.
"How¡how did he know?" Connors asked himself. His body shivered.
Sweat began to appear uncontrobly through every single one of his pores.
There was only one thing that could tie him to the New Dawn operation; an ess card with the name ''Operation New Dawn'' etched onto its surface.
The reason he kept the card was that it was made of pure gold. He nned to use that card and negotiate with Alpha guardian to climb up the rank. Off-the-books operations were risky but they also came with opportunities.
Keeping his mouth shut about Operation New Dawn was not worth losing his life. Hence, he decided to spew out everything he knew about the operation. There was no information about the operation that would make Lucifer torture him to death.
"You can start by telling us what was the goal of this operation? And who ran it?" asked Michael gruffly. The feeling of something amiss whirled inside his heart.
Gaya strolled towards him and put her hand on Connors''s shoulder. She drummed her fingers on his shoulder,
"Come on Guardian,"
"Peyton-Peyton was the lead. She put together a team to find clues about you"
"Oh"
As Michael had expected, Gaya''s voice sounded surprised. What were the odds of a guardian they knew personally to run the operation that aimed to take them down? If Peyton was running the operation, Xanali would definitely be involved.
"I assume there were others in your team. Names" said Gaya sharply.
"Hashira Sayo, Alberto Pirani and Xavier Rogers" Connors listed the names without a second of interruption. For him, ratting out their names was no big deal. After all, they weren''t the ones tied to the chair and being interrogated by two scary people.
"And Noah Winston"
Connors never liked Noah. Ever since he joined the team, all the girls including the red haired hottie were too mingled with him.Which obviously annoyed Connors. He felt threatened by Noah. So Connors wanted to put Noah in the crosshairs of Lucifer.
"What was your role in the team?" asked Gaya, tightening her grip on his shoulder,
"We¡we each got a target. We followed, surveyed and reported back to Peyton"
"Who is your target, Guardian Connors?"
"Gh-Ghost" Connors stammered.
Michael''s red eyes flickered. With a few steps forward, he came before him.
"If you had followed him, then you must know how much sins Ghost and the people around himmitted"
Gaya was bewildered by his words but decided to y along.
"In my eyes, those who had the power to punish the evil and chose not to are the worst kind. So tell me Guardian Connors, have you punished the evil as a Guardian should? Have you punished Ghost or hisckeys? Your answer will decided whether you leave here alive or dead"
What the hell? Gaya''s mind had so many questions.Still, her mind quickly came to a conclusion that made her blood boil.
"A life for a life. If you had taken a life of a sinner, you will be forgiven" Michael bluffed.
His flickering red eyes hid the murderous intent within him. At the ce where Jack died, he saw two words ''GG''.
Chapter 412 - Avenging Jack鈥檚 Death
Chapter 412 - Avenging Jack''s Death
Jack''s death affected Gaya more than it affected Michael. For Gaya, Jack was like an annoying little brother. He always came running to her whenever he got into trouble, which was a lot. Everywhere she went, she could hear ''sister Aelia'' from his mouth. She never thought she would miss him so much. Michael on the other hand didn''t grieve as much as Gaya but he promised Jack that he would avenge his death.
"I did¡I punished evil" said Connors quickly.
"Whom did you punish?" Michael was feeling the anger growing inside him as though arge balloon was swelling inside him.
For a few moments, Connors went silent. He did not remember the name. He picked his brain to remember to recall the name of the youngster he killed while surveying Ghost.
Finally, after a few moments of silence, Connors remembered the name. There was a big funeral for the youngster in the Sun Rise sect and Peyton ordered him to attend the funeral so he could learn more about the people close to Ghost. As far as Peyton was concerned, the youngster was killed by a bandit or a group of bandits.
"Ja-Jack" the words barely escaped his mouth.
"Jack?!" Gaya boomed,
"You killed Jack?" when she spoke, every syble trembled with rage.
Connors gulped but no words came out of his mouth,
Michael took a step back as she came before Connors. There was no saving Connors and honestly, there was no point in saving Connors.
The feeling of anger building within worried him already. He was focused on controlling his anger while Gaya grabbed Connors''s neck.
"You killed Jack!" she hissed, her voice bing more animalistic and otherworldly. Connors had gone too far. He killed someone Gaya cared about. Never in a million years, she would have cared for a human eighteen months ago. After meeting Ghost and joining the sect, she had a family, a real family that cared for her. Although she did not express her fondness to them clearly, she cherished them in her heart.
By killing Jack, Connors had crossed the line.
"Azazel tells Dr there is no need for him toe here" Michael used the telepathic connection he shared with Azazel to inform him.
Connors was confused by the sudden change in her behavior. One moment she was listening to him calmly from behind and the next, she was radiating immense killing intent.
"You fu- ARGH!" She was so furious that words didn''te out of her mouth.
Thud!
She raised her leg and kicked Connors in the chest with enough force to send his chair flinging like a kite in the storm. The chain still held him to the chair but the force of the kick loosened up a bit. Yet, Connors was not in the state to yank the chain to release himself. He felt as if his ribs were cracked by the kick.
She flew towards Connors in a blink of an eye to continue her thrashing. Michael did not stop her and did not even think about stopping her.
Connors was just a Core Formation cultivator. Even if he escaped from his chains, there was no escape from Gaya. They had already taken his space ring as well as scanned him for any artifacts that would make him escape.
"Argh!"
Connors let out a cry as Gaya stomped him on the chest. It seemed like she wasn''t going to use any spells to torture him other than her own raw strength. Regardless of the blood spraying out of Connors''s mouth, she kept stomping him to the point the chair crumbled to pieces.
"ARGHHHHH!" The furious cry came out of Gaya''s mouth as she picked up the chain lying on the ground.
Cling!
Cling!
Cling!
Cling!
She was beating the crap of Connors with a chain. Every single swing had pure rage/ His skin was splitting open and blood came out almost every single part of his body. Then, she stopped beating him. She was breathing heavily, not because of exhaustion from beating him but in fury,
With a flick of her wrist, a bunch of healing potions appeared in her hand. She squatted down and forced the healing potion down into his throat. The healing potion she used was not enough for Connors to get back to his full strength though. It was just enough to heal his wounds inside and out so he could sustain more beatings.
Instead of standing up, she grabbed Connors by his head while squatting beside him and began to punch him in the face and chest furiously. The green grass under Connors turned red. The soil was soaked in blood. His consciousness was drifting away when she forced another healing potion down his throat.
It had been three hours since she began to beat the hell out of Connors. Michael was standing still and watching Gaya going berserk on him. She got really creative with Connors. Shended punches and kicks on every part of Connors''s body. No matter how hard Connors cried, she did not show him a shred of mercy.
After the second hour of getting beaten by Gaya, Connors began to beg for death. Michael would have felt pity for any other man but not for Connors. He murdered Jack who was a naive innocent guy in cold blood.
The reasons for Connors''s actions did not matter to Michael. In fact, he couldn''t care less about the reasons. Connors killed Jack who adored Michael and Gaya. As far as Michael was concerned, Connors deserved this and so does Peyton who put together the New Dawn Operation and anyone who knew the truth about Jack''s truth,
"Where the fuck is Dr?!" her rageful shout reverberated the entire pocket dimension,
"Azazel, change of ns, send Dr to me with an undead"
"Yes my lord"
A few minutester, Dr appeared in the pocket dimension with an undead. The orc had grown quite a bit as he now stood almost six feet 8inches. In addition to his physical growth, he had also reached Core Formation level 6. Michael would have been disappointed if the orc didn''t break through to the Core Formation stage because Michael had provided hundreds of thousands worth of potions and pills to Dr.
The undead standing beside Dr was growling. ck gooey liquid oozed out of its mouth and nose as though it was drooling at the blood sprayed from Connors.
Except for the missing genitals, the undead zombie had everything of a human. The putrid smell that came from the zombie''s grayish skin would have made Michael twitch his nose if it wasn''t for the mask.
Dr wanted to bow and greet Lucifer yet his eyes were glued to Gaya mercilessly beating a human.
"Come here!" Gaya thundered yet again.
Dr''s legs automatically began to walk in her direction. The undead dragged its feet to follow him behind. The next moment, Azazel''s ethereal body materialized beside Michael,
"My lord"
"Azazel"
Michael turned his gaze aside to see Azazel looking at him with a bewildered look on his face. The demon butler was obviously curious to know why Gaya was thrashing Connors instead of interrogating him.
"He killed Jack" He simply said as Azazel gave him a long nod. Azazel wasn''t familiar with Jack but he knew his death affected Gaya. After he started surveince, she gave him an order to look out for anyone who might have killed Jack. She asked him to look for clues although they both knew at that time, it was a long shot. From Nightmare, he heard the full story of Jack as well as everyone from the Sun Rise sect.
"My Lady" Despite the size and horrifying look that all the orcs had, Dr was freaked out by Dark Queen. She was scarier than Lucifer himself. When Lucifer was training with undeads, by training, he meant ughtering Netherels left and right, Lucifer would focus on killing them efficiently, swift and quick.
However, Dark Queen was more sadistic, she would rip them apart, beat them to pulp andugh out loud while killing them. As an Orc who grew up with a bunch of violent blood-thirsty orcs, Dr knew a sadistic vicious being when he saw one. Gaya was definitely on the top of his list of vicious ones.
Dr noticed a bunch of empty vials lying around the poor human who was getting beaten to death. Except for a small piece of tunic covering the human''s genitals, there was no cloth on his body. His skin was riddled with scratch marks. It seemed like the Dark Queen was wing and scratching him with her sharp ws.
"Make it eat him," said Gaya, gritting her teeth. For a moment, Dr couldn''t realize the meaning of her words.
"Make¡it¡eat¡him" She spoke every word full of rage,
Dr saw several healing potions appear in her hand. Now he realized what those empty vials were.
"Don''t let him die. Heal him and make it eat his flesh slow and painful. I want to hear his screams"
This was borderline sickening to Michael. Yet he couldn''t get himself to stop her. Deep within his heart, he wanted her to continue. At this moment, Michael realized that something really broke within him. He wanted to fix that as soon as possible before he turned into something the Guardians imed.
"No¡please¡no" Connors stuttered only to get a kick to his mouth. His jaw cracked,
"You murdered someone I really cared about. Your death should satisfy him" Gaya spoke with her grave voice. She then looked up at the sky,
"Are you seeing this Jack? Your murderer is suffering"
During the following hours, Connors''s scream filled the pocket dimension.
No mercy was shown to him until Nightmare chose to end his life once and for all.
Chapter 413 - Throwing a party
Chapter 413 - Throwing a party
After throwing away Connors''s body, Michael and Gaya left the dark forest with Nightmare apanying them. Vedora stayed in the mansion as they nned. Gaya promised them to bring a lot of snacks and reading materials for Cain.
"Do you remember the times we went to buy some alchemy stuff for you in Bradford and Jade bitch messed with us?" She amused,
"Hmm" nodded Michael recalling the past events. It felt as though everything happened yesterday.
"That bitch Peyton spied on us. We spy on others, not the other way around. We should find her and make an example out of her before going to eww" she stuck her tongue out,
"school"
"No, Aria can take care of spying on her. We should leave for Mazeroth as soon as possible"
She was flying a couple of meters ahead of him but when he heard him, she flew closer to him. Her face showed signs of concern,
"You will be okay human. We are gonna find the dark elf in the tree and fix you"
Rather than speak anything, he just nodded. Positivity was the thing that kept him going ever since he was born. He couldn''t think he won''t be cured at all at this point. He had to stay positive and hope the dark elf in the tree would have answers for all of their problems.
Three hours of flyingter, Gaya saw the outskirts of the Sunrise sect after a long time. The images of shabby buildings in the mountain range shed across her mind as she flew closer and closer to the sect. Now the sect lookedpletely different. Alive, that was the word that best described the sect. Even from a distance, they could see the lines of carriages going in and out of the mountain, groups of nobles dressed in fancy clothes, youngsters dressed in their new ck sunrise sect uniform, buildings built with eye-catching architecture, and neatly pruned trees and nts.
The mountain range was buzzing with chit-chatter of people. There was only a barrennd void of buildings in the mountain which was supposed to have the main headquarters of the sect and a huge library.
"Remind me to draw ns for the main building and library" She directed her request towards Nightmare. The dragon was enjoying the flying and asionally sticking his tongue out against the wind.
"Stop that brat"
Despite her warning, Nightmare kept sticking his tongue out.
Rolling her eyes at Nightmare, she descended towards ire''s manor which now acted as the headquarters. ire dealt with all the sect business in her manor.
"Look"
"Brother Ghost"
"Is that Sister Aelia?"
"Yey she is back!"
"Oh my god a dragon!"
"They are back!"
The disciples on the ground cheered excitedly. The senior disciples who spent more time with Gaya and Michael were a little too excited. Those girls were jumping up and down pping their hands together.
"You two have an important announcement to make, so go ahead. I''ll deal with your fans club" Nightmare willed himself to grow a bit bigger. A few secondster when theynded on the ground, he had grown into the size of a fully grown elephant.
"Hey guys"
"If you hug me"
Michael greeted them with a smile as usual while Gaya warned the girls not to hug her because they looked like they were going to squeeze her to death. Most of the disciples were stopped from reaching Ghost and Gaya by Nightmare. Of course, those disciples were happy to feel the scales of a dragon and remain so close to one. After this day, they could brag about them being friends with Nightmare which would surely let themnd a girlfriend or boyfriend from either of the three big sects.
The corridors were lit with mini light bulbs which looked like the miniature version of chandeliers. Many of the lights were switched off or put out by the maids because the sun was rising on the horizon and soon, the mansion would be filled with natural sunlight.
As the narrow corridors opened up to the spacious hall, they saw little Cindy meditating on the sofa. Her eyes abruptly opened as though she sensed their arrival.
"Sister Aelia!" Cindy jumped up from the sofa so fast shouting in her childish voice.
"Brother!"
She leaped into the air and flew towards them with her hands wide open. Cindy wished she had bigger arms so she could hug both of them so tight. Gaya caught her in the mid-air.
"You''ve grown up. Soon, you won''t be a tiny human anymore" Gaya ruffled Cindy''s head frantically, making her neatlybed and pony-tailed hair into a mess.
"Ummmuuaaaa"
"Ummmuuaaaa"
"Ummmuuaaaa"
"Ummmuuaaaa"
Cindy showered Gaya with kisses. She cupped Gaya''s face with her little hand and kept kissing her,
"Aelia" her rapid kisses were interrupted by ire''s voice. They looked up to see ire climbing down the stairs. Her face was beaming in joy seeing Aelia after a long time.
Ghost snatched Cindy from her hands as ire hugged Gaya without uttering a word. Michael squeezed her baby cheeks and gave her a kiss on the fluffy cheeks.
"Where did you go brother?"
"Aelia, I''m d you are fine. Where were you? We were worried" Still keeping her in the hug, ire asked,
"We are engaged"
Gaya avoided answering the question by stunning ire. Gaya felt the hug getting tighter. ire let go of Gaya and then grabbed her hands to see the ring on her finger,
For a few moments, ire did not speak anything. She just stared at Gaya with utter shock. But soon, her face brightened up as she hugged her yet again even tighter.
"I am so happy for you two. We must celebrate this. Ghoste here" While holding Gaya in her hug, she reached out to hug him too. Since she was looking funny holding out her hand, Michael reluctantly joined the group hug.
After almost five minutes of hugging, she finally let them go. Cindy seemed confused about what made ire so happy, She kept gawking at the adults in the room.
Ghost took the single-seater sofa while ire forced Gaya to sit beside her. She squeezed Gaya''s hand. Cindy on the other hand left the hall to y with her friends after giving everyone a loving kiss on their cheeks.
"You two enjoy your days before leaving for MAzeroth.Im gonna throw a huge party at Hades. We should invite everyone we know"
Usually, Ghost would have rejected ire''s idea. But this seemed to be a good way to get closer to Peyton and ce the Spycam on her. Moreover, he could invite many important figures and spy on them too. Mazeroth was connected to Skyhall which was more powerful than the Great ns themselves. Hence, letting people know that he was connected with Skyhall through Mazeroth would boost his reputation as well as prevent the powers such as the three big sects from thinking of harming the Sunrise sect.
Even the Guardians might think twice before messing with him in the future if he was connected with Skyhall. Granted, Skyhall could be more dangerous to him than the Guardian guild. It didn''t stop Michael from turning the invitation into an opportunity and a tform to spread his influence.
"We should do it, Ghost" Gaya agreed with ire. Somehow Michael felt as Gaya also nned to use the party as a way to get closer to Peyton.
"Like it or not, you are a king now. And a king needs connections. Parties like these will get you just that" ire was used to the wisdom of Gaya when ites to managing. Be that it was managing the sect or the restaurant, she always had the best ns in her mind. ire lost the count of times Gaya helped her with the problems in the sect.
"Besides, it had been so long since I ate Raylene''s cooking" Gaya licked her lips. The fury in her eyes about Jack''s death slowly disappeared after meeting Cindy and ire.
"By the way, where is your grandpa ire?" asked Gaya as the brightness in ire''s face slowly dimmed down,
She sighed, "ever since he came back, he''s spending all his time in the Royalnd library. You know, I do want to find mom and break the curse permanently. When he told me everything, I wanted to go to Awor myself and search for mom"
"What changed?" asked Gaya. She knew the pain ire is going through. Her mother was alive yet ire was too weak to look for her. That pain and helplessness would soon turn into a self-me. Gaya didn''t want ire to go on the road of self-destruction.
"Everyone Aelia. Everyone told me not to rush and they are right. I can''t get myself or grandpa killed or worse end up in prison. We need to deal with the problem cautiously. Any mishap and yet another tragedy would fall on us"
Michael and Gaya both felt pity for ire. Although they wanted to help her, now was not the time to get meddled with the elves who were the most powerful race in the entire world. Going against them at this point in time would be nothing but suicidal.
"I''m d you''re being patient, Sect leader ire. Focus on getting stronger, no one will mess with you if you are the top dog in the yard" said Michael leaning back on his sofa.
"And oh" all of a sudden, ire seemed like she had remembered something,
"King Bredia''s men are waiting for you in Bradford manor. You still haven''t gone to check out the treasury"
He almost forgot about the treasury visit amidst his problems. This was thest thing he nned to do in Elon before departing to Mazeroth. He just hoped he would find something interesting in the treasury. Little did he know, he is going to find something that would make him the most dangerous man in the world.
Chapter 414 - Like taking candy from a baby
Chapter 414 - Like taking candy from a baby
The Kingdom of Brediais a little country with a poption of almost 300,000 people including a small poption of beast-men. Bordered by a river to the North, a small sea to the South, a bamboo forest to the East, and woonds to the West, the country of Bredia mainly thrived in wood production, mining, and foreign trade as well as tourism.
The country''sndscape was cheerful; impressive architecture, jade green fields, and green, open fields were just a sliver of the elegance Bredia had to offer, which was why the country was treasured among foreigners.
The people of Bredia were neighborly towards foreigners and tended to wee them with open arms. They felt foreigners could fortify the country''s well being.
Bredia had moderatews andw enforcement, which was expected in their circumstances. The people were troubled by the growing bandit problems as Bredia had a lot of forests that had been used by the bandits to hide.
The kingdom was divided into 3 baronies; Bradford, Whiteridge, and Sarton on top of the Capital where the king resides. After the tournament, three baronies were reduced to 2 as Bradford became a kingdom itself under Ghost.
There was visible tension among the people after what happened in the tournament. Many criticized King Bredia for letting go of Bradford while some sympathized with the king.
Instead of carriages suited for the king, Michael decided to fly to the Capital along with the group of escorts King Bredia sent. The one-third of the army King Bredia agreed to give him had just reached Bradford and were making themselves at home. It would take at least a couple of weeks for them to relocate their families ording to Gaya. It was Gaya''s idea to relocate the soldiers'' families to Bradford. She was already having a meeting with Elder Sandra to discuss the financial side of things needed for relocation.
The plus side of this was Bradford had so many emptynds which could be used to build new homes. The downside was it would take some time before finishing all the new homes required. ording to Gaya, until the soldierspletely sever their ties with Bredia, their loyalty would remain to King Bredia instead of Ghost and her.
It made sense to Michael hence he went with her n. After all, she had more knowledge and experience in ruling than him. She was so excited as he had never seen Gaya act so excited.
"We have so much work to do. How long will this take?" asked Gaya while flying towards the capital of Bredia.
The five of the escorts flying in front of them had three armed soldiers who seemed to be the royal guards and one of the remaining two was an old man in his seventies while the other was a middle-aged man dressed in crimson red robes.
The two of them were visibly surprised. They didn''t expect the king and his girlfriend would travel to another ce, a ce that viewed them as enemies without any soldiers or bodyguards. Obviously, Ghost was powerful but not that powerful to escape the wrath of an entire country if they chose to attack him.
After almost three hours of flying, the outskirts of the capital began toe into their view. The city was surrounded by a city wall made of granite stones. Golden paddy fields nketed thend outside of the city walls, creating beautiful scenery.
While flying forwards, the two men without wearing the metal armor drew some signs in the air as golden runes materialized before them. The golden runes flew towards the city before fading away.
Then nothing happened. They just continued their journey towards the castle that remained tall and majestic at the end of the city.
The castle of Bredia wasn''t as majestic as the castle of House Kane. In fact, it was not even fair for this castle to bepared with House Kane. Still, the castle was elegant. Ten slim, round towers that looked as though they were piercing the sky were the first they saw of this castle and were connected by giant, firm walls made of white stone contrary to the ckish granite stone city wall. Tall, wide windows were scattered generously around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry, along with symmetric holes for archers and artillery.
A moderate gate with hefty metal doors, a regr bridge, and various artillery equipment guarded the only passage into the castle built upon a mountain top, but it was not the only way in, which fortunately only very few know. Since they were flying, they had no need of going through the main gate and the guards.
As they were flying towards the castle, they noticed the variousrge houses scattered outside the castle gates, surprisingly the rich werefortable with living outside the gates as well. This castle showed signs of expansion as some parts were clearly built more recently than others, the inhabitants were already working on another part and hoped to keep expanding.
Many children ying on the paved pathways looked up at them with their hands waving. Many nobles failed to notice them but Michael noticed the several groups of people gathered on the streets withbels and signboards. If he had to guess, he would say they were waiting for him, not to wee but to show their disapproval.
"Poor people, hehehe" chuckled Gaya looking at the protesters. They seemed clueless which amused Gaya. She couldn''t care less about what these Bredians think.
Michael noticed the two men show their objection to herughter by frowning. Yet, they knew better to open their mouths. One of the tall towers had a metal door that glowed before opening. Through the tower, they flew down into the throne hall where he saw a young girl in a sparkling blue dress that screamed princess. When Michael and Gayanded in the middle of the throne hall, she turned back. Immediately the gentle smile on her face disappeared. Instead, a rather cold and murderous look appeared on her face. If one had an acute sense of hearing, they could hear her teeth grinding against each other and the rising beats of her heart.
"Your Royal Highness" the five of them bowed towards her in unison while Gaya was busy scratching her ear. She did not even look at the princess. Michael on the other hand remained calm and cool as usual.
"Humph," Princess Katherine snickered as she walked forward gracefully.
"Where is the treasury?"
Asked Gaya looking around the throne hall. She wasn''t impressed by the throne hall, not even a bit. Neither the modest braziers that enclosed each of the fourteen baster columns light up the entire throne hall and engulf everything in a flickering radiance nor did the lc rug split the entire hall in half from the doors to the throne while swallowtail banners with emzoned tassels the walls impressed the Princess of Nagnd.
She looked at the grand throne of bronze sitting atop a tall elevated tform quite a distance behind the princess. The throne was covered in hundreds of borate patterns and fixed on each of the rather slim feet is a gemmed symbolic emblem. The fluffy pillows were a light lc and these too had been adorned with ornate quilting. Currently, the throne was empty as the king was nowhere to be seen.
"The treasury will be the first ce thieves would look for" The Princess coldly said, shocking the men behind her.
"Yeah, we hate thieves too"
Michael let Gaya deal with the princess. It was funny to see Gaya talk to the princess with a serious face while she was obviously fanning Katherine''s anger mes for fun.
"Is that so?" Katherine gritted her teeth,
"If you don''t mind, lead the way please princess. We have things to do, like ruling a kingdom" Gaya spoke, waving her hands.
"Humph, follow me" Yet again the princess snickered before turning back. She then began to walk towards a silver door guarded by a fully armored soldier who stood 7ft tall.
The soldier stomped the ground with his leg as the silver door slid open to reveal the pathway lit with golden chandeliers. Only their steps could be heard as no one uttered any word. The five men who escorted Michael here remained silent while following them behind.
"Ll¡tudu..tudududulla"
Michael tried not to chuckle hearing Gaya singing. He didn''t know the lyrics but enjoyed her funny gibberish. It seemed as though Gaya was trying to piss off Katherine.
"Tuttudu¡dudududu¡.tututu"
"Tuttudu¡dudududu¡.tututu"
"Tuttudu¡dudududu¡.tututu"
"Tuttudu¡dudududu¡.tututu"
"Tuttudu¡dudududu¡.tututu"
After hearing the same gibberish again and again for almost fifteen minutes, Katherine couldnt hold back anymore,
"Will you please shut up?"
"Nope. Hey Ghost, remind me to invite the Winstons to the party"
"I already sent the invites," said Michael,
"Leave them alone. They are good people," Katherine almost lost herposure. She did not want people like Ghost to get close to the Winstons. Especially after what he did to Andrews and her.
"We are good people. If not for us, somebody would have been under six feet by now" said Gaya. The others felt the situation getting tensed up by the second. They just wanted to get this done before the two girls try to kill each other,
"When the timees, Andrews will settle his debt," Katherine said firmly.
"Let us pick one more thing from the treasury and we''ll call it even. We will forget about saving his butt at that time forever. How about that princess? Are you willing to settle your sweetheart''s debt?"
"Your Roya-"
The two unarmored men immediately tried to stop the princess but it was toote as Katherine stopped them with a wave of her hand. She turned back to look at Gaya,
"I will settle his debt but after this, you are never to speak of Andrews ever again"
"Deal"
Michael couldn''t believe how easily the princess got manipted by Gaya.
"Unbelievable" Michael said to himself,
"Heheheh, like taking candy from a baby¡too easy" Gayaughed out aloud inside. The Princess was unbelievably easy to manipte.
Gaya almost felt bad for not asking for a couple of more items instead of asking for only one more.
Chapter 415 - Army of Undead I
Chapter 415 - Army of Undead I
"Lord Dr" Dr was busy poking a severed head on his table when he heard a voice. He didn''t have to turn back because he knew who it was, an apprentice he never wanted in the first ce but got impressed by the knowledge he possessed about the undeads; Jonah.
Jonah was dragging a dead body that reeked of putrid smell into Dr''s workshop. The workshop was a spacious hall yet there was no empty space. Every nook and cranny had something. The wooden racks were lined up against the walls. Jars filled with weird eyeballs, body parts, ck goo in bottles, dead bodies with countless cuts, and various tools could be seen in the room.
After getting teleported to this dark mansion, Jonah entered into seclusion ording to Dark Queen''s instructions. Three monthster, he was able to reach Foundation stage level 10 and a few days cultivation away from reaching the Body Refining stage. Meanwhile, during his breaks, he worked with Dr to find out more about the undeads and the Alpha undeads.
Theirbined knowledge of undeads enabled them toe up with the most efficient way to kill the undeads. They were just a few days away from finishing the tests and let the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen know about the breakthrough.
This was only a side project though. The main project assigned to Dr by the Dark Lord was to summon more powerfulherels from the Nether Realm. In addition to more powerfulherels, he tasked Dr to find a way to summon moreherels at a time.
Since Dr reached level 7 of Core Formation and got proficient in summoning, he was able to summon fiftyherels at Body Strengthening stage level 9 at a time. If it wasn''t for the Dark Lord''s order to stop summoning more Netherels than they could fit in thebat hall next door, they would have had an army of Netherels.
Of course, it made sense not to summon more and more Netherels because of two reasons. One, they had no ce for the undead army. If they let the undeads roam around in Dark Forest, the guardians would definitely sense the undead presence. Second, Dr could only bound 150 undeads using the book ofherels. If he summoned more, they would wreak havoc, probably rip him apart piece by piece. The second reason led to his current experimentation with Alpha Undeads. The Alpha undeads Michael encountered on the undead ind had a certain level of sentience. They controlled the undeads just as Dr without any book ofherels.
"I hope this one dont end up like thest one" Jonah sighed. The body he was dragging was an Alpha. The Dark Lord gave them a potion that paralyzed the undead as well as knocked them out unconscious. Dr and Jonah killed three Alpha undeads in their experiment. They still had two more Alpha undeads and after that, they would have to ask the Dark Lord to capture more Alpha undeads if there were any on the undead Ind.
"I''m close, I can feel it. I just need to figure out the telepathic signals produced by the brain of an Alpha. If I could pinpoint the signals and mimic the signals somehow, I can control the undeads like an Alpha" Dr exined while poking the head of the alpha on the table.
The room was dark and gloomy. Only a couple of luminous mushrooms attached to the ceiling were their light source. The faint blue light produced by the mushrooms was barely enough to see where something was at.
The Alpha undeads were apparently sensitive to bright light including sunlight. Any kind of bright light would be harmful to the Alpha. The light sensitivity was not enough to kill an Alpha but it was enough to disorient them by burning their skin.
"So where is the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen? I haven''t even seen the floating butler"
"It''s Azazel"
"What?" asked Jonah,
"The floating butler, his name is Azazel"
Boom!
The head situated, getting poked by Dr suddenly exploded into bits and pieces. Jonah dashed aside to avoid the brain matter yet he couldn''t avoid thempletely.
"Fuck!"
Dr cursed as he punched the table with his big fist.
"Why the fuck can''t I pinpoint the signals?!"
*******************************
At the moment, Ghost, Gaya, Katherine, and the five men were in front of the metal door with intricate symbols. The door stood almost ten feet tall and six feet wide. The sheer size of the vault made Michael and Gaya excited to see the inside.
Katherine ced her right hand on the silver door,
"Katherine Vincelet Bredia" after Katherine spoke, the ground beneath them lightly shivered as they heard a heavy rumbling noise from the other side of the door. Soon, the thousands of weird symbols on the door sparkled.
A few secondster, the door gently opened itself to reveal the treasury. However, when the door openedpletely, Michael was disappointed, to say the least as he saw nothing but a dimly lit hall with several wooden racks.
"This is underwhelming," Gaya sighed. As a princess, she had some idea where they would have stored all the wealth but she expected at least a few million worths of gems and gold coins.
"This is the treasury?" asked Michael, creasing his brows.
"Of course it is. So ording to the agreement and my word, you can pick any two things from here" Katherine seemed to be enjoying their disappointment. They were not idiots to keep all of their wealth in a single ce where security was an issue. Like most of the kingdoms in Elon and Ozer, they kept their wealth in Grand Spire bank vaults.
Grand Spire bank was the safest ce to keep wealth and precious items. It was like the Gringotts of this world. Instead of goblins, Grand Spire was run by Elves and Dwarves.
A few days ago when the king returned to the capital, he transferred all the remaining wealth in the treasury to the Grand Spire bank branch in Bredia with the help of the Adventurer Guild. Only items that were identified by the schrs and deemed as junk remained in the treasury.
Michael had already took a huge chunk of kingdom Bredia from the king so he did not feel any murderous anger towards the king. After all, in time, everything in this world would belong to him.
He stepped into a dimly lit hall with the hopes of at least finding something interesting.
"System scan everything in the room and let me know if you find something interesting"
[That will cost you 5000 badass points]
The system began to scan the entire hall. Gaya wanted to beat the crap out of the princess. Controlling her impulse to do so, she looked through the items in the wooden rack.
"I pity the people of Bradford" Katherine was unable to keep her mouth shut recalling what happened at the tournament. Her father had never been ashamed like that ever before in his life. Granted, she knew it was partially her fault for what happened. Still, she hated Ghost as he almost killed Andrews and took a huge chunk ofnd from them.
"Shove that pity up your ass" Gaya mumbled in just enough voice for the princess to hear her but not too loud.
"What did you say?!"
"I said thank you"
The five men behind the princess wanted this to be over as soon as possible before the situation escted into a fight. They could see Katherine clenching her fist looking at the back of the girl. The girl on the other hand was more focused on rummaging through the items on the rack.
"What is this?" Gaya took an old parchment covered in dust. The parchment looked as though no one touched it for at least a couple of decades.
She opened up the parchment to see a blueprint for a carriage,
"Seriously?" She ced the spell back on the rack with enough for to make a thud sound.
[System has found only one item that could interest the host]
"What? Only one?" Michael asked the system in his mind,
[Yes. All the other items are mediocre at best and most of them are just junk]
"Where is that item you found?"
The system pointed to the item using the environmental Scanning Map as Michael made his way toward the item. One of the racks in front of him had countless parchments and other weird-looking objects covered in dust.
He shoved all the objects aside to pick up a rusty old metal box. It was small as it fit in his palm. The rust covered the symbols on the surface, preventing anyone from recognizing the symbols.
"What the hell is this?"
[It was a portal opener. Now it''s just a rusty old box. Only the system can make the box work again. For a price]
"No shit," Katherine noticed the rusty old box in his hand. She used to y with that box when she was little. Her grandfather bought the item in an auction in Awor continent. He believed it held some heaven defying secrets yet after trying to unlock its secret for decades, he realized the box was nothing but just a metal box.
"Portal opener huh? So can I open portals anywhere using this?"
[This portal opener can open a portal to only one ce. After fixing the ce, the host will be unable to change the portal location]
A smile emerged on his face,
"How much for repairing this?"
[15,000 badass points]
He didn''t order the system to repair the box at this moment. He turned back to see the princess staring at him,
"Do you know what this is, Princess Katherine?"
"I''m not your personal schr" Katherine coldly replied.
Gaya clenched her fist as she felt like knocking Katherin''s teeth out of her mouth.
"I''ll take this"
Only Gaya noticed the glint of excitement in his eyes. Except for Michael, no one had an idea he was holding a power that could change the world forever.
[Where does the host want the box to open a portal?] The system sounded rather curious,
"Nether Realm"
Chapter 416 - Army of Undead II
Chapter 416 - Army of Undead II
"Lord Dr, the Dark Lord, and the Dark Queen are back" Back inside Dr''s workshop, Jonah informed Dr about the arrival of the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen.
The workshop was a mess because after killing thest Alpha undead they had, Dr went crazy as he started to punch everything he could in the room. Jonah could not stop him as he barely survived the crazy orc.
Jonah could still vividly see the Orc running around crazy. He kept screaming ''I was so close''
"Sigh," Dr sighed. The orc was looking at the severed head on the table. Among all the things in the room, that head was the only thing that survived Dr''s wrath.
"Lord Dr" out of nowhere, Azazel materialized in the room just a couple of inches away from Jonah.
"Eeek!" Jonah jumped in shock. He almost had a heart attack.
Azazel''s mouth opened but when he saw the mess, he closed his mouth. He looked around for a couple of seconds before speaking again,
"Lord Dr, you''ve been summoned by Lord Lucifer and the Dark Queen"
Azazel then turned his gaze towards Jonah who looked pale as he was terrified of the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen.
"You''re too Lord Jonah"
Azazel flew through the walls as though there were no walls in the room. A few seconds after Azazel left the room, Jonah talked,
"Lord Dr, we shouldn''t keep them waiting. Let''s go"
Dr sighed again, "You''re right"
Both of them walked out of the room. Just before shutting the door closed, Dr took onest look at the mess.
The throne hall of the mansion was not very brightly lit. The chandeliers produced just enough light to make everything visible and at the same time, it gave a gloomy feeling to the throne hall. After all, he was the Dark Lord and he shouldn''t be sitting in a bright ce.
Instead of one throne as before, Dr saw two thrones on the elevated tform where he saw the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen waiting for them.
Azazel remained beside the Dark Lord on the elevated tform. Dr and Jonah couldn''t help thinking Azazel informed the Dark Lord and Dark Queen about the mess. They didn''t know about the Spycam in their workshop. Azazel witnessed everything from the surveince room and just pretended to be seeing the mess for the first time.
"Dark Lord Lucifer"
"Dark Queen"
Jonah and Dr knelt on the floor obediently,
"Rise" Dark Queen''s cold voice echoed through the hall,
"How is your experiment going on Dr?"
His voice sounded calm. If he was mad about the mess they made, he sure didn''t show it in his voice.
"Dark Lord¡I¡" Dr stuttered. He tried to tell the Dark Lord about his failure when Jonah surprisingly intervened,
"We found out some valuable information about the Alpha undead, Dark lord"
"Do tell" Michael asked,
He was amused by Jonah''s sudden courage. Whenever he came to the mansion, Jonah purposely hid himself pretending to be cultivating. Since Michael had no use for Jonah other than being an apprentice to Dr, he didn''t talk much with Jonah.
Dr growled after Jonah intervened. The Orc hated the human for trying to help him. Thest thing Dr wanted was a human to help him in a situation such as this. It was embarrassing. Teaching him a few things because he was helpful was another thing but getting saved by him was not cool as far as Dr was concerned,
"The Alpha undeads, they are extremely sensitive to sunlight or any bright light. By focusing a light source on them, the connection they have with the other undeads could be severed and be killed easily"
This wasn''t a shocking reveal per se as Michael already knew about the Alpha undeads'' vulnerability to sunlight. When he fought them, they always moved under the shade of the trees. The stormy clouds at that time prevented the sunlight frompletely falling on the Alphas.
Michael was expecting the results of Dr''s other experiment. The experiment of controlling the Alphas. Thest time when Michael asked the system about controlling the Alphas, the system informed him that its level was too low. Since he upgraded the system he decided to try again.
"Jonah, what you two apparently found ispletely useless. Without an army of undead to control, the Alphas are easy prey. Especially for the cultivators. They could kill them with a single spell"
"In other words, these two were killing the Alphas I captured for nothing" Dark Queen''s cold words almost made Jonah wet himself.
Fortunately, the Dark Lord squeezed her hand to calm her down,
"I was so close Dark Lord. I just need a little more time. I was able to feel the connection before the head exploded" Dr said. He didn''t want to hide behind Jonah anymore. If push came to shove, he would have to use the item he got from his father. Nheless, he doubted the Dark Lord would kill him just because he failed to achieve a breakthrough in his experiment.
"Azazel, bring them here"
Dr and Jonah looked at the butler disappear around the corner with confused faces. Several minutester, Azazel appeared in the hall again. As Azazel approached the Dark Lord and Dark Queen, hovering in the air, there were two figures dragging themselves behind Azazel. The smell of rotten eggs filled the hall. Jonah and Dr almost got used to the smell as they immediately recognized the two figures behind Azazel.
"Alphas" Dr mumbled under his breath.
One of the alpha was a ripped man while the other was a woman with ample breasts. Both of them were naked of course. Their skin was pale with several bite marks around their chests. Their shoulder-length hair was greasy and messy. With their dead fish eyes, they stared at Dr. He was stunned to see the obedience of the Alphas. He wondered how the heck the Dark Lord controlled them.
Only Michael knew it wasn''t controlling but keeping the Alphas in a state of dizziness by injecting a potent potion into their brain.
"Do what you did in your workshop"
Dr nodded. He had the feeling that the Dark Lord might hold the final key to controlling the alphas. Taking the bookherels from his space ring, Dr drew some symbols in the air. Jonah backed away to avoid getting sted or worse getting killed.
The tattered leather cover of the book lit up as the bright blue symbols began to appear in the air. Soon, the symbols began to rate, creating a sphere of blue light.
Speckles of blue light separated themselves from the sphere and floated towards the male Alpha. Then, the blue light slowly protruded into its mind,
"System, are you seeing this?" Michael asked the system. His X-ray vision enabled him to see the energy spectrum between Dr and the Alphas. The spectrum of energy was very simr to the energy waves between Michael and his drones. Unlike the energy waves that appear when Michael establishes a connection with a drone, the energy waves between Dr and the Alphas were violent and much more powerful.
[Yes. The signal waves are too powerful and unstable. It will harm the undead and in time, it will harm Dr. Since the host upgraded the system you can buy a connector to control the Alphas. It will cost you only 10,000 badass points. One connecter will let you control two alphas and Dr control four Alphas]
"So the extra two because of the book ofherels" Michael pondered,
"Okay I will take it"
[How many? Two?] The system asked,
"No only one. It''s four Dr. I don''t need to control the Alphas, at least not yet. That''s why I have Dr"
[Warning!]
[Dr is still not a subordinate. The system strongly advice against giving Dr the connector]
His vision became red as the system warning screen appeared in front of him,
"He has a Spycam on him, remember? If he tries to mess with me, the Spyder will inject potent poison into him. Plus, if he wants to escape, he needs to go through the forest filled with deadly fear toxin"
[What about teleportation?]
"He has a tracker on him which I bought from you"
[What don''t you want to control the Alphas?] the system continued to ask him questions. It was notpletely concerned about Michael''s safety. Rather, it wanted to sell two connectors.
"First, I''m going to Mazeroth. Second, the more things I control, the more the strain on my brain. By controlling Dr, I can control the Alphas, by controlling alphas, I will control the undead army"
When Michael was trying to control countless Spycam with his mind, the system warned him about the drawbacks of controlling too many things with his brain. Hence, he connected the feeds to the mirrors and gave control of all the Spycams and drones to Azazel while he only established connections with them when needed. This way, his brain had way less strain.
"Third, I have 40,000 badass points remaining. I need to to have as much points as i can when I go to Mazeroth"
The system went silent for a couple of moments,
"One connectoring up"
The connector was a three-inch-long two-inch wide paper-thin card with countless micro symbols etched into it. It vaguely resembled the chip in his forearm which connected the APD with his body. Whenever he needs a potion, he just needs to establish a connection with the APD and it would inject the potion into his bloodstream. Alternatively, the APD could also automatically inject potions into his body in case he lost consciousness and needed a healing potion for instance.
"Stop"
When Michael closed the system interface, the time slowing down effect disappeared as he ordered Dr to stop before he killed the Alpha.
Dr quickly stopped the ritual. In a blink of an eye, the Dark Lord appeared in front of him. For a moment, Dr thought he was going to die. Instead, the Dark Lord just gently pped the back of his neck. He suddenly felt a bolt of electricity running through his spine. Dr touched the back of his neck and felt something on his neck,
"Now perform the ritual"
Dr was confused but he obeyed the order given to him. As before, the ritual started with a blue sphere and everything continued perfectly. A few minutes after Jonah stepped aside because Dr reached the point where the Alpha''s head would explode. However, that did not happen.
The blue sphere gradually disappeared as the cold dead eyes of the alpha shone in red,
"I¡I can feel the connection" Dr mumbled.
Chapter 417 - Army of Undead III
Chapter 417 - Army of Undead III
Dr was bbergasted. His entire body shivered, looking at the Alpha. It was not a connection that enabled Dr to control the Alpha like a robot. Rather, the connection enabled Dr to give telepathic orders to the alpha. With the alpha''s limited intelligence, it would do its absolute best toplete the order.
"That''s how you do it" Michael gave a pat on Dr''s back. He was more excited than Dr.
"Come, we have an army to summon," said Michael calmly. Gaya came to stand at his side with the others.
A bright light shed across the hall the next moment and everyone disappeared from the hall except Azazel. The sudden sh of light made Jonah tightly shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he was standing in a familiar ce. From one gloomy ce to another. The empty hall was dimly lit with torches. The walls and the floor was made of marble which reflected the light produced by the torches and lit the ce orange.
The crypt was empty since all the pirates were teleported back to Corey''s witch ind where they joined Maxine''s crew. The crew along with Gibson were working on fixing the old bertha. After they found out her keel was broken in the middle, they suggested he let the ship go as there was no way to fix the keel.
What was the point of having a system if he couldn''t find a fix to a simple thing such as fixing the keel? The system sold him something that looked like white y and instructed him to apply the y to the heel. Since he had minions to do that, he gave the y to them. Surprisingly for the crew, when they applied the y, it mended the broken heel, healing Old Bertha.
Dr had no idea about this ce. It was spacious enough to fit hundreds of people. Dr wondered why he brought them to this empty ce.
"You can control four alphas. When you achieve proficiency in controlling them, I will grant you the ability to control more Alphas"
Granted controlling more alphas would take a toll on the brain. Hence, Michael gave the task to Dr on top of Dr''s ability to control more alphas at the same time than him because of the book ofherels.
However, the limit was not four. As a Core Formation cultivator, Dr would be able to control at least 10 alphas. ording to Jonah''s research, one Alpha could control 80 undead. Alpha undeads were extremely rare. They were created by the energy signals leaked from the Hydra egg. Since the egg was no longer existing, no alphas would be created on the ind.
Since Michael reached the star 4 inverter lever, he could buildplicated devices. One of the devices he could build was a signal creator which would replicate the signals. He would have built the device if it wasn''t for Vedora being too weak. The device required Vedora to be at least Core Formation level so the signals produced by Vedora would be powerful enough to create Alpha undeads.
Of course, it was not that easy as it had severalplications. For the time being, Michael decided to capture the remaining Alpha undeads on the ind and let Dr control them. By controlling the Alphas, he could control the undeads outside the crypt as well as the undeads of the Nether Realm.
"800 undeads, not enough" Michael thought,
"Did you buy the thing I asked you?" Michael then turned his gaze towards Gaya,
Before he set up the portal opener and summoned undeads from the Nether Realm, he needed to find a way to control them to his will after they crossed the portal. Unruly mindless creatures were no use to him.
At the moment Dr could summon 50 undeads from the Nether realm and control 150 undeads at once. Since controlling Alphas would take a toll on his brain, he would not be able to control Alphas and the undeads at the same time.
Hence, Michael came up with a new n,
Gaya flicked her wrist as a bronze cor appeared in her hand. The cor was big enough to put around a human neck and looked in without any fancy runes or inscriptions.
Taking the cor from her hand, he walked several steps away from them. Then, after a flick of his wrist, arge heavy table and a long chair appeared for him to sit and work.
He took out a bright orb and ced it on the table for light. While Dr and Jonah were familiarizing themselves with Dr''s ability to control the Alphas, Michael worked in silence.
"What''s the n?" she whispered aftering to his side,
"Why did you want me to buy a ve cor?"
"To control the undeads who are going to walk out of the portal we are about to open"
When Michael first told her that the rusty old box could open up a portal to another realm, she couldn''t believe it. But she soon came to agree with him as she had seen him perform so many miracles. The moment he said ''undead army'', she was on board with his n. There was no loyalty or wage problem with an undead army. Therefore, maintaining an undead army was a breeze if they could control them.
"How are you going to do that? Exin it to me" She leaned closer to his face,
Although she had a feeling that whatever he was going to say, she wouldn''t understand itpletely.
"I will simplify things for you" said Michael, not wanting to make her feel stupid.
"That chip I ced in Dr''s neck radiates an energy wave that would control the Alpha. The ve cor works also has the same underlying principle. It creates an energy wave and that energy waves control a person''s very soul. The ve master establishes a connection with the ve cor and through that connection, the ve master controls the ve. If the ve shows any disobedience, he or she just has to will the cor to send a bolt of energy wave into the ve''s body which target''s the soul" he paused for a moment to breathe and continued,
"Since theherels have no soul, I can modify the cor to redirect the energy wave to the undead brain"
"But a ve master could control 40 ves at best. How are you nning to control the hundreds ofherels outside and the ones we are going to summon through the portal?" asked Gaya,
"Controlling a brain takes way less toll on the ve master''s mind than controlling the very soul. If my calctions are correct, a Core Formation cultivator could control 300 undeads after I modified the cors"
Gaya raised her brows after doing the math in her brain,
"Let''s say we both control 400 undeads each, that''s 800 undeads. What about Dr?"
"He could control 10 Alphas and each of them could control 80 undeads"
"Then that''s another 800. 1600 undeads. The ones outside had no cultivation power. So still not a powerful army perse"
Gaya was right. If all the 1600 undeads had Body Strengthening level 7 cultivation, they would have been quite a power to reckon with. Since it was not the case, dominating the cultivation continents using this army was nothing but a dream.
"I''m working on a way to make the undead outside get cultivation power. As for the undeads in Nether Realm, we need to find suitable candidates to control the undead aside from you, me, and Maxine"
"If we are going to build an army, we need loyal generals"
"We already have two. Aria''s brothers" Michael reminded Gaya about Aria''s brothers who were getting healed rapidly inside the tubes.
"We will summon the undead from the Nether Realm here. That way they won''t be as strong as they are in the Nether Realm. Until wee back from Mazeroth, let Dr summon the undeads and roam around the ind. This ind suits better to build an undead army. Since they already have undeads, no one would find out about our summonings"
"Like hiding a tree in a forest. I like the way your brains work" Gaya would have kissed him so deep if it wasn''t for Jonah and Dr in the hall.
"It''s not a perfect n but it''ll work for now. Hopefully, we will have an army of the undead by the time we return from Mazeroth" as he finished talking, the bronze cor lit up for a few seconds before returning to its normal dull self.
"Done"
"Whoa, you''re done?" Gaya was surprised. He was just cing some weird objects on the cor and connecting them with a thin wire. She couldnt understand what was happening between the objects or how they worked together to modify the ve cor.
"Can you grab me an undead from outside?" asked Michael, preparing to test the cor.
"Before I go, I have questions"
"What?"
"Why can''t you use this cor to control the Alpha?"
Michael just smiled behind the mask. It was actually a good question that he himself asked the system for an answer,
"The energy waves created by the ve cor are too weak. If anyone tried to enve an alpha, they will be killed in a few seconds"
She still had a few questions but before she could ask them all, she flew high towards the roof to go outside. Michael waited patiently for Gaya to return. He was calm as he knew the cor would work and the undead would be controlled.
"Order''s up, one freshly captured undead"
A pale undeadnded on Michael''s feet. The putrid smell was overwhelming to Jonah and Dr. They momentarily stopped studying the Alphas and turned their gazes towards the Dark Lord.
Michael ced the cor around the undead before the undead could take a bite at his leg. The moment the bronze cor touched the undead, Michael felt a connection. It was like another arm, he could feel the undead. A tiny crystal stone mined from Stormveil castle was ced inside the cor. It sent a bolt of energy wave to the undead''s brain, making it obedient in a sh. His power made subduing and enving the undead easier than he imagined.
The undead slowly stood up. This time, it didn''t try to leap towards Michael. It growled but remained obedient.
"Well, I need to reduce the power of the cor"
Chapter 418 - Portal opened to the Nether Realm
Chapter 418 - Portal opened to the Nether Realm
The cor was working perfectly, too perfectly. At the moment, they were like robots waiting for Michael to control them. That meant their each and every moment could be controlled by Michael. It was not efficient when he had thousands of undeads as he would not be able to control each and every one. He wanted them like mindless war machines. If he instructed them to attack, they should be able to attack their target without him controlling their movements. This way, whoever controls the cor would have less stress on their brain.
"Grrr" the undead growled as Michael approached the undead. Jonah and Dr were staring at the undead without batting an eye. Dr started to sweat inside his long coat. If Lucifer was able to control the undeads without him, his usefulness to Lucifer would diminish greatly.
Since the system could not make Dr his subordinate for some reason, Michael always handled Dr with caution. He wanted to rece Dr if Dr tried anything weird. He almost reced Dr with the portal opener. Before the portal opener, Dr was the only one who could open a portal to summon theherels but this portal was one way. Onlyherels could walk through the portal, no one could enter theher realm.
Now Michael could open the portal to the Nether Realm and capture as manyherels as he wanted. In addition, he could farm experience points inside the Nether Realm as well as gather rare herbs for his herbal garden.
"What are you doing?" asked Gaya, looking at him tinkering with the bronze cor around the undead''s neck.
"Give me a minute"
Using runes to control the Netherels would be much easier. Considering he was not a runemaster, he had to take the long route by cing severalponents he bought from the system and the stores in this world into the cor.
After tinkering with the cor for a few more minutes, Michael felt the control over the undead had been greatly reduced. But the undead was still in his control.
"Attack that wall"
His order sounded weird but the undead was already running toward the wall he pointed. Reaching the wall, the undead began to attack the wall violently. It punched, scratched, pped, and even bit the wall.
"That''s how you make an undead army" Michael cracked his neck. The words that came out of his mouth were drenched in pride. With an undead army, the bloodshed would be greatly reduced. Also, there wouldn''t be major loyalty issues, maintaining an undead army cost fewer resources, andpared to the human army, the undead army was several times deadlier. Unlike an army made of humans, the undead army would fight till the end as they would not feel any emotions or pain.
"Jonah, Dr" Michael called the both of them. They left the Alpha undeads toe to him,
With a flick of his wrist, Michael retrieved the portal opener from his space ring. He threw the portal opener into the middle of the hall and closed his eyes,
"System, activate the portal"
[Establishing connection with the portal opener¡]
[Please select a target location!]
[Warning, the host will not be able to change the target location afterward¡]
"Nether Realm"
[Locking coordinates¡]
[Manipting the space between the Southern continent and the Nether Realm¡]
The portal opener on the ground began to vibrate as the symbols glowed brighter and brighter with the seconds passing by. They could feel the distortion of space around them.
Boom!
A muffled booming sound echoed through the hall as the portal to the Nether realm finally opened. Dr was stunned and so was Jonah and Gaya. On the other side of the portal, they saw and filled with foreign vegetation. Rainbow color trees, gigantic sunflowers, miniature trees as well asherels. Theherels looked in the direction of the portal as though they had detected the portal open. However, after a few seconds, they went back to roaming around aimlessly.
"Jonah, Dr, your task is to summon as manyherels as you can and put this cor around their neck. You will get more cors before tomorrow night. Take this, this will help you knockout theherels when theye out of the portal" Michael flicked his wrist as several crates appeared beside the portal.
"Maxine will bring you all your necessities"
Jonah and Dr had no choice but to ept. He then retrieved a drone from his space ring before sending it flying into the portal.
"Azazel, I have sent a drone into the Nether Realm. Monitor the feed carefully and contact me if anything interesting happened"
After giving an order to his trusty demon butler, Michael and Gaya activated the runic teleportation to leave the Crypt leaving Jonah and Dr behind.
******************************
Two dayster, Michael and Gaya were preparing to attend the party in Hades. Gaya looked stunning in her new clothes. Her glistening white ornate dress flew from top to bottom and had a square neckline, which gracefully revealed the luxurious dress worn below it. The delectable corset of her dress covered her stomach where the continuous flow was broken up by a simple cloth band worn quite high around her waist.
Below the cloth band, the dress opened up to the left and revealed the dress below. The front of the top dress easily reached the ground in the front, the back continued to flow a good length behind her and ended in a broad rectangle.
Her sleeves were incredibly long and incredibly wide, their flow was broken up just above the elbow where they changed color from pearl white to a tinge of silver and where they were divided by thick, simple bands, these were the same fabric and color used to outline the edges of the dress.
When she adjusted her loose hair, Michael was staggered by beauty. He wore a Victorian gothic-style jacket that reached his knees. The jacket was ornate with silver etchings. His ck trousers perfectlyplimented his ck jacket. Adjusting the edge of his sleeves onest time, he walked towards Gaya. He hugged her from behind and kissed the back of her neck passionately.
"Hehehe it tickles Michael" she giggled.
"You smell good" Michael kissed her cheek,
"It''s the jasmine drops Olivia gave me"
"Speaking of Olivia, is she still in seclusion?"
ording to ire, Olivia was trying to break through to the Core Formation level 9 and she had been in seclusion ever since Gaya left for the Fire Realm.
After the championships tournament, Michael presented her with enough pills and potions to sessfully reach the Core Formation level 9. He nned to make her his subordinate when she came out of the seclusion.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
Someone gently knocked on the door thrice. Since the two of them finished getting ready, they stepped toward the door. When they opened the door, ire was standing outside in amazement.
"Wow, you two are going to steal the show"
ire put her hand around Gaya''s hand and led them towards the outside. When they reached outside, almost the entire Sunrise Sect was there to cheer for them. Michael felt like he was a celebrity on the red carpet. He waved his hand at the disciples as their thunderous cheers got louder.
Ricky was waiting in the carriage.
"Ladies first" Michael opened the door for ire and Gaya. He helped both of them get into the carriage by holding their hands as a gentleman should.
"Did you give the package to him?" he asked Ricky,
"Yes, Master Ghost. He gave you this" Ricky handed over a tiny piece of paper. He opened the paper to see two words written inside,
''Debt settled''
He put the paper into his space ring just in case. In addition to the portal opener, Gaya and Michael took another item from the treasury. It was the item Lord Information asked Michael to get. The item was a bronze te with several runes on it. Michael scanned the bronze te. ording to the system, it was a piece of an artifact and without two more pieces, the system was unable to tell Michael about the function of the artifact.
Although Michael was curious, he handed over the item to Lord Information via Ricky. With this, he had returned the favor to Lord Information for giving the information of who put the bounty on his head before the tournament.
Also, Michael asked all his minions to call him ''Master Ghost'' instead of ''Your Majesty'' outside Bradford. There was no reason for this except thetter made him feel somewhat older.
Since all the pathways were paved, the carriage ride was so smooth. It used to take two hours to reach the river town by carriage due to the untended path but now, it would only take them an hour.
"When are you going to Mazeroth Ghost?"
"Tomorrow morning"
"Aww, your finance gonna miss you" ire yfully nudged Gaya''s elbow,
"I am going into seclusion" lied Gaya as ire was taken aback by surprise,
"Again? Don''t tell me you''re about to reach the Core Strengthening stage"
Gaya shook her head,
"How can I? I''m not a monster like him. I feel like I will reach level 3 if I spend another month or two in seclusion" Gaya lied again because she did not want ire to get more suspicious than she actually was.
At this moment, he did not know he was about to meet his arch-enemy, to be more specific, Lucifer''s arch-enemy, the future Supreme Guardian Noah.
Somewhere else in Ozer, someone had already sent assassins to crash Michael''s special day.
************************
Hi my wonderful readers,
Major( or minor ) turns of eventsing up. New enemies, a new realm and a new version of Michael. The next tournament arck will be a fun filled wild ride with lots of actions and background story.
So get ready....
Also... Hunter Sterling de in another universe is about to get his own system...
Dictator with a Badass System...
(fear not, the both systems are not the same)
Chapter 419 - Engagement Party at Hades
Chapter 419 - Engagement Party at Hades
The vibrancy of the river town peaked when they heard Ghost was nning to visit Hades. This was his first visit to the river town as their king. The people had decorated the entire town withnterns, ornaments, dancing dragons that resembled Nightmare, and signboards. Regardless it was the morning, the people of the river town fired countless fireworks into the sky.
Their clothes were contrary to the colorful decorations. Almost all the people in the river town were dressed in ck. They did not know the purpose of his visit. Nheless, they were delighted to wee their king.
"Hail His Majesty!"
"Hail His Majesty!"
"Hail His Majesty!"
"Hail His Majesty!"
"Hail SunRise sect!"
"Hail SunRise sect!"
"Hail SunRise sect!"
"Hail SunRise sect!"
"Long live the King!"
"Long live the King!"
"Long live the King!"
"Long live the King!"
Their thunderous chants echoed through the river town as the carriage of Ghost entered the town. The carriage slowly moved towards the Hades where the waitresses and waiters were waiting to wee Michael. Today, Hades was closed. Only the invited guests could enter Hades.
The guest had already arrived at Hades and they were waiting for Ghost to make his appearance. Gloria, the manager of Hades, was waiting outside with a wide grin on her face. No one would tell she was amoner by looking at her. From her clothes to her attitude, everything changed after joining Hades. Even the waiters and waitresses looked stylish and smart in ck coats, white shirts, and bows.
Inside the carriage, Michael had a grin on his face. The notification sound of getting badass points sounded louder and louder. He almost earned 20,000 badass points just by reaching the river town.
"It seems our son hase" Meanwhile inside the Hades, Ethan put the orange juice in his hand and whispered to Diana. The loud noise outside made it obvious.
When Diana saw the invitation from Ghost, she was excited beyond words. She canceled all the events she had to attend and made time toe to the river town. Ethan was equally excited to see his son regardless of what happened in the tournament. Despite everything that happened, everyone got what they wanted. Andrews was about to be engaged to Princess Katherine, Ghost got his own kingdom, and the king got to save his daughter.
"Excuse me" while Diana was waiting for her son, she heard a sweet childish voice from behind. She turned back to see a cute little girl wearing a glistening blue dress. She carried a green rose in her hand. The little girl''s round eyes and her two pigtails made her extremely cute. Ethan couldn''t resist the girl''s cuteness. Unlike Diana, he didn''t know the girl.
"Cindy"
Cindy looked surprised when Diana called her by her name,
"My Lady, you dropped this" Cindy held out the green rose for Diana to take. Ethan couldn''t resist the little girl anymore as he ruffled her head,
"Dian, you know this cutie pie"
She nodded,
"She''s the daughter of Lady Raylene, the 5-star chef"
"And the little sister of brother Ghost, sister Aelia, and sister ire"
Cindy puffed out her chest and said, basking everyone around her with her cuteness.
"Aww"
Many who noticed Cindy couldn''t help sighing. They wanted to squeeze this little girl,
"Green Rose, extremely rare" another mature voice sounded as Diana looked in the direction of the door to see Peyton approaching them with a calm smile on her face.
"Guardian Peyton"
Regardless of Diana''s hate towards the Guardians, she greeted Peyton with a nod and a smile. Ethan also smiled at Peyton hiding the hatred in his heart.
Peyton knelt in front of Cindy and took the green rose from her hand. She adjusted her spectacles,
"Very rare indeed"
"Sister, does this belong to you?" Cindy asked politely,
"No little one but I will hand this over to the owner. Deal?"
Cindy looked at Peyton for a few seconds before shaking Peyton''s hand with her tiny hand. After Cindy disappeared back into the kitchen to join her mother, Peyton took the seat at Diana''s table.
Diana did not hate Peyton as she was the best friend of Noah''s girlfriend, Xanali. Plus, Diana or Ethan had no reason to hate Peyton except for the fact she''s a guardian. They couldn''t hate all the Guardians because their son was a Guardian himself.
Peyton took in the atmosphere of Hades for a few seconds in silence. When her colleagues said she must visit Hades at least once just for the view, she thought they were overselling it. But after seeing the majestic view of the flowing river outside, the lighting inside the restaurant, and the decor of the ce, she was truly amazed. Although Hades was just recently opened, booking a table was a hassle, even for a Guardian. The nobles spent thousands of gold coins just to get a table for themselves and taste the cooking of Raylene. Even the people of royal families were in line to get a table.
Peyton also noticed all the prominent figures enjoying the drinks. There were elders of the Kane Family, representatives of the Rainshade merchant guild as well as the elders of the Sunrise Sect.
Not all the tables were upied as it seemed like Ghost only invited a handful of people to the party. Peyton was curious to see what the reason for his invitation was. The coronation ceremony was meant to be held after six months.
As Peyton was looking around, everyone''s gaze fell on the main door. They saw Ghost and Aelia enter Hades. Both of them looked dashing, especially Gaya.
Gloria took the wine ss from the table nearby and tapped the ss with a spoon. The atmosphere quickly became silent,
"Everyone, first of all, thank you for epting my invitation on such short notice. Please enjoy the meals first, I have an important announcement to make afterward. It will be worth the wait,dies, and gentlemen"
Michael did not beat around the bush. The people before him were extremely busy and there was no need for him to use flowery words. Instead, he knew they would like a more direct approach.
Quickly the waiters and waitresses started their work. They moved around the tables taking orders like water flowing downstream, wlessly. Their coordination and speed were truly magnificent and efficient.
Somehow the first faces that drew his attention were Diana and Ethan. On his way to Diana and Ethan, Michael greeted everyone and spent a couple of minutes talking to them as a courtesy. ire joined the Elders at their table, leaving Michael and Gaya to attend to the rest of the guests.
When he reached Diana''s table, he was greeted by her and her husband with wide grins on their faces.
"Lady Diana and Lord Ethan" Michael shook Ethan''s hand and then Diana''s hand. He then greeted Peyton with a smile,
"Miss Peyton" he shook her hand,
Gaya then shook everyone''s hand and took her seat beside Ghost. She wondered why out of all seats he decided to sit with the Winstons and a Guardian.
"I hope you don''t mind me sitting here, Lord Ethan," Michael said. Their table was meant for a family of twelve to sit so they had enough seats to go around.
Ethan shook his head, chuckling,
"Hey, it''s your party and restaurant. You can sit anywhere you want, your majesty"
"Oh please, call me Ghost. I''m still not a king and I prefer my friends address me by my name, Lord Ethan"
"Ladies and gentlemen" As they were talking, Gloria herself came to take the order,
"The specials Gloria" Gaya ordered for them before they could even open the menu. The ''specials'' was a code word for ''bring everything on the menu for today''
"Trust me, you have to try them" Gaya winked at them. Something about Aelia rubbed Diana in the wrong way. ording to Diana''s spies, Aelia was an orphan who grew up with Ghost. But the aura the girl radiated was not of an orphan. Diana met countless orphans and Aelia was not one of them. Diana noticed the way Aelia handled the guests. Amoner girl would have at least felt a little nervous facing powerful people such as the elders of the Kane family. However, Diana saw no signs of nervousness in her attitude.
As Diana was watching Aelia, her heart skipped a beat when she noticed the rings on her finger and the ring on Ghost''s finger. Thest time Diana saw her son, he did not have the ring. She started to connect the dots.
"He''s engaged," Diana came to the conclusion in her mind. A burst of joy exploded in her heart along with a tinge of sadness. She would have celebrated the day as a festival but because of the circumstances, she couldn''t do so. Still, Diana wanted to leap at them and hug them both so tight.
Meanwhile, in the forest surrounding the river town, a group of figures dressed in ck clothes was looking at the Hades from the shadows. They covered their bodies from head to toes. They hid in the darkness of the forest. There were at least fifty people in the group and they all had bows in their hands.
"Team Hawk is in ce" One of the ck-clothed figures among the group spoke. He didn''t seem to speak to the others but to a red stone in his hand,
"Team Eagle is approaching the target site. Let loose on our signal"
A thick voice came from the stone as the ck-clothed figure nodded,
"Target in sight" another ck-clothed figure spoke looking at the Hades,
"The green roses are in ce" Another voice came out of the stone,
"Wait for the target to reach the marked location" the ck-clothed figure who had the red stone in his hands spoke,
Inside Hades, everything was going without a mishap. No one had any idea about the lurkers around them. Even Michael did not sense the figures in the forest as they were far away from the range of Environmental scanning.
"Father, Mother"
Michael and Gaya stood opposite Diana and Ethan. At that moment, Michael heard a voice from behind, a familiar voice. Without even turning back, he could tell who just entered Hades.
"Noah Winston''
Chapter 420 - Ninjas crashed the celebration
Chapter 420 - Ninjas crashed the celebration
Noah who came with Alicia and Xanali took the seat beside his mother and father. Gaya clenched her fist as the smile on her face disappeared instantly when she saw Xanali. Under the table, Michael squeezed Gaya''s hand to calm her down and remind her where they were. Alicia was wearing a sparkling golden gown while Xanali wore a ruby red gown with loose full sleeves. Their beauty caught everyone''s attention. In the middle of the two beauties, Noah remained calm as serene water. He looked contrary to Michael wearing pure white robes.
Diana''s heart warmed seeing her two sons at the same ce despite both Noah and Michael not wanting each other''spany. Before they were born, Skyhall told her that the twins were destined to battle each other for the fate of the world. One would fight for blood and chaos while the other would fight for peace.
Still, Diana invited Noah to the party just to start building the bridge between them and Ghost. Deep down, Noah and Michael didn''t hate each other. Unlike Noah, Michael knew about Noah''s secret. As far as Michael was concerned, Noah and the rest of the world were being manipted by a higher power; the Guardians.
"Have you two met each other before?" Ethan asked, looking at them.
Gaya''s eyes were locked onto Xanali. For Xanali on the other hand, amoner girl no matter who she dates didn''t earn her attention. Hence, Xanali did not even take a second nce at Gaya.
Noah and Michael remained silent for a few moments. Diana was afraid that Noah would be mad at Michael for nearly killing Andrews during the tournament.
"Not like this" Noah calmly answered,
Just like Michael, Noah too squeezed Alicia''s hand under the table to calm her down. Ghost spared Peter his life but made his life a living hell by revealing Peter''s vignte life. In addition to that, he literally wiped the floor with Peter. The mental trauma Peter suffered affected Alicia''s entire family.
The Guardians started investigating Peter and with the evidence Ghost provided, it was only a matter of time before Peter received a sentence from the Guild.
Compared to Michael, Noah was a good guy as he did not reveal Gaya''s identity even though Ghost almost destroyed Alicia''s family and killed his cousin.
"You know, unfortunate things happen in life. We should forget, forgive and move on" Ethan quickly said to ease things up. However, to everyone''s surprise, Noah smiled,
"If you''re talking about what happened to Andrews, I don''t me Ghost"
Even Michael was surprised to hear Noah. He knew Noah was a guy who could be branded as a righteous goody two shoes. Still, he didn''t expect this answer from Noah.
"Andrews knew what he was getting into. I am d everything worked out for everyone"
Noah signaled one of the waitresses to fill their cups. The waitress came running to them with an expensive bottle of wine. She filled all their cups except for Michael and Gaya
Everyone at the table looked at the two of them with a bewildered face,
"We don''t drink"
Diana nodded approvingly while Ethan looked just stunned.
"Me too," Michael nodded at Noah with a smile. Noah really seemed like he didn''t hold any grudge against Michael for beating the crap out of Andrews or destroying Peter. Of course, Noah still hated Ghost for using his talents to get richer instead of helping people. In Noah''s mind, Ghost was a first-ss self-centered person who would lift a finger if there is no profit for him.
Diana was d to hear Noah and felt quite proud of her son. Everything was going better than they expected. The aroma from the kitchen started to kindle their appetite. Noah and Michael could even hear some stomachs growling. They couldn''t me them as whatever Raylene was making smelled so good.
Soon the waitresses and waiters arrived carrying tes from the kitchen. Gloria and two other waiters came to Michael''s table with so many delicious dishes. They neatly lined the dishes on the round table for everyone to easily reach them.
Creamy squash risotto with toasted pepitas, Chilled-marinated pork with brussels sprouts, m toast with pancetta, Filipino-style meatloaf, Grilled garlic, and ck pepper shrimp, Grilled kingfish with creamed corn, Olive Oil confit chicken with cipollini onions, Pork chops With celery and almond sd were just a few dishes Gloria and the two waiters could carry at once. The rest of the dishes were still on the kitchen table waiting to be picked up.
"My lords and mydies, please enjoy your meals'' '' After serving Michael, Gloria tapped the ss in her hands and announced with a gentle smile.
Soon after she announced, everyone dug into the dishes in front of them.
The hall was filled with the sound of forks and knives hitting the dishes and chewing.
The feast continued without any problems. The desserts arrived right after everyone finished their main courses. At Michael''s table, everyone was enjoying their meals in silence. asionally Diana tried to start a conversation that would involve both Noah and Ghost. However, when one answered, the other remained silent. So there was no conversation between Noah and Ghost as Diana wanted it to be.
The desserts disappeared faster than the main courses. When everyone licked the tes and cups clean, they all looked at Ghost for the reason for his invitation.
"The floor is yours Ghost" Ethan patted Michael on the shoulder as he stood up to talk,
"Who else still has some space in the stomach for more desserts?" Michael joked. All the guests let out a chuckle.
"I have two announcements to make. Two life changing announcements" Michael looked at Gaya and smiled before continuing,
"Ladies and gentlemen, I was invited to join Mazeroth" the entire hall went silent after he announced. Gaya expected a few more sentences from his mouth but he suddenly announced the thing without beating around the bush.
The people were stunned, especially Diana. She felt a chill running through her spine. Her shock was not the good kind, it was utter fear and dread. Everyone''s eyes were one Ghost so they failed to notice the gloomy look on Diana''s face.
"So I-"
Just as when Noah was about to turn to look at his mother, all of a sudden, Ghost stopped talking. The very next moment, the smile on Noah and Ghost''s faces vanished. The two of them had sensed the danger before anyone else.
Chill!
Chill!
Two arrows pierced through the ss walls out of nowhere. In a blink of an eye, Michael and Noah both reached out to their parents. Noah caught the arrow that was aimed at his mother and Ghost grabbed the arrow that was aimed at Ethan.
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
It took a few moments for everyone to realize what just happened. Thanks to Michael and Noah''s reflex, they grabbed the arrow mid-air before they could hit Diana and Ethan.
"Get down!" Peyton screamed as loud as she could after seeing the arrows.
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
Chill!
The ss walls around them shattered before anyone could react to Peyton''s shout. Gaya immediately kicked the table before them and used the table as a cover.
"Sunlight shield"
"Earth protection!"
"Metal bubble!"
Many quickly cast defense spells while the arrows were continuously getting forest at them from all directions. Noah waved his hand as a white translucent bubble covered everyone hiding behind the table.
"Mom, dad, stay here!" Noah shouted,
Pulch!
Pulch!
"Argh"
"Grr"
"Argh"
The blood sshed across Michael''s table from the waiters who just got riddled by arrows.
"Lightning Dash!" He immediately cast the spell to save Gloria before she loses her life. The arrows were extremely fast. Even when he was using lightning dash, the arrows seemed to move rtively faster. He was toote but not toote. An arrow stuck Gloria in the arm but he was able to grab her and run into the kitchen area where they had no ss walls.
When he entered the kitchen, he saw Raylene and Cindy backed into a corner by several figures in ninja robes. Under different circumstances, Michael would have thought of earth when he saw the ninjas.
"Master Ghost!"
"Brother!"
Raylene was holding Cindy tight. Her face was pale of the terror around her. The kitchen floor was red with blood. All the helpers were ughtered by the two ninjas. On the floor near Cindy, Daniel was holding his stomach as blood was spraying out of the wound. He looked pale with blood loss.
Michael''s killing intent exploded through the roof when he saw this. The ninjas were only at Body Strengthening stage level 10. It seemed like Daniel who was a Core Formation level 1 cultivator saved Cindy and Raylene and brought enough time. The ninjas were extremely quick. A few minutes ago, Michael did not sense any danger around him. In a split second, they appeared on his Environmental scanning map. They ughtered the helpers in a few blinks.
"Ring of Fire '''' Michael only had to think as streams of fire rushed out of his hands as though his hands were methrowers. It was not a ring of fire but a straight line ofva me aimed at the two ninjas near Raylene and Cindy.
"Lightning Dash" Michael felt losing control to the third persona. It was like something screaming inside his head to let it out. This time, Michael had the upper hand thanks to the meditation and control over his anger.
The ninjas were fast but not as fast as Michael. Before they could leap at him, he reached Raylene and Cindy,
"Go!" Michael shouted as he willed the system to buy a teleportation scroll and teleport the three of them to his room in the dark forest mansion.
In addition to the teleportation scroll, he also willed the system to knock them out unconscious.
The bright light shed across the kitchen and in the next second, Cindy, Raylene, and Daniel disappeared from their sight. The kitchen then became darker as he turned back. His eyes flickered in red. The ninjas who were surrounding him had no idea they just punched the ticket to hell. Fifteen Body Strengthening stage level 10 ninjas were about to face one pissed off Core Strengthening stage warrior. Ghost was too mad to think about the reason for the ambush or who sent the ninjas.
Chapter 421 - Gruesome Massacre
Chapter 421 - Gruesome Massacre
Gruesome Massacre
Michael could hear the sound of battle outside. But more than the sound of spells, the sound of arrows shattering ss and utensils rolling on the ground could be heard louder. He was surrounded by fifteen Body Strengthening stage level 10 cultivators. At the moment, they all looked like dead bodies to Michael because they would soon be.
"Chop him to pieces" one of the ninjas ordered the others as they dashed at him. Michael on the other hand did not unsheath his words or cast any spells. Instead, he grabbed the kitchen knives from the nearby table where the soup was boiling in the pan.
The ninjas zig-zagged towards him. Surprisingly Michael did not hear them casting any spells. Michael couldn''t care less how they managed to perform chantless spell casting.
Some of the ninjas stayed behind and fired arrows made of ck energy.
Those ninjas who dashed at him swung their daggers at Michael. The responsive shield spell formed a transparent blue bubble around him. When the arrows hit the bubble, they just disappeared. In a blink of an eye, Michael grabbed the ninjas by their hands before they could cut him.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
He stabbed both the ninjas in their chests violently. The blood kept sshing out of their bodies.
Boom!
He threw the two ninjas onto the others. The ninjas had lightning-quick reflexes so they avoided the two dead ninjas. He did not stop at that as he grabbed the soup bowl and threw the bubbling hot soup onto the ninja dashing towards him.
"AHHH!"
One unfortunate ninja''s skin waspletely burnt by the soup because the ninja did not have any defense spell cast on him like the rest of them.
"Ring of Fire" he raised both his hands at the ninja who was screaming in agony. Out of his hands, a scorching hot stream of fire came out. The fire burned the ninja into a pile of dust within a few seconds.
Surprisingly the ninjas did not back off. Instead, they dashed at him more furiously. Michael showed no mercy to them. He grabbed one ninja by his hand, mming him onto the table where Raylene used to cut meats.
This time the ninjas threw star shaped shurikens at him. Countless shurikens glowing in crimson red flew towards him. Yet all of them burnt to a crisp when they came to contact with the responsive shield.
He grabbed the cleaver on the table as the ninja on the table squirmed frantically. Three ninjas leaped at him to save the ninja on the table.
"Ignitia" holding the meat cleaver in one hand, sent bolts of lightning at the ninjas approaching him with the other.
Zzzrrrhhhh!
Zzzrrrhhhh!
"Argh!"
"Argh!"
"Argh!"
The lightning bolts hit their target with deadly uracy. The ninjas dropped dead to the ground and all of them had a hold right between their eyes.
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
This time, an ear piercing squeal came out from under the table. It was Gloria who witnessed Michael chopping the ninja on the table to pieces with the meat cleaver. She couldn''t hold back her scream. In her life, she had never seen such a gruesome killing.
Until now, she was looking at him killing the other ninjas and keeping her mouth shut. But when she saw him chopping the ninja into pieces, she couldn''t hold back.
The ninjas did not change their target. Even after seeing their friend getting chopped to death, they still rushed toward Michael without a sliver of fear for their lives in their eyes.
Outside the kitchen, everyone was still pinned down by the rain of arrows. Somehow the arrows pierced all their defensive spells. Fortunately, the arrows were still weak against physical objects. Those who survived hid under the tables. They could not see where the arrows wereing from. Hence, they couldn''t fight back
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
All of a sudden, the ceiling above them exploded. Several figures jumped through the ceiling after the dust cleared. The crumbled pieces fell down from the ceiling, hit several waiters and opened up their heads.
The figures who jumped through the roof looked different than the ninjas in the kitchen. These figures wore thin te armor covering their chests, shoulders, and arms. Silver metal covered the rest of their bodies.
Gaya looked over the table to see their faces. All of them wrapped white cloth around their head to hide their faces.
Gaya counted at least twenty armored figures. She wasn''t sure if they were humans or elves or demihumans behind the cloth.
"I''m sick of this!"
Gaya was just about to leave the cover of the table when all the figures raised their hands up. The very next second, a gigantic chakra materialized above them.
She expected the chakra to do something other than glowing brighter and brighter and rotate in the air. The chakra faded away into thin air after a few seconds. A faint vibrating sound was still ringing in their head. It took these ambushers only a couple of minutes to turn Hades into a ruin. At the moment, people were hiding under the tables for their lives. Many waiters and waitressesy on the ground in their own pool of blood.
Noah saved as many people as he could. Although Gaya hated Noah, if it wasn''t for him, the casualties would have been much higher.
"I can''t feel" suddenly Xanali mumbled,
"What''s happening?" followed by Xanali, Peyton also looked horrified.
"I can''t feel my Arch energy" Peyton started to breathe heavily.
Not only Peyton and Xanali but every single one of them except for Diana looked terrified. They tried to cast spells yet no matter how hard they tried, they could even cast a basic spell.
However, Gaya could feel Arch energy running through her veins just fine. She wanted to use this opportunity to end Xanali''s life. It was obvious the chakra made them temporarily unable to use Arch energy.
Peyton read something about spells that would block arch energy flow in an area, making the ce void of Arch energy. However, she had never seen the spell before. It felt as though she was teleported to the Southern continent where she would feel the same way as she''s feeling at the moment,
Pulch!
Suddenly, one of the figures standing in the circle dropped to the ground. Everyone looked up and saw a spear made of glowing energy sticking out of the figure''s leg.
All the figures looked in the direction where the spear came flying to see Noah standing a couple of meters away from them with a sword in each hand. A glowing shield formed around him which prevented the arrows from piercing through his body.
Gaya was not going to let Noah be the savior of them and steal the show. Besides, she knew about Michael''s problem. She wanted to rush to the kitchen and help Michael before he lost control again.
"Don''t move mydy"
Just as she was about to stand up, Gaya heard Azazel''s voice in her head,
"I have located the archers. If you use your arch energy, the guardians will suspect you and Lord Lucifer. I will deal with the archers from here"
Since Azazelcked a physical body and he couldn''t leave the dark forest without Michael''s help, he was unable to kill the archers hiding in the woods. He located them using drones and Spycams. It was either the ninjas were lucky or the ninjas were too skillful to pick a ce in the woods that wasn''t covered by any of the Spycams.
Azazel could count fifty to seventy archers surrounding the hades. They were rapidly firing arrow after arrow to pin everyone down. Azazel moved all the Spycams in the nearby area towards the archers. Each Spycam was made with stingers and poison. If Azazel could inject poison into the archers, he could put a stop to the rain of arrows.
"Fuck it"
Gaya was not going to stay still while Michael was losing control of himself.
"I can''t use Arch energy fine, I will still reach him" Gaya mumbled under her breath.
"What are you going to do?" Peyton saw Gaya preparing to move out of the table.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
On the other hand, Noah was swinging his sword, cutting the fireballs fired at him by the armored figures. Noah was on the defensive but he was gradually moving towards them.
"Aelia wait,"
Diana tried to stop Gaya but it was toote as she leaped out of the cover.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The arrows and fireballs brushed past Gaya. Several fireballs sted the wall behind her.
"Argh!" one arrow stuck her in the arm when she leaped into the air to reach the kitchen.
"What the?"
When she reached the kitchen, she felt a cold chill running through her spine. Her face turned pale. What she saw was a gruesome massacre.
Limbs, chunks of meat, severed heads, and burned pieces of cloth were everywhere. The floor waspletely drenched in blood.
"Ghost" She uttered the word. Fear had suppressed her voice. She saw his back as he was holding a ninja by his neck against the wall.
As she approached him, she couldn''t help feeling dread in her core. The air in the kitchen felt chilly and the flickering orbs of light gave an eerie feeling to the ce.
The closer she got to him, the faster her heart started to beat.
"Argh"
Creech!
The ninja in his hand squirmed but soon, his entire body got ripped in half by Michael. Blood and organs sshed across the floor and walls. Throwing the two halves of the body to the corner where she saw a pile of mutted bodies, he turned back to look at her.
Gaya stepped back in fear. His eyes were blood red, they were glowing as though someone lit a fire inside his eyeballs,
"I can control him but not for long" His voice terrified her. It was like his normal voice and Lucifer''s voice had a baby together. The glowing red eyes were flickering as he talked
"We have to burn this ce to the ground" Gaya conjured a ball of fire. They must not let anyone see what has happened here.
************************************
Hi my wonderful readers,
Yes yes, I know you don''t like Michael losing control over himself. It was part of the story and stay tuned to see how he is going to handle it.
P.S => The final battle between Noah and Ghost will happen. No changing that.
Chapter 422 - Two Gods, Two ideals
Chapter 422 - Two Gods, Two ideals
Outside the kitchen, Noah was fighting all the armored figures by himself. Regardless of their number, they couldn''t get the upper hand in the fight. Noah''s spells were so powerful. However, Noah did not kill any of them. He just incapacitated them as his mentor taught him. While fighting the armored figures, Noah noticed the interruption in the rain of arrows.
"Light de" Noah cast the spell without chanting. A long sword sparkling materialized in his hand. The armored figure surrounded Noah. Some of them had swords, some had spears, and some cast a spell that turned their fists into fire fists.
Diana''s heartbeat was getting faster by the second. Looking at Noah facing all the unknown figures by himself made her uneasy. No one could tell which cultivation stage the armored figures or Noah was at.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Noah swung his light de at the three figures dashing towards him. The figures with fiery fists shot fireballs. Nearly twenty scorching hot fireballs flew towards Noah.
The figures were fast but Noah was faster. He safely evaded their swords and counterattacked. The light sword in Noah''s hand shed with their metal swords, creating sparks of fire.
Diana and Ethan looked in the direction of the kitchen. They were nervously expecting Ghost toe out of the kitchen. They did not know what happened inside the kitchen.
"Puriferous"
"Expinio"
"Recta"
"Exterminiatis"
After Noah knocked out the three armored figures, those who were behind them immediately cast spells.
Ethan and Diana were stunned after they heard the spell casting. Ethan looked at Diana with a terrified look on his face. Diana''s face was pale with shock and terror.
The spells they cast conjured various objects such as a dragon head made of fiery red energy, rotating chakra, and thorns that came out from the ground beneath Noah. The thorns tried to coil around Noah''s legs but he cut the thorns like butter using his light sword. A hot stream of scorching hot fire was shot from the dragon''s head. It burned the marble ground beneath to ashes as it shot towards Noah.
"Noah!"
Ethan, Diana, Xanali, and Alicia all shouted in unison.
"ARGH!"
Boom!
Noah let out a battle cry and swung the light de at the stream of fire approaching him, splitting the fire in halves.
The translucent light bubble around Noah flickered after the chakra hit the bubble. The force of Noah''s sword-swinging split the ground open. One of the armored figures fell into the crack. When he tried to get out, Noah flicked his wrist, forming a light spear in his hand.
He threw the light spear at the figure. The light spear stabbed the figure through the shoulder, pinning him to the ground.
Noah started to breathe heavily as he could count twenty people surrounding him. In addition, he sensed more figures flying above the building.
"Teacher" Noah called his teacher in his mind,
"They can''t keep the void spell for no longer than ten minutes, Noah. Five minutes more and all the cultivators here would get their arch energy back"
Andreas''s voice reassured Noah. Noah wiped off the blood dripping down the corner of his mouth.
Noah closed his eyes as the translucent bubble became brighter once again.
"Increnuno"
"Reflectenus"
"rasi"
"Scorchorus"
Some of the figures cast the spells and at the same time, the rest of them rushed at Noah. They seemed to target only Noah.
Boom!
All of sudden, a loud explosion shook the entire building. The ceiling crumbled, raining concrete bits and pieces down. The explosion did not even slow the figures down a bit. Thick gray smoke came out of the kitchen and covered the entrance. Diana and Ethan fixed their eyes on the kitchen door.
Through the cloud of smoke, they saw two figures walking out.
"Ghost" Diana couldn''t help letting out a heave of sigh in rxation. Ethan too slightly looked relieved.
When Michael came out of the kitchen, he saw nothing but ruins. His favorite restaurant and the first business he owned in this world were in rumbles.
The elders and the guests were hiding behind tables while many bodies wereid on the ground under blocks of rocks. The arrows stopped fortunately which meant Azazel had done his task sessfully.
Gaya''s anger was bubbling inside her yet she remained calm for Ghost. She squeezed his arm.
Since they saw Ghost use his arch energy earlier, they kinda expected him to join forces with Noah and fight the armored figures. However, Michael justpletely ignored the battle happening just a few meters away from him and made his way towards where ire and the elders were.
Surprisingly the armored figurespletely ignored Michael and Gaya.
"What is he doing?" Ethan asked bewildered,
Michael stepped over an armored figure who was pinned to the ground by Noah.
"Ghost, Aelia, get down!"
Gaya heard a familiar voiceing from behind a round table. However, she sensed grief in the voice of Elder Reiner. Behind the round table, ire was sobbing. Elder Markid on herp as Elder Reiner and Elder Sandra were holding Elder Mark''s hand.
An arrow was sticking out of Elder Mark''s throat. His eyes were closed and his skin was pale as white paper.
ire looked up at Ghost. Tears were gushing out of her eyes. There were several empty vials near Elder Mark. Everyone looked at him. But there was no expression on his face at all. He stood there like a statue.
Inside, Michael was burning with rage. His rage was so overwhelming that he suppressed the third personapletely. He was so pissed at himself. He med himself for the ambush. His mind kept reminding him that he should have been more prepared and careful.
"Go," Gaya said. She wasn''t going to hold him back anymore. She doubted she could hold him back anymore. She herself was burning with rage.
Granted Michael and Gaya weren''t close with Elder Mark as they were with Elder Reiner. Gaya was close with Elder Sandra too as she worked with Elder Sandra managing the funds in the sect and Bradford.
Yet when they saw Elder Mark''s lifeless body, both of them grieved. The death of Jack shed across their eyes. First Jack and now they lost Elder Mark.
Michael was standing on one end, Noah was on the other hand and the armored figures stood in the middle. Several figures surrounded Noah as they focused on Noah.
Zzzhhhhhrrrrrrr!
Zzzzzzhhhhhrrrr!
The buzzing sound of electricity reverberated the hall as bolts of lightning coiled around Ghost''s hand. The two ck swords materialized in his hand and soon, the lightning bolts coiled around the des as though they were tiny snakes.
"Teacher"
Noah called out to his teacher in his mind. Noah was stunned to see Ghost using Arch energy.
"I¡I don''t know" for the first time, Noah heard his teacher stutter without having an answer.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 4000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 6000 badass points]
¡.
The sound of notifications kept ringing in his head like crazy. Hepletely ignored them. When a rapidly increasing amount of badass points could not put a smile on his face, one should know someone was about to get ughtered mercilessly.
Diana''s jaw slightly opened as the images of the Dark Lord she saw in the future shed across her eyes. Those who surrounded Noah dashed at him despite failing again and again to kill him. They seemed to be oblivious to Michael''s existence.
Michael slowly raised his sword as the golden lightning bolts coiling around the sword became brighter and brighter. In the next second, a thick bolt of lightning shot out of the end of the sword.
Boom!
The armored figure which got hit by the lightning bolt exploded into a red mist. A Core Formation level 3 cultivator stood no chance against Michael.
The rest of the armored figures finally noticed Michael. They stopped attacking Noah and turned their gazes at Ghost.
Noah could have easily overpowered the armored figures if he went for the kill. Instead, Noah focused on incapacitating them. Otherwise, Noah would have ended the battle long ago.
"Kill them, kill them all!" ire shouted. For the first time in her life, she encouraged someone to take lives.
"No, don''t!" Peyton and Xanali screamed from the other end.
The armored figures momentarily stopped attacking as though they were interested in the conversation. Something about them rubbed both Noah and Michael in the wrong way. They were acting more and more like puppets who were being controlled by someone or something else.
"Diddle diddle" the cold words escaped Michael''s mouth,
"You are so¡" he slowly stepped towards the armored figures without an expression on his face. There were two armored figures in front of him. One was standing with a fiery fist while the other one was pinned to the ground by Noah''s light sword.
"Etheri-"
The one who was standing tried to cast a spell,
Pulch!
His chanting was abruptly stopped by a sword through his throat.
Zzzzhhhhhrrrrr!
The electric bolts slid through the sword to the armored figure. The figure''s body violently squirmed as smoke began toe out from the inside and out. The lightning bolts turned his body into a pile of half-burned mess within a few minutes.
"Ignitia" Michael turned his sword to the armored figure who was standing a couple of meters away from him. The lightning bolt shot out from the sword soared through the sky,
"Light beam"
At the same time, Noah raised his light sword as a beam of light shot out from the end of the light sword.
Boom!
The light beam hit the lightning bolt before it could reach the target. When they both shed, a mini-explosion knocked everyone around them to the ground. Their eyes were locked on each other.
Chapter 423 - Infiltrating the Alpha Guardian
Chapter 423 - Infiltrating the Alpha Guardian
Diana clenched her fish, looking at her sons. The two of them looked as though they were about to start a battle. If they battled it out, none of them would survive the bacsh because just the sh of their spells knocked all the armored figures out. They were still struggling to stand up.
"Killing is not justice," Noah said calmly.
"Late justice is injustice," Michael coldly replied.
Noah was nning to capture everyone and interrogate them while Michael nned to kill everyone except one. Michael would then interrogate the one to get the information he needed.
Either of them knew the other one wouldn''t back down without a fight. Usually, Michael would have avoided fighting with Noah, especially after knowing Noah''s secrets. If he was to battle Noah, he had to use his full power. Revealing his full power would eventually lead them to conclude that Ghost and Lucifer were the same people.
However, Michael was confident that Noah couldn''t defeat him. He would either win or their battle would be a stalemate. The odds of Noah defeating him were almost zero unless Noah revealed himself as the future Supreme Guardian and the existence of Andreas''s soul.
He doubted Noah would reveal his secret so Michael wasn''t going to back down. Moreover, he was pissed off. These ambushers did not only destroy Hades but also killed Elder Mark.
The Guardians almost had the same justice system as in most of the democratic countries on Earth. They would first file a case, then go to trial, then another trial, and another and another, the case would go forever. ording to the information Michael gathered on the internal workings of the Guardians, it would take at least a few years for Noah to get the one who was responsible for the ambush. The worst thing was the guardians would keep the armored figures safe and cozy in their prison cells instead of torturing them for information. There was no way in hell Noah would torture them. For Noah, these armored figures were just another problem. With time, even he might forget about them after handing over the case to some guardian. If these armored figures had some power behind them, they would bribe the guardians and get them out.
Michael''s route was more direct and efficient although inhumane. He did not know Noah was nning to reform the Guardian guild and their justice system from the ground.
"I''m going to stop them" Ethan could not see his two sons fight.
"Stop!"
All of a sudden, a gentle yet mighty voice reverberated in the area. A bright beam of light shot from the sky through the broken ceiling. The beam of light sent a shock wave when it hit the ground, breaking everything around.
Several figures stepped out of the bright light beam.
"Alpha Guardian" Peyton was startled to see the sudden appearance of the Alpha Guardian of Hunter Guardians. Michael did not recognize the elf in front of him.
Golden, straight hair slightly covers a fine, lived-in face. Expressive amber eyes, set deep within their sockets, watching over the castle bodies and the rubbles calmly. Her skin was smooth as silk and so wless. The pointy ears looked as though they were a pair of sharp daggers.
The set of armor she wore had a squared helm with a faceguard shaped in the face of an Eagle. Attached to its side were two tall wing-shaped ornaments to mimic the shape of Eagle wings.
The shiny silver armor was made from manyyers of smaller metal pieces, mimicking the scales of a dragon. It covered the entire front and backside, but the attachment straps leave the sides under the arms exposed which enabled the armor to be more flexible. The edges and the linings in the armor were made of pure gold. On the chest te, the letter ''H'' was surrounded by four wolves engraved.
The armor made the elf look like she was almost 6ft 6inches in height. She looked at Ghost first and then turned her gaze to Noah. Without uttering a word, she just flicked a wrist as all the armored figures around them got beamed into the sky.
Those who stepped out of the light beam with the elf also wore the same armor as the elfdy but their faces were covered by helmets.
"Guardians sweep the ce clean" The Alpha guardian ordered her men. Everyone else breathed a sigh of relief after the Alpha Guardian''s appearance.
"Noah, do you need healing?" the Alpha Guardian asked Noah as he shook his head. The light sword in his hand disappeared,
"You can all give your statements and leave" The Alpha Guardian did not even look at them. She just waved her hands like she was chasing dogs away.
The people in the room were prominent figures. Seeing the way she acted rubbed them in the wrong way. Still, none of them expressed their dissatisfaction. The third persona inside him screamed at him to rip the elf into pieces. It couldn''t take the disrespect well. Although Michael was pissed off at the Guardians, he was not stupid to go against a Fusion Stage level 3 warrior.
Controlling the boiling anger within himself, he turned to leave. This was not the right time to go against the Guardians. The cks swords disappeared into his space ring along with the golden bolts of lightning.
"Not you" When he turned around, he heard the elf''s voice,
Without even turning back, he could tell the elf was talking to him. Gaya stood up to stand beside him. On the other side, Peyton and Xanali came to join the Alpha Guardian.
"This is now a Guardian business, stay away"
"Fuck you bitch" Michael wanted to say these words directly to her face. To be honest, he could feel the third persona inside him wanting to say this.
"I don''t know who ordered this" Michael said, looking around,
"Whoever they are, they should pray for you Guardians to get them first"
The threat was obvious. The elf could see the killing intent in his eyes.
Michael did not linger around. Elder Reiner stood up carrying Elder Mark''s body in his arms. Before Diana could talk to him, she saw Ghost leave the area with the people of his sect.
The other elders and the guests left the area too as quickly as they could. They were afraid of another ambush. The moment they felt the arch energy again, they flew out of Hades or what was left of it.
A few hourster, Michael was in the dark forest mansion. He did not attend the funeral of Elder Mark. After paying gold coins for the renovation of Hades, he left the sect. Apparently, the armored figures cast an illusion spell around Hades. The illusion made everything normal to the people outside so they had no idea that there was a battle happening inside.
Ricky told them about that. Daniel on the other hand was not so lucky. If Michael had just been a couple of minuteste, Daniel would have died.
The arrows and the weapons they used prevented the healing potion from healing the wounds.
"Did you manage to get any of them?" asked Michael, entering the surveince room.
"They were teleported my lord" Azazel pointed at a mirror that showed numerous ck-robed figures disappear in a blink of an eye.
"So the Spycams?"
"They were destroyed, my lord" Azazel shook his head,
"Teleportation, void creating spells, grand scale illusions, weapons that mess with healing potions. Who are these guys?" Gaya looked at the mirrors with her hands behind her back.
"Whoever they are, they just made themselves an enemy of mine. And that''s gonna end very badly for them" said Michael coldly.
"Aria will get you more mirrors. I have already built more drones and Spycams for you. I want my eyes in every corner of this continent"
"That will be done, my lord" Azazel bowed,
"Lucifer, did you notice those freaks mainly targeted Noah? I have a feeling that this ambush wasn''t meant for us but Noah"
"I don''t give a shit who their target was. They messed with me. Before all this shit, I was a hitman, I was the best. When I pick my target, I will always get them, no matter who they are, or where they are" By almost killing Cindy and Raylene, whoever sent the ninjas reached the top of Michael''s kill list.
"How do you n to get them?"
"By infiltrating the Guardian guild"
Gaya felt a chill,
"Whoa, infiltrating the Guardians? You''re joking?" asked Gaya. Her brows were arched up behind her mask. She waspletely stunned.,
As far as she could remember, he always stayed back from the Guardian guild. Even when they learned that Guardians was hunting him for more than three thousand years.
"I have a n" Michael snickered. He was building this n for quite some time and only now he got all the required items to put the n in motion.
For the next few minutes, Michael exined his n to Gaya and Azazel. When he finished narrating his n, Gaya was genuinely surprised.
"Lord, I have only one question," asked Azazel after giving a deep thought to the n he just heard.
"Ask"
Michael knew what he was going to ask,
"What if those armored men were teleported to the Guardian Guild headquarters? They will decimate-"
Michael interrupted Azazel,
"They are not in the Guardian guild headquarters"
With a wave of his hand, Michael changed the footage of all mirrors. All those mirrors worked as one single disy. In the disy, they saw an empty hall lit with white orbs. The hunter guardians of the Alpha guardian Michael met earlier stood guarding the hall.
Gaya and Azazel were bewildered as they couldn''t guess where the footage wasing from,
"They are in the Alpha Guardian''s airship" a cold smile emerged on his face,
"Did you just bug the Alpha Guardian?" asked Gaya.
Chapter 424 - The Dark Elf in the tree
Chapter 424 - The Dark Elf in the tree
Michael was sitting on his throne in the dimly lit throne hall. Gaya paced towards him after finishing her tasks.
"ire has informed everyone you are going to Mazeroth as we told her to"
"Hmm" nodded Michael,
Instead of sitting on her throne beside Michael, she sat on hisp. She removed the masks on their faces and kissed him. The kiss made both of them feel lightened. With everything that happened, the kiss calmed their nerves.
Michael too enjoyed the passionate break. He gently caressed her hair while kissing her longer and deeper.
When his grab around her waist tightened, she purred
"Are you sure Michael?" After several minutes of kissing, she departed her lips from his.
"It''s for the best. The longer I stick with the sect, the more they be the target to everyone else. Those who cannot hurt me will harm them and I won''t be able to protect them forever"
"I can see that but we put so much effort into the sect and it''s growing up to be a formidable force human" Gaya ced her forehead on his forehead. She was so close to him and wrapped her hands tight around his neck,
"Snake, I''m just talking about graduating from the sect, notpletely abandoning them. We still manage the sect from behind the scenes"
He pinched her nose,
"I know human. I just wanted to hear you say that. I''m not gonna stop until our sect bes the most powerful one in this fucking world. In the future, every sector should be in our control"
He could see the resolve in her eyes. It felt great to have her around. With a woman like her by his side, he could indeed take the entire world head-on.
As they were talking, Azazel appeared in the hall out of thin air,
"Oh, forgive me my lord, mydy. I wille backter" Azazel quickly said.
"Don''t be a baby Sebas" Gaya chuckled, looking at the mighty demon who tried to be courteous.
"What is it Azazel?" asked Michael before the demon started to blush or something.
"I talked to Lady Aria, my lord. I informed her brothers should stay in the manor until you return. She asked for your permission to leave Gisal and stay with her brothers"
"Why not?"
Michael wasn''t going to prevent Aria from spending time with her brothers. The longer she spent time with her brothers, the more she would feel grateful to him. Thus, her loyalty to him would increase.
He nned to make the two brothers his generals. Soon his undead army would grow in numbers and at that time, he would need loyal generals tomand the army. Since Aria''s brothers were soldiers, with enough training, they could be great generals. However, war andmanding an army was not Michael''s area of expertise. Luckily, he had the princess of Nagnd with him.
Though Gaya had no prior experiencemanding an army, there was no doubt in his mind. She would make a damn good queen and a superiormander.
"Another loose end tied. What else should we do before departing?" asked Gaya,
"Nightmare is saying his goodbyes, Vedora has entered into seclusion. Maxine will be busy mining the crystals in Stormveil mountain, Tiberius is building his own kingdom"
Michael had given orders to each of his subordinates while he was away.
"Caius and Heinberg are working with the Maven senators to merge the two kingdoms. The civil war in Maven is still young so it will take some time"
Said Michael as though he had nothing to do with the civil war in Maven.
He was the one who orchestrated the entire thing so he could merge Gisel with Maven with the support of the people of both kingdoms. Through Corey, he supplied weapons and resources to the freedom fighters in Maven who were fighting against Senator Vibius. They believed that Senator Vibius was raising taxes, driving the economy to drain, and militarizing the kingdom. They had no idea that Senator Vibius was long dead.
Michael''s n was to merge all the senate-ruled kingdoms into one single kingdom. For now, the merger of Gisel and Maven was enough. No matter what, he needed to protect the Stormveil mountain and the existence of the arch energy crystals from the Guardians.
"What about Sadie?" asked Gaya,
"Her task is to simply get stronger. I provided her with enough pills and potions to reach Core Formation level 7 within four months"
"The sooner she gets stronger, the better. We need to take over the SilverMoon as soon as possible. I''m getting sick of this Guardians"
Michael felt the same way. It was like no matter how strong he got, the Guardians seemed stronger. However, when he thought about the third persona, surprisingly he smiled,
"Did you forget darling? I am the fucking dark lord"
****************************************
Somewhere else, a man wearing long purple robes and half-moon spectacles was walking towards a giant banyan tree. A white dragon the size of a three months old puppy was standing on his shoulder and calmly looking around the surroundings. The figure was none other than Wulfric.
As far as one could see, there was nothing but the banyan tree and Wolfric in the ce. One could wonder how such a giant tree grew on and paved with marble stones. Several cone-shaped mountains were floating in the sky as though they were balloons. Wulfric calmly walked towards the tree.
As he approached the tree, the tree moved, not the entire tree but the bark of the tree.
"Destiny is a mysterious thing" another calm voice sounded from within the tree. Soon, a figure emerged from inside the tree. A humanoid figure and the face of a man could be seen in the tree.
"Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same" the words were spoken in a gruff voice,
"How are you, old friend?" Wolfric asked the figure stuck to the tree,
"Same old Wulfric, asking the questions you already know the answer to" the figure seemed to be chuckling but the mouth did not move much,
"Elidyr" Wulfric uttered the name,
"It''s been ages since I heard that name," said Elidyr. He sounded exhausted. It was not a surprise as he was being tortured by the Skyhall for thest three thousand years.
Elidyr was one of the founding fathers of the infamous Order of Death. He started a cult to suppress the Skyhall. With geniuses and prodigies from every corner of the world, he and the fellow founding fathers managed to create a power that rivaled the Skyhall itself in a mere thousand years.
But like many powers who challenged the Skyhall, they were obliterated.
"When did west meet? Thousand years ago or twenty one years ago?" Elidyr amused,
"Same old Elidyr, asking the questions you already know the answer to"
Wulfric began to walk around the tree with a calm smile on his face. Since Elidyr was stuck to the tree and couldn''t move his neck, he waited until Wolfric came before him.
"What''s troubling you my friend? What you did twenty one years ago?"
"You said it yourself Eldity, dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same. You cannot escape destiny" Wolfric sighed,
"You also cannot imprison the destiny Wulfric" This time, Elidyr''s lips curved upwards, letting out an amused smile,
"No prison in the universe could hold him back. He is here, isn''t he?"
Wolfric smiled. There was no fear in his eyes, just exhaustion.
"He''sing here Elidyr. I invited him"
Elidyr was surprised and yet, ever since he knew Wolfric, it had always been impossible to know the reasons for his actions.
"He goes by the name Ghost and he has already started to grasp the power of darkness"
One could not see any expression on Elidyr''s almost wooden like face. But inside, Elidyr was excited. Three thousand years of torture grew into a giant tree of anger towards SKyhall in his heart. He was waiting for the day of the Dark Lord''s arrival. Elidyr wanted nothing but to see him burn the SKyhall to the ground and everyone who helped Skyhall decimate the Order of Death as well as his friends.,
But still, Elidyr had one question after hearing Wulfric,
"And if you know this, why don''t you go kill him?"
The dragon looked at Wulfric. She also had the same question as the dark elf,
"Meddling with gods'' will only lead to catastrophe, my friend. I learned that the hard way. If the world''s destiny is to get destroyed by the Dark Lord and reborn as a new world, no mortal can stop that from happening"
Eldyr remained silent for a few moments before asking,
"Still, why did you invite him? Let me guess, you are not going to tell me"
Once again, Wulficr smiled gently,
"Goodbye old friend" As he said, Wulfric ced his hand on Elidyr''s head as numerous symbols appeared on the tree. The faint sound of vibrations reverberated the area. Soon, Elidyr''s eyes began to glow too.
"AHHHHH" Elidyr screamed as the dragon watched the dark elf with a bewildered face. Soon, the dark elf''s scream abruptly stopped,
"Master, what was that?"
"I erased his memories of me" Wulfric almost sounded sad. He patted Elidyr on the shoulder which was covered by bark and a green moth. He then looked around, enjoying the serenity of the Akn realm onest time,
"Soon, everything is going to change"
Wulfric closed his eyes, stroking his long white beard. A gentle breeze arrived at the same time gathering all the green leaves shed by the banyan tree. The trees brushed past him and when the breeze settled down, Wulfric and the dragon were nowhere to be found. They disappeared into the thin air.
Chapter 425 - The Grandspire Bank
Chapter 425 - The Grandspire Bank
In mefair, one of the dukedoms of kingdom Kethen was an imposing milky white building built with marble stones. The building was located near the avenue that led to mefair duke Avon''s vi. From the street, a set of paved stairs led up to a set of burnished golden doors. The doors were nked by an elf in a uniform of scarlet and gold. This was the entrance to the Grand Spire Bank mefair branch. Before leaving for Akn Realm, he had to deposit a percentage of his wealth. By doing so, he would get a paycube which was simr to a credit card on earth. Since he agreed to be the leader of the Thusian Alchemy Guild, Calvin insisted he open an ount in Grand Spire Bank so they could transfer his monthly payment without any dy.
"Nice" Michael nodded in approval looking at the bank before him. This building could not scream ''wealthy'' any louder. The stairs led into a small entrance hall and another set of doors. The door frame and the handles were made of pure gold. He chose not to stare at the elves at the door because he did not want to be seen as a noob who had never seen an elf in his life before.
Through these doors, also nked with elves, was a vast marble hall with long counters stretching along its length with doors leading off to the vault passageways with around a hundred elves and dwarves sitting at them. The vaults extended for miles under the city and were essible through rough stone,plex and interconnected passageways by means of magic pushcarts that were operated by dwarves. Rumor had that a dragon a lurk in the depths of each branch as additional security devices.
"Lord Ghost" Just after passing through the door, he was called by a youngster wearing sky blue robes. He was fanning himself with a matching blue fan and when he saw Ghost, he grinned ear to ear which seemed pretty forced.
"You must be the one Calvin sent" Michael shook the youngster''s hand,
"It''s an honor to meet you Lord Ghost, I am Liang Li"
"Lead the way, Li" said Michael as the youngster walked towards an elf sitting on the far end counter in the hall. He heard about elves being innately beautiful but when he saw the girl before him, he realized beautiful was an understatement. Her skin was sparkling smooth, the golden hair looked as though each strand of hair was made of gold.
"Mister Li, Lord Ghost. Please be seated" the elf said with a heartwarming smile,
"You know me?" asked Ghost in doubt.
The elf nodded, "it''s our task to learn about potential clients Lord Ghost"
"Cool"
"Now Lord Ghost, Mister Li. How can I be of assistance?"
Michael looked at the name board on the table before her. The name ''Vanya Valric'' was written on the board in beautiful calligraphy.
"Miss Valric. You said it''s your task to learn about your potential clients. So I assume you know about my two businesses"
The elf nodded once again as Michael continued,
"Until now im dealing without pay cubes but it''s not- how do you say, professional and convenient" Michael was just saying this for the sake of conversation. The bank took pride in keeping the contents stored in their vaults safe and secure. However, security was not a concern to Michael as he stored his gold coins in system storage which was the most secure ce he could think of.
The reason Michael decided to open an ount was because of Calvin and for the ease of transferring coins. To this day, when he purchases something for a hundred thousand gold coins, for example, he had to give a hundred thousand gold coins physically. That meant, stacks made of gold coins so high would appear and the seller or the owner had to count the coins. This process was tedious. If he had pay cubes, on the other hand, he could just transfer the gold coins in his Grand Spire bank ount to another ount easily in a few seconds.
"To be honest Lord Ghost, I don''t know how you managed until now without a paycube. It''s a must for a business with a caliber like yours. You have made the right choice bying here. I would suggest you open a VIP ount rather than a normal ount, Lord Ghost" the elf suggested,
"Let me exin the key benefits, Lord Ghost. Transferring funds in your ount from one continent to another will be done within a day. If you wish to transfer items such as artifacts, paintings etcetera etcetera, we will handle the security so you can be at ease. Another benefit that you would be interested in more is our tax reduction"
"What is that?" asked Michael,
"Currently, if your monthly ie is more than 10million, you will have to pay tax to each kingdom your revenue flows through. 40% of your ie will go to paying taxes. But if you are a VIP ount holder in our bank, your ie will be directed to your grand spire ount and your taxes will be reduced to 30%. You will save 10% and Lord Ghost, that''s not a small percentage "
Thest part got him. He hated paying taxes and filling the bellies of nobles in each kingdom. If Gaya was here, she would have jumped the gun and said okay right away after hearing the elf. His current monthly ie was somewhere between 12- 14 million including his 2 million monthly paycheck from Thusian Alchemy Guild.
"Miss Valric. I heard how secure your bank is"
"But you want to see how secure" the elf cut Michael''s sentence.
"It''ll be better if I show you instead of exining Lord Ghost. Shall we?" the elf stood up, gesturing at Michael and Li to follow her.
"Great" Michael was kinda excited. As the elf turned around to lead them to the vaults, he took out a Spyder from his system storage and willed it to be on his chest, sending feeds to Azazel.
At the end of the brightly lit hall was a golden door. The two elves nking the door opened it to let Valric, Michael, and Li through.
In contrast to the grand marble of the entryway and the main hall, on the other side of the door, the passageways to the vaults were stone and dimly lit with ming torches. After following Valric for a few minutes, they came to a slop where Michael saw coiling train tracks.
"Levetus" a golden cart materialized on the tracks after she uttered the word. The trio climbed onto the cart one by one and when they were settled, Valric just flicked her wrist and the cart began to run automatically.
"Whoa" Li seemed a little queasy when the cart began to elerate significantly. The cart was taking them deep beneath the surface through the maze of twisting passages. Michael tried to get a look at their surroundings but in addition to the cart''s speed, the vast,plex interconnected series of tracks prevented him from doing so.
After almost fifteen minutes of cart riding, the cart came to a halt in front of a giant door made of dark metal. The door stood at least 30meters in height and 20 meters wide.
"This is the first security measure, Lord Ghost. This door is built to withstand any magical spells cast no matter who cast the spell"
Valric sounded proud. She then ced her hand on the door and said,
"Obenta"
The ground vibrated as the door slowly creaked open. While it was opening, Michael asked,
"What if someone else said the same word. Will the door still open?"
Valric smiled, almost seeming amused by the question.
"The door has runes on it which analyze the voices of Grand Spire workers in real-time Lord Ghost. Plus, the passcode changes every minute which only the authorized personnel know"
Michael took a mental note,
"Miss Valric. How does this door open, runes?" Li asked,
"No runes Master Li, raw physical strength"
"What do you mean by that?" Li couldn''t help questioning,
"Giants Master Li. Only the strongest giants can open this door from inside. As for the location of the giants and the door mechanism, it is kept as a top-secret"
When the doorpletely creaked open, they were weed by an endless dimly lit hall with thousands of mini vortexes. These deep-sea blue vortexes were hovering in the air and the sheer number of them startled Michael.
"This is the second security measure, Lord Ghost. When you open your ount, a mini pocket dimension and the entryway to that dimension will be created here. Each portal is assigned a number. Only the handler of that ount number could enter the portal. Every portal you see here is protected by several powerful runes and arrays. If anyone tried, not that they coulde this far, they will be burnt to a crisp"
"What if this handler tried to get his hands on the items?" asked Michael,
"The handler could ess the dimension but he or she won''t know the coordinates of the ce where the bank keeps your items. Every dimension is near inhabitable Lord Ghost. No one can survive there for more than an hour. So if you don''t know where to look for the items, odds are you''re dead. After knowing the coordinates by contacting us and passing the verification tests, the handler will be given the coordinates. The vault at the coordinates is imprable even by an immortal. When the client requested an item to be taken out of the vault, the bank will hand over the handler a special rune. After reaching the coordinates, the vault will ask for the passcode which will be given to the handler from our security branch after another series of verification processes"
By the minute, she was impressing Michael. Somehow these verifications sounded like intriguing death traps. On top of everything, Michael felt like he''s been watched by several entities.
"The handler then ces the rune on the vault. The rune will teleport the item directly to a secure ce. The rune will change every three hours so duplicating is not an option. After that, the bank will give the coordinates of the ce to the client. The client has the option to pick up the item or to be delivered to the preferred location. We will take the required items from the client when opening a new ount"
The elf exined everything patiently.
"Of course, this is just the gist of it. Some parts of the security are only shared with those with high clearance levels. You can rest assured Lord Ghost, there are no other secure ces like Grandspire in this world"
Michael was truly surprised. He could not think of a single weak point in the security system and what she told him until now seemed like only half of the security. It was evident that behind the scenes, there were more security measures in ce. Therefore, robbing this ce was nothing but suicide. Michael hoped he won''t have to steal from Grandspire in the future.
At this time, he did not know fate had another thing in store for him.
Chapter 426 -Arriving at Mazeroth
Chapter 426 -Arriving at Mazeroth
The next day, the sun slowly rose from the horizon spreading its golden rays to thend. The warmth of the sun woke up the early birds along with the disciples of the Sunrise sect. The sect waspletely revitalized by new buildings and majestic flower ntations. The fountains built asionally on the neatly paved road added an extra bit of charm to the sect''s beauty. Only one construction ce could be seen and it was on the ce where Ghost''s previous house was located.
On Gaya''s rampage, she destroyed the home. Ever since then, the dwarven engineer who built the Hades was tasked to build Michael''s new home. Michael bought a blueprint from the system store and made some changes to amodate his taste and the size of thend given to him and handed the construction work to the dwarf. The total cost to build his new home was a whooping 18million gold coins. The blueprint Michael bought was the blueprint of Updown court in Ennd. The changes were made to make the house smaller since Michael had no need for so many rooms and bathrooms.
After discussing with the dwarf, the house ended up with 20 rooms, 10 bathrooms, and five swimming pools including one private swimming pool for Gaya and Michael. Even this felt like too much to him but Gaya insisted and refused to go lower than 20 rooms.
Currently, only Gaya was standing in front of the half-built home waiting for Michael,
"Sorry, it took longer than I expected" Michael appeared out of thin air thanks to runic teleportation.
"Everything alright?"
Gaya asked, hugging him tight. They both continued to kiss each other before departing,
"Went great actually, I opened up a VIP ount and Calvin''s guy made a deposit of 6million into the ount as my bonus. I guess Thusians have gold to spend"
"We should milk as much as we can before we destroy them" Gaya grinned,
"What about you? Did you tell the Kane family elders we might not be able to make it to the wedding?" asked Michael. He sat on the stack of marble stones and helped Gaya up. He then put his hand around Gaya''s shoulder,
"They are pretty pissed off about the ambush. I heard that''s the hottest topic in Elon right now. And oh, the wedding has been postponed"
Michael was surprised. The Kane family went to such lengths to make sure Adam weds the Oswen family heiress. It was highly unlikely they postponed because a trio of elders got ambushed.
"They didn''t tell me why. They just told me the wedding has been postponed"
"Did you happen to meet Lord Ashton?"
"Nope," Gaya shook her head,
"Your full name is Gaya Ashton and he is also called Ashton. You two rted?"
"It''s coincidence brat" she gnawed Michael''s hand yfully,
"Ouch, you animal" Michael knocked her on the head,
He suddenly stopped chuckling which made Gaya frown. She looked at his face to see a worried look on his face,
"Don''t worry Michael, we will find a cure for your problem. I have a feeling the dark elf my mother talked about has all the answers we need"
"I am afraid he will have more than answers," said Michael. His gut feeling told him something was going to happen soon. Ignoring the gloomy feelings, Michael essed the system storage to take out a brown sparkling potion.
He drank the potion quickly and closed his eyes. The potion was so bitter that it made bitter melon look sweet. After he drank the potion, Gaya noticed tiny hairsing out of his cheeks. She saw his beard grow at a visible speed. In a few blinks of an eye, his stubble beard turned bushy.
His hair also grew a couple of inches but not as much as the beard.
"System, upgrade her mask to the max level" he then willed the system, cing his hand on Gaya''s face. She began to feel a warm wave spreading through her head.
[The chameleon mask has been upgraded. Anyone under the Half Immortal stage will not see through the effects of the mask]
The system charged 10,000 badass points for the upgrade. This was thest thing Michael nned to do before leaving for the Akn realm.
"What did you do?" asked Gaya, touching her face.
"I made sure you stay safe. Just run if you see anyone above Half Immortal stage"
"Human, I don''t think those guys will be teaching there"
"Better safe than sorry. Shall we go?" Michael jumped down from the stacks of marble stones,
"Go? Aren''t you gonna tell everyone?" she frowned as Michael sighed,
"I already told ire. I am not very good at goodbyes. Besides, they are still grieving. We should leave them be"
Whoosh!
As Michael was speaking, a shadow was cast on them. They both looked up at the sky to see Nightmare slowly descending from the sky. Hendedfortably on Michael''s shoulder,
"You''re on time" Michael brushed Nightmare''s neck gently,
"Before we go, I have a question. You are going to study, what is she gonna do? You faked the eptance letter but what if they have records of new admissions. If theypare the list of names with the people who arrived, she will stand out" Gaya looked at Michael, expecting him to exin.
Believe it or not, Michael had the same question. However, ording to the system, it altered the records somehow. At first, Michael couldn''t believe the system. He never thought the system would be able to alter records of Mazeroth from another realm. Yet the system did that and reassured him that he has nothing to worry. He trusted the system enough to bring her to the Akn realm.
"Where does thise from?" Nightmare nudged his head on Michael''s beard.
"Let''s go shall we?"Rather than exining and wasting time, Michael retrieved the golden parchment from the system storage. Gaya also took out simr-looking parchment from her space ring. Both parchments looked exactly the same. No one could find any difference in the scroll except for their names.
Taking out a quill from their space rings, they signed their names on the corner of the parchments as instructed. After signing, nothing happened. They just kept staring at each other. For a couple of minutes, an awkward silence filled the area.
"What-"
And just as Gaya was about to say something, the air around the became hotter. They felt the space around them getting distorted. In the next second, a blue vortex appeared behind them and in a blink of an eye, the vortex sucked them in.
************************************
They traveled through space for more than three days but for them, it felt like a couple of seconds. When they opened their eyes, they were standing on endless grasnd.
"Wow," Nightmare''s jaw dropped a couple of inches down in shock. Not only he but Gaya and Michael were also mesmerized by the beauty around them. The puffy milky white clouds seemed so close to them, around them, there were hundreds of giant mountains in the shape of cones floating in the air. Hundreds of people flying on what seemed like swords and spears and even broomsticks.
Whoosh!
As they were basking in the beauty of the Akn realm, the space around them was distorted once again. Before even Michael could turn his head, Gaya was sucked into a vortex.
Michael''s heart skipped a beat as he reached for the vortex to pull her out. However, it was toote, she and the vortex both disappeared.
"System, locate her. Where is she?" he shouted at the system in his mind,
[Do not be rmed, host. Gaya is still in the Akn realm. The system has teleported her to another more suitable location]
"What do you mean more suitable?"
[You will see]
The system kicked him out in spite of his urge to ask more questions. The Akn realm''s sky was filled with floating mountains. Each mountain looked unique. One had water flowing from the top, one was covered in vegetation, and one seemed to be covered in snow. Under different circumstances, Michael would have taken some time to enjoy the beauty in peace and calm. Now, he wanted to find Gaya first.
"Human" all of a sudden, he heard Gaya''s voice in his head through the earpiece.
"Fuck, did you teleport me here?" She sounded slightly annoyed because of the sudden teleportation.
"Trust me, I had no control. Where are you now?"
"I think I''m on a floating mountain. So I guess, I''m still in Akn Realm"
Michael sighed,
"Let''s find where are we exactly and rendezvous somewhere"
"Got it,"
"Wee to Mazeroth"
A gruff voice sounded from behind. Michael quickly turned around and saw a giant of a man walking toward him. The man was about twice as tall as an average man, standing at ten feet tall and three times as wide, with a long mane of shaggy ck hair and a beard that covered most of his face. He kinda reminded Michael of Hagrid in Harry Potter. The entire world seemed to be the world of wizardry in a weird way.
Except this man did not speak with an ent.
"You must be the youngster who goes by the name Ghost and who is this majestic creature?"
"Grrrrr" when the man tried to pet Nightmare, the dragon showed his razor-sharp teeth.
"Fierce one heh? I admire creatures with some spirit like this. You little dragon need all the spirit you can get to face those jerks called royal dragons"
For a moment, Michael remained silent. He was scanning the man from top to bottom. Surprisingly, the man was only at the Body Strengthening stage.
"Where are my manners? Im Gilrine, the groundskeeper of Mazeroth"
Chapter 427 - Flying train to Mazeroth
Chapter 427 - Flying train to Mazeroth
"Follow me, your ship departs in forty minutes" Gilrine gestured at Michael to follow him. Reassured that Gaya is still in the Akn realm, Michael walked behind Gilrine looking around. The ce was simply magical. The rainbows added anotheryer of charm to the already magnificent Akn realm.
Michael did not know where Gilrine was leading him to. As far as he could see, there was nothing but grasnd and floating mountains. Few of the mountains had small pagodas atop. However, those pagodas did not look like the famous Mazeroth.
"How may I call you?" asked Michael,
"Gil, Gilrine, groundskeeper, fatso as many like to call me" Gilrine chuckled,
"Gilrine it is"
"How many students are in my batch?"
Michael tried to gather information about the Akn realm and MAzeroth starting from Gilrine since Gilrine seemed like a talkative type.
"Twenty-four. The number is twice in the junior batch. Trust me, this time, we have some monsters. When they leave after three years of study in Mazeroth, they will rule the world"
"Three years? I thought the studies in Mazeroth will be eighteen months" asked Michael,
Gilrine scratched his bushy beard as a few peanuts jumped out of his beard.
"That''s for the senior batch which is you kids. The little ones will study here for three years"
Nightmare couldn''t take his eyes off the sky where he saw countless people flying. He wanted to check out the new ce by flying around. He really missed Vedora. They would have really loved the ce, Nightmare thought.
After almost half an hour of walking, they came to the edge of the mountain. Michael stood on the edge, looking down. There was nothing but puffy clouds down. They covered the air as though they were fluffy white nkets.
"You are thest one in your batch and surprisingly you took your time. Normally kidse running here the second after they get the invitation"
Michael could barely see the expression on his face through the bushy beard.
"I had some loose ends to tie up"
For some reason, Gilrine had a weird feeling looking at the calm face of the youngster. He couldn''t exin the feeling but it was drilling his heart like a drill.
Choo!
Choo!
The sound of the train in the distance drew their attention towards the sky. Michael was pretty surprised to see a train approaching them. The train was flying rather than running on a track. The train was at least 650m in length. It was painted in ck with the word ''Mazeroth Express'' written on the side in crimson red. Michael counted five coaches while waiting for the train. He couldn''t help remembering the Hogwarts express looking at the train. This whole ce and MAzeroth reminded him of Harry Potter. Instead of Harry Potter, he felt like Voldermort since the guardians named him the ''Dark Lord''
As the train approached them, it slowed down and eventually stopped in the air above them. A bridge made of light appeared from the center car to the edge of the mountain Michael and Gilrine were standing on.
"Bollocks" all of a sudden, Gilrine pped his own forehead.
"I forgot to pick something important" he turned to look at Michael,
"Do you mind going alone? I will meet you at the gateway"
Michael did not know how this entire process works yet looking at the man''s pleading face, he nodded,
"Sure thing"
"Great. Here''s your ticket"
Gilrine handed over Michael a golden card the size of a credit card and flicked his wrist. Arge broomstick materialized on the ground beneath his feet. In a blink of an eye, Gilrine stepped on the broomstick and disappeared into the sky in a rush.
The ticket had the number 34 under the name Mazeroth written in emerald-green ink. The sparkling blue light bridge seemed intimidating as Michael never walked on a light bridge before. Still, he wasn''t afraid. Even if he fell, he could fly so there was no need to be afraid.
To his surprise, when he stepped on the light bridge, a loud thunder shaking even the mountains sounded throughout the realm.
"That''s ominous" Michael looked up at the sky. The puffy white clouds were being chased by dark gloomy clouds. The colorful realm slowly turned darker and darker.
In the distance, several lightning cracks were splitting the sky. The darkness soothed. He walked the bridge with his head held high. When he finally stepped into the train, the light bridge faded away. He was weed by a corridorrge enough for two grown men to walk side by side. There were severalpartments in front of him and each of them had a number on the door. Not a singlepartment had open doors. The door near him had the number 23 and the numbers increased further he walked through the corridor.
"Twenty-five, twenty-eight" Nightmare counted along the way. The train was spotless. The blue rug they were walking on was clean and the ce smelled like jasmine. He could not look into thepartments as the doors were made of some kind of redwood.
The coordinator was brightly lit by golden orbs on the ceiling. Finally, several minutester, he found the number 34.
"There is no knob on the door," said Nightmare,
Michael looked at the ticket in his hand, wondering how to open the door when the door next to hispartment opened. Alluring beauty with silky brown hair stepped out of the room. She wore a warm smile on her face.
"You have to ce your ticket on the door," the girl spoke in a melodious voice.
She turned her gaze towards Nightmare while Michael was cing the golden ticket on the door. Her warm smile and beauty mesmerized Nightmare. He was just staring at the girl''s face without batting an eye.
Several runes began to glow when the ticket touched the door. A golden knob appeared as Michael twisted the knob to open the door. Thepartment was a small room with a single door opening to the long corridor. There appeared to be seating for up to 6 adults or 8 children in thepartment, on two cushioned benches facing each other.
"Thank you"
"Don''t mention it, number 34" She smiled, making Michael frown,
"You seem like you don''t know it. In Mazeroth, no student is allowed to use their names. Just only by the numbers given to us when they sort us into specialization houses. I am 33 until I get my student number, I''m your neighbor" the girl reached out her hand to shake his hands with a bright smile. She seemed warm and friendly and deep down, she reminded someone of him.
For the sake of manners, Michael shook her hand. She did not linger around to have a conversation as she returned to herpartment. He entered hispartment and sat next to the window. The windows were getting covered by tiny droplets of water formed by the drizzling rain.
As though the train was waiting for him to settle in hispartment, the train began to move only after he reached his ce.
"Where is she?" Nightmare asked again. He jumped onto Michael''sp and looked at him with a worried face.
"She''s fine," he said before calling the system in his mind,
"System scan thispartment. I want to know if there is something that could spy on us"
[That will be hundred badass points]
As usual, he had to pay the system to get it to do something. Surprisingly, the system informed him there is nothing in thepartment that could spy on them.
"Where are you?"
It took several seconds to get a reply from Gaya.
"Human you''re not gonna believe this" Gaya sounded excited,
"I will tell you everything when youe here"
Michael frowned,
"Are you in Mazeroth?"
"Yeah. Holy shit Michael, you have to see this ce. This is fucking awesome"
He was stunned because Gaya was extremely hard to please yet even he praised the ce and seemed shocked by Mazeroth''s beauty.
"I have a surprise for you Mikey. Come sooner, I''ll be waiting for you. Shit, I gotta go" the connection broke off abruptly. Although he did not know what was the reason for her excitement, he was relieved to hear she made it into Mazeroth without a problem.
Inside thepartment next to Michael''spartment, two girls were drinking hot tea facing each other.
"Edith, who were you talking to?" asked Victoria, the girl who betrayed Abras and sent a dagger through his heart. Michael was oblivious to the point that he was sitting next to the princess of Thusia and the girl who he just talked to was the younger sister of Lah Alden.
"Number 34" Edith chuckled winking at Victoria,
"You know, he was pretty okay in the eyes. Good height, awesome body. Regardless of his robes, I was still able to see his muscles flexing out. Plus, he has a dragon for a familiar"
"Let me guess, a forest dragon" Victoria did not even look at Edith. She was still looking outside through the window and calmly taking sips from her cup.
"How did you know?" Edith was shocked,
"Because if he had a Royal dragon, I would have known him and you would have known him" Victoria calmly said. Anyone could see the superiority in her voice.
"So what? I''m telling you, you should find a boyfriend and this is the only ce you might find the one who fits your criteria"
"You always ask me to find a boyfriend. What about you? Have you confessed your feelings to your sweetheart?" Edith''s face immediately turned red,
"Or you''re going to tell me that you and Noah are just friends" Victoria was smiling. As far as she was concerned, nothing could worry her and she and her family were reaching for heaven with the help of Cosmic Stream.
Only if she knew the deadliest man in the world was sitting next to her with a vengeance against her and her kingdom.
Chapter 428 - Runemaster
Chapter 428 - Runemaster
"I should check out what''s happening" After traveling for an hour, he eventually decided to send spyders throughout the train.
"Open the door," Michael said to Nightmare who was watching the outside with his nose pressed against the window. Nightmare flew towards the doorknob and opened the door by twisting the knop using both of his hands.
Michael sent several spyders through the door. Nightmare kept watching the spyders crawling out the door and activating their camouge to blend in with the environment,
The corridor was pretty much empty except for a few youngsters who put their heads out the door to look at the corridor as though they were expecting someone.
Michael was watching everything with his eyes closed. The feeds were running in his mind. Although it was stressful to watch them in his mind, he was not in the situation to set up mirrors or contact Azazel.
Speaking of Azazel, Michael tried to establish a connection with his demon butler but he was unable to connect with him. It didn''te as a surprise to Michael as his earpiecescked the power to enable him tomunicate between realms.
The spyders he sent towards the front of the train returned nothing. However, the ones that went on the other side showed him something interesting. It was a sight of several youngsters who were tall, lean, and mean-looking ganging up on a youngster. The guy who was getting the beating curled in the shape of a question mark to cover his chest, gut, and face.
The elves wore robes so fine and silky. They looked like they were weaved using golden threads. They neatlybed their golden hair and wore a silver circlet with a red ruby in the center.
Their pointy ears and wless smooth skin were a dead giveaway of their identity as elves to Michael. He could not identify the youngster''s race as he was covering his face. Michael moved around the spyders to get a better angle,
"Filthy half-blood"
"Thank driel we could only give you a beating"
"Let''s just cut his ears"
"I feel disgusting just by kicking this filthy half-blood"
The elven youngsters were shouting while beating the one who they called half-blood. Michael began to realize what was happening and his suspicion was confirmed when he saw the ears of the youngster who was getting beaten up. Those ears were not as pointy as the ears of the elves, still they were not the ears of humans.
"Half elf," Michael thought. He heard ire''s grandfather Christopher talk about the proud nature of elves. Because ire''s mother, who was an elf eloped with a human, the house of can sent a mage to capture sha, ire''s mother, and put a powerful cure on Christopher and ire''s father.
ire was a half-elf too but she seemedpletely human, unlike the youngster. Although ire was an exceptional beauty, it was still far too for someone to say she has elven blood running in her body.
"I am tired"
"Yeah I need some blood wine"
"And I need to change my shoes because of this filth"
The youngsters began to kick the half-elf harder and harder but soon, they left him alone. Michael saw the half-elf lying on the ground still. He almost thought the half-elf lost consciousness because of the beating the elves gave him.
The half-elf surprised him by standing up. Now that the half-elf was on his feet, Michael could see his face. The half-elf had a pair of blue eyes, golden shoulder-length hair, warm ivory skin tone as well as a pair of arched eyebrows on his long face.
Unlike the elves, the half-elf was wearing a cream colored jacket, ck pants that had several stitches and worn-out brown boots. The half-elf bent backward holding his waist,
"Oh my back" the half elf grimaced,
He then wiped off the blooding out from his nostrils and surprisingly, he grinned ear to ear. The reason for his happiness was revealed to Michael when the half elf opened his fist. Michael saw several silver rings,
"Great harvest. I hope these assholes have something valuable inside"
The half-elf mumbled under his breath. Still, Michael was able to hear him. The half-elf gawked back and forth before rushing towards the back of the train.
"Interesting"
Michael moved the spyders behind the half elf to follow him. The half elf passed everypartment until thest one. Yet, he never opened thestpartment. He walked past thepartments and stepped into thest couch which was one openpartment. Several suitcases were lying around and some of them were opened. Clothes and books were lying around chaotically. The half-elf jumped onto a stack of suitcases,
The half-elf looked around, closed his eyes, and ced one space ring on his right palm. Michael was staring at the half elf curiously.
The half elf remained with his eyes closed for a couple of minutes. When the half elf opened his eyes, his index finger was glowing. He touched the space ring with his index finger as the space ring began to tremble. The half elf moved his finger, drawing some kind of symbol on his palm.
Boom!
The trembling space ring all of a sudden exploded. Yet, there were few items materialized on the floor just after the space ring exploded. Michael saw a couple of jade daggers, scrolls, and a few gold coins.
The half elf frowned,
"Damn it" he cursed, waving his hand. A beam of light shot out from the half elf''s palm and engulfed the items. The very next second, the light beam disappeared along with the items on the floor.
The half elf continued to break the space rings one by one. Each time he broke a space ring, he ended up stealing the leftover items.
"A runemaster"
Michael realized the specialization of the half-elf while watching him break open the space rings one by one. Obviously, the half elf was destroying the space rings along with most of the items inside. Still, it was a great feat that many believed that space rings are unbreakable.
"If he was called by Mazeroth, he must be a gifted one," Michael thought.
For a long time, he was looking for a runemaster to serve him. It seemed like he had finally found a suitable candidate to recruit. The problem was however how he should approach the half elf. He could either meet the half-elf as Ghost or Lucifer but getting into his Lucifer persona in the Akn realm was a risk.
Therefore, he decided to approach him as Ghost. Fortunately, the girl he met told him that in the Akn realm, Mazeroth in particr, everyone would be called using their student numbers rather than real names. If he yed his cards correctly, he could hide his identity and recruit him into the order.
Several minutester, the half elf broke all the space rings in his hand. He jumped down to the floor with a grin,
"It''s time to find another group of racist assholes to steal from" the half elf made his way towards the studentpartments once again.
The half elf walked out of thepartment having no idea of being followed.
Insidepartment 33, Edith and Victoria were staring at an orb floating in the middle of them.
"Why does your father want you to hide your identity?" Edith asked. The orb was powered with Cosmin c energy. Hence, they were able tomunicate with Victoria''s father in Thusia using the orb.
"I don''t know but dad must have his reasons"
In her life, Victoria had never questioned her father''s decisions. For her, he was the greatest ruler born to unite the entire world under the name of Thusia. She believed it was her destiny to rule the united world as the Empress of Thusia.
"Atleast I dont have to wear any masks to hide my face" Edith rolled her eyes. She did not seem very happy about Victoria hiding her face as well as her identity as the princess of Thusia.
"So be d," Victoria said, flicking her wrist. A porcin mask appeared on her face. She slowly ced the mask on her face. Victoria kept the mask on her face and gradually, the mask merged with her face, changing her facial feathers and the color of her hair. In mere moments, Victoria''s face transformedpletely. She looked nothing like the Victoria Edith knew and saw a few seconds ago.
"This is going to be weird," Edith said. She couldn''t help reaching out to feel Victoria''s face. Her face was still soft and very human-like.
"Now can you keep your mouth shut Edi?"
Edith knocked Victoria on the head yfully,
"I''m not a secret spiller. You can hide your face but you cannot hide who you are. Eventually, you yourself will reveal your identity, and Ill have to save your butt as usual" Edith said, puffing her chest out,
"Tell me the one time you saved me" asked Victoria.
Edith stuck her tongue out since not even once she saved Victoria from trouble. On the contrary, it was always Victoria who saved Edith from trouble. She was friends with Victoria as far as she could remember. Simply, they were family to each other. They did not keep secrets from each other except for Victoria''s involvement in acquiring the Cosmic Stream. However, that was because Victoria''s father made Victoria promise not to tell anyone until they obtained the Cosmic Stream. Edith would have stopped Victoria and persuaded her to find another way instead of betraying someone using love. For Edith, love was the most precious thing in the world.
Because Victoria was her best friend, subconsciously Edith ignored the fact Victoria faked being in love with Abras and betrayed him for the Cosmic Stream.
Thusians did get the Cosmic Stream and they were using the Stream to be the strongest. However, they failed to realize that the power came at a cost.
Chapter 429 - Castle of Mazeroth
Chapter 429 - Castle of Mazeroth
Castle of Mazeroth
While Michael wasing to Mazeroth on the train, Gaya had already reached the outskirts of Mazeroth. Mazeroth Castle was arge, nine-story high building supported by Celestial magic with two hundred and fifty-two staircases throughout its many towers and turrets and very deep dungeons. The castle was built four thousand years ago by a 6-star architect and the four most celebrated cultivators of the age: Archer Crooke, Ingrid Stenham, Qiu Jin, and Kargin Pavlovich. All of them were 6-star Warrior, Alchemist, Rune Master, and cksmith respectively.
The castle was the main building of the Mazeroth, regarded as the finest academy for studying wizardry in the world.
Mazeroth was built on the mother mountain in Akn Realm. The mother mountain was said to be one giant mountain before something destroyed the mountain into pieces. The floating mountains were once pieces of the mother mountain. Mazeroth was surrounded by a fairlyrgeke to the south of the main building. The huge main oak front doors that led into the Entrance Hall faced west and opened up to slopingwns. Endless forest extended around to the west of the castle. There were also exterior greenhouses and herbs patches on the school grounds for the Alchemy students.
Due to its ancient age and the sheer amount of Celestian energy present in or around it, the castle had developed a form of sentience though none could confirm this.
Gaya just came out of the forest to the west. She was stunned by the sheer magnificence of the castle. She always praised the castle of Nagnd and took pride in the castle her ancestors built. However, the castle of Mazeroth made the castle of Nagnd look like a poor shack.
"Ah miss"
Suddenly Gaya heard a voice from behind. In a split second, a long sword appeared in her hand. She turned around at lightning speed,
"GOD!"
The one who shouted seeing her sword against his throat was a giant of a man. His face was almost covered by a tangled mane of a beard.
"Miss, my name is Gilrine. The groundskeeper of Mazeroth" said Gilrine without moving an inch. The pointy edge of the sword was just an inch away from his throat and the girl looked as though she would send the sword through his throat if he dared to move.
"Prove it"
Gaya was the intruder yet she intimidated Gilrine without showing any hesitation. She trained herself to proficiently lie before meeting Ghost but after meeting him, he honed her skill of lying further. One of the lessons she learned from Ghost was; that the best way to lie was to believe the lie.
"Slowly" Gaya threatened when Gilrine tried to move his hand,
"My card is in my pocket" Gilrine slowly moved his hand inside his coat pocket. Gaya heard several sounds, she even heard a bird squeak.
Gilrine let out an awkward smile trying to find his identification card given to him by the Headmistress. It took him almost five minutes to find the card.
Gaya noticed Gilrine taking out a silver card with his picture on it. The words ''Groundskeeper of Mazeroth'' was etched onto the card in gold.
"excellent," she thought to herself.
"Miss, can you please¡" Gilrine gently touched the sword, pleading for her to take the sword away from his throat.
Do you want to read more chapters? Come to p a n d a - n ovel,c.o.m Gaya looked at Gilrine from top to bottom before finally moving the silver sword away from his throat. She put the sword into the sheath hanging on her waist.
"Sigh" Gilrine sighed,
"Miss, how did you get here? You should be with your batchmates on the train" frowned Gilrine,
"Batchmates? Who do you think I am? I am the new Combat professor, Na Steinmeyer" she eximed, flicking her wrist as a silver card simr to Gilrine''s identification card appeared in her hand. She threw the card at Gilrine,
Gilrine was taken aback by surprise. At most, she would be thirty, and thirty was way too young to be a professor. Still, the identification card showed him that she was indeed Na Steinmeyer, the new Combat Professor.
If Headmaster recruited her to teach the art ofbat to the students, Gilrine had no doubts that she was the best because Mazeroth epted only the best of the bests.
"Professor Steinmeyer, you were hunting out in the woods?" asked Gilrine. The thought of Gaya killing another imposter and taking her identification card and pretending to be Na Steinmeyer never came across Gilrine''s mind.
After being teleported by the system, she woke up in the forest. While she was searching for a way to get back to Michael, she ended up in the middle of a battle between two girls. They were equally matched and when Gaya saw them, both of the girls were badly injured by each other. She did not interfere. However, she wanted to contact Michael and ask him what to do when both the girls used the most powerful spell in their arsenal. Unfortunately, the two girls died on the spot. As usual, Gaya tried to loot their bodies. The spells destroyed their bodies along with all their belongings except for the identification card and the long sword in her sheath. The moment she picked up the card, she experienced acute pain in her face. Surprisingly, the mask Michael gave her transformed her face to look like the face on the identification card.
"Are you going to stand there or show me around the castle?"
"Yes yes, this way Professor Steinmeyer. We still have some time before the students arrive" Gilrine walked in front of her, taking the lead. While showing around the castle grounds, Gilrine went on and on about the history of Mazeroth. Gaya paid no heed to the history lesson.
"Show me the tree"
"Huh?" Gilrine was confused by her sudden question. They were at the training grounds which was a t, short-cut grassy area and were located near the greenhouses. There was no tree in the vicinity so he scratched his bushy beard with a confused look on his face.
"Can you be more specific Professor Steinmeyer?"
"Never mind, I will practice my punchester" Gaya lied. She wanted to find the tree her mother talked about; the tree with the dark elf. She probed Gilrine because he seemed to know a lot about the castle grounds and the Akn realm. Since there was nothing but a confused look on his face, she learned that the location of the tree was well hidden.
"Gilrine" they were on their way to the courtyard when Gaya met a tall, severe-lookingdy in herte sixties. Her dark hair was tied up in a bun and wore round spectacles.
Gaya''s heart skipped a beat as the woman was a level 10 Fusion Stage cultivator.
"Headmistress Martin" Gilrine bowed his head with the utmost respect.
Thedy nodded in return before turning her gaze towards Gaya,
"Oh headmistress Martin, this is Professor Na Steinmeyer, our newbat professor. How stupid of me? You must have known this" Gilrine let out an embarrassed chuckle,
"New Professor? Wulfric did not say anything about getting a new Combat Professor"
"I checked her identification card headmistress," Gilrine said before Gaya could open her mouth,
"It must have slipped his mind"
Fortunately for Gaya, headmistress Ka was on an urgent business and she trusted Gilrine and the security measure of Mazeroth. Hence, she did not think Gaya was an imposter.
In a blink of an eye, Ka turned herself into a milky white eagle and flew into the dark sky. Gaya was stunned yet again.
"She is the best shapeshifter there is," Gilrine proudly said. Gaya could also notice a tear dropping rolling out of his eyes in pride. Through the oak door in the courtyard, they stepped into the castle. The corridors were as wide as a spacious hall. It was brightly lit with huge chandeliers and giant candles.
"Where is everyone?" Gaya couldn''t help asking Gilrine looking at the empty corridors and halls. This entire time, she saw no one except Gilrine and Headmistress Martin. Once again, she looked around standing in front of the giant oak door.
Instead of answering, Gilrine just grinned. Then, he pushed open the oak door. The moment the door was opened, the silence she experienced disappeared. The buzzling sound and the chitter-chatter of people reverberated in the area.
"Wee to Mazeoth Professor," Gilrine said proudly.
The buzzlingrge hall before her was the main hall of Mazeoth. It had enough space to hold every student, as well as the main staff and guests. The Hall had tall walls that reached up to the ceiling, which was covered with floating candles and enchanted to look like a starry sky.
At the front of the hall was the staff table, which was designed to house the entire Mazeroth staff. In the center of the table was a throne chair where the Headmaster sat. In front of the staff table were five six feet pirs. The pir in the center was made of ss unlike the rest of them which were made of granite stone.
The hall was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables wereid with glittering golden tes and goblets.
Gaya looked upward and saw a velvety ck ceiling dotted with stars. It was nothing like the starry sky she had seen, it was more beautiful, more mesmerizing. She really had a hard time believing there was a ceiling there at all, and that the hall didn''t simply open onto heaven. The students were busy gossiping and ying as they did not notice Gaya.
Chapter 430 - Sorting Ceremony l
Chapter 430 - Sorting Ceremony l
Finally, the train came to a halt. One by one, thepartment doors opened. Michael waited for everyone to leave before he left the trainst. When he came to the door, the scenery before him took his breath away.
"Wow" Nightmare eximed,
Unlike Michael who meditated on his way, Nightmare was looking at everything through the window still when he saw the ce with nothing in front of his eyes, the ce looked a hundred times more stunning or more.
For Michael, the Mazeroth castle immediately reminded him of Hogwarts. Of course, the castle was unique in its own way. Now that he stepped outside the train, he was able to see more and more students who seemed to be of the same age as him. He could see almost every fantasy race such as elves, dwarves, humans, orcs, and beast-men. The elves were standing in a group away from the other races while the dwarves seemed to be cursing at the elves for some reason.
The tension between the two races was visible. Almost every single one of them was familiar with them. The elves mostly carried a beautiful snowy owl in a cage. Contrary to the elves, the dwarves were standing beside various breeds of dogs. Michael smiled inside seeing dog breeds such as husky, german shepherd, and bulldogs in this world. Some of the dogs however had wings and pointy ears.
Taking his eyes off the dwarves, he noticed the growling faces of orcs and the beast-men. Orcs were the bodybuilders of this world. Their bulky muscle mountain physique itself terrified many humans. Despite their terrifying look, the orcs were a peace-loving race. Only a few tribes such as Dr''s tribe advocated war and violence. ording to Gaya, the orcs preferred to live in peace and prosper through trade routes with nearby kingdoms. The orcs were the only powerful race in the world who did not have their own kingdom. Almost all the orcs had a roon with a long bushy tail sitting on their shoulders.
Among the humans, he was standingst beside the half-elf. Each and every man and girl in the crowd carried an exotic rare familiar. The dragons were said to be a rare race yet he could see a bunch of dragons flying around like flies.
Some of the dragons radiated a noble aura, their demeanor, the way they looked at the others, the shininess of their scales, simply, those dragons stood out.
Edith and Victoria were standing in the front. Since Michael had no idea who they were, he paid little attention to them. His full focus was on the half-elf and the majestic castle in front of him.
"Why are we standing here?"
"Where is that giant?"
The elves began to show their discontent with waiting. Only the elves were daring enough to be like this. The rest of them were d to be a part of Mazeroth, unlike the elves. The more he saw the elves, the more he realized the assholeness of the elves. On top of being racists, they seemed to becking patience.
Michael looked around his surroundings. They seemed to be in the training grounds because the grass field was neatly pruned and he could notice pitches resembling cricket pitches.
The cultivation level of each individual surprised Michael. None of them was stronger than him. Only one girl seemed to be on the same stage as him. With the experience points he received from the reapers Gaya killed and the ninjas he killed back in Hades, he was able to reach Core Strengthening stage level 4. He was the strongest among them and the girl piqued his curiosity. However, curiosity wasn''t enough for him to go to the front and talk to the girl. He had more pressing issues to take care of. In this world full of surprises, it was logical for someone else to be stronger than him at this point in his life. It would take him decades to be the strongest of them all.
"Silence" An authoritative voice sounded from above them. All the students looked upward and saw a group of four descending. The leading figure was a young man wearing square sses, behind him were two girls and a youngster who showed his chiseled body and magazine-worthy abs.
The gray-haired young man wearing sses was in silver armor that fit perfectly on his body. He carried a heavy sword on his back. Just like Michael, this youngster too had a short haircut. The blonde-haired girl behind the young man looked cold, stern, and unsympathetic. The other girl whose ck hair yed in the wind had a warm smile on her face. She seemed more friendly and very approachable than the other girl.
Currently, the four of them slowly descended onto the ground. Unfortunately for Michael, all of them were Core Formation level 10 cultivators. While he was in the Akn Realm, he did not want to stand out. The attraction would hurt his search for the dark elf in the tree. He simply preferred anonymity in Akn Realm.
Do you want to read more chapters? Come to p a n d a - n ovel,c.o.m He never expected that he would be the strongest among them. He could however hide his cultivation level with the help of the system but that would definitely raise red gs if someone tried to perceive his cultivation level, especially the professors. The other option was to lower his cultivation except if they used powerful arrays, his real cultivation would be exposed and result in unnecessaryplications. Therefore, Michael mingled with the crowd, staying atst. Since the half-elf was a thief, he too naturally stayed behind.
Nightmare wrapped his tail around Michael''s neck as he stared at the other dragons in wonder. He had never met his species and he was curious about the other dragons.
"Wee to Mazeroth. I am Elliot Watson, the head prefect" the youngster carrying the heavy sword proudly said. He adjusted his ss before continuing,
"Shall we? " Elliot looked over his shoulder at the tall bulky youngster behind him.
The students including Michael did not know what the four of them were nning to do. Soon, he found out when a hot airbrushed past them. The heavy sword which was in the sheath a second ago was now in his hand. Even Michael failed to notice as the youngster moved too quickly, faster than blinking an eye.
"As expected," Elliot nodded. He then turned his gaze back at the new students,
"Listen to your prefects and don''t taint the proud name of Mazeroth. If you do, I will take care of the matter myself"
Then the four of them took off leaving the students confused. Only a few students could guess why they came. The hot air brushed past them was Celestial energy. Elliot checked if there was an imposter amidst them. Although the odds of forging the teleportation scroll to Mazeroth were near zero and no one had managed to do so, it was customary for the head prefect and the student leaders of each specialization to conduct a search when the new students arrived.
Michael felt a major deja vu looking at the disappearing figures of the four students. It felt like yesterday he saw Alex, Adam, Celina, and Sadie at the heaven''s gatepetition.
As he was looking at them, he felt the half-elf moving his hand through his coat. The half-elf was daring to pickpocket Michael. He could tell the half-elf was highly trained by the way he was moving his hands. Too bad the half-elf was trying to pickpocket the earth''s number one hitman and the deadliest man.
"Your trick won''t work on me half-elf" Michael whispered to the half elf.
The half elf''s face instantly became paler.
"You need fingers to break open those space rings you stole. Don''t make me break them" he whispered to the half-elf with a smile on his face. To others, they were like friends having a nice chat. The half-elf shivered after he heard Michael. He had no idea how the human next to him found out about his trick of breaking the space rings. It took him years toe up with a rune hack to break open the space rings.
"There is that giant"
"Someone should teach him the concept of time"
When everyone saw Gilrine walking out through the door in the courtyard, the elves began to bitch.
"Wee wee to Mazeroth"
"Someone already said that, now lead us to the sorting pirs without wasting our time anymore" one of the elves rolled his eyes. His arrogant demeanor drew everyone''s attention including Michael''s. He was one of the elves who beat the half-elf earlier on the train.
Gilrine''s grin shrunk,
"Sorry, now if you follow me," Gilrine said, clearing his throat to disguise the embarrassed look on his face. Despite his look, Gilrine seemed to be a soft-hearted man.
The elves followed Gilrine first as the others followed them behind. The half-elf tried to speed up his steps,
"Try to escape and ill tell the elves what you did to their stuff"
His words stopped the half elf in his way.
"I don''t know what you are talking about," said the half elf.
"Nightmare" Michael gently nudged Nightmare''s chin as he leaped onto the half elf''s shoulder. The half-elf almost shouted and swatted away Nightmare but Nightmare''s razor-sharp teeth stopped him from doing so.
"Walk with me," said Michael following the crowd.
The half-elf realized he had no choice but to follow him because the man walking in front of him was the strongest of them all. He made an amateur mistake by not checking his cultivation before trying to pickpocket him.
However, he did not have to worry for long as the professors would strip away their cultivation after the sorting ceremonies. The students would only be allowed to use their cultivation during certain tasks and assignments.
"Hey, little dragon" the half-elf smiled at Nightmare,
"You''re either extremely lucky or unlucky" the half-elf couldn''t guess whether tough or cry hearing the dragon.
"What''s your name by the way?" asked Nightmare,
"Wilkas"
The half-elf sighed, giving the dragon one of his aliases.
Chapter 431 - Sorting Ceremony ll
Chapter 431 - Sorting Ceremony ll
Michael followed Gilrine while keeping an eye on the half-elf. The walls above the corridors were filled with dancing nts and talking portraits. The closer he got to the oak door at the end of the corridor, the louder the students began to chit chat. They were clearly more excited than Michael.
Under different circumstances, Michael would have enjoyed spending his time on Mazeroth. The third persona problem of his prevented him from appreciating the life around him.
"What''s behind this door is the heaven kids" Gilrine grinned ear to ear before opening the oak door. And just as Michael expected, the hall reminded him of Hogwarts great hall. Each specialization ss was called a house. The house tables were as follows from left to right; Warriors, Runemasters, cksmiths, and Alchemists. Each long table was designed to resemble their houses. The table of Warriors looked like a long sword, the Runemasters table was etched with countless glowing runes, and the cksmith table was made of metal rather than wood like the rest of the tables. Finally, the Alchemy table had veins coiling around and little sprouts were sticking out from within the table.
The five pirs drew Michael''s attention. They were situated just before the staff table. Each pir contained a glowing rune except for the pir in the middle. The two pirs left to the center pir had a crimson red sword and navy blue chakra on top of them. The pirs on the right had a silver anvil and an emerald green tree etched onto them.
Only the girl sitting at the far end of the staff table was young and the rest of the staff were mature and older. Everything seemed in order, the little children who were in the first years murmuring excitedly and enjoying the magical atmosphere, the staff wore warm smiles on their faces and the throne in the middle of the staff table remained empty. Only one professor who was inplete ck robes was yelling at a student with a bloody face.
The professor kept pping the boy despite the wounds on his face. Eventually, the professor noticed the new students and let go of the student with a final p to the back of his head.
"Students, please be silent" one of the professors who wore a pointy hat on her hat pped her hands. Her pping was as loud as thunder. The great hall immediately became silent.
Gilrine walked towards the staff table to take his seat beside the youngest professor at the table. Headmistress Ka stood up to wee the new students,
"I am Headmistress Ka Martin and before we begin the feast, we will conduct the sorting ceremony. Please step forward and ce a drop of your blood on the center pir"
The first years were curiously looking at them to see who was going to end up in their house. They were even betting on them as though Michael and the others were racehorses.
"You will receive your student id after you''re sorted into one of the four proud houses, Warriors, Runemasters, cksmiths, and Alchemists. It''s forbidden to use your real identity while you''re studying in Mazeroth, your student number will be your identity for the next eighteen months" Professor Ka exined,
Michael sighed and rxed inside. With this rule, he could hide his real identity rather easily. Also, if someone messed with him, he would be able to beat the crap out of them without worrying about the consequences for once.
"Now step forward one by one"
She returned to her seat as the sorting ceremony finally began. The first one to step forward was the elf who bitched about Gilrine beingte. With his chest puffed out and head held high, he made his way towards the center pir. Rather than using a dagger to cut his palm to shed blood, he cut his palm using just his delicately pruned and manicured nails. He touched the pir with his bloody hand. The blood was instantly absorbed by the pir and the glowing runes on the pirs lost their glimmer. The next moment, the center pir began to vibrate.
Want to see more chapters? Please visit p a n d a -n o v e l .c o m The pir with crimson red sword rune glowed brighter as the first-year students sitting on the warrior house table cheered thunderously. The elf grinned arrogantly. Soon, a cloud of smoke emerged from the center pir forming the number ''23''.
"Humph" he snickered at the others for no reason before walking to the table of warriors.
Following number 23, many of the elves were sorted into the house warrior. Some of the elves ended up in the house of runemasters. If the elves were warriors, the dwarves were cksmiths. Unlike the elves, every single dwarf ended up in the house of cksmiths. There was not a single elf sitting on the table of cksmiths.
To Michael''s surprise, when someone sorted into the house of Alchemists, the entire hall was rather silent. Even the students sitting at the house Alchemists table did not cheer for the new additions to their house.
Michael did not know the reason for this exactly but he deemed the Alchemists were considered inferiorpared to the rest of them. As a 5-star Alchemist, he felt offended by the thought.
One by one everyone got sorted into their houses. Nothing interesting happened until a red-haired girl touched the pir. This girl went after the girl who talked to him back on the train.
When the girl touched the pir, both the pir of warriors and the pir of runemasters let out a zing glow. Even the proud elves were stunned beyond words.
"Number 34" Headmistress Ka stood up from her chair. As a Headmistress of Mazeroth, she had seen many students with more than one specialization, she even saw a couple of students with three specialization talents. Every time they admitted new students, they would see one or two students with two specialization talents.
"You can choose either Warriors or Runemasters, the choice will be yours and yours alone"
Everyone stared at Victoria for her answer. While they were looking at Victoria, Michael was searching around to see her familiar because the girl didn''t seem to have one on her. Only a couple of students remained without having a familiar and she was one of them.
"Professor, I choose Warriors"
The moment Victoria chose the warriors, the students of Warrior house let out thunderous cheers. They were excited to wee such a talented person to their house. The more talented students they had, the higher the chance to win the house cup at the end of the year.
Eventually, Michael''s turn came as he stepped towards the pir. Although the students had seen numerous students before him, they still had the same excited look on their faces as they had for the first student.
"System, you know what to do" he willed the system in his mind as he cut his palm with a dagger. He simply ced the bloody palm on the pir and then, the pirs began to vibrate.
The half-elf was rather curious to see the human''s specialization. His curiosity was soon answered when the rune on the Alchemy Piller shone.
As usual, the students looked bummed after he was sorted into the Alchemists.
Michael on the other hand was d and in fact, he was the one who ordered the system to manipte the pirs. He did not want to draw attention by showing his true powers. If the system hadn''t intervened, both the Alchemist and Warrior pirs would have lightened up brighter than Victoria.
If that had happened, even Ka would have been stunned because in the history of Mazeroth, only once did the Alchemy pir and the Warrior pirs light up at the same time. It was by the Supreme Guardian Andreas.
"Number 66"
Michael was given the number ''66'' as his student number. Eventually, after an hour, the sorting ceremony came to an end. As expected, Wilkas, the half-elf was sorted into the house of runemasters.
Unfortunately for Wilkas, there weren''t any half-elves in the house of Runemaster, and in fact, there was not a single half-elf other than him in the hall.
Michael noticed not only elves and humans but everyone isting Wks at the table. Only a couple of orcs remained still without moving away from Wilkas.
Although Wilkas seemed to be used to this treatment by everyone, Nightmare could see the pain and anger in his heart through his eyes.
"I can turn this hate into loyalty," Michael said to himself, sitting on the Alchemists'' table.
After thest dwarf got sorted into the house of cksmiths, the sorting ceremony finally came to an end. The throne at the center of the staff table remained empty to the end,
Headmistress Ka yet again stood up from her chair with a wine ss and a silver spoon in her hand. She tapped the ss with her spoon,
"Students"
The entire hall went silent,
"Let the feast begin"
The golden tes and goblets on the tables were instant loaded up with delicious food. The new and the old students alike dug into the feast, devouring everything before them. The food could be on par with Raylene''s cooking. Hence, even Michael was unable to resist the mouth-watering deliciousness in front of him.
Everything in the cooking book could be seen on the table. There were roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops,mb chops, sausages, bacon, steak, joints, steak, boiled potatoes, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, chips, pudding, peas, and carrots. The desserts such as blocks of assorted ice cream, apple pies, chocte gateau, treacle tart, pumpkin tart, chocte ¨¦irs & jam doughnuts, trifle, and strawberries were served for the students who craved sweets.
After thest student licked his bowl clean, the food on the table magically disappeared as the table became empty once again,
"Now the students can take some time to bask yourselves in the beauty of Mazeroth. But remember, the forest to the west is forbidden for the students" Headmistress Ka''s words piqued his curiosity. If the forest was forbidden, he knew there must be some secret hiding within the forest and that secret might be the dark elf he was looking for.
"Follow him or I''ll bite your head off" Nightmare threatened Wilkas when he tried to walk in the opposite direction of Michael,
Chapter 432 - Angels in the Nether Realm
Chapter 432 - Angels in the Nether Realm
"Students" Headmistress Ka called out the students,
"Please be aware that after midnight, your cultivation will be temporarily blocked. You are only allowed to use your Arch energy during certain events. Now you can leave if you wish"
The new students excitedly rushed out of the door to explore the castle. Michael also left the table without talking to his fellow alchemists. He was not in the mood to make new friends.
Exiting the great hall, Michael walked aimlessly exploring the castle. asionally the first years would bump onto him. They all looked so happy. Michael felt slightly jealous of them because they were having the best childhood unlike him. While he was their age, he was smuggling drugs and getting beaten up by the drug and weapon traffickers.
He explored the grand staircase of Mazeorth which was used to ess the various floors and rooms in the castle. The staircases were moving at regr intervals. There were hundreds of portraits hanging on the wall and they seemed to be talking to each other. Surprisingly some of them disappeared from their portraits when they noticed Michael staring at them. They looked afraid as though they knew he was the Dark Lord.
Michael did not mind them as he was getting used to being the Dark Lord. He started to ept the fact he was the Dark Lord. The more he embraced his identity, the more powerful he became.
After roaming around the castle for some time, he made his way outside, reaching the castle grounds. He walked further and further away from the castle under the light of millions of stars. What was in front of him was a massiveke and on the other side of theke, was a forest which reminded him of the forbidden forests.
The forest was thick with trees, such as beech, oak, banyan, pine, and yew, as well as undergrowth such as knotgrass and thorns. With his X-ray eyes, he could notice the paths, brooks, and some clearings. Off the path, the way seemed almost impassable.
"System, something is blocking themunication between me and Azazel. Can you fix it?"
[Of Course, the system can. The host just needs to pay 10,000 Badass points]
The system''s greedy voice sounded in his voice. Fortunately, he amassed quite a bit of badass points during the battle in Hades. By quite a bit, he meant 60,000 badass points. Because of the battle, he was able to afford the fix.
"Do it and scan if im being watched"
[Done]
Within a second, the system fixed the issue as Michael was able to contact Azazel yet again.
"Azazel"
"Lord Lucifer. I was trying to contact you" Azazel sounded slightly rmed,
"Something happened?"
"You talking to Ghost?"
Michael heard Ayag''s voice,
"Ghost we have a fucking problem"
Both Ayag and Azazel sounded rmed, he wondered why.
"We are not the only one who has a portal to the Nether Realm. There is someone else harvesting the undeads" said Ayag. She was quite annoyed rather than rmed.
They came out of seclusion because of Cain as he said he was having a bad feeling. She hated him for being right every single time.
"What do you mean harvesting?" asked Michael,
"They are putting the undeads into cages and teleporting them to who knows where through a portal. They are capturing all the powerful undeads" Sarba exined to Michael,
"Do you know who they are?"
Somehow Michael doubted they would know the answer because whoever they were, they must be extremely powerful and if they were harvesting the undeads, they were nning something nefarious. Powerful people with nefarious reasons would rarely be careless enough to let their identity be known to others.
"No my lord but they all look like angels, wings and metal armor," said Azazel,
"Ironic isn''t it, angels harvesting undeads"
"Ghost, I have ordered Azazel to stop summoning undeads through our own portal. It might draw the attention of these unknown people"
Michael heard Cain after Ayag. If he was there, he would have done the same. He was d Cain was there to deal with things when he and Gaya weren''t around.
"We should monitor them continually before resuming the summoning. If they are building an undead army just like us, we will need an army more than ever. So we can''t stop the summoning forever" Want to see more chapters? Please visit p a n d a -n o v e l .c o m
"Hmm. Record everything. Do as you said but if they notice you, order Dr to destroy the portal opener immediately"
"Will do" Cain agreed,
"Where is Gaya? Let us talk to her but don''t tell we asked"
"She''s not here," Michael said to Ayag,
"Someone''sing. Talk to youter" Michael quickly closed the connection when he heard rustling from behind,
He slowly turned around,
"What are you doing here all alone?"
The young professor he saw at the staff table was standing in front of him with her brow arched up. There was no one in the area except him and the professor.
"Just sightseeing professor"
From far away, Wilkas and Nightmare were looking at them. If it wasn''t for the professor, they would have gone to meet Ghost.
"You are nning something 66 and whatever you''re nning, it''s not gonna happen as long as I''m here but" she came closer to him.
"If you do something" her voice turned seductive as she ran her fingers through his chest,
"I can overlook and even give you some extra credits" she whispered into his ears seductively
[Scanpleted. The host is only being watched by Nightmare and the Half elf]
The system encouraged him to make a move on the professor. It sounded amused,
"Is that so?" Michael wrapped his arm around her wrist.
"Sounds dirty but I like it" Michael pulled the professor closer to him. They both could feel each other''s warm breath brushing past their faces.
"I hope you don''t mind the fact I''m engaged" he gently bit her ears before whispering.
Gaya, who was disguised as the professor, shivered with mixed feelings. Her anger was soaring through the roof and tears formed in her eyes without her control,
"Nice disguise but you forget to remove the ring on your finger, professor" he chuckled,
Her mind went nk for a second. The tears rolled out of her eyes as she felt so relieved knowing that he wasn''t going to cheat on her. She nned to prank him, expecting him to chase away her thinking she was a professor. But her prank backfired chaotically when he did the opposite of her expectation.
"You fucking bastard" she began to pound his chest,
"You gave me a heart attack. Don''t do that again, I will kill you"
She became madder looking at Michael who wasughing. It was because she looked extremely cute when she was mad and he couldn''t resist the urge tough.
Wilkas was confused as he was staring at them with wide eyes. He never expected the human to be so lovey-dovey with a professor. Nightmare on the other hand waspletely stunned. It took him a couple of minutes to notice the ring on the girl''s finger. He finally realized what just happened.
"How did you end up like this?" Asked Michael. They were still too close to each other. Gaya was hugging him as though she was a ko bear.
It only took her a couple of minutes to exin to him what happened after she was teleported away by the system. After her story, Michael told her about what was happening in the Nether Realm.
And just as they were about to talk about finding the dark elf, Gilrine came carrying a bucket full of grayish mushrooms.
"Huh?" Gilrine squinted his eyes as for a second, he could swear they were hugging each other. However, when he realized the girl was the new professor, he dismissed the thought and cursed himself for thinking like that,
"What the hell are you doing?" Before Gilrine could ask anything, Gaya shouted at him. The big man started to get freaked out by the new professor.
"Professor ni asked for these rain cloud mushrooms, Professor Steinmeyer"
"I assume these are for that moron who got his ass kicked by a dwarf"
Gilrine was shocked to see Gaya calling a student moron. He had never seen a professor utter such a word so casually,
He scratched his head, thinking about what to say next,
"I heard Professor Lane is talking about suspending that moron. It was funny actually, first, he got his ass kicked by a dwarf and now he''s facing a suspension for getting his ass kicked" Gayaughed,
"What was that about?" asked Michael. Professor Jane was the dark-robed professor with dark hair who was pping a student in the great hall before the sorting ceremony. Michael was curious about what happened,
"Simple version, the guy is a Warrior. Because of some reason, he chose to squabble with a dwarf in the house of cksmiths. ording to him, the dwarf carefully nned and ambushed him which is utter bullshit. He got his ass handed over to him by the dwarf"
"So what''s gonna happen to the dwarf professor?" Since Gilrine was looking at them, Michael addressed Gaya as Professor.
"Nothing," Gilrine said,
"He is a warrior and in house Warriors, getting beaten up by the other house students is considered a shame as the Warriors feel they are superior to the others. The student is lucky the head prefect did not expel him"
Now Michael understood what was going on here. However he had one doubt,
"Professor Steinmeyer, I thought you are the head of House Warriors"
"I am," Gaya said,
"Professor Serine Jane is head of Alchemists and I heard he''s been eyeing the Combat teacher role for some time. Isn''t it true, Gilrine?" she turned her gaze towards Gilrine who felt ufortable talking about the politics amongst the staff in front of a student.
Seeing how he react, Gaya rolled her eyes,
"I heard this from a student and it seems everyone knows it. No point in hiding you big dumbo" She stepped towards Gilrine,
"As the head of house warriors, I have the right to know everything rted to my house and you''re gonna tell me everything" Gaya put her hand on Gilrine''s shoulder and smiled. That smiled freaked him out more,
"Or I''m gonna shove those mushrooms so far up your ass and you will taste them in your mouth"
She left the area after threatening Gilrine.
"God, what just hit Mazeroth?" Gilrine mumbled under his breath looking at her figure disappearing into the darkness.
Chapter 433 - Mysterious Employer of 66
Chapter 433 - Mysterious Employer of 66
"Hey Gilrine, I want to ask you something" Michael came to Gilrine''s side. The big man was still staring at the door that Gaya walked through.
"Hello," he had to pat Gilrine on the shoulder to get his attention,
"Oh sorry, did you say something?"
"Yeah, I want to ask if someone from another house could share the room with me"
Gilrine was taken aback by surprise,
"No no no no, god no. You just came to Mazeorth and you already found a mate" the big man was frantically shaking his head,
"It''s not a girl, he''s just a friend" Michael quickly said before Gilrine could get another idea,
"Why can''t he stay in his room?" asked Gilrine as Michael waved at Nightmare to bring Wilkas closer.
Hearing the footsteps, Gilrine turned around and saw Wilkas walking towards them. The moment, he saw the half-elf, Gilrine discovered why Ghost was asking such a question,
"Oh"
Michael noticed the sadness emerge in Gilrine''s eyes for a moment when he saw Wilkas,
"You can share rooms, there are no rules against a student from another house bunking in another house room. It''s amon thing here"
When Wilkas came to them, Gilrine patted Wilkas on the shoulder,
"Have it rough eh? It will get better, don''t fret about it"
Gilrine sounded as though he had personal experience of getting bullied. It was obvious to everyone that Gilrine isn''t a pure-blooded human. Michael guessed he might be half-giant and half-human.
Compared to the humans, the elves were next-level racists. Hence, Wilkas was affected by the racism much more than Gilrine,
"Yeah, he''s having it rough. So he will stay with us" Michael ced his hand on Wilkas''s shoulder with a smile. Wilkas felt like he was being stared at by a predator as he swallowed a mouth full of saliva. Wilkas wasn''t a softhearted one. The life on the streets forged him to be cold, cunning, and headstrong. However, something about the human before him sent a chill through his spine.
"You two should return to the great hall. Your prefects will be waiting there"
Gilrine patted the youngsters before gently stroking Nightmare''s chin.
"Good luck with your sses tomorrow. Especially in yourbat sses, professor Steinmeyer freaks me out"
"You didn''t see?" Wilkas asked Gilrine,
"Saw what?"
"Nothing. Come on 45, it''s way past your bedtime" Michael dragged him away from Gilrine before Wilkas spilled the beans about Gaya and him.
"See you tomorrow Gilrine" Michael waved at Gilrine before making his way to the great hall.
The great hall was once again packed with students when he arrived. Few of the elves gave Wilkas a death re while some just ignored himpletely as though he didn''t exist.
Michael could care less about these racist assholes.
"House Alchemists, follow me in an orderly manner," said a curly brown-haired youngster.
"Arch energy flow will be blocked in three¡two¡one" a voice echoed through the hall,
When the voice said one, the Arch energy in the hall disappeared. However, Michael did not feel any difference. In fact, he could feel the arch energy running in his body.
[The changes the system made to you when you were in the Southern continent applies in Akn Realm too. You can thank me now]
"It''s not like you did it for free. Anyways, I appreciate the help" said Michael in his mind.
As they were following the perfect, more and more elves down the hall were staring at Wilkas. Some of the elves were pping him on the head for no reason. The perfect seemed to ignore it and Michael started to get annoyed by this.
"Fuckers" Wilkas cursed under his breath. When he received the invitation to join Mazeroth, he was happy in his life for the first time. He thought he would finally be free of elves and their bullying. His fantasy was shattered as he realized this ce was no different than Awor, filled with elves.
On top of these racist bullies, he ended with a human who somehow saw him breaking space rings and stealing stuff. Wilkas still had no idea what the human wanted from him.
As Michael expected they followed the prefect to a wall where there was a portrait of ady with green hair hanging on.
"Password," thedy asked in a melodious voice,
"Proporium Triecto"
The portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it and found themselves in the Alchemistmon room, a cozy, square room.
Once they arrived inside the room, they were weed by the roaring fire, squashy armchairs, and sofas. The dormitories were reached by climbing the winding mahogany staircase, decorated with emerald green. Posters of a few old people and a twelve feet tall massive painting of a green-haireddy with two saplings in her hand were covered with thick golden nkets.
She was one of the four founders of Mazeroth and the patron of House Alchemist, Ingrid Stenham. Gold chandeliers cast a warm glow all around, making the room cozier and shinier.
The room was full of squashy armchairs, tables, and a bulletin board where school notices, ads, lost posters, etc. could be posted. Themon room was decorated in several shades of emerald green, which was associated with the house. Themon room wasfortable, but not morefortable than the Warrior House Basement. There were also bookcases located in the room, filled with various novels and forms of literature.
The room was instantly hated by Michael due to theck of darkness and to be exact, too much green. He wanted to wear sunsses to cover his eyes from all the greenness.
"Boys'' rooms are this way" the perfect pointed to the mahogany staircase at the far end of the room,
"Girls'' are through that door" he then pointed at the door on the right as the girls made their way to their rooms instead of spending some time in themon room.
Michael and Wilkas reached the dormitory by climbing the stairs. In front of them was a narrow corridor and on either side of the corridors were doors that had no number of any sort.
"Take a room you like, we have so many" the prefect''s voice came from behind as the boys began to get into a room one by one. Michael loved some privacy and silence hence he chose thest room at the far end of the corridor.
The room was equipped with a centrally-located mini firece and a bunk bed nked by a set of windows and space for storing personal belongings. On the window sill, a water jug was ced, in case any of the students should feel the need for a drink in the middle of the night. A wooden board was located on either side of the bed. A wooden chair and dresser were located on one side of the bed, near the nightstand. A wooden bookcase was located on the other side of the bed with books on top of it. The room had stone walls and wooden floors. The windows had emerald green curtains just like the carpet with the house crest; a single tree in the center of it.
"I''ll take the top bed" Michael took off his silver long coat and hung it on the dresser before jumping up onto his bed.
"Are you gonna tell me who the hell are you and what do you want from me?" Nightmare pped his wings tond on Michael''s chest.
"What''s your n in life?" Instead of answering Wilkas''s question, he questioned Wilkas,
"You''re gonna live your whole life scrounging for coins like a petty thief?"
Asked Michael,
"Nah, he will get caught one day and probably die in prison. If he didn''t get beaten to death first"
"So you two are now my well-wishers?" Wilkas rolled his eyes, plugging into thefy chair beside him,
"We can be," Nightmare said,
"There''s someone who would pay a lot for your talent, Wilkas"
"Is that so?" Wilkas leaned back to listen to his sales pitch,
"Since you might have grown up in the streets, you probably know what kind of men would pay a lot for thieves like you"
"As a matter of fact, I know and I''ve worked for many. I probably know the person you are talking about"
"Trust me you dont. No one knows him, you just do our work without asking any questions and he would pay you quite handsomely. What are you saying?"
"Hey, im just a petty thief. I stole a scroll years ago which showed me how to break open space rings okay. Here I said it. What kind of work can I do to earn a lot? I''m not a cultivation monster like you"
"But you are a runemaster and my employer is looking for an ambitious runemaster. Your star level doesn''t matter, if you serve him well, he can make you climb up the star levels and even reach the 6-star level"
"You can''t bullshit a bullshitter sixty-six or whatever your name is"
Knock!
Knock!
Someone knocked on the door. Wilkas was closer to the door so he opened the door to see an olddy with a trolly full of stacks of clothes,
"Oh," the woman seemed surprised to see a half elf. Several secondster, she put a smile on her face,
"Your uniforms dear, two Alchemist robes I presume" asked the old woman,
"Nah" Wks shook his head, pretending he didn''t see the surprised look on her face,
"One Alchemist and one Runemaster please"
The old woman picked up an emerald green robe from the top of the trolly and a navy blue one from under. He handed over the neatly pressed robes to Wilkas.
"There he is" just when thedy was about to turn the trolley and leave, a tall lean, and mean-looking elf arrived. He was not alone, he had a group of five elves behind him. All of them were wearing gray robes with golden borders,
Sensing the trouble, the old woman rushed away from the room as fast as her old legs could move.
"Oh no you dont"
The elves grabbed the door before Wks could shut it close. Nightmare craned his neck to see five elves walking into their room like they own the room. One of the elves leading the group pushed Wilkas onto the chair behind,
"So the filthy rat is hiding in the sewers"
"Guys should we not do this now" Wilkas tried to wiggle himself out of the trouble,
"This is the perfect time to do this. Guys close the door, we don''t want the rat to escape do we?" the elf put his leg Wilkas''s chest and pressed him against the chair,
"Evindal, do we really have to waste this healing potion on him?" the elven girl asked worriedly. She seemed to care more about the healing potion than what was about to happen to Wilkas,
"We can''t risk getting expelled, Leena. Especially because of this filth"
The elvespletely ignored Michael. Nightmare turned his head towards Michael and saw himy down on the bed with his eyes closed. He did not seem like he was going to intervene.
"We really shouldn''t do this," said Wilkas,
"Or we like to do"
p!
The elf pped Wilkas with enough force to produce an ear-piercing sound. The hand mark was imprinted on Wilkas''s pale face. His face reddened,
"Gu-"
p!
Wilkas''s words were abruptly interrupted by another p. This time, blood started to seep through his nostrils due to the force,
"Ghost do something" Nightmare whispered yet Ghost remained still.
Chapter 434 - The Prophecy Breaker
Chapter 434 - The Prophecy Breaker
"Let him get soften up a bit more," Michael nonchntly said to Nightmare and continued toy down on the bed with his eyes closed.
Meanwhile, the elves began to get rougher and rougher. Wilkas growled in pain. Beforeing to Mazeroth, Wilkas lived in the slum area of Kingdom Lantus. The elves hateding to that part of the area. Wilkas learned to hide and he seldom got the attention of the elves after he grew up. However, in Mazeroth, he had a target on his back. He had no ce to run away anymore. He thought Mazeroth would be different but now he realized that Mazeroth could be worse than Lantus.
Nightmare wanted to save Wilkas but after what happenedst time when he tried to save Sabrina, Nightmare obeyed Michael''s order not to get into trouble by helping people prematurely.
As Nightmare was looking at Michael and Wilkas, the elves began to stomp Wilkas on the chest,
"Hey don''t kill him" the elven girl shouted seeing Wilkas puking out blood,
"We have a healing potion"
The beating had crossed the point of bullying. They were killing Wilkas.
"Take the deal 45 or this will be the rest of your life. Getting beaten up"
Finally, Michael opened his mouth again. The elves stopped the beating for a second to turn their gazes towards Michael. Michael jumped down from the bunk bed/ He rolled up his sleeves to his elbows slowly walking towards the group of elves.
The elven woman was taken aback by him as she stared at him for a few moments without even blinking. He was on par with the elven princes of Awor in terms of good looking and unlike the elven princess, his body was rough and muscr.
She was undressing him in her mind as she couldn''t help it. The white shirt he wore stretched to the point it looked as though it was going to tear apart.
"Deal"
"Look at this human asshole" the leader of this elven gang snickered at Michael,
"What do you want?" the elf asked grimly. He was not threatened by Michael''s physique.
"To give you a choice," said Michael, cracking his neck.
"You see this half-elf works for me now. So the employer-employee contract says any damage to the employee by racist assholes will result in the assholes getting their bones broken up"
The elf''s face turned in overwhelming anger. The elves believed they were the superior race and every other race was beneath them. Thus, Michael''s words kindled the anger me inside them.
The other elves showed the same reaction as the leader elf. Even the elven girl frowned as she wanted to rip his tongue out for insulting them.
"You just made the worst mistake in your pathetic life magot"
"You and your friends can leave now or one of you can carry your racist butts in a bucket"
Wilkas was growling on the ground. If he wasn''t overwhelmed by pain, he would have been surprised by Michael because he was picking up a fight with five elves without the ability to cast spells.
"Now I''m going to count to three"
"Maggot"
The elf stepped forward,
"Two"
The moment the word ''two'' came out of his mouth, Michael headbutted the elf breaking his nose. In a snap of time, he mmed the elf''s head onto the wall nearby and elbowed his head rapidly. The elves were stunned as everything happened so fast. The elf fell with blood spraying out of his nose. The elf did not move at all. Nightmare wondered if the elf was dead or alive.
While the elves were stunned, Michael grabbed a thick book from the book rack on his right and used the spine of the book to break another nose. This time, the other elves reacted as they threw their fists at Michael.
Michael hit the elf''s nose with the book yet again before pping the fist of the girl so hard her wrist turned another side.
"AHHHHH!"
The girl screamed in agony. The girl was so delicate and Michael was so strong. Hence, his single p on her wrist broke her wrist. The elf who got hit by the book stumbled back due to the force of his nose breaking.
The leader elf was lying on the ground beside Wilkas, the girl was screaming in agony and another elf was knocked out. Only two elves remained but fear started to cloud the hearts of the remaining two.
Michael was too fast. They couldn''t cope with his speed. Michael did not stop with breaking the girl''s wrist. He threw the book which now had blood on the cover at one elf. The elf stumbled back as he walked towards them stepping over the elf who got his nose broken by the book.
The elf puked blood as Wilkas did when Michael stepped over his chest.
"ARGHHH!" The girl was still screaming holding her broken wrist. But her scream was abruptly stopped by a knee to her face. The force immediately knocked her out cold.
Seeing the girl gets knocked out by the human caused thest two elves to boil in anger. They mustered their courage to dash at him. Michael evaded their fists with ease.
p!
He pped one elf on the face, making him stumble back and fall down. The other elf was unlucky as he grabbed his hand and punched the elbow, snapping the bone in half. The elf screamed but Michael did not give a shit about his agony. He grabbed the elf by his neck and rapidly punched him in the face until the elf''s rosy face got painted red with his blood.
When Michael turned to look at the elf who did not get knocked out cold by him, his eyes flickered in crimson red. In pain and fear, the elf did not notice his eyes flickering.
Michael bent down and picked up the healing potion from the ground near the elven girl.
"Get out of my room"
His gaze sent a chill running through the elf''s spine. He quickly got himself back to his feet and dragged his friends outside the room as fast as he could. Michael then threw the healing potion as it was nothing to Wilkas.
"What have you done?"
After chugging the healing potion and getting back on his feet, Wilkas asked Michael. He was back on his bunk bed,
"Bullied the bullies"
"That fucking idiots, why can''t they leave me alone?" Wilkas cursed the elves before crashing down on the chair.
"This is our first day here and we are already in a big trouble"
"Now we aren''t. If anyone is in trouble, it''s them" said Nightmare.
Wilkas looked surprised as Nightmare began to exin what Gilrine and Gaya said about the dwarf beating up a guy from the Warrior house.
Although what he heard from Nightmare surprised him, the story did make sense to Wilkas.
"The elves are like snakes man, once they target you, they won''t rest until you are under six feet"
"Humph" Nightmare snickered.
Neither Wilkas nor the elves had any idea about what he was capable of. As far as Nightmare was concerned, they were lucky that Michael was able to control himself. In case the third persona took control, they would have been lying on the ground in their own pool of blood.
"I don''t think the Warriors would let go scot-free after someone beat up their house students. I hope we don''t get expelled" Wilkas sighed,
"I don''t give a shit about this school and you shouldn''t either. If you aim to get rich and powerful, there are better ways and the choice you made is the best way" said Michael.
He wanted to get some shut-eye before starting his search for the elf in the tree. He had no idea where the elf might be or how big the Akn realm was. He was having second thoughts about using drones to scour the realm for the elf as the drones might get detected by some arrays if Mazeroth have any and it was highly likely that they have numerous defense mechanisms.
************************
Somewhere else in the Akn realm, Elidyr, the elf Michael and Gaya were searching for, was looking at the dark sky above him. The sky was ominous and dark like never before. There was not a single star or speck of glow in the dark sky. It was pitch ck void of any light.
The ominous sky put a smile on his face. One could not see a smile though because his face was merged with a tree and barks covered most of his body.
"He is here," Elidyr said. He closed his eyes, mumbling something under his breath.
Several glowing runes appeared on the tree. The banyan tree withered immediately but soon, the tree turned into its previous self. However, the leaves fell off the tree and began to form a cyclone.
A couple of secondster, the cyclone took a shape of a humanoid shape,
"Find him. Where there is blood, he will be there" the humanoid figure made of leaves flew away with the wind leaving Elidyr alone.
"The great war has finally begun"
The Skyhall went so far to prevent the Dark Lord from appearing in this world. Three thousand years ago, the Order of Death was wiped off by the Skyhall and the Guardians. They failed the Dark Lord and their failure resulted in Skyhall prisoning the soul of the Dark Lord in a void universe.
Only a few in this world knew the origins of the Dark Lord and what the Skyhall did to him. The reason they left him alive was only Elidyr knew how to open the portal back to earth and if the Skyhall managed to cast the Dark Lord back to his cage, he wouldn''te back to this universe for the rest of his life.
Suddenly Elidyr looked up to see a bright glow appear in the sky.
"s, the Prophecy breaker appeared"
Chapter 435 - Unruly Proffesor Steinmeyer
Chapter 435 - Unruly Proffesor Steinmeyer
The next morning Michael reluctantly put on the emerald green robes of the Alchemy house and left his room with Wilkas. Nightmare was called to another ssroom where they trained the familiars. Since Nightmare was curious about the other dragons and the magical beasts, Michael let the dragon go.
The robes were simr to the robes worn by the Hogwarts students with a few adjustments. There were clear signs to guide them toward their first ss. Through thebyrinth of corridors, they reached a red oak door that had the sign ''Combat Hall'' hanging above.
Thebat ss took ce on the first floor, ss 86. In the ssroom, an iron chandelier hung from the ceiling, as well as a huge dragon''s skeleton. On one end of the ssroom stood a projector that was activated by magic. Several desks and tables could be found in the ssroom as well as some sets ofrge windows. Calling it a ssroom was an understatement, it was arge hall big as some throne halls.
The ssroom was gloomy as curtains had been drawn over the windows, and was lit by candlelight. Portraits of various fighting forms and battlefields adorned the walls. Some portraits were showing people who appeared to be in pain, sporting grisly injuries or strangely contorted body parts. Inside the ssroom, nobody spoke as they settled down, looking around at the shadowy, gruesome pictures.
All the houses were required to takebat sses. Hence, the hall was filled with students wearing various color uniforms. When Michael and Wilkas entered the ssroom, the students sitting in the front row stared at them, and immediately a look of scorn appeared on their faces. Wilkas got the worst of it because many just ignored Michael but almost half of the students were staring at Wilkas with disgust, especially the elves.
In the ssroom, elves upied the first three rows in the front. The humans sat behind them and dwarves and orcs upied the tables before thest row. No one sat on thest row except for a few beast-men.
Because thest row attracted less crowd, the row was pretty empty.
Michael did not attend any schools but still, he liked to sit on thest bench because, in his mind, that''s where the legends would sit.
A few human girls made space for Michael to sit beside them when he was walking to them. However, Michael ignored them and went to thest bench.
Wilkas slid into the space to get to the ce near the window. Michael ced the stack of books in his hand on the table.
"Look, the elves you beat upst night" Wilkas nudged Michael''s elbow. Michael looked at the front row where the elves were staring at him. When his gaze fell on them, they quickly looked away as though they were never staring at him with killing intent.
Wilkas began rummaging through the books one by one. Every single book was a couple of inches thick and heavy.
"You know how to read?" asked Michael,
"I''m not illiterate thanks to Mentor Orc"
"Mentor Orc?"
"That''s what we call him in the slums. No one knew his real name or why he spent his time teaching the orphans in the slums"
Wilkas was grateful to the orc and Michael could see that in his eyes. They looked at the orcs who upied the middle benches. Unlike the rest of the students, the orcs were sitting in silence reading their books. They did not seem violent at all despite their scary looks.
The dwarves were the rowdy kids as they already started to tear the pages from the books and build ships, ducks, and all kinds of things and threw at the human girls.
"You''re gonna learnbat by reading books?" snickered Michael seeing Wilkas reading the thick ck book.
"Why else do we have this book?"
Michael just shook his head before leaning back on the wall and stretching his legs out. He used his hands as pillows to cushion his head. The longer they spent without a teacher, the louder the ssroom became.
The elven girls were staring at the door eagerly waiting for theirbat teacher.
Creak!
Almost half an hour past their ss time, the door creaked open. Wilkas craned his neck to see the professor who was intimate with sixty-sixtyst night entering the ssroom with a honey bun and arge mug.
Gaya approached the teacher''s table located at the front of the ssroom before arge ckboard. She ced the mug on the table,
"Get your asses up!"
Gaya mmed the table as the students were shaken by her. They immediately stood. To attract less attention, Michael too stood up. However, he wasughing inside so much. He couldn''t wait to see Gaya''s atrocities as thebat teacher.
"Didn''t anyone tell you to stand up and greet the teacher when they enter the ssroom?" asked Gaya looking at the ssroom.
"Wait, you are thebat teacher?" the dwarves murmured,
"You have a problem with that you short fuck"
The elves almost coughed up blood when they heard her yell at the dwarves. The dwarves were stunned beyond words. None of them expected to get yelled at like this. Many doubted she could be their teacher because she was too young and too unruly.
"I am Professor Steinmeyer. I came here to teach you noobs how not to get yourself killed. Now move your asses, we are going out"
And just as Gaya took a step towards the door, an elven girl raised her hand. Gaya looked over her shoulder to see her silver-haired girl from the front row raising her hand,
"What?"
"Aren''t we gonna start with chapter 1?"
"Chapter 1?" frowned Gaya,
She made herself to the front row and snatched the book from another elven boy.
"Give me that"
The students realized their professor was reading thebat book for the first time in her life by looking at the surprised look on her face,
"What is this shit? You''re gonna learnbat by reading books?"
"That''s what he said" Wilkas mumbled,
"Basics ofbat, how to defend yourself, magic defense, sword theory, dual wielding, archery" Gaya rummaged through the book before throwing it away,
"Only morons would expect to learn the art ofbat by reading books. Unless your pathetic n is to kill your opponent by boring him to death, you have to move your asses and try to grasp what I teach you. Leave your fucking books and follow me"
She turned again to walk towards the door when another elven girl raised her hand,
"I swear to god if you ask anything remotely rted to the book, I will barbeque your ass and feed it to the giant eagles"
The girl quickly put her hands down. Although the elves were not at all delighted to see a human teaching them the art ofbat, they did not dare to show their arrogance to Gaya because she held the position of the professor.
Everyone stepped out of their tables and followed her in an orderly manner.
"You know her?" asked Wilkas following Michael behind.
"I saw you saw"
"Saw what?" Wilkas was surprised,
"You know what"
"Where are we going?"
"She seems like a crazy bitch"
"No shit. I have a bad feeling about her"
"Lol she called you a short fuck, hehehehe"
"We are the same height, you moron"
The dwarves were bitching about Gaya while moving forward in the line,
"She is interesting"
"I feel we are going to learn a lot from her"
Compared to the dwarves, the orcs were such nice guys. They were praising Gaya regardless of how she acted. Michael was truly surprised to see how these orcs behaved. They seemed peaceful and friendly.
Several minutester, they reached the outskirts of the forest spanning to the west. The forest was dark and gloomy. And radiated an eerie feeling.
The trees in the forest were mdy-brown.
Grains of poison begrimed the bark and gleamed like witch dust. The smokey air and stifling atmosphere provided the perfect abode for those who worshiped the darkness rather than the light. In the dense shadows, spiders clutched their snare strings. Their webs shimmered like meshed steel dipped in silver.
The forest looked primordial, dark, and gloomy as the dark forest where Michael lives. Centuries-old trees with sprawling limbs guarded the darkness, blotting out any sunlight. Bewailing sounds ghosted through the trees. Whether it was from prey or a predator, only the forest could tell. It was truly a ce to make everyone''s veins freeze over.
"Form a circle," Gaya said, amplifying her voice with arch energy.
"I assume you all have your weapons with you"
The students nodded. Many were gawking at the forest. Their faces looked pale due to fear.
"Your first lesson, go to the forest and survive for thirty minutes. If you step out of the forest before the clock runs out, you will be on the roster to clean thetrines for a week"
The students were stunned. Their jaws dropped a few inches as one elf shouted,
"You can''t do this. The ck forest is forbidden to the students. You can''t ask us to risk our lives"
Gaya stomped the ground as a pebble rocketed to her hand. With a swift kick to the pebble, she sent the pebble soaring towards the elf.
"Argh!"
The elf screamed when the pebble broke his nose. The pebble hit the elf right between his eyes with deadly uracy,
"Go cry to your mommy, boo hoo"
The elf was too ashamed. His body shivered in anger as he had never been ashamed like this in his life before. He could not stand there anymore as he rushed away from the group.
"If you bitches are too afraid to roam around the safest areas of the forest, you shouldn''t havee to Mazeroth. This is a ce for winners, not for cowardly losers. Are you winners or spineless losers?"
Michael wondered why she was trying to send the students into the forest.
As expected, the students did not shout but mumbled the word ''winners'' meekly.
"What is she doing?" from a distance, an elderly woman with a hunched back was looking at Gaya and the students. Headmistress Ka stood beside her with a curious look on her face,
"Trying something new I guess"
Chapter 436 - A Mountain troll
Chapter 436 - A Mountain troll
The further they walked into the forest, the lesser they saw what was in front of them. The paths were barely passable. Wilkas could hardly keep up with him without losing sight of him.
"Do you know how to climb trees?" asked Michael, stopping under a huge birch tree.
"Because I''m a half-elf, you expect me to know how to climb a tree?"
Wilkas misunderstood Micahel. He didn''t realize Michael was really going to get onto a branch on top until Michael fired a metal hook from the mark 3 bracers he was wearing around his wrist.
In a blink of an eye, he was on top of the tree. Wilkas looked up at the tree with his mouth wide open,
"Grab this tight"
Wilkas grabbed onto the metal hook tightly. The next thing he knew, he was getting lifted off the ground.
"What the hell?" Wilkas grabbed onto the tree to bnce himself. He didn''t even want to look down as they were standing too high from the ground.
Whoosh!
A gust of wind flew past his face.
"Why is he here?" Wilkas turned to see professor Steinmeyer standing between them on the tree branch. She was staring at him,
"Professor?"
"What''s your n?" asked Gaya, ignoring Wilkas. After Wilkas went to sleepst night, Michael and Gaya talked about everything through the earpiece. Since Gaya just came up with the n to send the students into the forest just this morning, Michael was in the dark.
"You know what they say when you want to hide a tree, hide it in the forest. In our case, they might have literally hidden the elf somewhere in this forest. I needed an excuse to get you here" said Gaya.
The way professor Steinmeyer put her hand on sixty-six''s shoulder creeped out Wilkas. He couldn''t believe how a professor of a prestigious academy like this could have a rtionship with a student. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that they might know each other beforeing to Mazeroth.
"I did some digging. This ce hasn''t been monitored by any arrays, so it''s safe"
Their conversation didn''t make any sense to Wilkas. He felt pretty awkward and unsafe standing on the branch.
Michael had already scanned their surroundings and made sure that they were not being watched. However, he did not want to deploy the drones and Spyders in front of Wilkas. The point was to show Wilkas how powerful his mysterious employer is.
"Keep digging. If the elf is here, I don''t think we can find him without any help"
"Let''s go searching"
By giving the students the assignment to survive in the forest, she gave both Michael and her the chance to roam through the woods searching for the elf without raising any suspicion.
"Should we take him with us?" asked Gaya,
"Why not?"
The next moment Gaya grabbed Wilkas by the back of his neck before jumping down from the branch.
"Argh, fuuuck" Wilkas screamed,
When theynded on the ground, Wilkas was breathing heavily as he was terrified,
"You sure he''ll be of use to us?"
"Hmm"
"Who are you people?"
Gaya put her hand on Wilkas''s shoulder. He could feel her gently squeezing his shoulder,
"The people who could make you very rich or very dead"
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!"
Suddenly a scream echoed through the forest. They immediately looked in the direction of the scream.
"Huh? Do you feel that?" asked Wilkas feeling the ground trembling,
The tremble increased by the second to the point it felt like they were having a powerful earthquake.
"ARGHHHHHHH!!!"
The screams of the students reverberated in the forest louder and louder.
"Something''sing this way" Wilkas looked terrified as expected.
Gaya took off from the ground like a bullet through the canopy. It didn''t even take a minute before she came back with a pale face,
"We have to go" she sounded rmed,
"What did you see?" asked Michael,
"We don''t have time, there is a fucking mountain trolling this way"
"What the fuck is a mountain troll?" Wilkas shrieked.
"Come on run" Gaya pushed Michael and Wilkas to run. She could fly away unlike Wilkas and Michael. To hide his ability to use arch energy, Michael had to avoid flying or using any spells. Hence his only way to escape was to run.
"Didn''t you read the fucking book they gave you?"
Wilkas almost puked blood. She threw away the book and mocked them for having abat book. She talked as though she loathed having books forbat ss yet at a moment like this, she was yelling at him for not reading the book. It was obvious that she read the whole book unlike what she pretended.
Although Michael did not know what a mountain troll is, he wasn''t going to wait around. He started to run towards the castle as Wilkas ran behind him.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"
A thunderous growl shook the forest as they were running.
"I hate this ce" Wilkas shouted while he was running,
They ran as fast as they could without looking back. However, the trembling indicated that the mountain troll was getting close to them. The sound of trees shattering and cracking could be heard on top of the screaming sounds of the students.
Seeing the light at the end of the forest gave Wilkas enough boost to push his body to the extreme. As a half-elf, Wilkas was born with extreme agility and speed. No human had ever outrun Wilkas. He was able to run through the woods as the forest was his yground thanks to his nimble body and the training he had since he was born.
Nheless, he was barely able to keep up with sixty-six. Surprisingly this was sixty-six did not look like he was pushing his body to the limit. He seemed calm and collected regardless of the mountain troll chasing them.
With a final push, Wilkas and Michael jumped out of the woods and reached the ground between the forest and Mazeroth castle. They saw students running to the castle like a bat out of hell.
Michael was neither in the shape to fight nor wanted to fight the mountain troll which would defeat his purpose of staying anonymous.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!"
After putting some distance between the forest and them, they heard an ear-piercing thunderous roaring from behind. They looked over their shoulder to see a fifteen feet humanoid beast with gray skin, a bald head, and overgrown ears roaring to the sky. In its giant hands, it held a grown tree. The troll used the tree as a club.
The troll''s belly looked as though it just ate a few buffalos whole. Even from a distance, the putrid smell that came from the mountain troll made Wilkas''s face go green.
"RUN!" Gilrine''s shout attracted Michael''s attention as well as the other students.
It was not like Michael nned to stay put and watch the troll. He was just momentarily stunned to see a mountain troll in real life.
"Run human, the troll is resistant to all magic attacks" Michael heard Gaya''s voice in his head.
Defeating a fifteen feet giant without spells was impossible, even for him. He was strong but not strong enough to defeat the mountain troll. It would squash him like a bug if he picked up a fight with the troll. Besides, Michael had no intention to fight with the troll. The more he pushed himself, the harder it would be to prevent the third person from showing up.
"Where the heck are the professors?" Wilkas asked while running with him,
"Calm down boy" Michael saw Gilrine approach the troll with his hands reached out,
"What the fuck is he doing? It''s not a dog he could tame" Wilkas growled looking over shi shoulder,
The mountain troll surprisingly stopped roaring. It tilted its head looking at Gilrine. The troll stood still as Gilrine slowly approached the troll daring not to make any sudden moves.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"
Yet, when he was just a few meters away from the troll, the troll''s eyes flickered in red as it raised the tree in its hand high in the sky to squash Gilrine with it.
BOOM!
The very next moment, a rainbow color beam shot out from the sky andnded between Gilrine and the mountain troll. The force of the beam pushed the mountain troll a couple of steps back. The bright light radiated from the beam made the troll close its eyes for a second.
Michael knew it was a teleportation beam and he wondered who would step out of the beam. Wilkas on the other hand expected a bunch of people or the guards or the professors to step out of the beam to kill the troll.
However, who was there when the light beam disappeared was a girl in ocean blue robes. She was taller than average girls and wore clothes that screamed wealth. Her raven ck hair fluttered in the wind. Michael could not see her face but by the look of her arms, he could tell she was a trained warrior.
Standing in front of the mountain troll, the girl never moved a muscle. She remained as calm as the sea.
"Leave" the girl ordered Gilrine. Her authoritative voice shook Gilrine as his legs automatically started to move backward.
Michael failed to see any magical fluctuations around her which meant just like the students, she was too unable to use arch energy.
"GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"
The mountain troll changed its target from Gilrine to the girl in front of it. It once again raised the tree in its hand higher to attack the girl.
Chapter 437 - The Holy Maiden
Chapter 437 - The Holy Maiden
"GRRRRRRRRRR!" the mountain troll roared before smashing the club on the ground to squash her. However, the girl threw the de aiming at the troll''s chest. The de impaled the mountain troll. The chain attached to the de grew shorter and shorter as she used the de as a pulley to reach the mountain troll.
BOOM!
At this time, the mountain troll smashed the ground, creating a deep crater. The troll lifted off the tree to see there was no blood and felt the girl running on its shoulder.
"GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!" the mountain troll roared violently, pping itself to catch the girl. She was fast. In frustration and anger, the troll raised its club once again. This time, however, the girl fired the two des in her hand aiming at the tree in the troll''s hand.
She jumped off from the troll''s shoulder holding the two des tight. She yanked the chains attached to her des to bring down the tree on the troll''s head. When shended on the ground, the troll lost control of the tree in its hand.
"GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!!"
Bam!
With a final yank, the girl brought the tree hard on the troll''s head. Wilkas realized the tree was heavier than it looked when it split opened the troll''s head like an egg.
The girl did not even turn back to see the troll''s body as it hit the ground with a loud booming sound. The des reached her hand. She put the des into the sheathes hanging on her back.
Michael had been fascinated by the girl. She was so badass. The battle with the troll ended before it even began. Only a battle-hardened warrior would be able to pull off what the girl just did. Moreover, she did not use any arch energy or spells, it was her raw strength.
After Noah, this girl seemed to be a tougher opponent. He had a feeling that if they battled, he might lose the battle.
"Mithak!" Gilrine cried out loud running towards the fallen troll,
The girl did not remain there but left the area. Several professors were running towards the mountain troll while the prefects came rushing out to escort the students to their dorms.
"Who is that?" asked Wilkas in shock,
Michael stared at the girl disappearing into the castle,
"I have a feeling we will meet soon," he said to himself before turning back to leave for their rooms.
Gilrine in the distance knelt beside the mountain troll with tears gushing out of his eyes. His sobbing sound was loud enough for everyone to hear.
**********************************
Back in the castle, a hunched old woman walking with the support of staff was walking from one end to another in a spacious room. It was arge and beautiful circr room, full of weird little noises. Several gold instruments stood on spindle-legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke. The walls were covered with portraits of old old men and women, all of whom were snoozing gently in their frames. There was also a throne made of ice.
The old woman''s pace came to a halt when she saw the door creak open,
"Holy Maiden" the old woman''s back already looked like it was bowing down due to her hunched back still when she saw the girl, she bowed further down.
"Bai Ning" the girl nodded before making her way to the throne,
The air around the throne was chilly enough to freeze someone''s bones still the girl satfortably on the throne without showing any signs of pain.
She seemed extremelyfortable and dominant,
"I told you you can address me as Rowena in private"
The girl who stunned Michael was none other than Noah''s elder sister. He had no idea that she was his big sister. The position of Holy Maiden was only given to a cultivator with extremely rare yang energy in their body. The position was held by no one for thest three thousand years until Rowena. Her sessor the previous Holy Maiden was said to have reached the Celestial stage and parted the world to the realm of Angels.
"That was an incredibly dangerous Holy Maiden" Bai Ning stomped the ground with her staff. In her voice, one could notice the anger but also care.
"I''m alive and the troll isn''t," Rowena said with an expressionless face,
"Ka should put a leash on her professors" the woman hunched her way towards the table, flicked her wrist to take out the teapot set, and began to brew tea for the Holy Maiden. The tea she brewed was radiating smoke. However, the tea was not hot, it was freezing to the bone.
If anyone else drank it instead of her, the weak would die in a matter of seconds while the strong might live only when they warm their body to an extreme temperature.
"Have you located the primordial mes?" asked Rowena taking sips of her bone-chilling tea,
"The spell has narrowed the search area but we still need some time"
"What about the demon?"
Bai Ning waved her hands as arge bowl full of glistening blue liquid appeared on the table. The old woman poured a red liquid into the bowl and stared at the red liquid fuse with the blue liquid
"Somehow the demon has been escaping my location spells"
"Then the devil is not alone. The sooner we find it the better" said Rowena,
"The world is not ready to ept the existence of higher realms. If they knew they had a demon walking among them, it would cause a massive panic wave. Demons, imposters, wars, famine, hunger, the great ns are supposed to fix these. They are bing ipetent by the day"
Bai Ning was a straightforward person. She had never held back her thoughts. Hence, she called the Great ns ipetent in front of Rowena whose brother is in one of the Great ns, the Guardian Guild.
"And the other task" the air in the room became chillier. Bai Ning stopped looking at the bowl and turned her gaze towards Rowena,
"The Guardians should handle it Holy Maiden. The Skyhall shouldn''t meddle with-"
Bai Ning was interrupted by the sudden coldness she felt in her body. Rowena crushed the teacup in her hand before standing up from her throne,
"Someone targeted my family, I made it clear you find them and bring them to me"
The old woman stepped backward in fear Although she had higher cultivation, Bai Ning was afraid of the Holy Maiden. They couldn''t measure Rowena''s power using just cultivation stages. She was a being in the making to be a goddess and Bai Ning did not want the wrath of a goddess to fall upon her.
Rowena''s eyes flicked in blue like a pair of sapphires,
"My family is more important than Skyhall. You have three days to find the assassins"
Bai Ning could barely breathe. She just nodded her head in fear and waited for Rowena to leave the room.
"The elders need to know this" after Rowena left the room, Bai Ning mumbled under her breath.
**********************************
Meanwhile, Gaya and Gilrine were standing in a cozy room. The room had arge firece, windows overlooking the training grounds and the battle arena, and a sparse stone-floored bedroom behind a concealed door.
Headmistress Ka was staring at both of them. Her eyes were like daggers cutting through Gaya and Gilrine,
" A mountain troll? What were you thinking, Gilrine?" Gilrine was shivering. He was swallowing a mouth full of saliva in nervousness.
"And you professor Steinmeyer" Ka turned her focus onto Gaya,
"You should have been more careful"
"How the hell would I know this crazy brat was raising a bloody mountain troll in the ck forest?"
"Mithak" Gilrine mumbled under his breath. His eyes were still teary due to the loss of his beloved mountain troll,
Ka sighed,
"Exin yourself, Gilrine. Why were you keeping a mountain troll in the ck forest?"
Gilrine looked awkward as he looked between Ka and Gaya,
"Professor Steinmeyer" Seeing Gilrine hesitating to exin himself in front of Gaya, headmistress Ka realized that he must be keeping the mountain troll for a reason. Hence, Ka first wanted to deal with Gaya and sent her away,
"I am not going to tell you how to conduct your sses but please be more vignt, lives could have been lost today"
"I''ll be more careful, Professor Ka" Gaya nodded as she did not want to argue with Ka when she was a frickin imposter.
Gaya turned back showing her back to Ka,
"Is that a peanut stuck in your beard?" asked Gaya. Before Gilrine could put his hands into his beard, Gaya helped him,
"Jeesh"
Gilrine awkwardly tried to smile after she helped remove the peanut. Little did he know that Gaya was not removing any peanuts but putting a Spyder into his bushy beard. It was indeed risky but she took the risk to know why Gilrine was keeping a mountain troll in the ck forest. Since a lousy-mouth man like Gilrine was keeping it a secret, she knew whatever the reason he was keeping a mountain troll, it must be something very important.
"Oh Professor Steinmeyer" Gaya felt a chill running through her spine. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest cavity when she heard Ka calling just after she ced a Spyder into Gilrine''s beard to spy on them,
"Yes Professor Ka" she turned back again controlling any signs of nervousness from showing up on her face,
"You are on detention duty today. If anyone received detention, take them to the ck forest and make them harvest ck foot mushrooms. Just do me a favor, don''t let the students go past the red oaks "
"Human, get yourself a detention" after leaving Headmistress Ka''s room, she contacted Michael through the earpiece,
******************************
In the girl''s dormitory of warrior house, Victoria was practicing her sword skills by shing and dashing a dummy while Edith wasying on the bedining,
"You know we could have died. Most of us who are taking thebat ss arent warriors. We want to learn about defending ourselves, not how to get yourself killed" Edith was pretty shaken up by the mountain troll. They were one of the few students who saw the mountain troll too close and barely escaped,
"We have toin about professor Steinmeyer to someone"
"You''re just overreacting" Victoria calmly said,
"She was right. You can''t learnbat by reading books. If we can''t survive a mountain troll, we don''t deserve to be here. Think about it, the next time when you''re being chased by a mountain troll, you would not be as scared as now"
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
Their conversation was interrupted by someone who was knocking on the door outside,
"Who is there?" asked Edith with an irritated voice,
"Trouble" Victoria muttered.
Chapter 438 - Michael meets Victoria
Chapter 438 - Michael meets Victoria
"We are here for thirty-four," the youngster who was adorned in gray robes of house warriors said to Edith,
"Why?" asked Edith,
The blonde-haired youngster smiled but behind his smile, there was a slight irritation. Obviously, he did not know Edith''s identity. If he had known she was the little sister of Lah Alden, he would have talked to her in a different tone.
"Brother twenty-nine asked for her"
Victoria put her wooden sword into the sheathe hanging on the side of her waist,
"Who is twenty nine and why is he asking for her?" Edith was annoyed by the group. They acted so smugly and she did not like their attitudes.
"If I am right, he must be a friend of the head prefect Elliot Watson" Victoria came to Edith''s side tying her hair into a bun and putting on the warrior''s long coat.
The young man nodded,
She had noticed a senior student following her since she joined the House of Warriors. She was quite annoyed by him and she decided to deal with them before they became trouble,
"You can stay here Edith. I''ll go with them"
Edith immediately shook her head,
"If you are going, I''ming with you"
Victoria sighed. Edith did not seem like she could be convinced otherwise. Food Edith, it was impossible to change Victoria''s mind after she decided something. This time, she decided to go with these youngsters and Edith knew she could not be stopped. Since she wouldn''t be able to change her mind, she decided to apany Victoria.
"Lead the way, I have something special to give him" Victoria smiled,
The youngster''s heart skipped a beat because of her alluring smile. The Cosmic energy running in her body was transforming her body as well as soul from inside. It had been turning her into an angelic beauty.
The arrays surrounding the castle prevented the students from using Arch energy. However, they were unable to do anything to the Cosmic energy in her body.
Hence, if she wanted, she could cast spells and the spells cast using the Cosmic energy would be devastatingly powerful.
"Wonderful" the young man grinned ear to ear before leading them to twenty-nine who was ackey of head prefect Elliot Watson.
They strolled through the corridors and came to the grand staircase which was a massive stairway in Mazeroth Castle, the structure was mainly used to ess each floor of the castle, including the dungeons. The concept of moving stairs was invented and built by the 6-star architect who built Mazeoth and Kargin Pavlovich, a 6-star cksmith and one of the founders of Mazeroth.
The staircases led from tform to tform and went as high as the ninth floor, where they came to an end. The stairs also had a knack for moving around the staircase chamber, usually when a student was walking up one of them.
Like most walls in the castle, there were hundreds of portraits covering the walls surrounding the staircase, and it was considered an honor for the painted likeness of a cultivator to be mounted on the walls of the grand staircase. Some of these portraits concealed secret passages to other areas within the castle.
After climbing several steps, the youngster stood in front of a portrait of aughing chubby old woman.
"Rishta"
"Password epted," thedy smiled, waving her hand. Soon the portrait moved revealing a secret passage.
The passage was lit with torches rather than glowing orbs. Victoria silently followed the boys into the passage while Edith kept looking around nervously. She was not a warrior such as her sister or Victoria. In fact, she hated violence and killings but she was not naive to expect a world without both.
It took them exactly five minutes to reach the end of the passage. The passage opened up to a cozy room decorated with portraits, a firece, and exquisite vases containing ravishingly beautiful flowers. At the center of the room was a round table with two candles as well as various delicious foods.
"Wee young miss"
A tall young man d in golden robes walked out of the door on the other side with a bright smile on his face. The passage opening behind Victoria and Edith vanished into thin air. Edith was slightly panicked, unlike Victoria who remained as calm as the sea.
When he came closer to them, the five young men who led Victoria here stepped back. The young man bent his waist to give Victoria a royal bow,
"You look beautiful. I am-"
"Earl Decker" Victoria finished his sentence with a snicker. The young man was taken aback by surprise,
"The third son of the Decker family of Kingdom Marina of Awor" Victoria talked while gracefully walking around the room.
"Your family holds many mines including the secondrgest gold mine. Your family had been trying to expand your mining business to the Southern Continent"
Earl was having mixed feelings. On one hand, she looked so domineering and gorgeous, on the other hand, she looked kinda scary. He had no idea how the heck she figured out his identity as he had never revealed it to anyone except Elliot.
"For years, your family has been trying to leverage the senates using your identity as a student of Mazeroth. Fools, humph" Victoria snickered,
"The senates don''t give a damn about Mazeroth. Hence, your family chose to go with the next big thing, marriage"
Earl frowned hearing the scorn in her tone. She just called her family fools in front of hisckeys,
"But your fiance disappeared the day before your marriage. Everyone believes she eloped with her mysterious lover but you know the truth, don''t you Decker?"
"I don''t know-"
"Don''t bother" Yet again, Victoria interrupted his sentence.
She finished strolling around the hall and came before him,
" You were pretty high that night and when she told you no, you forced yourself on her and strangled her to death"
Decker''s mind went nk. No one knew what happened that night yet somehow she knew exactly what happened. He started to have a bad feeling in his guts,
"Men like you are trash and I don''t like being stalked by trash like you"
Plop!
Victoria pped Decker, shocking everyone in the room. His face immediately turned red. Edith could see Victoria''s palm prints on his face.
For a moment, the room fell silent. Then, Decker lost his gentlemanposure as he gritted his teeth,
"bitch"
Plop!
She pped him again. This time, her p contained a sliver of Cosmic energy. He was thrown into the table with the food he prepared to impress Victoria.
The five young men behind them were in a stupor. They did not know what to do.
"Argh!"
Decker''s world was spinning. His mind was in shambles due to the p. He tried to pick himself up but he was unable to do so.
Victoria unsheathed the wooden practice sword. However, her target was not Decker but the five youngsters behind her. When she turned back with the sword in her hand, the five of them felt a chill,
"Miss"
"Pimps, humph" Victoria snickered, closing the gap between them. The five young men could not raise their hands to hit her. They had no idea about Decker''s history like Victoria. They thought they were helping him confess his newborn love to Victoria. Simply, they were not as bad as Decker.
Pat!
Pat!
Pat!
However, Victoria gave no damn about their intention. She started to swing her sword, beating the crap out of the five youngsters.
"Hey" Edith tried to stop Victoria from beating them up. The youngster who led them here received more beatings than the rest of them. He had lost several teeth and was on the verge of losing consciousness,
"Watch out!"
Suddenly Edith noticed Decker rushing towards Victoria with a knife in his hand. Without even turning back, Victoria swung her sword back.
p!
The wooden sword hit Decker with enough force to make him stumble backward. The wooden sword almost cracked due to the force,
"Trash, did you think I''m as weak as your fiance?"
Victoria put her feet on Decker''s neck,
She pressed his neck with her feet, squeezing the life out of him slowly.
"Stop!" Edith cried out loud.
She came running to Victoria and shook her shoulders,
"You''re gonna kill him. We will report this to professor Steinmeyer, she will deal with them. If you killed him, we will be expelled" Edith pleaded with Victoria to knock some sense into her,
"I don''t give a damn about this ce. I am here for the" before finishing her sentence, Victoria stomped Decker''s face, knocking him out cold.
"Primordial me,"
Edith heard Victoria.
At this point, Victoria didn''t know she just gave a reason for the Dark Lord to turn the Decker family against Thusia.
**********************************
The next day night, Gaya was waiting on the grass field near the ck forest border with Gilrine by her side,
"I am gonna give him another detention for making me wait"
Gilrine scratched the back of his neck hearing her threaten the student.
"There they are"
Gaya couldn''t help smiling seeing Michael. Her smile however immediately froze when she saw two girls behind him.
"Who the heck are you two? And what are you two doing here?"
Gaya asked the two girls. One girl seemed warm and friendly while the red-haired girl looked cold and proud. The two girls were none other than Victoria and Edith. Victoria''s mask prevented Michael from recognizing her and she did not recognize him because of his beard and changed demeanor. Moreover, Victoria barely looked at him. For her, he was not even worth a look.
"We are here for the detention, Professor"
For a moment, Gaya looked at them nkly. She was nning to venture into the forest with Michael to find the secret that Gilrine''s mountain troll was guarding.
"Who gave you detention girls?" asked Gilrine,
"Professor Lane," said Edith.
"Oh" Gilrine did not seem very surprised,
"Why?" asked Gaya in an annoyed tone of voice,
"He caught us outside our dorm after the curtain," Edith told Gaya.
Aftering back from Decker''s little secret room, Professor Lane, the head of House Alchemists caught the two girls and gave them detention for beingte.
Edith was grateful that he only gave them detention and did not expel them. However, Decker wasn''t so lucky. He was packing his bags as they were speaking.
"Gilrine, can''t I give them something else to do instead of bringing them with us?"
"I don''t think so, professor Steinmeyer"
"Professor, we won''t give you any trouble," Edith said politely.
"We can protect ourselves professor" Victoria calmly said,
"We could use a warrior Professor in case we encountered a wild beast"
In the corner of her eyes, she could see Michael nod,
"Damn it, okay but you two must follow my orders no matter what without a question. Got it?"
"Yes Professor" Edith bobbed her head up and down while Victoria gave Gaya a small nod.
"Let''s go"
Finally, in the middle of the night, the five of them ventured into the ck forest with each having a n of their own.
Chapter 439 Let me out
Chapter 439 Let me out
The smokey mist filling the forest gave out an ominous feeling. There wasn''t a sound except for their footsteps. Gilrine led the way with Gaya while Michael walkedst following Victoria and Edith. asionally Edith made eye contact with him and smiled.
Somehow he reminded of Noah to her. They were still on the outskirts of the forest as they did not go deeper into the forest. A few yards away, they saw a line of red oak trees. Students were forbidden to cross the red oak trees.
"Now you should feel the arch energy once again," said Gilrine, turning back to look at the three students.
He was oblivious to the fact that except for Edith, both Michael and Victoria could use spells. Thetter had the Cosmic energy running through her veins while for Michael, the system enabled him to use arch energy despite the arrays.
"Look around, you will find the mushrooms you''re looking for," said Gilrine,
"Where are you going?" Gaya asked Gilrine,
"Just making sure we are alone. I don''t want any more surprises" Gaya could see the sweat drops forming on his forehead. It was obvious that he was lying.
COnsidering Gaya wanted to follow him, she pretended to believe him.
"Good idea" she nodded,
"You three, start picking the ck foot mushrooms" Gaya sat on a log as the three of them pretended to look around to pick the mushrooms,
Thanks to the light orb conjured by Gaya, they were able to look around their surroundings.
Edith stared at Michael picking the charcoal-colored mushrooms. As their name suggested, the mushrooms were in the shape of a human foot. Michael picked a bunch of mushrooms from the rotten logs and the ground surrounding the trees.
Following Michael, Edith also located the mushrooms and collected the mushrooms. Victoria was just pretending to pick mushrooms. Gaya saw that but did not give any shit.
"You go look somewhere else" Edith saw professor Steinmeyer shouting an order at sixty-six.
"Yes professor" he nodded before walking away from their spot leaving the girls.
Victoria and Edith sighed in rxation as they now only had to deal with professor Steinmeyer. IF she left the area, they would be able to look for the primordial mes.
Just as they hoped, a few minutester, professor Steinmeyer left the area after telling them to stay put.
Victoria waited until professor Steinmeyer''s figure disappeared into the forest.
She then flicked her wrist as a goldenpass materialized on her palm.
The single red needle kept spinning fastly beforeing to a halt pointing towards the east, the opposite direction Gilrine went.
"We are close to finding the mes,e on" Victoria dragged Edith in the direction thepass was pointing.
Meanwhile, Gaya and Michael regrouped on top of a banyan tree. They were far away from the girls. As far as they were concerned, the girls were collecting mushrooms as they were told.
Michael was watching Gilrine navigating through the forest in the mirror in his hand with Gaya,
"Where is he going?" frowned Gaya,
"Let''s find out"
The duo shot out into the air like bullets. They avoided breaking branches or making any noises. Michael sent a drone in front for reconnaissance.
Almost ten minutester, theynded on a tree branch. In the distance, they saw Gilrine standing under an oak tree. He was gawking around to see if anyone was following him.
After making sure he wasn''t followed, Gilrine took out a leather pouch from the inner pockets of his long faded coat. He poured out a white powder from the pouch. He drew a ''W'' on the tree using the white powder.
The oak tree''s branches moved as several glowing symbols appeared on the stem. Looking at the symbols, Gilrine sighed with ease,
"Thank the gods. Huh?"
All of a sudden, they heard a twig breaking nearby. Gilrine''s body immediately tensed up as he started to look in all the directions. He then quickly wiped off the ''W'' on the tree. When he removed the symbol, the tree moved yet again to its previous state as the glowing symbols slowly faded away,
Michael sent the drone in the direction of the noise.
"Fuck" Michael cursed,
"What?" asked Gaya. She did not seem very patient. It took great effort for her to stay put instead of jumping on Gilrine, knocking him out, and interrogating him to get the truth.
"It''s Wilkas," said Michael,
"And he is not alone"
Whoosh!
Suddenly, a powerful gust of wind blew past them. Both Gaya and Michael almost lost their bnce and fell off the branch. Gilrine was just about to take a step forward when he was knocked out by an invisible force. Gaya and Michael looked at Gilrine stumbling to the ground. For a split second, they saw a humanoid shape standing beside Gilrine before vanishing into thin air.
"Tell me you saw that?" frowned Gaya. She could swear she saw a shape beside Gilrine whoy on the ground without moving a muscle.
"See what happened to him. I''ll deal with Wilkas" said Michael before leaping towards the next tree. Just like him, she leapt from the branch andnded near Gilrine,
Before squatting down to check on Gilrine, she looked around vigntly. Until she was sure that the humanoid shape was nowhere near her, she remained vignt. Still being vignt, she squatted down, putting her finger on Gilrine''s throat,
She felt the pulses but his body was cold. Quickly, she picked up the leather pouch. Before standing up, she took out a needle from her space ring with a flick of her wrist. She injected the needle into Gilrine''s neck.
"Stay down"
Amidst the woods near the oak tree, Wilkas was bleeding on the ground. His face was all bruised up and a white bloody bone was sticking out of his forearm. Another youngsterid not so far from Wilkas andpared to Wks, he seemed to be in a much better state.
"I only wanted to kill one bitch. But now I have to kill a bitch and a maggot"
It was Decker who just spoke these words. Yesterday after Victoria beat the crap out of him, he was found by professor Lane. In front of the most terrifying professors in Mazeroth, Decker''sckeys crumbled, spewing everything they heard from Victoria. Professor Lane did not immediately take any action. He just gave Decker a truth pill and interrogated him. The pill prevented Decker from lying. Hence, he admitted to viting and killing his fiance. Professor Lane expelled him on the spot and gave him two days to get his affairs in order before leaving Akn Realm.
Decker had no affairs to settle except dealing with Victoria. Learning Victoria received detention, Decker was waiting for the two girls in the ck forest when he saw Wilkas.
Wilkas was already in a bad shape when he saw him. Since Wilkas too saw Decker, Decker nned to take him out before he informed the professors. Decker did not want the professors to find out what happened to Victoria and Edith.
"And here I thoughting to Mazeroth was the best thing in my life" Wilkas coughed up blood. Weirdly, he wasughing for some reason.
He always thought he was going to achieve something bigger but now he realized his life was a bit anticlimactic. As hisst wish, he just wanted to bring the god''s wrath on those elves who kidnapped him from sixty-six''s room and mercilessly beat the hell out of him.
"You''re not going to beg for me to let you live?" Decker asked while walking towards him with a crimson red dagger in his hand,
"Nah, I prefer to die with a bit of dignity" Wilkas coughed up some more blood,
"Let me out"
Suddenly a demonic voice reverberated in the area. The voice sent a chill running through Decker''s body. He tensed as he frantically looked around,
"Tear him"
"Piece by piece"
"Broke his limbs"
"I want to feel his warm blood between my fingers"
As the demonic voice sounded closer and closer to them, Decker heard twigs breaking. He conjured an orb of light to see a figure walking out of the shadows,
"You" Wilkas couldn''t believe his eyes. It was sixty-six, his buddy, roommate, and who punched him in the face to get detention.
"Who¡who are you?"
"Go away," Michael growled.
Seeing Wilkas bleeding on the ground reminded him of Jack''s death. Although he avenged Jack, he could not save him. Michael sensed the third persona within him getting stronger as though it was harnessing the power of darkness somehow.
Thest thing Michael wanted was to let the third persona take control of his body and wreak havoc in one of the most powerful ces in the world.
"What the fuck are these prefects doing?" Decker cursed the prefects for letting students sneak out to the ck forest which was supposed to be forbidden for them
Michael threw a healing potion to Wilkas,
"Leave" once again, Michael warned Decker.
"Let me out" Michael''s eyes suddenly med up. A set of pitch-ck armor reced his green robes for a second,
"Whoa" Decker was stunned to see the voice was actuallying from the student in front of him,
What shocked him more was his eyes and the way his looks changed. For a few seconds, he grew taller, a scary-looking armor appeared covering his body from head to toe and his eyes were shooting crimson red mes.
"Buddy, I don''t know what drugs you are on. But it''s one spooky thing"
What could one more body do to him? Thought Decker, hiding the crimson red dagger behind his back.
At this point, Wilkas waspletely healed. He picked himself from the ground.
"I''m not going to¡" Michael closed his eyes, mustering all of his strength to control the third persona,
"Let you out"
"Oh you will¡you will" the demonic voice of the third persona once again growled. This time, it sounded as though it amused,
Finally, Michael felt the urge to go berserk calming down within him which was a sigh the third persona went away.
"Human, we have a problem" he heard Gaya''s voice in his head. Michael took a long breath. Yet again, his third persona put him in a heap of trouble. Both Wilkas and the new guy saw him transform and if either of them told anyone in MAzeroth about this, his life would be at risk.
Wilkas could be dealt with easily unlike the new guy.
"We didn''t see each other. Got it?" Michael asked Decker,
Decker took a few minutes to ponder and answer,
"Why not?"
Michael snickered, "I don''t believe you"
The very next second, Wilkas saw sixty-six dashing at Decker. The next thing he knew, Decker was lying on the ground without moving an inch.
"The hell are you doing?" Wilkas asked, looking at sixty-six tying Decker onto a tree.
"Go back to the dorm," Michael said to Wilkas before injecting a needle into Decker''s neck.
Chapter 440 The Origin of Dark Lord I
Chapter 440 The Origin of Dark Lord I
"If I go back now, I will get caught by professor Lane for sure. He is roaming outside the castle for some reason" Wilkas shook his head,
[The host should bring him with you]
Surprisingly the system asked Michael to bring Wks to the tree. Deep down, Michael too had a feeling that he might need Wilkas. Trusting the system and his instincts never went wrong. Hence, Michael chose to bring Wilkas with him to the tree.
"Follow me"
Considering Michael nned to make Wilkas his subordinate, he did not have to worry about the half-elf betraying him. Plus, Michael didn''t think Wilkas would double-cross him as he stood to gain nothing by betraying him,
"What about him?" asked Wilkas pointing at Decker,
"Leave him"
Wilkas didn''t feel bad for leaving Decker alone. He barely knew the guy yet he tried to kill him. If it was up to Wilkas, he would expel him before beating the crap out of him. Wilkas had no idea that Decker had been already expelled and he was there to kill the ones responsible for his expulsion.
When Wilkas and Michael reached the oak tree, Wilkas''s eyes went wide. They looked as though they were about to pop out of their sockets.
"What the heck? Is that Gilrine? What happened to him?" he frantically asked. As he was about to run towards Gilrine, he saw Professor Steinmeye stepping out of the shadows,
"Professor Steinmeyer" Wilkas''s body went rigid in shock,
"What the fuck is he doing here?" asked Gaya staring at Wilkas with murderous intent in her eyes,
"I''ll tell youter. You said we have a problem"
Rather than exining what was the problem, Gaya walked to the tree, grabbed a handful of powder from the leather pouch, and drew the symbol ''W'' on the tree.
Wilkas looked at the tree moving with his mouth wide open. He couldn''t believe a giant tree such as this was moving like a puppet. It was too magical. Soon, dark lines appeared on his forehead because he was able to read the glowing runes unlike Michael or Gaya,
"That''s it, nothing happens. It will stay like this and after two minutes, the tree will move back to normal" Gaya punched the tree in frustration,
"System"
[The system requires 500,000 badass points to disarm the runes]
[Since the host has only 160,000 badass points, the system could loan you the remaining amount for just a 40% interest rate]
Frowned Michael. But when he turned to look at Wilkas, he saw Wilkas staring at the runes as though he recognized them. Because Wilkas was a runemaster, Michael realized he might have some ideas and he might not need the help of the system.
"Can you read them?"
"I already did"
Gaya finally stopped punching the tree and turned her gaze towards Wilkas,
"What does it say?! Tell us" Gaya dashed at Wilkas. She grabbed him by his cor and lifted him off the ground,
"Professor"
"Say it!"
Wilkas swallowed a mouth full of saliva. He had no idea why the professor was behaving like this. He even began to doubt if she was a professor at all.
"Put him down" Michael ced his hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. For him, it was just finding a solution for his third persona problem. But for her, it was about finding her mother. He knew how much her mother meant to her.
"AAH" Wilkas breathed heavily when his feet touched the ground.
"What does it mean?" asked Michael,
Wilkas took a deep breath,
"They are ancient runes. They roughly trante into, the blood of evil shed by innocent opens the gate of darkness"
"What the fuck is that?" Gaya threw her arms in the air. It seemed like a riddle and Gaya hated the riddles so much, especially when her mother''s life might depend on this riddle.
"The blood of evil shed by innocent opens the gate of darkness, hmm"
"Does it mean something to you?'' asked Gaya after hearing Michael mumbling what Wilkas said under his breath,
"Stay here"
In a blink of an eye, Michael disappeared, turning himself into a bolt of lightning. He came back dragging Decker with him. Gaya was confused,
"Shit who is this?"
"Wilkas" Michael looked at Wilkas. Maintaining the eye contact, he bent down to pick up the crimson red daggers in Decker''s sheathes,
"Kill him"
Wilkas was startled by Michael''s words.
"What do you mean kill him?"
"You have been bullied your whole life. This world will never stop treating trash until you choose to change the world. Your whole life, you''ve been hiding and fearing for others. Evening to Mazeorth didn''t change your life like wanted"
"But" Wilkas clenched his fist. Although his words made sense, Wilkas could not get himself to take a life.
"You can be a maggot as they''ve been calling you or choose to man up and change your life around"
"If killing him would open whatever it is, let me kill him" Gaya tried to snatch the daggers but she couldn''t,
"Yes, let her do it. Why do you want me to kill him? I am not a killer"
Michael was losing his patience. He was not in the mood to deal with Wilkas''s naiveness.
"In this world, you can only be either a prey or a predator. Man up, kill him, and let me change how this world works" Michael said gritting his teeth,
Still, Wilkas shook his head. Michael lost his cool as he grabbed Wilkas by his neck. His eyes flickered din red as the dark armor slowly started to appear on his body recing the green robes,
"Let me make this simple for you. Kill him or I will kill you and everyone you know in the slums you grow up"
Wilkas''s heart skipped a beat seeing his transformation. His voice sounded creepy and demonic and his eyes were burning as though someone set them on fire,
"You don''t understand what''s at stake here Wilkas" Gaya tried to knock some sense into Wilkas,
"If he doesn''t do this, the whole world will suffer. Let him see his people suffer first. Give Azazel the order" Michael turned his fiery gaze towards Gaya,
"STOP!" finally Wilkas shouted,
He was an orphan but he could not let the innocent people in the slums suffer. His hands shivered as he grabbed the daggers in Michael''s hands,
"Don''t hurt them" Wilkas stuttered. He was too afraid to curse at sixty-six. The fear had clutched his heart thanks to the fear toxin Wilkas inhaled.
"Kill him"
Gaya saw the runes losing their glow. She quickly moved towards the tree and drew the symbol once again. On the other hand, Wilkas clutched the dagger tightly. His body was shivering uncontrobly.
Wilkas breathed heavily. He wanted to shout for help but no words came out of his mouth. He saw no way to escape from this situation. His mind could not think of a n.
"DO IT!" Michael growled in his demonic voice. Slowly Wilkas raised the dagger above his head. He clenched the dagger with his two hands,
"KILL HIM!"
This time when he heard the shout, Wilkas brought down the dagger, prating Decker''s chest. The blood sprayed out of the wound. The beating heart of Decker pumped out the blood forcefully. In a couple of seconds, Wilkas''s pale face was painted red with Decker''s blood and the ground beneath them waspletely soaked in thick blood.
Michael turned his head and saw the blue runes slowly turning red. The blood on the ground began to gather into a puddle. From the blood puddle appeared several extensions made of blood. Soon these extensions moved towards the tree like snakes.
The ground beneath them trembled as they started to hear something heavy crack open. The center point of the oak tree slowly split open, revealing a spinning vortex.
Whoosh!
The vortex sucked in Decker''s body. After his body disappeared into the vortex, Wilkas felt the pull. Gaya did not wait for the vortex to pull her in but dashed into it. Michael grabbed Wilkas by his cor and threw him into the vortex before he himself dashed into the portal.
Michael had no time to wonder what was on the other side of the portal. The third persona had already taken control of half of his body and it took everything in him to keep it frompletely manifesting.
After the trio entered the portal, the tree returned to its normal state. And just before thest rune faded away, the humanoid shape made of leaves appeared in front of the tree. A split second after, the blood on the groundpletely vanished along with the humanoid figure.
Somewhere else in the Akn realm, Michael, Gaya, and Wilkas were free falling.
"AHHHHHH!" Wilkas screamed out loud when he opened his eyes and realized that he was falling from the sky.
Suddenly he felt a hand grab his shoulder and the next thing he knew, hended on the ground safely. He let out a heavy breath. His vision slowly cleared as he didn''t feel as terrified as before.
He closed his eyes tight and opened them again, hoping everything that happened was just a nightmare. When he opened his eyes, he saw sixty-six and professor Steinmeyer walking in front of him towards a lone tree.
He was not in his scary ck armor as just a few moments ago. Wilkas looked around to see where he was. As far as he could see, there was nothing but floating mountains. The ce he was standing on was paved and the only thing in the vicinity was the lone tree on the edge.
While walking towards the lone oak tree, Gaya''s body was shivering. The closer they got to the tree, the more they could make out a face in the tree.
"The God of Darkness" suddenly a calm voice reverberated in the area.
"I''ve been waiting for you for three thousand years" Gaya looked closer at the tree to see the face talking.
Finally, she had found the dark elf in the tree her mother asked her to find. She felt like she got a step closer to finding what really happened to her mother.
Chapter 441 The Origin of Dark Lord I
Chapter 441 The Origin of Dark Lord I¡±If I go back now, I will get caught by professor Lane for sure. He is roaming outside the castle for some reason¡± Wilkas shook his head,
[The host should bring him with you]
Surprisingly the system asked Michael to bring Wks to the tree. Deep down, Michael too had a feeling that he might need Wilkas. Trusting the system and his instincts never went wrong. Hence, Michael chose to bring Wilkas with him to the tree.
¡±Follow me¡±
Considering Michael nned to make Wilkas his subordinate, he did not have to worry about the half-elf betraying him. Plus, Michael didn¡¯t think Wilkas would double-cross him as he stood to gain nothing by betraying him,
¡±What about him?¡± asked Wilkas pointing at Decker,
¡±Leave him¡±
Wilkas didn¡¯t feel bad for leaving Decker alone. He barely knew the guy yet he tried to kill him. If it was up to Wilkas, he would expel him before beating the crap out of him. Wilkas had no idea that Decker had been already expelled and he was there to kill the ones responsible for his expulsion.
When Wilkas and Michael reached the oak tree, Wilkas¡¯s eyes went wide. They looked as though they were about to pop out of their sockets.
¡±What the heck? Is that Gilrine? What happened to him?¡± he frantically asked. As he was about to run towards Gilrine, he saw Professor Steinmeye stepping out of the shadows,
¡±Professor Steinmeyer¡± Wilkas¡¯s body went rigid in shock,
¡±What the fuck is he doing here?¡± asked Gaya staring at Wilkas with murderous intent in her eyes,
¡±I¡¯ll tell youter. You said we have a problem¡±
Rather than exining what was the problem, Gaya walked to the tree, grabbed a handful of powder from the leather pouch, and drew the symbol ¡®W¡¯ on the tree.
Wilkas looked at the tree moving with his mouth wide open. He couldn¡¯t believe a giant tree such as this was moving like a puppet. It was too magical. Soon, dark lines appeared on his forehead because he was able to read the glowing runes unlike Michael or Gaya,
¡±That¡¯s it, nothing happens. It will stay like this and after two minutes, the tree will move back to normal¡± Gaya punched the tree in frustration,
¡±System¡±
[The system requires 500,000 badass points to disarm the runes]
[Since the host has only 160,000 badass points, the system could loan you the remaining amount for just a 40% interest rate]
Frowned Michael. But when he turned to look at Wilkas, he saw Wilkas staring at the runes as though he recognized them. Because Wilkas was a runemaster, Michael realized he might have some ideas and he might not need the help of the system.
¡±Can you read them?¡±
¡±I already did¡±
Gaya finally stopped punching the tree and turned her gaze towards Wilkas,
¡±What does it say?! Tell us¡± Gaya dashed at Wilkas. She grabbed him by his cor and lifted him off the ground,
¡±Professor¡±
¡±Say it!¡±
Wilkas swallowed a mouth full of saliva. He had no idea why the professor was behaving like this. He even began to doubt if she was a professor at all.
¡±Put him down¡± Michael ced his hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. For him, it was just finding a solution for his third persona problem. But for her, it was about finding her mother. He knew how much her mother meant to her.
¡±AAH¡± Wilkas breathed heavily when his feet touched the ground.
¡±What does it mean?¡± asked Michael,
Wilkas took a deep breath,
¡±They are ancient runes. They roughly trante into, the blood of evil shed by innocent opens the gate of darkness¡±
¡±What the fuck is that?¡± Gaya threw her arms in the air. It seemed like a riddle and Gaya hated the riddles so much, especially when her mother¡¯s life might depend on this riddle.
¡±The blood of evil shed by innocent opens the gate of darkness, hmm¡±
¡±Does it mean something to you?¡¯ asked Gaya after hearing Michael mumbling what Wilkas said under his breath,
¡±Stay here¡±
In a blink of an eye, Michael disappeared, turning himself into a bolt of lightning. He came back dragging Decker with him. Gaya was confused,
¡±Shit who is this?¡±
¡±Wilkas¡± Michael looked at Wilkas. Maintaining the eye contact, he bent down to pick up the crimson red daggers in Decker¡¯s sheathes,
¡±Kill him¡±
Wilkas was startled by Michael¡¯s words.
¡±What do you mean kill him?¡±
¡±You have been bullied your whole life. This world will never stop treating trash until you choose to change the world. Your whole life, you¡¯ve been hiding and fearing for others. Evening to Mazeorth didn¡¯t change your life like wanted¡±
¡±But¡± Wilkas clenched his fist. Although his words made sense, Wilkas could not get himself to take a life.
¡±You can be a maggot as they¡¯ve been calling you or choose to man up and change your life around¡±
¡±If killing him would open whatever it is, let me kill him¡± Gaya tried to snatch the daggers but she couldn¡¯t,
¡±Yes, let her do it. Why do you want me to kill him? I am not a killer¡±
Michael was losing his patience. He was not in the mood to deal with Wilkas¡¯s naiveness.
¡±In this world, you can only be either a prey or a predator. Man up, kill him, and let me change how this world works¡± Michael said gritting his teeth,
Still, Wilkas shook his head. Michael lost his cool as he grabbed Wilkas by his neck. His eyes flickered din red as the dark armor slowly started to appear on his body recing the green robes,
¡±Let me make this simple for you. Kill him or I will kill you and everyone you know in the slums you grow up¡±
Wilkas¡¯s heart skipped a beat seeing his transformation. His voice sounded creepy and demonic and his eyes were burning as though someone set them on fire,
¡±You don¡¯t understand what¡¯s at stake here Wilkas¡± Gaya tried to knock some sense into Wilkas,
¡±If he doesn¡¯t do this, the whole world will suffer. Let him see his people suffer first. Give Azazel the order¡± Michael turned his fiery gaze towards Gaya,
¡±STOP!¡± finally Wilkas shouted,
He was an orphan but he could not let the innocent people in the slums suffer. His hands shivered as he grabbed the daggers in Michael¡¯s hands,
¡±Don¡¯t hurt them¡± Wilkas stuttered. He was too afraid to curse at sixty-six. The fear had clutched his heart thanks to the fear toxin Wilkas inhaled.
¡±Kill him¡±
Gaya saw the runes losing their glow. She quickly moved towards the tree and drew the symbol once again. On the other hand, Wilkas clutched the dagger tightly. His body was shivering uncontrobly.
Wilkas breathed heavily. He wanted to shout for help but no words came out of his mouth. He saw no way to escape from this situation. His mind could not think of a n.
¡±DO IT!¡± Michael growled in his demonic voice. Slowly Wilkas raised the dagger above his head. He clenched the dagger with his two hands,
¡±KILL HIM!¡±
This time when he heard the shout, Wilkas brought down the dagger, prating Decker¡¯s chest. The blood sprayed out of the wound. The beating heart of Decker pumped out the blood forcefully. In a couple of seconds, Wilkas¡¯s pale face was painted red with Decker¡¯s blood and the ground beneath them waspletely soaked in thick blood.
Michael turned his head and saw the blue runes slowly turning red. The blood on the ground began to gather into a puddle. From the blood puddle appeared several extensions made of blood. Soon these extensions moved towards the tree like snakes.
The ground beneath them trembled as they started to hear something heavy crack open. The center point of the oak tree slowly split open, revealing a spinning vortex.
Whoosh!
The vortex sucked in Decker¡¯s body. After his body disappeared into the vortex, Wilkas felt the pull. Gaya did not wait for the vortex to pull her in but dashed into it. Michael grabbed Wilkas by his cor and threw him into the vortex before he himself dashed into the portal.
Michael had no time to wonder what was on the other side of the portal. The third persona had already taken control of half of his body and it took everything in him to keep it frompletely manifesting.
After the trio entered the portal, the tree returned to its normal state. And just before thest rune faded away, the humanoid shape made of leaves appeared in front of the tree. A split second after, the blood on the groundpletely vanished along with the humanoid figure.
Somewhere else in the Akn realm, Michael, Gaya, and Wilkas were free falling.
¡±AHHHHHH!¡± Wilkas screamed out loud when he opened his eyes and realized that he was falling from the sky.
Suddenly he felt a hand grab his shoulder and the next thing he knew, hended on the ground safely. He let out a heavy breath. His vision slowly cleared as he didn¡¯t feel as terrified as before.
He closed his eyes tight and opened them again, hoping everything that happened was just a nightmare. When he opened his eyes, he saw sixty-six and professor Steinmeyer walking in front of him towards a lone tree.
He was not in his scary ck armor as just a few moments ago. Wilkas looked around to see where he was. As far as he could see, there was nothing but floating mountains. The ce he was standing on was paved and the only thing in the vicinity was the lone tree on the edge.
While walking towards the lone oak tree, Gaya¡¯s body was shivering. The closer they got to the tree, the more they could make out a face in the tree.
¡±The God of Darkness¡± suddenly a calm voice reverberated in the area.
¡±I¡¯ve been waiting for you for three thousand years¡± Gaya looked closer at the tree to see the face talking.
Finally, she had found the dark elf in the tree her mother asked her to find. She felt like she got a step closer to finding what really happened to her mother.
Chapter 442 The Origin of Dark Lord II
Chapter 442 The Origin of Dark Lord IIMichael approached the tree while scanning the surroundings. His Environmental scanning did not find any intruders or living beings.
¡±Who are you?¡± asked Michael, frowning. It was evident that this figure is the same one Gaya¡¯s mother was talking about; the dark elf in the tree.
¡±They should have known mortal arrays are no match for a god¡± the figure merged with the tree amused,
¡±I am Elidyr, one of the founders of Order of Death and the man who created the ritual to open the gates to the void realm¡± the man spoke.
Michael was calm but when he heard what the dark elf said next, he was startled to the core,
¡±You may know the void realm as Earth¡±
Michael halted his pace, staying still in shock. No one except Gaya knew about earth and that was because he told her. Except for her, only the system knew his origin.
Michael stared at the dark elf to see how powerful he was which resulted in another surprise as the dark elf was only at the Body Refining stage.
¡±God of Darkness?¡± Wilkas gasped hearing the dark elf.
He couldn¡¯t simply believe sixty six is a god as the figure stuck to the tree imed him to be.
¡±You know about Earth¡±
Since the dark elf clearly knew about the earth, Michael did not try to conceal his secret.
¡±I know everything about you Lucifer. I know you¡¯ve been in war with yourself, a version of yourself more precisely¡±
Elidyr kept shocking Michael with his knowledge. Gaya remained silent, letting Michael get an answer for his problem from the dark elf. Then, she would inquire the elf about her mother,
Michael on the other handpletely ignored the existence of Wilkas.
He approached the elf and stood a couple of meters before the tree.
¡±You came here looking for a fix for your problem, didn¡¯t you Lucifer?¡± asked Elidyr,
¡±Tell me how do you know about Earth?¡±
Elidyr looked at him for a few moments in silence,
¡±Earth is the grandest and most secure prison in the entire universe, Lucifer. It was built to imprison and prevent you froming here. Yet you are here. All those lives lost for nothing¡± Elidyr sighed,
Michael clenched his fist. He couldn¡¯t process the information given by the dark elf. His mind was inplete chaos. If what Elidy said was true, his entire life was a sham and those who imprisoned him were punishing him for something he didn¡¯t even think of doing.
Gaya was stunned as her mind went nk. She came to his side and ced her hand on his shoulder to reassure him because she knew his entire world was copsing.
¡±What about my parents on Earth? They were imprisoned too?¡± Michael¡¯s voice stuttered. For some reason, he felt a lump in his throat. It was too much for him to rationalize and process. He even started to sweat. To be honest, he wanted to sit down.
¡±Have you met your parents on Earth?¡± asked Elidyr as Michael slowly shook his head,
¡±You have no parents on Earth. Your parents are from this world¡±
Michael¡¯s heart skipped a beat.
¡±Tell us who they are¡± asked Gaya immediately,
¡±That¡¯s an answer only time can give you¡±
Only silence filled the surroundings for a few moments before Michael opened his mouth. His eyes already began to flicker in crimson red,
¡±Who imprisoned me?¡± asked Michael coldly. Gaya felt the air around her getting chilly. Soon, the sky started to turn darker and darker. The wind howled ominously warning them about the approaching storm.
¡°The same people who imprisoned me, Skyhall¡±
Every time the elf opened his mouth, he stunned Michael and Gaya. It took them several minutes before speaking again,
¡±Skyhall?¡±
¡±You must be thinking the Guardians are the bad guys, cute¡± Elidyr chuckled,
Wilkas stood alone listening to their conversation. He was pretty freaked out by the sudden change in weather and the crimson red eyes of sixty-six. His eyes were glowing in red as though they were rubies.
¡±I want to know everything¡±
Michael¡¯s entire world copsed in front of him. Everything he knew and believed was said to be nothing but smoke and mirror. He was sick of being in the darkness and wanted to know everything about him and his origins from the dark elf.
¡±The least I can do for you is give you some answers before I wither away¡±
Elidyr sighed as he began to narrate everything from the beginning starting from three thousand years ago.
The story began three thousand years ago with Qiu Jin ascending to the throne of Holy Maiden. Michael didn¡¯t know that Qiu Jin, one of the founders of Mazeorth, was the Holy Maiden of Skyhall. She was a 6-star Runemaster and ording to Elidyr, at the peak of her power, she invented an array that let her soul travel through time.
Her time travel adventure turned out sessful but not without a cost.
The entire Skyhall was thrown into chaos when their beloved goddess returned from the future half dead. She was an Immortal stage cultivator yet something or someone almost took her life. She was never the same afterward. To let the world know about the approaching danger, she built another array with the help of her friends to let the Skyhall see the approaching cmity. The elders of Skyhall and a selected few witnessed a glimpse of the future.
Elidyr was one of the elders of Skyhall who watched the world fall into darkness. Qin Jiu called the future world, the dark realm. There was neither sun nor moon in the dark realm, there was only utter chaos and darkness.
People of the dark realm were stripped of their free will. They lived and died as mere cattle. In the world filled with darkness, only one stood atop and ruled the dark realm with an iron fist and dread, The Dark Lord.
Qin Jiu was terrified of his power. She imed even the gods left the universe fearing the dark lord¡¯s powers and the only way to stop the dark lord was to imprison the Dark Lord before he reached the pinnacle of his power. Elidyr and the other elders were aware of Earth but they did not know how they created a void universe, there were records of it.
Qin Jiu¡¯s words turned out to be the prophecy and each of the selected few who witnessed the glimpse of the future created a Great n of their own to protect the world and prepare for the Great War against the Dark Lord.
What they witnessed pushed the Skyhall to take drastic measures. They scoured the world for the Dark Lord. They massacred anyone who slightly deviated from the path of good in the name of the greater good. After the disappearance of Qiu Jin, the once protector of the world slowly turned into
something they were supposed to fight against.
Some believed Qin Jiu died due to the injuries she suffered during her time travel, some believed she went back to the future again and some believed she ascended to the realm of angels after reaching the Celestial stage. No matter the reason behind her disappearance, it resulted in Skyhall building prisons, mass graves, torturing thousands of people, and wiping out entire races they deemed evil.
Elidyr along with some other elders couldn¡¯t stand and watch doing nothing. They defected the Skyhall but not before Elidyr finished a ritual that would open the gate to Earth. Elidyr and the others saw the Skyhall turning the world into the dark realm without even the Dark Lord. Hence, they worked in the shadows to put a stop to the madness. As time went by, they were called the Order and when the Skyhall found out about them, they branded the Order as the Order of Death.
Although the Order of Death was powerful, they couldn¡¯t stop Skyhall from capturing the founders of the Order including Elidyr. Elidyr believed some escaped but he wasn¡¯t fortunate. The Skyhall marked him as the traitor and chained him to the tree, chaining him with powerful curses.
He was to suffer all the eternity alone.
¡±And twenty-one years ago, I felt the portal to the Earth open and I knew, they found you¡±
¡±How do they know for sure it¡¯s the Dark Lord they found?¡± asked Gaya. She was burning with overwhelming rage for what they did to Michael,
¡±Qin Jiu left the Skyhall the means to locate the Dark Lord. Neen months ago, I felt the gate to earth open again. Only this time, no one was sent to earth. On the contrary, you came here. This means Qin Jiu was right, it was you who sent to earth twenty-one years ago and there is no mistake, you are the Dark Lord¡±
The armor of Lucifer hadpletely covered his body along with the cloud of darkness. He transformed into aplete Lucifer form without his control.
¡±My parents, what happened to them?¡± Michael growled. Gaya felt a chill as his voice had never sounded more demonic and cold like this before.
¡±The ritual required your ties to be cut off. The strongest tie of them all is the bond between you and your family. To cut the bone, your family had to give you away willingly, and since they sent you to earth-¡±
¡±They didn¡¯t abandon me¡± Michael interrupted as the area grew darker. Wilkas was shivering seeing what was happening in front of him. He was in total shock. If he had seen a way to escape, he would have already called for help because it was too freaky.
¡±They gave me away willingly¡± Michael looked up at the sky. Tears rolled out of his eyes and seeing the tears, Gaya couldn¡¯t hold back her tears. This was the first time she had seen him shed tears. In the corner of his heart, he always believed his parents didn¡¯t abandon him but forced him to leave him for some reason. His belief was shattered as he realized they gave him away willingly.
¡±If the Skyhall was capable of genocide, they were also capable of torturing his parents. What if they killed his family?¡± Gaya asked Elidyr. Gaya would rather hear his family was killed than give him away willingly. She knew how much pain he was going through.
¡±The ritual doesn¡¯t work that way and killing his family would not cut the ties. The ritual was extremely powerful and vtile, any mistakes or changes would have resulted in a cmity¡±
¡±What about Abras? The owner of this body? Is it a coincidence I ended up in him?¡±
Michael did not ask more about his parents. He got his answers. There was no need for him to know more. They willingly gave him away and as much as it hurt him, at least his heart could be at peace.
Chapter 443 The Origin of Dark Lord III
Chapter 443 The Origin of Dark Lord III
"Nothing is a coincidence when ites to you, Lucifer. Have you ever wondered that out of millions of bodies, why you ended up in this particr body?" asked Elidyr.
Although the dark elf seemed to know a whole lot about him, Michael didn''t think he knew about the system''s existence. Under no circumstance, Michael would reveal the existence of the system.
Therefore instead of telling the system chose this body, Michael shook his head. He was oblivious to the truth behind why the system chose Abras. There was more than just a resemnce behind the system''s decision to choose Abras.
"It''s because this body belongs to you. Only souls could pass through the gates to earth. It seems like a piece of your soul remained in your infant body" Elidyr was not only a 5-star runemaster but also an expert in souls. He trained his mind and eye to see through a person as nobody could. Therefore, Elidyr could see the broken soul inside Michael.
"You''re saying he and the owner of the body are the same person?" asked Gaya while Michael remained, uttering no words. It was too much for his mind to process quickly. However, the more he thought about it, everything started to make sense.
"You are him and he is you. The two pieces of the soul are in peace¡" Elidyr paused to look at both Gaya and Michael for a minute,
"Unlike the third piece"
Elidyr could see the third piece of the soul is at war with the other two pieces. It was preventing the two pieces of the soul from merging together.
Something was amiss but Elidyr was unable to see what.
"Tell me how to fix him?" Gaya rushed to Elidyr. She grabbed what seemed to be his shoulder.
However, Gaya could only feel wood, not flesh. Soon, the green leaves of the oak tree slowly began to dry and turn brown. The tree was withering.
"What''s happening?" Gaya stepped back,
"My time is up. I used what was left in me to summon you here. I am sorry I couldn''t help you more, Lucifer. The path you walk-" Elidyr stopped talking as half of the tree witheredpletely,
"System, I need him"
[The system has found several curses on him that are binding him to this oak tree. The system also found an interference. It''s temporarily blocking the curses and letting his soul depart from his body. In other words, he is sessfully dying]
"I can see that" Michael grumbled,
[There are two ways to save him. One way will cost you 500,000 badass points. It will save him along with his body. The second option has severalplications. First, it requires 180,000 badass points. Second, the host will have to find a new body as the system won''t be able to save his body. Third, the body needs to be found in five minutes tops. Lastly, the body needs to be at least 10% gic match with his dark elven race and the body must not have any wounds when the soul enters the body]
Michael listened to the system list all the requirements. For a few moments, he looked at Elidyr and turned his gaze towards Wilkas who was still in shock.
"I want a loan of 100,000"
[Shouldn''t it be 340,000 points?] the system asked with a surprised tone,
At the moment, Michael had 160,000 badass points. Hence, to get 500,000 badass points, he needed 340,000 badass points as the system suggested.
"Do as I say. Take 100,000 badass points and buy the Soul eater skill"
[Shit] the system was stunned. If the system had a face, the face would have shown an expression of utter shock.
The acute pain in his head had appeared again. Howeverpared to the pain in his heart, the pain in his head was futile.
[Ding, The host has sessfully acquired level 1 Soul Eater]
[The skill Soul Eater can be integrated with Energy Devouver for 2000 badass points. Does the host-]
"Yes," Michael interrupted the system. After the system integrated the new skill he bought, it showed him his status in front of his eyes.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Strengthening stage, level 4
Experience Points: 70,000/600,000
Badass Points: 160,000 (40,000 badass points loan)
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 6
Ignitia - LVL 8
Lightning Dash - LVL 6
Energy Devouver - LVL 2
Soul Eater - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 88% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 97% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 15,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
4-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 68%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 55%)
Sadie (loyalty level 40%)
Ricky (loyalty level 98%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 90%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
Kingdom of Bradford
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Michael noticed the bump in loyalty levels. But he was concerned about more pressing issues than loyalty levels. Soul Eater was a skill he was eying for quite some time to buy. He was in no rush to buy the skill until now. The reason he didn''t buy earlier was that the price of Soul Eater was 60,000 badass points. Among all his spells, this was the deadliest and most powerful.
[At level 1, the soul eater can be only used on cultivators who are at least two-stage below the host]
"Prepare to save Elidyr"
[Host, what are you nning to do?] the system had already guessed what he was about to do yet the system asked the question because it was unbelievable. Quite honestly, the system didn''t think he would do that.
The surroundings started to move again after he exited the system as though they were being paused. Sporting hisplete Lucifer form, he walked towards Wilkas,
Wilkas was stepping back in fear. The closer Lucifer got to him, the faster his heartbeat. Wilkas shivered as he looked up at Lucifer''s crimson red fiery eyes.
Seeing him in his full armor, Gaya had a feeling that Michael was nning something.
"Pull another miracle human" she prayed in her mind,
"You''ve heard him" Michael began to talk to Wilkas in his demonic voice.
"Now you may have an idea of what I am capable of. Bend your knees and swear your loyalty to me. I will give you the blood of those who hurt you as one of the many gifts I have in store for you"
Wilkas almost stumbled and fell on his back hearing Michael,
"Blood? I don''t want any more blood on my-"
"Wrong answer" Michael interrupted by grabbing Wilkas''s neck,
"As expected" Gaya saw the half-elf being lifted off from the ground,
The next moment, she saw the dark cloud of smoke shrouds Michael enveloping Wilkas. All of a sudden, Wilkas''s body went rigid and his mouth opened wide. A bright stream of white smoke rushed out of Wilkas''s mouth and went straight into Michael''s mouth.
Wilkas''s body kept twitching violently. In a few blinks of an eye, his body stopped twitching.
"System here''s the body for Elidyr"
[Soul Transferring initiated¡]
Gaya noticed a beam of light being shot out from Michael at Elidyr. She felt the air being sucked out by the light beam. She took several steps back looking at the tree withering more and more. In a few moments, the tree had crumbled into nothing but ashes. When she looked at Michael, Wilkas''s body moved yet again in his hand.
Wilkas''s eyes rolled back in his eye socket and stayed that way for a few moments. Michael put Wilkas on his feet again as the half-elf gasped for air suddenly.
"I am alive" Gaya heard Wilkas. She came to Michael''s side as Wilkas kept looking at his arms and body as though he had never seen them before.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Body Strengthening stage, level 2 cultivator. The reward is 10000 experience points as well as 300 Badass points]
[The Soul Eater has absorbed the soul of Wilkas. The host has received 20,000 Experience points]
[The more tainted the soul is, the more the Experience points]
The system sounded in his mind. Absorbing the souls without battling wasn''t the Soul Eater''s powerful ability. What made the skill powerful and deadly was its power to turn the Souls into Experience points. As the system suggested, the more tainted the soul is, the more the Experience points. In other words, absorbing an evil person''s soul would give him more experience points than the soul of a lesser evil.
"You absorbed his soul" Gaya heard Wilkas but something told her that the half-elf in front of her is not Wilkas. The Soul Eater was supposed to be used with Soul Stare which would make the victim see their past transgressions, and it inflicts upon the individual the same pain they have caused to others. The Soul Stare skill required 300,000 badass points and Soul Strengthening stage level 8.
"He was naive and a spineless coward. He would rather live like a maggot than take the chance to change his life. I have no ce for a person like him"
Elidyr was truly stunned at the disy of Lucifer''s power. The curses put on him were unbreakable yet Lucifer did not only lift the curse, but he also transferred his soul into another body. He had never heard of or seen a person who could perform such a feat.
"Now tell me how to deal with this third piece of the soul?"
Chapter 444 The Origins of Dark Queen
Chapter 444 The Origins of Dark Queen
It was supposed to be daytime in the pocket dimension created to imprison Elidyr but because of Michael, the night had fallen early. Elidyr was still familiarizing himself with his body. Thest time he moved his limbs was almost three thousand years ago.
"How do I defeat this third piece of the soul?" asked Michael. His mind was still processing everything Elidyr had said. Yet, Michael focused on fixing the imminent problem first. The me of vengeance was burning like wildfire inside him. He wanted to sacrifice everyone who wronged him in the past, present and future. To achieve his vengeance, he needed to be in his best shape both physically and mentally. The third persona made being sane a difficult task recently. Hence, he wanted the third persona gone.
"You can''t" Elidyr shocked Michael and Gaya with his answer,
"It is a piece of soul but it''s your piece of soul nheless. You can''t defeat yourself"
"I assume you have a solution," asked Michael,
Luckily Elidyr nodded. After seeing the glimpse of the Dark Lord''s power, Elidyr was convinced that the Dark Lord would be able to destroy the Skyhall. Defeating the Dark Lord would be near impossible but if he stuck with the Dark Lord, he might be able to deviate the Dark Lord from destroying the entire world and turn this world into the realm of darkness they saw in the future.
Compared to the Dark Lord, the Skyhall seemed more evil. Over the years, he had seen the Skyhall do all kinds of forbidden acts in the name of the greater good. They were not directly done by Skyhall but their puppets.
Moreover, Elidyr wanted nothing but to see Skyhall destroyed. How would anyone feel if someone imprisoned them for three thousand years?
Over the years, the elders of Skyhall tortured him and exterminated his entire bloodline. They hunted his descendants and family like dogs.
He wanted revenge and the one person who was capable of destroying the Skyhall was the Dark Lord.
"First, we have to extract the piece of the soul out. In the soul state, it can''t be defeated, so we need to cage the soul into a vessel. The vessel needs to be extremely powerful to contain the soul. Finding the perfect vessel and caging the soul into the vessel will be the easy part" Elidyr paused for a moment and went on,
"In physical form, the soul would be manyfold powerful. You need another being strong enough to weaken it. Then, you can absorb the soul piece and it will be merged with the other soul pieces and your soul will be whole once again"
Elidyr couldn''t see the expression on Lucifer''s face through the mask.
After remaining silent for a few moments, Elidry said,
"The question is who is powerful enough to defeat a piece of the dark lord''s soul?"
"We have to find a vessel to contain the soul," Michael said to Gaya and turned his gaze back to Elidyr
"Tell me how do we extract the soul piece out of me?"
Gaya already guessed who was in his mind to face the soul piece. Surprisingly, Elidyr also knew the person who was in Michael''s mind.
"Thanks to this new body, I can now create an array to help you. But we can''t create the array here, we should do it in the ck forest during the full moon night" as he said, Elidyr walked towards where the oak tree was. Elidyr squatted near the tree and grabbed a handful of mud from the ground.
He threw the mud in the air as the dust formed a ring in the air. Soon the circle transformed into a vortex just like the one they used toe to this ce.
"After you" Elidyr gestured at Michael to walk into the vortex first. Michael looked around as the ck armor disappeared from his body. The green robes of House Alchemists once again covered his body.
When they stepped out of the vortex, they saw Gilrine still lying on the ground unconscious. Elidyr took a deep breath as though he was tasting the air and freedom.
"Tell me what do you know about my mother, Adelia Ashton '''' Gaya didn''t even think that he has been imprisoned in the pocket dimension for three thousand years. She couldn''t hold back as she desperately wanted to know what happened to her mother.
The paralyzing agent mixed with the knockout potion would keep Gilrine unconscious for at least 12 hours unless he received the antidote. He was in no rush to wake up Gilrine. Hearing Gaya''s question, Elidyr turned his gaze from the night sky to her.
A few secondster Elidyr heard Gaya, he frowned. He stared at Gaya from top to bottom. He walked towards her, looking her directly in her eyes,
"You have her eyes" Elidyr''s voice broke as his eyes watered. Michael could see the great pain in his eyes.
"Her? You saw my mother?"
Elidyr shook his head,
"Your ancestor, one of the founders of the order, Edwina Wraith. You have her eyes" Elidyr gently brushed Gaya''s face. She didn''t move or take his hands away because deep down, she too felt a connection with Elidyr.
"Ashton is an alias used by her. I guess her descendants used this alias as their family name" Elidyr smiled slightly,
"Tell me, what do you know about my mother? Where is she? Is she alive?" asked Gaya with the hope of finally getting an answer about her mother.
Michael didn''t interrupt. He remained silent, letting her ask all the questions she wanted while checking out his surroundings. Besides, he himself was in utter shock.
"How is my family rted to your order and him?" she pointed at Michael,
"You don''t know?" Elidyr was surprised,
Gaya shook her head,
"Your ancestor Edwina was a founder of the order. She served the order and the Dark Lord. During thest stages of the war, she made sure the elders who were essential to finding the dark lord could escape the guardians and the Sky hall. When everyone was afraid of the Dark Lord, she was the only one who believed that he might be what this world needs.
So together we came up with a rune that would pass the secrets about the Order and the responsibility of the Wraiths to her descendants"
Gaya''s face was nk as she didn''t know how to react. She thought her mother had somehow meddled with the order yet she never expected her entire bloodline would be the servants of the Dark Lord and her ancestor was one of the founders of the Order.
"When a Wraith dies, a piece of their soul would be left behind to pass on the secrets to the next of kin. If you hadn''t seen it, that means your mother is still alive"
"Mom" Gaya''s eyes watered up but this time, it was filled with tears of joy. She couldn''t stop herself from grinning.
"My mother is alive?" asked Gaya, tears rolling on her face.
"That rune was one of my best works. So I am sure"
Gaya leaped at Elidyr and hugged him tightly. He had given her the best news in many many years. She did not even dare to think he might be lying or wrong. Deep down, she always felt as though her mother was still out there somewhere.
"I need to find her. How do I find her?"
She was still hugging him.
"You can''t, no one can"
When she heard Elidyr, her smile froze as she let him go. She took a step back to see Elidyr sigh,
"Your mother is a Wraith. When a Wraith doesn''t want to be found, no one can find them. You can''t hunt a huntress. Wherever she is, she must be hunting someone"
Somewhere else in the ck forest, Victoria and Edith were standing among numerous dead mountain trolls. They were in a dark dungeon dimly lit with torches. In addition to mountain trolls, there were countless dried bones and skeletons.
Unlike Victoria who remained calm, Edith was breathing heavily.
"Is it over?"
"I think so but don''t let your guard down"
The sword in Victoria''s hand was not made of any metal. Her sword could not even bepared to the swords in this world. Any de would be cut in half by her sword because it was made of pure Cosmic energy. The emerald green energy sword radiated frightening power.
At the end of the dungeon was a metal gate with several glowing runes.
Victoria cautiously walked towards the gate expecting a trap to appear any second. They had faced countless traps, skeleton guards and mountain trolls, and undead. Yet, nothing could stop Victoria and Edith. They came prepared and she overwhelmed everything with her cosmic energy.
Edith''s runes enhanced already god-level powerful Victoria to another level. The mountain trolls and the skeletons stood no chance against her.
Unexpectedly they face no more traps or enemies on their way to the gate.
"What do they say?" Looking at the glowing runes, Victoria asked Edith.
"Darkness is not the opposite of light" Edith began to slowly trante the runes,
"It is just the absence of light. The ce where light and dark begin to touch is where miracles arise"
"It doesn''t make any sense. Does it say anything about how to open this gate?" Victoria asked, running her hand on the gate.
Creak!
The moment she touched the gate, the gate made a loud creaking noise. They immediately stepped back as the gate slowly opened to reveal what they were looking for, the primordial me. The hall before them was lit with blue mes on braziers on each corner. In the center of the hall floated two orbs of fire; a pure white me and a pure ck me.
"Two primordial mes" Victoria and Edith were startled. They never expected to find two primordial mes in one ce. Anyone else in Victoria''s ce would have gone crazy with excitement. She however had a frown on her face. Edith noticed the dark lines on her forehead and asked,
"Vikki, what''s wrong?"
"This is too easy," Victoria muttered.
Chapter 445 The Primordial Flames
Chapter 445 The Primordial mes
The two primordial mes were hovering in the air next to each other. Victoria could feel the power being radiated by the two mes. Victoria closed her eyes as a wave of golden energy shot out from her. The wave of Cosmic energy scanned the room for any traps. The lines on her forehead became darker, seeing the cosmic energy activates no traps.
Although the Cosmic energy activated no traps, Victoria still expected a trap to appear any second when she was making her way towards the primordial mes.
The primordial mes didn''t react to the intruders. Victoria was informed that the primordial mes have a mind of their own. In the world, there were only three primordial mes; Cold me, Hell''s me, and Heaven''s me. Only a few knew the myth of the existence of the fourth primordial me; the dark me.
Victoria recognized the white me as the Cold me. A goldenyer enveloped both Edith and Victoria to prevent the coldness radiating from the white mes from prating their bodies. Unlike the Cold me, she felt nothing from the ck mes hovering beside the Cold me.
"How do we take them with us?" asked Edith. She was overwhelmed by the power of the mes.
"Do you recognize this me? it''s definitely not the Heaven''s me"
"Must be the Hell me. Let''s take them and get out of here before anyone notices our disappearance" Edith said to Victoria.
With a nod, Victoria reached out to grab the two mes. The golden cosmic energy enveloped her hands as she approached the mes. Victoria felt a sudden pressure pushing her away. The pressure created a force field around the Cold me. She gritted her teeth, pushing her hand towards the Cold me.
"ARGHH!" she growled in pain but she was far from giving up.
She was using all of her Cosmic energy to get her hands on the mes literally. Edith saw Victoria''s face start to go pale and soon, her blood dripped through her nostrils. Still, Victoria was fighting through the force field to reach the mes.
The blood spurted out of her nostrils after a few moments. Finally, her finger touched the Cold me, and just as her finger touched the me, it exploded, throwing Edith and Victoria onto the walls behind them.
"Argh!" Victoria growled in pain. The entire dungeon shook due to the force of their collision with the walls. When she looked up, her pain disappeared but instead, aplete utter shock upied her heart. The mes hovering in the air a few seconds ago were nowhere to be found.
The mes just disappeared. She jumped back to her feet. The utter shock was written all over her face. She frantically looked around to locate the mes but to no avail. Looking for the mes, she walked towards Edith to get her up.
"Vikki" Edith stood up holding Victoria''s hands.
"The mes?"
BOOM!
Before Edith could get an answer from Victoria, the entire dungeon began to tremble. The ceiling above them crumbled, falling down on them.
"We have to go" Victoria knew there was no time for them to linger around. Their lives were more precious than the primordial mes.
While the dungeon was crumbling like a house of cards, they ran as fast as possible. The me of anger burned inside Victoria hotter and brighter. If she had absorbed the primordial mes, she and her father would have reached a pinnacle of power sooner than they initially nned.
Only the primordial mes were powerful enough to be equal to the Cosmic energy. That was why her father was hunting for the primordial mes. Absorbing the primordial mes would ensure their evesting domination.
Even though they were running for their loves, Victoria took out thepass that had the ability to locate the primordial mes to find where the mes went. Unfortunately, thepass was broken due to the previous collision. The needle was broken in half and the ss was shattered.
"Damn it"
Meanwhile, in the ck forest, Gaya injected the antidote into Gilrine to wake him up. Michael and Elidyr left the area to resume connecting the ck foot mushrooms.
"ARGH!" Gilrine jolted. He was breathing heavily and when he saw Gaya squatting beside him, his face went pale.
"What happened?" Gaya asked, pretending not to know anything.
"Great, I will tell headmistress Ka that you were busy sleeping in the middle of the fucking ck forest" Gaya punched Gilrine on the shoulder,
"No¡I wasn''t sleeping¡I saw something"
"Move your ass, we have to get them back to the castle" Gaya didn''t linger around but walked away from Gilrine.
Gilrine stared around him with a pale face. He quickly checked his pocket to see if the pouch was still there. He was relieved to find the pouch in his pocket just as he left.
He could swear he saw something before he lost consciousness. Once again before following professor Steinmeyer, Gilrine went to the tree and checked if there was something amiss.
"Did something happen? Nah, what am I thinking? No one can walk past the headmaster''s defenses" Gilrine mumbled under his breath.
The two girls along with Michael and Elidyr were collecting ckfoot mushrooms when Gaya returned. She had no idea Victoria and Edith almost absorbed the primordial fires.
"That''s enough" Gaya pped,
"Your detention is over. Let''s go back to the castle"
On their way back to the castle no one uttered a word. Elidyr was staring at everything with an amazing look on his face, Victoria was frustrated by her failure, Edith was pretty shaken up by nearly getting crushed to death, Gilrine was contemting what just happened back and what made him lose consciousness, andstly Gaya, she was having mixed feelings. On one hand, she was happy beyond words because of her not-so-dead mother, and on the other hand, she was worried about her mother''s safety.
Michael''s mind was drifting. Many memories he experienced on earth as Ghost and in this world as Abras shed across his eyes. Realizing that Abras and he was the same person established a harmony between the soul piece of Ghost and the soul piece of Abras.
It was extremely difficult for him to keep calm instead of going berserk.
"Go to your dorms" after reaching the castle grounds, Gaya asked them to part ways.
"What about these mushrooms professor?" asked Edith.
Gaya almost forgot about the ckfoot mushrooms in her deep thinking,
"Just give them to Gilrine"
Gaya left the students to go to her room. Just like Michael, she also wanted to be alone. Elidyr was smiling on their way back to their dorm rooms. The memories of him being a student flooded his mind. He had many happy memoirs in Mazeroth.
"You''re an Alchemy student?" Even after thousands of years, Elidyr still remembered the way to each house''s dorm room.
"Hmm"
"I think I''ll go to runemasters house. You need some time alone"
Elidyr said as Michael opened the door to his room.
"I know the way"
Michael just nodded as Elidyr turned back and left. When Michael stepped into his room, Nightmare was waiting. Michael did not utter a word. He just flicked his wrist as a punching bag attached to a stand appeared in the center of the room.
"System, did you know?" Michael asked in his mind standing before the six feet punching bag.
[The system level is too low]
His fist clenched as he breathed heavily in anger. The next moment, he willed the system to soundproof the room. Nightmare noticed a dim light appear in the room.
"Skyhall"
Boom!
Michael punched the bag with enough force to create a loud booming sound.
"Guardians"
The punching bag received another hit. Nightmare wanted to ask what happened but seeing the murderous look and the flickering red eyes, he stayed back.
"Qin Jiu"
"Andreas"
"Victoria!"
"Thusia!"
He started to punch faster and faster. The force of his punches shook the room as several cracks began to form in the punching bag. Nightmare noticed the lights in the room go out as the room was soon engulfed in darkness.
"Let me out" the voice of the third persona sounded in his mind. It wasughing at him which made him more furious.
"You can''t keep me locked forever. I am you"
"Shut up!"
Nightmare almost bounced hearing his sudden shout.
As Michael was struggling to keep his anger and the third persona contained, Elidyr reached the room assigned to Wilkas in the house of runemasters.
The rooms of the runemasters made alchemy students'' rooms look like a shabby basement. Themon room Elidyr was standing in was a wide, circr room, airier than themon room of Alchemy house. Graceful arched windows punctuated the walls, which were hung with blue- and-bronze silks: By day, the runemasters would have a spectacr view of the surrounding mountains. The ceiling was domed and painted with stars, which echoed on the midnight-blue carpet. There were tables, chairs, and bookcases, and in a niche opposite the door stood a tall statue of white marble.
Elidyr didn''t give a shit about the elves and the others'' gazes on him. As a dark elf, he went through the same bullying as Wilkas. However, unlike Wilkas, Elidyr fought back and showed the bullies how it would feel to be bullied with his superior talents.
"Maggot"
"Filth"
"Why does he have to be a runemaster?"
"I thought he stayed with the alchemists?"
Elidyr walked towards the sofa in the center of the room and plunged into thefy sofa. It had been thousands of years since his butt rested on a sofa.
Leaning back on the sofa, he put his leg over another. The elves were surprised. They couldn''t take him being arrogant in front of them.
"Filthy maggot" from the elven gang, an elf walked towards Elidyr with the intention to throw him away.
The elves who got their butts kicked by Michael were standing in the corner smiling. He was not in the house of alchemy but the house of runemasters.
They were excited to see the half elf get beaten. Little did they know that the half elf they knew was no longer in this world. The one upying his body was a several thousand years old 6-star runemasters.
Chapter 446 Something that could kill The Dark Lord
Chapter 446 Something that could kill The Dark Lord
"Everything has changed except you half-minded idiots" Elidyr shook his head disappointedly,
He leisurely grabbed the goblet on the side of the table to quench his thirst. The elves were having a bit of a party so the goblet was filled with red wine produced from the nearby vige,
Despite the goblet''s simple look, it was heavy and imbued with a rune that made the goblet near impossible to break,
Ignoring the approaching elf, Elidyr took a little sip of wine. His body jolted when the red wine touched his taste buds.
"I can''t say I didn''t miss this" Elidyr took a long sip and in a few blinks of an eye, he emptied the goblet.
"You have some ba-"
Bang!
The runemasters who were looking at the elf dashing at the half-elf stumble down. They couldn''t realize what just happened. The half-elf was drinking wine, the elf was dashing at him. The next thing they saw was the elf copsed to the ground.
Only a few secondster they noticed the crushed goblet in the half elf''s hand. They finally realized that the half-elf hit the elf with the goblet with enough force to not only knock down the elf but also crush the goblet itself.
The amount of force required to crush the goblet was not a joke yet the half-elf crushed it by hitting the elf in the head.
"ARGH!" The elf was grumbling on the ground in pain. He held his head as blood drenched the floor beneath.
However, his agony became more painful when Elidyr stepped on the elf''s throat, increasing pressure little by little.
"If you assholes want to spend your lives being racists, knock yourselves out. But when I''m here, I don''t wanna hear a single snarkyment about me or my race"
Few of the elves couldn''t see a fellow elf being crushed by a half-elf in front of their eyes. Hence, they dared to attack the half-elf. Fighting in themon rooms was not a big deal until no one informed the prefects about the fight. They doubted that even if the prefects knew they beat up a half-elf, they would give a damn about a maggot. After all, the prefects of house runemasters were also elves.
ZZZZZZRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
The elves were a couple of feet away when a sudden vibration reverberated in the room. The elves halted their steps. Their golden hair produced smoke as the smell of burning hair permeated the room.
Elidyr snapped his finger and the elves began to tremble violently.
Their robes smoke as they crumbled down leaving the elves naked. Their golden skin soon turned as red as ripe tomatoes.
The other runemaster witnessing the scene with startling faces looked down to see a glowing chakra on the floor where the elves were standing.
"When did he ce the rune?"
"What rune is that?"
"So powerful"
"How did he do that?"
The onlookers were stunned beyond words. Elidyr snickered inside, seeing how a basic level rune could surprise these amateurs like this. The energy in his soul deteriorated over the years and once a Half Immortal stage cultivation was now a mere Body Refining stage cultivator.
Until Elidyr could cultivate to be stronger, he would only be able to use mediocre runes. Nheless, these basic runes were enough to keep the elves from annoying him in his time at Mazeroth.
"Next time, I''ll burn the thing between your legs" Elidyr threw aside the goblet before making his way towards his room.
The elves who were being electrocuted copsed to the ground finally when Elidyr snapped his fingers again.
"Now someone shows me my room" he evilly grinned which sent a chill through everyone''s spines.
*********************************
Somewhere else on the Ozer continent, Noah was trekking through a snowy mountain. As far as one could see, there was nothing but milky white snow and crystallized ice pikes that were sharp as daggers. The howling sound of the wind was the only thing that apanied them while the blowing wind brushed past their bodies with enough force to knock them down at any moment.
"Argh I miss flying" Noah sighed but kept trekking through the snow,
"And I miss a roof above my head and something that saves my hairy butt from freezing" The golden babaroo, Norvin, curled up inside Noah''s inner pockets. The monkey made afy home of his long coat''s pocket but still bitched about the weather.
"You should have brought Alicia instead of me. She must have loved being literally cold"
"We are close Noah" Andreas''s voice sounded in his head.
"Shh" Noah shushed Norvin quickly,
"The old man inside the ring talking to you again?" Norvin rolled his eyes being annoyed by getting shushed,
Apart from Noah, Norvin was the only one who knew the existence of Andreas. Just like the dragons, Norvin''s race, the golden babaroos also possessed the skill to view the world differently. After Norvin reached the Core Formation stage, he sensed a living being in Noah''s ring. His suspicions were confirmed when Noah was stuck in an unwinnable fight and Andreas had to manifest to save him.
"Conjure the heaven''s me"
Hearing his mentor''s voice, Noah closed his eyes as an emerald green me shot out of his hand. The green light lit their path,
"Look" Norvin quickly pointed out at the runes on their path to the top of the mountain.
"We are on the right path" Andreas was excited. It was the first time he sounded excited since they found the location of the Dark Lord. The failure to apprehend the Dark Lord still haunted both Noah and Andreas. They were so close to capturing him yet he outsmarted him by using Noah''s family as hostages. What happened that day made Noah realize what the Dark Lord was capable of and the necessity to eliminate him.
What they were seeking could help in doing just that. They followed the runes to the top of the mountain. Noah climbed the mountain with new vigor seeing he was close to the weapon that could y the Dark Lord.
"Tell me why we can''t fly up again?" asked Norvin, feeling tired just by seeing Noah climb the mountain.
"Using arch energy will activate the traps" Noah answered while climbing higher and higher. The higher he climbed, the colder it got.
The runes led him to a dead end where he saw nothing but a stone wall in front.
"Hmm, I thought a door or a pathway would appear" Norvin rubbed his hairy chin,
"Teacher" Noah called out Andreas standing in front of the wall where the runes are glowing,
"These are Lady Qin Jiu''s runes, there is no doubt" Andreas''s ethereal figure manifested out,
While Andreas was studying the runes, Noah conjured a ball of heaven''s me and sent a stream of emerald green me towards the wall.
The wall didn''t open as Noah expected but a bright beam of light shot out within the wall toward Noah. Noah''s instincts made his legs dash out of the way yet the bright beam was too fast and Noah was standing too close to the wall.
Unexpectedly the bright beam of light shot through Noah doing no harm to him.
"The God of Light" a sweet feminine voice echoed through the snowy mountain. The showering snowy rain stopped all of a sudden as though someone pushed the pause button.
The mountain before Noah slowly split open to reveal a grandiose hall. Noah stepped into the hall as the mountain closed up behind him. The eleven braziers on each side of the hall lit up brightening the hall. A snowy white carpet materialized under Noah''s feet to the end of the hall as he cautiously took his steps forward. There were four twelve feet statues made of ice stood majestically, two of the statues were female while the other two were male. Despite their gender difference, the four of them looked extremely dominant and mighty.
"Who are they?" asked Norvin in amazement.
"The four great legends" Norvin saw Andreas''s ethereal form bow towards the statues. His eyes were full of reverence as though he was worshiping them.
Archer Crooke, Ingrid Stenham, Qiu Jin, and Kargin Pavlovich
"Archer Crooke, the heavenly warrior" Andreas looked at the statue of a man in battle armor. He was holding a sword in one hand and a spear in another.
Andreas turned his gaze to the statute of a graceful smilingdy who held a tiny bonsai tree in her hand
"Ingrid Stenham, the legendary 6-star Alchemist. Her talents were beyond any star levels. The legend has that a drop of the healing potion brewed by her could heal an army to their full health"
He turned around to look at the statue of a long-haired muscr man with a hammer,
"Kargin Pavlovich. The only human 6-star cksmith this world has ever seen"
Finally, they all turned their eyes to the statue of ady in qipao. Her hair was tied into a bun and unlike the rest of the statues, she was looking at the stone table at the end of the hall.
"Qin Jiu, the woman who saw the future, the mother of the great prophecy"
Noah was surprised to see Andreas kneel down in front of her,
"We won''t fail you Lady Qin Jiu" Andreas said, letting out a deep breath.
After saying those words, the trio cautiously walked toward the stone table. They expected to spring a trap any second but they never did. When they reached the stone table, they saw two hand imprints on the table.
"I have a feeling you two should ce your hands on the marks," Norvin eximed. Andreas and Noah looked around, there was nothing except statues and the stone table in the hall.
"Shall we?" Noah believed those who were called him here, they had no intention to harm him. If they had, they would have done it by now. Therefore, he ced his hand on the stone table and so did Andreas.
Nothing happened for a moment but soon, the hall trembled as they noticed the heads of the three legends slowly turning towards them. From each of them, a bright beam of light shot out at Noah. Finally, a golden light shot out from Qin Jiu''s statues. When the four light beams met at the center of the stone table, the same voice they heard before sounded again,
"Find the other four arrows and vanquish the darkness"
From the four lights emerged an arrow that radiated an immense amount of power. The arrow was made of no metal but light.
Noah gently grabbed the arrow and the moment he touched the arrow, it disappeared into him. He sensed the arrow within him, in a form of energy.
"We are one step closer to ending him teacher," Noah grinned.
Chapter 447 The Dark Lord from the future
Chapter 447 The Dark Lord from the future
The next day, Gaya attended thebat ss only to see Michael absent. Elidyr was there, sitting on thest bench as Wilkas. For Gaya, what Eldiry revealed was joyous news to be celebrated. After all, she had learned that her mother is still alive. But for Michael, it was devastating. Everything he knew and experienced turned out to be a sham. His entire life was controlled by a prophecy he never wanted to be a part of.
In a short amount of life, he had faced so many betrayals and even worse, betrayal by his own family and the girl he loved, Victoria. She knew how he was feeling, a puppet, a boogeyman created by the Skyhall. If he was what they imed, he wouldn''t have saved her, Raylene, Christopher and revived a dying sect to live. Regardless of his intentions, he saved more people than a typical guardian.
The thought of Skyhall and the Guardians pushing him on the path to be the Dark Lord and dictating his life pissed off her. He always acted calm even when the odds were against him which happened rarely due to his caution and ns.
She wasn''t sure how he had been reacting. Her mind was boggled on her way to his room. Since she sent all the students including the alchemists out on training, no one saw her entering the house of alchemists.
Her heart was pounding faster and faster as she got closer to his room.
"Sigh" standing in front of his door, she took a deep breath. She rotated the wedding ring on her finger nervously. The room was ominously silent. The thought of him leaving her shed across her mind, almost making her eyes water. She didn''t know why she thought that but the thought dide across her mind.
Her hands shivered, moving towards the doorknob. When she finally opened the door, she was thoroughly shocked. She just stood in the doorway dumbstruck.
Michael was doing push-ups rather than being sad or gloomy. The other surprising thing was he had the Lucifer armor on an armor stand. His naked upper body had smudges of ck paint which indicated he had been painting the armor and modifying it.
"Hey gorgeous" She saw him jump back on his feet. He walked to her with a wide grin on his face, wrapped his hand around her waist, pulled her closer, and locked her lips with his. For a man who should have been gloomy, he was way too cheery.
"Hey human. What''s going on?"
"I''ve been busy modifying my armor and training" he flexed his muscles.
Under normal circumstances, she would have gawked at his chiseled body with awe. He went back to the armor and attached the hidden des to the sleeves.
"Michael" she was confused. She expected anything but this. He was so cheery than usual.
"I was thinking that I should remove the cape. Hmm"
Gaya saw him rubbing his beard doubtfully.
"Are you gone mad?"
His behavior creeped her out. Yesterday, he was so gloomy and silent. She was afraid that too much anger and sadness muddled his brain.
"I was," Michael smiled, brushing the dust off of his armor.
"What do you mean I was? Stop looking at that fucking armor and talk to me" she stomped the floor,
Michael turned his gaze at her. A gentle smile appeared on his face. With a worried look on her face, Gaya walked to him. Her eyes expressed the concern in her heart better than her words and face.
He cupped her face, gently kissing her forehead
"I was mad to try to run away from my destiny Gaya. I always thought Lucifer is the mask and Ghost is real. But no, yesterday, I realized it was the other way around" Michael let her face go to put his hand around her neck. He walked towards the windows with Gaya,
"Every time I put on the armor, I say to myself, this has to be done to make my life easier. The desire to control the world from shadows was just a fantasy of mine" he paused for a second as the doom suddenly grew darker,
"Now I realized it wasn''t a fantasy, it was my destiny. Even after learning everything about the order, the prophecy, what the guardians did, I tried to run away from my destiny, I wanted to change it. But dread it, run from it. Destiny arrives all the same"
Gaya sensed an otherworldly aura from him. Even the breathing became harder as she felt like being choked by the aura.
"You''re acting weird Michael. You''re not the Dark Lord they imed you to be. You''re better than that, I know you. If anyone is evil, it''s the Skyhall and Guardians"
"I am the Dark Lord nheless. Why try to avoid who I really am? If they had left me alone when I was born, I might have lived and died as an ordinary person. But they showed me the path to be something more, a god, a god who could reshape this world to his own liking"
The fear shrouded Gaya''s mind as the light in the room continued to flicker. Soon, the room fell pitch ck.
Manipting the darkness was not a skill or spell he bought from the system. Rather, he felt as natural as breathing. His strength had gone through the roofs and he sensed that he would be more powerful if he merged with the third piece of the soul. Just making peace with himself unlocked an ancient power in him.
When the lights returned to the room, Gaya was staring at him with a pale face.
"Don''t worry snakey, this is what the future me wants" Michael smiled looking at the distant horizon,
When he saw her face, confusion was written all over her face.
"Think about it, Gaya, Qin Jiu went to the future and saw the Dark Lord. And who is the Dark Lord? Me. You heard Elidyr, I beat her to half death but didn''t kill her, that doesn''t sound like me unless I let her live"
"You''re saying you came from the future"
"It makes sense, doesn''t it? How we met, the portraits of me in the dark forest, how I met Nightmare, don''t you feel like everything is connected?"
"I don''t care where you came from or from when you came, I''ll be at your side as long as I''m alive. What if your family gave you away? I''m all the family you need" Gaya embraced him in a tight hug. She squeezed him, having no intention to let him go.
Knock!
Knock!
Gaya jolted away from him when someone knocked on the door.
"It''s me, can Ie in?" Elidyr''s voice came from the other side of the door,
"Come in," said Michael as Eldiry opened the door toe in.
"Am I interrupting something?" seeing the half naked Michael and the tense body of Gaya, Elidyr thought they were exploring the area of love together.
"Nope. Did you find everything you need?"
Elidyr walked towards the armor of Lucifer hanging on the armor stand. He just looked at it from top to bottom before turning his gaze back at Michael,
"I had to go through some annoying conversations but I managed to get everything. Now we just need a vessel and someone who could weaken the vessel with your soul piece in it"
With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a tablet size mirror from the system storage. He threw it at Elidyr,
"There is your vessel"
Elidry looked at the mirror to see a mountain troll in it but this mountain troll was nothing like the one he scared using his energy a day ago. The mountain troll in the mirror was on fire and had a pir with scorching hotva oozing down.
"A fire giant" Elidyr had seen only a few in his lifetime. They were extremely rare and almost extinct from the world thanks to the Skyhall.
They were one of the races Skyhall deemed as helping the Dark lord. Thus, they almost wiped them out from the face of this world.
"A fire giant you say. That thing crawled through a ruin far north from here, rtively closer to where we went to collect ckfoot mushrooms"
Gaya took the mirror from Elidyr''s hand and saw the fire giant sleeping. The snoring giant was a couple of times bigger and meaner than the mountain troll Gilrine loved.
"We will let the fire and ice battle it out. In two days, I want my soul to be whole again"
The ritual to extract the third piece of soul out had to be performed on a full moon day. Fortunately, the next full moon was in two days. The fire giant''s appearance was not a coincidence but a result of Victoria''s visit to the dungeon. She killed everything that guarded the dungeon except the fire giant. When the primordial mes left the dungeon, they woke up the slumbering giant. The giant was now tracking the primordial mes.
Michael was oblivious to the intention of the fire giant. His first priority was to make his soul whole. He had a feeling that once his soul became whole again, his powers would grow exponentially.
"What''s the n?" asked Gaya,
"I will lure the fire giant to the ritual site, you make sure no one ys hero"
Michael then exined the full extent of his n to Elidyr and Gaya. After hearing the n, Elidyr was quite surprised. The n was simple but elegant and fail proof. Slowly Elidyr realized why a legend of a person such as Qin Jiu shuddered to even utter his name.
He had devastating power and a brain to outsmart his opponents. This was a deadlybination. Moreover, his soul seemed to be in peace unlike when he first met him.
"What''s the n after you absorb the third piece?" asked Gaya,
"Farming badass points" Michael thought in his mind but only revealed a smile to Gaya.
Chapter 448 The Alchemy class and Bullies
Chapter 448 The Alchemy ss and Bullies
Only one day remained until the full moon. To farm badass points and brew a potion that would attract the fire giant to the ritual site, Michael went to the potions ss. Lucky for him, today was the first day of potions ss.
Potions lessons took ce down in one of the dungeons. It was colder in the ssroom than up in the main castle and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in ss jars all around the walls.
The ssroom wasrge enough to hold at least thirty students, their cauldrons, and their work tables. In the corner of the ssroom was a basin into which icy cold water poured from a snake''s mouth. A student supply cupboard could be seen in the room, along with a ckboard on which the professor could write forme and recipes for potions and pills.
Professor Lane''s office and personal stores were adjacent to the potions ssroom and there was a room in the corner to ess the office from the potions ssroom.
Michael felt weird carrying a set of books like a student. When he entered the ssroom, he noticed that not only the ssroom was gloomy but also the students looked gloomy. None of them dared to utter a word.
As he liked, he went to the table at the far end of the corner from the professor''s table. A copper cauldron along with a yellowish parchmentid on the table.
"Hey" a brown-haired youngster next to Michael''s table waved at him with a friendly smile. Since the youngster was sharing his table with orcs and beastmen, he seemed to be d to meet a fellow human,
Michael just nodded with a smile before reading the contents written on the parchment.
"Healing potion recipe" Michael immediately recognized the ingredients and what potion could be brewed using these ingredients.
"Another batch of baffling bumbling fools" a cold voice reverberated in the ssroom.
The students saw professor Lane walking out of the door connecting the ssroom and his personal office. Professor Lane Voldigard was a tall thin man with pallid skin, arge, hooked nose, and a pearl white set of teeth.
He was dressed in flowing ck robes which made him resemble "an overgrown bat". He had shoulder-length, smooth ck hair which framed his face in curtains, curling lips, and dark, prating eyes that resembled tunnels.
When he entered the ssroom, the already gloomy ssroom turned gloomier.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of alchemy. As there is little fancy spell casting here, many of you will hardly believe this is sorcery. I don''t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through the veins, bewitching the minds, ensnaring the senses. I can teach you how to bewitch minds, turn water into gold, and even stay young forever if you aren''t as big a bunch of fools as I usually have to teach" he sounded more like hissing than speaking. He had a waspish tongue that subtly spewed so much venom toward the students. In the very first ss, he started to pour water over the students'' fire to learn more.
"On your table, there is a list of ingredients. You have thirty minutes to concoct the pill. Whoever concocts the least bad will get to use the ssroom after the ss. I know it will be hard for you but try not to make a mess"
The students rushed to all corners to collect the required ingredients. No one stopped for a second to look around the ssroom to locate the ingredients instead of rummaging through all the jars and nts.
"Let me show you kids how it''s done"
He was in dire need of badass points which pushed him to show his greatness to everyone. When he first came to Mazeroth, he nned to stay anonymous, find the dark elf, and get some allies. Everything changed after he talked to Elidyr. He was neck-deep in enemy territory. Although it was risky to show his true prowess, this was also a great ce to earn thousands of badass points.
Lane misdirected the students by saying concoct the pill. In reality, it was a potion. He wanted the students to figure it out. Looking at the students running around the ssroom like headless chickens having no clue, he was disappointed but didn''t seem surprised. He seemed as though he expected this.
Among the headless chickens, Lane noticed Michael who calmly walked around the ssroom collecting the right ingredients using the correct methods.
His nk face literally turned green when Michael conjured his alchemy me in the middle of the ss. The gloomy dark ssroom was lit green by the fuming emerald green mes hovering over Michael''s palm.
"What the hell are you doing?" one female student who dropped her ingredient in shock shouted at Michael.
Ignoring the girl, he threw the first ingredient into the alchemy me.
Professor Lane fixed his eyes on Michael. Unlike the students, he could see the control Michael had over the mes. The mes danced ording to his will. One by one Michael threw the ingredients into the alchemy mes. He walked towards Professor Lane, brewing the potion.
The essence extracted from each ingredient hovered over the mes in the shape of glowing pearls. Finally, the sweet sound of notifications continuously rang in his mind.
"Whoa"
"Who is he?"
"He''s not even using a cauldron"
"Look, he''s almost done"
"Where is he from?"
The students were dazzled by Michael as he wanted. Even Professor Lane who had a face void of emotions looked a tad bit surprised.
When he reached Lane''s table, he held the mes and the essence balls in one hand and took a vial from the table using the other hand. The green mes slowly dissipated as the beads of essence flowed into the vial blending together into a sparkling blue potion.
"Here you go, Professor. 90% Pure healing potion" Michael ced the vial on the table with a proud grin.
"The ssroom is yours. Others leave" Professor Lane left the room carrying the vial of healing potion Michael brewed.
The students looked like fools with some ingredients in their hands. They did not even start their cauldrons yet Michael finished brewing the potion.
Their first potion ss ended quicker than they thought. After Lane left the ssroom, all the students stared at Michael.
"Big brother" the girl who shouted at Michael approached him wearing a seductive smile,
"That trick doesn''t work on me sweetheart" Michael put an end to her flirting before it even began.
"If I heard the professor correct, he said every one to get out of here"
By giving the ssroom to him, Lane saved hundreds of badass points. He could take advantage of the ingredients around the ssroom to brew the potion to lure the fire giant to the ritual site.
Seeing how coldly he handled the girl, the other did not dare to start a conversation with him. They branded him as the most arrogant one in the ss within a few seconds.
Michael couldn''t care less about what they think of him. Most of the students here would serve the Skyhall or any one of the Great ns. Sooner orter, he might meet them on a battlefield. Thest thing he wanted was to share his knowledge with his potential enemies.
The ingredients to brew the bait potion were quickly found by Michael.
He quickly started to brew the potion before Professor Lane returned. While collecting the herbs, he also collected seeds from the rare herbs professor Lane had in his ssroom.
Michael did not linger in the ssroom longer. As soon as he finished brewing the bait potion and some other potions and pills, he left the ssroom. He hadbat sses and spell casting after alchemy. However, since he finished the alchemy ss within five minutes, he had some free time.
The ss was profitable as he earned almost 50,000 badass points.
"Still not enough" Michael sighed,
He took a loan of 100,000 and before he could start spending the points, he wanted to settle his debt.
"I should go see how Nightmare is doing" when he stepped out of the ssroom, he remembered Nightmare. The dragon was having his own sses with the magical beasts professor in the arena.
With the help of a few markers, Michael made his way to the arena. The corridors and the courtyard were peaceful and captivating. He would hate to destroy this ce if Mazeorth chose to go to war with him. Somehow he felt they would stand in his way to domination.
The path to the arena was adorned with yellow maple trees. The paved path was nketed by the golden leaves and looked as though they were covered in pure gold.
Michael was enjoying peace and tranquility. The arena was an oval-shaped pitch with hundreds of seats raised in stands around the pitch so the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. In the middle of the arena was something that resembled a cricket pitch. Currently, when he entered the arena through one of the many gateways, he saw countless creatures flying in the sky and running around the grassfield.
A group of students upied the seats at the north end of the arena. Michael''s face turned cold when he looked closer at them. Instead of flying in the sky or running around like the other dragons and the familiars, Nightmare was chained to a pole with a bunch of sphynx cats. Besides Nightmare and Sphynx cats were a few first-year students. The first-year students seemed to be swimming on the ground.
The group of students was adorned in the robes of House Warriors. It wouldn''t take a genius to figure out that the first-year students and Nightmare were being bullied and ragged.
Chapter 449 Spellcasting Class
Chapter 449 Spellcasting ss
Although Michael saw Nightmare being bullied, he didn''t intervene. He just turned and left the arena but not before taking a long look at the bullies. Four guys and one girl. The one who seemed like the leader of the group had wavy red hair, tanned skin, a lean body, and a cobra tattoo from his neck to his left ear.
Leaving the arena, he went to the spellcasting ss which was conducted by Professor Neil. The spell casting ssroom had three rows of desks, all facing the teacher''s table, behind which sat arge throne-like chair with a high back. Two ckboards nked the teacher''s table, and behind them was a small shelf with books and other objects, beneath a pair of windows.
The spell casting ssroom was smaller than the Alchemy ssroom but brighter in lighting and atmosphere. Students were happily chatting with their friends and looking forward to their first spellcasting ss.
Considering all the students had to take the spellcasting ss, all the alchemy students were present in the ss. When Michael entered the ss, all their eyes fell on him. The Alchemy house mostly consisted of humans and orcs as well as a few elves. The elves who were sorted into House of Alchemy were deemed inferior by the elves who got sorted into House Warriors or House Runemasters.
Unlike the humans in the Alchemy ss, the orcs looked at him with a sense of respect. The orcs who sat on thest bench moved aside to make space for him.
Edith noticed the change in the alchemy students'' faces when Michael entered the ssroom. Her train of thought was stopped as Professor Neil suddenly appeared in the middle of the ss. Professor Neil was the pr opposite of gloomy Professor Lane. He was wearing a neatly pressed coat suit that was tailored for him by the best tailors in the Akn realm. He looked charming and lively wearing a bright grin from ear to ear.
Though he had a few strands of gray hair among his raven ck short hair, his vigor and liveliness nketed his true age.
"Wee to your first spellcasting ss dear students. Why so serious?" Professor Neil''s voice softened,
"Say good morning like there''s no tomorrow"
"GOOD MORNING!" the students cheered thunderously.
His Fusion Stage level 8 cultivation earned him instant respect from the students. Professor Neil waved his hand as the ckboards nking the teacher''s table merged into one longboard.
"All of you have cast spells in your life at least once. You''re familiar with them right?" Professor Neil looked at the ssroom as the students nodded their heads,
"So tell me, what is a spell?"
Edith quickly raised her hand,
"Yes Miss 45,"
The whole ss including Michael stared at Edith,
"A spell or an incantation, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical form intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects using energies found in the world. The spell can be spoken, sung, or chanted"
"Wonderful" Professor Neil bowed towards Edith as the whole ss chuckled while Edith just bowed back embarrassedly.
"As Miss talented 45 said, a spell can be spoken, sung, or chanted. But what about this?"
Professor Neil swirled his fingers as a mini cloud appeared above their heads. A streak of lightning shed across the ssroom and hit the table on which Edith was sitting behind. Edith almost jumped back in shock. A beautiful blue ross emerged from the ce where the lightning hit.
"Look at that, a pretty flower among gorgeous misses" Professor Neil winked at Edith and Victoria. Edith returned his wink with an awkward smile but Victoria outright ignored him.
Anyone with two eyes could see Professor Neil was extremely flirty. With his cultivation stage and handsomeness, it was obvious he had been with moredies than bees in a hive.
"I didn''t speak, sing, or chant but still I cast a spell"
"It''s a chantless spell" an elven girl raised her hand,
"Another beauty with a knack for knocking down my questions" Professor Neil kissed his palm and blew it as rose petals materialized in the air and flew towards the elven girl.
"There are two kinds of spell casting. The ones we cast by speaking, chanting, or singing have no special name, it''s just called spells. But the ones we cast without doing the above mentioned has a special name, chantless spells or chantless spell casting" Professor Neil wrote the word ''Chantless spell casting'' on the board in stunning handwriting,
"But you might be tempted to say my Fusion stage cultivation allowed me to cast chantless spells. That''s not true, any one of you could cast chantless spells if you are talented enough which brings me to my next question, what did I mean by talent?" He looked at the ssroom for a few moments but none answered,
"All of you are extremely talented, that''s why you''ve been selected to enroll in Mazeroth. But what made you different from those who did not get into Mazeroth? The answer is, your soul and body''s ability to process the energies within you. That''s what made you different from the others, that''s what talent is. Your body and soul take in a higher amount of energypared to the others. The more energy you take in, the faster you climb the higher stages of cultivation. Yet, one''s soul remains a constant but the body is the variable"
In a few blinks of an eye, Professor Neil drew the anatomy of the human body perfectly on the board.
"The soul cannot be polluted, unlike the body. If you don''t take care of your body, your ability to absorb energies from the world will be hindered. This is the reason why most of the cultivators avoid eating meats, drinking booze, and bed run of the mill strumpets" some of the male students chuckled winking at some girls
"The more talented you are, the higher the chances for you to cast chantless spells. Make no mistake, you can cast any spell without chanting if you mastered the chantless spell-casting except" Professor Neil paused as his voice turned into a whisper. He moved his hand to write two words on the board ''Elemental Maniption''
"Until recently the concept of Elemental maniption was kept hidden from the outside world due to various safety reasons. I don''t know what changed but I was asked to give an introduction to elemental maniption though even I know only a little about it"
Michael''s interest in the ss just got piqued by Neil''s words. Every time he controlled the darkness, he wondered what kind of power it was. He hoped the system would give him an exnation but the only exnation he received was how he should focus on upgrading the system to the next version.
"Elemental maniption is just as the name suggests, the ability to control one of the five elements, water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, and light" Michael frowned as Professor Neil did not mention the element of Darkness.
"Professor?" Edith raised her hand,
"What about darkness? Isn''t that also an element?"
Michael appreciated the girl''s question. He noticed an acute change in Neil''s face,
"Darkness is not an element Miss 45. Where there is no light, there is darkness. Darkness cannot exist without light and unlike light, there is no source for darkness. In simple words, darkness is just the void of light"
Michael wasn''t very convinced by his exnation. It sounded like Professor Neil was reciting the answer he got from someone else. However, it was neither his ce nor the time to prove that Darkness is indeed an exnation and he was the source of it.
"The schrs in Skyhall believe that when you learn and focus on spells of a particr element, for example, fire spells, you might, the keyword is might. You might grasp the concept of elemental maniption. However, it''s just a theory and it will remain as one until we find someone who could manipte an element"
Michael was sure that Noah would be able to manipte light and something told him that the girl who killed the mountain troll might be able to manipte an element, namely water.
"Now let''s move on to the categorization of spells. Who can tell me how we can categorize the spells?"
Yet again Edith raised her hand,
"Yes Miss 45"
"Common, Umon, Rare, Epic and Legendary"
"Right again. Miss 45, are you gunning for my job?" Neilughed, making Edith blush,
"Now most of you might think that Legendary spells are the top dogs. But it''s not always true. Let me give you an example, think of a perfectly healthy baby and a weak old man. No matter how hard the baby tries, the baby won''t win a battle against the old man even though he''s weak. What''s the connection you ask" Neil asked the ss,
"In this scenario, the baby is a starting stage cultivator with a Legendary spell and the weak old man is ater stage cultivator with amon spell. The power of the spell depends on the cultivator and the cultivation stage. Many rich people go crazy for Legendary spells and pay millions but they don''t understand that they should invest that money to climb the higher stages of cultivation. Without a strong cultivation base, even if you have several Legendary spells in your arsenal, a cultivator with a strong base could defeat you with a simplemon spell. By strong cultivation, I meant you must be at least at the Soul Refining stage to unleash the full potential of a Legendary Spell"
Professor Neil then went on and on exining each category of the spells to a great extent. Michael almost felt sleepy. After forty minutes, except for Edith and a few girls, almost the entire ss was droopy.
"With this, we will wind up our ss. In the next ss, I''d try not to make you all sleepy. Now run along before Professor Steinmeyer starts to look for you. Trust me that won''t end well" Professor Neil chuckled before waving his hand. The next moment, he disappeared from the ssroom.
Michael had a feeling that Neil got a taste of Gaya''s attitude. He was the first to leave the ss and on his way to thebat ss, he contacted Gaya to do him a favor.
Chapter 450 Bullying the Bullies
Chapter 450 Bullying the Bullies
Thebat ss was changed from thebat ssroom to the arena where Nightmare was bullied an hour ago. The students made their way to the arena in groups or couples. Only Michael walked alone until Elidyr joined him.
"Do you have any idea why we are having the ss in the arena?" Elidyr asked though he seemed to have guessed Lucifer had something to do with this.
"You will see"
While they were on their way to the arena, the students looked up at the sky to see flocks of various magical beasts descending towards them.
Not all the magical beasts were able to fly as there were several magical beasts running towards them too. One of the familiars among the familiars in the sky was Nightmare.
Due to Wilkas''s poor status, he did not have a familiar. Only a few studentscked families when they reached Mazeroth. Even among countless students, Nightmare located Michael andnded on his shoulder.
"How was your training Nightmare?" asked Michael pretending he didn''t see Nightmare earlier.
He kept his face straight,
"Anything special happened Nightmare?" he asked Nightmare. Even Elidyr who was several thousand years old did not notice the cold intent in his eyes,
"No" Nightmare lied. For a moment Michael felt extremely annoyed and aggravated by the lie but when he saw the eyes of Nightmare, he calmed down. He understood why the dragon was lying to him.
Nightmare would rather face his own problems than adding them on top of Michael''s.
Gaya was standing in the center of the arena sharpening the long sword in her hand. She and Nightmare bickered and fought almost every day but both of them loved the other dearly. Hence, when Gaya heard about Nightmare being bullied by a bunch of humans, she was royally pissed.
If it wasn''t for Michael who convinced her to stay put, she would have kicked the life out of the bullies in the name of punishment.
"Line up!" her shout sent chills through their spines. They quickly formed a line,
Gaya flicked her wrist as a stack of silver coins materialized beside her. With another flick of her wrist, she sent a coin towards a student and their familiar.
The students gawked at the floating coins in front of them with bewildered faces.
"What the fuck are you looking at? Take them"
The students and the familiars grabbed the coins,
"At the end of this ss, whoever has the most coins will get this " a silver parchment appeared in her hand,
"A Rare level spell" She threw the parchment on the ground,
"That''s it?" a cocky human student from House Warriors snickered,
"You can rob, attack, do whatever you want. And House Warriors" she looked at the students who were in warrior house robes,
"If you get your asses kicked, don''t even bothering back. Now shu" She gestured at them to go away but not before taking a long look at where Michael was looking at the bullies.
The students immediately scattered in all directions. Most of them chose the ck forest as their destination. The ck forest would provide them with much-needed cover for them to safeguard their coins. Many who were not warriors knew they would be decimated if they went against the warriors or runemasters. Hence, hiding was their only choice.
Victoria dashed in the direction of the ck forest. She wasn''t running but chasing her prey.
"I thought you don''t care about stuff like this" Edith asked while running behind Victoria,
"I don''t but I''m not gonna be bested by a bunch of clowns either"
She said, targeting a dwarf who was running as though his life was depending on the coin.
Boom!
The dwarf was extremely unlucky as he was targeted by Victoria. Like a cheetah that pounces on its prey, Victoria leaped at the dwarf. The dwarf barely looked up when he felt a sharp pain on the back of his head.
Victoria took the coin off of the dwarf she just knocked down. On her way to the ck forest, she collected several more coins.
Edith might not be fighting like Victoria while running but once she reached the ck forest, she was confident that she could trap the students with her runic traps and collect more coins.
A forest like the ck forest was a natural yground for a runemaster like her. She was a 4-star Runemaster and ording to her big sister, Lah Alden, she was just a few years training away from reaching a 5-star level.
It took the duo fifteen minutes to reach the border of the ck forest.
They entered the woods cautiously. Edith touched the trees as she followed behind Victoria. Every time, she ced her hand on a tree, a palm sized chakra appeared on them and disappeared into the tree.
"Shh" Suddenly Victoria stopped on her path,
"There''s someone ahead and he was getting surrounded by five" Victoria sent waves of Cosmic energy to scan her surroundings.
She cautiously moved in the direction of the six students. With a swift leap, shended on a nearby tree branch to get a good view of the scene. Edith bent her hips drawing a symbol on the ground beneath her feet. Then when she jumped, the symbol glowed, boosting her leap.
When shended beside her friend Victoria, she saw a familiar face standing in the middle of the forest. A crimson scaled forest dragon was resting atop his shoulder.
"That''s our train neighbor"
"My my, what do we have here?" all of a sudden a cocky voice reverberated in the forest.
Edith and Victoria turned their gazes away from the alchemist to see five students of house warriors step out of the shadows one by one. They nked him in all directions.
"Hey look at that, it''s our toy" the red wavy haired youngster pointed the stick in his hand at Nightmare,
"An Alchemist? This is pathetic" Edith saw a pale skinned girl lick the tip of her de,
"I think we should let the dragon see its master getting the end of our boots" another youngster coldly said,
"How low can they stoop?" Seeing five warriors surrounding an alchemist put a frown on Edith''s face.
"I''m going to help him" Edith took a step forward only to be stopped by Victoria,
"That''s not our business. If he can''t save himself, he should have been at least good at hiding"
"I can''t stay here doing nothing when someone''s being bullied in front of my eyes" Edith''s whisper turned colder,
"As expected" Just as she was about to jump down, they heard the alchemist calmly speak,
Nightmare who was resting atop Michael''s shoulder began to shiver. He was struck by nervousness. When they began to bully him, he could have simply told either Gaya or Michael and they would have dealt with them. But he restrained himself from doing that to avoid causing them an extra problem as Nightmare knew they were dealing with enough problems as it is.
However, sensing the cold intent in Michael''s voice, Nightmare realized that he might know everything.
"Bullies stick together huh" Michael cracked his knuckles one by one,
"If there is a forest" Edith heard him and was surprised by his calmness despite the tricky situation he was in.
"Lion, tiger, dragon will prowl to hunt for their prey. The prey will run for its life" Victoria looked him in the eyes and saw no fear, not at all.
"But if the sun sets and darkness descended by then, the animal which will survive to watch a new dawn would be decided only by the nature" he rolled up his sleeves gradually as he spoke,
"But in this jungle, when the darkness falls, when, where, and who will watch the daybreak won''t be decided by nature"
Finally, Michael cracked his neck. This time, the murderous intent in his eyes was visible to everyone including Edith. The aura he radiated rendered the warriors speechless.
"It''s ME"
Victoria was surprised at the speed of his dash toward the red haired youngster. The warrior barely had time to move a muscle when he received a punch that sent him flying onto the tree behind him.
The rest of the warriors were stupefied by his speed. Before they could react, Michael had once again dashed at the red haired student. He was growling on the ground,
"ARRHHHHHHHHHH" suddenly his growl turned into a scream of agony because Michael mercilessly stomped on the bully''s kneecap, shattering it into pieces.
While the youngster was screaming, crying, and growling beneath his feet, Michael turned back. The other four warriors were dashing at him put a sudden brake when they saw his cold gazending on them. An unexinable fear clutched their hearts.
They were warriors and they shouldn''t have felt afraid in front of an alchemist but they did feel afraid. He made only a few moves but they were enough to reveal his battle prowess to Victoria. He didn''t seem like a normal Alchemist to her. For the first time in her life, she slightly felt curious about a guy.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" the red haired youngster screamed yet again as this time, Michael stomped on his other kneecap. Although the student could be healed with a healing potion, the pain he was feeling right now would be ingrained into his brain forever. If he felt an urge to bully again, this pain would kill that urge.
"What have you done?"
"YOU!"
The girl stood closer to Michael, shivering. Their leader was just crushed in a few mere moments. If they could use spells, they would fight fearlessly. Since that was not the case, they all started to tremble and the red haired youngster''s cries didn''t give them any courage.
Regardless of her gender, Michael picked her as his next target.
p!
Edith closed her eyes the very next second after he pped the girl with enough force to create a mini shock wave. Unlike the red haired youngster, she immediately lost consciousness as well as a few teeth.
Nightmare supposed that he should feel pity for them but he felt nothing for these bullies.
Michael tilted his head, grinning at the three remaining students,
"I thought bullying the weak got you off"
Victoria was looking at the alchemist beating the crap out of the three warriors with mild interest. The trio ganged up on him still they could not eveny a finger on him. Each of his moves was precise, deadly, and straightforward.
Except for the girl, he broke several bones of the others.
"Hrgh"
The girl forced open her eyes gradually at the wrong possible time.
"Arms or legs, you can only pick two bitch"
Nightmare wanted to stop but looking at the murderous look in his eyes, he knew it was toote to stop him.
He was just a few meters away from the girl when Edithnded right between the girl and Michael.
"It''s enough" Edith stomped the ground.
Chapter 451 Gaya is fired
Chapter 451 Gaya is fired
Just like Victoria scanned her surroundings, Michael also performed the scanning. The only difference other than the obvious energy difference was Michael sensed the two girls'' presence way before Victoria sensed him.
He let them see the one-sided brutality to earn badass points. As he expected, he earned quite a lot of badass points. Since every single one in Mazeroth was either genius or celebrity, his badassery earned tons of badass points. Because of this theory, he didn''t think deeply about the two girls'' identities.
"Miss 45" Michael lowered his sleeves down,
"Something tells me you are not here for my coin" Edith was stunned by the sudden change in his demeanor. A few moments ago, he was coldly breaking the bones of his fellow students and now, he was smiling warmly.
"I was foolish to think you needed help. How could you do this?" Edith''s eyes watered looking around. Their cries and agony softened her already soft heart.
"Thank you for your kindness Miss 45. Now if you step aside, I have a bitch to deal with"
Michael looked at Nightmare standing atop his shoulder and saw his worried face when he was being bullied. That scene kindled the rage in his heart.
If he was outside, he would have killed the five by now. The least he could do was break a few bones and that was letting them off easily.
"No" Edith stomped the ground again. This time, the ground beneath him trembled as translucent chakras appeared behind her. But the chakras quickly disappeared as soon as they appeared.
"Human we have a problem" To his surprise, he heard Gaya''s voice in his head.
"You can''t take their coins but I won''t let you harm them any more than you have already" Edith''s voice turned colder,
"I couldn''t care less about these coins" Michael took the two coins from his pocket before throwing them at Edith''s feet. It was him who asked Gaya to
Assign them this task so he could follow these bullies and teach them a lesson. He had no interest in winning.
"For their medical expenses" With a snicker, he turned his back on Edith,
Before leaving the scene, he looked up at the tree Victoria was standing on. Victoria felt his gaze on her for a second. She was sure that he looked directly at her. She was hiding her presence as well as her body yet he sensed her through all the foliage, darkness, and the trees. She was surprised by him.
Quickly Nightmare jumped down from his shoulder while transforming into his real form. With Michael on his back, Nightmare took off into the sky with a powerful p of his wings like a bullet from a gun.
The arena was just a few minutes flying away from the ck forest. With Nightmare''s speed, they reached it in two minutes. As hended in the arena, he saw several students, as well as a silver horse with two feathery wings, protruding out of its back cking on the ground.
A youngster who looked like the embodiment of the word warrior was talking to Gaya and by the redness and the stiffness of Gaya''s body, it seemed like they were having a heated conversation. To be more precise, Gaya seemed to be having a heated conversation while the youngster looked calm andposed.
"Elliot Watson" Michael recognized the youngster as the head prefect. When he first came to Mazeorth castle, he met the head prefect along with three other students. He wondered why he was here and what he did to make Gaya''s face be as red as a ripe tomato.
Soon he noticed a golden parchment in her hand,
"Two sses and you''ve put the students'' life at risk in each ss"
"I heard you the first several times. What made you fucking qualified to tell me how to do my fucking job?"
Michael joined the group of students staring at the ruckus to hear her shout. She noticed Michael but didn''t acknowledge him due to obvious reasons,
"I''m qualified and have the authority to take back your job" Michael was stunned,
"You have endangered the lives of the students enough and the way you''ve been treating them is not the way a house warrior teacher should. You have a week to vacate the premises, good day Miss Na Steinmeyer"
Elliot adjusted his spectacles before jumping back on his horse and flying away.
"What''s happening?" Elidyr came to his side with a grin. In his hand, he had a pouch and by the clicking soundsing from the pouch, Michael could see they were coins.
"ss dismissed as well as the professor" Few elves chuckled among the group. Not only the elves but also the students of other races too looked happy and wore bright smiles on their faces. The Alchemists were the ones who seemed most relieved.
"Ex-professor"
The elves continued tough among themselves. Gaya left the arena before she lost her patience and broke the faces of those who wereughing.
Back in Michael''s room, a seven feet mirror had erupted. In front of the mirror stood Elidyr, Michael, and Nightmare.
"So these Spyders capture the feed in real-time and project it through mirrors?" Elidyr was curiously staring at the Spyder on his palm.
"I can enhance them by increasing their speed, durability and prevent them from getting detected by some of the powerful arrays. Although they were made of junk metal, there are some arrays that could still detect their presence"
"Is this thing working?" Gaya appeared in the mirror while Elidyr was fiddling with the Spyder. She was poking the Spyder and seeing her face up close put a smile on Michael''s face. It was funny. She was currently standing in a cozy room with a firece andfy sofa. There were several portraits of the founders of Mazeorth hanging on the wall behind her. The room however was a mess and he noticed the broken table lying in pieces.
"Yes I can see you, now if you step back, you will be able to see us too" Michael talked to the Spyder floating in the air in front of him.
Since meeting Gaya in person would raise unwanted suspicions, he used the Spyders as web cameras and initiated a video call using the devices he built.
"Tell me, what happened?" asked Michael.
"Didn''t you see? I was fired. That son of a bitch evoked some idiotic rule to fire me out of my job. We are less than sixteen away from starting the ritual and I have already lost my job. What are we gonna do about it?"
"Hmm, I do vaguely remember something about in the event of a professor abusing his or her power to endanger the lives of their students, a secret vote can be held by the head prefect and if the vote passed against the professor, they will be stripped of their job. But to evoke the rule, take the vote and fire you from your post within two days is quite a feat, Dark Queen"
Gaya rolled her eyes seeing Elidyr praising Elliot.
"We will proceed as we nned. It''s toote to back off now. After we make my soul whole again, we may not even have to be here. Elidyr, you sure you can modify the teleportation scroll to teleport us out of here?"
"Already finished it. Just say the word and the four of us will be out of here before one could say cheese"
Michael wanted to say he was surprised but he expected this from a 6-star Runemaster who was several thousand years old. He had the knowledge and skills to open the gates to Earth and for a Runemaster with his caliber, it would be simple enough to modify a teleportation scroll.
"The girl, will she be there? Our whole n depends on her showing up to battle the fire giant" Gaya asked. She didn''t give a damn about being a professor. The only thing she cared about was the ritual that was supposed to happen tomorrow.
No matter what happens, they have to go through with the ritual. The sooner his soul bes whole, the better, Gaya knew this. The ritual was extremely important and that was why she was royally pissed at Elliot for getting herself fired.
"Don''t worry. She wille"
After discussing their n for a few more minutes, Michael cut the call. He then took out a muddy brown potion from the system storage.
"Nightmare" He called Nightmare as the little dragon came flying to him,
"Take this" he handed over the potion to Nightmare.
"It''s your task to spray this potion in the air and lure the fire giant to the ritual site"
They picked up a secluded site in the middle of the ck forest as their ritual site. It was far from the Mazeroth castle yet rtively closer to the fire giant. ording to Elidyr, the ritual mightst from one hour to three hours.
The first step of the ritual was to extract the soul piece that Michael named as the third persona. The second step was to cage the soul into the fire giant''s body thus giving the soul piece a physical manifestation. Then the third and most difficult step of the ritual was letting Rowena defeat the fire giant but not kill it. She had to weaken the giant so Michael could absorb the soul back at its weakest state.
In its weakest state, it would be merged with the other two soul pieces and if everything went ording to their n, his soul would be whole once again.
As they were finalizing their n for tomorrow, Gaya''s doors were knocked on by an unexpected guest. Gaya was irritated by the fact she got fired and moreover, the guy who was responsible for it was stronger than her. It was embarrassing for her.
After diligent cultivation, she just reached Core Strengthening stage level 4. However, Elliot was at Soul Refining Stage level 2.
"Only if I went through my metamorphosis. Damn it"
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
Her train of thought was interrupted by a knock on her door. She cast a quick spell to spread her senses. When she sensed the one who was knocking on her door, she was surprised. It was an extremely powerful presence, a presence of a Fusion Stage cultivator.
She was surprised and startled more than she was annoyed. With utter caution, she slowly approached the door.
When she opened the door, a man clothed in dark robes resembling an overgrown bat stood at her doorstep.
"Professor Lane?"
Chapter 452 The ritual has begun
Chapter 452 The ritual has begun
Professor Lane entered Gaya''s room without bothering to ask her permission. He gawked at the mess in the room but didn''t seem like he gave a damn.
"Yeahe in" Gaya rolled her eyes,
"How do you like your job back Miss Steinmeyer?" Professor Lane asked in his waspish voice,
"Huh?"
Gaya was confused,
"I have a task for someone with your caliber, Miss Steinmeyer. Aplish this and you will be Professor Steinmeyer"
Before Gaya could say anything, she had a feeling that she should hear him more. After all, she needed to pretend as she cares about this job to avoid raising suspicions.
She was really lucky whatever spell was cast on her when she took the identification card of the real imposter of Professor Steinmeyer was powerful enough to fool even the Fusion Stage cultivator such as Lane. Otherwise, she would have probably ended up in the deepest dungeons of Mazeroth.
"I have a week to get out of here Professor Lane. So whatever''s in your mind-"
"If you depart now, you can finish it before tomorrow night"
He stared at Gaya wordlessly asking for her answer.
"What''s the job?" Gaya asked, sighing.
"Escorting a student in and out of a dungeon"
"A dungeon?"
Gaya''s curiosity was slightly piqued because dungeons are rare but every dungeon would contain a priceless artifact or a relic worth risking their lives.
If a dungeon was found, it would cause a ruckus among cultivators. Soon, the dungeon would be filled with adventures, rogue cultivators, sects to loot everything inside. Anything that could be found in a dungeon would be extremely valuable.
However as much as the dungeons contained valuables, they also contained danger in every corner. If a hundred people entered the dungeon, only a few woulde outside fully intact.
"The task seems extremely dangerous Professor Lane, especially for the student. If you tell me more about the dungeon and what it contains, I might take the task. After all, I want all the information I need before risking my life. Being alive is more important than being a professor"
"Fair enough," Professor Lane nodded. He almost looked like he was expecting everything Gaya just said,
"Primordial fire"
A single word that came from Lane''s mouth was enough to make her shudder. Thest time she witnessed the power of a primordial fore was when she was in the Fire Realm. Noah used Heaven''s me to save the old man from House Fisher. The me was powerful enough to obliterate even the extremely powerful poison miasma in the Fire Realm.
ording to the texts she read in the Nagnd library, the primordial mes would grow stronger with time and enhance the spells and skills one possessed.
She also heard from Michael that he needs a Primordial me to reach the 6-star Alchemist.
"That''s what''s inside the dungeon along with skeleton soldiers"
"Wait a minute. If that''s what''s all in the dungeon, why didn''t anyone get it? So what''s the catch?"
Gaya was not dumb enough to believe that there was primordial fire sitting in a dungeon but no one in the Akn realm had taken steps to get the fire for themselves.
"The dungeon is protected by a void array. Even a half immortal would be rendered powerless the moment he or she steps into the dungeon. Which means, only a battle-hardened warrior can get in and out alive"
"Something tells me countless battle-hardened warriors had already tried that and didn''t live to tell the tale" Gaya emphasized the word ''battle-hardened'', crossing her arms.
Lane was annoyed by all the questions but he never showed his emotions on his face. After all, he needed her to do his bidding.
With a flick of his wrist, Lane conjured a purple me above his palm.
"Unlike the normal mes, Primordial mes have a mind of their own. If the primordial mes deemed you unworthy when you try to absorb them, you will be reduced to nothing but ashes" he threw the purple fire onto the broken table behind him. In mere moments, the oak table turned into ashes as he said. Gaya was surprised by his theatrics as he had no need to turn the table into ashes.
"I assume you want to know who is the student you have to apany"
Gaya nodded in curiosity. She derived a bunch of ns to get rid of the student and sneak Michael into the dungeon instead.
"The student has the id sixty-six, weirdly he chose to go by the name ''Ghost'' in where he came from"
Gaya received yet another shock from Professor Lane.
"He is an Alchemy student, probably a prodigy. He may have a chance to absorb the primordial me without being obliterated by it"
She sensed no remorse or nothing at all in his voice. What if he was deemed not unworthy by the mes which she didn''t believe would be the case. If anyone was worthy of the primordial mes, it was him.
"I can get him in and if he survived the mes, I can get him outside"
"Great. Use this when you are within three feet of him. You will be teleported directly into the dungeon''s entryway. He will have no choice but to see it till the end" he talked while walking towards the door to leave the room,
Just before stepping out of the room, he handed over a golden teleportation scroll to Gaya. He did not even bother to ask if she was going to agree or not as he knew she had no choice.
"What if that head prefect asshole tried to get me fired again?"
"Next time, not every professor will sign the petition"
By the time his voice reached her ears, he already vanished into thin air.
Then she realized that if what he said was true, all the professors signed the petition including him. This meant he manipted the entire scenario just to get her to agree to the task.
She even doubted he may have been the person who initiated the n to get her fired in the first ce. However, instead of punching something to vent her anger, she burst intoughter.
"Hahahahaha"
Professor Lane may have felt like the mastermind, but only she knew who was the real winner in the situation; Michael. Lady Luck was on his side, that Gaya knew for sure.
The only thing that bugged her was in less than a day, they had the ritual to put his soul back together. Although they were talking about the ritual and how to perform it, they had no idea how it was going to go. To be honest, she was worried sick but she didn''t let Michael see her anxiety.
In the serenade of the ck, the stars were a choir; they were lights that sing in infinite patterns. Sometimes eyes needed music, and the darker the night the sweeter the song. Amid the starlight was the ever glow of the moon, that mother of the sky who watched over every beating heart, steady and true.
Despite her angelic moonlight that bathed the with sapphire light, the ck forest remained dark. The thousands of years old tree-shaded the ground with their ever-expanding canopy, preventing any light from cutting through them.
Nothing was audible except for the sound of snoring in the distance. In the middle of arge glowing chakra stood Michael, Gaya, and Elidyr.
"The fire giant is still sleeping I guess," said Elidyr,
"When should we do this?" Nightmare flew back to Michael after surveying the surroundings.
"I just need your blood"
Michael walked towards Elidyr and took out a dagger from the system storage. The next moment, he cut open his palm as blood gushed out dripping onto the glowing chakra. When the blood touched the chakra, the glowing blue chakra turned crimson red.
"Step to the center and the ritual will begin" Elidyr''s voice turned serious. The usual calmness in his voice was nowhere to be found. Gaya was slightly shaking seeing Michael taking steps towards the center of the chakra.
"Nightmare now. Lure the fire giant here" Elidyr ordered Nightmare. The dragon quickly nodded his head before flying in the direction of the fire giant as fast as he could.
Gaya threw the bait potion into the air which was caught by Nightmare in mid-air.
Boom!
When he pped his wing, it produced a quiet booming sound. She had never seen Nightmare fly so fast. Everyone was nervous including Elidyr despite his calm demeanor.
"Pleasee back to me in one piece human" she whispered to him. She prayed to her mother with her hands against the chest.
Regardless of the situation, when he warmly smiled at her, she calmed down.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
All of a sudden a thunderous roar echoed through the forest almost breaking their eardrums. The shout was soon followed by thunderous footsteps. The ground beneath them shook.
[Manual soul extraction is initiated¡]
[Arch energy flow has been stopped¡]
[Prepare to go through an extreme amount of pain¡]
[System offline in three¡two¡one]
"ARGHH!"
Michael''s outcry in pain sent a chill through Gaya''s spine. She dashed towards him in instinct to save him only to be stopped by Elidyr.
"The ritual must not stop"
Elidyr and Gaya saw the blood gushing out of Michael''s nostrils and mouth as he copsed onto his knees. He howled at the sky like a wolf in pain.
His soul was literally being stipped out of him. The pain he suffered could not be described in mere words.
Everything in his being hurt. His head hurt, his chest hurt, his feet hurt, and every single fiber in his body screamed in agony. The pain subsided at times, only to re up several times more intense than before. He held his head tightly trying to fight through the pain. It was difficult to focus between the moments of pain and the voices telling him to stop what he was doing, but he pressed onward. But he felt sore all over, the ritual was taking its toll on his entire body more than he initially expected. However, his anger and pain in his heart offered him the strength to bear the pain.
His mind and body told him to give up but the anger of being abandoned and caged for something he never even did fueled his willpower to get through the ritual.
Gaya''s worried look took a turn to worse when she witnessed a smokey figure emerge from Michael. It was appearing and disappearing from his body as though it didn''t want to leave his body.
The figure was screaming but she never heard the screams.
"The broken piece of the soul," Elidyr exined in utter shock. As a schr specializing in souls, this was the first time he had seen such a phenomenon. Witnessing the power being radiated by the soul piece truly frightened him.
Chapter 453 The possessed fire giant
Chapter 453 The possessed fire giant
Even when his pain was killing him from within, Michael''s brain still functioned, telling him not to scream no matter what. If he were to scream before the fire giant reached the ritual ground, it would prematurely attract the girl or worse, a professor.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!" the fire giant''s scream sounded closer and closer. He could feel the ground beneath him tremble violently.
"How long does he have to go through this?!" he could vaguely hear Gaya''s outcry
"RUN!" Nightmare shout sounded in his mind. With great difficulty, he looked up. His vision was not as clear as it used to be a few moments ago. The X-ray vision, the arch energy, and the strength he possessed were nowhere to be found.
It made sense as the system informed him that his arch energy flow had been interrupted. He was in a most vulnerable position. If anyone chose to attack him, he would be defenseless. Even a Foundation stage cultivator with a dagger could end his life let alone a fire giant of Soul Refining stage level 8.
The girl who slew the mountain troll was at Fusion stage level 2. If his guess was correct, the Fire giant would reach the Fusion stage after merging with the third piece of the soul.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!" he felt a scorching hot smoke brush past him. The splitters came flying from the broken trees causing several cuts on his face. His blood slowly painted his face red. What stood before him was a fire giant standing over five meters tall. It was a thick limbed humanoid with deep crimson red skin.
Its eyes were sunken into their sockets, glimmering in golden yellow. The giant''s hair resembled fire, disorderly with streaks of orange and yellow, whereas its ws and teeth resembled fire-ckened steel.
Despite their physical form, fire giants possessed the intellect of a human. Hence, when it saw glowing crimson red chakra, the giant realized that it stepped into a trap.
However, instead of backing off, it charged forth targeting Michael.
"NOW RELEASE!" Elidyr shouted the moment the giant stepped into the chakra. The shout was directed at Michael and he knew it.
"ARRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!" His scream was ear piercing. The sound-absorbing array Elidyr absorbed the scream and prevented anyone from the castle from hearing it.
The human part of his scream quickly turned demonic.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A demonic voice shouted within him.
It rendered everyone including the fire giant stunned. Powerful sound waves shot out of Michael and pushed everyone around him several steps backward.
Elidyr was dazed by the power. Something little such as a shout contained enough force to crush a Body Refining stage cultivator. He could not even fathom the power he would possess after reaching his full potential.
Steady herself, she saw an ethereal figure resembling Michael''s Lucifer form arising from within.
"GET"
Michael grabbed his head as blood started to seep through his eyes.
For the first time, he saw the third persona manifest. A ghostly chain was still connecting the both of them. Michael grabbed the chain as his lips curved upwards.
"OUT!" He crushed the chain, finally releasing the third persona out.
"NOW!" Michael vaguely heard another shout from Elidyr. But this time, it was directed towards Gaya. The longbow and arrow materialized in her hand and both of them glowed brighter and brighter, radiating immense power.
A web of tiny symbols could be seen on her bow and the arrow. The runes Elidyr ced on the arrow would boost the arrow''s power. Although the arrow wouldn''t be able to kill the fire giant, the arrow would temporarily weaken it.
In the weak state, the third piece of the soul would be sent into the fire giant''s body rtively easily. Otherwise, the fire giant''s body would explode due to the power of the soul.
"YOU IMBECILE!"
Gaya saw the ethereal figure scream at Michael trying to reach him whereas the glowing chakra began to rotate faster and faster.
Boom!
The arrow fired from Gaya''s bow broke the sound barrier. In a blink of an eye, the arrow went straight through the fire giant''s chest.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrr!"
The fire giant''s shout sounded quieter than they expected. From the wound caused by the arrow, a bubble of blood dropped onto the chakra.
The next moment, a powerful gust of wind knocked down all the trees in the five-meter radius. It didn''t stop with a gust of wind but the rotating chakra created a mini typhoon. Every tree, splinters, log, and object in the vicinity got pulled into the typhoon. Nightmare felt the pull but he managed to fly to Gaya using all of his strength.
Gaya on the other hand held onto a tree with all her might. Elidyr managed to stand still without being pulled by the typhoon using a rune.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The third persona screamed again. Little by little, it got pulled towards the fire giant. Michael''s vision gradually blurred until he saw nothing but darkness.
"HUMAN!" Gaya shouted when she saw Michael copse onto the ground,
On the other hand, the fire demon''s golden eyes turned pitch ck.
"AWAY!" Elidyr raised his hand at the fire giant. A golden chakra shot out of Elidyr''s hand and flew towards the fire giant. When the fire giant and the golden chakra shed, a bright beam of golden light exploded. Their eyes were made to close by the brightness. When they opened their eyes, the fire giant along with the crimson red chakra on the ground and the typhoon disappeared.
Gaya finally fell to the ground. The moment she hit the ground, she rushed towards Michael. She slid through the mud and splinters to reach him. She picked up his head and put it on herp. Nightmarended beside him with his two eyes welled up with tears.
"He''s not breathing!" Gaya shook his body,
"Ghosty" Nightmare scratched his arms with his mouth,
"Now it all depends on the girl," Elidyr sighed, looking at the distant horizon.
**********************************
Somewhere else in the Akn Realm, a giant pce was floating above the clouds. The pce was basking in the light of the full moon. This was the residency of the Holy Maiden, The Ice Pce. As the name indicates, the pce was made of nothing but pure ice. Only the Holy Maiden could inhabit such a harsh environment,
In the center of the pce where the snowy mist was covering as far as an eye could see, Rowena was meditating. Her eyes opened abruptly as they twinkled like sapphires.
"Fire Giant"
She mumbled. In a few moments, another figure came running to Rowena,
"Holy Maiden, a fire giant has appeared in the ck forest" Bai Ning eximed.
Rowena already stood up, the icy swords attached to chains materialized in her hands. There was no door in the pce. She just walked towards a wall but the wall split open as she approached
"Holy Maiden, we need a n of attack" Bai Ning tried to stop Rowena from blindly rushing into a battle.
At first, when Bai Ning sensed the fire giant, its power was over the roof. The fire giant was unusually powerful and that was what made Bai Ning worried.
"I have a n, attack" Rowena shot out through the hole breaking the sound barrier.
Her figure disappeared into the clouds while Bai Ning followed her behind. The old woman could barely keep up with the Holy Maiden.
"Order Mazeroth to stay away from the fire giant"
It was thest thing Bai Ning heard before Rowena''s figurepletely disappeared from her sight.
Rowena was flying like a bullet towards the ck forest. She spread her senses to locate the fire giant and it only took a second to pinpoint its location.
The fire giant was wreaking havoc in the ck forest. It was destroying every tree and everything in its path. Rowena increased her speed. She had sensed the unusual power radiating from the fire giant yet it didn''t stop her.
The arch energy radiated from the fire giant was fluctuating. One time, it was at Fusion stage level 2, and another time, it was at Soul Refining stage level 10.
"YOU!"
She was slightly stunned in mid-air when the fire giant directed its gaze at her and talked like a human. The fire giant now possessed by Michael''s broken piece of the soul threw its fist at Rowena.
Covering her fist with chilling ice, she met the fire giant''s fist with her fist.
Boom!
The moment their fists collided, it produced a powerful shockwave that decimated everything in a twenty-meter radius. The ancient trees exploded into million pieces.
Rowenanded on the groundfortably while the fire giant stumped back several steps.
Rowena cracked her knuckles,
The fire growled angrily before steadying itself. There was at least ten meters distance between them. For a few seconds, neither of them made a single move as they just stared at each other. Regardless of her puny form, the fire giant did not dare to underestimate her. After all, the soul piece posing the fire giant was part of Michael and inherited his intellect.
Therefore, instead of rushing into the battle like big dumb, it looked around, nning in its mind. In Rowena''s mind, she had gone through hundreds of scenarios of their battle.
Although she won the battle in many of the scenarios, she still didn''t underestimate the fire giant because of two reasons; first, she had no clear idea about the fire giant''s abilities. Of course, she studied about the fire giant but something told her that this fire giant was different from the ones she read about.
The second reason, the energy being radiated from the fire giant wasn''t purely arch energy, it was something much much more powerful.
After several moments of staring at each other, they finally started to run toward each other.
From the distance, Victoria and Edith were looking at the fire giant along with all the other students. Every single one was woken up by the sound and came to the balcony to witness the battle. Unfortunately, they could only see the head of the fire giant but not Rowena due to the physical forms.
"Let''s dance" with a battle cry, Rowena jumped into the air raising her fist.
Chapter 454 The Cold Flames
Chapter 454 The Cold mes
A trail of icy mist could be seen appearing around Rowena. On the opposite, the fire giant left a trail of zing fire. It was not only the fight between Rowena and the fire giant but also the battle of ice and fire.
The frost des disappeared from her hand as she threw her fist to meet the fire giant''s fist.
Boom!
The shockwave shot out from the collision of their fist destroyed everything around them. The fire giant was pushed back several feet but Rowena remained still. She cracked her knuckles and then her neck, just like Michael.
"Something is controlling the fire giant" Rowena mumbled,
The oversize of the fire giant put the third persona at a disadvantage. To harm Rowena, it needed tond a hit on her but before the giant could raise his fist, she could hit the giant several times. Therefore, the third persona changed the battle tactic.
Just like before, the fire giant moved toward Rowena, seeming not to have any battle n. Rowena remained still, waiting for the fire giant to punch her. However, when she was waiting for the fist, a beam of light shot out of its eye.
Rowena was caught off guard by the sudden beam of fire. It was so quick, lightning quick. Many students watching the giant from the castle didn''t even see the beam of fire. THey only witnessed a sudden sh of light.
The fire giant stared at the cloud of smoke and the crater created by the beam of fire. The scorching hot beam turned everything into ashes. Gradually, the mist cleared. The fire giant was stunned as it could see Rowena''s figure in the mist.
The blue robes she wore were burnt to a crisp by the me despite the protection runes ced on them. This time, pure frosty ice materialized on her body forming an armor.
"The prophecy" standing in her office, Ka was witnessing the fight through the window.
"We have entered the age of darkness" She recalled the words Wulfric spoke a couple of months ago.
"Headmistress" Gilrine entered the room,
"I ced the talismans you gave me around the forest"
Ka sighed,
"Make sure no one ventures into the ck forest. From now on, the ck forest is forbidden for everyone including the staff" she said without moving her eyes from the fire giant,
"Headmistress" Gilrine had a bewildered look on his face. He scratched the back of his head,
"You can spit out what''s in your mind Gilrine"
"Why aren''t we deploying our forces to ck Forest Headmistress? Our forces can subdue the fire giant without destroying the forest"
"The forces in y are beyond the mortals Gilrine. Our forces are nothing before them"
Gilrine nodded without uttering any word. He trusted the Headmaster and Headmistress with his life. Whatever decision they made, he knew it would be the best.
"Frost Storm"
On the battlefield, Rowena raised her hand, casting a chantless spell. The ck forest became darker as the storm clouds nketed the moon and her dazzling light.
The students gasped in shock. ''Storm'' was an understatement. The howling wind and the size of the tornado arose connecting the ground and the sky frightened every single one. Even Victoria was stunned by the sight of the storm in the ck forest.
The tornado swirled towards the fire giant,
"OOOOOOOOHHHHHHH" the fire giant breathed fire into the icy tornado.
The dance between ice and fire created a phenomenon no one had ever seen.
Kay, who knew the storm was created by the Holy Maiden, felt a chill. She knew this spell could destroy an entire city within a few minutes. Even a spell-like that caliber couldn''t kill the fire giant.
Rowena shot into the tornado and the moment she reached the tornado, the tornado swirled faster and faster, and the power of the first storm multiplied by several folds. She pushed away the fireing from the giant''s mouth.
Little by little, the frost storm moved towards the fire giant through the stream of fire.
"Arctic Arrows!" she shouted in her mind as hundreds of six feet arrows shot out from the tornado like bullets. The fire giant raised its hand to defend its eyes from the arrows. Step by step the fire giant moved back,
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" The fire giant screamed but the scream was not of pain, it was a shout of anger.
BOOM!
All of a sudden, the fire giant punched the tornado. Rowena''s body was thrown into the swirling force. Before she could steady herself, the fire giant embraced the tornado.
The fire giant tightened the embrace as the tornado began to form cracks.
"ANNOYING BUG" Rowena heard the fire giant speak to her in a demonic voice,
Slowly the tornado turned darker and darker. The white frost took a turn to the opposite and transformed to pitch ck,
Rowena raised her hand, trying to move the tornado forward while dispelling the dark energy invading her spell. Her nose bled as her skin became pale as a paper.
"Holy Maiden" Bai Ning who was witnessing the battle from a secluded room in Mazeroth murmured under her breath,
She could see the dark energy weakening Holy Maiden''s energy. It felt as though the fire giant was drawing the ckness around it to get stronger. She could vaguely see unknown dark energy being absorbed by the fire giant from the sky itself.
Rowena stopped powering the tornado. Within a few moments, the stormy clouds perished from the night sky. Yet again the full moon showered the ground with her light. Unexpectedly when the light was shone on the fire giant, it grew weaker.
Rowena noticed this by seeing the flicking eyes of the fire giant. When the tornado evaporated, the giant lost its bnce. It stumbled forward only to receive a giant fist made of ice to its face. The icy mist enveloped the area and when Rowena emerged from the icy mist, her eyes were glowing.
The students were able to see Rowena now as she was floating and her figure was growing in size rapidly. The armor covering her body erged. In a few minutes, she was in the center of a giant made of ice. Thus, the battle between a human and a fire giant turned into a battle between two giants.
Only a few minutes passed when the ice giant grew to the size of the fire giant.
"Ice Mirrors," Rowena noticed the fire giant''s weakness to light. So she cast a spell that formed hundreds of mirrors made of ice around them. All the mirrors appeared in the angel to reflect and focus the moonlight onto the fire giant.
Even in the face of hundreds of mirrors shedding light onto it, the fire giant stood still. The third piece of the soul was the soul piece of the Dark Lord after all.
The fire giant began to smash the mirrors in the sky. The power of the moonlight was the reason Elidyr chose this particr day. On any other day, defeating the fire giant would have been near impossible. The fire giant violently smashed the mirrors faster than Rowena created them.
Looking at the fire giant getting close to her, she yet again raised her hands towards the sky. Then, she called for the most powerful weapon in her arsenal.
"I call forth thy coldest mes in the universe!" a gush of frosty wind immediately surrounded Rowena''s body. An invisible force pushed the fire giant and put out the mes around them.
Then, ayer of frostyered everything within a mile radius. From the sky itself, a stream of blue mes flew to Rowena taking the shape of a winged woman.
"Primordial me" Victoria immediately recognized the phenomenon as the Primordial mes while the other students were gawking at the sky startled.
"The Cold mes" Edith mumbled.
For the first time, the fire giant''s pitch-ck eyes flickered and Rowena sensed an aura of distress from whatever possessed the fire giant.
Victoria never believed the Primordial mes possessed a mind of their own but when she saw the mes escaping from her and now it had chosen an extremely powerful cultivator as its master, she believed the tests were true. She thought having Cosmic Energy would let her absorb the Primordial mes.
"DESTROYER"
Directly above the fire giant, a giant sword that was triple the size of the fire giant materialized. The frost-covered sword hung above the fire giant as the primordial mes coiled around the sword like a dragon. The sword gradually grew in size to the point it made the fire giant look puny as an ant.
"Shit" the fire giant mumbled as the sword descended on itself.
BOOOOOOOM!
When the swordnded on the ground, it created a mushroom cloud as though a nuke went off. The shock wave shook even the castle as many students were thrown off bnce.
Rowena lost all her strength. Hence, she fell from the sky. She slowly lost consciousness. The battle took everything in her and before she closed her eyes, she saw a golden light sh across her eyes.
Bai Ning teleported to where the battle was happening. She caught the Holy Maiden in the mid-air before she hit the ground. A deep dark line formed on Bai Ning''s forehead as she saw no signs of the fire giant.
She spread her senses to locate the giant but found no living beings in the near vicinity. The vital signs in Rowena''s body started to diminish so Bai Ning didn''t dare to linger around or go search for the remains of the fire giant. Her first priority was to make sure Rowena was alive and well.
After the battle between Rowena and the fire giant concluded, the deste mountain where Elidyr was imprisoned received guests again.
"Keep him still"
Michael''s body was violently trembling. Gaya''s clothes were drenched in the blood gushing out of Michael''s mouth, ears, nose, and eyes. The fire giant was lying beside him badly mutted. Its hands and lower half were missing. They were evaporated by the Cold mes. Elidyr was quick enough to save the fire giant before the Cold mes destroyed the soul piece.
He never expected Rowena to possess a Primordial me. Each piece of the soul was connected. Because the Cold mes damaged one piece of the soul, the others resigning within Michael began to respond to it. One-piece couldn''t survive without the other. Therefore, the other soul pieces tried to leave his body. In simple words, he was dying and he would die unless Elidyr put his soul back together again.
Chapter 455 Michael, Lucifer and Abras
Chapter 455 Michael, Lucifer and Abras
Michael was dozing in a ce where golden reeds expanded as far as one could see. A golden ray of light shone down, piercing through his eyelids. His eyes as well as the tip of his index finger slightly moved. He couldn''t open his eyes with ease as it felt as though his eyelids were glued together.
Little by little, his consciousness returned to him. The darkness before him slowly shifted towards a golden light. Everything that happened before he lost consciousness returned to him. Thest thing he remembered was the face of Gaya. The memories abruptly awakened him. Suddenly the breath of life returned to him as he sat up.
As far as he could see, there was nothing but golden reeds.
"Is this heaven?" he thought in his mind while getting back to his feet. He tried to summon the system except there was no sign of the system within him.
"I wish"
A kind voice sounded from behind. Michael turned back in a sh to see a ck-robed youngster who wore a gentle smile on his face.
"Abras"
The one standing in front of him was none other than Abras. Michael and Abras looked alike except Michael''s current self was more mature, tall, and muscr.
"Michael" Abras smiled,
"Beautiful isn''t it?" Abras looked around the golden reeds,
"What''s happening?" Michael stepped towards Abras and joined him in the sightseeing.
Countless questions wreaking havoc in his mind.
Where am I?
What is this ce?
How am I seeing Abras?
Why does this feel so real?
Is this a dream?
Am I dead?
These were some of the questions he asked himself.
"Are you confused Michael? When I learned we are the same person, I was confused too" Abras spoke in a calm manner,
"But I made peace with you, we became one and we were one until you chose to be the Dark Lord"
"I¡we didn''t make that choice, it was made for us. Otherwise, we wouldn''t be here, would we?"
It was extremely difficult for Michael to ept that Abras and he were the same person. It didn''t feel that way.
"Until you make peace, we will remain as pieces," Abras said as he read Michael''s thoughts.
"Peace? Peace with what?" asked Michael. He turned his head to see Abras still looking at the ocean of golden reeds in front of them,
"You and I are the same"
The moment these words escaped Abras''s mouth, the golden scenery lost all of its lusters. Everything became dark and gloomy,
Following the change in the scary, the familiar demonic voice echoed through the golden reed fields.
"FOOL!"
They both turned back to see Lucifer, in hisplete form enveloped in a shroud of dark smoke and crimson red eyes emerging from the ground beneath.
Unlike Michael and Abras, Lucifer stood almost towering eight feet tall.
"Lucifer, thest piece of our soul" Abras introduced Lucifer to Michael as though Michael did not know him.
"Finally we meet face to face, Michael" Lucifer''s eyes red up in red mes.
"I am confused as fuck. We are supposed to be the same person yet it feels nothing like that" Michael sighed as he tried to make sense of this situation.
"System"
Michael called out the system in his mind,
"Don''t bother, the system cannot help you. It''s probably sick of you two losers" Lucifer growled,
"We received such a powerful weapon and yet, we are still getting our ass handed over to us by puny humans. You are unworthy of such power" Luciferpletely ignored Abras and vented his anger at Michael.
He then dashed at Michael and punched him,
"Argh!"
The punchnded on Michael because Lucifer was too fast. However, when he punched Michael, he shouted and so did Michael and Abras.
"We are the same," Abras groaned. The punch pushed the three of them in a separate direction. When each stood up, they noticed they were standing in a triangle.
"Your focus on mortal pleasures and inability to get stronger has brought this upon us" Lucifer clenched his fist as the surroundings became darker and darker,
"Instead of putting all the me on me, why don''t you take charge? After all, we are the same right, why are you talking to me like I''m the one controlling the both of you"
"Because when our soul was shattered, thergest piece of the soul went to earth, you" Abras sighed as he began to exin,
"That''s why you always remain in control and I feel like a different person to you"
"It should have been me" Yet again lucifer growled,
"Makes sense" Finally something made sense to Michael. In his mind, he simplified Abras''s exnation. In mathematical terms, he was 50% of the soul while Abras and Lucifer were only 25% each. Thus, he remained in control of the body as well as the other pieces of the soul.
"I was on earth, you" Michael looked at Abras,
"You were in the sanctuary,"
Then he turned to look at Lucifer,
"But where were you?"
"Within both of you fools, experiencing both your pathetic lives. Do you know how it feels to be caged and do nothing? When both of you died, I thought I would be finally free but no, I got caged again. This time, I will end both of you and take the system for myself. With that ultimate power, I can conquer this world and everything in this universe"
"And then what?" Abras asked,
"You will bring nothing but death and chaos to the world. Michael doesn''t listen to him, we don''t have to walk the path he would choose. We have everything a man needs to be happy, a job, a woman who loves us dearly, and people who would shed tears for us. It''s enough"
"You are pathetic. A woman betrayed you and put a dagger through your heart. A job and a woman, humph. We are born to be a god and gods must bring their wrath upon the mortals to get their loyalty and undying devotion. Give me the system and the control of your being to me. It''s time the system had a worthy user"
Michael was stuck between Lucifer and Abras. If Abras was one extreme, Lucifer was another extreme. Lucifer hated him and wanted to go on a killing spree with the help of the system while Abras wanted to settle down and live a peaceful life. Both of their wishes were unrealistic.
"You wasted the system''s potential. We were supposed to be the overpowered god walking among mortals. But you chose to indulge yourself in mere mortal pleasures, care for humans and recruit weaklings as your subordinates. Gods don''t need subordinates, gods don''t need ns, gods don''t need alliances, we only need power and you are too weak to get stronger" Lucifer walked towards Michael step by step,
"Our old enemies are getting stronger by the day. New powerful enemies are emerging from the darkest corners. You being cautious, making alliances, and living a fake life as Ghost will only let us get killed. Surrender yourselves to me"
"No" Abras stepped forward,
"If you listen to him, he will turn us into everything and prove the Skyhall and the guardians are right. Leave everything behind you Michael, we can live peacefully in a corner of this world, the system can hide us, we can be normal, for the first time in our lives, we can have a family"
"THIS IMBECILE!" Lucifer lunged at Abras and before either of them could react, Lucifer punched Abras in the chest.
Yet again the trio was sent flying like kites in the storm. Michael felt an excruciating pain in his chest but no blood came out of him.
"We are not killers and bringer of darkness Michael" Abras groaned as he picked himself to his feet,
"We are not a weakling and a beta like him" Lucifer shouted from the other side.
Stuck between the both of them, Michael just closed his eyes. The words they spoke to him shed across his mind once again. When he opened his eyes, the darkness disappeared as the golden luster came back to the scenery.
"You are both right and wrong" Michael let out a deep breath,
"Lucifer you are right when you said I''m not using the system to its full potential, you are right when you said living a fake life as Ghost will only get us killed"
The dark cloud shrouding Lucifer slowly started to fade away as he was making peace with the Lucifer soul piece.
"But you are wrong about needing no subordinates, no alliances, and mortal pleasures. You yourself said we have new enemies appearing and old enemies getting stronger day by day. We cannot defeat them by being alone. I am not a God yet and even gods need subordinates to do their bidding"
Lucifer tried to essay something but raised his hand as no sound came out of Lucifer''s mouth. As the majority soul holder, Michael started to fully realize his power and exerted his power over Lucifer.
He then turned his gaze at Abras,
"You are right, we are not bringer of darkness, I found a girl who loves me more than anything. But you are still naive Abras, we can''t live peacefully, not now, not soon, not ever. You did nothing wrong and look what happened to you, you were betrayed, your mistake cost you everyone you ever loved. When I''m done, no one will be in our way to a life you''ve dreamed of. Both of you will get what you want"
Michael exerted his power over both of them. He raised his arms at both of them as a powerful force pulled Lucifer and Abras towards Michael.
"If we don''te to peace with each other, neither of us will live long to get anything we want"
"I only want a peaceful life" Abras was the first to speak. The gentle smile on his face returned and he looked to be at peace,
"I want our enemies to suffer, this world to fall on its knees before us and everything we desire" Lucifer''s tone was more demanding rather than requesting. It made sense, after all, he was more of a maniac and devilish.
"We are the same. No more broken pieces. WE ARE MICHAEL¡.WE ARE ABRAS¡WE ARE THE DARK LORD!"
Michael screamed at the sky, his voice became the mix of Abras and Lucifer. Soon, the cloud shrouding Lucifer abandoned him and began to envelop Michael.
"WE ARE ONE"
This time, both Lucifer and Abras said in unison. The very next moment, Lucifer and Abras turned into an orb of light and flew straight into Michael.
"Human¡Michael¡please wake up¡don''t leave me¡"
"Ghosty¡Ghosty¡"
Michael heard the voices of Gaya and Nightmare in the distance,
"Argh"
Back on the deste mountain where Elidry was caged, Michael sat up.
"Human!" Gaya''s scream nearly broke his eardrum and her hug broke his rib cage. Elidyr squatted before him before putting his hand on Michael''s shoulder.
"You did it¡ your soul is now whole again"
Chapter 456 The Dark Flames I
Chapter 456 The Dark mes I
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Core Strengthening stage, level 6
Experience Points: 0/600,000
Badass Points: 60,000 (40,000 badass points loan)
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 6
Ignitia - LVL 8
Lightning Dash - LVL 6
Energy Devouver - LVL 2
Soul Eater - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 88% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 97% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 15,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
4-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 68%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 55%)
Sadie (loyalty level 40%)
Ricky (loyalty level 98%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 90%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
Kingdom of Bradford
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (10% Mastery) Fire (10% Mastery) (Lightning 15% Mastery) (Darkness 20%)
The moment he woke up, he was taken into the system interface and presented with the status window where he noticed a couple of changes. He leveled up by two levels. Previously he was a Core Strengthening stage level 4 cultivator but at the moment, the status window showed level 6.
Reading through the status, he saw an entirely new row.
"Elemental Maniption"
As the name suggested, Elemental Maniption was the power to control the elements themselves. In this world, only a few could control elements including Michael. It was a power that belonged to the most powerful Ancient Gods. Their existence was hidden from the rest of the world by Skyhall as the existence of new gods would cause chaos among the religious institutes and alter everything the people believed.
"So system, what''s your exnation for what just happened?"
[The system level is-]
"Thought so" Michael interrupted the system before it could finish its annoying answer,
"Victoria you bitch" He suddenly remembered the massacre of the sanctuary. Since the soul piece was merged into one, Michael didn''t feel like Abras was another person.
In addition to the changes in the status window, Michael also sensed changes in his mentality. For instance, he craved to control the world more than he felt before. This worldcked Gods'' intervention and Michael wanted to fix that.
Gaya was still embracing him with all her might with Nightmare stuck between them. His vest started to feel wet by the tears gushing out of Gaya''s eyes,
"Why are you wasting those precious tears? They shoulde from our enemies'' eyes before dying" Michael lifted her head gently,
He cupped her face, wiping the tears with his fingers,
"Smile" he smiled at her,
"You scared me bastard"
"Sorry for the inconvenience caused by my broken pieces of the soul," he said sarcastically,
"Ghosty are you fine now?" Nightmare looked up at him. Michael never thought a dragon''s face could show such a clear-cut expression. Seeing the dragon worry about him warmed his heart,
"I''m whole again, just like Elidyr said" he looked at the half-elf standing obediently a few meters away from them.
Michael let go of Gaya and Nightmare to thank Elidyr,
"You served me well Elidyr. I will grant you a wish for what you did, ask"
As he said to Elidyr, Michael exerted his power over the surroundings to make everything darker. The storm clouds nketed the sun ording to his will.
"I wish to serve you as your subordinate and apany you in your journey to make this world better my lord"
Elidyr knelt on his one knee, lowering his head,
"Darkness is not evil, it''s portrayed as evil. Remember Elidyr, darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good" said Michael,
"I bring darkness so everyone can see the real light. Anything better than the current world will be a paradise and I will transform this world into a paradise opposite to Skyhall''s and Guardian Guild''s vision"
Michael saw the concern in Elidyr''s eyes. It was obvious to Michael. He wasn''t willing to serve him because of loyalty but to try to deviate Michael from transforming the world into a realm of darkness which was seen by Qin Jiu in the future.
[Does the host wish to ept Elidyr as a subordinate?]
"Yes"
Michael epted Elidyr as his subordinate to see his 42% loyalty. He didn''t mind the low loyalty level as he knew better than to expect 100% loyalty from an ancient elf who he knew only for a couple of days.
"Rise" Michael gestured at Elidyr as he stood up,
"We should get out of here" Gaya wanted to ask more about how he merged the soul pieces but before that, she wanted to leave this pocket dimension. Otherwise, someone might notice him missing and start investigating.
"I''m not done yet" calmly said Michael,
"Huh?"
"Give me the teleportation scroll, I want the primordial me"
Since Michael merged his soul with the third piece, the battle between Rowena and the fire giant that was controlled by him reyed in his mind. He was stunned by the power of the Primordial me.
Coincidence or not, he was presented with a rare opportunity to acquire a primordial me to himself through Professor Lane.
Gaya saw the resolve in his eyes and realized there was no use in arguing with him. Therefore, she took out the parchment from her space ring with a flick of her wrist,
Michael didn''t open the scroll but threw it at Elidyr,
"You''reing with us," said Michael
It took Elidyr a couple of minutes to make changes to the scroll to teleport four instead of two. Surprisingly the location of the destination was rtively closer to the gateway to this pocket dimension.
"Here you go my lord"
Elidyr now started to address Michael as my lord instead of Lucifer as he used to. Although Elidyr sensed an aura of a god when he first met him, it had never been as strong as the aura he released after the ritual. He couldn''t get himself to address Lucifer by his name.
Michael passed the scroll to Gaya as she sent a sliver of Arch energy into the scroll. The scroll began to glow brighter and brighter and in a blink of an eye, a golden light enveloped them.
After being teleported away from the pocket dimension, they noticed that they were back in the ck forest. Before the four of them was a minor fallen tree in an overcast morass marked the entrance to the dungeon.
Beyond the fallen tree lies a modest, mmy room. It''s covered in dead vermin, ash, and moss.
Elidyr conjured a bright orb of light to light the path before them. The bright light revealed the rusted weapons racks and opened crates, wasted and ravaged by time itself.
As they went further through the dungeon, the pathway split into two paths.
Michael retrieved two drones from the system storage and sent one to explore each path. The path on his right had countless traps installed. But the drone activated none of them because the traps were not designed to sense arch energy. Whoever built the dungeon ced a void array and never expected one to use arch energy inside the dungeon. Several minutester, the drone reached the end of the path where there was nothing but a dead end.
"Left" Michael entered the path on his left
Its twisted trail leads passed long-lost rooms and tombs. Everything was cleaned up and there was nothing valuable that attracted Michael''s attention. Since the drone was exploring ahead of them and sending live feed, Michael knew the path and traps in ce. They avoided the usual pressure traps and tripwires by floating above the ground. As they traveled further and further, they began to notice countless broken skeletons on the ground. Moreover, there were bloodstains on the walls and the ceiling above them.
"Is it me or do they look fresh?" Gaya pointed at the bloodstains on the wall.
"The smell¡is also fresh" Nightmare took a whiff of the air and said,
They cautiously proceeded onwards, deeper into the dungeon''s expanse.
Despite the various passages opened up to them, Michael led them through the correct one thanks to the drones. The various passages all looked so simr as this whole ce was a maze.
They eventually made it to what is likely the end. Only a ground filled with skeletons, broken limbs, and dead bodies could be seen between them and a single room at the end of the hall.
Elidyr sensed countless runes all around, somehow untouched by time and the elements. Gaya on the other hand waved her hand as the remains of skeletons soldiers floated towards them from the ground,
She inspected the deep cuts on their bones as well as the scorched marks that almost burned the bones to ashes.
"The Primordial me" her inspection was abruptly interrupted by the words that came out of Michael''s mouth. The drone he sent to explore the room at the end of the hall was destroyed the moment it entered the room but not before sending him a millisecond feed of the room where he saw something magnificent, Pitch ck mes. The mes, their beauty was beyond any words. They danced in the air as though they were waiting for someone to be partnered with. It was weird of him to feel like the mes were calling for him.
"Someone''s been here recently, someone powerful" Elidyr frowned after seeing the countless limbs of mountain trolls lying around. Defeating one mountain troll without using arch energy was extremely difficult if not impossible. But whoever ventured into the dungeon before they ughtered so many.
The only exnation Elidyr coulde up with was either they used arch energy or something much more powerful because there was no way one could survive this dungeon without cultivation power.
"Maybe the Holy Maiden?" asked Gaya,
"Whoever it is, we will meet them soon," Michael said before slowly floating towards the room to im the primordial me to himself.
Chapter 457 The Dark Flames II
Chapter 457 The Dark mes II
The closer they got to the room, Gaya felt an immense amount of pressure crushing them. It was as though an invisible mountainnded on their shoulder. Nightmare gasped for air in Gaya''s hands.
"Stay here" Noticing the hard time they were having, Michael decided not to take them with him into the chamber.
"I''m not gonna argue" Gaya agreed with him and so did Elidyr with a nod,
When Michael entered the chamber, he saw the ck mes dancing above a pir made of marble. Like the mes had sensed him, they leaned in his direction.
Michael slowly reached out for the mes as they advanced toward him.
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[Extreme level of radiation detected!]
The system went crazy in his head. He ignored all the red warning poppings that were blocking his sight. As he was getting closer to the ck mes, the warnings and the shoutings of the system vanished.
[Does the host wish to absorb the Dark mes?]
The system asked when he was just a few inches away from the mes.
"Yes"
Michael touched the mes and the moment the me and his fingers met, a wave of energy surged over him wave after wave. The mes seeped through his hand into his very being. He felt like he was being struck by thousands of lightning bolts simultaneously. But instead of pain, it was a feeling offort.
[Absorbing the Dark me...]
[Activating the Energy devourer¡]
[Experience points converted 50,000]
[Experience points converted 100,000]
[Experience points converted 70,000]
¡
The energy devourer continued to transform the excess energy into experience points. Micheal thought it would stop in a few minutes but on the contrary, itsted until he began to level up rapidly.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core For Strengthening stage Level 7!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core For Strengthening stage Level 8!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Core For Strengthening stage Level 9!]
His excitement was going through the roof. He bottled his excitement when he reached Core Strengthening stage Level 9 as he thought his leveling up would stop there.
[Congrattions to the host for reaching the next stage, the Soul Refining stage!]
"Oh my god, he''s breaking through" Gaya sensed the violent energy fluctuations in the surroundings.
The Celestial energy descended from the realm of angels creating ripples in the night sky. Thest time Michael witnessed the Celestial energy descending was when he traveled to the Rainbow ind where La''s disciples prevented Christopher from reaching the Soul Refining stage.
The system regted the Celestial energy through Energy devourer. Hence, the jumping from the Core Strengthening stage to the Soul Refining stage was so much smoother than the rest of the cultivators in the world.
His skin turned darker and darker to the point he looked downright ck except for his crimson red eyes. But soon, the red fire in his eyes was too invaded by the dark mes and transformed from red to ck.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Soul Refining stage Level 1!]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Soul Refining stage Level 2!]
The leveling up spree finally stopped at Soul Refining stage level 2. The Dark mes nowpletely merged themselves with Michael''s soul, strengthening every fiber in his body.
[The Dark me absorption ispleted]
[All of the host''s spells and skills has strengthened by the Dark mes]
[The host is now immune to all the attacks under the Soul Refining stage except attacks powered by another Primordial me]
[The host''s mastery over the Darkness element is increased by 5%]
[The host''s mastery over the Fire element is increased by 5%]
[Potions and pills made using Dark mes will have 94% purity ]
[The spell Responsive shield has merged with Dark mes and transformed into Dark Shield ]
[The spell Ignitia has merged with Dark mes and transformed into Dark Ignitia]
[The spell Wind st has merged with Dark mes and transformed into Dark st]
[The spell Ring of Fire has merged with Dark mes and transformed into Ring of Dark Fire]
All these spells were powered up by the dark mes and became much more powerful. All these changes transformed him from a mortal cultivator to a god like existence. Anyone under the Soul Refining stage would have no chance of defeating him even if they used Legendary spells. He could kill them with a single spell in his normal form and if he was in his full Lucifer form, it would only take him a punch to destroy his foes.
Moreover, in hisplete Lucifer form, he could defeat anyone in the Soul Refining stage and had the chance to defeat cultivators under Fusion Stage level 3.
The Dark mes was one of the power seeds of darkness. Every time he obtains a seed of darkness, his power would grow exponentially. No one in this world knew the existence of these power seeds and just like the seeds of darkness, there existed the seeds of light.
In the race to get the seeds, Noah already obtained Heaven''s mes. By absorbing the Dark mes, Michael now equalized odds. However,pared to Noah, Michael was on the next level in terms of power because Michael obtained the Primordial mes of his source power; Darkness. Noah on the other hand absorbed Heaven''s me, not the Light me. Hence, he didn''t go through the change as Michael did.
"This feels good," Michael grinned as he conjured the dark mes. The majestic dark mes danced over his palms. Then in a blink of an eye, the mes turned emerald green. He could now change the mes to his will.
"Human"
Just as he was about to see what else he could do now, Gaya called him.
He walked out of the chamber only to see the skeletons as well as the dead bodies reanimating again.
In a couple of minutes, hundreds of skeleton soldiers and almost twenty mountain trolls stood in front of them. The dungeon expanded in size to amodate all the trolls and the skeletons.
Gaya could crush the skeletons no problem but the trolls were the real threat. Even with her cultivation, if the trolls managed to get their hands on her before she cast spells, she was as good as dead.
Edlidyr felt the same except he had no Core Strengthening stage cultivation. If he were to fight the army of skeletons in front of him, even with his runes, he could survive the dungeon for a few minutes top.
Due to the army of skeletons and trolls in front of her, Gaya had no time to be stunned by his breakthrough into the Soul Refining Stage.
The sight of hundreds of skeletons and trolls didn''t scare him the slightest. On the contrary, it put a grin on his face.
"Stay back"
Michael said calmly before walking towards the skeletons and the trolls. Immediately the skeletons standing in front rushed at him waving the rusty swords in their hands.
"Dark st"
Gaya witnessed a dark crescent wave shoot out of him, sting the skeletons to pieces. Everything the dark wave touched burned to oblivion. With a single spell, Michael decimated at least thirty skeleton soldiers and he didn''t even use his full power.
"Lightning Dash" in a sh, he dashed to the center of the army.
"Ring of Dark Fire"
Before the skeletons and trolls could react, he cast another spell. A circle of dark mes shot out of him scorching everything around him in a five-meter radius. It didn''t stop at that as the ring continued to send towering waves of dark mes. The mes burnt the trolls to ash like dried sticks.
Unfortunately, these skeletons and trolls had no arch energy in them. Otherwise, he would have earned enough experience points to level up yet again.
Still, Michael wasn''t disappointed. They proved to be good dummies to test his evolved spells. The disy of his power left Elidyr in a daze. Each of his spells had the power to rival the most powerful Legendary Spells. They were not as fancy as some but deadlier than most.
In a few minutes, he had burnt almost two hundred skeletons and twenty trolls. The most powerful spell in his arsenal turned out to be Ignitia. Merged with Dark mes, the golden lightning bolts turned into bolts of ck lightning. Each bolt sted through the skeletons and burst open the trolls'' heads into red mist as though they were melons.
Half of the army had been reduced to ashes. At this point, Gaya wasn''t even surprised by his power.
"Now time for my full form" Michael willed the system to equip his Lucifer armor, activate Cloud of Darkness as well as Eyes of darkness which red up in ck due to the Dark mes instead of crimson red.
The dungeon fell dark all of a sudden. The remaining skeletons and the trolls rushed at him mindlessly. They had no strategy or fear as they were just animated corpses that had a single purpose, killing the intruders.
"Death Range"
The dungeon became darker as Elidyr noticed a ck circle expand from him, wrapping everything in its path.
"Ring of Dark Fire"
This time when he cast the spell, the dungeon trembled. The ring of dark mes was more violent like surging tsunami waves. Elidyr and Gaya heard unearthly vibrations as well as sensed the energy pulsating in the dungeon.
Boom!
One single wave, only one single wave. Every skeleton and troll was reduced to nothingness. Not even ashes remained after the dark mes brushed past them.
"This is my true power" Michael mumbled under his breath. Even he was startled by his own power. Thinking that he only used 20% of his power and didn''t enhance the spell further with Celestial energy made him feel sorry for his enemies.
"Ghosty is scary" Nightmare''s eyes went wide open. In the corner of his little heart, a sliver of fear emerged just like Elidyr.
Chapter 458 Pirate Heaven Aden
Chapter 458 Pirate Heaven Aden
Inside the Ice Pce, Rowena meditated with her eyes closed. Her eyes slowly opened when she sensed Bai Ning approaching her. Bai Ning waved her hand as the mist shrouding the room faded away revealing the empty room built of cold ice.
"Holy Maiden" Bai Ning approached Rowena,
"I scoured the ck forest but I didn''t find the fire giant''s remains"
Rowena slowly opened her eyes after hearing Bai Ning,
"That is now a problem of Mazeroth," Rowena said coldly,
"But Holy Maiden¡The energy I sensed from the fire giant, was something ominous and sinister"
"It''s the Dark Lord"
Bai Ning felt a chill running through her spine the moment Rowena said this. She suspected it, still, it was shocking to hear from the Holy Maiden.
"I must alert the elders"
"Don''t bother. I already ordered them to stand down"
Bai Ning was stunned,
"What? Why?"
"How long have you been searching for the Dark Lord?" Rowena stood up,
Bai Ning couldn''t guess what was the meaning behind her question,
"For nearly four thousand years" answered Bai Ning,
"You didn''t find him then and you are not going to find him now. If I am right, he has covered all his tracks"
Rowena was calm, too calm despite the situation. Bai Ning disliked the Holy Maiden taking the threat posed by the Dark Lord so lightly. However, the old woman knew better than to disagree with Rowena,
"What do you suggest we should do, Holy Maiden?"
"Nothing" As Rowena said, she gracefully walked toward the wall behind her and waved her hand. The wall slowly split open revealing the floating mountains and puffy clouds beneath them. Rowena closed her eyes, absorbing the cold energy of the dazzling moonlight.
"The Dark Lord won''t stay in Akn Realm for long"
"We have to catch him," Bai Ning said to herself.
"When the timees, we will meet the Dark Lord"
Rowena would rather focus on getting stronger than wasting her time looking for the Dark Lord. It was not her job but the Great Eight ns''.
She approached Bai Ning and then flicked her wrist as a golden parchment appeared in her hands. The scroll looked exactly the same as the invitation to Mazeroth that Ghost received,
"Mazeroth has chosen Sabrina, send this to her" Rowena handed over the parchment to Bai Ning,
"Holy Maiden, if I may, can I ask you something?"
Rowena nodded at Bai Ning,
"Your brother was also chosen by Mazeroth but why didn''t hee?"
"Because I told him not to, not yet"
Bai Ning was stunned,
"Do you remember the assassins you brought me, Bai Ning?"
Bai Ning began to sweat under her robes despite the chillness of the room.
"An oblivious spell was cast on them"
"Oblivious spell?" Bai Ning''s brows arched up. The oblivious spell was created by Qin Jiu herself. This spell could only be cast by someone from Skyhall. Almost four thousand years ago Qin Jiu invented the spell to forget about the Dark Lord. It was way before Qin Jiu mustered the courage to fight back. After she escaped from the future, she desperately wanted to erase the memories of the Dark Lord. Those memories were beyond horrible.
With her three best friends'' help, she created Oblivious which could erase someone''s memories in part or as a whole. However, when she realized the risk of using such a spell, she made sure that only someone from Skyhall could cast the spell.
Before disappearing from Akn Realm, Wulfric used the Oblivious spell on Elidyr, erasing all of Elidyr''s memories of Wulfric as well as those who participated in the ritual.
"Yes. you know what this means right?" asked Rowena as Bai Ning felt the room bing colder and colder. The Holy Maiden''s eyes flickered with cold killing intent,
"Someone¡someone from¡Skyhall¡cast it" each word of these words could barely escape her mouth. Just by thinking about the possibility that someone inside Skyhall may have targeted the Holy Maiden''s family rendered her body a living statue. She could not even breathe looking at the Holy Maiden.
"You wouldn''t happen to know who might be this traitor, would you?" Rowena ced her hand on Bai Ning''s shoulder as the old woman''s entire body froze for a moment,
"Ho¡Holy¡Maiden"
"I want everything about everyone in Skyhall. You have a week"
When Rowena took her arm off of Bai Ning''s shoulder, the iceyer covering the old woman''s body vanished into thin air,
"Yes Holy Maiden" Bai Ning shuddered,
The old woman bowed deeply in fear and when she was about to turn back and leave, Rowena called her again,
"Bai Ning"
"Holy Maiden"
"Not a single word about this to anyone" Rowena''s words were colder than usual. They made the old woman shiver,
"I swear on my life Holy Maiden. I won''t speak of this to anyone"
After Bai Ning left the room, Rowena waved her hand as the wall sealed close.
"Whoever you are, you dug your own grave"
Rowena''s killing intent rose through the roof. More than anything in this world, Rowena loved her family the most. The elders of Skyhall advised her to cut the ties with her family as a Holy Maiden should but Rowena outright refused it. She would destroy anyone who dared to threaten the safety of her family, even if that someone belonged to the Skyhall. For Rowena, her family mattered more than the Skyhall or the elders.
*******************************
Cast on the Eastern side of a Southern Continent, the town of Aden was home to pirates led by one of the three Pirate Lords, Gibbes ''ckmane'' Jett.
This town wasn''t built by an ind by ident, as it had spiritual significance, which was of great importance to the pirates of Aden and its sess despite the myth that pirates didn''t give any importance to spiritual well-being.
The town itself looked hideous and striking at the same time. With its willow wood rooftops, redwood walls, and white, sandy beaches. The main attraction was the lighthouse, which was built 21 years ago and designed by the elves.
The pirate poption in Aden grew to over 2,000 residents, quickly outnumbering the 100 or so originalw-abiding citizens. This once port city belonged to the Royal Navy of Awor had quickly grownwless and became an exciting ma for criminals, escapees, former ves, and mercenaries.
In simple words, Aden was the safe haven for all the pirates in the Southern Continent where they lived as freemen doing whatever they wanted to plunder whoever they wanted.
The sea was calm under the morning sun. Everything was going on as usual in Aden. Some pirates were sunbathing after drinking a little too much rum, and some pirates were making their way to the nearby tavern to drink rum after vomiting because they had drunk too much rum. No matter where one turned, they could see the pirates drinking, pissing, and having sex wherever they want as though they had no idea of privacy or shame.
The ce waspletelywless but for the pirates, this ce was their republic where the freemen reigned. Among the drunk pirates, only one remained steady, this pirate was barely four feet tall and one would hardly recognize him as a pirate instead of as a kid.
"Finally they are here"
This little pirate was none other than Shorty. He was sent to Aden as a scout with a few others who were lying god knows where fully drunk.
"Hey look"
"War Frigate approaching"
"What the hell?"
"What g are they flying?"
Some of the pirates who were not so drunk saw the five ships approaching their ind and began to wake the others. Old Bertha was gracefully sailing in front like a formidable leader. The name Old Bertha hardly suited her as now she was fitted with brand new cannons, reinforced ck hull, ck sails, brand new rudder as well as two mortars, one between each neighboring pair of masts for long-range battle. Behind her were four brigades and they were all sailing in a rhombus formation.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Shorty heard the bell sounds ring across the ind, alerting the rest of the pirates and mainly, the pirate captains.
"It''s Pirate Lord Corey"
"They are flying Pirate Lord Corey''s gs"
The experienced pirates quickly recognized the lips and lightning bolt symbol on the ck g. The moment they saw the gs, they knew the ships belonged to Pirate Lord Corey and did not dare to fire the mortars.
The residents of Aden quickly arrived at the port to see the five ships anchoring. Their eyes were glued to the mean-looking Old Bertha. They had never seen a shippletely painted in ck as pirates considered painting the ships a waste of gold coins.
Shorty couldn''t wait to join back on Old Bertha. He was getting sick of living in Aden. All one could do on this ind was get drunk and since Shorty quit drinking so he could be a cultivator, he had nothing else to do except watch others get drunk and hump.
Nheless, he still couldn''t join his crew, not yet. Standing under a coconut tree with a few other pirates, Shorty saw Gibson walking out of Bertha first followed by Tiberius. Shorty was surprised to see Tiberius with Gibson instead of Maxine.
"That''s her"
"Pirate Lord Corey"
"Really? She is scary as fuck"
"Who is that crippled old man and the guy behind her?"
"Shh, she might hear you"
"Keep your mouths shut, don''t you know she can kill you with a single look?"
"She is a witch"
The pirates began to murmur. Most of them were shocked to see Corey because she was seldom seen outside of her ind. Even ckmane made more appearances to the pirates than her. Hence, when she came to Aden, the pirates were astonished. Moreover, she arrived with only four ships rather than with a small fleet.
The pirates followed Corey and the men at a safe distance. Most were curious to see the purpose of Corey''s visit while some just blindly followed the others.
Shorty followed the men to the west side of the ind where Pirate Lord ckmane resided with a couple of his pirate captains. At the moment, Pirate Lord ckmane went somewhere else taking a small fleet with him and the one who was staying in ckmane''s castle was another Pirate Lord, Pirate Lord Vance.
The castle was not as majestic as the castles on other continents. It was rather a run-down castle with five slim, square towers scattered in a seemingly random pattern. They had been built for an ideal defense and were connected by fortified, heavy walls made of basalt. There many holes and remnants of siege battle could be seen in the walls. Wide windows were scattered generously around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry, along with same-sized holes for archers and artillery.
Several minutester, they finally reached the castle gates and were greeted by a red-haireddy with two rapiers hanging on either side of her slender waist and a bold man in tattered golden robes at the gates.
"Pirate Lord Corey, what a pleasant surprise" the red-haireddy spoke in a seductive tone,
"Pirate Lord Vance is eagerly waiting for you inside" the man on the other hand spoke in a rather cold tone but Corey ignored both of their greetings and strode into the castle to spread the name of their new lord.
Chapter 459 Become Lord Lucifer鈥檚 Pirate Lord
Chapter 459 Be Lord Lucifer¡¯s Pirate Lord
After they entered the castle grounds, Gibson noticed barrels of rum, hay dummies, and cannons being repaired by pirates. Unlike outside the castle gates, the pirates inside were doing some kind of chores instead of being drunk and lying on the sandy ground. There were at least fifty archers atop the castle walls, all ncing at them. If they were to make a single wrong move, hundreds of arrows would riddle their bodies in a blink of an eye. Even if the archers had bad aim, they had the advantage of height.
In addition to the archers, several groups of pirates sat in groups around campfires. These groups were the pirate version of patrolling soldiers.
While Gibson was counting the pirates, Tiberius looked at the holes and remnants of cannon sts in the castle walls. He could guess how many siege battles these castle walls must have gone through before submitting to the pirates.
In Tiberius''s mind, the pirates were wasting the ind''s potential by just treating it as their one super big tavern. There was now, order, or even basic hygiene. He remembered Lucifer saying ''if these pirates were left ungoverned, they would not only be a threat to others but also to themselves''
He could now agree with Lucifer''s statement. He wondered why the Royal Navy of Awor didn''t bombard this ind and deal with the pirate threat.
"Why didn''t we see any of ckmane''s fleet on the sea?" asked Tiberius,
The pirates were not fond of a strict hierarchy and calling others ''my lords''. They considered themselves freemen so even the Pirate Lord could be called by his name without any titles. Pirates hated these noble titles.
Most of them hardcore pirates like ckmane believed respect is earned through power and riches, not by titles. The only titles they allowed were ''Captain'' and ''Pirate Lord''. But the title Captain gave no immunity to the captain as the title king would. If the crew became unhappy with their captain, they would throw the captain off the board or hang him or her in a heartbeat. The same was true for the Pirate Lord too but there was never been an incident where the crew mutinied against a Pirate Lord before.
"Why? You want to test us?" the bold guy in golden robes snickered,
"Don''t mind my friend here, he''s being a bitch because his ship is under repair and couldn''t go plunder as he wants" the female pirate chuckled to calm both of these men before either of them started a fight.
"We don''t usually anchor our fleet in Aden, friend. As they say, don''t put all your eggs into one basket"
Tiberius agreed with the pirate woman as they walked past several pirates rolling barrels after barrels into a cabin. Just the smell permeating from those barrels was enough to make their taste buds savor the sweetness of the rum within.
"So Vance is still plundering only the ships that carry rum?" Pirate Lord Corey asked the red-haired pirate,
"Of course. Isn''t that genius Pirate Lord Corey? We hit ships with gold, sugar, gems, and all that will turn into gold coins and go straight to buy rum. Why go through all that trouble when you can directly take what you really want?"
"It shouldn''t make sense but it does" Corey chuckled
At first, Tiberius thought its stupid to plunder only the ships that carry rum shipments but after meeting the pirates, it sounded way less stupid to him.
If anything, this was a stroke of genius because most navy ships carried gold, gems, ores, sugar, and weapon shipments. Plundering those ships was not only risky but would also make them a threat to a kingdom or worse, a threat to the Awor Empire.
Rum however carried by merchant ships and plundering merchant ships was like taking candy from a babypared to plundering a navy ship.
Besides, like the red-haired pirate said, even if the pirates plundered tons of gold, their earnings would eventually be used to buy rum and whores. By directly plundering rum and the valuables from the merchant ships, they could easily get both without any hassle.
Eventually, after passing several more rum warehouses, they climbed a set of gray stone stairs to step onto the throne hall which had been turned into avish tavern. Several long oak tables were ced from the bar counter to the end of the hall. As expected the primary clientele of the tavern was pirates and the maids weredies who generously revealed their deep cleavage to their customers. Of course, some outright seemed ufortable putting up with all the butt pping and hand grabbing.
Tiberius''s nose twitched due to the stench of piss, vomit, and rum. Despite the stench, the tavern itself was packed and lively thanks to the singing and dancing.
"I have to give it to them, they are one happy bunch," Tiberius thought in his mind. Building a country for the freedom fighters and managing it was harder than he had imagined. Some days, he would prefer to fight in the arena than to go through the necessities they want and the gold coins they have. The task of being a ruler was stressing him and Maxine suggested he take a rest and spend his time in Old Bertha. ''Live a pirate life'' that what she said to him.
Living with them helped him more than he liked to admit. He had no worries, no responsibilities. He just trained, sailed the seas, singing with the crew, and drank and ate as hearty as he wanted.
Being a pirate was fun except the world was changing and if the pirates didn''t change with it, only extinction awaited them.
"Hey Melina, you wanna drink?" a bearded old man raised his mug and shouted at the red-haired pirate as they were making their way to the stairs behind the bar counter.
"Join youter" The red-haired pirate waved at the old man,
Meanwhile, some pirates noticed the tattoo-covered Corey and recognized her. Tiberius and Gibson could hear various chatter focused on Corey. None of them dared to raise their voice or approach Corey because of her infamous reputation as a Witch.
Melina and the bold man knocked on the door after climbing the stairs leading to the second floor.
"Come in"
Melina opened the room to be weed by a man sitting behind arge oak table with several maps and rum bottles. He had a pair of dark brown eyes, a tannedplexion, straight ck hair hanging over his broad shoulders, and a stubble beard. Currently, he was sitting on a chair and drinking with his feet atop the table. A long greatcoat was hanging on the stand near the table and he was in a dark shirt revealing his chiseled chest and matching gray leather trousers. He also wore a stud earring on both ears as well as a scar that ran across his left cheek.
"What a fucking surprise? Pirate Lord Corey, here in Aden, outside of her witch ind"
Just like his look, his thick voice too had a re of cruelty to it.
"Go entertain yourselves" Gibson dismissed the crew by sending them to the tavern below with a pouch of gold coins. After the crew left the room, the bold man closed the door as Corey took the chair in front of the table while Tiberius and Gibson sat on the chairs behind Corey. They let Pirate Lord Corey lead the negotiation as they nned.
"What can I say? Times are changing Vance" Corey calmly said,
"I assume your sudden visit to Aden is not to enjoy our hospitality"
"Not entirely true, I heard you can''t find a finer rum anywhere else"
"Whores too" Vance grabbed Melina''s hands before pulling her closer to him. She sat on the chair''s arm, seductivelyughing.
"I heard things too Corey. Things like the legendary Silent Reaper resurface, one of your pirate captains leaving your side to join another crew, and my favorite," Vance paused for a second and went on,
"Magic wielding captain, if I was not too drunk, I heard he''s called Lucifer"
"Lord, Lord Lucifer" Corey corrected Vance and when Vance saw the look on Corey''s face, he was surprised. Initially, he didn''t believe such a rumor that someone was using magic inside the void line. To this day, he couldn''t believe Corey was able to use magic. Imagine his surprise when his crew told him that the captain of the ck ship could cast spells and use magic.
"Did I hear you right? Melina did she say Lord? Because I heard she say Lord" Vance asked Melina,
"Yes she did"
"So when you said times are changing, you meant you became someone else''s bitch"
Gibson quickly pressed Tiberius''s feet with his fake leg to stop him from lunging at Vance. Like it or not, they were in a pirate fortress without Lord Lucifer or the Dark Queen. Old Bertha could give a hell of a fight but she wouldn''t be able to survive if all the pirate ships and defenses around Aden bombarded them.
"Being a bitch is better than being dead Vance. You have to be alive to enjoy the pirate life" Corey smiled but behind that smile, one could see the hidden menacing look.
"If I don''t know any better, I would consider that as a threat" Vance''s voice became colder,
"What I''m here to offer you is an opportunity of a lifetime Vance" Corey leaned forward,
"Getting richer and stronger without making an enemy out of the kingdoms and Awor, how does this sound Vance?"
"Let''s just assume I''m interested in such an opportunity, what''s the catch gonna be?"
Vance did not seem to be interested at all. Instead of looking at Corey while he was speaking, he was ying with Melina. Tiberius''s eyes twitched, he knew by looking at Vance''s attitude and the way he talked, that this negotiation was destined to fail.
"Join Lord Lucifer''s ranks as his Pirate Lord"
The moment Corey spoke these words, Vance stopped ying with Melina''s lips. He turned his gaze to Corey and those pair of eyes were flowing with murder.
"In other words, you¡ want¡ me¡ to¡ be¡" Vance stood up,
"A BITCH!"
He banged the table as the rum bottles on the table sted away.
Despite Vance''s outburst, Corey was still calm.
"What if I say Lord Lucifer can grant us immortality?"
Melina and the bold man who listened to Corey were startled.
Vance wasn''t interested in riches and power like many others in this world. He would rather live his life plundering rum and drinking than capitalize on a golden opportunity. There was nothing much Corey could offer that would tempt him except immortality.
Chapter 460 The all mighty Sun Rise Sect
Chapter 460 The all mighty Sun Rise Sect
"That shit doesn''t work for us. Your sales pitch would have worked on those freaks who call themselves cultivators" Vance snickered,
"Sigh" Corey sighed,
"It seems like you need a demonstration" Vance saw Corey close her eyes. Subconsciously he took a step back from the table,
Corey felt the crystal pendant on her neck warming up. The warmth slowly spread through every being in her body.
"Crystal Dagger" she opened her eyes abruptly, raising her hand at Vance. Melina and the bald man immediately jumped in front of Vance to defend though they were toote. They only felt a gush of wind blow past their faces.
"Fuck!" Vance stumbled back as a blue dagger floated in the air just an inch away from right between his eyes. He shuddered and without his control, he started to sweat under his shirt.
Melina and the bald man''s faces lost all color and became pale. Melina''s hands on her rapier were shaking. This had heard about cultivators casting spells and using magic but this was the first time they had witnessed it in real life.
They couldn''t stop themselves from shivering. The dagger was still hovering in the air radiating a chilling aura.
"Argh fuck" Vance growled when he tried to grab the dagger. The dagger''s cold surface burned his palm,
"This is just a taste of power Lord Lucifer blessed me with Vance. In Front of him, we are powerless and insignificant as ants. Imagine the possibilities of having such powers Vance, we can be much more than Pirate Lords"
Corey put her hand down as the dagger vanished into thin air. Only now Vance could let out a heavy breath. He just stared death in its eyes and survived to tell the tale. His mind was slowly digesting the fact of how insignificant and powerless he was just as she said. If Corey wanted, she could have simply killed him and the two pirate captains in a blink of an eye without making any fuss. They could have walked out of the ind simply as by the time the drunken pirates notice their bodies, they would have been long gone.
Still, every fiber in his body screamed against him at the thought of serving someone else other than himself. He felt as if he was being forced to bend his knees. He preferred to die on his feet than to live on his knees like a true pirate.
"You have two weeks to give us your answer Vance" Corey stood up to leave,
"What if I didn''t?" Vance''s question stopped her on her way to the door,
"Nothing" Corey didn''t even turn back,
"If you can''t grab an opportunity when it ps you on the face, you''re not the pirate I thought you are"
Tiberius followed Corey and Gibson behind leaving the pirates stunned. He couldn''t help chuckling, noticing the fear in their eyes.
"Pirate Lord Corey, is it okay to leave them? You know, they might bber" Gibson asked as they were climbing down the stair,
"They should" Corey smiled,
"Everything went ording to Lord Lucifer''s n"
Gibson wasn''t surprised by her words and neither was Tiberius. They both knew that Lucifer was as cunning as he was powerful.
"Those pirates should be grateful they didn''te here," Tiberius calmly said. The ''they'' he meant were Lucifer and Dark Queen.
"I''ve yet to see someone live after saying no to him"
The trio left Aden after staying for a day. Shorty handed over all the information he gathered in Aden to Gibson which was then transferred to Maxine. Old Bertha started her voyage searching for ckmane, thest Pirate Lord.
**********************************
The Broad River sect of Kingdom Kethen was a beautiful castle surrounded by majestic gardens and fountains magically created out of the crystal blueke surrounding the sect. The sect looked very impressive despite having stood for over five hundred years. Many buildings were being built and the existing buildings were getting repaired. The major construction work was on the main castle. It was believed that the magnificent fountain in the middle of the sect''s park had healing and beautifying properties.
The sect had an average reputation under the previous Sect Leader Mathias. However, the new Sect Leader E raised the reputation of the sect to one of the best in Kethen after merging the Broad River sect with the famous Sun Rise sect of River town. Many nobles in Kethen and the fellow sects tried to destroy the Broad River sect by fanning the mes between E and Mathias during the inner conflict.
However, the civil war soon came to an end when the majority of the students and elders sided with E to merge with the Sun Rise sect and Mathias was burnt to death by the bandits. The sect was still investigating Mathias''s death to apprehend the bandits who killed him except many believed it was E who killed Mathias with the help of Ghost, the rising star of River town who now held the title of ''King'' on top of many.
The name ''Sun Rise Sect'' was hanging on the gateway instead of their previous name ''Broad River Sect''. They engraved the golden words on ck metal. At the moment, E was going through a stack of documents located on a long oak table in a spacious room with many windows and many portraits of the previous sect leaders. The portrait of E''s family, a bearded man and a ck-haireddy in a red dress hung behind E.
There were some delicate silver instruments puffing smoke and whirring on a table next to the big oak table. One could also see several book racks filled with ancient books and parchments. All of them were illuminated by the majestic chandelier right above the crimson red rug. Any visitors could rest on thefy ck couches given to her by ire as a gift.
In addition to the couches, there was a wooden throne-like chair located just before the oak table for having official talks.
Unlike before, E did not wear a dark cloak covering herself. Thanks to Ghost''s potions and cream, her burnt skin recovered its natural glow. Her skin now glowed like jade so she wore colorful clothes that expressed her joy rather than gloomy dark robes. Despite her forty-plus age, she looked as though she was still in herte teens. She had already started to receive many proposals only to get rejected by her one after another. She was rejecting not because she had no ns to get married but rather because she was waiting for the right man.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
While she was reading all the ie and expenses reports of the sect, someone knocked on the door,
"Headmistress"
"Come in," E said and put down the report to take a break,
A young female disciple dressed in a long ck coat with red linings walked into the room carrying a cup and saucer.
"Headmistress, here''s your tea" the young girl brightly smiled at E and ced the tray on the table.
"And Headmistress, Sect Leader Olivier has arrived and is on his way to meet you"
E took a sip of tea and felt a surge of sweet aromatic energy exploding in every fiber in her body. The exhaustion of reading through the report evaporated along with the smokeing out of the tea. She took a deep breath as the tasting buds in her tongue had a small party.
"Headmistress¡" the young girl chuckled silently looking at E''s expression,
"Oh yeah, Olivier, good. It''s time I had a little chat with him. You can go now Peggy"
The young girl bowed and when the girl reached the door, E stopped her
"Peggy, Hades is reopening today. Tell Master Ricky to book a table for two"
Just by thinking of Hades, E''s mouth started drooling. To be honest, she could not wait to finish the meeting with Olivier and stuff her belly with as much food as she could. It had been too long since she tasted Raylene''s cooking. She was d to be in the close circle of Ghost. Otherwise, she wouldn''t be able to get a table in Hades whenever she wanted. Even the princess of Royalnd and her friends had to book a table two weeks earlier.
"As you wish, Headmistress"
After the girl left the room, E continued to enjoy every sip of tea. She felt the thousand she spent on getting a sk of Raylene''s tea was totally worth it. Each and every sip was sweet mind-boggling goodness that soothed her from within. Only she hated the feeling of the bottom of the cup.
"Headmistress is waiting for you my lord" E heard the guards outside speaking to someone and shortly after, she saw Olivier, a bald old man with a bushy white beard strolling into the room. The old man looked to be in histe seventies and wore in white robes. He looked to be in histe seventies while his real age ranged between hundred to hundred and fifty. E noticed the dark circles under his eyes.
Everyone in the sect leaders circle knew the man was struggling to break through to the Core Strengthening stage. He was stuck on the Core Formation level 10 for more than ten and even Ghost''s revitalizing pills or cultivation enhancers could not break his bottleneck. That didn''t mean Ghost was unable to help Olivier with his bottleneck. In fact, he left a crate of special potions just for people who were suffering from cultivation bottlenecks.
A potion from that crate was E''s major bargaining chip with the negotiation she is about to have with Olivier.
"Thank you foring to meet me, Sect Leader Olivier. Please take a seat" E gestured at Olivier to take a seat. Regardless, the current Broad River sect was much more prominent than Olivier''s White Cloud Sect and in fact, the two sects shouldn''t bepared as the current Broad River Sect had be a mammoth in Kethen. That was why Olivier came all the way from his sect to meet E when she summoned him.
Offending E would be like offending the Sun Rise sect. Nowadays, they had the same influence and power to be equal to the three big sects themselves.
"How would you like to join our Sun Rise sect, Sect Leader Olivier?"
Chapter 461 Takeovers
Chapter 461 Takeovers
Elon and Ozer were yet to recover from the Hydra''s outcry. Apart from a few devices invented by the Guardian Guild, there was no way to gauge someone''s cultivation level as they had been doing forever.
Nheless, E needed no device to tell Olivier was still at the Core Formation stage. The dark circles under his eyes and the cor bones building out were enough.
"Come again Sect Leader E" Olivier frowned. He could swear that he heard her asking him to join her sect.
"Drop the formalities Olivier, call me E" E giggled, waving her hand,
Olivier was still staring at her without batting an eye as she continued,
"Rumors iming you''re looking for a new sessor to inherit your position as sect leader. Any truth to those rumors?"
Oliver carried the torch of sect leader of the White Cloud Sect for nearly sixty years. Until two decades ago, the density of Arch energy was extremely low in the world. Thus, the majority of the cultivators born before that time could not reach high stages of cultivation like the youngsters nowadays.
So reaching the Core Formation stage sixty years ago was a pretty big deal. Olivier was considered a prodigy and inherited the Sect leader position from his predecessor. The stress of being a sect leader had slowed down his cultivation speed. It took him forty years to reach level 10 of the Core Formation stage from level 1 and he spent millions in gold coins buying rare potions and items. Thanks to Ghost and his potions, he was able to cultivate much faster than he used to. Still, it was not enough to make him break through to the Core Strengthening stage.
Since many of his friends advised him to leave his stressful sect leader position, he was looking for a new sessor except he had been doing it under wraps.
How the hell did E know about this was beyond Olivier. However, rather than focusing on how, Olivier just sighed.
"Matter of fact, I am looking for someone to take over the sect after I enter seclusion"
Something told E that it might be hisst seclusion. Many cultivators who were suffering bottlenecks would go to the lonely mountains as ast attempt to break through to the next stage. The lonely mountain was an unhabitable ce where extreme yang and yin energy were always colliding with each other. Due to these two extreme energies, the ce only had two climates; freezing cold and burning hot. Nine out of ten cultivators would die trying to break their bottlenecks. If a cultivator could absorb and survive the yin and yang energies, it would break the bottleneck.
Venturing into the lonely mountain was thest resort for any cultivator.
"Hmm, I''ve been following your sect closely Olivier. You have certainly done a good job keeping the sect from declining. But your sect has so much potential, it could go beyond and further"
Surprisingly Olivier gently smiled shaking his head slowly,
"E, I lived long enough to know what you''re trying to do. You want my sect to be merged with the Sun Rise sect. You literally said that. I''ve been doing what''s right for my sect ever since I became the Sect Leader. Give me one reason why I should agree to this merger?"
She would be lying if she said she wasn''t pleasantly surprised by Olivier''s directness. Wearing a smile on her face, E waved her hand as a glistening emerald green potion bottled inside a palm-sized vial appeared on the table.
"This is my reason one"
Olivier did not recognize the potion but he sensed a great amount of energying from the vial. Before handing over the potion to Olivier, she grabbed a golden parchment and slid it toward Olivier.
"And this is reason number two. Go on, open and take a look"
Olivier untied the red ribbon to read the contents inside and the moment heid his eyes on what was written, he was taken aback by surprise. The parchment contained all the financial information about the Broad River sect for thest five years. No sect leader would reveal this to another one, especially another sect leader. In addition to the financial side of things, the parchment also contained the cultivation status of a number of disciples and elders.
"You put your soul and body into your sect Olivier. It''s your baby so it''s no lie that major change such as a merger would greatly concern you. What you''re holding in your hands is to reassure you that if you agreed to this merger, it will be in the sect''s best interest" E paused for a moment and continued,
"Before we merged the Sun Rise sect and became a part of them, it would be nothing but a miracle to see s disciple breakthrough to the Core Formation stage before the age of thirty. But now, once a month, we get a new Core Formation stage disciple. Each student now has their own cultivation space and they get free potions and pills, made by Ghost himself. Even the disciples of the three big sects don''t have such an advantage "
It was shocking but Olivier agreed with E in his mind. He also did his research about her and the sect just as she did. No sect would give their disciples potions and pills every month, let alone for free. It was crazy even to think that they had been giving potions and pills made by the 5-star Alchemist for free as though they were candies.
His disciples and even the elders had to wait in the line for a day to get their hands on the potions and pills made by the Ghost yet the Broad River sect disciples were getting them for free every month.
If it wasn''t for the rule that a disciple would get only one potion and pill of each kind, the students of the Sun Rise sect and Broad River sect would have made a ton of money by selling them on the side. The demand for Ghost''s products was going through the roof.
"And if I''m right, you are nning to go to the lonely mountain for seclusion. You don''t have to if I can help you" E slid the potion towards Olivier,
"Have you heard the news that Ghost could reach 90% purity?"
Olivier nodded. Following the events that happened in Hades, every newspaper including the royal newspaper had printed Ghost''s ability to reach 90% purity in alchemy products he made and his admission to Mazeroth on their front page. At that time, the news spread throughout the continent like wildfire. Not a single soul was unaware of this.
"That''s a 90% pure potion brewed by Ghost himself. And you can''t get this particr potion anywhere, it''s one of the special potions brewed by him, especially for cultivators such as you"
Olivier''s hands trembled while holding the potion in his hand.
"In one month, you will be able to break through to the Core Strengthening stage if you take this potion. You are wee to take this potion with you and appraise it for yourself"
No cultivator would blindly drink an unknown potion no matter how pure it was. What if it was poison instead of a miraculous potion? They would first appraise the potions using a trusted Alchemist of their own before taking them. Although no alchemist who was qualified enough to appraise Michael''s potions existed in Elon, one could find if it was poison or not, unless, of course, Michael didn''t want them to find it.
Despite Olivier knowing she was being so generous and trusting toplete the merger, he still appreciated her gestures.
"What if I said no to the merger? Do I have to give this back?"
"Of course not" E waved her hand with a smile,
"Whether you ept it or not, this potion is yours, unless you don''t want it"
Olivier''s hand clutched the potion tighter. His heart told him to let go but his brain screamed at him to hold onto the potion. If what E said was true, it finally could bring his suffering to an end and make him reach the Core Strengthening stage.
"As I said, your sect is your child and every parent would want what''s best for their child. Don''t think that if you agree to the merger, you will be sacked, you will still be the head of your sect who makes all the major decisions. Only your title would change from Sect Leader to Headmaster"
Olivier took a deep breath,
"I''ve served my sect long enough E. It''s time for me to step down and a young one to take over the sect"
E''s eyes twitched after she heard him. She refused to believe after everything she offered to convince him the old coot wasn''t agreeing to the merger. Luckily what she heard next put a smile on her face,
"However I will take a week''s time and think about this merger. It''s a big decision nheless. I will make onest decision that might lead my sect into a golden age before I leave my position"
Olivier shook E''s hands and left the room with the potion. It was a sign that he would get the sect''s affairs in order before agreeing to the merger.
"Two sects down, three more to go" E grinned. The Sun Rise sect took over not one but three sects in total and with Olivier''s sect, the number would be four. E was leading the takeovers in front. She was a ruthless negotiator and a leader. That was why Michael chose her to take over the sect instead of ire. Not to be mistaken, ire was a great leader but she was not as ruthless as E. For instance, If Olivier chose not to ept the merger, ire would have epted his choice. On the other hand, E would have incited a civil war inside his sect first, and then, she would have killed him and reced him with someone who would do her bidding.
Just as Lucifer''s influence was expanding throughout the Southern continent, Ghost''s power slowly grew in Elon through the Sun Rise sect.
The three big sects had already noticed the power scale changing in the continent and sooner orter, one of them would make a move to stop the Sun Rise sect from swallowing the small sects and be one major power that could rival them in every aspect.
Chapter 462 Holy Matrimony
Chapter 462 Holy Matrimony
Michael and Gaya were standing in Professor Lane''s office. The office was a gloomy and dimly-lit room located adjacent to the Alchemy ssroom. The shadowy walls were lined with shelves ofrge ss jars filled with slimy, revolting things, such as bits of animals and nts, floating in potions and pills of varying colors. Michael noticed there were more jars in the office than in the ssroom. The office had a firece. In a corner, there was a cupboard containing Lane''s private stock of alchemy ingredients.
Professor Lane was examining the tiny dot of dark mes hovering above Michael''s pinky finger.
"This is not the Hell''s me. Is this even a primordial me?" Professor Lane''s waspish voice sounded shocked,
"What do you mean? We risked our fucking lives in that dungeon!" Gaya stomped the wooden floor beneath her feet.
Ignoring Gaya''s temper tantrum, Professor Lane brought a six feet mirror to Michael,
"Touch the mirror with the mes"
Professor Lane covered himself with his dark robes while Gaya took several steps back from Michael. The already gloomy room grew darker as he conjured a ball of Dark mes over his right hand.
Despite the arrays ced in the office, Lane could feel his soul aching. It was as though the heating from the mes burning his soul itself.
Michael covered his palm with the dark mes and touched the mirror.
Boom!
The mirror suddenly exploded into a million pieces and the shards evaporated into nothingness before they could even hit the ground.
"Is this supposed to happen?" Michael asked as the system began to offer him thousands of badass points. For a moment, Michale noticed Lane''s eyes open wide.
"No, it''s not. This me¡ is much more powerful than any other primordial mes" Lane said in a gravely serious voice,
Michael already knew this yet he pretended to be surprised. Quickly, Professor Lane made his way to the rack where he lined up all his personal collection of pills and potions. He rummaged through the collection to pull out an emerald green box
"This pill will disguise the me as the Hell me. Take it" Lane handed over the small box to Michael.
Michael was curious to see what was inside though he could sense powerful radiationing from within. He then slowly opened the box and saw a purple pill resting on a red cloth like a wedding ring.
Because Michael absorbed a primordial me, he could sense another primordial me and he sensed the energy of a primordial me within the pill. However, it seemed as if Professor Lane used a sliver of primordial energy as an ingredient to concoct this pill.
Before taking the pill, however, Michael looked at Professor Lane with a gentle smile on his face,
"Why help me, Professor? No offense but you don''t seem like the friendly helping professor type"
"You might only be someone worthy of my teachings" Professor Lane simply said.
Since Michael had a n of his own, he did not poke Lane any further.
*********************************
Meanwhile, in their room, Victoria and Edith ced the ss orb that enabledmunication from the Akn realm to Thusia. Vitoria ced her hand on the orb and sent a sliver of Cosmic energy as the ss orb immediately began to glow brighter and brighter. Victoria and Edith took several steps back.
Soon, two figures in ethereal form appeared above the orb. The man was in a crimson red robe that draped the floor beneath him. He had striking crimson red hair dancing over his shoulder, blue eyes, and a thick beard without a mustache. His muscles were bulging out of his crimson red robes. The man possessed an aura of an emperor and not of a kind benevolent emperor; rather he seemed cold, iron-fisted, and powerful as a god.
The woman who remained by his side had golden hair, a gentle smile on her face as well as a pair of glistening hazel eyes. Her perfect structure was covered by a long gown usually made of a luxurious tunic and contained embroideredce and gems.
"Father, mother" Victoria immediately dropped to one knee and bowed her head.
"Your majesty, your highness" Edith curtseyed them with a royal bow instead of kneeling down like Victoria.
They were the king and queen of Thusia; Maxim Barnes and Valeria Barnes. Valeria looked at Victoria with a kind look and she was about to speak when a cold voice reverberated in the room.
"Uneptable"
Maxim Barnes''s voice conveyed authority. The voice emanated from his six-foot-six-inch staturemands attention. It was unmistakable. At its most pronounced it felt like a whip against dewy skin
"You have failed to secure the Primordial mes. What have you learned from your failure Victoria? Raise your head and answer"
Victoria shuddered like a child in front of him,
"The Primordial mes indeed have a mind of their own father. They refused to submit to the Cosmic energy and one of them has chosen a new master"
"One of them?" Frowned Maxim Barnes,
"Yes father, there were two primordial mes-"
"FOOL!" King Maxim raised his voice. He was furious. Along with his shout, a powerful st shot out of his ethereal figure and sted Victoria onto the wall behind her,
"Vikki!" Edith was stunned but she quickly ran to Victoria,
"No" Victoria refused to take Edith''s hands and picked herself from the ground without any help.
Knowing about her husband''s anger, Valeria remained silent. She did not even try to calm him down because she knew it would only make him madder.
Victoria ignored the blood slowly trickling through her nostrils and knelt before him just like before,
"Only the three primordial mes can stop the Cosmic energy. What does that mean?" asked Maxim Barnes.
"Our enemies can use the primordial mes against us" Victoria immediately answered Maxim without even taking a second to breathe,
"They will, they will use the mes against us. That is why we must secure them for ourselves before our foes. Each failure teaches us a lesson, learn from your failures"
"Yes Sir" Victoria ced her hand on her chest and dered,
"Have you found someone worthy of you in Mazeroth?" asked Maxim,
"No father"
She shook her head. Maxim looked at Victoria for a moment and then disappeared leaving Valeria with the two girls. Edith finally let out a deep breath and felt her muscles loosen up.
"Rise my daughter" Valeria''s gentle voice swept over Victoria. There was nothing but love and kindness in her eyes. She looked and acted like the embodiment ofpassion.
Victoria stood up, revealing a delicate smile.
"Your father and I have picked two young men who might be worthy to take your hands in marriage Victoria. If you have no one in your heart, you can select either of them and you won''t be disappointed"
"Mother" Victoria growled,
"I don''t want to get married"
"No, no dear, marriage is important. To you and to our kingdom. Your father has given you the freedom to pick a groom for yourself. He has been very patient in this matter but you know about your father, he is not a patient man"
Victoria could only sigh. To be honest, she did not want to marry but she was unable to disagree with her father too. She had been telling them she will find a man who is worthy of her yet she barely even tried to.
"But how could I marry someone I don''t even know? Every man I met till now is weaker and inferior to me in every aspect"
"I married your father without knowing him honey and that''s the best decision I''ve ever made. You can''t keep avoiding this matter saying they are weak and inferior to you. No one can or will be stronger than you Victoria, you have the Cosmic energy running in your veins. I think the young men we found might be the best fit for you, they are stronger than you but they are not weak either. If they had Cosmic energy, I have no doubt they will be just as strong as you or stronger"
Victoria was momentarily stunned by thest few words that came out of her mother''s mouth. She creased her brows, refusing to believe that not one but two men existed who could be stronger than her. Granted she had Cosmic energy but even before absorbing Cosmic energy, her cultivation speed and the purity of the energy in her body shook the entire Ozer continent. She was deemed a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy and many evenpared her to the Hunt family prodigy.
"Who are they?" Edith''s curiosity got the better of her.
"Both of them hail from the Elon continent. One of them is a guardian, our contacts in the guardian guild have informed us he is a rising star with unlimited potential. They believe he has reached Core Formation stage level 10 recently"
As queen Valeria was describing the candidate, Edith''s heart started to beat faster and faster. It felt as if her heart was pounding against her chest,
"He is kind, forgiving, and talented in both Alchemy andbat. General Booth has essed the battles he went through and said he could fight with him toe to toe and might even defeat him in a duel"
Valeria intentionally teased Victoria without revealing the identity of the young man. She kindled the fire of curiosity within Victoria and rubbed her ego to the point Victoria would travel to Elon to meet both young men and pick one to be her life partner.
"Who does this remind you of?" Valeria chuckled
"You," said Victoria. When someone wanted to describe Valeria with few words as possible, they would say the exact thing Valeria said about the young man ''kind, forgiving, and talented in both Alchemy andbat''
Valeria failed to notice a tear rolling out of Edith''s eyes.
"Do you want to know his name?" Valeria teased Victoria. The young girl nodded her head wordlessly telling her mother to stop teasing her and reveal his name.
"Noah Winston"
Edith''s tears hit the ground as soon as Valeria uttered the name of the man whom Edith was in love with.
Chapter 463 Victoria chooses her groom
Chapter 463 Victoria chooses her groom
Not only Edith but also Victoria was stunned to hear the name ''Noah Winston''. Victoria was caught off guard as she did not think the young man her mother was talking about could be the same guy Edith is in love with.
Her eyes automatically turned to look at Edith and saw the tears gushing out of her eyes. Victoria waved her hand, sending a sliver of Cosmic energy to the orb. Right after the Cosmic energy reached the orb, Valeria''s figure vanished into thin air and the orb lost its glow.
As soon as Valeria disappeared, Edith copsed down. She closed her face with her hands and started to cry,
"Edith" Victoria knelt beside her best friend, wrapped her arms around her shoulder, and pulled her close to her.
"I¡ don''t know¡ what to do" Edith sobbed as her voice stuttered,
"Hey hey hey, you don''t have to do anything. Stop crying" Victoria tried to console her. She wasn''t in her usual cold self. How could she when her best friend was crying for the first time in many many years?
Edith sobbed continuously for fifteen minutes and no matter what Victoria tried to say or do, she could not stop Edith from crying.
"It''s okay" Edith opened her hands revealing puffy red eyes and a pale face. She quickly wiped off the tears and tried to let out a smile,
"I''m used to not having things I love. You can have him, he will take good care of you, he''s really a good guy"
Surprisingly Victoria pped the back of Edith''s head,
"You dumb silly, who said I''m going to choose Noah? No offense but I''m not gonna share my husband with you or anyone"
Looking at Edith''s dumbstruck face, Victoria sighed before smiling,
"Mother said two candidates idiot. If I have to choose one, I will choose the other one. I bet mine is better than yours" she joked to make Edith truly smile again instead of the fake one on her face at the moment,
"But if-"
"Shh" Victoria closer her lips with her hands,
"If I agree to marry someone else, I don''t have to marry your loverboy"
"Hrmmmmm" Edith was saying something but due to Victoria''s hand on her mouth, her words became inaudible.
Victoria removed her hand as Edith stared at her with watering eyes,
"You would do that for me?"
Once again Victoria pped Edith on the head,
"Idiot, I would do anything for you. Don''t you know-"
Before Victoria could finish her sentence, Edith leaped at her, hugged her, and squeezed Victoria,
"How dare you think I will join his harem huh?" Victoria asked yfully,
"He said he will treat all of us equally. If you enter the harem, it''s goodbye equality. You will kick us out" Edith purred,
"That does sound like me" Victoria chuckled as the two girls remained in each other''s embrace for a couple of minutes. Then only Victoria remembered that she put her mother on the hold,
"Mother is still waiting"
"Oh" Edith almost squealed when she remembered about Valeria. She quickly let go of Victoria, stood up, and fixed her face and her dress.
Just like before, Victoria sent a sliver of Cosmic energy to activate the orb.
"Everything okay dear?" Valeria''s figure appeared in the room and asked,
"Yes mother, someone came to meet us suddenly"
"Aww" Valeria pouted,
"I thought you cut the connection because you were shy"
Victoria couldn''t help rolling her eyes,
"Mom, have you met me?"
"Teach your friend to be shy Edith, she will need it" Valeria turned her gaze towards Edith,
"I have a better chance of teaching a cow to bark, aunty"
Valeria burst intoughter and so did Edith who felt light-hearted after Victoria promised not to take Noah from her. Surprisingly, Victoria too chuckled with them,
"Now if you finished making fun of me, tell me about the other one mom"
Valeria was surprised by Victoria''s sudden interest in knowing the brides. Before this, Victoria would either ignore her or leave the room if she opened the topic of marriage. Valeria wasn''t going to waste this moment by pondering why the sudden interest,
"The second guy is more of your father''s choice, he is rather what the right word" Valeria rubbed her chin for a moment searching for the right word in her mind,
"Insensitive," she said and continued,
"Not forgiving as Noah and sometimes ruthless. He is not a noble like Noah and our spies fail to find any solid information about his origins. However, your father doesn''t seem to care about his origins because of what this young man has achieved by himself in a short amount of time"
When Valeria was talking about Noah, she had a bright smile on her face. That smile was nowhere to be found on her face now,
"He went from Foundation stage to Core Formation stage level 10 within a year. You won''t believe how he became a king¡"
Valeria began to narrate everything from the beginning to Victoria except one thing which she kept to herself to surprise Victoria. At the end of the story, Edith was horrified and began to sweat thinking about what would happen if Victoria married this guy.
Victoria on the other hand was amazed by him. He seemed to have everything Victoria wanted in her life partner. In addition, he also earned Victoria''s respect.
"Who is he?" asked Victoria,
"We know him, dear. You may have even met him"
Valeria surprised her daughter. As a mother, she preferred Noah for her daughter but as a queen, she picked the second youngster. However, she was worried that if Victoria chose the second one, there won''t be a ce for kindness. Victoria wasn''t exactly a kindpassionate ruler like herself. Thus, Valeria wanted Victoria''s husband to be the kind andpassionate one when ruling over Thusia. Noah seemed to be that man, not the second one.
She expressed her feelings about him to Maxim but as a ruthless king, he was leaning toward the second one rather than choosing Noah. The ultimate decision of choosing the future king of Thusia fell to Victoria.
Whatever decision her daughter would make, she would wholeheartedly agree and support her although she would be over the moon if she was to choose Noah.
"Do you know the leader of our alchemy guild, the one Calvin chose?" Valeria asked as Victoria began to recall everything released to the Alchemy guild. She was in seclusion when they formed an Alchemy guild of their own. Everything rted to talent recruitment had been taken care of by Calvin and because he waspetent, Maxim rarely micro-managed Calvin. Besides, they were at war with several kingdoms so they had no time to ess every talent brought by Calvin.
Nheless, Victoria did hear Calvin talk about recruiting a 5-star Alchemist as their guild leader and n to topple the Alchemist Guild.
"He goes by the name, Ghost. Apparently, he was also chosen by Mazeroth at the same time as you two"
The moment Valeria said this, the images of the youngster Victoria met in the ck forest shed across her mind.
"That''s him," Victoria mumbled under her breath. Everything made perfect sense to Victoria and her instincts told her the same.
"Aunty, I think we''ve met him already" Edith sighed. Just like Victoria, she connected the dots and guessed her train neighbor and Ghost may be the same person.
Edith began to tell what happened in the ck forest and how the Alchemy student mercilessly beat down the warriors to Valeria.
"That does sound like him"
After knowing what he did to the princess of Bredia and the fellowpetitors during the tournament, Valeria wasn''t surprised by what Edith told her. As far as she was concerned, the warrior students were lucky they met him in Mazeroth instead of in Elon where Ghost would have ughtered them like cattle.
"Since you didn''t find one yourself, these two are the choices you have dear. I would choo-"
Valeria tried to persuade Victoria to choose Noah only to get interrupted by Victoria. It wouldn''t take a genius to figure out that Valeria preferred Noah over Ghost and Victoria could read her mother like a book. At first, Victoria only wanted to choose the other one instead of Noah because of Edith. But after hearing everything about Ghost, she really felt like he might be the man she hoped to be her life partner.
"I will meet Ghost"
Valeria was disappointed deep down but still, she was happy that at least Victoria agreed to meet him.
"After I finish my studies in Mazeroth and hopefully find the primordial me, I can meet him"
Both mother and daughter failed to consider Ghost''s opinion on the matter, even after knowing that he already rejected marrying a princess. Andst time a king thought about marrying his daughter to him, he ended up not only losing a huge chunk of his kingdom but also almost his daughter.
Moreover, they had no idea that he was once their victim. They literally killed him and everyone he loved.
************************
Mazeroth''s training ground was where mostly the students of warrior houses would train their spellcasting and closebat skills. The grounds were t, short-cut grassy areas and were located near the Herbal garden. It was overlooked by the training grounds tower and the arena.
The training grounds had countless dummies enhanced to function as sentient beings for the students to simte a real battle. Each student who wants to train had to take a silver card from the counter located at the entrance. Only through this card, a student could change the difficulty and select what type of training they want. The students could change the difficulty or select a training by establishing a connection with the card. Training grounds had a giant invisible array to enable the students to use a portion of the cultivation power.
At the moment, all the students on the training ground stood aside and watched Michael break hundreds of dummies piece by piece. He was honing his closebat skills and sword skills. Since he sought badass points to settle the debt to the system and to buy some items from the store, he practiced in front of the students.
More than the students were surprised by his skills, it was his emerald green robes that shocked them. They couldn''t believe an Alchemy student possessed such astounding battle skills.
Among the onlookers was a minion of Elliot''s close friend. He was watching Michael with the intention to let his leader know about him. Michael had a n to pick a fight with the warrior students, beat the hell out of them, farm badass points, and get the hell out of Mazeroth in eighteen months. Unlike outside, they wouldn''t know his identity so he had no need to worry about making enemies.
His n however started to work sooner than he expected.
Chapter 464 Picking up a fight
Chapter 464 Picking up a fight
The Warriorsmon room was located in the dungeon a couple of floors beneath thebat ssroom. It was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling, from which round, reddishmps were hanging on chains, giving the light in the room a red and silver tinge.
A fire was crackling under an borately carved mantelpiece ahead of them, and several figures were silhouetted around it in carved chairs.
Themon room had lots of low-backed ck and dark red button-tufted, leather sofas, skulls, and dark wood cupboards. One of the wooden tables had a few daggers and scrolls on it. The walls were decorated with tapestries featuring the adventures of famous warriors ever to live. It had quite a grand atmosphere, but also quite a cold one.
Currently, five students were upying the sofas set in the middle of the room and discussing something. One of the three men sitting on the sofa was Elliot Watson, the head prefect of Mazeroth and the man who got Gaya fired. He was not in his silver armor and carrying the heavy sword, he was wearing a linen ck full sleeves shirt, ck trousers, and a pair of silver boots.
On the opposite side of Elliot, on a couple''s sofa, Elliot''s best friends and also lovers, Deacon Saunders and Bethany White were cuddling. Deacon unted his chiseled muscr upper body and his raven ck long hair. The callouses and veins bulging out of his tanned skin weremon among the cksmiths like him. Bethany White had striking red hair, an oval face, and shining blue eyes. She was Deacon''s fiance and also a 4-Star runemaster as well as the heiress to the powerful White Family in the Ozer continent.
While Deacon and Bethany were entangled in cuddling and smooching, a blonde girl in a loosely tied ponytail was making tea for everyone in the room. She would remind someone of Alicia as the girl looked cold, unsympathetic, and not at all friendly. The fifth person in the room was Diego Carter, a messy purple-haired young man wearing skinny ck leather trousers and a rainbow-colored sparkling jacket. Out of the five, he was the only one standing in the corner of the room, watching them with a tinge of jealousy painted on his face. His eyes particrly focused on Bethany while his hands were rubbing his crotch.
He quickly took his hand off of his crotch when one of his minions entered the room.
"Oh," the minion was surprised to see the head prefect in the room,
"Hey¡Elliot" the minion stuttered. His eyes were desperately searching for Diego until theynded on Diego.
"Boss, you have to see what''s going on in the training grounds" the minion tried to lower his voice but all of them heard him,
"What?'' Diego rolled his eyes, he was quite annoyed by his minion''s untimely entrance,
"There''s an alchemist showing off by breaking the dummies"
"So?" Diego once again rolled his eyes,
"The dummies were put to hardest difficulty"
As soon as the minion said this, everyone turned their gazes at him. Deacon and Bethany stopped smooching, Erica halted brewing the tea and Elliot adjusted his spectacles.
"Are you fucking with me right now?" Diego bore his teeth like a mad dog which made the minion take a step back,
"Of course not, he''s still at it"
"Did I hear you correctly? Is he destroying the dummies which were put on the hardest difficulty or is he getting his ass kicked by the dummies?"
The minion frowned. He was sick of Diego and his attitude. Only because being a friend of Elliot''s friend had some advantages in Mazeroth, he would have stopped putting up Diego''s shit a long time ago.
"Yeah stupid deff motherfucker, he is the one kicking ass " the minion wanted to speak these words,
"He is destroying the dummies. Until I was there, he didn''t even get a cut from the dummies" Unfortunately he could only speak these words,
"That''s really surprising" Deacon spoke in a thick voice,
"Bullshit" Diego rebuked,
"When was thest time some tried the hardest difficulty dummies and left the ce unscathed? Especially lowly alchemists who can''t even fight a wild boar" Diego grabbed the minion''s cors,
"They are not inferior to us Diego"
Elliot''s deep voice made Diego let go of the minion''s cors,
"If anything, they are superior to us" Elliot stood up, walked to the minion, and fixed his robes,
"With training, an alchemist or a runemaster or a cksmith can be a fearsome warrior" Each word escaped his mouth clear and sounded like a bell chiming loudly,
"Like Deacon here" Elliot looked at Deacon and continued,
"But if history has taught us something, not a single student of warrior house specialized in a rune mastery, alchemy, or smithing" As he was talking, he went to Erika and took the cup of tea,
"To be a warrior, one must respect another"
"Respect is earned Elliot, not asked" Diego rebuked once again,
Elliot just smiled at his snarkyment,
"Yes respect is earned but you have to give respect to get respect"
Diego gritted his teeth,
"Why are we even talking about this? What if an alchemist is beating the dummies? Deacon did it, Elliot did it and for god sake, you did it so many times" Bethany tried to diffuse the situation as usual. They all knew Diego was jealous of Elliot and hated him for his strict principles. If it was someone else, they would have thrown off Diego like a piece of trash but not Elliot. He always tried to teach Diego better no matter how many times Diego failed him.
"Don''t put me and a lowly alchemist dog on the same level!" Diego snickered, raising his voice at Bethany. Deacon did not like the way he talked to Bethany but before he could say something, Erika interjected,
"You are overreacting Diego" Her words were like pouring fuel into the burning fire.
"And you" Erika''s cold gazended on the minion. He shuddered to look at her sharp gaze.
"Get out of here, you''ve done enough" the minion immediately ran away from the room.
"Can we go back to what we were doing baby?" Deacon said, kissing her neck. Seeing the girl he loves cuddling and smooching in front of him with the guy he hates the most made Diego''s blood pressure soar through the roof.
Ever since Deacon and Bethany got engaged, Diego lost it. Elliot knew that Diego was in love with Bethany since they were little. However, Bethany chose Deacon and Diego asked Elliot to break off their engagement only to be denied by Elliot. Not only did Elliot refuse to help Diego but also told him to move on.
"I will show you overreact" Diego growled before storming out of the room.
For Diego who craved Bethany''s attention, anger was the only thing that earned him her attention. Hence, he voluntarily picked up fights with fellow students. Elliot was widely respected by the students of all houses and only because Diego was his friend, many did notin about his behavior to Headmistress Ka.
Bethany was unable to continue smooching when her friend walked out of the room furiously. She stood up to follow him behind and so did Deacon,
After the three of them left the room leaving Elliot and Erika behind, she came to his side,
"How long you''re gonna put up with him Elliot?" asked Erika putting her hand on Elliot''s shoulder
"Until he sees the errors in his ways," He said as he walked towards his room to wear his uniform.
"I don''t think it''s time sooner," she said with a cold face,
"Love is a powerful force, Erika. It can bring out the best or worst version of one''s self. In Diego''s case, its thetter"
************************************
"Oh boy, you are really good at this" Michael was ripping the arms off a dummy when he saw Gilrine descend from the sky beside him. Michael momentarily paused the training to greet the big man,
"They are just too weak" Michael calmly said and rubbed the blood on his knuckles on his robes.
Gilrine was stunned. Somehow Michael''s words didn''t look like boasting. After all, Gilrine could see the mountain of dummies lying on the ground nearby.
"You finished training?"
"For now, I am waiting for someone"
Gilrine saw a light grin emerge on his face. He looked around to see only students gawking at him bewildered. The big man noticed several girls staring at him with blushed red faces. He could tell they were undressing him in their minds. Even the elven girls couldn''t take their eyes off of him.
Strength, power, and skills surpassed the racial thing.
The students didn''t resume training even after Michael finished his training, at least, they thought he finished training. Just when they thought the show was over, they saw Diego arriving at the training ground pushing the students onto the ground who stood in his way.
"Herees trouble," Gilrine, who was familiar with Diego''s behavior, mumbled under his breath.
"Finally" Michael was delighted inside. The intel Gaya gave him paid off as he expected. The troublemaker friend of Elliot hade to pick a fight with him atst.
Sometimes he surprised himself when he could manipte these people so effortlessly. He hated fights with cringe young masters like Diego. Still, the need for badass points pushed him to pick a fight with them.
Michael''s eyes of darkness enabled him to see through Diego''s cultivation level. To be honest, Michael was disappointed to see his Core Strengthening stage 1 cultivation. So even if Diego was to use arch energy, Michael could mop the floor with him without breaking a sweat.
Besides, his purple hair and the sparkling jacket almost made Michael burst intoughter. Diego resembled a clown and it was so funny to see a clown looking at him with murderous intent in his eyes.
"Do you wanna get out of here and have a mug of ale?" Gilrine asked Michael,
"Hand over your training ground card" Diego ordered Michael. The students immediately became excited. They could sense the tension and wanted to witness Michael fight with a warrior instead of dummies. That way they could determine whether he had real battle skills or not.
"I am not finished yet, go back to your counter" Michael pretended not to know Diego and treated him like a servant. Gilrine almost spat out to see Michael shooing him away like a puppy.
Diego''s anger exploded within him. As Michael turned his back on Diego, he growled,
"Don''t you know who I am?"
Michael ignored him as though he did not hear Diego. He was intentionally pissing off Diego for amusement.
"I am talking you asshole" Diego walked towards him bridging the gap between the two.
"Why don''t we all take a deep breath huh?" Gilrine tried to diffuse the situation even though he could tell there is no reasoning with Diego.
Chapter 465 Sudden Duel
Chapter 465 Sudden Duel
Sudden Duel
Those who were studying in Mazeroth since they were little knew about Diego''stest change in behavior and expected trouble. Those who didn''t however curiously stared at the scene to see what was going to unfold.
Diego couldn''t believe a newbie was ignoring himpletely. Great insult.
The rule of no duel between students prevented Diego from venting his anger on the alchemist. The giggles and chuckles reaching his ears fanned the mes of his anger.
Once again, Diego menacingly bore his teeth at Michael,
"I challenge you to a duel" Diego eximed pointing at Michael,
Still, Diego''s challenge was unable to draw Michael''s full attention. Being ignored in front of all the students as well as his crush did not go well with Diego. If it wasn''t for the rule, Diego would have already cast a spell and initiated the battle.
His eyes began to twitch along with his cheeks in overwhelming anger brewing inside. On the other hand, Michael resumed the training as several dummies materialized before him to fight.
"Go y with someone else" Michael talked to Diego as though he was talking to a child. Plus, he sounded slightly annoyed by Diego which made some giggle.
"Good, at least now I know your pathetic skills are limited to dummies, dummy" Diego snickered as he shot out a bullet of spit onto the ground.
He meant it as a sign of hostility yet Michael remained uncaring. Diego''s anger was soaring through the roof. While the tension between Michael and Diego was gradually rising, thebat professor Steinmeyer made an appearance. She gracefully descended from the sky,
"What''s going on here?" Asked Gaya with a frown looking back and forth at Michael and Diego.
When her piercing gazended on Diego, her frown darkened,
The students became stiff in front of her. Although Diego was on the verge of losing his mind, he was still not crazy enough not to give the respect a professor deserved.
"Professor Steinmeyer"
Even Gilrine took the position of standing at ease as though he was a soldier and she was his general.
"Professor, I want to challenge him for a duel," Diego said with gritted teeth. Gaya could literally hear his teeth gnashing against each other.
She could have simply said yes as per the n but she turned to look at the pile of dummies for a moment,
"I assume you did this," She asked Michael pretending not to know,
Michael responded with a simple nod as she turned her gaze back to Diego,
"Let me be clear, you want to have a duel with an Alchemist?"
The students could hear the amusement in her voice,
"If he''s not a chicken" Diego growled. He had absolute confidence in his ability, he was after all a prodigy who has yet to lose a duel. With or without arch energy, he would win, at least he thought like that.
After hearing Diego, she almost burst intoughter. She trained Michael in Serpent maga, one of the deadliestbat styles in the world, and recently, she was having a hard time coping with him. She rarelynded a punch or kick on him. Yet, the clown-looking kid was asking Michael for a duel without having any idea of his skills. The funny thing was Diego had the chance to back off after witnessing what he did to the hardest difficulty dummies which could give a battle-hardened Core Strengthening stage warrior a run of their money.
"I will allow it under one condition"
Gaya gracefully walked toward Diego with her hands behind her back.
"No spells, no runic armaments"
Diego snicked sowing his confidence,
"It''s not fair," Michael calmly spoke. The students quickly started to specte and guessed he was trying to back off. Branding him as a coward and a showoff was easier to ept than the fact an alchemist was better than them in terms ofbat skills.
"Don''t say you''re having cold feet" Diego revealed a menacing grin onto to be shocked by Michael once again,
"It''s not fair for you. You would have had a tiny chance of making me break a sweat"
His words contained arrogance, dominance and confidence. For most of the students he looked extremely arrogant but for Gilrine, something told him that he had the means to back his words. Of course in Gilrine''s entire life, he had never seen an Alchemist battle a Warrior student and win. Still, Gilrine believed that life was full of surprises.
"Clear the area"
Her voice sounded throughout the training ground like a thunder p. For a few moments, the students stared at her with bewildered faces. None of them expected the duel would happen then and there.
It only took the students a couple of minutes to back away from where they were initially standing. Soon, the students formed a circle, and Gilrine, Michael, Gaya, and Diego remained in the circle.
In the excitement to see a sudden duel, the students failed to notice Elliot, Bethany, Deacon, and Erika joining them. They stood atst as they would rather not attract any attention to them. Besides, except Elliot, the others couldn''t believe in the Alchemist. Elliot looked into the eyes of Michael and saw a battle-hardened warrior. In the face of a challenge, his face showed no agitation or uneasiness. He was calm, collected, and focused which Diegocked.
"I hope you have better skills inbat than you have in fashion"
Hearing Gaya''s words, some students couldn''t hold back theirughter. They just burst intoughter, further fanning the anger me of Diego.
She ascended to the sky to oversee the duel as a professor should. Gilrine also joined her in the air as Diego removed his sparkling jacket and threw it on the ground.
Standing on the opposite side, Michael did nothing. He didn''t even roll the sleeves up but waited for Diego to make his move.
"I don''t have all day" Michael calmly uttered these words finally making Diego dash at him. The closer Diego got, the more excited everyone became. Many students could be seen entering the training grounds in a rush to see themotion but they never expected to see a duel between an Alchemist and a Warrior.
Immediately the neers deemed Michael as the loser when they saw his green robes. Even the Alchemists cursed at him for challenging a Warrior. Outside of the Akn realm, the Alchemists enjoyed fame, wealth, and stardom. However, in Mazeroth, they were treated as low ss. Part of the reason was that Alchemy students failed toe up with new potions and pills to wow everyone for a couple of hundred years while the other students invented new battle skills, runes and forged powerful weapons.
There was also the reason thatpared to the other students, Alchemy house contained more subpar talents. They might be prodigies outside but here, they were considered subpar. Coupled with Professor Lane''s cold treatment and constant ridicule, the House of Alchemy had long lost its former glory.
When Diego was just arm''s reach from Michael, he threw his fist at Michael. Despite Diego''s look, his punch was extremely fast and contained enough force to dislocate the jaw bone. Just as the fist was a few inches away from his face, Michael easily evaded the punch. Diego was surprised by his speed yet he quickly threw a punch aiming at Michael''s guts.
This time was no different than the previous one as Michaelfortably and very easily evaded the punch by just taking a step sidewards. The veins were popping out of Diego''s pale skin. He was too mad. Michael however grinned inside, bathing himself in badass points. The constant sound of notifications ringing in his head was exhrating for him.
Deacon, Bethany, and Erika who had witnessed Diego fight before werepletely caught off guard by Michael''s reflection and speed. They had not battled Diego personally but they saw Elliot and Diego train together. In their training, Diego would almost fight head to head with Elliot. Their battle would go for hours before always ending up in a draw. The trio very well knew that Elliot was holding back in the duel so Diego would train harder and harder to win him,
Meanwhile, Diego''s movements evolved to be faster and faster to the point many students had a hard time believing they were fighting without using Arch energy. Each and every punch and kick Diego threw at him was precise, deadly, and elegant which revealed the fact that Diego was taught a powerful deadly closebat technique. If Diego fought someone else, he would have easily won. His bad luck, he met Michael who reached 98% mastery in Serpent Maga. The normal version of Serpent Maga was deadly enough to be ranked as one of the deadliest closebat techniques. After the changes made to the technique by Michael, it evolved into something far more deadlier than any technique in the world.
Because of that, no matter how fast or quickly Diego moved, Michael dodged without breaking a sweat. For Michael, it almost felt like watching a slow-motion movie. He could predict Diego''s moves before even he could make them.
The battle showered him with almost thirty thousand badass points within a few more minutes. Since the rain of badass points was showering him with points, he decided to drag the fight a few more minutes to maximize his earnings.
"Arghhhh" Diego growled as he felt more and more annoyed by the fact that he has yet tond a blow on him. Almost all the students stared at the fight with their mouths slightly opened. They werepletely stunned by Michael.
Right at that moment, Edith and Victoria rushed into the training grounds to see the duel.
"You''re right, it is him" The moment Edith saw Michael, she was surprised.
She couldn''t believe Victoria was right to tell her that it was Ghost who was the Alchemist who pissed off a Warrior.
Victoria and Edith squeezed through the crowd to reach the front so they could get a better view of the battle.
"If this is the best you can do, maybe you''re in the wrong house" while evading Diego''s punches, Michael uttered these words. They were not loud but loud enough to reach the ears of every single student.
"Son of a bitch!" Diego raged after hearing those words. Bethany was watching the battle and the thought of him getting yed by an Alchemist in front of her stabbed straight through his ego and pride. Unfortunately, he failed toprehend that Michael was just getting started.
Chapter 466 Becoming a student again
Chapter 466 Bing a student again
The duel was going on for fifteen minutes without either of themnding a blow on the other. As the minutes passed by, Diego gradually started to lose his stamina and breathed heavily. Tiredness was visible on his face and his moves. His fighting technique became more chaotic and less finesse. It was logical, any fighter who couldn''t touch his opponent would lose their mind and be somewhat of a wild fighter.
Finally, Michael started to feel bored of evading the punches and kicks. He noticed the fall in badass points so he decided to spice up the fight.
"You really think less of alchemists right?" Michael questioned Diego while simply evading another one of Diego''s punches. He made dodging punches look so much easier.
"When your jaw is dislocated" a millisecond after these words reached everyone''s ears, they saw Michael grab Diego''s fist. Diego quickly used his other hand and tried to punch Michael only to get caught by him once again.
Bang!
Holding Diego''s two fists, Michael headbutted him with enough force to dislocate his jaw as said. The jaw bone let out a crackling sound
"Ribs are broken"
Michael pulled Diego closer without even giving Diego any time to scream in pain. Following the headbutt, Michael sent his knee to Diego''s ribcage.
"Grrr!" Diego growled, immediately coughing out dark blood.
"Nose broken" Michael bent him down before sending his knee to Diego''s nose. The crunching sound emanated from Diego''s face,
"Ouch" Gilrine couldn''t help raising his brows,
At this point, Diego''s body almost gave up. His ribs were broken, his jaw was dislocated and blood was gushing out of his broken nose,
Diego''s vision blurred, it took everything in him to stand on his feet. His body and mind screamed at him to give up and the only thing that prevented him from giving up was Bethany who was watching the duel horrified. Even Deacon who had no good things to say about Diego somewhat felt pity for him. Some students thought the duel went far enough and wanted the professor to intervene, only to see Professor Steinmeyer enjoying the brutal fight with cookies.
"You want some?" asked Gaya looking at Gilrine. In normal situations, Gilrine would have taken the delicious buttery cookies in her hand. Considering it was not the case and shocked to see a professor act so cool instead of putting an end to the duel, he had no appetite. In fact, he lost his appetite for the ale he wanted to drink afterward.
"Professor, shouldn''t you stop the duel?" meekly asked Gilrine
"Suffering from severe concussion"
The students noticed Michael finally let go of Diego and wondered what he was going to do next. After hearing what he just said, they started to have some ideas. At this moment, Diego was breathing heavily, drooling blood.
One single 540 kick¡that was all it took to knock the light out of Diego. The kick was elegant, fast and powerful. The kick literally sent Diego flying for a few meters before he crashed onto the ground.
"You will need an Alchemist and a healing potion" his voice was crystal clear. It was a statement directed to every single student who thought less of Alchemy and alchemists.
Even though Michael nned to specialize in every single specialization there was, he had a special ce for Alchemy in his heart. After all, Alchemy was his first specialization and the first things would always take a special ce in people''s hearts.
After everything was said and done, Michael adjusted his cors. A duel with a bully like Diego may have been cringe yet it earned him enough points to settle the debt to the system.
"Now I can stop the duel" Stuffing thest cookie in her mouth, she informed Gilrine. Then, she slowly descended near Diego. Bethany was standing in the front waiting for Gaya to conclude the battle.
"Pathetic" Gaya disappointedly shook her head looking at Diego''s unconscious body,
"This is what reality looks like students except he would have been dead right now" Before concluding the battle, she spoke to the students around her.
"You all take so much pride in being a warrior. But let me tell you something, out there, in the real world, you''re just another young master and young miss. If you value your lives, I''d rmend you not to piss off any real warrior" she emphasized the word ''real warrior'' to shame the rest of them. To be honest, the students couldn''t rebuke. Many knew that if they went against Diego, they would have lost the battle with or without Arch energy.
Her words formed a crack in their pride and ego.
"He wins" Gaya simply pointed at Michael and said. Then she poked Diego with her toe,
"And take him away"
As soon as Gaya said this, Bethany rushed to Diego and ced his head on herp. She gently opened his lips, pouring the healing potion into his mouth.
"Case in point" the smile that emerged on Michael''s face made some Alchemists proud while almost all the warriors hated him and saw the smile as a snicker.
Michael couldn''t care less about the students'' opinions of him. As far as he was concerned, this day was extremely fruitful. He trained, earned badass points, lured an arrogant asshole into his trap, earned badass points, beat the crap out of him, and earned badass points.
He walked away from the training grounds like nothing happened, leaving the crowd stunned. Victoria wasn''t impressed by the result of the fight because she knew Diego had no chance against Ghost. However she liked the fact that Ghost did not take any crap from Diego, he was ruthless, humiliated his opponent to leave a permanent scar thus breaking the opponent''s spirit, and left the area like a badass instead of showing off and boasting.
What he just witnessed really made Elliot question whether he did the right thing or not by getting professor Steinmeyer fired. To be honest, he never expected Diego to bepletely trashed by the alchemist student. Diego should have at least put up a decent fight yet what happened was theplete opposite.
Elliot wondered where the alchemist student hailed from and who was his mentor. What he disyed wasn''t enough for anyone to fullyprehend or figure out what kind of fighting technique he mastered. Elliot however was able to tell that it was an extremely powerful and deadly fighting technique.
The following days were pretty much uneventful. As one would expect, all the warrior students viewed Michael as their number one enemy while some alchemists tried to be his friend. Some students went another step and asked Michael to marry them. Michael politely refused their proposals.
Those who asked to be his friend however received that blessing. He would refuse marriage proposals but not friendships. Connections were just as important as gold coins, Michael knew this.
To summarize, Michael made quite a lot of friends in the Alchemy house, and through Elidyr, he also made connections with runemasters though he failed to make any friends from the house of cksmiths.
**********************************
In a blink of an eye, two months had passed. During these two months, Gaya continued teaching the students the art ofbat. Everything was just a pretense to keep her job and make her look like a great professor. Thest thing she would do is teach her potential enemies to be stronger.
Nightmare reached the Core Formation level 8 from level 5. In addition, he also learned a few battle tactics from Gilrine and the magical beasts professor.
Meanwhile, Michael spent almost all of his time in the Alchemy ssroom with Professor Lane. During the sses, Professor Lane almost ignored the others and took a special interest in Michael. Professor Lane would often give the other students the task of concocting a pill or brewing a potion while giving Michael the toughest assignments which Michael did with ease.
The other students were jealous but they would rather be ignored by Professor Lane than spend their time with him like Michael. Right at the moment, Michael and Lane were alone in the Alchemy ssroom as usual. They lost track of time and failed to notice the hour hand and the minute hand pointing at 12 in the clock.
"Use Chimera Strand, it will increase the potency and the purity"
Professor Lane instructed Michael,
"But it''ll make the potion unstable. We could use Kelpie''s hair. It''smon, and doesn''t smell like rotten eggs" Michael counter-argued with Professor Lane which only a few had the guts and knowledge to do so.
Michael had grown to like their exchange of knowledge. At first, Michael thought Professor Lane was just a 5-star Alchemist and he had nothing new to teach him. However, he soon learned that he waspletely wrong. Professor Lane was a 6-Star Alchemist. Only a few in Mazeroth knew this.
Professor Lane was the reason for Michael to decide to stay in Mazeroth until graduation without leaving Akn Realm. Knowledge was power and he was learning much more from Lane every day.
Hearing his argument, Professor Lane approached the table with a bluish vial. He ced the vial on the table before him,
"That''s why anyone with a brain should use a newt vial. It will make the potion stable"
As usual, Professor Lane triumphed over Michael with his knowledge yet again. Everything he was learning from Lane was included in the next Alchemy book the system rmended him to buy. The system required him to reach Star level 6 if he wanted to absorb the knowledge from that book. Since he preferred not to spend 500,000 badass points on the Elven Rune, he couldn''t be a 6-Star Alchemist. Nheless, he was learning so much from Lane without spending a dime.
Moreover, he was getting close to Lane, thus, making him another powerful ally. If he could make Lane his subordinate, he would have a powerful subordinate under him even though Michael knew the odds of doing so were extremely slim.
With a flick of his wrist, Lane took a crate of newt vials from his space ring. The crate materialized on the table,
"You can use them in the uing talent exhibition" Professor Lane reminded Michael of the Mazeroth version of the tournament. Fortunately, Michael didn''t have to battle young masters but to show his skills in Alchemy.
Chapter 467 New Day, New Potion and New Weaponry
Chapter 467 New Day, New Potion and New Weaponry
"Hey man"
"How is it going?"
"Man, can you teach me how to extract the pure essence from the alpha bush?"
"Dude, you''re a lifesaver, I did what you told me and it worked!"
Michael was bombarded by greetings, gratitudes, and questions the moment he came through themon room door. Contrary to his initial n, now Michael was extremely popr among the students.
He earned and multiplied his poprity by helping other students, not to make them better alchemists but to form alliances. The students were prohibited to share their identity in public while they were in the AKn realm. However, they weren''t prohibited from reuniting outside of the Akn realm. Michael used this loophole to make friends. Every time one became his friend, Michael asked them toe to his g at Hades. This way, they wouldn''t have to share their identities immediately.
When they attend the g, Michael would introduce himself and form an alliance with them and their families. This way, his influence would spread not only to Ozer but also to the most powerful continent of them all, Awor.
"I''m gonna get some shut-eye, see you guyster" Michael really yawned when he was talking to them. He was so tired after pulling all-nighters for three days in a row.
Even the Dark Lord wanted some rest.
Michael''s room was empty. Usually, Elidyr would visit him and talk to Michael about enhancing the drones, and Spyders and discuss their next big project.
Opening the door, he was weed by a messy room. The empty vials were lying all around the floor, the apparatus setup was still smoking and letting out crimson red puffs of smoke, and jars filled with creepy-looking items as well as eyeballs of all colors. Even the walls were stered with posters that resemble blueprints and chemical equations. In addition to the apparatus set up on the table, there were also many nuts and bolts along with several blueprints.
"Home sweet home" Michael''s legs gave up as he copsed onto the bed,
The next thing he remembered was nothing but darkness.
"Michael, you have to mix Burning Buttons and Fever Buxus"
"No, it won''t give you the vivid experience you are hoping for"
"Radiant Aniseed¡you still have to see how much you should put inside"
"Forget about Aniseed, you still haven''t managed to find the form to the counter agent"
"Without the counter agent, you''re practically giving your enemies an ultimate weapon to be used against you"
"Are you crazy? You haven''t even figured out the right form. How do you n toe up with an antidote?"
All these voices were ringing in his voice and having a chat of their own. His mind was working at full capacity to create a new potion that would
help him in the long run.
"Lord Lucifer"
"Lord¡"
"Jeesh, I didn''t think a god could sleep like this"
Weird that usually, he would hear his own voices argue with each other, but now he heard Elidyr''s voice. His eyes refused to open up. The system and the Environmental scanning map would alert him if any intruders entered the room. That''s how Michael figured out whether he was still dreaming or it was Elidyr who entered the room. Either way, he wasn''t going to wake up just yet.
"It seems like he still hasn''t figured it out"
Elidyr sat on the chair, taking out several empty parchments from the drawer. He was scribbling on the parchments trying toe up with perfect runes to enhance Lucifer''s armor and their new project.
"What is this?" Among the parchment, one parchment had gray and blue lines on it. He opened it up curiously to see what was inside. They had been discussing the design for weeks without being able to find the right one.
He was surprised by what he saw, the design, Elidyr realized Lucifer finally figured it out. The tubr shape device was fitted with four wheels, aplex wiring, numerous rings of copper inside the device and mini pipes attached to every single ring that could be seen on the parchment.
"Wow, he finished it" Elidyr was more excited than he thought. When Michael said they were going to build a long-range mortar for Old Bertha, Elidyr deemed it a simple task. Then, they started to work on the design. That''s when they realized that building a mortar that''s capable of firing powerful mini torpedoes powered by Arch energy absorbed from the Stormville crystals. Of course, they couldn''t forget the ability of the torpedoes fired from mortar to track their target using heat signature.
If they managed to build the mortar sessfully, they could modify the cannons to adapt to the revolutionary technology. By that time, the cannonballs fired from the cannons would hit the target with 97% uracy.
Thanks to Michael''s recent upgrade to the 4-star Inventor trait, he was able to build a mortar. The challenge was to integrate Elidyr''s runes which would absorb the arch energy from the Stormville crystals and transfer the energy to the ammunition. Elidyr had toe up with new runes to pinpoint other ships using the heat they radiate.
Now that the design for the mortar has been done, it was his job toe up with the runes.
"You two are still on that?"
Edliyr felt a chill running through his spine when he suddenly heard Gaya''s voice. He quickly turned back to see her strolling into the room as she owned the room. She closed the door before Elidyr could ask what the hell was she doing in their room.
Then she walked straight to the bed,
"A, look at mah cutie pie" she sat on the bed beside her sleeping fiance. She took his head onto herp before gentlybing his silky raven ck hair.
"Shimmer dust¡goes¡with" Michael was mumbling in his sleep,
"Isn''t he cute?" she was melted by his cuteness and couldn''t help showering his face with kisses,
Elidyr was still in shock seeing her smooching with Michael in the middle of a day in a student''s room. She was jeopardizing not only herself by being here but also the two of them.
The troubled look on his face was visible through the dark lines on his forehead,
"Quit worrying half-elf, I''m conducting a room to room search to ensure the rules are being followed" she chuckled while saying those words.
Elidyr sighed thinking how much she was abusing her power to get what she wants and what they want. His frowns soon turned to a peal ofughter.
"I have fifteen minutes" she wrapped her hand around him to transfer the scented warmth from her.
Elidyr knew there was no point arguing with this woman, she was a Wraith after all. While he was picking his brain to create entirely a new rune, Lucifer was getting kisses from a pretty girl and yful headbutts as though she was amb.
Their rtionship reminded him of the rtionship between him and Gaya''s ancestor Edwina Wraith. He would give anything to see her one more time. Nheless, it was heartwarming to see her descendent has found someone who truly loves her. The more Elidyr spent time with Lucifer, the more he realized how wrong the Skyhall was about him.
He heard Lucifer''s side of the story and realized that Skyhall actually pushed him onto the path to be the Dark Lord. He had no choice. Even if he strayed away from his path and decided to live peacefully, they wouldn''t let him. They would chase him to the end of the world.
"Did he eat something?" Gaya asked Elidyr.
"How would I know?" Elidyr responded while drawing the new runes on the parchment.
"The sooner you two finish whatever you two are doing, the better"
"We might soon" Elidyr turned back with the parchment containing the design for the new mortars,
"He finished the design of the new mortars" Elidy handed over the parchment to Gaya as she stared at the design for a few moments,
Then a look of surprise emerged on her face. Her eyes widened,
"So they can really track the target shit and destroy it?"
Elidyr nodded,
"Yes, I''m close to creating the required rune. The only catch is, we will need a huge amount of the crystals you showed me"
A weapon like this wouldn''te so easily so what Elidy said wasn''t a surprise for Gaya.
"Speaking of crystals, I need an update on the new mining machine we asked Caius to build"
They now fully controlled the Stormville mountain and were mining the crystals in full force. Yet, the process was extremely slow and inefficient due to ack of advanced mining tools. To solve this issue, Michael designed new hydraulic rock drillers and pulley systems. Caius was tasked with finding engineers and schrs to transform the blueprints into actual machines.
Due to the sensitivity of the task, each and everyone who had been working on the project was given a pendant attached to the Spyder. The Spyders were constantly watched by Azazel and if anyone let out a word about the project, they would be immediately killed by the Spyder.
Until now, no one dared to utter a word, partially due to the fact they were being paid in hundreds of thousands. The southerners valued gold coins more than anything so it was easy for Caius to keep them in line.
Plus, Michael''s business endeavors were extremely fruitful. He was earning millions through the Hades and Majestic. The Pirate fleet under Corey and Maxine had been turned from pirates to sea guards. If a merchant ship carried valuable cargo, they could either pay 30% or be sent back to whatever they came from. On their way back, they might or might not be attacked by pirates and lose all the cargo and these pirates may or may not be connected to Maxine.
Almost 98% of the merchants chose to pay 30% rather than face the wrath of pirates. At first, the pirates were reluctant to change but after tasting loot they got by without even raising a finger enticed them. Now they were happily working as border patrol officers and getting what they wanted by negotiating instead of battling.
"So are you going to show any new runes in the talent exhibition or ignore it like him?" Gaya asked as Elidyr pondered about the uing talent exhibition for a few moments,
"I think thest thing we want is to make Skyhall stronger. Talent exhibitions do just that"
Chapter 468 Live feed from Alpha Guardian鈥檚 Warship
Chapter 468 Live feed from Alpha Guardian¡¯s Warship
"You sleep well human, I will see youter" Said Gaya, gently cing a soft kiss on Michael''s forehead. The fifteen minutes flew by in a blink of an eye. She hated to leave him yet she had no choice. ''When we are gonna leave this ce?'' That was the question running in her mind for some time. Because of her job and his role as a student, they couldn''t spend time with each other as they used to.
Eight months were gone, and ten months remained until he could graduate and leave this ce for good.
"I love you," Michael said before she could stand up and leave,
"I love you too" she whispered into his ears. Then, she left the room, but not without ruffling his hair yfully,
Almost three hourster, Michael opened his eyes. There was still exhaustion in his eyes. When he woke up, he noticed Elidyr was attaching a parchment to the wall. Then, he assessed the system for a second to look at the time. It was four-thirty. Fortunately, he had no sses for the day so he had some free time to spare.
"How is it going?" Michael rubbed his eyes to adjust his sensor to the light,
"You''re awake" Elidyr eximed as he continued to draw some symbols on the parchment in front of him. They had their curtains closed so the room remained always gloomier and dark. Right at the moment however, the room was getting brighter and brighter. In addition, there was also a low-pitched whistling sound emanating from the parchment.
Michael''s sleepiness quickly disappeared as he strolled toward Elidyr.
"s, I finished it" Elidyr proudly eximed looking at the purple rune on the parchment. For Michael, the rune resembled the symbol of Gemini. Only the symbol before him was letting out a bright purple glow.
"This part can and will absorb the arch energy from the crystals and send it to the mortar" Elidyr ran his finger on the crescent shape top part of the symbol. Then he moved his finger to the bottom of the symbol,
"The auto-targeting using heat signatures, this part is responsible for that. All we need now is to build the device and test it out on a target"
He willed the system to take out a Spycam from the system storage. The next second, the Spyder materialized on his palm. He pointed at the Spyder''s eyes to the wall,
"Azazel, are you getting this?" He connected his ear piece with Azazel,
"Yes my lord. Should I give this recording to Master Jonah?"
Every time Michael wanted to transfer the blueprint from Akn to the outside world, he would use the Spyder to record the contents which could be seen and recorded by Azazel. The Demon butler would hand over the recording to Jonah. He was responsible for drawing the blueprints on parchment and sending them to whoever Michael asked him to.
Communication between him and Azazel remained undetected by Mazeroth security arrays. However, the system warned him that with its current level, it''s unable to send items such as parchments, runes, and herbs from Mazeroth to the outside world.
Luckily for Michael, Jonah proved to be great at replicating blueprints.
"What are you gonna do about the rune? He won''t be able to copy this" asked Elidyr,
"We need to wait until after the talent exhibition" Michael nonchntly said,
"You mean the break?"
"Yeah. At that time, we can get out of here and finish the mortar"
While he was learning from Lane, Michael heard that the students will get a one-month holiday. Of course, Lane seemed against the idea of giving the students a break. His exact words were ''they are already buffoons with acorn-sized brains. Breaks will only reduce the size of their brain further''
Fortunately, Lane was not responsible for the holidays, it was up to Headmistress Ka and she saw no reason not to give them a break.
Michael nned to utilize this break to get out of Akn Realm and see how things are outside.
"Lord Lucifer" Michael''s train of thoughts was interrupted by Azazel''s voice in his head,
"You should take a look at this live feed" Michael was able to sense the acute amusement in Azazel''s voice.
The Demon butler rarely showed any feelings other than being calm and collected. Therefore, when Michael sensed the change in his voice, he was more than curious. He quickly waved his hand as a 36inch dark mirror appeared before Elidyr and him. The mirror hovered over to the wall and attached itself to the wall.
*******************************
The interior of the war room in Alpha Guardian''s airship was rather simple. The circr room had one door on the east side, arge round stone table in the center, and above the stone table was a chandelier to light the table below. One could count eleven stone chairs around the table. At the moment, a golden-haired elf and two humans dressed in red metal armor with golden engravings upied the chairs. The two soldiers looked pale. They almost looked as though they had juste out of the shower. They couldn''t help sweating uncontrobly, mainly due to the fear of what was going to happen to them when the Alpha Guardian returned from the headquarters.
The golden-haired elf was Tiriana, the best friend and the second inmand to the Alpha Guardian of hunter Guardians. The trio had no clue that another entity is in the room and transmitting everything they do and talking to the Dark Forest. The battle of Hades concluded when the Alpha guardians appeared with her soldiers. They took all the ninjas sent to attack everyone in the Hades. Michael wanted to kill many and take a few as prisoners so he could interrogate them to find out who sent them in the first ce. His n was rudely interrupted by the Alpha guardians. Although he failed to take the ninjas prisoners, he left a Spyder on each of the survivors.
The Alpha guardian beamed up everyone to her warship. Without her knowing, the Spyders infiltrated every corner of the warship and sent Azazel a live feed ever since.
"What do you mean you lost them?!" Tiriana mmed the stone table in anger,
"Mydy, we found this in the safe house" the soldier who had a tall stature, silver hair, and blue eyes ced a metal card on the table. He then rotated the table as the card reached Tiriana.
Her vengeful eyes finally moved from the soldiers to the ck card in front of her. She took the card, it didn''t feel heavy or anything. There was nothing on the card except the letter ''D'' was embossed in crimson red.
The card immediately reminded her of Lucifer but then, he always used the letter ''L'', not ''D''. Still, she couldn''t dismiss the troubling thought that Lucifer may have captured someone far more important to them,
"Magnior" Tiria cast a spell as a bright light enveloped the card. The light then slowly hovered over to the air above the table, forming the enhanced image of the card.
The image took the form of a holograph. The two soldiers stared at the card while Tiriana pointed her finger at the card, drawing a few symbols in the air. As soon as she stopped drawing the symbols in the air, a red smudge that resemble a fingerprint appeared on the card, just beside the letter ''D''
"That''s blood" Tiriana''s brows creased,
"But we didn''t see any signs of battle or blood stains in the safe house?" the other soldier who wore the same armor but had golden hair, and an oval face responded to Tiriana''s words with a mix of shock, doubt, and confusion,
"Were you able to locate the handler or any of the team member''s orb?" Tirian asked while still looking at the blood smudge on the card,
"We tried but to no avail, mydy. All of theirmunications orbs are offline" the silver-haired soldier answered. Following his answer, Tiria continued to draw some symbols in the air. Unlike before, nothing changed.
"This is serious, we must find her" The anger in her eyes was reced by concern,
"I need everything you have on her target on my table within the next hour, got it?"
The soldiers stomped the ground, saluting her.
"Yes mydy" they left the room leaving the sound of heavy thuds and Tiriana. For the next hour, she analyzed the card using every rune and spell she had in her arsenal. Yet, she found nothing.No clue, no hint, no marks of any kind to locate whoever left the card.
"I have to tell Tanulia" She mumbled under her breath.
Tanulia was known to Michael as the Alpha Guardian elf who he met in Hades. Azazel had never seen Tanulia in the warship after she brought the ninjas. ording to the guardians he eavesdropped on, Tanulia left for the Guardian Guild Headquarters in Awor for some important meeting with the other Alpha Guardians.
An hourter, the two soldiers came into the room carrying a small crate containing numerous parchments,
"This is all the information about the operation Desert Eagle, mydy"
The silver hair soldier ced the crate on the table, took the parchment out of it one by one, ced it on the table, and rotated the table once again.
"Leave" Tirian uttered an order. Usually, her voice would have sounded gentle and melodious, now, however, it sounded stern and intimidating.
"Yes mydy" the soldiers lingered no longer as they quickly rushed out of the room before they suffered the wrath of Tiriana.
After the soldiers left the room, she opened the parchments one by one,
"Magnior" every time she opened a parchment, she cast the spell. Then, the bright light enveloped the parchment before forming an erged holographic image of the parchment in the air above the table.
Each holographic image hovering in the air contained a drawing of either a man or a woman. Michael who was witnessing the scene through the Spyder immediately recognized not one but two,
"That''s Peyton" He saw Peyton in the mirror before him. Then he noticed another familiar face. Although she too had blonde hair like Peyton, she was far more prettier than Peyton,
"Sabrina Winston''
Chapter 469 Vampires
Chapter 469 Vampires
Michael was bbergasted to see Sabrina on the missing person list.
Several questions such as ''what was she doing with guardians?'', ''what was their mission?'' ''Where is Noah?'' ''Where did they go?'' appeared in his mind,
Looking at the change in his face, Elidyr asked,
"You know her?"
Michael nodded, "That my friend is, the future Supreme Guardian''s little sister"
Elidyr was visibly surprised. He didn''t think Lucifer would know who the next Supreme Guardian is,
As though Michael guessed his next question, he smiled at Elidyr,
"Killing Noah is out of the question, Elidyr. That old smoke made sure that never happens. At least it will not happen until I get stronger"
By stronger, he meant upgrading the system. To upgrade the system to version 5.0, he needed a whopping amount of 600,000 badass points. The system required him not to act against Noah at least until he upgraded the system to version 8.0.
He really wondered what the hell Andreas did for the system to be so careful and cautious.
"Which one? Andreas Mcleod?" Elidyr asked as Michael nodded,
"Do you know him?"
Michael turned his gaze away from Sabrina''s face to Elidyr. He felt curious and wanted to know about the famous Supreme Guardian Andreas McLeod.
" Never met him. But I heard he was a real hard ass and a prodigy. So this Noah person, how much does he know about you?" Elidyr rubbed his chin,
"Not much, I saved his family once or twice. He definitely has no idea about my identity. If he does, the entire guild would be at my doorstep the next moment" Michael chuckled,
They saw Tiriana scroll through every single parchment on the table. Michael counted eleven missing people including Sabrina and Peyton.
Several minutester, Tiriana waved her hand as another holographic image containing a man''s face and details such as name, cultivation level and threat level appeared above the table,
"Victor" Micheal saw the face of a short brown-haired man with a muscr build. He had a great memory. Hence, he recognized the man. Almost sixteen months ago, he met the man when he visited Phoenix ind for the auction. He was one of the Core Strengthening stage warriors who received special treatment from Lord Julius.
After offending Julius by killing Maria, Michael used teleportation to escape with Gaya. Before activating the scroll, he left a note in Victor''s pocket with the help of the system. Michael asked Victor to meet him on the note, except, to this date, Michael never saw Victor again until now.
Under Victor''s image, he saw the word ''High Threat Level'' and became surprised. Victor seemed to have managed to reach Core Strengthening stage level 6 from level 4. His threat level was higher than Michael imagined.
As he was staring at the images, another row of information appeared beside Victor; Last seen. Michael received another surprise. ording to the holographic image, Victor wasst seen traveling to the Southern continent.
"The plot thickens" Michael frowned,
****************************
Tiriana was collecting every bit of information she could about Operation Desert Eagle. Everyone including the leader of the operation and the help brought from the outside had gone missing.
While rummaging through the parchment, Tiriana heard the door suddenly open. She almost jumped back in sudden shock. Her heart calmed down when she saw her best friend and the Alpha Guardian, Tanulia Valren enter the war room.
"Tiri"
"Tanulia" instead of addressing her as Alpha Guardian like the rest of the guardians, Tiriana called her by the name, stood up, and hugged her tight.
"I heard about what happened. It''s not your fault, let''s find them" Tanulia patten Tiriana on the back. Everything said and done, the motherly expression on Tanulia''s face disappeared. Instead, a stern, dominant, pissed-off look reced the previous expression.
"What do we know about the target?" Tanulia used her dominant alpha guardian voice,
"Victor Hagen,st known cultivation stage Core Strengthening level 6,st seen traveling to the Southern continent in a merchant ship" Tanulia listed the basic information about Victor,
"Fifteen months ago, several young men had started to disappear in the outskirt viges of Dradel and Kethen. A few weeks after the disappearance, their bodies were found, mutted, and¡" Tiriana paused for a moment,
"Andpletely drained of blood in the forest surrounding the viges. The number of disappearances increased and every time, a week after, the bodies turned out to be as same as before, mutted and drained of blood"
"Any simrities among the victims?" asked Tanulia,
"There is only one, the bite mark. Every single victim had a bite mark on their lower neck"
"Vampires?" Michael was taken aback by surprise. What she said matched the description of vampire killings. However, he didn''t know this world had vampires.
"This matter was brought to the guild''s attention by Kethen''s King, Porter Forbes. Through a thorough investigation conducted by Guardian Captain Gerard Atkins and his team, they found clues connecting Victor to the victims. They sent a team of guardians but they were all killed" Tiriana paused for a moment and continued,
"They were all killed in the same manner, mutted,pletely drained of blood and all of them had bite marks" Tanulia listened to Tiriana showing no visible expression on her face. However, she was raging inside after hearing that Victor killed the guardians. Regardless of their race, they were guardians. Killing a guardian was a crime punishable by death and if one was tomit this crime, the Hunter Guardians would hunt him or her to the end of the world.
"Because of the threat level, Guardian Captain Gerard initiated Operation Desert Eagle and assigned Peyton as the leader of this operation"
Michael curiously waited for the part where Sabrina got involved in this. She was supposed to be studying at Holy Trident Academy. There was no reason for Sabrina to mingle with the Guardians except for her brother. However, something told Michael that Noah wasn''t involved in this. If he did, Sabrina would have gone missing.
"Peyton recruited these guardians and¡" With a flick of her wrist, Tiriana brought the images of ten guardians before Tanulia. She then hesitated for a second. Noticing the reluctance shown by Tiriana, Tanulia creased her brows,
"What is it Tiri?"
"Thest member she recruited¡is Sabrina" Tiriana waved her hand as Sabrina''s image appeared directly in front of Tanulia.
"Sabrina Winston, Noah''s little sister"
As soon as Tiriana spoke these words, Tanulia''sposurepletely changed. She mmed the stone table as the images started to flicker,
"What?!"
Tanulia''s roar echoed through the war room,
"What the fuck was she thinking?!"
Tanulia''s creamy white skin turned red along with her eyes which now looked as red as fire.
"She recruited someone who''s not even a guardian?!" she mmed the stone table once again. Seeing Tanulia''s outburst, Tiriana took a step back. Her legs were uncontrobly shaking because she had never seen Tanulia this furious before.
"That bitch is expendable. But not her" Tanulia pointed at Sabrina,
"If we are to lose Sabrina and Noah found out that his little sister died because of us, everything will be ruined"
Michael confirmed his suspicion, Noah indeed had no idea about his sister''s disappearance.
"What''s up with that girl and trouble?" Michael shook his head disappointedly. Despite his feud with Noah and the Supreme Guardian, Michael had a good impression on everyone in his family. Diana and Ethan always treated him like another son, Emelda, and Natalia was cool too but now after the tournament, Michael had a feeling that they might not treat him as they used to. Despite Michael nearly beating Andrews to death, Sabrina acted as though she was his little sister in front of him. Michael too liked Sabrina.
Regardless, now it seemed as Sabrina Winston got herself into trouble yet again. This time Michael would not be there to save her butt. If only Michael knew she was his little sister.
"We have to find her no matter what. Immediately contact every single guardian in the Southern Continent. I''m authorizing Code Red. Use all and any resources, I need Sabrina found asap. I will contact the other Alphas"
Unfortunately, Tanulia took out some kind of orb and the next moment, she was beamed out from the warship to somewhere else. So Michael was unable to follow Tanulia.
After Tanulia left the war room, Tiriana contacted the guardians on the Southern continent using several orbs. Her meeting with the guardians took almost an hour. Only then, Tanulia appeared in the room once again with a golden parchment in her hand,
"Here" Tanulia threw the parchment to Tiriana as she cast the spell to enhance the continents,
"Magnior"
Just like before, the spell formed a lightyer around the parchment before forming a holographic image of the contents above the table.
The holographic image contained a ck panther standing on its two legs like a human. The ck Panther had shiny fur, arms like humans,s and wore a golden chain around its neck.
"Send men to bring him to me" Tanulia ordered Tiriana. Although Tiriana had no idea who this beastman was, she had a feeling that this beast-man might be the only one who could find Sabrina.
On the other hand, Michael had a vague feeling that he met this ck panther somewhere else before,
"Alpha Guardian, who is this beastman?" Tiriana noticed the change in Tanulia''s voice and deemed she was less furious than before, so she asked the question that nagging her brain,
"I had to call in a favor from Alpha Guardian Kasim to get his help. This beastman is the best hunter in this world"
Hearing Tanulia, Michael began to connect the dots. He almost made the connection and if he was right, he didn''t meet the ck Panther but he may have met someone rted to the ck Panther,
"How much are we paying him? Hunters don''te cheap" Tiriana asked only to see Tanulia shake her head,
"Not a single coin. He doesn''t want any coins, he wants a favor from me. When the timees, I have to help him kill someone"
Tirian was stunned, she tried to change Tanulia''s mind about helping the panther in killing someone,
"I gave my word. When the timees, I will help him take a life"
** Dictator with a Badass System...Hunter.....Loading...Adjacent Universe to HBS...**
Chapter 470 Logan
Chapter 470 Logan¡¡¡¡"Why do I have a feeling that panther''s target might be you, Lord Lucifer?" asked Elidyr after Tanulia and Tiriana left the war room.
"Because I killed who may have been his rtive or a friend"
The images of a Bengal tiger beastman shed across Michael''s mind. Jacobe sealed his fate by trying to capture Gaya and he would have aplished that if it wasn''t for Michael''s timely intervention.
"We have a bigger problem now" Michael quickly cornered all his other thoughts
In case the threat was as bad as he thought, he would have a crisis on his hand. It was not like Michael liked to y goody two shoes, but if Victor was a vampire and he was in the Southern continent, he might start feeling on the southerners. The Southern continent was Michael''s stronghold where he wielded absolute power. Michael would let nothing happen to that stronghold until he built an army on the Southern continent to conquer everyone and everything in this world. Only by doing this, he could fight off the Great ns.
"Hey Elidyr, have you ever heard of vampires?" Michael almost scoffed. Two years ago, he would haveughed at the thought of vampires existing. He couldn''t do that now because he was transmigrated to another world with the system. As far as he was concerned, anything was possible in this world.
"No" Elidyr simply dismissed Michael''s suspicion. However, Michael wasn''tpletely satisfied. There must be a whole lot of things that even Elidyr, a few thousand-year-old ancient being didn''t know about.
"Azazel" Michael established a connection with his demon butler,
"My Lord" the butler responded in his utter obedient voice,
"Contact everyone in the Southern continent and order them to raise the security level. The viges in the outskirts must be guarded, no more reducing the strangers on the seas. They are to report to me immediately if they find anyone suspicious" While issuing orders to Azazel, he remembered something about Vampires,
"Be on the lookout for anyone wear dark clothes to avoid sunlight"
"As you wish, my lord"
After everything was said and done, Michael began his usual routine, trying to figure out the correct form for his new potion. Even the system had no recipe for that. He was creating entirely a new potion, mixing alchemy and technology.
**********************************
The vige of Rachdale was surrounded by lofty mountains and lush green fields. The hills were a beauty of their own, nature''s beauty. Except for the name of the vige, the people didn''t change at all. From the time the vige was founded, they grew vegetables, fruits, and other crops such as wheat, rice, and barley to support their lives. Twice a year, the crops would mature, and at that time, the vige would look as though golden sheets nketed it.
Rachdale had a very little poption, most of them were farmers and the rest of them traveled with the merchants to Crilta, one of the towns in Gisel and sold their harvest in the city to earn better.
They were simple people. They eat what they grew, they wear simple clothes, and most of all, they loved each other and always stood by each other in their time of distress. There was a strong bonding between every person in the vige. They were definitely not rich but very kind-hearted.
Today the vige was muddy, containing several puddles of water and countless footmarks due to the heavy fallst night. Currently, the sun was setting behind the lush green mountains, painting the vige in a mild orangy-red tint. There was always an apple tree in the vige for a tired viger to sit under and rx. On the outside, the simple beauty of the vige had a soothing effect on the eyes.
The evening was their time to rx with their families and take well-deserved rest. However, at this moment, rest was the farthest thing from them.
"We need to find my husband"
"My son has gone missing for three days"
"I have five goats missing from my farm"
The vige didn''t have many big buildings. Most of the farmer houses were simple, built with brown woods found in the nearby forest and roofed using silver bs sold for cheap in Crilta. Except for one building, none of them could hold more than four people and that building was the vige leader''s house.
At the moment, inside a hall lit with torches, the vigers were hollering at a 7ft hulking man. He had medium-length brown hair, brown eyes, and a goatee. The man may have looked terrifying due to his hulking body and the man-sized Warhammer he was carrying on his back, he was listening to the pissed-off vigers patiently.
Boom!
The sound of thunderps in the distance indicated the approaching heavy downpour. It was ominous.
"Logan, we have to put together a party and search for them" an old man with a long beard walked out from the angry worried mob of vigers,
"Yeah, you were a mercenary before everything. You cane out of retirement and help us Logan" a woman with puffy red eyes shouted from the crowd.
Their words immediately brought down some of the memories Logan desperately wanted to forget. The images of hisst job shed across his mind. The gloomy crypt, the swarming undead, the dead bodies of his group, and the man who killed everyone. Ever since that day, Logan wondered why he left him alive.
"NO!" Logan''s sudden thunderous roar instantly killed themotion in the hall. The vigers shuddered as all their faces went pale. They had never seen Logan lose his calm ever.
Reeling what his outburst did, Logan took a deep breath calming himself down,
"Tomorrow we will go to Freedom town and request King Tiberius''s help"
Just before the people could react to his words, a teenage boy mmed the door open. The boy was running towards Logan,pletely soaked wet. His face and leather armor was smudged with mud.
"Captain...Captain Rogers¡" the youngster mumbled
Then some of the citizens saw it¡the youngster was bleeding and they saw a dagger sticking through the youngster''s back,
"Dewey¡he''s bleeding" the vigers mumbled as the youngster stumbled down.
Logan immediately caught him before the youngster could hit the floor. He then gently ced the youngster down,
"Dewey, what happened? Where are Captain Rogers and the rest of your team?" While questioning the young man, Logan looked at the old man, telling him wordlessly to go and bring the vige healer quickly.
"Found¡Georgie¡dead¡something (cough) (cough)" the youngster coughed up blood. Logan gently grabbed the dagger sticking out of his back. The dagger was deep into the youngster''s spine, Logan could feel it.
He had enough life experience to tell that this youngster was on the verge of death and soo embraced the darkness. Nheless, Logan wanted to lessen his suffering as well as get as much information as he could.
"Everyone¡it¡blood¡drin (cough) (cough)"
Logan and the surrounding people could barely make sense of the mumblinging out of his mouth.
"(Cough)...killed¡(Cough)" the youngster began to cough up blood more and more.
"It''s gonna be alright Dewey, you''re gonna be alright. The healer will fix you right up" Logan smiled at the youngster, trying to make him calm down. He was a big man with a big heart so he wanted to send the young man as painlessly as possible.
"MY SON!" All of a sudden a womanpletely soaked in rainwater rushed into the room. She pushed aside everyone who stood in her way. When she saw Dewey lying on Logan''sp, bleeding and fighting for his life, she copsed to the ground,
For some reason, Logan couldn''t look the woman in her eyes. He med himself. It felt as if he did something sooner, Dewey wouldn''t have been like this.
"Dewey!'' the mother shouted,
"What happened to you!? NO! Oh my god! Someone help me!" her sickening cry echoed through the hall.
"He said they found Georgie" another woman screamed from the crowd,
"Yes!"
"We have to do something and do something now"
"YES!"
The crowd began to roar. Logan however didn''t hear anything but the cries of a mother who is going to lose her son soon. He couldn''t even imagine what she was going through. If he was to lose his wife Tessa, he would break into a million pieces. She was the only thing that kept him together and gave him a new life after the traumatic events he experienced on the undead ind. Every day he had nightmares. It took everything in him to fight through the nightmares and ovee the traumatic experiences.
He promised himself that he would leave the mercenary life behind. However, seeing Dewey''s mother, Logan decided to take on a task onest time.
"Gary, put together a team, I''m going to find Georgie and everyone"
Logan stood up with a resolution in his eyes to find the disappeared vigers. Until now, twenty people in the vige had mysteriously disappeared including three children and two young girls.
At first, they thought they left the vige, then, they thought those vigers were lost in the forest. Only when the team sent into the forest disappeared too, did they realize that something was wrong.
Of course, if Logan didn''t leave for Gisal to get some financial help from the senate, he would have sent for a search party sooner. It took the temporary vige leader two weeks to realize those people were actually missing.
Logan left the hall and entered his room where he saw his wife peacefully sleeping on the bed. Her pale was illuminated in the candlelight on the stool beside the bed.
Other than the bed and his wife, there was only an oak wardrobe and several roses in mud pots. He walked toward his wife. When he reached her bed, he moved aside her red hair and gently kissed her on the forehead,
"Sleep well Tessa. I wille back to you as soon as possible, It''s time I find these people"
She slowly opened her eyes. Her eyes were tired as her skin was so pale.
Looking at Logan, Tessa cked but her eye movement seemed restricted,
"I will take care of myself Tess. Don''t worry" Logan closed her eyes gently before cing another kiss on her forehead. Turning back, he walked towards the wardrobe, not to wear any new clothes but to take something he shouldn''t.
He was weed by several brown robes and skits neatly stacked as he opened the wardrobe. He opened one of the drawers where there was another set of brown robes. He lifted the stacked robes to see the empty bottom. Only he knew that it was a false bottom and lifted up the false bottom, revealing a ck card and a Spyder-shaped pendant lying there.
"Am I going to regret this?" he asked himself thinking about what he was going to do.
**Logan is one of the team member who went with Ross to the Undead Ind. Refer Chapter 237 if you don''t remember him**
Chapter 471 Mysterious cannibal
Chapter 471 Mysterious cannibal¡¡¡¡For a few moments, Logan just stared at the card and the Spyder pendant on the bottom of the drawer. He had no idea what the card and the pendent would do. He was left with this card and the Spyder pendant when he woke up in a dark alley of Crilta city. His instincts told him to take these items with him. He could feel in his guts that he needed these. Yet the memoirs they stirred in his mind prevented Logan from touching the card and the pendant.
"I hope not to see you again David" Logan mumbled,
"Or whatever your name is"
Logan closed the drawer and left the room.
As he walked out of the room, he saw the vigers with various makeshift weapons in their hands. Man, woman, child, every single one had some kind of weapon.
The old man with a long white beard approached Logan, scratching the back of his head,
"Sorry Logan, they are all pretty adamant about following you. They all want to find what''s going on here"
Seeing the vigers with weapons reminded him of Ross''s team. Although Logan worked with many mercenaries and saw many of them die in front of his eyes, what happened on the undead ind stalks him to this day.
He felt so insignificant and powerless in front of David, an entity who could use magic inside the void line. Ross and the team were the best of the bests yet they were no match for David. He killed them in a matter of seconds. If he had wanted, he could have killed Loga. For some reason, David left him alive, with the card and the pendant.
"I can''t take all of you with me" Logan sighed,
"WE ARE ENDING THIS LOGAN!"
"YES!"
"I AM SICK OF THIS!"
"LET''S GO!"
The vigers violently shouted. After being worried and scared, the vigers now became pissed. They decided to deal with whoever was killing and kidnapping their neighbors and friends.
"It''s risky and dangerous"
"NO!"
All the vigers shouted in unison to interject Logan. He was a good leader and the vigers respected him, that was why they were following him. However, they couldn''t stand behind not anymore. Every single one wanted to go out and find the person who was responsible for the kidnappings.
Looking at the resolution in their eyes, Logan realized there was no use arguing with them.
"Jerry, stay here and look after Tess" Logan whispered to the old man standing behind him,
The old man knew how much Logan loved his wife Tessa. It was a pity that Tessa fell sick and became paralyzed. The vige healers told Logan that it was one in a million illnesses that can''t be cured by anything.
Many advised Logan to marry another one and have children only to get outright rejected by him. Regardless of her state, Logan loved her as he always did.
"Of course"
"Everyone, wait outside. I''ll be with you in a minute"
After the vigers left the hall, Logan looked at the old man with a worried look on his face. The fearless leader wall he erupted in front of him crumbled down, revealing the vulnerable side of Logan.
"Follow me" the old man followed Logan into his bedroom and saw Tessa sleeping peacefully, or at least, the old man thought she was sleeping peacefully,
The old man saw Logan open up the wardrobe and soon, he took out a ck card and a pendent,
"If I don''te back, bring this to a man named ''H'' in Crilta and ask for David". Logan himself did not clearly understand the reasoning behind his order.
"I have this sick feeling in my guts about this Jerry. It''s like something evil is hovering over us" Logan lowered his voice and said to the old man.
Surprisingly the old man nodded, "Me too Logan"
"Do as I said. Sometimes we need one evil to defeat another"
The old man didn''tprehend the meaning behind his words. Logan turned his gaze towards his wife once again.
"Take care of her" Logan''s voice stuttered as the old man patted him on the shoulder,
"You should go, the vigers are waiting"
Logan nodded back, leaving the hall. He only carried his Warhammer on his back. He didn''t even wear armor because armor would restrict his movements, thus, reducing the power of his attacks.
The heavy rain was pouring down from heaven as everyone was soaked wet. Nevertheless, the viges gave no crap about the rain. They were too tired of this. At this moment, they only wanted to find the criminal and stop living in fear.
"Leave the children at home" Logan couldn''t bring himself to lead a bunch of children into a ce that might be a death trap. Most of the children among the vigers were between twelve to fifteen years old. They wanted to fight but Logan had no intention to bring them with him.
The vigers took a few minutes to think about it and decided to leave the children behind. Of course, the hot-blooded kids refused and tried their best to apany them to the forest but no avail.
Everything said and done, the vigers led by Logan made their way towards the forest. The vige''s hunter, Mort followed the blood trail left by Dewey. Because of the heavy rain, the tracks were nowhere to be seen except for Mort who was an expert tracker. With his help, they were able to follow the trail.
The downpour was so heavy that to be caught unawares meant being drenched to the skin. Each drop was asrge as a cartoon tear and they fell like gravity had been turned up a notch. The shes of lightning were their only light source that lit the path before him and enabled Mort to locate the blood trail. Following the trail with great difficulty, they entered the forest far away from their vige.
Usually, the hunters would go into the forest to hunt for meat and pick up herbs for healers.
The forest was huge, dense, and diverse. Its canopy was demanded by juniper, birch, and cottonwood, which provided just enough openings for light to pass down for a variety of ferns to flourish in the fertile soils below.
Coiling branches held onto the asional tree, and a variety of flowers, which grew dispersed and sparingly, stood out against the otherwise uniform backdrop. At the moment on top of the twigs breaking sound, a mixture of animal sounds, belonging mostly to prowling animals, reverberated through the air, and were in harmony with the barrage of noiseing from the rain.
For Logan, this reminded him of the undead ind so much. Cornering all the thoughts about the undead ind in his mind, he followed behind Mort.
"SHHHHRRR"
"Grrrrrrrrr"
"Grrgghhhh"
There was barely any light for the vigers to see what was in front of them. It was pitch ck darkness around. Thankfully, there were some fluorescent mushrooms glowed in a vague red color, dimly lighting the surroundings.
All of a sudden Logan quickly raised his hand as the vigers halted their steps,
"Shhh" Logan shooshed, telling people wordlessly to shut up. When the vigers stopped moving and whispering to each other, they were able to hear a vague indescribable sound appearing from a near distance.
Logan focused on the sound. The more he heard, the more it sounded like something feasting on something.
"Logan" Mort, the hunter who wore a cloak called Logan silently,
"It doesn''t sound like any animal I know. This might be what''s killed Dewey and the men. If it is, we can''t let it escape"
These people were not strategists or geniuses. So instead of thinking that whatever killed the most trained people in their vige might kill them easily, they decided to surround it thinking they have the advantage of numbers. They didn''t think that they might be outnumbered or walking into a trap. These vigers were kind of dumb and Logan knew that. Still, he had no choice. Besides, he himself was not a strategist or equipped to deal with powerful entities. The toughest challenge he face since he became vige leader was a seven-foot grizzly bear that terrorized the hunting grounds near the vige.
"Mort, take some of them and try toy a trap. Whatever it is, I have a bad feeling about this "
The vigers moved slowly in the direction of the sound following behind Logan. Another group of vigers followed Mort in another direction to nk whatever was making the sound and trap it. The vigers held the satchels, clubs, and makeshift spears in their hands tight. Their numbers gave them the strength and courage to face whatever was in front of them.
However, their courage and strength were shattered when they saw a cloaked figure feasting on the entrails of a body. The cloaked figure emanated some kind of red mist that lit up the surroundings and in that light, the vigers saw the dead bodies lying around.
The cloaked figure slowly stood up, its movements almost looked as though it was floating in the air. As soon as it stood up, the vigers felt a chill. This l male before them had snake eyes that were shined like rubies. His thick, straight, white hair was medium-length and floating out from the cloak covering his head. In the glimmer of light produced by the red mist around him, they saw his chalk-white skin, a skeletally thin body, and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers.
"So much blood, so little time" the cloaked figure spoke in a clear, cold, and high-pitched voice.
"What are you?" Logan was the first to question the frightening monster before them since Logan had the experience of meeting another terrifying person.
"A cattle shouldn''t ask questions" the cloaked figure let out a menacing peal ofughter.
"How is that young brat? I never thought he would bring his whole vige for me to feast on" the vigers shuddered after hearing the cloaked figure,
"I assume you want to fight although I''d rmend you not to resist. It will only make your death more painful" As he said, the figure removed his cloak, revealing his skull-like face and the two long canines that grew longer visible to the naked eyes when he grinned.
Whoosh!
In a blink of an eye, the cloaked figure turned himself into a mist of red. He disappeared from their sight but they soon saw him, biting a young man''s throat.
"AH!"
The vigers screamed as the figure sucked on the young man. In utter fear of what they had just seen, the vigers were stunned. While they were standing still, shivering, the man drained the blood. Just like that, the youngster copsed to the ground but none of the vigers could recognize him anymore. He was mummified.
"Youngblood, so refreshing" the man licked the blood dripping down his lips,
"Let the feast begin"
Chapter 472 Greater Vampire
Chapter 472 Greater Vampire¡¡¡¡Seeing the young man''s mummified body copsing onto the ground, the vigers were horrified. Their courage was diminishing faster than words written in the water.
"He¡he¡is using¡magic" the vigers shuddered. The grin on the man''s face pushed the vigers to take several steps back. Despite their numbers and the weapons in their hands, they were not shuddering in fear.
"Everyone, stand your ground" Noticing the vigers were on the verge of panicking, he ordered them to stay put although he himself was feeling the dread in his heart.
Logan witnessed what a man with magic could do to highly trained soldiers.
Ross and his team didn''t stand a chance in front of David, a magic user, let alone these vigers. The most dangerous threat most of these vigers faced was farm rats.
"You can also use magic" Logan tried to establish a conversation with the man so he could formte an escape n. Logan realized that lives are going to be lost. Still, Logan wanted to minimize the casualties as much as he could.
After hearing Logan, the grin on the man''s turned colder,
"You think I''m stupid, no one can use magic" the man had a power that enabled him to detect lies using the heartbeat. He sensed no bluff but truth,
"It''s no bluff. Just like you, he also used magic" Logan nned to draw all his attention toward him. This might let most of the vigers escape the area while he fights the man. He still had no idea how powerful the man was. In the best-case scenario, he would be able to fight the man for a few minutes, in the worst-case scenario, the man instantly kills him and ughters all the vigers.
"Why didn''t he consume you?" The man was curious. As far as he knew, only his kind would be able to use arch energy inside the void line. However, his kind would leave no witnesses alive, that''s how they stayed hidden for centuries.
If what Logan said was true, which seemed to be the case ording to his heartbeat, the magic-user let him live. That didn''t seem like a man of his kind would do.
Logan felt sick just by the fact this man ate those men. He cannibalized them and it was horrifying. Logan thought David was terrifying butpared to this man-eater, he seemed normal and pleasant.
"By consume, if you meant eating them, he didn''t"
The man was shocked yet again. His kind would always, always, and always consume their victims. Consuming blood and flesh was their lifeline. Without that, they would cease to exist.
"Instead, he offered us a chance to serve him"
Logan could see the dark lines on the man''s forehead getting darker and darker.
"He will consider a wage of war if you kill us or harm us in any way than you''ve already done"
The man immediately snapped as he sensed Logan''s lie.
"Lie!" the man dashed at Logan like a panther,
DING!
The man underestimated Logan''s reflex. Logan''s Warhammer met the man''s fingers which now had grown into long sharp ws.
"Not bad" the man menacinglyughed as he jumped back a few meters,
"For a dead man," he said, dashing at Logan once again. This time, his speed multiplied by several folds. Logan was barely able to see him.
DING!
Logan''s instincts made him raise his Warhammer to defend himself.
"ARGH!"
Logan growled when the man''s ws scratched his bare chest. The vigers who saw their beloved leader bleed for them kindled the me of courage in their hearts, at least in most of their hearts.
A few of the farmers jumped at the man,
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The vigers who tried to attack the man suddenly halted their movement.
No one could notice the red lines appearing around their necks. Soon, their heads separated themselves from their neck and hit the ground with a sickening thud sound.
Before the other vigers could react by screaming, the man dashed at the three headless bodies and sunk his teeth into one of the bodies of a male viger.
In a couple of seconds, the body withered,pletely drained of blood.
Just like the youngster the man killed a few minutes before. He didn''t stop with that as he grabbed the other body, sunk his teeth into the neck, and drank all the blood.
He was about to consume the third viger, Logan dashed at the man with his Warhammer rose up.
Boom!
The Warhammer missed the target as the man evaded it. The ground shook a bit due to the force behind the swing. It created a tiny crater in the ground. The man was surprised by Logan''s raw strength.
The shock wave created by the Warhammer knocked down a few of the vigers. Logan quickly bnced himself to face the man before he could kill any more of them.
"RUN!" Logan shouted as he dashed at the man,
Logan swung the Warhammer so effortlessly as though it was weightless.
For a human, Logan was strong and fast. He kept swinging the Warhammer to stop the man from killing any more vigers.
"Silly little cow," the man snickered. The man saw Logan keep swinging the Warhammer chaotically. Logan''s movements were getting slower and slower.
The man''s grin grew wider and wider. He put one hand behind and deflected Logan''s attack with the other. The man seemed pretty rxed and toyed with Logan.
Boom!
"ARGH!"
This time, the man shouted while flung into the tree several meters behind him. Logan pretended to get tired and lose his touch. Luckily, the man fell for that trick. When he dropped his defense and acted cocky, Logan utilized that moment to send his Warhammer straight into the man''s rib cage.
Logan felt a couple of ribs being crushed by his Warhammer.
"RUN AWAY!" Logan once again shouted at the vigers.
"Blood wave"
As soon as Logan heard these words, a wave of hot blood sted him and the vigers away.
The blood disappeared from existence as soon as it appeared.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Logan felt a wave brush past his face. His instinct automatically turned his head towards the vigers.
"Bastard!" Logan burned in rage when he saw the man cleaving several heads off. He sucked their blood so fast that he mummified ten vigers within a minute.
The more blood he sucked, the bigger he grew, the less he looked humane. The chalk-white skin gradually lost its whiteness and turned muddy brown. Then the red mist shrouding him faded into nothingness.
They were all pretty obvious changes but not as the extra three arms grew out of his back. Using his five arms together, he ripped off the cloak he was wearing to reveal the skinless bloody body hiding beneath the cloth.
Logan felt nauseated just by looking at this horrifying monstrosity.
"I''m gonna feast on all of you" the man spoke in a chilling demonic voice.
Inch by inch, he stepped closer to the vigers.
"FIGHT!"
"RUN!"
One group of vigers swallowed their fear and tried to fight while the other tried to escape into the woods. Logan picked himself up to fight the monstrosity even though he knew that the chances of them surviving this had grown slimmer.
Pulch!
"Grgghhh" the man halted his move as blood began to seep out of his mouth. Everyone including Logan was stunned. They then noticed pointy steeling out of the monster''s chest.
"Mort" Logan saw Mort, the hunter standing behind the creature drilling the steel spearing into him.
Mort retrieved the spear out only to stab the monster again and again.
After being stabbed through the chest several times, the monster finally drew hisst breath. It copsed onto the group.
"It¡ it''s dead?"
"Oh god"
"Is it really dead?"
"MORT!"
The vigers were stupefied, looking at the dead monster in front of them.
Some of the daredevil vigers approached the body, kicking it to see if it was alive or dead. Seeing the body did not respond, they thought it was dead and dropped their guard.
"Mort" Logan picked himself up with the support of his Warhammer.
The fluorescent mushrooms around them illuminated the fear on Mort''s face but more than fear, there was pride.
"This is gonna stir up so much shit" Mort moved away from the body and walked towards Logan.
And just as the crowd was surrounding the body and Mort was several steps away from Logan, Mort''s head exploded into red mist.
"You should have gone for the head" the demonic voice sounded. Soon, the monster they all thought was dead stood up.
"Blood mist"
All the vigers were shrouded by the red mist that appeared out from the monster.
"Argh!"
"Grghh"
"Agghhhh!"
Countless screams emerged from the red mist. Somehow, Logan was able to vaguely see the monster''s rampage. Thus, he leaped at the monster to stop its monstrosity. This time, Logan really swung his Warhammer chaotically in the hope of hitting him one more time.
"You arest" Logan heard the man''s voice sound in his mind. It was more of a feeling than hearing. Logan tried to prevent the monster from killing all the vigers yet his muscles refused to move.
"After savoring them, I will travel to the vige and consume your beloved wife" Logan''s heart almost jumped out of his chest when he heard these words in his mind.
"No" Logan screamed in his mind as the images of his wife and the loving memories he shared with her shed across his mind.
He felt desperate, trying to move his body using all the strength in him. Still, his body wouldn''t budge. The red mist soon died down, revealing the mummified bodies of the vigers. The monster had now grown to almost twelve feet tall. The air turned putrid, reeking of rotten eggs and blood.
His human features were nowhere to be found and now, he was a pure monster, pure horrific monster.
Tears rolled out of Logan''s eyes. He wanted to scream, curse and yell at the monster. He would have but no matter how tired he was, he couldn''t. His mouth was shut closed and refused to move.
"How stupid your imbeciles to think you can defeat a greater vampire?"
Chapter 473 Not a Subordinate Material
Chapter 473 Not a Subordinate Material¡¡¡¡The greater vampire hovered towards Logan with a clear intent to murder Logan. The only thing that prevented the greater vampire from doing so was the information Logan possessed about another magic-user. If he was to bring Logan to his coven, he might leverage it to get back his cover.
"Tell me who he is" the greater vampire threatened Logan. He lifted Logan by his neck so effortlessly. A tentacle-like tongue reached out to lick Logan''s face. Logan felt disgusted and sick. More than anything, Logan was worried about his wife. Half of his vige was gone and he hoped those who chose to run would escape and tell the senate what happened.
''You think this world doesn''t need saving? Open your eyes,''
''One day you''ll realize that the good guys aren''t enough to save the world''
Logan''s mind yed the words spoken by David when they were inside the pyramid. He couldn''t help regretting his decision not to join him. If he had, the vigers might have been alive.
"I shall ask your beloved wife then" the greater vampire grinned devilishly,
His words fanned the mes of Logan''s anger. He grabbed the greater vampire''s arm and neck.
"AAAAARRGGHHHHH" Logan growled as every bit of muscle in his body bulged out. The veins were popping out and trying to remove the greater vampire''s arm from his neck.
The greater vampire was far stronger than Logan, yet, the vampire was surprised by Logan''s power. Logan almost moved the vampire''s arm. Just as Logan was struggling, the vampire''s pointy ear twitched. Logan couldn''t hear a grumbling sound amidst the heavy rain and thunderstorms.
Boom!
Out of nowhere, a bright beam shot out from the sky.
"AH!"
The greater vampire screamed out loud as he let go of Logan.
"argh(cough)(cough)"
Logan coughed and looked up at the vampire to see him literally smoking.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" the vampire cried in agony standing in the center of the light beam. Logan followed the beam''s direction, only to see a giant airship hovering over them.
"NOOOOO!" the vampire''s body shrunk to its previous size. The longer he stood in the light, the more smoke he radiated.
Logan tried to grab his Warhammer so he could kill the vampire while it was vulnerable. However, the vampire noticed his hands moving towards the hammer.
"ARRGGHHH"
The vampire roared, this time, it wasn''t the cry of agony, but rather the cry of mustering all the strength in its body. Then, with all his strength, he jumped out of the spotlight into the darkness.
"THIS ISN''T OVER!"
These were thest words Logan heard from the monster before it disappeared into the darkness.
"Take the ropes"
A voice sounded from the airship followed by the appearance of ropes.
Instead of grabbing the ropes, Logan crawled to the dead bodies of his fellow vigers. Tears automatically rolled out of his eyes. The pain he felt in his heart looking at the headless mummified bodies made his heart bleed.
He wished things had gone differently. In truth, he never thought he would face another magic user. He thought it was a group of bandits or some criminals who were kidnapping and killing people, he thought he could take on them with the help of his vigers. Not in a million years, he expected to meet a monstrosity called a greater vampire.
"Buddy, take the ropes before that thinges back to finish what it started" another less serious voice talked to him,
Finally, after letting out a heavy sigh, Logan grabbed the rope hanging in front of him. He grabbed it as the ropes lifted him towards the airship.
The bottom of the airship slowly opened, letting Logan into the airship.
"Logan" when he entered the airship before he could even look around, he heard a familiar voice. The old man Gary came running to him.
"Gary" Logan was relieved to see the old man,
"What happened Logan?" the old man asked even though he looked like he guessed what happened,
"Where is Tess?"
"She is here" Logan sighed,
"Where are we?"
Several secondster, Logan asked the old man, looking around him. He was standing in an empty room with no windows. There was a door a couple of meters in front of him where the old man came through.
He walked towards the door. As they reached the door, the old man opened it to reveal a grandiloquent spacious hall. If Logan didn''t know he was in an airship, he would have thought this was a home of a wealthy noble.
However, Logan was not in the mood to immerse himself in the richness around him. Rather, he focused his gaze on the man and woman sitting on the sofa. They were none other than Tiberius and Maxine.
"You must be Logan, please take a seat" Logan noticed the dark-haired woman gesturing at him to sit in front of her. He had so many questions in his mind but looking at the dark robes she was wearing reminded him of a familiar person.
Logan wanted answers and he saw no other choice than talking to them. The old man and Logan approached the two of them cautiously. The old man seemed rxed around them because he knew who they were, unlike Logan. He heard about Tiberius but hadn''t seen him in person.
"We are terribly sorry about what happened to your vige" Maxine consoled Logan as they were taking their seats before them,
"I am Maxine and this is Tiberius"
The moment he heard the name ''Tiberius'', Logan was taken aback by surprise. He was the king of the newly found city called Freedom city. Until the crowning ceremony, they were calling it a city instead of a kingdom.
"We can''t revive all those you lost, but we can find and kill that thing that did it," said Tiberius. As a warrior, Tiberius connected with Logan and understood what he was going through. It was a real pity that he couldn''t save the vigers sooner.
"Where is Tess?" Before anything, Logan wanted to make sure his wife was fine.
p!
Maxine simply pped as a maid entered the hall pushing a wheelchair with Tessa on it.
Logan immediately ran to his wife,
"Tess, baby" he knelt before her, gently cupping her face. He couldn''t hold back the tears gushing out of his eyes,
"Don''t cry"
Logan''s muscles went rigid when he heard his wife''s sweet melodious voice after six months. A shaky smile built up on his face as the surprise sunk in,
"Tess"
"Courtesy of Lord Lucifer" Logan heard Maxine. He quickly turned back, feeling a hope of healing his wife in his heart,
"Lord Lucifer said you know him as David" Logan wanted to say he was surprised but he kinda expected it after seeing the ck robes she was wearing.
"David" he mumbled under his breath,
"We call him Lord Lucifer"
Maxine said with a smile but for Logan, it sounded like an order.
"Da-Lord Lucifer, can¡he cure my wife?" That was the first thing that came to Logan''s mind. ording to the healers, there was no cure for his wife.
To be honest, Logan always wondered whether he should try to contact David or not by some means ever since his wife fell sick.
In his mind, David was evil, he mercilessly killed Ross and his team even though he could have let them live. Compared to the greater vampire, David was a saint.
"Why don''t you ask him yourself?" Maxine flicked her wrist as a giant mirror appeared before them. Soon, David appeared in the mirror. Since he must not let anyone see his real face, which was Ghost, he changed his face to David face using the mask. He had never let anyone in the southern continent see his real face, including Maxine. Except for Azazel, no one knew Ghost and Lucifer were the same person.
"Do you think I am evil now Logan?" Michael asked void of any expression on his face,
"That''s a greater vampire you saw Logan. What happened to your vige was a pity. But soon, that would happen to every vige in the Southern continent"
To this moment, Michael was in a kind of surprised state because of the vampires.
"I''d rmend you to send the survivors to Freedom city. However, that decision is up to you now. I wish all the best in your journey Logan" everyone in the room was surprised. Logan expected David to ask him to serve him or something.
"Lord Lucifer" Logan immediately went to his knees,
"Please ept my loyalty"
Michael smiled as he shook his head,
"You''ve not the man I met Logan. You''ve gone soft. I don''t me you, you have a wife, and you love your peaceful life. The fire I want in my subordinates is no longer within you"
Logan tried to interject but was stopped by the wave of Michael''s hand,
"Even now, you want to serve me because you expect me to heal your wife," Michael said and turned his gaze to Maxine,
"Give her the special healing potion"
"Yes my lord" Maxine nodded before flicking her wrist. A glistening navy blue potion materialized in her hand. It was not the 90% pure healing potion Michael gave to all his trusted subordinates.
"Mix two drops in water and give it to her. In six months, she will bepletely cured. Take this as my gift to you Logan"
After seeing the decisions Logan made and the way he loved his wife, Michael decided not to take Logan as his subordinate. Michael expected his subordinates to perform some ruthless tasks for him. Logan however no longer had that ruthlessness in him, Michael was able to see that.
He was too attached to his wife. In the future, if Guardians or the Skyhall used Tessa as a hostage, Logan would spill the beans in a second. Logan wasn''t worth the trouble of making him and his wife Tessa a cultivator.
At least Logan served him onest time, luring the vampire and proving to Michael the existence of vampires.
Because of the soft part in his heart, he decided to heal Tessa and send Logan off with the final gift. It was a pity that Logan has gone soft. In case he hadn''t found Tiberius, Michael might have made Logan his subordinate. Since it wasn''t the case, Logan had no ce in his army as Tiberius was better than Logan in every aspect, importantly, Tiberius was ruthless and had no love interest.
Chapter 474 The Deathless Clan
Chapter 474 The Deathless n¡¡¡¡Somewhere in the Southern continent, a spooky castle was located hidden from civilization. Seven skinny, square towers surrounded the castle in almost a perfect circle around this incredible castle and were connected by fortified, thick walls made of dark gray stone.
Wide windows were scattered generously around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry, along with symmetric crentions for archers and artillery.
A giant gate with tall stone doors, a regr bridge, and strong defenses
guarded the entrance to the castle ground. It was the only easy way in, any other side would be futile.
Giant bones of various beasts littered the fields outside the castle, half overgrown, but still a painful reminder of the past. Unknown to the world, this castle had stood the test of time, it stood it well, but cracks began to show here and there.
The castle was located on the edge of the southern continent. Thisnd was uncharted, to speak frankly, no one survived trying to chart this part of thend by one group; The Deathless.
The next day after the events of the Rachdale vige massacre, inside a dark gloomy hall, several figures dressed in gothic style sat around a round table. Each of them looked like they were going trick or treat for Halloween.
The three men at the table wore long ck suits with antique buttons and red vests while the twodies were in fancy ck skirts, red tops with bell sleeves, and a ck hat.
Underneath their dress and makeup, they all had chalk-white skin, blood-red lips, and two long fangs.
"We should have killed him," Hacan said. Hacan was a conniving vampire who looked like a man in his mid-thirties but he recently turned six hundred years old. He had dark brown eyes, a fairplexion due to the makeup he wore, and dark brown hair neatly braided. He was the shortest and plumpy among the vampires sitting at the table.
"Rx Hacan, let''s hear what he has to say first. Then we can pass judgment" a youthful voice responded to Hacan. This young outgoing vampire was named Saber. Despite his youthful look, his real age was 485 years ago. He had blue eyes, a medium brownplexion, and light brown hair in an updo. He was neither too handsome nor too unattractive.
He had a face and body that let him perfectly blend in with the crowd unnoticed.
The oldest of them listened to the two uttering no words. He recently turned 1050 years but looked like he was still in his mid-thirties. He had silvery-blue eyes, a paleplexion, and red hair in a long braid. He was tall and fairly muscr beneath his dark suit and red vest. The other vampires knew him by the name ''Ingram''
Among the two female vampires who wore identical clothes, one looked a bit plump while the other had a perfect hourss structure. The plump one had red hair while the other had striking ck hair. The red-haired vampire went by the name Lenora and the brte was called Trista.
In the hierarchy of vampires, these five belonged to the category of Elder Vampires. Of course, there were other Elder Vampires but these five were the ones present in the room. Each of these Elder Vampires served an Alpha and these Alphas served the most powerful vampire of them all, the Maker.
The Maker was said to be the first vampire. ording to the ancient texts possessed by the Deathless n, the Maker disappeared six thousand years ago. They believed that the Maker had entered into an eternal slumber and it was their task to locate him and wake him from his slumber.
The Deathless n was working in the shadows for thousands of years with a single purpose; find the Maker.
"He has waited long enough. Let''s call him" Lenora, the red-haired vampire said in a carefree yful tone.
"Yeah let''s get this over with" Trista waved her hand.
Momentster the two Elder Vampires spoke, the round table opened in the middle as a tall figure emerged from the ground. A red spotlight on the figure revealed his face and if Logan was there, he would recognize the man. He was the greater vampire who massacred his vige single-handedly.
"Elders" the greater vampire bowed at each Elder vampire.
"Do you admit the consequences of your bloodlust d?" Saber asked,
"You have endangered our secrecy d. You didn''t only let the bodies behind but also left witnesses alive" Lenora said seriously,
The others remained in silence, letting d speak for himself,
"I am willing to pay any price for my mistakes, Elders. I only wish to share the knowledge I acquired during myst venture" d paused for a moment to look at everyone before continuing,
"There is another one in Southern Continent who can use Arch energy and I don''t think he''s one of us"
"You jest," Hacan growled at d. He couldn''t remain silent after hearing d''s oundish ims.
He was about to m the stone table when Saber raised his hand,
"Where did you learn this information?"
All the vampires possessed the ability to detect lies and they saw no signs of d. Nheless only Saber seemed to trust d for some reason,
"From a human in Rachdale vige on the outskirts of Gisel. He told me that the man offered to join him. The human lied that he joined. The magic-user has left the human alive and when I was about to kill him, I was ambushed by an airship fitted with a light beam spotlight. I believe the magic-user sent the airship to aid the human"
"So it''s true" Saber''s words shocked everyone more than d did.
"Saber, what the hell are you talking about? He was deceived. No one other than us can use arch energy inside the void line" Haan couldn''t believe what d just said,
"You can''t deny the possibility that he might be a rogue vampire exiled by us" Lenora said as Saber shook his head,
"I''ve been hearing things from my men. Recently, the pirates started to talk about a captain who casts spells and uses magic. We can all agree that pirates are not a very reliable source of information"
"No shit" Hacan sneered,
"Two bottles of rum and they sing songs about Kraken. Forget about us, if there is someone who could use arch energy inside void line, all the great ns would have hunted him down"
Saber smiled hearing Hacan,
"You answered your own question, Hacan. No one believes the pirates. Pirates lie but he didn''t" Saber pointed at d,
"I also happen to have on good authority the Guardians suspect the one d told us about and the one who calls himself Lucifer might be the same person" Saber''s lips curved upwards, revealing a slight grin that seemed like the devil of a grin. He may have looked normal, calm and harmless among the six but in truth, he was the cruelest and most dangerous of them all.
"Hehehehe" Lenora giggled,
"Does this authority happen to be a certain guardian?"
"Why do I have a feeling you tasted my food?" Saber asked with a smile at Lenora,
"Because I did" Lenora licked her lips,
"I have to say Saber. When you turned a cultivator into us, I had my doubts. But after tasting her, it''s worth all the trouble. I''m thinking about getting cultivator minion myself"
Seeing the conversation straying away from the right track, Trista pped her hands,
"What should we do with him?" Trista asked pointing at d,
"What else?" the smile on Saber''s face faded away,
"Kill him," Saber said, snapping his finger as d exploded into a bloody mist.
"What the fuck Saber?" Hacan growled,
"You ruined my clothes"
"How about I treat you to a special meal?"
Leaving the bloody mess of d behind, Saber took Hacan to his specialir underground where he kept a special blood meal.
*********************************
Meanwhile, in the Akn realm, Michael was standing in the middle of the ck forest with Gaya and Elidyr. They had a boar in a steel cage in front of them on the ground.
"Can you at least give us a clue?" Gaya leaned on Michael, trying to seduce him to spill the beans.
With a proud smile on his face, Michael took out a muddy brown potion in his hand. The potion was glistening brightly inside the vial.
The boar was in a paralyzed state so it didn''t even budge when Michael bent down to pour the potion into its mouth. Little by little, the poutine went into its mouth. Gaya stared at the boar, expecting something although she had no idea what to expect.
Even Elidyr was curious about the potion because Lucifer was working on the potion for almost six months nonstop. After finishing pouring the potion into its mouth, Michael kicked the steel several meters away from him.
When the steel cage hit the ground, the steel cage opened. At that same time, the paralyzing poison Michael injected into the boar wore off. Thus, the boar leaped out of the cage. As though it remembers who caged it, the boar locked its gaze with Gaya. The boar then went to dig the ground a bit with its legs as a sign of aggression.
Gaya even saw puffs of smoke rushing out of its nostrils.
"So your motherfucking potion makes the boar angrier?" Gaya rolled her eyes. She then took out the heavy sword hanging on her back. But Michael
"Wait for it" Michael lowered her hands,
The boar began to run towards them. It was royally pissed because of what Gaya did. The boar was having the time of his life with a female boar when she plucked him up and put him into a cage.
"Wait for it" the boar was getting closer and closer yet Michael did not allow her to attack it.
Just when the boar was a couple of meters away from them, Michael snapped his finger. As soon as he did that, the boar exploded from within into a bloody mist.
"What the?" Gaya was stunned. She saw no spellcasting or use of Arch energy from him. Yet, the boar exploded.
Michael took out another muddy brown potion from his system storage,
"Imagine mixing this in the food of our enemies. I can kill them anytime, any moment, with just a snap of my fingers"
Michael felt the urge to let out a burst of evilughter but he controlled himself. This potion was one of the greatest achievements of his life. He created an entirely new potion that even the system had no knowledge of.
No matter how many 6-star alchemists tried to replicate this potion, they wouldn''t seed, because the potion contained something this world didn''t have; Nanites.
"Only one thing left, naming this potion"
*****************************
Why don''t you guys suggest me a cool name for this potion?
Chapter 475 Leaving Mazeroth
Chapter 475 Leaving Mazeroth¡¡¡¡Another three weeks flew by in a sh in Akn Realm. Everyone in Mazeroth was as busy as bees due to the uing talent exhibitions.
Every single student was under so much pressure except Michael. He was chilling by theke with Nightmare. He even bought a ck aviator from the system store and wore it while sunbathing. On top of it, he also bought one for Nightmare. The little dragon looked so cute wearing sunsses.
"Sixty-six" a youngster in green robes approached Michael,
"Beat it fifty, I''m not gonna do anything today" Michael chased away the youngster who was about to ask some doubt rted to alchemy,
They continued to bask in the warmth of the morning sun and enjoyed theke view. Since they had no sses to attend, Michael and Nightmare decided not to do anything academics rted.
While relishing their free time, Michael took a sip of freshly brewed coffee through the straw. He was receiving badass points just by chilling.
"So have you decided what to show in the talent exhibition?" Nightmare asked, looking at the crystal clear sky.
"Yeah"
"What is it? You''re gonna blow everyone out of the water, aren''t you?"
"No" Michael''s answer surprised Nightmare. The dragon turned his head to look at the rxed face of Michael.
"You always show off" frowned Nightmare,
"Not this time. I''m gonna put together a potion that would make people float"
"Cool" Nightmare lowered the sunsses for a moment before raising them up.
Nightmare realized the reason for hisck ofmitment to creating a new potion for the talent exhibition. Ny-nine percent of the students were working their assess off to impress Skyhall representatives and getting assigned to any of the Skyhall organizations. That leftover one percent was students who had no desire to join Skyhall, such as Michael, Victoria, and Edith.
Speaking of Victoria, she was looking at Michael and Nightmare from a distance.
"What''s he doing? And where did he find those ck sses?" Edith asked. She couldn''t help giggling at Nightmare. He was too cute.
"What does it look like, he''s taking a rest," Victoria said showing no emotion,
Her emotionless face quickly showed some expression as she creased her brows. She noticed Diego who got his ass kicked by Ghost approaching him with a couple of hisckeys.
"You" Diego growled as Michael lowered his sses,
"I want a rematch" Diego growled again,
"Fuck off" Michael did not even consider Diego''s request for a rematch,
Unexpectedly, Diego didn''t lose his calm. He remained, uttering no cuss words.
"This time, rematch, no restrictions. Are you man enough to ept my challenge?" Diego pointed his finger at Michael and challenged him,
"Now you''re being cliche. Go away, it''s my rest day" Michael was toozy to even look at Diego.
"He will ept it" all of a sudden, Michael heard the cold waspish voice sound in his ears,
"Professor Lane" Diego and hisckeys quickly straightened their bodies.
As Professor Lanended on the grass field beside Nightmare, Michael and the little dragon removed their sses and stood up,
"Since you have so much free time, I will allow this duel to happen"
Professor Lane gave both Michael and Nightmare a death stare. However, that gaze was way better than what he gave to Diego and hisckeys,
"Monkeys have bigger brains and fashion sense than you buffoons"
Before Diego or hisckeys could respond to Lane''sment, he flicked his wrist as a bright light enveloped all of them. The next moment, Michael noticed he was standing in the middle of the arena.
"The students need a distraction" Professor Lane eximed,
Michael was really pissed off by Lane. He was a Soul Refining stage level 2 cultivator whereas Diego was only at the Core Strengthening stage level 1. He wasn''t against kicking Diego''s ass but he was worried about revealing his own cultivation stage to others.
It was obvious Professor Lane was upset with Michael because he didn''t create a mind-blowing new potion or a pill. A potion that would enable someone to fly was borderline pointless.
Still, Michael went with that because he was not stupid enough to give a super-powerful potion to Skyhall which could beter used against him.
Diego had no idea about the power gap between them. He was still thinking that Michael was in the Core Formation stage. In his mind, if he could use Arch energy, he could defeat him and wash away the shame.
What surprised Michael though Lane too didn''t have a clue about his cultivation stage. If he had, he wouldn''t have permitted this duel.
Professor Lane stood between Diego and Michael until the area got filled with students. A rematch between them was too tempting for the students to ignore.
Victoria and Edith came to the arena with the rest of the Warrior House students. It was a sudden battle but surprisingly the students of each house managed to draw sign boards showing their support for each participant. Unlike the first duel they had, this time, Michael had way too many supporters from the Alchemists house.
"Sixty six"
"Sixty six"
"Sixty six"
"Sixty six"
They were cheering for Michael loudly as the scene reminded Michael of the tournament.
"Let''s get this over with" Michael sighed,
Unknown to him, a special person came to witness the battle disguised as House Runemasters students. It was none other than Rowena Winston, the Holy Maiden of Skyhall.
Just like Michael, she got bored and decided to chill. When she saw themotion, she decided toe to the arena.
"You can go chill out" Michael patted Nightmare on the head. The dragon nodded, then, he snickered at Diego,
"I hope you have a healing potion with yourself"
Diego might seem calm outside, but inside, he was burning with rage. He wanted to rip the wings off that snarky dragon and teach it a lesson. For now, he had to deal with his master.
After everything was said and done, Professor Lane simply flicked his hand as a giant chakra flicked in the ground,
"It will keep you alive"
Professor Lane didn''t linger around. He took off into the air leaving Michael and Diego behind. Michael felt nothing but Diego could feel his arch energy returning to his body.
"I was waiting for this moment for so long" Diego cracked his knuckles,
Michael on the other hand, just like before, said nothing. He just lowered his sunss,
"Begin"
"Ignitia"
Not even a millisecond passed by after Lane uttered the word ''begin'' when a golden bolt of lightning shot out of Michael''s finger and prated through Diego''s throat.
"GRRRHHHH!" Diego clenched his throat as blood gushed out of the wound. He dropped to his knees, losing all the strength in his body. The chakra beneath him began to glow in green and soon, a lightyered Diego''s body.
The students were utterly shocked. Many didn''t even see what just happened. The duel was finished as soon as it began. All the cheers resounding in the arena stopped abruptly.
Michael raised his sunsses and looked badass doing it.
"Professor, can I leave now?" Michael looked up, asking Professor Lane.
For the first time since Michael met him, this was the first time he saw Lane shocked. Professor Lane was unable to answer Michael for a few moments. Not only him, but Rowena was also surprised.
"So he is the Ghost," Rowena said to herself. Ever since Rowena heard Ghost saved her mother, cousin, and Sabrina, she wanted to meet Ghost in person. But due to some reasons, she was unable to do so until now.
As the Holy Maiden, she had ess to all student records. Thanks to those records, she identified Michael sessfully.
"Not yet" Professor Lane regained his cold demeanor. Hepletely ignored Diego as hended in front of Michael,
"Here" Michael saw Professor Lane taking out a silver parchment from his space ring with a flick of his wrist,
"You''re excused from the talent exhibition. You can leave whenever you want and return after the holidays"
Everyone including Michael was surprised by the sudden gift from Professor Lane. The holidays were supposed to start three weeks after the talent exhibition.
Michael removed the sunsses,
"Well, thank you Professor"
"It''s better you don''t show yourself in the talent exhibition than underselling yourself there"
Michael didn''t expect this from Professor Lane. To be honest, Michael waspletely caught off guard by him. If he had known beating Diego again would get him an early ticket out of Akn, he would have done it sooner.
"Thank-"
Before Michael could finish his sentence, Professor Lane vanished into thin air. The badass points notifications were going crazy in his mind. In a few minutes, he earned almost eighty thousand badass points.
He thought the rain of badass points was about to end when he turned back. He was dead wrong. Someonended beside Diego with a loud thud, shaking the ground beneath.
"Halt"
The clear crisp voice made Michael halt his steps. Without even turning back, Michael knew who was standing behind him by the reactions of the students around him.
Just as he guessed, he turned around to see the head prefect Elliot Watson, d in full silver armor looking at Michael. The array ced in the arena almost healed Diego back to full health.
"Not another duel" Michael was annoyed inside. Although fighting them would get him a ton of badass points, he felt bored fighting arrogant young masters. He had better things to do than wasting time on them.
He was not Noah to fight every arrogant young master in his way.
"Thank you" were the words that came out of Elliot''s mouth andpletely shocked everyone in the arena. Michael wasn''t an exception.
"Huh?" Michael was confused why the heck Elliot thanked him. He was kinda expecting Elliot to challenge him for a duel so he could avenge his friend.
"You''ve given him a valuable lesson" Elliot nodded. It was a nod that kinda looked like a bow.
"Okay" Michael nodded back, hiding the confusion in his heart from showing up on his face,
After Elliot thanked Michael, he took Diego and flew into the sky. Michael didn''t linger around either. Now that Professor Lane had permitted him to leave the Akn realm early, he needed to pack his things, inform Gaya and leave Mazeroth.
The first thing he nned to do after leaving Mazeroth is to find the vampire and get every piece of information he could on the bloodsuckers.
Chapter 476 Reunion with Vedora
Chapter 476 Reunion with Vedora¡¡¡¡Michael was packing up everything when Gaya entered the room, pouting.
"You''re packing up I see" she came to his workbench where several apparatuses were fuming up colorful smokes,
"I know what you''re thinking and no. You can''te with me until you get the holidays''''
Gaya sighed instead of arguing with him. She expected this answer and in fact, she would be more helpful to him in the Akn realm than in the outside world.
"So you''re going to Gisel or the sect?" asked Gaya while dismantling his apparatus setup,
"Gisel. I want to find more about the vampires and I have a feeling, the vampires have something to do with Peyton and Sabrina''s disappearance"
"Hmm" Gaya continued to help him pack all the things. The silver scroll offered to him by Professor Lane enabled him to use Arch energy, not that he needed a scroll to use Arch energy, now no one would suspect him.
The room looked clean and rather empty after he put everything into the system storage. He was too busy cleaning everything up to notice the sad look on Gaya''s face.
Finally, when he turned around, he saw her standing in the center of the room sad-faced. He put everything on hold and approached her,
"Just ten more months, snakey" he said gently cupping her hand,
"I know"
Her voice stuttered due to her trying to hide her sadness. How could she hide anything from Michael when he knows herpletely? So he just smiled before kissing her right between her eyes.
"We are gonna spend eternity together. So don''t worry"
She couldn''t hold back her feelings as he locked her lips with his. Good thing Michael scanned the room and made it spyproof. Although it''s said that Mazeroth doesn''t spy on students, he didn''t believe them.
Soon, they stopped kissing to embrace each other.
"I''m gonna miss you," She said, hugging him as tight as she could.
"Me too"
"Hmm, where is that flying lizard?"
"Here" Gaya shuddered. She quickly let go of Michael, turned around, and saw Nightmare flying before her.
"Fuck! Don''t sneak up on me ugly brat" she tried to grab Nightmare but he evaded her easily,
"I didn''t sneak up on you, you were just too busy being lovey dovey"
"You''re gonna pay for that!" with her threat began their cat and mouse chase around the room.
Considering Michael created his new potion which he still has to name in this room, he was extremely thorough in cleaning the room. He didn''t leave a single speck of evidence that could be traced back to the new potion.
"Got you" after chasing Nightmare for five minutes, she finally caught him.
She head-locked Nightmare, knocking him on the head repeatedly.
"I am so happy we are leaving you behind"
"Ah Nightmare" Michael called Nightmare as they both looked at him. An evil grin quickly emerged on Gaya''s face.
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but you''re noting" Nightmare was shocked.
"What the fuck?" he growled, still being locked under her arms.
"I can''t take you with me, the scroll was pretty clear about it"
Michael took out the silver scroll from his storage and threw it at Gaya,
Both the Snake and the Dragon curiously read the contents written on the silvern parchment,
''Familiars are not allowed to leave Akn Realm'' Gaya read the line out aloud before closing the scroll,
"Now that I think about it, Gilrine was talking about some pocket dimension"
"What pocket dimension?" Nightmare growled. He was not at all happy about staying in Mazeroth without Michael. He would have been less pissed about this if he was able to stay with Gaya. Unfortunately, no one was allowed inside staff quarters. Thus, Nightmare had to stay in the room alone or with Elidyr who spent most of his time cultivating, meditating, and reading books in the library.
"I think they are nning to bring all the familiars into a pocket dimension for training or something"
"It will be a good experience for you Nightmare" Michael rubbed Nightmare''s head yfully aftering to him.
"I think Elidyr is in the library" seeing Eldiyr hadn''t returned to the room, Michael realized he might still be in the library.
"Here take these"
Gaya saw two ck rings appear on his palm,
"Space ring?" Gaya tilted her head,
"Modified interlinked space rings. We can use this across realms" said Michael.
These two rings cost him 10,000 badass points each in the system store. He wouldn''t have bought them if they weren''t vital to his ns. Using these rings, even after leaving the Akn realm, Michael could provide Gaya and Elidyr with necessary items from his side and vice versa.
The downside of these rings was he wouldn''t be able to store anything weighing more than 50kg and space rings. Because of this restriction, it was borderline impossible to work on devices that required Elidyr''s runes, for instance, the mortar. Fortunately, by the start of next month, everyone would get holidays and be allowed to leave the Akn realm. That time, the two of them could finally finish building the mortar and hopefully more powerful devices for Bertha.
"Give the other to Elidyr when you see him"
After everything was said and done, Michael was ready to leave the Akn realm for Gisel.
"Aren''t you going to meet Lane?" Gaya asked,
"You''ve seen him. He is not very good at connecting with people. Besides, he''s pissed at me for not making a breakthrough in Alchemy by creating an entirely a new potion or a pill"
"Less he knows you already created one" nightmare joined the conversation,
"And it will stay that way" Michael''s voice became serious,
"I haven''t perfected this potion. But even in this imperfect state, this potion is a game-changer"
They both nodded in agreement.
"I will see you twoter"
Since there were no obligations left in the Akn realm, Michael activated the silver scroll by sending the scroll a silver of arch energy. The next moment, a bright light enveloped him and disappeared in a few seconds along with Michael.
"Okay lizard, I have sses. I''ll see youter, stay out of trouble" Gay rubbed Nightmare on the head with a smile,
"You too. You''re the one who should be careful"
She gave a nod before leaving the room through the window. Little did Nightmare know at this time that in the pocket dimension, he would meet two other dragons who were going to change his life.
*****************************************
Life without Gaya and Ghost was so boring to Vedora, especially to Ayag and Sarba. It had been approximately three months since Ghost and Gaya left for Mazeroth. The only entertainment they had aftering out of cultivation was the surveince mirror. The three of them watched all the footage live and recorded it to find out more about the vampires.
There were barely any drones or Spycams on the Southern continent excluding the homes of senators and Stormville mountain. Otherwise, they would have tracked the vampire who apparently massacred a vige on the outskirts of Gisel.
"If Azazel let Dr take us to the crime scene, I can try to track the vampire" Sarba meekly said,
"And I can test my new scorching breath on that bloodsucker," Ayag said without bothering to hide her arrogance.
Nothing much changed in their behavior or physical bodies in these three months except their powers. Ayag now could breathe fire in addition to her ability to shoot sonic waves and Sarba developed powerful senses.
His senses let Sarba locate a living being using the heartbeat from a mile away. That was one of the senses he had. Taste, smell, vision, hearing, every sense known to man was heightened for Sarba.
"I don''t believe our Core Formation level 5 will be enough to go head to head with the vampire. We know nothing about their kind" Cain calmly said only to get a headbutt from Ayag,
"Don''t worry ck, I''m sure you will get a power of your own soon. It''s obvious you''re ate bloomer hehehe"
Cain ignored Ayag''s mockery and concentrated on the footage before him.
"Master Cain, Master Sarba, Miss Ayag, it''s bedtime" the three of the saw Azazel''s ethereal form materialize before them,
"We don''t need sleep demon, move away, you''re blocking our view" Ayag growled at Azazel but he handled her with a gentle smile on his face,
"Your bodies need rest Miss Ayag. Besides, you can miss something so obvious when your mind is exhausted"
"He is right" Sarba was the good boy among the three. So he agreed with Azazel which earned him a headbutt from the rebel child Ayag.
"Let''s go Sarba" Cain moved his head towards the door to leave the room. Since two out of three agreed upon sleeping, Ayag had no choice but to go with them despite how she felt.
However, just as they were about to p their tiny wings, Azazel''s eyes opened wide. Soon an ted smile emerged on his face,
The three of them werepletely taken aback by his surprise.
"He is here" Sarba joyfully said as he sensed a powerful figure walking toward them and he had no doubt that this powerful radiation belonged to none other than Ghost.
Just as he said, the door opened to reveal Michael in his usual ck attire.
"Ghost!" Even the normally silent Cain grinned and leaped at Ghost excitedly. They were so surprised and happy to see him again. They wrapped their heads around his neck, showering him with kisses as though they were puppies.
"My lord" Azazel quickly went to his knees as his eyes were brimming with the joy of seeing his lord return.
"Nightmare and Gaya, where are they?" Ayag and Sarba asked in unison,
"My Lord, congrattions on reaching the Soul Refining Stage" when talking to Michael through the Spyders and mirror before, Azazel couldn''t see the level of Michael''s cultivation stage. Right at the moment, the demon butler could feel the immense power he was radiating and sense his cultivation stage.
"And I have to congratte you for reaching Core Strengthening level 8,"
For some reason, Michael wasn''t surprised by the demon reaching Core Strengthening stage level 8 from level 5 in a few months, virtually doing nothing. The demon butler was bound to Michael so the stronger Michael was, the stronger the demon butler would be.
"I''m unworthy of such words my lord" Azazel bowed as Michael turned his gaze towards the three heads staring at him for an answer about Gaya and Nightmare,
"They will soon"
The moment he ced them on the table, they began to nag him about what happened in Mazeroth. It took him almost an hour to finish narrating everything that happened in Mazeroth and answer their questions.
"Azazel, tell Maxine and Tiberius to meet me in Caius''s home"
"Yes my lord"
Azazel nodded,
"Now let''s go meet Aria and her brothers"
Chapter 477 The Dark Suit 2
Chapter 477 The Dark Suit 2¡¡¡¡Michael stopped by his room to change his clothes before meeting Aria and her brothers. Entering his room, he snapped his fingers as the light orbs fixed on the walls dimly lit the room in crimson red. Vedora jumped to the neatly made bed from his shoulder.
The armor stand was located in the corner of his room beside the alchemy table void of any armor. Before equipping the armor through the system, he willed the system to put the armor on the armor stand.
The next moment, the Lucifer armor was put on the armor by the system for disy. Vedora noticed several changes in the armor such as the armor being darker than before, the armor linings were painted in crimson red, the material of the armor seemed sturdy and the long des sticking out of the wrists.
These were all visible changes. In addition to them, Michael equipped the armor with the upgraded APD and Mark 3 grappling hook while Elidyr ced invisible runes that increased the armor''s resilience to withstand an immense amount of both physical and magical attacks. Thanks to the runes, now his armor was resistant to fire except Primordial mes.
The upgraded version of APD enabled him to not only inject himself with potions and pills but also inject others using a retractable needle and spray potions through a sprayer attached to the center of his gloves.
"You made some changes" Ayagmented at the armor,
"I call this, Dark Suit 2"
Michael nned to forge a new more powerful armor in the future but for now, he had to make do with this armor. He made all the changes he did to his suit to Gaya''s suit too. Except for the chest area in her armor designed to fit her bosom, both armors looked identical.
For a few moments, he just stared at the armor, feeling the armor. Instead of willing the system to equip the armor in an instant, he manually wore the armor piece by piece.
Sling!
Sling!
After fitting the gauntlets around his wrist, Michael clenched his fist as the hidden des came out producing a sharp ''sling'' sound. He then raised his hand. A green mist sprayed out of his wrists,
"What the heck is that?" Ayag frowned,
"Fear toxin," Michael said, checking the APD by injecting himself with a healing potion. Several testster, Michael put on the mask and finished putting on the armor.
He walked towards the mirror to check himself out. To be honest, he looked frightening in the armor. So he decided to shroud himself with the cloud of darkness and light his eyes with eyes of darkness. Unlike before, his eyes were now ming in Dark mes. Since he was standing in his room, near the bed, he avoided conjuring the Dark mes around him.
Nheless, the little bit of dark mesing out of his eyes was enough for Vedora to sense its overwhelming power. Sarba who now possessed the god-level senses noticed the violent surge of energy within him.
Just looking at the dark energy within him gave him a headache. He quickly retracted his senses.
"So that''s the Dark mes? One of the Primordial mes" Sarba asked as Michael nodded,
"Cool isn''t it? Or should I say hot?"
Michael chuckled before putting off the dark mes. Soon, the shroud around him and the fire in his eyes vanished.
"Let''s go" Michael put on the hood. It was time for him to meet Aria and her two brothers; Titus and Optimus. Vedora jumped back on his shoulder with a swift leap. He made his way to the throne room where he nned to meet the trio.
****************************************
In the dark forest, two men with jacked-up bodies were treating a giant tree as their personal punching bag while a girl with short hair sat on the branch above them and plucked the dark leaves one by one.
"Are you bing slow Titus?"
"Still faster than you"
The two men breathed heavily as they were training in the dark forest for almost ten hours. They were identical twins and except for their hair color, nothing different about them. Even Aria would have a hard time if it wasn''t for Titus having blond hair and Optimus having brown hair.
They had scars that many used to differentiate between the brothers. However, the healing potions and the rebuilding process healed all their scars. As a result, their skin was now smooth and scarless as a baby''s bottom.
Life in the Dark forest was difficult for the brothers. Mainly it was boring and they were prohibited to go on a murderous spree on those who enved them and killed their family. They still couldn''t believe someone resurrected them and healed their bodiespletely.
The more they heard about this Lucifer from Aria, the more they were astonished by him. The tales Aria told them were simply mind-blowing.
Deep down in their hearts, they were d Aria found a god-like figure to protect her. She had grown so much, they could tell that. She was not a meek scared little girl anymore as she defeated both of them in a fair fight.
Titus and Optimus couldn''t wait to see Aria''s lord and Tiberius who trained alongside them in the Ludus under Doctorus.
"My Lords, My Lady" Titus, and Optimus stopped their training when they heard Azazel''s voice. The first time they saw Azazel, they freaked out. Now they got used to the sudden appearances of Azazel.
"Lord Lucifer is here and he wants to meet the three of you in the throne hall"
Aria immediately jumped down from the branch andnded on the ground nimbly. Titus and Optimus looked at each other. They seemed a bit tense.
Still, they followed Aria and Azazel behind to the underground mansion.
The hallways were as usual dimly lit with crimson red orbs fixed onto the walls. The eerie silence would freak anyone out and the two diators weren''t an exception.
As the narrow hallway opened up to the hall, they saw a figure gracefully sitting on the throne d in dark armor. With one leg over another and head resting on his fist, he looked rxed yet dominant. They noticed the three-headed creature atop the throne handle, looking down on them.
"My Lord" Aria immediately dropped to one knee and bowed. She gave a stare to both of her brothers, wordlessly ordering them to do the same.
"Titus and Optimus, how are you two feeling?" Titus and Optimus heard Lucifer talk in a demonic voice that perfectly suited him.
"Feeling well, thanks to you, my lord" Titus bowed his head. Considering Titus and Optimus were soldiers, they showed nock of respect to their lords.
"Good" Michael used the X-ray eyes to see their cultivation level. It was no surprise to Michael that they were still at Arch sensing stage level 1. They barely had any arch energy circting in their veins. Fortunately, they looked extremely fit and healthy.
"Are you two willing to be my subordinates and put an end to the very once and for all?" Michael asked them directly without beating around the bush.
Since Aria had already talked them down to epting Lucifer as their lord, the two brothers didn''t ask any questions.
"Yes my lord"
The two brothers said, bowing in unison.
[Does the host wish to ept Titus Atronius as a subordinate?]
[Does the host wish to ept Optimus Atronius as a subordinate?]
As soon as the brothers agreed to serve him as his subordinates, the system''s notification sounded in his mind,
"Yes"
At the current level of the system, he was allowed to have eleven subordinates. Currently, he had nine subordinates and with Titus and Optimus, he had reached the maximum level of subordinates. Of course, he could have more subordinates but the system rules for a subordinate wouldn''t apply to them and he wouldn''t be able to see their loyalty level.
He nned to make Daniel his subordinate, except now he had no slots remaining for him. That wasn''t a problem as Daniel and Ricky were absolutely loyal to him. Michael quickly took a look at their loyalty level to see the brothers harboring 56% percent loyalty towards him while Aria had 87%.
Her loyalty level pleased him, contrary to her low cultivation level. She was still at the Body Strengthening stage despite taking all the potions and pills he was providing her.
She couldn''t me her though because her body was still adapting to the conditions of cultivation continents. It would take years for her to absorb all the arch energy provided by the pills and potions and she was considered a geniuspared to the rest of the Southerners. So unless he finds a way to quicken the cultivation speed of all his southern continent subordinates, it would take decades for them to even reach the Core Formation stage.
Showing all these thoughts and future ns to the corner of his mind, he stood up.
"Families can be your strength and weakness, remember that" Michael stood from his throne after speaking those words,
"Now that you three spend time together, it''s time to get back to work. Aria" Michael looked at Aria,
"My lord"
"Take your brothers to Bradford. Sadie will use her connection there to get them into the army"
Michael started his long-term n of army building by sending Titus and Optimus to Bradford where they would be trained by Ghost, in other words, by himself.
"As you wish my lord" Deep down Aria was d to hear Lucifer''s order. Compared to serving Lucifer directly, getting appointed as soldiers under the new king Ghost was much safer. ording to the information Aria gathered, Bradford was managed by the Sunrise sect rather than the new king who goes by the name ''Ghost''.
Due to the agreements Ghost signed with King Bredia, Bradford was immune to invasions and wars. Thus, she knew her brothers would be much safer in Bradford.
After Aria and her brothers left the hall, Michael activated the runic teleportation to teleport to Caius''s home with Vedora. Sarba''s help would be vital for the task he was about to undertake.
Chapter 478 The Castle of Vampires I
Chapter 478 The Castle of Vampires I¡¡¡¡Maxine and Tiberius were waiting in Caius''s room with Caius for the Dark Lord. Since everything was going ording to n without any hups, they were pretty rxed. Compared to the other two, Tiberius was slightly tensed up as he didn''t like whatever ughtered Logan''s vige to be alive and well.
Logan told all about how their battle went. Tiberius thought only Lucifer and the Dark queen could use magic but now, there was another one. He couldn''t wait to get some answers from Lucifer.
Luckily he didn''t have to wait any longer as Michael appeared in the room out of thin air.
"My Lord"
Maxine immediately dropped to her knees, then Caius and finally Tiberius did the same.
"Rise" Michael approached the chair before willing the system to rece the chair with his throne.
"You must be Caius" The moment Michael ced Vedora on the oak table, Ayag locked her gaze with Caius.
Except for Maxine who met Vedora a couple of times, Tiberius and Caius were startled to hear the menacing voice of the white head among the three.
"Yes"
"Yes mydy" Ayag emphasized the word ''mydy''. She was extremely overbearing and dominant that despite her stature, she exerted enough pressure on Caius to turn his face pale.
"Tiberius I presume, nice to meet you"
Sarba talked in an exactly opposite way of how Ayag spoke to Caius.
Tiberius was surprised by how polite and respectful the silver head was.
"Well," it took a couple of seconds for Tiberius to find the right words to greet the majestic creature looking at him,
"Fuck it" Tiberius pushed away the thought of finding fancy words,
"Nice to meet you too" Tiberius went with a simple greet as Sarba nodded,
"Enough pleasantries," Michael raised his arm,
"Before we move to the obvious, tell me, how''s everything on your end? Caius" Caius saw the dark eyes staring at him and it felt as though he was staring into his soul itself.
"We have no problems on our side, my lord. In a week, Maven will be merged with Gisel with the support of the people of Maven"
The civil war he incited in MAven was going to finally pay off. He was d to hear this update.
"General Quintus has recently started invading thends of Prerid"
The name General Quintus rang a bell in his head. He pondered for a moment before remembering everything about Quintus. He was the man who invaded Aria''s homnd, Wesite. He decimated the kingdompletely, removing Wesite from the map and expanding the territory of Kingdom Miral.
"What''s our stand in this war?"
"I was thinking we should support Prerid my lord" Caius stepped forward and pointed at the map on the table,
His finger was on the kingdom Prerid adjacent to Maven. And the Kingdom of Prerid was located between Maven and Miral.
"General Quintus has been expanding his territory for decades and typically every three or four years, we have to change the map because of him. If we conquered Prerid, the possibility of him trying to invade Maven is high"
Everyone in the room agreed with Caius.
"Cain, you think you can handle this?" Michael asked Cain instead of guiding Caius on what to do next. He decided to treat this situation as a test for Cain.
"Yes," Cain said confidently. He already plotted a n in his head.
Then Michael turned his gaze towards Maxine,
"What about you Maxine? How is the mining going on?"
"The new machines and the pulley system will be installed next week my lord. After that, the mining process would be 300% faster"
"Good" Michael nodded,
Finally, he turned his gaze to Tiberius. However instead of asking for an update, Michael gave Tiberius an update,
"We are going to capture that vampire dead or alive"
Tiberius has to say, he was indeed relieved to hear Lucifer.
"How''s Logan doing?"
After what happened to Logan''s vige, Tiberius offered Logan to settle in Freedom city which Logan wholeheartedly agreed, not that Logan had any choice. The big man needed a safe ce for the surviving vigers and his wife.
"He''s adjusting," said Tiberius,
"Caius, prepare the airship"
"Yes my lord" Caius bowed before leaving the room.
"My lord, what is that thing? It called itself a greater vampire?" Tiberius doubtfully asked,
"That''s what we are gonna find out. One thing for sure though, these creatures are extremely dangerous"
Michael was fascinated by the vampires. However, he was also cautious since they could sue Arch energy. His highest priority was to know more about the vampires, mainly, what are their strengths and weaknesses? How strong are they? Their hierarchy, how many of them are there, and finally,
What''s their purpose? Michael needed answers to all these questions.
"I am sure Sarba here could help you locate that soon to be dead piece of shit" Ayag menacingly said as Sarba bobbed his head up and down.
Tiberius sensed the temperature suddenly dropping a bit. He then saw the intense murdering intent in the white head''s eyes. Somehow, it reminded him of the Dark Queen which made him wonder where the Dark Queen was.
Cain remained silent without participating in Ayag''s conversation. He was ironing out the tiny details in his n until Michael said something rted to the uing war between Prerid and Miral,
"The very will soone to an end after this war," Michael said looking at Tiberius. He truly felt grateful to Lucifer in this regard. Just like he promised, Lucifer helped him build a new kingdom for all those who''ve been enved by the rich. Whether Miral and Prerid would be merged with Gisel and be a singlerge kingdom or not, Tiberius knew the very ising to an end soon.
"It''s ready my lord" Maxine said after being told by Caius through the earpiece. Her words brought Tiberius out of his imaginary world where very existed no more.
"Finally" Tiberius was relieved. Although it was only five minutes since Caius left, it felt like an eternity. The safety of his people was the most important thing to Tiberius. Now that the vampires threatened the very thing he was trying to protect, Tiberius was royally pissed off and wanted nothing more than to kill that bloodsucker.
Tiberius and Maxine moved closer to his throne while Vedora jumped back on Michael''s shoulder. The next moment, Michael activated the runic teleportation to teleport themselves to Caius''s airship. Tiberius hated teleportation but closing his eyes helped him deal with the after-effects. When he opened his eyes, he was standing in the airship.
"Set a course to where Logan fought the vampire" Maxine ordered Caius as though she read Michael''s thoughts.
The daylight arrived as such intricately woven threads of gold so light that its creator could only be divine.
On their way to the destination, Michael remained with his eyes closed. He was meditating and organizing his thoughts. Ever since he merged himself to be whole, he felt extremely powerful which might unstable his mind as it did to Spectre. Therefore, he continued the meditation which helped him control and connect with the dormant powers within him.
After almost half an hour of flying, they finally reached their destination. From above, there was nothing but forest beneath them. Rather than flying down as Maxine and Tiberius expected, Michael took out several drones from his system storage.
"Open the door" Michael ordered Maxine as she walked to the door followed by the drones.
WHOOOSHH!
As soon as she opened the door, a loud howling sound coupled with a powerful suction force tried to suck everything out of the airship. Maxine quickly shut the door and the drones were already out in the air.
Michael closed his eyes yet again monitoring and controlling all the drones manually. The drones buzzed through the forest like busy bees trying to get honey out of flowers. Only in this scenario, they were surveying the area for the vampires.
Maxine and Tiberius noticed his eyes were abruptly opening after a few minutes.
"Did you locate him?" asked Ayag,
"You two stay here" Michael''s face was serious underneath his mask. They couldn''t see the look on his face. Still, they didn''t try to disagree with him, even Tiberius who was unable to wait patiently for the vampire.
As he was walking towards the door with Vedora on his shoulder, Maxine followed him behind.
Whoosh!
Michael opened the door and everything happened just like before. Without wasting a second, Michael jumped out of the airship. He soared through the air like a meteor. Breaking through the canopy and countless branches, Michael and Vedoranded on the ground.
Michael noticed the broken trees and the clearing which were clear signs of the battle between the vampire and Logan. Although the rain that day wiped away the prints and the blood, Michael had a way to bring back the traces he needed.
"What''s the n?" asked Ayag looking around the forest,
"I''m sensing strange vibrationsing from that direction" Sarba looked at their right side as Michael expected. Still, Michael needed one more test before pursuing the vibrations Sarba''s been sensing.
Michael waved his hand around him, spraying a translucent liquid in the air. When the tiny particles of the potion melded with the ground beneath, several glowing footprints began to appear in their sight. This potion was the better version of the potion he used at Jack''s murder site. The potion would reveal the blood stains even after days or even months.
Almost ny-nine percent of footprints were chaotic and human, except for the remaining one percent. It looked like a human footprint, however, only that pair of footprints were leading to the ce where Michael noticed an anomaly.
"If that''s the footprints of the vampire, I have to say, it awfully simr to a human''s"
"System, teleport Vedora back to the airship if things go south although I doubt it will" Michael ordered the system,
[Yes]
Since Vedora was familiar, he didn''t have to pay extra as he already paid upfront before making Vedora his familiar.
Michael followed the footprints while closely monitoring the Environmental scanning map. In addition, the drones were also hovering around them to make sure no one ambushed them.
There was nothing out of the order in the forest they noticed while following the tracks. The forest was dark and gloomy. The trees danced to an unheard beat, whispering their songs to the wind. Here, sheltered by the mighty trees, was every kind of life, from the humble beetle to poisonous snake.
Their journey came to an end when they noticed the glowing footprints were no longer to be found. That''s where Michael''s X-ray vision came into the picture. What seemed like countless trees, and muddy ground intervened with veins and roots, what seemed to be the perfect picture of rainforest wasn''t a forest at all. It was an illusion and Michael could see through this illusion thanks to his X-ray vision.
"Ignitia" Michael pointed his finger at a tree branch directly above them. The moment the lightning bolt hit the branch, Vedora saw the scenery before them flickering. Soon, the forest they saw just a moment agopletely vanished from existence.
A gloomy grayish area weed them and in the distance, they saw an ancient castle under a blood-red sky.
Chapter 479 The Castle of Vampires II
Chapter 479 The Castle of Vampires II¡¡¡¡"System, the moment you sense a threat we can''t handle, buy a teleportation scroll and teleport me away" Michael telepathically talked to the system.
He was standing in what felt like a pocket dimension simr to the one in the dark forest. As far as his Environmental Scanning could reach, the scanning found no living beings. He knew that didn''t mean he was alone in the dimension. Once again, he raised his arm spraying the potion into the air to reveal the bloody tracks.
"This ce looks freaky" Sarbamented looking around the freaky castle grounds. There were countless skeletons that seemed like giant birdsy on the ground, half-buried in the red sand.
He followed the bloody foot tracks left behind by the vampire to the castle. He had reached the thirty steps leading to the castle yet there were no guards, defenses, or anything for that matter. Michael climbed the stairs showing no signs of fear. Ever since he merged his soul pieces back together, he barely felt any fear.
That didn''t mean he was void of fear, he just changed. Before when his soul was split into three, he would have been a little freaked out.
When they climbed up the steps and saw two statues of soldiers nking the giant oak door.
"I sense two life signs" Sarba closed his eyes before saying,
Meanwhile, Michael pushed open the door, revealing the empty gloomy throne hall. As he entered the throne hall, he was weed by slim braziers hanging from each of the twelve limestone columns that lit up every part of the throne hall and coat everything in a red glimmer. The humongous chandeliers hanging from the arched ceiling dance in the flickering light while statuettes and gargoyles looked down upon the stone floor of this magnificent hall.
A blood-red rug split the entire room in half and was matched by the thinner ones on either side of the hall while ribbon banners with burnished margins draped from the walls. Between each banner hangs a torch, they''ve all been lit and in turn illuminated the mosaics of various figures.
Massive, colored ss windows were neighbored by veils colored the same chestnut as the banners. The curtains have been adorned with emzoned edges and decorating tips.
Regardless of the decoration and the grandeur of the throne hall, itcked the thing i throne hall shouldn''t, a throne. There was no throne in the throne hall. Where the throne should have been was a four feet pir. Atop the pir one could see a porcin bowl.
"Where are the vampires? Are they cocky bastards who think no one would break into their castle or they are dead?" Ayag couldn''t help asking after noticing the barrennd and the empty throne hall.
"I told you, I''m sensing two living beings. They are down" Sarba informed as Michael walked towards the pir.
While he was walking, Ayag looked around for stairs. However, she found none. The throne hall had no other rooms, stairs, or anything that seemed like leading to the other parts of the castle.
"I don''t see any stairs" Ayag headbutted Michael on the side of his face
"Because there aren''t any" Michael calmly said,
"System, scan this pir" he willed the system, paying 1000 badass points,
[The host needs the blood of a vampire to activate this lift. Since you don''t have any, you have to pay the system additional 4000 badass points to hack the lift]
"Hack it"
Vedora saw the ground beneath tremble as the ground began to descend.
"A lift, interesting" Michael was amused. Something told me the vampires might be slightly or ridiculously advanced than the rest of the world. This was the first time he had seen a lift in this world.
The lift was descending for almost ten minutes before it came to a halt. The wall before them slowly slid open to reveal yet another gloomy hall lit with torches. Unlike the throne hall above, this hall was darker, gloomier and had onerge round table at the end of the hall.
"Where are the two?" Ayag asked Sarba,
"There," Sarba looked near the round table,
"You smell that?" Sarba asked,
"The ce reeks of blood" Ayag took a whiff of the air and said,
As they were saying, the ce indeed reeked of blood. Too much blood to be honest. Michael could imagine what kind of horrors might have happened here or how much blood would have been spilled for the air to turn like this. If a weak-hearted person entered here, they would have been puking their guts out.
Even with his mask which was built to filter the air, he could smell the blood.
"There''s a door" when they reached the round table, they saw a metal door on the side of the wall,
Rather than immediately checking out what''s on the other side of the metal door, Michael hopped over the round table because that''s where the bloody footprints ended and a huge stter of blood could be seen.
"My guts says it''s our greater vampire," Ayag said as Sarba and Cain nodded,
Michael squatted down to check out the dried blood.
"What are you doing?"
Ayag saw Michael scrap the dried blood off the ground and put chunks of blood into a vial,
"It''s possible they had a meeting here and the higher ups in the vampire hierarchy killed the greater vampire for leaving witnesses" Cain saw the chairs around the table and connected the dots.
Ayag and Sarba nodded as Cain''s words made sense.
"Why shouldn''t we ask the one there?" Michael pointed at the metal door,
Michael calmly walked towards the door but not before cing Spyder all around the hall and sending a few through the gap between the door and the floor to see what''s on the other side. His drones were still flying around the castle grounds to see if anyone wasing but until now, the drones found no one, the castle grounds were empty.
Michael''s calm face turned cold as he kicked open the metal door.
Boom!
The metal door flew into the hall on the other side like a bullet revealing a cloaked figure at the end of the hall. Vedora could see another figure tied to a pole in front of the cloaked figure.
"Just in time, I was getting sick of this guardian blood" the cloak figure''s cold voice echoed through the empty dark hall. One could barely see anything in the hall and if it wasn''t for the ceiling directly above the cloaked figure letting through some light, the hall would be pitch ck.
The figure slowly turned around like a superviin in a movie. The figure took his sweet time taking off the cloak. As soon as he did, Michael was surprised because he had seen him, way¡ way before.
"Victor"
It was Victor¡the same Victor he saw on the phoenix ind where he had a conflict with Lord Julius. At that time, Victor was a Core Strengthening stage warrior.
On the other hand, Victor had no idea that the man before him was Ghost. Even if he did, Michael didn''t think Victor would give a damn.
"Three-headed hydra¡exotic" Victor licked his lips and when he did, Michael saw the vampire fangs sticking out of his mouth. They were longer and more menacing than the ones shown in the movies.
"Not more exotic than a vampire" Michael snickered as the grin on Victor''s face turned evil,
"Darkness gives thy blessing!" Victor roared,
The very next moment, Victor turned onto a cloud of red smoke. The smoke vanished as Vedora looked around. Since Victor disappeared, they were able to see the girl tied to the pole. The girl''s head was hidden beneath the sack on her head and that was the only part of her body that had some cover as she stood naked. Her body was covered in her own blood. Vedora looked closer, finding that the girl was not tied to the pole but nailed to the pole through her arms, legs, and stomach. She looked like Jesus except she was bloodier, naked, and had several bite marks. It was obvious the vampires had been munching on her like she was some kind of living blood bag.
Seeing this Michael was pissed off.
"Behind us!" Sarba shouted, sensing Victor''s presence behind them.
Victor wrapped his arms around Michael and just when he was about to sink his teeth into Michael''s neck, the dark mes shot out of his body.
"AHHH!"
Victor immediately leaped away from Michael screaming in agony. Just a sliver of dark mes was enough to burn Victor''s armor to nothingness.
"I thought vampires would be stronger" Michael raised his hand as the shadows surrounding Victor moved as though they came to life and grew limbs. They instantly grabbed Victor,
"You get powers from the darkness. But I am" Michael flicked and pulled his arm as Victor flew right into his arm,
"The Darkness"
SLING!
Michael lifted Victor by his neck in one hand and the hidden de came out of its sheath in the other hand. Michael swung the hidden de, cutting Victor''s right hand, clean off from his shoulder,
"AH!"
Victor screamed in agony. However, the right arm grew back in a couple of seconds,
"Regeneration "
Michael''s curiosity was just piqued. Victor tried to fight back using his newly grown hand. He cut Victor''s hand once again but this time, he used dark mes to burn the shoulder.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
"I¡want¡"
Michael heard a weak voice as Victor was screaming in agony. He turned his head and saw the naked girl moving her feet,
"Him¡to¡scream more"
Although the voice of the girl was so weak as though she was on the verge of death, it was filled with pain and murderous intent.
"You heard thedy" this time Ayag spoke. Then, she opened her mouth to breathe bright blue mes.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Victor was screaming as the blue mes kept burning his body like marshmallows. His body was healing as fast as Ayag burnt him. Still, he screamed in excruciating pain.
"If you expecting backup, don''t" Michael raised his hand as Ayag stop burning him,
"I dispelled all the surveince arrays and runes in the castle" Michael''s calm words startled Victor and destroyed his hope. He agreed to be the bait thinking the Elder vampires woulde to his rescue when or if things go south. The only way they could know what was happening in the castle was through the surveince runes and arrays ced all around the castle.
Even Vedora had no idea when he did that and waspletely taken aback by surprise,
"Did you think I will walk into a trap willingly?"
Michael''s evilughter reverberated in the castle.
Pulch!
This time, arge needle reached out of Michael''s wrist, injecting a powerful knockout potion into Victor''s bloodstream. Finally, his screams and body twitching came to an end.
He dragged Victor to the girl by his neck. He then grabbed the sack on her, pulling it away to see her face.
"Peyton"
Chapter 480 Can Peyton be turned against the Guardians?
Chapter 480 Can Peyton be turned against the Guardians?¡¡¡¡Michael wasn''t as surprised as Vedora was because Michael knew it was Peyton way before he took off the sack around her head. He heard Tiriana and the alpha guardian talk about the missing guardians led by Peyton and Victor told him he was sick of guardian blood, Michael connected the dots and reached a conclusion it was Peyton.
Peyton''s face was messed up as though the vampires were drinking her blood and beating her up for some sick pleasure. Michael hated the guardians but no one deserved this.
"You" Peyton could barely say the word,
"I think we should put her out of her misery," Ayag sighed. Even Ayag who inherited the personality of Gaya couldn''t help feeling pity for Peyton.
"No" Michael gently grabbed her bloodied shoulder, injecting her with a little bit of healing potion to keep her alive and with the Blood Tonic to end her life if she tried to be a hero although Michael doubted she would.
"Are you the dark lord?"
Instead of answering Peyton, Michael retrieved a piece of cloth and covered her naked body before removing the nails.
"System, teleport us to the crypt"
Michael willed the system. Since Michael was with Peyton and Victor, he couldn''t use the runic teleportation. Hence, the system happily bought a teleportation scroll for 10,000 badass points and used it to teleport them away from the vampire castle but not before leaving a teleportation rune.
Dr and Jessie were attaching mind controlling chips inside the alpha undead when they say Dark Lord suddenly appeared in the middle of the hall out of thin air.
"Carry on" Michael was too focused on the task at hand to notice the twenty alpha undead standing at ease like super-soldiers,
First, Michael injected Victor with a whole lot of paralyzing poison and fear toxin. Then, he forced Peyton to sit on one of the chairs in front of arge oak table and his throne.
Peyton was too traumatized to even look around. Her dead eyes had lost the glow Michael saw in them when they met before. He could only imagine what she may have gone through.
"You should see this" Michael waved his hand as a giant mirror appeared before Peyton,
Peyton''s attention was immediately drawn by the feed that appeared. She saw the familiar faces of Tiriana and the person she looked up to the most, Tanulia AKA the Alpha Guardian of Hunter Guardians.
"Peyton recruited these guardians and¡"
"What is it Tiri?"
"Thest member she recruited¡is Sabrina"
"Sabrina Winston, Noah''s little sister"
"What the fuck was she thinking?!"
"She recruited someone who''s not even a guardian?!"
"That bitch is expendable. But not her"
"If we are to lose Sabrina and Noah found out that his little sister died because of us, everything will be ruined"
The feed stopped as Vedora expected some anger outburst from Peyton. However, Peyton didn''t react as they expected. Only tears were rolling out of her eyes. No one knew what she was thinking in her mind.
Michael began to y the mind games with her by putting the feed on a loop.
"That bitch is expendable. But not her" Peyton was feeling so many emotions at once.
"We have to find her no matter what. Immediately contact every single guardian in the Southern Continent. I''m authorizing Code Red. Use all and any resources, I need Sabrina found asap. I will contact the other Alphas"
After Tanulia spoke these words in the feed, Michael tapped the table,
"Your devotion is misced, Peyton. You heard her, for them, you who dedicated your whole life to the guild is simply" Michael paused for a moment,
"Expendable"
Michael willed the system to y the feed again, fanning the mes of anger within Peyton''s heart. Peyton couldn''t move her eyes away from the mirror. She felt so betrayed because she was betrayed. She lost the count of days being tortured and getting her blood sucked out by vampires in that torture room. All that time, she had hope, hope in Alpha guardians and the hunter guardians that they woulde to her rescue.
The vampires tortured her every single minute without a break. Every single day, they sexually abused her, they sucked her blood from every bit of her body, cut her flesh for fun, and healed her up so they could start all over again. Nothing was able to break her spirit as she endured everything they did to her. However, Tanulia''s words hurt and caused her more pain than the vampires ever could.
"This is the real face of the so-called guardians Peyton"
It took several minutes before Peyton opened her mouth,
"Why did you save me?" she looked directly in his eyes,pletely avoiding eye contact with Vedora,
"Because you don''t deserve what you went through and I only punish those who deserve to be punished. You''re free to go"
"I bet they will wee you with a parade," Ayag said sarcastically,
"Even if they don''t throw you in the prison or whatever the guardians have, your career ends here" Cain informed Peyton,
After hearing his siblings talk, Sarba also decided to give her a piece of his mind,
"You should really think about what you''re gonna do next Peyton. They don''t deserve your faith and loyalty anymore. If it wasn''t for him, who you people branded evil, you would have been still in that hell. Your guild calls themselves guardians but they failed to guard their own. If they wanted, they could have used the resources they are spending on locating Sabrina to save you, your team, and eradicating the vampires"
Michael let Sarba talk. He could see Peyton trembling in anger and her blood-red eyes as well as the veins bulging out of her skin was evident of her anger.
"They''re probably not even aware of the vampires because they are too busy searching for one person. The moment you return to your guild, they will treat you more like a traitor than a survivor. Do yourself a favor, don''t believe the guardians and the great ns blindly. They are not what you think"
While Peyton was staring at Vedora, Michael moved a Spyder into her hair, then into her skin through the cut on the back of her neck.
"Take a long look in the mirror and think about where your loyalty should be. I know you joined guardians wanting to change the world for the better, if you still want to do that,e find me" Michael slid a card marked with the location of somewhere secluded in the Elon continent.
The very next moment, Michael waved his hand as Peyton disappeared from the crypt. Vedora did not expect Michael would teleport Peyton away as they thought he was going to turn her against the guardians or at least get some valuable information about the guardians from her.
"What the hell did you do? I thought we were getting close to turning her against her people" Ayag frowned,
"She is too emotional now. We just put the seed of anger and betrayal in her heart. Let''s give it some time to grow and be a giant tree. Then, we don''t have to go to her, she wille to us" Michael was pretty confident. There was no turning back for Peyton after hearing Tanulia and Tiriana. She was betrayed by the people she trusted, which would do some serious damage to her and shake Peyton''s beliefs.
"I hope she doesn''t bber about us and everything," said Ayag,
"She won''t," Michael shook his head slightly. If she tried, Michael would know and he would activate the nanites in her body to kill her instantly.
*********************************
The sun was slowly rising on the horizon from its slumber painting the green hills of the Sun Rise sect with its golden rays. The early morning arrived as a promise kept for the disciples to spend yet another day in their wonderful sect.
A group of students was flocking toward a gigantic dome made of ss with bright faces. Today they were going to harvest the ripened fruits and herbs from thergest herbal garden in all the sects on the Elon continent.
Unlike two years ago, the Sunrise sect was filled with disciples. The ce looked lively as never before. There were many new buildings, teachers, fountains, and carriages going in and out. Most of these carriages belonged to various nobles who were trying to put their kids into the sect because the Sunrise sect had be one of the best in Elon.
At the moment, a green haired beauty was running through the crowd of students carrying a stack of books in her hand towards the herbal garden.
"Good morning Miss Olivia"
"Good morning Miss Olivia"
"Morning Miss Olivia"
"Good morning"
"Good morning"
"Good morning"
The students were greeting Olivia while moving away from her path. Today was thest day of the assignments Ghost gave her and she had to harvest a hundred and twenty-eight herbs to be exact.
In her hurry to the garden, she dropped one of her books. She didn''t notice that until someone called her from behind.
"You dropped this" Olivia''s mind realized the chit-chatter of the students suddenly disappeared as though someone switched off the noise around her.
Her body froze in its path when she recognized the face. As expected, she turned around and saw her mentor; Ghost smiling at her.
"Teacher!" she almost put the stacks of books in her hand down in shock,
Most of the students who were new to the sect and hadn''t seen Ghost in person were stunned too. They were just gawking at him with their eyes wide open.
Michael walked towards Olivia who was trembling due to the surprise he gave her. She hadn''t expected Ghost to be back for another three months.
"Teacher, you''re back"
"Yep. Let''s go see Sect Leader ire and everyone"
Michael loved the sound of notifications ringing in his head awarding him with badass points. It had been three months since he left the sect and if his math was right, fifty million gold coins would be sitting there for him to collect. It was time he turned those coins into badass points using the Banker function and upgraded the system so he could have more subordinates.
As soon as he finishes here, he could finally start interrogating Victor back in the Dark forest.
Chapter 481 Cold war between Bradford and Bredia
Chapter 481 Cold war between Bradford and Bredia¡¡¡¡Cold war between Bradford and Bredia
"Teacher" Olivia was brimming with joy but soon, Michael noticed slight distress in her eyes.
"Or should I call you, your majesty?" Olivia joked,
Michael smiled and patted her gently on the back.
"I''m not into the king thing very much," he said while walking towards ire''s mansion which was buzzling with people,
"Teacher, I thought you''ll be gone for eighteen months. Did you get expelled?"
She started at him curiously with her big round eyes,
"Jeesh, why did you think that? They just got impressed with your teacher''s skills and gave him early holidays"
Somehow Oliva didn''t think he was joking though he said like he was kidding.
"Arrhhmm" For a moment, Olvia dragged her voice as though she was searching for words in her mind,
"Teacher, how long will you be here?" Michael asked. At the same time talking to Olivia, he didn''t fail to greet the students who were dying to talk to him. Everyone Michael smiled at was trembling in joy. They were over the moon.
A simple gesture like nodding and patting on the back raised Michael''s image in their hearts to the next level. For Michael, it felt great to receive badass points just by walking and greeting students. He didn''t even do anything badass yet he was receiving a lot of badass points.
"A month or so"
She halted her steps suddenly as Michael turned to see her looking at him with puppy eyes,
"Would you pleasee to the Alchemy tournament as a judge?" Michael was surprised by her requests. He creased his brows,
"Alchemy tournament? That was supposed to happen months ago right?"
Olivia nodded,
"Yes but they postponed it for some reason. It''s starting next week and the guild has been sending me so many letters asking me if you cane to the tournament as one of the judges"
Michael couldn''t help snicker,
"What changed? I recall they asked me toe to the tournament as a participant, not as a judge"
Michael resumed walking,
"They said there was some kind of mix-up and someone wrote a wrong invitation"
"Really?" Michael dragged the word as though he wasughing inside. Both of them knew it was nothing but a tant lie. There was no mix-up or mistake, they were too arrogant to invite someone who was just a fraction of their age as their fellow judge. Now that they learned he got admitted into Mazeroth, they just wanted to curry favor.
"What''s in it for me? And if my memory serves right, you were training a group of students"
"Yes I am still training them and the answer to your first question is Aqua auction token. That''s what you will get teacher should you choose toe as a judge"
"What''s that?" Michael asked. He had no idea what the heck is an Aqua token. But by the look on Olivia''s face, he realized that it might be a big deal. Since auctions were ces where he could find some really powerful artifacts, he was tempted to ept the Alchemy guild''s request.
"Why am I not surprised?" She sighed thinking about her teacher''sck of knowledge of what''s happening in the world.
"You heard about the Phoenix manor auction right teacher?"
Michael nodded. How could he forget that ce? He met his vampire friend there and at that time, Lord Julius who was a Core Strengthening stage warrior threatened his life.
"Well the Phoenix manor auction is a beggarpared to the Aqua auction. It''s one of the most prominent and if not the biggest auction in the world. If you want to actually bid for the items in the auction, the token is the only way. People will pay millions to get their hands on the tokens"
"So where will this auction take ce exactly?"
"Kingdom ra in Awor continent"
Until now Michael was only tempted to go as a judge but after hearing that the auction will take ce in the Awor continent, he decided to ept the Alchemy guild''s invitation. He always wanted to check out the most powerful and the richest continents of them all but he didn''t get the chance till now.
"When?" asked Michael. If it was before Mazeroth, he wouldn''t have worried about the time. Now he had to as he only got forty-five days of break.
"Two weeks from today and do not worry about the traveling time teacher. The token has a rune that will teleport you directly to one of the rooms assigned to that token in ra. You can bring Aelia with you and speak of Aelia" Olivia looked around to locate Aelia. It was rare for Olivia or anyone to see Ghost alone without his other shadow.
"Stop looking, she is still in seclusion"
"Hehehe," Olivia giggled, squinting her eyes. She forgot the thing that''s been bothering her for a moment. Both of them discussed Alchemy on their way to ir''s mansion and when they entered the mansion, they saw ire sitting on a throne-like sofa and talking to several men and women in their middle ages. She had one leg over another and looked intimidating like a queen.
"That''s your problem. I want the paddy seeds delivered on the agreed date" ire''s brows arched up as though they were a pair of swords. Her voice and demeanor were extremely dominating which made Michael appreciate her.
"If I heard one more bandit attack or out-of-stock excuse from any of you, I will personally bring down the wrath of the entire Sunrise sect on every single of you"
Michael could see the people shivering from where he was standing. In her furious state, ire failed to notice Ghost standing in the hallway,
"What about you Lord Cyril?" ire turned her gaze to the ones sitting right to her,
"What made you hand over the working contracts to Kethen instead of Bradford? As I recall, you always hired the people of Bradford, not Kethen. Your decision has cost hundreds of people losing their jobs"
Olivia began to shudder. Everyone in the sect was trying to fix the situation of Bradford before Ghost came back from Mazeroth. They all feared how Ghost would react if he knew what''s going on in Bradford. ire and the elders didn''t try to hide the situation but they wanted to deal with the situation themselves instead of involving him or Aelia.
"Sect Leader ire, can we address the elephant in the room? We are here because of the cold war between Bradford and Bredia. Our hands are tied Sect Leader ire, we cannot make an enemy out of King Bredia and Ghost"
"That''s King, King Ghost for you" ire coldly corrected the brown-haired man,
"Pardon me Sect Leader, we cannot make an enemy out of King Bredia or King Ghost. We may have given the jobs to Kethen but we will give the mining contract to the people of Bradford, that would suffice right?"
The man tried his best to sound as polite and courteous as possible.
"People of Bradford are not miners, Lord Cyril. They are farmers and fishermen. Besides, the mines at the border between Bredia and Bradford. I don''t have to remind you how many men and women Bredian soldiers arrested for some phony crimes they nevermitted in the first ce"
Michael was listening to her words calmly. His calmness freaked Olive as she knew that there will always be calmness before a freakin storm.
"That''s why we rmend you hold a peace talk with King Bredia and sort this out, Sect Leader ire. We feel like we''re stuck in a tug of war between Bredia and Bradford" the dark haired woman sitting next to Cyril pleaded to ire as they all bobbed their heads,
"In three days, King Bredia will hold a g celebrating the engagement between Princess Katherine and Andrew Winston. If you would¡" Lord Cyril didn''t finish his sentence as his words trailed away. They were merchants who had several contacts in both kingdoms. Through those contacts, they learned that King Bredia hasn''t invited anyone from Bradford, not even for a courtesy. Thus, they were practically asking ire to go uninvited and hold a peace talk with him which had the highest possibility of her being humiliated or disrespected by King Bredia and his men regardless of her status.
"It''s more appropriate for me to attend"
Before ire could respond to Cyril, another voice reverberated in the hall. They all turned their heads in the direction where the voice came from and saw Ghost walking towards them. They felt chill running through their spines as they immediately stood up as though their seats were on fire.
"Ghost" ire lost her domineering demeanor when she saw him. A wide grin from ear to ear emerged on her cold face. She almost hugged him but fortunately, she stopped herself with only squeezing his hands,
"King Ghost"
"Your Majesty"
Some addressed him by ''King'' while some mumbled ''Your majesty'' in shock and surprise. The pressure on their shoulders just multiplied by a thousand folds after he made his appearance. They thought ire was exerting dominance until he appeared.
"Sect Leader ire, you''re looking good"
Before dealing with the situation at hand, Michael greeted ire with a smile. He took ire by her hand and made her sit on the sofa back. Olivia stood beside ire waiting to see how is he going to deal with the merchants,
"I am sorry for the hardships you''ve been facing because of Bradford. Thank you foring here,dies and gentlemen. I will personally meet King Bredia and fix everything" Michael emphasized the word ''everything''. His words should have reassured them. Instead, they all shuddered because those words sounded more like a deration of war.
"Olivia, please show thesedies and gentlemen the way out"
"Ladies and gentlemen" Olivia gestured at the merchants to follow her.
The merchants did not dare to linger any longer. They rushed outside leaving ire and Ghost behind. Only when the merchants left the hall and Olviai returned, Michael sat on the sofa beside ire.
"So King Bredia''s been giving Bradford a hard time huh? Some people never let go of something they should, do they?" the smile on Michael''s face disappeared and in its ce, a cold murderous look arose.
Although you won''t miss anything in HBS if you don''t read Anti Hero With a Symbiote System(AHSS), I strongly rmend everyone to read it because AHSS is set in the parallel universe of HBS and you will see lots of references to Michael and insights of HBS universe as well as origins of the Badass System.
Chapter 482 Engagement Gala I
Chapter 482 Engagement G I¡¡¡¡Olivia sat on the sofa facing Michael. He leaned back, resting his head on his fist,
"You have nothing to worry about, everything is under control" ire softly said,
"Things could have been better if I had tied some loose ends"
Michael''s face was void of any expression.
"What''s truly going on Sect Leader ire? Tell me everything"
His gaze turned colder as ire found no strength to hide what was going on in Bradford. Besides, he trusted them with the kingdom so ire knew that he deserved to know the truth.
Letting out a deep sight of breath, ire and Olivia began to narrate the events unveiled over thest three months. Almost fifteen minutester, they finished their report and expected some kind of reaction from Ghost who listened to everything showing no emotions at all. They were unable to grasp what he was thinking or what the hell was going on in his head.
After hearing ire and Olvia, Michael realized why he received no reports from Azazel about Bradford. From the outside, Bradford was running as usual. Inside, however, the kingdom was dying little by little and ire was the one keeping the kingdom alive using the treasury of the Sunrise sect.
ording to ire, the merchantpanies who used to trade with Baron Totonk stopped their trading. In addition, the various noble families of Bredia who owned businesses fired the people of Bradford and stopped buying fish and farm products produced in Bradford. In simple words, they cklisted Bradford. Over the three months, Bradford had lost most of the revenue streams. Thus, ire and Elder Sandra had to ess the Sect treasury to keep the people from starving to death.
If this wasn''t enough, the Bredian soldiers had been exerting an absurd amount of tax on anyone whoes to Bradford through their borders as well as arrested Bradford citizens for phony crimes that they nevermitted.
Because of this, new merchants and nobles stopped visiting Bradford and Bradford citizens quit traveling to Bredia for work. Even Hades''s ie was affected by Bredia.
Michael doubted that the nobles of Bredia visited Hades much over the past three months. ire also mentioned that some of the prominent noble families left Bradford and those who worked for them lost their jobs which erged the hole of unemployment. Altogether put a major strain on Bradford. If it wasn''t for ire''s deals with lesser nobles and new merchants, the kingdom''s economy would havepletely copsed.
However, ire and Sandra weren''t magicians who could perform a miracle and fix the economy right away. Without new revenue streams and new jobs for the Bradford citizens, the kingdom would sink eventually.
"Olivia" Michael turned his gaze to Olivia,
"Your father has contacts in Bredia right?"
Olivia nodded but she had no idea why was he asking,
"Do me a favor and ask him if King Bredia has anything to do with the situation on Bradford"
Instead of Olvia, Michael heard another voice. He turned his head and saw Ricky and Daniel entering the hall. Michael was impressed by their transformation. Both dressed in ck robes and had neatly pruned shoulder-length hair. Their hair looked glossy, just like their skin.
Finally, they both reached an adequate cultivation level. Due to his X-ray eye, he could see Ricky was at Core Formation level 2 while Daniel had reached level 3 and was just a few months cultivation away from reaching the next level.
"We have some information regarding that Master Ghost" Ricky and Daniel bent their backs and bowed deeply. For them, Ghost was their god. Their adoration towards him was evident by the way they bowed.
"Sect Leader ire, Lady Olivia" They then bowed towards Olivia and ire before turning their gaze back at Ghost
"We wanted your permission but you weren''t here Master Ghost so please forgive us for buying this information from Lord Information" with a flick of his wrist, Daniel took out a silver parchment from his space ring.
ire wasn''t surprised as Olivia because she knew they might do something like that. Although Daniel and Ricky took care of things rted to the sect too, they were ultimately Ghost''s minions. So ire knew it was not her ce to tell them what they could and couldn''t do.
"So you two took initiative, good. I like that"
Ricky grinned from ear to ear since it was his idea to buy information from Lord Information regarding Bradford''s status using Michael''s coins. Daniel was reluctant to take Ghost''s coins but Ricky convinced him Master Ghost liked them to take the initiative. Just like Ricky said, Michael liked what they did. He always wanted his subordinates to act on their own for the betterment of him instead of always looking for his orders and guidance.
The parchment contained all of King Bredia''s meetings for thest three months. After reading the parchments, Michael handed over the parchment to ire,
"Sect Leader ire, see if these were the people who revoked their support to Bradford"
It was obvious to Michael that King Bredia was the one behind everything. Still, Michael handled the situation calmly rather than resorting to instant violence.
ireid her eyes on the parchment and in a few moments, she creased her brows. She knew this deep down yet looking at a solid proof felt weird,
"Every single one in this list either left the kingdom or stopped dealing with us all of a sudden" ire said,
"I don''t think we need more proof on King Bredia is the one behind everything"
"Ghost, don''t do anything rash. We can talk this out with him" ire quickly said trying to calm him down before the things go south,
"Even if we know he''s the one pulling the strings, we can''t prove anything, teacher. This is a delicate situation which has to be dealt with utmost caution" Olivia pitched in letting Michael know her thoughts,
"Do you think I am rash and unreasonable?" Michael asked the two girls,
When he looked at Daniel and Ricky they immediately shook their heads, wordlessly telling him he was neither.
"If anyone was unreasonable and rash, it''s King Bredia. He was the one who decided to marry his daughter to whoever won the tournament. I won that and I wasn''t going to marry that princess even though I could have said yes, no one would have batten eye"
Ricky and Daniel bobbed their heads up and down agreeing with Michael,
"I was perfectly reasonable and if not, magnanimous when I rejected the princess. Now Princess Katherine gets to marry her love and King Bredia gets to see his daughter happy, all because of what I did"
Olivia agreed with Ghost. She had met hundreds of men in her life and she couldn''t find a single one who would have rejected a princess. Despite what the others were thinking, she knew her teacher was a good guy. Otherwise, he would have married her and destroyed her love without batting an eye as most would have. If she was in King Bredia''s shoes, she wouldn''t have messed with Bradford.
"All I asked in return is being left alone. Tell me Sect Leader ire, why can''t he leave me be"
ire had no answer for him as he turned his head to Daniel and Ricky,
"When is this engagement g? In three days right?"
"Yes Master Ghost"
As Ricky said, Michael stood up and so did Olivia and ire,
"Ghost, what are you going to do?" asked ire with a worried face. Thest thing they needed was an open war between Bradford and Bredia. Although Bradford had one-third of Bredia''s army, they were nowhere near to defeating Bredia in an all-out war.
"Don''t you think I should attend the g as a well-wisher of Bredia and the princess?"
ire''s heart skipped a beat when she heard him. They all felt a chill running through their spines because his words sounded colder, drenched in killing intent.
"Ricky go to Grand Spire bank in mefair and ask Miss Valric to meet me at Hades"
Bradford owed Sunrise sect millions of gold and there were some things Michael wouldn''t do even for millions of badass points and one of those things was being in debt. Thus, he decided to pay the amount ire gave to Bradford from the sect''s treasury.
"Ghost"
ire tried to stop Ghost from doing whatever he was nning to do but before she could say anything, he raised his hand,
"This is something I have to deal with myself, ire"
Michael cast the ''lightning dash'' spell and disappeared from the room, leaving a trail of golden light.
"How strong is he now?" Olivia wondered. The pressure ire felt when he cast the spell was several times stronger than what she felt around her grandfather. Somehow ire couldn''t even think that he had reached the Soul Refining stage.
**********************************
Michael didn''t stop until he reached Hades. Most of the river town people were going on with their lives when he descended to the doorsteps of Hades. Before many on the streets could notice, Michael entered Hades and saw the restaurant was loaded with people. Except for a few tables reserved for him, elders of the Sunrise sect, and his subordinates, the rest of the tables were upied by the nobles and rich from various kingdoms and families.
Michael raised many eyebrows as he entered the Hades, especially the girls who stared at him as though they were gonna eat him alive. He made his way to the table reserved for him. It was a curved sofa located at the far end of the hall.
It was only a couple of seconds after he sat when he saw Gloria rushing to his table from the back,
"Master Ghost" Gloria immediately bowed, greeting him with a wide smile.
Michael disliked being addressed as ''his majesty'', somehow it felt weird for him. Therefore, he ordered everyone to keep addressing him as ''Master Ghost'' instead of ''your majesty''.
"Hey Gloria how are you?" Michael asked with his usual gentle alluring smile,
"I am doing wonderful thanks to you Master Ghost. Sorry, we didn''t expect you. I could have done something special"
"No need, I just wanted to surprise my favorite manager"
"Master Ghost" Gloria let out a shy grin as her face reddened slightly,
"Where is Raylene? In the kitchen?"
Gloria bobbed her head as Michael expected,
"I should go tell her you''re here"
Hearing her, Michael shook his head,
"No no no, it seems you guys are so busy. Let her work, I can meet her after we close"
This time, Gloria who was the one shook her head,
"No Master Ghost. If I don''t let her know you''re here, she will fire me. Please let me inform Lady Raylene Master Ghost"
Michael chuckled looking at her pleading with puppy eyes,
"Okay and I would like a ss of grape juice and special please"
"Coming right up, Master Ghost"
The nobles who saw the conversation between Gloria and Ghost were pleasantly surprised. Many heard that he was a man of simplicity despite his talents, it was truly stunning to witness his simplicity in person.
Now they knew why the people of river town worship him regardless of the recent hardships they were facing.
Chapter 483 The war between the Pentown and Flamefair
Chapter 483 The war between the Pentown and mefair¡¡¡¡As soon as Gloria went into the kitchen, Raylene rushed out. Her sweaty face had a wide bright smile.
"Master Ghost"
She tried to kneel down but Michael stopped her by grabbing her shoulder,
"Sit down" Michael had to apply some pressure to make her sit down beside him,
Her rosy face waspletely drenched in sweat. Michael could notice the redness in her hand which was a mark of her hard work.
"I hope everything''s going well Raylene"
"Yes yes, Master Ghost. You have nothing to worry about. Me and Gloria even thinking about opening another branch in Royalnd"
Her words really made Michael happy. It felt great for him to see his subordinates finally making up good decisions themselves without his guidance. For him, it was like seeing the birdlings spreading their wings and flying away from the nest on their own.
Raylene leaned back on the sofa facing Michael''s eyes.
"We are just waiting for Lady Aelia toe out of her seclusion and clear up some of the financial sides of things. Master Ghost, is she still in her seclusion?"
Michael nodded,
"But go ahead. I''m meeting someone handling my ount in Grand Spire. I will transfer the coins to your ount"
"About that Master Ghost?" Raylene scratched her temples,
"I took the liberty of opening a separate ount in Grand Spire for the restaurant and I''ve been depositing the profits into that ount"
"Look at my Raylene, all grown up" Michaelughed as he ruffled her head as though she was a little girl to see her giggle.
"Any problems transferring the coins to the bank?" asked Michael.
Considering Raylene would have to physically bring the coins to the bank and deposit them into the ount, she was vulnerable to getting attacked by thieves or bandits. Good thing Michael let Lord Mn handle the security side since the Bradley family specialized in providing security.
"When I was opening the ount, Lord Mn himself came here to escort me to the bank. After that," Raylene leaned closer to Michael,
"Once a week, he will send a courier here. Only I know how to identify the courier" she whispered to him,
"So you put the coins in a space ring and send the courier to the bank"
"Yes," Raylene nodded,
"The courier will make the deposit on my behalf and another courier will bring me the receipt"
Michael nodded although he could tell this process was still not hundred percent foolproof. For instance, the courier could steal the space ring and find someone to break the seal for him. It was difficult to break open a space ring but it was not impossible. If an amateur Runemaster like Wilkas could do it, any run-of-the-mill runemaster might possess the skill to do it better.
Since he wouldn''t be here always to transfer the coins to the system storage, he had to ept the risks. In case something happened to the space ring after Raylene handed it over to the courier, it was Lord Mn''s responsibility to get the space ring safely to the bank. Hence, Michael didn''t need to worry about it much.
Besides, having a separate ount that Raylene could ess anytime enabled her to function independently without having to wait for him or Gaya.
"Everything ising into a shape nicely"
Michael said to himself, seeing his business empire starting to roll on its own. Everyponent in the chain had been working without depending on him much and he wanted to be like that.
"You said you chose Royalnd but why not Kethen? Isn''t it a better choice since it''s closer to Bradford than Royalnd?" Michael asked curiously. For him, Kethen seemed like a better choice. As he said, it was closer to Bradford so traveling wouldn''t take as much toll on Raylene as it would if she was to travel between Bradford and Royalnd.
"The ongoing war will affect the business Master Ghost"
"What war?" Michael creased his brows,
Only then Raylene realized that Ghost was in Mazeroth when the war began. She had a look of realization as she answered,
"A week after you left, mefair waged war on Pen town and since thetter is an ally to Icefair, they extended their support to Pen town. So the three dukedoms are at their throat for thest three months"
Michael knew mefair duke had been conducting human experiments in secrecy. Now that he heard he waged a sudden war on not only one but two dukedoms, Michael Duke Avon of mefair is nning something big.
Michael felt like there was a lot on his te all of a sudden.
"And what about the Rosegate dukedom? Who are they supporting in this war?"
"Thest time I heard, they remained neutral," said Raylene,
She then smacked herself on the forehead,
"Look at me, keeping your table empty. Just wait a minute Master Ghost, I''ll go bring your food."
"We will talkter. Now focus on your work, I won''t keep you here, you''re busy"
Raylene couldn''t disagree with him after seeing the crowd. Hence, she bowed and ran into the kitchen.
"Shit I forgot to ask her about Cindy"
After a couple of minutes, Gloria brought arge ss of sparkling purple juice and Grilled Lobster Tails With Lemon and Herb Butter. Just the fragrance alone made Michael''s mouth salivate. He didn''t realize how much he missed Raylene''s cooking until he experienced the sensation again.
This was an impressively ted dish that showed Raylene''s mastery of cooking. She could not only make delicious meals but could also te the dish in a way that feasted the eyes.
Michael immediately started to dig in. The tasty meals put a smile on his face as he continued to eat. Gloria didn''t stick around to watch him eat as it would be weird. So Michael ate alone while missing Gaya.
He was halfway done when Ricky entered Hades with the elven girl Michael met in Grand Spire bank; Vanya Valric.
"Master Ghost" Ricky bowed,
"Miss Valric, please take a seat" The elf nodded beforefortably sitting on the sofa facing Michael.
"You can go Ricky"
As much as Ricky wanted to fill his belly, he had so many things to take care of. So he bowed and left Hades,
"Thank you for meeting me Miss Valric"
"Of course Master Ghost, you are one of our VIP customers after all. You deserve the best. What can I do for you Master Ghost?"
Before answering Valric, Michael looked at one of the waitresses as she came running to his table,
"First you have to order something for yourself Miss Valric, on the house, I insist"
Vanya was different from the elves he met in Mazeroth. He knew sometimes it might just be an act because of her profession but something told him that she wasn''t like those arrogant elves.
"I will have what Master Ghost is having" Vanya ordered what Michael did and sent the waitress back into the kitchen.
Michael then took out a piece of paper and a quill from the space ring and wrote a few numbers,
"Miss Vanlric, transfer this amount from my ount to this one" Michael slid the piece of paper to Valric. Her brows slightly arched up,
"This much"
The transaction he was about to make wasn''t a hundred or thousand, it was a whopping 29 million gold coins. His heart bled as it was more than half of his three-month earnings. He med King Bredia for it and wanted to make that king pay for what he did.
"Can you do that now?"
"Yes, I just need a few things from you but I can do it right now"
With a flick of her wrist, Vanya took out a purple cube that contained an orb of bright light within. The cube was the size of a Rubik''s cube. Michael noticed her drawing a few symbols on the cube,
"Just ce your hand on the cube Master Ghost"
Michael did as he was told. A few secondster, he felt a little sting on his finger as he noticed a drop of his blood running into the cube.
"Done," Valric said. The simplicity and ease of depositing or transferring an amount from one ount to another surprised him. If he had wanted to withdraw the coins, he would have had to go through so many loops and arrays just like the banks on earth.
"You have this amount remaining in your ount," Valric wrote a number on the same piece of paper Michael gave her and slid it towards him,
"Twenty five million, it''s enough for me to upgrade the system"
Michael said to himself. Of course, he had to withdraw the coins to convert them into badass points using the Banker Function. At the current level of Banker Function, he could convert twenty million coins into 800,000 badass points. The next upgrade would cost him 600,000. He could use the remaining amount to upgrade one of his skills. At least that was what he nned to do before he knew about the auction in Awor.
"Transfer this amount to Hades ount"
As expected, Valric knew about the ount Raylene opened. Hence, she didn''t need the number. She repeated the process and transferred 2 million into Hades ount which could be used to open up another branch of Hades in Royal Land.
"Miss Valric, do you happen to know anything about the Aqua auction?"
"Yes, Is Master Ghost nning to attend?"
"It depends on whether the amount in my ount is sufficient or not" Michael stared at Valric as she realized that he was expecting her to tell him if it''s enough or not.
He was a VIP customer and she had to prioritize keeping him as happy as possible. Because of that, she sugarcoated her next words,
"If you managed to get yourself a token, you can bid for the items in the first round"
Michael expected this. Her words clearly indicated that he was poor to bid for the items that would appear in theter stages of the auction. The items that would appear in the beginning stages of the auction were just ordinary items, he very well knew that.
"What if I start an auction house myself?" A thought appeared in his mind. For now, he shelved the idea in the corner of his mind.
Chapter 484 Trial of Peyton
Chapter 484 Trial of Peyton¡¡¡¡In the capital town of Kingdom Dradel, a grandeur castle stood tall. Fourteen thick, square towers reaching for the sky were scattered in a seemingly random pattern, but were built for an ideal defense and were connected by high, narrow walls made of emerald green stone.
Grand windows were scattered generously around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry, along with asymmetric crentions for archers and artillery.
A great gate with giant metal doors, a drawbridge, and a moat guarded the only easy way across the river.
Well-kept gardens with fragrant flowers, gorgeous trees, and many bushes decorated the outside of the castle. This castle had clearly stood the test of time, the rocks of the walls were aged and vines and nts grew inside the cracks, but this castle wouldst for ages toe.
Currently, several carriages were going in and out of the castle and Peyton was in one of those carriages. The Guardian Guild had several headquarters sprinkled throughout the world and this castle was the headquarters of the Elon continent. This was where they dealt with everything rted to the Elon continent.
Peyton remained silent throughout her journey from the Southern continent to her manor to the castle. The memories of Alpha''s guardian abandoning her for Sabrina kept shing across her mind. She could not stop it. Her blood was boiling in rage. Not in a million years did she think she would be betrayed by the guardian guild, especially by the Alpha guardian whom Peyton worshiped as a god.
To this moment she had a hard time believing she was saved by the Dark Lord. After seeing the images he showed her, she didn''t think the guardians would have ever looked for her. Deep down she knew if it wasn''t for the Dark Lord, she would still be getting tortured by the vampires.
Unlike what one would expect, no one stopped the carriages to search them. There were countless runes and arrays ced all around the castle that protected the castle from intruders and enemies. When a guardian was initiated into the guild, they would receive a mark. If anyone tried to enter the castle without bearing this mark, they would be immediately incapacitated and arrested by the elite soldiers patrolling the castle grounds.
Since Peyton had the mark, she entered the castle grounds without any hups. In addition, there was an array designed by a 6-star runemaster that suppressed all the guardians'' cultivation levels to the Body Strengthening stage except for a selected few including Peyton.
However, at the moment, she felt her cultivation was being suppressed to
Body Strengthening stage
"Huh?" Peyton creased her brows. For a second she thought it was some kind of mistake but then, she remembered the words of the three-headed creatures she saw with the Dark Lord,
"The moment you return to your guild, they will treat you more like a traitor than a survivor"
The carriage gradually came to a halt. Peyton remained in the carriage for a few moments, trying to calm her mind. Then, she stepped out of the carriage onto the courtyard.
The courtyard was decorated with arge fountain in the center and neatly pruned gardens. The paved ground was clean and spotless without a speck of dust.
As soon as she stepped out of the carriage, the guardians rxing in the courtyard turned their gazes at her. The smiles on their faces got reced by a cold look.
Ignoring all their looks, Peyton made her way into the castle. A giant chandelier hanging from the ceiling lit the hall with its bright silver light. The marble ground and pure white walls gave the interior a majestic charm. At the moment, numerous guardians were going with their work, and several noticed Peyton. Just like those guardians outside, all of them had a cold look on their faces.
"Peyton!" From the crowd, Peyton heard someone calling her. She turned in the direction of the voice to see Xanali, her best friend running towards her.
"Peyton" Xanali pulled Peyton close, hugging her tight,
"Thank the gods you''re alright" She squeezed Peyton, refusing to let her go.
"At least someone is d to see me" Peyton expressed her thoughts,
Xanali finally released Peyton from the hug.
"Let''s go to my quarters and talk"
"Your quarters?" Peyton frowned,
Before Xanali could answer Peyton, she asked another question,
"What happened to my quarters?"
Xanali avoided eye contact while wringing her hands,
"We''ll talk about that,e on" Xanali grabbed Peyton by her hand before dragging her towards a polished door made of white wood. Peyton''s quarters was just a couple of doors away from Xanali''s. When she saw her quarters, the door had no namete as it used to have.
Xanali opened the door to reveal a spacious room with fancy sofas and tables. The floor was wood, not marble like outside. The walls were painted and decorated with a crimson red wallpaper border. The room was lit by the chandelier and the several orbs attached to the walls. The room was done in a floral theme in light muted colors and overall had an elegant look. Among the first things, Peyton noticed walking in was a portrait of a graceful red-haired woman sitting on a throne. She had a resemnce to Xanali which indicated to Peyton that she was Xanali''s mother.
Xanali and Peyton sat on the cushioned sofa as Xanali began to brew them a cup of tea,
"I never lost faith in you Peyton. I knew you would return" Xanali said, giving the cup and saucer to Peyton,
"Where is Sabrina? Tiriana and the hunter guardians kept everything hush-hush. But I heard, you team disappeared from the safe horse without a trace"
Normally Peyton included Xanali in all of her teams but due to Xanali having to leave for Nagnd, she couldn''t be a part of Operation Desert Eagle. But everyone including Tiriana and Tanulia thought Peyton recruited Sabrina. In truth, Xanali was the one who rmended Peyton take Sabrina in her stead.
"I saw the way everyone looked at me. What''s happening here Xanali?"
Xanali sighed as she ced her hand atop Peyton''s. She tried to console her by gently squeezing her hand,
"Those idiots are thinking you led Sabrina into a trap because¡"
"Because what?" Peyton furrowed her brows,
"Because the higher ups promoted Noah to captain instead of you"
Peyton clenched her. The anger within her exploded like a volcano. Her eyes turned red due to the veins popping out,
"They think I led my team into a trap and killed them because I didn''t get a promotion," Peyton asked gritting her teeth,
"They are idiots, Peyton. Don''t give a damn about what they think. They all like Noah and that''s why they''ve been acting like this. When you tell the truth in the hearing, they will realize how wrong they are" Her words were supposed to calm Peyton down but instead, when Peyton heard her, her rage multiplied by several folds. Xanali noticed Peyton''s hands trembling.
"Yeah everyone like Noah who spends most of his time doing god knows what but they don''t give a shit about those who risk our lives for the guild and its principles"
Ching!
Peyton crushed the teacup before standing up,
"Even you asked me where is Sabrina, not what happened to you"
Peyton''s voice stuttered. She didn''t raise her voice even though she was raging in anger. To be honest, she couldn''t raise her voice. The mix of emotions she was feeling right now suppressed her voice,
"Peyton¡ it''s-"
"Tell me Xanali, the Desert Eagle operation is supposed to be off the books. How did the rest of them know about it, how did they know who was in the team?"
Peyton''s eyes welled up behind her sses,
"The alpha guardian¡she asked disclosed the operation and asked everyone to look for you"
Peyton let out a miserable smile as she shook her head,
"Not me Xanali, Sabrina. They asked the guardians to look for Sabrina"
Xanali couldn''t rebuke because what Peyton said was the truth. The Alpha guardians specifically told them to search for Sabrina discreetly. As far as the Winston family was concerned, Sabrina was in seclusion at Holy Trident Academy. Since Noah left Elon searching for something, he had no idea about his sister''s disappearance.
"Do you know what they did to me?"
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
Just as Peyton was about to reveal what happened to her in the southern continent, someone knocked on the door,
"Who is there?" asked Xanali,
"The hearing is going to begin soon"
Peyton didn''t need any exnation. She knew the hearing was for her because she expected this to happen. The Dark Lord and the three-headed creature were right. Regardless of what she wanted to believe, everything they told her had been the truth.
She started to think the Dark Lord may have been right all along. If she was the Alpha guardian, she wouldn''t have yed favorites. Peyton would have sent teams to look for everyone. Moreover, she wouldn''t have let the guardians brand a loyal guardian a traitor until she received all the facts.
"Peyton" Xanali stood up. As a best friend, she thought she knew what was going on in Peyton''s mind. However, in truth, Xanali couldn''t even grasp the amount of rage and sadness in Peyton''s heart.
The feeling of realizing that the Dark Lord, who Peyton thought was the ultimate evil, was in right rather than the guild she believed in her whole life crushed her heart.
"Let''s get this over with. Lead the way" When Xanali opened the door, they were weed by the silver armored soldiers. Each soldier was armored to the teeth. Despite the look, the armor was as light as a feather but strong enough to withstand an immense amount of attacks. These were the elites of the castle, the Soul Refining stage warriors.
"Miss Peyton, follow us"
The guardians were staring at them as the soldiers escorted Peyton to the upper floor through the stairs followed by Xanali. Peyton felt like a prisoner but uttered no word.
Eventually, Peyton reached a giant metal door. The soldiers pushed open the door to reveal a spacious empty hall where there was nothing but a table located on a stage elevated from the floor and several thrones behind this long oak table.
After she stepped into the hall, the soldiers closed the door behind her. She slowly made her way to the center of the hall. Soon, a man dressed in red robes appeared below the table,
"The hearing about the Desert Eagle operation will begin shortly"
As Peyton was waiting for the higher ups to appear, Michael was seeing everything through the Spyder he ced on Peyton. The old Spyder he made would have been destroyed by the arrays when Peyron entered the castle. Thanks to Elidyr, his new Spyders were undetectable. Although they had the main weakness, the Spyder on Peyton was enough for Michael to witness the trial which was about to make Guardians a deadly enemy.
Chapter 485 Upgrading the System
Chapter 485 Upgrading the System¡¡¡¡Peyton waited for the higher ups to take their seats patiently. She seemed calm but she was shaking inside. This was her first hearing.
"Guardian Captain Gerard Atkins" the man in the red robes announced as a study man with dark shiny hair took his seat. Just like everyone else, he too had a cold look on his face,
"You too believe that Captain" Peyton stuttered,
"Save it for the hearing" the man coldly shut out Peyton,
"Second inmand of the Alpha Guardian of Hunter Guardians, Tiriana Valren" Followed by the man''s announcement, Tiriana appeared beside the chair and took her seat.
"Alpha Guardian of Hunter Guardians, Tanulia Valren" Tanulia, the Alpha guardian teleported beside the seat in the middle of the table. Peyton subconsciously bowed as she was used to.
She didn''t even nod, in fact, she didn''t even look Peyton in the eyes,
After Tanulia, only one seat remained. Peyton wondered who was going toe until he got her answer,
"Guardian Captain Xanali Harthill" as soon as Peyton heard the man, her heart skipped a beat. She was so stunned that her mind went nk. Her lips instantly became dry as she looked up at the stage to see Xanali slowly approaching the empty chair,
Thest time Peyton talked to Tanulia, she said there was only one Guardian Captain spot remaining. How could they give one spot to two guardians? It was evident to Peyton the one spot remaining talk was just bullshit. Still, she couldn''t believe Xanali and Noah, two of whom she recruited got promoted instead of her.
Looking at this, Michael wasughing aloud. He knew Peyton was on the verge of defecting but after seeing this, he was utterly positive. Moreover, he really felt bad for Peyton. She deserved better. She put her blood and sweat into the guild and all she got in return was scorn and negligence.
"Xanali"
"Captain, Guardian Captain Xanali" Tiriana coldly corrected Peyton,
"Shall we begin?"
The trial of Peyton began with Tanulia''s words.
************************************
Three hourster, Michael was in the pocket dimension attached next to his room in the dark forest. He was not alone as Azazel and Victor apanied him.
Michael had a workbench near the pole Victor was tied to. He had various tools¡torture tools as well as an alchemy apparatus set up on the table.
"So Victor, sorry to keep you waiting" Michael pulled up the sack covering Victor''s head to see Victor growling,
"Doesn''t feel great to be tied onto a pole, does it?" asked Michael.
Victor couldn''t see the amused look on his face because of the mask on his face. He was not in the mood or situation to wonder how the Dark Lord looked behind the mask.
"Were you always a vampire Victor?" Michael asked while sharpening a wooden stake,
"They say wooden stakes through the heart could kill a vampire instantly. But again, who wouldn''t die huh?"
Azazel grinned hearing Michael''s joke,
After putting the stake down, Michael put several cloves of garlic into a pestle and crushed them into a paste.
Victor wanted to respond to his remark with an extremely antagonizing reply but when he opened his mouth, Michael shoved the garlic paste into his mouth.
"Argh!"
Victor coughed and coughed and coughed and kept coughing but unfortunately, it was not due to vampires being allergic to garlic as Michael expected.
"Fuck!...You crazy bastard!" Victor spat out, cursing Michael,
"So no garlic allergy. Hmm, only direct sunlight seems to hurt you bloodsuckers"
"Let me go!" Victor squirmed but he couldn''t get himself out of the bonds,
"Not until I find all about your kind" As he said, Michael stabbed Victor in the neck with his APD needle and sucked out vampire blood from him.
Victor saw the Dark Lord pouring his blood into a vial,
"What¡what''re you gonna do?" Victor stuttered,
"I forgot you have regeneration" Michael put the vial on the table before shing Victor''s chest with the hidden de,
This time, Michael collected the blood in a bowl.
"Son of a-"
When the cut closed up, he swung the hidden de again, opening another wound.
Michael repeated this process until Victor''s body turned paler than it was.
"I need a tissue sample" Victor was breathing heavily. His heart skipped a beat when he heard the Dark Lord,
"ARRGGHHH!" Victor used all his remaining strength to get out of the bond looking at the hidden de on his wrist,
He knew the Dark Lord was going to cut him again like a pig. His struggle was halted by a flick of the butler who stood a couple of meters away from him. Victor couldn''t even move a muscle. He felt as though he was being clutched by an invisible hand,
Like cutting slices of meat, Michael cut the flesh out of various parts of Victor''s body. Michael bought special boxes from the system to store to keep the flesh fresh for future experiments.
After seeing Peyton''s trial, Michael had a n for Victor.
Victor regenerated all the flesh Michael cut out. Michael was truly surprised by the speed of the regeneration speed. Only the Dark mes seemed to stop the regeneration. So if he wanted to kill a vampire, he either had to cut the head off or stab them with a de covered in the Dark mes.
Unfortunately, thetter was not efficient as no de or metal could withstand the heat of Dark mes. After fighting with Victor back on the Southern continent, Michael had to rece his hidden de.
He turned to the system for a strong enough metal only to know that the current system level was too low.
"My Lord, it''s ready" Azazel informed Michael,
"We''ll continue this after I return"
Finally, Victor heaved a sigh of relief. He could finally regenerate his blood and cuts and also, try to escape the ce which seemed like a lush canyon.
Reaching his room, Michael activated the runic teleportation and disappeared from the room. In a few minutes, he appeared again in the room.
"Twenty million" he willed the system as a pile of gold coins materialized on the floor.
"System, convert them into badass points. It''s time to upgrade yourzy ass"
[Took you long enough host]
[Activating Banker function¡]
[The current conversation level, 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s)]
[20 million gold coins will be converted into 800,000 badass points]
[Does the host wish to convert the coins into badass points?]
"Yes"
The bright beam of light shot out of Michael, enveloping the stack of coins. The coins slowly began to look ghostly, losing their tangibility until the stackpletely disappeared from the room.
[Conversion sessful¡]
[The host has received 800,000 badass points. Avable badass points 874,000]
[The next system upgrade will cost the host 600,000 badass points. Does the host wish to upgrade the system to 5.0?]
[The Experience Cap for each level in the Soul Refining stage will be reduced by 25% after upgrading the system]
"Yes"
The system began to upgrade itself. It took longer than usual. Meanwhile, Michael went to the workbench in his room and took out several empty parchments to design a new device.
"Ghost" the door on the other side opened as Vedora flew into the room. Now that their wings had grown a little bigger and wide, they could fly but not like Nightmare though.
Vedoranded on Michael''s shoulder,
"I was thinking how could the vampires were able to use Arch energy inside the void line and I might have an idea how," Cain said to turn Michael''s attention to him,
"Sarba, tell him," Cain asked Sarba,
"When you fought Victor, I sensed vaguely familiar energy radiation from him"
"Familiar?" Michael stopped drawing on the parchment as he put Vedora on the table to look at them directly,
"Yes, the energy Victor radiated is simr to the Stormville mountain crystal"
Hearing Sarba''s words, Michael took out a stormville mountain crystal from his system storage.
"What if the Hydra sleeping in the stormville mountain and the vampires have some connection?" Cain asked,
"I too have the same feeling Ghost" Ayag opened her mouth,
"That hydra is the reason no one is able to use arch energy in the Southern continent right? Then how can these vampires use spells and shit without an issue? What if these vampires were created by the hydra?"
Michael couldn''tpletely deny the possibility that the vampires have some kind of connection with the hydra. In fact, he too had this question in mind. The unfortunate thing was he didn''t dare to bring Victor to the stormville mountain. He was already risking himself by mining the crystals where the Hydra was slumbering. If that hydra chose toe out of its slumber, he didn''t think he or anyone in this world could stand in its way.
"We watched Peyton''s trial. Things went just as we guessed huh"
Michael nodded at Ayag,
"We have to turn her now Ghost," said Cain,
[The system upgrade ispleted]
[Current System level 5.0]
The system sounded in his mind interrupting their conversation.
[The host can now have up to twenty subordinates]
Michael was waiting for the system to afford more subordinates. Now he could make Peyton as well as Daniel his subordinates.
"Speaking of Peyton, she coulde to the location any day from now"
Sarba said,
"Before we meet Peyton, I still have got some answers from Victor"
Vedora saw several herbs and weird-looking objects appearing in his hand.
After taking out these alchemy ingredients, Michael conjured the dark mes and threw the ingredients one by one into the me.
"What are you making?" asked Ayag,
"The normal truth extracting pills aren''t working on Victor. So I''m making my own"
"That''s amazing. If we can make our own potions and pills that make our foes spill out the truth and secrets, we could stay two steps ahead of them always" Sarba grinned only to see Michael shake his head,
"Unfortunately there aren''t any pills and potions that will make people tell their secrets without some kind of side effect or restriction"
"What about the one you''re making? What kind of side effect does this one have?" asked Ayag,
"Nothing big, he will just die after few hours"
Chapter 486 The Price for Peyton鈥檚 Loyalty
Chapter 486 The Price for Peyton¡¯s Loyalty¡¡¡¡"Absurd! The vampires are just a myth Peyton" Guardian captain Gerard mmed the table,
"How do you exin the mutted and blood-drained bodies of the team we sent after Victor?" asked Peyton. She was way past the point of being meek and respectful towards Gerard,
"Don''t tell me they are just a myth. They tortured me for weeks, they sucked on me while the guardians were busy searching for Sabrina, who is not even a guardian"
Tiriana''s face turned red/ The audacity of Peyton to dare to me them for her own fault made her blood boil.
"A girl you recruited despite knowing she was not a guardian" Gerard raised his voice,
"We all know if she wasn''t Noah''s sister, we wouldn''t be having this hearing now"
For some reason, Peyton didn''t let Xanali tell them it was her idea to recruit Sabrina.
"You said the vampires sucked on you right?" With a raise of her hand, Tanulia brought order to the hall. The others closed their mouth as she looked Peyton in the eyes,
Peyton gave a nod as the answer to the alpha guardian''s question,
Tanulia waved her hand, sending a bright beam of light to Peyton. The bright beam of light shot through her, vaporizing her clothes.
Peyton''s mind went nk and it took her a second to realize she was naked. The others were stunned. They never expected Tanulia to strip Peyton naked.
"No bite marks" Tanulia tilted her head while Peyton was hiding her privates and her bosom with her hands. She was so furious to the point her tears began to gush out like a flood breaking out of the dam. Her entire body sweated. She wanted to scream and go berserk. Even when the vampires stripped her naked, she didn''t feel like this. She never thought she would be shamed by the guardians.
"Stop Alpha Guardian" Xanali couldn''t go through the trail after seeing they shame her best friend.
She flicked her wrist as a set of robes appeared in her hand. She threw the robes at Peyton which she used to cover her body,
"She took a healing potion, that''s why there are no marks on her body"
"I want the alchemist who brewed the potion here. We will continue the trial after three days. Meanwhile, Guardian Captain Xanali will take over Peyton''s responsibilities"
*************************************
"Great, now you have to go to their castle" Ayag rolled her eyes after they all saw how the trial concluded in the mirrors.
Michael sat on the throne resting his head on his fist,
"Corey" Michael established a connection with his pirate lord subordinate Corey.
All the mirrors flickered for a moment before showing Corey''s face. She was standing in a room lit with candles where Vedora noticed several maps and crates stacked around the room.
"My Lord" Corey went to her knees when she saw the Dark lord in the mirror,
"Rise"
Pirate Lord Corey rose to her feet,
"I want you to go to look for the merchant ship named Amity in the seas of Maven and stall them for four days. But do not board them"
"If they fired at us my lord, do I have your permission to fire back?" asked Corey,
"Yes but do not sink them. There''s someone important to my goal is on board"
"Consider it done my lord"
Michael closed the connection as Vedora turned their gaze at Michael,
"Who''s on that ship?" asked Ayag,
"Sabrina Winston and a greater vampire" Michael surprised Vedora.
"Victor told you?" Sarba asked as Michael nodded,
"They are taking Sabrina to find a key" Michael had no idea what this key was supposed to open. All he got from Victor was the key was a pretty big deal to the vampires. As for what this key was supposed to open, Victor didn''t know anything.
Since the vampires seemed to find the key desperately, Michael wanted to find out more about the key and everything rted to it. ording to Victor, Sabrina was the only one who could find the key. Hence, they kept her alive instead of ending her life or turning her into a vampire.
After she finds the key, it would be a different scenario. In the best-case scenario, they would kill her, in the worst-case scenario, Sabrina would be turned into a living blood bag for the vampires to feast on, for eternity.
Only if he knew Sabrina is his little sister¡
Now that he issued his next order to Corey, upgraded the system, and got everything he could from Victor, it was time for him to wait for Peyton.
It had been six hours since the trial concluded. Michael any second from now on Peyton could decide to meet him. Currently, he could see her crying and breaking everything in her room. She was a mess and looking at her like this, he pitied her.
"What''re you gonna do with Victor?" Ayag asked, only to see Michael removing his mask with a grin on his face. The devilish grin grew wider with time because he was happy with the n he hatched in his mind.
Until now, he was always on the defensive against the guardians. For the first time, he decided to shift gears to the offensive.
"I am going to hand over Victor to Peyton. They didn''t believe her when she said vampires exist. They can''t deny it if she brought Victor to them and let his blood lust loose" He paused for a second to take out an emerald green orb in his hand. This was a superior-grade recording crystal. Several months ago, Peter used the recording orb to record his battle with Michael.
It was pretty expensive but it was worth the price,
"They will have no choice but to give her a promotion to Guardian captain or even a higher position as she deserves"
"Yeah make sense" Ayag nodded,
"Obviously the guardians will try to keep their existence a secret" Michael tossed the orb in the air and caught it,
"But I''m gonna record everything and send everything to two ces"
Ayag grinned widely as she liked the way the n was going.
"Tell us where," Sarba asked excitedly, failing to contain his curiosity,
"First to Nadia Hall, the Royal news journalist. Next ce is the Holy Church"
ording to the book Michael bought from Lord Information, the rtionship between the Holy Church and the Guardian guild was a rocky one. The priests hated the guardians and vice versa.
Revealing the existence of the vampires would destroy their deadliest weapon; secrecy. On the other hand, by exposing the guardians'' intention to hide the existence of vampires, he nned to cause chaos among the guardians as it would put so much political pressure on the guardians, thus throwing a wrench in their n to catch him.
One stone, two mangoes, that was Michael''s n. It was not an borate andplex n. Michael always went for the simplest n instead of makingplicated ns. He believed the lessplex a n is, the better.
He would have sent an anonymous note to the Winston family that the vampires have Sabrina. But if he had done that, Rowena would have been involved in the search with all the resources of Skyhall. No matter what, he must get the key before the vampires or the Skyhall.
Michael still didn''t know Noah already had one key and he was currently hunting for the arrows forged by the Mazeroth founders.
*********************************
Nightfall arrived with a whisper of perfect ck that grew into aforting chorus of stars. At the edge of the Elon continent where the crystal ocean began, Peyton was waiting for the Dark Lord. Her legs were pacing left and right and her mind was just as restless as the sea before her.
No matter how hard she tried to make sense out of how they treated her, she couldn''te up with a way to calm her mind. She felt betrayed by the guardians and that feeling destroyed everything she held for the guardians. Now all she had for the guardian guild was pure hatred. The center of her hatred was none other than Noah Winston. Ever since he came into her life, everything she worked for went out of her hands.
Her hatred pushed her to the point she was ready to sell her soul to the devil if she could see the guild crumble into pieces along with Noah.
While she was pacing back and forth, she noticed the surrounding area growing darker and darker. Instinctively she looked up at the sky to see the Dark Lord descending to the shore with a man who had his head covered by a sack,
The three-headed creature wasfortably sitting on his shoulder. Despite the full moon and the millions of stars in the sky, the beach became dark as though they had all lost their light,
"I reckon you''ve seen the real face of the guardians Peyton," Michael asked the moment his feet touched the sand,
"Yes, I did," Peyton answered, gritting her teeth. He was d to see the burning rage in her eyes. He could turn that rage into a weapon against the guardians.
"Are you going to destroy them?" Peyton asked,
"The world needs guardians Peyton, just not this corrupted guild. I am going to reform them, with your aid"
By reform, Michael meant turning the guardians into his underlings. He would make his trusted subordinates rule the guild and by doing that, he would subdue the guild under him. If Peyton served him well, she could have the guild for herself. Before knowing about Skyhall, he thought Guardians were his enemies and nned to destroy them. Since it wasn''t the case as the real enemy was revealed to be the Skyhall, Michael knew subduing the great eight ns would be the better choice than destroying them.
"Your loyalty was misced, Peyton. You know this now. Otherwise, you wouldn''t be here" Sarba said,
"I want that bitch dead. That''s my price, Dark Lord. If you can bring me her head, my soul is yours" her words stunned Michael for a moment. He knew she hates the Alpha guardians. He didn''t think her hate would push her to the point she wants Tanulia dead.
Peyton''s loyalty was crucial to his ns. Only with her, he could destroy the guardians from within because that''s the only way to dismantle the guild without getting himself killed. He was still not strong enough to openly go against the guild.
"She killed innocent people when she raided my ship. It''s time she pays her debt¡with her life"
Although it was risky and difficult to assassinate Tanulia, it was certainly not impossible for the number one hitman. He kicked Victor towards Peyton,
"Bring him to the guild and prove the guardians vampires exist. It''ll exonerate you and get the promotion you deserve" as he said, he slowly ascended to the sky,
"In two weeks, meet me here. I will grant you your wish"
He uttered these words before disappearing into the darkness. With his promise to Peyton, the preparation to assassinate Tanulia Valren, The Alpha Guardian of Hunter Guardians began.
**************************
IMPORTANT NEWS!!!!
Michael will meet Don (MC of Rise of the Legendary Emperor), Draven( MC of Anti Hero with a Symbiote System), and Hunter ( MC of Dictator with a Badass System) soon...
Although you don''t need to read those novels, I will rmend you do check them out, especially AHSS...
Dictator with a Badass system will be released after Michael meets Hunter...
Chapter 487 Yasmine Winston
Chapter 487 Yasmine Winston¡¡¡¡The next day Michael was meditating atop the tallest mountain peak in the entire Sunrise sect. The sun bloomed on the horizon, golden petals of sunrays stretching ever outwards into the rich blue. Slowly opening his eyes, Michael breathed in the fresh morning air and listened to the birds chirping around him.
He willed the system, retrieving the two ck swords from the system storage. The swords were reflecting the golden sunrays. Looking at the smooth surface, one could tell they were damn sharp. Still, Michael increased their sharpness by rubbing the des against the sharpening stone bought from the system store.
"My Lord, if I may, can I suggest you something?" Azazel appeared next to Michael,
"Go ahead"
"You should finish the coronation ceremony soon. Your people need to see their king"
Azazel was right as he had never visited Bradford since he became the king. ire and the elders handled everything. Michael wasn''t interested in being king. Nheless, he could at least visit the kingdom and his castle. Moreover, he needed to meet his army andmander.
"I will meet them" Michael stood up and put on his ck full sleeves shirt and the long ck coat.
"But first, I have an engagement party to attend" Michael threw the swords in the air, and theynded straight into the sheath on his back, forming an ''X''.
Michael prepared to leave the mountain when he saw Ricky flying toward him. Azazel''s figure quickly vanished into thin air before Ricky could notice him.
"Master Ghost, your carriage is ready" as soon as Rickynded before him, he bowed and informed Michael.
"No need for a carriage"
Beads of sweat broke out on Ricky''s forehead, noticing Michael''s current attire. Something told Ricky that Ghost wasn''t nning to give his blessing to the princess. Otherwise, he wouldn''t be in his battle attire.
"Have you ever fought a real battle, Ricky?" Michael asked, adjusting his tactical fingerless gloves. These gloves helped him grab the swords tighter thus increasing his sword mastery by a percentage.
Michael nned to transform the mountain top into his personal training area. Only, he was too busy to draw the blueprints for all the training pieces of equipment he needed forging.
For now, he just swung his arms in a circle a couple of times, and cracked his neck and knuckles before approaching Ricky,
"Only one time, Master Ghost" Ricky answered Michael''s question,
"Tell me about it" Michael put his arm around Ricky''s shoulder and asked,
"Well, one time when Daniel and I were guarding the gates, a group of hunters came to us chased by a gigantic brown bear"
"Did you kill it?"
Ricky embarrassedly scratched the back of his neck,
"No, it ran away. But not before giving me this" Ricky pulled down his shirt cor a bit to show Michael the deep scar running across his cor bone,
"Let me rephrase my question, have you ever fought a human?"
Ricky shook his head,
"Thought so"
While talking, they arrived at the edge of the mountain. The very next moment, Michael turned around to fall down.
"Huhoooooo" Michael shouted like a little kid free falling.
************************************
Kingdom Bredia was in a festive mood. One could feel happiness in even the darkest corners of the kingdom. King Bredia announced free food, twenty gold coins for each family, and more importantly, a permanent tax reduction by 2% to celebrate his daughter''s engagement to Andrews Winston.
The people flooded the surrounding castle. They all eagerly waited for the princess and the prince to appear. The vibrancy of the celebration, the energy of the dancing dragons, and the fireworks that make an artistic canvas of the morning sky, were enjoyed by all. The citizens showed their joy by painting their faces, carrying banners, offering food to fellow citizens, and shouting slogans appreciating the king and the princess.
The castle of Bredia had four solid, round towers towering above all and linked with small bridges. The castle walls were made of light gray stone. The engineers who built the castle ced refined windows thinly around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry along with symmetric crentions for archers and artillery. The real beauty came from the surrounding garden and the crystal blue stream running around the castle. The wooden bridge was raised to prevent the citizens from flooding the castle. Only after the engagement would King Bredia lower the bride so the people could enter the castle grounds to see their princess and prince.
Since the streets leading to the castle were flooded with cheerful citizens, the nobles and the guests entered the pce through the roof andnded directly in the throne hall.
Humble braziers decorated the throne hall, hanging from one side of each of the eight limestone columns that lit up most of the throne hall and radiated warmth across this hall along with the majestic chandeliers. The illustrations of a kingdom in the sky on the terraced ceiling danced in the flickering light while carved images and statuettes looked down upon the maple floor of this opulent hall.
The nobles were standing on the floor nketed with a coral rug that ran down from the throne and split to encircle the entire hall while matching banners with emzoned crowns decorated the walls. Between each banner sat a shrine-like ornament covered in candles. A few of them have been lit and, in turn, illuminated the artistic portrayals of Princess Katherin and Andrews Winston below them.
The draperies colored the same coral as the banners hid the windows while burnished corners and fancy tassels adorned the curtains.
A glorious throne of oak sat atop a tall elevated tform and five somewhat in-looking seats for the royal highness'' family members apanied the throne.
"His majesty really outdone himself this time. The ce looks gorgeous"
"Where did his majesty buy the wine? it''s delicious"
"I heard his majesty even invited someone close to Empress Ara"
"You kidding me?"
"No"
"I thought only the kings and queens in Elon continent would attend the ceremony"
"I don''t think King Maxim or King Portes wille"
The nobles gossipped while slow dancing to the music yed by the orchestra group. Thanks to the soldiers constantly patrolling and monitoring the castle grounds, everything was going smoothly.
"You''rete" at the moment, ady adorned in a sparkling golden dress entered the castle with a couple of men. Thedy who arrived at the castle was Emelda and the one who weed her was Natalia; Andrews''s mother.
"Where is everyone?" Natalia asked, fiddling with her golden hair nervously,
"Ethan is still at the battle grounds. Diana said she will be here tomorrow morning" Emelda said,
"What about the kids? Where are they?"
"Sabi is still in seclusion I guess. We received a note from Rowena and Noah. They''ll be here with Diana"
Natalia heaved a sigh of relief but when she thought about Sabrina, her smile grew shorter,
"Can''t Sabi just take a break ande here?"
Emelda shook her head,
"You know about Sabi, she is working so hard to break through to the Core Formation stage. She won''t miss the marriage, I guarantee you"
Emelda knew how much Natalia loved Sabrina. She was the youngest child in the family so every single one of them loved her dearly. As a result, Natalia was crushed when she heard Sabrina wouldn''te to the ceremony.
However what she heard next cheered her up instantly,
"Do you know who''sing today? Yasmin" Natalia''s face immediately brightened as though someone was directing a torch light to her.
"Really?!" Natalia almost bounced in joy. She was so excited.
"Yes. In fact, she is on her way here" Emelda brightly grinned,
Yasmin Winston was Ethan''s nephew. Several years ago, she went to Awor to hone her skills. There wasn''t a sect that didn''t invite her to join them. But she rejected them all because she believed getting real experience was more crucial than learning in a sect.
Yasmin was the pride of Ethan''s younger brother Kaiden. After what Jacobe did, Kaiden couldn''t look Ethan in his eyes. He was ashamed of his son''s plot to assassinate Sabrina and Diana. If Yasmin was there, she would have personally cleaved her brother''s head clean off.
"How can I miss this special day, Aunty?" Natalia heard a charming voice as she looked up to see Yasmin gracefully descending from the sky.
The girl wore armor set with a rounded helm and a faceguard. Attached to the forehead area was a crafted leather ornament piece shaped like a lion''s mouth. The shoulders were oval, short, and quiterge decorated with threerge, curved wooden spikes on each side, lined up from back to front.
She removed her helmet to reveal her perfectly sculpted face and her porcin skin. Every single youngster in the hall turned their gaze to the ck-haired girl in battle armor.
She wasn''t by any means a country toppling beauty. However, the grace and the aura she radiated rivaled even the most powerful people in Elon.
What particrly caught everyone''s attention was her armor which was made of many verticalyers of leather and metal mimicking a dragon''s scales. One could not find a single ce in her body that wasn''t covered by the armor.
"Yasmine" the twodies dashed at her and when her feet touched the floor, they hugged her tight.
"Aww I missed you two so much" Yasmine hugged them back.
"Too¡tight" Emelda patted Yasmine''s back, barely letting her know her embrace was crushing them.
"Sorry," Yasmine quickly let them go. She had to p herself on the face for forgetting how strong she was and how fragile her aunties were.
"Where are my cousins? Don''t tell me they aren''t nning a homing party for me"
"Brat, couldn''t you have taken off your armor? Is this what you learned from the elves?" Emelda yfully twisted Yasmine''s ear,
"Yeah, they''ve been teaching me so much noble etiquette" Yasmine sarcastically said,
"Bring me to see my soon-to-be prince aunties"
Yasmine put one hand around Natalia''s neck and the other around Emelda''s neck. She didn''t give a damn about what the others would think, nor did Natalia and Emelda.
As they spoke, Ghost was on his way to giving the couple a gift that no one would forget for years toe.
Chapter 488 Instilling the fear of God in hearts
Chapter 488 Instilling the fear of God in hearts¡¡¡¡Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
A man in a white coat suit nked his wine ss with a silver spoon as the chit-chatter immediately calmed down. Following their silence, Yasmine turned her gaze towards the dashing couple walking down the stairs with King Bredia. Who could be so dashing other than the prince and princess of Bredia? It was Andrew Winston and Katherine Bredia.
Andrew was rocking the suit and looked extremely handsome. He wore a clean shirt and buttoned it up fully to support the bow tie. On top of the shirt, he wore a chic vest with six buttons. It had a deep v-line, which caused the vest to line up perfectly with the jacket''s v-line.
The jacket fitted him like a glove, a tailored glove. It had an intricate rope strike pattern, making it look stylish and graceful. The buttons of his double-breasted jacket were all buttoned up, with the exception of one for yful touch to a ssy look.
He was wearing pants that copied the style of the jacket, both in color and pattern, and made an idealbination with his brogue oxfords shoes.
To top it all off, he wore a refined belt apanied by a tie clip and cufflinks.
Besides Andrews, Katherine looked like a goddess among mortals. The sparkling dress covered her shoulders halfway, flowing into an elegant jewel neckline. It was a close fit giving the dress a rxed yet graceful look, whereas her arms were uncovered entirely. This was a good thing, as her silky skin wasn''t something that should be covered up.
The dress''s waist was thin, but it was afortable fit. A bow had been wrapped around Katherine''s and rested gently on her lower back.
Below the waist, the dress fitted snug around her and had a straight style. The dress reached just above her ankles and was slightly longer at the sides.
She was wearing t-straps, which went hand in hand with the dress. To top it all off, she wore an ornate ne andrge jeweled earrings.
The couple drew all the attention while the King stood aside with a bright face. At that moment, he felt like the happiest man in the whole world. His little girl had grown and would be ady soon.
"Your majesty"
"Your royal highness"
"Your royal highness"
The nobles bowed respectfully. Soon after, Andrews noticed Yasmine among the crowd alongside his mother and aunty. For a moment, he couldn''t believe his eyes.
Seeing the look on Andrews''s face, Katherine led him to his family.
"Yasmine," Andrews grinned ear to ear,
"Hello prince,e here" Yasime embraced him in a tight hug,
"Katherine, this is my cousin, Yasmine" Andrews introduced Yasmine to Katherine.
"How should I address you? Princess, your royal highness?"
" Katherine or Kathy" Princess smiled brightly and hugged Yasmine. Soon the two girls began to talk, and Yasmine''s adventures immediately hooked Katherine. The g was lively. Everyone danced, drank, and exchanged pleasantries until a soldier came running to the king.
"Your majesty," said the soldier, breathing heavily with a pale face. He looked as though he had seen a ghost. Since the king was talking to Natalia and Emelda, he stood closer to the Winstons. Thus, the Winstons, including Yasmine, halted her stories and turned her gaze to the soldier.
"What?"
The king was annoyed by the soldier. So he specifically asked his men not to disturb him for three days. For a few moments, the soldier looked reluctant. Then, he stepped forward, leaning towards the king. Yasmine and everyone saw the soldier whisper something to King Bredia.
As soon as the soldier finished whispering, King Bredia lost all the color on his face. Seeing the sudden change in Bredia''s face, Katherine lost her bright smile,
"Father, what happened?" she asked with a weakened voice,
"Nothing" King Bredia showed the fakest smile there was. But, to be honest, his mind went nk. Then, slowly realizing the consequences of what he had done on impulse and anger was on its way, he shivered.
"Carry on Kathy. I''ll be back."
Thud!
Just as the king was about to step forward, a soldier fell from the rooftop.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" a nobledy screamed, looking at the lifeless eyes of the soldier staring at her.
The orchestra yers stopped ying. As a result, the lively g became silent.
Thud!
A few secondster, another soldier hit the ground, just a few inches away from the previous one.
Thud!
Then another one,
Thud!
Another one,
Thud!
One after another, soldiers rained down from the roof entrance, horrifying everyone. Yasmine''s battle instincts kicked in as she stepped in front of Katherine and her aunties, shielding them with her body.
Blood wasing out of the fallen soldiers, and soon, they were lying in a pool of their own blood.
"Where are the Royal guardians?" Yasmine kept calm despite the situation, unlike the rest in the hall.
"They..they¡are the royal guards," Andrews stuttered,
After what happened in the tournament, King Bredia and the Winston family spent arge portion of resources to strengthen the royal guards. In addition, they also hired a few level 10 Core Strengthening stage warriors to guard the King and Princess all the time.
They hired a Soul Refining stage mage to oversee the royal guards. The dead bodies of the soldiers rained down in the hall until they formed a mound of bodies.
"How strong were they?" Yasmine asked in a rtively quieter voice,
"Core Strengthening stage level 10"
Yasmine creased her brows, hearing Andrews. She was at Core Strengthening stage 6, thanks to all the potions and pills the elves gave her. To be honest, Yasmine could fight a few level 10 Core Strengthening royal guards simultaneously and triumph over them easily. However, she knew it would be challenging to kill twenty of them. Thus, it was evident to her that whoever or whatever killed them was far stronger than the royal guards or a group that killed them.
Looking closer at the bodies, she noticed a greenness in their skin.
"They were poisoned," Yasmine mumbled under her breath.
As soon as she realized, they all saw a cked-robed youngster descending through the roof entry. Immediately, a crossbow materialized in Yasmine''s hands as she aimed the bolt at the young man.
Except for Yasmine, the Winstons recognized the young man.
"Master Ghost sent his regards, King Bredia" the young man snickered at King Bredia.
The moment King Bredia and Ketheirn heard the name ''Ghost,'' they shuddered. Overwhelming fear and shock clutched their hearts.
"You killed them?!" Andrews lost his patience as he stomped the ground. He was trembling in anger. Today was a special day in his life; he never wanted anyone or anything to ruin it.
Everyone in the hall was looking at Ricky. Even though the royal guards were no more, the soldiers garrisoned in the capital stormed the hall through the roof entrance, surrounding Ricky and King Bredia.
"How''s my engagement gift, King Bredia?" another calm voice echoed through the hall. They saw Ricky smirking. The first one to turn around was King Bredia. As soon as he turned around, yet again, he was startled. One by one, everyone in the hall turned around to see someone else sitting on King Bredia''s throne.
"Ghost," Yasmine heard several gasps resounding in the hall. She saw Andrews stepping back subconsciously, and his face immediately became pale while his body trembled. On the other hand, sweat beads broke out on King Bredia''s face. Even the soldiers were not an exception as they all looked like King Bredia, sweating and pale.
"Who is he?" was the question that immediately rose in her head. Yasmine noticed he was sitting on the throne leisurely while blood trickled down through the ck swords in his hands. Yasmine had never seen him in her life. He dressed inpletely ck, just as handsome as Noah, but unlike Noah, he looked colder. None of them knew how or when he entered the hall. Everyone was too terrified to notice what was under his feet. Yasmine was one of the few who noticed and recognized it.
"Sergio" King Bredia uttered a name breaking the silence,
"That was his name huh?"
The next moment, he kicked the ck object under his feet. It rolled towards King Bredia and hit the king''s feet with a sickening thud.
"AH!" Immediately, Katherine let out a short squeal as the object was a head, head of their personnel guard, Sergio.
While everyone was terrified, he raised his sword at the orchestra.
"y something cheery" the blood sttered on the instruments, giving the orchestra team chills through their spines.
"What did I tell you Bredia?" asked Michael. He didn''t bother hiding the killing intent in his voice. Bredia would have been dead several times if a stare could kill one.
"What¡you¡you," Bredia stuttered. Despite having numerous soldiers around him, he didn''t feel safe at all because he knew Ghost could massacre everyone in the hall.
The orchestra team yed something cheery dosed with a darker tone, giving the scene a cinematic charm.
"What you you you. Cat got your tongue," Michael mocked Bredia as he stood up from the throne.
"Why are you doing this?" tears rolled out of Katherine''s eyes,
"Ghost, this is too much. Being strong doesn''t give you the right to bully the weak," Andrews coldly said,
"Tell that to your father-inw."
Andrews was stunned by his answer, and when he turned to look at Bredia, he saw the king opening and closing his mouth, struggling to find the right words.
"They don''t know, do they?"
"I don''t care what happened between you. You are not ruining this event " Yasmine stepped forward, surprising Michael and The Winstons.
"Yasmine!" Emelda tried to pull Yasmine back, but she simply couldn''t.
"Another girl prodigy of Winstons, typical," Michael thought.
They expected the guardians to intervene somehow. However, the guardians were busy trying to save themselves from the PR nightmare Michael threw at them.
"Yasmine, please. Stay down. I beg you" Emelda begged Yasmine. She knew what Ghost was capable of, what he was really capable of.
They had no one to stop him if he decided to kill them. Michael knew this too. That was why he chose today instead of the actual ceremony date, as the prominent guests would arrive only tomorrow. At that time, someone might be strong enough to battle Michael. For instance, Rowena or Noah. But today, there was no one to stop him.
Chapter 489 Final Warning to King Bredia
Chapter 489 Final Warning to King Bredia¡¡¡¡Michael could see Yasmine''s cultivation level. Although she would be considered a heaven-defying prodigy just like the rest of her family, she was still far weaker than Michael. Thus, he didn''t mind her.
"Lightning Dash" Michael cast the spell. The next moment, Yasmine saw a bolt of lightning streaking past her.
"Father!"
When Katherine screamed, they all realized King Bredia had disappeared from where he was standing.
Baam!
Michael mmed King Bredia against the throne by his neck.
"FATHER!"
"YOUR MAJESTY!"
The soldiers and King Bredia''s family shouted as they rushed forward to save him. Yasmine was the first to fire a crossbow bolt at Michael.
Whoosh!
The bolt soared through the air like a bullet, only to be caught by Michael easily. Yasmine was startled by his reflex. Just as she was about to knock another bolt in her crossbow,
"Ring of Fire" Michael cast another spell as a scorching hot me surrounded them.
"ARRRGHHH!" a few soldiers stood closer to the ring of fire leaped back, screaming in agony.
"NOOOOOOO!" Katherine screamed, seeing Ghost mming her father against the throne like a rag doll.
"DON''T HURT HIM!" she tried to run into the fire, but Andrews held her back by her waist. Still, she squirmed and jerked to reach her father.
Looking at Katherine crying, Yasmine closed her eyes, raising her arms. Immediately everyone heard a howling sound of the wind. Everything in the hall trembled.
Yasmine wasn''t ying. She directly went for the strongest spell in her arsenal. However, she was stopped by Michael,
"Three inches" She abruptly opened her eyes when she heard him,
"Make sure the spell could reach me before I lower my sword three inches,"
"What three inches?" Everyone wondered after hearing his words. But they soon got their answer when Michael stabbed King Bredia in the chest. He thrust the sword slowly so King Bredia would feel every bit of pain.
"ARGH!" King Bredia growled as blood trickled down from the wound, making his white shirt worn beneath the fur coat red.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Katherine''s scream echoed through the halls,
"GHOST STOP!" Emelda couldn''t see Ghost torture the poor girl anymore. She stepped forward, shivering in anger,
"Your men arrested a man when he crossed the border after selling his family heirloom,"
Completely ignoring Emelda, Michael spoke to Bredia. He amplified his voice with Arch energy, so everyone heard him loud and clear,
"Do you know what happened to the man?"
King Bredia kept growling instead of answering Michael,
Bang!
Michael punched Bredia so hard that King Bredia coughed up blood and his wisdom tooth.
"He was beaten to death by your soldiers in prison. Why? Because you ordered your men to raise the taxes and harass River town citizens,"
Yasmine frowned. She had already stopped casting the spell. But now, she began to see the other side of things.
"What did I tell you?"
Bang!
He punched King Bredia again,
"What did I fucking tell you?"
While Michael was threatening Bredia, the soldiers tried using water to put out the fire ring. But unfortunately, although the fire was crimson red, it was dosed with dark mes. Hence, they couldn''t put out the fire no matter how much water they poured.
"I told you to stay the fuck out of my way, didn''t I?" Michael stabbed Bredia''s legs, nailing him to the throne
"FATHER!"
Katherine kept screaming, but Michael gave no damn about her. Considering Ricky had done his job, he left the throne hall through the roof entry before someone could hold him hostage.
"Did you stay out of my way? No. You told the merchants to stop visiting Bradford,"
Bang!
Michael grabbed King Bredia by his cor and punched him,
"You ordered your soldiers to harass my people,"
King Bredia received another punch to his jaw,
"You caused my people their jobs, their livelihood, and their safety,"
Michael headbutted Bredia as the king''s nose broke, producing a sicking crunching sound,
"Does that sound like staying the fuck out of my way?"
The mages already rushed into the throne hall,
"Cast a spell if you want your majesty''s head off of his shoulder,"
After hearing his cold words, the mages didn''t dare to cast a spell. So all they could do was stand there and watch Ghost torture their king.
"STOP!"
"PLEASE STOP!"
Andrews and Katherine shouted at him only to be ignored by Michael again,''
After hearing what he said, Yasmine learned that King Bredia was not wholly meless. Although she hated seeing her cousin and newly made friend crying, she saw no way of saving King Bredia. She had a feeling that if he wanted to kill Bredia, he would have done it by now. But instead, he was setting an example. He proved to everyone that he could kill even the king if they messed with him. Moreover, he was removing hundreds of potential enemies by torturing King Bredia on his own throne.
What he was doing was a show of ultimate dominance.
"Does¡that..sound¡like..staying¡the¡fuck¡out¡of¡my¡way?" He banged Bredia''s head on the throne every time he uttered a word,
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 500 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1500 badass points]
¡.
The badass points rapidly increased with the system ringing in his head.
Michael ignored the notification sounds and focused on venting his anger on Bredia, who caused him millions of gold coins. All for what? Silly revenge.
"I AM PREGNANT!" Katherine shouted as loud as she could. The moment Michael heard her, he stopped banging King Bredia''s head against the throne.
"Kathy," Andrew and everyone turned their gazes towards Katherine, who dropped to her knees.
"If you let him live, I swear on my child we won''t bother you ever again," Katherine held her tummy and begged Michael. Tears gushed out of her eyes as she spoke,
"Now you made me look like a monster," Michael snarled at the king,
"That child just saved you from a whole lot of agony, old man" Michael pulled out the sword from Bredia''s chest,
As soon as he did that, hot blood came pumping out of the wound,
"You know, if I wanted to end you, I won''t raise an army, wage a war, sit in a tent, and hope my side wins. I wouldn''t do that. Nothing can stop me no matter where you are or how protected you are. If I want you dead, you''ll be dead, as simple as that"
Those who heard his words agreed with him. He just appeared out of nowhere, killed the royal guards without raising any rm, and tortured the king on his throne. They knew if he wanted, he could have killed Bredia several times and no one could have stopped him.
Consider this your final warning. I am giving you a week. Everything you did, undo them." Andrews sighed as he hugged Katherine tight.
"If you try to do anything funny, just know many children die in the womb along with their mother, King Bredia," Michael whispered to Bredia before pulling out the second sword from his leg.
Gradually the fire died down, but the fear in their hearts wasn''t. Every single one of them feared Ghost more than they ever did. No one heard what he saidstly to King Bredia. But Yasmine noticed Bredia''s change on his bloody face. She could tell whatever Ghost told him made King Bredia terrified.
The nobles immediately stepped back and made way for Ghost. They didn''t dare to stand in his way.
"How do you sleep at night" Yasmine coldly said,
"Like a baby" He just smiled at Yasmine before ascending towards the roof entryway. Then, he disappeared from the throne hall, leaving a trail of golden light.
********************************
The next day the entire Elon continent was in chaos. Olivia was walking down the streets of River town to have her breakfast at Hades when she saw the people murmuring among themselves looking terrified.
Surprisingly there was a long line of paper boys in the streets. In other kingdoms, orphans and poor children worked for newspaper prints for ve wages. However, they were paid good coins in Bradford to fill their belly and their families. ire was kind enough to admit all the orphans and the poor into the sect and offer them free cultivation.
Because of her act of kindness, Bradford became the first kingdom to have zero street urchins. Since Michael himself was an orphan, he donated a portion of his ie to the well-being of the orphans. But, only ire knew about his donation.
"New race has been discovered!"
"Vampires or bloodsuckers? Get a copy of the Royal news for one gold coin"
"Guardian Captain Peyton apprehended the first vampire"
"Scandalous Guardian guild. What else are they trying to hide from the people?"
"The Holy Church condemns the Guardian Guild!"
"King Ghost versus King Bredia. Princess Katherine is pregnant!"
The young boys and girls were shouting at the people walking on the streets.
"Give me a copy" Olivia approached a brown-haired girl who was standing on a stack of crates and holding out a newspaper,
"Lady Olivia" the young girl greeted Olivia with a wide grin. Olvia was surprised to see the girl addressing her by her name. Olivia took out a gold coin and reached it out to the girl,
"It''s free for you Lady Olivia. Enjoy the news" the girl handed over the newspaper to Olvia but shook her head, refusing to take the coin.
"Then take this as a tip,"
The young girl didn''t refuse as she took the coin from her hand with an ear-to-ear grin. Olivia wasn''t a stranger to the freebies and special treatment she enjoyed in Bradford. Wherever she went, someone always tried to curry favor with her so they could get close to Ghost. Her status as Ghost''s disciple overshadowed her position as the teacher at Aragoth.
"You''re so kind mydy" the girl bowed,
"Yeah yeah," Olvia chuckled and walked towards Hades so she could read the newspaper in peace while having a delicious breakfast. Considering she had to leave for Ozer tonight for the Alchemistpetition, she wanted to enjoy Raylene''s delicious cooking onest time before leaving with her teacher; Ghost.
Chapter 490 Arriving at the Ozer continent
Chapter 490 Arriving at the Ozer continent¡¡¡¡In the calm sea, a two-mast ship was sailing under the light of a starry sky with a full moon. Currently, a young man and a young girl leaned on the edge enjoying the peace and quiet. They were none other than Michael and Olivia who were on their way to the Ozer continent.
"Take these. It''ll help you store less stable potions, and the potions you keep inside won''t deteriorate" with a flick of his wrist, Michael took a crate containing fifty newt vials from his space ring.
Olivia was pleasantly surprised by the sudden gift,
"Are these the newt vials you told me about?" she asked excitedly with wide eyes that sparkled looking at the vials.
"Yep"
"Thank you so much, teacher. I didn''t quite expect this" the vials brightened her face more than the moon and the stars in the sky did. She held the crate close to her chest,
"Thank me by winning this sillypetition,"
As soon as he said that, the smile disappeared from her face.
"It''s not silly," She pouted, looking as though she was offended by his words.
"Rx, I''m just messing with you" Michael pinched her nose yfully. Soon, she stopped pouting and giggled.
"I''m notpeting. My students are. I told you about this, didn''t I?"
"I don''t think so. Whatever, tell me again,"
Olivia sighed,
"Well, it''s simple actually. Two parts, individualpetition, and grouppetition. Each has three rounds. First-round, participants are given two batches of ingredients and asked to concoct a pill using the ingredients. If they fail two times, they will be eliminated. It''s the judges'' task to find whether that pill is an actual pill or just a lump of essence,"
"Sounds simple enough,"
"The second round is a little bit tricky. The participants need to refine a pill or a potion ording to the form they are given,"
"I assume, you''ve yet to reveal the tricky part,"
Olivia nodded,
"The given form will not be entirely correct. The participants have to find the mistake and correct the form to seed,"
"Yet again, sounds simple,"
"For you teacher, for you" She yfully punched Michael on the shoulder and continued to exin about thepetition,
"The third and final round is kinda freestyle. The participants need to bring their own form and ingredients to refine the best pill or potion they can. The best with a high purity level wins thepetition. As simple as that,"
"Do you want me to give you a super awesome form?" Michael asked. At first, she thought he was joking but looked at his rather serious face. She learned she was wrong.
"Teacher, are you serious?"
"Yep"
However, Olivia immediately shook her head,
"I want my students to win or lose on their own. Getting the form from you is a cheat and I don''t want to cheat"
Michael never thought he would ever feel proud as a teacher. But now he did when he heard Olivia. He wouldn''t have thought less of her if she had taken his form. Instead, however, by rejecting the form, she made him proud.
"Now tell me again, why are we sailing instead of flying or using the portal in your sect?"
"Because you need some bonding with the nature teacher. Sometimes you just outright scare me" Michael was surprised by her words.
"Scare you? What did I do?" Asked Michael,
She quickly put the newt vials in her space ring in case he changed his mind and took them back. Then, she ced her hands on her hips and talked like a strict mother,
"You literally tortured King Bredia on his throne. I am not saying he''s a good man, he''s kind of an old asshole actually. But couldn''t you have gone softer on him? The man was at his daughter''s engagement, for god sake,"
"He should be grateful I didn''t cut him in peace and throw those pieces at the crowd,"
Olivia felt chills. The cold look in his eyes told her that he was not joking.
"Teacher, thest thing we need is a war between human kingdoms. Especially when there''s a new, more dangerous race emerged from the shadows" her voice revealed the fear in her heart,
"Are you talking about the vampires?" Michael asked, pretending to have no idea about them.
"Yeah. Did you read the papers? They suck our blood, like¡like" she stuttered for a moment,
"Giant mosquitos. I can''t even imagine,"
Her words revealed to Michael that they still haven''t realized the real danger posed by the vampires. Otherwise, she wouldn''t havepared the vampires with mosquitos. Now that the vampires'' secrecy had been exposed, she was sure they would be more aggressive and dangerous.
"I heard the Ozer continent is in a messed up state due to all the war. They should have chosen Elon instead"
After discussing vampires and the current state of events, Michaelmented on the Ozer continent. Ever since he arrived in this world, he never got the chance to visit Ozer or Awor. However, thanks to the alchemy guild invitation, he could finally visit Ozer.
"Thepetition has always been held in Ozer. It''s sort of a tradition, and the old alchemists in the guild are pretty stricklers to that tradition,"
"What''s the current state of Ozer anyways? You have any ideas?" asked Michael to get some knowledge about Ozer.
Olivia leaned on the wooden edge, looking at the clear blue ocean before them.
"Zulon and Suven are still at war with Thusia and Idrisal, where we are going to remain free of war for now. Thest time I heard from my father, Thusia was winning the war, which is a good thing for you, isn''t it teacher?"
Olivia wasn''t thrilled about Michael being the leader of the Thusian Alchemy Guild. Most Elon and Ozer hated Thusia for waging war on other kingdoms and expanding too aggressively. Because of Thusia, thousands of people had be refugees and lost their livelihood. In fact, Bradford was epting hundreds of refugees every single day.
"When you can''t beat em, join them" Michael shrugged, pretending he didn''t care. However, he was burning with rage. If Michael had the power, he would have decimated Thusia already. But, since it wasn''t the case, he could only use them to be stronger.
Olivia had no response to him. They talked and talked and lost track of time until the morning. Finally, the sun rose like a flower, gifting its petals to the world. Amid the dancing, the ocean was the blush of scarlet, the warmth of tangerine. Gazing toward the illuminated clouds, still beneath the ethereal glow, Olivia looked up at the marvelous sunrise and felt at home in a way she never had before
Only when the sunpletely rose from the horizon did Kingdom Idrisal''s outline faintly appear in their sight. Currently, Michael noticed many ships anchoring at the docks while many riding various beasts flew directly into the city without going through the city gates.
"Teacher, let''s go"
Olivia had already put on emerald green robes with the Alchemist guild''s emblem on the chest.
"Is that really necessary?" Michael asked, looking at her extrarge robes that swept the ground as she walked.
"Yep yep yep" She bobbed her head excitedly before leaping out of the ship tond on the drynd. Michael only noticed that most of the people going in and out of the city gates wore the same robes as Olivia. The number of green robes he saw almost gave him a headache.
Among these green-dressed people, he looked somewhat strange in his ck robes. Still, the soldiers in metal armor guarding the city did not stop them as they entered the city for the first time without giving any coins to the guards.
"Wee to the city of Oxshore," Olivia said, grinning from ear to ear.
The city of Oxshore was built on the banks of arge natural harbor and was truly a medieval metropolis. Its elegance was matched by the backdrop of a dormant volcano that helped shape the city into what it is today.
Michael could not see far because of the buzzing crowd blocking his view.
"We will look around!" Olivia had to raise her voice to get Michael''s attention due to the crowd. Michael felt as though he hade to a festival. The city of Oxshore vaguely reminded him of Hawaii with the lush green mountains surrounding them.
Any citizen of Oxshore knew that these hills'' resources were of great importance. They were also influential in architectural designs as the vast majority of buildings have been built in shapes and with elements of the hills around them.
The skyline was spreading with luxurious tall buildings, and even from afar, they managed to disy their beauty. For the first time, Michael saw dwarves, elves, orcs, and beastmen overshadow the number of humans in the streets.
The several bars, ethnic restaurants, and coffeehouses he saw on either side of the street were evident of the multicultural ethnicity of Oxshore.
"Come on. I need to check out those herbal stores" Olivia dragged Michael by his hand.
"What? Didn''t you get enough herbs from our garden?" Michael asked, following her behind. In the entire Elon, Michael had thergest herbal garden. Granted that hecked varieties like some other herbal gardens, it was still thergest with an abundance of herbs.
"I still need more" She didn''t back off as she dragged him into a store.
************************************
At the same, a green robes youngster, a golden-dressed girl, and a roon walked out of a two-story building made of marble. Noth the young man and the young girl had silky brown hair. Only the girl''s hair was longer in length than the young man''s shoulder-length hair. They were neither too striking nor too unattractive. Instead, they looked in normal except for the talking roon sitting atop the young man''s shoulder.
"Dammit. In the future, let''s use a portal. My butt hurts sitting on your shoulder" After walking out of the crowded building, the roon deeply inhaled a few breaths of fresh air as he cursed softly.
Seeing the ugly expression on the roon''s face, the young man smiled and raised his head. His gaze swept across the streets and could not help but sigh with praise.
"No wonder Oxshore is one of the richest cities in Ozer," The young man said with a smile as he clicked his tongue and let out a sound of admiration.
The roon was not interested in watching these buildings. Instead, his gaze swept across his surroundings before suddenly asking, "When are we heading back home?"
"Half a month from now," the young man said as he stepped onto the crowded streets,
"Let''s first go to the auction house we saw before. It should have some of the things that we need. After which, we will make a trip to the Alchemist Guild," the young man rubbed his chin and answered while smiling,
"Yeah, those old farts love to collect all kinds of different precious herbs and ingredients. It may be possible that we''ll find something tasty for me to snack on. I am damn hungry"
Chapter 491 Meeting someone from Mazeroth
Chapter 491 Meeting someone from Mazeroth¡¡¡¡The trio was Noah Winston, Alicia, and the roon was the golden babaroo. They were in Ozer to attend the Alchemypetition and win the mystic blood orchid. He needed the mystic blood orchid to concoct an ancient pill that would start golden babaroo''s metamorphosis.
"I heard the Alchemy guild went all over this time. Any alchemist who has good skills will be a water bottle in the desert. They will recruit them in a sh,"
Hearing Noah''s words, Alicia shook her head slightly,
"Although getting recruited by the Alchemy guild is fruitful to some, ultimately it''ll limit one''s freedom, and if you ask me, it''s not really worthwhile..."
"What the shit? Not worthwhile? You heard of Gabriel right?" After Hearing Alicia''s words, Norvin rolled his eyes, curled his lips, and said.
"Alchemy King Gabriel. No one in Ozer and Elon doesn''t know him." Noah shrugged,ughing faintly. Not only did he know of him, but they almost fought against each other.
"Tell me about him. What''s the big deal?"
"Well, he was thergest ck horse in the alchemypetition thirty years ago. No one knew him before that. Ever since he revealed his brilliance in thepetition, the previous leader of the alchemy guild offered him the position of guild elder. Back then when he became the elder, he was the youngest to hold the position and was a four-star alchemist," Noah exined to Norvin while navigating through the crowd,
"After that, with the resources of the guild behind him, he reached five stars and became the youngster five-star alchemist in all of Elon and Ozer. He enjoyed unrivaled fame, iming himself as the Alchemy king Gabriel,"
"But, if it were not because of the guild, he would have at least needed twenty more years before reaching the recognition he has currently achieved" Alicia expressed her thoughts.
"Rumor has he''s eyeing for the guild leader position"
Noah heard the rumor through the guardian spies in the alchemy guild. In addition, Noah also heard Gabriel was losing his mind over his sudden downgrade to the second best alchemist in the continents.
"Guild leader position? What''s he gonna do about the current leader? Kill him?" Norvin chuckled but his smile froze when he saw Noah''s silence,
"Did you really think we are only here topete?" Noah winked at Norvin. Until now, Norivin thought Noah was here for the mystic blood orchid. However, now he realized Noah ns to save the current leader of the alchemy guild.
"How do you n to stop it? you know¡the assassination" Alicia whispered,
"I''ll make the n as I go. It always worked for me" Noah smiled. Despite knowing the assassination plot, he was pretty chill.
"I still think you should have joined the alchemy guild when they asked you to. If you had done that, we would have stopped the plot and gotten the orchid easily" Norvin rolled his eyes and continued to rant,
" They would have provided you with an endless supply of herbs and ingredients so you could have stayed rxed and saved the time needed to run all over the ce to search for ingredients. The Guardian guild is awesome but they don''t even have normal orchids. They don''t focus on nurturing alchemists"
Noah shook his head listing to Norvin,
"I don''t need alchemy guild to reach five-star level Norvin"
Noah shrugged his shoulders. With Andreas, who was the best of the best, guiding him by his side, he did not doubt reaching not five stars but six stars.
Because of Andreas, he became a young four-star alchemist from a young man who didn''t know anything about alchemy in just a short five years. It was also because he was unclear just how difficult it was for ordinary alchemists to raise their ability swiftly. After all, not everyone was as lucky as him.
"Times like this, I feel like we have to appreciate him you know"
As soon as Alicia heard these words, she clenched her fist while the veins underneath her skin bulged up. Even her eyes turned red in a sh.
"Do not speak about him in front of me" Noah could feel the air around him getting chillier.
Obviously by ''him'', Norvin meant Ghost who almost destroyed Alicia''s family when he revealed Peter was the vignte in front of half the kingdom. To this day, Peter was tangled in investigations and house arrest by the guardians. Additionally, the young masters who Peter attacked put several bounties on Peter''s head in the Grim Reaper''s guild.
And three grim reapers almost seeded in taking Peter''s life. They would have killed him if it wasn''t for Noah.
"You should be pissed too. You know what he did to your cousin"
To her surprise, Noah did not say anything nor did he seem mad at Ghost. In fact, Noah wasn''t, because there was no reason for him to be mad at Ghost. If anything, Noah was grateful that Ghost did not kill Andrews even though he had the chance to. Noah warned Andrews and exined what would happen to him. Still, Andrewspeted in thepetition for Princess Katherine. After knowing what happened in the tournament, Noah respected Ghost. Even with the power of Lah Alden behind him, Andrews couldn''t beat Ghost. As far as Noah was concerned, Ghost won the tournament fair and square. Yet because of Katherine''s impulse, they pushed Ghost to the point he took away half of their kingdom.
As for Peter, Noahpletely med Peter for everything that happened to him. Peter deserved it as he had no right to dress up as a vignte and beat up young masters just to hone his skills.
"Hey, we have arrived at the auction house!"
Hearing Norvin, Noah''s footsteps slowly came to a stop. He raised his head and eyed the huge building and the banner of the single water droplet that appeared at the end of the street. Surprise involuntarily surfaced on his face as he shook his head and sighed.
"Whoa, just a branch looks bigger than many prestigious auction houses belonging to Elon and Ozer. Aqua auction house truly is a giant in the auction business"
Both Alicia and Norvin nodded in agreement with his words. They eyed the huge building that was like a bottomless pit, swallowing up the unceasing flow of people. His hands gently inserted into his sleeves as he turned his head around,
"Let''s go in and take a look at what the number one auction house has to offer. Hopefully, we will be able to find the things that we need."
Once he said those words, Noah led the way as they slowly walked to the end of a spacious street paved with bluestone.
As they gradually walked into the grandiose Aqua Auction House, Norvin''s roon brows rose higher and higher. They had to squeeze through the crowd walking before them to reach the auction house and the word ''house'' may be a bit of an understatement as the building looked like a pce.
Noah was expressionless as he passed through the crowd. Once he entered the auction house, ayer of light covered him. The noisiness outside seemed to have be isted. He could tell the phenomenon was due to the arrays around the pce.
Norvin''s gaze swept everywhere. Immediately, his mouth widened as he eyed the enormous hall that resembled a crystal city.
Inside the auction house, fully armored expressionless guards with Aqua house symbols engraved on their chests patrolled the hall like clockwork.
Noah could sense at least twenty sharp gazes sweeping across every part of his body when he entered the hall.
"It really lives up to its name as the number one auction house in the world. This manner of extravagance won''te cheap..." Noah said, looking around the hall.
There were countless crystal counters ced in therge hall. There was an unceasing flow of people staring at the rare items ced on the red cloth inside the counters. The tags under these items stated their prices. However, all the prices of these items were at least fifty thousand gold coins. These high prices were sufficient to cause people to gasp in shock.
"These are the outer sales counters. The things that are sold here are not considered too valuable. The real deal will be upstairs" Norvin licked his lips,
"Don''t forget about the Aqua auction next week"
"Which you need a token. Unless, of course, you''re nning to be a spectator" Norvin responded to Alicia''s words.
"Quit worrying. I have someone to get me the token"
Norvin couldn''t help rolling his eyes,
"Let me guess, a girl"
Noah nodded as Norvin knocked him on the head,
"You are the reason many of us don''t get any girls"
"What shit are you spouting?" Alicia silently yelled at Norvin,
"You''re not even a human and no one stopped you from finding yourself a girl monkey"
Norvin bore his teeth at Alicia; if it weren''t for the patrolling soldiers around them, he would have lunged at her and made a mess out of her neatly braided hair.
"Come" Noah walked towards the marble stairs leading to the upper floors,
He was about to climb the stairs when he saw the hall be entirely silent. Seeing this suddenmotion, it appeared that there was a big shot who had quite a high status walking out from there. He could notice the sudden change in the youngsters'' faces. They remained still with slightly opened mouths. While looking around the hall, Norvin lost his bnce and fell down. Then, he saw a somewhat blue-colored and blurry lovely tender figure.
Lowering his gaze, Norvin saw a pair of shining blue long boots. The heel of the long boots was slightly sharp as it released waves of clear and sweet-sounding ''click-ck'', ''click-ck'' sounds on the clear and shiny marble ground, like a beautiful musical note. His gaze drifted a little higher to see a pair of long, white, tender feet.
"Not bad..." Norvin whistles, not bothering to hide his pervy look. Still, he was better than some men in the hall whose faces were filled with longing and eyes were sparkling. Gradually lifting his head slightly, his gaze finally seeped through the gap and saw a gorgeous and moving face.
Immediately, shock slowly climbed onto his face as he softly muttered,
"Edith?"
At the same time, a ck-dressed young man who was standing in the corner away from the prying eyes was pleasantly surprised by the girl.
"Teacher, you know her," Olivia asked,
"Unfortunately yeah" Michael replied and seeing Edith was walking towards Noah, he sighed.
"This guy''s harem is getting bigger by the day"
Chapter 492 Olivia鈥檚 Love Interest
Chapter 492 Olivia¡¯s Love Interest¡¡¡¡As the unmistakable sound of footsteps moved closer, Edith, surrounded by the crowd, finally slowly walked out of it.
She was wearing a bright deep sea blue colored tight dress. The elegant dress was gorgeously and meticulously made, precisely and perfectly outlining the beautiful curves in her body.
For many men, she was a stunning creature.
Her somewhat shallow smile and pretty face contained an unknown meaning behind it.
Her alluring gaze was nkly paused at Noah. Immediately, a shy smile surfaced on her angelic face.
Being the focus of the hottest girl in the hall undoubtedly caused everyone to shift their gaze over to Noah. When they eyed the gorgeous girl''s extremely rare and strange emotion, some envy toward the young man rose in their hearts without them realizing it.
Ignoring those sharp knife-like gazes from his surroundings, Noah smiled at Edith, who was staring at him nkly. His smile was gentle, and the dark pupils were crystal clear as pure water.
Although Noah was wearing a mask to change his facial structure, Edith saw through the mask without a problem.
Emitting clear footsteps, Edith slowly walked toward Noah. A momentter, she stopped in front of him. Being closer to the man she loves, her face reddened in a sh, and she did not realize she was blushing.
"Kai, what a pleasant surprise?" she smiled, tilting her head. Since Noah was wearing the mask she gave him, she called him by a fake name instead of his real name, which would reveal his identity.
"And who is this little fe?"
She lifted her pretty face and greeted Norvin, who climbed onto Noah''s shoulder with another smile.
"Miss Edith, I thought you were in Mazeroth," Noah greeted her back with a smile. Usually, he would address her by her name without any honorifics. However, Noah didn''t call her ''Edith'' in front of all the people who stared at Edith like wolves.
After Noah greeted Edith, there were a few moments of awkward silence between them. Either of them couldn''t seem to find a word to continue the conversation.
"Get a room already" Looking at the interaction between Edith and Noah, Michael rolled his eyes. He was getting annoyed with Noah and Edith.
"Who is she?" Olivia elbowed Michael,
"I met her in Mazeroth. It seems she too got early holidays like me" Michael quietly said. He and Olivia stood way back from Noah and Edith. Hence the reason why Noah or Edith couldn''t see him. He wanted to peacefully spend some time apart from all the Dark Lord stuff. But seeing Noah, Michael felt this trip would not be drama free.
"Do not fall in love with that guy" Michael leaned on the wall, folding his arms. Then he warned Olivia before she fell in love with Noah and ended up in his ever growing harem.
"What the hell are you talking about? I alrea-"
Michael was surprised. He turned his gaze from Edith to Olivia, who clicked her tongue, realizing she blurted out something she shouldn''t have.
"You ya¡" Michael poked her cheek with a grin. He got into a yful mood when he heard his student eyed someone. As long as it wasn''t Noah, he would be happy for her.
"Its¡its¡" Olivia''s face flushed red as he struggled to find the words,
"Ricky," Olivia finally uttered the name, shocking Michael.
"Ricky? You mean our Ricky?" Michael couldn''t believe what he had just heard for a few moments. Olivia was a wealthy noble. On the contrary, Ricky was amoner. As far as Michael learned about this world, marriage between a noble and amoner was rare. He wondered if Olivia''s father and mother would be okay with her decision.
"I wanted to talk to you about this, teacher. But I didn''t get the right time,"
Olivia''s face turned serious, revealing the concern in her heart.
Meanwhile, the people were still drooling at Edith instead of going with their life.
"I didn''t get the chance to thank you Kai. Let me treat you to a meal. I know a really great ce nearby" Edith pursed her sleek red lips and ced her hands behind her, leaning her body slightly forward as she faced Noah.
"Did youe here to buy something?"
"No shit" Norvin rolled his eyes after hearing her words. But, since she was so love struck, she overlooked the obvious.
"What star level are you?" asked Edith curiously without even giving Noah the time to answer her previous question.
"Just lucky enough to reach four star"
"Lucky? Ah, for an ordinary person, advancing from a one star to two star alchemist is impossible without at least five to six years of time. Yet, you have reached four star level in a couple of years. I''m afraid that is not mere luck." Eyeing the young man who revealed something shocking at every instance, Edith sighed helplessly. But soon, another youngster''s image emerged in her mind.
Noah shook his head and smiled. However, he did not continue to pursue this question. Instead, his gaze swept across the hall, realizing that he and Edith had already be the center of attention. Immediately, he whispered, "are you still the supervisor here?"
"I am afraid so" Edith giggled, ignoring the hundreds of gazes on her. She was quite used to getting such attention. Fortunately, Edith was here alone. If she hade with Victoria, she was sure many youngsters would have fallen to the ground.
"Can we find a quiet ce to talk?" Noah scanned therge crowd around him who had their ears lifted vertically and helplessly said.
"Of course, follow me." Edith smiled, nodding her head. She had just turned around when her gaze suddenly drifted to Alicia, who was behind Noah and leaning against a crystal counter while watching the items in boredom. After hesitating for a moment, she asked, "Is she with you?"
"Huh? Why? you two need some time alone?" Alicia was quite annoyed by how Edith and Noah acted in front of her. Still, she revealed a cold smile to tease Edith.
Being teased by Alicia in such a manner, a faint redness swarmed onto Edith''s exquisite face. However, it was fortunate that she was extremely good at handling issues with human rtions. She gave an immediate sweet smile and said, "Follow me miss"
"I hope whenever you''re leading us to have something to eat. I''m starving," Norvin said as his stomach let out a growl.
"We have spent a long time hurrying on our journey here" Noah was embarrassed as he smiled at Edith. He wanted to punch Norvin in the face because he knew he made the sound intentionally.
"It''s okay. Come one" Edith turned around and slowly walked toward a staircase in one corner of the hall. Her heels stepped on the shiny, clean, bluestone ground surface, emitting a ''click-ck'' sound. Her elegant pace caused people to be unable not to fall into a deep longing for her.
Suddenly Edith stopped and looked at the far end of the hall,
"Something wrong?" Noah asked,
"No, it''s just. Nothing. Let''s go" Edith could swear she saw Ghost. But what were the odds of meeting him in the Ozer continent? She heard he had be the king of Bradford. Hence, she naturally thought she would be busy dealing with the kingdom. But, yet again, he was also a five-star alchemist, and almost every single alchemist would visit Ozer for thepetition.
Just the thought of him gave her chills. For now, she shoved the thoughts back to the back of her mind and led them upstairs. At the end of the stairs, they saw a golden door nked by two more armored guards.
Noticing the trio of man, woman, and a roon following behind Edith, the guards eyed each other. ording to the rules, people who were not VIP members were usually not allowed to enter.
However, Edith was currently holding the post of supervisor. Her authority was quite great. At that moment, none of them dared to stop them. Only when the three of them were about to enter did a guard have no choice but to bite the bullet and take a step forward. However, before he could speak, Edith gave him a faint nce, which caused him to swallow the words in his throat. He smiled bitterly and stepped back.
"They are with me" Edith simply waved off the guards who quickly opened the doors for her. The hall they entered was no different than the downstairs, except there were only ten or twenty people in the hall.
They heard metal boots banging on the stairs just after entering the hall. Following the rumbling of footsteps, a few human figures slowly appeared at the bending corner of the stairs. The man who was leading them was around the same age as Noah. He was tall, lean, mean, and had two pointy ears, which indicates his elven race. His somewhat pale-white face was clearly a result of overindulgence in sensual pleasures. Although the build of the elf did not appear strong, he was actually a strong person who had just reached the Core Formation stage level 5.
"Shit," Edith mumbled under her breath as soon as she noticed the elf whose breathing just became slightly erratic. Additionally, he shamelessly rubbed his crotch while walking toward Edith.
Her gentle smile vanished and was reced with a deep frown.
"Hee hee, Edith, this ce is where Aqua n conducts official business. Other people are not allowed to enter, but what I see here, other people"
The elf eyed Noah, Alicia, and Norvin for a second and then grimaced.
He didn''t bother to hide the disgust and hatred he had towards other races from his pale face.
Watching the disgust in Edith''s eyes, the young man''s face immediately became much gloomier.
"They are with me. The rules clearly say I can bring my friends anywhere I want" Edith''s cold voice did not give the other party any face. Afterward, Edith turned around and walked away from the elf and his group.
The elf''s mouth twitched after being ignored by Edith in front of his subordinates. This was especially so when Edith grabbed Noah''s hand for a second. An unknown jealous me instantly rose in the elf''s eyes.
Although Edith was usually full of smiles, warm and friendly, it was not a secret she hated him. To be honest, many girls in the Aqua n hated him. Still, they had to put off his harassment and nonsense because of his status in the Aqua n.
"Gangbang, is that your kink now?" Looking at Edith''s back, the elfughed.
Edith was expressionless and kept walking as though she had not heard the obscene words of the elf. However, Norvin noticed her nails had already viciously wed into her palm.
Unlike Edith, Noah didn''t remain calm. Instead, he halted his steps before grabbing Edith''s hands. Then, he stepped in front of her, shielding her from the elf''s disgusting look.
Boom!
Michael was talking to Olivia about her love life when suddenly something hit the ground after shattering the ss above them. As he looked down on the ground, Micahel saw the elf who went upstairs a few minutes ago, twitching and bleeding on the floor.
"Noah" Michael sighed,
Chapter 493 Ghost will be your judge
Chapter 493 Ghost will be your judge¡¡¡¡"What the hell?" Olivia was startled by the sudden turn of events. She was already tense talking about her future with Michael. Then when the elf shattered the ss wall above her, her heart almost leaped out of her chest.
To Michael''s surprise, the elf took out a healing potion he had brewed. Michael could recognize the potions he brewed anywhere, anytime. As soon as the elf chugged the healing potion down his throat, the bruises on his face quickly closed up.
Although the elf was caught off guard by Noah''s sudden attack, the elf sensed the human was stronger than him by the force of his attack. But, unfortunately, Idrisal was in the range of void. Hence the people lost the ability to see others'' cultivation levels.
"Human trash. Today, even if that bitch wants to protect you, you can forget about leaving the auction house alive" The elf screamed with boiling killing intent and picked himself up from the floor. Then the elf smashed the vial on the ground as the shattered vial joined the hundreds of broken ss pieces on the ground already.
The elf immediately waved as a golden circle appeared around him. Seeing this, the people quickly backed off, forming an ample empty space in the hall. However, before the elf could finish casting the spell, an ethereal form of a giant fist appeared out of nowhere and hit him through the golden circle. The punch emitted a soft ''crack'' sound emitted and following which, the elf coughed up a mouth full of fresh blood. A millisecond after he coughed up blood, his body was also thrust by the strong and vicious force, resulting in him being violently shot into the wall. Immediately, he spat out another mouthful of fresh blood. His legs knelt on the ground while his body was curled up in pain.
Everything happened quickly, from the elf hitting the ground after breaking the ss wall above to being sent flying into the wall. So many didn''t evenprehend what just happened.
Michael and Olivia halted their conversation to see the fight.
Only when the elf hit the ground after colliding with the wall could Edith realize what just happened. Shock and disbelief immediately covered her stunning face.
At this moment, the subordinates beside the elf finally recovered from this split-second urrence. When they eyed their master''s miserable state, they were shocked first. Then they immediately surrounded Noah angrily as they unsheathed their weapons. In addition to the elf''s guards, the Aqua n guards also surrounded Noah since he had just attacked one of their own, and it was their duty to apprehend Noah dead or alive.
"I order all of you to stand down!" Then, seeing the guards surrounding them, Edith pulled herself out of the shock to stomp on the ground. Her domineering shout echoed through the hall.
Hearing Edith''s shout, a few guards hesitated for a moment. Their master may have the courage to offend Edith, but it did not mean that they also had such courage.
"What the hell is going on teacher?" Olivia stepped closer to Michael involuntarily.
"Pretty girl, two young masters. This is called the recipe of shitstorm" Michael leaned on the wall, watching the elf struggling to pick himself up.
He quickly put his hand behind as he took out a Spyder from the system storage to send to crawling to the elf. Since Noah had made an enemy out of the elf, Michael nned to make an ally out of them. Then, if or when the timees, Michael would be able to use the elf and his family against Noah and his allies.
"If any of you dare take a step forward, then all of you will be banned from Aqua n. Although you are not my subordinates, just think, who are the elders gonna listen, few lowly guards or me" The guards immediately took a step back when they heard Edith. The guards''st need was to get between the young master and Edith. They knew quarrels between them were nothing out of the ordinary. They would fight today and mingle tomorrow, but if they stuck between them, the elders wouldn''t think twice before firing them. Hence, most guards let Edith deal with the n and the elf and stepped back.
The rest stared at Edith''s anger-filled eyes for a few moments before unwillingly pulling back.
"Take your master to wherever you came from." Edith coldly ordered with her delicate hand pointed to the entrance.
Michael saw the elf finally getting to his feet and drinking another vial of healing potion.Instead of trying to cast another spell, the elf shouted at Edith and Noah, looking at the elf from upstairs.
"Alright Edith, you got guts. You actually helped an outsider ambush me. Just wait!" The elf took a step forward only to stagger. Considering Michael had Xray eyes, he saw the elf''s Core Formation level 5 cultivation and Noah''s Core Strengthening level 2 cultivation. The power gap between them was enormous. So there was no way the elf could defeat Noah.
Quickly the elf''s subordinates grabbed him before falling to the ground again. He rubbed off the blood stain from the corner of his mouth and angrily stared at his subordinates. Immediately, his pupils contained a dark coldness and gloominess as he turned toward Noah by Edith''s side. His breathing was hurried as he said with a dark voice,
"You haven''t heard thest of Gn Beileth"
After leaving those vicious words, the elf maliciously pped the poor guard by his side and snarled at him, "Fool. Go!"
"Great we made another enemy hooray" Norvin sighed,ughing bitterly.
"I am sorry I got you into trouble Edith. But I couldn''t watch him bad mouth you" Edith''s heart immediately warmed, hearing his words. She couldn''t help smiling and blushing.
"I am sorry" Noah gently ced his hand on Edith''s shoulder and apologized. In a sh, her rosy facepletely turned red.
"It''s¡ it''s alright. Although Gn will definitely cry andin to his grandfather, they won''t meddle with the problems of youngsters"
"We will deal with Gn if he tries anything" Noah assured her with his captivating smile,
"That''s some next level cringe shit" Michael shook his head.
"Where are my manors? The little guy said he''s hungry right. Come on follow me" Edith''s usual bright smile resurfaced on her face as she walked towards the door at the hall''s end. The guards nking the door pushed open the door for Edith, revealing a spacious room with several bookshelves neatly erected within. There were various different kinds of thick books ced on these bookshelves. Edith passed through them and finally came to the front of a work desk. She then turned around, looking at Noah with a smile.
"Have a seat. Now, can you tell me, just what you need?" Pointing at the chairs at the side, she asked,
They nodded, randomly pulling out a chair and sitting down. Then, after musing for a moment, Niah stared at Edith, "Who was that elf?"
Meanwhile, Norvin reached for the fruit basket on the table and picked up a juicy red apple to munch on.
Edith made a detour around the table and sat behind it. Her lips slightly pouted as she said with a smile, "His grandfather is the Aqua n branch leader in Idrisal. Since King Maxim and Gn''s grandfather have been in talks to form an alliance, I have to act as the liaison between them. Usually,
He would avoid me when I was with Victoria. But since she''s not here, he got cocky" Edith brushed over the ck hair of her forehead and said somewhat tiredly. It was evident to Noah that the elf has been troubling her for some time now.
"Princess Victoria?" Alicia asked,
"You know her?"
Alicia nodded at Edith,
"Everyone knows her, I guess. Recently I heard she single handedly destroyed House of Kar"
"Sounds like someone I used to know" Norvin casually saidying on the table.
Edith frowned. When she looked at Noah, he just let out a deep breath,
"I was immature and impulsive. Those days are behind me now"
Noah didn''t suddenly have a change of heart about killing. Honestly, he learned the hard way that taking a life should be thest resort. He still had nightmares about the children who lost their parents because of his ruthlessness. So that day when those children looked at him with a confused look in their eyes, wondering why their parents had left them, Noah''s heart shattered into pieces. Noticing the sudden pain in Noah''s eyes, Edith quickly changed the topic while Alicia gave a cold look to Norvin, wordlessly telling him to shut up.
"You don''t have to worry about Gn. On the contrary, he should be worried about Victoria. If she knew what happened today, she wouldn''t give a damn about the alliance. Instead, she would kick the crap out of Gn. Now I have to think of ways to calm her down when she returns from Mazeroth,"
"Speaking of Mazeroth, have you seen him?" Norvin''s curiosity got the better of him. Only after uttering these words did he realize he shouldn''t have asked the question in front of Alicia.
To everyone''s surprise, Edith understood whom he meant by ''him''
"Unfortunately, yeah, we met him" Edith''s face turned darker and gloomier as though the light had been drained from her face.
"If you''re going topete in the alchemypetition, you will meet him. Because he will be one of the judges,"
As soon as Alicia heard Edith, she clenched her fist to the point her nails protruded into her soft palm and blood began to trickle down to the ground.
"I heard what he did, and I''m sorry Alicia," Edith softly spoke,
For a few moments, Alicia didn''t respond.
"I will pay him back in thousands of folds when I get the chance,"
Chapter 494 Saving Olivia from Marrying Noah
Chapter 494 Saving Olivia from Marrying Noah¡¡¡¡Meanwhile, Michael and Olivia went to the corner of the hall and discussed what she nned to do with Ricky.
"What should I do, teacher? My father will never ept Ricky" her eyes watered behind the round sses. Usually, Michael would avoid poking his nose into the love lives of others because ny-nine percent of the time, it would backfire. However, since both Ricky and Olivia were an important part of his future ns, he had to intervene because they messed up as Katherine and Andrews did.
"First, you can drop calling me teacher in private. It feels weird. We are discussing your love life, so I''d say we are long past mentor disciple rtionship," Michael said, leaning on the wall. Looking at his calm demeanor gave Okvia some strength to face her father.
"This exins why Ricky was acting so weird, weirder than usual," Michael recalled Ricky avoiding eye contact and talking way less than usual after he returned from MAzeroth. Now he realized Ricky was afraid of him loving Olivia who was Michael''s student.
"He was freaking out to talk to you more than me. He was afraid you would kill him,"
"What?" Michael frowned,
"You do have a pretty violent history of dealing things Ghost," she bitterly grinned, feeling weird calling him by his name for the first time.
"Still, I''m not a freakin psychopath," Michael sighed,
"Is there any other reason your father doesn''t want you to marry Ricky apart from him being amoner?"
Olivia nodded, and what she said nextpletely stunned Michael.
"He wants me to marry¡marry," She stuttered, struggling to say the next words,
"Speak"
Olivia took a deep breath and mustered enough courage,
"He wants me to marry Noah Winston,"
As soon as she said that, Michael stopped leaning on the wall. His body tensed. Thest thing he wanted was to have one of his subordinates marry his future arch enemy.
"Is he crazy?"
Olivia noticed the sudden change in Ghost''s face,
"If he marries you to Noah, you will just be a plus one in his packs of wives,"
Despite his hatred for Noah''s harem, Michael really cared for Olivia. He didn''t want her to be another member of Noah''s harem. However, Ricky was a better choice than Noah.
Besides, Ricky had all the qualities a man should have. He was hardworking, loyal, and honest.
"What did you tell him?"
"I said no obviously. He said Ricky is not noble and not strong enough to protect me. Ghost, what should I do? I can''t make Ricky strong like Noah. As far as I know, only you can stand head to head with him in your generation,"
Michael leaned closer to Olivia,
"Unless he''s already at Soul Refining stage, he can''t stand head to head with me" the moment Olivia heard his words, her body went rigid and her eyes opened as wide as they could.
"you¡you¡Soul¡"
"Yes"
Michael heard the system awarding him with 5000 badass points for impressing Olivia.
Ignoring the notification, Michael focused on the topic at hand,
"What if I vouched for Ricky? I can make him stronger and give him a minister position in Bradford. That would make him sort of a noble,"
Olivia immediately grabbed Michael''s hands and squeezed them,
"You would do that for us? Really?" her eyes sparkled, filled with hope and joy.
"Why not? Anything to save my favorite disciple from joining a harem" Michael ruffled Olivia''s head as though she was a kid.
"But Ghost¡there''s a problem" her smile disappeared. In a sh, the gloomy look she had before resurfaced on her pretty face,
"My father said Noah said yes to marry me. So he''s nning an engagement next month. I just heard this three days ago,"
Michael furrowed his brows. He couldn''t believe Noah''s audacity to marry another one when he already had so many girls to marry. Yet, deep down, Michael knew that if Olivia told Noah she was in love with someone else, Noah wouldn''t force her. After all, Noah was a good guy.
"Talk to Noah and tell him you''re in love with Ricky. He''s a nice guy. He will understand. Hell, if you ask him, he might even tell your dad he doesn''t want to marry you,"
Seeing Olivia''s forehead forming beads of sweat, Michael gently patted her on the back and led her outside. After joining the crowd on the street, Michael looked over the heads to see a building with the board saying ''Horith Inn'' hanging above a wooden door.
"I have to find a way to get into theirpound. Currently, the Winstons aren''t seeing anyone, thanks to the freakin war going on there,"
"Why didn''t you attend the engagement ceremony then? All the Winstons would be there,"
Olivia punched Michael on the shoulder while walking towards the inn,
"Are you serious? You just messed up King Bredia. I don''t think they would ever meet someone close to you,"
"But you''re different. Just go and talk to them. They are nice people. I will talk to your dad after we go back,"
"Thank you, Ghost. You''re the best" She wrapped her arms around his shoulder and squeezed him. She felt like something heavy was being lifted off of her shoulder. His reassurance gave her confidence. Nothing eventful happened during Michael''s visit to the inn. The two ordered sds and hot water and spent some time chatting. Michael gave her some pointers in alchemy. By the time they stepped out of the Inn, the streets had be almost unwalkable.
After exiting the inn, Michael walked towards the uniquely architectured building in the distance. One thing was obvious to Michael. Whoever built that building took the Alchemy guild concept too far as the building looked literally like a giant cauldron built with emeralds. The windows in the building resembled the fire outlets of an alchemy cauldron. At the top of the building was an enormous cover that creeped downwards, covering all the rooms below it.
During the walk towards the building, they noticed the main roads in the city already hadpletely armed knight units patrolling in the streets and mages patrolling the skies above. Clearly, this was due to the Alchemist Competition, which was about to begin. After all, if amotion were to ur at such arge grand meeting, it would have many differentrge impacts on the kingdom. Therefore, the guild and the king needed to prevent any such possibilities.
"Next time, we are flying" Michael twisted Olivia''s ears. She was the one who suggested they should walk instead of flying. Because of her suggestion, he almost got squeezed by the crowd. Fortunately, after enduring such a painful walk, they finally reached the guild.
"I could have such a grand wee," Michael sighed inside. Then, with both his hands inside his pockets, he slowly climbed the marble steps leading into the building. Michael had just followed the human flow and entered the association when a disturbance urred not far behind him. Like everyone else, he turned around to see what was happening.
The source of themotion was a carriage made of gold and several engravings of a strange beast on the gold being pulled by four snow white pegasi.
The strange-looking beast, with a blue-colored me rising from its body, was drawn on the golden carriage. The strange beast wasrge and had a ferocious appearance, emitting a feeling that would faintly frighten the hearts of those who looked at it.
"The imperial crest..." several people near him softly muttered.
Surrounding the horse carriage, over ten people wrapped entirely in blue robes apanying it. Michael''s gaze swept across these blue-robed people and his eyes shrunk. They were Soul Refining level 4 warriors.
"Who is this empress of Awor?" Michael asked himself in surprise as his gaze scanned the carriage.
A few momentster, one of the guards slowly opened the door while the other ckguards swiftly formed a steady circle around the carriage. At the same time, numerous gazes that were as sharp as an eagle shot out from the guards, scanning the crowd for threats.
Under the protective circle of several Soul Refining stage guards, someone extended their smooth delicate hand from within. The hand gracefully held the handle of the carriage door. Afterward, a beautiful figure slowly walked out and appeared in everyone''s sight.
Just like most girls in his life, she was damn beautiful. She was wearing a sparkling blue long skirt with golden lines. Under the influence of the imperial family, her exquisite appearance faintly seeped out a noble imposing presence that was her birthright. A golden belt was worn on her narrow and delicate waist, disying the small waist vividly and incisively.
To his eyes, she appeared to be sixteen or seventeen years old.
She had a perfect hourss structure, jaw structure, and bubbly eyes with baby fat cheeks to make any man drool over her. Still, she wasn''t pretty enough to rival Gaya or Lah. But given time, she might rival them in terms of beauty. Her pretty face contained a smile fit for a girl from the royal family. However, each time her gaze swept across the surroundings, he had a feeling she might not be asdylike as she seemed.
"Do you know who she is?" Michael asked Olivia. Unlike many, Michael did not drool at her. He was mature enough to remain calm.
"Tsk tsk, what a beautiful girl..." A wave of cheers immediately erupted from the surrounding crowd watching the youngdy. The people swiftly threw over several heated gazes. Although the girl belonged to the royal daily of Awor, it did not stop the crowd from drooling at her beauty.
"My guess would be Jennifer Voldigard. I heard that her teacher is the deputy chairman Alred. I think that she must havee here for thepetition,"
"No shit genius," Michaelughed bitterly,
While climbing the stairs with her guards, Michael shifted his focus to the nearby conversations. Some well-informed individuals within the crowd identified the youngdy.
"She seems a little too young topete, don''t you think?"
"She is young, but her alchemy talent is something that even the chairman had praised nonstop. I have heard that half a year ago, she had already reached a three-star level,"
"Still not at the level of Alchemist Ghost,"
The guy who just said these words put a smile on Michael''s face. He had learned his name had started to spread. Soon, he would be renowned in the Ozer continent too.
Chapter 495 Becoming the Judge
Chapter 495 Bing the Judge¡¡¡¡Some of the older middle-aged alchemists who nned topete avoided direct eye contact with others as they felt embarrassed.
Being squeezed into the crowd, Michael heard the conversations of the people around him and learned a few things about Jennifer Voldigard. He once again turned his gaze to Jennifer, who was walking the steps with her guards.
"Core Formation stage and three-star Alchemist level, not bad..." Michael thought to himself.
Her achievements were quite stunning to the others but not for Michael.
With the wealth of the royal family behind, as long as she possessed the basic talent needed to be an alchemist, they could use their wealth and resources to train her into a four or five-star alchemist with ease. Moreover, from the conversation he heard, Jennifer''s talent for alchemy was quite good. Therefore, having such an achievement was within expectations.
Under the protection of the guards, Jennifer swaggered through the packed crowd into the building without meeting any obstruction.
As Jennifer disappeared from his sight, Michael and Olivia squeezed through, pushing aside the crowd until they finally reached a spacious hall.
He eyed the vast hall and exhaled a long breath of air. Then, wiping off the sweat beads on her forehead, Olivia walked toward the western hall area as though she had walked there countless times.
Unlike the rest of the hall, the western area was blocked by lines of golden pole barricades. Several guards armored from head to toe raised their hands noticing Olivia and Michael,
"Restricted area,"
"Not for me. I am one of the judges," Michael flicked his wrist, retrieving the invitation letter from the system storage.
Since the guards were wearing metal helmets, he could not see the shock on their faces.
The guard before Michael took the invitation letter and opened it up only to get startled after a few moments.
"You¡You are Ghost?"
"One and only,"
"Okay teacher. You deal with this. I have to go register my team over there" Olivia looked over at the crowded southern side of the hall,
"Cool,"
She rushed towards the crowd while the guard eyed Michael from top to bottom.
"So young," the guard mumbled under his breath,
"Here''s my Core Disciple card. It''ll help you confirm my identity" With another flick of his wrist, Michael took out the golden card from the system storage.
The guard looked at the name ''Ghost'' embossed on the golden card in ck.
"Please forgive us my lord" the guard looked at the card and the invitation letter for a moment before stuttering,
"It''s okay. You guys are just doing your job. Now can I go in?"
"Yes yes my lord, please this way"
Michael jumped over the golden poles and walked towards the door by himself instead of waiting for the guards to remove the poles. After Michael disappeared through the door, the guards were stunned,
"What a nice guy" the guard who checked the invitation letter eximed to the other guard,
"Yeah. For a five star alchemist, he''s surprisingly chill"
"It''s a breath of fresh air for a change"
The guards conversed. Working as the guards in the Alchemy guild, they had seen their fair share of talented alchemists and they all had one thing inmon; arrogance. The moment they reach the three-star level, the alchemists would treat the guards like dirt. But seeing a five-star alchemist who dethroned Alchemy King Gabriel being so humble and modest, they were genuinely surprised. Immediately Michael''s status in their hearts reached another level.
Passing the guards, Michael walked into the corridor brightly lit with a straight line of chandeliers and slowly climbed up the stairs. The stairs led him to a brightly lit hall tiled with marble stone that reflected everything in the room. The hall had a luxurious feel thanks to all the golden tables, chandeliers radiating gold light, golden windows, and even the sofa set was iid with gold lines surrounding a pearl white cushion.
Currently, only a chubby old man with a pointy beard sat on the sofa blowing the cup in his hand. The old man had a mix of white and ck hair, no mustache, and wore a green robe. He was calmly sipping the tea when he noticed Michael.
"Young man, you must be Ghost," the old man greeted Michael with a grin,
"And you must be?"
"Atian, Atian Dawson. Humble five-star alchemist and one of the grandmasters," the old man reached out to shake Michael''s hands.
"Ghost" Michael simply said after firmly shaking his hands,
"Aye, a man of few words, I presume. You have a long list of achievements than this old man ever had"
"Well if I listed out everything, I would look like an arrogant brat," Michael smiled as he leaned back on the sofa.
"Quite a crowd out there. What''s the format here?"
Hearing Michael''s question, Ativan leaned forward and drew a huge rectangle on the tea table''s surface as he continued with a smile,
"All the alchemists in thepetition will be participating simultaneously on a huge tform. We will have a few rounds, and thepetition''s requirements will gradually be harder. Like in any otherpetition, we will eliminate many at the end of each round. Whoever can stand out among the cream of the crop, will be the final victor. This is the format for both individual and group"
"Oh..." Michael nodded his head slightly. He could imagine the spectacr view of hundreds or thousands of alchemists raising their mes and refining pills and potions on the same tform while people cheered for them.
"Back then, when I first participated, I almost peed myself. Nowadays, the alchemists are too strong both mentally and physically" Atianughed, appearing to know what Michael was thinking.
"Here, as a fellow judge, you should take a look at this name list,"
Ativan flicked his wrist, taking out a golden parchment from his space ring.
Michael was somewhat curious as he opened the parchment to see the long name list. What surprised Michael was there were names still appearing on the list as he was reading the list.
Michael kept reading all the names until his eyes stopped at the name ''Lelian Icarus''.
"Lelian Icarus. That''s Gabriel''s sessor. Do you know him?" As though Atian knew Michael''s gaze was locked on Lelian''s name, he exined.
"I heard about it somewhere" Michael simply brushed it over. But, of course, he couldn''t say he read it in the book he bought from Lord Information. Dealing with Lord Information wasn''t something one should brag about.
Michael then noticed Noah''s name appearing on the bottom of the list and then the name Jennifer Voldigard appeared as Atian began to speak again.
"You might be familiar with another Voldigard right? Lane Voldigard?"
Michael nodded,
"He''s my alchemy teacher in Mazeroth. So this Jennifer Voldigard, is she a rtive?"
"It''splicated and It''s not my ce to exin" Michael was surprised inside but didn''t show any expression on his face.
"Have you ever met her?" quickly asked Atian, changing the topic away from professor Lane.
"I have seen her for a moment at the entrance just now" Michael nodded,
"Don''t look down on that girl. Under the support of the imperial family, she has so many hidden cards that would dazzle people." Atian smiled and reminded him. She could have all the hidden cards in the world but he had something she could never have, the system.
As he was looking through the name list, the parchment glowed for a moment, and then, the tiny stars appeared beside each name. Most had two stars, some had three and only a few had four stars.
"As you can see, we have quite a talented roster here. Just counting the three-star alchemists, there are already thirteen of them"
"So tell me from one judge to another, who do you think will win thepetition?"
"Noah" Michael immediately thought in his mind. There was no doubt in his mind. After all, Noah had a 6-star Alchemist grandpa in his ring. It would be funny and embarrassing if Noah didn''t win thepetition as far as Michael was concerned.
"I have no guesses Lord Atian since I don''t know most of them on the list"
A few more sipster, Atian finished his tea and ced the cup on the table.
"Young man, you still have one little thing to do before entering the judges'' panel. Alchemists from the guild don''t have this procedure, but since you''re an outsider, it''s the rule. I hope you don''t mind,"
"Of course not. It makes sense actually,"
"Wonderful,"
Atian stood up, smiled, and said, "Follow me. Know that due to security reasons, some participants might be in the same hall we are going to"
"Cool," Michael nodded his head, stood up, and followed Atian. The two of them walked out of the room and walked along a quiet corridor for a short while. Once they were at the end, they pushed open a door by the side entering the hall that looked the exact replica of the one they came from.
Everything looked the same except there were some people in the room.
One of the groups in the hall was Jennifer''s group. The Soul Refining stage guards surrounded her while she was gracefully enjoying her cup of tea.
His gaze rotated again until it stopped on a handsome young man conversing with a few young alchemists.
He was adorned in emerald green robes with many shiny stones iid within. His white hair flew naturally over his shoulder. Among all the youngsters in the room, only he and Jennifer had a striking look to draw Michael''s attention.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, everyone in the hall who was whispering privately ceased their conversations. Instead, their gaze turned toward the door. When they saw Michael enter, they were all momentarily stunned by his dashing look because only Michael was dressed in full ck and had physic like no one else in the room.
For a few moments, Jennifer stared at him without batting an eye. However, she quickly regained herposure and moved her gaze away from him. While following Atian, Michael could sense the young man''s gaze on him. By the way, the young man creased his brows when he entered the hall. Michael guessed he might be Gabriel''s sessor, Len Icarus.
Chapter 496 The Number One Alchemist
Chapter 496 The Number One Alchemist¡¡¡¡"Took you long enough Atian," as soon as Michael and Atian came to a table containing apparatus setup and many alchemy ingredients, a cheery voice resounded in the hall.
Following the voice, everyone, including Michael turned around to see a tall old man with full long white hair and a beard strolling towards them. His golden robes swept the floor beneath him as he approached Atian and Michael with a wide grin on his lively face.
"Ghost, this is the deputy chairman of the guild, Alred Sterling" Ativan introduced the old man to Ghost,
Michael moved his eyes slightly to see Jennifer standing instead of sitting on the couch.
"Deputy Chairman Alred" Michael shook his hands while some of the ignorant youngsters not knowing the number one alchemist in the Elon and Ozer gawked at Michael bewildered. One of those who had no idea about Michael was Jennifer.
"It''s a pleasure to meet you Ghost,"
Michael''s words caused a quietmotion among the youngsters. Even Jennifer raised her brows. Then, instead of standing still, she slowly walked toward Michael but not close enough to get the grandmasters'' attention.
"Likewise, Deputy Chairman Alred"
"Grandmaster Alred would do just fine," Alred shook Michael''s hands with a smile,
Then, their focus turned to the table behind Michael.
"Everyone, please gather around us" Ativan waved at the youngsters. Then, in a few blinks of an eye, all the youngsters and their guards formed a circle around the table.
Michael guessed what was about to happen and snickered inside looking at the unfairness. So the rich and powerful would get an opportunity to see him refine pills and potions closely while the rest wait in line outside. This was so unfair.
Still, Michael didn''t utter anything. Compared to the unfairness, the badass points he was about to receive alleviated his mood.
"Has Grandmaster Atian exined why we are doing this Ghost?" asked Alred as Michael nodded,
"Although it''s a rule, we put together something special just to witness your heaven-defying talent. Think of it as a tutge for old bones like us,"
"Best source of knowledge is experience, Grandmasters. So you two are full of knowledge whom I can learn many new things from," Michael chose to be humble because if he learned one thing from Mazerorth, it was never to underestimate anyone. Professor Lane taught him that lesson by outsmarting him every step of the way. Besides, having a system didn''t mean he had to be an arrogant young master.
"You''re calling us old, aren''t you?" Atian''s words made everyone burst intoughter. Everyoneughed and made the atmosphere cheery and lively except for one. It was the young man who eyed Michael with some kind of malicious intent. But Michaelpletely ignored him.
"Cockatrice Scale Griffin w Silk Bittercress Silent Bittersweet Giant Bitterweed Pest de" Michael named the alchemy ingredients on the table one by one after they finally stoppedughing.
"Tonic of Intellect. That''s what you want me to brew. Am I right Grandmaster?" Michael asked Alred and Atian without even opening up the golden parchment near the emerald cauldron fuming smoke.
"Tonic of Intellect"
A glint of surprise emerged in those old eyes. They should be surprised because they had to scour through the ancient scrolls to find the recipe, yet the young man before them immediately guessed what they could brew after taking a look at the ingredient for a second.
"How much purity can you reach Ghost?" Alred asked curiously.
But instead of answering his question, Michael said in a rather serious tone,
"Grandmasters, this is a highly addictive potion. It''s not even a potion. It''s kind of a drug. It will unlock the full power of the brain for a few minutes, but after that, the brain will deteriorate to the point they won''t even remember their own names,"
Alred and Atian werepletely taken aback by surprise. Michael could see the shock in their eyes, but these two old men were quite good at hiding their shock.
"Of course, we know that. Now please, demonstrate to us your skills,"
To Michael''s knowledge, the tonic of intellect was a failed potion. Also, it was kind of a magical potion. Because whoever drinks the potion must be aware that they are drinking the potion of intellect. Otherwise, the potion wouldn''t show any effects on them. In simple words, it would be no different than water. If one were aware at the time, the potion would make them a genius at their specialty for a few minutes. After the effects wore out, they would crave more potions. They would not be able to live without the potion as the potion was highly addictive. The continued consumption would kill the brain cells until the brainpletely stops working.
Nodding at the two grandmasters, Michael raised his right hand. In a blink of an eye, dark green mes appeared in the form of an orb. Many youngsters weren''t even sure that the orb was the alchemy fire because it was hovering above his palm in a perfect shape of a sphere. The sheer control he had over the fire stunned even Professor Lane let alone these youngsters.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1500 badass points]
¡
The system went crazy as he continuously heard the notifications sounds ringing in his head to the point he willed the system to mute the sounds for 50 badass points.
"So it''s true. You don''t use a cauldron" Ativan''s eyes went wide as soon as Michael threw one of the ingredients into the fire directly instead of using a cauldron.
"It does look cool and easy. But the scars on my body will tell you another story" Michael continued to throw in the ingredients while talking to them, which surprised everyone even more. Hence, he received more and more badass points.
"It took me years of practice and lots of healing potions. If you have a ton of healing potions and desire to get burned over and over again, you can definitely use this method"
The two grandmasters stared at him with pce faces. They couldn''t believe he was extracting the essence while talking to them. Atian even took a couple of steps back, fearing the fire would explode. However, nothing happened as Atian feared. Instead, Michael continued to extract the essence, forming colorful beads above the green mes.
"Grandmasters, the vials please," Michael asked, bringing the two grandmasters out of shock.
"Three vials" Yet again Michael stunned them. The two old men could not even keep the calm smile on their faces anymore. On the other hand, Jennifer was staring at Michael without batting an eye. She waspletely fixated on his grace and technique of brewing the potion. Until now, she thought her teacher, Alred, was the most talented. But, after seeing Alred acting like a student in front of Michael, she learned how wrong she is.
Already held two vials while Atian had one waiting for Michael to finishbining the essence beads into a huge blob of potion. Then, with a slow graceful movement of his hand, Michael split the maroon clump into three and sent each clump flying into a vial.
"That''s how you brew 90% pure Tonic of Intellect" Michael cracked his neck left and right as the green orb of fire vanished into thin air. In front of him, the grandmasters held the three vials with the sparkling maroon potion. Their bodies were rigid as though they were petrified.
"My Lord, Tiriana has departed from the warship and heading to Idrisal" just as everyone was murmuring in shock, Michael heard Azazel''s voice in his head.
**************************************
The next day, there were no clouds in the blue sky as far as the eye could see. The sunlight was warm yet not overbearing. The asional breeze that brushed past carried away the noise within the city, refreshing everyone on the streets.
Today was the first day of the Alchemypetition.
The first rays of sunlight broke through the boundary of thend and shone upon the city streets filled with alchemists in green robes like ants leaving their nests. Considering the alchemists believed green robes gave them better control over the fire and today was a big day, they all wore emerald green robes. From the aerial view, the streets looked like they were painted green. Although their paths differed, their final destination was the giant cauldron in the city''s center.
Today, all the shops within Oxshore city opened much earlier than usual. Countless people climbed out of their warm beds, stood at the door, and looked at therge group of alchemists bustling through the streets.
Typically, seeing arge group of any of the specializations was rare. To alchemy, the Alchemist guildpetition was such an event that brought all the alchemists under one roof. The people didn''t miss experiencing such a rare event.
On this special day, Noah woke up very early. Before leaving the bed, he sat cross-legged to meditate for an hour. Only after he calmed down his nerves, collected his thoughts, and conversed telepathically with his mentor, he slowly opened his eyes. Turning his head to the side, he saw Alicia curling on the bed next to Norvin.
"Good morning Alicia," He bent down to gently kiss her on the forehead and then rubbed Norvin''s head to wake him up.
"What the hell is taking you so long?" Norvin banged the door sitting atop Noah''s shoulder. Since Alicia was changing, they waited for almost an hour outside the room.
"Five minutes," Alicia''s cold voice came from inside as Norvin rolled his eyes,
"That''s what you said thirty minutes ago,"
This time, they got no response from Alicia. Since they obviously have to wait outside for another thirty minutes, Norvin turned his gaze towards Noah, who remained calm, leaning on the wall. Just like Michael, Noah didn''t believe green robes would give them better control over fire. Thus, he was in his usual white dress.
"Where is thepetition taking ce again?" asked Norvin,
"In the Aqua arena adjacent to the guild. The guild had no ce to hold the thousands of spectators andpetitors. So every time they''d host thepetition in the Aqua arena,"
"Let''s go," Finally Alicia opened the door, revealing her long white dress matching Noah''s robes. She looked gorgeous even with the mask changing her natural face.
Noah locked his arms with her and walked out of the Inn with one two goals; Save the guild leader and win thepetition.
Chapter 497 The Six Star Alchemist Hendrix Gardner
Chapter 497 The Six Star Alchemist Hendrix Gardner¡¡¡¡Thinking about having thousands of people raising their mes and refining pills and potions on the same tform simultaneously, Noah couldn''t help feeling a little excited. That spectacr manner was likely to be extremely thrilling.
As they flew above the crowd for a few moments, the Aqua arena that Atian had mentioned early had gradually appeared in their sight. Noah raised his gaze at the cauldron-like building in the distance. Behind the guild building, Noah could vaguely notice the colossal arena.
Currently, there were fully armed aqua n soldiers stationed outside the building to maintain order. The green robed crowd flooded towards the alchemist guild building and it was evident to Noah that thepetition had gathered thousands of alchemists from all over the world.
The kingdom would receive a huge blow if a riot were to ur. Therefore, the royal family of Idrisal and the guild were extremely cautious regarding maintaining order. Unfortunately, the crowd caused finding the assassin or how Gabriel nned to assassinate the guild leader Hendrix Gardner.
There were inspectors from the Alchemist Guild stationed at the entrance. Only Guild members and the participants were allowed to enter from this entrance while the spectators entered the arena through the west side entrance.
"Good luck Noah," Alicia pecked Noah on the cheek before flying towards the west entrance with Norvin. After Alicia left, Noah squeezed through the participants in the guild hall and finally entered the arena adjacent to the guild. Finally, Noah breathed a sigh of relief as the arena had enough space to amodate all the participants without squeezing them together.
Standing at the entrance, Noah looked at therge arena built with an aquatic blue marble to the point that he felt like he was standing inside an ocean. He could not help but shake his head and praise.
The arena was round oval, with countless seats symmetrically like shark teeth. Opposite the audience seats, VIP seats were decoratedvishly, specially catered for the judges and special guests.
As his gaze swept over the iparablyrge open ground, Noah discovered that thousands of jade square tables scattered neatly, resembling a green rock military unit standing still.
Currently, countless alchemists were participating in thepetition quietly seated cross-legged on a stone chair behind the jade tables within the open ground. But, as time flowed, moving closer to the beginning of thepetition, more and more alchemists swarmed into the arena. They took seats randomly since no table number or token was allocating specific tables for a particr participant.
"Noah Winston" Noah heard a familiar voice, and the voice immediately made Noah smile,
"Grandmaster Atian," Noah turned around to see Grandmaster Atian walking toward him,
"How is my favorite young man?" Atian embraced Noah in a tight hug,
"Doing wonderful Uncle¡Grghhmmm¡sorry" Noah cleared his throat realizing they were not alone,
"Grandmaster Atian"
"I am d to hear that," Atian patted Noah''s shoulder,
Then, Atian ascended to the air taking Noah with him.
"Let''s go to the VIP seats first. There is still some time until the start of The Competition. I want you to meet some important people. It might help you do your other thing," Atian winked at Noah as Noah nodded at him. Atian was the one who tipped Noah about the assassination plot. Because of Gabriel''s connection in and out of the guild, Atian couldn''t trust anyone except Noah.
"Gabriel hasn''t arrived yet. But you need to be careful about the new guy. I can''t quite put my fingers in it, but he gives me chills" Atian''s face turned serious after they left the ground and ascended to the air above.
Before Noah could ask who that man was, they reached the VIP seating, where Noah saw Alred and an old man with brown hair and a few stripes of gray hair leisurely sitting on the chair in the middle. He wore a purple robe with golden engravings and seemed to meditate with closed eyes.
"That is the Guild Leader, Hendrix Gardner. A six-star alchemist.
Before Gabriel became who he is today, Lord Hendrix had given him a lot of care. It would not be an overstatement to say that he was the mentor of Gabriel..." Atian softly said.
"Oh?"
Noah''s eyebrows twitched slightly. He had only heard about Hendrix, but this was the first time he had seen the man.
The old man with tired eyes appeared to have sensed the gazes focused on him and suddenly turned his head around. He turned his seemingly perplexed gaze toward Noah''s side. A friendly smile appeared on the dried skin on his face.
Seeing that the old man had turned his head over, Atian hurriedly bowed and greeted. After which, they slowly walked to the front row.
"Lord Hendrix Gardner, how was your journey to Idrisal?" the old man slowly opened his eyes, turning his head to look at Atian.
"It''s Atian right? You''ve reached the five-star level. Your progress is not bad, not bad at all..." Hendrix swept his turbid gaze at the two of them andughed softly.
"It''s all because of Lord Hendrix''s teachings thest time around." Atian respectively said.
"All that I can speak about is some of my personal experience. The most important thing is depending on yourselves..." Hendrix Gardner smiled, shaking his head. He suddenly turned his gaze toward Noah behind Atian.
"Who is this young man, Atian? Your disciple?" With a friendly smile, Hendrix asked Atian,
"Lord Hendrix, This young man is Noah Winston. He is the youngest guardian captain" Ativan introduced Noah to Hendrix as Noah bowed slightly to show his respect to the six-star alchemist before him,
"Not only the youngest guardian captain but also a talented alchemist. I can see the talent in your eyes..." Hendrix Gardner''s voice was neither hurried nor slow. Although it was a little hoarse, it had a certain magical-like property that did not allow others to interrupt his words.
Noah calmly smiled but did not continue to say anything on this topic.
Hendrix Gardner smiled and stared at Noah. His gaze seemed to have a deeper meaning as he paused on that calm face for a while.
"I wish you good luck, young man. You will need it," Hendrix calmly said. But something told Noah his simple words contained wisdom and meaning behind.
"Does he know about the assassination plot on his life?" Noah couldn''t help asking himself after hearing Hendrix''s words,
"You should learn some aura hiding spells, young man. If you ever n to visit Awor, that is," Hendrix continued with the same calm smile on his face. However, this time, his words were heavy as though he had sensed Noah''s secret,
"Don''t tell me that he sensed the teacher''s presence?" Noah blinked his eyes. There was a change in his heart as he muttered,
"Teacher," Noah telepathically called for his teacher,
"Rx, he can''t sense me. But be careful, I have a strange feeling about him" Noah heard Andreas''s voice in his head,
"Perhaps I have sensed wrongly," Hendrix said to himself. The sudden aura he felt or thought he felt wasn''t around him anymore. The old man sighed in disappointment. Then, he leaned back against the chair, appearing a little absent-minded as he entered a trance while his memory yed.
Back then, when Hendrix Gardner was still young, he had coincidentally met a revenant of an old man in a dungeon he and his friends adventured.
Because of Hendrix''s thirst for knowledge and young blood, he was separated from his group, ended up meeting the revenant, and spent three days with the old man. During those three days, the old man taught him a few things and gave him a scroll containing alchemy knowledge.
By borrowing what the old man had taught, the initially unknown Hendrix Gardner, an adventurer with a basic talent for alchemy, advanced step by step to his current stage.
Only after reaching the six-star level, Hendrix had realized how terrifyingly talented the old revenant was when he was alive. Even though he and his fellow six-star alchemists in Awor were praised as the heavenly alchemists and worshiped by the world of alchemists, he knew none of them could hold a torch to the old man. Which was the reason Hendrix always remained humble despite his fame and stardom.
The vague aura he sensed on Noah a moment ago was quite simr to the one that the old man had back then. It was the reason that Hendrix suddenly got lost in their thoughts.
However, as Atian was about to take his seat, a burst of oldughter was emitted from a passageway in the middle of the seats, "I knew you would run to Lord Hendrix as fast as your old legs could"
Hearing theughter, everyone turned their heads around to take a look. When they saw a white-haired old man wearing golden robes walking towards Hendrix.
The person who arrived at the stage was Alred, whom Noah had when he came to the guardian guild. Jennifer also followed closely behind. Today, she was wearing a pale-green alchemist robe that was clearly specially tailored for her using the best materials. Her spacious sleeves had bright silk pulled around them to form a lotus shape. This gave her an elegance that came from nowhere. However, Noah clearly knew her character and understood that this youngdy, who appeared quiet on the surface, was actually a quirky person.
As his gaze swept past Jennifer, Noah discovered that beside her was a talldy wearing a luxurious and brilliant dress. Compared to the cute and petite Jennifer, thedy was mature and had a nobility feel around her. When she saw Atian and Noah, she just nodded to acknowledge their existence and then looked at the alchemists gathering down.
There was an iciness and matured aura all over thisdy. As her pretty eyes moved, a temptation naturally appeared.
Noah''s gaze swept past the twodies and finallynded on Alred. He bowed and greeted with a smile, "Grandmaster Alred,"
"Alred, this young man is Noah, whom I have mentioned to you. His ability is extraordinary," Ativan told Alred and thedy standing beside, pointing at Noah. Hearing Alred''s evaluation, Jennifer by the side tooted, secretly muttering something. It was likely that she was not satisfied by these words of Alred.
"Nice to meet you, Master Noah,"
The hazel eyes of thedy stared at Noah. Then, she smiled. The instant she smiled, it surprised some noble family descendants around the VIP seats since Eve Voldigard was known to treat people coldly.
Chapter 498 The Alchemy Competition has begun
Chapter 498 The Alchemy Competition has begun¡¡¡¡"Nice to meet you, Lady Eve..." Noah smiled, slightly bowing his head to show her the respect she deserves.
Once the group had greeted each other, they sat down in the front row of the VIP seat except Noah and Jennifer since they were both participants and they only came to the VIP seating due to their connections. Whether it was intentional or otherwise, Princess Eve ended up sitting beside an empty chair between Hendrix and her. Standing closer to Eve, the faint female body fragrance drifted from the side, causing him to be a little distracted.
As the sun in the sky moved, the number of people in the VIP seats also increased. These people were mostly people of higher officials in the guild or people with connections. The audience seats opposite them had long been overly packed. The shouting aggregated into a torrent that shot to the horizon.
A long whileter, Noah suddenly sensed some movement in the seats around him. Only then, did he frown and turn his head around to see the source of themotion. Two lines of silver armored soldiers escorted three people to the VIP seatings.
"Gabriel," Noah muttered as he looked at the tall, dashing man with striking golden hair walking towards them. The emerald green robes couldn''t hide the man''s perfect body structure, which would raise any woman''s heartbeat. With perfect jaw structure, small lips, and blue eyes, the man looked like a model out of a magazine. Edith walked behind Gabriel with Lelian Icarus whom Ghost met during his test to be the judge.
"Lord Gabriel"
Many of the nobles stood up from their seats to show their respect. The man sat on the throne of the number one alchemist of Elon and Ozer for decades. Although Ghost proved he was better than Gabriel, the Alchemy king still had the respect and admiration of many nobles. Hence, even Atian and Alred stood up from their seats to wee him.
"Grandmaster Hendrix," Gabriel arrived before Hendrix and greeted him with a stoic face. Since Hendrix became who he is by learning from the old revenant, Hendrix never hesitated to share his knowledge with others. But despite learning so many things from Hendrix, Gabriel felt no gratitude towards him.
"Gabriel" Hendrix returned Gabriel''s greet with a nod.
"Hi," Edith quietly gave a quick wave at Noah,
If only Gabriel could assassinate Hendrix, he would be able to use his contacts to join the heavenly alchemists'' ranks. With their resources and knowledge, it would be only a matter of time before he reaches the 6-star alchemist level. However, to reach his goals, Hendrix must die.
"That''s Alchemy king Gabriel,"
"LORD GABRIEL!''
"HAIL THE KING!"
"HAIL THE ALCHEMY KING!"
Noah saw the alchemists and the crowd erupted into thunderous cheers. Compared to the grandmasters and Hendrix, Gabriel''s fame was on the next level thanks to his marketing strategies and promotions. Not a single one didn''t know Gabriel and admired in the world of alchemy. The cheers he received were evident of his fame.
Gabriel turned to look at the cheering crowd and gracefully waved his hand while Len Icarus seemed extremely haughty seeing his teacher enjoying such fathomless fame and cheers from the crowd. He felt as though the crowd is cheering for him.
Jennifer and Eve quietly waited patiently for Gabriel to take his seat. While the crowd was raving for Gabriel, a golden trail appeared in the sky above. They all looked up to see a figurepletely dressed in ck slowly descending towards the VIP seatings.
"Ghost," Edith''s heart skipped a beat when she saw Michael. His long ck coat fluttered in the wind as he kept his hands casually inside the pant pockets.
After Michael appeared, everyone in the VIP seatings turned their gazes from Gabriel to Michael. Meanwhile, the cheering didn''t die down but gradually sounded less loud than a few moments ago. Of course, unlike Gabriel, Michael didn''t pay a bunch of people to kick start the cheering. If Michael wished to get thunderous cheers, he could have simply brought the entire river town along with the Sunrise disciples.
Still, little by little, some of the people who were present during the tournament recognized Michael and spread his name among the crowd.
Under the thunderous cheers for Gabriel, Michael calmlynded on the VIP stage beside Noah.
"Ghost," Noah greeted Ghost with a nod.
Despite their differences in morals, Noah respected Ghost. As an Alchemist training under Andreas, Noah knew how difficult it is to be a higher star alchemist. Moreover, Ghost was an orphan. So unlike him, he didn''t have the resources Noah had. Still, Ghost managed to be a 5-star Alchemist, and not only that, he even managed to surpass him in cultivation. However, If Noah wanted to earn money and focused on solely getting stronger, he would have equalized Ghost. Noah had responsibilities to bring bnce to the world as well as prepare for the greater war with the Dark Lord.
"Noah," Michael also did the same and saw the familiar and unfamiliar faces staring at him. Gabriel stopped waving as he turned his gaze to the young man who dethroned him. To be honest, Gabriel couldn''t believe his eyes.
"How the hell did he reach the five-star level at such a young age?" that was the question that immediately emerged in his mind,
"You¡you''re Ghost?" Hendrix''s tired eye became lively as he stood up from his seat, which surprised everyone on the stage. Before Ghost could greet anyone on the stage, Hendrix himself extended his hand,
"Lord Hendrix. It''s a pleasure to meet you," Michael firmly shook his hand,
"The pleasure is all mine to see such a talented young man," Hendrix squeezed his arm before letting it go,
"Grandmaster Atian, Grandmaster Alred," After greeting Hendrix, Michael greeted Alred and Atian with a smile,pletely ignoring the crowd cheering for Gabriel.
"Lord Gabriel, I''m honored to meet you. You''re an inspiration" For a moment, Gabriel was stunned. He thought Ghost would act arrogant or haughty. But, on the contrary, Ghost greeted him with full of respect and admiration.
One couldn''t me Gabriel for thinking like that. He didn''t surpass Hendrix, yet when he achieved fame and stardom, he never respected Hendrix. The longest conversation Gabriel had with Hendrix after Hendrix left Elon was ''how is everything in Awor?''
So Gabriel naturally thought Ghost would be arrogant. He even formed a few quotes to mock Ghost in case he acted arrogantly. Yet Ghostpletely surprised him by greeting him with respect.
His gesture not only surprised Gabriel but everyone on the stage except Edith. To her, it looked like the wolf greeting a sheep.
"I am to many," Gabriel said proudly, revealing a slight grin that oozed arrogance. Since everyone arrived at the stage, the judges and Eve took the front row while the nobles and the elders took the seats in the back.
On the front row, Grandmaster Atian, Grandmaster Alred, Gabriel, Hendrix, Ghost, and Eve sat respectively from left to right.
...¡.
As time gradually flowed, the time for the start of The Alchemy Competition slowly arrived under tens of thousands of gazes.
Ding!
When a clear bell rang out on the za, the buzzing sound of the crowd murmuring and cheering that had shot to the sky suddenly became quiet.
Hearing the bell ringing in his ears, Hendrix Gardner quivered slightly and stood up. Then, he slowly walked to the very front of the VIP stage. His gaze watched the thousands of alchemists seated behind the jade tables below. At this moment, over two thousand alchemists lifted their heads and threw respectful gazes toward Hendrix who stood atop the world of alchemy with his talents.
"As the leader of the Alchemist Guild, I pronounce that the sixteenth Alchemy Competition has begun!"
"YEEYYYYYY!"
The entire ground boiled as the crowd let out a thunderous roar in excitement.
Hendrix waited until the crowd became silent again. Only then did he softly say, "Now, I would likepetitors to settle before a jade table,"
Although the arena was currently bustling about to the point that the ring of the bell could hardly be heard, Hendrix''s voice managed to still sound in everyone''s ears, thanks to Hendrix''s Fusion stage cultivation level.
Hearing Hendrix''s words, those alchemists who haven''t settled before a table quickly found one.
Some alchemists in the VIP seats immediately stood up. There, the alchemists mainly were groomed by or roped into some of the more powerful groups. Due to having a powerhouse to support them, the tier of these alchemists was slightly higher as a wholepared to those "free" alchemists.
"Len, Jennifer, Noah, you three should also get down and join them. Since we''re very much excited to see you threepete against each other, the tables over there belong to the three of you" Atian pointed at the three jade tables in the very center of the arena.
"Those three seats will make you the focus of the crowd''s attention" Following Atian, Alred spoke, snapping his fingers. As soon as he snapped, the three tables assigned to Noah, Jennifer, and Len got elevated a foot higher from the ground, making the three tables the focus of everyone.
"Good luck," Edith gave a thumbs up before Noah followed behind Len and Jennifer. While the three were preparing to leave the VIP stage, Michael leaned back on his chair, focusing on Aria, who was on her way to post a quest on the adventure guild.
Among the three, Len looked a little excited, on top of being proud. Jennifer was curious and eager, while Noah had a calm look on his face as usual.
"You youngsters won''t have any fun memories to recall in the future unless you do some rash and arrogant things," Hendrix said with a smile to the youngsters on the stage.
"That''s one of the worst pieces of advice I''ve heard," Michaelughed inside but put on a calm face showing no emotions.
"Guild Leader is right. hahahaha," Lenughed as he had heard something so funny. Heughed proudly for no reason,
" The few of you, please proceed down..." Alred gestured at them to get down,
"The two of you, I will go first" Len, who wasughing like a maniac, pressed the ground lightly, and his body charged to the edge of the high tform. He nced at the huge open ground below. Then he leaped, diving forward, and creating countless gasps among the spectators as well as the alchemists down.
"Arch steps,"
His body swiftly descended, and just as he was about to reach the ground,
He cast a spell. As soon as he cast the spell, giant purplish steps made of sparkling arch energy materialized in mid-air, connecting the ground.
Using the steps, hended on the ground without any injury. After which, he swiftly walked up to the arena''s middle spot under the spectators'' stunned gazes with a smug smile.
"He really likes to show off huh? But does he think only he knows how to jump?"
Eyeing Len, who had received attention from everyone by directly leaping down, Jennifer rolled her eyes, smacking her lips together. Her lovely body leaped forward and also shot off of the high tform. Like a falling leaf, her body gently and elegantly descended. Her beautiful posture was like that of a goddess.
"Whoa," This beautiful action of Jennifer had undoubtedly stirred more hearts than Len''s earlier performance. But, her beauty and grace caused shocking gasps from the VIP seats and loud roars from the audience seats.
"Look at that. You taught her something other than Alchemy. Good for you Grandmaster Alred" Atian yfully punched Alred on the shoulder and joked,
"Beautyes with great opportunities and dangers. Therefore, one should always be prepared to fend off the predators," Hendrix calmly spoke. His words contained wisdom which Michael agreed withpletely.
"Youngman. Why don''t you leap down as well?" After seeing Jennifer and Len making such a grand entrance, Atian probed Noah to do the same as the previous two.
"I think I will walk down," Noah smiled, shaking his head. But, instead of jumping down, Noah chose to walk down the stairs.
Chapter 499 The First Round
Chapter 499 The First Round¡¡¡¡Noah quietly stood behind the jade table and looked at ingredients neatly ced on the table alongside a golden paper. A square ss of emerald stone was also embedded at the front of the table with a weak green-red light flickering.
As Noah picked up the thin paper and looked at it, he realized it was actually a form for a pill. However, the form was written with so manyplex, unnecessary steps. It would be near impossible to concoct the pill following the form within the given time. Failure would be inevitable if an alchemist failed to decode the form and simplify the steps, failure would be inevitable.
Another hurdle for the participants was the number of ingredients on the table. Just like Olivia informed Michael, the guild gave the participants two batches of ingredients which meant each participant only had two chances. If the medicinal ingredients werepletely exhausted and the participant concocted no pill, then the participant would be eliminated from thepetition.
"How long will it take for you to concoct the pill?" Eve asked Michael sitting beside him. Quickly, all the nobles focused on Michael to hear his answer,
"Forty-five seconds,"
Everyone, including Hendrix, was surprised by Michael''s answer. Hendrix was a six-star alchemist who could achieve 95% purity, but even for him, it would take at least a minute to concoct the pill. So naturally, the others would take longer.
"That''s a bit unrealistic, don''t you think?" Alred leaned forward a bit and asked Michael,
"It''s not actually Grandmaster Alred. The reason why I can concoct the pill quicker is my method of directly refining ingredients in the fire instead of using the cauldron. It cuts the time approximately by half,"
"So it''s dangerous, and one should not use that method. There is a reason that method went extinct" Gabriel expressed his discontent, but Michael responded with a smile,
"Of course, I wouldn''t teach this method to someone else. It''s dangerous,"
"Then why do you do it?" Eve curiously asked Michael as he turned to look at her stoic angelic face,
"What can I say? I like thrills,"
His answer surprisingly made Eve gently smile. The nobles who saw her smile were stunned beyond words. The reason, however, is that Eve felt no creepy vibes from Michael and Noah as she felt from the others. They were sitting side by side, but he never even touched her finger. Michael always maintained eye contact while talking to her and kept his distance as a gentleman should. Moreover, he didn''t even try to make conversation with her. Everything made Eve see him in a slightly good light.
"No wonder teacher said thepetition won''t be easy" Noah held the thin piece of paper and smiled bitterly, shaking his head. He then lifted his head and nced in all directions, only to realize confusion on many of the alchemists'' faces. Turning his head to the side, he eyed Jennifer and Len on his left and right. Unlike the rest, both of them appeared much calmer. However, they were still both frowning slightly as they found some errors with the form recorded on the thin paper.
Noah took a deep breath and focused on the thin piece of paper in his hand. Since Noah had neitherpeted in an Alchemypetition nor concocted a pill in front of thousands of people, Noah''s heart and mind felt a bit uneasy.
While Noah was focused on the form, Len turned over to Noah. He saw the bitter smile on the former''s face that had yet to disappear and could not help but softly give a coldugh.
"You should have stayed in your guild. Since you didn''t, you''re gonna embarrass yourself in front of Eve... fool"
Having studied under Gabriel since he was little, Len had great confidence in himself. So, naturally, he thought he would triumph over the rest and have the qualification to marry either one of the Voldogard daughters.
On the enormous open ground, all thepetitors held the thin paper. Each disyed a different expression as they gazed at the paper. The entire za was totally silent. The silence haunted the arena for five minutes until a clear bell sounded suddenly out of nowhere.
Hearing the bell ring, all the participants immediately halted what they were doing. Then, following the bell ringing, Hendrix, whose eyes were closed, finally opened them.
"I hope you''ve studied the form and found the errors, if there are any. Let there be an hourss," As Hendrix''s voice swept across the arena, an ethereal hourss materialized in the sky above the alchemists.
" You have thirty minutes to concoct the pill with at least 20% purity. After that, you shall ce the pill you concocted on the mirror on your table. The mirror will let out a green light if your pill has met the requirements. Otherwise red, which will indicate that you''ve been eliminated" Hendrix paused for a moment, letting the alchemists digest everything he had just told them.
"Do you all understand?" Hendrix asked with a smile.
"Yes!" The alchemists roared, shaking the arena.
Hendrix slowly lifted his palm as he smiled.
"The first round of the examination shall now begin!" His voice echoed through the arena and the moment he waved his palm, the ethereal hourss turned upside down as the golden sands slowly rained from one end to another.
As soon as the timing began, the alchemist flicked their wrists, taking out their cauldron from their space ring.
"Shouldn''t we have given them all the same cauldron?" Michael asked the other judges,
"I think so too," Eve nodded,
"Luck is a part of Alchemy, young man. One has to be lucky to achieve great sess in alchemy,"
For a moment, Michael was confused about the connection between the question he asked and the answer he received from Hendrix.
"In simple words, if you aren''t lucky to get a great cauldron or born into a wealthy family, you won''t get too far," Alred chuckled,
"Not everyone has a death wish to refine pills directly and potions like you Ghost," Once again, Michael received a scornful response from Gabriel. However, if Michael wished, he could kill Gabriel in a sh since Gabriel was at the Core Strengthening stage. At the same time, he reached Soul Refining stage level 3 after killing King Bredia''s men.
Luckily for Gabriel, Michael wasn''t here to kill him, at least not yet.
Meanwhile, Noah quietly stood behind the jade table. With a flick of his wrist, Noah summoned his cauldron from the space ring. It was a pearl white cauldron with three handles resembling dragons. There were numerous undisguisable writings engraved on the outside as well as inside. Unlike the rest, Noah did not immediately summon his me and start the refinement. Instead, he quietly held the paper and studied the form once again.
As Andreas taught him, preparation was crucial for sess. Considering he only had two chances, negligence wasn''t an option. The guild required one to refine a pill called burn healer. As the name suggests, it was a kind of medicinal pill used to treat wounds caused by fire and acid. Usually, these pills were used by those who couldn''t afford a healing potion and were fairly cheap. In an alchemy store, they wouldn''t sell the pill for more than fifty to a hundred gold coins depending on its purity.
Refining the pill required a total of five ingredients. Although the pill was cheap, the refining process wasplex and needed an alchemist to possess good control over their alchemy fire and knowledge of each ingredient. Since Noah brewed his own healing potion, he was unfamiliar with the process of making a burn healer.
Michael silently watched Noah studying the parchment without starting to refine the ingredients. On the other hand, Jennifer and Len had already conjured the mes and let the fire surround the cauldron. Michael failed to see a different color me other than emerald green. Why did everyone have green mes by default? It''s because fire created by pure arch energy burns green. Only by absorbing a Primordial me could one change the me color produced by the arch energy. Hence, Michael had ck mes, Rowena had icy blue mes, and Noah possessed bright blue fire.
"Regardless of their character, these two are really talented," Noah said to himself. However, no matter how he counted, Noah had only studied alchemy for four years give or take. Therefore, on certain aspects, Noah could not catch up with Jennifer and Len, who their teachers groomed for decades. After all, no matter how talented one is or whom one learned from, it would be impossible to catch up decades of experience in such a short time unless they had a system like Michael, of course.
Yet what even Michael failed to grasp was that he may have learned the book of alchemy through the system. Still, his innate talent for manipting darkness and control over the fire made him reach the point he was at the moment. For a day, Michael refined hundreds of pills and potions. He had never cked off despite having a system.
"So Ghost, can I call you Ghost?" Eve looked at Michael,
"I insist," Michael said with his usual alluring smile that made Eve''s heart skip a beat,
"Do you think you can give some pointers to my sister?" she smiled. No one with a brain and eyes would say no to such an angelic woman, and Michael wasn''t an exception. But, of course, it was not because of her beauty but because of her family background. He needed some connections in Awor and making friends with Eve didn''t seem like a bad idea.
"Of course, just tell me, where do you want me to meet you?"
At this moment, over ten minutes had psed since the start of the examination. Red lights were already flickering off and on during these short ten minutes within the arena. After the red light flickered, those alchemists who had failed could only leave the arena with many regrets.
"They should have rushed like that," Alredmented about the alchemists leaving the arena after their pills failed to meet the requirements.
Noah indifferently nced at an alchemist before him who kept his head down as he walked out of the arena with a face on the verge of crying. Once again, Noah ignored themotion to focus on refining.
"Let''s begin," Noah cracked his knuckles as he finally decided to conjure his mes. Under thousands of gazes, Noah flicked his wrist as a bright blue me materialized above his hand, dancing like ady.
"A Primordial me," Michael immediately felt the familiar energy waves radiating from the fire above Noah''s hands. It was weaker than the Dark mes but still had off-the-chart energy radiations like the Dark mes.
Chapter 500 Noah鈥檚 Struggle and Victory
Chapter 500 Noah¡¯s Struggle and Victory¡¡¡¡"Wow. Blue me?" Seeing the bright blue me he had conjured, waves of exmation immediately sounded throughout the arena.
Since every alchemist, including Len and Jennifer, had emerald green fires, Noah''s bright blue me became the center of attention in the arena.
Many spectators gasped in shock as they stared at the dancing blue fire without batting an eye.
"Primordial me?" Eyeing the cluster of blue me hovering above Noah''s palm, Hendrix was astonished.
"This young man has godly luck to possess a Primordial me. The sky''s the limit for him,"
"That''s my friend Noah Winston yah sons of bitches!" A childish voice echoed through the arena from the spectators. Michael looked in the direction to see the golden babaroo bouncing up and down atop Alicia''s shoulder. When Alicia saw Michael''s gazending on her, her eyes flickered, radiating immense killing intent. However, Michael turned his gaze away from her,pletely ignoring her. As far as he was concerned, she was not even worth fighting. With her Core Formation cultivation level, killing him would only be possible in her dreams and imaginations.
The blue me danced around lively on Noah''s palm like a fairy. A momentter, Noah waved his palm gently. The blue me was shot out from his palm, surrounding the cauldron. The Primordial me swiftly raised the temperature of the icy cold cauldron as the pearl white surface slowly turned bright orange.
Noak kept his palm pointed at the cauldron until the orange glow turned bright blue. At the moment, the caldron looked as though it was carved out of a giant sapphire stone.
Under the control of Noah, the blue me suppressed its temperature obediently. It did not pose the slightest resistance. After the fire swirled around the cauldron for a few more minutes, Noah slowly took a red w-like ingredient from the table and dropped it in the cauldron. Immediately, a puff of green mist shot out from the cauldron as Noah ced another ingredient into the cauldron. His movements were slow and steady as a single misstep could result in the caldron exploding in his face.
Each time Noah dropped an ingredient into the cauldron, a green puff of mist shot out from within.
To refine a pill or a potion, the ingredients must be purified to a certain degree. Sometimes, even if the purity was just a tad bit less, it could result in the refining process failing. Hence, an alchemist must know the properties of an ingredient and when to take it out from the fire.
Otherwise, the pill or potion would have less purity orpletely dissolve aftering out of the fire.
Fortunately, Noahpossessed the needed knowledge about the ingredients in the form. Thus, no explosion had happened yet.
"So he''s training him to fight me more than alchemy," Michael thought when he noticed Noah''s slow refining skills. Michael felt as though he was watching a sloth refining a pill. It had been fifteen minutes still Noah didn''t even extract the essence from the ingredients.
While extracting the essence, Noah nced at his two sides to notice Jennifer and Len had simr serious faces as him. However, their movements did not show any signs of being flustered. They may look serious but did not sweat like most alchemists in the arena.
Both Len and Jennifer had everything under control.
"Bang!"
Just as Noah withdrew his gaze, a cauldron on a jade not far away exploded into pieces. However, a golden light appeared around the table, sucking the fire before it could harm the alchemist,
Following the cauldron explosion, the jade mirror ced within the table let out bright red light, signifying the elimination. Although the golden light saved the alchemist, unfortunately, it didn''t save his hair.
The man''s face had streaks of ash as he stood there foolishly watching the flickering red light with a stunned look on his face. A long whileter, he finally cursed out loud before leaving the tform. As the man walked past Noah, Noah was surprised because he had met him before. When Noah met the man, he was a three-star alchemist in Kingdom Dreidel.
"A pity..." Noahughed somewhat gloatingly in his heart. He then threw aside the small interlude and continued to extract the essence from the ingredients one at a time.
While Noah was extracting the essence, Michael talked to Eve, getting an idea about what was going on in Awor, especially in Nagnd.
...
As time slowly flowed by, the jade mirrors repeatedly shed red lights in the arena. Whenever the red light flickered, one left the arena with either a sad or a mad face.
While the test was quite difficult, one could say that alchemists who participated in thepetition were people with great skills. Apart from the eliminated alchemists, many silently continued to refine the pill so they could move to the next round.
After nearly half of the sand within that ghostly hourss had fallen, Noah finally formed colorful beads of essence above the cauldron. Even though Noah refined the pill slower than Michael expected, he did not waste any ingredients.
The next thing was to merge the colorful beads into a ball of essence and turn them into the burn healer pill. Compared to the extracting part,bining was the trickiest and required absolute focus. A slight deviation in focus would result in failure, and Noah would have to start from scratch again.
Knowing thest step''s importance, Noah closed his eyes for a moment, canceling all the noises around him. Then he opened his eyes with his mindpletely focused on the essence beads. Finally, he exhaled and pulled his hands together as the essence beads floating in the air slowly moved towards each other.
The blue mes gradually faded away as Noah pulled the beads closer and closer to each other. He felt the beads resisting as the same poles of mas. It took a little bit of raw strength for Noah to merge them.
Nheless, Noah showed no signs of struggle. On the contrary, he looked just as calm as ever.
"Why is he taking so long?" Eve asked Michael. After talking for some time, Eve feltfortable with Michael. Hence, she whispered to Michael, slightly leaning towards him,
"He''s trying to merge all the beads at one go, instead one by one like the others," Michael exined to Eve. He had to say. She became a good friend in such a short amount of time. When he travels to Awor, Eve would definitely wee him with open arms, not literally of course.
With her help, he could expand his business empire and sect to Awor. But, for now, he focused on two things; assassinating Tanulia for Peyton and judging thepetition.
"He is a fool to try that," Gabriel snickered,
"It''s way too early for us to judge him, Lord Gabriel," Ativan defended Noah as Edith frowned from behind. Then, she closed her eyes and began to pray for Noah silently.
The sand within the enormous hourss swiftly scattered down.
Ding!
Len, who struggled to merge thest bead, finally seeded. As soon as the beads became one orb of purple liquid, Len once again conjured the emerald green mes and kept the orb above the me for it to harden into a pill. Gradually, the purple ball shrunk until it became the size of a tablet.
Additionally, the pill radiated a bright glow, unlike the pills concocted by the other alchemists.
"That''s how you do it," The pride on his face was difficult to hide as he banged the table loud enough for everyone to lose their focus for a moment. Michael frowned, looking at his actions. But since the other judges remained silent, he didn''t raise any concern.
"Done," Jennifer raised her voice and revealed the purple people looking the same as Len''s pill to the spectators.
"Good," Eve murmured. In her voice, Michael could sense the joy and pride.
"Time is almost up..." Alred stared at Noah in the center spot, who was still yet to merge the beads. On the other hand, Atian looked at the ghostly sand in the hourss that had almostpletely fallen. His hand abruptly tightened.
Within therge arena, countless gazesnded in the middle where Noah was. They then eyed the sand in the hourss that was sshing down. All of the spectators wanted to know if Noah, who stood in the center, attracting the most attention, would be able toplete the test.
"What do you think Ghost?" Eve asked curiously Michael, who was still looking at Noah with a calm face,
Unlike the rest, Michael was sure Noah would finish the pill and surprise everyone with his purity level.
"He will surprise everyone," Michael said, calming Edith''s nerves.
The very little sand within the hourss quietly descended. Then, at the veryst moment thest piece of sand rolled down, a pitiful sound came from the audience and the VIP seats.
The blue mes suddenly shot out of Noah''s hand and enveloped the beads. As soon as the blue mes disappeared, a round pill flew out at the veryst moment, radiating dazzling bright light. Noah''s pill glowed brighterpared to Len''s and Jennifer''s. The instant the pillnded on his palm, the little remaining sand finally fell. Hundreds of red lights in the arena, behind those alchemists who had still not finished refining the pill, lit up.
Disappointedly looking at the shing red light, those alchemists smiled bitterly and took back their respective cauldrons. Then, with disappointed looks, they exited the square.
Standing behind the jade table, Noah looked at the contestants leaving the arena one after another. This was just the first round of thepetition, yet one-third of the participants had been eliminated unexpectedly. He let out a sigh as he thought about the difficulty of thepetition.
ying with the pill in his hand, Noah turned his head to the nearby Len whose face was full of bright smiles. Despite having less brighter pill than Noah, Len seemed arrogant and proud because he finished first.
He looked at Noah with his pill steadily grasped in his hand, and said a smile, "You truly have good luck. Even with the Primordial me, you only managed to refine the pill at thest moment,"
However, Noah just responded to Len with a calm smile,
"It''s not so important who starts the game but who finishes it,''
"In this grandpetition, attended by countless outstanding Alchemists, refining with the fastest speed in an undeniable skill," Lenughed. He was unwilling to let Noah''s higher purity pill outshine his achievements.
"If you say so," Noah shrugged as he no longer wished to quarrel with Len. Instead, he turned his head toward Jennifer and smiled. Then, looking up at the VIP seats, he saw Hendrix waiting for his turn to speak.
"Sigh"
In the VIP seats, Atian heavily exhaled. He used his sleeves to wipe off the cold sweat on his forehead.
"Why does this brat have to be so dramatic every time?"
Chapter 501 Demonstration
Chapter 501 Demonstration¡¡¡¡Hendrix stood at a spot on the front of the tform. He looked down from the top and watched the entire open ground. His gaze swept across the arena, looking at the ce where a third of thepetitors had been eliminated.
"Congrattions to all of you who are still standing. You have more or less sessfully passed the test for the first round. However, the round is not over," Hendrix said with a smile,
"Alchemy is aplex art. Some alchemists may have concocted a pill that might look like a high-purity pill. However, they might not have the desired healing properties. Hence, we will check whether the pill has achieved the required level.
The slightly hoarse voice of Hendrix slowly sounded in everyone''s ears, "Now, can all thepetitors please search for a green colored button located at the bottom left corner of your jade table,"
Hearing this, Noah looked at the table until his gaze finally stopped at the bottom left corner, which was not very noticeable. He was somewhat stunned to see a few different colored small buttons scattered there. His finger followed the instructions and stopped on the green button before pressing it down gently.
As he pressed the button, the bright, clean rock table suddenly trembled slightly. On its surface, a te was slowly protruding out. Once it was raised by around half a foot, it sank slightly and finally revealed a small hole.
"ce the pill you have refined into the hole in the table. If you have achieved the requirement, a green light will sh on the jade mirror and redd if your pill has failed to meet the requirements. In case of red light, you will be eliminated from thepetition, and I request the alchemists to leave the premises in a peaceful manner" Hendrix paused for a moment to let everything he said sin into their heads.
"Additionally, the brighter the green light, the higher the purity of the pill. On the other hand, the brighter the red light, the farther you went from the actual burn healer. But fret not, at least your pill can be used to satisfy hunger,"
Hearing the humorous joke that sounded in the air above the open ground,
The spectatorsughed from the spectators'' stand.
" Everyone, begin," Hendrix said as the alchemists prepared to test the pills they concocted.
As he caressed the round pill with his fingers, Noah calmly stared at the hole in the table. He did not hurriedly throw the pill in. Instead, his gaze swept around him.
At this moment, some alchemists had already begun throwing their medicinal pills into the testing machine. Not long after that happened, the arena suddenly became very colorful. Strong and weak green and red lights interweaved as they glittered. Each brought either joy or gloominess to the alchemists'' faces.
"Bullshit," A two-star alchemist mmed the jade table looking at the flickering red light. He gritted his teeth, and under countless people''s gazes, he quickly put his cauldron in his space ring and ascended to the air.
"What the fuck is this round? You actually gave us the wrong form and asked us to decode and concoct it within thirty minutes. This is a joke,"
Noah saw another alchemist smashing the table and leaving the area while cursing the judges. For a few minutes, Noah continued watching the alchemists leaving the arena until he heard Jennifer''s melodious voice draw his attention,
"Master Noah, why don''t we do it together..." Jennifer smiled, fiddling with the pill in her hand,
"Anything will do..." Noah indifferently shrugged his shoulders. He eyed Len whose eyes were fixated on him.
Following Jennifer''s request, Len, Noah, and Jennifer simultaneously threw their pills into the hole.
As the three of them threw in their medicinal pills, every spectator on the stand turned their gazes to the arena''s center where the trio was standing. Everyone wanted to know who concocted a better pill.
"Bang, bang, bang..."
The jade mirror was a little quiet. Then, a momentter, a slightly muffled sound erupted, and three bright streaks of green light abruptly shot out from the jade tables towards the sky. The density of any of the green lights was clearly much denser than any of the green lights that had appeared in the open ground before.
All three streaks of light looked the same, except when looked closer, the streak of light shooting out of Noah''s table looked slightly denser.
"You were right," Eve said to Michael as Michael predicted Noah would concoct a better pill than the rest.
"Your sister needs better control over her fire. If she had, she would have matched Noah," Michael whispered to Eve without letting Alred hear him.
In a short amount of time, he had be a good friend to Eve. Something about her made him feel closer to her and treat her as his friend.
"Haha, Master Noah really got the better of us. Although you finished your pill at thest second, yours is the purest. I admit you won this round" Jennifer watched the light streaking from Noah''s table with sparkling eyes. She then shook her head and sighed.
"I am pretty sure mine is only one or two percent purer than yours," Noah smiled. Then, turning to the other side, he saw Len''s dark face.
Instead of uttering any words, the corner of Len''s mouth twitched. He inhaled deeply, and turned his head over, staring viciously at the jade mirror which was shing green light. His heart suddenly had an impulse to smash it to pieces.
"That young man has a bright future," Hendrix said with a smile as he observed the three streaks of light.
"Ghost, why don''t you demonstrate to them how you would concoct the pill?" Eve asked loud enough for all the judges to hear her.
For a moment, Michael had the urge to hug Eve and give her kisses on the cheek.
"If anyone should, it''s Lord Hendrix. Since he''s the best among us," Gabriel calmly said without showing his hatred for Ghost. Everyone who knew Gabriel knew he would hate anyone who stole his spotlight. Considering Ghost dethroned him as the number one alchemist in Elon and Ozer, naturally, Gabriel loathed Michael to the core. They knew how Gabriel would think even if Gabriel didn''t show it openly.
"I have to disagree with you, Lord Gabriel. He has reached a height I never could at his age. It''s only a matter of time before he surpasses all of us and bes the number one alchemist in the world" Hendrix turned his gaze from the participants to Gabriel,
"It''s settled then. Ghost, please give them a demonstration" Alred gestured at Michael to go to the ground level so the participants could see Michael in action.
"Everyone," Hendrix pped as the entire arena became silent once again,
"Before we move onto the second round, let one of the judges demonstrate how to concoct the blood healer pill using the same ingredients as you,"
Michael slowly stood up from his seat as the crowd immediately became excited.
"This is so exciting¡"
"YEEYYY!"
"I can''t wait!"
"How long will it take him to make the pill?"
The crowd began to chitter-chatter while the participants looked up to see Michael descending from the VIP seats to the ground,
"Please, use my table," Jennifer quickly said before even Michael''s feet could touch the ground.
Under thousands of gazes, Michael strolled to Jennifer''s table, where he saw a batch of ingredients lying on the table. At the moment, Michael was everyone''s center of attention.
From the VIP seatings, Eve stood up from her seat and came to the edge to see Michael in action.
"Look closer. I will try to concoct the pill slowly" Michael enhanced his voice through Arch energy. Thus, his voice sounded loud and clear throughout the arena.
"Miss Jennifer, may I?" Instead of conjuring his alchemy mes and directly extracting the essence from the ingredients, as usual, Michael asked for Jennifer''s cauldron.
"Lord Hendrix," Michael looked up at Hendrix as he pped his hands to turn the ghostly hourss upside down.
DING!
The hourss began to rain sand down with a loud band. With a calm face, Michael conjured his alchemy mes. The emerald green mes disappointed many as they expected Ghost to possess a different color me. However, Hendrix''s calm eyes perplexed, sensing weird energy from the mes surrounding Jennifer''s crimson red cauldron.
Other than Hendrix, none sensed anything different about Michael''s mes.
Under their gazes, Michael controlled the fire in one hand while picking up the first ingredient in the other. However, before any green mist could appear from the cauldron like when the others refined the ingredient, Michael put another ingredient into the cauldron.
"Whoa, he''s extracting the essence from the ingredients at the same time," Ativan gasped as Michael put all the ingredients into the cauldron instead of one by one.
In a few blinks of an eye, colorful beads emerged from the cauldron and hovered above the cauldron,
Many gasped in shock, and even Len and Noah couldn''t help being stunned by his skills. Michael made it look simple but as an alchemist, they both knew how hard it is to extract essence from all the ingredients at the same time,
"Wow," Jennifer stared at his every single move without blinking an eye. Her jaw dropped a couple of inches, just like the rest.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 1200 badass points]
The badass points rapidly increased as the notification sound continued to ring in his head.
At the moment, they looked closer at the beads, wondering whether he would merge them one by one or merge them all like Noah. To everyone''s surprise, Michael moved his palms closer and closer as the beads began to merge with each other.
Noah''s method was difficult, but not for Michael. It only took him less than a minute to merge all the beads into an orb of essence. Noah saw no signs of struggle on Ghost''s face.
The next moment, the emerald green mes appeared once again, surrounding the orb of essence. The me swirled around the orb for a few seconds before disappearing out of existence. When the fire disappeared, a glowing purple pill hovered in the air, radiating a sweet fragrance. Since Len, Noah, and Jennifer stood closer to Ghost, they could smell the fragranceing from the pill.
"Under two minutes," Atian gasped after he saw the hourss. Then, just like him, countless sounds of people gasping reverberated in the arena. They were all stunned beyond words.
While his speed stupefied them, Michael flicked his wrist as the pill went straight into the hole in Jennifer''s table. Then, unlike never before, the table began to tremble, producing a whistling sound.
Boom!
Then, a muffled burst sounded from the table as a bright streak of green light shot towards the sky. The streak of light turned everyone and everything green with withs brightness. It was several times brighter and denser than Noah''s streak of light.
"That''s how you make a burn healer in seventy seconds," Michael calmly said, shocking everyone in the arena.
Chapter 502 End of the second round
Chapter 502 End of the second round¡¡¡¡After everything was said and done, Michael ascended to the air and returned to his seat in the VIP seats, leaving the participants and the spectators stunned. And he was thrilled with the number of badass points he received. Olivia was pping and bouncing up and down in joy from the spectators.
Unlike the battle tournaments, the judges gave no break to the alchemists.
pping his hands again, Hendrix drew everyone''s attention to him.
"Alright, since everyone haspleted the test and witnessed what you can do when you increase your skills, let us start the second round. Please press the red button on the bottom right of the table,"
Hearing Hendrix, Noah moved his finger to the small round red button on the bottom right.
As he pressed the button, the jade table suddenly trembled slightly. Then, the hole in the center disappeared as a pile of neatly stacked ingredients and a golden parchment slowly appeared on the clear, sleek table.
"The second round requires all of you to follow the form on your table and brew the potion. Just like the first round, you have two batches of ingredients so you can only fail once. If you have finished your ingredients in the process of brewing the potion, you will be eliminated,"
"huh?" Hearing this, Noah was at a loss. Creasing his brows, Noah picked up the scroll and slowly pulled it open to read the contents. Unlike the scroll he read in the first round, the scroll in his hand contained neitherplex nor wrong steps.
After memorizing the form, Noah looked around to see everyone reading the scroll without batting an eye. Meanwhile, on the VIP seating, each judge received the same scroll as the participants.
"Revitalization potion," Michael shared the scroll with Eve as she moved closer to him to see the contents written on the scroll,
Throughout a cultivator''s life, they would consume countless pills, potions, and foods on a daily basis. Little by little, they would create impurities to clog their bodies'' energy vines, resulting in slower cultivation. There were many ways to unclog the energy vines and purify the body from within and one of those ways was intaking a Revitalization potion or pills.
In the Majestic, Revitalization pills were one of the fastest-selling products. Michael sold one pill for 9000 gold coins. Currently, the guild has given the form for free like candies. However, Michael did not worry about the form because, unless Hendrix and other six-star alchemists began to sell the Revitalization pills in bulk, his business wouldn''t be affected.
"Twelve ingredients? Seems a bit more, don''t you think?" Eve whispered to Michael,
"The number is not the only problem they have. They need absolute focus and delicate touch to extract the essence. It was challenging. Unless one has total control over their alchemy fire, the ingredient would be burnt to ashes before they could extract the essence" Michael exined to Eve.
On the ground level, Noah raised his head, looking around him only to find that Jennifer, Len, and the others had their eyebrows slightly knit together. Clearly, they were very inexperienced. Else, they wouldn''t be thinking it''s simple to brew the Revitalization potion.
"Good thing I have practiced controlling Heaven''s me," Noah mumbled softly.
"We shall now begin the second round. You have an hour," As Hendrix''s voice echoed through the arena, the ghostly hourss materialized again in the air. After setting down on his seat, Hendrix looked at Noah, who had already raised his me and began to refine the ingredients one by one.
"Speed and control, young man," He muttered under his breath.
Many alchemists were grinning as they thought the form was simple. Moreover, they had one hour to brew one potion. It was a simple enough task in their minds. Hence, they conjured the mes with bright smiles.
Of course, among so many alchemists, there were some cautious ones who were surprised upon looking at the simple test and hesitated. But they just shoved the doubt and hesitation to the corner of their minds and began to refine the ingredients.
With absolute focus, Noah conjured his bright blue me. It took the cauldron a few more minutes to reach sufficient temperature. Afterward, Noah slowly began to throw in the medicinal ingredients one by one. His pupils constricted as he slowly began to refine.
"Are you participating in the Aqua auction Eve?" while everyone was busy refining the ingredients, Michael asked Eve. Since they were friends, they naturally addressed each other by their first names,
"Yes. I reckon you''reing too,"
"I will issue an arrest warrant if you don''te to Voldiguard mansion In Thera," She squinted her eyes as Michael smiled,
"Definitely,"
"Here, take this" With a flick of her delicate wrist, Eve took out a silver medallion in the shape of ''V''
"We can go to the auction together. Voldigards have our own ce in the Aqua pce,"
Michael put the medallion in the system storage with a nod,
Meanwhile, as they were refining the ingredients, the noise from the two seating galleries at the sides also gradually decreased. Numerous gazes swept over the alchemists in the open square, looking at them without batting an eye.
...
As time slowly flew, many red lights flicked in the arena. Michael saw many alchemists had burnt all their ingredients while trying to extract the essence. But, like Michael told Eve, one needed absolute control over their fire and focus. Those whocked either naturally got eliminated from thepetition.
On the other hand, some of thepetitors whose abilities were quite good had already refined the ingredients needed. After hesitating for a moment, they clenched their teeth and tried to merge the essence, beginning the final part of the refinement.
Noah''s gaze focused on the ingredients that were boiling within the cauldron. Because he was worried about the possibility of some problems suddenly arising, he took his time cautiously refining each ingredient.
As Noah finished extracting the essence of the tenth ingredient, Len and Jennifer finished extracting thest essence. Just when they were about to start merging the essence beads, a soft muffled explosion sounded not far away from the trio. Hearing the sound, Noah raised his eyes to take a look. At that spot, an alchemist was foolishly staring at ck smokeing from the cauldron. Clearly, this was a result of a failed refining attempt.
"What the? I followed the instructions to the word¡how¡how can it happen¡why did I fail," The alchemist stuttered, trembling in shock.
A momentter, he turned the cauldron upside down, dropping a pile of ashes. Taking a long deep breath, the alchemist began refining thest ingredient batch.
As more and more time passed, numerous soft muffled sounds from the medicinal cauldrons urred one after another. The alchemists who failed stared at the ck smokeing from the cauldrons dumbfounded.
Dum!
Dum!
All of a sudden, Noah heard the muffled explosion sounding from his side. He then turned his head to see Len and Jennifer standing behind their tables withpletely stunned faces. One could see dark lines on both their foreheads as they stared at the ck smokeing out of their cauldrons.
Countless sounds of gasps emerged from the spectators'' stand. They did not expect Len and Jennifer to fail. Even the elders in the VIP seatings were not an exception to this.
"Damn. she failed," Even clenched her fist tight looking at her younger sister''s smoking cauldron,
"As I said, she needs more control over her fire,"
Following the shocking turn of events, many red lights began to flicker across the arena, indicating the elimination. Almost one-third of the alchemists destroyed theirst batch of ingredients. By doing so, they left with no ingredients to refine. Hence, they could only walk out of the arena
"Fuck. Why did it fail? My control over the me was clearly very good," An alchemist shouted before leaving the arena. Simr events happened throughout the arena as the judges calmly observed them.
Looking at many getting eliminated, Noah didn''t dare to lose focus. When Noah began to raise his me and perform the merger, some of the alchemists around him including Len and Jennifer threw their gazes over. Under the circumstances where they all failed, they wanted to see if Noah could seed where they failed.
Noah ignored the surrounding gazes as he put all his attention into controlling Heaven''s me. Under the grilling of the blue me, Noah extracted the essence from thest ingredient.
Each essence bead emerged from the cauldron and sparkled in the air. Every twelve beads were floating in a row in the air from blue to pink.
"Try merging them one by one," Noah said in a low-pitched voice, only loud enough for Jennifer and Len to hear. Noah broke sweat on his forehead and merged thest bead in the row with the bead beside.
Hearing Noah''s tip, Jennifer and Len conjured their mes again to refine the ingredients.
Michael, who sat leisurely on the VIP seat got bored of seeing the youngsters failing so miserably. Thus, he focused on the Spycam he ced on Pirate Captain Corey. Currently, he could see her navigating through a treacherous storm, and in the distance, Michael noticed a vague outline of another ship.
"Sabrina," It was clear to Michael that Corey was chasing Sabrina''s ship. Apparently, she had something that the vampires needed. Until they get what they want, Michael knew they wouldn''t let Sabrina go.
The judges and spectators observed the alchemists without batting an eye. But, because of Noah''s focus and experience, he was the first one to merge the beads.
As soon as all the beads merged into an orb, the orb of essence radiated a sweet fragrance along with a bright glow.
"Shit, he''s about to finish" As Len sniffed the faint fragrance emanating from the essence orb, he growled inside.
At this moment, countless people''s hearts were hung in their throats.
"He can finish it,"
Atian''s shriveled palm tightly held the guardrail.
Unlike Michael, the rest were too focused and excited to see the alchemists in action.
The silent atmosphere in the arena continued until Noah kicked the table, sending the vial into the air. With a flick of his wrist, Noah guided the essence into the vial and covered the vial with his Heaven''s me.
Only when all the essence went into the vial, did Noah slowly exhale. He raised his head as a faint smile appeared on his calm face.
Under the thousands of gazes, Noah remained with a dark red vial in his hand. Following Noah''s sess, almost fifteen minutester, the green light of Jennifer and Len was lit up. The two of them ced their potions on the table and exchanged nces, sighing in relief.
After the trio, a few more streaks of green light shot out towards the sky from the arena. Unfortunately, the red streaks of light overwhelmed the green light.
When the sand within the hoursspletely fell, only a little over a hundred people still remained in the arena. The rest of the people had already beenpletely expelled during these two rounds.
As Hendrix pped his hands, Noah slowly raised his head. His gazended on Hendrix who revealed a friendly smile at Noah.
After they concluded the second round, the next event was to once again test for the potions. Just like the first round, when everyone ced their potions into the hold, Noah''s table produced a brighter streak of light, followed by Jennifer and Len.
Once the test waspleted, the sky had already gradually darkened. A crescent moon slowly appeared at the edge of the sky, bathing the city of Oxshore beneath.
Looking at the daylight slowly fading away, Atian stepped forward from his seat,
"Everyone, we will stop thepetition for the day and start the final round at ten tomorrow morning. Everyone, please take a rest and arrive here thirty minutes before,"
With Atian''s announcement, the long day ofpetition finally came to an end. Everyone in the VIP seating nned to take a rest just like the participants except Michael. He had something important to do¡Like contacting the Alpha Guardian.
Chapter 503 The Assassination plan is in motion
Chapter 503 The Assassination n is in motion¡¡¡¡**Don''t forget to check out AHSS. Soon Michael will have a crossover chapters with each MC of my novels**
"Where are you staying?" When Michael was about to stand up from his seat, Eve asked.
"I assume the guild booked a ce for us,"
"Forgive these old bones for forgetting. Here, the key to your amodation. You will be escorted by our guards when we reach outside," Atian flicked his wrist, taking out a golden card from his space ring that had the words ''Green leaves'' embossed in beautiful calligraphy,
"Wonderful," Michael responded with a smile as Even also stood to follow Atian and the other judges. Instead of leaving, Edith flew to the ground level to meet Noah.
Michael noticed Edith but didn''t mind her. Thest thing he needed was to meddle in Noah''s harem.
As the judges walked out of the door and stepped into the hall behind the VIP seatings lit brightly with a giant chandelier, they were weed by the armed guards of the Aqua n.
In addition to the Aqua n, the guards wearing blue robes stood in a neat line waiting for Eve and Jennifer.
"Lady Eve," the guards quickly bowed when they saw Eve. There was a hint of shock within their eyes, because they had never seen Ever walk so closer to a guy before.
"Now I have to find my friend," Michael said,
"Who?"
"Teacher," just as Michael was about to answer Eve, Olivia entered the hall from the other side escorted by a couple of armed guards of the Aqua n,
"Her," The Aqua n guards didn''t let her approach the judges so she kept waving her hand at Michael,
"Let her in," Michael signaled to the guards,
As soon as the guards stepped away from Olivia''s path, she came running toward Michael. Then when she saw Hendrix, she was flustered,
"Lord Hendrix Gardner. I...I am a big admirer of yours" she stuttered, kneading her hands,
Looking at Olivia, Hendrix warmly smiled,
"I am d, youngdy. So you''re learning from Ghost?"
Olivia bobbed her head up and down,
"Yes,"
"You are a fortunate youngdy to have a teacher like him," with a nod and a pat on Olivia''s shoulder, Hendrix walked away from them with Atian, Alred, and Gabriel before Olivia could talk to the others. At the moment, only five Aqua n guards, Eve, Olivia, Ghost, and Eve''s guards remained in the hall.
"Lady Eve," turning her gaze away from Hendrix and the other Grandmasters, Olivia slightly bent her waist,
"Lady Eve," Olivia greeted Eve with a respectful tone,
"Eve, Olivia" Michael simply pointed at Olivia,
"Pleasure to meet you Olivia," Eve surprised the guards yet again by extending her hand toward Olivia.
"Pleasure is all mine Lady Eve," Olivia shook her hand,
"Please, call me Eve" Even gently smiled and said,
"I think we should leave. I have to find amodation for you,"
"What? You have no ce to stay?" Eve was slightly surprised,
"We just arrived at Oxshore this morning, and it''s my fault for not finding a ce," Olivia scratched her head.
"You''reing with me," Eve quickly said, shocking Michael and Olivia,
"But-"
"Don''t make me call my guards," Edith coldly chuckled, but Michale could tell if they disagreed, she would really use the guards,
"I have literally no choice then," Olivia chuckled back as they began to walk out of the giant hall. When they stepped outside, the streets were still full of people. Along with the full moon in the sky, the street lights powered with runes and chandelier light peeking through the ss windows lit up the city and gave the city a festive charm.
Michael felt the cold breeze brushing past him and noticed a couple of carriages, including Eve''s, waiting on the street.
"You go ahead. I have to wait for my sister,"
Since Michael had something to do alone, he did not linger around any longer,
"See you tomorrow then," He nodded before following the armed guards to the brown carriage,
As the guards noticed Michael approaching, they opened the carriage door to reveal the red cushioned interior. Michael stepped into the carriage to see a mini table with various beverages set on it. Additionally, he noticed a golden orb hanging above, lighting the interior. There was nothing else in the carriage besides the table and the orb.
Sittingfortably in the cushion seat, Michael leaned back. Then, he closed his eyes, focusing on the Spycams in Alpha Guardian Tanulia''s warship.
****************************
Currently, in a brightly lit room, several figures who were dressed fancily stood surrounding a bed on which Tiriana curled up into a ball. Those who were close to her could hear her sob and see her reddened face,
Tanulia sat beside Tiriana, brushing her head gently,
"Tell me, what''s wrong with her?" The moment Tanulia''s face turned away from Tiriana, her motherly looked transformed into an enraged predator,
The rest of them in the room shuddered just by looking at the killing intent in her eyes. Noticing the silence, Tanulia trembled,
"She''s been vomiting blood nonstop and crying in pain. There''s definitely something wrong with her. Yet, you idiots found nothing?!" she snarled at the healers in front of her,
"We thoroughly examined her and everything she came into contact with Alpha Guardian. But-" the leading healer, who was a blonde elf in golden robes, shivered while talking and didn''t finish his sentence,
"Ipetent idiots. Go to Awor and bring me the heavenly alchemists before I lose my patience," Tanulia threatened them with gritted teeth. Hearing her threat, they all trembled. Soon, they quickly ran away from the room leaving Tanulia and Tiriana in the room,
"Just bear the pain, Tiri. The alchemists will be here shortly," Tanulia kept brushing Tiriana''s head like a mother,
"lots¡of ¡work¡vampires," Tiriana blurted out a few words fighting through the pain,
"Shh, we are taking care of it," Tanulia said with a smile to calm Tiriana down. Unfortunately, the outside situation wasn''t good at all. The existence of vampires and the news spread across the continent that Guardians tried to hide vampires'' existence brought a storm down on the guild. Currently, they were facing pressure from every direction.
Her team was still investigating who leaked the information about the vampires to the Royal news. She suspected Peyton but she had no proof to back her doubts. As far as Tanulia could tell, Peyton worshiped the guild and stood to gain nothing by abolishing the guild''s reputation.
Kreech!
Suddenly, Tanulia heard something from behind. She turned back with lightning-quick speed to see a piece of paper on the ground beneath a stool,
She stood up from the bed, walked to the paper, and picked it up. Her brows furrowed when her gaze swept across the piece of yellow paper. Then, she put the piece of paper back on the stool and opened the wooden door nearby to leave the room.
As soon as she stepped out of the room, she made her way to hall, where she saw several guardians and a girl sitting behind a crescent-shaped marble table,
"Did I receive any packages today?" Tanulia asked the silver-haired elf,
"Yes, Alpha Guardian. We sent the package to the runemasters and waiting for them to finish checking it,"
"Bring me the package now" Tanulia slightly raised her voice as the girl shuddered,
"yes¡yes¡Alpha Guardian," the girl didn''t dare to remind the Alpha guardian of the protocols. Instead, she just bobbed her head, opened the door behind her, and disappeared to bring the package to Tanulia.
Several minutester, the girl returned carrying a wooden box.
"Everyone leave," Tanulia''s voice reverberated in the hall, attracting the guardians'' attention.
They gawked at each other and the stoic face of Tanulia for a moment before leaving the hall. After they left the hall, Tanulia slowly opened the box to see a parchment and a vial with sparkling silver liquid on crimson red cloth,
Tanulia picked up the parchment. For a few moments, she scanned the parchment and the box with her senses until she found no threats. Only then did she open the parchment.
Greetings Alpha Guardian,
We remained in darkness, harming no one. But you and your guardians decided to expose us to the light. You shouldn''t have done that. Because of you, your best friend is now suffering. Suppose you don''t personallye to apologize to us ALONE at the location marked down below. In that case, your friend will experience the most excruciating death the elves have ever seen.
P.S. The vial contains something that will lessen her pain. Consider this a courtesy of our great nation of nightwalkers AKA vampires, as you named us.
Your friend has two days to live. So your clock is ticking, Alpha Guardian.
Tanulia''s body trembled as she read the parchment.
"ARRRRRGHHHHH!" just as she finished reading the letter, Tiriana''s scream echoed through the warship.
Immediately, Tanulia hurried to the room and when she reached the room, she saw Tiriana puking blood, rolling on the floor while screaming in agony.
Subconsciously, Tanulia picked up the potion before leaving the hall.
"TIRI!" Tanulia dashed at Tiriana,
"ARGGHHHH!" Tiriana kept screaming in agony when Tanulia sat beside her and put her head on herp. Without Tanulia''s control, her eyes watered,
"TANU!" Tiriana screamed as blood gushed out of her nostrils, eyes, and ears.
At that moment, many guardians who heard Tiriana''s scream flocked into the room,
"Alpha Guardian!"
Among those who entered the room were the healers who had previously left the room,
They quickly rushed to her side and knelt beside Tiriana. The blonde healer quickly retrieved a sparkling blue potion from his space ring and forced it down Tiriana''s throat,
Since it was the Healing potion brewed by Ghost, Tanulia allowed the healer to give the potion. It was the only thing that lessened Tiriana''s pain.
"ARRRRGGHHHHH!" however, unlike before, Tiriana didn''t stop screaming. Ever after the blonde elf chugged an entire bottle of healing potion down her throat, they couldn''t stop Tiriana from screaming,
"It''s¡it''s not working¡" the healer stuttered as Tanulia saw Tiriana''s eyes closing.
The healer immediately ced his hand on Tiriana''s throat only to sense her pulses slowing down,
"Alpha guardian, her pulse¡ it''s dropping"
When Tanulia heard his words, her heart skipped a beat. She held Tiriana tightly,
"She is dying Alpha Guardian," the healer gravely said. All the guardians broke into a sweat while Tanulia''s muscles went rigid. She couldn''t even move a muscle because of the overwhelming grief. Finally, tears broke out of her eyes and rolled out on her rosy cheeks,
"The potion," Tanulia remembered the potion in her hand,
"Alpha Guardian, if we don''t find a cure to whatever is happening to her, she will die within a few minutes. We don''t have enough time," the healer swallowed his fear and exined the situation to Tanulia,
"Tiri," Tanulia''s hand shivered, bringing the potion to Tiriana''s mouth.
As an Alpha Guardian, she was trained to make quick decisions because a second dy would cost lives in her position. Hence, she decided to give the potion she received rather than gambling with Tiriana''s life. However, if she didn''t give the potion, it was inevitable that Tiriana would die.
"Alpha Guardian, what is that?" the healer asked Tanulia. Instead of answering him, she just opened the vial and gently poured the liquid into her mouth.
Surprisingly, the moment the potion touched Tiriria''s tongue, the healer noticed her pulse speed up,
"Alpha Guardian, her pulse is improving," Tanulia heaved a sigh of relief as she emptied the potion into Tiriana''s mouth.
Chapter 504 The Final Round
Chapter 504 The Final Round¡¡¡¡After Tiriana drank the potion, the rosiness returned to her. The healer quickly examined her body only to see her vital signs such as pulse, arch energy cirction, and breathing had be normal. Nheless, Tiriana remained unconscious. Fortunately, they learned she had fallen asleep after suffering so much.
Seeing Tiriana peacefully sleeping on herp, Tanulia knew what she had to do.
"Go set a course to the Maven," Tanulia ordered the alpha guardians staring at her. Hearing the order, the guardians obediently bowed their heads before leaving the room. They were trained to bey orders, not question them. That was why none of them dared to ask why they had to go to Maven, a kingdom in the Southern continent.
******************************
The next day when the sky turned bright, the flourishing city of Oxshore woke up along with the thousands of citizens. Only a few minutes after the first sunray emerged from the horizon, the citizens began to flow through the streets.
The ce within the city, which was most crowded and lively today, was the arena. Since today was the grand finale for the individualpetition, the number of people flocking to the arena doubled.
As time psed, the entrance doors of the guild slowly opened as the sun rose. Immediately, the mass of people outside began flooding in like tides.
Noah entered through the participants'' entrance as yesterday and walked until he arrived at the ground scattered with jade tables. He lifted his eyes and looked around, only to find that Len and Jennifer had actually arrived earlier than him. Besides the two of them, severalpetitors passed the two rounds of thepetition yesterday. The group of alchemists were conversing and smiling with one another.
When Noah arrived, everyone, who appeared to be discussing something softly, suddenly lowered their voices significantly. Yesterday Noah shocked everyone with his skills. In their minds, he was the leading horse to win thepetition.
"Master Noah, you are quite early," Jennifer greeted Noah and strolled towards her ce as Noah walked by her side,
"And you''re earlier than me," Noah did not like her attitude when they first met. She belonged to the Voldigard family, which even his teacher told him to mess with. Besides, she was also Grandmaster Alred''s disciple. Hence, Noah did not appear to be too cold. He just smiled back and greeted casually.
"Did you rest well Master Noah? We all need to be in our peak state," Jennifer softly asked,
"of course" Noah nodded. However, he did not rest as she thought. He was busy surveying the arena, the ce where Hendrix stayed, and the guild studying all the ways one could try to assassinate Hendrix. ording to Atian, the chances of assassinating Hendrix would go to near zero after he leaves Ozer. Hence, if one wanted to kill Hendrix, one had to try when he was in the arena.
"Don''t hold back anything Noah. Because I won''t" Liu Ling walked over to Noah only to challenge him. Looking at Len''s smug face, Noah just responded with a smile,
"I''ll have it no other way,"
On the VIP seatings, the judges and a group of elders and nobles gradually settled into their seats. When Noah looked over at them, Hendrix gave him a friendly smile. Noah''s gaze swept across the VIP seats to find Edith waving at him while sitting behind Ghost in his usual ck robes.
Noah also noticed Eve, Jennifer''s elder sister conversing with Ghost like never before. Surprisingly, another green-haired girl sat beside Eve and Noah knew her. She was Ghost''s disciple, Olivia Palmer.
Recently his elder aunty told Noah that she had arranged for him a marriage to her friend''s daughter. ording to her, that marriage would further strengthen the Winston family. Since political marriages were pretty standard in this world, Noah didn''t mind as long as the girl was okay with the marriage.
Noah had no idea that girl was none other than Olivia.
As time slowly flowed by, more and morepetitors flooded into the open ground. Finally, all thepetitors who had entered the ground went to the jade table they used yesterday. The alchemists who remained in the arena were the cream of the crop. Otherwise, they wouldn''t have reached the final round. Reaching the final round would alone open many doors of opportunities for them as well as get them into the Alchemy guild. Still, every single one of them wanted to win thepetition and know the rewards for winning.
When the bright sun was high in the sky, the seats had all filled with countless crowds.
"ng!" In an instant, a clear bell sound resonated through the open ground for a long time.
The moment the bell sounded, Noah, who had his eyes tightly closed, opened them. He took a deep breath, calming his nerves before raising his head to look at the VIP seatings.
"Ladies and gentlemen,"
Hendrix spoke to the crowd on the high tform as his light gaze swept through the entire ce. Instantly, the people stopped their ruckus and turned their focus to him.
"Today will be thest and final day of the individualpetition. The finale will decide the victor. You all put so much effort and hardwood to reach this stage. There is only one obstacle standing in your way. I wish you all the best,"
ording to Atian, Hendrix would stay two more days until the end of the group alchemypetition. Then, although Michael had better things to do, he could spend a day or two with Olivia, who longed for Michael''s support. Moreover, she wanted him to witness her students in action.
When Hendrix''s voice fell, the crowd exploded into a thunderous roar, screaming as loud as they could in excitement.
Noah rubbed his ears as they became numb by the deafening sound. He turned his head around to see Jennifer and Len calmly looking around the crowd. Thetter, however, had a cold smile on his face,
"This is my moment," Len snickered. He had been training for thepetition for a long time. For him, failure wasn''t an option. No matter what, he had to make his teacher proud.
p!
The thunderous p echoed through the arena, instantaneously canceling all the noise. When the arena became silent, Hendrix began to exin about the final round.
"Unlike the previous two rounds, we won''t provide you with any ingredient or form. In other words, you must sessfully brew a potion or concoct a pill of your choice to the best of your ability in under an hour. The alchemist who refined the pill or potion with high purity and gets the most votes from the judges will be crowned as the winner,"
When thepetitors in the arena heard Hendrix''s clear voice, many felt excited, except for some who did not prepare any suitable forms or had sufficient ingredients. If they failed, they only had to me themselves for being careless and not prepared.
As Noah''s gaze swept all around him, he noticed Len''s bright face. Thetter was grinning. While Jennifer remained with her head held high as though she had absolute confidence in her form and ability to refine something with a high purity level and miraculous effect.
In the VIP seatings, Michael frowned slightly. To him, the round seemed yet again unfair. Among thepetitors, some were two-star alchemists and some were three-star alchemists. Surprisingly there were no four-star alchemists among them as the few whopeted were eliminated yesterday. So naturally, three-star alchemists could refine a pill or a potion with a higher purity level than the two-star alchemists. The ability to refine purer products what made them three stars in the first ce.
Hence, when asked to brew a potion or concoct a pill, whatever the three-star alchemist makes would have a higher purity rate than a pill or potion made by a two-star alchemist. In other words, the two-star alchemists stood no chance against the three-star alchemists.
"Remember, purity isn''t the sole determinant in the final. Whatever you make should impress the judges and get their votes. Keep that in mind,"
As though Hendrix had sensed Michael''s thoughts, he reminded thepetitors. His words gave somefort and courage to the two-star alchemists.
"Since everyone is already familiar with the examination rules," Hendrix slowly raised his hand and abruptly waved it down on the high tform. A faint sound reverberated throughout the entire ce, "The final round will now begin!"
Just like before, the ghostly giant hourss materialized in the air as thepetitors immediately took out everything they needed from their space ring. From the audience seats, countless gazes stared intently at the over one hundredpetitors on the open ground below, waiting for their splendid performance today.
After Hendrix went to sit on his chair, the trio in the center did not do anything. Instead, they coincidentally remained silent and mused with a frown, recalling everything they needed to know about the potion they were going to make.
The silence persisted for nearly ten minutes before Jennifer and Len took out their cauldron and a set of ingredients from their space ring.
Hearing the sound of the cauldronsnding on the jade tables, Noah frowned as the cauldrons that the two pulled out were clearly not the same ones they used yesterday. Seeing the profound auras that were emitted from the ancient looking jade cauldrons, it was clear that the cauldrons clearly belonged to the Epic ss.
(Item sses => Common, Umon, Rare, Epic, Legendary)
They surpassed Noah''s cauldron, which belonged to the Rare ss.
"That little brat," sitting beside Ghost, Eve mumbled,
"She took grandpa''s cauldron," Eve said with a helpless chuckle only loud enough for Michael and Olivia to hear,
"Better cauldron will definitely raise her odds to win," Olivia whispered to Olivia,
"She better win this. What do you think Ghost? You''re still betting on Noah?"
Michael nodded. If nothing dramatic happened, he knew Noah would win thepetition easily because, unlike them, he knew Noah''s secret.
"Lord Gabriel, is that the cauldron you used decades ago?" Alred asked, pointing at Len''s jade cauldron, which had a tint of redness to it,
"Yes," Gabriel responded with a simple nod,
"If my memory serves me right, you used it to take the champion spot during that year''spetition. It seems you''re pretty confident in your student," Alred amused,
"He will win this," Gabriel''s voice was full of confidence and trust. All the judges had already begun to bet on their favorites. Still, they had no idea thepetition would be a butchery.
Edith suddenly stood up, walking toward the door in the back while the judges and the nobles were observing the alchemists on the ground. Michael noticed Edith leaving but didn''t pay any mind to her.
Chapter 505 The Massacre has begun
Chapter 505 The Massacre has begun¡¡¡¡In the spacious arena, the gentle breeze brushed past the people cradling them with its chillness. Michael observed the alchemists showing no expression on his nk as a te face. The pungent smell of herbs and fire entered his nostrils,peting with the sweet fragranceing from Eve. Today she looked gorgeous. It might be because Ghost became closer to her as a friend, which was why Michael looked at her in a different light. At first, Michael thought she was no different than a typical cold beauty such as Alicia.
The more he talked to Eve, the warmer her character became. Michael felt that she would be a good friend to him. She was open, helpful, and understanding. Eve reminded Michael of a girl he used to y with in the orphanage. Coincidentally, her name was also Eve. So Michael knew deep down he treated Eve as his friend because of his childhood friend.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Soul Refining stage, level 2
Experience Points: 0 / 900,000
Badass Points: 310,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 6
Ignitia - LVL 8
Lightning Dash - LVL 6
Energy Devouver - LVL 2
Soul Eater - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender. Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 92% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 97% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 18,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
4-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 86%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 55%)
Sadie (loyalty level 50%)
Ricky (loyalty level 98%)
Titus(loyalty level 60%)
Optimus (loyalty level 60%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 90%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
Kingdom of Bradford
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (10% Mastery) Fire (10% Mastery) (Lightning 15% Mastery) (Darkness 20%)
"I should definitely upgrade my Inventor trait,"
After getting blood samples and every other possible sample from Victor, Michael nned to build some nasty weapons against the vampires. As far as Michael learned about vampires, he needed special weapons. The rest of the world was unbelievably vulnerable to the vampires.
Noah may have been somewhat astonished by the Epic ss cauldrons Len and Jennifer had on the open ground. However, Andreas taught him the cauldron was merely an object, and an alchemist should not depend on the cauldron to refine a pill or potion. ording to Andrews, an alchemist should be able to use the alchemy fire as a cauldron and refine pills and potions without a problem. Just like Ghost.
Noah''s white cauldron seemed somewhat shabbypared to Jennifer and Len.
Unlike the rest, Noah was not too concerned about the cauldrons. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought for a moment. Then, he flicked his finger gently and a set of the ingredients needed to refine the ''Crimson waves'' potion appeared on the stone table. The moment Michael saw the ingredients on Noah''s table, Michael knew what he was going to brew.
To be honest, the potion had all the wow factors to win thepetition. Michael doubted anyone in the judging panel except Hendrix would know about the ''Crimson waves'' potion. When an alchemist drank the potion, their alchemy fire would turn crimson red. Hence the name. The Crimson Red fire would burn hotter and easier to control than the default green me so that the alchemist could produce pills and potions with a ten to fifteen percent higher purity rate up to seventy percent. If an alchemist could refine pills and potions with seventy percent purity, the potion wouldn''t provide any effects.
Michael didn''t use the potion because he did not need to. He was a 5-star Alchemist right out of the bat. So why didn''t he sell them? Because it was bad for business to enhance alchemists. The fewer alchemists there were the better.
The hundreds of emerald green mes danced and flickered in the arena like fireflies made of jade glimmering in the night. The mes swayed with the wind chaotically with no direction in their mind until Michael conjured his Heaven''s me. Even after seeing it several times, Noah''s sparkling blue mes drew everyone''s attention. Like a King among mortals, the blue mes overshadowed the green mes with its luster.
"Heaven''s me. How lucky that young man is to get a Primordial me,"
Alred threw a covetous look at Noah''s me. The old man''s eyes were green with envy.
"Indeed he is lucky. He would have be a target of many if the Primordial fire could be stolen," Weirdly, Ativan eyed Gabriel a second before replying to Atian.
On the other hand, Jennifer had twenty-five ingredients on her table, whereas Len had a whooping thirty. They began to put the ingredients one by one into the cauldron under the gazes of thousands of spectators.
Meanwhile, some of the alchemists on the ground had already wholly refined all of the ingredients. Additionally, they started to prepare for the next step.
The trio in the center ignored those participants and was totally focused on extracting the essence from each ingredient they put inside the cauldron.
Unlike in the previous two rounds, small beads of sweat appeared on their forehead, trickling down their nose to the ground. Yet, they did not bother to wipe it off as they continued to focus on controlling the me and extracting the essence. Then ten minutester, Noah carefully ced thest ingredient. Finally, the first essence bead, glowing in light pink, emerged from Noah''s cauldron.
Seeing that the extracting process was this smooth, Noah heaved a long sigh of relief. He turned his head and looked around. Surprised, he discovered that Jennifer and Len had formed five beads.
Time slowly passed by as some of thepetitors who initially had calm expressions began to pant a little. Such a huge burden and consumption of arch energy really exhausted them.
Michael was getting bored out of his mind and even yawned behind his hand. Seeing Michael yawn, Eve couldn''t hold back too.
"I kinda wish I had seen your Elon battle tournament," Eve said, taking her gaze away from Jennifer.
Suddenly Michael knit his brows as his neck hair stood up, alerting him of an uing threat. First, the air became thick with an intense scent of blood. Then as though something was sucking all the light in the arena, the area turned gloomier.
"What the?" Eve looked up to see a dark nket falling over the arena. The arena was the size of a football stadium on earth and currently, the nket falling from the sky covered the entire open sky above the arena.
"What''s happening?"
"Oh god!"
"The fuck?!"
Immediately the spectators were thrown into chaos.
Whoosh!
Following the dar, a strong gust of wind in the form of a wave brushed past the hundreds of alchemists, putting off their alchemy fire.
"Ghost," Terror clutched Eve''s heart as she involuntarily squeezed Michael''s hand.
All the judges immediately stood up from their seats bewildered. Even Hendrix lost the calmness on his face. The sudden darkness along with the pungent blood stench in the air, terrified them.
"Lady Eve," Michael turned back to see a guard of Eve walking towards Eve holding his throat. In the dim, gloomy light, they saw blood gushing through his fingers,
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Another scream quickly echoed through the arena.
Thud!
The guard copsed to the ground while another ear-piercing scream of a girl entered their ears. When they looked in the scream''s direction, they all saw a mist of red smoke among the spectators. Soon after, they saw several other bloody veils of mist appear all over the spectators'' stand.
At this moment, the screams were the only sound they heard.
"Guards!" Alred shouted, but no one responded,
"Teacher¡.Ghost¡look!" Olivia stuttered, and when they looked at where she was pointing, they saw the guard who copsed to the ground, moving.
The guardid down his face against the floor and slowly moved his limbs.
His libs made sickening, crunching sounds as he finally stood up on his feet.
"Guard," Eve spoke in a muffled voice and frowned, looking at the blood oozing down from the wound on his neck. When Michael looked closer at the injury, he confirmed his suspicion and took a step back,
"AH!" when the guard leaped at Alred, Olivia screamed in shock,
"Grrrrgghhhhhhhhh!" the guard ripped off a huge chunk of meat from Alred''s neck in a blink of an eye. The blood sprayed from Alred''s neck to Atian and Gabriel''s faces. The warm blood brought Gabriel from his shock.
"Holy st!"
Gabriel immediately reacted by sending a golden sma beam at the guard.
Pulch!
The beam shot right through the guard''s chest, forming a huge smoking hole in his chest. However, it didn''t stop the guard from taking another bite at Alred, who was clenching his neck in agony.
"Holy st!"
Gabriel sent another sma beam vaporizing the guard''s head. Meanwhile, the spectators were in chaos as they attempted to flee the arena but turned into a bloody mess one by one.
"Alred!" Atian came out of his shock. Everything happened so quickly that only Gabriel was able to react in time. But, unfortunately, even he waste, as the guard had already taken a huge chunk of Alred''s throat with a single bite.
Immediately a sparkling blue healing potion appeared in Atian''s hand. Lifting Alred''s head, Atian chugged the potion down his throat, but unfortunately, the wound on his throat didn''t close up.
"Wee to the party!"
Out of the blue, a voice drenched in an evil aura reverberated in the arena. The cold, high, clear voice sent shivers through everyone''s spines. A few seconds after the voice emerged, a dark figure clouded in a red mist appeared in the air right above Noah, Jennifer, and Len''s center stage.
Chapter 506 The Elder Vampire
Chapter 506 The Elder Vampire¡¡¡¡A red mistpletely clouded the figure. The fog was no different than Michael''s cloud of darkness. Only the cloud enveloping the figure was dark crimson red. The stench of blood in the air doubled after the figure appeared. The strong scent nauseated Michael and he was no stranger to the smell of blood. Involuntarily Olivia stepped closer to Michael as the judges stared at the figure shivering in the air. They waited for the guards but to no avail.
"Where are the guards?" Olivia whispered,
"Boys, slow down," the figure''s voice echoed through the arena. Only then did they witness people in the arena getting bitten by someone enveloped in the red mist just like the one in the air. The people who got bitten from behind exploded afterward.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Looking at the scene, many screamed out loud and panicked. Instantly, the people made a run for the exit, only to turn into a pulpy mess. Michael noticed hundreds of vampires sucking the peoples'' necks and turning them into a bloody mist. Deep down in his heart, he was d Olivia was with him. Otherwise, she would have been targeted by the vampires.
"Oh my god oh my god oh my god," Olivia panicked, shivering from top to bottom.
"GUARDS!"
"GUARDS!"
Atian and Gabriel both screamed for the guards, but no one came through the door behind them.
Michael never expected the vampires tounch arge-scale attack. Instead, he thought they would go into hiding because that is what he would have done if someone had exposed his secret identity.
"This is troublesome," Michael said to himself. ording to the experiments and information he gathered from Victor, Vampires were immune to spell attacks no matter how powerful the spell was. The guard who was killed by Gabriel wasn''t a fully turned vampire. He was controlled like a puppet by someone, probably the vampire shrouded in a red mist.
The bloody mists appeared after the people exploded, drifted to the vampire hovering in the air, and enhanced the crimson red cloud around the vampire.
Killing a vampire without going into full Dark Lord was highly troublesome. He had to use the Dark mes to kill or even slow down a vampire. Otherwise, they would just regenerate and attack back with several times more ferociousness.
Fortunately, the vampires blocked the sunlight by putting on a giant nket over the arena. But, unfortunately, by doing this, they turned the arena dark, and darkness was his domain.
"Shit!"
"What''s happening? Where are the guards?"
Len and Jennifer panicked just as the rest of the alchemists. Considering the vampires hadn''t started to kill the alchemists on the ground yet, they still possessed the ability to think. The spectators, however, ran for the exit like headless chickens. Many got stepped over and died by getting crushed.
"Jade crucifix," all of a sudden, Hendrix who remained furrowing his gray eyebrows, raised his hand,
The very next moment, an emerald green crucifix materialized in the air just a few meters away from Michael. The crucifix went from a typical handheld size to a giant 8 feet crucifix. It floated towards the vampire in the air.
As the crucifix floated towards the vampire, it sucked the bloody mist like a ck hole. Soon afterward, Michael noticed several vampires getting sucked from the spectators'' stand. They screamed and squirmed. However, Michael noticed that only several people in guards uniforms were getting sucked by the crucifix. Those who bit people wearingpletely ck robes remained still without getting affected by the crucifix.
The crucifix differentiated the halfly turned puppets from the fully matured vampires. What bothered Michael was how mature these vampires were. If they were anything like Victor, the odds of surviving would go way down.
He could count at least fifty vampires; weirdly, he sensed no cultivation power from them.
There was only a possible exnation that appeared in Michael''s mind. When the vampires crossed the void line, they possessed a cultivation level like the normal cultivators. But, in the cultivation of continents, they became something else.
''Are they stronger or weaker?" that was the question that quickly emerged in his mind
"Humph," Michael heard the vampire in the air snicker. Afterward, a trail of smoke extended from the crimson red shroud towards the crucifix. Then, the emerald green crucifix and blood red smoke shed in mid-air, producing an otherworldly whistling sound.
The crimson red smoke rapidly engulfed the crucifix, rendering the emerald green dim. In a couple of blinks of an eye, the red smokepletely swallowed the crucifix,
Boom!
Then, the sound of the explosion reverberated in the air as Michael witnessed thousands of tiny green particles raining down.
"Ah!" Hendrix coughed up a mouthful of blood as he stumbled back, losing his bnce.
"Run," Hendrix mumbled. Hendrix was at the Fusion stage yet his spell was decimated within a few moments. Even if Hendrix was a warrior, his spell still wouldn''t have affected the vampire.
"Is he an Elder Vampire?" Michael asked himself, recalling Victor''s words about the Elder Vampires, who were the most powerful pure-blooded vampires. But, of course, Victor had no idea there were more powerful sses of vampires above the Elder Vampires.
Gabriel didn''t even dare to cast a spell because he was at the Core Strengthening stage and he knew how powerful Hendrix was. So Gabriel knew if Hendrix stood no chance, neither would he. Hence, Gabriel turned back and rushed towards the door to escape.
"What''s the rush, Lord Gabriel?" The vampire''s high-pitched clear voice rang in their heads as a cloud of smoke shot out from the vampire and covered the door.
"Holy st!" Gabriel raised his hand, sending the golden sma st at the cloud. To his shock, the sma st shattered into millions of golden dots when it shed with the cloud.
"Lord Hendrix!"
Hearing Atian''s shout, Michael turned his head from Gabriel to Atian and saw Hendrix floating towards the vampire. His old body was stiff as though he was paralyzed. He didn''t even move a muscle.
"Does he have something to do with the ambush?" Michael asked himself looking at Gabriel, who was currently trying to get through the red smoke blocking the door.
Despite the chaos and mayhem, Michael remained calm. On top of his training to stay calm despite the situation, the darkness soothed his mind and soul. He canceled out all the screams of the people and focused on how to escape the arena without revealing his full power.
Furthermore, he hoped the vampires'' aim was to massacre people and issue the world a warning. Rather than targeting anyone specifically, anyone such as the Dark Lord who orchestrated their destruction of secrecy.
"Jennifer," Eve tried to move forward, but Michael quickly grabbed her hand,
"Stay still. Don''t give him a reason to attack you. Noah will protect her,"
Michael whispered coldly to Eve. The seriousness and authority in his voice rendered Eve speechless. She wanted to disagree, but she simply couldn''t.
Michael didn''t know about Len, but he was certain Noah would protect Jennifer. Meanwhile, Alicia and Norvin leaped onto the ground, reaching Noah.
"Ghosty Drag-" with his eyes turning red, Atian raised his hand to cast a spell. Before he could finish casting, a puff of smoke shot out from the vampire like an arrow and sted Atian to the wall,
In mid-air, the shroud enveloping the vampire slowly opened up, vaguely revealing a bloated short man. Through the opening, Michael saw the man opening his mouth as a meter-long tongue resembling a tentacle came out to lick Hendrix,
Still, Hendrix didn''t even move a muscle. Instead, he looked like a t pose statue while being licked by the vampire.
The tongue gradually coiled around Hendrix''s neck, clenching Hendrix''s throat little by little.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Suddenly, Noah''s shot echoed through the arena. Then, everyone saw a bright beam of light shoot out of Noah''s body to straight up at the vampire. The bright beam had a tint of blue as Heaven''s me coiled around the beam.
As per Michael''s knowledge, the Primordial mes were one of the weaknesses of a vampire. Ever since he used Dark mes on Victor, Michael wondered whether the other Primordial mes would have the same effect or not. His curiosity ended when Noah''s me cut straight through the bloody mist enveloping the vampire, cutting the tongue around Hendrix''s neck.
Immediately Alicia leaped into the air, catching Hendrix in her arms.
"Argh!" the vampire cried but it sounded more pissed off rather than hurt. When the vampire growled, all his underlings stopped killing the spectators and leaped onto the ground.
"Boys kill them," the vampire coldly ordered the underlings. Michael had a feeling the vampire was looking at the VIP seatings. His feeling was confirmed when a few vampires leaped from the ground to their VIP seatings.
"Thank you Noah," Michael cursed Noah in his mind. There was a possibility that the vampire was targeting only Hendrix and would have left the arena after killing Hendrix. By attacking the vampire with Heaven''s me, Noah pissed it off. Now, the vampire ordered the underlings to kill them instead of killing the spectators.
Granted, Michael felt terrible for the people who got killed by the vampires. Yet, his own survival was more important to him than the people. When two powerful forces were at war, people would die. As far as Michael was concerned, it was impossible to save everyone.
"Get them to safety!" From the ground, Noah shouted at Alicia.
And just as she was about to leap at the VIP seatings, Noah raised his hand, sending a stream of Heaven''s me to Alicia''s golden spear. Immediately, her spear lit with Heaven''s me,
Michael, who saw the spear burning with Heaven''s me cursed at the Dark mes because if he had to cover his swords in Dark mes, the mes would melt down the steel like a knob of butter.
"Seems like mine is more powerful than Heaven''s me," he calmed himself down,paring Heaven''s me and the Dark mes.
"Stay back," Michael stepped in front of Eve and Olivia as two vampires targeted him. While four others targeted Atian and Gabriel,
"Like hell I would," Eve stepped forward and stood beside Michael as a hammer with a gold handle materialized in her hand. In the corner of his eyes, Michael saw several tiny runes glowing on the gray hammerhead.
Eve kept spinning her hammer until the hammer became blurry.
"Whoa," Michael was stunned when she threw the hammer at the vampire and sent the vampire flying before hitting the vampire in the chest.
Whoosh!
She raised her hand as the hammer, which disappeared from their sight, came right back into her hand.
Michael noticed the runes glowing brighter than before. Unfortunately, he missed the ability to summon back Doom bringer after throwing it. At the moment, he had to upgrade the Doombringer if he wanted to ce any runes.
Seeing Eve summon the hammer back, he was slightly jealous, to be honest. Moreover, she looked so cool.
However, Michael didn''t n to be on the sidelines. This was his scene, and Michael had enough of being sidelined.
Chapter 507 Onto the fire from the frying pan
Chapter 507 Onto the fire from the frying pan¡¡¡¡The vampire who witnessed his friend get sent flying by Eve bore his teeth, showing razor-sharp teeth. The vampires wore dark robes from head to toe, and under the dark cloak, Michael could see their pale faces and crimson red slit pupils.
Pulch!!
As the vampire stared at Eve, a spear impaled him from behind. Alicia lifted the vampire with her spear in the air and let Heaven''s mepletely engulf the vampire.
The vampire burnt to a crisp in a matter of seconds as the wind took the gray ash with it. The two girls stole Michael''s thunder. But Michael was calm. Surviving the vampires was more important than showing off. End of the day, being alive was the most badass thing one could do.
"Eve!" Before Alicia could lock her eyes with Michael, Jennifernded on the VIP stage beside her sister.
"Jenni." Eve embraced her little sister in a tight hug. Jennifer''s face was pale because of what she had witnessed. The young girl was terrified. Michael could see her body trembling uncontrobly. Unlike her sister Eve, she was not a warrior trained inbat. She was an Alchemist. Her fear for blood and gore was the exact reason the Voldiguards spent their resources to make her an Alchemist instead of a warrior.
"Teacher!"
After Jennifer, Lennded on the stage. Seeing the four remaining vampires turning their focus to Alicia and Eve from Gabriel and Atian, Alicia took a step forward, grabbed her spear in two hands tightly, and locked her gaze with the four vampires approaching her.
Michael remained still and stepped towards the door. In the corner of his eye, he noticed the golden babaroo running around, attacking the vampires and clearing the way for the people to escape. The monkey was fast but not fast enough to save all the people. There were many people getting ughtered by the vampires among the spectators.
"Come on,"
While Alicia was fighting four vampires at the same time, Michael reached the door with Olivia and Eve following him behind.
Alicia noticed Ghost ignoring her, and her eyes immediately got filled with fury.
"AARGH!" Alicia roared as she mmed the spear onto the stage, creating a powerful shock wave that knocked down the vampires as well as everyone except Michael and Eve.
"Bitch" one of the vampires snarled. Then, he dashed at Alicia faster than ever before. Michael noticed the vampires finally taking the fight seriously. Their inhuman speed stunned Alicia. Michael, who fought Victor, knew their speed. In a blink of an eye, the vampire appeared behind Alicia.
On the other side, the three vampires nked Alicia from all directions.
"That bitch is dead," Michael amused inside. One less ally for Noah was one less enemy for him.
While this was happening on the VIP stage, Noah was fighting the vampires on the ground. Fortunately, the vampire in the air observed the fight, not intending to join the battle himself.
The more people the vampires killed, the bigger the shroud of red mist around him.
"Holy st, holy st, holy st" Len kept shooting sma sts in all directions hoping to hit the vampires.
"Argh!"
After several tries, he hit something, but it wasn''t a vampire. He hit Alicia, who was fighting four vampires.
With a stomp to the ground, Eve knocked down several chairs and pushed down Jennifer''s head.
"Stay here," then Eve leaped into the air, raising her hammer in the air.
Boom!
A vampire was about to bite Alicia in the neck when Eve brought the wrath of her hammer down on him. Immediately the four vampires dashed away, sensing the impending danger. However, when Eve''s hammer hit the stage, a shock wave that was several times more powerful than the one Alicia created sted everyone and everything. Even Michael stumbled and had to grab the wall to steady himself. In addition, the hammer made several cracks on the stage. Looking at the cracks widening, Michael didn''t think the stage could withstand another attack.
while Eve was spinning her hammer and creating a wind force that slowed down vampires, Michael went to the door, which was covered by the red mist,
"Get out of my way" Michael shoved Gabriel away from the door.
"Bastard," Gabriel almost lost his bnce and was enraged by Michael''s action.
Paying no mind to Gabriel, Michael ced his hand on the smoke. Michael felt a suction force as he put his hand through the mist.
Michael conjured the dark mes inside the smoke.
Crack!
The red smoke faded away as soon as the dark mes appeared in his hand, revealing the door.
Bang!
Michael kicked open the door to see several dark-robed vampires feasting on Eve''s guards. At that moment, they all red at Michael, blood oozing down their mouths.
For a moment, Michael remained still at the doorway, pondering whether he should exit through the hall with twenty vampires or through the open ground where a powerful vampire at.
"We can''t fight them for long," Eve said to Alicia while swinging her hammer around her to keep the vampires from taking a bite off her.
Since Michael opened the door, Atian prepared to drag Alred''s lifeless body with him to the door.
"Shit!" Len cursed when he saw the twenty vampires standing in line across the hall from one end to another. The marble floor and walls were tainted with sshes of red. The sickening sight of bodies with eyes still opened lying around nauseated Len. His face immediately turned green.
"You doomed us" Gabriel didn''t fail to take a shot at Michael as he took a step back from the door,
"You wanna go that way, be my guest," Michael coldly said before stepping into the hall. Compared to the countless underling vampires and an Elder Vampire, battling the twenty vampires in the hall seemed a better choice.
Unlike Noah, Michael didn''t wish to reveal he had Primordial mes.
Several meters away from Michael, Eve mmed her hammer on thest vampire''s chest.
"GRRR!"
The vampire growled in pain, but before it could dash at Eve, Alicia stabbed the vampire from behind with the Heaven mes-covered spear.
Killing thest vampire on the stage gave them all leeway to enter the hall. For some reason, the Elder vampire did not mind them entering the hall.
Michael had a bad feeling about the Elder Vampire''s calmness. Yet, he was not nning to decode its n. Instead, his highest priority was to get the hell out of the arena without revealing his identity as the Dark Lord.
Looking at Michael entering the hall, Olivia followed him behind. Then, Eve, Jennifer, and Atian dragging Alred''s lifeless body, entered the hall. Lastly, after pondering their options, Gabriel and Len followed them inside the hall.
"Eve," Jennifer shivered, looking at the vampires in front of her. Except for their mouth, one could see nothing due to the dark robes and cloak. The vampires snarled, revealing their blood-covered teeth and two razor-sharp fangs.
"Fresh blood," one of the vampires said in a croaky voice,
"We''ll get through this," Eve hid the dread in her heart and pretended to be fearless. Fighting four vampires took so much effort from both of them. So Eve knew how difficult, if not impossible, to fight twenty vampires.
"Where are you going?!" Eve was startled to see Ghost turning his back and walking back to the door,
Instead of answering Eve, Michael closed the door.
"What the hell?!" Len tried to shout this time, but only a muffled cry escaped his mouth. Again, he did not want to agitate the vampires in front of him.
Alicia coldly stared at him. She directed her killing toward Michael more than she directed toward the vampires.
Again rather than responding to pointless questions, Michael grabbed a chair and stuck it against the door knob to prevent anyone from opening the door from outside.
Regardless of the situation, he remained calm, which surprised Eve. There was no fear in his eyes.
"Ghost, I don''t think we can take on all of them," Atian said in a husky voice,
"You have a better idea? It''s them or the one who knocked out Lord Hendrix in a second"
Recalling what happened to Hendrix, Atian''s heart skipped a beat. At this moment, he could only pray Noah would somehow save Hendrix and himself.
"Why aren''t they attacking?" Eve mumbled. Her words were barely audible to those who were near her. Yet the vampires who stood twenty meters away from her clearly heard her.
"Meat dipped in fear is tastier," a vampire snickered. After hearing his murderous voice, Jennifer felt a chill running down her spine. She felt like the vampire was looking at her while speaking those words.
"Follow my lead" Alicia took a step forward, and then, she looked over her shoulder at Michael,
"Don''t get killed,"
Eve could sense the apparent tension between them. Last night when she spent the night with Olivia, she heard about what happened during the tournament. But, like most people, Eve also med Peter for his fate.
Alicia was lucky that Michael was a very patient man. Otherwise, he would have beaten the crap out of her just to wipe that stern look off her face.
However, before she could take another step, Eve saw a streak of golden light across the hall running through between two vampires. It took her a moment to realize that Ghost had disappeared from her side.
While she was in shock, wondering where did he go, the heads of the two vampires near the golden trail dropped to the ground producing a sickening thud sound,
The vampires standing in a neat line were startled to see their friends dancing on the floor without their heads. The blood spraying from the two headless bodies interrupted the group''s vision. Still, through the blood fountain, Eve vaguely saw a figure on the other side of the vampire line.
"Ghost," She mumbled,pletely stunned by him. One moment he was there, and the next, he wasn''t. Not only Eve, every single one was taken aback by surprise.
The vampires could generate any parts of their bodies in a few minutes but not their heads. Hence, when Michael cleaved the heads off their shoulders, they could only do one thing; die.
The vampires were immune to spells, arrays, and anything that was powered by Arch or Celestial energy but not to physical attacks void of any energy. Besides, the vampires remained still without moving an inch. Hence, Michael was able to cut their heads off with no problem.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
All the vampires turned around to see Michael staring at them with his two ck swords in his hands.
Chapter 508 Accident or Assassination?
Chapter 508 ident or Assassination?¡¡¡¡Just like that, Michael killed two vampires. Then, while the vampires were stunned, Michael took a glimmering silvery vial from the system storage.
ng!
Michael threw the vial at the ground near the vampire. The vial shattered until countless tiny pieces of ss as a puff of white smoke engulfed the air between Michael and the vampires.
"AH!"
"It burns!"
"My eyes!"
Suddenly, the vampires began running around the hall, clenching their eyes and screaming. After taking Victor''s blood samples, Michael brewed the tear gas to disorient the vampires.
Michael did not dare to waste any time as he cast the lightning dash.
"This is our chance. Push forward!" Eve raised her hammer, roaring a battle cry before running toward the vampires swinging her hammer.
"Cut their heads off" Eve felt a chill when she heard Ghost''s voice sounding in her ears. It took her a second to realize that he had run past her, and she just couldn''t see him but only the golden trail beside her.
While Eve, Alicia, and Ghost were fighting the disoriented vampires, Gabriel and Len made a break for it. They cautiously went to the hall''s corner and walked to the other side, remaining so close to the wall like a pair of geckos.
"Blood tornado"
"Blood hole"
Among the eighteen vampires, two of them stopped running and raised their hands high in the air, casting a spell before Michael could stop them.
As soon as they cast the spells, the room was lit with red as though the chandeliers radiating red light instead of white. Additionally, the bodies of Eve''s guards squirmed. Soon, all the blood inside their bodies was sucked out from their bodies to form a mini tornado in the middle of the hall.
Michael felt his speed decrease due to the tornado countering his spell. His running speed was further reduced when a red hole appeared in the ceiling, sucking everything into it.
The red hole sucked everything in the room, such as chairs, remaining bodies, and portraits of various alchemists. Atian held Alred''s body in one hand and a lion statue which was too heavy for the red hole to suck.
"Jenni!" Eve kept spinning her hammer, fighting the creating a counter force to the red hole, and shouted at Jennifer. Fortunately, Jennifer and Olivia found a statute simr to the one beside Atian and held onto it with their life.
Since Gabriel and Len were sticking close to the walls, they were able to grab onto the window grill.
On the other hand, Alicia stabbed the spear through the floor and held onto the spear. Then, while spinning the hammer, Eve noticed Ghost sliding towards the tornado swirling beneath the red hole.
"GHOST!" she tried to reach for him even though he was at least ten meters away from her. Yet, even at this very moment, Eve saw no fear or concern on his face. On the contrary, surprisingly, when she shouted at him, she saw a smile emerge on his calm face.
She felt creeped out by his smile. How could a man smile in a situation like this? Her mind couldn''t find an answer to her question. Then, as she was staring at him, she noticed he suddenly stabbed the floor with the sword in his hand.
The next moment, he threw the sword against all the force at the vampire who cast the tornado spell.
The sword he threw soared through the air like an arrow until it pierced the vampire''s forehead. Immediately the tornado disappeared from existence along with the sickering red ambiance.
Although the tornado went away and gave them breathing room, the remaining vampires were able to dash at them freely. Unlike Michael and the others, the red hole didn''t have any effect on the vampires.
Several vampires targeted Alicia since she had Heaven''s me. They wanted to kill her while she was fighting the suction force. Only a couple of vampires targeted Eve because the vampires deemed her as the less threatening one among them. Her blunt weapon was basically useless against them when she fought them alone without Alicia. All the remaining vampires moved towards Michael. As far as they were concerned, he was just as dangerous as heaven''s me-wielding Alicia. If not, more.
Seeing five vampires moving towards him, Michael raised his finger.
"Ignitia"
The golden lightning bolt shot out of his hand, piercing through the vampire''s chest.
"ARGH!" out of the blue, a scream reverberated in the hall. However, it didn''te from the vampire with the hole in his chest but from Gabriel. Unfortunately, Gabriel was in the lightning bolt''s trajectory and got hit by the bolt in the hand. Hence, he let go of the window grills, resulting in him being sucked into the red hole.
"TEACHER!" Len shouted at Gabriel, but it was toote as Gabriel was flinging towards the red hole.
He flew towards the red hole like a kite without an anchor until Alicia grabbed Gabriel by his hands.
"Don''t let it go!" Gabriel shouted. On the other hand, Alicia''s spear began to tremble as it couldn''t support two people.
"Ignitia"
Michael kept firing lightning bolts at the vampires to keep them from reaching him. This time, none of the lightning bolts hit others.
"Your hands¡slipping!" Gabriel shouted, feeling his grab loosening.
"Blessing hands!" Suddenly, a giant golden ghostly hand flicked Gabriel with enough force to send him flying onto the other side.
"I got you" in the midway, Michael grabbed Gabriel by his hand before Gabriel could fly over his head.
"TEACHER!" Jennifer cried out loud when she saw Alred''s lifeless body disappearing into the red hole. Only then did they realize that the spell was cast by Atian. He sacrificed Alred''s body by letting him go so he could cast a spell to save Gabriel. Atian held no love for Gabriel, but he was unable to let Gabriel die when he could save Gabriel from death.
Tears gushed out of Jennifer''s eyes as the memories she had spent with Alred shed across her eyes.
"Hold me tight!" Gabriel shouted at Michael. The swag Gabriel had was nowhere to be found on his face. At the moment, Gabriel shivered and sweated, fearing for his life.
"I won''t Lord Gabriel," Michael raised his voice. Gabriel''s heart was pounding against his chest. He looked around while holding onto Ghost''s hand to see four vampires walking toward them.
To inflict maximum fear, the vampires showed their teeth, slowly walking toward them. On the one hand, Michael held onto the sword, and on the other, he had onto Gabriel.
"Hold tight, Lord Gabriel. Your hands are slipping!" Michael shouted as the vampires devilishly grinned,
"No no no no¡" Gabriel frantically shook his head. But, unlike Ghost imed, he didn''t feel his hands slipping.
"You" For a moment, Gabriel saw Ghost''s lips curling upwards, revealing an evil grin.
"It slipping Lord Gabriel. I can''t hold much longer!" the grin instantly disappeared from his face,
"NO!" Gabriel shouted as Michael let go of his hands.
In a blink of an eye, the red hole sucked in Gabriel, killing the previous number one Alchemist of Elon and Ozer continent.
"ARRGHH!" finally, Alicia had enough.
The next moment, she pulled the spear from the ground. As soon as she did that, the red hole sucked her in, but in the mid-air, she threw the spear at the vampire who cast the spell. The spear cut through the air with enough force to nail the vampire into the wall behind him.
Luckily before she could disappear into the red hole, Heaven''s me surrounding the spear rendered the vampire into a pile of ashes.
"TEACHER NO!" Len screamed. All the veins in his face bulged as his eyes turned blood red.
"Holy st"
"Holy st"
"Holy st"
"Holy st"
"Holy st"
He was enraged by the loss of his teacher. Thus, he went berserk by shooting sma sts at the vampires one after another. He didn''t care if he was hitting them or not, but he just kept casting the spell. In his anger, Len lost the fear of vampires. The man who picked up from the streets and raised him as his own just got killed in front of his eyes. Hence, Len was enraged beyond words.
Since the tornado and the red hole disappeared, Michael cast ''Lightning Dash'' to disappear again.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
The vampires only felt a gust of wind before they saw their friends losing their heads. Michael used Celestial energy to increase his speed. Therefore, the vampires had no chance of seeing him or reacting to his speed.
Eve saw several heads rolling on the ground as the headless bodies sprayed blood all over the marble floor before copsing to the ground.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 3000 Badass points]
¡.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is Soul Refining stage Level 4!]
The notification sound of the system kept ringing in his head continuously.
Finally, after cleaving nine heads, Michael reached the next level of the Soul Refining stage.
The remaining five vampires looked paler than usual in fear. No longer they treated Michael like he was not a significant threat. They never expected Michael to kill nine vampires in a few seconds.
If the vampires crossed the void line, they would be at the Core Formation stage. Besides, they were also freshly turned by the Elder vampire, so they had no battle experience like the others. Because of these reasons, Michael killed them so effortlessly. Even Michael was surprised at how easy it was for him to kill them.
At this point, Michale was confident the Elder vampire was treating the alchemypetition as a training ground for the newly turned vampires.
The question was whether the Elder vampire really here to take revenge for exposing their existence or for something else.
"ARGH!" Meanwhile, Eve crushed a vampire''s head with her hammer, and Alicia killed two more vampires with lightning-quick speed. The remaining vampires stood no chance as Michael made quick work on them.
The headless vampires staggered as blood sprayed out into the air from their necks. While the blood was raining down, Alicia saw Ghost walking calmly towards Eve. Thetter was breathing heavily after a long battle.
However, the battle was far from over.
Boom!
Suddenly the wall near the door they walked through exploded into bits and pieces, creating a cloud of smoke.
A figure came flying through the smoke andnded near Alicia,
"Noah!''
Chapter 509 Taking a risk to get stronger
Chapter 509 Taking a risk to get stronger¡¡¡¡Michael saw Noah coughing mouthfuls of blood while struggling to get to his feet. His pure white robes were smudged with mud and blood.
"NOAH!" Alicia screamed as she went to her knees. She immediately flicked her wrist to take out a blue healing potion,
Following Alicia, Atian came running to Noah and tried to help him up. But unfortunately, Noah really seemed to be in bad shape. There were numerous w marks, cuts, and bruises on his body.
Since Noah was just in the Core Strengthening stage, the cultivation gap between the vampires and Noah was not as big as that between Michael and the vampires. But, because Noah battled more than twenty vampires with no help, the vampires did a number on him.
After Alicia chugged the healing potion down Noah''s throat, the bruises on Noah''s face slowly disappeared as the rosiness returned to his face.
"We have to go¡" Noah slurred due to internal injuries.
They could barely distinguish the words that escaped his mouth.
Boom!
Suddenly the door Michael blocked exploded into bits and pieces,
Through the Environmental map, Michael sensed the vampires rushing into the hall.
"Olivia, Eve" Michael raised his voice, drawing their attention to him,
"RUN NOW!"
"But-" Olivia tried to interject, but Michael''s face twitched, wordlessly telling her to shut up,
If push came to shove, Michael could always teleport away. However, teleporting Eve and Olivia would raise unwanted attention of Noah and Alicia. Besides, although fighting the vampires was risky, killing them offered him precious experience points. By utilizing the situation, Michael nned to have another breakthrough. Getting stronger was the only way he could fight his future enemies. But, to be strong, he knew he had to take risks.
"Jenni quick!"
Jennifer did not waste time arguing with Michael. Ghost might be a good friend to her, but her little sister''s safety was the most important thing to her. Hence, Eve grabbed Jennifer and Olivia''s hand to rush toward the door on the other side before the vampires could pour in through the sted door.
"You three should go too" Noah finally picked himself to his feet,
Len gave a stare to Michael before running behind Eve, leaving Atian and Alicia behind,
"Where is Norvin?"
"I sent him away to call for backup," Alicia said as Michael walked towards the door Even went through. Noah noticed a wooden bucket appear in Ghost''s hands.
"There is no time. Leave. I will hold them off as long as I can,"
Noah''s words reached Michael''s ears and surprised him. Michael wondered what the hell was going on in Noah''s head. He was nning to stay back to fight the vampires because he needed experience points and had an escape n. However, Noah needed no experience points or seemed to have no escape n.
"No. Come with us" Alicia''s eyes watered up as she frantically shook her head,
"Do not make me pull ranks on you, Alicia. Grandmaster, please take her with you,"
Meanwhile, Michael sshed the liquid in the bucket onto the door. Immediately, the air became thick with the smell of oil. The smell indicated what Ghost was nning to do. Noah pushed both Grandmaster Atian and Alicia towards the door.
"Why are you staying behind?" Noah asked Ghost. To Noah, Ghost staying behind was a surprise.
Alicia forgot to throw a death re at Michael in her concern about leaving behind Noah.
"Where are you piggy piggy?" the bone-chilling voice of the elder vampire sounded in their ears.
"I can''t let you have all the fun," Michael responded to Noah with a smile.
Then the moment Alicia and Atian stepped outside, Michael closed the door.
With a snap of his finger, Michael sent a tiny bolt of lightning to the door, causing the door to get on fire immediately.
As the door was burning behind them, Michael and Noah walked side by side for the first time as their long coats fluttered in the wind.
On the other side, the elder vampire shrouded in red mist hovered through the hole where the door was, followed by several dark-robed vampires.
"We cannot fight him in a closed space like this," Michael whispered to Noah.
Looking at the elder vampire and the others behind him, Michael''s instincts told him they were not as weak as the vampires he killed. Thest thing Michael wanted was another red hole in a closed space. So instead, the ideal ce to battle them would be in the open.
"Just the two I want," the elder vampire snarled. Unfortunately, because of the shroud of mist around him, Noah couldn''t see the elder vampire behind. However, Michael was able to because of his X-ray vision. Thus, Michael saw the elder vampire raise his hand.
And the moment Michael saw the vampire snap his fingers, the entire hall trembled.
Boom!
The hall exploded from within. Soon, the building crumbled down.
"Lightning Dash" Michael immediately cast the spell to escape the hall.
From outside, one could see the entire northern side of the arena copse to the ground. The crumbling building hit the ground, producing a dust storm. Because of the dark nket on the arena, the scene looked eerie.
Many alchemistsy on the open ground without moving a muscle. Their green robes were drenched in their own blood. Other than the green robes, the onlymonality they had between them was the bite mark on their necks. Those who were lucky escaped the arena while Noah was fighting them. Still, almost sixty percent of the people died at the hands of the vampires. The smell of blood stench in the air was evident from this gruesome massacre. The casualty rate of the alchemists was much higher than the spectators. Only a handful of the alchemists who participated in the final round escaped the arena. The rest were on the ground, dead. Almost ny percent of the most talented alchemists of Elon and Ozer died in the battle.
At that moment, among the bodies, two bodies moved.
"Shit," Michael cursed as he picked himself up from the ground. He pushed himself to the limit by using Celestial energy. Otherwise, he would have been crushed by the building. He still couldn''t believe the elder vampire brought down the hall with a single snap of his finger.
Michael picked himself up as he growled and saw the arena in ruins. The VIP seating and the hall north side of the arena were gone.
"Argh," Michael heard a growl as he turned aside to see Noah. Just like him, Noah also pushed himself to escape the copsing building. However, considering Noah wasn''t a Soul Refining stage cultivator, he couldn''t use Celestial energy to power up his spells. That was why Noah had bruises and cuts, unlike Michael.
Noah flicked his wrist, retrieving a healing potion. Noah drank the potion in one gulp and prepared himself for the battle. Then, Noah looked around to see hundreds of dead bodies. All those lives¡lost. His heart ached at the sight.
"These are blood-sucking vampires. So we have to kill them, you know that right?" Michael asked, looking at the elder vampire hovering towards them with the vampires following him behind.
"I only want one alive," Noah said,
"No problem for me,"
Obviously, Noah wanted one vampire alive so he could interrogate him for more information. If Michael was right, Noah would also try to find a cure for vampirism. With the help of the system, it was not a big deal for Michael. He had already started to find the cure and required a blood sample from a more powerful vampire other than Victor.
"His blood might do the trick," Michael said to himself staring at the elder vampire.
At the moment, only Michael, Noah, and the vampires remained in the arena. All the others were either dead or escaped the arena with their life intact.
"You possess Heaven''s me," the elder vampire said,nding on the ground.
"You massacred my freshlings" the elder vampire turned his gaze from Noah to Michael,
"I wonder what kind of vampires you two would be," the elder vampire''s voice sounded colder,
"When I turn you both"
As soon as these words escaped the elder vampire''s mouth, the thirty vampires behind him dashed at Michael and Noah before they could even blink an eye.
"Lightning dash"
"Void step"
Michael dashed at the vampires leaving a golden trail, while Noah left blurry after images.
ng!
ng!
The sound of metals shing emerged in the ground, but unlike one would expect, the sound produced by Michael and Noah''s sword hitting the vampires'' necks.
Michael was surprised as his sword didn''t cut through the vampire-like before. Instead, he felt like he had hit a stone. Only then did he realize the red mist covering the vampire''s neck.
"Die!" the vampire violently swung his fist at Michael, but he quickly leaped back. On the other hand, Noah was also surprised by the protective mist around their necks.
"Blood beam!" before Michael could bat an eye, the vampire fired a red beam at him.
Out of the blue, the translucent responsive shield popped up and absorbed the beam, protecting Michael. The vampire was surprised but kept firing beam after another without a break.
Suddenly Michael''s neck air stood up as another vampire leaped at him simultaneously from behind, left and right. Noah''s situation was no different than Michael''s. In fact, Noah was in worse condition as more vampires targeted him because of Heaven''s me.
The responsive shield could protect him from attack spells but not physical attacks. Therefore, Michael immediately cast the ring of fire to burn the vampires nking him.
"Motherfucker!"
"AHH!''
The scorching hot me appeared around Michael in a perfect circle, instantly burning the four vampires within a three-meter radius. The mes continued to send waves of mes in all directions preventing the other vampires from getting close to Michael and burning the vampires inside the circle more and more.
Granted, the vampires had inhuman regeneration. Still, injuries and burn wounds hurt them like hell.
Luckily for the vampires, Michael still didn''t use the Dark mes. Otherwise, the ring of fire would have turned the vampires into piles of ashes.
"ARGHH!" Suddenly a vampire roared as he smashed the stage Noah stood on during thepetition.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
A couple of vampires joined the vampire in breaking the tform. Meanwhile, the others kept Michael and Noah busy. They swarmed the two of them from all directions.
They kept smashing the tform until the tform cracked open. Then, after cracking open the marble tform, the vampires ripped apart a huge ten-meter-long marble b.
Boom!
"Shit," Michael only saw a blue before he was sent flying by the marble pir. In mid-air, he coughed up blood as the APD immediately sent a healing potion into his bloodstream to heal his body.
The vampires swung the marble pir again as fast as they could and swatted Noah like a bug. The next moment, Noah''s body violently screeched through the ground, creating a clear trail.
Chapter 510 Gods in action
Chapter 510 Gods in action¡¡¡¡The vampires split the marble pole into two. Some vampires grabbed one hand and ran to Noah while the others leaped into the air above Michael.
"Fuck"
Michael saw the vampires bringing down the marble pir to crush him like a bug.
"Lightning Dash!"
Immediately Michael dashed out of the way,
Boom!
When the vampires brought down the pir, the shock wave created a mini explosion and a dust storm around the area where Michael was a moment ago.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the vampires treated the heavy marble pole like a wooden club and tried to smash Noah.
"Light st!" Noah raised his hand, seeing the piring down on him.
Boom!
The st of light beam shot out of Noah''s hands obliterated the pir into bits and pieces. Still, the beam of light wasn''t powerful enough to stop the vampires from smashing him with the marble chunks.
"(Cough)" Noah coughed up blood when a huge chunk of marblended on his chest.
Michael was surprised to see Noah getting beaten up by the vampires. However, when he pondered for a moment, everything made sense to him.
The vampires drew power from darkness, just like him. Only, he didn''t cast Death range to strengthen his powers since he didn''t want anyone to suspect him of being the Dark Lord.
Noah, on the other hand, drew power from light. Although Michael had no concrete evidence that Noah was the God of Light, he suspected it. The e before him confirmed his doubt. If Noah was to draw power from light, it made sense why he was so weak at the moment. Because there was no lighting through the dark nket in the arena, the entire atmosphere had an eerie red and ck color to it, resembling hell.
Since there was ack of light, the darkness suppressed Noah''s powers. In addition, he also used most of his energy fighting the vampires and saving the spectators.
While the marble block pinned Noah down on his chest, three vampires leaped at him, showing their fangs. Their eyes were blood red, longing to drink Noah''s blood.
Michael may not know Noah was his brother, but when he saw Noah was in danger, the bond of brothers buried deep within him woke up as Michael dashed at Noah. But, of course, Michael rationalized the feeling of saving Noah by thinking that he needs Noah''s Heaven''s me to kill the vampires without revealing his secrets.
Before Noah could cast another spell, the marble chunk on his chest shattered into pieces, and a strong wave of wind sted away the vampires leaping at him.
Noah looked up and saw Ghost extending his hand. For some reason, Noah felt safe around him. Thus, Noah grabbed his hand and stood up. As soon as he grabbed his hand, Noah felt a sting in his palm. Then, a refreshing feeling surged from his core. Noah immediately felt better, and when he saw Ghost, he winked at him.
"Time out!" Michael shouted at the vampires as they halted their steps.
"Just give us a damn moment okay. You guys are bullying us,"
The vampires were confused and so was the elder vampire.
"Now I''m regretting not running away" Michael''s facial muscles twitched, showing his exhaustion to the vampires,
"What is he doing?" Noah wondered. Since he had to heal his body and replenish the arch energy within his body, Noah remained still.
"Don''t bother stalling Ghost," The elder vampire snickered,
"no one is getting in or out without my permission,"
Michael took a step aside, but the vampires immediately snarled at him. So Michael quickly dropped his swords,
"I''m not gonna fight anymore,"
Just as though the vampires received an order from the elder vampire, they stepped back.
"Is it toote to ask for permission to leave? I mean, you clearly allowed others to leave," Michael slowly walked away from Noah, keeping his hands in the air,
"I needed some cockroaches to tell exactly what happened here, '''' the elder vampire calmly said. He was awfully calm and didn''t seem worried about the Guardians or the Holy church breaking into the arena with their full force.
"But you two¡" Michael saw the elder vampire lick his lips,
"Will be my finest creations. I will rub this on their faces,"
"He, I get it" Michael pointed at Noah,
"He has a Primordial me. Why me? Other than making potions and pills, I have no use for you. The man you tried to kill was a better alchemist than me" Michael emphasized the words ''Primordial me'' and continued,
"And I can run around faster" again Michael emphasized the words '' run'' and faster,
Noah felt like Ghost was talking to him. He pieced together the words he was emphasizing and connected the dots,
The vampires had total control over the arena. Hence, they couldn''t care less about Michael. As far as they were concerned, he was mumbling in fear. They didn''t see him ughtering their friends after all. So they were oblivious to what he was capable of.
"Can we make some sort of deal and work together?" Michael emphasized the words '' work together
"I can help you transfer Primordial mes to you" the elder vampire frowned as Michael looked at his sword near Noah''s foot.
If Michael was right, the healing potion would have healed Noah by now. In the corner of his mind, Michael wished he had injected his nanites potion into Noah''s bloodstream. However, he couldn''t risk it. No matter what Noah must not find, Ghost was the Dark Lord. Michael wouldn''t do anything that would jeopardize his identity. After all, Noah wasn''t alone. He had Andreas with him.
"Primordial me chooses the host, not the other way around. Today, you will be turned. Then, you will obey every singlemand I have for you,"
"Damn it, I love my freedom so much. Not to boast, but I rejected the guardians because I don''t want to work for them" Michael sighed,
"Soon they will all work for the great nation of Evernight,"
(Everlight was the RISE OF THE LEGENDARY EMPEROR''S MC''s Nation)
"And you two will be our ves," the elder vampire coldly snickered,
"Do you know something?" Michael lowered his hand while his expression changed from being afraid and exhausted to cold and murderous,
"If one thing I hate the most, it''s very. NOW!" Michael shouted as he dashed at Noah as fast as he could,
Before the vampires could react, Noah stomped the ground to raise Ghost''s swords in the air. Noah waved his hand when the swords were at his eye level, sending a stream of Heaven''s me onto the swords. Immediately, the bright blue me coiled around the two ck des.
At the same time, two vampires dashed at Noah, nking him from both sides. They were fast, but Michael was quicker because he didn''t hold back. Instead, he used all the Celestial energy in his body, pushing his speed to maximum.
Just when the vampires were just a meter away from Noah, Michael grabbed the two swords in the air.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The Elder vampire saw two heads flying towards him. He was shocked by Ghost''s speed.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
The headless bodies staggered around, spraying blood before copsing to the ground with a sickening thud. Compared to Dark mes, Heaven''s me was much weaker and way less potent. Hence, it didn''t melt Michael''s swords as Michael expected.
Since his sword was on Heaven''s fire, they cleaved the heads through the mist like a hot knife through butter. At that moment, the vampires raised their hands,
"Blood beam!"
Several beams of crimson red light shot out from their hands towards Michael and Noah. Seeing the beams, Michael remained closer to Noah as the responsive shield absorbed all the beams, rendering them pretty much useless.
Pulch!
Suddenly Michael felt a hot ssh of blood on his face. When he turned aside, Michaell saw Noah''s hand sticking through a vampire''s head. The vampire sneaked up on them, but Noah killed him before he could reach Michael.
Realizing Michael''s defense spell protecting them both, the vampires changed their battle tactics. They all just dashed at them from all directions.
"Give me the sword" Michael handed his sword to Noah after he asked,
The vampires closed the gap in a blink of an eye. Anyone in Noah and Michael''s shoes would barely see their blurry figures. But Noah and Michael remained calm and worked together. When they reached closer, Noah and Michael stood closer with their backs against each other.
ng!
ng!
ng!
Michael and Noah swung their swords, rotating and deflecting the vampires'' ws. The faster they moved, the blurrier their figures became to the vampires. From the aerial view, one could see the two of them vaguely forming a ''yin yang'' symbol. For the first time, they fought together. The Darkness and Light fought against amon enemy. Even powerful entities such as vampires couldn''t touch both of them.
"Cast your ring of fire!" Noah shouted while fighting off the vampires,
"Ring of fire!" Immediately a ring of fire appeared around them,
Michael wondered what Noah was nning, and soon he got his answers when Noah raised his hand, shooting out a stream of Heaven''s me onto Michael''s crimson red ring of fire. The moment the two fires shed, they merged together, forming a bright golden me.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 50,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 50,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 50,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 50,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
The vampires burned to ashes in a sh when the golden fire touched them. Surprisingly, Michael only received half of the experience points he would normally receive. It seemed like the system deducted points by half because half of the kill was Noah''s.
"Light Beam!"
Noah fired a beam of light strengthened by Heaven''s me straight through a vampire''s head while Michael sent a powerful gust of wind sting the vampire, dashing towards him into the fire.
The power radiation the elder vampire sensed as they were fighting startled him. He had never felt such power in his life. But, of course, he was six hundred years old. He experienced many anomalies, but the radiation from them was something else.
"What are they?"
Chapter 511 Battle Intensifies
Chapter 511 Battle Intensifies¡¡¡¡The elder vampire was in a dazed status sensing the energy radiated from them. A moment ago, when they fought alone, he didn''t feel the energy. Still, the moment they joined forces, the energy radiation overwhelmed him. While he was in a daze, Michael lifted Noah into the air by his hand, and Noah used Michael as a pole to kick the vampires around them.
"Blood hole!"
"Blood tornado!"
Overwhelmed by Michael and Noah, the vampires cast the blood hole and the blood tornado spell at the same time as several tornadoes and red holes appeared in the ground.
Having experienced the spells, Michael put his hand around Noah''s neck,
"Hold tight," Noah nodded as he also put his hand around Michael''s neck,
"Lightning Dash!"
"Void Step!"
Both of them cast their speed spell at the same time to boost their speed.
The two spells merged into one, forming a trail of golden light that flickered in the air creating an otherworldly whistling sound. The golden light crisscrossed around the arena avoiding the tornados. But, even for the elder vampire, it was difficult to follow the trail. So it made sense when the vampires couldn''t even defend themselves before losing their heads.
The red hole sucked the alchemists'' bodies to the ground while the tornado destroyed the bodies. When Noah was alone, he was weakened by the darkness. Noah''s weakness was nulled by teaming up with Michael, the god of darkness who drew strength from the darkness.
Because of their speed, the red holes could suck them in. Compared to the suction force, their speed was much greater. As a result, the Elder vampire witnessed his underlings losing heads one by one.
"They said he would be weakened," the elder vampire snarled,
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Soul Refining stage Level 5!]
When the system sounded in his head, Michael stopped running, and all the red holes and the tornados vanished into thin air. At that moment, only one vampire remained between them and the elder vampire.
"He is all yours," Michael let Noah capture the vampire alive. He walked by Noah''s side towards the vampire. They both knew the battle was far from over as the elder vampire didn''t even raise a finger yet. For now, Noah nned to incapacitate the vampire before fighting the elder vampire.
After witnessing all of his friends get ughtered by the duo, the vampire shivered. Then, fearfully, it walked backward until it tripped on a stone and fell down.
"Save me," the vampire begged the elder vampire.
Michael never wanted Noah to capture the vampire alive. Any information Noah gathered from the vampire would give him an edge Michael did not want Noah to have. Hence, he didn''t help Noah capture the vampire. However, he could have simply injected the vampire with a paralyzing poison he hit Victor with.
"Come here," The elder vampire softly spoke to the vampire,
The vampire quickly picked himself up from the ground and dashed to the elder vampire''s feet,
"NO!" Noah dashed at the elder vampire, but it was toote. First, the elder vampire engulfed the vampire in his red mist. Then, with the X-ray eyes, Michael saw the elder vampire''s tongue drilling into the vampire''s mouth as the vampire squirmed like a fish out of the water.
In a couple of seconds, a mummified body hit the ground. Then, finally, the red shroud around the elder vampire slowly cleared up to reveal hisplete physical form.
The elder vampire had a bloated carcass with several yellowish tumors leaking a green goo. His body was at least four feet wide and six feet tall.
The inted belly looked like the elder vampire swallowed a whole gym ball. Now Michael fully understood why the elder vampire chose to surround himself with a misty shroud. Just the disgusting belly button alone would make anyone puke to death.
On top of everything, the elder vampire was naked. Thest thing Michael needed was a sight of what was between his legs. Luckily for them, the vampire''s inted belly was big enough to cover his crotch. Not that vampires had reproductive organs. Still, Michael did not wish to see that.
Several strands of mucky blonde hair on the vampire''s bald egg-like head creepily waved left and right to the wind''s rhythm.
His dirty eyes with vertically slit red pupils stared at both menacingly. Looking at his unappealing body, Noah couldn''t help frowning. He had never seen such a hideous creature in his life, and he had traveled to many realms and fought countless ugly creatures.
"When you want something done, you have to do it by yourself," the vampire snarled,
"Light st!"
Noah raised his hand without warning, sending a light beam st at the elder vampire. Noah was fast, but the elder vampire was faster. Hence, the vampire raised his hand as a translucent energy shield materialized before him and blocked the light beam.
"Heaven''s me. It''s a pity I can''t take it from you," The shield blocked the light beam strengthened with Heaven''s me,
"Chantless spell casting," Michael mumbled. It seemed as if the elder vampire was either a Fusion stage cultivator or a prodigy, or the elder vampires were able to cast spells without chanting.
"System, you know the drill. When the heat gets too much to handle, teleport me away," Michael said to the system in his mind.
[Noted]
This was Michael''s n b. In case the elder vampire overwhelmed them, the system would buy a teleportation scroll and teleport him away from the arena. Else, he nned to battle and kill the elder vampire. His blood might be just the thing Michael needed to find a cure for vampirism. Moreover, he was curious to see how many badass points he would get after ying the elder vampire.
"Void Step,"
Unlike Michael, who stayed behind scheming in his head, Noah dashed at the elder vampire.
ng!
ng!
ng!
Noah swung the sword covered with Heaven''s me at the shield. Although the shield flickered, the shield did not break until a fist poked through the shield.
Boom!
Noah blocked the fist with his sword. However, the force behind the punch overwhelmed Noah as he was sent flinging in the air. Theck of light really suppressed Noah''s power, and without Michael by his side to fight, Noah stood no chance against the elder vampire''s punch. This didn''t mean Michael could battle the vampire without breaking a sweat.
In a blink of an eye, the elder vampire dashed at Michael after hitting Noah. Despite the elder vampire''s bloated body, his speed matched Michael''s speed when using the Lightning dash.
The elder vampire brought down his fist on Michael, who had his instincts kick in to block the punch. Michael put his arms before his face to block the punch, and when the fist collided with Michael''s arm, a loud booming sound reverberated in the area. As the oue of their collision, Michael''s feet were pushed several inches into the ground. After that, the elder vampire repeatedly beat Michael like a drum.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The elder vampire kept bashing him with his fists. Michael didn''t even have a single second to breathe. To Michael, it felt like he was being mmed by an elephant.
His forearm went numb by blocking the vampire''s punches. If it wasn''t for the APD constantly injecting him with healing potions, he would have been either dead or broken to pieces. At that moment, APD was the only thing keeping him from bing a victim of the elder vampire.
"Enough," all of a sudden, Michael''s eyes red up for a second before he grabbed the vampire''s hands. He manipted the darkness, drawing strength from it to thwart the elder vampire''s punches.
"Arggghh," Michael shouted as he fought against the raw strength of the vampire. The ground Michael standing on was cracking as his feet kept going deeper and deeper.
"ARGH" Crying out loud, Michael punched the elder vampire in the belly using all his strength.
Boom!
The punch''s force pushed back the vampire a few feets backward. One could see the ripples on the vampire''s bloated belly and a tinge of surprise in his eyes.
"Void Step!" After Michael punched the vampire, Noah leaped at him in a sh. Soon, Noah appeared above the vampire''s head and brought Michael''s sword down the vampire''s neck.
"Ring of fire!" Immediately Michael cast the ring of fire to entrap the vampire within the circle. But, in mid-air, Noah held the sword in one hand and pointed the other at the fire, sending a stream of Heaven''s me to the crimson red fire.
Noah and Michael''s coordination and speed stunned the vampire. Before he could even react, the crimson red fire turned golden. These golden mes burned many of his underlings to ashes. Even though he was powerful, the elder vampire did not dare to underestimate Heaven''s me.
"AH!" The elder vampire was a secondte to react, resulting in Noah stabbing him in the shoulder.
Bang!
The vampire moved quickly to swat Noah away from his shoulder like a bug.
Boom!
Michael used the opportunity to dash at the vampire before punching him again in the stomach.
Bang!
With a single backhand p, the vampire sent Michael flying just like Noah.
After streaking through the ground for a few long, painful seconds, Michael picked himself up from the ground as the APD sent a dose of healing potion into his bloodstream.
Noah who stood a few meters away from Michael with tattered white robes, chugged a healing potion down and threw the vial aside.
"He is too strong," Noah exhaled. For a moment, the three stood without raising a finger.
"And you lost the sword," Michael looked at the sword stabbed into the vampire''s shoulder. The sword almost looked like a needle due to the bloated size of the vampire.
"Annoying bugs!"
The vampire bore his teeth to reveal the long, razor-sharp fangs. The two fangs were long and menacing as sabretooth''s canines.
As he took a step forward, arge mace materialized in his hand. The mace almost looked as though it was made of blood rather than metal.
With each step he took, the ground trembled.
"Don''t worry, your bodies will heal" the vampire menacingly grinned at Michael and Noah. If anyone else were in Noah and Michael''s shoes, they would have started to shiver. The amount of pressure they both felt could crush any Body Strengthening stage cultivator into a bloody pulp.
Despite the pressure, they remained calm. There was no use in panicking.
Boom!
The elder vampire pounded a body on its way to a pulpy mess without showing any shred of sympathy for his kind. The blood vaporized into the air and entered his body. After the blood entered his body, he licked his lips.
Chapter 512 Battle concludes
Chapter 512 Battle concludes¡¡¡¡The elder vampire caught them off guard by suddenly dashing at Michael.
Immediately Michael raised his sword to block the mace,
Boom!
The moment the sword and the mace collided, Michael''s sword broke into
Pieces and throw him backward a couple of meters,
"Now you pissed me off" seeing the broken sword in his hand, Michael growled. He loved those two ck swords, and the elder vampire broke one like a twig with a single swing.
Now Michael had to forge or buy a pair of swords from the system for a ridiculously high price. The price was why Michael hadn''t purchased a sword from the system. There were better choices in the auction houses than the swords in the system.
Unfortunately, the system locked the ores behind an upgrade wall. So without upgrading the system to a certain level, Michael wouldn''t be able to buy them.
Instead of wasting his badass points on a pair of swords that could be outssed by swords forged in this world, Michael used the ck sword given to him by the Kane elders.
Seeing Michael standing with a broken sword, Noah turned his head to look at the white sword behind the elder vampire, several feet away from them.
"Go get it," Michael nodded at Noah before dashing at the elder vampire,
The elder vampire swung his mace, sending a crescent blood wave at Noah, but Noah raised his hand, firing a stream of Heaven''s me to cut through the blood wave.
On the other hand, Michael reached the elder vampire and leaped onto the vampire''s belly. He climbed onto the vampire''s stomach as quickly as possible before the vampire could react.
Bang!
Michael kicked the vampire''s chin with enough force to numb his feet.
"ARRGHH!" the elder vampire roared, which sounded more like a roar of an annoyance than hurt.
Michael tried to grab the sword sticking out of the vampire''s shoulder but before he could get his hands on it, the vampire tried to swat Michael with his big fist.
Bang!
Michael stomped the vampire''s face, crushing its nose. Yet, the broken, crooked nose set itself in a matter of seconds. However, it pissed off the vampire as it began to grab Michael violently.
Immediately Michael retrieved the tear gas vials from the system storage and broke the vials by crushing them on the vampire''s head.
"Fuck!'' the vampire cursed as the tear gas made the vampire unable to move around by causing intense irritation to the eyes,
Michael knew the tear gas could only be in effect for ten seconds or so to a powerful being such as the elder vampire. Sometimes he was annoyed by Alchemy. Almost every single potion and pill would lose its effect in front of a powerful cultivator.
The Celestial energy was an ultimate purifier than the arch energy. Even the most powerful poisons would be purified by celestial energy. This was why killing a cultivator above the Soul Refining stage was near impossible by means such as poisoning. It was also why the system charged a measly amount of twenty thousand points.
Granted, being an Alchemist was a great way to get rich. Still, when ites to battle capabilities, there weren''t many potions and pills that could really give him an edge when battling beings with higher cultivation stages unless he could get his hands on some potent ingredients.
Unfortunately, the damn system overpriced every ingredient to the point that brewing the portion would not be worth the price.
Boom!
The vampire had enough of Michael''s annoying tactics. Hence, the vampire clobbered himself in the face with the mace. The shock wave threw Michael off bnce. When he struggled to bnce himself, the vampire punched him in the chest, instantly breaking several ribs.
Fighting the pain, Michael cast the lightning dash to dash away from the vampire before the vampire grabbed him. Michael''s arm was so numb that he didn''t even feel the sting of APD.
Even with the 90% pure healing potion, it would take him at least five to six minutes to heal his broken ribs.
While Michael was coughing up blood, Noah leaped at the vampire with his white sword in his hand,
"Lightning de!"
Michael saw a thick bolt of lightning shooting from Noah''s sword to the vampire''s head. The pure white lightning momentarily blinded the vampire and shed across the arena.
Noah''s lightning would have reached the vampire''s head if he, a bloated disgusting mountain of meat and fat, didn''t jump in the air, overhead kicking Noah like a football. The agility and athleticism caught Noah off guard, and not only Noah but Michael too. For a moment, the bloated vampire looked like a professional football yer. That overhead kick was simply too shocking.
Before the elder vampirends on the ground, a blood-red torpedo shot out of the vampire''s butt and soared through Michael.
Boom!
It exploded when the torpedo shed with Michael''s responsive shield. Fortunately, the elder vampire wasn''t stronger than a Soul Refining stage cultivator. Because of that, the shield absorbed 80% of the force. But the remaining twenty percent forced Michael several steps backward and broke his ulna like a twig,
"Damn it!" Michael gritted his teeth in pain. He looked down at his forearm to see a bloody broken bone sticking out through the sleeves. He couldn''t even imagine what would happen to him if he didn''t have the responsive shield.
"Shooting missiles from your butt. Real matured, you ugly fuck" Michael shouted at the vampire before pushing back the broken bone back into his forearm. It hurt like hell despite the APD sending a healing potion into his bloodstream.
Noah had a look of surprise when he saw Ghost pushing back the broken bone. So many would have fainted in pain or screamed in agony. Yet, Noah saw no pain or misery on his face but intense killing intent in his eyes.
After Michael set the ulna back in its ce, the healing potion sped up a bit.
"I had enough of this," Michael mumbled to himself and looked up at the ck cloth covering the arena''s rooftop.
"Do you really think it''s just a ck cloth?" the elder vampire snickered,
"Unless I want to, it''s going nowhere. I am the overlord in this scene," the elder vampire oozed with confidence.
The vampire stomped the ground as a sign of his dominance.
"I am Ghost," Michael''s lips curved upwards, surprising the vampire and Noah. The next moment, Noah and Michael dashed at the vampire from back and front. Noah was the one behind the vampire, while Michael cast the lightning-dash spell to face him head-on from the front.
[System scanpleted¡]
[The dark is a web ofplicated runes and arrays intervened together]
[The system requires 200,000 badass points to disable the dark]
He heard the system sounding in his head, and although the required badass points staggered him, to kill the elder vampire, he had to spend the badass points.
"Do it!" Michael yelled at the system in his mind. But, unlike Noah, he never nned to fight the elder vampire head-on. Instead, he nned to level the field by weakening the elder vampire.
Sunlight was deadly to any vampire. That was why Victor or the other vampires wore dark robes covering their skin. But the elder vampire was too confident in his dark cloth blocking the sunlight. Thus, he was as naked as a newborn baby.
As though Noah had read Michael''s mind, Noah changed his trajectory suddenly and dashed at Michael. When they both met a few meters away from the elder vampire, Michael leaped into the air as Noah grabbed Michael''s feet and boosted him into the air using all his strength.
While Michael was soaring through the air towards the ck cloth, Noah threw his sword in the air, which was caught by Michael just a moment before he swung the white sword at the ck cloth.
Creech!
The vampire was startled when he heard a tearing sound. He looked at the
growing tear in the ck cloth dumbstruck. Little by little, the sunlight crept through the gap, vacating the red ambiance the vampires created.
"It''s¡its¡impossible," the vampire couldn''t take his eyes off the tearing ck cloth. One of the most powerful weapons the vampires had was destroyed in a matter of seconds. He spent the best years of his life perfecting the ck cloth, only to fail.
Meanwhile, Noah felt the lighting through the gap restoring his power.
Noah gained power while Michael lost his power boost as the darkness was being reced by light. Still, it was worth the trade-off because the light weakened the elder vampire more than it did to him. Even without the darkness, Michael was a Soul Refining stage cultivator and still strong. But the same could not be said of the vampire, as his power took a nosedive.
Boom!
Suddenly, Noah shot into the air from the ground like a rocket, cutting through the air. In mid-air, Noah grabbed Michael''s hand, which was holding his white sword.
They pointed the sword toward the vampire, diving down. The two of them looked like a meteor soaring through the air, creating a trail ze. At that moment, Noah and Michael shared the same sword and aim; killing the elder vampire.
The elder vampire''s battle instincts kicked in as he raised the mace in the air to deflect the sword. Additionally, the translucent red shield bubbled around the vampire, who had no longer wished to stay in the arena because of the sunlight.
BOOOOOOOM!
However, when the duo and the shield collided, the vampire''s blood shield shattered into hundreds of tiny shards. The shock wave burned everything around them in a ten-meter radius.
Pulch!
Noah and Michael did not stop as they entered through the vampire''s chest, forming a vast hole and appearing out in the back,pletely drenched in blood.
"ARRRRRGHHHHHHH!" the elder vampire screamed in agony as his skin began to smoke. In a couple of seconds, the sunlightpletely burned his skin. Then, coupled with the huge hole in his chest, the vampire staggered aimlessly.
Finally, after a long tiresome battle, they slew the elder vampire. However, Michael frowned as he didn''t hear any notification from the system or receive any experience points.
For some reason, Michael had a bad feeling in his guts, and when he turned his head, he saw the same concern on Noah''s face.
Chapter 513 Noah and Michael dead?
Chapter 513 Noah and Michael dead?¡¡¡¡Noah and Michael stared at the fallen vampire without batting an eye. Then, all of a sudden, the vampire began twitching his limbs. Soon, his whole bloated carcass trembled violently as yellowish goo oozed out of the tumors in his body. The strong putrid smell of ammonia and sulfur overwhelmed Michael''s senses.
It was quite nauseating as Michael had a strong urge to throw up. His face was turning green when the vampire''s body began to bloat while his body released a green mist.
"He''s gonna explode!" suddenly Noah shouted. In a snap of time, Noah cast the void step, grabbed Michael by his hand, and dashed into the air. Michael had zero clue how Noah found the vampire was about to explode. But just as he said, the vampire''s body bloated rapidly, releasing more and more green mist until it exploded. The explosion wasn''t a small one. It was as though a mini atomic bomb had gone off. One could see the mushroom cloud from a hundred miles away.
Every single building within the one-mile radius from the arena turned into ruin and the alchemy guild, one of the oldest buildings on the Ozer continent, crumbled down.
Almost for an hour, no one could get closer to the arena, which was now nothing but a crater of ashes. Then, as mother nature had given the city her blessing, the dark rain clouds gathered above the arena and began to shower the city with heavy rain.
The heavy rain quenched the heat radiation and settled the dust clouds around the arena. The rain also put the houses on fire and prevented the fire from spreading.
At that moment, the sky was full of people and warships. The guardians, the holy church, the king''s men, and every single noble family in Idrisal arrived at the arena to fight the vampires.
It was a real pity that many were caught in the explosion and burnt to a crisp. Still, each of them received backup and brought their own runemasters and mages to control the fire and iste the area.
Since the dust storm settled down, revealing the ground below, several people descended to investigate the area. Alicia and Norvin were among them.
"NOAH!" As soon as Alicia''s feet touched the ground, she shouted out loud.
"Careful"
"What the hell happened here?"
"Can you see anything?"
The guardians behind her murmured. The heavy smoke and the ash from the explosion prevented them from seeing everything clearly. There was nothing but smoke and ashes as far as they could see.
While they were aimlessly strolling in the smoke, a group of twelve men robbed in pure white robes appeared above the ruins. The long white beard, the staff in their hands, and the pointy hats on their heads gave them an exotic mage vibe.
Right at that moment, they formed a circle around the ruins. Surprisingly, the heavy rain couldn''t drench them as it drenched everyone else. These mages remained as dry as a desert possible because of the translucent force field around them.
"AIR PURIFICATION!" each of them chanted the word as they raised their staffs in the sky. From each staff, a bright light shot to the sky and met at a center point, forming a radiant orb of light.
A few seconds passed when the orb of light transformed into a spinning chakra with a mile radius. Countless indistinguishable signs and letters formed the chakra. The chakra''s brilliance lit the entire city of Oxshore and provided the people thefort they needed.
As the chakra rotated, sucking the heavy smoke and ashes. The chakra swirled in the sky, purifying the air until Alicia, and the others could vividly see what was in front of them, which was nothing but barrennds.
Alicia couldn''t recognize the ce at all. She felt as though she stepped into a desert only with ash instead of sand. As far as her eyes could see, she found nothing, not even a brick.
"Look!" Alicia immediately turned to the man who shouted to see a skeleton, and when the man touched it, the skeleton crumbled into white dust.
Meanwhile, more and more peoplended on the ground, including Olivia and Atian. They joined in the search for Noah and Ghost. To be honest, only Olivia came to search for Ghost while the guardians focused on finding Noah. But, deep down, Alicia wanted Ghost to be one of those skeletons.
Since Olivia had no sway with the guardians and they had already refused to search for Ghost, she began to run around the barrennds searching for her teacher. But, of course, if this happened in Elon, the entire River town and the Sunrise sect would have been on the scene. But unfortunately, Michael had no connections in the Ozer continent.
"If anyone could survive this, it''s Noah" Seeing Alicia''s eyes watering up, Norivn gently patted her on the head,
While they were scouring through the ashes, a group of twelve men dressed in silver armor with the crest of the Guardian guild on their chestnded on the ground. The one who led the group was a tall domineering elf with striking blonde hair; Tanulia Valren AKA the alpha guardian of Hunter Guardians.
"I want every inch of this ce searched. Coordinate with the holy church guards. No stones unturned, got it?"
"Yes, Alpha Guardian!"
The guardians behind Tanulia raised their voices, and each of them dashed in a direction to search the premises.
"We will find Noah," Tanulia said when he came to Alicia and Norvin,
"Grandmaster Atian," Tanulia then turned her gaze towards Atian, who was still looking pale and terrified,
"How is Lord Hendrix?"
"He is now stable. The healers asked him to take a rest,"
"I have assigned my best men to protect him. His safety is our top priority right now,"
"GHOST!"
Their conversation was abruptly cut short when suddenly a panicked voice reverberated in the area. They all looked in the direction of the voice to see Olivia frantically digging through the ashes,
They all rushed at Olivia and saw a hand sticking out of the ash.
"Quick!"
Tanulia shouted at the men surrounding her. But no one needed an order as they had already begun to dig the ashes. Alicia and Norvin joined in the digging; the more they dug, the more they uncovered Ghost''s body.
While digging, Norvin felt another hand beside Ghost. His speed doubled, thinking it might be Noah. Just as he guessed, when Norvin and Alicia dug out the ashes, they uncovered Noah''s body.
Together, they all finally managed to dig out Ghost and Noah. Unfortunately, both of them were in pretty bad shape. Their clothes were burned and torn up, several parts of their body, such as hands, neck, and legs, were covered in burn wounds, and they could even see Noah''s femur sticking out of his leg through the pants.
"Are they alive?" Atian asked while the guardians were carrying them away from the dig site,
"He has a pulse" Olivia grabbed Michael''s hand and sensed a weak pulse,
"Bring me the healers!" Tanulia shouted as several guardians flew out of the ruins to bring the healers to her.
Meanwhile, the guardians ced two wooden beds on the ground instead of taking them out of the crater. The rain slowly washed off the ashes on their faces. Alicia and Olivia''s tears also hit their faces along with the raindrops.
"What are you doing?" looking at Olivia taking out a healing potion from her space ring, Tanulia questioned her,
But instead of responding to Tanulia, Oliva gently poured the healing potion on Michael''s neck, which was severely burned by the explosion.
The potion healed up the wound but not the marks. Afterward, Olivia took out another potion and gently poured it into Michael''s mouth.
"Wake up Ghost," Olivia could barely speak those words through her lumped throat,
Most of the sparkling potion leaked out of his mouth. This was why the others waited for the healers. Instead of dumbly pouring the potion down an unconscious man''s throat, the healers would turn the healing potion into an easily absorbed vapor and send it through the patient''s skin pores.
However, Olivia had neither patience nor trust in the Guardians after she read how they try to drive people by hiding the vampires'' existence from the world. As a result, not only Olivia but many people shared her thoughts and lost faith in the Guardians.
After what happened in Idrisal spread across the world, the majority of the people would me the guardians. However, the Holy Church was already on a secret mission to dethrone the guardians; today, they received an ultimate weapon to use against the guardians.
Tanulia or the others didn''t give a damn about Ghost. Hence, they didn''t stop Olivia from pouring vial after vial into his mouth. Instead, except for Atian, they all focused solely on Noah.
Suddenly before the healers could arrive, Ghost''s finger twitched,
"GHOST!" The sight of Ghost''s pinky finger twitching may be the happiest memory she had ever experienced.
Michael gasped for the air, opening his mouth. Immediately the healing potion in his mouth went down his throat. As soon as the healing potion reached his throat, the wounds on his body began to close up. The redness gradually returned to his body as they all stared at Ghost''s breathing, getting heavier and heavier. Looking at Ghost responding to the healing potion, Alicia wasted no time. She took out a bunch of healing potions Noah brewed and smeared them on Noah.
"Wait for the healers" Tanulia didn''t want Alicia to choke Noah with healing potions. She had witnessed many unconscious soldiers die because their fellow soldiers tried to pour down healing potions down their throats.
There was a reason why the battlefield had healers and tents to treat unconscious soldiers.
With a flick of her wrist, Tanulia paralyzed Alicia before she killed Noah. On the other hand, Olivia kept shaking Ghost by his shoulder.
His eyes abruptly opened, shocking everyone.
"Uwak!" As soon as he opened his eyes, he turned his head, throwing up blood.
"GHOST!" Olivia''s motherly instincts kicked in as she held his head sideways to make his vomiting asfortable as possible.
She kept patting and brushing his back while Michael continued to throw up blood. A few minutester, Michael finally stopped coughing up blood. He took out a healing potion and chugged in in one gulp.
"Teacher," Olivia said, but Michael raised his finger, wordlessly telling her to wait. He then stood up from the bed and took out another glimmering jade vial.
Under their stunned gazes, he emptied the potion into his mouth. The miraculous potion healed his burned skin, visible to the naked eye.
"Argh," Michael growled as he rotated his head, producing cracking noise,
"I am never judging apetition again,"
Chapter 514 Noah warns Alicia
Chapter 514 Noah warns Alicia¡¡¡¡Michael spit a bit more blood and took out a leather pouch from his system storage,
"Teacher," Olivia tried to say something, but Michael raised his finger as he took a long sip of water,
He kept drinking until Tanulia cleared her throat,
"What happened here?"
Instead of answering Tanulia, Michael looked at Noah, whoy on the bed unconscious.
"Give this to him if you want to save him," Michael took out a sparkling healing potion Olivia used on him and threw it at Tanulia,
"His pulses are fading. You should act quickly,"
"Where the fuck are the healers?!" Alicia shouted,
"He is right," Norvin nodded,
"We can''t waste a single second" Soon, the golden babaroo snatched away the healing potion from Tanulia and poured the potion into Noah''s mouth before anyone could stop him. As a golden babaroo, not only could he sense life signs but also sense whether something was poisonous or not.
Hence, Norvin didn''t hesitate to give Noah the healing potion because he sensed no poisonous energy.
His finger twitched as soon as Michael''s potion touched Noah''s mouth.
Michael sighed inside. He never thought he would be indebted to Noah. Yet, when the vampire exploded, Noah saved him by casting a protective shield around them. Besides, the system surprisingly urged Michael to save Noah.
As for why, the system gave him no answer. So if it weren''t for the system, Michael would have left Noah to die.
"NOAH!" Alicia shouted, tears rolling down her rosy cheeks.
"How long was I out?" Michael asked Olivia, ignoring Alicia.
Despite the risk he took, Michael received only 300,000 experience potions and 10,000 badass points for killing the Elder vampire. Michael wasn''t happy with what he received since he almost died. After the elder vampire exploded, Noah cast a protective light shield around them. But unfortunately, the shield could only cover one person and Noah let the shield save Michael instead of himself.
Michael would have chosen himself and not Noah if the roles were turned.
"Six hours" Olivia shocked Michael,
"Damn it" Michael yelled at himself. He waspletely unconscious. This was the closest Michael came to death. When he and Noah went through the Elder vampire''s body, he took a flesh and blood sample. At least something was worth the risk. Using the samples, Michael was confident of brewing a potion that might cure vampirism.
"Tell us what happened," Tanulia coldly eximed,
"Vampires happened. Didn''t those who escaped tell you?" Michael stretched his arms and legs while responding to Tanulia.
He looked down on him to see his clothes ripped and torn. The ck robes now looked dirty brown. Under their gazes, Michael poured down the water in the pouch onto his head, washing the ashes off of his hair. Then he willed the system to equip a new set of robes.
"The explosion. Tell us about that," Tanulia asked, not minding he''s changing his robes like he was going on a vacation,
"You know the one scarry one who tried to kill Lord Hendrix," Michael asked, looking at Atian as the old man nodded,
"He exploded,"
For a few moments, no one uttered a word until Norvin managed to find words,
"Why?"
"Because we killed him. Who do you think cut open the nket covering the arena?"
A glint of shock and surprise emerged in Tanulia''s eyes. Michael expected her to be shocked. Obviously, the guardians would have tried to destroy the dark cloth and failed.
Michael paid a whopping 200,000 badass points to disable the runes and arrays into the dark. If the system charged that much, there was no way the guardians could have cut through the dark in a short amount of time.
Thus, her shock didn''t surprise Michael.
"Cough!"
Subsequently, Noah coughed up blood just as Michael did. Michael was d to see everyone was focusing on Noah instead of him.
"I assume yourpetition got the boot,"
Olivia cried andughed at the same time as Michael wrapped his hand around her shoulder,
"I am sure your team would have won thepetition," Michael rubbed her shoulder yfully.
"I don''t give a damn about thepetition. You scared me to death," she purred like a little girl,
"Next time, I will run away with you. Happy?" Michaelughed,
Michael turned his back on Tanulia and her group to leave the area when he heard Tanulia''s voice once again,
"You cannot leave," Olivia saw the smile on Michael''s face vanish into thin air.
He turned back and looked Tanulia in the eyes,
"Why?"
"One, we still haven''t figured out what happened here. Second, we have a witness iming you killed Lord Gabriel,"
Several dark lines formed on his face as he creased his brows. Standing beside Michael, Olivia shared the same look.
"Killed Gabriel? Ghost tried to save him. I saw that and Grandmaster Atian too," Olivia defended Michael,
Michael turned his gaze to Atian, who immediately avoided direct eye contact.
"I am not sure what I saw. Everything happened so fast," At this exact moment, Michael had a strong urge to kill Atian. However, it wouldn''t take a genius to figure out that the witness was none other than Alicia, who held a grudge against Michael for exposing her brother and destroying his life. At that moment, Michael regretted not killing Peter in the forest when they first met.
When Michael gazed at Alicia, Norvin felt a chill looking at Michael''s eyes. They were the eyes of a killer, and every fiber in Norvin''s body told him that Ghost was not just a killer but a predator. He sensed an overwhelming power within Ghost that could rival the power of Noah himself.
Since Norvin didn''t whollyprehend his newly found powers, he couldn''t make any connection between Noah and Ghost. As far as he was concerned, the power radiation he felt might be because of Ghost''s higher cultivation stage.
"Are you arresting me?" Michael tilted his head. If everything went ording to his n, the alpha guardian wouldn''t be alive to arrest him in a few days.
"Don''t act so innocent. I saw everything. You let him go. YOU KILLED HIM," Alicia roared.
Alicia couldn''t stay silent for long. Her hatred and anger blinded her mind and made her ignore Noah for a few moments.
"I didn''t," Michael simply shrugged,
Of course, Michael killed Gabriel. He intentionally shot lightning bolts at Gabriel so he would lose his grip and fly into the red hole. Unfortunately, he didn''t anticipate Alicia''s quick reflex to grab him and Atian''s interference.
Gabriel would have been alive if Michael didn''t grab him before he could be pushed away from the suction force. But instead, Atian, the old bastard interfered and tried to save Gabriel.
Unfortunately for Gabriel, Michael had already fixed his mind about killing Gabriel. Gabriel''s hands weren''t slipping away. Instead, Michael was the one who let him go.
"A, is this about your vignte brother? What was his name? Peter?" Michael pouted to mock her. As soon as Alicia heard Ghost uttering her brother''s name, she lost it.
The golden spear still burning with Heaven''s me materialized in her arms. Just as she was about to leap at him, a hand grabbed her spear and stopped her. They all looked down to see Noah opening his eyes.
"I will tell you everything that happened here," Noah rose from the bed,
"If anything, we should thank him for helping me take down the vampire,"
Noah calmly said to Tanulia. To be honest, Noah didn''t like the way Tanulia treated Ghost.
As far as Noah was concerned, if it weren''t for Ghost, the elder vampire would have killed him and his friends. But, once again, Ghost helped him.
"We can let them go," Despite talking to an Alpha Guardian, Noah seemed domineering. His voice contained an authority that made Tanulia''s tone weaker.
Noah then turned to look at Ghost, who was slightly surprised by Noah''s words,
"I thank you on behalf of the guardians for your help Ghost. I''m in your debt,"
"Well, it''s your lucky day as you have a chance to pay the debt," Michael yet againpletely ignored Alicia and smiled,
"You''ve been engaged to her" Michael looked at Olivia and then turned back his gaze to Noah,
"But she''s in love with someone else. So I''d appreciate it if you annul the marriage agreement,"
"Consider it done," Noah nodded,
Olivia felt like a mountain of pressure being lifted off her shoulder. She let out a deep sigh.
"Thank you¡Thank you, Master Noah," Olivia bowed to show her gratitude. She didn''t expect Noah to be so generous. So many young masters considered annulling a marriage a shame, but Noah was so benevolent.
"No. I should be the one asking your forgiveness. If I knew you were in love with someone and didn''t like the marriage, I wouldn''t have agreed to it,"
"No, no..how could you have known?" Olivia shook her head,
"Now that everyone got what they want, I should take my leave,"
"Ghost"
When Michael was about to turn back and leave, Noah called him. Michael saw Noah extending his arm, and with a nod, Michael firmly shook Noah''s hands.
After everything was said and done, Michael left the ce with Olivia. They both shot towards the sky and disappeared into the dark clouds leaving Noah''s group behind.
"What was that?" the moment Michael disappeared into the clouds, Tanulia coldly asked Noah,
"Forgive me for taking up the authority Alpha Guardian. But we need to make allies instead of enemies. This vampire threat is not a joke. A single vampire decimated one of the highly protected ces in an hour" Noah looked around and sighed,
"If we want to defeat them, we need powerful allies,"
Considering Tanulia knew about Noah''s identity and how important he was to the guild, she remained calm, although she didn''t like how Noah interjected and disrespected her rank.
Then Noah turned his gaze towards Alicia, who was trembling in anger,
"And Alicia, the sooner you ept what your brother did was wrong, the better. If it weren''t for Ghost, someone else would have exposed him"
Norvin''s jaw dropped a few inches as he was utterly shocked by how coldly Noah talked to his sweetheart. It was the first time Norvin had seen Noah treat Alicia coldly.
The burning spear in her hands disappeared, along with the anger in her eyes. Instead, her eyes got filled with tears.
"This feud of yours with Ghost ends now. We would investigate impartially and serve justice if he had anything to do with Lord Gabriel''s death. Do not let your hatred blind your mind,"
Chapter 515 Future Plans of Michael
Chapter 515 Future ns of Michael¡¡¡¡"My Lord" When Michael entered his room in the dark forest, Azazel weed him with a bow. However, as soon as he entered the room, the red orbs began to radiate a dim crimson red light.
"Dude, you look like crap. What the hell happened?" Ayag, who was eating potato chips made by Raylene, asked Michael. He may have changed his robes and washed his face using the rainwater, but he still looked extremely exhausted and pale.
The moment he reached the bedside, he copsed to the bed just a few inches away from Vedora.
"I fought an Elder vampire," Michael sighed. After hearing his words, Ayag dropped the chip in her mouth back into the silver bowl,
"Did I tell you I fought with Noah?" Michael said, looking at the dark ceiling.
Then, he turned his head to look at Azazel before Vedora could ask what happened in Idrisal from the beginning,
"Connect me to Elidyr. Something is drilling my mind, and I think he may have an answer,"
"As you wish, My Lord,"
Azazel waved his ghostly hand as a thirty-two-inch mirror materialized in the air a few meters away from the bed.
Michael rose and willed the system to establish a connection with Elidyr through the earpiece,
Several secondster, the mirror flickered as Elidyr appeared in the mirror. Currently, Michael could see numerous drawings on the wall behind him and a messy bed behind him,
"My Lord," Elidyr slightly bent his waist to show his respect,
"Is there a God of Light Elidyr?" Michael''s sudden question put a frown on Elidyr''s face,
"Not as far as I know, My Lord. But when you, the God of Darkness exist, it wouldn''t be illogical to say there is a God of Light too. May I inquire why you suddenly asked me this my Lord?"
"Because I think Noah is not only the sessor of Andreas. I think he is also the God of Light," Michael''s voice was grave. In fact, Vedora or Azazel had never heard this much seriousness in his voice before,
"Why do you think that my Lord?"
Michael let out a long sigh and began narrating what happened in thepetition from the beginning. None of them uttered a word after Michael finished his story.
Elidyr finally broke the gloomy silence,
"Light spells, drawing power from the light, darkness weakening him, Andreas choosing him to be the sessor and trains to defeat the dark lord. Hmm," Elidry rubbed his chin as his voice trailed off,
"Everything makes sense, my Lord. You might be right," said Elidyr after pondering the matter for a long few moments,
"That must have been the reason why the system told me to wait until it reaches version eight. He is a god. Just like me," Michael said to himself,
"If it''s true, we have to be more cautious than ever before," Michael heard Cain as everyone except Michael locked their gazes with Cain,
"Also, if you could connect the dots, Noah might be too. So we have to stay as far as possible from him,"
Hearing them, Ayag couldn''t help rolling her eyes,
"Why can''t we just go and kill him while he''s still weak?"
"NO," Elidyr immediately raised his voice,
"We must not underestimate Andreas and the Skyhall. You have only one runemaster, me. But they have countless, and if I''m right, Andreas would have made sure no harmes to Noah," Michael agreed with Elidyr with a nod.
When Michael injected Noah with a healing potion using the APD, he felt a gentle force resisting the potion for a moment. To Michael, it felt as though Noah''s body scanned the potion and filtered it before letting the potion into his bloodstream. In case Michael tried to inject Noah with Blood Tonic, he had a feeling Noah''s body would have rejected it by destroying the nanites.
As Michael was deep in thoughts, Elidyr once again broke the silence that haunted the room,
"The best course of action would be to stay away from Noah and raise your army in the shadows for the great war yet toe, my Lord,"
"Where should we go?" Sarba felt a lump forming in his throat in the sadness of leaving the ce he has grown to love.
"Ghost will go to Awor," Michael cracked his neck as his mind quickly formed a n.
"Let me guess. You are nning to kill more people in Elon as Lucifer,"
Michael nodded but chose not to exin in detail. He couldn''t just say he has to get more experience points by killing people so he could get stronger.
"Why not Gisal? We are absolutely safe there," asked Sarba as Michael sighed,
"We can''t be sure until we know everything about the Guardians and the Skyhall,"
"Then what''s the n?" Ayah asked Michael as he turned back to look at them,
"Simple. Ghost will move to Awor and establish himself there. Lucifer will eradicate Noah''s potential allies and weaken him in Elon and Ozer. The Dark Lord will build an army in the Southern continent,"
"I can feel the excitement in my veins," Ayag grinned,
"Do you have a contact in Awor my lord?"
Azazel asked Michael and draw Michael''s gaze towards him,
"Eve Voldigard," as soon as Michael uttered the name, a glint of surprise emerged in Elidyr''s face,
"Voldigard? Is she a rtive of Lane Voldigard?"
Michael nodded,
"Yes. She didn''t talk about Professor Lane, but I think there is some history between Lane and Voldigards. I will gather more information and try to exploit whatever there is to strengthen ourselves," Michael looked at everyone to see if anyone had something to say. However, they all nodded in agreement with his n,
"When are you and Gayaing here? We should all move to Awor together,"
"Speaking of Gaya. Where is that snake?" Ayag smiled. Although Ayag didn''t show, she missed having Gaya around so much. Without her, the dark mansion felt gloomier than ever.
It was rare to see Elidy smile but thinking about Gaya, his lips curved upward, revealing an alluring smile.
"She is having the best time of her life in thebat ss. Yesterday she brought hundreds of snakes and set them free in the ssroom. There are still many students in the infirmary healing,"
"These snakes were poisonous?" asked Ayah with a devilish grin,
"Very,"
"Nice. Damn it. I wish we were there to see them screaming and crying. Did they scream and cry?" Ayag tilted her head as Elidyr nodded, brightening her face even more.
"Tell her not to overdo it. She needs to teach them something to maintain her cover,"
Elidyr rubbed his eyes, fighting the urge to sleep.
"I already did. By the way, we will be there by next week. Then, we can finally finish the mortars,"
Michael could see the exhaustion and sleepiness in his eyes. Hence, Michael didn''t keep him any longer,
"Take some shut-eye Elidyr. You can''t function best if your brain and body are desperate for rest,"
"I will, my lord,"
After that, the mirror flickered again before turningpletely dark.
Then with a flick of his wrist, Michael took out Lucifer''s suit of armor and put it on an armor stand. The armor looked as menacing as ever with its dark metallic tings and crimson red linings.
"When I fought the elder vampire, I realized one of my biggest weaknesses" Michael ran his fingers through the armor,
"What is that?" Asked Ayag,
"Armor," Michael simply said,
"This armor might look fancy, but it can''t protect me from spell attacks. I need stronger armor. For both Lucifer and Ghost, who needs a suit of armor more than Lucifer,"
While fighting as the Dark Lord, Michael could unleash his full power without worrying about exposing his identity. Hence, Michael was rtively safe fighting as Lucifer than as Ghost.
Granted, there were cool clothes in the system store but they were not armors. To forge stronger armor, he needed stronger materials. Unfortunately, the system locked the ores and armor materials under an upgrade wall. In other words, until he upgrades the system to version 8, he wouldn''t be able to buy a suit of armor or any materials from the store to forge a stronger unique armor.
However, it never stopped Michael from getting what he wanted.
"The Aqua auction might have what I need to forge armor. Eve said she knows some cksmiths who are capable of forging any sort of armor,"
"Also we should recruit a loyal cksmith. Awor might be a good ce to start looking for suitable candidates," Cain reminded Michael.
To be a cksmith himself, Michael would have to pay the system a whopping 700,000 badass points and it would make him just a 1-star cksmith. However, if he found one with a cksmith specialty, he could turn him or her into a 5-star cksmith for 1.2million badass points.
Compared to Alchemy, smithing was in a different realm. But, coupled with his Inventor trait, Michael knew he would be able to create some nasty weapons that could change the tide of the war.
Of course, Michael nned to be one himself in the future. But for now, recruiting someone else seemed like the cost-effective and usible way. He wished Jack was here because Jack had all the requirements to be his personal cksmith. His death was really a loss for Michael.
"Loyalty should be the key here," Sarba said in his soft voice as though he read Michael''s mind,
"I am pretty sure we can find a desperate dwarf who would be willing to be the Dark Lord''s subordinate in Awor," Michael devilishly grinned. Excitement rushed through his veins, thinking he was finally going to Awor, the most powerful continent of all.
"My Lord," Suddenly Azazel called him as Michael turned around,
"Today is the day we asked Miss Peyton to meet you in Maven,"
"Oh, the assassination of the Alpha guardian. I almost forgot about that. But you haven''t killed her yet?" Ayag asked Michael,
"I will. Let''s go meet Peyton shall we?" Michael willed the system to equip his armor as the suit of armor vanished from the stand and appeared on Michael except for thest piece; Mask. It appeared in Michael''s hands as he slowly put it on his face,
"Where are we going?" asked Sarba as they pped their tiny wings to take off from the bed to Michael''s shoulder,
"To the crypt," Michael activated the runic teleportation, and the next moment, he just vanished into thin air, leaving Azazel behind.
Chapter 516 Tanulia鈥檚 brutal death
Chapter 516 Tanulia¡¯s brutal death¡¡¡¡Under the sky of perfect midnight velvet, under stars so brilliant they drew the eyes heaven bound, the music softly yed by crickets and the ever-expanding ocean in front of Tanulia, made every second waiting for the vampire she was supposed to meet a beautiful yet heart beating experience. She gazed at those bright friends of the moon and their pattern that seemed so fixed and yet ever-changing while the waves gently brushed over her feet.
Her silver robes, adorned with golden engravings fluttered in the wind, dancing to the rhythm of the sea along with her striking golden hair.
It had been an hour since Tanulia arrived at the marked location on the parchment she received from a mysterious vampire. As far as her eyes could see, there was nothing but the ocean and an empty beach void of any life signs except a boulder twenty or so meters away from Tanulia.
Regardless of waiting for a vampire in the middle of the night with no one around her, Tanulia had no fear in her heart at all. She was trained to remain calm and collected despite the situation by her mentors ever since she was born.
The Alpha Guardian was not just a position. It was a state of mind. She was patiently waiting for the vampire and looking at the half moon in the sky until she noticed a figure flying through the puffy white clouds apanying the moon. The figure slowly descended onto the shot several meters away from her.
The dark figure just arrived at the scene was tall, neither too skinny nor bulky, and wore ragged brown robes and a cloak to cover his face. Tanulia had seen beggars in much better condition than the man in front of her. However, she didn''t show any scorn since she was not here toment on his fashion sense but to do something that would save many lives.
"Tanulia Valren,"
Tanulia heard the man speak in an otherworldly, distorted voice that almost sounded mechanical.
"And you''re the one who sent the potion and this," She slowly moved her hands to her waist and took out a parchment in her belt wrapped around her perfect slender waist.
Since Tanulia was in civilian robes instead of her usual silver armor, one could clearly see her wless hourss structure. Furthermore, although the robes covered her arms, they failed to hide her muscle definition, which added an extrayer of charm to her beauty.
"Your people ughtered hundreds of innocents today in Idrisal," her eyes glimmered with rage and fury,
"That was a payback for what you humans had done, Tanulia Valren. Secrecy is the lifeblood of nightwalkers; when it''s threatened, it''s only natural we retaliate" the words sounded colder than the words spoken by Tanulia.
"Name your price for curing Tiriana,"
Tanulia didn''t beat around the bush. Instead, she directly asked for the cure so she could save Tiriana, who was dying little by little painfully.
"We have heard you''re spinning the me on today''s message on rogue cultivators,"
"By message, you meant the massacre right?"
"You can take it however you want Tanulia Valren. We wanted to send you a message and we did. Now we demand you turn us into a myth again. Otherwise, you will receive more and more messages every single week until" The vampire paused for a moment to let everything he just said sink into her skull,
"All humans are eradicated from the face of this world,"
Tanulia clenched her fist as the veins in her face bulged up. One could literally hear her grinding her teeth if they stood beside her.
"You want us to cover up your existence. A little bitte for that after your message, don''t you think?"
"That''s your problem, and you''re getting the wrong idea here Tanulia Valren. We are not here to negotiate. I''m here to tell you what you have to do to save your species,"
The vampire sternly said, leaving no chance for her to talk back. After hearing from Noah what happened in the Aqua n arena and what the vampires did to the people there, she did not dare to underestimate the vampires. Just a group of vampires massacred hundreds of people and prevented anyone from saving them.
In a matter of a few hours, the vampires eradicated eighty percent of the alchemists in Elon and Ozer. As a result, an alchemist''s value on both continents would skyrocket in the future as the vampires created a massive void in the alchemy world.
"What about Tiriana? She can''t survive until we do the impossible,"
"You''re drinking this potion is the price for saving her life," The vampire opened his palms to reveal a brownish potion glimmering from within,
"Is that poison?"
"No," the vampire shook his head. Since he had a cloak and mask covering his face, Tanulia couldn''t see his expressions. But judging by the tone of his voice, she could tell he didn''t give a damn about her life at all.
"If we wanted to kill you, we would have done it by now. We, nightwalkers, don''t use underhanded tactics like your species,"
The potion floated towards Tanulia, revealing that the vampires could use Arch energy within the void line.
Tanulia nkly stared at the potion hovering in the air in front of her before grabbing it. She looked at the potion in her hand without any idea what it would do if she took it.
"Do I have to take your word on that? How do I believe it''s not the same poison you gave to Tiriana?"
"You don''t. If you value your friend''s life, this is the price,"
With her eyes watering up, Tanulia opened the vial. She expected the air around her to smell different, but contrary, nothing changed as she still smelled the fresh salty air as before. The vampire stared at her, lifting the potion towards her mouth and pouring it slowly into her mouth.
As soon as she emptied the vial, blood seeped through her nostrils. She slowly lost the strength in her legs as everything around her turned blurry.
"You!" she tried to say something, but a mouth full of blood sprayed out of her mouth instead of words. Then, her skin turned paler than a white sheet in a few blinks of an eye.
Thud!
Finally, Tanulia copsed on the sandy shore. Her body frantically twitched as blood seeped out from every pore in her skin, drenching her silvery robes with her blood. The sand beneath her slowly turned red around her.
Her gaze fused with shock and rage, still locked onto the vampire until the light of life finally left her eyes.
"Peyton," The vampire called out when Tanulia''s body stopped twitching.
For a few moments, there was nothing but the sound of ocean breeze and waves that haunted the arena.
Then, several secondster, a figure walked out of the boulder''s shadow out of the blue. Currently dressed in ck robes from head to toe, Peyton strolled toward Tanulia''s body.
"Is she dead?" Peyton removed the cloak covering her head to reveal her face.
She turned her blood-red eyes towards the vampire and saw him nodding his head. Her face twitched, showing the burning anger in her heart.
"I have to make sure," Peyton coldly snickered before retrieving a gray dagger hanging on her waist,
"Bitch!" Peyton kicked Tanulia in the gut furiously and continued to do so to vent her anger. Seeing a decorated guardian such as Tanulia''s corpse getting kicked mercilessly by another guardian was sickening.
Peyton kicked and stomped Tanulia''s body to the point she started to hear bones cracking in Tanulia''s body. Then, she dropped to her knees,
"YOU BETRAYED ME!" Peyton raised her dagger in the air as far as she could and brought it down onto Tanulia''s chest
Pulch!
The blood sprayed out from Tanulia''s chest as Peyton kept stabbing her repeatedly. Her rosy face was painted red with the blood sprayed onto her face. Still, Peyton continued to skewer Tanulia until she couldn''t raise her hand anymore.
After she was done stabbing Tanulia''s dead body, Peyton turned around to look at the vampire. Under her murderous gaze, he removed his brown robes, revealing the dark metallic armor beneath.
"Dark Lord," Peyton mumbled, looking at his terrifying stature.
"I fulfilled my end of the bargain. Tanulia Valren is no more," he said, stepping towards her,
"The vampires will be med for her death," Peyton sensed his voice changing from mechanical distorted to cold demonic voice,
Peyton stared at his crimson red eyes for a few moments in silence.
A year ago, she began her journey to hunt down Lucifer so she could climb up thedders in the guild. A yearter, after spilling so much blood and sweat, she stood in front of the Dark Lord with the blood of Tanulia Valren in her hands.
"What do we do with the body?" Peyton looked at Tanulia''s body. Then, she took a few steps away from the body while the Dark Lord stepped closer to Tanulia. Peyton saw the Dark Lord looking at Tanulia from top to bottom.
"What a pity. She would have made a fine subordinate," Peyton could swear that she almost sensed a bit ofpassion in his voice.
Letting out a sigh, the Dark Lord turned around. At that moment, Peyton was only a hand reaching distance from him. Peyton took a deep breath looking directly into his crimson red eyes.
Afterward, she threw the dagger away and dropped to her knees. For a few seconds, she looked at the sand, and then, she finally looked up at him.
Her heart was pounding against her chest as everything around her seemed to have stopped.
Suddenly, Tanulia''s body behind the Dark Lord moved out of nowhere. Within a blink of an eye, Tanulia''s hand grabbed the Dark Lord''s legs.
The Dark Lord shuddered, but before he could react, a golden sword engraved with hundreds of glowing runes materialized in Peyton''s hand.
Pulch!
She stabbed the Dark Lord with lightning speed and twisted the sword. At the same time, a golden rope appeared around his feet,
"Teleport now bitch," Peyton grinned as she sent the sword deeper into his guts.
Chapter 517 Capturing The Dark Lord
Chapter 517 Capturing The Dark Lord¡¡¡¡As soon as Peyton stabbed the Dark Lord in the guts and Tanulia, who pretended to be dead, cuffed him with a chain of Valha, a gigantic warship AKA the floating fortress, appeared out of the blue in the sky. The ship cast a giant shadow on the beach but soon, a powerful beam of light shot out from the ship, putting the Dark Lord in the center of the spotlight.
The warship itself looked thrice the size of a man of war and resembled the shape too. Except the warship floated in the air instead of on the sea. The hull was built with strong yet lightweight metal and fitted with thirty cannons on a row, and there were five rows of cannons on one side.
The glistening blue light of the half moon reflected on the ship''s silvery hull, making the ship look like a giant gem in the sky. In addition to the massive four masts fitted with golden sails, the ship was equipped with giant propulsors in the back to fly the ship and easily maneuver it in the sky. A statue resembling Tanulia was the figurehead as a wolf head was engraved onto the hull and the sails.
The Warship functioned as Tanulia''s headquarters in the Southern Continent. Aside from its domineering look, the ship had many powerful weapons and functionalities.
For example, the ship was equipped with camouging runes. Which was why the ship remained undetected above their heads.
Since there was no arch energy in the atmosphere on the southern continent, specialized runes and devices were designed to draw power from the moonlight and heat produced by burning a ton of coal.
"Get him up!" Peyton shouted at the sky as the ship''s belly opened up, releasing a floor panel attached to ropes. When the wooden panel hit the ground, Peyton grabbed the Dark Lord by his neck and moved him towards the wooden board.
While walking, Peyton twisted the sword more to inflict maximum pain on the Dark lord. But, considering the sword would release a potent paralyzing poison into the bloodstream of its victim, she wasn''t surprised to see Dark Lord moving without struggling.
Peyton and Tanulia were d to see the sword and the chain of Valha working on the Dark Lord. Although they were forged by the best cksmiths and enhanced by 6-star runemasters of Skyhall, the two had doubts. Thest time they managed to catch the Dark Lord, he knocked them out and teleported away.
"Reel us in!" Tanulia shouted as the wooden panel slowly moved upwards.
A couple of minutester, they finally reached the inside. The interior of the ship was brightly lit with golden chandeliers. Tremendous braziers epassing several columns lit up every part of the ship and covered the interior in warm silver and dancing shadows. Therge mirrors on the embowed ceiling danced in the flickering light while stone effigies and wolves looked down upon the granite floor of this majestic ship.
"Alpha Guardian!"
"Guardian Captain!"
A group of highly trained elites of the hunter guardians was there to escort them to the interrogation room specially built to contain the Dark Lord. The twelve men were d in silver armor forged with the same metal as the ship''s hull. However, even the elites glinted with fear in their eyes when they saw the Dark Lord in person.
Wasting no time, they escorted the trio through a hallway guarded by more armed soldiers until they reached an eight feet door made of copper. From where they started their journey to the door decorated by banners and lit with golden orbs that illuminated the paintings of elven men and women below them.
Creak!
The three guards leading the escort pushed open the copper door to reveal an empty room surrounded by white walls. There was only an oak table, two chairs on one side, and one metal chair on the opposite side of the table.
Michael was stunned by Peyton''s betrayal. But, more than betrayal, it seemed like a carefully borated n. While watching the interrogation room and the ss on either side of the room reminded him of the interrogation rooms of earth''sw enforcement.
The sword was still stabbed in the guts and Peyton made a habit of twisting the sword every ten seconds.
"Sit your ass down!" Peyton punched the Dark Lord in the face before pushing him down on the metal chair. As soon as he was forced to sit on the chair, the elite guardians entered the room with more golden chains and tied the Dark Lord to the chair as tight as they could. His hands were tied to the back of the chair while his legs were tied to the chair''s legs. Additionally, they put a jade cor around his neck, and the moment the cor touched him, it glistened brightly.
"Leave!" Tanulia ordered the elites as they quickly left the room, leaving Tanulia and Peyton in the room with the Dark Lord.
Atst, Peyton let go of the sword''s hilt and went to sit beside Tanulia on the chair facing the Dark Lord. But the sword was still glowing and sticking out of his guts tho.
"Blood bags and retractable dagger," Tanulia retrieved several pouches drenched in blood out from her cleavage while Peyton stabbed herself with the retractable trick dagger.
"The rooms are powered with hundreds of runes that even we haven''t fullyprehended. So don''t bother teleporting or using any spells," Tanulia snickered,
"Thest time we met, I saw you bleed. And you know what we hunter guardians say about that, if it bleeds, we can kill it,"
The elites who were witnessing the interrogation through the window couldn''t feel proud of what they had achieved.
"So it was all an borate n to catch me," The Dark Lord asked Tanulia and Peyton,
For a moment, Tanulia and Peyton looked at each other. She then patted Peyton on the shoulder,
"She is the one who came up with the n,"
Never in her entire life had Peyton gone through such a burden as she did to catch the Dark Lord. But at that moment, looking at the Dark Lord on the prisoner''s chair, she felt the pain was worth it.
Tanulia turned her gaze from the Dark Lord to the windows, which were one-way mirrors. They seemed to be a mirror when seen from one side, but like a window when seen from the opposite side. The Alpha guardians used the windows disguised as a mirror for surveince.
"Bring me the crate," A few seconds after Tanulia ordered the elites whole were standing on the mirror''s other side, an elite guard entered the room, carrying a wooden crate.
Thud!
The guard quickly put the crate on the table and left the room as fast as he could. It was evident to everyone that despite being the elites, they still trembled at the sight of the Dark Lord.
Tanulia put her hand into it and grabbed something from the crate. When she opened her palm, still tainted with fake blood, Michael saw his Spyders dormant on her palm without moving.
"We know you were watching us. It took us some time you bugged us, but we did and turned it against you,"
After showing him the Spyders, Tanulish closed her fist, crushing the Spyders to dust.
"Tiriana, how is she?"
One would expect Tanulia to lose her calm or act furiously. However, she remained rather calm despite his question and what was happening to Tiriana,
"A necessary sacrifice" When Michael thought the guardians couldn''t stoop any lower, Tanulia surprised him. Tiriana was her best friend, yet she just waved it off saying ''a necessary sacrifice'' like Tiriana''s life was worth nothing.
"You will pay for what you did to her. I will personally make sure you suffer more than she ever did," Tanulia coldly eximed as the Dark Lord turned his gaze at Peyton,
"You are really a great actor," The Dark Lord mused. Those who heard him from outside sensed no fear in his tone, which made them terrified of him even more.
"It was not an act," Peyton said, gritting her teeth.
"In case you''re wondering, we knew about the nightwalkers long before you sent Victor with Peyton and tipped off the Royal news. I have to give it to you, putting the Guardians against the Holy Church and turning the people against us at the same time was a great move," Tanulia snickered once again as she continued,
"But you forgot one thing" Tanulia leaned forward,
"When we hang you in front of Elon and reveal the real desert eagle operation, we will be hailed as heroes by the people. The future generations will sing songs about us and the sacrifices we made to eradicate you,"
"So you let all those people die just to catch me?" Peyton saw the Dark Lord tilting his head. To be honest, his every move creeped her out. But what she went through to get him made her stronger than ever before.
Bang!
Peyton suddenly stood up from her chair and punched him in the face once again,
"That''s on you!" she raised her voice.
"If you hadn''t exposed the vampires, those would have been alive!"
Bang!
Tanulia let Peyton punch him again and didn''t bother to stop her. As far as Tanulia was concerned, Peyton deserved to torture him because of what she went through to get him. However, a few punches to the face were nowhere closer to what he truly deserved.
"Victor was out man inside the nightwalkers. We were getting so much information about them and how they operate. But, unfortunately, because of you, we lost a valuable asset who could have tipped us about the attack in Idrisal," Peyton snarled at the Dark Lord. Except for Peyton, Tanulia, and Tiriana, none of them had any idea about Victor''s true origin. He was a Guardian spy, and now Michael had killed him.
Meanwhile, the elites outside saw Xanali strolling toward them. When she arrived at the mirrors, her eyes went wide in shock. Her entire body felt shivers looking at the dark figure sitting opposite Peyton and Tanulia.
"Is that¡" Her voice trailed away in utter shock,
"Yes, Guardian Captain. That is the Dark Lord,"
Chapter 518 Unmasking the Dark Lord
Chapter 518 Unmasking the Dark Lord¡¡¡¡"Hahahahha" Suddenly, the Dark Lord burst into creepyughter,
His maniacughter echoed through the room and sent shivers down the guardians'' spines,
"Your bullshit doesn''t work on me Elf. I can see it in your eyes. You know about the attack long before I exposed the vampires. The only difference is because I exposed them, the vampires left some people alive so they could spread the message. Otherwise, it would have been aplete massacre with no survivors to tell any tales,"
Xanali was startled by his words. There was no way the Alpha guardian knew about the attack and did nothing to prevent the killings. So many people, including nagas in their human forms were killed in the arena by the vampires.
Tanulia creased her brows as he continued,
"You were nning to catch the Elder vampire. But you didn''t expect the dark to be so problematic to break. Now that your ipetence backfired and caused so many lives, you''re trying to pin it on me. Pin it on Lucifer or The Dark Lord as usual," Peyton heard the Dark Lord snicker,
He leaned back on the chair and yed beats on the table casually.
"We will catch the vampires. Just like we caught you" Tanulia clenched her fist only to see the Dark Lord snicker again,
"At what cost? You two are responsible for more deaths than me, and you people call me The Dark Lord," he turned his head to look at the mirror.
The elite guardians and Xanali felt as though he was looking at them.
"I wonder what your future Supreme Guardian has to say about your n,"
For the first time, a shock emerged on Tanulia''s face. She stared at the Dark Lord without batting an eye,
"Noah Winston. I know all about him, Tanulia Valren,"
Bang!
As soon as he spoke these words, Tanulia kicked her chair backward and lunged at him over the table. She grabbed his shoulder and punched him without pulling her punch,
"Hahahhaha"
But the Dark Lord keptughing as though he heard a joke. Hisugh became creepier by the second, and many guardians wanted it to stop.
"Alpha Guardian"
After seeing Tanulia punching him for the fiftieth time, Peyton softly called her to stop Tanulia. Although they suspect the Dark Lord was not a human and possessed inhuman strength and power, Peyton still didn''t want to take his life before they could get as much information as possible from him. Particrly about where he came from. The Demon Realm or Hell Realm was something which they knew frighteningly little.
Thest pages grimoire about the Dark Age and the Dark Lord mentioned something about a Demon King of Hell Realm, and the higher-ups of the Guardian Guild suspected the Dark Lord might have some information about the Demon King. Unfortunately, the only information they possessed about the Demon King was a name¡Hunter¡
(Dictator With a Badass System MC''s name is also Hunter¡hmm¡what a coincidence)
The higher-ups were none other than elders in the Skyhall, but even the Alpha guardians had no idea that the Skyhall from the shadows controlled them.
"He doesn''t know, and it will stay that way," Tanulia said before throwing onest punch at him. Her fist felt numb after punching him repeatedly.
"After we''re done with you, we will see how your body is built. Starting from cutting open your throat" Tanulia threatened him, but he still keptughing,
"You''re a maniac. Not a god, like some sickos iming you are," Peyton growled,
"Seeing you hanged to death will make everything I went through worth it,"
"Again, I wonder what your future Supreme Guardian has to say about your n. Particrly the part where you endangered his little sister''s life,"
Seeing Tanulia and Peyton remain calm, Michael slowly connected the dots and was truly surprised by them.
"They knew the vampires were going to kidnap her and force her to retrieve that key," Michael said to himself,
"If I am right, they are nning to kill the vampires after she retrieves the key. Then they will take the key from her,"
"You should worry about yourself," Tanulia snarled at the Dark Lord,
"Set a course to Dradel. Elders will meet us there," Tanulia turned her head and locked her gaze with Xanali.
Xanali nodded before leaving the interrogation room towards the ship captain. Because Xanali was a guardian captain, a couple of elites followed her behind.
Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, Peyton and Tanulia each took a few parchments from the crate on the table and opened them.
"What am I thinking?" Suddenly Tanulia smacked her forehead,
"Remove his mask. I want to see who is behind that mask," Tanulia ordered Peyton as the elites standing outside the room took a step forward.
At that moment, every pair of eyes were locked on the Dark Lord''s face.
Peyton stood up from her chair with a nod, strolled to the Dark Lord, and came behind him.
First thing, she removed the cloak covering his head, revealing raven ck hair. It seemed like Peyton was doing everything in slow motion to the elite guardians.
His smooth raven ck hair was long enough to reach his neck. After removing the cloak, everyone could see the ck skull mask on his face clearly.
Michael had difficulty controlling the urge to kill Peyton and Tanulia then and there. However, he was unable to send his sword through their heads personally.
As Michael was watching Tanulia and Peyton, thetter grabbed his skull mask. The guardians felt their heart beat rapidly increasing, including Peyton.
"Time to see how you look behind the mask, Dark Lord," Peyton snickered as she slowly pulled up the mask to reveal the Dark Lord''s face.
They all felt a chill running through their spines as soon as his mask came off. His face was decayed with several cracks in his face. Half of his cheek was missing and they could see his yellowish decayed teeth. The two pale white eyes stared at Tanulia with a creepy smile on his face.
Tanulia twitched her nose as the strong pungent smell of rotten skin entered her nostrils. It was pretty horrendous, to say the least.
"Aherel," Tanulia could recognize an undead or aherel as they weremonly known in the cultivation continents when she saw one.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAH" the undead burst intoughter and squirmed, shaking the chair he was tied to.
This time when Tanulia heard his madughter, she had a bad feeling.
"AH!" the undead abruptly cut hisughter short and opened his mouth as wide as he could.
When Tanulia looked into his mouth, she noticed something glowing inside his mouth. Before she could guess what that was, the undead spits the glowing rock onto the table.
The elites immediately leaped away and curled into a ball, thinking the rock was going to explode. For some reason, the first thought when they saw the rock was that it might be a bomb.
Tanulia stared at the jade rock on the table while a bright light inside the rock pulsated in regr intervals like a heartbeat. None of them had an idea about the rock until a bright light shot out of the rock to the wall behind the undead.
The bright light slowly turned into a figure resembling the Dark Lord, but the Dark Lord before they unmasked him.
"Dark Lord," the undead uttered the word as Peyton felt her entire body go numb.
"Tsk tsk tsk¡Peyton¡Peyton¡Peyton," The Dark Lord projected on the wall amused.
The elites slowly managed to grasp the fact that the undead wasn''t the real Dark Lord. But Tanulia was smarter than the rest. Hence, she realized the truth; the Dark Lord had yed them.
"Where is Tiriana?" The Dark Lord asked as Tanulia quickly scanned everything around the Dark Lord. But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn''t see anything but darkness around him.
A few elites outside quickly made their way to Tiriana''s room without waiting for Tanulia''s orders. Instead, they were trained by Tanulia and worked under long enough to sense her thoughts.
"Here she is," In the dim red light, Tanulia saw the Dark Lord pulling something from his side.
"Tiriana," Tanulia muttered, looking at Tiriana in the Dark Lord''s hands. He grabbed Tiriana by the neck as she squirmed to escape his grasp but to no avail.
"A necessary sacrifice. Hmm," the Dark lord calmly said in his demonic voice. Then he turned his head to look at Tiriana,
Boom!
The elites gasped in shock as Tiriana exploded into a bloody mist in the blink of an eye.
Peyton stumbled back, seeing Tiriana''s sudden yet horrifying death. On the other hand, Tanulia clenched her fist as her nails protruded the skin, making her literally bleed.
After Tiriana exploded into blood-red mist, they saw nothing but red until the Dark Lord swiped off the blood.
The guardians who went to look for Tiriana returned to the area and pushed open the copper door.
"Tiriana is not in her room, Alpha Guardian" the two armored guards had no idea that Tiriana exploded to death just a few moments ago.
Boom!
Tanulia raised her hand as a powerful gust of wind sted away the two guards,
"I thought you were fine with her dying, Tanulia Valren," the Dark Lord said, tilting his head.
He sounded amused by the anger in Tanulia''s eyes,
"Not a good feeling, is it? Realizing your whole n is just a colossal failure, hahaha," heughed, shocking everyone.
"Your elders have been wetting their pants for thousands of years because of me. A simple thought of me gave them nightmares. Did you really think that two bitches could catch me?" his voice became colder and murderous.
He then took a step closer as they saw his face closer on the projected screen. Slowly his crimson red eyes became dark as Tanulia saw his eyes ming up.
Under their gazes, he raised his hand and kept his middle finger and thumb together,
"Peyton, when you thought you were ying me, you forgot something really important," Peyton''s mind went ck as she walked backward in fear,
"I AM THE DARK LORD,"
He snapped his finger as the entire white room turned red with Peyton''s blood. The guardians gasped, realizing that Peyton exploded into a bloody red mist just like Tiriana with a snap of his fingers.
Chapter 519 Destroying The Guardian Headquarters
Chapter 519 Destroying The Guardian Headquarters¡¡¡¡As soon as the Dark lord painted the walls with Peyton, the elites immediately rushed into the room to protect Tanulia. All of them were still boggled by Peyton''s death. They had no idea how he killed Peyton without evenying a finger on her. He snapped his finger, and she just exploded in the blink of an eye.
The imposter Dark Lord, the undead, wasughing like a maniac looking at the guardians panic.
"I won''t kill you now, Tanulia Valren. First, I will take away everything from you. Then, I will kill your precious elites. Only when you wish for death, I''d grant you your wish,"
Although the elites surrounding her were trained to be fearless warriors, they all feared for their lives deep down. Besides, the armor the under was wearing kept releasing fear toxin in the air. Thus, everyone who breathed in the air felt fear clutching their hearts.
Michael nned everything to thest detail.
Boom!
Tanulia felt hot blood sshing on her yet again as an elite guardian exploded. The empty silver armor he wore hit the ground with a sickening thud.
"We have to go Alpha Guardian!"
"Hahahahha"
The undeadughed as the elites tried to take Tanulia away from the room. However, she did not even budge an inch from the room.
Once again, Michael raised his hand, making the guardians'' hearts pound against their chests.
Boom!
Michael snapped, and just like before, a guardian exploded from within. At that moment, the entire white room turned red, and blood oozed out of the walls and ceiling.
Not only the walls but also Tanulia herself were drenched in blood. Her rosy face was covered by the blood of Peyton and two elite guardians. For the first time in her life, her mind went nk. She was unable to think of the next step.
As they were in a daze, hoping he wouldn''t snap his finger one more time, Xanali entered the room. As soon as she entered the room, her face went pale. Her body shuddered, feeling her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Looking at all the blood and horror on the guardians'' faces and no Peyton in the room made her think of the worst. She stepped into the room as blood oozed down from the ceiling, reaching her crimson red robes.
Only then did she notice the Dark Lord''s face on the wall. Despite all the blood, she could still make out his face,
"Where¡where is Peyton?" That was the first question Xanali asked,
"You''re stepping on her," Xanali felt a chill hearing the Dark Lord''s words. However, she noticed the one sitting on the chair didn''t open his mouth. Since Xanali left the room way before the real Dark Lord''s appearance and Peyton''s death, she was pretty confused.
"Peyton is all around you, Xanali Harthill. Princess of Nagnd,"
Xanali''s body went rigid as she stared at the wall nkly. Thest time Xanali met the Dark Lord in the Silent Reaper, he revealed her race. Now somehow, he had learned her real identity.
Except for Peyton and Tanulia, no one knew about her race or identity as the Nagnd princess, not even Noah.
"What¡what happened¡where¡is Peyton?" Xanali stuttered. Gradually she felt a lump forming in her throat which made taking a difficult task.
When the guardians exploded, at least their armors survived the explosion. But, unfortunately, the same couldn''t be said of Peyton. Not even a shred of Peyton''s clothes survived the st except her sses.
Xanali saw the sses lying on the bloody floor and bent her knees to pick them up. Her hands shivered uncontrobly as her mind refused to ept Peyton was dead.
"Take a long look at what''s around you guardians. This is what''s waiting for you if you stand in my way," At that time, even Xanali couldn''t be courageous due to the fear toxin in the air.
After hearing his words, Xanali turned around, holding Peyton''s sses tightly. All the sweet memories she had with Peyton shed across her eyes.
"We have to leave the ship, Alpha Guardian" Xanali''s eyes flickered as Michael saw her pupils shrinking in size. At that moment, her eyes resembled the eyes of a Naga rather than a human.
"The ship is rigged to blow. We must go now" Tanulia took her gaze away from the Dark Lord,
"The captain is dead and so do several guardians," her rage and anger in her heart fought back the fear toxin in her bloodstream. Xanali momentarily pushed all her grief and anger to the back of her mind and informed Alpha guardian of what she saw.
Xanali recalled the bodies she saw on her way to the captain''s cabin. All of the guardians guarded the hallways, and the captain''s cabin was killed. Someone slit their throats and the captain literally had no head when she reached his cabin where Xanali saw several explosives ced all around the room. Though unfamiliar with the explosives that looked like bricks pulsated red light, she sensed the heat building up within the bricks.
"Thest time we met, you destroyed the Silent Reaper. So now it''s payback time bitch" Michael snickered as he snapped his finger. The guardians shuddered, but unlike they expected, none of them blew into a puppy red mist. Instead, the room the Dark lord was standing in lit up. He was standing in a room with several world maps hanging from the walls and an oak table just a meter behind him. On the other side of the oak table sat a headless corpse that Xanali had seen a few minutes ago.
"He is in the Captain''s cabin," Tanulia immediately recognized the room,
"Alpha Guardian!"
The remaining three guardians tried to stop Tanulia, but they were pushed away by her. Then, on her way out, she grabbed the glowing sword sticking out of the undead''s guts.
"Hahahahahahaha,"
Pulch!
Tanulia swung the sword and cut his head clean off of his shoulder. Then, she strolled out of the room and didn''t seem like anyone could stop her. Her eyes were bloodshot with anger.
Boom!
Suddenly, they heard a loud explosion as the ship trembled violently. Soon, the ship tilted sideways,
Boom!
The explosion went off again. This time, the guardians and Xanali were thrown off bnce. The explosion sound continually rang in their heads and soon, the howling sound indicated the hull breach.
Immediately Xanali grabbed the jade stone lying on the floor before stumbling out of the room while holding the walls for support.
"Get out of here!" Xanali shouted at the elites following her behind,
The lights flickered for a moment before ultimately going out. Then, the ce turned dark as the emergency lights lit the hallway in a dim crimson red,
"I will go get the Alpha Guardian!" Xanali had to shout even though the guardian stood close to her due to the howling wind sound.
"But-"
"IT''S AN ORDER!" Xanali pushed the armored guards away before turning around to chase down Tanulia.
The two remaining guards had no choice but to find a way to escape the ship. Unfortunately, the ship kept tilting left and right, making moving forward a problematic task. However, holding onto the walls, the two of them walked along towards the cargo bay, where they received the fake Dark Lord.
That opening was the quickest and closest way to escape the ship.
"Don''t fall back Stass!" the armored elite guardian leading the way shouted at the one behind him. The guardian behind was staggering until the elite guardian shouted at him.
Then, the guardian''s walking became steadier despite the ship''s frantic shaking. He walked steadily and lifted the silver helmet off, revealing the face beneath. It wasn''t Stass as the elite guardian imed. It was Michael.
He was disguised as the guard and remained in the room the whole time.
"Stars!" When the narrow hallway opened up to reveal the cargo bay, the elite guard shouted in relief. But, unfortunately, when he turned around, his relief became a shock.
Boom!
Michael snapped his finger before the guard could react. Just like earlier, the guard exploded into a bloody mist the moment he snapped his finger.
While Tanulia and Xanali were on their way to the captain''s cabin, Michael punched the ship, forming arge hole in the hull.
Since they were so high in the sky and rapidly descending, the wind and pressure were strong enough to push any normal human being like a piece of paper. However, Michael wasn''t a normal human being. Thus, he stood in front of the hole, looking at the tiny buildings on the ground.
The ship descended straight towards Elon''s guardian headquarters in Kingdom Dradel. Michael made sure the captain set a course to the Dradel before he took the captain''s head.
Michael conjured the dark mes and the moment the dark mes touched the hull, the ship caught on fire. The ship was built to withstand fire but not against a powerful Primordial me such as the Dark mes. Hence, the dark mes spread through the ship like wildfire, burning everything in its path.
At that moment, everyone on the ground shouted at seeing the giant ming meteor descending towards the guardian castle. Immediately the mages and the guardians flew out of the castle to stop the ship from colliding with the castle. It wouldn''t take a genius to figure out that the result would be catastrophic if the ship crashed onto the castle.
The alpha guardians in the castle immediately evacuated the people inside while the otters were casting spells to stop the ship. But at that moment, they all knew stopping the ship wasn''t an option. Thus, they all braced for impact and tried to slow down the ship.
Far away from the castle, Michael was floating above the clouds in his Lucifer form. The imminent destruction of Tanulia''s warship and the headquarters put a wide grin on his face behind the mask.
It was a real pity that he couldn''t hijack the ship because of all the runes and protective arrays. Unfortunately, the system level was too low to hack them, but the system could disable the defensive arrays for a short time.
This short amount of time was enough for Michael to set it on fire and send it toward the castle.
"Payback bitch," Michael turned around while the ship crashed onto the castle in the distance, creating a giant explosion.
Chapter 520 The World鈥檚 Finest Assassin
Chapter 520 The World¡¯s Finest Assassin¡¡¡¡(Several hours ago)
Michael was floating above the clouds and looking at Tanulia on the sandy beach. She looked the size of a bullet ant from where he was. Michael wore his suit of armor and was shrouded in dark clouds. In simple words, he was in hisplete Lucifer form.
"My Lord," Azazel appeared beside Michael above the clouds,
"He is ready," Michael turned his head to see an undead wearing the same suit of armor as him. It cost Michael 6000 badass points to buy the suit of armor and make the Alpha undead wear it. Additionally, Michael attached a voice modtor he invented to the undead''s throat.
"The feeds are online," Azazel pointed at the alpha undead''s eyes.
"Go to the dark forest and monitor everything,"
"What will you do about the warship approaching, my Lord?" Michael looked over his shoulder and activated his thermal vision. The moment the vision went blurry blue, he noticed a bright orange blob of a heat signature approaching their location.
"Cloaking technology, cool" Michael smiled, feeling his excitement bubbling inside. If the Alpha guardian''s ship could have the cloaking ability, Michael could equip his warships and vehicles with the same technology but only better.
"Hijack or destroy," Michael calmly said,
"Now go,"
"Have good hunting my lord," Azazel bowed deeply before his ghostly figure vanished into thin air, leaving Michael and the alpha undead behind.
After Azazel left, it was time to implement his n. With a flick of his wrist, he manipted the wind around the undead. Thanks to his 10% wind maniption, he was able to levitate the undead slowly to the beach from the sky.
"My Lord," As Michael was flying the undead to the beach, he heard Azazel''s voice in his head,
"I have established a connection with his voice modtor. I can now speak on your behalf,"
"Good. I''ll be listening. Keep them think he''s the Dark Lord"
"Yes my lord,"
Azazel went silent as Michael finallynded the undead on the beach. Then, Michael flew higher into the air while controlling the undead telepathically. After merging his soul pieces together, his multitasking ability soared through the roof. Controlling the undead and flying had be as easy as breathing to him.
"Lightning Dash," Michael flew at the invisible warship leaving a dark trail in the sky. His speed had reached the point that when he flew away, he left after images of himself in the sky thatsted for a couple of seconds.
In a few breaths of time, Michael arrived above the warship. He activated the thermal vision to see several guardians guarding the upper deck. They all wore metal te armor from head to toe. However, when Michael disabled the thermal vision, the guards disappeared from his sight.
"So they also have the ability to use cloak. Hmm, I need to get my hands on one of those armors," He already nned to disguise himself as a guard, but looking at the armor''s ability to turn invisible, he decided to take it for himself.
At that moment, there were four guardians patrolling the upper deck. Since the ship was Tanulia''s headquarters, only the best of the best resided on the ship.
"Elidyr" Looking at the invisible ship floating through the clouds, Michael established a connection with Elidyr,
"Can you the warship?" Michael broadcasted what he saw to Elidyr''s mirror through the interlinked Spyders and mirrors.
"I am not familiar with this vision. Can you ce the rune I put in the space ring onto the ship''s hull?"
It made sense that thermal vision was new to Elidyr. Therefore, Michael nodded and waited for the soldier patrolling the ship''s quarterdeck to turn around. Then the moment the soldier turned around, Michael dived down until he reached the ship''s back, but he didn''t touch the ship
"You cannot make contact. Put this blue rune on your hands. It will temporarily prevent the ship from activating its defense arrays,"
The ring in Michael''s middle finger let out a dim glow, indicating that Elidyr, who had the interlinked space ring, added something into the space ring.
Michael sent a sliver of his arch energy to ess the ring and retrieved a golden parchment. When he opened the parchment while still floating behind the ship, he noticed a blue rune that resembled an eye glowing on the parchment.
"Touch the rune" as soon as Michael touched the rune, the rune turned into glowing blue dust and settled on his palm, forming the rune on his dark gloves.
With the glowing rune in his hand, Michael touched the hull. Immediately Michael had a cold chill all over his body,
"Now ce this rune on the ship," Once again, Michael retrieved another parchment from his space ring. This time, there was a rune in the shame of a fire symbol burning in the parchment. Like before, when he touched the rune, it turned into glowing crimson red dust, floated to his right hand, and formed the rune on his palm.
Creak!
Michael heard a muffled creaking sounding from the ship when he ced the rune on the ship''s hull,
"Hmm, they did an eptable job I think. But my runes are better. The eye of shalia will give you five minutes of time which is more than enough for you to deal with the guards. Wear one of their armors, and you''re good to go," Elidyr instructed him. Although Elidyr heard that Michael was a hitman on earth, he had no idea how skilled Michael was.
"Way ahead of you," Michael already nned to wear one of their armor. Now with the glowing blue rune, which was apparently called the eye of shalia, Michael climbed the ship carefully.
Even when he was wearing heavy armor, Michael was extremely nimble. He climbed the distance of twenty meters in a minute. Then when he reached the deck, he looked up to see the guard leaning on the edge, watching the night sky. Michael was just a few inches beneath the guard and if the guard looked down, he might see him.
But before the guard could do so, Michael performed a ledge assassination by pulling the guard down by his neck and snapping his neck in a blink of an eye.
Thanks to the system, he only had to pay 100 badass points, and the armor would appear around him. Otherwise, he had to remove the armor from the soldier and wear it piece by piece, which would take time, and in that time, other guards might notice their colleague missing.
Michael dropped the naked soldier down and climbed up the ledge as one of the guardians. After he had equipped the armor, he felt a vague connection with the armor. He closed his eyes for a moment as his silver armor flickered a few times before turning invisible. But, of course, it wasn''t a perfect cloak. One could see the distortion in the air due to light refraction.
He was confident enough to perfect the cloak with the help of Elidyr, the system, and his inventor skills. The only thing Michaelcked was a cksmith skilled enough to forge worthy armor.
Michael killed one of the four guardians, leaving three guardians on the deck. One guardian was standing near the main sail post while the other two guarded the ship''s front.
Despite the cloak, the other soldiers seemed they could see through the cloak. Otherwise, the soldier wouldn''t have nodded at Michael, who was invisible.
Michael nodded back while looking at the soldier closely. The armor protected the whole body by covering head to toe. However, a gap between the chest te and helmet exposed the neck by several inches. The gap was not wide enough for a sword to cut through, but Michael''s hidden des could. Michael adjusted his armor sleeves to form a gap so the hidden des coulde out without damaging the silver armor.
Looking at the soldier, Michael moved his hand behind and took out a copper coin from his system storage. The coin was made of junk metal and enhanced by Elidyr''s runes, just like his Spyders. Hence, when Michael sent a Spyder carrying the coin to the ledge near the soldier, they triggered no arrays.
When the Spyder dropped the coin a few meters away from the soldier, Michael activated the copper coin. For a moment, it flickered, and then, it produced a low-pitched whistling sound.
"What the?" The soldier signaled Michael to keep his eyes on him before turning and walking towards the coin. The soldiers on the front were still looking at the other side. The two of them seemed to be having an interesting conversation in Michael''s eyes.
Instead of following the soldier''s order, Michael floated toward him, without making a sword. As a result, the soldier had no idea Michael was behind him when he bent down to pick up the coin.
Pulch!
Michael grabbed his neck from behind and immediately sent his hidden de through the armor gap.
"GRR," the soldier made a sickening growl as Michael cut his vocal cords and threw him off the ledge.
"Two down, two to go"
Even though the soldiers were elites, they were inside the void, making them powerless in front of Michael. While walking toward the two soldiers, the atmosphere grew darker as Michael cast the Death Range spell to enhance his powers to a terrifying level.
"We are really going to capture the Dark Lord,"
"Those amateurs in the guild just overhyped him. In truth, they are just ipetent,"
"No shit. That''s why they are still guardians, and we are hunters,"
The two soldiers gossiped, having no idea death was nearing them.
"I''m excited to receive a huge bonus from Alpha Guardian. How much do you think it is?"
"I don''t know, but I''m pretty sure I can afford a mansion and a huge piece ofnd with it,"
Considering it was nighttime, the soldiers failed to notice the darkness formed by the death range. Besides, Michael floated towards them, so they heard no footsteps.
"Hello boys,"
They heard a sudden cold voice and tried to turn around. However, Michael grabbed both of them by their necks and tightened his grasp, crushing their helmets. Their armor flickered, revealing the caved in heads. The next moment, Michael tossed them down from the ship.
Finally, Michael cleared all the guards on the upper deck,
"My Lord, Miss Peyton has arrived," Azazel''s voice sounded in his head,
"Stall her. I''m on my way to the dining area. It''s time the soldiers tasted my Blood tonic" Michael looked around the empty deck,
"I still got it," Michael felt proud of his handiwork. In a matter of a couple of minutes, he assassinated four elites like they were nothing. It had been so long since he used his assassin skills in this world.
With a proud grin under the helmet, Michael made his way to the ship''s center, where he saw atch.
Chapter 521 Poisoning the Guardians
Chapter 521 Poisoning the Guardians¡¡¡¡Pulling up thetch, Michael opened the doorway to the lower decks. He climbed down thedder and reached a narrow hallway lit with elegant small chandeliers. He stepped on a ruby red carpet that ran from thedder to the other parts of the ship.
A few meters away from Michael, he noticed a soldier guarding a door, and when he noticed Michael, he turned his head,
"What are you doing down here?" the guardian asked,
"Man, I need to get something to eat. I''m starving," Michael quickly disabled his cloak and rubbed his belly,
"Damn it man, quickly eat something and return to your post," the guardian had a British ent which slightly surprised Michael and reminded him of the time Michael traveled to London to kill a billionaire in his own mansion.
"Will do," Michael slowly walked towards the soldier while looking around to see if he could find any clues to locate the kitchen.
Seeing Michael approaching him, the soldier raised his hand,
"Where are you going mate? The dining area is through that door," the soldier pointed at the door couple of doors away from the door Michael was at,
Michael expected the soldier to point out the way because only one of two things could have happened. One, the soldier would point out the right way. Else, he would suspect Michael and try to apprehend him, which would have resulted in Michael killing him and burning his body to ashes with Dark mes. Luckily for the soldier, he chose the first option.
"My mind is boggled man. Thanks anyways. You want anything?"
"Yeah get me a pastry on your way out," the soldier said as Michael nodded,
"Sure thing,"
As he reached the door to the kitchen, he twisted the copper knob and was weed by an enormous, high-ceilinged room,rge enough to contain at least seventy people, with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls and a great brick firece at the other end.
In addition, there were seven rows of long oak tables and benches for the guardians to dine on. At that moment, the kitchen was rather empty, and only a few guardians sat on the benches, having their fill. All the oak tables had several pots and bowls filled with various dishes. When Michael reached one of the oak tables, he grabbed a pastry, lifting his helmet a bit,
"Not bad," the pastry melted in his mouth. He took a big bite and made his way to the brass pots.
"I thought only we have a break," seeing Michaek, a blonde-haired soldier who was having porridge said,
"I am starving. Can''t be on an empty stomach when we catch the Dark Lord, can we?" Michael amused,
"Can''t argue with that point?"
"Finish it quickly Mac. We can''t bete to receive the Dark Lord,"
Michael was pleasantly surprised,
"Is that so? You guys are so lucky, you get to see the Dark Lord up close,"
The blonde soldier rolled his eyes,
"Lucky my ass. I''d rather guard Lady Tiriana''s room than stay close to that creepy fucker,"
Still standing near a brass pot, Michael asked the soldiers,
"Speaking of Lady Tiriana, I have a message for her. From Alpha Guardian. I need to get that to her ASAP,"
"Then what are you doing here? Lady Tiriana''s room is on the other side," Another red-haired guardian with a long cut across his tanned face spoke in a thick ent,
"I will go. After I taste this baby," Michael pretended to take a long whiff of the aroma from the brass pot before him.
"You guys tried this?" asked Michael ignoring the red-haired man,
"What''s in there?" asked another soldier.
Meanwhile, Michael controlled the Spyder he used to distract the soldier to craw through the hallway. Fortunately, Michael found a map of the interior on the wall. It made sense to make a painting of the map and hang this on the wall for the soldiers to navigate through this giant ship.
"Chicken soup. What the hell? Let''s have a taste shall we?" Michael grabbed five ceramic bowls from the table beside him and filled them with the chicken soup while showing his back to the guardians.
With fast and precise movements, Michael took out Blood tonic which was a muddy brown potion, poured it into the bowls, and turned around. The brown potion quickly became colorless and blended with the chicken soup.
"Here you go guys,"
Michael memorized the map as he put the bowls on the table,
"You should go now," the red-haired man coldly said after Michael took a sip of the soup,
"Okay okay, jeesh. You''re aiming for employee of the month or something?" Michael''s words made the others chuckle while Michael grabbed a bunch of pastries,
"This is for me to have on the way,"
Michael walked away from the guardians. On his way towards the door, he looked over his shoulder to see all of them take a long sip of chicken soup.
When he came out of the kitchen, he quickly took out another Blood Tonic potion and drenched them in the potion. For a moment, the pastries looked wet but soon, they regained their usual crispy texture after the pastries absorbed the nanites.
Then, Michael navigated through the hallway ording to the map and on his way, he handed over pastries to the guardians patrolling the hallways. Only then did Michael realize how hungry these soldiers were. It didn''t even take any effort to make them eat the pastries.
"Is everything ready?" As he was walking in the hallway, on his way to Tiriana''s room, Michael saw Xanali escorted by three guardians walking towards him,
"Yes, Guardian Captain. Everything is in ce,"
"Good. I don''t want any surprises," suddenly Xanali turned her gaze away from the guardian beside her to Michael who was standing in the hallway with a pastry in his hand,
"What are you doing?"
Despite the situation, Michael remained calm. For an assassin, it was paramount to stay calm since panicking wouldn''t solve anything.
"Hungry Guardian Captain," Michael sounded like an embarrassed more solid,
Seeing him scratch the back of his neck, Xanali rolled her eyes.
Plop!
Surprisingly, she pped his hand with enough force to make him drop the pastry in his hand,
"Return to your post before I make you have no post to return to," She growled,
"Yes yes, Guardian Captain" Michael turned his tone to sound apologetic, bowing his head. He remained, bending his back until Xanali walked away to a safe distance from him,
"What a colossal bitch," Michael looked at her figure disappearing before resuming his journey to Tiriana''s room adjacent to Captain''s cabin.
"All Guardians, be alert. The Target has reached the loading area and is on its way to the interrogation room" All of a sudden, Michael heard a rough female voice echoing through the hallways,
After navigating through the maze of a hallway, Michael finally reached avish wooden door nked by two elites. The next door was also nked by two elites so, in total, there were two doors and four elites in front of him.
It was kinda problematic since the two doors and guardian were standing next to each other. Luckily for Michael, no elites were inside the Captain''s cabin and Tiriana''s room. He could see Tiriana curling into a ball on her bed while the captain read the map on a table, thanks to his thermal vision enabled him to see through walls.
Fortunately, Michael had the distracting copper coins and countless Spyders in his storage. He put his hands behind his back, retrieving another Spyder and a coin.
The Spyder grabbed the coin and crawled through Michael''s legs, avoiding their gazes. The spyder and the copper coin perfectly blended with the ruby red carpet they were standing on.
"You have a reason to be here?"
"I am making sure everything is in ce. Alpha Guardian''s orders,"
Michael was always prepared to kill them. It would only take him a couple of seconds to kill all of them, but he decided to deal with them stealthily instead of like a murdering maniac.
Anyone could kill, but only an assassin or a killer like Michael could kill with finesse.
Ding!
This time, the coin made a loud noise attracting the four guardians'' attention.
"Did you hear that?" one soldier at each door walked towards where the noise came from, leaving one behind as they should.
Looking at the two soldiers at the door at a three-meter distance and the two soldiers walking away, Michael cracked his neck.
The very next moment, Michael dashed at the first soldier, shing his throat with his hidden de. Then, before the blood sshed onto the floor, Michael activated the death range and fired a powerful bolt of lightning through the other guardian''s head.
He didn''t stop as he drew the sword on the guardian''s sheath and threw the sword at the guardian, who turned back, hearing the thud sounds made by the two dead soldiers. The sword went straight through his head as soon as he turned around.
Then using the walls as his steps, Michael parkoured to the remaining guardian.
"Ignitia" in mid-air, Michael pointed his finger as the golden lightning bolt shot out of his finger and went through the guardian''s throat, forming a hole in his neck.
From shing the first guardian''s throat with his hidden de to killing thest one with the lightning bolt happened within five seconds. The elites couldn''t even lift their fingers in front of his inhuman speed, technique, and strength boosted by the Death range.
Killing them was only half the battle, as Michael had to dispose of the bodies. Quickly Michael dragged the four bodies while spraying the potion he brewed to clean the bloodshed onto the walls and the floor through a sprayer attached to the center of his gloves.
(Chapter 477 mentions the upgrades done to the armor)
Michael looked around with his X-ray vision to see no one wasing his way. The Captain in the cabin didn''t seem like he heard a thing as he was still reading a map.
Instead of going into the captain''s cabin, Michael decided to greet Tiriana. But when he touched the doorknob, he felt an electric shock,
"System, unlock the door for me," after seeing the golden runes on the room, he realized Tanulia ced runes on the door to protect Tiriana,
[The system requires 6000 badass points to disable the runes]
"Do it,"
A bright light shot out of Michael''s hand to the door. Then, the glowing runes dimmed out in a few blinks of an eye. With a grin, Michael twisted the knob as the door opened with a crackling sound.
He took a step inside the room and saw Tiriana curling into a ball on her white bed,
"Knock knock elf, your death is here,"
Chapter 522 Mysterious Guardian Of Tanulia
Chapter 522 Mysterious Guardian Of Tanulia¡¡¡¡Tiriana, who heard these words weakly, opened her eyes. After Michael demonstrated his skills to Atian and Alred three days ago, he went to one of Michael''s restaurantpetitors: The Ruby Cuisine.
Michael poisoned her food with Blood tonic without her knowledge or anyone. Ever since that day, Michael has been controlling the nanites and causing her pain.
(Chapter 495 mentions Tiriana''s arrival at Idrisal)
Tanulia found the Spyders because of Noah. They thought they found all the Spyders in the warship except the one Michael left in Peyton''s body.
Michael knew they had found the Spyders and tried to manipte him by feeding him false information. But Peyton''s dedication to catching him really surprised Michael.
She really went all in, and if it wasn''t for the Spyder in her body, Michael would have been in the interrogation room right now instead of in Tiriana''s room.
"Who¡who¡are¡" She was so weak and barely uttered these words. Looking at Michael dragging the dead bodies, she tried to rise up from the bed but only to fail again and again,
After dragging their bodies inside, Michael closed the door.
"Aww, you want to get up?" Seeing Tiriana struggling and trying to reach for the dagger on a table beside the bed, Michael stepped toward the bed,
Bang!
With a single punch to the side of her face, Michael knocked out Tiriana,
"Now it''s time to clear their bodies," Michael turned around, controlling the air in the room to lift the bodies into the sky,
However, he couldn''t lift the body in the air because of his weak wind maniption rate. If he tried to use the Dark mes to burn them without creating a wind cocoon around the bodies, the entire room would be on fire and soon the whole ship.
"Damn it," Michael yet again raised his hand as a small whirlwind appeared in the room, but he soon lost control over the whirlwind. Several sweat beads appeared on his forehead, but he still couldn''t lift one body.
"n B then. Wind st,"
Since he couldn''t burn the bodies, Michael raised his hand, sending a powerful st of wind. The wind st hurled the bodies under Tiriana''s bed. Although it wasn''t the perfect hiding spot, no one would find the bodies unless one looked under the bed. Besides, Michael didn''t need to keep the bodies hidden for long.
"Come here, sweetie pie," Michael lifted Tiriana from the bed in his arms. His next destination was closer; The Captain''s cabin. While walking out of the room, he looked around with his X-ray vision; fortunately, no one was approaching.
"Blood bags and retractable dagger," Tanulia appeared in the corner of his vision. He saw her through the Spycam in the undead''s eyes,
"Bravo," Michael chuckled as he arrived in front of the captain''s cabin''s door,
Standing before the door, he put down Tiriana on her feet.
Bang!
Michael kicked open the door, startling the plump bald man on the other side of the oak table.
"Move an inch, and I will break her neck," His face might be covered by the helmet, but it couldn''t hide the killing intent in his voice,
"Who are you?" the captain asked,
"Raise your arms in the sky," Michael calmly asked, but the captain seemed reluctant,
With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a dagger and ced it against Tiriana''s neck,
"Okay okay okay," seeing the knife against her neck, the captain immediately raised his arms over his head,
"Now, if you do everything I say when I say, you and she will live,"
Using his legs, Michael closed the door without taking his eyes off the man.
"You have no idea who you''re messing with," the captain growled,
"Funny. I was about to say the same," Michel moved the dagger pointing at the captain,
"Lightning dash" instantly, a lightning bolt shot out of his hand.
The Captain''s body went rigid as the lightning bolt hit the wall behind him, just avoiding his head by a couple of inches,
"You¡you¡" The captain stuttered in fear.
Only one could use spells inside the void line, and it was the Dark Lord. Realizing the man before him might be the dark lord sent shivers running down his spine. He immediately began to tremble as he drenched his white robes with sweat.
A rectangr box vaguely resembled a flight dashboard with several levers and colorful buttons a couple of meters behind the captain. Michael could see the endless Crystal ocean outside through the windows above the console.
"Set a course to your headquarters in Dradel. Or the next one goes through your head,"
Seeing the tiny lightning bolts dancing around his arm, the captain shivered. At that moment, the only thought the captain had was getting out of here alive. Unlike the rest of the ship, he wasn''t an elite guardian. Tanulia hired him as the ship captain just a week ago, and if he knew he would be in the same room with the Dark Lord, he wouldn''t have taken the damn job despite the handsome wage.
He regretted leaving the guardian guild in Idrisal.
"Just don''t kill me," the captain slowly walked backward, keeping his arms in the air,
"Don''t give me a reason to," Michael calmly said.
After reaching the dashboard, the captain pulsed the red liver and pressed some buttons on the dashboard.
"Its done," the captain turned around,
"Good"
Michael nodded and stayed silent for a few moments. Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, Tanulia just unmasked the undead.
"It''s showtime," Michael paid the system another 100 badass points. Soon, his silver armor faded into thin air, revealing his Lucifer armor. Instantly, the room lost all the light and grew darker,
"Now tell me, captain. Have you ever taken an innocent life?"
The captain was startled by his question. But, of course, he had taken innocent lives. During his visit to a vige in Idrisal, he pped a ve he bought from the Southern continent to death because she refused to pleasure him. It was quite usual among the nobles. But he didn''t dare to say anything to the Dark Lord.
"No¡never"
"Fair enough,"
The captain sighed in relief. Though his relief onlysted a second as Michael cast the wind st but manipted the wind element to change the shape of the st. He created a wind de. It was his first time manipting the wind element to transform the wind st into a wind de.
His wind de was surprisingly good enough to cleave the captain''s head off his shoulder. The captain''s headless body staggered around the room, spraying blood all over the room while his head hit the table with a sickening thud.
"He was lying," Michael told Tiriana as though she was awake. He moved on to put Tiriana on the oak table and took out a Spyder to record his message to Tanulia.
After recording everything he wanted, he nned to send the feed to the mini projector he left in the undead''s mouth. Tanulia would think it was a live feed. Still, in reality, it was a pre-recorded feed made by Michael to distract everyone.
A few minutester, Michael left the room, disguising himself as an elite guardian. The room was painted red with the Captain and Tiriana''s blood.
To this moment, Tanulia had no idea her friend had exploded to death.
"Again, I wonder what your future Supreme Guardian has to say about your n. Particrly the part where you endangered his little sister''s life,"
Michael watched Azazel talk through the voice modtor attached to the undead''s throat while going to the interrogation room. Michael was curious to see Tanulia''s expression, and he was surprised when he saw the calm look on her face,
"They knew the vampires were going to kidnap her and force her to retrieve that key," Michael said to himself,
"If I am right, they are nning to kill the vampires after she retrieves the key. Then they will take the key from her,"
Michael was more curious about the key now. The vampires were desperate to find it, and the guardians also seemed interested in the key. What surprised Michael was that Tanulia hid the fact she was using Sabrina from Noah. Ofcousr, Michael knew if Noah knew Tanulia put his sister in danger, he would put Tanulia through hell.
But in case Michael knew Sabrina was his little sister, he would have massacred every single guardian on the ship and gone straight for Tanulia''s head.
Wondering what might the key unlock, Michael navigated through the corridors to the interrogation room,
"Hey"
When he arrived in front of the mirror, a fellow elite guardian greeted him with a nod.
None of them had an idea that the real Dark Lord was watching the interrogation with them. He stood with four other guardians while Xanali stood closer to the mirror a couple of feet in front of them.
Gaya made him promise that he wouldn''t kill Xanali. Otherwise, he would have killed her by now.
"And who are you Cat?" To others, only Peyton, Tanulia, and the undead were in the room. However, there was another figure who remained invisible. Even the elites failed to see him as his invisibility cloak was much more powerful and better than the elite guardians''
Michael saw his seven feet figures via thermal vision. His figure vaguely resembled the tiger hybrid Jacobe he killed when Gaya returned from the Fire realm.
If his memory served him right, he might be the ck Panther beastmen he saw while watching Tanulia''s warship feed.
(Chapter 469 mentioned the ck Panther Beastman)
Michael had a feeling that he was here to protect Tanulia if this went south. Michael also noticed a medallion on her neck, radiating immense power.
"System scan that medallion,"
As usual, the system asked for 2000 badass points. In a couple of moments, he heard back from the system,
[The system has finished the scan¡]
[The medallion contains a sophisticated rune that will teleport Tanulia to an unknown location in case her life is threatened¡]
"Why am I not surprised?"
It made sense to Michael. She was way high in the Guardian hierarchy, and they wouldn''t let here to the Southern continent without any contingencies to save her life. Killing her would take much more time and preparation.
All these medallions, runes, and guardians could only protect her for a short amount of time. As soon as Michael reaches the Fusion stage, he would end her life regardless of whom or what she has to protect herself.
The moment she destroyed the Silent Reaper, she sealed her fate.
"Set a course to Dradel. Elders will meet us there," Michael saw Tanulia turning her head and looking at Xanali,
"Hmm," Xanali nodded at Tanulia before leaving for the Captain''s room, where Michael left some nice surprises for her.
After Xanali left, Tanulia smacked her forehead,
"What am I thinking?"
"Remove his mask. I want to see who is behind that mask," Tanulia ordered Peyton as the elites outside the room took a step forward. One of those elites was Michael.
Chapter 523 The child of Dark Lord
Chapter 523 The child of Dark Lord¡¡¡¡(Sometime in the future)
Under the pitch ck sky, a castle menacingly stood in the middle of thousands of warriors. The sky was lit by the hundreds of fireballs, lightning bolts, and meteors sent by the mages down and in the air.
The castle''s ck walls remained firm despite being bombarded by thousands of angry mobs. They all looked like ants in front of the giant castle.
As far as one could see, there was nothing but scorchednd around the castle, which was previously crowded with ancient forests.
Shhhhhhhhh!
Suddenly as they were sieging the castle, the castle vibrated, resonating an ear-piercing howling sound.
Boom!
As the sound traveled for hundreds of miles, a ring of dark mes expanded rapidly burning everyone in the vicinity to ashes.
"CAST THE LIGHT BARRIER!"
The hundreds of mages in white robes shouted as loud as they could and formed a human chain around the castle. Then, they all raised their staff towards the sky as it slowly split open to release a bright white light.
Just as the bright light wasing from the sky, a dark mist surrounded the castle, turning the surroundings darker than before.
At the same time, thousands of warships were approaching the castle on the horizon. The staff of the mages began to radiate a dim light on the ground. Soon, the dim light weaved a shield in front of them. When the dark mes met the shield, its movement was halted.
The dark mes tried to push through the force field as cracks formed in the white shield. Fighting one of the most powerful Primordial mes, the immortal mages broke into a sweat.
Meanwhile, in one of the warships approaching the castle, a golden-haired man was staring at the map of the Dark Forest. Several other men adorned with golden armor stood around therge oak table and they all bore serious expressions on their faces.
"General Evan, what are your next orders?" one of the golden armored warriors asked General Evan rke,
"Push forward,"
"Permission to speak freely General," another golden armored warrior asked General rke.
"Permission granted,"
When Evan nodded, the soldier removed his golden helmet to reveal her alluring face and striking golden hair. Despite their real age, they all looked like they were in their early thirties because of their cultivation levels.
"Evan, why are we sending half of our troops to the castle where we know the Dark Lord isn''t? We all know the Dark Lord is in the Crypt,"
The other soldiers didn''t speak a word, but they all agreed with her. Unlike her, they couldn''t ask the General so freely.
"Because we have someone far more important in that castle who could end this war forever,"
The soldiers were stunned as Evan let out a deep breath,
"Listen to me men. I was instructed not to disclose the information until I got the confirmation. Now that I received it from the Queen, it''s time for you to know our real objective,"
Everyone''s gaze was on Evan for what he was about to tell them. But, instead of exining, Evan flicked his wrist as a holographic image of an infant child appeared above the table.
"We have confirmation that the Dark Child is in the castle," the golden-haireddy''s eyes went wide as the others looked pale behind their helmets,
"We¡I¡it''s a rumor. Isn''t it?" A soldier stuttered, trembling in fear.
"It''s not a rumor. The Dark Child is real. Our orders are to kill the Dark Child no matter the cost,"
The soldiers were stunned by his words as the golden-haired woman strolled to Evan from the other side of the table,
"Even if it''s the spawn of the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen, we don''t kill a child, Evan. We are no different than the Dark Lord if we did that," She gravely said,
"Orders are orders, Victoria and this order came directly from the Queen,"
"Evan-"
"It''s General Evan, Captain Victoria," Evan cut her off in the middle before she could finish her sentence,
"Yes General,"
Her eyes showed reluctance, but she decided to follow his lead. Because he was not only the General but also her husband,
"General, if the dark child is in the castle, the Dark Queen won''t be too far,"
"We have no idea about her whereabouts. But expect high resistance from the Dark Lord''s army. They wouldn''t let us kill the child so easily,"
With another flick of his wrist, the child''s image disappeared, and the castle appeared before them. Evan pointed to a red dot on the far east side of the castle where the castle''s fire-breathing tower was located. The tower was built to resemble a sleeping dragon and breathed fire through its mouth.
"This is our in. the Nightmare tower breath fire every ten seconds, and when it''s getting ready for the next breath, we will fly into its mouth, ce these charges" Evan''s ring on his finger let out a dim glow as several dark bricks appeared on the table,
"Destroy the tower and fight our way to the center where we believe the child is," Evan said,
"To this day, no one has stepped into the castle because of the Fear Toxin. So we are going in blind. Expect Alpha undead, the dark assassins, and every type of Dark Lord''s army to be inside,"
Although Evan heard no disagreement with the n, he knew the meaning of their silence. He had been leading the troops for years, and they didn''t have to use words to speak their minds. Instead, Evan could understand them. Anyone with a brain could tell that the n was suicide, yet the orders directly came from the Queen herself.
The Queen''s words were absolute. They wouldn''t have stood a chance against the Dark Lord without her. Her courageous leadership and the God Of Light''s power made fighting the Dark Lord possible.
When he first heard he had to kill a child, Evan immediately opposed the order, just like Victoria. However, the Queen showed him the future. The Dark Child held the key to opening the portals to the other universes.
ording to the Queen, The Dark Lord was nning to revive the Ancient gods to life again.
"If the portal is opened, the Dark Lord can travel between the universes in his physical form. Once it happened, no one can stop the Dark Lord, not even the God of Light," Evan recalled the Queen''s words,
"The Dark Lord must not revive the Ancient Gods, Evan"
"Ancient Gods," Evan mumbled under his breath. The Queen had never looked so serious before. But when she spoke about the Ancient Gods, Evan saw the fear in her eyes.
"General"
"General"
The soldiers shouted, stopping Evan''s train of thoughts,
"I know its sounds like a suicide mission, and most of us won''t survive the battle. But no matter what, we must reach the child and end its life before it ends our world" Evan paused for a moment before continuing,
"While we are fighting our way through the castle, our remaining forces will focus on sieging the castle in all directions. This would keep the Dark Lord''s forces busy and give us some breathing room,"
"What about the Dark Lord general?" Victoria raised a question,
"If he decides to show up, you know our n will go down the drain,"
Just a thought of the Dark Lord appearing gave them chills. Thest time the Dark Lord appeared, he killed three thousand elites of the great eight ns and hundred immortals in a few seconds like they were nothing.
"We don''t have to worry about him. The Queen will keep him busy. Once we ce these charges, it will turn off the castle''s defense mechanisms for twenty minutes,"
Even after exining the n, something felt off to Even, like it''s just a tiny part of the Queen''s n.
"I don''t like this n, not even a bit. But we will follow you to the Hell realm itself General," Victoria ced her hand on her chest and spoke loud and clear,
"It''s been an honor working with you people," Evan said, looking at each and every one of his men and women who fought beside him for more than ten years.
"General Evan," a white-robed man entered the room,
"We will reach our destination in five minutes,"
Evan nodded as the man left the room, leaving them to their meeting.
"Leave us alone and regroup at the cargo bay in four minutes," The soldiers bowed and left the room, leaving Victoria and Evan alone.
"You don''t like this n, do you Evan?" Victoria walked toward Evan with a gentle smile on her face to calm him down,
She ced her hand on his shoulder,
"We''ll get through this Evan. We always do" Evan lost his General domineer as he tilted his head, resting his head on her hand,
"Don''t hate me for making you do this Victoria," Evan said in an apologetic tone,
"You''re just following orders, Evan. I know. My only question is, why can''t we take the child hostage and force the Dark Lord to surrender?"
"Too many variables, the queen said. She said the child would let the Dark Lord travel between universes in his physical form Victoria. Once it happens, she said he could revive the Ancient gods,"
"I feel like there is more to the Ancient Gods than we know of Evan. Do you remember the rumors that an Ancient god revived the God of Light?" Victoria asked as Evan sighed. He took his head off her hand and looked at the castle in the distance through the windows,
"It''s just a rumor Victoria. All the Ancients gods have been in an eternal slumber,"
"It''s what the queen said," Victoria''s brow arched up,
"We cannot doubt the queen now Victoria, not when we are so close to ending the war," Evan took his gaze away from the castle and looked Victoria in the eyes,
"Ohe on Evan," She rolled her eyes,
"The odds are we are going to die today. So we can speak freely. Look, I don''t trust and worship the queen as you and the others do. She and I have amon enemy, the Dark Lord. Her leadership is what gave us a fighting chance against him. I give her that. But that doesn''t mean we have to trust her blindly. There''s nothing wrong with questioning her Evan,"
Evan knew Victoria had always been skeptical about the Queen and the information she''s been providing them. But, of course, the majority of the people believed and worshiped the Queen. But a few people like Victoria questioned the Queen''s motives.
"I don''t think the Dark Lord will literally go to hell and heaven to revive good guys Victoria. Whatever these ancient gods are, they are bad news," said Evan,
"But I still remember Lah''sst words, Evan. You weren''t there. Lah was about to say something about THE ancient god, but the queen killed her," Victoria emphasized the word ''the'',
"I can still hear herst words and her smile, Evan. Every night I closed my eyes, I could see her smiling even when she knew she was going to die,"
Victoria''s eyes watered without her control as she recalled Lah''sst words,
"The ancient god Don ising for you,"
Chapter 524 Reset Button
Chapter 524 Reset Button¡¡¡¡Inside the dark castle was dark room lit with crimson red light. There was nothing in the room except a sizeable ck bed, a cradle near the bed, and arge mirror facing the bed''s head.
"Argh," a woman dressed in entirely ck armor growled, struggling to reach for the child crying in the cradle.
She held her stomach in one hand and used the other hand to move toward the child.
The baby kept crying for its mother, and only when the woman touched the child it stop crying.
"Come here," gritting her teeth to fight the pain, he gently lifted the baby from the cradle and ced it on her chest,
"Who hurt my butterball?" She kissed the baby,
As though the baby sensed its mother''s pain, it tried to reach out for her face with its tiny soft hands,
"My Lady," suddenly, a ghostly figure appeared in the room near the cradle. The ghostly figure resembled a middle aged man in a butler uniform. His glowing ruby eyes were the main attraction to his face other than his raven ck hair.
"You''re awake,"
"Didn''t I tell you stop appearing suddenly? It''d freak him out Azazel,"
Yes, the butler was Azazel, and the woman was none other than Gaya.
After hearing herint, Azazel embarrassedly smiled,
"I heard him cry, My Lady"
"How is the funeral?" Gaya''s voice was heavy,
The question made the smile on Azazel''s face fade away instantly. They had lost a valuable member two days ago. The entire castle and the army mourned the loss,
"The assassins took it pretty hard, mydy" Azazel said as Gaya sighed,
"I can''t me them. She practically raised them. May her soul rest in peace," Gaya stood up with the child resting on her chest,
"Here," with a flick of her wrist, she took out a silver medallion which had the name ''Aria Atronius'' engraved in golden letters,
"ce this on her grave,"
A dim light emerged from Azazel''s hand, engulfing the medallion. Then, the light disappeared along with the medallion in Gaya''s hand,
"My Lady, we cannot stay here for long. Our informants in the Skyhall said they dispatched several demi gods to seige the castle. I don''t think we can hold them off,"
Gaya''s face turned gloomy as the child began to cry again,
"No butter ball. I''m not going to let anyone in your home," She lifted the baby gently in the air and smiled at him,
Seeing her smile, the baby stopped crying.
"I can take them down if our defenses failed,"
"No you cannot, mydy. Not with the curse on your body. You need to rest until my lord finds a way to lift the curse," Azazel''s voice almost sounded like he was ordering Gaya.
He had seen enough deaths recently and would rather die than see something happens to the Dark Queen.
"He should be leading the army against that bitch instead of wasting his time trying to lift my curse," her voice slightly stuttered,
"Should I inform my lord about Lady Adria''s death, mydy?"
"NO" Gaya immediately raised her voice as the lights began to flicker,
"He still hasn''t gotten over Nightmare''s death. If you inform him that Aria is dead, he will lose it. We have to give him strength, not weaknesses,"
Her eyes watered up, thinking that Nightmare was no longer with them. Yet, every time she closed her eyes, she could see her memories of Nightmare sh across her eyes.
It felt like yesterday they won Nightmare in a bet against Jane Totonk. In a blink of an eye, two hundred years passed by. However, when she thought Nightmare died, defending River town by himself made her proud. He defended River town for three days from Skyhall. Even after using almost every resource they had, the Skyhall failed to take over the River Town.
He burned hundreds of half immortals before falling to the Dragon Hunters of the queen. After seeing Nightmare''s lifeless body, Gaya went on a killing spree and did not stop until every single dragon hunter lost their head.
She thought killing the dragon hunters would make her feel better. But she didn''t. The loss of Nightmare was something she could easily handle.
Boom!
All of a sudden, the entire castle trembled violently as Gaya was thrown off bnce. Luckily, she quickly grabbed the bed in one hand to steady herself,
Immediately Azazel disappeared from the room to check what was happening. At that time, the baby in her hand began to cry, sensing the danger approaching it.
When the tremor stopped, the mirror before the bed flickered, revealing the Dark Lord''s face.
"Michael!" Straight away, his face put a smile on her face,
She sighed in relief,
"Papa," the baby tried to reach for him,
"Hey little guy," Michael smiled at the baby. Despite his smile, Gaya could see the pain in his eyes. Being the Dark Lord wasn''t his choice. Rather, the skyhall pushed him to be one. They needed a viin so they could be the saviors.
The Michael infornt of her was not the Michael she met. He was funny calm and rxed person. However, ever since he took the mantle of the Dark Lord, he changed into a whole different person. Of course not by choice but the pressure, danger and the responsibilty of saving the world took its toll on both his mind and body.
"Gaya, you have to use the key now,"
The moment Gaya heard these words, her mind went nk,
"There is no way Gaya. The Queen is more powerful than we thought. I don''t think I can hold her off much longer,"
"Don''t¡don''t y with me human¡"
"My Lady," Azazel appeared yet again in the room, but unlike before, his ghostly figure kept flickering,
"My Lord," when he noticed Michael in the mirror, Azazel weakly bowed,
"The elites are there, aren''t they?" Michael asked as Azazel nodded,
"Code Zero is a go Azazel," Gaya saw Azazel''s ghostly figure turning red.
"What is Code Zero?" Gaya gawked at Azazel and Michael, having no idea of Code Zero. But seeing the grave look on their faces, she lost all the color on her face.
She held the baby tightly in her arms,
"Its been an honor serving you My Lord," Azazel''s voice stuttered,
"I wish I had seen him grow up to be a fine young man" Azazel let out a miserable smile as his face was stered with grief and sadness. Yet, when Gaya looked into his eyes, she saw nothing but fulfillment.
"Azazel,"
"Goodbye mydy,"
Boom!
Gaya saw Azazel explode into a puff of smoke. Her jaw dropped while her legs turned jelly. Soon, in front of her eyes, the white smoke formed a portal,
"Use the key on him Gaya,"
She dropped to her knees, tears gushing out of her pale face.
"No, there has to be another way human. You always find a way,"
Michael''s eyes watered as his eyes watered,
"This is the only way Gaya. We can stop everything. We can stop the queen before came into existence,"
"What about me? What about our child? What about our existence?" Gaya''s tears rained down on the baby''s face. The little one reached out to Gaya''s face and wiped off the tears with his little hand,
"If we don''t do this, she will use him to open portals to other universes. He will suffer for eternity Gaya,"
"(Cough)" suddenly, Gaya coughed up blood. The excruciating pain caused by the curse returned.
"Trust my Gaya. This is the only way. Use the key and send him to Etheria before they get to him. He will cease to exist if I activate the machine before you send him there,"
(Etheria is the Universe of Anti Hero with a Symbiote System)
"No¡No¡No¡" her voice stuttered. Gaya held the baby as tight as she could. Compared to the pain of leaving her son, the pain caused by the curse was nothing.
His innocent face that stared at her nkly without any idea clenched her heart.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The castle yet again trembled violently,
"If you don''t do this, he''s good as dead Gaya. USE THAT KEY NOW!" Michael''s shout stopped the castle from shaking. His shout just killed hundreds of Half immortals who approached Gaya''s room.
If he hadn''t used his strength trying to revive the Ancient gods, he could have single-handedly wiped off the queen''s army. However, even with the system''s help, it was impossible to kill the queen without the Ancient gods and Hunter.
(Hunter is the MC of Dictator with a Badass System)
The Queen was not a being that belonged to a single universe. Instead, ording to Ancient God Knight, she split her soul into pieces and sent each piece to a universe. To kill her, one must kill all the soul pieces. Otherwise, she would born again and again until she turns the entire universe into mindless minions whose sole purpose is worshipping her and conquering the worlds.
Michael temporarily sealed his universe using two billion badass points, preventing the Queen from opening portals to the universes she had already conquered. His son held the key to open the universe and the Queen would stop at nothing until she gets to him.
With the system offline and half of his army wiped out, sending his son to Etheria and using the silver hawk was the only way to stop the queen. Silver hawk was his reset button. This time, Michael would correct the mistakes he made.
Tears kept gushing out of her eyes when she slowly removed the tiny golden key hanging around the baby''s neck,
"Your father and I love you so much¡no matter what it takes, we will find you," she kissed the baby''s forehead softly,
"I am sorry little guy. I wish things have gone different,"
Michael closed his eyes for a moment, letting out the tears he was holding,
"We will fix everything Gaya, I promise you. I will save Nightmare, Cindy, Azazel and everyone,"
Michael''s eyes turned blood red and Gaya saw everything turning darker. Removing the key from his neck, Gaya threw it into the portal Azazel created by sacrificing himself. As soon as she threw the key inside, the dark portal turned golden,
"No matter where you are, my love will always protect you butter ball,"
She walked toward the portal carrying her son in her arms. Her body trembled, and it took all her strength even to take a step forward.
Standing only a couple of inches away from the portal, she softly kissed his forehead. Then, they both locked their gazes with the baby,
"Goodbye Draven,"
Chapter 525 The hunt for the key has begun
Chapter 525 The hunt for the key has begun¡¡¡¡(Present)
The sun rose from itszy slumber on the horizon, blessing the majestic Akn Realm with its golden light. Basked in the golden light, the silver stone walls of Mazeroth castle reflected the sunlight like a mirror. The morning birds chirped away from the forest in search of food with the hope of a new day. But,pared to the birds, the people werezy as hell. Except for early birds such as Ka Martin and Gilrine, the others clung to their hot nket on their beds.
"AH!"
In one of the professors'' rooms, Gaya abruptly rose up from her bed, drenched in her own sweat. She gasped as she breathed heavily up as her chest rose up and down frantically.
She ran her hands through her face, breast, and arms like she was searching for something on her,
"What the fuck? What in the actual fuck? What in the goddamn actual fucking fuck?" she cursed relentlessly before tossing the soft nket away.
Her room was not as big as the one in the dark forest. However, it was cozy, stone-floored, and warmed by the firece on the wall opposite the square table and chair for her to study.
The sunlight peeked through the windows covered by navy blue curtains, making the sweat beads on her face sparkle like stars in the night sky. Only the night sky was her rosy face.
She looked tense as she quickly tied her long, raven ck hair into a ponytail. Then, she flicked her wrist as the earpiece materialized on her palm. She put the earpiece into the ear, connected to Michael, and waited for him to answer.
"Heya snakey, what''s up?" She heard Michael''s charmingly cheery voice,
"I had a dream," she eximed,
"Okay. Your voice tells me it''s not a good dream,"
Gaya wanted to tell what she dreamt of. However, most of the details became hazy as she couldn''t remember everything except her son''s face.
"I can''t remember his name¡his name¡what was it¡my son," she began to bber,
"Take a deep breath," Michael''s voice turned rather serious,
"We had a son in my dreams¡something happened¡we lost," she talked in broken sentences,
Taking Michael''s advice, she calmed herself by taking a few long deep breaths. Obviously, she knew what she experienced was a bad dream. Still, it felt so real. The feeling of throwing her son into a golden portal and the sight of Michael''s body withering into dust was etched into her mind.
"Now tell me what you dreamt," Michael asked after Gaya''s breathing became normal.
"Hmm"
She stood up, walking to the windows. She then slid open the windows to let the morning light shine on her face. The beautiful sight of lush greennd, the crystal blueke, and the forest surrounding the castle soothed her soul.
"I can''t remember everything Michael. But it felt so real. We had a son. I can remember his innocent face but not his name. Something happened, and I threw him into a golden portal. I can vaguely remember we were at war and I had this pain all over my body,"
"Hey, listen to me. It''s just a dream. Last night we were talking about Skyhall and having a family. That''s the reason for your dream. Just don''t worry, okay. I am here,"
His calm words always reassured her and gave her courage. This time wasn''t an exception.
"Hey, are you talking to Gaya? Let us talk to her. Give that to me!"
Gaya heard Ayag''s shout, which put a delicate smile on her face,
"Don''t make me flick you Ayag. Just wait until I finish,"
"Okay but finish quickly. You were talking for hoursst night. It''s our turn now," Ayag reluctantly agreed not to bother him until he finished talking to Gaya,
"What if everything I saw happened human? What if it was the future? You said there''s a possibility your future self traveled back in time just like Qin Jiu,"
"Sigh," Gaya heard him sigh,
"Listen. If I traveled back in time, the future us don''t exist anymore. Thest thing we need is to worry about the future that doesn''t even happened. Just calm down and think about what we should do when you return,"
Gaya sensed a tinge of mischief in his voice,
"You''re not gonna get anything until we get married. So don''t get your hopes up, perv" Gaya giggled, forgetting everything about the dream for a few moments,
"Now tell me, where are you?" Gaya asked,
"After talking to you, I will return to the ship to join Olivia. Corey''s men would be there in an hour,"
"So what''s your cover?" asked Gaya. Last night they spent talking about the vampires, Skyhall, and finally having a family where Michael avoided the topic by telling her he feels sleepy.
To be honest, Michael had no ns to have kids, especially after knowing everything about his enemies. However, there was no doubt in his mind they would use his child to get to him.
On the contrary, Gaya wanted not one but a bunch of them. If he won the war against everyone, he might grant her wish. But not before that.
"Well, Corey''s men would attack our ship and take me hostage," Michael calmly said,
"You can''t let Olivia ruin your ns by bringing backup from Elon or informing the Guardians?"
"I will deal with that,"
"You better be back in the dark forest when I return," Gaya threatened him yfully.
She couldn''t wait to reunite with him. The few weeks without him felt like an eternity.
"I don''t think getting the key would take more than a week. Since Noah risked his life to save mine, I''d return the favor by saving his little sister,"
When the elder vampire exploded, Noah jumped in front of him, forming a light shield around Michael. Although Michael could have teleported away from the arena, Noah risked his life to save him.
That was the first time someone risked their life to save him. But, for some reason, Michael felt indebted to Noah. He hated that feeling. Hence, he decided to get the key as well as save Sabrina so he could destroy the nagging feeling of being indebted to someone.
Little did he know that it wasn''t a feeling of being indebted but a little sister''s calling for her big brother for help. So even though Michael was separated from his family by Skyhall, they couldn''tpletely destroy the bond between him and his family.
"Where is Nightmare?" Michael asked, changing the topic
"He got into trouble with some other familiars. Nothing to be worried about,"
"Don''t meddle with it. He needs to experience life alone,"
After everything was said and done, Michael gave the earpiece to Vedora.
While they were talking to Gaya, Michael focused on brewing a few potions to fight the vampires. Since he nned to go in as Ghost rather than as the Dark Lord, he needed potions to fight the vampires.
The dark mes danced over his hand, continuously spitting our crimson red beads into the air. Michael merged all the beds into one and soon, they all split into several blood-red pills,
Looking at the glowing crimson red pills in the air, Michael grinned,
"I shall name you, Berserker pills"
Michael ced the pills on the table before removing the ck bracelet from his wrist. Then, he slid open the cover to reveal an empty box with several runes glowing on the bottom. He slowly picked the pills one by one and ced them into the box.
"My Lord, my men have seen your ship. I am waiting for yourmand,"
"Do not attack until I say," Michael fitted the APD around his wrist,
"It''s showtime," Michael turned around to look at Vedora.
"My Lord," Out of the blue, Azazel appeared in the room. As usual, the demon butler greeted Michael with a bow,
"Monitor and record everything Azazel,"
He stood up from his chair,
"And Corey, guard the waters all time. Follow me after I get to the target, and do not let anyone follow us,"
"Yes my lord," Corey agreed as expected,
Since Michael had done everything he had to before leaving for Sabrina''s ship, he threw a nce at Vedora and Azazel. Then, he willed the system to teleport him back to Olivia''s ship. Then, in a blink of an eye, he vanished into thin air, leaving Azazel and Vedora behind.
***********************************
The waves crashed with the ship, continually shaking the ship left and right without giving it a break. Still, Olivia remained on the upper deck watching the raging storm with her emerald green eyes. The clouds cast shadows dark enough to make anyone think it was dawn.
At that moment, no one except for Olivia was on the upper deck. The sailors asked her to return to her cabin, but she outright refused them. After what happened in Idrisal, she needed to be alone. The adrenaline kept her from losing her mind in overwhelming terror when she was in the arena.
Since the adrenaline rush had died down, the terror slowly clenched her heart. The sight of vampires killing and sucking the victims'' necks kept shing across her eyes.
Thepetition was supposed to be one of the most guarded events considering important people such as Eve Voldigard, Gabriel, and Hendrix were there. Nheless, the vampires massacred everyone and killed eighty percent of the alchemists in Elon and Ozer.
If she was in the spectators'' stand instead of Ghost''s side, she might have been a victim of a vampire. The thought gave her chills.
"Olivia," she snapped back from her thoughts when he felt a touch on her shoulder.
She quickly jerked her head to the side to see Ghost standing beside her,
"What are you doing up here? You should be in your quarters," his calm expression held no worries or no trauma, and his eyes looked as calm as ever. He seemed like nothing had happened.
"You almost died," Olivia muttered,
"You are still in shock," Michael squeezed her shoulder,
"The feeling would go away eventually after you reach the sect. The world is a dangerous ce, Olivia. That''s why you have to be stronger. Both mentally and physically,"
Michael tried to calm her down while watching the vague silhouette of a ship approaching them. Unfortunately, Olivia couldn''t see the ship due to the storm blocking her view.
"Are we truly safe anymore? The vampires, they killed Eva''s guards like nothing. Even though I didn''t know their cultivation level, they might be at least Soul Refining stage warriors," She shivered,
"Everyone has weakness Olivia and the vampires aren''t an exception. I am pretty sure Noah and his guardian buddies would soon find a way to neutralize the vampire problem. Don''t let the fear get to your head," he let his words sink into her brain,
"The storm is getting worse," he emphasized the word ''storm''. That was the keyword for green-lighting the attack,
"As you wish, my lord" he heard Corey''s voice in his head.
Chapter 526 The one who hunted the vampires to extinction
Chapter 526 The one who hunted the vampires to extinction¡¡¡¡Meanwhile, the vampires gathered around in arge spacious hall lit dimly with crimson red chandeliers. They all stared at the Elder vampire standing on the raised tform. The plumy brown-haired vampire paced left and right with his hands behind his back. Just looking at the deep frown on his face, one could tell the elder vampire was concerned about something.
"I always had low expectations of him. But holy fuck!" The elder vampire sneered as two tall women robed in dark clothes approached him,
"Elder Hacan," the two women knelt in front of him as Hacan stopped pacing back and forth for a while,
"What is it?"
"Elder Saber has reached Awor. He advised you to leave the castle and join him in Kingdom Qind," one of the women informed Hacan indifferently,
"Did he tell you anything about what happened in Idrisal?"
"Elder Saber said it''s a matter for the council,"
Hacan exhaled deeply. To be honest, he expected the council to butt in after the stunt Griswold pulled in Idrisal. All the Elder vampires wanted payback on guardians for exposing them, but none of them dared to wage war on them so openly except Griswold.
Against all the elder vampires'' advice, he attacked the Alchemypetition in Idrisal and, shockingly, self-destructed himself. But, since Griswold was one of Hacan''s adopted sons, Hacan had to answer the council''s questions.
Vampires were no different than the rest in terms of politics. Just a simple mishap and the other vampires would be gunning for Hacan''s seat at the table.
Griswold gave those vampires a weapon to use against him in the council meeting. While the situation tensed Hacan, the vampires in the hall gawked at him, having no idea why they were summoned.
At least fifty vampires were staring at Hacan for some answers.
"Tell Saber, I''ll be on my way after tying up some loose ends in Idrisal,"
"We are here to assist you on that, Elder Hacan," the women said in unison,
With a long deep sigh, Hacan finally turned around to look at the vampires in the hall before him. They all went dead silent when they saw Hacan''s gaze sweeping over them.
"Look, I''m not big on speeches. I summoned you all because I have an order for all of you. As you may or may not know, Griswold attacked the alchemypetition and died in the process. Although what he did was extremely stupid, he was one of us. So we have to avenge him and make those who killed him pay," Hacan''s cold voice resonated in the hall,
"Anyone who brings me the heads of Noah, a guardian, and Ghost, a five-star alchemist would receive the blessing to be an Elder,"
As soon as the vampires heard Hacan, the vampires gasped in shock. Immediately their eyes were lit with excitement. Being an Elder meant bigger hunting grounds and more power. No vampire would say no to those two things. Any vampire would literally kill another vampire to get bigger hunting grounds and power.
"Noah Winston is on his way to his home in Pentown. Ghost is in a merchant ship named Merry''s weather. ording to our spies, his destination is Sunrise sect in Bradford,"
Hacan had more information about Ghost to share with his minions. However, before sharing everything, his butler entered the stage through the door behind him.
"Lord Hacan," Hacan looked over his shoulder to see his butler, a gray-robed white hair man who seemed thin as a stick.
"You have to see this," the butler said gravely,
Sensing the seriousness in his voice, Hacan turned around. Then, the old man took out an orb with a flick of his wrist,
Hacan and the two women saw the castle''s outskirts in the orb. When Hacan looked closer, he saw a ck armored figure ughtering his minions and approaching the castle.
"What the heck?" Hacan was stunned as the ck armored figure chopped down his minions'' heads like vegetables.
"We are under attack," the two women stood up to their feet,
Whereas Hacan began to shiver uncontrobly when he ced his hand on the orb and zoomed into taking a closer look at the figure. It was a woman whose raven ck hair danced around her shoulder along with the two dark swords in her hands,
The two ck swords brought back memories Hacan desperately wanted to forget. He could feel the sweat running down his back as the two women noticed Hacan''s breathing getting heavier and heavier,
"Elder Hacan,"
Hacan''s mind went totally nk as he didn''t even hear the two women calling for him.
"It can''t be¡she''s dead¡she''s dead¡" he kept mumbling,
Meanwhile, the ck armored woman wreaked havoc among the vampires outside. Despite the metal armor she wore from toe to neck, the armor didn''t seem to restrict her movements. The two women and the butler saw her cutting the vampires'' heads off without using any spells.
Suddenly the ss orb cracked as the women looked up. Her eyes met Hacan''s before the ss orbpletely shattered into pieces,
"Everyone leave!" Hacan''s sudden shout reverberated through the hall, leaving the vampires stunned.
He didn''t bother to stay any longer and exin what was happening. Instead, he decided to escape the castle. But just as he was about to take a step toward the door, the metal door in the hall exploded. The force of the explosion sent the metal door crashing onto the vampires. The heavy door crushed a few vampires into a pulpy mess.
The vampires jerked around to see a mist of cloud blocking the entrance. A few secondster, the woman entered the hall through the smoke. The vampires noticed the blood dripping down from her ck sword.
For a few moments, the vampires remained still like her dark eyes petrified them. Then, quickly the vampires snapped back to reality as they snarled at her, revealing their razor-sharp fangs.
"Human scum!" an overly violent vampire leaped at the woman,
Pulch!
The vampire was in mid-air when she swayed her body to the side before swinging her sword. The next moment, the vampire''s head separated from his body hit the ground with a sickening thud while the body sprayed blood all over the ce.
Most of the vampires didn''t even realize what just happened. She was too fast. They just saw a blue, and their fellow nsman lost his head.
"Twinkle twinkle little star," her cold words broke the silence haunting the hall. Hacan''s heart jumped out of his heart when he heard these words. Then, losing control over his body, Hacan stumbled back.
He almost copsed if it wasn''t for his butler''s quick reflex to grab Hacan by his shoulder,
"How I wonder what you are," she took a step forward with each word escaping her mouth,
"Kill the intruder!" The two women shouted at the vampires as the vampires nked the women from all directions.
However, she raised her two swords before they could get closer to her. The swords vibrated, letting out a high-pitched whistling sound prated everyone''s head.
"Argh!" Some vampires dropped to their knees, covering their ears.
Boom!
Suddenly, a bright light shot out of her swords as everyone in the hall, without exception, closed their eyes.
"AGHHHHHHH!"
The muffled grants turned into loud screams of agony. Hacan could feel the temperature in the room skyrocketing. When the whistling sound trailed off, he barely opened his eyes, only to see half of the vampires in the hall were reduced to ashes. The others all squirmed on the floor, crying and moaning in pain. The smell of burning flesh nauseated Hacan.
The bright mes dancing around her swords shocked Hacan more than the pile of ashes.
"Primordial mes," even from twenty meters away from the woman, Hacan could feel his skin being burnt by the mes. He couldn''t keep his gaze locked on the me as the fire was too bright. Even the sun seemed dimpared to the mes dancing around her sword. Additionally, the mes let out an ominous howling.
"Up above the world so high" she gracefully walked towards Hacan as the two vampire women poised to attack the ck armored woman,
"Ha¡Harriet¡" Hacan mumbled as he kept walking backward. As she was getting closer to them, the vampires on the ground failed to stop her. That meant saving Elder Hacan has be their responsibility. Hence, the two women closed their eyes as a red mist enveloped them. The next moment, they leaped at Harriet from the stage, showing their razor-sharp fangs. The blood lust in their eyes made their eyes glow like rubies. The two women were extremely fast as they left after images on the stage.
"Like a diamond in the SKY!"
Just as they were in mid-air, Harriet finished her rhyme. The two women were fast, but Harriet was faster. Finally, she just swung her sword, sending a crescent wave of Light mes; the only Primordial me that stood beside the Dark mes in the power hierarchy.
Hacan witnessed Saber''s powerful minions burnt to ashes in a mere moment right before his eyes. The two women didn''t even have time to scream before they turned into nothing but ashes.
Harriet did not stop with killing the two women. Instead, she swirled, sending a stream of Light mes out of her swords.
"ARGH!"
The rest of the vampires'' growls and moans were abruptly cut short as they all turned into piles of ashes. Fifty-two vampires were obliterated in a few moments.
"Who¡who¡are¡you?" the butler who stood beside Hacan stuttered,
"Twenty five years ago, What did I tell you?" Harriet asked Hacan, instead of responding to the butler''s question,
Hacan''s face turned paler than usual as he panted.
Whoosh!
Harriet raised her sword, pointing at the butler, and burnt him to ashes by firing a quick bolt of Light me. The fire burnt not only the butler but also Han''s silk robes. Fearing for his life, he stood naked before her.
"What¡did¡ I¡tell¡you?" she uttered each word with frightening killing intent,
"No no no no," Hacan was one of the most powerful Elder Vampires yet in front of her, he felt so powerless and couldn''t control his body from shivering.
Hacan still had nightmares about what happened twenty five years ago. Harriet Hunt¡ Hacan wished to wake up whenever he went to bed without recalling the name.
Harriet Hunt was why the vampires called the ninth month of the year ''The ck month''. Once upon a time, Awor was full of his kind. Until an Elder Vampire tried to satiate his hunger with the blood of one of the Hunt Sisters.
Little did the elder vampire know that his actions would get the attention of the most feared woman in all of Awor; Harriet Hunt. She relentlessly hunted his kind to near extinction in a month of time. Hacan and a few others were the only survivors, not because they escaped but because Skyhall brokered peace between Harriet and the council.
"I told you" She reached the stage with a swift leap. Seeing her up close, he stumbled back and fell to the floor,
"If you or any of your kind even think of hurting my family, I would hunt you down."
Chapter 527 Kidnapping Ghost
Chapter 527 Kidnapping Ghost¡¡¡¡Having no idea, his mother just wiped off Hacan and his horde of vampires who were ordered to hunt him down. Michael waited for Corey''s men to attack the ship he was on. The storm raged on, forcing them to hold onto the wooden rails. The howling wind partnered up with the heavy rain to create a tornado that grew in size with each passing second.
"We have to get down!" Michael had to raise his voice to make his words reach Olivia''s ears,
"GO!" Michael shouted at her. However, the order wasn''t only for her but for Corey''s men as well.
Boom!
The thunderp resonated in the ocean, followed by the lightning crack that looked as though it was splitting open the sky itself. Olivia quickly manipted the arch energy beneath her feet to fly towards thetch on the ship''s center.
Boom!
Another loud booming sounded throughout the ocean, but this time, there was no lightning. Instead, the entire ship trembled violently as Olivia was thrown off onto the wet floor,
"We are under attack!" Michael shouted, dashing at Olivia.
"Quick quick quick!" He helped her up while keeping his head down,
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Corey''s men bombarded the ship relentlessly,
"What''s happening?!" Olivia shouted.
"Someone''s attacking the ship!" As Michael shouted, Olivia looked over his shoulder to see a man of war slowly emerging through the hazy mist created by the storm.
Everyone around them grew darker because of the man of war''s shadow. Compared to the huge man of war, their merchant ship looked minuscule.
Michael turned around, looking at the man of war slowly getting closer to their merchant ship.
"She really wanna surprise me," Michael thought while looking at the man of war slowly positioning itself adjacent to the merchant ship so they could jump on board.
Meanwhile, the crews who went to rest down decks rushed outside, stunned by the sight of the man of war. The crew shuddered,
"Oh my god!"
"A man o war!"
"Where is the captain?!"
"What are we gonna do?"
"They are onboarding us!"
Michael saw several grappling hooks being thrown at their ship, and a few of them got stuck to the rails. Soon, the crew of man of war reached their ship, sliding through the ropes attached to the grappling hooks.
In a few moments, the empty upper deck became crowded with the crews of both ships.
The merchant ship crew reluctantly unsheathed their swords which were rusty and broken. Since the merchant ship traveled between the cultivation continents, they barely had any attacks. Thus, the crew didn''t bother to purchase new swords or spells.
The storm seemed to have slowed down thanks to the man of war shielding them from the raging storm. The merchant ship crew stared at Michael, expecting him to fight the intruders, including the captain who just arrived at the scene. Instead, the man couldn''t even stand firm on the ground as he swayed like a tree in the wind. He was thin as a twig and Michael wondered how he managed to be a captain.
''
Boom!
Suddenly, a sturdy man jumped down onto the ship, making the ship violently sway left and right. Contrary to the merchant ship captain, the man who just jumped the ship looked taller and bulkier than an average human. His exposed upper body was riddled with Mayan tattoos just like Corey. The man had dark brown eyesplementing his brown curly hair,
"Give me that man without resisting, and I will spare your lives," the man spoke in a thick ent and pointed at Michael,
Olivia was terrified by his words. Not a day passed since the Idrisal massacre, yet she saw someone else asking for Ghost.
"Who are you?" Michael asked, slowly helping Olvia to her feet,
"Come with us," Instead of revealing his identity, the tanned skin warrior replied to Michael,
"Otherwise, we will sink everyone to the fucking bottom. I doubt there are any Core formation cultivators among the crew to fly away," the man snickered,
He was right. As far as Michael could see, except for him and Olivia, not a single one was above the Body Refining stage.
"Do I have to believe that you would spare them if I agreed toe with you?" Michael asked, tilting his head.
"You don''t have a choice Ghost," as the man said, Michael heard creaking noises resonating in the air. He turned his head to see the countless cannons of the man of war slowly poking out,
"Who are you, people? What do you want with him?" Olivia snarled. She had enough of people threatening her and Ghost for one day. She was about to cast a spell as Michael sensed the arch energy around him fluctuating. But he quickly squeezed her hand,
"We have seen enough deaths," Michael whispered,
Then he looked back at the man while the merchant ship crew stared at Michael, wordlessly begging him to go with them and save their lives.
"You got me," Michael threw his arms in the sky,
"Teacher!" Olivia growled as she grabbed his hands,
Michael turned out with a gentle smile on his face,
"I survived worse. Just quit whining and reach home safe,"
Michael squeezed her arm as a gesture of reassuring her before stepping toward the pirates,
When Michael reached his side, the man''s gaze swept across the ship,
"If you wish to see him alive, don''t tell anyone about this" he directed his gaze at Olivia,
"Trust me when I say this, people. If you breathe a word about this, we will kill you and your kin,"
ording to Michael''s n, the pirates had no idea Ghost is the Dark Lord. As far as they were concerned, the Dark Lord ordered Corey to capture him, and Corey conveyed the order to them.
Even Corey thought Ghost was one of the Dark Lord''s targets.
"Listen to them. Do not speak a word of it," Olivia didn''t nod but stared at him with a nk mind. She only snapped back to reality when the man grabbed Ghost by his cor and leaped back to the man of war. By that time, their figures had disappeared from their sight.
After Ghost left the deck, the crew members sighed in relief. Except for Olivia, everyone seemed rather happy.
Back on the man of war''s upper deck, Michael was surrounded by several pirates with scimitars. They all stared at him menacingly as the captain showed him towards the openedtch on the ship''s center,
"Chill out bro. I am walking," Michael sped up his pace. Soon, the ship began to move, but he couldn''t watch over the merchant ship or Olivia as he was pushed down thedder leading to the dark lower decks of the ship.
The strong stench of rum and moth made him twitch his nose. The pirate captain walked behind him, leading him further into the dimly lit corridors until they reached a tiny room with no windows. Instead, the room had a tiny bed, a hand size hole on the wall to enable wind flow, and a weakly burning candle. The room was barely four feet wide and if Michael bounced, he would hit his head on the ceiling. But, on the other hand, the bed sheets looked ancient, yellowish, and drenched in fluids that Michael didn''t even want to guess what.
"Enjoy your stay, Lord" the man chuckled evilly before shoving Michael into the room and closing the door behind him.
Michael waited until the footstepspletely went quiet before establishing a connection with Corey,
"Is it done?" Michael thickened his voice and asked Corey,
"Yes my lord. My men have captured Ghost without any casualties, as you ordered. What''s your next order, my lord?"
"Where are you right now?" instead of giving Corey her next orders, Michael asked about her whereabouts,
"Still following the target my lord," Corey said,
As per Michael''s orders, Corey dyed the ship Sabrina and the vampires on for a week by destroying the mask with chain shots. Corey and her men plundered the ship, intending to dy their journey. Afterward, Michael asked Corey to leave them alone. It took the vampires another week to repair their ship before resuming their journey. Corey had been following the vampires for four days by now.
"They are sailing away from the southern continent my lord,"
"Where is Ghost now?" Michael asked, pretending not to know anything about Ghost''s location,
"In the crystal ocean my lord,"
"How long do you think it takes for your men to reach your target?"
"Hmm," Corey''s voice trailed off as Michael heard the sound of papers ruffling,
A few secondster, she responded,
"A day if the wind''s with them and day and a half if it isn''t,"
Michael rubbed his chin for a moment,
"Here''s what you''re gonna do. Order your men to sail to your location, and then, follow the target together. When the target anchor somewhere, throw Ghost over to the target,"
"My lord, what if they reached their destination before my men could reach me?"
"Then note the location and inform me right away. Remember no matter what, do not lose them," Michael coldly said to Corey.
"Understood my lord,"
"And tell your men to stay away from Ghost,"
"As you wish, my lord"
Michael was d to hear Corey abiding by his orders without asking a question. After dealing with Sabrina and the key, Michael decided to deal with the two Pirate Lords. Currently, Pirate Lord Vance rejected Michael''s offer to join his army, which was a pretty stupid move if one asked Michael.
The most powerful Pirate Lord ckmane was yet to be found by Corey and after which, Michael would give him the same offer he gave Vance.
Michael would be forced to destroy them if they rejected his generous offer. He had so many things to do and ying tug of war with weaklings such as Vance was not something he would spend more time on.
"It seems like I have some time to kill," after closing the connection with Corey, Michael turned his focus to the dirty bed beside him.
He essed his system storage to take out a thick nket and put it on the bed. Only then did he lunge onto the bed.
After a long few days of nning and killing, Michael decided to get some sleep. However, he doubted he would get any sleep or rest after reaching where the vampires were traveling to.
Chapter 528 Caged Sabrina
Chapter 528 Caged Sabrina¡¡¡¡"It''s kinda rxing" Michael snuggled under the warm nket, talking to Gaya through the earpiece. He felt like a teenager who talks to his girlfriend hiding under the nket.
"What''s rxing?" asked Gaya,
"Everything snake. The storm outside, this cozy room, the warm nket, everything,"
"Enjoy while itsts. Who knows what would happen after you get to Sabrina?" Michael heaved a long breath of sigh, staring at the moth-covered ceiling,
"By the way, why aren''t you going as the Dark Lord?" Gaya asked,
"I could, but if I did, Sabrina wouldn''t open up to the Dark Lord. We need to know more information about the key. If the vampires are keeping her alive, it means they can''t get to the key without her. Since I saved her and her mother, she has a soft spot for Ghost. I can use that to get to know more about the key,"
"Do you have everything you need? You said you broke your swords fighting the elder vampire,"
"I already told Corey to order her men to give me a pair of swords. I can make do with that until we go to the Aqua auction,"
"Don''t be stupid. I''ll put two swords in the space ring. Take them with you," Gaya raised her voice, yelling at him like a concerned mother,
"Oh"
Michael quickly sent a sliver of arch energy to the silver ring on his middle finger as the ring began to glow dimly. Then a pair of swords materialized above him and floated in the air.
Each of the two identical swords had a long, thick, warped de made of iron held by a grip wrapped in shiny, red scaled leather.
With a single, sharp edge the sword would protect him from iing blows while also giving him the ability to shred his enemies to pieces. The de had a jagged, twisted cross-guard, offering plenty of protection to his hands and thus his life. Although the cross-guard had a decorative crow head on each side, the cost of forging the swords must have been high.
A massive pommel was decorated with gilded linings. No expense was spared for the gorgeous swords in front of him.
The de itself was engraved as countless symbols have been delicately etched into the de, which only added to the elegance of this weapon and its cost.
"Where did you get them?" Michael was surprised by the swords. Although he liked the ck swords more because he liked ck, the two silver swords weren''t inferior to his previous two swords by any means.
"Where else? From Mazeroth armory. Do you know they have an entire hall filled with old used weapons the students could use for free?"
"Those fuckers are really rich and resourceful,"
He couldn''t believe they threw these two beautiful swords into the waste room and let the students take them for free.
"If these two swords were to be used for free, imagine the things in their protected vault. It would be nice to rob them blind one day," Michael exhaled.
To others, earning twenty to twenty-five million a month was a huge deal. Not even many nobles would earn that much. However,pared to MAzeroth, the noble families in Awor, and some cultivators such as Hendrix, he was poor as a sewer rat.
Nheless, it would soon change when the scarcity of alchemists hit the two continents like a raging tsunami. The vampires did him a huge favor by killing 80% percent of the alchemists in Elon and Ozer. Besides, he ended Gabriel''s life. Thus, his value just skyrocketed through the roof.
The exclusive clients of Gabriel would have to look for another Alchemist and Michael would be their only choice. He already decided to raise the prices since it was the logical thing to do.
"We are still way weaker than our enemies. Just get to the Soul Refining stage quicker snake,"
"Not all of them can get stronger by killing people my dear Michael," she hissed,
"What if we both traveled to the treacherous ocean one more time? Thest time I went there with Lah, I was so weak. If we both reached the Soul Refining stage and went there, we could dominate the ce,"
Many young masters such as Noah wouldn''t revisit a ce that they went to while they were weak. They would struggle and depend on their luck to survive the ce. But after surviving, they wouldn''t return to the ce.
However, Michael nned to visit the treacherous ocean. Now he had more tools and was stronger than he was when hest visited. He was confident that he could dominate the treacherous ocean and harvest all the resources there to get stronger.
"Why not? It''ll be like a post-engagement honeymoon," Gaya chuckled,
"Oh shit, I have to go meet Gilrine" Suddenly Gaya remembered she had to apany Gilrine to the ck forest,
"Alright, be safe. I''ll get some sleep and I''ll update you after I reach the destination,"
"Don''t die on me okay. Just get home safe with the key human. Ummua, I love you," Gaya kissed him,
"I love you too Gaya," Michael''s softly said before cutting the connection between them,
After everything was said and done, Michael closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep.
************************************
While Michael was sleeping peacefully, Sabrina curled into a ball on the floor, trying to fight the cold. Unfortunately, she was stammering in the cold and tried to cover her hands and legs with her long silver robes.
The vampires kept her in a cage below decks. As far as she could see, there was nothing but pitch ckness. The water leaked through the holes and gaps above her and drenched her dress.
"Rowena, Noah, where are you?" Sabrina sobbed, She may be strong but she was still young and innocent. So when Peyton recruited her to chase down Victor, she thought it would give her real-world experience.
Sabina didn''t believe she could be a fearless warrior by studying books and fighting dummies in Holy Trident academy. Instead, she wanted to fight real enemies and get a real battle experience like her brother Noah.
However, everything changed when a monster of a man attacked their safe house in the Southern continent. Even in her current condition, where they caged her like an animal and fed her only once every two days, she thought about Peyton.
She slowly opened her palm as a dim golden light brightened her face. Her puffy eyes due to sobbing so much and paleness became visible in the light.
Until recently, Sabrina was oblivious to the golden rune on her right palm. However, the rune began to glow when she came across an ancient parchment in a dungeon that appeared in Kingdom Mohan.
The parchment contained words written in an ancientnguage. Unfortunately, she couldn''t make out any words except the name ''Arrora'', which was written in theirnguage.
Sabrina wanted to take the parchment to her elders in Holy Trident but the parchment turned into a sh of light and entered her brain. Ever since then, Sabrina could recall the way to something called ''The Key''.
She only shared the information with her teacher at Holy Trident Academy. Little did she know that her teacher was an Elder Vampire disguised as a teacher in Holy Trident.
Because of him, Sabrina was captured by the vampires and forced to show them the way to the key. Otherwise, they threatened Sabrina by telling her they would massacre her family overnight.
Now she had no choice but to guide them through the maze to get to the key. Even if it cost her her life, she wouldn''t let anything happen to her family. But deep down, she wished either Rowena or Noah woulde and save her from the monsters above her.
"I want my big brother¡" she sobbed like a little girl in fear and despair.
Creak!
She shuddered when she heard the door creak open as she saw the light peeking through the door to her cage.
"Get up bitch. The ind is nearby" a figure dressed in ck robes rattled the cage with the wooden stick he used to beat Sabrina for fun,
Even in the pitch ck darkness, she could see his ruby red eyes menacingly looking at her. He licked his lips as Sabrina shuddered. She had seen him bite a youngster''s neck and drink all his blood until the youngster was mummified.
She could still feel the pain in her back due to the beating he had given her a few days ago.
"I''m¡up," she stuttered as she tried to pick herself up. But the shackles around her wrist made standing up a difficult task,
Meanwhile, the vampire took the key chain hanging on his waist and unlocked Sabrina''s cage. As soon as he opened the cage door, he kicked Sabrina in the gut with enough force to make her throw up blood,
"Ah the smell of blood," the vampire licked his lips again,
"(Cough) (Cough)" Sabrina kept coughing up blood. Her vision went blue because of the pain in her stomach,
The next moment, he grabbed her hair and dragged her out of the cage.
Thud!
The vampire leaped through the opening and threw Sabrina onto the wooden rails when they reached under the opentch. Sabrina''s eyes hurt as she saw the daylight after a long time.
As her vision cleared, she noticed several ck-robed figures surrounding her.
"Remove her shackles. If she tried to escape, cut her arms" she jerked her head right to see a tall, lean, and mean-looking man walking towards her. Contrary to the rest, he didn''t cover his head with a dark cloak. So she could clearly see his pale oval face, crimson red eyes, and the two fangs that protruded when he grinned like a devil.
Hearing the man''s question, the one who dragged Sabrina to the upper deck stepped toward her.
"Please try to escape," he slowly ran his wooden stick across Sabrina''s face,
Under the vampires'' gazes, he grabbed the iron shackles around her wrist. When he touched the shackles, they just vanished into thin air.
"Elijah, look there" suddenly, the vampire stopped feeling her face with his wooden stick when they heard the vampire in the crow nest.
Sabrina saw the vampires looking behind her. Because of the beating she received, she was terrified even to move an inch. Still, she looked over her shoulder through the gap between the wooden rails to see arge man of war ship sailing in their direction.
Instead of anchoring the ship and jumping onto the tiny sandy ind in front of them, they just stared at the man of war.
Chapter 529 Big brother Michael to the rescue
Chapter 529 Big brother Michael to the rescue¡¡¡¡"Get to the ind," the tall greater vampire ordered his minions as they quickly leaped from the ship to the ind with a swift jump,
"Come here bitch,"
"Ah!'' Sabrina shouted as the vampire with the wooden stick grabbed her messy golden hair,
In a few moments, all the thirty vampiresnded on the tiny empty ind floating in the sea. Except for the vampires and Sabrina, there was only a coconut tree in the center. Other than that, not even crabs inhabited the ind.
"Is this the ce?" the tall vampire put on his cloak as the clouds moved away, no longer obstructing the sunlight.
"If they tried anything funny, board them and kill them," the tall greater vampire named Elijah said, looking at the approaching man of war.
He then slowly moved his gaze to Sabrina, who was still under the hold of Zeke.
"Get her to work," Elijah ordered Zeke, who slowly licked Sabrina''s neck with a devilish grin. Elijah felt proud of Zeke because just in a few weeks, he broke Sabrina''s warrior spirit. Not only that, but he also controlled his blood lust. Zeke was the most violent and bloodthirsty vampire among everyone on the ind. Elijah had lost count of how many humans and beastmen Zeke bought from the ve market just to torture and drink their blood.
Sabrina squirmed, trying to escape Zeke''s hold only to get pped by Zeke. a bright light shed across her eyes as everything became blurry because of the p.
The vampires meticulously tortured her for thest few weeks to break her warrior spirit. Of course, they couldn''t destroy itpletely but they certainly broke it.
Thus, Sabrina obeyed their orders like a doll without showing any kind of resistance,
Zeke grabbed her neck without giving her time to steady herself.
"Where to?"
Sabrina pointed at the lone coconut tree in the center. While getting pushed towards the tree, she prayed deep down someone from the approaching man of war would save her from the vampires.
But after looking at the thirty vampires around her, she just sighed inside. She had witnessed how they cast spells and used arch energy inside the void line. The ability to use arch energy made the vampires absolute gods in the southern continent. So Sabrina knew even if the entire crew of man of war chose to attack them, the vampires would feast on them in a couple of minutes.
At that moment, Sabrina would give anything to see her big brother or big sister. So while the man of war was slowly sailing towards them, Sabrina went to the coconut tree. As she got closer to the tree, the brighter the rune glowed on her palm.
Surprisingly when she approached the coconut tree, the ind trembled slightly. Then, a rune resembling the letter ''D'' slowly appeared on the tree.
It glowed in golden color and pulsated powerful energy.
The energy was nothing like they had ever felt. Each time it pulsated, a shock wave swept across the ind.
"Hmmmmm," after every pulse of energy, they heard a whistling sound resonating on the ind.
Meanwhile, the man of war reached close enough to cast its shadow on the ind. The vampires were poised to leap onto the man of war, but instead, they saw a hook being fired onto the ind from one of the upper deck cannons.
Elijah moved to the front expecting a battle. He waited for the humans to attack them, licking his lips. Contrary to his expectations, he saw a dark-robed human sliding through the rope towards them. For a moment, Elija mistook the human for a vampire. Just like them, he dressed in full ck, his long ck coat fluttering in the wind, he had a beard that was neither too busy nor too stubble and the most eye-catching feature about him was the two swords crisscrossed on his back, forming an ''X'' behind his back.
As he was sliding towards them, he looked over his shoulder and showed his middle finger to the man of war. As a result of his offensive gesture, someone from the upper deck cut the rope. They all expected the young man to fall into the water but instead, they saw him leap into the air, roll, andndfortably on the sandy shore like a cat.
He cracked his neck, dusted the sand on his ck robes, and looked at the vampires lining in front of him. When his gaze swept across them, Elijah saw a tinge of surprise in his eyes, especially when he saw Sabrina,
"Ghost?!" Sabrina shouted in joy when she saw a familiar face,
Without her control, her legs dashed at him only to get pulled back by Zeke by her hair. The moment Michael saw Zeke p Sabrina, something primal awoke in him. Something deep down told Michael to cut Zeke into pieces and throw him into the sea.
"Kill him," While Zeke was dragging Sabrina to the tree by pulling her hair, Elijah ordered the others to kill Michael,
Michael on the other hand couldn''t take his eyes off Sabrina. His hatred for the Guardian Guild reached another level. They knew Sabrina was with the vampires yet they didn''t even raise a finger. For them, the key was more important than Sabrina''s life. Just by looking at her bruises and the messy state of Sabrina, Michael could guess what she went through.
Even in front of him, the vampire handled her like she was a rag doll.
"Don''t you idiots know who she is?" Michael asked Elijah instead of surrendering to his blood lust.
"I said kill him," without answering Michael, Elijah growled at the vampires, revealing his fangs and crimson red eyes to Michael,
"Vampires," Michael pretended to be surprised,
"Now you''re gonna quench our thirst," Elijah menacingly threatened Michael,
"I don''t know why you bloodsuckers kidnapped me here. But I''m really not in the mood for your games,"
Elijah was surprised, and it was visible in his eyes. He quickly raised his arm, wordlessly ordering the vampires to halt their steps,
"We didn''t bring you here," Elijah coldly said,
"I think you guys havemunication problems. The vampires in that ship said you wanted me here,"
Elijah frowned, looking at the man of war sailing away from them. Ghost didn''t look like he was lying. Of course, the vampires couldn''t see through his lies because he was trained to lie convincingly.
"Don''t kill him. Just break his bones," Elijah ordered them with a nonchnt wave,
"Diddle diddle¡" as the vampires walked toward him, licking their lips, Michael cracked his neck.
His words sounded funny to some but murderous to many. Meanwhile, Zeke stopped dragging Sabrina through the sand to watch what would happen to Ghost.
Sabrina''s heart started to pound against her chest, looking at the two vampires getting close to Ghost.
"We are so little,"
Pulch!
Pulch!
The two vampires who extended their hands towards Michael suddenly put their hands down. Elijah saw the two just standing before him without moving an inch.
When the vampires looked at Ghost, he had bloody silver swords in each hand. It happened so fast that many didn''t even see him unsheath his swords.
Sabrina''s eyes went wide as the two heads hit the sand while the headless bodies staggered around, spraying blood through the neck. As a result, the vampires shuddered.
"Blood thornes!"
"Blood bolt!"
Sabrina saw the vampires near her raise their hands and cast spells. However, nothing happened. The vampires looked just as confused as Sabrina and Zeke.
Seeing the dumbfounded look on their faces, Michael snickered. The moment Michael saw the ind, he paid the system to scan the ind for anomalies. Although the system said its level was too low to provide him the full information about the ind, it notified him about the strange energy surrounding it.
The energy waves radiated by the ind nullified any arch energy or celestial energy in the atmosphere around the ind. So even Michael had to pay 50,000 badass points to use Arch energy inside the ind.
Thus, he knew the vampires wouldn''t be able to use Arch energy while they were on the ind. Because they had no way of using arch energy, the vampires lost all their chances of winning against him.
"You shouldn''t have brought me here," Michael flicked his swords, scattering the blood on the de to the sword.
After the two vampires failed to cast the spell, Elijah tried to circte the arch energy in his body but to no avail. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t feel any arch energy in his body. To be exact, he couldn''t feel the arch energy or manipte it.
"I am so sick of you bloodsuckers," Michael swung his sword at the three vampires in front of him. Two of them evaded the swing by crouching down but the one who had slow reflexes lost his head to Michael''s sword.
"Ah!" But the two who crouched down weren''t lucky either. Michael kicked the sand into their eyes,
When they instinctively covered their eyes, Michael cut their heads like pruning weeds. Their heads flew into the air as Michael kicked their heads with a swift stylish spinning hook kick. The vampires were stunned by his speed and skill.
In a few seconds, he killed four vampires. Shockingly, the vampires were highly trained by Lenora, one of the elder vampires who had a seat on the council.
"I''ll rip you to pieces!" Instead of ordering his minions to kill Ghost, Elijah dashed at Michael to kill him by himself,
Whoosh!
Ghost threw his sword at Elijah, but Elijah caught the sword easily. However, before Elijah could make a snarkyment, he saw Ghost flick his wrist as a vial dropped into his arm from his sleeves.
ng!
Elijah was toote to stop Ghost as he threw the vial at the dead bodies on the ground with enough force to break the vial into pieces. As soon as the vial was broken, Elija noticed a green mist emerge from the ground.
"ARGHH!"
"Shit it burns!"
"ARGH!"
Soon the vampires began to scream and shout, including Zeke who dropped to the ground, screaming in agony. Surprisingly, Sabrina felt nothing. She even saw Elijah scratching his eyes and growling on the ground.
Instead of killing the vampires near him, Sabrina saw Ghost walking towards Zeke. Noah might be his arch enemy, but Sabrina was nothing but nice to him. She always treated him warm and friendly, even after Michael beat the crap out of Andrews.
By pping Sabrina in front of him, Zeke punched his ticket to hell.
Chapter 530 The Berserker Pill
Chapter 530 The Berserker Pill¡¡¡¡While Zeke was growling and moaning in misery, Michael gently lifted Sabrina from the ground.
"Here," Michael put his hands into his inner coat pocket and took out a sparkling blue healing potion,
Instead of taking the healing potion, Sabrina hugged him so tight and plunged her head into his chest. Michael was surprised but he didn''t push her away. Instead, she began to cry her eyes out to the point Michael felt his shirt bing wet with her tears.
"It''s alright Sabrina. It''s okay," Michael couldn''t help brushing her head gently.
"Why are you here with the vampires?" Michael asked, pretending to know nothing about Sabrina''s status.
She didn''t answer him immediately as she hugged him tight and cried. He could really feel the tightness of her hug. It felt as if she was trying to squeeze him to death.
Only after several minutester did she let him go. Then, Michael grabbed her hand and ced the healing potion in her hand,
"Drink it. You will feel better,"
She nodded obediently before drinking the healing potion. Meanwhile, Michael looked down to see Zeke growling and rolling on the sand. The gentle smile on Michael''s face immediately vanished into thin air. Instead, a cold murderous look emerged on his face.
The tables were turned against Zeke in a blink of an eye. Michael grabbed him by his cor, pulling him up.
"You get off by pping girls?"
Michael smashed Zeke against the coconut tree. Several coconuts fell from the tree because of the force.
Plop!
The sound emanated from Michael''s hand shing with Zeke''s face echoed through the salty air.
Plop!
Michael pped Zeke again and this time, with more force behind his p.
"AH!" Zeke screamed,
"Kill him," Sabrina coldly said, picking up Zeke''s wooden stick that looked like a mini baseball bat from the ground. Michael turned his head to see Sabrina extending the wooden stick to him. Since she consumed the healing potion, the rosiness returned to her face. Plus, the bruises and puffiness hadpletely disappeared from her face.
Bang!
Michael struck the wooden stick against Zeke''s shoulder, breaking his shoulder bone in an instant.
"ARGH!" Zeke''s pain snapped him out of the Anti vampire potion Michael recently brewed after getting the Elder vampire''s blood. It was super effective against the low-level vampires. However, when inhaled, the potion would slowly eat the organs from inside for a couple of minutes. As a result, they would feel excruciating pain.
Michael had no test subjects to test the potion until now. However, he kept an eye on the greater vampire, growling and moaning less than the rest.
He wanted to test how long the potion''s effects wouldst.
After breaking Zeke''s left shoulder, Michael released him as he copsed to the ground. Then, Michael switched the wooden stick from the left hand to the right hand.
The moment he switched the wooden stick, he hit Zeke''s other shoulder, putting more force than before. Hence, Zeke''s shoulder bone snapped with a sickening crushing sound. But it was music to Sabrina''s ears.
"How does it feel?" Michael bent down to meet Zeke''s eyes,
The vampire snarled, showing his teeth and fangs.
Pulch!
The vampire spat on Michael''s face. Michael just smiled but not a gentle, calm smile. On the contrary, it was the smile of a cold-blooded killer.
"Wrong move,"
Michael stood up and put his feet on Zeke''s shoulder.
"Please be advised that the following events contain blood and gore. Please close your eyes if you are light-hearted," Michael mimicked the tone ofmentators,
"GRRR" Zeke growled as Michael pushed his feet down, crunching his broken shoulder bone,
To Michael''s surprise, Sabrina didn''t take her eyes away from Zeke,
"Kill him,"
Sabrina coldly eximed. For thest few weeks, Zeke beat and tortured her every chance he got. If vampires had reproductive organs, Sabrina had no doubt that the vampire would have taken the torture to a new level.
After experiencing all the torture and beatings, Sabrina had no mercy left in her towards Zeke. She was innocent but not a saint.
"Good," Michael nodded at Sabrina. Then, he kicked Zeke right in the face.
"Grrr"
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Michael repeatedly kicked Zeke until Zeke''s skull cracked and caved in. Michael felt the squishiness of Zeke''s brain but didn''t stop till he turned Zeke''s head into a mashed potato.
Normally Sabrina would have thrown up at the gory sight. But at that moment, she had no food in her belly. Secondly, she had seen worse things done to humans captured by the vampires when she was in the cage.
"Ghost," Sabrina looked over her shoulder to see the vampires slowly getting back to their feet, including the greater vampire. The excruciating pain in their body slowly lessened with time.
"Zeke," Elijah clenched his feet, looking at Zeke''s headless body, which was still twitching under the neck.
"Twenty-four versus one. The odds are against you," Michael said, cracking his neck left and right,
Facing the murderous gazes of the vampires, Michael stepped in front of Sabrina, shielding her with his body.
"I¡ I¡can¡fight," Sabrina stuttered. The broken warrior spirit wanted her to fight so it could heal.
"No, you cannot" Michael immediately shut her off. Michael noticed the difference between the Sabrina before him and the Sabrina he first met with just a single look. There was no way in hell she could face the vampires without some serious therapy.
He then threw the bloody wooden stick to the ground and grabbed his sword, sticking it into the sand.
"I''m going to enjoy killing you and sucking you dry," Elijah snarled,
"You know what," Michael sheathed his swords,
"Since you fuckers pissed me so much, no quick death for any of you," Michael cracked his knuckles. Then, he flicked his wrist as a red pill bumped onto his left arm and directly went into his mouth.
The berserker pill instantly melted in his mouth and was consumed by his body. As a result, his pupils constricted, muscles tightened, and his eyes showed a tint of redness.
Since Sabrina was standing close to him, she noticed his muscles and height growth. He looked a few inches taller and broader than he was a few seconds ago.
At that time, two vampires dashed at him from the right and two from the left. Contrary to Michael, the vampires took out the daggers hanging on their waists. Since they could use arch energy, none of them bothered to buy a sword or a spear but just had a dagger for cutting open anyone except their own kind.
Michael stunned the vampires by dashing at the vampires approaching from the right at an inhuman speed. He grabbed the hand of the vampire, which held the dagger, bent the hand, and stabbed the vampire''s chest with his own dagger.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Michael rapidly stabbed the vampire''s chest until he decided to slit his throat. Then, he kicked the body towards the vampires nking from the left, which left one vampire on his right. The vampire swung his dagger while another six surrounded him.
He swiftly swayed his body, easily evading the dagger. Then in a blink of an eye, Michael threw an uppercut to the vampire''s lower chin. His inhuman strength produced by consuming the berserker pill dislocated the vampire''s jaw in an instant. Additionally, the vampire''s few teeth and blood mixed with saliva sprayed out of his mouth.
Michael grabbed the two teeth and mmed them against the vampire''s eye socket. Then, without giving the vampire the time to regain his bnce, Michael grabbed his head and snapped it like a twig.
He lifted the dead vampire by his legs and waved it in a circle, knocking down all the six vampires who surrounded him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 3000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 400 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2500 badass points]
¡
The system notification continuously rang in his mind. Sabrina couldn''t take his eyes off Michael. He was the exact opposite of Noah, but for some reason, she felt safe with him just as she felt with Noah. She had been praying for her siblings toe to her rescue and instead of Noah or Rowena, Sabrina received him.
She couldn''t believe he was wreaking havoc among the vampires without using any spell. It had be clear to Sabrina that he spared Andrews''s life and Peter''s.
Looking at him brutally killing the vampires, her warrior spirit slowly healed up.
"Human filth!" At that moment, Elijah had enough as he dashed at Michael. Compared to Michael, Elijah was a foot taller than him. He tried to grab Michael by his neck, but Elija had no idea the extent of raw strength Michael possessed.
When Elijah reached out to grab Michael, he bent backward, unsheathed his sword, and swung the sword straight across Elijah''s neck. The very next moment, Elija saw everything spinning around him and a headless body staggering around Ghost.
That was thest sight he saw before everything became darker.
The vampires halted their steps as they shuddered in fear. Their fear was logical because he had just cleaved their leader''s head in a blink of an eye. Many of them didn''t even see what had just happened. One moment, Ghost and Elija dashed towards each other and the next moment, Elijah''s head went flying away from his body.
"Pfft, I''m not a fucking saint to keep my word," Michael smirked,
Under their terrified gazes, Michael grabbed Elijah''s headless body as it rained down blood on him. His face was painted red with Elijah''s blood in a few moments. When he smirked, he looked like the devil himself grinning at them.
Michael took his time intimidating the vampires and killing them one by one.
He massacred them because they hurt Sabrina. If he had known Sabrina was his little sister, Michael would have brought the cmity upon the entire vampire kind. Unlike Noah, Michael had no rules or killing restrictions.
He couldn''t wait to see Noah''s reaction when the Dark Lord revealed the fact that Tanulia and the guardians put his beloved little sister''s life in danger. The Berserker pill''s effect slowly started to fade away as he raised his fist toward the mouth. Then, the APD shot the red pill right into his mouth.
Michael looked up at the sky, feeling the pleasurable sensation in his body. He raised his arms to the sky as he was praying. But he wasn''t praying but letting the vampires enjoy theirst moments in the world.
Chapter 531 Army of the Queen
Chapter 531 Army of the Queen¡¡¡¡Michael''s pupils shrunk when the berserker unleashed its full effect on him as he grew a few inches taller and broader. The next moment, he dashed at the vampires with such inhuman speed that Sabrina''s eyes failed to follow his figure. He crisscrossed among the vampires, cleaving their heads and shing and dashing them.
Of course, some vampires managed to cut him, but Sabrina didn''t see any signs of pain on his face. Instead, she was staring at him inplete shock. To her, Ghost seemed like a mix of Rowena and Noah. He had the finesse of Noah and ruthlessness of Rowena.
Ghost terrified the terrifying vampires. Some of them tried to run but unfortunately had no way to go. In a few minutes, the golden sandy shore turned red with blood and in addition to dried coconuts, the ind contained severed heads of the vampires.
"Weaklings," Michael snickered after killing all the remaining vampires.
Instead of approaching Sabrina, he went to the ind edge, bent his back, and washed the blood off his face with salt water. Next, he washed his beard, hair, and neck to clean the blood. Then only did he turn around to see Sabrina''s frightened face.
"You don''t have to be afraid of me Sabrina," Michael said, sttering the blood from his two swords,
He then slowly walked towards Sabrina, who stood closer to the lone coconut tree with the glowing rune on her palm.
"Normally, I don''t poke my nose into anyone''s business. But the vampires brought me here, and you are with the vampires. Do you know what that means?"
Sabrina shook her head slowly,
"That means, whatever you''re here for has be my business. We can''t fly away from here and we certainly can''t man that ship by ourselves," Micahel looked at the merchant ship floating near the ind.
Of course, he could fly away from the ind if he wanted. However, it would defeat his whole purpose ofing here. Still, Michael had to put up a facade like he was brought to the ind by the vampires.
"So it''s safe to assume you were brought here by the vampires because of that right?" Sabrina saw Ghost''s gaze falling on her glowing hand,
Sabrina slowly bobbed her head up and down. He then turned his head to the side to see the glowing rune on the tree. Unfortunately, although the system scanned the rune, it failed to find what kind of energy the rune was pulsating. But as far as Michael felt, the energy was a hundred times more powerful than the Celestial energy.
"Try cing your hand on the rune one more time. I have a feeling our only way out of here is to go through whatever this is,"
Sabrina hesitated for a few moments, contemting whether she should involve Ghost in her mess or not. But after looking around the endless ocean, she had a feeling that no one woulde to save them any time.
Besides, Sabrina wanted to see what the vampires wanted from her.
"Wait," but when she was just a few inches away from touching the rune on the coconut tree, Michael grabbed her hand,
"If we are going to do this, there are some rules. If you follow these, you will get home safe and sound. You got me?"
Michael looked into her eyes and didn''t move his gaze even an inch away. Under his cold gaze, she had no choice but to nod,
"Hmm"
"Good. First, you will do what I say and when I say it. No questions,"
For some reason, the rune on the tree gave off a feeling simr to his runic teleportation runes. If it was like the teleportation rune, then he knew that the rune on Sabrina''s hand must be the one that activates the teleportation rune.
Just by looking at Sabrina''s shivering legs, he could tell that she was terrified to the core by the vampires. Michael had seen the same signs in soldiers tortured in camps in some ces back on earth. So it was obvious to Michael that they tortured Sabria to break her spirit.
"I can leverage her weakened state to get more information," Michael said to himself. Since her mind and body were in a vulnerable state, he nned to exploit it to get as much information as possible from Sabrina rted to the key.
"Second, no lone wolf bullshit. You''re not in the shape to fight alone. So let me do the fighting. You will stay close to me all the time,"
"But-"
"No buts. I am giving you a golden opportunity here, Sabrina. You can watch and learn from the best. You can either ept it or throw it away. The choice is yours,"
Michael interjected her before she could oppose him. Sabrina stared into his calm, pitch-ck eyes for a few moments.
"Hmm" Finally, Sabrina nodded, having no choice.
"Now go ahead," Michael released her hand as she finally ced her hand again on the rune.
As soon as both runes came into contact, the runes created a powerful shock wave that circled out of the ind, forming a strong wave in the sea against the wind.
It almost knocked down Michael but sted the dead bodies into the sea.
The next moment, a bright light beam shot out of the tree, enveloping Sabrina and Michael. Sabrina quickly covered her eyes with her hand.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing in a gloomy ce void of any color except ck and white. She looked up to see nothing but a ck sky. She saw nothing but dark walls engraved with countless runes and symbols when she looked around her.
Hearing a sudden rustling sound, she jerked her head to the right to see Ghost running his hand through the symbols. The hallway she was standing in was at least fifteen meters wide.
She slowly made her way towards Ghost, who was busy checking out the symbols and engravings on the wall. The ce gave her an eerie feeling with its ck and white ambiance.
Michael on the other hand was focused on the engravings and symbols on the wall to the point he didn''t even notice Sabrina standing behind him.
The seemingly chaotic engravings formed a drawing when looked closer. He could vaguely make out a lion with wings roaring at a woman with a giant woman with several arms.
What drew his attention the most was the figure standing beside the lion.
He seemed to be holding a sword and a hammer resembling the doom bringer.
"Is that me?" Michael asked himself,
"Ghost," he snapped back to reality when Sabrina ced her hand on his shoulder,
"You have any idea about this ce?" Michael asked Sabrina,
He felt like he was dropped into a ck-and-white movie. Even the gems in her dress lost their glow and looked gray. The floor was paved with rough stones which were also used in the walls. The sky was pitch ck void of any stars or moons. Michael wondered where the light wasing from but to no avail.
"Hmm" Surprisingly, Sabrina responded to his question with a nod,
"Shadow Realm. The ne between the worlds," Sabrina said, looking around.
She read about the shadow realm while scouring through the ancient scripts in the Holy Academy library. Among all the realms, the shadow realm was the most mysterious and many believed it was just a myth. However, after looking around the ce, she had no doubts.
"What might possibly tempt the vampires in this ce?" Michael slowly walked along the walls as Sabrina followed him behind,
"Can you remember anything the vampires said that could help us? Calm yourself and think," Michael urged her to spill more information about the key.
Not only the vampires but also the guardians were interested in the key. Which could only mean one thing; the key would open the gateway to something much more powerful.
Sabrina however remained silent without opening her mouth. Michael looked over his shoulder to see her opening and closing her mouth as though she was contemting whether she should tell him or not.
Instead of pushing her too hard, Michael decided to give her some time.
"Check this out," Michael suddenly halted his steps and pointed at the engravings to Sabrina.
She stepped closer to Michael, looking at the symbols he was pointing at. While she was looking at the random ce Michael showed her, Michael took out several Spyders and drones and let them fly out in all directions to get the ce''syout.
"Am I looking at something?" Sabrina asked after a while. No matter how close she looked, she couldn''t make out anything but just random shapes and symbols.
"It''s a maze," Michael mumbled under his breath when the drones and Spyders formed a map of the ce. They were literally standing in the middle of a maze.
The drones were still flying as theyout of the ce confused Michael as a maze should.
"I need toe up with a n," Michael thought. But, of course, Sabrina was the best source to know more about the ce was Sabrina.
"What else do you know about this shadow realm? Any time difference between us and our world?"
"ording to the scripts I read, time stays still in the shadow realm,"
Finally, Michael felt a little bit relieved. In case the time stood still, as she said, he could attend the Aqua n auction without missing it. Besides, he didn''t have to worry about missing the rest of his studies in Mazeroth.
Whoosh!
His train of thoughts was abruptly interrupted by a whistling wind. They both felt a gust of wind passing through them. Michael immediately unsheathed his swords while scanning the surroundings. His environmental scanning map didn''t reveal any hostiles near him until he vaguely saw a few silhouettes materializing out of thin air surrounding them.
"System scan them," Michael quickly ordered the system as the creatures walked out from the shadows revealing their full form. As soon as Michael''s gaze swept across them, he creased his brows.
They were some kind of humanoid creatures with no skin covering their bodies. The creatures hissed at Michael. To him, they resembled the skinless anatomy dummies in sciencebs.
Sabrina, who had less tolerance for horrifying creatures, immediately felt her stomach growling as her face turned green.
[Army of the Queen¡]
Surprisingly, Michael heard the system''s voice flickering as though something was disarraying the system.
Chapter 532 Family Issues
Chapter 532 Family Issues¡¡¡¡"Army of the queen?" Michael was surprised. He expected more information from the system other than some cryptic words,
Fortunately, Michael was able to feel his arch and celestial energy.
"Do you have any defense spells?" Michael asked Sabrina in a husky voice while watching the skinless humanoid creatures cautiously,
"Hmm," Sabrina nodded as he expected,
"Cast it on yourself and stay close to me,"
Michael shielded Sabrina with his body by moving closer to her. The fact she felt safe when she was with him surprised Sabrina deep down. She had only experienced this feeling when she was with her family. Hence, she contemted how she could experience the same feeling with Ghost.
Meanwhile, the creatures seemed to be hesitating to attack Michael. They were taking a step forward and back again and again.
"Trident Cross," Sabrina waved her hand as a ghostly golden trident materialized over her head. Then from the trident''s end, a translucent shield shot out to cover Sabrina.
Michael counted twelve creatures around him. He wanted to know how powerful they were before unleashing his full power.
"Ignitia," Michael raised his sword as the lightning bolt traveled through the sword and went straight through the creature standing fifteen meters away from him.
As soon as the lightning bolt entered its head, the creature''s head exploded into red mist, which startled the others.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
The system sounded fine except when it said the word ''Queen''. It felt like there was something else after the Queen, but he couldn''t hear the word. The static prevented Michael from hearing the word clearly.
"So weak," Michael mumbled after the headless creature copsed to the ground,
The other creatures angrily hissed at Michael. But since they had no skin on their body or face, there was no expression. So the only sign of anger they could make was hissing.
"Ring of Fire," Since they were standing in a circle around him, Michael simply cast the ring of fire to burn them all with a single spell.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
¡
The creatures squirmed and growled on the ground, getting barbequed by the me. However, since Michael avoided using the Dark mes, they didn''tpletely turn into a pile of ashes.
"We should move. I have a feeling they are just scouts," Michael didn''t waste any time lingering around but dragged Sabrina into the dark hallway in front of him.
Just as Michael grabbed her hand, he noticed the rune on her hand glowing brighter and brighter.
"Wait a minute,"
Sabrina was confused as she let Ghost move her hand in a circle. As he was moving her hand, Michael noticed the rune was glowing brighter when he pointed her arm in one direction and dimmed while he was pointing on the opposite side.
"The rune, it''s showing us the way," Michael said to Sabrina.
"This must be why the vampires wanted you with them,"
His words made sense to Sabrina, and they made more sense when they began to walk. After almost fifteen minutes of walking in utter silence, the straight hallway branched into several paths.
"Point your arm towards each and every path," Michael instructed Sabrina.
Currently, seven paths were branching out in front of them. Although Michael sent his drones into each path, they were still flying and nearing the end of their range. Hence, finding the right path with the drones didn''t seem usible at the moment.
From left to right, Sabrina moved her hand as the rune glowed brighter and brighter until her hand pointed at thest two pathways.
"Do it again. This time, from right to left," Michael instructed,
Under his order, she did as she was told. But, this time, Michael could see that the fifty pathway from left to right might be the right way as the rune glowed brighter when she pointed her hand towards it.
"This might be the way. Stay closer to me," Michael chose the fifth pathway and began to walk towards it.
"So just out of curiosity, how did you end up with the vampires? They took you from the Holy Trident Academy?" Michael asked Sabrina while walking,
"No" She shook her head,
"I was staying in Maven, a kingdom on the Southern continent. Victor and Elijah, they killed the people I was staying with and took me with them,"
Michael noticed that Sabrina didn''t tell him she was with the Guardians.
"Your family must be thinking you are in the academy. This leads to my next question, do you think your academy is searching for you? You must be a big deal in your academy right?"
"Big deal. Why do you think that?" For the first time in a long time, Sabrina''s lips curled upwards.
"Isn''t it obvious? Your elder sister is the Holy Maiden of Skyhall. Your brother is the youngest Guardian Captain. I heard you''re the youngest disciple to enter the Holy Trident Academy. Your family is full of prodigies and talents Sabrina,"
Michael really wondered what the hell Diana was smoking when she gave birth to her children. All of her kids turned out to be heaven-defying talents. It was really a wonder for such normal parents to give birth to monsters like Noah and Rowena.
"Sigh," Surprisingly he heard Sabrina deeply exhale,
"I''m not up to their standards," Her answer surprised Michael,
"Look at me. I can''t even hold a sword in my hand without shivering. If Rowena or Noah was in my ce, they wouldn''t have been kidnapped by me,"
Instead of responding to her family problems, Michael kept walking straight.
However, she didn''t stop talking.
"I was the one who always needed saving. Even now, if you hadn''te, I still would have been a ve to the vampires," Michael sensed a major inferiorityplex from Sabrina, but he couldn''t me herpletely. The bar set by Noah and Rowena was so high that many wouldn''t reach that high in their entire lives. Granted Noah had Andreas to guide him but Michael knew even without Andreas, Noah would have been a heaven-defying talent. As far as Michael was concerned, if Noah didn''t have Andreas, Noah would have reached greater heights.
That old man was using Noah to finish what he couldn''t.
"For once in my life, I wanted people to introduce me as Sabrina Winston. Instead of Noah''s sister or Rowena''s little sister. I want to get out of their shadows and make a name for myself, "
"Hmm," Michael just made a sound, leading the way. They were slowly approaching a corner where Michael couldn''t see what was around the corner with his eyes. But Michael had drones hovering directly above a group of skinless creatures.
"You can kill vampires but can''t speak?" Sabrina frowned as she expected Ghost to speak his mind.
"Shh," Michael quickly pushed Sabrina to the wall and ced his finger on his lips, wordlessly telling her to be quiet.
Michael slowly moved along with the wall to the corner. He slightly moved his head, looking at the group of five skinless figures lying on the ground while one figure stood guard. The group of five seemed to be sleeping. The snoring was a dead giveaway. Still, Michael was surprised as he didn''t expect them to function like normal human beings.
Sabrina moved so close to him to the point he could feel her warm breath on his chest and smell the vague jasmine vor from the top of her head.
Considering she was his chest height, Michael grabbed her head and pushed her to the side,
"What are they doing?"
"Sleeping perhaps," Michael whispered to her. Then he slowly unsheathed his swords without making a sound,
Surprisingly, Michael extended the hilt of one sword to her. She was confused because he said she couldn''t fight before they were teleported to the shadow realm.
Without waiting for her to grab the hilt, Michael lifted her hand and ced the sword in her hand. Michael noticed her hands shivering, just like she said.
"You can''t get better without going through pain and suffering. Hold it tight," Michael pressed her fist, tightening her grip on the hilt.
"I will take care of the standing one. You sneak up on the others and cut their throats in their sleep,"
Michael didn''t even wait for her answer as he leaped into the air andnded right behind the creature in a blink of an eye. There was no way but to walk past them. His speed and agility really startled Sabrina.
He moved like a leaf in the wind, gentle and light. The skinless monster didn''t even move until he stabbed it right through the head from behind.
After killing the skinless creature, he ced the body on the ground making no sound. Then, he locked his gaze with her,
Sabrina stared at Ghost who waved his hand, telling her toe forward and end their lives.
"Real warriors look their enemies in the eyes before taking their lives," Noah''s words sounded in Sabrina''s mind, preventing her from moving her legs.
"A coward takes life from behind. A warrior protects a life behind him," She could literally hear Noah''s teachings in her head. Never in her life did she take life from behind. Noah taught her to fight like a warrior, not like an assassin.
But at that moment, Ghost was telling her to do exactly what Noah said don''t.
"Typical," Michael snickered inside, looking at Sabrina hesitating. Instead of waiting for her to sneak up on them and cut their throats, Michael decided to kill them by himself.
Standing around the corner, Sabrina saw Ghost disappointingly shaking his head before stabbing the sleeping creatures through their heads one by one in a few blinks of an eye.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
¡
Each time Michael killed a creature, the system awarded him with a measly amount of 10,000 Experience points. So that was why Michael asked Sabrina to kill them because that would have given her some amount of courage.
After Michael killed them, she slowly walked toward him with her head down. She couldn''t look him in the eyes for some reason. But unlike she expected, Michael didn''t say anything.
"Come on, let''s go,"
Chapter 533 Scriptures on the walls
Chapter 533 Scriptures on the walls¡¡¡¡"I''ll take that," Michael took the sword from Sabrina''s hand and turned around to continue his journey showing no signs of disappointment on his face.
As he was leading the way, Sabrina followed him silently. asionally, she opened her mouth and shut it close quickly.
Since the path went straight, he did not need to focus on Sabrina''s rube. So instead, he focused on the walls to make out shapes from the chaotic scribbling on the walls.
After almost fifteen minutes of walking in silence, the symbols and drawings on the wall began to make sense. Michael walked along the walls, looking at the engravings.
This time, Michael saw a vague shape of a cobra and a man with wings fighting a woman on a giant lizard-like monster.
"Shit!" When Michael touched the man, he felt a sudden bolt of electricity running through his finger.
"What the hell?" Michael touched the engravings of the man again, but unlike before, he felt nothing.
Michael walked along the walls with a deep frown on his face.
"Who is he?" Michael asked himself, looking at the man with the wings in the wall.
On the other hand, Sabrina saw nothing but scribblings and chaotic shapes on the wall. Nothing made sense to her. She walked behind him until he suddenly halted his steps.
She wanted to ask why he stopped, but he raised his finger, wordlessly telling her to not speak.
He looked closer at a potion of engravings where the man with the wings was fighting a giant five-headed hydra. The man looked tinypared to the hydra. But piqued Michael''s curiosity was the vague shape of a human watching the fight from the shadows. The mysterious figure almost resembled his full Lucifer form.
"Is that me?" Michael looked at the figure closely,
But suddenly, he felt a gust of wind brushing past him.
Ding!
In a blink of an eye, Michael moved his head to the side as an arrow went into the wall, cutting a few strands of his hair.
Sling!
Michael unsheathed his swords, pushing Sabrina against the wall so she wouldn''t be attacked from behind.
Ding!
Ding!
This time, Michael deflected the arrows with the two swords.
"Why don''t you show yourself? Let me guess, you''re too ugly" Michael sneered. Sabrina looked around, trying to find where the arrows wereing from. But after she heard Ghost''s words, she saw a figure slowly appearing near the wall on the other side.
The figure who appeared out of thin air looked exactly the same as the skinless monsters Ghost killed before. Except, the creature in front of them held a bow in its hand.
Whoosh!
"AH!" Sabrina squealed and closed her eyes instinctively. But when she opened her eyes, an arrowhead made of iron was just a few inches away from her.
If Ghost hadn''t caught the arrow, the arrow would have gone straight through her head.
"Trident Cross," snapping out of the shock, Sabrina quickly waved her hand as the ghostly golden trident materialized over her head.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The skinless archer changed its target when the translucent shield appeared around her. It rapidly fired arrow after arrow at Michael with lightning speed.
The archer was indeed fast, but Michael was faster than him. Hence, he easily deflected the arrows with his swords while walking toward the archer.
"Ignitia,"
Michael pointed one sword at the creature and fired a bolt of lightning while deflecting the arrows with the other.
"Grrr!" The creature growled, leaping away from the lightning bolt just in time. Michael fired lightning bolts rapidly like he was shooting a gun. Thus, the skinless creature was forced to leap and run instead of firing arrows at Michael. It was so easy for Michael, a Soul Refining stage warrior, to toy with the weak creature. Besides, the shadow realm boosted his power to a certain degree with its dark, gloomy ambiance.
After a few moments, Sabrina saw Ghost firing lightning bolts out of both swords. As a result, the creature growled and kept leaping back and forth.
It felt as Ghost was toying with the creature to Sabrina. He was not a guy who would toy with his foes.
"Why are you running? Don''t you wanna kill me?" Michael pretended to y with the creature, but in truth, he was testing the creature''s agility, speed, and powers. Even a weak rat would unleash new forms of attacks when pushed to the corner, so Michael wanted to see what the creature before him could do.
"Wind st," Michael changed his tactic by sending a powerful wave of wind toward the creature, sting it onto the wall behind. The creature was able to avoid lightning bolts, but it couldn''t escape the wind st.
The creature squirmed, trying to get back to its feet. But looking at Michael approaching it gradually, the creature closed its eyes as Michael saw a bright white light enveloping the creature.
"That''s it, use everything you have," Michael intentionally riled up the creature byughing at it.
[Does the host wish to convert the life energy the Queen''s archer radiated to Arch energy and show its rtive cultivation level?]
"It''s nice to see you are being helpful again system," Michael mumbled under his breath sarcastically,
[It would cost you 50,000 badass points]
"No shit sherlock. Just take it," Michael didn''t try to be stingy as knowing the enemies was crucial to winning any battle. Until now, he didn''t meet any challenging skinless creatures, so he killed them easily. However, that didn''t mean he wouldn''t meet any stronger creatures. In fact, he had a feeling that they were just in the beginning stages of the maze and would meet terrifying foes on their way forward.
Michael halted his steps waiting for the system to give him the ability to see the creature''s cultivation level. Sabrina was confused as she failed to understand why he stopped attacking the creature. On the other hand, she noticed the creature raising its hands to the sky as though it was praying for something.
As a result, Sabrina saw a ck arrow slowly materializing in its hands.
"Body Strengthening stage?"
Suddenly Michael was able to sense the cultivation level of the creature. But, to be honest, he was kinda surprised at how weak it was. Its cultivation stage gradually rose from the Body Strengthening stage level 2 to 5 and stopped at level 6 when the ck arrow finished taking its shape.
"GRRR!"
The creature nocked the arrow on the string, aiming at Michael, who remained still.
"Lightning Dash,"
Before the creature could release the arrow, Michael dashed at the creature. The next moment, Sabrina saw the creature''s head flying into the air andnding right in his hand as its headless body staggered around the ce, spewing dark blood.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
Without wasting the blood, Michael quickly took out a few vials from the system storage and collected the blood. Afterward, he bent down to cut a piece of flesh from the creature''s chest, which nauseated Sabrina. But Michael whistles and cut a chunk of its flesh, showing no signs of disgust on his face.
"Ring of fire" after cutting the flesh and taking its head, Michael raised his hand, sending a wave of fire onto the headless body. It took the fire a few minutes to disintegrate the body into a pile of ash and bones.
After killing the creature, Michael returned to the wall section where he was staring before the creature attacked him. However, he was disappointed to see the arrow sticking right through the ce where he saw a figure resembling him.
"Damn it," Michael punched the wall, shocking Sabrina.
"What was that?" she asked, breaking her long silence.
"Nothing. Come on let''s go,"
*********************************
Meanwhile, somewhere else in Awor, Sabar was sitting behind an oak table with moonlight pouring on him through the window behind him. He closed the thick book he was reading and took a long sip of red liquid from the ss in his hand. One would expect the liquid to be wine but in truth, it was human blood.
What else could an Elder vampire like him drink on a beautiful night like this? His eyes were too tired to the point he wanted to cancel his night hunt and go to sleep. However, when he was about to stand up, he heard someone knocking on his door.
"Come in," Saber calmly said as a young girl wearing a ck top and a white mini skirt entered the room carrying a wooden box.
"Lord Saber, someone has sent you this," Saber creased his brows as he smelled a familiar scent from within the wooden box.
"Leave it here," the maid girl ced the box on the table, bowed towards him, and left the room, leaving Saber alone in his rather empty room.
Saber waited until the footsteps werepletely unhearable. Then, looking at the wooden box, Saber exhaled. Then, he slowly lifted up the wooden box to see the bloody severed head of Hacan staring at him.
"Hacan," Even at that moment when a fellow Elder vampire''s dead eyes were coldly staring at him, Saber didn''t lose his calmness. Instead, he closed Hacan''s eyes and picked up the letter beside the head.
It was obvious to Saber that whoever killed Hacan left the letter for him to read. So, he didn''t waste any time but picked up the letter and opened it,
Dear Saber,
I hope you are enjoying your evening in the Awor continent, thend of the rich. If you wished to continue your life by leeching onto wealthy nobles, you may do so. However, the moment you step outside Awor, I will end your pathetic life¡Just like I did to your friend Hacan.
Yours truly,
The one who''s holding your life¡
Chill!
Out of the blue, the windows behind him shattered as an arrow went straight through his shoulder. Saber jerked around to see no one in the sky. He dashed outside, but there was no one in the area as far as he could see and sense.
"Who are you?" Floating in mid-air, Hacan asked himself.
"Am I being hunted?"
Chapter 534 The man with red wings
Chapter 534 The man with red wings¡¡¡¡After navigating the maze for an exhaustingly long time, Michael saw Sabrina''s pace slowing down. She breathed heavily while asionally massaging her ankles. They could have flown, but Michael wanted to preserve his energy to fight if the skinless creatures ambushed them suddenly.
"Let''s rest here," Michael looked around before halting his steps. Sabrina heaved a sigh of relief as she was waiting for him to stop. She quickly sat on the ground as Michael took out a stack of firewood from his system storage.
The shadow realm was void of colors but not void of coldness. So Michael ced the firewood between them and lit the firewood by sending a tiny bolt of lightning from his finger.
Michael sat before the fire cing his two swords on the ground beside him. Sabrina hadn''t spoken a word to her since she failed to kill the skinless creatures.
Sabrina gawked at him in the corner of her eyes to see Ghost staring at the nk ck sky above them.
Finally, she mustered up the courage to speak to him,
"I am sorry,"
Hearing her words, Michael lowered his head to look at her flustered face,
"Sorry? For what?" Michael asked,
"For not killing them,"
Michael took a long deep breath,
"I don''t me you, Sabrina. You have your own moral codes. There''s nothing wrong with that. Just a friendly piece of advice, don''t let your moral codes kill you," Michael told her with his usual calm tone and gentle smile,
"They are not mine¡" Her voice trailed off,
"My brother taught me the virtues a warrior must have. I grew up learning these from him. How could I suddenly break them?" She exined herself,
"Hmm," Michael just nodded without saying anything else,
"I know you have something to say Ghost. So please speak your mind,"
Her eyes water as Michael sighed,
"You were with the vampires. Did you see them abide by the same moral codes you have?"
She shook her head,
"Wee to the real world, Sabrina. The foes you will face have only one code, survive. I have moral codes too, but if they put me in danger, I''ll break them in a blink of an eye. That''s how I survived till now. Maybe you can follow your code of warrior because you have a family to protect you. Many don''t have that virtue,"
Sabrina didn''t take her gaze away from his for a moment,
"You miss them?" she asked, tilting her head innocently.
"Who?" asked Michael,
"Your family,"
"Why should I? They certainly didn''t miss me,"
Sabrina sensed the coldness in his words. It showed Sabrina how much he hated his family deep down.
"My mom always said a mother would never abandon her child willingly,"
"Hmm. You should get some sleep," Michael did not wish to continue the discussion. Hence, he just stood up from the ground and walked towards the wall behind Sabrina. He wanted to check if he could find any drawings or engravings that would give him some insight into the ce.
Michael almost forgot to give her a nket and a mattress to sleep on, but Sabrina surprised him by sleeping on the floor, curling herself into a ball.
"Here," Michael came to her and flicked his wrist as a soft ck mattress, and afy nket appeared beside Sabrina.
"Your mind and body need sleep,"
"It''s¡"
"What? You have something against sleeping on a mattress?" His stern voice gave her no leeway to talk back. Hence, she just climbed onto the mattress and covered herself with his nket.
Every fiber in her body felt relieved when hey on the mattress. It had been so long since she felt thefort of a bed as she slept on the wooden floor in a cage. Never in her life had she appreciated the warmth of a nket and thefort of a mattress like she did at the moment.
"Thank you," she looked up at him with watering eyes,
"Sleep. You are safe now," Michael squatted beside her, gently brushing her head with a smile that warmed her heart and provided a much-neededfort to her.
Thinking Ghost would protect her, Sabrina closed her eyes without worry. Finally, she felt as though she was home.
"Poor girl. Noah and his fucking codes fucked her up," Michael pitied Sabrina.
When he was about to stand up and return to the wall, she grabbed his hand,
"Please stay with me. Don''t leave me," Sabrina opened her eyes while squeezing Michael''s hand tight.
"I''m not going anywhere," Michael tried to take his hand away, but she didn''t let go of his hand. Her grip was strong enough to tell him she wouldn''t let him go so easily.
Letting out a long sigh, Michael sat beside her. Still, she didn''t release his hand,
"I am here. Now sleep,"
Since Michael couldn''t help but pity Sabrina because of what she had gone through.
Finally, she closed her eyes once again while holding his hand tight. Having no choice but to stay with her, Michael sat beside her and took out the book Lord Information gave him. He opened the book with one hand as his other hand was being used as a pillow by Sabrina.
While reading the book, Michael tried to contact Azazel, only to fail.
Michael lost track of time reading the book. He was drowned in reading until Sabria snuggled closer and closer to him.
"Shit," Michael cussed as she climbed onto his leg and ced her head on hisp. Michael felt so ufortable since only Gaya had ever slept on hisp. It felt weird for a few moments, but when he saw Sabrina sleeping peacefully, he just smiled and let her sleep on hisp. He even brushed her hair with his other hand.
Almost an hour passed as Michael closed the book and looked at Sabrina. He felt something weird. He couldn''t put his finger on it, but something felt so odd, like he had some kind of connection with the girl.
"Should I take a blood sample?" Michael asked himself. He even extended the needle in his APD to get some of her blood. But unfortunately, he halted his movement as he sensed several skinless creatures surrounding him.
Michael saw at least twelve skinless creatures around him. Some carried bows while the rest had tridents.
"Shhh," Michael put his finger on his lips,
The skinless creatures around him were at the Core Formation stage level 3. These mindless creatures were nothing but an annoyance to Michael. He gently lifted Sabrina''s head and ced it on the book, recing hisp with the book.
He extended his hand towards the swords a few meters away as the swords flew into his hands.
"She is sleeping, so keep it down," Michael whispered to the skinless creatures. Something told Michael that they understood theirnguage.
"GGRR-" but one of the skinless creatures that held a trident tried to growl. However, its growl was cut close by Michael. In a blink of an eye, he needed its life by sending a lightning bolt through its throat. While the skinless creatures were startled by the quickness of his kill, Michael looked down at Sabrina to see her still sleeping without moving an inch.
After making sure she was still sleeping, Michael looked up at the sky and raised his sword. A glint of shock emerged in their eyes. Michael saw a heat signature in the sky. Although it was invisible, he knew there was someone watching him. He had the feeling of someone watching him since he was teleported to the shadow realm, but only now could he see a heat signature.
As soon as he raised his sword, the heat signature vanished into thin air.
"Kill him," Surprisingly, Michael heard an echo after the heat signature disappeared. It was a demonic voice a hundred times more frightening than his Lucifer voice.
"Queen!" For the first time, Michael heard a wording out of the creatures'' mouth.
"Hhrmmm," Sabrina squirmed after they made a sound, but Michael quickly sent a soft wave of wind, brushing her head.
"Queen huh?" Michael looked around the skinless creatures.
He took a step forward as all the archers rained down arrows on him. Then, without even blinking an eye, Michael cast the wind st. The spell created a powerful st of wind around him, tossing the arrows away from him. But before Sabrina could wake up, he took out a sleeping pill and threw it near Sabrina''s nose. The pill immediately turned into a vapor and entered her nostrils. As a result, she started to snore and fall into the deepest pits of sleep.
"Now we can start the party," Michael snickered. But instead of dashing toward them and fighting like earlier, Michael essed his system storage to retrieve a dark potion. Meanwhile, the archers prepared to fire another volley of arrows, and the trident-carrying creatures poised to attack Michael as soon as he took another step toward them.
The creatures expected Michael to fight as he did on his way here. However, Michael surprised the creatures by throwing the potion in his hand into the fire burning before him.
The vial shattered with a muffled sound. Soon, a cloud of white smoke emerged from the fire, immediately mixing with the air around them. Michael felt nothing even after inhaling the smoke. However, the skinless creatures growled as they grabbed their throats.
"GRRR!" they kept growling as most of them dropped the weapons in their hands to the ground. A few secondster, they all copsed, squirming like a fish out of water on the ground. Blood seeped out from every pore in their skinless body.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
¡
One by one, the skinless creatures died by drowning in their own pool of blood. The nanites mixed with the potion he brewed using the creature''s head and flesh produced a powerful poison. In truth, the poison''s effect surpassed his expectations. The only unfortunate thing was even though the creatures were rtively at the Core Formation stage, he didn''t receive more experience points.
"Shit, he ising for me!" Michael heard a panic-stricken voice out of the blue. He jerked his head away in the direction but saw no one in the area. He scanned the area and tuned his X-ray vision. But still, Michael saw no life signs around him except Sabrina, who was sleeping peacefully.
"Arrest him!" Michael heard another voice of a woman with a British ent,
"He is hunting me!" Michael heard the first voice he heard again,
"Draven!"
Chapter 535 Michael in another universe
Chapter 535 Michael in another universe¡¡¡¡Michael was so confused by the voices. No matter how much he looked around, he couldn''t find the source of these voices until he noticed a small glimmer in the wall behind Sabrina.
He slowly and cautiously made his way to the wall. The part of the wall he noticed a glimmer had a crack, and finally he found out that the voicesing through the crack. He leaned closer to the wall, cing his ear against the crack to listen to the voice. However, the moment he ced his ear on the wall, he felt a sudden force pulling him into the crack.
"What the fuck?"Michael tried to pull himself free from the force, but he failed. He couldn''t even move an inch.
"System"
Michael called for the system''s help, except the system did not respond to him.
The next moment, everything around him became pitch ck.
HRRRRRRMMMMMMM!
Michael heard an otherworldly humming as he saw the light in front of him a few hundred meters away. He wondered where he was and tried to contact the system, but it didn''t respond.
He felt like he was soaring through the air like a rocket. The feeling was familiar to Michael. He felt the same when he was transmigrated to this world from earth.
Hence, Michael could vaguely guess he was being transmigrated somewhere else. But he wondered why and how.
He didn''t panic as he got closer and closer to the light at the end of the dark ce.
When he reached the light, everything around him changed. The ck and white ambiance of the shadow realm vanished as the colors returned to the world before him.
"Put me in the super prison!" Michael heard the shouting voice again,
At that moment, Michael noticed he was floating inside what seemed to be amand center that had a semi-modern and fantasy vibe. The numerous men and women sat in front of a ss that resembled modern monitors, but the people themselves wore medieval robes. The walls and floor were built with some kind of gray wood which, coupled with the blue light radiated by the mirrors, gave the ce a vibe of aw enforcementmand center.
"Didn''t you hear me? He ising for me!" Michael heard the voice, and he jerked his head in the direction to see a shocking sight. A man with six hands shouting at a man on the elevated tform at the hall''s back. He had two human hands and four hands protruding out of his back. Compared to his human hands, the handsing out of his back were longer and seemed rubbery.
In addition to his surprising six arms, the man wore dark goggles covering half of his face. On the contrary to the man with six hands, the man he was shouting at looked normal, calm, andposed. Instead, the dark-skinned man radiated a domineering aura.
Michael turned his gaze at the mirrors for a moment to see various pictures of people and images of ces running on. Suddenly, the mirrors went nk as they flickered with red light,
"What''s happening?" the dark-skinned man on the tform asked in a thick ent,
Soon, five figures dressed in various superhero costumes entered the hall through the door behind the dark-skinned man.
The men and women in the hall waved their hands. They kept touching the various symbols appearing on the mirrors until the mirrors stopped flickering with red light.
"I don''t know General. Suddenly the etherian energy readings went off the charts," a young man said as the man with six arms shivered,
"It''s him. You have to save me!" when the man with six arms stuttered, the five figures who had just entered the room poised to attack the man. Among the five, two youngsters didn''t wear any masks. One was a dark-skinned young man with a muscr physique and tall. He wore a jade t-shirt and a pair of spiky gloves. Meanwhile, the other was a strikingly beautiful blonde girl who tied her hair into a short ponytail. She moved her mouth as though she was chewing a piece of gum inside.
The remaining three all woretex costumes, and all looked different and unique from one another. The man leading the group wore a suit resembling the suit of a spider man, except his crimson red suit was sleeveless. The girl behind him wore a yellow suit with ck stripes resembling a Bengal tiger. Except for the ponytail striking out of her mask, the suit covered every part of her body.
Thest group member wore a half mask covering the face above his mouth. His suit had a mix of red and blue with a symbol of an eagle engraved onto his chest.
Something told Michael that they were all young and some kind of superheroes.
"System, where the fuck is happening right now?" asked Michael. He tried to touch the wall beside him, but as he expected, his hands went inside the wall.
[The host has been pulled into another universe from the shadow realm]
[the host is currently in an astral form. Your physical body is still in the shadow realm,]
"Fuck. another universe? How did that happen?"
This was one of the few scenarios in which even Michael became confused. He looked around one more time at the panic-stricken people in the hall,
"System, what''s the time difference between this universe and mine?" Michael calmed himself as he knew panicking wouldn''t help solve anything.
[the host has nothing to worry about. In the shadow realm, not even a second has passed. So the time difference between your universe and Etheria is negligible ]
"So this universe is called Etheria. Hmm," Michael slowly floated towards the young man who talked about energy readings.
Michael tried to p the young man but his hand went straight through the man''s head, making Michael smile.
"How do I get out of this ce?"
[Your soul cannot stay apart from your body for long. The shadow realm will return your soul to your body soon]
Michael was relieved to hear that he could return to his universe soon. Of course, he was curious and wanted to know more about Etheria, but he had his own problems to deal with and things to finish before thinking of conquering Etheria.
"Why am I here tho?"
[The system level is too low to answer the host''s question]
"You know, you have been less useful recently,"
[Says the host who doesn''t upgrade the system more often] the system snickered,
"What the hell is he doing here Chandler?" the red-suited hero asked the dark-skinned man. Unlike thetex-suited youngsters, the man wore a long ck coat with crimson red lining and had wavy neck-length hair.
"Stand down," the man raised his hand,
"He''s here to surrender,"
"Surrender?" the tall, muscr guy opened his eyes wide,
"No, I am not buying it Chandler. He''s trying to pull something," the girl chewing the bubble gum looked skeptical, as well as the muscr guy.
Since Michael had nothing else to do, he wanted to see what was happening. He floated towards the group,
"Run a full scan of the ship. I don''t want to get caught with my pants down," instead of responding to the angry youngster, the man ordered his crew.
"For god sake, put me in jail or call the Supreme ones!" Michael noticed the man with six arms shivering uncontrobly and sweating like a pig.
"Calm down Fergus. You''re safe here," Michael turned back to see a young woman in ck ker armor walking towards them. She almost walked through Michael.
"General Atkins," she ced her three fingers on her chest and bowed towards Chandler,
"We have searched through the ship. We are safe and secure General,"
After hearing thedy, Fergus deeply exhaled. He looked a little bit relieved.
"Now will you tell us why he suddenly changed his mind?" Michael saw the sleeveless hero ask,
"The Reaper," the entire hall went silent when Chandler said the name ''The Reaper''. No one uttered a word, and Michael saw fear and terror in everyone''s eyes except Chandler and thedy who entered the hallstly.
"Fergus believes the reaper is going to kill him next," Chandler said,
"Believes? Fuck you Chandler. What do you think happened to Poison Lenora?" Fergus asked, looking at the five youngsters,
"ording to the UFH records, she disappeared," the girl chewing a gum answered Fergus as he snickered,
"Disappeared my ass. She was killed. No, not killed. The reaper ughtered her,"
As soon as Fergus spoke these words, the youngsters gasped in shock.
The youngsters were stunned. Michael could sense the shock in their hearts despite their masks covering their faces.
"What the hell is he talking about General?" the girl wearing a tiger suit asked.
"What happened to her was strictly need to know,"
"I have a feeling that you have a reason to share this information with us now," Michael turned his gaze towards the young man with an eagle emblem on his chest. His voice had a rather soothing effect as he spoke so calmly.
"You''re going to escort Fergus to Supreme Ones headquarters,"
"No!"
Both the sleeveless guy and Fergus shouted at the same time, disagreeing with Chandler.
"Why can''t you take me there? Or get the Supreme ones to take me? I am not going to go with these amateurs. The Reaper would massacre them in minutes,"
The muscr young man threw him a threatening nce at Fergus but he didn''t give a damn,
"Bringing you ourselves to them is like shing our location to the reaper," Michael heard Chandler. But by looking at his eyes, Michael could tell Chandler was lying.
The real reason why he was ordering the youngsters to escort Fergus was definitely something else. Michael was hundred percent sure.
ALERT!
ALERT!
ALERT!
Suddenly, a mechanical voice resonated in the ship as the room turned red.
"What''s happening?!" thedy behind General Chandler shouted,
Michael noticed the images running on the mirrors slowly transforming into a wolf''s head.
"General Chandler, we''ve been hijacked by the lone wolf" the young man from before shouted at General Chandler.
"I knew it. I knewing here was a mistake. I am out of here!" Fergus frantically shook his head before trying to get out of the tform but the five youngsters blocked his way,
"You''re not going anywhere," the sleeveless hero eximed,
"Get her out of my ship," General Chandler raised his voice as the men and women in the hall began to work like bees. Then, General Chandler turned around to look at thedy,
"Captain Ivy, get your team ready and meet me here in five minutes. I have a feeling the reaper ising here for his life''
Chapter 536 The Reaper
Chapter 536 The Reaper¡¡¡¡The crew of General Chandler began to work like worker bees. Michael flew around the hall, trying to better understand how the mirrors worked. They looked like some kind of hybrid of magic and technology.
Michael noticed every mirror had a ss cube with a bright light glowing within.
"What kind of energy source is this?" Michael asked himself. He also saw wires running into and out of the ss cube to a copper box with severalponents and aplex web of wires inside.
"General Chandler," Michael stopped hovering around when he heard a loud mechanical voice echoing through the hall,
"Hand over Fergus to us,"
Michael saw the crew looking flustered, trying to free their systems from the hacker. He didn''t know this world was familiar with the term hacking, but they were undoubtedly hacked by someone.
Everything happening in front of him piqued his curiosity to the next level. It was kinda rxing to sit back and watch the chaos someone else had been creating. Instead, he was excited to see what would happen next while pondering why the shadow realm teleported him to Etheria.
"That''s not going to happen," General Chandler calmly said,
They all waited for the hacker to respond, but they simply didn''t.
Thud!
Suddenly, the ship jerked as something just hit the ship from above.
"The ship''s defense systems have been deactivated¡"
Michael heard the mechanical voice of the ship resonate in the hall. He could feel his excitement rising within his heart.
"Captain Ivy, go" General Chandler ordered IVy as she rushed out of the hall,
"Everyone" After sending Ivy away, General Chandler called out his crew,
"Go to the hangar bay,"
The crew members immediately stood up from their seats. They left for the door on the other side in an orderly manner without raising any objection to his word.
"General Chandler, what''s happening here?" the tall, muscr guy asked, bewildered,
"You idiot. Don''t you get it? He''s here!" Fergus snapped,
"Let me go!" Fergus had no courage to stay with the UFH''s recruits anymore. When he decided to surrender, he thought UFH would send him to the super prison or the Supreme ones. However, he never expected General Chandler would ask a bunch of amateurs to guard him.
Fergus had better chances to survive alone than with the newbies. Thus, he made up his mind to get the hell out of the ce before the reaper could reach him.
Michael flew back to the elevated tform where he saw Captain Ivy returning to General along with a group of white armored soldiers carrying crossbows and spears.
"Harry," General Chandler turned his gaze to the youngster wearing sleevelesstex armor.
"Escort Fergus to bay fifteen. Captain Ivy-"
Boom!
The ship shook again, and they all heard a loud explosioning from somewhere in the ship.
"GO!" General Chandler raised his voice as the group quickly turned around to leave themand center. However, they didn''t even take a few steps toward the door when the door shut closed automatically.
"We are trapped," Fergus panted. His breathing turned heavier and heavier as he looked pale. Michael noticed Fergus kneading his hands nervously.
The soldiers behind Captain Ivy climbed down the stairs on each side of the tform to surround the hall.
The room was lit with red light, giving an eerie feeling to Michael.
Boom!
Yet again, they heard another sound reverberating in the hall. Though this time, it wasn''t the sound of an explosion but sounded like someone banging the ceiling above them.
"Prepare for battle," General Chandler gravely said. Michael could see the dark frowns on his face. He seemed confident and calm, but his voice had a tinge of concern.
The more Michael saw their reactions, the more curious he became. He wanted to see who the reaper was and how they fought in Etheria.
Bang!
The ship trembled yet again, and the mirrors flickered until they turned ck. The room turned gloomier and darker after the mirrors went off.
Afterward, the banging sound finally stopped. The eerie silence haunted the room, making every passing second a daunting experience.
"Let''s see what makes this reaper a big deal," the muscr guy cracked his knuckles,
"Harry, do you think your team is ready?" General Chandler asked Harry without turning back. He still looked at the emptymand center before him.
"I think we are gonna find out," Harry sounded a little bit nervous,
"We are all dead," Fergus just copsed to the ground. There was no fight left in him. However, Lenora was several times more powerful than him, and she was a gifted one. She not only possessed the power of charm, which puts people under her influence, but also the power to make nt life do as she wishes.
She could kill anyone with a single kiss by sending the deadly toxins in her body into her prey. She was one of the most feared superviins in all Etheria, yet Fergus saw The Reaper ughtering her like cattle. She stood no chance against him, none at all.
BANG!
The ship trembled violently as a huge chunk of the wooden ceiling came down, crushing several mirrors under and creating a cloud of dust in the center of the room.
Captain Ivy and her men immediately surrounded the cloud of mist as Michael vaguely saw a silhouette standing in the mist. Ivy and her men slowly approached the center when they saw the shadow of wings appearing in the wall behind the mist.
"The man with the wings," Michael recalled the engravings on the wall he saw. The wings and the silhouette of the figure looked precisely the same as the engraving. Now Michael wondered who the other person in the drawing was, the one who was watching the man with the wings battling ady with hundreds of arms.
"The Reaper,'''' Fergus mumbled, and when Michael looked down, he noticed a wet spot erging on his brown pants. Fergus had literally pissed himself just by looking at the reaper.
It was apparent to Michael that whoever the reaper was, he put the fear of gods in his enemies'' hearts.
Boom!
Ivy and her men were just a few meters away from the reaper when he pped his feathery wings. The next moment, a powerful shock wave created by the p of his wings sent Ivy and her men crashing onto the wall behind them.
Although Michael was not in his physical form to feel the shock wave, he could guess the force by looking at the trembling tform. The youngsters and General Chandler had to hold onto the rails to avoid stumbling down.
Michael looked around to see Ivy and her men lying on the ground without any movements. Some even bled because of how badly they hit the wall before falling onto the ground.
"Dang," the girl chewing a gum stick blew out a bubble and eximed.
The shock wave cleared the cloud of dust, revealing the reaper to everyone in the hall. As soon as Michael''s gaze swept the reaper, he was hit with a familiar feeling. The Reaper wore a long ck coat and a suit of armor that seemed like it was made of ker and some metal tes underneath.
His raven ck hair, how he dressed and the cold murderous look in his eyes reminded Michael of himself. Besides, Michael had a feeling that he had seen him in life before.
To be honest, Michael thought the reaper would be old or at least a middle-aged man after seeing how they acted. However, the reaper was a young man. At most, he would be twenty-five or twenty-six, definitely not more than that.
"Give me Fergus and no one has to get hurt here," The Reaper''s voice sounded like a death bell, clear, loud, and dossed in full of killing intent.
"Except you," the tall muscr guy leaped from the tform andnded a few meters away from The Reaper.
"Carl!" Harry shouted, trying to stop him, but it was toote.
Carl walked towards The Reaper, cracking his knuckles.
"Get ready to taste my knuckle sandwich," Carl snickered.
When Carl got a hand reaching distance to The Reaper, he closed his fist and threw a punch. Regardless of his size, Carl surprised Michael with his speed. However, The Reaper surprised him more by easily evading the punch with a sway of his body.
Pulch!
The next moment, Carl caught up blood,
"CARL!" his team shouted as they saw a ck sword sticking out of Carl''s back.
Harry and the others were stunned beyond words. Their minds went nk as they had never seen Carl bleed until now. Carl was the team''s defender whose power was super strength and imprable skin. His powers made Carl a feared superhero among the young generation of heroes.
Carl''s legs became weak and as a result, he fell on The Reaper. The teammates were still shocked while The Reaper twisted the sword sticking through Carl''s back.
"Trintium de," The Reaper patted Carl''s back and sent his sword deeper into Carl''s gut. As a sword expert himself, Michael could tell that a stab would not take Carl''s life but immobilize him. The Reaper could have easily bent his back and swung his sword across Carl''s head. But The Reaper chose not, which showed Michael that The Reaper spared Carl''s life when he could have taken his life without breaking a sweat.
Finally, the teammates snapped out of their shock and leaped at The Reaper with uncontroble anger and fury. Michael looked at each youngster closely to see what their superpower was.
The one wearing a tiger suit leaped into the air with such finesse and ease, showing her acrobatic skills. Then, Michael noticed Harry dashing at The Reaper with superhuman speed, followed by the youngster with the eagle emblem on his chest. The young man''s fist lit up as lightning bolts crackled around his wrist.
Thest one in the group was the young girl chewing a stick of gum. Instead of following her teammates, she remained on the tform. Michael wondered what her superpower was, and his question was soon answered when a golden bow materialized in her hands.
"You had sent them to their death," Fergus mumbled with all of his six hands on his head. He seemed to have already epted his death because he didn''t even try to escape.
Meanwhile, the wings just disappeared from sight as The Reaper drew his sword out of Carl.
Chapter 537 Draven being badass
Chapter 537 Draven being badass¡¡¡¡Carl copsed to the ground, holding his gut to stop the bleeding.
"Cheetah, take him away!" Harry shouted at the tiger-suited girl. She was diving toward The Reaper but when she heard Harry''s order, she changed her trajectory andnded beside Carl.
Whoosh!
The girl beside Chandler sent a golden arrow made of sparkling energy to The Reaper to prevent him from attacking. However, The Reaper simply raised his hand, catching the arrow in mid-air without breaking a sweat.
At that time, the youngster with the eagle emblem shot into the air, leaving a trace of blue light behind him. Michael felt like watching a superhero movie.
While the cheetah was dragging Carl away from the Reaper, Harry dashed at The Reaper as the man flying in the air extended his hands towards The Reaper, firing beams of blue energy.
The Reaper swung his sword with one hand, blocking Harry''s punches while raising his other hand as a ck shield retracted out of the metal bracelet in his arm.
The ck shield reflected the light beams back at the man above. The youngster didn''t expect the shield to return his energy beams to him. He tried to evade but was a few secondste as the light beam sted him onto the ceiling above him.
"Neon!" Harry shouted, seeing Neon hitting the ceiling,
Sling!
Harry was still in shock when The Reaper swung his fist, sending the shield flying towards the girl, firing arrows from the elevated tform.
Boom!
Michael saw the ck shield crashing onto the girl and sending her flying back. The bow and arrow in her arms vanished into thin air, and surprisingly, the shield bounced onto the wall behind the girl and flew back to the Reaper.
While looking at the battle, Michael understood one thing. The superhero team wasn''t amateurs but The Reaper had superior battle experience than them. He was calcting everyone''s move even before they could make it. Despite the youngsters showing good teamwork and coordination, The Reaper had the upper hand because of battle awareness.
As the shield returned to his hand, The Reaper turned his full focus to Harry who fought without any weapons. Michael saw the shield retracting into the bracelet rather than disappearing as Michael initially expected. The device on The Reaper''s arm gave him the idea to build something like that so he could defend himself in a physical fight.
Until now, Michael depended on his superior closebat skills and sword master to defend himself in a battle with no spells involved. Although Michael felt no need for a shield as it would cramp his fighting style, he decided to build a device like the one The Reaper has.
Neon and the archer girl were picking themselves from the ground as Harry fought The Reaper single handedly. Michael couldn''t take his eyes off The Reaper and Harry. It was like watching a kung fu movie where two masters fought to the death.
Compared to the rest, Harry seemed to have more battle experience. He almost reacted as fast as The Reaper and blocked his punches and kicks.
"I can do this all day," Harry said blocking The Reaper''s punches,
"I don''t have all day," The Reaper snickered. The very next moment, The Reaper vanished into thin air, shocking everyone except Chandler. However, Michael noticed Chandler''s face showed no signs of shock. If Michael was right, Chandler knew about The Reaper''s powers, unlike the rest.
Harry was stunned when The Reaper vanished into thin air. He jerked his head around to locate him but failed to do so. Then, suddenly, he appeared behind Harry. Although Harry possessed the power to sense dangers, his reflex failed him because The Reaper was too fast.
He sweep-kicked Harry to make him lose bnce and then, The Reaper roundhouse kicked Harry in the head with enough force to create a small shock wave around them.
"HARRY!" Neon, the archer girl, and the cheetah all shouted as they dashed at The Reaper.
The Reaper stomped on Harry''s chest as he coughed up blood through his mask.
The archer girl and Neon repeatedly fired arrows and energy beams at The Reaper. At the same time, the cheetah dashed at him with her ws growing several inches from her fingers.
"Eyaw!" The cheetah swung her steel-like ws at The Reaper, only to be blocked by the shield on The Reaper''s hand. Her w produced sparks when they shed with the shield.
Unfortunately for the cheetah, she was not on the same level, or her ws were sharp enough to cut his armor. Hence, he simply let her scratch his chest and when she did, he easily grabbed her hands.
Whoosh!
At that exact moment, the archer girl fired an arrow. Little did she know that The Reaper would use the cheetah as his shield.
Pulch!
The arrow pierced the cheetah''s back.
"Cheetah!" the girl shouted and panicked at what she had done. Meanwhile, The Reaper showed his ruthless side of him by pushing the arrow sticking out of the cheetah''s back further into her.
He did not stop with that. Instead, he unsheathed his ck sword from his behind lightning quick and stabbed the cheetah in the gut. Just like before, Michael noticed he didn''t go for the kill but stabbed her just to immobilize her.
Neon didn''t fire energy beams because Cheetah stood so close to The Reaper. After Michael pushed aside the cheetah, Neon flew towards her instead of attacking The Reaper.
He flew towards the cheetah as fast as possible and tried to fly away from the reaper with the cheetah in his arms. The Reaper however had a different idea. The Reaper grabbed Neon by his legs when Neon flew closer to him and pulled Neon towards him.
The Reaper was too strong as Neon couldn''t fly away. As his feet touched the ground, The Reaper grabbed Neon by his neck and punched him in the face.
"Grrrh," Harry growled but The Reaper knocked him out once again with a stomp on Harry''s head,
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The Reaper repeatedly punched Neon in the face as Michael saw blood sshing out of Neon''s mouth along with a few teeth. Seeing her teammates getting ughtered, the archer girl lost her calmposure. She leaped from the tform. In mid-air, she fired arrows after arrows and didn''t stop raining down arrows even after her feet touched the ground.
She was really talented with the bow. Otherwise, she would have hit Neon instead of The Reaper. Her arrows hit The Reaper without missing. But none of the arrows could prate his armor. She moved closer and closer to The Reaper to the point she swung her fist in uncontroble anger.
However, the anger blinded her and lowered her intelligence. She was an archer not a closebat fighter like Harry or the cheetah. Even they couldn''t beat The Reaper, let alone an archer and a delicate girl like her.
When she tried to beat him with the energy bow, The Reaper released Neon''s neck as he copsed to the ground.
"You should have gone for the head" The Reaper coldly said before grabbing both her arms.
Bang!
The Reaper headbutted the archer with enough force to knock her out instantly. Then, when all the five were on the ground, either knocked out cold or bleeding, The Reaper finally turned his gaze at Chandler.
Michael followed The Reaper behind as he suddenly vanished into thin air. A secondter, he appeared behind Chandler,
"No no no no no¡" Fergus began to stutter in fear. Chandler slowly turned around to see The Reaper staring at him,
"Draven," Chandler called The Reaper by his name. Unlike Fergu who shivered and looked pale, Chandler remained calm andposed,
"You are walking a dangerous path Draven," Chandler said in a grave tone but Draven didn''t reply,
"You are doing more harm to Etheria than good Draven. You can''t clean this world by killing everyone you think needs to be killed,"
"A whole lot of good you''re doing Chandler," Draven snickered,
" I am talking to the Draven I know, the angel of lotus. Not to The Reaper, you had be"
"Hahhahaha" Surprisingly, Michael saw Draven burst intoughter. Hi scoldughter echoed through the eerie hall until he stoppedughing,
"The Angel of Lotus is long dead. They ughtered my family, in front of my eyes and when I need the UFH most, you took away my powers," Draven grabbed Chandler by his neck and lifted him off his feet,
"Your people catch viins at the cost of innocent lives and they call them heroes. I kill a viin to save those innocent lives and you call me evil. It''s not fair,"
"Your ways are wrong Draven. There is no difference between what you do and what the people you kill do," Chandler struggled to speak those words,
"If anyone follows me, I won''t be merciful next time," Draven punched Chandler in the face without holding back his strength. As soon as his fist met Chandler''s face, Chandler''s nose cracked with a sickening crunching sound.
Draven threw Chandler off the tform and looked down at Fergus,
"Don''t¡don''t¡kill me," Fergus crawled back in fear,
Crack!
Michael saw Draven step on Fergus''s feet, applying pressure until Fergus screamed in agony. Then, Michael could hear the bones in Fergus''s feet crushing under Draven''s boots.
"How does it feel?" Draven asked coldly as Fergus kept screaming as loud as he could. Michael saw tears gushing out of Fergus''s bloodshot eyes and blood seeping out of his feet,
"Do you remember her face, Fergus? Do you remember how she begged you to let her go?" Michael heard Draven stutter and for the first time ever, Michael noticed Draven''s face show a sign of despair.
When Michael looked Draven in his eyes, he could see the immense grief Draven had been holding in his heart.
"Please¡please¡.let me go¡" Fergus screamed in agony but Draven showed no mercy. After crushing Fergus''s feet, Draven lifted him off by his cor,
Crack!
The moment Fergus stood up, Draven broke Fergus''s right hand.
"ARRGGGHHHH!"
"You and I are gonna spend so much time quality together,"
Chapter 538 Michael, Draven and the multiverse
Chapter 538 Michael, Draven and the multiverse¡¡¡¡After everything was said and done, Draven grabbed Fergus by his hand and closed his eyes for a second. At that time, Michael noticed a golden light around Draven.
[Does the host wish to follow Draven?]
The system asked Michael and to be honest, Michael was slightly surprised by the system''s sudden question.
Instead of answering quickly, Michael looked around the ce for a few moments.
"Why not?"
Michael firmly believed he was in Etheria for a reason. Something told him Draven held the answer to his question. Besides, Michael couldn''t help feeling a strong connection with Draven. It was a sense of familiarity that he had never experienced before.
When Draven opened his eyes, Michael saw a golden scroll in his hand,
"Teleportation scroll," Michael mumbled, recognizing the parchment.
[The system requires 5000 points to lock onto Draven]
"Do it," Michael ordered the system,
As soon as the system consumed his 5000 badass points, he was pulled towards Draven. As he looked around themand center onest time, Michael sighed before his vision became blurry.
"You''re back," Michael''s vision cleared as he saw a charming brte wearing sses weing Draven. She was sitting behind a set of mirrors, tapping on them left and right.
Michael looked around to get a sense of where he was. Therge hall he was floating in the air looked neat, clean, and tidy. A door leading to somewhere else was located at the end of the hall. That door seemed to be the only way in and out of the hall except through the windows.
He could see the mountains and lush green forests through the windows. Yet, surprisingly, they were slowly moving at a steady pace, and the buildings on the ground looked tiny.
"An airship," Michael was in airships before so he immediately recognized that he was currently in an airship turned into Draven''s flying fortress.
Other than the tiny workstation in the center of the hall, Michael noticed the swords, bows, arrows, and various weapons hanging on the wall.
"How many people have you killed?" the girl sighed,
"No one died. At least not yet," Draven looked at Fergus who was shivering from head to toe. Draven dragged the six-armed man to the wall near where the weapons were hanging.
Michael curiously followed Draven behind and saw Draven hanging Fergus on the wall by attaching shackles around each wrist and leg. Fergus was nailed to the wall in a few moments like a gecko.
The bloody shackles around Fergus and the des with dried blood on the tables told Michael the obvious. The girl looked a little flustered and ufortable looking at Fergus on the wall. However, it seemed to Michael that the girl knew what was about to happen.
"His soul is drenched in evil," Michael was taken aback by the demonic voice he heard. He jerked his head right to see a ghostly figure of an alien creature appearing over Draven''s shoulder. The ghostly figure looked like Venom and Cobra had a baby.
It was ck, ghostly, and had white eyes with red pupils and a terrifying line of fang like teeth. The creature licked his lips, looking at Fergus.
"What¡what..is this¡" Fergus wriggled violently against the shackles after seeing the alien creature. But no matter how hard he wriggled, he couldn''t escape from the shackles that tied his wrists and legs.
"You will have your fill Margoth," Draven took a bloody arrow from the table beside him,
"After he tells us everything we need to know," Draven slowly ran the arrowhead along Fergus''s face,
"Wait" Suddenly the creature Draven called Margoth turned around. Michael was stunned as the creature was looking directly at him,
"System, what the heck is this creature, and can it see me?"
[The system''s level is too low to find the creature''s origin. However, the system can reassure the host that the creature cannot see the host]
Michael heaved a sigh of relief even though he was disappointed that he couldn''t find the creature''s origin.
"What?" Draven asked,
"I sensed something familiar in the room. Something powerful,"
As soon as the girl heard Margoth, she stopped working and turned around,
"What is it? Are you sensing it right now?"
"Draven, take out the healing potion" Margoth asked Draven. He looked a bit skeptical but did as Margoth asked him to.
Then, Draven put his hand inside his long coat pocket to take out a glistening blue vial of healing potion.
"Is that my healing potion?" Michael was stunned. There was no doubt in his mind. The healing potion in Draven''s hands was the same healing potion he brewed. What surprised him more was that the healing potion was 90% pure.
"How can my healing potione to another universe?" Michael''s mind went nk. He had no idea that Draven possessed a system of his own; The Legendary system.
(To those who don''t know, Draven is the MC of Anti Hero with a Legendary System)
"I sensed the same energy radiationing from the healing potion just a moment ago,"
"Are you still sensing it?" Draven asked, looking around the hall.
"No. But I swear I sensed it," Margoth said gravely,
"Might be because of him. He worked on the ck project after all. Maybe he came across something with the same energy radiation,"
The girl adjusted her sses and said. Hearing her words, both Margoth and Draven pondered the possibilities in their minds,
"Make sense," Margoth finally said as Michael sighed,
"What is this ck project?" Michael asked himself as his gaze swept across the room. Then, he locked his eyes on the wall portion where he saw several drawings, posters, and paper clippings nailed to the wall.
Michael floated to the wall and was surprised by the sight before him. Some of the drawings of people had red cross marks on them and the rest, including Fergus''s drawing didn''t have the red cross. The paper clippings were mostly about murders, battles between a hero and a viin, feats of UFH, and coteral damages of a battle between gifted ones.
Every incident and portrait were connected by a red thread. The entire portion of the wall reminded Michael of his killboard back on earth. If he wanted to assassinate multiple targets, he would form a board exactly like the one before him.
The more he spent time with Draven, the more he realized how simr they both are.
"ARGH!" The ear-piercing scream of Fergus abruptly halted Michael''s train of thoughts. He quickly turned around to see Draven slowly prating Fergus''s palm with the arrow in his hand.
"The ck project. Tell us about it," Draven coldly asked as Michael saw the girl turning her focus back to the mirrors. It was evident that she didn''t like to watch Draven torture Fergus.
"I¡I don''t¡know¡ARGGHHHH!" Draven twisted the arrow, inflicting as much pain as he could to Fergus,
"Listen maggot, we are gonna kill you and no one ising to save you. So tell us what we want to know and I''ll tell him to give you a quick death," Margoth snarled while Fergus wriggled frantically in pain,
"You saw what I did to Lenora right? Hold back what you know and I''ll make you think what I did to Lenora was child''s y," Draven left the arrow in his palm and took a rusty knife from the table,
"Just tell him Fergus," The girl said without turning back,
"Listen to her, Fergus. He gets really creative when he wants to know something. Since you''re one of the scumbags who killed his family, he will re-define torture," Margoth moved closer to Fergus,
"So tell us about the ck project and seize this golden opportunity, quick death,"
"He won''t talk until he loses something he loves," Draven snickered, fiddling with the rusty cleaver in his hand,
"What..what¡you''re going¡to do?" Fergus stuttered as Draven ran the rusty meat cleaver along one of his four rubbery arms.
Pulch!
"Shhhh" The girl closed her eyes tight as Michael saw Draven cut Fergus''s wrist with the rusty meat cleaver. His severed wrist hit the ground with a sickening thud,
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Fergus frantically wriggled during his hand-sprayed blood all over Draven. But thetter didn''t mind the blood at all.
"I have eight more pieces of you to cut. So make yourself home," Draven wiped off the blood covering his eyes and coldly said,
"Please¡please¡ I''ll tell you¡" Fergus cried,
"The ck project¡argghhh¡we¡created¡.argghhh," Fergus cried and shrieked in pain,
"Give him a pain killer," Margoth nodded.
Michael once again focused on Draven''s hand until he saw a milky white vial materializing in his hand. This time however, the potion in Draven''s hand wasn''t brewed by Michael. Instead, it radiated a different type of energy Michael wasn''t familiar with.
Draven forced the white liquid down Fergus''s throat. After a few seconds, Fergus stopped screaming and the blood stopped spraying out of his severed wrist.
"The ck project. Spill out everything you know before I cut another one,"
"The ck project is all about opening portals to other universes" Michael immediately dashed at Fergus when he heard the words,
"Opening portals to other universes?" The girl couldn''t stay still so she left her workstation and came to Fergus despite all the blood and gore.
"I thought other universes are just a myth,"
"Where do you think we met Sarah?" Margoth asked the girl,
"Isn''t void just a pocket dimension?"
"I thought so too. But no, the void is the ce between universes,"
Michael heard Draven,
"Did I tell you to stop?" Margoth growled at Fergus as he continued to spill everything he knew about the ck project,
"The demon''s touch device doesn''t just take your powers. It sends your powers to the void. Those who built the device didn''t know that until¡" Fergus''s voice trailed off,
"Until?" Sarah asked, looking at Fergus swallowing a mouth full of saliva nervously,
"Until what happened to you. Something interfered with the device that day. Whatever that was, it caused the device to open a portal to the void temporarily,"
"So that''s why the sinisters attacked UFH and tried to steal the device. They want to open a portal to the void," After a few minutes of silence, Sarah opened her mouth,
"Hmm" Fergus nodded,
"Apparently not only the sinisters," Margoth eximed as Sarah creased her brows,
"What do you know about the Supreme ones working on the ck project?"
"I don''t know¡I just heard some rumors" Fergus was terrified to say that he didn''t know. Thus, he quickly decided to tell them about the rumor he heard when he was with the sinisters before Draven cut his another hand,
"They want to find another Krypton in another universe,"
Michael didn''t know what happened, but Draven immediately grabbed Fergus''s neck,
"What do you mean another Krypton in another universe?"
"They¡they believe¡there''s another universe simr to Etheria where the Krypton is still alive,"
Michael may not possess the ability to read minds. Still, when he heard Fergus''s words and saw how Draven reacted, he knew Draven''s mind thought about finding his deceased family members in another universe.
[The host doesn''t have to panic. There is no other universe simr to yours and there is no other you]
Michael heaved a long breath of sigh and even smiled,
"But what about Etheria?"
[The system requires 10,000 badass points to answer the host]
"Now you''re asking for payment to answer my questions? Jeesh, okay take it,"
Michael waited a couple of seconds for the system to finally answer his question,
[There is another universe simr to Etheria]
(This doesn''t mean there is another Draven or another Legendary System)
Chapter 539 Demon King and The Key
Chapter 539 Demon King and The Key¡¡¡¡"Another Etheria?" Michael mumbled under his breath. Deep down Michael was d there was no universe simr to his. He liked to be unique.
However, that didn''t seem to be the case for Etheria. Still, the system said simr, not exactly the same. His gut feeling told him there was no other Draven. It felt like Draven was the main character of Etheria just like he was to his universe.
"Another Krypton?" Draven frowned.
Since Michael was new to Etheria he had no idea about the war that happened between Etheria and the Demon King''s army. Krypton was the most powerful hero in the whole Etheria. Granted, Draven rivaled Krypton when he was at his peak but unfortunately, Draven lost all his powers.
"Why do they need another Krypton?" Sarah asked Fergus,
"I don''t-"
ng!
Fergus was about to say I don''t know when Draven flicked the rusty cleaver,
"No¡no¡no" Fergus stuttered,
"Raadan," Michael noticed the dark frown on Draven''s face. The trio became silent and Sarah looked terrified.
"What about him?" Draven coldly asked Fergus,
"Raadan¡Raadan was just a low-level general of the Demon King,"
"Demon King? That''s cringe" Michael rolled his eyes,
"Low-level general?!" Sarah shrieked. She still had nightmares about the invasion and how many people had lost their lives.
"What do you mean a low-level general? That guy destroyed half of Etheria and killed countless gifted ones like they were nothing," Margoth''s already serious demonic voice sounded more serious,
Michael wondered who the hell is this Demon King. Also, in the corner of his mind, he recalled the mysterious figure on the engraving. Until now, he thought the person was him but after hearing about the Demon King, he had a feeling it might not be the case.
"I don''t know if it''s true¡Lenora told me¡I don''t know where she heard it,"
"It makes sense," Draven deeply exhaled,
For a few moments, no one said anything. As a result, an eerie silence haunted the hall until Draven spoke,
"If what he said is true, the Supreme Ones can''t win against another invasion without Krypton,"
"Invasion, another universe, Demon King. Man, this guy is in serious trouble," Michael felt pity for Draven without realizing Draven was his son.
Michael didn''t even try tomunicate with Draven and the group.
The future Dark Lord sent Draven to Etheria so he could live without being hunted by the Queen and his enemies. Unfortunately, although at that time Etheria was safe from the Queen, the citizens of Etheria managed to mess up and be vulnerable to the Queen.
The only thing the Queen failed to grasp was the future Dark Lord nned everything. As a result, he never lost control of the situation. Even when Nightmare died, the future Dark Lord didn''t lose control of himself because he was in control all the time.
"We need to capture a Supreme One Draven. We can get more information on the ck project from them," said Margoth.
"They have the device and the resources to recreate what happened to me. So what''s stopping them from opening a portal back to the void?" Draven asked, looking at Margoth and Sarah but to Michael, it seemed like he was questioning himself.
"They managed to modify the device to make it usable once a year from once every hundred years,"
"Hmm," Draven and Margoth nodded at Sarah. But Michael saw Draven thinking deeply. Indeed Draven was thinking about something. He recalled everything Lenora said before he killed her.
"Before I killed her, Lenora said something about a key,"
As soon as Draven said these words, Michael was stunned. He immediately turned his full focus to Draven. It couldn''t be just a coincidence Michael was searching for the key and Draven was also talking about a key.
It wouldn''t take a genius to figure out that both keys are the same.
"A key?" Sarah tilted her head,
"I scoured through all UFH servers but didn''t find anything about a key,"
"Do you need anything more?" Margoth turned his head towards Fergus,
"Please just kill me quick," At this point, Fergus lost all the will to live and was exhausted both mentally and physically. He just wanted a quick death. After seeing what Draven did to his fellow sinisters, quick death from him would be a blessing.
"Did you give my sister a quick death?"
"Ask him about the key!" Michael shouted but they didn''t hear him.
"Where is the key?!" Yet again Michael shouted at Fergus while Draven pressed the rusty meat cleaver against Fergus''s shoulder.
"I am going to my room for a moment," Sarah quickly took her gaze away from Fergus and stepped away from the scene,
"You''re still such a soft girl. I told you Draven, we have to take her outside and let her fight for a change,"
"Damn you ugly!" Sarah showed Margoth the middle finger,
"ARRGGHHHH!" Fergus began to scream again as Michael saw blood drizzling down from Fergus''s shoulder and onto the rusty meat cleaver,
Boom!
Just when Sarah was about to take another step, the entire ship trembled.
Michael looked outside and saw the sky getting darker and darker as though they were flying into a storm. The day sky turned darker in a few blinks of an eye. Additionally, Michael could hear the thunderps and the howling sound of the wind.
"What the heck?" Sarah staggered towards her workstation,
All of a sudden, the ss windows shattered as a figure clouded in bolts of lightningnded in the hall''s center.
"Stormbringer!" Fergus screamed as the cloud of lightning slowly disappeared, revealing the Stormbringer.
The Stormbringer wore sleeveless silver metal armor with archaic engravings and a dark blue cape that fluttered in the wind. Her striking blonde hair danced around her shoulder with the wind while the golden helmet covered her delicate face.
Her muscr arms and the heavy sword on her back radiated a warrior vibe. Although she wasn''t the prettiest woman Michael had seen, she was the toughest looking one.
Sarah''s face lost all color as she looked pale. On the other hand, Fergus who was about to greet death became so excited. He yet again began to wriggle against the chains in joy.
"Do you know who I am?" Stormbringer''s hard as steel voice echoed through the hall,
"Would you believe me if I said no?" Despite facing one of the strongest members of the Supremes, Draven didn''t lose his calmness. It was expected of Draven. After all, Michael was his father.
"Release him and surrender yourself," Stormbringer said,
"I heard that so many times today. I assume you know what happened to those who said that," Stormbringer gritted her teeth as the sky outside turned darker and Michael saw more and more shes of lightning followed by loud thunderps.
"Today you will answer for your crimes, Reaper" she slowly unsheathed her heavy sword. The sword was thrice the size of a normal sword. It was almost five feet tall and a foot wide. She could easily rush a child with that sword. She held the sword using both arms as bolts of lightning coiled around the sword.
"You are dead fucker! Hahahahaha" Fergus began tough like a maniac. After seeing Stormbringer, Fergus regained his hope to live again. The sinisters had connections within the super prisons. So it was only a matter of time before he breaks out of there again and continues his life of crime.
This was why the superviins and the sinisters were terrified of Draven more than UFH or the Supreme Ones. If thetter caught them, they would just throw them in prison. It wasn''t the case for Draven. If they got caught by Draven, there was no prison, only hell awaited them.
"Funny," Draven''s snicker abrupt put a stop to Fergus''s maniacalughter,
"Don''t," the Stormbringer growled when Draven was about to move his hand but after seeing him just lift his hand without reaching for his weapon, the Stormbringer didn''t dash at him.
Click!
Draven just snapped,
"Grrrr!"
It wasn''t even a second passed after his snap when Fergus began to growl. Michael saw Fergus desperately gasping for air. If Michael''s guess was right, the white liquid they gave Fergus wasn''t just a pain killer but poison.
Draven nned everything, just like Michael.
"ARGH!"
The Stormbringer let out a battle cry before dashing at Draven with the heavy sword in her hand. She wanted to save Fergus. They were about to sh when Michael felt an invisible force pulling him back.
She tried to fight back but the force was too powerful. The sight of Draven and the Stormbringer grew smaller and smaller until everything around him became pitch ck.
He traveled in darkness for a while and then, he saw a light at the end. Little by little, he got close to the light and saw his body. It took Michael a few more seconds to settle in his body and be whole again.
"AHHH"
Michael gasped for air, feeling an excruciating headache for a few moments. His face turned green as Michael felt an urge to throw up and he did. For a few moments, he coughed up blood. As a result, his face became pale. Quickly the APD injected him with a healing potion to make him feel good.
Michael looked into the crack seeing nothing but darkness. He then slowly turned around to see Sabrina peacefully sleeping on the mattress and still holding the book under her head.
"So the key opens up portals to other universes," Michael finally solved the long mystery of what the key opens. Now he needed to find the key and get to it before the Guardians. Thest thing Michael wanted was the Guardians to get stronger by conquering other universes.
"Where is the key?" Michael asked himself.
Although Michael gained nothing tangible through his visit to Etheria, he gained an idea to build a shield device simr to Draven''s. The Dark Lord did not need a shield since he could unleash his full power to destroy his enemies. However, Ghost needed a shield.
Since Sabrina was still sleeping and he felt exhausted, Michael took a parchment and a quill from the system storage before sitting beside Sabrina. He recalled Draven''s shield for a moment and began to sketch a device simr to his on the parchment. With his Inventor skill and Elidyr, he was confident he could make a device that would make Draven''s shield look like a cheap toy.
Chapter 540 Teaching Sabrina the ways of Ghost
Chapter 540 Teaching Sabrina the ways of Ghost¡¡¡¡After finishing the sketch for the new retractable shield in a gauntlet, Michael fell asleep on the ground. He was exhausted to the soul level and couldn''t stay awake. A long whileter, Sabrina slowly opened her eyes. She felt rejuvenated after a long nap. As the sleepiness faded away from her eyes, she searched for Ghost and found him sleeping on the ground a few meters away from her.
Looking at Ghost on the ground, Sabrina stood up. For a few moments, she looked around the ce to make sure no one was around them. Then, she brought the nket to Michael and covered him with the nket. She made sure the nket covers him from neck to toe.
While Michael was peacefully sleeping, Sabrina kindled the fire and sat beside the fire. The gloomy hallway was haunted with silence; the only sound Sabrina heard was firewood crackling under mes.
In the gloomy silence, she recalled everything she went through over thest couple of weeks. The vampires took turns beating and torturing her, especially Zeke. He took pleasure in inflicting her pain. They cut her back and arms, just to make her bleed. Then, the vampires collected her blood and drank it like wine.
At first, she tried to fight but without arch energy, she had no chance of defeating them. She just wanted to prove herself. That was why she took part in the Guardian operation. Her gut feeling told her not to go with Peyton. However, Noah always instructed her to take risks.
She could still hear the guardians'' screams. Elijah ughtered the guardians showing no mercy. It only took him a couple of minutes to ughter them. However, he did not only ughter them, he drank them until they were mummified.
Thest thing she remembered was another greater vampire dragging Peyton by her hair.
Even now, Sabrina prayed for Peyton. She did not wish Peyton to suffer the same fate she did. Yet, Sabrina was oblivious to the fact Peyton and Tanulia nned everything.
Otherwise, they wouldn''t have let Sabrina suffer at the hands of vampires.
As far as Tanulia and the other guardian were concerned, the key was more important than a few weeks of torture to Sabrina.
"Was it worth it?" Sabrina asked herself without moving her gaze away from the fire.
Whoosh!
All of a sudden, a gust of wind put out the fire. She quickly snapped back to reality and jerked her head around to see several skinless creatures appearing out of thin air.
When she saw the creatures, her heart skipped a beat and her body began to tremble. She crawled backward in fear. She searched for a weapon but found nothing.
The vampires took her space ring which contained all her books, weapons, and dress. Hence, she had nothing to defend herself. The overwhelming fear blinded her mind. That was why she didn''t think to shout at Ghost.
Seeing her without any weapons, the skinless opened their mouths, revealing a line of yellow teeth. Since they had no skin, she couldn''t identify or figure out their reaction. But if she had to guess, she would say they are grinning.
While a group of skinless creatures was targeting Sabrina, another group sneaked toward Ghost. They wanted to cut his throat in his sleep.
"Gho-" she tried to shout but she was toote. A skinless creature shut her mouth from behind. She squirmed and wriggled to escape yet she was too weak.
Her eyes opened as wide as they could. She wriggled her head until another skinless creature held her legs tight.
"HMMMMMMMM!" she screamed but not even a muffled cry escaped her mouth through the skinless creature''s hand,
"Wee to the real world, Sabrina" Ghost''s words resonated in her mind again.
Her warrior code taught her not to kill from behind or sneak up on her enemies. Instead, the creatures were doing precisely what her moral codes forbade her.
"Wee to the real world," Sabrina heard his voice again. But this time, his voice didn''t resonate in her mind alone. On the contrary, he actually opened his eyes.
Boom!
Michael pointed his finger towards the skinless creature behind Sabrina. The lightning bolt shot out of his fingers, prating its brain and bathing Sabrina with its blood.
As soon as the creatures realized that he had woken up, the other creatures shuddered. Before they could react, Michael sent a powerful gust of wind, sting the creatures onto the wall behind them.
Michael kipped up from the ground and stretched his arms, yawning.
"Did you see Sabrina? They had no warrior code," Michael snickered,
Sabrina managed to kick away the creature holding her leg and ran towards Michael.
"Don''t follow others'' moral codes, Sabrina. Make up your own codes," Michael slowly unsheathed his sword,
"Your life, your rules. Don''t try to reach for the bar set by your sibling Sabrina. Set your own standards. You are not your brother," Michael swung his sword at the creature that dashed at him.
The creatures were only at the Core Formation stage. Even when they came as a group of twelve, they stood no chance against Michael.
Sabrina saw the creature''s head flying away from its shoulder. Meanwhile, another creature shrieked like a banshee and dashed at him.
"You are not your sister,"
Pulch!
With another swing, Michael cleaved another head.
"You are Sabrina Winston," Michael turned around and patted her on the shoulder.
"Survival of the fittest. That''s the only rule in this world,"
Pulch!
Michael didn''t even turn around but swung his sword, cleaving another head. In a matter of seconds, he killed four skinless creatures without breaking a sweat.
"You can whine and cry about what the vampires did to you. Or you can learn from those events ande out stronger,"
Michael looked her in the eyes and gave her some tough love. He noticed two creatures nking him from behind. However, he didn''t turn around. Instead, Michael put a sword in her hand.
"You are not Noah Winston''s little sister. Noah is your big brother,"
His words and smile immediately boosted her courage. She grabbed the hilt tight and the moment the two creatures got closer to Ghost, she moved as smooth as water and swung her sword.
The severed head didn''t even hit the floor when Sabrina swayed to the side and swung the sword to cleave another head. Her eyes flickered in bright light when the two heads hit the ground. Michael turned around to see a new more badass Sabrina Winston.
Instead of killing the creatures by himself, Michael stepped back, letting Sabrina kill the others. Since she and the creatures were at the Core Formation stage, he knew she could face them.
Unlike before, the remaining creatures didn''t dash at Sabrina blindly. Rather, the archers dashed away from Sabrina and Michael, putting some distance between them. The rest slowly surrounded the duo cautiously without making any sudden movements.
Michael put his hands behind his back and let Sabrina handle the creatures.
Ding!
When an archer fired an arrow at Michael, Sabrina swung her sword, cutting the arrow in half.
"Always remember to kill your enemies as quick as you can,"
Michael instructed her from behind. Sabrina could feel the fear in her heart slowly fading away.
After hearing his words, Sabrina dashed at the archers.
"Crescent de!" she cast a spell, waving her sword. Immediately, Michael saw arge crescent shaped light de shooting out of the sword towards the archers.
The archers tried to leap away but the crescent de was simply too fast. The de cut the skinless creatures in halves. When their bodies hit the ground, Sabrina leaped into the air using the wall as a booster.
She turned her body acrobatically before diving down like a meteor.
Boom!
Hernding created a shockwave that knocked out the creatures surrounding Michael.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Pulch!
Sabrina didn''t wait for the creatures to get back to their feet. Instead, she stabbed them through the head showing no mercy.
"Show them you are not the one to be messed with. Show them your ruthless side," Michael taught her from behind. A few minutes ago when Sabrina covered him with the nket, he was about to wake up. Hence, he saw her gesture and felt a warmth in his heart.
That was the only reason Michael changed his mind about helping her. Noah taught her how she should live but Michael was teaching her how to survive.
Meanwhile, Sabrina was down to four enemies. When she reached a skinless creature that tried to get to his feet, Sabrina stomped on its head.
She stomped again and again repeatedly until she crushed its head into a pulpy mess. Seeing the brutal death of their kin, the skinless creatures crawled backward,
"Inflict maximum fear onto your foes. Your priority in every battle should be to win without even fighting," with her face covered in blood, she looked like a pissed-off goddess of war.
Until that moment, she was a delicate flower who took pride in her talent. But when she stomped a creature to death and drenched in blood, she looked like Michael''s sister.
Granted Noah loved his little sister dearly and protected her to the best of his abilities. Still, he failed to teach her the reality of the world outside. On the contrary, Michael would have taught her the world before teaching her anything. To survive in the world of killers like him, she needed to be ruthless and brutal.
The code of warriors Noah taught her put her in a cage. The life lessons Michael was teaching her would ensure that never happens again.
"ARRGGHHHH DIE DIE DIE!"
"Learn to control your anger," Michael said when she began to shout and stomp the already dead creature,
"Never let your anger cloud your mind. Your mind is your greatest weapon,"
Michael nodded in approval when she took a deep breath to calm her mind. Thest remaining creature shuddered and stepped backward, showing Michael they possess fear and feelings.
"Finish it off. We have a long journey ahead," Michael sent a tiny bolt of lightning to the mattress and nket. They were drenched in blood so Michael chose to burn them and get new ones from the system storage.
Michael walked forward as Sabrina threw the sword aiming at the creature''s head. In a blink of an eye, the sword went straight through its head.
"Do you feel better now?" Michael asked, catching the sword by its hilt in mid-air,
"I do really,"
Chapter 541 The most dangerous man on earth
Chapter 541 The most dangerous man on earth¡¡¡¡Michael looked around the headless creatures, giving Sabrina a nod of approval. Then, finally, Sabrina began toe out of the trauma instead of whining and living in the past.
"Keep the sword with you until our journey ends," When Sabrina held out the sword, Michael closed her fist around the sword hilt. He wanted Sabrina to have a sword not only to protect herself but to mend the warrior spirit broken by the vampires.
"You''ll need it,"
"Thank you Ghost," She surprised him with a tight hug,
"Can you do me a favor Sabrina?" asked Michael when gently brushing her head,
"Anything,"
"Don''t tell anyone you met me here,"
Sabrina let him go and took a step back. She then looked in him the yes with a bewildered face,
"Why?"
"Just don''t tell anyone. Me and the guardians are not on friendly terms. Thest thing I want is meddling with their business,"
For a few moments, Sabrina pondered before sighing heavily,
"I understand,"
"I think you and our family have some connection Ghost. You have been saving a Winston always," Sabrina let out a miserable chuckle,
"Well, you Winstons have the tendency to get into trouble,"
Michael smiled and walked the path before him with Sabrina.
"Can I ask you something?" after a few minutes of walking down the gloomy path, Sabrina asked Ghost.
"Go ahead,"
"How do you feel after taking a life? I mean not these creatures but actual human beings,"
"d,"
Michael''s answerpletely caught her off guard. She was stunned,
"d? why? " she asked, tilting her head.
"I don''t go around killing people unnecessarily. If I kill someone, that means I have no choice. I''ll feel d because after taking the life, I have one less enemy who wanted to take my life,"
"Don''t you feel any remorse?" Sabrina asked him another question,
"How many people have you killed Sabrina?"
Michael asked her, instead of answering her question,
"A few. But they deserved it,"
"Then why do you want to know how I feel? I told you Sabrina, live for yourself. End of the day, if you''re happy, that''s all it matters,"
She sped her steps, came in front of him, and walked backward looking at Michael.
"My brother said every time you take a life, you lose a bit of yourself,"
"Yeah, some people say that. I am not one of them. Either I kill and lose a bit of myself or not kill and lose the whole of me. I didn''t work my ass off to this point to get myself killed," Michael massaged the back of his neck while talking to her,
"What''s your ambition? What do you want to be in your life?" She looked curious to know Michael''s answer. For some reason, Sabrina felt good talking to Ghost.
When she talked to Rowena or Noah, she always felt some kind of pressure from them. They both expected Sabrina to be what they wanted. However, Ghost encouraged her to be herself rather than trying to satisfy someone else. Of course, Sabrina had no idea Ghost was her big brother at this moment in time. Otherwise, she would have felt a hundred times more pressure because Ghost was at the stage where Noah seemed pale inparison to him.
If Michael knew Sabrina was his little sister, he wouldn''t have messed her mind with stupid warrior codes. Instead, Michael would have taught her how the real world works.
"What everyone wants, immortality. I am gonna sit back and enjoy everything this world has to offer,"
"Congrattions on your engagement by the way,"
Michael was kinda surprised by her words,
"How did you know?"
As far as Michael could remember, only ire and the elders knew about his engagement to Gaya. He wanted to share the news with everyone at Hades. But before he could do that, they were attacked by the ninjas.
"The ring," Sabrina pointed at the engagement ring on his finger,
"It didn''t look like a space ring. So you were either wearing it for fashion or you''re engaged to someone, most probably to Aelia,"
"Took a guess huh?"
"Yep," Sabrina nodded. It was astonishing to see how quickly she changed. A few hours ago, she was a broken, cowardly girl and now she had turned into a cheery joyful girl.
All she needed was a bit of tough love and a few skinless creatures.
"I heard a rumor you''re not going to marry anyone else. Any truth to that?"
"You heard right,"
"Really?" Sabrina raised her brows because she was amazed,
"You don''t have anyone else in your life other than Aelia. I know I am asking about your personal life but I am really surprised. This is the first time I heard a prodigy like you have only one girl in his life,"
"What''s wrong with that?" Michael couldn''t help chuckling after looking at her reaction,
"nothing. It''s just too surprising. Take my brother for example. He has a few girls in his life,"
"A few?" Michael raised his brows,
"Yea a few," Sabrina giggled, recalling the number of girls in Noah''s harem.
Although Michael met only three girls in Noah''s harem, he knew there were several more. To his knowledge, there was Alicia, Xanali, and Edith. In addition, Olivia would have joined his harem if Michael didn''t pull her out of the pit.
"In my view, the more girls you have in your harem, the less you know about each of them. I don''t say harem is wrong. It''s just I can''t love anyone other than Aelia,"
"She is really a lucky girl,"
"It''s me who''s really lucky to have her," Michael gently smiled, thinking about Gaya. He couldn''t even imagine a life without her. He was deeply in love with her.
When he was with her, even the catastrophic problems seemed minuscule.
He would rather have Gaya by his side than hundreds of heaven-defying beauties like Lah.
While they were walking further and further into the gloomy path before them, Michael noticed symbols and shapes creating something he could make sense of. Sabrina saw Michael suddenly turn his gaze towards the wall and walk towards it.
"You see something?" Sabrina asked. She looked closer at the wall but saw nothing but indistinguishable shapes and symbols.
Michael on the other hand saw the woman with thousands of arms in the wall yet again. But this time, she was under someone''s feet. The man with a long cape fluttering in the wind brushed her neck with his boot while raising his arm to the sky. Michael followed his hand and saw what looked like a meteor down on her.
Looking at the drawing, Michael creased his brows. He thought the thousand-arms woman might be the queen. He wondered who might be the man crushing the all-mighty queen under his feet like she was a bug.
Besides the man, he also noticed a dog. He looked closer as the dog resembled a german shepherd but with wings. Both the dog and the man seemed to beughing. Michael slowly walked along the wall to see more and more engravings and all of them had the man and the dog.
"I still can''t see anything," Sabrina said,
"Look over there. Maybe you might see something that I can''t," Michael sent away Sabrina and focused on the engravings on the wall before him.
On one particr portion of the wall, Michael saw engravings of thousands of soldiers running toward the man and the dog. In the next portion following the soldiers, Michael saw all the soldiers on the ground, obviously dead.
He saw the dog ripping off the soldiers'' armor.
"Who is he?" Michael touched the man and asked himself. Previously, Michael saw the engravings of Draven. Surprisingly, he was pulled into Etheria and Michael had actually met Draven.
Now Michael saw the man in a long coat and a thieving pet dog. He wondered if he was going to pull into another universe.
"HUNTER!"
Suddenly, the entire maze trembled as a shrieking voice echoed through the dark hallways.
"What was that?" Sabrina held onto the wall beside her, bncing herself. The maze continued to tremble as there was a powerful earthquake.
"Did you hear that?" Sabrina asked Michael. It was surprising to him that Sabrina heard the shout. Michael had never heard a shout filled with such anger and outrage.
"Every man has a past¡" Michael heard another calm voice reverberate in the hallways following the angry shout. The voice was calm, clear, and dominant.
Sabrina frantically looked around to locate the source but failed. After hearing the voice, Michael felt he had heard the voice somewhere before yet he couldn''t remember exactly where.
"I have a history,"
The tremor slowly lost its power as Sabria steadied herself,
"It''s no wrong if you kill thousands of enemies. But letting one traitor live is"
Michael heard the same voice again after a few seconds,
"I am sure I''m the viin in everyone''s stories. I AM THE FUCKING HERO IN MINE!"
As soon as the voice shouted, Michael and Sabrina were thrown into the air by a powerful gust of wind. They were sent flying several meters backward before they could steady themselves.
"HUNTER!"
Michael heard the demonic scream yet again. This time, the shout was louder, but the maze didn''t tremble like earlier.
"I am certainly not good. I am not bad either. I am just evil,"
Michael was absolutely positive he heard the voice again. In fact, he heard the exact same sentence back on earth.
As soon as he recognized the voice''s owner, Michael saw the wall beside him cracking. Then, he felt the wall pulling him in.
"Oh shit here we go again," the force was several times stronger than before. He just closed his eyes and prepared himself to jump into another universe. Deep down, he was excited. Because when he met Draven, he learned more about the key and got an idea of a new device. So he wondered what he might get in the universe he was going to.
Michael was the number one hitman in the world, and if Michael was right, he was about to meet the most powerful and dangerous man to ever live on earth¡
Chapter 542 Michael meets Hunter
Chapter 542 Michael meets Hunter¡¡¡¡The city of Ravenfort was built at the base of a rugged mountain called Raven mountain and was truly a contemporary wonder. Its charm was matched by the backdrop of lush fields of grass, and endless forests which had helped shape the city into what it is today.
The trade resources these fields and forests brought were of great importance. Still, they were also influential when it came to architectural designs as the vast majority of buildings have been built with an abundance ofrge windows to mimic the openness of fields.
The skyline was riddled with peculiar buildings and their beauty was only matched by each other. Parks and gardens were flourishing in Ravenfort attracting a lot of attention. So many dukes and noble families had left their mark on Ravenfort. But only one man changed the city into a buzzing neon city of Kingdom Dawnguard.
"Where the heck am I now?" Unlike in Etheria, Michael was thrown into an open street as he floated above the middle of the street.
He looked around and was truly astonished by sight. For a few moments, he was baffled by the sight. The ce in his sight looked like something directly pulled out from an anime and sprinkled with neon lights to make it look like a fantasy medieval-ish vegas.
The street was buzzing with people in fancy clothes. The neon signs and the decoration each building had coupled with the starry sky gave off a quiet charm. Anyone would want to lose themselves in the city without a second thought. Michael could count several casinos, restaurants, theaters, and surprisingly, strip clubs.
"It''s definitely his work," Michael shook his head, chuckling.
Michael continued to float above the crowd, aimlessly watching the streets.
While roaming the streets, Michael noticed how clean the streets were. Then, he looked at the raven-shaped mountain looking down at the city.
"Damn it. I lost a hundred thousand today,"
"Dude, you know what they say. The house always wins,"
Michael turned his gaze towards a couple of elves walking out of a casino. The building resembled a miniature pyramid, and their shout was loud enough for many pedestrians to turn their gazes at them.
"I am sick of losing my astral coins in this ce," the elf leading the group, who had blonde hair and pointy ears, stomped on the street. The elves looked exactly the same as the elves from Michael''s universe. Except these elves had pointier ears and were taller than the humans in the streets. They also looked more dominant.
"Then why do you keep going to this ce? There are countless casinos in Ravenfort," the elf following the angry elf said,
"Sigh" the elf sighed,
"Because they have sick services. Especially the girls, dang!" The elf licked his lips before mingling with the crowd.
Michael followed the crowd of streets towards the castle in the distance right beneath the mountain.
"Get your daily dose of news here!"
"Newssh!"
"The Dark mage has decimated grass grave, the school of astral magic!"
"The Royal Mages are scouring the kingdom for the Dark Mage!"
Michael turned his head immediately towards a couple of street urchins shouting at the crowd standing on a stack of crates,
"The Dark Mage strikes again!"
"Want to know about the Dark Mage? Get your daily dose of news from the number one news provider, Newssh,"
Michael saw several people, including elves, dwarves, and humans rushing toward the street urchins to get a copy of the newspaper in their hands.
"The Dark Mage?" Michael felt curious about the Dark Mage. He wondered whether the Dark mage and the man who crushed the Queen under his boots were the same people or not.
"Dear God, it says The Dark Mage has killed every single disciple in the school," a humandy wearing a feather hat read the newspaper and gasped in shock,
"Why is he hunting the mages?"
"Not mages. The mage schools allied with the Church of Goddess Aditi,"
"This is the fifth school he had wiped out of existence,"
"What the fuck is the Royal Mages and the ministry of warriors doing?"
The crowd murmured among themselves. Michael noticed every single one who talked about The Dark Mage looked pale and flustered.
"Look!"
Suddenly many of the crowd pointed at the sky as Michael looked up to see a man of war ship flying towards the castle in the sky. Even from a distance, the ship looked massive and threatening.
Michael quickly shot into the sky as he had a feeling the ship was the ce he should be right now instead of listening to gossip. Only when he came closer to the ship, did he realize the actual size of this beast. If the ship was put beside a cargo airne, thetter would look smaller, let alone Michael.
Since he was not in his physical form, Michael was able to pass through all the defense arrays ced on the hull and went straight through the hull.
Michael followed his instincts and the Environmental scanning map to reach a spacious room where Michael saw several ck armored soldiers standing around a marble table.
All the soldiers wore what seemed to be shiny metal ck armor that perfectly fit their bodies. They were armored from toe to neck and had their ck helmets and cloak on the table.
They were too focused on the blueprint on the table and didn''t even sense Michael looking over their shoulder. What surprised Michael was the soldiers contained all the races. He could see an elf, dwarf, half-elf, human girl, and an orc who looked seven feet tall and had green skin.
"Where is Hunter?" the elf asked the others,
A few secondster, the door to the room opened as a handsomely devilish man with striking raven ck hair entered the room with two ck swords in his hand. He was taller than an average human and had a physique that rivals Ghost himself. His shoulder-length ck hair fluttered in the wind while his swords sparked fire every time he brushed them together.
"Is everyone ready?" Hunter asked with a smirk,
"Yes Captain," Despite their different races, all the soldiers bowed their heads toward Hunter, who was a human.
"You better be. I had enough of that vile creature. I am nning to wake up on his bed with his women beside me," Hunter devilishly grinned. His perfect jaw structure and an alluring row of perfectly set teeth made even his devilish grin look dashing.
"Remember guys. We are not sneaking up on him. That''s his style. We are doing this in my style, loud and sexy. He has to know we areing for him," Hunter cracked his neck, sheathing his swords into the sheathes on his back.
"Arlen, walk us through the n again," Hunter said to the elf,
"Alright listen," The elf put his finger on the highest point of the castle,
"Our inside man has already disabled the defenses around the castle and opened the roof way. So we are diving through that roof which will lead us straight to the throne hall," the elf took a break and continued,
"After we reach the throne hall, we will meet his personal guard, a group of highly trained orcs. We have information that this group contains five mages and seven warriors, all at the Sentinel stage," Michael listened to the elf with his arms crossed,
"Ogrul, that''s where youe in," the elf looked at the orc,
"The moment we enter the hall, use the void crystal," the orc took unzipped the pouch hanging on his waist and took out a dark crystal,
Thud!
The roc put the crystal on the table and nodded as Michael saw a puff of steaming out of the orc''s nostrils,
"The crystal will suppress everyone''s cultivation stage to Sage level except us. As long as we are wearing this," Arlen tapped his chest,
"We are immune to the void crystal,"
"Six Pdins versus a bunch of Sages. I like that odds,"
"Lol we can massacre them in a couple of minutes," the half-elf giggled, ying with her golden hair,
"What about him, our target?" Michael looked down to see a dwarf chugging arge bottle of wine down his throat,
"Dude, how many times do we have to tell you? Don''t drink before a mission," the half-elf shook her head disappointedly,
"Especially that poison made by our target," Arlen creased his brows as the dwarf wiped the red wine off of his long bushy beard,
"Dinna judge me. After we chop aff his head, who''s gonna make this gods'' drink? ye have ta give it ta him, he may be a vile evil one son o'' a bitch but he knows how ta brew this heavenly wine," The dwarf kissed the ss bottle in his hand,
"Just give itta taste. Hunter, here take a sip," the dwarf extended the bottle to Hunter but he just shook his head,
"I prefer not to drink poisons Habrot,"
"So killing, thieving, an'' humping like a dog be okay but nae drinking?" Habrot rolled his eyes,
"Just ignore that short bastard and continue Arlen," the half elf said to the elf,
"Where was I? Ah at the throne hall. So after Ogrul activates the void crystal and suppresses everyone''s cultivation. We''ll just kill them and teleport the target to our base,"
"What tha fuck? why kinna we just chop his head aff right on his very throne?" Habrot asked,
"First, I kinda hate his decorations. Second, we need the king and his people to witness his death. They are waiting for us in the grand arena and I don''t n to disappoint them," Hunter grinned, and looking at his devilish grin, Michael knew he was nning something else too,
"But we can make them wait a bit until we clean his treasury. I heard there are some dope shits in his castle. We can auction them for millions of astral coins," Hunter licked his lips as Michael could see his eyes sparkling,
Michael couldn''t help feeling pity for their target. Although Michael couldn''t see their cultivation level, he could sense the overwhelming power radiating from each of them. Especially from Hunter. If Michale had topare Hunter with a cultivator from his universe, he would say Hunter was at Fusion Stage.
Wherever they were going, Michael was excited to see them in action.
Chapter 543 Hunter in action
Chapter 543 Hunter in action¡¡¡¡Hunter and his team equipped themselves with hidden des, various pouches, and weapons such as swords, spears, bows, and arrows. Michael calmly watched them prepare. His gaze swept across the leading man, Hunter, who brushed his ck des together, sharpening them.
The dwarf was rummaging through the contents of a wooden crate to find another bottle of wine. Meanwhile, Arlen checked the sticity of his golden bow by pulling and releasing the string.
The half-elf swung the silver spear in the air, and the orc seemed to be meditating. The rest of the three humans put on the ck helmets hiding their faces.
As they were preparing, the orc abruptly opened his eyes. Michael looked at the green skinned orc taking out a jade stone from one of the ouches hanging around his waist. Despite the orc''s two short tusks sticking out of his mouth and the hulking muscr size, he looked gentle and calm, unlike the rest.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
The jade stone flickered, pulsating energy sts.
"Our girl?" asked Hunter as the orc nodded,
Finally, Hunter stopped sharpening his sword and walked toward the table,
"Is everything ready Monolith?"
"Yes," A whisper of a girl sounded from the jade stone,
"Tell me he''s there," asked Hunter,
"Yes, he is there. I think he''s going to hold a meeting with his minions soon. Soe faster," The girl rushed Hunter,
"We are closer than you think Monolith. Arlen, what''s our ETA?" Hunter turned his gaze to the elf,
"Three minutes,"
"Three minutes Monolith. Where is he now?" Hunter asked the girl who is called Monolith. Michael floated so close to the orc and the stone that he could hear the girl panting. She sounded like she had finished a heavy workout,
"Getting dressed. Come quickly. Shit, I have to go," The jade stone suddenly lost all its glow as Hunter sighed,
"Let''s go and get out girl back team," he cracked his neck and sheathed his swords back into the sheathes,
Michael looked through the window and saw the majestic gray castle standing beneath the mighty mountain. The castle they were traveling to had seven solid, round towers that were both a defensive and decoration aspect of the elegant castle. All seven towers were connected by towering, narrow walls made of what seemed to be gray marble.
Stylish windows scattered thinly across the walls in an asymmetric pattern, along with symmetric crentions for archers and artillery.
Michael floated towards the windows and was genuinely stunned by the forest outside the castle gates. The forest was lit up with bioluminescent creatures and trees, adding to the castle''s atmosphere. After seeing the colorful bioluminescent trees, flowers, and veins in the forest, Michael understood how those neon lights were created.
He looked around the castle through the window to see signs of expansion as some parts were clearly built more recently than others. There were still many construction sites near the castle, along with stacks of gray marble stones, y, and carriages. It was apparent whoever inhabited the castle had nned to expand it.
The airship Michael was on gradually got closer to the castle. It slowly ascended higher to the point that Michael could see a ss door on the roof nked by four towers.
"It''s showtime," Hunter cracked his fist as the wooden floor in front of them slid open.
Without wasting any time, Hunter jumped through the opening followed by the dwarf. Then, one by one, all the team members jumped out of the ship, diving towards the castle opening.
"Let''s see Hunter in action," Atst, Michael exited the ship through the opening and followed the team. Since the ship was huge in size, all the archers in the tower noticed it. Besides, Michael could see guards patrolling the castle walls chaotically running around the ce. To Michael, it seemed like the guards were caught off guard.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
While diving down, Arlen fired arrow after arrow at each archer in the tower in mid-air.
"He''s good," Michael praised the elf''s archery skills. Each arrow he fired went straight through his targets'' heads. Without inhuman skills, it would be impossible to hit the targets while diving through the air and facing the wind resistance.
Of course, Gaya could do the same. When ites to archery, she surpassed Michael. That didn''t mean Michael was behind her in the uracy department. What made Gaya a better archer was her talent for calcting wind resistance. Michael could easily buy an archery book and match her skills if he wanted. But for now, Michael chose not to spend badass points and decided to save them.
"Stop them!"
"Why are our defenses down?"
"What the fuck happened to the defense arrays?"
Michael heard the soldiers in the castle shouting in utter confusion. Soon, a line of archers rushed out of the tower and took aim at Hunter and his group.
"Fire!"
As countless arrows soared through the air, the Orc closed his eyes,
"Sr Barrage," Ogrul growled.
In a blink of an eye, Michael saw a shield made of sparkling golden energy materialize in front of them. Hunter and the others quickly moved closer together and flew behind the shield as the arrows hit the shield and the shield turned each and every arrow into a pile of ash.
"FLAME LASH!" When Hunter and his group got closer to the line of archers, Habrot the dwarf cast a spell, swinging the heavy ax in his hand. Michael saw a wave of fire shooting out of Habrot''s ax to the soldiers nking the entryway into the castle.
As soon as the fire wave hit the soldiers, the wave cut the soldiers in halves.
ng!
When they got closer to the square entryway made of ss, Ogrul slowed down, falling behind. In contrast, Hunter just closed his fist, extended his arm, shattered through the ss, andnded directly on the throne hall.
"Pyro thorns!"
As soon as theynded on the throne hall, Ogrul waved his hand, casting a spell that created hundreds of fiery thorns on the floor.
"AHHHH!" an overly loyal archer jumped through the broken entryway only to be burnt to death by the thorns made of blood-red fire.
The throne hall contained polished braziers epassing each of the fourteen obsidian columns that lit up the lower levels of the throne hall and nketed everything in a warm glow. The rtively modest chandeliers hanging from the embowed ceiling danced in the flickering light. At the same time, gargoyles and statuettes looked down upon the marble floor of this majestic hall.
The cobalt rug caught on fire due to the fiery thorns sticking through them. The rug on fire ran from the throne down through the center. It split into two paths leading out while matching ck banners containing the head of a crimson red lion with adorned tapestries draped from the walls. Between each banner stood a tall candle, all but a few had been lit and in turn, illuminated the mosaics of a ck-haired man below them.
Michael followed the burning rug and saw a towering throne made of ck metal and skulls on an elevated tform. The throne was engraved with skulls and bones, making it look like it was made of hundreds of skulls and bones. The rug on fire encircled the throne and through the mes, Michael saw a young man sitting on the throne, resting his head on his fist.
Despite the chaos and the fire around him, Michael didn''t see any signs of shock or fear on that young man''s face.
Michael lost his focus on the young man when several soldiers wearing ck steampunk frock suits rushed into the throne hall.
"Ogrul!" Arlen shouted as the orc quickly took out the dark crystal from his pouch and shattered the crystal on the ground.
As soon as Ogrul shattered the crystal, Michael saw a dark wave sting everyone in the throne hall except the young man on the throne.
Cling!
Hunter unsheathed his two swords and dashed at the guards. While looking at the soldiers who wore ck steampunk frock coats, he couldn''t help praising their fashion sense. Coupled with the fedora hat on their heads, they looked like the soldiers of a mafia family.
But they soon lost their hats along with their heads when Hunter weeded their heads like a weed with his two swords. His fast, deadly, and precise sword work wreaked havoc among the soldiers.
"FLAME LASH!" The dwarf cast the spell yet again as ash made of fire cut the soldiers who tried to dash at them in halves. In a matter of a few seconds, Hunter had reduced the number of soldiers by half.
He was a killing machine and every time he swung his swords, he took a life or two. Every single one in Hunter''s team massacred the soldiers so effortlessly. Ogrul had his hands towards the sky as Michael noticed a sliver of light shooting out of his chest and going into the floor.
If he was right, the silver of light was the energy of this universe. In simple words, Michael''s universe had Arch energy, and Hunter''s universe had Astral energy.
After several minutes, the hall had countless heads rolling around and headless bodies. The previously marble floor was flooded with thick blood. When the rug finished burning, and the fiery thrones disappeared, there was no one in the hall but Hunter, his group, and the young man on the throne.
FLing!
Hunter flicked his wrist, scattering the blood on his two swords before sheathing them.
Looking at the young man on the throne, Hunter cracked his neck.
"You messed with the wrong Hunter bitch," Hunter snickered as Ogrul waved his hand, swirling like a tornado.
While the orc was swirling, Michael saw a golden parchment materializing in his hand. Soon, the orc tore the parchment in half as a golden light shot out of the parchment enveloping the entire throne hall and everyone in it.
The next moment, Michael saw a vortex opening above them and felt he was being sucked into the vortex. Then, in a few blinks of an eye, everyone in the throne hall just vanished into thin air.
Chapter 544 The Badass Hunter
Chapter 544 The Badass Hunter¡¡¡¡After being teleported from the throne hall, Hunter, his team, and Michael appeared on the open ground along with the young man on the throne. Michael quickly looked around and realized they were in an arena. His gaze swept across the fancy-dressed nobles around them in elevated seating until he saw a group of people watching Hunter and his group sitting on the VIP seatings.
The nobles gasped in shock when they saw the ck throne and the young man sitting on it. Even now, the young man looked calm andzy, resting his head on his fist. Since there were no mes between them, Michael was able to look at him clearly.
The young man had smooth skin, perfect jaw structure, blue eyes, and neck-length raven ck hair. He was not by any means the most handsome or dashing young man, but undoubtedly, he had a charm that rivaled even Michael.
The calm look on his face added an extra charm to his personality. The young man rubbed his neatly trimmed stubble beard, sweeping the arena around him with his gaze.
Michael heard countless people gasping in shock. Michael wondered why they teleported the young man with his throne.
"That''s him!"
"Kill him!"
"Bastard!"
Many people began to shout and throw whatever they had in their hands. But the rest seemed pale.
"SILENCE!"
Suddenly a thunderous shout echoed through the arena, silencing everyone. Michael looked in the direction of the shout to see a red-robed man standing up with a golden crown on his head. The man radiated a kingly aura with his neatly pruned gray beard, shoulder-length wavy ck hair with strips of gray hair, and broad shoulders.
"If you may court mage," Michael saw a white-robed old man walking toward the king with a long white beard. He carried an ancient-looking wooden staff in his hand.
When he reached the king''s side, he raised his staff in the air and pointed the end towards the young man.
"Mystic bounds," Hunter and his group took a step back, looking at the chains made of silvery astral energy flying towards the young man from the court mage''s staff. The chains coiled around the young man like a snake. Still, the young man remained calm without showing any signs of distress or fear.
"He is secured, Your majesty," The old man bowed deeply as the king nodded. Then the king turned his gaze towards Hunter and his group.
"Hunter," Hunter stepped forwards,
"You and your team had done this kingdom a great service by capturing him,"
"It''s an honor to serve this great nation Your majesty," Hunter bowed.
Immediately the hundreds of people in the arena began to shake the arena with their thunderous cheers and ps.
Hunter waved his hand all around, and so did his team.
After letting Hunter and his team bask in glory, the king raised his arm, again silencing the crowd.
"Hunter," THe King uttered the name again, but surprisingly for Michael, the king was looking at the young man on the throne.
"Do you have any words to exin your actions?" The King asked the young man, who was apparently also called Hunter.
"I have two words," for the first time, Michael heard the young man open his mouth.
His voice sounded calm, domineering, clear, and hard as steel.
"Thank you," The young man stood from his throne, stretched his arms, and cracked his neck.
Just like Michael, Hunter also wore a ck long coat with crimson red linings. In addition, he wore a tight ck shirt underneath his coat, hiding the chiseled chest and muscr abs.
Hunter''s words confused the king and everyone in the arena.
"What are you devil bbering?!" The court mage growled,
"Hahaha," Hunter broke into a short burst ofughter,
"Court mage stair, I am not the devil," Hunter cracked his knuckles disregarding the white chains around him,
"I am the guy that when I wake up, the devil says oh shit he''s up,"
A devilish grin appeared on Hunter''s face as he grabbed the astral chains around him.
He locked his gaze with the court mage and the old man''s eyes went wide when Hunter crushed the chain out of existence.
"Impossible!" The court mage gasped in shock,
The ck armored Hunter and his team quickly lost their prideful grin.
"Dogzi," Hunter near the throne whistled.
Boom!
Only several seconds passed after he whistled when something hit the ground a couple of inches away from Hunter''s throne. Michael looked up to be surprised by a german shepherd with majestic golden wings hovering in the sky,
"Say hello to our little friend fuckers, woof woof!" Michael raised his brows, hearing the dog cursing everyone in the arena. In a blink of an eye, the royal guards, armed to the teeth with silver armor, surrounded the king and the court mage.
Meanwhile, Hunter and his group took a step back and were poised to attack. However, they were all confused by the ck metal object in front of Hunter, except Michael. He knew what it was and was genuinely stunned.
The ck metal object was a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted on a metal base.
Kachak!
Hunter grabbed the machine gun and pulled it towards him. When he pulled closer, the metal base retracted and merged with the throne.
"You can have my name" Hunter holding the trigger, turned his gaze and the barrel of the fifty caliber gun towards the other Hunter. Since these people had no idea what this beast was capable of, the people remained still instead of running for their lives. Each bullet fired from the gun could tear through an armored vehicle like eggs shells, and if Hunter fired at the people around them, it would turn the people around into a pulpy mess.
As far as Michael could see, the people in the arena had no cover unless they were capable of casting some powerful defense spell. Although Michael did not know about the cultivation levels of this universe, something told Michael that most of them were way weaker than Hunter.
"You can dress like me," Hunter loaded the bullets into the gun, pulling the spring toward him to turn off the safety.
"But you clown will never be me,"
As soon as Hunter snickered, looking at the other Hunter, he pulled the trigger.
Boom!
Hunter didn''t even have time to unsheath his swords as his body exploded into a bloody mist.
"ARGH!" Ady from the arena screamed as loud as she could, but it was muffled by the sound of fifty caliber gun firing rapidly,
"Hahahahahaha," Hunterughed like a maniac as he rained bullets on everyone.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
One by one, Hunter''s team exploded into red mist before they could even react.
Finally, the people in the arena snapped back to reality from their initial shock. However, it was toote for them. Hunter''s body trembled because of the recoil that could dislocate a weak man''s shoulder after firing the gun several times.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"YOUR MAJESTY!"
Hunter turned the gun around without taking his finger off the trigger towards the king.
"Astrel Shield!" The court mage istair immediately casts a shield, forming a white shield around the king and everyone around him.
Unfortunately, the shield was not powerful enough to stop Hunter''s shield prating bullets.
The nobles screamed, yelled, and tried to run away as the entire arena was in chaos. Yet no matter how hard they tried, they couldn''t escape the bulletsing out of Hunter''s gun.
Hunterughed louder after he painted the walls with the king''s innards. Unfortunately, the royal guards and the court mage weren''t spared either, as they were soon turned into a red mist by Hunter in a few seconds.
If anyone else was in Hunter''s ce, Michael would have expected them to stop after killing Hunter and the king''s group. However, it wasn''t the case. The man raining down bullets and massacring the unarmed nobles was the deadliest man on earth, the youngest Dictator of Kingdom de.
While Michael walked in the shadowy underworld, Hunter de ruled the militaristically super-developed kingdom de and was feared by every single leader in the world.
Even back on earth, none of them dared to put a contract on Hunter''s head. That was why Michael never put on a path to assassinate the modern-day dictator Hunter de.
The man terrorized the world when the world had no cultivation. So Michael couldn''t even imagine what he would do in a cultivation world where he seemed to have the upper hand.
(Hunter de is the MC of Dictator with a Badass System)
"How do you like this?!" Hunterughed as he continued to massacre every single noble in the arena.
Hunter proved to everyone in the arena why he was the most feared crime boss in the world. The King and the nobles poured their resources to mess with the wrong man and paid the price with their lives.
Without any idea that Hunter had his own version of a badass system, Michael watched Hunter destroy the arena along with every noble who rushed here to witness his death.
The booming sound of the machine gun echoed through the arena, reminding Michael of his life back on earth and the power of firearms. However, the sickening sound of the gun eventually stopped resonating after Hunter killed thest noble in the arena.
Finally, Hunter took his finger away from the trigger, pping and dusting off the gunpowder from his hands. Hunter''s world was exactly like Michael''s. Still, unlike Michael, Hunter built an arsenal of weapons based on the weapons he had back on earth. This fifty caliber machine gun was one of those weapons he built with the help of the badass system.
Chapter 545 The Ruthless Hunter
Chapter 545 The Ruthless Hunter¡¡¡¡A few hours after Hunter massacred everyone in the arena, he vanished into thin air. He teleported himself with his throne, the dog, and the fifty-caliber machine gun to the castle previously besieged by the other Hunter and his group. Luckily Michael hitched on his teleportation and arrived right at Hunter''s room in the castle.
Michael''s room in the dark forest was gloomy, dark, and lit with crimson red light. On the contrary, Hunter''s room wasvish, brightly lit with a grandeur chandelier, and filled with fancy furniture, including the elegant round bed in the center.
The golden curtains draped over the ss windows, preventing the beautiful view of the kingdom beneath the castle. However, since Hunter''s room was on the castle''s highest floor, Michael could see almost the entire city of Ravenfort.
The room had a mixed vibe of fantasy, medieval and modern. The walls were painted charcoal ck while the Victorian era furniture gave off a certain charm to the room. In addition, there was also arge oak table and a throne behind the table just beside the firece. The firece lit the room with golden orange light reflecting the armors, portraits of Hunter, and weapons hanging on the wall.
At that moment, Michael would rather watch the city outside than Hunter''s bed.
"Ahhh!"
"Hrrmmm,"
Moaning sounds echoed through the air as Michael avoided turning his gaze towards the golden-haired woman on top of Hunter.
It wasn''t that Michael had never been with a woman, but he felt ufortable looking at someone else making love. Although Michael could not block the sounds from reaching his ears, he focused on various weapons and parchment on the oak table to get some sense of the universe.
Michael still hadn''t figured out why he was in Hunter''s universe. Thus, he was trying to get some information to answer his question.
While reading the parchments on the table, Michael came across the word ''Astral Energy'' several times. It was apparent to Michael that this universe contained Astrel energy just like they had Arch energy.
Comparing to see which energy was more powerful was borderline pointless. Hence, Michael focused more on if he could find anything rted to the Queen or the key.
Meanwhile, the moaning sounds started to get louder and louder to the point it annoyed Michael. Fortunately, several minutester, the girl stopped moaning and finally fell beside Hunter.
"Wow that was great Ayano," Hunter panted as the girl breathed heavily. For a few moments, the girl couldn''t utter any words. Just by hearing her heavy breaths, one could tell how exhausted she was. After the intense love making, no one would me her for being exhausted.
"You didn''t tell me where you put the prisoners Hunter?" Ayano, the golden haired beauty who currentlyid beside Hunter half naked under the nket asked,
"Is this your version of pillow talk?" Hunter smiled.
Hunter''s words made Michael chuckle a bit. Just a few hours ago, Hunter massacred hundreds of people without showing a shred of mercy. Anyone else in his shoes would have at least shown some remorse or some kind of feelings. But, instead, Hunter came back to his room and made love to Ayano. He even killed a king without thinking about the consequences. However, Michael had a feeling that Hunter nned everything from the beginning.
Unlike the other Hunter thought, they were not trapping Hunter but Hunter was trapping them, including the king.
Michael didn''t me Hunter though, because those nobles and the king were there to execute him. The other Hunter was literally nning to loot Hunter''s castle and bed the girls in the castle. So they were not saints who didn''t deserve death.
It was only that Michael would have chosen an elegant way to kill them all or killed only a few prominent figures such as the king to make a statement.
That was Michael''s style. Hunter, on the other hand, preferred to root out his enemies no matter the cost. After reading the parchments on the table, Michael learned that Hunter may be looking to build a criminal empire spanning the entire world.
"He''s creating a criminal underworld," Michael said to himself. Apparently, many of the parchments contained logs, information about underground pathways, and a list of criminals and corrupt officials in each kingdom.
"I just want to see who dared to siege my prince," Ayano cuddled Hunter and yed with his raven ck hair,
"Is that so?" Hunter asked with a gentle smile on his face. When he smiled, Hunter looked so gentle and kind. No one would believe it if one said he just massacred hundreds of people in cold blood.
"Hmm," Ayano nodded as she rested her head on Hunter''s chiseled chest,
"Did you know they sent Hunter to hunt the Hunter?" Hunter was amused, recalling how he killed one of the best soldiers Sentinel Prime had.
"Really?" Ayano quickly raised her head to look Hunter directly in his blue eyes,
"Yep,"
"Where are they? I mean where did you put them?" Ayano seemed weirdly interested in where Hunter sent his prisoners. In fact, Michael also wondered what happened to the flying man of war ship and who was Hunter''s inside man within Dictator Hunter''s organization. \
"There is a snake among us Ayano," Hunter''s voice turned grave,
"Snake? Among us? What makes you say that Hunter?"
As the girl was expecting an answer from Hunter, he rolled to the side and picked up the bottle of wine from the table beside the bed. Then, Hunter chugged the wine down his throat without even using a mug.
He finished the entire bottle in a couple of seconds.
"Traitors are more dangerous than enemies Ayano," Hunter said, showing no emotion in his voice,
"I love treason, but damn I hate traitors," Hunter growled,
"Ah look at me," suddenly, Hunter pped his forehead yfully,
"You asked me where I put Hunter and his group right?"
Ayano nodded as Hunter rolled to the side yet again. This time, he grabbed a vial with blood inside from under the bed,
Hunter tossed the vial to Ayano as she grabbed the vial and looked bewildered,
"That''s what''s left of Hunter. Hmm," Hunter rubbed his chin,
"It might be that dwarf or the orc. Fuck it, this was all I found at where I killed him,"
Michael finally couldn''t keep his eyes on the table as he looked up at Ayano and Hunter. Though thetter looked calm and showed a smirky smile, Ayano looked pale and bbergasted like she had seen a ghost.
"This¡this¡" Ayano stuttered,
Her hands shivered as Hunter took ast sip from the wine bottle,
"Sorry for your loss Ayano," Hunter brushed her hair,
Then he tilted his head as a devilish grin emerged on his face,
"Or should I say Sentinel agent Monolith?" Hunter asked.
Suddenly, he just broke the wine bottle on the bed frame and stabbed Ayano in the neck at lightning speed. She grabbed her neck as blood sprayed out all over the ce, turning the white sheets into red.
She squirmed and wriggled frantically while Hunter stabbed her again and again until she stopped twitching forever.
"Softness to traitors will destroy us all," Hunter threw the broken ss away and looked at Ayano''s lifeless body soaking the bed beside him.
Michael was truly stunned by Hunter''s ruthlessness. He was just making love with the girl a moment ago. Even the sweat on their bodies didn''t dry but he just stabbed her to death.
After stabbing Ayano AKA Sentinel Prime agent Monolith to death, Hunter removed the nket and left the bed whistling like nothing happened. He grabbed a white towel, swiped his face, and flicked his wrist as all the blood on his just vanished.
While Hunter was putting on some clothes, Michael floated towards the girl and sighed.
Of course, Michael didn''t feel sympathy for the girl since she was actually working for the other Hunter organization and disabled the defenses. Unfortunately, she yed a deadly game and lost it.
When dealing with a man like Hunter, one must be utmost cautious. As a Dictator, Hunter faced death threats and assassination attempts on his life on a daily basis. As a result, he gained the skill to read people and spot traitors in a few seconds.
"How did he end up here? Did he die and transmigrate to this world with a system?"
The mere thought of Hunter having a system sent chills running through his spine. Thest thing this universe needed was a killing maniac like Hunter to have a system.
[No host. Hunter does not have a system]
The system surprised Michael by answering him all of a sudden.
Michael sighed in relief as Hunter finally finished putting on his ck robes,
"Hmm. i look good," Hunter stood before a mirror,bing his hair to make it look perfect. He then moved on to adjusting his coat, and shirt and brushed away the dust off his ck coat.
After everything was said and done, Hunter went to his seat behind the oak table. But instead of sitting, he pulled aside the curtains, revealing the city sparkling under the night sky outside.
"You can stop looking at the naked girl now,"
Michael was stunned, hearing Hunter''s words. For a few moments, Michael looked around to see if he was talking to someone else,
"Being in soul form doesn''t mean no one can see you," Hunter said without even turning around. His gaze was still locked on the neon city he created.
"System, can he see me?"
[It seems so¡] the system''s voice trailed off,
"The moment something goes wrong, do whatever you need and teleport me to safety," Michael ordered the system before slowly floating towards the table.
Chapter 546 Dictator meets Hitman
Chapter 546 Dictator meets Hitman¡¡¡¡Hunter waited till Michael floated beside him.
"Yes I can see you," Hunter calmly said to Michael when he arrived at his side. Hunter looked at the city before him and talked to Michael,
Michael was still in shock at how the heck Hunter could see him. He asked the system only to receive no answers from it.
"Isn''t it beautiful?" Hunter asked Michael, looking at the neon city before him.
"It took me years to create this ce. But they are trying to decimate it in a few days," Hunter''s gaze became as sharp as a sword,
"She was one of them?" for the first time, Michael talked to Hunter,
"Hmm," Hunter nodded,
"I don''t know about the ce you came from. But here, the noble women would rather lose their lives than sell their bodies," Hunter looked over his shoulder at Monolith,
"That bitch came from one of the proudest families, yet she decided to be my bitch. Do you know why?" Hunter turned his gaze towards Michael. In Hunter''s eyes, Michael was a ghostly white smoky silhouette,
Michael didn''t say anything as Hunter snickered,
"Because she wanted to capture me more than she wanted to keep her body pure," Hunter creased his brows,
"Do you know why they want to capture me?"
Michael shook his head, although he had a clear idea why.
"Because they are just afraid of me. The weak fear the strongest. They fail to grasp the fact that people are either strong or weak. The strong rule and the weak die,"
"You are right except," Michael looked at Monolith''s lifeless body for a second before turning his gaze back to Hunter,
"The strong don''t let others y them,"
"Hahahaha" Hunter surprisingly burst intoughter,
"You think I just realized that bitch was a snake? Tsk tsk tsk," Hunter shook his head with a devilish grin,
"The moment she stepped into my circle, I knew all about her history. She just thought she was ying me. I created that illusion around her,"
This time Michael was indeed slightly surprised,
"Then why?" Michael''s voice trailed off as Hunter chuckled again,
"You want to know why I didn''t kill her right?"
Michael nodded,
"First of all, I fed the Sentinel Prime with phony information through her. Besides, what was the rush? The sex was so great" Hunter shrugged,
"You don''t feed a cattle to crown but to ughter,"
After hearing Hunter, Michael did feel pity for the girl. However, Hunter was apparently using her from the beginning without realizing that she was just amb waiting to be ughtered.
If the same thing happened to Michael as the guardian guild sent a spy to him, he would have killed the spy.
However, Hunter was ruthless and evil enough to bed them, feed them with phony information, and finally ughter them in the bed with a broken bottle.
"Enough of me. Tell me why are you here? You looking for something?" Hunter asked Michael,
Michael was just about to make up a story when Hunter surprised Michaell yet again,
"You''re searching for the key. Am I right?"
Michael kept his face straight but was startled by Hunter''s words. Thest thing Michael wanted was to get the key that might enable the holder to travel between universes.
"If you worry about what I would do if I had the key, don''t bother. Instead, worry about what she would of if she got her hands on the key,"
Michael heard Hunter''s voice turn grave and saw the calmness on his face gradually disappears,
"The Queen," Michael said as Hunter nodded,
"How did you know everything?" Michael couldn''t help asking Hunter, who seemed to know a hell of a lot more than him,
"You are not the only one who traveled to other universes Ghost,"
Hunter pulled down the ck shirt he wore beneath the long coat to reveal a long deep mark running across his left chest,
"Received this gift from the shadow realm,"
Michael was still in shock, wondering how Hunter managed to know his identity,
"You know, where I came from? We had a Ghost too," Michael''s heart skipped a beat as Hunter continued,
"Just his name was enough for the elites to wet their pants. No one can me them because he was the most dangerous assassin my world has ever seen," Hunter slowly reminisced his time on earth and talked about the most feared assassin of his time,
"When he gets you as his target, you will die. You wouldn''t know when or how. Most of the time, the target''s family wouldn''t even know he or she was actually assassinated. There will be no clue, no trace, or no evidence. Ghost was a myth, a legend,"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 20000 badass points]
The system sounded in his mind and surprised him with the number of badass points he just received,
"Only a selected number of people knew the Ghost existed. Once upon a time, there lived the Ghost¡" Hunter said thest few words like he was singing,
"I was among the selected number of people. But suddenly, the Ghost disappeared. Some said he died, some said he never existed, and some believed he just retired,"
"What do you think?" Michael asked calmly,
Michael could tell that Hunter has already decoded his identity by looking at his eyes.
"I think he went to another universe. I think he became a god," Hunter stepped closer to Ghost and looked him in the eyes,
"I think he traveled through the shadow realm and standing before me,"
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 30000 badass points]
"So I assume I''ll be the first man to see the Ghost and live to tell the tale," Hunter smirked,
"Luckily for you, I am retired. Hunter de"
This time, Hunter raised his brows in shock. He had no idea how Ghost recognized him. Granted Hunter used the same name he had back on earth but he was transmigrated into another body. There was no way in hell he looked the same as he did on earth. Yet, Ghost recognized him.
"The youngest dictator in the history of the earth. The man who took the throne of Kingdom de at the age of six. The most dangerous modern-day dictator to walk the earth. Thest time I heard, you were building more nuclear missiles. What happened Hunter? They blew up in your face?"
Michael chuckled and so did Hunter,
"Not on mine," Hunter grinned,
"Let''s just say I reset the clock of earth beforeing to this universe,"
The cold devilish grin on Hunter''s face made Michael think the worst. Still, Michael had no one he cared for and loved back on earth. So whatever Hunter did to earth failed to upset Michael.
"Look Ghost. We are both from the earth, and that makes us kinda brothers in arms," Michael chose to remain silent, so Hunter would give him more information without him asking,
And just as Michael expected, Hunter talked more about the Queen and the key.
"We are more happy and free in our respective universes. No matter how powerful and feared we were back on earth, it cannot bepared to what we have in our own universes," Hunter slowly turned his gaze back to the city outside and sighed,
"But something threatens what I''m building here,"
"The Queen," Michael said as Hunter nodded,
"You reek of Queen''s scent Ghost. If I am right and I usually am, you had alreadye across one of her generals,"
Michael creased his brows,
"When I say generals, it''s not the human generals you might have met. These abominations could end all life on a within a few hours. So imagine what their queen is capable of,"
"You fought one of these generals?" asked Michael curiously, but he saw Hunter shook his head with a tired smile,
"I am powerful but not powerful enough to defeat the generals. In fact, neither of us could defeat them. At least not yet and we cannot defeat the queen alone. That''s why I want to help you locate the key. We can die fighting alone or live standing together,"
Michael pondered everything Hunter said for a few moments before breaking the silence,
"Hunter, how did you know everything? If you already went to the Shadow realm, what stopped you from getting the key?"
"I don''t remember anything except killing hundreds of skinless ugly bastards. How many universes have you gone to?" Hunter''s answer disappointed Michael but when he looked into Hunter''s eyes, Michael didn''t see any signs of Hunter lying to him.
"Two including yours,"
"You went to Etheria?"
Michael nodded only to see Hunter deeply exhale,
"Then you have one more universe to go to. The most powerful and dangerous universe of them all,"
Just by hearing the seriousness in Hunter''s voice, Michael could draw an idea about the next universe he was about to travel to.
"It''s where everything began," Hunter clenched his fist.
"Those fucking idiots," Hunter cursed the mages in his mind.
Hunter deeply regretted letting the mages open the ancient pyramid. If he had known at that time the queen''s general was caged in the pyramid, he would have stopped them by any means necessary. Now he had to find a way to stop the queen''s general before it broke the rest of the shackles put by the ancient gods.
"Here," Shoving his anger to the corner of his mind, hunter flicked his wrist as ck card with a golden lion head embossed on it appeared in his hand,
Hunter tossed the card towards Ghost as Michael caught the card in mid-air. Surprisingly, Michael was able to touch the card despite his ghostly form.
"This is a calling card. With this, I can travel to the universe and you can visit mine. Remember the card can only be used once. If the general in your world broke its shackles, use the card. I''ll do the same when the timees,"
Michael looked at the card before putting it into his storage. Although Michael had no love for Hunter, he was right. With his current level, Michael didn''t think he could stand a chance against the queen''s general. If his instinct were right, the hydra might be the queen''s general in his world.
Chapter 547 Returning to the Shadow Realm
Chapter 547 Returning to the Shadow Realm¡¡¡¡Michael wondered where Hunter got the card that enabled them to travel between universes. However, he received nothing but a smile when Michael asked about the card''s origin. It had be apparent to Michael that Hunter holds secrets of his one, just like himself.
"The next universe, tell me about it," Michael asked Hunter,
"Like I said, it''s where everything began. At least that''s what I learned in the shadow realm," said Hunter,
"You have a mark bearer with you in shadow realm?" Hunter asked Michael.
"Hmm," Michael nodded. Obviously, Hunter also had someone who had a rune just like the rune on Sabrina''s hand. Hearing Hunter''s question, Michael learned that Sabrina was not the only mark bearer.
Besides,pared to Etheria, Hunter''s universe had more simrities with Michael''s universe. However, Michael did not know how simr Hunter was to him, as he had his own version of a badass system.
Obviously, both the systems were oblivious to the other''s existence and also, and although they shared the same name, they were not the same.
"Then follow the mark and if you are lucky, you will reach yourst destination without any surprises,"
"Surprises?"
"How many skinless ugly fucks have you fought until you came here?" Hunter answered Michael with a question,
"Fourty eight,"
Hunter smiled, shaking his head.
"You are lucky indeed. I fought hundreds or thousands of them. Back then, the ce was swarming with the queen''s minions. So I guess I drove them to near extinction, hehehe" Hunter chuckled.
Now Michael slowly grasped why the queen was so pissed at Hunter. The engravings on the wall showed Michael that Hunter killed the queen but ording to Hunter, he was not even strong enough to defeat her general.
This meant either the woman with thousands of arms was a general of the queen or what Michael saw was the future version of Hunter. It also made sense to Michael how Hunter learned more about him.
There was indeed a possibility that Hunter visited Michael in his own universe somewhere in the future or learned about his future from the engravings on the walls of the Shadow realm.
"I don''t know where you''re gonna end up in the timeline of that universe but no matter where yound, I''m pretty sure you will meet the ancient gods,"
"You remember meeting them?" Michael asked Hunter,
"Vaguely yeah. I was so weak back then, so my memories were hazy,"
Yet again, Michael saw no signs of Hunter lying to him. As far as Michael could tell, Hunter was either a great liar or he was telling the truth. Michael''s instincts told him it was thetter.
"Do you know anything about someone called Qin jiu?" Michael asked Hunter.
Normally, Hunter wouldn''t answer anyone, and he preferred to be the one asking the question. However, Hunter made an exception for Michael because he needed Michael''s help in defeating the general and the queen once the queen waged war against his universe.
It was not that Hunter couldn''t fight her alone, as Hunter had the badass system with his side. But Hunter wanted to raise his odds of winning against the queen.
Hunter wasn''t building a criminal empire from the ground up and creating a shadow organization just to die fighting the queen for the greater good. Just like Michael, Hunter also wanted to live his immortal life to the fullest. The only difference between Michael and Hunter was the path they chose to achieve their goals. If Michael had Guardian guild and Skyhall, Hunter had Sentinal Primes and his own set of problems.
To be honest, Hunter''s life was more exciting than Michael''s because Hunter chose a high-risk high-reward approach while Michael yed safe like the hitman he was.
"Never heard of her," Hunter shrugged,
"Where was I? Huh yeah, the ancient gods," Hunter closed his eyes for a moment to recall everything he could about the ancient gods and their universe,
"When I met them, they were in a middle of a war and a long long long time away from reaching godhood. Who knows? You might meet them at the point they are already ancient gods,"
As Michael listened to Hunter, he felt a gentle sucking force from above.
"Shit my time to leave this ce is nearing," Michael took a long deep breath,
"Well, good luck dealing with your shit Ghost. I wish we never meet again but I have a feeling fate will bring us together onest time," Hunter sighed,
"I''m kinda disappointed we never get to meet each other back on earth. You know about my track record right? If anyone put on a contract on you, you wouldn''t have reached this universe,"
Michael grinned and to Michael''s surprise, Hunter tooughed,
"Maybe. But have you ever thought why no one put a contract on my head?"
Michae remained silent as Hunter''s trademark evil grin emerged on his face,
"Because I killed everyone who tried to do that,"
Michael felt the suction was getting stronger and stronger. On the other hand, Hunter sensed the distortion in the space around him,
"We''ll meet again Dark Mage," Michael gave Hunter a two-finger salute yfully,
"I have no idea what you''re talking about," Hunter shrugged,
"Remember, we need him to defeat the queen,"
"What?!" Michael''s figure was slowly diapering out of Hunter''s view as the vortex sucked in Michael,
"WE NEED HIM TO DEFEAT THE QUEEN!" Hunter raised his voice,
"Who?" Michael shouted back, looking at Hunter''s figure rapidly growing smaller and smaller,
"DON!"
Unfortunately, Michael didn''t hear the name clearly and had already disappeared out of Hunter''s sight.
Finally, Michael''s vision turned dark once again. When he visited Etheria and met Draven, Michael brought back the idea of a new device. Although the shield would boost his defense to the next level during closebat battle, it wasn''t as valuable as the information Michael received from Hunter.
Information was wealth. The more information he had on the queen and her army, the easier it would be for him to devise a n to defeat her in the future.
Everything was pitch ck around him until he saw the familiar light at the end. After several minutes, Michael''s soul was tossed out of the crack right back into his physical body. As soon as he settled into his body, Michael injected himself with onerge dose of healing potion and a few others to prevent himself from vomiting blood.
"What was that?" he looked over his shoulder to see Sabrina cautiously approaching him. They didn''t feel the tremor anymore, fortunately. Still, the demonic cry Sabrina heard freaked her out.
"No idea," Michael lied because Sabrina had no need to know about the other universes and what he learned in Etheria and Hunter''s universe.
"The sooner we find the key, the better," Michael said.
For Michael, it felt like he had gone for hours. However, not even a couple of seconds passed in the shadow realm. Hence, Sabrina didn''t feel anything weird except he looked a little pale in her eyes.
"Hmm,"
"Let''s go," Michael stretched his arms, cracked his neck, and walked forward, following the way Sabrina''s rune showed him.
"You heard that voice right? It was yelling the name Hunter. This ce is creepy as hell," Sabrina said while walking beside Michael. She looked around, expecting trouble. But luckily, they found none.
"There are so many mysteries in the world Sabrina. I let the authorities deal with them however they see fit. I have enough things on my te,"
Sabrina wasn''t surprised by Michael''s answer. Ghost was the only one with the least enemies and the least adventurous life among all the prodigies and youngsters in Noah''s generation. The royal news called him the most peaceful and boring prodigy.
Michael read the news and didn''t give a damn about them or me them. But, to the outside world, he did lead a boring life unlike Noah or any other prodigies. He avoided making enemies, meddling in others'' affairs, and preferred to mind his own business.
However, the people who called him boring had no idea about Michael''s adventurous secret life.
"Speaking of tes. Mother wanted to invite you for a family dinner when ist visited home,"
"Really?" Michael was taken aback by surprise,
"This was before or after the tournament,"
"After. No one mes you for what you did. If anyone should be med, it''s Andrews and the king for making weird decisions,"
"I don''t think she will feel the same now," Michael calmly said as Sabrina felt something was up,
"What happened?"
"Nothing. I just killed King Bredia''s royal guards and threatened to kill him in front of his daughter and several nobles,"
Sabrina''s mind went nk for a couple of moments. Considering she was in the cage when Michael ughtered King Bredia''s men and threatened to kill him, she didn''t know what had happened recently.
"I kinda expected that," Michael turned his head to the side being surprised by Sabrina,
"You expected it?"
Sabrina bobbed her head up and down,
"Yes. After the tournament, I visited Princess Katherine. At that time, King Bredia was talking with some merchants. eidntely I went into the room and heard him asking the merchants to stop visiting Bradford. I knew it was only a matter of time before you hear the news and pay the king a visit,"
"I hope he learned his lesson," Michael calmly said,
"I avoid massacres. That doesn''t mean I can''t do it," Michael''s words may have sounded calm but she sensed the cold murderous intent behind his each and every word.
She did not doubt in her heart that if King Bredia messed with Ghost again, thetter would ughter his entire army along with him. How he fought and killed the vampires showed her how powerful he was. His mysterious cultivation stage made him more dangerous.
Whoosh!
Michale and Sabrina walked in silence for a few minutes until they heard a rustling sounding from behind. They both quickly jerked around but saw nothing.
Whoosh!
Yet again, they heard the rustling sound but this time, it was louder than before.
"Grrrr," something growled as Michael sensed the slight tremor beneath his feet,
The slight tremor soon increased to the point Michael and Sabrina took off from the ground for a few meters. Only then did they see a red pair of glow in the sky above them.
Chapter 548 New Home
Chapter 548 New Home¡¡¡¡The pair of red glow soon diminished into darkness. But Michael was sure something stared at them from above. He looked around and began to hear a continuous clicking noise followed by soft growls.
"Stay close to me," Michael said to Sabrina as she moved closer to him and watched his back.
"Where are you bastard?" Michael mumbled, activating his X-ray vision.
His thermal vision swept across the area around them until he saw a silhouette of what looked like a ten feet bear jumping from one wall to another.
Despite its size, the creature showed the agility of a trained parkour expert.
On top of its size and agility, the creature also possessed the ability to turn invisible. Fortunately, unlike Sabrina, Michael had a thermal vision to detect the creature.
"A Core Strengthening stage creature," Michael mumbled under his breath. Since he bought the ability to detect the rtive cultivation stage of the creatures in Shadow Realm, Michael was able to see how powerful the creature was.
Although it was one stage lower than him, its size and agility made up for its weakness in the cultivation stage.
As Michael followed the creature''s movements, Sabrina saw a blue dot on Michael''s chest. Michael already noticed the creature taking aim at him, but before he could react, Sabrina pushed him aside out of the blueser line.
It felt like the predator was hunting him. The clicking noise, the invisibility, and theser line made the creature extremely simr to the predator.
Boom!
Michael felt a hot wave of air brushing past him when Sabrina pushed him. Then, at that exact moment, he heard an explosion behind him and turned back to see a green hot liquid eroding the ground beneath.
There was no doubt in Sabrina''s mind that if the green goo had hit them, they would have melted to the bones.
Michael could hear the sizzling sounding from the ground along with the hot wave.
"This is why you need a shield," Michael mumbled. Recently he had been getting into so many closebat fights without involving spells. During these fights, the responsive shield would not activate and protect him from the blows because it only protects him from spells and attacks formed using energies.
Michael may have reached 98% mastery in Serpent Maga but having no shield to defend himself was still a weakness as far as he was concerned.
"Where is it? Can you see it?" Sabrina asked as she moved with her back against Michael''s back.
They moved in a circle while Michael tracked the beast, who kept jumping around second after second.
He couldn''t make out its full figure, but it vaguely resembled a wolf the size of a ten feet bear. Since he was using thermal vision to see the creature''s heat signature, he couldn''t make out the creature''s other features, such as skin color, number of teeth, or whether it had fur or not.
"Ignitia," Michael quickly raised his sword, firing a bolt of lightning at the creature.
His lightning bolt traveled at the speed of a lightning sh yet the creature was able to escape being hit by the bolt by jumping to the wall on the other side.
Its speed stunned Michael,
"Did you hit it?" Sabrina asked,
"It escaped,"
"Can you see it?" she was surprised,
"If you can''t see it with your eyes, see it with your other senses. Close your eyes and listen," Michael whispered to Sabrina and she closed her eyes without any hesitation. She trusted himpletely.
Michael didn''t lie to her though. He trained his senses to paint a mental map using his other senses back on earth and could still do it. However, he had no need to use that ability because he possessed the X-ray vision to track the beast.
However, Michael asked Sabrina to close her eyes because he wanted to cast the Death range and boost his power quickly. Since the arena was already dark, no one could see the ce getting darker.
The moment Michael felt his full power bubbling inside him waiting to be unleashed, Michael raised both his arms, shooting two dark lightning bolts out of his hands towards the beast.
"GRRRRRRHHHH!"
The beast jumped, trying to evade but this time, Michael''s lightning bolts were faster than the beast. The beast immediately let out an ear-piercing roar in pain. One lightning bolt went through its shoulder and the other went grazing its skin.
Michael quickly turned off his thermal vision to see luminescent blue blood trails on the wall. The blood trail was leading them further into the path before him. The blood was the first colorful thing he had seen in the shadow realm so far. Until now, everything else looked ck and white.
"You hit it," Sabrina was a quick study. Hence, she could vaguely track the beast''s movements when she closed her eyes and focused on the surroundings. After the beast roared, Sabrina abruptly opened her eyes to see the blood trail.
If the beast dashed at him after being hit, Michael would have felt relieved. However, now he was concerned. The creature seemed to possess intelligence. Thus, it ran away instead of dumbly lunging at Michael.
"Let''s go. But be careful and don''t drop your guard," Michael said and continued his journey into the narrow straight pathway.
After walking for a few minutes, the blood trail disappeared, and everything became normal. Nheless, both of them stayed silent, focusing their senses.
While cautiously making his way forward, Micheal noticed the engravings in the wall beside him starting to form shapes of figures once again. Seeing the figures on the wall, Michael deviated from his path and approached the wall as Sabrina followed him behind.
"I have no idea what you''re looking at," Sabrina sighed,
"I like these engraving designs. I am thinking about getting them for my new mansion," Michael lied but there was a little bit of truth to his answer,
"New mansion?" Sabrina tilted her head,
"Hmm," Michael nodded,
Building a new home for him in River town had been his n for a long time. Unfortunately, because of the guardians guild, the dark lord, the prophecy, and everything, Michael didn''t have time to n his new home.
However, after Gaya and Michael''s engagement, they both decided to start building a new home in River town. Michael could easily afford arge piece ofnd in Royalnd and if he asked, the king would probably give Michael and for free as having a 5-star alchemist in their kingdom would boost its value to the next level.
Instead of building his home in the wealthiest kingdom in Elon or living in Baron Totonk''s mansion, Michael nned to build a castle for him in River town, which is a part of Kingdom Bradford.
"What about Baron Totonk''s mansion? As a king, shouldn''t you live there?" Sabrina asked Michael while he was trying to make sense of the engravings.
At that moment, Michael saw the lion with wings once again. It was standing on an elevated tform and looking at the thousands of people on the ground who seemed to be worshiping the lion.
There were several figures standing behind the lion including a few pointy ears beings,
"Elves," Michael immediately recognized them due to their iconic pointy ears. In addition to the elves, he also saw dwarves, orcs, beastmen, and several dragons flying above them.
Even the crowd on the ground consisted of all races, not only humans.
"That''s a mansion. What I want is a castle," his words surprised Sabrina.
After hearing that he wants a castle, she couldn''t help raising her brows,
"You want a castle?"
However, after thinking of his status, it made sense to Sabrina,
"Well, you are a king after all. It makes sense for you to rule Bradford living in a castle,"
Sabrina stepped closer to Michael, joining him in watching the wall,
"I am only going to live there, not rule," Michael calmly said without even turning his gaze away from the wall,
"Huh?'' Sabrina was taken aback by surprise,
"What do you mean?"
"I am not interested in being a king. Sect Leader ire and the Elders can rule the kingdom better than me,"
Sabrina was speechless as Michael continued,
"I like the way some kingdoms in the Southern continent are ruled. Rather than being ruled by one man or woman, they are ruled by several, each responsible for developing one aspect of the kingdom,"
"How could you throw away the kingship after everything you did to get it?" Sabrina creased her brows,
"I am not going to throw away Sabrina. I''ll be the king, except I won''t sit on the throne all day and rule the kingdom myself," Michael nonchntly said and moved along the wall to see more figures and scenes in the wall,
The portion of the wall before him contained a scene where Michael noticed several dragons flying around a majestic castle surrounded by a forest.
He searched for the lion with wings but didn''t find the beast. Instead, he saw ady with dragon wings floating near the castle along with a little girl.
Michael took a few steps to the right to see countless dragons breathing fire down on human soldiers and the one who led the dragons was thedy with wings Michael had seen before.
"If you are serious about building a castle, I know a dwarf who''s a 5-star architect. He owes me a favor. I can lend him to you,"
"Really?" Michael turned his head towards Sabrina,
"Yes"
"Then I won''t say no to that. Where do I find him?"
Sabrina shook her head with a smile,
"I''ll bring him to you. Just tell me, where can I find you?"
Sabrina sounded so sure about getting out of the Shadow realm alive because she was confident with Ghost by her side, she could survive anything.
"After this, if we survive, you can find me in the Sunrise sect,"
Michael turned his gaze back to the wall. He continued to walk along the wall looking at the engravings of the war between dragons and humans, until the engravings changed, showing Michael a giant hydra.
Just looking at the size of the four-headed hydra and recalling the pair of eyes staring at him from the abyss in the Stormville mountain, Michael felt a chill running through his spine.
Michael slowly moved his gaze down from the hydra to see a man carrying a sword and a battle ax in each hand standing before the hydra. But, unfortunately, Michael could only see his behind, not his face.
"DON!"
Chapter 549: House of Halrid
Chapter 549: House of Halrid
After an hour, the guardians finished the funeral. Then, they left the graveyard except for Noah, Alicia, Xanali, Tanulia, and a blue-haired youngster with a tattoo of a tiny fish on the center of his forehead.
Noah hadn''t seen the youngster before and was certain the youngster wasn''t a guardian. So Noah wondered why he was there. He looked so young in Noah''s eyes. If Noha had to guess he would say the youngster was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. Despite the heavy downpour, the youngster remained dry and kept a calming smile on his face.
After everyone left, he approached Tanulia,
"I am sorry for your loss Alpha Guardian Tanulia Valren," the youngster had a melodious voice. It was so soft and soothing,
"Thank you and you are¡" Tanulia''s voice trailed off as the young man smiled, showing a row of perfect white teeth,
"I am Mutrad. Member of House of Haldir. I am here on behalf of the elders,"
Noah saw Tanulia''s eyes open wide as though she waspletely taken aback by surprise,
"Your kind haven''t stepped onto thend in centuries," Tanulia was shocked,
In return, Mutrad just smiled,
"Dire times Alpha Guardian,"
"What''s your purpose here Mutrad and how can the Guardian Guild be of your assistance?"
Noah creased his brows, wondering why Tanulia was acting so polite and courteous towards the young man. He had never seen Tanulia like this. Even when she met the elders of Awor Empress, she remained dominant.
"Guardian guild can stay away from our way and let us take care of the Dark Lord,"
"What?" Tanulia was stunned. Not only Tanulia but everyone who heard Mutrad''s words was both surprised and startled.
Mutrad''s smile was still on his face and although he looked friendly with the smile on his face, Noah sensed the dominance in his words.
"No offense Mutrad. But your kind has no right to meddle in our affairs," Tanulia''s voice became cold,
"It''s no longer your affair," Mutrad flicked his wrist as a golden parchment materialized in his hand,
"Read use eighty-eight," Mutrad handed over the parchment to Tanulia.
While she was eyeing the contents, Mutrad began to recite what was on use eighty-eight,
"House of Haldir will have any and all rights to operate in any continents under Guardian Guild if or when they fail to protect a member of House of Haldir,"
Noah had a bad feeling in his gut listening to Mutrad,
"Additionally, the House of Haldir is allowed to use any and all of its resources to neutralize the threat and avenge the deceased however it sees fit,"
Tanulia could see each and every word on the parchment as Mutrad continued,
"The Guardian Guild will provide any and all assistance the House of Haldri requires. In case the House of Haldir requests the Guardian Guild to remove themselves from the investigation, they must agree,"
Mutrad''s gaze swept across everyone standing in the graveyard. He stopped reciting the contents for a moment to build silence and let his words sink into their brains,
"In case of party A, the Guardian Guild failed toply to the use, House of Haldir and three halls of the proud Sea Folk race has all the right to wage war on party A and use any and all resources avable to them,"
When Mutrad finished hisst words, Tanulia looked flustered. Her hands slightly trembled,
"Peyton is a Guardian, not a member of House of Haldir," Tanulia growled,
Yet again, Mutrad flicked his wrist, taking out another golden parchment.
"When Peyton Colewin went missing, Stefan Colewin requested Peyton to be admitted into House of Haldir. This is the confirmation of her membership,"
Tanulia snatched the parchment from Mutrad''s hand and opened it to see the truth about Peyton''s membership in the House of Haldir. Tanulia couldn''t believe her eyes. ording to the navy blue sparkling letters on the parchment, Peyton was granted membership to the House of Haldir,
"How can you admit someone into your house without their consent?" Tanulia questioned Mutrad but looking at his smile, Noah knew he had an answer for that too.
"In case the requested party is not avable to sign the contract, his or her blood rtives who must be a member of the House of Haldir can sign on their behalf,"
Tanulia didn''t even think of going through the contract signed between the guardian Guild and House of Haldir as she knew Mutrad wasn''t lying.
"Stefan Colewin signed the contract on Peyton Colewin''s behalf,"
Tanulia looked at the parchment to see Stefan''s signature on the contract.
Everything seemed to have been done legally by the House of Haldir, but Noah couldn''t h
elp feeling like the House of Haldir had nned to step on their territory for a long time.
It seemed to Noah that the House of Haldir was using Peyton''s death as an excuse to spread their influence throughout thend. Apprehending the Dark Lord would definitely put them on top of the Guardians and also receive unprecedented support from the nobles and the Holy Church.
"Teacher,"
Noah called for Andreas in his mind as he saw no way to prevent the House of Haldir from taking away the case of the Dark Lord from them.
"You have to be a member of the House of Haldir Noah. That''s the only way we can find the Dark Lord without facing the full wrath of Haldir and starting a war against two great ns," Andreas''s grave voice sounded in Noah''s mind,
"We will give you a week of time to hand over everything you have on the Dark Lord and sort out your affairs," Mutrad waved as the two parchments disappeared from Tanulia''s hands,
"I assume we will get your full consent Alpha Guardian?"
Tanulia burned in anger as she felt like chopping Mutrad to pieces. But deep down she knew he was just a messenger. Thest thing she needed was to cause a war between the Guardian Guild and the House of Haldir.
Hence, she had no way but to ept their terms.
"Yes you will," Tanulia nodded,
"Wonderful,"
Mutrad pped his hands together excitedly before ascending to the sky. But unfortunately, the guardians could only stare at Mutrad disappear into the dark clouds in a few moments.
When he finally disappeared from their sight, Noah turned his gaze to Tanulia. He didn''t utter any words, but Tanulia could see the disappointment in his eyes.
"You think it''s my fault?" Tanulia asked, looking at Noah''s expressionless face.
Noah remained silent,
"We can''t let them bully us. Peyton is a guardian. I don''t care what they say," Xanali stomped the ground like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. Still, Noah remained silent. His silence irked Tanulia more than anything.
After all, she couldn''t bear the thought of disappointing the future Supreme Guardian.
"Noah" Xanali turned her bloodshot eyes at Noah,
"Say something. What''s your n?"
"Why bother?" Noah snickered,
"I am not the one running the show here. We should follow our Alpha Guardian''s lead," Noah was so disappointed in both Xanali and Tanulia to the point he didn''t even want to talk to them.
He might be the god of light but even he had his limits. To be honest, Noah didn''t want to me anyone, but deep down, he couldn''t help ming Tanulia. Because of her rash decisions, they lost Peyton, Tiriana, many guardians, and their headquarters in Dradel.
The Dark Lord yed them like they were kids. Noah lost count of how many times he told Peyton, Tanulia, and Xanali not to underestimate the Dark Lord. Still, they tried to capture the Dark Lord with their half-baked n.
Thanks to them, Noah had lost the one advantage he had over the Dark Lord as now the Dark Lord learned that the guardians knew about the Spycams.
"We are not here as guardians Noah. We are here as Peyton''s friends. You can speak your mind," Tanulia sighed,
"You want me to speak my mind?" Noah slowly walked toward Peyton''s grave,
"One of the best is lying under six feet. The gravediggers are digging fifty-plus graves out there as we speak. The House of Haldir is pushing us aside. Andst but not least, The Dark Lord learned that we know about the Spyders in your ship. So next time, he wille up with a new way to spy on us and we won''t have a clue," Xanali saw Noah losing his calmness for the first time,
Suddenly, Noah pped himself on the forehead,
"Pardon my mistake. There won''t be a next time. Because we are not the one dealing with the Dark Lord anymore,"
Although Noah didn''t raise his voice, his anger was apparent to everyone.
Tanulia was speechless as Noah took a deep breath and brushed Peyton''s headstone gently. Meanwhile, Tanulia was shivering inside what Noah might do if he knew that Sabrina was taken hostage by the vampires and it was a part of her n to get the key first.
Only Cat knew about Sabrina''s whereabouts except for Tanulia. But she had no idea Cat wasing to her bearing serious bad news about Sabrina.
After his outburst, Noah felt kinda bad. So he turned his gaze back to Tanulia but when he saw Tanulia''s silence and the deep concern within her eyes, he frowned,
"Do you have something to share Alpha Guardian?"
Tanulia was too concerned about Sabrina''s InMoment in her n as she didn''t even hear Noah calling her,
"Alpha Guardian," Noah slightly raised his voice, and finally, Tanulia sna
pped back to reality,
"What? Go on," Tanulia mumbled, having no idea what Noah just said,
"Why do I feel like you''re hiding something Alpha Guardian?" Noah asked. On the other hand, Alicia too felt the same just as Noah.
"Don''t waste time talking to these idiots Noah. Let''s get out of here. We have more important things to do," Andreas snickered,
"You don''t know everything Noah," Tanulia coldly cut off Noah so he wouldn''t ask any more questions. At that moment, Tanulia could only pray that Sabrina would lead them to the key ande out alive.
Otherwise, she may have to pay with her own life.
Chapter 550: Michael meets Don I
Chapter 550: Michael meets Don I
Meanwhile, Michael was walking along the walls of the dungeon with Sabrina. He was certain that he would meet the lion with wings and the youngster who carried a sword and a battle ax.
"Don," Michael recalled the name echoed through the walls a few moments ago. The demonic voice never sounded so pissed off as when it shouted the name.
ording to Hunter, thest universe was the most dangerous one he had visited. Something told Michael that the journey wasing to an end. Thanks to Hunter who wiped out the skinless creatures and the most powerful beings who guarded the shadow realm, Michael never faced any life-threatening battles.
Michael was both grateful towards Hunter and furious at him for clearing the shadow realm. He could have earned hundreds of thousands of badass points by killing the skinless creatures.
The question that currently drilled his head was whether the people of the next universe would see him or not. He had to n for both scenarios.
"If size mattered," suddenly while they were walking forward, Michael heard an alluringly maic voice reverberate in the area,
"Elephant would be the king of the jungle,"
"Did you hear that?" Sabrina asked as Michael nodded,
"What are these voices? Where are theying from?" Sabrina looked around her surroundings pretty confused,
"No idea," Michael lied instead of revealing the truth that these voices areing from other universes through the cracks in shadow realm walls.
"A king isn''t born. He is made," Another voice echoed through the maze. Unlike the previous voice, thetest one had a bit of a thick animalistic tone to it. After hearing the voice, Michael''s brain automatically thought of the lion he saw on the wall.
On the one hand, they heard the voice and on the other hand, they looked around for the beast. While cautious looking around, the two of them continued their journey.
Michael saw no beast nearby. Instead, he saw a silhouette of a lion with wings in the sky for a second,
"I will rather be a lonely lion than a popr sheep," Michael could swear he saw the lion talking before disappearing from his sight,
This time, Sabrina didn''t seem to hear the voice as she walked beside him without turning her head,
"I don''t think the beast ran away," instead, she talked about the beast Michael had wounded before.
"Hmm," Michael nodded as he too shared the same thought. If his gut feeling was right, the beast would be waiting with a trap.
"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven," Michael heard the first voice again,
He quickly looked at the sky, expecting a silhouette, only to see nothing but dark sky,
"My life¡every day... every minute¡ every second has been chiseled by ME!"
Michael felt as if his head was about to explode when he heard the thunderous voice sweeping across the maze.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Following the voice, Michael and Sabrina heard the beast roar in agony. The entire maze trembled as Michael felt the violent tremor on the ground,
"Remember, there are two sides to every story. Just like your face," Once again the voice swept across the maze. But, contrary to before, the voice calmed down the tremor.
However, Michael had a feeling it was only the calm before the storm. He expected the beast to arrive soon. Then, just like he expected, he began to hear the soft clicking noises in the distance.
"Let''s kill this beast," Sabrina threw the sword in the air and let it fall in her hand. She even cracked her neck just like Michael.
Michael did not notice Sabrina copying him as he focused on the voices resonating throughout the maze,
"I begged for love. You gave me a dagger through my heart. Now you ask for forgiveness. I''ll give you death,"
After these words resonated, Michael saw a silhouette of a man wearing dark clothes in the sky above him. He wore dark armor and covered his head with a cloak.
The man was about to turn around and show his face when Michael noticed a re in the distance. Michael''s instincts screamed at him to dash away,
Boom!
Fortunately, Michael reacted in time to dash away. Otherwise, he would have exploded into pieces. When he turned around to see where the explosion was happening, he noticed a meter-wide crate on the ground a few meters away from him. In a blink of an eye, another re appeared in the distance.
Before dashing away, Michael looked up at the sky to see the silhouette slowly fading away. Michae was kinda disappointed that he couldn''t see the face of the young man an
d got annoyed by the beast firing fireballs at him from a distance.
"I had enough of this," Michael growled as he paced up forward with the clear intention to brutally murder the beast. Sabrina ran behind him while avoiding the fireballs.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
The beast roared as loud as it counted but surprisingly, the roar sounded like the beast was screaming in pain rather than roaring in anger.
Michael immediately felt something was up as he halted his pace,
"Why did we stop?" Sabrina asked Michael with a confused face,
"Listen"
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Sabrina focused her hearing and heard the beast roar.
"Focus," Michael whispered as she closed her eyes and focused on the roar. Only then did she sense the pain in the beast''s roar,
When she focused even more, she vaguely heard another growling sound. The screaming trailed off as they moved forward.
"Don''t drop your guard and be ready to cast your shield spell,"
Michael instructed Sabrina while taking each and every step with utmost caution. He activated his thermal vision so he could see if there were any invisible beasts around them.
A few meters away, the straight path ended and a sharp corner arrived. They couldn''t see what was around the corner but Michael saw traces of luminescent blue blood on the walls,
Michael quickly pushed Sabrina to the wall and stood his back against the wall.
"Be ready," Michael whispered before slowly taking steps towards the corner,
While moving towards the corner, Michael quickly controlled the drones hovering above him and moved them around the corner. However, as soon as the drones flew around the corner, Michael was stunned.
Through the feed captured by the drones, he clearly saw the beast that had attacked them previously. It was a ten-foot wolf with five eyes on its face. Additionally, the beast''s mouth was wide open like a flower.
But the beast wasn''t what surprised Michael because it was dead. Instead, the monster feasting on the beast startled him with its giant size and savage body.
The humanoid monster stood on its two legs and ravaged the beast with its ws. It gutted the beast, feasting on its entrails. Michael zoomed at the monster to see the resemnce to the skinless creatures he had fought before. The monster covered its skinless body with skulls and bones. Additionally, the monster also had long oily, thick ck hair.
Even the ten feet beast looked tiny under its defeat. The giant monster stood at towering healing of six teen feet tall.
Suddenly the monster stopped eating the beast''s entrails and raised its head. It began to take a whiff of the air, turning its head to the drones. Michael saw its blood-red eyes staring directly at the drone. It had be apparent to Michae that the monster sees through the drone''s invisibility somehow.
Michael immediately tried to pull back the drones, but it was toote for the drones as the monster swatted the drones as though they were flies. The drones weren''t built to withstand heavy blows, and the monster could crush a boulder with its palm, let alone his drones.
BANG!
When the monster swatted the drones against the wall, the ce trembled.
"GRRRHHH!"
The monster growled as it took a step forward before kicking the beast away.
"What do you see?" Sabrina whispered,
"Shh," Michael shushed Sabrina as he slowly slid along the wall to look around the corner.
"Fuck you, Hunter," As soon as Michael saw the giant monster with his eyes, he cursed Hunter, who said he wiped off the powerful monsters in the shadow realm.
Before Michael took his gaze away from the monster, he did notice a deep cut running across the monster''s chest. For some reason, Michael thought it was Hunter''s handy work. Obviously, Hunter tried to kill the monster by the look of the scar. However, it was evident Hunter failed.
But Michael had to give it to Hunter, he was crazy and fearless enough to fight the monster head-on.
"How the hell did he be so powerful?" Michael recalled how easily Hunter massacred the mages and the other Hunter''s group. Although Michael had no idea of the power hierarchy in Hunter''s universe, he had a feeling that Hunter stood atop the hierarchy.
The monster was at the fricking Fusion stage level 6. Therefore, Michael knew he could not fight the monster and survive unless he fought the monster as the Dark Lord.
Shhhhsshshhh!
The monster kept sniffing the air w
hile stepping toward Michael and Sabrina. Battle with the monster would be inevitable at this rate.
Taking a deep breath, Michael turned his head to see Sabrina. He prepared himself to inject Sabrina with the knockout serum using a Spyder and then go full Dark Lord.
However, he was just about to take out a Spyder when he suddenly noticed the wall directly opposite him crack.
Before Michael felt a powerful force from the crack sucking his soul into another universe, he heard the young man''s voice again,
"If they stand behind you, protect them. If they stand beside you, respect them. If they stand against you, destroy them,"
Chapter 551: Michael meets Don II
Chapter 551: Michael meets Don IISoaring through the darkness towards the light, Michael heard the monster''s shriek behind him. Michael looked over his shoulder to only a blur behind.
At that same time, a farm field was littered with destruction, blood, and shells. Red, pink and blue were the new colors of what was once a stunning farm field, which had now be the stage of a disastrous fight.
The air, which would typically carry the delicate scents of flowers and fruits, was now thick with the scent of death and decay, enough to destroy whatever courage was left in the survivors.
The dead soldiers were abundant andy in heaps around the farm field. The remaining soldiers shivered to take a step forward, frantically looking at the sky as if they were expecting something.
The remaining soldiers lost all their courage to fight. Many had already sumbed to hysteria and could no longer move, let alone defend themselves. In contrast, others could only think of home and what they had left behind.
The toll on both nature and humanity was devastating. It would likely take decades before this farm field will have recovered. The broken siege engines, rubble, and blood had taken the ce of flowers, shrubs, and bushes.
Some of the soldiers, frantically looking at the sky for breakfast, noticed a ck dot suddenly appear in the cloudy sky above. Though soon, the ck dot grew in size to the point they all realized that it wasn''t a ck dot but a man falling from the sky.
When they saw the man''s ck robes, they immediately dropped their weapons and fell to the ground.
"RUN!"
Some of the soldierspletely lost their minds. Michael was trying to bnce himself in the sky and shouting at the system. Unlike before, when he traveled to Etheria and Hunter''s universe, Michael was pulled into the current universe with his body. In other words, he was not in his soul form.
Michael felt no arch energy or celestial energy around him. Hence, he couldn''t stop free falling and start flying. Fortunately, Michael saw a broken trebuchet in the battle.
"Fuck you system," Michael cursed the system as he pped his arms like a bird to change his trajectory towards the trebuchet,
He was falling from such a height that the wind brushing against his face hurt his skin. If he didn''t stop free falling, Michael doubted one could scrape his body from the groundpletely after he became a human omelet.
Fortunately, Michael still wore the Mark 3 grappling hook around his wrist. So when he was approximately fifty meters away from the trebuchet, Michael reached for the trebuchet, aimed at its top, and fired the grappling hook.
Thud!
The grappling hook soared through the air and coiled around the top,
Kachak!
Due to his speed being suddenly stopped by the grappling hook attached to his arm, the bacsh force dislocated Michael''s shoulder. He growled in sharp pain. He gritted his teeth and released the hook.
"GRHH!"
Finally, Michael hit the ground, holding his shoulder. Thanks to his quick thinking and the trebuchet, Michael survived the fall with only a dislocated shoulder,
"Could have been worse," Michael looked around his unfamiliar surroundings. But unfortunately, his vision was still blurry because of the pain and dizziness of traveling through the shadow realm to another realm.
As soon as his vision cleared, he cautiously noticed the blue armored soldiers surrounding him.
"It''s not him,"
"Who the fuck is he?"
"Where did hee from?"
"Let''s capture him before the white death appears,"
The soldiers slowly stepped toward Michael, tightly clenching their weapons,
"Whoa, guys slow down," Michael stepped backward, holding his shoulder,
He was startled by how powerful these soldiers were. Each of them could fight a Soul Refining stage level 5 warrior from Michael''s universe.
At least sixty soldiers were surrounding him. Despite his shock, Michael kept a calm face,
"System, it''s not the right time to go silence," Michael growled in his mind.
However, no matter how many times he summoned the system in his mind, it didn''t respond to him.
"Look at the way he''s dressed. All ck. What if he''s rted to him?" Michael saw a soldier stutter,
"Exactly. If he''s rted to him, we can take him hostage and bring him to his majesty,"
"Guys don''t do anything you will regret in the future," Michael calmly warned the soldiers as they quickly took a step back from him,
Whoosh!
As they were reluctantly staring at Michael, whether they should approach him or not, Michael saw two warships soaring through the sky from north and south. The warships were no different than the frigates in Michael''s universe, except these two ships were flying in the sky.
"The ships are here!" suddenly, the soldiers screamed in joy as Michael noticed several of them cry out loud,
Most of them dashed away from Michael, shooting towards the ship from the ground like rockets. Meanwhile, some soldiers still stared at Michael without moving an inch.
"What are you waiting for?! Come!" some soldiers shouted at those surrounding Michael. They cared for their lives more than capturing Michael. After all, they came with a thousand strong, and only fifty or sixty of them survived the onught.
The white death single-handedly wiped out the majority of them. White death would have killed all thousand if it weren''t for their mage.
"I''m catching this guy and avenging my brothers,"
"Slow down guys," Michael squeezed his shoulder, preparing himself to fix his shoulder as he saw no way out without fighting.
The soldiers whonded on the airships quickly threw out ropes for those who couldn''t fly to climb up. Then, the ships hovered in the sky, waiting to pick up the survivors.
"Let''s go!"
One soldier shouted at another one,
"Let''s get the fuck out of here before theye!"
"No, these ships are built tost against them. They cant destroy them!"
Michael had zero clues about what they were talking about. However, one thing was sure, those who ughtered the soldiers can''t damage the ships. Atleast that is what Michael heard from the soldiers.
However, the sound of thunderps suddenly swept through the area as the sky grew darker and darker. The wind howled like a wolf as shes of lightning shed across their eyes.
"Shit shit shit¡he''s here!"
The soldiers who tried to capture Michael courageously lost their willpowerpletely.
Boom!
When another thunderp reverberated throughout the battlefield, they dropped the swords and spears in their hands,
Michael looked above to see clouds dark as his robes were gathering in the sky. Their surroundings turned ominous darker, with lightning shing across the area.
Boom!
Suddenly when the soldiers were about to turn around and run, a thick dark bolt of lightning hit the ground between the two ships. Everyone, including Michael couldn''t help closing their eyes due to the bright sh.
When they opened their eyes, Michael saw the young man adorned in dashing ck armor, covering his head with a cloak standing at the ce where the lightning bolt hit.
Without a doubt, Michael knew he was the same young man he saw in the engravings and in the sky as a silhouette in the shadow realm.
"IT''S HIM!"
"GOD!"
"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!"
The soldiers were thrown into pure chaos when he appeared and the soldiers surrounded him just copsed to the ground in utter fear.
WHOOOSH!
The moment the soldiers atop the ships saw him, they screamed as the two ships began to move. After that, they did not bother to wait for the soldiers on the ground anymore.
However, the ck-robed young man grabbed the ropes with each hand.
The ships trembled as they slowly moved away on opposite sides while the young man coiled the ropes around his fist and began to pull them closer.
Seeing the scene, Michael raised his brows.
Kachak!
Since the soldiers were focused on the man, Michael gritted his teeth and jerked his shoulder, fixing his dislocated shoulder which released a sickening crushing sound before setting in right.
After setting his shoulder, Michael grabbed a soldier by his cor and picked him up from the ground,
"Who is he?" Michael shook the terrified soldier,
"Do¡.Do¡.Don," the soldier stuttered,
"So he is Don," Michael let the shoulder go as he turned his gaze back at Don.
When he was in the shadow realm, the demonic voice screamed the name ''Don''
The thunderclouds rumbled as Don pulled the ropes closer and closer. Michael''s muscles ached just by seeing Don pulling two ships together with his raw strength.
Don''s arms trembled as he moved his head upwards. Only then did the cloak covering his head slide down, revealing his face to Michael.
(Don is the MC of Rise Of The Legendary Emperor)
His raven ck hair was just long enough to touch his lower neck and fluttered in the wind. He had a stubble beard a few inches thicker than Michael''s, and despite the monstrous task he was performing, his face showed no signs of pain.
Michael could see Don''s biceps screaming to tear out his ck armor, which seemed to have been made of a material resembling ker. Don wasn''t the most handsome but rather looked no different than the next-door guy. However, he had a certain indescribable aura that made him stand out.
Inch by inch, Don pulled the two ships together while the soldiers atop the ships tried to cut off the ropes. Atleast that''s what the soldiers tried to do before Don yanked the robes, shaking two ships.
"YOU!"
Michael finally heard Don speak, and his voice sounded more dominant and hard as steel than it did in the shadow realm.
"ARE!"
Don pulled the ships closer,
"GOING!"
Michael noticed the ships getting closer to each other inch by inch, as well as the smokeing through the ships.
"NO WHERE!"
Boom!
Finally, the ships gave off as they suddenly shed with each other and exploded into pieces. The explosion lit the gloomy farm field like a mini sun and the explosion force swept across the field, sting away the corpses, the broken siege machines, and everything on the ground.
Chapter 552: Don vs The Shadow Realm Monster
Chapter 552: Don vs The Shadow Realm Monster
The exploded ships fell to the ground only to create another mushroom cloud explosion. Michael was sted away by the force, and hended on the mud after flying for at least ten meters like a kite without an anchor in the storm_ "Grr," Michael growled, feeling the aching pain in every single part of his body. He injected himself with the healing potion, but it did not heal his body at all. "I hate this ce," Now Michael realized why Hunter said this universe was the most dangerous one of them all. Being in this universe with his body made him vulnerable. Only if he had ess to arch energy or celestial energy, he might have hated the ce less. After picking himself from the ground, Michael leaned on the broken trebuchet beside him and took some deep breaths.
Boom!
Once again, a thunderous explosion swept across the area, but fortunately, it produced less force than before. Still, the st happened where Don was standing. If any normal human being was caught in the explosion, they wouldn''t survive in a million years. However, Michael knew Don was not a normal human being. After all, he just saw Don bring down two frigate size ships from the sky with his raw strength. Although Don used battle energy to enhance his strength, no one could have done the same even if they had battle energy running through their veins. Instead, it required an immense amount of raw power to bring down the ships. Michael would have chosen to sabotage the ships from within but something told him Don had no choice.
All those who survived white death died in the explosion, and the rest who didn''t get on the shipy around the farm field without moving an inch. The fire burnt many of them, and Michael doubted they would survive for much longer. He couldn''t care less about them. Those soldiers tried to capture him. Hence, Michael felt no pity for the soldiers. Instead, Michael looked around the farm field taking his gaze away from the raging fire where Don was standing. Michael would have gone into the fire if he had his powers. If he tried to get near the raging hot mes now, he would be melted like a candle. Even standing several meters away from the explosion site, he sweated as he was inside an oven.
As he was breathing heavily, Michael heard storm clouds rumbling in the distance. Surprisingly, the thunderps sounded so close to Michael. He quickly looked above as he felt like the sound wasing from above him. The moment he saw the sky, he felt a chill running through his spine. At that point in time, a vortex appeared in the sky, and Michael noticed the monster peeking through the vortex head first. "Holy fuck," Michael shouted as he frantically looked around, His mind told him to prepare for a fight instead of waiting for someone else toe and save him. Therefore, Michael looked around to find something. Since he lost the arch energy, it was doubtful the monster would still possess any arch energy to fight.
The only advantage the monster had over him was its superior size. If he could repair the broken trebuchet beside him, he could fight it without using spells. While limping towards the trebuchet''s broken pulley system, Michael wondered how the hell the monster could travel from the shadow realm to here.
To be honest, Michael thought only he could travel between realms. But he was proven wrong when the monster crawled through the vortex in the sky.
The monster''s head was out and it was squeezing the rest of its body through the vortex.
While it was squeezing through, the monster noticed Michael with its big eyes. As a result, the monster screamed with pure hatred and anger.
"What the hell did I ever do to you?" Michael showed the monster his middle finger and picked up a few broken nks as well as some metal pieces from the ground.
"GFtRERRERRERREERRERRE!"
The monster screamed as loud as it could, and its roar sounded louder than the thunder ps themselves. Michael quickly rushed his word as the monster seemed more pissed off after he showed his middle finger.
"System, you fuck Where are you?" He tried to summon the system, but once again, he received no response from the system. Thest time the system went offline was when it screamed something about Omegas. So Michae wondered if the system''s unresponsiveness was rted to the omegas. Michael didn''tpletely me the system as he knew the system wouldn''t go offline suddenly without reason. Still, he was pissed at the monstering to kill him, and he had no one to me. Inch by inch, the monster crawled out of the vortex. But suddenly, the monster screamed as it dashed out of the vortex, finallying out. The monster began to fall from the sky. Michael wished the monster would break its legs or die when it hit the ground. However, the monster''s superior size would save it from dying instantly. Besides, unlike Michael, the monster was falling from a lower height. Michael rushed to fix the trebuchet. The only thing that could save him from the monster was the trebuchet. Deep down he hoped Don woulde out of the fire yet when Michael looked over his shoulder he saw no one walking out of the fire.
Boom!
Finally, the monsternded on the ground creating arge crater-like meteor. Michael started at the crater without batting an eye. After the vortex disappeared from the sky, he heard no sound except the whistling wind and thunder rumbling. However, soon Michael saw the monster''s hand as the monster climbed out from the crate. The monster was sixteen feet tall and several feet wide. Michael looked smallpared to the monster, and even the trebuchets looked tiny.
The monster growled as its gaze swept across the battlefield until its gaze stopped at Michael. Then, locking its eyes with Michael, the monster exhaled, letting a puff of smoke out of its nostrils. The monster slowly lifted his hand, pointing its finger at Michael. "Damn it, what did I do?" Michael cursed his luck, "I need fire," thanks to his Inventor skills, Michael found a way to fix the trebuchet with what he had: a couple of nks, metal pieces, and some tom clothes. Unfortunately, he needed fire but couldn''t summon his dark mes.
Meanwhile, the monster began to walk towards its target, growling. Each step of the monster caused a tremor and produced ominous pounding sounds.
Michael frantically looked around to find a me, but there was only one fire source on the battlefield, the ce where Don brought two ships down. "Well fuck it," Michael threw the nks and metal pieces in his hand to the ground and began to rush toward the fire. He hoped his robes would protect him against the fire, and even if he did get burned, he could heal himself when he returned to his universe.
The monster noticed Michael limping towards the fire as it started to speed up its steps. The monster closed the hundred or so meter distance between them in a couple of seconds and soon, it reached a hand-reaching distance from Michael.
Boom!
However, when the monster tried to grab Michael, the monster awkwardly flew back before crashing down like a broken airne. Michael heaved a sigh of relief as he looked over his shoulder to see an object soar through the air. Michael closed his eyes for a second, reying what just happened in his mind. The monster was chasing him, and something came from the fire and hit the monster in the chest, sending it flying. He reyed the scenes again to recall what hit the monster. "A war hammer," Michael saw a vague shape of a war hammer with one pointy head and a blunt head. It was painted ck and decorated with golden runes.
"GFtRERREER!"
The monster screamed from a distance. It struggled to stand up but eventually, it did.
Suddenly, Michael heard a rustling sound as he turned his gaze towards the fire to see Don calmly walking out of the fire with the Warhammer in his hands.
The raging hot me that melted the metal like a candle didn''t harm him. He calmly walked through the fire, "That ugly thing bothering you?" These were Don''s first words to Michael. Before Michael could nod, he noticed a ck bow that looked directly stripped out from an mime or a game. Thud!
Don put the Warhammer down as he raised his bow. With another flick of his wrist, Don retrieved six ck arrows and flocked them on the bows string, surprising Michael. First, Don didn''t look like a bow and arrow guy. Second, even Gaya could fire only three arrows at the same time. But Don nocked six arrows on the bowstring and pulled them back Don waited until the monster took a few steps toward them, and when it took its fifth step, Don released the arrows.
As soon as the arrows left the bow, they created a shock wave that pushed Michael a step back In addition, the arrows produced a loud bang like Don had just fired a gun.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Michael heard loud explosions sweeping across the farm field as he noticed the monster''s body parts starting from head to toe, exploding into red mist in a straight line.
"Sigh" Michael heaved a sigh of relief when the arrows shattered the monster into pieces. Even after killing a terrifying monster, Don showed no expression on his face. The bow and Warhammer vanished into thin air as he turned his gaze towards Michael,
"Come on Ghost, we have a lot to talk about,"
Michael was stunned by Don as thetter called Michael by his name, just like Hunter.
"Cat," Michael noticed a dim glow in Don''s ear, "Teleport us back to Everlight," Michael sensed the air around him bing colder and his vision blurred in a blink of an eye. "Wee to Everlight," Michael heard a sweet melodious voice from behind..
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COMMENT VOTE 1 Left
Chapter 553: Castle of Everlight
wen. ee wog-hone
SENO GIFT
At the moment, Michael was standing on a stoned road between endless paddy fields. The fields looked like two golden bedsheets nketing the ground. He could see another farm field far away from where he was. Instead of humans, the paddy fields were worked by all races. He was surprised to see the dwarves, elves, ores, beastmen, and humans working together, and looking at the smiles on their faces, he could tell they were joyful folks.
To be honest, Michael was stunned. The sight around him was too beautiful,
Chapter 553: Castle of Everlight
Chapter 553: Castle of EverlightAt the moment, Michael was standing on a stoned road between endless paddy fields. The fields looked like two golden bedsheets nketing the ground. He could see another farm field far away from where he was. Instead of humans, the paddy fields were worked by all races. He was surprised to see the dwarves, elves, orcs, beastmen, and humans working together, and looking at the smiles on their faces, he could tell they were joyful folks.
To be honest, Michael was stunned. The sight around him was too beautiful. The sweet smell of paddy and the sound of the fields dancing in the wind soothed his soul.
His momentary bliss was abruptly cut short when he heard a melodious voice from behind. Only then did Michael realize that Don wasn''t there. He slowly turned around, only to be stunned by the elf standing in front of him.
She was beautiful, no¡she was an angel. Her golden hair made the golden paddy fields pale inparison. It danced around her shoulder as her hazel eyes stared at Michael with curiosity. She was the most beautiful girl among all the girls Michael had seen. No one could be remotelypared to her beauty, not even Gaya or Lah.
The elf was in a different realm when it came to beauty. Michael had never felt speechless like this ever before. Her smooth skin, coupled with her perfect hourss figure, stunned him. The emerald green robes she was wearing perfectlyplimented her tall majestic body.
"You must be the otherworlder," she smiled slightly, making Michael''s heart skip a beat. But Michael quickly snapped out of being mesmerized by the beauty.
"Otherworlder?" Michael questioned,
"Where are my manners? I am Amaryll Cameron, and you," she blinked curiously,
"Must be Ghost,"
"One and only," Michael smiled, knowing there was no point in hiding his identity when obviously she knew about him.
Because of Michael''s focus on Amaryll and her beauty, his brain didn''t process the majestic castle on the horizon. The castle towers stood way above the clouds while the magnificent waterfall behind the castle helped the sky form a beautiful rainbow across the castle. The scenery looked stripped straight off from a fairy tale book.
Michael had never seen such a huge castle in his life. Countless round towers formed a protective barrier all around the castle and they were all connected by lower, chunky walls made of gray stone.
Just as the towers, countless windows scattered here and there in the walls asymmetrically, along with asymmetric crentions for archers and artillery.
Compared to the castle of Everlight, the Guardian headquarters looked like a shabby house.
The farmers working the fields waved their hands with full smiles at Amaryll as they walked towards the gate. The castle ground was guarded with great metal doors, a regr bridge, andrge crentions.
As they were walking towards the castle gate, Michael noticed a group of elven and human girls approaching them with buckets full of flowers in their hands.
When they saw Michael, they stopped gossiping as they just stared at him without batting an eye.
"Lady Amaryll," they quickly bowed and greeted Amaryll,
"Didn''t I tell you to call me Amaryll when Knight and Don are not around?"
They let out a reluctant smile as Amaryll noticed some of their gazes on Michael. Each and every girl in the group was pretty enough to rival the most angelic beauties in Michael''s world.
"Lady Amaryll," one of the elves threw a nce at Michael,
"He is our guest. So behave yourselves,"
"A," the girls pouted as Amaryll and Michael continued their journey towards the gate.
"How may I address you?" after the girls walked past them, Michael asked Amaryll,
"Amaryll works just fine. Since you are not from this world, it''ll be awkward for you to call me Lady Amaryll. Also, who knows what you are in your own world? Heck, you might even be a king,"
It was evident to Michael the elf was Chatty Cathy. She talked nonstop, and Michael could sense she had so many questions in her mind to ask him. Otherwise, she wouldn''t look at him so often in the corner of her eyes.
"Rest assured, I am not a king. Do you know anything about me besides my name? How did you even know my name?"
"How else? Knight told me. In fact, they have been expecting you for some time," Amaryll surprised Michael,
"It''s unfortunate you appeared in the middle of a battlefield. What happened back there anyway? Don wouldn''t leave his training ground so easily. Instead of telling Arrora to meet you, he himself personally went there. You must be pretty important to him, "
"Where is he?" asked Michael,
"Must be with Knight or went to bring back Arrora. Don doesn''t like when Arrora goes on a killing spree," Amaryll sighed,
"Killing spree? All those people, were they killed by one person?" Michael was shocked because even the scared soldiers were at the Soul Refining Stage. The battlefield was littered with dead bodies, and Michael saw at least hundreds of bodies. If they were all killed by one person, they would be at atleast the Fusion stage or Half immortal stage.
While talking to Amaryll, Michael noticed the two guards nking the castle gates. They were in full ck metal armor covered from head to toe. Surprisingly they all wore a cape that looked more than just a cloth.
Noticing Amaryll and Michael approaching the gate, the ck armored soldiers pushed open the gates to reveal the castle grounds. Just like Michael expected, the castle grounds were artistic and ravishingly beautiful. The neatly pruned grass field, the colorful flowers dancing in the wind, the fountains spraying water and the rainbows above them, the sound of joyfulughter and giggles, everything merged to paint a picture in Michael''s mind.
"Lady Amaryll," the guards bowed as Michael stared at them. Immediately he was stunned by the guards,
"Core Strengthening stage level 10," Each of them was at Core Strengthening stage 10.
Michael would have lost his mind if Amaryll''s power wasn''t at the Core Formation stage. Every single one in the ce seemed so OP. Now Michael understood why Hunter warned Michael about this universe.
As Michael followed Amaryll into the castle ground, many people threw their nces at Michael.
"Is that His Majesty?"
"No. It''s not,"
"He looks like our majesty,"
"Must be a friend of his majesty. Look how he dressed,"
"He looks friendly though,"
Amaryll giggled, hearing the conversations around her.
"You do look like Don. Dressed in all ck and wielding two swords," Amaryll climbed the stairs leading to the throne hall and said to Michael,
"But you seemed to smile more, unlike our Don. You have a better chance of seeing the sun rise in the west than seeing Don smile," Amaryll didn''t hold back as she talked talked talked. To be honest, Michael liked the girl. She seemed so pure and good-hearted.
He didnt feel any bad vibrations from her.
"When can I meet Don?" Michael asked, climbing the stairs with her,
"Soon. But first, we have a feast nned for you. So you will eat, and enjoy our Everlight hospitality. Then, you boys can y whatever you want,"
To be honest, Michael was kind of hungry and smelled something delicious in the air. Since he had no arch energy in the universe, he felt hungry and exhausted. Thus, Michael wanted to eat something and get his strength back. Who knows when the system woulde online, and he would get back to the shadow realm?
Besides, unlike when he visited other universes, he was in his physical form in Don''s. So he wanted to make the most out of this trip.
"So if you don''t mind me asking, do you have any lion with wings here?"
As soon as Amaryll heard Michael, she stopped climbing the stairs and burst into melodiousughter,
"Hahahaha,"
Michael creased his brows as Amarylly punched him on the shoulder yfully,
"Lion with wings, hehehe. I never heard someone call Knight, lion with wings in a long time," finally Amaryll stoppedughing and resumed climbing the stairs,
"You will meet him soon. He just left to kill the King of Valencia. He will be home for lunch," she said so casually, like killing a king was not a big deal. Even for Michael, killing a king would bring him unwanted risks and dangers to him. Yet these people of Don seemed to care less about threats. Maybe it was because all of them were so OP.
Finally, when Michael climbed almost fifty steps, he was weed by the majestic throne hall.
Lustrous braziers enclosing each of the six basalt columns lit up every part of the throne hall, allowing shadows to y and dance where light could not reach. Therge mirrors on theyered ceiling danced in the flickering light. At the same time, statues of Don and Knight looked down upon the gray wood floor of this extravagant hall.
A verdigris rug ran down from the throne for a few meters before ending, while ribbon banners with golden tufts dangled gently from the walls. Between each banner hung antern. They''ve all been lit and illuminated the mosaics of various persons below them.
Huge, stained ss windows depicting ancient legends were concealed by ck draperies as the curtains were adorned with impressive needlework and jewels.
At the end of the throne hall, the throne of Don sat majestically upon an elevated tform, looking down. The throne resembled several dragons coiling around each other, forming one domineering throne to rule the world.
The throne sat beneath the overlooking statue of a dwarf holding a battle ax. It was adjoined by severalrge but far less ornated thrones for the founding members of Everlight.
The throne was covered in texturedyered marks, and a gem-encrusted head of a dragon was fixed on each of the elegant armrests. The light pillows were dark verdigris, which had also been adorned with ornate plumes.
Those wishing to witness Don could do so on the many lightly illuminated wooden benches, all of which were facing the thrones.
"Where is that little brat?" when they both stepped onto the silent throne hall, Amaryll looked around,
"Boo," suddenly, Michael felt rustling behind as his instincts kicked in. In a blink of an eye, Michael unsheathed his sword, turning around.
However, as soon as Michae turned around with his two swords, his hands stopped because a teenage girl was floating in the air with a bright grin on her face,
"Did I startle you?" the girl tilted her head with a yful haughty smile as Amaryll stepped towards Michael,
"Catalie, you shouldn''t scare people like that,''
Chapter 554: Getting a Legendary Item
Chapter 554: Getting a Legendary ItemMichael lowered his swords from the girl''s neck and sheathed them back.
He was actually quite surprised to see the girl resembling Azazel''s ghostly state. But what stunned Michael was the girl''s power. She would be at the Half Immortal stage if she was in his world.
"I just wanted to see how our otherworldly friend is doing," Catalie said with a smile,
"Ghost, this is Catalie. Catalie Lise Leavitt,"
"Ghost? So it''s true?" The girl''s eyes opened wide,
"Can you please tell me what''s going on here?" Michael frowned. He had enough of the cryptic messages and wanted to know how these people knew him.
"Follow me," Catalie nodded,
Then she hovered away, leading him towards the door behind the throne. Michael followed Catalie behind as Amaryll walked by his side.
"My father, who built this castle, gave me control of every room, except," Catalie paused for a moment, waving her hand. Then, the metal door slowly opened, revealing the brightly lit corridor as they resumed their journey.
"Except a room in the far end of the castle," Catalie said, floating before Michael,
"Until when uncle Ken arrived at Everlight, I had no what was inside the room,"
"What''s inside the room?" Michael couldn''t help asking,
Unexpectedly, Catalie shook her head,
"No one knows. Uncle Ken just told us that there is only one who can open the door, you,"
Michael exhaled as he was tired of being shocked by them. He silently followed her, thinking about his connection to Don''s universe. The question of why he was in Don''s universe in his physical form kept nagging his mind.
"Maybe the future me visited Everlight?" Michael questioned himself. His thoughts made sense as he couldn''t find any more possibilities. How could they know about Michael if he hadn''t visited Everlight?
"So this Uncle Ken of yours told you about me?" Michael questioned Catalie and Amaryll,
"Not until recently," Amaryll answered Michael instead,
"Reghys had foreseen your arrival. She kept saying four-headed monster had woken up,"
Michael immediately thought of the hydra he saw in stormville mountain. Now after hearing Amaryll, his brain started to make the connections. He recalled Hunter''s words to him,
"You reek of the Queen''s scent, Ghost. If I am right, and I usually am, you had alreadye across one of her generals,"
At that time, Michael only guessed it could be the hydra in the stormville mountain,
"When I say generals, it''s not the human generals you might have met. These abominations could end all life on a within a few hours. So imagine what their queen is capable of,"
Hunter''s words sounded in his mind. There was also no doubt in Michael''s mind that the hydra Reghys dreamed of and the general Hunter talked about were the same.
"We should talk about this here, Sister Amaryll. Let''s get somewhere private and let Uncle Ken exin everything to him," Catalie''s voice became serious as the yfulness on her face disappeared. Soon, neither of them uttered a word as Michael followed Catalie in silence until they reached the end of the corridor.
However, there was no door before them but a gray wall.
"Through here," Catalie ced her ethereal hand on the gray wall as the wall slowly faded away. It was an illusion, but a great one at that. After the wallpletely disappeared out of existence, what stood before them was a spacious hall lit with several braziers. The golden light radiated from the brazier illuminated the statue and a door built with shiny ck metal.
The trio slowly stepped into the hall. Michael''s legs automatically walked toward the door with countless engraved symbols and runes. However, his eyes weren''t looking at the door. Instead, he was looking at the twenty feet statute of a man.
The stature resembled a man holding two swords as his long coat fluttered behind him. Although the face was not distinguishable, Michael knew the man. It was him. Someone had built a statue of him and put it in the hall.
But why and how? That was Michael''s question.
"That''s you," suddenly, Michael heard a deeper, wilder, and stronger voice. It was a sort of heavy, golden voice. The voice made him turn around, and when he did, he saw a white-furred lion with majestic wings gracefully walking toward them.
"Knight," Michael mumbled after being stunned by the lion. It had such grace. No matter how hard Michael tried, he couldn''t sense Knight''s cultivation level. However, he felt the distortion in the space around him, indicating Knight''s power.
Being mesmerized by Knight, Michael almost failed to notice the gray-haired man walking behind Knight.
"It''s¡ it''s¡really him¡The Ghost¡he is a myth no more," the gray-haired man stuttered as his face became pale.
"Do I know you?" Michael asked,
"No no no¡but I know you. Only a few people know you,"
"But now he''s the only one," Knight interjected, circling Michael.
"Please tell me what the hell is going on here," Michael asked the old man,
"By the way, he is Uncle Ken," Amaryll quickly introduced Ken to Michael,
"To exin, I need to first tell you where I came from," Ken, the gray-haired old man, sighed as Knight came in front of Michael,
"I came to Everlight from the future. So everything I know and am about to tell you has happened in the future, and that future has be our past,"
Michael listened to the old man without batting an eye or uttering a word,
"In the future or the time I came from had mentions about an otherworlder who visited Everlight in dire times. There wasn''t much about this otherworlder except his name Ghost. ording to the ancient scripts, Ghost helped Everlight and fought beside his majesty Don''s descendants. But only a few knew his origins. In return for his help, his majesty''s descendants and the founders'' descendants built this room," Michael looked around the room. His heart beat raised while he tried to wrap his mind around what Ken said.
"There was no mention of why Ghost helped or what he received in return. However, I believe this room contains more about your visit to Everlight in the future," As he said, Ken took a couple of steps and touched the metal door,
"Before I traveled to this timeline from mine, we faced something that threatened all of our existence. At that time, we were desperate. We tried to open this door as we believed if we could somehow summon the legendary Ghost, we could survive. But we failed,"
When Ken looked at Michael, he could see the pain in Ken''s eyes.
"Only you can open this door, Lord Ghost. Whatever you''re looking for, it''s in there," Under their curious gazes filled with excitement and anticipation, Michael stepped towards the door, ced his hand, and expected something to happen.
As soon as he touched the door, Michae felt electricity running through his spine, followed by acute pain in his brain.
[System back online¡]
Michael heard the system''s sound and felt a tremendous pressure lifted from his shoulder. He wanted to question the system, but before he could talk to the system, the door produced a creaking noise, slowly opening.
Everyone took a step back as the door opened inch by inch. They all waited for the door topletely open, revealing what the room had been hiding for centuries.
Finally, the door wholly opened, and they all saw an empty room with a shield and a golden parchment inside a ss box. Michael was surprised because he had imagined a shield in his mind, and the shield inside the ss box looked just like the one he had imagined. It was ck, round and had a crimson red skull in the center.
There was nothing besides the ss box in the center of the room. Michael did not wait for them but walked towards the ss box. When he reached the ss box, he cautiously looked around it to see an opening, yet found nothing.
"Did you feel that?" Suddenly Knight questioned the others. Michael looked over his shoulder to see everyone looking confused,
"I can''t feel any energy," Even Knight wasn''t spared from the phenomenon. Finally, Michael turned around and sensed no powering from them, none at all. At that point in time, everyone became powerless.
"The void spell," Michael immediately recognized the phenomenon as the work of a void spell.
"You know about this, don''t you?" Instead of panicking, Knight remained calm.
Michael nodded, but after nodding, he turned around to look at the shield.
"I have a feeling we should read that parchment," Michael said,
"Catalie, open that box," Amaryll frowned as Catalie waved her hand.
"I¡I can''t¡" Catalie shook her head.
After seeing Catalie shaking her head, Amaryll rushed at the ss box and tried to lift it, except she couldn''t even move the ss box an inch.
"Let me try," Michael ced his palm on the ss box,
Boom!
Shockingly, Michae punched the ss box. Just hearing the sound of his fist hitting the ss box pained Amaryll''s hand. But he beat again and again as the ss box started to crack.
"Shit, you''re bleeding," Amaryll noticed the blood on his palm but did not slow down. His persistence surprised Knight, and he watched Ghost break the ss box with his hands without giving a damn about the blood.
Cling!
Finally, after withstanding hundreds of punches, the ss box shattered, and so did Michael''s knuckles. Still, Michael ignored the pain, reaching out for the shield with his broken hands.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for acquiring a Legendary ss Item, The Ghost Shield. The Host''s Darkness maniption has increased to 25%]
As soon as Michael grabbed the shield, he heard the system notifications in his mind.
[Does the host wish to convert Life energy into Arch energy? The conversion will cost the host 50,000 badass points. After conversion, the host will be able to use cultivation power for a week]
"About time system,"
Amaryll and everyone in the room were stunned when they saw Michael turn around with a grin on his face. Of course, no one with broken arms would grin except him.
Chapter 555: Helping Everlight
Chapter 555: Helping Everlight"You''re bleeding. Wait here," Amaryll quickly ran outside the hall to ess her space ring. Meanwhile, Michael''s blood dripped to the ground droplet by droplet through his broken knuckles. Knight could even see some broken bones sticking out of his fist.
Still, Michael grasped the shield tightly.
"I didn''t think this room had a void array,"
Knight creased his brows after hearing Michael''s calm words,
"You''re familiar with the void effect?" asked Knight,
"Hmm," Michael nodded and signaled Ken to grab the parchment upon the red cloth.
"Then tell me Ghost?" Knight began to circle Michael, and every step Knight took had the king''s grace.
"Have you ever met the cannibals?"
Seeing the frown on Michael''s face, Knight rephrased his question,
"Have you ever met skinless ugly as fuck creatures?"
"Met them, killed them, burnt them," Michael said indifferently,
"They use these arrays to make the atmosphere void of any energies,"
"Not only them," Michael interjected Knight,
"From where Ie from, there is a dormant hydra. An entire continent has been void of any energy because of that hydra. And I have a feeling you know who might be the boss of that hydra,"
Knight stopped circling as Amaryll entered the room again with a blood-red potion in her hand,
"Here, gulp this down,"
"It won''t work,"
Michael and Knight said the same thing at the same time,
"What?" Since Amaryll wasn''t very familiar with void arrays and their effects, she looked at Michael and Knight, creasing her brows,
"My lord," Ken took a step forward and handed over the parchment to Michael, but he couldn''t lift his hand to take the parchment,
[Conversion has beenpleted]
[Does the host wish to nullify the void array''s effects on yourself?]
[It would cost the host 30,000 badass points]
"Yes"
Following his eptance, Michael felt an acute pain all over his pain. However, the pain soon began to lessen as Michael felt his power returning to him.
"Grrrmm," Michael cracked his neck and shoulder as Knight noticed his bloody fist slowly healing back to its previous state,
"You''re immune?" Knight was surprised,
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 12000 badass points]
Michael immediately earned back his 30,000 badass points by impressing everyone in the hall. Ken had read about the legendary Ghost, the otherworlder, and his power, but only now had he seen it with his eyes.
He broke the void array like it was nothing.
"The hydra in my world and the one that appeared in Reghys''s dream might be the same. A general of the queen,"
As soon as Knight heard Michael''sst words, his heart skipped a beat. The others'' faces turned pale in an instance,
"So you''re all familiar with the Queen?"
Michael''s gaze swept across the room as Knight sighed,
"More than we want to. What''s in that parchment?" Knight looked at the parchment in Ken''s hands. Now that APD had healed Michael''s hands, he took the parchment from Ken''s hand.
Ghost, if you''re reading this, it means you have arrived at Don''s universe.
So do yourself a favor by helping them. We need allies to fight the enemies we will face in the future. So make them yourself an ally to Don and Knight.
M
Michael read what was written on the parchment in his mind.
"M? Could it be Michael? Did I write myself a letter? Make sense," After reading the letter, Michael''s mood improved. It''s slowly bing apparent to Michael that his future self was an OP god.
Michael felt d that he was on the right track to bing stronger. If he hadn''t taken the risk ofing to meet Sabrina, he wouldn''t have traveled across universes, meeting new people and getting more information about him and his enemies.
"Knight!"
Before Knight could get his answer from Michael, Catalie interjected,
"We better go see this," Catalie''s voice was grave.
Knight slowly turned his gaze towards Catalie,
"It''s important," Catalie frowned, and seeing her grave reaction, Knight raised his brows,
"Come with us," Knight said to Michael. Instead of following him behind, Michael wanted to inspect his new shield and the room for a few more moments. However, he was teleported away from the room by Catalie in a blink of an eye.
After being teleported by Catalie, Michael''s vision turned blurry. The effectsted a few seconds until his vision finally cleared. As soon as he could see everything clearly, he noticed an elf lying in a bed, all bloody and injured.
It seemed to Michael that someone hacked and shed the elf. There was no ck armor covering the elf, so Michael could even see the cuts on his body and even a little bit of his insides.
"KOTAR!" Amaryl shouted as she dashed at the elf.
Michael patiently looked around the infirmary to see countlessfy beds in neat lines and several men and women running around the hall carrying trays. Probably with healing potions and medications.
Amaryll immediately forced a healing potion down Kotar''s throat, but unlike she expected, the potion did not heal him.
"We are losing him, Lady Amaryll,"
"He was cut by the corroded de," Knight came beside Kotar and stared at the cuts on his body,
"No healing potion can save him. Keep giving him life energy using the apex and put him with the others," Although Knight was burning in anger, he did not show it in his voice. Only Michael and Catalie noticed the anger in his eyes,
"What''s this?"
Knight raised his paw and pulled something out of Kotar''s pocket.
"General Knight," after sensing the air around the get chillier, Ken reluctantly called Knight,
"They have Yuki,"
Michael had no idea who Yuki was or what she was to them. However, by looking at their shocked reactions, Michael understood she was someone important to Everlight.
"What?!" Amaryll shouted,
"The cannibals have Yuki," Amaryll''s rosy face instantly lost its color and became pale. She shivered as her eyes watered,
"No¡no¡no¡we have to save her¡we must¡,"
Amaryll''s tears gushed out of her eyes. She couldn''t even imagine what the cannibals would do to Yuki if they didn''t save her.
"They want Don toe to the withered forest. Alone,"
A dark purple me engulfed the bloody piece of paper in Knight''s hands as silence upied the hall until Michael decided to follow the rods of his future self.
"Step aside," Michael gently pushed aside Amaryll and stepped towards Kotar.
The elf on the bed lost so much blood. Hence, Kotar looked pale, yet when Michael looked closer, he saw dark veins spreading out from the cuts. Kotar tried to say something but every time he opened his mouth, only a white form escaped his mouth.
"System scan his body,"
Michael paid five thousand badass points to scan Kotar''s body.
"What are you doing?" Knight asked when he saw Michael ce his hand on Kotar''s chest,
"Curing him,"
Michael did not take his hand off Kotar for a few moments.
"Can..can you cure him?" Amaryll finally broke the silence. Amaryll had seen many of her people enter a state ofa after being cut by the corroded des. Although they were keeping them alive using Apex, there was no certainty they would wake up from theira. In simple words, they were as good as dead without a cure.
Instead of immediately answering Michael, he took out a piece of paper and a quill from his storage and began to write.
"If you can get me these things, I can cure him," Michael stunned everyone in the hall. Those who were running around the hall suddenly halted their steps in shock.
At that moment, every pair of eyes was on Michael.
"My lord," Ken''s hand shivered as he took the list from Michael,
"Ken," Knight''s words quickly snapped Ken out of his stunned state,
The old man quickly eyed the list for a few moments,
"We can get everything in the list from our gardens but,"
"No buts, go get him those,"
Catalie threw a nce at Michael before vanishing into thin air along with uncle Ken leaving Amaryll and Knight with Michael.
"This will keep him from dying until I cure him," Michael took out a healing potion from his system storage. The one Amaryll gave Kotar was a crimson red potion, while the potion in Michael''s hand was sparkling blue.
"This is a healing potion from my world," Michael said, slowly pouring the potion into Kotar''s mouth. Since Knight trusted Ghost, he let Ghost give the potion to Kotar.
Just a few seconds after Michael emptied the potion into Kotar''s mouth, the white form finally stoppeding out of Kotar''s mouth. In addition, Amaryll noticed Kotar''s breathing had turned normal.
"Kotar. Kotar, can you hear me? It''s Amaryll. Squeeze my hand if you can hear me," Amaryll sat beside Kotar on the bed and brushed his head gently,
She was ted when Kotar squeezed her hand, and Knight noticed it.
"You really think you can cure him?" Knight asked without showing any hope in his eyes or tone. However, deep down, Knight wanted some hope to revive all his men.
Although Don had a n to fight the corroded des, it was extremely risky, and Knight hated putting Don''s life at risk more than anything.
"I don''t think. I know,"
"Cure them, and you can consider Everlight your allies, including Don and me,"
"It''s a deal then," Michael extended his arm as Knight closed his eyes for a moment. In a blink of an eye, Michael saw the lion turning into a dashing golden-haired youngster wearing ck armor simr to Don''s. It was Knight''s human form.
"Hmm," Knight nodded and gave Michael a firm handshake.
"My Lord,"
A few minutester, Catalie and Ken appeared in the room, and Ken carried a bucket filled with colorful herbs and various weird-shaped ingredients in it.
After taking a nce at the contents of the bucket, Knight frowned,
"These are low-grade herbs and ingredients,"
"You guys should step back. It''s gonna get hotter in here,"
Michael smirked, raising his hand. Then, under their curious gazes, Michael conjured his alchemy mes.
"You are an Alchemist?" Catalie asked out loud the question that emerged in everyone''s minds.
"The best,"
Chapter 556: Yet another time Michael being badass
Chapter 556: Yet another time Michael being badassEveryone stepped back from Michael as he told them. Michael''s emerald green fire lit the hall dimly. Under everyone''s curious gazes, Michael kept the fire dancing above one hand while throwing the herbs into the fire using the other.
The herbs and ingredients crackled in the fire and let out their essence. Knight noticed glistening essence beads emerging from the fire in a few blink of an eye.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 13000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10000 badass points]
"How is he doing this?" Amaryll questioned Catalie. She had never seen an alchemist extract essence from the herbs without a cauldron. They were pretty shocked, including Knight.
"Do you think his cure will work?" Catalie whispered to Amaryll,
"We should have hope Catalie," Amaryll liked to have hope in her heart.
If his cure worked, they could wake all the soldiers in the hall next to them. Until now, a hundred and twenty people have been in aa because of the corroded des. If it weren''t for Don, all of them would have died.
Michael ignored all the whispers and stares at him and continued to brew the cure. It took him almost five minutes to merge all the essence beads andplete the pale jade color potion.
After Michaelpleted the potion, the vial radiated a dim emerald green light and a sweet fragrance.
"This will do it,"
"Let me do it," Before Michael could pour the potion onto Kotak''s mouth, Amaryll stepped forward.
"Go ahead," Michael handed the potion over to Amaryll, put out his alchemy mes, and leaned on the pir beside him.
After taking the potion, Amaryll took a deep breath. Then, she sat near Kotak''s head and gently lifted his head before slowly pouring the green liquid into his mouth.
On the other hand, Knight did not take his gaze off of Kotak. Knight didn''t even blink. It was too nerve-wracking.
Little by little, the potion ran down Kotak''s throat.
"Give it a second," Michael said to Catalie, who was staring at Michael,
"And also, you should step away from him," Michael turned his gaze from Catalie to Amaryll.
"Quick,"
"Uwak!"
Kotak suddenly threw up dark blood onto the floor. Fortunately, Amaryll stepped back from him as Michael told her. Otherwise, she would have been drenched in the dark blood vomited by Kotak.
Kotak kept throwing up dark blood for a few minutes before he finally stopped puking blood. After Kotak finished throwing up, Knight noticed the cuts on his body slowly closing up.
"Kotak!" Amaryll hugged Kotak without waiting for a second. She embraced him tightly and patted him on the back.
"Step aside, Amaryll,"
However, Knight was not in the mood to wait. He just pulled back Amaryll and grabbed Kotak by his shoulders,
"What happened?"
"I¡we¡i.."
Plop!
"Knight!"
Michael saw Knight pping Kotak to make him snap out of shock. Amaryll shouted at Knight, but thetter did not mind Amaryll.
"General Knight," Knight''s p brought Kotak back from his shocked state.
"Tell us what happened," Kotak didn''t move his gaze away from Knight. Hence, he didn''t notice Michael, who just watched the scene unfolding, leaning on the pir with his hands folded.
"We were ambushed, General Knight. The cannibals ambushed us on our way to Valencia. GENERAL KNIGHT!" Just as Katok remembered something important, he shouted,
"They got Yuki,"
"No shit!"
Knight pushed him back and punched the table beside him as the table crumbled into pieces.
"Catalie, war room,"
Catalie nodded before waving her hands. Michael knew what wasing, so he just closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them back, he was standing in a room brightly lit with chandeliers.
They stood around an oak table with several maps.
"How did they know about our route?" Ken asked Kator, who had no time to process what just happened to him or how he survived.
"I don''t know, my lord. They just jumped our carriage and took Yuki. I tried my best. Please forgive me for failing you, General Knight," Katrok dropped to his knees before Knight.
"You did nothing wrong. Get up," Knight pulled him up by his shoulder and looked at everyone in the room, including Michael.
"First things first, Ghost can we recreate the option you made us after you leave?"
"Yeah, I can write down the form and make it easier for them. You should have no problem mass producing them,"
Knight nodded as Catalie heaved a sigh of relief.
While Knight was thinking about his next move, Michael took out the shield from the system storage and admired the beauty and the craftsmanship.
"What kind of metal is this?" Michael mumbled under his breath, looking around the shield. This round shield was made from a sturdy but lightweight metal. It could easily offer heavy-duty protection, especially against crushing attacks and arrows and bolts.
The shield''s edges were enhanced with thick metal ting and decorated with a scaly texture. In addition, the one who forged the shield painted the edge with crimson red paint to match the skull engraved in the center.
With the first look, the shield seemed to have yet to see its first battle. There was not a single scratch on the surface. But Michael had difficulty believing this shield had never seen action.
One thing was sure, Michael would soon test the shield in action. But although the shield would provide a great defense in a battle, carrying it around would ultimately restrict his swordy. That''s where Draven''s retractable shield devicees into the picture.
"I need to ce a summoning rune on it," Michael quickly recalled how Eve summoned her hammer after throwing it at her foes. It would be troublesome if Michael had to find the shield after he threw it at his foes. Therefore, Michael nned to make Elidyr ce a summoning rune on the shield. Of course, to do that, he had to first leave Don''s universe. Unfortunately, it was not like Michael had a choice. Rather it was up to the Shadow realm. Until it decides to take him back, he was stuck in this universe.
"What are we still doing here? Let''s send our men to rescue Yuki. We know where she is," Amaryll raised her concern and tried to rush Knight.
"It''s not that easy. First, we don''t know for sure that''s where they are keeping Yuki. Second, it''s obviously a trap to capture Don. The withered forest is a void zone. Not even Don can use his powers there," Knight''s brows arched up as he exined,
"They expect Don toe alone, and I won''t let him go alone. He has enough problems as it is. We will figure this out on our own,"
"Brother Knight is right. We can''t let big brother walk into a trap. If he tells him about Yuki, he will go there. Although I believe the cannibals have no chance against big brother, it''s not rational to walk into a trap knowing its a trap,"
Ken nodded after hearing Catalie.
"General Knight," Ken called Knight,
"Only our men knew about the carriage and Yuki. So how did the cannibals manage to ambush it? Could it be just a coincidence?" Ken couldn''t help asking the obvious question.
After Ken''s question, the hall fell into silence.
"Isn''t it obvious?" Michael finally broke the silence and didn''t even take his gaze away from his new shield.
"What is?" Amaryll asked Michael.
"You have a spy among your men,"
Michael expected some kind of rebuke from one of them, especially from Amaryll, who seemed to love her people a little too much. However, they surprised Michael by staying silent.
Michael had no idea how much they went through and suffered to get to this position. They were not naive people, not even Amaryll as Michael thought.
Although everyone was thinking about the same deep down, hearing it out loud from Michael churned terrible feelings in their guts.
"We are running out of time. The note mentioned the cannibals would kill Yuki if they didn''t see Don in two hours," Knight''s voice stunned Amaryll.
"Then we all go swords zing and kill every single piece of scum. I will reduce them to the ground if I have to,"
"Calm down, Amaryll. Even if we send thousands of our elites, they would be sitting ducks once they entered the withered forests,"
"General Knight is correct, Lady Amaryll. The withered forest is their domain. They hold absolute power there,"
"Then what do you suggest? Let them eat Yuki while we stand here doing nothing? Do you think Don would sit still if he knew Yuki was in danger?"
Hearing their conversation, Michael''s respect for these people reached a new height because they knew he was immune to the void array, yet none of them asked him to risk his life. Instead, they were trying to figure out a solution on their own.
"Don saved my life. So let me return the favor," Michael''s calm words swept across the hall, immediately drawing their attention.
"Don''t even think about it. You''re our guest. We will not ask you to risk your life for us," Catalie appeared before Michael in an instant, shaking her head frantically.
"You are not asking me. It''s my choice. Just show me where they are," Michael stepped towards the table, facing Knight.
Unlike the others, Knight could see the confidence and sense the power radiating from Michael. The magical fluctuations around Ghost were crazy. Thus, Knight was confident Ghost could rescue Yuki and survive in the withered forest.
Michael couldn''t wait to get drenched in badass points and show what he was capable of to the people of Everlight. Besides, he might even get a chance to test his new shield.
"Catalie, go with him and show us everything happens," Michael almost wanted to kiss Knight. If they could see him in action, that would make the system rain badass points which he could use to get stronger before reaching the shadow realm.
"Will she be in danger?" asked Michael,
"No. They can''t hurt me, and I can''t hurt them. But I''ll be able to shadow you and let Knight see what I see," Catalie exined to Don as she prepared to teleport him to the withered forest.
Chapter 557: Battle in Withered Forest I
Chapter 557: Battle in Withered Forest I"Can you teleport near this withered forest?"
Knight nodded at Michael.
"Then I have some time to kill," Yet again, Michael took out a piece of paper and scribbled something before handing the list over to Ken,
"If you don''t mind, get me these please," Ken looked at the list of items and frowned. He couldn''t guess why he was asking for those items. Still, he nodded and teleported to his workshop along with Catalie.
Everyone was confused.
"Time is of the essence," Kotar mumbled,
"You worry about finding the rat. I''ll bring back Yuki," Michael stretched his arms and cracked his neck,
"What are you going to do?" Amaryll took a deep breath and asked Michael. She could see there was no stopping him. Since Knight didn''t try to stop Michael, she could only pray for his safe return.
"My lord,"
At that time, Ken and Catalie returned to the room carrying a few metal parts, including a ck metal bracelet.
"Cool," Under their curious gazes, Michael took the metal bracelet, attached some tiny, tiny nuts and bolts, and merged them with the bracelet by heating up the metal bracelet using his alchemy mes.
Then, Michael proceeded to ce a space ring inside a hole created by the me.
Knight saw the shield on the table disappear into the ring.
"This should do it," Michael wore the bracelet around his left wrist so that he could use the hidden de in his right wrist without any problem.
"What did you build my lord?" Ken curiously asked Michael,
"Nothingplex. Just a retractable shield," Michael clenched his left fist as he said. In a blink of an eye, the ck shield materialized in his arm. By using the space ring, Michael cut the retracting time by half. It was more efficient than Draven''s device. But, of course, Etheria had no space rings. Hence, they couldn''t have built this device.
"Shall we go?" Michael asked Catalie as she looked at everyone for their confirmation.
"Be safe. If something goes wrong, teleport back to Everlight," Knight warned both of them.
"I am really ashamed we are putting your life at risk," Amaryll looked sad, but Michael calmed her mind with a gentle smile and a pat on her shoulder,
"Believe me, I faced worse," Michale''s words filled with confidence gave some strength to Amaryll. Again and again, the people of Everlight surprised Michael. They were so kind and pure-hearted. If it was his world, people would have jumped the gun to put his life in danger instead of risking theirs. However, the Everlight people really cared for Michael, whom they had just met.
After Michael tested the shield device, he felt ready to hunt some skinless creatures. Now that the system hade online, he could use the teleportation scrolls. Hence, even if the skinless creatures proved troublesome, he could just activate the scrolls and escape.
Of course, that would be the opposite of being a badass. Not that Michael wanted to run but surviving to fight another was never a bad idea.
"We will not forget what you''re doing for us Ghost," Knight walked around the table and came before Michael.
Knight sped Michael''s forearm, shaking it firmly.
"Don''t miss the feast," Knight smiled,
"Not nning to," Michael nodded as Ken waved his hand. The very next moment, Michael saw arge mirror appearing in the room and saw the room in the mirror.
"Now we see everything Catalie sees,"
"I am ready," Catalie said, looking at Michael as he adjusted the gadgets around his wrists.
His wrists had so many devices now, including APD, Mark 3 grappling hook, hidden des, and the retractable shield. As soon as he returned to the dark forest, he nned to optimize everything. It was time he upgraded the Inventor skill to star level 5.
"Let''s go," Michael nodded as everyone took deep breaths and only exhaled after Catalie and Michael vanished into thin air.
The withered forest wasrge, dark, and primal. However, every single tree in the forest looked burnt and sick without a single leaf. Hence, the name withered forest. Long ago, its canopy was ruled by hickory, beech, and walnut, which provided just enough openings for light to pass down for a mishmash of nts to take advantage of the stony grounds below.
At that moment, when the forest was filled with nothing but eerie silence, Catalie and Michael appeared at the border.
"We are here," Catalie whispered to Michael, who looked around the ce without uttering a word. The forest was already spooky with dead trees and deadly silence. Yet, mother nature added an extrayer of spookiness by enveloping the forest with a thick mist and dark clouds above the forest in the sky.
Michael couldn''t even see what''s in front of him in five meters due to the thick mist. In fact, he could barely see the trees in the forest.
"What''s the n?" asked Catalie,
"Get a good look at our targets," Michael raised his hand,
Click!
Catalie saw a grappling hook fired from his wrist to the tree branch above them. After the grappling hook coiled around the branch, Michael soared through the air andnded on the branch.
"Hmm," Michael saw several heat signatures on the ground via his thermal vision. The forest, the thermal vision, and standing atop a branch reminded him of the earth and predator movie.
"Why are you smiling?" Catalie whispered after seeing the gentle smile on his face.
"Just some nostalgia," Michael jumped from one branch to another without making a sound. The only sound they heard was twigs cracking under the footsteps of the skinless creatures.
"Look," Michael pointed at the skinless creatures patrolling the forest, holding a white spear. When Michael looked closer, he realized the spear was made of human femurs.
The skinless creature was oblivious to the fact he was being watched from above. So instead, the creature patrolled the borders like a good soldier.
Michael could easily kill the creature, but he jumped from branch to branch, reckoning the ce. The more he jumped around, the more he saw theyout of their camp.
In addition, Michael also scanned the ce with his Environmental scanning.
"Sixty cannibals," Michael told Catalie looking at the skinless creatures walking around the forest. His gaze swept across the area and found the tent erupted in the center of their camp.
Arge group of cannibals gathered around arge cauldron, making weird sounds. When Michael looked at what was in the pot, he was nauseated. The cannibals were making some gooey red soup as Michael noticed tiny skulls and bones floating on the surface.
"They are making human porridge," Catalie growled as Michael shushed her,
"Shh,"
He then turned his gaze away from the boiling pot to the tent in the center. With the help of his thermal vision, he could see a figure tied to a chair inside the tent.
"There is someone in the tent. Looks human, a girl maybe," Michael whispered to Catalie,
"It must be Yuki," Catalie said,
"Brother Knight, we might have located Yuki," Catalie whispered to Knight. At the same time, Michael looked at the two other figures inside the tent with the hostage.
While Catalie was talking to Knight, Michael quickly took a Spyder from the system storage, dropping it down.
He could try to poison the soup by flying above them and dropping the poison he brewed in the Shadow realm into the pot. However, it would take some time, and there was a possibility the poison wouldn''t work on these creatures. Besides, they were not powerful. The most powerful was at the Core Strengthening stage level 3.
Instead of poisoning, Michael chose the most direct route. That option would get him the most amount of badass points.
"What''s next?" Catalie asked,
"Watch and learn kid," with a smirk, Michael flew to the border again andnded on a tree branch above the first skinless creature they saw.
The creature was looking around, and the moment it turned around, Michael swiftlynded behind the creature.
"Nighty night,"
Pulch!
Catalie saw a de retracting from his wrist through the creature''s throat. The creature frantically squirmed, but Michael''s grab around its neck soon stopped its movements.
Since leaving the body might attract the other creatures, Michael took off from the ground with the dead creature in his hand.
Michael put the body on the branch before jumping to another branch. This time, there were two creatures on the ground. Catalie thought Ghost would wait for the creatures to separate. But instead of waiting for them to part ways, Michaelnded right between them.
Not only the creatures but also Catalie was stunned.
Pulch!
Pulch!
"Wow," Catalie barely cked when she saw the two swords in Ghost''s hands sticking through the creatures'' heads. He killed them so fast without making a sound. Even Arrora''s elites didn''t have the finesse and quickness.
Like before, Michael flew atop the branch and put the dead bodies before flying to another. It took Michael a few minutes to silently kill all the patrolling creatures.
After killing them, Michael reached the center, where he saw the creatures growling and wailing.
"We can''t alert them. Otherwise, they might kill Yuki,"
"Not if we kill them first," Michael smirked before leaping towards the tree near the tent. Still, to this moment, the cannibals were unaware of Michael''s presence.
They had arrays and traps ced for Don and anyone with battle energy. Unfortunately for them, Michael had no battle energy running in his veins but Arch energy.
Hence, none of the arrays were triggered by Michael. While they were excitedly waiting for the human porridge, Michael stalked them from above and picked them up one by one.
Catalie was curious and afraid at the same time. She followed him behind, waiting for his next move. Unfortunately, the tent was surrounded by cannibals. Therefore, there was no way to get inside without being seen by the cannibals.
"Are you curious to see what I am gonna do next?" Michael whispered to Ccatalie with a smile,
"Hmm," she nodded,
"Then you have to wait a bit more,"
Chapter 558: Battle in Withered Forest II
Chapter 558: Battle in Withered Forest II"What do you mean a little more?" Catalie whispered back but received no response from Michael. Instead, Michael controlled the Spyders to get inside the tent.
"It''s time to crash the party," Michael turned his gaze toward the skinless creatures in the center. But before jumping down, Michael stretched his arms and unsheathed his sword.
Since he wanted to test the shield, Michael only unsheathed one sword, not two. Afterward, Michael wasted no time but leaped down just a few inches away from therge pot with boiling human porridge.
"GRRRRRRR!"
The creatures were startled by Michael''s sudden appearance. However, they did not even have time to react as Michael kicked the pot toward them.
Plop!
The boiling porridge sshed on their bodies, making them scream in agony. Their screams echoed through the gloomy withered forest.
"He alerted them," Catalie was shocked,
"Ring of Fire,"
Michael immediately cast the spell as a ring of fire shot out of him and burnt everything in the five-meter radius.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a low-level Queen worshiper. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 1000 Badass points]
¡
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 12000 badass points]
Michael ignored all the notifications sounding in his mind and focused on the battle before him. The skinless creatures that remained closer to Michael stood no chance against the waves of hot red mes shooting out of Michael.
"Lightning Dash," Michael did not remain still, thinking the fire would burn them all. Instead, he dashed at the creatures without giving them time to put up their defense.
The creatures ran around frantically, screaming in pain, while many rolled on the ground to put out the fire on them. The smell of burning flesh mixed with the stench natural to the withered forest produced a nauseating smell.
However, it couldn''t stop Michael from cleaving the heads of the creatures with lightning-quick movement. Catalie saw only a blur among the skinless creatures, followed by a golden light trail.
She heard the vague crackling of lightning every time she saw a head flying into the air. The creatures were simply too slow to even see Michael let alone stop him.
He just harvested heads like they were weeds. Catalie had a difficult time following his movements. While Michael was killing the skinless creatures she tried to enter the tent but was stopped by an invisible force field.
"GGGUUUURRRRR!" Suddenly, the skinless creatures roared towards the sky as they began to grow in size. The next moment, they shocked everyone in Everlight by eating their fallenrades. Then, they started to eat the dead ones, feasted on their entrails, and sucked the blood from the neck.
The gory sight even stunned Michael. After they began to eat their fallenrades, Michael noticed their Cultivation stage go from the Core Strengthening stage level 1 to level 5. Fortunately, the most powerful one among the creatures was already killed by Michael.
Even though they were powering up, they posed no threat to Michael. He treated the situation like badass points harvesting simtion.
After they finished eating the others, Michael clenched his fist as the shield materialized over his forearm.
"Let''s dance," Michael did not cast the lightning dash but remained firm, waiting for the creatures to attack him.
"Catalie, go inside the tent and see if Yuki is there" Catali heard Amaryll''s voice in her head,
"I can''t. The tent is protected by an array,"
"Don''t rush. She wille out," Michael''s words surprised Catalie,
"Tell Amaryll. I wille up with Yuki," Michael said, raising his hand towards a creature dashing at him.
Before the creature could get to him, the bolt of lightning shot out from Michael''s hand, piercing through its head.
Meanwhile, back on Everlight, Knight monitored each and every move of Ghost through Catalie''s eyes.
"He is holding back,"
"What?!" Amaryll was shocked by Knight''s words. As far as she could see, Ghost massacred the cannibals without breaking a sweat. That was shocking enough already yet Knight told her that he was holding back.
"Who is he, General Knight?" Kotar asked since he did not know anything about their new guest.
"Friend of his majesty?" Kotar couldn''t help asking after seeing how they both dress in all ck.
"Why isn''t he rescuing Yuki?"
"Don''t rush. She wille out," Michael''s words surprised Catalie,
As soon as Amaryll asked Knight, she heard Ghost''s calm voice.
"Can he hear us?"
Knight shook his head, frowning.
"It seems like he has some tricks up his sleeves," Knight, who forged himself in hundreds of battles, obviously knew Michael was holding back when he saw the battle in the mirror.
It was pretty obvious to Knight. Still, the way he killed them, the finesse, and the deadliness in each move reminded Knight of Don.
However, the question in Knight''s mind was why he was holding back and when he nned to rescue Yuki.
Back on the battlefield, a skinless creature dashed at Michael roaring in utter fury. It did not even have a weapon in its hand but just shed at Michael expecting to cut him in halves.
Ding!
Michael was waiting for the skinless creature to attack him and when it did, he raised his shield, blocking its sharp ws. Despite the lightness of the shield, it didn''t break when it blocked the blow. Not that Michael expected it to break. After all, it''s a legendary item.
The creature went on a berserker as it kept banging the shield, trying to break it. However, the creature''s punches did not even put a dent in the shield.
"Now my turn,"
The next time when the creature threw a punch, Michael deflected it with his shield, creating an opening. Then baam! Michael hit the creature right in the jaw with his other hand. The creature was stunned as the others were dashing at him.
Before the stunned creature could regain its senses, Michael sent his hidden de through its eyes.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
At that time, Michael''s instincts kicked in as he felt the uing danger.
"Look out!"
Catalie shouted as Michael swiftly leaped into the air. While in the air, he saw a boulder flying past where he was standing.
The creature finally began to cast spells, but they never uttered a word. He was still in the air when a wave of wind threw him off bnce. The wind wave forced him to the ground.
" Are you okay?" Catalie quickly came to his side and asked with visible concern in her eyes.
"The fun is just getting started,"
The rest of the creatures quickly surrounded Michael and began to move their hands in various shapes and forms as they were drawing in the air.
"Why don''t we take Yuki and teleport away?"
"She wille out," Michael calmly said, regardless of the thirty or so skinless creatures casting spells around him.
"You creatures did not learn a thing," Michael put his shield into his space ring and cracked his neck. On the other hand, the creatures created boulders, balls of fire, and mini tornadoes, just seconds away from sending everything toward Michael.
"Elemental maniption," Michael had no doubts. They were manipting the elements around him just like he could manipte darkness and wind. But, of course, they seemed to have more control over the elements than Michael.
Still, they made a mistake by standing within a five-meter radius from him.
"Ring of Fire," the fire engulfed everything within a five meter radius and raged on while pulsating waves of mes around him. Everything the creatures created using elemental maniption vanished or fell on their own heads.
"GRRRHHHH!"
"EEERRRRGHHH!"
"GRRRRLLLLLL!"
The creatures shrieked, trying to put out the fire. Some intelligent creatures attempted to manipte the fire around them, only to fail. Michael''s mes were powered up by the Dark mes, and no one except Michael could control the Dark mes.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Soul Refining stage, Level 5!]
Finally, after Michael killed all the skinless creatures around him by burning them alive, two creatures walked out of the tent, holding a young girl hostage. The young girl was still in her armor, but the creature had a rusted de enveloped by a red mist against her throat.
The red-haired girl gawked at the burning forest as the creatures roared at Michael. The previously gloomy, dark, silent forest was littered with dead bodies and engulfed by mes.
"Yuki," Catalie eximed,
"I don''t speak yournguage," Michael said, folding his arm.
"Where¡where is his majesty?" Yuki stuttered,
"Oh you know theirnguage?" Michael tilted his head,
"Who are you?" Yuki asked, ignoring his question. She had a corroded de against her throat. Thus, she didn''t feel like exining things to a total stranger.
"You two," Catalie saw Michael turning his gaze towards the two creatures instead of talking to Yuki.
"Growl, if you understand me,"
"GRRRR!"
The two of them let out an angry growl, indicating they could understand him.
"I''ll give you a choice. Let her go, and I won''t kill you,"
Michael looked at the dead bodies lying on the ground for a moment before looking at them again.
"Do anything else, you will join them,"
"Ghost," Catalie came to his side,
"What are you doing? They would kill her,"
"No they won''t," Michael didn''t whisper but said loud enough for everyone to hear her.
"You are not going to kill her. So save us some time by dropping your des. Don''t struggle. It''ll only make your death more painful,"
"GRRRRRR!"
They roared instead of letting her go.
"I will count to three. If you didn''t let her go by then, I''d kill you,"
Michael stretched his arms and began to count,
"One¡."
"Two¡"
The skinless creatures looked at each other, but before they could hear another word from Michael''s mouth, their heads exploded.
"Time''s up,"
Chapter 559: Arrora, The White Death
Chapter 559: Arrora, The White Death"What just happened?" Amaryll stood there with her eyes wide open. She was bewildered. One moment Ghost was talking to the cannibals and the next moment, their heads exploded. Except for Knight, no one had clearly seen what just happened.
In Knight''s mind, he reyed the scene. After he counted two, he raised his hands and fired two lightning bolts which went straight through the cannibals'' heads.
That was the glimpse of his full power. If he had fought without holding back, Amaryll and Kotar wouldn''t have seen him.
"He wanted us to see him," Knight mumbled under his breath.
"Yuki," Amaryll shouted when she saw Yuki''s bloody face. Her face was covered in the cannibal''s blood.
"Wait," Knight saw Ghost stopping Catalie from getting close to Yuki,
"Tell Knight to meet us in a secured room,"
"Why?" Catalie questioned Michael,
"Just do it,"
"Catalie, do what he says," Knight ordered Catalie,
"Kotar, go check on Arwen," Knight dismissed Kotar and when he was about to take a step, Knight stopped him.
"Keep your mouth shut about everything,"
"Yes General Knight,"
Kotar bowed before leaving the room. Afterward, Knight took Amaryll with him to one of the secret rooms in the castle.
Meanwhile back in the withered forest, Michael approached Yuki. She was shivering as Michael stomped the ground, making the corroded de fly into his hand.
"I''ll take this," the corroded de disappeared into his system storage as Michael looked at Catalie.
"We can go now,"
Catalie finally heaved a sigh of relief,
"Catalie,e to room number eighteen," Catalie heard Knight''s voice and then teleported Ghost and Yuki to room eighteen.
In a second, Michael appeared in a brightly lit oval-shaped room in Everlight castle. Knight and Amaryll were already waiting for them.
"Yuki!" Amaryll tried to dash towards Yuki when he saw her but Knight grabbed her by the shoulder.
"Wait," Knight shook his head, telling her not to take another step toward Yuki. Amaryll was confused but listened to Knight without uttering another word.
"What?" When Amaryll turned her head, she saw the dark lines on Knight''s forehead.
"Knight?" she asked confused by Knight''s behavior.
"Lady Amaryll. Who is he? What''s happening here?" Yuki stuttered as tears gushed out of her eyes.
Even Catalie had no idea what was going on here. Instead of exining, Michael conjured his alchemy mes. Under their curious gazes, Michael threw in some herbs and ingredients he bought from the system into the alchemy fire.
Yuki tried to walk toward Amaryll but an invisible force forced her to stay still. She couldn''t move a muscle.
"Are you going to tell what''s happening or not?" Amaryll asked,
"Wait Amaryll. Everything will make sense in a few minutes," Michael answered as he continued to refine the ingredients.
Even a few minutes felt so long to Amaryll. Finally, she saw a red pill emerge from his emerald green fire.
"Take this," Michael''s fire disappeared as he reached out the pill to Yuki,
However, the girl frantically shook her head,
"No. Lady Amaryll. General Knight, what is this?" she shouted,
"Swallow it Yuki," After sensing the seriousness in Knight''s voice, Amaryll chose not to question him further until he exins everything to her. But one thing for sure, there was definitely something wrong with Yuki0. Otherwise, Knight wouldn''t have asked Yuki to consume the unknown pill concocted by Ghost.
"It''s not gonna kill you Yuki. On contrary, it will heal you," Michael stepped toward Yuki as she tried to walk away from him but she simply couldn''t.
Michael grabbed Yuki''s face and squeezed her jaws, opening her mouth forcefully.
"NNNOOOOO!"
Amaryll and Catalie were stunned by the change in Yuki''s voice. It was an animalistic roar that shook the entire room. She squirmed and screamed against the invisible force as Knight frowned. Even a powerful being like him felt difficulty holding her down.
"Yuki," Amaryll mumbled, looking at Yuki''s eyes flicker in red. While Yuki was trying to release herself from Knight, Michael forcefully put the pill into her mouth and shut it close.
"Hrrmmmmmmm!" her muffled cry barely escaped her mouth. Meanwhile, the pill slowly melted into her mouth.
After a few seconds, Michael let her go of her face and so did Knight.
"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!" as soon as Michael let her go, she copsed to her knees and screamed louder than any human possibly could.
Her roar sent a chill running through Amaryll''s spine. Looking at Yuki scratching her own face, Amaryll and Catalie stepped closer to Knight in fear.
"What''s happening to her Knight?" Amaryll asked Knight.
"She was being controlled by the cannibals," Michael answered Amaryll instead.
Meanwhile, Yuki began to cough up blood as dark as midnight and squirmed like a fish out of the water on the ground.
"The cannibals expected Don to rescue her. That''s why they turned her into a human bomb," Michael''s words stunned them.
"What?" Catalie raised her brows,
"Knight?" Amaryll turned her gaze towards Knight as he nodded,
"I suspected Yuki''s been controlled by the cannibals for quite some time. Someone was leaking information only we know to the cannibals. Don and I suspected this,"
"Then¡how did he know?" Amaryll looked at Ghost.
"I told him," Knight surprised Catalie and Amaryll yet again.
Knight possessed an ability to talk to people telepathically. When Knight shook Michael''s hands, he told him everything about his suspicions to Michael. In return, Michael surprised Knight by responding to him telepathically using the system.
The words they exchanged were never heard by Catalie or Amaryll.
Knight suspicious however took a dark turn when Michael saw the skinless creatures making her drink something. Michael saw the whole thing thanks to the Spyder he sent inside the tent.
As an alchemist, he immediately recognized the two potions they made Yuki drink. One was simr to his blood tonic but far less efficient and powerful. The other one temporarily made the creatures control Yuki. Unfortunately, the potion could only be used in Don''s universe because the potion used battle energy.
After screaming and squirming for a few more minutes, Yuki finally lost consciousness.
"Let her sleep for another six hours and she would be fine. Although if I were her, I''d stay away from training for a few weeks,"
Catalie waved her hand as she disappeared along with Yuki.
"We still have to find who gave her the mind-controlling potion," Knight said.
"No need," Another calm voice resonated in the room as Michael turned his head to see a young woman dressed in all white entering the room. She was not as pretty as Amaryll but she had a certain charm that Amaryllpletelycked. Her silky smooth skin and her toned body indicated hours of the battle of training. As she walked gracefully, her raven ck hair fluttered in the wind. Above everything, her slightly pointed ears clearly showed Michael her Half-elf race.
"Arrora," Amaryll finally let out a relieved smile seeing Arrora.
"You must be Ghost. It''s an honor to meet you atst," Arrora greeted Michael with a gentle friendly smile.
"Here''s your rat," with a flick of her wrist, she took out a severed head and threw it on the floor,
Michael saw the head still has its eyes opened. If he was right, the person didn''t even know how he died.
"You must be the white death the soldiers were talking about," Michael greeted her back with a smile.
If she was in his universe, the entire world would be afraid of her. Because she was at the peak of Fusion stage. He could literally sense the energy radiating from her. Unlike Knight or Don, he was able to see her cultivation level.
"My foes call me that. You can call me Arrora,"
"Soon to be Arrora Don," Amaryll giggled as Amaryll wouldn''t leave a chance to make Arrora blush no matter the situation.
"Thank you for rescuing Yuki, Ghost. Everlight is in your debt," Despite how powerful she was, she didn''t act arrogant or cold like certain someone named Alicia or Celina.
"Enough of this. Amaryll, take Ghost to quarters. I''ll deal with everything else," Knight ordered Amaryll after a quick look at the head rolling on the floor.
Since Michael was tired and wanted to upgrade some of his skills, Michael didn''t disagree with Knight.
"Yuki will be fine right?" Amaryll asked Michael as he nodded,
"Thank you," Amaryll grabbed Michael''s hand and squeezed it.
After leaving Knight and Arrora behind, Michael followed Amaryll to his quarters. On his way, he met several friendly and funny dwarves, charming elves, and curious humans. Regardless of their race, they all seemed so happy without any worry.
"So who ruled this ce before Don?" Michael asked,
"No one. I mean no one for thousands of years. And this ce wasn''t as lively and happy as this before Don. He and Knight built this ce from the scratch,"
Michael was genuinely surprised. Everlight seemed several timesrger than Bradford. Ruling Bradford with no other races was no joke, let alone ruling a ce asrge and popted as Everlight.
His instincts were yet again right on point. When Michael met Don, he got a major kingly vibe from like Don was born to rule. He had such dominance.
Besides, it seemed to Michael that Don surrounded himself with loyal and powerful people such as Amaryll, Arrora, and Knight.
These people were no joke. If they traveled to his universe and regained their cultivation power, they could conquer Elon in an hour. Which brought Michael to his next question, how powerful their enemies would be?
"I wish you are from this universe. I could have set you up with some nicedies here," Amaryll giggled, looking at the girls eyeing Ghost from the distance.
"You guys are taking the fact I''m from another universe so chill," Michael couldn''t help telling Amaryll. As a response to his words, Amaryll just chuckled.
"You are not the only otherworlder in Everlight Ghost,"
Michael suddenly felt so curious about Everlight and quite honestly, he was shocked by the ce. Deep down, Michael wanted to spend some time with them, learning about them and getting stronger with their help.
Chapter 560: The Feast in Everlight
Chapter 560: The Feast in EverlightMichael''s quarter in Everlight castle was an ample hall with an attachedvatory. It had been ages since Michael took a shower, and it took him several minutes to figure out how they built the hot shower. Apparently, Don owns multiple hotel chains that were fitted with shower facilities. ording to Amaryll, people had been waiting for months to book a room in their hotels.
Of course, Michael had ns to expand his restaurant chains and hotels. Still, for now, he just enjoyed the shower before hitting thefy bed located in front of the windows through which Michael saw the angelic sight of Everlight.
Since it was the harvesting time, the paddy fields were blossoming with golden paddy waiting to be harvested by the farmers. So Michael just removed his armor and everything andy in the bed wearing only loose sweatpants.
"It''s time to upgrade the Inventor skill," Michael decided to upgrade his Inventor skill. Although Michael did not know when the shadow realm would pull him back, he treated staying in Everlight like a vacation.
He still had no clear idea why he was in Everlight physically instead of being in his soul form. But as far as he could tell, his future self nned everything.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Soul Refining stage, level 6
Experience Points: 0/600,000
Badass Points: 610,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 6
Ignitia - LVL 8
Lightning Dash - LVL 6
Energy Devouver - LVL 2
Soul Eater - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender. Death Range will be 50% more powerful. If activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 92% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 97% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 15,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
4-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 86%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 55%)
Sadie (loyalty level 50%)
Ricky (loyalty level 98%)
Titus(loyalty level 60%)
Optimus (loyalty level 60%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 90%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
Kingdom of Bradford
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (10% Mastery) Fire (10% Mastery) (Lightning 15% Mastery) (Darkness 25%)
Because of the Ghost Shield, Michael''s Darkness maniption went from 20% to 25%.
At a 5-star inventor level, he could build various types of new gadgets and weapons.
"System, upgrade the Inventor skill to the next level?"
[The upgrade will cost the host 180,000 badass points. Does the host wish to upgrade?]
"Yes"
Without a second thought, Michael confirmed. He was excited to build new gadgets and weapons as well as modify his Lucifer armor further. He already had several ideas to power up Big bertha. The moment he got out of the shadow realm, he nned to visit big bertha and hunt down a few pirates in Big bertha. After that, he couldn''t wait to see the mortars in action.
As usual, he felt acute pain in his brain while the system upgraded the skill to the next level. Then, all of a sudden, Michael''s mind was flooded with new knowledge, new techniques, and a whole lot of blueprints to build new weapons. Coupled with his knowledge of firearms on earth, the -star level enabled him to build a more powerful, efficient version of almost every weapon known to man.
However, Michael felt reluctant to build modern firearms because they could be easily used against him. The thing he loved the most about his new world was its medieval fantasy vibe. No matter what, he wouldn''t ruin the setting. Hence, Michael nned to build new fantasy kinds of weapons using his knowledge of firearms. Besides, most modern firearms wouldn''t stand a chance against cultivators and their spells.
The only way to defeat them would be to build firearms powered that take advantage of Arch and Celestial energy. After upgrading and going through his status window once more, Michael felt his eyes closing up. He felt so exhausted.
Instead of fighting off the sleepiness, Michael closed the system window and closed his eyes. Only an hour passed when someone knocked on Michael''s door.
But Michael was deep in sleep as he didn''t even hear someone knocking on the door. The one who knocked on the door finally stopped knocking after a few knocks and decided to open the door.
"Ghost, you there?" Surprisingly, it was Amaryll who entered the room and saw Michael under the nket sleeping peacefully.
"Should I wake him up?" Michael questioned herself for a few moments until she ultimately decided to wake him up.
"Hello," she gently tapped Michael''s shoulder,
"Hey, wake up. The feast is ready," Her gentle tapping took a turn to a force one. Still, Michael didn''t even move.
Suddenly she just grinned devilishly, licked her palm, and raised her hand to p him on the shoulder. But when she was just a few inches away from him, he grabbed her hand. Her body became stiff as Michael let her hands go.
"It''s rude to hit a sleeping person Amaryll," Michael slowly opened his eyes,
"It''s rude to sleep when everyone is waiting for you," She ruffled Michael''s head as he slowly woke up. He almost forgot he wore no shirt to cover his body, but luckily, the nket covered his body instead.
"Take a bath ande," Amaryll smiled and walked out of the room. After battles, blood, and nning, it felt good to just sit back and rx. There was no one gunning for his life in Don''s universe. Michael even wished there was a way for him toe to Everlight often and spend some time without any worries. Everlight had such a magical effect on him.
He heard his stomach growling. After quickly making his bed, Michael went inside thevatory to take a quick bath. Although he took a bath earlier, he went to take another one because of the hint of blood smelling off of him, courtesy of the skinless creatures he killed.
**********************************
When Michael entered the feast hall following a maid left by Amaryll, he was weed by the sweet aroma of voluptuous food and apple cinnamon candles. The feast hall was almost the size of the great hall of Mazeroth. It was sparkling with candlelight and the great chandeliers hanging from the silver ceiling. numerous long oak tables were ced andid with glittering golden tes and goblets.
There were hundreds of foods on the table and Michael recognized only a few of them such asmb chops, steak, potatoes, meat pies, sandwiches, puddings, tarts, eirs, and jams. At the top of the hall was another long table where the Don, Knight, and a few other new faces were sitting.
While the maids and servants were fixing the meal, Michael could see the dwarves already chugging down mugs of ale like water.
they didn''t stop until Amaryll pped some of them on the head. Despite her status, she was running around with trays asking everyone what they wanted and serving them delicious appetizers.
He could smell the steaming off of the meat. The aroma of the brown sugar was music to his soul. When Michael entered the room, almost every single one in the room turned their heads to the doorway and stared at him. For a few moments, the room was enveloped in awkward silence. The next moment however, the entire hall erupted into cheers. They gave Michael a standing ovation as he walked toward Don and Knight.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]
¡.
Michael was too surprised by their gesture. The increasing badass points elevated his mood a couple of times. While he approached Don''s table, Knight pointed to the empty chair next to Don.
As soon as Michael sat beside Don, the citizens stopped cheering and returned to their seats. Most of them were stunned to see the resemnce between Michael and Don, especially how they dressed.
Michael''s robes were pure ck with no colors whatsoever, while Don''s armor had silver linings and a hood to cover his head.
"I heard what you did, thank you," when Michael saw beside him, Don thanked him.
"You did save my life back there," Michael smiled, unlike Don, who had no expression on his face.
Quickly a girl with bunny ears approached the table to refill Michael''s empty ss with wine,
"I don''t drink booze. Can you give me water or any kind of fruit juice?"
Amaryll, who came to serve Michael, was stunned by his words. She just gawked at Don and Michael for a moment,
"You''re just like him. Are you rted to him or something?" Michael noticed the water in Don''s ss and realized Amaryll''s words. To be honest, Michael shared the exact thought as Amaryll.
He wondered if he and Don had some kind of connection.
"Let''s eat first. Then we will talk about what you''re looking for," Don ignored Amaryll''s question and said to Michael in a low-pitched voice. For some reason, Michael felt Don was aware of what he was looking for in the key.
But for now, Michael decided to enjoy the feast with the friendly people of Everlight. After all, the dishes in front of him looked delicious.
Chapter 561: Origins Of The Queen
Chapter 561: Origins Of The Queen"How''s the meal?" Amaryll didn''t sit beside them but continued to serve everyone. She ran around the hall, making everyone eat more than their stomachs could bear.
Her hospitality didn''t spare even Michael. After eating almost twenty different delicious dishes, Michael was stuffed.
"It was delicious," Michael said, making Amaryll grin widely.
If Michael had to guess, whoever cooked the meals must be at a 6-star chef level because the meals were more delicious than Raylene''s cooking.
After Michael filled the little bit of emptiness in his stomach with hot water, Catalie appeared in the hall.
"The usual ce?" she asked Amaryll,
"Don?" Amaryll pouted and looked at Don with puppy eyes,
"Why not?"
"Thank you!" she dashed at Don and hugged him tightly.
Michael was confused, wondering what was going on, but soon he received his answer when Catalie teleported him to another ce. In a blink of an eye, Michael and everyone previously sat behind the long oak table that appeared under a big apple tree on a small hill.
Michael was immediately captivated by the most beautiful scenery in front of him. He could see the entire Everlight from up here as well as the bigke across the fields.
As the light drained away, there was barely enough even for shadows. Whether one liked it or not, the darkness arrived and nketed everything. Even the stars and moon cowered behind a denseyer of cloud in the sky, giving the air a cold tincture.
Everlight''s beauty came from its nature. Rather than destroying nature to build things, the citizens of Everlight seemed to have learned to coexist with nature. Hence, there were so many trees that decorated the kingdom.
These trees were crazy silhouettes against the newly silver sky, its blue hue almost gone until dawn. Their branches swayed in the wind, creaking into the gusting air. Then, finally, the first sound of the nocturnal animals arrived, a hoot of an owl, a rabbit taking cover in the hedgerow.
Theke in the distance mirrored the cloudy sky and the moon peeking through the clouds as the trees had hidden their bold greens. Finally, dusk was the time to move into the shadowless world.
Michael just stared at the sight before him without batting an eye. He was simply speechless. At that moment, Michael had a fire in his heart to settle somewhere he would feel like what he feels right now.
"Pretty, isn''t it?" Knight asked as he came beside him with Don.
Michael nodded, standing between Don and Knight. The trio stared at the scenery together.
"You guys created a beautiful ce. d I could be of help,"
"Don''t let the serenity fool you Ghost," Knight said as Michael turned his head towards Knight,
"Every day is a battle to keep this ce as it is,"
"I don''t know when I will be pulled back to my universe. But until then, let me know if you need anything,"
Michael patted Knight on the shoulder,
"You''ve already done enough for us, Ghost. Now tell us what we can do to help you?" Don asked Michael,
"You boys get back here when you''re done with boy talks," Amaryll shouted from behind. Michael looked over his shoulder to see Amaryll, Arrora, and Catalie sitting under the apple tree and picking up a few apples to snack on.
"I am looking for something called the Key. Apparently, the queen is also looking for it,"
"The queen, huh? That''s what you call her," eximed Knight,
"What do you call her?"
"Aathreya. That''s her real name," Knight answered Michael,
"Couple of years ago, we didn''t even know she existed,"
"I just knew about her a few hours ago," Michael sighed,
"Where did you hear from her? Those cannibals aren''t the very talkative type,"
"To be honest guys, this isn''t the first universe I visited. Beforeing here, I went to two other universes. I was fortunate to meet someone who knows a lot more about the queen,"
Of course, Michael couldn''t say he first heard about the queen from the system when he killed the skinless creatures. Hence, Michael altered the truth a bit. Since Michael felt no need to hide from Knight and Don about traveling to other universes, he told them about it.
"Hunter?" As soon as Michael heard the name from Knight''s mouth, Michael raised his brows.
"You know him?"
"Yeah. One tough son of a bitch, isn''t he?" Knight chuckled,
"The only one who killed Aathreya''s soul piece," Finally, Don opened his mouth, and by the tone of his voice, Michael could tell Don was surprised and shocked by Hunter.
"And crazy enough to try to absorb her soul piece," Knight burst intoughter, but just like Don, he too seemed startled by Hunter''s feat.
"When and where did you guys meet him?"
"Shadow Realm. It was unfortunate we were just there for a couple of minutes and didn''t have the chance to meet that crazy son of a bitch," Knight sighed,
"But, he seemed to have met you,"
"Might be a different timeline,"
Don''s words made sense to Michael. Hunter, Draven, Michael, Don, and Knight traveled to other universes in different timelines. So Michael felt he might meet some of them in the future in his own universe.
"When we went to his universe, we didn''t meet him," Knight exined.
"But we all seemed to share amon enemy, didn''t we?"
Michael nodded,
"What do you guys know about her? Damn it, I have enough enemies and problems as it is. Now I have to deal with her. Give me a break,"
"You don''t have to worry about her. The other soul pieces cannot do anything until we defeat her here. Maybe scream and pull some illusions if youe across them. Otherwise, they will remain dormant,"
Finally, Michael received some good news from Knight.
"What do you mean?"
"No one knows her origins, but she belonged to this universe when she was alive. So the main part of her soul is here somewhere in this world. Until we wake it up and defeat it, the others will not and cannot do anything. We are not in a rush to face her. Just like you, we already have enough enemies,"
"That''s good news, sort of. Have you met one of her generals?"
"Not yet, but I have a feeling we will soon," Knight said.
"So if her soul is in pieces, that means someone else broke her. Am I right?" After connecting the dots, Michael concluded that someone else had battled Aathreya.
"The Guardian Gods before us," said Don as usual without showing any emotion.
"ording to the ancient scripts left by the civilization before us, Aathreya was a goddess of war. Something made her go to the dark side. That''s all we know. We have no records of the one who defeated her and broke her into pieces," Knight exhaled and continued,
"Imagine how powerful she must have been when she was whole,"
"Imagine how powerful the god who defeated her must be," Michael couldn''t even fathom the power of the god who defeated Aathreya. A single general created by Aathreya was powerful enough to destroy Michael''s words in a few hours.
But thanks to Knight''s information, Michael calmed down as he had no need to worry about Aathreya until Don dealt with the soul piece in his world. Fortunately, Michael had a feeling Don was more than capable of destroying her soul piece.
To be honest, Michael decided not to worry about Aathreya until he first dealt with the Skyhall and the great eight ns. There was no point in worrying about her and the hydra at this point in time.
"So what about the key? You know anything about it?"
Unfortunately, Knight shook his head,
"No idea, but if the shadow realm brought you here, it must have its own reason. Who knows, maybe you got what it intended for you to,"
Michael looked around Everlight and took a deep breath.
"Maybe I did,"
Surprisingly, Michael did not feel disappointed. Instead, he felt satisfied. Bying to Don''s universe, Michael received a legendary item, learned more about the queen, and made some powerful friends. Moreover, he felt rxed. It had been so long since he loosened up a bit and enjoyed the calmness.
"Enough about Aathreya and her fanatics. Tell me about yourself and your world Ghost,"
"Hey we need to hear that too. Ghoste here," Amaryll shouted from behind as Michael smiled.
"Let''s go," Don turned around, walked towards Amaryll, and sat beside Arrora, leaning back on the tree.
"I am sorry Ghost," Knight said after lying on the ground.
"Why?"
"She is going to ask you so many questions,"
"Shut up, Knight. Don''t believe him Ghost,"
"It''s okay," Michael smiled,
"But let me ask you a question first," Since they were all here, Michael decided to ask the question that had been nagging his brain since he arrived at Everlight.
"Why do you guys trust me so much? You shared so much with me when you just met me a few hours ago. What makes you think I''m so trustable?"
Asked Michael.
"We trust you because we trust Reghys," Amaryll giggled,
"Besides, you came from another world. What reason might you have to harm us?"
"Hmm," Michael nodded.
"Speaking of Reghys, where is she?" Arrora asked, resting her head on Don''s shoulder.
"She''s with Lia,"
"I wish I could eat some of these," Suddenly Catalie looked at the apple in Michael''s hand and sighed.
"Just wait a few more months Cat. We will find you a suitable body," Knight said as Amaryll rolled her eyes.
"This time, try to bring a body of a young girl instead of an old man''s body,"
As soon as Amaryll mocked Knight, Michael was taken aback by surprise.
"The first thing I am gonna do tomorrow is dispose of that body," Knight growled.
"Well, if you don''t mind, can I take a look at the body?"
Amaryll frowned,
"Why?"
Amaryll couldn''t think of a reason why Ghost might want to take a look at an empty body void of soul.
"Because I have a demon butler and he needs a physical body,"
Chapter 562: Goodbye Everlight
Chapter 562: Goodbye Everlight
"You have a demon for a butler?" Amaryll was stunned.
Michael looked at Knight curiously, thinking whether they have demons or not in their world.
"I don''t think we have demons in this world. At Least we haven''te across one yet," Knight chuckled.
"I have one, but he''s in an ethereal form,"
"Just like me huh?" Catalie asked Michael.
"Hmm,"
"Catalie, bring the body here. We have no need for it anyway," Knight immediately ordered Catalie. Although Catalie could inhabit the body to take physical form, they preferred to get her a physical body suitable for her gender and age.
"Okie Dokie," Catalie disappeared from their sight as Amaryll raised another question.
"Do you miss your family, Ghost?"
"I would have if I had one,"
Michael''s calm words shocked Amaryll. Everyone turned their gazes at Michael.
"I am so sorry. You poor thing,"
"Can I ask what happened to them?"
"Amaryll," Knight growled, but Michael waved hi shand, wordlessly telling Knight that he didn''t mind.
"Only thing I know about them is they throw me away willingly,"
Don, who was looking at the horizon, turned his gaze towards Michael. He could see the sadness and pain within Ghost''s eyes. Even though Ghost tried to hide it, Don could see it.
It felt to Don like he was looking at himself in the mirror.
Michael, on the other hand, noticed the sadness emerging in Amaryll''s eyes,
"But I have people who care about me more than my family ever did," Michael emphasized the word ''family''
"I am d to hear that. Do that people include a young girl or girls?"
"Again, I am sorry you have to sit here and take her way into someone''s personal life questions,"
"Do you mind Ghost?" Amaryll stuck her tongue out at Knight and asked Ghost. Thetter just shook his head and didn''t get annoyed by Amaryll because Ghost liked Amaryll. Unlike the elves Michael met in his world, she seemed to be a quirky, funny, caring elf.
"See Knight, he doesn''t mind," Amaryll threw an apple aiming at Knight''s head, and continued questioning Ghost.
"Yeah. I have one. And in fact," Michael raised his finger, showing the engagement ring on his finger.
"You''re married? Wait no, engaged?"
Michael nodded.
"Wonderful. I wish I had met her," suddenly Amaryll burst into a chuckle,
"Something funny?" Arrora asked.
"I just thought about what she would be called after marrying him. Lady Ghost, hehehe. What''s up with that name anyway?" asked Amaryllughing.
"I don''t exist, yet I exist. You won''t know me until you meet me, and you won''t live to tell the tale. Hence Ghost,"
"You are an assassin, aren''t you?"
As soon as Michael uttered these words, Knight asked.
"Why?"
"The way you fought and moved. You mixed warrior style into yourbat, but the way of the assassins is still there. That''s your base. I saw that,"
Knight''s words showed Michael the experience Knight had in battle. Just by looking at how he fought, Knight guessed Michael''s origin as the assassin,"
"I am back," as they were talking, Catalie appeared again. Beside her, there was a ss casket with a body inside. Except for the lower body parts, which were covered by a white cloth, the rest was naked.
The body belonged to a half-elf in histe teens, maybe twenty-nine or twenty-eight. His dark brown hair reached his shoulder. The body was tall and extremely muscr, but not like a bodybuilder. The body was several inches taller than Michael himself.
"System, can I give this body to Azazel?"
[Yes. But this body does not belong to the host''s world. So the system would require 50,000 badass points to adjust the body to fit Azazel''s soul]
"What about transportation? How do I bring the body from Don''s universe to mine?"
The badass points weren''t Michael''s concern. Rather, he worried about how to take the body with him. Usually, anything that weighed more than 30kg and cannot be lifted by a normal human being couldn''t be put into the system storage or any space rings.
[Since the body does not have a soul. It''s basically just a shell. The host can cut them into pieces and store them in the system storage. After reaching your universe, you can merge the parts together. Of course, the system would require 20,000 badass points to do so]
"No shit," Michael chuckled inside. He expected it because the system would do basically nothing without badass points.
Finally, Michael heaved a sigh of relief and crossed one task off his to-do list. Recently, he felt like he had so many things to do.
Thetest_epi_sodes are on_the NOVELNB.COM website.
He had to help Gaya take over her kingdom and take revenge on her family, find Gaya''s mother, assassinate Tanulia, get rid of guardians and vampires, fight the eight great ns, save sect leader ire''s mother, and reduce Thusia kingdom to ashes. These were just a few things on his list.
At least with the body, he had one less thing to do.
Michael stood up from the grassy ground and walked towards the ss casket.
"We brought it from an ancient ruin. It''s really amazing how the body remained in this condition for thousands of years,"
"He didn''t seem like he died of old age. Neither there any cuts nor wounds in his body,"
After hearing Knight, Michael guessed it was either someone had created the body or sucked the soul out of it. Just like Michael did to Wilkas.
"It''s only collecting dust in our storage. If you have a way to take it with you, feel free," Knight said.
"How is he going to do that? It''s not a shield to put it inside a space ring," Amaryll questioned Knight,
"Unless his space ring works differently from ours," Arroramented.
Under their curious gazes, Michael ced his hand on the ss.
"Can you open it?"
Catalie nodded, waving her hand as the ss between them slowly vanished.
"What are you nning?" Amaryll asked but quickly closed her mouth when she saw Ghost unsheathing his swords.
"When you have a big problem, cut it into smaller pieces,"
Michael calmly said before shing the body with his two swords. He moved so quickly that Amaryll could only see a blur.
When he stopped cutting, the body remained intact. At atleast for a few moments. Then, the body crumbled onto the ground, quickly disappearing from the ground.
"Problem solved,"
For a few moments, everyone was stunned. They couldn''t help wondering how Ghost nned to piece together the body.
"Thank you for the body," Michael smiled, breaking the silence.
"Well now I don''t have to listen to the dwarves saying I should take the body," Catalie was pleased to see the body disappearing from the casket. Hence, sheughed happily.
With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a parchment from his space ring.
"Before I forget, take this," Michael gave the parchment to Knight.
"This contains the procedure, ingredients, and the form to create an antiserum for corroded de and potion to wake anyone from theira state/ this is the least I can do for what you''ve done to me,"
Michael felt truly grateful towards them. They did not only give him a Legendary Shield, but they also gave a body to Azazel. Although it seemed like a normal body, Michael felt immense power from the body. If his gut feeling was right, the body would be worth millions.
Moreover, the way they treated Michael earned them his respect and love. They treated him like one of their own and calmed his mind and soul, which helped Michael more than anyone would expect.
At that time, Michael just wished he could travel to other universes more often, especially to Everlight.
Unfortunately, he began to feel the sucking force. Don surprised Michael by looking at the sky,
"It seems like your time in this world is up,"
"It''s been some years since I felt this force," A gentle smile indicated sorrow and gloom on Knight''s face.
"Don, can''t you stop it?" Amaryll grabbed Michael''s hands tightly.
"Even if I can, I won''t, Amaryll. He has to return to his own world," said Don as the others took a deep breath and prepared to send off Michael.
"If fate permits, we will meet again Amaryll," Michael squeezed Amaryll''s shoulder with a smile.
"Take this," Don took out a ck card just like the one Hunter gave Michael from his space ring.
"I think you already know how this works," Knight said as Michael nodded. These two obviously had more secrets than they let him know. But, of course, Michael did not me them as he had his own secrets too.
As seconds passed, Michael felt the sucking force getting stronger and stronger. Finally, his feet almost started to rise from the ground.
"Remember Ghost. Do not judge anyone before knowing the full story,"
Michael did not understand the reason behind Don''s words. It was sudden and unexpected. But Michael had no time to ask Don regarding his words as he was pulled upwards by the suction force.
"I hope we meet again Ghost," Knight waved with a smile, and so did Arrora and Amaryll. To Michael''s surprise, Amaryll even shed some tears for him.
"Man, I wish I could stay for a couple of days here," while floating in the sky, Michael looked at the beauty of Everlight and sighed.
[Then the host should earn more badass points]
The system almost sounded like it was yelling at Michael.
"Unfortunately, this is not the time for a vacation system. I still have so much to do," Michael sighed inside and waved back at them.
The very next moment, the suction force pulled back Michael from Everlight. A split second before Everlight disappeared from his sight, Michael saw a ghostly figure of a dark figure with thousands of arms hovering over Everlight.
"The queen," Michael mumbled as everything around him turned pitch ck. Finally, his tour to other universes came to an end.
Only one thing remained in the Shadow realm: the key. That was Michael''sst destination before returning to the Southern continent. However, he had no idea of the surprise waiting for him at the end of his journey in Shadow Realm.
Chapter 563: Deadly Ambush
Chapter 563: Deadly AmbushLike gum from someone''s mouth, the shadow realm spat out Michael.
Bang!
Michael hit the wall beside Sabrina with enough force to break his shoulder bone.
"Ghost!" Sabrina was startled. One moment Ghost was with her, and the next, he came flying from the opposite side. She didn''t fail to hear the sickening crunching sound from his shoulder. His entire right arm looked crooked, but soon, it started to mend itself to its normal state.
"What just happened?" Sabrina whispered frantically, looking around for the monster. But luckily, she heard no footsteps.
Michael''s stomach growled as everything turned blurry.
"Argh," Michael gritted his teeth, enduring the pain of a broken shoulder. Thanks to the APD, the healing potion had already started to mend his arm.
He grabbed the wall with his left hand and slowly picked himself from the ground. While Sabrina was looking at him bewildered, Michael took deep breaths.
"The monster. It''s gone," Sabrina heaved a sigh of relief when she looked around the corner.
"Let''s go," Michael didn''t even take a rest but walked around the corner to continue their journey.
He had a feeling the journey wasing to an end.
"What the hell was that?" Sabrina asked Michael. There was definitely something happened in a split second, and she wanted an exnation.
"What do you mean what just happened? I just got hit by the monster," Michael lied.
"One second, I was with you, and the next, some invisible force threw me around like a rag doll," Michael stretched his back while lying to her.
"We should get the hell out of here before that monsteres," Michael eximed. He did not need to tell Sabrina that the monster was dead when they traveled to another universe. Although the people in his world believed in other realms and other worlds, they had no idea there were other universes out there.
Even the Shadow realm was a myth to them, let alone the other universes. Michael liked to keep it that way. Thest thing Michael wanted was Noah to start investigating the Shadow realm and the other universes.
Sabrina believed Ghost because his words made sense. Aftering out of Everlight, Michael did not speak much. Instead, his brain reyed Don''sst words to him, and Michael tried to make sense of those words.
"What did he mean by that?" Michael questioned himself.
Luckily for Michael, Hunter cleaned up most of the skinless creatures in the shadow realm. Thus, they came across no creatures. Eventually, after walking for another hour, the rune on Sabrina''s hand glowed brighter than usual and let out a low-pitched whistling sound.
"Ghost," Sabrina raised her hand to see the rune pulsing like a heart.
"I think we are close to the key," Michael said.
Instead of moving forward, Michael quickly sent his drones into the two branching ways in front of them. However, the drones refused to enter the paths as though an invisible shield prevented them from flying through.
"What should we do?" Sabrina asked.
"What else can we do?" Michael raised her hand toward the path and noticed the rune glowing brighter when he pointed her hand towards the right path.
Michael did not like walking on an unknown path. Even the system let him down, saying its level is too low to break the energy shield.
It was definitely a risk, but Michael had no choice. ording to what he learned in Etheria, the key might let the queen open portals to other universes.
Michael connected the dots and concluded that something was stopping the queen from traveling to other universes. However, the key was something that could remedy the situation in her favor.
If Michael could take the key for himself, he could stop a future threat sessfully.
"What''s stopping the queen from getting the key?" Michael asked himself. She definitely had minions roaming around the ce. So if the key was here, she would have tried to take the key for herself.
But something told Michael she didn''t get the key yet. ording to Hunter, he forgot what happened except killing the skinless creatures in the Shadow realm.
Michael even began to question whether the key was still here or not. Yet, despite everything, he was d he came to the shadow realm. Otherwise, he couldn''t have received the Ghost Shield, a physical body for Azazel, and met new people, including his fellow earthman, Hunter de.
While Michael was recalling his journey from the beginning from the ind to getting out of Everlight, he felt the air suddenly get chillier.
"Ghost," Sabrina also sensed the change in the air. Both of them stopped to look around the ce. As far as they could see, there was nothing but dark walls around them.
Michael used his thermal vision to ensure no one was around them and saw nothing.
"Let''s keep our guards up," Michael and Sabrina cautiously took steps forward, expecting trouble any second.
The surroundings turned darker and gloomier than usual. The more they walked, the chiller the air became. At one point, Michael conjured his Alchemy mes to keep their bodies warm. But, because Michael was expecting trouble, he did not dare to fly and waste his arch energy.
An hourter, the rune on Sabrina''s light started to radiate a dim emerald green light. Again, they saw no branching ways but a dead end before them.
"There''s no way," Sabrina whispered, standing close to Michael''s alchemy mes.
"The key must be somewhere here," Michael once again looked around to find any clues or something out of ce.
Whoosh!
Suddenly a strong gust of wind put out Michael''s alchemy mes. But although they lost the green mes, Sabrina''s rune glowed bright enough to light the gloomy ce.
"What was that?" Sabrina frantically looked around until she noticed a blood stain on the ground several meters ahead.
When she turned her head to inform Ghost, she noticed his gaze already locked onto the blood stain. He slowly made his way towards the blood stain.
"It''s still warm," Michael squatted, touched the blood, and informed Sabrina.
"What does it mean?" Sabrina clenched her sword tight while frantically looking around.
She kept waving her hand as though her hand was a torchlight.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Michael said to himself, looking at therge blood stain on the ground.
Michael was about to stand up when the ce suddenly turned red, like it was lit with several crimson red lights.
Cring!
Michael''s neck hair stood up, sensing the sudden danger, but he was toote to react. Several belts made of energy coiled around Michael and prevented him from moving his arms.
Michael squirmed against the belts only to fail. They were too strong. Even after using all his strength, he couldn''t even move his arms an inch.
At that time, several figures appeared out of thin air and surrounded them.
"GHOST!" Sabrina tried to dash at Michael,
Boom!
A strong gust of wind sted Sabrina to the wall behind her. She copsed onto the wall and fell, coughing up blood. The sword in her hand slipped out due to the sh.
Michael squirmed against the belts while trying to summon the system.
"Damn it, system. Don''t go offline now!" Michael screamed inside his mind, trying to summon the system. On the other hand, more and more cloaked figures appeared out of thin air and encircled Michael and Sabrina.
[The host doesn''t have enough badass points to break the cursed chains!]
The system''s words made Michael''s heart skip a beat.
Sabrina struggled to pick herself from the ground, and when she finally did, a cloaked figure grabbed her by her hair. She tried to fight, but the cloaked figure simply swatted the sword off her hand.
Every single cloaked figure radiated the energy of a Soul Refiner, and the man who grabbed Sabrina was at the Fusion Stage level. The cloaked figure dragged her by the hair without mercy and threw her against the wall beside Michael.
Michael counted eleven cloaked figures. One was at the Fusion stage, and the rest were all at the Soul Refining stage. There was no way Michael could defeat them.
"ARGHH!" Michael growled as he used every bit of strength in his body to break the strings around him. Even if he could break them, he didn''t know how to escape the ce.
As he growled, a cloaked figure dashed at Michael and banged his head against the wall. Michael''s forehead split open as the blood gushed out. As a result, his vision blurred.
Not only the strings prevented Michael from moving his limbs, but they also stopped him from casting spells. In other words, the strings blocked the arch energy flow in his body. Thus making him powerless.
No matter how hard Michael squirmed, he simply couldn''t break the strings.
On the other hand, the cloaked figure that threw Sabrina against the wall repeatedly kicked her in the gut until she began coughing more blood.
Michael was not in a better state as he got his head banged against the wall by the cloaked figure behind him. Nevertheless, the APD kept injecting him with healing potions into his bloodstream, which helped Michael from losing consciousness.
Unfortunately, Sabria had no APD. the dark cloaked figure kicked her until she stopped twitching.
"Leave¡leave her alone¡" Michael stuttered.
"Tricky little bugger," Michael heard the deep beastly voiceing from the dark figure at the Fusion stage level.
In a blink of an eye, the dark figure appeared before Michael and grabbed Michael''s wrist.
"ARGGHHH" Michael growled in pain as the dark figure crushed his wrist, destroying the APD.
"Beg for your life," the figure ran his finger across Michael''s bloody face.
"Why¡why don''t you¡remove these¡strings¡first?" Michael snarled, showing no signs of fear in his eyes.
"Bloodsucker," Michael spat blood onto the figure''s face and roared like a wounded beast.
The dark figure hid his face with the dark cloak, but despite Michael''s blurry vision, he saw the two long fangs sticking out of his mouth.
"We prefer the term, Nightwalkers,"
As the dark figure eximed, the figures slowly removed their cloaks, revealing their fangs and faces.
Michael couldn''t even guess how they managed to enter the shadow realm. He did not even sense them despite all of his countermeasures. One thing was sure to Michael, he was in for a deadly ride.
Chapter 564 Sabrinas sacrifice
The Fusion Stage vampire had nted obsidian eyes with slitted pupils that could extend on stalks. His mouth had prominent fangs as the red hair was more a set of spines than anything else. Unlike the rest of the tall, thin as stick vampires, he had a graceful build.
"You killed our brethren," the vampire came closer to Michael and licked the blooding off of Michael''s forehead.
As soon he tasted Michael''s blood, he jolted.
"This blood¡wow¡" The vampire looked speechless.
"I have never tasted such powerful blood. This must be why you are so over the top in cultivation,"
Each vampire wanted a taste of Michael''s blood. But fortunately, the leader decided to beat up Michael to near death before drinking his blood.
"Nightwalker? Cowards suit you better," Michael growled.
Bang!
The vampire behind Michael banged Michael''s head against the wall yet again.
"Leave¡him¡alone¡" Sabrina reached out for Ghost, only to get her hands crushed by the Fusion Stage vampire.
"Why don''t we properly introduce ourselves huh?" the vampire''s cold voice echoed through the gloomy dungeon.
"I am Zarathor. One of the many elders,"
Zarathor punched Michael the moment he finished introducing himself and raised Michael off the ground by his neck.
"And you are Ghost, the human who killed one of us,"
Bang!
Zarathor punched Michael in the face, instantly breaking Michael''s nose.
At that time, Sabrina struggled to get herself up. But, unfortunately, Zarathor turned his gaze towards Sabrina.
"The rune bearer," Zarathor picked Sabrina from the ground by her glowing hand.
"You have onest task to perform," Zarathor pped Sabrina, almost making her lose consciousness.
He dragged her to the wall before them and ced her glowing hand on the wall. The wall pulled her hand like a ma. With his blurry vision, Michael saw the wall trembling violently.
Michael was still looking for a way to escape without revealing his other identity. He wasn''t sure if he could kill all of them in his Dark Lord form. In case a vampire escaped the ce alive, he would be in a heap of trouble. At that time, the entire Skyhall and the Guardians would be at his doorsteps.
But he saw no other way than turning into a Dark Lord. The vampires were simply too strong to fight as Ghost.
Several momentster, the wall slowly crumbled down, revealing an empty hollow.
"Where is the key?" Zarathor creased his brows. He put his hand inside the hollow to search for the key but found nothing.
Just like everyone else, Michael was startled by the twist too. After dealing with everything, he learned that the key had already been taken by someone else.
Hunter''s face came before Michael''s eyes. But after recalling Hunter''s words, Michael didn''t think Hunter had taken the key.
"Where is the key?" Zarathor turned his gaze towards Sabrina.
Zarathor grabbed Sabrina''s neck, starting to squeeze her neck. Her face slowly turned purple as she twitched violently for air. Looking at Sabrina slowly dying, the images of the first time they met, their journey, and how she nketed him with a smile shed across Michael''s eyes.
"System, take a loan and break the strings,"
[Even if the host took the maxim amount of loan, you would stillck points to break the strings]
Taking a loan was Michael''sst line of defense. He clenched his fist after hearing the system''s words.
"I know where the key is," Michael stuttered.
As soon as Zarathor heard Michael, he took his gaze away from Sabrina.
"Where?" asked Zarathor.
"Leave her alone and I will tell you,"
"If you don''t, I will snap her neck,"
Instead of letting Sabrina go, Zarathor lifted her higher,
"You can''t get the key without her," Michael could barely utter these words due to the intense pain in his head.
Finally, Zarathor released his grip around Sabrina''s neck. She frantically gasped for air on the ground.
"Now tell us,"
"System, can you teleport us out of here?"
[The system cant teleport with the cursed chains around you]
Yet again the system let Michael down. Only by one, every n Michael came up with failed because of the cursed chains around him.
"Tell him," the vampire behind Michael lost his patience. As a result, he kicked Michael in the knee.
"Argh!" Michael growled in pain and to be honest, he wanted to scream out loud. His knee was shattered by the vampire with a single kick. The pain was simply too much.
However, the vampire did not stop with breaking his knees. Instead, the vampire kicked him on the back as Michael hit the ground with enough force to crack his jaw.
"Where is the key?" Zarathor ced his boot on Michael''s face, pressing his face against the floor.
"Let him go," Sabrina struggled to pick herself up, and she did by mustering every bit of strength left in her body.
"Look at these two. ying games," Zarathor burst into a peal of evilughter.
"She has a rune and he has sweet heavenly blood. I am confused about which one to kill you first. Why do I feel like you both have no idea about the key?" Zarathor frowned.
"I said," Sabrina wiped off the blood from the corner of her mouth,
"LET HIM GO!" No one expected Sabrina to suddenly leap at Zarathor except Zarathor. He reacted just in time and grabbed Sabrina by her neck. At that time, Michael was under his boot and Sabrina was in his hand, fighting for her life. But no matter how hard she hit Zarathor''s hand, he did not let her go.
As Zarathor was crushing Michael with his boots, another vampire appeared out of thin air and came rushing to Zarathor. Michael noticed the vampire whispering something into Zarathor''s ear.
"The order directly came from the above?" Zarathor questioned the vampire as the dark figure nodded. Thetter didn''t even notice Michael and Sabrina.
"What a pity," Zarathor sighed.
"Well, an order is an order. I am not good at choosing though," Zarathor looked at both Sabrina and Michael for a moment. Then when he stepped back, another vampire lifted Michael off the ground by his neck.
"So I am in a dilemma," Zarathor put his hand behind his snack and began to walk left and right,
"I have good and bad news. Good news first. Luckily, my superiors want me to leave one of you alive so you would go outside and tell the world not to fuck with Nightwalkers," Zarathor eximed.
"Which brings me to the bad news. Leaving one of you alive means one of you has to die. Here''s why I am in a bind,"
Zarathor pointed his finger at Michael.
"You have a delicious sweet blood I have never tasted in my life,"
Then he pointed his finger at Sabrina,
"You have the rune, which is probably something we might need in the future,"
Zarathor rubbed his chin, pretending to be conflicted.
"So, who should I let live?"
"Ghost," As Zarathor was rubbing his chin, Sabrina turned to look at Ghost. The blood running across his eyes still blurred his vision yet he could vaguely see Sabrina''s tears. Despite the situation, she managed to smile warmly.
"Thank you, thank you for everything," seeing Sabrina suddenly smiling and talking to Ghost, Zarathor, and all the vampires locked their gazes with Sabrina.
"It''s my fault. I am sorry I put you through all of this," She spoke, fighting through the lump in her throat.
Her tears gushed out like a flood breaking out of the dam.
"Tell my family I didn''t die a coward,"
"Sab¡Sabia," Michael couldn''t even pronounce her name correctly because of his broken jaw. At that time, Michael had a cracked frontal lobe, a shattered knee, and a broken jaw. Even if he broke the strings, he wouldn''t be able to fight without chugging several healing potions.
"When I prayed for my brother to rescue me, you appeared before me,"
Without Michael''s control, tears rolled out of his eyes.
He clenched his fist, knowing what she was about to do. It was obvious she ns to kill herself so the vampires would let him live. However, how could anyone believe the vampires?
Michael had never felt so powerless like this ever before in his life. If he transformed himself into Dark Lord, Sabrina would learn the truth about him. If he didn''t, she would die for him.
"Why?" Michael really wondered why Sabrina wanted to sacrifice herself for him. He wasn''t Noah or her family. Instead, he was a stranger to her. They practically spend a few hours together. Yet, Sabrina prepared to kill herself so Michael could live.
The vampires, on the other hand, looked at her pain with joyful grins on their faces. They enjoyed Sabrina''s suffering.
"Noah, that brat would kill me if he knew," Sabrina let out a miserable smile. The images of her childhood, the time she spent with her family and her happy memories shed across her eyes.
"But thank you for being the greatest big brother to me in thest moments of my life," Sabrina softly said to Michael. When she was helpless and desperate, Ghost was the only one who came to her help. In a short amount of time, he took care of her like she was his little sister. She didn''t care what the others thought of him. To her, he was a great mentor and a brother. She just wished she could spend a little more time with him.
Michael frantically squirmed but giving him a gentle smile, she stomped the ground, caught the sword, and stabbed herself with it. After stabbing herself through the chest, she slowly copsed to the ground. Everything around Michael paused. He couldn''t take his eyes off of her smiling face.
Michael''s legs gave up as he dropped to his knees.
"Goodbye," Sabrina whispered before closing her eyes, embracing the darkness.
"Damn!" Zarathor shouted, pping andughing.
"That was epic. She sacrificed herself for him. I thought that stuff only happens in human stories," Michael heard Zarathorughing.
"It''s dark," Zarathor''sugh echoed through the walls as Michael stared at Sabrina''s dead body.
Chapter 565: The Dark Lord Unleashed
Chapter 565: The Dark Lord Unleashed
When Sabrina''s heartbeat stopped, Michael''s anger exploded within him.
"System, use everything I have and block the vampires from leaving this ce," Michael said to the system in his mind.
[Yes Host] the system did not dare to utter any words. It sounded terrified of Michael, and it should be because the vampires broke Michael''s limit.
Michael tried to reach out to touch her face, but he couldn''t. Meanwhile, the vampiresughed wholeheartedly as their evilughter echoed through the dungeon.
"They only said to let one live right?" Zarathor licked his lips as he took a deep whiff of the air.
The smell of Michael''s blood captivated the vampire. Zarathor walked toward Michael, craving more blood.
But as he approached Michael, the dungeon started to grow darker.
Additionally, the silent shadow realm suddenly got filled with rumbling thunderps.
The grins on their faces instantly vanished. The crimson red atmosphere gradually returned to the gloomy ck and white.
"What''s happening?" Zarathor looked around with a confused face.
All the vampires frantically moved their heads around to see what was happening until they saw the dark cloud enveloping Ghost. Michael slowly picked himself up as the dark cloud grew thicker to the point the vampires couldn''t see his face anymore.
"ARGGHHHHHHHHH!"
The vampires jolted back when they heard Michael''s beastly roar. Zarathor was in a state of shock seeing the cursed chains cracking little by little. In a few moments, the chains coiled around Michaelpletely shattered.
Cling!
Cling!
Cling!
"Holy fuck," Zarathor took a step back, realizing what was happening.
Since Cloud of Darkness affected the weak-willed enemies to lose their courage and surrender, some of the vampires began to shiver.
The ce almost turned pitch ck due to the Death Range and Cloud of Darkness. Michael did not hold back. He activated every spell in his arsenal to boost his power. Moreover, his anger fueled his power to the next level.
At that moment, his power was equal to a Fusion Stage level 2 cultivator. In other words, he and Zarathor were at the same level.
"You¡you''re the Dark Lord," Zarathor mumbled.
The vampire who arrivedst tried to leave the ce by teleporting away. They all arrived at the Shadow Realm using a teleporter. That was why Michael did not sense them or see theming. However, Michael locked the ce with the help of the system. It cost Michael 200,000 badass points, but he didn''t give a damn.
Michael dashed at the vampire several meters behind Zarathor,
"Shit," the vampire''s heart skipped a beat.
The vampire tried to reach for the dagger hanging on his waist but Michael punched the vampire in the chest.
Pulch!
The vampires were startled as Michael''s hand came out of the vampire''s back. Since Michael enveloped himself with the Dark Fire, the vampire''s armor did not protect him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
Michael crushed the beating heart of the vampire with his bear hand. The gruesome sight affected already terrified vampires.
Before the vampires could react, Michael dashed at another vampire.
Bang!
Michael headbutted the vampire, distorting the vampire. Then, Michael pulled out the vampire''s throat with his bare hands. However, that did not kill the vampire. Holding his throat, the vampire growled as Michael grabbed the vampire by his head and burned his head with the dark mes.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Soul Refining stage Level 7!]
After leveling up, Michael''s power skyrocketed as more and more vampires began to be affected by the Cloud of Darkness. However, some of them snapped out of their shock and dashed at Michael casting various speed spells.
Michael just cast the ring of fire to create the dark me ring around him to burn the vampires. The vampires reacted quickly by shielding them with a translucent blood-red energy shield.
Regardless of their shields, the dark mes burnt their skin.
"ARGHHHH!"
The vampires screamed in agony as the air in the dungeon reeked with the stench of burning flesh.
"Shit," Zarathor tried to teleport back to their headquarters. The vampires did not dare to underestimate the Dark Lord. Hence, instead of fighting him alone, Zarathor tried to get back up from their headquarters. Yet no matter how many times he tried, he couldn''t teleport himself.
At that time, the vampires shot several blood beams at Michael.
Cling!
Cling!
Michael quickly raised his arm, taking out his shield and blocking the beams. Despite the lightness of the shield, it stopped all the attacks.
While blocking the blood beams, Michael locked his gaze with the vampire who banged his head against the wall earlier.
The vampire felt a chill running down his spine when he saw the Dark Lord''s head turning towards him. He didn''t even blink an eye when Michael appeared before him.
Michael was pushing himself to the absolute limit. Thus, he moved fast to the point he left after images. Although the vampires and Michael were at the same cultivation stage, the Darkness and anger made him several times more powerful than them. Michael was a god, after all.
The vampires barely had time to cast any spells or even to attack him.
Bang!
Michael dragged the vampire to the same wall against which the vampire banged his head and returned the favor. Usually, Michael would quickly finish off his enemies, but now, he wanted them to suffer for killing Sabrina.
Zarathor saw Michael banging the vampire''s head against the wall mercilessly until the head turned into a bloody mush.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
Zarathor finally gave up on trying to teleport away and decided to attack the Dark Lord. He dashed at Michael at the speed of lightning. But Michael already moved on to another target.
Despite Michael''s overwhelming anger, he kept the anger from blinding him. He wanted to get as strong as possible before targeting Zarathor. Therefore, Michael picked the Soul Refining stage vampires one by one.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
Michael killed another two vampires by crushing their heads in the blink of an eye.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Soul Refining stage Level 8!]
In a few moments, Michael killed five out of twelve vampires and almost became as powerful as a Fusion Stage level 4 warrior.
"ARGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Suddenly Michael looked at the dark sky and roared to the point the entire dungeon trembled. His vice turned demonic without using any modtors. H kept roaring until the walls began to crack, and the vampires copsed to the ground covering their ears. A few vampires even bled through their ears and eyes.
When Michael stopped roaring, Zarathor felt like a storm had passed by them. He saw the Dark Lord breathing heavily, and the ce became darker every time his chest rose up.
"You!" The Dark Lord pointed his finger at Zarathor.
Zarathor took a deep breath and dashed at him. Michael covered himself with Dark mes while Zarathor enveloped himself with a blood shield.
When the two of them shed, the shock wave sent the vampires flying onto the walls.
Michael sent several bolts of lightning toward the vampires who were burnt by the Dark mes when he cast the ring of fire. Unfortunately, they were already on the verge of death, so they died instantly when the lightning bolt hit them.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Soul Refining stage Level 9!]
If the current stage was not enough, Michael consumed several berserker pills to boost his strength. Instead of using the swords, Michael took out the Doombringer and swung at Zarathor as fast as he could. Thetter was caught off guard as he didn''t expect Dark Lord to fight using a war hammer.
Zarathor quickly waved his hand as a blood stream materialized in front of him, saving him from the war hammer. However, he didn''t see Dark Lord disappearing from his sight once again.
Bang!
Michael brought the doom bringer on a vampire''s head. Zarathor dashed at Michael to stop him from killing more of his brethren. Yet, Michael had already killed another two by crushing their heads with the Doom Bringer.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Soul Refining stage Level 10!]
Only three vampires remained in the dungeon at that time, including Zarathor.
"No one would have suffered as you will," Michael growled at Zarathor and raised his hands as the remaining two vampires began to rise from the ground.
They slowly floated toward Michael while Zarathor closed his eyes summoning arge red chakra made of blood.
"Go," Zarathor fired the chakra at Michael as Michael sent a powerful gust of wind mixed with darkness to halt the chakra in mid-air. The momentary halt gave Michael enough time to kill the remaining two vampires. He first burnt them using the Dark mes to prevent them from casting any spells. Then, he hit their heads with the Doom Bringer, using every bit of his strength.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 8000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a vampire. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 20,000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for reaching the next stage, the Fusion stage!]
Chapter 566 Ultimate Revelation
Chapter 566 Ultimate Revtion
After killing every single vampire except Zarathor, Michael had finally reached the Fusion stage to be the youngest cultivator to reach the Fusion Stage. No one in the entire world achieved such a humongous feat, not even La or Victoria, the princess of Thusia. By reaching the Fusion stage at a young age, Michael sealed the chance to be an Immortal in the future. However, nothing was in his mind at that moment except killing Zarathor and making him pay for what he did to Sabrina.
To be honest, Michael had never felt such anger ever before in his life. Not even when Spectre and his students killed everyone in Michael''s orphanage back on earth. When he sensed Sabrina''s heartbeat stops, his anger exploded within him.
Zarathor may have stood a chance against the Dark Lord when Michael was at the Soul Refining stage. Now, he was like amb waiting to be ughtered in front of Michael. Michael released all the fear toxin stored in the microtubes within his armor as the fear toxin slowly entered Zarathor''s bloodstream. In addition, Michael used everything to boost his strength.
"The Dark Lord," Zarathor mumbled under his breath as fear slowly sped his heart.
"You just sealed the fate of your kind," Michael threatened Zarathor.
Instead of dashing at Zarathor using his Lightning Dash spell, Michael slowly stepped toward him.
"Blood Beam!"
"Rage Chakra!"
"Life Sucker!"
Zarathor cast spell after spell to stop and kill Michael, but Michael deflected the spells using the Ghost shield and Responsive Shield. Of course, some of the spells hit Michael and made him bleed, but he was too furious to feel any pain.
As the Dark Lord approached Zarathor, thetter stopped casting spells that would take too much time to cast and began to cast quick spells. At that time, Michael was bombarded with arrows made of blood shooting out of Zarathor''s arms. Although the responsive shield couldn''t stop the arrowspletely, it absorbed most of the arrows'' energy and made them weak. Thus, the arrows that escaped the Ghost shield grazed Michael. As a result, he has multiple cuts and bruises on his body.
Ding!
One of the arrows hit Michael in the face and took a piece of his skull mask, leaving half of Michael''s face exposed. Despite everything, Michael approached Zarathor under the rain of arrows. Hundreds of arrows rained down on Michael from all directions. If the spell was cast on someone else, they would have been skewered by the arrows and turned into a bloody mush.
The power of a Fusion stage cultivator was not a joke as even the weakestbat spell would be deadly when a Fusion Stage cultivator cast the spell.
Under the rain of arrows, Michael finally arrived in front of Zarathor and grabbed him by his neck. Now the tables were turned as Michael squeezed Zarathor''s throat. Next, Michael raised his other hand, pinching Zarathor''s fang. The vampire squirmed violently as Michael pulled out his fang with his bare hand.
"ARGH!"
Zarathor frantically squirmed in Michael''s hand. The vampire couldn''t scream out loud because Michael''s hand was around his neck. Otherwise, Zarathor''s scream would have echoed through the dungeon. While Zarathor was squirming in agony, Michael pulled out his other fang.
Bang!
After pulling his second andst fang, Michael punched Zarathor right in the mouth, breaking all of his teeth. Typically, Michael would have interrogated the vampire to know the location of their headquarters, more information about the key, and who sent them all. However, at that moment, Michael wasn''t in the mood for interrogation but torture. Still, a corner of his mind told him to take the ring in Zarathor''s hand.
"ARGGHHH!"
Instead of removing the arm, Michael broke Zarathor''s middle finger and ripped the finger clean off from his hand. Michael then stored the bloody finger in his system storage before throwing Zarathor to the wall on the other side.
Bang!
Zarathor went flying to the wall like a kite without an anchor. The fear toxin made thinking difficult for Zarathor. His mind was in a boggle as Michael raised his hand towards the Doom Bringer whichy on the ground several meters away from him.
He controlled the wind element surrounding the Doom Bringer and made the war hammer fly into his arm. Michael stepped on the vampire between him and Zarathor, crushing the vampire''s head under his feet.
Granted, the dungeon was usually dark and gloomy. Still, it had never been dark and gloomier than at that moment when Michael approached Zarathor with the Doom Bringer in his hand.
"Teleport¡.teleport¡teleport me away¡" Zarathor screamed in his mind, but nothing happened no matter how many times he ordered his minions to teleport him away.
He quickly raised his arm to cast a spell,
"Blood-"
However, his spell casting was abruptly cut short as a bolt of lightning went straight through his shoulder.
"Bloo-''
Another lightning bolt went through another shoulder, cutting his spell casting short.
"Wait¡listen-"
Zarathor tried to escape the Dark Lord''s wrath by striking a deal with him. But, of course, it would have worked if Zarathor hadn''t forced Sabrina to kill himself.
Boom!
A powerful gust of wind sted Zarathor against the wall on another side.
Bang!
Zarathor hit the wall, but before hitting the ground, another gust of wind sted him to another wall. The Wind st turned Zarathor into a rag doll, flying around.
The wind st powered by Celestial energy and Dark mes had enough force to break many of Zarathor bones in his body. When Zarathor finally hit the ground after getting sted into the walls like a doll, his right arm and left leg looked crooked.
If it wasn''t for the vampire''s ability to regenerate, Zarathor would have died by now. However, his healing ability was interrupted by the Dark mes mixed with the wind sts Michael sent in his direction.
Michael noticed the cuts in Zarathor''s body slowly closing up and conjured a ball of dark me in his hand. Zarathor felt a chill looking at the dark mes dancing above his hand. In his two hundred years of life, he had never seen such a powerful ominous me.
"No healing," Michael sent a st of dark mes, scorching Zarathor''s clothes, and skin. The strong stench of burning skin would nauseate anyone who takes a whiff of the air in the dungeon.
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!"
This time, Zarathor''s scream wasn''t muffled by Michael. Thus, his scream echoed through the dungeon halls for miles. The dark me made Zarathor unrecognizable. His striking red hair waspletely burnt by the me, as well as his ck robes. The only thing that kept Zarathor alive andsted his agony was the regenerative ability of a vampire.
Michael let Zarathor heal a bit so he could inflict more pain on him. Then, on his way to Zarathor, Michael burnt every single vampire on the ground with the dark mes. As a result, the vampires turned into a pile of ashes.
The entire ground was engulfed by the dark me except for the area around Sabrina''s body. He controlled the fire from reaching her as Michael wanted to hand over Sabrina to her family and give her a proper burial.
The vampires were not the only reason for her death. The guardians were just as guilty as the vampires. If it wasn''t for them, she wouldn''t have been here. The Guardians could have easilye up with another safe n to get the key with Sabrina''s help. Instead, they looked for a quick and dirty way, endangering Sabrina''s life. As far as Tanulia and her fellow guardians were concerned, the end justifies the means. But unlike they expected, everything went south, and Sabrina ended up dying.
Michael didn''t know about Noah, but he would avenge Sabrina''s death¡By killing every guardian who knew about Sabrina and whoever stands in his way when he brings down the wrath of the Darkness upon them.
For now, he only focused on making Zarathor pay¡nothing more¡nothing less.
"Thank you for being the greatest big brother to me¡" Michael repeated Sabrina''sst words as he raised his hand, making the wind beneath Zarathor lift him up against the wall.
"Will you tell me who sent you here?" Michael asked Zarathor coldly,
"Go¡fuck¡yourself¡"
The sickening scream of Zarhot reverberated in the dungeon, but there was no one to stop Michael.
Suddenly dark blood sprayed out of Zarathor''s body as Michael separated his head from the body Zarathor spat on Michael''s face, but thanks to the dark mes, his bloody saliva vaporized before it could reach Michael''s face.
"It doesn''t make a difference. You will suffer the same,"
Michael kicked Zarathor''s, shattering his knee and making him copse down.
"GRHHH," Zarathor growled as Michael put his feet on Zarathor''s shoulder and pushed him down while holding his head with his hands.
Michael suddenly shook his head as the skull mask flew away from his face.
"Look at my face," Michael tightened his grip around Zarathor''s burnt face.
"This is the face who is going to destroy your kind," Michael pushed down Zarathor and began to lift up Zarathor''s head until the head started to separate from his body.
"ARRGGGHHHH!"
The sickening scream of Zarhot reverberated in the dungeon, but there was no one to stop Michael.
Suddenly dark blood sprayed out of Zarathor''s body as Michael separated his head from the body with bare hands.
Plop!
Michael kicked down Zarathor''s headless body and looked at the severed head in his hand. He raised the head to eye level to see the fear and pain in Zarathor''s eyes.
At that moment, every bit of Michael''s focus was on Zarathor''s head. The world around him just paused in his perspective.
That was the reason Michael failed to notice the slight disturbance in the air behind him.
"Ghost," Michael heard a familiar voice from behind as his body froze for a moment.
But instead of dashing away or trying to disappear from the ce, Michael slowly turned around because he knew it was toote to do anything.
When he turned around with Zarathor''s head in his hands, he saw Sabrina standing before him. Her white robes were drenched in blood, and the sword was still sticking through her chest. Due to the blood loss, she looked pale, but she was alive as Michael could hear her heartbeat.
"You¡you''re the Dark Lord,"
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Chapter 567: Margoth, The Key
Chapter 567: Margoth, The Key"You''re the Dark Lord," Sabrina shivered as she looked at Ghost''s face through all the dark mist and cloud enveloping him. She slowly dragged her feet towards Michael,
"It''s you," She could barely raise her hand to touch his face.
"Sabrina," Michael was conflicted. He saw her die and sensed her heartbeat stop. Yet, she was standing before him alive. His mind was boggled.
"How?" Michael questioned himself. At that time, he didn''t know when he roared in anger, the sound kick-started her heart again. His roar contained such power.
As she was touching his face, she suddenly lost the strength in her legs and copsed back, only to get caught by Michael.
He squatted down slowly, putting her on the ground while drawing out the sword from her chest. He immediately took out a healing potion to give her, but she shook her head and swatted away the healing potion.
"Let me die. Otherwise," Sabrina coughed up blood,
"Your secret won''t be safe," She smiled despite the excruciating pain in her chest.
"Do you think I am evil as everyone says?" Michael asked Sabrina,
"You''re far from evil," she touched Michael''s cheek again with her bloody hand. For some reason, her gentle smile warmed his heart and made him calm down.
"Your brother and everyone in this world hunt me. They think I am evil," Michael calmly said,
"Yet they weren''t here to stop the actual evil,"
Sabrina coughed a couple of more times as her face turned paler. Michael could sense her heartbeat slowing down. She had lost too much blood. At this point, even the healing potion couldn''t guarantee her survival unless Michael gave her his 90% pure healing potion along with a potion to make her body produce more blood.
"Can¡can you give my body to my family?" Sabrina asked, tears rolling down her eyes.
"Don''t tell them what happened to me. Father and mother must not know about anything," even in her dying breath, she didn''t want her family to be saddened by her death.
"I died instantly by some poisoning. You can make them believe it right?"
Michael couldn''t understand the girl''s thought process at all. She wanted to sacrifice herself so he could feel better knowing his secret was safe. However, if she died when he could have easily saved her, his heart would nag him until he dies. Michael hated that feeling.
"So you want to die so I will feel better?" Michael questioned Sabrina,
"That''s the least I can do for you,"
"Will you tell others my secret?"
Sabrina slowly shook her head right away.
"If I let you die, then ill be the evil they say I am," as soon as he said these words, a sparkling blue potion materialized in his hand. Sabrina tried to resist, but he simply overpowered her and poured the potion into her mouth.
After emptying the potion into her mouth, he took out a blood-red potion and chugged it down her throat just like before. It didn''t even take the potion a few seconds to start healing her body. Just several secondster, Michael noticed the wound in her chest rapidly closing up as the rosiness in her skin returned.
Compared to all the few risks Michael took in this world, saving Sabrina might just be the biggest. Now she knew his biggest secret, which could end his life in this world if exposed.
Nheless, Michael saved her because she basically sacrifice herself for him and willing to die again so his secret could be safely buried with her. Michael simply wasn''t ready to let her die to keep his secret.
If he had let her die, there would be no difference between him and the Guardians. Finally, Sabrina felt her strength returning to her body as well as the pain lessening. Her vision cleared, enabling her to see Ghost''s face more clearly.
"Why did you save me?" she was still on the ground with her head in his hand,
"Because I am stupid and not evil enough," Michael sighed, chuckling.
"But this doesn''t change anything. If your brotheres after me, I will kill him," Michael''s smile disappeared from his face as the dark cloud around him appeared again, stronger and denser.
It took a few seconds for Sabrina to get to her feet, and the moment she did, she asked Michael.
"Why? Why do you two want to kill each other?"
"He wants to capture me and brings me to justice. Your brother still doesn''t know how this world works. He wants to save the world yet he couldn''t even save his own sister,"
Sabrina wanted to talk back to save Noah''s image but simply couldn''t find any words because he was right.
"I trust you with my biggest secret Sabrina. Don''t break my trust," Michael ced his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
Although his gentle smile calmed her mind, she did feel so confused and startled by what she had just learned. Still, she had no idea her brother Noah was the God of Light who was destined to battle the God of Darkness. She also didn''t know her brother was the next Supreme Guardian.
As far as she knew, her brother was one of the guardians who were trying to capture the dark lord.
"Despite everything. You have my word, you can trust me. I''d rather die than expose your secret,"
"I know,"
Since she literally died and again tried to die just to keep his secret safe. Thus, Michael had no trust issues with her. It was a risk yet Michael wouldn''t have it any other way.
"We better find a way out of here," Michael closed his eyes for a moment, willing the system to unequip his Lucifer armor.
In a blink of an eye, Sabrina saw the Dark Lord turns back into Ghost. She felt speechless when she looked around the ce and noticed the piles of ashes lying around.
There was not a single vampire who lived to tell the tale.
While Sabrina was in shock, Michael went to the hollow in the hall to inspect the wall.
"The key? Where did you go?" Michael ran his hand all over the hollow yet found nothing.
"Who took you? Sabrina," Michae; quickly had a thought as he called Sabrina to him. When she arrived by his side, he took her hand and ced it inside the hollow. The rune in her hand surprisingly began to bright glow brother than ever.
"Ah!" she suddenly squealed as though something bit her hand,
"What?" asked Michael with both an excited and concerned look on his face.
"The key¡" she stuttered,
"Where is it?"
For a few moments, Sabrina just stood there like a living statue. When Michael looked into her eyes, he saw fear and shock.
"The key¡"
"Yes, the key, what about it? Did you see its location?" Michael asked, slightly shaking her shoulders.
"Margoth¡the key is Margoth,"
"Margoth?" Michael was taken aback by surprise. If his memory was right, Margoth was the Venom like creature attached to Draven in Etheria.
"What do you mean?" Michael wondered whether Sabrina had traveled to Etheria or not.
"I can''t describe it. I just felt it. The key is Margoth," Sabrina mumbled, making Michael confused.
"Ghost," she suddenly took her gaze away from the hollow in the wall to Michael,
"I heard something else,"
Her face was pale as she trembled. Michael had to grab her shoulder to stop her from shivering.
"The voice¡it sounded like your other voice¡" her words startled Michael,
"The voice said, the key is safe with Draven, and the queen can''t take it for now,"
"The future me," Michael immediately thought about his future self. It was apparent to Michael that his future self had something to do with the key. If his instincts were right, the Dark Lord from the future sent the key to Etheria to keep it safe from the queen.
However, he couldn''t grasp the concept of Margoth. How could Margoth be the key? That question riddled Michael''s mind nonstop.
"I assume we can''t get the key then," Michael sighed. Although he was disappointed, Sabrina''s words calmed his mind down. Atleast the queen wouldn''t be able to get the key for now. Still, Michael wanted to make sure the key stays safe forever out of the queen''s grasp. He had enough enemies to deal with, and thest thing he wanted was another powerful being like Aathreya toe after him.
Fortunately, Don reassured Michael he would take care of her in his universe. Draven would keep the key safe in Etheria. The only unpredictable thing about the key was not the queen but Hunter.
Michael had no idea what was Hunter''s n. He literally killed Aathreya''s soul and tried to absorb her. He was crazy and powerful as far as Michael could see.
Atleast for now, Michael didn''t have to worry about the key. Finally, his journey throughout the dungeon came to an end. The onest thing that remained for him to do was to find a way out of the ce.
"Let''s look around the ce. We still haven''t figured out a way to get out of here,"
"You know anything about the voices and this thing called Margoth?" Sabrina suddenly questioned Michael, only to see him shake his head,
"Being the Dark lord doesn''t mean I know everything,"
Since Michael was an expert liar, Sabrina couldn''t help believing him.
"But can you at least snap us out of her with your god powers?"
"I can''t, but I think the way out of the shadow realm is here somewhere," Michael said as he looked around the empty ce again.
He used every type of vision, including the thermal vision, to see any weird heat signatures. While he was looking around, Sabrina concentrated on the glowing rune in her hand.
"Maybe the way out is with me," Sabrina mumbled.
Michael then saw Sabrina raise her hand towards the sky with her eyes closed. He wondered what she was trying to do but surprisingly, he sensed the space around them distorting as though she was activating a teleportation portal.
The brightness of the rune on her hand suddenly soared through the roof as its golden light lit the entire gloomy dungeon with its radiance. Under the warm light, Michael felt his body being lifted above.
Soon afterward, the both of them just vanished into thin air.
Chapter 568: Gaya Returns
Chapter 568: Gaya ReturnsThe teleportation array in the shadow realm teleported the two of them back to the ind entrance. Since time was not a concept in the shadow realm, nothing had changed on the ind. The dead bodies of the vampires littered the sandy shore while the ship danced with the wind on the blue sea.
"Not even a second passed here," Michael said after looking at the dead bodies. The blood on the sandy shore was just as warm as he left.
Sabrina took a deep breath, calming her mind and soul. She had gone through so many things over thest couple of weeks. Now she wanted nothing more than a good sleep on her own bed. However, the fact that Ghost was the Dark Lord and Noah mighte across him worried her. She witnessed the Dark Lord in action and truly feared for Noah''s life.
"I can teleport you outside the void line. From there, you can fly to Kethen," Michael quickly bought a teleportation scroll from the system and threw it at Sabrina.
"What will you do?"
"Sabrina, this is where we will depart," Michael said, Instead of answering her question.
"If I were you, I''d tell everything guardians, and the vampires did to you to your brother and sister. The far your brother is from the guardians, the better for him,"
"What about you? Will you tell him if you get the chance?" asked Sabrina bewilderedly.
"Make no mistake, Sabrina. As long as your brother is a guardian anding after me, he''ll be my foe. I don''t usually show mercy to my foes. However, I always had a soft spot for you, Winstons. That''s why I am giving you a chance to let your brother know the true face of the guardians, "
Sabrina trembled hearing his cold tone as he continued,
"Your brother is being used by the guardians. Now you have a chance to show him the true colors of the guardians,"
"I will tell him everything except the truth about you,"
Michael nodded, appreciating Sabrina''s conviction to keep his secret safe.
"Will we meet anytime sooner?" when Michael started to descend into the air, she asked him. Although they were inside the void line, Sabrina wasn''t surprised to see him using arch energy. At this point, nothing about him could surprise her.
Michael however did not give her an answer but just smiled. The next moment, he turned himself into a lightning bolt and disappeared from the ind, leaving Sabrina behind. She started at the trail of golden light he left behind until hepletely disappeared from her sight.
Only then did she take a deep breath and tear the scroll, activating it.
************************************
After finally leaving the ind, Michael flew towards Gisal. He could teleport to reach Gisal instantly, but Michael chose to fly because he wanted to calm his mind and soul. Flying alone always enabled him to think clearly.
Although Sabrina learned his secret, he couldn''t get himself to kill her. While flying towards Gisal, Michael flicked his wrist as a vial of blood appeared in his hand. The vial contained Sabrina''s blood. His hand literally shivered to hold the vial.
If his instincts were proven correct, it would shake him to the core and change his world upside down. With everything in his mind, Michael continued to fly toward Gisal. Almost after four hours, when the sun reached the center of the sky, Michael finally saw the kingdom of Gisal on the horizon.
"My lord," he was about to use the runic teleportation to reach Caius''s mansion when he heard Azazel''s voice in his head.
"Azazel," Michael stopped in his pace by Azazel''s voice,
"My Lord, you shoulde to the dark forest as soon as possible,"
"What happened?" Michael creased his brows, turning around.
"Please teleport here, my lord,"
Before Michael could question him more, the connection got interrupted. Realizing something was wrong, Michael immediately activated the runic teleportation to reach the dark forest.
Back in the Dark Forest, Azazel was standing in Michael''s room alone. He gawked around, waiting for Michael to appear.
Finally, when Michael appeared, he heaved a sigh of relief.
On the other hand, Michael was in hisplete Lucifer form to go all out in a battle. However, unlike he expected, there were no enemies in his room except Azazel.
It took Michael a second to realize what had just happened. But it was toote as he got hit by something soft and fluffy in a blink of an eye.
"Surprise Mickey!"
Michael was on the ground, and Gaya was on top of him with the brightest smile on her face.
"Gaya," Michael was startled by Gaya''s surprise appearance.
She ripped off his mask and showered him with kisses. In return, Michael hugged her and stood up, holding her tight.
Since Azazel had done his job by bringing Michael to the dark forest, he quickly left the room, leaving Michael and Gaya alone.
Gaya just pushed him to the bed and locked her lip with his like a hungry kitten.
"I missed you so much," after parting her lips from his, she panted and said.
"I missed you too,"
The smile on Gaya''s face instantly vanished as she creased her brows,
"Something happened?"
With a single look at his face, Gaya knew something was bothering him.
"Tell me what happened,"
Michael knew there was no point in changing the subject or lying to her. Thus, he took a deep breath and began narrating everything that had happened since he met Sabrina on the ind.
SurIt''ssingly after listening to Michael, Gaya gently patted him on the back.
"It''s okay. You did the right thing. You would have been no different than the fucking guardians if you had killed her. She is a Winston. She won''t break her word,"
Michael somewhat felt calmed and reassured after hearing Gaya''s words.
"Besides, I am here. You don''t have to face the shit alone anymore. Let''s kick things up,"
Michael smiled as she pecked him on the cheek.
"You''re not supposed to get out of Akn till next week. So how did youe here?" Michael asked.
"Just got an early vacation thanks to Headmistress Ka. Elidyr will be here by tomorrow," Michael and Gaya justy on the door, staring at the ceiling.
"Dude, you had done some sick shit without me," Gaya sighed as she sighed in disappointment.
"It''s good that you ced a Spyder in her body and gave her the blood tonic. If she tries to fuck with us, we can fuck her back by making her explode,"
The healing potion Michael made Sabrina drink was mixed with the blood tonic in case Sabrina tried to reveal his secret to Noah or anyone else. Unlike the Spyders Tanulia found in her warship, the new ones Michael ced were enhanced by Elidyr''s runes and were undetectable.
So if Sabrina tried to betray him, Michael could kill her with a snap of his fingers. Besides, Michael could mess with Noah by ckmailing him if the pushes to shove.
Although Michael didn''t like to use Sabrina as a pawn in a game between him and Noah, there was no harm in having many backup ns.
"So, what''s our next move? Now that I am here, we can cross off some of the things on your to-do list,"
"Giving Azazel his physical body,"
Michael rose from the bed while ordering the system to take out the body pieces and merge them.
"Azazel," Gaya called out the butler when she saw the body of a half-elf appear in the room.
"Hmm," Gaya approached the body to run her fingers across the half-elf body''s face.
"Well, I always imagined Azazel getting some gray-haired human body since he looks like that now,"
"My Lady," As Gaya was checking out the body, Azazel appeared in the room.
"So you were with her to prank me huh?"
Azazel looked slightly embarrassed and apologetic with a sly smile.
"It''s okay. I brought you a gift," Michael gestured at the body as a glimmer of joy and surprise emerged in Azazel''s eyes. He slowly floated towards the body.
"My lord,"
"Do you like it?"
"Yes yes my lord. This body, the energy, it''s overwhelming¡" Azazel stammered. Unlike Michael and Gaya, his demon origin enabled Azazel to sense the overwhelming energy radiating from the body.
"Now when you are ready, just get inside the body," Michael said and waited for Azazel to enter the body.
After he entered, Michael summoned the system.
"System, take the badass points and merge Azazel''s soul with the body,"
[As you wish, host]
The system said and took 50,000 badass points, as it mentioned to Michael when he was in Everlight.
After the system took the required badass points, a golden light shot out from Michael to the half elf''s body. The light soon enveloped the body, radiating an otherworldly whistling sound.
"We can now take him anywhere with us right?"
"Yes. That''s the n," Michae nodded, waiting for the golden light to disappear from the room.
The light almost lingered around the body for another fifteen minutes. Then after the light gradually faded away, Michael and Gaya saw Azazel slowly opening his eyes, revealing crimson red eyes.
As soon as Azazel opened his eyes, the system brought Azazel''s status window before Michael''s eyes.
Subordinate: Azazel Sebastian
Cultivation Level: Soul Refining Stage level 3
Race: Demon (Half Elf body)
Status: Healthy
Trait: Butler (Unique)
Loyalty towards the host: 100%
Skills :
Phantom possession
Bind Area teleportation
Blood Thirsty
Imitator
Phantom Form
Mind Dominator
[Phantom possession is the ability of Azazel to possess a weak-willed enemy for a moment]
[Azazel can bend the space around it to teleport near the host and the bound area]
[Azazel can absorb blood essence to temporarily grow stronger]
[Azazel can imitate the host''s spells and skills. The imitated skills and spells will not be as powerful as the host''s arsenal]
[Azazel can choose to hide from the naked eyes. Only the host and a chosen subordinate could see Azazel when he''s using the Phanton form]
[Azazel''s voice could dominate weak-willed enemies'' bodies]
Michael noticed the change in Azazel''s skills. The Phantom touch had transformed into the Phantom possession. It made sense to Michael as Azazel now had a physical form.
"Finally, I can serve my lord and mydy to the fullest of my abilities," Azazel immediately dropped to his knees and ced his hand on his chest.
"The fun is just getting started Sebastian," Gaya devilishly grinned.
Chapter 569: Future Plans I
Chapter 569: Future ns IAfter giving Azazel a physical body, Michael sent Azazel out for a moment.
"So I can see you''ve reached Soul Refining stage level 2," Michaelmented on her cultivation level. Thanks to the resources Mazeroth gave all their staff, Gaya was able to reach the Soul Refining stage pretty quickly. Besides, she still had the 40% cultivation speed boost from the system.
"It''s still not enough. I have to get stronger. What cultivation stage are you at?"
"You are looking at a Fusion Stage cultivator, my dear snake," Michael smirked.
Gaya waspletely startled by his words. She thought he could not surprise her anymore, but she was proven wrong at that moment. To be honest, she was speechless after hearing him. Thus, for a few moments, she just stared at him without blinking an eye.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? It''s not fair," she stomped the ground, snarling.
"Every time I think I''m getting close to you, you just jump from one stage to another like crossing a puddle,"
Michael quickly wrapped his hand around her shoulder and pecked her on the cheek.
"Don''t be angry, my dear queenie. I''ll make you just as strong as I am,"
"You better. I can''t be weaker than any of our subordinates. Let''s go to that fucking Aqua auction and buy something that could make me stronger,"
"And we will go to the treacherous ocean and clean the ce out,"
Gaya''s eyes went wide, but soon a grin emerged on her face,
"That sounds like a fucking dangerous yet my kind of n," Gaya yfully bit his cheek,
"Thest time I went there, I was pretty weak. Now I will see who''s gonna stop us. But before that, we have to go to the auction and knock out a few other things,"
"Like what?"
"Like meeting Dr and seeing the state of our undead army," Michael answered.
"Let''s go," Michael then willed the system to activate the runic teleportation. In a blink of an eye, they appeared in the dimly lit halls of the Crypt, where Jonah and Dr were busy dissecting an undead on an oak table.
"What the fuck are you two doing?"'' Gaya''s voice echoed through the empty hall, startling Dr and Jonah. The previously clean, shiny hall now looked bloody and dirty as Michael felt like he had entered a ughterhouse.
The ce was a horror house, and Michael did not like it.
"My lord, mydy," Jonah and Dr shivered, looking at the anger within the Dark Queen''s tone. Her crimson red eyes glistened behind the skull mask.
"Is this how you two keep our base?" she clenched her fist. Luckily for Dr and Jonah, Michael grabbed her hands before she sted them away with a spell.
The two of hrm quickly dropped to their knees. Unfortunately, due to their unwavering focus on unveiling the mystery behind the undead, they failed to notice the miserable state of the Crypt. While Gaya was murderously looking at the two of them, Jonah looked around to see the golden walls of the crypt stained with blood and gore.
The air reeked of a nauseating rotten smell.
"Well, despite the obvious sad state of the Crypt, what have you two found?" Michael sighed inside and asked them.
"You two better have some fucking results," Gaya was on the verge of breaking their arms for making the crypt a ughterhouse.
Sensing the anger in her tone, Dr quickly opened his mouth, fearing that even a second of silence could result in their demise.
"We may have found a way to make the make undead army stronger mydy,"
As soon as Gaya heard the words, her anger vanished into thin air.
"All thanks to this my lord," with a flick of his wrist, Dr took out a stormville mountain crystal.
The pink crystal dimly glowed from within on Dr''s palm. Before Michael departed, he handed over a few prototypes that could enable his subordinates in the Southern continent to use arch energy. These prototypes were obviously powered by the arch energy crystals.
Dr was one of the subordinates who received the device. At that time, when Michael built the device, he was only a 4-star inventor. But now, he could perfect the device thanks to his 5-star Inventor level.
"The crystal mixed with human blood activates the energy veins in their bodies again my lord,"
Michael was truly surprised. If what Dr said was correct, he could power up his entire undead army. The reason why the undead couldn''t use arch energy or cultivate was that theycked a functioning brain and the decayed energy veins in their bodies. The alpha undead kinda reced the undeads'' brain because the alphas functioned as the brains by controlling them.
Therefore, if Dr could revive the energy veins in their bodies, Michael could theoretically make the undead cultivate.
But something told Michael, it wouldn''t be as easy as Dr made it sound.
"Human blood? How much human blood are we talking about, and can you permanently revive their energy veins?"
"If we get the blood of a powerful being, I have confidence we can permanently revive their energy veins my lord,"
unexpectedly, Dr''s confident tone surprised Michael.
"We still need more crystals and blood to determine how much blood we need my lord," Jonah opened his mouth. Despite the fact Jonah was actually asking for human blood, he felt excited rather than disgusted or nauseated.
"We can give you blood and crystals. But I expect solid results," Gaya eximed,
"Also, I want the two of you to build a sick house for your ughterings outside. We are on a huge ind, for god sake. Use your brains, or I will carve it out of you,"
"She is right. Build something for yourself out there. I have big ns for this ce," Michael nodded,
"How many undead do we have right now?"
"Two thousand and five hundred my lord. The angels harvested all the powerfulherels and hunted down the rest,"
Michae clenched his fist,
"Does that mean you can''t summonherels anymore?" Gaya asked as Dr hesitantly nodded,
"Shit," Gaya cussed and looked at Michael to know his thoughts on the matter.
"It''s just a minor setback. We can still make more undead,"
Gaya did not need Michael to exin further as she had already grasped his ns.
"We don''t need any more undead now. You two focus on building yourselves a workshop outside and find a way to make my army cultivate,"
After giving Dr and Jonah their orders, Michael did not linger around in the Crypt anymore. Instead, he teleported back to the Dark Forest and flew towards Bradford.
*************************************
Ever since Ghost separated Bradford from Bredia and dered the barony as a kingdom, Bradford had gone through countless struggles. However, after Ghost''s visit to Bredia, things took a turn for the better. Kingdom Bredia had released all the prisoners and stopped harassing the travelers and merchants.
Although their King Ghost was not there with them to govern the kingdom, the elders and the sunrise sect ruled the kingdom in his stead. As a result, Bradford finally began to thrive under the leadership of Sect Leader ire and the talented elders who managed Bradford''s various ministries.
When Michael and Gaya saw River town appear on the horizon, they stopped flying to bask in the sight''s beauty. The setting sun painted the kingdom with its dimming golden light. Under its warm light, the farnds surrounding the town glimmered like a jade stone nket. The river crisscrossed throughout the town contained countless fishing boats and merchant ships. Even though the dawn was approaching, the river town didn''t stop buzzing with crowds and carriages. Most of the carriages followed the main paved path and all shared amon destination; the Hades.
The green lush mountain chain surrounding the townpeted with the farnds and the river to see who added extra charm to the town. Even from a distance, Michael could now see the buildings of the sect in the mountains, especially the majestic manor of Sect leader ire.
Before stopping at Hades, Michael decided to stop by the sect so he could meet Olivia and reassure her that nothing had happened to him. Besides, it was time Gaya had returned to the sect.
"So you told me Ricky and Olivia are in love. What do we gonna do about it?" asked Gaya while slowly flying towards the sect.
"I think I should talk to Reginald about his daughter''s future. Ricky is a good guy, and if Olivia married him, she''d always be close to us,"
"That is advantageous to us. After all, we need Olivia to be our head of the majestic chain. Speaking of the Majestic chain, don''t you think it''s better if we opened several branches across the continent? Now that most of the alchemists are dead and rotten, your market value would have gone through the roof. We can press this opportunity and make millions,"
"You speak my mind Gaya,"
"The only problem is, can you refine pills and potions for all the branches?" Gaya questioned Michael. Not that she doubted his ability, but rather, she doubted he would have enough time to sit around and refine pills and potions instead of focusing on dismantling their enemies.
"I already have a n in mind,"
But fortunately, Michael had a solution for the alchemy problem.
Since Michael upgraded the Inventor level to 5-star, it was only a matter of time before he built a contraption that could brew pills and potions automatically without his intervention. After building it, Michael just had to teach Olivia how to operate the contraption, and it could pump out a hundred pills and potions a day.
However, he must find a suitable ce to build such a contraption if he doesn''t want rogue cultivators or powerful families to rob him blind.
"Does it involve Olivia?" asked Gaya,
"Yes. And also our allies. I think its time we paid a visit to the holy church," Michae grinned,
"Holy Church? Why?" Gaya was confused as she couldn''t guess why he suddenly wanted to visit the Holy Church. As far as she was concerned, they had to stay as far as possible from the Holy Church.
"Hitting two birds with one stone Gaya," Michael said, smiling, and sped up towards the sect.
Chapter 570: Future Plans II
Chapter 570: Future ns II"Look!"
"Hey look! It''s sister Aelia!"
"Brother Ghost!"
As soon as the disciples saw Michael and Gaya in the sky, the disciples roaming around the sect began to cause turmoil. Michael waved at them for a few moments before flying directly into ire''s manor.
Right then, ire was meeting with a few elders from the other sects and discussing merging the sects with the sunrise sect.
"You don''t have to worry about independence Elder Marci. We will provide everything you need and let you govern yourself except our elders will offer you guidance to make the sect greater," ire sat with one leg atop another. By sitting like this, she looked extremely dominant. Coupled with her Core Strengthening stage level 8 cultivation, the aura she radiated made the elders absolutely submissive.
"If you are in agreement with our terms, visit Broadriver and meet Elder E there. She will guide you through the process," ire said,
"It will be a pleasure to be a part of the Sunrise Sect, Sect Leader," a brown-haired man stood up from his seat, bowed towards ire, and shook her hand with absolute respect in his eyes.
Instead of entering the hall to meet ire, Michael and Gaya waited in the hallway, looking at ire.
The elders finally winded up the discussion a few minutester and stood up to leave. Only then did they notice Michael and Gaya. When they saw the couple, the elders were startled. They might haven''t recognized Gaya, but they recognized Michael almost instantly.
"Young Master Ghost,"
"No, you majesty Ghost,"
"Rxdies and gentlemen,"
Michael raised his hand with a calm smile as ire''s eyes went wide.
"Aelia!"
The sect leader almost dashed at Gaya, ignoring the elders. Fortunately, she controlled the urge to hug Gaya for a few moments. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the elders, Michael respectfully sent the elders away.
"How is it going ire?" Gaya gently punched ire in the shoulder, only to get hugged and squeezed by the blonde.
"It''s so nice to see. Where were you all this time?"
Michael calmly rested his butt on thefy sofa and waited for the maid to stop cowering in the corner ande to him.
"You know. Having some alone time. Cultivating, adventuring and murdering humans,"
"Huh?"
"Just kidding. Except for thest part," Gaya chuckled, making ire frown.
"Kidding again,"
Gaya patted ire on the back and sat on the sofa with her. Finally, the young maid who was cowering in the corner decided to approach them,
"Three avocado juice," ire ordered.
"Yes¡yes Sect Leader ire," the young girl shivered, stuttering in fear.
"Who is she?"
"It''s a new rule of the sect. All the young people have to do some part-time jobs as a part of their studies. We believe it''d help them sympathize with themoners more," ire exined.
"GHOST!"
Out of the blood, Olivia dashed into the manor with a pale face full of sweat beads.
"Told you I''ll be fine,"
ire was confused as Olivia dragged herself towards Michael and sat beside him. Soon, Ricky and Daniel entered the room. By the fear in Ricky''s eyes, Michael could say that Olivia shared what happened on the ship with Ricky.
As a result, he had to go through what happened during the Alchemypetition from the beginning to the end when he got kidnapped by the pirates. Of course, Michael told them not to ask anything about what happened after the pirates kidnapped him. He had to wait to hear Sabrina''s story before spreading another one.
After everything was said and done about the alchemypetition, Gaya finally turned her gaze toward Olivia and Ricky. Olivia quickly realized the meaning of Gaya''s sharp gaze while sitting beside Michael. Ricky on the other hand stood behind a sofa facing ire and Michael with Daniel.
"So when were you two nning to tell us? Especially you Ricky," Gaya said, raising her one brow in the shape of a sword.
"Its¡its¡its¡"
"It''s what? Cat got your tongue?"
Yet again, ire was confused as she had no idea what was happening. She was too busy with the sect and Bradford business to notice the love tension between Olivia and Ricky. However, Daniel knew about their rtionship, but he didn''t get a chance to tell Ghost. Still, Daniel always advised Ricky toe clean with Ghost.
"These two are in love," Gaya broke the news to ire.
"What?" ire couldn''t help raising her voice in shock.
"It''s okay Ricky. You guys don''t have to be scared. You did nothing wrong. I already dealt with Noah,"
"What do you mean dealt with Noah?" ire''s heart skipped a beat, thinking Ghost had killed Noah.
"Why don''t you exin Olivia?" Michael looked at Olivia, wordlessly telling her to tell everything rted to her marriage agreement with Noah.
It took Olivia another ten minutes to bring ire up to speed,
"So much had happened, yet I knew nothing. I have to get some free time," ire massaged her temples.
But suddenly, ire opened her eyes so wide Michael could see the sparkles in her eyes.
"Why don''t we have a girls night in Hades? After we deal with Lord Reginald,"
"Speaking of Lord Reginald. Ricky, send a messenger to Lord Reginald and ask him I want to meet him tomorrow morning,"
"Really?" Ricky sounded relieved and almost excited.
"Yes really. Now go,"
After Ricky, Daniel and Olivia left the hall, Michael decided to talk to ire about the state of Bradford and his future position in the sect.
"Sect Leader ire. I think its time I graduate from the Sunrise sect and let the Sunrise sect outshine me,"
ire was surprised for a moment, but soon she just sighed,
"I understand you. I mean, you must be stronger than your sect leader,"
"Way stronger," Gaya eximed,
"So what''s the n?" asked ire,
"Between us, ill always be the guardian of the sect. But to the outside world, I graduated from the sect. I will be nothing more than an old student,"
ire listened to Michael''s n without uttering a word as he continued,
"As for the matter of Bradford, I''d prefer if you merge the kingdom with a sect,"
It was not Michael''s idea to acquire the kingdom into the sect but Gaya''s. No sect had ever acquired a kingdom. Hence, if the sunrise sect took over Bradford, it''d be the first time in history.
"Think about it, ire. After taking over the kingdom, all the citizens of Bradford would be our disciples. You will have an army to defend the sect in the future against your foes. Let''s be real. Countless people might be conspiring to bring us down as we speak. So we need an army," Gaya eximed,
"Besides, It''d be lessplicated to rule Bradford as the sunrise sect rather than a separate ce. We got your back ire, as always," Gaya wrapped her hand around ire and reassured her.
"Take your time Sect Leader ire. I know it''s a big decision. But trust me, it''s better this way,"
"Well, I have to talk to the elders but are you sure you want to do this? By doing this, you''re basically throwing away being the king,"
Michael on the other hand just shrugged,
"I don''t like being the king anyway. It''s not my style. Plus, being called Your majesty feels wrong and weird,"
"Really? That''s your reason?" ire sighed,
"You basically went to war with King Bredia and killed princess Katherine,"
"Both of them were being such a bitch at that time. Just take your time and let us know your decision Sect Leader ire,"
"Please, call me ire from now on. Just like Your majesty Ghost, Sect Leader ire feels wrong and weird," ire giggled as Michael stood up to leave the manor.
"Fair," Michael nodded,
"And Gaya, girls night. Do not miss it. I still haven''t forgotten you didn''t throw a g for getting engaged,"
"Thest time we try to do that, a bunch of morons ambushed us and blew Hades to hell. So you sure you still want a g?"
"I am nning this time and no offense Ghost, it''ll be open for only girls," ire said to Michael.
"Whatever you do, do it before the end of next week. I am nning to go to Awor,"
"Aqua auction?" ire asked,
"Yeah. I heard I can get some cool stuff there,"
Before traveling to Awor however, Michael nned to deal with the pirates in the Southern continent and the status of Gisal in the ongoing war between Prerid and Miral. Thest time Michael heard, General Quintus was viciously attacking Prerid and slowly marching towards Prerid''s capital.
He assigned Cain to deal with the problem, and it was time to check on Vedora.
After leaving ire''s manor, Michael and Gaya went to see their herbal garden. The herbal garden was concealed with lush green veins and giant trees. If one looked at the mountain from the distance, they wouldn''t see the ss dome covering the herbal garden but the lush green mountain.
As they walked towards the herbal garden, breathing in the aromatic air, they felt calm and soothed to their soul. The sound of birds chirping and crickets chittering in the herbal garden was almost music to their ears.
"It feels like yesterday I nted my first herb seed. Thousand years, Blue Patna flower," Michael said to Gaya,
"Time does fly fast," Gaya nodded. After walking food for a few more minutes, they reached the colossal ss dome surrounding the herbal garden. At that moment, the herbal garden was almost half the size of a football stadium. But the crowded herbs and vegetation made the garden somewhat look smaller.
As soon as they entered the garden, a few youngsters weed them with a bow.
"How is the harvesting going?" Michael asked the blonde-haired youngster. Since he was one of the senior disciples in the sect, he didn''t act like the others when he saw Michael.
"Pretty great Brother Ghost. We just brought somepost from Royalnd and I heard Elder Reiner has ordered some rare herbs from the Phoenix Auction House,"
"Cool. Continue your work. I juste here to pick some herbs," Michael and Gaya walked away from the youngsters, leaving them to their work.
"I still can''t believe that tiny human is in seclusion. Do you think she is some kind of genius?" Gaya asked while Michael was plucking some red orchids with care.
"If she continues to cultivate at this rate, she would be considered as one. After all, Cindy consumed pills and potions worth millions. That could make even the mediocre cultivator a genius,"
"Yet here you are plucking orchids to make her another potion," Gaya chuckled.
"It will help her reach the Core Formation stage quicker. I miss having her around,"
"What about me? Do you miss having me around?" Gaya asked in a seductive tone and moved closer to him.
"Would you believe me if I said no?"
Those were thest words that escaped Michael''s mouth before Gaya locked her lips with his.
Chapter 571: Future Plans III
Chapter 571: Future ns IIIThe next day Michael woke up early and went straight to Hades before sunrise. He had a whole of things nned ahead and decided to start the day with some strongly brewed coffee. After the ambush, Michael hired Lord Mn to provide twenty-four-seven security to Raylene, Hades, and the Majestic. Hence, when Michael and Gaya arrived at hades, they were greeted by two Core Strengthening stage guards.
"Lord Ghost, Lady Aelia," the two guards nking the door bowed their heads as Michael and Gaya entered the Hades. The newly renovated Hades looked morous and fancier than before. Although she hated Fovar, the dwarf, she couldn''t help admiring his skills. Basically, it felt like she had entered another world.
"God I missed the smell of this ce," Gaya took a long whiff of the air and looked around the restaurant for a few moments before walking towards the table designated for them.
"Oh my god," As they sat down, Gloria, who walked out from the back door, almost jumped and gasped in shock.
"Master Ghost, Miss Aelia!"
Michael was surprised too as he didn''t expect Gloria to be here this early.
"You''re early," Gaya eximed,
"I alwayse early to see everything''s in perfect condition, Miss Aelia. It''s not much but always helps to keep the flow running smoothly,"
Michael appreciated Gloria''s hard work. There was a reason why Michael paid a high wager to Gloria.
"I heard you''re nning to open up another branch in Royal Land. Come on take a seat," Gaya gestured at Gloria to take the seat before them.
At first, Gloria felt hesitant even to look them in the eyes. But after spending time with Ghost and Aelia, she had grown to respect them more rather than fear them. So instead of wasting their time being reluctant, Gloria took the seat.
"Tell me about this ce," Gaya asked.
"Well, it''s located in the noble district, close to the garrison. Nice safe spot, big three-story building and newly built,"
"Sounds great. Any problem buying it?"
"The owner of the building is King Kramer''s cousin. He is ying a little hardball,"
Gaya creased her brows because she sensed a reluctance in Gloria''s voice as though she was hiding something.
"Gloria,"
After hearing the deep tone, Gloria just sighed.
"It''s just that guy''s look, Miss Aelia. It doesn''t feel right. It doesn''t feel right the way he looks at Lady Raylene. I don''t think he is asking for coins,"
"Argh I hate this," Michael scratched the back of his head. Thest thing Michael wanted was to make an enemy out of King Kramer. Unlike King Bredia, King Kramer was an influential figure and the king of the most powerful kingdom in Elon.
"Did you look for another ce?" asked Gaya hiding the anger from showing on her face.
"Yes, but they are not as good as this. That''s why we''ve been thinking of opening a branch somewhere else,"
"That''s a good idea. It''s troublesome to deal with these spoiled young masters," Gaya sighed. Although Gloria was slightly surprised, she felt relieved.
"As you wish Miss Aelia,"
While talking, Michael saw Raylene walking through the door and was surprised to see Ghost and Aelia.
"Here she is, my favorite cook in the whole world,"
"Miss Aelia," Raylene dashed at Gaya and hugged her tightly.
"Core Formation level 7," Michael admired Raylene''s cultivation level. It was apparent to him that despite her busy schedule, Raylene was spending time cultivating as he instructed her.
"It''s so nice to see you. Where have you been?" Gaya made Raylene sit beside her and ruffled Raylene''s golden hair.
"You are glowing," Gayamented on Raylene''s silky smooth, glowy skin, making Rayene blush.
"How about we all have a freshly brewed coffee and talk?" Michael felt bad to interrupt their reunion but he wanted that coffee to kick his brain to n his next moves.
"Give me ten minutes, and ill bring coffee with Miss Aelia''s favorite cookies,"
"You are such a treasure," Gaya pinched Raylene''s cheek to the point it turned red as a ripe tomato.
"You can go ahead with your work Gloria," Michael sent away Gloria so he could start nning with Gaya.
"You are not going to kill him huh?" Michael raised his brows, showing his disbelief.
"Of course. My word is my bond," Michael chuckled seeing her cing her three fingers on the chest.
"But that doesn''t mean he won''t die. Aria''s in Bradford right?" Michael nodded. When Michael met Ariast time, he ordered her to escort her brothers to Bradford and contact Sadie to get the twins into the military.
Thanks to Sadie, Titus and Optimus had be the soldiers of Bradford''s army and waiting for the Dark Lord''s further instructions.
"Its time she does a little reconnaissance in Royalnd,"
"What are you nning?" Michael asked curiously.
"A pervert fucker like him can''t live without g and parties. I bet he''s having a party this weekend,"
"So?"
"So we crash the party," Gaya shrugged.
"We can''t. He dies, and we might be suspects,"
"Not if he goes nuts and kills himself," Gata grinned devilishly as Michael understood her n.
If someone killed that young master, the guardians or the king''s guards might make the connection to Michael. However, no one would bat an eye if he went nuts and killed himself as Gaya said. Fortunately, Michael happened to know how to make him go crazy.
"Where is Elidyr? He should have gotten out by now," Gaya watched the rising sun through the window and wondered.
"While we are waiting for him, tell me where I get these things," Michael quickly scribbled a list of things on parchment and slid it towards Gaya,
"ck Ikory, clean-cut sapphires, meridian ore, ]ritsburry oil¡" Gaya read through the list of items and looked confused after reaching the list''s end.
"What the heck are you nning to do with all these items? You can''t get these items in amon auction house. Most of these items are pretty rare. I know someone who could get these items, but I don''t think you''ll like him,"
"Who?" Michael asked.
"Lord fricking Julius of Phenox Ind,"
"Cool,"
However, Michael surprised Gaya with his calm tone.
"We''ll send Daniel to meet Julius on my behalf,"
"Wow, I thought you will be mad or¡"
"Or what throw a tantrum? Look, I am a Fusion Stage cultivator now. Holding a grudge against a puny Core Formation or Core Strengthening man is beneath me. Honestly, I don''t think Julius is holding what I did against him either. Let''s just send Daniel and get these items from him,"
"When did you be such a saint?" Gaya couldn''t help rolling her eyes as she kinda expected Ghost to go to phoenix ind and decimate everyone in his path or atleast, kick Julius''s butt. After all, Lord Julius tried to kill Ghost when he killed the group of youngsters who tried to kill Gaya.
Yet, he proved her wrong by forgiving Julius.
"But I get to kill him if he still acts like a bitch,"
"Fair enough,"
Unlike Before, Michael did not have to constraint himself from making enemies. On the contrary, it was the people of Elon who shouldn''t make an enemy out of Michael. As a Fusion Stage cultivator, Michael had the power to wipe out many noble families and sects from the face of the world. At this point in time, only peak-level Fusion Stage or cultivators above them could stop Michael.
As they were talking, another figure entered through the door and this time, it was Elidyr. He strolled toward Michael and Gaya like he owns the ce with his head held high.
"Look who decided to show up," Since they were in Hades, instead of bowing, Elidyr just nodded and took the seat before them.
"Where is Nightmare?" as soon as Elidyr settled down, Micha asked him about Nightmare.
"The moment we got out, he went to meet you in the sect,"
"I bet he is with ire right now," Gaya chuckled, imagining Nightmare in a bathtub full of bubbles.
"Elidyr," Michael nodded at Elidyr as thetter quickly drew a rune on the table. The dark red rune resembling a hawk glistened for a moment before vanishing into thin air.
"Now no one will be able to hear us,"
"Good,"
"So now he is here, tell us what''s our next move is?" Gaya asked Michael. To be honest, Gaya felt overwhelmed by the problems in front of them. Until now, their enemies had the advantage of being stronger than them. That had changed now. Therefore, Gaya wanted to tackle the problems head-on.
"First things first, we need to finish what we started. We are going to Gisal and equip Big Bertha with mortar,"
"Man, I need to see this mortar you two constantly nag about in action,"
"Has they finished forging it, my lord?"
"Hmm. Maxine will meet us at Corey''s ind with the mortar. After we finish that, I am nning to visit Aden. We can''t dy making the southern continent our strong base anymore. On one hand, we have the mysterious n of vampires who seemed to be far more powerful than we imagined. On the other hand, we have Skyhall and Guardians to deal with. So I think we will all agree when I say we turn the tables to our favor and conquer the Southern continent once and for all,"
Gaya bobbed her head up and down excitedly.
"But before we do that, we have an ally to make," Michael paused for a moment,
"The Holy Church. I am going to make a huge sum of five million dors donation in my name against the church''s war against the Dark Lord,"
"Ooh, I get it," after deeply thinking for a few moments, Gaya understood Michael''s n.
"Don''t tell me you don''t get him. You are thousands of years old. Just use your old brain and figure it out. Why does Ghost need the Holy Church as his ally? "
After seeing the amused look on Michael''s face, Elidyr really started to pick his brain to understand his n. As far as Elidyr heard from Michael, the Holy Church was hunting the Dark Lord in full force. Hence, he couldn''t help wondering why Michael needed to meet the powerful organization that hunts him.
Chapter 572: Fixing Olivia鈥檚 Marriage
Chapter 572: Fixing Olivia¡¯s MarriageAfter nning his next moves, Michael waited for Reginald to arrive at Hades with Gaya. As time flew, more and more nobles entered the hades, and the restaurant began to get busy. Not even an hour passed opening the restaurant, yet all the tables got filled with nobles. A few nobles looked surprised to see Michael, but they didn''t bother Michael.
Finally, after the sun ultimately rose out of the horizon, Reginald entered the Hades with Olivia and Ricky.
"Lord Reginald," Michael stood up to firmly shake Reginald''s hand. Gaya also shook his hand before everyone settled into their ces.
"We will have three specials please," Michael ordered the food on behalf of Reginald,
"Master Ghost, I heard about what happened in the alchemypetition. Scary business. Thank you so much for taking care of her," Reginald showed his gratitude to Michael with a nod.
"Lord Reginald, I asked you here to talk about Olivia. Normally, I wouldn''t poke my head into others'' business. But she is not an outsider. She is my student, and as a teacher, I can''t ignore her well-being,"
"Ma-"
"Hear him out," Gaya cut Reginald short when he was about to interject Michael.
"I don''t like to beat around the bush. These two are in love," Michael pointed at Olivia and Ricky,
"And I want you to marry them. If you are hesitating because he is not noble and not strong enough, this will reassure you," Reginald noticed Michael talking a parchment from his space ring and writing something on it.
"This contains my word to you. In two years, Ricky will reach the Soul Refining Stage. In two months, he will be appointed as one of the elders of the Sunrise sect and no longer be just a henchman,"
Everyone except Gaya was startled.
"Tea¡Teacher," Olivia stuttered as Michael slid the parchment towards Reginald. He took it in his hand and nced at Michael''s words,
''''I think we will both agree that at the Soul Refining stage, Ricky can protect Olivia without anyone''s help," Michael calmly said,
"And as an Elder of the Sunrise sect, he will be influential and have a status higher than many nobles in Elon," Gaya eximed after Michael.
Reginald was simply speechless while Ricky felt like he was about to faint.
"You have to think of your daughter, Lord Reginald. She asked for your permission because she loves and respects you. It''s time you return the same gesture to her. If she marries another guy, she will just be a wife. But Ricky will treat her like a queen. He is a nice guy,"
Ricky''s eyes watered, hearing Ghost vouch for him. On the other hand, Reginald just stared at Ricky and Olivia before sighing.
"Do you really think he can reach the Soul Refining stage within two years?"
"I don''t think. I know, you have my word,"
After getting assurance from Michael, he couldn''t reject Ricky anymore. Besides, Noah Winston had called off the marriage so Reginald had no choice but to ept the deal from Ghost.
"And Ricky,"
While Reginald was pondering, Gaya turned her gaze towards Ricky,
"She is the only girl in your life. The only tears I want to see in the green eyes are happy tears. Otherwise, I''ll break your bones, make a soup, and feed it to you," Gaya threatened Ricky and by the coldness of the tone, Reginald could tell she wasn''t kidding.
"What''s your answer, Lord Reginald?"
Reginald looked at Ricky and Oliva yet again and heaved a long breath of sigh,
"I have no objection to the marriage between them. We shall marry them after he reaches the Soul Refining Stage,"
Not that Reginald wanted Ricky to fail, but he truly wanted someone powerful to protect his daughter. That was the main reason why Reginald rejected Ricky. However, now that Ghost reassured him, he truly believed Ricky could reach the Soul Refining stage. As far as Reginald was concerned, Ghost could do anything if he set his mind to it.
As soon as Reginald agreed, Olivia lunged at her father and hugged him tightly. Meanwhile, Ricky almost grabbed Michael''s feet, but Michael quickly stopped him with a gust of wind.
"You and Daniel find some associates for you. From tomorrow, the two of you will start cultivating like never before. Aelia will give you a training regiment you must follow,"
Ricky bopped his head up and down. Although Michael could provide Daniel and Ricky with pills and potions, without hard work and a strict training regiment, they wouldn''t reach the Soul Refinement stage in a million years. Since Michael gave Reginald his word, he gave the responsibility of training them to Gaya.
After sending the happy love birds away, Michael started to talk about the future of the majestic.
"Lord Reginald, we have a unique opportunity in our hands. You know what that is right?"
Reginald nodded,
"Almost eighty percent of the alchemists in Elon and Ozer are wiped out. So we have a huge vacuum of alchemists. Don''t you think it''s time to hike the price up a bit?" asked Gaya.
"Definitely. Your pills and potions already have a huge demand. In fact, the demand is way higher than the products in our hands. I can get our team to assess the market and get a rough idea of how high we should raise the prices,"
"That''s good. But I am also thinking of expanding the majestic Lord Reginald. Between you and me, I am nning to make Olivia the head of my majestic chains. What do you think of Olivia getting a share in profits?"
Reginald became speechless. Even 10% in the profits would settle Olivia for life. In fact, she would surpass Reginald''s worth in a couple of years if Ghost did what he said. As a merchant, he could tell how much of a golden opportunity this was.
"It''d be wonderful Master Ghost,"
"I thought so too. Can you do me a favor, Lord Reginald?"
"Of course Master Ghost,"
Reginald was too excited as he had already started to imagine Olivia as the head of Ghost''s majestic chain.
"I need good ces to open up branches. Can you get your team to find me some great ces and their prices?"
"Consider it done. I''ll have the list brought to you in a few days,"
Reginald already had a few ces in mind. Thus, finding Ghost a few suitable ces wouldn''t be difficult. Besides, Reginald would provide his full help to Ghost to build a majestic chain so Olivia could have a bright future and be a renowned leader instead of being an alchemy teacher in Aragoth.
After everything was said and done, Reginald left Hades, leaving Ghost and Gaya behind. The duo did not linger around in Hades but went straight back to the sect. At the time, they returned to the sect, Michael was hit by a heavy bag, and the bad was none other than Nightmare, who shrunk his size like a fully grown german shepherd.
"Nightmare, buddy" the dragon frantically licked Michael''s face and showered him with kisses.
"It feels like too long," Nightmare hugged both Gaya and Michael in the mid-air.
The trio slowly descended onto ire''s mention and went inside to see ire.
"Ghost," ire weed Michael and Gaya with a grin.
"take your seats,"
After they all settled down, ire handed over two parchments to Michael.
"One is the document for merging the kingdom with the sect, and the other is your graduation confirmation. Since you will be busy getting ready to go to Awor, I took the liberty to draft them as fast as I could," Gaya took a short nce at the two documents before putting them inside her space ring.
"Also, I sent some disciples to find you two a good ce to build your home. By the time youe back from Awor, we''ll have a great ce,"
"Yes, but don''t let anyone start building. I want to design every brick of our castle,"
"Castle?" ire raised her brows in surprise.
"Of course, it will be a castle. Not just any castle. It will make the existing castles in Elon look like shabby houses,"
"But don''t you think it''s overkill to build a castle for just the two of you?"
ire turned her gaze to Michael, but he remained silent. It was Gaya''s dream to design her own castle, and Michael had no ns to stop her from doing so. No matter how much coins it would cost him, he would let Gaya build them their own castle.
Plus, Michael loved the idea of living in a castle without all the responsibilities of a king.
"Normally I''d disagree with her, but I love the idea of living in a castle. I have some cool ideas for my room," Nightmare excitedlyughed.
Hearing the two of them, ire could only sigh.
"There is no stopping you, is there?"
"Nope," Gaya shook her head.
"Trust me ire. You''re gonna be mind blown. We just need to find some best architects in Awor,"
"So, have you thought of how you will get to Awor? You can''t fly there as it would take months. If I were you, I''d look for a portal,"
"Speaking of a portal, do you think the Holy church would have one?" Michael suddenly asked.
"I think so. The Holy Church has a branch in Royalnd, and I heard they have a portal there," ire said,
"That''s great. I have to meet his holiness anyways. Thank you ire,"
ire wanted to ask why Michael suddenly wanted to meet with his holiness, but she refrained from sticking her nose into his business.
"Why don''t you stay here and have that girls night today? I''ll go meet his holiness,"
Michael said to Gaya as she quickly creased her brows,
"Why can''t Ie with you?"
"Because you should spend some time with them," Michael gently squeezed her hand, looking into her eyes. It took Gay a second to realize his true reason,
"You know what, that''s a great idea,"
"What about me?" asked Nightmare,
"I''ll take you with me," Michael rubbed Nightmare''s head and agreed to bring him to the church.
Chapter 573: The Holy Church
Chapter 573: The Holy ChurchIt had been a couple of months since Michael visited Royalnd. By the time, he flew to Royalnd atop Nightmare, the sun was on the top, scorching everyone under with its heat. Just like before, Michael had tond at the city gates and pay a toll to enter the city. Nightmare shrunk his size smaller to sit atop Michael''s shoulder. After paying twenty gold coins, Michael entered the main capital of Royalnd.
As usual, the city looked stripped out of a fantasy anime or a fantasy drama with all the people wearing fancy clothes and members of other races. Many young girls and young boys had their own exotic pets with them, but none had a dragon. A forest dragon was still a rare dragon breed, after all. Hence, Michael drew some nces at him while walking toward the town square.
ording to ire, the road leading to the Holy Church branched out from the town square.
"Look at all those guards," while Michael was on his way to the town square, Nightmare pointed him to the fully armor-ted soldiers patrolling the streets.
The soldiers wore pale blue armor with the crest of Royalnd on their chest. However, several groups adorned dark brown armor instead of blue. Michael did not recognize them.
"Who are they?"
The Holy Church soldiers, who were called Holy Guards, would be in shining white armor. At the same time, the guardians always wore golden armor or appeared without any armor but just their crest. He hadn''t seen any group of guards in dark brown armor.
Besides, they were extremely strong. Each guard wearing the muddy brown armor was at the Core Strengthening Stage. Because of the helmet, Michael couldn''t see their faces or identify their race.
Ignoring the patrolling soldiers, Michael continued to walk toward the town square.
"Is that Ghost?"
"Yes. It''s him,"
"Whoa it''s really him. He is better looking than I imagined,"
"He does have a dragon for a pet. Cool,"
Several nobles who recognized Michae by his trademark ck robes began to murmur among them.
At this time, almost half of Elon knew Michael''s face and the entire continent knew his name.
If it wasn''t for the no-fly inside the city gates rule, Michael could have easily detected the church and quickie reached the ce. But, since it wasn''t the case, Michael had to ignore their gazes and walk.
"Aren''t we going to visit King Kramer?" Nightmare asked suddenly.
"We will. But after we meet with his holiness,"
Michael wanted to let everyone in Elon know he had reached the Fusion Stage. It would definitely bring him attention and respect from throughout the continent. He wouldn''t have to pay to enter the city at that time, but the king woulde in person to receive him.
When he arrived at the buzzing town square, Michael was greeted by a man in white robes standing atop a stack of crates and shouting out loud.
"The vampires are walking among us. The Dark Lord is walking among us. The gods are walking among us!" the man shouted as loud as he could.
Instead of walking past him, Michael leaned on a brick wall and listened to him with a few others.
"These are testing times for mortals. We have deceivers leading us into chaos. The Guardians are conspiring against humanity. They allowed the vampires to massacre our brothers and sisters. We are not cattle to be ughtered!"
Michael was amused by the man''s words. Moreover, the man got quite a crowd listening to him. Usually, the people of Royalnd would ignore people like him but now, they actually stood under the scorching sun to listen to the man.
The hate against the Guardians had be stronger than ever. It was evident to Michael. As the sole orchestrator of the events that ruined Guardian Guild''s reputation, Michael was proud and pleased.
"We have deviated from the Great One and Two. Now we are reaping what we sow. It is time to return to our roots people. The Holy Church is our only way to redemption!"
The man looked at the sky, pausing his speech for a few moments.
"It''s not toote. Surrender your souls to his holiness as he is the savior of the mortal kind,"
"So the Holy Church is going all out to increase their support huh?" Michael mumbled inside.
Instead of continuing to listen to the man, Michael resumed his journey. Considering the people were too focused on the shouting man, they failed to notice Michael. As Michael walked out of the crowd, he saw a desertedne nked by yellow maple trees on each side. The yellow-leaved nketed the pavement, making the path look like it was paved with gold.
The wooden board had the words ''Holy Church'' engraved on it along with an arrow pointing down the path. Michael and Nightmare took the path in silence, listening to the ruffling leaves and chirping of birds. It was soothing to them.
Everything was still and silent until Michael sensed a powerful being approaching him. He slowly looked upwards to see a golden-haired man adorned in radiant white armor descending from the sky. If the word Knight had an embodiment, it would be the man before Michael. With the heavy armor nking, the mannded in front of Michael. His golden eyes stared at Michael from top to bottom.
"A Soul Refining stage cultivator" Michael sensed the man''s cultivation stage and wondered why a warrior like him appeared here.
"Ghost I presume," the golden-haired warrior spoke with his steel-like voice. The man[''s face was void of any friendliness. In fact, he stared at Michael coldly as though Michael had done something to him.
"One and only. I am hoping to see his holiness," however, after Michael uttered these words with full of respect, a glint of surprise emerged in the man''s gold eyes.
"The reason,"
"To get his holiness''s blessings and extend my support to the holy church against the vampires,"
"Follow me," the man said nothing but these words before gesturing at Michael to follow him. The both of them took off from the ground and as soon as Michael flew through the maple tree canopy, he noticed a gothic-style pce in the distance surrounded by moat and alluring sunflower beds.
Michael could see the countless arrays and runes around the pce thanks to his X-ray vision. As Michael flew closer and closer, he noticed the enormous statues of warriors decorated the bridge leading to the pce. This castle had clearly stood the test of time and despite his age, the pce looked sturdy and pristine.
"This way," The man descended to the ground,nding on the marble floor facing the giant golden door. As though the door had sensed them, it creaked open slowly to reveal the interior. When the door opened, Michael was weed by massive braziers hanging from each of the six travertine columns that lit up the lower levels of the throne hall and nketed everything in a warm glow. The countless gems on the rounded ceiling danced in the flickering light while statuettes and memorials looked down upon this opulent hall''s marble floor. Broad, stained ss windows depicting ancient legends were concealed by veils colored the same ebony as the banners. The curtains have been adorned with jewels and fine patterns.
An ebony rug split the entire hall in half, matching the thinner ones on either side of the hall while burgee banners with golden fringes decorated the walls. Between each banner stood several tapers of various sizes, all but a few have been lit, illuminating the two giant statuses of a man and a woman.
Under these two statues were two striking thrones of iron sitting at the center of a small tform and adjoined by five simr, but smaller seats for visiting dignitaries. The thrones were covered in byzantine carvings, and avishntern was fixed on each of the slim ears. Thefortable pillows were radiant white ebony, and these too have been adorned with embellished quilting.
Those seeking the wisdom of the holiness could do so on the plethora of extravagant andfortable maple benches facing the center of the hall. Those of higher standing could instead take seats in the elegant balustrades overlooking the hall.
Entering the hall, Michael noticed a few nobles praying to the two giant statues on their knees. Instead of following the man, Michael went to his knees and closed his eyes just like the nobles. The sudden gesture Michael surprised the man yet again.
While pretending to pray to the giant statues, Michael scanned the hall. Suddenly, he sensed a Body Refining stage cultivator entering the hall surrounded by Soul Refining stage warriors. Michael slowly opened his eyes to see a man in histe seventies with pure white hair standing before the throne. The old man wore radiant white robes that sparkled in the light as he looked to be the embodiment of kindness.
There was no doubt in Michael''s mind. The old man was the holiness of the Holy Church in the Royal Land.
"May the Great One and Two be with you always," His holiness raised the golden staff in his hand as a warm wave of energy brushed past Michael.
"His Holiness will now see you," the golden-haired man said to Michael. Michael stood up and slowly approached the older man on the throne with a nod.
"Please take the seat, child," the old man gestured at Michael to sit in the chair beside the throne.
"Your Holiness, please give us your blessing," Michael and Nightmare lowered their heads,
"May the Great One and Two be with you always," His Holiness blessed Michael and Nightmare with a gentle smile.
"It''s a pleasure to see a gifted young man like you bow your heads towards the holy church," His Holiness softly spoke.
"I may not be a model citizen, your holiness. But I always put my faith in the Great One and Two. They guide me, and after the recent events, my faith is stronger than ever before,"
Nightmare was truly surprised by the extent of Michael''s acting skills. He had to learn about the Great One and Two from Gaya, yet he talked like a die-hard worshipper of the two gods.
"The Great One and Two protect those who keep them in their hearts, child. Nothing can harm you as long as you have them in your heart. Now feel free to speak your mind, child. This is a safe zone,"
"I want to support the Holy Church, Your Holiness. I don''t trust the Guardians, and I firmly believe only the Holy Church can put a stop to all this madness,"
His Holiness just gently smiled hearing Michael''s words.
"It is not madness but consequences of our sins, my child. We have lost our ways. Temporary pleasures and false gods have blinded everyone''s faith,"
"That''s why I want to do my part, offering what I can to the Holy Church, your Holiness,"
"Your true faith is what we need, child. But we are living in difficult times facing evil every day. To fight those evil and keep the light burning bright, we need everyone''s help. Brianna," His Holiness closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened his eyes, a bald woman slowly descended before them.
"Your Holiness," the bald woman kindly smiled and bowed towards his holiness.
"Believer Brianna is responsible for handling donations. You can make your donation no matter the amount to her,"
Michael nodded and took out a space ring from the system storage. Then, he handed over the space ring to Brianna.
"May the Great One and Two bless your kind heart," Brianna kindly smiled, taking the space ring from Michael. But soon, a glint of surprise emerged in her eyes.
"I also want to offer a batch of healing potions to the Holy Church every month, Believer Brianna. But unfortunately, I can''t make the donations in person. So is it okay if someone else made the donation on my behalf?"
Brianna was still in shock because no one in Elon had ever donated five million gold coins in one go. Even some noble families would give less to the Holy Church, yet a youngster like him made a donation of five million really touched her heart.
"Of course, you are a true believer, my child. Only if we had more believers like you,"
Nightmare almost coughed up blood. Although Nightmare had no idea why he was making donations to the Holy Church, one thing was for sure, Ghost was thest guy who would believe in the Holy Church.
Chapter 574: King and Queen of Royal Land
Chapter 574: King and Queen of Royal LandJust as Michael nned, after making such huge donations, the royal news printed his meeting with his holiness on the front page. The entire continent now knew about Ghost''s friendly rtionship with the Holy Church, which became another ally of Ghost. Since he made a 5 million donation and offered to send Holy Guards a batch of healing potions free every month, his holiness dly gave ess to the teleportation portal. Instead of walking into the portal right away, Michael went to meet King Kramer.
He would have walked to the castle if he hadn''t reached the Fusion Stage. Since he was, Michel flew to the castle andnded right before the castle gates. As soon as his feet touched the ground, several armed guards rushed to the gates, thinking they were under attack.
"Rx, I am here to meet King Kramer," the soldiers did not loosen their bodies.
"Tell your king Ghost wants to see him,"
"Ghost?" the soldiers were startled. Although they hadn''t seen him in person, they had all heard about him.
"I thought a Fusion Stage cultivator would receive a different wee," Michael informed the soldiers about his cultivation stage in an indirect manner. It took the soldiers a few moments to realize the graveness of the matter. But before one of them could run back into the castle, a group of fancily dressed people approached the gates surrounded by several more armed soldiers.
The one who led the group was a middle-aged man with wavy shoulder-length silvery hair. He was neither too short nor too tall but rather had an average build. His thick mustache perfectlyplemented his clean-shaven rosy skin. Just by looking at the silver robes and the golden crown on his face, Michael could tell who this man was.
"King Kramer," Michael greeted the king with a smile.
"Sorry to drop by unannounced. I was in the neighborhood and it''d be rude if I didn''te to meet you,"
"King Ghost," unexpectedly, it was the silvery-haired woman who greeted Michael instead of the king. To a man who saw countless heaven-defying beauties from both this universe and other universes, Michael wasn''t startled by the queen''s charm.
"Queen Imat I presume,"
The guards quickly opened the steel gate between the two parties as Michael stepped forward.
"Sorry for all this King Ghost,"
"Oh please, call me Ghost. I insist,"
"As you wish," King Kramer finally opened his mouth and extended his arm to shake Michael''s.
"Honour to finally meet you, King Kramer," Michael firmly shook his hand,
''"Pleasee inside," the queen weed Michael with a bright grin on her face.
"You must be the only king who doesn''t like to be called king and surrounded by royal guards," the queen melodiouslyughed while leading Michael to the majestic castle.
"What''s the point of being a Fusion Stage cultivator when I have to surround myself with weaker guards?"
Now that the queen and king finally heard these words from his mouth, their legs stopped walking.
"You¡you reached the Fusion Stage?" an old man carrying a thick book and a staff asked Michae in utter surprise.
"Yes. It''s hard to believe right?"
Not only the old man but even the king and queen also stared at Michael with clear doubt in their eyes.
"I am pretty sure you have a mirror device to check the cultivation stage,"
"It''s okay Ghost. We believe you," the queen brushed it off but Michael shook his head,
"I like to let everyone know that I reached Fusion Stage, Queen Imat," Michael whispered to her. Still, the others heard him.
"But can I ask why? Isn''t it advantageous to keep your cultivation stage hidden?"
Apparently, the queen was more talkative than the King. But that didn''t mean the king was weak. In fact, King Kramer was at Core strengthening stage level 10 while Queen Imat was just at Core Formation stage level 3.
"What''s the point of reaching Fusion Stage if you can''t show it off Queen Imat? Plus, I don''t have to deal with the arrogant young masters and young misses riddling Elon," Michael chuckled. His words just mesmerized the queen and everyone around.
He didn''t sound arrogant but domineering. Coupled with his young age, it was too hard for them to believe Ghost was a Fusion Stage cultivator.
"Make sense," King Kramer nodded as they finally reached the enormous throne hall.
"Bring the mirrors," King Kramer ordered the old man and waited for the servants to set up the sofas. After everything was said and done, Michael took the seat facing Queen Imat and King Kramer. Being a Fusion Stage cultivator felt great to Michael. Normally, one would have to wait for an audience with King Kramer but now, he entered the castle escorted by the king and queen themselves.
He used to feel slightly jealous of Lah and Elder Kane but not anymore.
Quickly a maid approached Michael, slightly shivering from top to bottom.
"I will take any kind of fruit juice, please. No booze, thank you," Despite Michael''s status and cultivation, he treated the maid with dignity. It was such a small gesture but his words to the maid surprised Queen Imat.
"So what''s the true purpose of your visit here Ghost?" King Kramer asked after the maid left the throne hall. He also dismissed the soldiers except for a few royal guards who stood in the corner, watching the king and queen.
"I came to meet His Holiness and dropped by to meet the two of you because I was kinda hoping I could buy a piece ofnd in your kingdom,"
"Piece ofnd? That''s wonderful. Royalnd would be honored to gift you," Queen Imat said with an ear-to-ear grin as the King nodded.
"Freebies break friendships Queen Imat. So I was thinking I could name either of you as a shareholder of the majestic branch I will open here in Royalnd. Is it possible? Sorry to be blunt but I was actually thinking it. In fact, I have the same proposal to the king of Dradel and Kethen too,"
"Really?" Queen Imat''s voice trailed off as she looked to be in deep thought about Michael''s offer. Of course, Michael knew they would ept it but they had to pretend to be thinking so they wouldn''t look like power-hungry wolves. Regardless of their status as king and queen, they would still be wanting to be a part of something big as Majestic. Why? Because Ghost was a Fusion Stage cultivator and being an ally to a Fusion Stage cultivator came with countless benefits.
From Michael''s perspective, he needed allies. By making them King Kramer and Queen Imat shareholders in the Majestic, they would not only be his allies but the Majestic would get the protection of the entire kingdom. Once the king and queen taste the benefits, Michael could reap more from the two of them.
"I mean, just think about it. An outsideres to your home and runs things without giving you any sort of tribute. It''s not fair right? That''s why I want the two of you to be a part of Majestic in Royalnd,"
While they were talking, the old man who went to bring the mirror finally arrived at the hall with several other nobles. They all had one thing inmon; curiosity.
Thest time Michael saw the device was when hepeted in the Elon tournament. Of course, the mirror before him looked a little smaller and lightweight. It was apparent to Michael that the guardians had made some modifications to the device. One single shout from the dormant Hydra, and they still hadn''t recovered their ability to perceive someone else''s cultivation level.
"Let''s do this, shall we?" Michael rubbed his palms together excitedly before walking toward the mirror.
"We made some changes to the contraption Master Ghost. This one is specifically designed to check whether someone is at the Fusion Stage or not. I hope you don''t mind it."
"Why would I?"
Michael just shrugged, cing his palm on the mirror. As soon as his palm touched the mirror, he felt a suction force and a warm sensation throughout his body. The mirror remained unmoving for a second before slowly starting to radiate a bright purple light from within.
"Fusion Stage," the old man mumbled under his breath.
"How am I doing?" Michael winked at the nobles as they stared at Michael in pure amazement. Michael was sure they would spread the news of his cultivation stage throughout the continent by tomorrow morning.
"We should agree, don''t you think?" Queen Imat whispered to King Kramer.
"Hmm. It''s always better to have allies," King Kramer nodded, agreeing with Queen Imat''s words.
Now that Michael had finished proving himself, he returned to his seat.
"Well, King Kramer and Queen Imat," Michael looked at them for their answer,
"We will definitely consider it Ghost. There are some rules and regtions for us to own something. What about we give us your answer just say, tomorrow night?" Queen Imat asked, just as Michael predicted.
"Cool,"
Chapter 575: Weakness of Big Bertha
Chapter 575: Weakness of Big BerthaAt the moment, Michael was in his Dark Lord form in the dark forest. Azazel was cleaning the room while Nightmare and Vedora yed with each other on the bed.
"My lord," As Michael was correcting his robes before the mirror, Elidyr entered the room.
"I am ready," Elidyr said.
"Let''s go then," Nightmare stopped flicking Ayag on the head and leaped tond on Michael''s shoulder.
"You''re noting buddy," Michael said to Nightmare as he nodded,
"I know,"
"Where is Gaya though? What''s taking her so long to kill one puny human?" Ayag soundedzy and tired of ying with Nightmare for so long. However, what Michael said next excited her,
"She will join uster at the pirate haven Aden. Buddy," Michael looked at Nightmare,
"Return to Royalnd and stay in the room. If anyone asks for me, contact me,"
Michael had to stay in the Royal Land castle due to King Kramer and Queen Imat''s hospitality. They were quite insistent for him to stay the night. Since Michael did not have any more business to conduct in Royal Land, he agreed to stay the night. As far as they were concerned, Michael was cultivating in his room.
"Hmm," Nightmare nodded before vanishing into thin air.
After Nightmare teleported to King Kramer''s castle, Vedoranded on Michael''s shoulder with a single leap. Surprisingly, a rune glowed on their body, and in a few seconds, they too vanished. But they didn''t teleport like Nightmare. Instead, they just vanished from the naked eye thanks to Elidyr''s little rune.
The cloaking rune would have been perfect for Ghost. However, ording to Elidyr, anyone above the Body Strengthening stage could see through the rune. Hence, there was no point in using the rune in the cultivation continent and Michael had no need to use the rune in the southern continent.
He did ask Elidyr about cing the rune on his army only to learn that the rune requires a high amount of arch energy. Fifty arch energy crystals to hide oneself for five minutes wasn''t a very eye-catching deal to Michael.
"Azazel, you go to the Crypt and use the undead to clean the ce. Dr and Jonah also need a new working ce so see what you can do,"
"As you wish my lord,"
Following Nightmare, Azazel disappeared from the room. Finally, Michael and Elidyr were teleported to Caius''s mansion by the system and when they appeared in the room, Maxine and Corey greeted Michael with a deep bow.
"My Lord,"
"My Lord,"
Michael flicked his wrist as the throne materialized behind the oak table. He plunged onto the throne as Elidyr took a long look at both Maxine and Corey for a few moments.
"Maxine, Corey, meet Elidyr,"
"Lord Elidyr,"
Elidyr just nodded.
"Maxine, is it ready?" asked Michael.
"Yes my lord. It''s on the Big Bertha,"
Michael then turned his gaze towards Corey.
"So they haven''t taken our offer?"
"No my lord. To be honest, I didn''t expect them to be this stupid. A true pirate would have seen the opportunity. These are just mindless drunkards,"
"I am d you''ve seen the truth, Corey. Pirating is a fragile and dangerous business. If you don''t change your ways, eventually, you''d go extinct. It''s time we root out these weeds and unite the pirates under one banner, my banner,"
"It''d be an honor for the pirates to serve you my lord," Maxine felt proud and excited to unite all the pirates under the Dark Lord instead of the Pirate Lords. As a pirate herself, she knew the dangers of being a pirate. It was only a matter of time before the kingdoms unite against the pirates and strike them down. Especially, the empress of Awor was keen to wipe out the pirates from not only the waters of Awor but also from the southern continent.
However, once the Dark Lord unites the pirates and brands them as something else, the empress might not go all out in a war against them.
"Go wait for me on the ship," Michael dismissed the twodies and turned his gaze towards Elidyr.
"You have something to ask?"
"I don''t quite clearly see your y here my lord. First, you went to ally yourself with the holy church and now openly waging war against the pirates,"
Michael smiled,
"Who is hunting the Dark Lord along with the Guardians? The Holy Church. Ghost is now a friend of the holy church. Other than the obvious benefits such as being an ally to a growing superpower, now I hold the key to the Holy Church''s destruction,"
Elidyr looked more confused than before.
"I can only keep Ghost and the Dark Lord separate for a time Elidyr. Eventually, someone would always figure it out, someone smarter than I am. So when they figure it out, the Holy Church would be thest organization toe out full swinging. Because they would be crucified along with Ghost. By getting donations and being allies to Ghost, the Holy Church has be an ally to the Dark Lord. How could they go against Ghost''s allies when they themselves are one? "
Elidyr finally learned Ghost''s reasoning behind his visit to the Holy Church. Now that the Holy Church received donations from Ghost, the Holy Church wouldn''t be able to wage a war against Ghost because they would be busy fighting the public and the Guardian Guild.
"What about your other allies?" asked Elidyr.
"I have ns for them. But before someone figure out my identity, I better be strong and have an army strong enough to fight off our foes,"
"We have to my lord. I have seen what Skyhall could do. They would go to any length to stop you. They are the real evil in the form of good,"
"Don''t fret it Elidyr. They couldn''t stop me when I wasn''t even born. Now I am here, and I have a score to settle,"
Michael willed the system as the skull mask covered his face. Just like a breezing wind, the two of them disappeared from the room. At that time, Gibson was preparing everything for Big Bertha''s journey towards the pirate haven Aden. Since Maxine announced to the crew that the Dark Lord would arrive to meet them, the crew was extra motivated and didn''t dare to ck off.
Unlike the Silent Reaper, the Big Bertha was in pristine condition. No one would believe the ship was manned by the pirates or one would recognize the crew as pirates. Instead, the crew looked like disciplined soldiers wearing ck leather armor and carrying new cusses.
Of course, they still possessed habits such as getting as drunk as possible and eating without any restrictions. Maxine and Corey were still in the process of turning the pirates into soldiers, and Big Bertha''s crew were the front runners to be disciplined warriors of the Dark Lord.
"Bring it out!" Gibson climbed out of the lower decks and shouted at the crew before throwing a roll of ropes down the hole.
"Pull with all your strength. That thing is heavy," Maxine stood at the other end of the rope along with a group of pirates. The rope was attached to a pulley to make lifting the mortar a bit easier.
"You can lift it now!" Gibson and Maxine heard Shorty shouting from the below decks.
"One¡ two¡ three," Maxine counted until three to pull down the rope using every bit of her strength.
While Maxine was pulling down the rope, Corey remained at the helm, waiting for the Dark Lord. Even without the so-called new weaponry, the Big Bertha was a beast. The upper deck alone had ten cannons on each side. In addition, they fitted the Big Bertha with three rows of cannons, each with fifteen broadside cannons. One side of Big Bertha totally had forty cannons, making the total count of cannons a whopping eighty cannons.
Usually, that number of cannons would slow down the ship but the Dark Lord ordered them to do so despite the drawbacks.
When Corey did a test run with Big Bertha, it took them almost five minutes to reload all the cannons. Unless they fix the reload speed somehow, a talented ship captain could do a lot of damage to Big Bertha within five long minutes.
As Corey was weighing the pros and cons of the Big Bertha, The Dark Lord finally appeared beside her, almost sending shivers down her spine.
"My lord,"
"Our Dark Lord is at the helm!" Gibson shouted as loud as he could when he saw Michael.
Fortunately, the mortar was in ce, or they would have saluted at Michael and dropped it down the hole.
As Michael climbed down the steps from the helm, the crew bowed their heads towards Michael and Elidyr. Corey followed the two of them behind to the mortar where Michael saw the mortar forged with sturdy ck metal and engraved with intricate patterns resembling a coiling dragon.
The pirates were so curious to see what this thing could do. Under their curious gazes, Elidry squatted beside the mortar and drew a few symbols on its surface as well as inside the mortar through the firing hole. Although it looked as simple as drawing a few symbols, Michael knew the intricacy behind each rune. Among all the specializations in the world, Runemastery was the most difficult to master. ording to Elidyr, they had only explored ten percent of the entire rune mastery. Michael hoped to bring out the fullest potential of rune mastery with the help of the system.
Everyone, including Michael, waited for Elidyr to finish. When he finally took his hand off the mortar, several runes brightly radiated crimson red light.
"It''s ready," Elidyr wouldn''t usually show any emotions on his face. Still, even he couldn''t help proudly grinning after finishing one of his finest works to date.
"Gibson set a course to Aden. When the sun rises tomorrow, there will only be one Pirate Lord,"
Chapter 576: End of Pirate Lord Vance
Chapter 576: End of Pirate Lord VanceWith Corey''s fleet following behind, the Big Bertha began her journey towards Aden. Michael remained at the helm looking at the night sky and enjoying the momentary peace.
"You are in deep thinking my lord," Maxine came to Michael''s side and joined Gibson, Corey, and Elidyr.
"Have you notified Vance and ckmane?"
Maxine nodded. Instead of catching the pirates off guard, Michael ordered Maxine to notify Vance and ckmane about the attack. He wanted the pirates to prepare for the war and use their full might. Only then, could Michael destroy them and crush the pirates'' morale once and for all.
"Vance and ckmane will be waiting for us with all their fleet, My Lord,"
"Good,"
Michael remained calm despite the fact that he was about to face hundreds of ships in an all-out war.
"Are we really going to destroy them all?" Maxine really doubted Michael would destroy the pirates as he always tried to recruit them. However, by not joining Michael, Pirate Lord Vance and Pirate Lord ckmane left him with no choice.
"Some of them yeah. Can''t have a war without casualties, can we?"
"Hmm,"
"My Lord, what about their fleet? The fewer ships we destroy, the more ships to our fleet," Corey added her thoughts which aligned with everyone.
Except for Elidyr who didn''t give a damn about the Pirate Lords, the others wanted the Dark Lord to spare the majority of the ships. At this point, none dared to doubt the Dark Lord. The two Pirate Lords may have superior numbers but The Dark Lord could destroy them with a few spells.
"How should I end the war? Should I kill the two pirate lords in front of their fleet or destroy their fleet in front of them?"
"If you''re asking me, I''d say kill the two of them and end it quickly," Elidyr shrugged,
"I agree with Lord Elidyr, My Lord," Gibson said,
"Yes My Lord. Killing the two Pirate Lords would end the war quickly. Most of the pirates would immediately surrender. However, some of the fanatics might choose to fight until death path. We can destroy them to make a statement," Corey eximed.
They all shared the same thought. Hence, Michael decided to listen to them because what they said was correct. He should capture the ships and strengthen his fleet rather than destroy the ships. It would take years to rebuild those ships. ording to Corey, once he conquered their fleet, he might have almost five hundred ships in his fleet.
"You focus on destroying the fanatics. I will deal with Vance and ckmane. It''s a pity they chose false freedom over the opportunity to be something great. Some people are born to live a simple life I guess,"
Under the full moon, Michael and his fleet sailed towards Aden. The Big Bertha moved in front of a hundred and twenty ships, including several frigates and man of wars. Such a massive force would terrify any foe. But, while they were sailing forward, Michael noticed a few ships in the distance, following them.
"Those are royal navy," Gibson, who looked at the ships through the spyss eximed in shock.
"What are they doing in this water?"
"Watching us. They want to see the battle. If I am right, someone very close to the empress herself is in one of those ships,"
"Should we attack them my lord?" Maxine asked,
"No. let them watch. They are not a threat to us,"
*************************************
Meanwhile, in Aden, Vance was looking at the ocean through the window while taking long deep sips of rum. Several pirate captains in his fleet apanied him in the room. Some of them looked worried, but some looked outright excited.
"How long till they reach our waters?" asked Vance.
Melina, the red-haired pirate who Corey met answered,
"Four hours top,"
"We will show them who rules this part of the sea Pirate Lord," one of the pirate captains eximed.
"Still have no news about ckmane huh?" ignoring the pirate captain, Vanced questioned Melina.
"No, but we have his fleet. So even if he doesn''t show up, we can still beat Pirate Lord Corey and her fleet,"
Vance took another long sip and threw the empty mug away,
"What about the magic-wielding captain? Lucifer? Is heing too?"
As soon as they heard the name Lucifer, the pirate captains who were afraid became more terrified.
"ording to Maxine''s note, yes. He ising,"
"I want to show him the true power of the pirates. I want to show him why those freaks never dared to set foot on our seas," Vance growled, and looking at his fearless tone, some of the pirate captains, including Melina became courageous.
"No negotiation. The moment theye into our range, fire at will," Vance ordered,
"Everything is ready Vance," Melina approached Vance,
"We''ll take care of them. After today, there''ll be only one true Pirate Lord," she seductively whispered into his ears,
"ckmane you bastard? Where the fuck are you?" Vance looked at the hundreds of ships lining around the ind, forming a defense line. Although the fleet included ckmane''s forces, Vance still missed the guidance and leadership of ckmane.
"I also took the liberty to initiate the backstabbing, Vance" Melina licked her lips and Vance, he just grinned.
After everything was said and done, Vance came to his ship, a brigade built for speed rather than battle. Vance named his ship the sailing wind. The name suited the ship perfectly because it was one of the fastest ships on the southern continent. Vance used the ship for plundering hundreds of merchant ships transporting rum.
Sailing Wind''s speed always enabled Vance to hit and run until the opponent ship was in no condition to fight. Vance even brought down a man of war with his ship. Now, he waited for Big Bertha to appear in his sight along with hundreds of ships behind him.
"Look!" the pirate who stood atop the crow''s nest shouted as Vance looked at the horizon through the spyss.
"They are here," Vance could see the giant frigate sailing towards them, leading the fleet of Corey. All those ships flew a pure ck g instead of Corey''s gs. Like storm clouds, the ck ships approached Aden at the horizon.
"Get ready pirates!" Vance shouted as the sound of cannons creaking resonated throughout the area. Additionally, a loud bell ran in Aden, indicating the approaching danger.
"As soon as they enter our range, fire with all you have!" Vance shouted again. Even in the face of war, he didn''t neglect to bring a barrel of rum and chug a full mug down his throat.
Every cannon in the ship and Aden aimed at the horizon and prepared to fire at will as soon as they enter their range. However, all the ships, including the Big Bertha stopped a few meters away from their firing range.
"Why are they stopping?" Melina asked,
"Probably to negotiate. What if they don''t sail towards us? We will go to them and sink them where they stand!" Vance raised his mug, riling up his crew. They all let out a thunderous battle cry and prepared to move forward.
But suddenly, they saw a bright red light shooting out of Big Bertha.
"What the hell?" Vance and his ship turned red like someone aiming a red spotlight at them.
Boom!
While they were in confusion, a thunderous booming sound echoed through the calm sea. Vance looked up at the sky to see countless stairs falling down upon them.
Vance and his ship didn''t even realize what just hit them until they exploded into bits and pieces.
"Oh my god!"
"PIRATE LORD!"
"VANCE!"
"SHIT!"
"DARK MAGIC!"
The pirates were in utter confusion. Moreover, they were terrified. After destroying Vance''s Sailing Wind, the red spot light fell on a couple of more ships, and the result was the same.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
At this time, the pirates did not wait for Corey''s fleet to enter their firing range but began to fire the cannons aimlessly at Big Bertha.
As the pirates were raining down cannonballs, a dark cloud slowly flew towards Aden.
"Surrender!"
The demonic voice swept across the sea, terrifying the pirates.
Gradually, the dark cloud faded away, revealing the Dark Lord to the pirates.
"FIRE!"
However, a daring pirate captain decided to fire at Michael. But before he could take aim, the red spotlight fell on the ship.
Boom!
The result was the same as the ship exploded into smithereens. The mortar was more powerful than Michael expected.
Michael did not stop. Instead, he pointed at Aden, signaling Maxine to aim the mortar fire at Aden. He wanted to destroy the walls and the ind partially to make a statement. Under the pirates'' shocked gazes, countless meteorsnded on Aden, destroying the walls and everything in the explosion''s vicinity.
"Oh my god," Gibson shuddered in fear, looking at all the death and destruction. Instead of stopping with Aden''s walls and a couple of ships, Michael continued to point at ships as Maxine fired the mortar destroying several ships in under a few minutes.
Everywhere Corey turned her gaze, there was nothing but explosions.
Vance did not even stand a chance. She thought Michael would fly to Vance, grab him by his neck and kill him in front of the pirates. Yet, what happened was the exact opposite. He did not even lift a finger at Vance.
"If you want to join your friends, fire," Michael''s voice amplified to the point it sounded like a thunderp. The pirates shivered to hear his demonic voice. Even the most fearless pirate captains shuddered and hesitated to order their crew to fire at him. Meanwhile, Big Bertha and Corey''s fleet slowly started to sail towards Aden that was burning like a bonfire.
Everything was going ording to n until some of the ships in Corey''s fleet began to fire at Big Bertha and the others. Michael quickly turned his gaze towards his fleet to see some ships firing at their allies.
"Backup n huh?" Regardless of the sudden betrayal, Michael did not even raise a brow. Instead, he just flew toward Big Bertha to deal with the traitors in a most brutal way.
Chapter 577: Pirate Lord Blackmane
Chapter 577: Pirate Lord ckmaneUnlike Michael, the others on the Big Bertha werepletely caught off guard.
"TRAITORS!" Shorty leaped onto the railing and shouted viciously.
"We can''t fire at them without damaging them," Gibson pointed at the friendly ships stuck between the Big Bertha and traitors. Corey shivered from top to bottom, fearing what the dark lord would do to her because of her crew''s betrayal.
"I should have seen it," Corey mumbled.
Whoosh!
But all of a sudden, a dark emerald green mist enveloped the ships of the traitors. One by one all the traitor ships got covered in thick green mist.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Suddenly, all the ships enveloped in green mist exploded except one frigate. When the dust and smoke settled down, Gibson and the others saw the Dark Queen hovering above them.
Gaya flew towards thest ship of the traitors and saw a few dead bodies on the upper deck. It was apparent to Gaya that the traitors killed those loyal to Corey.
Seeing the others explode to death, the rest of them were terrified. Every single one shivered from head to toe and looked as pale as a white sheet.
"Your traitorous maggots!" Gaya''s shout shook the frigate and sent shivers down their spines.
Michael smiled behind his mask, looking at Gaya in action. Under their gazes, Gaya waved her hand as the poisonous green mist coiled around each individual on the ship. Taking the traitors with her, she flew towards Vance''s fleet.
Since there was momentary confusion among Corey''s fleet, Vance''s pirate captains tried to attack them. But Gaya destroyed the traitors faster than Vance''s fleet could fire at them.
The traitors frantically squirmed against the poisonous mist around them to escape. They used all their strength but to no avail.
"I would have hated to miss this action," Gaya said, without bothering to hide her killing intent.
"Let me show them what would happen when someone betrays us," Gaya flicked her wrist as all the twenty traitors lined up in front of them in the sky. At that moment, all the eyes were on the traitors.
Her cold gaze swept across the traitors as she raised her hand and clenched her fist. As soon as she closed her fist, a sliver of green mist slowly rose upwards and entered their nostrils.
Michael wasn''t interested in anything else other than watching the traitors violently twitch and puke dark red blood through every pore in their bodies. Not a single sound could be heard except their traits, screaming and wailing for help. It was a long slow painful death. But,pared to their deaths, Vance and the others were gifted. Atleast, they died instantly instead of suffering Gaya''s poison that corroded their organs from within. After a few minutes, the traitors turned into a bloody puddle and oozed down into the ocean.
"Now who wants to fight?"
Michael''s thunderous demonic voice echoed through the silent ocean. None of them dared to raise a finger at the Dark Lord this time. Instead, the pirates dropped their swords and stared at Corey''s fleet, slowly sailing towards Aden.
Michael and Gaya floated in the sky until all of Corey''s fleet surrounded the ind. Afterward, Corey''s men rushed into Aden, facing no resistance from the pirates.
At that moment, the pirates thought about nothing else except what was going to happen to them. They had no one to lead or give them guidance. Once Corey''s men captured all the defense cannons in Aden, Michael descended towards Vance''s castle.
The residents of Aden, mostly young women, and elderly pirates stared at Michael in utter shock. They couldn''t believe seeing someone flying and using spells. Some even dropped to their knees and began to worship, mistaking Michael and Gaya for gods.
Ignoring them, Michael entered Vance''s room through the window and waited for his subordinates to arrive.
Bang!
Michael raised his hand, sting away Vance''s chair with a gust of wind. Then, he brought the skull and bones thrones with a flick of his wrist.
But before he plunged into his throne, he looked at the dark corner of the room.
"You cane out now," Gaya sat on her throne, resting her one leg atop one before Michael, and waited for the united guest to reveal himself.
After hearing Michael''s words, a tall man walked out of the shadows, slow pping. The man had a long bushy beard braided like Vikings and outlined his eyes with dark mascara. He walked out of the shadows using a cane to support his limping. Although the man looked vicious and had an aura of a pirate, he dressed like a higher army official. He was dressed in white and had medals and ribbons attached to his chest while several strips of colors were engraved on both of his broad shoulders.
Except for the long white coat and a white feather hat, the man looked simr to a navy office on earth. Michael just sat on his throne and waited for the man to introduce himself although Michael had already guessed the man''s identity.
"Lucifer AKA The Dark Lord," the man used his cane to raise the chair from the ground before sitting on it.
"Pirate Lord ckmane. The pirates still believe you are on a voyage," Michael calmly said in his demonic voice.
What Michael said was the truth. The man before them was none other than the most powerful pirate lord of the three; Gibbs ckmane Jett.
"Pirates are an endangering species, Lucifer. We both know that," Gaya remained silent despite the fact she didn''t like how he addressed Michael by his name.
"I don''t me you for joining the empress. I have no problem with that as long as your royal navy don''t raise their gs against my army,"
"On the contrary Lucifer. I am here to broker peace between the Royal Navy and the pirates. Her Highness believes the new leadership might take the pirates in another direction than the predecessors," ckmane had a wise tone to his voice. Michael liked how calm ckmane was despite the obvious fact Michael could kill him with a single snap of his finger.
"Interesting. I am sure there are conditions right?" asked Gaya.
"Simple. The Royal Navy will leave the Southern continent waters in exchange for a peace treaty. You don''t plunder our merchants and we won''t attack you,"
"But you don''t conduct business in someone''s home without paying them tribute, do you?"
"Twenty percent. The merchants will pay twenty percent of whatever they are bringing into your waters,"
"It''s a nice deal," Gaya whispered into Michael''s ears.
But Michael had a feeling there was something else in ckmane''s list of things he wanted from them.
"What else?" Michael didn''t beat around the bush or ept the deal right away.
"There is an ind not too far from Aden. It belonged to her highness''s father. He bought the ind from a pirate named Isaiah. This is the document proving the im," ckmane slowly put his hand into his coat pocket and retrieved a golden parchment.
He threw the parchment towards Michae as Gaya caught it in mid-air and opened it to read the contents.
"Her highness would appreciate it if the ind is returned to her,"
For a few minutes, Michael did not respond to ckmane.
"I will give the ind back to her on one condition. No military bases in my territory,"
ckmane''s eyes showed a glint of reluctance. His moments of silence indicated to Michael that they were nning to use the ind as a military base. But now that Michael said no to that, ckmane had no choice but to agree or let go of the ind.
"Understandable. No military bases. We have no more conditions. We would appreciate it if we sign a contract with all our conditions and terms,"
"You want a signed contract from the Dark Lord? Hahahaha" Michael burst into devilishughter as the room grew darker and darker.
Regardless of the phenomenon that could terrify many men, ckmane remained calm andposed.
"Sure thing. Tell your empress the pirates are no more. It''s the Dark army from now on. And they will not bother her merchant ships,"
"Wonderful," Finally ckmane grinned.
"I will bring the contract tomorrow," ckmane nodded, standing up from the chair. Michael wondered how he was going to leave the room only to be stunned by ckmane when he just vanished into thin air.
"Did he just teleport?" Gaya creased her brows,
"Seems like the empress is an interesting person,"
Michael said to Gaya. Leaving the room teleporting was a statement. The empress wanted Michael to know that they also had ways to use arch energy inside the void line. Since Michael anticipated it from the most powerful continent in the world, ckmane''s little teleportation trick didn''t surprise him.
"My Lord," Eventually, Corey and Maxine entered the room after putting out the fire and capturing all the pirates who tried to escape Aden.
"It''s done, my lord. We removed all the masts and put them in the dungeon beneath the castle. They can''t move anywhere unless they want to go swimming," Maxine said with an amused tone.
"I am sure Vance has a horde of rum somewhere here. Distribute it among the men. Make sure they have a good time,"
"But no plundering of women," Gaya added coldly.
"As you wish my lord,"
"What about the pirates my lord?" Corey asked, looking at the hundreds of ships outside through the window behind Michael.
"Give them a choice between joining us or leaving Aden. From now on, there will be no more pirates and piracy. We are going legit," Gaya simply ordered Maxine and Corey. Getting twenty percent of the merchants without plundering was a great deal. When the word about their deal gets out, more and more merchants will venture into the Southern continent. As a result, not only would they get free stuff, but the economy of Gisal and the kingdoms under Michael''s control would also drastically improve.
To stay in control and power, they needed a steady revenue stream such as this.
"And you two should take a break too. You deserve it," Michael said as Corey and Maxine nodded because they were tired and needed a break.
"Ghosty, it''s time you return here. The King and Queen are asking for you," after Corey and Maxine left the room, Michael heard Nightmare calling him.
"Let''s go back to Royal Land,"
Chapter 578: Arriving at Awor
Chapter 578: Arriving at AworBy the time Michael returned to the castle, King Kramer and Queen Imat were waiting for him with a red-haired young man. He adorned matching fiery red robes and had a deviant look to him.
"Ghost. Meet Moriet, King Kramer''s long distant cousin," Queen Imat emphasized the word distant to Michael. By the look on her face, Michael could see the tension between the two.
"Several miles distant," Moriet eximed with a mocking smile.
"Pleasure to meet you Moriet," Michael firmly shook the young man''s hands with a smile.
"The pleasure is all mine. Let''s sit, shall we?" they all plugged themselves onto the white sofa as the maids brought down several beverages, including orange juice for Michael.
"It''s so amazing to see such a young Fusion Stage cultivator. I thought all Fusion stage cultivators are old," Morietughed.
"People say hardwood never fails but it''s not true always. I mean, no matter how hard you cultivate, if you don''t have luck, resources, and talent, you can''t climb higher stages," Michael took a little sip of his orange juice and told Moriet.
"That''s true," Moriet nodded.
"But it doesn''t matter. If you can''t get to the higher stages, enjoy what you have,"
"Yeah right. Believe me or not, I live by those words. Look at me, I can''t get past the Body Strengthening stage. I tried so many potions and stuff but I simplyck the talent. So now I''m focused more on enjoying the mortal pleasures instead of sitting in a room, cultivating," Michael noticed Queen Imat rolling her eyes, thinking no one had noticed her.
"End of the day, enjoying the life all it matters," Michael pretended to agree with Moriet.
"I am so d to see someone who''s powerful as you agree with my views. Now please tell me what kind of property you''re looking for in Royal Land. I have several in the capital and I''d be happy to give one of it to you. I heard you wanted to offer a share?"
Michael nodded.
"That works great for me too. Now that I remember, one of your people came to me asking to buy one of my buildings n the capital. Pardon me for not agreeing then," Moriet apologized. He was a pervert who wanted to bed Raylene but he was not a fool to think about her anymore. As Moriet said, he valued his life, and touching a Fusion Stage cultivator''s women would be like jumping into the fire. Therefore, Moriet erased the thought of touching Raylene.
"It''s okay. Is it still avable? I''d appreciate it if I can use that building to open up another branch of Hades in Royalnd,"
"Consider the building is yours. I''ll send one of my men to you with the deed,"
"Wonderful," Michael grinned,
"What about we celebrate it over a nice boat party?"
Michael sighed after hearing Moriet. It''s not that Michael was truly disappointed, but he pretended to be upset.
As a Fusion Stage cultivator, Michel could kill Moriet without much worry. To be honest, Michael didn''t think King Kramer would go to war with him if he killed Moriet. However, being strong didn''t mean he should make more enemies. Instead, Michael chose to use his power to make more allies.
"Unforuntaltey I have to go to Awor to attend the Aqua auction. But I give you my word, when I return, I''ll definitely attend one of your parties. After all, we are kinda partners right now,"
"Partners huh? I like the sound of that," Moriet nked Michael''s ss with his wine ss. Although Queen Imat was annoyed, King Kramer looked relieved. Finally, his good-for-nothing cousin got a powerful young man as a friend. King Kramer just couldn''t help wishing Moriet would be like Ghost. Queen imat was Moriet''s family but even she hated him to the core.
But none of them noticed the Spyder crawling on Moriet''s sleeves and disappearing into his cor. After everything was said and done, Michael departed from the castle, heading towards the Holy Church.
In the mid-air, Gaya and Nightmare joined him.
"What is this?" Michael wiped the cookie crumbs off her mouth. After Michael cleaned her mouth, she grinned from ear to ear. Her eyes were full of excitement, just like Nightmare.
"So we are finally going to Awor huh?" asked Gaya. She rubbed her hands together in excitement. It had been so long since she returned to Awor. She couldn''t help thinking of her kingdom; Nagnd, an ind in the seas of Awor.
"Aren''t you guys missing something? You told me you would kill that guy who tried to creep on Raylene," Nightmare asked Michael and Gaya while slowly flying towards the holy church.
"We will go to Awor and meet Eve. Then, teleport back to Royal Land, finish him off and return to Awor again. That way, no one will suspect us," Michael quickly exined to Nightmare on his way to the Holy Church.
After several minutes of flying, the yellow maple valley appeared in their eyes. This time, they flew directly towards the Holy Church because Michael had the privilege to fly in the Church''s vicinity.
The teleportation portal was on the northern side of the castle where an enormous garden of roses surrounded the portal. The blue vortex was in the middle surrounded by hundreds of blood-red roses. A bald man approached Michael with a gentle smile when Michael, Nightmare, and Gayanded on the garden pathway.
"Believer Ghost. His Holiness asked me to give you ess to the portal. I am believer Maxwell,"
Michael bowed towards Maxwell and so did Nightmare and Gaya.
"This is my fiance, Aelia, and my familiar, Nightmare. They are also loyal worshippers of the Great One and Two,"
Maxwell was stunned to hear a dragon was actually a worshipper of the Great One and Two. But after hearing Ghost, Maxwell grinned so brightly.
"It feels so great to see youngsters and a dragon believes in the Great One and Two. This world needs more people like you,"
Gaya almost coughed blood and burst intoughter. One big donation and the entire Holy Church began to believe Michael was a true worshipper of their gods. To be honest, Michael was thest one who would believe in the Great One and Two. He was using these idiots but they had no idea. So instead, they believed Ghost to be a true believer.
"The exit portal is located in Yaserius in Kingdom Thera,"
"Wonderful," Michael was d that the exit portal was on Yaserius, Eve''s home city. Otherwise, he would have had to fly from one city to Yaserius. He preferred to meet Eve first before starting to explore Awor.
"Have a wonderful journey believer Ghost, believer Aelia, and believer Nightmare," Maxwell took time to bow towards each of them as they returned the gesture by bowing toward Maxwell.
"May the Great One and Two be with you and guide you on your journey," Maxwell raised his palm, blessing the trio.
Afterward, the trio approached the portal. The closer they got to the portal, the stronger they felt the pull.
"We will meet again soon, believer Maxwell," Michael said looking over his shoulder before finally walking into the portal. Aftering to this world, it took Michael almost two years to find time to visit Awor. However, thanks to his runic teleportation skill, he could go back and forth once he left a rune somewhere on Awor.
***********************************
Thera was a modest kingdom bordered by a calm sea to the north, rich forests to the south, a wide river to the east, and arge mountain to the West. Citizens of Kingdom Thera mainly lived off weaponsmithing, wine brewing, and cksmithing.
The kingdom''sndscape was stunning; green, open fields, astonishing aquatic wildlife, and dramatic rock formations were just a sliver of the charm Thera has to offer, which was why the country was beloved among foreigners.
The people of Thera were weing towards foreigners and tend to wee them with friendliness. This was because they felt foreigners could fortify the kingdom''s well-being.
The city of Yaserius was built at the base of a modest mountain and was truly an evergrowing wonder. Its beauty was matched by the backdrop of ever-clear skies and the snowy mountain. The climate these skies brought was of great importance and also influenced the architectural designs as the vast majority of buildings were designed to take full advantage of the climate, as more daring elements could be created when you don''t have to worry about strong winds.
The skyline was riddled with towering tall buildings, and many seem to have evolved throughout the ages. The culture was rising in Yaserius and had attracted a lot of attention. Many new cultures had left their mark not just on trade and rtions, but also on the city''s identity. What historically was a city of elves has grown into a multicultural hub where humans, beast men, and elves co-exist peacefully.
At that time, inside a brightly lit hall, Michael walked out of the portal along with Gaya and Nightmare. As soon as he stepped out of the portal, the trio was stunned by the man who weed them.
"Maxwell?" Michael tilted his head, staring at the man from top to bottom.
The man weed Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare looked exactly the same as Maxwell.
"Believer Maxwell is my twin brother. I am believer Vishriyan. Wee to Kingdom Thera," the man bowed and the trio did the same.
"You must be believer Ghost,"
Michael nodded, "Yes and this is my fiance Aelia and familiar Nightmare,"
After exchanging pleasantries, Vishriyan finally led them towards the golden door. While walking towards the door, Michael felt the excitement coursing through his veins. It was time he dominated the most powerful continent in the world.
Chapter 579: The Plague
Chapter 579: The gueThe excitement to explore a newnd coursed through his veins. However, Vishriyan dosed cold water upon his excitement by taking out a pale blue face mask from his space ring.
"Put this on before you step aside,"
Michael creased his brows,
"I don''t get it,"
"There is a gue ravishing Kingdom Thera, believer Ghost. The sinners are reaping what they sow," Vishriyan said so calmly like it was a simple matter.
"gue?" Gaya was in a state of shock. Thest time a gue hit Awor, millions of people including Naga''s died.
"You don''t have to worry about the gue. The Great One and Two protect those who believe in them,"
These words showed the extent of Vishriyan''s idiocy. Although the Holy Church believers were good to him, Michael felt he was dealing with a bunch of fanatics. Given a chance, the Holy Church would do more harm than good. They just didn''t have the resources and power to rival the Great Eight ns. But with the recent fall of Guardians, the Holy Church was getting more popr among the people.
Michael may have given a torch to lunatics in disguise.
"So are we even allowed to go to Thera? Normally when a gue hit, they close the borders right?" Michael asked, standing before the golden door.
"They will close the borders soon. So I hope you will get what you''re looking for, believer Ghost. May the Great One and Two be with you and guide you," Vishriyan calmly said, opening the door and revealing nothing but soft squashy clouds.
There was no building or rods in front of him. Except, Michael saw an endless blue sky with puffy clouds stretched as far as he could see. Only then did he realize he was in the sky. When he took a step outside and turned around, he saw the gothic-style building that was much grander, just like the one in Royalnd.
The church was built on a floating mountain like some buildings in Akn Realm.
"We will meet again soon, believer Vishriyan," Michael quickly bowed towards Vishriyan. He wanted to check on Eve. For some reason, he immediately worried about her. It almost felt like the two of them have some kind of strong bond.
He didn''t know before the Dark Lord used the time travel rune, that Eve was his best friend. She sacrificed herself to save him. If it wasn''t for her, Michael wouldn''t be here. Although The Dark Lord reset the time, the deep friendship bond remained strong.
Michael shot out from the mountain like a rocket, leaving a shock wave behind. In his haste, he failed to ask where the Voldigardpound was. Hopefully, Gaya knew where it was.
"Those are crazy bastards, Michael. A gue hit them? What the fuck? He was so calm. These morons are lunatics," Gaya cursed them, diving towards the city on thend.
"They seem just as bad as the guardians," Nightmare said,
"It doesn''t matter now. Let''s go meet Eve. There is an opportunity here,"
"No shit," Gaya rolled her eyes,
"I did some sick shit, but it feels wrong to see the gue as an opportunity," Gaya knew the obvious golden opportunity presented itself in the name of the gue. She knew Michael could pull some miracle and cure the gue. However, it felt wrong to get rich from a gue.
"I don''t feel like that. We are not responsible for the gue. If someone else finds the cure, so be it. Otherwise, we may as well find the cure and sell it for millions,"
"What about the poor?" Nightmare asked Michael,
"There is no poverty in Awor. That''s why it''s called the most powerful and rich continent in the world. A farmer in Awor earns ten times more than one in Elon or Ozer," Gaya''s words didn''t only surprise Nightmare but also Michael.
It seemed like the rulers of other races were far better than the humans in ruling a kingdom.
The closer they got to the city, the better Michael could see the majestic view of Yaserius. The city itself looked like a hybrid between fantasy and style. However, despite the majestic tall buildings, the streets looked empty and the gray mist around the city gave a gloomy look to it.
"The Voldigardpound is that way. Follow me," Gaya pointed at the northern side of the city where Michael saw a mountain resembling Mount Fuji in the distance. Michael and Nightmare flew behind Gaya while noticing the eerie city beneath them.
"So many sick," Nightmare''s superior hearing sense enabled him to hear the countless coughing and vomitinging from the city.
*********************************************
At the moment, inside the Voldigardpound, several dead bodies in te armor riddled the front yard. Some of the soldiers had their helmets removed so one could see the grayish skin and the dark green webs of veins underneath the gray skin. The broken fountain in the center was still pumping out water from the lion''s head. The dead bodies formed a line surrounding the majestic castle of House Voldigard. A regr gate with great wooden doors, a draw bridge, and hot oil pots guarded the inhabitants of the castle. It was the only easy way in. Like any ce in Awor, neatly pruned trees decorated thend along with colorful flower beds.
The round towers dwarfed everything below them and were connected by fortified, thick walls made of gray stone. The decorated windows added an extra charm to the castle as the walls had overhanging crentions for archers and artillery. But at the moment, there were no archers or anyone to man the giant crossbows.
The gate which guarded the castle for hundreds of years fell for the first time as thepound of Voldigard''s became a battlefield. Michael was not the only one who viewed the gue as an opportunity. House Rottgard sieged House Voldigard when thetter was at its weakest.
When the gue hit Yaserius, House Voldigard ensured the citizens got the best treatment possible instead of quarantining themselves like many noble families. As a result, many of the Voldigards were infected by the gue and lost their ability to use arch energy. The gue killed almost half of the Voldigards, including three Fusion Stage protectors.
Since they lost the protectors, House Rottgard, which ran away as soon as the gue hit the city, returned to decimate Voldiagrds for once and for all. But one protector of Voldigard stood between the House Rottgard soldiers and the castle; Eve Voldigard.
Like a lioness facing hyenas, she stood tall with her hammer in her hands. The red armored House Rottgard soldiers cowered after she killed most of their fellow soldiers. When they started the siege, they had a hundred soldiers but now, the number was reduced to thirty.
Despite Eve''s Core Strengthening cultivation stage, she even managed to kill a Soul Refining stage warrior.
"I can do this all day," Eve wiped off the blood running from her mouth''s corner and taunted the surrounded soldiers. Especially, her cold gaze was on the man who led the siege; Igor Rottgard.
Igor was a tall youngster with long red hair. He covered his mouth and nose with a red dragon mask. He wore a simple robe that revealed his hairy chest as well as the tattoo of a fire-breathing red dragon. Since all the Fusion stage protectors had sumbed to the gue, House Rottgard only sent the Core strengthening stage warriors along with a couple of Soul Refiners. Fortunately, the Soul Refiners from Voldigards killed House Rottgard''s Soul Refiners before dying due to the wounds.
Eve killed thest Soul Refiner and many Core Strengthening stage warriors and remained thest woman standing from House Voldigard.
"But you don''t have all day. Look at you. You''re tired, breathing heavily, and bleeding from your ears. You and I both know you won''t stand much longer. So do yourself a favor and step aside. I''ll promise to give you a proper burial," Igor said, slowly stepping towards Eve.
He was right, and Eve knew it. She could feel the arch energy in her body slowly dating away. Soon, she would lose the sense of Arch energy as well as strength in her body. Even lifting her hammer wasn''t as easy as before. Every cell in her body screamed at her to drop the hammer and close her eyes. She had been fighting for days without any rest.
If it wasn''t for House Rottgard''s resolution to use minimal force to wipe out House Voldigard, House Rottgard would have destroyed House Voldigard by now. But, for some reason, every time Eve blinked, he saw Ghost and his smiling face. It felt like yesterday, she fought together with him.
Her sister was fighting for her life in the castle, but all she could think was how good it would be to fight together with Ghost onest time.
"Step closer, and I''ll give you a proper burial," Eve snickered.
"Well, I tried to be nice, just like my healer said. I think it''s time to do things my way," by his way, Igor obviously meant killing Eve. Instead of sending soldiers one by one to her, Igor signaled all thirty soldiers to nk her simultaneously from all directions.
Whoosh!
Eve began to spin the hammer as fast as she could to the point Igor only saw a blur and heard the whistling sound of the wind. Although he was here to kill Eve and her family, he couldn''t help admiring her. He almost felt pity for the Voldigards.
"Whoa,e on," when Igor noticed his soldiers stepping towards Eve like mindless fools.
"She will beat the crap out of you if you get too close, idiots. Use your spells for god sake!" The soldiers quickly halted their steps, preparing to cast spells.
"I swear to gods, one of these days, I am gonna lose my mind and start killing you ipetent fools,"
Chapter 580: Rational bad guys
Chapter 580: Rational bad guysAfter getting yelled at by Igor, the soldiers of Rottgard finally began to cast spells. On the other hand, Eve kept spinning her hammer and prepared herself to be bombarded with spells. She was more of a closebat fighter rather than a spell caster. Thus, instead of casting spells, she chose to hit her foes with the hammer. It always worked for her and she wasn''t going to change now.
"Pir of Iron!" One soldier at the level 10 Core Strengthening stage raised his hand, forming a giant pir made of energy in the air. It was sorge and long that it would hit his fellow soldiers before hitting Eve.
"My expectations are way low for you guys but holy fuck, you keep surprising me!" Igor felt like he was about to lose his mind. Instead, he slowly started to learn why House Rottgard could never surpass House Voldigard. With ipetent soldiers like them, how could they achieve anything let alone wipe out the Voldigards?
He got more furious when he noticed the soldier keeping the pir in the air instead of just hitting Eve with it.
"Hit her!" Igor shouted. He wanted the pir to hit the others more than Eve because they were just staring at the pir instead of finishing casting spells.
"Yes boss!"
Finally, the soldier shouted and brought the pir, swinging down at Eve.
Boom!
However, the moment the pir hit Eve, instead of Eve flying away, it was the soldiers who got scattered by the shockwave. The shock wave didn''t spare Igor either as he too was sent flying several meters by the force.
When Igor managed to get himself to his feet, he saw someone standing in front of Eve with a ck shield.
"Ghost?"
Eve couldn''t believe her eyes.
"A fucking Fusion stage? What the fuck?" Igor scratched his eyes in utter disbelief. The man who shielded Eve looked so young, perhaps younger than him. Yet, he was at the Fusion Stage.
"Thank you for inviting me to a gue-ridden city Eve," Ghost rolled his eyes,
"How can I suffer alone?" Eve let out an exhausted chuckle, stumbling forward.
"I got your back," Michael quickly wrapped his hand around Eve''s shoulder to steady her.
"You know you don''t have to do this right?" Eve could barely utter these words,
"I do," Michael gave a quick rub to her shoulder and turned his gaze towards Igor.
"Dude look, this can go two ways. I will kill you and your guys and your family will get involved, fight me, my family will get involved, the two families will fight an all-out war, we both suffer and another one will try to take out the one who survives. Or, you take your guys and head home and wait for the gue to wipe out the Voldigards," Michael calmly talked to Igor,
"If you die here, it doesn''t matter if your family kills me or not. You will be under six feet instead of enjoying your golden age. So why don''t you have a little patience and choose the second option?"
Igor deeply thought about what the youngster just said. Finally, it made sense to Igor. There was no point in dying and Igor knew no way in hell he could defeat a Fusion stage warrior with these ipetent fools.
"Boss, we should get out here. My mask has a crack in it!"
"Mine too!"
"Oh my god we are gonna die!"
"Boss save us!"
Looking at the soldiers shouting, Michael almostughed.
"Oh fuck, they are embarrassing me," Igor screamed inside.
"If anyone asked, I fought and survived a Fusion Stage cultivator. Got it?" Igor asked his men as they frantically bobbed their heads up and down. They wanted to get out of the ce as fast as they could and nothing else mattered to them.
Finally, after two days of battle, Eve saw Igor and his men flying away from theirpound. After their figures disappeared into the clouds, she heaved a sigh of relief.
"Wow, those are really different. Where I came from, they would have chosen death,"
"Don''t be too happy. They will return here with more guys. And what the hell? When and how did you reach the Fusion stage?"
"I''d love to exin, but can we do it inside? I was kinda hoping for a grand wee from you. I have to say, I am a little bit disappointed,"
"It''s not toote to go back to Elon, Ghost," Eve whispered while Michael was taking her back inside the castle.
"And spread the gue to Elon? No thanks. How about we cure the gue and get filthy rich huh?"
At this point, Eve couldn''t hear him clearly. She just smiled and closed her eyes, trusting Ghost got her back. With Eve dosing out on his shoulder, Michael pushed open the giant ck metal door to see the gloomy dimly lit hallway void of any life.
Just like any other castle hallways, the walls were decorated with portraits of various Voldigards. As Michael was walking on the red carpet, he could hear coughs and growlinging from inside.
"Jennifer¡Jenni¡" Eve began to mumble under her breath.
"I got her," Michael whispered to Eve, walking her to the hall. As soon as he stepped out of the hallway, the sight of countless people on the marble floor weed him. The people were coughing and vomiting blood. He didn''t expect the air to be so pungent with a strong nauseating smell. It was enough to turn any grown man''s face green.
"You better pray I don''t get sick, bastard," Michael heard an angry shout and looked up to see Gaya climbing down the stairs with Nightmare on her shoulder.
"And Eve Voldigard, I presume?" Gaya looked at Eve, who kept mumbling Jennifer''s name.
"What then ruckus out there? Did you kill them all?" Gaya asked, standing on the stairs instead of getting to the hall.
"Nah. They seemed nice. When I said to turn back and leave, they really did that. If it was back on Elon, we would have had an all-out war by now,"
"We may have something far worse in our hands," Gaya looked at the elves, humans, and beast men with gray skin on the floor. She creased her brows, looking at them growling and coughing up blood.
"Look what we found," then, with a flick of her wrist, Gaya took out an empty vial from her space ring. She threw it at Michael, and when he caught the vial, he immediately recognized what was inside the vial, just by the smell of it.
"Our healing potion. They were treating them with our healing potion," Gaya said with a tinge of surprise hiding within her voice.
"Finding a treatment. That''s half the battle won. Let''s put her in her room and start working on a cure,"
With the system''s help, finding a cure for the gue didn''t even seem like a big deal to Michael. But, as an alchemist, he had a few ideas about where to start.
"We may know where her room is. Follow me," Nightmare leaped into the air and pped his wings, leading Michael above the stairs to the second floor.
Michael took Eve in his arms and flew behind Nightmare. Despite the fact there was a woman in his arms, Gaya didn''t feel the slightest jealousy because she trusted him.
Plus, Michael told Gaya about how he felt about Eve. If Eve was a friend of Ghost, she would be a friend of hers too.
Following Nightmare, Michael entered a spacious corridor and flew past several rooms. Every single room contained a sick person inside.
After passing ten or so rooms, Michael came before a marble door where he saw the name ''Eve Voldigard'' engraved.
Gaya pushed open the door, but instead of finding an empty room, they found Jennifer lying in arge circle bed in the dark room.
The curtains were all shut to prevent any light froming through the window. To be honest, Michael felt like he had entered a boy''s room because the room was messy as hell. There was not a single book in the room but broken dummies, swords, shields, and robes were thrown all over the ce. He even saw a brat hanging onto a portrait of a lion.
Jennifer''s skin was gray, unlike Eve''s, and they saw blood oozing out of Jennifer''s ear, drenching the white pillow beneath. Michael gently ced Eve beside Jennifer. Although he shouldn''t ce Eve beside a patent like Jennifer, Eve was already infected, and there was no point in quarantining Eve.
They were all past the point of getting quarantined. Instead, Michael focused on finding the cure. As a first step, Michael ced his hand on Eve, sticking a needle inside her wrist from his APD. He took a blood sample from Eve and took a giant needle from his system storage.
"That''s one big ass needle," Gaya raised her brows, seeing Michael sticking the needle into Jennifer''s neck and sucking out enough blood to turn her face paler. Even after taking a giant needle through her neck, Jennifer didn''t move an inch. Nightmare could barely hear her heartbeats. If he was right, Jennifer didn''t have long to live. Maybe a week or two at most.
Michael put the two vials of blood into his system storage before summoning the system.
"System, analyze the blood sample and offer me a cure,"
[The system level is too low to find a cure by analyzing the two blood samples. The system can find a form to the cure if the host provides either a blood or a tissue sample of patient zero]
At the moment, Michael didn''t have enough points to upgrade the system. He would rather have the points in case of an emergency rather than spend them on the system. For some reason, Michael felt he would need the points soon. Besides, he would return to Mazeroth soon. No matter what, Mazeroth was a ce controlled by Skyhall. It would be stupid to venture into enemy territory without having backup ns.
"Patient zero huh? Eve might have an idea," Michael sat beside Eve, taking out a healing potion from his system storage.
"What''s the n?" asked Gaya.
"To find a cure, I need the first infected person. I think Eve might know who that was"
Chapter 581: Plan to weaponize the plague
Chapter 581: n to weaponize the gueA thin need extended from Michael''s wrist, entering Eve''s neck. Michael slowly sent the healing potion into Eve''s bloodstream. Eve''s breathing improved after the healing potion entered her body. As a result, slight rosiness returned to her skin. Gaya, who sat beside Jennifer at the other end of the bed saw Eve''s finger twitching.
Boom!
Suddenly, the windows shattered as the hammer shot into the room andnded in Eve''s hand.
"That''s cool," Nightmare shrunk himself tond between Eve and Jennifer. He tried to touch the hammer but when he did, a bolt of electricity entered his body.
"Ah!" Nightmare jolted back,
"What happened?" asked Gaya, chuckling.
"It zapped me," Nightmareined and bore his teeth at the hammer.
On the other hand, Eve''s breathing got normal as she slowly opened her eyes to see Michael smiling back at her.
"So it wasn''t a dream," her smile suddenly froze as she jerked her head aside to see Jennifer beside her.
"Jenni,"
"She is still sick," Gaya answered her, taking Eve''s gaze away from Jennifer for a moment.
"Eve, this is my fiance I told you about, Aelia. And that''s Nightmare."
"I wish we had met under different circumstances," Gaya reached out to shake Eve''s hand. Eve gritted her teeth to fight the pain and shook Gaya''s hand.
After Gaya firmly shook Eve''s hand, Nightmare gently reached Eve with a leap and nudged Eve''s face.
"It''ll be alright. You have the best miracle worker in the whole world. Did you know I was death kissed, and he saved me?"
"I don''t know what death kiss is, but I assume it''s something worse,"
"Far worse" Gaya nodded,
"Yes, the point is, we can find a cure," Nightmare''s kind words put a gentle smile on Eve''s face. However, the smile contained misery and sadness rather than delight.
"Our best healers tried before sumbing to the gue. Our only hope is the heavenly alchemists,"
"Fuck the heavenly alchemists. You have the godly alchemist right in front of you," Gaya''s brash words quite surprised Eve, but what she heard from Ghost surprised her even more.
"I can find a cure if you get me to the person who got infected first. Any idea who that was?"
Before answering Michael''s question, Eve flicked her wrist, taking out a healing potion.
"This is thest one," Eve sighed before gently opening Jennifer''s mouth to pour the healing potion into her mouth.
"I don''t know when the shipment ising next,"
"You do know Ghost brewed that potion right?"
Eve took a deep breath and nodded as an answer to Gaya''s question.
"After the gue hit two weeks ago, no one could get their hands on them. I sent someone to ask for yourself, but he never came back,"
"Weird. How much did you pay for a potion?"
"Twenty-five thousand, after the gue. Before that, it''s fifteen to eighteen thousand,"
As soon as these words escaped Eve''s mouth, Gaya''s eyes went wide, and the veins in her eyes popped, turning her eyes red.
"We were being scammed. We sell the eighty percent pure healing potion for nine thousand and the ny percent one for twelve thousand. When I get my hands on that mother fucker who is screwing us, I''ll cut his head and shove it way above where the sun doesn''t shine," Gaya''s words frighten Eve as she never expected a girl like her to be so foul-mouthed and brash.
Eve looked at Nightmare to see him grinning embarrassedly,
"You''ll get used to it,"
"That''s not a problem we have to deal with right now. Eve, who was the first person to get infected?" asked Michael.
"A dark elf. But he is buried in Esya, a vige in Yeserius. I don''t think they would let us excavate his remains. We will get arrows instead permission. There is no way, they would let us,"
"Then we won''t," Michael calmly said,
"We will go there by night, dig his grave, take whatever Ghost needs, and get the hell out of there before no one notices us," Gaya quicklyid out a n as Eve stared at them wide-eyed. It was shocking to see Ghost and Aelia talk so casually about grave robbing inside a dark elf territory.
Usually, Eve would have stopped them but looking at her sister and thinking about her family, she couldn''t say no to something that might lead Ghost to find a cure.
"Are you sure you can find a cure for this?"
Thest time Eve heard, the entire Kingdom of Thera and the empress''s court of healers were trying toe up with a cure yet had no breakthrough. However, Ghost talked so simply about finding a cure. His words sounded confident rather than arrogant. Somehow, Eve believed he could really find the cure. After all, Michael had a reputation for pulling several miracles, such as bing the youngest Fusion stage cultivator. Even Rowena wasn''t as young as Michael when she reached the Fusion stage.
"But before we do anything, we need more healing potions. Unfortunately, I don''t have enough to keep everyone in the castle sustained,"
"Can you brew enough potions if you had the ingredients?" Eve quickly asked Ghost.
"If I brewed until the nightfall, we would have enough to keep them alive until Ie up with a cure,"
"What about moving to another safe house or something? Those guys who attacked you won''t stay far away for long. They might get impatient and try to wipe you out,"
"I know a ce," Eve quickly thought of the ce her father bought weeks before he fell sick. Since it was a recent purchase, none of the outsiders knew about it.
"Does this ce happen to have a portal connected to it?"
Unfortunately, Eve shook her head.
"We have to fly there,"
Michael pondered for a moment before standing up from the bed,
"Okay here''s the n. Aelia, put everyone in arge carriage and fly there. I will stay here and brew the healing potions,"
Michael could fly to Eve''s safe ce with the two girls, But Michael wanted to stay in the castle to kill in case anyone showed up to wipe out the Voldigards. Suppose House Rottgard sent Fusion stage cultivators to finish the job. In that case, Michael could turn into Dark Lord, wipe them out and earn enough experience points to level up without worrying about revealing his true self.
Ghost had to fear making enemies but not the Dark Lord.
"Why are you doing this Ghost? You have only known me for a few days," Eve''svoice stuttered,
"To be honest, I have this feeling. A feeling you and I are so close, like best friends,"'' For a change, Michael just told Eve the truth instead of making up a story. Eve waspletely taken aback by surprise as she too had the same feeling.
Despite everything, Eve sadly chuckled,
"I have the same feeling too. Is it weird? I mean, we''ve only known each other for a few days, but I feel like we''ve known each other for ages. I think we may have been best friends in our previous lives?"
"Who knows? We may have been," Michael just smiled before looking at the front yard through the hole in the window. The previously neatly taken care of and pruned front yard now looked like a battlefield. All those soldiers deserved a proper burial, but Michael had the living to save.
After finding the cure, he didn''t only have the chance to get rich but also had a way to solidify his friendship with House Voldigard. If he yed his cards right, he could be an influential person in Awor right out of the bat. To achieve anything, he had to find the cure first.
"Follow me. I will show you the storage. I have to give you everything you need before I lose consciousness like the others,"
Eve gestured at them to follow her behind. She took a deep breath and took each step with great difficulty.
"When you lose consciousness, just rx and try not to worry about anything. When you wake up, everything will be back to normal,"
Michael said, following Eve through the corridor.
"I doubt it, Ghost. Most of the protectors are dead except my father and uncle. Even if you managed to cure them, it''d be near impossible for the House Voldigard to get back on its feet. Difficult times lie ahead Ghost,"
Although Eve sounded strong, Michael could sense the sorrow and despair in her tone. As she said, even if he cured the gue, the House Voldigard wouldn''t be as strong as it used to be. Several other ns might attempt to take over the Voldigard or what''s left of it, like vultures.
However, there was a way where House Voldigard could survive and dominate Thera.
"We can help you with that, but it depends on how ruthless you are," Gaya eximed. Even with Ghost, if Eve didn''t have the resolution and ruthlessness to do what''s necessary, no one could revive House Voldigard.
Michael and Gaya were on the same wavelength as she had the same idea as Michael.
"I saw my men getting ughtered in front of my eyes. They died so House Voldigard could live. I think that would make me more ruthless than you actually think I am, Aelia,"
"Good. When you are in a position where you can''t reach your foes, bring them down to your level,"
"How are we going to do that?" Eve curiously asked Gaya.
"We are going to use the gue against all your enemies,"
Eve immediately halted her steps to turn around to look at both Michael and Gaya. Nightmare wasn''t as surprised as Eve because he expected it. On the contrary, he would have been surprised if Michael and Gaya didn''t try to exploit the gue to their advantage.
"You are serious?" Eve asked, pretty shaken up by Gaya''s words.
"We specialize in dismantling enemies, Eve. Just think of us as your hired fixers," Michael grinned, giving Eve some courage to move forward with their n.
But even if she disagreed, Michael had already decided to weaponize the gue and spread it to his foes. He just needed some guinea pigs, and House Rottgard seemed like a great testing ce.
Chapter 582: Barren Floating Mountain
Chapter 582: Barren Floating MountainAfter Eve, Gaya and Nightmare left the castle, Michael sat in a middle of a room filled with racks. Each rack contained several rows, and each row had various herbs and ingredients. The whole room contained atleast a ton of ingredient one needed to refine thousands of pills and potions.
At that moment, Michael had an oak table before him with a bunch of ingredients and empty vials.
"My lord, here''s the ss of water you asked," Azazel brought Michael a ss of hot water and ced it on the table beside the herbs.
Michael''s dark mes dimly lit the already dark room. Since Azazel had a physical body, he was helping Michael by bringing the herbs needed to brew the healing potion.
"My lord, you''ve been brewing the healing potion for hours now. You should take a break," Azazel suggested to Michael, only to see Michael shaking his head,
"I don''t need rest. But what I need is the tissue sample of patient zero. Did you get the blood from the deceased?"
"Yes my lord," Azazel flicked his wrist, taking out free vials of dark grayish blood.
"I also took the liberty to ce Spyders inside and around the castle, my lord. Someone may have disrupted the security arrays because I found no resistance. The main warehouse is empty. I assume someone cleaned the ce out before the gue broke out,"
"That someone is Eve''s father. Apparently, he transported their treasury to the Immortal council''s vault,"
"Immortal council?" this was the first time Azazel had heard about Immortal Council. Michael wasn''t familiar with them either until Eve brought it up.
"Yeah, after someone reaches the Half Immortal stage, they would be invited to join the Immortal Council. Eve''s ancestor is a member of the council,"
"Still, they got attacked?" Azazel questioned Michael. He could t understand how a family of someone powerful enough to be the Immortal Council''s member could be attacked and almost wiped out from the map.
To be honest, Michael asked Eve the same question.
"First, the council won''t meddle in mortal affairs," Michael emphasized the word mortal like he was air quoting the word.
"That means, if you''re a council member and your family gets into trouble, you can''t pitch in and rescue them. Unless the council members agree upon it. Secondly, those old bastards have lived long enough away from their families to not give a damn about their descendants. How could they do it? I don''t know. But I guess, living three hundred four hundred years in seclusion away from friends and family will do that to you," Michael exined to Azazel while throwing the herbs into the dark mes dancing atop his palm.
"So they have rules against saving their families?" Azazel asked, knitting his brows together.
"I am afraid so. As far as I heard from Eve and Gaya, they are like a bunch of crooked politicians who have nothing but time on their hands. They y politics and cultivate to get higher stages,"
"But what if a member intervenes in mortal affairs?"
"They just debate over the issue and pass their judgment on you. Which in most cases is kicking you out of the council or smite you to hell,"
"Seems like joining the council has nothing but disadvantages," Azazel frowned as Michael chuckled.
"Apparently, after reaching the Half Immortal stage, climbing each level would take decades. That is, if the cultivator is a genius. So the council gives you unlimited resources to cultivate; in return, you don''t meddle in mortal affairs. It makes sense. Just imagine Immortals and Half Immortals running around the world. They will be absolute superpowers. They could enve a kingdom if they felt like it. Having a council to put a leash on them is not a bad idea. Atleast it works great for me. When I wipe out some of the noble families, no one would be there to stop me. I just need to find a way to deal with the Fusion stage cultivators, "
Michael exined his thoughts to Azazel while brewing the potions.
"So the council is one of the Great Eight ns?"
"No, they are like an independent group. As I said, they don''t give a shit about anyone. A most one member could do for their descendants is doing small things like providing ess to a vault,"
Azazel nodded as Michael waved his hand, putting out the dark mes. Then, Michael took the blood vials on the table and kept them before his eyes.
"Now I just need to find a cure before weaponizing the gue. Thest thing I need is to bring down a gue upon my subordinates. One wrong move and everything wille back to bite me in my ass,"
Michael waved his hand as the vials disappeared from sight. When Michael finally rose from his chair, there were thousands of healing potions glistening in the darkness. The radiant blue light emitted by the healing potions brightened the room.
"We shall go meet Eve and Gaya,"
"What about this castle, my lord?"
"Just let the Rottgards have it. When I am done, there won''t be anyone standing against the Voldigards,"
Although Michael decided to help Voldigards because of Eve, his main goal was to make Voldigards his allies. In addition, having a powerful family by his side would make establishing a name for himself in Awor much easier.
"What would you have me do, my lord?"
"Just stay here and monitor the situation. I am pretty sure the Rottgards would return soon. Do not make any moves. Just observe and report. Got it?"
"Yes my lord,"
After ordering Azazel to stay in the castle, Michael put the healing potion in his system storage and exited the storage through the dark door.
****************************************
(A few hours ago)
The dark clouds shrouded the sky, preventing the golden sunrays from reaching the gue-ridden Kingdom Thera. Under the rambling thunderclouds, Nightmare soared through the clouds like an arrow carrying a giant carriage on his back. The carriage wasrge enough to contain a hundred and twenty people inside, including Eve and Gaya.
The Voldogards used the giant carriage to transport massive pirs to build castles and bridges. A rare race called giants pulled these carriages from one end to another. Fortunately, Nightmare grew almost eighteen meters long to carry the carriage upon his back.
Inside the carriage, Eve leaned against the carriage holding Gaya''s hand.
"I don''t think I have much longer. Are we there yet?"
"You tell us. Where are we going?" asked Gaya after hearing Eve''s weak voice.
"You will see,"
Eve gently brushed Jennifer''s head whichy on Eve''sp. Her face had almost turned to stone-like color. In simple words, Jennifer seemed like a statue.
"How did you meet Ghost?" Eve turned her gaze towards Gaya,
"Just like you, I was in a helpless situation. I thought I was done for. But he changed my life. I have lost count of how many times he pulled some shit no one would imagine,"
"You really think he could find the cure huh?"
"I know he would. Trust me, you will recollect all these events andugh soon,"
"I wish," Eve let out a deep breath as Gaya felt Nightmare slowing down.
"Hey, I think we reached the ce. Aelia, you shoulde out," Gaya sensed a tinge of shock in Nightmare''s voice. Therefore, Gaya squeezed Eve''s hand, reassuring her before dashing out of the carriage.
As soon as she exited the carriage, her eyes went so wide to the point her eyes looked like they could pop out any moment. The reason for her shock was the barren floating mountain on the horizon. The floating mountain looked like a sword. The base was the de, and the tall pir resembled the hilt from which an elegant streamy waterfall flowed. However, unlike the floating mountains she had seen in the Akn realm, the sword-like floating mountain was barren and void of any man-made buildings.
Other than the waterfall, there was nothing in the floating mountain.
After starting at the barren floating mountain for a few minutes, the duo resumed flying and approached the ind. The closer they got, the bigger the floating mountain looked. Yet, it was far from exceeding the floating mountains in the Akn realm by far.
It took Nightmare and Gaya a few minutes tond on the barrennd and put down the carriage on the ground.
Considering the ground had no trees, and the clouds above them looked dark and gloomy, Gaya decided to keep them inside the carriage instead of taking them out. She didn''t want the sick people to get drenched in heavy rain.
"This ce looks good,"
Nightmare creased his brows,
"This ce looks barren and deserted. There is nothing in the ce that would make anyone say its good,"
"Youck imagination lizard," Nightmare rolled his eyes,
"I don''tck imagination, but I just don''t see the point of imagining anything in the ce. It''s not ours,"
"Hmm," Gaya grinned without telling what was going on inside her dead to Nightmare.
"I''ll go take a look around the ce. You stay here and make sure they stay safe,"
Gaya didn''t even wait for Nightmare''s agreement as she took off from the ground to fly around the floating mountain. A few minutester, Nightmare shrunk his size to enter the carriage. However, when he came to Eve, he noticed her skin color had slightly changed to gray.
At that moment, Eve was sleeping peacefully while holding Jennifer''s hand in one hand and her hammer in the other.
Now that he had brought Eve and the Voldigards to a safe ce, all he could do was wait for Ghost to find a cure for the gue.
But something told Nightmare, Gaya and Ghost would take full advantage of the gue before curing it.
After flying around the barren mountain for an hour, Gaya finally returned to the carriage. This time, she wasn''t alone but brought Ghost with her.
"Ghost," Nightmare weed Ghost with a wide grin as usual. He slowly hovered above the sick people to reach Eve. Instead of pouring the potion into Eve''s mouth, Michael ced his hand on Eve''s neck, which was burning hot, injecting the APD filled with ny percent pure healing potion.
Chapter 583: The Dark Elves
Chapter 583: The Dark ElvesWhile Nightmare gave the sick a healing potion, Michael woke up Eve.
"I am awake¡" Eve spoke in a weak tone. After slowly opening her eyes, she looked at Michael and Gaya. The recent memories flooded her mind. Since Michael had given her the healing potion, she slowly regained her strength. However, the gue effect prevented her from using Arch energy. As a result, her cultivation dropped from the Core Strengthening stage to the Body Refining stage.
She quickly looked down to see how her sister was doing. Unfortunately, even Michael''s ny percent pure healing potion couldn''t wake her up. Evebed Jennifer''s hair and bowed down, gently cing a kiss on her forehead.
"We should go now to reach the Esya by nightfall," Eve slowly stood up, holding the wall for support.
"Whoa, cool your roll Eve. You''re noting,"
"What?" Eve creased her brows immediately after hearing Michael,
"No offense, but in your current condition, you''ll be more of a burden than help,"
Surprisingly, Eve dropped the hammer and let out a heavy breath.
"You''re right. But I can''t sit here and do nothing. How can I? My people are dying. I need to do something. Otherwise, I''d lose my mind,"
Both Michael and Gaya understood her feelings. Thus, they looked at each other for a moment before Michael turned his gaze back to Eve,
"I get you. What about this? You can fly atop Nightmare and be our lookout. That way, you wouldn''t have to wait here wondering what we are up to,"
"I can do that," Eve quickly bobbed her head up and down,
"It''s settled then," Gaya nodded, waving her hand as her silver robes turnedpletely ck. She also covered her face with a cloak and a dark mask.
Seeing Gaya adjusting her mask, Michael said,
"Don''t fret. The gue isn''t airborne. As far as I studied the samples, it''s spreading in water and food,"
"Really?" Gaya sighed in relief.
"So you had any gs recently?" Nightmare asked Eve. Almost all the Voldigards were infected by the gue. So if the gue wasn''t airborne and spreading via water and food, Nightmare concluded that the Voldigards hosted a g or a feast. Otherwise, they wouldn''t have sumbed to the gue at the same time.
"We hosted a g celebrating Jennifer''s birthday. All the Voldigards were there, including our ancestor,"
"The Half Immortal one?" asked Michael to see Eve nodding her head.
"Was he sick?" Gaya wondered whether the gue could affect the Immortal or not. To be honest, she didn''t believe it could because the Half Immortals and Immortals wouldn''t die by normal means such as illness.
"No, that I know of. When father met him before transporting our treasury to the council''s vault, he wasn''t sick. At Least my father didn''t think so,"
"Hmm. So it''s not affecting anyone above Fusion Stage," Michael pondered but soon, he willed the system, changing his robes. Since Michael was always adorned inpletely ck, the changes weren''t much noticeable. He just put on the mage robes he bought from the system and covered himself. Additionally, he also wore a cat mask underneath the cloak to hide his facepletely.
But after covering the face with the cat mask, Michael willed the system and transformed his facepletely just to be safe.
"Nightmare, take Eve with you and stay in cover behind the darkness and the clouds,"
"You should wear something else to cover yourself. We don''t want those fuckers to make any connection," Gaya said to Eve. She sounded more annoyed and furious than usual when she mentioned the dark elves. To Michael, It was evident Gaya has some kind of history with the dark elves.
Eve nodded and closed her eyes for a moment. Gradually, her white robes turned dark, and a cloak appeared around her head, covering her face with darkness. Just like Michael, she also took out a bear mask and put it on her face. Finally, she looked at her hammer, and with a heavy heart, she flicked her wrist as the hammer slowly faded into thin air.
"Follow us at a safe distance," Gaya turned around.
"Do you know where the vige is?" But Gaya halted her steps when she heard Eve,
"I happen toe across the vige once. Let''s go Ghost,"
Gaya didn''t linger around for Eve to ask more questions. Instead, leading Michael, Gaya soared towards the sky to the point they went above the dark clouds.
"What''s the story? You messed with the dark elves, didn''t you?" Michael asked, flying beside her.
"Why do you assume that? Do you think I always mess with others? I am not a racist,"
"You are," Michael chuckled.
"You hate the other races. That''s the definition of a racist,"
"I don''t hate you,"
"You used to. Remember, you tried to kill me with a candle holder,"
"You know what? Fuck you. I am not a racist. If you think I am a racist, just wait till you meet the dark elves," she just snickered and sped up.
Considering Michael studied with the elves in Mazeroth, he could understand the meaning behind Gaya''s words. However, he didn''t have the pleasure of meeting any dark elves in Mazeroth. Now that Michael thought about it, he had never met a single dark one since he came to this world. By the time they reached the outskirts of the vige, night had fallen upon them, erasing any light from existence. Lightning shed across the dark sky, brightening the sky out of its darkness for only a single moment. The rain drizzled, creating a piece of rhythmic music.
The journey towards Esya vige was peaceful as Gaya didn''t say a word until Michael saw a distant forest. He shouldn''t have seen the forest from above the clouds. Each tree in the forest stood at least 300meter tall and fifty meters wide. For a few moments, Michael stopped flying and stared at the forest with giant trees. He had never seen such a forest made with trees that seemed to be touching the clouds.
"What is this ce?" Michael asked Gaya in utter shock. To his surprise, the trees were glowing like a city. When he looked closer, he could see man-made structures in the forest. The dark elves built houses inside and outside the tree above the ground. He could at least see hundreds of elegant tree houses that looked extremely cozy. Instead of runes ormps, the houses were lit with luminescent mushrooms. These colorful mushrooms lit the threeyered houses. The firstyer glistened in blue, brightening the crowded little homes. The houses built above the firstyer were more grandiloquent than the firstyered houses and lit with emerald green mushrooms. Finally, the thirdyer on top had fewer but grand houses.
All these higher-level houses were lit with radiant golden mushrooms. All these threeyeredbined looked awe-inspiring.
Before resuming their travel, Michael waited for the dark clouds to spark lightning shes. Then, he counted the time between each lightning sh. After calcting their approximate gap, Michael prepared to cast the lightning dash.
Michael slowly hovered towards Gaya and held her hand,
"One, two," Michael began to count in his mind and cast the lightning dash spell as soon as he counted up to three.
Just as he cast the spell, a sh of lightning streaked across the sky, masking the golden trail left by Michael.
In a few blinks of an eye, Michael reached the other end of the forest, where Michael saw a lush green field with several wooden headstones. The headstones were apanied by saplings of different ages. Some saplings had grown almost four feet, while some just had foot-tall saplings growing out of the grass field.
Luckily for Michael and Gaya, the graveyard had no dark elves guarding it.
"Drined Esrat, that''s the name of the dark elf who died first," Gaya, who learned the name from Eve, told Michael.
"Let''s split up and search for the headstone," Michael instructed Gaya and descended towards the graveyard. When Michaelnded in the graveyard, he saw a wooden headstone named ''Dremzol Rinzudia''. Although he was in a dark elves'' graveyard, he didn''t desecrate the ce. Instead, he floated a few inches away from the cemetery, leaving no footprints.
He respected the dead no matter their race. He floated above the headstones, checking the names one by one.
Gaya also checked on the headstones, but unlike Michael, she left a few footsteps until she saw Michael floating above the ground.
"Ghost, we are in position," Michael heard Nightmare''s voice in his head. He quickly looked up, activating the thermal vision to see a tiny ball of heat signature behind the clouds.
"Keep an eye out for us. We''ll get out of here as soon as we find the right grave," Michael informed Nightmare and continued to look for the grave that belonged to one Drined Esrat.
Michael''s luck finally turned up as he found the headstone named Drined Esrat.
"Hey found the grave," Michael quickly talked to Gaya through the earpiece as she dashed towards him.
Without wasting time, Michael took out a shovel from the system storage and began digging the grave. Michael dug the grave as fast as he could and hit the casket made of red hickory in a few minutes.
Tap!
Tap!
Tap!
Gaya heard the shovel hitting the casket and felt excited. However, Nightmare''s words halted her excitement.
"Look out!"
But before Gaya and Michael could react, an arrow flew past Gaya''s face, butting through the cloak and a strand of her hair.
"Shit shit shit!" Gaya quickly turned around, realizing they had been found out by the dark elves.
"Watch my back," Michael didn''t lose his calm but increased his digging speed.
He wasn''t going to turn back without getting what he needed.
While Michael was breaking open the casket, Gaya raised her arm towards the sky, creating a thin shield around them.
"Fuck, they are here," Gaya cursed, looking at the numerous dark elves flying toward them.
"So much for being stealthy," Gaya snickered as the arrows hit the shield but couldn''t prate through. However, the more arrows hit the shield, the weaker the shield became.
"Hurry up!"
Chapter 584: Fighting the dark elves
Chapter 584: Fighting the dark elvesMichael initially thought of just getting a few stripes of flesh and a piece of bone as samples. However, he changed his mind after seeing the dark elves bombarding him and Gaya with arrows. What surprised him more was he didn''t detect anyone in his Environmental Scanning. The distance between the cemetery and the forest was at least nine hundred meters. Still, a dark elf managed to hit Gaya with deadly uracy. Michael wanted to see that dark elf. It was no brainer that the dark elf who fired the shot didn''t go for the kill but rather had given Gaya a warning.
Holding the shield around them, Gaya could see at least hundreds of arrows soaring toward her. She used every bit of arch energy in her body, strengthening the shield. Like droplets of water hitting the puddle and creating ripples, the arrows created countless ripples on the shield when they hit.
Without wasting any more time, Michael broke the casket with his bare hand and pulled out the decayed body of the dark elf burning within. He put the halfly decayed body on his shoulder and jumped out of the grave he dug.
"Let''s go," Michael said as Gaya slowly stepped backward, preparing to fly away from the graveyard. However, just when they were about to fly, a golden arrow shattered the shield and sent Gaya flying into Michael.
Michael quickly caught Gaya in one hand while holding the decayed body in the other. Gaya gritted her teeth, holding the bubbling anger within her. Every fiber in her body told her to go berserk on the dark elves but she managed to control her anger so they could escape the ce without revealing themselves.
"Make a move if you want to meet your makers," out of the blue, a chiming bell-like voice traveled in the wind and breezed through them.
The voice made Michael look upwards to see a dark elf carrying a golden bow and arrow descending from the sky. The dark elf''s glistening bow brightened his sharp features. He could be described as ck-skinned and dark-haired in appearance.
The most distinguishing feature was his brownish skin due to living under the shade of the forest. Like all elves, he too had pointed ears almost as long as the normal elves Michael met in Mazeroth. However, his facial features were visibly sharper than those of other elves. They had a more angry brow curve, which coupled with their sharp, carnivorous teeth, gave them a rather savage and predatory appearance.
As the dark elf''s feet touched the ground, several othersnded around Michael out of nowhere as though they sprouted from the ground. They all raised their bows taking aim at Michael and Gaya. Although they weren''t muscr as the human warriors, Nheless, every single dark elf had at least one tattoo ranging from icons of a deity to runes with actual magical enchantments. Because symbolism and tattoos yed an important role in dark elven culture, tattoos and piercings were highly abundant. For example, the dark elf who appeared in the sky had an eagle tattooed on his neck as well as an arrow pointing towards the sky on his forehead, right between his brows.
"You have desecrated a sacred ground," the dark elf spoke in a cold murderous tone. Since Michael paid the system to mask his actual cultivation level, the dark elves thought he was only at the Core Formation stage. As a result, the dark elves felt superior and didn''t bother to call for backup.
The dark elf who threatened Michael and Gaya was the strongest who stood at Soul Refining stage level 4.
"Put him down," the dark elf said, looking at the decayed body hanging on Michael''s shoulder like a piece of cloth.
"No one has to get hurt. Just lower your bows and let us go," Gaya calmly said, but the dark elves didn''t even budge. Except, their stars intensified more.
"Leave," Michael growled at the dark elf before them a few meters away. However, he didn''t direct the word to him. In reality, he ordered Nightmare, not the dark elves.
"You will pay for your crime at the first light," the dark life coldly said without reacting to Michael''s words. But, unknown to Michael, today was an auspicious day in the dark elves'' calendar. Thus, they were prohibited from taking life unless facing a cmity.
Since both Michael and Gaya had no weapons and didn''t pose a threat to them, the dark elves had no need to kill them. But it was only temporary. As soon as the first light appeared on the horizon, the dark elves would send an arrow through their heads, ending their lives.
"I''ll take the body and return it in a few days," Michael calmly said to the dark elf. To be honest, Michael didn''t want to fight the dark elves because he had desecrated their holy ground. They had all the right to kill them.
If someone had done the same to a ce Michael held holy, he would have killed them in a blink of an eye. That was why Michael didn''t raise his hand to kill the dark elves.
Whoosh!
Instead of speaking with words, the dark elf chose to talk with an arrow. The dark elf sent an arrow straight into the ground a few inches before Michael in a blink of an eye.
"I''ll take that as a no," Michael put the body down, cracking his neck.
"Remember, I gave you a choice," Michael slowly took a step forward,
"Stay put. It won''t take too long," Michael said to Gaya and turned his gaze back towards the dark elf. Michaelpletely ignored the other dark elves because they were all only at the Core strengthening stage.
Not that Michael underestimated the dark elves, but rather, he was simply too strong to be concerned. Except for the Soul Refining stage dark elf who seemed to possess superior archery skills, the others didn''t pose any threat to Michael.
Considering the Soul Refining stage dark elf was the strongest, Michael targeted him.
Seeing Michael readying for a battle, the dark elves tensed. Then, they slowly pulled back the bowstring as they were only inches away from releasing the arrows they nocked.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, Michael dashed at the leading dark elf as fast as a lightning bolt. His speed startled the dark elves. Still, they managed to release the arrows as Gaya quickly cast the shield spell around her. Since she only concentrated the arch energy around her, the shield formed around her was stronger than before which covered an area several timesrger.
The dark elf leaped back, firing a golden arrow. But Michael simply caught the arrow in mid-air, startling the dark elf. It shouldn''t have been possible for a measly Core Formation stage warrior. Despite his shock and the fact Michael caught the first arrow, the dark elf fired again. This time, the arrow soared towards Michael faster than the previous one, almost at the speed of a bullet. Yet, the result was the same.
At that time, Michael had a golden arrow in each hand.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The dark elf rapidly fired arrow after arrow, and so did the others, only to see Michael using the arrows as steps to climb higher into the air. In a few blinks of an eye, Michael reached the dark elf leader using the arrows as steps in mid-air. Except for a few, the dark elves targeted Michael. Because Michael was too close to their leader, they were forced to move around to adjust their aims.
Gaya saw Michael move as swiftly as a feather in the wind, evading the arrows and fighting the dark elf. Surprisingly, the dark elf was just good in hand-to-handbat as he was in archery. Thus, the dark elf managed to block and dodge Michael''s punches.
The way the dark elf dodged and blocked his punches surprised Michael. Usually, an archer wouldn''t be as proficient in closebat as the dark elf. The dark elf blocked Michael''s punches with the bow and arrow. If Michael lost his concentration even for a second, the dark elf would break his mask and stab him in the chest with the arrow.
Obviously, the dark elf was a good fighter, but Michael was better. The more he fought with the dark elf, the more he learned about the dark elf''s fighting style. Hence, Michael was able to predict his moves before even he could make them. As a result, when the dark elf tried to block Michael''s left hook, Michael quickly plunged his knee into the dark elf''s gut.
"Argh," the dark elf groaned and missed to notice the fisting towards him in pain.
Bang!
The dark elf surprised Michael again by grabbing Michael''s fist.
Michael did not expect the dark elf to recover so soon. Luckily, Michael still had the arrow in his hand. Without dying, Michael pulled out his fist, stabbing the dark elf with the arrow in his other hand. He plunged the arrow''s head straight into the dark elf''s rib cage without cutting any of his major organs.
"Commander!"
The dark elves shouted, looking at Michael stabbing the dark elf again and again. The dark elf was lucky Michael didn''t go for the kill. Instead, he rapidly stabbed the dark elf to make him bleed and weaker.
"Drop your bows, or I''ll slit his throat right now," Michael moved behind the dark elf, who had blood leaking out of his side, and put the bloody arrow against the dark elf''s throat.
"You should listen to him," Gaya coldly snarled at the dark elves. Then, seeing theirmander''s life in danger, the dark elves hesitated but eventually lowered their bows.
"You have be our enemy," the dark elf whispered, gritting his teeth.
"It won''t take long to slit your throat and kill your friends. Know that I didn''t want to kill you but save you. You will understand soon enough," Michael whispered into the dark elf''s ear as the dark elves stared at him with eyes full of anger and murderous intent.
If stares could kill a person, Michael would have died several times by now.
Chapter 585: The Cure
Chapter 585: The CureSeeing the dark elves dropping their bows, Gaya snickered behind her mask. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say that Gaya hated the dark elves. As a matter of fact, almost all the races hated the dark elves, even the elves. To put it bluntly, the dark elves were racist, arrogant, and the most intolerable race in the whole world. No matter what one would say about the dark elves, they were one united race. Each dark elf was loyal and devoted to the well-being of their race. A dark elf would literally for another dark elf no matter whether they were rted or not.
That was the reason they chose to lower their weapons when they saw Michael threatening the life of theirmander. The dark elves would rather let Michael escape than endanger theirmander''s life. Michael noticed the concern in their eyes and their loyalty towards the dark elf in his hold.
"If I don''t do this, your entire city would be destroyed by the gue," Michael whispered into his ears again before turning his gaze toward Gaya.
"Take the body,"
Gaya didn''t need to be told twice as she quickly grabbed the decayed body and flew to his side.
"Do not follow us. I will return the body to you in a few days," Michael said to the dark elves.
"Meanwhile, don''t drink water without purifying it," Michael whispered to the dark elf. He kinda liked the dark elf and wished he could make the dark elf his subordinate. To do that, the dark elf needed to be alive. That was the only reason Michael advised the dark elf so they wouldn''t get sick.
"What the hell are you talking about?" the dark elf growled.
"The gue. I am the only one who could find a cure and stop the gue before it destroys your beloved Awor,"
The moment Michael uttered thest word, he pushed down the dark elf with enough force to send him crashing onto some of the dark elves beneath him. Without wasting a second, Michael tossed a shbang onto the ground and shot into the sky with Gaya.
"Get him!" the dark elf gritted his teeth, holding his rib cage. Despite the pain and blood, he ordered his underlings to catch Michael.
However, by the time, the dark elves reached the sky where they saw Michael disappear, Michael teleported to Eve''s floating mountain.
On the ind, Eve and Nightmare waited outside the carriage for Michael and Gaya.
"Where are they?" Eve strolled back and forth with the hammer tightly clenched.
But suddenly, she saw Michael and Gaya appear beside Nightmare.
"Did you get the body?" Eve asked before even she noticed the decayed body on Michael''s shoulder.
Instead of answering, Michael just nced at the body.
"Aelia, set up my workbench here. I need a sharp knife, clean cloth, and a barrel of water," Michael instructed Gaya, removing the mask off of his face.
"System, scan the body and give me that form,"
[As you wish]
He heard the system''s voice in his head followed by an unearthly whistling sound. The system began to scan the system while Gaya was setting up a long oak table and the chair which made his workbench. On the other hand, Nightmare flew out to the waterfall to get fresh water as Michael asked.
The only thing that remained was the clean cloth and Eve provided it from her space ring.
By the time Gaya finished setting up the workbench, the systempleted the scanning.
[Pateint zero identified. The system requires 200,000 badass points to create a form for the gue]
"Take it," Michael didn''t even think for a second before agreeing to the system. Compared to the gold coins he would make after finding the cure, the 200,000 badass points were nothing. The only downside was after paying the system, his badass points were almost depleted. At that moment, he only had 120,000 badass points. Because of the uing Aqua auction, he was unable to turn the gold coins into badass points.
[The system requires a tissue sample and bonemarrow from the patient zero]
The system asked Michael
"ce the body here," Michael said to Gaya.
Gaya gently ced the decayed body on the table as Eve covered her nose to stop breathing the strong stenching from the body. But unlike Eve, Michael showed no signs of disgust on his face. Instead, he just took the jade dagger from Gaya''s hand and start carving the body around its chest.
Eve saw Ghost cut a chunk of decayed grayish flesh from the body and then, turn the body upside down.
"Wait a minute," suddenly, Gaya stepped closer to the body and moved her head closer to the body''s neck.
Eve and Michael looked closer at where Gaya was pointing and was surprised to see a bite mark. The bite mark had two deep holes an inch away from one other. It was too simr to a vampire bite.
"Do you think he was bitten by a vampire?" Eve asked after several minutes of silence.
"It''s possible," Michael frowned,
"What possible? It''s definitely a vampire bite. I had a feeling that this gue is somehow connected to the vampires. It makes sense. If you want to bring down the cultivators, you have to bring down Awor. If I am right, Thera was only a testing ground. If we don''t do something, soon the gue would spread throughout the continent,"
Gaya''s words put a deep frown on Eve''s face. Awor could win wars against armies but no one was equipped to win against the gue. Even the most talented schrs and healers in Empress''s court failed to find a cure for the gue and till now, they made no progress.
A single person could spread the gue and destroy a powerful kingdom without waging war. The mere thought of it shook Eve to the core.
"Then its a good thing you have me," Michael drew a line along the spinal cord with the jade dagger before sending a needle into the spinal cord itself.
Whoosh!
As Michale was extracting the bonemarrow, Nightmarended beside them with the barrel in his hands.
"Here''s your fresh water,"
"Put it here," Gaya instructed the Nightmare as Nightmare walked towards the bench and ced the barrel beside the table.
"That''s gross," Nightmare rolled his eyes seeing the needle getting filled with a thick grayish liquid.
"How long will it take?" Eve couldn''t help but ask Michael. She had lost so many closest family members in thest couple of weeks and couldn''t bear the thought of losing her father, mother, and sister. But shecked the knowledge or ability to find a cure. Deep down she knew she didn''t have a way to save her family. That was the reason she drowned herself in battle.
Ghost was thest ray of hope she had.
"System," instead of answering Eve, Michael put the flesh and the needle into his system storage. Then, he summoned the system.
[Analyzing the samples¡]
[Creating a form¡]
[Converting the form into a potion recipe¡]
Michael waited for the system to finish creating the form patiently even though time was of the essence.
"Just give him some time," Gaya said to Eve, noticing Ghost''s silence.
For almost ten minutes, only silence filled the lonely mountain and they heard nothing but the melody of the waterfall.
[Cure found¡]
[Imparting the recipe into the host''s brain¡]
Finally, the system etched the recipe into Michael''s brain in the form of a potion recipe. He was suddenly flooded with new knowledge about the gue and a potion to cure the gue. With his new potion, he could not cure the sick but also prevent anyone from getting infected in the future.
But unfortunately, his knowledge about the gue also came bearing a piece of bad news. ording to Jennifer''s condition, she didn''t have much longer to live. At most, she had two days with the constant supply of healing potion.
"Eve,"
When Michael finally turned his gaze towards Eve, her heart almost skipped a beat. She shivered, waiting for his next words.
"I have the cure but we need to find the ingredients fast,"
Since time was of the essence, Michael even tried to buy the ingredients from the system store but the system required 600,000 badass points. Even if he took a long, he wouldn''t get 600,000 badass points. Hence, the only way to get the ingredients was to buy them somewhere.
But hearing Michael''s words, Eve''s face brightened and atst, a relieved smile appeared on her face.
"Anything!"
"Bunyip Bone, Hydra Hook, Dryad Lock, Behemoth Eye, Naga Scale, Wolpertinger Antler, and gue Barberry. You don''t have any of these back in the castle. We need to buy them somewhere and we need them fast. Your sister has only two days,"
Eve shuddered, hearing hisst words. In a blink of an eye, her mind was flooded with the sweet memories she had with her little sister since they were little.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let''s go to the Aqua pce and buy these. I am pretty sure they have everything you need," Nightmare always tried to stay positive but Gaya shook her head sighing.
"Aqua pce is in Kingdom Sill ri, not in Thera,"
"We will go to Sill ri. I don''t give a damn about the lockdown. I will kill anyone who stands in my way," Eve said with a stern dominating voice despite her condition.
However, Gaya knew that the lockdown wasn''t the only obstacle they had.
"It would take atleast two days to reach Sill ri. But I have a way and you might not like it," Gaya paused for a few moments before shocking Eve with her words.
"The Rottgards have a portal to get to Sill ri,"
Chapter 586: Weaponized The Plague
Chapter 586: Weaponized The gue"How did you know that?" Eve asked, surprised by Gaya''s words. She grew up in Yaserius but never heard House Rottgard possessing a portal to reach Sill ri. She wondered how the heck Aelia knew this.
"I happen to travel a lot," Gaya simply shrugged. Although Eve could tell she was lying, she didn''t poke into the matter deeply because she had no need to.
"But I don''t think the Rottgards will wee us with open arms," Even Nightmare couldn''t stay positive after hearing Gaya''s n. He was optimistic but not naive.
"Eve, do you remember Aelia asked how ruthless you would be to save your family?"
Eve nodded at Michael,
"I am asking you again. How far would you go to save your family?"
"As far as I have to,"
"Would you kill the Rottgards-"
"Yes. I will wipe out them in a heartbeat,"
Michael did not even finish his question when Even stomped the ground and roared.
"Good," Michael simply nodded before turning his gaze back at the body. He then cut another piece of flesh and a strand of gray hair from the head.
Michael submerged the flesh, and the strand of hair into the barrel Nightmare brought. The three of them stared at Michael without any clues of what he was doing. Under their curious gazes, Michael washed the flesh and the hair,
"Eve, go give your sister the healing potion," Michael told Eve as she nodded and went inside the carriage. When she disappeared from their sight, Michael quickly willed the system to teleport to Eve''s castle. After Michael vanished into thin air, Nightmare came to Gaya''s side,
"Are you thinking what I am thinking?" Nightmare asked,
"Yep. He is doing it," Gaya''s face had a devilish grin, unlike Nightmare, who seemed a bit worried.
A few minutester, Michael appeared again before the oak table. With a flick of his wrist, he took out a bunch of ingredients from the system storage. As Michael conjured his alchemy mes which burned with emerald green mes, Gaya and Nightmare approached him.
"So you''re weaponizing the gue?" asked Gaya, looking over Michael''s shoulder.
"Do you see another way to infiltrate the House Rottgards and use their portal?"
Michael didn''t look at Gaya but focused on refining the ingredients,
"I just want to make sure it wouldn''te back to bite us in the butt,"
"It won''t. When I finish modifying the gue, it will only affect the Soul Refiners and Fusion stage cultivators," Michael exined while extracting the essence from the herbs.
Initially, Michael thought of making the gue airborne and affecting all the cultivators. They hadn''t taken the vine he was about to create. However, the modified strain of gue would be extremely unstable and prone to mutate. Moreover, Michael did not want to start a pandemic that he wouldn''t be able to control.
Since Michael had reached the Fusion stage, he did not need to kill the weaker cultivators with the gue. Instead, Michael decided to modify the gue strain with the help of the system to only affect Fusion and Soul Refining stage cultivators. This new modified strain wouldn''t mutate and was easily fused with the fear toxin.
"That''s good. How does it work anyways?" Nightmare asked Michael.
"Once you breathe in the newly enhanced fear toxin, you will experience coughing, vomiting blood, and losing control over your Celestial and Arch energy. Boom, in a couple of minutes, you are nothing but amoner,"
"I assume you will modify our masks too?" asked Gaya.
Since they hadn''t taken the cure yet, the modified fear toxin was dangerous to them. Therefore, Michael had to buy three masks from the system and modify them. Luckily, it was a simple task for Michael as he was a 5-star Inventor and possessed all the necessary parts. But first, Michael needed to finish modifying the gue.
At that moment, ck essence beads floated about the green mes. These beads radiated an ominous smoke as Michael slowly merged them together. After which, Michael sent the flesh and the strand of hair into the fire and burnt them. When the flesh and hair burnt in the fire, Gay and Nightmare closed their mouth and nose with their hands. The strong scent was nauseating to the point Gaya felt like throwing up.
Soon, a crimson red smoke gradually emerged from the green me and merged with the dark ball of essence above the me. The two mixed together to form a mysterious smoking goo that swam in the air like a fish. Gaya and Nightmare sighed in relief, thinking he had finished, but Michael had onlypleted half the process.
"Go stall Eve," Michael told Nightmare as the dragon nodded, shrunk its size, and walked towards the carriage. Meanwhile, Michael rolled up his sleeves, revealing the dark bracelet around his right wrist.
"Remove it," Michael asked Gaya to remove the bracelet as he controlled the gue goo with his other hand. Instead, Gaya gently tapped the bracelet and lifted it from his wrist.
Screech!
When Michael willed the APD toe off his wrist, the bracelet split in the middle, and the needles inside Michael''s wrist retracted.
After Gaya removed the APD, Michael moved the dark goo above the me, but this time, the fire turned from jade green to ck. The heat produced by the dark mes immediately vaporized the ck goo as Michael surrounded the vapor with his arch energy and pulled it into arge vial. As soon as the dark vapor entered the vial, Michael closed it with the cork.
"Now, I have to mix it with the fear toxin," Michael took out another vial with a gray liquid inside. With utmost caution, Michael pulled out the liquid through a syringe and injected the liquid into the gue vial through the cork. To his surprise, when the vapor and liquid made contact, it sparks a purple me. The me burnt brightly for a few moments until finally condensed into a dark dusty element.
"This will be our weapon for ultimate domination," Michael devilishly grinned, looking at the dark vial in his hand.
"So, have you given any thought to mixing the blood tonic into the cure?"
"I thought you would never ask. Unfortunately, the cure won''t work with the blood tonic mixed in. It''s only a setback though. I will find a better cure in the future which could be mixed with the blood tonic,"
Michael really tried to squeeze the blood tonic into the cure, but the form simply didn''t allow it. The cure had to be in its purest form. Otherwise, it wouldn''t heal the infected and prevent one from getting infected.
"We would have been gods if it worked," Gaya sighed.
"Yeah," Michael opened thepartment connected to the needles in APD and put the one in his hand inside.
"You can''t use the fear toxin while you are in your Ghost persona,"
Gaya was indeed right. If Eve noticed the effects of the fear toxin and saw the Dark Lord using it by any chance, she could make the connection between Ghost and The Dark Lord. Hence, Michael quickly brewed another modified gue and enclosed it in vials without mixing with the far toxin.
He made several vials and handed over a few of them to Gaya before taking out the three ck masks from the system storage. They were in no shape or form but in ck respirator masks.
A few minutester, Nightmare walked out of the carriage with Eve. He couldn''t stall Eve any longer. But fortunately, Michael finished everything, including modifying the masks to filter the gue.
Gaya noticed a healing potion in Eve''s hand. Before speaking a word, Eve opened up the vial and emptied the potion into her mouth,
"I am ready," Eve said after emptying the vial.
"You have a n to wipe them out? I have to tell you, they have Four Fusion Stage protectors,"
"The more, the better," Michael grinned, thinking about the experience points he would get by killing Fusion Stage cultivators. Now that Michale had given it a thought, it would be his first time killing a Fusion stage cultivator. He wondered how many experience and badass points as a reward.
With the modified gue in his hand, Michael didn''t even fear the Fusion stage cultivators. Finally, after so long, he felt like he was in control of every part of the game.
"Follow my lead, and House Rottgard will cease to exist when the sunrise," Michael put on the mask as his voice changed to something beastly.
Gaya put on the mask and threw the other one at Eve.
"Nightmare, stay here and make sure nothing happens to them,"
"Don''t worry about them. I got this," Nightmare said with absolute confidence. Soon, he grew to his full size, casting a shadow upon the trio, making them look puny in front of Nightmare.
"Let''s go,"
With a nod, Michael shot out towards the sky and disappeared into the night sky, leaving Nightmare behind. Michael let Gaya take the lead as he flew closer to Eve in case she lost the connection with the arch energy again. Michael was notpletely optimistic about bringing Eve with him but knowing her, there was no way she would back down and let them go alone.
If everything went ording to Michael''s n, Eve wouldn''t have to raise a finger against the Rottgards.
"Hey Eve, how much do you think I can make by selling the cure?"
Eve was surprised by his sudden question.
"Millions," Eve''s heart was heavy. Although she knew Ghost wouldn''t take coins from them for the cure, she hated to be a freeloader.
No matter what, Eve wanted to repay for everything he did somehow.
"Hey Eve, if you''re worried about getting the cure for free, don''t. I''m not giving it to you for free. I want Voldigards to be my allies and help set up my Majestic empire in Awor,"
"Anything for you, my friend," Eve ced his hand on his shoulder and revealed an alluring smile that hid the immense sorrow in her heart.
"And thank you,"
"Hey, friends don''t say thanks. I am pretty sure you will get to save my ass once or twice in the future," Michael patted Eve on the back and continued their journey towards Yesrious to wipe out the Rottgards.
Chapter 587: Revealing the truth about Diana
Chapter 587: Revealing the truth about DianaA few days ago, Ethan and Emelda followed Diana into her room in the Winston manor.
"Dian, stop," Emelda called out to stop Diana, who strolled into her room, sting the door open.
After she entered, Ethan quickly closed the door behind her. Despite Emelda calling her repeatedly, Diana didn''t even turn around but rushed into the room. After entering the room, Diana walked straight to the book rack beside the ck bed.
"Dian, please listen to us," Ethan slowly approached Diana as she pulled out a crimson red book from the neatly stacked books on the rack.
As soon as she pulled out the book, a golden light enveloped Diana before the orange curtains were reced by dark curtains, turning the room dark.
But the chandelier hanging down the ceiling lit the room as Emelda saw the books rack slowly moving aside. Emelda was startled to see the dark robes, ck swords, and daggers on the wall behind the book rack.
A cold chill ran down her spine, looking at the wall because it reminded her of the memories Emelda desperately tried to forget.
"Dian, just stop and think about this. You cannot go up against the Guardians," Ethan tried to stop Diana. But no matter how many times Ethan called her, Diana simply didn''t bother to listen to him. Instead, she waved her hand as her golden robes turned dark. The next moment, the dark robes on the wall slowly floated to Diana.
"You¡you still have them¡" Emelda stuttered while Diana put on the robes and the dark ck long coat over the robes.
She was about to take the two ck swords when Ethan ced his hand on Diana''s shoulder.
"Listen to us, Dian. Please,"
"I am done listening," Ethan had never heard a colder voice than Diana''s. But, to be honest, it frightened him.
But still, Ethan didn''t back down as he turned her around using his strength because, despite her look, she was a hell of a lot stronger than him.
When she finally turned around, her cold gaze swept across Ethan, pushing him a few meters away from her.
"Diana, what''s all this? I thought you put that life behind you," Emelda stuttered,
"Diana, I know how you feel. I am furious too. But we cannot let our anger blind our judgment. We cannot go against the Guardians. If the Skyhall knew you''re back into cultivation, they would imprison you. In the worst case, they would¡" Ethan couldn''t finish his sentence saying they would kill her.
"They caged our daughter¡They tortured her¡" Diana clenched her fist, speaking each word with dead coldness.
"Everything was orchestrated by the Guardians so they could get something they wanted,"
"It''s the vampires who kidnapped Sabi," Emelda swallowed the fear in her heart to utter these words,
"They were just an arrow. The one who fired the arrow was the guardians," Ethan growled. It was true that Ethan didn''t want Diana to go against the guardian. However, it didn''t mean he wasn''t furious. Only if Ethan had the power, would he have destroyed the guardians by now. Since it wasn''t the case, he had to stop Diana from making any decision they would all regretter.
"Get out of my way Ethan. I am constantly failing to protect my children, and I am sick of it," Diana turned around and grabbed the two swords from the wall.
Emelda shivered to see the ck swords in Diana''s hands. Unlike Ethan and Diana, only she knew what really happened twenty-one years ago in the forest. She knew what the Skyhall was capable of. Granted Emelda felt the same anger as Ethan and Diana after she heard what happened to Sabrina, but her fear of Skyhall overshadowed her anger towards the vampires and the guardian guild.
For the first time, Emelda felt grateful toward Ghost. If it wasn''t for him, Sabrina would have died twice. Although Sabrina told everything that happened to her except the truth about Ghost being the Dark Lord, the three of them knew Ghost was the Dark Lord.
"You didn''t fail them, Diana. I did. As a father, as a husband, I failed," Ethan sighed, swallowing the lump in his throat formed due to grief and helplessness.
"Both of you please," Emelda stepped forward,
"Let''s talk this through. Diana, you''re not Harriet Hunt anymore. She died in Awor. Forget about Skyhall, if the Hunt family knew you are alive, they would be at our doorstep the next moment,"
However, Diana didn''t bother to pay attention to Emelda because anger consumed her mind and heart.
"Think about Noah and Rowena. If you go against the Guardians, our secret will be exposed. What do you think will happen next?" Ethan asked Diana.
"You agreed when we told Sabrina not to say a word about anything to Rowena and Noah. Please Diana, stop," Emelda begged Diana. Just like she said, the three of them told Sabrina not to reveal anything that happened to her to Rowena or Noah. They believed if Sabrina told them, Noah would renounce the Guardians and start a battle against them. Which would ultimately result in Rowena stepping in. If Rowena stepped in, the Skyuhall hall would investigate the matter, and as a result, Ghost''s identity would be exposed. It could only lead to one thing, the destruction of the Winstons.
To put it bluntly, Sabira was the first domino in the long chain of dominos. The moment she revealed her story, the chain of events would consume everything into a big ck hole of war. That was why Emelda and Ethan made her promise not to tell anyone about anything, especially Rowena and Noah.
By making her promise however, they destroyed Michael''s plot to set Noah against the Guardians.
"You are missing the point," Finally, Diana''s hair turned from striking golden to raven ck,
"I am not going against the Guardians. I am going against the elf who orchestrated everything,"
As she said, Diana took a step forward, unleashing powerful energy that forced Ethan and Emelda a few steps back.
Seeing Diana in ck hair and dark robes, Emelda shivered from head to toe. Once upon a time, an entire continent feared her. Then, after two decades, what Emelda thought she buried returned alive to haunt her.
"Remember the words you said before leaving Awor Ethan. You made a promise to always stand by my side. Do not break that promise now. Step aside," Diana coldly said as Ethan saw a blue light flickering in her eyes.
"Diana, please¡"
Boom!
Ethan tried to change her mind, but he was sent crashing onto the wall behind by a strong gust of wind.
"I am sick of you two trying to change my mind!" Diana roared before stomping the ground with enough force to shake the entire room. The wall crumbled, and cracks formed where Ethan hit before falling down. Afterward, Ethan couldn''t get to his feet. Not because Ethan was hurt physically but because he was hurt mentally.
This was the first time Diana had cast a spell on him in a long time. It was equal to her raising her hand against Ethan.
"Ethan!" Emelda quickly rushed to Ethan to lift him up while Diana walked towards the window and opened them with a wave of her hand.
"Diana!"
Emelda shouted, but it was toote as Diana flew out the window. However, before her figure disappeared, Sabrina opened the door.
Unfortunately for Diana, Sabrina saw her figure. For a few moments, Sabrina just stared at the open windows. Only then did she notice Ethan on the ground,
"Father!" Sabrina dashed at Ethan and quickly helped him up.
"What happened? Was that mother?"
"NO!" Emelda immediately shrieked, denying the truth.
Ethan on the other hand, just remained in silence. He was too shocked to focus on anything. Even after getting sted by Diana, Ethan didn''t feel any anger toward Diana. Instead, he med himself for being weak and powerless to help her. Noah had tried to make Ethan stronger by making him break through to the Core Strengthening stage. Ethan had been stuck in Core Formation level 10 for seven years now. But no matter how many potions Noah gave him, he simply couldn''t destroy the bottleneck. What Noah had no idea that Skyhall ced a curse on Ethan. He was to stay at the Core Formation level until he died.
Ethan was Skyhall''s backup n to control Harriet. However, when Harriet fought the angels and the forbidden spell for thirty days, another group of elders tortured Ethan and ced several curses on his soul. The only difference between Diana and Ethan was that at least Emelda was there with Diana.
"Then where is she? What happened to father?" Sabrina brushed away the dust off Ethan''s robes and corrected his cor.
"Go to your room Sabi,"
As soon as Sabrina began to question them, Emelda tried to push Sabrina out of the room, but Sabrina didn''t even budge an inch. Emelda did not want to reveal the truth about Diana to Sabrina or to anyone. She would rather die than reveal Diana''s secret.
"Stop treating me like a child Aunty. I want to know the truth. I told you everyth,ing and I deserve to be treated with the same respect," Sabrina raised her voice, shocking both of them and snapping Ethan out of the shock.
"That was mother,"
"It was," Ethan took a deep breath and answered Sabrina.
"Ethan!'' Emelda quickly tried to stop Ethan, but he shook his head. He didn''t want to hide Diana''s identity from Sabrina. After all, Sabrina told them the truth, and Ethan wanted Sabrina to know the truth about her mother. The question in his mind was whether to let Noah and Rowena know the truth as well or not.
"She deserves to know Emelda," Ethan said to Emelda and turned his gaze towards Sabrina.
"Your mother Diana is not always Diana. Her real name was Harriet, Harriet Hunt,"
"What?!" Sabrina''s heart skipped a beat as she began to shiver.
"Harriet¡Harriet Hunt¡" Sabrina''s mindpletely went back, recalling the stories she heard and lessons she learned from Holy Trident Academy.
Harriet Hunt was a myth¡a legend¡a war goddess who walked among mortals. To hear Harriet Hunt was her mother and lived as Diana, Sabrina''s mind couldn''t process the shocking news.
"What have you done Ethan?" tears gushed out of Emelda''s eyes as she copsed to the ground.
Chapter 588: House Rottgard
Chapter 588: House RottgardYaserius. A city previously buzzing with people now seemed deserted. The beautifullyplex stress was empty, void of any people. It was a clear indication of how hard the gue hit Yaserius. Unfortunately, the rest of the Kingdom Thera wasn''t in a better condition either, as the gue had already infected ny-five percent of the kingdom. Soon the entire kingdom would be ced under lockdown by order of the empress. As they flew under the drizzling dark clouds, Michael, Eve, and Gaya reached Yeserius''s borders that separated Kingdom Thera from the ocean. The sea view castle of House Rottgard stood mightly sprawling with guards. Not a single ce was left unguarded, and despite the massive size of the grayish castle, House Rottgard deployed enough guards to prevent anyone from entering the castle.
The mighty castle was the most mediocre one Michael had ever seen. It was a square castle with one tower apanied by four mini square towers in each corner. Each of the towers had four archers looking in all directions. In addition to the archers, two groups of soldiers walked back and forth on top of each wall.
It wouldn''t be easier to avoid the archers, soldiers, trebuchets, giant crossbows, and magical arrays ced around the castle without getting detected. So, using the dark clouds as their cover, the trio scanned the castle for weak points. Yet as far as they could see from above, the walls contained no holes, the soldiers patrolled the walls and thepound with full vignce, and the magical arrays protected the castle from an intruder entering the castle through the tallest tower.
The only way to enter the castle seemed to be the main gate which was nked by two groups of soldiers led by one Soul Refining stage cultivator in magenta robes, symbolizing the high status among the Rottgards. No one could get inside or outside without the Soul Refiners'' knowledge.
"This is troublesome," Gaya used her senses to see the translucent shield covering the entire castle. Normally, people would ce additional runes to keep the arrays hidden but the Rottgards didn''t bother to. Hence, the three of them could see the arrays and runes engraved on the castle walls from above. For naked eyes, the castle looked no different than any building but to Michael, the castle almost looked like a Christmas tree with decorations thanks to the glowing runes.
"We can go all out if you think you can take them out," Gaya said to Michael,
"Or I can summon spectral wasps to carry the potions into the castle undetected,"
Gaya''s second option drew eve''s attention. Eve was oblivious to the fact Michael had weaponized the gue and contained it in several vials as potions. The problem was however how to send the vials into the castle without exposing the drones as Michael nned to send the drones carrying the gue vials.
That''s where Gaya came in. The spectral wasps were just a cover-up to hide the drones and Spyders from Eve''s eyes.
"What potions?"
"You will see," Michael calmly said. Although Michael had told Eve about using the gue against her enemies, he still hadn''t revealed he finished weaponizing the gue. So instead of exining, Michael wanted Eve to witness the gue in action. Besides, Eve wouldn''tin about his methods after he helped her family to get back on its feet.
"Spectral Wasps," Gaya pretended to cast the spll by waving her hand and creating dim balls of light, just bright enough to hide the drones within.
Hovering beside Gaya and Michael, Eve saw the several orbs of golden lights materializing in the air before them. Under her curious gaze, the balls slowly started to float towards the castle under cover of dark clouds.
"You sure those won''t get detected by the arrays?" Eve asked Gaya.
"We will find out soon enough," Gaya didn''t show any signs of concern or anxiety on her face because she was calm. Compared to everything Michael and her went through, wiping out a family seemed like a chilling vacation to her.
The golden balls gradually lost their glow and disappeared from Eve''s eyes. But her full focus was on the thin blueyer of light enveloping the castle.
Unlike Eve, Michael could see the drones flying through the thin lightyer without triggering the arrays. If it were before Elidyr, the arrays would have detected the drones despite having been built with junk metal. Now all of Michael''s drones and Spyders had Elidyr''s special cloaking runes that prevented almost ny-eight percent of the arrays from detecting them.
While piloting the drones via his mind, Michael carefully paid attention to the video feed transmitted by the drone camera to his mind. The drones may have fooled the arrays but they were still visible to the naked eyes, especially the vials they were carrying atop them. So any archer or a soldier could still see them and shot them down from the air. Hence, Michael carefully piloted the drones to the center tower''s highest point.
"No problem until now," Gaya felt the excitement coursing through her veins. If the drones got detected, which was highly unlikely, she could go rampage on the Rottgards. Otherwise, she could walk through the main gate and kill the gue-stricken Rottgars, which would be as easy as killing insects.
Either way, the fate of the Rottgards was sealed. She almost felt pity for the Rottgards but didn''t show her emotions to Eve. To be honest, it was quitemon in Awor. Like any other continent, Awor wasn''t an exception to the rule of killing or being killed. If you were not strong enough and you were in someone''s way of getting more powerful, you were as good as dead in Awor.
The Voldigards put survival over helping others, which led them to be almost exterminated by the Rottgards. However, Gaya admired how Rottgards handled themselves. As soon as the gue hit Thera, Rottgards closed theirpound to anyone and ordered everyone to stay put except for a few groups. Theypletely cut out any ties from the outside, including drinking, eating, or having physical contact with others. Compared to Voldigards, they certainly had better schrs who gave proper advice and safeguarded the Rottgards.
"You have a n to start over? Putting the Voldigards back on their feet won''t be easy." At the same time, Michael was busy piloting the drones into the castle undetected, Gaya started a conversation about the future of the Voldigards.
"I''d rather let my father take of it. He has been leading us for decades and it won''t change anytime soon. I only wish we can cure him sooner,," Eve was a great warrior, and Michael could vouch for that. However, her leadership qualities were still hidden. No matter how good of a friend Eve was to Michael, he wouldn''t rmend handing over House Voldigard to Eve without knowing how good of a leader she was.
Since Michael nned to make House Voldigard his ally, he wanted someone great to lead the House to a golden age. But Michael really doubted whether Eve''s father was up to the task. Although the Voldigards didn''t get weaker, they didn''t get stronger either under his leadership.
"I know it''s not a good time to talk about the future. But give some thought to it. The path ahead of you won''t get easier," Gaya ced her hand on Eve''s shoulder to console her.
"I will," Eve nodded as she knew Gaya was right and just looking after her. Sooner orter, Eve knew she had to deal with the future of House Voldigard. However, she just wanted to focus on curing them before paying attention to other matters.
On the other hand, the drones entered the castle through the open windows in the tower. He could clearly see the brightly lit throne hall directly beneath the tower. At that moment, a man wearing crimson red robes and a crown with arge rub on the front sat on avish throne decorated with gold and gems.
The man on the throne was undoubtedly the Lord of House Rottgard, Ivon Rottgard. He stared at the four protectors of the house who were seated on their own thorns facing the Ivon and Igor on his one knee.
"There is no point in wasting resources on House Voldigard anymore, Uncle Ivon," Igor received cold death stares from the gray-haired protectors. Still, Igor tried to convince the House Lord to focus on capturing House Voldigard''s business and stream of revenues rather than trying to kill all the Voldigards as the protectors suggested. For Igor, fighting Voldigards was nothing but a waste of resources. He would rather umte power, capture more revenue streams, and make allies than wage war against all their enemies.
"Only if your father was here to hear those words," a bald old man with a goatee snickered at Igor.
"My father fought the Voldigards all his life. What did he get in return? Death," Igor didn''t stay silent but talked back with a cold tone.
"All the more reason to wipe the Voldigards off the world,"
"You should have died like your father on the battlefield instead of running away from a young Fusion Stage warrior," Another elder air quoted the words ''Young Fusion Stage'' to ridicule Igor. But unfortunately, no one believed Igor and his men. One couldn''t me the elders either because it was extremely rare to see a teenage Fusion Stage cultivator, as Igor told them.
"What did you say?!" Igor raised his voice and was about to dash at the old man when Ivon roared.
"SILENCE!" Ivon shouted echoed through the empty throne hall as his voice shook the hall like an earthquake.
"Every single person who has Voldigard in their name must die," After the echoes stopped, Ivon coldly dered.
"House Voldigard shall cease to exist before the first light. Protectors," Ivon turned his cold gaze towards the four elders nking Igor.
"See to their destruction. No more excuses,"
"What about their allies?" an elder who ridiculed Igor asked Ivon with a murderous grin on his face.
"Ally of the Voldigards are our enemies. Destruction is what I would grant them,"
"Uncle Ivon. Listen to me, too much power vacuum will open our city to new powers, powers we may not be able to handle,"
"You dare to question your House Lord?!" an elder mmed his throne and rose to attack Igor, but a single nce from Ivon stopped the elder from doing so.
"You are not the House Lord, Igor. The only reason I tolerate you is you''re my nephew. But my tolerance has its limits,"
Despite being blood rtives, Ivon shared no love for Igor, and it was a known truth to everyone in House Rottgard. As a matter of fact, Igor hated Ivon for leading House Rottgard on a war path, while Ivon hated Igor for being his nephew. Every time Ivon looked at Igor, Igor reminded him of his elder brother, whom Ivon hated to the core.
Only if his ancestor hated Igor as much as he did, he could have killed Igor long ago while Igor was studying in Sil ri.
Chapter 589: Killing a Fusion Stage Cultivator
Chapter 589: Killing a Fusion Stage CultivatorMicheal witnessed everything happening in the throne hall through the drone. Igor surprised Michael with his words. Unlike the old cahoots, Igor actually wanted to strengthen House Rottgard through other means than waging war against the other Houses.
"I have a limit too Lord," When Ivon was about to rose from the throne, Igor said, gritting his teeth.
"A limit for my patience,"
"How dare you?!" One of the elders growled at Igor only to be ignored by thetter.
"I wish I have taken the empress''s offer to join her n," Igor snickered as Ivon''s eyes reddened in pure hatred for Igor.
While they were busy quarreling, they didn''t notice the change in the air. Unknowing to them, they were breathing the fear toxin mixed with the gue.
Michael felt lucky to get all the protectors and the House Lord under the same roof. It made poisoning them with the Fear toxin a much easier task. Otherwise, he would have had to find each Fusion Stage cultivator and poison them individually.
His only regret was Igor. Michael couldn''t help feeling Igor would have made a fine asset in his growing army. Unlike most people in the world, the young man seemed to possess intelligence and rational thinking. It was a pity Igor was getting infected as they spoke.
"The only reason you stand before me is our ancestor care for Iranian," Ivon spoke coldly.
Iranian was Igor''ste father, and when Igor heard his name from Ivon''s mouth, Igor felt his anger bubbling deep within him. Because of their old ways and hatred for Voldigards, Igor lost all his family. Deep down, Igor hated Ivon and the protectors more than he hated the Voldigards.
"I hope our ancestor will be delighted to see House Rottgard faces several new threats in a few years. But, suppose you think destroying Voldigards would make your lives easier. In that case, you guys are in for a shitty surprise," Igor sneered and stood up before Ivon. He was about to turn around and leave when Igor sensed the change in his body as well as in the air.
Suddenly, an elder stumbled down from his chair.
"Protector Cyan," another elder shouted and reached out for the fallenrade only to stumble down like the other. Soon, the four protectors fell to the ground, vomiting blood.
"What the fuck is happening to me?" Igor was not in a better condition as his legs gave up. As a result, Igor copsed down. His vision turned blurry.
Nheless, Igor rubbed his eyes, hoping it would clear his vision. While Igor tried to regain his strength, he heard the elders finally stop throwing up blood.
A few secondster, the protectors returned to their feet. With his blurry vision, Igor looked up to see Ivon rising from his throne and wiping the blooding off his mouth.
Since Ivon was stronger than everyone in the hall, the fear toxin affected him less.
"Are¡are we¡infected?"
"No shit," Igor coughed, closing his mouth. When he took his hand off his mouth, he saw the blood sprinkles on his palm.
"You must have gotten from the Voldigards. It''s you. You sealed us our fate!"
"You fool!"
"You doomed us all!"
The protectors immediately med Igor and yelled at him.
"We must contact our ancestor before we sumb to the gue." Ivon however remained calm, unlike the rest.
ROOOOOOOARRR!
Suddenly an ear-piercing shriek echoed through the hall,
"INTRUDER!"
Another loud shout followed the shriek, sending shivers down their spines.
"We are under attack!" Igor could hear someone shouting outside. As soon as they heard the rm, soldiers of House Rottgard rushed into the hall, including the two Soul Refining stage guards who guarded the main gate.
"No you idiots, get out of here!" Igor shouted at the soldiers who rushed into the hall to protect their lords. However, they were startled to hear Igor''s orders.
"We all be infected if we stay together like this!" Igor was right but as usual, no one listened to him. So instead, they surrounded Ivon and the protectors.
"Raise the gates. No one is getting in or outside. I want the intruder''s head on the te before the first light!" Ivon barked an order before turning around to leave the throne hall.
''He was in quite a rush to meet his ancestor, who may be their best chance to survive the gue.
"What''s the rush?" out of the blue, another calm voice resonated in the hall. The voice however didn''t sound like a human but a beast.
"What the?"
"Who was that?"
"Am I hearing things?"
The soldiers looked around frantically, trying to locate the voice''s source.
Creak!
Creak!
Creak!
Igor''s heart skipped a beat as he jerked his head around to look at the front door leading outside. The door shuddered, glowing for a second. Following the front door, the doors on the left and right sides also glowed and shuddered.
Looking at the phenomenon on the doors, a curious soldier rushed towards the door. He tried to open the door but no matter how hard he pushed, the door didn''t budge.
"It''s locked!" Igor sighed.
"Someone locked us in the same hall. Now we are all stuck here to get infected by the gue," Igor just sat on the ground, rubbing his temples.
"Is it true? My lords, what should we do?!" a panic-stricken soldier questioned the protectors and Ivon. Every single soldier, including the Soul Refiners felt weak and coughed up blood. In addition, some of the soldiers began to hallucinate and shouted in gibberish.
"Break the door," one of the protectors barked as a group of soldiers limped towards the front door.
"It''s toote. We are done for," those who heard Igor panicked more.
"Shut up IGOR!" Ivon roared as he couldn''t put up with Igor anymore. Ivon had enough in his mind so he couldn''t be patient with Igor as he used to.
If House Rottgard''s protectors and he got infected with the gue, it wouldn''t be too long before the other families target them like vultures. Ironically, it''s what they did to Voldigards.
"You can kill me if you want," Igor let out a deep breath as more and more soldiers fainted due to the fear toxin in the air.
"How does it feel Lord Ivon?" the same beastly voice they heard before resonated again. This time, the voice was louder and sounded close to them. Atst, three dark figures descended to the throne hall through the opening directly above the throne. The trio wore full dark robes with their faces covered with ck masks.
Something told Igor that the masks were designed to filter the air thanks to his study under the dwarven masters in Sil ri.
"How does it feel to be weak and helpless?" one of the three talked but no one could point out whom. They couldn''t differentiate them from the voice which sounded animalistic rather than human. The closer they got to the ground, the further everyone stepped back.
"Who are you?" Ivon asked the trio, trying to conjure the celestial energy around him. However, he felt no connection with the energy around him. Unfortunately for them, the modified gue mixed with the fear toxin worked faster than the original gue. When someone was infected with the original gue, it would take two to three days topletely lose connection with the energies. But Michael''s handiwork boosted the gue''s effect and made anyone who breathed the fear toxin lose connection with the energies in a few minutes.
"You ask the wrong question Ivon. The right question is, how do you want to die?" Michael asked Ivon, tilting his head.
"My Lord," when the protectors saw Michael ce his hand on Ivon''s shoulders, they tried to rush towards him to protect him. However, as soon as they took a step forward, Gaya sted away them with a powerful gust of force.
Despite their weak status, the soldiers unsheathed their weapons to attack the intruders. Some even tried to cast spells.
"One who kills must be prepared to be killed," Michael grabbed Ivon''s neck and before Ivon could fight against his hold, Michael simply snapped his neck. Since Ivon lost his connection with the celestial energy, his body became weak. Thus, Michael could simply snap his neck like a twig.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level 10 Cultivator. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
"MY LORD!"
The soldiers and the protectors screamed, seeing Ivon''s lifeless body hitting the ground. His eyes were still wide open and contained a hinge of shock and horror. Igor, who hated Ivon to the core, surprisingly felt relieved and had a tinge of joy seeing Ivon''s body.
"The protectors are mine to kill," after killing Ivon, Michael quickly instructed Gaya and Eve. he wanted the experience points of killing the Fusion stage protectors.
"The rest?" Gaya questioned Michael with a devilish grin behind her mask.
"Except him, kill everyone,"
Chapter 590: Fusion Stage level 4
Chapter 590: Fusion Stage level 4Michael surprised himself by killing a mighty Fusion Stage cultivator like he was nothing. However, the killing came with a shock that he wasn''t aware of yet. The protectors and soldiers looked pale and shivered after witnessing Ivon''s sudden death. Even Eve''s heart shuddered seeing Ghost''s power. She was d Ghost was on her side.
On the other hand, Gaya conjured a fireball and snapped her fingers, turning the ball of fire into a long arrow. Considering she was in her Aelia persona, she could not use the powerful spells in her arsenal. Almost all her spells utilized her poison which radiated an emerald green mist. Fortunately, the weakest spell like the fire arrow, could kill the sick soldiers.
"You should blow off some steam by killing them," Gaya advised Eve. Gaya''s voice pulled Eve out of her shock.
"Ah yeah," Eve nodded. She felt no remorse or pity for the House Rottgards soldiers after she witnessed Rottgard massacring her family members.
After killing Ivon, Michael put the fear of god in everyone''s hearts. Moreover, the Fear toxin terrorized their brains by enhancing their fear several folds. In a blink of an eye, Michael appeared before a protector and grabbed him by his neck.
"Grrrgghhhh!" the old man punched Michael''s hand and kicked him in the gut, trying to escape his hold. Yet all of his attempts yielded no fruits. Finally, with a simple flick of his wrist, Michael took out the jade dagger he used to carve the elf''s decayed body.
Pulch!
Michael plugged the dagger as deep as he could through the old man''s rib cage. The blood sshed across Igor''s face, snapping him out of shock. Still, Igor couldn''t even take a step toward the ck-masked monster who killed his uncle in a blink of an eye. Igor knew he should feel anger and fury but surprisingly, he didn''t feel anything. Instead, his hatred and disappointment towards the protectors and his uncle reached a point that Igor couldn''t care less about them.
However, Igor hated dying in the throne hall. He had so much to live for. Despite the obvious death, Igor sighed and decided to die like a man then beg them for mercy. The elder who got stabbed was just at his arm''s length, but Igor felt no urge to save him. Instead, Igor stared at the dark-robed figure stabbing the elder again and again and again until the elder''s white robes turned red. It was not a kill but a statement. Seeing the brutality, the rest trembled in overwhelming fear which caused some of them to lose consciousness and hallucinate.
Michael dropped the dead protector down and stomped the head, crushing the skull under his feet.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level 2 Cultivator. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Fusion stage Level 2!]
The fear tightened Igor''s muscles as his legs refused to move even though the killer was walking toward him.
"Shit shit shit," Igor panicked and tried to step back only to fail. Taking a few steps, the killer reached him. However, the killer walked past him instead of killing him as Igor expected.
Boom!
On the other hand, Eve leaped into the air, and in the mid-air, she flicked her wrist as a golden spiked mace materialized in her hand. She brought down the mace upon the Soul Refining stage guard. The poor soul tried to cast a spell to leap away as his body and mind were trained to cast spells. But he forgot that he had lost his ability to cast spells. As a result, he didn''t move an inch until Eve brought down the spiked mace on his head.
The golden mace crushed his skull as bits and pieces scattered across the hall, and a few chunks ended up on some soldiers'' faces. Some soldiers outright fainted on the spot and got stepped on by Michael on his way to the two protectors. Seeing Michael walking toward them, the two protectors lost their courage to fight. Instead, they turned their backs on Michael, running towards the door as fast as they could.
"Move!"
They shoved off the soldiers who remained in their path. Not in a million years would they have imagined running for their life. But, despite the overwhelming fear, Igor focused his gaze on the killer, trying to figure out his cultivation stage.
"Huh?" Igor got confused as no matter how hard he focused, he couldn''t see the cultivation stage of the killer.
"Argh!" His focus on the killer got broken by the fire arrow that flew past his face and prated the soldiers who stood around him. The arrow didn''t stop at killing a few but flew through the soldiers, ending their lives. In a few moments, the shiny marble floor was flooded with blood, and the throne hall became a tomb for many.
The soldiers didn''t stand a chance against Eve, let alone Michael and Gaya. While controlling the fire arrow and killing the soldiers, Gaya admired Eve''s persistence. Regardless of the gue, Eve pushed herself to the limit and caused havoc among the soldiers like a killing machine. Suppose anyone in Eve''s shoes had been bedridden. The gue turned the Fusion Stage cultivators into weaklings. Yet, it couldn''t stop Eve, who was only a Core Strengthening stage warrior.
Of course, Eve drank several vials of healing potions, but Gaya knew more than the healing potions. It was persistence and endurance that fueled her.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Eve swung the mace without any finesse or technique in all directions. The soldiers screamed and begged for mercy, but Eve was in a raging mood.
She kept hitting the soldiers mercilessly as she vented all her rage and hatred upon the soldiers. Meanwhile, Michael caught the two Fusion Stage protectors who banged the door like crazy.
At that moment, Gaya and Eve killed almost a third of the soldiers in the hall, including the two Soul Refining stage cultivators. Igor witnessed the brutal massacre and the fall of his house and stood still. He was weak and scared to do anything.
"Didn''t you two want to wipe out the Voldigards a few moments ago?" Michael whispered in their sears as their bodies went rigid. The protectors slowly turned around.
For a few seconds, Michael just stared at them. Afterward, Michael just grabbed their heads and smashed them against the door the protectors tried so hard to open. Michael kept going until the two protectors lost their heads, and he received the notifications from the system.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level 3 Cultivator. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Fusion stage Level 3!]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level 3 Cultivator. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Fusion stage Level 4!]
After reaching Fusion Stage level 4, Michael felt a warm wave soothing him from behind. The feeling made him smile and close his eyes. When he looked up with his eyes closed, the throne hall grew a bit darker for a moment, and the chandeliers flickered. Fortunately, the phenomenon disappeared before Eve could notice the change.
Michael felt his power growing within him. Eve creased her brows seeing Ghost standing still without moving. No one dared to stay close to him.
"Please don''t kill me!"
"NO!"
"Have mercy!"
"Lord Igor!"
"Save us!"
The remaining soldiers went to their knees and began begging for mercy. Some even grabbed Igor''s legs, pleading with him to save them. But unfortunately, Igor had no power or will to save them. Instead, Igor was stuck in a state of utter fear and shock. On the other hand, Michael remained with his eyes closed until the screams and cries died down, and the hall became deadly silent.
At that moment, they only spared Igor''s life but scarred him for life. It would take years for Igor toe out of the trauma caused by the three of them.
"Show us the portal to Sil ri," Gaya grabbed Igor by his neck and asked. Despite her cold tone, Igor said no word. Instead, he looked like his mind was somewhere else.
"HEY!" Gaya pped Igor to bring him out of shock.
"Where is the portal to Sil ri?" Gaya asked again, shaking Igor by his cor.
"Portal¡Sill ri¡" Igor mumbled,
"Leave him. I know where it is," Michael finally opened his mouth. He located the portal through the drones and Spyders. So they had no need to threaten Igor. Michael spared Igor not because he wanted to know the portal''s location but because he wanted Igor to consider joining Voldigards. It was apparent Igor hated the protectors and the House Lord. Now that he had killed them, Michael wished to rope Igor into joining Voldigards.
Michael turned around and slowly walked towards Igor. When he reached Igor, he just patted Igor on the face.
"House Rottgard is no more. Now you are finally free,"
Michael then ced his hand on Igor''s blood-soaked chest.
Boom!
Suddenly a powerful gust of wind shot Igor away onto the wall behind. The force of Igor hitting the wall made him lose consciousness. After Igor copsed on the ground, Michael looked around at the dead bodies in the hall.
"An eye for an eye," Michael stated, feeling no pity. Every soldier they killed had blood on their hands. A few days ago, they massacred the Voldigards. At that time, the soldiers of House Rottgard didn''t show any mercy to Voldigards. So why should Michael show them any mercy?
Michael only killed the strongest of the Rottgards and spared the rest so they could spread the word about what happened to them.
"Let''s go," Michael walked away from the dead bodies and entered the corridor through the door the two protectors tried to open. As soon as they opened the door, a few guards tried to attack them, but Gaya killed them before they could even raise their weapons. By the time they entered an empty room where House Rottgard had built the portal, the sun rose up on the horizon, shedding its first light on the kingdom.
Just as Michael told Eve, the House Rottgard had ceased to exist at the first light. Finally, Eve stood before the portal after so much trouble and blood.
"Next stop, Sil ri," Gaya stated before walking into the dark blue vortex. Following Gaya, Michael walked into the portal and disappeared. Atst, Eve took a deep breath.
"Great One and Two, please let me save my family," Eve prayed, looking at the ceiling. Then, she walked into the portal with a ray of hope and heaviness in her heart.
Chapter 591: Kingdom Sill Alari
Chapter 591: Kingdom Sill riThe Kingdom of Sil ri was one of the three kingdoms in Awor ruled by the elves. As one would expect from a kingdom ruled by elves, elves were the majority of the poption, followed by half-elves, orcs, and a tiny number of humans. The kingdom itself was vast, almost double the size of Kingdom Thera which was ruled by a human king.
Bordered between rich forests to the North, a wide river to the South, a mountain to the East, and a hugeke to the West, Sil ri''s main source of ie was fishing, trading natural resources, and mining gold from many gold mines scattered across the kingdom. Many coveted the gold mines over the past decades. Still, none seeded in taking the mines from the elven royal family of Sil ri. In addition to the gold mines, many rare ore mines scattered across the kingdom, such as Stantine, Kronor, and Lagrine. Stantine was primarily used in building lightweight airships. For example, the airship of Tanulia Valren was built with Stantine as well as the hunter guardian armors. The metal had an affinity for runes like none other. Hence, cing runes on the metal was much easier than on other metals.
Sil ri had perfect tropical paradise weather, contributing to the kingdom''s beauty. The kingdom was one of the prettiest kingdoms in the whole world with elegance; small, hidden ponds, gorgeous flower fields, and small, yful waterfalls were just a sliver of the majesty Sil ri has to offer. Normally, a kingdom like Sil ri would be cherished by foreigners and tourists. However, Sil ri had the lowest tourist visit because of the elves'' cold nature towards foreigners. The rians felt foreigners would hurt their kingdom''s prestige and attractiveness.
As a result, Sil ri had unbendingws andw enforcement. Any crimemitted inside the border by whether an rian or a foreigner, mostly they would be thrown into a mountain prison or killed on the spot by beheading. Sil ri''s crime rate was almost one percent due to its strictws and punishments.
This was also reflected in the kingdom''s g, which had three vertical stripes and a circle in dark pink and bronze. Their coat of arms was animal teeth on a hexagon, symbolizing their ruthlessness.
Sil ri had three cities, each ruled by an elven duke. Michael''s destination, the Aqua Pce, was built in the city of Allen ri, named after an ancestor of King Lyklor ri. Allen ri was a military city with barracks and a military shipyard. The entire city was surrounded by thick walls.
The ruler of Allen ri, Duke As ri, King Lyklor ri''s cousin, resided in the most fortified forts in the entire kingdom, which could be seen from anywhere in the city. The elves and dwarves built the castle atop a mountain with a beautiful ocean backdrop behind them.
Michael, Gaya, and Eve stepped into a dimly lit room where they noticed two guards sleeping peacefully. The two guards wore pale red robes, symbolizing their roots in House Rottgard.
With a flick of her wrist, Gaya took out a dagger to cut their throats in their sleep. However, Michael stopped her,
"Let them be," Michael opened the window slowly to jump outside instead of killing them. The trionded between two buildings built with gray brick stones. The sun was still on the horizon, slowly rising to light the dark alleyways. Michael quickly removed his mask and put on his usual ck robes before walking out of the dark alley and stepping onto the street.
Considering it was still early in the morning, the streets weren''t as crowded as one would expect. Rather, only the early birds walked out of their homes to start their days. Most of them were elves. The air itself smelled rich and sweet, just like the elves.
"This way," Eve and Gaya said at the same time and looked at each other, smiling.
"You lead the way," Eve told Gaya before taking out a healing potion.
"You''ll be alright. We are close to the cure," Michael patted Eve on the back as Gaya walked forward, leading them to the Aqua Pce. The elves on the streets threw a cold nce at the trio, showing their irritation towards humans and foreigners.
"Fucking elves," Gaya suppressed her anger and cursed them in a low-pitched voice. She rarely muffled her voice, yet even Gaya didn''t dare to offend the elves, knowing the rules and punishments. The streets were brightly lit with blue streetmps. Many were put out since the sun has risen on the horizon.
"How far is it?" Michael asked, walking on the streets straight as an arrow. While following Gaya, Michael noticed the castle atop the mountain in the distance. Looking at the castle, he couldn''t help imagining a castle of his own. But, at the moment, he just sighed and followed Michael without noticing Eve''s gaze on him.
Michael had a hard time believing Gaya when she said there was no poor in Awor until he noticed the elegant buildings on either side of the street. He had seen at least fifty elves, and none of them looked slightly poor. Instead, they looked like the nobles in Elon, even the elf carrying a bucket full of bread.
He just walked behind Gaya, observing his surroundings and breathing the rich sweet air. To be honest, It felt like he had stepped into another world. The pce screamed fantasy and grandeur with all the marble buildings, elves, and glowing runes on the walls. Moreover, the concentration of arch energy was so thick that he almost wished he could cultivate like others.
"After we deal with everything, we should stay here for some time and cultivate," Michael said to Gaya.
"You know if you want to cultivate, you should rent the Aqua Garden," Eve informed them as she used to cultivate in the Aqua Garden. As the name suggested, it was a gigantic garden with a high concentration of Arch and Celestial energy. There were several private cabins built in the garden for cultivation. One could rent these cabins ording to their preference and cultivate if they had wealth. Of course, the cabins were categorized into several categories such as lotus, lily, jasmine, and green leaf. The lotus cabin was the costliest, while the green leaf was the cheapest. But the cheapest green leaf cabin would cost 40,000 gold coins for two days.
Although Michael didn''t need any energy concentrated ces like others, he wanted to give Gaya the best ce to get stronger. With his 40% boost from the system, Gaya could break through to the Soul Refining Stage in a few weeks if she stayed here.
"Oh right¡" Gaya dragged her words.
Unlike Eve, Michael felt something was amiss. But he couldn''t ask her in front of Eve. So Michael just pretended not to notice anything and followed her behind in silence. Almost fifteen minutester, they turned left in the street and reached the pier, where Michael noticed several boats of various sizes docked.
The ocean breeze swept across his face as the sight of the rising sun on the horizon captivated his mind. Then, for a few moments, he just leaned against the railings and watched the sunrise and the majestic lotus-shaped ss building on a tiny ind. The ss building was a peak of architectural beauty and mastery. The golden sun rays illuminated the building and made it look like a giant lotus floating on the ocean.
"Sorry to disturb your sightseeing, but we are in a rush," Gaya flicked his ears, snapping him back to reality.
"I''ll go rent a boat," Gaya turned around and went to the line of boats adjacent to the long wooden pier. While Gaya was hiring a boat, Eve joined Michael in sightseeing. It was more like resting her body than sightseeing. She wanted to lean against the rail to regain some strength.
"How are you doing?" Michael asked,
"Better than the most, I guess," Eve took a deep breath. Michael could see the dark circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. Her condition was worsening by the minute; if it wasn''t for the healing potion, she would have lost consciousness.
"It''s gonna be alright. We go to the Aqua Pce, buy everything I need to brew the cure and cure everyone. Easy as that," Michael smiled.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I have the form and knowledge. I''m not bragging, but I am better than all your heavenly alchemists. It''s only a matter of time before I get to the six-star level. I know it''s hard to believe until you see the cure in action but have some faith,"
"Why do you think I''m here? I have faith in you Ghost, even though we barely know each other,"
"We went through life or death battles Eve,"
"Not sure about the second one. That was an outright massacre. You will be a god walking among mortals with the potion of yours. You killed Fusion Stage cultivators like they were nothing. Becareful Ghost, many would literally kill you to have a power like that,"
"Won''t you and Voldigards protect me?" Michael grinned again as Eve sighed.
"In case you haven''t noticed, Voldigards are in need of protection. However, I will do my best to help you however I can. We still have some connections in Yeserius,"
Michael really appreciated Eve. Even when they were down, she agreed to help him. People like them would be hard to find. Besides, Voldigards reminded Michael of the Sunrise sect. When he first met ire and the elders in the heaven''s gatepetition, they were the weakest sect on the continent. But nowadays, the Sunrise sect was on its way to rivaling the three big sects themselves.
So it was only a matter of time before Voldigards regained their former glory with the help of Michael. At first, it would look like Michael helping them but in the future, they would be one of his strongest allies in Awor.
"When we have the cure in our hands, we can y gods in your kingdom Eve,"
"You really are something," Eve chuckled after hearing his words. For now, she just wanted to cure her family more than anything.
"Let''s go," Finally, Gaya finished negotiating and came to their side.
Eve emptied another healing potion before following Gaya behind to a row boat big enough to hold four people, including the skipper, who was a brawny human.
"Wee aboard," the man said in a thick voice and expressionless face when Gaya slowly stepped into the boat. Next, she helped Eve get on board, andstly, Michael.
"Next stop, the Aqua Pce" Gaya rubbed her palms together, showing her excitement. In a few days, they would earn millions by selling the cure throughout Thera.
Chapter 592: Aqua Palace and The Sea Folks
Chapter 592: Aqua Pce and The Sea FolksMichael uttered no word while they were on their way to Aqua ind. They only had to stop once before reaching the ind to pay the entry fee. For a moment, Michael was speechless when a guard adorning in aqua blue robes asked them to pay 10,000 gold coins as an entry fee. One could buy a healing potion for nine thousand gold coins in Elon. Calcting how many gold coins the Aqua Pce would earn in a month alone made Michael jealous of the Aqua Pce. In reality, the Aqua Pce had a monthly ie of fifty million in gold coins. In addition, they received rare artifacts, herbs, and ores as another source of ie. Eventually, after twenty minutes of rowing the boat, they reached the ind.
"Do I have to wait here?" the man asked Gaya, but she shook her head.
"No need," Gaya stepped onto the dock and helped Eve. The Aqua Pce looked more majestic closer than when Michael looked at it from the pier.
Michael activated his X-ray vision to see countless glowing runes etched on each ss petal which could easily contain a hundred humans. Aqua Pce held the number one spot for being majestic and grandeur among all the buildings Michael had seen in this world. Imagine a giant lotus made of ss and glistening in the sunlight.
To Michael''s surprise, there weren''t many guards patrolling the premises. In fact, it was void of any guards. However, that didn''t mean the Aqua Pce was vulnerable. Instead, hundreds of runes and magical arrays, including killing and illusion arrays, protected the Aqua Pce, leading to minimal use of actual guards. The Aqua Pce wanted its customers to feel at home and offered high-quality customer service. They believed having guards patrolling the premises would make the customers feel like they were inside a military base. Hence, they used arrays and runes instead of guards.
To those who had no guide like Gaya, the Aqua Pce ced markers pointing the visitors towards the front door. It was so easy to get lost on the ind without any supervision.
"So, who owns the Aqua Pce?" Michael asked, following Gaya.
"The Arctic hall of the Sea Folks. This is one of the very few establishments of the Sea Folks," Gaya answered Michael.
"Sea Folks huh? We don''t hear about them often, do we?"
"That''s because we live in Elon. In Awor, they are quite famous,"
"Are you from Awor, Aelia?" After hearing Gaya, Eve couldn''t help asking. Aelia seemed to know much more about Awor than Eve expected her to. It was quite surprising for a resident of Elon to know a lot about Awor unless Aelia had some kind of connection with Awor.
"She travels a lot," Michael answered Eve and asked more questions about the Aqua Pce. It was an excellent time to learn more about Awor and Aqua Pce since it would take at least ten minutes of walking to reach the front door. However, the water fountains, flower beds, and butterflies made walking a soothing experience. Aqua Pce was one of the most well-maintained ces in Awor. On one side was a bed of sunflowers, except these flowers had bright blue petals. On the other side, the red maple trees provided shade as well as carpeted the pavement with their red leaves.
The trees looked ancient and well pruned.
"I thought Aqua Pce was owned by the empress,"
"Most people think that. But they don''t know that the empress owns this ind, not the Aqua Pce," Eve exined to Michael.
"Isn''t the Arctic hall one of the three major factions of the Sea Folks?" Michael recalled everything he heard about the Sea Folks from Lah Alden.
"Hmm," Gaya and Eve nodded,
"Unlike the Water God Hall and Sea Serpent Hall, Arctic hall is split into three houses. House of Dathomir, House of Megaloids, and House of Halrid," Gaya yet again surprised Eve with her knowledge about the Sea Folks.
"Thank the gods they don''t step onto thend. Now that I think about it, I want to see who will win the award of being the first ss bitch, elves or the sea fuckers," Gaya whispered and giggled.
"Well, be careful what you wish for. You might see them soon enough,"
Michael and Gaya immediately stopped walking,
"What do you mean?" asked Michael.
"Don''t you know? House Halrid has put a base in Ozer. We had to send in some construction materials before the gue. Rumor has they are joining the hunt for the Dark Lord,"
A cold chill ran down her spine as soon as Gaya heard Eve. She even began to sweat beneath her robes. Dealing with Guardians was difficult enough, and now House Halrid had joined the hunt, which meant the Arctic hall hade to hunt down the Dark Lord. At that moment, they learned their lives had be several times moreplicated and hard.
However, Michael remained calm because he anticipated this. He wouldn''t be surprised even if the Skyhall itself joined the hunt. It was only a matter of time before new powers sought to destroy the Dark Lord.
"Nowadays, everyone seeks to find the Dark Lord," Michael smiled as he resumed walking towards the front door. Although Eve had more things to worry about than the Dark Lord, she curiously asked about the Dark Lord.
"What''s your thoughts on the Dark Lord? If I''m right, he hunts down the nobles in Elon. After reading that the guardians hid the vampires'' existence from the world, I don''t think we can trust them to apprehend the Dark Lord. They might have even known about him all this time and done nothing to stop him," Eve sighed.
"I think we don''t have to worry about the Dark Lord Eve. Each of us has enough problems to deal with. He is the Guardians'' problem. If they couldn''t stop him, there are seven more great ns. If you ask me, don''t believe everything the great eight ns and the guardians say,"
"Who knows? The Dark Lord might be what this world needs," Gaya chuckled, putting the seed of doubt in Eve''s mind. Suppose Ghost''s secret got exposed, they would need as many allies as possible. But what Gaya didn''t know was Eve stood beside the Dark Lord until she drew herst breath. Eve''s death affected the future Dark Lord as much as the death of Nightmare. Their deaths put Michael on a path to building a time machine that sent Michael back in time. He sacrificed everything he built to bring back everyone he lost.
The moment the Dark Lord traveled back in time, he had be the past, and the current Michael became the present.
"Yeah, keep an open mind, and you won''t be disappointed," Michael patted Eve on the shoulder.
Finally, they reached a set of white stairs leading up to a set of burnished golden doors. The doors were nked by a towering orc standing seven feet and carrying a spear taller than him in a uniform of silver te armor. The orc said nothing as he opened the door for the three of them.
"Thank you," Michae nodded before entering the Aqua Pce. The Aqua Pce''s inside looked just as majestic as outside. At that moment, they were standing in a spacious hall under the ss roof and a humongous-sized chandelier big enough to illuminate the entire building at night. As expected, several lounges were set up for the customers to sit and rest with rare exotic flower nts for decorations. Michael also noticed several half-elves walking around the hall serving drinks and beverages to the elves in the lounges, reading Royal news. Some of the elves craned their necks to take a look at the three of them. After seeing they were humans, they snickered and took their gazes away.
Ignoring those elves, Michael, Gaya, and Eve walked toward the marble counter at the end of the hall.
"Wee to Aqua Pce. I am Zentha Virmys. How may I help you today?" As expected, they were weed by an angelic elven beauty. However, unlike those racist elves, the girl showed no emotions but delight on her face when she greeted them with a wide grin.
"We are looking to buy some alchemy ingredients," Gaya took the lead as Michael walked around the ce like he owned the ce.
"Does mydy have a VIP card? If not, you have to buy a token for seven thousand gold coins and wait for your turn. We will provide you with drinks and beverages, on the house, of course,"
"You''re new here? Where is Vtha?" Eve asked, surprising the smiling elf.
"Here," with a flick of her wrist, Eve took out a deep blue card with the words ''Voldigards'' engraved in golden letters under the Aqua Pce crest, a water droplet encircled by two sea dragons.
"Forgive me for not recognizing you, mydy. You must be Lady Eve Voldigard," The girl quickly bowed with the utmost respect.
"We are in a rush Zentha. So I would appreciate it if you get me these items as quickly as possible,"
"Of course. Miriad," Zentha pped as another elven girl dressed in emerald green robes walked out of the door behind Zentha.
"Take mydy Eve Voldigard to Master Eloba," Zentha instructed Miriad and turned her gaze back to Gaya and Eve.
"Master Eloba is our head of the alchemy section, and he will be d to help you," with a wave of her hand, Zentha made the marble counter slide open for Miriad. Afterward, the elf began to lead them to Master Eloba. Looking at Eve and Gaya following an elf behind, Michael stopped gawking around and followed them behind. The elf led them to the ss stairs to the second floor, which contained several stairs leading to various branches in the building, but they didn''t take any stairs. Instead, they followed the elf to a jade stone door.
"Master Eloba is inside, mydy, my lord," the elf said in a melodious voice as Gaya pushed open the door.
"Thank you," Michael nodded before following Gaya through the door. As soon as Michael entered the room, he felt like he had entered a penthouse instead of a showroom.
"Take a seat," surprisingly, a dark elf greeted them, sitting behind an oak table nked by ck roses the size of a small child. The man looked simr to the dark elves Michael met in Esya vige. Like them, the room''s dark elf had silvery hair and brownish skin. They could see thin lines of a tattoo design behind the dark elf''s green robes but couldn''t make out theplete design.
As they approached the dark elf, three wooden chairs emerged from the ground for them to sit. Eve and Gaya nced around the room yet found not a single herb or an ingredient in the room. All they could find were book racks, wooden tables with parchments, and a giant portrait of the dark elf before them.
"Tell me, what do you need?" Eb wasn''t a man of many words. So he jumped straight into business without beating around the bushes.
While waiting for Gaya to take out the list, Michael noticed the dark elf looking at Eve like he was scanning her. Luckily, the dark elf said no words, but Michael was sure the dark elf found Eve was sick.
Chapter 593: Curing Eve
Chapter 593: Curing EveMaster Eloba nced at the list of items Michael wrote on the paper without showing any kind of expression on his face. A few secondster, Eb finally looked up at the three of them. Among the three, Eve was the most nervous one as her family''s fate depended on the avability of the ingredients. That exined why Eve was shaking her legs under the table nonstop. Luckily, the answer Eloba gave them immediately elevated Eve''s mood.
"We have everything on the list. It will be four hundred thousand gold coins after minusing the special discount for VIP card holders,"
"Wonderful. We''ll take it," Michael beamed with joy as the dark elf nodded, showing no expression. Eb looked like an employee who hated toe to the job he hated the most but had no choice. But, regardless of how Eloba behaved, Michael didn''t mind him because he was not here to enjoy the hospitality.
"Wait here," Eb rose from his chair and went to the door beside a wooden rack.
"How long will it take you to make the cure?" Eve jerked her head in Michael''s direction as soon as Eloba disappeared into the room.
"Five minutes,"
"Hear me out, will you?" Gaya leaned closer to them with a n to get super rich in her mind. It had always been Gaya''s job to multiply their ie, and Michael let Gaya deal with the business side of things to Gaya. She was undoubtedly better than him regarding business and financial stuff.
"As soon as we get the ingredients, he will make the cure and give it to you. So go home and cure your family,"
"What will you do?" Eve asked Gaya and Michael, who looked at Gaya for her answer.
"Promote the cure-" Hearing the door creaking open again, Gaya quickly shut her mouth and leaned back on her chair. To their surprise, Eb didn''te out carrying any ingredients. Instead, he returned to his seat and slides a silver ring toward Michael.
"Check if everything is there,"
Michael took the space ring, sending a sliver of arch energy to view the ingredients stored inside the space ring. It took Michael only a couple of seconds to confirm everything he asked for was inside.
"Cool. Everything there,"
"You can receive the ring back at the counter after you make your payment. Do you need anything else?"
Michael shook his head, standing up.
"Thank you," Michael just nodded before returning the ring to Eloba and walking out of the room. When they stepped outside, Miriad was waiting for them.
"Mydy, my lord, have you finished your purchase?" Miriad asked with a gentle grin that multiplied her beauty by several folds.
"Yep. Back to the counter," Gaya said as Eve was already on her way to the counter in a rush. She couldn''t wait, and if it wasn''t for the rule of no use of Arch energy inside the Aqua Pce, she would have flown to the counter.
Despite seeing Eve rushing down the stairs, Miriad did not change her expression. Instead, she led them back to where they came from and reached the counter. However, Eve had already paid the amount using her pay cube and waited for Michael and Gaya with the silver space ring in her hand.
"Let''s go," Eve rushed Michael,
"Zentha, we''d like to use your portal to get to Yeserius. How much will that cost us again?" Gaya asked Zentha behind the counter.
"Five thousand gold coins, mydy. Would you like Miriad to lead you to the portal?"
"Is there somewhere we could quickly brew a potion?" Gaya asked as Zentha nodded.
"Since mydy belongs to the proud House of Voldigards, you can use the VIP lounge of Voldigards," Only after hearing Zentha did Eve remember that they have a lounge in Aqua Pce.
"Put a pin on the portal. We will get back to you. Now if you may, please lead the way to the Voldigards lounge," Michael asked Miriad as the elf once again led them towards the staircase. Like before, they climbed the stairs and arrived at a junction where they saw several stairs to the various parts of the building. This time, Miriad led them to the southeast staircase leading to the highest floor. Once they climbed thest staircase, they were weed by a brightly lit corridor. The corridor walls were painted in charcoal ck andplemented by the walls with shiny marble floors. Instead of chandeliers, the runes engraved on the ceiling lit the ce and gave a modernized feeling to the corridor.
"This way, my lord and mydy," Miriad politely said and walked in front of them. She didn''t even ask why she had to lead Eve to her own lounge. Although Eve had visited her lounge a couple of times to attend the auctions, at this moment, the distance between them and her lounge felt like an eternity.
After passing through a few doors, Michael''s gazended on the door with the name ''The Barns'' engraved. As soon as he saw the name, his blood boiled, and his eyes reddened. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t stay calm whenever he saw something rted to Thusia. Luckily, Gaya noticed the name and dragged Michael away from the door. Finally, after passing the door with the door named ''The Hunt Family'', they came before the door with ''The Voldigards'' engraved in golden letters.
Eve quickly flicked her wrist, taking out the VIP card. The runes brightly lit up when she ced the card on the door, and then the door clicked open.
"You don''t have to wait for us. We''ll meet Zentha in a while," Michael dismissed Miria before stepping into the Voldigards lounge.
The room itself was round, warm, and weing. There were lots of dark purple hangings, burnished ck metal, and overstuffed sofas and armchairs upholstered in purple and ck. The ss wall provided a view of a humongous stadium with thousands of seats around and a grass field in the center. This was the auction stage allocated for only special annual auctions. The stadium was big enough to rival the biggest football stadiums on earth. The sunlighting directly above that brightened the grass field like a natural spotlight, made the auction stadium more majestic. The Voldigards lounge also had arge, purple, wooden mantelpiece with carvings of a pegasus on it. This was located underneath a portrait of a ck-haired man wearing dark purple robes and carrying a golden crane decorated with arge ruby on top. He was the current House Lord of House Voldigard and also Eve''s father, Julien Voldigard. In addition, various rose nts grown in tiny pots stood on wooden circr shewere curved to fit the walls, and copper-bottomed nt holders dangled amid the ceiling with ferns and ivies.
Michael immediately conjured the emerald green alchemy mes as Eve and Gaya felt the heat radiating from the mes. While the mes were dancing above his palm, Gaya waved her hand as various ingredients materialized on the ss table before them. The anticipation to see the cure prevented Eve from plunging into the overstuffed sofa. Instead, she stood still, looking at Michael throwing ingredient after ingredient into the me to refine them.
"Rx, he got this," Gaya calmly said to calm Eve''s nerves and stop her from shivering. But her words alone weren''t enough to calm Eve down.
The following minutes dragged forever as Eve stared at the colorful beads emerging from the me without batting an eye.
On the other hand, Gaya couldn''t hold her excitement. Even the crackling sound resembling wood crack in the fire sounded like music to her.
To Michael however, there wasn''t anything dramatic but business as usual. He knew the form and had all the ingredients. So brewing the potion wasn''t a difficult task. After a long couple of minutes, Eve finally saw a sparkling purple liquid dance above the green mes. Soon, the air became sweeter, and they could smellvender in the air.
The liquid danced ording to Michael''s movement. Finally, after the green mes disappeared, he turned his gaze towards Eve.
"Open your mouth,"
Without asking any questions, Eve opened her mouth like a child as Michael moved the potion into her mouth. Michael and Gaya waited for Eve to swallow the potion. A few secondster, Eve just closed her eyes, feeling the warm sensation all over her body. To be honest, she couldn''t help closing her eyes and smiling. It felt like an eternity since she experienced the warmth of arch energy running through her energy veins. Little by little, her strength returned to her body, and so did the rosiness of her skin.
Eve took several deep breaths before finally opening her eyes.
"You''re cured," Michael just smiled despite having performed a miracle. On the other hand, Gaya tiptoed, trying to control her excitement.
"How do you feel?" Gaya asked, stepping towards Eve.
"great. I¡I am actually cured. You did it," Eve''s eyes turned watery, and a few drops of tears rolled out of her eyes. Following her tears, Eve let out a relieved smile.
"Ow," But suddenly, Eve dashed at them and hugged Gaya and Michael tightly.
"Thank you, thank you so much," Eve could barely speak those words through the lump in her throat. She felt relieved and delighted at the same time. With the cure, she would be able to cure all her family.
"Just promise me you won''t hug us again after you cure your family," Since Gaya wasn''t a big fan of hugging people except for Michael, she dered with a sigh.
"I told you I have the cure," Michael patted Eve''s back and gently pushed Eve away to wipe her tears.
"Now just give me a few minutes," Michael conjured his mes again to brew more cures for Eve''s family. It took Michael almost fifteen minutes to brew twenty potions. In the meantime, Gaya and Eve discussed distributing the cure and opening a majestic store in Yaserius.
Since the Voldigares owned many properties in Yaserius, Eve insisted Gaya take one of her buildings and establish the majestic. The business-minded Gaya naturally epted such an offer and agreed with a wide ear-to-ear grin.
Chapter 594: Giving the cure for free
Chapter 594: Giving the cure for freeMichael put the cure inside his space ring before walking out of the room with Eve and Gaya. The trio directly went to the counter.
"My lord, mydy," Zentha greeted them with the brightest smile as though she was meeting them for the first time.
"Take her to the portal," Gaya asked Zentha as Eve quickly took out the pay cube. The purple cube glowed in Zentha''s hands. The light shot out from the cube formed the number five thousand. After the number faded away, Miriad approached them again.
"If you may, mydy," Miriad gestured at Eve to follow her.
"We will meet you after we are done here," Michael patted her shoulder with a nod.
"Take this," Eve handed over the VIP card to Michael.
"Hmm," Afterwards, Eve didn''t linger any longer as she nodded at Michael and Gaya before following Miriad to the portal. This time, they didn''t go to the stairs but walked around the hall and disappeared through a door.
"Zentha, if we want to put something precious in an auction, who should we meet?" Gaya leaned on the marble counter and asked Zentha in a low-pitched voice.
"I can take the item and take it to our appraisers, mydy,"
However, Gaya shook her head,
"I was thinking about meeting the one in charge of the annual. The item we have can save thousands of people. So it''s pretty important,"
"Since you have a VIP card, I can arrange a meeting with our manager Lord Anfaler, mydy,"
"That would be great," Gaya grinned from ear to ear,
"Please wait a few minutes, mydy, my lord," Zentha turned around, walking into the room behind her.
"They can''t figure out the form using the list of ingredients we bought, right?" Gaya whispered to Michael. She knew many alchemists who had recreated someone else''s potion or pill form by bribing the ce where the alchemist buys the ingredients. For example, suppose an alchemist had a list of ingredients to refine a particr pill or potion. In that case, they could eventuallye up with the form. That was why many alchemists keep the list of ingredients needed for a potion or pill a secret and only buy the ingredients from a highly reputed ce.
Although Aqua ce was a highly reputed ce, she didn''t trust the elves.
"I am not an amateur. I didn''t need half the items in that list. Even the heavenly alchemists won''t be able to find my form," Michael smirked. Among the ingredients they bought, Michael only used a few of them because he wrote others to confuse if anyone tried to recreate the form using the list. Michael didn''t trust the elves either.
They waited for another couple of minutes, and finally, Zentha walked out of the room again.
"Lord Anfaler will meet you now, my lord, mydy. Go straight and enter the third door on the left," instead of leading them, Zentha provided them with instructions.
"Thank you," Michael nodded with a smile and entered through the door. Many of the elves in the hall creased their brows, seeing Michael entering the staff-only ce. They wondered what the human was up to and who he was. They already began to murmur among themselves to find out who he was. Typically, they wouldn''t bother with a human, but after seeing his cultivation level, they were startled. After all, every Fusion Stage cultivator they had met was old. Even Lah Alden wasn''t as young as Michael when she reached the Fusion Stage.
Michael, on the other hand, was flooded with system notifications. He received twenty thousand badass points in a few minutes, literally doing nothing. Ignoring the notifications, Michael walked into the brightly lit corridor resembling the one upstairs.
"This is the ce," Gaya said, looking at the name ''Anfaler Herdi'' engraved in gold on the red oak door.
"Pleasee in," suddenly, a chill, warm and weing voice came from the other side as though someone inside sensed them waiting outside. Michael opened the door to see an arranged room and an elf behind a ss table. The elf who greeted them bore a weing smile on his face. Unlike Eloba, the elf radiated warmth and friendliness. Like any elf, Anfn was blessed with perfect jaw structure, glossy skin, striking blonde hair, and hazel eyes. He was tall enough to be considered a tall man, and despite his Soul Refining stage cultivation, he looked approachable.
It was quite slurping to see an elf smiling so widely and being so weing to them. Normally, the elves would be cold towards anyone except elves.
"Please be seated. Would you like some freshly brewed tea?" the elf pointed at the marble cup and tea saucer set on the ss table,
"No, thanks, Lord Anfalen," Michael politely rejected the offer as the elf sat before them.
"So I heard you have something valuable to add to our annual auction. Normally, we wouldn''t take any item at this point, but since you are friends of Lady Eve, we can make an exception," Anfalen leaned forward,
"Have you heard of the gue in There, Lord Anfalen?" Regardless of how much she hated the elves, she talked to Anfalen with a face full of smiles.
"Of course, bad business. Her Imperial Majesty will soon dere the lockdown, and I hope theye up with a cure. Otherwise, who knows how many lives would be lost to the gue?"
"That''s what we wanted to auction, the cure for the gue,"
As soon as Anfalen heard Gaya, the smile on his face froze. But soon, he snapped out of the surprise.
"Here," Michael retrieved the potion from his system storage and ced it on the table.
"Ny percent pure. It will cure the sickness in a couple of minutes. No side effects," Gaya exined as Anfalen took the potion to examine it closer.
"If I may, where did you find this?"
"I brewed it,"
"Are you an alchemist?"
"The alchemist. I am sure you have heard of Ghost, the number one alchemist of Elon and probably Ozer,"
"You''re Ghost?" Anfalen was pleasantly surprised to see a young prodigy like Michael in person. Even in Awor, many rted to the alchemy field have heard about Michael, especially after what happened in Ozer during the alchemypetition.
Anfalen was one of the elves who admired and respected Michael despite their racial differences.
"One and only," Michael nodded,
"I have to ask. If you have the cure, why not sell them yourself? If I am right, you have a store. Don''t get me wrong, the cure is a big thing. But I don''t think it''ll be worth the while to put it in the auction,"
Somehow Michael wasn''t surprised to hear his words. Merchants like him would always put profits and well-being of their own above everything else.
"Hear me out Lord Anfalen. We don''t want you to auction the cure and give us the coins. Whatever you make with the cure by selling it, you can have it all," Gaya initiated the negotiation as Anfalen turned his gaze towards Gaya.
"Let me get this straight. You want us to auction the cure and take all the coins ourselves. You don''t want anything,"
"Correct," Gaya nodded.
"You can have it all. We don''t want a single coin,"
Anfalen was speechless until Gaya exined her ns to him.
"You will get coins, and we''ll get promotion in one of the biggest stages. It''s a win-win situation. Moreover, we are nning to venture into the Treacherous ocean. If you do this favor, we''ll choose the Aqua pce to auction the rare items we get there,"
Gaya sweetened the pot by mentioning the treacherous ocean. For a few moments, the elf waspletely taken aback by surprise. Of course, no sane one would venture into the treacherous ocean voluntarily. Still, after seeing Ghost''s cultivation level, Anfalen didn''t think they would surely die. Besides, it was a great deal for the Aqua Pce. They would be the first ones to introduce the cure. First, however, Anfalen wanted to check if they really had the cure.
"Have you tested the cure?" Anfalen asked without agreeing to Gaya''s terms yet.
"Yes. We cured the Voldigards with the cure. Here, take this and test it on a sick one," Gaya ced another potion on the table.
Anfalen didn''t say no to another potion. He had a sick one as Aqua Pce was researching the gue and trying to find a cure. In fact, every single major organization was working hard toe up with a cure. Whoever finds the cure first could earn millions as well as the empress''s favor.
"I''ll be with you in a few minutes. Please make yourselves at home," Taking the two potions, Anfalen left the room, leaving Michael and Gaya behind.
Although Anfalen left the room, several recording stones were hidden in ces such as inside the chandelier above, behind the bear statue on the table, and on top of a portrait watching Michael and Gaya. They were like CCTV cameras recording everything. Michael could easily disable them with the system. But instead, Michael put his hands behind him and released the Spyders.
The little spyders quickly camouged themselves with the environment and crawled away. Since they were being watched, Michael and Gaya didn''t speak to each other. Instead, they acted casual and stared at the big stadium outside.
"The auction is next week right?"
Gaya nodded.
This was the only conversation they had until Anfalen returned almost after ten minutes.
"Sorry for keeping you waiting,"
"So what your schrs tell you, Lord Anfalen?" Michael asked,
Seeing Anfalen not answering, Michael smiled,
"Ohe on Lord Anfalen, you have to test the cure. Ipletely understand that. How can you take something and ept it as a cure for the gue?"
Anfalen looked a bit flustered because of the cure''s effectiveness. The Aqua Pce had a few sicknesses underground and studied them to find the cure. So Anfalen just had to give the potion to one of the test subjects to validate the potion. Every schr, alchemist, and healer responsible for finding the cure waspletely startled when they saw the potion cure the sick in a couple of minutes. The cure was legit.
The Aqua Pce wasn''t swindlers. Many others would have said the cure was fake, killed Ghost, and tried to replicate the potion to sell the potions themselves. If they wanted Ghost dead, the Aqua Pce had all the resources to kill him despite his cultivation level. However, that is not how Aqua Pce conducted business.
"I can put the cure to the auction, but the Aqua Pce needs something else¡."
Chapter 595: Deal with the Aqua Palace
Chapter 595: Deal with the Aqua PceAnfalen may be warm, weing, and friendly, but he was still a merchant in blood. So Michael and Gaya weren''t surprised to see him asking for something in return and negotiating for more. But, to be honest, they were both expecting.
"Please," Michael gestured at Anfalen to continue.
"The Aqua Pce wants to help you distribute the cure throughout the continent, Master Ghost,"
Michael''s smile disappeared as he creased his brows,
"What do you mean throughout the continent Lord Anfalen? Thest time I heard, only Thera has this gue,"
Anfalen leaned forward and talked in a low-pitched voice,
"Can I trust that you won''t tell a soul what I am about to tell you?"
"Of course, Lord Anfalen. You have my word," Michael nodded.
"The gue isn''t restricted to Thera. A vige has been put under lockdown in Sill ri. We heard the news that people are also turning up with the same gue symptoms in other kingdoms. Each kingdom is doing its best to contain the news but eventually, the news will spread across the continent. Soon, the molten gue will affect the entire continent,"
"Molten gue. That''s what they named the gue?"
Anfalen nodded at Gaya and turned his gaze back at Michael,
"So basically I am sitting on a gold mine?" Anfalen saw a cold opportunistic grin on Ghost''s face that showed his other side.
"A gold mine that puts a target on your back," Anfalen said in a grave voice.
"I know you''ve been using the Rainshade merchant guild to distribute your products. No offense to them, but they won''t be able to handle this. Because the moment the molten gue breaks out, the continent will be turned upside down. Those who weren''t affected will run around like rabid dogs, and if they heard there''s a cure, they would go to any length to get their hands on it. Forget about the cure, the rogues will target the source. The Rainshade guild''s strongest is a Soul Refiner. How could they fight against Fusion Stage cultivators?"
The news was simply too shocking to Gaya. If what Anfalen said was true, even the empress isn''t safe anymore. No matter how big of an army she had, no one could fight the gue. She wouldn''t be surprised if the Aqua Pce itself sabotaged their supply lines and med it on the rogue cultivators. But, as far as she was concerned, Anfalen was a good guy to extend a helping hand instead of sabotaging them or simply killing them.
"So let''s negotiate Lord Anfalen. What''s the Aqua Pce''s cut?"
"Thirty percent,"
Gaya immediately shook her head,
"Twenty-five percent, and you will provide us with ingredients," Gaya gave Anfalen her counteroffer, and surprisingly, he considered it for a few moments. Yet, he didn''t simply agree to Gaya''s terms. Instead, the both of them began to negotiate for almost thirty minutes. Their negotiation felt like a battle. But, to Michael''s surprise, it was quite entertaining to see Gaya negotiate. She would have been a sessful CEO of a major enterprise if she was born on earth. Anfalen had the experience, but Gaya had talent, pure natural talent for business.
When they ended their negotiation, Anfalen agreed to take a twenty percent cut and supply them with all the ingredients. In return, Michael had to give them exclusivity to the cure. That meant the Aqua ce would get twenty percent wherever he sells the cure. Even if he sells the cure in Majestic, a twenty percent cut had to be paid to the Aqua Pce.
On top of getting free ingredients, Michael would get the protection of the Aqua Pce. In addition, Anfalen would help Ghost get a VIP card in Aqua Pce. Gaya tried to get a VIP card as a part of the deal, but it wasn''t in the hands of Anfalen. So instead, the Arctic hall would decide who to give the VIP card to every five years. Unfortunately, they offered new VIP cardsst year, so Michael had to wait for four more years.
"Where should I send the contract to?"
"To the Voldigards mansion. I''ll be staying there," said Michael as Anne made a mental note.
"When can we expect the first batch of cure Master Ghost?"
"Let the molten gue spread more Lord Anfalen," Anfalen''s jaw dropped a couple of inches when he heard Michael. Not that Anfalen hadn''t seen ruthless people, but he didn''t expect Ghost to be this cruel. He looked like such a warm, gentle young man, but his words made Anfalen think Ghost was more brutal than he seemed.
"We can start distributing the cure after the auction. That''d be enough for everyone to panic and feel desperate for the cure,"
"Meanwhile, we will provide the people with healing potions. It will keep the people alive," Gaya leaned back and said to Anfalen,
"Speaking of healing potions, I heard someone is hoarding my potions and selling them for a high price Lord Anfalen. Do you have any idea where I could find such a person?"
Michael was right to ask Lord Anfalen because the ck market was a huge headache for the merchants in Awor. What they do is buy a particr product in bulk and hoard it until the product is not avable for the consumers. By doing this, they raised the demand too high, and when the people were desperate, they would sell it for a high price. As a result, ck marketers made millions. It was really unfortunate Michael''s healing potions drew the attention of these ck marketers.
"It''s not a single person Master Ghost but rather a shadow organization who simply calls themselves, the ck marketers. Theyck creativity, unlike wealth. Every merchant guild has been affected by them. Although we would like to track them down and bring them to justice, it''s not an easy task. To be honest, it''s pretty impossible,
"They weren''t found because I haven''t tried Lord Anfalen," Michael smirked. With the devices Michael had under his disposal, it would be a matter of time before Michael found the ck marketers. They made a massive mistake by scalping Michael''s healing potions.
Anfalen had a feeling the ck marketers may have just made a nemesis they shouldn''t have. Anyways, if Ghost somehow got rid of the ck marketers, it would be profitable to all the merchant guilds, including the Aqua Pce.
"Then, we will see you next week?" Gaya stood up to leave the room,
"I''ll be waiting," Anfalen shook both their hands firmly before walking them out as a courtesy.
After talking to Anfalen, Michael was d he attended the alchemypetition and received the token to bid. ording to Anfalen, even he couldn''t give any more tokens. If Michael didn''t get it from the alchemists guild, he couldn''t have taken part in the bidding and depended on Eve to bid for him.
"You really embraced the darkness huh?'' Gaya asked after Anfalen sent them away.
"I didn''t create or spread the gue. I am just taking advantage of it," Michael didn''t feel any remorse at all. He wasn''t Noah to run around the continent and try to cure every single sick person. Instead, Michael decided to wait until Awor was pushed to the brink of destruction. Then, he woulde up with the cure and earn millions.
The vampires spread the gue, but Michael was the one who will reap the benefits.
Michael and Gaya directly went to the counter and received another space ring with enough ingredients to brew the first batch of cures.
"We''d like to use the portal to Yeserius now Zentha," Michael took out his pay cube and handed it over to Zentha. Then, just like before, the number five thousand appeared in the form of a holograph above the pay cube.
*********************************************************
It was the middle of the day when Michael and Gaya appeared in the sky out of nowhere. Unlike the portals they''ve been using before, the portal in Aqua Pce teleported them to the sky above Yaserius instead of into a building. The drizzling clouds added an extrayer of gloominess to the already gue-stricken city. The air itself turned slightly palish green, giving the city a depressive look.
Michael and Gaya flew straight to the floating mountain without lingering around any longer. Finally, after almost five minutes of flying, the mountain appeared in their sight. Unlike before, they saw a few people gathered around Nightmare. When Michael and Gaya got closer to the ind, Nightmare looked up to see them descending.
Surprisingly, the carriage was nowhere to be found. Instead, all the sick ones wereid on the ground facing the open sky. Among the people, Michael locked his gaze with Eve and Jennifer, who were in the embrace of Julien Voldigard, Eve''s father.
"There they are," Eve pointed her finger at Michael and Gaya as theynded a couple of meters away from Eve.
As soon as theynded, a group of people surrounded Michael. Soon, Eve approached Michael with Jennifer, Julien, and a brown-haireddy with freckles. Undoubtedly Michael knew she was Eve''s mother because she looked like the mature version of Jennifer. Eve resembled her father more than her mother. But all of them seemed extremely grateful to Michael. He could see it in their eyes.
Jennifer still looked a bit exhausted, just like most of them.
"Master Ghost and Miss Aelia. I have no words to tell how grateful I am to you," Julien grabbed Michael''s hand and squeezed it, showing his gratitude. On the other hand, Eve''s mother embraced Gaya before she could rebuke her.
"The Voldigards are forever in your debt," Julien stated as everyone around Michael bobbed their heads up and down.
"I just helped my friend," Michael smiled.
Meanwhile, Nightmare shrunk his size and flew onto Michael''s shoulder.
"Let''s cure the others and get back to the castle," Nightmare said to Julien.
"Nightmare is right. We can talk over a nice dinner, Lord Julien,"
Lord Julien and Eve''s mother agreed with Michael with a nod. However, many soldiers and family members were still unconscious and waiting to be cured.
"Just give me fifteen minutes to brew the cure for all of them," Michael shot into the sky, flying towards the top of the hilt-shaped mountain to brew the cure in peace. Gaya wanted to get out of the crowd, but unfortunately, Eve grabbed her by her hand,
"Where are you going?" Eve smirked.
Gaya hated socializing with them, but Eve made sure Gaya met every single family member while Jennifer shadowed them behind. At that moment, Michael and Gaya had no idea what they were about to hear from Julien.
Chapter 596: Eve Voldigard鈥檚 past
Chapter 596: Eve Voldigard¡¯s pastMichael spent almost an hour in pace brewing the potions without any distractions. He enjoyed the sight of ever-expanding clouds and the distant mountains that peeked through the clouds. It soothed his soul more than he could exin with words. The waterfall''s burble sound added a certain calming effect on his mind. Standing atop the mountain peak and looking at the world down made him feel truly powerful. Even after finishing brewing the cures, Michael sat in a meditative posture and began to meditate. The clouds above him moved to his rhythm every time his chest rose up and down. He didn''t notice the pebbles and mud flying in a circle around him or the dark smoke emanating from his body. Fortunately, he was too far from the people down to notice everything changes.
The dark smoke slowly flew towards his palm and floated like a dark orb above his hands until the dark mes emerged from his palm and enveloped the dark smoke. Soon, the dark smoke and the dark mes merged together to form a tiny ck hole that sucked every pebble flying around Michael. The ck hole was only the size of a dot and still was in a weak state. The ck hole wasn''t a spell or any that appeared due to the system. Instead, it was one of Michael''s dormant powers. The more connection he had with the darkness, the more powerful he grew. He may be a Fusion Stage cultivator, but he was just an amateur in terms of godhood.
The Skyhall wasn''t afraid of The Dark Lord because of cultivation. They feared him because of his dormant powers. The more powerful he grew, he would unshackle the cultivation bonds and be something else entirely. At that time, his powers couldn''t be calcted using the cultivation stages.
No spell in the entire world could create a ck hole to suck everything. Yet, a ck hole was floating above Michael''s palm, unknowing to him.
He felt more and more connected to the darkness around him until Gaya''s voice in his head severed the connection. As soon as a distraction appeared, the ck hole disappeared and everything around him returned to its normal state. By the time Michael opened his eyes, he didn''t notice the changes.
"Are the cures ready? Not to rush you but someone is about to die if we don''t give him the cure," Gaya couldn''t care less about a lowly soldier of Voldigards and Michael could see that in her indifferent tone.
"I''ll be there," He took a deep breath before standing up and dashing to the edge. After he left the ce where he meditated, one could see a dark spiral appear in the ground for a moment, split second, and disappear. Back on the ground, a soldier had turnedpletely gray and his skin looked like it was made of stone.
When Michaelnded on the ground, he saw Lord Julien and his family surround the soldier. They all looked worried. Seeing a Lord of the House worry for a foot soldier was quite a surprise.
"Here," Michael threw the cure like it was nothing to Eve and stood beside Eve''s family.
"Sorry Lord Julien, I couldn''t resist meditating. That ce has some effect,"
Lord Julien looked at the top of the mountain for a moment,
"Indeed,"
Eve emptied the entire cure into the soldier''s mouth.
"Nightmare," Michael called for the Nightmare, whofortably sat atop Gaya''s shoulder. Seeing Michael calling him, Nightmare came to Michael with a single p of his wings.
"These will be enough to cure everyone. Make sure no cure leaves this ce," Michael waved his hand as a few wooden crates full of potions materialized on the ground.
"Shall we take a walk Master Ghost?" Lord Julien asked Michael.
Lord Julien''s eyes had a sliver of concern and Michael could see it clearly. At that moment, Michael thought Lord Julien was worried about building the Voldigards and bringing them to their former glory. After all, the Voldigards lost three Fusion Stage protectors. In a world where the Fusion Stage cultivators were scarce, losing three Fusion Stage warriors was devastating. They could easily survive or even be a powerhouse in Elon with the five Soul Refining stage cultivators. Still, in Awor, a family with one Fusion Stage protector would be like a wounded animal among a pack of hungry vultures.
"Sure," Michael wanted to first hear Lord Julien''s ns for the family first before giving any ideas to Julien. But, as far as Michael''s guts told him, Julien seemed a little bit soft. To lead House Voldigard to its former glory, Michael would prefer a leader like Eve, who was pretty ruthless and not afraid to get her hands dirty to get the job done.
Leaving everyone behind, Michael and Julien walked along the stream.
"Sorry Master Ghost for being blunt, but what''s your rtionship with Eve?" Michael was taken aback by Julien''s question. He didn''t expect Julien to ask about his rtionship with Eve instead of family matters.
"Are you two in love?"
"No," Michael shook his head rapidly,
To Michael''s surprise, Julien sighed in relief.
"Thank the gods," Julien looked relieved and smiled.
"Wow, I didn''t think I was such as bad choice for your daughter," Michael let out a small peal ofughter,
"Oh god no. People would be in line to marry their daughters to you. It''s just Eve is not a good fit for you,"
"Howe?'' Michael had no intention of marrying anyone other than Gaya, but he wanted to know why he was not a good fit for Eve,
Julien took a deep breath,
"If she marries you, she will be in your shadows until she dies, Master Ghost. You reached the Fusion stage at such a young age. Heaven-defying talents like you only appear only once in thousands of years. No doubt you will reach the Immortal stage but Eve," Julien looked at Eve who was helping the soldiers in the distance and sighed.
"She is destined to be at the Core Strengthening stage forever. I have done everything to make her strong and protect her from the things people talk about her behind her back. Even in our family, they want me to choose Jennifer''s husband as a sessor after she marries,"
"Why not Eve''s husband?"
"Only if she agrees to get married. She put a tough wall around her MAster Ghost. But she is just a gentle girl behind that wall. Did she ever tell you about Filvendor?"
Michael slowly shook his head. He had never even heard of the name before.
"He was once Eve''s fiance," another pleasant surprise hit Michael, hearing Julien.
"She fell in love with him while studying in Golden Lake Sect. Even though Filvendor was an elf, we agreed to their love because we wanted Eve to marry someone she loves rather than someone we choose for her," Lord Julien''s voice cracked, showing the great pain in his heart.
"What happened?" Michael asked.
"After she reached the Core Strengthening stage, Eve and Filvendor went to Nnths to meet his parents. Filvendor was an heir to one of the prominent families in Nnths. He promised Eve he would convince his parents and they also agreed to their marriage until they decided to see Eve''s potential in cultivation," Once again, Lord Julien stopped talking for a moment. He couldn''t speak freely due to the lump forming in her throat. Just thinking how many days he spent watching Eve crying herself to death. It took Eve almost a decade toe out of her breakup and only now Michael knew about her life.
"They were the ones who told us that Eve cannot break through to the Soul Refining stage. She was destined to get old and die as a Core Strengthening stage warrior. Filvendor''s parents couldn''t let their precious talented son marry such a mediocre girl. So he broke the engagement and her heart before leaving for Mazeroth,"
Michael was d that he got to know more about his friend. Deep down, Michael felt the urge to visit Filvendor and ughter them all. However, something rubbed Michael in the wrong way when he heard the story. Eve was just twenty-nine or so old. Reaching the Core Strengthening stage at thirty years old was considered a talent let alone reaching the Core Strengthening stage at the age of twenty. She was not anything but a mediocre cultivator. Nheless, time was such a cruel thing as it made once a talented prodigy into a mediocre cultivator.
Everything Julien had said made sense except the part where Filvendor''s parents initially agreed to let their son marry a human girl. Something about their agreement andter they checked Eve about cultivation didn''t sit right with Michael. He had a feeling something was amiss.
"I cannot let my girl go through heartbreak again. I don''t think she could go through it again. You''re talented, good-looking, and talented, any girl would fall in love with you Master Ghost-"
"Lord Julien," Michael interjected Lord Julien,
"A guy and a girl can be friends without being romantically involved. Eve and I are friends. In this life, I already gave my heart to Aelia. I appreciate you telling me everything but if you ask me to stop being Eve''s friend, you and I are gonna have a problem," Michael''s gentle smilepletely vanished from his face. Instead, he looked at Julien with an intense cold look. Although Julien was at Fusion Stage level 8, he couldn''t help but get scared by Michael. To be honest, he shuddered.
"I won''t abandon my friend because someone who doesn''t deserve Eve left her years ago. I don''t have many friends, Lord Julien, only a few. I take care of each and every one of them. Even if the entire world gives up on Eve, I won''t. In fact, I will make her breakthrough to the Soul Refining stage and prove how wrong those elves were and prove to you that Eve can lead the Voldigards to a golden age," Michael openly challenged Julien.
Michael wouldn''t openly challenge anyone but at that moment, he had a fire burning inside him to make Eve stronger than every single one of them.
This was the first time Michael wanted to help someone without expecting something in return. The Michael before traveling back in time would be proud of his current self.
Lord Julien who wanted to repay Michael for curing them and ask him to leave Eve, couldn''t ask Ghost those things anymore. Julien knew there was no way he could convince Ghost to leave Eve.
After hearing what Ghost had just said, Julien felt both happy and scared at the same time.
Chapter 597: Reapers Again
Chapter 597: Reapers AgainMichael and Julien returned to the group after a few minutes. On their way back, Julien uttered no words to Michael. Since fifty to sixty sick people were lying on the ground, Jennifer joined Eve in giving them the cure. It took the two girls almost an hour to finish.
"We should return to the castle," Eve came to Julien and said. Unlike before, Eve had a smile on her face. After knowing her story, Michael''s respect for Eve reached another level. Filvendor may have been a married couple of elves and started his own harem, but Eve remained unmarried. There would be countless suitors for Eve if she agreed and Michael was certain, given a chance, Noah might add Eve to his harem.
"Yes, Julien. Just thinking how much cleaning we have to do is giving me a headache," Eve''s mother, Ingrid Voldirgard, rubbed her temples. None of them had no idea what Ghost and Julien talked about. As far as they could guess, the two of them spoke of distributing the cure. However, Gaya sensed the tension between Julien and Michael after they returned from their little chat and could tell something had happened. It wasn''t the right situation to ask Michael about what had happened.
"Don''t worry, Lady Ingrid. I left my butler in the castle. He might surprise us," Michael surprised them.
"You have a butler?" Eve raised her brows. Not only Eve but everyone who heard Michael was shocked. Typically a king or a queen would have a butler. But except for Eve and Jennifer, the rest didn''t know that Michael was the king of Bradford.
Michael nodded,
"Let''s go," Michael wanted to leave the mountain so he could brew cures nonstop and store them in his system storage.
"I''ll lead the way," Eve was about to take off when Michael called her,
"You go first. I''ll be with you in a while,"
Gaya and Nightmare knew why Michael wanted to stay behind. Unlike the rest, the trio possessed more powerful sensing abilities. Nightmare was a dragon who had an innate ability to sense arch energy flow in a unique way. Gaya was a naga who possessed heightened senses, and Michael had the environmental scanning map to sense hostile activities nearby.
"Why?" Asked Eve.
"I''ll tell youter. Now go," Michael''s voice became stern and serious. It showed Eve something was amiss and serious. Hence, she didn''t waste any time lingering around.
"Everyone, head to thepound!" Eve ordered. No one dared to disagree with her order. Thus, everyone took off from the floating mountain before being towards Michael onest time to show their gratitude. After they all disappeared into the horizon, only Eve and her family stayed with Michael.
"Master Ghost, is something wrong?" Julien asked. Although Julien may have wanted to protect Eve from getting heartbreak, he still wouldn''t turn his back on Ghost who helped his family in their most desperate times. Besides, Julien didn''tpletelye to grasp how he felt about Ghost. A part of him wanted Ghost to be Eve''s friend. Another part wanted Ghost to stay as far as possible from Eve so she wouldn''t develop any feelings for Ghost.
"Eve, take your family and leave this ce as quickly as possible,"
"Master Ghost, What is happening?" Ingrid asked with concern.
"I am gonna kill someone," Michael amplified his voice with Arch energy, sounding as deafening as a thunderp.
"Eve, unless you want your family to be coteral, you should leave the ce,"
"Jennifer, mother, let''s go," After hearing the seriousness in Eve''s voice, she didn''t dare to linger any longer. However, she didn''t take her father away because Eve wanted Ghost to have a backup.
"Nightmare, make sure they-" Michael halted his sentence when he suddenly sensed a blockade appearing around them.
"What the?" Eve creased her brows because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn''t take off. It felt like an external force forced them to stay on the ground.
"I hate people sneaking up on me. So why don''t you show yourself reaper?" Michael said, slowly turning around to face the waterfall. Jennifer, who was the weakest among them neither sensed nor saw anyone. In her perspective, there was no one around them.
But at that time, Julien sensed a powerful being fifty meters away from them. So Julien spread his senses only to see the invisible being was just as strong as him.
"They told me you''ll be a tricky target," suddenly Jennifer heard a silvery voice. But she couldn''t see who just talked.
"Lord Julien, I am only getting paid to take him down. But if you try to interject, you and every single one in your precious family will have a target on their back," the voice echoed through the mountain.
"He said show yourself," Nightmare growled as he released a stream of hot air from his nostrils. The stream turned into an arrow and shot towards the waterfall. Since Jennifer saw no one before her, she thought the arrow would reach the waterfall. However, the arrow suddenly stopped in its path. Soon, the air distorted to reveal a warrior adorning silver armor under a dark cloak.
The wolf head pendant hanging around his neck was a dead giveaway to which organization he belonged; the Grim Reapers. As far as Jennifer could see, there were no symbols or intricate designs on his silver armor. It was just in armor made of silver. She couldn''t see his face because he covered his face with a lion mask.
"Let me guess, someone put a bounty on my head. I wonder how much this time," Michael remained calm. The reaper was at the Fusion Stage level 8. Still, it wasn''t enough to scare Michael, especially when Michael had the Fear toxin mixed with the strain of molten gue.
"Why can''t you just live without pissing off people? I feel bad to kill such a talented young man," The reaper sighed.
"Back off Reaper. Master Ghost is a guest of House Voldigard. Raising your de against him will be considered raising your de against the House Voldigard," Julien stepped forward, threatening the reaper only to see the reaper burst intoughter.
"Lord Julien. You are in no pce to threaten me. Take my advice and back off. You have such a beautiful family. It''d be a pity to lose them,"
"Why don''t you make your move and find out?" Eve''s hammer materialized in her hand. Just like Julien, she stepped forward to fight for Ghost despite her cultivation stage.
"It''s my fight Eve," Michael patted Eve on the back and walked forward.
"Lord Julien, take your family and get out of here,"
Michael said to Julien but he and Eve seemed reluctant.
"GET OUT!" Michael''s thunderous shout echoed through the area as the sword-hilt mountain trembled. As a result of his shout, rocks crumbled down from the mountain.
The single shout was enough to terrify Jennifer and Ingrid. Even Eve took a step back.
"Come on," Nightmare quickly grew to his original size and shielded the family under his wings. He pushed them back. After seeing how Michael reacted, Julien couldn''t stay here with Ghost. It was his fight and Ghost wanted them to leave the area. Besides, Julien didn''t want his family to be coteral damage in a battle between two Fusion Stage cultivators. As a father and a husband, his first priority was to ensure his family''s safety.
"Eve, go with Nightmare. The reapers are unpredictable. They will use you and your family against Ghost," Gaya stated.
Meanwhile, the reaper patiently waited for the family to leave. However, Michael wondered one thing; they were about to leave before the reaper revealed himself. They would have already left the mountain if the reaper hadn''t revealed himself. Instead, the reaper prevented them from leaving, exposing himself and letting them go.
"System, buy a teleportation scroll and transfer it to Gaya''s space ring," Michael quickly entered the system and bought a teleportation scroll.
Suppose the reapers were nning an ambush for the Voldigards, Gaya could teleport them to the Aqua Pce.
Gaya sensed a new item in her space ring. Even without Michael exining, she understood his ns. So she took Eve and her family to leave the mountain.
"Bring his head to the feast Ghost," Eve didn''t cry or form tears like typical girls. Instead, she had confidence in Ghost''s strength despite the cultivation difference between him and the reaper.
"So much confidence in her friend," The reaper slowly pped for Eve until everyone disappeared into the horizon. Finally, Michael and the reaper were alone in the floating mountain.
"Do you happen to know who put the bounty on my head? Jeesh, I am really getting sick of you reapers," Michael massaged his temples. As he said, the reapers were really annoying him. If he didn''t have so many things to do, he would have made destroying the Grim Reapers a priority,
"You''re a regr target in our guild Ghost. So you know how my guild works,"
"That''s true. I kinda like this ce, so let''s try not to do too much damage to it, okay?" Michael said, cracking his neck.
"I will try," The Reaper nodded. Then, two energy swords materialized in his hand. One radiated crimson red light while the other shone in bright blue.
"Fancy," said Michael, admiring the two energy swords.
The battle excitement began to course through his veins. Normally, Michael would avoid battles. This fight however, he couldn''t avoid. Thus, Michael decided to use the reaper as a dummy to test his limits.
Chapter 598: Shortcut to Victory
Chapter 598: Shortcut to VictoryThe Reaper and Michael dashed at each other. In a mid-way before shing with the reaper, Michael took out his two swords from his sheath hanging on his back.
Cling!
The energy swords and Michael''s metal swords shed, creating sparks of fire. Both of them didn''t go for any spells but fought using their weapons. Still, a sh between two Fusion stage cultivators wasn''t a joke. Each time their swords shed, the ground beneath them trembled. To Michael''s surprise, the reaper was an exceptional swordsman. Otherwise, the reaper couldn''t have defended Michael''s barrage of sword attacks. Michael was one of Elon''s most powerful offensive swordsmen, and the reaper had the best defense. So their sh was something magnificent to witness.
"This is exhrating!" Michael raised his voice. Their battle produced barrages of lightning cracks, creating shes of colorful rays. Then, unknowing to Michael, he pushed the reaper from one end to another. They left a deep trail in the ground and almost split it in half.
Boom!
Michael pushed the reaper against the hilt peak and swung his sword to cleave the reaper''s head. But the reaper was able to evade as Michael''s sword hit the mountain, carving a deep ''V-shaped cut. The entire mountain shivered. To defend himself, the reaper shot towards the sky. Their speed was equal to a bullet. An ordinary cultivator wouldn''t be able to see their bodies but only the crumbling rocks raining down.
"You''re good," The reaper shouted, flying towards the mountain peak.
"Did you think it''s going to be easy?" Michael suddenly threw his sword upwards and fought with one sword and his bare hand.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Michael defended the energy swords with his swords while throwing punches at the reaper using the other hand. Every time the reaper missed a punch, itnded in the mountain. As a result, the mountain trembled. More and more chunks of rocks crumbled down onto the ground. Their battle sounded louder than any thunderps.
Fortunately, there was no vige or city underneath the floating mountain. Otherwise, the huge chunks of rocks crumbling down would have greatly damaged the people.
"ARGH!" The reaper threw his one energy sword away to fight with one sword. He let out a thunderous battle cry before swinging his sword more violently. He wanted to put Michael onto the defense.
"Hahahaha" However, the reaper saw Michael burst into madughter. The reaper could swear he saw a dark silhouette behind Ghost as he fought. But he shoved all his other thoughts to the back of his mind. A single slip of focus could end his life after all. Despite the cultivation difference between them, Michael gained the upper hand.
Typically, a Fusion stage level 4 cultivator would have a difficult time fighting a level 8. Yet Michael was anything but typical. Four levels of difference were nothing to Michael. In fact, he was stronger than the reaper at the moment because they both hadn''t used a spell yet.
"Iron Gauntlet!" but suddenly, the reaper cast a spell. Since the Fusion Stage cultivators didn''t need to utter the spell, Michael was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of a giant gauntlet behind him. The giant gauntlet was at least ten meters long and five meters wide. Even though the gauntlet was created using Celestian energy, it looked like it was made of pure iron.
Boom!
"Lightning Dash!"
Michael cast the lightning dash to turn himself into a lightning bolt and dashed upwards before the iron gauntlet bashed the mountain. When the gauntlet collided with the mountain, the mountain cracked. As a result, the water flowed into the crack, and the majestic waterfall slowly disappeared.
"I liked that waterfall," Michael growled.
Luckily, they both reached the peak, and the moment Michael reached the peak, he raised his hand. The sword Michael threw into the air before fell directly into his hand.
"Wing st!" Before the reaper could cast another spell, Michael raised his hand, sending a powerful st of wind to the reaper. The wind sted the reaper onto the mountain peak while Michael still hovered in the wind.
"Eagle wings!" The reaper quickly cast another spell, as the ground beneath him emerged to form a shield resembling an eagle''s wind around the reaper. The wall shield protected the reaper from the wind st. Still, the wind st was powerful enough to destroy half of the shield.
"Wing st!" Michael sent another powerful st of wind to destroy the rest of the shield. But when the wind st obliterated the wall, the reaper was nowhere to be found.
Out of nowhere, the reaper materialized behind Michael in the air. Michael''s neck hair immediately stood up, sensing the danger, yet Michael was a secondte to react in time. It was not Michael who was slow, but the reaper was fast. Fortunately, the reaper aimed with the intention to pierce Michael''s heart, but Michael evaded getting stabbed through the shoulder.
Finally, after stabbing Michael, the reaper stopped moving, and so did Michael.
"Not bad," Michael grabbed the energy sword sticking out of his shoulder and grinned. Instead of showing signs of pain, the reaper saw a devilish grin when Ghost turned around. The energy sword radiated intense heat and would burn the victim''s skin. Anyone who got stabbed with the sword would definitely be in severe pain despite their cultivation stage.
The reaper had seen countless cultivators scream and even cry in agony after being stabbed. But for the first time in his hundred and fifty years old life, he had seen someone grin. Michael wasn''t faking it or using APD either to fight the pain. In fact, Michael didn''t feel any pain at all. His body and soul were infused with dark mes, one of the most powerful primordial mes in the universe. The heat radiated by the energy sword was nothingpared to the heat of the dark mes.
As to why Michael grinned, it was because he had found out he felt no pain from the heat radiating sword at all. Initially, when the reaper stabbed him, he felt a sting, but afterward, he felt nothing.
"Wind st!" Michael grabbed the energy sword with one hand and sent a st of wind with the other, sting the reaper away. At the moment, the two of them were hovering in the mid-air above the floating mountain.
"This is true power," Michael smirked, slowly pulling out the sword. The red light emanated by the energy sword flickered in his hand. When Michael pulled out the energy sword, the reaper saw the wound closing visible to the naked eye without Ghost taking any healing potions.
"Why don''t we finish this fight?" Michael snickered. On the other hand, the reaper reached out for the energy sword in Michael''s hand, trying to summon the sword.
The sword frantically trembled in Michael''s hand to escape his grasp. Seeing the sword couldn''t escape Ghost''s grasp, the reaper creased his brows underneath his mask.
"Return to me!" the reaper shouted. But no matter how hard the reaper tried to summon the sword, the reaper failed to get his hand on the sword.
"Impossible," The reaper panicked because the sword could not be controlled by anyone weaker than him. He had special runes on the sword to ensure the sword would always return to him. At that moment, a weaker cultivator like Ghost overpowered the sword, which shouldn''t have been possible.
The reaper''s mind was boggled until he lost the connection with his sword. Soon, the reaper felt weak and exhausted. He even tumbled down a few meters without any control over his body.
"What''s happening?" The reaper asked Michael, feeling his connection to the Celestial energy slowly declining.
In a couple of moments, the reaper went from the Fusion stage to the Core Strengthening stage cultivator, rapidly weakening by the second.
"I found the cure for the molten gue. So it wasn''t challenging to weaponize the gue," Michael smirked.
"The air you breathed wasn''t purely natural. In simple words, I poisoned you without even you noticing," The reaper''s vision blurred as he started to vomit dark blood. Additionally, the reaper''s skin gradually turned gray, and his hair lost its shininess.
Michael looked down for a moment before turning his gaze back at the reaper.
"Wow, you''ll be a human omelet by the time you hit the ground. Your reapers friends will have a hard time scrapping you off the ground if they found you, that is," Michaelughed.
From the moment he sensed the reaper, Michael began to release the fear toxin from his APD. Simply put, Michael defeated the reaper even before the battle started. Michael just wanted to see his Fusion Stage powers and how powerful his spells have gotten. Otherwise, Michael could have dragged his conversation with the reaper until the Fear toxin took effect.
By battling the reaper, Michael found out his vulnerabilities.
"You weaponized the gue? Why?" the reaper asked, coughing up more blood.
"Why else? Money. By this time next week, the entire Awor will be struck by the gue. Desperation will take hold of Awor, including the empress. A man with a cure will be like a god at that time. I can name whatever the price I want,"
The reaper didn''t utter any word for a moment. He had seen hundreds of ruthless and evil beings in his life, but Ghost was the evilest two-faced demon he had ever seen.
"You still have time reaper. You may not know who put the bounty on my head, but you know the location of your guild. Reveal the location, and I''ll give you the cure. We can pretend like this never happened," Michael offered the reaper a choice to live.
"You have a minute to decide reaper. After that, you''ll fall to death," Michael didn''t show any emotion in his tone.
As the reaper slowly lost the connection with the arch energy, his mind told him to take the offer. The reapers were known for their brutality and ruthlessness, not for loyalty to the guild. They always valued their lives and money over allegiance to the guild. Thus the reaper was tempted to reveal the location in exchange for the cure. He couldn''t simply trust Ghost''s words, but he had no choice either.
"Tik Tok reaper¡tik tok¡"
Chapter 599: Grim Reapers Location
Chapter 599: Grim Reapers LocationThe reaper gave Ghost''s offer a deep thought. But, since he was losing the connection with arch energy rapidly, the reaper had to make a choice quickly before he fell to death.
"Give me the cure first," The reaper tried his luck only to get no response from Ghost.
"Fine. Here, this is the map to the guild where I picked up the assassination contract with your name on it," the reaper quickly essed his space ring and threw a parchment to Michael, who caught the map. Michael opened the parchment to see the map of the Awor continent which was divided into three elven kingdoms, two dwarven kingdoms, onerge beastmen kingdom, one orc kingdom, and finally, one kingdom ruled by a human king. Even after being divided into eight kingdoms, a vast piece ofnd was upied by a barren snowy mountain chain to the north.
Michael searched for Nagnd on the map of Awor but found it very far from the continent. Nagnd wasn''t a part of the maind. Instead, it was arge ind almost a quarter the size of Awor. The Grim Reapers guild was located between Sill ri and Thera in the forest. It was marked with a red cross.
"Now give me the cure," The reaper''s voice became weak as Michael predicted,
"I did give you my word," Michael slowly hovered towards the reaper with the cure in his hand.
"How do I know it''s the cure and not poison?" asked the reaper.
"You don''t," Michael simply smirked as he reached an arm''s distance from the reaper. Then, Michael handed over the cure to the reaper, who looked at the potion for a few moments before ultimately deciding to drink it. It was not like the reaper had a choice too.
Pulch!
The reaper''s hand froze in time, a few inches away from his mouth. A secondter, the reaper coughed up blood and looked down to see Michael''s hand going through his chest.
"You¡fucking¡bastard¡" The reaper snarled at Michael with hisst few dying breaths.
"Death¡will get¡to you¡"
"Death can''t have me until I want to greet it," Michael whispered into the reaper''s ear, holding the reaper''s heart in his hand. The heart was still beating in Michael''s hand until he crushed it into a bloody paste.
"Mission failed, reaper," Michael devilishly grinned, looking at the reaper free falling down.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
"Hey system, what''s the deal? I get the same amount of experience points for killing both level 8 and level 2 cultivators?"
[Yes. After the Fusion stage, every higher stage will get a fixed number of experience points regardless of levels]
"But why?" Michael frowned,
[Because the system needs to change the host''s body from the molecr level. Anything more or less than a fixed number of experience points will be harmful to the host and prevent the host from reaching Immortality]
Michael''s frown got reced by a grin when he heard the word ''Immortality''. Reaching immortality was Michael''s initial desire when he came to this world. If it wasn''t for all the dark lord business, Immortality would have been his only sole purpose in this world. Now, it was a weapon and a shield for him to face his enemies.
[Speaking of Immortality, the system urges the host to upgrade the system to the next level. You cannot reach the Half-Immortal stage with the current level]
After hearing the system''s words, Michael willed the system to show his status window.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Fusion stage, level 4
Experience Points: 750,000/1,000,000
Badass Points: 320,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 6
Ignitia - LVL 8
Lightning Dash - LVL 6
Energy Devouver - LVL 2
Soul Eater - LVL 1
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender. Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 94% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 25,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 87%)
Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 48%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 55%)
Sadie (loyalty level 50%)
Ricky (loyalty level 98%)
Titus(loyalty level 60%)
Optimus (loyalty level 60%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 92%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
Kingdom of Bradford
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (10% Mastery) Fire (10% Mastery) (Lightning 15% Mastery) (Darkness 25%)
Michael could turn his gold coins into badass points but the uing auction prevented him from doing so. ording to Valric from Grandspire bank, twenty million gold coins was just a measly amount to have when attending the auction. She also said he could buy some ordinary items with his coins if he had luck. But, for the time being, Michael wanted to hold onto his gold coins.
"You also used to give me gifts every time I reach a new stage," Michaelined to the system. It had been quite some time since the system gifted him like it used to. With everything going on, Michael wanted to get his hands on some Legendary gift boxes of the system.
[Stop asking for freebies and focus on upgrading the system] The system sounded kinda irritated by Michael''s question. Michael didn''t have time to argue with the system. Besides, he knew there was no point arguing with the system. Hence, Michael closed the system interface and flew in the direction of the Voldigardpound.
While flying, Michael tried to contact Gaya through the earpiece.
"Where are you?" Michael sighed in relief when he heard Gaya''s voice.
"On my way to the Voldigardpound. Is everything alright? Did you have any trouble?"
"No," answered Gaya.
"Things are pretty normal here. But they are preparing avish feast for you. Hope you''re hungry,"
"As a matter of fact, I am. All the fighting and killing made me hungry," Michael cracked his neck, producing a cracking sound in his neck.
"I am not surprised. The reapers are bing a headache. Have you managed to get the location of their guild?" Gaya had the same thought about getting their location as Michael.
"I did,"
"So let''s pay them a visit then but not as Ghost and Aelia," Michael sensed a tinge of evilness and killing intent in her voice. It was apparent she wanted to destroy the grim reapers as Dark Lord and the Dark Queen.
"Hmm. We''ll talk more when I get there," Michael said before cutting themunication between them. Afterward, Michael just flew towards the castle without using the lightning dash. He enjoyed the dark clouds above him, drizzling and the wind against his face. It provided him with a captivating experience. Even after almost two years, Michael still had goosebumps every time he flew in the sky.
After almost thirty minutes of flying under drizzling weather, Michael finally reached the Voldigard castle. But unlike when he first came to the ce, it looked buzzing with soldiers and clean of any blood or dead bodies. The VOldigard foot soldiers were busy fixing the broken statues and the fountains. At the same time, the female servants swept the frontwn by casting wind spells.
"Look Master Ghost is back!"
"Inform Lady Eve!"
"Master Ghost!"
The soldiers quickly stopped what they were doing and bowed slightly toward Michael. Not a single one failed to smile at Michael with gratitude for saving their lives. However, deep within their eyes, they feared Michael.
"Master Ghost," Azazel walked out of the castle gracefully and greeted Michael with a bow.
"How is everything, Sebastian?" Michael asked Azazel after gesturing at the servants to continue their work.
"Please, let me take care of this," Azazel waved his hand as a warm wave of energy brushed past Michael, drying all the wetness off his clothes.
"Cool," Michael gave Azazel a nod of appreciation before making his way into the castle.
The servants and Azazel managed to light the corridor and return the castle to its former glory in a short amount of time. However, Michael wasn''t in the mood for admiring the castle''s beauty. Instead, his mind was upied by something he should have done as soon as he returned from the Shadow realm.
"Did Eve give me a room to stay in?"
"Of course, Master Ghost," Azazel addressed Michael as ''Master Ghost'' instead of Lord Lucifer or my Lord due to Michael''s order. Azazel was to call Michael ''Master'' and Gaya and Nightmare to call Azazel ''Sebastian''.
"Follow me," Azazel led the way to Michael''s room in the castle. Eve gave Michael the secondrgest room next to Jennifer''s room. Eve gave Michael the secondrgest room next to Jennifer''s room, among all the fifty-six rooms in the castle.
"Where are the Voldigards?" Michael asked Azazel while following him behind to his room.
"In the throne hall, Master Ghost,"
"As expected," Michael said. Surviving the gue was easy, but the real battle would begin when the Voldigards tried to rebuild their house. Luckily, they had Michael to help them. However, Michael prefeed Eve to be the house lord instead of Julien. Not that Michael hated or disliked Julien, but Eve was a better candidate for leading the Voldigards in this dire time. In Michael''s view, Julien was a little bit soft. What the Voldigards wanted was a ruthless leader who would be willing to do anything for the betterment of their family. As far as Michael could tell, that person was Eve.
Finally, Michael arrived before his room and opened it to see a spacious room big enough to be called a hall.
"You''re here," Gaya weed Michael, sitting on the queen-sized white bed. Nightmare curled into a ball on afy sofa facing the firece and enjoying the warmthing from the firece.
Nightmare was sleeping peacefully, so he wasn''t aware of Michael entering the room. That was also the reason why Gaya didn''t raise her voice.
"Sebastian, go for a walk around the castle and let me know if you see anything or anyone suspicious. If you face any trouble, do not hesitate to teleport back to the dark forest,"
"As you wish, Master Ghost," Azazel bowed toward Michael and Gaya before leaving the room. Afterward, Michael took out a vial of blood from his system storage and ced it on the table in front of the opened window overlooking the city.
"What''s this? Rather, who''s blood is this?" Gaya asked Michael.
"Sabrina''s blood," Michael nonchntly answered Michael.
"And why do you have this?"
"I am going to check whether or not she is my sister,"
Chapter 600: Eve is dying
Chapter 600: Eve is dying"What the fuck?!" Gaya snapped as soon as she heard Michael. Just the thought of Sabrina being Michael''s little sister boggled Gaya''s mind. Her heartbeat rose rapidly to the point Gaya could hear her heart.
"But why suddenly? And what makes you think she might be your little sister?" Gaya came closer to Michael, where he was setting up apparatuses and other necessary devices to do a DNA test. Typically, one would need sophisticated rituals to find out whether they were rted by blood or not. But fortunately, Michael was a 5-star Alchemist and an Inventor with the system. So, using his knowledge at his disposal, Michael invented a device to conduct a DNA test.
Gaya stared at the U-shaped contraption made of ss. The ss was split in the bottom by a metal ring, and an orb was hanging down from it.
"I don''t know truly. Just a nagging feeling deep down that she might be my family," Michael said to Gaya while pouring Sabrina''s blood into the contraption from one opening. The blood drizzled into it and stopped by the metal right.
For a few moments, Gaya stood speechless, uttering no words.
"If she is by some chance, do you know what that means for us?" Gaya''s voice slightly trembled. Instead of answering her question, Michael unsheathed his sword, cut his palm, and held his hand above the contraption to fill the other half with his blood. To avoid confusion, Michael carved a small ''M'' on the half with his blood. Afterward, Michael took out a bright blue potion. The potion sparkled, almost lighting the table with its radiance. When Michael opened the vial, Gaya smelled the fragrance ofvender.
Michael was still silent as he gently poured the potion into both ends and waited for the blue potion to mix with both of their blood.
"Now if she is my sister, a green light will be lit in the orb. Otherwise, red,"
"Answer my question, human. What are you nning to do after if she IS your sister?" Gaya asked with her brows creased together. His answer however,pletely caught Gaya off guard.
"To be honest, I have no ns," Michael sighed and waited for the blue potion to turn violet.
"What the fuck? I never heard these words from you before,"
"First time for everything huh?" Despite the seriousness of the matter, Michael remained calm. It was true that Michael had no ns if Sabrina proved to be his sister. This would mean Noah his brother, Rowena his big sister, and Diana and Ethan were his parents. He may be cold and ruthless to his enemies, but if Noah was his brother, it wouldn''t be as easy as facing Noah as an enemy like any other.
After all, fighting a brother was very different than fighting an enemy.
"How long will it take for the orb to light up?" Gaya couldn''t wait to see the result. Red or Green, she wanted to know whether or not Sabrina was his little sister. That would change everything from her perspective.
"Couple of minutes," Michael took a deep breath and waited for the orb to light up. Although it would only take a couple of minutes, each second felt like an eternity. While waiting for the orb to light up, Michael and Gaya didn''t speak to each other. Instead, they waited silently until the contraption trembled slightly.
"Is this supposed to happen?" Gaya questioned. Michael was supposed to say ''yes'' when the orb lit up in red light. As soon as Gaya saw the red light, she sighed in relief. But Michael couldn''t even tell what he was feeling. His mind was boggled with mixed feelings.
Michael''s contraption checked the two blood samples shared bond of siblings. The orb would have lit in green only if the Skyhall hadn''t put a rune on everyone in Diana''s family to cut all their ties to the Dark Lord. Simply put, there were no typical means to prove Michael was rted to Diana or anyone in her family. Qin Jiu made sure the Dark Lord wouldn''t find out about his real family in this world.
Qin Jiu believed a person''s greatest power was his or her family. Thus, she wanted to cut the Dark Lord''s ties to his family. No matter what, she didn''t want the Dark Lord to be united with his family. It was why Qin Jiu left notes that ultimately led Elidyr to create a forbidden ritual that required Diana to cut all her ties with Michael when he was a baby. If it wasn''t for Wulfric, Diana''s teacher and the headmaster of MAzeroth, the Skyhall would have passed a judgment to eliminate Diana and her family as a precaution.
However, convincing the Skyhall to spare Diana and her family cost Wulfric to put them through a ritual that removed any and all biological connection between them and Michael. So unless Michael could devise a way to reverse the ritual, the contraption to test the blood wouldn''t light up as green as it should be.
Nheless, Michael was led to believe Sabrina wasn''t his little sister. With this effort, Michael let go of his little desire to find his real family in this world.
"Look Michael, you have a family, and they are in this room," Gaya spoke to him in a gentle voice and took a step forward.
"I remember my mother used to say it''s not that blood makes you family but love. I love you, more than anything in this world," Gaya cupped Michael''s face in her hand and stepped closer to the point her forehead touched his.
"Your mother is a wise woman,"
"Whom you haven''t helped me find out," Gaya jested to lighten up the mood a bit,
"You know Elidyr is working on the way to find your mother. We must first find out why she is in hiding before finding her location," After giving up on finding his own family, Michael wanted to reunite Gaya with her mother more. At Least one of them would have a mother. Michael and Gaya were still standing with their forehead touching,
"I am kinda relieved Sabrina wasn''t your sister. It''s not easy to fight against your family on a battlefield," Gaya spoke in a low-pitched voice.
"Do you mean Noah and probably Rowena?"
"Hmm. If they were your family, raising your sword against them would be hard. Trust me, I know," Gaya sighed, thinking about Xanali. True that Gaya wanted to strike Xanali down for stealing the throne that rightfully belonged to her. If she wished, Michael would definitely help her kill Xanali, except she didn''t feel the fire to kill Xanali as she used to before she met Michael.
Of course, that didn''t mean Gaya would give the throne of Nagnd to Xanali. It''s just that Gaya didn''t want to kill Xanali anymore. After they take over Nagnd, Gaya would simply exile Xanali from Nagnd. If she tried to cause any trouble, she would put Xanali in the same prison Xanali put her in.
"Atleast, I''m relieved now. Besides, I am giving up on finding the people who gave birth to me. So there is no point," Michael sighed with a heavy heart.
"I know it''s hard, but it''s for the better, Michael. They gave you up willingly. As far as I am concerned, they don''t deserve you,"
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
Their conversation was abruptly cut short when someone suddenly knocked on the door.
"Ghost," Michael recognized the voice immediately.
"Come in," As Michael expected, Eve opened the door to step in. To Michael''s surprise, Eve looked a bit flustered.
"Is everything alright?" Michael asked as he and Gaya walked toward Eve to meet her in a mid-way.
However, Eve avoided looking into his eyes, which was very unusual. With a long breath of sigh, Eve walked to the window and stared at the distant horizon. Despite the city in her sight looking gloomy with the grayish mist, the drizzling weather, and the ominous thunderps resonating in the distance, the city calmed her mind and soothed her soul.
However, she wasn''t here to talk about the city. Rather, she wanted to talk about something personal.
"My father," Eve turned her gaze away from the city to Michael and Gaya.
"He told you about Filvendor and my predicament to stay in the Core Strengthening stage until I die, didn''t he?"
By looking at the stern look in her eyes, Michael knew there was no point in covering it up. Thus, Michael nodded before walking toward her and leaning on the wall.
"He did. And he also told me to stay away from you,"
Unlike Gaya, who was surprised, Eve just let out an exhausted smile as though Eve was tired of her father.
"What did you tell him?" Eve asked.
"I told him Eve, and I can be friends without being romantically involved,"
"No offense to your father Eve. But what the fuck is wrong with your father? He should show him some gratitude," Gaya growled in rage.
"You have all the right to be mad at my father. He''s been trying to protect me. But he fails to understand that I don''t need protection," Eve sighed as Michael patted her on the shoulder.
"We don''t need to talk about that, Eve. Unless you want me to stay away from you, I''m not going anywhere," Michael didn''t want to bring back hurtful memories by talking about Eve''s love life. Rather, he wanted to talk about their future.
"I don''t want you to go anywhere. Promise me you two will be my friends forever,"
Gaya didn''t expect her to make such a request at all until she heard what Eve had said next,
"Father and my family only know that I won''t be able to break through to the next stage. But the full truth is that I am sick and don''t have much longer to live. Maybe a couple of years," Eve''s voice stuttered.
"Let me guess, the elves told you this," although the news Eve had just revealed, Michael remained calm and had a smirk on his face.
"System, scan Eve and tell me if something is amiss," Michael ordered the system and paid twenty thousand badass points as the price.
Chapter 601: Another Legendary Skill
Chapter 601: Another Legendary SkillAfter Michael paid twenty thousand badass points, the system scanned Eve''s body with invisible rays that Michael''s eyes could only see. Eve slightly felt a warm sensation running throughout her body.
[The system scan isplete]
[The system has found several curses in Eve''s body]
[The current system version cannot find the origins of the curses]
"What''s the nature of these curses?" Michael wasn''t surprised as he expected the elves to put some curses on Eve''s body. What Julien said about Filvendor''s parents agreeing to marry their son to a human girl was too good to be true. Michael hadn''t met a single elf who could be branded as good. Even Elidyr had an ulterior motive to help Michael. Many novels Michael read back on earth portrayed their elves as oppressed, weak, and enved by the other races. However, in this world, elves were anything but oppressed, weak, and enved. On the contrary, the elves were racists, powerful, and extremely power vicious, especially the elves who were born and grew up in noble families.
[The curses prevent her from breaking through to the Soul Refining stage, causing her to hallucinate and slowly corroding her from the molecr level. As a result, she only has a year to live if the curses aren''t lifted]
[The current system version cannot lift the curse. The system needs to be at level 9 to lift curses]
[However, the system can locate an artifact that could break the curses for a price]
"How much?" No matter how many badass points the system asks, Michael will pay it. Eve was not only his friend but also a valuable asset to have. Besides, lifting curses could alwayse in handy when the elves tend to curse people so much.
[250,000 badass points. The system can absorb the item and turn it into a skill that would enable the host to lift even the powerful curses]
As soon as Michael heard the system, his lips curved upwards.
"I might sound like a teenager, but this shit is dope," Michael smirked devilishly. With this skill, he could cure Christopher, ire''s grandfather. Thinking about Christopher, Michael remembered to gather information about ire''s mother and her family. ording to Gaya, ire''s mother belonged to a powerful noble family in Gondolin, the capital kingdom of Awor, where the empress resides.
Gondolin was also the most powerful and prosperous kingdom in the entire Awor. Even the dwarven kingdom couldn''t hold a torch to Gondolin in terms of beauty and prosperity.
[Why does the host show no interest in saving ire''s mother?] Surprisingly the system questioned Michael while he was thinking about ire''s mother.
"First, there is no rush. Second, it''s the most powerful kingdom in the whole world. I need more time and resources at my disposal before visiting them," Michael answered the system and checked his status to see 320,000 badass points at his disposal. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t see any downside to locating the curse-lifting artifact and turning it into a skill.
Hence, Michael agreed to let the system take a quarter million and give him the item''s location.
[The item is hidden deep within the domain of the treacherous ocean] The coincidence surprised Michael. Since Michael had two more weeks before returning to Mazeroth, Michael nned to go to the treacherous ocean to harvest its resources. He never thought there was an item that could give him a legendary skill. Now that the system revealed its location to be the treacherous ocean, traveling to the treacherous ocean took priority.
"It''s settled then," Michael took a deep breath and exited the system to see Eve and Gaya staring at him.
"Eve," Michael smiled as he ruffled Eve''s head which caught Eve caught off guard,
"What are you doing?" Eve miserably smiled,
"You still don''t get it, do you?"
Eve looked bewildered, hearing Michael. As he moved closer, Michael put his hand around Eve''s neck. Surprisingly, she didn''t move away or swat his arms off.
Michael then looked at the kingdom before them together,
"I can do whatever I want, Eve. You saw when I came up with a cure for the gue when the most genius minds in Awor couldn''t. As a matter of fact, I challenged your father," Eve turned her gaze towards Michael as he continued,
"I challenged him that I will make you breakthrough to the Soul Refining stage and lead House Voldigard into a golden age,"
Eve was speechless, and Michael didn''t give her any time to react. Instead, Michael revealed a shocking truth to her,
"Do you know why you can''t break through to the Soul Refining stage? You''re cursed by the elves Eve,"
"Huh? Wait, what are you talking about?" Eve''s heartbeat began to increase as she shuddered. On the other hand, Gaya just rolled her eyes and joined them in sightseeing the gloomy city through the open window.
"I am not surprised at all. Cursing people is one of the many things those evil sons of bitches are capable of. That''s why everyone hates them, and don''t even get me started on the dark elves,"
"No, I don''t believe it," Eve''s eyes watered as the memories of Filvendor started to flood her mind. However, Michael did not stop. Instead, Michael let Eve know about the wickedness of the elves. Things like this would undoubtedly make a person strong, and Michael wanted Eve to be stronger than ever. Only then could she be ruthless enough to lead the Voldigards and probably fight beside himself against his enemies.
"They cursed you because they didn''t want a human girl to marry their son, Eve. They nned everything and cursed you with several curses. That''s the only reason, you couldn''t break through to the Soul Refining stage and hallucinate,"
Eve was utterly taken aback by the shock and surprise. On the one hand, the memories made her eyes water; on the other, she had no idea how Ghost knew about her hallucinations when she hadn''t told a soul.
"I don''t know the full story, but if he''s telling you, you''re cursed. Then you are cursed. And you''re freaking lucky to have met him," Gaya dered sternly.
"It''s shocking, I know. Take your time to process everything. But be cool. I have a way to break those curses. You will ultimately believe me when I do that and make you breakthrough to the Soul Refining stage,"
Michael kept patting Eve on the back to calm her down. At that time, tears had already started to gush out of her eyes. To be honest, she couldn''t believe Filvendor would do that to her. However, her brain told her otherwise.
As Eve was staring at the distant horizon, Michael quickly bought a potion from the system, instead of brewing it himself.
"Here," Gaya saw a glistening white pill in Michael''s hand. The pill itself radiated a sweet fragrance like no other.
"Take this tonight. It will stop the hallucinations and give you a good night''s sleep. If anything, you need good rest," Michael lifted Eve''s hand and ced the pill on her palm.
"Why go to all this trouble to help me?" Eve couldn''t help asking Michael. Although she felt like Michael was her best friend and could trust him with her life, Eve wanted to know why he was helping her. After all, Eve didn''t have a clue that they were best friends once, and she died protecting the Dark Lord.
"No matter how many times you ask this question to me, my answer will be the same. You''re my friend. To be honest, I feel like you are special, like my guts telling me you are my best friend. I always trusted my guts, and it never betrayed me," said Michael.
For a while, the ce was haunted by silence as no one uttered a word. But the silence between Michael and Eve revealed a lot more than words to Gaya.
"Master Ghost, Miss Aelia," suddenly a gentle voice called out for them from outside.
"The feast is ready. Everyone''s waiting for you in the great hall," The female maid softly spoke these words.
"Why don''t we go out there and enjoy a nice meal? We deserve it, Eve," Michael said to Eve as Gaya also ced her hand on Eve''s other shoulder.
He wanted to take Eve''s mind off of Filvendor and the curses. She had a year to live, and Michael was optimistic he could go ande out of the treacherous ocean within a year. This time, he wasn''t going there as a Core Formation cultivator but as a Fusion Stage cultivator with the system online, unlike thest time.
"Stop sulking, Eve. Let''s go eat. I''m fucking hungry. You two can get me up to speedter," Since Gaya was hungry to the point her stomach started to grow, she couldn''t care less about Eve''s tantrum. Instead, she wanted to drag the both of them to the feast.
"We''ll be there in a minute," Michael told the maid waiting outside and pulled Eve by her hand on the way to the door.
"Does Filvendor know about the curses?" Eve stammered, failing to believe Filvendor had betrayed her. Of course, she shouldn''t believe Ghost, but Eve''s heart trusted Ghost more than Filvendor.
"I don''t know, but if i have to guess, I''d say yes," Michael didn''t sugarcoat but told Eve what he felt. For him, it was too hard to believe a guy who truly loves a girl left her just like that because she can''t break through to the next level. If he had truly loved her, he would have tried to find a way or atleast spent time with her until her time came. Atleast, that''s what he would have done.
"Where is he now?" Gaya asked Eve while opening the door.
"Lord Julien said he was in Mazeroth?" Michael raised his one brow,
"Is it Eve?" asked Gaya as Eve took a few minutes of time before slowly nodding. It was evident to Michael and Gaya that Eve was deep in thought. How can she not after Michael had revealed the truth to her? As far as Michael was concerned, Eve handled the news pretty well.
"I heard the Filvendor somewhere in Mazeroth. Anyways, until I break the curses, I won''t break his bones,"
"What are you talking about?" Eve creased her brows, wiping off the tears from her face.
"Okay, I won''t do anything to him," Michael shrugged, but Eve didn''t believe him, not even for a second.
"Master Ghost, Miss Aelia, Lady Eve," maids standing a few meters away in the corridor greeted them. Then, the maids led the three to the great hall where Lord Julien and Ingrid had prepared avish feast for Michael and Gaya.
Chapter 602: Asking for the cure recipe
Michael followed the maids to the feast hall. The metallic lock rattled against the door when the maids opened the dark wooden doors. He couldn''t help but grin when he saw the feast just for him. The hall had several long oak tables filled with food, mainly meat and freshly baked loaves of bread. In this world, most of the grand halls had the same arrangements. Long tables with a space leading to stairs to reach the elevated tforms where the prominent figure dined in behind engraved oak tables set facing the grand hall.
As soon as Michael entered the hall, the chit-chattering silenced a bit while Michael gestured at them to continue. Usually, there would be barrels of ale for everyone to treat themselves, but the ale storage was destroyed in the battle against the Rottgards. Due to that, they only had fruit juice and water. Good thing they didn''t have any dwarves among them. Otherwise, the short-beared bastards would have caused a riot just because there was no ale.
The servants and guards in the hall were grateful to eat at all. They almost died and now had the chance to eat. Somehow the near-death experience caused them to appreciate the little things in life, even eating a loaf of bread. The cultivators in Awor didn''t give much importance to eating. Instead, they revitalized their bodies with Arch energy which was abundant in the atmosphere, unlike on any other continent. When Michael climbed a couple of wooden stairs leading to the oak tables, Lord Julien and Lady Ingrid weed him with a warm grin.
"Lord Julien, Lady Ingrid," Michael and Gaya nodded as Lord Julien looked a little bit uneasy, seeing Michael with Eve. After greeting the lord and thedy, Michael took the seat beside Lord Julien as Eve took the seat between Ingrid and Jennifer. Aside from the core Voldigard family, the three Soul Refininers sat on the far left side of the long table. But, of course, Michael didn''t fail to greet them with a friendly smile.
"Mariana," Lady Ingrid pped once, calling the blonde-haired girl with bunny ears and a bushy fox tail. The girl''s silver hair shone under the glistening chandelier and the golden light emanating from the candles.
Seeing the girling to him with a jade bottle, Michael paused her.
"I''ll take any fruit juice you have,"
"Yes, Master Ghost," the girl meekly spoke before running back to the kitchen through the door at the end of the long table. Meanwhile, Michael picked up a honey-zed turkey leg, a vegetable sd dressed with white yogurt, and mashed tapioca using the wooden spoons and forks. Self-serving was still a new thing in this world, so when a prominent figure like Michael served himself without waiting for a maid raised a few eyes brows, including Ingrid''s. The few eyebrows became many eyebrows when he served Gaya himself.
"So, Miss Jennifer, how''s Lord Hendrix doing?" Michael asked Jennifer, who was still in shock at everything that had happened. Although the cure healed her body, the gue did have some effects on the mind.
"Thest time I heard, he went to Namlodar," Jennifer replied in a small voice only loud enough for them to hear.
"It''s the dwarven kingdom," Gaya whispered into his ear. Unfortunately, Lord Information''s book only contained rumors and information about Elon and Ozer. So when ites to Awor, Michael had no idea about the kingdoms, noble families in the powery, or ces of interest.
"Dwarven king huh? I wonder what Lord Hendrix''s business with the dwarves?" Michael asked while cutting the perfectly cooked flesh of the turkey.
"Maybe something to do with the winter," Lord Julien said to ease the tension between him, Eve, and Ghost.
Now that Michael heard Lord Julius, he remembered currently they are in the autumn and winter was just around the corner. He was too busy killing vampires and traveling to other universes to notice the season change. Despite the arch energy and cultivation, the seasons still had their effects on the world. For instance, farnds couldn''t be cultivated during the winter, and it resulted in a huge dive in restaurant businesses. It was a huge setback to Michael when he thought of opening another Hades branch in Awor.
Surprisingly, with the exception of the Southern continent, the rest shared the same seasonal cycle. Thus, if Awor had winter, Ozer and Elon would too.
"What''s the n for winter, Lord Julien?" Michael asked Lord Julien. Gaya avoided eye contact with Lord Julien because she still felt furious about what Lord Julien tried to ask Michael. From her point of view, after everything they had done, Lord Julien had the audacity to ask Michael to leave Eve after everything they had done.
However, Michael didn''t hold a grudge against Lord Julien. In fact, Michael understood Lord Julien and sympathized with him. If Lord Julien bore any ill against him and felt no gratitude, he would have run as soon as the Fusion Stage reaper showed up. Instead of leaving Ghost behind, Lord Julien stepped in to fight with him. Michael couldn''t hold any grudge against a man like him.
Seeing the light smile on Ghost''s face calmed Lord Julien. A few months ago, Michael wouldn''t have dared to challenge a Fusion Stage cultivator. However, at that moment, he sat beside one, and the one who feared Michael was another Fusion Stage cultivator.
"Meeting the allies and cutting off our loses," Lord Julien sighed. Honestly speaking, Lord Julien didn''t have a tiny bit of appetite. All he could ever think was Eve and how he would survive in Thera with no Fusion Stage protectors. Lady Ingrid wanted to talk about producing more cures but ultimately chose not to speak a word. After all, the cure solely belonged to Master Ghost, and they had no right to ask him for cures for all the citizens of Yaserius. Their first priority should be survival before taking care of Yaserius. Michael and Gaya may have taken out Rottgard, but there were still two families in Yaserious. Among the two, one was an ally, and the other remained neutral with House Voldigard. But the dynamics were sure to change as soon as the news that Voldigards have no Fusion stage protectors got out.
Everyone at the table had their own thoughts running in their minds. Still, they all managed to put up a smiling face for the sake of the servants and the soldiers. If they showed any weakness, the rest would surely lose morale, and it would only lead them to either deserting House Voldigard to join another or simply leave them. At this point, they couldn''t afford to lose more people.
"I have no right to tell you how to run your house, but getting the king''s protection won''t be a bad idea," Michael stated, chewing the tender flesh of the turkey in his mouth.
"Oh please, Master GHost, you literally saved us. So I grant you all the rights to speak your mind," Lord Julien replied.
Just as Julien was about to continue, the girl who went to the kitchen returned with another ss bottle filled with orange juice. She poured the juice into Michael and Gaya''s ss with utmost caution.
"Thank you, that''d be enough," Michael raised his hand, telling her to stop. The girl swallowed the lump in her throat and joined the group of beastmen maids on the corner.
"Eve, you alright?" Lady Ingrid''s motherly instincts kicked in as she ced her hand on Eve''s shoulder. Eve was not as talkative as Jennifer but seeing Eve hasn''t spoken a word since she came to the table was not at all like Eve. Ingrid could see the fright in Eve''s eyes as clear as day.
"Nothing. Just feeling a bit tired," Ingrid saw Eve''s left eye twitching a bit. It was apparent to Ingrid Eve was lying because every time Eve lied, her left eye would twitch.
"Hmm," Ingrid chose not to question Eve more in a ce surrounded by people.
"Master Ghost," To Michael''s surprise, Jennifer called Michael, leaning forward to see Michael more clearly. He turned his gaze towards Jennifer,
"The cures, is there any chance you will teach me how to brew it?" Not only Michael but everyone at the table was bewildered by her question. As an alchemist, she simply shouldn''t have asked another alchemist to share the recipe with her. Looking at everyone''s gaze falling on her, Jennifer hunched her shoulder to make her smaller a bit.
Before answering Jennifer, Michael took a small sip of orange juice and smiled.
"Correct me if I am wrong, but you have an intention to give the cure to everyone in Thera right? For free,"
Jennifer didn''t answer Mciahel immediately, but her silence spoke a volume and answered Michael''s question.
"I am good but not a saint Miss Jennifer. I did what I did only for Eve," Michael calmly spoke, showing no anger in his voice. If Jennifer had asked Gabriel or any other alchemists to reveal their recipe, they would have thrown her out. However, one couldn''t me Jennifer entirely as she recently met a young man who taught her how to revive dead crops without asking for a single coin. Jennifer insisted the young man take something from her space ring, but he simply refused. The potion recipe the young man gave her would have fetched him millions if he sold it in a market. Every year, the farmers in Thera lost half of the crops or sometimes all the crops to a blight called ck mist. Even the dark elves, who were masters of nature couldn''t do anything to avoid losing their crops to the ck mist.
As the name suggested, the ck mist appeared in the form of a dark, gloomy mist, especially above the ripped crops waiting to be harvested. Even if the farmers were considerably richer than the farms on the other continents, they were still farmers who relied on crops. So losing half or full harvest was devastating to them. Jennifer, a disciple of Abraxia, one of the best academics for alchemists, wanted to find a solution to the ck mist. In fact, she chose to find a solution to the ck mist as her project despite her professors advising her against it.
This was the reason for Jennifer''s visit to Nagnd, where she met the young man who miraculously showed her how to get rid of the ck mist. Although Jennifer had no ill feelings towards Ghost, that young man was undoubtedly more benevolent and kind than Ghost.
Chapter 603: Death of a Subordinate
Chapter 603: Death of a SubordinateDeath of a Subordinate
"I am not taking a dig at privileged kids, but life wasn''t easy for everyone," Michael took another sip and said casually.
"Some of us had to w our way up, Miss Jennifer. So after reaching the top, we won''t have the same kindness andpassion as you. We simply lose those feelings and put a price on everything. After all, we haven''t experienced any kindness orpassion," Michael said, smiling.
"However," Michael took a long sip and ced the empty cup on the table again,
"I am not a monster either. I already made a deal with Aqua Pce. I am to distribute the cures through them starting from next week," said Michael.
"Next week?" Jennifer creased her brows but chose not to say anything.
Upon finishing the feast, the servants left the grand hall after bowing to them. They were fortunate to work for the Voldigard family. Otherwise, they wouldn''t have received extra cures for their family members. After everyone left the grand hall, Michael went directly to his room and began to brew the cures in silence. On the other hand, Gaya and Nightmare sat on the bed with their eyes closed to cultivate. After all, they had to take advantage of the thick arch energy in the atmosphere.
Michael ced his table facing the open window. He stared at the evening sky brewing the cure. A few hours passed in utter silence when Michael finished brewing almost threerge crates of cures. Since there was a possibility of a reapering to assassinate him, Michael remained vignt. Before starting again to brew potions, Michael removed the broken APD and fixed it quickly. The vampire made a number to the APD while in the Shadow Realm.
If he hadn''t repaired the APD now, problems might ariseter. Thus, Michael fixed it under the light of candles. Although they had chandeliers, Michael enjoyed the darkness. His next goal was to brew enough potions to cure five hundred people. It was indeed a small number, but brewing more would take time. Fortunately, Michael had nothing to do for a week. At Least that was what he thought until his visionpletely turned red with the system''s notifications.
[WARNING!]
[Subordinate Heinberg is dead]
[The host has lost 50,000 badass points]
Michael clenched his fist when his vision was blocked by pulsating crimson red warning boxes in front of his eyes. He couldn''t believe what he had just heard. The system did not only reduce 50,000 badass points but gave him a massive headache like someone''s been hitting his head with a sledgehammer. But neither the headache nor the badass points disturbed Michael. Rather, it was the notification.
"What the fuck?" Michael furrowed his brows as he tried to contact Maxine.
"My Lord,"
"Where is H?" Michael asked, gazing at the gloomy city under the night sky.
"He went to the peace talk with General Quintus. Tiberius went with them. Is something wrong, my lord?" Maxine''s voice turned grave.
"Where?" Instead of giving Maxine a direct answer, Michael asked where they went to hold the peace talks. If anything, the system couldn''t be wrong, and if it said Heinberg had died, then it must be true. The question was how and who killed Heinberg. But after hearing Maxine, Michael could answer his own question.
"In the abandoned castle in the hissing wood,"
Michael ignored the rhythmic clicking sounds produced by the undead harvesting the arch energy crystals with pick axes.
"Where are you at?" Michael asked Maxine as Gaya''s eyes twitched.
"In the stormville mountain, my lord,"
"I''ll be there in a minute. Get ready to move out," Michael cut the connection without saying anything further. Afterward, Michael quickly closed the windows as well as the curtains. The room lost all the light, and the darkness took hold of the room. With a simple wave of his hand, Michael snuffed out the light from the candles and chandeliers. When the room fell pitch ck, Michael''s eyes glistened like rubies.
"Stay here," Michael told Gaya a second before he vanished from the room.
Maxine dropped the pickaxe in her hand. Feeling ufortable because of the graveness in the Dark Lord''s voice, Maxine flicked her wrist. In the next second, a skull mask and ck robes materialized in her hand. She quickly ced the mask on her face and put on the dark robes above the dusty brown tunics. A cold breeze brushed past her back as Maxine felt a terrifying yet familiar presence. Maxine didn''t need to turn around to tell that the man standing behind her was the Dark Lord.
''
But unusually, the glistening blue crystals flickered, and the dark caves became darker. There was also a coldness in the air that sent shivers through her spine. She had never felt such a presence from the Dark Lord before. Coupled with the Dark Lord''s questions about Heinberg and where he went, Maxine had a sickening feeling in her gut.
"No time for pleasantries. Lead me to Heinberg now," Michael said.
Before Maxine could reply, Michael grabbed Maxine by her shoulder, casting the lightning dash. Michael only wanted Maxine to show him the way. He had no need for a backup, especially when one of his subordinates had died a few moments ago. This was the first time Michael lost a subordinate. Though he remained calm, Michael wanted to rip whoever killed Heinberg into shreds. It took so much effort to make each and every subordinate loyal to him. Thest time Michael checked, Heinberg was on his way to bingpletely loyal to Michael. Every single subordinate was the cream of the crop, hand-picked by Michael and Gaya. So losing one of them really stung Michael.
Considering Michael pushed himself to the limit, his speed was to the point everything looked blurry.
"I shouldn''t have taken Azazel away from the surveince room," Michael med himself for making such an amateur mistake. Though all his subordinates had Spyders that functioned as neck cameras, they were useless without Azazel to monitor them and inform Michael that something went wrong. Since Michael took Azazel with him to Awor, there was no one to watch the feed. He would have put Vedora on the job if they didn''t go into seclusion to cultivate. Such a bad time to go into seclusion. Still, Michael had no way of foreseeing the future. He knew there was no way he could have predicted Heinberg''s death.
After thirty minutes of flying at a speed closer to the speed of sound, Maxine stopped him. She pointed at a worn-out castle tower protruding out of the thick canopy. Michael''s eyes quickly adjusted themselves to the darkness. Upon flying closer to the castle, he activated his thermal vision to see if there were any life signs inside the castle. Except for veins and roots coiling around the ruined tower, nothing upied the castle.
"System, teleport Maxine back to the Stormville mountain,"
The runic teleportation immediately teleported Maxine back to Stormville mountain. Afterward, Michael slowly flew towards the broken castle. Only the tower was visible to Michael. The rest was covered entirely by the canopy. He entered the castle through the opening where a huge bell used to be.
"Azazel," Michael contacted Azazel while descending towards the throne hall.
"My Lord," answered Azazel.
"Return to the dark forest and tell me where Tiberius is,"
"As you wish, my lord,"
Uponnding on the oncevish throne hall, Michael saw therge roots and veins running chaotically throughout the hall. However, there was a stone table in the center that was spared by nature. With a wave of his hand, Michael conjured the alchemy mes, vanquishing the darkness with the jade light. As he got closer to the square stone table, fresh blood glistened under the jade light.
Michael furrowed his brows, looking at the puddle of blood on the other side of the stone table. He squatted down beside the blood and touched it with his hand.
"Still warm," Michael felt the slight warmth from the blood. However, he couldn''t be optimistic. The ground had absorbed most of the blood, but still, there were at least three liters of blood in the puddle. No way a person could survive after losing that much blood. The question in Michael''s mind was whether the blood belonged to Tiberius or Heinberg.
Michael stood up to investigate the scene until Azazel contacted him again. While floating around the table, Michael noticed two sets of footsteps on either side of the table. He closed his eyes, picturizing the scene. In his mind, he could see Tiberius and Heinberg sitting on one side of the table and five people on the other. ording to the footsteps'' depth, Michael could tell whoever it was, they all wore heavy armor.
"Quintus, were you here?" Michael asked himself, slowly opening his eyes.
"Why did those idiotse here alone?" Michael muttered under his breath.
Apparently, the peace talk was just a facade to kill Heinberg and Tiberius. If General Quintus had Heinberg killed, he didn''t want anyone to find Heinberg''s body. Besides, he may have taken Tiberius too because no footsteps were leading to any of the broken windows or copsed walls. Knowing Tiberius and his skills, it would be challenging for Quintus''s men to take Tiberius alive without a fight.
"How did they ambush them?" Michael saw no signs of footsteps in the blood puddle. So Michael looked upwards and flew towards the ceiling. To his surprise, Michael saw w marks on the ceiling straight above the table. He looked deep to see if he could see more caw marks, but he only found four. The pattern and distance between each w mark told Michael that a person wearing sharp ws was sticking to the ceiling like a gecko.
Michael looked down,
"When the time came, he dropped to the ground and probably cut Heinberg''s throat. The sudden turn of events must have caught Tiberius off guard," Michael concluded. To learn how Tiberius went down, he needed more evidence, but luckily, his investigation came to an end when Azazel contacted him through the earpiece.
"My Lord. I found Lord Tiberius. He''s been tortured by someone in a dark room as we speak,"
Chapter 604: Turning the tables
Chapter 604: Turning the tablesMeanwhile, in a dark room dimly lit with torches, Tiberius was hanging from the ceiling with his hands and legs bound by metal chains. His entire body was riddled with cuts and bruises. Heinberg''s bodyy on the ground beside Tiberius. His throat was slit from one end to another. Whoever killed him made sure Heinberg had no chance of healing at all. The cut''s deepness was to the point they almost cleaved his head off.
"Arggh," Tiberius growled as blood oozed out of the cut on his left cheek. Despite the torture, the fire of anger burned bright in Tiberius''s eyes. In addition to the anger, he grinned, revealing blood-stained teeth.
"You have no idea who you''re dealing with here," Tiberius said, looking at the darkness. After Tiberius growled and spat the blood in his mouth, three figures walked out of the darkness. The man who walked forward with a devilish grin on his face was General Quintus The armor itself consisted of broad ferrous strips fastened to internal leather straps. The strips were arranged horizontally on the body, ovepping downwards. They surrounded the torso in two halves, being attached at the front and back by means of brass hooks, which were joined by leatherces. Tiberius saw Quintus grin before handing over the golden spartan helmet with dark blue plumes.
He had golden hair styled to resemble the caesar cut on earth. The two soldiers behind Quintus stood almost seven feet, wearing heavy armor from head to toe. The armor exposed not a single ce in their body. After handing over the helmet to the heavily armored soldier to his right, Quintus unsheathed the bloody dagger he used to cut Tiberius.
"Are you talking about the Pirate Captain who could use magic or the ck one who controls the senate of Maven and Gisel from the shadows?"
"Both are the same, you moron," Tiberius snickered. He didn''t show a single sign of fear to Quintus or the dagger, no matter how many times Quintus cut him up. Upon hearing Tiberius, Quintus didn''t look surprised. As a matter of fact, Quintus knew the ck one and the Pirate captain who could use magic were the same. After the ck killed Pirate Lord Vance, the news about the ck one spread throughout the continent like wildfire. At this point, there was not a single person who didn''t know about the ck one. Even the three kings of the southern continent had formed a secret alliance to fight the ck one in case he tried to invade them.
The alliance extended its arms to Kingdom Miral. They believed Miral might be thest senate-ruled kingdom that was not under the control of the ck one. Normally, the three kings wouldn''t meddle with the senate-ruled kingdoms. However, after the ck one annexed the pirates, they put aside their differences to join forces. They believed their kingdoms weren''t far away from being invaded by the ck one. So Miral dered war on Prerid to lure the ck one out of the shadows. Simply put, the most powerful kingdoms in the Southern continent joined forces to fight the ck one. The peace talks were just a facade to take out the ck one''s subordinates so the alliance could learn more about the ck one.
"It''s a bad move to kill him," Tiberius spat yet again as Quintus moved closer to Tiberius.
"Why was that?" asked Quintus.
"He knows him more than me. He would have told you more about him. Arghhh," Tiberius growled as Quintus slowly ran the dagger across Tiberius''s ribcage. General Quintus enjoyed inflicting pain. Seeing people suffer and cry in agony gave him a sense of pleasure that even the most beautiful women at night couldn''t. To be honest, General Quintus wasn''t as patriotic to Miral as everyone thought. He simply enjoyed the pain and suffering war brought on people.
"How many of you are working for this ck one?" Quintus calmly asked and slowly licked the blood from the dagger.
"Six or seven," Tiberius said, gritting his teeth to fight the pain.
"Names," Quintus asked.
"We don''t use names, just numbers," Tiberius just lied instead of revealing the names. He wanted to buy time until the Dark Lord or the Dark Queens found him.
Before Quintus and his men hung him on the chains, they ripped off his shirt and pendant and threw them into the room''s dark corner. That''s when Tiberius saw the pendant glimmer twice. He remembered Maxine giving Tiberius the silver pendant and telling him it might save his life someday. Tiberius believed that day might be today. Until someonees to his rescue, Tiberius wants to stall Quintus. However, something told Tiberius that Quintus wasn''t too interested in extracting information from him. Instead, Quintus focused on torturing Tiberius.
"Then let me enlighten you. Maxine, Corey, Gibson, Shorty, and Senator Caius," Quintus surprised Tiberius.
"Your employer shouldn''t trust the pirates. A couple of girls and a mug of ale, those filthy pirates started to sing everything they knew about the ck one," said Quintus, ridiculing the pirates in the process.
"Not everything," Tiberius snickered.
"He''s not called the ck one. That''s just how he dresses,"
As he talked, Tiberius saw a glimmer behind Quintus once again. Seeing the glimmer, Tiberius sighed in relief. The two armored guards and Quintus might be deadly warriors, but they were nothing in front of the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen. Either of them could kill Quintus and his guards with a single spell. Tiberius started to roll his eyes around as though he was searching for the assassin who jumped on them at the abandoned castle. Despite Tiberius and Heniber being highly trained warriors, the assassin slit Heinberg''s throat and knocked out Tiberius in a blink of an eye.
"Then what do you call him?" Quintus asked somewhat, looking amused by Tiberius''s answers.
"The Dark Lord," Tiberius snarled and waited for Quintus to cut him again. However, Quintus surprised Tiberius by turning around and leaving the room. After Quintus left the room, the two heavily armored soldiers gawked at Tiberius.
"GRRRR!"
"HRRGGHH!"
The two soldiers growled at Michael like they were some kind of beasts. Tiberius even saw a puff of smokeing through the two holes in their helmets. Tiberius yanked the chains seeing the two slowly stepping towards him.
"This is a good time for you to show up Dark Lord," Tiberius kept tanking the chains as the two monstrous soldiers approached him. The torches flickered just as they were about to grab Tiberius''s head. The soldiers halted their steps to look around the torches flickering. Suddenly, the dim light radiated by the torches gotpletely snuffed out. As a result, the roompletely fell into darkness.
"GRRRR!" One soldier roared as Tiberius heard the sound of metal nking. A few momentster, the soldier lit a match stick to see what was happening around them. But as soon as he lit the match stick, Tiberius saw the Dark Lord standing behind the two soldiers.
"GRRRRR!" The matchstick quickly lost its me as the room became dark once again.
Pulch!
Pulch!
Tiberius couldn''t see anything but heard muffled ground followed by heavy thuds as though something heavy fell onto the ground. Afterward, Tiberius didn''t hear a single sound. He yanked his chains in the darkness. A few momentster, the torches slowly started to burn again, lighting the room with dim orange light. As expected, Tiberius saw the Dark Lord standing before him between the two dead bodies. The two monstrous soldiers'' legs were still twitching. Still, there was no way they could survive because Tiberius saw no heads attached to their shoulders.
"Heinberg," before cutting Tiberius down, Michael turned his gaze to Heinberg''s body. When Michael first wanted to turn Heinberg into his subordinate, the system didn''t let him. The system said Michael couldn''t force someone to be his subordinate. Still, Michael made Heinberg work for him using fear. It almost took Michael four months to raise Heniber''s loyalty to the point the system epted him as a subordinate. But all those efforts and future ns for Heniber went into the drain.
Michael squatted beside Heinberg, conjuring an orb of jade mes to see Heinberg''s face. His eyes were still open and contained a tinge of shock.
"Rest in peace," Michael closed his eyes before looking at the long cut across his throat.
Unlike a loyal subordinate, he could earn 50,000 badass points in a snap. So whoever killed Heinberg just signed their death warrant. Looking at Heinberg''s body, he could only sigh. Even the system had no power to bring death back to life at its current level.
"Dark Lord," Tiberius yanked the chains again as Michael stood up. With a single flick of his wrist, Michael sent a wind de to cut through the chain.
Thud!
Tiberius fell to the ground and growled in pain. Upon seeing the cuts and wounds on Tiberius''s body, Michael then threw a healing potion toward him. He could tell General Quintus took his sweet time gutting Tiberius like a pig. So Michael wondered how Quinuts would feel to be at Tiberius''s ce for a change.
"Take his body and follow me," Michael ordered Tiberius, who quickly emptied the healing potion into his mouth. The healing potion closed all the cuts in Tiberius''s body. Tiberius immediately felt refreshed and revitalized. So he slowly stood up and walked to Heinberg''s body.
Michael was about to reach the door when he halted his steps. He then turned around to see Tiberius following him, carrying Heinberg''s body in his arms.
"Was it General Quintus?" Michael asked in his demonic voice, which sounded colder than usual.
"He tortured me, but he didn''t kill Heinberg. It was someone else," At this point, Michael essed the feed recorded by Tiberius''s ne Spyder and watched everything. The assassin who killed Tiberius possessed inhuman speed. He was either a highly trained assassin to even match Michael''s skills or enhanced by some means. Otherwise, he couldn''t have killed Heinberg and knocked out Tiberius in a blink of an eye. He was simply too fast.
"Wait for me," Michael said before willing the system to teleport Tiberius to the dark forest. Afterward, Michael opened the door to see where they were. If he had any luck, he might meet General Quintus. But it was doubtful since Michael sensed no one around him.
Chapter 605: Ghost is the Dark Lord I
Chapter 605: Ghost is the Dark Lord I(Couple of hours earlier)
Mutrad, who Tanulia met at Peyton''s funeral, descended onto a frontwn of avish manor in Kingdom Maeryn''s border. The manor was a single property built on ten acres of grass field and vineyard. No one in the area as far as one could see. Despite Mutrad''s status in House Halrid, he arrived at the manor alone with no guards whatsoever. The guardians offered Mutrad the manor as a base of operation where Halrid would take on the task of finding the Dark Lord.
From the outside, the manor lookedvish. It had been built with gray stones and had mahogany wooden decorations. Tall, rounded windows let in plenty of light and added to the house in a very asymmetric way. The building itself was square-shaped with half surrounded by cloth sunscreens. The second floor was the same size as the first, but part of it hung over the edge of the floor below, creating an overhang on one side and a balcony on the other. This floor had roughly the same style as the floor below.
The roof was high, rounded, and covered with wood shingles. Two small chimneys sit at the side of the house. A fewrge windows let in just enough light to the rooms below the roof. Mutrad finallynded on the modest frontwn, covered mostly in grass, a few flower patches, and a small pond. He looked at the clouds-filled sky and the snowkes showering down upon him.
He dusted off the snowkes off of his dark brown robes and his sky blue hair before making his way to the front door. No one was there to wee Mutrad when he opened the door except a lone pathway to the hall. Mutrad closed the door behind him and walked to the hall where Mutrad saw three white-robed youngsters waiting for him. The chandelier above let out bright white light to illuminate the empty halls as well as the whiteboard. The youngsters stood up from the sofas to greet Mutrad.
"Lord Mutrad,"
"Lord Mutrad,"
"Lord Mutrad,"
The three of them greeted Mutrad, but Mutrad just nodded without showing any signs of friendliness.
"Remove your hoods and introduce yourselves," Mutrad said. He then turned around and waved his hand as a whiteboard familiar to the trio materialized before their eyes. They took a moment to see the contents on the whiteboard but soon, they removed their hoods to reveal their faces. Among the three, one was a golden-haired young woman and the other two were young men.
"I was told there are four people in Operation New Dawn," The youngsters were surprised that Mutrad knew about a secret operation led by Peyton. But again, they were told Mutrad would take over the task to find the Dark Lord from the Guardians after their spectacr failure, which cost the Guardians one of their powerful warships and headquarters in Elon.
Moreover, the Guardians were still trying to navigate away from the storm created by the Dark Lord by exposing the guardians'' connection with the vampires. Many noble families, as well as royal families, expressed their discontent. Themoners med the guardians for not letting the world know about the vampires. Not that anyone could stop the vampires, but they all hated to be the blindside.
Due to these reasons, the higher-ups in the Guardian Guild chose to hand over handling the Dark Lord to House Halrid, not that the Guardians had any choice in the matter. Unless they wanted a full-on war with the Sea Folks, they had to give up the case to Mutrad.
"Go on," Mutrad said while looking at the paper clippings and the pictures on the whiteboard. He didn''t bother to turn around because, as far as Mutrad was concerned, the Guardians werezy, corrupted morons who couldn''t do their job correctly.
"Tell me your names, cultivation level, and the target assigned to you by Peyton," Mutrad stood there with his hands folded.
"I am Cassandra Perito. I recently reached Core Formation level 6, and my targets were Marco and Filippo. Both are rogue cultivators," said the blonde.
Following the blonde, the red-haired young man began to introduce himself to Mutrad,
"I am Tomas Bell, Core Formation level 9. I got Hudson, Lucas, and Calypso as my targets. Hudson is a disciple of Golden Valley, Lucas and Calypso are rogue cultivators,"
"Hmm," Mutrad rubbed his chin as thest one stepped forward,
"Name is Lado Sichinava. Core Formation level 8. Rogue cultivators dimir and Petro were my targets,"
After the three introduced themselves, Mutrad turned around. For a moment, Mutrad stared curiously at the three of them.
"Do any of you know where Connors is?" asked Mutrad, although he knew the answer to his question.
"No answer?" Mutrad asked, looking at the three staring at each other, expecting the other to say something.
"Do you know who his target was?" Mutrad asked, tilting his head. Considering the three of them were told to give their full cooperation to Mutrad whether they liked it or not, the girl didn''t hide what she knew. She and Connors used to date at the time when Peyton put together a team for the operation new dawn. Although she and Connors broke up due to some differences, he revealed his targets to her.
"Ghost,"
To their surprise, Mutrad grinned upon hearing Cassandra. He slowly walked towards the trio and looked them in their eyes,
"Connors is dead," said Mutrad nonchntly. Cassandra looked at the smiling Mutrad. When she locked eyes with him, she averted her gaze. She was afraid her rtionship with Connors might be a hurdle to her rise in the Guardian Guild. Connor''s death didn''t affect her as much as the thought of being stuck at the bottom without any promotions.
The eyes of the three were on Mutrad to see what he was about to tell next. Instead, Mutrad turned around,
"Ghost," Mutrad ced Michael''s picture beside Gaya''s. Afterward, Mutrad snapped his finger, taking a quill from his space ring. He started to put a cross on every one of their targets except Michael and Gaya. The trio had questions about why Mutrad crossed off the others but chose not to until he turned around again. When he did, Cassandra was the first one to raise a question,
"Lord Mutrad, why did you cross them off the board?" asked Cassandra.
"They are dead," Mutrad simply said like it was a simple thing. Some of the targets were Soul Refiners. Still, Mutrad said they are dead. The trio wondered what could have killed them. However, soon they received a shocking answer from Mutrad.
"Someone put a bounty on their heads. As a result, they were hunted down. Except these two," Mutrad pointed at Gaya and Ghost,
"I have another suspect who could be the Dark Lord or rted to him," Mutrad stunned everyone by sticking Noah''s picture on the board.
"Noah Winston!?" The trio was stunned. Noah was the rising star of the Guardian Guild. Not only that, but he was also the youngest to sit on the Guardian Captain''s chair.
Saying Noah was an assant to the Dark Lord or worse, saying he was the Dark Lord, was nothing short of sphemy. Mutrad had no right to use Noah of such a heinous crime.
"What do you know about Ghost before hees to the river town? Nothing. He just appeared one day right?" Mutrad asked as his gaze swept across them.
"The Dark Lord appears exactly five months after he arrived," Mutrad said.
"A monthter, Jane Totonk had a quarrel with him, and two weekster, she was killed and hanged from her own home. At the same time, there were also several victims, but they all died within Elon. Especially, within a day of flying distance from Rivertown. ording to my sources, he went from a Body Refining stage cultivator to a Fusion Stage cultivator in just neen months. Not even humankind''s best of the bests have such monstrous cultivation speed. That''s just the fact one," Mutrad began to walk left and right with his hands behind his back.
"Second fact. Connors went missing when he was tasked to deal with a senator in the southern continent. At the same time, a pirate captain dressed in ck who could wield magic inside the void line appeared. Connor wasst seen when he visited Senator Vibius. Coincidently, Senator Vibius left the kingdom at the same time Connors went missing,"
The three of them heard rumors about someone who could use arch energy within the void line. At first, they thought it was just a ruse but after hearing from Mutrad, they didn''t think it was. Nheless, the piece of news startled them.
Mutrad had all the resources of House of Halrid at his disposal, along with the guardians'' records. Using both, it wasn''t tough to find everything about Connor. Although Peyton was on the right track to find the Dark Lord, she didn''t have the resources or authority like Mutrad to filter the suspect list effectively. After all, it cost Mutrad eighty million to put a bounty on all the suspects, including Michael. So, just to be safe, Mutrad requested the Grim Reapers to send Fusion stage reapers after the targets.
To Mutrad''s surprise, only one survived, Ghost.
"Connor''s soul suffered in agony in thest moments of his life. He was tortured brutally. Assume the magic wielder is the Dark Lord, and he was the one who kidnapped Connors. Why did he torture Connors? The Dark Lord took his time with Connors. Why?" Mutrad directed his gaze to the three of them.
Instead of asking Mutrad how did he know for sure that not only Connors is dead, but also he was tortured, the trio picked their brains to answer Mutrad. Deep down, they wanted to impress Mutrad so they could get a shot at a promotion. After all, they were hand-picked by Peyton because they were power-hungry and eager to impress their higher-ups.
"He must have done something to piss off the Dark Lord," said Tomas,
"Can it be because Connors killed someone the Dark Lord cherished?" asked Mutrad with an amused smile.
"It can be," answered Cassandra.
"Jack Neeriun. A disciple of the Sunrise sect who murdered by a mysterious bandit group near their sect. This is funny because there was no bandit camp near their sect at that time. Connors killed Jack, and as a result, he was tortured to death by the Dark Lord. All things being equal, the simplest is often the right one. The Dark Lord arrived after Ghost. Jane Totonk had a quarrel with Ghost and died. Connors, who killed Jack, disappeared and was tortured to death. Themon thing between all these is Ghost¡"
Chapter 606: Ghost is the Dark Lord II
Chapter 606: Ghost is the Dark Lord II"But Lord Mutrad, Ghost was in the Nether Realm when Jane was killed? He even took the truth pill and proved his innocence," Lado raised his thought,
"He didn''t kill doesn''t mean he was innocent. In the southern continent, the ck one is seen with a woman. And guess what? Ghost also has a fiance who didn''t go to the Nether Realm. She must have sneaked into Totonk manor and killed her," Mutrad exined.
"So you''re saying Ghost is the Dark Lord?" Cassandra asked.
"Yes," said Mutrad.
"Then what about Noah?" asked Tomas.
"There is a little chance Noah might be the Dark Lord. However, I am certain this guy has some sort of connection with the Dark Lord," Mutrad said. Although Mutrad didn''t have enough facts to connect Noah to the Dark Lord, his gut feeling said Noah was somehow rted to the Dark Lord. Now all he needed was to follow Ghost and prove him guilty. But he wasn''t going to chase down the Dark Lord as Tanulia did. The Dark Lord might be the trinkets criminal Mutrad had chased because all Mutrad had was theories, not evidence. Without solid evidence, he wouldn''t be able to deploy all the resources at his disposal. A small mistake could result in a cmity for the Arctic Hall.
Unlike the Guardians, the higher-ups of the House of Halrid warned everyone about the Dark Lord and the threat he posed to the entire world. As a result, Mutrad was strictly ordered to investigate with utmost caution.
"I chose to share everything because of the same reason why Peyton chose you in the first. You three are the most power-hungry humans in the guild. You want to prove you''re worth something. From now on, you three will work directly for me. As your reward for working for me, you will be ced directly under the ALpha guardian of your choice surpassing the position of Guardian Captain," The offer was beyond their expectation. Their eyes glistened, sparkling with excitement. Each of them would have done anything if Mutrad offered them a position of Guardian Captain, let alone a position under the Alpha Guardian of their choice. Being ced directly under an Alpha Guardian meant one thing, they could be the next Alpha Guardian one day.
"My sword is yours, Lord Mutrad," Cassandra was the first one to kneel down with her hands on her chest. Currently, Cassandra was tasked to monitor the nobles in Ozer which she considered a waste of time. She spent most of her time following nobles, watching them drink, harass people andmit all sorts of heinous crimes. Guardian Captain Gerard gave her some of the worst tasks in the guild instead of tasks that could solidify her chance to be a Guardian Captain. Since Cassandra wasn''t from a prominent noble family, she had to put up with Guardian Captain with the hope that someday her luck would turn. After hearing Mutrad, she had a feeling this was her way to get to the top of the hierarchy. Moreover, this wasn''t an off-the-books operation. Therefore, each of them must be given some sort of reward. And a man like Mutrad didn''t have a need to give them a fake promise.
"It''ll be an honor to work for you Lord Mutrad," Lado dropped to one knee and lowered his head like a loyal soldier. If someone made a list of the most racist people in the Guardian Guild, Lado would be in the top ten. He literally killed countless beastmen just because they weren''t humans. His family was one of the biggest ve traders in Ozer. Yet his racism went out of the window before a golden opportunity presented by Mutrad. He bent his knee to Mutrad, a Sea Folk, without a second of hesitation.
Unlike Cassandra, Lado didn''t hate the task given to him by Gerard. On the contrary, he loved his task of destroying goblin nests throughout Elon. Since his family was in the very business, he captured all the goblins along with any other nonhuman races and sold them to nobles for a hefty price. The weak goblins were the perfect recement for dummies to test spells and attacks. In fact, many nobles preferred live targets such as goblins and weak beast men over dummies.
His family supplied thousands of goblins and beast men every year. Of course, the guardians knew about this but didn''t care less about the goblins or the beast men.
If Lado could be the next Alpha guardian or even a Guardian Captain, he could use the connection and authority to send several teams just to capture nonhumans. In other words, he could treat the guardians like adventurers. The only difference was Lado wouldn''t have to pay the guardians.
"I am yours tomand, Lord Mutrad," finally, Tomas knelt down with his hand on his chest, like Cassandra. If Lado''s family profited by trading in ves, Tomas''s family was in the business of mining and real estate. Even as a low-level guardian, Tomas used his status to force hundreds ofmoners out of theirnds. If amoner decided to file aint against him or his family, they would simply disappear. Toman''s family-owned atleast one mine in every kingdom in Ozer. Suppose Toman became a Guardian Captain, his family would own almost all the mines. They would be also able to expand their business to Elon at that time finally.
Putting the three of them to catch the Dark Lord was ironic. The three of themmitted more crimes than The Dark Lord ever did.
"Good," Mutrad nodded. He knew the history of every single of them. To be honest, he couldn''t care less who they were and what they did. Instead, all he cared about was catching the Dark Lord and killing him once and for all.
"Rise," Mutrad said. He then turned around to look at the Ghost''s portrait on the whiteboard.
"The Guardians should have given Peyton more resources and protection. She almost cracked the case," Mutrad admired Peyton. He almost felt pity for Peyton. Given more time, resources, and protection, Mutrad had no doubt she would have proved Ghost as The Dark Lord.
"If she weren''t getting close to the Dark Lord, he would have let the guardians continue their goose chase. But, instead, he went to such lengths and took risks to kill Peyton and destroy Tanulia''s warship," calmly said Mutrad.
Just to be safe and create a controlled environment for his investigation, Mutrad hired reapers to kill everyone on the suspect list. The Reapers killed everyone except one, Ghost. Now that Mutrad picked Ghost as his target, he would dissect everything about Ghost. Several momentster, Mutrad turned around and issued his first orders to each of them.
"Cassandra, the Sunrise sect is hiring teachers. Get the job," Mutrad handed over a golden parchment to Cassandra.
He then turned his gaze to Lado,
"Get your family to be one of Ghost''s biggest customers of Majestic. When the timees, represent your family and meet him,"
"As you wish, my lord," Lado bowed.
"Tomas," Mutrad looked at Tomas,
"You''re to leave for the Southern continent and establish yourself as a pirate under Pirate Lord Corey. Take this," with a flick of his wrist, Mutrad took out another golden parchment from his space ring before handing it over to Tomans. Thetter opened it to see the map of Gisel and a cross,
"You will meet my contact there. He will give you all the necessary tools to survive,"
After issuing orders to them, Mutrad gazed at them.
"If you have any issue, you can back out now,"
As Mutrad expected, none of them dared to open their mouths.
"Remember, under no circumstances you''re to approach Ghost or the ck one in the southern continent. Thest time guardians underestimated him, he yed you for a fool, destroyed your headquarters, and killed one of your best," Unlike Tanulia, Mutrad didn''t dare to underestimate Ghost. Until Mutrad was sure Ghost had no way to escape, he wouldn''t make a move against him.
There were still too many things he didn''t know about Ghost. In fact, none of the guardians had any idea what he was capable of. Without knowing every aspect of his power, he wouldn''t be able to catch the Dark Lord.
"Moreover, if a single word of what I said went out, I will wipe you and your family out of this world. Trust me when I say this, I don''t make threats. I make promises," Mutrad''s voice became colder to the point the three of them felt shivers running through their spines. His eyes glimmered as they could see the murderous intent in Mutrad''s eyes. Because Elon and Ozer were still affected by Hydra''s cry, no one was able to see Mutrad''s cultivation level. They would be startled by his Fusion stage level 10 cultivation if they could.
"We wouldnt dare, Lord Mutrad," Cassandra sternly said.
"Now leave. Make sure no one follows you," Mutrad said and waved his hand as the whiteboard disappeared from the hall. Afterward, Mutrad left the manor before the three. He wanted to meet his elders and get their blessings in the crystal ocean before officially starting his case.
"Do you really think Ghost is the Dark Lord?" After Mutrad left the manor, Lado asked the other two.
"What he said made sense to me. But I didnt get why he feel Noah had something to do with the Dark Lord," Tomas answered.
"Whatever it is, I am pretty sure we will figure it out soon. I heard the seal folks are smarter than us. Now I know it''s true," Cassandra admired Mutrad.
"He has more resources and authority than Peyton or we ever had. Do you think Guardian Captain Gerard would let us do anything without a pile of paperwork and shit like that?" Ladoined.
"Speaking of Guardian Captain Gerard, rumor is that he stopped cultivating and starting to drink too much ever since Peyton died? What''s the story with that, huh?" Cassandra asked.
"Don''t you know? He was in love with Peyton. One of my servants saw both of them together in Ruby cuisine one day in Thusia," said Tomas.
"Oh shit. So he was in love with her. Now I know why he agreed to Peyton to start the off-the-book operation in the first ce. She was his sweetheart," chuckled Cassandra.
"That''s not all. After her death, he was drinking and ming Noah for her death at nightshade one day. I dont know the full story, but we can expect Gerard to go against Noah soon,"
Chapter 607: A Celestial Being
Chapter 607: A Celestial BeingA Celestial Being
Back in the shadow realm, the dark sky split open suddenly. A vortex appeared out of nowhere and swirled rapidly in the sky. This wasn''t anywhere close to where Michael was earlier. Instead, the vortex appeared on the other end of the dungeon, where the vampires and the skinless creatures emerged from the Queen''s homeworld. The walls had countless holes from where the skinless creatures crawled out to see the vortex in the sky.
"HIISSSSS!" the skinless creatures hissed at the vortex while the vampires materialized out of thin air. Unlike the vampires Michael fought, these were monstrous creatures. Each of them stood seven to eight feet tall, with shark-like teeth, and covered themselves with robes made of solidified blood. As soon as the skinless creatures noticed the vampires, they stopped hissing to kneel down.
Although the vampires had their faces covered, one could see a tinge of fear in their red eyes. For some reason, the vampires shuddered to look at the vortex. They could all feel a tremendous powering through the vortex.
"HE IS COMING!" Suddenly, the demonic voice of the queen resonated in the area. Her furious shout made the vampires drop to their knees. Afterward, a silhouette of a woman gradually formed near the vortex.
"THE QUEEN!"
"OUR GODDESS!"
The vampires raised their hands and prayed in their ownnguage at the silhouette. The ck smoke was almost finished forming the silhouette when a shock wave appeared from the vortex and sted away the silhouette.
"Woof!" After the silhouette faded into thin air, a loud bark echoed through the dungeon walls. As soon as the vampires heard the bark, they trembled. The bark contained enough force to melt down a few skinless creatures like wax statues.
"HISSSS!" The skinless creatures hissed violently as the vampires bore their teeth, revealing their long bloody fangs. They were all poised to attack whateveres out of the vortex. The amount of pressureing out of the vortex nearly crushed the skinless creatures and the vampires.
"So I am back to this hell hole?" Following the bark, a calm voice resonated from the vortex. The vampires and the skinless creatures took a step back, sensing the pulsing energy in the air. They even shivered. As they backed away, a figure dressed in ck stepped out of the vortex. As a result, the vortex gradually faded away. The figure who walked out of the vortex gazed at the skinless creatures and the vampires on the ground. Just like Michael, he was also dressed in full ck. However, the man''s armor had several metal tes around the shoulder and chest, giving him extra protection as well as adding elegance to the dark armor. In addition, he also wore a cape and a hood to cover his head.
"HISSSSS!" The skinless creatures roared, jumping up and down vigorously in anger. On the other hand, the vampires began to float.
Looking at the vampires approaching him, he slowly removed the dark hood covering his face. If Michael were here, he would be surprised or even startled to see him. He was none other than Michael''s fellow earthling, Hunter de. He was dealing with a group of traitors when the shadow realm sucked him from his castle. Considering Hunter had visited the Shadow realm couple of times, the shadow realm didn''t shock him much. Everything looked familiar to Hunter, even the vampires. Upon seeing the vampires, Hunter grinned. He had no fear whatsoever of the vampires. In fact, he looked amused to see the vampires approaching him, knowing nothing about the extent of his powers. This version of the Hunter visited the shadow realm once, so he was familiar with the setting and everything. The only question Hunter had was where he would go from the shadow realm this time. Thest time he visited the shadow realm to harvest experience points, Don''s universe sucked him in, and he almost wiped out Don''s enemies for him.
"True vampires," Hunter devilishly grinned at the vampires. In his universe, he came across the vampires a couple of times. In his world, he called these vampires True Vampires because they were pure breeds. They were born and grew up in the Queen''s world beforeing to the shadow realm.
"Is that queen bitch still around?" Hunter asked, folding his arms. He pretended to search for the queen.
"GRRRRRRHHH!" The vampires roared after they heard Hunter. Although theycked the ability tomunicate in the shadow realm, they could understand anynguage. Hence, they knew what Hunter had just said. Hearing him disrespect their queen made their blood boil. They didn''t even try to gauge Hunter''s power in their anger. Instead, they blindly dashed at him in the air.
"Stupid as always," Hunter snickered. Then, while the three true vampires were dashing at him, Hunter calmly flicked his wrist as a whip made of pure red energy materialized in his hand.
Whoosh!
Hunter just waved the whip in a circr shape, cleaving all their heads in a blink of an eye.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a level 85 Sentinal stage True Vampire. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a level 86 Sentinal stage True Vampire. The reward is 800,000 Experience points and 20,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a level 87 Sentinal stage True Vampire. The reward is 850,000 Experience points and 40,000 Badass points]
"So weak," Hunter disappointedly shook his head. The number of experience points he received was so underwhelming. But again, Hunter didn''t expect too much from the weaklings. To be honest, he almost wished he appeared in the darkest corners of the shadow realm where the most powerful beings under the queen''smand reside.
If they were all in Michael''s world, the True Vampires would be at Half Immortal stage, and Hunter would be at Celestial Stage. The Celestial stage was the highest stage one could have in the mortal world. After reaching the Celestial Stage, they would ascend to the upper realms. So suppose Hunter went to Michael''s world, there would be no one to stop him except the Skyhall. Even the Council of Immortals would be as weak as ants in front of Hunter at the moment.
After cleaving three heads, the energy whip radiated a low-pitched whistling sound. It craved more blood. For now, Hunter chose to ignore his weapon.
"System, why am I here? Find me a way out," Hunter ordered his system.
[The system requires three million badass points toplete the task]
"Take it," Hunter said like three million points were nothing to him. In fact, he was at the point he could earn three million badass points in a day. His criminal empire rewarded him with passive ie enough for him to literally do anything. But even then, Hunter craved more power and more points. After all, Hunter still had powerful enemies to deal with in his universe. Therefore,ing to the shadow realm was like a nice vacation for him.
"GRRRRHHH!" seeing the headless bodies hitting the ground, the six remaining true vampires roared.
"Where is that bitch anyways?" Hunter antagonized the true vampires once again to rile them up. Otherwise, they might use their brains and form a strategy to fight him. This way, they would be furious and jump straight into battle without any ns in their minds. As far as his experience with the true vampires went, they were not mindless idiots. Before he came up with a way to destroy them, the true vampires were one of the most formidable opponents in his world. Hunter may be powerful, but he never underestimated his enemies. That was how he survived to this date.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRR!" the true vampires stomped the ground and shot towards Hunter at the speed of a lightning sh. However, in Hunter''s perspective, they moved as slow as a sloth. This time, he flicked the whip''s hilt as the energy whip transformed into a scythe. The de glimmered in crimson red as though it was forged with ruby and the hilt looked metal ck. With the scythe in his hand, Hunter resembled a reaper.
Whoosh!
Hunter just swung the scythe, cutting the vampires in halves from their hips. The blood gushed out as six halves slowly fell to the ground. The vampires didnt even realize how they died.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a level 85 Sentinal stage True Vampire. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a level 86 Sentinal stage True Vampire. The reward is 800,000 Experience points and 20,000 Badass points]
¡.
Hunter ignored the system notifications ringing in his head. Instead, he looked down on the army of skinless creatures crawling out of their holes.
"Let''s have some fun," Hunter smirked as the scythe disappeared from his hand. Upon seeing the skinless creatures roaring and growling at him, Hunter simply snapped. Although it was a simple snap, the entire dungeon trembled violently. Afterward, a bright light appeared in the sky directly above them. The skinless creatures closed their eyes due to its brightness but soon, what started as an orb of light grew big enough to make Hunter look puny near it.
In a blink of an eye, Hunter created a meteor to drop it on the skinless creatures.
"At this point, I just feel pity for them," Hunter devilishly grinned, contrary to his words. The next moment, he snapped again as the meteor soared through the air andnded in the middle, creating a massive mushroom cloud. The impact could bepared to a mini nuclear bomb.
[The system haspleted its task. When the host is ready, the system can teleport the host out of the shadow realm]
"I am ready," Hunter didn''t even bother to stay in the shadow realm to see the skinless creatures burnt to ashes. Instead, he wanted to get out of here to see where he would go next.
"It would be nice to see Ghost again," hunter smirked as a bright light enveloped him.
Chapter 608: Hunter and Ghost meet again
Chapter 608: Hunter and Ghost meet againAfter the meteor hit the dungeon, everything within a fifteen-meter radius burnt to the crisp. Even the walls that stood the test against time for thousands of years crumbled down in a few moments. Seeing the huge crater on the ground, Hunter smiled with satisfaction. The light shrouded him for a couple of moments before fading away from the Shadow realm along with Hunter. When the bright light covering his vision disappeared, Hunter was hovering in the sky above a forest stretched far to the horizon.
The storm clouds grew darker by the second, indicating the approaching storm. The ominous sound of thunder ps and the howling wind pushed Hunter to find shelter before the storm. Hunter looked around to locate any viges or cities, yet there was nothing but green forest as far as he could see.
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[one of the queen''s generals has woken up by your presence]
[Utmost caution required]
Hunter creased his brows. Thest time Hunter fought a general, they destroyed an entire pocket dimension. He also entered aa state because the general damaged his soul and body a little bit too much. He would have died that day if it wasn''t for the system. Although he killed the general at the end of the day, Hunter didn''t want to go through a battle such as that again in a different universe where the energy rules may differ from his.
"Can you sense how powerful this general is?" Hunter asked.
[You have a 50% chance to defeat if you use all your powers] The system said. Unlike Michael''s system, which still had a tinge of mechanical sound, Hunter''s system soundedpletely like a serious woman.
"That means I have a 50% chance to die. Fuck that. It''s a problem for the people who live here," Hunter said. He was a man who wouldn''t do anything unless he could get something in return. He was building a criminal empire based on the sole principle. Fighting a general would not only give him nothing but also endanger his life. Besides, Hunter knew if he started a fight with a general, most probably every single powerhouse in this universe would arrive at the scene. At that time, his secret of being another worlder might be exposed.
[So you''re going to ignore the badass points and experience you would get by ying the general?] The system asked, almost sounding mad at Hunter for being overly cautious.
"Yes," Hunter simply said. He valued his life more than the badass and experience points. After all, no amount of points would save him if the general killed him.
Afterward, Hunter picked a random direction and flew in that direction. Hunter was flying in peace when his body trembled due to the sudden thunderous roar that resonated in the area. Even though he was in the air, his body shivered as though the roar had shaken the sky itself.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
"Fuck," Hunter cursed. Since he had fought a general before, he instantly recognized the roar.
"We have to find out why we are here as soon as possible," Hunter creased his brows. Every time the shadow realm sucked him out of his universe and spat him into another, he had toplete certain tasks. Even the system had no control over traversing throughout universes. Therefore, he knew that until he found out the reason why he was in this universe, he wouldn''t be able to return to his world.
He closed his eyes for a second as two majestic wings spread out from his back. The wings were enveloped in crimson red mes, almost making them look like they were made of fire. With a single p of his wings, he flew forward at speed closer to the speed of sound, leaving a fiery trail behind him in the sky. After flying for a couple of minutes, Hunter noticed a bolt of lightning shooting towards the sky from the ground.
"Hmm," Hunter rubbed his chin before pping his wings once again. Instead of flying away from Hunter, he noticed the golden lightning bolt approaching him. In a few blinks of an eye, Hunter and the lightning bolt met in mid-air.
"Hunter?" Hunter heard a familiar voice calling by his name. Soon, the lightning bolt turned into a ck-robed youngster.
"Ghost," Hunter grinned, looking at his fellow earthling. Gradually, the ming wings faded away out of existence.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Michael asked Hunter. After exiting the ruined castle, Michael stepped into the forest when he suddenly felt a strong surge of power in the distance. To his surprise, the system urged Michael to locate the power source. He was about to leave the castle when Michael heard the thunderous roar that made the castlepletely copse.
He followed the roar''s direction but never expected to find Hunter de in the middle of the sky in a million years. However, due to Michael''s recent visit to Hunter''s universe, he could tell this time, Hunter was the one who must have traveled to another universe.
"You tell me. The shadow realm sucked me from an important meeting and spat me here. And that shout I heard a moment ago, it''s fucking general of the queen,"
"Damn it," Hunter saw Ghost rubbing his temples. Hunter quickly tried to peek at how powerful Ghost was in his own universe, but surprisingly, Hunter was unable to see Ghost''s power level. So, as his next resort, he tried to summon the system, only to realize the system had entered into an offline state for some reason.
"You''ve gone offline now? Fuck you system," Hunter cursed inside.
"Why do I have this feeling your appearance is somehow connected to the hydra waking up?" Michael asked Hunter.
"It probably is. If you''re lucky, you guys might have a day or two before the general leaves its tomb," said Hunter.
For a few moments, Michael remained silent, thinking of a way to deal with the hydra. He might be at the Fusion stage but ording to the system, he had no chance against it until he reached the Half Immortal stage. Luckily, with the skill Michael bought in the shadow realm to convert the cultivation stages to match the cultivation stage in his world, he was able to tell Hunter was stronger than a Half Immortal.
"If I could use Hunter to deal with the hydra, I might survive this without destroying this world," Michael thought to himself.
"Ghost," Suddenly, Michael heard the voice of Cain. Thest time Michael heard from Azazel, he said Vedora was in seclusion. It seemed like they had toe out because of the Hydra''s shout.
"Give me a sec," Michael said to Hunter and flew a couple of meters away from Hunter.
"The hydra. It''s calling us,"
"What do you mean calling you?'' Michael furrowed his brows,
"He wants us to meet him. Otherwise, he''s saying he will destroy this world. We have six hours to meet him in the stormville mountain," said Cain.
"What do we do?" Ayag asked Michael.
"We have no choice," said Michael. If the Hydraes out of stormville mountain, it would definitely destroy the world Michael has been trying to control. He had put so much effort just to let a hydra destroy it. Although he could just stand by and watch the Hydra destroy everything, including his enemies, there wouldn''t be much left of the world after it was done. Besides, it would most certainly enve him or just kill him.
Therefore, Michael chose to go meet the Hydra instead of waiting for it to kill him. He wouldn''t havee to this conclusion so quickly if it wasn''t for Hunter.
"I''ll be there in a few minutes. Get ready to meet the Hydra," Michael said. Then, he turned around to see Hunter.
"I assume you have a n to stop the general," asked Hunter.
"Might be,"
Seeing Ghost dragging his words, Hunter knew his n must have something to do with him.
"But you need my help. Am I right?" Hunter sighed. It was Michael''s bad luck that he had to ask for Hunter''s help. But again, it was no one''s fault that the shadow realm teleported Hunter to his universe, which caused the hydra to wake up. If Michael had to me someone, he should me the queen for creating such an abomination and putting it in his universe.
[Remember, you can''t leave this universe until youplete the task given to you by the shadow realm] Hunter''s system chose toe out of its offline status for a moment to instruct Hunter.
[Also, if the general wanted you dead, it would have started a battle as soon as you entered this universe. So quit being a pussy and be a badass]
"Says the one who went offline," Hunter ridiculed the system but received no response from it. Since the system itself urged him to face the general, Hunter decided to trust Ghost''s n. After all, he was the number one assassin back on earth. So Hunter was positive Ghost coulde up with a n that would include not dying.
"So what''s the n?" Hunter asked Michael.
"Well since we are both familiar with traveling to another universe, we know you can''t get out of here until you get your task done,"
"No shit," said Hunter.
"It''s safe to say the hydra has something to do with your task. So, why don''t we go meet it in person?"
But as soon as Hunter heard Michael, he was taken aback by surprise. He furrowed his brows,
"You want to go meet the general. That''s your n?"
Michael nodded as Hunter let out a heavy sigh.
"Tell me you have a backup n," asked Hunter.
Michael looked at Hunter and smiled.
Although Hunter looked like he was following Michael''s n, he had a n of his own in case Michael''s n failed. After all, Hunter built a powerful criminal empire from scratch on his own. He was not stupid to follow Michael into the hydra''s den just because Michael was from earth. On the other hand, Michael also knew Hunter must have another n of his own. Simply put, they were using each other to finish their own tasks.
Chapter 609: Meeting the terrifying Hydra
Chapter 609: Meeting the terrifying HydraMeeting the terrifying Hydra
Hunter and Michael flew towards the Stormville mountain in silence. When they saw the mountain on the horizon, Michael halted his flying.
"Wait a moment," Michael said. Hunter just nodded as Michael disappeared from his sight.
"Teleportation," Hunter muttered. While he was waiting for Ghost to return, he stared at the ominous mountain on the horizon. The mountain reminded Hunter of mount doom in Lord of the rings movies. The storm clouds and shes of lightning decorated the mountain.
"Stormville mountain. A fitting name," Hunter nodded. Although he was floating far away from the mountain, he could feel the terrifying energying from within the mountain. He didn''t like the mountain or the general residing within at all. However, Hunter had no choice. He had to deal with the general if he wanted to return to his world. Hopefully, Ghost''s n would work and avoid any cmities.
Several momentster, Hunter sensed the space around him distort again. Out of the blue, Ghost appeared before him again. This time, he appeared with a three-headed Hydra in his hand. To Hunter''s surprise, he felt the same energy as the general from the little hydra.
"Fuck," Ayag''s eyes went wide when she saw Hunter. Compared to Ghost, the new guy''s energy radiations were on another level. They could tell he was most certainly stronger than any Fusion Stage cultivation. Nheless, they had no idea Hunter was at the Celestial stage, above Half Immortal and Immortal Stage.
"Cain, Sarba, Ayag, meet Hunter," Michael introduced Hunter to Vedora.
"Why do I sense a different kind of energying from you?" Sarba asked.
"Let''s deal with the Hydra first. Then, we can get acquainted," Michael interjected Vedora before they could nag Hunter.
Hunter grinned at the three heads before following behind Ghost. The closer he got to the mountain, the denser the energy in the air became. Of course, he would be lying if he said he wasn''t terrified of the general. And he was positive Ghost was also feeling the same. But for now, Hunter shoved any fear he had to the back of his mind andnded on the cave''s mouth, leading to the mountain''s center.
After telling Hunter to wait, Michael didn''t directly go to the dark forest to pick up Vedora. Instead, he teleported to Stormville mountain so he could clear all the undead mining the mountain. Since Maxine was preparing for Heinberg''s funeral, no one was in stormville mountain except them. Following Ghost, Hunter entered the dark cave. On his way to the center, Hunter noticed several mining tools, footsteps as well as a few glowing crystals glowing from the walls. He could sense weird energy pulsating from the crystals, but he couldn''t identify them. Of course, Hunter would have paid the system to learn about the crystals'' origins if the system hadn''t gone offline. For now, Hunter guessed these energy crystals may have contained the energy of this world. Luckily for them, the glowing blue crystals lit their path.
After walking for several minutes, Hunter stepped into a spacious hall where he saw a huge red cross on a wall at the hall''s end. Additionally, the words ''Do note near'' were engraved onto the stone wall.
"He knows we are here," Hunter saw the gray head in the middle dere.
"You could talk to a general?" Hunter asked in surprise.
"Not to any general but a hydra," Michael answered instead of Vedora.
"So you named them after King Ghidora huh?" Hunter smirked. As a fellow earthling, the name Vedora sounded familiar to Hunter.
"I heard you named your dog Dogzi," Michael chuckled, just to lighten the mood a bit while walking towards the cross.
Hunter was about to ask Michael something when Michael ced his hand on the wall before them. Afterward, he plunged his head into the wall, slowly sliding the wall open to reveal a crack behind. As soon as Hunter saw the crack, he felt a hot gush of air, forcing him to take a few steps back. Moreover, Hunter heard a loud breathing sound.
"This is it," Michael took a deep breath. For a few moments, his mind went ck. He wondered what might be the reason for the hydra to summon them here. Besides, Michael hated the connection between Vedora and the hydra. If the Hydra couldmunicate with Vedora anytime, it might mess up with Vedora one day. After all, Vedora was still little and weakpared to the Hydra. Hunter on the other hand, focused more on his well-being rather than on anyone else''s. As far as he was concerned, all he wanted was to get out here alive and return to his world.
As Ghost squeezed through the crack, Hunter thought about destroying the shadow realm once and for all. No shadow realm, no sucking him into another universe.
"Hrrrrmmmmmm," Hunter heard a rhythmic, growlinging from the other side. They all felt like they had entered into a storm. But after they stepped out of the crack, everything became dead silent. Hunter and Michael walked to the edge and stared into the abyss below. Without their control, their heartbeat rapidly increased. As far as they could see, there was nothing but darkness below.
"Hmm," Suddenly, they saw four pairs of crimson red glow in the darkness. Michael and Hunter almost jumped back in shock.
They tried to take a step back from the edge. Except when they were about to, an invisible force pushed them into the abyss from behind.
"FUCK!" Ayag screamed as loud as she could. They continued to fall deeper and deeper. Shockingly, both Michael and Hunter lost their cultivation power.
"System!" Hunter screamed at the system in his mind, just as Michael did. Yet, both of their badass systems went offline instead of providing them with support.
"We are still falling," said Michael.
"Hunter, are you there?" Michael asked to make sure Hunter was with him.
"Yeah. I better not die here Ghost," Hunter growled. He was starting to enjoy his life as a crime lord back in his world. He would hate to die just when his life was getting better and better. Usually, Hunter liked the thrill of hunting a stronger predator. Whereas the Hydra wasn''t a mere predator, they could hunt. Rather, the Hydra was a world-ending cmity.
"We won''t," Michael said, although he was losing confidence. Without cultivation power, they stood no chance before the Hydra. After falling continuously for another five minutes, they finally hit the ground. Fortunately, something soft cushioned their fall, saving their bones, and Michael''s chest cushioned Vedora''s fall.
"Argh," Michael growled as he slowly stood up. The pitch-ck darkness around him prevented him from seeing anything. He heard another growl, probably belonging to Hunter. For a few moments, the eerie silence sent chills through their shivers. Michael listened to the surroundings closer, expecting the Hydra to show up any second.
"Otherwordlers," All of a sudden, a thunderous voice resonated around them. The ground literally began to tremble as a dim crimson red light lit the abyss. In the red glow, they saw a massive object that looked like a metal tower. It took Michael a few seconds to realize that it wasn''t a metal tower but a nail. While in utter shock, Michael saw Hunter slowly making his way to his side and joined him, looking upwards. Their necks began to hurt, but they simply couldn''t see the Hydra''s head. Instead, they could only see giant scales. If Michael had to guess, he would say the Hydra stood at least two hundred and fifty meters tall with a wingspan of one hundred and fifty meters. In the dim crimson light radiated by the Hydra''s eyes, they saw the metallic ck scales and red wings. This Hydra made King Ghidorah look like a puppy in Michael''s eyes.
"It''s huge," Hunter''s jaw dropped several inches, his eyes widened, and several beads of sweat formed on his forehead upon seeing a small glimpse of the Hydra.
"You have something that belongs to me," The Hydra''s voice sounded louder than a thunderp. Unfortunately, it was difficult for both Michael and Hunter to decode the words as the wordsing out of the Hydra''s mouth were simply too horrifying. Initially, Michael imagined he might meet the Hydra face to face. Although he knew it was huge, he had never expected the hydra to exceed his imagination by several folds.
The size of the Hydra itself scared the hell out of Michael. Still, he hadn''t seen the full form of the Hydra but what he saw was enough to make his legs tremble. On the other hand, Vedora was speechless, just like Hunter. The Hydra was beyond any cultivation stages. To be honest, Hunter didn''t think they could take on the Hydra even with their cultivation power. If the Hydra wanted, it could crush them with its toe.
Now Michael realized how a single Hydra could make an entire continent void of any arch energy. Without any spell or energy attack, the hydra could destroy cities just by walking through them. Swallowing the fear in his heart, Michael tried to gauge Hydra''s cultivation stage. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn''t. How could he sense the Hydra''s power when the Hydra was beyond any cultivation stages in Michael''s universe? It took a moment for him to realize the Hydra didn''t belong to this world or his universe.
"What..;" Michael tried to talk, but no words came out of his mouth. So he cleared his throat before speaking again. For the first time in his life, a lump formed in his throat due to overwhelming fear.
"My Lord, what do you want with us?" Michael addressed the Hydra as My Lord. He didn''t dare to show any signs of disrespect towards something that could end his life within a snap of time.
"I am called Mugashuku, one of the great generals of the queen of all," As the Hydra said, Michael and Hunter saw countless thick red lightning bolts crackling around the Hydra, lightning the abyss for a moment. The lightning bolts were bright to the point Hunter and Michael had to close their eyes. As a result, they failed to see theplete form of the Hydra.
Chapter 610: A deal with the devil
Chapter 610: A deal with the devil"Your kind has persisted so much. Famine, wars, and even the test of time," The Hydra calmly spoke in its growling voice. However, this voice seemed slightly different than the voice before. Since Michael knew Vedora and how each head had its own voice and personality, Michael could tell the voice changed because of the different heads. There were eight crimson red eyes which meant unlike Vedora who had three heads, Mugashuku had four heads.
"Do you know why human?" Mugashuku asked Michael and Hunter. They both felt like the Hydra''s been looking at them.
"No," Hunter doubtfully said.
"Because your kind adapts. You know where to bow your heads and where to raise your hand," another slightly soft voicepared to the first two voices.
"What do you want?" Ayag raised her voice despite standing in front of a being like Mugashuku. Unlike the rest, Ayag wasn''t afraid of the Hydra. But as soon as she raised her voice, Michael and Hunter wanted to grab her and shut her mouth close.
"Hahaha," To their surprise, the Hydra burst intoughter which gave Michael and Hunter a heart attack. They dropped to the ground, curled into a ball, and twitched. Hunter and Michael desperately called out their systems to teleport away or a way to escape the abyss.
"STOP!" Ayag suddenly shouted, destroying theugh''s powerpletely. Finally, Hunter and Michael were able to breathe. Breathing heavily, Michael and Hunter picked themselves to their feet.
"This is the reason my kind was wiped out from our universe. We are not adaptive. We raise our ws at the wrong being," Mugashuko said to Vedora.
"Wiped out?" Ayag''s heart skipped a beat. Although she had never said a word, Ayag missed being with her own king. Not that Ayag didn''t like the life she had with Nightmare, Gaya, and Ghost, but she wanted to meet other Hydras and visit her homeworld at least once. However, after hearing the painful voice of Mugashuku, her hope trembled.
"You and I are thest ones of our kind. And if your human doesn''t do what I ask him to do, I will be thest one of my kind," Mugashuku''s voicepletely took a dark turn. The threatening voice of the hydra literally made their bodies tense. Following the sinister words, a hot stream of breath brushed past Michael and Hunter.
"What do you want?" Ayag asked yet again. But instead of answering her question, the hydra slightly moved its w as a bright light shot out from above andnded on Vedora. As soon as Michael saw the light, he tried to move away yet he failed because the light was too fast.
When the bright white light disappeared, Michael and Hunter noticed a glowing rune on each head.
"What did you do?"
"So many questions," Another hot air brushed past Michael and Hunter, almost burning their clothes. Thankfully, Hunter''s robes were made of a special metal that protected his skin. So it could protect Hunter from a certain level
of radiation and heat.
"We''ll do anything you ask of us," Hunter quickly said to Mugashuku before the hydra decides to dispose of them.
"You have something I want human," Michael saw a dim red spotlight falling on Michael. The light came from one of the Hydra''s eyes. Since they couldn''t look at the hydra''s head because it was too tall, Michael could only guess.
Hunter felt his body being lifted up into the air. Suddenly, a strong force sucked out a silver ring on Hunter''s finger.
Thud!
After the ring left Hunter''s finger, he hit the ground with a small thud. While Hunter was standing up, Michael noticed the silver ring radiating a bright silver light. The next moment, a ball of dark energy emerged from the silver ring.
"What the hell is that?" Hunter''s eyes went wide as he felt a tremendous amount of energy from the ball of energy.
"There are thirty energy orbs in this universe. And this tricky thing managed to squeeze into another universe," Mugashuku sounded amused. Hunter got the ring by killing a mage and ripping off his finger. He expected the mage to have some powerful spells but all he had was this ball of energy inside. Unfortunately, his system''s level was too low to find the energy ball''s origin.
"I found twelve including this one. It''s up to you to find the rest. If you don''t bring me atleast one of these every year from now on, I''lle out of my slumber and destroy this world," Mugashuku said.
After hearing the hydra, Hunter sighed in relief. Finding the energy balls had be Ghost''s task now. The only thing he worried about at the moment was to get out of the abyss alive.
"The strange power in you will help you find them," Hunter furrowed his brows, looking at the dim red light falling on Ghost. He wondered what might be this strange power within Ghost. After all, Ghost and Hunter both were oblivious to the fact they each possess a badass system. Although the two systems functioned simrly, they were not the same and Hunter''s ring was the only thing that connected Hunter to Ghost''s universe. Now that he lost the ring, the shadow realm wouldn''t be able to summon Hunter to Ghost''s universe anymore.
"I will find you these Lord Mugashuku," Michael bowed his head,
"We know you will. After all, you each love the world you are in right now. It''d be a shame for you to lose them. The queen''s generals are everywhere humans, we reside in every universe there is," Mugashuku said. Then, the red light falls yet again on Hunter.
"Even if you had killed one, there is always another one,"
Hunter felt a chill after hearing Mugashuku. He couldn''t help to wonder if there was another general in his world. Even if that was the case, Hunter would hunt it down just like before. After all, he could always get stronger with the system. One day, he might return to this world and rip the hydra''s heads off one by one just because he felt like it. But for now, Hunter remained silent without provoking the Hydra, just like Michael.
"Tell us about our homeworld?" Sarba mustered his courage to question the Hydra,
"Leave!"
Instead of an answer, all they got was a thunderous roar from the Hydra. This voice sounded more demonic, evil, and terrifying than all the voices before.
"The fourth head," Michael muttered.
As the roar reverberated in the abyss, they were sucked upwards by an invisible force. Michael held onto Vedora tight, flinging higher and higher. When they reached the top, they regained their cultivation power.
"Phew, that''s terrifying," Hunter let out a heavy breath of a sigh. In his whole life, he had never seen such terrifying creature and he had seen a whole lot of scary creatures and killed most of them back on his world.
"Now that it took my ring, I think the shadow realm will suck me out of here soon," Hunter said, almost sounding a bit disappointed. To be honest, Hunter would have liked to stay in this whole new world for a few more days. He wanted to see if he could get something valuable from this world and bring it to his.
"Before you leave, can you do me a favor, Hunter?" Michael asked. A few moments ago when Mugashuku took Hunter''s ring, Michael had thought. Since Hunter belonged to a whole new universe and the chances of him returning to this universe were pretty slim, Michael wanted to do something that could help him against the Sea Folks who were apparently hunting him now with the Guardians. To this moment, Michael had no idea that Mutrad marked him as the Dark Lord and started to hunt him in the shadows.
However, if Michael''s n with Hunter worked, Not only it would ensure his safety, but it would also prevent anyone from suspecting him of being the Dark Lord
"What''s in it for me?" Hunter asked. Although Ghost and he was from the same ce, it wasn''t Hunter''s style to do something for free. After all, if Michael''s universe was bad, Hunter''s was the worst.
"How about this?" With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out the ck metal card with a golden lion head engraved on it that Hunter gave him when he traveled to Hunter''s universe first. ording to the HUnter Michael met, the card would enable Hunter to visit Michael''s world if a general of the queen broke out to destroy their world and vice versa.
"My calling card," Hunter remembered he gave this card to Ghost a couple of years ago.
"What about it?" Hunter asked, looking at his calling card.
"I will find the hydra asked of me so I am not in an imminent threat. But you are. So if you do me this favor I will travel to your world and help you kill that son of a bitch instead of breaking this card right now,"
Hunter gave it a thought for a couple of moments before finally agreeing to help Ghost. It wasn''t because of what Ghost said, rather, it was because Hunter felt curious to see what Ghost need his help with. As a criminal empire''s head, Hunter followed his guts and curiosity to strengthen himself. He felt this might be such an opportunity,
"What do you need?" asked Hunter while walking towards the crack in the wall. As much as he liked to hear what Ghost has to stay, he didn''t want to stay near the Hydra. So he quickly squeezed through the crack to leave the abyss.
Michael followed Hunter behind till they reached outside. Even then, Michale waited until they were far away from the crack. Now that he had made a deal with the hydra, Michael somewhat felt relieved. He had to find atleast one energy ball a year so he had a maximum of eighteen years of time. Instead of finding them as soon as possible, Michael would do the opposite. He would use that time to get strong enough to kill the Hydra once and for all.
But for now, he needed Hunter''s help to deal with the Guardians and Sea Folks.
They walked out of the stormville mountain as Vedora stayed silent the whole way. After hearing what the Hydra said about them being thest of their kind, Michael understood their concern.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Michael and Hunter shot out to the sky as fast as they could. Only after the stormville mountain disappeared from their sight did they stop to talk.
In the mid air, Michael looked at Hunter,
"I need you to kill me," said Michael.
Chapter 611: Overpowered Hunter
Chapter 611: Overpowered HunterHearing Ghost, Hunter was shocked. He didn''t get the full meaning of Ghost''s words. Fortunately, Michael exined his n in detail. A whileter, Michael and Hunter reached the outskirts of Royalnd using a teleportation scroll Michael bought from the system store. Since Hunter could disappear at any moment, Michael didn''t dare to waste any time.
"This armor feels weird," Hunter said, wearing Michael''s Lucifer armor. Although Michael asked Hunter to wear his armor, thetter chose not to ask any questions. Instead, Hunter just hovered in the air, looking at the golden church on the horizon. Michael stared at Hunter for a few moments. The armor looked menacing and terrifying. If any weak-willed men saw the armor suddenly, there was a high possibility of them getting heart attacks.
Looking at the armor''s design, Hunter quickly got some ideas to enhance his own armor back in his world.
"Whatever you want me to do, we must do it quickly. I can feel the shadow realm''s pull getting stronger," Hunter''s voice was grave.
"Hit me with enough force to send me crashing onto the church," Michael cracked his neck, preparing to get hit by Hunter. With the energy radiation Michael felt from Hunter, he knew thetter was stronger than him. However, Michael didn''tpare himself with Hunter. Time flew differently in each universe. The Hunter before him might have spent more time in his world, getting stronger than him. With enough time, Michael had no doubt he would be the strongest being in the universe. To do that, he needed to push away his current enemies.
"Just don''t die," Hunter grinned. Soon, a golden light coiled around Hunter''s wrist, forming the silhouettes of fire-breathing dragons.
Boom!
In a blink of an eye, Michael felt like he had been hit by a train. Before the brain could process everything and let him feel the pain, his body went crashing into the Holy Church''s roof. Hunter looked at the tower, crumbling down, shaking his fist. His fist went numb after hitting Ghost. It was like he hit a metal wall. Hunter wondered what kind of cultivation Ghost was doing to be that strong.
DING!
DING!
DING!
The holy guards who saw the tower copsing quickly ran the bell to alert everyone. As a result, the soldiers adorned in white radiant armor rushed out of the church. They all shot to the sky from the ground like arrows to fight Hunter, who was in the Dark Lord''s armor. The moment the holy guards saw Hunter, their eyes went wide behind their helmets. It wouldn''t be an understatement to tell they trembled at the sight of the Dark Lord. In just a few moments, fifty holy guards surrounded Hunter.
"This is fun," Hunter chuckled.
"Abomination!"
"Unholy evil!"
"We will bring you to justice!"
Hunter furrowed his crease as he had never heard such cliche lines before. He wasn''t hiding his energy radiation but still, the soldiers remained without budging. The reality was the soldiers simply couldn''t see Hunter''s energy radiation as Michael did. Moreover, Hunter was oblivious to the fact that the Hydra''s shout has robbed the cultivators of their ability to see others'' cultivation levels.
Hunter threw a nce at the reluctant soldiers before looking at the sky above him from the corner of his eye. He sensed sudden energy appearing above him.
"Interesting," said Hunter. Ghost had informed Hunter about this. He briefly exined how someone or something might appear to spy on them. To his surprise, Ghost said he wanted them to see the battle. As per Ghost''s request, Hunter didn''t destroy the spy even though he could have done it with a simple flick of his wrist.
When Hunter returned his gaze back to the holy guards, a guard slowly moved forward with his spear pointing at Hunter. Despite being surrounded by countless soldiers, Hunter remained calm. It was a pity that the system went offline. Otherwise, Hunter would have received quite a sum of experience and badass points.
Hunter calmly raised his hand, drawing a skull in the air. The skull glimmered with bright white light.
"Phoo," Hunter sent a blow of wind to the skull as it began to grow from palm-sized to a skull three meters tall and two meters wide. The skull suddenly came to life, opening its jaw. Seeing the terrifying white skull, the soldier''s body went rigid.
"ARRGGHH!" The soldiers screamed as he tried to stab the skull. However, the spear went through the skull. Before the soldier could pull the spear back, the skull swallowed the soldier. As soon as the skull touched the soldier, the poor one instantly turned into a puff of smoke. Even the armor wasn''t spared by the skull.
"That was only a low-level spell," Hunter was surprised to see how weak the soldier was. Though the reality was the soldier wasn''t weak, Hunter was too strong. The power gap between Hunter and the soldier to that of the earth to the sky. After all, in this world''s cultivation stage, Hunter was at the Celestial Stage while the soldier was only at the Soul Refining stage.
Even if hundreds of soldiers attacked Hunter at the same time, they still wouldn''t be able to harm Hunter, not even a bit. Following their fellow soldier''s sudden death, the rest trembled. The soldiers swallowed their shock and tried to attack Hunter again. They wanted to kill Hunter before he could cast another spell. Attacking Hunter before casting another spell would have worked if Hunter wasn''t too damn stronger than them. Simply put, Hunter didn''t even need to cast spells. Instead, he could just crush them with sheer physical strength alone.
Hunter tilted his head with an amused smile on his face. He was pondering what spell he could use to kill them or just simply crush them to death as he would do to the traitors in his criminal empire. One after another, the soldiers standing behind the soldiers with spears started to cast the spells. In a few blinks of an eye, Hunter saw all kinds of shapes and symbols glowing in the clear sky.
"Quiet the fireworks," Hunter said amusedly.
Snap!
Hunter just snapped his finger as a powerful sonic wave destroyed everyone around him, including the spell casters. From the holy church''s frontwn, Michael saw the bloody mist in the sky. He asked Hunter to put on a show but never expected Hunter to y the holy guards with a single snap.
"Your Holiness," Michael turned around to see his holiness chanting something under his breath. It didn''t sound like a spell but an actual prayer to his gods. Yet Michael doubted any prayer could save his holiness if Hunter decided to take him out. As far as Michael had witnessed, Hunter could destroy the church in a few mere moments.
"Your Holiness, get to safety. His target is me. You go somewhere safe. It''s too dangerous here," Michael said gravely, pretending he cares more about his holiness than his own life.
"Ghost, ept your sentence!" Hunter''s thunderous roar shook the church like an earthquake. It was a signal both Michael and Hunter agreed upon. Suppose Hunter felt he was going to disappear soon, Michael asked him to threaten him as loud as he could.
"I will buy you some time, your holiness," the old man was still praying with his eyes closed. The holy guards around the old man wanted to take him away from the church to the secret bunker. However, the old man didn''t budge an inch. Instead, he tried to strike down evil with his prayer.
Sling!
Michael unsheathed his two swords beforeunching himself toward Hunter. As though nature itself had terrified, the clear sky turned dark and covered by storm clouds in a few moments. Michael and Hunter met mid-air, preparing to put on a show. Hunter flicked his wrist as a metal rod engraved with coiling snakes appeared in Hunter''s.
When Hunter sped the metal rod tight, the hilt lit up, turning itself into an energy whip. The radiant red energy pulsated energy along with a low-pitched whistling sound. At this time, Mutrad and several prominent figures in the Guardian guild appeared near the holy church using teleportation.
As soon as Mutrad saw Ghost fighting the Dark Lord, he creased his brows. Just yesterday Mutrad theorized that Ghost and the Dark Lord were the same people. He couldn''t believe he was proven wrong.
"I won''t give you a quick death. Instead, I will make you suffer," Hunter gnarled.
Hunter then swung the energy whip. Since Ghost asked him to put up a real show, Hunter didn''t hold back. He swung the energy whip vigorously. Unlike swords, defending himself from a whip took a great effort for Michael. With swords or any other metal weapons, Michael could predict its trajectory. But with an energy whip, he was unable to, especially with Hunter''s speed.
Nheless, Michael moved his swords with speed and finesse, blocking the energy whip. Unfortunately, every time Michael blocked the energy whip with his swords, the energy whip chipped a piece away. At this point, the Guardian captains flew straight to Hunter with the sole intent to bring him down.
While deflecting the energy whip, Michael looked around to see several people flying toward Hunter. He wondered where Noah was. Unfortunately, luck wasn''t on Michael''s side as Noah was nowhere to be found. Instead, Michael saw several men and women dashing at Hunter.
"Annoying flies," Hunter just waved his hand, shooting a powerful sonic wave from the tip of his fingers. Just like before, the guardian captains along with several guardians exploded to death.
"You won''t get a painless death like that Ghost," Hunter growled, increasing the speed of his swings.
"Shhhh!" one of the wings finally brushed past Michael''s hand. The energy whip burnt Michael''s arm,pletely scorching his skin. Just as Mutrad was about to join the battle when a vortex appeared in the sky. Upon seeing the vortex in the sky, Hunter stopped swinging the energy whip.
"I''ve been summoned," Hunter said, loud enough for everyone around them to hear him.
"But before I go, I have a gift for the holy church," Hunter raised both his hands towards the sky as Michael felt the clouds turning darker and darker. The howling sound followed by the dark clouds was nothing but ominous. Everyone was stunned to see the sky turning darker despite the time of the day.
All the clouds gathered around the vortex to create an ominous storm. The next moment, a meteor slowly emerged from the storm clouds, enveloped in fire. Looking at the gargantuan meteor above his head, Michael felt the urge to move aside from its path.
"No more churches in my domain," Hunter growled.
Chapter 612: Ghost is not the Dark Lord
Chapter ?612: Ghost is not the Dark Lord
The meteor appeared, bringing down thunderps and several shes of lightning. Those who witnessed the Dark Lord casually creating a meteor trembled. Even the Guardian captains halted their steps. Hunter lowered his arms without uttering a word, letting the meteor loose towards the Holy Church. Despite the church being protected by several arrays and countless runes, they were unable to stop the meteor. ording to Michael''s world sense, the spell Hunter cast belonged to the Legendary ss. Even in Hunter''s world, the meteor spell was a top-tier spell. Not every image had the mana to cast such a powerful spell.
"Your Holiness!" The Holy Guards quickly surrounded the old man, forming a human chain around him. They all promptly grabbed each other''s arms as their armor began to radiate bright warm energy. In a few blinks of an eye, a light beam shot out from the sky to envelop the holy guards and the old man.
HRRRRMMMM!
Meanwhile, the meteor approached the holy church, creating ear-piercing thunderps and countless lightning cracks in the sky. The energy distortion in the atmosphere petrified everyone. Because of the spell''s power, the space around them was distorted, preventing the teleportation from working. That was why the alpha guardians who tried to teleport to the holy church failed to do so. Fortunately, it worked in Michael''s favor. Too many Alpha guardians and powerful people might result in more suspicion.
BOOOM!
The meteor crashed onto the holy church as Michael saw the golden dorm around the church flicker vigorously before finally fading away. Under the burning meteor, the church crumbled into pieces. Regardless of the pain in his arm, Michael smiled at the holy church''s destruction. Everything within a kilometer radius was crumbled to nothing but ashes. Michael asked Hunter to put on a show but never expected Hunter to bring such destruction upon the Royalnd.
Atleast, the guardians evacuated the nobles and the people on time. Still, the meteor took many lives. The shock wave even destroyed some of the walls around King Kramer''s castle. Everyone coughed and closed their eyes due to the mushroom cloud produced by the crash. The rest were tossed into the air like kites without anchors except for Michael and a few others. Michael quickly rubbed his eyes, trying to locate Hunter.
Eventually, Michael was able to open his eyes to see Hunter hovering in the air. Unfortunately, due to the dust storm and the fire particles in the air, Michael could barely see Hunter.
Hunter grinned, admiring the destruction he caused. A whileter, he slowly turned his gaze,
"Get your schedule free. I will meet you next week. It''s going to be a helluva ride," Michael smirked before flying into the vortex above him.
"He took my armor," Michael growled but after thinking about how much Hunter helped him, he couldn''t help smiling inside.
"It''s time for a new armor anyways," Michael really felt light-hearted and relieved. Not because he destroyed the holy church, although it was part of a reason for his delight, but because everyone witnessed Ghost fighting the Dark Lord. It would be hard to connect him to the Dark Lord now. Even though Michael had no idea that Mutrad connected Ghost to the Dark Lord, his npletely messed up Mutrad''s theory. In the battle between wits, Michael scored one against Mutrad.
After several hours, the guardians erupted white tents in the wastnd, which was previously the holy church surrounded by an alluring maple forest. Michael sat on a chair inside of the tents, waiting for someone from the guardians to appear. A couple of holy guards and guardians both were at the Soul Refining stage stood guard on each core of the square tent, protecting Michael. Everyone believed Ghost was the Dark Lord''s target, and he destroyed the holy church because they allied themselves with Ghost. While waiting, Michael drummed the table with his fingers. Eventually, Michael saw a blue-haired young man with a tiny fish tattoo on the center of his forehead entering the tent.
Although the youngster looked human, something about the young man made him stand out. To Michael''s surprise, the young man was at the Fusion stage, almost as strong as his Ghost persona. Nevertheless, the Dark Lord could still crush the youngster in a few moments unless the young man possessed some sick legendary spells.
"How''re you feeling?" the young man asked Michael with neither a friendly nor hostile voice.
"Good, I guess," Michael sighed.
"Before we go further, let me introduce myself properly. I am Mutrad Halrid. I am here to investigate and catch the Dark Lord before he does more damage than he already has," Mutrad said gravely.
Michael was surprised by Mutrad. He thought he would meet someone from the Sea folk but never expected their meeting would happen this soon. Regardless, Michael didn''t show his surprise on his face.
"I hope you seed Lord Mutrad," Michael nodded as though he really gave his blessing to Mutrad. In reality, Michael was imagining crushing Mutrad to a bloody pulp. In a few seconds, Michael killed Mutrad in multiple ways.
"Now tell me what happened before you appeared in the royalnd," Mutrad asked.
"Well, I was in Thera. I went there to attend the Aqua auction," Michael began to recount everything truthfully except the part where he went to catch Heinburg''s killer and the part where he met Mugashuku.
"I don''t know where he came from. One moment I was in my room, and the next, I was in the sky near the holy church,"
"Did he say anything about why he chose you as his next target?" Mutrad asked.
"He was saying some bullshit about me using my talents to profit instead of helping the needy," Michael said. He knew how Noah felt about him as thetter always disliked Michael selling his potions for high prices to the nobles instead of helping the poor. So Michael decided to connect Noah with the Dark Lord as much as possible.
"Where were you in Thera exactly?"
"Yaserius. There is a gue going on there, and guess who found the cure," Michael smirked,
"I was brewing the cures when that evil bastard teleported me here. Now I have to find another portal to get to Thera again," Michael sounded genuinely mad. In fact, he was mad at Hunter. By destroying the holy church, he destroyed the teleportation portal. He could use the runic teleportation to get to Thera. First, however, Michael needed to go through a teleportation portal to avoid raising any suspicions.
"Did you hear the Dark Lord saying he has been summoned?" Michael questioned Mutrad for a second.
"Hmm," Mutrad nodded,
"Is there any chance there is another one above the Dark Lord?" Michael asked Mutrad, putting Mutrad in deep thought.
No matter how hard he thought about the facts, Mutrad couldn''t connect Ghost to the Dark Lord anymore. The facts simply didn''t sit right with his theory of Ghost being the Dark Lord anymore. So, as a member of an advanced civilization, Mutrad infused himself with the ability to see through someone''s cultivation level in Elon and Ozer. Because of that, Mutrad was able to see Michael''s Fusion Stage cultivation, and the Dark Lord was at the Celestial Stage.
After seeing the Celestial stage cultivation level, Mutrad''s theories such as Ghost using puppets, ves, and illusions to duplicate himself, went out the window. No way anyone could create a Celestial stage duplicate. Even among Sea Folks, only one Celestial being existed. Atleast, that''s what Mutrad learned from his elders.
Mutrad couldn''t exin or connect Ghost to the Dark Lord anymore. He was so sure about that, but now, his theory crumbled to pieces. Thus, the best thing Mutrad could do was get as much information about the Dark Lord from Ghost. If Ghost was really the Dark Lord''s target, he needed their help as much as they needed his.
"Maybe or maybe not," Mutrad answered nonchntly.
"Do you have any idea why he wanted to kill you in front of the Holy Church? You saw the spell he cast. If he wanted to kill you, you would have been dead,"
"Yeah, no shit," Michael rolled his eyes,
"Didn''t you hear him screaming how he wanted to torture me instead of giving me a painless death? He must have really liked to put on a show. Man, I can''t wait to get back to Mazeroth. That might be the only ce I''ll be safe,"
As far as Mutrad could tell, Ghost wasn''t lying. There were no signs of him lying on his face. Even the micro reactions, his eye movement, and voice modtion were perfect, almost too perfect. Everything Mutrad saw led him to believe Ghost was not the Dark Lord. In fact, he might be the Dark Lord''s target, and every fact he had previously might just be a coincidence.
Unknowing to Mutrad, the confusion and chaos in his mind were visible to Michael. He had to thank Hunter foring to his word when he did. If it wasn''t for him and the overpowered spell he cast, Michael couldn''t have convinced and terrified everyone at the same time. He doubted anyone would voluntarily agree to chase the Dark Lord anymore.
But Michael''s n wasn''t over yet. Instead, he had onest piece, a crucial piece. He entrusted his beloved Gaya to thest part of his n. Suppose everything went ording to his n, even the Skyhall would think twice before messing with the Dark Lord.
"Can I go now Lord Mutrad? I am exhausted. If I am going to die, I want to enjoy thest moments of my life with my fiancee instead of sitting in this tent. No offense,"
"None taken," Mutrad said, heaving a sigh of relief.
Michael finally stood up,
"I really hope you catch that bastard Lord Mutrad. May the gods are with you on your hunt," Michael smiled at Mutrad before walking out of the tent. Now that Hunter had destroyed the portal, he had to visit Aragoth to use their portal. Fortunately, he knew Olivia. So using their portal wouldn''t be a hassle.
From now on, Michael could entirely focus on building his business empire as Ghost and Order of Death in the shadows as the Dark Lord.
Chapter 613: Plan to subdue the Grim Reapers
Chapter 613: n to subdue the Grim ReapersThanks to Olivia''s connection, Aragoth academy permitted Michael to use the portal for no charge. But unlike the Holy Church''s portal, Michael was teleported to the Sil ri''s border. From there, Michael used the runic teleportation to reach Eve''s castle. When Michael reached his room in Eve''s castle, he saw Gaya on the bed covered in a golden light. She was breaking through to the Soul Refining Stage level 3. Without making any sound, Michael sat beside her on the bed as Nightmare slowly crawled onto hisp.
"Shhhh," Michael shushed Nightmare when he was about to ask about the wound on his arm. Michael slowly removed his dark robes, letting Nightmare see the deep scar on his upper right arm. The APD healed the wound yet it couldn''t remedy the scar. Hunter''s energy whip was powerful enough to leave a deep scar despite Michael''s APD. Although Michael could remove the scar with some special potions, he chose not to. He considered the scars as lessons and markers of his past.
While Gaya was absorbing the energy in the atmosphere, Michael put his robes on the hanger and made his way to the table. Nightmare jumped onto the oak table.
"She was about to leave the castle when she suddenly entered the breaking through phase," Nightmare said in a low pitched voice, only loud enough for Michael to hear.
"What just happened? Where is Vedora?" Nightmare asked. After seeing the scar on his arm, it was evident to Nightmare Michael went through a battle.
"They are in the dark forest,"
Nightmare noticed the slight graveness in Michael''s voice. He was concerned.
"What happened?" Nightmare asked Michael again.
Michael took a deep breath looking at the gloomy city before him. Considering there was no point in hiding what had happened from Nightmare, Michael decided to tell Nightmare everything. But just when he was about to open his mouth, sudden energy pulsated in the room. Michael and Nightmare quickly turned their heads in Gaya''s direction because they sensed the energy pulseing from her.
The golden light enveloping Gaya glowed brighter and brighter to the point Nightmare and Michael closed their eyes for a moment. Moreover, they both heard a low pitched whistling sound resonating in the room. After that, the golden light glowed brighter for another five minutes. During these five minutes, Michale and Nightmare peeked through the gap in their hands at Gaya.
Eventually the golden light slowly lost its radiance, letting Michael and Nightmare open their eyes. When they saw Gaya, she slowly opened her eyes with a grin on her face.
"Finally, level 3. Not bad, not bad at all," She cracked her neck which she picked from Michael.
Her grin froze when Gaya saw the deep scar on his arm. She realized the scar might be connected to what he asked her to do. Before entering the breakthrough phase, Michael asked her to spread a rumor throughout Elon and Ozer. Thus, she was about to leave for the adventurers guild in each continent. To spread rumors, the adventurers'' guild was the best ce.
"What the hell is that?" Gaya jumped from the bed and made her way to him. Without even asking a question, she took out a healing potion and began to pour it onto the scar, hoping it would heal the scar.
"You know the Hydra in the stormville mountain,"
"What of it?" Nightmare asked.
"I had a brief terrifying meeting with him," As soon as Michael uttered these words, Gaya''s body went rigid and Nightmare opened his eyes as wide as he could in utter shock. For a few moments, neither of them couldn''t ask Michael anything. They werepletely bbergasted.
Taking a deep breath, Michael began to recount everything that happened from the moment he went to the abandoned castle to meeting Mutrad without leaving a detail. Nightmare and Gaya listened to Michael in silence because they were too shocked to ask any question. Hearing Michael''s description of the hydra alone sent shivers running through their spines.
After Michael finished telling them what had happened, Gaya couldn''t know whether to be shocked or furious. On the one hand, General Quintus killed one of their subordinates. But, on the other hand, Michael met the hydra with another worlder and was given a task to find some mysterious energy balls.
"I will let Vedora handle Quintus. After everything that happened, they need something to take their minds off," Michael said.
"Yes." Gaya sympathized with Vedora, especially Ayag who bragged about meeting her own kind and exploring her homeworld. However, after hearing that Vedora and Mugashuku were thest of their kind, Gaya couldn''t help but pity Ayag.
"I don''t know what to say human. At Least I feel relieved that you put the me on the otherworlder. Now no one will think you might be the Dark Lord. it would give us the breathing room we desperately need," Gaya paused for a moment and went on,
"I heard very little about the Sea Folk. But one thing I can tell you for sure, we must be cautious of them. They are the most powerful race in this world for a reason," Gaya said with a grave voice.
"It''s better we stay as far as possible from them,"
Michael nodded. ording to what he heard from Lah, Sea Folks had never entered into any great wars like the other races living on thend which they sea folks named ''Upsiders''. As a result, the Sea Folks had never lost powerful cultivators like the upsiders. Lah told him several Half Immortals and Immortals still living among the Sea Folks. Michael wondered whether they were in the Council of immortals or not.
"The otherworlder, where is he now?" Nightmare asked about Hunter.
"Returned to his world. I don''t think he could evere back to our world for quite some time. This is great because when we started a fake battle, I sensed something watching us,"
"Did you sense his cultivation level? If he was able to kill Soul Refiners with a snap of his fingers, I don''t think he was just a Fusion stage cultivator. He must be stronger," Gaya creased her brows.
"Do you mean he was a half immortal?" Asked Nightmare.
"Maybe or maybe he was an Immortal," Gaya couldn''t believe what she was saying. The humans had never seen an Immortal in a thousand years. As per the history books Nagnd had on humans, humans had the lowest chance to reach Immortality due to their life styles and shorter life spans.
For instance, a human at the Core Formation stage would live for two hundred years while the other races had a typical life span of four hundred years.
Moreover, the humans'' cultivation was often interrupted by bottlenecks, unlike the other races. Since the council of immortals rarely appeared in public, only a handful of people knew about them.
Something told Michael that Hunter was stronger than even an Immortal. Unfortunately, Hunter''s power had been suppressed after he reached this universe. Hunter''s system had to turn the Celestial energy into Astral energy, which Hunter used to cultivate. Due to the energy conversion, Hunter was operating with a limited amount of power.
Even with limited power, when Hunter cast his first spell, it created a massive ripple in the atmosphere, which freaked out the entire Council of Immortals. As Michael was speaking to Gaya, the Council of Immortals was preparing to meet the Skyhall elders.
"What if the Skyhall sent Half-Immortals and Immortals to chase down the Dark Lord?" Nightmare asked a question that''s been in Michael and Gaya''s minds.
"They might. That''s why we need to be extra cautious from now on. If we don''t leave any trail, they won''t be able to find us," said Michael
"So what do we do next?" asked Gaya.
"We build our own teleporter," Michael cracked his neck. A few months ago, building a teleporter was an impossible task for him. However, with a 6-star runemaster like Elidyr, he could build his own teleportation array. Although he had the runic teleportation skill, it wouldn''t work when he was in a battle. So if Michael had met a stronger enemy and wanted to teleport away to escape, the runic teleportation wouldn''t be of any help. However, if he had built a teleportation array and connected the array to the system, Michael knew he could teleport whenever he wanted, despite the situation.
"I know you''re thinking of letting Elidyr create the arrays but he won''t be able to build one without special materials. Where do you think we should buy them? As you said, we cannot leave any trails that could lead our enemies to us," Gaya said.
"I will buy them and teleport here as someone else," Michael said. Buying the materials from the system store might cost him millions of badass points but a face mask not. So, he could simply transform into someone else, buy the needed materials from Aqua Pce or somewhere else and teleport back to the dark forest using runic teleportation.
Gaya thought about Michael''s n for a moment before nodding. Then, she finally put her focus on Heinberg''s death. Just the thought that Quintus had killed Heinberg made Gaya''s blood boil. She wanted to pay him a visit and rip him apart piece by piece.
"I don''t want to rush Vedora, but I need Quintus dead within a week. We cannot let someone who killed our subordinate live for long. It makes us look weak," Gaya growled.
"Why don''t we go somewhere else and let our pent-up anger out?" Michael asked with a devilish grin.
"Are you thinking what I am thinking?" Gaya too grinned like a devil after hearing Michael, which confused Nightmare.
"What are you two talking about?"
With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out the golden parchment he got from the reaper before killing the reaper.
"The Grim Reaper headquarters in Awor," Michael said. It was time Michael had paid them a visit and made them pay for putting his life in danger on several asions. If Michael left the Grim Reapers left alone, someone with enough coins would always put a bounty on his head. Therefore, Michael decided to either wipe them out or make them join the order of death.
Chapter 614: Visiting the reapers guild
Chapter 614: Visiting the reapers guildWhen the night nketed the forest between Sill ri and Thera, Michael and Gaya descended through the canopy to the thicket. They navigated through the woods.
They step on dried twigs and leaves, making creaking noises. Michael focused on the Environmental Map to see if any reapers were around them. But to Michael''s
surprise, he hadn''t found a soul. Michael thought it must be because the reapers wanted to maintain secrecy. After all, having several men patrolling could expose their location. Gaya followed the map, and eventually, they reached the hills adjacent to the forests. As far as one could see, there was nothing but stone before them.
"It should be here somewhere," Gaya furrowed her crease, running her hand through the rough surface.
Michael stood a couple of meters away from the hill under the shade of ancient banyan trees. He looked around the ce to locate if there were any illusion runes near them. Yet, he found nothing, which meant there was no illusion. So, after a while, Michael summoned the system.
"System, scan the ce to see if there are any hidden entrances,"
Since it was just a simple scam, the system only asked for five thousand badass points. Afterward, a pale blue light shot out from Michael, visible only to him, searching for hidden entrances in the hill. Ofcrouse, Michael knew there was a possibility the reaper had given him the wrong location. But he looked the reaper in the eyes when he received the parchment. So unless the reaper was a peerless liar, this ce must be their hideout.
"Are you sure this map is legit?" Gaya asked Michael.
He stayed silent until the blue light in his sight turned jade green, spotlighting an area.
[The system has found an entrance protected by secret arrays and runes. Does the host wish to break them? It would cost the host 15,000 badass points]
"Yes," Michael said nonchntly. The jade green light intensified as the hill spotlighted by the system trembled. Soon, it split open with a slow creak.
"How''d you? Never mind," Gaya was startled, but she was with him long enough not to get surprised by things like this. Before taking a step into the cave, Gaya conjured a ball of light in her hand, tossing it into the cave to not only light the cave but also detect if there were any hidden traps. Afterward, the both of them cautiously walked through the cave, expecting trouble any second.
"Is this ce supposed to be empty?" Gaya questioned after noticing the empty caves. She could understand why there were no reapers outside, but she wondered why there were no guards inside either.
"I don''t think so," Michael said in a husky voice. They continued to walk without triggering any traps or meeting reapers until they reached a spacious hall lit by a crimson red chandelier hanging from the cave top. Surprisingly, the hall seemed to have been tossed by someone else. All the tables were either broken or upside down, the quest boards were destroyed, and what could have been the counter was burnt to ashes.
"This is not what I was expecting," Gaya said.
She looked around instead of moving forward. At this point, Michael realized why there were no guards on the way or any life signs detected on the Environmental Scanning map. Michael slowly hovered to the burnt counter. He thought the reapers guild would be bigger than a simple hall. He was disappointed.
"What happened here? Did someone kill them all? If so, where are the bodies?" Gaya questioned Michael while looking around the hall.
When Michael reached the pile of ash, he found nothing. Still, he bent down to pick up a handful of ashes.
Michael took out a portion from the system storage before pouring the silver liquid into the ash. Since Michael was a 5-star Alchemist, he brewed many potions in his free time. This potion was one of them. He used it previously to find Jack''s blood trail in the forest. If someone had burnt the reapers, the potion would turn the ash red after absorbing the silver liquid.
As Michael expected, the ash became red.
"So someone killed them all? But why and who? This ce must have had a Fusion Stage reaper. Every reaper guild has one," Gaya furrowed her crease. On top of a Fusion Stage cultivator, she knew the guild would have had several Soul Refining stage cultivators along with powerful defense arrays and runes.
"If this ce only had one Fusion stage cultivator, he must have been the one who tried to kill me back on the floating mountain," Michael tossed the ash to the ground and dusted his hands.
"I killed him, leaving this ce with no Fusion stage reaper," Michael hovered around to see if there were clues to figure out what had happened here. But he found none. Whoever killed them did a thorough job of erasing the evidence.
"We need to figure out whether this is connected to someone sending a reaper after you or not," Gaya said.
"Hmm," Michael nodded.
"If we could get our hands on some reapers in Elon or Ozer, we might get some ideas. We cannot deny the possibility this might have happened because of some internal dispute," Gaya was right. Yet Michael didn''t think it was the case. He needed more concrete evidence beforeing to a conclusion. But one thing was for sure, he wouldn''t be bothered by the reapers for some time.
"Let''s go," Michael threw some Spyders around the ce before flying out of the cave. Suppose the killer or the killers returned to the cave, the Spyders would catch them.
After leaving the cave, Michael and Gaya flew higher and higher until they flew past the clouds. Then, they stopped to enjoy the starry sky.
"Lord Information. He might know something about this," Michael said. That elf made his living by selling information. So if someone knew about the reapers guild destruction, it was him.
"Why waste time? Let''s go there now. You can teleport us there right? If someone asked, we could say we used some teleportation scrolls we got from some ruin,"
"Hmm," Michael agreed with Gaya. Although the scenery was too alluring, he was not in the mood to enjoy it. Instead, Michael willed the system to unequip his old Lucifer armor. Thanks to Hunter, who disappeared wearing his Dark Suit 2, histest armor, Michael had to wear his old one. Because of that, Michael had to forge new armor again. But this time, Michael decided to take his time and forge the armor from the materials bought from the system. To do that, Michael had to upgrade the system first, which he would do as soon as the auction was over.
When Michael appeared behind a tavern in Sarton, it was already midnight. The streets were empty, nketed with a tinyyer of whiteness. The snowkes rained down upon them, making the night colder and prettier too. Since Michael and Gaya visited Lord Information a couple of times, they knew the way to Mary''s flower, where Lord Information resides.
The streets were void of any light except fireflies which illuminated the road and the falling snow specks. Michael and Gaya walked the paved streets under the embrace of darkness until they saw the brightly lit Mary''s flower shop. Even at this hour, the shop was brightened by two streetmps and a glowing blue rub atop the roses.
Cling!
Michael pushed open the door, ringing a bell attached to the door.
"Wee to Mary''s flowers," The same brown-haired girl from before greeted Michael and Gaya with a bright smile.
"Can we meet Lord Information? It''s kind of an urgent matter," Michael said.
"Send them in," Michael heard Lord Information''s voice resonate in the room. They both followed the girl to one of the ss racks filled with rose bouquets. Sliding the ss door, the girl pulled the bouquet in the center just like before. After entering the room, Michael saw Lord Information sitting behind the oak table with a tall stack of parchments. He had enough parchments to bury a grown man underneath. The candlelight illuminated the elf''s fatigued face.
"You traveled very fast from Royalnd to Thera and Thera to here," Lord Information surprised Michael and Gaya. To be honest, even Michael was freaked out by Lord Information''s extent of reach. Michael thought he only operated in Elon and Ozer. Now he realized Awor wasn''t out of his reach either. After Michael and Gaya took their seats before Lord Information, he closed the parchment he was reading and turned his gaze towards them.
"So how may I help you?" asked Lord Information.
"Someone has put a bounty on my head again, Lord Information. I need to know who, and as usual, I''m willing to pay any price for that information," said Michael, leaning back on his chair.
"We also need the reapers guild locations," asked Gaya.
Lord Information had never been concerned about what his clients would do with the information provided by him. His clients valued privacy. So Gaya knew whatever she asked would strictly stay between them.
"I have two kinds of information to provide you. First one, you will get for hundred thousand coins. The second one will not cost you coins, but I require something else. But, ofcourse, the second one is very valuable and might give you some answers," Lord Information said to Michael as though he was expecting Ghost to inquire about the reapers guild.
"It''s a long day, Lord Information. So hit me straight with what you require," Michael said, deeply exhaling.
"Hmm," with a nod, Lord Information flicked his wrist as several alchemy ingredients materialized on the table along with an old worn out parchment.
"Let me guess, you want me to refine a pill or a potion for you using these," Michael asked, looking at all the alchemy ingredients on the table.
Although it seemed like a simple task, both Michael and Gaya knew Lord Information wouldn''t have asked for this instead of coins if it was an easy task. However, Michael could refine any pill or potion within a 5-star Alchemist''s domain.
"The pill requires to be concocted within three mins Master Ghost,"
"Three minutes?" Gaya furrowed her brows. By looking at the ingredients and the parchment, Gaya was sure it was some ancient recipe that required ultimate skills. Not that she doubted Michael, but three minutes seemed too little.
Chapter 615: Plan to start an Assassins Guild
Chapter 615: n to start an Assassins Guild"You wouldn''t have given me this if you didn''t think I''m the right man for this task. So let me give it a shot," Michael said, confidence oozing in his tone. Ever since he became an Alchemist, he had refined thousands of pills and potions. Refining pills and potions had be his second nature, as easy as breathing.
When Michael was inspecting the parchment, Lord Information took a few inches tall hourss and ced it on the table.
"You ready?" Lord Information asked.
Michael nodded, conjuring the emerald green mes to dance above his palm.
"Your time starts now," Lord Information put the hourss upside down, letting the sand from one side slowly rain down.
Regardless of the short time he had to finish, Michael remained calm. Because the calmer he was, the more focus he could put on the task at hand. He focused like a hawk, throwing one ingredient after another into the me. Sitting beside Michael with one leg atop another, Gaya heard the ingredients crackle in the me. The gentle warmth from the mes nkets her like a motherly hug, protecting her from the chillness in the air. Every time she exhaled, she could see her breath. It was that cold inside the room due to theing winter.
Little by little, the sand grew taller inside the hourss. Finally, almost half the sand had fallen down from the top when twelve dark purple beads hovered above the jade green mes. Lord Information had seen several top alchemists in Awor try and fail at what Michael had just done. Bluntly speaking, the elf was terrified of Michael''s ability. Even among the orcs who had a natural talent for alchemy, there was no one like the human before him. Lord Information knew with time, Ghost would be the top dog in the alchemy world.
Gaya and Lord Information remained without speaking a word, fearing if they did, it might break his focus. After the beads had formed above the mes, Michael willed the mes to disappear before pulling his arms together. As though the beads were connected to his hands, they slowly pulled towards each other. The beads then gradually merged together, forming a hand-sized ball, and then condensed into a sparkling purple pill in the air.
"Finished in roughly two minutes," Michael said with a smirk. Lord Information stared at the pill while inhaling the sweet aromaing from the pill. It turned the musty paper-smelling air aromatic.
"As you wanted, ny percent pure pill. Now it''s time to fulfill your part of the bargain, Lord Information," Lord Information examined the pill until he ced it in a wooden box cushioned with red cloth inside. After that, Lord Information opened up a drawer on the table. Michael and Gaya heard some ruffling as though the elf was rummaging through some parchments. Then, he eventually took out a parchment made of red paper.
However, the elf didn''t hand it over to Michael. Instead, he opened it up to read it himself.
"The Grim reapers are no more," Lord Information said nonchntly.
"What?" Gaya furrowed her crease. She could swear she had just heard the elf say the grim reapers are no more.
"That''s right. They were all wiped outst night. If you go to their headquarters, you will find nothing but ruins," Lord Information stated.
Lord Information looked up from the parchment to see Ghost''s reaction. As expected, Ghost had dark lines on his forehead.
"It''s definitely connected. Whoever sent a reaper after me killed the others to wipe out the evidence. But who and why?" Michael questioned himself.
"At Least you won''t have to worry about the reapers anymore. After all, no guild, no contracts," Michael''s train of thought got interrupted by Lord Information.
After hearing Lord Information, Michael had no intention to go to their guild locations because he knew he wouldn''t find anything. Whoever wiped them out was nothing but thorough. It would be a waste of time to go check the ruins. Lord Information hadn''t built his empire by giving false or unverified information to his clients. Besides, Michael had to brew more cures for the gue instead of wasting his time.
"Thank you, Lord Information," Michael stood up since he had nothing more to ask of the elf.
"Here''s a piece of free information Master Ghost. Awor isn''t all rainbows and butterflies," Lord Information said as Michael nodded before leaving the elf to his works.
"What the hell was that?" Gaya eximed as soon as they walked out of Mary''s flower shop.
"The grim reapers are no more? I don''t think it''s a coincidence someone sent a Fusion stage reaper after you and the reapers guild suddenly got wiped out from existence," Gaya''s voice was grave.
"It''s not," said Michael calmly.
"I''m telling you human. I have a bad feeling about this. It''s like someone is stalking us," Gaya took a deep breath.
Michael, on the other hand, stayed calm as always. Just making everyone think Hunter was the Dark Lord took tremendous pressure off his shoulder. Without this pressure, Michael was able to n and see things more clearly.
"Whoever wiped out the reapers did us a favor. As the elf said, now no one can put a bounty on our heads. It''s a pity we couldn''t swallow the grim reapers into our organization. But it paves the way to something greater, something I''m best at," Michael grinned. Looking at the bright grin on his face, Gaya was taken aback by surprise. His smile was like that of a kid who received a brand new toy he had wanted for a long time.
The smile wiped away the worries in Gaya''s heart as it always did.
"Okay. You''re clearly nning something. Tell me what it is?" Gaya asked.
"Isn''t it obvious, my dear snakey?" Michael pinched her cheek hard enough to turn her cheeks red.
"We are going to start our own assassin guild," Michael smirked. After finding out about the Sea Folks'' arrival, Michael knew he needed to further strengthen the might of his army. He knew the nature of these cultivators. Sooner orter, they would try to control the upsiders so they could be more powerful. As far as he was concerned, they just used the Dark Lord as an excuse to step into their world. He couldn''t care less about the Sea Folk for now. However, since they were set on finding the Dark Lord, he would fight back. That was his resolve. To his glee, he received a new opportunity to increase his power.
**********************************************
At the moment, General Quintus was walking through a dark cave. He used an oil torch to light the path in front of him. There was something odd about the cave. Quintus couldn''t describe the feeling, but it was there. If he had to, he would describe the cave as a nest of evil. Even a war veteran like Quintus shivered, taking steps forward.
Eventually, after walking for almost fifteen minutes without any guards or weapons, Quintus reached a stone door. He took a deep breath before knocking on the stone door three times. The door slowly creaked open, revealing a dark room lit with red orbs on the walls. Quintus twitched his nose, trying to prevent the putrid smell in the air from entering his nostrils. He looked around to locate the master of this ce. Instead, he only found steel tables with bloody knives, blood stains on the walls, and a few pieces of flesh.
The ce reminded Quintus of some butcher shops. Only they butchered humans instead of cattle. Quintus made a fortune sending ves and orphans to this ce. Quintus feared nothing, no war or no famine could make him shudder except his employer. Just the thought of meeting his employer gave him chills.
"Quintus," His body went rigid when he heard a whisper resonate in the room.
"Did you finish your task?" the voice whispered again. It sounded neither of a man nor a woman. Rather, this voice was beastly.
"Yes," Quintus said. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as he shivered. He tried to turn his head, but his brain refused to obey hismands.
"Good good good," the whisper sounded close to his ear. He could feel his neck air stand up straight. True to his words, Quintus finished his task.
"It''s time you received the gift, my dear Quintus," A cold chill ran through his spine. He hardly had time to wonder when he felt a strong force pushing him onto one of the steel tables stained with blood.
"ARGH!" Quintus wiggled violently to fight the invisible force. However, the force lifted him off the ground, putting him on the table. His hands and legs went rigid as Quintus couldn''t feel them anymore. In fact, he only had feelings in his eyes. Sooner, Qunitus noticed red orbs flicker.
"You will thank meter," The voice said. It wasn''t too long before Quintus saw his mysterious employer. He didn''t know the employer was a he or a she. In fact, he even doubted it was even a human. The figure that appeared in his sight had a humanoid shape, approximately three meters tall, and was covered in dark hooded cloaks, making them closely resemble spirits. The face was barely visible due to the cloak. Whatever Quintus saw was grayed and decayed, looking like a dposing corpse. Its breath smelled putrid, like blood and poison.
"HRRRRRMMMMM!" Quintus tried to move his body only to fail. Except for his eyes, he couldn''t move an inch of his body.
"You rattled the death''s cage," the creature whispered, gliding in the air around Quintus. This meeting was supposed to be an exchange. He was supposed to show the bloody de that took Heinberg''s life and receive the said gold coins in exchange. But, not in a million years Quintus thought he would end up on this torture table.
"Only the gift can save you now," the figure touched Quintus with its slimy-looking grayish hand. He felt a bone-chilling coldness throughout his body when it touched his skin.
"EEEGGHH!" Quintus gasped for air as his eyes suddenly turned as white as pure snowkes.
The creature slowly glided over Qunitus''s head, running its cold nails through his neck. Then, suddenly, it lunged his teeth at Quintus''s neck. Blood sprayed out of his neck as the creature sunk its teeth deep into his neck. His entire body started to shake. Little by little, veins popped out from Quintus''s skin. In just a few moments, Quintus opened his mouth, revealing his canine tooth slowly, taking the shape of vampire fangs.
Chapter 616: Aqua Auction Begins
Chapter 616: Aqua Auction BeginsThe Aqua Pce was nearly three thousand miles away from Yaserius where the Voldigard castle was located. Normally it would take three to four days for a cultivator to reach the Aqua Pce. Since Eve was apanying Michael with the four Soul Refining stage protectors, Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare flew to the Aqua Pce instead of simply teleporting. During these three days, Michael had a very peaceful life. He talked to Eve about the elves, how they operated, and the power dynamic in Awor. Michael brewed the cures to stockpile them whenever they stopped flying and erupted camps to rest. In order to avoid raising the empress''s attention, the rival families simply chose to ignore the Voldigards until the auction ends.
Eventually, when the clouds covered the morning sun, hardly letting pass any sunrays, Michael and the rest arrived at the Aqua Pce. The people on the ind gradually increased as more and more people arrived at the ind by luxurious ships, airships, and simply flying like Michael. At the ind, dozens of soldiers d in metal armor along with cultivators wearing simple mage robes stood vigntly to maintain order. Anyone who entered the city had to hand over ten thousand coins as the entry fee. Only in this way could they enter the Aqua Pce without being thrown out by the guards.
The Aqua Pce didn''t offer VIP cards to many but only to prestigious and powerful people. Every time an auction begins, the soldiers were informed about the VIP card holders so they could provide the utmost respect and excellent service. Because of that, the soldiers instantly recognized Eve and allowed them to fly directly to the entrance instead of walking like the rest.
Although the nobles who witnessed the special treatment felt annoyed, they didn''t dare to question the guards which was equivalent to questioning the Aqua Pce itself. It wasn''t an understatement to say that Aqua Pce ran the auction with an iron fist. Any hups to the auction would directly result in the guards'' termination. Sometimes they would lose jobs and sometimes they would lose their lives. Hence, the guards watched everyone like hawks.
After entering the Pce, they saw glowing arrows in the air, leading the VIP guests towards their allocated rooms. A few people threw shocked nces at Eve but she ignored everyone. Michael noticed there wasn''t a single one who greeted Eve with a friendly smile. In fact, they didn''t even bother to nce at Nightmare or Michael. Since Michael and the group arrived at the pce early, they didn''t meet other VIP guests on their way to the second floor.
Because of Eve and her connection, the auction token he received from the Alchemy guild became a waste. Instead of using his token, he could now use Eve''s VIP card to bid on the items. After taking their seats on thefy sofas, Michael stared at the stadium outside. It reminded him of the football stadiums on the earth. Only this was several times bigger and grander than them.
They all witnessed the stadium getting filled with people rapidly in silence. Michael was actually shocked to see the thousands of nobles in one ce. He knew the Aqua Pce must have earned millions just by the entry fee alone. It took the stadium an hour to getpletely packed with people. The atmosphere outside was like a beehive but inside, they didn''t hear a word. The VIP rooms had special runes that filtered most of the undistinguishable chit-chatter to prove a serene environment for the VIPs.
Looking at the auction house, a sense of nostalgia hit Michael. It wasn''t long ago when he visited the Phoenix manor to attend an auction. At that time, he wasn''t even a Core Formation cultivator. He remembered how he bought a teleportation scroll to escape Lord Julius. But now that he thought about everything, he couldn''t help smiling. In just eighteen months, he went from running away from an auction to getting VIP treatment from the biggest auction houses in the world.
Outside the Aqua Pce, many nobles gathered outside in a long line to enter the auction house. As time went by, several luxurious airships appeared above the ind. One of them was painted in crimson red and ck. If Michael was outside, he wouldpare the airship with the zeppelin. But again, he would be more furious than curious. Because the ship had the emblem of Kingdom Thusia. Several figures d in fiery robes flew out of the zeppelin and directly entered the pce from above. Just like Michael and his group, they followed the arrows to reach their VIP rooms. Without having an idea that his sworn enemies were sitting next to his room, Michael sat on the sofa, enjoying the orange juice offered by the Aqua Pce with Eve, Gaya, and Nightmare.
At the moment, the stadium waspletely packed with people including the VIP rooms. The Aqua Pce''s marketing caused the auction to be one of the biggest auctions in thest decade. Because Michael spent his time brewing potions and Gaya spent her time cultivating, they didn''t know much about the items which were to appear in the auction.
They would have bothered to care if they had enough coins to afford the items. But, as far as they were concerned, they would be lucky to buy something in the auction for the coins they had. After all, twenty million was pocket change for the nobles and VIPs in Awor.
"How much do you think we will make by auctioning the cure?" asked Nightmare, breaking the silence in the room.
"Zero coins," Gaya sighed. Although they traded the cure for promotion, she still felt terrible about losing all those coins.
"Okay let me rephrase my question. How much do you think our cure will go for?" asked Nightmare.
"Five million, simple," Gaya didn''t even take a few seconds to think about it. She could bet on her life that the cure would go for at least five million gold coins. There was not a shred of doubt in her mind the nobles would buy the cure just to study it so they could mass produce it for themselves.
"Five million? I think it would go for more. Especially now the molten gue has spread to the nearby kingdoms," said Eve.
Eve still was in shock at what Filvendor and his family had done to her. So unlike Jennefer, Eve couldn''t care less about a few nobles in the nearby kingdoms sumbing to the gue. To be honest, Eve''s mind was a boggle as she couldn''t figure out her feelings. A part of her sought revenge on the elves, but the other wanted to forgive and forget.
Because of this, she upied her mind with other things such as training, cultivating, and of course, spending time with her new best friends. With Michael and Gaya''s guidance, Eve had already begun toe up with ideas to lead the Voldigards better than her father.
However, almost sixty percent of the remaining elders supported Jennifer, but fortunately, she rejected the offer to lead the family without a single thought. Moreover, she named Eve as the better suited to lead the family, not her. Michael was d Jennifer didn''t turn out to be yet another cringe girl who would eventually end up as his enemy. Although Jennifer disliked the idea of waiting till the molten gue spread across the continent, she didn''t question Michael or Gaya. On the contrary, despite everything, Jennifer felt grateful to them. If it wasn''t for Ghost, she wouldn''t be alive toin.
"Good," Gaya grinned.
"I would be more d if the empress herself got sick with the gue," Gaya thought to herself but didn''t dare to speak these words out loud.
On the other hand, Michael wondered whether the Thusians would attend the auction or not. After all, they were at war with many kingdoms at once. To this moment, he had no idea that several elders and a minister in Thusia were sitting just next door, having quite a chat with some elders.
"What''s taking them so long?" Nightmare couldn''t help asking after looking at the crowded stadium. There wasn''t a single seat left empty but still, they didn''t start the auction. So Nightmare wondered what was keeping the Aqua Pce from starting the auction.
He particrly looked at Eve for an answer, but she had none. But when she was about to say she didn''t know the reason, they all had a thunderp resonating throughout the arena. The entire stadium became death silent following the thunderp. They all looked around to see what was happening. Some thought the auction was about to begin but people like Eve who attended auctions before knew it wasn''t the case.
A few secondster, a bright golden light appeared from the sky andnded right in the stadium''s center. The bright golden light radiated a warmth that everyone in the stadium, including Michael felt. Because of his X-ray vision, Michael was able to see a man standing in the golden light.
To Michael''s surprise, the man was also a Fusion Stage cultivator who was just one level away from reaching the Half Immortal Stage. Michael slightly moved forward, focusing on the man. Whoever it was, the man loved theatrics. He could have entered the ce through the VIP channel, but he chose to enter through the open space above the stadium. The man loved heroic entrances.
The golden light enveloped the man for another minute or two until it gradually faded away. Only then could everyone see the man who had just arrived.
"It''s the golden prince!" someone from the crowd shouted without realizing the stadium had grown silent.
Chapter 617: War Gods of Awor
Chapter 617: War Gods of AworThe elf was armed to the teeth with golden metal tes except for his head. So Michael could see the striking golden hair fluttering in the wind, blue eyes, and glowy skin. He simply waved his hand at the crowd before flying toward one of the VIP rooms. The elven prince left a golden light trail on his way to the VIP room. After the elf disappeared from his sight, Michael tilted his head to question Eve,
"Who is he?"
"The third prince of Gondolin," Eve said. Gondolin could be said as the capital of Awor because the empress ruled the continent from there. Although the dwarves never recognized the empress''s authority, the dwarves avoided messing with the empress. Why? Because the dwarves were afraid of the princes. The six princes of Awor were collectively called the war gods for a reason. Each of the war gods was powerful enough to topple any kingdom that threatens Gondolin to the ground single-handedly.
"A war god,"
Gaya rolled her eyes when she heard Eve. They didn''t deserve the name war god. If someone did, it was Michael. The reason why the princes were so powerful was they all had not one but several legendary spells in their arsenal. In addition, their weapons also belonged to the Legendary ss,, which was enhanced by powerful runes. Therefore, although they were at the Fusion stage, they were several times more powerful than any Fusion stage cultivator. In case Michael had everything they had, he would be unstoppable.
"A war god? Fancy name," said Michael, making Eve quickly shut his mouth with her hand.
"Shhhh,"
When they heard Michael, the soul refiners'' faces turned pale as a white sheet. Not a single one in Awor wasn''t afraid of the war gods. Michael looked at everyone to realize he was a big deal in Awor.
"Don''t speak ill of them. In fact, don''t speak about them at all," said Eve.
"Why?" Michael asked since he didn''t know a thing about a war god. As far as he could guess, they were some kind of generals in the empress''s army. He wasn''t wrong though, but they were not simply generals, each of them was a one-man army who had been protecting Gondolin for centuries.
"Because they could kill you and no one can do anything about it," Eve said with a grave tone which only made Michael more curious.
"Interesting," Michael dragged his voice. Deep down, Michael wanted to know more about this war god. Forming an alliance with a powerful figure such as the elf might benefit him in the long run. After the war god settled into his room, the people began to murmur with each other. In a few minutes, they became as loud as before.
Ten minutester, a deafening bell ran throughout the arena. The arena became deadly silent yet again as everyone saw an old man in gray robes slowly descend from the sky. The old man was a Soul refining stage level 7. He had neatlybed hair with a ck goatee. Under everyone''s curious gazes, the old mannded in the arena''s center.
"Grrrhhh,"
After the old mannded on the neatly pruned grass field, he coughed a few times, clearing his throat.
"Wee to the annual prestigious Aqua Auction. I am the auctioneer Rickston Bash for today''s auction. Many of you might know the rules of the auction, but I will go through the rules again for the neers," Michael took a long sip of the orange juice and put the empty ss on the table before him. Afterward, Michael rested his legs on the table as the old man began to recite the rules and regtions.
"Every item in the auction is examined and verified for its authenticity by the best people in Aqua Pce. So rest assured, you won''t be scammed," Rickston said, pausing for a moment.
"Only the bidding token holders and VIPs can bid for an item. Every bid must be made in gold coins. Other currencies such as silver coins, antique items, and ores won''t be epted. Aqua Pce also kindly requests the audience to enjoy the auction without making too much of a ruckus," it sounded more of a threat than a request in Michael''s ears.
"After sessfully winning the bid, you will be contacted by one of our employees. You can either choose to pay the price and take the item immediately or payter at the end of the day. The auction willst for three days and battles are strictly forbidden on the Aqua Pce grounds," Rickston''s grave voice reverberated through the arena. Knowing the Aqua Pce, none dared to break the rules. After all, the Aqua Pce was owned by the arctic hall and the empress.
"Well, the rules have already been finished. I think everyone is very clear in mind,"
Michael was disappointed and surprised at the same time. He expected Rickston to inform them about giving the buyers some protection, but he said nothing about it.
"What if someone decided to steal the item after one leaves the ind?"
"If you don''t have the power to hold onto your items, then you don''t deserve it. That''s an unwritten rule in Aqua auctions," Gaya saint nonchntly.
"That''s unfair," Nightmare sighed, feeling disappointed by the Aqua Pce. Even Michael was disappointed too. A prestigious auction like the Aqua Auction should provide the buyers some security until they reach their destination. Otherwise, the powerful people could just snatch away an item from the weak.
Back on Elon and Ozer, many auctions resulted in an all-out war between noble families or between some rogue cultivator and a noble family. Either way, the auctions always resulted in bloodshed. The importance of a teleporter seemed higher and higher in Michael''s mind. The crowd remained silent, listening to Rickston without daring to utter a word until he finished going through the rules.
"Now that I went through the rules, it''s time to finally start what you''ve been waiting for all this time. Let the annual aqua auction begin!" The crowd erupted into cheers as soon as the crowd heard Rickston''s thunderous shout. Only a small percentage possessed a bidding token to bid on items among the thousands of people. Still, they all cheered because not every day could they witness rare, ancient items with their own eyes. Plus, if they were lucky, they could see a nice battle outside the aqua ind obviously.
Soon, Rickston turned his palms as a ck pir emerged from the grass field near Rickston. A silver longsword rested upon the pir, glistening in the light. Even from their rooms, Michael could hear the sword humming. The de had arge, warped cross-guard, which was to ensure the de was both bnced and capable of protecting the owner''s hands against any sliding sword. In addition, the cross-guard had a gilded eye on each side, a clear sign this weapon belongs to a champion.
A fairly small pommel was decorated with gilded linings, fancy decorations for a fancy sword. The de itself was engraved. Ancient symbols were engraved on the de, giving the de a unique look.
With a single look, Gaya could tell the sword belonged to the Epic ss. To be honest, she had never expected the Aqua Auction to begin with an Epic ss item right out of the bat. It seemed like this year''s Aqua auction would be a special one.
Rickston pointed at the silver sword.
"This is an Epic ss weapon. As far as our experts tested the sword, it could give the wielder a speed boost as well as create a low pitched vibration to void off mindless beasts,"
To Michael, the sword sounded okay but the others were so excited as many drooled at the sword. However, Michael had no intention of buying the sword even though he was in need of a good pair of swords.
"The starting bid for this sword is one million gold coins," Rickston said.
Not even a second passed since Rockston spoke when someone from a VIP room bid for the sword.
"One and a half million," Another one bid for the sword from another VIP room.
Because the VIP rooms were shielded by the ck ss, no one could see who was inside another VIP room. That was why Michael didn''t see the Thusians bidding for the sword. Michael noticed Rickston had never mentioned a certain amount to increase for each bid like the auction he had attended. So the bid for the sword went from 1.5 million to 4 million in a few minutes.
"Seven million," suddenly a clear crisp voice echoed through the arena, drawing everyone''s attention. Michael turned his head in the voice''s direction but the ck ss covering each VIP room prevented him from locating the voice''s owner. However, Michael had X-ray vision to see through the mirror. His thermal vision showed Michael a man''s silhouette. If he was right, it was the golden prince who bid for the sword.
The nobles in VIP rooms instantly recognized the prince''s crisp steel-like voice. They wanted the sword for themselves but it was not worth crossing the golden prince. As a result, they all stopped bidding for the sword.
"It''s bad for business," Nightmare said.
"No shit," Gaya agreed with Nightmare.
"If I had an auction house, I would mask everyone''s voice and prevent anyone from revealing their background. That way, everyone can bid without fearing the strong," Gaya was right as always. When ites to anything rted to making money, she was an unparalleled genius. Atleast, she was more intelligent than the Aqua Pce owners, who didn''t think of masking the VIPs. Otherwise, the sword would have gone for more than seven million.
"Sold for VIP number 3, the golden prince!" Rickston shouted, revealing the man who just bid for the sword.
Sitting on the sofa, Michael furrowed his brows. The old man had no need to reveal the golden prince''s name. Instead, he could have simply said the VIP room number.
Something rubbed Michael in the wrong way about this whole auction.
"Is he just showing off or actually needs that sword?" Michael whispered to Eve,
"Who knows?" Eve shrugged.
At that moment, the crowd had murmured amongst themselves, looking between the golden prince''s room that had a glowing number 3 floating outside in the air and the sword. Then, a whileter, the piller along with the sword slowly slid into the ground.
"Let''s take a look at the next item," Rickston flicked his wrist as the pir slowly emerged from the ground just like before. However, this time, a crystal orb was atop the pir.
After the appearance of the sphere, the temperature of the entire auction site suddenly dropped, and many people felt a little cold, including Michael. A white mist slowly nketed the arena until Rickston pped his hands together. His p immediately produced a powerful shock wave that instantly sted the white mist away.
Afterward, he turned his gaze towards the crystal orb.
"Inside this crystal is the ancient ice dragon''s heart. Those who didn''t know, Ice Dragon was thest Royal Dragon who breathed ice instead of fire,"
Chapter 618: The Hunt Family and The Cure
Chapter 618: The Hunt Family and The CureAs Rickston mentioned, the heart inside the ice crystal belonged to an ice-breathing dragon that lived in the treacherous ocean. It was thest of his kind. After the war between beastmen and the dragons, as well as the dragon n''s sudden disappearance, only a few dragons lived in the treacherous ocean. The ice-breathing dragon was one of them. The dragon''s coldness could shatter even a Fusion stage cultivator''s body. Since it lived in a treacherous ocean, none dared to bother the dragon until a brave adventurer managed to collect a few body parts of the dragon. As soon as Michael heard Rickston, he desired to get the heart for Nightmare. He could think of a few potions that could use the dragon''s heart as an ingredient to give Nightmare a new ability. However, he doubted he could get his hands on the dragon''s heart.
"If I started to list out the things you can do with the ice dragon''s heart, we will all have to be here the whole day. So, I would directly begin the bidding instead of wasting everyone''s time. The starting price of this treasure is ten million,"
People gasped for air in shock after hearing the outrageous price.
"Twenty million," right out of the bat, a noble doubled the bid by cing a twenty million bid.
"That''s my current worth," Michael sighed, thinking how poor he ispared to the nobles in Awor.
"Twenty-five million," another man shouted from a VIP room.
"Fifty million,"
Not even a couple of minutes passed since Rickston started the bid but they had already hit the fifty million mark. It was truly outstanding.
"Am I jealous of them?" Michael questioned himself after seeing the real wealthy people showing how rich they are to the world.
Michael was taken aback by surprise. Someone had increased the body by twenty-five million like it was nothing. Michael activated his thermal vision to locate the rich noble. His eyes scanned all the VIP rooms, but unfortunately, the one who bid was adjacent to their VIP room, which prevented Michael from looking at them. Unless Michael could get his head through the ss, he wouldn''t be able to see the nobles. Michael had no idea these nobles who upied the room next were Thusians.
"fifty-five million," Ady with a melodious voice bid for the heart next.
"Seventy million," The Thusians raised the bid once again, and this time, none bid against them. The Ice Dragon heart was a rare thing, but they didn''t think it was worth seventy million.
"Who are these people?'''' Nightmare asked, shocked by their wealth. They forked up seventy million like it was nothing. Although Gaya was a princess, she had never touched spent coins asvishly as the other princesses because she knew how hard it was to earn them. Unfortunately, Salesi, Gaya''s stepmother, didn''t share her thoughts. Thus, she spent the coins on all kinds of expenses, driving the kingdom to near bankruptcy, Gaya knew the value of gold coins more than anyone. So naturally, she hated the nobles for giving away seventy million as there was no need to go that high. They could have increased the bid bit by bit and bought the dragon''s heart for sixty million.
Since it wasn''t her coins, Gaya didn''t bother to say anything.
"Sold to VIP number two, the thusians!"
The moment Rickston uttered the word ''Thusians'', Eve felt the temperature in the room drop by several degrees. Nightmare and Gaya immediately red at Michael to see his eyes reddening. Not only did the veins in his eyes pop, but also the veins on his face bulged. Even with Michael''s control over anger, he failed to remain calm when he heard the word thusians.
"Ghost?" Eve noticed the changes on his face. She slowly ced her hand on his shoulder, asking worriedly.
"Are you alright?"
"Why wouldn''t he be?" Gaya quickly answered Eve before Eve could make any connection between Michael and Kingdom Thusia.
"I am fine," Michael took a deep breath. He could vividly see the images of his sanctuary burning, his elders drawing theirst breath, the thusian soldiers brutally murdering everyone he knew and beating him to death shed.
He would give anything to seek revenge against the thusians. If it wasn''t for the soul part that grew on earth, Michael would have gone to the VIP room and started massacring them without a shred of mercy. Squeezing Michael''s hand, Gaya wordlessly told him to remain calm.
"I am fine. Just remembered some things that I don''t want to," Michael said, taking a few deep breaths.
"The next thing we will show you is ast-minute addition to the auction items. I am positive that all of you have heard about the molten gue. Kingdom Thera has been put on lockdown because of this gue. Although we haven''t heard of anyone falling sick to the gue outside Thera, we cannot be sure. These are trying times. But if you have a loved one suffering from the molten gue or just want to be safe, worry not. The Aqua Pce acquired a cure for the gue,"
Upon hearing Rickston''s words, the golden prince leaned forward on his sofa.
"So the spies are right. Someone dide up with a cure," The golden prince rubbed his chin. Unlike the other VIPs, the golden prince didn''t have any guards around him. He came here alone, seeking the truth behind the alleged cure.
On the ground, Rickston flicked his wrist as a vial with glistening purple liquid emerged from the ground atop a pir.
"We have examined the potion and can say with utmost certainty that this potion not only cures the molten gue but prevents anyone from getting infected by the gue. This miraculous cure was brewed by the number one alchemist in Elon, Master Ghost," As per the deal, Rickston promoted Michael on the grand stage.
"Ghost?" The golden prince tilted his head, searching through his memories to see if he had heard such a name before. In fact, many nobles did the same, but only a few heard the name Ghost. These nobles had some connections to Ozer and Elon, unlike the rest, who failed to recognize Michael. But, of course, the handful of nobles who recognized Michael included the Thusians. After all, Michael was the Thusian Alchemy Guild''s leader. So naturally, they heard about Ghost even though they had never met him eye to eye. These thusians even had the audacity to feel proud, except for a few who opposed Ghost for giving the cure to Aqua Pce instead of His Majesty Maxim Barns.
"The starting bid for this potion that would change the fate of Awor is five million gold coins,"
"Seven million," Michael heard a stoic voice for the first time. Michael didn''t see the man, but his voice made Michael imagine a Viking with a full beard and muscr body. Because the voice was rough, thick, and heavy.
"Ten million,"
Despite the bids, Eve saw no happiness in either of their faces. Yet, Eve chose not to question them as she heard about their deal with the Aqua Pce from Michael himself. No matter how much the nobles paid for the cure, Michael wouldn''t get a single coin. Instead, all the coins would go to the Aqua Pce as a part of their deal. After putting the cure on the market, Gaya knew they couldn''t put a ten million price tag on the potion. Ultimately, only a small percentage in Awor could afford something priced at ten million. So, to maximize their profits and sales, they had toe up with a lower price and wholesale the potions to each ruler in Awor. These kings and queens would then distribute the cures to their citizens.
"Twelve million," A man raised the bid.
"Twenty million,"
"Twenty-two million,"
Michael heard the nobles rapidly raising the price of his potion. However, he was surprised to see the golden prince remaining silent the entire time. He or the Thusians didn''t bid because the golden prince knew the Aqua Pce would start distributing the potions for a much lower price and the thusians knew they could get the cure from the man who brewed the cure himself. So the two parties chose not to bid for the cure.
"The Hunt family bids twenty-five million," The rough voice resonated in the arena yet again.
As soon as everyone heard the voice, the bidding war had just stopped. None dared to bid against the man afterward. Awor had many prominent noble families, and the Hunt family was the second most powerful family among them. This multi-racial family was only second to the Gondolin royal family in terms of wealth and power. The Hunt family was known to produce prodigies, including thete Harriet Hunt. Thetter shook the entire world with her heaven defying cultivation. The empress herself feared that Harriet might overtake her in cultivation with enough time. It was a pity that Harriet Hunt and her two sisters died in an unforeseen ident. Even after her death, many academies in Awor taught their disciples about Harriet. Moreover, the empress erected a statue of Harriet in Gondolin''s capital as a sign of respect for Harriet Hunt.
However, none of them had any idea that Harriet Hunt was very much alive and living as Diana Winston in Elon.
"The Hunts are here huh? Now I have a feeling we might get some entertainment after the auction," Gaya grinned. She couldn''t believe they were between the Thusians and the Hunts.
After noticing the silence, Rickston looked at the VIP room next to Michael''s.
"Sold for twenty five million to the Hunts,"
Michael paid no mind to the Hunts. As far as he was concerned, they were just another one of the powerful families in Awor. Ignoring the Hunts, Michael focused more on figuring out the most brutal way to kill the thusians next to him.
Following the cure, Rickston brought three more treasures one after another. These three treasures were respectively obtained by the Hunt family, Thusians, and the Brugo family which hailed from the Kingdom of Orcs. Many nobles, like the golden prince, didn''t bother to bid for these items because they knew these items were just a warm-up. The real treasures would only appearter in the auction.
The auctionsted for two hours with no items that interested Michael or Eve. Eventually, Rickston took a deep breath,
"The first day of the auction concludes now. Please return here tomorrow morning for the second day of Aqua Auction," Rickston said before ascending to the sky. Meanwhile, the crowd slowly began to disperse, including the VIPs.
"I hope you two don''t mind staying in one room," Eve yfully winked at Gaya.
"All the rooms are booked. So I could only book two. One for me and one for the three of you,"
Chapter 619: Marriage of Ghost and Victoria
Chapter 619: Marriage of Ghost and VictoriaThe Voldigards booked a room in a luxurious tavern. The ground floor was an Inn that had several people drinking and dancing. Michael however was not in the mood to mingle with the ground. Instead, he and Gaya followed Eve behind until they reached the wooden door.
"This is your room. If you need something, I am just a door away," Eve said as Michael twisted the metal knob, opening the door with a small creak.
"See you tomorrow," Michael nodded at Eve before walking into his room with Gaya. The room was clean, neat, and cozy. There was a white queen bed big enough for Michael and Gaya, arge window draped with an orange curtain, blocking the light, and a small round table with a couple of red chairs for them to dine in.
Nightmare leaped onto the bed and bounced on it to see how bumpy the bed was.
"Thusians huh?" Gaya asked, closing the door behind her. The room fell silent as Michael just leaned on the wall watching the busy streets through the cracks between the curtains.
"If it makes you any better, we can go kill them," Gaya came to his side. She slowly hugged him from behind and rested her head on his shoulder.
Immediately, Michael felt the light jasmine fragranceing from her. Her hug was tight and warm. It had a certain magical effect to make him smile for a moment.
Put simply, Michael was already nning on it. The best way to contain his anger was to blow off some steam. Otherwise, his mind wouldn''t work at full capacity. As a result, he might make mistakes. Michael did not want to make any mistakes, especially now with the Sea Folks on his tail. Therefore, Michael decided to kill the Thusians.
However, he had to wait till the night falls when his power would grow significantly. Meanwhile, Michael sent a couple of drones to follow the Thusians and ordered Azazel to watch the feed. Michael ordered Azazel to inform him as soon as possible in case something felt wrong. After Heinberg''s death, Michael was thinking of something permanent to watch over the feedsing from the Spyders. Since Azazel was in physical form, he would be more useful to Michael outside the dark forest than inside. He wanted something else to take Azazel''s ce of watching the feed.
"Why don''t we go into their room, make them weaker with the gue and kill them nice and slowly?" Gaya slowly ran her fingers through Michael''s chest. Her voice was extremely seductive. If it wasn''t for his promise that he wouldn''t take her before the marriage, he would have been on the bed right now.
But even her seductive tone couldn''t take his mind off of the Thusians. Every time he blinked, he could see nothing but dead bodies and the burning sanctuary. After merging with all the soul pieces, the feeling of betrayal became several times stronger. At that moment, he would give anything to wipe out Thusia from existence.
"Hey Gaya," Michael turned around to look her in her eyes.
"What do you say we go to Thusia aftering out of Mazeroth?" asked Michael.
"I thought you''d never ask," Gaya head-butted Michael gently. Initially, Gaya thought her life was a tragedy. But her life seemed all rainbows and butterfliespared to Michael''s. So Gaya wanted to help him destroy Thusia before dealing with her own kingdom. To be honest, she felt no rush to visit Nagnd until at least she was at Fusion Stage.
"It''s time I pay them back for what they did to me,"
Michael and Gaya silently waited till nightfall. Today the sky was pitch ck without a moon or any stars. When the previously busy steers became void of any crowd, Michael and Gaya flew through the window. Michael headed towards the tavern where the Thusians were staying. For some reason, the Thusians decided to stay in a tavern in the middle of a forest. Granted Michael could see the crystal blueke outside the tavern, giving the customers a nice view.
Inside the tavern, one minister at Soul Refining Stage and three elders at Fusion stage sat before a firece, enjoying the hot coffee. The red-haired minister leaned back on his chair, gazing at the ice crystal in his hand. The Thusians could hardly see the triangr-shaped heart trapped within the ice crystal.
"Give it to me, Reidar. I want to take a look at it," Freddy, who was a dark-haired lean man, furrowed his gaze. The four of them were best friends long before Reidar had be a minister. Thus, they called each by their name instead of any honorifics.
"I bought it so I get to hold it," Reidar chuckled.
While the four friends were having a good time under the firece''s warmth, they noticed a group of elves entering the hall through the wooden door. These elves seemed to be guarding the elven woman in the middle. Ignoring their gazes, the elves climbed the stairs to get to the second floor.
"I have seen her somewhere," Reidar rubbed his chin. He poked every corner of his brain to see where he met her. She seemed awfully familiar to Reidar.
"Hey dumbo, didn''t you see the single silver leaf symbol on their chests? They are the Valren family," Freddy rolled his eyes. The Valrens were another powerful family in Awor but they were not from Gondolin. Rather, the Valrens hailed from Sill ri. Since the Valrens were rtives to Sill ri''s King Lyklor ri, the Valrens held unprecedented power within Sill ri. Coupled with the fact that one of the Valrens was an Alpha Guardian, none dared to cross the Valrens in Sill ri.
After hearing Freddy, Reidar had a moment of realization.
"She is Tanulia Valren. I knew I saw her somewhere. She visited Thusia and met with her royal highness, didn''t she?" Reidar recalled Tanulia meeting with Victoria a few months ago before thetter went to Mazeroth. They didn''t know why they met but the rumors have that Tanulia offered Victoria a position in the Guardian Guild.
The rumor hadn''t specified whether Victoria epted it or not. But as far as Reidar could tell, King Maxim Barnes didn''t have a good thought about the Guardian Guild. So it was highly unlikely for the princess to join the Guardian Guild.
"Did they bid for anything?" asked Freddy.
"I don''t think so," answered another one.
"They must be saving their coins for something else. I was pretty shocked that they didn''t go for the molten gue cure," Reidar said.
"I am pretty shocked that ungrateful brat didn''t give us the cure in the first ce," Freddy snickered. Among the four friends, Freddy was the one who disliked Ghost for striking a deal with the Aqua Pce instead of giving the cure for free to them. He felt Ghost was obliged to do that since they hired him as their Alchemy Guild''s leader.
"You should vent all your anger while you still can Freddy. You might not get a chance to do so in the future," Reidar said. As a minister, he received insights into Maxin Barnes''s decision more than his friends. One of those hot insights was Victoria''s suitors.
"What?" Freddy asked.
"His Majesty is thinking of marrying her royal highness to Ghost," said Reidar calmly.
The moment Freddy and the others heard him, their bodies went rigid. They were startled as Freddy creased his brows.
"You''re kidding?"
"I kid you not. I heard this from one of her highness''s friends" Reidar took a long breath,
"They''ve been thinking about this for some time. I think we will hear more about this once her royal highness returns from Mazeroth," Reidar exined. Unlike Michael, Victoria chose to stay in Mazeroth instead of leaving for the holidays. The sole reason for her visit to Mazeroth was to locate the Primordial mes. The Cold mes might have gone out of her reach but she wanted to find the second me she saw in the save, the mysterious ck mes. She stayed behind to locate this me no matter what.
"What the hell? Thest time I checked, he wasn''t a noble by birth," Freddy protested. He was born and raised into a prominent noble family. As a result, Freddy treated the people who weren''t nobles like dirt. In simple terms, he was a fascist. In fact, Freddy was one of the few who protested not to offer Ghost a position in their guild. True to his words, Freddy tried his best to block the offer. Nheless, Maxim Barnes overthrew their opinions and ordered Calvin to hire Ghost. If Freddy valued nobility, Maxim valued power. He wanted talented and powerful people to serve him instead of others. That way, he could rule the entire world in the future. With the Cosmic stream, his dream wasn''t too far.
"Do you think his majesty will give a shit about nobility in this case? He is a heaven-defying prodigy, 5-star Alchemist and now, the King of Bredia. To be honest, he is no lesser than her royal highness in any way,"
"I am with Reidar on this one," A bald-headed man named Sindre sided with Reidar.
"I heard about Ghost. His achievements are quite shocking. With time and resources, he might hit the Fusion stage within a few years from now on. Once he reaches the Fusion stage, I won''t be surprised if the empress herself asked his hand in marriage for one of her daughters,"
"So what if that happens huh? Do you expect her royal highness to be his secondary queen?" Freddy asked with a tinge of fury in his eyes.
"That''s for his majesty to figure out. Justy back and rx. We don''t get paid to think about their family affairs," Sindre replied.
Chadak!
Suddenly as they were talking, they heard thudding footsteps above them.
"Did you hear that?" they all quickly spread their senses to see if there was someone outside. However, their senses picked up nothing.
"Might be a cat or something," Reidar refused to pay much mind to the footsteps. After all, he didn''t need to worry about security as the ce had runes and arrays to stop and neutralize any unauthorized visitors.
Chapter 620: Enslaving a god
Chapter 620: Enving a godAt that moment, three bright lights floated inside avish throne hall. The walls surrounding the three lights had high, stained ss windows of mesmerizing mosaics concealed by curtains adorned with intricate embroidery and jewels. The thousands of gems on the askew ceiling danced in the flickering light while the three lights looked down upon the marble floor of this grand hall. Their energy radiation was none like anyone the mortals have seen except Diana. Twenty-two years ago, these three witnessed Wulfric and Andreas performing the forbidden spell on Diana. The three of them thought they had closed the chapter of Dark Lord forever until yesterday. He didn''t only return to this universe but also had the power to rival them as a Celestial being. Just a thought of the Dark Lord made these Skyhall Elders shiver to the core.
The three lights gradually lost their radiance, showing a silhouette inside each light.
"How could this be? We were there when the portal to the void realm opened. We saw Wulfric and Andreas sending the Dark Lord to earth. How could this happen? How is he here?" A white-haired woman d in sky blue armor stepped out of the light. She was tall, stern, and radiated an aura of a warrior. Although she didn''t carry a weapon in hand, she seemed like an embodiment of the word warrior. Yet, even a fierce warrior like her stuttered when talking about the Dark Lord. What they witnessed yesterday sent shivers running through their spines. What shocked them further was the Dark Lord sensed their presence.
"Something must have gone wrong with the ritual," a cold voice resonated in the hall as a short burly figure with a pot belly, thick long bushy beard, and long hair walked out of the light. Even after reaching the Celestial stage, the man couldn''t stop excluding a drunken Viking vibe. Despite his status, the man only wore leather greaves and leather shoulder armor.
"We could ask Elidyr but oh wait, he''s escaped from his imprisonment," This time, an elven man with haughtiness stepped out of the light. Sarcasm oozed out of his voice.
The three bright lights faded away, revealing their figures clearly. The warriordy was a human, the burly man was a dwarf and finally, the sarcastic man was an elf.
"The arch angels are scouring the Akn realm as we speak," thedy said.
"That''s what you said a month ago," growled the dwarf.
"There is no need for any quarrel. In case you two have forgotten, we still have trump cards waiting to be used," the elf grinned.
True to his word, the elf waved his hand as two figures made of smoke appeared before them. Slowly, each smoky figure turned into a young woman. One figure wore armor set with a rounded helm and a faceguard. Attached to the forehead area was a crafted leather ornament piece shaped like a lion''s mouth. The shoulders were oval, short, and quiterge decorated with three big, curved wooden spikes on each side, lined up from back to front. She had a perfectly sculpted face, porcin skin, and silky raven ck hair.
The figure floating beside the ck-haired girl was a petite, golden-haired girl, dressed in purple robes. She looked a couple of years younger than the ck-haired girl as she still had a tinge of childness on her face. Both these figures remain still with their eyes closed.
Looking at the two figures, the humandy remained expressionless while the dwarf furrowed his busy brows.
"Yasmine Winston and Jennifer Voldigard," The elf hovered towards the figures he summoned. He grinned, looking at his handiwork. His hand went straight through their smokey figures when he moved his hand across their bodies.
"The God of Light only has two weaknesses," The elf raised two fingers,
"Family and love. With them, we can exploit his weaknesses," The elf smirked. Judging by the elf''s look, the dwarf knew he had formed a long-time n way before they actually agreed to clone two humans. Usually, the dwarf preferred to end the conflicts with his war hammer, but after taking a nce at the future, even he controlled his lust for battle and decided to be patient. The dwarf turned his head to see thedy remain calm as ake. She didn''t even bat an eye.
"This is how we beat the God of Light, Thorfinn Borgersson," The elf said, ridiculing the dwarf.
"Not by sending a bunch of shells to kill him," The elf chuckled again. Seeing the ridicule in the elf''s voice, Thorfinn clenched his fist.
"At Least I did something. What were you doing? Sitting on your ass, plotting to get your hands on the holy maiden," Thorfinn growled.
Despite the dwarf''s growl, the elf remained as yful as ever.
"What can I say? I like the thrill of the hunt,"
"Shut up both of you. We just saw the Dark Lord and you two are acting like nothing''s happening," Thedy raised her voice, shutting both of them. Then, she hovered towards Yasmine Winston and Jennifer Voldigard.
"Like it or not, The Dark Lord is here. Which means, we all failed to imprison him. Did you even bother to think about what''s going to happen to our world?" asked thedy, looking at the dwarf and the elf. The images of the future they had seen shed across their eyes. A universe without any light or happiness, a sky painted with red, and all races void of any will to do anything other than serving the Dark Lord. Those were just a few glimpses.
"As much as I hate to sumb to this, we have to go with Devdan''s n," Thedy looked at the elf. Although Thorfinn firmly believed fighting the Dark Lord and killing him was the only way to permanently fix the problem, he couldn''t protest against Devdan. After all, the elf didn''t protest when he sent his men after Noah a few months ago. But unfortunately, his men failed miserably. Thorfinn hadn''t expected Noah to be that strong. Other than destroying a human restaurant, his men achieved nothing.
"But Devdan, we cannot kill Noah. not after we have seen how powerful the Dark Lord is. He may be the only one who could stop him, just as the prophecy said,"
"So what do you want me to do? Send my two perfect clones to him and pleasure him on his bed?" The elf rolled his eyes, bothering not to tone down the sarcasm in his voice.
"No," Ignoring Devad''s sarcasm, thedy raised her brow like a sword.
"He is a god. Unlike us, his body and soul would go through metamorphoses while breaking through to the Half Immortal stage. Lady Qin Jiu called it stepping into godhood. Once he steps into godhood, the odds of us killing him will plummet. But reaching godhoodes with a price. During his breakthrough, he would be as powerless as a fish in a barrel. We have to take advantage of that time," The Lady dered.
Her goal was not to kill Noah nor to stop him from reaching godhood. The real goal was to ensure Noah would serve the Skyhall as his sister. After living their lives as gods in this universe, none of the elders were willing to serve anyone else, including the God of Light or the Holy Maiden herself.
"I assume you have a n, including my clones," Devdan asked her.
"Do you remember the forbidden spell we used on Diana to alter her memories?" she asked as the dwarf and elf slowly nodded their heads.
"Our runemasters had altered the spell to my preferences. Now we could use the spell on Noah during his ascension to godhood to alter his memories. Once we seed, the god of light will be our weapon and a ve," Finally, a grin emerged on her face. Just the thought of controlling a god gave a certain pleasure despite the situation.
"That still doesn''t help us locate the Dark Lord. Besides, what if he already knows what we did to him and his family?" asked Thorfinn.
"If he did, we wouldn''t be here talking to each other," Devdan said.
"No more trying to kill Noah from now on, Thorfinn. Instead, send him a few gifts to make him stronger. He would find the Dark Lord for us. We will end whoever hails victorious in the final battle. The Skyhall doesn''t need a god to serve," Thedy turned around and walked away from Thorfinn and Devdan.
"We are the gods," she eximed before vanishing into thin air.
After she left the ce, Thorfinn turned his focus to the two human clones before him.
"So what the hell happened to the real Yasmine Winston and Jennifer Voldigard?" asked Thorfinn although he had a good idea about their fate knowing Devdan.
"You cannot put two souls in one body, Thorfinn," Said Devdan nonchntly.
"Stop your bullshit. You killed them,"
"Killing is a strong word. They sacrificed themselves for the greater good. Isn''t that what we all want?"
Thorfinn felt like coughing up blood. He had lived for hundreds of years, yet he had never seen such a selfish person like Devdan in his life. So hearing the elf talking about sacrificing for the greater good sounded like bullshit to him.
Devdan on the other hand just ignored the dwarf''s re.
"You heard thedy, no more trying to kill Noah, Thorfinn. Keep your dogs on leash," Devdan patted Thorfinn on the shoulder. He then just waved at the smoky figures as they slowly vanished into thin air. Sometimes, Thorfinn wished he could just kill Devdan. Although they had reached the Celestial stage and lived for thousands of years, their enmity ran deep. The only thing that kept them from killing each other was theirmon enemy, the Dark Lord. Otherwise, each elder would have plotted to kill the other and seeded a long time ago.
"Think about it, Devdan, I am not a smartass like you, but even I could see if the spell failed to mess with Noah''s head, you would end up paying for what you did to his cousin and his sweetheart. So pray to your elven gods for the spell to work. Otherwise, you''d wish my ways had worked," with onest grin, Thorfinn disappeared from the room as well.
After they had all left, Devdan waved his hand again. This time, a silhouette resembling Rowena appeared before him.
"When everything''s over, you and I will rule this universe together, darling. You and me¡" Devdan grinned with eyes full of lust. He had never lusted over a girl in his entire life, let alone a human girl. But something about her made Devdan long for her like crazy.
"Soon, I will get you,"
Chapter 621: Ambushing Tanulia Valren
Chapter 621: Ambushing Tanulia ValrenBack in the tavern on the outskirts of Allen ri, one of the three dukedoms and where the Aqua Pce was located, Tanulia Valren made her way to the carriage waiting outside. The soldiers followed her close despite her cultivation stage. To be honest, she didn''t need any protection as she was the strongest among them. Her guards were only at the Soul Refining stage.
The carriage waiting outside was hooked to horses rather than a pegasus. Upon seeing the moonless sky, the darkness reminded Tanulia of the Dark Lord. Only then did she notice the horses hooked onto the carriage instead of pegasus. Her furrowed brow made the old man shudder. As a human, the old man knew the elves'' tendency to punch the humans. However, he was lucky that Tanulia wasn''t in the mood to punish him. Moreover, she felt riding the carriage instead of flying may be a good way to calm her mind and soul.
"My Lady, the pegasi fell sick. Please forgive my ipetence," the old man quickly dropped to his knee.
"Rise," Tanulia waved her hand,
"Just drive the carriage to Thera," Tanulia said before opening the carriage door with a small clicking sound.
"Yes, mydy," the old man frantically nodded and hopped onto the driver seat. The surrounding elves were displeased to ride the horses like humans but they had no choice. After entering the carriage, Tanulia settled onto her seat. A small orb of light illuminated the interior. It was decorated with dark purple walls and cushions to make the journey as cozy as possible.
The old man pped the reins as the horses neighed. The horses then clip-clopped on the pavement built through the forest. Sitting inside the carriage, Tanulia hardly felt any bumps. Tanulia closed the curtains and flicked her wrist. Soon, a golden parchment appeared in her hand. After opening the parchment, she saw a few lines of a message written in a rush. She could hardly make out the words,
"The Dark Lord is in Thera," Tanulia mumbled the words written on the parchment. After escaping the Dark Lord''s wrath in Dreidel, the elders ordered her to stay as far as possible from the Dark Lord. They didn''t want Tanulia to obstruct Mutrad''s investigation. However, Tanulia sought revenge. She couldn''t help it. After all, her decisions caused the lives of many loyal guardians, including Tiriana and Peyton.
"Lucifer," Tanulia clenched her fist. There was spite in her voice.
"(cough)(cough)" Suddenly, Tanulia coughed twice, closing her mouth. When she moved her hand away from the mouth, she noticed specks of blood on her palm. It had been a couple of days since she had been infected with the molten gue. She prepared to transfer her responsibilities to someone else in the Guardian Guild when she heard about the cure from one of Valren family allies; the Hunts. ording to them, they would have the cures in their hands by next week. For now, Tanulia and her family used the healing potions they stockpiled over the years.
"Avenge me if he kills me," Tanulia heard Peyton''s voice in her head. As an Alpha Guardian, Tanulia made countless difficult decisions in her life. However, none of them resulted in utter destruction except in the case of the Dark Lord. She thought sacrificing Tiriana to catch the Dark Lord would be worth it, but not only she couldn''t catch the Dark Lord but she also lost Peyton.
Moreover, Tanulia heard the elders were considering making Noah an Alpha Guardian once he reaches the Fusion Stage from the other Alpha Guardians. Although Tanulia had no objection to making Noah an Alpha Guardian, she didn''t want Noah to catch the Dark Lord. Because if he did, Noah would prefer to put the Dark Lord in a special prison rather than end his life. Tanulia sought revenge. She wanted to slowly squeeze the life out of the Dark Lord. There was no way in hell Tanulia would let the Dark Lord live after what he did to her men and her ship.
She mmed the cushion in anger.
"Bastard," Tanulia growled. Blood slowly dripped through her nostrils as she clenched her fist tight. She began to feel weak. Hopefully, she will get the cure soon. After wiping off the blood, she wondered when and how she got infected by the molten gue. She looked at the blood on her face and shoved her thoughts to the back of her mind.
To everyone''s surprise, the horses following the carriage behind neighed. Tanulia quickly put the scroll down and opened the curtains. She then put her head outside to getpletely stunned by what she saw . The five guards who were following the carriage were nowhere to be seen.
"Stop!" Tanulia ordered the carriage driver.
True to her orders, the old man pulled the reins back, slowly stopping the carriage. Before she could step outside the carriage, the old man opened the door for her. Tanulia looked at the shuddering old man. The old man carried a torch to look around. With the torch''s dim light, the old man could see horses neighing behind the carriages. To his surprise, the Soul Refiners riding the horses were nowhere to be seen.
"What?" The old man shuddered. By this time, Tanulia had stepped out of the carriage. She noticed the old man gazing behind the carriage. When she turned her head, she could only see the frightened horses but not her guards. Immediately, Tanulia conjured a ball of light that emanated a bright white light several times brighter than the torch. As she cautiously approached the horses, they neighed louder and louder as though they were frightened by something.
She surveyed the sight continuously, careful not to miss the smallest detail.
"My Lady, where did they go?" the old man asked in a husky voice. There was dread and fear in his voice. One moment the four Soul Refiners were following him behind, and the next moment, they disappeared without a trace. Judging by the frown on her face, the old man didn''t think the Soul Refiners left their horses under her order.
Ssshhhhh!
Suddenly, the old man heard a rustling sound as he quickly jerked his head in the direction where the sound came.
"(cough)(cough)" Tanulia coughed again.
She quickly flicked her wrist, taking out a sparkling blue healing potion from her space ring. Without wasting a second, she emptied the potion into her mouth. There was something eerie about this. The horses kept neighing until they suddenly ran off into the sea of trees, disappearing from her sight. Leaves rained down upon them as though it was autumn, and the ground was nketed by dead leaves.
Although Tanulia knew something was obviously wrong and eerie, she was unable to pinpoint it. Aside from the sound of hooves crunching the leaves and the old man''s teeth cluttering in fear, the forest was silent.
"Make them shut up," Tanulia ordered the old man. The sound of horses neighing annoyed her.
"Nothing has happened to me. It''s alright," The old man mumbled, shaking the worries from his mind. Once he arrived near the horses, he gently brushed the horse''s man to calm it down. With gentle movement, he was able to make one calm, but when he was about to touch the second horse, he felt a strong gust of wind brush past him. The wind almost knocked him down to the ground.
The old man couldn''t remain calm any longer. His frail legs began to shiver.
"Who is there?" snarled Tanulia. Just like the old man, she also felt the gust of wind. Unfortunately, the wind put out the torch, as well as the orb of light floated beside Tanulia. As a result, darkness enveloped them.
"Mydy!" Suddenly, Tanulia heard a wail of cry resonating from the woods. As though in a queue, several arrows shot out from all directions, prating the carriage and Tanulia''s hand.
"It''s an ambush!" shouted the old man. Unsheathing sound echoed through the forest as Tanulia drew the silver sword hanging on her waist. Due to the molten gue''s effects, Tanulia lost most of her connection to the arch and celestial energy. She swung the sword, cutting some of the arrows in half. As an Alpha Guardian, she was trained to use all the weapons including swords. With precise swings, she was able to defend herself. Despite her weak state, she readied herself to cast a defense shield. But the barrage of arrows stopped. Several dozen arrows riddled the carriage yet none of them harmed the old man or the two horses. The forest was once again quiet with only the old man''s cluttering teeth to cut the silence.
Tanulia held the arrow sticking out of her left arm, trembling as blood flowed down. Although the Valren family inquired with the Hunt family about the cure, they did not reveal Tanulia''s condition. After all, if the rival families got any whiff of the Valren family having a sick one and a protector at that, the rival families would attack them like a pack of hungry hyenas. When Tanulia thought about it, everything led her to believe this was either a mind-blowing coincidence or a perfectly nned ambush. Except for her parents, no one knew about her sickness, not even her personal guards. The possibility of her being attacked at the precise moment when she was weak and vulnerable was highly unlikely unless someone had nned everything perfectly. Still, the question remained. How did one learn about Tanulia''s sickness?
"My Lady, are you¡are you there?" The old man could hardly raise his voice. He just crawled under the carriage and curled into a ball to make himself as small as possible. At the end of the day, he was just a carriage driver who had no obligation to die for the elves. Unlike her personal guards, he was just working for coins. So he would rather save himself than die for Tanulia. Besides, he was not a fighter. The most powerful thing he killed was a wild boar when he went hunting with his five friends.
"Shut up," Tanulia growled with a tinge of pain and anger in her voice.
"Twinkle¡twinkle¡little¡star¡" Suddenly, a woman''s voice reverberated in the area. Tanulia''s pain was slowly reced by shock. She wanted to catch the ambusher, feed her to the dogs and personally hang her by the neck.
"How I wonder what you are," The mysterious woman spoke slowly.
"Up above the world so high., like a diamond in the SKY,"
As soon as Tanulia heard this phrase, her body went rigid. She had heard these exact words before. To be exact, twenty-five years ago, when she met the heaven-defying prodigy of the Hunt Family, Harriet Hunt.
Chapter 622: Gaya vs Harriet I
Chapter 622: Gaya vs Harriet ITanulia gritted her teeth, moving her head to the side. Her pointy ears twitched as she heard a rustling sound from the dark woods. She pulled out the arrow from her hand.
"Show yourself," Tanulia snarled. She snapped her finger as the torch on the ground lit up.
Soon, Tanulia saw a figure walking out of the darkness in the torchlight. The figure wore a dark cloak. Under the cloak showing the glint of metal armor. With every step, a mild nking sound echoed. However, the metal armor didn''t resemble the ones the Knights or royal guards wore. Rather, it seemed like the figure etched armor tes into flexible leather armor. Tanulia had fought soldiers wearing metal te armor before. So she knew the drawbacks of dding in full metal te armor. In exchange for protection and defense, they forsake their movement and agility.
"Who are you?" Tanulia asked the figure. Although the figure spoke the exact same words Harriet Hunt used to recite, Tanulia couldn''t believe the figure might be the legendary Harriet Hunt. She died in an ident along with her two sisters. Besides when Tanulia met Harriet twenty-five years ago, thetter was at the Core Strengthening stage. With Harriet''s cultivation speed, she would have reached at least a Fusion stage cultivator by now if she was alive. However, the figure who walked out of the shadows was only a Soul Refining stage cultivator.
There was no way it was Harriet Hunt. To her surprise, the figure didn''t attack Tanulia. Instead, the figure kept walking toward her. Tanulia grasped her sword tightly. She readied herself for the uing battle. Her instincts screamed at her to leap into the fray. But to his astonishment, the figure didn''t even unsheath the two swords that formed an ''X'' behind her back.
Instead, the figure snapped her finger as several objects hit the ground beside Tanulia without a heavy thudding sound. Tanulia turned her gaze towards the objects only to realize they were her personal guards. In the dim light, Tanulia saw the deep cuts across their necks. They died with their eyes open. Despite their cultivation level, the woman slit their throats without a problem.
Tanulia slowly picked herself from the ground.
"Answer me," snarled Tanulia. With no personal guards and energy, Tanulia knew it was going to be a battle of life or death. The odds were not in her favor.
"Tanulia Valren. Next time you want to sacrifice someone else for your benefit, sacrifice yourself," Harriet slowly cracked her knuckles.
Boom!
Harriet raised her leg, sending a powerful kick to Tanulia''s chest. The kick contained enough force to send Tanulia flying and colliding with the carriage. The horses neighed violently.
"Argh," Tanulia hit the ground with a small thud, a deep growl escaping her mouth. The old man on the other hand did not bulge from under the carriage. He just curled himself further, tightly closing his eyes. Through the small gap between the ground and the carriage, the old man saw Tanulia coughing up more blood.
A few seconds after Tanulia hit the ground, Harriet dashed at Tanulia in a blink of an eye. Thetter just grabbed Tanulia by her hair and picked her up.
Thud!
Harriet mmed Tanulia''s head against the carriage,
"Why?"
Thud!
Harriet mmed Tanulia''s head again,
"Can''t,"
Yet again she mmed Tanulia''s head,
"You,"
Again,
"Whore yourself,"
The carriage trembled each time Harriet mmed Tanulia against it. Cracks began to form in the carriage where Harriet kept mming Tanulia''s head against. Because Tanulia had lost her connection to the energies, her body wasn''t strong enough to withstand the blows. As a result, the back of her head split open.
"To the vampires?"
Tanulia hit the ground again with a sharp pain in the back of her head. When Harriet picked up Tanulia, thetter mustered all the remaining strength in her body and stabbed Harriet. The pair of killing intent-filled eyes under the dark hood red at Tanulia before grabbing her sword. Harriet yanked the sword out of Tanulia''s hand.
"AHH!"
With a roar, Harriet punched Tanulia right in the abdomen. Tanulia managed to block the punch using her forearm. But to Tanulia''s horror, the punch carried enough force to make her fly towards a nearby tree. She hit the trunk and splintered wood flew. She coughed as pain coursed through her entire body. Tanulia looked at her arm to see a white bone sticking out in the dim torch light. Even though Tanulia lost her ability to use energy, she could still gauge someone else''s power level. The woman might be at the Soul Refining stage but her punch carried the force of a Fusion stage cultivator. Tanulia doubted she could fight the woman toe to toe with her full cultivation and win. The woman was a monster. Tanulia had no doubt in that matter. By the time Tanulia managed to pick herself up again, Harrier appeared in front of her in a sh.
Tanulia could feel the murderous aura radiating from the woman''s body. Tanulia had never felt such killing intent. It was as though the woman craved taking her life in the most brutal way possible. But no matter what, Tanulia wouldn''t go without a fight or beg for mercy. Tanulia was coughing hard as her chest was rising and falling rapidly. But she was standing. Her entire body was riddled with cuts and bruises. Blood dripped from her wounds, covering the ground under her feet. Despite the injuries, the fighting spirit in Tanulia''s eyes continued zing.
Tanulia wiped the blooding from a cut on his lips. On the other hand, Harriet put a pause on hitting Tanulia. Instead, stabbed her ck sword into the tree just a few inches above Tanulia.
"Coward," Tanulia spat on Harriet''s face.
Ignoring the bloody saliva on her dark mask, Harriet took a step back. She slowly pushed back the cloak, revealing her long raven ck hair.
"This mask I wear is not for me. It''s to protect the people I care about. I put it down for some time, only to realize people like you will always try to harm them one way or another. Would you like to see me without my mask?" asked Harriet.
Under Tanulia''s gaze, Harriet slowly removed the ck mask to reveal her face in the dim light. And the moment Tanuliaid her eyes on Harriet, she was stupefied.
"No," Tanulia mumbled. It was Harriet Hunt herself standing in front of her. Tanulia thought she died, not only Tanulia but the entire Awor thought she had died. However, there was no doubt in Tanulia''s mind, she was Harriet Hunt. The heaven-defying prodigy was too special of a person for Tanulia to forget.
"You¡" Words didn''te out of Tanulia''s mouth.
"How did you¡"
Harriet did not reply. She threw the mask onto the ground and cracked her fists. Without giving any time for Tanulia to react, Harriet began to punch her rapidly. The images of Sabrina getting tortured by the vampires shed across Harriet''s eyes. Her rage multiplied by several folds when she thought about Sabrina and Tanulia''s involvement. For the first twenty to thirty punches, Tanulia tried to block. But as time went by, Harriet''s punches became more violent and powerful.
The light in Tanulia''s eyes slowly started to fade away as her legs gave up. Still, Harriet grabbed her by her neck and kept punching Tanulia in the chest using the other bloody fist. Blood spurted out from Tanulia''s chest as Harriet rained down violent punches. A few secondster, Tanulia''s chest caved in. When the light in Tanulia''s eyes waspletely dimmed, Harriet threw Tanulia''s body into the air above like the elf weighed nothing. When Tanulia hit a certain height in the air, gravity pulled her down to the ground.
Seeing Tanuliaing down, Harriet twisted the sword she stabbed in the tree. Just like she calcted, Tanulia''s neck came into contact with the de. Blood sprayed out as her head was severed from her body. It flew into the air and dropped and rolled onto the air. Harriet noticed there were tears in the corner of Tanulia''s eyes. Was it rage, shock, or regret? Harriet did not know. To be honest, there was no need to find the answer. Tanulia sent Sabrina into a trap, knowing what the vampires would do to her. Harriet had to kill Tanulia before she could harm her family any more than she had already.
Harriet felt no regret or remorse, not even a bit. If roles were changed and she hurt one of the Valrens, Harriet doubted Tanulia would show her any mercy. A whileter, the headless body hit the ground. Harriet turned her gaze to the body, noticing the glowing rune on Tanulia''s chest. If Harriet had severed Tanulia''s head herself, the rune would have transferred itself to her, and the Valrens would havee seeking revenge. However, Tanulia died by falling from the air and cutting her head with the sword.
So the rune had no living person to attach itself to. This was a small trick Harriet picked when she trained under Wulfric.
Even after killing Tanulia, Harriet''s anger didn''t lose its me. On the contrary, it zed brighter and hotter. But for now, she took a deep breath and extended her arm towards the mask as it flew straight into her hand. Harriet wore the mask and pulled back the hood to cover her head.
After taking several steps away from the head and Tanulia''s body, Harriet looked at the sky.
"The moonless sky,"
The moonless sky reminded Harriet of the night she had lost Dean. She may have failed to protect him once, but the gods have given her a second chance. She had waited for this moment. With Tanulia out of the way, her son Ghost would have an easier time hiding his other persona.
"This is what you get for messing with House of Halrid," Harriet spoke, loud enough for the old man hiding under the carriage to hear. Having a conversation with Alicia about House of Halrid''s involvement in Peyton''s murder helped Harriet sew an enmity between Houe Halrid and House Valren. Simply put, Harriet got two birds with one stone.
She couldn''t wait to see the treacherous guardians go against the House of Halrid.
Chapter 623: Gaya vs Harriet II
Chapter 623: Gaya vs Harriet IIAfter killing Tanulia, Harriet readied to leave the area. Just as she was about to disappear into the woods, Harriet heard a rustling sound. Harriet paused on her steps, waiting for another one to walk out of the shadows. As Harriet expected, a figure d in ck armor from head to toe emerged from the woods. Just with a single look, Harriet could tell the figure was a woman due to the perfect hourss structure and the way she walked toward her. Harriet stared at the crimson red glistening under the dark hood.
"Would you answer me if I asked who you are?" Harriet heard the woman talk. There was a shock in her voice. Her glistening eyes looked around the ce. They briefly paused at Tanulia''s head.
Harriet swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Her heartbeat rose. There was no way Harriet would fight the girl before her. It was not because Harriet feared her but because Harriet knew the girl''s identity. Under all the armor and hood, Harriet knew it was Aelia, her son Ghost''s fiance. Since Harriet knew the Dark Lord was Ghost, naturally his fiance would be the Dark Queen. Unlike Noah, Ghost dedicated himself to one woman. So it wasn''t hard for Harriet to see through Gaya''s disguise.
"I wish I could answer you," Harriet sighed.
"The Dark Lord wants to see you woman. So it would be wise to ept the invitation," Gaya said in her demonic voice.
To Michael and Gaya''s surprise, when Michael and Gaya arrived at the Inn, they saw Tanulia Valren. Initially, they nned to murder the Thusians, but after seeing Tanulia, they changed their ns. Michael chose the Thusians, while Gaya decided to follow Tanulia with the weaponized gue to weaken Tanulia and her men. However, she was utterly stunned when she noticed someone else was following Tanulia.
Moreover, Gaya saw the woman effortlessly taking out four Soul Refiners like they were nothing. Due to her curious nature, Gaya stood behind and watched everything. She waspletely taken aback to see the woman brutally murder Tanulia.
"I can''t ask you to trust me but step aside. We don''t have to do this," Harriet eximed. Gaya was surprised to hear the tinge of helplessness in the woman''s voice.
She was a Soul Refining stage level 5 cultivator. Thus, Gaya knew the woman had nothing to fear her. In fact, after seeing how she handled herself, Gaya was sure the woman could fight her toe to toe. Yet, the woman seemed to want to avoid the battle.
"You are right. We don''t have to. Soe with me. I give you my word the Dark Lord won''t harm you," Gaya had no intention of fighting the mysterious woman. As far as Gaya could tell, she shared the same hatred for the Guardians like Michael and her. So Gaya wanted to make the woman their subordinate. A powerful fighter such as her would make an excellent subordinate.
Taking a deep breath, Harriet looked over her shoulder to see the old man, lying under the carriage without moving an inch.
"He is not dead, just sleeping," Gaya said. Before Gaya approached Harriet, she knocked out the old man so the old man wouldn''t listen to their conversation.
"What about this? Let''s have a friendly battle. Whoevernds the first blow wins," Harriet said,
"If that''s what you want, so be it. If I win, youe with me. If you win, I''ll let you go," Gaya agreed. However, Gaya had already surrounded the forest with Spyders and drones. Even if Gaya couldn''t beat the woman, she could follow the mysterious woman using the Spyders and drones. To be honest, Gaya wasn''tpletely confident she could defeat the mysterious woman. As a warrior, Gaya was able to tell the mysterious woman was someone who had experienced hundreds of battles.
"I have to bring her to Michael," Gaya said to herself. She heard the mysterious woman recite a phrase simr to Michael''s. Gaya wondered whether she could be connected to Michael somehow.
Harriet on the other hand, hated to fight her daughter-inw. Aelia was her family, but Harriet would rather fight Aelia than her own son. She had a better chance of defeating Aelia than Dean. Suppose Dean recognized her face, everything Harriet had done would go in vain. No matter what happened, she must protect her identity. Gaya slowly made her way to Harriet. To Gaya''s surprise, Harriet didn''t unsheath her swords. Instead, she just cracked her knuckles.
Upon getting closer to Harriet, Gaya released the fear toxin from her suit of armor. However, Harriet noticed the change in the air. Fortunately, she was immune to all the poisons and illnesses thanks to her ancient god Arrora''s blood coursing through her veins.
When Gaya and Harriet met in the middle, Gaya threw her fist, aiming for Harriet''s head. Thetter managed to bend back and avoid the fist. As soon as Harriet dodged the fist, she raised her leg to kick Gaya in the abdomen, but thetter swayed her body to the side, avoiding the kick. Without giving Harriet a second to react, Gaya leaped into the air, attempting tond a kick on Harriet''s head.
Chak!
Chak!
Chak!
Harriet kept blocking the kicks using her hands as Gaya traveled in the air for a couple of minutes. Blocking her kicks, Harriet''s hands started to numb, but she continued to do so. Finally, after blocking almost sixty kicks, Harriet grabbed Gaya''s leg and threw her against a nearby tree. Yet, Gaya managed to kick the tree, stopping herself from colliding with the tree. Her kick had enough power to create cracks in the bark. Splinters flew in all directions as the leaves rained down due to the force.
Before her feet could touch the ground, Gaya boosted herself using the tree and shot toward Harriet like an arrow. Her shock wave created by Gaya''s boost obliterated the poor tree into pieces. Harriet was surprised to see Aelia''s speed and her battle awareness. The dormant warrior deep down Harriet woke up excitedly. When Gaya''s fist was about to hit Harriet''s face, Harriet spun around to kick Gaya in the face. Just as she surprised Harriet, thetter surprised Gaya. Luckily, Gaya managed to grab Harriet''s leg as they both fell to the ground.
They both quickly kicked up almost at the same time.
"You are good," Gaya said, admiring the mysterious woman.
"I can say the same to you," Harriet said. Her son''s choice was spot on. Aelia was a perfect match for him in every way. It was a pity Harriet had to fight her loving daughter-inw.
"You don''t want to use those swords?" asked Gaya. She wanted to see if this woman possessed the same fighting style as Ghost.
"You are an archer, not a swordsman," Harriet calmly said, surprising Gaya.
Gaya couldn''t help raising her brow behind her mask.
"How did she? Might be a lucky guess," Gaya shook off the doubts in her head.
"I don''t want to hurt you, but I don''t want to hold back either. After all, the longer we stay here, the less safe we are," said Harriet.
Gaya and Harriet began to walk in a circle, keeping five meters distance from each other. They were poised to defend themselves from the other.
"You coulde with me," Gaya kidded as Harriet sighed. She almost wished she could go with Aelia and tell her son everything. However, she did not want to put her son in more danger than he was already in. In case Skyhall was watching her, meeting her son would be like leading them straight to their target. So until she kills the Skyhall elders, she wouldn''t meet Dean although she wanted nothing more than to meet him and tell him she was his mother.
"Let''s finish our little duel," Harriet cracked her neck. As soon as she did this little movement, Gaya creased her brows. She had seen Michael do the same as the mysterious woman did. Coupled with the rhyme she recited, Gaya was almost sure this mysterious woman was somehow connected to Michael. But who she was to Michael remained the question.
Besides her shock, Gaya wondered how she was still standing instead of trembling due to the fear toxin''s effects. Yet, the woman didn''t reveal a single sign of distress as Gaya expected.
Whoosh!
As Gaya was in doubt, Harriet dashed at her. This time, Harriet''s speed was several times faster than before. Gaya could only see a blue, not her entire figure. Still, Gaya''s battle instincts made her sway her body and bend down to evade Harriet''s punch. Her evasion was short-lived as Harriet grabbed Gaya''s hand in the blink of an eye and twisted it back.
"Argh," Gaya growled, running towards a nearby tree. Before Harriet could punch Gaya in the gut tond the first blow, Gaya ran onto the tree, twisted her body, and jumped back, releasing her hand from Harriet''s clutch. As soon as Harriet heard Gaya''s feet hitting the ground behind her, she punched the tree in front of her. Her punch contained enough force to create a shock wave that put a hole in the tree and created a shock wave.
The shock wave sted both of them backward, knocking Gaya off bnce. As a result, Gaya lost her chance to punch Harriet in the back. At this moment, Harriet''s battle experience provided her an edge over Gaya. Harriet leaped up, going upside down directly above Gaya''s head. Then, she quickly grabbed Gaya by her shoulder and squeezed hard enough to make Gaya growl in pain.
Gaya felt a sharp pain in her shoulder. She wanted to dash away, but her body refused to move. It felt as though her body was paralyzed.
"What did you¡" Gaya''s voice trailed off.
"If gods permits, I will teach you this technique," Harrietnded behind Gaya, whispering into her ears.
"I win," Harriet gently punched Gaya in the shoulder instead of punching her like she punched Tanulia.
"Wait," Gaya tried to stop Harriet only to see her exhale deeply before flying into the sea of trees.
"Michael," Gaya sent a sliver of arch energy to the earpiece in her ear to connect to Michael.
Gaya heard a click in her ears.
"Are you in danger?" Then, she heard Michael. There was spite in his voice.
"No," Gaya answered Michael.
"Good. Whatever it is, it can wait. I am busy murdering these thusian pigs,"
Chapter 624: First step in destroying Thusia
Chapter 624: First step in destroying Thusia
After the Valrens left the Inn, the Thusians had the ce to themselves. Except for the girl the king sent with them, they all remained in the hall, enjoying their hot beverage and the firece. Unknowing to them, a fifth figure entered the tavern through the roof.
"What do you think we''ll get tomorrow?" Freddy asked Reidar and the others.
"I have no idea. The Aqua Pce keeps a tight lid on the items for the uing rounds. We can get information about the warm-up items, but it''s impossible to get something about the others. But whatever they are, his majesty gave me full authority to buy whatever I see that would make Thusia stronger, " said Reidar with a tinge of pride in his voice. Not every day the king trusted Reidar with an important task such as acquiring rare and valuable items for Thusia.
"Don''t be too haughty Reidar," Seeing the grin on Reidar''s face, Freddy rolled his eyes.
"The king doesn''t trust you. If he did, he would have given the coins to you instead of her, "
His words drained the smile on Reidar''s face. Although he didn''t want to admit it, he knew that was the truth deep down. The king trusted the girl more than he trusted his ministers.
"Speaking of? Is there something else going on with the girl?"
"What do you mean?" Freddy turned his gaze towards the bald man.
"The queen is awfully chummy with the girl. I get that she is princess Victoria''s best friend and all that. But it seems like she is more than that,"
Reidar, Freddy, and the red-haired man who remained silent the whole time creased their brows.
"Ohe on, we are all thinking about it. There is no one here listening to us," the bold guy once again rolled his big eyes.
"Then speak your mind, Baldy," Freddy said.
"I think the king has a soft spot for her," Baldy whispered to the other four,
"Rumor has it King Maxim loved her big sister but couldn''t get her. Instead, the king had to marry queen Valeria,"
"Really? But who was she? If King Maxin was in love with her, she must have been something else," asked Freddy.
In THusia, everyone knew Edith as Victoria''s best friend. However, none of them knew about Edith''s family background, including the ministers and prominent figures, except a few. Since Baldy mostly worked with the thieves and underground criminals in Thusia, he was able to get juicy rumors about everyone in Thusia, including the king.
"I don''t know. Princess is keeping her identity tightly shut for some reason," said Baldy as he leaned closer to them.
"There might be a chance King Maxim is looking to marry her as his second queen," Since kings marrying several girls was a normal thing, they weren''t surprised as Michael, who listened to their conversation through a Spyder.
"So he wants to get the little fish since he couldn''t get the big one?" Reidar chuckled. They knew about King Maxim''s thirst for power and stubbornness to get whatever he wanted no matter the cost. So it wouldn''t surprise them if King Maxim married Edith despite their age difference. Yet again, the age difference wasn''t a big deal among the cultivators.
"If I am right, Edith''s sister might be a prominent figure somewhere. Suppose King Maxim married Edith, her big sister would be obliged to aid Thusia in the wars. It''s a win-win for the king," Freddy said as the others gave him a slow nod.
"Wars? They areing to an end in a few months. General Booth is literally killing thousands out there," Reidar raised three fingers.
"I''ll give you three months. In that time, Thusia will annex all those who stood against us and be thergest kingdom in Ozer. After that, General Booth will be named the Duke of Valeria,"
Michael, who heard the name, clenched his fist. Two years ago, General Booth destroyed his sanctuary and massacred the people who raised him. The man was a devil incarnate who loved the suffering of others. Michael remembered the grin on his face when he ughtered everyone regardless of gender or age. He could imagine how powerful Booth is now with Cosmic energy coursing through his veins. The only reason King Maxim Barnes wanted to build an empire was to hide the Cosmic Stream. If any kingdom left standing against Thusia, they might eventually find out about the Cosmic Stream. Michael knew Maxim would go to any length to prevent that from happening.
"That''s what they are calling it?" asked Freddy. There was ridicule in his voice as though he would have chosen a better name than that.
"Yes Freddy, that''s what we are calling it. Don''t forget you are a part of Thusia, the first empire to have vessels across continents," Reidar deepened his voice. Initially, Kingdom Thusia was a part of the Elon continent. But King Maxim Barnes waged war against Kingdom Nalia and erased Nalia from the map. Soon, Nalia became the new Thusia as King Maxim transferred his capital to the Ozer continent. Fortunately for King Maxim, Nalia was ruled by a dictator who couldn''t care less about the citizens. So when King Maxim achieved a glorious victory as the citizens weed King Maxim with bright smiles and parades.
To this date, there wasn''t a single protest against King Maxim for decimating Nalia. Although King Maxim was a treacherous power-hungry man, he was a great king. Citizens prospered under his rule. As a result, he received undying loyalty and adoration from his people.
Freddy nodded and leaned back in his chair. The burning logs crackled in the firece, breaking through the silence. Finally, they all just decided to stop gossiping and enjoy the moment. However, the four friends had no idea someone was standing around the corner, watching them and waiting for them to inhale more and more poisonous air.
"(cough)" Freddy coughed.
At first, it was a simple short cough. But as minutes passed, Freddy''s coughing became rough and loud.
"What the?" Freddy closed his mouth while coughing. When he pulled his palms away, he saw blood covering his inner palm. He was shocked, and so were the others. Before they could react, they all began to cough, just like Freddy.
"What¡is¡happening?" Reidar stammered. He couldn''t control the urge to cough. The more he coughed, the more pain he felt all over his body. Soon, blood sprayed out of their mouth. Suddenly, the chandelier began to flicker. Howling wind entered the hall, shaking the chandelier and everything in the room. The mes violently danced inside the firece, trying to fight the strong gusts of wind. They all tried to pick themselves up from the sofas.
Cling!
Baldy dropped the ss in his hand. ss shattered into pieces. They kept coughing harder and harder until their faces turned pale. Little by little, their vision became blurry. To their astonishment, the room slowly grew darker and darker. A strong gust of wind snuffed out the chandelier, turning the ce as dark as the midnight sky. The only light the four friends had was the weak mes swaying inside the firece. They dimly lit the ce, hardly revealing anything.
Since Reidar was the strongest among them, he was able to pick himself up with great difficulty. The others looked exhausted by coughing up blood. Although Reidar stood up, he didn''t know what to do next. In fact, he didn''t even know what was going on. One moment, they were sitting in front of the firece and enjoying their drinks, and the next, they were coughing up blood. He tried to spread his senses throughout the room, only to realize he simply couldn''t.
"Arggh," Reidar growled, trying to feel the Celestial energy in the atmosphere. But no matter what, he couldn''t feel anything except the excruciating pain in his lungs.
"How does it feel?" All of a sudden, a demonic voice resonated in the area, followed by the sound of doors shutting around them.
Reidar turned around,
"AH!" He screamed as a tall, dark menacing figure stood before him. Reidar could see the glowing red eyes under a dark hood even in the dim light.
Reidar stumbled backward, falling to the ground on his butt. His entire body shivered as though he was trapped in a snow mountain.
"You¡you¡" Reidar stammered. He was immediately flooded with everything he heard about the Dark Lord from the spies. Even though he currently lived in Thusia in Ozer, he hailed from Elon. Everytime he traveled to Elon through the portal in Thusia, he would hear something about The Dark Lord. The nobles were terrified of him while a group ofmoners worshiped him. Everything he heard from his rtives and friends in Elon shed across Reidar''s eyes. Many nobles left Elon fearing the wrath of the Dark Lord.
Without even Michael introducing himself, Reidar recognized him as the Dark Lord thanks to his menacing suit of armor. Reidar would have wet his pants if Michael wore his Dark Suit version 2. This one he currently wore was the old suit, with full dark robes, hood and a cape. There were no intricate details, silver linings, metal tes or runes engraved onto this armor. Rather, it was a in ck suit of armor. Nheless, his legend made Reidar shiver at the simple sight of him. Thanks to the molten gue, Michael did not need any armor to protect himself.
Michael saw Reidar crawl back in fear. But before he could deal with the Thusians, Michael waved his hand as the crystal containing the Ice Dragon''s heart flew straight to his hand from the table beside. Michael didn''t even check the ice crystal as he put it into his system storage. Nightmare advised Michael to kill the Thusianster after they bought a few items. This way, not only Michael would get their lives but also their items. However, Michael didn''t go with Nightmare''s n although it was a great n. Instead, Michael wanted to kill the Thusians as soon as possible. He might not get an opportunity like this ever again. No matter what he wanted them dead. Every single one who helped King Maxim would die by his hand.
After all, he promised himself he would destroy Thusia piece by piece.
"Leave¡us¡alone¡" Reidar managed to utter these words. He wasn''t going to beg the Dark Lord for mercy as he would rather die than beg him. But no amount of begging would save them. Just by serving King Maxim loyally ensured their deaths in Michael''s hands.
"You are going to have a long painful night," Michael eximed. ck lightning crackled around his wrist. Michael was about to strike Reidar with the lightning bolt when he heard Gaya''s voice in his head.
"Michael,"
"Are you in danger?" asked Michael.
"No,"
"Good. Whatever it is, it can wait. I am busy murdering these thusian pigs," Michael didn''t hide the cold killing in his heart.
Hearing Michael, Reidar''s heart skipped a beat. He tried to conjure a spell, only to fail.
"Let''s begin," said Michael.
Chapter 625: Michael vs Lailah Alden I
Chapter 625: Michael vs Lah Alden IMichael grabbed Reidar by his neck and lifted himself in the air. He was the strongest among the four. So Michael focused on Reidar. As Michael lifted Reidar in the air, his legs twitched. Reidar gasped for air, reaching out for Michael''s neck. Reidar wanted to squeeze Michael''s neck, yet he simply couldn''t reach his neck. Still, Reidar tried until theck of oxygen to his brain made his hands lose strength.
Boom!
Michael mmed Reidar on the wooden table. Wooden splinters flew in all directions.
"Argh," Reidar coughed more blood. Michael ignored Reidar''s pain because inflicting as much pain as possible was his intention.
"Are you a loyal and reasonable person?" Michael asked Reidar. Slowly, Michael ced his boot on Reidar''s feet.
"Are you a loyal and reasonable person?" Michael repeated his words with a more deep voice than before.
"Yes¡" Reidar felt an excruciating pain in his feet as Michael applied a little bit more pressure. Reidar could hardly breathe.
"YES!" Reidar shouted as loud as he could. He hoped answering yes would make the Dark Lord stop crushing his feet. Luckily, Michael did stop crushing Reidar''s feet.
"Loyal to Thusia. Hmm," Michael snickered,
For a moment, Michael just looked around the hall. He then raised his hand upwards, sending a powerful st of wind. It destroyed the roof, putting arge hole directly above Michael. As a result, Michael felt more powerful under the dark sky.
"Get up," Michael walked towards Freddy, who hated Ghost.
"Leave¡him¡alone¡" Reidar stammered.
"Freddy, Freddy, Freddy," Michael devilishly chuckled before picking Freddy off the ground by his neck.
"I can literally smell the racism in you," Michael gently squeezed Freddy''s neck until his face lost all color. While Michael was squeezing, a small needle extended from Michael''s wrist, injecting the antidote to molten gue into Freddy''s body. Why? Michael wanted Freddy and everyone to feel the pain.
A few secondster, Freddy slowly opened his eyes. His brain didn''t even process what was in front of him when Michael mmed Freddy to the ground. Before even Freddy could scream, Michael kicked Freddy in the chest. His kick produced a cracking noise as though Michael had broken several ribs in Freddy''s chest.
Freddy coughed and groaned in pain. Meanwhile, Michael turned his gaze towards Baldy, who dealt with an underground criminal empire in Thusia. Just like he did to Freddy, Michael injected Freddy with the antidote before torturing him. To be honest, Michael hated torturing and wasting time with his enemies. However, he had some exceptions when it came to Thusia.
"Where¡what¡happened¡" Baldy mumbled. This time, Michael waited till Baldy to clearly see his face. He was curious to see how Baldy would react.
"ARGHHHH!" Baldy groaned in utter fear. His eyes went wide as his facepletely lost any color. The man shuddered. To Michael''s surprise, Baldy''s body twitched frantically. A few secondster, his body stopped twitching as well as his breathing.
Baldy surprised Michael by dying of a heart attack. The sight of Michael gave Baldy a heart attack.
"So they had heard about me in Thusia¡" Michael thought. He threw the lifeless body of Baldy with a sigh. He wanted to inflict more pain on the man, but he was lucky to get a heart attack.
"Baldy¡" Freddy and Reidar groaned. Among the three, Michael turned his gaze to the man who remained silent the whole time. Lightning bolts cracked around Michael''s fist. Once again, the lightning bolt shot out from his finger, prating the man''s calf. After hitting the man on the calf, Michael slowly walked towards him. Blood spurted out from the wound. Still, the man remained unconscious until Michael lifted him off the ground and injected him with the antidote.
Silence fell inside the tavern for a moment. The anger in Michael''s eyes made Freddy and Reidar shiver in fear.
Since Michael had injected the antidote into everyone, they managed to regain some of their strength. Furthermore, they slowly felt their connection to the energies once again.
"You," Reidar gornaed. His eyes turned predatory.
"Ill-'''' before Reidar could finish his sentence, the Dark Lord appeared in front of him in a blink of an eye and pped him so hard that Reidar''s wisdom tooth jumped out of his mouth. The tooth didn''t even hit the ground when Michael pinched Freddy''s nose. He put enough pressure to crush Freddy''s nostrils.
"STOP!" All of a sudden, a thunderous voice resonated in the room. Shockingly, he didn''t sense a living being around him. That changed when a door several meters behind Freddy and Reidar opened. To Michael''s astonishment, the young woman standing on the other side of the door was none other than Lah Alden. Michael''s muscles went rigid as he felt what to do next.
Michael then noticed Edith stepping aside from Lah''s shadows.
"The Dark Lord," Edith mumbled under her breath. A tinge of fear in her voice. The twodies stared at Michael without blinking an eye. Looking at the groaning men, La furrowed her brows.
"Take them and leave this ce," Lah ordered Edith.
"No," Just as Edith was about to take a step forward, Michael raised his voice. His shout had enough power to push Edith a step back. Although Lah was at Fusion Stage level 10, Michael did not fear her. In his full Dark Lord form, he could fight toe to toe with any Fusion Stage cultivators. If Michael wanted, he could make them powerless with molten gue and then kill them as easily as killing ants.
Michael hesitated to use the molten gue on Lah. After all, he had a soft spot for Lah in the corner of his heart. Suddenly, a dread of a feeling hit Michael''s core. He immediately summoned the system.
"System, am I still immune to Lah''s attacks?"
[Yes] the system answered nonchntly.
Several months ago when Michael and Lah Alden visited the treacherous ocean, Michael had to spirit walk Lah due to her sudden impulse to harness the first energy. As a result of the spirit walk and absorbing the first energy, the system put a rune in both Michael and Lah''s souls, preventing Lah from hurting Michael. At that time, it saved Michael. However, that invulnerability would cause his identity to be exposed if Michael didn''t do something.
"Disable that," Michael ordered the system.
[No can do host. You should have upgraded the system before asking this] The system almost sounded as though it had enough of Michael''s hesitation to upgrade it.
Not that Michael didn''t want to upgrade the system but other things such as saving badass points to find the cure and legendary skill took higher priority. As soon as the auction ends, Michael would upgrade the system. That was his first thing to do next. He just needed 200,000 badass points for the upgrade.
"Time for n B then," Michael took a deep breath.
"Lah Alden," Michael uttered Lah''s name in his demonic voice. He never expected to meet Lah here. When Micahel first met Lah, the power gap between them was tremendous. But now, Michael could kill Lah in several ways if he wanted to.
"Leave," Michael warned Lah. Edith on the other hand hesitated to take a step forward. She shivered from head to toe, looking at Michael.
"Funny, I was about to say the same," Lah calmly spoke. Her melodious voice soothed Reidar, Freddy, and the other guy. After seeing her cultivation stage, they sighed in relief.
Michael noticed Lah focusing her gaze on him, trying to gauge his power level, only to fail. Before he started to attack the Thusians, Michael paid the system to hide his cultivation stage. Otherwise, people like Mutrad coulde up with the theory that the Dark Lord they fought near the Holy Church was an imposter.
"This does not concern you, Lah Alden. If you turn back and leave, I won''t hurt you or your family," Michael threatened Lah. He wasn''t making a false promise either. His anger toward the Thusians outweighed Lah''s well-being. In case Lah stood between him and his revenge on Thusia, Michael would cut her down without a second thought.
"Edith, take this," Michael noticed Lah flicking her wrist. Soon, a golden scroll appeared in her hand. She handed over the scroll to Edith,
"When you reach them, teleport away," Lah ordered Edith.
"But big sister,"
"Big sister?" Michael was yet again taken aback by surprise. It was a good thing Michael covered his face with a mask. Otherwise, Lah would have seen through his shock.
After hearing Edith, Michael''s brain connected all the dots. He creased his brows. Considering Edith was Victoria''s best friend, she would obviously stand between him and the destruction of Thusia. Especially when he was about to kill Victoria. At that moment, Lah might intervene to save her little sister. Thisplicated things for Michael. Not only Edith had Noah but also Lah to save her.
"I don''t have time for these squabbles. If you don''t get out of here in three seconds," Michael raised three fingers. Each step Michael took forward made Edith''s heart shudder in fear.
Freddy and Reidar slowly picked themselves up. They tried to leave the ce, leaving Lah and the Dark Lord to battle it out. Simply put, they wanted to save their butts. Despite their cultivation level, they did not even think of helping Lah.
"One,"
Michale began the count,
"Two,"
Before even Michael could count to three, a bright light in the shape of a veena appeared in Lah''s hand. Soon, the light faded, revealing the angel''s veena.
Ding!
A powerful wave of energy shot out of the veena when she yed the strings with her soft fingers. To Michael''s shock, the energy wave sted him onto the wall behind.
If it wasn''t for the invisible responsive shield that absorbed half of the energy wave''s power, he couldn''t havended on his feet. Surprisingly, the energy wave only hit Michael as everything else in the room remained untouched by the energy wave.
"I thought she couldn''t hurt me," Michael questioned the system.
[She must have found a new way to harm you host]
Michael wanted to strangle the system. It said Lah couldn''t harm him anymore back on the treacherous ocean. Now the system had gone back on its way. However, it worked to Michael''s advantage.
"So you''ve chosen violence," Michael brushed off the dust on his shoulder. The very next moment, Edith saw dark clouds shrouding the Dark Lord. The room grew darker and darker.
Chapter 626: Michael vs Lailah Alden II
Chapter 626: Michael vs Lah Alden IIWhen Lah strummed another chord, Michael cast the Lightning Dash. He moved so swiftly that he left after images. Despite the darkness, Lah noticed the dark mes covering the Dark Lord. It was as though he was a living me.
"The Primordial mes," Edith, who saw the mes back in a ruin in MAzeroth, immediately recognized the mes. She was sure. The me she saw in ruins radiated energy exactly the same as the me covering the Dark Lord. Edith recalled her friend''s words ''A Primordial me chooses its host, not the other way around.
Does that mean the Dark Lord was in the Mazeroth? Or the me traveled through dimensions? Edith questioned herself.
"Ignitia," Lightning crackled around Michael''s wrist. But he didn''t shoot Freddy and Rediar with a bolt of lightning. Instead, he distracted Lah with the lightning bolt and dashed at Freddy and Reidar.
Seeing the Dark Lord moving towards Reidar and Freddy, Lah strummed the chords rapidly, creating a soul-chanting melody. Immediately, Edith''s body went rigid. She couldn''t move her muscles, not even blinking an eye. Several invisible energy waves shot toward Michael. Lah wasn''t ying. She directly went for the kill. She was surprisingly ruthless for a woman who had a tendency to heal and help many, she was surprisingly ruthless. To be honest, Michael had never seen Lah like this. Her eyes turned bloodshot. Each time she strummed a chord, the room trembled.
Suddenly, a golden light enveloped Lah, sucking every bit of lingering Celestial energy in the air. Slowly, her glossy raven ck hair turned to silver. The golden light not only lit the room but also amplified the sound of her veena. This was an Epic level spell that boosted Lah''s power several times. Judging by Edith''s look, this wasn''t the first time she had seen Lah use this spell. Coupled with the silver of the first energy coursing through Lah''s veins, she began to overpower Michael. At least that was the case for a few moments.
Micheal was at Fusion Stage level 4. His cloud of Darkness boosted his power by four levels, making him on par with Fusion Stage level 8. To match Lah''s power level, Michael needed to hit level 6, so the Cloud of Darkness could boost his power to level 10. However, to break through two levels, he had to kill the three remaining Thusians. Michael regretted not killing the Thusians before. He went against what Spectre taught him. He chose to take his time instead of killing them as soon as possible. Now Michael paid the price for his mistake.
"Let''s see how long she can keep that spell alive,"
Michael was about to attack Reidar when suddenly Lah disappeared. Michael''s instincts screamed at him. He blocked his face. An earth-shattering reverberated as a tremendous force struck Michael''s body. The hands Michael used to block the attack bent and broke. He gnashed his teeth as pain coursed through his body. He was sent flying, hitting the wooden wall and destroying a portion of the tavern in the process. His body hit several trees beforeing to a halt. Clouds of dust and wooden splinters flew in the air.
Reidar and Freddy ran to the hole to see where the Dark Lord had fallen. The golden light surrounding Lah slowly faded away as the darkness enveloped the tavern again. The clouds of dust receded, and the Dark Lord stood silently as though nothing had happened. They felt shivers running through their spine when they saw the Dark Lord chuckle devilishly.
"Finally, a somewhat worthy opponent," Michael hid his crooked arm with the dark cloud. Thanks to the APD and the bone mending potion, he fixed his broken arm in mid-air while he was sent flying. Still, the pain made every single fiber in his body hurt. He had never expected Lah to use her veena like a cricket bat to swat him. He had never seen Lah fight so aggressively before.
Lah flew outside into the woods through the new hole in the wall.
"Leave," Lah ordered Edith. Her thunderous voice made the thusians shudder. But when Edith was about to use the tear to scroll to teleport, she felt a sting in her neck.
"AHHHH!" Suddenly, Lah''s halted, floating towards Michael. She heard her little sister scream in agony. All the anger and battle lust in Lah''s eyes disappeared. Michael hated fighting dirty, but the history was written by the victors. The thusians used all kinds of dirty tactics to betray him and covert the Cosmic stream. Hence, Michael saw no problem fighting dirty to kill them.
Lah immediately turned around to see Edith groaning and twitching on the ground. Her motherly instinct kicked in as Lah dashed at Edith.
"Edith," Lah''s veena faded into nothingness as she crouched down to lift Edith''s head. Lah conjured a powerful ball of light that lit a small area around them. The light fought the darkness controlled by Michael. He could have snuffed out the light if he had a little bit more control over the Darkness element. In a split second, Michael arrived at Reidar when Lah was distracted by Edith.
Reidar, Freddy, and the red-haired man couldn''t help but shudder. This time, Michael did not waste any time. He directly punched Reidar in the head as fast as he could. Since Reidar was weakened by the molten gue, Michael''s punch cracked open Reidar''s skull. Blood spurted out from Reidar''s head, painting Freddy''s face red. They shuddered.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level 8 Cultivator. The reward is 750,000 Experience points and 5,000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Fusion stage, Level 5!]
Ding!
As soon as Reidar''s lifeless body hit the ground, another earth-shattering sound resonated in the tavern. To Michael''s astonishment, the sound healed Edith. This time, Lah didn''t mess around as she tore the scroll in half. A bright light immediately shrouded Edith, Freddy, and the other one. Before Michael could kill Freddy, they disappeared from the tavern.
"That was a mistake, Lah," Michael growled. There was immense hate and spite in his voice. Lah''s orb of light was snuffed out by Michael''s darkness. His hate and anger fueled his power, making him stronger. Lah moved her finger to strike another chord, only to get sted by Michael.
"Wind st!"
The st of wind sent Lah flying for several meters. She managed tond on her feet with her veena.
"You had no right to save the Thusians!" Michael shouted as a powerful st obliterated the tavern to bits and pieces. Without realizing it, Michael had unleashed a little bit of his true power. In a blink of an eye, the previouslyvish tavern became a ruin. Upon seeing the area grow darker and colder, Lah closed her eyes. Out of the blue, Michael saw several figures resembling jaguars emerge from the ground.
"She learned some new tricks," Michael snickered inside. Michael flicked his wrist as the Doom bringer appeared in his hand.
"Just like you had no right to hurt the one I care about," Michael froze. Judging by her tone and expression, she wasn''t talking about Edith. Instead, Michael felt like she was talking about Ghost.
"So you have a sweet spot for Ghost huh?" Michael snickered. He wanted a definite answer from Lah.
As Michael expected deep down, Lah did not answer him. Instead, she struck several strings at the same time. The jaguars leaped at Michael.
Smirking, Michael clenched the Doombringer tighter. Lah sent several energy waves to cut him in half. This time, Michael could see the crescent-shaped golden waves shooting toward him. The waves did not harm the jaguars but cut the broken tavern''s walls that stood between them in halves. Suddenly, the dark mes shot out from Michael, shrouding the jaguars. Lah had never felt such intense heat from any mes before. She creased her brows. Deep inside her mind, she wondered what kind of Primordial me this was. Throughout her life, she had learned and even seen a few Primordial mes. However, nothing matched the mes wielded by the Dark Lord.
The mes slowed down the jaguars as Michael leaped into the air with his Doombringer raised above his head.
Boom!
Michael brought down Doombringer upon a jaguar''s head with an earth-shattering force. The jaguar''s head exploded into gray dust, and the shock wave sent the other flying into the sea of trees. The ground split opened where Michael''s Doombringernded.
"Wind st!" Michael looked up, raising his hand. The two crescent-shaped waves met in the air, nullifying each other. Despite everything, Lah kept striking the strings, creating powerful energy waves rapidly. On the other hand, Michael sent wind sts powered by the Dark mes. Their battle was so intense that it disturbed the atmosphere itself. The two of them destroyed everything around them for a ten-meter radius.
Furthermore, their battle disrupted the Celestial energy in the air to the point the clear sky soon got crowded with storm clouds. The sound of thunder rumbling resonated in the area. Streaks of lightning shed across the forest.
Michael sensed several figures approaching them with great speed. His figure blurred as he disappeared from Lah''s sight. Behind Lah, a streak of lightning hit the ground. Michael''s figure emerged from the lightning with his Doombringer aimed at Lah''s shoulder. Unlike her, he didn''t go for the kill. If he wanted Lah dead, he could have used the molten gue. Michael did not want the spirit child to grow up without a parent. He had already abandoned the child regardless of his hatred towards his parents for abandoning him.
Lah''s battle instinct kicked in as she easily deflected the Doombringer with the back of her hand. A golden dome appeared around Lah the next second, protecting her from the Doombringer. Michael''s figure blurred again and then reappeared on Lah''s left. His attack was deflected by the golden dome. However, Michael did not give up. He attacked once again, enveloping the doom bringer with dark mes.
Boom!
The dome cracked when he brought down the Doom bringer upon it. Once again, Michael raised his Doom bringer above his head. But before he could hit the dome, Lah leaped away. A sliver of blood oozed out of the corner of her mouth. Despite facing the Dark Lord, she showed no signs of fear. Even Michael couldn''t help admiring Lah. He was about to attack Lah again when Michael sensed more and more figures approaching them. The odds turned against him.
The longer he spends battling, the more he would be in danger. Thus, Michael decided to leave the ce before the Guardians, and the Sea Folks surrounded the area.
"We will meet again soon," Michael nodded before disappearing into the sea of trees. As expected, Lah did not chase after him.
Chapter 627: Price for not upgrading the system
Chapter 627: Price for not upgrading the systemMichael returned to the dark forest with Gaya and Nightmare.
"What happened to you?" Looking at his dirt-covered torn armor of Michael, Gaya creased her brows. With the molten gue, Gaya knew it would be impossible for the thusians to even harm a single hair on his head.
"Do you remember Edith?" Michael asked Gaya. Azazel and Nightmare stood beside, staring at countless feeds running through the mirrors around the room.
"Yeah I do," Gaya said as she came to his side. She helped Michael remove his cape as well as the chest piece of his armor. Thanks to the APD, there weren''t any cuts or bruises on his body. However, Gaya noticed the blood stains. Upon seeing the blood on his perfectly chiseled chest, she clenched her fist so tight her palm began to hurt.
"Her full name is Edith Alden," Gaya stopped removing Mark 3 grappling hook attached to his wrist. Just a mere mention of the name Alden caused dark lines to form on Gaya''s forehead.
"Alden?" Gaya slightly tilted her head.
Seeing the exhaustion on Michael''s face, Azazel waved his hand as Michael''s throne materialized behind him. Michael nodded at Azazel.
"She is Lah''s sister," Michael sat on his throne. Hearing Michael, everyone stood there dumbfounded.
"Edith apanied the thusians,"
"So when you went to torture them, you got ambushed by Lah and Edith? Is that right?" Gaya asked as though she had seen everything with her own eyes.
Azazel almost let his anger explode. He wanted to fly down to the tavern and rip Lah and Edith to pieces. Despite Michael''s rtionship with Lah, he couldn''t stop his heart from having murderous thoughts about Lah. He clenched his fist. On the other hand, Nightmare remained calm. He remembered the kind and caring woman they had met. If it wasn''t for Lah''s impulse, he knew Ghost and Lah would have been good friends. Still, Nightmare refused to believe Lah would ever try to kill Michael. A woman of her kind heart andposure would not sumb to hatred. With given time, the possibility of Lah returning to Ghost was high.
"Hmm," Michael nodded. He retrieved a healing potion from the system storage and emptied the potion into his mouth.
"Thatplicates things human," Gaya took several steps forward before sitting on the throne''s arm. She caringly wrapped her hand around Michael.
"I know. But nothing can stop me from wiping Thusia off the map, no Edith, no Lah, not even the Skyhall," Nightmare noticed Michael''s eyes flickering like rubies in sunlight. Due to Nightmare''s acute senses, he heard a noise of otherworldly vibration in the air.
"How powerful is she now?" Gaya asked. There was a hint of jealousy in her voice. Unlike Lah, Gaya wasn''t fortunate to absorb the First energy. Given Gaya''s heaven-defying cultivation speed and the forty percent boost provided by the system, she could break through to the Fusion stage once Gaya had absorbed the first energy.
Simply put, Michael''s major reason for venturing into the treacherous ocean was Gaya. He wanted his beloved, most loyal fiance to be the strongest among his subordinates. Currently, Azazel had the crown of being the strongest. That would soon change when they departed to the treacherous ocean. Furthermore, Michael did not forget about Gaya''s metamorphosis. She needed the heart and blood of a five-headed serpent in the Fire Realm to evolve. Without evolving, achieving her true power would be nothing but a daydream.
"Fusion stage level 10. I was disappointed. I thought she would have reached the Half Immortal stage,"
Gaya''s gaze stopped at Michael''s face. For a few moments, she couldn''t get her mind wrapped around the idea of how easy Michael was thinking to reach the Half Immortal Stage. Finally, after pondering for some time, Gaya broke the silence.
"With or without first energy, it''s not easy to break through to the Half Immortal Stage. Why do you think there are only a handful of Fusion Stage cultivators in the world? Did you know when thest person joined the council of immortals? Three hundred years ago,"
"Really?" Michael red at Gaya.
Michael had been trying to gather information about the Council of Immortals. But even Lord Information seemed to possess little to nothing about them. Part of the reason was the Council of Immortals lived in a pocket dimension separated from this world. Only when someone broke through to the Half Immortal stage did a representative of the councile outside to recruit them.
Michael dared not to take reaching the Half Immortal stage recklessly. Even the system informed him he would get a fixed amount of experience points from killing cultivators regardless of their levels. Additionally, the system had stopped awarding Michael with experience points every time one of his subordinates killed one. Hence, the reason why Michael didn''t receive any experience points when Gaya killed a few of the Rottgards.
The system had been using the experience points to change Michael''s body and soul from the molecr level. But that wasn''t the only reason why the system didn''t award him with experience points. It held the experience points and badass points hostage to punish Michael for not prioritizing the system upgrade. It had been seven months since Michael had upgraded the system.
"She must havee to the auction searching for something. Something that could help her breakthrough to the Half Immortal stage,"
Her words made Michael wonder whether Lah knew about the Cosmic Stream or not. If Edith knew about it, the odds of Lah knowing were high. However, if she did, Lah could use the Cosmic stream to break through. Knowing Maxim Barnes and the lengths he would go to protect the Cosmic stream, Michael doubted Edith knew anything about it.
[Heed her words, host. You cannot reach the Half Immortal stage without upgrading the system to level 7]
Michael''s body froze when he heard the system. His mind repeated the system''s words.
"Level 7?" Michael questioned the system.
[The host didn''t think you could just reach the Half Immortal stage with a level 6 system, did you?] The system almost sounded amused by Michael''s bewilderment. Unable to endure the system''s haughtiness anymore, Michael growled. However, he knew no matter how much he bickered with the system, there was no way for him to reach the Half Immortal stage without the system.
"How many badass points?" Michael sighed.
[You need 600,000 badass points for the next upgrade. Then, the level 7 upgrade requires one million badass points] Obviously, it would hinder Michael''s growth. But at least he had already reached the top of the food chain. Thanks to the Immortal Council, anyone above the Fusion stage did not meddle with mortal affairs. Although the rogues who chose not to join the council remained outside the Immortal dimension, they did their best not to raise the council''s attention towards them. These rogues either remained in the Cold mountain or in the other realms, such as the Akn realm. They only made public appearances wherever their descendants or families faced a cmity.
"Tell me, what did you do? Did she do this to you?" Gaya pointed at the blood stains on his body. With a long heave of sigh, Michael began to narrate everything that happened in the tavern. A few minutester, Gaya''s eyes sparkled. She was delighted to hear Michael fought Lah instead of sparing her or, worse, revealing his identity.
"Is there any chance she fought you because the Dark Lord attacked Ghost?" Nightmare asked.
"I think so," nodded Michael.
"Don''t forget she tried to kill you and med you for her mistake," Gaya rolled her eyes.
Azazel agreed with Gaya. Whatever the reason might be, Azazel hated Lah for trying to kill his master.
"Whatever her reason might be, I won''t spare Thusia. If Edith stayed in my way,, which I know she will, I wouldn''t hesitate to kill her. Thusia will be destroyed along with Maxim and his entire family," Michael''s words were murderous. They could feel the temperature had fallen a couple of degrees.
"What are we going to do about those who escaped?" asked Gaya.
Her question put Michael in a momentary trance. He pondered what must be done about them. Now that he had attacked them once, it was risky to let them live. But, at the same time, stepping into Thusia was extremely dangerous since MAxim had bolstered the kingdom with powerful runes and arrays as defensive mechanisms. Besides, people like General Booth might recognize Michael, and disguising himself wouldn''t work with the arrays and runes in Thusia.
At least, that was the case until he could upgrade the system. Once he had upgraded, he could buy new spells and skills to further strengthen himself.
"The Spyders I attached to them got destroyed as soon as they reached Thusia. So killing them with the Spyders is out of the question," Michael rubbed his chin. His instinct told Michael that visiting Thusia was a bad idea. If someone had recognized him, everything Michael had built will be threatened. Knowing MAxim Barnes, Michael wouldn''t be surprised if that crazy old man waged war against Bradford.
For now, Michael decided to leave Reidar and Freddy alone. After all, they would spread his legend across Thusia, which might work to Michael''s advantage in the long term. The fear of the Dark Lord targeting the Thusians would put fear in many nobles'' hearts. Without a doubt, this fear would hinder Thusia''s growth. After all, fear was a great tool that could be used in many other ways.
"When the right timees, let''s give thusian soldiers a taste of this," Michael flicked his wrist as a silver vial appeared in his hand. It was the weaponized molten gue.
Suppose Michael had infected the thusian army with the molten gue, there was no doubt in Michael''s mind it would tilt the tide of the war. So even if Michael couldn''t directly kill the Thusians with his own hands, he was content with killing them with the gue.
In Gaya''s heart, she was excited to destroy Thusia with him.
Putting the hatred towards Thusia to the back of his mind, Michael turned his gaze towards Gaya.
"Now tell me what happened to Tanulia?" Michael asked. Due to the battle and his hatred for the Thusians, Michael almost forgot to ask Gaya about Tanulia. After Michael asked the question, a grin emerged on Gaya''s face.
"Tanulia Valren is no more,"
Chapter 628: Armor forged by a 6-star Blacksmith
Chapter 628: Armor forged by a 6-star cksmithUpon hearing Gaya''s words, Michael was startled. Michael remembered sending Gaya after the Valrens with the molten gue. He ordered Gaya to attack them only if she found a way to infect them first. Judging by her tone, he didn''t think Gaya was the one who took Tanulia''s life. Finally, Gaya rose from the throne arm and looked at the mirrors surrounding the room. With a wave of her hand, she turned off all the mirrors. Michael turned his throne around.
"You have to see this," Gaya waved her hand as the mirrors flickered. A few secondster, all the small mirrors emerged together to form arge screen. In the mirror, Michael saw a woman moving swiftly through the forest. He tapped the throne''s hand, looking at the woman chasing after Tabulia''s carriage and the four men riding the horses.
Michael saw the dark-robed figure using the forest as his cover. The figure had followed the carriage keeping his distance until abruptly the figure increased his speed. Suddenly the figure blurred as it disappeared from sight for a few moments. Then, it appeared above the four men riding the horses. Within a few split seconds, the figure grabbed the four one by one and slit their throats.
Everyone, including Gaya, who had seen this before, couldn''t help but admire the figure''s speed and agility. The Soul Refiners didn''t have a chance. None uttered a word the following minutes. Instead, they stared at the woman who beat the hell out of Tanulia before cleaving her head. Nightmare and Azazel were bewildered to see Gaya fight the woman, only to lose. They had never thought the woman could defeat the Dark Queen. But what they heard next from Michael startled them.
"She was holding back," said Michael.
Nightmare and Azazel thought Gaya was going to disagree with Michael. But on the contrary, she agreed with him.
"I felt the same too. Despite the fact that we were being at the same stage and level, she was significantly stronger than me. Also, the molten gue didn''t affect her, and neither did the fear toxin,"
Michael''s focus was not on the battle but on what she said before attacking Tanulia. The phrase she recited, was from earth. Twinkle twinkle little star was a nursery rhyme taught to little children on earth. In fact, Michael had learned it in his orphanage. He deeply breathed in.
"Twinkle twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky,"
He did not expect someone from this world to recite the rhyme. Besides, she fought so swiftly that even a best closebat warrior such as Gaya couldn''t defeat her. Furthermore, judging by how she fought, Michael could tell she was holding back. Otherwise, the woman could have defeated Gaya in a couple of seconds.
"Why can''t you whore yourself to the vampires?" Michael repeated Harriet''s words.
"What does that tell you?" Michael red at Nightmare, Gaya, and Azazel.
"That she has an axe to grind with the vampires," said Nightmare.
"Yes, but not exactly," said Gaya.
"Her words have hidden meanings. She asked Tanulia why can''t you whore yourself to the vampires? Why did she ask that specific question?"
Nightmare repeated Harriet''s words again and again in his mind. A few momentster, he opened his mouth again.
"Yourself, she said yourself," Nightmare emphasized the word yourself.
"That might mean Tanulia used someone else to do something instead of doing it herself,"
Michael nodded. Unlike Nightmare, Gaya, Michael, and Azazel made the connection to Sabrina instantly.
"Did you put a Spyder on her?" asked Michael.
"She destroyed it,"
As soon as Michael saw Gaya shrug, he was bewildered. The woman had exceeded Michael''s expectations. He wanted to see the woman more than anything. Deep down, he felt a peculiar connection with the woman. The way she moved, the way she recited a rhyme, and everything about her reminded him of himself. Even if he had no connection to him, having a freak of nature like this woman as his subordinate might multiply his power several folds. It wasn''t any day he could find a powerful subordinate who shared hatred towards the Guardians. After hearing how she spared the old man before addressing herself like she belonged to the House of Halrid, her hatred towards the Guardians became apparent to Michael.
Course, there was still a chance that she actually belonged to the House of Halrid. But only a fool would reveal their identities after killing a prominent figure such as Tanulia. The woman did not seem like a fool.
"We need to get our hands on every order Tani issued. Azazel, I want you to send Aria to House Winston. How you do that? It''s up to you. I want Aria to shadow Sabrina,"
Since Noah had found out about the Spyders, he dared not to put Spyders in Winston''s house again. Instead, Michael wanted Aria to infiltrate their homes. Although Michael knew it was a difficult task for Aria, he would make her the head of the assassin guild he nned to build in the future, if she were to seed.
"For how long, my lord?" asked Azazel.
"Until Sabrina returns to Holy Trident Academy," answered Michael.
Looking at the woman in the mirror, Michael couldn''t help reying the feed once again.
"We now have two tasks. Find out this woman''s identity and the reason why Lah is in Awor," said Michael.
Eventually, Michael dismissed Azazel and Nightmare, who returned to the tavern where Eve was staying.
"What''s in your mind?" Gaya asked, noticing the dark lines on Michael''s forehead. After spending almost two years with Michael, it was not very difficult for Gaya to read his expressions.
"I don''t know. It''s just she seems familiar,"
The next day, Michael returned to his room and pretended nothing had happenedst night. He apanied Eve to the Aqua Pce. Along the way to their VIP room, Michael noticed armed guards, countless Soul Refiners, and even three Fusion Stage cultivators.
After settling into their seats, Eve turned her gaze towards Michael.
"What was that? Why are there so many guards crawling this ce?"
"No idea. I never left my roomst night," Michael shrugged.
Even then turned her head to look at Gaya who shrugged even before Eve could question her,
"Why are you looking at me? I was with him,"
An awkward silence enveloped the room. Michael looked at the clouds hiding the sun. He sighed and leaned back. All of his focus was focused on the woman who killed Tanulia. He couldn''t help but wonder where the man resembling a Cat was when the woman ughtered Tanulia and her men.
Boom!
An earth-shattering bell sound reverberated in the arena, instantly silencing the crowd. Then, just like yesterday, Rickston descended from the sky following the bell sound.
When hended on the ground, he raised his arm,
"Ladies and gentlemen. I am honored to wee you to the second day of the Aqua Auction. Without further adieu, let us begin the auction,"
TO Michael''s surprise, Rickston began auctioning quickly without wasting time. He expected the old man to reassure or at least speak a few words about what had happened to the Thusians or Valrens. But on the contrary, the old man began the auction in a rush. After Rickston''s voice echoed through the arena, an iron pir emerged from the ground. Atop, they all saw aplete set of armor painted crimson red.
This armor set had a rounded helm with half a pointed face guard and two pointed openings for the eyes. Attached to its side were two horns that curved upwards.
The shoulders were fairly oval, tall, and fairly small in size. They were decorated with hundreds of small metal fragments, mimicking the scales of reptiles. The upper arms were protected by squared, half-covering rerebraces, which sat quite well under the shoulder tes. The lower arms were covered by vambraces with a tentacle-like metal ornament attached to each side, wrapping around each vambrace.
The breastte was made from variousyers of rounded metal sheets. It covered everything from the neck down, ending at the groin. The upper legs are covered by squared, fully covering cuisses. The lower legs were protected by greaves with sharp tips at the knee point.
Judging by the shiny armor, it was apparent to Michael it was never worn before. When he looked closer, he noticed several runes glowing dimly. Not only Michael, everyone noticed these peculiar runes. Without exnation, even Gaya had no idea about the runes'' effects. Michael regretted not bringing Elidyr to the auction. At the moment, the dark elf was busy creating a teleportation array in the crypt.
"Ladies and gentlemen. What you see is armor forged by a 6-star cksmith and enhanced by a 6-star runemaster," an indescribable desire emerged in Michael''s heart. Although the armor looked medieval and had a Viking vibe to it, he could reforge the armor to suit his liking. But Michael suppressed his despite because he knew for a fact he didn''t have enough coins to afford the armor. Countless people gasped in shock after hearing Rickston.
Michael patiently waited for Rickston to exin the armor''s various powers.
"It''d be easier to show you the advantages of having this armor than me exining," Rickston said. Soon, a tall man with a well-toned body descended from the sky. Other than multiple scars on his body, there was nothing distinguishable about the man.
"A ve?" Michael slightly tilted his head. He wasn''t a perfect human being but just the thought of owning a human being sickened Michael.
As the mannded beside Rickston, thetter began to put the armor on the man. Several secondster, Rickston finished adorning the man with the armor.
"Now look closer,dies and gentlemen," Rickston said before flicking his wrist. A mace with a spiked head appeared in the old man''s hand. To everyone''s shock, Rickston struck the man on the chest with the mace. Sparks flew as a loud thudding sound resonated in the area. Rickston didn''t stop but struck the man yet again. As Rickston struck, again and again, the crimson red armor began to glow brighter and brighter.
In addition to the glow, everyone heard the armor resonate with a whistling sound. Everyone curiosylt stared at the glowing armor, waiting for something to happen.
After enduring a couple of more hits, the armor glowed so brightly that some of the people in the crowd closed their eyes. The next moment, everyone heard a loud booming sound as Rickston was sent flying by a shock wave created by the armor.
The arena went dead silent. At that moment, one could even hear a pin dropping sound in the arena.
Chapter 629: Michael鈥檚 bid
Chapter 629: Michael¡¯s bidAfter creating a shock wave, the armor returned to its initial color, losing all its glow. Unlike the audience, nobles and cultivators such as Michael noticed several runes dimly glowing on the ground. They suppressed the explosion so Rickston wouldn''t get hurt by the shock wave. Afternding on his feet, Rickston wiped off the blood oozing down the corner of his mouth. Rickston leaped into the air beforending beside the armored man.
"As you have all witnessed, the armor stores the force of hits it receives and fires a powerful shock wave to knock out or even kill the opponents. The best thing about the armor is, its power grows with the wearer. For example, it will create a stronger and more powerful shock wave when a Fusion stage cultivator wears the armor than a Soul Refiner. This ve is only at the Core Formation stage. Still, the armor created a shock wave powerful enough to send me, a Soul Refiner flying," said Rickston.
Countless people gasped and murmured among themselves. Many craved the armor as sparkles could be seen in their eyes.
"I won''t waste any more of your precious time. The starting price of this armor is twenty million," Rickston amplified his voice to sound louder. He wanted every single possible bidder to hear his words loud and clear. There was no doubt in his mind that the armor would fetch the Aqua Pce at least a hundred million.
"Twenty-five million," Eve bid as soon as Rickston''s voice died down. Michael tilted his head slightly. His entire wealth contained twenty-five million yet for Eve, twenty-five million was a small price.
"Thirty-five million," The golden prince''s voice resonated from his VIP room. With a single bid, the golden prince raised the price by ten million.
"Fifty million," Michael heard a raspy voice resonate from the Hunt family room.
"Fifty-five million," Eve calmly raised the bid.
"Sixty-five million," said the raspy voice elder of the Hunt family.
Michael noticed that no one bid for the armor except for Eve, the elder of the Hunt family and the golden prince. When Michael looked at the THusian VIP room, he could only see a silhouette of two women. He did not expect Lah and Edith to stay in the Aqua Pce instead of returning to Thusia. Although the three were raising bids one after another, Rickston regretted what had happened to Valrens and the Thusians.
The Aqua Pce did its best to contain the news of what transpiredst night. But the news spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom. Fear struck the entire city of Allen ri. Rickston knew as they were speaking, soldiers from Sill ri''s capital were on their way to Allen ri. It was just a fruitless action. Everyone knew the Dark Lord was long gone.
Even if the empress appeared in Allen ri, Rickston doubted they could find the Dark Lord or figure out how he managed to kill Tanulia Valren and Reidar on the same day, unless the Dark Lord was really a god as some people im him to be. Due to the Dark Lord''s sudden appearance, several nobles had left the Aqua Pce. They all wanted to be surrounded by their own soldiers in their castles.
Several minutes passed but the bidding for the armor remained strong. Inside the VOldigard VIP room, Eve showed no signs of slowing down.
"Ny million," Eve''s calm voice reverberated through the arena.
The golden prince and the elder of the Hunt family did not use their family background to sway the auction to their side. They knew the other party would not give them any face even if they used their family name. So they just bid with coins, not with their family names. As they were bidding for the armor, Michael noticed a silhouette enter the Hunt family room. The Hunt family members immediately stood up from their seats. Although Michael couldn''t see their faces, it was apparent the figure had a higher status than the elders.
"Hun-"
"Don''t," Gaya''s words cut Eve''s sentence short.
"The armor is of no use if you can''t build your family to its previous state. Buying this armor will only put a bigger target on your back. Let the golden prince have it,"
"She is right. Crossing someone like the golden prince at this point doesn''t seem like a good idea,'' Nightmare raised his concern over Eve''s desire to get the armor.
"Hundred million," The golden prince bid. The entire arena looked startled. Even Michael felt a tinge of jealousy towards the golden prince. If a single man could fork out a hundred million like it was nothing, Michael could only imagine how wealthy his family was. Michael was sure the empress was at least worth several billion.
"I want to be like her one day," Michael vowed to himself.
The people fixed their gazes at the Hunt family and Voldigards VIP rooms, waiting for either of them to raise the bid. But, contrary to their expectation, none uttered a word.
"Hundred million one time, two time¡" Rickston dragged his words as though he was expecting someone else to raise the bid.
"Hundred million three times. Sold to the golden prince!" Rickston''s thunderous shout swept across the arena.
"Thank you, Lady Eve and the elders of the Hunt family," The golden prince''s dominant clear voice resonated from the room and reverberated through the arena.
Michael and Eve sighed. Thetter desired an armor and the other wanted to forge a better armor than the one they just auctioned. Despite their wishes, they both had to control their desires. Eve had enough coins to go up to two hundred million, but as Gaya said, buying the armor would only put a bigger target on her back. She felt grateful for Gaya for reminding her of the looming threat. If it wasn''t for Ghost wiping out the Rottgards, the Voldigards would have been long gone from the world. However, Eve knew it was just a temporary solution. With time, the rival families woulde at her family like a pack of hyenas. There was no doubt in her mind. Sooner orter, she had to fight for her survival.
After auctioning the armor, Rickston dismissed the ve. The armor on the other hand, disappeared from the pir. Everyone waited for Rickston to bring out the next item. They all looked curious to see what powerful item they would see next.
Under their curious gazes, the iron pir emerged from the ground yet again, lifting an orb of ice. The orb was the size of a cricket ball. Despite its size, as soon as the orb appeared, the temperature in the arena dropped several degrees down. All of them felt the chill as they could see their breaths. Unlike before, Rickston stood several meters away from the orb of ice. To Michael''s astonishment, the orb of ice created a mist around the arena. Many of the onlookers were forced to use their arch energy to keep their bodies warm. The orb of ice drew Michael''s full attention.
He leaned forward, waiting for Rickston to exin everything about the orb of ice.
"Ladies and gentlemen. This is an Ancient Ice Core, retrieved from the deepest pit in the Cold mountain also known as the lonely mountain,"
The lonely mountain was a ce where cultivators headed towards to enter secluded cultivation for decades or even centuries. The harsh cold environment of the mountain would push the cultivators to their limit and make them break through to the higher levels of cultivation. Before Gaya met Michael, she nned to rule Nagnd to her heart''s content before heading for the lonely mountain. The lonely mountain upied arge area in the Awor continent. Due to its extremely cold weather, there were no living beings except cultivators in seclusion.
Judging by the bone-chilling coldness emanating from a single core, Michael could imagine how cold the mountain would be.
"Doombringer," Michael immediately remembered the required materials to upgrade his weapon. He needed a 3-star cksmith, 3-star Runemaster, Ostium ore, the blood of a forest dragon, Underworld Fire Core, or Ancient Ice Core. Among the six, Michael already possessed three items. He had Elidyr as the runemaster, Nightmare to get the blood, and had arge pouch of Ostium ore thanks to his treacherous ocean visit. So only the cksmith and one of the Underworld Fire Core or Ancient Ice Core remained.
Once he could get his hands on the ancient ice core, he would be one step closer to upgrading the Doombringer. Michael would have let go of the item if it was Underworld Fire Core. ording to the system, the fire core would give the Doombringer to conjure mes while the ice core would give the Doombringer to summon and control the bone-chilling frost. Since Michael already had the Dark mes, he desired to have the first under his control rather than fire. As long as he controls all the elements somehow, he could be an unstoppable force of nature on a battlefield.
Hence, Michael decided to bid for the ancient ice core. The only concern he had was the price.
"The ancient ice cores can be used in various arrays, and only the sky''s the limit for a talented cksmith who could handle this ice core. The starting price of the ice core is three million,"
To Michael''s surprise, the starting bid was way lower than he initially expected. However, it made sense since there was no immediate use for the ice core. Anyone who buys it had to find either a runemaster or a cksmith. Even then, there was no certainty that they could make use of the ice core.
"So it''s a glorified ice ball?" Someone from a VIP room was ridiculed as the crowd burst intoughter. Rickston had no words to rebuke because it was the truth. Simply put, except for Michael, the ice core had little to no value to the rest. Even if a 6-star cksmith or a runemaster got their hands on the ice core, they could only imbue a part of its chillness to whatever they forge or create. But they could achieve the same effects with much simpler means. The nobles knew this. After all, they all brought experts along with them.
"Three point five million," The golden prince bid for the item, making Michale frown.
"Four million," Michael bid for the ice core for the first time. But unlike the rest, he didn''t immediately raise the bid by a million. Rather, Michael raised it by five hundred thousand.
"Five million," However, the other party had raised the bid by a million. Michael hated it. Still, he had no intention of backing down until the bid went beyond twenty-five million.
"Five point two million," Michael bid.
"Six million," The Hunt family joined the bid.
"Six point one million," Michael bid again. This time, he decreased the bid further. His way of bidding caused several murmurs among the crowd. But Michael couldn''t care less. Unlike the nobles, Michael knew the value of gold coins. When he first came to this world, he had zero coins to his name. Every coin Michael possessed was earned through hard work. Thus, Michael hated spending itvishly. Granted Michael wasn''t stingy, but he wasn''t avish spender either.
"Seven million," The golden prince raised the bid to seven million. Michael furrowed his brows.
"Seven point one million,"
"Are you kidding me?" Eve rolled her eyes. For a man of his status, Ghost was stingy as hell. She wanted to p the back of his head for raising the bid by a hundred thousand every single time.
Chapter 630: Lailah Alden鈥檚 wealth
Chapter 630: Lah Alden¡¯s wealth"Eight million," One of the elders in the Hunt family VIP room said in a raspy voice. Unlike Michael, they were raising the bid by almost a million.
"Eight point one million," Eve mumbled under her breath. As she expected, Michael put in an eight-point one million bid. Luckily this time, the golden prince did not outbid Michael. Instead, everyone remained silent.
"Eight point one million. Going once," Rickston looked around everyone but did not hold any expectation to receive another bid.
"Going twice, going thrice. Sold to the gentleman in Voldigards room," Rickston eximed. Personally, Michael disliked Rickston revealing everyone''s identity. It paved the way for rogue cultivators to ambush them. At first, Michael thought the auction would be anonymous. However, he was proven wrong.
Michael exhaled deeply.
"Why did you buy that?" Eve asked. Her voice was full of curiosity.
"I have a feeling it might be of help to me in the future," said Michael nonchntly. Since Michael was a convincing liar, Eve didn''t doubt his words. After all, Michael couldn''t say he bought the ice core to upgrade his doom bringer.
"Oh," Eve nodded. A young girl entered their room with a space ring a whileter. The Aqua Pce showed its wealth by giving a space ring like a paper bag. After Michael transferred the eight point one million using his paycube, the young girl bowed, handed over the space ring, and left the room.
Michael inspected the space ring though he didn''t dare to take out the ice core outside. It might be useless, but the ice core was cold enough to the point it would chill their bones. Putting the space ring inside the system storage, Michael focused back on Rickston. After buying the ancient ice core, Michael''s mood was elevated. Under everyone''s gazes, Rickson waved his hand. But instead of an iron pir as before, something else emerged from the ground.
Countless gasps resonated throughout the arena. Even Michael''s eyes went wide as they could. It was the skeleton of a dragon. Compared to the skeleton, Rickston looked tiny. The dragon''s skeleton cast arge shadow on the ground. Everyone in the arena trembled just by the sheer size of the skeleton. The skeleton radiated a weak purplish smoke from its bones. When Michael looked closer, he noticed the several runes carved in the bones. Somehow he felt like they weren''t man-made.
Under everyone''s stunned gazes, Rickston began to describe the dragon skeleton. Judging by the energy radiation around the skeleton, the dragon was at the Fusion stage level 10. The skeleton reminded Michael of a Fusion stage cultivator''s skeleton he saw in the Nether Realm. At that time, the youngsters, including Noah, had to share the skeleton. With the help of the system, Michael managed to get the femur, thergest bone in a body for Gaya. A simple human femur was enough for Gaya to advance five levels within a few months.
What was in front of them was not a mere human skeleton but a dragon''s. Furthermore, it was inplete form. Anyone who buys the skeleton could significantly increase their power in a short amount of time. One small in the dragon''s body was several times bigger than a human femur. So Michael could only imagine how long a cultivator would be able to absorb the energy from the skeleton.
"Ladies and gentlemen. This is a skeleton of a Royal Dragon that roamed thends three hundred years ago. ording to our experts, It died in the tribtion during its breakthrough to the Half Immortal stage. Despite being buried under the ground for three hundred years, the skeleton still possesses pure Celestial and Arch energy. So I don''t have to tell you about having a pure energy resource such as this skeleton at your disposal. It could turn your hall into a well of energy. If you have this skeleton, you won''t have to worry about bottlenecks in your life," Rickston eximed. There was a tinge of jealousy in Rickston''s voice.
"The starting price of the skeleton is three hundred million," Everyone who heard the extravagant amount shuddered.
"Three hundred and twenty million," before the people could begin to murmur, the voice of the golden prince swept across the arena. Since Michael knew he wouldn''t be able even to reach the skeleton, he decided to lean back, have some grapes and enjoy the auction.
"Four hundred million,"
To Michael''s astonishment, Gaya raised the bid to four hundred million.
"Aelia, what the hell are you doing?" Eve''s eyes were filled with shock and fright.
"Let''s have some fun," Gaya giggled. Her devilishness stupefied the elderspletely. They were about to rebuke when the golden prince ced another bid.
"Four hundred and fifty million,"
"Five hundred million," Gaya raised the bid again. She was confident the nobles would go up to a minimum of eight hundred million. Knowing Gaya, Nightmare remained silent as he knew there was no point arguing with her. Moreover, Nightmare felt a little pity for the dragon. After all, the dragon was one of his kind.
"Six hundred million," The Hunt family elder raised the bid by a hundred million calmly as though it was a small amount.
"Seven hundred million," Once again the golden prince raised the bid. Judging by the tone of his voice, Michael knew the prince wouldn''t back down without a fight. He threw a grape into his mouth and watched the auction unraveling before him.
"Seven hundred and fifty million," The Hunt family elder eximed in his raspy voice. The following minutes passed with the golden prince and the Hunt family bidding against each other. In a few minutes, the bid for the dragon went from three hundred to nine hundred and fifty. Such an extravagant amount shook everyone. When the bid reached one billion, the Hunt family elders stopped bidding. Everyone, including Michael became jealous of the golden prince for nabbing valuable items like candies.
"One billion once, twice,"
"Two billion," a melodious voice resonated in the area. Her voice was like music to her. Unknowing to many, a smile formed on their faces. Except for Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare, none recognized the voice, not even the golden prince.
"Wow," Michael''s brows arched up. He knew Lah was rich, but he had never thought Lah was a freaking billionaire, not even in his dreams. Science fell over the arena. Everyone looked in the voice''s direction.
"Two point three billion," The golden prince did not back off that easily. Those close to the empress knew she valued artifacts and relics more than gold coins. As a living Immortal, she had umted thousands of princess artifacts throughout her lifetime and hadn''t slowed down yet. Only a few who were close to the empress knew the secret vault filled with countless artifacts. Once he brought the dragon skeleton to the empress, the golden prince had no doubt she would award him with something priceless. However, his funds were not unlimited. Once the opponent goes past four billion, he would be forced to stop bidding. No matter one''s status, the Aqua Pce had strict restrictions on the payment. In case he failed to pay the servant with the gold coins, he would not only be banned from the Aqua Pce for life but also serve fifty to sixty years in a prison built on the southern continent.
"Three billion," Lah wasn''t ying either. She raised the bid to three billion without blinking an eye.
"Who is she?" Eve couldn''t help raising her brows in shock.
"Three point five billion,"
"Four billion," Lah reached the golden''s prince''sst line.
People didn''t even gasp at that moment as they were all totally dumbfounded.
"Mydy. The entire Gondolin will be in your debt if you be kind and let go of the skeleton," The golden prince finally used his family background to persuade Lah to stop bidding against him.
Once she agreed, the prince nned to raise the bid to four point one billion. At that time, the dragon skeleton would be his. At Least that''s what the prince thought. Contrary to his expectation, Lah did not even respond. Knowing Lah, Michael knew the prince has a better chance of negotiating with the mountain troll than her. It seemed to Michael that the dragon might be the reason for Lah''s appearance. He remembered Gaya saying something about a Fusion Stage cultivator needing a massive amount of energy to enter the tribtion before reaching the Half Immortal stage.
Judging by the vast amount of energy radiated by the dragon skeleton, it was possible that Lah wants the dragon skeleton to substitute the energy requirement. But Michael wondered whether the dragon skeleton was worth the price of crossing the golden prince. Even though Lah was a Fusion Stage cultivator, she belonged to no major power while the golden prince had the backing of an empire behind him. So unless she had the backing of Maxim Barnes, it was not a great move to go against the golden prince, to be honest.
Seeing no response from Lah, Rickston had no choice but to continue the auction.
"Four billion once, Four billion twice¡" Rickston paused for a moment, leaving a short amount of time for the golden prince to negotiate. But the golden prince decided not to negotiate anymore so he could save his face.
"Sold to the lovelydy in the VIP room of Thusia,"
The golden prince''s silence churned a bad feeling in Michael''s gut. However, it wasn''t Michael''s responsibility to save Lah. She made the decision to go against the golden prince and in case the golden prince decided to retaliate, she had to face the consequences. As far as Michael was concerned, she wasn''t a little girl that needed saving.
After the dragon, several other artifacts, including a few legendary spell scrolls got auctioned, but none of them interested Michael. He could buy unique legendary spells from the system store itself. There was no need to waste his gold coins. When the daylight slowly dimmed out, Rickston finally stopped the auction.
"Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for participating in the Aqua Auction. Tomorrow will be thest and final day of this year''s Aqua Auction. Believe me. There are plenty of surprises for you tomorrow. So please be sure to attend the auction tomorrow. Until then, have a nice and safe day, "
Chapter 631: Initializing the Order of Death I
Chapter 631: Initializing the Order of Death IOnce Michael had returned to his room next to Eve''s, he disappeared from the room, leaving Nightmare to guard the room and inform him if someone came looking for him. Michael didn''t even rest on the bed for a moment before teleporting to the crypt with Gaya. When he arrived at the crypt, he was weed by arge round table surrounded by his subordinates. Contrary to what he had seen before, the crypt was clean and spotless. There were no blood stains on the walls, the floor was spotless and the gloomy crypt was lit with a grandeur chandelier. Regardless of the bright chandelier, everyone''s faces were dark and gloomy.
Surrounding the table was Maxine, Corey, Tiberius, Caius, Gibson, Aria, Dr, Titus, and Optimus. Even Sadie was invited to the crypt.
"My Lord, Mydy," Azazel pulled the two thrones for Michael and Gaya to sit. For a moment, Michael remained silent. He scanned everyone''s face. All of his subordinates averted their gazes.
"Maxine," Michael turned his eyes to Maxine, who sat closer to Michael.
"Did you take care of the burial?" asked Michael.
"Yes my lord," Maxine stammered in fear. To their surprise, Michael did not act as they expected. He remained calm.
"Tiberius," Michael looked at Tiberius,
"Why didn''t you tell me or her before you went to that meeting?" Due to Michael''s demonic voice, they failed to guess whether he was mad, disappointed, or just simply asking. Tiberius was speechless for a second. He finally managed to answer Michael.
"To be honest, we thought we could handle it. Obviously, we thought wrong. So whatever punishment you have in mind, I can take it," Tiberius sighed. Michael noticed Sadie clenching her fist suddenly as though she didn''t want to see him punish Tiberius.
"You did nothing wrong. The fault is mine," His words shocked everyone. They all expected the Dark Lord to punish or at the very least, shout at Tiberius. Contrary to their expectation, they heard the Dark Lord mes himself.
"My Lord," Maxine mumbled as Michael raised his hand.
"Although I recruited all of you, I neglected to create a hierarchy and a good way tomunicate among yourselves. But that ends now. Today, we are beginning a new chapter in this world. Today, the Order of Death will be reborn," Michael slowly rose from his throne.
"From now on, you will address me as The Dark Lord and her as The Dark Queen," Michael looked at Gaya for a moment before turning his gaze back to them.
"Each of you will address the other in the room by Lord or Lady," said Michael. After Heinberg died, Michael and Gaya knew it was time they properly build up the order. Until now, ironically, there was no order in the order. Little things such as how the members address themselves mattered. Without strict discipline and rules, eventually, the order would fail, just like before.
"We are the shadow empire that will rule this world. I don''t have to tell you how fucked up this world is. very, famine, hunger, experiments on people, innocent people getting crushed by the wealthy, weak getting weaker, strong getting stronger and the list goes on. We will sit here all day if I list everything wrong with this world. Put simply, the eight great ns and the skyhall are the sicknesses and we are the cure," said Michael before pausing for a second. He let his words sink into their heads.
"Like any government, we need a hierarchy and order. Dark Queen," Michael looked at Gaya as she rose from her throne. Leaving the exining things to Gaya, Michael plunged onto his throne once again. Azazel came to his side and stood beside his throne like a good servant.
"Each of you is either a king or a queen. You''re allowed to have ministers as many as you need. But," Gaya raised her finger,
"Under no circumstance, a monster is to know the other king or a queen at this table. Otherwise, one minister could reveal all your identities to the eight great ns and destroy the order in a couple of days. After all, many empires fall not to foes who fight in front of them but to the traitors behind them. This brings me to my next topic, recruitment," Gaya nced at the people. Like any organization, Gaya prioritized talent and loyalty over anything. If the order was her kingdom, Gaya would rather have hundred loyal talented people under hermand than thousand rich nobles.
"I want three things from all of you and the people you choose to join our order," Gaya raised three fingers,
"Loyalty, talent, and the will to do whatever is necessary. You are here because you all have these three. So when you choose someone, he or she must have the three qualities I mentioned. Now when you find someone you want to recruit, you don''t go and tell everything about us. There is a certain process to recruit someone. Before I exin the process, we have to assign certain tasks to you'' I and Dark Lord derived tasks ording to your strengths. First, Tiberius," Gaya gestured at Tiberius to stand.
"Tiberius, you are a warrior and an excellent leader. You fought against very and in a short amount of time, you have built a safe haven for all the freedom fighters. Soon, the order will help you wipe out very from the southern continentpletely,"
Tiberius couldn''t help feeling grateful towards the Dark Lord hearing the Dark Queen. Just as the Dark Lord promised him, he helped Tiberius free hundreds of ves from nobles and helped him build an entire kingdom for all the freedom fighters through Caius. Thanks to the Dark Lord, all the ves now had a destination, a ce where they could be free without the fear of nobles. But his word was far from over. Until he free thest ve, he wouldn''t stop fighting for them. With the help of the Dark Lord, it was not a pipe dream.
"So I will bestow you the title of King of War. Any and every military or war-rted thing onnd the order face will go through you. You will receive the necessary tools and training soon. Do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?" asked Gaya.
Without saying a word, Tiberius stepped back and dropped to one knee,
"I ept Dark Queen,"
"Good," Gaya nodded. Michael did not n anything dramatic but decided to keep everything simple. After Tiberius went back to his seat, Gaya turned her gaze towards Corey. Without uttering a word, Corey rose from her chair.
"Corey, you built an army and became a Pirate Lord with brains. Just like Tiberius, you are also an excellent leader and captain. Hence, I name you and the Queen of the Seas. You will lead the navel army of the order. Do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?"
"I ept Dark Queen," Just like Tiberius, Corey also bent her knees to Michael.
"Next, Aria," Aria rose up. Her brothers felt overwhelmed by the pressure they felt from everyone in the room. To be honest, they couldn''t believe their little sister has be an assassin under the Dark Lord. Although they felt grateful for the dark lord, they still had some concerns about their sister''s safety.
"I don''t have to tell you again what the Dark Lord did to you. He brought your brothers back to life. He is a god to you,"
"I am eternally grateful to the Dark Lord and to you Dark Queen," Aria spoke with confidence. Killing people had turned the soft delicate girl into a dominant assassin who feared no one except the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen.
"The Dark Lord and I decided to train you until you be the deadliest assassin in this entire world. At that time, you will lead the Assassin Guild the order will build. So hereby I name you the Queen of the shadows. You will receive orders soon. Do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?" asked Gaya. As everyone expected, Aria dropped to one knee but unlike others, she drew her dagger, cutting her palm.
"My life is yours tomand Dark Lord, Dark Queen,"
"Good. But let''s not think about dying anytime soon. Every one of you will be Immortals under the Dark Lord," Gaya startled everyone with her words. But none dared to question her.
"Caius," when Caius heard his name on the Dark Queen''s lips, he shuddered. Even after serving them for a long time, he still feared them. He slowly rose from his chair. Deep down, the old man felt excited to get initiated into the order. This was once in a lifetime opportunity and he nned to capitalize it.
"From one of the senators to the man who controls two kingdoms, you have served us well. No one is better suited to rule the Southern continent to prosperity than you. So I name you the King of the Southern continent. Despite the humongous task before you, we believe you won''t disappoint us. Do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?"
Caius dropped to his knee, ced his hand on his chest, and bowed.
"I won''t fail you Dark Lord, Dark Queen,"
Gaya and Michael nodded. After Caius, Dr saw the Dark Queen looking straight at him. He served the Dark Lord longer than everyone in the room. Everything from the moment he saw the Dark Lord kills a human in the Nether realm to this moment felt like a dream to him. Serving the Dark Lord was the best decision he had made in his entire life. Suppose had rejected the Dark Lord''s offer, he would have either died or just been an orc who could summon a fewherels. But now, he could not only summon the undead butmand the Alpha undead themselves.
When he rose up, he saw the other humans look at him in awe. His tall stature, green thick skin, and muscr build drew their attention like a ma.
"You served us the longest, Dr. With the Dark Lord''s help, you managed to achieve many breakthroughs. You are not a mere summoner anymore. I name you the King of the undead. You willmand the undead army in the future. Soon, you will have everything you need to further improve yourself in summoning and controlling the undead. Do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body? "
To be continued¡.
Chapter 632: Initializing the Order of Death II
Chapter 632: Initializing the Order of Death IIInitializing the Order of Death II
After Dr returned to his seat, Gaya chose Gibson. He rose up from his chair,
"Gibson, you are someone we both didn''t fully utilize. Your experience in navigation and ability to keep the pirates together from killing each other is truly amazing," Gaya chuckled, lighting the mood a bit.
"If Corey is the Queen of the Seas, you will be the King of the Skies. You willmand the airforce we are about to build. Until then, you''re tomandeer the big bertha and hunt down the rogue pirates," Although Michael eradicated the pirates after killing Vance, there were some pirates who went rogue instead of serving under Michael. They preferred to stick to the old ways than serve someone else. Michael received reports about these rogue pirates from Corey. But he decided to let them roam around until this moment.
"Do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?" asked Gaya. As expected, Gibson dropped to his knee and swore his loyalty to Michael and Gaya.
At this moment, only Titus, Optimus, Sadie, and Maxine remained without a task or title. It changed for Sadie when Gaya turned her gaze toward her. Sadie took a deep breath, rising from her chair.
"Sadie Kan," Gaya didn''t show any hatred towards Sadie in her voice. Granted Sadie and Michael had a thing when they were in the river town. Gaya used to hate Sadie to the core, but everything changed after Michael put a ring around her finger.
"Compared to others on the table, you know about the true face of the guardians more. You witnessed how they stood aside, doing nothing when your fellow sisters were ravaged and sold as ves to the southern continent. The guardians knew this and still used them as bait to catch the Dark Lord. The guardians called the Dark Lord evil, but how many girls went missing after you agreed to serve the Dark Lord? None," Gaya eximed.
"We will use the girls in your sect," Gaya''s words stunned everyone, but her following words calmed them down.
"But not as the guardians or the others. We will never ask the girls to whore themselves for us. By agreeing to serve the Dark Lord, you made sure the girls lived with dignity as everyone should in this world. Instead, we will gather information through the girls. Knowledge is wealth, and you are sitting on an untapped treasure trove. So I name you as the Queen of whispers. Soon, you will know everything that happens in the world. Sadie Kan, do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?"
Sadie took a deep breath as she knew there was no turning back now. Deep down, she saw no reason to turn back. If it weren''t the Dark Lord, someone else would use them. That wouldn''t change for the Silvermoon. The world would always treat them as sluts due to their cultivation method. Atleast if she served the Dark Lord, her sisters would be safe.
"I ept and serve you with the best of my ability, Dark Lord, Dark Queen," Sadie knelt down. To their surprise, the Dark Lord opened his mouth.
"I see you have reached the Core Strengthening stage. But your sect''s cultivation method brings you more harm than good. Soon, I will grant you a new cultivation method. Introduce that to your sect and put a stop to getting slut shamed once and for all," Sadie''s heart skipped a beat. Then, her eyes automatically watered. Since these words were spoken by the Dark Lord, she knew it wasn''t a false promise. If someone could show a new way of cultivating, it was him.
Of course, Michael didn''t promise Sadiepletely out of the goodness in his heart. Among all his subordinates, Sadie was the most important one. He could rece Lord Information with Sadie and create a powerful web of spies throat the world. Knowledge was a powerful weapon in this world if one knows how to use it. Using the Silvermoon girls, he could mine the information from every corner of the world. The nobles tended to spit out valuable information when they were in thepany of pretty girls.
Once he built the Silvermoon sect in every kingdom, they would function as a treasure trove of information. Coupled with his Spyders and drones, Silvermoon could be his most powerful asset.
"Thank you, Dark Lord," Sadie bowed. The moment Michael upgrade the system to the next level, he nned to buy a new cultivation technique for the Silvermoon girls. If the girls weren''t strong enough to protect themselves, many nobles would feast on them like animals. By being strong, those girls could protect themselves rather than depend on someone else. Michael was sure the system would have something super powerful to speed up their cultivation by other means instead of leeching off someone''s lust.
After Sadie returned to her seat, Gaya looked at Maxine. When Gaya met Maxine, she was a fat plumpy woman to the point Maxine could kill amoner by rolling on them. However, after a few moments, the plumpy woman was nowhere to be seen. Instead, all they could see was a fit young woman with just enough fat to make her pretty.
"Maxine," Maxine rose from her chair. Her eyes were filled with devotion towards the Dark Lord and the order.
"There is no need for me to exin how important you are to the order and how loyal you are to us. I have no doubt whatever task we give you, you will serve us with pride and joy," Gaya patted Maxine on the shoulder as Maxine shed tears of happiness.
"I am not worthy of such praise, Dark Queen,"
"You are, Maxine. That''s why I am naming you the Queen of power. What you are doing in stormville mountain is of grave importance. The reason why I named you the Queen of power is your task can and will make everyone stronger and more powerful, including the people in the hall. Soon, you will receive the necessary tools to create more devices that would enable everyone to cultivate, even inside the void line," They all shuddered. Up to this moment, only Maxine, Tiberius, and Corey received the device that uses Arch energy crystals to perform simple tasks such as essing space rings or conjuring a small orb of fire.
However, Michael nned to build better devices to enable his subordinates to cultivate with the help of Elidyr. Now that he had made a deal with Hydra, he didn''t worry about waking it up. He could even send special mining devices to mine stormville mountain deeper. Once he built these devices, his subordinates could cultivate whether they were in or outside the void line.
"Do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?"
Maxine immediately dropped to one knee.
"Until I draw myst breath, Dark Queen,"
Michael nodded. Among everyone, she was the most loyal subordinate. To be honest, Michael felt lucky to have a hardworking, loyal subordinate such as Maxine. Just her physical transformation was enough for Michael to keep Maxine in high regard than the others, He had no doubt Maxine would serve him to the best of her abilities.
Finally, Gaya and Michael turned their gazes to Titus and Optimus. The twins rose from their chairs, looking a bit nervous. Compared to the rest, they had the least experience serving the Dark Lord.
Except for Tiberius and Aria, they didn''t know the others. This was the first time they had seen all the subordinates under one roof. They had only heard about the others from Aria before this moment.
"Titus, Optimus," Gaya uttered their names slowly.
"Despite your knack for battle and wars, I have a feeling you don''t want to fight anymore. Am I right?" She spoke exactly what they were thinking as though she had read their minds. After fighting like animals for entertainment, almost dying, and leaving their little sister alone, Titus and Optimus lost their fire to fight. This was their second chance, and they wanted to live doing something else other than fighting for someone. They fought enough for one lifetime.
Since the Dark Queen obviously knew what was in their mind, they chose to nod their heads.
"Yes, Dark Queen," said Titus and Optimus in unison.
"You had fought enough for one lifetime," Once again, she spoke exactly what they were thinking in their minds. It creeped and terrified them at the same time.
"There are many other ways to help the order without shedding blood. And I will give something just as important as killing our foes. To be honest, that was the reason why we ced you in the Bradford army. We wanted you to get acquainted with people other than southerners. If Sadie is tasked with gathering information, you two will procure resources, materials, and weapons. Thus, I name you as the Kings of supplies. I know itspletely different and out of your expertise, but with enough training, we are sure you will satisfy and exceed our expectations,"
Tiberius waspletely taken aback by surprise. The twins were better fighters than even him. Yet, the Dark Queen had chosen to assign them to acquire materials. It seemed like a waste of talent to him. But knowing the Dark Lord, it was hard to believe he had made a mistake. To Tiberius''s shock, the twins and Aria looked relieved and even delighted.
"So tell me Titus and Optimus, do you ept the task and serve the Dark Lord and the order with every fiber in your body?"
"We ept wholeheartedly, Dark Queen," The twins dropped to one knee, cing their hands on the chest.
Chapter ?633: System version 6.0
Chapter ?633: System version 6.0
When everything was said and done, Michael flicked his wrist. A wooden box materialized before every single on the table.
"Open it," said Gaya.
The subordinates stared at the wooden box in front of them for a moment. Silence fell over them. Eventually, they opened the wooden box to see a dull-looking silver chain with a Spyder pendant attached, a ring, a tiny tubr object, and a small arch energy crystal.
"Wear the chain and put on the ring," Gaya instructed them. After they all did what they were told, Gaya began to exin the reason why they gave a pendant and a space ring.
"That spyder pendant attached to the chain lets us see what you see," Gaya waved her hand as hand-held mirrors appeared before each subordinate. They noticed the mirrors showing what they were seeing. Some of them moved the Spyder around. The scenery in their mirrors changes.
Except for Maxine, who knew about the Spyders, the rest seemed stunned.
"You are to wear the Spyder all the time except when you want privacy. But you have to inform Azazel. How to contact him? Put the earpiece into your ear," Gaya opened her hands, showing the earpiece to everyone. The subordinates nodded before taking the earpiece from the box and putting it in their ears.
"ce your hand on the arch energy crystal," The subordinates one by one grabbed the glowing blue crystal lying on the wooden box''s bottom. Sadie was the first to feel a storage sensation in her body when she touched the crystal. A few secondster, her eyes went wide. A sliver of arch energy coursed through her veins. She felt a connection to the space ring on her finger and the earpiece she just put in her ear. Unlike the rest, Sadie knew the feeling of arch energy. So without a doubt, she could tell she had just felt arch energy within the void line.
Although the others took longer to feel the strange sensation, they all shared the same stunned expressions on their faces.
"This device will let youmunicate with Azazel," Gaya''s words sounded inside their heads.
The words of Gaya felt like a whisper but the subordinates heard each of them clearly. It took them several seconds before they realized the wordsing from the device in their ear.
"Now I know most of you aren''t familiar with the feeling of arch energy. But try to focus your mind to send a message. Feel the connection with the earpiece. Speak your names,"
"Sadie," Sadie sent a message, looking at Azazel.
When the old butler nodded, a gentle smile formed on her face. One by one, all the subordinates sessfully sent a message. Of course, some failed, but Gaya didn''t move on until everyone sessfully spoke into the earpiece.
"They did it, mydy," Azazel informed Gaya. There was a tinge of pride in her heart. Although it was such a simple menial task, Gaya very well knew the grave importance ofmunication. With the silver chain and earpiece, the subordinates could contact Azazel anytime.
"You will be called this day every month. Under no circumstances are you to miss this gathering unless you are dead," Gaya''s voice turned cold for a moment.
"Since you are all kings and queens, you need ministers and minions to do your bidding. From the next gathering, you can submit profiles of people you want to recruit to us. Also, this goes without saying, if you utter a single word about the order or the Dark Lord, I will make you wish you were dead," They all could feel the sudden chillness in the air.
"If you have any questions or thoughts, you are free to speak now," said Gaya. After several seconds she sat on her throne, Tiberius cleared his throat. He stood up,
"Dark Lord, what should we do about Quintus and the assassin who killed Heinberg?" the subordinates turned their gazes toward the Dark Lord, expecting to hear his answer.
"That''s your first task," Michael slowly said.
"Coordinate with your fellow member, locate Quintus, and only if you can''t kill him, contact Azazel for backup" Michael raised his finger.
"Training wheels are off from today,"
Tiberius nodded with absolute killing intent in his eyes. After Tiberius sat down, Corey rose from her chair.
"Pardon me for my dumbness Dark Lord but what are our tasks?" Corey scratched her head. She was proud and delighted to receive titles, but they didn''t tell her what to do next. To be honest, Corey had no idea at all.
"You''re the Queen of the Seas. Do whatever you like and can to strengthen your domain. That goes for everyone. Strengthen yourselves and your domains. Be better, be the best," Michael''s thick voice resonated in the hall. With his words, they started to have some idea about their future.
"Coordinate with your fellow members when you need help or other''s expertise. Remember this," Michael rose from his throne. He nced at the subordinates briefly for a few moments.
"The people around you at the table are your family. Etch that into your brain deep. Got it?"
The subordinates bopped their heads up and down.
"If you don''t have anything to say, you can leave," said Gaya.
They all remained silent without anything to say. Thus, Michael willed the system to teleport them back to where they came from. After the subordinates left the crypt, Michael exhaled deeply before copsing onto the throne. Silence fell for several seconds. Michael looked at the empty hall and the empty chairs around the table. He felt proud. A strange sense of achievement rose in his heart.
"That went okay," Michael removed his mask, threw it on the table, and put his legs atop.
"Azazel," Michael called for his demon butler. He walked around the throne to stand before Michael''s eyes.
"You are more important to us and the order. I hope you know that," said Michael. Although Michael soul bounded Azazel with him, the demon had his own personality and thoughts. He wasn''t a robot programmed to serve him until the end of times. It would be troublesome if the demon butler thought he was not as important as the other subordinates. So Michael wanted to clear things up before the demon butler could think like that.
"I am honored, my lord," Azazel''s words and the look in his eyes satisfied Michael.
"Return to the dark forest and monitor the subordinates,"
"As you wish," bowed Azazel.
After dismissing Azazel, Michael waved his hand as a stack of gold coins appeared on the table. The mound of gold coins lit the ce with its radiant gold light.
"What''re you going to do?" asked Gaya. Judging by the stacks, Gaya could tell there were atleast 10 million gold coins. Her guess was spot on. The mound of gold coins contained exactly ten million gold coins.
"Turning them into power," Michael calmly said. Since they were alone in the hall, he didn''t use his demonic voice.
Under Gaya''s curious gaze, Michael waved his hand. A bright light shot out of his body, enveloping the coins. The light swallowed the coins and in a few moments, the light disappeared along with all the coins. Gaya was startled. But when she turned her head, she saw a smile on his face.
"System, how long will it take you to upgrade yourself?"
[Finally] The system eximed as though it was tired of waiting.
[Three hours. The host will not be able to use the system during this time] said the system
"Do it," Michael ordered the system. Coupled with the three hundred thousand badass points, the four hundred thousand badass points he got from converting the gold coins added a total of seven hundred thousand badass points. As soon as Michael ordered, the badass points dropped from seven hundred thousand to a hundred thousand. Michael grinned despite losing the badass points and spending ten million in a snap of time. He felt relieved to upgrade the system finally.
Upon seeing the gold coins disappear, Gaya creased her brows.
"Whatever you did with the coins, I hope it''s worth it,"
"It is," Michael wrapped his hand around Gaya''s slender waist. He pulled her closer while slowly removing her hand with the other hand.
"What are you doing?" chuckled Gaya.
"I think you know what I am going to do," He whispered in her ear. Although Gaya wasn''t a blushing type, his words created a tinge of redness on her cheek.
Upon seeing the blush, Michael pulled her even closer. He could feel her gentle breath and the sweet fragrance. Not wanting to waste the moment, Michael gently kissed Gaya on the forehead.
Inch by inch, Michael lowered his lips until he met her lips. Gaya closed her eyes. Her hands explored every inch of his body. When she reached his head, she grabbed his hair and pulled his face closer to the point both of them enjoyed a heavenly kiss in peace and silence.
After three hours, Michael and Gaya returned to their room. As Michael leaned back on the bed, Gaya and Nightmare slept peacefully beside him. Nightmare curled himself into a ball under Gaya''s gentle embrace. Michael wanted to sleep but he simply couldn''t. The excitement to rummage through new spells kept him awake.
[The system upgrade ispleted]
[Current System level 6.0]
[The host can now have up to twenty-five subordinates]
[The host has received one free spell token as a gift for upgrading the system]
[The host will not get a fixed amount of Experience points when ying a cultivator]
Arch Sensing Stage = 0
Foundation Stage = 5000
Body Refining Stage = 15000
Body Strengthening Stage = 50000
Core Formation Stage = 100000
Core Strengthening Stage = 200000
Soul Refining Stage = 300000
Fusion Stage = 500000
Half Immortal = 1000000
Immortal = 2000000
Michael creased his brows, looking at the experience points. The system reduced the number of points he would kill after each kill. As a result, leveling up had be harder than ever before. His smile froze on Michael''s face.
"What the heck is this system?" Michael asked the system. There was spite in his voice.
[Calm down, host. The system reduces the points so the host can cross the heavenly tribtion with a 0% chance of dying]
Michael''s shock and bitterness somewhat calmed down after hearing the system.
[The system has enabled subordinate kill experience points back. Now the host will receive experience points every time a subordinate kills a cultivator]
[New spells have been unlocked in the system store]
As though the system wanted to change his mind towards something good, it reminded him of the new spells. Just like the system nned, hearing about the new spells made him smile again. Wasting no time, Michael immediately opened the system store to buy new spells.
Chapter 634: Buying new spells
Chapter 634: Buying new spellsWhen he opened the store, glowing blue cards appeared before his eyes. Michael swiped the cards telepathically. On top of the old spells, Michael saw several new ones. But, to be honest, he had a hard time choosing one. It had been some time since he had bought a new spell. As a result, he couldn''t contain his excitement, But Michael didn''t let his excitement get the better of him. So Michael decided to expand all the spells andpare them before choosing one.
Spell name: Guardian de
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: Creates a magical floating sword that''ll protect the caster for a period of time.
Current Level: The sword will protect the caster for two minutes. Anyone above the Core Formation stage will receive 50% less damage.
Spell name: Lightning Shield
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: Creates a barrier of electric energy.
Current Level: Lightning shield will absorb any magical and physical attacks below or at the Body Strengthening stage
Spell name: Silenes
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: Creates a bubble in which time is stopped for a short period.
Current Level: The bubblests for five seconds. The area of effect is a 0.5-meter radius
.
Spell name: Starfire
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: Creates a weapon of fiery energy.
Current Level: The fire sword''s duration is 1min. Anyone above the Core Formation stage will receive 50% less damage.
Spell name: Demon''s wrath
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: Creates a beam of powerful dark sma energy.
Current Level: The beam can be fired from one hand. Regardless of defenses, anyone at or below the Core Formation Stage can be killed instantly. Anyone above the Core Formation stage will receive 65% less damage.
Spell name: Alteraro Vulgecto
Upgradable: No
Effect: Creates a demonic portal to a different dimension.
Spell name: Eyes of Doom
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: An ability to store dark energy in the eyes and emit it in ck optic sts.
Current Level: Capable of prating through anyone at or below the Core Formation Stage instantly.
A strange feeling of excitement rose in his heart. He couldn''t choose a spell without having second thoughts. Every single spell seemed so powerful and useful, even the Guardian de and the Starfire.
"Which one?" Michael asked himself. After a deep thought, Michael waved his hand, removing the Guardian de and Starfire. Although those two spells seemed powerful, especially after he upgraded them, Michael didn''t see any use for them at the moment. Why should he have a sword made of fire or energy when he could use Doombringer and Ignirita? Compared to the rest, those spells looked the worst.
The remaining five spells floated before his eyes. Each of them was unique, powerful, and had its own uses. Some might look weak at the current level, but Michael knew they would be overpowered once he upgraded them. He could hardly remove a spell among the current five. He only had one ticket to get a free spell. So he did not want to waste it. For a few minutes, Michael imagined him using each and every spell. He created countless scenarios in his mind to test the spells.
"I can buy scrolls and use portals in the world to move between realms. So I can remove the Alteraro Vulgecto," Michael waved his hand as the portal spell disappeared from his sight. As Michael thought, several portals connected to other dimensions and realms. With enough gold coins and contact, anyone could use these portals to travel between the realms. For example, Gaya used such a portal to travel to the Fire Realm.
Unlike the other spells, the portal spell could be substituted by the portals in the world. Hence, Michael chose to remove the portal spell. Afterward, he once again focused on the spells before him. In his Ghost persona, he had both offense and defense spells. Additionally, he also possessed the ck shield to defend himself from physical attacks. However, when ites to his Dark Lord form, he had zero unique spells. He had been using Ghost''s spells and betting that his enemies wouldn''t escape. In case someone battled with the Dark Lord and escaped, they could eventually connect Ghost to the Dark Lord using the spells.
This was a major weakness the Dark Lord had. To rectify this weakness, Michael knew he must buy at least one offense and defense spell that was unique to the Dark Lord. His gaze was fixed on the spell named Silenes. Even though the spell had a short duration of 5 seconds and a short area of effect, the spell''s effect was a game changer. With the right weapon and skill, Michael could kill anyone and change the tide of a battle. Simply put, the spell could be his trump card.
But what stopped Michael from immediately buying the spell was hisck of a powerful weapon and an offensive spell. Without them, there was no point pausing the time. At Least if Michael had a teleportation spell that teleported him regardless of whether he was in a battle or not, he would have bought it. Since it wasn''t the case, Michael heaved a sigh and removed the spell from the list. Nheless, he decided to buy the spell for sure in the near future.
Three spells were out, and three spells remained. Among the three, one was a defensive spell, and the rest were offensive spells. His mind once again created scenarios to assess each spell''s advantages and disadvantages. Having the responsive shield made the Lightning shield redundant, at least at this moment. Also, the responsive shield was invisible. Therefore, connecting Ghost to Dark Lord might be a bit difficult. Besides, the best offense was the best defense. Due to those reasons, Michael removed the Lightning shield from the list. Finally, there were only two spells before Michael.
Spell name: Demon''s wrath
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: Creates a beam of powerful dark sma energy.
Current Level: The beam can be fired from one hand. Regardless of defenses, anyone at or below the Core Formation Stage can be killed instantly, regardless of defenses. Anyone above the Core Formation stage will receive 65% less damage.
Spell name: Eyes of Doom
Upgradable: Yes
Effect: An ability to store dark energy in the eyes and emit it in ck optic sts.
Current Level: Capable of prating through anyone at or below the Core Formation Stage regardless of defenses. Anyone above the Core Formation stage will receive 65% less damage.
Upon casting the spells, each would yield the same result as the other. But what differentiated the spells was their appearance. For example, the demon''s wrath would let Michael fire a st of dark sma energy from his hand while the Eyes of Doom would fire opticser sts from his eyes.
Now Michael had to decide between the two spells, thinking which would make him look cooler. Eyes of Doom knocked the Demon''s wrath out of the park when he imagined himself using both spells. Firing ckser beams from his eyes undoubtedly took the crown from his point of view. With this spell, he didn''t even have to raise a finger but just had to look at his opponents.
Upon finally deciding, Michael willed the system to use the free token on the Eyes of Doom.
[Ding, The host has sessfully acquired the level 1 Eyes of Doom]
[Eyes of Doom current range 20 meters]
"System, what''s the cost of buying Silenes?"
[Five hundred thousand]
Michael''s heart skipped a beat when he heard the outrageous price. It made sense given the spell''s effect, yet half a million seemed too much in his mind. Furrowing his brows, Michael asked the system.
"What''s the cost of Eyes of Doom?" asked Michael.
[Five hundred thousand]
Once again, the system shocked Michael, who heaved a sigh of relief. In case the Eyes of Doom was way cheaper than the Silenes, his heart would have ached for not choosing Silenes despite his reasonings.
"I can''t wait to test this baby," Michael grinned. Exiting the system, Michael turned his gaze to Gaya. She was still peacefully sleeping with Nightmare in her embrace. He removed the nket covering his leg up to the knees and walked towards the window. The moonless sky drew his attention. For a few moments, Michael just stared at the dark sky.
"Elidyr," Michael established a connection to contact Elidyr. Due to the task of building a teleportation array in the dark forest mansion, Elidyr couldn''t make it to the gathering. Michael ordered Eldity to try to finish the array before they returned to Mazeroth. There were only five days left in their holidays. After that, Michael had to return to Mazeroth. Not that Michael wanted to graduate from Mazeroth, but he wanted to explore the Akn realm. It might be risky, yet if he didn''t take this risk, he would lose the chance to unravel more about his enemies. The more he learns about the skyhall, the better chance he has of beating them.
"Dark Lord," Elidyr''s voice sounded in Michael''s head. Michael sensed a bit of frustration in the dark elf''s voice.
"How''s everything?" asked Michael.
"I need more materials, Dark Lord. I can''t swing my hands and create a teleportation array just like that. Work you piece of shit!" Michael heard Elidyr kicking something in frustration. Upon hearing the pissed dark elf, Michael decided to cut his conversation short.
"Give a list of everything you need to Azazel. I will personally see to it,"
"Finally, some good news. Please, get me those things as soon as possible. I could have bought them, but if I leave this array unfinished, I have to do it again from scratch," said Elidyr with way less frustration than before in his voice.
"I will look around in the Aqua Pce. If there is a ce I can get what you need, it''s this ce," said Michael.
"Watch your back, Dark Lord. Elves might seem pretty and harmless, but they are the vilest evil creatures in the entire world," Elidyr warned Michael before Michael ended themunication.
After everything was said and done, Michael took a deep breath. He finished everything he had in his mind for the day. Yet, one thing remained, drilling his mind.
"Who are you?" asked Michael, looking at the moonless dark sky.
Michael recalled the ck-robed woman. A strange sense of familiarity rose in his heart. But, more than anything, Michael wanted to unmask the woman and learn more about her.
Chapter 635: Immortal Killing Weapon
Chapter 635: Immortal Killing WeaponThe next day Michael, Nightmare, and Gaya returned to their VIP room for thest day of the auction with Eve and the elders. Since Michael spent 8 million on the ancient ice core and 10 million on the banker function, he only had 7 million in his system storage and 4 million in his Grandspire bank ount. By the time they reached their room, the arena was overflowing with people. There wasn''t a single empty seat in the entire arena. Even the VIP rooms got crowded with various elders. As soon as Michael plunged into his sofa, he activated his thermal vision to look into the Thusian VIP room. To his surprise, there were only silhouettes of men, not any women.
"She''s gone," Michael mumbled under his breath. It was a good thing Lah left the Aqua Pce early. After buying a full skeleton of a dragon, many rogues and nobles might target her regardless of her cultivation stage. She was a big thing in Elon, but in Awor where every prominent family had at least a Fusion stage cultivator, her life would be in danger if she outstayed her wee. Not to mention the golden prince who failed to buy the dragon skeleton even after trying to use his family background.
"Any ns to buy something else today?" asked Eve.
"Depends on the items," Gaya simply shrugged.
"You have something in mind?"
Eve turned her head to look at Michael,
"No one knows what they will show today. They keep thest day items tightly lid,"
Michael couldn''t care less about the auction anymore. Even if they showed priceless items, he simplycked the coins to buy them. He doubted he could buy something for seven million coins. Besides, Michael came to the auction just for entertainment. Now that he had given the subordinates a road map of what to do, he didn''t have anything for himself to do other than pass his time traveling around Awor.
He leaned back, staring at the empty grass field. Michael canceled all the noises around him, including the chit-chatter between Gaya, Eve, and Nightmare. Several minutester, Rickston finally appeared in the sky.
"Ladies and gentlemen," His raspy voice echoed through the arena. The crowd instantly stopped their chatter almost simultaneously. Silence fell over the arena for a couple of minutes. They all simply watched Rickston look around the ground. A glimmer of satisfaction emerged in the old man''s eyes. Finally, Rikcston raised his hand,
"Let the final day of the Aqua auction begin," the sound of Rickston''s voice, louder beyond human limit due to the arch energy.
When he dropped his hand, the iron pir slowly emerged from the ground. To everyone''s surprise, they saw a piece of yellowish bone atop the pir.
"Ulna," Michael mumbled to himself. Although the bone had several chips and looked ancient, there was no doubt in Michael''s mind. The bone was an ulna. Whether it belonged to a human or another race member, Michael did not know. Compared to the dragon skeleton, the energy radiationing from the ulna bone was on another level. If the energy radiated by the dragon skeleton was a pond, the energying from the ulna was an ocean.
At the same time, Michael noticed countless runes glow in the ground around the bone. The runes harmlessly dispersed the energy radiation. Otherwise, themoners below the Core Formation stage would choke to death.
"An Immortal''s bone," Gaya gasped in shock. Everyone red at the bone without moving their gazes. But only a few like Gaya could recognize the bone''s origin.
"What''s with these people and bones?" Michael creased his brows. This was the second time Michael saw bones startling the crowd. Unknown to Michael, the Aqua Pce sent their treasure hunters to the treacherous ocean and to the Demons grave. Both these ces were basically ancient graveyards. They found the dragon''s skeleton in the treacherous ocean and the immortal bone in the demon''s grave. It was a dangerous expedition. The Aqua Pce lost several powerful men. But thanks to the Arctic hall of Sea Folks, the Aqua Pce had nock of powerful people.
Unlike the cultivators on thend, the Sea Folks avoided wars. As a matter of fact, the Sea Folks only had one war several thousand years ago. But that war was nowhere close to the great wars the humans, elves, or any other race living on thend had gone through in the number of casualties. Each war put the cultivators onnd several hundred years behind the Sea Folk. This was the major reason why the Sea Folks had countless Fusion Stage cultivators while they were such a raremodity on thend. Many curiously waited for Rickston to exin.
"Ladies and gentlemen. This is an arm bone of an Immortal. It contains twenty times more energy than the dragon skeleton. As some of you might know, that''s not what makes this bone, or any bone of an immortal a diamond among artifacts,"
Rickston paused for a moment to let the people guess what made a bone of an immortal so special to the point it would cause war between kingdoms. Michael turned his gaze to Gaya. But before she could answer Michael, Rickston continued.
"Only a weapon made of Immortal bone can kill another Immortal," A simple short sentence from Rickston had caused countless gasps in the arena. Those who thought an Immortal could not be killed werepletely in shock, including Michael. Granted, an immortal would bepletely immune to aging, sickness, and injuries. After crossing the tribtion, each step into the Half Immortal stage would have a body that''s free of all the above. However, that didn''t mean they were invisible. Standard weapons leave no cuts as their bodies were simply too strong. But the only weapon capable of killing a Half Immortal or an Immortal was a weapon made of an Immortal''s bone.
"What makes the immortal bone a treasure counted by many is," Rickston raised a finger,
"Only a weapon made from an Immortal bone could kill another immortal,"
A strange feeling of disappointment emerged in Michael''s heart. Michael''s min momentarily went nk. What was the point of calling them Immortals if the Immortals could be killed? Michael did not have any answer to his own question.
"System, do I need an Immortal bone to kill other Immortals?"
[The host can choose between various weapons and blueprints in the system store. There is no need for you to look for bones unless you have too much money and far less intelligence]
Michael creased his brows, hearing the ridicule in the system''s voice. He initially thought the Immortals could not be killed and only he could y them with the help of the system. Then, however, he was proven wrong. ording to Rickston, anyone with a piece of Immortal''s bone could y another Immortal.
"You won''t find a little piece of Immortal bone, let alone arge piece such as this. It''s something even the Aqua Pce could get once a century, if we are lucky,"
Upon hearing Rickston, many shuddered. They silently gasped. Many who sat in the first row felt their heads throb. Despite the runes, the leaking radiation still affected some people. Hence, Rickston cut his description shorter than he initially nned. He knew the elders from the prominent families didn''t need any more exnation.
"The starting price of this Immortal bone is four hundred million,"
"Five hundred,"
"Six hundred,"
"Eight hundred,"
"One billion,"
"One point three billion,"
"One point five billion,"
The bids continued to rise rapidly. There was no pause between each bid. None of the elders seemed to let go of the bone.
"Two billion," Gaya shouted from the room.
"Two point two billion,"
As Michael expected, someone else quickly counter-bid Gaya. Silence fell over in Voldigards room. They all stared at the rising bids in utter disarray. Even when they were in their prime, forking out five billion was not a simple thing. The minutes passed fast. What started at five hundred million climbed so high that the golden prince bid six billion for the bone. After losing the dragon skeleton to Lah due to ack of coins that day, the golden prince brought all of his wealth with him.
Michael looked at the auction, feasting on the grapes beside him. Whenever he threw a grape into his mouth, someone raised the bid by three hundred million.
"Where do you think they got this bone?" asked Michael.
"Demons grave would be my bet," said Eve.
"Demons grave huh?" Michael nodded. Afterpleting his studies in MAzeroth, Michael could visit the Demons grave. With the system at his disposal, the most dangerous ce in the world might be his treasure trove. Imagine how rich he would be if he found an Immortal Skeleton. While Michael was in deep thinking, the bid of the bone finally began to slow down.
"Eight billion," The golden prince''s voice resonated in the arena.
"Ten billion," Suddenly, an elder from the Hunt Family surprised everyone by raising the bid by two billion.
"Hunt Elders," The golden prince initiated a conversation with the elders. Before his words, Michael didn''t know the ones who counterbid the prince was the Hunts.
"If we counterbid each other, we can go till tomorrow. Why don''t we split the bone in half?" Upon hearing the golden prince''s words, many trembled. Even Rickston stared at the prince''s room with wide eyes. For a few moments, the auction stopped as silence took over the arena.
Many hoped the Hunt elders would ignore the golden prince so they could see a battle between two monstrous powers in Awor. They were the people who hated auctions with no battles and deaths. But to their shock, the Hunt Elders agreed.
"Only if we can also split the final bid," An elder with a raspy voice spoke. Just like that, the Aqua Pce lost billions. Allowing two bidders tomunicate was a massive weakness in the auction process. Michael would make the auction anonymous if he were to open an auction house. That way, no one could sway the auction using family backgrounds or shady deals. But Michael admired the prince for striking such a deal instead of using his family background to threaten the opposition or pour more gold coins into the bid.
With this deal, he got half a bone for five billion. Although the golden prince had gold coins, the Hunt family was not inferior to the empress or the royal family. They both had almost unlimited gold coins. After all, the Hunts controlled countless businesses and connections with the Sea Folks themselves. As a matter of fact, they owned five gold mines in the Ozer continent alone.
Finally, the Immortal bone went for the price of ten billion, although it could have simply crossed past fifteen billion.
Chapter 636: Someone from the past
Chapter 636: Someone from the pastUnder the crimson-red sky, the castle of vampires stood imposingly. The vampires adorned inplete ck robes from head to toe, patrolled the castle ground in utter silence. Except for the wind''s howling, there was no sound across the area. As they patrolled the castle grounds, Saber appeared in the red sky out of thin air. He looked at his vampires for a moment, lingering in the sky. Saber slowly descended towards the castle. Seeing their lord, the vampires halted their steps. Their bodies went rigid as they bowed towards Saber. Despite Saber''s young look, handsome face, and gentle smile on that handsome face, he was the most terrifying elder vampire among the Elder vampires. Fear gleamed behind the vampires'' dark hood. Under their fearful eyes, Sabernded at the doorsteps. As though the door had sensed the presence of Saber, it slowly opened with a creak.
"Good to be home," Saber mumbled to himself. He might be staying in Awor, thend of the rick but his heart always yearned for this castle. No ce in this world coulde anywhere close to the vampire castle as far as he was concerned. A gentle smile emerged on his face. Saber navigated through the intricate dark corridors and arrived at a gray stone wall. He ced his hand on the wall, sending a sliver of arch energy into it. In a few seconds, the wall trembled, and the gray stones slowly moved inwards, forming an archway to a dimly lit hall. When Saber stepped into the hall, he was weed by two cloaked figures on their knees. Their faces werepletely hidden beneath their hood. Under the gray rags, grayish-like decayed faces drew a long, rattling breath, as though they were trying to suck something more than air from their surroundings.
Saber walked around the hall with his hands behind him. He noticed the bloody tables, blood-stained walls, and jars filled with human organs. The hall would make anyone crinkle their noses or outright throw up. However, Saber didn''t even lose his smile. After going a full round around the room, Saber finally halted his steps in front of the two kneeling figures. He jumped up on a steel table, ignoring its blood stains.
"Who''s idea was it to create a gue in Awor?" Saber asked. His voice almost sounded like a child''s, a yful child''s. The two cloaked figures slowly raised their heads. Silence fell over them.
"I asked you a question," his yful tone contained a hint of killing intent. The two cloaked figures shuddered. Eventually, a growling voice of a woman came from one of the cloaked figures.
''
"Lord Nelo ordered me to create the gue Elder Saber¡" the cloaked figure shivered.
"Is that so?" Saber slightly tilted his little head,
"But¡but I didn''t want to," the cloaked figure panicked.
"Why is that?" asked Saber.
"Because Elder Saber hasn''t told me to,"
Saber''s grin grew wider.
"Good answer," Saber''s voice was stark contrast to the cloaked figure.
Saber turned his gaze to the cloaked figure named Nelo.
"Nelo, why did you order her to create this gue? If this old memory of mine serves me right, I didn''t tell you to do so,"
Once again, silence enveloped the hall. No one uttered a word to break the silence. Eventually, Saber''s chillingughter cut through the silence.
"I turned you to do one simple task, follow my orders. Is that difficult to do? Huh Nelo?" asked Saber. His voice was full of murderous lust. A weak man would have fainted at the mere feeling of the cold aura radiating from Saber.
"My Lord-" Nelo''s words were abruptly cut short by Saber. With a single look, Saber created a vacuum around Nelo''s head. Nelo gasped for air, yet there was no air around him to breathe.
"It''s my fault. I put you here to oversee her work, not order her around. Maybe I wasn''t clear about that," Saber''s brows arched up. He yed drums on the steel table nonchntly. For a few minutes, Saber let Nelo gasp for air without lifting a finger. Eventually, when Nelo was about to lose consciousness, Saber simply waved his hand.
"AHH!'' Nelo gasped for air. His chest rose up and down, frantically breathing as much air as possible.
"Fabia, did you know someone out there found a cure for the gue you created?"
Anyone from Gisel would have immediately recognized the name. Fabia Viridius, daughter of former Gisel senator, Viridius. Michael blew the stage with all the senators of Gisel on it seven months ago. Everyone, including Michael, thought Fabia had died in that explosion along with her father. She would have died if it wasn''t for Saber, who rescued her and turned her into a vampire. Before that, Saber funded Fabia''s experiments on mefair, almost killing Titus and Optimus.
The major weaknesses all the vampires had were sunlight and thirst for blood. Saber wanted to change that. Hence, he hand-picked some of the genius brains in the world and made them work for him one way or another. Among the geniuses, Fabia was the smartest. Before Michael blew the stage with her on it, she was on the verge of a breakthrough. Her brutal experiments included people native to the southern continent and cultivators. Now that she was turned into a vampire and given a portal to travel between the Southern continent and mefair, she had arge victim pool at her disposal. No one in mefair knew Fabia was controlling their duke, and Saber controlled Fabia. Simply put, Saber was controlling mefair for decades. But mefair was one of the kingdoms indirectly controlled by the vampires. Every kingdom in the world had at least one vampire among them, controlling the kingdom from the shadows. That was how the vampires stayed in the shadows for such a long time. Whenever some adventurer or a schr stumbled upon something vampire-rted, they would immediately kill them before.
Surprise and shock glistened in Fabia''s eyes under the dark hood covering her head.
"I¡I¡"
"You can speak freely, Fabia," seeing Fabia stutter in fear, Saber said, smiling at her.
"It wasn''t my best work, my lord. Lord Nelo only gave me a week,"
Any oblivious man would have been startled by her words. In a mere one week, Fabia created something that almost brought down the most powerful continent in the world. Suppose Michael hadn''t intervened, Nelo''s n would have been a sess. Unfortunately, Michael threw a huge wrench in Nelo''s n. If Nelo had done the same a few months ago, Saber would have killed him instantly. However, everything changed. The vampires were no longer a myth. A journalist with the help of a Guardian, exposed them with evidence. Although it was the Royal news who published an article about the vampires, Saber had a feeling someone else puppeteered everything from behind. Was it the same person who sent a threatening letter? Saber couldn''t find an answer to the question.
"Let''s just say, you had more resources and time. Would you say you can create something no one could find a cure for?" asked Saber.
"Yes," Fabia didn''t even take a few seconds to think about it. She had monstrous trust in her abilities. With Saber''s support, she knew she could create a new strain of gue that no one could cure.
Her answer satisfied Saber. Her confidence and her abilities were what made her such a valuable asset. Otherwise, Saber would have let her burn to death. Looking at the smile on Saber''s face, Fabia sighed inside. The smile symbolized she had evaded a death sentence from her master. But the same could not be said for Nelo. To be honest, Fabia wanted Nelo out of her way. He was a restriction to her experiments. A few days ago, Nelo almost canceled her n to turn Quintus into a vampire. It took a lot of convincing. That time could have been used to do something else.
So Fabia rooted for Saber to kill Nelo. As far as she was concerned, he was just an obstacle between her and her sess. No matter what, she had to appease Saber so he would bring her father back to life.
"What are you currently working on?" asked Saber. Although he didn''t let his subordinates do whatever they wanted, he gave them an extent of freedom. Unlike Nelo, Saber avoided micro-managing his subordinates. As long as they yield results for Saber, he funded their experiments. At the moment, Saber had twelve secretboratories worldwide, and each one of them had a genius like Fabia working on the betterment of vampires. They were all preparing for the possible war against the Dark Lord.
"Hybrid soldiers, my lord. I have sessfully created an assassin. Now I have put a hybrid warrior on the field and waiting for results," Fabia''s voice had a tinge of pride.
The Assassin she created sessfully killed a seasoned warrior such as Heimberg in a matter of seconds. Compared to the assassin, Fabia had more hopes and expectations for the hybrid warrior she had recently created. He was none other than General Quintus. ording to Fabia''s calctions, turning Quintus into a half-vampire would amplify his abilities by several folds. He could take on an army single-handedly without any use of arch energy.
"I want to see him in action. Where did you send your hybrid warrior?" asked Saber. He couldn''t help feeling curious. Despite the mysterious one''s threat, Saber decided to take a look at Fabia''s new creation.
"He is currently waging war against Kingdom Prerid, my lord,"
With the vampire genes in his body, Fabia knew Quintus would be turning the tide of the war single handedly as they were speaking. Even she wanted to see his creation in action. Unfortunately, she had more pressing tasks that needed her absolute focus.
"Wonderful. I will see him, myself," Sabwe pped his hands as he jumped down from the steel table. He stretched his arms, yawning. He turned around to leave the hall. Seeing Saber walking towards the exit, Nelo sighed. However, his relief was short-lived. Before stepping into the archway, Saber just snapped his finger as Nelo exploded into a bloody ck mist.
"Clean the mess, Fabia. You got what you wished for. So get back to work now. No one will order you around anymore,"
Chapter 637: The Demon Commander
Chapter 637: The Demon CommanderBack on Elon, Noah sat near the calm pond, meditating. His chest rose and fell with a certain rhythm. He became one with the blowing wind around him. Noah allowed no guards in the guardian when he meditated. Thus, only the withered trees and flower ns apanied him. Once in a while, a few snowy kes gently danced down, swaying in the wind. Whenever a snowke hit the calm pond, Noah''s eyes would twitch. While Noah was meditating, Yasmine Winston entered the garden. Unlike when she met Ghost, she was in light blue robes void of any armor pieces. She slowly walked towards Noah on the paved pathway. Her sword dangled around her waist every time she took a step.
Noah''s ear twitched.
"My dear cousin," Yasmin said with a yful tone. Thanks to Yasmine, Noah''s two days of meditation finally came to a halt. He slowly opened his eyes. The clear pond and the red maple tree on the other side was a magnificent view in Noah''s mind. In his two decades of life, he meditated in several ces. Some of these ces were dreams for a rogue cultivator. But to Noah, the garden created by his mother was the best ce to meditate. It had certain tranquility the other cescked.
"Yasmine," Noah looked over his shoulder to see his cousin standing a couple of meters behind him.
"So this is what you do in your free time?" asked Yasmine.
"Meditation is just as important as cultivation. A calm mind is a weapon of itself," Noah turned around. His eyes were just as calm as the pond behind him. Unknowing to Noah himself, he radiated a powerful aura. Normal cultivators failed to sense this aura, but Yasmine did. It would have been a surprise if she failed to sense it. After all, she was created by one of the elders in Skyhall. Noah and his family werepletely oblivious to the fact Yasmine was a clone.
The elders created Yasime with one objective in their minds; monitor Noah Winston and report everything back to the Skyhall. Despite being a clone, Yasmine inherited all the memories and habits of the body''s owner, the real Yasmine Watson.
"Where is everyone?" asked Noah. He looked around for a moment, climbing down the steps of the elevated tform he was meditating on.
"Inside, discussing the war, as usual. Are you going with your father to the front lines?" Yasmine asked nonchntly. Instead of giving her an answer, Noah walked through the withered nts resulting from the uing winter. Usually, by this time, the garden would be filled with chirping birds, squirrels, and beautiful flowers that danced with the wind. However, the cold winter breeze changed the scenery.
"War should be ourst resort. It''s a pity Duke Avon is so desperate for it. One man''s ego is going to destroy so many lives," Noah sighed. His heart ached thinking of all the destruction and deaths a war would bring. When the vampire n was out there lusting for their blood, humankind and all the races should be united. Yet, they were all ignorant and fighting among themselves.
Although Noah hated wars, he knew some of them were just inevitable, just like the one between Icefair and mefair. Due to Alicia''s family, Noah''s family had to side with Duke Marvin, the duke of Pen town in the uing war. Thinking about the war, Noah wished he was at the Fusion Stage. If he was, he could have stopped the war once and for all. Only because of his search for the Dark Lord killing arrows made by Mazeroth founders, did he not get enough time to cultivate.
It had been two months since Noah had any breakthroughs in his cultivation. He was stuck in the Core Strengthening stage level 8 and couldn''t reach the next level. For a normal cultivator, going without having a breakthrough for a couple of months was nothing. They only leveled up once a year or so. But for Noah, it was strange, very strange. Obviously, the Skyhall noticed Noah''s cultivation being halted. So they sent Yasmine to fix the situation. After all, if Noah wasn''t strong enough, he wouldn''t be able to fight the Dark Lord, and if he didn''t, they couldn''t get rid of the Dark Lord and control thest man standing.
"I need your help with something Noah," asked Yasmine while following Noah.
"What is it?" asked Noah.
"In my travel with my mentor, I stumbled upon a pocket dimension filled with treasures, rare artifacts, and valuables. Apparently, it was left behind by a Half Immortal,"
"You want me toe with you?" Noah halted his steps.
When he turned around, Yasmine nodded.
"I know it''s sudden, but I really need something in there. If you could help me find it, you can have anything you find there. Since you are my cousin, I won''t ask for a share. How about it?" Yasmine winked at Noah. Suppose someone else asked him to venture into an unknown pocket dimension, Noah would have outright rejected them. Furthermore, he would have be suspicious. However, Noah didn''t even blink an eye when Yasmine asked him for help.
Why? Because Noah trusted his family. For him, his family was everything. Never in a million years would he doubt his family. Yasmine Watson might be his cousin, but she was no different than his little sister Sabrina. He loved them both the same. So when she asked his help, Noah agreed right away without even considering the dangers of venturing into a pocket dimension left by a Half Immortal. Even an oblivious man could tell the pocket dimension would be riddled with traps and dangerous. After all, cultivators hardly left behind their stuff with no protection.
"Where is this pocket dimension?" asked Noah.
With a grin, Yasmine flicked her wrist as a gold ring materialized on her palm.
"This ring would open a portal to the pocket dimension anywhere. Toss the ring, and boom, instant portal straight to the destination,"
"This is a rare portal ring. The pocket dimension must be ancient. Shouldn''t we get more people with us?" Noah creased his brows. He had heard about the portal rings from Andreas, but this was the first time he had seen one with his eyes.
When Yasmine heard his question, her heart skipped a beat. Her master ordered her to bring Noah alone to the dimension. The Skyhall elders wanted Noah to get the items left for him. If they brought others, they might get them before Noah. Even if Noah got them first, the chances of Noah sharing those gifts with others were significantly high.
"And share what we find with others? Hell no. Where is my cousin, you chicken?" Yasmine punched Noah in the shoulder. Yasmine hid her true intention behind a yful chuckle. Unfortunately, due to Noah''s weakness in the family, he couldn''t see through her.
"Will you at least let me say goodbye to father and mother, or should I run behind you into the pocket dimension?" Noah rolled his eyes.
"You have five minutes," Yasmine raised her hand, showing five fingers.
"But what about Norvin? He can help us locate treasures,"
As a golden babaroo, Norvin possessed a special ability to locate treasures. Ever since Noah picked up Norvin from the forest surrounding Royalnd, the golden babaroo helped him find countless treasures. In other words, Norvin yed a huge role in Noah''s heaven-defying cultivation speed. Additionally, Norvin could also locate hidden traps and defense arrays. Noah knew these abilities coulde in real handy once they were inside the pocket dimension.
"Allow him," Suddenly, Yasmine heard her master Devdan''s voice in her head. The elf was watching Noah through Yasmine''s eyes.
"What the heck? Bring him," Yasmine nodded as though it was her decision.
Noah nodded back and headed towards the mansion, leaving Yasmine behind. Seeing Noah, several maids bowed and greeted him with a smile. Noah nodded back at them, eventually reaching the main hall, where he saw several people gathered around his father. Except for his mother, everyone was in their battle armor. The warriors were divided by their armor colors. One group led by an old man wore icy white armor. They werebined of the Icefair''s duke Den''s men and House Belefort''s men. House Winston soldiers were adorned in pale blue armor among the other two. At the same time, Duke Marvin''s men wore emerald green armor.
When the soldiers saw Noah, everyone stopped their murmurings. Silence fell over them. But the silence was short-lived as the old man greeted Noah with a wide grin.
"There he is, my grandson-inw," The old man''s voice was full of life. His neatlybed, ashen hair was tied into a ponytail. Compared to Ethan who was a muscr man who could destroy a tree with his hands, the old man was skin and bones. An oblivious man wouldn''t even spare a second nce at the old man. But his reputation was a stark contrast to his appearance. The old man''s friends and family called him Xavier, but his enemies called him ''The Demon''.
He was the reason no one dared to wage war against Ice fair. Even the so-called sword masters of Aragoth feared to battle Xavier one on one. The old man was an unstoppable killing machine. One could count the warriors who could fight the old man head to head with swords with one hand. In his early years, Xavier fought Maxim Barnes, who was a sword master then, and came close to defeating him. Although the battle ended in a draw, Maxim still had a tinge of fear for the old man in his heart. Even to this date, many sects and academies taught their disciples about Xavier and his sword mastery.
"Grandpa," Noah greeted Xavier with a grin. The old man embraced Noah in a tight hug. Despite his thin stature, Noah felt like he was being crushed by two boulders.
Seeing theirmander loosening up, the soldiers looked a little bit relieved.
"You look a bit exhausted. Are you eating well? It seems my granddaughter is failing at her duties as your fiance," Xavier turned his gaze toward Alicia. She looked a bit flustered, but she quickly managed to throw a cold re at her grandfather. Even though the old man was feared across Elon, he was just a doting grandfather to Alicia. Many under Xavier''smand still couldn''t believe there was a yful side to their demonmander.
"He is worried that he''s stuck at the Core Strengthening stage," Norvin leaped onto Noah''s shoulder out of nowhere.
"That''s it? These old bones are stuck at the Soul Refining stage for years. I''d be happy if you were stuck at the Core Strengthening stage for a couple of more years. I cannot let a youngster outrun me. I have a reputation to protect, after all,"
Chapter ?638: They Stole Ghosts shipment
Chapter ?638: They Stole Ghost''s shipment
(Few hours before the Aqua auction final day)
Inside a dimly lit room, a man was tied to a chair and beaten to a pulp. The man''s face was bloody and swallowed beyond recognition. Several cuts riddled his body. Anyone with eyes could tell the man was tortured mercilessly. Slowly, the man''s eyes closed. Looking at the man''s head falling down, a man walked out of the shadows. He was tall, muscr, and had messy brown hair.
"Lord Mn," The man turned his head to see a guard entering the room.
"Lord Ricky is on his way here," the soldier said. There was a tinge of panic in his voice.
"Shit," Lord Mn cussed. He wanted to heal the man in the chair so he could make him feel the pain once more.
"How did he know this soon?" Lord Mn questioned himself. House Bradley had been escorting Ghost''s shipment for a year now, and they had never faced a problem until now. The entire shipment was stolen by masked men when the carriage containing the potions and pills were traveling through the forests surrounding Kethen. A group of highly trained masked men ambushed House Bradley and Rainshade merchant guild guards and stole everything inside the carriage. Although the masked men managed to kill many guards and escape with the shipment, the guards caught one of the masked men.
That unlucky fellow was the one in the chair, getting tortured by Mn himself. As Lord Mn was thinking about how Ricky, the right-hand man of Ghost, learned about the ambush, Ricky entered the dark room with a couple of guards of his own. As usual, they all dressed inplete ck, just like their lord, Ghost.
"Lord Ricky," Due to Ricky''s appointment as a minister and his status as Ghost''s right-hand man, everyone started to call him ''Lord Ricky''.
When Ricky entered the room, he noticed Mn standing there with no shirt to cover his upper body. He was stained in blood. Judging by the man tied to the chair, Ricky could tell where the blood came from. Even if the blood came from Lord Mn himself, Ricky wouldn''t give a damn. He was super pissed and on the verge of killing everyone in the room. He wasn''t the same gate guard Ricky anymore. After being Ghost''s right-hand man and managing his affairs for a long time, Ricky became more dominant and less merciful.
"Tell me he is one of the men who stole the shipment," asked Ricky. His voice was cold. Killing intent radiated out of every pore in his body. No matter what it takes, he must get back the shipment and fix the situation. That was the only way to escape the wrath of sister Aelia.
"Yes," Lord Mn nodded. A year ago, Lord Mna wouldn''t have spared a second look at amoner such as Ricky. He was a Lord of a noble family and a Core Strengthening stage warrior. Now, he had no choice but to show respect to Ricky.
"Did he tell you who stole the shipment?" asked Ricky.
Fortunately, Mn received an answer from the thief after hours of torture. Ricky creased his brows as immense killing intent made the temperature in the room drop by a few degrees.
"Who?" asked Ricky.
"Duke Avon. He ordered his men to rob the supplies. They are nning to use the healing potions for themselves," For a moment, Ricky was stunned. But after thinking about where the shipment was going, everything made sense. A few days ago, Lord Ethan from House Winston bought all the healing potions in preparation for the uing war against mefair. Since Lord Ethan had a good rtionship with Master Ghost, Ricky sold all the healing potions along with several other products to Lord Ethan.
Ricky gave his word to Lord Ethan that everything would reach his manor in two days. Now that the shipment had been stolen, Ricky was enraged.
"You," Ricky turned his cold gaze to the man in the chair. Looking at his frail state, Ricky flicked his wrist as a healing potion materialized in his hand.
"Lift his head," Ricky ordered his men. While Lord Mn and his guards were staying behind, Ricky''s men lifted up the thief''s head. Ricky slowly opened the thief''s mouth, pouring the healing potion into it. In a couple of seconds, Ricky emptied every single drop of the healing potion into his mouth. Lord Mn furrowed his brows. He couldn''t help wondering what the heck Ricky was doing. He just wasted fifteen thousand gold coins worth of healing potion on a thief.
"Where¡where¡am¡it?" the thief mumbled.
"Am I dead?" The thief was tortured to the point he doubted his reality itself. When his vision cleared, the thief''s eyes went wide. Finally, he realized where he was and what he was doing.
"Not yet," Ricky answered the thief with eyes full of murderous intent.
"Did Duke Avon order you to steal the shipment?"
The thief did not answer. Silence upied the room for a moment.
"Let me rephrase my question. Did Duke Avon order you to steal the shipment belonging to Master Ghost?"
The thief trembled, hearing Ricky''s cold voice. Ricky''s eyes turned predatory. If a gaze could kill a person, the thief would have died by now. The thief recalled what happened to him an hour ago. Every cut, bruise, and punch brought upon him made him shiver. The thief did not want to go through that ever again. To be honest, the thief would rather die than get tortured again.
"Yes¡yes he did¡ it''s the truth¡I swear," The thief screamed.
"Please¡please let me go-" The thief''s voice was cut short as Ricky plunged a dagger through the thief''s throat. Lord Mn was stunned. He did not even see when Ricky unsheathed his dagger. In a blink of an eye, Ricky ended the thief''s life. Blood spurted out of the wound. The thief frantically twitched until his body slowly came to a stop.
Ricky pulled out the dagger and cleaned the blood off of his sleeves.
"Such a mess," Ricky spat. He rubbed his temples. It brought Ricky a headache. Now he had to send another shipment to Lord Ethan. Moreover, he would have to answer Master Ghost and Sister Aelia. Thetter made him tremble in fear.
"How could you let this happen, Lord Mn? We cannot go ask for the shipment from Duke Avon. It''s our word against his," Ricky exhaled deeply. Sometimes Ricky wished they sent the products in a space ring. That way, they didn''t have to rely on escorts and protection. Sending everything in a space ring would be quicker, easier, and more secure. Unfortunately, Ricky knew Master Ghost strictly ordered them not to. Unlike gold coins, the potions and pills put inside a space ring would gradually lose their quality.
The other alchemists didn''t care about losing one or two percent purity. They preferred to send their products stored in a space ring. However, Michael valued quality over everything. He promoted his pills and potions by saying they are ny percent pure. He charged the customers for ny percent pure products, not for eighty-nine or eighty-eight. Michael wouldn''t tolerate even a one percent loss in purity. That was why Michael chartered Lord Mn''s family to escort the carriages transporting his products despite the drawbacks, such as being vulnerable to ambushes.
Lord Mn sighed. He was simply unable to express his bitterness on what had transpired. He lost several good men in the ambush but couldn''t care less about them right now. Instead, he was more worried about meeting Ghost.
"We have to try. We have to try before Master Ghost returns from Awor," Lord Mn said.
"I will use everything at my disposal and get to the bottom of it," Lord Mn vowed,
"You do that. But I have to inform Sect Leader ire,"
Lord Mn panicked,
"Why? Just give me some time,"
"Hiding this from her will only make this worse, Lord Mn. I know Master Ghost and Sister Aelia. Trust me, It''s better that way," Judging by Ricky''s tone, Lord Mn knew there was no point arguing with Ricky. At that moment, Lord Mn wanted nothing more than Duke Avon''s head. If he wanted, he could have purchased those pills and potions for gold coins. There was no need for him to steal the shipment.
"Fortunately, I have a second batch of shipment ready. I will personally deliver that to Lord Ethan,"
"I wille with you," Lord Mn quickly said.
"No-"
"I insist," Lord Mn cut Ricky''s sentence short. Seeing no harm in bringing Lord Mn with him, Ricky sighed, nodding his head.
"Lord Mn, what should we do with the body?" asked one of Lord Mn''s guards.
"Cut his head and send it to Duke Avon," Before Lord Mn could give an answer to his guard, Ricky answered the guard.
"If I was him, I would die in the war. Because once Sister Aelia learns what he did, she will make him wish he was dead," Ricky said before walking out of the room with Lord Mn.
****************************************
Back in the dark forest, Azazel saw everything that had transpired. He saw everything from how Lord Mn furiously tortured the thief to Ricky ordering the guard to cut the thief''s head.
A whileter, Azazel slightly moved his head to see a red-haired man in his early forties. The scar from his left eye to his upper lip gave him a viinous look. Looking at crates filled with healing potions, the man smirked.
"Duke Avon," Azazel coldly uttered the name. The man was the Duke of mefair, Avon Gilkes.
"You''re a dead man," Azazel said. Although Lord Ethan ordered and paid for the shipment, it belonged to Ghost until the shipment was delivered to the client. That was how Michael treated his business. By attacking the carriage and stealing the shipment, Duke Avon practically attacked Ghost. So the Duke had to pay for what he did.
"My Lord," Azazel contacted Michael through the telepathic link between them.
"Azazel," Azazel heard Michael''s voice in his head.
"My Lord, one of our shipments were attacked and stolen,"
For a few moments, Azazel received no response from Michael.
"Who?" Azazel felt a chill running down his spine when he heard Michael''s murderous voice.
"Duke Avon, the duke of me fair," said Azazel.
Chapter ?639: New Elder Vampire
Chapter ?639: New Elder Vampire
After leaving Fabia''sboratory, Saber headed straight to the main hall, where the other Elder vampires were waiting for him. Among the ten seats around the stone table, only three seats were taken. Trista, Lenora, and Ingram weed Saber with a nod. Saber slowly pulled his stone chair back. The chair made a creaking noise.
(read chapter 474 to refresh your memories about the vampires)
"Have you found Hacan''s killer?" asked Lenora.
Ingram and Trista turned their gazes to Saber.
"Not yet," Saber simply shrugged. He didn''t share the letter he received from Harriet when he was in Awor.
"Elder Ingram, you wanted to talk about something," Saber ingrained the twody vampires and turned his gaze to the oldest Elder vampire among them, Ingram.
"How prepared are we to face the Dark Lord?" Ingram asked. He was always the quiet one, but when he asked this question, there was gravity in his voice.
"Why are you asking this so suddenly, Elder Ingram?" Trista asked. Among all the vampires, they only called Ingram ''Elder'' due to his age and power. To this date, the vampires didn''t know Ingram''s cultivation stage. He kept his powers well hidden. Because of that, Ingram was the most feared and respected.
"Haven''t you heard what happened to the holy church in the Royalnd?" Lenora quickly asked Trista.
"Of course, I heard about that. My question is, what does that have to do with us? If you ask me, the destruction of the holy church works in our favor," said Lenora.
"It has everything to do with us. The Dark Lord is hunting down everyone he deems evil. I think we qualify to be called evil all the way," chuckled Trista.
"Elder Ingram," unlike Lenora and Trista, Saber didn''t take the threat of the Dark Lord lightly.
"ording to what I heard, we aren''t strong enough to fight the Dark Lord. If he decides to hunt us down, we will have a problem," said Saber.
Silence fell over them for a few moments.
"We may have to call upon all the elders, at least those who are alive," Ingram calmly said. His words shocked everyone. Why? Because it had been almost a hundred years since all the ten elders gathered in one ce.
"Elder Ingram, are you thinking of waking up a blood prince?" The words sent shivers down Trista and Lenora''s spines. The blood prince was one of the ancient vampires. They were the first creations of the Vampire Lord. However, due to their violent nature and long life span, the blood princes entered a state of slumber thousands of years ago.
No one knew how many blood princes were in this world. Their records were lost in time. For now, the elders had ess to one blood prince. Only through a special ritual could they wake up a blood prince. But waking up a blood prince had several drawbacks. One of them was that the elders would have to listen to the blood prince until the blood prince entered the slumber state. Simply put, They would take over the deathless n.
"Hmm," Ingram nodded.
"But-" Trista''s words were cut short when Ingram raised his hand,
"I saw the Dark Lord ughter the holy guards. It wasn''t a battle, as the mortals im. It was a one-sided massacre. He killed several Soul Refiners within a snap of time. In my eyes, he wasn''t even using a fraction of his true power,"
The words startled Trista and Lenora. In the night, they all could reach the Fusion stage level 8. That was their base cultivation power. Coupled with immunity to spell attacks, regeneration, and inhuman speed, the vampires, turned into a terrifying force of nature. A typical Fusion stage cultivator would not be able to defeat the Elder vampires. Unless one had a Primordial me, defeating an Elder vampire was nearly impossible.
"We are not prepared to face him. That''s the truth," Ingram''s gaze swept across the other three.
"Waking up a blood prince may be our only way to end the threat before it ends us all," said Ingram. His voice sounded more grave than usual.
"Elder Ingram. We have to think this through before we act. Waking up a blood prince isn''t that simple. He or she would take over the n. They would order us around. And think about our current state. The entire world knows we exist. What if the blood prince decides we are not capable of leading the n and choose new elders?" Lenora panicked.
Her words had some merit. Saber knew this. To be honest, even he wasn''t entirely on board with waking up a blood prince. As far as he was concerned, waking up, a blood prince had more drawbacks than benefits. However, if Elder Ingram decides to wake up a blood prince, they would have no choice but to follow him. Forget about the blood prince, if they disagreed with him, Saber knew Ingram would kill them all and rece them with new elders. Unlike Trista and Lenora, Saber witnessed Ingram ughter a group of vampires mercilessly in the Ozer continent almost a hundred years ago.
They were all elder vampires created by Ingram himself. Although they possessed the title of elders, they were all inferior to the elders at the round table. Those elder vampires were tasked to eliminate all the kings and queens in Ozer at that time. To their bad luck, they failed, almost exposing the vampires in the process. As a result, Ingram ughtered every single elder vampire without a shred of mercy. Despite his calmposure, Saber knew how cruel Ingram really was. The entire deathless n thought Saber was the most terrifying, but Saber himself was terrified of Ingram. Even if Trista, Lenora, and he teamed up, they would stand no chance against Ingram. Hence, Saber didn''t want to go against Ingram''s wishes.
"I lived longer than the three of youbined. I know a threat to us when I see one. The Dark Lord is a threat. Don''t make me repeat my words," Ingram creased his brows. The room became colder to the point that they could all see their breath escaping their noses. His eyes glimmered with intense killing lust.
"We will do as you wish, Elder Ingram," Saber quickly eximed before the situation escted further.
"But we have one tiny problem. We only have nine elders," said Trista.
"No, we have ten," said Saber. But, except for Ingram, the other vampires didn''t have a clue about the tenth vampire.
Saber just pped as the open space in the table''s center slowly opened as a figure emerged from the ground. Upon seeing the elders, the figure dropped to one knee and removed his cloak.
"I turned him, and if we all agree, he can be an elder at the table," said Saber. Trista and Lenora stared at the red-haired human for a few seconds.
"Why do I have the feeling I saw him somewhere before?" Trista rubbed her chin.
"Wait a minute," Lenora recognized the scar on his face. Then she had a light of realization.
"You''re the duke of mefair," eximed Lenora. She was surprised, and it was visible in her tone. As Trista heard Lenora, her eyes went wide. She wondered when Saber managed to pull a Duke to the dark side.
"Duke Avon Gilkes, raise your head," Saber ordered as Duke Avon lifted his head to look at the elder vampires before him. Although Avon looked calm, his heart was pounding. A few months ago, Avon didn''t even know the vampires existed. But thanks to Fabia Viridius, whom Avon knew as the ck one, he was able to meet Saber. To his astonishment, Saber offered him the chance to be one of them. A typical man would have freaked out or outright rejected the offer, but Avon was no such man. He lusted for power more than anything. That was the reason why Avon allowed Fabia to open secret dungeons to experiment on the cultivators in the first ce.
With Saber behind him, Avon went to open war against not one but two duchies at the same time. Not only that, but he also ordered his men to steal Ghost''s potion and pill shipment. Even the kings and queens of Elon dared not to go against Ghost, but to Avon, Ghost was just a mortal he could kill in a snap. After all, Saber granted him all the powers of a greater vampire. From what he had seen, no mortal, whether they were prodigies or freaks of nature, stood no chance against a vampire.
"Why did you choose him?" asked Lenora.
"Isn''t it obvious? He is a duke," Trista rolled her eyes.
"But not only that, he was helping my servant for quite some time. This is just me rewarding his diligent support for us," said Saber.
"If we made him the elder, he would win the war against the Pentown and Icefair. We can control the entire Kingdom of Kethen in a few months, " exined Saber. Trist and Lenora turned their gazes toward Ingram. After experiencing the cold killing intent from Ingram, they did not want to cross him again. Besides, Saber was right. Controlling the duke meant controlling his duchy. Once they could control the three duchies, the entire kingdom would soon be their hunting ground. They could hunt, recruit more subordinates, spread their influence, and much more. Simply put, the possibilities were endless.
After contemting for a few moments, Trista and Lenora nodded, agreeing to turn Avon into an elder.
"I, Lenora Beatrix, agree to turn Avon Gilkes into an Elder of the deathless n,"
"I, Trista Nevada, agree to turn Avon Gilkes into an Elder of the deathless n,"
Saber nodded,
"I, Saber Byron, agree to turn Avon Gilkes into an Elder of the deathless n,"
Finally, Ingram rose from his stone chair.
"I, Ingram Dregan, agree to turn Avon Gilkes into an Elder of the deathless n,"
In a blink of an eye, Ingram disappeared and reappeared behind Avon. Before Avon could realize what was happening, Ingram grabbed Avon''s head, tilted it to a side, and sunk his fangs into Avon''s neck. Blood spurted out as Avon''s body twitched. One by one, the others sun their fangs into Avon''s neck. When they were done, Avon copsed onto the ground. His body went through several changes. Finally, after approximately two hours, Avon woke up at his mansion as an Elder Vampire.
Chapter ?640: The war between the duchies
Chapter ?640: The war between the duchies
After Noah left for the pocket dimension with Yasmine, the Winston family soldiers consisting of five hundred men began their march towards the assigned battlefield. Since arge-scale battle between cultivators would destroy the surroundings to nothing, the Guardian Guild assigned a specific battlefield and surrounded the field with various arrays to safeguard the viges nearby. Because none of the parties at war agreed to a peace talk, the guardian guild had no choice but to oversee the war. Of course, the guardian guild could have stopped the war if they tried. However, their priority was to restore their damaged reputation. Ever since the royal news wrote an article about how the guardian guild knew about the vampires and hid it from the public, the guild had lost its reputation. As a result, many noble families withdrew from funding or decreased the amount given to the guild. Thus, the guardian guild prioritized fixing its reputation to sway the guild from the path to bankruptcy.
Leaving the Winstonpound, Xavier and Ethan led the men under theirmand to the Akar grass field. It was located between the border of mefair and Pentown. They wanted to save every bit of arch energy in their body. Hence, they chose to march instead of fly to the grass field. Despite the long march, Ethan and Xavier did not camp out in the forest. They both knew about Avon and his underhanded tactics. It wouldn''t be a surprise if they were ambushed in the forest. Thus, Ethan and Xavier passed the forest as fast as possible without any rest. When they were getting closer to the grass field, they ordered the men to take half a sip of healing potions. The men were thankful to themanders once they consumed some healing potion. They immediately felt refreshed and rejuvenated. Soon, the refreshing feeling turned to courage and courage turned blood lust.
Once they passed the forest, they arrived at a clearing, the Akar grass field. When they arrived, two men, one riding a white horse and another riding a red horse galloped toward Ethan and Xavier.
The man atop the shiny white horse was Duke Marvin. He was a blond-haired man with a thick bushy beard. His golden spear dangled on his back as he weed Xavier and Ethan with a tired smile. The man riding next to Duke Marvin was Duke Alverin, the duke of Ice Fair. Among the four dukes, Alverin was the only nonhuman. He was born to an elven woman and a human father. After his mother died, Alverin received the duke title from his father who departed to the cold mountain to seclude himself. As a half-elf, Alverin had slightly pointed ears and smooth silky skin with a perfect jaw structure. He was neither too muscr nor too thin.
Initially, when the previous duke of Ice fair named a half-elf as his heir, many nobles caused a ruckus. Regardless of Alverin''s im to the title, the nobles did not want to be ruled by a half-elf. Instead, they wanted the duke to choose someone else, a human. Yet, the duke chose Alvering against the nobles. Everyone including the King of Kethen, Porter Forbes thought the duchy was deemed to fall into a civil war. But to everyone''s surprise, Alverin used his mother''s side of the family to bring millions of gold coins to the Ice Fair. Within a year, he built more guilds, shops, and businesses than all of his predecessorsbined. Under Alverin, Ice Fair became a superpower among the four duchies. While mefair and Pentown were in the cold war, Ice Fair made money off of it.
Soon, those who opposed Alverin changed their mindsets. More gold coins into the pocket triumphed over their hate for the half-elf. One by one, every noble family in the Ice Fair flourished under Alverin''s rule. After winning the nobles'' support, Alverin immediately turned his focus to the citizens of his duchy. Under Alverin''s father''s rule, Ice Fair suffered famine due to ack of fertilends in Ice Fair. As the duchy''s name, Ice Fair had more snowy ins than fertilends. That changed soon when Alverin requested the empress of Awor''s help. Once again, Alverin used his mother''s influence and his diplomatic talents to sway the empress into helping Ice Fair. With the help of the empress, a special unit of elves arrived from Awor, cultivating the snow ins into fertilends. Additionally, the empress and Alverin signed a treaty that brought Ice Fair arge amount of grains every year. All it took was Alverin''s word to marry one of the empress''s rtives when the right time came.
"Duke Alverin," Xavier was surprised to see Duke Alverin on the battlefield. Alverin was a diplomat, not a warrior, at least none had seen him battle before. So when Xavier saw Duke Alverin himself on the battlefield, he was surprised.
"Commander Xavier, Lord Ethan," Duke Alverin gently smiled at the both.
"Before you say anything, I am just here to oversee the battle, not to participate in it," Alverin said. His words were calm,posed, and contained a hint of authority.
"I have brought you five hundred archers from my personal army as I promised, Commander Xavier," Xavier turned his head to the side and saw five hundred archers d in silver leather armor. They stood behind Duke Marvin''s iron-armed soldiers on the frontlines. Duke Marvin''s men were divided into two toons. One toon consists of warriors wearing crimson-red armor. They were armed to the teeth and each held a long golden spear. The second toon stood between the archers and the iron-armored soldiers. Instead of armor, they were in their robes. These toons contained cultivators who specialized in long-ranged and supporting spells such as defense barriers, and healing spells.
In total, the Ice Fair and Pen town soldiers formed an army of sixteen hundred thousand.
Boom!
As they were speaking, the sound of a horn reverberated through the grass field. They all turned their gazes in the horn''s direction. On the horizon, arge army slowly marched toward them. The army of Duke Avon finally arrived at the Akar grass field. The front-line soldiers, almost six hundred knights d in shining te armor, halted a good distance away from Ice Fair and Pen town''s army. They were near enough to see their enemies but far enough to evade arrows.
The archers of Duke Alverin quickly nocked and aimed their arrows at the newly arrived army.
"Commander Xavier," Alicia descended from the sky after scouting the area ahead. She was in her battle suit, armed to the teeth. Except for her head, metal armor covered every part of her body. Her sword dangled on her waist while she held a golden spear, just like herrades in her hand.
Although Xavier was Alicia''s grandfather, on the battlefield, he was hermander. Hence, Alicia bowed her head and addressed him as Commander.
"Our enemies have sixteen hundred soldiers. Six hundred knights, five hundred archers, and five hundred mages," reported Alicia.
"Any idea how strong they are? How many Core Formation stage warriors? Are there any Soul Refiners?" asked Xavier.
"No, Commander. Duke Avon has some mages who cast a shield around them. It prevents any means to see their cultivation levels," said Alicia. Ever since the Hydra woke up from its slumber, it had been preventing the cultivators from seeing others'' cultivation stage. It was a double-edged sword, especially for the soldiers on the battlefield. They wouldn''t be able to gauge how strong or weak their enemies were. If they were lucky, they could end up fighting a weaker opponent. If there were not, then, most probably they would die.
"This all ends here today," Ethan eximed. He was sick of losing his soldiers to Avon''s underhanded tactics. His eyes gleamed with battle lust. When Harriet was at his cultivation stage, Ethan fought head-to-head with her. Before bing the Lord of Winston family, Ethan was the only man who came close to defeating Harriet Hunt in closebat. Even to this day, many adventurers in Awor sing about the ck hawk, Ethan''s adventurer guild name.
"Return to your regiment," Xavier ordered Alicia with a pat on her shoulder. An affectionate smile rose on his face. With a nod, Alicia joined the front line. Seeing his granddaughter joining the knights, Xavier sighed inside. He wished Peter was with Alicia on the battlefield. After all, no one would have one''s back like family. It was really unfortunate that Peter walked a dark path and ended up being house arrested. But again, Xavier always sensed something amiss in Peter ever since Peter was a little boy. He valued power over everything, even family had be second to Peter.
The army of Duke Avon station in the distance, watching their enemies. For a few minutes, only silence haunted the battlefield. Eventually, Xavier and Ethan rode their horses, leading their men to the front. Meanwhile, Duke Alverin and Duke Marvin went to the back, far enough to avoid the enemy archers. Xavier turned behind to look at his men. Their eyes told him they fear no one and they would charge forward with a singlemand.
His men were strong but there was no need to purposefully put themselves at a disadvantage by charging head-on toward their enemy. Xavier wanted to study their enemies a bit more before giving anymand. Anyone who knew Avon could tell he wouldn''te to the battlefield without having several trump cards. It took Xavier decades to train his men. He did not want them to die a pointless death. Since Xavier had seniority, Ethan stayed behind, waiting for Xxavier''smand. After some thinking, Xavier decided not to charge in recklessly. However, that didn''t mean he would stand here like a sitting duck.
"Bring out the beast!" Xavier issued an order as several knights dismounted their horses and started assembling a portable weapon made of iron. It resembled a hybrid of a ballista and a cannon,
The long hollow tube was as long as two carriagesbined. After several minutes, the knights finished assembling the weapon and pointed it at the army of Duke Avon. Xavier moved a bit closer to Duke Avon''s army. He then used a sliver of arch energy to amplify his voice.
"Duke Avon,e out!" Xavier''s roar was loud enough, even without amplifying his voice. But with his arch energy amplifying his voice, his words reverberated the entire grass field.
Chapter ?641 Duke Avon鈥檚 Appearance
Chapter ?641 Duke Avon¡¯s Appearance
When the sun disappeared on the horizon, stars peaked their heads out in the dark sky. They glimmered in the ck canva-like sky. There was a coldness mixed with beauty in the night sky. Under the ck sky, the two armies waited for each other to charge forward. Commander Xavier''s words caused amotion in both armies. They all waited for Duke Avon to appear but he was nowhere to be seen. Even Duke Avon''smanders didn''t see Duke Avon for a few days. They only received a parchment containing Duke Avon''s order and crest. Looking at warriors such as Ethan and Xavier leading their men, Duke Avon''smanders felt a bit down. Their morale was down, especially after seeing the iron weapon the soldiers assembled.
"If you don''te out, we will blow your army into bits and pieces," Xavier continued to roar.
"Come out and face me like a man. A duel. We will finish this without bloodshed,"
On the front lines stood the threemanders of Duke Avon''s army. They were all covered in iron te armor from head to toe. Even their horses were armed to the teeth. They looked at the enemy soldiers, threatening to charge toward them any moment.
"That damn old bastard," one of themanders gnashed his teeth.
"The thing they are pointing at us," themander dragged his words,
"The beast, yes," another one who was familiar with the weapon nodded.
"Commander Xavier''s pet. The same thing the Beleforts used to siege many castles,"
The soldiers amplified their gazes using arch energy and stared at the weapon, particrly at its long hollow tube. It resembled a cannon but the base was that of a ballista. They could hardly see the weapon but some of them could see the glowing runes engraved on its ck metal surface. Silence fell over the battlefield after Xavier''s stopped roaring.
As a veteran who went through countless wars, Xavier possessed the skill to study his enemies. At the moment, Duke Avon''s army looked to be in low morale. The Duke, their leader, wasn''t there with them while all the leaders, including Duke Alverin, blessed their enemies with their presence. Many soldiers in Duke Avon''s army felt hesitant to fight the demon. Xavier''s presence made them tremble. Almost everyone in the army heard about Xavier''s tales and how dangerous the man was on the battlefield.
"Duke Marvin," Duke Alverin leaned slightly to his side,
"Isn''t Alicia a guardian? How could she participate in the war?"
The Guardian Guild had a rule stating its members cannot participate in any wars. Instead, the guild preferred to stay neutral and only advocated stopping wars. So when Duke Alverin saw Alicia in her battle armor, he was surprised.
"She quit the guild. I thought you''d know that by now, Duke Alverin," answered Duke Marvin. After the guild began an investigation on Peter, Tanulia asked Alicia to take a long holiday. By that time, the cold war between Ice Fair and mefair escted to the point Duke Avon waged a full-on war against Ice Fair. Being in the guild without any power to help her brother caused great pain to Alicia. She was both mentally and physically exhausted. After a long discussion with Noah, Ethan, and her family members, Alicia decided to quit the Guardian Guild.
She desperately wanted to help her family out of the trouble caused by Peter. That was the reason Alicia joined the army raised by the Belefort family under her grandfather. Now that she had quit the guild, she was free to side with any kingdoms or families in a war. Furthermore, she was free to find whatever was necessary to free her brother.
"Make sense," Duke Alverin recalled everything that had transpired in the tournament rted to Peter. As a matter of fact, he received severalints from the nobles in secret about a vignte beating the hell out of their kin in the night. He even designated a special unit of soldiers to hunt down this vignte. But never in a million years, he thought Peter would be this vignte. The Belefort family was one of the very few families that didn''t oppose his ascension to the duke title. They respected his father''s wishes and supported him wholeheartedly. To be honest, Duke Alverin was d that Ghost exposed Peter instead of his own unit. It could have caused a rift between him and the Belefort family if his soldiers had caught Peter.
Although it was hardly discernible to a normal person''s eyes, Ethan could see the soldiers of Duke Avon trembling. Realizing this was the perfect time to strike at the enemy, Commander Xavior raised his hand, threatening to issue an order anytime.
"Soldiers, we don''t need big morale-boosting speeches. We boost our morale by hunting down our enemies. We boost our morale by feasting on their blood. You have followed me into countless battles and emerged victorious. Today won''t be any different. Let us strike our foes and decimate the me fair once and for all!" Xavier''s words sent shivers running down the opposing soldiers'' spines. His words were filled with murderous intent.
Some cowardly soldiers even took a step back and the soldiers standing at thest line pondered if they should sneak away. Their morale was at its lowest when a bolt of lightning cracked the sky, almost splitting the sky into halves. The bolt of lightning was too bright to the point many closed their eyes for a moment. When Xavier and his men were about to march forward, they saw Duke Avon standing in front of the soldiers. The orbs of light hovered above the me fair army illuminating his face. As soon as the mefair soldiers saw the Duke, they felt relieved. Soon the relief turned into courage and courage boosted their morale.
A small smirk rose on Xavier''s face. Once they marched for a few seconds, Duke Avoin would be in the beast''s firing range. At that time, they could kill Duke Avon with a single shot and end this war before it even begins.
"FIRE!" Xavier shouted. On queue, the beast roared. Crimson ironva-like cannon ball shot toward the Duke and his army. The temperature around them rose several degrees as the projectile whizzed by. The cannonball soared through the air. Luckily, the cannonball hit the duke with deadly uracy. On contact with the duke, a powerful shock wave shot around Duke Avon''s army with a loud explosion. The ground rumbled as the cannonball exploded into numerous small orbs ofva. Although the front-line soldiers erupted their shields in front of them, the shock wave knocked them down from their horses. Following the explosion, a dust cloud formed around the duke, preventing Xavier and his soldiers from seeing what was the result of the hit. When the dust storm died down, they all saw Duke Avon standing there without a single scratch on his body. The soldiers of Duke Avon''s opposing army including Xavier and Ethan bewilderedly stared at Duke Avon. Hints of confusion were evident on their faces. Even themanders of Duke Avon''s army were stunned at the oue. Those who were near the Duke looked at him with quizzical eyes. There was a huge explosion, the ground rumbled and the temperature rose but that was all. Even the numerous smaller fireballs spat out by the hit dispersed after several seconds, as though an invisible hand swept them away into nonexistence.
"So that was the so-called beast huh? Not impressed," Duke Avon smirked. His words were loud enough for everyone on the battlefield to hear.
"YEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" It took Duke Avon''s soldiers several seconds to realize their leader had dispersed the enemy''s most powerful weapon without breaking a sweat. When their brains finished processing what had just transpired, they were shocked but soon the shock turned into tenacity. Their morale shot through the roof as they roared. The soldiers raised their weapons toward the sky. Their battle cry rumbled as loud as a thunderp.
Xavier never thought Duke Avon was strong enough to withstand the beast''s direct hit. Any normal man would have exploded into bits and pieces. Unless Duke Aavon had reached the peak Soul Refining stage or cast a legendary defense spell, it was impossible for him to survive such a direct hit. After dispersing the cannonball, Duke Avon just smirked. He adjusted his red robes before turning his back on the charging enemies.
"Don''t take prisoners," Duke Avon simply said before walking through the army to the back. To everyone''s astonishment, Duke Avon did not charge onto the enemies. After startling everyone by stopping the cannonball, he just decided to stay at the back instead of fighting on the front lines. However, the show Avon put on boosted morale and gave the soldiers the courage to face their enemies.
Despite what Avon did, Xavier did not slow down. He was a veteran who went through countless battles. A simple variant wasn''t enough to discourage the demon. Instead, Xavier let out a roar and marched faster than before. Behind Xavier, Alicia was running as fast as Xavier''s horse. She almost surpassed him. At that moment, Ethan, Xavier, and Alicia led the entire army by the front.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Although the beast failed to kill Duke Avon, the knights continued to fire cannonballs from the beast. Every time the beast roared, the ground trembled as the temperature rose by several degrees around them. Seeing the cannonballs soaring towards them, the mages from Avon''s army flew forward, preparing to cast defense shields around the army on the ground. They doubted the army could withstand the cannonballs like Duke Avon. While the two armies were about to sh, a couple of level 10 Soul Refiners from the Guardian guild appeared in the sky to cast a barrier around the arkar grass field. Instead of trying to stop the war, they ensured the war happens in a controlled environment.
Chapter 642 The bloody war
Chapter 642 The bloody war
Under the night sky, the two armies charged at each other. Their footsteps shook the ground like an earthquake. Ethan, Xavier, and Alicia led the Ice Fair and Pen town armies, while three armored knights led the mefair army instead of Duke Avon. Unmasked hostility and bloodlust filled the air. The army of Duke Avon red at Xavier, Ethan, and Alicia. Each of them terrified the soldiers but with Duke Avon behind them, they showed nothing but battle lust in their eyes. Finally, they found an outlet for their boiling battle lust. When the two armies were just a short distance from each other, Xavier roared.
"Show no mercy!"
The entire army behind him roared in unison. With Ethan and Xavier leading the army, the soldiers fearlessly charged toward the mefair army. Arch energy gushed out of the soldiers'' bodies, amplifying their strengths beyond typical human limits. Each of them gripped their golden spears tightly to sh against the mefair army without regard for their lives. The two armies collided. The sound of iron striking iron reverberated as armored knights'' swords and spears struck against each other. Sparks flew, and blood filled the air as the two opposing foes broke into a melee. The mefair army broke out, fighting like savages. Both armies were fearless as they swung their weapons left and right. Alicia also roared and hacked every enemy in her path without a shred of mercy.
The mefair soldiers were Alicia''s outlet for her buried anger. She used her spear to stab a couple of soldiers simultaneously and her other hand to send cold spikes left and right. Due to the sound of iron shing, no one could hear the spells she was casting. While Alicia was ughtering the mefair army, Ethan and Xavier wreaked havoc on the other side. To Xavier''s surprise, Ethan fought like a demon incarnate. Riding the ck horse, Ethan looked more Demon than Xavier. Unlike Alicia, Ethan did not cast any spells. He just used his sheer strength to sh and dash the enemies with his long sword.
However, the mefair soldiers weren''t powerless either. In fact, they surprised Xavier himself. While Alicia and Ethan were killing the soldiers effortlessly, Xavier''s personal army struggled against the mefair soldiers, especially the three armoredmanders. Coupled with the secret potion, Duke Avon mixed in their meals, the decades of training and experience made the mefair army stand their ground against Xavier''s army.
"Demonic ice rain!" Alicia roared in a deep hate-filled voice. Many mefair soldiers intuitively brought their weapons above shield themselves. Soon, arge glowing chakra lit the battleground beneath. Those who were in the spotlight felt the temperature drop by several degrees. Their skin went numb to the coldness. A split secondter, the chakra shot countless ice spikes from above. Hundreds of ice spikes rained down upon them with enough force to impale everyone below.
Some of them got lucky when the mages of the mefair army cast a barrier around the soldiers. Upon colliding with the golden dome around the army, the ice spikes exploded into bits and pieces of ice. When the chakra faded away, the archers of Duke Alverin released their arrows. They lit the arrows with me before firing. In mid-air, they resembled a swarm of fireflies. Both armies quickly cast whatever defense spell they could, and those who held shields raised them above their heads. Spells and arrows weren''t sentient to know who was friendly and who was the enemy.
In a few minutes, hundreds of soldiers were either killed or lost their limbs in the sh. All of it was because of one man''s ego, Duke Avon.
"The Duke is mine!" Alicia roared as her voice reverberated throughout the entire battlefield.
"STOP!'' Xavier tried to stop Alicia, but the loud explosion sounded from the beast made his shout inaudible. Moving forward, Alicia raised her hand, firing a stream of ice from her palm. The weaker soldiers who were in the ice stream''s path immediately turned into statues. Her ice stream cut open a path in the army as she shot toward the Duke.
"Where are you going?!" a murderous shout was heard when Xavier tried to follow Alicia. His battle instincts kicked in as he blocked the long axe with his sword. His hand went numb. Soon, the three armoredmanders surrounded Xavier. Looking at this from quite far from Xavier, Ethan plunged his spear into the ground with enough force to create a strong shock wave. For the first time, Ethan cast this shock wave since the start of his battle. Everyone in a three-meter radius around Ethan was sent flying. He leaped into the air, preparing himself to shoot toward Xavier.
"Go to her," Xavier amplified his voice with arch energy. His words sounded in Ethan''s head like a bell, clear and loud. On a battlefield, even a split-second hesitation would cost a life. Ethan knew this. For instance, if Ethan hesitated even for a second to follow Xavier''s order, either he or Alicia would be killed. A veteranmander like Xavier would not die to three unnamedmanders. Hence, Ethan obeyed his order by flying in Alicia''s direction as fast as he could.
Seeing Ethan''s trajectory toward their lord, the mages hovering in the air immediately cast several spells to stop Ethan from reaching the duke. Ethan flew like an arrow shot from a bow. However, he quickly halted when he saw a beam of blue energy heading toward him. Intuitively, Ethan swayed his body to the side, avoiding the energy beam just by a few inches. Without giving Ethan any more time, another mage fired a long thick arrow made of fire in Ethan''s direction from above. Ethan swayed left and right, avoiding the spell. But his bad luck, he kept getting bombarded by the mages above him.
While Ethan was facing the mages, Alicia finally reached the duke who stood way behind his army, close enough to see the battlefield but far enough from the archers and the beast. In stark contrast to his normal crimson-red attire, Duke Avon wore dark robes from head to toe. He even covered his head with a cloak. When Alicia went passed the mages and the army, she saw Duke Avon standing alone without any personnel guards. His eyes glimmered like a cat in the darkness.
"Face me like a man," Alicia slowly stepped towards Duke. Her sword dangled around her waist until she unsheathed it. She held the golden spear in one hand and the sword in the other. Although she couldn''t see Duke Avon''s cultivation stage, she didn''t fear him at all. Shepletely ignored that Duke Avon singlehandedly stopped the beast''s cannonball. Hearing her murderous tone, Duke Avon remained calm.
He did not indulge her in a conversation. Instead, Duke Avon looked up at the moonless sky. He could feel the darkness powering him up. New sensations caused his mind to be bewildered. The power of being a vampire really mesmerized him. Before turning into an elder vampire, he had never thought he could hear someone''s heartbeat so clearly from a distance. At this moment, Avon could see the world from a different perspective. For instance, Avon could see the energy radiation around Alicia. It was evident to him that Alicia was weaker than him.
To Avon''s surprise, only two people on the entire battlefield who could fight him head to head, Xavier and Ethan. As Alicia got closer to Avon, he could smell the sweet fragrance of blood. Immediately, his stomach growled. This strange feeling of hunger was new to Avon. Previously if he had seen a beauty like Alicia, his mind would have created sexual thoughts. But now, he only wanted to feast on her blood. As a human, he knew drinking blood was animalistic or even forbidden. Still, his urge to suck her dry was too strong to resist. Under his dark cloak, the two fangs slowly grew to the point they stuck out of his mouth.
Due to the darkness and his cloak, Alicia couldn''t see the changes on his face. If she could, she would have seen the evil grin on Avon''s face.
"I will end this pointless war once and for all," Alicia halted her steps from a couple of meters away from Avon.
"By killing you," The area turned colder as a white mist surrounded the two. By learning only icy spells, Alicia became closer to controlling the coldness in the area. However, she wasn''t a god-like Michael or Noah. Otherwise, she could have controlled the element itself.
"You are the bitch who follows that Winston boy everywhere," Duke Avon amused.
"He collects beauties like trophies, doesn''t he?" Avon questioned Alicia.
Alicia didn''t show any emotion on her face. However, she was boiling in rage inside. It took great control to stop herself from ripping him apart.
"How many other bitches are there in his harem?" asked Avon with a chuckle. The more he riled up Alicia, the stronger the scent of her blood became. He couldn''t wait to get her blood to boil to the maximum so he couldn''t have a nice delicious feast.
Blood of a virgin. It was a rare delicacy for the vampires. He was no exception, even though he was only a vampire for a day.
"After tasting you, I am going to feast on every single one in your family," said Avon. After hearing Avon''sst words, Alicia couldn''t hold back her anger. She leaped at Avon with immense killing intent. Her entire body radiated a chill that would turn any typical man into an icy statue.
With deadly speed, she pushed the spear in her hand toward Avon''s heart. Avon did not even move an inch. Instead, he waited till thest moment to sway his body to the side and threw his fist at Alicia''s gut. Duke Avon''s speed and movement caught Alicia off guard. Before she could swing her sword to block his fist, she felt a sharp pain in her gut. The force of Avon''s punch sent Alicia flying several meters back.
Alicia coughed up a couple of times as Duke Avon grinned under the dark hood.
"I am going to enjoy this," amused Duke Avon.
Chapter ?643 Duke Avon wants Alicia
Chapter ?643 Duke Avon wants Alicia
"Weak," A strong hateful voice was heard. Alicia intuitively blocked Duke Avon''s hands from above. His speed was nothing like she had expected. One moment, he was in front of her, and the other, he was on top of her. Alicia''s hands felt numb after the attack. Fortunately, she used her spear and sword to block the attack. Suppose she used her hand, it would have broken like a twig. Without giving time for Alicia to retaliate, Duke Avon sent a kick toward Alicia''s gut. Alicia evaded the kick by quickly leaping back, but Duke Avon''s hand swirled and followed her movements. His hands aimed at her neck. Alicia quickly erupted a shield made of threeyers of ice in front of her. But to her astonishment, the ice shield formed cracks and shattered the moment Duke Avon''s fist collided with it. Caught off guard, Alicia evaded the punch a split secondter. The fist of Duke Avon hit Alicia on the shoulder, nearly dislocating her shoulder. A painful groan escaped her mouth.
"You are a lot weaker than I expected," Duke Avon cracked his knuckles.
"How disappointing?"
Alicia frowned. He didn''t cast any spells, yet she moved at a speed beyond her expectation. Even her grandfather, the demon, didn''t move with such speed. Something was amiss. On top of his freaky speed, Alicia smelled a strong, pungent smelling off of Duke Avon.
"You did something to yourself," Alicia said.
"You noticed huh?" Duke Avon grinned under his dark hood.
"So I was right. You did do something to yourself," Alicia eximed. She then dropped the sword as the sword stabbed the ground, standing straight. Alicia massaged the shoulder hit by Avon''s fist with her empty hand. Since Duke Avon wasn''t in a rush to kill Alicia, he allowed her to take some time. He slowly realized that he liked the process of hunting more than the prey itself. After tasting a glimpse of Avon''s power, Alicia did not underestimate him. She clenched the spear tight, casting a spell in the other hand. In a blink of an eye, a light blue chakra materialized in front of her.
Looking at the rotating chakra and the several runes in it, Avon didn''t even flinch. Instead, he waited for the chakra to do something. His wish came true soon as the arrows made of ice shot out from the chakra rapidly toward him.
The chakra moved along with Alicia. A bright light shed across the area every time an arrow shot out of the chakra. Cold air surrounded Alicia and Avon. But to Alicia''s astonishment, none of the arrows made a dent in Avon. He just stood there, taking the arrows without moving an inch. Every arrow that hit Avon exploded into tiny dots of light before fading away. As a vampire, he waspletely immune to any spell attacks. Poor Alicia had no idea Duke Avon before her was an Elder Vampire. Thest time an Elder vampire appeared, it took Michael and Noah to kill him. Compared to Duke Avon, the elder vampire Michael and Noah fought was far weaker. That elder vampire was created by Hacan and Trista, two Elder Vampires. On the contrary, Avon was turned by four elder vampires.
Alicia didn''t know she started a fight that she had no chance of winning.
"I wonder how it feels to have my own minions," Avon slightly tilted his head, looking at Alicia from head to toe. As an elder vampire, he was free to do whatever he wanted as long as it benefited the vampires. After exchanging some blows with Alicia, Avon wondered whether to kill her or turn her into a vampire. ording to Saber, the stronger one''s will, the harder it would be to turn and control them. However, once their will was broken, they could be turned into a powerful greater vampire and eventually an elder vampire.
His train of thought was cut short when Alicia leaped at him with her spear pointing directly at his head. She pushed herself to the maximum. As a result, she moved at the speed of an arrow. But to Avon, she moved at a snail''s pace. He waited patiently until the spear was just a few inches away from his head. When the spear was about to prate his head, Avon grabbed the spear, pulled it toward him, and pped Alicia right on the face.
His p was strong enough to send Alicia flying for nearly ten meters. Avon was surprised to see his own strength. He only used a sliver of his strength yet it was enough to send Alicia flying.
"This is power," Avon looked down at his fists. His grin grew ear to ear. At this moment, Avon felt he could take on the entire world. He feared nothing. With the blood of a vampire, he was quite unstoppable. Soon, Saber would find a solution for them to walk at night, and at that time, the night rulers would rule the day too. However, to achieve Saber''s goal, Avon must first bring the kingdom of Kethern to Saber''s feet. Only then could Saber use Kethen as his hunting ground and conduct several experiments to find a solution for the sun.
The Elder vampire fought Michael and Noah used the dark web created by one of Saber''s minions like Fabia. Although it prevented the sun rays from prating through, the dark web couldn''t exist for more than a day. After what had transpired in the alchemistpetition, Saber ordered his minions to perfect the dark web while sourcing another group toe up with a new solution. The Elder vampires before the current ones were quite satisfied with living in the shadows. But it changed now. Saber and his group of Elder vampires except Ingram, wanted to rule both the day and night.
Now that the Guardian Guild exposed them, they wanted to control the world more than ever before.
Finally, Alicia hit the ground with a small thud. She slid through the grassfied for several meters , leaving a buddy trail beforeing to a halt. Her face was slightly swollen as one could see the handprint on her cheek. She coughed out blood. When she picked herself up, her silver armor waspletely drenched in mud. Gritting her teeth, Alicia suppressed the pain. With a flick of her wrist, she took out a glimmering blue potion.
Avon red at the potion in her hand.The potion in Alicia''s hand paled inparison to the potions he recently acquired. To Alicia''s surprise, Avon allowed her to drink the whole potion without doing anything. He patiently waited for Alicia topletely heal up.
"Why?" Alicia questioned herself. But pushing her doubts to the corner of her mind, she dashed at Avon once again. This time, her speed was several times faster than before. On her way to Avon, she threw the spear aside and picked up the sword sticking into the ground. In a few blinks of an eye, she appeared in front of Avon. Surprised by her speed, Avon failed to react in time. Using this momentary slip up of Avon, Alicia swung her sword, deeply cutting Avon''s shoulder. Blood spurted out. She did not stop with one cut. Instead, Alicia swung her sword left and right with monstrous speed.
One by one, the cuts on Avon''s body increased. Avon purposely let Alicia cut him so he could see his regeneration ability with his own eyes. Still, he avoided the sword shes aimed at his neck. Although the vampires possessed a regeneration ability, they couldn''t regenerate a severed head. Amon or an umon sword had no chance of prating a vampire''s thick skin, especially an Elder''''s vampire''s skin. But the sword in Alicia''s hand was a family treasure gifted to her by Xavier himself. The dwarves forged the sword using some rare metals and engraved runes toplement cold elemental spells.
Seeing Avon avoiding the shes aimed at his neck, Alicia began to specifically aim for his head. She felt like she found a weakness and tried to exploit this weakness. While shing her sword left and right, Alicia cast demonic ice rain spell again, targeting Duke Avon. But to her astonishment, when the chakra materialized above them and illuminated the area, she noticed the cuts on Avon''s body closing up without Avon taking any healing potions.
Furthermore, she noticed Avon''s eyes glimmering under the dark hood and a glimpse of his fangs. Her body went rigid as her brain started to process everything that had transpired. She immediately tried to leap back. But just as she was about to, Avon grabbed her by her neck. At this time, the ice spikes started to rain down upon Avon. Before the spikes could reach him, Avon looked up. A ck mist shot out of him, creating a crescent shield above them.
The ice spikes collided with the shield only to explode into oblivion. They did not even form a crack on the shield.
"You are lucky," Avon growled. Under his deadly grip, Alicia''s face turned paler. She tried to cut him with the sword but he just swatted the sword out of her hand.
"You will be my first minion. Take great pride in that," Alicia felt a chill hearing his animalistic growl. She could see the fangs more clearly up closer.
"You¡vampire¡" Alicia could hardly utter these words.
"Soon, you will be one of us too," Avon pulled Alicia closer. He took a long whiff of the sweet fragranceing from Alicia''s blood. More than anything, he wanted to sink his fangs into her neck. Alicia struggled frantically but he was too strong.
"No¡" Alicia felt Avon''s skin against her skin.
When he was about to turn her into a vampire, a golden light shed across the sky. The next moment, something shot directly onto Avon, sending him flying.
Alicia coughed.
"Stay back," to her surprise, Ethan stood between her and Avon with golden metallic wings protruding out of his back.
The golden light radiated by Ethan''s wings weakened Avon. He hissed and leaped back to get away from the golden light.
"Uncle. He is not a human anymore. He is a vampire," Alicia managed to warn Ethan. Her words startled Ethan but he didn''t flinch.
"Get back to your grandfather. I will take care of this," said Ethan.
"The hell you will," The hatred filled voice of Avon reverberated in the area. Ethan and Alicia took a step back seeing Avon''s eyes glimmering under his dark hood like rubies. A dark cloud shrouded him as he moved closer to Ethan.
"I need only one minion. So one of you will die here," Avon growled.
Chapter ?644 Ethan vs Avon
Chapter ?644 Ethan vs Avon
Ethan spread his golden metallic wings, shielding Alicia. Each feather in the wing resembled a well-made kunai. The wings spell was given to him by Harriet recently. She modified the spell when she was in Awor before meeting Ethan. Since the vampires were vulnerable to sun rays, she modified the wings to create golden rays simr to sun rays. He cast the spells to kill the mages who were bombarding him. That was his sole intention. But he was stunned when Duke Avon leaped back to the darkness, away from the golden rays.
"When you see a vampire, cast this spell and run away," Diana''s words sounded in his head.
Ethan creased his brows. The vampires were called the night rulers for a reason. ording to Diana, who almost hunted the vampire kind to extinction in Awor, the vampires were extremely strong during the night. They harnessed power from the dark sky. So Harriet hunted them during the daytime when they were at their weakest. Coupled with Harriet''s Light mes, she was an absolute bane to the vampire kind.
"Duke Avon. Just stand down. We can find a way to cure you," Unlike Alicia, Ethan did not underestimate Avon. Instead of fighting Avon head-to-head, Ethan tried to back away from Avon. After all, the golden wings would fade away after ten minutes.
"Cure? Why do I need a cure? I''ve never been better," Duke Avon growled.
"I can see the spell wearing off. I always respected you, Ethan. So I will give you a choice. Turn around and leave. I will let you live. But she is mine," Avon took a step forward. As he said, the golden light radiating from the wings slowly dimmed. In the ten minutes duration, Ethan spent five minutes fighting the mages. So he only had five more minutes before the wings disappeared. At that time, he would be powerless in front of Avon.
Hearing Avon''s words, Ethan''s eyes glimmered with killing intent.
"I will kill you," Alicia threatened Duke Avon. If it weren''t for Ethan standing between them, Alicia would have leaped onto Avon for another round. Even a vampire couldn''t make Alicia afraid.
As the three of them were talking, the two armies were in a deadlock behind them. Although Xavier slew onemander, the other twomanded the surrounding soldiers to focus their attacks on Xavier. They did not want Xavier to reach Duke Avon. However, they tried to get to Avon when they saw Alicia and Ethan, only to get halted by Xavier.
Seeing his wings losing their glow, Ethan started to think of a way to escape Duke Avon. He knew there was no chance of him defeating Duke Avon. It was impossible without a Primordial me. Surprisingly, the me fairmanders and the soldiers held well against Xavier. So he had to face Duke Avon alone somehow.
"Give me your sword and leave the battlefield. Tell the guardians above that the Duke of me fair has turned into a vampire," said Ethan with an authoritative tone. Honestly, he couldn''t believe Noah when he said the Guardian guild had gonepletely ipetent and corrupted. However, he could understand why Noah said those things. The Soul Refiners floating above the battlefieldpletely failed to recognize Avon as a vampire. The dark robes, regeneration, and the way he avoided bright golden light should have at least made them wonder. Yet, Ethan saw no interference from the guardians.
But in Guardian''s defense, this was just another day at work for them. They had seen countless wars, and this wasn''t any special to them. Hence, they were just meditating in the sky rather than focusing on the battlefield.
"Uncle," Alicia hesitated to leave Ethan with Avon.
"It''s an order, Alicia," Ethan''s voice turned grave. He literally had no time to argue with Alicia. The sooner she gets out of this ce, the better. At Least if she informed the guardians, they would do something about Avon.
Slowly stepping back, Ethan grabbed Alicia''s sword forcefully. Finally, the golden wings lost enough light for Duke Avon to attack Ethan.
"Go!" Ethan pushed away Alicia and blocked Avon''s hand with Alicia''s silver sword. Ethan''s hand felt numb as he got pushed several steps back. Despite everything, Ethan was d to fight Avon alone. If the duke was with hismanders and soldiers, it would be exponentially hard to fight him. That was why Ethan decided to fight Avon until Alicia informed the guardians about Avon.
When Alicia finally decided to leave the battlefield, Avon dashed at Ethan. His kin underneath the dark hood burnt due to the golden light surrounding Ethan. Yet, it wasn''t powerful enough to slow him down. To Avon''s surprise, Ethan moved almost as fast as him. Caught off guard by Ethan''s speed, Avon brought his arms in front of him intuitively. But Ethan shed his sword at Avon''s thigh and pped the golden wings with enough power to push Avon several mets back.
Using this opportunity, Alicia took off from the ground like a rocket. However, Avon surprised Ethan by shooting a dark arrow out of his arm. The arrow prated Alicia''s leg and knocked her off from the sky. Blood spurted out from her leg as she growled.
"Alicia!" Ethan screamed. He was about to dash at Alicia when Avon fired another dark arrow towards Ethan. The dark arrow perfectly blended with the darkness. An oblivious man wouldn''t be able to see the arrow at all. However, Ethan was no oblivious man. He swung his sword at lightning speed, cutting the dark arrow in halves. After cutting the arrow, Ethan threw the silver sword at Avon. He wanted to keep Avon as far as possible from Alicia. The sword soared through the air until it prated Avon''s chest. The sword''s one end was sticking out of Avon''s back. Dark blood oozed out of the wound. But Avon just smirked.
"You are better than her," Avon said. His voice had the mix of both shock and respect. Not in a million years Avon thought Ethan to fight like a freak. If he wasn''t turned into a vampire, there was no way he could have defeated Ethan in a battle. Furthermore, he hadn''t cast any spell except the golden wings. Ethan fought with pure skills he sharpened through his years of adventuring.
Ignoring the pain, Avon slowly pulled out the sword. Blood kept spraying out of the wound. While Avon stuck with the sword, Ethan flicked his wrist as a sparkling blue potion appeared in his hand. He quickly tossed that potion to Alicia.
"Take it!" Ethan ordered Alicia. For a moment, she looked at the potion nkly. But soon, a deep hatred glimmered in her eyes. The potion was made by Ghost, the man who destroyed her brother''s life. She would rather die than take that potion. Her momentary hesitation was enough for Avon topletely pull out the sword. The wound closed up in a blink of an eye.
"She is food. You''re not," Avon tossed the sword aside. Instead of attacking Ethan, Avon waited for the golden wings topletely fade away. The golden wings flickered and soon, it disappeared from Ethan''s back. Once again, darkness fell over them. With no golden wings and swords, Ethan stood no chance against an Elder Vampire. THe golden wings may have disappeared but the spark of fight zed in Ethan''s eyes brighter than before. No matter the odds, Ethan wouldn''t let Avon kill his daughter inw. As long as he draws breath, Avon had to go through him to get to Alicia.
Ethan cracked his fists, preparing himself for a fight to the death.
"Alicia, can you do me a favor?" asked Ethan.
"Get out of here and tell Noah to turn me back to human soon," A tired smile escaped his mouth.
Tears rolled out of Alicia''s eyes. She looked over her shoulder to see her grandfather fighting almost twenty men at the same time. He was getting bombarded with spells and attacks.
Before Alicia could answer Ethan, Avon disappeared and appeared in front of Ethan. Without giving any time for Ethan to react, Avon kicked Ethan in the abdomen. Ethan managed to block the kick using his hand. A glimmer of surprise emerged in Avon''s eyes. Ignoring the pain in his chest, Ethan grabbed Avon''s head and headbutted the vampire repeatedly. Ethan felt like he was hitting his head against a metal door.
When Avon retaliated by head butting Ethan back, Ethan''s eyes blurred. He coughed up blood. But his blurriness onlysted for a moment. Avon grinned broadly.
"You have exceeded my expectations, Ethan. Now I see how all your children turned out to be freaks of nature," The Duke''s eyes turned predatory.
"But enough of this little dance," Avon channeled his arch energy to his fists. A dark mist surrounded Avon''s body as his strength shot through the roof. He wasn''t nning to hold back anymore. Alicia felt the surrounding grow darker as the seconds ticked by. Her mind analyzed the dark area and estimated its range. Twenty meters. Now that Avon had unleashed his power, it would be impossible for Ethan to defeat Avon.
Avon grabbed Ethan by his neck, licked the blood oozing down from Ethan''s forehead. The sweet taste of blood was nothing like he had ever tasted. Even the most expensive wines could not hold a torch against the taste of fresh blood. A devilish grin appeared on Avon''s face.
"LET HIM GO!" Alicia screamed from behind. She dashed toward Avon, crushing Ghost''s healing potion under her feet. However Avon had no intention to waste his time anymore. He raised his hand, sting Alicia with a beam of dark energy.
Ethan on the other hand tried to free himself from Avon''s clutch but the vampire was simply far stronger than him.
"You have no idea the mistake you''re about to make," To Avon''s surprise, Ethan smirked. There was not a single shred of fear in his eyes.
"I am done making mistakes," Avon snickered. His fangs once again grew longer.
Avon''s fangs were just an inch away from Ethan''s neck when a bright streak of lightning shed across the area. The very next moment, a strong gust of wind sted Avon, sending him flying for several meters. Hitting the ground, Ethan groaned in pain. He wondered what the heck just happened. Soon, a calm voice reverberated in the area.
"Sorry for the dy in the shipment, Lord Ethan," As soon as Ethan heard the voice, a smile emerged on his face.
"Ghost,"
Chapter 645 Killing another Elder Vampire
Chapter 645 Killing another Elder Vampire
As he slowly descended from the sky, golden bolt of lightning crackled under Ghost''s feet. The son Ethan lost hade to save his family once again. Despite what everyone told him about the dark lord, Ethan didn''t believe his son was evil. He wanted to hug Ghost and tell him that he is his father. With a gentle smile on his face, Ethan looked up. Ghost''s raven ck hair had grown back to his neck length. The stubble beard gave him a charming look. As he descended, his ck long coat fluttered in the wind. With his hands behind his back, Ghost calmlynded before him.
"Lord Ethan," Michael extended his arm to Ethan. A glimmer of concern emerged in Ethan''s eyes for a moment, But after remembering Ghost was the freakin Dark Lord, his mind calmed down.
"Look out!" Suddenly, Ethan shouted, noticing Avon firing a dark arrow toward Ghost. Michael however, remained calm. He caught the dark arrow before it could hit him without even turning back. The dark arrow trembled in his hand. Soon, it shattered under his grasp.
"Be careful. He is a vampire," said Ethan.
Ethan saw no signs of fear on his son''s face. Instead, he remained as calm as ever. Ghost reminded Ethan of Harriet. No matter the situation, the two of them remained calm. In Ethan''s eyes, Ghost looked the same as Harriet. He even dressed inplete ck and carried two swords on his back like his mother.
In a blink of an eye, Avon dashed at Michael. To Ethan''s shock, Ghost grabbed Avon by his neck. Just like when he caught the arrow, he didn''t even turn around.
"ARGH!" Avon growled. He tried to escape from Ghost''s clutch, but he couldn''t. Lightning crackled around Michael''s wrist, burning Avon''s neck. Ethan''s jaw dropped a few inches looking at the scene. The vampire who almost killed Alicia and him struggled like a weakling under his son''s grasp. Finally, Michael turned his head to look Avon in the eyes.
"You stole my shipment," Avon couldn''t believe what he had just heard. With earth-shattering force, Michael took off from the ground. Under his grasp, Avon frantically twitched his body to escape. When Michael reached height enough to see the entire battle, he threw Avon to the middle of the battlefield where Xavier was fighting twenty soldiers at the same time.
Except for the cloud of darkness, Michael used everything else to boost his power. The death range alone gave Michael enough power to manhandle Avon without breaking a sweat. The force of Michael''s throw was enough to prevent Avon from regaining bnce mid-sky.
Boom!
With a loud explosion, Duke Avon hit the ground, creating a powerful shock wave. A creator formed around Duke Avon due to the force of his collision. Duke Avon coughed up dark blood. The two armies on deadlock halted their fight for a moment. The soldiers couldn''t help turning their gaze toward the sudden crater that appeared in the middle of the battlefield.
Before Duke Avon could get back to his feet, Michael shot toward him, leaving a golden lightning trail in the sky. Hended straight on top of Duke Avon and released a barrage of kicks, each kick carrying the same force as the previous one.
"Protect His Grace!" Themanders, who realized it was their duke who was getting kicked to death, screamed as loud as they could. Their shout reverberated throughout the battlefield. Soon, the mages and knights tried to move toward the duke.
"KILL THEM ALL!" At the same time, Xavier roared at his men to kill the mefair soldiers. Once again, a battle between the two armies broke out. Finally, Duke Avon managed to roll a few meters away from Ghost and managed to get back to his feet. The bruises and wounds on his face closed up at speed visible to the naked eye.
His neatly pressed ck robes were drenched in mud and torn in several ces. An oblivious man would never recognize Avon as a duke. Instead, they would think of him as a beggar.
Uncontroble anger coursed through Avon''s veins. He gnashed his teeth as the fangs grew as long as possible. Unlike the energy radiation Avon sensed from Ethan and Alicia, the energy radiation of Ghost was on another level. Avon could tell his cultivation level was far inferior to his opponent''s. His only saving grace was his strong vampire body and superior regeneration. Otherwise, he would have been kicked to death a few moments ago.
"Is that it?" snarled Avon.
To Avon''s astonishment, Ghost threw a green vial at his feet. The vials shattered, creating green mists around him.
"You are not the first Elder Vampire I faced, Duke Avon," Michael''s calm words startled Avon. His brain suddenly recalled everything he heard about what had transpired in the alchemypetition. Ghost and Noah fought and in an Elder Vampire. At one point, even Saber mentioned something about Hacan''s creation rampaged at the alchemy tournament and ended up getting killed by two humans.
For the first time, Avon''s eyes glimmered with fear. But soon, anger overshadowed his fear. Avon dashed at Ghost with enough speed to create a shock wave behind him. The bastard in front of him was a vampire yer. He killed one of his kind. Although Avon did not know Hacan or the elder vampire he had created, Avon wanted to avenge both of them. Upon reaching Ghost, Avon punched the bastard with every bit of his strength. The impact of the punch pushed Avon several steps back. His hand felt numb as though he had hit a metal wall.
Only then did Avon see the ck shield in Ghost''s hand. As a vampire, he was blessed with speed beyond a cultivator''s limit. Yet, Avonpletely failed to see when Ghost took out the ck shield. Seeing their lord at a disadvantage, the nearby mefair soldiers ignored their opponents and charged toward Michael.
"Ring of Fire," Michael cast the spell in his mind as the bright crimson red me shot out from Michael in a perfect circle. Waves of fire pulsated in regr intervals. Those who were caught in the radius of the me circle screamed. Their agonizing screams and the strong scent of burning flesh filled the air. Soon after a few seconds, their screams stopped. Silence fell over them.
Fortunately, Avon leaped into the air, escaping from the burning fire. Before his eyes, his men burnt to a crisp. Michael looked up at Avon. Countless tiny bolts of lightning crackled around his wrist, threatening to be unleashed at Avon. Suddenly, Avon coughed again and again in the air. Every part of his body started to ache as though he was being stabbed by hundreds of rusty needles.
Extreme pain made him fall to the ground. Luckily for him, the pulsating me waves disappeared, leaving smoking ashes on the ground. Even after losing their fellow soldiers to the mes, the others rushed toward Michael. With an annoyed look, Michael channeled the Celestial energy and poured it to strengthen the lightning bolts around his wrists. When the soldiers got close enough, Michael raised his hands, firing thick bolts of a golden lightning bolt from each hand. The two lightning bolts struck the soldiers and prated several soldiers. Michael did not stop. He kept firing lightning bolts one after another. Whenever a bolt of lightning fired out of his hand, several soldiers dropped to the ground withrge holes in their chests.
"ARGHHHH!" Avon roared in uncontroble anger and leaped at Michael once again despite the pain. His body screamed at him to stop, yet Avon pushed himself to the limit. The anti-vampire potion Michael brewed after getting Victor''s blood sample, and the Elder vampire''s flesh sample was working better than Michael expected. This time, Michael did not stay still. Instead, he cast the ignitia and moved toward Victor faster than his opponent. When the two of them collided, it created a powerful shock wave.
Under the soldiers'' shocked gazes, Michael punched Avon left and right. Only the soldiers above Core Formation could see Michael''s punches because he was simply too fast for the eyes of the others. In a few seconds, Michaelnded almost fifty punches. Avon''s vision soon started to blur. Michael suddenly picked Avon up off his feet by his waist and mmed him on the ground.
Avon coughed up more blood. To everyone''s surprise, Ghost did not stop with the m. He proceeded to grab Avon''s leg, lifted him up, and mmed him again and again and again like Avon was a weightless doll. The soldiers were terrified. The man who stopped the beast''s cannonball singlehandedly stood no chance against Ghost. Soldiers of mefair not only felt embarrassed but also terrified. Their morale hit rock bottom.
"No one," They heard the deep hatred-filled voice of Ghost. He mmed Avon on the ground,
"Steals," Another m,
"From," again, Michael mmed Avon,
"Me,"
When Michael hit Avon against the ground this time, Avon almost lost consciousness. His bones had been broken by Ghost faster than his body could heal. The soldiers noticed Avon''s legs and arms looking crooked. Just as they thought it was over, they saw Ghost stepping on Avon''s throat.
"Vampire or not, if you ever fuck with me, I will end you," these were thest words Avon said before getting his head crushed with a single stomp. Blood and bloody brain matter scattered around. Avon''s body frantically twitched for a few moments until it finally stopped. Everyone who saw the gruesome death of Duke Avon felt shivers running down their spines. When Michael''s gaze swept across the battlefield, the soldiers from both sides took a step back in fear.
After the death of Duke Avon, the mefair soldiers lost their spark to fight. Honestly, they had no reason to fight. With no leader to lead them, it would be pointless for them to continue. Hence, one by one, they let go of their weapons and dropped to their knees. Under their terrified eyes, Michael crouched down near the duke and scooped up a sample using a vial.
Compared to the Elder vampire he and Noh fought, Duke Avon was a couple of times stronger. S Michael wanted to further test the samples to improve his anti-vampire potions. This proved to be a fruitful thing for Michael. He not only managed to kill and make an example out of Avon but also leveled up.
When he was about to turn around and leave, he heard Xavier''s voice.
"Stop,"
Chapter ?646 Ghost attack Alicia
Chapter ?646 Ghost attack Alicia
Michael halted his steps. Judging by the voice, Michael could tell it was the old man who valiantly faced twenty or so men at the same time. As Michael expected, when he turned around, he saw the old man galloping towards Michael. The war between the two opposing armiespletely stopped. The me Fair soldiers were on their knees, hoping Pen Town and Ice Fair Dukes would be merciful.
Everyone stood far away from the ashen circle around Michael. His Rings of me torched everyone on its path, forming this circle. Except for the duke''s body, everything was nothing but ash.
Looking at Xavier moving toward his son, Ethan quickly recalled everything that happened between Ghost and Peter. He leaped into the air andnded beside Xavier with Alicia.
"Who are you?" The old man asked Michael.
"I go by the name, Ghost," Michael calmly answered the old man.
To Michael''s surprise, the old man''s face twitched. A hint of shock and anger glimmered in his eyes. But the anger soon faded away from Xavier''s eyes.
"Do you know who I am?" asked Xavier,
Michael noticed Alicia''s cold gaze on him and Michael just chose to ignore herpletely.
"No idea," Michael shrugged.
When the surrounding soldiers heard Michael, they frowned. How could Ghost say he doesn''t know the demon and the sword master of Aragoth? It was preposterous. Everyone in the Elon continent knew Xavier Belefort. They immediately thought Ghost was being arrogant. However, the old man looked into Ghost''s eyes, realizing the young man really have no idea about his identity.
"I am Xavier Belefort," The old man introduced himself.
"Belefort huh?" Thest name of Alicia. Michael quickly made the connections, realizing the old coot was the cold bitch''s family member, probably her grandfather. Still, Michael couldn''t care less about Xavier or his family.
"You put my grandson in the guardian guild''s crosshair," said Xavier. Michael couldn''t tell whether the old man was making a statement or being furious about what he had done to Peter, Alicia''s brother.
"Your grandson is just facing the consequences of his actions. Just like Duke Avon here," Michael looked at the mangled body of Duke Avon at his feet.
"You humiliated him. He doesn''t deserve that," Alicia growled.
"This is not a ce for this conversation. We have so much to take care of," Ethan tried to diffuse the situation before it further escted. He did not want his son Ghost to put on his Dark Lord robes and kill Xavier overnight.
Michael did not respond to Alicia. Instead, he looked at Ethan.
"Sorry for the dy in the shipment Lord Ethan. It won''t happen again,"
When he was about to leave the ce, Alicia stopped Michael again.
"My grandfather didn''t give you permission to leave,"
Ghost''s lips curved upwards, forming an arrogant smirk.
"I don''t need your grandfather''s permission to leave. I can leave whenever I want,"
"This is a battlefield. Here, themanders of the armies hold the power. When you are here, you''re bound to obey themanders,"
Michael was surprised to hear the weird rules.
"Is that the rule?" Michael looked around calmly to see several soldiers nod including Lord Ethan. Since Gaya was not with him, Michael didn''t know the rules about the battlefield. To be honest, he didn''t expect someone toe up with a rule like this. It made Michael wonder who put this rule. Luckily for Michael, the situation brought him a chance to put Alicia in her ce.
"This war is between mefair and Pentown allied with Ice Fair. Since you don''t belong to either, what you did will be treated as a crime,"
"Lord Xavier, he was a vampire," Ethan''s voice turned grave. If it wasn''t for his son appearing at that time, both he and Alicia would have been either turned or drained of blood. Instead of thanking Ghost, Xavier tried to bound Ghost with a rule which was very unlikely of Xavier. Ethan had a feeling this old man has something else in his mind. Whether it was revenge for what Ghost did to his grandson or something else, Ethan did not know.
A glimmer of shock could be seen in the old man''s eyes when Ethan revealed Duke''s secret. Not only the duke but the surrounding soldiers had also begun to murmur. Many gasped in shock.
"Vampire or not, he was a duke and he''s an outsider," Xavier looked at Michael.
"He killed a duke and it''s a crime. You have toe with us peacefully to answer for your crime to His majesty, Porter Forbes,"
Hearing the old man, Michael felt annoyed. These dumb weaklings were actually trying to arrest him. Usually, Michael would antagonize influential people like Xavier. However, Xavier belonged to the Belefort family. The ship of Allying or being on friendly terms with them had long passed. Hence, Michael gave no shit about the old man. Besides, Michael was in a league of his own. Letting these puny families like Belefort bully him was the exact opposite of badassness.
Looking at the gentle smile on Ghost''s face fade away, Ethan''s heart skipped a beat.
"This is getting annoying. If you want to stop me from leaving, go ahead. But remember this, I warned you," said Michael. Ethan saw the glimmering killing intent in his eyes.
"He killed the Duke to save me and Alicia. If His Majesty wants to hold anyone ountable, I will talk to him," Ethan interjected. He tried to calm the situation but unfortunately, calming Ghost was not an option anymore.
"I don''t give a damn about her," Michael''s words stunned everyone around.
"Who are we kidding here? You want to get back at me for what I did to Peter," Michael turned his cold gaze from Ethan to Xavier.
"You can think whatever you want young man," replied Xavier. There was a calmness in his voice that even surprised Michael.
"And you are wee to do whatever you want,"
Golden bolts of lightning crackled around Michael''s hands. The sound of crackling lightning bolts amplified when the wind around Michael started to swirl. Every soldier in the vicinity took a step back in utter fear. Except for Alicia who stepped forward without a shred of fear in her eyes.
To everyone''s astonishment, Xavier took a step back, letting Alicia take the lead. He put his hands behind his back and watched Alicia unsheath her silver sword to fight Ghost. But suddenly, the bolts of lighting disappeared from his hand. The swirling wind died down and everything went back to normal.
"You think you can stop me? Hahaha," Michael chuckled.
"You think of me as your enemy right? But to be honest, I don''t," Michael slowly shook his head. Hearing these words, Ethan felt relieved. However, his relief was only short-lived.
"To be my friend, there are no standards. You can be a man, woman, rich, poor, or sick, I don''t care. But to be my enemy, you need standards," Michael emphasized the word ''standard''. His voice became colder.
"You are not in my league to be my enemy. In fact, no one is. Do you know why? Because I am in a league of my own," as he said, Michael released his aura of a Fusion stage cultivator. Immediately, the others around Michael felt immense pressure on them. Some of them could hardly breathe. A veteran like Xavier and Ethan had only sensed such a powerful aura from a Fusion stage cultivator.
"Did he reach the Fusion stage?" Ethan questioned himself.
"Alicia stop!" Ethan was caught off guard as Alicia dashed at Ghost with her sword raised. She boosted her speed with a spell that left a trail of ice on her steps. The temperature around them dropped by several degrees. Her eyes glimmered like diamonds. Even at this moment, Xavier remained calm instead of stopping his granddaughter. Honestly, Xavier wanted Ghost to defeat Alicia. Only that way, Alicia could untie the knot in her head. Ever since Ghost humiliated Peter, Alicia had been dwelling and burning with rage. Her anger even affected her rtionship with Noah. Xavier noticed everything. Since Alicia was not someone who would listen to him obediently, Xavier wanted Alicia to learn the hard way.
The old man lived long enough to see that sometimes they need to let go of their hatred to move forward. So Xavier hoped Alicia would ept her defeat in Ghost''s hands and move forward with her life. He had seen many warriors moving forward with their lives once they got beaten by people who they deemed their lifelong enemies.
In a few blinks of an eye, Alicia closed the gap between her and Ghost. When she reached him, she swung the sword as fast as she could. Michael simply retracted his ck shield when her sword was just a few inches away from him, sessfully parrying her attack. Stunned by his parry, Alicia lost her bnce for a moment. Without giving any time for Alicia to react, Michael channeled every bit of Celestial energy to his fist.
Boom!
Michael punched her in the gut and at the same time his fist collided with her gut, he cast the wind st. Coupled with the force of his punch, the wind st sent Alicia flying like a rag doll. Even Xavier did not expect such a result. She was in the air for a minute, almost flying for hundred meters before hitting the ground again. A single punch, that was all it took for Michael to defeat Alicia.
The cultivation gap between them was huge. He was at Fusion Stage level 7 and Alicia was only at the Core Strengthening stage level 2.
If Michael wanted, he could have killed Alicia with a single bolt of lightning. The only reason he held back was Rowena and Noah. He did not want to draw Rowena''s attention which was equal to drawing Skyhall''s attention. As for Noah, Michael knew it wasn''t the right time to be Noah''s number one target. Simply put, killing Alicia had more drawbacks than benefits.
The soldiers lookedpletely stunned. Under their shocked gazes, Michael cracked his fist.
"If anyone wants to stop me, they are wee to try," as he said, Michael shot to the sky like a rocket and disappeared from sight.
Chapter ?647 Headmaster of Mazeroth returns
Chapter ?647 Headmaster of Mazeroth returns
Back in Akn Realm, Wulfric finally returned to his office with his trusty white royal dragon. The office was divided into three areas. The first area of the office contained the Headmaster''s portraits as well as cabs, and tables filled with Wulfric''s instruments. There was also a firece. The second area contained the Headmaster''s desk and chair and was surrounded by bookcases. The third area was a small sitting room behind the desk.
Wulfric looked tired. Dark circles could be seen around his eyes. When he plunged onto his chair, he sighed, taking a long deep breath.
"Master," The white dragonnded on the table filled with parchments and books. Hearing the gentle voice of his dragon, Wulfric let out a tired smile.
"What is it?" asked Wulfric, although he looked like he knew what she was going to ask him.
"She made her choice. You cannot protect her and her family forever. Eventually, someone will notice you''re tampering with the surveince spell," Any oblivious man could sense the heaviness in the dragon''s voice. It had been twenty years since Wulfric started to sneak into the Skyhall and tamper with the surveince spell put on Harriet and her family. The tampering with the spell took a toll on him as the spell was cast by several Immortal beings. So tampering with them was no easy task.
"Destiny cannot be meddled with, Hadilth. I am just merely letting destiny take its course," said Wulfric. His voice sounded calm, wise, and serene as always.
"Isn''t what you''ve been doing counts as meddling, Master?" asked Hadilth.
"I thought like that once, Hadith and It cost the lives of millions. That was the price I paid to learn about my destiny," Hadilth was surprised to see the pain and grief in Wulfric''s eyes. She had been with him for almost five centuries. In that time, she had never seen Wulfric harm a life, not a single one. So she wondered what he was talking about. Maybe something happened before I met him? Thought Hadilth.
"His power is growing at a rate we have never expected, Master," said Hadilth to change Wulfric''s mind.
"Good. It''s time I meet him in person. Unless he chose not toe here again," Wulfric turned his gaze to the copper bowl filled with crystal clear water on the table. Gradually, a dark cloud turned the clear water into a dark sludge. He could hardly see a silhouette of a man through the dark sludge.
"What about the other one?" asked Wulfric.
"At this point in time, he is much weaker than him. But Elder Gniel seems to have something in mind,"
Elder Gniel was thedy trying to enve the god of light. Along with Devedan and Thorfinn, she nned to cast a forbidden spell on Noah when he was to step into his godhood. Although Hadilth felt Gniel was nning something, the dragon didn''t know what. After all, Gniel might not be the strongest but the most cunning among the elders. Unlike the other elders, Gniel lived among the mortals instead of in a pocket dimension. However, the mortals were oblivious to the fact they were living with the Celestial being. She was a god walking the world.
With a simple nod, Wulfric waved his hand as the ck sludge slowly cleared. Eventually, when the ck sludgepletely disappeared, a bright light emerged from the bottom of the copper bowl. Luckily, the bright light was not as strong as the ck sludge. Hence, Wulfric and Hadilth could see a young man dressed in white and a young woman in light blue robes walking through a lush valley.
"There is a powerful source of energy in the pocket dimension," said Hadilth.
"Any dangers?" asked Wulfric.
"Not any they cannot prevail against," answered Hadilth.
"Hmm. So they want Noah to grow stronger," Wulfric could sense Thorfinn''s energy signature from the pocket dimension. A powerful energy source like the one in the pocket dimension would have atleast several Immortal beings protecting. But there were no such protectors in the pocket dimension. It was clearly a setup made by Thorfinn for Noah to be stronger. If he could see this, there was no doubt Andreas would do too.
"Devdan''s handiwork," Wulfric mumbled under his breath, looking at Yasmine Watson. A soul that didn''t belong to her body was living inside. Wulfric could see it as clear as day. Despite Wulfric''s attempts to keep the Winstons safer, the Skyhall always managed to influence their lives somehow. Wulfric sighed inside. The puppeteer and the brutal viking of Skyhall had taken an interest in Noah''s life. It was nothing short of bad luck for Noah. Wulfric just hoped Andreas could help Noah avoid these powerful beings.
"Master, do you think Elder Gniel is behind this?" asked Hadilth.
"Maybe, maybe not. But it''s up to Andreas and Noah to navigate through the uing storm,"
As much as Wulfric liked to warn Andreas, he simply couldn''t. A simple mistake on his part would put everyone he was trying to protect in danger.
"How long you''re nning to protect them from the Skyhall, Master?" asked Hadilth. Ever since Diana chose to protect her son, it was Wulfric who prevented the Skyhall from hunting her down. After they sent Diana''s child Dean to the prison earth, Skyhall ordered Diana to live and die as Diana. Otherwise, they would not only kill her but also kill her entire family except Noah. Tru to their word, they put on a curse that halted Harriet''s cultivation. Despite the curse, Wulfric saw Harriet hunt down several cultivators stronger than her. The curse was still in her soul yet she was somehow getting stronger.
Only if the Skyhall had noticed this through their surveince spell, they would have taken the entire family and tortured them to know how Harriet was evading the curse to get stronger.
"Until they all escape the Skyhall''s grasp. I remember the Skyhall used to care for mortals, protect the world and ensure its prosperity," Wulfric sighed.
"What changed, Master?"
"Lady Qin Jiu. She came close to controlling the one thing that shouldn''t be controlled. Time,"
Wulfric wasn''t even born when Qin Jiu built an array that enabled her to travel through time. Until then, she ruled the Skyhall and protected the mortals. The golden age of Skyhall and for the mortals. Under her rule, immortals appeared like stars in the evening sky among mortals. But every good thing had toe to an end. The golden age came to an end in the form of the time-traveling array. Whatever Qin Jiu saw in the futurepletely drove her to madness. The prophecy that changed the world forever was born when she returned from the future. The name Dark Lord came into existence.
"You''ve never told me what happened to Lady Qin Jiu''s friends? The founders of Mazeroth," asked Hadilth.
"No one knows. The texts, books, scripts, all talk about Lady Qin Jiu but not the others. Other than their specialization and they found Mazeroth together, we don''t know anything else about the others,"
When ites to Lady Qin Jiu and her friends, Andreas knew more than him. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say Andreas was crazy about the founders of Mazeroth. He explored many ancient ruins and almost died several times in the search to uncover more information about, Archer Crooke, Ingrid Stenham, and Kargin Pavlovich, the founders of Mazeroth as well as Qin Jiu''s best friends.
"Master, do you think they are still alive?"
Wulfric was surprised by Hadilth''s question. To be honest, he himself wondered the same. Even Skyhall''s secret library had no answer about their status. Many believed Qin Jiu ascended to Angel''s realm while some believed she was injured by the Dark Lord when she traveled to the future and died. However, no one really knew what had really happened to Qin Jiu. But Wulfric really doubted Qin jiu would have let the Skyhall run amok if she was alive.
"They are not here. I know that for sure. If they were here, this world wouldn''t have been in such a mess,"
Hours passed in a blink of an eye. Finally, Wulfric focused on all the parchments on his table. In his pursuit to safeguard his disciple Harriet, he neglected his duties as headmaster of Mazeroth. He read the parchments one by one. After reading a bunch, he learned about everything that had transpired in his absence.
"Master, look," while he was reading Ka Martin''s letter, Wulfric heard Hadilth''s voice. She came flying to him carrying a golden parchment under her ws.
"What is it?"
"It''s from the Holy Maiden,"
Wulfric ced the letter on the table and grabbed the parchment in Haldith''s hands. The parchment was cold as ice. When he opened the parchment, he saw a request written by Rowena in beautiful handwriting. The handwriting put a smile on Wulfric''s face.
"Just like her mother,"
"What does it say, Master?" asked Hadilth. She was curious to see what was on the letter after seeing Wulfric smile.
"There is a rule in ce when a Holy Maiden reaches the Fusion stage, she needs to undergo the curricr of Mazeroth as a student in disguise,"
Hadilth nodded.
"It seems like she doesn''t want toe to Mazeroth as a student. So she wants me to reject her admission. That little demon," Wulfric chuckled.
"Can you actually reject the Holy Maiden, Master?" Hadilth was surprised.
"Yes, but I won''t. This might be a perfect opportunity for Rowena to meet her little brother,"
Since Rowena woulde to Mazeroth in disguise and Skyhall didn''t know the Dark Lord was actually a student of Mazeroth, Wulfric thought it would be a perfect situation for a family reunion. As a Holy Maiden, Rowena was required to be proficient in all specializations. So she would be a student in each specialization for a year. It would be hard not to meet the Alchemist who beat the hell out of someone from the Warrior House. Simply put, she was destined to meet her little brother.
"Are you nning to do something, Master?" A wry smile merged on Hadilth''s face. She moved closer to Wulfric with a doubtful look.
"I have no reason to reject her. I think fate is nning to let her and her brother meet. I am not going to stand in their way, "
"But master, what if the Skyhall learns the truth about him?"
Instead of an answer, Wulfric just smiled.
Chapter 648: The Vampire Death Squad
Chapter 648: The Vampire Death Squad(A few hours before Duke Avon''s death)
Before going to the outside world, Avon wanted to rx a bit. He made his way to the empty rooms in the corridor. When he twisted the golden knob, he was weed by a cozy yet empty room. Except for the antique brown sofa set and the firece, the room had nothing. He entered the door, closing the door behind him.. Above the firece, there was amp. He pulled themp as the scenery transformed. In a blink of an eye, the cozy room changed into a cozy tavern.
As he appeared in the tavern through teleportation, capping hands and amazing but unknown scents weed him. It was near impossible to see what was outside the tavern through therge, stained ss windows. One thing was sure, suppose anyone stood outside, they would hear a lot of beer sses clinking. The bartender, who was a man with a handlebar mustache and thick sideburns, was a little preupied behind the bar but still managed to wee Duke Avon with a wink.
Duke Avon looked around the tavern in awe. Marble pirs supported the upper floor and the lights attached to them. The walls were loaded with hundreds of memorabilia, all signed and most likely donated by customers. These memorabilia mostly included skulls, heads of various animals, and pelts. For an exclusive vampire tavern, it waspletely packed. Several long tables were upied by happy, excited groups of vampires, some were dancing on the table, while others cheered them on by pping and yelling. The other, smaller tables were also upied by vampires who were probably starting to reach the point of having drunk too much, though nobody seemed to mind. Even most of the stools at the bar were upied.
Avon heard about the tavern from Trista. Supposedly, this was where the vampires get together to blow off steam and do some interesting stuff, these were her words. To be honest, the tavern looked no different than any tavern in mefair. Though something about this pce made Avon feel at home, feelfortable. Perhaps he was with his fellow vampires or just the sweet scent of fresh blood brewed by the bartender. On the outside, the vampires looked no different than mortals. However, some of the vampires automatically drew Avon''s attention. One of them was a big burly man with a long beard and mane-like brown hair. He stood at least seven feet, the tallest one in the tavern. He had a gigantic ax on his back and he was practicing his aim by throwing little axes onto a wall.
"Hrgh," The man acknowledged Avon with a single nod and what sounded like a beastly growl. In stark contrast to the big burly man, a thin short figure with a receded forehead sat in the corner alone. He was feasting on a bloody steak that somehow didn''t look like normal meat of any kind. Instead of forks and knives, he was eating them with his hands. Blood and sauces spurted out. Unlike the big burly man, he didn''t do anything when he saw Avon. That was for the best, Avon thought, and moved on. Next, he saw a sturdy muscr man sharpening his red dagger. He wore a loose shirt that revealed his hairy yet chiseled chest. His eyes were calm but there was something predatory about his eyes. With just a thick mustache, he looked extremely domineering.
The final figure who caught Avon''s eyes was an alluring blonde young woman. She was perfect to the point Avon couldn''t remember meeting someone as beautiful as this woman. Her hourss figure coupled with the dark thick lipstick would make anyone''s heart skip a beat. Such a marvelous beauty. When she saw Avon staring at her without blinking an eye, she let out a seductive smile.
Eventually after so much gawking, Avon made his way to the bar counter.
"Duke Avon, I presume," the bartender said in a thick intimidating voice.
"In the flesh," Avon took off the dark hood covering his face because he saw no need to hide his face among them.
"If I may, don''t go with the hard liquor just yet," The bartender pointed at the bubbling red liquid inside a ss barrel. It was blood, not animal blood but pure mortal blood.
"I am Donovan, and this," the bartender pulled down a lever, pouring fresh beer into arge mug.
"Is on the house,"
Avon grinned, taking the mug, raising it, and emptying the beer down his throat. Avon stunned Donovan by emptying the beer in one gulp.
"You''re not bad for a noble, Duke," Donovan poured a mug of beer himself before pouring another one for Duke Avon.
"So how does it feel, to be a¡how do the mortals call us, vampires?"
"Pretty powerful," Avon chuckled. Despite it being just beer he drank, he was feeling kinda drunk. The beer was brewed for the vampires and Duke Avon''s body still hadn''tpleted changing yet. So just a mug of beer made Avon drunk. That had never happened before.
As minutes passed by Avon and Donovan went from strangers to buddies. Eventually, the topic turned to the vampires who stood out in the crowd.
"So Donovan, I saw some-''
"They are the death squad," before even Avon could finish his question, Donovan answered his question. Avon''s face was void of any expression.
"Death squad?" Avon slightly tilted his head.
"Think of them as elite assassins with a special set of skills. Take him for example," Donovan pointed at the big burly man who was still throwing axes to the wall.
"That''s Bear. He''s anything but finesse. He opts for brutal, butchering his target switch axe style. When you make a statement or an example, that''s your man,"
Afterward, Donovan pointed at the skinny man butchering the steaks with his yellow teeth.
"He''s Snake. He likes to keep to himself. Not a great conversationalist but a great killer. Like his name suggests, he poisons his targets. Mortal believes once you hit the Fusion stage, you''re immune to poisoning. Snake over there beg to differ,"
As Donovan mentioned, the people do believe that once a cultivator reaches the Fusion stage, they would be immune to all poisons. However, that wasn''t entirely true. Although a Fusion stage cultivator would be immune to most poisons, there were several poisons that were powerful enough to kill them. They were extremely rare to get as they tend to be here in the vilest and most dangerous ces.
Avon expected Donovan to describe either the man sharpening his dagger or the angelic woman next. To his surprise, Donovan pointed at a duo of young vampires drinking andughing at a table a couple of meters away from him. These two did not stand out in the crowd at all. As far as Avon could tell, except for their races, they looked pretty normal. One was a dwarf with all the typical dwarven features such as a long beard, a big pot belly, and messy long hair. The one sitting next to him was a typical elf with striking golden hair and a perfect jaw structure.
"The dwarf is Gray Wolf and the other is White Wolf. Don''t let their looks fool you. When ites to killing, their abilities are second to none. They specialized in making a high-profile assassination look like a street crime,"
"A dwarf and an elf, huh," Duke Avon looked at them with a surprised look on his face. In this world, the dwarves and elves hated each other for some reason. Their enmity was like a cat and a mouse. They didn''t know why they hated each other. Nheless, they hated each other to the core. Many knew that if you put a dwarf and an elf in the same room, the odds of murder were pretty significantly higher.
"No one knows how exactly they became friends. We only know several decades ago, Gray Wolf was amander under the dwarven king and White served the empress. Rumors have it that each was part of an elite group in their respective nations until something happened. Now here we are, two birds killing folks happily. It''s almost like a fairy tale," Donovan eximed.
Finally, Donovan turned his gaze toward the young woman who sat a couple of stools next to Avon. Despite being the prettiest woman in the tavern no one dared to approach her.
"That''s Spider. She was born to an elven father and a human mother. Hated her elven dad, and loathed her mother and authority. Ran away from home at fourteen. She spent her next couple of decades under the tutge of Elder Lenora. But that''s a story for another time. Spider lures her marks in the most old-fashioned of ways with her beauty. When they least expect it, she unleashes the fury like a woman scorned. She''s an expert swordswoman and a nasty bitch with a bow and arrows. There''s a rumor going around that she keeps her male victims''her regions in a trophy case at home. I don''t know how true that is but if it is, that''s some shitload of¡" Donovan just winked without finishing his sentence. He let Avon fill out thest word.
"If I were you, I would stay as far as possible from her," Donovan said, lowering his voice. Then, he quickly pointed his finger at the man sharpening his dagger.
"He''s called Puma. A hunter turned assassin. He''s the one you call him when you want to take out a powerful high-profile target silently. Elder Lenora met him one day during one of his hunts and took an interest in him. This is just a rumor, but some say he almost hunted down Elder Lenora and when his hunt reached the end game, Elder Lenora was impressed by him and turned him and gave him teleportation talismans,"
"Teleportation talismans?" Duke Avon took a long sip of his beer.
"Yeah. There are a lot ofplications killing a cultivator where they are strong. So he teleports them to a special hunting ground in the Southern continent and hunts them down like rabbits," said Donovan.
"So how does this death squad work? You go there, pay them and name the target," asked Avon.
"Hell no. They are not those cheap knockoff reapers. They are the elite killers. See that box over there," Donovan pointed at a wooden box hanging on the wall on the other side.
"You write the name of the target, why you want them dead, and how you want them dead and put it in the box. But remember this, you cannot write any name but only those who havemitted a crime against our kind or the close ones to our kind. No one knows who takes the box and reads the contents inside. But once you put the name, a pigeon wille carrying the payment receipt. You pay them by putting all your gold coins in a space ring and giving it to the pigeons. Once that''s done, your target will be dead within a week. After the payment has been made, there''s no stopping,"
Chapter 649: How Michael became Ghost I
Chapter 649: How Michael became Ghost I(Almost twenty years ago on earth)
The browning street was emptier than usual due to all the riots in the nearby city. Buildings on the weather side of the browning street looked worn out, as though they would copse any second. It had been a couple of decades since a building got new paint. The paved stone streets were all broken and messed up. As a result, the streets had more puddles than gray stones. Due to the high crime rate in this part of the city, the street was void of any taxis or crowds. Except for a couple of junkies in the dark alley, there was no one. Despite the afternoon time, the browning street looked gloomy because of the dark storm clouds above.
The lines of buildings on either side were built to put as many people as possible within. Thus, the architecture looked like buildings made of matchboxes, no style, and no ss. They were built to reduce the slum poption. In one of those buildings, painted with white but now turned gray, a man wearing a fedora looked down the street from the twentieth floor. The man was way out of ce as he wore a ck tuxedo, oxford shoes, a ck tie, and a fedora hat.
He was neither too young nor too old, probably mid-thirties or early forties. His stubble beard and hazel eyes gave him a friendly charm to wooe any strangers to trust him. He looked at the street below, where an old man was lying in a pool of blood. His arms and legs looked crooked, as his head was mangled by hitting the ground with such force.
"Another one down," The man wearing the fedora smiled. He took out a notebook from his inner coat pocket and crossed a name off the list with a pencil. After putting the notebook and the pencil inside, he turned around and left the balcony. Silence fell over the browning street. Even up to this moment, no one had seen the dead body lying in the street. The junkies hiding in the dark alley were busy snorting white powder.
Eventually, the man climbed down all the twenty stairs to the ground level. He threw onest look at the dead body before disappearing into one of the dark alleys. To an oblivious man, the man fell from his balcony and died. But only a few knew that it was an assassination. The dead man was a CEO of a pharmaceuticalpany who was living in the browning street until he could leave the country. Hemitted various frauds and pissed off too many powerful people. When these powerful people want a certain someone to disappear, they would call a shadow organization known as the underworld. It was a glorified name for a society full of criminals, assassins, and drug kingpins.
Since the CEO had his own special force people guarding him in what he thought was a safe house, the underworld put their best to work, Spectre. He was the deadliest assassin in the world. Once someone ends up on Spectre''s hit list, no one can save them, not even the most powerfulw enforcement. After killing his target, Spectre calmly walked down the dark alleys. He always felt the need to do something else after an assassination. He called this feeling Post Murder Tension. Normally, he would take a long walk, go to a park or visit some exclusive escorts.
"I am getting bored," Spectre stretched his muscles. Not only physically, but he was also mentally exhausted. When he took out his first target, he was fifteen years old. It had been thirty years since he entered the assassination business. The spark of killing people once he had slowly dimmed out. But he knew very well that there was no retirement for an assassin like him. There would be always more people who need killing, and the clients always liked to work with the best. The underworld was not a ce he could go and sign out his retirement. The second-best assassin could always try to end him so they could be the number one.
The best way he coulde up with was getting a disciple, a murdering protege, or a group of prodigies train them and let them do his work. That way, Spectre could sit back and enjoy his life a bit. He would be forty next month, and it would take atleast a decade for him to train someone. Unfortunately, there wasn''t a ce to get prodigies with murdering brains. He wanted someone young, someone who didn''t fear the strong, and someone who would be willing to kill without blinking an eye.
As he was pondering about his future, he heard amotion nearby. His ears twitched. Usually, Spectre wouldn''t poke his nose into where it doesn''t belong. But for some reason, he felt curious.
"What the heck," Spectre shrugged and followed the sound of themotion. After taking several steps, he reached a corner. He peeked around the corner, standing in the darkness to see a group of men beating the life out of a young kid. The men showed no mercy to the kid. The poor kid looked like he was ten or nine. He was skin and bones as though he hadn''t eaten in weeks.
"Little twat asking for more than he deserves,"
"What did we tell you about taking this route huh?"
The men yelled at the kid without taking a break from kicking the kid. But despite their beating, the kid didn''t cry. Instead, he curled into a ball, covering his face and abdomen as though he was used to getting beaten.
"If we see you in this route again, I will choose one of those little bitches and put the product in their bellies. Got it?" A bald, burly man with a body full of tattoos spat on the kid. If Spectre wanted, he could beat the crap out of the three of them in a few minutes. Normally, he would have because it was a good outlet for Post Murder Tension. Even if Specter killed them, no one would bat an eye. Why? Because they all had a ck mamba tattooed on their necks. As a dweller of the underworld, Spectre knew every criminal organization there is. This particr gang specialized in drug and weapons trafficking. As far asw enforcement considered, these guys did not exist. They had no passport, no identity card, or any bank ounts in their names. Suppose Spectre killed them, the gang would clear the body and evidence for him because thest thing they would do was seek the help of the police.
However, Spectre did not do such a thing. Instead, his focus was on the little kid on the ground. After such a beating, a grown man would cry, let alone a nine-year-old kid. At first, Spectre thought the kid had lost consciousness, but he was proven wrong when the kid uncurled himself, crawled towards a dumpster, and got to his feet using the dumpster as support. His ragged clothes were torn and had countless holes. When he finally got back to his feet, Spectre saw the boy throw out blood due to the beating.
"What are you holding in your hands?" Spectre saw the kid holding something inside his shirt. Even when he was getting kicked like a human football, the kid curled into a ball, protecting something. To Spectre''s surprise, it was a piece of bread.
The kid wiped off the blood running down his mouth and finally stopped throwing out blood. For a moment, Spectre lost his interest in the kid. It looked like a typical orphan stealing bread from the wrong ce. Thousands of kids died of hunger each year. There was nothing Spectre could do or nothing he would do. As far as he was concerned, these kids were born to suffer. When he was about to turn and leave, Spectre saw something that made him frown. Instead of running away, the kid went to the doorstep and spat on the door.
"One day, I am going to kill every single one of you," The kid spat at their doorsteps. Spectre''s mind yed a trick on him by creating a dark cloud around the kid for a moment. As a killer, Spectre could tell the difference between a born killer and a temper tantrum-throwing kid. That kid wasn''t being angry. He was just giving Spectre a glimpse of the killer hiding within him. When the kid turned around, he saw the predatory eyes of the kid. They were not of an angry kid but a killer''s. A true-born killer.
"What an interesting find," Spectre was amused and slightly excited. Thus, he followed the kid who limped away from the door. Thanks to the dark alleys and way too many dumpsters, Spectre was able to follow the kid without getting detected. Still, the kid surprised him by turning back, looking around to see if anyone was following him. Spectre felt like he was following a tricky little assassin.
Eventually, the kid reached what looked like an abandoned manor near a stinky polluted river. The water in the river was as ck as tar and smelled like a public toilet and a used diaper with a baby. Near the manor, Spectre noticed severalrge concrete tubes. Supsirngly, several children and a young woman were standing inside the tube. When they saw the limping kid, the children cheered.
"Kind heart orphanage," Spectre read the worn-out board handing on the manor. He wondered why these children were outside instead of staying inside the manor. Luckily, there were several construction materials between Spectre and the kid. So he used them as a cover to get close enough to see what was happening. But when Spectre got close, he noticed the brand new state-of-the-art CCTV cameras fit around the manor.
"Interesting¡" Spectre couldn''t help but wonder why an orphanage needs high-tech CCTV cameras. No matter how many cameras they had, they weren''t a challenge for the number one assassin in the world. He moved swiftly through the concrete materials, avoiding the cameras like a fish in the sea. Eventually, Spectre reached a concrete tube next to the tube where the children were staying.
Chapter 650: How Michael became Ghost II
Chapter 650: How Michael became Ghost II"Michael, what happened to you?" Spectre heard a concerned voice of a young girl. Judging by the voice, Spectre would say the girl was in her teenage years, probably eighteen or neen.
"The usual," said the kid named Michael. The other children surrounded him. Looking at the bruises on his face, the young girl knelt down to match his height. Her eyes watered.
"Where is the sister?" asked Michael.
"Inside," one of the children whispered. Silence fell over them for a moment until the thunder rumbled in the distance.
"Here. Eat this," Michael gave the piece of bread he was hiding inside his shirt to the young girl.
"Where, where did you get this? Is this why you''re looking like this?" the girl questioned Michael. Tears began to roll out of her eyes. She was an orphan, not stupid. By the bruises and the blooding out of the cuts on his little body, she could guess where he went to get the bread.
"Those bastards," The girl embraced Michael in a big hug. Her body shivered, crying her eyes out. Although they were orphans, they grew up as a family. As far as she was concerned, Michael was her little brother, and he thought of her as his sister too. That was why he risked himself to steal a piece of bread from the ce where the gang members packed their drugs. Usually, those gangsters would kill any stranger who dares to enter their building. But Michael wasn''t a stranger to them. They used Michael and some of the children in the orphanage as drug mules. To the outside world, Kind Heart was an orphanage, but in reality, it was a gang hideout where the vilest and the sickest criminals did their business. The orphanage was just a cover-up.
"Okay okay, stop crying and eat this. You haven''t eaten anything for three days," said Michael. He smiled despite all the pain to make Ruby stop crying. Instead, his smile hiding the pain only made her sobbing worse. Because of what she did, the thugs kicked them out of the manor as a punishment. One of the vilest creatures went by the name of Orso wanted Ruby to warm his bed. She refused, yet her struggles were futile against him. He abused her despite how many times she begged him. He took pleasure in making her life miserable. A few days ago, he was drunk and wanted to force himself upon Ruby as usual. However, she struggled. As a result, he threw her and the children outside. They were living in the concrete tube for three days.
They did not even give them water. So whenever Michael trafficked drugs from one area to another through the sewers or dark alleys, he would often make a detour to bring the children some food. One day, he would steal from a bakery, and if he was lucky, he would find some food in the dumpsters. He would have shared the one biscuit given to him by the thugs, but if he ever faints on the street, the thugs would not only beat all the children to near death but also kill a randomly chosen kid from the orphanage to make an example and to entertain themselves.
Of course, they could give Michael more than a biscuit. But they wanted Michael to look as pitiful as possible so thewmen would take pity instead of bothering to search him. More than logic, the thugs went with their instincts to torture them. So they made the lives of the kids hellish.
"No. You need this more than me. I am not hungry," Ruby shook her head.
"I am not stupid, Ruby. Eat this, or I will shove it down your throat myself," Spectre almost chuckled, hearing the little man threatening the girl.
"As for you all, I will go for a run tonight. I will definitely get something from that fat baker,"
Ruby immediately shook Michael''s body.
"No. Thest time you tried to steal from him, he almost killed you," Her voice stuttered.
To everyone''s surprise, Michael just chuckled.
"But here I am. He beats me, but that fatso doesn''t take back what I take from him. A pie might be enough for all of you to share,"
"No Mikey. You don''t have to do this. We are not hungry," some of the other kids who were old enough to see what was going on shook their heads.
"Just shut up everyone. I got this," Spectre was amazed by the kid''s confidence and the way he talked. Just by looking at the beating he took, Spectre could tell how the kid''s life must be. Still, he was willing to go through a beating again just to bring some food to the others. Even a heartless killer like Spectre felt pity for Michael.
"Are you going to eat this or not?" Michael asked Ruby. Seeing the resolve in his eyes, she knew there was no point arguing with him. Finally, Ruby took a bite out of the bread. It wasn''t a big bite as she had to share it with the others. One piece of bread for seven people. It was hardly enough for anyone, but they managed to share it with everyone. The kids even picked up the crumbs that fell to the ground and ate them in hunger. While they were eating the bread, Michael came outside the concrete tube away from the eyes of everyone in it.
Spectre peeked outside to see the kid looking at the sky with a wide open mouth. Spectre wondered why he was doing that. In a few moments, Spectre got his answer. The kid was waiting for the rain droplets to go down his throat. Obviously, they wouldn''t be able to drink the sewage water in the river, so the only clean water source was rain. Spectre waited patiently, looking at the kid catching the rain droplets with his mouth. Slowly. Seconds turned minutes, and minutes turned hours.
Eventually, the drizzle became a heavy downpour. Even Spectre, who wore clothes from head to toe, shivered in the cold. So it wasn''t a surprising image to see the children shivering in the concrete tube. They only had each other to get some body warmth. At this moment, everyone closed their eyes, having dreams and nightmares except two, Michael and Spectre. Thetter''s eyes were fixed on Michael. As an assassin, Spectre had excellent eyesight, even in the dark. He could see the kid sharpening a rusty knife. Spectre didn''t know where Michael managed to get the knife, but that wasn''t the point. He was more curious why the kid was sharpening the knife thiste in the night.
"What are you up to kid?" said Spectre. He watched Michael like a hawk. Eventually, he saw Michael crawl out of the concrete tube. He looked at the manor until thest light in a room snuffed out. After darknesspletely surrounded the manor, Spectre saw Michael hasting to the manor. Despite the bruises andck of nutrition, Spectre saw Michael run and parkour over the concrete materials like an expert runner. It was as though the darkness had boosted the kid''s power and healed his wounds.
Spectre followed Michael, hardly making any noise, and saw Michael climb up the manor as swiftly as a monkey. Standing on the ground, Spectre saw Michael slowly opening a window as quiet as a ninja.
"That kid is a natural," Spectre''s brows arched. Michael even used the thunderps to mask his footsteps and movements. It was simply genius.
After Michael entered the manor through the window, Spectre climbed the manor in a few blinks of an eye. He slowly followed the footsteps of Michael into the mansion. As soon as Spectre entered the manor, he was stunned by what he saw. A spacious hall filled with wooden boxes containing high-grade weapons and armor. They had enough weapons to arm a small militia. Every single weapon was military grade worth millions. To Spectre''s surprise, there were not as many guards as there should have been. Crouching on one of the ceiling beams way above the wooden crates, Spectre managed to locate Michael and the single guard snoring. Like the other thugs who beat up Michael, the guard snoring also had several tattoos on his body, including the ck mamba on his neck. He was a big bald guy with a huge belly who could crush a scrawny kid like Michael with his one arm.
Judging by the empty ss liquor bottle around the big thug, Spectre could tell unless a grenade went off near him, nothing could wake up the big guy. Michael slowly crouched to the big thug from behind, as quiet as a mouse. Something told Spectre that Michael had done this before.
"Grrrghh," Suddenly, the big man growled, swatting the mosquito on his cheek. Michael halted his steps, hid behind one of the crates, and waited for a few minutes to confirm the big thug was still asleep. A few minutester, he resumed his steps toward the big thug. Currently, there was at least five meters distance between Michael and the big thug. Spectre curiously stared at the scene unfolding. Unfortunate for Michael, there were no knives around him except the one in his hand.
Even to this moment, Spectre couldn''t figure out where the other guards were. But Michael knew. Once a month, all the thugs would leave the weapon depot for an hour to treat themselves to drinking, whoring, and beating out poor kids in the name of entertainment. He had been waiting for this day for a long time. Finally, it was time to make Ruby''s life a little bit better.
The closer Michael got to the thug, the more Spectre felt excited. Anticipation was killing him. He couldn''t wait to see what Michael was capable of. If Michael really did manage to kill the thug, Spectre wanted to know whates after the killing. The answer to his question was just a few meters away from Michael and the thug, arge pipe big enough to fit the thug ran from the manor to the river outside. Whenever there was heavy rain, the city would open up the floodgates. Once that happens, the flood would sweep anything in its path to the ocean.
Looking at therge pipe and the polythene bag Michael picked up from one of the crates, Specter figured out the little kid''s n.
Chapter 651: How Michael became Ghost III
Chapter 651: How Michael became Ghost IIIStep by step, Michael moved toward the thug, making as little noise as possible. He held the rusty knife in one hand, and a polythene bag used to contain a pistol in the other. When Michael was just a meter away from the thug, he halted his steps, looked around, and took a deep breath, calming himself down. He slowly stood up to match the thug''s height. Slowly, he walked toward the thug before plunging the dagger into the thug''s throat as fast as he could. Despite his scrawny figure, his strength surprised Spectre. It wasn''t easy for a kid like him to prate the thug''s thick skin with a rusty knife. But Michael made it look so simple and easy. As soon as the rusty knife entered the thug''s throat, he growled. Blood spurted out from the wound, but before it could spray over the table and the floor, Michael put the polythene bag around the thug''s head.
The thug violently struggled. Due to his drunk state, the thug wasn''t as strong as he would normally be. Michael wrapped his thin hand around the thug''s neck, siding the rusty knife from one end to another. When Michael''s knife reached therynx, his rusty knife met resistance. As an assassin who slit countless throats, Spectre knew how hard it is to actually kill someone by cutting human throats. It wasn''t as easy as the movies showed them to be.
"Son¡of¡" The thug tried to turn his head, grabbing Michael by his neck. However, Michael began to stab the thug''s eyes. The thug squirmed, frantically shivering. After stabbing the thug''s eye through the polythene bag, Michael immediately followed up by stabbing the thug''s throat right in the center.
The blood loss, coupled with Michael''s surprisingly strong grasp, made the thug slowly lose consciousness. To Spectre''s surprise, Michael did not stop stabbing the thug. He ensured the thug stood no chance of surviving or fighting back.
Thud!
Finally, the thug fell to the ground with the chair. In a blink of an eye, Michael got on top of the fat thug. He plunged the rusty knife through the thug''s chin, making sure he didn''t yell or scream. Eventually, after so many stabs and much struggle, Michael rolled down the thug''s body to the ground. His little chest rose and fell repeatedly. The polythene bag around the thug''s head ensured blood from forming a puddle on the ground.
Taking a few minutes of rest on the ground, Michael pulled himself to his feet.
"This is what you get for hurting Ruby," Michael kicked the thug right between his legs to vent the remaining anger in his heart. Silence fell over the warehouse for a moment. In an utter silence, Spectre watched everything with an amused smile on his face. Finally, he had found a proper prodigy to train and impart his skills. He had seen many children of famous killers. They were trained from a little age to be the next generation of killers. But Spectre hadn''t seen an intense murdering aura from them like he had sensed from Michael. He was a natural-born killer.
With the remaining strength, Michael tried to pull the body toward therge hole on the other side of the warehouse. At the same time, Spectre noticed a few shadows when lightning shed across the sky. Michael''s body tensed when he heard the footsteps. He panicked as any kid should. He hastened his steps, but the thug was heavier than he expected.
"Why do you have to forget your wallet today of all days, Jamie?" The two guards opened the door on the other end. They were on their way to Michael and their colleague. Now that Michael had killed the thug, he only had two choices. Leave the body and run away or try to kill the other two guards. Thetter wasn''t possible for a scrawny kid like Michael no matter how much of a prodigy he was.
So if Michael had to leave the body and run away, the two guards would see the dead body. Of course, at that time, Spectre wouldn''t be surprised if the thugs decided to torture each and every kid individually to get the truth. Luckily for Michael, Spectre decided to help his soon-to-be disciple. He simply jumped down from the beam andnded a few meters away from Michael without making a noise.
"Do you need help with the kid?" Michael''s muscles went rigid. His eyes opened as wide as they could. He looked up with utter shock to see Spectre walking toward him. Due to the darkness, Michael couldn''t see this man''s face but one thing was certain: he didn''t belong to this gang, at least he didn''t dress like one.
"There are two guards on their way to right this spot as we speak," Spectre said silently, just loud enough for Michael to hear him.
Michael clenched the bloody rusty knife tighter, threatening Spectre to kill him with his eyes. His eyes were predatory instead of fearing Spectre.
"Who..who are you?" Michael asked. For the first time, his voice had a slight fear. He didn''t fear for his life but for the other children. The fear of letting another child turn into a drug mule like him freaked out Michael. Unlike him, they didn''t have the brain to outwit the other gangsters, criminals, and police. They wouldn''t survive a week trafficking drugs and weapons from one end to the other under these vile creatures.
"I''ve seen what you can do, Michael,"
Michael was taken aback by shock,
"How do you know my name? You followed me," Michael realized why he felt like he was being followed this afternoon.
"I want you to be my student,"
Michael creased his brows. Despite the fact he had killed a thug in cold blood, he was calm enough to use his brain.
"What kind of student?"
"How do you like to be an assassin?"
Michael looked at Spectre from head to toe.
"You mean a hitman?" asked Michael. He was familiar with the term hitmen because he had seen several in the warehouse. He even made some deliveries for them. They were no different from the gangsters but just better at killing people.
"Potato potato. If you agree, your life will get much better. The way I see it, you have to lose," Spectre looked around for a moment.
"I have a family," Michael growled. Although being a drug mule wasn''t what he wanted, at least he could be with the others in the orphanage and protect Ruby to an extent.
"That bastard better be here," Spectre and Michael heard the thugs. Their footsteps sounded louder and louder. Time was running out for Michael. Spectre could escape even without killing the two things, but he doubted Michael could.
"Time is running out kid. It''s either agreeing to be my student or getting caught by the two thugs. If you are lucky, they will kill you, and don''t touch the others. You''re a smart kid, you can figure out what they would do to them, can''t you?" Spectre slowly took a step forward.
"I am anything but lucky," Michael mumbled under his breath. He really didn''t expect the other two thugs to show up. They should have been out for at least two hours. A single variant fucked up his n.
"How can I trust you?"
"You can''t. But you have no choice either. Tick tok, little guy¡tick¡tok" Spectre slowly said.
The thugs got closer to the point Michael could see their shadows. Only a few crates stood between him and the two thugs.
"Promise me you will put the others in a real orphanage, far away from here, and I will do whatever you want,"
"You got yourself a deal," Spectre extended his hand to shake Michael''s hand. For a moment, Michael looked confused as the man seemed like wanting to shake his bloody hand. With a long deep breath, Michael shook his hand. Just like how Spectre recognized Michael as a killer, Michael also had this weird feeling about the man before him. He had been dealing with murderous criminals his whole life, and none of them radiated such an intense killing aura. Michael felt like he had shaken the hands of an ultimate predator.
"Orso,"
"Where the fuck are you?"
The two thugs finally walked around the crates to see the silhouettes of Michael and Spectre.
"What the?" they panicked.
They reached for the gun in the holsters, but Spectre was faster than them. In a blink of an eye, he took out the silenced pistol on his behind and shot them right between the eyes. Their bodies copsed to the ground with a thud. Spectre''s speed freaked out Michael. He didn''t even see what just happened clearly.
"Cool," Michael couldn''t help mumbling under his breath. The stranger startled him with his speed.
"What now? We take the kids and drop them somewhere safer?" Michael tilted his head.
"Remember, you can kill me. But I will be a ghost and haunt you for the rest of your life," When Michael saw the man remain silent, Michael threatened him. To his surprise, the man just chuckled.
"You don''t need to die to be Ghost kid. From now on, you don''t exist. You''reing with me to a ce where no one knows you, and you don''t know anyone. In return, I will put the others in a much better ce, a real orphanage, and put enough money to take care of themselves the rest of their lives, "
This was the first hardest decision Michael had ever taken in his life. He trusted a stranger to leave everything behind, even the one person he loved the most, Ruby, so they could have a better life. As far as Ruby and the others were concerned, Michael died in an explosion in the warehouse. As a result, the police rounded them up and sent them to a much better ce where an anonymous donor made a huge sum of deposits in their names to live avish life for the rest of their lives.
Even to this date, Ruby visited Michael''s grave every month like clockwork and named her first son after Michael. Before Spectre went mad and ordered a hit on an orphanage Michael built, Michael always kept tabs on Ruby and saw her from a distance. Seeing her with a family of her own always made everything he did worth it. Not being able to meet Ruby in person was Michael''s only regret on earth.
Chapter 652: Hunting Ghost
Chapter 652: Hunting GhostInside the floating castle, Rowena sat inside her room filled with cold mist, meditating. Her eyes twitched when he heard footsteps. Slowly, Rowena opened her eyes to see Bai Ning entering the room. She held a golden parchment in her hand.
"He didn''t reject my application, did he?" asked Rowena.
"He didn''t, Holy Maiden," said Bai Ning. To her surprise, she saw Rowena sighing.
"I expected that," Rowena rose to her feet with grace. The mist slowly moved toward Rowena as she was sucking all the mist in the room.
"How long do I have to study there?" asked Rowena.
"One year for each specialization,"
"Four years," said Rowena. She did not like to waste her time studying but she had no choice. As a Holy Maiden, she needed to be proficient in each specialization. Deep down, Rowena knew studying in Mazeroth was not a waste of time. Just she had never attended any secrets or academies before in her life, so it was going to be a new experience for her.
"You will start your academics in the House of Alchemists. Here''s everything you need, Holy Maiden," With a flick of her wrist, Bai Ning took out several items including jade green robes from her space ring. Rowena picked up the silver parchment and opened it.
"Ruby huh? Did you pick this name?" asked Rowena. Her face was void of any expression that Bai Ning couldn''t tell whether she liked the name or not.
"You have to go to Mazeroth in three days, Holy Maiden," said Bai Ning. Throwing the silver parchment aside, Rowena locked her gaze with Bai Ning.
"When were you nning to tell me about the vampires, Bai Ning?" asked Rowena. Until Rowena saw the Royal news, even she didn''t know about the vampires. But she was sure the Skyhall knew about their existence. It made Rowena wonder why the Skyhall elders chose not to reveal their existence to her. For a moment, Bai Ning didn''t say a word. Silence fell over them. It wasn''t a decision made by Bai Ning. Instead, the elders ordered her not to share the vampires'' existence with the Holy Maiden. They wanted the Holy Maiden as far as possible from what was happening outside.
"Did the elders tell you not to?" Bai Ning''s heart skipped a beat. Rowena calmly questioned Bai Ning as though she had read the old woman''s mind.
Bai Ning''s silence was more than enough for Rowena to know the answer to her question.
"When I ascend to the throne, there will be many changes, Bai Ning," Rowena''s words were full of authority and dominance. Although Rowena was chosen to be the Holy Maiden, she would get her full power and authority over the elders only after she ascended to the throne. To take that throne, she needed to reach the Immortal stage, Until then, she would only be the Holy Maiden in the name.
"My father almost died fighting an Elder Vampire. Did you know that?" Rowena questioned the old woman again. The old woman has been with her since she was little. However,tely, she had started to have so many secrets. To be more precise, Bain Ning was ordered to keep things from her. Rowena hated secrecy, especially from people who were close to her. What Rowena hated most was she had to learn what had transpired on the battlefield from Andrews. Until Andrews told her what had happened, she didn''t know her father almost died fighting an Elder Vampire. She may haven''t fought one yet but she heard how powerful an Elder vampire could be.
"You''ve been keeping so many secretstely, Bai Ning," Rowena''s eyes turned predatory. The cold emanated from her body, creating a thin crystalyer on Bai Ning.
"I may not have all the powers but I can still kill you," Bai Ning took a step back in utter fear. No matter how much resources they poured into swaying her to their side, she always prioritized her family. For Rowena, there was nothing more valuable than family. So when something endangers her family, she would bring the wrath of the Holy Maiden upon them against the elders'' wish. As much as she loved her family, she also valued what was wrong and what was right. Otherwise, she would have gone to kill GHost the moment she learned what he did to Andrews in the tournament. Just like Noah, Rowena also med Andrews and felt grateful to Ghost for not killing Andrews when he could have easily. To be honest, Rowena coldly yelled at Andrews for not involving her in his love matter. She could have easily convinced Katherine''s father as the Holy Maiden. Who would dare to go against the wish of a holy maiden? No one.
Simply put, Rowena would go to any length to protect her family and keep them safe. This made the entire Skyhall fear Rowena and did their best to keep everything about Harriet from Rowena. As a result, every time Bai Ning thought about Rowena learning the truth about her family and what the Skyhall did to them, she would break into a sweat in fear.
When Rowena turned around, Bai Ning sighed in relief. It felt as if a mountain of pressure had been lifted off her shoulder.
"Ghost," Rowena thought of Michael. She felt grateful to him. This wasn''t the first time he had saved her family. First, he saved her sister. Then, he saved her mother on the same day from an assassination. Finally, he had saved her father from an Elder Vampire. Her eyes lost the cold murderous intent and showed a tinge of gentleness. She wanted to meet him. Luckily, Mazeroth had given her a perfect chance to meet him.
***********************************************
Back in Eve''s castle, Michael was cuddling Gaya on the bed. Since the winter would begin in a few days, the night was cold enough for him to light the firece and purchase a thick nket from the system store. After upgrading the system, purchasing an Ancient Ice Core, and earning a ton of badass points by killing an Elder vampire, he took a break from all the chaos and decided to spend some quality time with Gaya. In four days, they would have to return to Mazeroth where they cannot sleep like this.
So Michael hit the bed early with Gaya and slept cuddling her tight. After learning the truth about Vedora''s kind, Nightmare decided to stay with Vedora so they won''t feel alone. The night was calm and peaceful. The only sound that resonated in the room was the firework crackling under the mes and Gaya''s soft groans whenever he hugged her tighter., Under the thick nket, Michael wore nothing but his ck sweatpants. Everything was so peaceful and calm until a bright glow appeared above Michael''s bed out of nowhere.
Michael''s eyes abruptly opened. To his suspicion, Gaya wasn''t beside him anymore. Instead, all he could see were tall trees. The dried tree leaves crumbled under his breath. He slowly picked himself off the ground and tried to see where he was and how he got there. He looked up at the moonless sky. Then, he looked around but didn''t move. As far as his eyes could see, there was nothing but trees. It was obvious he was in a forest. But it wasn''t a rainforest with a sea of trees and thick foliage. Rather, the forest was a temperate coniferous forest. Yellowish-dried leaves nketed the ground. Judging by theck of arch energy in the atmosphere, Michael guessed he was somewhere in the Southern Continent. Which led him to another question, how did he end up here? It seemed to him someone had teleported him because one moment he was in Awor and the other, he was in another continent. But how? That was the question in his mind.
Suddenly, the sound of someone whistling echoed through the forest.
"This is where the hunters be the hunted," Following the whistle, a calm thick voice sounded in Michael''s head. The voice appeared toe from every direction which confused Michael. However, whoever teleported him didn''t have an idea that Michael could still use Arch energy in the Southern continent. As a result, he was able to locate the intruder with his environmental map. To get the full story, Michael pretended to be powerless. It would be unwise to show his true power before learning why he was here and how the man teleported him here. Thest time Michael checked, no one except the system could teleport someone into the southern continent.
"Hello," Michael raised his voice.
"What is this ce? How did I get here?" Michael questioned.
Michael didn''t receive any response. Instead, he saw an arrow fly past him, barely missing his cheek by an inch.
"Run," Michael noticed the voice turning predatory. It almost sounded like a growl of an animal. Michael rolled his eyes. Then, he slowly stepped forward, pretending to be shocked and awed. He wanted to put on an act so whoever kidnapped him would slowly reveal some valuable information. Granted Michael could always try to catch and torture him. But after realizing his foe might have the power to teleport, Michael didn''t want to take any chances.
Michael hastened his pace when another arrow shot past him. He was running in the woods wearing nothing but his sweatpants.
"You can see the true heart of a man when you''re out in the woods with a weapon," As soon as these words resonated in the forest, a sword dropped from a tree,nding a meter away from Michael.
Michael entertained the one who thought hunting him by picking up the sword. The moment Michael picked the silver sword from the ground, an arrow shot straight toward Michael''s head. With a single swing of his sword, Michael cut the arrow in half.
"Hunting is part of a cycle of life that repeats," the man said.
Michael used his X-ray vision while running to locate several traps. All of them were used by hunters. Michael avoided every single trap and the arrows.
"A worthy prey after a long time," the man who was hunting Michael eximed.
"To track prey, you must first know it as you would a brother. Am I right, Ghost?" asked the man.
Chapter 653: Puma, The Hunter
Chapter 653: Puma, The HunterUsing the X-ray vision, Michael noticed several traps on his way. One of the traps was connected to arge log above. Once he trips the wire, it would bring down the log in an arc, knocking down the poor soul. To get more information from this hunter, Michael needed to get out of his sight. His mind quickly formed a n. He slowed down, letting the hunter get a bit close. When the hunter was directly behind him, Michael threw the sword, shing the trip wire. As soon as the sword cut the wire, arge log came down, swinging. With his superior agility, Michael jumped on the log at the speed of a lightning sh and leaped away from its trajectory. The log traveled swinging in the air. For a moment, the hunter''s sight moved from Michael.
Michael heard a rustling sound. The hunter slid under the log to escape it. Fortunately, the split-second distraction enabled Michael to do something the hunter never had expected. He used the arch energy to get to a tree top with a single leap. Michael jumped from tree to tree, canceling the noise with arch energy. The traps, the quotes the hunter spoke, and everything about this ce told Michael the man was obsessed with hunting. A man such as him would have keen senses and tracking abilities. So Michael left no trail for him. After leaping off the log, Michael''s feet never touched the ground as he flew a few inches above the ground, not enough for the hunter to differentiate between running and floating.
After leading several trees, Michael willed the system to equip his ck dress. Michael manipted the darkness to cover himself. It was enough for him to blend in with the dark knight. Hanging on a tree way above the ground, Michael used thermal vision to track down the hunter. To the naked eye, the hunter was invisible due to the Gilli suit and the darkness. But to Michael, the hunter was clear as day. Michael adjusted his X-ray vision to take a closer look at the hunter slowly moving forward. The man crouched down, looking for food prints or disturbances on the ground to locate Michael.
Michael felt like a predator. His mind almost screamed at him to make some clicking noises, just for fun.
"Where are you?" the hunter asked Michael. Despite theck of tracks, the hunter remained calm. He almost sounded amused.
The hunter eventually looked up to see if Michael was up in the trees.
"I can hear your heartbeat, Ghost,"
To Michael''s astonishment, an arrow soared through the hair, hitting the tree just missing his face by a couple of inches. If it wasn''t for Michael''s superior reflex, the arrow would have prated his head right away.
Michael immediately leaped onto another tree and yet again, the hunter hit the tree with an arrow as fast as Michael''s leap.
"Hear my heart beat huh?" Michael smirked.
"I gotta give it to you Ghost, you are a damn good climber," The hunter said. There was a bit of admiration in his voice.
"Thank you. I would shake your hands but,"
Michael''s words were abruptly cut short when an arrow hit the bark beside him.
"I will shake your hands¡" the hunter paused for a moment,
"After I cut your hand out of your body,"
"Is that so?" Michael said, rapidly leaping from one tree to another. Since the trees were closer to each other, the hunter wasn''t surprised by his acrobatics. In stark contrast, Michael was using arch energy to leap back and forth.
To disorient the hunter once again, Michael ordered the system to form a shield around himself, preventing the hunter from hearing his heartbeat. The hunter''s arrows finally stopped hitting the trees. He looked around, frowning behind his suit made of dark leaves.
While the hunter was searching for Michael, he took out a dagger and cut his palm. As soon as Michael''s blood gushed out of his palm, the hunter fired an arrow precisely at the point where Michael touched the tree with his bloody palm. Michael heard the hunter take a long whiff as though he was smelling the blood.
"Darkness, hearing heartbeats and smelling blood. He''s a vampire," Michael connected the dots and learned the hunter''s origins. There was no doubt in his mind. To be more sure, Michael decided to see if the hunter has a regenerative ability. The APD healed the cut on his palm. When the blood disappeared from his hand, Michael leaped from tree to tree. In a few moments, he closed the gap between them and appeared right on top of the hunter. Michael dropped from the tree,nding a few inches behind the hunter. Immediately, Michael shed the dagger left and right cutting the hunter''s back. Caught off guard, the hunter roared. Blood spurted out from the hunter''s cuts.
Michael pulled out the camouge on his body. As expected, Michael saw the wound closing up. With a speed beyond mortal limits, the hunter turned around, swinging the longbow in his hand. Michael quickly leaped back.
"You''re a vampire," said Michael. The man before him was tall, muscr with broad shoulders, and had a thick mustache. Moreover, his eyes glimmered with killing lust.
"ARGH!" the man roared as Michael saw the two long fangs. Even in the darkness, the two fangs were visible to the naked eye. A slight surprise emerged in Michael''s eyes. Compared to Avon, the vampire before him was several times more menacing. The vampire did not attack Michael head-on but throw a smoke bomb at his feet to disappear from Michael''s sight. The thick cloud of gas quickly surrounded Michael, preventing him from following the vampire''s tracks.
The vampire''s speed surprised Michael. He did not use arch energy to boost his speed. Rather, it was purely skills honed by probably hundreds of years of practice or hunting. Once again, Michael leaped into the air, reaching the top of a tree. Hepletely concealed the sound of his heartbeat with the help of the system.
"System, scan him. I want to know how he managed to teleport me here," Michael ordered the system in his mind.
[Full scanning would cost the host 10,000 badass points]
"Do it,"
[Keep your eyes on the target until the system finishes the scanning. It will be done in five minutes]
With a smirk on his face, Michael took out a few vials containing human blood. He was using these vials to brew some potions but now, they were going to help him distract the vampire. He tossed a vial to the other side. When the vials shattered, the vampires fired an arrow.
"Life is funny, isn''t it?" asked Michael. His voice echoed through the silent forest.
"One second you were the hunter and the next, you became the hunted," The vampire knew Ghost was using the trees to traverse. So naturally, he kept his eyes above. Unfortunately for him, the darkness prevented him from locating Michael. His ears couldn''t pick up the sound of Ghost''s heartbeat.
Coupled with Michael''s lightning-quick speed, the vampire struggled to locate him.
"Teleporting me to the southern continent, that''s a good move," Michael conversed with the vampire. He confused the vampire by tossing the blood vials to another side.
"But picking me as your target, bad move," Michael''s voice became cold.
"You made several mistakes, vampire,"
Whoosh!
An arrow hit the tree Michael was hanging on. Still, it couldn''t hit Michael. He was simply too fast. The vampire was indeed good and almost on par with Gaya in archery. However, Michael used the arch energy to boost his speed. Moreover, it was a dark night when Michael was the strongest.
"Mistake number one. You let me learn theyout of this ce,"
Another arrow prated the bark. The vampire avoided hitting the ce where the scent of blood came from. He learned Ghost was using the blood vials to distract him. Instead, the vampire focused on Michael''s voice.
"Mistake number two. You didn''t do your homework. Otherwise, you would have known what I am capable of," said Michael.
He increased his speed more. As a result, the vampire had a hard time locating Michael.
"Mistake number three. You talk too much,"
Finally, the system finished scanning the vampire.
[The system has detected a teleportation talisman on the vampire''s belt]
"A talisman. Hmm," Michael thought.
"Can you lock down this ce? It would be a shame if the vampire used the talisman to escape,"
[That will cost you fifty thousand badass points host]
"Just do it,"
Although fifty thousand badass points was a huge sum, it wasn''t more valuable than the information Michael could get from the vampire. After killing Avon, he had badass points to spare, four hundred thousand badass points to spare to be precise. A pulse of energy shot out from Michael. It waspletely invisible. An oblivious man would see no difference in the forest. Even the vampire had no idea that Michael destroyed his escape n.
Finally, Michael stopped leaping from tree to tree like a monkey and jumped down. The vampire immediately jumped backward. But to this moment, there was no fear in the vampire''s eyes. Instead, Michael only saw excitement.
"It had been so long since I hunted something worthy," the vampire calmly said.
"Before we do this, what should I call you?" asked Michael. The two of them had approximately ten meters of distance between them. At this moment, neither of them made any sudden movements.
"Usually, I won''t indulge my prey by saying my name. But you, you are different. You earned the right to know my name. I go by the name Puma,"
"Let me guess, cougar sounded crappy so you went with Puma," Michael ridiculed the vampire without a shred of fear in his eyes. Thisck of fear made Puma''s blood boil in excitement. He couldn''t wait to bring out the fear on Ghost''s face.
Puma snickered looking at the smirk on Michael''s face.
"I will let you have your amusement before I rip off that head of yours," Puma dropped the bow in his hand and slowly unsheathed the red dagger from the sheath dangling on his waist. He licked the dagger menacingly.
"Let''s dance," said Michael.
Chapter 654: Serpent Magas bane
Chapter 654: Serpent Maga''s baneSince Michael threw the sword to cut the trap wire, he didn''t have a weapon in his hand. But no weapon, no problem for Michael. The vampire dashed at Michael with speed beyond any mortal''s limits. Michael sensed no arch energy around Puma''s body. It seemed like only the talisman was using arch energy somehow to teleport. Other than the talisman, Puma had nothing that capitalized on the arch energy. Instead, Puma used pure skill honed by years of training to fight Michael. Puma closed the gap between them in a blink of an eye. He swung the dagger left and right with deadly precision. Although his movements weren''t fancy or had much technique, they were deadly and moreover, fast. A single misstep and the dagger would cut Michael''s neck.
Ding!
The dagger met the shield that suddenly appeared over Michael''s wrist. Sparks flew around them. Michael used the shield to block and parry Puma''s attack. For a few moments, Puma viciously struck the shield left and right. He naturally aimed for Michael''s neck, eyes, and gut but Michael blocked all the attacks with the ck shield. The sound of metal shing echoed through the silent forest. While fighting Puma, Michael did not forget about the traps on the ground. He navigated through the traps without triggering any.
After blocking several attacks, Michael swung the shield, parrying Puma. The force of Michael''s move made Puma stumble. Michael followed the sessful parry with a vicious punch to Puma''s gut. Caught off guard, Puma immediately tried to block Michael''s punch. However, he was toote. Michael''s punch sent Puma several steps backward. Using the opportunity, Michael leaped into the air, swinging his body tond a 540 kick on Puma''s head. In the mid-air, Michael boosted his speed with arch energy. As a result, Puma couldn''t see Michael''s leg until he felt a sharp pain in his head. A tooth flew out of Puma''s mouth. He wiped off the blood from the corner of his mouth. Despite the pain, Puma grinned from ear to ear.
Michael did not slow down. He pressed his advantage by barraging Puma with rapid punches. Vicious punches and kicks overwhelmed Puma. Michael swung his shield, knocking back Puma a few meters back. Without giving Puma time to retaliate, Michael finished hisbo with a powerful tornado kick. The moment Michael feet his Puma''s head, Puma felt like he was hit by a hammer. His legs trembled. He stumbled back.
"Serpent Maga," Michael halted his steps when he heard Puma. The vampire spat out blood with a grin.
"You remind me of the prey I hunted down a long time ago. She too fought just like you," Michael creased his brows. Although Michael knew Puma was buying time to heal himself, Michael didn''t attack him anymore.
"But how did a human like you learn the forbidden fighting style of Nagas?" Puma tilted his head. During these few moments, Puma''s regenerative ability healed his body.
"Tell me about that Naga you met," Michael''s voice became colder. His eyes turned predatory.
"It''s a very good fighting style. But just like any fighting style, it has a bane," Instead of answering Michael''s question, Puma stretched his arm, raised his right foot from the ground, and ced it on the left thigh. As a result, Puma looked like a Shaolin monk.
Puma didn''t wait for Michael to make a move. Rather, he dashed at Michael. Michael swung his fist, but Puma blocked his punch, countering Michael with a powerful sidekick to Michael''s ribs. Michael''s abdomen felt numb. Still, he didn''t lose his bnce. Michael retaliated with vicious rapid punches. To his shock, Puma blocked every single punch as though he had anticipated the punches. Puma counterattacked Michael with rapid kicks and punches. Thanks to the APD, Michael''s organs got healed in no time. Otherwise, he would have puked blood. In a few blinks of an eye, Pumanded fifty or so punches and kicks on Michael.
The worst thing was Michael couldn''t anticipate Puma''s attacks. Just as Puma said, his Serpent Maga finally met its bane. Even though Michael practiced and made changes to the Serpent Maga to the point he reached 98% mastery, it was still a fighting style created by Naga in this world. Thus, it wasn''t a unique undefeatable fighting style.
Puma leaped into the air suddenly. He swung his body mid-air and shot toward Michael like an arrow. Michael''s instinct screamed at him as he raised the shield to block Puma''s attack. Surprisingly, Puma leaped over Michael''s shoulder, changing his trajectory. He swiftlynded behind Michael.
Puma was fast to the point even Michael didn''t react in time. The vampire swung his dagger, cutting Michael in the back. Blood spurted out.
"You''re not giving your full focus to me, Ghost," Puma said after leaping away from Michael. He was right. Michael couldn''tpletely focus on the fight. His mind wondered who the Naga was. Was he talking about Gaya''s mother? Michael couldn''t help asking himself this question.
This time, Puma was surprised to see the wound closing up on Ghost''s back.
"Huh?" Puma was confused. Ghost was not a vampire. Then how could his body heal without a healing potion? Puma was certain Ghost didn''t drink a healing potion. Yet, his body healed itself.
"You are right," Michael finally turned around. He retracted the shield and cracked his fists.
"I was wondering whether to kill you or catch you alive. Thank you for making the decision easier," Puma heard a low pitched whistling noise. He saw Ghost''s eyes glimmer for a moment. If they had daylight, Puma would have seen Michael''s eyes turning pitch ck. Darkness shrouded Ghost. Suddenly, two ckser beams shot out of Michael''s eyes. Puma didn''t even have time to react as the two ckser beams prated through his shoulder. Moreover, the beams contained a force that sent Puma flying onto the tree behind him. Splinters of wood flew. Any man could see the two holes in several trees. After the ckser beams disappeared, Michael''s eyes radiated a puff of smoke.
Michael''s face turned serious. He wasn''t ying anymore. Immediately, Michael ordered the system to disable if there was any surveince spell or recording stones around them. Next, Michael dashed at Puma who was trying to pick himself up from the ground. Since Michaelcked the badass points to empower the dark beams with Dark mes, the two holes in Puma''s shoulder slowly closed up. Seeing Ghost dashing toward him, Puma quickly prepared himself to block his attacks. The imminent threat stopped Puma from wondering what the heck just happened. But his body refused to move as though an invisible force was shaking his body.
When Michael reached Puma, he punched Puma in the face. A sickening crunch resonated from Puma''s nose. It looked crooked. Before it could heal itself, Michael snatched the red dagger in his hand. The Dark mes engulfed the dagger. Immediately, Michael swung the dagger, cutting Puma''s hand clean off of his shoulder. Blood spurted everywhere, including on Michael''s face. But Michael did not stop. He cut Puma''s second hand.
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" Puma screamed as the red dagger turned into an ooze by the dark mes. As expected, the dagger couldn''t withstand the heat of the Dark mes for longer. It must have been an Epic ss weapon tost long enough for Michael to keep the dark mes for a couple of seconds. The two hands hit the ground with a thud.
Puma had never felt such intense pain ever since he was turned by Elder Lenora. The pain was too excruciating. Every fiber in his body screamed in agony. Since his hands were cut off by the dagger engulfed by the dark mes, Puma''s body was unable to regenerate the two hands. Without ying with Puma, Michael flicked his wrist, taking out a long needle from the system storage. He stabbed the needle into Puma''s neck without wasting any time. As soon as Michael injected the needle into Puma''s neck, the vampire squirmed frantically. His body soon stopped moving altogether after a few moments. Silence fell over them once again. Except for the sound of dried leaves rustled by the wind, one could hear nothing.
Michel wanted to teleport Puma to the crypt. But he raised his hand and touched the tree behind Puma. Soon, a golden glow appeared in the tree for a moment and disappeared after a second. After cing a rune on the tree to teleport hereter, Michael willed the system to teleport Puma and him to the pocket dimension attached to the dark forest. That was where Michael tortured and killed Connors. He used the pocket dimension to interrogate high priority targets. His instincts told him that Puma was nothing but a high-value target. There was a chance Puma was talking about Gaya''s mother. He recalled Gaya telling him that the serpent Maga was taught to her by her mother and only their bloodline knew this fighting technique. If Puma really had met Gaya''s mother, he might know something that could help them figure out where Gaya''s mother is and, more importantly, what made her fake her own death and disappear.
In a blink of an eye, the scenery around Michael changed. Puma was still unconscious.
"My Lord," As soon as Michael appeared in the pocket dimension, he was weed by Azazel. The demon butler was surprised to see Michael with Puma. The demon butler was enjoying his time off in the serene view of the waterfall and the smallke at the feet of the waterfall. His break was cut short when Michael appeared.
"Tie him to the tree," Michael pushed Puma to Azazel and disappeared once again.
Chapter 655: Uncovering the truth about Gaya鈥檚 mother
Chapter 655: Uncovering the truth about Gaya¡¯s motherAfter Azazel tied up Puma against the lone apple tree in the pocket dimension, Michael appeared before him with a potion.
"Where are you?" Michael heard Gaya''s voice in his head.
"Just having a meeting with Azazel, baby," said Michael. He created a dome around him so Puma wouldn''t hear him.
Initially, Michael thought about informing Gaya. However, he changed his mind as he didn''t want to raise Gaya''s hopes up in case Puma was lying or talking about another Naga. Luckily, Michael had the truth serum that he used on Victor in the system storage.
"What is this ce?" Puma asked Azazel.
"You," When Puma turned his gaze to Azazel, his brows arched up. Despite the pain, Puma could feel some strange energy radiation from the man dressed as a butler. Especially the sound of a heartbeat. He had lived as a vampire for almost a hundred years, but he had never heard such an abnormal heartbeat.
"What are you?'' Puma''s fangs grew out. He tried to regenerate his arms, but something prevented his ability to regenerate. Furthermore, Puma wondered how Ghost used arch energy inside the void line. Unless Ghost was a vampire, there was no chance he could have used a spell. But Ghost was no vampire. He saw him walk in the sunlight without wearing any dark cloaks to cover his face.
"You''re probably wondering whether I am a vampire or not, right?" Puma heard Ghost''s voice. As though Ghost had read his mind, he asked the same question Puma asked himself.
"I am not a vampire," Ghost answered. There was a peculiar calmness to his voice.
"But I am something much more," the dark night somehow turned darker when Ghost uttered these words. Puma looked around to see something that could help him locate where he was. Several questions appeared in his mind.
"You kind has been bothering me for some time. Look, I killed one when he attacked me first. Then, Duke Avon, he stole something that belonged to me. In these two scenarios, your kind crossed my path. I didn''t do shit to you people," Michael walked around the tree with his hand behind his back.
"Now see, I was back on Awor, sleeping with my girl. I don''t spend enough time with her, but does shein, no," Michael stopped, facing Puma in his eyes. Michae ced his hand on Puma''s shoulder,
"So whenever she asks me something, I go to hell and heaven to get that for her. Luckily for you, you have something she wants,"
Puma growled like a wounded animal. However, continued to converse with Puma.
"Tell me about the Naga you mentioned earlier. In return, I will let you go and meet your boss for a peace talk," said Michael. Honestly, Michael had no intention of letting Puma go. However, if the vampires were up for it, he could go for a peace talk. The Dark Lord could hunt down the bloodsuckers while Ghost could be at peace with them. After all, the Dark Lord had too many enemies and his Order was still not at the ce to fight them all.
To Michael''s surprise, Puma began tough.
"You think I am stupid human? You used arch energy within the void line. You brought me here, which is definitely something you keep hidden from the rest of the world. You wouldn''t have shown these if you intended to let me go. So go ahead, kill me. A hunter should always prepare himself to be hunted. I won''t tell you shit," Puma spat the blood clinging to his throat on Michael''s face.
"I wish you hadn''t done that," as soon as Michael said these words, he stabbed Puma''s neck with the needle in his hand. He slowly injected the truth serum into his bloodstream. The only downside of using it was that Puma would die in an hour.
Azazel stood beside him, looking at Puma growl. He wondered what the vampire knew for his master to bring him here in his Ghost persona. Besides, Azazel noticed the cold killing intent in his eyes. As Puma said, Azazel also knew Ghost has no intention of letting him go. But it was a pity that Puma took the hard way. Otherwise, he wouldn''t have earned a quick painless death from his master. Silence fell over them. Except for Puma''s groan, they heard nothing.
After almost ten minutes of utter silence, Michael''s question broke the silence.
"What''s your real name?"
Puma''s eyes turned from predatory to submissive. He stopped squirming.
"Corbin," said Puma.
"What do you know about the Naga you mentioned earlier?" asked Michael. He wanted to know about the Naga more than who sent Puma after him.
"A rogue vampire. Elder Lenora wanted me to hunt her down quietly," Michael''s veins bludged up under his skin. His eyes immediately turned predatory.
"Did you kill her?" asked Michael. Azazel saw bolts of golden lightning crackling around his hands, threatening to kill Puma.
"She escaped," said Puma. Finally, Michael sighed in relief.
"Tell me more," Michael threatened Puma.
"Who was she?"
Michael stared at Puma for his answer. Everything around him seemed to have slowed down. Puma''s answer could help Michael find Gaya''s mother if the naga Puma ordered to hunt was indeed Gaya''s mother.
"Adelia, Adelia Ashton. The queen of Nagnd," Michael''s heart skipped a beat. Shocking was an understatement. How could Gaya''s mother be a vampire? Was she turned? Was that the reason Adelia left Gaya? So many questions emerged in Michael''s mind.
"What do you mean she was a rogue vampire? Adelia wasn''t a vampire," Michael grabbed Puma''s throat. Unknowing to Michael, ayer of darkness appeared around him. Azazel noticed the changes but chose not to say anything in front of Puma.
"A rogue vampire. They don''t obey the n rules. They are rogues, living with the mortals, doing what they like when they like. Whenever their actions threatened to expose the n to the outside world, the elders would put a hit on them. That was what happened," said Puma.
"Who turned her?" asked Michael. This time, his voice became demonic. Without using any devices, his voice sounded demonic. Fortunately, Puma wasn''t in a state to rationalize or use his brain.
"I don''t know," said Puma.
Since he was under the influence of the truth serum, there was no possibility of Puma lying. Still, it was hard for Michael to believe.
"When did youst see her? " asked Michael. ording to Gaya, Adelia died when Gaya was six years old. That meant she had died twenty-three years ago. Although Michael didn''t believe Adelia really died, a solid proof of life could prove that Adelia was alive and sometimes help them find Adelia.
"Tell me exactly when you tried to hunt her?" asked Michael.
"Twenty-two years ago,"
Michael loosened his grip on Puma''s throat. His legs automatically took a few steps back.
"She faked her death. Adelia didn''t die that day," Michael mumbled under his breath.
"My lord, if I may," Azazel asked. Since he noticed Michael was in shock, Azazel wanted to give his master a break and continue the interrogation himself.
"Go on," Michael nodded. He needed to inform Gaya. He didn''t know how she was going to react. Nheless, she needed to know the truth about her mother.
"Do you know where she is now?" asked Azazel.
"No," said Puma.
"If you want to find her again, where do you look, and who do you question?" asked Azazel.
"I''d start with Elder Lenora. She put the hit on her. So if anyone knows something, it''s Elder Lenora,"
Michael recalled seeing the elders in the surveince room in the dark forest. When he visited the castle of vampires, he bugged the entire castle. So he knew every single Elder vampire. If his memory served him right, Lenora was the red-haired vampire. Now that Michael thought about everything, he had never seen Puma in the castle. Because the vampire death squad only visited the tavern, which was a pocket dimension attached to the vampire castle, Michael''s Spyders never caught them.
"Who else knows about Adelia Ashton?" asked Azazel.
"I don''t know," answered Puma.
"Let me rephrase my question. Is there anyone who might know about Adelia?" asked Azazel.
Michael locked his gaze on Puma.
"If Elder Lenora put an open contact, the other death squad members might have gone after her,"
Michael clenched his fist.
"Death squad? Who are they?" asked Azazel. Judging by the name, it was evident they were some kind of assassins the vampire elders used to kill whoever stood in their way or hurt their kind.
"Assassins. Each had their own way of tracking and killing targets. I am one of them,"
"Who else is in the death squad?" asked Michael.
"Bear, Spider, Snake, Gray Wolf, and White Wolf,"
Michael inquired about each and everyone from Puma. If Michael didn''t have the system, he would have been dead right now. Puma was not at all an easy foe to go against. In fact, with the teleportation talisman, Puma could hunt almost anyone in the world. If the others were anything like Puma, Adelia would have been in real trouble. No wonder she faked her own death, thought Michael.
It was time to bring Gaya to meet Puma. But before he teleported back to Awor, Michael forced the blood tonic down Puma;''s throat. In case Puma used some tactic to escape this ce, Michael could kill him with a snap of his finger. It was reassurance,
"Keep an eye on him," Michael said to Azazel.
Then, Michael disappeared into thin air. The scenery quickie transformed around Michael. When he appeared in his room in Voldigards castle, he noticed Gaya peacefully sleeping. He took a deep breath and walked to her side.
"Gaya," Michael gently brushed her face.
"What? Come to bed," she groaned, half asleep.
"Wake up. There is something you need to know," Sensing the seriousness in his voice, Gaya slowly opened his eyes. Michael sat on the bed beside her.
"What is it?" the sleepiness in Gaya''s eyes instantly vanished. In its stead, a glimmer of worry glistened in her eyes.
"I caught someone who met you mother,"
Chapter 656: Tracking down Elder Lenora
Chapter 656: Tracking down Elder LenoraAs soon as Gaya heard these words, she rose up from the bed as though someone had set a fire under the bed. Her eyes watered.
"Where? Let me see him," Gaya jumped off the bed. She didn''t even put on her usual robes. Instead, she was ready to leave the room with the red pajamas Michael bought her from the system store.
With a simple nod, Michael willed the system to teleport them both to the pocket dimension attached to the dark forest abyss. In a blink of an eye, the scenery around her changed. When she appeared in the pocket dimension, she saw Azazel standing beside the apple tree. There was someone with no hands shackled to the tree. Just as she was about to rush toward the vampire, Michael grabbed her hand.
"Remember, you are Aelia," Michael whispered into her ears.
She hasted toward the vampire,
"What do you know about Adelia Ashton?" asked Gaya. Following her question, Puma repeated everything he had told Azazel and Michael. Her body trembled, listening to Puma. It was evident to Michael that she was feeling a strong urge to kill Puma. Azazel saw her eyes glimmering with shock and anger. After hearing everything from Puma, she stumbled back. Michael quickly caught her and wrapped his arm around her.
"Tell me, how do I meet Lenora?" Her eyes turned predatory. For a moment, her human eyes transformed into the eyes of a cobra. She hissed at Puma.
"If you kill a death squad assassin and take the head to the lonely wyvern tavern on the outskirts of Kingdom Maven. She wille to meet you," said Puma. But to Michael, it sounded so simple. There was no way a powerful Elder Vampire like Lenora woulde meet him without any backup or intention to kill. Besides, it didn''t make any sense. Why would anyone ask where I can meet the one who sent you to kill me or why would anyone go to that tavern?
Michael thought after killing Puma, Lenora would track him down somehow or send another death squad member. Unknowing to Michael, not making sense was one of Lenora''s traits. She liked to y mind games with her foes and with her own kind. Defying logic and sense was the way she survived as an Elder vampire for so long. But Michael wasn''t wrong either. After killing Puma, whether or not he travels to the lonely wyvern tavern, she would track him down. The tavern was there to attract daredevils such as Michael. In a way, Lenora''s n worked because Michael had already made up his mind to visit this tavern.
Pulch!
Blood spurted out suddenly as Michael and Azazel saw Puma''s head flying in the air. They turned their gazes at Gaya to see a bloody silver sword in her hand.
"I am going to meet her and find my mother. I shouldn''t have stopped trying," she clenched her fist.
"You''re not. I am," said Michael.
"What?'' Gaya looked him in the eyes,
"I said you are not going to meet Lenora. I am. Puma was after me. So it''ll only make sense if I go to meet her,"
As Michael expected, Gaya shook her head.
"No. I am not putting you in danger so I can find my mother. You are both important to me," Gaya was firm in her decision, and she would fight for it. Michael could see it in her eyes. Honestly, Michael didn''t think she was making a decision with overwhelming emotions like anger or sadness. Anyone would do the same in her shoes. After all, Adelia was just a person to Michael, but to Gaya, Adelia was her mother.
How could Gaya remain still after learning her mother was turned into a vampire and being hunted by powerful beings?
"What do you think will happen? You waltz in there, and they will tell you everything you want to know,"
"I will make them," Gaya growled. Killing intent soared through the roof in her eyes.
"No you can''t," Michael bluntly said.
"Think about it. Why does Lenora meet the one who kills her elite puppies? The one who killed her elite was better. So she will most probably turn you or if you resist, kill you,"
Michael, who lived two lives, knew how people like Lenora would think. If he were a vampire and found a powerful being like Gaya, he would turn her too. The more powerful people in the n, the safer and the better they were.
"Don''t make me fight you, Michael," said Gaya, taking a few steps back.
"I won''t let them turn you. If the price for knowing what happened to my mother is turning into a vampire, I will do that in a heartbeat. But I won''t let them put a finger on you,"
"Listen," Michael''s voice became stern.
"I am not telling you not to go. I am telling you not to go alone. I have a way to get everything we want without turning into vampires or dying," Michael stepped closer. Soon, the Dark Lord''s armor covered his body along with the dark shroud. After turning into the Dark Lord, the area around them grew darker.
"How?" asked Gaya. Until now, his ns never failed. Although she didn''t want Michael''s Ghost persona to get tangled with the vampires any more than he already had, she saw no harm in listening to his n. With his help, she could find his mother faster.
"What''s the vampires'' biggest weakness? The sunlight. Let''s give them something that could fix this weakness. They will have no choice but to reveal everything in exchange for this fix," said Michael.
The current level of the system was unable to create a form to cure vampirism. However, it was enough to give Michael a potion to protect the vampires from sunlight for a couple of hours. Of course, Michael could enhance the potion and make the effectsst longer, but it was enough for the vampires.
"System, give me that form,"
His four hundred thousand badass points were reduced by half after the order to the system. Eventually, the system engraved the form into his mind. Fortunately, he had all the ingredients he needed to brew this potion in his personal herbal garden in the Sunrise sect.
"I have the cure. This way will work, trust me," said Michael. He took a step forward and grabbed her shoulders.
"You trust me right? I won''t let anything happen to your mother. She is family," Michael squeezed Gaya''s shoulder. Her eyes welled up hearing his words. Strangely, she felt reassured when he heard him.
The next few hours were spent on teleporting to the sunrise sect, collecting the herbs and brewing the potions. Afterward, Michael ordered Azazel to hide a crate full of potions in the dark forest. He only took one potion with him as a proof. Considering there was no better time than the present, Michael immediately teleported to Gisel and then flew to Maven as the Dark Lord. When he reached the outskirts of Maven, hended in the woods and walked out of it as Ghost and Aelia.
The lonely wyvern tavern was built along a lonely man-made path. As far as eyes could see, there was no building or any signs of life. It took Michael some time to finally locate the tavern. From the outside, it looked dark, disturbing and ugly. Small stones and thick, hardwood logs made up most of the building''s outer structure.
It was hard to see through the small, stained ss windows, but the coldness from within could be felt outside.
"This is depressing," said Michael. No doubt the vampires hang out in this ce. Judging by the tall trees around them, it would be hard for the sunlight to peek through even in the middle of the day.
As Michael and Gaya entered the tavern through the old, metal door, they were weed by the smell of alcohol and aromas of what''s probably food, hopefully.
The bartender was neither old nor young but looked like a viin out of a children''s book. With his long mustache, the scar on his face, and the eye patch didn''t help his personality. He was rubbing a ss with a cloth, though it was not getting cleaner. The man made no effort to acknowledge Michael and Gaya''s presence.
As expected, It was just as horrible inside as it was on the outside. Wooden beams supported the upper floor and thenterns attached to them. The walls were decorated with mounted animal heads and small animals, though most have be worn and broken, giving the ce an even creepier feel. The tavern itself was almostpletely abandoned. The few people inside didn''t seem like a weing bunch. Whoever they were, staying as far as possible from them was better. They were all dressed in creepy ck hoods and smelled like blood. Now that Michael recalled, he did hear something about the tavern from Heinberg. Supposedly it was infamous for something, but for the life of he couldn''t remember what for. Though judging by everything in this ce, it must be something creepy.
Michael led the way to the bartender, letting Gaya carry the head of Puma in a sack. To Michael''s surprise, he heard the few people in the tavern sniff the air as though they could smell the blood from afar.
"Are you lost or something?" The bartender didn''t even bother to look at Michael when he talked.
"Not lost. Just searching for someone who visits this tavern often," said Michael. He calmly pulled out the wooden bar chair to sit beside Gaya.
"Whoever it is, I am pretty sure we don''t know them," said the bartender.
"Name Lenora ring any bells?"
Finally, the bartender looked up at Michael. Michael smiled. It was obvious he was in the right ce. Otherwise, the bartender would have looked shocked and the three guys at the back would have stood up, probably to beat them up.
"The tavern is closed. See yourselves out," The bartender raised his voice at Michael.
"So you do know her," Michael pulled the ss the bartender ced on the table toward him. He took out a water pouch from his inner coat pocket and poured the water into the ss.
"I lost count of how many times I''ve said this. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,"
Instead of answering Michael, the bartender signaled the three behind Michael, wordlessly telling them to throw Michael and Gaya out.
Chapter 657: Gaya vs Everyone in the tavern
Chapter 657: Gaya vs Everyone in the tavern"I got this," Gaya put the sack containing Puma''s head on her chair after she stood up. She cracked her fist. Her eyes turned predatory as though of a seasoned killer. It was evident she was not in the mood for ying. Anyone could see the suppressed rage in her eyes. The bartender looked at her for a moment before turning his gaze back to Michael. He couldn''t believe the youngster was letting a girl face these killers. As a man who lived in the southern continent for decades, the bartender could easily differentiate cultivators from southerners. These two were definitely not from the Southern continent. Which meant they hailed from the cultivation continents. However, no matter how powerful they were in their homnds, in the Southern continent, they were as weak as babies. Atleast, that''s what the bartender thought.
Michael slowly took the ss in his hand and took a little sip. He didn''t even bother to turn around.
"You have insurance for this ce?" asked Michael.
Meanwhile, three tall, bulky muscr mountains moved toward Gaya. Gaya and Michael were tall, but these three were taller. They were tall enough to raise anyone''s eyebrows. If being tall wasn''t enough to stand out, they were big enough to win any bodybuildingpetition on earth. Compared to them, Gaya looked smaller, like a child.
The three cracked their knuckles. One of them looked at Michael,
"Last chance, kid. Leave now, and we won''t mess up your girl," growled the man. He didn''t remove his hood so Michael Michael couldn''t see his face in the reflection in the ss.
"Try not to kill them," said Michael,pletely ignoring the man.
"But the more the blood, the better," said Michael. Drawing out Lenora might require them to spill more blood. She was a vampire, after all. Michael didn''t delude himself by thinking he could get an Elder Vampire''s attention without bloodshed. As much as he liked to avoid bloodshed, some tasks required blood. For instance, the bartender could tell them he knows Lenora or the way to meet Lenora. Instead, he ordered hisckeys to beat them up. A wrong decision on the bartender''s path. Gaya was ready to fight Michael himself, let alone these nobodies.
"I don''t have all day," Gaya coldly threatened the three. She rolled up her sleeves, preparing to beat the crap out of them. The three might have an advantage in size, but they were no match for a furious woman with arch energy coursing through her veins. Their heavy thundering boots made the table nearby tremble.
Instead of ganging up on her, only one approached Gaya. The man didn''t take Gaya seriously. So, when he reached an arm-reaching distance from Gaya, he tried to put his hand on Gaya''s shoulder with the intention of throwing her out. Before his hand could touch Gaya, she grabbed his hand, immediately crushing his hand.
"ARGH!'' The man squealed like an injured cat. His scream surprised everyone. But his cry was cut short when Gaya kicked him right between the legs with enough force to dislocate his pelvic bone.
"Shhhhh," Michael grimaced. He almost heard the sound of something shattering. The man lost all his strength and power. Finally, he just copsed to the ground.
"So they are not vampires," Michael thought to himself. If he were a vampire, her kick would have hurt him more because vampires had no reproductive organs in their bodies. Instead of traditional means, the vampires reproduced by turning others. In a way, their fangs were their reproductive organs.
"Bitch-" The man growled. Unfortunately, Gaya wasn''t done with him. She took a step forward, stomping his stomach. Blood gushed out of his mouth. The man curled into a ball, screaming in agony. His scream was cut abruptly short by Gaya as she picked up a chair nearby and bashed it on his head. The two behind him were stunned, just like everyone in the tavern. Using their momentary shock, Gaya grabbed the broken piece of the chair in her hand, leaping onto the two behind her victim.
The two of them snapped out of shock. Intuitively, they brought their hands before their faces to defend themselves. The wooden leg was no match for the thugs'' big gigantic arms. Wood splinters flew in all directions when Gaya bashed the wooden leg on the man''s arm. Everyone thought Gaya was done for. Unlike the first one, the two were prepared. They thought Gaya wouldn''t be able to surprise them with a low blow.
"Fucking bitch!" one of the men threw his fist, cursing Gaya. Once again, she surprised them with her speed. She swayed her body to the side, avoiding the punch mid-air, grabbed one of the flying wood splinters, and stabbed the man who threw the fist in the eyes. Wasting no time, she punched the man in the chest, pushing him a few meters back before turning her focus to the other. As she calcted, the man tried to kick Gaya in the gut, leaving himself vulnerable.
To everyone''s shock, Gaya grabbed his leg and threw him onto the other. The man who got stabbed in the eyes screamed in agony until he collided with his buddy. Her throw had enough force behind to make the two of them fly onto the wall behind. The animal heads hanging on the wall tumbled down due to the force of the collision. Everything from Gaya leaping onto them to sending them flying happened in a couple of seconds. It was too fast for a normal human being toprehend. The bartender''s mind failed to see what had just transpired. She moved and fought with speed and strength beyond mortal limits. She took down three muscle mountains thrice her size in a couple of seconds.
The three served as an outlet for her rage. Without giving the two a break, she dashed at the two. Poor bastards didn''t even have time to react. She picked up the antlers that fell off the wall and stabbed the man who had his eyes stabbed.
"AHH!" He screamed. Luckily, his buddy felt the same pain when Gaya stabbed him with the same antler she used to stab the other. Seeing Gaya stabbing them in the legs repeatedly, another two decided to step in. They dashed at Gaya to stop her.
The bartender was freaked out when he saw the grin on Michael''s face. He had no idea why Michael was smiling at his ss. Unlike the three, the two who decided to save the three were neither tall nor muscr. They were just regr dudes, at least one was a dude, and the other was a woman. Hearing their footsteps, Gaya jerked her head around. When the two saw the predatory eyes of Gaya, they trembled. Fear clutched their hearts, making them question their decision to stop her. But it was toote for them. Gaya picked up a chair and threw it at the two. She wasn''t stingy with force, so the chair hit them with enough force to knock the two out.
The blood spurted from her victims painted her face red. Her white robes were drenched in their blood.
"Thu," Gaya spat the blood went into her mouth. She grabbed a chair, dragging it toward the two who tried to stop her. To Michael''s surprise, the tavern didn''t seem to have many vampires.
"Tell her to stop!" the bartender panicked. He tried to crouch down to pick up the crossbow under his shelf. However, Michael simply grabbed the man by his head and smashed it on the counter.
"You know, if she doesn''t vent her anger on those guys, she will be cranky. I don''t like her being cranky. So why don''t we just sit back and let her do what she does best?" Michael whispered into the bartender''s ears.
"Next time when two strangerse asking for information, give them what they want,"
"You are making a big fucking mistake," The bartender growled.
"What mistake?" Michael bashed the bartender''s head against the table yet another time. The few bottles lined up on the counter fell off to the ground. ss shattered into tiny bits and pieces, momentarily taking everyone''s gaze from Gaya to Michael.
"NO!" On the other hand, thedy who tried to stop Gaya screamed, seeing Gaya raise the chair. Unfortunately, Gaya didn''t stop. She brought down the chair with all her might upon them. The two of them were instantly knocked out cold by Gaya.
"Now tell me where the fuck is Lenora?!" Gaya roared. Her mighty roar shook the entire tavern like an earthquake.
Seconds passed, turning into minutes. Thirty minutes went by in a blink of an eye. At that moment, the tavern was in ruin. All the customers were bleeding on the ground and groaning in pain. There was not a single table that remained intact. She went a little overboard. When she was done, the ce reeked of blood and old ale. Standing in the middle of the tavern, Gaya looked like a demon incarnate. The blood of her victims oozed down from her body from head to toe.
Finally, Michael let go of the bartender. Once he saw the state of his tavern and the customers, his face lost all color. The man trembled.
"Demon," That was the first thought that appeared in his mind when he noticed Gaya.
Michael slowly ced the ss on the table. He rose from the chair, turning around. First, he just adjusted his robes, and then, he picked up the sack with Puma''s head.
"Is this enough?" Michael asked, throwing the sack to the dark corner of the tavern. An oblivious man could see nothing but darkness. For Michael however, the figure hiding in the darkness was clear as day.
Gaya turned her gaze to the corner. Surprisingly, she saw a figure stepping out of the darkness.
"Lenora," Gaya growled.
Chapter 658: Meeting Elder Lenora
Chapter 658: Meeting Elder LenoraMichael bashed the bartender''s head oncest time, knocking him out cold. Then, he came to Gaya''s side. He squeezed her hand, wordlessly telling Gaya not to do anything. The figure who Gaya thought Lenora slowly removed her dark hood. It was a brown-haired woman in herte forties. With an oval face and big round eyes, she looked way different than Elder Lenora. For a moment, Michael thought Lenora was in disguise.
However, he was proven wrong when the woman introduced herself.
"I am Elder Lenora''s maid. You have something for Lady Lenora," the maid tilted her head, directing her gaze at the sack lying in the ground a meter away from her.
"Open and take a look at yourself," said Michael. She slowly bent down, slightly opening the sack to see Puma''s head staring at her with wide eyes.
"I want to meet your Elders, including Elder Lenora,"
"What makes you think you can get what you want, Ghost?" snickered the maid. He could hear Gaya''s teeth grinding against each other.
"I want peace and information about someone your kind has put a hit on. In exchange, I will give you something that will change the fate of your entire kind," The maid looked a bit surprised by his words. For a moment, she deeply pondered what GHost had just said. Only the painful groans challenged the silence until the woman decided to speak up.
"What is it?" asked the maid.
"Don''t waste my time. I will give it only to your elders, not to a maid like you. Take me to Elder Lenora," Michael''s voice became stern and cold. He wasn''t in the mood to negotiate with a maid. The maid remained still, without uttering a word.
"She will meet you here this Friday, at the same time. For your sake, I''m hoping you have something really interesting," said the maid. To Michael''s surprise, she faded into thin air.
"Where is she?!" Gaya dashed forward to catch the maid but it was toote.
"Friday," Michael mumbled under his breath. This Friday was thest day of his Mazeroth holidays. He had to return to Mazeroth. There was no way Michael could postpone meeting Elder Lenora. For Gaya''s sake, he had to meet her. If finding Gaya''s mother meant he would have to return to MAzeroth a few hourste, he would do it in a heartbeat.
Gaya frantically looked around the tavern to locate the maid. Michael intervened to stop her from looking like a crazy person.
"Two days," said Michael.
"In two days, we will find out what happened to your mother,"
It took Michael some convincing to take Gaya out of the tavern instead of traveling to the vampire castle as the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen. Unnecessaryplications could arise if Michael entered the vampire castle as the Dark Lord. Thus, Michael chose to wait two days. Michael used these two days to brew more potions for his Majestic, including the gue cure. Then, he visited the Sunrise sect to meet with ire and the Elders. They were surprised to hear Michael''s request to abolish the king''s rule and implement a round table of ministers to rule the kingdom like in the Southern continent. Of course, to the outside world, Bradford was ruled by Sunrise sect elders. In reality however, Michael would make decisions and rule the kingdom from the shadows. This way, his enemies wouldn''t target Bradford to hurt him.
After signing the required parchments, Michael collected the necessary herbs to brew the potions for the vampires. He gave the potion crate to Azazel and ordered him to bury it somewhere in the dark forest. After everything was said and done in the Elon continent, Michael returned to Voldigard castle. At first, Michael felt somewhat reluctant to leave the Voldigards without ensuring their safety. But Eve reassured him and made some deals with other powerful families in Thera to strengthen her family. He didn''t forget about Eve''s curse.
He paid the system 250,000 badass points to locate an item that could be absorbed by the system and turned into a Curse Breaking skill. The bad news was, Michael had no time to visit the Treacherous ocean. The good news was, Elidyr could create an array to let Michael snake out of the Akn realm without being detected by the arrays in Mazeroth.
He promised Eve he would break her curse within the next six months. To Michael''s surprise, Eve didn''t seem to care much about whether she lived or not. As far as she was alive, she wanted to make sure the Voldigards remained safe. Michael really felt bad about leaving Eve instead of helping her. Unfortunately, Michael had no choice but to return to Mazeroth.
With a warm hug, Even sent him off to Mazeroth, except Michael didn''t teleport to Mazeroth. Instead, he went straight to the lonely wyvern tavern to meet Lenora.
Following his goodbye to Eve, Michael met Vedora. Except for Cain, the other two still looked gloomy. They needed time alone so Michael left them in the dark forest in the care of Azazel. Considering the time, Michael ordered Elidyr and Nightmare to return to Mazeroth before he and Gaya.
The lonely wyvern tavern looked as gloomy as ever under the moonless dark sky. The dark clouds hovering in the sky, threatening the earth with heavy downpours added an extrayer of gloominess to the tavern. Except for the rumbling thunder and howling wind, there was no sound in the area.
"I''ve reached the castle." When Michael reached the tavern, he heard Elidyr''s voice in his head.
"Good. Hope your runes work," said Michael. When he met Elidyr back in the Dark Forest, Michael asked the dark elf to ensure no one in MAzeroth could see him and Gaya through their disguise. If it wasn''t for theck of badass points, Michael could have done it using the system. He was saving the points to buy the Silenes spell which would slow down time around him for a short amount of time. Furthermore, he wanted to upgrade all of his spells, it has been a long time since he upgraded them.
"They reached Mazeroth?" asked Gaya, walking beside him to the tavern door.
"Hmm," Michael nodded.
Using his Environmental Scanning Map and Spyders, Michael sensed three people inside the tavern. The door slowly creaked open. As Michael had sensed, he saw a dark-robed figure, the bartender, and anotherdy dressed in a creamy white skirt and a big dark hat with red feathers on her head.
Unlike when Michael visited the tavern before, the ce looked empty. Atleast, they managed to fix the tables and the fallen trophies when Gaya almost destroyed the ce.
The bartender nced at Michael for a moment before turning his focus back to refilling thedy in white''s ss. The one standing beside thedy in white resembled the maid Michael met earlier.
"Let me do the talking," Michael whispered to Gaya.
Gaya nodded. The floor creaked every time Michael took a step. Until now, Michael had faced two Elder vampires. But those two were just saplingspared to the ancient elders like Lenora. Just by being in the same room with her, Michael could feel the terrifying aura being radiated by her. In terms of cultivation, Lenora was at the peak of the Fusion Stage.
After Michael''s many experiences with the vampires, he learned a valuable lesson. Vampires couldn''t be scaled with mere cultivation standards. Their kind had powers beyond cultivation stages. Thus, Michael dared not to underestimate Lenora. Silence fell over the tavern. In the air, a tinge of blood permeated. The bartender''s legs trembled in fear. Michael doubted the red liquid the bartender poured into Lenora''s cup was wine.
"Take a seat," Lenora''s voice chimed, cutting through the silence. She tapped the bar stool beside her.
"System, the moment something goes wrong, teleport us to Mazeroth," Michael ordered the system. If pushes to shove, he wanted to be in Mazertoh where the vampires held no power. Besides, both Gaya and Michael had the teleportation scroll given by Mazeroth to teleport to the castle grounds. Therefore, he didn''t have to spend any badass points buying teleportation scrolls from the system.
Every step he took forward reminded Michael of the Elder vampires''test meeting. When Michael sneaked into their castle to kill Victor, he bugged the entire castle including the round table of vampires. That was how Michael knew Avon was being turned into an Elder Vampire and their decision to wake something called a blood prince. The name itself was ominous enough for Michael to be aware of. At least, Michael had thrown a wrench into the ritual by killing Avon¡so he thought¡
Michael sat beside Lenora and Gaya sat next to Michael.
"This is the first time someone wanted to meet me, even after knowing what I am capable of," said Lenora. Her voice was melodious, calm, andposed. Any oblivious man wouldn''t believe she was a freakin Elder Vampire capable of destroying a kingdom single-handedly.
"You have some big balls, Ghost," Lenora chuckled. Michael sensed the killing intent behind her seductive chuckle. For the first time, Michael opted for the high-risk high reward way for Gaya. If everything went ording to his n, Ghost and the vampires could be at peace as well as learn about Gaya''s mother. Suppose it wasn''t the case, Michale knew he have to be the Dark Lord to defeat Lenora. Dark mes and the anti-vampire potions were the only two things in his arsenal that could hurt and probably kill an ancient Elder like Lenora.
"I liked Puma. He served me and my kind well," Lenora took a small sip and slowly put the ss on the table.
"You tortured him, didn''t you? How else could you have known my name?" Her voice became colder. The temperature around them dropped by several degrees. Nheless, Michael showed no signs of fear in his eyes.
"Torture is a strong word. Let''s just say, I''m very persuasive," Michael''s calmness shocked the bartender and Lenora''s maid. Lenora felt something off about the human. she couldn''t put her finger on it but something was definitely strange about Ghost.
"I wonder what made you reach out for me," said Lenora.
"I want to know about someone you ordered a hit on, Adelia Ashton," As soon as Michael said the name, Lenora clenched her fist. Every single ss bottle shattered into smithereens. The entire trembled tavern. Her eyes turned bloodshot for a moment. Finally, Lenora turned her head to look at Michael.
"Adelia Ashton. The Queen of Nagnd,"
********************************
because its Diwali( festival in my country if you don''t know what it is) Only one chapter of HBS today. The schedule will be resumed as normal from tomorrow
Chapter 659 Deal With The Vampires
?659 Deal with the vampires
"How do you know her?" asked Gaya. Finally, she couldn''t keep her mouth shut anymore.
"Tsk tsk tsk," Lenora slowly shook her head.
"What''s the rush? You haven''t even seen our hospitality yet," said Lenora. She winked at Michael before snapping her fingers. To Michael''s surprise, the scenery around them changed. He and Gaya appeared in a gloomy hall dimly lit with torches. At the center of the hall was arge stone round table. Michael immediately recognized the room. This was the meeting hall of the elders. His Spyders were still around. He could sense them.
"Follow me," Lenora appeared before him. She led the two toward the stone table. The entire hall was silent. As Michael stepped forward, the gentle smell of blood began to permeate the air. The round table slowly opened. Without uttering a word, Michael and Gaya went through the opening and stood in the middle. At the moment, only one stone chair among the ten was upied.
Soon, figures appeared in the hall one by one. Considering Michael and Gaya had seen them in their surveince room, they recognized each. The first to appear after Lenora was a brte. She was Trista. No one would ever think of her as a vampire. She dressed in brown silky robes, leather boots and wore thick red lipstick. She winked at Michael yfully before taking her seat next to Lenora. Following Lenora, Saber entered the room, surprising Gaya with his young look. If she didn''t know he was a vampire, Gaya wouldn''t throw a second nce at him. He looked like a next-door kid in his teenage years. He still had the baby fat on his cheeks. The two vampires didn''t look surprised. Which meant they already discussed bringing Michael and Gaya to their castle.
However, Michael wondered where they had this conversation and how theymunicated. Because he bugged the entire castle yet he had never seen them together after their discussion about the blood prince. Michael patiently waited for Ingram to join them. His fearless eyes surprised the vampires, especially Saber. Just like Lenora, he also felt something strange about the human before him. Saber couldn''t find a word to exin this feeling. If he had to, he would say fear. Why did he feel afraid of the human? Saber asked himself.
They were nightwalkers, rulers of the night, and gods among mortals. Yet, the vampires felt a seed of fear sprouting in their hearts. Finally, Michael saw Ingram appear in the hall. The dim torches illuminated his calm-looking face. His ashen hair was neatly tied into a ponytail. Unlike the other elder vampires, he was in armor made of both leather and metal. With the sword dangling on his waist, he looked like the embodiment of the word bravery rather than a vampire.
Although there were ten stone chairs, Michael had never seen all of them get filled. It was always these four. He recalled seeing a fatty bald vampire when he first bugged the castle. For some reason, that vampire was nowhere to be seen. Of course, Michael didn''t know Harriet killed Hacan because he created another elder vampire who almost killed Michael and Noah in the alchemypetition.
"Is everyone here?" asked Lenora.
The others nodded. Everyone remained silent, letting the eerie feeling creep into Michael and Gaya.
"So, who killed Puma among the two of you?" asked Trista.
"I did," said Michael.
"When did you figure out he was a nightwalker?" asked Trista.
"When I saw him regenerate and show his fangs,"
"Let me get this straight," Trista chuckled, leaning forward.
"You found he was a nightwalker, killed him somehow, and thought it''s a good idea to track down the one who sent him,"
"Not exactly," Michael shook his head.
"Then tell us, why are you really here?" said Trista.
Michael took a deep breath,
"I am here to offer something in exchange for information and peace with your kind," said Michael.
"Information about her mother, I presume," Saber calmly said, surprising Michael. He moved his gaze from Trista to Saber. The young vampire leaned back on his stone chair with a smile.
"You can hide her face with a mask. But you cannot rece her blood. A Naga," Saber nced at Gaya from head to toe. Both Michael and Gaya were shocked. They didn''t expect Saber to find out her origin. Michael felt like he had underestimated the vampires.
"Not just a Naga. The princess of Nagnd. The rightful wonder to the throne and the only daughter of Adelia Ashton," saber slowly spoke. His voice was mixed with admiration and shock for some reason. Since Michael was pretty good at reading people, he could tell Saber definitely had some respect for Adelia.
To be honest, Michael had so many questions about Adelia. The woman intrigued him to the core. At first, she was just Gaya''s dead mother. Other than that, Michael didn''t have any other thoughts about Adelia. But the more he dug deep into Gaya''s mother, he was constantly surprised by her. First, Gaya saw a recording left by her mother. She was a member of the order who asked Gaya to find the Dark Lord. Then, Elidyr revealed Adelia''s origins as Wraith, one of the founders of the Order. Now, he learned Adelia might have been a vampire and somehow earned the right to be hunted by the death squad. There were so many mysteries around Adelia. It was like peeling an onion. Secrets kepting one after another.
"You don''t seem crippled to me," said Ingram.
"Tell me about my mother. Where is she?" Gaya ignored Ingram and questioned them all. Michael tried to stop her, but it was toote. Luckily, the vampires seemed amused by her outrage rather than offended.
"You may have misjudged the situation, your royal highness," Lenora chuckled.
"You''re alive because we felt somehow curious about Puma''s death and his strange request to meet us," said Lenora.
"In other words, you''re walking on a line between life and death, so you better keep us curious," said Trista. There was a hidden murderous intent in their voices.
Michael stepped forward,
"Elders, I am going to show you something," Michael nced at the elders. They nodded after a while.
Finally, with a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a sparkling gold potion. The position glistened and sparkled like liquid gold.
"This is what you were talking about? A potion?" Lenora looked a little bit disappointed. However, Saber felt a strange energy from the potion.
"Not a potion, Elder. I found this in the treacherous ocean. It was left by a six-star alchemist," said Michael.
The vampires possessed the ability to tell whether someone was lying or not by sensing their heartbeat and facial signs. Thanks to the system, Michael was able to fool the vampires.
"Along with the parchment, Unfortunately, the parchment crumbled due to time. However, I remember the words. May thy rulers of night rule the day,"
The vampires were taken aback by surprise. From their point of view, the human before them was telling them the truth.
"At that time, I didn''t understand the meaning, even after seeing the potion''s effect,"
"What are the effects?" Saber asked. Michael grinned inwards when he saw the curious look in the vampire''s eyes.
"Offer protection against the sun. Until I learned about the night rulers, I didn''t think of this potion as much,"
"Are you telling us this potion will protect us from the sun?" groaned Lenora. Her normal yful voice disappeared. Instead, she talked in a cold voice.
"If my calctions were right, this potion will protect you for at least an hour and a half. With time and resources, you can find a way to make the potion''s effectst long,"
Suddenly, Saber waved his hand. An invisible force snatched the potion out of Michael''s face.
"If this didn''t work," Saber didn''t finish his sentence but let Michael imagine the oue.
"You can do whatever you want with me," said Michael. With a nod, Saber disappeared from the hall. Following Saber''s disappearance, silence took over the hall. Michael and Gaya remained still. Michael squeezed her hand, wordlessly reassuring her. If his peaceful way didn''t work, he wouldn''t blink an eye to ughter the elders. Gaya had never begged him for something. But for the first time, she cried for his help. There was nothing he wouldn''t do to find Adelia.
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He must find her. After all, Adelia wasn''t just Gaya''s mother but a founder and a member of his order. If she was alive, it was his responsibility as the Dark Lord to take care of his loyal followers. Besides, Adelia was family.
After a couple of minutes, Saber returned to the hall. This time, he wasn''t alone. He had an elf dressed in a fancy noble dress with him. The elf looked terrified, and Michael could see the sweat beads on his forehead.
"What happened?" Lenora asked Saber. She failed to hide the curiosity in her heart.
"I¡I survived," the elf said, shivering.
Except for Ingram, the other elders looked bewildered. Even the usually calm andposed Saber couldn''t hide the excitement. His hand trembled, holding the vial with a few drops of golden liquid in it.
Instead of answering, Saber appeared in front of Michael in a blink of an eye. He grabbed Gaya and Michael by his neck, lifting them up off the ground. Despite Saber''s scrawny look, he was able to lift Michael and Gaya without breaking a sweat.
"Tell me, where can I find more?"
Saber loosened his grip just enough to let Michael barely utter the words.
"Tell me about Adelia and agree to call off the death squad. If we don''t get back to where we came from alive and unharmed, the potions are good as gone," Michael grinned. The information Michael had was crucial to the point that it could change the entire vampire''s fate. In other words, Saber can''t kill him even if he wishes to.
Phase one of shocking the vampires with the potion had beenpleted. Next phase, get the protection of one of the elders and learn about Adelia.
Chapter 660 The Blood Princes Punch
660 The Blood Prince''s Punch
Saber clenched his fist. Seeing Saber lose his calmness stunned the others. Trista and Lenora had never seen Saber like this before. Which led them to believe the potion really worked.
To their surprise, Saber released the two of them. Michael and Gaya coughed, running their throats for a moment.
"It worked," Saber turned around and responded to everyone''s curious looks. For a moment, Trista and Lenora couldn''t believe what they had just heard. No matter how powerful they were, the sun was their ultimate bane. Even the elders were unable to survive the sunlight for a couple of minutes let alone the minions. It was the only weakness they had besides primordial mes. At least with primordial mes, they could somehow kill the me wielder. With the sun, they had no choice. Hence, they never dared to step outside their castles during the day.
"How many more do you have?" asked Saber. The others were kinda in shock to question Michael, except for Ingram. Michael couldn''t read what was going on in Ingram''s head. He remained without showing any signs of emotions on his face, as though the potion meant nothing to him.
"Twenty," said Michael.
"What stops us from killing you after you gave us the location?"Finally, Lenora snapped out of her shock and questioned Michael.
"Nothing, Elder. But I''d rather die instantly than live looking over my shoulder my entire life. So here I am, taking a leap of faith," said Michael.
"Besides, I don''t see any other way to find Adelia,"
The elder vampires took a few moments to weigh their options. Although they were brutal and cruel, they were not dumb. These vampires survived all these years by capitalizing on opportunities and working with valuable assets like Ghost. At this moment in time, the Ghost was far more valuable to them as alive than dead. Compared to the potion he gave them, the lives of two half-baked elder vampires and Puma who were stupid and weak enough to get killed was nothing.
Moreover, Saber had other ns for Ghost.
Saber looked at the others for a moment before nodding at Lenora. Finally, Lenora decided to share what she knew about Adelia with Ghost and Gaya.
"The one who put the hit on Adelia was Elder Kragen. He''s dead," Gaya''s heart skipped a beat.
"But thest time I heard, Adelia ventured into the treacherous ocean, searching for the Wise Dragon. If I were you, I''d start my search with that dragon," Lenora didn''t bother to exin the dangers of venturing into the treacherous ocean. He was just a human. But, since he had given them something crucial and asked them for their mercy, she would call off the death squad until he messes with her kind one more time.
"How do I know you''re telling the truth and not leading us into a death trap?" asked Gaya.
Lenora burst intoughter.
"You don''t. But you have no choice either,"
To Michael, Lenora didn''t seem like she was lying. Plus, she had no need to lead them into a death trap.
"Once we retrieve the rest of the potions, I will call off the death squad. But make no mistake, if you ever kill one of my kind again, I will personallye for your life," Lenora threatened Michael.
"I will not dare to," Michael bowed slightly.
"Now the location," asked Saber.
Michael slowly moved his hand into his inner coat pocket, making no sudden movements. He was about to retrieve the parchment when a sudden thudding sound made the entire hall tremble. The torches were snuffed out by an invisible force. Darkness fell over them. Saber conjured an orb of light, sending it to hover over them. But the orb could hardly illuminate the ce. Something sucked all the light, making the ce gloomy.
Everything went silent.
"Hrrggm," a demonic growl cut through the silence. Immediately, Michael''s neck hair stood up. A powerful being just appeared in the hall. He sensed the being with his Environmental Scanning. However, Michael couldn''t pinpoint the being''s exact location. He tried to move but failed to do so. His body simply refused to move.
The hall continued to tremble with each thud. Little by little, the thudding sounded closer and closer to them. Michael''s nose twitched due to the overwhelming stink of blood in the air. The orb of light could hardly illuminate the ce with its dim red mes. Michael nced at the Elders to see a bewildered look in their eyes. He quickly tried to ess the Spyders around the hall. To his shock, he sensed no Spyders around them. Every single one got destroyed.
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
[Warning!]
Suddenly, several red warning boxes blocked his vision. The system screamed inside his voice. Michael was about to teleport away from the ce when he saw a hulking figure step out of the darkness. The figure was gigantic, red, and muscr to the point any oblivious man would be terrified to even look at it. Even the elders looked puny in front of the towering eight feet humanoid monster. Two dark horns protruded out of each side of the monster''s head. The figure looked like the embodiment of the word demon.
The figure snarled, revealing its two long fangs.
"Blood Prince," Michael heard Trista take a step back, sweating from head to toe in utter fear.
"SYSTEM!" Michael immediately shouted at the system in his mind. At the same time, The Blood Prince dashed at Michael, destroying the stone table between him and Michael. Unfortunately, the Blood Prince''s speed was beyond the limits of Michael and everyone in the room. Even the system wasn''t fast enough to teleport Michael in time. As a result, The Blood Prince was able to punch Michael in the chest just before Michael disappeared from the hall.
"Teleportation. Humph," The blood prince snickered. His voice resembled the voice of the Dark lord but several times more demonic, evil, and threatening. The blood prince snapped his finger as the orb conjured by Saber shattered into pieces. Once again, pitch-ck darkness surrounded them. Usually, vampires could see in darkness. However, the darkness created by the blood prince blocked their vision, blinding thempletely.
"NO¡NO¡.NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" a sudden scream from Lenora stunned the elders.
Her scream was abruptly cut short as they all heard the sound of flesh getting ripped apart. The elders weren''t strangers to this eerie sound. But when it happened to one of them, they all trembled in fear. After a while, silence returned to the hall. The elders remained until the torches around them flickered. Finally, a torch lit up, and when it did, the elders almost screamed in terror.
The blood prince sat on a throne where Michael and Gaya were. He was gnawing on a big piece of meat that resembled a human thigh. Their hearts pounded against their chests. Slowly, their gazes swept across the blood prince. In his hand was a head, Lenora''s head. Blood trickled down from Lenora''s neck.
"Wee to the new age of nightwalkers," The Blood prince crushed Lenora''s head with his bare hand. It created a sickening crunch followed by a burst of evilughter.
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The system immediately teleported Michael and Gaya to the Mazeroth castle grounds. The force of the Blood Prince''s punch sent them flying even after appearing in the castle ground. They both hit the ground, crashing through the grass field for a few minutes until they came to a halt. Gaya jumped back to her feet since she wasn''t hurt. As soon as she got to her feet, she looked at her side to make sure Michael was alright. To her shock, he was on the ground, shaking. His chest smoked as though someone had set fire to his clothes.
"HUMAN!" Gaya screamed. Her knees turned to jelly as she copsed to the ground beside Michael. One could clearly see therge fist on Michael''s chest. The blood Prince''s fist left a clear burning mark on his chest. Furthermore, the wound ate through Michael''s skin.
Gaya noticed Michael spurting a dark foam out of his mouth. Sudden panic clenched her heart. She emptied a bunch of healing potions into his mouth, hoping they would heal him. However, the healing potion had no effect on Michael. Even after emptying the third bottle into his mouth, his chest still smoked, radiating a strong scent of burning flesh.
"Professor Steinmeyer," Gaya''s head jerked aside to see Gilrine. When he noticed Michael on the ground, the smile on his face froze. He rushed at Michael.
"What happened to him?!" Gilrine panicked.
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"I don''t know. I found him like this," Gaya didn''t even know how she was able to answer Gilrine. Her mind was nk in shock.
"We need to get him to the infirmary. NOW!" Gilrine took Michael in his arms and stood back to his feet. Gaya didn''t see any other choice. They were about to turn around when Gaya saw another figure stepping out of the darkness. With the long ck robes and hair, Professor Lane blended in with the night like a chameleon.
"Professor Lane!" Gilrine shouted.
Professor Lane came to Gilrine''s side.
"Oh my god," Professor Lane mumbled under his breath.
"The infirmary cannot save him. Bring him to my office now," Professor Lane instructed Gilrine. For the first time, Gilrine heard Professor Lane show a slight fear in his voice.
Gilrine did not waste any time as he ascended into the air,
''What''s happening to him?!" Gaya couldn''t control the tears from flowing out of her eyes.
"Blood Prince, Professor Steinmeyer. He was punched by a blood prince. You don''t happen to know that right?" Professor Lane questioned her expressionlessly.
"PROFESSOR!" Gilrine''s shout saved Gaya. They quickly looked up at Gilrine to see Michael''s body frantically shaking.
Chapter 661 Holy Maiden Rowenas Help
?661 Holy Maiden Rowena''s help
The office of Lane was a gloomy and dimly-lit room located in the dungeons. The shadowy walls were lined with shelves ofrge ss jars filled with slimy, revolting things, such as bits of animals and nts, floating in potions of varying colors. The office had a firece. At the moment, it was dark and empty. In a corner, Professor Lane kept his private stocks of alchemy ingredients in a cupboard.
When Gilrine, Gaya, and Lane reached the office, Lane waved his hand. The runes on the door glowed for a moment before slowly creaking open.
"Put him there," Lane said, pointing his finger at the empty oak table in the center. As Gilrine ced Michael''s shaking body on the table, Lane opened his cupboard and picked up a few potions from the shelf. Gaya held Michael''s hand as tight as she could. Her eyes kept forming tears seeing Michael''s condition. They both didn''t expect the Blood Prince to be there. Furthermore, the blood prince was at Half Immortal stage. There was no way they could have defeated the blood prince. At least, not with their current cultivation stage.
"Open his mouth," Lane ordered Gilrine. The big man squeezed Michael''s jaw, opening his mouth big enough for Lane to pour a green slimy liquid into his mouth.
"Professor Lane. is he going to survive?" asked Gilrine.
"It''s a miracle he''s even alive," said Lane.
"Where the hell did he meet a blood prince?" Gilrine heard Professor Lane before. He was unlucky enough to know about those vile creatures. Unlike Lane, Gilrine never had to face one thanks to the gods.
Without answering Gilrine''s question, Lane just nced at Gaya. She remained silent, letting Lane treat Michael. She couldn''t even cry out loud or show her care for Michael. It would lead the others to suspect her rtionship with Michael, which might lead to catastrophic consequences.
"Professor Lane," Gilrine called out for Lane. He noticed Ghost''s entire body smoke as though someone had set a fire under him. The temperature in the room increased by several degrees. Gilrine felt the heat radiating from his body.
"What''s happening?" Gaya panicked. Michael''s hands began to burn hers. They were hot enough to make Gaya release his hand.
"I need cold water," Lane said.
"Go bring me as much water as possible from theke," Lane ordered Gaya. Although she felt reluctant to leave Michael''s side, she ultimately left the room without wasting precious time. After she left the room, Michael''s body began to tremble violently. His body was burning hot. Smoke emerged from every part of his body.
"Shouldn''t we inform Headmaster Wulfric?" asked Gilrine. To Gilrine''s surprise, Lane shook his head.
"No. The Headmaster has enough on his te. A blood prince is thest thing he needs right now," said Lane.
"But Professor Lane. There is no cure for a wound caused by a blood prince. If we don''t get all the help we need, he''s going to die," Gilrine lowered his voice.
Usually, Lane would agree with Gilrine. There was indeed no cure for a wound caused by a blood prince. That was what made the blood princes the ultimate force of nature. Just a single touch from a blood prince could poison a cultivator''s body from within and turn them into a puddle of blood. The Blood Princes were the pure breed of vampires. A typical vampire would suck the blood while a blood prince sucks its victim''s life force itself with a single touch.
It was extremely rare for someone to survive a blood prince. But even if they did, once the blood prince touched the victim, only death awaited. Luckily for Michael, he had almost one million badass points after killing Duke Avon in front of the two armies. He ordered the system to heal his body. Otherwise, Michael would have died by now. Still, his survival depended on his willpower and body''s ability to withstand the corrosion.
When Gaya finally returned to the room, carrying a wooden barrel filled with cold water, she saw the smoking body of Michael. She almost dropped the barrel. With a quick wave of his hand, Lane sucked all the water out of the bucket, forming arge blob of water above Michael. He slowly let the water trickle into Michael, cooling his body.
This continued for an hour. They had used almost ten barrels of water,pletely drenching Michael in the water. Despite their efforts, his body refused to cool down. As time passed, his skin slowly turned grayish.
"What''s happening?" Gaya felt a lump forming in her throat. She couldn''t help ming herself for Michael''s state. If it wasn''t for her and her pursuit of her mother, Michael wouldn''t have gone to the vampire castle. He took the risk solely for her.
"We need something colder," said Lane. Although there was no cure for the blood prince''s touch, something kept Ghost alive from within. Therefore, Lane wanted this strange force to fight the blood prince''s touch. All he had to do was buy enough time for Ghost to survive and heal.
"I''ll bring the ice," Gilrine quickly rushed out of the room, heading for his hut.
"What do you want me to do?" asked Gaya.
"Unless you have something colder than ice, bring it to me," said Lane. His voice showed no emotion whatsoever. Gaya suddenly remembered the ancient ice core Michael bought in the auction. Unfortunately, the ancient ice core was in Michael''s system storage. Hence, Gaya couldn''t get her hands on the ice core.
"What about Cold mes?" Suddenly when Gaya was feeling helpless, a calm voice resonated in the room. The two of them turned their heads to see a girl dressed in sky-blue robes. Her raven ck hair fluttered in the wind. When she appeared, the temperature rose because of Michael''s body slowly started to drop. A chill air swept across the room.
"Rowena," Gaya mumbled under her breath. Thest time Gaya saw Rowena, she fought the possessed fire giant. Gaya panicked when she saw Rowena. Several questions emerged in her mind. The first was what if Rowena finds out Michael is the Dark Lord? They were as good as dead once the holy maiden learned the truth about Michael.
"Holy Maiden," Lane acknowledged Rowena with a small nod.
"It''s dangerous to use the cold mes, Holy Maiden," said Lane. He knew Ghost already possessed a Primordial me which might refuse to let another Primordial me enter his body. If the two primordial mes shed inside his body, the result would be catastrophically bad. For instance, the entire room might explode into pieces along with his body.
"The Cold mes are the only chance he has," Rowena calmly said. She slowly approached Michael and stood beside Gaya. For a moment, Rowena stared at Gaya without batting an eye. Gaya felt as though Rowena was staring into her very soul itself. Her gaze was cold and piercing. A bad feeling emerged in Gaya''s gut.
"Wait," When Rowena was about to conjure the cold mes, Gaya stopped her.
Just like Lane, Gaya was also concerned about Cold mes meeting the Dark mes.
"Unless you want him to die, you won''t stop me again," said Rowena.
After a deep thought, Professor Lane nodded.
"Let her. This might be his only chance,"
Gaya couldn''t care less about their opinions. She would rather give her life than gamble with his life. However, she saw Michael''s finger tap the table.
"He moved!" Gaya eximed.
"If you want me to cure you, move your finger one more time," said Rowena. To their surprise, Michael tapped the table with his index finger.
Gaya finally heaved a sigh of relief inside. If Michael wanted the cold mes, Gaya knew he must have a way to heal himself with the cold mes. She trusted him. Finally, Gaya stepped aside, letting Rowena conjure the cold mes. As soon as the icy blue me appeared above Rowena''s n, the temperature in the room dropped to the point they could see their own breath.
When Rowena brought the mes closer to Michael''s body, a thinyer of ice started to cover his skin. Slowly, Rowena pressed the mes against the burning wound on his chest. Michael''s body trembled as the cold mes slowly crept into his body through the wound. Initially, Rowena felt something powerful preventing the cold mes from entering his body. But that strong force faded away, and she didn''t find any resistance from his body anymore.
"I brought ice-" Gilrine entered the room with a barrel. His words were abruptly cut short when he saw Rowena in the room.
"Holy Maiden,"
"Shhh," Rowena shushed Gilrine as he quickly shut his mouth. He sneaked into the room, trying his best not to make any sound. On the other hand, Gaya didn''t take her gaze away from Michael, not even for a second.
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Rowena continued to send the cold mes into Michael''s body, removing the blood prince''s corrosion from his body. Although it looked like a simple task, a simple mistake could end the lives of everyone in the room. Rowena focused like a hawk on the task. This was the hardest task Rowena had performed in her life. Despite the cold temperature in the room, Gaya noticed Rowena sweating. Her face turned pale. Anyone with eyes should see the exhaustion on her face as clear as day.
Yet, Rowena didn''t dare to lose focus. Seeing the Holy Maiden''s state, Professor Lane took out a blue potion from his shelf. He waved the potion. Under their gazes, the blue potion evaporated into a cloud and enveloped Rowena. Her body quickly absorbed the cloud to revitalize itself. The treatment processsted for twelve hours. Lane and Gilrine left the room, leaving Rowena and Gaya behind.
Eventually, the grayness in his skin disappeared. Instead, his skin glowed. Furthermore, his breathing returned to normal. Except for the burning wound on the center of his chest, the rest of his body stopped smoking out.
As Gaya was staring at Michael, the cold mes finally disappeared from Rowena''s hand. Gaya looked up at Rowena.
"What happened?" asked Gaya.
"His body needs some time to heal," said Rowena.
"Keep him here. He needs the cold mes for at least a week. I will be here tomorrow at the same time," Rowena turned around. She was about to leave the room when Gaya questioned her,
"Why help him?"
Silence fell over them for a few moments.
"I owe him for saving my family,"
Chapter 662 System Version 7.0
For the next eight days, Rowena came to Lane''s office to treat Michael like clockwork. As a Holy Maiden, she had no need to help Michael at all. But she was not an ungrateful person. Ghost saved her mother and sister. So Rowena was just returning the favor. Even if she knew Ghost was the Dark Lord, she would have still helped him. On the ninth day after Rowena left Lane''s office, Gaya sat on the chair beside Michael, holding his hand as usual.
When Lane asked why she was staying with him, Gaya simply said it was her duty to keep every student alive. She also informed him she wanted to be with Ghost in case he woke up. She wanted to be the first one to know what happened to him, at least that''s what she said to Lane. The office was gloomy and dark. Except for Michael, only silence and grief apanied Gaya. Seconds turned minutes and minutes turned hours.
Gaya gently brushed Michael''s forehead, hoping he would wake up. She didn''t know how long she could keep Nightmare in control. The dragon may be kinder than many of his kind but when someone hurts the people he loves, he would go to any lengths to destroy them. Ever since Nightmare had known what happened to Ghost, he was shouting at Gaya and Elidyr to let him go outside. He wanted to burn the vampires to the ground. Only if she wasn''t weak, Gaya would have done that already.
The night went uneventful until the room suddenly started to be darker and darker. She looked up to see a dark cloud enveloping Michael. Golden lightning bolts appeared out of nowhere, dancing around Michael. Gaya immediately stood up. To her surprise, she saw a movement in his eyes.
"Michael," a sudden joy hit her heart, Her eyes brightened. As though nature itself had sensed Michael''s wakening, dark storm clouds nketed the clear sky in a few moments. Streaks of lightning shed across the sky, almost splitting the sky into halves. The howling wind informed the world about Michael''s awakening. Finally, Michael''s eyes slowly opened. To Gaya''s shock, his eyes were pitch ck.
He slowly rose from the table. There was strange radiationing from him. Gaya could sense it. The energy radiation was powerful enough to make breathing harder. He cracked his neck, creating a crackling sound.
"Michael," unknowing to her, fear clenched her heart. She slowly, without making any sudden movement, put her hand on Michael''s shoulder.
He turned his head,
"I am back," His voice sounded deeper and more demonic than before. Surprisingly, Michael didn''t use any voice modtors. His natural voice turned like this. It took Michael a moment to adjust his voice.
"I am back," Michael repeated the words. This time, in his normal human voice. Despite the darkness, the spooky voice, and the strange energy, Gaya jumped at him, hugging him as tight as she could.
"I am so sorry," Gaya sobbed. It was obvious she med herself for what happened to Michael. However, Michael solely med himself. If he wasn''t weak, the blood prince couldn''t have hurt him.
"Why? I experience near-death experiences like having breakfast," Michael smiled. In her joy of seeing Michael wake up, Gaya failed to notice the troubled look in his eyes. The blood prince''s punch affected him to the point he had to spend three hundred thousand badass points to temporarily heal himself. ording to the system, he had to break through to the Half Immortal stage within the next six months. Otherwise, his body would decay and he had to start everything from the beginning. That meant, a new body at the first stage of cultivation. Simply put, everything he worked hard and built would go down the drain. As long as Michael was alive, he wouldn''t let that happen. Thanks to Rowena and her cold mes, Michael woke up in just eight days instead of the system''s estimation of three months.
His current situation was a blessing in disguise. Plus, it made venturing into the treacherous ocean a high priority. Killing the mutated beasts in the treacherous ocean was the fastest way to reach the Half Immortal Stage. But he must forget to upgrade the system to level 7. Because of his actions on the battlefield, he had six hundred thousand points even after spending three hundred thousand to heal himself.
"We cannot be seen like this here. I''ll be here until morning. You make sure Elidys is all set in my room to activate the array," said Michael. After a long moment of thinking, Gaya eventually decided to leave him.
The moment Gaya left the room, Michael willed the system to show how many gold coins he had in the system storage. His total worth at this point was twenty-five million. He kept eleven million with him in the storage and the rest in the Grandspire bank. Thetter was his backup funds. Without a second thought, Michael ordered the system to convert the entire eleven million into badass points.
"I am sick of this slow-paced journey of mine," Michael mumbled. He yed too safe and it resulted in him getting his ass kicked. The number of enemies he had grew by the day. To be honest, Michael became sick of it.
It was time to remove some heads and root out some pests in his life.
[Conversionpleted¡]
[The host has received 440000 badass points]
Michael took almost eight months to upgrade the system from version 5 to 6. In stark contrast, he decided to upgrade the system to version 7 in just two weeks. All because of his actions on the battlefield. He almost wished for more wars in this world so he could earn millions of badass points in a single day.
"System, upgrade yourself,"
[Wow. That''s really fast. I wish there are more blood princes out there to knock some sense into you, host] The system ridiculed Michael.
[The system upgrade will take six hours. You won''t be able to use the system during the upgrade process]
"I expect a free spell token from you system," said Michael. He was still sitting on the table.
[If you ask nicely, the system might give you one]
Michael jumped to the ground from the table.
"Please,"
To Michael''s surprise, the system gave him no response. It began to upgrade itself while Michaelid back on the chair Gaya was sitting on. Since there was nothing else to do until the system finished its upgrade process, Michael closed his eyes to meditate. Six hours flew by in a blink of an eye. Michael opened his eyes when he heard the system''s notification in his mind.
[The system upgrade ispleted]
[Current System level 7.0]
[The host can now have up to thirty-five subordinates]
[The host has received one free spell token as a gift for upgrading the system]
"I''ll take the Silenes spell please," Michael said. He didn''t even bother to take a look at the spells in the store.
[Ding, The host has sessfully acquired the level 1 Silenes]
[The bubblests for five seconds. The area of effect is a 0.5-meter radius]
Michael heaved a sigh of relief. His next task was to get enough experience points. Michael had two ns to raise his level. To get the first n running, Michael contacted Azazel.
"My Lord,"
"Azazel, initiate n dark sweep. Start with the heads of the three big sects,"
"Can I coordinate with Lady Kan, my lord?" asked Azazel.
"Yes,"
n Dark Sweep was Michael''s quick way to get experience points. Up to this moment, Azazel watched the feeds in the survens room and listed potential targets for the order of death to kill. Now that Azazel had a physical body, Michael was able to send his butler to kill some of the targets, starting with the sect masters of the three big sects. After their deaths, there would be a power vacuum. Hopefully, this power vacuum would destabilize the sects enough for Elder E and CLaire to take over the sects entirely or bite a chunk out of these sects.
Once the three heads were dead, Michael could not only receive experience points, but the status of the Sunrise sect would also rise beyond his expectations.
"Use the moltan gue with care," Michael instructed Azazel. Before leaving for MAzeroth, he gave Azazel a few crates of moltan gue, just to use in a situation like this.
"I will, my lord. I received information about a secret meeting between the three heads from Lady Kan. It''s a good opportunity to kill all the three heads,"
"When is this meeting?"
"In twelve hours," answered Azazel.
"Then I expect the good news in twelve hours. Azazel, don''t get caught,"
"I won''t, my lord," Azazel calmly answered Michael. Confidence reeked in his voice instead of any uncertainty. After cutting themunication with Azazel, Michael quickly took a nce at his status. Since he had upgraded the system, the experience level cap for level up in the Fusion stage reduced from one million to eight hundred thousand. Killing a Fusion stage cultivator would give him five hundred thousand experience points. He roughly needed three dead Fusion stage cultivators to level up. Lucky for him each sect leader was at the Fusion Stage.
"You''re up," Michael heard Lane''s voice from behind. Michael slowly turned around to see Professor Lane enter the office with his usual expressionless face.
"Thanks to you, Professor,"
"Sit," Professor Lane pointed at the chair before the oak table before sitton on his chair.
Although Michael had reached Professor Lane''s cultivation level and was just a few items away from reaching six star alchemist, he respected the man. His knowledge and experience was a dropletpared to Professor Lane''s ocean-like knowledge. Proeffor Lane might be the first man Michael looked upto as a mentor after Spectre.
"Usually, I don''t poke my nose into students'' business. I simply don''t care," said Lane. Judging by his tone, Michael could tell it was indeed the case.
"But your matter is different. You endangered Mazeroth by almost bringing a blood prince to our doorstep. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Chapter 663 The Fall Of The Three Big Sects In Elon
When thest light disappeared over the horizon, darkness enveloped the world. Everything beneath the dark sky was nketed by puffy snow. The howling wind breezed through the trees. Falling snow embraced the trees with its cold embrace, turning the green trees white. Except for a few torches to illuminate the snow-covered paths, the rest of the city of Rosegate slept in darkness. Rosegate was one of the four duchies in Kingdom Kethen and also the only kingdom that didn''t participate in the recent war between Icefair, Pen Town, and mefair.
Almost everyone in Rosegate was sleeping peacefully inside their homes except for the three sect leaders. They held a meeting inside a brightly lit room. Everyone sat around an oak table, taking sips out of the golden chalices. One of them was Sadie Kan. She apanied the Sect Leader of SilverMoon, Urs Colt. She was the prettiest woman in the room. Even Sadie paled inparison in terms of beauty. Urs let her silvery hair free and wore enchanting blue robes which showed her deep cleavage. The other two sect leaders were men. One of them was Lancelot Morningstar, the sect leader of the Morningstar. Lancelot was a fairly built man with striking golden hair. His neatlybed hair was tied into a ponytail and the stubble beard gave him a certain charm with thedies. The one who sat next to him was Garret Eyer, the sect leader of GoldenValley. Unlike Lancelot, Garret was a big bulky man with a bushy beard. Despite the cold weather, Garret was dressed in a vest, leaving his big arms exposed to the coldness, and leather pants,
At the moment, they all shared the same concerned look.
"Are we going to sit here all day and stare at each other ore up with some n?" asked Lancelot.
"We definitely cannot destroy them. Not with all their alliances and connections," said Garret. Contrary to what someone would expect from a big bulky man like Garret, he was surprisingly calm and collected. Simply put, Garret was brawn with brains. That was what made him one of the most dangerous men in the Elon Continent.
"It''s only a matter of time before they make an attempt to take over our sects. How many sects they had already swallowed? Ten? Twenty?"
"Fifteen to be exact," said Urs. It was an enormous number. In a short period of time, the Sunrise sect had gone from a declined sect to one of the most powerful sects in Elon. The g bearer of the takeovers, E was an unstoppable force when it came to pursuing sect leaders to join the Sunrise sect. At first, the three big sects didn''t mind the Sunrise sect taking over a few declined sects. They thought it was a lost cause since those sects were on the brink of closing down. However, as time passed, the Sunrise sect made unrefusable offers to the sects that were running without any problems. One by one, they took over all the sects in Bredia, Dradel, and most of the sects in Kethen. In the sheer number of disciples, they were getting close to each of the three big sects.
"My little birds told me E and ire are eyeing for the sects in the Royal Land," said Urs. Hearing them bitch about the growth of the Sunrise sect made Sadie proud of her friend, Ghost. He joined the sect with nothing and built it from the ground up to challenge the three big sects themselves. Of course, ire, the elders, and E yed a big role in the rise but Ghost was the one who started everything.
"There is only one thing we can do at this point, make counteroffers to those sects. In other words, we take over sects before the Sunrise sect could," said Garret.
"No," Lancelot banged the table with his fist.
"I wouldn''t let those street dogs step into my sect and spoil the great name of Morningstar," gnarled Lancelot. Among the three big sects, Morningstar had the most intense recruiting process. Even if someone had heaven-defying talent, if they were not from a noble background, the odds of their cement in Morningstar would be next to nothing. The Morningstar sect handpicked noble talents.
But now, even the nobles were considering joining the Sunrise sect due to the abundance of cultivation resources avable in the sect. Moreover, the Sunrise sect had the best mentors to guide the youngsters in their cultivation. Once again, Ghost''s pills and potions yed a huge role in producing talents left and right.
"We could have used King Bredia to destroy the sect because of his enmity with Ghost. But after what Ghost did at his daughter''s engagement g, I don''t think King Bredia would even breathe in Ghost''s direction," said Garret.
"Do we even have a n or are we just here to bitch about their growth?"
"It''s you two who''s in trouble. My Sadie here is a good friend of Ghost. So as long as Ghost lives, SilverMoon is safe from the takeovers," Urs grinned, taking a small sip of wine from the chalice.
Garret and Lancelot looked at Sadie for a moment,
"Sadie dear," Urs turned her gaze to Sadie,
"What''s your thought about all this?'' Urs asked Sadie.
"If you ask me, I''d say leave them be. There''s no use in kicking a ho''s nest," said Sadie. The trio was surprised by her answer.
"I don''t see any harm in turning the three big sects into four big sects. Now we are all bitching on an assumption the Sunrise sect will try to take over our sects. Even if they did try, just refuse their offer. It''s that simple," said Sadie.
"Pretty girl, it''s not that simple," Lancelot gritted his teeth. He always thought SilverMoon and the girls were beneath them. Only because they were big and influential enough to rival Morningstar, he tolerated their existence.
"Power is an addiction and that bitch ire and E are way deep in it. They wouldn''t stop until there were no other sects in Elon than the Sunrise sect. If you don''t believe me, my spies with E told me she was indeed talking with some of the elders in my sect. The moment I return to the sect, have to make an example out of these traitors," snickered Lancelot.
"So they had already begun the takeover of our sects,'' Garret sighed.
"It''s not that I don''t believe your spies but if what they said was true, we have a reason to wage war against them. They might be powerful but they cannot win against the three of usbined," said Urs.
"Lancelot," Garret turned his gaze to Lancelot.
"Don''t kill the elders. Make them record their shady deals with E in a recording stone. We use that as leverage to ask ire''s hand in marriage for someone worse. We force ire to kill him. Use that as an excuse to wage a war against them. It''s a ssic way that works every single time," chuckled Garret.
Sadie sighed inwards, almost feeling pity for these fools. Although Sadie seemed to be in cahoots with Urs, Sadie hated Urs to the core. She had turned the SilverMoon into a whole house. The entire continent called the SilverMoon girls bitches due to their cultivation style and the task they performed under the order of Urs.
She picked up poor little girls and turned them into harlots when they came of age. With the Dark Lord''s help, Sadie could finally take the SilverMoon in a different direction. For that to happen, Urs had to die first.
"Lady Kan, it''s time," Suddenly, Sadie heard Azazel''s voice in her head. Her heartbeat slowly increased. Taking a deep breath, Sadie put her hands under the table and took out a vial of the molten gue from her space ring. She released the vapor into the air. Unknown to the three sect leaders, they began to breathe in the poisonous air.
"I have an infamous man whore in the sect. It''s time he gets a chance to settle in life," Lancelot chuckled devilishly.
"To a bad marriage," Urs raised her chalice for a toast. But when raised her chalice, she coughed. Following her, Garret also coughed violently.
"What the fuck?" Lancelot growled but he too fell victim to the violent cough.
They were confused. Suddenly, the bright chandelier flickered.
"Flower barrier,"
To their shock, Sadie waved her hand, casting a spell around them. In a blink of an eye, a wall made of flowers appeared around them, trapping them inside.
"Sadie," Urs growled. Her eyes turned bloodshot. It was obvious to them that Sadie had poisoned them somehow. Because she was the only one who remained without coughing.
Garret quickly reached out for the battle ax behind him as Lancelot tried to cast a counterspell. To Lancelot''s shock, he couldn''t feel the Celestial energy around him.
While the chandelier was flickering, Urs saw a figureing through the blue flower wall around them. The flowers turned ck and crumbled to ashes when the figure touched the wall.
The moment they saw the figure, their eyes went wide. Fear clutched their hearts tightly. At this moment in time, not a single one remained without knowing the name the Dark Lord or Lucifer. His ck robes, the dark clouds around him, and the flickering lights were dead giveaways.
"Dark Lord," Urs mumbled. She crawled backward in utter fear. Unlike the trio, Sadie was nonchnt. She just took a step back, letting the Dark Lord handle them.
Garret finally managed to grab the battle axe. He was about to swing the axe at the Dark Lord when two ck beams shot out of the Dark Lord''s eyes, prating straight through Garret''s head. The battle axe fell from his hand with a loud thud, followed by his lifeless corpse. Lancelot was in shock. But before he could do anything, the Dark Lord turned his gaze toward him as the dark beams cut Lancelot''s head clean off of his shoulder. Blood spurted out from his neck, painting the table red.
"Sadie¡Sadie¡help me¡" Urs lost all the courage to fight as a result of the fear toxin. She grabbed Sadie''s leg, begging for her help.
"Go to hell, bitch," Sadie grabbed Urs by her hair and threw her to the Dark Lord.
Sadie saw the Dark Lord cup Urs''s face. Urs struggled frantically. However, her struggle onlysted for a few seconds as the Dark Lord fired the dark beams straight through Urs''s head. The beams went through Urs''s eyes, forming two big holes in her head.
The trio survived almost a hundred years in the world. But their light of life was snuffed out by the Dark Lord in a few seconds.
"From tomorrow, the SilverMoon sect is yours," said the Dark Lord to Sadie.
Chapter 664 Rowena And Ghost Meet Each Other
While Azazel was ughtering Michael''s potential foes dressed as the Dark Lord, Michael sat in his room with Elidyr, enjoying the experience points. By killing the three sect leaders, Michael earned 1.5million badass points. Since the level cap to reach the next level in the Fusion stage was 800,000 experience points after the system upgrade, he leveled up once. Currently, Michael was a Fusion stage level 8 cultivator with just a hundred thousand experience points away from reaching level 9.
Michael leaned back on his chair, watching Elidyr drawing glowing runes on the floor. Under the red carpet, Elidyr created an array that would let Michael travel between the Akn Realm and the outside world.
"Is it ready yet?" asked Michael.
"Do you know how many defense arrays are around Mazeroth?" Elidyr answered Michael''s question with a question of his own.
"No idea," Michael shrugged.
"One hundred and twenty-eight. It''s not simply to pass through all of them undetected. So give me some time," Elidyr sounded annoyed.
"You don''t have to be a bitch about it," Michael chuckled. He was in a good mood despite his current situation. If he didn''t break through to the Half Immortal stage in six months, his life would be reset. Thanks to Rowena, he had more than enough time to reach the Half Immortal stage. The big obstacle that stood between him and reaching the Half Immortal stage was system upgrade. Luckily, he had upgraded the system. So he only needed approximately one million experience points to reach the Half Immortal stage. In other words, he was just a one Fusion stage kill away from the Half Immortal stage. Hopefully, Azazel would find some targets to ughter.
"What''s your n for Adelia? Are you any closer to finding a cure for vampirism?" asked Elidyr. Ever since he heard what happened to Adelia, he has been nagging Michael to find Adelia. It wasn''t like Michael didn''t want to find Adelia. He almost lost his life trying to find her. Rather, Adelia was clever enough to hide from the rest of the world for years. His best bet was to find the Wise dragon residing somewhere in the treacherous ocean.
However, when ites to curing the vampires, Michael had other ns. The vampires were a deadly force to be reckoned with. If he had an army of vampires, he would be unstoppable. Curing them would turn them into mere mortals, which was a waste of such a powerful force. Hence, Michael wanted to get rid of their weaknesses instead of stripping their power.
"What''s the point of curing them when I can make them better?"
Elidyr stopped working on the array for a moment to look at Michael. His eyes glimmered with shock.
"What do you mean?" Elidyr creased his brows.
"Think about it. All I have is enemies. Everywhere I turn, I see nothing but people who want my head on a pike. The guardians, the Skyhall, the vampires, the queen, and her minions, and tomorrow, there will be someone else. The order is still in the baby phase. I am sick of having too many enemies and too little help. So I am going to build an army of vampires. I just need to get rid of their lust for blood and weakness for the sunlight. Once I do that, they won''t be just cured. They''d be better," said Michael. Elidyr sensed the excitement in his voice.
Unfortunately, Elidyr wasn''t convinced by Michael''s reasoning.
"What about people like Adelia? Those who were forced to be a vampire?"
"Wow, did you drop your brain today? You''re not listening to me. If you take away the blood lust and weakness for sunlight from a vampire, they will be just cultivators," Michael leaned forward, pping the back of Elidyr''s back.
"In other words, I am curing them," said Michael.
"As long as they don''t have any side effects. After all, she is your family," Elidyr hissed.
"I almost died for her. That''s not enough?" Michael slowly shook his head.
"Come on, let''s go. We have a damn ss to attend. I feel like a school kid," Michael rubbed his temples. He was frustrated thinking about attending sses, especially the useless ones like closebat, spell casting, and history of cultivation. The only subject that interested Michael was Alchemy, unlike almost all the students in the House of Alchemy. They all hated Lane. Speaking of Lane, Professor Lane interrogated Michael about the blood prince and how he came into contact with one.
Although Michael was an excellent liar, he didn''t take the risk of lying to Lane. Thus, Michael told him everything except the part where he met the vampires to find Adelia. Since it was all true, Lane believed Michael. Surprisingly, he also advised Michael to stay as far as possible from the vampires. Furthermore, he also asked a few things about Voldigards. Michael still couldn''t believe Lane was Julien Voldigard''s uncle. Apparently, Lane left the family for some reason after a fallout with Julien''s father. If Lane didn''t leave the Voldigard family, Lane would have been the family head, not Julien''s father.
Since Michael and Lane were close, Michael told Lane about Eve''s curse. A partial reason for telling Lane about the curse was to change the topic from the vampires. Because of Michael''s decision to tell Lane, as the head of House Alchemists, Lane granted Michael two weeks'' leave. So could leave MAzeroth for the Treacherous Ocean whenever he wanted.
He was just waiting to reach Fusion Stage level 9. Then, he would leave for the treacherous Ocean. Unfortunately, Gaya had to stay in Mazeroth, to avoid raising suspicion. Michael was still figuring out how to tell Gaya to stay. When ites to her mother, she was an adamant person. Soon, Elidyr and Michael navigated through the corridors and reached thebat ssroom.
Many of the House Alchemists students greeted Michael with waves and fist bumps. As usual, Michael and Elidry went straight to thest bench and put down their books and quills on the table. The two of them leaned back against the wall, closing their eyes to take a short nap. In the entire ssroom, only they liked to sit on thest bench and nap during Gaya''s ss. The others were too scared even to bat an eye once she had entered the ssroom.
Thirty minutes passed in a blink of an eye. Many thought Professor Steinmeyer missed the ss. Even Michael wondered where Gaya went. His train of thought was cut short by a gentle voice.
"Excuse me," Michael heard a girl''s voice. At first, he thought the voice wasing from the table next to them. He was proven wrong when someone tapped his shoulder twice.
Elidyr was long asleep to the point he was snoring. Michael, on the other slowly opened his eyes. A blonde girl with bubbly eyes stared at him. She held the books against her chest and wore emerald green robes which meant she was an alchemist. But Michael had never seen her before.
"Can I sit here?" she asked. Michael looked around the ssroom and found several empty benches, especially among the girls. So Michael wondered why the hell this girl wanted to sit next to him on thest bench at that.
"Knock yourself out," Michael sighed and slid aside. After all, he didn''t own the ssroom to tell the girl to scurry off.
To Michael''s surprise, the girl smiled after sitting next to him and extended her hand to shake his hand.
"I am Ruby,"
As soon as Michael heard the name, it flooded his mind with memories he had buried deep in his head.
"Ruby," The images of Ruby in Michael''s orphanage shed across his eyes. She was like a big sister to Michael. He killed for the first time in his life to protect Ruby.
Even before transmigrating to this strange new world, Michael visited Ruby to ensure she was happy. For a few moments, Michael''s mind was filled with the memories of Ruby. He remained silent until the girl waved her hand before his face.
"Hello,"
Michael snapped back to reality.
"We don''t actually say our names here," said Michael.
The girl grimaced.
"Ah, Ipletely forgot about that. Keep this between ourselves okay?" said the girl.
Michael nodded. He had zero clues that the girl was none other than Rowena Winston. The spell she cast on herself was too powerful for the Environmental scanning or the X-ray eyes to see through her disguise. After saving Michael with the Cold mes, she decided to spend some time with the person who saved her family not once but three times. Furthermore, she felt some strange connection with Ghost when she sent the Cold mes into his body.
She wanted to find the root cause of this strange new feeling.
"Is he always like this?" Ruby asked, looking at Elidyr.
Michael smiled.
"Pretty much," said Michael.
"I am not very good at Alchemy," said Ruby.
"So, will you be able to help me if I''m stuck at some point?"
Michael looked at her. She seemed genuinely asking for his help. Usually, Michael would avoid teaching anyone except Olivia, but the name Ruby was kinda his weakness. So Michael sighed inside and nodded.
"Will do,"
Once again, Michael and Rowena shook each other''s hands without knowing the truth. This was the beginning of Rowena and Michael''s rtionship. Unfortunately, they both didn''t know where it would take them.
Chapter 665 Not So Friendly Duel
Rowena didn''t know Ghost was the Dark Lord and Michael didn''t know Ruby was actually the Holy Maiden, Rowena Winston. Without knowing each other''s secret identity, they conversed like old friends. Since both of them were siblings, they became friends more quickly than one would expect. The usually silent Rowena feltfortable and friendly with Ghost as though she was walking to Noah. Michael exined some of the fundamentals of alchemy to Ruby, in exchange for some battle tips. To Michael''s surprise, Ruby seemed verypetent in battle arts. She talked about war formations, battle tactics, and controlling mes to great extent.
Their conversation went on for almost fifteen minutes until Gaya finally entered the ssroom. Her nce swept across the hall. She slowly walked behind the ceramic table located before the green board. After staring at the students for a while, she flicked her wrist as a silver parchment appeared in her hand.
She opened it up for the students to see but except for the front-row students, the others couldn''t read the words.
"I have in my hand the second-year, battle of the houses circr," said Gaya, She amplified her voice with arch energy for every student to hear her.
"Many of you may know about this but if you don''t let me give the gist. Each student in each house has to pick a challenger from within their house or from the other to engage in a friendly tournament. It''s not a battle tournament. Instead, you will be given a g when your challenger epts the challenge. Defend the g from your challenger. That''s it. If you are a daredevil alchemist who wants to challenge someone from the Warrior house, you have to defend yourself using potions, spells, begging, anything. If you''re a runemaster, you will use runes to defend your g. If you''re a cksmith, you build stuff to fortify your area," the students looked excited to show what they could do. Many had already fixed their challengers in their minds.
Hearing their excited murmur, Gaya rolled her eyes.
"Don''t be too quick to get excited. Since the headmaster will be watching the duel, I decided to spice things up. I allowed the seniors to participate in the duel. So you better pray you don''t get a challenge from a senior. Of course, you have the right to decline the challenge but it won''t look good on you,*cough* chicken," Gaya ridiculed those who wanted to back off if a senior issued a challenge to them.
However, Michael felt excited. There was no one in his current batch who could defeat him. Not that the seniors could defeat Michael but battling seniors would make him get more badass points when he mops the floor with them. Thest time he faced a senior named Diego, he almost killed the guy. Michael wondered whether he still holds a grudge against him.
"Professor Steinmeyer," an Elven girl raised her hand,
"What is it?" asked Gaya.
"How many challenges one could get and issue?" asked the elf.
"As many as you like. If you feel daring, be my guest, challenge anyone you want, how many times you want. The duel willst for three days, so everyone should better be ready," said Gaya.
"You seem happy," Rowena turned her head to see a smile on Michael''s face.
"Just wondering who should I challenge and who might challenge me,"
"What if I challenge you?" Ruby tilted her head.
"I will decline,"
Rowena was surprised by his answer. He didn''t even consider it. However, he didn''t seem like he underestimated her. Rather, he looked like he already had someone in mind who might challenge him.
"Now the seniors will enter this hall and if they feel like it, they might pick you up on a challenge," Gaya turned her gaze to the door as the students from the senior ss entered the hall in a neat line.
"Aren''t you gonna wake him up?" Rowena asked, looking at Elidyr. The dark elf was exhausted enough to sleep without bothering about anything. He just leaned against the wall and slept peacefully. Gaya stepped aside, letting the seniors take a good look at their juniors. Among the seniors, Michael''s eyes fell on the four strongest and most famous students, Deacon Saunders, Bethany White, Diego Carter, Erika Dawson, and Elliot Watson.
As Michael expected, Diego''s eyes turned predatory when he saw Michael on thest bench. To rile Diego up, Michael didn''t even look at him.
"Feel free to talk shit about each other," Gaya jumped on the table and prepared to watch the students pick up their challengers.
"I pick you," Diego''s voice cut through all the noises. Rowena looked at Diego''s eyes and saw deep hatred in them. Everyone turned their heads to see Michael.
"Nope," To their shock, Michael rejected the challenge outright without a second thought.
"I am bored of kicking the crap out of you. Just pick someone weak like you,"
Some of the dwarves in the hall burst intoughter. Even the orcs who saw how the battle between Michael and Diego went furrowed their creases. They really didn''t think Diego had a single chance against Michael. Seeing Diego getting ridiculed by the juniors, his four friends as well as the seniors clenched their fists.
"He wasn''t wrong," Like pouring fuel into a burning fire, Gaya chuckled.
"Last time you challenged him, Gilrine had to carry you to the infirmary," Some of the senior students who hated Diego joined theughter, making Diego into a joke. Diego''s eyes turned blood red with intense anger and hatred. He wanted to rip Michael to shreds. For a few moments, nothing butughter echoed through the hall.
"I challenge you,"
Theughter was cut short by Deacon''s thick voice. He stepped forward, unting his chiseled chest and long ck hair.
"Why is he shirtless?'' Rowena whispered to Michael. Michael wondered the same. Granted Deacon had a magazine-worthy physique probably due to forging stuff and working in a forge too much. Although many, especially girls drooled at his bare upper body, Michael felt like he was being a cringe. Deacon would look like a scrawny kid if Michael removed his robes. At the moment, Michael was too disappointed in Elliot to bitch about Deacon''s wardrobe.
"I don''t need you to save my face," Diego growled.
"I am not saving your face, I am saving our ss''s," Deacon shut Diego up.
The students looked between Michael and Deacon.
"I ept," said Michael.
"If you have any weird manly bets, go crazy," said Gaya. She knew how much Michael enjoyed beating famous people up. So she just made thepetition a little bit more interesting.
"If I win, you have to apologize to Diego in front of all Mazeroth,"
"If I win?" asked Michael with a snicker.
"What do you want?" Deacon didn''t sound like he was being arrogant. Michael sensed no arrogance in his voice, Instead, he felt trust and confidence in his abilities.
"I want you to put on a shirt," Michael''s answer surprised everyone, including Deacon.
Rowena chuckled inside. The dwarves were the ones to firstugh and p for Michael. The dwarves really started to like Michale despite their racial differences.
For a moment Deacon didn''t know whether tough or cry. But eventually, he nodded.
Following their dramatic challenge, the students went on picking whoever they wanted to battle. Many alchemists yed it safe by picking a fellow alchemist instead of someone from the other houses. It made sense and was a perfectly logical decision. Not everyone was Michael. To Michael''s surprise, Ruby got picked by an elf in the warrior house. She epted the challenge without even giving it a second thought.
Elidyr on the other hand-picked by an orc who got irritated by Elidyr''sck of focus on the ss. Because Elidyr was asleep when the orc issued a challenge, Gaya epted the challenge as a punishment for sleeping in the ss. After everything was said and done, Gaya finally announced when the duel will start.
"You have three days to prepare. Each house will have its store room open for you. So knock yourselves out. The duel will begin sharply at eight o''clock in the morning at the arena. Bring your A games with you. ss dismissed," Gaya left the hall before the seniors and the other students. Since the professor went outside, the seniors remained in the ss for a while.
Diego shoved Deacon aside to make his way to Michael.
"Hey wake up," Michael didn''t notice Diego as he was trying to wake Elidyr up.
"Look," Rowena nudged Michael in the hand with her elbow.
Michael turned and saw Diego approaching him with gritted teeth. His four friends followed him behind as Bethany tried to stop Diego from reaching Michael. She didn''t want to cause a ruckus again. Among the students, Victoria and Edith stared at the scene with pure curiosity, especially Victoria. She wanted to witness how Ghost was going to handle Diego. If it wasn''t for Deacon, Victoria would have challenged Ghost, just to see who was the most powerful among them.
When Diego reached thest bench, he mmed his fist on the table, waking up Elidyr.
"What the heck is happening?" The dark elf yawned, stretching his muscles. Then, he noticed Diego staring at Michael with eyes full of killing intent and hatred.
Michael didn''t react much. He just leaned back,
"You made a huge mistake, pal," growled Diego. Most of the students stopped their chit-chatting to focus on Diego.
"That is...?" Michael dragged his words as though he had no idea what Diego was talking about.
"Diego," Bethany called for Diego. She ced her hand on his shoulder but he pushed aside her hand.
"Listen to you buddies and save yourselves further embarrassment," said Michael. He slowly stood up, followed by Elidyr and Rowena. He came face to face with Diego. Since Michael was taller than Diego, he looked down at Diego with a ridiculing smirk.
"You may have bested me earlier. But it won''t happen again. When-"
"Just get out of my face,"
Diego''s words were cut short as Michael nudged him aside with his broad shoulder and walked away from him.
"Arrogance is weakness disguised as strength. It will only lead you one way, down," When Michael was passing Elliot, he heard these words from him. Instead of responding to Elliot, Michael walked away. He preferred to talk in action rather than words. In three days, he would show the difference between him and all the others.
Chapter 666 Nightmare鈥檚 Question
Three days flew by in a blink of an eye. In the three day, Azazel, Aria, and Sadie ended Michael''s potential foes who nned to interrupt the Sunrise sect''s rise. Thanks to the trio''s perfect coordination, the assassinations went without a hitch. As a result, Michael reached the Fusion Stage 10 and was just 300,000 experience points away from breathing through to the Half Immortal Stage. Finally, having subordinates and an Order paid off for Michael. He couldn''t have earned Experience points this fast without them.
Now that the Dark Lord was killing people while Ghost was in Mazeroth, even the Sea Folk wouldn''t think of Ghost as the Dark Lord.
"Are you ready for today''s duel?" Michael slowly opened his eyes to see Nightmare sitting atop his chest. Michael took a short nap to make himself reinvigorated. Elidyr on the other hand didn''t even bother to think about the duel. Instead, he focused on finishing the teleportation array, and finally, he managed to finish it. Now Michael could travel back and forth without buying a teleportation scroll from the system. Furthermore, the defense arrays in MAzeroth wouldn''t detect Michael.
"Deacon is at the Core Strengthening stage. I am at the steps of the Half Immortal stage. There is no duel. It''s going to be me kicking his ass in front of all the mazeroth,"
Michael said, ying with Nightmare''s growing horns.
"What if Deacon sensed your cultivation level?" asked Nightmare.
"He would have still gone for it," said Michael.
"I think so too. But still, I want to see what a four-star cksmith can do," said Nightmare.
Even Michael wanted to see the capabilities of a cksmith in a battle. He wondered how Deacon would utilize his talents in the duel. The more amazing things Deacon does, the more badass points he would receive by defeating him.
"Elidyr," Michael turned his gaze toward Elidyr. The half-elf was sitting before his work table and busy trying to create some new runes. He finally slowly turned his head around after Michael called him.
"Don''t make it look too easy. Apparently, the headmaster will be there. So we have to y it safe,"
"Wulfric, that old bastard,"
"You know him?" Michael rose from the bed with a tinge of curiosity in his eyes. He grabbed Nightmare gently and kept the dragon on hisp. He took Nightmare''s front legs and made him do a little dance while talking to Elidyr. The gesture showed Elidyr of the Dark Lord''s yful side. The more time Elidyr spent with Michael, the more he realized that Skyhall pushed Michael to be the Dark Lord. If he was left alone, Elidyr knew he would have lived his life peacefully. By stripping the Dark Lord of everything, the skyhall dug its own grave. His powers grew by the day. Elidyr sensed it. Although he acted calm andposed when he was with Michael, Elidyr was afraid of the Dark Lord deep down.
He couldn''t even imagine how powerful the Dark Lord would be after stepping into the Half Immortal stage, the start of the Dark Lord''s Godhood.
"I do," Elidyr nodded his head.
"Tell me about him," asked Michael.
"You know the usual. An orphan with immense talent. Chosen by the Mazeroth when he was little. He studied, taught, and became the headmaster. No one has a clear idea how old he is. All I know is he must be an Immortal,"
"Speaking about? What are the stages above Half Immortal?" asked Michael.
"Immortal, Half Celestial, Celestial. After the Celestial stage, your body can leave this world and venture into the universe out there,"
"Why would anyone do that?" asked Michael. He was genuinely curious to see what''s the point of leaving this world when it has so much to provide. As far as Michael was concerned, he wouldn''t go out until he fully controlled this world and got bored with it. He wasn''t a fan of going somewhere else, starting from the beginning and working his way up again and again.
"To find a better world I think,"
Nightmare almost burst intoughter.
"Can''t they make this world a better ce?" asked Nightmare.
"To do that, you have to go through the Skyhall. That my little dragon, is no small feat. When you end up on Skyhall''s radar, you''re doomed to live a miserable life. No offense to you though," Elidyr said to Michael.
Michael shook his head.
"None taken. You were right. They did make my life miserable. The Skyhall took something from me and I will take everything from them," His eyes turned predatory. Deep hatred and killing intent radiated from his body. Both Nightmare and Elidyr sensed it. But Michael quickly controlled his emotions so the room wouldn''t grow darker. He got slightly better at manipting the element of darkness after almost nearly dying at the hands of the blood prince.
"Have you met him?" asked Michael.
When Michael asked this question, Elidyr''s mind went nk. He couldn''t think of a single ce or time he had met Wulfric. No matter how hard he thought, he simply couldn''t find a memory of Wulfric and his meeting.
"Are you alright?" asked Nightmare, looking at the bewildered look on Elidyr''s face.
"Yeah, yeah. I didn''t meet him,"
"So who imprisoned you? Do you think Wulfric knew about your imprisonment? After all, you spend centuries in the Akn Realm,"
It made sense for Wulfric to know about his imprisonment. However, Elidyr couldn''t find any memories of Wulfric''s involvement in the imprisonment. How could he? Wulfric removed all the memories rted to him before Michael saved Elidyr.
"I don''t think so," Elidyr shook his head.
"Bullshit," rebuked Michael.
"You were under his nose all the time and you''re saying he doesn''t know about it? No way. Time must have degraded your memories," said Michael. Silence fell over them. After long deep thinking, Eldry opened his mouth.
"There is a chance someone from the Skyhall had removed specific memories," said Elidyr. Shock and surprise emerged in Nightmare''s eyes.
"If that''s the case, what memories didn''t they want you to have? Must be something pretty important," Michael rubbed his chin.
"You created the ritual to send me to earth right? What do you remember about that? You were imprisoned when they performed the ritual. So who performed the ritual? What were the requirements for this ritual except for the one that my mother gave me up willingly?" asked Michael.
After learning that his mother gave him up willingly, Michael didn''t bother to investigate the ritual because there was no need to. He saw no point in dwelling in the past or trying to decode the ritual. But he felt curious when he realized there might be a chance they messed with Elidyr''s memories. If they did remove Elidyr''s memoirs, he wanted to know which one.
"Blood of celestial, Phoenix ashes¡"
Elidyr listed out everything needed for the ritual. But none of them seemed out of the ordinary. They were nothing but typical rare things to perform the ritual.
"Are there any specific requirements about the one who performs the ritual?" asked Nightmare.
"Must be at least an Immortal. But the ritual came with a drawback. Whoever performs the ritual will have their souls explode into pieces. In other words, they would die at the end of the ritual,"
"That''s removed the headmaster from the list since he''s alive," said Nightmare.
"Unless there was someone who witnessed the ritual or we found your," ELidyr paused his words.
"My mother, I don''t have a chance to know the truth. But if they were able to remove memories, it''s possible that woman didn''t even know she gave birth to me,"
Michael''s hatred ran deep. Hence, he used the words ''that woman'' instead of mother. He hated his real family to the point he didn''t even bother to find them. If a powerful organization like the Skyhall forced him to give up his child, Michael would either kill them all or die rather than give up his child. No amount of torture could make him do such a thing.
"Well, I will get my answers when I burn the Skyhall and the Guardians to the ground," said Michael.
"Do you remember asking me about the god of light?" ELidyr suddenly asked Michael.
"Yeah. I think Noah might be one," answered Michael.
"Light spells, drawing power from the light, darkness weakening him, Andreas choosing him to be the sessor and trains to defeat the dark lord," these were the exact words spoken by Elidyr after Michael defeated the Elder Vampire with Noah.
"At first I thought, if Noah is the God of Light and I am the God of Darkness, we may be somehow rted. But when I tested Sabrina''s blood against mine, we shared no connections whatsoever," said Michael.
"Why did you ask me that suddenly?" asked Michael.
"Nothing. I just thought Andreas might have some ideas,"
"Ideas about what?" asked Michael. On the other hand, Nightmare was deep in thinking about something else.
"The ritual and my memories,"
"Don''t even think about asking Andreas. The moment we tell Noah that we know about Andreas''s existence, Andreas will turn his focus on us or do some weird shit to figure out my secret," said Michael. Moreover, the system warned him not to touch Noah until he upgraded the system to level 8. This meant Michael had to be cautious every step of the way when ites to Noah. That was the reason Michael always kept a distance between Noah and his family. His future meant more than his past.
"Let''s go out. It''s time," Michael finally left the bed. He felt excited about the duel because he would be able to reap hundreds of thousands of badass points.
But when he was about to turn the doorknob and leave, Nightmare''s question halted his steps.
"GHosty, what if Sabrina wasn''t Lady Diana''s real daughter?" Nightmare''s question surprised both Michael and Elidyr. His question made sense to Elidyr. ording to everything ELdiry had heard about Noah and his family, heaven-defying talent and godly powers ran within their family. Noah might be the God of Light and Rowena was the Holy Maiden. So Elidyr wouldn''t be surprised if the God of Darkness was born in the Winston family.
Michael slowly turned to look back at Nightmare. The dragon tilted his head to the side and questioned Michael.
"What if we take Lady Diana''s blood and test it again?"
Chapter 667 The Friendly Duel Begins
The grand arena for the friendly duel was all set and filled with students. Among the seven batches in Mazeroth, only the sixth and seventh batches participated in the duel. The rest of them were there to cheer for their favorite senior brother or sister. Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the pitch so the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. Every second stand was decorated with the colors of one House, and every other stand with the colors of the opposing House. Surprisingly, the staff, headmaster, and professors sat with the students instead of special seating.
From above, the arena looked in the shape of an oval. It was at least five hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide.
The students from the twopeting batches gathered around in the hall beneath the spectator seats and Michael was one of them. He stood beside Rowena and Elidyr, waiting for their turn. Outside where they were, headmistress Ka Martin slowly rose from her seat. With a single wave of her hand, she sent a wave, silencing the students.
When the arenapletely fell silent, she began to speak, amplifying her voice with Celestial energy.
"Let us have a joyous entertaining, safe friendly duel. This is an event to create joyful memories, not to start blood feuds. Remember that. But do your best to impress our guests," Ka Martin looked at the few ashen-haired old people sitting beside her.
"They might offer you an invitation to join the most prestigious organization in the world, the skyhall," As soon as Ka Martin uttered these words, many students gasped in shock. They all stared at the three elderly figures with wide eyes. Without wasting much time, Ka waved her hand.
"Now for the rules," said Ka Martin.
The two doors on each side slowly opened. The one who walked out of the door was none other than Gaya. She leaped from one side andnded in the center of the arena in a blink of an eye.
"We have ced several defense and healing arrays in the arena to ensure the students'' safety. Rules are simple, one student will have a g and the other will have to take the g and go through this hoop," as she said, Gaya flicked her wrist. A golden hoop materialized in the sky.
"If you defend the g from your opponent for five minutes, you win. You can use everything at your disposal. To make the duel fair, your cultivation stage will be suppressed to the Core Formation stage," said Gaya.
The rules seemed simple. Because everyone would be forced to fight and defend as a Core Formation stage cultivator, many lost their advantage. As a result, the duel became fair for all. Every student had to rely on their specialization to win the duel.
"Students, please step through the door ording to your numbers," Michael heard Gaya''s voice. They all received a silver card with a number etched in red before entering the arena. The two who held number one were Ruby and an Elf from the House Warrior.
"Good luck," said Michael.
"Tell that to the elf," Ruby calmly said before walking through the crowd. The moment Ruby and the elf stepped into the arena, the feed of the arena materialized above the students. In the mirror, they could see Ruby and the Elf making their way to the center. Gaya floated near the golden hoop. When the twopetitors reached the center, Gaya threw a tiny blue g to the elf from above. Since he challenged Ruby, he had to defend the g from her.
After the elf caught the g, Gaya pped her hands together as two bright lights appeared almost fifty meters away from the golden hoop. The emerald green light symbolized the Alchemy House while the silver one symbolized the House of Warriors.
"Go to your designated areas," said Gaya.
With a simple nod, the elf and Ruby went to the glow and stood, basking in the light.
"You have a minute to prepare yourself," instructed Gaya.
"Warriors!"
"Warriors!"
"Warriors!"
The majority of the arena supported the elf by cheering the word ''Warriors'' as loud as they could. Michael ignored those cheers and focused on Ruby who remained calm as the sea. The elf waved his hand before taking out a golden bow and a quiver filled with obsidian arrows. He then stuck the blue g behind him on the ground.
Meanwhile, Rowena remembered, doing nothing. Many thought she had given up before even the duel, while some thought she was being arrogant. After hearing Ruby talk about formations, battle tactics, andbat skills in great detail, Michael was curious to see what this strange new girl could do in a real battle. No one was stupid enough to think the elf would go easy on her.
The minute passed in a blink of an eye.
"Time''s up. Let the friendly duel begin,"
A thunderous bell rang in the arena. Finally, the friendly duel between Ruby and the elf began with the cheers of all the students. The moment the light covering them disappeared, the elf fired an arrow at Rowena. It soared through the air, leaving a blurry trail. To everyone''s shock, Rowena grabbed the arrow without breaking a sweat. The elf was shocked, but it wasn''t enough for Rowena to stop him from firing arrow after arrow at Rowena. But the result was the same, she dashed forward, catching every arrow the elf fired. In a few moments, she had a handful of arrows.
Almost a minute had passed since the duel began. Rowena almost reached the elf. When everyone, including Michael himself thought Rowena would close the gap between them, she threw all the arrows in the air. The students looked up at the arrows in the air. As the arrows reached their maximum height, Rowena closed her eyes for a moment and sent a pale blue wave of energy toward the elf. The wave transformed itself into a tube in the middle of the way. Suddenly, the ethereal tube leaped into the air. Before the elf could react or fire another arrow, the tube fell down, prisoning the elf within.
The tube trembled slightly. Soon, all the arrows in the air soared through the air toward the tube. They all rained into the tube from above with enough force to make some students close their eyes. They thought the elf was being skewered by his own arrows.
"ARGH!" The elf screamed from within. Luckily for the elf, the arrows only prated his shoulders and feet. With a simple leap, Rowenanded next to the tube. She slowly ced her hand on the tube as it faded away into thin air. The elf was bleeding and groaning in agonizing pain. He couldn''t even lift his finger let alone his bow. Rowena waved her hand as the g flew straight into her hand. The students were in shock, especially the students of House Warriors. Never in a million years had they expected an alchemist to defeat one of their own so easily.
When they thought Rowena was about to fly through the loop to end the duel, she surprised them all by punching the elf in the face. His nose bone shattered with a sickening crunch. The force and sudden pain made the elf lose consciousness in an instant. The elf stumbled down on the arrows. Some of the arrows prated his back, drawing more blood out of his body.
Throwing ast cold nce at the elf, Rowena leaped into the air and flew straight through the hoop. The students from house alchemy rose from their seats to cheer for Ruby. Their thunderous roar echoed through the arena. She defeated the elf within two minutes. Except for Professor Lane, the other professors pped for Ruby. They were impressed by her.
"Yo sixty-six, is that your girlfriend?" some of the dwarves asked Michael.
"What makes you think that?" asked Michael.
"Because she is a freak like you, hahahaha," the dwarves burst intoughter.
"That pony challenged a wrong human," another dwarfughed, ridiculing the elves.
The dwarves never wasted an opportunity to ridicule the elves. The elves hated both Ruby and that elf for getting his butt kicked by a human girl. Judging by the look in their eyes, the elf would definitely receive another beating from the elves when he returns to his room.
"The alchemists are really icing the warriors'' butt this year," The dwarves continued to rile up the elves. They had a goodugh. From the corner of the hall, Diego stared at Michael with eyes full of hatred. Following Ruby''s victory, the students saw several duels where the Warriors outshined everyone. Only some of the runemasters and cksmiths managed to defeat the students from warrior houses. The others, especially the alchemists, got their shit kicked out of them. Since the House warriors held a grudge against the Alchemists because of Michael and Ruby''s first victory, they didn''t hold back at all. Many alchemists would have lost their lives if it wasn''t for the healing arrays.
When the sun began to set on the horizon, the students began to roar the names Deacon and ''Sixty-six''. In Mazeroth, the final year students were allowed to use their real names. Since they would leave Mazeroth afterward, Wulfric allowed them to reveal their names so their friendship could continue even after leaving Mazeroth. Hence, they cheered for Deacon using his name and Michael with his given number.
The students got their wishes toe true. The moment they saw Deacon and Michael, the students roared. All the students rose from their seats to get a good look at the ground. Even Victoria and Edith couldn''t remain seated anymore.
Michael slowly made his way to the center, cracking his neck.
"The God of Darkness," Wulfric, who sat beside Ka Martin, leaned forward. Finally, he met Michael in person instead of his ss orb. Wulfric had never felt such immense power from anyone in his life. Even Harriet''s power paled inparison with his.
He couldn''t even imagine how powerful he would be after entering his Godhood.
As usual, Gaya gave Deacon a g since he was the one who challenged Michael. After getting the g, Deacon went to the crimson red light symbolizing the House cksmiths. In contrast, Michael went to the emerald green light.
Chapter 668 Winning The Duel
Everyone felt revitalized when they saw Deacon and Michael on the ground. Their cheers died down due to the overwhelming excitement. Except for Ruby''s battle, every battle went ording to their guesses. None of the matches had two equally strongpetitors. Even though Michael was an Alchemist, not a single student underestimated him.
"Let the battle begin," said Gaya. Her voice swept across the area. Without wasting time, Deacon flicked his wrist as a feel tall and wide metal box materialized on the ground before him. He quickly stepped on the box. To Michael''s surprise, the metal box transformed itself by forming a metal armor on Deacon. The armor pieces covered him up from his legs to his head. In a few blinks of an eye, Deacon suited uppletely. The silver te armor didn''t leave a single ce on Deacon''s body exposed.
After adorning the armor, Deacon looked a foot taller and wider. Slowly, he raised his hand, taunting Michael toe closer. The armor and the way Deacon suited up surprised Michael. It was like in the Iron Man movie, except Deacon''s armor resembled a typical knight armor rather than iron man''s armor. In addition to the armor, Michael noticed several runes glowing in various colors. Bethany White, Deacon''s fiance, and Diego''s love enhanced the armor''s attributes by cing several runes. Since she was a 4-star Runemaster, the runes on the armor were pretty powerful. Many thought Deacon''s odds of defeating Michael went way up.
"That was badass," Michael couldn''t help admiring Deacon''s suit of armor.
But despite everything, Michael felt excited. Defeating an armored Deacon would get him more badass points than Deacon without armor. Thanks to Deacon''s badass suit-up action, Michael could be more badass by winning this duel and their bet. Michael didn''t waste any time. Deacon had the advantage of defending the g. If he defended it for three minutes, he will win. Michael had to take the g which was stuck between the armor and Deacon''s chest. Wasting no time, Michael dashed at Deacon, casting the lightning dash. Because of the evening sky and the darkness, he was more powerful than he was in the morning. He left golden streaks of lightning in his trail. Many students saw nothing but a blur. But before Michael could close the gap between them, Deacon raised his hand. Suddenly, a fireball shot out of Deacon''s arm with a loud boom. Sparks of fire flew as smoke puffed out of the armor. Everyone, including Michael was shocked. The fireball soared through the sky, creating a deafening sound.
The golden streaks of lightning and the fiery crimson-red fireball shed in the middle. A loud boom echoed through the arena along with a powerful shock wave. The fireball exploded into smithereens, producing a thick cloud where it shed with the golden lightning streaks. Deacon put his arm down. All of a sudden, a powerful gust of wind sted away the smoke, revealing Michael. He stood there unscathed with the ck shield in his hand. Many people gasped in shock. He blocked the fireball with a shield and remained still.
Like everyone, Deacon was stunned. A small grin emerged on Michael''s face. The system notifications rang continuously in his head. The number of badass points went from forty thousand to three hundred thousand in mere moments. Still, Michael did not give Deacon another chance to fire another fireball. Once again, Michael dashed at Deacon. This time, Michael closed the gap before Deacon could react. Although they were both at the Core Formation stage, the darkness boosted Michael''s power. Surprisingly, Deacon''s armor was flexible. He swung his metal arm left and right, trying to swat away Michael.
Many, including Gaya expected Michael to punch the armor with all his might. But he surprised them by doing somethingpletely unexpected. While running around Deacon''s armor, Michael smashed emerald green vials on the armor. ss vials shattered when they came into contact with Deacon''s armor. If Michael was to punch the armor, he would be able to make a dent in the armor because of the runes. They protected and made the armor quite strong. However, end of the day, the armor was metal. And Michael was an Alchemist with potions to corrode and melt metals.
The students saw the silver armor turning green. When they looked closer, they saw green goo covering Deacon. Deacon immediately sensed the threat. He tried to get the green goo off of his armor. The green goo was a special potion Michael created in his free time. After seeing the beast on the battlefield, Michael wanted to have ways to diffuse metal weapons. So he came up with the metal eater. It was several times stronger than hydrochloric acid.
Even with such a powerful acid, the armor was able to withstand instead ofpletely melting down. Deacon moved his hand left and right to get a hold of Michael. After failing to grab Michael with his hands, Deacon used his entire body to bear hug Michael. His daring maneuver was fruitful as he finally grabbed Michael. Deacon tried to squeeze Michael. With armor, Deacon was extremely strong. His hands wrapped around Michael''s waist. Michael grabbed Deacon''s shoulder and pushed himself back to avoid being squeezed. Although he was able to stop being squeezed, the acid got onto his emerald green robes.
Time was running out. Suddenly, Michael head-butted Deacon. The force of the hit stunned Deacon for a moment. Without giving Deacon time to retaliate, Michael used his feet to push himself out of Deacon''s grab. At the same time of the push, Michael cast the Wind st. The sudden st of Wind pushed Deacon backward while throwing Michael out of Deacon''s hold.
"How does it feel like to taste your own medicine?" Deacon snickered. Michael couldn''t see his face through the metal helmet, but he could feel the arrogant smile on Deacon''s face.
The acid ate through Michael''s robes in a few blinks of an eye. Under everyone''s gazes, Michael grabbed his robe and tore it away, finally revealing his bear upper body to the crowd. The students were stunned, especially the female students. They almost drooled at his chiseled body. Every piece of muscle had clear definitions as though his body was made from a special ce. Wulfric and the staff raised their brows, not because of the muscles but because of the scars on his body. The entire was riddled with scars, burn wounds, and marks.
Ignoring the sound of gasps in the crowd, Michael cracked his neck.
"You have a minute," said Gaya.
"Sixty seconds, more than enough," Michael''s words oozed with confidence. Bolts of lightning crackled all around his body, almost covering him like a golden nket. At this moment, he looked like the god of lightning. In a blink of an eye, Michael dashed at Deacon. This time, he left after images on his trail. Deacon didn''t even have time to raise his hands to cast a spell when Michael hit Deacon in the chest. The force of Michael''s punch sent Deacon flying. The heavy metal hit the ground with a loud thud.
Deacon left a trail of dust for several meters. Michael didn''t give any time for Deacon to pick himself up. Hended on Deacon''s chest with a single leap. The emerald green alchemy mes covered his hands. Since Wulfric was here, Michael didn''t use the Dark mes. Using his me-covered hands, Michael grabbed Deacon''s chest te.
"ARRGHHH!" Michael''s biceps flexed up as he roared, tearing the chest te in half. With a final thundering roar, Michaelpletely tore off the armor and took the g from Deacon''s chest. Michael threw the g into the air before smashing Deacon''s head between the two ripped metal pieces. Deacon felt his head being smashed by two hammers. Everything turned dark as he got knocked cold.
After knocking out Deacon, Michael shot to the sky like an arrow. He grabbed the g in the mid-sky. Throwing a final nce at Deacon, he flew straight through the golden hoop, finishing the duel. Everyone pped and let out thunderous cheers for Michael. The Alchemists were extremely proud of Michael. Today, Michael had be a role model for many first-year alchemists. He proved that an Alchjemit could defeat anyone. First, he defeated Diego, and now, he crushed Deacon, a 4-star cksmith.
The orcs, dwarves, and even some of the elves pped. They couldn''t help admiring Michael. Meanwhile, Michael was extremely happy. Not because he defeated Deacon, but because of the one million badass points he received. He handed over the g to Gaya. She gave an approving nod. Eventually, under the thunderous cheers, Michael went through the door that he came from to join the others.
After Michael''s battle, a few of them battled it out, but none were as entertaining as Michael''s battle. Eventually, the first day of the friendly duel came to an end. Michael returned to his room,id back on the bed, and started to ponder how to spend the million badass coins.
"What to do?" Michael asked himself.
He thought about buying new spells for a moment, but after taking a look at his status window, he chose not to. Instead, he decided to upgrade the existing spells as much as he could with the points he had. His instincts told him to strengthen himself before venturing into the treacherous Ocean. As the first step, Michael upgraded the Eyes of Doom, Energy Devourver, and Soul Eater. They were the low levels spell in his arsenal. In a blink of an eye, he spent four hundred thousand badass points. The three spells had reached level 5 after the upgrade.
That was a simple task. The difficult one was which spell to upgrade next. He was in deep thinking. After a while, Michael decided to hold onto the points so he could upgrade whichever spell he needed the most in the treacherous ocean or use them to buy something else. Finally, Michael closed the system and his eyes for a good night''s sleep. He wanted to get some sleep before venturing into the treacherous ocean again. Who knew how many dangers he would face this time?
Chapter 669 Meeting Of Michael And Victoria Barnes I
The next day, when the first light appeared on the horizon, dark chili clouds nketed the sun. Snow pure as an innocent child blessed the earth with its puffy whiteness. The trees shed their leaves, weing the winter with a warm embrace. The winter brought ck and whiteness along with a bone-chilling coldness. Everything in Mazeroth looked white. The ckke resembled a floor made of obsidian. Mazeroth castle towers wore puffy snow-like hats. The students, especially the first years, rushed outside to y in the snow. Several students showed their imagination through various statues made of ice. Another group showed their lust for destruction by destroying those statues. Nheless, pure fun was just as abundant as the snow in Mazeroth.
Back in his room, Michael slowly opened his eyes. He felt the chillness in the air and the joyful shots from the outside. He stretched his arm, pulling aside the curtains to see the heavy snow rain through the window.
"So the winter is here," Michael yawned. He jumped back from the bed and started doing push-ups to warm his body as usual. It took Michael almost fifteen minutes to freshen up. Although cultivators didn''t need baths, Michael''s old habits followed him to the new world. Hence, Michael had never started a day without taking a bath and brushing his teeth.
Wondering how to convince Gaya to stay behind while he ventures into the treacherous ocean, Michael walked out of his room. He was on his way to the arena so he could watch how Elidyr fared in the duel. To Michael''s surprise, themon room was filled with a crowd.
"Why is everyone here?" Michael thought to himself. Usually, the alchemy students would greet Michael with wide grins and fist bumps. But at this moment, none of them dared to move an inch. They all stood around something.
"So no specialization is inferior to another one. You cannotpare one with another. If you reach the top of your specialization, you won''t have to fight,"
Michael heard a calm voice. Immediately the voice made Michael think of a wise old man. But he didn''t sense anyone in his Environmental Scanning. He nced at the room to find Ruby. She wasn''t in the room.
"Learn to make the world a better ce. Do not let the power corrupt you, my children," For some reason, Michael felt like these words were directed at him. Michael was curious. He wanted to see the voice''s owner.
"That''s all the time I have now. If a higher force allowed us, we will meet again," Unfortunately, the man seemed to have finished his gathering with the students. Michael slowly squeezed through the students to reach the front line. He was more curious than cautious. When he reached the front, he saw an old man with a long white beard and round sses hanging on his nose. He was neither too tall nor too short. His body was hidden within the extravagant purple robes. As Michael imagined, the man looked wise, gentle, and an embodiment of calmness.
"Here you are," The man weed Michael with a gentle smile.
"They wanted to wake you up. But I didn''t allow them. Did you rest well?" The man asked in a grandfatherly tone.
"Headmaster," Michael was stunned. It was Wulfric, the headmaster of Mazeroth himself. What surprised him more was Michael didn''t even sense the man''s presence. Even when he met Wulfric face to face, Michael couldn''t sense his cultivation stage. But his neck hair tingled. Deep within, Michael felt a strange surge of energy. Every fiber in Michael''s body warned Michael of the powerful being before him. One thing was for sure, Wulfric was much more powerful than Michael thought he was.
"How about you walk me outside?" asked Wulfric. Michael wanted to get as far as possible from the man. However, he didn''t have a choice but to nod.
"It''d be my pleasure, headmaster," said Michael.
The students around Michael felt jealous. He got to talk to the headmaster alone. Only Michael knew the danger he was in. Having no other choice, Michael walked beside Wulfric.
"Among the four seasons, winter might be my favorite. What about you?" asked Wulfric.
"I think I like all of them headmaster," said Michael.
"Do you know why I like winter? It''s the perfect bnce of light and darkness, as all things should be. Don''t you agree?"
Michael felt a chill running down his spine. Despite the cold, Michael sweated beneath his robes. Silence fell over them. They both walked through the corridor in silence.
"Bnce, yes," Michael nodded, breaking the silence. He didn''t want to make things awkward.
"This year might be Mazeroth''s golden age. We will receive yet another talented alchemist," said Wulfric. Michael creased his furrows.
"Noah Winston. You might have heard about him," Although Michael expected this deep down, it was still a bit surprising to hear it from Wulfric.
"I do know him, headmaster," said Michael.
"Are you a friend of his?" asked Wulfric.
"We just know each other. It''s a small world, headmaster," Despite everything, Michael remained calm.
Luckily, Wulfric and Michael reached the outside where Wulfric stretched his arm to collect some of the falling snow.
"Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowke. Just like a long blood feud or lifelong friendship start with a single decision," Wulfric patted Michael on the shoulder before ascending to the sky. Michael waited until Wulfricpletely disappeared from his sight. As soon as he disappeared, Michael turned around and rushed back to his room.
"Hey, what did the headmaster say to you?"
"Did he give you any pointers?"
Several students questioned Michael when they saw him back. But Michael ignored all of them. He rushed to his room.
"Gaya," Michael immediately contacted Gaya.
"Elidyr, Nightmare," Without waiting for Gaya to respond, Michael contacted Elidyr and Nightmare.
"I am in the middle of a ss. Are you alright? You sound worried," Michael heard Gaya''s voice in his head.
"Drop everything you''re doing and get back to my room ASAP," said Michael.
"Anything happened?" asked Gaya.
"No time to exin. Do what I say, now,"
He also ordered Elidyr and Nightmare toe to his room. While waiting for them, Michael upgraded the Environmental Scanning and paid the system a sum of badass points to strengthen the Eyes of Darkness.
The moment the system finished upgrading the spells, Michael closed his eyes. He spread his senses around him. His eyes abruptly opened. Shock and panic glimmered in his eyes. The room grew gloomier as a dark shroud enveloped Michael. He looked up. Suddenly, the sound of something shattering resonated in the air. The level 8 Environmental Scanning exposed the surveince spell put on Michael.
"System, can you trace the origin of that surveince spell?" asked Michael.
[The system sensed the origin is from somewhere in the Akn Realm. But system version 9 required to pinpoint the exact location] said the system.
The system''s words confirmed Michael''s suspicion. Michael spent two hundred thousand badass points to increase the Darkness maniption from 28% to 36%. As a result, his Eyes of Darkness received an ability to see through disguises. After meeting Wulfric and learning about the surveince spell put around him, Michael had a feeling there might be people of Skyhall around him in disguise.
"How can I be this careless and stupid?" Michael punched the wall, creating a fist size hole in the wall.
"I was being watched all this time," Michael gritted his teeth.
His anger was cut short by someone outside his door. Michael sensed a Core Formation level cultivator knocking on the door. Judging by the outline of the silhouette, it was a female.
"System, if something goes wrong, do whatever you want and get me, Gaya, Elidry, and Nightmare the hell out of here,"
[Noted host]
Even the system sounded serious. Michael slowly made his way to the door and opened it. To his surprise, it was Edith who stood outside his door.
"What do you want?" Michael was not in the mood to entertain Noah''s girlfriend. Hence, his tone was not his usual friendly calm one. Edith was slightly surprised by his response. But she didn''t show any emotion on her face. After all, she was here to ask Ghost about something important, not to pick a fight with him.
"Someone is waiting to meet you,"
"I don''t have time for this. If they want to meet me, ask them toe here,"
Michael was about to close the door when Edith put her hand on the door, stopping Michael.
"Sorry for this," Edith snickered. The next moment, Michael felt the space around him distort. In a blink of an eye, the scenery around him changed from his cozy room to a mountain top. Michael saw several floating mountains around him. He could tell he was in the Akn realm but not exactly where in the Akn Realm.
"My sincerest apologies, Ghost. You left me with no choice," Michael looked over his shoulder and saw Edith.
"She is a good girl. Just a little bit stubborn," Edith chuckled. Her best friend was the prettiest and on the way to bing the most powerful woman in the world. Who wouldn''t like her? Edith doubted Ghost would be an exception.
"Who?" asked Michael. He controlled his impulse to rip Edith to shreds for teleporting him without his consent. She was lucky to be Lah''s younger sister.
"You will see. Follow me," Edith led Michael through the snow. There was nothing but snow around him as far as he could see. Michael remained calm. He didn''t want to do anything stupid before knowing what was happening. After following Edith for a couple of minutes, Michael almost reached the edge of the floating mountain. He was above the clouds. He could see the puffy clouds stretching endlessly around him.
The alchemist robes he wore fluttered chaotically in the wind. After a while, Michael got annoyed and willed the system to equip his ck robes.
Finally, Edith stopped walking and turned around.
"Nice, You need to look your best," Edith gave an approving nod.
"What are we doing here?" asked Michael.
"You are really lucky, Ghost. Throughout these years, she has received proposals in hundreds. She rejected them all. But for the first time, she showed interest in you. So it''s only fair, you two meet each other," Michael creased his brows.
"I know it''s sudden. But please stay here and meet her. You will like her," Edith said in a gentle tone. Happiness was visible in her eyes.
Michael felt so annoyed and irritated by Edith. He was in the process of leaving Mazeroth for good. Because of her, his ns were getting dyed.
"Michael, where are you? I am in your room with Elidyr," Michael heard Gaya''s voice.
"I''ll be with you in a minute," Michael said, turning around to leave. He was about to take a step forward when he sensed a powerful being in his Environmental Scanning.
"You asked me who asked you to meet her right? It''s her," Edith looked up,
"Victoria Barnes. The Princess of Thusia,"
Chapter 670 Meeting Of Michael And Victoria Barnes II
The moment Michael heard these words, his mind went nk. A ringing sound continued to resonate in his head. Everything from the images of Abras''s first meeting with Victoria to the sanctuary burning in front of his eyes shed across him. His body and hands shivered in pure rage. Meanwhile, Victorianded near Edith. She looked at Ghost''s back, having no idea who was in front of her.
"L," said Michael. The name immediately put a frown on Victoria''s face. She used the name to infiltrate the sanctuary. Except for Abras, some elders in the sanctuary, General Booth, and her father, no one outside knew the name she used. But somehow, Ghost uttered the name. Edith, on the other hand, thought he had said her elder sister''s name.
Michael slowly turned around. His eyes were bloodshot. All the veins on his face bulged up. Edith also noticed him shivering. Victoria still didn''t figure out his identity because of Michael''s beard. With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a dagger. Edith''s body tensed up, but Victoria remained calm.
"Do you remember me, L?" asked Michael, surprising Victoria with his question. His voice was cold. Any oblivious man could sense the deep hatred in his tone. But Victoria had no idea. As far as she knew, he was Ghost.
Seeing Victoria have no response, Michael pressed the dagger against his face, slowly shaving the beard. Victoria''s heartbeat steadily increased. When Michael shaved his beardpletely, her heart skipped a beat. The face of Ghost reminded L of someone she had forgotten long ago, Abras. She simply couldn''t believe what she was seeing.
"Abras," Victoria mumbled. Thest time she saw Abras, she stabbed him in the heart. There was no way he could have survived the ughter. But not only had he survived, but he also became a heaven-defying prodigy. In the corner of her mind, she doubted that Abras used the Cosmic stream somehow to survive and cultivate. Victoria remembered Abras as a naive, weak, and love-stricken boy from a group who kept the Cosmic stream for themselves instead of using it for the betterment of this world. However, Ghost was the exact opposite of Abras. That was the reason Victoria even considered meeting Ghost and thought about marrying him. He was the perfect suitor and the prince for Thusia. He was brutal, cold, and merciless to his enemies.
"Abras?" Edith took a step back. She recalled everything Victoria told about the sanctuary and what the thusians did to the people who converted the cosmic stream. If Edith was right, Abras was the young man Victoria pretended to be in love with and killed in the end. A necessary action. That''s how Victoria justified her actions. Edith was still unclear about how she felt about what Thusians did to the sanctuary. But at least they used Cosmic energy to get rid of the gue that swept across Thusia. If not for the Cosmic stream, her parents would have died. For that, Edith felt eternally grateful to Victoria and King Maxim.
"You survived," Victoria said. Despite the startling truth, Victoria didn''t shiver in fear or show any emotion except a slight surprise in her eyes. Although she didn''t know how Abras survived, she couldn''t let him live. Otherwise, he might expose the Cosmic stream''s existence to the outside world.
"What now, Abras? You want to kill me?" asked Victoria. Granted Ghost was strong, but she was stronger. She had Cosmic energy coursing through her veins. Thinking that she had to kill him again, she almost felt pity for him. It seemed like fate really wanted her to kill Abras. The least she could do for him was end his life painlessly. This time, she didn''t have to betray him but look him in the eyes and end his life personally.
"Kill you? Hahaha," To her surprise, Ghost burst into devilishughter. He threw the dagger aside.
"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it a long time ago. No no no¡" Michael shook his head.
"You took something from me. Now I am going to take everything from you," His word sounded awfully murderous. Even from a distance, Edith could feel the killing intent.
,m On the other hand, Victoria creased her brows. She stepped forward as sparkling blue energy formed a sword in her hand. The sword made of pure Cosmic energy. There was no metal or weapon that could withstand the cosmic energy. She had in hundreds of enemies using the sword, and it was time to put Abras to rest.
"To do that, you have to be alive," Victoria scorned. She was about to dash forward when Michael surprised her by dashing toward Edith. Victoria didn''t expect Michael to target Edith because Edith had done nothing to him.
"Argh!" Edith didn''t react in time. His speed caught Edith off guard. Without giving both the girls any time to react, Michael stabbed Edith in the neck with a needle.
"Get away from her!" Victoria raised the sword to cut down Abras.
But suddenly, Edith copsed to the ground, screaming in agony.
"What did you do?" Victoria''s instincts told her to stop.
Edith rolled on the ground. Her scream echoed through the floating mountain. Michaelughed. Victoria rushed toward Edith. When she squatted beside Edith, Michael snapped his finger. To Victoria''s surprise, Edith stopped screaming. Michael circled around him like a predator stalking its prey. It took a great effort for Michael not to ughter Victoria right here and then.
Victoria helped Edith up. Edith''s face waspletely pale. A second again, she felt an excruciating pain in every corner of her body. It was like she was being stabbed with hundreds of nails at the same time. But the pain disappeared as soon as Michael snapped his finger. Michael finally finished a full circle around them.
"This is just a glimpse of what I am going to do to you and all your loved ones, L," said Michael.
Victoria clenched her fist. She wanted to cut Abras into pieces. She would have given him a painless death, but now, she wanted to make him suffer.
" I want you to see everyone you care about suffer. Brick by brick, one by one, I will dismantle your beloved Thusia in front of your eyes. I will raise everything you built to the ground," Michael slowly said these words.
"You will beg me to kill you, end your suffering. But I won''t grant you any mercy. I will kill your family, slowly and painfully. Just like your people did to mine,"
"Leave her out of this," Victoria growled.
Michael tilted his head, staring at Edith for a moment. He then slowly walked toward Victoria. He came close to the point Victoria could feel his hot breath on her.
"Why?" Whispered Michael.
"She had done nothing to you. She''s innocent," Victoria snarled. She wanted to punch him in the chest, crushing his heart. However, she was afraid that would kill Edith. And she was right. Michael injected Edith with the blood tonic. If he wished, he could end Edith''s life with a single snap of his finger.
Michael didn''t hide this. He let both of them know what he had done to Edith.
"I put something of my own inside her. All I need is to snap my fingers to end your friend''s little life,"
Victoria gritted her teeth as Michael coldly smiled.
"Or if I wanted, I could enjoy some screaming music,"
Michael simply moved his brow as Edith copsed to the ground once again, screaming and rolling in pain. Finally, Victoria couldn''t see her friend suffer. She clenched the Cosmic sword tighter. She wanted to cut down Abras.
"Tsk tsk tsk," Michael shook his head.
"Patience, L. Do you think I only hold your friend''s life in my hand? How''s her highness, Valeria?" Victoria''s mind went nk.
"Abras," Victoria growled like a wounded animal. Her eyes turned blood red in anger.
"You coward. Release my friend and settle this like a man," said Victoria.
But Michaelughed.
"I am not a man. I am the fucking consequences of your actions,"
Michael nced at Edith. He willed the system to shut down the nanites in her body. As a result, Edith''s pain disappeared.
"You have no idea what we are capable of, Abras. I destroyed your home once. It won''t take me long to do it again,"
Michael heard Victoria while he was walking away from Victoria. He was afraid he would lose control and ughter Victoria right on this floating mountain. He didn''t want that. As he exined, he wanted Victoria to suffer. Although killing Vitoria was as easy as snapping his finger, he had other ns for her.
"I will destroy Bradford and everyone in it,"
"Then you better pray you can protect your precious Cosmic stream from all the Great Eight ns and the Skyhall. Because the moment you raise a finger against me, I will expose your dirty little secret, " Michael turned around with a devilish grin.
"Then, I will make your friend and your mother scream to death. That''d be just a glimpse," Michael slowly ascended to the sky.
"Now go tell your entire kingdom, death ising," Michael''s figure disappeared from Victoria''s sight. Silence fell over them. Edith shivered in fear. When she looked into Victoria''s eyes, she saw a sign of dread for the first time.
Michael may have bluffed about poisoning Valeria. But the moment he leaves MAzeroth, he ns to order Azazel to inject Valeria with the blood tonic. It''d be difficult but using the Spyders and drones, it wasn''t an impossible task either. Azazel was more than enough to finish the task. Moreover, Michael''s threat to expose the Cosmic stream rendered Victoria helpless. Once the Cosmic stream''s existence gets out, they would be at war with not just kingdoms but with the great eight ns and the Skyhall itself. Unfortunately, they were still not strong enough to face the Skyhall.
"Vikki, what are we going to do now?" asked Edith. She was pretty shaken up by Michael''s threat. She lived long enough to tell he wasn''t bluffing. Every word that came out of his mouth sounded like a promise.
"We can do only one thing," Victoria took a deep breath.
"Prepare for the war," said Victoria.
Chapter 671 Goodbye Mazeroth
Leaving Victoria and Edith behind, Michael returned to his room using the runic teleportation. He saw Gaya, Elidyr, and Nightmare waiting for him in the room.
"Where were you?" asked Gaya. Judging by the look in her eyes, she was worried sick.
"We are leaving," Michael''s words surprised the trio.
"Why? Something happened?" asked Elidyr.
"I''ve been made," Michael sighed.
"You met Wulfric, didn''t you?"
To Michael''s surprise, Elidyr didn''t look as surprised as Gaya and Nightmare.
"Hmm," Michael nodded.
"Wait. If you''re telling me the headmaster recognized you as the Dark Lord, then why did he leave you alone?" asked Nightmare.
"I don''t know why. But we cannot stay here any longer," Michael was adamant about the decision. It was too much of a risk to stay in Mazeroth any longer. Gaya remained silent. They all turned their gazes toward her, wanting to know her thoughts.
"And I also met Victoria," Before Gaya could open her mouth, Michael said.
"Our GoldenValley Victoria?" asked Nightmare.
Michael shook his head.
"No. The princess of Thusia. The bitch who put a sword through my heart and burned my sanctuary to the ground, Victoria Barnes," Michael growled.
"Did she know you are Abras?" Finally, Gaya opened her mouth to question Michael.
"Hmm," nodded Michael.
"Then let''s get the fuck out of here," Gaya agreed with Michael. Instead of staying in Mazeroth and doing nothing, she preferred to get out of the Akn realm and venture into the Treacherous Ocean. That way, she could find the Wise Dragon and inquire about her mother. On the other hand, she knew Michael could get stronger by killing the mutated beings in the ce.
"I am up for it. I hate this ce anyways," Elidyr agreed to leave MAzeroth without a second thought.
"Thanks to Professor Lane, you have permission to leave MAzeroth. But what about her?" Nightmare looked at Gaya.
"She''s a professor. It would raise some eyebrows if she disappeared suddenly," Nightmare was right. Taking Gaya would be suspicious, for sure. They might even look for Professor Steinmeyer. But leaving Gaya behind the enemy lines, especially after knowing his identity had been exposed, Michael had no other choice. Moreover, bringing Gaya and Nightmare to the treacherous ocean would multiply his experience gain. To take on Thusia, he needed to be at his strongest.
"Be that as it may, if pushes to shove, we can at least fight the Skyhall on our terms. Staying in their territory is not the right move. I agree with him. We have to get out of here. But I have to ask you again, are you sure Wulfric recognized you?" asked Elidyr.
"Do you know why I like winter? It''s the perfect bnce of light and darkness, as all things should be. Don''t you agree?" Michael repeated Wulfric''s words.
"That was his words to me. He knows about me. And I found a surveince spell around me. Someone was watching me all this time,"
Gaya and Elidyr raised their brows. They werepletely taken aback by the surprise.
"He also said that even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowke. Just like a long blood feud or lifelong friendship start with a single decision. Now connect everything and tell me I am wrong," asked Michael.
"The longer we stay here, the more we are putting ourselves in. Soe on," Michael was about to take a step toward the center of the room where Elidyr put the teleportation array when he heard someone knocking on the door.
"Who''s there?" asked Nightmare.
"You and Elidyr," Michael looked at Gaya and Elidyr.
"Get out of here," Michael whispered. Without wasting time arguing, Gaya and Elidyr stepped onto the array. Standing atop the carpet, Elidyr just waved his hand. The floor suddenly trembled as a golden light enveloped the two of them.
"It''s Ruby," Michael heard Ruby''s voice.
"Give me a minute," said Michael, waiting for Gaya and Elidyr to disappear. A golden light shed across the room. The light quickly disappeared along with Gaya and Elidyr, leaving Michael and Nightmare behind.
Michael heaved a sigh of relief. Before leaving MAzeroth for good, he wanted to say goodbye to Ruby. Even though he only knew Ruby for a few days, she was nothing but a good friend to him. He was still determining when or if he would meet Ruby again. So Michael wanted to talk to Ruby onest time. Of course, Michael wouldn''t say he was leaving Mazeroth.
But when Michael opened his door, he was startled. His eyes of darkness revealed Ruby''s real face. The one Michael saw standing outside was Rowena. There was no doubt in his mind. He saw her portraits in Winston manor too many times to be mistaken.
Michael was speechless. He had no idea he was being a good friend to Rowena Winston, the Holy Freakin Maiden of the Skyhall. Even with the upgraded Environmental Scanning, he was unable to sense her cultivation stage before opening the door. Now that he had seen her with his eyes, he was able to see a cultivation stage, Fusion Stage level 4.
The gentle smile on Ruby''s face faded away. She sensed an energy fluctuation in the room as though someone had teleported away. Furthermore, Ghost looked agitated.
To Michael''s surprise, Ruby sighed and stepped into his room. Unlike everyone in Mazeroth, Rowena knew Professor Steinmeyer was not what she imed to be. Rowena had seen through her disguise the moment she saw her with Ghost in Lane''s office. The only reason Rowena didn''t throw her in prison was that she was with Ghost and seemed to care about him. Rowena did not want to repay the kindness Ghost showed her family by hurting his close one. Regardless, she would have asked the one pretending to be Steinmeyer to leave Mazeroth and never return.
Connecting Ghost''s agitated face with the energy distortion in the room, Rowena guessed the fake professor might have left Mazeroth. The question was how did she leave Mazeroth?
Although Michael learned Ruby''s real identity, he didn''t act weird. Instead, he pretended to know nothing about her.
"I thought you went to the arena," said Michael.
"I was there. But I had a feeling you might be in trouble," said Rowena. To be honest, it wasn''t a lie. Rowena really did feel Ghost was in trouble when she was in the arena. It was the same time as Wulfric met him. After hearing some students speak about Wulfric''s surprise visit to the house of Alchemists, Rowena really thought Wulfric had caught Ghost helping the one who was pretending to be a professor.
If that was the case, Rowena would have used her status as the Holy Maiden to help him and settle her debts to the Ghost once and for all. As far as she was concerned, Ghost saved four people in her family, Andrews, Sabrina, her mother, and her father. That was four lives. So Rowena owed Ghost four times. By saving Ghost with the Cold mes, she repaid him once. By not exposing Professor Steinmeyer and thus getting Ghost into trouble, she repaid him for the second time. In other words, she owes him twice.
"You felt wrong. I am doing fine," said Michael.
He noticed Rowena slowly walking toward the center of the room where Elidyr created the teleportation array. His heartbeat slowly increased. Alerting Rowena was equal to alerting the entire Skyhall. Suppose Rowena knew about his identity too, like Wulfric, he was good as royally screwed. At that time, he would have no choice but to put n F into action.
"Is that so?" Rowena stood where Elidyr and Gaya were a moment ago. Nightmare stared at Rowena without blinking an eye. Unlike Michael, Nightmare didn''t know Ruby was Rowena. But, Nightmare was not stupid either. The way Rowena looked around the room and the way she tapped the floor irked him. Something was definitely wrong, Nightmare knew it.
"It seems right," said Rowena. She also stepped away from the array.
"Anyways, are youing to the arena?" asked Rowena.
"I will try,"
"You have something to do?"
Michael smiled. Although Michael felt like she sensed the array, she didn''t recognize him as the Dark Lord. Otherwise, she would have reacted differently unless she has put together another trap. Either way, Michael didn''t want to stay in Mazeroth anymore. Too many risks.
Getting no response from Ghost, Rowena understood he had something personal to deal with. She respected that. Therefore, she made her way out of the room.
"I will see you soon then," Rowena said after stepping out of his room. She nodded at Michael. After giving him a gentle smile, she walked away.
"Phew," Michael deeply exhaled.
Without wasting time, Michael shut the door. He grabbed Nightmare and walked toward the array.
"The moment we get out, destroy the array without a trace," Michael ordered the system. He looked at his room and couldn''t help feeling a bit of sorrow.
If he was a normal guy, he could have cherished this MAzeroth life like the others have. Being the Dark Lord caused him to lose so many things in life. The only way to fix everything was to destroy the Skyhall once and for all. Now that he had spent some time with Rowena, going against her made his heart heavy. She may have pretended to be Ruby, but his instincts told him she didn''t have any ill intention toward him. She was genuine. Besides, she could have left him to die in Lane''s office. Instead, she saved him.
Michael simply couldn''t understand Rowena. But, for now, understanding Rowena wasn''t on his to-do list.
"Where are we going?" asked Nightmare.
"To the treacherous ocean," said Michael. That was just a pit stop before finally venturing into his nemesis''s homnd, Thusia. It was time for the Thusians to pay for what they did to him.
Chapter 672 Returning To The Treacherous Ocean
After leaving Mazeroth, they all arrived at the dark forest. Michael ordered Elidyr to stay in the dark forest, watching over the sect and everything. He then immediately departed from the dark forest to the treacherous ocean with Gaya and Nightmare. He left Vedora in Elidyr''s care. Vedora needed some ancient knowledge, and Elidyr was the best person to teach. Thest time Michael went to the treacherous ocean, he was with Lah. The momiers shed across his mind. Everything started smoothly with Lah, and the shit hit the fan at the end due to Lah''s impulse to harness the First energy. Moreover, the system was offline at that time, it restricted Michael''s ability.
This time, he was filled with anger, motivation, and with Gaya and Nightmare. It took them a day to reach the outskirts of the rainbow ind where Lailha lived. Michael wanted to go visit her and see how her spirit child was doing. However, Michael chose not to. The entire point of why Michael cut his ties with Lah and the kid was to keep them as far as possible from him. Otherwise, if one day his secret were exposed, they would be spared from the bacsh.
From the rainbow ind, it took them another day to reach the treacherous ocean. Even in the middle of the day, the treacherous ocean looked dark and gloomy as night. The winter had no effect on the domain. It looked just as he rememberedst time. The entire region of the sea was shrouded in a dark mist and stormy clouds. The sound of thunderps reverberated the entire sea while violet streaks of lightning kept lighting the gloomy clouds. Michael felt his power growing within him due to all the darkness around him. He floated in the sky for a moment.
"Where do we find this Wise Dragon?" asked Nightmare.
"Let me see my map," Gaya pretended to open up a map,
"Oh, there is no map,"
"You don''t have to be a jerk about it," Nightmare rolled his eyes.
"You are a dragon. I expect you to sense him or whatever," said Gaya.
Michael remained silent. He was in the process of controlling his anger. Ever since he met Victoria, he couldn''t achieve peace of mind.
"Let''s go," said Michael before moving forward. He could distract his mind by killing the mutated beings in the treacherous ocean.
"Take the Perception pills," Michael ordered Gaya and Nightmare. With a nod, Gaya flicked her wrist. A couple of sparkling blue pills appeared in her palm. She threw one into her mouth and offered the other one to Nightmare. Although Nightmare had a special vision to see his environment, he swallowed the pill, just to be safe. The more they flew forward, the louder the thunderps sounded. It was as though they were entered into a raging storm.
Michael slowly descended toward the ind covered in the mist. Unlike before, Michael was able to see everything around him despite the thick mist. He immediately took out the drones and sent them flying in every direction to recon the ce. When Michael visited the treacherous ocean previously, he had the death aura of Nightmare, hiding his presence from the beings that inhabited the treacherous ocean. Considering Nightmare was well and healthy, he didn''t have any aura to hide his presence.
As a result, Michael sensed several hostile beings rushing toward him from every direction. Nightmare and Gaya didn''t n to get caught off guard. They both sensed the activity around them using their own senses.
"Leave it to me," Nightmare leaped into the air from Gaya''s shoulder. His size grew rapidly until he reached his full size. Even though Nightmare still hadn''t reached his full size, he was still a terrifying ny feet long dragon. With the dark horns growing out of his head, Nightmare looked like a Demonoid dragon. With a single p of hisrge wings, Nightmare pushed back the mist covering them. The mutated beings hiding within the mist got exposed by Nightmare''s action. At that moment, Michael and Gaya saw several creatures. Most of them seemed humanoid with typical features like two hands and two legs. But all of them were shriveled and radiated a strong putrid stench. These creatures were once humans, elves, and orcs who ventured into the treacherous ocean to unmask the mystery behind the dragon n''s disappearance.
But they lost their lives and were consumed by the mist. Finally, they were turned into these mutated beings that mindlessly attacked any living being that stepped onto the ind.
Nightmare breathed fire on them mercilessly, turning them into nothing but ashes. Michael heard the system notifications continually ringing in his head. The number of experience points rapidly increased to the point he had received almost eighty thousand. Finally, after turning every mutated being to ashes, Nightmare returned to his previous size andnded on Gaya''s shoulder. Michael and Gaya continued to venture deeper and deeper into the treacherous ocean. Nightmare used his dragon breath to burn them to a crisp every time they got swarmed with mutated beings.
"Why don''t you stretch your muscles a bit?" asked Gaya.
"It''d be a good way to warm up before the big war with Thusia,"
"If you''re trying to distract my mind off Thusia, it''s not working," said Michael.
"Well, I have to try. Look, we both are in a kind of a pickle here. You want Thusia destroyed, and I want my mother found,"
"Both are not the same, Gaya. Your mother is alive. But everyone I grew up with is not,"
Gaya halted her steps. She grabbed Michael by his shoulder before turning him to look him in the eyes. Michael may not have said a word or seemed calm as usual, but Gaya knew his mind was seething with anger. She didn''t me him. Shee doubted she could have let Victoria live after meeting her again if she was in his shoes.
"I won''t say giving a warning about you areing is a smart move. You wanted them to live in fear, so be it. But get your head in the game. We are in one of the most dangerous ces in this world. Just like you always say, you won''t see things clearly if you''re blinded with anger,"
Michael knew she was right, atleast about him being angry.
"I want them to be at their strongest when I crush them. Only by then, they will feel helpless, desperate and beg me to forgive them. Let them prepare. Let them get every ally they have to their side," Michael growled. His eyes glimmered with killing intent. She had never seen Michael like this before.
"Human," Gaya smiled, cupping his face gently.
"We will end them together. If it makes you feel better, I already have a n in my mind for Thusia''s total annihtion,"
"You do?" Nightmare tilted his head.
"Of course I do. Let''s walk and talk," With Michael and Nightmare by her side, she almost forgot she was in the treacherous ocean. Instead, she treated this ce like a park.
As Gaya said, she put her hand around Michael''s shoulder and moved forward.
"The Thusians destroyed two kingdoms and are currently at war with three. The enemies of my enemy are my friends right? So we rally them against the Thusians. With your endless supply of potions and thebined army, we will destroy Thusia brick by brick, just the way you like it,"
"Why can''t we just create a gue and spread it throughout the Thusian army and kill them single handedly?"
"He is not a lunatic, lizard. You cannot control the gue once it starts to spread. The people who live in Thusia did nothing to him. We cannot be the thing the Skyhall and the Guardians say we will,"
Michael nodded. But he knew that wasn''t the only reason he avoided spreading a gue. The Thusians were in possession of a divine power source that was far beyond any mortal''sprehension. If Michael spread the gue, Maxim Barnes would use the Cosmic stream to cure the gue. It would not only cure the army, but also power them up. It would be such a pity for the Cosmic stream to be used in mortals. Instead, Michael wanted it for himself and everyone in the Order. Once he and his Order absorb the Cosmic energy with the system''s help, they would have the edge they desperately need. Plus, fighting an army powered by Cosmic energy might force him to use Darkness which might expose his secret to the outside world.
Gaya exined all her ns in greater detail while moving forward. Talking about war, destruction and killing took Gaya''s mind off of worrying about her mother. Continuing onwards, they suffered constant attacks from the mutated beings. With each wave of the attack, the number of hostiles that attacked them increased significantly. They moved steadily through the fog for seven continuous hours before passing through the region of fog and reaching the outskirts of The Treacherous Ocean. The mist became so thick that they could barely see anything.
Thanks to Michael''s X-ray vision, he was able to locate the multiple illusion arrays around him. Last time, the arrays made him hallucinate Spectre, which wasn''t a great experience for Michael. Lightning bolts crackled around Michael''s hands. He sent several bolts in all directions, destroying the source point of the illusion arrays. In a few seconds, he destroyed all the arrays around them.
"When Eve knows we are going to war with Thusia, that crazy girl would be the first one to rush to the battlefield," Suddenly, Gaya thought about Eve. Speaking of Eve, Michael remembered the artifact that could enable him to break curses, a legendary skill.
Eventually, they felt a bit exhausted and wanted to take some rest. The ce was deste and dangerous, with no trees or caves to take shelter. But he didn''t need anything when he had the system. He just bought a couple offy chairs from the system and lit a campfire to warm their bodies. Fortunately, the mutated beings temporarily stopped attacking, probably because there were no mutated beings in this part of the treacherous ocean.
Michael leaned back on his chair. He took a quick look at his status. Nightmare''s kills gave him nearly two hundred thousand experience points. As a result, he reached Fusion Stage level 9.
"Half Immortal Stage, here Ie," Michael thought in his mind.
Chapter 673 Using The Soul Eater Again
Only Nightmare was able to sleep on Gaya''sp, curling himself into a ball. They two were deep in thought. For Gaya, it was her mother. For Michael, it was Victoria and everything the thusians did to him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the burning sanctuary. He heard his friends scream only to get ughtered by the thusian soldiers. Those soldiers didn''t show any mercy, not even to the little ones. In Michael''s mind, the elders weren''t meless either. They had a divine power source for centuries, yet they didn''t even bother to use it. The Cosmic stream remained useless in the sanctuary. Michael decided long ago not to make the same mistakes the elders did. The moment he destroyed Thusia, he would absorb the Cosmic Stream, or if he couldn''t, he would destroy it so no one could use it in the future.
"Do you have any clues about finding this Wise Dragon?" Gaya leaned forward,
"Thest time you came here, did you see any pathways, hidden entrances, or any signs of a dragon?" she asked.
"My drones are searching this ce as we speak. If a dragon is living here, we will find it," said Michael.
"You better find a cure for my mother. I don''t want her to suck my blood when I am asleep," Gaya chuckled.
"I am telling you again, the cure will only get rid of a vampire''s blood lust and weakness for sunlight. Their abilities like immunity to magic attacks, speed, and strength will stay the same,"
"So she will be like us?" Gaya asked after giving Michael''s words a little thought.
"Let''s find another vampire and try that cure first on him. Then, we can move on to your mother,"
"We should definitely do that,"
They spent the following minutes discussing Eve, Thusia, and Adelia. Then, their conversation slowly moved toward the Blood prince. To be honest, Michael didn''t have a solid n to deal with the Blood Prince. First, he needed to gather more information about the Blood Prince. It was a pity he left Mazeroth. Professor Lane and Gilrine seemed to have a lot of knowledge about one. Fortunately, they had Lord Information to turn to.
As they were conversing, the ground suddenly trembled in a rhythm as though something huge was stepping toward them. Michael immediately rose from his chair. He sensed a Soul Refining stage being appear in the Environmental Scanning. Judging by the tremor, Michael knew whatever that''sing their way must be a colossal size monster.
"Michael, what the hell is happening?" Gaya held Nightmare in one hand and tried to bnce herself. They quickly shot into the air. When they reached the sky, they were stunned by what they saw. A colossal skeleton was on its way toward them. It was a dragon, not just any dragon, a skeleton dragon. With each step the dragon took, the ground trembled. The dragon had an overall length of four hundred feet, a wingspan of three hundred and fifty feet, and a height of almost eighty feet.
Compared to this skeletal dragon, Nightmare was a puppy. The dragon moved his head left and right as though it was searching for something. Michael looked into the two holes where the eyes should have been and saw no light of life. He never expected to encounter a mutated dragon this early in the journey.
"Damn, it''d be a pity to smash this dragon to pieces. We could sell it for millions," Gaya sighed. Despite the dragon''s colossal size, it was only a Soul Refining stage level 4 beast. With her Soul Refining Stage level 6 Cultivation, she could smash into pieces. Of course, she would have a difficult time defeating it, but Gaya was absolutely positive she could beat the dragon.
Michael shared the same thought as Gaya. In the Aqua Auction, Lah bought a full dragon skeleton for a whopping four billion gold coins. Since this skeleton was at the Soul Refining stage level 4, Michael could at least get one billion, auctioning the dragon. But first, he must defeat the dragon without smashing it into pieces. Luckily for Michael, unlike undead, these mutated beings had souls. Their souls were corrupted and twisted to the point there was no fix for their souls. Corrupted or not, they had souls. If they had souls, Michael could use Soul Eater to preserve their physical bodies. In this case, he could kill the dragon without destroying its body.
Thanks to Michael''s recent upgrade spree, the Soul Eater could devour the soul of any cultivator under the Fusion Stage. Some weak-willed enemies'' souls could be devoured immediately. The others who had strong resolve and powerful souls required Michael to weaken them before devouring their souls. The spell was meant to be used when Michael was in hisplete Lucifer form, where the Cloud of Darkness and death range would weaken an enemy''s resolve.
But even though Michael was in the treacherous ocean, he still didn''t use his Lucifer persona. What if someone was watching him? ording to the system, there were no more surveince spells around him. Still, Michael wanted to be safe rather than sorry.
The skeleton dragon slowly approached them. Gaya turned her head to the side to see Michael looking at the dragon nonchntly. He cracked his neck,
"Stay here," said Michael. Just a thought about casting the Lightning dash spell resulted in himself being surrounded by golden lightning bolts. They danced around his body. Gay heard the low-pitched sound of crackling lightning bolts around him. In a blink of an eye, he dashed toward the dragon, leaving a trail of golden streaks. Sending Michael''s presence, the dragon locked its gaze on Michael. Its thunderous roar echoed through the treacherous ocean. When Michael reached closer, the dragon opened its mouth to swallow him.
Michael looked tiny in front of its jaw.
"Wind st," Michael cast the wind st to disorient the dragon for a moment. The st of wind created a deafening boom sound when it collided with the dragon''s head.
The dragon jerked its head to the side due to the wind st''s force. Michael punched the dragon right between the two holes in its head without giving the dragon any time to react. Several cracks formed in the dragon''s head despite Michael suppressing his strength.
From afar, Gaya saw the dragon stumbling. Michael didn''t stop with one punch. He flew to the side and punched the dragon in the jaw. His punch created a thunderous shock wave. He continued to rain down punch after punch.
"Cracked skeleton is better than no skeleton, right?" Gaya said to herself. Any oblivious man could tell Michael was using the dragon as a punching bag to vent his anger. It was indeed a good outlet for the anger raging within him. The dragon''s colossal size had be its ultimate bane. It couldn''t keep up with Michael''s speed. A normal Fusion stage cultivator would have fought the dragon in a bloody battle, using all their strength and spells. But even a prodigy like Lah couldn''t have fought like Michael. He bullied the dragon. The darkness in the treacherous ocean, coupled with his anger, boosted his power to the point he almost destroyed the dragon''s head with just punches alone.
Finally, the dragon''s roar sounded weak. It exhausted its strength, trying to bite Michael. When the dragon was at its weakness, Michaelnded on its head. He stared into its eyes, feeling the corrupted soul residing within. The dragon started to shake its head left and right frantically. It tried to throw Michael away. But Michael held onto its head, continuing to stare into the dragon''s eyes.
The dragon roared, looking at the sky. Seeing the dragon violently shaking its head, Gaya threw Nightmare into the air,
"Wake up, damn lizard," she dashed toward Michael. Meanwhile, Nightmare woke up in shock. Despite the dragon''s roar and all themotion, Nightmare was sleeping peacefully. When Gaya threw him in the air, he was forced to wake up. He was taken aback by surprise. A huge skeletal dragon was wiggling its body. When Nightmare looked closer, he saw Michael standing atop its head. Now, Gaya joined the fight. She punched the dragon in the side of its face. She went under the dragon''s chin and grabbed the bones using all her might. As a result, the dragon''s wriggling slowed down. Michael was able to feel the corrupted soul once again. Still, the corrupted soul fought against Michael''s soul-eating stare. Michael didn''t give up. He focused more on devouring the soul more.
He elbowed the dragon on the head to weaken the dragon further. Finally, a grayish smoke slowly rose within the two dark holes. It was the corrupted soul.
[Soul Transferring initiated...]
The dragon roared. Its roar was much weaker than earlier. Michael tightened his grasp and opened his mouth, rapidly devouring the soul. The white smoke shot straight into Michael''s mouth. Eventually, the smoke stopped, and the dragon copsed to the ground, moving no more. Once the dragon hit the ground, it created a tremor several times stronger than a typical earthquake. Additionally, it created a thick cloud of dust around the dragon.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage, level 4 mutated dragon. The reward is 300000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]
[The Soul Eater has absorbed the soul of the mutated dragon. The host has received 100,000 Experience points]
In total, Michael received four hundred thousand experience points. Compared to Wilkas''s soul, he received five times the experience points by devouring the skeletal dragon''s soul. It was several times eviler and more corrupt than Wilkas. Hence, the increase in experience points. Killing the dragon was the easy part. Now the real trouble began when Michael thought about transporting the skeleton from the treacherous ocean to Awor where he could auction it in the Aqua Pce.
"I feel creeped out when you use that spell," Michael heard Gaya''s voice behind him.
"You''ve only seen me using it once," said Michael, staring at the dragon from above.
"You have a n to move that thing?" Nightmare came to their side.
"System,"
Still trying to learn how to transport the skeleton, Michael turned to the system.
[The skeleton is too big to teleport ]
[The host can pay 100,000 badass points to dismantle the skeleton. Another 100,000 for teleporting the bones to a choice of your base of operation. And finally, another 100,000 badass points for assembling the skeleton. So a total of 300,000 badass points]
Michael was surprised by the system because the system quoted an amount way less than he had actually imagined. So Michael quickly agreed.
"Dismantle and teleport it to the dark forest. I will assemble itter,"
Chapter 674 The Wise Dragon
After killing the skeletal dragon and teleporting it to the dark forest, Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare resumed their journey without a destination. They roamed around the misty ind aimlessly, killing whateveres in their way. Unfortunately for Michael, he didn''t get to kill anything stronger than a Core Strengthening stage being. He didn''t even bother to raise a finger as he let Nightmare get some battle experience. It was time Nightmare forged his own path under Michael''s watchful eyes. After all, Nightmare was no longer a child that needed to be taken care of. He had reached the Core Strengthening stage/ The only weakness Michael saw in Nightmare was his kindness. Unfortunately, it often made Nightmare look weak rather than kind. Although Nightmare seemed to be supporting Michael in his thoughts to destroy Thusia, Michael knew Nightmare wanted to avoid all the bloodshed.
He wasn''t wrong though. If it were any other situation, Michael would have wanted the same. He himself wasn''t a big fan of wars. But Thusia must be destroyed. Michael was not a saint to return an evil act with kindness. He would do anything to see Victoria and her family suffer. Through the mist, Michael led Gaya and Nightmare forward. His senses were heightened to detect any threats nearby. Suddenly, Michael stopped flying.
"Why are we stopping?" asked Gaya.
"The drones were destroyed," said Michael. A moment ago, he felt the connection between him and a few drones suddenly severed. He closed his eyes briefly for a moment, ordering the system to locate the destroyed drones.
"I hope it''s the Wise Dragon," Gaya nervously smiled.
Without wasting any time, Michael grabbed Gaya''s hand and cast the Ignitia to reach the destination as fast as he could. The scenery around them did not change. Everyone was still covered in mist. He triggered a couple of illusion arrays but destroyed them all within a few seconds. They weren''t strong enough to pose a threat to Michael anymore.
In a couple of minutes, they traveled quite a long distance. To their surprise, the mist suddenly disappeared. Instead, they were stuck in a dome made of bone-chilling ice.
"What is this ce?" asked Gaya. She rubbed her shoulders to create some much-needed warmth. Nightmare tried to breathe fire, but he simply couldn''t. The coldness affected Nightmare''s ability to breathe fire. Gaya looked around the dome to see an entrance. She couldn''t even find out how she entered the dome when she turned back. It was obvious that ice closed the gap they entered.
Several questions emerged in their minds. First of them was, where were they? As they were looking around, Michael sensed a powerful being in the area with them.
"Something''s here," said Michael. ording to his senses and the Environmental Scanning, the being was a Fusion Stage being. Although he sensed the being, he couldn''t see it. He quickly used his thermal vision, looking at his surroundings once again. Shock and surprise weed Michael. An invisible foe slowly approached them. Judging by the silhouette, it was definitely a colossal dragon. Regardless of the dragon''s size, it moved like a ninja, making no sound. Unlike Michael, Gaya couldn''t see the dragon.
"Are we ying hide and seek?" asked Michael.
The dragon stopped moving.
"I can see you," said Michael.
The dragon stared at Michael for a few moments. They could have seen the surprise in the dragon''s eyes if the dragon wasn''t invisible. Finally, the dragon revealed itself by dispelling the invisibility spell around it. Michael raised his brows as he stood before a towering colossal dragon. It was just as big as the skeletal dragon but more powerful and terrifying.
Large emerald eyes sat concealed within the dragon''s rounded, narrow skull, giving the dragon a rather menacing appearance. Several enormous horns sit atop its head, just above its wide, cat-like ears. Large fan-like skin and bone structures ran down the sides of each of its jaw lines. Its nose was small and had two short, pointy nostrils. There was a small horn on its chin. Several rows ofrge teeth poked out from the side of its mouth and gave a slight hint of the terror hiding inside.
The dragon''s thick neck ran down from its head and into a long body. The top was covered in curved icy blue scales, and a row of small fan-like growths ran down its spine. Its bottom was covered in small scales and was colored much lighter than the rest of its body. Four muscr limbs carried its body, allowing the creature to stand towering and proud. Each limb had four digits, each of which ended in thick ws seemingly made of silver. Horrendous wings grew, starting from its shoulders and ending at the middle of its back. The wings were bat-like, with a specializedyer of skin and armor-like scales growing on top of the wing''s primary bones. Its graceful tail ended in a fan-like tip, covered in the same curved scales as its body.
"Hrggm," a puff of chill smoke puffed out of its nostrils as the dragon moved its head down. The dragon slowly moved its long neck around Michael.
"A human, a naga, and a forest dragon. Quiet a strange party," The Dragon spoke in a gruff beastly voice. The voice was both terrifying and soothing at the same time. Michael couldn''t help but feel a wise man vibe from the dragon. It had a certain wise old grandpa aura around it.
"Do you happen to be the Wise Dragon by any chance?" asked Gaya.
The dragon stood tall. A glint of pride emerged in its obsidian eyes.
"I am known by many names. And yes, Wise Dragon is indeed one of them and the most befitting name of them all," said the dragon. Gaya''s heart trembled. She couldn''t believe her luck. She had found the Wise Dragon just as the vampire instructed her to.
"Adelia, Adelia Ashton. What do you know about her?" Gaya didn''t beat around the bush. She immediately questioned the Wise Dragon.
To their surprise, the dragon burst intoughter.
"You are a courageous one. Many would have wet their pants. But you, you have the galls to question me. Is it why you are here? Searching for this Adelia?" the dragon asked. It seemed amused by Gaya''s question. Michael remained silent, letting Gaya question the dragon. Since the dragon was at the Fusion Stage 10, Michael didn''t have a need to be afraid. If pushes to shove, Michael could turn into the Dark Lord and kill the dragon unless the dragon was stronger than it seemed.
"Why else would someonee to this death trap? Please, Wise Dragon, I must find her," Gaya sounded desperate.
The dragon grinned, revealing its razor-sharp teeth. It somewhat looked like an oldy cunning fox in Michael''s eyes.
"If you survived this far and reached me without dying, that means you three are anything but ordinary. And Wise Dragon likes to deal with beings like you. So yes, I will tell you about the one you asked about. However," The dragon paused, lowering its head. They all felt the bone chilling cold radiating from the dragon. As the dragon moved closer to them, the cold temperature became colder.
"Nothing is free in this world. You need to give Wise Dragon something to get something," said the Wise Dragon.
"Name your price. Gold, artifacts, gems, anything," said Gaya. The Wise Dragon snickered.
"Do I look ordinary to you Naga? I am the proudest dragon of them all. I collect something far more valuable than all the things you named,"
"You collect knowledge," Michael interjected the Wise Dragon.
"Knowledge is wealth," he said. The Dragon nodded.
"Knowledge is what I seek," said the Wise Dragon.
Gaya quickly looked at Michael. When ites to knowledge, there was no one better than Michael. He performed countless miracles and hoped he would perform another one with the Wise Dragon.
"Do you ept blueprints of contraptions and legendary alchemy recipes?" asked Michael.
"It depends on how heaven-defying they are. You should know that I have lived for thousands of years, hoarding knowledge. There is a little among of blueprints and recipes that I don''t know,"
"They are my own. So you can''t find them anywhere," said Michael. The Wise Dragon noticed the confidence in his eyes. As a Royal Dragon who hoarded knowledge, the Wise Dragon had the ability to judge people. The human before it was anything but normal. So the Wise Dragon decided to give the human a chance.
"So be it. Let me see what you have," The Wise Dragon said.
Michael simply flicked his wrist, taking out the blueprint to build Spyders and the recipe for Molten gue. The two golden parchments slowly floated toward the Wise Dragon. When the parchments reached its eye line, two round mirrors materialized before its eyes. It made the dragon look like he was wearing sses.
The Wise Dragon studied the parchments cautiously without missing a single letter. They all wondered how the Wise Dragon nned to evaluate the authenticity of the parchments. After all, one could easily write a fake recipe and blueprint to fool someone. But deep down, they felt it was near impossible to fool a powerful being that literally calls itself the Wise Dragon.
To their surprise, a copper cauldron along with a purple me appeared before the dragon. Following the appearance of the cauldron and the fire, several ingredients named in the recipe materialized above the cauldron and the fire. The Wise Dragon began to brew the potion, but itcked one ingredient, a blood sample of a molten gue''s victim. So instead of the blood, the dragon added a green liquid. If Michael was right, that green liquid would simte the characteristic of the molten gue blood.
Finally, a purplish glistening liquid floated out of the cauldron. The Wise Dragon whiffed the air.
"This is indeed a rare potion, as you''ve imed. Ick the real gue strain, but your recipe is legit," The Dragon''s eyes sparkled. Gaya sighed. The Dragon''s greedy look in his eyes was evident in its eptance.
Michael wondered how the Wise Dragon was nning to validate the blueprint. Could the dragon build Spyder using the blueprint? Michael felt curious.
Chapter 675 The Double Cross
The Wise Dragon inspected the blueprint. Its eyes almost furrowed. Several minutester, the wise dragon slowly turned its head aside. A broken drone flew toward the dragon. The Wise Dragon gently caught the drone and showed it to Michael. In the Dragon''s hand, the drone looked tiny as an ant.
"This device is the same as the one in the blueprint, except for its design," The Wise Dragon was surprisingly correct. When one boils it down, The Spyders and Drones shared the same architecture and functionalities, except the Drones could fly and the Spyders couldn''t. Plus, Michael was surprised to see that the Wise Dragon had broken the drone without breaking it apartpletely.
"Yes. Is that enough for you to give us the information about Adelia?" asked Michael. But the Dragon shook its head. A cunning, basically a devilish grin emerged on its face.
"Knowledge like this is enough before I know how desperate she is for the knowledge I have. So the price went up. Give me one more like this, and I''ll share my knowledge with you,"
Gaya clenched her fist. Nightmare quickly squeezed Gaya''s shoulder with his ws, wordlessly telling her to remain calm and let Michael deal with it. When ites to battle, brute killing force, Gaya was the best. But when ites to negotiating, tricking, and outsmarting powerful beings such as the Wise Dragon, Michael was the best choice. That didn''t mean Gaya couldn''t do all this. In fact, she was on par with Michael in trickery. However, she was emotionally involved in this matter. She would do anything to find her mother without giving a thought to her actions.
"What else?" Michael asked himself.
There was his Dark mes, the Primordial me, that no one had heard or known about. There was also the fact he is the Dark Lord, who could snap the dragon''s head to the other side. But Michael can''t divulge knowledge that puts him in danger with the Wise Dragon.
"I have something. But it''s not a recipe or a blueprint. Intangible knowledge, something rted to the Southern Continent''s void,"
"I know why no one can cultivate in the Southern continent. That''s not new," said the Wise Dragon.
"But do you know the origin of the reason? Where did ite from, and who controls it?" asked Michael.
"I know," The dragon snickered. Michael was surprised inside. The Wise Dragon did seem to know a whole lot and deserved the name the Wise Dragon.
"How about why it stays there? Do you know that?" asked Michael.
The Wise Dragon''s eyes sparkled once again. Silence fell over them. The Wise Dragon was tempted.
"I''ll tell you this after you tell us what you know about Adelia," said Michael.
The sparkling eyes immediately turned predatory. The Wise Dragon lowered its head, sending a puff of bone-chilling air out of its nostrils.
"Are you negotiating? I can kill you before you bat an eye. You''re sorely mistaken if you think cultivation stages decide our power,"
"I know. But what if you raise the price once again? As the Wise Dragon, you know you can''t me me for thinking like that. Give us the information, and I will share my knowledge with you. Like you said, you can kill us before we bat an eye, if you think the knowledge is not worth the price,"
The Wise Dragon once againughed at Michael''s courage and the way he conducted himself. He was neither too afraid nor too haughty. One would be surprised how many humans the Wise Dragon has met and dealt with over the years. This human was special.
"Adelia Ashton, the Queen of Nagnd," The Wise Dragon said, slowly moving its head higher and higher.
"She came here searching for a cure to her vampirism. She offered me something, and I gave her the cure,"
Michael would be lying if he said he wasn''t surprised by the Wise Dragon''s words. No one expected Adelia to get the cure. If she did, why was she still hiding from the world? Could the vampires be the reason? Why? The Wise Dragon''s answer created many new questions in their heads.
"Where did she go next?"
"I didn''t need irrelevant useless knowledge such as her destination or her ns,"
"You-"
Gaya''s words were cut short by Michael. He raised his hand.
"Now it''s your turn," said the Wise Dragon.
Michael took a deep breath.
"It''s searching for artifacts that hold some kind of energy within. It has found twelve artifacts until now and tasked me to find the remaining eighteen,"
The Wise Dragon''s eyes went wide. Any oblivious man could tell the Wise Dragon was in shock. For a few moments, the dragon didn''t even breathe. It just stood there like a statute in shock.
"If he tells us what he gave her, we might be able to find her," Gaya whispered to Michael. He was aware of that. But he doubted the Wise Dragon was kind enough to share that knowledge or any knowledge. He was a collector who hoarded valuable knowledge, and every collector has something that they wouldn''t give it away no matter the price.
"Thank you for your help Wise Dragon. If you may, we will take our leave," Michael slightly bowed.
He was about to turn when the Dragon took a step forward. Web-like cracks formed on the icy floor. Everything trembled.
"What the-"
Before she could finish her thought, bone-chilling ice covered her. In a blink of an eye, she was crystallized and stuck inside an ice block with Nightmare on her shoulder. The Wise Dragon didn''t give Michael time to react. Instead, it exhaled a chilling air that brushed past Michael, chaining his arms and legs to the floor beneath. Michael tried to wiggle the chains, yet he couldn''t.
"I was right. You are special. I cannot risk you getting yourself killed. You should be in my collection," The Wise Dragon''s tonepletely changed. It sounded like a maniacal murderer instead of wise and calm.
"After I get everything you have," said the Wise Dragon. It double-crossed Michael. Nightmare and Gaya didn''t move an inch. They were frozen inside the block of ice.
The Wise Dragon moved its head left and right as though it was searching for something. But suddenly, it noticed the calmness on Michael''s face. The Wise Dragon was surprised, It just froze his loved one. Anyone could tell Michael loved Gaya and Nightmare by the way he looked at them, let alone the Wise Dragon. Moreover, the Wise Dragon noticed the matching rings in their hands. It was evident the Naga and the human nned to marry each other.
Yet, the human remained calm. He didn''t scream her name or even turn back to look at her. All he did was remain calm.
"Aren''t you going to beg for their lives and yours?" asked the Wise Dragon.
"For a Wise Dragon, you are pretty stupid," Michael snickered. The Wise Dragon bore its teeth in anger. Its eyes glowed with fury. Due to its anger, the temperature fell further down. As a result, a thickyer of ice formed on Michael''s robes.
"You hoard knowledge. You do not share them. After all, you are a dragon, and dragons don''t share. Even that little guy," Michael looked over his shoulder at Nightmare.
"Don''t share anything easily. So I knew the double cross wasing before you thought about double-crossing," said Michael, surprising the Wise Dragon.
"Hahahaha," The Wise Dragon burst intoughter. Hisugh echoed through the icy dome,
"So you should have known Adelia didn''t leave this ce alive, right?" The Wise Dragon asked.
"She is alive, and we both know it," said Michael. Elidyr created a rune that gets passed on from one Wraith to another. ording to Elidyr, wherever a Wraith dies, all their knowledge, ancestry, and their duty to the Order would be passed to the next of kin. Suppose Adelia died, Gaya would have inherited everything through the rune. Since that didn''t happen, Michael knew Adelia is still alive.
"Here''s something you don''t know," Michael slowly said. The Wise Dragon noticed the ce growing darker and darker. Thunder rumbled in the sky above. Through the icy roof, the Wise Dragon saw streaks of lightning sh across the sky. Suddenly, the chains shackling the human cracked. To the Wise Dragon''s utter shock, a dark me coiled around his hands, melting the unbreakable icy chains. Furthermore, a dark shroud enveloped him. His robes soon transformed into ck armor and a cape. Soon, a terrorizing dark skull mask covered his face.
"I am the God of Darkness," The dark mespletely melted the icy chains. Thick bolts of lightning shot out of his body when Michael snapped his finger. The Wise Dragon was caught off guard. Michael was in his full Lucifer form. Hence, he became a Half Immortal. The Wise Dragon''s decision to stay in the Fusion stage bit the dragon in the butt. It wanted to find a way to ensure its absolute safety when crossing the heavenly tribtion to reach the Half Immortal Stage. The sole reason the Wise Dragon chose to live in the treacherous ocean was it believed the dragon n''s disappearance held the answer to many questions rted to the dragons.
Unfortunately, the Wise Dragon wasn''t so wise when it decided to double-cross Michael. Greediness blinded the dragon''s brain. The Wise Dragon thought it could find some clues about the dragon n through the Hydra slumbering in the Southern continent. But it dared not to venture into the Southern continent and ask the Hydra because it was nothing but suicidal.
So once the Wise Dragon learned the human had met and conversed with the Hydra, it wanted to capture him. A bad move. Now, the Wise Dragon had to pay for its mistakes. Crackling lightning bolts coiled around Michael, creating a buzzing sound of electricity. The dark mes covering him were hot enough to melt the block of ice Gaya was trapped within. Michael slowly walked toward the Wise Dragon. The lightning bolts shooting out from him hit the dragon left and right, without giving it any time to react.
"ARGH," The Wise dragon screamed.
"You were right about one thing. The cultivation stage doesn''t decide our powers. Who we are does," said Michael.
"Despite your size, power, and knowledge, I didn''t want to know about you. Do you know why? Because to me, you''re just a stupid overgrown lizard,"
The number of lightning bolts that shot out from Michael''s body increased significantly. Each bolt was powerful enough to prate the dragon''s scales. Blood spurted out everywhere.
"I will make you a deal. Tell me what Adelia told you. Choose not to, your pursuit of knowledge will end here,"
Chapter 676 God Killing Arrows
Bombarded by the lightning bolts, the Wise Dragon finally fell to the ground. The ground shook and cracked open in multiple ces. Plus, the shock wave sent Nightmare and Gaya stumbling back a few feet. Michael put his feet atop the Wise Dragon, pressing its head further down. The Dragon tried to p its wings to escape, but an invisible force prevented doing so. A sliver of fear slowly clutched the dragon''s heart. The dragon no longer looked menacing. Instead, its round eyes gave a pitiful look.
Seeing the Wise Dragon under Michael''s feet, Gaya rushed toward the dragon. On her way, she herself transformed into the Dark Queen.
"You shouldn''t have doubled crossed us," Nightmare shook his head, almost feeling pity for the Wise Dragon. People who mess with them would face only one thing, death. Inside Michael''s head, the system notification continuously rang without a stop. His badass points soared through from nearly a hundred thousand to four hundred thousand. The way Michael surprised the Wise Dragon and broke the chains earned him the three hundred thousand badass points in mere moments.
"Now tell me what Adelia told her," Michael growled. His voice terrified the Wise Dragon. Moreover, Michael released the Fear toxin from his APD to scare the dragon. He wanted to break the dragon before getting what he wanted. As Michael expected, the Wise Dragon resisted him.
"You are desperate to find her. God or no God, you can''t kill me," The Wise Dragon arrogantly chuckled.
"But she can hurt you," said Michael. Gaya didn''t need him to tell her twice. Immediately, she took out a crimson red dagger. She raised the dagger. Without even Gaya telling, Nightmare breathed fire onto the dagger, turning the de brighter and brighter.
Gaya ced the burning hot dagger against the Wise Dragon''s face, just a few inches beneath his eyes.
"What-"
Gaya stabbed the Wise Dragon, cutting its words short. Blood immediately spurted out from the wound. Michael saw the dagger for the first time. She told him about this dagger Gilrine gave her when she went hunting with him. Despite its rather ordinary look, the dagger was able to pierce through the dragon''s scales.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The Wise Dragon screamed. It had been decades since the Wise Dragon had experienced pain. But no matter how much the dragon screamed, Gaya did not stop. She twisted the dagger inside to cause more pain.
"This is gonna leave a mark, Wise Dragon," Michael emphasized the words ''Wise Dragon'' in a ridiculing manner.
"Tell us what she told you!" Gaya shouted.
"You really should tell them. Otherwise, they will make you beg for death," said Nightmare.
Still, the Wise Dragon did not break. As a result, Gaya drew the dagger out and held the pointy end just a few inches above the dragon''s eyeball.
"Do you like reading? Huh, punk, do yah?" Gaya threatened.
Meanwhile, the Fear toxin''s effects slowly corroded the Wise Dragon''s valor. The dagger hanging above his eyes didn''t help him either. The Wise Dragon panicked. Although Dragons perceived the world in a different manner, they still needed eyes. Without them, the dragons were as good as dead. How could he hoard knowledge without his eyes? The Wise Dragon trembled in fear.
Seeing the fear in the dragon''s eyes, Michael snickered.
"Last chance. Unlike you, I don''t double-cross. Tell us what Adelia told you, and I''ll let you live,"
Gaya brought down the dagger, almost touching the dragon''s eyeball. The Wise Dragon panicked. It trembled violently. Nheless, it couldn''t even move a muscle, as though an invisible hand was pressing its body against the ground.
"I heard this line too many times. You will let me go and she''ll stab me. Then, you will, I didn''t say anything about her killing you," Michael almost broke character andughed. The Wise Dragon was too wise for his sake. Its words were simply too funny.
"Okay, let me rephrase my words. We won''t kill you, not me, not her, not my dragon,"
"How can i-"
"Stab him," said Michael, interrupting the Wise Dragon''s words. Gaya raised the dagger to bring it down upon the dragon''s eyes with her full might.
"NO!'' The Wise Dragon shouted as Gaya''s hand stopped in mid-air.
"I''ll tell you. Just don''t hurt me,"
"That''s a good Wise Dragon," Michael patted the Dragon''s face.
"She told me about the god-killing arrows forged by the Skyhall founders," Michael creased his brows.
"What else?" He growled. His voice became colder.
"She said there are five arrows, each of them scattered around the world. That''s all I know," said the Wise Dragon.
"But did you try to kill her as you did to us?" Gaya punched the Wise Dragon with the hilt of her dagger.
Any dragon would have growled in fury if they weren''t affected by the Fear Toxin.
"Tell me more about these arrows, Wise Dragon," Michael moved closer to the Wise Dragon to look it in the eyes.
"I¡I gave the cure to her¡she teleported away. I don''t know more," The Wise Dragon was wise enough not to mention it tried to kill her, resulting in Adelia using a teleportation scroll.
"System, do you know anything about these arrows? Can you track them down?" Michael asked the system. He didn''t see any other way to find them as the Wise Dragon really seemed to have no idea about the arrows'' location.
[The system level is too low to perform the task]
Unfortunately, the system couldn''t help Michael.
[However, the system has sensed special arrays preventing normal teleportation scrolls. If she had used one despite the arrays, the space distortion would have left a mark in the Wise Dragon. Once the host pays two hundred thousand badass points and kills the dragon, the system can scan it to pinpoint Adelia''s destination. From there, the host might get some answers]
Surprisingly, the words followed after the system level was too low gave Michael a way to find Adelia. It wasn''t much, but it was better than nothing. Michael immediately agreed to the system.
"You don''t know anything more?" Michael tilted his head.
The Wise Dragon slowly nodded, wordlessly telling him no.
"Deal is a deal," Michael sighed. Gaya clenched her fist. She didn''t want to let the backstabbing dragon live. She was about to disagree with Michael when she saw Michael ce both his hands on the dragon''s face. The dragon suddenly quivered. Soon, it frantically wriggled its body as its obsidian eyes turned white. Michael began to use the Soul Eater on the Wise Dragon.
Even if the system didn''t ask Michael to kill the dragon, he would have done it anyway. The moment the Wise Dragon decided to double-cross him, it sealed its own fate. Besides, Michael knew it was going to double-cross him. How? When he activated his X-ray vision, he noticed skeletons of various races trapped inside blocks of ice beneath the ice floor. The Siw Dragon froze after one gave him a piece of information. That was how the Wise Dragon remained the sole owner of such knowledge. But the Wise Dragon''s karma caught up with it when it tried to do the same to Michael.
Since the Wise Dragon was weakened by the lightning bolts and the Fear Toxin, it was easy for Michael to absorb the Wise Dragon''s soul. He didn''t get as much resistance as he got from the mutated dragon. A cloud of white smoke slowly rose from the Wise Dragon''s eyes and floated into Michael''s face. He opened his mouth to speed up the process. Gaya had to force the dragon with all her might to stop it from quivering.
As seconds flew by, the Wise Dragon slowly stopped moving. But unlike before, a bright light shot out of Michael, enveloping the Wise Dragon. The lightsted for a few moments, radiating an otherworldly whistling sound. Afterward, the light disappeared along with the Wise Dragon''s body.
"What the heck system? I could have sold the dragon''s body for billions," Michael was stunned. He never thought the system would take the dragon''s entire body and disappear.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level-10 mutated dragon. The reward is 500000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]
[The Soul Eater has absorbed the soul of the Wise Dragon. The host has received 200,000 Experience points]
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current level is the Fusion stage Level 10!]
The system notification sounded in his head. After killing the Wise Dragon, he was just four hundred thousand experience points away from breaking through to the Half-Immortal Stage.
[Then, you wouldn''t have found where Adelia went after teleporting from here] the system rebuked.
[The system has located Adelia''s destination using the energy mark in the Wise Dragon''s body]
"Where did she go?" asked Michael.
[The Castle of Kane Family]
Yet again, Michael was surprised by the system''s answer.
"To the Kane castle? Why?" Michael asked himself.
[Unfortunately, the hostcks the required badass points to teleport away from the Treacherous ocean. So the system rmends exploiting the ce and earning more badass points to give the system]
"Yeah right," Michael rolled his eyes.
"What did you do?" Gaya panicked.
"I may have found where your mother teleported to,"
Gaya''s heart skipped a beat. Her eyes went wide behind her mask.
"Where?"
"To the castle of the Kane family,"
Just like Michael, she was shocked too. She recalled meeting Elder Kane in the castlest time.
"Elder Kane''s full name is Ashton Kane, right?" asked Nightmare.
"I thought it was a coincidence but if she teleported to the Kane family out of all the ces she could have, I think it might not be a coincidence. What if Ashton Kane has some connection with Adelia?" Nightmare''s questions made sense, and Michael shared the same thought too.
"Let''s get out of here," said Gaya.
"Not yet. We have to find the curse-breaking artifact and a way to leave the ce," answered Michael.
The trio left the Wise Dragon''s dome immediately. Once again, they resumed their journey deeper into the treacherous ocean, searching for the artifact that could give Michael a Legendary Skill.
Chapter 677 Ghost Town
Several hours had passed since Michael had absorbed the Wise Dragon''s soul. Michael''s power steadily grew toward the Half Immortal Stage. He was pleasantly surprised to see Gaya breaking through to the Soul Refining stage level 7. Unfortunately, they didn''te across any powerful enemies. Instead, they had an eventless journey. They continued to roam around the ind. Michael ordered the system to scan the ind to find points of interest. But after spending two hundred thousand badass points to locate Adelia''s teleportation destination, he only had sixty thousand badass points.
"God killing arrows. Sounds ominous," said Nightmare.
"I wish we had learned about them earlier. Whatever they are, we cannot let anyone else find them, especially the Skyhall or the guardians," said Gaya. Her tone was grave. Judging by the name, these arrows were something that could hurt Michael. He was the only god Gaya had met in her life. Finding her mother was the only way to know more about these arrows.
"Let''s find the artifact first. Then, we can worry about these arrows," said Michael. Surprisingly, he was calm.
"Don''t you feel everything ising together?" asked Michael.
"What do you mean?" asked Gaya.
"Wulfric finding my identity, Rowena pretending to be my friend, your mother being a vampire, the god killing arrows," Michael listed out the things in his mind.
"I feel like I won''t be able to live two lives for longer," Michael''s words shocked Gaya and Nightmare.
"Don''t tell me you''re nning to reveal yourself as the Dark Lord. The entire Skyhall will hunt you down. Thest time I checked, we were not strong enough to take on the Skyhall," said Gaya.
"We can''t take on the Skyhall, but we can hide from them,"
Michael started to form a n if his identity got exposed. The war with Thusia might be a new beginning for him. Ironically, his life ended and started with Thusia. The history might repeat in a few months when he steps onto Thusia.
"System, are you powerful enough to hide me and my subordinates from the Skyhall?"
Michael prayed deep down for the system to say yes. His wish came true when the system answered him.
[Yes. The system would require five million badass points to hide your and your subordinates'' presence from any surveince spells and arrays]
Michael was d he has a way to hide from the Skyhall.
"Once we find mother, she will know what to do next," Gaya said with absolute trust in her mother.
"We will," Nightmare brushed his head against Gaya''s. He rested upon Gaya''s shoulder, looking around the treacherous ocean. He was kinda curious to know why the dragon n had disappeared from the face of the world. Moreover, what caused them to disappear?
Each of them was in deep thought of their own. As they traveled in peace for almost an hour, they found themselves in a valley. For a moment, Michael thought it was an illusion. But it was not. They were actually looking at a lush green valley with several waterfalls around them. With creased brows, they entered the valley, expecting trouble any second.
On the outside, the valley looked lush and beautiful. Even on a gloomy night, Michael could see the vegetation sprinkled around like dust of emerald.
It was surprising to see a ce like this in a treacherous ocean. Thest time he visited with Lah, he didn''te across any ces such as this.
"How could a single ce have so many biomes?" Michael asked himself.
"Look," Nightmare noticed something behind a boulder. He quickly pointed at the boulder to Michael and Gaya. They slowly made their way toward the boulder. The boulder was almost eight feet tall and six feet wide. The round boulder hid something behind. When they reached the boulder, Michael slowly walked around the boulder. As they got closer to the boulder, the air smelled like rotten meat. It made Gaya twitch her nose a bit.
There was a partially decayed body on the ground. Flies buzzed around the body. Judging by the dposed rate, the body was a month older. Michael and Gaya squatted beside the body to inspect it. Although the robes were dposed, they could make out a silver sword on the chest.
"It''s the crest of Aragoth," said Gaya.
"Disciple or an elder?" asked Nightmare.
Nightmare stared at the body from head to toe. Suddenly, his eyes squinted. He jumped onto the body and ced his ear on the body''s chest.
"I don''t sense any arch energy in this body whatsoever," Nightmare looked at Michael and Gaya with a bewildered look on his face.
In this world, everything had a trace of arch energy radiation except the junk metal which Michael used to build his drones and Spyders. Even a dead body would radiate a sliver of arch energy. However, Nightmare didn''t sense any energy radiation from the body.
"Michael," Gaya furrowed her brows. She poked the dead body''s chest. Michael looked closer to see a hand imprint on the skin. It looked as though a fiery hand touched the man''s chest when he was alive. She had seen the mark somewhere but simply couldn''t recall where she saw it exactly.
"What could leave a mark like this? Blood Prince?" Gaya tilted her head.
"No," Michael shook his head.
"Blood Prince''s corrosion would have corroded the body to the core. The mark may not be the cause of death," Michael gently lifted the body to take a look at his back. As Michael expected, he saw a deep stab wound on the back. Someone had stabbed the man from behind.
Nightmare pped his wings. From above, he looked around. His eyes fell on something written on the other side of the boulder.
"I may have found who killed him," said Nightmare. Both Michael and Gaya stood up before taking a few steps around the boulder. Shock and surprise emerged in their eyes.
"Noah,"
Noah''s name was written on the boulder in blood. Michael shook his head.
"It''s not Noah''s style to stab someone in the back. Something else has happened here," Michael rubbed his chin. Soon after, he just shrugged.
"I have enough things of my own to worry about. Let''s just tell the Aragoth and let them deal with this," said Michael.
His words surprised Gaya.
"Aren''t you curious about what Noah was doing in the treacherous ocean? No matter who the killer was, Noah was here. I have a bad feeling about this human,"
Michael halted his steps when he heard Gaya. She remembered where she had seen the mark previously.
(Read Chapter 363 to refresh your memory)
"The mark, I''ve seen it before,"
Michael slowly turned around.
"Do you remember when I told you Noah possesses a skill to lock someone''s cultivation?''
Michael recalled Gaya''s tale of Noah taking away someone''s cultivation level when she was in the Fire Realm. Since Michael had the system, he didn''t worry about Noah''s skill. Noah might be powerful and a god like him, but the system was on another level.
"Yes," Michael nodded.
"I think Noah took his cultivation, and someone else stabbed him to death,"
"There is no use in fighting out his death," said Michael, looking at the dead body.
"My first priority is to find your mother. Even if Noah was here to do something important, I don''t have enough time to take on a new task,"
"What if he was here to take the curse-breaking artifact you''re looking for?" asked Nightmare.
"Then let''s hope he didn''t get it," said Michael. He moved forward, leaving the body behind. Michael was in deep thought about the god killing arrows and Gaya''s mother. He neither had time nor mind to waste on a new problem. Although Gaya had a bad feeling about the man''s death, she knew Michael was right as always. She just followed Michael behind.
To their surprise, the valley was void of any mutated beings. Hence, they had a peaceful and uneventful journey. Luckily for Michael, he found several rare herbs on the way. He took his time, harvesting everything. When he exited the valley, he collected more than fifty rare herbs. Each one could be sold for at least a million coins in an auction.
He nned to grow them in his herbal garden at the Sunrise sect. As they exited the valley, they were weed by the familiar misty destend. Everything was shrouded in thick white mist. But in the distance, Michael vaguely saw some buildings.
Michael flew toward the buildings. The closer he got to the buildings, the clearer the surroundings became. A path led toward the buildings were torn to pieces by time. Grass filled thebyrinth of cracks, and sand covered whatever was left. Gardens once looked after and trimmed to perfection were now rough and overgrown, returning back to their chaotic natural state.
"What is this ce?" asked Gaya.
Some doors were shut tightly, others were broken down. Some forcefully, and others had simply copsed under their own weight as time continued to eat away at them. Many buildings stood precariously upright despite looking like they had no means to do so. It''d take just a slight nudge of a strong wind to tipple them all over.
What looked like once a pleasant, quiet town was nowpletely reimed by nature. The creaking of wood and grinding of metal on metal was the only sounds in this town now. They were disturbing noises in a disturbing environment.
The scents of fresh bread, various fruits, and all sorts of other foods might have filled the air of the ce once. Right at this moment, there was only the smell of death. Although the ce looked empty and deste, Michael sensed several mutated beings around him. They had taken the damaged buildings as their home.
"Human," Gaya whispered.
"I know. Keep walking," Michael calmly said. The creaking noises sounded louder and louder. The mutated beings slowly woke up from their slumber to attack Michael. To Michael''s surprise, the mutated beings didn''t attack him as he expected. Instead, they watched Michael from the darkness of the broken homes.
Suddenly, a strong gust of wind brushed past them. Michael sensed a powerful being for a moment.
"There is something here," Nightmare wrapped his tail around Gaya''s neck. The spooky surrounding and the eerie sounds made even Nightmare shudder in fear.
Chapter 678 Messenger Of The Blood Prince
A strange ck figure ran around like a breezing wind through the fallen buildings. Even Michael had a difficult time keeping up with the figure''s speed. He stepped in front of Gaya, shielding her with his body. Standing behind Michael, Gaya felt like she could face the entire world itself.
"Ghost," Michael heard a hiss. The voice was eerie and spooky. Michael remained calm.
"You survived," The figure hissed once again. Gaya turned around, pressed her back against Michael, and watched his back. Nightmare watched Michael''s left side. They prepared themselves for another battle. Only Michael knew the figure circling them was a Fusion Stage warrior. His senses told Michael the figure was stronger than the Wise Dragon itself.
"Ghost¡"
"I am getting annoyed," said Michael. Without even Michael himself realizing it, he was slowly stepping into his godhood. The stronger he was, the more he acted like a god instead of a mortal.
"Patience is a virtue," The voice whispered.
"The Blood prince," The figure''s words surprised Michael.
"Sent his regards," Suddenly, Michael noticed the figure dashing at him with the speed of lightning.
Cling!
Michael''s instincts screamed at him as he raised his arm, retracting the ck shield. The figure''s steel-like w hit the shield. Sparks flew in all directions. Michael and Gaya took a step back due to the force.
"Funny," said Michael, looking around the ghost town.
"I wanted to say the same,"
Once again, the figure dashed at Michael with speed beyond anyone Michael had ever faced. This time however, Michael immediately cast the Ring of Fire. To Michael''s surprise, the figure leaped over the burning fire circle and tried to attack Michael while moving upside down. Gaya was only able to see a blur. Michael blocked the figure''s fist with his ck shield. The sound of metal shing resonated in the air.
"He should crawl back into whatever hole he came from," said Michael after the figure disappeared into the mist.
"I am here to send you into a hole," the figure whispered back.
"No," Michael snickered.
"You are here to make me stronger,"
After killing this stranger, probably the Blood Prince''s henchman, Michael could start the heavenly tribtion to enter the Half Immortal Stage. For a normal cultivator, it was simply reaching the Half Immortal stage. But to Michael, it was stepping into Godhood. Half Immortal stage was the first step in bing the God of Darkness.
The me around Michael burning hotter and brighter. Due to the mes, the temperature around them increased by several degrees. Michael controlled the mes to send pulses of hot waves in a circle. The houses nearby them caught fire and started to burn with infuriating rage. As a result, the dark night turned brighter. Wood crackled under the scorching hot me. A few disturbances were enough for the already shabby homes to copsepletely.
Out of the blue, a steel arrow shot through the raging mes. The arrow didn''t target Michael but Nightmare, who sat atop Gaya''s shoulder. Michael quickly reacted. He was fortunate to grab the arrow just an inch away from Nightmare''s skull. Nightmare''s eyes went wide when he saw the arrow''s pointy head an inch away from his eyes.
"Big mistake," growled Michael.
"Coming here with them is," Whispered the figure.
Gaya quickly raised her hand, casting a defense shield around them. A misty green dome to protect them. Although the shield couldn''tpletely stop the spells cast by a Fusion Stage cultivator, the shield could absorb some force and energy to give them enough time to react. Michael''s feet slowly rose from the ground. Little by little, he ascended to the sky. If the strange figure really wanted to kill him, he had to fight Michael in the air without hiding behind ruins.
The figure didn''t let Michael fly higher and higher. A ming chain shot out from the ground, coiling around Michael''s leg. Michael gritted his teeth. The chains burnt the skin on Michael''s leg despite the robes. Controlling the pain, Michael lifted his leg high enough to grab the chain by his hand. He quickly conjured the dark mes disguised as emerald green mes. The dark mes protected Michael''s hands. When Michael grabbed the chain, it melted due to the intense heat of the dark me.
Michael wrapped the chain around his wrist before pulling it up with enough force to lift the figure into the air. As Michael nned, the figure who held onto the other end of the chain flew straight into the air. For the first time, Michael was able to take a good look at the figure. The figure was thin as a stick who dressed in a long ck coat without a shirt or anything to cover his upper body. However, his leather slim-fit pants gave him the needed agility to run around.
The man grinned devilishly. His ck hair fluttered in the wind, just like his long ck coat. In his hand, he held a pair of curved des. The fangs were an obvious giveaway that the man was a vampire. To Michael, this vampire seemed different than the rest. Instead of asking any question, Michael raised his hand. Small golden lightning bolts danced around his wrist before shooting toward the vampire.
"Don''t you know my kind is immune to spells," The vampire snickered. He didn''t even bother to block the lightning bolts. Instead, he let the lightning bolts hit him. All the bolts hit the vampire right in the chest, but none could pierce his body. Gaya''s eyes turned predatory. The images of the blood prince punching Michael shed across her eyes. She wanted to rip the blood prince into pieces. Unfortunately, Gaya could sense she was not strong enough to face the vampire hovering in the air before her. This was Michael''s kill.
"Spell or no spell. You''re going to die here," Michael said. He was nonchnt. Hearing Michael''s words, the vampire grinned. To Gaya''s surprise, the vampire multiplied himself. Countless copies of him materialized all around them. In a few moments, she was confused about which was the original. Each of the replicas grinned devilishly at Michael.
Once again, Michael cast the ring of fire. The pulsating wave of me shot out of Michael, burning the replicas. He used dark mes instead of normal mes. As a result, the replicas that stood within the spell''s range turned into specks of light.
"Primordial me,"
Michael heard the figure whisper. He sensed a sliver of shock in the figure''s voice.
"We have lived in the shadows for too long," the figure said.
"This is time to reim what was ours,"
Several arrows shot toward Michael, as he burnt every single one of them with the ring of fire.
"Starting with your precious river town,"
Gaya felt rage coursing through her veins. On the other hand, Nightmare''s body began to glimmer. He was just a few seconds away from breathing fire. But Michael remained calm.
"You can burn it to the ground for all I care. But if you ever touch Thusia,'' The vampire noticed Michael''s eyes turning predatory.
"I will raise your kind to the ground,"
Since Michael was a perfect liar, the vampire believed him. Michael''s facial expression was good enough to fool the vampire. The vampire felt as though it had found a weakness of Ghost.
"Thusia,"
Michael shot a lightning bolt toward the vampire the moment it uttered the kingdom''s name.
"Don''t say its name," Michael growled.
Michael pretended to lose his calm. The vampire''s devilishughter echoed through the treacherous ocean. The sky flickered due to Michael''s lightning bolts. Whenever Michael shot a bolt of lightning, the vampire let it hit him in the chest, and itughed, seeing the lightning bolt had caused no damage. The battle continued for a few minutes in the air until the vampire opened his mouth.
"It''s a good run. We will meet soon,"
The vampire faded into thin air, leaving them behind. Even Michael didn''t expect the vampire just to disappear. He was somewhat disappointed. He could have killed the vampire to trigger the heavenly tribtion, in his case, stepping into Godhood.
"How are these vampires going in and out of ces that even we can''t?" asked Nightmare.
"They must have a teleporter," answered Gaya.
Michael didn''t say anything but flew toward the tallest building in the ghost town. Judging by the tower and the building''s architecture, it must have been a ce where the people used to worship. The closeted thing Michael couldpare the building was a church. The building''s roof copsed, and only one wall remained still, threatening to crumble down any second.
There was only arge hole where the front door might have been.
"Are we going inside?" asked Gaya. Theynded before the entrance. Gaya looked inside to see nothing but ruins, wild veins, roots, and rotten logs. Michael floated a few inches above the ground to prevent their footsteps from knocking down the dominos of a building. When he entered the building, the first thing he noticed was a twelve feet tall broken statue of a dragon.
Half of the dragon''s body crumbled due to the time. It sat there with its wings closed, looking at the sky. Nightmare flew toward the statue from Gaya''s shoulder. He noticed several holes and hollows on the statue with crumbs of gold. Nightmare knew whoever came before they picked the statue clean of its decorations. Michael couldn''t help feeling a bit down for the dragons. Once a great and powerful n turned into nothing but a trace of history. The remaining dragons had long forgotten their legacy and lived either as familiars or wild dragons that hoard valuables, such as the Wise Dragon.
Nightmarended before the statue. He lowered his head, bowing. Unlike Michael and Gaya, Nightmare felt the urge to worship the statute the moment heid his eyes on it.
"Will you two give me some time alone?" asked Nightmare. They sensed a tinge of sadness in his voice. Michael nodded before turning around. Gaya on the other hand, wanted to sit beside the little dragon to console him. But Michael grabbed her hand and dragged her with him to explore the ruins.
Chapter 679 Gift From The Dark Lord
Leaving Nightmare to stay in silence and reflect on the dragon n''s disappearance, Michael slowly walked around the ruin as though he was searching for something. Gaya briefly looked around the castle. But she saw nothing but ruins. Finally, Gaya couldn''t hold back her tongue.
"What are we doing here?" asked Gaya.
"There is something under this temple," Michael calmly said. His words surprised Gaya.
"So you''re looking for a secret entrance?" asked Gaya. Michael nodded.
"Look around. This ce is in ruins. The entrance to the underground might have copsed for all we know,"
Gaya was right. The lever to open up the underground chamber was long ago crumbled down. As a result, Michael had to look for an alternative way to open the entrance, which he needed to find out where. He could turn to the system, yet he chose not to until he couldn''t find any other way. He was saving badass points in case he needed them when he''s breaking through to the Half-Immortal Stage.
Despite her thought, Gaya still helped him by looking around, turning things, and searching for the entrance.
"What about the statute? It''s a ssic act to hide the switch or the entrance within the statue," said Gaya.
"It''s pretty obvious, so the entrance won''t be there," said Michael. He had already scanned the statue, finding no hidden mechanisms.
They continued to roam around the temple until Gaya noticed a broken portrait hanging on the wall that stood still. She cautiously made her way to the portrait. She slowly removed the portrait from the wall. Nothing had happened as she expected. She turned around the portrait. When she removed the portrait, Michael saw a gentle heat inside the portrait with his thermal vision. He floated outward the portrait. The back of the portrait was a rough surface. On the corner, Michael noticed a half an inch hollow, the size of a thumb.
"Nightmare,e here buddy," Michael called out for Nightmare. It took Nightmare a few moments to open his eyes and fly toward Michael.
"Are you alright?" asked Gaya.
"Just felt bad for everything," Nightmare looked around.
Michael grabbed Nightmare''s arm and ced it on the hollow. Michael knew a fingerprint reader when he saw one. As Michael expected, when Nightmare''s skin touched the portrait, the portrait trembled. Gaya felt the portrait getting hotter and hotter to the point she had to take her hand off of it. Suddenly, a light shot out from the portrait toward the dragon statue. Then the light reflected on the stature to take a sixty-degree turn.
Michael moved the portrait a bit, but no matter where he moved the portrait, the light spotted the exact same location.
"Nightmare, hold onto it," said Michael.
He quickly flew toward the spotlight to investigate. Michael raised his pam toward the spotlight on the ground, sending a gust of wind to clean the dust and pebbles. After cleaning up, he noticed a tiny keyhole. Michael looked around the ruin once again. It would take ages to find the key if it was here. Finally, Michael willed the system to open this door. Since Michael had found the door and only needed a key, the system was only able to charge him 10,000 badass points.
A couple of minutester, a brightser shot out from Michael''s finger into the keyhole. The floor cracked as Michael heard something moving beneath him. Slowly, a handle emerged from the ground. Michael pulled it up to open the entrance to the underground.
"Let''s go," Gaya said. Nightmare followed Gaya behind. They saw Michael jump down into the hole first. Gaya followed him first, and Nightmare entered the holest.
At that moment, Michael fell down a dark hole with no light. Gaya increased her speed to reach Michael. She quickly conjured a ball of light to illuminate the ce. The hole was deep enough for them to continuously free-fall for almost a minute. Finally, thanks to the light, they were able to see the bottom. Theynded on the ground with a small thud. The tunnel before them was the only way to move forward. Michael led Gaya and Nightmare into the tunnel. In addition to Gaya''s light, there was another light source at the end of the tunnel. Moreover, Michael heard the rustling sound of a waterfall. They walked in silence.
Unlike outside, Michael sensed no mutated beings around him. While following Michael, Gaya looked around at the drawings on the tunnel walls. Most of them depicted the war between the dragon n and the beast men.
"This ce must be ancient," said Gaya.
"And untouched," Nightmare pointed at a mud pot filled with gold chains, artifacts, and chalices.
"Leave them alone for now. We''ll loot this ce on our way out," said Michael. He had noticed the mud pots filled with valuables. If his guess was right, these were the offerings to the dragon in that statue. There was at least ten million worth of loot in the tunnel. He could sell them for more since they were ancient, and collectors in this world would pay any price for something found in the treacherous ocean.
But Michael couldn''t feel happier because all of his focus was on the energy source he''s been sensing ever since he entered this ghost town. The source was getting closer. He could feel its pulsating energy.
"Is it first energy?" Michael questioned himself. Thest time he saw the first energy, he ended up soul-walking Lah and created a spirit child.
Michael''s train of thought was abruptly cut short by Gaya.
"Human look," Michael turned around to see Gaya staring at something on the wall. Her eyes went wide, and Nightmare shared the same bewildered look. Because Michael was focused on the energy source, he failed to notice the drawings that drew Gaya''s attention.
Once Michael reached Gaya''s side, he noticed a part of the wall painted in ck paint in stark contrast to the rest of the brownish tunnel wall. The engravings on the wall reminded him of the engravings in the shadow realm. He creased his brows as he saw a cobra, a dragon atop the cobra''s head, and a human walking engraved on the wall.
The cobra definitely symbolized Gaya as she was a Naga. In her true form, she would look like a terrifying giant cobra. The dragon atop the cobra was Nightmare because he was sitting on Gaya''s shoulder as they walked. Which meant the human was Michael. But these weren''t the things that surprised Michael or shocked Gaya and Nightmare. Instead, it was what was written down beneath the engravings.
"A gift for my dark queen," Michael read the words. He touched the engraving. The moment his hand touched the wall, he felt a bolt of electricity running down his spine. Immediately his vision became dark.
" I have guided you as far as I could," Michael heard his own voice in his head.
"The path before you is rough. Take what I left for you and let Gaya use it. Do not forget to strengthen your allies. War is won by an army, not by a single person. And yes, I am you," Michael realized the message was left by the future Dark Lord who had be the past.
"Find my armor with the system''s help. It will help you greatly in the path forward. Good luck, Michael," Michael''s vision slowly returned to normal. Gaya stood beside him with her hand on his shoulder.
"You dazed out,"
"I left something for you," said Michael.
"Huh?" Gaya tilted her head with a bewildered look.
"My past self. When I touched this, I heard him. He said he has left something for you,"
Michael took a deep breath. He moved further into the tunnel without uttering a word. Nightmare and Gaya followed him behind. After walking for a minute, they finally saw the tunnel opening into a spacious area. Surprisingly, they could see the dark sky above them. One could see a lush green grass field with a couple of trees scattered across. A frothy cascade of water fell into a plunge pool, forming a violent waterfall. Under the sky was yet another dragon statue covered in moths. In their mouth, they saw a bright ball of energy. The light from the ball of energy lit the area bright. Additionally, it created an otherworldly whistling noise. The pulsating energy could be felt from afar.
"What is that?" Gaya''s jaw dropped a couple of inches. She felt like the energy is calling her. Without her control, she started to walk toward the statue.
"Pure first energy," Michael recognized this energy. However, it differed from the first energy he came across with Lah.
"System, is this thing going to trigger something?" asked Michael.
[The energy has been purified and specifically modified to be absorbed by subordinate Gaya] said the system. Michael heard a tinge of surprise in the system''s voice.
[But the system can sense a sliver of instability in the energy due to staying dormant for many years]
"What does that mean?"
[That means once the subordinate Gaya has started to absorb the energy, it would create a shock wave that attracts the mutated beings in a mile radius toward you] said the system.
"Let theme,"
Gaya was just a couple of meters away from the statute when she turned around,
"Michael, what should I do? I feel like it''s calling to me," said Gaya. Michael made his way toward her. He gently ced his hand on her shoulder.
"Cultivate that energy and do not stop under any circumstances until you''ve done," said Michael.
With a nod, Gaya sat in a meditating position to start cultivating.
"Nightmare, get ready. This is going to get ugly," Michael unsheathed his swords. They were no special by any means. He got them from the Voldigard mansion. Meanwhile, Nightmare returned to his original size.
The ground beneath them trembled as soon as Gaya began to absorb the energy. Michael immediately took out a fuel can from the system storage. He cast the lightning dash before pouring the fuel around them. Sparks flew out of Michael''s fingers. He ignited the fuel with his dark mes.
At that moment, countless thundering roars resonated throughout the area. Michael and Nightmare were poised to attack whateveres toward them.
"Come on,e on,e on," Michael repeated the words, preparing himself for a bloody battle.
Chapter 680 Fighting An Army Of Mutated Beings
Michael felt the energy getting denser in the atmosphere. When Michael looked over his shoulder, he noticed a sliver of pure white energy enveloping her body. Gaya''s power shot through the roof. Meanwhile, countless mutated beings of all shapes leaped to the ground from higher ground. They were surrounded. The only silver lining was this first wave only contained mutated beings at the Core Formation stage. But Michael sensed more powerful mutated beings approaching them.
Nightmare pped his wings, reaching the sky. He opened his mouth, breathing a crimson red stream of fire onto the mutated beings. His dragon breath turned everything into ash. In a few seconds, Nightmare killed almost half of the mutated beings. After burning them to ashes, Nightmarended near Gaya to protect her in case a mutated being sneaked past Michael and him.
On the other hand, Michael did not move. Golden bolts of lightning crackled around his wrist. The buzzing sound from the bolts sounded louder and louder. Without moving an inch, Michael raised his sword as the bolts of lightning shot out from his words. The thick golden lightning bolt prated a couple of mutated beings at once. Their heads exploded as they hit the ground with a sickening thud. The light on Gaya''s body glowed brighter, fighting the death range cast by Michael. The ce almost looked ck and fought due to the light conflict.
At the same time, he cast the ring of fire. The pulsating fire was dark instead of crimson red. Michael did not hold back from using the dark mes. Even Nightmare''s dragon breath took a couple of seconds to turn the mutated beings to ash, but the dark mes did the same in an instant. Michael''s experience points rapidly climbed up.
Finally, the first wave of mutated beings were all killed by Nightmare and Michael. Silence fell over them. Except for a howling wind and the shuddering sound of the waterfall, they heard nothing. For a few minutes, everything seemed calm. But Michael knew it was just the calm before the storm.
"Be ready," Michael looked at Nightmare.
"They areing," said Michael. Nightmare nodded. He slowly ascended to the sky to get a good look at the mutated beings. When he reached the sky, he furrowed. There were at least a hundred mutated beings swarming from every direction. Nightmare didn''t fly toward them. Instead, Nightmare hovered over Gaya, waiting for the mutated beings to get closer. This time, Michael started the battle with the wind st. He saw mutated humanoid beings running and some crawling toward him. They reached their hands out as though they wanted to rip out Michael''s head. Most of the mutated beings were at the Core Strengthening stage, and some were at the Soul Refining stage.
Michael immediately targeted the Soul Refining stage mutated beings. They weren''t humanoid beats. All the Soul Refining stage beings were some kind of four-legged beasts. They resembled Rhinoceros on earth, except these were taller than a typical man. The ground trembled as the army of mutated beings moved forward.
"Lightning Dash," Michael disappeared from the ce. He dashed at them, leaving streaks of golden lightning on his trail. Michael leaped into the air and brought down his fists. Michael used all his strength to punch the ground. The ground split open as his punch created a crater. The shock wave sent several mutated beings flying back. The Soul Refining stage beasts copsed onto the crater formed by Michael''s punch. He immediately followed up his attack with the ring of fire. Wave after wave, the dark mes shot out of Michael. The mutated beings stood no chance against the most powerful Primordial me. They all turned to ashes, including the Soul Refining stage beasts.
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage, level 6 mutated beast. The reward is 300000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage, level 7 mutated beast. The reward is 300000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage, level 3 mutated beast. The reward is 300000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]
¡
[Maximum Experience points reached]
[The host has enough experience points to start the heavenly tribtion]
[Additional points will be stored in the system temporarily to be consumed after wreaking through to the Half Immortal stage]
[The system rmends the host find a safe ce to start the tribtion. The tribtion must not be stopped for any reason]
The system sounded in his head. But he ignored it because he was in the middle of a battle. Whether the battle was small or big, he always gave his full focus. Otherwise, a simple mistake could result in a catastrophe. On the side, Nightmare breathed fire in a circle. He kept the mutated beings at bay. Michael fully immersed himself in the battle. The more he fought, the darker the area became. Michael let his suppressed powers out, reaching his full potential. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the golden bolts of lightning gradually turned ck. His speed increased to the point even Nightmare could only see the afterimages left behind by Michael.
Dark ooze-like blood spurted out as limbs and heads flew on the battlefield. Powerful crescent-shaped fire des cut through the mutated beings like a hot knife through butter. Michaelbined his spells to form new powerful spells. For instance, the fire des were created bybining the ring of fire and wind st.
Michael killed all the Soul Refining stage rhinos except one. When Michael burnt the rest, it was far away from the reach of the ring of fire. Hence, it escaped the wrath of dark mes. The rhino''s roar echoed through the battlefield. Michael and the beast made eye contact. Without wasting a moment, the rhino kicked the floor and jogged toward Michael. Everything that stood in its way got either crushed or thrown away. Tiny bolts of lightning began to crackle around Michael''s feet.
When Michael dashed forward, his speed created a sonic wave that sted off everything around him. Nightmare could only see a streak of ck lightning. Under Nightmare''s gaze, the rhino and Michael shed. Their collision created another shock wave. The ground around them formed several cracks. No one had seen Michael''s fist meeting the rhino''s face. Michael didn''t hold back. His punch knocked down the mammoth of a rhino.
"Silenes," Michael cast the time-slowing spell for the first time. As soon as he cast the spell, everything in a 0.5-meter radius seemed to have been halted. The mutated beings, including the rhino, moved in slow motion. Michael used this momentary slowness to plunge his sword into the rhino''s belly. His sword didn''t go through easily. But Michael quickly covered his left fist with the dark me and punched the rhino. The rhino''s hide was strong but not strong enough to withstand the dark mes. His fist created a hole in the rhino''s belly. Quickly, Michael plunged his sword, cutting its innards. Moreover, Michael sent a thick bolt of lightning through the hall.
Suddenly, the surroundings became normal. The rhino roared. It wasn''t a roar of agony or pain, as the mutated beings felt neither. The roar contained pure hatred toward anything other than a mutated being. Michael cast the ring of fire without giving the rhino a chance to retaliate. Since Michael was standing close to the rhino, the dark mes didn''t take much time, turning the rhino into a pile of hot ash. The dark mes swallowed the rhino and spat out nothing. Even the rhino''s bones were turned to ashes. Any creature with a brain would have been terrified by Michael''s kill. Unfortunately, the mutated beingscked brain functionality. They kepting at Michael as if nothing had happened.
The dark mes pulsed out from Michael. Every time it pulsated, a wave of dark mes shot out, turning everything around him to ashes. Considering Michael had used the death range, he stepped onto the Half Immortal Stage. To a Half Immortal, the Core Strengthening or Soul Refining stage mutated beings were as weak as ants.
Michael killed them all without breaking a sweat. The battle onlysted for another minute or two. In the second wave, Michael killed more mutated beings than Nightmare. Michael breathed heavily. He was covered entirely in dark ooze spurted out from the mutated beings. He slowly cleaned the sword des on his elbow. Once the eerie silence had returned to the field, Michaelnded just beside Gaya with a single leap.
"How long will it take?" asked Nightmare.
"Why? You have somewhere to be?" Michael raised his brow. He was in a good mood after umting enough points to reach the Half Immortal Stage. Moreover, the battle was far from over. So right out of the bat, he could reach level 2 or 3 of the Half Immortal Stage, depending on the Experience points cap.
Michael noticed Gaya reaching Soul Refining stage 8, and her power kept increasing. He wondered how the past Dark Lord, who was himself, managed to refine the First energy. The only guess Michael had was the system. The duo patiently waited beside Gaya, regaining their strength. Michael emptied several revitalizing potions down his throat and tossed some into Nightmare''s mouth.
Feeling the powerful energy radiation, Michael was tempted to use the Energy devourer. However, he himself said he left this to Gaya. Hence, Michael withheld himself. Gaya must be as strong as him to face the foes ahead of them. Out of the blue, Nightmare and Michael heard a thunderous roar. Michael closed his eyes to sense how many mutated beings were on their way. To Michael''s surprise, he sensed only one.
Judging by the mutated being''s speed, it was walking at the speed of a typical human. Michael slowly turned around. He was surprised by the mutated being. It was neither a beast nor any normal humanoid mutated being. Instead, what stood several meters ahead of Michael was an eight feet tall orc with a six feet tall club. His skin was gentle green, with hollow eyes. The orc was muscr. He looked like he could break a tree in half just with his brute strength. Various armaments, such as a chain of fingers around his neck, decorated his body.
"Stay back," said Michael.
The Orc was at the Fusion stage level 7. Nightmare was no match for him. Sensing the power radiation from the Orc, Nightmare didn''t argue. Instead, he stepped back, opening his wings to shield Gaya. Instead of mindlessly dashing at Michael like the others, the Orc stood on higher ground, staring at Michael. Michael felt as though the orc was studying him.
"What''s he doing?" Nightmare mumbled.
Michael remained calm. He cracked his neck before taunting the orc to make his move.
"Come on,"
Chapter 681 Gaya鈥檚 Transformation
The Orc and Michael looked at each other. They were in a staring contest. After a while, the orc finally took a step forward. A green mist enveloped the club in the orc''s hand. Every other mutated being Michael had met was dumb, stupid, and brainless. However, the Orc seemed different. Michael didn''t know the orc was ancient, several thousand years older than the mutated being Michael had faced. The treacherous ocean twisted the Orc''s soul and mind to the point the orc developed a sense of intelligence. The orc was once a mindless mutated beast but not anymore. It had evolved.
Soon, the slow steps turned into running. Michael stood there without moving. Lightning bolts crackled around Michael''s fist and feet. He waited for the orc to get closer. The distance between Michael and the Orc rapidly closed to the point there was only ten meters distance between them. At that moment, Michael dashed toward the orc. In a blink of an eye, the Orc''s club and Michael''s swords shed. Sparks flew, creating shing metal sounds.
The orc roared. Despite the orc''s size, it moved with speed beyond mortal limits. The orc swung his club left and right with no technique but with brute force. A single blow could force a man''s head to his chest cavity. Michael swayed his body to avoid the club. With lightning speed, Michael swung his swords. As Michael expected, the sword couldn''t even scrap the orc''s thick skin. He felt like he was trying to cut a concrete block. The ORc quickly retaliated by throwing his fist at Michael. Thetter barely evaded the punch.
Suddenly, the Orc roared. A powerful sonic wave shot out of its mouth and sent Michael flying for a couple of meters.
"That''s unexpected," said Michael when hended on the ground. Michael was lucky to have the responsive shield in his arsenal. Otherwise, the sound wave shot out of the orc''s mouth would have torn his eardrums and crushed a few bones. Still, the roar damaged Michael''s organs a bit. The APD quickly pumped a healing potion into his bloodstream, keeping Michael in perfect shape.
Michael took a deep breath. He threw away the two swords because they were useless in this fight. Instead of using swords, Michael conjured the dark mes. He covered his fist with the dark mes. The me burnt off his sleeves. Michael felt powerful and badass with the ming fists.
"Let''s see how thick your skin is," Michael snickered. Yet again, Michael dashed at the Orc. If there was no lighting from the energy behind Michael, he would have been stronger. Complete darkness with no light would boost Michael''s strength several times. Nheless, Michael was more than strong enough to fight the orc. After all, the Orc was at the Fusion stage, but Michael was at the Half Immortal stage. Michael dyed the battle intentionally to give Gaya enough time. If Michael had killed the orc sooner, stronger mutated beings could appear next. But, for some strange reason, no mutated beings appeared in the area.
It worked in Michael''s favor. He took his sweet time with the Orc. But that wasn''t to say the Orc was an easy opponent. On the contrary, the Orc was stronger than any Fusion stage cultivator Michael had faced. The Orc threw his fist and, at the same time, swung its club. This time, Michael didn''t evade. Instead, he just grabbed the club. A powerful shock wave appeared when Michael stopped the club with his hand. On the other hand, he grabbed the Orc''s fist. Michael looked up at the orc with a snicker. The very next moment, Michael pulled the club and fist toward him and kicked the orc in the gut with his knee. The Orc spurted out dark blood. Michael quickly turned around before throwing the orc over his head. The orc hit the ground with a loud thud. The ground formed several cracks beneath the orc when Michael smashed him on the ground. Michael did not stop. He stomped the orc in the chest with enough force to break several ribs inside the orc.
The orc opened his mouth to roar, but Michael quickly raised his arms, casting the wind st spell. The sonic wave from the orc''s mouth and the wind st from Michael collided in the middle. The collision created a shock wave that sent both of them flying in opposite directions. Michaelnded on his feetfortably, unlike the orc. The mes burned darker and hotter around Michael''s fist. He cracked his neck.
Nightmare turned his gaze away from the battle to Gaya. She was still cultivating the energy. Her power had grown from Soul Refining Stage level 8 to level 9. Gaya''s ck hair fluttered in the wind as her entire body glowed. He noticed golden snake scales appearing on her skin.
On the other hand, Michael did not notice the changes on Gaya''s skin. He focused on battling the orc. While the orc was getting back to his feet, Michael made his way to the boulder nearby. Michael punched the boulder, cracking it open like an egg. He grabbed the tworge pieces of the boulder, lifted them up, and threw them toward the orc. Seeing the tworge stones flying toward him, the orc quickly raised his hands in front of his face. The two boulders hit the orc before scattering into pieces. The orc was thrown backward by force. When he lowered his arms, Michael was in the air. He fired lightning bolts one after another.
Michael flew around in the air, bombarding the Orc with lightning bolts. In Nightmare''s eyes, Michael looked more like a god of lightning than the god of darkness. The orc couldn''t keep up with Michael''s offense. After a while, the orc surprised Nightmare by leaping into the air. The orc tried to battle Michael in the air.
Nightmare saw the Orc and Michael fly across the sky, fighting each other. They moved too fast to the point Nightmare could only see blurry images in the sky. The battle between the orc and Michael continued for nearly fifteen minutes. Michael dragged the fight as long as he could. Although the orc began to fight aggressively like a wounded animal, Michael remained unscathed.
To Michael''s surprise, Gaya rapidly reached higher and higher in cultivation power. He thought she would stop breaking through once she had reached the Fusion Stage level 3 or 4. On the contrary, her absorption of the energy increased by several folds. She climbed up the cultivation without slowing down. Fusion Stage level 3, Fusion Stage level 4, Fusion Stage level 5, Fusion Stage level 6...
Her power soared through the roof. Nightmare had a difficult time breathing standing beside Gaya. In the air, the battle continued. The orc was in much more rough shape than before. His entire body was riddled with burning wounds caused by Michael''s ming fists. Yet, despite all the wounds and broken bones, the Orc continued to fight with new vigor. His wounds even slowly healed.
Michael had enough of the orc. He wanted to finish the battle. The quickest way to finish the fight was to grab the orc''s head and twist it around. Michael was about to evade the orc''s punch and flew behind him when a bright beam of light shot out from Gaya toward the sky. The sound of rumbling thunder echoed through the treacherous ocean. Nightmare saw Gaya slowly starting to float in the air. Finally, her power stopped rising. Gradually, the bright ball of energy in the dragon''s mouth lost its glow. In a few moments, the light faded away from the energy ball and around Gaya. She floated in the mid-air with her hair fluttering.
Just like lightning bolts danced around Michael''s body, slithering snakes made of emerald green energy coiled around Gaya. They were in the hundreds. Tiny ethereal snakes coiled around her. Michael stopped fighting as he felt a strange force enveloping the orc. Gaya slowly opened her eyes. They were green with slit pupils. Suddenly, Michael''s neck hair stood up. She looked over his shoulder to see a giant cobra materialize in the air. It glimmered like it was made of pure gold. The snake hissed at the orc, slowly wrapping its tail around the orc. The orc frantically wriggled his body to escape the snake''s clutches. But the ethereal snake was too strong. It slowly crushed his body. Michael heard sickening bone crushing sounds. Slowly, the hissing snake opened its mouth, devouring the orc.
Michael saw the orc''s skin melting inside the snake''s mouth. Since the snake was translucent, he could see the orc gradually turning into a skeleton.
[Ding! Subordinate Gaya killed a Fusion Stage level 10 mutated Orc. The reward is 300,000 experience points]
Michael heard the system sounding in his head. The Gaya before him was just as strong as him, a level 10 Fusion Stage cultivator. By absorbing the purified first energy left behind by the Dark Lord, Gaya jumped from the Soul Refining stage cultivator to a Fusion Stage cultivator.
"I feel strong," said Gaya. She clenched her fist and looked at her arms.
"Yes, you are," Michael wrapped his arm around Gaya. He gave a gentle headbutt before a warm kiss on the cheek.
"System, pinpoint the curse-breaking artifact''s location," Michael ordered the system. He umted enough badass points to locate the artifact instead of aimlessly roaming around the treacherous ocean. He didn''t have any need to wander around. He got enough experience points to break through to the Half Immortal Stage. ording to the system, he had to be in a safe environment to start the tribtion. The treacherous ocean was anything but safe. Finding a safe environment was Michael''s next goal. But first, he needed to get the artifact for Eve''s sake.
The system asked for 100,000 badass points to pinpoint the location. It was worth the price. After a while, Michael sensed a strange energy. That was the curse-breaking artifact. Without lingering around, Michael flew in the artifact''s direction.
"Where are we going?" asked Nightmare. He had so many questions to ask Gaya, but for now, he chose not to.
"To take the artifact that would break Eve''s curse once and for all,"
Chapter 682 Villainous Michael
Michael flew slower than before. Instead, he took his sweet time. With Gaya beside him, even the treacherous ocean looked pretty and soothing to him. After flying for almost six hours nonstop, Michael found a hill. He made his way to the hill and sat on the edge with Gaya. Nightmare sat between them after shrinking his size to the size of a puppy. The white mist nketed the ind before them. asionally, several hills and towers peeked through the fog. Everything was dead silent. The night sky slowly turned gray, signifying the sunrise. Looking at the gloomy treacherous ocean, Gaya rested her head on Michael''s shoulder. He wrapped his hand around her, pulling her closer to him.
"I wish the rest of our lives would be like this. Peaceful," Gaya sighed.
"It will be. I promise. When I am done, there will be nothing but peace in this world," said Michael.
"I wish Vedora were here," said Nightmare.
"Me too," Gaya nodded.
"What are we gonna do after all this?" asked Gaya.
"Decimating Thusia and finding your mother," Michael said. He was nonchnt.
"You still haven''t answered my question? Are you going to join the Council of Immortals?"
Michael looked at the distant horizon. His eyes glimmered with deep thought. Finally, Michael deeply exhaled.
"No," Michael slowly shook his head.
"One, I don''t need their resources to break through to the next level. Second, they have too many rules. I don''t follow the rules. I set them," said Michael. As Michael exined, the Council of Immortals had several strict rules. Each of the members must obey the rules once they have agreed to join the council.
When a cultivator reaches the Half Immortal stage, the Council would formally invite them through a representative of the council. Nine out of ten cultivators would immediately join them because after reaching the Half Immortal stage, typical cultivation resources wouldn''t be much of a use. Without the Council''s resources, they wouldn''t be able to achieve a breakthrough to the next level. However, once they had agreed to join the council, they would be forbidden to meddle with mortal affairs. In other words, even if their family gets destroyed by a rival family, they have no right to seek revenge.
Many Immortals and Half immortals spent their time in seclusion as they would lose track of time. As a result, many would lose their connection with their descendants and familial bonds. Michael didn''t have any ns to join the council, even if they had no strict rules. But the Council of Immortals worked in Michael''s favor. While Michael was destroying his foes, they would fight among themselves about whether they should take action against him or not. They were basically politicians with their own needs. Michael knew he could sway some Immortals to his side with bribes, bribes bought from the system.
His next goal was to be powerful enough to destroy the Council of Immortals if he needed to.
"Just find me energy sources like this," said Gaya.
Michael almost coughed up blood, hearing her. Even Gaya began tough. She was fortunate to find such a miraculous energy source. Suppose they auctioned the energy source. It would have easily made them billions.
"I''ve already found one," said Michael.
"The Cosmic stream?"
Michael nodded.
"I''ll take back what''s mine. If I can''t, I will destroy it," His voice became cold.
"Now that you''ve warned them you''reing for them, they will try to strike you down when you start your heavenly tribtion. We need a safe ce," said Gaya.
ording to the system, he would be most vulnerable during the tribtion. Obviously, the system would go offline. Furthermore, Michael himself would enter into a kind of trance state. His mind, body, and soul had to be changed from the molecr level. Only then, could he step onto godhood. The system calcted it would take five days for Michael toplete. During the five days, his safety depended on his subordinates. Initially, Michael nned to start the tribtion in a secluded ce without telling anyone. However, Gaya said that the heavenly tribtion would create enoughmotion and disturb nature itself to attract every single organization in the world to reach him.
Most of them would be curious to see who was entering the Half Immortal stage, while some might use that as a perfect opportunity to strike him down.
Fortunately, Michael had several allies to protect him. The Kane family, Aragoth, Kingdom of Royal Land, Mn Family, and SilverMoon sect. He would call upon them all to protect him during the heavenly tribtion. In exchange for their protection, Michael would destroy their enemies once and for all.
There was only one problem with calling out his allies. If by some means his identity got exposed, his allies would pay a hefty price for supporting the Dark Lord.
"We still have no idea how many rogue Half immortals the Guardian Guild has?" asked Michael. Rogue ones were cultivators who chose not to join the Council. Just like Michael, they had their own ns. Especially, a powerful organization such as the Guardians had rogue ones to protect themselves in case someone like Michael chose to attack them. Usually, these rogues would cultivate in the Cold Mountains. Their organization would provide them with the resources instead of the Council.
Every organization had these rogues but kept the information sealed. These rogues were usually several hundred years old or more.
"They keep that as a secret. But we might be able to get something from the elf," said Gaya. By elf, she meant Lord Information. Michael doubted Lord Information could have that information, but it wouldn''t hurt to try. After spending some time in peace, Michael stood up. Once again, they resumed the journey toward the artifact. On their way, they met several mutated beings in the sky. Gaya took care of them in a few seconds with new vigor.
Even the Fusion Stage beasts didn''t stand a chance against Gaya. Eventually, the trio reached a forest. The forest was far-reaching, imprable, and ancient. Its canopy was contested byrch, spruce, and elm, which gave just enough light a chance to descend for a collection of herbs to use the moist and fertile bottomyer below. Thin branches embraced many trees, and various flowers, which desperately tried to im thest remnants of light, caught attention in the otherwise unvarying scenery. A mishmash of noises, predominantly those of critters, reverberated through the air and added to the sounds of asional sounds of breaking twigs beneath the feet of Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare.
Fearing they might miss the artifact if they flew above the forest, they chose to walk through the thicket. Michael sensed the artifact getting closer and closer to him. He wondered what this artifact that would make him break any curses was. Once he gets this artifact, he could break not only Eve''s curse but also ire''s grandfather''s too. Additionally, Michael nned to find more information about ire''s mother.
Michael walked through the thicket until he saw an abandoned cabin. Nature had long imed the cabin to itself. The small cabin waspletely riddled with veins, roots, and a thick green nket. To an oblivious man, it was just a cabin. Gaya couldn''t sense any energy radiation from the cabin at all. Even Nightmare, who perceived the world with a different view, couldn''t tell there was a powerful magical artifact inside.
To Michael''s surprise, there were no traps or arrays around the cabin.
"There it is," said Michael. The trio slowly headed toward the cabin. The cabin door slowly creaked open. Gaya conjured a ball of fire to light the cabin. The cabin was just as gloomy and abandoned inside as it was on the outside. It was empty with no furniture. The wooden cabin creaked with every step Michael took forward. Michael looked around. He sensed the artifact in the cabin, but he couldn''t see it with his eyes.
"Michael," Gaya called out for Michael. As far as she could tell, there was nothing in the cabin.
Before uttering a word, Michael activated his Xray eyes. He searched for a heat signature in the room. As Michael expected, something glowed on one of the walls. It took Michael a couple of steps to reach the wall. Michael saw a rune glowing with his X Ray eyes. He wasn''t an expert in runes. So Michael decided to order the system to break the rune.
"System, break this," ordered Michael.
Surprisingly, the system only asked for ten thousand badass points. It already took enough to locate the artifact.
The moment he willed the system, Michael sensed another being appearing in the cabin.
"Look out!" Gaya quickly warned Nightmare. The bow and arrow materialized in her hand in a blink of an eye. When Michael slowly turned around, he saw a ghostly figure of an elf floating in the middle of a room. Just like any other elf, the man had pointy ears and golden hair and wore azure robes.
He looked at Michael with a strange look in his eyes.
"You''re not the chosen one," said the elf.
Michael remained calm. After a while, a grin emerged on his face.
"Well, I am the one who''s here," said Michael.
"Who are you?" asked Gaya.
"Leave," Instead of answering Gaya, the elf answered with killing intent. His voice sounded loud and threatening.
"Funny, I was about to say that," Michael calmly said. He started to walk around the elf with his hands behind his back.
"I don''t give a damn about the chosen one. I am here to take what''s mine,"
"Yours?" The elf''s ghostly face twitched. His eyes glimmered with fury.
"I created the staff. You have no right to it," the elf snarled.
"Oh I am scared," Michael ridiculed the elf,
"You''re just a soul piece. In a few minutes, your protective runes will be destroyed, and I will get your staff," said Michael. For a moment, the elf didn''t respond to his words as he was too furious.
"Don''t worry. I am going to do you a favor. It''s going to sound viinous, but I will absorb you. So you and your staff kinda belong to me now"
Chapter 683 War With One Man
In the capital of new Thusia, a castle with seven massive, round towers had been built on various tactical spots for an ideal defense that stood majestically. Each tower was tall enough to touch the clouds. They were connected by high, wide walls made of white stone. Stylish windows scattered thinly around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry, along with same-sized holes for archers and artillery.
A great gate with giant metal doors and archer holes guarded the castle. Several groups of heavily armored soldiers guarded the bridge across the moat. The bridge was the only way to get inside the castle by the ground. Every inch of the castle was protected by powerful arrays and runes. Variousrge houses were scattered outside the castle gates, surprisingly, the rich werefortable with living outside the gates as well. This castle was rtively new, but so far, it stood its ground with ease, and it''d likely do so for ages toe. Nheless, the castle was still in the early stages of construction. There were still many things left to build. The royal family of Thusia aimed to make the castle the biggest and the grandest castle in the entire world. They wanted to rival the castle of Awor empress herself. Even in the early stages, the castle made many castles in the world look pale inparison. The sheer size of the castle would terrify anyone. The castle was at least ten times bigger than a typical castle in the world. The falling snow added an extrayer of charm to the already imposing castle.
King Maxim was generous with the soldiers guarding the castle. On top of soldiers patrolling the castle grounds, soldiers were flying above the castle with a shoot to kill anyone who entered the airspace of the castle order.
The castle was just as grand inside as it was on the outside. Huge braziers hanging from each of the twelve ivory columns lit up the lower levels of the throne hall. They engulfed everything in a flickering radiance. The gemmed runes on theyered ceiling danced in the flickering light while sculptures and marble icons looked down upon the mosaic floor of this imposing hall.
A turquoise rug ran down from the throne and marked the closest spot people could stand when they addressed the royal highness. Forked banners with emzoned sides drooped from the walls. Between each banner sat a small altar full of candles. A few of them had been lit and, in turn, illuminated the paintings of previous kings and queens of Thusia below them. Hefty, stained ss windows of mesmerizing mosaics were concealed by draperies colored the same turquoise as the crimson-red banners. The curtains had been adorned with fancy tassels and impressive needlework.
At the end of the hall was a towering throne made of various rare and expensive metals on a higher tform. There were at least twenty to thirty steps between the throne hall and the throne. The throne was built to resemble a crown. It was adjoined by two equally impressive thrones for the queen and the princess. Every inch of the throne was covered in intricate marks, and a sapphirentern was fixed on each of the elegant armrests. The fluffy pillows were a darkvender adorned with gilded tracery.
Those seeking the wisdom of their royal highness could do so on the several long and rather bulky granite benches, all facing the throne in a half circle. Those of higher standing could instead take seats in the specially decorated mezzanines facing the throne.
At the moment, several people upied the throne hall. They all had dark lines on their forehead. One of them was a tall knight armed to the teeth. He was facing King Maxim, Queen Valeria, and Princess Victoria on one knee. The man had a scar running across his left cheek. It made him look somewhat scary and viinous.
He was the General of Thusia, Booth Felion, the man who ughtered the sanctuary and killed Abras. In addition to General Booth, Edith sat on the decorated bench along with Lah Alden herself.
"I am disappointed in you, Booth," said Maxim. The disappointment was obvious on his face.
"Let''s hear how he is going to fix the situation," Queen Valeria said, gently squeezing Maxim''s hands. She had known Booth since she was little. He was the most loyal man in the entire Thusia. As far as she was concerned, one mistake was not enough for them to punish the man who''s been risking his life every day for the betterment of Thusia.
"I have sent my best men. They will finish their task," said Booth.
Lah''s eyes glimmered with anger. But she remained calm for the sake of her sister. Although Lah and Edith were sisters, they didn''t share a strong familial bond. Only a few in this world knew that Edith was not Lah''s biological sister. Lah was born to the first wife of Lord Norbert Alden, and Edith was born to his second wife. Almost after twenty-five years, Norbert married Edith''s mother, and she was born a yearter. By that time, Lah had already left her homnd and secluded herself from the outside world. Yet, despite everything, Lah did love Edith. That was the only reason she agreed toe to Thusia when Victoria called for her. On one hand, Lah had to think about Edith and save her. On the other hand, she had Ghost, the father of her spirit child to think about.
"Leave," Maxim dismissed Booth with a wave of his hand. Since Lah and some other prominent figures of Thusia were in the hall, he couldn''t talk freely with Booth. Victoria waited till General Booth left the hall. Afterward, she turned her gaze toward Lah.
"Thank you foring here, Lady Alden,"
"Your actions have put my sister in danger. So yes, I had toe," Lah''s words were cold.
"Lah," Edith nervously whispered.
"We understand your concern and anger, Lady Alden," said Valeria with a gentle tone.
"But this is not the right time to point fingers. Have you found a cure for Edith?" asked Valeria.
Lah sighed and slowly shook her head.
"There is nothing I can do for her. He has injected Edith with something new, something I have never seen in my life,"
Everyone was startled by Lah''s words. Silence swept across the hall. Then, after long moments of silence, Victoria''s words cut through the silence.
"What about mother?" asked Victoria.
"She''s infected too," Lah''s words made Victoria''s heart skip a beat. The sound of people gasping in shock resonated in the hall. King Maxim''s eyes turned predatory. Dangerous killing intent radiated from his body.
"You are wee to let the healers, alchemists, and runemasters inspect their bodies. But I doubt many would even find something is wrong with them," said Lah.
"How is it possible?" mumbled Victoria. Valeria was terrified. She recalled how vividly Victoria described what had happened to Edith. Her hands began to shiver.
None of them had an idea how Ghost poisoned the queen herself. The answer was simple, he didn''t. He just sent Aria to Thusia and let Cain guide her. Cain nned the operation just like Michael would have. Queen Valeria was protected by Fusion Stage cultivators. They weren''t at the Fusion stage or even remotely had a chance to reach it. But they were loyal to the core. Therefore, King Maxim allowed them inside the secret room where the air was filled with Cosmic energy. As a result, getting near Valeria was impossible, especially for a Core Formation cultivator like Aria.
But fortunately, she didn''t have to get close to Valeria. Instead of directly injecting the blood tonic into Valeria, she injected them into meat, vegetables, and ingredients used in the castle. It took Aria to do some research to find where and how these ingredients were getting into the castle. But, with the help of Spyders and drones, the task became easier than she expected.
If it were the normal blood tonic, the alchemists who inspect the ingredients for poison would have detected it. It was not the normal one. Michael turned five million gold coins into badass points and used them to modify the blood tonic using the system. The task was not simple, but it was worth every badass point. He even risked Aria''s life to poison Valeria.
"That''s for you to find," said Lah.
"Is there no way to cure them?" asked Victoria. Her heart was clenched by fear. She was afraid for her mother''s life.
"There is," instead of La, King Maxin answered Victoria''s question.
"We kill him," said King Maxim.
"I will personally im his head and end this threat once and for all," said Maxim. Deep down, he would sacrifice both Edith and Valeria in a heartbeat to achieve his goal, which was to conquer the entire world. Their lives would be the price he had to pay for domination.
"I don''t care what you did to him. But he ising for a payback. I don''t want my sister to be here when he does,"
Edith stood from the bench.
"Lah, I am not a child, and I won''t leave Victoria''s side. I know how to take care of myself," said Edith.
"Do you?" asked Lah.
Edith couldn''t find words to respond under Lah''s cold gaze. It took Edith a couple of seconds to muster her courage.
"I have full faith in his majesty and the Thusian army. He is just one man," said Edith.
Lah took a deep breath. During her short time with GHost, she had learned what he was capable of. He wasn''t a man who would face the battle head-on without strategies. If he warned Victoria about his arrival, Lah knew he must have several ns in his mind. He had proved no one was out of his reach. Poisoning Valeria was a statement.
"You have no idea what he''s capable of, Edith," said Lah. She really wanted Edith to get as far as possible from Thusia. But judging by the look in her eyes, unless Lah dragged her by force, there was no way Edith would leave the kingdom and her best friend.
Chapter 684 The Curse Breaker
Maxim Barnes dismissed everyone in the hall except Lah and Edith.
"You seem like you know more about him than any of us," said Maxim.
"I know him enough to know the danger my sister is in," Lah coldly responded. After inspecting Edith''s body, Lah learned that Ghost could end her sister''s life any second. Even her mentor didn''t have any knowledge about what he had done to Edith.
"If she wants, you are wee to take her with you," Maxim said. He was nonchnt.
"I am not going anywhere," Edith shook her head.
"Lah, if you know him, tell him to change his path," said Edith.
Lah snickered.
"No, let hime," Victoria interjected before Lah could respond to Edith.
"We can finish this once and for all. I will make an example out of him," said Victoria. Her voice was murderous. After learning he had poisoned her mother, the little bit of mercy she had for Abraspletely disappeared. She wanted to take his head and put it in a pike before the castle.
"Edith," Lah turned her gaze toward Edith. She gently cupped Edith''s face. Her motherly instinct screamed at her to take Edith away from Thusia. Edith''s eyes watered, seeing the motherly love in Lah''s eyes. It was extremely rare to see Lah express her emotions like this.
"Come with me to the rainbow ind. You''d be safe here. I promise you, he won''t hurt you," said Lah. She knew Ghost poisoned Edith to hurt Victoria. Now that he had poisoned Valeria, he didn''t have any need to hurt Edith. Furthermore, Lah could plead with him to spare her sister. But first, Edith needed to leave Thusia. Lah didn''t want Edith to be in between Ghost and his revenge.
"No," Edith shook her head.
"I am not going to run away. My ce is beside Vikki," said Edith.
"She made her decision," Maxim snickered.
"Lady Alden, why don''t you stay with Edith and take care of her until we deal with him?" said Valeria. Although she was afraid of dying deep down, she was the queen of Thusia. She couldn''t afford to look afraid or weak. Besides, Valeria didn''t think a single man could threaten the great nation of Thusia.
"Please," Edith pleaded with her puppy eyes. For a few minutes, Lah remained silent. After a while, she exhaled deeply.
"Only if you listen to me,"
Maxim Barnes grinned in his mind. Not because he wanted Lah''s help in killing Ghost, but because Maxim Barnes had feelings for Lah. She was his first love. To be honest, Maxim only worried about Ghost exposing the existence of the Cosmic Stream. Once he kills Ghost, he doesn''t have anything to worry about.
He wondered why Lah was so afraid of one man. Granted Ghost was a prodigy and a true freak of nature. If he weren''t so powerful, Maxim wouldn''t have considered marrying Victoria to him. It was really unfortunate that Ghost turned out to be a guardian of the Cosmic stream.
Even if Ghost hadn''t threatened Victoria, Maxim wouldn''t have let him live.
"I will. Just stay with us," tears rolled out of Edith''s eyes.
Lah had two reasons to stay in Thusia. One was obviously Edith and her safety. The second reason was that if push came to shove, Lah could teleport Ghost away and save him from King Maxim''s wrath.
"I want to know why he''s seeking revenge against Thusia," asked Lah.
Edith slowly turned her gaze toward the Barnes. Unlike her, Lah was oblivious to what they did to Ghost. Maxim Barnes prepared himself for this scenario. He fabricated a perfect story to twist the facts. After killing Ghost, whatever he says would be the truth. After all, history was written by the winners.
************************************
Meanwhile, in the treacherous ocean, Michael was facing the ghostly elf. Michael waited for the system to break the rune and give him the artifact. Until then, Michael decided to entertain himself by talking to the elf who created the artifact.
"Let''s face it. You can''t stop me. You''re just a sliver of soul," eximed Michael. Gaya lowered her bow and started to chuckle.
"Look at this elf. He seems mad at us,"
"If you wanted your chosen one to get the artifact, you should have done a better job hiding it," Nightmaremented.
"You can''t use it, human," snickered the elf.
"If you seriously believe that, you''re in for a shock," Michael smiled.
"You kind have always been the vermin of out the world. Always take things you don''t deserve," The elf looked disgusted. Judging by his tone and words, it was evident the elf hated humans to the core.
"So the chosen one is an elf?" Michael tilted his head.
"He''s not a human. He''s a god,"
The elf expected the human before him to be shocked and surprised. Instead, he saw him burst intoughter.
"Don''t tell me it''s for the god of light?" Michael air quoted the words ''god of light''
The elf was surprised. Michael couldn''t believe he had stumbled upon something meant for the god of light.
"This day keeps getting better and better," Michaelughed.
"So now I am not only getting the artifact, but I am also taking something from him,"
"You know the god of light?" The elf asked. Although he was just a sliver of soul awakened by Michael when he touched the rune, the elf still possessed the intelligence he had when he was whole.
"You can say that," said Michael.
"Then you should know the danger our world is in right now. Do you know what would happen if this artifact falls into the wrong hands?" asked the elf.
"Didn''t you say I can''t use it? So what''s there to worry about? No one can use it anyways," Michael shrugged.
"What''s happening?" The elf sensed the protective rune was getting weaker. His mind went nk as it shouldn''t have been possible.
When the elf noticed the grin on the human''s face, he was stunned.
"How are you doing this?" the elf asked with a baffled look.
"Doing what?"
"The rune. It''s getting weaker,"
"One minute," Michael raised a finger.
"In one minute, your staff will belong to me,"
"You," Suddenly, the elf looked like he had a realization. Everything made sense to the elf. He couldn''t believe it, but there was no other exnation for what was happening.
"You''re the Dark Lord,"
Michael wasn''t surprised. Since the elf knew about the God of Light, it was only natural for him to know about the God of Darkness.
"Bingo," Michael pped for the elf.
The room started to tremble as the wooden panels in the center slowly slid open. A pir emerged from the ground. Michael finally saw the artifact. It was a five feet golden trident. The elf panicked.
"No STOP!" The elf shouted. However, Michael couldn''t care less. He kept walking toward the trident. When he was at arm''s distance from the trident, the elf closed his eyes. The cabin creaked. Nightmare and Gaya heard the wind howling outside as though a storm was approaching them.
The trident trembled. It slowly rose from the pir and was about to fly out of the cabin when Michael grabbed it tight.
"Where do you think you''re going?" Michael snickered. He felt the trident violently quivering in his hand.
"I won''t let my creation fall into the evil''s hand," the elf snarled. He seemed like he was about to cast a spell on Michael.
"There was a time I would have told you that darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good," said Michael, holding the spear. The spear tried to fly away, but Michael''s grip was too strong.
"If taking this trident and breaking the curses put on innocent people by your kind is being evil, I don''t give a damn about what you think," The veins on Michael''s hands popped up. The trident trembled violently as the elf tried to make the trident fly away from Michael.
"Let my staff go!" The Elf shouted. His thundering roar obliterated the cabin walls. Nightmare and Gaya stumbled back due to the force. However, Michael remained still. The only difference was the area became darker. The elf couldn''t believe his eyes. Everything around him grew darker and darker. Inch by inch, Michael pulled back the trident toward him.
Under the elf''s shocked gaze, a dark cloud shrouded Michael. Instead of his ck robes, a creepy ck armor appeared on him. Finally, the elf saw the Dark Lord''s true form. Hepletely lost the connection with the trident. Gradually the dark shoulder moved through Michael''s hand and enveloped the golden trident.
"No no no no¡" the elf mumbled. Panic struck his heart. He was helpless and powerless to stop the Dark Lord.
A few secondster, the tridentpletely disappeared from sight.
"What did you do?" asked the elf with a terrified face.
"It belongs to me now," Michael''s demonic voice echoed through the forest. The elf floated backward in terror.
"Now, it''s time to end your pathetic existence," Without giving the elf any time to react, Michael dashed toward him. He immediately cast the Soul Eater. The elf felt a strong force pulling him toward the Dark Lord. he tried to resist, but the force was too much.
Standing a few meters away from Michael, Gaya and Nightmare saw the elf''s ghostly figure slowly turning into a cloud of smoke. This smoke flew straight into Michael''s mouth.
"NOOOOO!"
The elf screamed in agony. It didn''tst long as the elfpletely faded away from sight.
"We didn''t even know who he was," said Gaya.
"There was no need," answered Michael. A smile emerged on his face, looking at his status. The Curse Breaker, he had acquired a legendary skill. With this, he could break any curses put on people.
"It''s time we get out of this ce,"
Chapter 685 Breaking Eve鈥檚 Curse
After taking the artifact and absorbing the elf''s soul, Michael had enough badass points to buy a teleportation scroll. He used it to escape the treacherous ocean. Finally, Michael reached the outskirts of the treacherous ocean. Hovering in the air, he could see the rainbow inds on the horizon. He wanted to visit Lah, but he chose not to. Meeting them would endanger the whole ind. His war with the Skyhall had nothing to do with innocent people living on the ind. From the outskirts, Michael just had to use the runic teleportation to reach the Voldigard castle.
The people of Voldigards were busy fixing the broken walls and roofs in the castle. Heavy snowfall nketed everything. It was knee-high as soldiers had to float above the snow to save time. Some of the servants who were sitting atop the roof, fixing them with nails and hammers, saw Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare in the air.
"Master Ghost is back!" the servants shouted. Everyone looked up at Michael. Without uttering a word, Michael flew straight into the castle. As he reached the hall, Michael saw the Voldigard family gathered in the hall. He saw Jennifer, Lord Julien, and Lady Astrid with several elders of the family.
Lord Julien sensed Michael''s presence. He quickly averted his gaze toward Michael.
"Master Ghost," said Lord Julien. A strange expectation emerged within his eyes. Lady Astrid weed Michael with a bright smile. Jennifer, on the other hand, looked surprised. She wondered why Michael was here instead of in MAzeroth. Michael nced at the elders, who looked somewhat bewildered. They opened and closed their mouths as though they had something in their mind to ask Michael.
"Miss Aelia, Nightmare," Lady Astrid embraced Gaya in a gentle motherly hug.
"We''ll talkter," Lord Julien dismissed the elders. They all slightly bowed toward Michael before leaving the hall.
"Please make yourselves at home," Lady Astrid gestured at them to sit on the sofa.
"Where is Eve?" asked Michael, plunging onto the sofa beside the firece.
"Eve," Lady Astrid called out for Eve.
"Jenni, go bring your sister to us," Lord Julien asked Jennifer. She nodded and climbed upstairs to meet Eve.
"Eve said you went to Mazeroth," said Julien.
"I did. Apparently, there is nothing much to learn in Mazeroth. So here I am," said Michael. He was nonchnt.
"So about Eve, have you-"
"Why do you think I am here?" Michael cut short Julien''s words.
"I can lift the curse now,"
Michael''s words brought them both shock and delight. Astrid''s eyes immediately watered up. Until recently, she didn''t know the elves put a curse on Eve. She believed Eve had no talent for reaching the Soul Refining stage. To be honest, she couldn''t believe Even when she told them about the curse. But Julien and Eve believed it was the truth. Hearing that Ghost could lift the curse, the father and mother brimmed with joy.
It took Jennifer a minute to bring Eve.
"Ghost," Michael looked up at the stairs to see Eve gracefully walking down. Despite the cold weather, she was sweating. Judging by the smudges on her face and the war hammer in her hand, he could tell she was training as usual.
"What are you doing here?" asked Eve.
"Nice to see you too, Eve," Gaya rolled her eyes. Eve sighed with a smile.
"I thought you were in the Mazeroth,"
"I was," Once again, Michael had to repeat the same words he had said to Julien.
"Let''s not waste any time," Michael stood up.
"Lord Julien, do you have a secure room?"
Lord Julien immediately bobbed his head up and down.
"Follow me," Lord Julien and Astrid paced toward a private room in the castle. They used this room for important meetings and conduct shady deals.
"What''s going on?" asked Eve.
"I am going to lift the curse on you,"
Eve was shocked, and so was Jennifer. Unlike Eve, Jennifer researched a lot about curses when Eve told her about curses. ording to various ancient texts and books, curses were a kind of rune. Some elven runemasters specialized in curses. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say each prominent elven family had a runemaster who could curse their foes. But putting a curse on people was not as simple as casting a spell. The runemaster had to get close to the victim, and it would take time to ce the curse. In Eve''s case, the Filvendor family pretended to check Eve''s cultivation talents and put a curse on her soul instead. Poor Eve didn''t have any idea that they cursed her.
"I read only the one who put the curse can lift it," said Jennifer while following Julien and Astrid.
"Don''t believe everything you read," said Gaya.
Jennifer did not question Ghost. She had seen him ovee the odds against the gue. If he could lift the curse on her sister, Jennifer would be eternally grateful to Ghost.
Eventually, they reached an empty room with no windows or ss whatsoever. Except for the round table in the middle, there was nothing.
"Eve,e forward. Others step back," said Michael.
Julien and Astrid held each other''s arms tightly. Their bodies shivered, and their eyes glimmered with concern. Eve took a deep breath. Since this was the first time using the Curse Breaker, Michael was unfamiliar with the procedure. He just ced his hand on Eve''s forehead.
"Close your eyes," said Michael. He made up this procedure.
Michael then willed the system to scan her body. He felt a new sensation. Using the Curse Breaker was as easy as breathing. When he touched Eve, he sensed a powerful vibration in her body. Soon, this vibration turned into a scream. Michael focused on the scream. The scream sounded louder and louder to the point his head began to ache.
Unlike them, the others noticed Eve''s body trembling. A gust of wind breezed around her, making her hair flutter in the wind. Under their gazes, a thinyer of light emerged on her skin. Finally, Michael grabbed the source of the scream with his mind. The Curse Breaker felt like an extension of his arm.
He grabbed the curse in her soul. A strange rune pulsing within her body. It attached itself to Eve''s soul and suppressed the soul''s power. Hence, stopping her from reaching the Soul Refining stage.
Under Michael''s grab, the rune shattered. As a result, everyone in the room felt a powerful surge of energy around them.
"AHHHHHH!" Eve roared,
"EVE!" Julien and Astrid shouted. They tried to dash forward, but Gaya stopped them.
"Don''t,"
The energy surgested for a few minutes. Then, the bright light around Eve finally began to dim.
"Open your eyes," said Michael.
Eve slowly opened her eyes. She felt lightweight, as though something heavy had been lifted off of her.
"Is it done?" Eve asked.
"You are curse free," smiled Michael. In a blink of an eye, Eve''s family dashed forward. They surrounded her. Julien and Astrid embraced her tightly.
To Michael''s surprise, Jennifer grabbed his arms. Her eyes welled up. She was on the verge of crying.
"Thank you," Jennifer squeezed Michael''s hands.
"No need to thank me. She''s my friend," Michael smiled. He patted Jennifer on the shoulder. Letting the family have some time alone, Michael walked out of the room with Gaya and Nightmare. He returned to the hall and sat on the sofa, enjoying the warmth of the firece.
"That went smooth," said Nightmare. Je leaped onto Michael''sp, circling himself into a ball.
"You know we can turn this into a service. Charge millions to lift curses," Gaya pitched her idea.
"Yes, but it will unnecessarily put us in a bad light with the elves. We have to use this power with caution. If the elven families who tend to curse people find out about the Curse Breaker, they might try to kill me. But," Michael snickered.
"I am not going to hide anymore. I just have to be cautious until I reach the Half Immortal stage,"
As they were talking, Eve and her family came to the hall. Their faces were glowing with joy. Lord Julien and Astrid walked toward Michael. He stood up.
"Master Ghost, take this," Lord Julien extended a golden parchment toward Michael.
"What is it?" Michael asked, taking the parchment. He opened it up. The parchment contained words written and signed by Julien. It was a deal to hand over the floating mountain to Ghost. The same floating mountain Michael fought the Fusion Stage reaper. Although Michael liked that floating mountain, he felt reluctant to take it. After all, Michael helped Eve because she was his friend. For the first time since he came to this world, he did something without expecting something in return. One could say this was Michael being a goody two shoes.
"We are giving it to you. Don''t be rude. ept it," Eve came to Michael''s side. She punched Michael on the shoulder.
Gaya peeked over Michael''s shoulder to see what was written on the parchment. A few momentster, she got so excited. Of course, she didn''t show the excitement on her face but deep down, she was bouncing in joy. Moreover, she had already formed several ns to transform the barren floating mountain into their own fortress.
"Are you going to take it or not?" Eve asked with a stern voice.
"Do I have a choice?" Michael smiled.
"No,"
"Then I will take it," said Michael.
As expected, Julien threw a grand feast for Michael, and Astrid made Michael eat up to his throat. Everything went great and joyful until the end of the feast when Eve took out a parchment from her space ring. She tossed it toward Michael.
"Take a look at it," said Eve. Julien once again dismissed everyone in the hall, including Jennifer. Michael noticed the grave looks on their faces. He then slowly opened the parchment.
Dear Voldigards,
The great kingdom of Thusia has dered war against your friend Ghost.
If you aid him in any way against Thusia, you will suffer the wrath of the whole kingdom.
You''ve been warned.
War Council of Thusia.
Michael clenched his fist. However, it didn''t surprise Michael much. In fact, he expected Thusia to make their moves against his allies. Unfortunately for Thusia, their tactics wouldn''t work on Michael because Michael didn''t n to use his allies against Thusia. Instead, he would use Thusia''s enemies against them.
Chapter 686 Heavenly Tribulation I
"I don''t know why you have an axe to grind with Thusia, but I aming with you," said Eve. She was so calm and casual, like she was going on a vacation.
"No, you''re not," Michael shook his head.
"It''s between Thusia and me. I won''t put you and your family in danger," He was adamant about not involving his allies in the war between him and Thusia. The only allies he would use were the kings who is already at war with Thusia. Michael wanted to dismantle everything Maxim Barnes built brick by brick.
"Out of the question, Ghost. You saved my life,"
"And I want you to keep it. If you want to help me, go to Bradford and keep those people safe," Michael''s voice was domineering, like a god. Under his tone, not only Eve, everyone in the room shuddered.
"He''s right. If they target Bradford, we need someone we can trust to save those people," said Gaya. For a few long moments, Eve thought about this. Finally, she sighed. Judging by Michael''s look, he wouldn''t take her with him, she knew that. Hence, the only way to help him keep the people of Bradford safe. It wasn''t fighting alongside Ghost, but it was better than nothing.
"I need a safe ce," said Michael.
"Isn''t this a safe ce?" Eve tilted her head slightly.
"No,"
Michael''s answer shocked everyone. Eve creased her brows.
"I am going to trigger the heavenly tribtion Eve,"
As soon as these words escaped Michael''s mouth, their minds went nk. All of them looked startled to the core. Silence fell over the hall. The firewood crackled under the scorching heat of the firece. Everyone remained silent until Eve''s words cut through it.
"You''re going to reach the Half Immortal Stage,"
Julien was unable to believe the words he''s been hearing. In his life, he had never heard someone as young as Ghost breaking through to the Half Immortal stage. He couldn''t even remember thest time someone triggered a heavenly tribtion. If his memory served him right, it had been two hundred years since a human reached the Half Immortal Stage.
"It''s dangerous, Ghost. Are you sure you want to do this?" Eve asked in a gentle tone. Her eyes glimmered with concern for Michael''s life.
"If you''re worried about my life, don''t. I am not going to die. I just need a safe ce for five days. During these five days of heavenly tribtion, the slightest disturbance can result in catastrophe. Hence, my need for a safe ce."
"Now that you''re pissed off Thusia somehow, they will definitely use this opportunity to end you," said Eve.
Michael liked Eve more and more. She didn''t even ask why Thusia wanted to kill him or the other way around. Without knowing the reason, Eve stood beside him. To Michael, it felt like she was meant to be his side.
"I have a ce in mind. Now that Lord Julien and Lady Astrid gave me the floating mountain, I can make use of it,"
"Care to tell us where this safe ce is?" asked Eve.
"The Holy Church," said Michael.
Thest time Michael checked, he was an ally to the holy church. Although the holy church was still in a growing phase, it wasn''t weak either. The Holy Church had a good rtionship with the empress and the golden princes. Therefore, any kingdom would think twice before acting against the Holy Church. Even the Guardian Guild didn''t dare to be disrespectful toward the Holy Church. The Holy Church believed Michael was a strong believer. Michael didn''t think they would say no if Michael asked for a safe haven.
Michael slowly rose from his sofa.
"It''s time for me to go meet His holiness in the church," said Michael. Knowing the graveness of the matter, none of the Voldigards dared to stop Michael.
"Before that, I have one more thing to do," said Julien.
"Let''s fly to the floating mountain,"
"I''ll apany you two," Eve decided to join Michael and Julien.
So, taking the protector of the Voldigards along with them, Michael, Gaya, Nightmare, Eve, and Julien flew to the floating mountain. It took them almost an hour to reach the mountain. The lonely mountain hovered in the air. Snow nketed everything. Even the waterfall was frozen and looked like a cier. The remnants of the battle with the Fusion stage reaper were still visible. The ground had deep webs of cracks.
The party slowlynded in the middle of the barren mountain. In Gaya''s eyes, she could see a towering fortress atop the floating mountain. She couldn''t wait to transform this barren floating mountain into the world''s first floating fortress.
"Master Ghost," Lord Julien extended his arm toward Michael.
Michael grabbed his arm. Lord Julien closed his eyes as Michael felt a tinge of electricity passing through his arm.
[Does the host wish to take the floating mountain as your base of operation?] asked the system.
"Yes," Michael confirmed in his head.
"It''s done," said Lord Julien.
Michael felt a strange connection with the mountain. He pointed his finger as the floating mountain trembled before slowly floating forward. Lord Julien and the protectors were stunned to see the power of Michael. Although Lord Julien was a Fusion stage cultivator, he couldn''t move the mountain without the help of the protectors. They all needed to work together and use theirbined energies to move the mountain. However, Michael did that single-handedly.
After exchanging pleasantries for a few more minutes, Lord Julien and the others prepared to leave the floating mountain. But before Eve could ascend to the sky, Michael called out for her. Eve nodded at her father, wordlessly telling him to go first.
Michael looked up at Eve. A gentle smile hiding grave concerts appeared on Michael''s face.
"Whatever happens, whatever people say about me, I always thought of you as my friend. I had no ulterior motives for helping you, Eve,"
"Why are you telling me this now, Ghost?" Eve furrowed her brows. She was about to descend when Michael disappeared from her sight along with Gaya and Nightmare.
Once the floating mountainpletely disappeared from their sight, Gaya asked.
"Why did you say that to Eve?" asked Gaya.
"I feel like I can''t pretend to live two lives anymore," Michael sighed. He had this eerie feeling for some time. Even though he did everything in his power to hide his other identity, some things weren''t in his control. His instincts had never betrayed him, and this time, they were telling him to fully embrace his Dark Lord persona instead of living as Ghost in the day and the Dark Lord in the night. He felt the two identities were stopping him from reaching his full potential. The mental pressure to keep his identity hidden was getting higher and higher. As a result, he started to make mistakes. After all, Michael was not a perfect human being to not make any mistakes.
"Even if our identities get exposed, I just hope the people who helped us won''t get in trouble with the Guardian Guild and the Skyhall," said Nightmare. His thoughts were no different than Gaya''s. She was worried about the Sun Rise sect and everyone in it.
"Do you have a n for them?" asked Michael.
"Why do you think I allied myself with the Holy Church? When the world learns Ghost is the Dark Lord, the Guardian guild would obviously target everyone who aided us. Since the Holy Church itself helped us, they would do their best to spin the story they helped us without knowing Ghost''s real identity. They would say Ghost fooled them,"
"It''s not a story, it''s the truth," said Gaya.
Michael nodded and continued.
"The Holy Church can''t say they were fooled but not the others. It will make them look even worse. Plus, I always kept a distance from the people who helped us. So the Skyhall and the Guardian guild will put them under surveince but won''t harm them," Michael exined.
"I really hope your instinct is wrong this time, human," Gaya slowly shook her head. She was especially concerned for little Cindy and Raylene. They were truly innocent people who had done nothing wrong.
"Me too," Michael sighed.
They continued to fly toward the Holy Church in the city of Yaserius, where Michael met Vishriyan. The floating golden temple soon appeared in their view, being covered by snow.
(Read Chapter 578 to refresh your memory)
To Michael''s surprise, when he got closer to the church, Vishriyal flew out of the temple to wee him as though Vishriyan had sensed Michael''s presence.
"Believer Ghost," Vishriyan greeted Michael with a smile.
"Miss Aelia, Nightmare," Vishriyan smiled at Gaya and Nightmare. Most of the true believers of the holy church resented the other races. Fortunately, Vishriyan was not one of them. He and his brother Maxwell believed all lives were created equally by the Great One and Two.
"Believer Vishriyan," Michael greeted back with a smile and bow.
"You have been in my prayers ever since what happened in Royal Land. I truly wish we had more power to root out all evil from the face of this world," said Vishriyan.
"The world will change, believer Vishriyan. But today, I am at the Holy Church''s doorstep with an unreasonable request,"
"If it''s in my power, I will give it to you, believer Ghost," said Vishriyan, gesturing at them to follow him into the church.
"I want a safe ce to cross the heavenly tribtion, believer Vishriyan,"
? Vishriyannded on the doorstep of the Holy church with a dumbstruck look on his face. Just like anyone else, he couldn''t believe Ghost was on the verge of breaking through to the Half Immortal Stage. Of course, everyone thought the youngest to reach the Half Immortal stage would be the Wielder of Angel''s veena, Lah Alden. But never in a million years, one thought she would be surpassed by Ghost.
"I have to talk to his holiness, but I don''t think he would say no to a true believer when he''s in need of a safe haven," Michael was d to hear Vishriyan''s words. On the other hand, Gaya had difficulty controlling her urge tough at the Holy Church. Michael was fooling them to the core.
Chapter 687 Heavenly Tribulation II
The Holy Church''s interior waspletely made of gold. Even the benches were pure gold. Michael was dumbstruck by the show of wealth. The hall resembled a typical church''s interior on earth. At the end of the hall, statues of the sun and moon erupted to honor the great one and two. The Holy Church believed the Great One was the Sun and the Great Two was the moon. Vishriyan asked them to wait and pray to the Great One and Two while he asked permission to offer a safe haven to Michael from His Holiness. He wasn''t the same his holiness Michael met on Royal Land.
Michael and Gaya pretended to pray by kneeling before the Great One and Two. For some reason, Michael had a strange feeling when he knelt down. He felt like something inside him was telling him not to kneel down before anyone. He was a god, after all. But Michael did not listen to this feeling. If kneeling down would save his life, he would rather kneel down than die on his feet.
Except for the howling wind, Michael heard nothing. The silence calmed his mind and soul. Nightmare sat on one of the gold benches and stared at the ce with a bewildered look. Everything glowed, radiating golden light. Nightmare scratched the golden bench with his w. He wanted to rip everything from the church and hoard it in a secret ce. Although he grew up with Michael and Gaya, he still had his dragon instincts to hoard valuables.
"Control yourself," Nightmare ordered himself,"
After waiting for almost fifteen minutes, Vishriyan finally walked out of the door.
"Believer Ghost," Michael slowly opened his eyes. He slightly looked up to see Vishriyan standing before him with a gentle smile.
"His Holiness has agreed to your request, Believer Ghost," said Vishriyan with a smile.
Michael stood up. There was no doubt in Michael''s mind that the Holy Church would deny his request. How could they when Michael offered to give millions to the church as a donation? Still, Michael pretended to be relieved and ted.
"Gratitude to the Great One and Two," Michael bowed like an honest to the core believer.
"He''s also sending his personal holy guards to ensure no one interrupts your heavenly tribtion,"
"His Holiness is so generous and kind," said Michael.
"But if I may ask believer Vishriyan, how strong are these holy guards?" asked Michael. Since he threatened Victoria, it was only natural for Thusia to send people to end his life. King Barnes wouldn''t take the risk of retaliating against Bradford or anyone close to Michael due to Michael''s threat of exposing the Cosmic Stream. At the same time, he wouldn''t send Half Immortal Stage warriors after Michael, either. First, suppose he had sent Half Immortals after Michael, it would draw the attention of the Council of the Immortals. Second, King Barnes might not have any Half Immortals because no one has seen a heavenly tribtion in Thusia. So unless King Barnes found a way to hide the heavenly tribtion or to reach the Half Immortal stage without triggering one, Michael was sure of Thusia''sck of Half Immortals.
But once the news of Michael triggering the heavenly tribtion reaches Thusia, Maxim Barnes would definitely use the Cosmic stream to reach the Half Immortal stage himself. He would have no choice by then.
"Soul Refining stage but each of them is strong as a level four Fusion Stage cultivator,"
Michael wondered how but he didn''t ask any more questions. He doubted even if he asked, Vishriyan would answer them.
"So when are you nning to start your heavenly tribtion? I have to say, believer Ghost, you are truly blessed by the Great One and Two to have such monstrous cultivation speed,"
"It''s also a burden, believer Vishriyan. As much as I want to walk the path of kindness, I always end up with more enemies. Even now, I need a safe haven because some wanted to kill me,"
Vishriyan didn''t seem surprised by Michael''s words. He just sighed.
"Even the Great One and Two has enemies they have to battle,"
"Hmm," Michael nodded.
"Where should I cultivate, believer Vishriyan?"
"Follow me," Vishriyan gestured at them to follow him. He led them through the door near the statues. Soon they reached the backyard. The scenery pleasantly surprised Michael. Red maple trees shed their leaves, nketing the snowy ground. The Royal Land holy church grew yellow maple trees, and here, they grew red maple trees instead. The winter didn''t affect the red maple trees for some reason. They all swiftly danced in the blowing wind.
A frozen pond in the middle glimmered like obsidian ss. Several yellow mats were ced around the frozen pond for worshippers of the holy church to cultivate and meditate. To Michael''s surprise, the entire holy church seemed to be empty. Other than Vishriyan, Michael saw no one. He couldn''t help wondering why. The royalnd Holy church was buzzing with worshippers and holy guards. However, Vishriyan''s church had no one except him.
"Do you have everything you need to sessfully cross the heavenly tribtion believer Ghost?" asked Vishriyan.
Michael nodded. Honestly, Michael didn''t need anything. In stark contrast, the cultivators of this world needed several artifacts, pills, and potions to increase their chances of survival. In Michael''s case, he only needed five days of time. During these five days, the system would reconstruct his body and soul cell by cell.
"Then, there is no time like the present. But if you want to wait till the Holy Guards reach here, feel free to meditate under the red maple shade. It will soothe your soul and mind," said Vishriyan.
Michael thought about it for a moment and ultimately decided to start breaking through without waiting for the Holy Guards.
"I would like to start now, believer Vishriyan,"
Vishriyan nodded.
"I''d give you some time alone and go check on the runes onest time," Vishriyan disappeared from the backyard, leaving Gaya and Nightmare alone with Michael.
"Take this," Michael flicked his wrist as several golden scrolls materialized in his hand.
"Bring the protector of Voldigards and all our allies in Elon," said Michael as Gaya nodded.
"But do not ask anything about your mother to the Kane family elders until I am done with tribtion. Got it?"
Gaya was reluctant, but in the end, she agreed.
"Before I go," Gaya stepped closer. She hugged him tight before cing a gentle kiss on his lips and forehead.
"I''ll be fine," said Michael with a gentle tone. Although Gaya seemed normal, Michael noticed the concern in her eyes. She was hiding it well, but Michael knew her too well. He waited until she disappeared into the cloudy sky.
"Let''s begin," Michael took a deep breath. He walked toward one of the mats and sat in a meditating position.
"System, it is time," Michael said to the system.
[Are you sure host?] Surprisingly, the system questioned Michael. It even sounded a little bit worried.
"I am,"
[The host cannot use the system for five days]
[The host will be conscious but unable to move your body]
[The host''s protective spells will not work during these five days]
The system informed Michael. It was indeed a risk to start the tribtion, yet Michael chose to do it because it was time to destroy Thusia. He would have been far safer in Mazeroth if it wasn''t for Wulfric. ording to Gaya, when a cultivator triggers the heavenly tribtion, the energy fluctuations would create a violent storm. As a result, streaks of lightning would strike the area the cultivator was. To sessfully reach the Half Immortal stage, the cultivator needed to survive this barrage of lightning strikes. Many believed luck yed a big role in the heavenly tribtion. They weren''t wrong. If a cultivator didn''t have good luck, he would get struck by lightning continuously and turn into ashes.
Thanks to the system, Michael didn''t need to rely on luck. However, Michael wasn''t clear about his heavenly tribtion. He doubted his would be simr to the rest of the world.
Showing all the thoughts to the back of his mind, Michael drew several deep breaths. Finally, he closed his eyes. Everything became dark. He felt tingling electricity running down his spine. Seconds passed, and those seconds turned into minutes and minutes to hours. He emptied his thoughts, calming his mind. After an hour, Michael heard murmurs around him. People were gasping in shock. He could hear them.
Soon, their words became inaudible due to the rumbling thunder and howling wind. Every time he heard a thunderp, the ground beneath him shook. At that moment, Gaya hovered in the air far enough from Michael and the holy church to see his figure. To her surprise, several prominent figures from the Awor continent appeared near the holy church. Shock and surprise were written on their faces. It was obvious they didn''t expect such a young man to trigger the heavenly tribtion.
She could even see elves and dwarves among the crowd. Their numbers increased with the passing minutes.
As promised, the holy guards guarded Michael at a safe distance. The sky above Michael slowly darkened as streaks of purple lightning shed across it.
Many among the crowd, especially cultivators with white hair, looked particrly stunned. The reason was they had seen heavenly tribtions before. But they had never witnessed the storm appear on the very first day of the tribtion instead of the fourth or fifth day.
Gaya and Nightmare looked worried, although Michael reassured them. As they were witnessing the heavenly tribtion, there was a battle going on far away from the Holy Church. The battle was between none other than Diana and the five Fusion stage cultivators of Thusia, who were sent by Maxim to kill Michael.
Chapter 688 Rowena Meets Harriet Hunt
While Michael was facing the heavenly tribtion, Diana interrupted the five Fusion stage cultivators sent by Maxim Barnes. The five men were dressed inplete, crimson-red robes with hoods and cloaks to cover their faces. As usual, Diana was in her ck armor, carrying the two ck swords. Facing Diana, the five cultivators hovered in the air, far away from Michael. Even from a mile away, they could see the raging storm and crazy lightning streaks in the distance.
Just as King Maxim sent a warning letter to the Voldigards, he sent one to Winston''s Family. As soon as Diana read the letter, she came to Awor through a teleportation gate. Judging by her son''s nature, she knew he wouldn''t put VOldigards in danger by staying with them. So the next option for him was to use the Holy Church as his safe haven. Hence, Diana stayed close to the Holy Church, expecting trouble.
"Who are you?" asked one of the five warriors. They were all at Fusion Stage level 6 as Diana had reached Fusion stage level 2. But she had an advantage over them thanks to the Primordial me she wielded. Moreover, Diana had far more battle experience than the five.
"Turn back and leave," Diana coldly said.
Normally, Diana would have killed the five without a second thought. The situation was anything but normal. She didn''t want their battle to cause a disturbance to the heavenly tribtion. Until her son crossed the tribtion, she wanted to keep the enemies as far as possible. But deep down, she knew they wouldn''t back down. They primarily came here to disrupt the heavenly tribtion and, thus, killing Ghost without a fight.
"We don''t know or care who you are. Take your own advice and leave this ce. His life ends today," One of them slowly floated forward. His eyes glimmered with killing intent under the cloak.
"Lady, you are outnumbered. Just leave," another one said.
"It''s only three against one," Diana snickered.
"How so?" The one leading the group tilted his head.
"When I kill the leader in a brutal way, that''s you," Diana pointed her sword at the man,
"Another one will try to cast a spell, I will burn him alive. The third one will feel reluctant to attack, and I will kill him too. The remaining two, they always run," said Diana.
The five chuckled. In a blink of an eye, the leader charged at Diana. The other four quickly cast various spells. To Diana''s surprise, the energy fluctuation she felt around them was several times more powerful than it should have been. A golden sword materialized in the leader''s hand. He swung the sword left and right. Each of the rest specialized in elemental spells. Fire, wind, water, and stones danced around Diana. Soon, the fire turned into an ethereal fire dragon, the wind turned into a giant fist, the water turned into a twelve feet long spear, and stones formed a stone giant.
Diana evaded the golden sword. She had never sensed such powerful energies from typical hitmen like them. It was certain they weren''t using Celestial energy as the energy Diana felt was several times more powerful than Celestial energy. Even with Cosmic energy running through his veins, the leader couldn''t reach Diana''s speed. When he swung the sword, Diana grabbed his hand and twisted it with all her might.
"AH!" The man screamed. He was too arrogant to cast a defense spell around him. Meanwhile, the fire dragon soared through the sky with its mouth wide open to swallow Diana. She quickly grabbed the leader and flew away from Michael''s direction.
After realizing these five were using much more powerful energy, Diana didn''t hold back. She immediately conjured the Light me. The bright light blinded the five and raised the temperature around them by several degrees. They all felt the smoldering heat from the mes. Diana squeezed the leader''s throat, opening his mouth forcefully. Diana willed the Light mes to condense into a tiny ball. The five of them slowly opened their eyes as the brightness dimmed from the mes.
The moment they opened their eyes, they felt a chill running down their spines. They saw thedy sending the ball of fire down their leader''s throat. The man couldn''t scream but wiggled his body like a fish out of water. His throat melted as hot butter. Soon, blood spurted out from his throat to his stomach, but the blood evaporated due to the intense heat.
When Diana let go of his shoulder, his body was cut in halves by the light mes. The remaining four shuddered. All the spells they cast ceased moving. Using their shock to her advantage, Diana pped her hands together, sending a powerful st of wind. The st disrupted the shapes of the fiery dragon, water spear, wind fist as well as the stone giant. She followed her st of wind with a beam of light mes. The bright beam went straight through the stone giant. Granted the Cosmic energy was much more powerful than the Celestial energy, but the Light me was on the same power level as the Cosmic energy. This was why MAxim Barnes was obsessed with controlling all the Primordial mes by himself. Without a Primordial me, there was nothing in the universe to rival Cosmic energy.
Although the five used Cosmic energy to cast spells and cultivate, they were still far from mastering Cosmic energy. On the contrary, Diana had mastered the Light mes to the fullest. She was able to unleash its power more than the five unleashed the power of Cosmic energy. As a result, Diana''s light beam went straight through the stone giant''s chest.
The stone giant crumbled to pieces. Yet the light beam did not stop. Diana moved her hands, cutting through the fist, fiery dragon, and the water spear. In a blink of an eye, she destroyed all their spells. But the five quickly retaliated by casting a bright translucent shield around them. They allbined their energies to form one powerful shield around them. When the light beam and the cosmic energy shield shed, it resulted in a powerful explosion. The explosion sound was masked by a thunderp. But the shock wave itself sent both parties flying.
"We have tobine our energies!" A Thusian warrior shouted at his colleagues. They quickly coordinated to retaliate. Diana clenched her swords tighter. She looked at the storm''s direction over her shoulder. In the distance, her son was crossing his heavenly tribtion. Because he was born a god, his heavenly tribtion was much more powerful and dangerous at the same time. The effects of the raging storm, coupled with powerful earthquakes, could be felt even from a mile away.
Diana closed her eyes, willing the light mes to shield her body. Soon, the mes coiled around her body, making the thusians close their eyes. The me was simply too bright. Additionally, the me radiated an otherworldly whistling noise. It disrupted their thoughts. Each of the four thusians conjured a ball of light. Only the light balls were conjured with Cosmic energy. The four of them merged the cosmic energy balls, forming one big swirling ball of pure cosmic energy.
The two forces were about to sh when a thick blue streak of lightning cut through the sky above them. Unlike the Thusians, Diana wasn''t distracted by the sudden lightning strike. She fired a beam of light toward the Thusians. To her surprise, Diana sensed another Primordial me merge with the light beam. It was an icy blue arrow.
The light beam grew much more powerful andrger in size when the arrow merged with the light beam.
Boom!
Thebined power of two primordial mes shattered the Cosmic shield.
"ARGH!" The thusians screamed as they were sent flying several meters behind. Each of them coughed up blood. Their skin turned pale under their robes. But Diana did not press her advantage. She had something much more grave to deal with. She slowly turned around, sensing another powerful being descending from the lightning streak.
It was none other than Rowena, her daughter herself.
"Who are you?" Rowena coldly asked Diana. Initially, Rowena sensed the heavenly tribtion from her flying pce. For some reason, she thought about Ghost. But when Rowena reached the ce, she felt another surge of powerful energy, particrly another Primordial me. Her instinct told Rowena to fight against the four thusians instead of the dark-robed woman.
Rowena tried to see through the dark cloak, but the woman had a concealing spell on her face to prevent anyone from seeing her face. The two of them stared at each other without batting an eye. Silence fell over them until Diana opened her mouth.
"They were nning to disrupt the heavenly tribtion," said Diana.
"I will take care of them. But I want to know about that me of yours. It''s not hell''s mes nor heaven''s mes. What is it?" Rowena asked Diana. As a Primordial me wielder herself, Rowena could tell the me the woman held was much more powerful than the Cold mes. But there must be only three Primordial mes; Hell mes, Heaven''s me, and Cold me, which belonged to her. She knew Noah wielded Heaven''s me and the Hell''s me was somewhere in the Fire Realm.
Therefore, seeing another me as powerful as Cold mes shocked Rowena. In the wrong hands, Rowena couldn''t even imagine the damage a primordial me could do. Even with Cosmic energy, the Light mes cut through the thusians like they were weaklings.
"Why do you care, Holy Maiden?" asked Diana. She slowly put her hands behind her back, preparing herself to use the teleportation scroll in her space ring.
"You answered your own question. I care because I am the Holy Maiden,"
"If our two primordial mes shed, it would disrupt the energies in the atmosphere. You know what that would do to someone who''s crossing his heavenly tribtion," Diana looked over her shoulder in Michael''s direction. As Rowena''s mother, Diana knew Rowena better than anyone else. Rowena may talk less and would rarely show her emotions but Diana knew she wouldn''t do anything to hurt Ghost, the young man who saved her family not once but thrice.
On the other hand, Rowena knew if their primordial mes shed, it could disturb the heavenly tribtion. Furthermore, Rowena didn''t think the woman would reveal her secrets. Diana noticed the reluctance in Rowena''s eyes. She quickly twisted the space ring in her hand as a silver scroll appeared in her hand. Rowena heard the tearing sound as she immediately sent a sliver of Cold mes in the shape of a tiny arrow at Diana.
The cold mes grazed Diana in the hand before she disappeared from the area.
Chapter 689 Maxim Barnes鈥檚 Anger
The remaining four thusians emptied vials of healing potion into their mouths. After Diana disappeared, they seemed a bit relieved. But their relief was short-lived. Rowena slowly floated toward them.
"Whatever problem you have with Ghost, it can wait till he finishes his heavenly tribtion," Rowena coldly said.
"But if you try anything funny, I will personally visit Thusia with the army of Skyhall. Do you understand?"
The thusians were stunned. They couldn''t tell how Rowena managed to know they wereing from Thusia. The thusians were in a messy situation. On one hand, they were ordered to kill Ghost. On the other hand, they drew the attention of the Holy Maiden herself. The thusians didn''t know the rtionship between the Holy Maiden and Ghost. But judging by her tone and look, she wasn''t kidding about visiting Thusia with her army. Finally, they just heaved a sigh and flew away from the area.
After their figures disappeared into the cloudy sky, Rowena flew toward Ghost. She was shocked by Ghost''s cultivation speed. Even she was nowhere close to breaking through to the Half Immortal stage. Furthermore, Rowena wondered who the ck-robed woman was and why she was helping Ghost. Their decision to wear ck seemed more than just a coincidence to Rowena.
As Rowena flew toward Michael, she noticed more and more people appearing in the sky out of thin air. They all teleported from all parts of the world to witness the heavenly tribtion with their own eyes. Among the people, there were some familiar faces like Golden Valley Victoria, Morningstar Evan, elders of Aragoth, and surprisingly, her father Ethan himself.
"Father,"
Ethan''s body jerked in surprise. He turned around to see Rowena floating toward him.
"What''s my pretty girl doing here?" Ethan asked Rowena with a grin. Behind his grin, Rowena noticed a bit of concern.
"How''d youe here?" asked Rowena.
"Teleportation. How else? Olivia was kind enough to let us use the teleportation gate of Aragoth," Ethan looked at Olvia, who had just joined Gaya and Nightmare.
"Olivia? The same girl we looked for Noah?" asked Rowena as Ethan nodded.
"Don''t you remember Noah broke the marriage? She was in love with someone else," said Ethan.
"So tell me, father, what are you doing here?"
"Isn''t it obvious? I am here to see the heavenly tribtion just like everyone else,"
For some reason, Rowena felt like Ethan was only telling her a partial truth.
"Where is mother?" asked Rowena.
"Home,"
"Look who came down from her pce,"
Rowena and Ethan suddenly heard a yful voice. They turned around and saw Sabrina. She was with a couple of her friends. Just like everyone else, Holy Trident Academy sent their students and elders to witness the heavenly tribtion. Sabrina tightly hugged Rowena,
"Oh, I missed you so much," Sabrina squeezed Rowena. Afterward, she hugged Ethan. Her friends looked a bit nervous around Rowena because she was a pinnacle of existence, the holy maiden. They didn''t know how to act before Rowena. Ignoring the nervous gazes, Rowena focused on Ghost. The sky above him turned almost pitch ck. Webs of golden streaks of lightning formed in the ck sky. Additionally, a mini tornado was slowly forming around Ghost. With each passing second, the storm grew bigger and more violent.
The heavenly tribtion affected thend beneath the holy church more. The Kingdom of Thera ordered the citizens to evacuate Yaseius, which was within the radius of the heavenly tribtion. The Guardian guild and the Holy church joined their forces to evacuate the citizens as well as cast a defense shield around the city. The king of Thera wasn''t very happy with Michael starting his tribtion without informing them first.
Everyone who held ill feelings toward Ghost decided to form a n to curry his favors. Of course, some believed and wished Michael would die struck by lightning, especially the elders of the three big sects. They feared if he became a Half Immortal, the influence of the Sun Rise sect would grow beyond limits.
Michael''s allies like House Bradley, Kane Family, and Lord Information, were ted to see the heavenly tribtion. Once he had be the Half Immortal, they would have a powerful friend. Just this was enough for them to ovee their rivals in their respective fields.
Moreover, all the newspapers sent their best news reporters to Awor to cover the news of Michael''s heavenly tribtion. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say the current hot topic of the world was Michael.
***************************************
A dayter, Maxim Barnes was shivering in anger. He banged the throne''s hand with enough force to put a dent in the handle. The four thusians were on their knees. Their bodies trembled in fear.
"you ipetent fools. You could have ended his life then and there," Maxim Barnespletely lost hisposure. When he heard Ghost had triggered a heavenly tribtion, his heart skipped a beat. Even with the Cosmic stream, Thusia did not have any Half Immortals. Instead. They had several Fusion stage cultivators. If those Fusion stage cultivators were anything like the ipetent fools before him, Maxim Barnes realized he''s screwed.
"Father," Victoria came to Maxim''s side
"We cannot me them, father. No one could have guessed the Holy Maiden would be there,"
Her words made sense to Maxim. Still, Maxim couldn''t believe they had missed such a great opportunity to kill Ghost. A single spell inside the heavenly tribtion range would have killed him instantly.
"His heavenly tribtiones with a shackle father," said Victoria. Maxim Barnes slowly turned his head toward Victoria.
"If he survives the tribtion, that''s a big if, he will have to join the council of immortals. He can''t meddle in the affairs of mortals after that. But in case he doesn''t join, we will call upon all our allies and end his pathetic life once and for all. This time, I will personally cleave his head off," Her eyes glimmered with killing intent.
Maxim Barnes thought about what Victoria had just said for a few moments. Suppose Ghost was just a Fusion stage warrior, there were several warriors in the Thusian army who could kill him without breaking a sweat, thanks to the Cosmic energy running through their veins. Since it wasn''t the case anymore and Ghost could be a Half Immortal, Maxim Barnes needed some backup ns.
"Cancel all my meetings. I am going to the garden," MAxim Barnes rose from his throne. Hearing his words, Victoria creased her brows. She took a step forward, cing her hand on Maxim''s shoulder.
"Father, are you sure? Is this the right time?" asked Victoria. The garden was none other than the sanctuary where the Cosmic stream is. The Thusians built a portal connecting the castle to the sanctuary, so whenever they wanted to use the Cosmic energy, they just needed to step into the portal.
"Do not question me," Maxim snarled.
Victoria quickly took a step back and bowed.
"Forgive me, my king,"
*****************************************
Meanwhile, Edith and Lah stood on the castle balcony, watching the city below them. Despite the heavy snowfall, the vigers and soldiers moved like ants through the stone pavements. Many were gathering firewood to survive the cold nights while the soldiers pulled several giant war machines such as trebuchets, catapults, and cannons.
They weren''t preparing for the battle against Ghost but to attack their nearby kingdoms. Maxim Barnes used fabricated maps to im the nearbynds belonged to Thusia. When the nearby kingdoms refused to surrender thends that rightfully belonged to them, he waged war against them. It was not the only tactic Maxim Barnes used to wage war but one of them.
Most of the soldiers and citizens didn''t even know a bigger threat was on its way to Thusia. They didn''t even know about Ghost''s threat. Instead, the citizens were busy with their day-to-day life. After Thusia''s initial overwhelming victory against the two kingdoms, the citizens believed no one in Ozer could rival them. The thusians weren''t wrong. After stealing the Cosmic energy, Maxim Barnes built an elite unit of soldiers under General Booth''smand. These elite soldiers were powered with Cosmic energy. As a result, they destroyed everyone who stood against Thusia. Maxim Barnes invested all the wealth from the conquered kingdoms in his army, making them overpowered. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say Thusia had the deadliest army in Elon and Ozer.
But no matter how powerful their army was, they weren''t a match for a Half Immortal.
"Lah," Edith slowly stepped toward Lah, who was calmly staring at the citizens from the balcony.
"You look worried," said Edith.
"I am,"
"You don''t have to worry about me, Lah," Edith gently ced her hand on Lah''s shoulder.
"I am not worried about you Edith,"
"Then?" Edith tilted her head.
"I am worried about them," Lah''s gaze swept across the kingdom and its citizens.
"Thusia defended against three kingdoms and conquered another three, all at the same time. I think they can survive against one man, Lah,"
"Do you know what happened between the Barnes and Ghost, Edith?"
"Hmm," Edith nodded.
" Don''t ask me about it, Lah. I made a promise to Victoria-"
"I am not going to ask you, Edith," Lah''s words cut short Edith''s words.
"But you know who''s right and who''s wrong. End of the day, we all have to reap what we sow," Lah sighed. Just by looking into Edith''s eyes, Lah could tell Ghost''s vengeance against them was justified. Besides, Lah wasn''t stupid. Two years ago, Maxim Barnes was just a Body Strengthening stage cultivator. Many ministers in Thusia forced him to marry Victoria to a prince and name an heir to the throne. But suddenly, he took a leap from the Body Strengthening stage to Fusion Stage. Not only Maxim but all of his closest allies got a sudden boost to their cultivation. It was obvious Maxim had stumbled upon something much more powerful, and it was somehow connected to Ghost.
"If you are his friend, you should worry about him more, Lah. He is just one man. They are going to kill him,"
"Not if he reaches the Half Immortal stage,"
Lah''s words made Edith''s heart skip a beat.
Chapter 690 Stepping Into Godhood
Four days passed in a blink of an eye. The sky around the Holy church was riddled with people from various factions. Despite the raging lightning storm, they risked their lives to witness Michael''s heavenly tribtion. The entire city of Yaserius was evacuated due to the storm. The storm destroyed almost half of the houses in the city. If it weren''t for the energy shield around the city, the city would have been in ruins. Almost three hundred people hovered in the sky, staring at the storm without batting an eye. But they could barely see Michael, who sat in the middle of the storm.
As they were staring at Michael, a bolt of lightning struck him. A few secondster, another bolt of lightning struck him again. Many gasped in shock. For the past twenty-four hours, they had seen Ghost being struck by lightning countless times. Everyone who cared for him like Sabrina, Ethan, and ire, felt like they were being struck by lightning.
Gaya prayed to all the gods deep down. She had never heard such a phenomenon of a cultivator being struck by lightning more than five times. Every time a bolt of lightning struck Michael, they thought it would be thest one. Many even gambled on his life, betting whether he would die by the next lightning or not.
? His ck robes radiated smoke as they had several burning holes. Fortunately, no one tried to interrupt the heavenly tribtion. To Gaya''s surprise, the Alpha Guardians themselves came to ensure everything went as smoothly as possible. Not because they cared for Ghost but because, judging by the storm''s intensity, they feared any interruption to the heavenly tribtion could destroy the entire kingdom of Thera. It worked in Michael''s favor.
Meanwhile, Michael sat down in the middle of a storm without moving an inch. He thought he wouldn''t feel any pain because of the system. But he was totally wrong. Intense pain red up every time a lightning bolt struck him. Every muscle in his body tensed up. His entire body told him to stop what he was doing, stop and find relief from this hellish feeling. He thought his body would go numb after being struck by lightning after some time yet his body and mind refused to go numb. Michael was unable to block out the pain entirely.
Simply put, the pain was like his skin being stripped off alive. However, the pain wasn''t the only feeling he experienced. Every time a bolt of lightning struck him, his body became strong. He felt something leaving his body. He wasn''t wrong as that something was toxic and impurities in his body and soul. In other words, the lightning bolts cleansed his body and soul. He was being reborn.
The sky looked as dark ad ck canvas. Many thought it was the result of the storm and the snowy weather. But in reality, the darkness was a result of Michael stepping into his Godhood. Luckily for Michael, Skyhall had no instructions or texts about the Dark Lord''s godhood. Furthermore, they were absolutely certain that Hunter was the Dark Lord. Since he was at the Celestial stage, the Skyhall elderspletely ignored Michael''s heavenly tribtion. As far as they were concerned, Ghost was a prodigy, nothing more and nothing less.
Regardless, Michael''s excitement slowly rose in his heart. He had received millions of badass points, and the system used them to upgrade his spells.
Several hourster, blue, glowing words appeared in his pitch-ck vision.
[Ultimate form of spell Ignitia has been unlocked]
[Ultimate form of spell Wind st has been unlocked]
[Ultimate form of spell Lightning Dash has been unlocked]
[Ultimate form of spell Eyes of Doom has been unlocked]
The word ultimate was alone enough to make him feel excited beyond words. He couldn''t wait to see the ultimate form of the spells.
[At level 1, the ultimate spells can only be used once a day]
The system''s words somewhat diluted his excitement, yet he expected a catch.
[Congrattions to the host for stepping into the Godhood]
[Current Godhood level- Fledgling god]
[The host can find seeds of darkness and achieve certain feats to level up your Godhood]
[The higher the Godhood level, the more powers will be unlocked]
Finally, Michael had taken his first step into his Godhood. As a result, almost every single skill and spell in Michael''s arsenal got a boost in power.
[All of the host''s elemental mastery except darkness has doubled]
[Wind mastery reached 20%]
[Lightning mastery reached 30%]
[Fire mastery reached 20%]
[Darkness mastery reached 35%]
Except for Darkness which went from 25% to 35%, all of his elemental mastery had doubled.
Michael was ted by the system notifications. His suffering and the pain he experienced were worth it. He felt more powerful and stronger than ever before. More and more lightning bolts struck Michael, but the pain he felt was nowhere close to the pain he had felt earlier. His body had be strong and powerful beyond any mortal limit. He lost track of time. Finally, he heard the system''s voice again.
[Congrattions to Host for reaching the Half Immortal stage level 1]
Michael heaved a sigh of relief in his mind. But it was only the fourth day of his tribtion. On the other hand, those who were staring at Michael felt a sudden power surge in the air. Almost hundreds of golden lightning bolts struck the holy church at the same time. The rumbling thunder almost pierced their eardrums. As a result of the power surge, the storm grew several times more violent. The howling wind pushed everyone back.
Hundreds of lightning bolts streaked across the sky, almost turning the dark sky golden. As a result of these lightning strikes, the red maple leaves turned white. The lightning bolts bleached the red maple trees. The rumbling thunder almost sounded like the sky itself split open. They all feared for their lives. Even the Fusion Stage cultivators flew a mile back from the storm.
The phenomenon continued for almost five hours. Afterward, the lightning bolts disappeared from the sky. Instead, the pitch-ck sky and raging stormpletely enveloped the holy church. None of them could see what was happening inside the storm. His heavenly tribtion caused the ocean surrounding Awor to be unstable and prone to violent waves. Gigantic tsunami waves rushed toward thend from all directions. Even the golden princess and court mages of the empress herself came out of seclusion to cast energy barriers around the continent.
Some of the peasants who witnessed these giant waves, trembling ground, and dark sky thought it was the end of the world. One couldn''t me them. After all, anyone would freak out when the day suddenly turns into night. Inside the storm, everything turned pitch ck. The only source of light inside the storm was the glowing runes around Michael and on the Holy Church building. If it weren''t for these runes, the gravitational pull would have stripped the maple trees and the church itself off the ground.
Soon, seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. When the final day of his tribtion arrived, every single kingdom in the Awor continent felt the effects of his tribtion. There was no one in Awor who didn''t hear the rumbling thunder and see streaks of lightning in the sky.
"It''s time," Nightmare said to Gaya. It had been five days since Michael triggered his heavenly tribtion.
Gaya and everyone noticed the storm slowing down. The dark storm clouds gradually passed away, letting the light pass through the sky. Eventually, they were able to see Michael''s silhouette in the middle of the storm. Ethan and Sabrina heaved a sigh of relief. Michael slowly opened his eyes. His skin and hair glowed. In a few seconds, his short hair grew several inches to reach his lower neck. Coupled with a stubble beard, Michael looked dashing.
The tattered robes vanished into thin air, and instead, new ck robes enveloped his body. As usual, he wore a long ck coat with matching ck pants. The coat was etched with a silver lining and made of thick fabric. Instead of a ck turtleneck, Michael chose ck leather armor with protective chest tes. Finally, hepleted his wardrobe with ck boots and tactical fingerless gloves. Michael''s gaze swept across the sky. He noticed hundreds of cultivators staring at him. Without making them wait any longer, he slowly ascended to the sky.
Everyone remained still in fear. A Half Immortal was a pinnacle of existence who could end their lives with a single spell. Plus, no matter how many spells they could cast, they wouldn''t be able to kill him, even if they all attacked him together. As expected, Gaya and Nightmare were the first two to fly toward him. When they reached him, their eyes went wide. Gaya''s jaw dropped a few inches down. They were different from the rest. The cultivators who saw Michael were beyond shocked. They couldn''t believe what they were seeing. He wasn''t at the Half Immortal level 1 but level 3. The system harnessed the power of the lightning using the energy devourer. As a result, he was able to jump from level 1 to level 3 in one go.
One by one, Michael''s close friends and allies moved closer to him.
"I can''t believe it," Gaya gasped.
"You are a freaking Half Immortal,"
ire and the others, including Ethan, surrounded him. But before Michael could greet them, an ear-deafening thunderp echoed through the sky. A bright light emerged in the sky. The light was bright enough to resemble the sun. They all looked up as the light slowly descended toward Michael. Everyone couldn''t help closing their eyes. Fortunately, the light slowly dimmed, revealing a man with a long white beard and hair.
"An Immortal,"
Several people gasped in shock. But Michael remained calm because he knew who he was, at least where he wasing from. Michael flew higher to meet the old man. The man looked at Michael with a gentle smile. Yet behind that gentle smile was a sliver of shock.
"Young man, I am here to take you to the Council of Immortals," the old man''s calm voice sounded like a giant bell.
Chapter 691 Refusing To Join The Council
"No," Michael outright rejected the old man''s offer. His words startled everyone, including the old man. The immortal creased his brows. He wondered whether the young man heard him right or not.
"If I join the council, will you let me destroy Thusia?" Michael questioned the old man. His words were loud enough for everyone to hear.
As expected, the old man shook his head.
"As a Half Immortal, you cannot meddle in any mortal affairs. You have to let go of your hatred. You cannot achieve immortality with it,"
Michael snickered.
"My hatred toward Thusia knows no bounds. I don''t want or need the council. I appreciate the offer, but I am not going to join," Michael said. He was nonchnt.
"Think about it once again. This will be the first andst time you will get an offer to join the council. If you reject it, you won''t get it forever,"
"Okay," Michael rubbed his chin.
" Can you wait until after I settle my scores with Thusia?" asked Michael.
But as expected, the old man shook his head.
"No. You have to make your decision now,"
"Then my answer is no. I won''t join the council,"
The old man just sighed inside his mind. He was not any run-of-the-mill cultivator to get offended by Michael''s choice. Like almost all the Immortals, the old man trained his mind and body to keep his emotions in check. The only emotion he felt was pity. It was very unfortunate to see a talented young man like Ghost waste his potential due to hatred and vengeance. But he made his choice, and there was nothing he or the council could do.
Without the young man joining the council, no one could control his actions. Therefore, the old man knew if the young man decided to wreak havoc in the world, the responsibility of stopping him would fall on the Guardian guild''s shoulders. He was a human, so among the eight great ns, the human-centric guardian guild had to control him.
"I hope your enmity is worth wasting your life," The old man said as he slowly ascended to the sky.
"We shall never meet again," The old man calmly said before turning himself into bright light and disappearing into the cloudy sky. Once the immortal disappeared from their sight, the people heaved a sigh of relief. Although ire seemed to have an opinion of her own, she didn''t speak her mind. Ghost was no longer a disciple or a typical cultivator of her standards. Rather, Ghost was a Half Immortal, and it was not her ce to advise him anymore.
He smiled at ire before looking at everyone hovering in the sky.
"Ladies and gentlemen. I wish I had met you under different circumstances. But as soon as I finish my little task, I will hold a grand g celebrating my achievement. I hope everyone will attend with your loved ones. I am sure we have a lot to talk about making this world a better ce," said Michael.
Many were pleasantly surprised by Michael''s words. Unlike the thought, he was neither too arrogant nor prideful. Instead, his words were friendly and warm. He looked like a person they could be friends with him. Member of the council or not, all of them wanted to be Michael''s friend. Having a Half Immortal by their side would give them a massive advantage over their rivals.
But those who had a friendly rtionship with Thusia broke into a sweat. He chose not to join the council because of his hatred toward Thusia. No matter what it was, Thusia was in trouble. None of them thought Thusia could survive the wrath of a Half Immortal like Michael. Even if Thusia managed to defeat him somehow, the battle would leave the kingdom in ruins. At that time, Thusia''s enemy kingdoms would pick the flesh off the bones like vultures. Either way, Thusia was screwed.
However only Michael knew destroying Thusia was not as simple as it sounds. With the Cosmic stream, Maxim Barnes could be a Half Immortal anytime. ording to Michael''s n, by the time he and Maxim meet on a battlefield, Thusia would be nothing but a ruin.
Michael didn''t linger around for long. He just exchanged a few pleasant words with his friends and allies before heading toward Thusia with Gaya and Nightmare. His destination was a kingdom that was currently at war with Thusia, Kingdom Zulon.
*********************************************
The continent of Awor contained five kingdoms; Kingdom Zulon, Kingdom Suven, Kingdom Idrisal, Kingdom Northguard, and Kingdom Ithn. But everything changed when Thusia imed Kingdom Ithn belonged to Thusia. King Maxim Barnes waged an overseas war against Ithn, and to everyone''s surprise, he conquered Ithn using his mighty army. At that time, no one guessed King Maxim would decide to move his entire kingdom from the Elon continent to the Ozer continent. He sold thend in Elon to Royalnd and Dradel. His decision was unheard of. It took Maxim five months to transport the citizens from Elon to Ozer. He decimated the once proud kingdom of Ithn and transformed it into new Thusia. He didn''t stop with Ithn. A month after settling into Ozer, he provoked the Northguard, forcing them to wage war against Thusia. The result of the war was the same. King Maxim Barnes decimated Northguard to be thergest kingdom and superpower in Ozer. All of it was possible because of the Thusian special force and General Booth.
King Maxim used every single tactic, whether it was dirty or not to win wars. One by one cities and viges fell to the might of the Thusian army. He burned down the viges that refused to surrender and tamed the cities that opened their gates to the Thusian army. In the span of one year, King Maxim Barnes conquered two kingdoms and built an army powerful enough to rival the superpowers in Awor itself.
The entire Ozer continent was thrown into war because of one man, King Maxim Barnes. Except for Idrisal that initiated a secret shady deal with Maxim, every other kingdom was at war. Michael''s destination Zulon was on the verge of getting conquered by Thusia. Except for their capital, every city and vige had fallen under the might of the Thusian army.
The city of Westborough was built amidst the ivory fields of snow and was truly a contemporary wonder. Its wonder was matched by the backdrop of a gentle mountain which has helped shape the city into what it is today. The resources these mountains brought were of great importance, but they were also influential when it came to architectural designs, as the vast majority of buildings have been built in the shape of those same mountains.
Even the war couldn''t mask the beauty of Westborough, as it looked luxuriant. With its ash wood rooftops, oak wood walls, and foggy fields, the city had a seductive atmosphere. The main attraction was the towering five-story building in the middle of the city. It was built by orcs to educate the children in Zulon regardless of their race, social status and wealth. Under the orc king, Bdur, Zulon prospered for ages without war or any sort of struggle until Thusia waged war against them.
Science and development was flourishing in Zulon, and it had attracted a lot of attention. The orcs maintained a peaceful rtionship with all the nearby kingdoms. One could think orcs were a ruthless, brutal race by their looks. On the contrary, orcs lived a peaceful life. They were gentle, kind and caring.
They didn''t even bother to build a big enough army to defend themselves in case of invasion. It was a mistake and a vulnerability that Maxim Barnes took full advantage of. Without a strong army to fend off the invaders, every city and vige in Zulon fell to the Thusian army like dominos.
No amount of science and education could save Zulon from the might of Thusia.
At the moment, Captain Yagnar sat inside his room, rummaging through the scrolls on his table. The candlelight illuminated his green skin and two broken tusks sticking out of his mouth. A few weeks ago, he was on duty to protect Prince Zorfu. The most dangerous battle he had ever gone through was a rabbit wolf they came across when they went hunting in the nearby forest. But suddenly, everything changed. General Orkavei died in the hands of General Maddox ''The mad'', one of the most ruthless generals serving under King Maxim.
As a result, Captain Yagnar became the new General. It was a promotion Yagnar had never wished for.
"General Yagnar," suddenly, a dwarf came into the room running. The dwarf''s chest rose and fell in a certain rhythm.
"What is it?" asked Yagnar.
The dwarf opened and closed his mouth as no words escaped his mouth.
"Take a deep breath," said Yagnar.
The dwarf took not one but few deep breaths. Yagnar saw the glimmering fear in the dwarf''s eyes.
"General Maddox¡he and his men are on their way to here. They will reach the city by dusk, and they are not alone,"
Yagnar creased his thick brows.
"What do you mean they are not alone?"
"He''s bringing hostages. They are all fromwson vige,"
Yagnar clenched his fist. He mmed the table before rising from his chair.
"Lawson vige?!" His thick voice was filled with uncontroble rage and fury. Lawson vige was his birth ce. He grew up there. What made him more furious was that the vige was located far away from the path leading to Westborough. This meant, Maddox went out of his way to assault the vige and capture the viges.
Deep down, he knew why Maddox did that. He wanted to use the vigers as leverage to make Yagnar open the city gates.
"What do we do, General Yagnar?" asked the dwarf.
"Send the word to his majesty. We will do everything in our power to save both the city and the vigers," Yagnar said. But both the dwarf and Yagnar knew saving one was impossible let alone the two. At this time, they could only pray for a miracle.
"Yes, General Yagnar," The dwarf bowed quickly before running out of the room.
After the dwarf left the room, the fury and anger in Yagnar''s eyes turned into fear.
"I just wanted everything to be over," He copsed onto the chair. In a few hours, General Maddox would be at his doorsteps. Yagnar hoped his majesty has a way to save his vigers. However, it was highly unlikely anyone would sacrifice an entire city for a vige of a hundred lives.
"What would you have done, General Orkavei?" Yagnar asked himself. General Orkavei was their hope to fend off the invaders. He was a master tactician and an honorable fighter. But even Orkavei fell to the des of General Maddox. Maddox broke Zulon soldiers'' spirit by burning Orkavei alive in front of their eyes.
Yagnar could only imagine what Maddox would do to the vigers if they refused to open the city gates.
Chapter 692 Gathering Storm
With the setting sun came a sky of fire, the orange of every wintry hearth. It was the battle cry to the gathering night that the only achievement of darkness was to raise the chillness in the air. The heavy snow flow nketed everything around Westborough. The whiteness stretched across as far as one could see. Atop the city walls, Yagnar waited for Maddox and his battalion to arrive. The eerie howling wind carried the sound of children crying in fear. Even the grown men under hismand shivered, not due to the coldness but due to the fear. None of them had any real battle experience.
The soldiers formed a line atop the city wall, carrying a torch in their hands which provided them light and much-needed warmth.
"General," a dwarven woman whispered. Just like everyone else, she was in metal armor, armed to the teeth. She held a battle axe in one hand and the torch in the other.
"What were his majesty''s orders?" asked the dwarven woman. The dwarves were capable of many things but keeping their mouths shut wasn''t one of them. After reporting to Yagnar, Grimjaw, the dwarf who reported about Maddox''s arrival, spread the news about Lawson vige to the entire army. Those who knew Yagnar personally worried about him as Lawson vige was his birthce.
"He ordered me not to open the gates under any circumstances," Yagnar sighed. As much as he wanted to save Lawson vige, his first duty was to King Bdur. He had sworn an oath to serve his majesty until he drew hisst breath. To this moment, Yagnar served Bdur, obeying every single one of his orders, and Yagnar didn''t think he could do otherwise now.
"So this is it huh?" the dwarven woman nervously chuckled.
"This is how the great nation of Zulon makes itsst stand against Thusia,"
Although everyone knew how the battle would end, none of them dared to speak out loud. Their entire army consisted of thousands of men, and currently, four hundred troops were stationed in the city to defend the king. But General Maddox had six hundred troops with three Fusion stage cultivators. Most of their troops were at either the Body Strengthening stage or the Core Formation stage. On the contrary, the weakest of soldiers of Maddox was at the Core Formation stage. The power gap between the two armies was huge. Not to mention Maddox was a Fusion stage warrior who was several times stronger than Yagnar.
The only advantage Westborough had was the heavy snowfall and the defense arrays around the city. If they were lucky, they could oust Maddox and his men and survive the siege. At Least Westborough had enough food tost a year. But Yagnar doubted Maddox didn''t know about this.
"We will fight to ourst breath, Sarrin," said Yagnar. Despite the fear and concern, Yagnar sounded brave. For the sake of his men, he had to be. Otherwise, they were as good as dead.
"Look," Sarrin pointed at the distantnd where Yagnar vaguely saw several dots of light. They all heard the clumping sound in the air made by a pack of horses. Soon, the dots of lights grew brighter. Little by little, Yagnar saw the silhouettes of several figures.
"They are here," said Sarrin.
"Sound the horn," Yagnar ordered his men.
The next moment, his men sounded the horn. The sound echoed through the city, silencing everyone. The cries of children were cut short by the horn. Silence swept across the city. Even the howling wind seemed to have died down. Suddenly, a bright light appeared amidst the torches in the distance. The ball of light lit the ce, shedding light on Maddox and his men.
Maddox was a giant of a man who sat atop a growling buffalo instead of a horse. He was easily a seven feet man with arge pot belly. Unlike Yagnar and his men, Maddox and his men wore animal fur and pelt as clothes. Maddox himself wore a wolf''s head atop his head. Furthermore, Maddox made a chain out of his fallen foes'' ears and wore it around his neck to terrify his enemies.
Rumor had that Maddox was a cannibal who lusted over human flesh. Judging by his look, Yagnar couldn''t help thinking the rumor had some truth to it.
The ball of light slowly grew brighter. To Yagnar''s shock, he saw several viges nailed to wooden poles and carried by fellow vigers. Men and women bled on the wooden pole. They were all naked, with several scratches and cuts on their bodies. The soldiers of Maddox were animals. They ravaged the women in the vige, piged their homes, and burned it to the ground. Many vigers wanted to kill themselves, but Maddox didn''t even let the vigers take their own lives. Because for him, their lives had value. In the severe cold, the vigers shuddered. They all looked half-dead. Maddox didn''t show a shred of mercy. He stripped the clothes of everyone, including the children.
Yagnar''s blood boiled seeing the state of his fellow vigers.
"My dear Zulons," Maddox''s words echoed through the air.
"You have a nice home. Aren''t you going to wee us? Your people," Maddox looked at the naked vigers in shackles.
"Are cold and need warmth. Otherwise, they might die," Maddox pretended to be sad for the vigers.
"Open the gates. Save your people," said Maddox. Seeing the state of the vigers, Yagnar was tempted to open the gates. Yet if he opened the gates, there was a possibility of Maddox ughtering everyone in the city just to bring Zulon to its knees. People called Maddox ''The Mad'' for a reason.
Maddox''s cold gaze swept across the city gates. His gaze slowly turned toward a young man who was nailed to a wooden pole.
"Your people refuse to open the gates for you. Yet, they call me mad," Maddox slowly shook his head.
"Let me take care of your need for warmth,"
Yagnar saw Maddox reaching out for the young man sitting atop the buffalo. But suddenly, a stream of fire shot out of Maddox''s hand toward the young man. A scream of agony echoed through the area. Everyone felt a chill crawling down their spines. The young man screamed and squirmed. The smell of burning flesh traveled in the cold air. His screamsted for almost a minute until the young man turned into ashes.
"Open the gates!"
One of the vigers screamed.
"Listen to your people. Avoid this needless bloodshed. We both know you cannot defeat us. Open your gates and swear your loyalty to His majesty Maxim Barnes,"
Maddox let his words sink into everyone''s mind. The ashes of the young man were still smoking. His parents couldn''t even cry out loud because of the cold.
"What are we going to do, General?" asked Sarrin. Everyone looked at Yagnar for his answer. But how could he order the men to open the gates? He learned about Maddox. The man had never honored his words. Yagnar knew the moment they opened the gates, Maddox and his men would flood the city and burn the city to the ground, just like they did in Northguard.
"So the responsibility of taking care of your people falls into my shoulder again,"
Once again, Maddox extended his arm toward a shivering old man. Without any clothes on, the old man was covered in a thinyer of ice. The light of life was slowly dimming in the old man''s eyes. No words escaped the old man''s mouth until the fire shot out from Maddox''s palm and touched him. The old man screamed. But his screamsted shorter than the young man''s. The old man''s charcoaled bones crumbled down.
"Open the gates!"
"Bastards, open the gates!"
Some of the vigers managed to scream as loud as they could. Their fear turned into fury.
"Another life is gone because of you," Maddox said. He was nonchnt. Their sufferings gave Maddox a sense of pleasure. Despite the screams of the vigers, Yagnar did not order the men to open the gates.
"Until you do, you will see me doing this every five minutes. But don''t let my patience run out. At that time, I''d warm up your entire city,"
His words made Yagnar''s heart skip a beat. The soldiers behind him clenched their fists. They desperately wanted to open the gates. This war was lost. If they had opened the gates now, at least they could save the city and the vigers.
"General. We have to open the gates. Please, give us the order!" some of the soldiers behind Yagnar shouted.
"It''s not my order to give. His majesty has ordered us to hold the gates. Opening them is not an option!" Yagnar roared.
"Where is his majesty now?!" A soldier among them shouted. His question riled up the others. Fear overshadowed their loyalty. One by one, the soldiers began to question the orders given to them.
To their surprise, Maddox burned another viger alive. He didn''t keep his word about burning one every five minutes. Not even two minutes had passed since he burned the old man when he decided to burn another one.
"This is bullshit!"
"Let''s open the gates!"
"I won''t let my family burn to death because of some stupid order!"
A group of soldiers containing dwarves and humans jumped down from the city gates. Chaos broke out among the soldiers.
"Anyone who touches the gate will be tried for treason!" Sarrin shouted.
"It''s better than burning alive!" the rebels shouted. Although the other soldiers didn''t step out of the line, they didn''t stop the rebels either. Looking at the chaos on top of the city walls, Maddox and his menughed. They licked their lips. Any oblivious man could tell these men don''t have any kindness in their hearts.
"STOP THEM!"
Inside the city, Yagnar saw the rebels rushing toward the gates. He immediately ordered his men to stop them. But the soldiers seemed reluctant. Yagnar closed his eyes for a moment as a dark spear materialized in his hand. He prepared himself to stop the soldiers himself. He was about to leap down to the ground from the city wall when a thunderp reverberated through the area. Streaks of lightning riddled the sky above them. They all looked above. The shes of lightning revealed the swirling dark clouds in the sky.
"A storm?" Sarrin tilted her head with a doubtful look.
Chapter 693 Ultimate Wind Blast
The storm grew more and more intense. In a couple of seconds, streaks of lightning cut through the dark sky. The shes of lightning turned the night into day. Maddox and his men stoppedughing. They all looked up at the sky. The ferocious storm clouds threatened them. But suddenly, everything became dead silent.
"What''s happening?" Sarrin asked.
The rebels halted their moves. Out of the blue, a golden lightning bolt struck thend between Maddox''s men and the city walls. Atop the city walls, Sarrin and Yagnar saw a cloud of smoke emerge from the ground where the lightning struck. They vaguely saw a figure standing inside the cloud of smoke.
A ball of light hovered above Maddox''s men, lighting the ce. It illuminated the young man inplete ck robes. As soon as the soldiers saw the young man, they shuddered. Maddox''s buffalo groaned, stepping back in fear.
"No way," Sarrin mumbled. Every single one in the area felt a chill running down their spine. The young man was a Half Immortal. The energy radiation they saw around him was devastating. For the first time, a sliver of fear emerged in Maddox''s eyes.
"General, thatd is a Half Immortal," Sarrin shivered.
"Who is he?" Yagnar mumbled.
As they were staring at Michael, a thunderous roar echoed through the sky. The people were terrified by the roar. Maddox and his men werepletely caught off guard when a stream of fire appeared from the sky. The fire separated the vigers from Maddox and his men. Before Maddox could react, the vigers disappeared. Yagnar looked up at the sky to see a shadow of a monstrous creature above the clouds.
"A dragon," Sarrin recognized the creature by the shadow. Maddox''s buffalo shook its head frantically until it received a powerful p from its rider. Maddox saw an empty field through the mes. All the vigers had disappeared from his sight. Everything from the young man''s arrival to the disappearance of the vigers happened within a few seconds. Even a Fusion stage cultivator like him couldn''t realize what just had happened.
"GENERAL!"
Suddenly, a soldier screamed, drawing Yagnar''s attention. He turned around quickly to see the vigers standing inside the city gates, safe and sound. The vigers were gawking in confusion. Some began to throw up where they stood due to the effects of sudden teleportation. Except for shivering and vomiting, the vigers remained safe.
"Who are you?" Maddox''s shout echoed through the air.
Michael did not respond. Instead, he just raised his hand. The air around him began to swirl, forming a tiny tornado.
"Defense shields!"
Maddox realized the young man had started to cast a spell. He barked orders at his men to cast defensive spells. Several translucent shields materialized around them. Furthermore, several golden chakras swirled around them, strengthening their energy shields. Meanwhile, the small tornado that appeared around Michael slowly transformed itself into a crescent-shaped wind de. The de grew long enough to be the size of three to four buses lined together. Plus, the de created an otherworldly whistling noise, threatening Maddox and his men.
Looking at Maddox and his men, Michael simply snapped his fingers. The wind de shot out toward them at the speed of an arrow, soaring through the sky. It cut the air itself as the moment Michael fired the wind st, it created a loud booming sound. The wind stpletely snuffed out the dragon fire around Maddox and his men.
Maddox and his men poured every bit of energy in their bodies into their shields. However, the wind de cut through them like a hot knife through butter. In a blink of an eye, the soldiers were cut into pieces. Blood and flesh spurted out. The white snow beneath them turned red with their blood.
"AHHHH!"
Maddox''s men shrieked and squealed in pain. Those who were lucky instantly died, but many remained alive. The cut was smooth and quick. So they didn''t die quickly. Maddox, however, managed to escape the wind st by leaping into the air just before the wind de could cut through him. But his mount, the ck buffalo, wasn''t so lucky. It died instantly as the de cut the buffalo into two chunky pieces.
The howling wind carried the nauseating stench of blood to the city gates. Every single soldier atop the city gates stared at the scene with mixed feelings. They were both terrified and delighted to see Maddox and his men suffer. Michael was surprised to see Maddox''s quick reflex to save himself from the wind de.
His head was filled with the sound of system notifications. One by one, the soldiers drew theirst breath. The ultimate form of Wind st was more powerful than Michael expected. It cut through several shields like they were nothing. Moreover, the size of the wind de was enough to kill a battalion of soldiers in one go. No wonder the system restricted him from using the ultimate form of the spells only once a day. Otherwise, Michael could decimate a kingdom''s army with a couple of Wind des.
Maddoxnded on the snowy field with a loud thud. He immediately took the spiked mace dangling on his back. In Michael''s eyes, Maddox seemed like a typical barbarian.
"I am with the king. Are you finished there?" Michael heard Gaya''s words in his head.
"About to," said Michael.
"You are meddling in the affairs of Kingdom Thusia!" Maddox shouted. He didn''t find any suitable threatening words.
"I know," Michael snickered.
In a blink of an eye, Michael''s figure disappeared from Maddox''s sight. From atop the city walls, they saw a golden lightning bolt shooting toward Maddox. Maddox was stunned when Michael appeared before him. But he managed to swing his mace instinctively.
The mace hit Michael''s head, creating a loud ding sound. The mace bent and cracked as soon as it hit Michael''s head. Maddox''s hand went numb. Although the spiked mace looked rather ordinary, it was an Epic ss weapon gifted to him by Maxim Barnes. The mace had the ability to freeze its foes for a few moments upon hitting them. Yet, it failed to even inflict a small cut on Michael''s head.
He simply grabbed Maddox''s neck, lifting him off the ground.
"You deserve to be burned alive," Michael conjured a ball of emerald green mes on the other hand. Suddenly, a ghostly figure of a bear appeared behind Maddox. The crimson-red bear lunged at Michael with its razor-sharp ws raised. Yagnar and the soldiers saw everything with their eyes wide open. The eight feet tall bear swung its w left and right, trying to shred Michael into pieces.
The result of the bear''s attack was just the same as the mace attack. It couldn''t even cut Michael a single time. Eventually, the bear disappeared as Maddox''s face turned pale due tock of blood w.
"But I have some other uses for you," said Michael. His eyes turned predatory. Maddox struggled to escape Michael''s clutch. Granted Maddox was a Fusion Stage cultivator, but he was nowhere close to a Half Immortal in power and strength. Even if Maddox had Cosmic energy coursing through his veins, the result of the battle would have been the same.
Holding Maddox by his neck, Michael looked at a steel sword on the ground several meters away from him. He reached out for the sword as it flew straight into his hand.
Pulch!
Michael quickly enveloped the sword with a thinyer of dark mes before swinging it right across Maddox''s waist. The sword cut Maddox''s body in halves. His lower body hit the ground with a sickening thud. Blood spurted out from half of the body on the ground.
Yagnar and Sarrin felt a chill as they began to sweat. Maddox''s mad scream echoed through the air. Michael let Maddox scream for a few long minutes.
"I am going to parade you and yourckeys'' bodies through Zulon," Michael snickered.
"When I undo your months of work in a few hours, I will kill you and send your bodies to your majesty," Michael''s words were loud enough for Yagnar and his soldiers to hear.
"His majesty¡will¡kill you¡" Maddox barely managed to utter these words.
His words were cut short when Michael put his hand inside Maddox''s mouth. To everyone''s shock, Michael pulled out Maddox''s tongue. Blood and spit sprayed out of Maddox''s mouth. Everyone who witnessed the scene took a step back in fear. With a flick of his wrist, Michael lifted all the bodies into the air. He himself slowly ascended to the air with Maddox struggling in his hand.
"Is heing this way?" asked Sarrin. Her question was soon answered as Michael moved towards them.
Before they could bat an eye, Michael disappeared from sight, heading toward the castle.
"To the castle!" Yagnar roared. If that Half Immortal chose to kill their king, nothing would stop him. At Least he wanted to fight and die for their king. Under the cloudy sky and heavy snowfall, the castle of King Bdur stood majestically. It was no different than any other typical castle Michael had seen. Eight strong, square towers dominated the skyline of this massive castle. They were connected by reinforced, narrow walls made of dark brown stone. Small windows scattered thinly around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry, along with asymmetric crentions for archers and artillery.
A sizable gate with giant wooden doors and archer holes guarded the entrance. Furthermore, a handful of waterfalls flow into various small rivers and provide the precious farm fields outside the castle with needed water. But at the moment, these waterfalls and rivers were frozen and looked like obsidian ss.
The soldiers on the ground were caught off guard. Most of them didn''t even notice Michael flying straight into the castle through a window. Unfortunately, by the time they reacted, it was toote.
"Is that blood?" Some of the soldiers noticed a trail of blood on the ground. The blood drizzled from the bodies Michael carried into the castle. The soldiers were stunned. They immediately rushed into the castle. By the time Yagnar and his men arrived at the castle, Michael was already inside.
"What''s happening?" Yagnar questioned the men guarding the castle doors.
"General Yagnar," The soldiers saluted.
"His majesty is requesting you. Please, go inside," The soldiers opened the main doors to let Yagnar and Sarrin, Yangar''s second-inmand, enter the castle.
Chapter 694 Forming An Army I
Inside the castle, Michael leaned on one of the pirs. The room he was standing in was rather empty. It only had a long oak table and firece to warm the air. Gaya sat on the end of the table while the Zulons sat on the other end. Zulon''s king Bdur was a Half-Orc. He was neither tall as an orc nor short as an average human. His skin had a tinge of jade green. Bdur inherited his facial features from his human mother and his body from his orc father. Light green, shaggy hair almost fully covered the fine, frowning face of Bdur. Expressive blue eyes set narrowly within their sockets, watching impatiently over the neers.
Besides Bdur, the prince of Zulon remained calm andposed. Because Prince Zorfu''s mother was also an orc, he looked like any other orc with his thick green skin, tusks, and big muscr physique. Unlike his father, Corfu tied his green hair into a ponytail. His gaze swept between the girl, the dragon sitting atop her shoulder, and the Half Immortal leaning on the pir. Silence haunted the room. The firewood crackled under the scorching mes. They all waited for General Yagnar to enter the room.
Finally, the orc general opened the room. Fear and concern were written all over Yagnar''s face. He clenched his spear tight. When he saw everyone was safe, he looked relieved/ Yagnar heaved a sigh of relief.
"Your majesty, your royal highness," Yangar bowed.
"Rise," Bdur ordered Yagnar with his surprisingly soft voice.
Yagar lifted his head up. He red at everyone. They all expected the Half Immortal to speak his mind. Finally, Michael opened his mouth.
"Before we start, let me clear things up. I am not here to negotiate. I am here to tell you what to do if you want your kingdom back and end this war once and for all," said Michael. None of them dared to talk back at Michael because of his cultivation stage.
"Do you want your kingdom back or not?" asked Gaya. Bdur and Zorfu slowly nodded. They both knew even if the Half Immortal asked for half of the kingdom, they had to give him. They were not in a position to negotiate. Without him, their own soldiers would have rebelled and opened the gates for Maddox and his men. At that time, they would have lost the entire kingdom.
Michael noticed the concern in their eyes.
"If you''re worried about whether I would ask something unreasonable, don''t. I am putting together an army to destroy Thusia, and I want yours to join me. Say no, and I will leave you alone. We both know what will happen next," said Michael. They could imagine what Maxim Barnes would do next when he heard his generals were cut in half. By ughtering the army single-handedly, Michael saved Zulon and put them in danger at the same time.
"If may I ask," Bdur''s words trailed. He carefully chose his next words.
"Why do you want an army, my lord? With your power, you can destroy Thusia single-handedly," said Bdur. Because Michael was a Half Immortal, even the king addressed him as ''my lord.''
"If I do that, I''ll be the priority number one of the Immortal Council. It''s bullying. But if you fight back, that''s war. And anything is fair in war," said Michael. He was nonchnt.
"As you may or may not have heard, Zulon is not a military nation. Our army consists ofmoners with no real battle experience. As much as I hate to admit it, we are weak in terms of military power," Bdur sighed.
Hearing the king, Michael just snickered.
"Dying as weak is better than living as a ve. As I said, I am not here to negotiate. Talk to your general and give me an answer. I will give you fifteen minutes," Michael flew out of the room in a blink of an eye. The dragon and the girl followed him behind, leaving Yagnar with the king and the prince.
"Your majesty," Yagnar called, looking at the king.
"There is nothing to think about this, father," said Zorfu.
"We either do what he says and stay behind him or fall when MAxim Barnes sent another battalion of soldiers to Westborough. General Yagnar," Prince Zorfu turned his gaze toward the general.
"Tell me if I am wrong"
Yagnar shook his head.
"Your majesty, permission to speak freely," asked Yagnar, bowing his head.
"Go ahead," said the king.
"This is our fight, your majesty. We cannot expect that young man to fight for us, and I don''t think he will. I saw general Maddox burn vigers of Lawson vige alive. Our own soldiers rebelled against our orders to open the gates. How strong or weak our soldiers are wont matter when we don''t even have a kingdom,"
"I know that, General Yagnar," The king sighed.
"Maybe I am selfish, but I don''t want those youngsters to lose their lives fighting a war against Thusia. They have a lot to live for,"
"Father, are you hearing yourself?" Zorfu creased his brows.
"Just think what would happen if the Half Immortal left us. The next battalion will break the city walls in a few days. Do you think Thusians will show us any mercy? They will ughter everyone in the city. Zulon will fall. Like it or not, this is war. Those youngsters and soldiers will die whether you agree or not. The difference is, if we listen to the Half Immortal, their deaths would mean a future for Zulon,"
"His royal highness is right, your majesty," said Yagnar.
"You are both right. It''s time we fight back. With a Half Immortal on our side, we have a chance to unify all the other kingdoms against Thusia," After a long pondering moment, Bdur rose with a new resolute in his eyes. He was not trained or had experience in making wartime decisions. Zulon was a peaceful kingdom that focused on education and science. Therefore, Bdur took a few moments to make an obvious decision. Following Bdur''s resolve, they waited for Michael to arrive again.
Just like before, Michael flew through the window andnded in the room.
"We will follow you, my lord," King Bdur and Prince Zorfu bowed their heads.
"I would have been shocked if you didn''te to this decision. From now on, she is your wartime general. You will obey everymand she gives you," Michael turned his gaze toward Yagnar.
"Listen to her, and you will get your two cities back in no time," Michael disappeared from the room after pointing at Gaya. He was on his way to Kingdom Suven, another kingdom that was at war with Thusia. After Michael left, Gaya turned her cold gaze toward Yagnar.
"I put the bodies of Maddox and his men outside on the ice. Take them, put them in a pike and parade them throughout your conquered cities. Make sure Thusians see the bodies crystal clear,"
Gaya''s order stunned Yagnar. He couldn''t believe a delicate young woman like her was capable of giving such gruesome orders. But she shocked them further with her following order.
"Maddox is still alive. He cannot do anything, but he is somewhat alive. So take his body and put them in the front. He is our main piece to break the thusian spirit," Gaya spoke as she slowly walked toward Yagnar.
"Let''s do this huh," She patted Yagnar''s back.
"Mydy," Prince Zorfu called for her.
"Stop calling as Mydy and my lord. I am Miss Aelia, and he is Master Ghost, got it?"
As soon as they heard the names, they were stunned. Zorfu immediately recognized the names.
"He is Ghost? The five-star alchemist of Elon?"
"In the flesh," said Gaya.
The King and Prince Zorfu were speechless. They heard Ghost was the guild leader of the Thusian Alchemy Guild. So they wondered what had happened between them.
"What do we do next, Miss Aelia?" asked Yagnar while the king and prince were silent.
"Just tell the thusians you are prepared to let them head back to thusia if they give the city back without violence,"
"Will they do that?" asked Prince Zorfu.
"Of course, they won''t. That''s where this little fees into the picture," Gaya rubbed Nightmare''s chin.
"I assume you have a portal connecting your cities," asked Gaya as Yagnar nodded.
"Wonderful. There is no perfect time like the present. Let''s go,"
*************************************
Erected in the southern part of Zulon, the city of Coalfell was home to the majority of the dwarves in Zulon. These dwarves hailed from their ancestor kingdom in Awor and settled down in Coalfell because of the abundance of mines and ores. The town itself looked delightful with its spruce wood rooftops, copper walls, and huge, majestic geyser. Simply put, Coalfell had a heavenly atmosphere.
Maxim Barnes targeted Coalfell first due to its mines. He nned to use these ores and metals to arm his soldiers. General Maddox let one of his captains, Captain Hanshaw, control Coalfell in his stead. The man treated the miners and every single citizen in Coalfell like his ves. It was midnight in Coalfell, yet the ck smoke fumed from the long chimneys attached to forges. Screams of women resonated continuously within the city gates.
The portal connecting Westborough to Coalfell was located in an open ground. It was an arena with hundreds of seats built around it. The citizens of Coalfell came to this arena to watch dramas put on by various drama groups that visited Coalfell often. Currently, the thusians used the arena as an execution site. When Yagnar, Sarrin, and a group of soldiers appeared on the open ground, their senses were overwhelmed with the smell of blood. Body parts and blood-steined clothes littered the ground. Patches of blood turned the snow on the ground red.
"INTRUDERS!"
As soon as the thusian soldiers patrolling the site saw the group, they shouted.
"Be calm," Gaya personally led the group to Coalfell. She told them to remain calm. Because of the darkness, the thusians still hadn''t seen the bodies on pikes.
"Tell your captain that a Fusion Stage warrior is here for his head," Gaya''s shout echoed through the arena.
"Let every single soldier in Coalfelle here," Gaya grinned devilishly.
Chapter 695 Forming An Army II
Kingdom Suven was a small country with a poption of a hundred thousand people. Bordered between a calm ocean to the North, a calm sea to the South, huge, open ins to the East and a tropical forest to the West, the kingdom of Suven mainly lived off armorsmithing, cooking, and carpeting.
Suven itself was mainly covered in uninhabitable mountains and had a rainy climate, which led to a packed poption.
The country''sndscape was sublime; soft, foggy fields, gentle hills, and never-ending fields of green were just a sliver of the hidden treasures Suven had to offer, which was why the kingdom was cherished among foreigners. The people of Suven were charitable towards foreigners and tended to wee them with fresh food. They felt foreigners could help the country''s well-being until Thusia waged war against them.
It wouldn''t be an overstatement to say Kingdom Suven provided food for the entire Ozer continent. The kingdom was blessed with fertilends left and right. In the spring, the entire kingdom would look covered by a golden nket. The rivers running through Suven were littered with fish and aquatic life. Many wealthy organizations like Ruby Cuisine bought fish, crab, prawns, and everything that could be eaten from Suven on a regr basis.
Like Maxim Barnes desired Zulon for its mines and ores, he coveted Suven to make Thusia a self-sustaining kingdom. He wanted to monopolize all the food produced by Suven. Once Thusia conquers Suven, all the nearby kingdoms would be forced to ept whatever price King Maxim asks for the food. Starvation would be their only option if they rejected Maxim''s offer. However, unlike Zulon, Suven had a powerful army. Their naval forces sank hundreds of Thusian ships and held off the invasion for months. Nheless, Thusia overwhelmed them with their superior numbers. Until recently, Thusia and Suven were in a stalemate. Thusia broke this stalemate by burning down farnds and viges. Although it was a ruthless tactic, it worked in Thusia''s favor. Furthermore, Thusians blockaded the paths leading from major food-producing farnds to the cities. By doing this, Thusia cut the food supply to the Suven army. Without food, the army grew weaker. After all, not everyone in the army could sustain themselves with energy only. They needed food.
At that moment, General Bryce of the Suven army sat inside a tent that erupted on the battlefield. Due to the heavy snowfall in the night, the two sides halted their fight. Still, Thusians used attack and retreat tactics at night to prevent Suven''s army from getting a good night''s sleep. Once a golden wheat field mesmerized the foreigners were littered with gore, bodies, and broken armor. Red, blue and gray were the new colors of what was once a vast, luscious field, which had now be the stage of a bloody war. The air, which would normally carry the sounds of birds, rivers, and wildlife, was heavy and thick with the scent of smoke and blood. The mere sense of it would make anyone want to run.
The dead of the Suven armyy in heaps across the field, and the faces of the remaining soldiers were grim with sorrow and despair, but they refused to give up fighting. But in the Thusian camp, singing andughing reverberated throughout the area. They gained a morale boost after reducing thest of Suven''s army to a quarter of their number. Nevertheless, the toll on both nature and humanity was heavy. It was likely to take a lifetime before this field recovered to its former glory. Its clear rubble, explosion holes, and broken siege engines had taken the ce of flowers, trees, and golden wheat fields.
"General Bryce,"
General Bryce was a red-haired man with a long red beard. His body was riddled with cuts and bruises. Several bandages covered the wounds suffered in the battle. Despite the wounds, his eyes were filled with vigor. General Bryce was apanied by several advisors of King Gunner Lamme, General Bryce''s brother-inw.
General Bryce looked up at the man who had just entered the tent. He was one of his knights. The knight carried a parchment.
"We received this from General Bat,"
General Bryce and the advisors creased their brows. General Bat was the man who was leading the invasion on behalf of Thusia. The man used every single dirty tactic there was to win the war. So it was safe to say no one in Suven liked to hear the name, Bat.
"What does that son of a bitch want?" General Bryce snatched the scroll from the knight''s hand. The advisors of General Bryce noticed the general''s eyes turning bloodshot red. His hands shivered as he tore the scroll into pieces.
"General Bryce. What did he say?" asked one of the advisors.
"He wanted us to drop our weapons and surrender. Or," General Bryce clenched his fist.
"Or his men will feast on the women they captured from all those farnds,"
Not a single one in the t remained calm andposed after hearing General Bryce. They all wanted to rip General Bat to pieces. Unfortunately, they were powerless to do so. After their recent sh, the Thusian army outnumbered them four to one. It would be a miracle if they held this position for another day or two.
"I''d be damned if I listen to that moron. We will attack their camp tonight or die trying. His Majesty Gunner will avenge us. What say you?"
His advisors saw no other way. Their battle was long lost. At this moment, they could only go into zing glory by trying to rescue the vigers from the Thusian army.
"Get ready. Tonight, we will attack those bastards for a change," General Bryce roared. But before they could move an inch, a bolt of lightning struck the tent out of the blue. The advisors and the knights guarding the tent jumped back in shock.
"INTRUDER!" The advisors shouted as they saw a ck-clothed youngster standing in the tent where the lightning bolt had just struck.
"Protect the general!"
The knight who brought Barneet''s scroll didn''t even bother to check Michael''s cultivation level before lunging at him with his sword raised. A tiny bolt of lightning shot out of Michael''s finger, prating the knight''s shoulder. The knight screamed as he dropped the sword. His armor made a thud when he copsed down.
"Stand down," Michael''s domineering voice ran inside their heads.
To their shock, they were able to see Michael''s cultivation stage. Although the hydra''s shout still affected Elon and Ozer, its effects were slowly diminishing. So unless the hydra used its scream again, the cultivators would soon regain their ability to see through others'' cultivation stage. Moreover, Half Immortal was an exception. Until now, they had never seen a Half Immortal. Hence, the cultivators thought they couldn''t see others'' cultivation stages. However, when Michael attacked Maddox and his men in Zulon, they all sensed his cultivation stage. It was because the Hydra''s shout did not affect cultivators beyond the Fusion stage.
They took a step back when they realized Michael was a Half Immortal. Fear glistened in their eyes. Even General Bryce looked a bit terrified.
"I brought you a gift," Michael flicked his wrist. The soldiers almost jumped before General Bryce to shield him with their bodies. But contrary to their expectation, a head materialized in Michael''s hand. Blood trickled down from the head. General Bryce was the first man to recognize the head despite theck of a body.
"General Bat," General Bryce mumbled. His words stunned the advisors. Soon, they themselves gawked at the head only to get startled. Everyone in the tent looked between Michael and the head. Silence fell over them. Finally, after a few moments of gawking, General Bryce''s words cut through the silence.
"Who are you?" asked General Bryce.
"Have you heard of the saying, enemy of my enemy is my friend?" asked Michael.
"I am building an army to destroy Thusia. Consider this as my gift to sway Suven to my side," Michael threw the bloody head of Bat to Bryce.
"What about the vigers in his camp?" General Bryce asked after catching Bat''s head.
"If you ept my offer, the vigers will be my allies. Otherwise, saving them and retaking your kingdom from Thusia is up to you,"
General Bryce and the advisors looked at each other.
"And for your question, who am I? It''s Ghost," Michael introduced himself. As Michael expected, they immediately recognized him. The name Ghost was famous through Ozer and Elon. Even some of the noble families in Awor had heard of his name because of his feat in the alchemypetition. Soon, one of the advisors who researched Thusia recalled Ghost being the guild leader of the Thusian Alchemy Guild. Regardless, the advisor was reluctant to question a Half Immortal.
"Look, Lord Ghost,"
"Master, Master Ghost would do," Michael interjected Bryce''s words.
"Master Ghost. As much as I appreciate you taking the life of this son of a bitch, the decision of bing your ally is up to his majesty, Gunner. But if you help us rescue our vigers and clean the maggots off of mynd, you will have my support," General Bryce said.
Michael smiled.
"I like you,"
His smile lightened the mood inside the tent. General Bryce''s thought was simple. If Ghost was Maxim''s man and this was an borate n, Suven had no way of fighting a Half Immortal. But his instinct told him otherwise. Bryce wanted to use Ghost to eradicate Bat''s men. It could buy Suven a week of time to reconsider their battle ns. Furthermore, with a Half Immortal by their side, they actually had a chance to retake the farnds and the vigers taken over by the Thusian army.
"Five minutes," Michael raised five fingers.
"For what?" asked Bryce.
"To rescue your people," Michael shot out from the hole in the tent.
"What are you people waiting for? Put your damn armor on and follow me," Bryce barked at the soldiers and advisors before following behind Michael.
By the time Bryce reached the dark sky, he had noticed a streak of golden lightning heading toward the Thusian camp. It was surprising to him that there was nomotion inside the Thusian camp.
"Those idiots don''t know," Bryce looked at the bloody head of Bat in his hand.
Suddenly, Bryce heard an ear-splitting thunderp resonating in the sky. He looked in the direction of the Thusian camps. To his shock, the sky above them swirled as streaks of lightning shed across the sky. Finally, Bryce saw the Thusian soldiers rushing out of their tents. The sky above them terrified them. They had never seen such a lightning storm before. Bryce heard the eerie howling wind as he stared at the whirling clouds without batting an eye.
Every time a streak of lightning shed across the dark sky, it illuminated Ghost and formed a giant shadow of him in the clouds above.
Chapter 696 Retaking The Cities
The thusian soldiers were in chaos seeing the scary sky above them. Some of them noticed Michael''s figure hovering in the sky and began to shout at others. They all collectively waited for General Bat. Some rushed toward the tent in the center to notify the general. Little did they know Michael had killed General in his sleep. The soldiers were just going to find a headless body on a bed. Without knowing the danger they were in, the soldiers prepared to defend themselves.
"What''s he doing?" Bryce asked the advisors when they joined in the air.
Ghost was just hovering in the sky with his hands behind his back. His long ck coat fluttered in the wind, along with his raven ck hair. But suddenly, an ear-splitting thunderp resonated in the air. Hundreds of lightning bolts struck the ground at the same time. The sky turned bright as day. Bryce and his men felt their neck hair standing up. They could feel the electricity in the air. The tents that were hit by lightning immediately caught fire. Bryce saw soldiers turning into skeletons in a split second. Hollow armor hit the ground with a sickening thud. The thusians didn''t even have time to scream. In a mere moment, hundreds of lives were snuffed out by Ghost.
This was the ultimate form of Ignitia. The spell created a violent storm and produced precisely a hundred and twenty bolts of golden lightning. These lightning bolts jumped from soldier to soldier due to their high electricity and the soldiers'' metal armor. The system notifications continuously rang in Michael''s head.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Half Immortal Level 4]
Michael leveled up. Each level in the Half Immortal stage cost him a whopping 5 million experience points. So Michael needed to kill a hundred Boyd Strengthening stage cultivators or ten Fusion stage cultivators. Because of such a humongous amount, the system rmended Michael find energy sources that could be converted through Energy devourer into Experience points.
Bryce and his men felt a chill. They had been fighting the thusians for weeks now. But all it took Ghost was a few seconds to end their lives. For the first time in their lives, they witnessed the true power of a Half Immortal. This was the reason why the Immortal council was created. Cultivators above the Fusion stage were god-like beings. They could destroy an entire kingdom with a few spells. Even if hundreds of Fusion stage cultivators attacked a Half Immortal at once, they wouldn''t be able to kill him. They needed an Immortal killing weapon. Even with such a weapon, the odds of killing one would be little to none, especially when the coteral damage would decimate everything around them. The world hadn''t seen a rogue Half Immortal causing such trouble for centuries.
Michael looked down to see his handiwork. The ground was still electrified as tiny bolts of blue lightning crisscrossed the ground, creating a buzzing noise. Not a single Thusian soldier survived the wrath of the lightning storm. Fortunately for the vigers, they were caged out of Ignitia''s area of effect.
"General Bryce," Michael''s words echoed through the air. His words snapped General Bryce out of his shock. They hesitated to move toward Ghost after witnessing such an overwhelming show of power. The air itself was riddled with the smell of burning flesh and melting iron. Furthermore, the eerie silence returned to the ce as the storm clouds dissipated. Yet, the horror it produced remained still.
Eventually, General Bryce and his men moved toward Michael. They couldn''t take their gazes away from the smoke and ash clouds emanating from the ground.
"Your people are caged that way," Michael pointed at the forest north of the campsite. Some of the advisors and soldiers immediately rushed toward the forest. They felt terrified to even be near Michael.
"So, shall we go meet your king?" asked Michael.
"Master Ghost, can you give me some time to arrange a meeting between you and his majesty?"
Michael nodded. After his ultimate show of power, anyone would be afraid to meet him suddenly, especially a king. Michael knew General Bryce and the king would take some time to pick a safe ce and time for their meeting.
"Sure thing. You have two hours to give me an answer," Michael said with a calm smile. He was not a mere cultivator who would have to wait for a king''s permission anymore. Instead, the kings had to wait for him. Seeing the perplexed look on Bryce''s face, Michael patted him on the shoulder.
"Rx, you guys are not my enemy, and I don''t go around making enemies because I am stronger. I give you my word. No harm wille to your king from me,"
Michael''s words calmed Bryce''s mind. He might not be as strong as Ghost, but Bryce had enough experience to tell whether someone was speaking honestly or not. Besides, General Bryce didn''t think there was a way to stop Ghost in case he wanted to kill Gunner, the king of Suven.
"We will teleport to your capital. Get your things ready. I will meet you in your camp in ten minutes," Michael descended to the ground leaving Bryce speechless.
As Ghost moved closer to the ground, all the damaged armor and bones began to float. In a few seconds, arge cloud of ash containing armor and bones hovered in the air. Bryce creased his brows, wondering what Ghost was doing. Soon, a bright light shot out of Ghost, enveloped the ash cloud, and faded away along with it. Ghost dated his arms as he ascended to the air once again.
"Let''s go,"
*****************************************************
(A few hours ago in Coalfell)
Gaya was waiting for the thusians to surround them with Yagnar and his men. After a few minutes, an eight feet man armed to the teeth arrived at the arena with a group of knights. All of them were d in metal armor, and except their heads, every part of their body was covered in silver armor. The leading man was Soul Refining stage level 5 warrior. His long ck beard almost touched his belly button. The knights behind him conjured a ball of light, illuminating the entire arena.
Yagnar and his men closed their eyes for a moment because of the brightness. But as soon as the thusians saw the group, their faces turned pale. Even the Soul Refiner, who could scare anyone with its gigantic body, got scared. He took a step back. Why? Because Yaganar and his men carried pikes with thusian soldiers stuck to them like kabab.
"Help," An eerie cold gasp sounded from Gaya''s group. The thusians saw something that scared them for their life. General Maddox, he was stuck to a pike and held by an orc. Once terrifying general was missing his lower body. His mouth moved, asking for help. The thusians saw hundreds of heads stuck to pikes. All of them had their eyes wide open. Even an oblivious man could tell those people died a terrifying death.
"These are all your fellow soldiers who foolishly attempted to take over the capital," Gaya''s yful voice echoed through the arena.
"And this is your beloved General Maddox," Gaya grabbed the pike from Yagnar and raised it above.
The thusians were speechless. More than that, they were terrified.
"Here''s our offer. Drop your shit and run back to your kingdom with your tails between your legs. Or we could do the same to you and show it to the thusians in Mainville. You have a minute to make your decision," Gaya lowered General Maddox and moved his hand like a puppet. Her gesture made the thusians furious. But they were more terrified than furious. They all knew how powerful General Maddox was. So if the Zulons did that to Maddox, they could imagine what they would do to them.
"Come on Maddy, tell your soldiers to save themselves," Gaya said to Maddox. Her voice was loud enough for everyone to hear her.
"You don''t want him toe here, do you?"
Maddox''s eyes barely had the light of life. But when he was reminded of Michael, his eyes widened.
"Listen to her. Inform his majesty. Avenge us," These words barely escaped Maddox''s mouth. After all, Michael only gave him enough healing potion to keep him alive.
Hearing those words, the thusians were stunned. It was obvious to them the Zulons broke his spiritpletely. Some couldn''t even believe it was really their General.
"We will avenge you hear, and now, General," The Soul Refining stage captain growled. Yagnar turned his head to see Gaya grinning as though she was expecting this.
Gaya threw the pike to Yagnar. The very next moment, a long wooden bow and a golden arrow materialized in her hand.
"KILL THEM ALL!" The thusian captain roared. He lunged at Yagnar and his group. But his body suddenly exploded in the mid air. Rain of blood poured over the thusians. Everyone including Yagnar and his men were startled. They couldn''t tell what just happened. One moment the captain was in the middle and the next, he turned into a bloody mist.
Yagnar jerked his head to the side. To his surprise, Gaya had her bow raised. She fired an arrow made of pure first energy at the Soul Refining stage captain. She imbued three kinds of energy into one arrow; Celestial energy, Arch energy and finally, the First energy. Thebination of these energies were powerful enough to make a Soul Refiniger explode like a watermelon.
"Nightmare, finish them all," Her words broke the silence. The thusians halted their steps. Suddenly, the area grew darker. Yaganr looked up at the sky as he saw a shadow of a dragon above the dark clouds. Just like before, a stream of fire shot down through the clouds. The thusians screamed in agony. Their armors melted like butter. But none of them could pinpoint where the fire wasing.
This time, Yagnar was sure. There was a dragon hovering above the clouds. He was sure of it. Although the thusians were their enemies, seeing them burning to death made Yagnar feel a bit of pity for them. The smell of burning flesh overwhelmed their nostrils.
Gaya watched the burning thusians with no expression on her face. She just turned her head to look at Yagnar.
"Take the armors on the ground and kill anyone who escaped the fire. Kabab their bodies and prepare to march toward the next city,"
Chapter 697 Who Will Lead The Army?
After killing thusians soldiers, Michael teleported to the Suven capital, Egerton, with General Bryce and his advisors. The city of Egerton was built along the banks of abyrinth of rivers. It was truly a modern curiosity. Its wonder was matched by the backdrop of pristine skies and the lonely mountain on the horizon. Thick tall walls were built around the city. Snow nketed thends outside the city walls like puffy white bed sheets. The winter''s cold froze all the crisscrossing rivers as well as the waterfalls. Michael appeared in the sky within the city walls. Although it was the middle of the night, the city seemed awake. Michael heard several cries of little children and noticed people running through the streets restlessly.
When Michael looked closer, he was able to see several men lying on the side of the streets, begging. They all looked thin as sticks, as though they didn''t eat for weeks. Even the soldiers patrolling the city gates seemed weak and exhausted.
"It seems like the people are starving," said Michael. As much as General Bryce wanted to disagree with Ghost, he knew it was the truth. Not only did thusians cut all their supply routes and burnt major farnds, the warehouse Suven stored food mysteriously caught fire. General Bryce knew it was the Thusian spies who started the fire in their granary and other warehouses. But they had no evidence to prove, and even if they had, there was no use.
Michael decided to descend to the ground level. He conjured a bright ball of light as all the citizens in the streets looked up at the sky. Seeing a bright light descending toward them, many dropped to their knees, worshiping the light. They thought the Great One and Two had answered their prayers.
Michael slowly hovered toward the town square. The people dropped everything they were doing and followed the light.
"Why are you following me?" Michael turned around.
"You go set up the meeting with your king," Michael chased away General Bryce and his advisors. Having no other choice, General Bryce and the others flew toward the castle. Meanwhile, Michael dimmed the light, revealing himself to the people. Those who worshiped the light stared at him with their jaws dropped. They were disappointed. But those who dared to sense Michael''s cultivation stage were stunned beyond words.
"A Half Immortal!"
Someone in the crowd shouted. Several people gasped in shock. The people quickly swarmed the town square. Even the people who were sleeping inside their homes rushed out of their houses once they heard themotion outside. With a flick of his wrist, Michael retrieved a couple of big crates of revitalization potions. He felt pity for the people of Suven. These people provided food for the entire continent, yet because of Maxim, they were starving. The crying children reminded Michael of his orphanage. He used to steal from gangsters to feed the little ones.
"Take this. It will satiate your hunger," The glistening jade potions slowly hovered in the air at arm reaching distance from the crowd. While the majority of the crowd hesitated to grab an unknown potion, an old man used the little bit of strength left in his body to grab the potion. The old man was skin and bones and looked emaciated. His hunger prevented his brain from giving a damn about whether the potion was consumable or not. He just pulled up the cork and emptied the potion in one single gulp.
Everyone stared at the old man without batting an eye. Under their gazes, the old man''s wrinkly skin slowly began to glow. His eyes were filled with new vigor. The old man immediately dropped to his knees. He raised his hand toward Michael,
"My lord, thank you!" The old man banged his head against the ground. He was grateful beyond words. His words and gesture showed Michael how much hardships the old man had gone through. Judging by the callus in the old man''s hands, Michael could tell the old man was a farmer. A farmer crying for food was truly a pitiful situation. It summed up the city''s situation. Following the old man, several people reached for the potion. One by one, they all consumed the potion. The same was the same. Their hunger was satiated in a second. Plus, they all felt revitalized. Strength returned to their bodies. Finally, after weeks of going without eating, the people of Egerton had something to fill their bellies. Smiles returned to their faces.
"I offered your king to join my army to end Thusia''s reign once and for all. Once he epts it, everything will go back to the way it was," Michael''s words echoed through the city. He turned around to leave the town hall. When he was about to fly away, the old man raised his voice.
"My lord, please let us know your name,"
"Ghost," Michael smiled at the old man before flying away from the area, leaving a streak of golden lightning.
After exactly two hours, Michael headed toward the castle. As Michael expected, a group of people stood outside the castle to wee Michael. The man leading the group was neither too tall nor too short. He had a medium physique, long shoulder-length brown hair, and a trimmed goatee. A golden crown decorated his head. His red silk robes were long enough to sweep the floor as he walked forward. He was apanied by General Bryce and several knights armed to the teeth. They all bowed their heads when Michael''s feet touched the ground.
"Master Ghost,"
"King Gunner,"
Michael firmly shook the king''s hand before following the king into the castle. Humble braziers half epassing each of the six ivory columns lit up the lower levels of the throne hall and bathed it in an orange glow. The illustrations of golden wheat fields on the bowed ceiling danced in the flickering light while marble icons looked down upon the oaken floor of this monumental hall.
A cardinal rug ran from the throne down the center, looping back from both left and right while matching banners with ornate needlework covered parts of the walls. The chandeliers illuminated the portraits of previous kings and queens. As Michael walked with the king, the nobles standing in the throne hall stared at Michael with amazed looks on their faces. The young girls didn''t even blink as they all desired a husband like him. Science swept across the throne hall.
King Gunner led Michael toward the stately throne of gold, sat amidst tworge statues, and was adjoined by two smaller and less borate seats for those closest to the royal highness. The throne was covered in nothing butbyrinthine engravings, and fixed on each of the ornate legs was a gilded petal. The nobles stood before the impressively carved stone benches, all of which faced the center of the hall. Those of higher standing remained in the embellished balconies facing the benches below.
Instead of climbing the stairs to take his throne on the elevated tform, the king nced at the few servants. They quickly ran toward him and ced severalfy sofas.
"Please, take a seat, Master Ghost," King Gunner gestured to Michael to sit. However, Michael slowly shook his head.
"You are the king. You should sit first,"
His words pleasantly surprised the nobles and earned appreciation from King Gunner. Despite his overwhelming power, Michael did not act arrogant. If Michael only wanted their assistance in taking out THusia, he didn''t have to give a face to King Gunner or any of his allies. On the contrary, Michael thought about his long term n. Even after the war with Thusia, Michael could use their assistance in various things. Therefore, he needed to be friendly with them instead of being prideful and arrogant. For example, Suven could provide produce for his restaurants. In contrast, Zulon could provide him with rare ores to forge weapons and armor for Michael''s personal army.
Simply put, Michael and Maxim Barnes wanted the same from these kingdoms. But Maxim intended to covet the resources for free through war, whereas Michael nned to use friendly rtionships to get what he wanted. Michael leaned back on the sofa, waiting for Gunner to start the conversation. He was surprised to see the nobles around him. He thought Gunner would prefer a private conversation.
"I have to thank you for saving the vigers, Master Ghost," King Gunner said.
"They were the lucky ones, King Gunner. There are so many people being affected by THusia every single day. We both know that,"
King Gunner and the advisors nodded.
"I heard what you asked of us from General Bryce. I am not going to waste both our time by beating around the bush, Master Ghost. Every second we waste talking is one life lost. But I have two questions that I need an answer to,"
"Ask away," said Michael.
"What''s the reason for your hatred toward Thusia?"
Michael expected this question. He just smiled.
"Let''s just say what Maxim Barnes did to you is just a fraction of what he did to my people and me," Ghost''s eyes glimmered with rage, but his voice had a tinge of sorrow. King Gunner did not poke into the matter any further. All it mattered was that he believed Ghost. The pain in his eyes was real.
"Here''s my next question, if I give you the Suven army, will you let General Bryce lead the men?"
Instead of answering King Gunner, Michael turned his gaze toward General Bryce.
"General Bryce, if I order you to cut thusian soldiers'' heads, stick them in pikes and parade them throughout the upied cities, will you do it without any hesitation?"
Michael''s question surprised everyone in the hall. General Bryce couldn''t answer his question right away because he wouldn''t do that.
"This is why you are not going to lead the army. We are fighting against Maxim Barnes, who will use every dirty tactic there is. Fighting him with honor will only get you and your loved ones killed. But, at the same time, I cannot and won''t ask you to change your life codes for me," Michael paused for a moment, letting his words sink into their heads.
"May I know who will lead the army then?"
"My fiance,"
Gunner was surprised by Michael''s answer.
"In fact, she is doing what I asked General Bryce as we speak in Zulon. When the sun rises tomorrow, Zulon will be a free nation once again,"
Chapter 698 Rescuing The Northguard Prince
King Gunner and the nobles were speechless for a moment. Having no other choice and seeing no other alternatives, King Gunner and General Bryce nodded their heads. Following their agreement, the trio began to discuss the status of Northguard, a kingdom that fell into Thusia''s hands.
"I still have some contacts within Northguard. The prince has been leading the rebels since Thusia conquered them," said Gunner.
"I am d they still have a fight in them. Do you have a way to meet the prince?"
To Michael''s surprise, King Gunner sighed.
"Yesterday, I received a report from my spies that the Thusians captured the prince and the core members of the rebellion. They are getting transported to Andover, Northguard''s capital," said Gunner.
"They will be executed in front of the citizens when the sun rises tomorrow," said General Bryce. He felt pity for the prince. He lost his entire family to the Thusia. Still, he managed to lead a rebellion, hoping one day they would chase away the invaders. But everything was going to end unless Ghost wanted to save the prince. Judging by the look on Ghost''s face, both Gunner and Bryce could tell them he was thinking about rescuing the prince. Although the prince had no big army to help Ghost, the prince was a powerful fighter and ally to have their side.
"I assume you know the route they are using to transport the prince and his men," said Michael.
As Michael expected, General Bryce nodded. General Bryce pped his hands as a soldier rushed into the throne hall.
"General Bryce,'' the soldier bowed.
"Bring me the green parchment on my table,"
The soldier quickly ran into the door in the corner to bring the parchment. Michael was surprised that everything was so open. The nobles were staring at them without batting an eye. If there were a thusian spy among them, the spy would inform everything to Maxim Barnes. Fortunately, Michael did not give a damn about spies. Overwhelming power could always beat strategies.
When the soldier returned, General Bryce opened the parchment. Michael saw the map of Northguard. The majority of the kingdom was lush forests and rivers. Michael wondered why Maxim Barnes targeted Northguard because he always coveted a natural resource in a kingdom that he waged war against. Zulon was a metal-rich kingdom, while Suven was the breadbasket of the Ozer Continent.
Instead of guessing it himself, Michael questioned King Gunner.
"Why did Maxim Barnes target Northguard? What do they have in abundance?" asked Michael.
"That''s the same question we had. Maxim Barnes always has something in his mind. Northguard didn''t specialize in anything. They are just a regr kingdom. It has many water resources, but I don''t think that''s something MAxim Barnes is interested in. He has plenty ofkes and waters in Ithn,"
"Speaking of Ithn, what is the state of the mind of Ithn natives?" asked Michael.
Ithn fell to Thusia first. King Maxim Barnes turned this kingdom into the new Thusia. It was a bold and unheard move of Maxim Barnes. No king had ever sold his kingdom and relocated it to another ce, let alone a continent. The reason however simple, the cosmic stream was in Ithn. Even Ithn people had no idea they were sitting on an energy source that could change the fate of the world.
"For the first few months, those people struggled against the new authority. But Maxim won over the people. He managed to develop the kingdom out of bones. As much as I hate him, he turned a once poor kingdom into one of the richest in the world. So naturally, people began to ept him as their king," said Gunner.
"I heard they even throw parades showing their joy. So don''t count on the people or army of Ithn to fight against Maxim. There is no Ithn anymore,"
Michael couldn''t disagree with General Bryce. Of course, Maxim Barnes would keep the Ithn people happy. In fact, he would develop every kingdom under his rule and make them a superpower. That was the reason why Michael was building an army quickly. He wanted to get rid of Thusia before the people epted Maxim Barnes as their ruler. Even if he was the Half Immortal, fighting the people of four kingdoms would be a headache.
"Now, back to the topic of Northguard, it''s highly likely Maxim Barnes knows something we don''t," said Gunner.
"That''s why we are going to rescue the prince," said Michael.
"Then we need a n of attack," said General Bryce.
"I have a n," Michael rose from the sofa with a smile on his face.
"Attack,"
*******************************************
In a blink of an eye, the around General Bryce changed. One second he was standing in the throne hall, and the next, he was floating above a lush, thick forest. The forest was endless, thick, and young. Its canopy was marked by hazel, pine, and fir, sufficient twinkling lights burst through their crowns for a diversity of nts to consume the nut and seed-covered grounds below.
Thin tree limbs dangled from every tree, and a medley of flowers, which imed remnants of light, added some bright touches to the otherwise monotone backdrop.
A variety of wild noises, which were caused by foraging animals, added life to the forest and were out of sync with the asional sounds of breaking twigs beneath the feet ofrger animals.
When General Bryce focused on his surroundings, he heard the sound of horses galloping.
"Shh," Michael shushed as he slowly flew through the canopy. General Bryce and Michael noticed two cages pulled by horses slowly galloping on the man-made path. For an escort party, they were pretty small. It seemed like the Thusians didn''t want to draw so much attention. Michael and General Bryce used the foliage and canopy to their advantage. The Thusians didn''t know they were being followed by two intruders.
"I count eight," General Bryce whispered.
To Michael''s surprise, they all were at the Soul Refining stage. If General Bryce, a Soul Refining stage warrior, were to fight the group, the oue of the battle would be Genera Bryce''s death. However, the power gap between a Soul Refiner and a Half Immortal was huge. Michael calmly increased his speed. His targets were the eight soul-refining stage soldiers riding horses.
General Bryce suddenly heard an otherworldly whistling noise Soon, dark beams shot out of Ghost''s eyes. General Bryce wouldn''t have seen the ck beam if it wasn''t for the torches lit atop the cages. To General Bryce''s surprise, the ck beams prated the Soul Refining stage soldiers. The beams zig-zagged from soldier to soldier, putting a hole into their heads.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage level 4 warrior. The reward is 300,000Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage level 4 warrior. The reward is 300,000Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage level 4 warrior. The reward is 300,000Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
...
Michael ignored the system words sound in his head.
The soldiers fell off the horses with a thud. They didn''t even have time to shout. Instead, their horses neighed loudly. The horses were terrified. General Bryce saw several tiny bolts of lightning shooting out of Ghost''s fingers, hitting the chains connecting the horses to the cages.
"Hrrmmmmm!"
When Michael''s feet touched the ground, he noticed several figures inside the cages mumbling. Their heads were covered by a ck cloth, while their hands and legs were shackled by metal chains.
"Prince Davarius, are you inside the cage?" asked General Bryce.
They counted ten hostages inside the cages. Each cage contained five prisoners.
"HRRMMMMM!" Michael heard a loud mumbling from one of the cages. He walked toward it to see one of the prisoners shaking their metal chains frantically. Michae sent a bolt of lightning to the metal lock on the cage. Sparks flew as the lock exploded into bits and pieces. General Bryce quickly opened the cage. Yet again, Michale fired the dark beams. This time, it traveled through the chains around the prisoners.
Finally, General Bryce helped the prisoners out of their cages.
"Prince Davarius, it''s General Bryce. We got you,"
General Bryceremoved the ck cloth on one of the prisoner''s heads, revealing a dark skinned man with a thick bushy beard. A cloth wrapped around his mouth underneath the cloak to prevent him from screaming. Prince Davarius stared at Michael and General Bryce in shock. Prince Davarius was a few inches taller than Michael. His body was riddled with scars. No one would tell this man was a prince by the looks of him.
"I didn''t think you woulde to save us," Prince Davarious said in a thick ent.
He looked around at the Thusian bodies before spitting on the ground. To this moment, Davarius did not try to see through Michael''s cultivation level.
"Who is he?" Davarius looked at Michael.
"That''s master Ghost. Our alley and the one who just saved you," said General Bryce.
Chapter 699 Gift Baskets To Thusia
(Several hourster)
Victoria, Edith, and Lah were taking a stroll outside the castle. The thusians erupted arge field filled with dummies, archery targets, and small arenas to hone their skills. They were greeted by the soldiers with a respectful bow. Lah couldn''t care less about the war preparation. All she wanted was to keep Edith safe until Ghost and the Thusians settled their debts. In case she had met Ghost, she wanted to ask for an antidote for Edith.
"Your royal highness," a thusian soldier called out for Victoria. They turned around.
"What is it?" asked Victoria.
"We have received several crates addressed for you and his majesty,"
Victoria creased her brows. Neither she nor her father had ordered anything.
"Does it say where they came from?"
Victoria noticed the soldier''s face turning grim.
"They are from Suven, Zulon, and Northguard," said the soldier.
"Who sent them?" asked Edith. For some strange reason, Edith had a bad feeling in her gut.
"Forgive us, Lady Edith. We didn''t open the crates. Maybe there is something inside which could tell us who sent them to us,"
"Lead us to them," Ordered Victoria. With a bow, the soldier led the way to the crates. As per the protocol, the thusian soldiers kept the crates outside the castle in an area protected by various runes. The crates were kept in an open ground. When they arrived, Victoria noticed three wooden crates big enough to hold several people inside lying on the ground. Several dogs barked at the wooden crates while the mages adorned in crimson red robes remained a few meters away from the crates, ready to cast spells in case the wooden crates exploded.
"What is that smell?" asked Edith. Her nose twitched.
"Blood," Lah answered her simply. The closer they got to the wooden crates, the more Lah smelled the stench of blood. Victoria walked around the crates for a moment.
"Your royal highness, please don''t get too close," one of the mages asked Victoria, only to getpletely ignored.
"Open this one," Victoria pointed at one of the three wooden crates. One soldier nodded as he cautiously walked toward the crates. Several soldiers armed to the teeth clenched their swords, preparing themselves to jump in front of the princess as soon as if something jumped out of the crates. Edith slowly moved closer to Lah. She even grabbed Lah''s hand.
The soldier took a deep breath before slowly pushing the wooden crate''s top. As soon as he pushed it aside, they were all stunned by what they saw inside. The soldier who opened the crate felt a chill running down his spine.
"AH!" Edith squealed as her face turned pale. Several mutted body parts showed together inside the wooden crate. The strong stench of blood and burnt flesh nauseated their senses.
"Maddox," among the mutted body parts, a head was in the center. Victoria immediately recognized the head despite the blood on the face.
Edith shivered. His eyes and mouth were wide open. It was obvious he died of great pain and shock. Just the sight of the terror in Maddox''s eyes was enough to drain the colors on Edith''s face. Even the seasoned warriors felt a chill seeing mutted bodies and one of their most powerful generals head.
"Who...who did this?" Edith stuttered.
To Edith''s shock, Victoria put her finger inside Maddox''s mouth. She pulled out a piece of paper shoved into his mouth. She slowly opened the paper. As soon as her eyes fell on the paper, she clenched her fist. Veins popped out on her face, and her eyes turned red.
"Ghost," She growled.
Edith''s heart skipped a beat.
"Open the others," Victoria ordered. All the soldiers could sense the murderous aura from Victoria. After what they had seen, the soldiers could only imagine what the other two wooden crates contained. The soldiers opened the other wooden crate with caution.
The second wooden crate was no different than the first. Melted armors and charcoaled skeletons were neatly ced inside in the shape of the letter ''G''. Although the skeletons were far beyond recognizable, the crest of Thusia was still visible on the armors. The soldiers shivered, looking at the ash on the bottom of the crate.
Victoria trembled in anger. She never expected Ghost to kill her men and send their bodies to her like this. The Abras she knew couldn''t have done this. He was kind and naive. Deep down in her heart, she felt remorse for killing him. But not anymore. Now, she only felt regret. Regret for not taking his head.
She turned her gaze to thest wooden crate. The soldiers slowly opened the crate. Unlike the other two crates, the third crate contained rtively fresh and less mutted bodies. These soldiers all had holes in their heads. She knew these soldiers. In fact, she hand picked them to capture Prince Davarius in Northguard. Every single one of them was at the Soul Refining stage, yet they died the same as the rest.
Edith, on the other hand, shivered. She knew Ghost was ruthless but never in a million years had she thought him this brutal. He massacred these soldiers without a shred of mercy. Moreover, he mutted their bodies, put them in wooden crates, and sent them to Thusia like gift baskets. He was sick. Even Lah was surprised by the show of pure viciousness. It showed the extent of rage in Ghost''s heart. She doubted anyone or anything could stop him from exacting his revenge against the Thusians.
"Your royal highness," At that time, another soldier descended from the sky. He sweated from head to toe. When he saw the wooden crates and their continent, words didn''te out of his mouth. Fear and shock choked his throat.
"What is it?" Victoria growled. The soldier took a step back when he noticed the pure killing intent in Victoria''s eyes. His entire body trembled. It was not like he was bearing a piece of good news. He didn''t want to upset the princess any more than she was already. But he managed to muster up his courage.
"Your royal highness, we..." The soldier''s voice trailed off as he couldn''t finish his words.
"We have lost Zulon and Suven. They had retaken the cities we conquered,"
The moment the soldiers heard these words, their hearts skipped a beat. Unlike Victoria, many of the soldiers didn''t know Ghost sword to destroy their kingdom and reached the Half Immortal Stage. Thest time they heard, they were winning the war. So they wondered how the hell did they lose Zulon and Suven.
"Our spies, they reported that a group of Zulon soldiers cut out soldiers'' heads, stuck them in pikes, and paraded their mutted corpses throughout the cities we conquered," The soldier swallowed a mouth full of saliva. Many gasped after hearing the soldier.
"They also said the sky itself rained down fire upon our men," The soldier stuttered.
"Your royal highness. Say the word, we will retake those cities in a few days," A loyal soldier stepped forward. After seeing hisrades'' mutted bodies, he wanted to avenge them. Not only him but many shared the same thought. They all stepped forward despite the show of terror.
"Fools," Lah snickered inside. Suppose they met Ghost, he would kill them in a heartbeat. They stood no chance against a Half Immortal. To be honest, Lah didn''t think anyone in Thusia could defeat Ghost unless King Maxim Barnes still had something up his sleeves.
"No," Victoria snarled.
"Tell the entire kingdom Ghost, our former leader of the Thusian Alchemy Guild has waged war against Thusia. Show our people what he did to our men,"
It was a fine move by Victoria. Once the people had seen the brutality of Ghost, the people would brand Ghost as evil who must be gotten rid of. They would offer their undying support to the soldiers, and this would boost the army''s morale by bounds. Many youngsters would sign up for the military to fight Ghost. If Ghost wanted a war, she would give him one.
"Ghost?" The soldier looked confused but ultimately nodded his head.
"Yes, your royal highness,"
"And," Victoria''s gaze swept across the remaining soldiers.
"Bolster our defenses. Gather all the runemasters. I want our capital to be safe and secure. No one suspicious gets in or out of the gates. If you see anything out of the ordinary, report to me ASAP,"
"Yes, your royal highness," the soldiers bowed deeply before flying away in all directions. After issuing her orders, Victoria quickly entered the castle. She did not want Edith and Lah to be in the open. It wasn''t beneath Ghost to try to assassinate them in the open just to scare her soldiers.
"Vikki, what are we going to do?" asked Edith. Her voice stuttered because of the fear in her heart.
"We are going to do nothing. It''s my fight. I will fight for Thusia. You stay with your sister," said Victoria.
To her surprise, Edith stomped the ground.
"No. You saw what he did to those poor souls. I won''t let you face him alone. Let me help you,"
"Do you hear yourself, Edith?" Lah interjected.
"He is a Half Immortal, and you just reached the Core Strengthening stage. How can you possibly fight him?"
Edith shook her head.
"I won''t be alone. I have you, Vikki, and Noah,"
"You''re out of your mind, Edith. This is my fight, and I will not put you in danger any more than I have already," Victoria disagreed with Edith.
"You don''t have to fight. I can fix this,"
Edith''s words stunned both Lah and Victoria. She quickly turned her gaze from Victoria to Lah.
"Lah, do you remember you made me a promise to give me one thing, anything I ask?"
Lah remained silent, but her silence was enough for Edith.
"I want to meet Ghost,"
"Are you crazy?" Victoria almost shouted.
"Listen to me. I can change his mind. I know I can. Lah, you promised me. Now keep your promise," Edith sternly said. Lah hesitated, as one would expect. How could she let her sister meet someone who''s hell-bent on destroying Thusia and her best friend?
"Edith-"
"Shut up Victoria," Edith raised her voice, shocking Victoria.
"It''s either you''re setting up this meeting, or I can teleport to Zulon and meet him myself. Make your choice, Lah," Edith gave an ultimatum to Lah.
"But I will be with you all the time. If you agree to that, I will take you to meet him," said Lah.
"Lah, are you serious?" Victoria couldn''t believe Lah actually agreed to let Edith meet Ghost.
"She will be safe. Besides, she needs to learn somethings can''t be settled peacefully,"
Chapter 700 Plan Of Attack
As the sun''s rays cast an orange hue on the room through the golden curtains, Michael and all of his allies gathered in Zulon around an oak table. They had the map of Ithn on the table to n their offense. With a Half Immortal by their side, for the first time, they all felt confident about defeating Thusia once and for all.
"We have four cities in Ithn," Yagnar pointed at the map.
"All of them were turned into dukedoms by King Maxim. Golden Port, Diamond valley, Valeria, and the Capital, which is now called New Thusia," Yagnar pointed at the four cities of Thusia to everyone. Michael studied the map carefully. Being a Half Immortal didn''t mean he could rush into battle half-assed. Just like ever, he nned his actions carefully.
Looking at the map, Michael realized why Maxim Barnes picked Ithn as his new kingdom. Ithn was arge ind near the maind. The only way to reach Ithn was the bridge between Northguard and Ithn. Hence, why Maxim conquered Northguard immediately after conquering Ithn.
The kingdom was like nature''s favorite child. Various mountains, lush forests, and treacherous swampnds riddled the kingdom. To reach the capital, they had to go through everything. Marching through the treacherous terrain of Ithn would not only exhaust the army but also make them sick, especially on a cold winter like this.
"Let''s assume we take over Northguard, marching our armies through this bridge," Yagnar ced his finger on the bridge,
"It''s suicidal. If I was Maxim Barnes, I would destroy the bridge when the army is in the middle of it and end the war before even it began,"
"We cannot fly above the bridge because almost eighty percent of our army consists of soldiers below the Core Formation stage," said General Bryce.
Michael broadcasted their meeting using the Spyder on his neck for Vedora to see in the dark forest. He valued Vedora''s input as well, especially Cain''s. Besides, this would take their mind off of what they had heard from Mugashuku.
"What about sailing our armies from Crystal ocean to the Golden port?" asked Michael. The allies frowned. His suggestion seemed borderline stupid because none of them had arge fleet big enough to hold all their soldiers and fight the mighty naval force of Thusia.
"Not an option unless you have a fleet hiding in your backyard," chuckled Prince Davarius. But a smile formed on Michael''s face, catching them off guard. They didn''t know he had a fleet twice the size of the Thusian naval fleet in the Southern continent. Unfortunately, the Guardian Guild knew the fleet belonged to the Dark Lord. Using this fleet would put Ghost closer to the Dark Lord. Many might think Ghost was an underling of the Dark Lord.
******************************
(A few hours ago)
Michael was in his room in the dark forest. Vedora and Nightmare slept peacefully between him and Gaya. Unlike them, Michael was awake. He couldn''t sleep.
"My Lord," suddenly, he heard the voice of Azazel.
"Lady Aria has some valuable information she needs to tell you,"
"I''ll be there," Michael ced a gentle kiss on Gaya''s forehead before rising up from the bed. Since Gaya had to lead an army soon, Michael ordered her to get some rest. Her body and mind need to be fully rested so she can lead the army to victory. Michael put on his Dark armor before leaving the room for the surveince room.
"My Lord," Michael saw Aria kneeling down in the mirror. He ced her in Ithn, right under Maxim''s nose, to spy on him. Without Aria''s skills, he couldn''t have put the blood tonic in Valeria''s body. Although it was risky to keep Aria in Ithn for a longer period of time, Michael decided to do just that. As a result, Aria was able to get some juicy information.
"King Maxim Barnes has entered secluded cultivation. He has put Princess Victoria in charge of everything while he''s away,"
"He''s getting desperate," Michael mumbled.
Michael recalled the conversation he had with the system a few weeks ago before Michael met Victoria in the Akn Realm. This conversation was what pushed Michael to openly wage war against Thusia.
"System, what if Maxim tries to use the Cosmic energy to reach the Half Immortal stage or beyond? You rmended me to go to war with them, but they do have the Cosmic stream,"
[Yes, true. But thanks to the host for upgrading the system, the system could shed some light on the Cosmic Stream. For example, although the Cosmic stream is a powerful source of energy, it''s extremely unstable and vtile. Without proper filterings and transitions, absorbing the Cosmic energy too quickly could result in an atomic explosion]
Michael was shocked but delighted at the same time.
[Also, if Maxim Barnes reached the Half Immortal stage or beyond, as you said, using the Cosmic energy without absorbing the energy at a slow pace, his power would be erratic. I can exin what would happen to him in great detail, but long story short, the longer he uses unstable Cosmic energy, the more he would be weak and prone to explode]
"So tell me system, do you think the explosion would be big enough to wipe out the entire kingdom?" asked Michael. He didn''t even flick to ask such a question. His hatred toward Thusia knew no bounds. He wanted the entire kingdom to be in ashes, just like they did to his sanctuary.
"Yes," said the system.
[But the system rmends the host to act quickly. The Cosmic stream is not an infinite resource. The more Maxim Barnes and his people use it, the less for you and your subordinates]
Michael nodded.
[Host, you know the map of Ithn. You know there is no way you can march an army through thend. Your only option is to transport your soldiers via the naval fleet. But if you choose to use your fleet in the southern continent, it will lead people to believe Ghost is a subordinate of the Dark Lord,]
Surprisingly, Gaya asked the same question to him. There was no other way. If Michael himself fought the Thusian army without allies, he would be exhausted. Michael doubted Maxim wouldn''t capitalize on this opportunity. At that time, Maxim Barnes would bombard him with attacks. The worst-case scenario would be Michael barely escaping Thusia alive. The best-case scenario would be Michael somehow killing Maxim Barnes. Either way, the revenge plot wouldn''t go as he wanted it to.
"Sometimes, we have to take risks. I believe this is my time," said Michael. Ever since he first became Lucifer, he had a feeling that one day, his identity would be exposed. Living two different lives was never an easy thing to do. For some reason, he deep down felt continuing to live two lives would only make both of his lives harder. It took a toll on his mind. As a result, Michael felt his mind wasn''t functioning to its full potential. This war might finally end the life of Ghost and start the life of the Dark Lord.
*****************************************
"As a matter of fact, I know someone who has," said Michael.
"Really?" Yagnar was pleasantly surprised as Prince Davarius became excited. With arge fleet, there opened many possibilities for reaching Thusia. The best one was to go through the Golden Port.
"May we ask you who and where they have this fleet?" asked General Bryce.
"You don''t have to worry about that. Tell me, how many ships are in Thusian naval army?"
"Fifteen hundred, give or take," said Prince Davarius.
"How many galleons, frigates, and man o wars?" asked Michael.
"We don''t know the exact number, but our spies saw twelve man o wars among the fleet?" said General Bryce.
It was indeed a terrifying number of ships. But, thanks to Corey and the fleet of pirate lords, Michael had almost two thousand and five hundred ships.
"I can muster two thousand ships," Once again, Michael''s words startled them. The way he said it was so simple, as though it wasn''t a big deal for him.
"But throwing them against the Thusian naval army will be a waste. At best, we will have a few hundred ships stay afloat, and at worst, it would be a stalemate. No, we need to tilt the bnce to our side somehow,"
"I have to agree with her," Prince Davarius sighed. He might be hot-blooded, but he wasn''t stupid. Everyone in the room knew being at stalemate was just as losing when it came to Maxim Barnes, who seemed to have several trump cards up his sleeves.
"Where do they keep all these ships? If we canunch an air assault and destroy these ships, we can really hurt them," said Gaya.
"That''s where the problem is. No one knows where he keeps all those ships. It''s a fucking mystery," Davarius let out a frustrated sigh.
"He must have those ships somewhere close by, somewhere close to the seas around Ithn," Gaya pondered.
"A pocket dimension," said Michael.
"Think about it. You cannot hide fifteen hundred warships from the outside world. It''s impossible unless King Maxim keeps all those ships in a pocket dimension. When he needs them, he could summon them,"
Ghost''s words made sense to them, yet at the same time, they made them sulk. The reach and resources of Maxim Barnes terrified them.
"How do we know this for sure?" asked Prince Davarius.
"Weunch a phony naval attack on Golden Port. The ships muste and go somewhere. We monitor the ships, ce a spy and get the location of these ships," said Gaya.
"In three days, we will attack the Golden Port,"
"I assume you can get a small fleet by then,"
Michael nodded at General Bryce.
"The attack needs to be big enough for the thusians to take out their big guns," said Prince Davarius.
"It will be," The smile on Ghost''s face reassured them. Prince Davarius respected Ghost without even knowing him because of the hatred he saw in Ghost''s eyes. It was several times more than any of them had toward Thusia.
"I can be the spy who boards one of their ships," said Prince Davarius.
"No," Gaya immediately shook her head.
"I need you to lead Northguard soldiers. They need to see their leader on the ground with them. Plus, we cannot afford to lose you,"
"She is right," Yagnar and General Bryce agreed with Gaya.
"Then who is going?" asked Prince Davarius.
"We each send one of our own. The more, the merrier," said Michael.
Chapter 701 The Meeting Between Edith, Lailah And Ghost
Michael and Gaya finished nning for the day and exited the room. Prince Davarius needed rest and a good meal after being tortured by the thusians. Michael stayed in King Gunner''s castle. After the meeting, Gaya finally left for the Kane castle. Michael teleported to the Royal Land. He himself was about to leave for the floating mountain given to him by Eve''s father when he heard a melodious thunderp reverberate throughout the castle.
"My Lord, Lady Alden and her sister Edith want to meet you," Michael heard Azazel''s voice in his head. Lah was still wearing the Spyder pendant Michael gave her. Therefore, Azazel was able to see everything Lah saw.
"She is here," Michael said. He calmly walked out of the castle to see several soldiers gathered in the front yard. They all mistook Lah for an intruder.
General Bryce stood in front of the guards, fully armed to the teeth.
"Master Ghost, did you hear that?" asked General Bryce.
Michael nodded.
General Bryce and the soldiers became a bit relieved after they saw Michael. He waited for Lah to appear before him. To his surprise, only a golden parchment appeared in the air. It slowly floated down to Michael andnded straight in his hands.
"General Bryce, do you know where this charming shrimp restaurant is?" Michael''s question slightly surprised General Bryce.,. This ce was very famous for seafood. Granted this ce served delicious food, but he doubted this was the right time to satiate Ghost''s hunger for seafood.
"It''s a few blocks away from the castle," Nheless, General Bryce answered him truthfully. After all, Ghost was a Half Immortal.
"Show me the way. Someone wants to meet me,"
General Bryce personally led the way to the restaurant. The ce was closed due to the recent war between Suven and Thusia. When Michael reached the ce, he sensed the presence of Lah and Edith.
"You can go now, General Bryce. You have nothing to worry about," Michael dismissed General Bryce with a pat on his back. Afterward, Michael descended to the ground. The people on the streets immediately stopped murmuring. Many looked at Michael with eyes full of fear and reverence. Ignoring the gazes, Michael opened the wooden door. As he entered the restaurant, he was weed by a clean, tidy restaurant. The ce was nothing like Hades in terms of grandeur. It had several round oak tables clothed in white sheets. The chairs lookedfy enough.
At the corner of the restaurant, Michael saw Lah. Images of theirst meeting in the rain shed across Michael''s eyes. When she saw Michael, her eyes glimmered with a mix of joy, sorrow, and shock. A gentle smile emerged on Michael''s face. But the smile disappeared when he saw Edith. She reminded Michael of Victoria. Michael slowly made his way to their table. Except for a young girl, the restaurant looked empty.
Michael slid into his chair and leaned back against the wall. He signaled the young girl toe to them.
"Just hot water for me," said Michael.
"Nothing for us, thank you," Edith dismissed the girl. Michael wondered why Lah was here to meet him with Edith. But they didn''t utter a word. Instead, they waited for the young girl toe to their table with Michael''s hot water. Michael noticed Edith ncing at him with mixed emotions. Fear and anger glimmered in her eyes.
"My lord," Finally, the young girl brought a ss of hot water. She broke the silence that enveloped them.
"Thank you dear," Michael gave the young girl a gold coin before dismissing her. After she left the ce, Michael turned his gaze toward Lah and Edith.
"How are you, Lah?" asked Michael.
"Doing well. What about you?"
"Never been better," Michael winked.
"So tell me, why did you want to meet me? I don''t have all day, you know. I have a war to fight," Michael took a small sip of the hot water.
"I want you to stop what you''re doing," Michael almost spurted out the water in his mouth when he heard Edith.
"Excuse me," Michael ced the ss down with an amused smile.
"I want you to stop killing Thusians," said Edith.
Michael nced at Lah for a moment. Judging by the look on her face, this wasn''t her idea. That was sure. Lah even looked a bit embarrassed of Edith''s naivety.
"So it''s okay for the thusians to kill the soldiers of Zulon, Suven, and Northguard?" Michael tilted his head.
"No. But it''s between those kingdoms. None of them put the mutted bodies in wooden crates and sent them to Thusia. You paraded their bodies through the cities," Edith growled.
However, Michael responded with a slight smile.
"Let me get this straight," Michael chuckled.
"You''re saying it''s okay for Thusia to ughter all those soldiers, take away their homnd and hang those who resist but I cannot help them retake what they lost?"
"We both know you are not helping. You''re using them. I know what happened between you and Thusia, Ghost. I know,"
The smile on Michael''s face disappeared almost immediately. Instead, a murdering cold look glistened in his eyes. The temperature in the ce dropped by several degrees. Lah could feel the killing radiating from his body. She had never felt such killing intent ever before in her life.
"Listen to me. King Maxim Barnes and Victoria didn''t have a choice. I am not defending them for what they did, but they were desperate. If they didn''t take it, the thusians would have gone extinct. As a king and a princess, they did what they had to," Michael''s hands shivered. The veins in his eyes popped, making his eyes bloodshot red. His gaze slowly turned to Lah.
"Do you know what the thusians did to me, Lah?" His voice was cold.
Lah shook her head.
"No. And I am not here to broker peace between you and Thusia. I am here to protect my little sister,"
Michael was somewhat calmed by her response. If Lah knew what the thusians did to him and came here to ask him to forgive the thusians, this meeting would have gone in another way.
"Have you lost anyone you loved and cared for, Edith?" asked Michael.
Edith felt lucky that she didn''t. But she didn''t dare to say that.
"Hundred and thirty-five," said Michael.
"Not all of them were grown up. You said they had no choice right? Do you know who else didn''t have a choice? A six-month-old infant. I can still hear its cries. They ughtered everyone, but their deaths weren''t quick. The thusians took their time," Lah noticed Ghost''s eyes welling up.
"Twelve hours. They killed my people one by one. Their des didn''t discriminate between children and women. They made a bonfire and threw the bodies into it one by one. Are you telling me the thusians did that because they had no choice? Look me in the eyes and tell me your friend didn''t have a choice to spare the infants," Edith was speechless.
"Every time I close my eyes, I hear their screams, and I see the elders who raised me burning alive. But it''s not their fault. It''s mine. I fell in love with a conniving snake. When she stabbed me in the heart, she would have gone deeper, ending my life then and there," He became colder. Lah always preferred peace over war and violence. After hearing what the thusians did to Ghost and his people, she didn''t think the thusians deserved peace.
"You are no different than the soldiers who massacred my people. In fact, you''re the worst,"
Michael''s words were as cold as a dagger. For the first time, Michael felt disgusted just by looking at Edith.
"You knew everything, and you still think Thusia is better. If I am evil for killing scum like thusians, what should I call you for sympathizing and supporting mass murderers?"
"You can call me whatever you want. But this war will only lead to the destruction of countless lives,"
Michael burst intoughter.
"In my life, I have never met such a hypocritical girl like you. Did you bother to tell your friend this? Are you kidding me right now?" But suddenly, his smile disappeared. He slightly leaned forward.
"The reason you''re not dead is because of her," Michael pointed at Lah.
"As much as I want to end your life, I am not going. As long as you don''t get in my way, I will ignore your existence. I don''t give a flying fuck about what the reason behind what they did to my people was. This war will happen. And when I am done, Thusia will be history, a dark page in the history,"
Edith shivered, listening to him. Even Lah felt a chill running down her spine. Any oblivious man could tell there was no stopping Ghost from fighting Thusia. The battle between Thusia and Ghost could end only in one way, death of one. Without the Council of Immortals or any Rogue immortals of the great eight ns to stop him, he was nearly unstoppable.
"What about the people in Thusia? Are you going to kill them too?" asked Edith.
"If they stand in my way, I will ughter them in a heartbeat. So you better make sure they don''t," Edith and Lah were speechless. Lah knew Ghost was not a goody two shoes, but she also never expected him to ughter innocent people to get his revenge. Judging by his tone, he wasn''t lying. He was willing to kill anyone without exception. His hatred toward Thusia ran deep, Lah finally realized that.
"Tell that bitch her downfall is here," Michael rose from his chair. He didn''t want to meet Lah again like this, but her naive sister made it this way. Without bothering to spend any second in their presence, Michael turned around to leave.
"I will stop you from hurting Vikki and her family, Ghost. One way or another,"
Michael heard Edith''s words when he turned around.
"Humph," Michael snickered.
"I can kill you with a snap of my finger. So try to save yourself first,"
Michael walked away from them, snapping his fingers continuously. Every time he snapped, Lah''s heart skipped a beat. She was afraid one of them could end Edith''s life.
Edith and Lah remained still. Eventually, Edith snapped out of her deep train of thought.
"There is only one way to stop him," said Edith as Lah slowly turned her head toward her.
"I am going to brand him as the Dark Lord and let the Guardian guild take care of him,"
Chapter 702 Let Go Of Ghost And Become The Dark Lord
Michael used the runic teleportation to reach Big Bertha, anchored in the Southern continent ocean. When he appeared in the captain''s cabin, he was weed by Corey and Elidyr.
"Are the ships ready?" asked Michael. Since he was in his Dark Lord persona, his voice was thick and demonic.
"Yes, my lord," Corey bowed. Michael quickly flicked his wrist as several golden scrolls appeared on the table between them.
"Give them to the crew. Afterunching an attack on the port, they should immediately use these scrolls to get the hell out of there. They will sink their ships," said Michael. He didn''t want the pirate crew to lose their lives unnecessarily. That was the reason he spent badass points to buy teleportation scrolls for them. However, the same couldn''t be said for the ships. They had to be sunk.
"Ten ships, waiting for your orders, my lord. But I still don''t understand how we are going to sail to Ozer in a few days. It''d take at least four months to reach there. That''s if the wind was on our side," Corey furrowed her brows.
Michael turned his gaze toward Elidyr. With another flick, he retrieved another parchment. Unlike the teleportation scrolls, the scroll in Michael''s hand was sky blue. It glistened in the candle lights.
"I think you can create this array," Michael tossed the parchment to Elidyr. When the dark elf opened the scroll, he was stunned. His eyes glistened with surprise.
"This is¡" Elidyr''s voice trailed off.
"Follow the steps and create the array. It''s only one way, so it shouldn''t be too difficult for you,"
Elidyr was still in shock. He had never seen such an elegant array design in his life. Furthermore, the array was extremely advanced in nature. Judging by the runes, Elidyr could tell the array work using the arch energy crystals. He wondered where did the Dark Lord get this array from.
"Did he design it by himself?" Elidyr asked himself. The Dark Lord was a terrifying existence. In a short amount of time, he had seen the Dark Lord perform several miracle-like feats.
"Give me a day, and it''ll be ready," Elidyr finally said.
"Corey, put your most loyal men. I don''t want any of them to breathe a damn word about this. After teleporting from the ships, this attack didn''t happen. Got it?"
"Yes, my lord," Corey bowed before leaving the room. After she left the room, Michael removed his mask, revealing his real face.
"Sit," Michael gestured at Elidyr to take the seat before him. Seeing the grave look on his face, Elidyr sat before him. He could tell the Dark Lord was going to ask him something. Sometimes, Elidyr felt pity for the Dark Lord. With his talents, he could have lived avish life to the fullest. Yet because of the Skyhall and a prophecy, the Dark Lord had lost everything. The weight on the Dark Lord''s shoulder was tremendous. Anyone else would have been broken by the pressure but not him.
"What is it?" asked Elidyr.
"That obvious huh?" Michael let out a tired smile.
Elidyr nodded. Anyone could tell he was worried by the look in his eyes.
"Do you think letting go Ghost, and embracing the Dark Lordpletely is a good move?"
ELidyr took a deep breath. He took several long moments to think about it. Silence fell over the room.
"Yes," Finally, after long deep pondering, Elidyr nodded.
"Sooner orter, you have to ept who you truly are, my lord. You are not mortal Ghost. You''re a god. You are the Dark Lord. The prophecy cannot dictate what you do, you can change it. But you cannot change who you are. The sooner you fully embrace the real you, the better. After all, living two lives and keeping your identities separated is taking a toll on you. I can see that," exined Elidyr.
"I have a feeling this war is going to reveal who I am to the outside world,"
"Then it''s going to happen, my lord. As I said, you''re god. So it''s only natural you possess some kind of ability to foresee the future,"
Michael nodded. Elidyr''s words made sense. His instincts always kept him out of trouble, even in the worst of situations.
"I only fear those people who helped me, Elidyr. When the world learns Ghost is the Dark Lord, I don''t want those innocent people to pay the price for helping me,"
"If that''s what''s making you worry, don''t. The Skyhall or the Guardians won''t go after them. Of course, they will interrogate them using truth pills, but that''s a good thing. They didn''t know Ghost was the Dark Lord. So they will pass the truth pill test. I know them better than anyone, my lord. They are the good guys right? How could they punish people who didn''t know anything? Besides, Andreas and Wulfric won''t let innocent people suffer because of you," Elidyr''s words somewhat calmed Michael''s mind. He heaved a sigh of relief.
"Finish the array, Elidyr. After this war, we may have to face our enemies head-on," Michael rose from his throne, heavily exhaling.
**********************************************
(A few hours ago)
Gaya reached the outskirts of the Kane family castle. She saw several guards patrolling the area despite the heavy snowfall. The snow was up to their knees. Yet the poor soldiers had to walk through the ice in the cold. Gayanded at the front gates instead of flying past them. She didn''t want the defensive arrays to create an rm.
"Miss Aelia," the two soldiers guarding the metal gate immediately recognized her. They bowed with eyes full of respect.
"Is Elder Ashton Kane inside?" asked Gaya as the soldiers opened the gate.
"Yes. Please follow me," One soldier gestured at Gaya to follow him. After entering the castle, several elders greeted her. By now, the news of Michael reaching the Half Immortal stage had spread across all Elon. Anyone who was friendly with Ghost got a huge boost in respect they received from the others. The Kane family benefited from Michael''s breakthrough more than him. Due to their rtionship with Ghost, all their rivals, including the Fisher family, backed away from any rival territories. Some families even tried to be allies of the Kane family so they could escape being wiped out by the Half-Immortal Ghost.
The elders of the Kane family immediately led Gaya to their guest room. They politely asked her to wait till they sent Elder Ashton Kane to meet her. Gaya sat on her chair with one leg atop one like a queen.
"How may I address you now?" Gaya turned her head to see Ashton Kane walking into the room. He dismissed the guards behind him with a wave of his hand.
"It depends," said Gaya.
"Depends on what?" asked Ashton Kane while taking his seat a couple of meters away from Gaya.
"Depends on what you know about Adelia Ashton,"
As soon as Gay asked this question, the calm smile on Ashton''s face froze. Shock and surprise glistened in his hazel eyes. His silence revealed the fact he knew something about her mother. Gaya pressed him further.
"What do you know about the Queen of Nagnd?" Gaya rose from her chair. Unlike a few months ago, Ashton Kane was not the strong one in the room. Gaya had reached Fusion stage level 10. Coupled with the first energy coursing through her veins, she could easily ughter Ashton Kane if she wished to. After all, he was only at Fusion stage level 5.
As she walked toward him, the temperature in the room fell by several degrees.
"I know she teleported here. Is it a coincidence you and she share the same name, Ashton? I don''t think so,"
Ashton Kane felt the air around him bing thick. Breathing became harder as she moved closer.
"Tell me, Elder Kane. I don''t want to hurt you," said Gaya. The Kane family elders were their allies. That was the sole reason Gaya was asking instead of torturing Ashton Kane.
"You can kill me. But you won''t get anything about her," Ashton Kane growled.
"If you care about her, you have to tell me everything you know," Gaya grabbed Ashton by his shoulder and lifted him up.
"Why? Why do you care?" asked Elder Kane.
Instead of an answer, he saw Gaya''s pupil transform into a cobra''s. Her snake-like eyes turned predatory. Ashton Kane''s heart skipped a beat. Not because of the sudden change in her eyes but because he had seen these eyes before.
"Adelia," Ashton Kane mumbled.
Gaya released his shoulder in shock.
"You¡you¡are her daughter¡Gaya," Ashton Kane realized the truth. Although her face was nothing like he had seen in the portraits, those eyes were undoubtedly Adelia''s. Ashton''s eyes welled up as he was searching for Gaya for years.
"Yes," Gaya took a deep breath before removing the mask from her face. She revealed her real face.
"I am Gaya Ashton. The Princess of Nagnd,"
Ashton Kane stumbled back in utter shock. He couldn''t believe what he was searching for was in front of him all this time.
Seeing the tears rolling out of his eyes surprised Gaya. It symbolized the strong connection he shared with her mother. Gaya wondered who he was to Adelia.
"My mother is in trouble. You have to help me find her,"
"I know. Follow me," Ashton Kane wiped off the tears from his face and gestured at Gaya to follow him. She nodded as she followed him behind to another room. He flicked his wrist, forming a translucent shield around them so no one could eavesdrop.
"I can''t believe it''s you," Ashton Kane closed the curtains, talking to Gaya.
"Thest time I saw you, you were so little," The room grew darker, but Ashton quickly lit up the candles. Gaya noticed a great concern in his eyes.
"Who else knows about your identity? Ghost?"
"He knows," Gaya nodded.
"Do you trust him?"
"With my life. Now it''s your turn to answer my questions. What do you know about my mother? Do you know where I can find her?"
"I don''t know where she is. But I can tell you how to find her,"
Chapter 703 Gaya鈥檚 Real Father
"How?" Gaya almost immediately asked Ashton Kane.
"Before I answer that, I need to know how you regained your ability to cultivate again. When I went to Nagnd, they said Xanali broke your meridians,"
"Ghost cured me," answered Gaya.
"So he knows the real you?"
Gaya nodded.
"Don''t only be a couple. Be best friends. That''s what makes your life worth living," said Ashton. Gaya noticed a tinge of sadness in his eyes.
"Is that what you and my mother are? Best friends?"
Ashton Kane sighed.
"We grew up together. Can you believe it?" Ashton Kane let out a miserable chuckle. Gaya''s eyes went wide in shock. Her mother was not only a Naga but also a royal. She wondered how a human-like Ashton Kane ended up growing up together with her mother. ording to her memories, her mother always talked down on humans to the point Gaya thought she hated them.
"I was amoner, and your mother was the princess. But she was not like the other Nagas you know. She was different. Granted, she was as cruel and ruthless as theye, but to me, she was kind, yful, and my best friend," Ashton began to recall his childhood with Adelia. Gaya listened to him inplete shock. Her mother was not any one of those things. Yet, she couldn''t see any signs of Ashton lying either.
"Every night, she sneaks out from the castle to hang out with me. I still remember the answer she gave me when I asked why she picked me as her friend."
"She just shrugged and told me it feels right," Ashton smiled, reliving his memories with Adelia. His hazel eyes welled up. There was not a single day he didn''t miss her dearly.
"My mother sneaks out of the castle. Are you kidding me?"
Ashton shook his head,ughing.
"She was not always the Adelia you know. She and I used to prank the kids. She turns into her naga form, a ck cobra with golden stripes,"
Gaya was once again surprised by Ashton. Adelia''s Naga form was one of the NAgnd secrets, yet Ashton described it perfectly. This meant he really did see Adelia in her naga form. If her mother let Ashton see her real form, that meant she really trusted him.
"We scare the kids andugh at them running to their mothers. It never got tiring. After we grew up, we pretended to be adventurers and fought the beasts in the nearby forests. But one day, everything changed. Your grandma died trying to reach the Half Immortal stage,"
"I heard about that. But why did you say everything changed?" asked Gaya.
"After your grandma died, your mother changed. It was like a great burden was put on her shoulder. She was never the same again,"
Gaya immediately recalled what Elidyr told her when they first met him in the Akn Realm. Gaya''s bloodline served the Order. Their realst name was Wraiths. ording to Eldiry, wherever a Wraith dies, the knowledge and their duty to the Order and the Dark Lord would be passed to the next of kin. It made sense that Adelia felt burned after her mother died.
"No matter how many times I asked her? She wouldn''t tell me. After some time, she used her contacts in Elon and changed my name from Patrick to Ashton. I became Ashton and joined the Kane family. Because of what Adelia gave me, I was able to break through faster than the others. As a result, i became the Elder Kane,"
"Tell me you met my mother after,"
"Not quite,"
Ashton sighed.
"She met me¡With you in her arms,"
Gaya creased her brows.
"What about my father?"
When Gaya asked this question, Ashton became silent. His eerie silence churned a bad feeling in Gaya''s gut.
"This was two months before your mother was married to Castien," Gaya''s heart skipped a beat. She couldn''t believe what she had just heard.
"That day, you and your mother were covered in blood. That stubborn bastard didn''t tell me what happened. But something bad happened, that was for sure. Your mother hid you, and in two months, she married Castien. After ten months, they announced you were born. Your mother must have put a spell on you to keep you from growing up,"
"Did I born to my mother and Castien?" With a heavy heart, Gaya asked the question. Her voice trembled.
"I fear not," Ashton''s answer shattered Gaya''s entire world. She felt the world around her spinning. Her whole life, she had believed Castien was her father. But if Castien wasn''t her father, then who was? The question wreaked havoc in her mind.
"Who is my father?"
"Only your mother can give you the answer," Ashton Kane sighed.
"Tell me, how do I find my mother?"
Ashton opened his mouth and was about to answer Gaya when someone knocked on the door.
"My lord, it''s important," a gentle voice appeared from the other side of the door.
Ashton furrowed his brows.
"It can wait a little bit longer," Ashton''s tone oozed with anger.
"Please, my lord. You have to hear me out," Ashton banged the chair''s hand. Gaya sensed a Body Refining stage cultivator outside. She just thought it was a maid. However, Gaya wanted to get the answer to her question first. Unfortunately, Ashton Kane was already at the door.
The door slowly creaked open.
"What?" Ashton growled. But his growl turned into a gasp. He clenched his throat as he stumbled back. Gaya was stunned. Everything happened so quickly. To her shock, there was no one outside the door. She dashed at Ashton Kane, who copsed to the ground, holding his throat. Blood spurted out of Ashton''s throat. His body twitched.
Gaya immediately poured the healing potion down his throat, but the wound that should have been closed didn''t. She took Ashton''s head on herp as he touched her face with his blood-soaked hand. Tears rolled out of his eyes. A pained smile appeared on his face.
"The Dark Lord has to reveal himself¡" He could barely utter these words through his shed throat.
"In public¡his real identity¡then¡.your mother¡.will¡.find you¡"
The light of life slowly faded away from his eyes. Gaya frantically looked around to find the one who was responsible for this.
"Tell Adelia¡i never¡stopped¡searching for her¡" Ashton Kane''s hand dropped to the ground as his breathing finally stopped. Gaya''s mind wentpletely nk. She couldn''t think straight. But she could hear several footsteps rushing toward her. She had only a few seconds to react. If the elders of the Kane family saw her like this, they would definitely think she killed Elder Ashton KAne. That would turn them against Ghost and her. Whoever killed Ashton wanted that to happen, and Gaya had a few seconds to prevent that.
She quickly retrieved a dagger from her space ring and stabbed herself in the chest. Blood sprayed out of her chest, turning her white dress red. She threw the healing potion on the ground as the ss vial shattered into pieces. The blood loss made her vision blurry. Before falling down beside Ashton Kane, she put the dagger into the interlinked space ring to send the bloody dagger to Michael.
"What happened?!"
"ELDER KANE!"
"HEALERS!"
"CALL THE HEALERS!"
"Oh my god!"
Several people shouted. Gaya couldn''t see their faces but heard them clearly. They rushed at them.
"Elder Kane,"
"He is dead,"
"Miss Aelia!"
"Quick, she is alive!"
Gaya''s vision finally turnedpletely ck. The Kane family soldiers quickly carried her to the healers themselves. If Gaya were holding Elder Kane on herp, they would have mistaken her for the killer. Her quick thinking changed that. She plunged the dagger right through the left side of her chest, barely missing the heart. Therefore, the healers or the Kane Family members wouldn''t even imagine Gaya stabbing herself.
***************************************
A few hourster, Gaya slowly opened her eyes. When her vision cleared, she saw Michael sitting beside her on the bed. She slowly rose up.
"Easy there," Michael wrapped his hand around her shoulder, helping her up. Gaya noticed several Kane family elders, all new faces staring at her.
"Elder Kane," Gaya mumbled.
"He''s not with us anymore," Michael softly said.
"Master Ghost," An ashen-haired man in his middle age stepped forward. He had the demeanor of a warrior and a leader. Judging by the fancy robes he was wearing, anyone could tell he was of a higher status than the rest.
"Please, we need to know who killed Elder Kane," The man growled. He was the House head, Lennerd Kane.
"An assassin," said Gaya.
Several elders gasped in shock. They couldn''t believe an assassin had made his way into the castle, killed Elder Kane, and escaped the castle undetected. Seeing Lennerd frowning, Michael raised his brow.
"What were the guards doing?" Michael''s cold voice sent shivers down their spines.
"Can you tell us what you and Elder Kane were talking about?" Lennerd asked Gaya. It was obvious Lennerd had some doubts about Gaya. Michael could see it in his eyes. The only reason they were having a conversation instead of a battle was Michael''s Half Immortal cultivation stage.
Gaya looked around as though she couldn''t speak in front of all these people. Deep down, she quickly fabricated a believable story.
"You can trust them," said Lennerd.
"Elder Kane was asking me to find the traitor among your family,"
She dropped a shock bomb on them. Not a single one who heard her remained calm.
"He believed the Kane family was infiltrated. He said he had a list of suspects he wanted me and Ghost to check on. He couldn''t trust anyone here,"
To Michael''s surprise, Lennerd seemed to havepletely believed her made-up story. He watched what happened through the Spyder on Gaya''s ne. But judging by Lennerd''s look, the Kane family might really have a spy among them.
"Did he tell you where this list is?"
"He was about to when someone knocked on the door. He went to check. Everything happened so quickly. The assassin was too fast,"
"Until she got hurt, a mole among you wasn''t my business. But now it is, Lord Lennerd, did you know about this?" asked Michael.
"Everyone, clear the room," Lennered ordered the elders. The elders seemed a bit reluctant but ultimately, they left the room.
Chapter 704 Everything Leads To Adelia Ashton
Lennard sighed. Fear and shock glimmered in his eyes. It had been several months since he first heard someone dangerous had infiltrated the Kane Family. He had been searching for the infiltrator ever since tirelessly. Yet, he found no clue. It was surprising and shocking at the same to know Elder Kane was also searching for the infiltrator. On the other hand, Michael couldn''t believe the made-up story Gaya threw up turned out to be true.
"I''ve known for a while," said Lennard.
"Elder Kane was a Fusion stage cultivator. By how she described it, the infiltrator must be stronger than him. Besides, he was able to disappear without a trace. If he didn''t stab her, you would have doubted her, right?" asked Michael.
Lennard remained silent for a moment. The silence was enough for Michael. He rose from the side of Gaya''s bed and walked toward Lennard.
"Show me where he was killed. Believe it or not, Elder Kane was a friend. I will help you avenge him by finding his killer. Lead the way," Michael gestured at Lennard to lead the way. Seeing no other option, Lennard led them to the ce where they found Elder Kane dead. Although he doubted Aelia''s story, if there was a slim chance Ghost could find the infiltrator, Lennard wanted to take it. The infiltrator had killed one of the strongest members of the Kane family. If he could kill him so easily, none of the others would be safe anymore.
Gaya followed Michael and Lennard. She recalled every single word Elder Ashton Kane said to her. Little by little, everything made more sense to her. She always wondered why Castien loved Xanali more than her. Now it was clear to Gaya. Xanali was his real daughter, not her. That was why he gave the throne to Xanali instead of her.
"Did he know?" Gaya asked herself. She wondered whether Castien knew she wasn''t his daughter or not all this time. The hallways were riddled with Kane family guards. Everyone looked terrified, especially the maids and servers. Their faces were pale as paper. When they saw Lennard, they bowed with respect and a tinge of fear in their eyes.
Michael silently followed Lennard to Ashton Kane''s room. To Michael''s surprise, the hallway and the room were empty.
"I ordered no one to return to this ce after taking his body away," Lennard said. The death of Elder Kane extremely saddened him.
Michael squatted beside the puddle of dried blood. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he conjured a violet orb of light. Strangely, the moment the light fell on the ground, Lennard saw several footsteps. A bunch of footsteps was clustered around the blood.
"I assume no one can teleport in or out of the castle," said Michael.
Lennard nodded, "Yes. We have protection runes all over the castle. It''s not possible to use teleportation within these castle walls,"
Michael expected this. He doubted whoever killed Ashton could have teleported. It was not like he had a system at his disposal. Among the cluttered footsteps, Michael noticed a distinct set of footsteps. Unlike the others, this footprint had toes. It was clear that they didn''t wear any boots or shoes.
"You see that?" Michael asked Lennard.
"Why would anyone avoid wearing boots in weather like this?" Michael followed the footsteps. These footsteps came and went in the same direction. Lennard and Gaya followed Michael behind. While following the footsteps through the hallway, Michael noticed strange behavior. Wherever there was a window, the footsteps moved away from it as though the person was afraid of windows.
Everything started to make more sense to both Michael and Gaya. They followed these footsteps to the hall where many elders and soldiers gathered.
"What''s happening?"
"What is that light?"
"Look at the footsteps,"
The people gathered around the hall mumbled. When they saw Lennard, they became silent. Thanks to Michael''s acute vision, the footprints on the hall didn''t confuse him. He was able to follow his target without a hitch. He continued to follow the footsteps out of the hall into another hallway.
"Where was he going?" asked Gaya.
Lennard slightly shivered. Surprisingly, there were no other footprints in this hallway dimly lit by chandeliers. They followed the footsteps until they came in front of a firece. The footsteps however went into the firece, which meant there was a secret passageway behind this firece. Michael turned around.
"Lord Lennard," Michael looked at Lennard.
Judging by the dark lines on his forehead, it was obvious not many people knew about this passageway. In other words, whoever killed Ashton knew more about the castle than most of the Kane family members.
"Not many knew about this, did they?" asked Michael. It took a few moments for Lennard to snap out of his deep thoughts and nod.
"The cat''s out of the bag, Lord Lennard. Where does it end?" said Michael.
"This passageway will lead you to a small fishing ind nearby," said Lennard.
"I made your job simple, Lord Lennard. Here''s how we find the killer. It''s highly unlikely he suddenly appeared in the castle and knew about every secret entrance and passageway. On the contrary, he must have spent years here," said Michael as Lennard pushed a brick into the wall. The wall slowly creaked, revealing an opening big enough for a grown man to squeeze through.
Gaya entered the passageway first, followed by Michael and Lennard. They continued to follow the footsteps.
" The first way to find the killer is if he chooses to return to the castle, I will give you a rune to match a footprint with the one here. When you ce this rune on a person, if their footprint matches the one here, it will let out a jade light. Otherwise red. Simple enough?" Michael said while following the footsteps. The passageway was dark. Except for the violet light, there was no light source, not even torches.
Lennard nodded as Michael continued.
"There is a good chance he lived among you. So make a list of everyone who knew about this passage. If the killer chooses not to return, summon everyone on the list. Whoever is missing will be your suspect,"
"What if he wasn''t an elder but somehow knew about the passageway?" asked Lennard.
"I''d hope it didn''te to that," Michael sighed.
"Why?" asked Lennard.
"Connect the dots, Lord Lennard. Elder Kane was a Fusion stage cultivator, but the killer ended his life in a few seconds. He escaped before she could even see his face. We saw the footsteps avoiding the windows. Why?"
Lennard did not know the answer.
"The killer was avoiding the sunlight, and who avoids sunlight? Vampires," Lennard halted his steps. His entire body trembled. Shock and disbelief emerged in his eyes.
"No, it can''t. Are you saying a vampire killed him? No offense, Master Ghost, but this is far-fetched,"
"Is it? The guardian guild''s been hiding the fact that vampires are among us forever. If Elder Kane had found out, they would have killed him to keep their existence among you dark. And don''t let these footsteps fool you, Lord Lennard? You might see normal footsteps and think they walked or ran, but in reality, you can''t even see when they move. Those bastards are fast, really fast," said Michael. He resumed following the footsteps. He gave Lennard some time to think about everything. Unlike Michael, Lennard and ordinary people were terrified of the vampires. The vampires were nearly impossible to kill without godly skills or a primordial me. Michael doubted anyone in the Kane family had either.
A single vampire could decimate the entire Kane family. Lennard was right to panic and sweat.
"Let''s say you''re right. What should we do next?" asked Lennard after long minutes of deep thinking.
"Nothing, and pretend like you know nothing about them. You will be the next to go if they suspect you know something. So pick a scapegoat and kill him in front of all the family members. Tell him he was the traitor. I''d rmend you go with a corrupted son of a bitch with various criminal activities, you know, for the clear conscience''s sake,"
"But what about the killer? I want that dog killed and hanged for killing Elder Kane,"
"Trust me. He will be," Michael growled. Although the killer did noty a finger on Gaya, he killed Elder Kane, a friend of Gaya''s mother. Moreover, the man had answers, and now, they had no way to get them. The more they learn about Adelia, the closer they get to these vampires. Michael wondered what the connection was between Adelia and the vampires.
Gaya remained silent all the way. She was in deep thought. After learning the truth about her father, she was speechless. Eventually, they came to the end of the tunnel. As Lord Lennard said, they stepped onto a small fishing ind. Unfortunately, the footsteps disappeared. Because it was winter and night, there was no one outside. All Michael could see were fishings, poles, empty baskets, and a frozenke.
"Lord Lennard," Michael turned his gaze toward Lennard.
"I said everything I wanted. But at the end of the day, it''s your decision. Make a wise one. I will honor Elder Kane when I finish everything I must," Michael patted Lennard on the shoulder before ascending to the air with Gaya. In a blink of an eye, Lennard saw Michael and Gaya disappear, leaving a trail of golden lightning.
"Michael,"
"I know everything," Michael stopped flying above the clouds. He gently cupped Gaya''s face.
"Finding your mother will answer every question you have," said Michael.
"But Ashton, he said the way is for the Dark Lord to reveal his identity," Gaya stuttered. She couldn''t ask him to reveal his identity to the outside world. It''d put a target on his back and end his life. Gaya simply couldn''t do it. Michael just smiled.
"It''s okay. Didn''t I promise I would help you find your mother? Now my job has be easier," Gaya''s eyes welled up. He leaned forward, gently kissing her on the forehead.
"Nothing will happen to your mother or me. It''s me you''re talking about. Not to rub it on your face, but I am a god, and gods cannot be killed," Michael said with a yful tone to make her smile.
"What about the god killing arrows huh? Don''t be too haughty. We still have no clue what those are," She purred.
"And who has the answer to that question? Your mother. Everything leads to Adelia Ashton,"
Chapter 705 Attack On The Golden Port
After leaving Kane castle, Michael came directly to the Southern Continent. He spent a day meditating. Meanwhile, Elidyr waspletely drowned in creating a teleportation array. Corey helped him with supplying the required Arch energy crystals. Surprisingly, Elidyr and Corey became closer than anyone would expect. At first, Elidyr was annoyed by her curiosity. But, after spending a few hours, he found out that he liked exining how the runes and arrays worked. Once they became close, they both lost track of time. When the sun rose the next day, a five-meter radius chakra glowed on the surface of the blue ocean. Corey and Elidyr watched their handiwork from the upper deck of a frigate.
"You can now contact the Dark Lord," said Elidyr. Although he didn''t show any expression, he was extremely proud of his work.
"Shouldn''t we check if it''s working first?" asked Corey.
Elidyr chuckled.
"It''ll work," His eyes brimmed with confidence. Following his answer, Corey did not question him. Instead, he contacted the Dark Lord.
"My lord, the array is ready,"
"Gather the attack team," she heard the Dark Lord''s words in her head.
It took Corey almost thirty minutes to bring all the ships together. Finally, she ordered the crews to board the leading frigate. As they were waiting for the Dark Lord, he appeared out of nowhere with the Dark Queen.
"My lord," All of them bowed their heads. Some had fear, and some had absolute reverence in their eyes.
"You exined the n to them?" Michael asked Corey.
"Yes, my lord," she nodded.
"I will go through it again, just to be safe," said Michael. His gaze swept across the crew. They nned to send eight ships to attack. Since they were not going to sail back to the southern continent, Michael ordered Corey to put the least crew possible in each ship. Hence, the total number of crews in this operation was ny-six. Twelve crew members for each ship.
"Listen, you will all be teleported to the Ozer continent. Your target is Golden Port," the crew members gasped in shock when they heard they would be teleported. These simpletons had never experienced teleportation or any magic in their life. They only heard about it.
"Your mission is simple. When you see the port, fire the cannons but do not sink any ships docked there. When you fire several volleys of cannonballs, the Golden Port naval army will arrive. Fire at them and use the teleportation scrolls given to you. Unless you want to get sunk with the ships, don''t try to be a hero,"
The pirates bopped their heads up and down.
"Now go have fun," Michael dismissed the crew. After the pirates left the ship, Corey looked at Michael for her next order.
"Assemble our fleet and tell them to be ready. We will go to war any second from now on. You will know the detailster,"
"As you wish, my lord,"
"Any problem building the mortars?" asked Michael. After fitting Big Bertha with mortar, Michael ordered Corey to build more mortars and fit them in every ship in his fleet. He was still thinking of a way to improve the mortar in Big Bertha. He wanted it to be the best of the best. After the Thusian war, Michael decided to spend his time, improving Big Bertha in every way possible. Only one thing stood between him and upgrading the ships to their full potential and beyond: the cksmith trait.
"Just a few hups in procuring the materials. Other than that, everything is going smoothly, my lord,"
"Coordinate with the twins and let them get the materials,"
"Already talked to them, my lord,"
Michael was pleased by her answer. Corey was taking the initiative as he told his subordinates to. Once he finished his war, he could finally focus on making them stronger. The Cosmic stream would help him achieve his goal.
"Good," Michael patted her on the shoulder. Excitement coursed through her veins. After dismissing Corey, Michael, Elidyr, and Gaya leaned on the rails, taking a look at the glowing array on the ocean.
"Gaya, go to the Golden Port with Nightmare and wreak havoc," Michael reminded Gaya of her part in the n. Their n was to bring out the Thusian naval army instead of a Fusion stage cultivator. If the Golden Port dispatched one to take care of the pirate ships instead of their warships, this n would fall apart. Hence, Michael decided to send Gaya and Nightmare. This way, even if the Golden Port dispatched a Fusion stage cultivator, he or she would be upied with Gaya and Nightmare. The Thusians would be forced to bring out their warships at that time. Once Michael had learned where the warships wereing from, he could destroy them and ensure his victory in a naval war between Thusia and him.
"Meet you there," Gaya nodded as she disappeared from their sight.
"You''re doing this huh?" said Elidyr.
"Yes, but before that, I have to go meet Mugashuku,"
"Why?" Elidyr creased his brows. He couldn''t think of a reason why the Dark Lord wanted to meet the dormant hydra in stormville mountain. Why would anyone want to meet that terrifying existence? Elidyr questioned himself.
"For now, the southern continent is his world. We need his support and permission to im it as ours," said Michael. In other words, Michael wanted Mugashuku''s backing against the Skyhall. After revealing himself as the Dark Lord, the Skyhall would finally make their move and bring the full wrath of the ce down on Michael. To survive this, Michael needed to fall back to the Southern continent. Michael doubted the Skyhall would dare to piss off something that could end this world in a few hours,
Unfortunately, Michael had to spend almost all the badass points he received by ughtering the thusians to find the Queen''s soul piece''s location. Nevertheless, he hoped it was enough to get Mugashuku''s backing.
***************************************
(A hourter)
Yagnar, General Bryce, and Prince Davarius were waiting for Ghost on the outskirts of Golden Port. The Golden Port was built on the banks of a carefully crafted harbor. It was truly a fully modernized trade center. Its allure was matched by the backdrop of an elegant dockyard and forest of colorful maple trees. Unfortunately, the snow nketed the city and ruined the colors with its puffy white. But when spring arrives, the Golden Port would be a marvelous sight to behold. The total trade of Thusia happened through the Golden Port. Despite the winter, countless merchant ships arrived at the port to import and export goods.
"I see everyone''s here," Yagnar''s body jerked in shock. They turned around to see Ghost flying toward them. They gathered above the clouds to discuss their ns.
"You guys picked who''s going to board the Thusian ships?" asked Michael as they all nodded.
"Good. The attack ships will arrive when we say so,"
They still couldn''t believe Michael that he had a fleet. Moreover, as far as they could, there was no single ship on the horizon. So they wondered how these ships would arrive when they gave the order. But they didn''t question Michael.
"Shall we start the attack?" asked Michael.
Yagnar took a deep breath. General Bryce sighed and looked like he couldn''t wait to get this over with, while Davarius seemed excited.
"I want to see the ships you told us about," said Davarius.
"Send them in,"
The trio saw Ghost cing his hand on an ear and talking. They wondered who he was talking to. But to their shock, the saw ships appear out of nowhere on the horizon. It was too shocking. The trio slowly flew forward to take a closer look at the ships. They couldn''t believe their eyes.
"Where did they?" General Bryce''s eyes went wide.
"You teleported them here," Yaganr was an orc. So he was familiar with teleportation more than the others. So when the ships appeared out of thin air, he realized that Ghost had teleported the ships from somewhere to here. The cannons fired with a thunderous roar. Fire and smoke gushed out of the cannons as they rained down cannonballs upon the Golden Port. Michael noticed the people carrying on with their daily lives on the port, screaming and shouting. They dropped everything they were carrying and ran away as fast as possible.
In a few seconds, the calm atmosphere in the Golden Port waspletely thrown into chaos. Several armed soldiers rushed toward the port. As Michael instructed, the pirate crew didn''t aim for the merchant ships docked at the port but just close enough to think they were attacking the ships. The thusian soldiers were in utter shock. The attack was so sudden. Some of them flew away to inform the Golden Port Duke.
As the city was getting bombarded by pirate ships, Yagnar noticed arge shadow in the sky. The clouds quickly dissipated. Soon, they saw Nightmare soaring through the clouds in his true form. Nightmare circled around them before diving down to rain down fire. The pirates stopped firing the cannons for a moment in utter shock. They were startled by the appearance of a dragon.
"Tell them it''s friendly," Michael contacted Corey and conveyed the message to the pirates. Even from a distance, he could see the pirates scared shitless. They shivered uncontrobly.
Nightmare''s terrifying roar echoed through the air. The people screamed as loud as they could before running deeper into the city away from the port.
"Where are you hiding your ships, Maxim?" Michael mumbled. His gaze swept across the Golden Port. To this moment, he hadn''t seen a single warship of Thusia. Instead, he heard another mighty roar. Michael''s gaze immediately turned in the roar''s direction. To his shock, he saw anotherrge shadow in the clouds above Nightmare. It was a dragon, only thrice the size of Nightmare.
Michael immediately sensed a threat. The dragon above Nightmare was a Fusion Stage beast. He was about to fly toward Nightmare when a giant mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth came down through the clouds to bite off Nightmare''s head. But a powerful st of wind pushed the dragon away from Nightmare. Instead, Michael saw Gaya standing atop Nightmare.
The hostile dragon roared as the battle between Gaya and a Royal Dragon finally began in the skies of the Golden Port.
Chapter 706 Thusian War Ship
Due to the cloudy sky and the misty air, no one was able to see the other dragon clearly. Except for Michael, they could barely see a silhouette of a dragon. But it changed when the dragon dived down through the clouds to attack Nightmare and Gaya. Michael noticed two bright amber eyes sit elegantly within the dragon''s scaled, long skull, which gave it a fierce-looking appearance. Several enormous central horns sat atop its head, just above its narrow, angr ears. Severalrge fan-like skin and bone structures ran down the sides of each of its jaw lines.
Its nose was small and had two long, curved nostrils, and there was a tendril on its chin. Several sharp teeth poked out from the side of its mouth, revealing only a fraction of the terror hiding inside. A muscr neck ran down from its head and into a massive body. The dragon was easily thrice the size of Nightmare. The top of its body was covered in narrow scales and rows of small spikes down its spine. The bottom was covered in wide scales, colored slightly lighter than the rest of its body. Four massive limbs carried its body and allowed the creature to stand arrogantly and sturdy. Massive wings grew starting from just below its shoulders and ending at its hips. The wings were ded in structure, the skin of the wings seemed to glow as if made from the fire itself, and small, sharp tips grew from each ending like massive spears. Its thick tail ended in a hammer-like growth and was covered in the same narrow scales as its body.
The dragon scales had a tinge of golden and crimson red. The sheer size and the shining scales symbolized the dragon''s race, a Royal Dragon. Even if Nightmare were at the Fusion stage, it would stand no chance against this Royal Dragon. Its jaw was wide enough to slice Nightmare in half. Luckily, Nightmare had a backup.
"Victoria, is this your pet?" Michael was amused. The poor dragon didn''t seem to realize there was a Half Immortal staring at him from a distance. As much as Michael wanted to ughter the dragon, he hovered in the sky, doing nothing. He let Gaya and Nightmare fight the dragon for a change.
The two dragons roared at each other. When they came face to face, the people on the ground felt a chill. Even Yagnar, General Bryce, and Davarius trembled in fear. Nightmare and the Royal Dragon menacingly stared at each other. Nightmare bore his teeth. Despite the size and power, Nightmare didn''t show any signs of fear in his eyes. But the Royal Dragon had a look of scorn. He looked down on Nightmare''s forest dragon race. If the Royal Dragon was a noble, a forest dragon was the poorest of themoners.
"I don''t care who you are or why you dared to attack Thusia, but that will be yourst mistake," The Royal Dragon growled. Its terrifying voice echoed through the sky. The pirates halted firing the cannons in utter shock. They did not want the dragon''s attention. They thought Nightmare was the biggest, baddest dragon butpared to the royal dragon, Nightmare was a puppy.
"I will end you two and burn those scums alive," The Royal Dragon nced at the pirate ships.
"So there is no brain under that big skull of yours, huh?" Gaya ridiculed the royal dragon.
"You dared to insult me?!" The Royal Dragon roared.
"You fucking idiot, we dared to burn this ce to the ground. Of course, I dare to insult an overgrown lizard like you. Didn''t you get the memo? We waged war against your pathetic kingdom. It''s payback time bitch,"
The Royal dragon''s eyes literally lit up with mes. It roared and dashed at Nightmare. Regardless of its enormous size, the royal dragon was fast. However, Nightmare''s smaller body gave him an edge. He was able to barrel roll and quickly go under the royal dragon.
Boom!
Gaya punched the royal dragon on its belly with enough force to create a thunderous shockwave. Her fist went numb as the royal dragon growled in pain. Using this opportunity, Nightmare breathed fire on the royal dragon. However, its scales were too tough for Nightmare''s mes to burn it.
Suddenly, the air around them became hotter. When Gaya looked at the royal dragon, she saw its belly beginning to glow.
"It''s gonna breathe fire," Gaya quickly raised her arms as a thin jade energy shield formed around Nightmare.
"Avoid the dragon breath," she ordered Nightmare.
"No shit,"
Nightmare pped his wings, increasing his speed. Meanwhile, the pirates resumed bombarding the port. Some of the merchant ships began to set sail away from the port. Finally, the royal dragon caught up with Nightmare and Gaya. It flew right above them. It opened its mouth wide as Gaya saw the inside of its mouth glowing like someone had set a fire inside. The temperature around them rose by several degrees.
Gaya retaliated quickly by firing an arrow straight into the dragon''s mouth. However, the heat inside the dragon''s mouth melted the arrow like butter.
"I really thought that would work," Gaya growled as Nightmare pped his wings harder than before. Immediately, he shot through the air, escaping the dragon''s fire. From a distance, Michael saw a violet stream of fire shooting out of the dragon''s mouth.
"Holy fuck," Davarius cursed. They could feel the intense heat from afar. Gaya frowned, pouring more energy into the shield. Yet, the shield kept flickering. If they had met the dragon breath head-on, the heat would have burnt their skin off.
Gaya realized they couldn''t drag the fight long.
"Where the fuck are those ships?" General Bryce had lost his cool.
Michael could have used the system to scan the area and find a pocket dimension''s entrance. However, he used the majority of his badass points to find the Queen''s soul piece''s location. He was really lucky to find Mugashuku in a good mood. As a result, Mugashuku agreed to offer his protection as long as he found another soul piece within the next six months. Otherwise, Mugashuku would personallye to find Michael. That was its threat.
The situation was making Michael lose his calm. Luckily, he saw a warship appear out of nowhere near the port. It was a man o war, almost twice the size of Big Bertha.
"Look," Yaganr pointed at the crimson red painted ship. A loud roar from the ship reverberated through the sea. It slowly sailed toward the pirate ships.
"Fire at the man o war and get the hell out of here," Michael ordered Corey. The pirates were really lucky they weren''t inside the warship''s firing range. Otherwise, a single volley of cannon fire from the ship could decimate all of them.
As Michael ordered, the pirates quickly reloaded the cannons and fired at the man of war. Countless cannonballs soared through the sky, leaving a smoky trail. Sparks flew around them as they made an eerie buzzing sound. When they hit the man o war''s hull, they all heard a thunderous explosion. But the cannonballs barely made a dent in its hull.
Meanwhile, the sky lit up with violet and red color. Both Nightmare and the Royal dragon flew above the clouds fighting each other.
Suddenly, Nightmare''s roar echoed through the sky. Michael sensed a pain in its roar. Above the clouds, the dragon fire had scorched the side of Nightmare''s belly. But despite the pain, Nightmare didn''t slow down. Seeing the pain in Nightmare''s eyes, Gaya''s anger shot through the roof. She raised her bow as four arrows made of golden energy appeared in her hand. She nocked all of them, mumbling something under her breath. The royal dragon flew almost twenty meters away from them. The wind was violent enough to throw Nightmare off bnce asionally. Furthermore, the clouds obstructed her vision. Despite everything, Gaya took a deep breath and released the arrows. As soon as they shot out, the arrows created a sonic explosion in the air.
Each of the four arrows grew in size, transforming into golden snakes in mid-air. Unlike traditional arrows that travel in a straight line, these snakes zig zagged, following the royal dragon.
The Royal Dragon retaliated by breathing fire onto the golden snakes. Its violet mes melted two snakes, but it was toote to stop the remaining two. They hit the Royal dragon in the belly and in the back. The royal dragon screamed in pain as the arrows exploded when they prated the dragon''s scales.
On the sea, the man o war prepared to fire its cannons. The sound of cannons cluttering traveled in the air. It was like thunder rumbling. A few momentster, the cannons fired, gushing out thick white smoke. The man o war trembled at the aftershock. Michael saw countless cannonballs soar through the air toward the pirate ships.
Michael felt pain seeing the pirate ships explode into pieces in a snap of time. Fire and wood splinters flew as ck smoke rose from the ships. He hoped the pirates used the teleportation scroll to escape. Otherwise, there was no way they could survive the explosion. Michael expected the thusian warships to be powerful, but the man o war exceeded his expectation.
His focus on the man o war got broken by the roar of the Royal Dragon. This time, the royal dragon roared in pain. Michael noticed several golden lights flickering above the clouds. He could tell Gaya was bombarding the royal dragon with arrows. Just like the warship exceeded Michael''s expectations, the royal dragon also exceeded Gaya''s initial estimation of its power.
She had to take the fight seriously. Even with thebined force of Nightmare, the battle between them was at a stalemate.
"It''s enough. Get out of there," Michael ordered Gaya through the earpiece.
"I am going on board. I hope your men will do the same," Michael said to the trio before dashing toward the man o war. While Michael was on his way to the warship, Gaya stood atop Nightmare. She took out the golden scroll. The Royal dragon noticed the scroll. It opened its mouth to quickly breathe fire on them. Before it could happen, Gaya tore the scroll as a bright light enveloped them both. In a split second, they disappeared from the sky.
Chapter 707 Incompetent Spies
Michael dived into the sea instead of flying toward the warship. He soared through the water faster than any fish in the ocean, leaving a bubbly white trail. No one noticed Michael as they were all focused on the smoking debris on the ocean and the dragon in the sky. Everything was dark blue around Michael. Light barely managed to peek through the water. After a while, Michael noticed a giant shadow darkening the water. The closer he got to the warship, the brighter the rune on his palm glowed. Michael almost forgot about this rune. When he infiltrated Tanulia''s flying warship in the southern continent, Elidyr gave him this rune to avoid the defensive runes on the ship''s surface. With this rune, he was able to get onto her ship without triggering any defensive arrays.
When Michael appeared right under the man o war, he grabbed the ship''s bottom and hung onto it like a gecko on a wall. Thanks to his wind mastery, he formed a bubble around his head, enabling him to breathe underwater. The ship sailed slowly. Michael took a Spyder from the system storage and let it climb up the ship. He wanted to see what was happening on the surface before making his move.
"Michael," Michael heard Gaya''s voice in his head.
"We safely reached King Gunner''s castle. How''s it looking at your end?"
"Can''t talk. Underwater,"
"Don''t get yourself killed out there," Gaya yfully chuckled.
The Spyder crawled toward the ship''s upper deck. The corner of his vision showed him what the Spyder was looking at. He noticed a tall, golden-haired man walking proudly on the upper deck with his hands behind his back. He looked as though the entire world belonged to him. He grinned at the sinking pirate ships on the horizon.
"Captain, we found these two sneaking around the port,"
The man slowly turned around to see the thusian soldiers dragging two men. The two of them were dressed likemoners. Their faces were swollen and bleeding. It was obvious the thusians roughed them up before dragging them here.
"Shit, they must be the other spies. Ipetent idiots," Michael growled. The only reason he let General Bryce, Yagnar, and Davarius pick their own spies was to make them feel they had some level of control over the offense against Thusia.
He wondered where the third spy was. His pondering was quickly answered when another two thusians dragged a dead body toward the ship captain.
"He tried to resist when we found him snooping near the harbor master''s office, Captain,"
The golden-haired man tilted his head. He looked at the three for a few moments without uttering a single word.
"Did they tell you what they were doing?" asked the golden-haired man.
"Not a word, captain,"
"Ametuer spies," Michael was surprised by the man''s intelligence. With a single question, he was able to tell they were spies. Not only that, he correctly identified them as amateurs.
The captain looked at the bewildered faces of his men.
"If they weremoners, they would have pissed their pants. If they were good spies, they would have spun a believable story. Only amateurs do neither of those," said the man.
"I wonder what they were hoping to aplish," He slowly made his way toward the spies. He lifted one''s head,
"The way I see it, you have two choices. Answer my questions, get a quick death or resist, and I can make you wish for death,"
The spy spat on the captain''s face without a second thought. Before even the blob of spit could hit the floor from the captain''s face, the captain punched the spy right through the chest. Blood sttered across the wooden floor. The spy coughed up blood. Michael noticed the spy''s beating heart in the captain''s hands. The surrounding soldiers didn''t look as shocked as one would expect. Why? Because they had seen too many cruel acts of their captain, and they themselves were capable of so many ruthless things.
The captain crushed his teeth with a sickening crunch. Seeing the end of the spy, the one beside him trembled.
"So, how about you?" The captain slowly wiped off the spit from his face and the blood on his hand on the spy''s shoulder.
"I¡I was ordered to infiltrate the ship under Prince Davarius''s orders," The spy bbered.
"Prince Davarius was captured," The captain said as the spy frantically shook his head.
"He was rescued. Now he is with General Bryce, General Yagnar and¡"
"And?" The Captain squeezed the spy''s shoulder.
"Ghost,"
"The Thusian Alchemy Guild Leader?" The Captain tilted his head.
Michael witnessed the spy bber everything from Michael''s heavenly tribtion to rescuing Prince Davarius to taking over the cities conquered by the Thusians. The thusians soldiers listened to his story, uttering no word. They all trembled in anger. Judging by the looks on their faces, if Michael appeared before them, they would fight to the death.
"What was your n? Tell us in great detail please, and I will let you live," the spy''s face brightened. A delighted smile emerged on his face. However, before he could open his mouth, the thusians saw the spy tremble violently. A white form spurted out of his mouth. Blood seeped through every pore in his body. The thusians were startled.
The spy kept twitching until his body finally gave up.
"He''s dead, but how?" the captain rubbed his chin. None of them knew Michael used the Spyder to inject the spy with poison before he could bber the n.
"Activate the rune. We have to report this to General Booth," said the Captain.
The mere mention of the name made Michael''s blood boil. That was the bastard who led the attack on the sanctuary, ughtered everyone, and injured Abras''s soul piece. Michael restrained his anger. Finally, the soldiers ran into the captain''s cabin. Realizing something was about to happen, Michael held onto the bottom tight. A few secondster, the ship trembled. Michael sensed the space around him distorting. Soon, a goldenyer of light enveloped the ship and Michael along with it.
Since Michael was underwater, he didn''t notice any changes in his surroundings. He sent another Spyder crawling above. Only then did he see the changes. The ship was floating on an endless ocean with countless other ships. As far as Michael could see, there was nond nearby.
"So this is where you keep your ships huh? Time to get rid of them," Michael cracked his neck. He slowly swam above to reach the surface. Like an arrow, he shot out of the water, surprising the thusians.
"Captain look!''
"What the fuck?!"
"Who is that?!"
"Intruder!"
The thusians soldiers panicked because of Michael''s sudden appearance. Since they were in a pocket dimension, all the soldiers were clearly able to see Michael''s Half Immortal cultivation stage. The fearless thusian naval army shuddered at the sigh of a Half Immortal. The Soul Refining stage captain slowly turned around. Fear and shock glimmered in his eyes.
"Speechless?" Michael tilted his head. Surprisingly, Michael turned his back on the captain and his crew. He nced over the ocean.
"I don''t think there are fifteen hundred ships here. Maximum, seven hundred,"
Meanwhile, the soldiers fired a red orb of light into the sky. The light alerted all the other ships. Michael slowly turned around. His eyes turned pitch ck as two dark beams shot out of his eyes. The two beams prated the Captain''s head and zigzagged throughout the upper deck, killing the twelve soldiers on it.
Michael quickly bought a few crates of dynamites from the system store. They were powerful enough to destroy the ships if Michael ced them in certain ces. For example, inside the cannons, and inside the lower deck. Of course, these ships were too big to make them explode. The point was to create a big enough hall, and the water would do the rest.
Michael flew straight down to the hull cannons. With a snap, sparks flew out of his finger and lit the fuse of red dynamite in his hand. Michael simply threw it into the cannon tube. He moved onto another ship and did the same before killing the soldiers on the upper deck.
"I need to get myself a new spell," Michael said to himself. His current arsenal of spellscked arge-scale spell that could do mass destruction. It would take hours or days to destroy all these ships with dynamites.
The soldiers prepared to bombard Michael with cannonballs. But they were put at a disadvantage when Michael flew high in the air. They couldn''t aim the cannons at his height. He closed his eyes as countless golden lightning bolts crackled around his body. When he opened his eyes, his eyes lit with dark mes. Michael dived down so fast that he left afterimages in the sky. The soldiers couldn''t see him but only the continued explosions all around them. He substituted hisck of mass destruction spell with his speed. The soldiers opened fire, hoping it would hit Michael. Instead of Michael, they only hit the other ships.
"Idiots," Michael snickered.
He flew around, wreaking havoc among the ships until he sensed a powerful being in his Environmental Scanning. Suddenly, a red boulder hit Michael. Michael flung away in the air before finally regaining his bnce. To his surprise, a monstrous red-skinned abomination with devilish wings hovered in the air several meters away from him.
"Blood prince,"
"You became stronger," The Blood Prince growled. Unlike the first time Michael had met him, he could see the blood prince clearly in broad daylight.
"You became ackey of Maxim," responded Michael.
The Blood Prince did not say anything for a few moments.
"Tell me, where do I find more of these," The Blood Prince tossed a ss vial with a few golden drops at the bottom of it. Thest time Michael met the vampires, he gave this potion to Saber. Apparently, Saber used this potion which could make the vampires survive the sun for almost an hour on a vampire. But it became obvious that Saber didn''t. Otherwise, the blood prince couldn''t have used the potion.
"That offer went out the window when you punched me," Michael cracked his neck.
Chapter 708 Battle With The Blood Prince
The Blood Prince bore his long fangs at Michael. His red muscles bulged up as blue veins popped up under his skin. However, Michael did not bat an eye. Michael was at the Half Immortal Stage level 3, and the blood prince was at level 5. The Dark mes were more than enough to substitute the two levels.
"Once you are turned, you will tell us everything," The Blood Prince menacingly grinned. He quickly dashed at Michael in mid-air. He was almost as fast as Michael. The two of them shed, flying higher and higher. The blood prince swung his fist left and right. Fortunately, Michael had the ck shield. The blood prince''s bulky fist hit the shield with a loud thud. His hands immediately went numb. Michael quickly retaliated by mming the shield against the blood prince''s face.
"AH!" The Blood Prince growled in anger. The thusians all watched the battle in the air without batting an eye. But they all feared for their lives. The coteral damage of two Half Immortals fighting would be terrifying. Even Michael was surprised. Every time he blocked the blood prince''s punch with his shield, it created a shockwave powerful enough to create violent ripples in the sea beneath. The warships trembled as though there was an earthquake.
The Blood Prince increased his speed even further. He repeatedly punched Michael with no finesse or technique. A single punch put Michael on a deathbed. However, that was when he was a Fusion stage cultivator, and the blood prince ambushed Michael. This time, he blocked every pinch with his shield. In a minute of time, the shield had blocked almost fifty to sixty punches. Yet, the blood prince couldn''t even put a dent in the shield.
"I like this shield of yours," The Blood Prince licked his lips. Suddenly, he stopped punching and grabbed the shield with his two hands. Both of them pulled the shield toward them. Although the blood prince was taller and more muscr than Michael, he couldn''t easily snatch the shield away from Michael.
"You are strong,'' The Blood Prince growled.
Instead of responding, Michael let go of one hand from the shield, raised it, and punched the Blood Prince right in the face. The punch''s force sent the Blood Prince flying for a few meters. A tooth flew out of the vampire''s mouth, along with blood and spit. Michael felt like he had hit a concrete wall. His hands were numb.
The Blood Prince shook his head as his vision went blurry. Michael threw the shield at the blood prince. The shield cut through the air. Before the Blood Prince could react, the shield hit him in the face, breaking his nose with a sickening crunch. To the vampire''s surprise, the shield took a u-turn and flew straight back to Michael''s hands. A small silver rune glowed on Michael''s palm and on the shield. It was a simple summoning rune yet efficient. Thanks to Elidyr for putting the rune on the shield, Michael could summon the shield back to him after throwing it. He put the same rune on the Doombringer too.
The Blood Prince was about to dash toward Michael again more ferociously when he threw the shield again. Just like before, the shield hit the Blood Prince and returned to him. He did this repeatedly until the Blood Prince managed to punch the shield before it could hit him again. The broken nose of the blood prince healed in a blink of an eye.
"So how does it feel to be ap dog of someone else?" asked Michael. The Blood Prince hovered in the air instead of dashing toward Michael.
"I kill you, and he gives me something I want. Simple transaction" growled the Blood Prince.
Suddenly, Michael chuckled.
"Something funny?"
"Yeah. I just thought. You woke up from a long slumber and ended up working for a human. Even if you put a leech in a castle, it will always head for the nasty swamps," Michael riled up the Blood Prince. As he expected, the blood prince''s eyes turned predatory. A red smoke radiated from his body. Slowly, the fangs grew in size, as well as the horns atop his head. Despite his transformation, Michael remained calm. The only change that happened with Michael was the dark mes enveloping his fists. The shield disappeared from his wrist. Michael cracked his knuckles.
The moment the blood prince saw the mes, his eyes went wide.
"Primordial mes," The Blood Prince was shocked. The shock soon turned into fear. No matter how strong he was, a Primordial me was stronger.
"You shouldn''t have crossed me, bloodsucker," Michael snickered. The Blood Prince noticed a change in his voice. Furthermore, his eyes lit up with the same dark mes as on his fist.
The Dark Beams shot out from Michael''s eyes, aiming for the Blood Prince''s chest.
"ARGH!'' The Blood prince roared in pain as the Dark Beams scorched his chest. They prated his steel-like skin several inches. His chest smoked. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. When the dark beams disappeared, the blood prince looked down at his chest. The two holes did not close up. For the first time, fear clenched his heart. He never expected a human like Ghost to wield such a powerful Primordial me.
As he was in shock, Michael dashed toward the Blood Prince. This time, Michael was the one who swung his fist left and right. The Blood Prince instinctively raised his arms to block Ghost''s punches. Michael''s dark mes-covered fist hit the blood prince''s arm ferociously. Unlike Michael, the blood prince didn''t have any shield. It was a bad move to use his flesh as a shield. Just like the dark beams, the mes on Michael''s fist burnt the Blood Prince''s hands. Michael bombarded the Blood Prince with punches. The vampire''s body started to smoke like a roasted turkey. Michael pushed the offense further bynding several kicks. While the blood prince was defending the punches, Michael shot another dark beam.
"ARGH!" The Blood Prince growled. Michael grabbed the Blood Prince''s hand, spread them apart, and head-butted the Blood Prince again and again. Violent waves crashed onto the ships, almost tilting them upside down. Every time Michael''s head shed with the Blood Prince''s, it sounded like thunderps.
The Blood Prince violently struggled under Michael''s grasp. He felt the Dark mes crawling onto him like tiny snakes. Suddenly, Michael stopped head-butting the vampire. Instead, he sped the blood prince''s face. He looked the vampire in the eyes and fired the dark beams right through the vampire''s eyes. The vampire screamed in agony. Unfrountaly, the dark beams weren''t powerful enough to prate through the blood prince''s eyes.
Even Michael couldn''t kill the Blood Prince without an Immortal killing weapon. All he could do was hurt him to the point when they fought next time, he could kill the vampire quickly. However, Michael did not want to simply hurt the Blood Prince. He wanted to literally rip apart his hand. Although the Blood Prince''s appearance caught Michael off guard, it was a blessing. If he didn''t appear, Michael would have had to look for an Immortal Bone to craft a weapon. Thanks to the Blood Prince, he didn''t need to pay the system a huge sum or look for a bone.
The dark mes crawled toward the Blood Prince,pletely engulfing his right hand. The Blood Prince screamed. His thunderous roar echoed through the pocket dimension. It was powerful enough to create several fifty feet tall waves in the sea. Many soldiers abandoned the ships and flew away.
They didn''t dare to attack either. The shock waves produced by their sh were enough to kill several of them. Under the scorching heat of the dark mes, the skin melted off like butter. No matter how hard the blood prince tried, he couldn''t escape Michael''s hold. In his pain, he failed to notice ayer of darkness around him. Soon, the blood prince lost all the flesh on his right arm. Michael punched the shoulder bone. The Blood Prince fought back to escape Michael''s grab using all of his strength. However, Michael covered himself with the dark mes. Furthermore, he willed the dark mes to engulf the blood prince too.
Michael struggled to break the vampire''s bones. No matter how many times he punched, the shoulder didn''t not break. Finally, having no choice, Michael poured dark mes and dark energy into the dark beams. He shot the beams at the shoulder bone. Furthermore, he paid the system fifty thousand badass points just to boost the beams'' power.
"LET ME GO!" The Blood Prince felt his handing off of his body. He couldn''t cast any spells because of the dark mes around him. His skin slowly burned. Hence, his body and energy prioritized healing him instead of fighting. Finally, the bones cracked. With a final pull, Michael pulled out the Blood Prince''s arm right off of his shoulder.
Blood gushed out like a fountain. The soldiers who heard the thunderous roar of the Blood Prince trembled uncontrobly. Then, to the vampire''s shock, Michael beat him with his own bone.
"HUMAN!" He roared. He pped his wings and immediately flew away from Michael. He didn''t dare to linger any longer.
"Do not underestimate him, Blood Prince," The Blood Prince heard Saber''s words in his head. He regretted not heeding his advice. He thought he could kill Ghost and get what he wanted from Maxim Barnes. Unfortunately, everything went south when Ghost revealed the Primordial mes. No matter how powerful a vampire was, they were as weak as a newborn baby in front of Primordial mes. If an elder was in the Blood Prince''s ce, they would have burnt to dust.
In the heat of the battle, Michael failed to notice the ships disappearing one by one on the horizon. Michale had realized the thusians were escaping the pocket dimension.
"Stay out of my way. Or I wille straight to your home and burn everything down," Michael growled as the vampire vanished into thin air. He turned into a lightning bolt and headed down to destroy as many ships as possible before escaping the pocket dimension. The Blood Prince''s appearance had thrown a wrench into his initial n, to say the least.
Chapter 709 Meeting An Unusual Visitor
Michael returned to King Gunner''s castle with the long bone of the Blood Prince. Yagnar, General Bryce, Davarius, and Gaya saw him and were surprised by the bone. Michael put the bone with a thud.
"When I asked you to pick one to board the ship, I thought you guys would pick someone who wouldn''t bber our n to the thusians,"
The trio frowned.
"Master Ghost, what are you talking about?" asked General Bryce.
"I am not going to make a big deal out of it. But the thusians caught the two spies and beat them to death,"
Michael then turned his gaze toward Davarius.
"Your guy, on the other hand, was happy to entertain the thusians with all our ns. Starting from my involvement to how we reduced you,"
"What did you do?" asked Davarius. The others slightly trembled.
"Nothing. The thusians killed him," said Michael.
"Who''s bone is this?" Yagnar asked Michael.
"A vampire''s. Apparently, that son of a bitch Maxim made a deal with the vampires,"
"What?" General Bruce and Davarius almost shouted. They couldn''t believe what they had just heard. Just these words were enough to make them feel like something was crawling on them. They were absolutely disgusted with Maxim. When they saw Michael grin, they were surprised even further. With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a shiny blue crystal. He ced it on the table.
"Is that a recording crystal?" asked Gaya.
"Yep. That vampire was dumb enough to admit his dealings with MAxim. Now once the royal news, guardian guild, and the holy church receive this, they wille to fuck him up from all directions,"
"That''s¡" Davarius was stunned.
"That''s great!" He shouted. They were excited to the point they had forgotten about the spies.
"What about the ships?" asked Gaya.
"I destroyed some, but that damn vampire stopped me from destroying the rest. Besides, those sneaky bastards ran away," said Michael.
"So we have to face their full wrath huh?" Yagnar sighed.
"Don''t fret about it. We will have a fleet twice the size of Thusia when the timees," said Michael.
"My lords," suddenly, a soldier entered the room. He came carrying a golden scroll.
"We received this just now,"
"Who is for, and who sent it?" asked Gaya.
"It''s addressed for Master Ghost,"
Gaya took the scroll from the soldier and gave it to Michael. Michael opened the parchment, wondering who had sent him this. However, he was pleasantly surprised when heid his eyes on what was written on it.
"I need to meet my friend," said Michael. He turned his gaze toward the trio.
"Prepare an offense against the Thusians. It''s time we take the fight to them,"
"And I will take care of this," Davarius took the recording crystal. Michael nodded and left the room with Gaya. When they disappeared from their sight, Michael used the runic teleporter to reach the Dark forest.
"What was that?" asked Gaya.
"The scroll. Who was it really from?"
"Saber. Elder Saber,"
Michael was just as surprised as Gaya. He didn''t expect Saber to contact him like this. If he had to guess, Mciahel would tell the Blood Prince didn''t know about this, or it might just be a trap. Either way, Michael wanted to meet Saber. ording to the scroll, Saber would be waiting for Michael in the sky above King Gunner''s castle in two hours.
Gaya snatched the scroll and read it. She creased her brows,
"Why did he want to meet you in the daytime? I know it''s not sunny out there but still,"
"Let''s go see what he has to say," said Michael. Gaya thought about meeting Saber. It took her a few minutes to agree. On his way to meet Azazel in the surveince room, Michael told Gaya about his battle with the Blood Prince. He wanted Azazel to monitor the vampire castle cautiously to learn their next moves.
At that moment, Michael was standing in his room alone. Gaya was with Nightmare in King Gunner''s castle. She decided to n a crushing offensive attack against the THusians.
"System, I have a bone of a Half Immortal. Can I kill Immortals with it?" asked Michael.
[You can, but not the others. What you have is a bone of a Half immortal. To kill the Immortals, you need a weapon made of Immortal bones. But since you have a Primordial me, you can cover the weapon made from a Half Immortal bone and use it to kill an Immortal] said the system. Michael stared at the bone in his hand. He wondered how to forge a weapon out of this bone. He needed to find a cksmith who could.
[Unfortunately, your Dark FLames are too powerful. They will melt the bone in a few minutes. Only a few metals could withstand the Dark mes'' heat. The system suggests the host buy an ore, find a cksmith and forge a weapon]
Michael sighed. Even if he wanted to, he had no badass points to buy an Ore. The system required five million badass points for an orerge enough to make two swords. After purchasing the ore, he was required to have a five-star cksmith.
"How many points do I need to be a cksmith myself?" Michael asked, fiddling with the bone. Along with his inventor trait, Michael could forge many new weapons that could give him an edge against his foes. So rather than finding a cksmith, Michael decided to be one himself.
[The system can offer you the 5-sta cksmith trait for ten million badass points]
Michael raised his brows. The price was simply outrageous. But deep down, he knew it would be worth it.
"Let''s put a pin in there. I think I''ll be able to afford it after the war,"
[Great]
After exiting the system, Michael prepared to leave to meet Saber. He willed the system to teleport him back to King Gunner''s castle. When he arrived in his room, he flew out of it through the window. He shot into the sky higher and higher until he flew past the clouds.
"You''re here," Michael heard Saber''s voice. He turned around to see Saber floating in the air with a dark umbre in his hand.
Michael greeted the vampire with a smile.
"What''s so special about today? Earlier, I met your blood prince, and now you," said Michael.
Hearing Michael''s words, Saber did not seem surprised. Instead, he sighed.
"I apologize for what happened in the castle. Let''s just say not all of the elders approved of the Blood Prince''s actions. But if you met the blood prince and you''re still alive, that could mean one thing," Saber stared at Michael from top to bottom. Michael noticed Saber was trying to hide the shock and surprise from showing in his eyes.
"Next time you see him, don''t be surprised if he doesn''t have his right arm. Now tell me Elder Saber, why did you want to meet me? Since I am in a middle of a war, I''d appreciate it if you don''t beat around the bush,"
Elder Saber nodded.
"I want more potions you gave us at the castle. In return, you can name your price. I prepared a selling pitch, but this is the gist of it," said Saber.
A few months ago, Saber would have dealt with Michael differently. But since he had not only reached the Half Immortal stage but also beaten up the Blood Prince, Saber chose his words carefully. He didn''t dare to show any disrespect.
"You know the blood prince asked the same. Only he wanted to either turn me or kill me. I am not saying this deal won''t happen, but I need something first. Think of it as goodwill for almost killing me when I came to you,"
"What do you need?" asked Saber. He lived long enough to tell if someone was about to ask something. Judging by the look in Ghost''s eyes and that wry smile on his face, it was obvious to Saber.
"I need an Immortal killing weapon. If you can get me one in let''s say, two days, we can move on with this deal,"
To Michael''s surprise, Saber didn''t even flinch as though he was expecting it.
"How do I trust you won''t back off from the deal once you get the weapon or just kill me?"
"Trust, Saber. You came here in daylight to prove you don''t want a fight, and I am standing here doing nothing for the same reason as you. Besides, you know how valuable those potions are. So I''d say you have no choice either,"
Saber knew it was true. That potion could change the fate of their entire kind. He had been working to find a solution for their weakness of sunlight for ages. The closer he got to a solution was the potion that Ghost offered them. They would have gotten more potions if it weren''t for the Blood Prince''s stupid act.
When Ghost came to them, they had the upper hand in the negotiations. But it wasn''t the case anymore. Saber cursed the Blood Prince in his mind.
"I will meet you here with what you asked in two days," said Saber. Michael was delighted by Saber''s answer. He preferred to go with as many options as possible. Once he had received the weapon, he would have two weapons that could kill Maxim Barnes.
"Wonderful. Also, the Blood Prince was working with King Maxim. A bit of free advice, working with him always ends in trouble. Thought you should know that," Michael said, turning around. He vanished from Saber''s eyes.
"Working with King Maxim huh?" Saber smirked.
"I have to investigate this," Saber said to himself. Suppose he nned everything correctly, Saber could soon get rid of the Blood Prince. He was more of a nuisance and obstacle to the vampire kind than a help. That was the main reason he quickly agreed to give an Immortal killing weapon to Ghost. The two of them already had a history. Saber wished Ghost to kill the Blood Prince with the weapon. Then, everything would go back to the way it was.
This time with the potions Ghost has, Saber could take over the vampire castle. It was indeed a risk, but Saber was willing to take this risk.
Chapter 710 Giving New Abilities To Nightmare
As soon as Michael returned to the castle, a soldier came running to him.
"Master Ghost, the guardians are here to see you. They are at the guest room waiting for you," the soldier said.
"Guardians?" Michael creased his brows. He wondered why the guardians were here. But when he thought about it, he was able to guess their reason. Giving a pat on the soldier''s shoulder, Michael headed toward the guest room. The soldiers patrolling the castle inside bowed respectfully. A few minutester, Michael finally arrived at the guest room. To his surprise, he saw Xanali and Evan rk waiting for him.
Evan rk''s eyes glimmered with awe and shock. To him, it felt like yesterday, the Ghost climbed the stairs in the Heavenly gatepetition. In two years, he went from a Body Refining stage cultivator to a Half Immortal. Not a single person could bepared to Ghost anymore. He was a different breed. Evan wondered whether Ghost would still act as friendly as before or just keep his distance. If thetter happened, Evan wouldn''t be surprised. After all, Evan was at the Core Formation stage, and Ghost was at the Half Immortal stage. The difference was simply outrageous.
Although Gaya hated Xanali to the core, Michael greeted her with a friendly smile.
"Miss Xanali," He shook Xanali''s hand and then turned his gaze toward Evan.
"Evan, how''s life buddy? It''s been so long," Michael asked. Evan was speechless for a moment. He acted just as he did before.
"Not as great as yours," Evan sighed.
"What''re you talking about? I heard you''ve had a breakthrough after a breakthrough. I am proud of you,"
Evan''s face brightened after hearing Michael''spliment. He then sat down, facing Xanali and Evan.
"I heard you wanted to meet me. What''s going on?" asked Michael without beating around the bush.
The smile on Evan''s face disappeared. He looked at Xanali to start the conversation.
"We are here to negotiate peace between you and Thusia," said Xanali.
"I am not here to side with Thusia. What they had done was wrong. You and I both know that. However, we cannot let this war esctes any further, especially after you dered war against them,"
Xanali wasn''t as naive as Edith. Everyone in the guild knew King Maxim Barnes was in the wrong. Yet, they turned their heads to the other side because Guardian Guild didn''t think it was worth the trouble to meddle between kingdoms. Not to mention the higher-ups eyed for Princess Victoria to join the Guardian Guild. Besides, they were upied with their internal politics and Dark Lord.
"You already helped Suven and Zulon take back their cities. We will definitely look into the matter of Northguard, But first, we need you to stop killing Thusians. Two armies fighting is different than a Half Immortal butchering mortals,"
"Why now?" Michael tilted his head.
"You weren''t here when we took back the cities. So why now?" asked Michael.
Instead of Xni, Evan answered Michael.
"Princess Victoria announced that you have waged against Thusia. So the people are requesting the Guardian Guild to step up,"
"You''re a Guardian now?"
Evan nodded his head.
"Here''s the deal. Since Evan is a friend of mine and you came here all the way from your guild, I can pause the war for three days. The people of Thusia can find a safe shelter or whatever they need to be safe,"
Xanali creased her brows as Michael continued.
"I''ll sweeten the pot more. If the thusian army stand down, Suven, Zulon army, and I won''ty a finger on them,"
"Come on Ghost. We both know they won''t and can''t do that,"
"Hmm," Micahel rubbed his chin.
"Then what about this? If King Maxim gave back Northguard and returned to the Elon continent, leaving Ithn, I would stop this war. You want to stop the war right? Then, here you go, a way to stop the war," Michael was amused inside. King Maxim Barnes would fight the Guardian guild than give up Ithn. There was no way he would give up Ithn because that''s where the Cosmic stream is. The cosmic stream was his big ticket to world domination. A man with his ambition would die than give up the Cosmic stream. Michael knew that very well. Evan turned his gaze toward Xanali because Ghost was surprisingly cooperative. He kinda expected Ghost to tell them to fuck off, but he just offered them a way to stop the war, and it sounded reasonable. The question was whether the Guardian Guild and THusia would ept this deal.
"That won''t happen," Xanali shook her head. She knew King Maxim well enough to know he would not let go of Ithn.
"Then this war will continue. I will show him how it''d feel to lose a city and a huge chunk of his army," The friendly, warm smile Evan saw a few moments on Ghost facepletely vanished.
"I didn''t want to use it, but I have no choice now. You cannot participate in this war. ording to use two hundred and fifty-two b, anyone above the Fusion stage must not interfere in the affairs between two or more kingdoms and use the overwhelming power to strong-arm the kingdoms," Xanali narrated the guardian rule. In a few days, he would reveal himself as the Dark Lord and head back to the Southern continent where the Guardian had no power. After that, he didn''t have any need to fear the Guardians anymore. In fact, Xanali was lucky Michael didn''t throw her out by her neck.
"Is that a Guardian guild rule?" The smile on Ghost''s face gave Evan chills.
"If you continue to attack Thusians, we will be forced to take action against you. Do you really want to go against the guild?"
To their surprise, Michael burst intoughter.
"I don''t give a fuck about your guild and your rules,"
Xanali''s eyes turned bloodshot in anger.
"I didn''t give a shit about Guardian guild when I was a Body Refiner, and I certainly give a fuck now,,"
"You are not the only Half Immortal in this world, Ghost," Xanali''s words were cold.
Evan began to tremble in fear. He never thought his first assignment as a Guardian might just start a war between the guild and a Half Immortal.
"Then I suggest you bring a few to Thusia. Because ill be there. Just think about the coteral damage of the fighting between a Half Immortal and a bunch of Immortals. Thusia will be in ruins when the battle is done. That''s what I want. So you''re wee to do whatever you want,"
Evan could tell he wasn''t bluffing. There was no sign of fear in his eyes. Anyone could tell if the Guardian guild brought their own rogue immortals, Ghost would fight them to the death. As he said, the coteral damage would ruin everything around them. It had been centuries since two Immortals fought each other.
"Ghost, please think about it. Violence will solve nothing," Evan pleased.
"It will solve something for me,"
Xanali stood up from her seat.
"We are leaving Evan," said Xanali. She then nced at Michael.
"YOu will hear from the guild soon. But don''t expect the next meeting to go like this if you don''t change your mind." Xanali coldly said as Michael chuckled.
"I am looking forward to it," Michael waved his hand without any concern. In two days, Michael would get an Immortal killing weapon from Saber. At that time, the Immortals would be afraid to get near him. They didn''t spend all that time achieving Immortality to die because of some GUardian code. Even if they were willing to fight Michael, they didn''t have any chance of killing Michael. He was certain he could fight an Immortal. Plus, he would be in the Southern continent soon, where even the Immortals had no power.
After Xanali and Evan left the ce, Michael headed to the Dark Forest. On his way, he ordered Gaya, Elidyr, and Nightmare to be in the pocket dimension attached to the dark forest mansion. When he entered the pocket dimension, he saw them waiting for him. Nightmare immediately weed Michael with a small hug. He seemed excited to hear Michael''s praise. He fought against a Fusion stage Royal Dragon and survived.
"You did a good job, buddy. Sorry I let you down," Michael said. He rubbed Nightmare''s chin gently. Although he took the ICe Dragon heart from the thusians, he didn''t use it on Nightmare. His mind was upied with other things and ignored powering up Nightmare. When Nightmare fought the Royal Dragon, Michael regretted letting down Nightmare.
"What are you talking about?" Nightmare shook his head.
With a flick of his wrist, Michael retrieved the Ice core from the system store. The moment it appeared on Michael''s palm, the temperature around them dropped by several degrees.
"I cannot turn you into a royal dragon yet, but I can give you some cool new abilities," said Michael. Nightmare''s eyes sparkled when he heard the words cool new abilities.
Michael then nodded at Elidyr as he started to draw several symbols on the ground. In a few blinks of an eye, an icy blue chakra appeared on the ground. Michael ced the ancient ice core in the center.
"Nightmare, sit beside the ice core," said Elidyr. While Nightmare was obeying LEidyr''s orders, Michael approached Gaya.
"I just met Xanali,"
As soon as she heard these words, Agay clenched her fist. Just Xanali''s name was enough to turn Gaya''s eyes red in anger.
"Where and why?"
"She came to meet me in Gunner''s castle. Apparently, she was there on behalf of the guardians to tell me to stop the war,"
"That bitch," Gaya growled. Michael told her everything that happened, and Gaya couldn''t be more proud of him. Since they were heading for the Southern continent and revealing their identities, there was no need for them to pretend to respect the guardians anymore. Gaya didn''t think the Guardians would send an Immortal after Michael any time sooner. If her guess were right, Xanali would go to Thusia and ask them to stop the war.
"It''s ready," said Elidyr, drawing their attention toward Nightmare.
"Are you ready?" Michael asked Nightmare.
"I was born ready," Nightmare grinned.
Chapter 711 Guardians In Thusia
Nightmare waited for the process to begin without showing any signs of hesitation. Up to this point, only Elidyr knew about how this ritual would work. Considering Michael had the ancient dragon heart, he was able to buy the scroll containing giving Nightmare new cold breath from the system for two hundred thousand badass points. It would have cost Michael six hundred thousand badass points if he didn''t have this ancient ice heart.
Michael patiently waited for the chakra to radiate a bright white light that formed a dome around Nightmare. Inside this dome, Nightmare stared at the ice core. Gaya noticed Nightmare shivering. The ancient ice heart radiated enough coldness to put a thinyer of ice on Nightmare.
"Now absorb the cold energy from the heart," Elidyr instructed Nightmare. Nightmare nodded as he slowly breathed in the coldness. At first, Nightmare felt intense pain all over his body. He felt like he was being frozen to death.
"You can do this, Nightmare," said Gaya. Seeing the pain on Nightmare''s face, she forgot about Xanali and her meeting with Michael. She sat on the chakra''s edge and motivated Nightmare.
"How long will thisst?" asked Michael.
"Depends on Nightmare''s ability to absorb the energy. ording to the scroll you gave, it varies from dragon to dragon," said Elidyr.
Slowly seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. Gaya and Michael sat on the floor, looking after Nightmare. Michael just put his head on Gaya''sp and stared at the starry sky. He pinched Gaya''s cheek, ears, and nose. After a while of putting up with Michael''s yfulness, she knocked him on the head.
"Aren''t you worried about Nightmare?" she frowned.
"Look at him, he''s turning into an ice statue," Michael nced at Nightmare. A thickyer of ice covered his body. As she said, Nightmare was lying on the ground like a statue made of ice. However, Michael did not worry about Nightmare. The system wouldn''t have given him the scroll if Nightmare couldn''t survive this.
"He''s fine. He''s a dragon, for god sake. A little bit of chillness won''t kill him," Michael cupped her cheeks and pulled them as far as he could.
"A," She growled.
"For a guy who''s about to make a life-changing decision, you''re awfully cheery," Gaya ruffled his hair.
"I don''t know. I just feel free. Like a burden has been lifted from me. I think our decision to reveal our identities might be the best decision we have ever made,"
"Do you think my mother will reallye to us when you reveal your identity? Why did she make such a weird rule?" asked Gaya.
"I don''t know why. But when shees to us, I won''t let anything happen to her. She ran enough,"
"I want to know why my real father is. I have a feeling he might be connected to why mother faked her death," Gaya frowned. Michael just pulled her head closer to him and kissed her on the forehead.
"Just don''t ask too many questions. Enjoy the time you have with her first. Not everyone will get a chance like this, Gaya,"
If Michael didn''t know his mother gave him off voluntarily, he would have done and given anything to meet her. After knowing that, she was dead to him. Michael didn''t bother to find her. He had enough things to worry about. But deep down, he was still saddened by everything. Hence, Michael wanted Gaya to have the best time with Adelia instead of asking too many questions.
Whatever problem Adelia was in, Michael would take care of them. After all, Adelia was family to him. The two of them spent hours talking in peace. Elidyr did not return to the ce until the next morning. He checked up on Nightmare.
"Shhh,"
When Elidyr was about to speak something, Gaya shushed him. She nced down at Michael, who was peacefully sleeping on herp. Elidyr nodded and left the pocket dimension. He had tasks over his head. For example, he had to create runes to build more mortars and teleportation arrays. After Elidyr left the pocket dimension, Gaya looked after her two boys.
*******************************************************
Meanwhile, Xanali and Evan reached the capital of Thusia. This was Evan''s first timeing to Ithn. Hence, he was pretty surprised by the look of the city. Even the Royal Land in Elon paled inparison to the city before him. Every building in the city was newly built with elegant architecture. Each building was surrounded by neatly pruned bushes and flowers. Maple trees stood guard on either side of the street. Unfortunately, the winter made the trees shed their leaves. Otherwise, the streets would have been covered with red and yellow maple leaves.
Evan noticed people running through the snow with no smiles on their faces. As a matter of fact, they looked terrified. Several carriages headed toward the city gates. All these carriages seemed to have belonged to the nobles. Evan realized the war deration of Ghost had affected the people more than he had expected. These people never lost their smiles when they waged war against Suven, Zulon, and Northguard. They celebrated their army''s valor because they knew the thusian army would crush their foes. However, when they learned a Half Immortal has taken over the cities their army conquered and taking the fight to them, they were terrified.
Xanali and Evan decided to walk toward the castle instead of flying. She wanted to know how this war had been affecting the people. While walking through the snow-covered street, Evan and Xanali heard various conversations about nobles leaving the capital just to be safe.
"Themoners seemed to have a lot of trust in King Maxim," said Evan. He heard manymoners speaking so highly of King Maxim. They trusted their king to defeat even a Half Immortal.
"There is something we are missing here, Guardian Captain,"
"Speak your mind," said Xanali.
"I know, Ghost. He is not one to make enemies so quickly without reason. There must be something that happened between King Max and him. I''ve never seen him so hell bent on destroying something. Many nobles in Elon adored him because he was opportunistic. Among all the youngsters I know, he has the least enemies. We have to know the history between him and Thusia,"
"Isn''t that obvious? No one knows about Ghost before he came to the river town. Whatever happened between him and Thusia, it must have happened before he came to the river town. I don''t think he or KIng Maxim would tell us what happened. All we can do now is try to talk some sense into Princess Victoria," Xanali sighed.
"Guardian Captain. You don''t actually think they would ept Ghost''s terms, do you?"
Xanali shook her head.
"It doesn''t matter what I think. We are tasked to try to stop the war. As far as I can tell, the simplest way to stop this war is to stop Ghost fromunching an offense against Thusia and stop King Maxim from waging war against every kingdom there is. Unfortunately, the alpha guardians lost their chance to stop Ghost. So unless they bring in the Immortals, nothing can stop Ghost,"
Evan agreed with Xanali. Before he joined the Guardians, he never thought the Guild would be in such trouble. Ever since the royal news published the connection between the guardian guild and the vampires, the Holy Church and the other ns were questioning every decision the guild made. Furthermore, the guild had lost many big donors which put a dent in their financial status. Simply put, the Guardian Guild was not in a blunder, and unless they made some big changes, their path would only go down further. The higher-ups wanted to stop the war between Thusia and Ghost so they could show the public that the guild still had the best interest of the people.
Eventually, Xanali and Evan finally reached the castle. When the guards saw the guild symbol on Xanali''s chest, they immediately escorted them to the castle.
When they reached the frontwn of the castle, they were weed by Edith.
"Wee to Thusia, Xanali," Edith embraced Xanali in a warm hug. Evan was surprised to see Xanali smiling. From what he had heard from his fellow guardians, Xanali had never smiled since the death of Guardian Peyton.
"Edith. This is Evan rke, a guardian trainee,"
"Hello Evan," Edith shook Evan''s hands.
"Let''s go inside. It''s freezing out here," Edith led the two of them inside the castle. Evan looked around the castle and realized this was the cleanest castle he had ever seen. They followed Edith to a cozy room. The firewood in the firece crackled, producing gentle warmth. Evan and Xanali sat on the red sofa as Edith ordered the maids to bring them something to drink.
''Where is Princess Victoria?" asked Xanali.
The smile on Edith''s face disappeared instantly.
"She is meeting with the generals. She''ll be here in a few minutes. So how did your meeting go?" asked Edith.
"Not great. Unless King MAxim Barnes apologizes to the people of Suven, Zulon, and Northguard and returns to Elon, he wouldn''t back down,"
Edith sighed, hearing Xanali.
"The guardians have to send the Immortals, Xanali. He needs to be stopped,"
"Not only him, Edith," Xanali''s response surprised Edith.
"King Maxim Barnes started this. Now those kings and people are just fighting back for they lost,"
"You''re right. But Ghost didn''t care about those people. He''s just using them for his revenge against King Maxim and Victoria,"
"Do you know what''s the history between them?" asked Xanali.
"Does it really matter?" a voice resonated in the room. They all turned their heads to see Victoria walking into the room.
Chapter 712 Nightmare鈥檚 New Abilities
Victoria shook Xanali and Evan''s hands before taking her seat beside Edith. The maids quickly entered the room carrying a te with four cups of hot chocte on it. Evan felt refreshed, taking a sip of hot chocte.
"Knowing the history between Thusia and Ghost might help us stop this war before it esctes any further, Princess Victoria," said Xanali.
"This war only ends in only one way. Ghost will die by my hands. I will parade his head throughout my kingdom just like he did to my soldiers," Victoria sternly said.
"Even so. This will take so many lives. We have to try to prevent that," said Xanali.
"They are soldiers, Guardian Xanali. They know death is a part of their job. However, I won''t let anyone discrete their bodies as Ghost,"
Evan sighed inside. Victoria seemed just as stubborn as Ghost. However, he couldn''t me her after learning what Ghost did to the Thusians. Although what he did was effective, it was a brutal tactic. Even he felt a chill running down his spine. So it was understandable the thusians lost their courage to fight and ultimately lost the cities they conquered initially.
"If you want to prevent death, ask Ghost to surrender and answer for his crimes. He thinks he is invincible. When he steps into my kingdom, I will show him the Half Immortals can be killed,"
Victoria''s lips curved upwards.
"He gave us three days to get the people to safety. I suggest we get them off the ind to Idrisal," said Xanali. Among all the kingdoms in Ozer, Idrisal was the only kingdom that wasn''t involved in any war. The King of Idrisal and King Maxim had an understanding. In other words, the Idrisal King pledged his loyalty to King Maxim secretly. After conquering the rest of the continent, Idrsial King nned to formally announce Idrisal would be a part of Thusia in the future.
Xanali heard rumors about the dealing between King MAxim and the King of Idrisal. So she knew the thusians would be offered a safe haven in Idrisal. However, Victoria shook her head with a snicker.
"We Thusians don''t run with our tails between our legs, Guardian Xanali. We will stay here and end all the threats once and for all,"
Xanali started to get annoyed by Victoria.
"Don''t let your anger cloud your judgment, Princess Victoria. Even if you have a way to kill Ghost, you will lose hundreds or even thousands of people as coteral damage. Do the right thing and send them away,"
"I don''t recall asking for the Guardian Guild''s help, Guardian Xanali. The only reason I am even talking to you is out of respect. We know how to take care of our people," Victoria''s voice was cold.
"I think your people might disagree because your people asked for the Guardian Guild''s help,"
Victoria frowned. This was a piece of new news to her. She nced at Edith. Judging by the look on Edith''s, it was obvious to Victoria that Edith had forgotten to tell her about it.
"Some people are more afraid and have less trust in their King. If anyone wants to leave, they are wee to leave,"
"So, will you agree if I announce this to the people? As a Guardian, I am obliged to help people in need. Especially when they are stuck between two armies," said Xanali.
Victoria took a small sip. She pondered what Xanali had said. Deep down, she knew sending away the people was indeed the right move. However, after Ghost destroyed many of the powerful warships, Victoria was not in the state to afford to lose a ship from her fleet. The thusian army needed every ship and soldier. Since Xanali was so keen on keeping the citizens safe, Victoria decided to use Xanali''s soft spot to her advantage,
"If you want to get them to safety, bring the Guardian ships to the Golden Port. My warships will escort you, but they cannot travel with you to Idrisal,"
Evan sighed in relief. Finally, a good thing came out of their trip to the Ozer continent.
"My ships are just an hour sailing from the Golden Port," Xanali''s answer surprised everyone. She brought the warships of Nagnd itself to escort the Thusian out of Ithn ind. Although Victoria kept what happened to her warships a secret, the Guardian had spies within the port. Hence, Xanali knew Thusia had lost several of their warships.
"You came prepared," Victoria eximed as Xanali nodded.
"What about the Immortals in your guild, Xanali? Are they going to stand beside and watch let Ghost do whatever he wants?" Edith opened her mouth.
"This time, he''s attacking THusia. What if he decided to do the same to another kingdom? Who will stop him then?" asked Edith.
To their surprise, Xanali chuckled.
"You do realize they are just fighting back right? It was King Maxim who started this whole charade,"
"We had the right reason to wage war, Guardian Xanali," Victoria creased her brows.
"Yeah right,"
They couldn''t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not. Victoria didn''t get furious as she couldn''t care less about what Xanali thought.
"Your guild will intervene soon, Xanali,"
Xanali turned her gaze toward Edith. She saw a glimmer in her eyes as though Edith knew something she didn''t. After discussing the war for a few more minutes, they all went their separate ways. Victoria headed for the Golden Port with Xanali and Evan, while Edith went to meet La.
They had two more days to get the thusians to Idrisal. Until now, Victoria had no clue where or when Ghost wouldunch the next attack. This time, Victoria had ways to fight him.
She needed to keep Ghost at bay until her father came out of his seclusion. Thest time she heard from him, he was just a week away from reaching the Half Immortal stage. With the Cosmic energy running through his veins, he could kill Ghost in a few minutes.
******************************************
Almost a dayter, Gaya saw a few cracks forming in the ice shield around Nightmare. A city blue glow appeared in Nightmare''s chest. As seconds passed, the cracks grew bigger and wider.
"Human, I think Nightmare ising out of his shell. Come here," Gaya said to Michael through the earpiece. When the sun rose in the morning, he left the castle to meet Saber. Today was the day he would give Michael an Immortal killing weapon.
"Give me a minute," said Michael.
The chakra gradually lost its glow. When the chakrapletely faded away, Gaya stepped closer to Nightmare. Suddenly, the ice shell shattered into pieces. Gaya''s hands instinctively raised her hands in front of her face to cover her face. A whileter, she gently ced her hand on Nightmare. She tried to lift him in his arms. The moment Gaya touched Nightmare, she felt acute pain in her hand due to the intense coldness of his body. Nightmare slowly opened his eyes. His red pupils flickered in icy blue light. A puff of cold smoke escaped Nightmare''s nostrils. In a few blinks of an eye, he transformed into his full form. His crimson-red scale had a tinge of bluishness to it. Nightmare slowly turned his head. To Gaya''s surprise, Nightmare breathed frost onto the ground. The ground immediately froze to the point it shattered.
Nightmare did not stop as he kept breathing frost out of his mouth. He created a tall pir of ice. Under Gaya''s gaze, Nightmare''s pupils returned to their usual crimson red. As she expected, Nightmare breathed fire, melting the ice statue. Even under the scorching heat, the ice pir took a few seconds to melt.
Finally, Nightmare turned his gaze toward Gaya. His mouth formed a haughty grin. He quickly breathed frost on Gaya. A thinyer of ice formed around Gaya as Nightmare giggled.
"Are you cold?"
Gaya shattered the shell of ice with a single punch. Her hand went numb. Anyone under the Core Strengthening stage would freeze to death immediately. Nightmare quickly shrunk his body and jumped onto her shoulder.
"Ghost," Nightmare saw Michael appear in the pocket dimension. He walked toward them with a sword in his hand.
It was a fairlyrge, wide, slightly curved de made of bronze held by a grip wrapped in gilded, jade-green leather. Dual-edged and razor-sharp, this weapon was made for those looking for power, versatility, and general awesomeness.
The de had a thin, slightly curved crossguard, justrge enough to give the de the perfect weight bnce. The cross-guard had an ornamented hawk beak on each side. Any oblivious man could tell this weapon wasn''t created by just any cksmith. A massive pommel was decorated with a rare gem, no expense was spared for this gorgeous weapon. The de itself was engraved. Intricate decoration patterns had been carefully etched into the de, which added mystery and supposedly more power to the weapon. This sword seemed to have been used only on rare asions. None deserved the weapon more than the greatest fighters of all.
Michael put the sword in his sheath on the back and grabbed Nightmare from Gaya''s shoulder. He lifted Nightmare into the air as though Nightmare was a human baby.
"Oh, you''re chilly," said Michael.
Just like Nightmare did to Gaya, he breathed frost on Michael''s face. But the Dark mes appeared out of nowhere and vaporized Nightmare''s frost breath. Gaya walked around Michael to inspect the sword. She unsheathed the sword from his sheath. She looked closely at the sword. She could feel the intense energy radiation from the de. The de had a gray shade and didn''t feel like it was metal.
"Can this sword withstand the heat of your Dark mes?" Gaya questioned Michael.
"No, it can''t. But it can kill Immortals and Half Immortals," said Michael. Although Gaya was a little disappointed, she expected it.
On the other hand, Nightmare was delighted to show Michael his new abilities, such as frost breath and creating ayer of ice on his body as a defensive measure. Michael noticed that after absorbing the ice dragon''s heart, Nightmare''s cultivation went from the Core Strengthening stage level 2 to level 6.
"Now that this is over, we have to get to the castle. It''s time to initiate the first phase of my attack n," said Gaya with a grin.
Chapter 713 Attack On The Golden Port
Finally, the day of Michael''s first offense against Thusia had arrived. Yagnar, General Bryce, and Davarius were armed to the teeth. They waited for Gaya''s n of attack around the oka table. Gaya herself was not in her armor because she didn''t need any armor. She put her finger on the Golden Port.
"We will attack the Golden Port at dawn," said Gaya.
"After what Ghost did to their ships, the thusians are being careful. So only arge-scale attack here would bring their ships out. But don''t worry, we have two thousand warships with us,"
Yagnar''s brows arched up in surprise. Two thousand warships was a vast number. With that amount of ships, they could conquer any kingdom by the sea. He wondered where they managed to get these ships. Yagnar''s reaction was no different than the others. They all stared at Gaya curiously.
"Our vanguard ships have a long-range weapon attached. So we willy waste on thusians from a safe distance. This will reduce the number of casualties on our side,"
"Who''s going to deal with that dragon?" asked General Bryce. The images of that dragon shed across his mind. It haunted his dreams.
"Ghost will take care of that,"
They sighed in relief. Although the dragon was gigantic, terrifying, and at the Fusion stage level 8, Ghost was Half Immortal. Of course, their battle would be frightening, but the odds were definitely against the dragon.
"While Ghost deals with the dragon, our ships will move forward. Since Golden Port doesn''t have any spacerge enough to hold the Thusian army, and they would rely on naval power, it''s safe to say we won''t have much of a ground battle. But,"
Gaya raised her finger. She nced at them for a moment before continuing.
"We received numerous reports saying two Fusion Stage generals are stationed at the Golden Port,"
"Where do they get all these Fusion Stage cultivators? They used to be so rare, and now, they are popping out from everywhere," Davarius expressed annoyance over the amount of Fusion stage cultivators Thusia had. One couldn''t me him. While many other kingdoms barely had one Fusion Stage cultivator, Thusia had several.
Only a handful of people knew how Thusia managed to produce several Fusion Stage cultivators in a short amount of time, and Gaya was one of them. Still, she did not indulge these three with anything about the Cosmic Stream. Anyone who learns about the Cosmic stream would try to covert it. It belonged to Michael and the Order of Death.
"While our ships are destroying the thusians, I will deal with the two Fusion stage generals,"
"You need any backup General?" asked Yagnar. Since Gaya was leading the army, everyone began to address her as General.
"No. I want the three of you to take a few men and destroy their warehouses," Yagnar creased his brows. Gaya ignored their shocked gazes,
"This is where the Thusians stores their precious things before importing them to other kingdoms or distributing them to their own cities and viges,"
"What''s the point of attacking this warehouse?" asked General Bryce.
"To steal whatever they have stored inside," Gaya wryly smiled.
"From the outside, they will see we have destroyed their warehouse, which will send them a message to fear us. But in reality, we will rob them blind,"
"But General¡is it really necessary? Piging their warehouse is not an honorable thing to do," Yagnar scratched his head as Gaya mmed her fist on the table.
"Are you kidding me? They have piged your cities, your women, and everything you had. Honor doesn''t get you shit. If we don''t change the way how we fight, we will never defeat King Maxim who by the way did all the despicable thing there is to take over your kingdoms,"
General Bryce and Davarius felt the same way as Yagnar, but they didn''t dare to express their thoughts on the matter.
"Also, don''t mistake this for a discussion. This is me giving you orders. So take your opinions and shove them up where the sun doesn''t shine. Got it?"
After Gaya''s outburst, they shut their mouths and just nodded to her n.
"Whatever is inside, we will share it fifty-fifty. If any of you feel like this is not an honorable thing," Gaya air quoted the word honorable.
"You can let go of your share,"
"Do you have any idea what''s inside? A rough idea, perhaps?" asked Devarius, quickly trying to change her mind.
"I would have if you guys had better spies," Gaya rolled her eyes. After Michael''s attack on the Golden Port, Victoria herself visited the ce and rounded up all the spies. With Edith''s lie detector array, the spies stood no chance.
"Let''s just say we got to the warehouse sessfully. What then? How do we take their things?" asked General Bryce. As though Gaya was expecting this question, she grinned. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she took out a dark gray scroll. She opened it up to reveal various intricate runes engraved on it. None of them had an idea what this would do, but they could tell it was somehow to help them steal everything inside the warehouse.
"It''s a teleportation scroll, except it would only teleport things," said Gaya. Elidyr personally designed the scroll. The downside of this teleporter scroll was it could only teleport things with minimum energy radiation. For instance, if there were sacks of grain or gold, it could teleport them. However, the teleporter would fail if there were a potion, dragon bones, or anything with high energy radiation.
Gaya lied when asked if she had any idea what was inside. The truth was she knew exactly what was inside. The thusians were storing grains, food, gold ore, metal ores, and crates of potions. Due to Michael''s sudden attack, they were able to properly distribute the things to the cities. Since Michaell was leaving for the Southern continent after this war, he nned to take them with him.
It was a simple enough task. So she believed the trio couldplete the task without any problems.
"Since this will be a naval battle, we don''t have much need for your armies. Take this as a gift from Ghost,"
"General," Davarius called out for Gaya.
"What about Northguard? When are we nning to retake my kingdom?"
"Good question. After we take over the Golden Port, the thusians will be forced to take a huge chunk of their troops from the Northguard and station them in their own cities. That''s when we make our move. The only reason why we didn''t do it until now is the coteral damage. I won''t be surprised if the thusians used your people as hostages to escape our wrath," said Gaya. Although Michael could destroy thusian armies in a few hours, he chose not to because he wanted to learn the art of war through this war. After all, Michael would lead his army against powerful people in the future. He couldn''t rely on his power alone. Instead, he needed his wits and experience in wars. Hence, Michael treated this as a war simtor.
Davarius pondered what Gaya had said and agreed with her.
"After taking over the Golden Port, I will personallye to Northguard and help you chase off the thusians,"
"Thank you, general," Satisfied with Gaya''s answer, Davarius bowed. Granted Aelia was a foul mouthed quick to anger girl but she was a damn good leader. Furthermore, her ways might be ruthless and unheard of yet they worked. Without her, they wouldn''t have taken back the cities without breaking a sweat.
"Now you may go to your armies, motivate them or whatnot ande meet me here in fifteen minutes," Gaya dismissed them.
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As the light drained away, there was barely enough even for shadows. Whether one liked it or not, the darkness arrived, and everything lost its color under it. Even the stars and moon cowered behind a denseyer of cloud, giving the air a tincture associated with the world before a storm. The ocean before the Golden Port was calm. Hundreds of ships guarded the city behind them. Their silhouettes against a newly silver sky, its blue hue had almost gone until dawn. Their sails swayed in the wind, creaking into the gusting air. The usually buzzing Golden Port was empty and void of any life. Thanks to Xanali''s quick and coordinated effort, they managed to transport the people to Idrisal. At that moment, only the naval army and soldiers remained in the Golden Port. Victoria issued a kill order. The soldiers had the right to kill anyone they thought suspicious after nightfall.
From a bird''s view, the thusians formed a trident formation on the sea. The leading ship at the top of the center end was a man o war ship captained by one of General Booth''s men, Hubert Mertz. General Booth had given him themand of the entire Thusian fleet.
The best minds from Thusia came up with the trident formation. Furthermore, they had a kill squad waiting for Ghost if he decided to show up. This kill squad contained seventy men, all personally picked by General Booth himself. They were the best of the best, armed with an Immortal killing spear.
General Hubert Mertz was an old man with long white hair and a beard. He was armed to the teeth with crimson-red armor. Every inch of his armor had a rune engraved in it. They radiated a dim glow under the dark sky. His calm eyes swept across the ocean. He let the soothing sound of the waves calm his mind and soul.
The soldiers behind him weren''t nervous as they were all war veterans. Yet, even the threat of a Half Immortal couldn''t shake their resolve. They all waited for the enemy ships to appear. Thest time, the enemies caught them off guard by suddenly appearing out of nowhere. This time, they were prepared. The moment the space distorts, the arrays in the sky would alert all the ships of the enemy''s presence. Edith herself designed all these arrays to give them an edge against Ghost and his army.
"General Hubert," General Hubert looked over his shoulder and saw his second inmand, Albert Mertz, his grandson, walking toward him.
Chapter 714 Death From Above
Albert Mertz was a hot-blooded young man in his youth. He was one of the men who received the gift of Cosmic energy thanks to his undying loyalty toward King Maxim Barnes. As a result, he became a Soul Refining stage cultivator. With his cultivation level and years of training from his grandfather, he climbed up the ranks in the army and became the second inmand to his grandfather himself. The ocean breeze disturbed Albert''s wavy silver hair. He joined his grandfather on the upper deck, near the rudder.
"Everything seems to be calm," said Albert.
"For now," said Hubert.
"Power alwayses with a cost, Albert,"
Hubert was taken aback by surprise. For some reason, Albert couldn''t see the absolute resolve to win in his grandfather''s eyes.
"General, what do you mean by that?" asked Albert.
Hubert sighed. He was one of the first people who went to the Cosmic stream in person with King Maxim Barnes. While everyone praised King MAxim for acquiring such a power source, Hubert was the only one worried about the consequences of having such a power source. Although Hubert did not know how King Maxim managed to acquire the Cosmic stream, he felt death around it. He lived and faced enough battles to know the smell of blood even though the ce was cleaned up well. Deep down, Hubert felt this was the consequence he was worried about.
"I had many disciples in my life, Albert, and I''ve told this to each and every one, including our king. Never lust for power and revenge," Albert said in a gentle tone.
"Grandpa," Albert stepped closer to Hubert.
"What''s going on? You talk like we''re going to lose this battle," Albert whispered.
"We are just mere pawns in arger game we don''t and can''t see. Our orders are clear, we will fight this battle to win. But in case," Hubert turned around. He looked his grandson in the eyes and smiled.
"This turned out to be myst battle, I want you to leave all this fighting," Albert creased his brows. He waspletely stunned by his grandfather''s words.
"Do not seek revenge. If I die, let me die with honor. Do not sully my death seeking revenge against the one who bested me," Hubert put his hand on Albert''s shoulder. He had a peaceful moment with his grandson. His life shed across his eyes. He recalled every happy moment in his life, and none of those moments included battlefields or wars. He had won countless battles, but nothing made him happier than holding his newborn son or his grandson.
"Grandpa, we are about to head into a full-scale war. Everyone wants you to be the General who won battles against all odds,"
"There will always be a war to win, Albert. You are my greatest disciple, not King Maxim and not General Booth. You must be better. Better than me, better than your father, and better than everyone,"
Albert smiled and felt proud of his grandfather''s words. The two of them only had each other. All the other Mertz'' gave their lives to the betterment of Thusia. Albert was thest Mertz of the long, proud family of Mertz. Hubert wanted his grandson to carry on the legacy of Mertz.
"I will, grandpa. But don''t talk like this. We will win this war and send those bastards to hell. Ghost won''t survive our death squad,"
"Hmm," Hubert nodded. Although he didn''t believe mortals could defeat a Half Immortal, especially a powerful one like Ghost, he didn''t want his grandson to lose morale.
"But heed my words onest time, Albert. If I fall today, don''t fall in my footsteps," said Hubert with a heavy heart.
Albert took a deep breath,
"I won''t be thest Mertz, grandpa. I promise to honor your words,"
Satisfied with Albert''s answer, Hubert patted him on the back before turning his gaze back to the ocean. As Hubert was staring at the calm sea, something suddenly appeared on the horizon.
"They are here," Albert mumbled under his breath. He quickly took the spyss dangling on his waist. He used it to take a closer look at the horizon. As he expected, it was a war frigate. It almost perfectly blended with the darkness. He had never seen a shippletely painted ck. Even the sails were as ck as midnight.
Albert saw silhouettes of several people on the deck. One by one, many warships appeared behind this ck ship.
A thunderous horn echoed through the air, alerting the soldiers of the enemies.
"Take position!". General Hubert''s domineering voice resonated through the air as loud as the sound created by the array itself. His previously worried eyes turned predatory.
"The moment theye into the firing range, unlead everything you have on them," ordered Albert. The Thusian ships were built with longer and wider fire ranges than any other ships in this world. Best cksmiths, runemasters, and engineers worked day and night to strengthen their firepower. Thus, the thusians could destroy their foes from out of the hostile ship''s fire range. None of the kingdoms in Ozer survived the assault of the Thusian naval army.
To attack the thusian ships, the hostile ships had to sail forward. The trident formation was to nk them from left and right, while the center point was to destroy them head-on. ording to the strategists of Thusia, it was a powerful lethal formation. To their shock, the ck ship or the others did not even drop its sails. Instead, they just hovered over the water, doing nothing.
"Are they expecting us to make the first move?" asked Albert.
"No," Hubert shook his head. Since he was at the Fusion stage, he was able to see the hostile crews running around the upper deck, carrying wooden crates despite the snow affecting everyone''s sight. Hubert noticed they were unloading the crates near the front of the ck ship. But to his knowledge, there were no cannons in the front, and even if there were, they wouldn''t be able to shoot more than two or three cannonballs.
But suddenly, a red spotlight fell on a ship far right from Hubert''s. They were bewildered by the spotlight. When Albert looked closer at the ck ship, he noticed a red light shooting toward the sky. Soon, they heard a sound resembling a rumbling thunderp. At the same time, Albert sparks of fire and smoke emerge from the ck ship.
He followed the sparks of fire until they flew right above the ship with a red spotlight on. In mere seconds, countless fireballs rained down upon the ship like tiny meteors. Wood and body parts flew out of the ship as the fireballs destroyed everything they touched. It was as though countless cannons fired cannonballs from directly above. They had never seen such an attack before. The screams of the soldiers filled the air, along with the smell of gunpowder, burning flesh, and crackling wood. Finally, under their shocked gazes, the ship sank into the sea.
When several red spotlights fell on their ships, the soldiers felt a chill running down their spines.
"General your orders!" Albert shouted.
"Set sail. Avoid the spotlights at all costs!" Hubert snapped out of his shock and quickly issued his orders. The crews frantically run around the upper deck, setting sail forward. But once again, the sound of thunderps resonated through the air. This time, the dark sky lit up with fireballs. Hundreds of mortar shells glistened like stars in the sky. When theynded on their targets, ships and mortal bodies exploded.
The red spotlights targeted the ships with weak soldiers. Although many soldiers cast defense spells around the ship, the mortal shells destroyed their shields as though it was nothing. The thusians were thrown into chaos. However, General Hubert managed to lead the ships closer to the hostile ones. Once they were in the firing range, they could finally return the favor by bombarding them.
"Soul Refiners!" Hubert shouted.
"You''re clear to fly and engage the enemy crews. Destroy their red weapon!" His order echoed through the air. A couple of soldiers on his ship shot toward the sky. They soared through the sky, heading to the hostile ships. As nature itself feared their battle, the clouds began to swirl, indicating an imminent storm. The howling wind carried a sense of threat as shes of lightning struck across the sky. Every time lightning shed, they saw the dark clouds swirling in the sky as though it was opening a giant portal to the higher realms.
The Soul Refining stage warriors disappeared into the dark clouds. The thusians could differentiate between the sound of natural thunder and the sound of mortar firing. The soldiers prayed that the red lights would not fall on them. But the gods did not answer their prayers. Compared to the cannons, the mortals had faster reload times. Hence, they rained death upon the thusians before the Soul Refiners could get close to the pirate ships.
"What is that thing?!" Albert shouted. He cast a golden shield around him and his grandfather. Still, they couldn''t help but be afraid of the red lights.
"They are raining death upon our men!" Another soldier shouted.
"Don''t lose hope. Our men will destroy their weapons!" Albert shouted. He really hoped the Soul Refiners could end the threat before they lost more ships. Everywhere he looked, he saw fire and smoke. They were slowly moving closer to the hostile ships. Suddenly, Hebert looked at the sky as he sensed a powerful presence. He heard a powerful roar resonate through the air. At that same time, a lightning struck across the sea, illuminating a dragon''s shadow above the clouds.
"She is here," Hubert mumbled under his breath.
"It''s that damn dragon!" Albert growled. The soldiers stationed at the Golden Port a few days ago couldn''t forget the terrifying roar of the dragon. A mere shadow of it was enough to terrify them.
"Fire the signal!" Hubert amplified his voice with Celestial energy. Despite the exploding ships and thunderps, everyone was able to hear his words loud and clear. Alber did not waste any second. With a flick of his wrist, he conjured a bright blue orb of light. He raised his hand above his head, firing the orb of light into the sky. As soon as the blue light hit the sky, another roar echoed through the air.
Chapter 715 The Royal Dragon Returns
The thusians saw the royal dragon in the sky. It casts a shadow dark and big enough to turn the area darker. Every p of its wings put out the fire on the sea. It roared before flying into the clouds to fight the hostile dragon. On top of Nightmare, Gaya fought the Soul Refiners sent by Hubert. She disyed her full mastery over the bow and arrow. Despite the stormy wind and altitude, each and every arrow found its target.
She locked her gaze with a Soul Refiner covered in mes. He flew toward Big Bertha like a rocket. As soon as Nightmare noticed him, he pped his wings. The Soul Refiner looked over his shoulder to see Nightmare soaring toward him. He immediately waved his hand as two fiery wings appeared on his back.
Gaya nocked an arrow. She was about to release the golden arrow when she heard the royal dragon''s roar.
"We have to end them all quick," said Gaya. Nightmare nodded. He quickly closed his wings, willing the arch energy in his body to increase his speed.
"Slow him down," said Nightmare. Without dying a second, Gaya fired an arrow. The arrow soared through the air in a curved arc until it prated the Soul Refiner''s leg.
"Argh!'' He shouted in pain. The first energy coursing through her veins was several times more powerful than the Celestial energy. It went through the fire covering the Soul Refiner and prated his legs. He stumbled in the air, losing his bnce. Before he could fight the pain and p his fiery wings, Nightmare opened his mouth. Gaya immediately felt her feet numb due to the sudden chill in Nightmare''s body. Nightmare''s throat glowed from within in an icy blue color.
Suddenly, a stream of frost shot out toward the Soul Refiner. He looked over his shoulder, but it was toote. The frost hit him and formed a thinyer of ice on his skin. Most of the frost energy was vaporized by the fire. Nheless, the fire couldn''t put out the frostpletely.
Gaya used this opportunity to fire several golden arrows one after another. The man cried in mid-air as blood sttered out. At that time, Nightmare caught up with him. As the man was bleeding, Gaya leaped onto him from Nightmare''s back with the bow in her hand. In mid-air, she poured all her energy into the next arrow. The arrow glowed brighter to the point that the Soul Refiner closed his eyes when he turned around.
Gaya let go of the arrow as it soared toward him. Golden sparkles flew around the arrow. One could hear a buzzing sound resonating from the arrow. The Soul Refiner raised his hand to block the arrow instinctively. However, it prated his hand and went straight through his head.
The mes faded away from his body before his lifeless corpse fell from the sky. Gaya was about to fly back to Nightmare when she saw the shadowy silhouette of the royal dragon under the clouds.
"Look out!" Gaya shouted at Nightmare. Nightmare immediately sensed a danger. His instincts screamed at him to fly above quickly.
"Always listen to your gut. It will save your life every time," Ghost''s words sounded in Nightmare''s mind. Without a second thought, Nightmare pped his wings using all his might. The force of his p pushed his body several meters higher in the sky in a blink of an eye. As he flew higher in the sky, he saw the royal dragon''s wide jaw snap into the air where he was a few seconds ago. If Gaya hadn''t warned him and he hadn''t listened to his gut feeling, he would have stuck in the royal dragon''s mouth.
After failing to catch Nightmare, the royal dragon again flew into the clouds. It used the clouds as cover. Only the shes of lightning revealed the dragon''s shadow in the clouds.
"That fucking lizard looks bigger than thest time," Gaya growled the moment shended on Nightmare''s body.
"How many Soul Refiners left?" asked Nightmare.
"Three or four. I don''t think we can catch them on time. It''s time to bring in the backup," said Gaya.
"Azazel, you''re up,"
"Forgive my impatience, mydy. I am here already," Gaya heard Azazel''s voice in her head. She couldn''t help sensing a tinge of excitement in his voice.
"AHHHHH!" A scream filled with agonizing pain echoed through the air. Due to the heavy snowfall and the storm clouds, even Nightmare and Gaya couldn''t see everything clearly. Fortunately, a light shed across the sky, illuminating everything in the sky. Gaya saw Azazel holding two Soul Refiners by their necks for a split second. Since Azazel was soul bound to Michael, his power was directly dependent on Michael. Simply put, Azazel''s power grew with Michael''s power. Hence, when Michael entered his Godhood, breaking through to the Half Immortal Stage, Azazel became a Fusion stage level 3 cultivator.
His demon powers enabled him to mimic Michael''s spells. Although they weren''t as powerful as the source, the Soul Refiners stood no chance against those spells. Azazel used Ignitia to break their shields and ended their lives with Wind st or Ring of Fire.
If Azazel didn''t have wings on his back, Nightmare would have mistaken him for Ghost. Azazel traveled through the clouds using Lightning Dash. Hence, Gaya was able to see streaks of golden bolts of lightning in the sky. Back on the ocean, Hubert sailed forward against the storm. Almost a quarter of the fleet was decimated by the mortar shells. If that wasn''t bad enough, the wind was also against them. As a result, their ships couldn''t move as fast as he had hoped. Standing beside Hubert. Albert noticed several bodies falling down from the sky.
The sky above them lit up with various colors like gold, violet, icy blue, and jade green. But they didn''t terrify the soldiers as the red spotlight.
"Few more minutes, and they''ll be in our firing range!"
Out of the blue, Nightmare dived down through the clouds. The thusians on Hubert''s ship were almost thrown off bnce by Nightmare''s speed. He was so close that his body touched the masts.
"DUCK!'' Albert ordered, fearing the dragon might breathe fire upon them. In stark contrast, they saw the dragon breathing frost and forming an ice wall on the ocean.
"Shatter the walls!" Hubert shouted as the soldiers began to cast spells. Nightmare''s frost almost froze the sea. He took aplete 180 turn to return toward the thusian ships. This time, Nightmare breathed frost on the ships. The stream of icy blue frost several ships in a line. The soldiers were turned into ice statues, as well as their ships.
"Look over there!" Hubert heard Albert shout. He jerked his head to the side to see a girl ughtering the crews on a ship next to them. She moved through the upper deck like a blowing wind. The soldiers couldn''t even track her movements. Hubert saw her stab the soldiers with the golden arrow in her hand.
"FIRE!" Albert ordered the ships. The thusians immediately bombarded the ship Gaya was on with all they got. However, they were toote. Gaya leaped into the air. At that same time, Nightmare came flying to her. Shended on his back and disappeared into the clouds.
"Where is the royal dragon?!" Albert shouted. His eyes turned bloodshot with fury. They were getting ughtered left and right. Albert thought the thusian naval army was undefeatable, and they had all the state-of-the-art weapons. Today, he was proven wrong.
Ghost and his army bested their strategy, their formation, and everything with overwhelming power. They rained death and destruction from above.
"Someone else is there," Hubert saw a silhouette of a man with wings in the clouds fighting the royal dragon. Although the man''s figure looked tiny and almost unnoticeablepared to the royal dragon, Hubert''s sight was keen. That was no mistake. Hubert saw him. A man with wings.
"General, they are sailing away!" Another soldier''s shout snapped Albert out of his shock. He quickly used his spyss to nce at the hostile ships. His vision waspletely blurred because of the storm and the heavy snowfall. Still, he could vaguely see the hostile ships sailing away from them.
"They are trying to get away from our firing range!" Albert shouted. The only way to fight back was to fire back. Except, they could do that only if the hostile ships were in their firing range. Albert panicked. As long as the hostile ships were out of their firing range, they would rain down mortar shells and decimate their ships from a distance.
"Albert!" Hubert had to shout despite the short distance between him and his grandson. The howling wind mademunicating without amplifying his voice with arch energy a pain.
"General!" Albert came running to Hubert.
"I am going to give you themand and deal with those ships myself!"
"General, let mee with you!" Albert raised his voice.
"No," Hubert shook his head.
"I need you to lead our army here!"
"No-"
"This is an order, soldier!" Hubert shook Albert by his shoulder. After hearing Hubert''sst words, Albert couldn''t argue with him anymore.
"Yes, General!" Albert mmed his chest with his fist, saluting Hubert.
"Second in Command Albert will be in charge while I am away. Heed hismands as they were mine!"
The thusians were taken aback by surprise. But the veterans knew it was the right move. If Hubert had gone to the other side and destroyed the long-range cannons, they might have a chance to turn the tides of this battle.
"YES GENERAL!" The thusians shouted in unison. Hubert threw ast nce at Albert before shooting toward the sky. In a few seconds, he disappeared into the clouds. As much as Albert wanted to follow his grandfather, he had responsibilities. As a proud Mertz, he put duty before family.
"Full sail!" Albert raised his voice.
"Give me everything you have. I want those bastards in our range yesterday!" Albert''s orders echoed through the air. As they were sailing forward, streaks of lightning shed across the sky. They almost turn the night into a day for a split second. Then, violent roars of the dragons overshadowed the rumbling thunder.
At that moment, for some strange reason, Albert felt like he was being stared at by a god from above.
Chapter 716 Into The Belly Of The Dragon
Above the clouds, Hubert flew like an arrow shot out from a bow. He cut through the clouds against the snow and the howling wind. A tornado formed right between the thusian army and their foes. This tornado brought down the wrath of gods as streaks of lightning struck down without a break. As he was flying forward, he saw the royal dragon in the distance. It was battling with the man with wings. Steam of violet mes shot out of the dragon''s mouth. Hubert searched for the frost-breathing dragon and the girl. But they were nowhere to be found.
His neck hair suddenly stood up as though there was some danger nearby. He quickly swayed his body before dashing away to the side. Only then did he realize that he had missed a golden arrow to the head by an inch. He turned around to fight the frost-breathing dragon and the girl. Hubert had a feeling this girl might be as strong as him or stronger. Furthermore, she was with a dragon which gave her an overwhelming advantage.
But to his surprise, the girl jumped off the dragon. The two of them stared at each other as the dragon flew into the clouds, disappearing from Hubert''s sight.
"Hubert Mertz. General of the thusian naval army. Mentor to Booth and King Maxim himself,"
"You seem to know me," said Hubert.
"It''s my duty as a general to know my foes,"
Hubert clenched his fist. He recalled everything he had read in the reports from Zulon and Suven. She paraded the corpses of the fallen Thusian soldiers to inflict fear. Such a brutal tactic for a gentle-looking girl.
"Order your men to stand down. We can avoid all this death and bloodshed," said Gaya. She looked down on the sea to see thusian ships sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The mortars were as powerful as Michael had exined. Seeing them in a real battle showed Gaya why Ghost and Elidyr spent such a long time creating this weapon.
Even if the thusians had brought airships, those would have fallen down like dead flies.
"You don''t look like you''re into this war, old man. To me, you look tired, want to retire, and live somewhere peacefully. You know King Maxim started this war, and you know he wouldn''t give you a choice if you were his foe,"
"Youngdy," Hubert smiled.
"You are right. I do want to do all those things. But I am a soldier, and it''s a soldier''s duty to follow his order. Now, my order is to win this battle. So that''s what I am going to do, or I''ll die trying,"
Gaya sighed.
"You''re just another good man who''s willing to die for a sick fuck," The bow and arrow materialized in Gaya''s hands. Hubert was about to cast a spell when he felt a sting in his neck. He hissed, pping the back of his neck. A drop of blood was on his palm.
"What did you do?" asked Hubert.
"There is no time General Hubert. Your men are waiting for you to destroy their foes. What do you guys call our mortars anyways?" Gaya chuckled.
"You know, I would have loved a good battle, but he has other ns,"
Hubert''s vision blurred. He could feel the strength in his body disappearing.
"You are a great general and one of the most powerful people in the world. But to us, to him, you''re not special in any way. Just another man to be killed," said Gaya.
Hubert''s breathing became heavy. Each breath took a toll on his body. Furthermore, he slowly lost the connection with his Celestial and arch energy in his body.
"In a different timeline, your story would have been longer," Gaya slowly raised her bow. Hubert wanted to cast a spell to protect himself. However, he simply couldn''t feel any energy. He was able to stay afloat in the air barely.
"Your story ends here," Gay said. She was about to release the golden arrow when Hubert looked her in the eyes and said.
"As a general to general, please spare my grandson''s life," Hubert realized this was his end. He never thought he would die like this without even putting up a fight. As a general, he utterly failed and let down his men. In hisst moments of life, the most he could do was plead for his grandson''s life.
"You had a chance. Now it''s gone," Gaya released the arrow. Hubert felt a sharp pain in his chest. When he looked down, he saw an arrow sticking into his chest. He gritted his teeth, trying to fight the pain. But the very next moment, everything turned dark. Thest thing he saw was another golden arrow soaring toward him.
Gaya didn''t feel a bit of pity for Hubert. These generals supported King Maxim in every step. In a way, they were responsible for what happened to Michael''s sanctuary. She watched Hubert''s body fall down from the sky. Finding his body through all the ship parts floating on the ocean would be near impossible.
Far away from Gaya, Nightmare kept breathing frost onto the sea, forming a wall to slow down the thusians. The royal dragon was upied with Azazel in a fierce battle.
"It''s time," Nightmare heard Azazel''s voice in his head. With a p of his wings, Nightmare gained enough altitude to disappear into the clouds. On his way, Gayanded back on him.
"Is it done?" asked Nightmare.
"It''s done," Gaya nodded.
The two of them flew toward Azazel and the royal dragon. The closer they got to them, the hotter the air became. The heat radiating from the royal dragon''s body melted the snowkes. As a result, Gaya and Nightmare got drenched by a heavy downpour.
The royal dragon flew left and right, trying to bite Azazel. Violet mes shot out of its mouth to burn down Azazel. Gaya could tell the dragon and Azazel were at a stalemate. Suppose the royal dragon brought backup, this battle would have gone in a different way. Yet, the royal dragon was too proud to fight along with anyone else. Its pride would be its downfall.
While the sea was filled with dead bodies, burning ships, and a freaking tornado, a group of soldiers gathered in one of the buildings in the golden port. They watched their men getting ughtered left and right without lifting a finger. General Franklin witnessed the death and destruction rained upon the thusian army from above. Unlike General Hubert, General Franklin was young. None would tell he was older than fifty or fifty-five. He was bald, masculine, and taller than an average human. The noticeable thing about Franklin was his metal arm. He lost his right arm, saving King Maxim from an assassination attempt. King Maxim showed his gratitude by tasking his best engineers to build this metal arm instead of finding a six-star healer to help Franklin grow a new arm. To be honest, Franklin liked this new arm of his.
Although he wanted to fight alongside the thusian naval army, he had his orders. No matter what, they were ordered to stay hidden until Ghost showed up. When he did, he and his men had to engage him and kill him with the Immortal killing spear.
All of his men wore the same dark robes to blend in with the dark sky. His unit consisted of fifty men. They were all plucked from the Thusian Royal Academy, the best of the best. These youngsters were dying to prove themselves. If General Booth had given them and ordered him to kill Ghost, a Half Immortal, Franklin would haveughed his ass off. But it wasn''t the case. General Booth gave these men an Immortal killing weapon and, more importantly, a n that could work.
None of them uttered a word despite all the death and destruction. They were trained to speak when they were spoken to. Franklin and his men had no expressions on their faces. To them, all that mattered was Ghost and his death.
Meanwhile, Gaya and Nightmare finally joined Azazel. The moment the royal dragon saw Nightmare, its eyes turned predatory. It bore its teeth and roared. His roar was filled with vengeance. Azazel quickly jumped onto Nightmare''s back beside Gaya. The royal dragon pped its wings as it started to chase after Nightmare. But instead of flying forward, Nightmare flew upwards. The royal dragon''s massive body turned into a colossal disadvantage as gravity pulled the royal dragon down more than it pulled down Nightmare.
Gaya turned around, firing arrow after arrow at the Royal dragon. On the other hand, Azazel used the wind st to hit the dragon before it could use the dragon''s breath. Nightmare flew higher and higher against the wind. Breathing became difficult for both Nightmare and Gaya. Nightmare flew higher to the point they no longer saw any storm or snowfall.
The royal dragon opened its mouth wide to sink its teeth into Nightmare. Gaya held onto the spikes on Nightmare''s spine to avoid losing her bnce.
"Now would be a good time," Gaya shouted, looking at the violet glow inside the royal dragon''s mouth. She felt the temperature rising by several degrees. It was evident the royal dragon was about to use its dragon breath. She could swear she saw the royal dragon grin devilishly.
Nightmare was exhausted. Every p of his wing took a great effort. Finally, Nightmare lost his strength. He closed his eyes as the royal dragon opened its mouth as wide as it could. Anyone in this situation would panic or shout but not Gaya. A grin emerged on her face. When Nightmare was about to fall down, a bolt of lightning struck the royal dragon from above. The lightning bolt struck straight into its wide-opened mouth. However, it was not just a lightning bolt. Instead, it was Ghost who flew straight into the dragon''s mouth using the lightning dash.
The moment Michael went into the royal dragon''s mouth, the dragon''s predatory eyes glistened with pain. The smell of burning flesh overwhelmed their senses. Why? Because Michael covered himself with the Dark mes.
Chapter 717 Thusian Death Squad Vs Michael
The royal dragon roared in pain. Michael traveled into the dragon''s body, burning everything in his path. Just imagining Michael inside the dragon made Gaya feel the urge to throw up. She wouldn''t have done that under any circumstance. The royal dragon dived down. Blood spurted out from its belly. There was nothing the royal dragon could do to stop Michael. The royal dragon tried to spit out Michael, but only blood and a blob of saliva shot out of its mouth.
"That fucking lizard," Gaya noticed the royal dragon flying toward the pirate ships. She leaped off from Nightmare''s back as she flew toward the royal dragon. She caught up with the dragon in a few blinks of an eye. The dragon nced at Gaya from the corner of its eyes. It roared. Gaya grabbed the side of the dragon''s face, ignoring the dragon''s roar.
Gaya used every bit of her strength to force the dragon to turn around. If the royal dragonnded on their ships, its massive body would crush several ships, including Big Bertha.
"Ghost, if you hear me, this bastard is heading for our ships. Kill it faster," said Gaya. As though Michael had heard her words, the dragon roared in agony. Gaya punched the dragon as she put all her strength into pushing the dragon to the other side.
Nightmare dived down through the clouds, hitting the royal dragon like a freight train. He bit the royal dragon''s wings, almost tearing it off. On the other hand, Azazel also joined Gaya. It took all the strength in their bodies to finally turn around the dragon. Considering they were close to the dragon, they were able to hear a thumping sounding from within the dragon.
The royal dragon slowly lost its strength. Its inside was burnt to jelly by the dark mes. The light of life slowly faded away from its eyes.
"Victoria,"
To their shock, the dragon roared Victoria''s name. For the first time, they heard the royal dragon speak. The moment the dragon roared, a fist came out of the dragon''s skull. Hot blood sttered on Gaya''s face. It felt almost like hotva. The dragon let out a final roar before starting to fall down.
Gaya flew down and held the dragon''s body on her shoulder. Veins popped up on her skin as she gritted. Every muscle in her body tensed up, carrying the massive dragon. Azazel and Nightmare did not let Gaya share the weight alone. They joined her as Azazel took the dragon''s head and Nightmare lifted its lower belly. The three of them slowly turned around and headed toward the thusian ships.
Albert led the thusians toward the pirate ships. He was able to navigate the ship around the tornado. The storm was a blessing disguised as a curse. Thanks to the storm, the mortar shells missed their target due to the heavy wind. Albert prayed to his grandfather to destroy the mortars. However, deep down, he knew something was amiss. If his grandfather had seeded, the red spotlights would have disappeared. Instead, he saw the royal dragon flying through the storm clouds.
For a moment, Albert and the crew felt relieved. But their relief was short-lived. He felt something was wrong. When he looked closely at the royal dragon, he saw no movement in the dragon''s body. It didn''t p its wings a single time. Albert quickly grabbed the rails in one hand to bnce himself and used his spyss to see another dragon right under the royal dragon. He moved his spyss and saw a girl and a man with wings carrying the royal dragon.
His hands automatically moved the spyss toward the dragon''s eyes. Only then did he notice theck of light of life in its eyes. He realized it was dead. Albert''s heart skipped a beat.
"They are going to drop the dragon on us!" He shouted.
"Abandon ship!" Albert saw no other options. Even if they cast their most powerful spells, it would be impossible to destroy the royal dragon''s body into pieces. Once it hit the ship, there was no surviving the explosion. Hence, Albert decided to abandon the ship. At Least his men had a better chance of flying away.
As Albert predicted, the royal dragon''s colossal body fell on them with enough force to shake the entire sea. At Least twenty to thirty ships were sted off from the sea by force. Countless ships sunk under the weight of the royal dragon. The moment the dragon hit the ocean, the collision force resulted in massive tsunami waves.
The wavespletely overthrew the front-line ships and destroyed their formation. It was the final nail in their coffin. Albert barely managed to escape the st. He hovered in the air with a heavy heart, looking at his ship sinking into the ocean. He clenched his fist. They were utterly defeated. Suddenly, a bolt of golden lightning struck the royal dragon. His hands instinctively covered his eyes. The sh was too bright. When he moved his hands to the side, he saw a figure slowly emerging from the lifeless corpse of the royal dragon.
He waspletely covered in blood. But the heavy downpour washed off the blood from his body, revealing his identity.
"Ghost," Albert mumbled.
Albert''s nail plunged into his palm. He couldn''t keep his anger in control when he saw Ghost smiling at all the death and destruction. The burning ships almost turned the dark night brighter. Michael had a ss bottle in his hand. It contained the blood of the royal dragon. Thanks to Gaya and Nightmare killing the Soul Refiners, Michael was able to reach the Half Immortal Stage level 6 when he slew the royal dragon.
He summoned the system to take a look at his status window.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Half Immortal level 6
Godhood: Fledgling God
Experience Points: 0/5,000,000
Badass Points: 800,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 5 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 8
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 5
Soul Eater - LVL 5
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 94% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation: The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Rebuild the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 15,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 89%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 75%)
Sadie (loyalty level 60%)
Ricky (loyalty level 98%)
Titus(loyalty level 70%)
Optimus (loyalty level 70%)
Big Bertha Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 93%)
Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect
The Abyssal
The Crypt
Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (20% Mastery) Fire (20% Mastery) (Lightning 30% Mastery) (Darkness 35%)
Michael was neither happy nor disappointed at himself. All he felt was the urge to be stronger. The destruction of thusians ships made him happier than seeing his status window. He clenched his fist. He wanted to kill the rest of the thusians. As soon as he exited the system, he sensed several people rushing toward him from all directions.
"Let me take care of them," Michael heard Gaya''s voice. But he raised his hand, wordlessly telling her to stand down.
"Take care of the soldiers. Destroy half of their ships,"
"And I will take over the rest," Gaya finished Michael''s words.
The soldiers flew straight toward him all wore identical clothes. They covered their heads with dark cloaks. Michael wondered what they were trying to achieve by heading straight toward him. The strongest one among them was a Fusion Stage level 4 cultivator. Even if they were all Fusion stage cultivators, they would have no choice. The majority of the soldiers were at the Core Formation stage. Michael was confused.
Still, Michael did not underestimate them. He flew away from the battlefield into the dark clouds. He quickly cast the lightning dash to increase his speed. The distance between Michael and the soldiers grew quickly. Michael did not slow until he flew straight into the tornado itself.
By doing this, Michael tested the soldiers'' resolve to kill him. In other words, Michael wanted to see how badly they wanted him dead. To Michael''s surprise, the soldiers did not slow down, not even a bit. Michael slowly disappeared into the dark tornado. The soldiers finally slowed down a bit. They couldn''t locate Michael.
"Use the tracking scroll," Franklin, the leader of the elite death squad, ordered his men. One of them quickly took out a glowing silver parchment. A single rune radiated a bright silvery light. The soldier quickly tore it in half as the glowing rune appeared in the air above them.
In the center of the tornado, Michael saw a thin yet brightyer of light appear on him. The soldiers immediately turned their heads toward Michael''s direction as though they had seen him through the tornado.
"You guys never learn,"
Franklin heard Ghost''s words echo through the air.
"But thanks for making me stronger," Franklin heard Ghostugh.
Franklin felt his neck hair stand up. Before he could react, hundreds of golden lightning bolts struck from above. He immediately took out another scroll, tore it, and teleported away. Those who managed to react in time escaped. The others just fell from the sky with one or more holes in their bodies.
"Teleportation won''t save you," said Ghost.
"Raven maneuver," Franklin shouted.
Michael saw the remaining soldiers flying in some kind of formation. They all raise their hands as their bodies multiply in number. These illusions were meant to disorient Michael. This time, Michael felt his neck hair stand up. He immediately dashed away, missing the golden spear to his heart by a few inches.
The golden spear disappeared before Michael could take a closer look. Finally, Michael realized their n.
"An Immortal killing weapon," Michael mumbled under his breath. He could tell their n was to confuse Michael, hide the spear and stab him with it when he least expected. The n would have worked if Michael had not upgraded his Environmental Scanning.
Chapter 718 Not A Half Immortal But A God
Michael cracked his neck as the death squad surrounded him. The soldiers quickly cast various spells to protect themselves from him. They tore some scrolls to boost their strengths. Although Michael did not know what these scrolls would do, he could tell they were fully prepared to face him. Furthermore, the soldiers hid the golden spear. Michael scanned them all with his X-ray vision, yet he was unable to see who was holding the spear. It seemed to him they had used some powerful runes to hide the weapon from his sight.
"Panther formation!" Michael saw the Fusion stage warrior shout. Following his order, the soldiers took out a yellowish pill and tossed it into their mouths. Michael was surprised by the energy radiation from the pill. They were all at least 96% pure pills. Which meant they were concocted by a Six-Star Alchemist.
Michael looked at the soldiers curiously to see what the pill could do. They soon quenched Michael''s thirst for curiosity by dashing toward Michael faster than a typical Core Formation warrior''s abilities. Granted, they were now here close to Michael''s speed, but they were fast enough to make a Soul Refiner lose their sight.
To Michael''s surprise, a golden spear appeared in everyone''s hand. Not that Michael had no way of finding out the real spear, he just wanted to try something else. Michael hovered in the air without moving an inch. He didn''t even cast a spell. The soldiers didn''t hesitate to strike Michael. Instead, they dashed at him with the ferocity of a beast and swung the golden spears left and right.
The spear cut through Michael''s clothes. Still, none of the spear strikes hurt his skin. After being tempered by the lightning strikes when he crossed the heavenly tribtion, his body became tough as metal. Normal weapons such as these golden spears stood no chance of hurting him, unlike the real golden spear.
On the other hand, Gaya, Nightmare, and Azazel ughtered the soldiers on the sea. The more people they killed, the more experience points Michael earned. Azazel especially turned into a killing machine. He didn''t even use any spells but killed them with his bare hands. At that moment, Gayanded on a frigate. Nightmare breathed frost around the ship, freezing the water to prevent the ship from moving. The strongest soldier on the deck was a Core Formation warrior. He was busy turning the rudder until Gaya sent an arrow straight through his head. His crew panicked. Several chakras appeared around Gaya as the remaining soldiers began to cast spells. However, Azazelnded directly on the center of the deck. He pped his wings, sending a powerful gust of wind. Some soldiers were immediately knocked down by the wind''s force. Azazel leaped into the air beforending right beside two soldiers. The soldiers panicked, and before they could react, Azazel grabbed their heads. Gaya saw their heads explode like watermelons.
Until now, Gaya had never seen the demon side of Azazel. Truth be told, she almost forgot Azazel was a demon and not a butler. He mimicked Michael''s lightning dash to wreak havoc on the deck. In a couple of seconds, Gaya saw several bloody veils of mist in the air. Eventually, the soldiers fell down without their heads.
Nightmare''s kills were less brutal than Azazel''s. He just flew above the ship, breathing frost to freeze the soldiers. After he froze thempletely, Nightmarended on the ship with enough force to shatter the frozen soldiers. Gaya only focused on killing the strongest one on the ship. He let Nightmare and Azazel have fun.
"What''s happening there?" Gaya looked at the swirling tornado. He couldn''t see anyone or anything except blue bolts of lightning.
Deep inside the tornado, the death squad soldiers led by Franklin went all in. They cut Michael''s clothes into pieces. Michael ripped off his top, revealing his chiseled muscles. He waited for the real Immortal killing spear to strike him.
"Star formation," Franklin shouted.
They couldn''t even make Ghost bleed a drop of blood until now. This was the first time Franklin had fought a Half Immortal. He read about how tough their bodies were, but it was still shocking to experience it in person. Whenever Franklin cut Ghost with the golden spear made of pure arch energy, he felt like he was cutting a metal block.
He had a feeling Ghost was toying with them. He didn''t even try to move or cast a spell. Instead, he hovered over the air, letting his soldiers attack him from all directions. Unlike Albert, Franklin didn''t believe Hubert was still alive. If he was, the thusians wouldn''t be getting bombarded with mortar to this moment.
The star formation was a code word to strike Ghost with the real Immortal killing spear. Before the battle, the death squad had a meeting to finalize their attack n with Edith. She wasn''t a strategist, but Franklin and his men received many powerful scrolls from her. ording to her, Ghost possessed an ability to see how strong his foes were despite the void effect. Hence, they decided to keep rotating the spear between the soldiers instead of Franklin keeping it.
Since he was the strongest among them, Ghost would naturally target him, and if he had the spear, Ghost could kill and take the spear to himself. At that time, there would be nothing left to stop him. Franklin knew Ghost was underestimating them. That was the reason he was letting them attack him. Franklin decided to use his arrogance against him. As soon as the soldiers heard Franklin''s order, they moved to form the star formation. Ghost was the center of their formation.
The soldiers dashed forward with lightning speed. From the ground level, Gaya saw shes of bright lights inside the dark tornado. When Franklin was a few meters away from Ghost, he flicked his wrist as the golden spear materialized in his hand. He did not wait for Ghost to turn around. Three soldiers stabbed Ghost with their golden spears at the same time. This time, one of them was the real Immortal killing weapon, and Franklin held it. As he and his men practiced, they transferred the rune to summon the real spear to Franklin at the veryst second.
The moment he received the rune, he summoned the spear and plunged it straight through Ghost''s heart. Ghost coughed up blood as he grabbed the spear sticking out through his chest. Franklin twisted the spear. The images of his team getting struck by lightning bolts shed across his eyes. He pushed the spear deeper. The soldiers finally stopped flying around Michael. They all felt relieved. Blood trickled down GHost''s mouth.
"This is for all the thusians you killed," Franklin growled. He pulled the spear and stabbed Ghost again. Although they fought wars from all sides continuously, they had never felt terrified until GHost took over the cities they conquered in a couple of days. He wiped off the entire battalion led by powerful generals without breaking a sweat. For the first time, every soldier in Thusia felt the sprout of fear growing in their hearts.
Seeing Ghost bleed and cough out blood was worth all the men and ships they had lost. Without Ghost, they could wipe off the resistance in a week or two. When Franklin stabbed GHost for the fourth time, the soldiers felt relieved. But their relief was short-lived. Suddenly, a grin appeared on Ghost''s face. He grabbed the spear and pulled it out of him. Franklin struggled to keep the spear in his hand as Ghost was too strong.
"How did it feel?" asked Ghost. He spat out the blood. The devilish grin on his face sent chills running down their spines. Yet again, Michael spat a mouth full of blood. Despite the blood, his face showed no signs of pain. Franklin grabbed the spear with his two hands. Still, he couldn''t overpower Ghost.
"Back me up!" Franklin shouted as the soldiers rushed to his aid. Some grabbed the spear, while some grabbed Michael''s hands. At that moment, almost thirty soldiers struggled against Michael.
"Shit," Franklin growled. He felt he was slowly losing the spear to Ghost.
"Wind st!" Suddenly, a powerful gust of wind sted everyone away from Ghost. They flung away like kites without an anchor in a storm. When Franklin regained his bnce, he saw the golden spear in Ghost''s hands. Franklin poured his energy into the summoning rune to call the spear back to him. The golden spear frantically trembled in Michael''s hands until Franklin saw the rune on his palm shatter.
Ghost finally moved his head upwards to take a look at Franklin. The wounds on his chest closed up in a few blinks of an eye. Michael raised the spear, swinging it yfully.
"How did it feel to have some hope? How did it feel when that hope shattered just like that?" Michael snapped.
"Your whole n depended on this, right? What did you expect? You stab me with it, saying some bullshit, and I die like a viin?" Michael''s chuckle echoed through the air.
"Nightmare, it''s time," Franklin heard Michael. The very next moment, Michael dashed at Franklin. He appeared before him in a blink of an eye. Franklin immediately cast a spell as an etherial bow and arrow appeared behind him. The gigantic bow and arrow lit the sky with its brightness. When Michael grabbed Franklin by his neck, the bow released the giant arrow. The arrow hit Michael. To Franklin''s surprise, the arrow shattered into sparks of fire. He saw a translucent shield appear around Ghost for a moment before the arrow hit him.
Franklin felt Ghost''s grab around his neck tighten. He heard a thunderous roar. It was difficult for him to move his head. Still, he was able to see a dragon''s shadow in the sky below them. While Franklin struggled under Michael''s grab, Nightmare reached the bottom of the tornado. He flew around it, breathing frost onto the tornado.
Gaya couldn''t help raising her brows when she saw Nightmare freezing the entire tornado from down to the top. The temperature dropped by several degrees as Franklin watched his men getting froze to death without being able to do anything.
"What are you?" Franklin barely managed to utter these words.
"A god,"
Chapter 719 Blood Of The Royal Dragon
"Stab him with it, and the runes I engraved in it will take care of the rest," Franklin recalled Edith''s words. He and his men were told that Ghost would die if he stabbed Ghost with the spear. On the contrary, nothing happened to Ghost. Even without Edith''s runes, Franklin lived long enough to know a Half Immortal could be killed with an Immortal killing weapon. This spear was not like other Immortal killing weapons. Instead, it was forged using several bones of a level 10 Immortal and drenched in the Immortal''s blood for a year. He knew it should have killed Ghost.
Michael lifted Franklin up. He was about to snap Franklin''s neck when he sensed someone appears behind him. None of Franklin''s men survived Nightmare''s frost breath. The majority of them were stuck inside the frozen tornado, while a few were shot down from the sky by Gaya. It was Albert who decided to face Michael.
Michael slowly turned around without letting go of Franklin.
"Who are you?" Michael creased his brows. Not that Michael was ridiculing Albert, he seriously didn''t know him.
"Did you kill General Hubert?" asked Albert.
Michael didn''t respond to Albert. Instead, he pointed his finger at Albert. The golden lightning bolt crackled around Michael''s fist before shooting toward Albert. Before Albert could react, a golden bolt of lightning prated his head. In the end, Albert couldn''t keep his word to Hubert. Michael ended his life within a snap of time. Showing before Michael wearing the armor of thusia was equal to killing themselves.
Franklin saw thest member of the proud Mertz family falling from the sky. It made him wonder whether this was Thusia''s end.
"Yes," He said as though Ghost had read his mind. Franklin suddenly felt a sharp pain in his neck before everything around him turned dark. Finally, Michael let go of Franklin''s body.
[Congrattions to the host for leveling up. The current stage is Half Immortal Level 8]
Thanks to Gaya, Azazel, and Nightmare ughtering the soldiers, Michael was able to get to level 8 without much effort. After he killed Franklin, Gaya flew straight to Michael. Because Nightmare had frozen the tornado and the pirate ships stopped destroying the thusian ships, the sea finally calmed down. Even from afar, Michael could smell the burning flesh and oil in the air.
"That''s a nice spear," Gaya said, looking at the spear.
"Not just a spear. An immortal killing spear,"
Michael told everything that happened, from the death squad appearance to Franklin stabbing him with the spear. The moment Gaya heard Michael let Frankling stab him, she squeezed Michael''s shoulders. Her eyes glistened with anger and concern.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Gaya almost pped Michael.
"Rx. If any Immortal killing weapon could kill me, Qin Jiu and the Mazeroth founders wouldn''t have made god-killing arrows. But it''s good to confirm I cannot be killed with these things," Michael looked at the golden spear in his hand.
[Please don''t be too haughty, host. Although these weapons cannot kill you, you will lose your cultivation if you get stabbed through your head. If you get beheaded, your skills and spells will be reset to level 1, and you will float as a soul until the system finds you a body. It might take a week, a month, or even decades]
The system sounded like it was yelling at Michael. The system''s response wasn''t a big surprise to Michael.
"So we have to prioritize finding the god-killing arrows and the armor pieces you told me about earlier," said Gaya.
"I already found one piece," Michael used the system to find one of his armor pieces for three hundred thousand badass points. He didn''t know how many pieces there were. However, if his past self left these armor in pieces, it meant he did that for a reason. Most probably, his past self did not want others or the Skyhall to find the armor. He must have known his future self would use the system to find those armor pieces and assemble the armor. Michael wondered what made his past self reset an entire universe. He had few clues after hearing about Gaya''s dream and his journey into various universes.
"But if you pull any shit like this again, I will finish what the Skyhall couldn''t,"
"Of course you will, my dear queeny," Michael wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him.
"My lord," Azazel flew directly to Michael. He bowed his head. His body waspletely drenched with blood, and his eyes were with excitement.
"You had a good time?" asked Michael.
"I have to say my lord. I''d love to experience this feeling again,"
"Keep your battle lust in check, Azazel. Don''t let it go to your head," Gaya advised Azazel. After seeing how he ughtered those soldiers, Gaya feared Azazel might be too addicted to killing people. Michael also noticed the glistening lust for blood in his eyes. He had seen the same battle lust in Spectre''s eyes. But Michael did not say anything because he would take time to train all of his subordinates. He had ways to break one''s lust for blood.
"Azazel, head to the dark forest and get yourself cleaned up. I want you to keep a close eye on all our people. I have a feeling the thusians will hit back harder after this,"
"As you wish, my lord," Azazel bowed toward Michael and Gaya before vanishing into thin air.
Nightmare came flying to Michael as Gaya and Michael leaped onto his back. Several ships carrying King Gunner and King Baldur''s army finally reached the docks. Big Bertha did note closer to the Golden Port but teleported back to the Southern continent using Elidyr''s teleportation array. Now that Michael''s naval army had wiped off almost two third of the Thusian army, he let the army deal to upy the Golden Port.
Michael didn''t bother to check on the army. Instead, he returned to King Gunner''s castle. Surprisingly, King Gunner was there to wee Michael, Gaya, and Nightmare with Yagnar, General Bryce, and Prince Davarius. Their faces were brimming with delight. The three of them watched the thusians getting destroyed by Ghost''s naval army while they were inside the thusian warehouse. Although they were terrified by the power of Ghost''s naval army, they were d he was against Thusia. Moreover, they robbed the warehouse clean. They knew that would certainly hurt the thusians in their war.
While walking toward them, Michael willed the system to equip a new set of clothes.
"Master Ghost, how''s the war going? We saw your naval army was destroying the thusians left and right," General Bryce grinned from ear to ear.
"It''s over. We won. The Golden Port is yours," The smiles on their faces froze.
"You should quickly visit there and solidify the defenses. We don''t want the thusians to hit back, do we?" said Michael.
"Plus, your men need you until I finish some things up here," said Gaya.
''I assume you did your job well,"
Yagnar nodded.
"Good. We can discuss itter. Now I have something else to do. Please excuse me,"
"Of course," King Gunner said.
Leaving them behind, Michael headed toward his room.
"What are we doing?" asked Nightmare. He jumped onto the bed. Michael quickly closed the door and the curtains. Afterward, Michael willed the system to teleport them to the pocket dimension in the dark forest. Since the pocket dimension wasn''t affected by winter, they felt warm and cozy. However, Michael was not in the mood to take a break. Instead, he took out the bottle filled with the royal dragon''s blood.
"System, I have the royal dragon blood. So it''s time to make Nightmare a royal dragon,"
[It would cost the host fifty thousand badass points]
"I know. Now tell me, what''s the procedure?" asked Michael.
Immediately, his badass points were reduced by fifty thousand.
[Please be advised the process of changing Nightmare''s body from the molecr level will take up to a week. During this time, Nightmare will be unconscious]
"Noted," Michael nodded.
[You just need to inject the blood into Nightmare and let the system take care of the rest]
An eight-inch syringe materialized in Michael''s hand. Just the sight of the needle made Nightmare hold Gaya''s neck tightly. For some reason, he feared the needle.
"What do you n to do with that?" asked Gaya. When Michael filled the syringe with the royal dragon''s blood, her question was answered.
"Nightmare, I''d suggest closing your eyes," Nightmare cowered behind Gaya''s head, hearing Michael.
"Ohe on, you''re not going to inject that thing into him," Gaya stopped Michael.
"Don''t spoil him. He''s a dragon. He won''t even feel it," Michael rolled his eyes.
"Figure out another way," Gaya took a step back. She was not willing to let Michael stab Nightmare with that giant needle.
"Nightmare," Michael called out Nightmare. His voice was stern as Nightmare slowly peeked his head through Gaya''s hair.
"Don''t you want to be stronger? This injection can make you an unstoppable Royal dragon," Nightmare''s eyes sparkled. He slowly climbed on top of Gaya''s head and stood on his two legs.
"What''s wrong with being a forest dragon? We just killed a royal dragon. Bloodline mean shit when you don''t have power and battle experience," Gay protested.
Although she was right as usual, Michael wanted Nightmare to be a Royal Dragon. He didn''t want Nightmare to feel inferior to any dragon in this world.
"It''s okay," Nightmare nudged Gaya''s head with his face. He then leaped onto Ghost''s hand and closed his eyes tight.
"Shhh," Surprisingly, Gaya hissed, closing her eyes as though Michael was sticking the needle into her neck.
Michael slowly injected the royal dragon''s blood into Nightmare. The more he injected the blood, the hotter Nightmare''s skin felt. He ced Nightmare under the apple tree.
"You can open your eyes now," Michael said to Gaya.
Chapter 720 Bribing The Guardian Guild
The next day after the Golden Port battle, a group of men was riding their horses through the frozen paddy fields. There were twenty to thirty wooden houses covered in snow. The women and men in the vige stepped out of their warm homes to start their day. From the outside, the vige looked no different than any other farming vige. But this vige was something more. It was a ce where the Northguard rebels were hiding.
"General Zakari, the winter seemed to have hit this vige pretty hard. Don''t you think so?" The man who led the group asked General Zakari. Except for the leader, the others were adorned with leather armor with metal ting to protect their chests and shoulders. Six of the seven of them were Soul refining stage warriors. The leader was at the Fusion Stage level 10. He was none other than General Booth. Now, after being offered the duchy of Valeria, he was called Duke Booth by the thusians.
Duke Booth halted riding his white-maned horse and stared at the vige in the distance.
"I think we should warm them up," Booth turned his gaze toward Zakari. His eyes glistened with killing intent. General Zakari nodded. Wasting no time, General Zakari ascended to the air. He flew toward the vige.
"Bring me the vige leader and five others," Booth said to another Soul Refining stage general.
"Burn the rest," Booth said. He was nonchnt. To him, burning this vige was no different than having breakfast. He lost count of how many viges he burnt down and how many people he had killed.
The vigers didn''t notice Zakari hovering in the sky above them. The snowfall made their vision blurry. Their peaceful day took a turn for the worst when a fiery boulder hit the center of the vige. The boulder hit the vige with enough force to decimate the surrounding homes. Pieces of the fiery boulder scattered out, lighting the vige like a Christmas tree.
Some people screamed in shock, and some screamed in pain. General Austin was ordered to capture the vige elder and five others.
"I hope the old man is still in one piece," General Austin said, looking at the fire engulfing the entire vige. He headed for the only two-story building in the vige. If the vige elder was somewhere, it would be thisvish home. Meanwhile, General Zakari rained down fire from above. General Austin flew through the falling fiery boulders to the vige elder''s home.
General Booth watched the vige burn with a calm face.
"Zakari is definitely having fun with his new spell," Booth chuckled. He gifted the spell to Zakari for capturing Prince Davarius. People would literally kill to have such a powerful Epic ss spell. The destruction this spell brought could bepared to a Legendary ss spell. The boulders crushed the vigers and burnt their skin off.
To this moment, the vigers had no idea why they were being ughtered. Suddenly, five men shot toward the sky from the vige. They wore silver robes and hoods to cover their heads. Booth and his general were familiar with the robes. Their robes once represented the Northguard royal family, and now, they belonged to the rebels led by Prince Davarius.
Booth''s mission was simple. He wanted to burn down some viges and take a few hostage. Unfortunately, he decided to burn down this vige because the rebels chose this ce to hide. General Zakari didn''t even flinch when he saw the rebels.
"It''s because of you those vigers are dying right now," Zakari said with a devilish grin on his face. Fury and rage glistened under the rebels'' hoods. The thusians had invaded their homnd, piged their farms, feasted on their women, and burnt down viges. Simply put, the thusians turned a once peaceful kingdom into a war zone.
"They did nothing to you bastard!" One of the rebels couldn''t keep his rage contained. He dashed at Zakari with his sword raised. The sword radiated a violet light.
"Hand of justice," Zakari cast a spell as a fist made of sparkling silver energy materialized above the rebel. The rebel swung his sword left and right, trying to cut the fist. However, the power gap between a Core Formation warrior and a Soul Refining stage warrior with Cosmic energy coursing through his body was gigantic. The fist opened up, grabbed the rebel, and squeezed him until he turned into a bloody paste.
Before the other rebels could retaliate, Zakari raised his hand as several boulders soared down the sky andnded right on top of the rebels. The fire enveloping the boulders burnt down the rebels. They couldn''t even defend themselves against Zakari. Booth watched the rebels'' burnt bodies falling down from the sky with an amused smile.
Booth didn''t give a damn about the rebels. Otherwise, he would have ordered his men to capture them. No, Booth had bigger ns for the vigers.
After killing the rebels, Zakari cast the meteor spell once again, not because he was required to but because he liked casting his new spell. In a few minutes, the vige waspletely destroyed. Furthermore, the spells turned the t vige into a massive crater.
The vige elder''s house finally crumbled down to pieces. Luckily, Austin managed to grab the elder and five others in a bubble before Zakari destroyed the house. Despite the winter, the air became hotter. It took a few moments for the silence to take over the vige. Except for the sound of crackling wood, one could hear nothing.
When Zakari and Austin returned to Booth, he saw the unconscious bodies of the vige elder and five others.
"Send them to my castle," Booth waved his hand casually. Zakari nodded as he took out a golden scroll. When he tore the scroll, a bright light enveloped the vigers. The light disappeared as soon as it appeared with the vigers.
"Where to your grace?" asked Zakari.
"Isn''t there another vige nearby?" asked Booth.
His men bobbed their heads up and down.
"Then let''s go there,"
*********************************************
The next day after Booth''s visit to Northguard, Booth was ordered to meet someone from the Guardian Guild. Booth stood before the mirror, neatlybing his hair and mustache. Usually, Booth preferred to be in armor and avoid fancy robes, but today was an exception. Apparently, the man he was about to meet was a major financial backer of the Guardian Guild.
So Princess Victoria ordered him to be on his best behavior.
"Why can''t Edith meet with this old pig?" Booth snickered.
"Your grace. Lord Oswald is waiting for you in the guest room," Booth heard his maid sound gentle and sweet as always.
"I''ll be there in a minute," said Booth. He adjusted his robes onest time and walked out of the room. By the time he reached the guest room, he saw a short man with no hair whatsoever on his head munching on the apples waiting for him. The man''s belly was big enough to make Booth doubt whether he had swallowed a pig whole.
"Duke Booth," the man grinned from ear to ear. Bits of pieces of apple flew out of his mouth. He was simply disgusting in Booth''s eyes. Nheless, he had to show this man some respect in order to get his help.
"Lord Oswald. I hope you had a pleasant trip," Booth let out a phony smile.
"It was wonderful," Lord Oswalk pped.
"I honestly didn''t think Princess Victoria would personally reach out to me and ask me to meet you. This must be pretty important given the unfortunate circumstances," said Oswald.
"It''s not unfortunate, just a few bumps on the road. With your help, we can sort it out in no time," said Booth.
"My help. I am not sure what I can do to help you in this war, Duke Booth," Oswald scratched his bald head. Booth was not stupid to believe Oswald. He knew very well the man was trying to y hardball.
"I heard Lord Oswald has taken a liking to a piece ofnd in Valeria. Is there any truth to what I heard?" asked Booth.
People like Oswald had no chance of reaching higher cultivation stages. Hence, they loved wealth,nd, and women more than they loved cultivation resources. Although Oswald had enough wealth to feed at least five generations, he lusted for more wealth andnd. Victoria knew this. Her spies had been following Oswald for at least six months now.
"I did like thend of Duke Booth. But I heard it belonged to Queen Valeria''s family," Oswald sighed.
"I can literally imagine a five-acre vineyard, the smell of ripe grapes and the sweet taste of high-quality wine, "
Booth leaned forward,
"What if I tell you I can get you thend and help you build the vineyard of your dream?"
Oswald pretended to be surprised. But inside, he knew he could get his hands on thend. Thanks to Ghost, the thusians had no choice but toe to him.
"In exchange for?" Oswald dragged his words,
"In exchange for the Guardian Guild to send their rogue Immortals to deal with Ghost," said Booth.
"That''s a pretty big ask for a piece ofnd, Duke Booth. It''s not my decision but the board''s decision,"
General Booth smiled.
"We both know your capabilities to sway them to your side, Lord Oswald. Also, it''s not only about thend, its power, and respect,"
"Let''s just assume I can help you, there are seven others on the board. Convincing them to vote to send an Immortal to Thusia to help you win a war that you started first is nothing but impossible," Oswald shook his head.
"You''ve made the impossible possible by rewriting the rules, Lord Oswald. Don''t you think thend would go nice with the princess?"
Oswald was pleasantly surprised.
"What do you mean by that, Duke Booth?" Oswald asked. His jaw almost dropped down.
"I mean, once you sway the board to send an Immortal to put an end to Ghost, his majesty would be happy to offer Princess Victoria''s hands to your son in marriage. I am pretty sure that''s worth more than the votes of your fellow board members,"
"Are you joking with me right now, Duke Booth?" asked Oswald.
Booth''s smile disappeared from his face.
"Do I look like I am joking, Lord Oswald?"
Chapter 721 Father Of My Child
A few hourster, Edith arrived at Booth''s castle. The moment Edith entered the guest room, she saw Booth waiting for her with his men. Judging by the dark lines on his face, she could tell the negotiation with Oswald did not go as Booth liked.
"Miss Edith," Booth greeted her with a light bow.
"How did it go?" asked Edith.
"I have good and bad news. The good news is that gross pig agreed to help us. The bad news is the Guardian will only send a Half Immortal off the books," said Booth.
"They are afraid of the effects of two Immortals battling it out,"
Edith joined Booth and his men at the table.
"I expected this. But if my n worked, the guardians would be forced to send all their Immortals after Ghost. Give me the reports of the Golden Port battle,"
Booth grabbed a scroll and slid it toward Edith. She opened it up to read everything that had transpired in the Golden Port. Victoria''s spies wrote everything that happened in the Golden Port from start to finish.
"General Franklin finished his mission," said Edith. Booth was confused by her words. As far as he read the report, Ghost massacred the death squad. Furthermore, they managed to lose the Immortal killing weapon given to Franklin by Princess Victoria. That spear was more valuable than Franklin''s life. So even if Franklin was alive, Booth would have killed him just for losing the spear.
"Unless his mission was to lose the spear and die, I don''t see how his mission was a sess," General Zakari rolled his eyes.
"That was his mission,"
Everyone, including Booth, was startled by her answer.
"Is there something you need to share with the group Miss Edith?" Booth''s voice became cold. As the General of the Thusian army, Booth did not like secret ns behind his back. Judging by the look in Edith''s eyes, Booth could tell she did n something behind his back.
"I ced a special rune on the spear,"
"Special rune?" Booth tilted his head.
"Do you remember that the Dark Lord chased Ghost to the Royal Land Holy church and almost killed him?"
Booth and his men nodded.
"Thanks to the talented engineers and runemasters in Thusia, we have managed to create a rune that would mimic the Dark Lord''s energy signature,"
Seeing the bewildered faces of the generals, Edith sighed. She took a moment to simplify things for them to understand.
"Just think that the rune will make Ghost look like the Dark Lord," said Edith. Truth be told, even Edith wasn''t clear about the effects of the rune. Unlike she told Booth and her men, neither she nor the thusians created the rune. Instead, she found the scroll instructing her how to create the rune to stop Ghost in her room. To this moment, she had no idea who left the rune or how they managed to get into her room in Thusian castle, one of the most protected ces in the world.
The circumstances forced Edith to create the rune instead of finding out who had left it in her room.
"So why aren''t we not activating the rune? If what you said about the rune was true, we don''t need Oswald," said Booth.
"We need four more days for the rune to stay with Ghost. ording to this report, he had taken the spear with him. Let him keep that. We just need four more days," said Edith.
*******************************************************
After meeting Booth, Edith returned to her room in Thusian castle. To her shock, Lah was standing inside her room with an ancient parchment in her hand. Lah''s eyes were both filled with anger and concern.
"What is this?" Lah raised the parchment with several runes and instructions written on it.
"It''s¡It''s nothing¡" Edith rushed forward and snatched the parchment from Lah.
"And what the hell are you doing in my room? Isn''t it enough for you to stay in the castle? Now you need to stay in my room?" Edith snarled.
"You created something you shouldn''t have. You are making things worse for everyone, Edith," Lah''s voice was colder than usual. Although she was not a runemaster, she knew enough to know Edith had created something to turn Ghost into the Dark Lord in front of the world. Lah didn''te here to protect only Edith but also Ghost.
Seeing Edith stoop to such lengths to save Thusia and the royal family hurt Lah.
"At Least I am doing something," Edith''s eyes turned red in anger.
"You''re trying to frame Ghost for being the Dark Lord. He doesn''t deserve that. Don''t you think Thusia has taken enough from him? You know everything they did to him. Why are you still siding with them?"
"Because Victoria is my friend" Edith stomped the floor.
"And I am your sister," Lah raised her voice.
"Do not do this, Edith. If you do this, the thusians will keep hurting innocent people,"
"Open your eyes, Lah. We are at war, and I picked my side. If I don''t stop Ghost, he will kill Victoria and her family. I won''t let that happen as long as I am alive,"
"This is not the way to stop him. Listen to yourself. This is not you," Lah grabbed Edith''s shoulder and shook her.
"Don''t talk to me like you know me Lah,"
Lah was stunned by Edith''s words for a few moments. The anger in Edith''s eyes shocked Lah to the core.
"You care about Ghost more than you ever cared about your own family,"
"Edith," Lah gritted her teeth. The temperature in the room suddenly dropped by several degrees.
"What? You want to kill me?" Edith growled.
"You have never ever given a damn about your family-"
Lah pped Edith with enough force to make Edith stumble backward and fall down. Blood trickled down from the corner of Edith''s mouth.
"There she is. That''s the Lah Alden I know. That''s the Lah Alden our father knew. That''s the Lah Alden our Alden family knew before they killed our father because of what you did,"
Edith''s eyes became watery.
"Don''t put that on me. Father had no right to give his word to someone else about marrying me. It wasn''t his decision to make,"
"He did nothing wrong as a father. You could have rejected the marriage in so many ways. But no, you shamed father in front of all Gondolin," Tears rolled out of Edith''s eyes.
"You hated him for marrying my mother, and you used his one downfall to shame him. Because of what you did, they killed our father!" Edith''s shout turned into a powerful wave. The flower vases in the room shattered as a result. Except for Lah, Edith''s furious roar moved everything in the room.
"I killed them all," Lah growled. She couldn''t control her body from trembling in anger. Until now, she didn''t know Edith was ming her for what happened to Nobert Alden. However, her hatred was justified. After all, Edith didn''t know what really happened. If Lah was in Edith''s ce, she would hate her too.
The only reason why Lah didn''t tell Edith was the truth would destroy the image of Nobert in Edith''s heart. Lah didn''t want to sully the memory of Nobert.
"Did that bring father back?" Edith picked herself from the floor. Her cheek still had Lah''s handprint on it.
"You are the reason why father was killed. But you didn''t care to stick around. I watched my mother cry every day. I watched our family decline. I lived in the mess you left behind. But where were you? You were living your life on your own ind like a queen,"
"You have no idea what really happened, just like you have no idea what''s happening around you now," said Lah. Only a few really knew what really happened between Lah and her father. Not even Edith''s mother knew what he really did and why Lah left her family, leaving everyone behind.
"Say what you want. I picked my side. Even if Victoria was in the wrong, I wouldn''t leave her side. Do you know why? Because she was there for our family and me when you weren''t. I might be naive, stupid, and all other things, but I am not ungrateful,"
"Did you bother to think about the people around Ghost? What would happen to them after you frame him?"
"I am sick of you caring for Ghost. Who is he to you?!" Edith raised her voice.
She grabbed Lah,
"Who is he to you? Why are you trying to save him so much?" Edith shook Lah as he continuously questioned Lah about the rtionship between her and Ghost. Lah clenched her fist,
"He is the father of my child!" The moment these words escaped Lah''s mouth, Edith''s body tensed. She couldn''t believe what she had just heard. Silence fell over the room.
"What?'' Finally, Edith let go of Lah as tears rolled out of her eyes.
Lah kept this a secret long enough. She was already hurt by Edith, so when she kept questioning her about Ghost, Lah couldn''t control herself.
Her legs gave up as Lah copsed to the ground.
"Lah, what are you talking about?"
Although Edith was furious at Lah, when she saw the tears in her eyes, Edith couldn''t stay mad at Lah. Despite all the hatred and anger, Edith loved Lah. That was the truth.
"You have a child?" asked Edith. She sat beside La and wrapped her hands around Lah.
"A spirit child," Lah mumbled.
It took Edith a few moments to let her words sink into her head.
"Why didn''t you tell me about this?" asked Edith.
Lah sobbed instead of responding to Edith.
"It''s okay. You don''t have to carry the burden yourself. I am here. Please, get it out of your chest. Don''t keep it bottled. I know what it would do to a person. You are always smarter than me. Tell me what happened Lah," Edith wiped off the tears rolling out of Lah''s eyes.
? Eventually, Lah gave up and began to share everything that happened between her and Ghost with Edith. But unknown to them, someone else was outside their room, listening to Lah''s story.
"This can change everything," The figure standing outside mumbled.
Chapter 722 Mother鈥檚 Wisdom
A few hours after Edith and Lah argued in Edith''s room, Zakari rushed to the duchy of Valeria. He almost knocked down the guards on his way to Booth''s room.
? "General Booth''s gonna love this," Zakari mumbled.
"Your grace," Zakari knocked on Booth''s door.
Seeing no responseing from Booth, Zakari knocked once again.
"Your grace, it''s Zakari," said Zakari.
"Come in," Finally, Zakari heard Booth''s voice. He didn''t even wait for a second as he pushed open the door. Seeing the brightened face of Zakari, Booth tossed the scroll in his hand away. He leaned back in his chair.
"What is it?" asked Booth.
"Your grace, you''re not going to believe what I just heard,"
"Enlighten me," said Booth.
"Lah Alden and Ghost have a child," The moment Booth heard Zakari, his eyes went wide. Soon, Zakari told Booth everything from Edith''s argument with Lah to the existence of the spirit child. Booth couldn''t believe what he heard from Zakari. When he sent Zakari to bring Edith to him, he didn''t expect Zakari would bring shocking news such as this.
"This could change the tide of this war," Zakari said with a devilish grin.
Booth couldn''t remain seated anymore. He stood up, went to the window, and popped his fingers, thinking about what to do with the news Zakari brought.
"His majesty is in seclusion. We cannot wait for his orders,"
"What about her royal highness?" asked Zakari.
Booth shook his head.
"She has a soft spot for Edith. If we tell her about this, she might not use it as we should," said Booth. Knowing their friendship, Booth was certain that Victoria would not let them touch Lah''s child. Victoria was indeed ruthless, but not enough to kidnap a child. It was his job to make decisions that no one else had the guts to make.
"Then you have to give us an order, your grace," said Zakari. For a few moments, Booth formed a n in his mind.
Booth slowly turned his gaze away from the city before him to Zakari.
"Go to the rainbow inds, survey the ce and kidnap the child,"
Anyone else would have been stunned by Booth''s order but not Zakari. In fact, he expected a bold decision like this from Booth. Making ruthless and bold decisions such as this made Booth the best General Thusia had ever seen. Without him, Thusia wouldn''t have won the wars and be a terrifying superpower in Ozer. Zakari and the others had undying faith in Booth and were willing to do anything Booth ordered.
"What about the Aldens? They won''t take kindly to kidnapping their blood,"
"If Edith''s n worked, the guild would take care of Ghost, and we can return the child without revealing anything. But if her n didn''t work, then we need this child to stop Ghost. This child is our trump card," said Booth.
"Can I take General Austin with me, your grace?" asked Zakari.
"Yes, but do not fail me, and do not get caught. We must keep this under wrap and only use this child if Edith''s n fails," said Booth.
"Roger that, your grace,"
After Zakari left the room, a devilish grin emerged on Booth''s face.
"This time, I will cut your head and make sure you stay dead, Abras," Booth grinned. Until Princess Victoria told him about Ghost, he thought he killed Abras. To be honest, Booth didn''t even remember Abras. If he had known Abras would not only survive but also be a Half Immortal, he would have severed Abras''s head. It was a mistake Booth regretted to this moment. However, Zakari brought a solution to fix all the mess caused by Ghost.
"You might be a Half Immortal. But now, I know you''re also a father. Tsk tsk tsk, you shouldn''t have entered into this war with a child, my dear boy. You''re gonna wish you stayed away from Thusia," Boothughed.
*************************************
While Zakari and Austin were heading toward the rainbow inds, Queen Valeria summoned Victoria to her room. The room was elegantly arranged. The firece in the corner radiated a gentle warmth. Valeria personally decorated the room to her preference. Several portraits of her family riddled the walls. Therge queen size bed was located near the firece.
The moment Victoria entered the room, she was weed by a gentle motherly embrace from Valeria.
"You must be tired. Come sit here with me," Vria dragged Victoria to thefy sofa set. She forced Victoria to sit beside her.
"Did you have your breakfast?" asked Valeria.
"We lost the Golden Port, mother. I think breakfast can wait," said Victoria.
"They have won a battle, yes. But we are fighting a war. A single battle won''t decide the result," Valeria gently ced her hand on Victoria''s shoulder. Just a single nce was enough for Valeria to know how much pressure Victoria was under. The kingdom of Thusia was prepared to fight armies but not a Half Immortal. They never expected someone like Ghost would wage war against them.
But despite losing the cities and battles, Valeria remained calm.
"This is just a setback. I am sure your father will fix the situation as he always does," said Valeria.
"I have something to lighten your mood," Valeria stood up. She went outside the room for a moment and returned carrying a box.
"Mother, give me that," Victoria rose from her chair to take the wooden box from Valeria.
"I am at the Soul Refining stage Victoria. I think I can handle a box," Valeria chuckled. She ced the box on the table before Victoria.
"Open it," said Valeria.
Victoria nced between her mother and the box for a moment. Judging by the size of the box, Victoria could tell it contained something big and heavy. She slowly opened the box. To her surprise, it was a set of armor specially forged for her by the best cksmith in Thusia.
The silver armor radiated powerful energy. Countless runes glowed under the radiant light of the mes. This set of armor had a t top helm with half a face guard shaped like the eyes of an angel. Two tall, wing-like ornament pieces attached to the forehead area and the backside.
The shoulders were oval, short, and quiterge. They were decorated with rows of colored crystals and gems. The upper arms were protected by pointed, fully covering rerebraces which sat well under the shoulder tes. The lower arms were covered by vambraces which had several huge, sharp spikes on the outer sides.
Victoria lifted the armor from the box. She was surprised by the lightness of the armor. Although the armor was forged using the strongest metals, it was lighter than one would expect. The breastte was made from onerge piece of metal. It covered everything from the neck down and ended at the thighs.
The upper legs were covered by squared, fully covering cuisses. While the lower legs were protected by greaves which had severalyers of curved metal attached to the outer sides, forming a wing-like pattern.
"Do you like it?" asked Valeria. As she expected, Victoria smiled.
"I love it,"
"Now go put it on. I want to see how my baby girl looks in her battle armor,"
"Now?" Victoria was taken aback by surprise. She creased her brows as Valeira pinched her cheek.
"Yes. I am going to head outside for a moment, and when Ie back, you better be wearing this," Valeria didn''t bother to wait for Victoria''s answer. Instead, she walked out of the room. Having no choice, Victoria began to unbuckle her current robes.
Almost thirty minutester, Valeria entered the room. When she saw Victoria in the armor, her eyes went wide. In her eyes, Victoria looked like the goddess of war herself. Even Valeria felt a sliver of fear in her heart seeing Victoria in the battle armor.
"Mother," Victoria''s voice snapped Valeria out of her shock.
"Have you tried putting your Cosmic energy into the armor?" asked Valeria.
Victoria shook her head before pouring a sliver of Cosmic energy into the armor. The runes engraved into the armor made it feel like a part of her body. When she used her Cosmic energy, the runes glowed. She felt her strength increasing exponentially.
With a flick of her wrist, Valeria activated the teleportation array in her room. In a blink of an eye, they were teleported from Valeria''s cozy room to a training area with countless dummies in ce.
"Go crazy," said Valeria.
Seeing the wooden dummies in ce, Victoria wanted to vent her suppressed anger onto them. She dashed at the dummies with speed beyond any mortals. The runes amplified the power of her spells. When she got close to the dummy, she didn''t cast a spell or use her sword to cut it down. Instead, she just punched the dummy with her bare fist.
The force behind her punch made the dummy shatter into pieces. Victoria did not stop as she dashed toward another one.
Even though the dummies looked weak and fragile, each of them was as strong as a Soul Refining stage level 1 cultivator. But they never stood a chance against Victoria.
Her armor and the Cosmic energy made her stronger than any Fusion stage cultivator. Since she had an Immortal killing weapon, she could even fight a Half Immortal. As seconds passed by, Victoria became faster and more ferocious. These dummies served as an outlet for her anger. She imagined these dummies as Ghost and destroyed them to pieces.
After a few minutes, the training ground was littered with broken wooden dummies.
"That''s enough honey," Valeria raised her voice. Only then did Victoria manage to control her battle lust.
When Victoria returned to Valeria, she looked Victoria in the eyes.
"Anger can be a great weapon, if you can control it," said Valeria.
"Your enemies will use your anger against you. Do not let them. The greatest weapon you have is in here," Valeria touched Victoria''s head.
Victoria listened to her mother''s wisdom without uttering a word. Afterward, she took a long walk with her mother to calm her mind and soul. Valeria was happy to apany her daughter and share her wisdom.
Chapter 723 Kidnapping The Spirit Child
Zakari and Austin left for the Rainbow inds with one goal: to take Lah''s child with them. Theypletely covered their bodies with dark robes to hide their identities. Using a teleportation portal, they managed to reach the outskirts of the rainbow ind when the sun was setting down on the horizon. The two of them hovered in the air, staring at the ind. Until now, no one entered the rainbow inds with ill intentions. First, Lah didn''t have any enemies. She was a pretty private secluded person. Second, no one wanted to piss off a powerful Fusion stage cultivator like Lah Alden. Third, except for the specialty that Lah was living on the ind, there was nothing special about the ind. It was just a fishing ind with peaceful fishermen living on it.
? "How do we do this?" asked Austin.
"I think stealth is the best option. Let''s wait for nightfall, and we strike," said Zakari.
"Meanwhile, it''s better if we do some recon,"
Austin nodded. The two of them slowly flew toward the ind. Since the people living on the ind were just simple fishermen, they didn''t sense Austin and Zakari. They flew through the canopy and used the forest to hide. The two of them made their way toward the mountain peak where Lah Alden lived. Instead of flying, they chose to move towards it fastly.
"ording to my guys, she has two disciples on this ind," said Austin.
"Johana and Nerita. Two orphans. Picked up from the streets and raised by Lah,"
"How strong are they?" asked Zakari.
"Before the void effect, they were seen at Soul Refining stage level 3," said Austin.
"It''s safe to assume they are a couple of levels higher now,"
Austin nodded. The forest was deadly silent. Except for the sound of crickets and the twigs breaking under Austin and Zakari''s footsteps, they heard nothing.
"Can you believe Ghost banged Lah? Lucky bastard," Austin eximed.
"He didn''t. He soul walked her. They must have been stuck in some weird situation to go for that," said Zakari.
The two discussed Ghost and Lah while moving through the forest.
"What''s the n if anyone finds us? Are we allowed to kill them or just knock them out?" asked Austin.
"No killing. We don''t want any of this toe biting our assester,"
Eventually, the two of them reached the base of the mountain. Since it was night, there was no one in the area to see them. All the inhabitants of the ind went to sleep. Austin and Zakari slowly ascended toward the mountain''s top. They saw a cave opening at the top leading into the mountain where Lah lived.
To their surprise, the moment they climbed to the top of the mountain, they saw two young girls at the cave entrance with veenas. Austin and Zakari suppressed their auras. Therefore, they were bewildered. They had no idea how the two girls sensed them.
"You have a minute to leave this ce," Johana growled.
"Oh shit," Austin mumbled under his breath. Since they got caught, they had no choice but to fight them. Booth would forgive them if they took the child. Otherwise, he would y them alive just because they got caught by the girls.
"If you take a walk for a minute, no one will get hurt," said Zakari.
Seeing no responseing from the two girls, Zakari sighed.
"I thought so,"
"Fire-" Zakari was about to cast a spell when the two girls yed a string of their veenas. A powerful gust of wind knocked them into the air. It took Zakari and Austin a few minutes to bnce themselves in the air. By ying a single string, the girls knocked them out. The two generals were startled by their sheer power. However, they weren''t afraid of the two girls. Instead, battle lust glistened in their eyes.
Zakari was tempted to use the meteor spells. However, he controlled himself, imagining the destruction it would cause. He wanted to take the child alive. If he used the meteor spell, that might be a problem. Zakari and Austin dashed toward Johanna and Nerita.
The two girls yed a powerful melody as a heat wave pushed Zakari and Austin backward.
"King''s shield," Zakari and Austin cast a defense shield. A bright light shot out of Zakari and Austin, forming an energy shield in the shape of a crown. The energy crown surrounded them. With the shield around them, Austin and Zakair slowly pushed forward.
On the other hand, Johanna and Nerita ascended into the air with their veenas. They continued to y the veenas. Each time they struck a chord, a powerful wave of energy hit the shield around Zakari and Austin. When the shield and the wave shed, the shield formed several cracks.
The powerful melody reverberated through the air, waking the animals in the forest. Even the snowfall seemed to have been stopped by the melody. While Xakari was keeping the shield up, Austin summoned his silver spear. He threw the spear through the energy waves produced by the two girls. As soon as the spear left his hand, another one materialized in his hand. The spear he threw soared through the air and prated the ground several inches away from Johanna.
Suddenly, the spear exploded, temporarily stunning the two girls. They did not expect the spear to explode. Before the two girls could retaliate, Austin darted forward like an arrow with the spear in his hand. He quickly closed the gap between him and the girls. As soon as he got close to them, the girls lost their advantage. Austin swung his spear left and right.
"Ah!" The spear cut Johanna''s hand.
He wanted to stab the girl through her heart, and he almost did when Nerita struck a chord to push him back.
Johana gritted her teeth and struck the string as another powerful wave sted Austin away. The two girls had the chance to take the battle to a different area. However, they always looked over their shoulder at the cave opening as though they had something to protect. Zakari smiled. Judging by their look, it was obvious the spirit child was inside.
Meanwhile, Austin rapidly threw the spear toward them and made them explode. This time, the girls quickly formed golden shields around them. Every time a spear exploded, it created a crack in their shields. Zakari and Austin put the two girls in defense as they moved closer and closer to the cave''s mouth.
"Star fire," Zakari raised his arms, casting a spell. The Cosmic energy shot out of his body, forming a giant star above them. The star fired several arrows engulfed in fire at the girls. These arrows prated their shields as more and more cracks formed in the shield.
Johana began to y the veena faster. The gentle melody put the animals in the forest back to sleep. Their music created a ripple in the sky. Soon, Zakari and Austin felt being pulled up into the sky. They resisted the pull by using Cosmic energy. A thin veil of violent energy enveloped their bodies.
Austin gritted his teeth. He poured his Cosmic energy into the spear. As a result, the spear trembled uncontrobly.
"ARGH!" Austin roared, raising his spear in the air. Johana and Nerita saw multiple spears appear around Austin. They all slowly turned their pointy ends at them. In a blink of an eye, all the spears shot toward them. The golden shield withstood a couple of spears, but when the fifth one hit the shield, it shattered into millions of tiny specks of golden light.
The bacsh sent Nerita and Johana stumbling back. This time, Zakari did not allow them to fight back. He dashed forward, conjuring a sword made of red-hot mes. Zakari left a fiery trail behind. Austin immediately dashed away from Zakari''s path but not before he dipped his spear in mes radiating from the sword. He threw the ming spear. The spear exploded as countless ming pieces hit Nerita and Johanna.
Nerita and Johana almost lost their grip around the veenas. The specks of fire burned through their clothes and skin. They couldn''t even scream as Zakari swung his fiery sword left and right. These mes were not just typical mes but mes created by Cosmic energy. Each of Zakari''s swings was precise and deadly. He cut the veenas in half like a hot knife through butter.
A light bright enough to make all of them shut their eyes tight appeared from the two veenas. Immediately, Nerita and Johanna coughed up blood. When the light disappeared, they fell down to the ground. Austin did not spare them as hended on Nerita''s back and stomped her.
"Hey," Zakari yelled.
"I am just knocking her out," Austin grinned devilishly.
"Bastard!" Johana screamed, only to get a boot to her face.
Austin enjoyed beating up the two girls. Nerita tried to crawl toward the cave mouth to stop the two, but everything turned darker when Zakari kicked her head. She was knocked out cold. Austin turned around to see the two girls. He was tempted to throw them down from the mountain.
"We are not killing them," Zakari growled.
"Sisters," Suddenly, they heard a child''s voice resonate in the cave. The voice was sweet and gentle yet domineering at the same time. Zakari felt a strange power in the voice. The voice snuffed out the ming sword in an instant. A sliver of fear emerged in his heart for some reason.
He slowly stepped into the dark cave, followed by Austin. The two of them tried not to make any sound.
"Where are you?" The child''s yful voice echoed through the cave.
"Is it only me, or this kid is kinda freaky?" asked Austin. Just like Zakari, Austin too felt a strange power in the child''s voice.
The closer they got to the end of the cave, the louder footsteps sounded. The child''s chuckle kept echoing through the cave. The two of them never thought a chuckle would freak them out. Ignoring the fear in their hearts, they kept walking deeper into the cave.
Taking the child with them might put an end to Ghost''s terrorizing rein. Compared to Edith''s n, Zakari liked threatening Ghost with his child more.
Chapter 724 The Aftermath Of The Golden Port Battle
Michael was busy dealing with the aftermath of the Golden Port battle. At that Northguard, he was in a room filled with sacks of grain, artifacts, food, crates of potions and pills, and gold coins. Everything in front of him was his share of the Golden Port warehouse. Michael kept everything in the dark forest.
"My Lord," Azazel appeared behind Michael.
"What is it?" asked Michael without even turning around. His mind was upied with future ns.
"Lady Alden has told Edith about you and her," Azazel''s words brought Michael out of his thinking. He turned around with a frown.
Since Lah wore the ne given by Michael, Azazel watched everything that had transpired between Lah and Edith. Unfortunately, Michael had no idea Zakari and Austin kidnapped the spirit child to threaten him.
"Why did she do that?" asked Michael. He followed Azazel behind to the surveince room. With a flick of his wrist, Azazel reyed the recording of Lah and Edith. Michael watched the scene without blinking an eye. Looking at Lah argue with Edith, he was surprised. He never expected Lah to p Edith literally. This was the second time Michael had seen her lose her calm andposure. Truth be told, Michael didn''t think he could hate Edith more. Anyone with half a brain could tell Lah was not at fault with her father. It was obvious to Michael Norbert had done something to deserve Lah''s wrath. But her family matter was not Michael''s concern. By telling Edith what had happened between him and her, Lah had given something that could be used against both of them to Edith, ackey of Victoria.
"Azazel, go to the rainbow ind and make sure everything''s fine," Michael immediately ordered Azazel.
"As you wish, my lord," Azazel knew the urgency of the matter. Hence, he quickly bowed and disappeared from Michael''s sight.
While Azazel was on his way to the rainbow inds, Michael headed for the pocket dimension to meet Elidyr.
Meanwhile, Gaya was in the Southern continent in her Dark Queen armor. She met Corey to get a report of the Golden Port battle. Since they achieved an overwhelming victory, Gaya ordered all the crew to take a day and celebrate as they saw fit, except the crew of Big Bertha. They were allowed to do anything to enjoy their day except drinking. Michael was strict about the booze policy. If anyone in his crew got drunk, he would throw them overboard. Why? Because Michael wanted them sane and clear-headed all the time.
Gaya called Corey to the upper deck. She enjoyed the peace and calm of the sea around her. Winter had hit the entire world at the same time. However, The southern continent wasn''t as cold as Ozer or Elon. Corey approached Gaya wearing a thick fur coat. The upper deck was empty since the crew was enjoying their day on the deck below them.
"How many ships have we lost?" asked Gaya.
"Thirty to the storm and twenty to the thusians,"
"Thirty to the storm? Seriously?'' Gaya shook her head. She was disappointed in the pirates.
"We have taken control of almost four hundred thusian ships. But mydy, weck the manpower to man those ships," said Corey.
"I took the initiative to recruit more pirates. It''d take some time, but we will have enough men in a month or two,"
"Good,"
If it wasn''t for the storm andck of crew, Corey could have captured more thusian ships. Using the raging storm to their advantage, many thusian ships escaped Golden Port. That was the reason they were only able to capture four hundred ships.
"Can I ask you something, mydy?" asked Corey.
"Hmm," Gaya nodded.
"Who were those people who fought that giant dragon? Are they our allies?"
"You could say that. Were you afraid? Afraid of dragons?" Gaya chuckled.
"Kinda," Corey nervously smiled.
"Then I hope you can ovee your fear sooner thanter,"
After dealing with the things in the Southern continent, Gaya left for King Gunner''s castle. When she arrived at the room where they nned everything, she saw Yagnar, Prince Davarius, and General Bryce waiting for her. Prince Davarius was trembling as his eyes were bloodshot. Judging by the look, Gaya could tell something had happened in Northguard.
"What happened?" asked Gaya.
"The farnds and viges in Northgaurd," Yagnar hesitated to finish his sentence.
"They ravaged the ces. Burnt many and took some viges hostage,"
"Then what are we waiting for? General Bryce, gather our men," Gaya ordered General Bryce. Prince Davarius felt somewhat relieved. A small part of his mind was expecting her to dy the attack on Northguard and focus on Thusia. But on the contrary, she immediately ordered General Bryce to gather the men.
"I need to know how many thusians were stationed at Northguard and who was responsible for thetest atrocities,"
Gaya said to Yagnar and then turned her gaze toward Davarius.
"We are not going to take back Northguard. We are going to destroy the thusians without mercy. You have a problem with that?" asked Gaya.
"I thought you would never ask," Davarius''s eyes turned predatory. He followed Gaya outside to leave for Northguard.
Gaya didn''t wait for General Bryce to finish gathering up the men. Instead, she shot toward the sky with Davarius. The two of them flew toward Northguard. Gaya had to fly slowly to keep up with Davarius. After continuously flying for almost an hour, Gaya and Davarius reached the outskirts of Kingdom Northguard.
Bordered between a mountain to the North, a wild ocean to the South, a river to the East, and lush grasnds to the West, the kingdom of Northguard mainly lived off farming, fishing, and crafting.
Northguard itself was mainly covered in hills and had a windy climate. The climate yed a big role in farming. Although they didn''t produce as much food as Suven, they produced enough to be a self-sustaining kingdom.
The kingdom''sndscape was pleasant; calmkes, silent mountains, and sapphirekes were just a sliver of the hidden treasures Northguard had to offer, which was why the kingdom was admired among foreigners. Plus, the people of Northguard were loving towards foreigners and tend to wee them with goodwill. They felt foreigners could empower the kingdom''s well-being.
Despite the snowfall, Davarius could still see dark smokeing from the vige on the horizon. This was one of the viges Booth chose to burn to the ground.
"I am sorry for what happened there. But I''d suggest we strike the capital before the thusians cause more destruction," said Gaya.
It took Davarius a few moments toe out of his sorrow.
"I used to y here," Davarius said with a heavy heart. His voice stuttered because of the sadness in his heart.
"Why did they have to do this?" asked Davarius.
"Because the thusians wants to break your spirit. As long as you fight for freedom, they can''t control the kingdom as they like. They sent a message, and now it''s our turn to respond,"
"Let''s head toward the capital," said Davarius. He didn''t even bother to doubt Gaya whether she could fight an entire army or not. They were about to leave for the capital when she saw a group of thusian soldiers flying toward the vige. This group contained six men. Since each of them was flying on a sword, Gaya was able to tell they weren''t at the Core Formation stage yet.
"Bastards!" Davarius roared. He didn''t even wait for Gaya''s order as he dashed toward them.
Davarius''s speed was several times faster than the rest. The thusians were startled by the sudden appearance of Davarius. The soldier who led the group lost his bnce when he saw Davarius out of the blue.
"Fuck!"
"Holy!"
The soldiers panicked. The scream of their leader was still echoing through the air. Everything seemed tiny from their view, so anyone could imagine what would happen to their leader when he hit the ground. But Davarius was not in the mood for imagination. He grabbed two soldiers by their necks and squeezed them till their faces turned purple. The others were too shocked to react in time.
While Davarius was squeezing the life out of two soldiers, Gaya fired a normal iron arrow at a soldier who was trying to escape. The arrow prated his left thigh. Blood spurted out of his leg as the soldier screamed. Davarius didn''t even blink an eye.
The light of life slowly left the soldiers'' eyes. Among the six, one fell to death, two were losing their lives slowly, and one was barely keeping himself on the sword. This left two soldiers unscathed. They looked at each other with pale faces. They trembled. Unlike Booth''s general, these six were just foot soldiers. They were trained to look for any survivors in the viges and not to fight people like Gaya or Davarius.
Finally, Davarius ended the two soldiers'' suffering by snapping their necks. The two standing behind the dead soldiers panicked. Their minds went nk. They were about to turn around and leave when Davarius punched them with enough force to put a hole through their chests. Blood spattered on Davarius''s face, painting it red.
Gaya grabbed the one with an arrow sticking out of his leg. She lifted him up in the air as the sword fell down. He frantically squirmed in her hand.
"You have five seconds to tell us who did this," Gaya pointed at the burnt vige on the ground.
"One,"
"Two,"
"I don''t know¡" the soldier cried.
"Three,"
"Four," Gaya continued to count. The moment the count reached five, Gaya let go of his cor.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" The soldier screamed, falling down from the sky.
Gaya dived down and caught the soldier in the mid-way. The soldier''s face was drenched in sweat. Davarius could hear the soldier''s heart pounding against his chest.
"Next time, I won''t catch you," Gaya threatened the soldier.
"It''s General Booth and his men!" The soldier screamed without a second thought.
"He ordered his men to burn some viges and take hostage a few. We were just sent here to look for any survivors. I swear I don''t know anything else," The soldier cried.
"AHHHHHHH!" The soldier screamed as Gaya let go of his cor.
Chapter 725 Davarius Got Captured Again
"Don''t lose your shit when we are in the capital. Can you do that and follow my orders?" asked Gaya.
Davarius nodded his head. The two of them began to head toward the capital.
"What that bastard Booth was doing here?" Davarius growled.
"He could have sent his men to do all this. Why was he here?" Davarius pondered.
"Maybe he needed a win after what we did to the Golden Port," said Gaya.
Eventually, after almost two hours, they arrived at the capital of Northguard. The Capital was built amidst the gentle snows of a pristine tundra. It was truly an elegant wonder. Its grace was matched by the backdrop of modest hills, which had helped shape the city to flourish. The climate these hills brought were of great importance, but they were also influential when it came to architectural designs, as the vast majority of buildings have been built in shapes and with elements of the hills around them.
The city was littered with various buildings, and their beauty was only matched by each other. Before the war, trade was at an all-time high in the Capital. It had drawn a lot of attention, including King Maxim Barnes. Over time, new cultures left their mark not just on the city''s people but also on the city''s identity.
Unlike any other cities or kingdom in the Ozer continent, Kingdom Northguard and its capital had the highest number of other races. It was this multicultural identity that had truly left its mark. Hundreds of shops, inns, and ethnic restaurants offer a plethora of culinary choices. Those who would feel hungry for something else could enjoy nature, one of the many natural wonders,kes, or peaceful grass fields.
At that moment, the capital seemed gloomy. Gaya could barely see any people on the streets, which werepletely nketed by knee-high snow. Seeing the sorry state of the capital ached Davarius''s heart. He saw his family''s castle on top of the hill, covered in snow. He was tempted to visit the castle.
"We would have weed the thusians with open arms. We were a peaceful kingdom," Davarius''s voice stuttered.
"It''s our fault for not being strong enough to protect our people," Davarius med himself.
"No. The thusians were just stronger. Plus, no matter what, Maxim would have always tried to take over your kingdom," said Gaya.
"Why?"
"Trade," Gaya simply said.
"Suven is the fruit basket of the continent. Zulon has mines. Ithn is an imprable nature fortress," Gaya didn''t say anything about the existence of the Cosmic stream in Ithn.
"And Northguard, he targeted it for trade. A trade that would take a year through the Golden Port could be made in three or four months through Northguard. Besides, the only bridge to reach Ithn bynd is connected to Northguard,"
Her words made perfect sense to Davarius. Ithn people may have epted the thusians and even celebrated King Maxim, but the Northguard people had rooted pride. They would never ept the thusians. As long as they resisted the thusians, they would continue to suffer. The only way to end this was killing Maxim Barnes.
"What''s the n, General Aelia?" asked Davarius.
"It''s getting repetitive. We go to a ce, kill the army stationed there and take over the ce. Rinse and repeat," Gaya sighed.
? "So what do you suggest we do? We can''t rush into the city anyways. We still have no idea where the thusians are keeping the vigers they captured,"
"Go get captured. The odds are the thusians will put you with the rest of your people and try to break their spirit," said Gaya.
Davarius frowned.
"How do you n on finding me?" asked Davarius.
He saw Gaya tossing a silver coin toward him.
"Swallow that,"
"What?" Davarius was taken aback by surprise.
"Swallow the coin. It will reveal your location to me. Don''t bother to learn how that works," Gaya shook her head. She chuckled inside, seeing Davarius actually swallow the coin. The coin had nothing special about it, as Davarius thought. When she tossed the coin toward him, she also threw a Spyder onto him. But Davarius focused on the coin and missed the Spyder crawling onto his robes.
"I will know when you''re with your people. Try not to get yourself killed," said Gaya. With a nod, Davarius flew toward the capital. Gaya noticed a Thusian patrol on the street. Davarius descended toward them.
"I hate patrolling in this weather,"
"Shut up, Marcus. If you had controlled your lust, we wouldn''t be here,"
"Oh,e on. Don''t me me. I haven''t felt a touch of a woman in six months. So bite me,"
"Like you bit that girl in the butt,"
"Fuck you,"
The soldiers patrolled the streets, arguing andughing at each other. However, theirughter was short-lived. They felt a chill as soon as they saw Davarius in front of them.
"Freeze!" The soldiers screamed.
To their surprise, Davarius raised his arms up in the air.
"Holy fuck. Is that Prince Davarius?"
"It''s him!"
"DON''T MOVE!"
The soldiers panicked but didn''t run away. Without making any sudden move, Davarius slowly knelt down on the snow.
"You go and inform the General. We''ll take him to the special ce,"
These were thest words Davarius heard before everything went dark. Thest thing he saw was the bottom of the soldier''s sword. He felt a sharp pain before copsing to the ground. From the sky, Gaya saw the soldiers knock out Davarius cold and drag his body through the snow. She slowly followed the soldiers.
After an unknown amount of time, Davarius woke up in a dimly lit room. He heard water trickling down, drop by drop. He looked around to see nothing but muddy walls. The air smelled like blood and piss. He could move neither his hands nor legs. When he looked down at his feet, he noticed iron shackles around them.
He shook the iron shackles, yet they didn''te out as he expected.
"Your royal highness," Suddenly, Davarius heard a whisper. He turned his head in the voice''s direction. In the dim light, he saw a man behind bars a few meters away from him.
"Shit, they caught you," the man sighed.
Davarius couldn''t see the man''s features very clearly due to the darkness in the area. He could only vaguely see the man''s torn dress and messy brown hair.
"Are you alone?" asked Prince Davarius.
"I am with the people in my vige. Your royal highness, you must save us. Grandpa Eddie is dying. We can''t breathe here," The man''s voice stuttered. Judging by the tone of his voice, Davarius could tell he was exhausted beyond words.
"First, you have to rx. What''s your name?''
"Alex," the man replied.
"Alex, rx. I am here to get you all out of here,"
"But how? You''re stuck here, just like the rest of us," said Alex.
"I have a n, but I need you with me, alright?"
Alex did not respond for a few moments.
"Alex, you''re with me?" asked Davarius.
"Yes. Yes, your royal highness. I just wanna get out of here. I can''t stay here for long. I am losing my mind," Alex cried. His sobbing startled Davarius. He wondered what kind of torture Alex would have gone through to make a grown man like him sob like a child. Manger boiled within Davarius. All of this suffering because of the thusians. The hatred toward thusians grew bigger by the second in Davarius''s heart.
"I am going to get you all out of here, okay? I promise,"
"He wille¡he wille¡.oh my god¡he will be here soon¡" Alex cried out loud. He suddenly panicked for no reason. To Davarius''s surprise, Alex tried to bend the metal bars with his hands. Alex was so desperate to get out as he began to bite the bars.
"Who is he?" asked Davarius. However, Alex didn''t respond to Davarius. Instead, he kept trying to bend and bite the bars. Davarius looked behind Alex to find another saner viger.
"Alex, get your shit together man," Davarius growled. The sound of Alex''s groan was interrupted by several heavy footsteps. As soon as Alex heard the footsteps, he frantically crawled back into the darkest corner of his cell.
Davarius leaned back, waiting for the soldiers to approach him.
"I hope youe to my rescue again, general," Davarius mumbled under his breath.
Soon, Davarius saw several shadows in the dim light. They slowly made their way toward the cells.
"Here he is, my lord," Davarius heard some voices. Unfortunately, he couldn''t see their faces in the dim light. A group of soldiers opened the iron door to his cell. Thanks to the torches in their arms, Davarius finally saw their faces. Although he recognized none of them, the blonde-haired youngster in fancy robes seemed familiar for some reason. The soldiers around the youngster were armed to the teeth. It was apparent to Davarius that this guy was someone important.
"The prince of Northguard. How the mighty fall," The youngster chuckled. He approached Davarius step by step. Davarius wanted to p that smirk off of his face.
"You know my soldiers told me you surrendered yourself. Now here''s my question, why would a rebel like you surrender yourself without a fight?" The youngster stared at Davarius from head to toe with his hazel eyes.
For some reason, the youngster smelled like blood.
"I think you are nning something," The youngster eximed.
"Now, here''s the deal. I don''t have the time or the brain to figure out your ns. So I am going to go into the next cell and start taking heads one by one until I hear your ns," Davarius remained silent as the young man turned around and left his cell. As he said this to Davarius, he ordered his men to open the cell where Davarius saw Alex.
Davarius heard the vigers groan as though they were unable to speak.
"No¡no¡no¡" Alex screamed.
Davarius gritted his teeth.
"It''d be a good time for you to show up, Aelia," mumbled Davarius. Meanwhile, the youngster chose his target. It was an old man who looked as thin as a stick. The youngster dragged the old man by his neck until Davarius was able to see him clearly.
The young man unsheathed his sword from the sheath dangling on his waist. He raised the sword in the air.
"Wait," Davarius shouted as the young man stopped his swing just a few inches away from the old man''s neck.
"Diddle diddle¡" A sweet voice echoed through the underground. The soldier immediately tensed up. A smile formed on Davarius''s face seeing a shadow of a girl in the walls.
"Who is that?" the young man asked his men.
The footsteps sounded louder and louder with the passing seconds.
"You wanted to know about my n, right? This is it," Davarisughed.
Chapter 726 Runic Cage
"We are so little," Gaya''s voice echoed through the cave. The soldier who went to check on her came flying. He left a trail of blood on his way. Davarius saw blood stter on the muddle walls and the iron bars. The soldier didn''t even scream. He looked closer at the body to see a hole in his chest. Following the soldier''s body, something else came flying. The youngster reacted, quickly catching the object. But when he saw the thing in his heart, his face lost its color. A bloody heartbeat in his hand. It took the heart a minute to finally stop beating.
"She is going to kill you all, and it won''t be pretty," Davariusughed. The soldiers around the young man panicked. Her shadow grew closer and closer to them. The youngster lost interest in the old man. He threw him away.
"How did she get in here?" the soldiers mumbled.
"Who is she?" asked another soldier.
They prepared themselves for a fight. Finally, Davarius saw Aelia stepping out of the darkness into the light. Blood trickled down from her fist. She crackled her neck.
"Nice ce for a prison," Gaya said, looking around.
"Go kill her," the young man pushed a soldier in her direction. The poor soldier panicked. Still, he obeyed his order. None of them could tell how strong she was. However, Gaya soon answered their question by grabbing the soldier by his neck and snapping it without breaking a sweat.
She tossed the soldier''s body aside like trash. Seeing her kill the soldier so effortlessly, the soldier freaked out. Although they had numbers, none thought they could take on the girl.
"Who the fuck are you?" Gaya asked the youngster.
She slowly stepped toward him through the muddy floor. But when she was just a couple of meters away from the young man, a cage dropped from above out of nowhere, enclosing her within. Davarius''s bright grin froze on his face. Even Gaya was surprised. The iron bars glowed as countless intricate runes radiated faint red light.
"Gotcha bitch," The young man eximed. The soldiers around him were bewildered. Gaya stood within the cage without moving an inch. She tried to grab the bar, but the moment she touched the glowing bars, they burned her hands. The golden-haired young man stepped forward with a bright smile. He walked around the cage for a few moments. He enjoyed seeing Gaya trapped within the cage. Gaya looked above at the ceiling to see several runes glistening. Bright beams of light shot from each rune, forming the cage around her. For some reason, she quickly thought of Edith when she saw the runes.
A bolt of energy shot her in the chest when she tried to cast a spell.
"Don''t bother," the young man said. He was extremely proud of his achievement here. His glimmered with arrogance and pride. Despite his Core Strengthening stage cultivation, he was able to trap a Fusion stage cultivator. He couldn''t wait to show this gift to his uncle.
Seeing Gaya trapped in the cage, Davarius was speechless. The light of hope in his heart slowly faded away.
"You didn''t expect this, did you?" asked the young man.
"We were expecting you. But thank you for bringing us the prince. He''s a cherry on top of a delicious cake like you," the youngster licked his lips.
"Why are you being silent? I won''t hurt you, atleast not yet. After the shit you pulled in the Golden Port, could you me us for wanting to rip you to shreds?" The young man said while walking around the cage. Gaya remained calm despite her situation.
"Who are you bastard?!" Davarius shouted. He thought distracting the young man might give Aelia a chance to break out of the cage. Instead, the young man signaled hisckey, wordlessly telling him to shut Davarius up. The young man was no longer interested in Davarius. He caught a bigger fish.
"Are you wondering the same?" asked the young man.
"I don''t give a fuck who you are. You''re gonna die anyways,"
After seeing Gaya getting trapped inside the cage, the soldiers gained courage and valor. They all had a smirk on their faces. Davarius saw a soldier walking toward him, cracking his knuckles. The moment the soldier arrived in front of Davarius, the soldier punched Davarius in the face.
"You punch like a little girl," Davarius spat the blood out.
The soldier punched Davarius again with more force behind his fist.
"The woman in my kingdom punches harder than you," Davarius ridiculed the soldier. The soldier trembled in a fury. He started to punch Davarius left and right without giving him time to say a word. Blood and saliva spattered out of Davarius''s face. The soldier did not stop until Davarius''s face almost doubled up in size. His face was swollen and became unrecognizable. The soldier massaged his fists.
"I hope he didn''t kill him," the young man pouted.
"You see that," he pointed his finger at Davarius.
"That''s just the tip of the icebergpared to what''s going to happen to you. Since you''re a nice-looking girl, we might not rough you up like him,"
To the young man''s surprise, Gayaughed.
"What''s so funny?" asked the young man.
"Almost everyone who speaks like you dies in the end. Don''t you get it asshole? You''re just a cog in the machine I am going to crush. If you have any desire to live, I''d suggest you drop everything and run away from here as fast as you can," said Gaya.
Noone replied to Gaya for a moment. Once again, silence haunted the ce until the young man chuckled.
"You are indeed a crazy bitch. Open your eyes. You''re the one inside the cage. Or do you think we are inside a cage because of the iron bars between us?"
The soldiersughed at his joke, which made the young manugh louder.
"My uncle is going to love this bitch," the young man told his soldiers.
Gaya frowned. Seeing the frown on her face, the young man tilted his head.
"Oh, where are my manners? I am Kevin Kemper. Nephew of the one and only Booth Kemper, the duke of Valeria, and the General of the Thusian army," the young man puffed his chest and introduced himself with immense pride.
Gaya simply couldn''t believe his words. She thought the cage surprised her before she heard the young man.
"Jackpot," Gaya smiled with excitement.
The smile on Gaya''s face confused Kevin.
"Why are you smiling again?" asked Kevin.
"You knocked him out and revealed your identity. That''s so..." Gaya couldn''t finish her sentence as she burst intoughter.
"You so unlucky and stupid," Gaya barely finished off her sentence.
But suddenly, herughter stopped. Instead, her face turned cold. The temperature in the room dropped by several degrees. To Kevin''s surprise, her eyes glistened. The round pupils turned vertically slit in a blink of an eye. The snake-like eyes freaked out the soldiers.
"My lord, look," one soldier whispered to Kevin. He looked at Gaya''s hands as violet scales appeared on her skin. Kevin immediately took a step back when she hissed at him.
Gaya grabbed the iron bars. Just like before, the runes burned her hands. However, Gaya did not let go of the bars. She roared, splitting the iron bars apart. The runes in the bars flickered, radiating faint rumbling noise.
"Stop her," Kevin ordered his men. The haughtiness in his tonepletely disappeared. Instead, he trembled in fear. The soldiers were no different than Kevin. They all inhaled the fear toxin released by Gaya.
"ARRGHHH!" Gaya roared, bending the iron bars with her raw strength despite the runes burning her hand. In a few moments, she bent the iron bars enough for her to slide through. Kevin saw a giant cobra sliding through the iron bars for a second. But that image of the cobra in his mind disappeared as fast as it appeared.
"What are you?" Kevon questioned Gaya. The soldiers behind him took a step backward.
They no longer had the courage to face Gaya anymore. Gaya did not answer Kevin. Instead, she grabbed him by his neck and lifted him off his feet. Gaya kept Kevin in the air without uttering a word. Meanwhile, the fear toxin took full effect on the soldiers. Since the soldiers weren''t even at the Core Strengthening stage, their bodies and minds couldn''t withstand the effects of the fear toxin. They soon began to hallucinate and cry. Finally, they copsed to the ground and crawled back in fear.
Their screams echoed through the silent underground. Even Kevin''s body began to shiver as white form leaked out of his mouth.
"Does your uncle love you?" Gaya asked Kevin.
"How much he loves you?"
"He will hunt you down if something happens to me," Kevin managed to utter these words.
"Good. Saves us the trouble of finding him," Gaya snicked. Kevin''s face slowly turned purple due to theck of oxygen in his head. Some of the vigers who witnessed the soldiers scratching the walls to escape the ce looked bewildered. They wondered who the girl was and how did shee here.
Gaya didn''t bother to think about the vigers. All of her focus was on Kevin. From a few meters away from Gaya, Davarius slowly opened his eyes. His head ached because of the beating he had taken a few minutes ago. Thanks to the beating he took, his vision was still blurry. However, he could vaguely see Aelia out of the cage. To his shock, the youngster was struggling in her hand.
"No,"
"Please don''t hurt me,"
"Let us go..."
"NOOOOOO!"
The soldiers cried and screamed. Fear hadpletely taken over their minds. Davarius could hear their cries but didn''t feel a bit of pity for them.
*******************************************
While Gaya was dealing with Kevin, a youngster was flying in the sky as fast as a bolt of lightning. His white robes, along with his raven ck hair, fluttered in the wind. His calm eyes glistened like bright stars in pitch ck sky. But behind those calm eyes, there was concern and unease. Around him was an endless ocean. Then, after flying for an unknown amount of time, finally, an ind appeared on the horizon.
"That''s the rainbow ind," said the young man in white robes.
"And that''s where I sensed this weird energy," another voice sounded in the air.
Chapter 727 A Child鈥檚 Journal
Noah hovered in the sky, looking at the rainbow ind on the horizon. For some reason, he had a bad feeling in his gut.
"Noah, why are you waiting here?" Noah heard Andreas''s voice in his head.
"I have some bad feelings about this," said Noah.
"Me too," said Andreas.
"That weird energy. I haven''t felt something like that ever before,"
Noah was on his way to meet Alicia when Andreas sensed something. He immediately ordered Noah to follow his directions. Truth be told, Noah had never seen his teacher shocked like this. So Noah did not waste any time as he did what he was told to. To his surprise, Andreas led to the outskirts of the rainbow inds.
"We don''t have all day, Noah," said Andreas. With a nod, Noah flew forward toward the ind. To Noah''s shock, he saw Nerita and Johana on the ground, unconscious. He felt some strange energy fluctuations in the air. Judging by the look of the ground, Noha could tell a decisive battle had urred here. Noah quicklynded beside Johana and Nerita.
"Miss Johana, Moss Nerita," Noah called out to them. He gently shook their shoulders, but they didn''t respond. Noah ced his finger on their necks, sensing their pulses. Fortunately, they were alive.
Noah was about to retrieve healing potions from his space ring when Andreas materialized before him.
"Don''t wake them up. I sense something inside. Let''s go check first,"
"What about them? They can tell us what happened here once we wake them up," said Noah.
"And might stop us from investigating the ce. You know I am right, soe," Andreas gestured at Noah to stand up and follow him into the cave. Having no choice, Noah followed behind Andreas. The ce looked somewhat different than thest time Noah visited. He met Lah to give her the witcher stone.
While walking into the cave, Noah noticed countless scribbles on the wall. They all looked weird and quirky, like a child''s painting. The further he walked into the cave, the more Noah felt the strange energy in the air. Andreas and Noah made their way forward in silence.
"What in the hell is that?" asked Andreas, looking at the glimmering tear in the space itself. The tear pulled both of them into it. Noah resisted the pull as Andreas moved closer to inspect it.
"A realm tear," said Andreas.
"Something happened here,"
"No shit," said Noah with a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
Noah joined Andreas in front of the realm tear. This was the first time Noah had seen one.
"Is it like a portal?" asked Noah. He was tempted to touch and look through the tear, but he controlled himself,
"No. The very fabrics of space and time itself had been torn by something. We need to know what happened here," Andreas''s voice became extremely grave.
"Then we have to wake those two up. They can give us the answers we want," Noah suggested.
"Yeah, but let''s look around first. I have a feeling our friend Lah was hiding something big in here," Andreas began to float around the cave. Noah lit all the torches hanging on the walls with a snap of his finger. He brought the light back to the cave.
They were able to see things more clearly in the light.
Noah saw candles, meditation mats, books, and a few scrolls in the cave. As he was looking around the cave, he was taken aback when he saw a cradle in the corner of the cave.
"This is getting interesting," Andreas floated toward the cradle. Noah followed Andreas behind. The walls behind the cradle had lots of scribbles of a child.
"Ouch," Noah jumped as a bolt of electricity ran through his body when he touched the cradle.
"It zapped me," Noah rubbed his palm.
But when Andreas''s ghostly hand touched the cradle, Andreas''s whole body shivered. He immediately closed his eyes, feeling a powerful, strange energy around the cradle. In his entire life, he had only experienced this feeling one time. He thought he had forgotten this feeling, but the answer was no. It was so long ago, as Andreas almost forgot.
"Teacher," Noah called out to Andreas. He waited for Andreas to open his eyes.
"A spirit child," mumbled Andreas.
"A spirit child was here,"
Noah was no stranger to the concept of a spirit child. Andreas made Noah read thousands of books. Thus, Noah knew quite a lot. Noah frowned. A spirit child was created when a male cultivator''s soul walked a female cultivator which was a forbidden act. It was equal to forcing oneself on someone.
"The witcher stone," Noah mumbled.
When he gave Lah a witcher stone, Noah didn''t know why she needed a witcher stone, atleast, he didn''t know at that time. However, recently Noah discovered a piece of Andreas''s soul and helped his mentor absorb this soul piece. As a result, Andreas regained more knowledge and memories.
Noah learned that a witcher stone was to give a physical body to a spirit child in a ritual, along with some other things. Everything else could be obtained rtively easier but not the witcher stone.
"I can''t believe it," Noah shook his head. He simply couldn''t believe someone has soul walked Lah. She was a Fusion stage cultivator. Noah couldn''t name a single person who was strong enough to touch Lah, let alone soul-walk her.
"The strange energy, the scribbles on the wall, the witcher stone¡it all makes sense," Andreas said slowly.
"A spirit child was here. There''s no mistaking it,"
Noah couldn''t disagree with his mentor. As Andreas said, everything made sense, pointing toward the existence of a child in the cave.
"Search the ce," Andreas ordered Noah.
After learning about the spirit child, Noah doubted Nerita and Johana would be much help to him. He was sure they would hide the child''s existence.
"Light of truth," Noah closed his eyes, casting a spell. A bright wave of light washed over the cave. Noah slowly opened his eyes. His gaze turned his head to the side, ncing at the wall. In his view, he saw a glimmer of light inside the wall. He walked toward the glimmer as Andreas followed him behind.
When Noah reached the wall, he ran his hand through the wall.
"It''s hollow," Noah knocked on the wall. Andreas heard a light thud sound. Noah gently rubbed his hand through the wall until he found a tiny hole. Noah''s finger didn''t fit the hole. So he picked up a quill from his space ring and stuck the quill into the hole.
Noah heard a crack as a piece of wall fell down, revealing a brick-sized hollow within the wall. Inside it, Noah found a tiny book. Under Andreas''s gaze, Noah opened the book. The first page of the book contained scribbles and various shapes. He turned the page one by one until he saw some words.
"Today, mother taught me how to read and write. She seemed so happy when I wrote my first word, mother," Noah read the words.
"Sister Nerita said if I feel lonely, I can write whatever I want in a book and keep it safe. So here I am, writing something," Noah read these words on the next page. He turned another page and saw something about the food. Noah felt bad for reading someone else''s journal, especially a child''s. But he hoped this journal might reveal something about the realm tear.
If this child was capable of tearing the realm itself, Noah needed to know everything about it before the child could cause more harm.
"Today, I asked mother about father. I learned from Sister Johana that every child has a father. Mother did not answer me. But when I met sister Johanater, her eyes were puffy. I think mother scolded her. But why? Why can''t mother tell me who my father is?" Noah read the words.
Afterward, Noah turned the pages one by one but didn''t find anything valuable. Instead, he saw the child''s day-to-day life, nothing interesting.
"I heard mother talking to someone about a fight in a ce called Holy Church. She was worried and didn''t say a word. I know my mother is not a very talkative person, but this silence was new to me. I can see it in her eyes. She is worried sick,"
"How old is this child? His words sound mature for a child who learned to read and write recently," Andreas wondered about the child.
"Fight in the Holy Church? Do you think he''s talking about the battle between the Dark Lord and Ghost?" asked Noah.
"I can''t say no for certain," Andreas shook his head as Noah continued to read the child''s journal.
"Yesterday, I had this weirdest dream. Before I went to bed, I asked mother about father once again. As usual, mother didn''t say a word. She just said it''s better if I don''t know who my father is. I disagree. I want to meet him. I was thinking about father and I had a dream. I was floating in the sky. It was night, I think. Everything was dark. I called for mother, but no one heard me. Then, I saw someone. He was talking to a snake. Strange, isn''t it? Unfortunately, I couldn''t see his face. I tried to approach him, but I was unable to move my body. The snake in his hand looked right at me. For some reason, I had a feeling this snake wanted me to get away from the man. It felt so real. Now I can''t help but think whether this dream is a sign. Sister Nerita and Johana always told me I am special. If I am special, is there any chance this dream is a sign? Could he be my father?
After Noah finished reading everything the child wrote about his dream, Andreas had a deep frown on his ghostly face. Noah turned another couple of pages, hoping to find out more about the child''s dream and his father.
"Okay, I know this is going to sound weird, but I had another weird dream yesterday after I asked mother about father. The only difference this time was I saw an ind. It was on fire. The man I saw in my previous dream was there with his snake. It wasughing at the burning ind. Why do I have this kind of dream every time I ask about my father? Now I can''t stop believing the man in my dream, and my father has some kind of connection,"
"Is this kid having nightmares, or does his dreams really have some meaning?" Noah asked Andreas.
"There are many types of dreams. Some might give a glimpse of the future, and some might show us what we desire deep down,"
"This child wants to see its father. So it might be dreaming about him. But I have a feeling his dreams have some kind of meaning," Noah said, turning the pages.
"I can''t believe what I saw in my dreams today. I saw the man again in my dreams. This time, there was no darkness. I saw him floating in the air without the snake. I wanted to talk to him, but when I approached him, he turned the day into night. I am not going to hide my dreams anymore. When mother returns, I will tell her about them," Noah read the words. He turned the pages, but they were empty.
"We need to find this child," Noah and Andreas said these words simultaneously.
Chapter 728 Gift Box To General Booth
Noah and Andreas rushed out of the cave. After reading the journal, they both had a grave feeling in their guts. This time, Andreas did not stop Noah from giving the two girls healing potions. Noah squatted beside Nerita and Johana. He gently opened their mouths and poured the healing potion into their mouth. As the healing potion trickled down into the throat, rosiness returned to their faces. Nerita groaned. Johanna managed to open her eyes slowly.
The moment realization hit Johana, her eyes went wide. She almost jumped to her feet.
"Where is he?" Johana didn''t even say anything to Noah. Instead, she rushed into the cave. Nerita followed her behind.
"Are you thinking what I am thinking?" Andreas asked Noah.
"The man who turned the day into night," Noah mumbled.
"The Dark Lord," Andreas said with a grave tone. The mere mention of the name made Andreas tremble in fear.
"We can''t tell that for sure. As far as we know, it might just be a dream," said Noah. However, he didn''t believe it to be the truth. Noah just didn''t want to jump to conclusions based on a child''s dream and a journal.
"Come on, Noah. Deep down, you feel it. The question is, who is the Dark Lord to the child?"
Noah remained silent with a deep frown on his face.
"The Dark Lord certainly has some hold on the child. We need to find the child before the Dark Lord does,"
"Where is the child?!" Noah turned around, hearing Johana''s roar.
She dashed at Noah and grabbed Noah''s cor.
"I just came here and saw the two of you unconscious," said Noah.
"Tell us what happened so I can help you. Who was here? Who knocked you out?" Noah questioned Nerita and Johana.
Nerita and Johana did not answer Noah. Instead, Noah saw their eyes tearing up.
"I know about the spirit child,"
As soon as the two girls heard Noah, their hearts skipped a beat. Johana''s hands fell down, letting go of Noah''s cors.
"If the child isn''t inside, whoever knocked you out must have taken it," said Noah.
"We need to find that child, Noah," Noah heard Andreas panic.
Johana and Nerita looked at each other. They were about to turn around and head out of the ind to find the child when Noah stopped them.
"A child is in danger, and you two want to keep its existence a secret? Let me help you," Johana and Nerta stopped on their steps.
"You don''t have much time. Where are you going to search? Don''t be stupid. A child''s life is in danger, for god sake. If La wants to punish me after I find the child, she is wee to do so. Now tell me what happened here," Noah''s tone became dominant. His godly aura made Nerita and Johana tremble. They couldn''t resist trusting Noah. If the Dark Lord''s aura made the others scared, Noah''s aura influenced others to trust in him.
Johana and Nerita couldn''t think straight. The disappearance of the child made their minds go nk. Tears rolled out of their eyes as the two began to tell Noah what had happened earlier. Although they epted the existence of the spirit child, they did not reveal anything about how it came to this world or anything rted to its power.
When they finished their story, Noah took a deep breath.
"If we find who attacked you, we will find the child," said Noah.
"We must tell the mistress," said Nerita.
"One of you must stay on the ind in case someone elsees here. I will use my contacts in the guild to find the child,"
"No!" Johana shouted.
"You cannot tell anyone about the child,"
"I won''t. I will just tell them I am searching for a normal child, not a spirit child,"
After leaving the ind, Noah headed straight toward the OZer continent.
"Any n on how to find the child?" asked Andreas.
"If we can find who attacked them, we can find the child,"
"How do you n to do that?"
"Lah wouldn''t have told many about the child. I don''t believe the two men who attacked the girls happened to stumble upon the child. They knew a child was living there. So the one who took the child must be someone who knew about the child. First, I need to know everyone La told about the child. It can''t be a long list,"
"Those girls have no clue about where Lah is," said Andreas.
"But I know someone who might have,"
"Edith, your sweetheart," Even in a situation like this, Andreas managed to find humor. Noah heard his teacher chuckle.
However, Noah was not in the mood for fun. On the contrary, he was pretty serious.
"Teacher. What if the Dark Lord was the child''s father?"
Noah hoped Andreas would say no. Unfortunately, Andreas remained silent for a few moments.
"I believe so," On contrary to what Noah wished for, Andreas agreed with Noah''s feelings. Although Noah had this feeling that the Dark Lord was the child''s father, his heart refused to believe so. Noah knew better than anyone what would happen to the child and Lah if the Dark Lord was the child''s father. The Skyhall and the Guardian Guild would nail the mother and child as punishment. Noah never wanted innocent people like Lah and the child to get punished because of the Dark Lord. After all, the child did no wrong.
"The Dark Lord is evil, Noah. No one would have chosen to soul-walk someone except him. But we must know whether Lah knew of this or not. If she knew about the Dark Lord and didn''t report to the guild, she have to be treated as an aplice,"
"What about the child?"
"Until we know the full extent of its powers, we have to keep the child safe from the outside world,"
"You mean keeping the child locked up?" Noah frowned. As much as Noah wanted to put an end to the Dark Lord threat, he didn''t like to sacrifice innocent people in the process. He learned the cost of taking a life the hard way. To be honest, it had been months since Noah slept peacefully. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the children crying for their parents, who Noah had killed. Noah used to kill people who tried to kill him. This was a dog-eat-dog world. Only ruthless and heartless people could survive. Noah used to be one in such a world until he saw the aftermath of each life he took.
With every man Noah killed, the number of orphans went up. It was one of the many reasons why Noah stopped taking lives. Instead of getting used to a cruel world, Noah wanted to change it. Even though it meant fighting the whole world, Noah was ready for it.
"It''s the spawn of the Dark Lord, Noah. It might be an innocent child now, but soon, the Dark Lord''s blood within the child will corrupt it. We can''t take the risk of letting tiny Dark Lord run around,"
"But teacher, I won''t let the guild or anyone hurt the child until it stays innocent. If it gets corrupted by the Dark Lord as you said, we will take care of it," Noah firmly said.
"I may have taught you too well, Noah," Andreas sighed, but he was extremely proud of Noah.
****************************************
While Noah was on his way to the Ozer continent, General Booth was in his room. A bright smile was stered on his face due to Zakari and Austin''s sessful mission. Booth emptied a ss full of one in a single gulp.
"Got you fucker," Booth grinned. He cursed Ghost and poured another ss of wine.
"Your grace," Booth heard his maid knocking on the ground.
"Enter, sweety," Booth weed the maid into the room with an ear-to-ear grin. He started taking off his robes, preparing to feast on his beautiful maid.
But his hands stopped when he saw a wooden box in his maid''s hands. On top of the wooden box, he saw a scroll.
"Your grace, this is addressed to you. Our runemasters checked it for explosions, but they said it''s clear,"
"Did they open it?" asked Booth with a frown.
"They couldn''t, your grace. They said it requires your fingerprint to open the box and this scroll,"
The maid put the box on the table. Looking at the box, the lust in Booth''s eyes faded away.
"You can leave," Booth dismissed the maid.
After she left him alone in the room with the box and the scroll, Booth slowly grabbed the scroll. As soon as his hand touched the scroll, several runes glowed on its surface. Booth opened the scroll and read the words.
"My dead Booth, thest time we met, you gave me a gift I cannot forget as long as I am alive. So I thought I should return the favor. Unfortunately, it was nowhere close to the gift you gave me, but I tried my best and am still working on other gifts for you. I hope it puts a smile on your face. I really wish I was there to see your smile. Your best friend, Ghost AKA Abras,"
The moment Booth''s eyes fell on thest words, he clenched his fist until his nails began to prate his skin. Blood trickled down from his palm. Shockingly, Booth''s hands shivered slightly. He slowly touched the wooden box to open it. Just like the scroll, the box lit up when he touched it.
A cracking sound resonated from within as though a hidden lock had been unlocked by his touch. Booth slowly opens the top of the box. To his shock, a bloody head was inside it. Booth''s eyes turned red almost immediately as he picked up the head.
"Kevin," Booth mumbled. He closed Kevin''s eyes. Judging by the terror in Kevin''s eyes, Booth could tell what he must have gone through in thest moments of his life. Booth couldn''t stop his body from trembling in anger. He wanted to destroy everything in the room. Although Booth and Kevin didn''t share a strong bond, Kevin was still his family. He had known Kevin since he was little. The fact that someone else had tortured Kevin, cut his head, and dared to send it in a box made Booth''s blood boil.
"GHOST!" Booth roared as the table before him, and the box exploded into pieces.
Chapter 729 The Scale Of A Naga
"Your grace," The maid entered the room after a while. Booth put the head back in the box and summoned Edith.
"Miss Edith is waiting for you," said the maid.
"Good. Let her in," Booth ordered the maid. Despite what happened, Booth didn''t show any anger in his tone.
"As you wish, your grace," The maid bowed and left the room. Booth silently waited for Edith, staring at the snow-covered city through the window. The people of Valeria had no worries with their guardians looking over them. Unlike the other parts of Ozer, the war didn''t touch thend of Valeria. Booth was a great general and even greater duke than many had expected. His ruthlessness, coupled with King Maxim''s financial support, turned once ordinary duchy into an extraordinary ce. Many thusians preferred to live in Valeria more than even Diamond valley.
But Booth knew the tranquility he sees is temporary. The moment Ghost stepped into his duchy, it would be thrown into war. Ghost could attack them in an all-out war; instead, he was taking his time, just like Booth did to the sanctuary. It was not an understatement to say the majority of the thusians were terrified, including the royal family. Thest time Booth met Queen Valeria, she seemed as graceful and courageous as before, yet Booth could see the fear in her eyes. The loss they suffered in the Golden Port battle was slowly taking effect. Without the Golden Port, they would face hardships in bringing food to survive the winter. If that was not trouble enough, Booth read the reports that Ghost''s army was nning tounch a full-scale attack on Northguard.
"Duke Booth," His train of thought was abruptly stopped by the gentle voice of Edith.
"Come in," Booth said. He slowly turned around, gesturing for Edith to take a seat before him.
"I have a gift for you. I received it, but I feel like you also deserve to see it," said Booth.
"Is that the gift?" Edith pointed at the wooden boxes. As a runemaster, she could see engraved runes in the wooden box.
"Yes," nodded Booth.
He slowly sat on his chair before sliding the box toward Edith. She took the box in her hand. For a few moments, Edith looked around the box. It felt heavy in her hands.
Finally, Edith ced the box on herp and slowly opened the top. The moment she opened the box, a pungent stench of blood hit her nostrils. Her eyes widened as she felt a chill looking at the severed head.
"Ah!" She threw the box in the air. With a flick of his wrist, Booth controlled the box and made it safelynd on it with the head still inside.
Edith''s face was pale. She breathed heavily.
"Guess who that is? My nephew Kevin," Booth said without showing any signs of anger in his tone.
"He went to capture that bitch of a general Ghost have with the iron cage you engraved with your runes," Booth said. He was nonchnt.
Edith was not in the mood to be shocked. Rather, she was too terrified. The image of the severed head, the dead eyes staring back at her, haunted her mind. Booth gave Edith some time to collect her thoughts.
"I want to see the cage," said Edith.
"My men are bringing the cage here as we speak. But Miss Edith, I am having doubts about your skills. If your n to frame Ghost as the Dark Lord didn''t work, we are all royally screwed. You know that, right?"
Edith did not respond to Booth for a few moments.
"I still believe no human could have escaped the cage," said Edith.
"Your grace," Booth heard a soldier''s voiceing from outside the door.
"The cage is in the backyard," said the soldier.
"Miss Edith,"
Booth and Edith left the room without wasting time. They headed straight to the backyard, where everything was covered in snow. The dummies for the soldiers to practice almost drowned in the snow. The servers were still sweeping the snow, and some mages helped them by casting a fire spell to melt the snow. When they saw Booth and Edith, they immediately stopped what they were doing and bowed.
The cage was bent and looked crooked, as though it was crushed by something heavy.
Edith made her way to the cage. She walked around the cage.
"What happened to it?" asked Edith.
"Miss Edith. We found the cage under the rubble of the underground prison. Whoever attacked our men destroyed the cepletely," said the soldier. Since Booth did not tell his men who attacked the Northguard trap designed for General Aelia, the soldiers assumed it was an unnamed assant who attacked the ce. They didn''t even know about the death of Kevin.
"That exins the state of this cage," nodded Edith.
Suddenly Booth creased his brows. He slowly walked to the cage and leaned forward to inspect the two bent metal bars closely.
"What is that?" asked Edith, pointing at a strange-looking scale imprinted on the bar.
Booth gently grabbed the violent scale and peeled it off the bar. He raised it in the air,
"A scale of a Naga," Booth mumbled. The scale glimmered in the light. It still radiated a faint glow. Anyone else would have mistaken the scale for a snake or a creature but not Booth. He was too familiar with the Nagas. After all, he spent a good part of his life in Nagnd. Hence, he knew more about the Nagas than anyone in the kingdom.
"How did it end up in the cage?" Booth asked himself.
Edith quickly conjured a ball of light. When she ced the light closer to the cage, the light illuminated a handprint on each bent bar. The handprint on the bar was several times bigger than a typical human''s handprint.
"You doubted my skills. And now, I am doubting your spies'' skills, " Edith said. She didn''t like the way Booth ridiculed her skills. When Booth was building the cage and asking for her help, she clearly mentioned that no humans could escape the cage for five long hours. The n was to capture Aelia, knock her down within the cage, and transport her to Valeria to use as a hostage. Although the nagas and humans looked the same when a naga was in their human form, the nagas were several times stronger when they transformed into their true form. In their true form, they became the strongest race, only next to the Sea Folk. Some Nagas could even fight a fully-grown dragon head-to-head. In other words, humans were nowhere near a naga in terms of strength and power. So if the naga was trapped inside a cage, he or she could break the cage with minimal effort.
"The report clearly stated they captured that girl," Booth recalled the report he read. His spies were no fools to mistake someone else for Ghost''s general and fiance.
Booth turned his gaze toward the soldiers,
"Put the cage in the store room," Booth ordered his men. Afterward, he quickly made his way back to his room, followed by Edith. When the two of them reached the room, Booth put the scale inside a small wooden box.
"The reports don''t lie. My men captured Aelia, and she was the one inside the cage," said Booth. His voice and face became more serious than usual.
Shock and surprise were written all over her face. She had been surprised too many times today. First, her sister revealed that she has a spirit child with Ghost; now, Booth implicates that Aelia might be a Naga. The scale Booth found and the sheer strength required to bend the bars she enhanced with runes all suggested a human couldn''t have broken out of the cage.
"She is a Naga in human form. That exins her powers," said Booth.
Only a few survived Gaya''s ughter, and they spread tales that almost sounded too terrifying to believe. Booth heard those who survived became insane. Even the best of his generals lost their lives to her. He always wondered how a typical human girl like her could be that powerful. Her origin as a NAga exined a lot. Fortunately, the Nagas were a race that preferred to stay in their kingdom. One could rarely see a Naga outside their kingdom. Moreover, the Nagas kept a list of their citizens who ventured outside Nagnd. Thanks to the Nagas'' cautious nature, Booth had a chance to discover Aelia''s identity. At this point, Booth believed even her name Aelia was anything but true.
"I have a few contacts in Nagnd. So I''ll find out who she really is," said Booth.
"I have a better way. Give me a day," said Edith. If Booth had contacts in Nagnd, Edith knew the princess of Nagnd herself.
"You care to tell me what you''re nning to do?" Booth tilted his head.
"Believe me. It''s better this way," said Edith.
Booth did not argue with Edith. A day wouldn''t make a difference. Besides, regardless of Edith''s n, Booth would send scrolls to his contacts in Nagnd enquiring about the Naga with Ghost. Edith left the room after taking the box with the Naga scale. Eventually, Booth left his room for the capital. He was ordered to meet princess Victoria in the castle. They had to n ahead for the uing battles.
By nightfall, Booth arrived at Maxim Barnes''s castle. He was weed by a group of crimson-red armored soldiers who were armed to the teeth. Powerful mages and archers apanied the knights. They led Booth to the war room, where he met Princess Victoria.
"Your royal highness," Booth dropped to his one knee, facing the princess.
"Rise, Duke Booth,"
"Please, call me General Booth as you always do, your royal highness," a slight smile emerged on Victoria''s face. Only a few people had the ability to make Victoria smile, and Booth was one of them. He practically raised Princess Victoria with her parents. In public, Booth was a stoic General, but when they were in private, Booth was like a doting uncle to Victoria.
Simply put, Booth loved Victoria more than he loved anyone in his own family, including Kevin. If Victoria''s head was in the box instead of Kevin''s, Booth would have gone berserk and destroyed everything in his path.
Chapter 730 Neldor, The Half Immortal
Booth joined Victoria at the war table, where they nned to fend off Ghost and his army. At that moment, the minister of defense and minister of finance apanied Booth and Victoria. The minister of defense was an old man in histe seventies. He had a long white beard and short hair. His eyes glimmered with wisdom and power. No one would guess the old man''s real age because of his sturdy, muscr body. He belonged to one of the proud families in Thusia, Harstone.
"Minster Terrance," Booth greeted the old man with a nod.
"Duke," Terrance responded with a nod.
Contrary to Terrance, the minister of finance was a tall, fat man in histe or early forties. His long blue hair had few strands of white while vigor glistened in his blue eyes.
"Minister Gordan," Booth nodded at the blue-haired man with a slight smile. Just like Terrance Harstone, he hailed from a prominent noble family in Thusia. In fact, Gordon was a close rtion to King Maxim. He was the uncle of King Maxim Barnes himself and Calvin Howard''s father.
"How is Calvin nowadays?" asked Booth.
After learning that Ghost was Abras, King Maxim Barnes suspended Calvin from all of his minstrel duties indefinitely. King Maxim Barnes med Calvin for not doing proper research on Ghost. Instead, Calvin offered the position of Thusian Alchemy Guild leader to Ghost. Maxim Barnes was furious that they paid Ghost for almost six months without knowing his real identity and intention. Usually, Maxim Barnes would have sent Calvin to the gallows, but he spared his life because of Gordan. Even Calvin''s own family med him for his ipetence. Although he was on suspension, they all knew it was highly unlikely that Calvin would return to his post again.
"A mess," Gordon replied with a cold look in his eyes. He showed no empathy for his son. Calvin almost brought a snake into their home, and Gordan couldn''t forgive him for that.
"We can inquire about each other''s well-beingter," coldly said Victoria.
They all nodded, bringing their focus back to the map on the table.
"We havepletely lost control of the Golden Port," said Victoria.
"General Booth, how many ships have we lost?" asked Victoria.
"Almost right hundred ships, give or take. My men are stilling up with the exact number. I''ll have them on your table by tomorrow evening," said General Booth.
Minister Gordon gasped in shock. As a minister of finance, he knew how much it would cost them to rebuild the naval army, as well as the effects of losing the Golden Port.
"Minister Terrance. What''s your n to retake the Golden port?" asked Minister Gordon.
"Taking back the Golden Port isn''t as simple as you think, Minister Gordon," Terrance said in his thick ent.
"The ships we can build, but we cannot recover the loss of two valuable generals. We lost General Hubert and Franklin. I don''t have to tell you about their achievements and contribution to this great nation,"
"I respect and mourn their deaths, but what''s your point, Minister Terrance? Without the Golden Port, the survivability of our citizens through the winter has hit an all-time low. We have to take back the Golden Port,"
Terrance sighed.
"I understand your concern and know how important the Golden Port is to Thusia. But taking it back costs us an immense amount of resources which we cannot afford to lose now," Terrance moved the figurines of soldiers from Diamond Valley to the Golden Port on the map.
"First, if we want to take back the Golden Port, we have to take the troops from Diamond valley and send them to the Golden Port. Judging by our enemies'' nature, they expect us to do just that so they can take over Diamond valley without breaking a sweat. Second, even if we send the troops to the Golden Port, the terrain is unsuitable forrge-scale battles. We need a naval army which we don''t have anymore. The enemies have almost thrice the number of our ships after stealing most of our ships," exined Terrance.
"Finally, even if we have an army and suitable terrain, they cannot win against a Half Immortal. I still have no idea why Ghost was taking his time instead of going all in,"
"He wants me to suffer," answered Victoria.
"He wants me to feel helpless. When I met him in the Akn realm, he told me he would destroy everything father and I built brick by brick. That''s why he allied himself with our enemies and is attacking our cities one by one,"
Silence fell over them. The three of them didn''t show any signs of anger on their faces but burned with rage inside. They all adored and almost worshiped King Barnes. Therefore, they couldn''t see anyone hurting him or his family. It took a great effort for Booth to stand still instead of venting his anger on Ghost''s child.
"To turn the tides of this war, we have to take Ghost out of the picture. Without him in the front, his army would fall apart. We can pick them one by one once and for all afterward," said Terrance. The thusians were prepared to fight many Fusion stage cultivators but not a single Half Immortal. By reaching the Half Immortal stage, Michaelpletely caught them off guard. If Michael was not a Half Immortal, Thusians would have destroyed Michael and his army no matter the size of it.
"So it''s a good thing you have me," Suddenly, they heard a calm voice reverberate in the room. The room trembled a bit. Booth felt the space around him distort for a moment. A small orb of light appeared a couple of meters away from the table. Soon, the light transformed into a dashing elf. Anyone would be mesmerized by the elf when they see him for the first time. The elf had a perfect jaw structure, wless, smooth skin, and icy blue eyes. His golden hair added an extrayer of charm to him.
The elf wore a set of armor mimicking the appearance of a dragon. The shoulders are oval, long, and enormous. They were decorated with hundreds of small leather pieces, imitating the scales of reptiles.
His arms were protected by chainmail rerebraces which sat well under the shoulder tes. The lower arms were covered by vambraces which had ayer of chainmail covering the outer sides. The armor''s breastte section was made from many horizontalyers of leather and fur with pointed edges and decoration pieces. It covered everything from the neck down, ending at the groin.
He gracefully walked toward the four. Everyone was able to feel the intense power radiating from the elf. Gordon''s jaw dropped a couple of inches when he sensed the elf''s cultivation, Half Immortal stage level 5.
"I heard you have a Ghost problem. Yours truly is here to exorcize that Ghost back to the hell he came from," The elf said with a yful tone. It was obvious the elf wasn''t taking Ghost seriously.
"General Booth, Ministers," Victoria''s gaze swept across the trio.
"This is Lord Neldor. He''s here to help us on behalf of the Guardian Guild," Victoria introduced the elf to everyone in the room.
"You got quite the pull to make the board put a high priority mark on Ghost. I am impressed," Neldor praised Victoria.
"The sooner you tell me where Ghost is, the sooner I can get rid of him and go back to my castle," said Neldor.
"King Gunner''s castle in Egerton, Suven," said Terrance.
"Wonderful. Should I bring his head, or do you have anything specific in mind? This would be a good time for any requests,"
"Just make him suffer for what he did to my soldiers and people," Victoria growled.
With a simple nod, Neldor disappeared from the room as fast as he appeared. Gordon exhaled deeply. He felt like he was being crushed by an invisible mountain when Neldor was in the room. After the elf teleported out of the thusian castle, the trio continued their battle ns. They didn''tpletely depend on Neldor to take care of Ghost.
"How long till his majestyes out of his seclusion?" asked General Booth.
"Three more days. I will be with him for the next three days. General booth, please take care of the security. I don''t want anything to go wrong during father''s heavenly tribtion,"
"I will guard the two of you with my life, your royal highness," said Booth.
"During my absence, guard our cities as much as you can. If everything goes ording to the n, Neldor will take care of Ghost, and everything will go back to the way it was. Otherwise, we have to defend our kingdom till my fatheres out of his seclusion,"
The three of them agreed with Victoria with a bow. Although Booth had a backup n to deal with Ghost in the form of the spirit child, he chose not to share it with Victoria. He didn''t want Victoria''s soft spot for Edith toe in the way of his n. If everything fails, the spirit child might be the only way to stop Ghost.
While they were discussing their defense n, they heard someone knocking on the door repeatedly.
"Who is there?" Booth asked with a tinge of coldness in his voice.
"Your royal highness, I have an urgent report," the soldier outside the door eximed. Judging by the soldier''s tone, Victoria had a feeling something bad had happened.
"Enter," said Victoria.
After hearing her order, a soldier entered the room. His face was pale and drenched with sweat. He breathed heavily as though he was running for miles.
"Your roya-"
"Skip the pleasantries and tell us what happened," said Victoria, preventing the soldier from addressing them with honorifics.
"Something is attacking our soldiers stationed at the Diamond valley,"
Victoria and Booth creased their brows.
"What do you mean by something?" asked Booth.
"We didn''t see it clearly, your grace. Please, send backup to the Diamond valley," the soldier pleaded to Victoria.
She quickly turned her gaze toward Terrance.
"Minister Terrance, send a group of soldiers immediately to the diamond valley. Before I depart to my father''s ce, I want to know the full story of what''s happening in the diamond valley,"
Chapter 731 Battle Between Half Immortals
The people of Suven had to stay in their homes instead of roaming outside. The heavy snowfall intensified with each second. It added a grayish-foggy mor to the entire kingdom. The mournful cry of wolves echoed through the vault still-silence of the trees. A huffing wind rose up then, stirring the roofs of the wooden homes. A tinkling sound resonated as the blocks of ice pearls dropped onto the roofs. The sound was like the ssy clinking of a champagne flute, lilting and clear. Even the cultivators felt the bone-chilling coldness in the air. The snowfall passed over us, and the sound intensified. The noise of snow falling was like the phut-phut-phut that ripened nuts make when they hit the ground. It wasn''t the soft, sodden, swollen drops of spring but more like ball bearings were hitting the canvas roof with force. One could also hear an asional ker-plunking sound. It was caused by the ice gathered on the tent falling to the ground in a great swash of release.
Michael stared at the storm getting worse through the window in his room. The storm didn''t rage only outside but also inside of him. He received the news of Spirit child''s disappearance from Azazel. The only silver lining was Azazel told him Noah was on the ind and most probably searching for the child. As he was pondering everything, Gaya entered the room.
"I heard what happened from Azazel," Gaya grabbed his hand, consoling him.
"Do you think we should start searching for the child?" asked Gaya.
Michael shook his head.
"No,"
His answer truly surprised Gaya. She expected that even if he didn''t personally search for the child, he would ask one of his subordinates to find the child. Contrary to her expectation, Michael outright refused to search for the child.
"I didn''t drag this battle out to leave everything in the middle. Maxim Barnes is getting closer to triggering his heavenly tribtion,"
"I have a feeling the thusians took the child to use it as a hostage," said Gaya.
"If that''s the case, we''ll find the child soon," said Michael.
"But what will you do Michael? What will you choose, the child or your revenge?"
"Revenge," Michael didn''t even take a few seconds. The hatred ran deep inside Michael to the point he didn''t even care about the spirit child. No matter what, he would destroy Thusia. Since Michael told Victoria if she harmed his people in any way, he would reveal the existence of the Cosmic stream to the outside world. It was highly unlikely Victoria had something to do with the spirit child''s disappearance. She was not stupid enough to jeopardize the Cosmic stream. Even King Maxim restricted himself from harming Michael''s people in Elon because of Michael''s threat.
"Fortunately, I don''t have to choose. I fully believe Noah would save the child. Besides, I told Lah don''t let the childe in my way," said Michael.
"My Lord, our attack on the Diamond valley is over. Our new allies safely retreated to their hideouts," Michael heard Azazel''s voice in his head.
"Good," Michael nodded. He then turned his head to look Gaya in the eyes.
"You have to meet our new allies and make sure they fall in line,"
"What about him?" asked Gaya.
"I''ll allow him to live for now. I don''t think he''d be interested in serving us,"
Gaya exhaled deeply. She slowly cupped his face and gently kissed him on the forehead.
"Just think about the spirit child''s matter, okay? Seeing the child in person and making a decision is way different and difficult,"
"I know," Michael said. He slowly leaned forward to lock his lips with Gaya''s when he sensed a powerful threat in his Environmental Scanning Map.
He immediately cast the Wind st. The force of wind shot out of Michael''s hand, sting Gaya several meters away from him. As soon as he sent Gaya flying, a bright beam of energy shot through the ss and hit Michael. Thanks to the Responsive shield and Michael''s quick reflex, the energy beam grazed the side of his chest instead of prating.
The side of the wall slowly crumbled down due to the energy beam''s power. Gaya immediately jumped to her feet. She wanted to dash forward,
"Go away," Michael ordered Gaya.
"I''ll take care of this," said Michael, slowly standing up from the ground. Meanwhile, the soldiers in the castle quickly rushed outside, hearing themotion. An unnatural sound of thunder rumbling reverberated through the sky. Because of the storm, the soldiers couldn''t see the man floating in the sky above the castle. Michael cracked his neck. Without lingering inside the castle, he dashed outside through the hole in the room.
As soon as he exited the room, he saw an elf floating in the sky. Glistening energy balls danced above the elf''s palms. The elf looked at Michael''s chest with the torn cloth. He snickered,
"I need to work on my aim," said the elf.
"You made a mistakeing here," said Michael. The elf''s Half Immortal stage level 5 cultivation didn''t scare Michael. In fact, Michael felt pity for the elf. He could have lived a long life as a Half Immortal. Instead, the elf chose to embrace the sweet death by attacking Michael.
The elf, on the other hand, did not respond. He directly shot another beam from his hand. Michael swayed his body to the side, evading the beam. But the caste walls were not very fortunate. The beam destroyed the walls. Several cracks formed all over the castle. Moreover, the soldiers were sent flying just by the sheer force of the beam. Michael was surprised. To him, the energy beam wasn''t deadly. However, the mortal soldiers couldn''t even withstand the shockwave created by the beam. Michael realized why everyone feared a battle between two Immortals.
"Let me guess, the thusians sent you," said Michael.
Once again, the elf shot Michael with another energy beam. The beam created an otherworldly whistling sound as it soared through the sky. Michael felt the temperature around him rise by several degrees. Besides, the beam distorted the space around him. The lightning bolts had an even more powerful effect, but Michael hadn''t felt the effects of his spell-like his opponents.
Michael dashed out of the beam''s trajectory.
"You have to do better than that," Michael snickered. Instead of waiting for the elf to fire another energy beam, Michael flew away from the castle. The elf quickly flew behind Michael. While chasing Michael, the elf kept firing at Michael. Both of them used their speed spells. Soon, the elf started to fire a couple of energy beams simultaneously. Michael immediately retrieved his ck shield. He turned around, blocking the energy beam with the shield. The moment the white energy beam and the ck shield collided, it created a powerful shock wave. An eerie sound was several times more powerful and threatening than a thunderp that echoed through the sky. As a result of blocking the oing energy beam with the shield, Michael was pushed with such force that his speed increased several times. It was like a nitrous boost to Michael''s speed. His hand went numb, but he kept using the shield to reach his destination faster.
The elf was relentless. Even after seeing Michael blocking his attacks, he continued to bombard Michael with the energy beams. To be honest, the elf was surprised by how sturdy the shield was. He wanted to get his hands on the shield. The elf had no idea Michael was three levels stronger than him because Michael paid the system to lower his cultivation level. As far as the elf was concerned, Michael was at Half Immortal stage level 2. Each time Michael blocked the energy beam with the shield, he was pushed back fifty to a hundred meters back in lightning speed.
The shield began to turnva orange on the edges due to the energy beam''s heat. Michael''s hands felt numb.
"Nice shield," The elf said. His words echoed through the air like a thunderp. The unfortunate vige lost their houses when Michael blocked another energy beam with the shield. Soon, Michael felt the energy in the atmosphere distort violently. As a result, the grayish winter clouds turned dark. The stormy wind blew with enough speed to uproot several trees in the forest. When he fought, this was the first time Michael had seen such an effect on the environment. He could only imagine what would happen if two Immortals battled it out.
Now Michael realized why everyone, including the Guardians and the Council of Immortals, feared fighting the rogue immortals. They might win against the rogue immortal, but the coteral damage would be rather grave. The elf''s eyes glistened with battle lust. As Michael expected, the elf slowly lost his sense of location. If he hadn''t, he would have realized they were getting closer and closer to the ind of Ithn. Victoria and Booth nned to finish Ghost by sending a Half Immortal. However, Michael outsmarted them by bringing their Half Immortal to their own kingdom to fight. Since Michael had taken over the Golden Port, he targeted the Diamond Valley.
Seeing Michael blocking his energy beams with the shield nonstop, the elf pped his hands together. The thunderous p produced a shock wave pushing Michael back and making him lose his bnce. The elf''s hands lit up as Michael sensed the elf''s energy fluctuations around him skyrocket. Additionally, Michale heard an otherworldly whistling sound in the air.
Michael''s grip on the shield became tighter as he knew the next energy beam would be several times more powerful than the earlier ones. The moment the elf shot the energy beam, it lit up the entire dark sky. Michael heard a thunderous explosion from the elf''s hands as though several grenades had gone off at the same time. The energy beam soared through the sky, cutting the sound barrier itself.
Michael quickly grabbed the shield with his two hands and blocked the energy beam because the beam was too fast. Even if he had cast the Silenes, he couldn''t have evaded the beam. Hence, Michael blocked the energy beam. The ck shield turned orange and flew out of Michael''s hands. But before flying out of his hand, the shield blocked the beam. The beam collided with the shield''s surface and split into several beams. Each of the beams went in a different direction. The beams which hit the ground destroyed everything they touched. Houses crumbled down like cookies, trees turned into ashes, and citizens of thusian got obliterated into nothing.
The people screamed in utter fear. They ran for cover while mes engulfed the buildings. Even the armored soldiers weren''t spared by the beams. The reflected beams lost almost half their power, but they were still powerful enough to kill a Core Formation stage soldier who also wore metal te armor.
Chapter 732 True Power
Diamond valley was the crown jewel of Ithn before the Thusians conquered the Ind. This small valley was named after its famous diamond mine. The name influenced the architects to build most of the buildings in the shape of a diamond. The city itself was bordered by a forest to the North, arge, frozenke to the South, luscious grass fields to the East, and graceful mountains to the West. The people of diamond valley mainly lived off working in the diamond mine and crafting jewels using the diamonds they produced.
The city''s tropical climate and higher living standards made many prefer to live in the diamond valley. Most of the veteran soldiers and retired merchants chose diamond valley to live theirst years because of its beauty and serene atmosphere. Diamond Valley''sndscape was pleasing to the eyes; luscious fields, dramatic mountain views, and jade green fields were just a sliver of brilliance it has to offer, which was the reason the foreigners adored the city like none other.
Using the diamond mines, the city prospered. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say that Diamond valley filled the treasury more than the other duchiesbined, thanks to the diamond mine. Even the master craftsmen in the Awor continent preferred to work with the diamonds mined in the diamond valley because of their quality. Not a single mine existed in the world that could produce diamonds as quality as the diamond valley diamonds. However, only a few knew the secret of the mine. The Cosmic stream affected the diamonds in the mine, yet no one knew this, not even the previous kings of Ithn. Over the years, the cosmic stream slowly ran into the ground, blending with the natural diamond vein in the diamond valley. Hence, Diamond Valley had the best diamond mine.
The importance of the Diamond valley was the reason why Terrance felt reluctant to take troops away from the duchy. Granted, the Golden Port was valuable, but the Diamond valley was more important to the Thusian than the Golden Port. Victoria knew they couldn''t afford to lose Diamond valley no matter why. Hence, she put herself on the line to convince Oswald to send an Immortal to deal with Ghost. Of course, Victoria had no intention of marrying Oswald''s son. After Ghost''s death, she would just order Booth to assassinate Oswald''s son and make it look like someone else had done it.
Unfortunately for her, Michael also knew the importance of the ce. Thus, Michael picked it as his next target instead of attacking the duchy of Valeria. To be honest, Michael didn''t expect Victoria to send a HAlf Immortal this soon. Luckily, Michael always had a n for almost everything. Initially, Michale wanted to draw the troops away from Diamond valley to the Golden Port and then attack the valley in full force. To build his army and a stronghold in the Southern continent, he needed millions of coins or even billions. Obviously, he wouldn''t be able to make money out of his restaurants and majestic stores after revealing his identity.
Looting the mines clean and then selling the diamonds would take care of the financial side for some time. Unfortunately, ording to the system, absorbing the cosmic energy from the stream would result in the destruction of the diamond vein in the valley. As a result, the mines might explode into pieces. Otherwise, Michael would have taken the Diamond valley first and found a way to keep the mine to himself.
The shield hit theke below Michael. The water sizzled when the shield fell into it. It took a few minutes for the shield to cool down and return to its metallic ck. In the sky, Michael''s hand looked crooked. Gritting his teeth, Michael twisted his arm with a sickening crunching sound. The bone returned to its normal state as the APD healed the broken arm in a few seconds.
The elf stopped attacking Michael for a few moments. Michael extended his arm toward theke. A rune on the shield dimly glowed as the shield shot out of the water and flew straight back to Michael''s hands. Michael clenched his fist as the shield disappeared into his gauntlet.
"The sky is getting darker," said Michael, looking at the stormy clouds gathering above them.
"Choosing not to join the council was a mistake, pal," said the elf.
"Nah," Michael shook his head.
"Choosing to kill me was a mistake," said Michael. Tiny golden bolts of lightning crackled around Michael''s fist. They sounded like buzzing bees. Soon, the crackling bolts covered his whole body. He looked like the god of lightning instead of the god of darkness. Unfortunately for the elf, he chose to attack Michael at night time when Michael would be at his strongest. If the night was not enough, the storm made the ce darker. As a result, Michael was way out of the elf''s league. However, the elf had no clue how strong Michael was.
"Whatever. The sooner I kill you, the sooner I can leave this god-forsaken ce,"
This time, the elf did not use the energy beam. Instead, he raised his arm in the sky as a trident materialized in his hand. As soon as the silver trident appeared in his hand, several lightning bolts struck the trident from the sky. Soon, the trident sparkled with electric energy.
"You''re not the only one with the aid of lightning," said the elf.
"You have no idea who I am," Michael smiled. When Michael retrieved the golden spear from his space ring, a glimmer of surprise emerged in the elf''s eyes. He didn''t expect Michael to possess an Immortal killing weapon. But the elf did not back off. Instead, he raised the spear as the bolts of lightning dancing around his trident formed an electric shield around his body.
Michael and the elf dashed toward each other with their own immortal killing weapons in their hands. The two of them shed in the mid-sky, ignoring the people on the ground. Thanks to Xanali''s effort, most of the citizens evacuated the ce. The people of Diamond valley were truly lucky that Xanali expected Ghost''s attack on the valley. Otherwise, she would have only evacuated the Golden Port and left the people of Diamond valley alone. Nheless, some chose not to leave the duchy, and they paid the price with their lives. The elf swung his trident with deadly precision and technique. Michael blocked the trident with his ck shield. He then retaliated with a kick. The lightning shield around the elf crackled, blocking Michael''s feet from touching the elf. However, the sheer force of his kick pushed the elf back a few meters behind. The elf was surprised by Michael''s strength. Although the elf hadn''t fought a fellow Half Immortal in centuries, he was able to tell Michael was stronger than a level 2 Half Immortal.
Michael quickly cast the lightning dash to move forward to close the gap between them. He stabbed the elf through the lightning shield. He almost prated the shield. The elf quickly managed to swat the spear away with his trident and pointed the trident at Michael. Several bolts of icy blue lightning bolts shot out from the trident. Instinctively, Michael clenched his fist, retrieving the ck shield. The bolts of lightning bounced away but not before sending Michael flying several meters back.
Before Michael could regain his bnce, the elf raised his trident toward the sky. The clouds rumbled above him. Countless lightning struck across the sky. The people screamed in utter terror, looking at the sky littered with bolts of lightning. They all gathered at the tip of the trident. He turned the trident, pointing it at Michael. A single dense bolt of lightning shot out from the trident.
"Silenes," Michael cast the spell. Everything around him slowed down. In his eyes, the lightning bolt traveled in slow motion. He swayed his body to the side, easily moving away from the lightning bolt''s path without breaking a sweat. The spellsted for a few seconds before everything returned to normal. It took a few moments for the elf to realize Michael had evaded the bolt of lightning at thest moment. His speed stunned the elf. Suddenly, the mountain in the distance exploded. Michael may have dodged the lightning bolt but didn''t stop it. As a result, it soared through the sky until it hit the distant mountain in the diamond valley.
Michael looked over his shoulder. A huge chunk of the mountain crumbled down. The smoke created by the destruction almost nketed everything in a mile radius. Massive boulders rolled out from the mountain, crushing everything in their path. The poor trees and buildings stood no chant. Those boulders tten them like a road roller.
"Talk about coteral damage," Michael chuckled. The elf was furious. He used one of his most powerful spells, yet he couldn''t even inflict a small wound on Ghost. It frustrated the elf. As pouring fuel into a burning fire, Michael''s nonchnt tone and words made him even more furious. Michael cracked his neck and knuckles.
For some reason, the elf felt a strange fear in his heart. He looked closer at Ghost. To his surprise, his eyespletely turned pitch ck. Suddenly, he felt a force restricting him, as though an invisible hand had grabbed him. The elf noticed the sky around him growing darker and darker. The elf tried to shake the invisible force away. But before he could even move an inch, Michael appeared before him. He punched through the electric shield around the elf. The shield flickered, forming several cracks. The elf felt a sharp pain in his gut. He looked down to see Ghost''s fist on his chest. In a blink of an eye, his fancy robes caught mes. But the mes didn''t burn in red. Instead, they were burned by ck mes.
"Arggh," the elf growled in pain. Every fiber in his body ached. Blood trickled down from the corners of his mouth. Michael didn''t give the elf any time to retaliate. Instead, he slowly pushed the spear through the hole in the shield he created using the dark mes.
"I told you," Michael looked the elf in the eyes,
"You have no idea what I am," Michael whispered, pushing the spear slowly into the elf''s chest.
Chapter 733 Gaya鈥檚 Identity Is Exposed?
Michael twisted the spear inside the elf''s body. The elf coughed up blood. He tried to cast a spell but the dark mes engulfing him prevented him from doing so. Michael pulled out the spear and stabbed the elf once again. Every time he stabbed the elf, the sky rumbled. Michael would have used his Soul Eater skill if it weren''t for the people and soldiers on the ground.
"The Guardian Guild-"
The elf''s words were abruptly cut short by another stab through his chest.
"I will kill them too," said Michael. The light of life slowly faded away from the elf''s eyes. The golden spear in Michael''s hands trembled. Countless runes glowed on its surface as the elf closed his eyes. To Michael''s surprise, when the elf closed his eyes, he heard the loudest thunderp in his life. It shook the entire sky as he saw several cracks appear in the sky itself. Bright rays of light peeked through these cracks for a few seconds before they disappeared.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Half Immortal level 5 warrior. The reward is 1000000 Experience points and 30,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 20000 Badass points]
Michael heard the system notification in his head. He ignored the system notification and focused on his surroundings. Although he had never touched the ground or cast any spells upon the city beneath him, the battle between him and the elf had left the ce in ruins. He could see the people running around screaming. Buildings were either on fire or in shambles.
However, Michael didn''t feel any pity for the people. The thusians had done worse for his sanctuary. At least he didn''t ughter all of them like Booth, and his men did.
Michael tossed the elf''s body aside. He knew they would send another one or make him their priority target after the Guild heard about the elf''s death. Only Micahel didn''t give a damn.
He slowly turned around toward the mountain that received the elf''s beam earlier. ording to the map, that''s where the diamond was located. He cast the initial and flew toward the mountain. In a few moments, he reached the foothill, where he saw the entrance to the mine.
"Stop"
"OH shit"
As expected, a group of soldiers guarded the mine entrance. They were all at the core strengthening stage. Normally they would have been a threat. But to Michael, they were as weak as ants. Michale didn''t even bother to offer them an easy way out. He raised his hand, sending a crescent-shaped wind de. Despite the metal armor and runes, the wind de cut through them like a hot knife through butter.
Blood sprayed out of their necks as their heads flew in the air. Before their bodies could hit the ground, Micahel entered the mine. The mine was lit with bright orbs of light. He looked closer at the lights and found that they''d been using diamonds to light the ce.
"Fucking bastards"
Michael cursed the thusians as he made his way deep into the mine. Along the way, Micahel met a couple of patrol groups which he ughtered without breaking a sweat.
The deeper he went, the brighter the ce became. Usually, uncut diamonds wouldn''t sparkle. However, the diamonds in the mine shined brighter than any normal diamond. Even without any light source, they radiated a bright light from within. Michael bent down and picked a rough-shaped diamond. It was surprisingly heavy. He could feel a tinge of strange energying from the stone. If he was right, this energy was Cosmic energy. Typical cultivators had no chance of feeling the energy, but thanks to the system and his god''s blood, he was able to do so.
"Azazel," Michael contacted Azazel through the earpiece. In a blink of an eye, Azazel appeared before Michael.
"Clean the ce out. I don''t want any diamond lying around after you''re done," ordered Michael.
"As you wish, my lord,"
Leaving Azazel alone in the mine, Michael left the mine through the way he came in. To Michael''s surprise, when he stepped out of the mine, he saw Xanali waiting for him at the mine entrance. Unlike before, she was in her battle armor. He was covered from neck to toe with shiny red armor. Countless tiny snakes were engraved within the armor. Her red hair fluted in the wind. Behind her, elven soldiers armed to the teeth waited for Michael. They all had the symbol of the guardian guild engraved on their chests.
Michael turned his back on Xanali. He raised his hand as a bolt of lightning shot through the mine entrance. Immediately the cave copsed. Huge boulders crumbled down, blocking the entrance. Michael slowly turned around.
"You''reing with us, Ghost," said Xanali.
"And why would I do that?" Michael innocently tilted his head.
"You harbored a wanted criminal," Xanali surprised Michael. He thought Xanali was here to arrest him because he killed the elf.
Without waiting for Ghost to respond, Xanali threw a scroll toward Michael. He caught the scroll and opened it to see the face of Gaya drawn on the scroll. It was her real face.
"We have proof Aelia is Gaya Ashton, the former princess of Nagnd. She is wanted for several crimes. By harboring her, you have broken thew,"
Michael was surprised. He couldn''t help wondering how Xxanali managed to figure out Gaya''s real identity. However, he wasn''t nning to surrender as Xanali suggested to him.
"Are you hit in the head, Xanali?" asked Michael.
"I just killed a Half Immortal. What makes you think you can take me down with a group of Soul Refining stage warriors? And you, I can end you in a blink of an eye," Michael snickered. Lightning bolts began to appear around Michael''s hands. They crackled and buzzed like a hive of bees.
"We don''t want to fight you. Come with us and tell us where to find Gaya. If you help us find her, I will help you reduce your sentence for killing a Half Immortal from the Guild,"
The only thing that stopped Michael from ending Xanali''s life then and there was his promise to Gaya. For some reason, Gaya did not want him to kill Xanali.
"You have five seconds to get out of my way," said Michael. He controlled the wind around him. The soldiers saw the wind swirl around him violently. The force of the wind pushed them back except Xanali.
"Time''s up," said Michael, raising his hand. A powerful gust of wind shot out of Michael''s hand. A crimson-red barrier appeared before Xanali, saving her from getting sted away. But the soldiers weren''t fortunate. They were sent flying like dolls. The barrier before Xanali cracked. Michael just stomped the ground as the shock wave shattered the barrier. Xanali was taken aback by surprise when he dashed toward her. She reached for her sword, but before she could do that, he lifted her up by her neck.
"Guardian Captain!" The soldiers behind her finally regained their bnce. They shouted as they rushed to save her.
"Do they know you''re a Naga?" Michael snarled.
A glimmer of surprise and shock emerged in Xanali''s eyes.
"If you piss me off more than you''ve already, you won''t have a kingdom to be a princess," Michael squeezed Xanali''s neck as her face turned purplish. He could see golden scales flicker on her skin.
Michael really wanted to snap her neck and end the feud between Gaya and her once and for all. However, this wasn''t his kill but Gaya''s. That was the only reason why Michael chose to let her go. He tossed her to the side before shooting toward the sky. At that moment, the army stationed at the diamond valley reached the mountain. They prioritized saving the mine over the people. Seeing the army in one ce, Michael stopped flying away. Instead, he turned around and descended down.
"Get out of here!" Xanali shouted, sensing the energy around Ghost skyrocket. The army cast countless spells at the same time. They all attacked Michael simultaneously. But Michael didn''t even flinch. The responsive shield appeared around him, blocking all the energy arrows, fireballs, icy spikes, ethereal beasts, and swords.
Michael was about to cast the ultimate Ignitia to bring down the wrath of hundreds of lightning bolts upon the army when he saw a meteor soaring from the sky toward him. The meteor burnt with such intensity that it made Michael''s clothes smoke. His focus turned from the army to the meteor. Michael clenched his fist, covering it with the dark mes, and shot toward the meteor.
The meteor cast a humongous shadow on the ground. The ce darkened. Compared to the size of the meteor, Michael looked tiny. Despite the size, Michael punched the meteor with all of his strength. The meteor exploded, sending a powerful shock wave that decimated the army on the ground. Their collision sounded like an atomic bomb had gone off. Many lost their hearing due to the thunderous explosion. The meteor exploded into pieces, and they rained down upon the army.
Michael grabbed tworge pieces of fiery stones in mid-air and threw them at the person who cast the spell. His throw had enough force to kindle the mes more. The fiery boulders soared through the sky and hit General Zakari. Michael ignored the army as his killing intent went through the roof. He recalled the face of General Zaakri. He was one of the men who apanied Booth to the sanctuary. The moment Michael saw his face, his mind went nk as overwhelming rage upied his mind. Michael dashed toward Zakari with lightning speed.
Chapter 734 Is Ghost The Dark Lord?
Michael didn''t even stop to think about Zakari''s n. Zakari raised his hands as a stream of fire shot out of his hands. He hoped the first would stop Michael. However, Michael ignored the fire and appeared right in front of Zakari. Without giving Zakari time to react, Michael swung his fist. Zakari raised his hands instinctively to block Michael''s punch. The moment the punch connected with Zakari''s hands, his hands went numb. The force of the punch sent Zakari flying. Before Michael could attack him again, Austin brought down a huge metal pir upon Michael''s head. Michael swung his leg, kicking the metal pir away. Austin lost control of the pir. It was at least twelve meters long and three meters wide. Due to the force of Michael''s kick, Austin lost control of the pir. Michael grabbed the pir and swung it like a cricket bat at Austin.
On the ground, Xanali and her men barely survived the fiery boulders raining down from the sky. Her sight was littered with blood and mutated bodies. Everywhere she turned, she saw burning bodies and bleeding soldiers. Images of Gaya''s terror shed across Xanali''s eyes.
"All these lives," Xanali mumbled. Her heart ached to see the lives lost. Although the thusian soldier was just doing their job, Michael didn''t spare them. In his eyes, they weren''t innocent. This was war, and everything was fair in a war. If Thusia was any other kingdom, Michael would have spared the soldiers because they did nothing wrong to him. But not Thusia. He would ughter anyone who stands in his way of revenge against Thusia. General Austin and General Zakari hoped to slow down Ghost. Despite their Soul Refining stage cultivation, they were best of the best and cultivated using Cosmic energy. Booth sent them to monitor his battle with the elf. In case Ghost had defeated the elf, Booth ordered them to engage Ghost. Both Booth and the general knew they wouldn''t be able to kill Ghost, but their objective was to slow him down, not kill him.
To Booth''s surprise, Victoria suddenly announced that King MAxim Barnes would trigger his heavenly tribtion in a few hours. They wanted to prevent Ghost from attacking King Maxim Barnes during his heavenly tribtion when Maxim would be at his weakest. Any hindrance to the tribtion could take his life.
Austin''s eyes went wide when seeing Ghost moving toward him with godly speed. Even a veteran like him shivered at the sight of an angry Half Immortal. Michael didn''t give any time for Austin to cast a spell. Instead, he grabbed Austin by his neck, retrieved his ck shield, and bashed the shield against Austin''s face.
"Where is your general? Is he hiding like a rat?" Michael asked Austin while beating him with the shield repeatedly.
"You can''t stop us," Austin grinned. His teeth werepletely covered in blood. He even lost some of his teeth. Yet, he grinned. One could see no signs of fear or pain on his face.
Meanwhile, Noah finallynded on Thusia''s capital. He rushed toward the castle.
"Shit, the energy fluctuation in the atmosphere is all over the ce," Noah heard Andreas''s words in his head.
"I can sense it too," Noah looked up at the sky. To his surprise, the snowfall had stopped. Instead, a dark, powerful storm was brewing in the sky above the capital. The storm was big enough to cover the capital and the duchy of Valeria. It was not because of the battle between Michael and the elf but because of King Maxim Barnes.
"Stop right there!" Noah heard a group of soldiers shouting at him. He noticed countless soldiers standing around the castle, preventing anyone from entering the castle grounds.
"I am Noah Winston, Guardian Captain," Noah retrieved a gold te engraved with the guardian guild''s crest.
Every soldier around the castle ground wore metal te armor engraved with intricate runes. They were all armed to the teeth. Noah instantly recognized the runes. He had no doubt that these runes were the handiwork of Edith. The soldiers looked at each other for a few moments.
"No one is allowed to enter the castle ground," Finally, the soldier shook his head.
"I don''t have time for this," Noah raised his hand as a bright light shed across the area. Suddenly, the soldiers'' bodies tensed up. A gentleyer of light covered their bodies. They stood like statues without moving an inch. Noah leaped into the air andnded right before the castle door. The two soldiers nking the door quickly raised their spears to attack Noah. But Noah unsheathed his sword and swung it before they could even move an inch. A powerful wave of light hit the soldiers in a sh and knocked them out instantly.
"Edith!" Noah''s domineering voice echoed through the air. His thunderous roar could be heard from every corner of the castle. The light petrification spell finally wore out as the soldiers rushed at Noah. They surrounded him from all directions. Luckily, Edith walked out of the castle door.
"Stand down," Edith ordered the soldiers.
"He''s a friend," Her voice swept across the soldiers. The soldiers reluctantly lowered their weapons. They didn''t dare to piss off their princess''s best friend.
"Return to your posts," Edith said. The soldiers slowly backed off, returning to their posts. When Noah approached her, she noticed a glimmer of uneasiness in his eyes. Coupled with the way Noah shouted at her and how he entered the castle created a bad feeling in Edith''s gut. Her mind and heart both agreed that something bad had happened.
"We need to talk somewhere private," said Noah. Edith had never heard Noah in such a serious mood. The usual alluring smile was nowhere to be found on his face. Edith quickly led him to her room in the castle. On their way, Noah didn''t utter a word.
"Where is your sister?" asked Noah.
Edith closed the door behind her and looked surprised by Noah''s sudden inquiry about her sister. He was one of the few who knew Lah Alden was her elder sister. Until now, Noah had never tried to get close to Lah using Edith as others would have.
"She went to Valeria with the queen," answered Edith.
"We need to find her," said Noah.
"What happened, Noah? You seem worried," Edith gently ced her hand on Noah''s shoulder.
"Someone kidnapped the spirit child from the rainbow inds, Edith,"
Edith''s heart skipped a beat. She couldn''t believe what he had just said. Edith stumbled backward as Noah caught her before she tripped down.
"What?" Edith''s face went pale.
Noah didn''t beat around the bush because he didn''t have much time. The spirit child had a strong connection with the dark lord. It might be the only way for Noah to find out who is the Dark Lord behind the mask and bring him to the light from the dark. More than that, Noah wanted to save the child.
"I was on the rainbow inds. Someone knocked out your sister''s students and took the child," said Noah.
"But¡but¡" Edith stuttered. Lah made her promise Edith wouldn''t tell a soul about the spirit child or its father. This promise prevented Edith from uttering a single word.
"We don''t have time, Edith. If you wish no harm to the child, you need to tell everything you know about the child,"
While Noah was on his way to meet Edith, he wondered whether Edith knew about the child or not. However, when he revealed the disappearance of the spirit child, Edith didn''t act like someone who had no clue. This meant Edith knew about the child. The question in Noah''s mind was how much she knew.
"Who took the child?" tears rolled out of Edith''s eyes. For some reason, she felt like it was her fault.
"That''s what I am trying to figure out. First, you must tell me everything you know about the child," Noah shook Edith''s shoulders.
"I can''t¡I made a promise to Lah,"
"A child''s life is at stake here, Edith. A broken promise is better than a dead child,"
Noah leaned closer to Edith and lifted her face to look her in her eyes.
"Trust me,"
Just like Michael, Noah also had an effort on people. If Michael made people scared of him, Noah made people trust him. Hence, when Noah looked Edith in the eyes and asked her to trust him, shepletely trusted him. His words soothed her soul and calmed her down.
Finally, Edith took a deep breath,
"Forgive me, Lah," Edith mumbled under her breath.
She began to tell everything Lah told her to Noah. Edith started the story from how Ghost and Lah met to their visit to the treacherous ocean. Andreas and Noah listened to Edith in utter shock. But Noah couldn''t feel very surprised. If one could soul-walk Lah and survive, it was Ghost. But how Ghost survived didn''t matterpared to the fact Ghost might be the real Dark Lord.
Noah simply couldn''t believe it. His whole body trembled for some reason. Noah knew the day they found the Dark Lord''s real identity, everything would change. Both Andreas and Noah didn''t believe the Dark Lord would go down without a fight. Noah and the Guardian Guild were nowhere close to fighting the Dark Lord. Thest time Noah met the Dark Lord face to face, he almost killed Noah''s family.
Why did Ghost save his family if he was the Dark Lord? Noah was unable to think of Ghost as the Dark Lord.
"Noah," Noah heard Andreas''s voice.
"No, I don''t believe Ghost is the Dark Lord, teacher. We both knew the Dark Lord tried to kill Ghost," Noah telepathically said to Andreas.
Even Andreas started to have doubts.
"Noah, you must find the child. I don''t know how I would face Lah after this," Edith''s words brought Noah back from his shocked state. Looking at the tears rolling out of Edith''s face, Noah sighed. He gently wiped off the tears from her face.
"BOOTH!" Suddenly, a thunderous roar reverberated through the entire capital. The castle literally trembled.
"Ghost," Noah recognized the voice. Edith''s body tensed, hearing the echoes of Ghost''s shout. Noah immediately exited the room and headed outside of the castle.
"Where is Booth?" asked Noah on his way outside.
"With queen Valeria and my sister,"
"Shit," Noah cursed inside.
Chapter 735 Booth Vs Ghost I
Noah rushed outside with Edith. The castle grounds looked darker than when he first arrived. He looked at the sky to see a storm brewing. It was like Michael brought a storm everywhere he went. The reason for the storm was the energy radiation from Michael. It messed with nature itself. The soldier poised to defend the castle with their lives. However, Ghost seemed not to give a damn about the soldiers. Noah took a closer look at Ghost to see he was carrying two bodies. Since he was so far in the sky, Noah couldn''t recognize the bodies.
A few representatives of Thusia dared to fly toward Ghost to negotiate.
"Ghost," a golden-haired man led the group. His body jerked when Ghost threw the bodies up in the sky and dashed at him.
"Where is Booth?" asked Ghost. The killing intent radiating from his tone made the golden-haired man tremble.
"If you don''t answer me, I will kill you and your family and throw their bodies in the sewer. That''s a promise," Michael asked. His voice was cold. The man felt a chill running down his spine. Michael didn''t even have to sue the fear toxin as the man already looked terrified.
"He¡he went to¡Valeria,"
"Good,"
Noah thought Ghost would let the man go. On the contrary, the moment the man answered Ghost truthfully, he snapped the man''s neck and threw the body at the three men hovering in the sky behind him. They were stunned by the death of their colleague. Before they could do anything, Noah saw a wind de cutting their bodies in halves.
"He wasn''t ying anymore," Noah heard Andreas.
Noah tried to shoot toward the sky to stop Ghost from taking more lives. To his surprise, Andreas stopped his body from doing so.
"We don''t know enough about Ghost, and you are not ready to fight a Half Immortal," Andreas growled. At that time, Ghost disappeared into the clouds. He caught the bodies he threw in the sky in mid-way.
"We need to go to Valeria," Edith said. She panicked. Although she had seen Ghost murder people, his tone was strange. He seemed really mad.
"I''ll go there. You go to Diamond valley, get Xanali and find a way to evacuate everyone in the capital and Valeria," Noah ordered Edith. With a flick of his wrist, he took out a teleportation scroll.
"Take this. It will get you to Diamond valley," Noah gave the scroll to Edith. Without wasting any time, Noah shot toward the sky like an arrow from a bow. He flew in Ghost''s direction, leaving a light trail.
As he was leaving the capital, a group of holy guards from the church approached the castle. Finally, the Holy Church received the recording where the Blood Prince admitted working with King Maxim. Leaving the capital, Michael head straight toward the duchy of Valeria. It was time to end Booth''s pathetic life.
*******************************************************
Duchy of Valeria, previously known as Burnia, was a beautiful countryside with hills and lush green fertilend. The terrain was littered with small ponds,kes, and majestic rivers. Ever since Booth became the duke of Valeria, he transformed it into a powerhouse with tourism, businesses, and farming. In a few months under his rule, the duchy of Valeria became a tourist destination. King Maxim named the duchy after his wife, Valeria, because when he first visited the ce, he was mesmerized by its natural beauty. It reminded him of the first time heid his eyes on Valeria. Most of the poption of Valeria was concentrated around the castle on top of a hill.
On the hill, there were two castles. One was recently built by Booth, and the other belonged to the royal family of Ithn. From either castle, one could see the entire Valeria and the adjacent duchy, Diamond valley. Unlike Booth''s castle, the castle of the Ithn royal family had six strong, round towers built on various tactical spots for an ideal defense. They were connected by reinforced, heavy walls made of yellow stone. Refined windows were scattered generously across the walls in an asymmetric pattern, along with symmetric holes for archers and artillery.
A great gate with broad metal doors, a draw bridge, and strong defenses protected the castle grounds. Almost all the citizens of Valeria lived surrounding the castle. Hence, small buildings, houses, and other structures popted the grounds outside the castle walls. This castle had clearly stood the test of time; the walls'' rocks were aged, and vines and nts grew inside the cracks. Several builders were working on renovating the castle.
Booth''s castle was atleast double the size of this castle. Inside this smaller castle, Queen Valeria headed for her room, following General Booth. To her surprise, he was in his famous battle armor forged from the scales of a royal dragon. The armor had a t top helm, half a pointed face guard, and two pointed openings for the eyes. Attached to the forehead area was a longhorn. The shoulders were rounded, tall, and enormous. They were decorated with a wolf''s head on each side. The rest of the armor was made from manyyers of smaller scales of a crimson-red dragon. It covered the entire front and back side, but the attachment straps left the sides under the arms exposed.
"Why am I here and not with Victoria?" asked Queen Valeria.
"This is the safest ce you can be, your royal highness," said Booth.
"Why is that?" asked Valeria.
"Because this is my domain," Booth said. He didn''t dare to say he has the spirit child in his castle as a protective measure against Ghost. Because Lah was with them, Booth had to bring them to this castle instead of his own. He was ordered to keep Queen Valeria safe until King Maxim Barnespleted his heavenly tribtion. If Booth was at the capital, Ghost might attack them outright, interrupting the heavenly tribtion. Therefore, Victoria nned to keep Ghost as far as possible from the capital.
Victoria guarded the fact Maxim Barnes would trigger the heavenly tribtion in a few hours with her life. Only Booth and a few closest members of King Maxim Barnes knew about this. Even Michael thought it would take a few days to trigger the heavenly tribtion. Eventually, Booth, Lah, and Queen Valeria reached the room designated for her.
Lah could sense countless runes around the room. But she doubted they would keep Queen Valeria safe if Ghost decided to kill her. After seeing the anger in his eyes, she was unsure whether he would let Valeria live. Anyone else might forgive Valeria and only kill Victoria and Maxim Barnes but not Ghost.
The cozy room had onerge bed withfy red nkets. The firece burnt, radiating the needed warmth to fight the coldness in the air. Lah could hear the howling wind and notice the snowfall getting worsen by the second through the window. Judging by the look of the weather, anyone could tell a storm was not far.
"Booth," Queen Valeria looked Booth in his eyes. For the first time, Valeria saw a hint of uneasiness in his eyes. Not that Booth worried about his life but Victoria''s and her family''s. He was strong but not strong enough to take on a Half Immortal.
"Are you worried?" asked Queen Valeria. She knew Booth from little. They practically grew up together. So it wouldn''t be an understatement to say Booth was kinda Valeria''s best friend. Deep down, she med herself for turning a once innocent, sweet little boy into a killing machine. If she hadn''t introduced Booth to Maxim Barnes, Booth would have lived his life in peace and never would have destroyed the sanctuary under the order of Maxim Barnes.
"Your highness. Why would I be worried?" Booth shook his head.
Lah was not in the mood to see the two of them whine. As far as she was concerned, they were just facing karma. She walked toward the window. The people of Valeria were still here. Apparently, Booth rejected the idea of evacuating his people as it would show a sign of weakness. Until now, Victoria or Booth didn''t think Ghost would be ruthless enough to harm innocent citizens. In Booth''s mind, these people were like a protective shield for him. Neither of them knew how utterly wrong they were.
"Nothing will happen to you or anyone as long as I am here, your royal highness," said Booth.
"We just need a few more hours. After his majestyes out of his heavenly tribtion, he will take care of Ghost himself,"
"Don''t be too sure," thought Lah, still looking at the city outside.
"Ghost is not a fool. He knows interrupting the heavenly tribtion is the best way to ensure his victory," Lah said to herself.
"Who is with Victoria?" Queen Valeria was worried sick about her daughter. After all, Victoria was Ghost''s main target.
Suddenly, they all heard a rumbling noise in the sky. Lah looked at the sky to see several flying ships on the horizon. Valeria and Booth joined Lah at the windows. Booth could vaguely see the symbol of Guardian Guild on the sails.
"The Guardians," Queen Valeria looked a bit relieved to see the guardians finally making their appearance. At this point, she could take any backup she receives. The flying ships slowly sailed toward the castle. Lah could count twelve ships. However, they didn''t seem like they were built for war. Instead, these ships were built to carryrge amounts of cargo.
To be honest, Lah was surprised to see the guardian ships. It was not a secret the guardians were financially in crippled state due to their affair with the vampires. Since they had sent these ships despite their political feuds among themselves, Lah could tell someone powerful and influential has involved in this.
Mutrad stood on one of the ships. He was in Thusia to capture the Dark Lord as he received a piece of news that the Dark Lord would make his appearance in Thusia from an anonymous source. Since Mutrad had no other clues to follow, he had no choice but toe to Thusia. On his way, he noticed the destruction caused by Ghost at Diamond Valley. He almost turned the entire duchy into ruins.
"Go down and evacuate the people as soon as you can!" Mutrad turned his gaze over to the red-haired girl on the ship next to him. She managed to put together a team to save the people in a short amount of time. Mutrad was surprised to see a non-crooked guardian in the guild.
Chapter 736 Booth Vs Ghost II
Mutrad noticed the guardians jumping down from the ship to evacuate everyone in Valeria.
He couldn''t care less of the people. The only reason he was here was to capture the dark lord or at least get a good look at the dark lord with his own two eyes. After hearing from his elders how powerful the dark lord was when he attacked Ghost in Royalnd, Murad doubted he could stand a chance against the dark lord.
Unless his elders bring in the ancestors who have been cultivating in seclusion for centuries, no one he knew could stop the Dark Lord. Compared to the Dark Lord, all the other threats seemed childish in his eyes.
"We have no time, people. Bring everyone you can to the ships before he arrives," Xanali''s dominant voice echoed through the air. Until she saves the people of thusia, she chose to forget about apprehending Gaya.
After Xanali stopped barking orders, everything became deathly silent. This was an eerie silence. The calm before the literal storm. A sudden thunderp cut through the silence. The sky kept rumbling. Mutrad slowly turned around. He noticed the horizon turning darker and darker. Icy blue lightning struck across the sky, forming a bright web of light in the otherwise dark sky.
Even from a mile away, Mutrad could feel the intensity of the approaching storm. The snowfall stopped as though it was terrified of what wasing. The howling wind gradually sounded louder and louder. It brought enough force to make the ships tremble.
Murad had never seen or experienced such an intense storm before. It was early in the morning, yet no one would believe that. The darkness made the day look like night. The storm slowly approached them. The trees leaned to a side, almost getting uprooted by the wind. Even Mutrad had to hold onto the ship''s rail to prevent himself from losing bnce.
The gentle light peeked through the winter clouds slowly disappeared. Instead, darkness upied the sky. Everyone, including Mutrad, thought the storm created this darkness. However, it was the darkness that created this storm. When the God of Darkness was furious, nature itself suffered his anger.
Only a few minutester did Mutrad notice a figure beneath the storm clouds. He was surrounded by crackling golden lightning bolts. His hair stood up due to the electricity in the air. As seconds passed by, it became harder to keep the ships steady. The wind was too powerful.
"He is here!" Xanali shouted. All the guardians and Mutrad saw Ghost surrounded by crackling lightning bolts. He was literally bringing a storm to the Thusians. When Ghost flew past the grass field around Valeria, his speed uprooted the trees on his way. The trees flew chaotically in the air like paper birds. If the storm was not bad enough, many lightning struck the ground. Mutrad noticed the trees that survived the wind turned into ashes when lightning struck them. All the elements wreaked havoc in Valeria. The captain of Mutrad''s ship turned the rudder using all his might. He finally managed to move the ship away from Ghost''s path.
Mutrad kept his hand in front of his eyes to stop the dust from getting into his eyes. The closer Ghost got to them, the more violent the wind became. He only got a glimpse of Ghost before he flew past Mutrad''s ship. Mutrad''s ship barely managed to avoid him.
Something trickled down Mutrad''s cheek. He whipped it off and brought his hand before his eyes,
"Blood?" Mutrad didn''t think the blood came from his face. He closed his eyes for a moment, reying the image of Ghost flying past him. His mind vaguely remembered a body in Ghost''s hand. He realized the blood must havee from the body.
Within the castle, Lah saw Ghost getting closer to the castle. Booth shielded Queen Valeria with his body as the royal guards surrounded the castle to fight Ghost. Xanali, on the other hand, leaped to Mutrad''s ship,
"Aren''t you going to help them?" asked Xanali.
"It''s not my duty to meddle in a war between the kingdoms," Mutrad shrugged.
"So you''re going to stand here and do nothing? Then why did youe here?" Xxnali looked furious.
"That''s what I am exactly going to do," Mutrad calmly said. He didn''t give a damn about this war, especially when the thusians started it.
"There are countless people who are worse than the Dark Lord. But you need him to be the hero," Xanali''s words made Mutrad frown. She stood on the edge of the ship and turned her head slightly.
"A true hero is one who chooses to save lives than fight his foe," said Xanali before diving down.
At that moment, Edith and Noah appeared in the sky behind Booth''s castle. The moment Noah arrived at Valeria, he was greeted by the approaching storm. He immediately raised his hand as a wave of light swept across thend, including the two castles.
"There," Noah pointed at the smaller castle behind Booth''s castle. He and Edith rushed toward the castle. Many soldiers of Booth ascended to the sky to form a human shield around the castle. Mages began to cast barrier spells as a giant glowing dome appeared around the two castles.
They hoped the energy shield would slow down Ghost. They were all ordered to keep Ghost busy for a few hours until their King finished his heavenly tribtion. Everyone hoped the heavenly tribtion wouldst for five days, like Ghost''s heavenly tribtion.
The golden barrier glistened in the darkness. A couple of Fusion stage warriors hovered behind the barrier to fight Ghost. Although they knew they don''t stand a chance against Ghost, they still obeyed General Booth''s orders. They were soldiers, and it was their duty to follow their generals no matter the oue.
When Michael was just fifty or so meters away from the barrier, dark beams shot out of his eyes and struck the barrier. The barrier itself trembled as several cracks formed around the point where Michael''s dark beams hit it. Soon, the barrier shattered, creating a meter-radius hole in it.
Lah stepped aside from the windows, looking at something soaring through the air. The window shattered as somethingnded on the floor with a loud thud.
"ARGH!" Queen Valeria shouted. They all saw two bodies yed off their skin, lying on the ground. One body had the name ''Austin'' and the other had ''Zakari'' engraved and burnt in their chest. Booth had spent decades with Austin and Zakari. But at that moment, she couldn''t recognize either of them.
Lah was stunned by how ruthlessly Ghost killed them. As a healer, she could tell they were yed alive. She never expected Ghost was capable of such violence and brutality.
"Booth!" A thunderous roar shook the entire castle. The soldiers trembled. Michael''s gaze was fixed on the castle. Using his X-ray vision, he could see everyone in the room. He was furious beyond words. Before killing Austin and Zakari, he learned it was none other than Booth who ordered them to kidnap the spirit child as a safety measure. The two generals managed to keep Booth''s location a secret until Michael began to y their skin off alive. Pity they didn''t know the location where Booth is keeping the child. But Michael nned to extract the information from Booth one way or another.
Seeing no oneing out of the castle, Michael clenched his fist. Immediately, golden bolts of lightning covered his fist. They crackled around his hand like buzzing bees. The mages poured their energy into their spells, strengthening the barrier. The hole created by Michael''s eyes of doom slowly closed up.
Michael raised both his hands toward the barrier as a lightning bolt shot out from each hand. The moment the lightning bolts hit the barrier, the barrier trembled. Ripples appeared in the barrier.
"If Ie there, I will kill everyone inside," Michael threatened Booth.
The mages sweated uncontrobly. All of them shivered, trying to keep the barrier intact. However, the barrier slowly lost its glow. Many cracks appeared in the barrier. His eyes slowly turned ck before the dark beams shot out of his eyes. He used Igntiia and Eyes of Doom simultaneously. Instead of focusing the beams on where the lightning bolts hit, Michael armies the beams at one of the mages. Since the Dark mes strengthened Eyes of Doom, it prated the golden barrier faster than the lightning bolts.
"Grrgh," A mage coughed up blood. He looked down to see the dark beams prating through his chest. He fell down from the sky dead. Another mage fell down from the sky with a hole in his chest. Michael''s beam cut through the golden barrier and killed several mages.
Ultimately, the barrier flickered as the lightning bolts shattered the shield. Michael was about to enter the castle through the broken window when Booth decided to show himself.
Finally, Michael and Booth met each other after almost two years. Thest time they met, Booth almost beat Abras to death. However, when the two of them fought, Abras was mortally injured. It wasn''t a fair fight, just like now.
The dark beams and the crackling lightning bolts disappeared from Michael''s body. Silence once again enveloped the ce. Only the howling wind dared to raise a sound.
"Where is the child?" asked Michael.
A devilish grin emerged on Booth''s face.
"Believe me when I say this, if you harm a single hair of anyone in the royal family, you won''t find the child ever," said Booth. Noah watched their interaction from the ground. He was helping Xanali evacuate the people.
Suddenly, Michael disappeared from Booth''s sight. The soldiers were startled by Ghost''s sudden disappearance. To Booth''s shock, he appeared once again with Queen Valeria in his hand. Booth was stunned.
"You will die whether you tell me where the child is or not," Michael squeezed Valeria''s neck as her feet frantically squirmed.
"The question is, are you willing to let her die?" asked Michael.
Looking at Michael squeezing the life out of Valeria, Edith tried to fly toward him, but Noah stopped her. He listened to the conversation between Ghost and Booth and concluded that Booth was the one who took the child. Noah wanted to stop Ghost, but Andreas had other ns. Andreas wasn''t willing to let Noah fight Ghost and die before they could confirm for sure that Ghost is the Dark Lord. Even if they confirmed it, Noah wasn''t strong enough to fight him. Deep down, Andreas wanted Ghost to kill Valeria because he wanted Noah to see what he''s capable of. Unless Noah truly believed that the Dark Lord is an evil that must be uprooted, he wouldn''t have the resolve to defeat him.
Chapter 737 Booth Vs Ghost III
Seeing their Queen in mortal danger, the soldier rushed out of the golden dome. Some dashed at Michael with their swords raised while some cast spells. However, the moment they came out of the dome, a circr wave shot out of Michael. The soldiers screamed as they turned into ashes in a split second. Queen Valeria''s face turned purplish. Her legs slowly stopped moving.
"Stop!" Booth cried.
"I will kill that child if something happens to her," Booth roared.
Hearing their words, Lah shivered. Ghost and Booth were talking about a child, and fear clenched her heart for some reason. She flew out of the hole to meet Ghost. She wanted to know whether her child was safe or not. Booth noticed Lah flying towards them. With lightning speed, Booth grabbed Lah and put a dagger in her throat. Lah was caught off guard. Not only her, even Noah and Edith didn''t expect Booth to make such a move.
"Now I have the mother and the child," Booth growled as Michael loosened his grip around Valeria''s neck.
Lah''s body trembled. The temperature around them dropped by several degrees. Her calm eyes turned bloodshot. Soon, her bloodshot eyes turned watery. She may be a cold, tough woman, but she was also a mother. So when her child was in danger, she couldn''t be her usual self. Seeing the tears rolling out of Lah''s eyes, Michael''s killing intent shot through the roof.
"Where is my child?" asked Lah with a stuttering voice.
"Booth, you kidnapped a child?" Valeria asked Booth. She was still in Michael''s hold.
"It''s for everyone''s safety, your highness,"
"This is wrong, Booth. I order you to release the child this instance," Queen Valeria''s words warmed the hearts of the thusian soldiers. Their courage to rescue such a kind Queen grew out of bonds in their hearts.
"Sorry, your highness. I can''t do that. As long as his majestyes out of his seclusion, i won''t release the child,"
Lah clenched her fist. Michael realized she was trying to get out of Booth''s hold. However, Michael looked Lah in the eyes, wordlessly telling her to stand down. Even if Michael controlled the SPyder on Lah''s neck and made it bite Booth, there was a high chance of Booth cutting Lah''s throat. The de in Booth''s hands was engraved with various runes. He couldn''t take the risk of letting Booth cut her throat and then try to heal her.
"Lah!" Suddenly, they all heard a panicked voice. They looked in the voice''s direction to see Edith and Noah ascending to the sky.
"Let her go!" Edith screamed at Booth, but Booth didn''t even look Edith in the eyes.
"Are you happy now, Edith?" asked Michael.
"You sessfully endangered a child and your sister''s life with your naivety and loyalty towards Thusia,"
Edith couldn''t find a word to respond to Ghost. His voice was filled with such rage and anger that everyone around him felt it hard even to take a breath.
"You cannot me her for your fault," said Noah.
"I can when she was the one who forced Lah to tell her about the child, which led to one of hisckeys eavesdropping on their conversation," said Michael.
"Everyone calm down," Xanali joined the scene.
"We don''t have to resort to violence. Just let Queen Valeria and Lady Alden go. We can find a peaceful solution to all this," Xanali tried to calm everyone down. She saw hundreds of soldiers around her. Once Ghost had started to wreak havoc, who could tell how many lives would be lost as coteral damage?
"Booth, I am ordering as your Queen. Let her go and release the child this instance!" Queen Valeria raised her voice.
However, Booth just shook his head. Lah looked at Michael. Every fiber in her body told her to fight back for her child''s life, but Michael ordered her not to move an inch.
"Trust me. I won''t let anything happen to you or the child," Lah suddenly heard Michael''s words in her head. She was shocked. Lah didn''t know how he was able to talk to her telepathically despite her mental fortitude.
"Don''t try to be a hero bitch. You stood there watching him ughter people without lifting a finger. You ipetent fools could do nothing. The guardians are just a waste of space," Booth growled.
"You started this war," Xanali snarled.
"And you did nothing then, and you''re doing nothing now," Booth snickered.
Noah couldn''t disagree with Booth because Booth was right. This was the reason why Noah decided to reform the guardians from the ground up. It was once an institute that instigated peace and kept the world in order. Now, the Guardian Guild was nothing but a corrupted organization with a bunch of political snobs running the ce to the ground. If he had been in charge of the Guardian Guild, he would have stopped Maxim Barnes from waging war against other kingdoms in the first ce. But the Guild let King Maxim Barnes do whatever he wanted, saying the guild had no right to meddle with a kingdom''s affairs.
"This will end in only one way. The destruction of Thusia. You just ensured the death of every single person you care for," said Michael. His words made every single Thusian soldier panic.
"Please, let her go," Edith pleaded as tears gushed out of her eyes.
Michael noticed Noah slowly moving his hands behind his back. Noah looked at Michael from the corner of his eyes as though he was trying to say something. Michael could tell Noah was about to cast a spell to stop Booth. Although Noah was his mortal enemy, Michael knew Noah wasn''t ipetent. Hence, Michael trusted Noah to get Lah out of Booth''s hold.
Everyone stood still without even lifting a finger. Lah felt the cold de against her throat. The orb of light shined brighter and bright behind Noah''s back. Noah made a fist and released his index finger, then his middle finger, as though he was counting. Michael noticed his fingers, and when Noah released his ring finger,pleting the count of three, a bright light shed across the sky. The light petrified everyone that it touched except Michael.
In a blink of an eye, Noah dashed at Booth, grabbed Lah, and dashed away from him. Everything happened in a split second. Unfortunately, the petrificationsted long for only a second on Booth. He didn''t even realize what had just happened. His eyes widened seeing Lah with Noah.
Noah immediately tried to dash toward Ghost to save Valeria, but he was too slow. Michael tightened his grip around Valeria''s neck as her head exploded into a bloody red mist.
"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Booth''s roar echoed through the sky and made the entire kingdom tremble. Valeria''s blood sshed across Noah''s face, turning his white robes red. The soldiers were stunned by the brutal yet sudden death of Queen Valeria. Her lifeless corpse slowly fell down into the sky. Without wasting any second, Michael dashed at Booth.
"Wind st," he cast a spell while moving toward Booth and sted away everyone around him, including Noah. Noah was thrown off bnce, and so was everyone.
Booth and Michael shed in the middle. Michael didn''t cast any spells but used his fists to beat Booth. The two of them flew through the castle. Boulders and stones crumbled down as they cut through the castle. Michael punched Booth without holding back. Just like Michael, Booth too didn''t cast any spells because he was too furious to do so. The castle trembled while the towers slowly tilted to the side, threatening to crumble down.
"Get everyone to safety!" Xanali roared. She noticed hundreds of soldiers who were unable to fly standing on the ground.
"Lah!" Edith immediately dashed toward Lah and embraced her.
"Where is my child?!" Lah raised her voice.
"Noah,'' Edith turned her gaze toward Noah. if anyone could find the child, it was Noah.
The castle tower finally copsed down as the soldiers on the ground tried to run away as fast as they could. However, the tower fell right on top of them, crushing them to death. Xanali was able to save some but not all. At that moment, Noah had two choices; saving the child which might be somewhere in the castle, which was currently crumbling down, or saving the soldiers.
"Save the child, Noah. The soldiers and the people have Xanali and the guardians. The child has no one," said Andreas. Noah didn''t waste any time because every second cost a life. He didn''t think he could stop Ghost and Booth from destroying the castlepletely. In fact, he couldn''t even see them.
"Teacher, you are a spirit. You can sense another spirit right?" Noah asked Andreas.
"Lah has given the child a body, but I can manage to find it. But it will take all my soul energy. I won''t be here to help you until you replenish my soul energy Noah,"
"Find the child, Teacher. I got your back," Andreas left Noah''s body in a sh of light. The light blinded everyone for a moment. Lah noticed a thinyer of light covering the area around her.
Lah was about to rush into the castle when Noah stopped her.
"Found the child. Follow me," Noah led the two young women into the crumbling castle.
The castle trembled uncontrobly. The interior of the castle was in a mess. All the portraits fell off the wall, and many pathways were blocked by broken walls. Some parts even caught on fire. The fire slowly spread through the castle. While following the light trail only Noah could see, he saw his path was blocked by boulders. With a single punch, Noah destroyed the boulders, clearing the path.
Noah could still feel the effects of the battle between Ghost and booth. The screams of the soldiers from the outside echoed through the castle walls. Many who were trapped in the castle ultimately lost their lives. Even with several dozen guardians and Xanali, they couldn''t save all the thusians. Noah wanted to stop hearing the cries for help. The echoes of their howls made Noah tremble with anger and helplessness.
"How far?" Edith asked.
"We are getting closer," said Noah. He led the girls into the dungeon. Many of the steps crumbled down in front of their eyes. The torches lit the dark path to the underground dungeon. The area sickened Lah. She couldn''t even imagine what her child is feeling in a ce like this. They climbed down the spiral steps as fast as they could. Suddenly, the wall nearby shattered, almost robbing them of their bnce. A powerful gust of wind went from one end to another. Noah could swear it was Ghost and Booth fighting like mad men. They endangered the life of the child trapped within the underground prison because of their anger.
"Harry!" Lah''s shout echoed through the dark dungeon.
No one responded from the dark dungeon as they climbed down the stairs. The eerie silence brought tears out of Lah''s eyes.
"Mother," finally, a child''s voice emerged from the dark underground.
Chapter 738 Booth Vs Ghost Final
Michael and Booth did not give a damn about their surroundings. No one could see the two of them but a blur. All the crashes tore Michael''s shirt and long coat into the castle. His body had several cuts. Booth looked worse. His armor may have protected his body, but Booth''s face looked swollen and bloody. Michael grabbed Booth and shot toward the sky. For a few moments, the destruction on the ground level stopped. Using this momentary stop, Xanali quickly ordered her men to take the civilians to the ships. Thunder rumbled in the sky. Mutrad saw Ghost and Booth going all out in the sky.
"ARRGHH!" Booth roared as he punched Michael in the face. He felt like he was punching a concrete wall. Still, Booth didn''t stop. He vented all his anger on Michael''s face.
He covered his fist with sparkling white energy. Every punch he threw had enough force to destroy a building. Up to this moment, neither of them cast any spells. This was a bloody street fight rather than a battle between two cultivators. Casting a spell could finish the battle sooner than Michael wanted. So he chose not to. He had been suppressing his anger for almost three years. Hence, He wanted this fight to be bloody, brutal, and long. Michael took all Booth''s punches and spat the blood out. After letting Booth punch him almost twenty times, Michael finally grabbed Booth''s fists. He headbutted Booth, breaking Booth''s nose with a sickening crunch. He grabbed Booth''s left ear and ripped it off. Michael wasn''t using any fancy kicks, punches, or technique. Instead, he fought with his primal rage.
Booth growled in pain as Michael threw his ear into the air. Michael pped Booth with the same bloody hand. The p sent Booth flying onto one of the guardianships. All the captains realized it was too dangerous to stay afloat near the two of them. Booth crashed onto the ship, making the ship tremble violently. Michael shot toward Booth with the intention of stomping his chest. Booth managed to roll away at thest second, barely evading Ghost''s feet. Michael''s feet broke through the upper deck as he got stuck.
Booth kicked Michael on the back of his head. When his leg made contact with Michael''s head, it created a ttering sound as though Booth had kicked a metal pir. Even though Michael was a Half Immortal, a light shed across his eyes. The Cosmic energy made Booth extremely powerful. If Michael hadn''t reached level 8 of the Half Immortal stage, Booth would have had the chance to really hurt Michael. The guardians panicked seeing Michael and Booth on their ship. Every time Booth kicked Ghost, the ship swayed left and right. The captain could barely keep the ship afloat.
Michael suddenly grabbed Booth''s leg and shot toward the sky from the ship. He swung Booth against the ship''s sail mast with enough force to split the mast in half. Booth coughed up blood as Michael picked up the broken sail mast. It was at least ten feet long, thick log, and he brought it down on Booth. Booth was on the ground. He blocked the sail mast instinctively. Mutrad quickly held onto the rails tighter. The sail mast hit Booth with such force that it split the entire ship in half.
Seeing the strength of a Half Immortal freaked out Mutrad. He had heard about how strong a Half Immortal could be but seeing it with his own eyes stunned him. He lifted the sail mast and hit Booth like it was a stick. When the guardians built the ship, it took five Fusion stage cultivators to raise the sail mast, yet Michael lifted it with his one hand. Booth''s dragon armor cracked. The destruction of the ship caused a dust cloud. All the guardians on the ship flew away, but the poor souls who weren''t at the Core Formation stage fell to their death. Their cries still echoed through the air.
Michael shook his body with pure rage as all the cuts on his body closed up. He tore off the shirt and long coat and threw them away. After getting hit by the mast, Booth fell through the crack. From the ground, Xanali saw two giant halves of the ship soaring down the sky. She immediately shot toward the sky to destroy the two halves before they hit the ground. To Xanali''s shock, Ghost grabbed the edge of the two halves. He lifted them up. Mutrad waspletely caught off guard. His eyes widened.
"Don''t tell me¡" Mutrad mumbled, seeing Ghost raising the two giant halves of the ship. Michael''s body turned reddish. Every muscle in Michael''s body bulged up. Even for a Half Immortal, raising a giant flying ship was not an easy feat. The ship weighed at least eight hundred thousand tons. The cargo ships were one of the biggest ships in the guardian guild. Seeing Ghost lift the halves using his raw strength freaked out every single one, including Mutrad. He had never seen such a humongous disy of strength before.
Michael threw each half at Booth. The weight of the halves, coupled with the friction in the air, lit the pieces. Like two fiery meteors, the two halves oared down the sky. Booth''s eyes widened. He wanted to fly away, but the injury he sustained prevented him from doing so. The first half hit Booth and the second one hit the first half, doubling the speed. Thebined pieces soared down the sky and finally hit the ground. The moment theynded on the ground, the collision force formed a crater with a half a mile radius. The shock wave destroyed everything in another half-mile radius from the crater. The ground itself formed cracks in all directions.
? Half of the duchy was turned into a ruin by Michael and Booth. Still, Michael wasn''t done with Booth. He dashed down from the sky to find Booth among the debris. Under all the ruble, Booth remained still. He couldn''t move a muscle. The images of him and Valeria ying as children shed across his eyes. When death was at his doorstep, Booth regretted many of his life''s decisions. The biggest regret was not taking Abras''s head. One head cost another. He could see Valeria''s kind and gentle smile. She did nothing wrong. Among everyone in the royal family, she was the only one who tried to stop Maxim Barnes from ughtering everyone in the sanctuary. Instead, she opted for diplomatic rtions with the sanctuary.
"She didn''t deserve to die," Booth mumbled.
"Wake up. You have to save my daughter," Booth heard Valeria''s voice in his head. Strangely, the voice sent a bolt of electricity through Booth''s body. He felt revitalized. The light of life immediately returned to his eyes. His mind sent Cosmic energy to every corner of his body and healed his wounds from within. The magical Cosmic energy came to Booth''s aid once again. Booth roared, lifting the debris up just enough for him to roll away.
The debris flew in all directions as Booth punched through them. Once again, Booth and Ghost shed in mid-air. Even after suffering so many devastating attacks, Booth fought like an enraged beast. His ferociousness surprised Mutrad. The two of them once again shot toward the castle grounds at lightning-quick speed. They kept exchanging blows while flying at high speed. Finally, theynded on the ground. At that time, Noah exited the castle. He saw Ghost holding Booth''s head against the ground and flying forward. Michael scraped Booth''s face using the ground.
He suddenly threw Booth up high and flew toward him. In the mid-sky, crackling lightning bolts coiled around Michael''s fist. He punched Booth toward the ground. Even though Cosmic energy revitalized Booth[''s body and gave him the strength to fight, Michael was too strong. Cosmic energy couldn''t close the gap between them. A thunderous shock wave pulsated in the sky after Michael punched Booth. Blood and spit flew out of Booth''s face. The dragon armor he worepletely shattered, revealing Booth''s blood-stained body. The houses that were fortunate to survive the initial shockwaves when Michael and Booth destroyed the castle crumbled down.
When Michaelnded beside Booth, not a single building in Valeria remained intact. Their battle left the duchy in ruins. Smoke and cries of people filled the air. Everywhere Noah turned, he saw nothing but destruction. The sky itself split open, pouring down rain to put out the mes. Yet, Michael''s eyes still glimmered with rage and killing intent. He slowly walked toward Booth, who tried to crawl away.
To the rain that stopped the mes from engulfing the duchy, it failed to put out the fire within Michael''s heart. The anger within burned as hot as ever. Most of the thusian soldiers who guarded the duchy were either on the guardianships or under the rumbles. Even the guardians trembled to even look Ghost in the eyes. They had never seen such a devastating battle in their lives. The duchy seemed like a violent storm had passed by.
Noah took a step forward to stop Ghost from killing Booth. Whatever Booth had done, killing him wasn''t justice but murder. However, Noah felt dizzy. The world around him began to spin. The effects of Andreas leaving his body and losing the soul energy took a toll on Noah. Everyone was focused on Ghost and failed to notice Noah copsing down.
The rain washed down all the blood off Michael''s body. He bent down and lifted Booth by his neck.
"Revenge has its own taste, doesn''t it?" asked Michael. Booth lost all the strength in his body. Booth''s handsome face waspletely messed up by Michael. Half of his face had no skin whatsoever.
"I am the vengeance of one hundred and fifty-eight people you brutally murdered in front of my eyes," Michael slowly squeezed Booth''s neck.
"Valeria''s death is nothingpared to what I''d do to Victoria," said Michael.
No one dared to utter a word or even take a step forward.
"Take sce in knowing you will meet everyone you care for in the afterlife soon," Michael grabbed Booth''s head.
The people felt a chill running down their spine when they heard flesh tearing. In a few seconds, Ghost ripped off Booth''s head from his body. Blood gushed out of the neck, sshing on Ghost''s body. Xanali took a step back in utter fear seeing the severed head in Ghost''s hand. The fact that Gaya mighte seeking revenge with the monster before her eyes scared the shit out of Xanali.
Michael dropped the head and stepped on it, crushing it into a paste. He turned his gaze toward Booth''s headless body. He left the body untouched to let Victoria and the whole world see what would happen if someone crossed his path.
Chapter 739 Vampire Problem
After Michael left the duchy of Valeria, the guardians were tasked to rescue the people stuck under the ruins and make a report of all the casualties. Normally, the kingdom itself would do that. However, the current circumstances put the guardians in charge. The biggest reason for this was Victoria ordered all the troops to guard the capital. The news of her mother and Booth''s death still hadn''t reached Victoria. Xanali ordered a group of soldiers to find Valeria''s body even though she knew it''d be like finding a needle in a haystack.
The battlepletely ttened the smaller castle behind Booth''s castle, and only a couple of towers remained tall in Booth''s castle. Xanali stood atop one of the towers, gazing at the destruction left behind by Ghost. A few days ago, this duchy buzzed with people and life. But now, only ashes and ruins remained. People''s cries for help reced the songs of early birds and the noise of crickets. She couldn''t even imagine what would have happened if Noah hadn''t helped her bring the guardianships to rescue people. Thinking of Noah, she looked all over the ce, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Guardian Captain," Xanali looked over her shoulder to see Evannding behind her. He had a silver scroll and a quill in his hand.
"I got the names of everyone on the ships. If we can get the record of everyone in the duchy, we can cross off who''s dead and missing," said Evan.
"Also, I received some disturbing reports from Diamond valley and the capital,"
"What could possibly be more disturbing than this, Evan?"
Evan took a deep breath and really hoped the reports he received were false.
"Vampires attacked the thusian soldiers stationed at the diamond valley," Xanali turned around with a bewildered face.
"That''s what the reports are saying," said Evan. He was just as shocked as XXanali when he heard the reports. To him, it seemed like the Thusians were really stuck in a mess. Ghost was destroying Thusia from one; now, the vampires may have joined in the battle.
"Do the reports say why they assume it''s the vampires?" asked Xanali.
"Apparently, some of our men saw ck-cloaked figures biting the soldiers in the neck and found a couple of dried bodies,"
Xanali rubbed her temples. Of course, the guardians had many captains and Alpha guardians to deal with new threats. However, she felt the pressure because of Edith''s connection to Thusia. Xanali didn''t wish Edith to get hurt by the destruction of Thusia. As far as Xanali could see, the war wasn''t going in Thusia''s favor. The thusians bet on King Maxim Barnes''s breakthrough to the Half Immortal stage. After witnessing how powerful Ghost was, Xanali doubted even if Maxim Barnes reached the Half Immortal stage, he would be strong enough to beat Ghost.
"That''s not it, Guardian Captain. Holy Guards have reached Thusian Captial with his holiness of Ozer continent,"
"Why?" frowned Xanali. For some reason, she didn''t think the head of the Holy Church in the Ozer continent came for Thusia''s help.
"The holy guards are keeping the reason for their visit a closely guarded secret. But our spies learned that the holy church has recently received a disturbing recording of a high-level vampire breed called the blood prince admitted to working with King Maxim Barnes,"
Xanali''s eyes widened. This was a strong allegation. The Guardian Guild and almost all the great eight ns had branded the vampire n as mortal enemies. Anyone who was in rtion to the vampires would be severely punished once found out. So if King Maxim Barnes was working with the vampires, it would brand Thusia as an enemy of all great eight ns and kingdoms. Simply put, Thusia would be isted and marked as the betrayer of all lives.
"Rumor has it that the deal between this Blood Prince and King Maxim Barnes went south, which was why the vampires had suddenlyunched an attack on the Diamond Valley. Guardian Captain, if this was true, Thusia''s in a whole world of trouble,"
Xanali shook her head,
"Something''s not right here. I can''t say what, but we are missing something. After we clean up here, we must go to the capital. This time, we have to be prepared to minimize the casualties as much as we can when Ghost arrives at the capital," said Xanali. Seeing all this destruction, even Evan felt a pain in his heart.
"I had no clue Ghost was capable of doing all this," Evan sighed.
"He always was so calm and peaceful. Something really messed up must have happened between Thusia and him,"
"No matter what, he can''t justify the lives he killed," Xanali shook her head.
"Guardian Captain," A guardian leaped onto the tower,
"We have found Queen Valeria''s body," said the guardian.
Xanali took a deep breath. She didn''t know Queen Valeria much, but her death made Xanali a bit sad. Her death was sudden and brutal. Xanali could only imagine what Victoria would feel when she saw her mother''s body. Atleast Xanali could bring the body to Victoria and help her give Valeria a proper funeral.
"Evan, go to the diamond valley and investigate that matter,"
"What would you do, Guardian Captain?" asked Evan.
"I''ll take Queen Valeria''s body to the capital,"
Xanali jumped off the tower to reach the ground while Evan headed for the diamond valley. Not a single building remained intact. When Xanalinded on the ground, she saw the guardians and healers they brought running around, tending to the wounded.
Fortunately, the guardians managed to drag out people stuck under the rubble. After a long time, people actually thanked the guardian with their whole hearts. The casualties would have hit the sky if it wasn''t for the guardian guild. It was apparent that Ghost did not give a damn about innocent people being coteral damage. Xanali followed the guardian in silence to Queen Valeria''s body. The guardians nketed the body with a white cloth. Xanali squatted beside the body and slightly lifted the cloth. The strong stench of blood and mud nauseated Xanali. She saw a headless body with crooked arms and legs when she lifted the cloth. Since Valeria''s body hit the ground from the sky, her bones were shattered. No one could recognize her body, and if it wasn''t for her robes, even the guardians would have failed to find her body.
Xanali quickly closed the cloth and exhaled heavily.
"She didn''t deserve this," Xanali closed her eyes for a moment, praying for Queen Valeria''s peace in silence.
"Take her body to my ship and set a course to the capital," Xanali ordered one of the guardians. She then turned her gaze to a guardian girl in golden robes.
"Leave a group of guardians and healers here and tell the rest to board the ships. We are going to the capital," ordered Xanali. Finally, Xanali threw thest nce at once beautiful duchy before ascending to the sky. To her surprise, Mutrad was waiting for her on her ship.
"Xa-"
Xanali pped Mutrad. The guardians on the ship were stunned by her action. Her p caught even Mutrad off guard.
"You could have prevented all this. If this was your people, would you have stood here and watched?" Xanali growled with rage. Her eyes turned red as her body trembled.
"One day, he will do the same to your people, and you will feel their pain," Xanali said. She didn''t bother to wait to hear what Mutrad was trying to say. Instead, she walked into the captain''s quarters and shut the door with a bang.
**********************************
A few hourster, Evan finally arrived at Diamond valley. Since his reports said they found the soldiers dead near the diamond mine, it was Evan''s destination. A she arrived at the mine, he saw the mine entrance was blocked withrge boulders. It would take more than one man and spells to clear the path. So Evan had no way but to look around the area.
The entire duchy seemed deste, with little to no people. It was not a surprise to Evan. Who would stay in a ce where two immortals went all in? The thusian were lucky Xanali evacuated most of them before Ghost fought another Half Immortal. After seeing Ghost''s vengeance against Thusia, Evan had a feeling he purposefully led the Half Immortal to the Diamond Valley and destroyed the duchy with little effort.
"Evan," a smile emerged on his face when Evan heard the gentle yet dominant voice. He slowly turned around to see Victoria walking toward him. ( Not Princess of Thusia Victoria but Victoria of GoldenValley Sect and Evan''s lover)
"Are you alright?" asked Victoria. Evan''s felt a warmth in his heart, seeing a glimmer of concern in his girlfriend''s eyes. Two years ago, they were at their throats, trying to beat each other. At that time, Evan had never thought they would fall in love.
"Why wouldn''t I be?" asked Evan with a smile.
"I heard explosions and saw signs of intense battle on Valeria," said Victoria.
Evan sighed deeply.
"Tell me what happened there?" asked Victoria. Seeing no reason to hide what had transpired on Valeria, Evan began to tell everything he had seen and heard that Ghost did. A few minutester, drops of sweat appeared on Victoria''s forehead. She felt a chill running down her spine. Ghost was always an asshole and low key bully in her eyes, but she had never thought of him to be such a cruel and vengeful guy. Deep down, she really felt lucky that she didn''te across him too often.
"Do you happen to see the guardians on your way here?" asked Evan. He didn''t want Victoria to pay too much attention to the destruction of Thusia.
"Yeah, they set a temporary campsite over there," Victoria led Evan to their campsite where the guardians preserved the bodies of the thusian soldiers.
"Where is Xanali?" asked Victoria, leading Evan to the campsite.
"Went to hand over Queen Valeria''s body to the princess. Man, I really feel bad for her," said Evan.
"So even after all this, no one is willing to stop Ghost? But what''s the history between him and Thusia? He must have some kind of reason to go crazy on them," said Victoria. Although she hated Ghost even more after hearing Evan, she couldn''t help wondering about the reason behind his vengeance against Thusia. In fact, every single newspaper and sect had the same question.
Eventually, the two of them reached an open barrennd with arge tent erected in the middle. Evan nodded at his fellow guardians around the tent and followed Victoria into it. The moment he stepped into the tent, he was weed by a shocking sight.
Chapter 740 Back With A Vengeance
A couple of guardians stood around a wooden table, covering their faces with cloth masks. To Evan''s surprise, he saw a shriveled body that looked like it had been in the ground for at least fifty or so years. Surprisingly, the body didn''t reek. Evan slowly stepped toward the body.
"It''s the vampires, Evan," said Victoria. She unsheathed her sword and moved the dead body''s head to the side. She pointed her sword at the neck as Evan saw a bite mark on the neck. Despite the shriveled mummified body, the bite was distinguishable.
"How many bodies?" asked Evan with a deep frown.
"Twelve. We sent the rest to the guild for further examination. But it''s definitely the work of vampires. Witnesses imed they saw suspicious cked robes figures in the woods a few hours before the attack," said Victoria.
"Do you think it''s a pre nned attack?" asked Evan as Victoria nodded.
"I hate to be Princess Victoria now. If Ghost wasn''t enough, they now have a vampire problem," Victoria sighed.
"Have you tried to clear the rubbles blocking the entrance to the mine?"
"We tried to use some spells but no use. I am afraid we might copse the entire mine if we continue to do so. I don''t think it''s smart to clear the mine without King Maxim''s or Princess Victoria''s permission," said Victoria. Evan''s gaze swept across the tent as the fellow guardians seemed to agree with Victoria.
*************************************
Sometimeter, Xanali finally reached the outskirts of Thusia''s capital. The snowfall took a turn for the worse and threatened the kingdom with a violent blizzard. The howling wind and the thunder rumbling created an ominous feeling.
Xanali stood atop her ship, looking at the golden energy dome around the entire capital. Countless chakras and runes glowed within the dome.
The Thusian soldiers constantly patrolled the air inside and outside the dome while armored soldiers guarded the ground inside. The dome covered the noble district adjacent to the castle and left themoner house unguarded. The streets and houses seemed empty to Xanali.
As the guardian ships were getting closer to the capital, a group of crimson-robed mages flew straight toward Xanali''s ship.
"Halt!" Xanali raised her hand as the ships came to a halt. She waited for the mages to approach her.
"The capital is close for everyone," the mage who led the group said in a thick voice. He was an old man in histe seventies. With a long white beard, a pointy hat, and a staff in his hands made him look like a wizard out of a storybook. Despite his look, the old man''s eyes glimmered with power.
"We are here to help you evacuate the citizens to safety," said Xanali.
"No need, Her royal highness has already taken care of that. Now, if the guardians have nothing more, please leave the kingdom," Xanali didn''t like the mage''s attitude, not even for a bit. However, she controlled her emotions.
"I want to meet your princess or Edith. Tell them Xanali is here to see them,"
"Miss Edith has yet to return from Valeria," said the mage. Xanali was surprised to hear his answer. The mage and the men behind him looked clueless about what had happened in Valeria.
"How long have you been inside the dome?" asked Xanali.
"Two days," the mage answered with an annoyed look on his face. His tone was so unweing.
"I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The Duchy of Valeria is no more. It''s destroyed by Ghost," the mage was stunned.
"Please tell Princess Victoria toe and receive the body of her mother, Queen Valeria,"
The mages trembled. For a few moments, no one uttered a word. Silence fell over them. Xanali hated to break the news about Queen Valeria''s death to them. To be honest, she thought Edith would be the one to reveal the news. However, it seemed like Edith didn''te to the capital. Thest time Xanali saw Edith, she was leaving Valeria with Lah Alden. She thought Lah and Edith were heading for the capital.
"If they didn''te here, where did they go?" Xanali questioned herself.
"I don''t believe you. Her Highness was with General Booth," The mage stuttered. It was obvious that Xanali Victoria had put the capital under lockdown. Since Booth or anyone made it back to the capital, they were oblivious to everything that had happened in Valeria. Still, Xanali couldn''t believe a powerful kingdom like this had been reduced to such a sorry state.
"He''s dead. Ghost killed them both," said Xanali.
"And he''s probably on his way here, so why don''t you go back inside and tell the princess? Let her receive her mother''s body, for god sake," Xanali''s voice turned colder.
"Guardians!" Xanali raised her voice as a couple of guardians came running to her.
"Bring Queen Valeria and General Booth''s bodies,"
The mages were in a kind of shocked state. They waited for the guardians to bring the bodies covered in white cloth in silence. Seeing the bodies, the old mage descended from the sky,nding on the ship. He squatted beside the bodies. The old mage swallowed. Sweat drops broke out on his face. Xanali even noticed the mage''s hands shivering. Slowly, he lifted off the cloth. For a brief moment, the mage couldn''t recognize the body. But eventually, he saw the gold ne on Valeria''s body. He closed his eyes as a golden chakra appeared on the mage''s hand. The small chakra floated toward Valeria''s body before shining its light on the pendant. His heart skipped a beat when the pendant on her ne radiated an icy blue light.
"Your highness," the old man lost control of his body as he copsed down. The staff slipped out of his hand while tears rolled down his eyes. Soon the rest of the mages joined the old man. They all had the same reaction when they saw the icy blue light from the pendant.
They were saddened beyond words. Every single one in Thusia adored and loved Queen Valeria. She was the kindest soul they had ever known. Seeing her mutted body, their hearts couldn''t take it. They broke into tears. Xanali felt sorry for the mages.
The old mage finally managed to stop sobbing. He slowly moved his hand toward the body next to Queen Valeria. His hands trembled as he lifted off the cloth. The old man showed no expression as he couldn''t recognize the body instantly. It took the mages a few seconds to locate a tattoo of the kingdom''s emblem on the bloody chest.
As expected, the mages didn''t shed tears for Booth as they did for Valeria.
"Please, you have to let Princess know about this," said Xanali.
**************************************
Meanwhile, Gaya and Azazel arrived at the castle of vampires with the help of Michael''s runic teleportation. The ce looked as ominous as ever before. The gray castle stood under the red sky. Countless ck bats flew around the castle to add an extrayer of creepiness to it.
Gaya cracked her neck. She was in her Dark Queen armor so that no one could see her face. But behind the mask, she was grinning. Why? Because Michael had specially built something for her to deal with the Blood Prince herself. She really insisted on Michael killing the blood prince with her own hands. Since Michael was busy with something else, he built a device and sent Gaya to the castle along with Azazel for backup. He didn''t think Gaya needed backup, but he didn''t like letting Gaya go alone.
As though the vampires had sensed their presence, a group of cked clothes vampires rushed toward her.
"Magnificent creatures," Azazel eximed. The vampires had long ck hair, fangs protruding out of their mouths, and pale faces. Their speed was beyond any average cultivator. They moved like the wind. Gaya didn''t even move a finger. She waited for the vampires to get close with her hands folded.
"Stop," suddenly, Saber''s voice echoed through the deste, barren grounds. The vampires immediately halted their steps. Gaya looked up at the sky to see Saber slowly descending down. Unlike the rest of the vampires, Saber did not cover his face with a dark hood. In fact, Saber''s face glowed with delight.
"Dark Queen," Saber dropped to his one knee.
"How is your life free of any weakness?" asked Gaya.
"It''s a gift I won''t forget forever, Dark Queen," Saber bowed. He had been trying to find a cure for the vampires'' weakness for sunlight for ages. He lost count of how many people he had killed, how many ruins he ventured into, and how many scrolls he had collected throughout the years. He literally put his blood and sweat into finding a cure. Yet, the Dark Lord offered him the solution in the form of a potion in exchange for his loyalty. Saber had no problem bending his knee before a god who could change the fate of his entire race in a few minutes. Of course, the Dark Lord''s promise to make him the leader of the entire vampire n yed a big part in Saber''s decision to serve the Dark Lord.
"Rise," Gaya gestured at Saber to stand up. Saber nced at the man behind the Dark Queen with devilish wings and crimson red eyes. Although he seemed calm, Saber sensed an overwhelming power from the man. Saber didn''t think he could win against this man in a direct battle. The Dark Lord''s power truly freaked out Saber. He felt agreeing to serve the Dark Lord was the best decision he had made in his life. He just hoped Trista would follow his steps instead of opposing the Dark Lord. On the contrary, he didn''t even think about Ingram serving the Dark Lord. Unlike Trista and him, Ingram was an old-school vampire. He would rather die than serve the Dark Lord.
"This is Azazel. Azazel, this is Saber," Gaya introduced them to each other before walking toward the castle entrance. The vampires looked totally confused. They had never seen their master bend his knee before anyone. However, they were too afraid to question Saber. Hence, they just followed their master, the woman in ck armor and the man with wings.
Gaya climbed the stairs like a queen, guarded by vampires. Saber himself opened the steel door, letting her in. The vampires who saw the sudden appearance of Saber with Gaya and Azazel were caught off guard. They looked confused, just like the vampires behind Saber.
She followed Saber with her hands behind her back. On her way, she looked around the dimly lit castle.
"This ce could use a bit of touch-up and a lot of chandeliers,"mented Gaya.
Some of Trista''s vampires slipped into the darkness to inform their mistress. Saber noticed that yet did nothing to stop them.
Since Gaya was in no hurry to meet the Blood Prince, she took her sweet time exploring the castle. She often stopped to look at the portraits, rooms and even made somements about how a vampire should really dress.
Eventually, Gaya reached the meeting hall with the big round-stone table in the center. Thest time she came here, the Blood Prince almost killed Michael with a single punch. At that moment, the seats were empty. Instead of waiting for the elder vampires to arrive, Gaya climbed on the table and sat with one leg atop another.
"I''d be really disappointed if the blood prince isn''t here," said Gaya.
Chapter 741 The Blood Prince Meets The Dark Queen
Gaya calmly waited for the blood prince. Despite the vampires surrounding them, Saber saw no signs of fear in Azazel''s eyes. The vampires cowered in the shadows. Since Saber, an elder, brought them to their castle, the vampires dared not to raise a finger. However, they all waited for the blood prince to appear, wondering what he would do when he saw these new guests.
After a while, a new group of vampires entered the castle. Unlike the vampires that weed them, these looked like savages. They wore nothing but ck tunics to cover their privates and painted themselves with blood. The moment they entered the hall, the strong stench of blood nauseated Azazel''s senses. The ck-clothed vampires took a step back, making way for this new group. Gaya noticed a sliver of disgust in the ck-robed vampires'' eyes. Judging by how the two groups hissed at each other, it was obvious to Gaya that they hated each other. Something told Gaya this new breed of vampire belonged to the blood prince.
Soon, the hall began to tremble as Gaya heard heavy footsteps. The temperature in the room slowly rose. Saber took a step to the side. His eyes glimmered with fear. All the vampires knelt down when they saw the Blood Prince. But the Blood Prince himself trembled with fury, looking at Gaya.
The blood prince looked a bit weaker andcked an arm since Michael ripped it off. Thanks to the Dark mes, the Blood Prince could not heal or regrow his limb. Seeing how brazenly the woman sits on the table, the Blood Prince''s killing intent shot through the roof. At the same time, the smell of their blood mesmerized him as though he was slowly getting high by the aroma. He knew one thing for sure, these two weren''t humans.
"How does the Blood Prince win a battle? Single-handedly," Gaya chuckled. The vampires were stunned to see the woman ridiculing the Blood Prince in his own castle. Although she had a powerful aura around her, it was nothingpared to the aura around the Blood Prince. Yet, the woman had the guts to make fun of him,
"Oh, sorry, I really shouldn''t do that. I came here in peace. I am unarmed," She emphasized the word ''unarmed'', raising her two hands.
The Blood Prince''s body began to tremble.
"Okay, I know this situation looks out of hand. Jeesh, I need to stop doing that," Gaya suppressed her urge tough. She seriously couldn''t stop herself from making amputated jokes after seeing the Blood Prince with only one arm.
The Blood Prince couldn''t take anymore as he tried to dash at Gaya. he was about to grab her and crush her to death when suddenly a bright golden light shot out from her hand.
"ARGH!" The Blood Prince screamed as his skin began to smoke. Saber saw arge cube in the Dark Queen''s hands. The golden light came through the hole in the cube. The light mimicked the sunlight. Hence, the blood prince started to cover his face as his body was slowly burnt by the light.
The vampires immediately leaped away from the Blood Prince. They hissed at the sunlight, hiding in the corners of the hall. As seconds passed, the light glowed brighter and brighter with high intensity. Gaya threw the box in the air as it floated right above the blood prince, out of his reach. It created a spotlight on the Blood Prince, trapping him within. The Blood Prince couldn''t move a muscle. All of his strength was redirected to keep himself from burning. Although the sunlight wasn''t enough to kill a Half Immortal like the Blood Prince, the longer he was exposed to the sunlight, the higher the chance of his body entering into a slumber to recover. It would take centuries for the Blood Prince''s body to head, and that too if he was kept inplete darkness.
The Blood Prince roared.
"Who are you?'' The Blood Prince managed to growl,
"Stop¡It¡hurts¡"
Gaya didn''t give a damn about the Blood Prince''s pain. In fact, she wanted him to suffer before he died. Plus, she wanted the vampires to witness absolute power so they would follow the Dark Lord with loyalty and fear.
"This is what happens when you mess with the wrong people," said Gaya.
"Saber," she turned her gaze toward Saber.
"Why don''t you show your gift to everyone in the room?"
Saber nodded. Everyone locked their gazes with Saber as he slowly walked toward the spotlight and the Blood Prince. On his way, Saber rolled his sleeves to his elbow. Under everyone''s gazes, Saber put his exposed hand into the light. The vampires expected Saber''s hand to burn to a crisp. However, on the contrary, nothing happened to his hand. The vampires were stunned. Some even wondered whether the light was really harmful to a vampire. Thankfully, the blood prince''s body kept smoking. Otherwise, the vampires wouldn''t have believed the light was indeed harmful to them.
The Blood Prince could hardly move his head. Still, he managed to nce at Saber''s hand. Just like the vampires, the Blood Prince was stunned. The light burnt his skin as the same as the sunlight, yet it did not harm Saber.
"Did you see that Blood Prince? Saber is not harmed by the light. We would have given you this gift if you weren''t such an asshole," said Gaya.
"I never even met you, bitch," The Blood Prince growled.
Gaya almost forgot that the Blood Prince met them as Ghost and Aelia, not as The Dark Lord and the Dark Queen. Gaya did not respond to the Blood Prince. Instead, she took out the golden spear Michael used to kill the Half Immortal elf from her space ring.
She jumped down from the table, gracefully walking toward the Blood Prince. She fiddled with the golden spear on her way. She poked him with the spear when she got close to the Blood Prince. The Blood Prince hissed but couldn''t do anything to stop her.
"What the hell are you waiting for? Kill this traitor and this bitch," growled the Blood Prince. Immediately, the red-painted vampires of the Blood Prince dashed forward to attack Gaya and Saber. Instead, Saber could order his men to retaliate, a bolt of lightning struck the red vampire. The bolt flew past Saber''s face, sending a chill down his spine. The bolt struck the vampire and prated his head. The bolt went through another vampire before disappearing. Two vampires copsed to the ground with fist-sized holes in their heads.
The red vampires halted their steps as they were stunned. Saber utilized their shock and dashed at them with inhuman speed. His figure became blurred as two fangs grew out of his mouth. The next moment, Gaya only noticed several bloody veils of mist above the red vampires'' heads. Even she couldn''t see him killing the vampires. He was simply too fast. In a blink of an eye, Saber killed all five red vampires. When he returned to his previous ce, his entire body was drenched in blood. Just the sight of Saber covered in blood made the vampires tremble in fear.
"It''s time to put you out of your misery¡slowly," Gaya grabbed the Blood Prince''s throat before slowly sending the spear through his chest. The runes on the spear glowed brighter and brighter as the Blood Prince growled. Blood slowly tricked down his chest. He couldn''t move a muscle. His life shed across his eyes. The vampires he created died within a few seconds. Saber, one of the elders, betrayed him and his minions never came to his aid.
Gaya twisted the spear to inflict more pain. Surprisingly, Trista, the brte vampire, and friend of Lenora appeared in the hall. Her eyes widened at the sight of Gaya killing the blood prince.
"Calm down, Trista," Saber quickly said before Trista did something she would regretter. Trista was unable toprehend what was happening before her eyes. Saber, of all people, stood beside a creepy-looking woman and man and watched the Blood Prince slowly getting stabbed to death. Not that she had any love for the Blood Prince, but it was shocking to Trista. To be honest, Trista hated the Blood Prince to the core since he killed Lenora. Little did Trista know that the Blood Prince kept Lenora''s head in his room. In a sense, Lenora was still alive. But no one except Ingram and the Blood knew about her state. At Least that''s what the Blood Prince thought.
The blood trickled down from the blood prince''s chest, forming a blood puddle under him. Usually, the vampires wouldn''t drink another vampire''s blood, but the sweet aroma from the blood prince''s blood really made it hard for them to resist.
Even Trista''s fangs slowly grew in size. Gaya saw the light of life slowly leaving the Blood Prince''s eyes. The new device built by Michael and Elidyr surprised Gaya. She had her doubts when Michael said this device would create a light as powerful as the sunlight. But looking at the device at work, she was surprised. With this device, the vampires could pose no threat to them. Not only vampires but even the undead would also be powerless. Trista was afraid even to take a step forward. She stood at the entrance with the rest of the vampires.
At that moment, Gaya slowly drew the spear out of the Blood Prince''s chest. She swung the spear, sttering the blood across the hall. Afterward, she stabbed the Blood Prince in the throat.
"Argh!" The Blood Prince growled. She forcefully cut the Blood Prince''s throat to sever his head clean off. Since the Blood Prince was a Half Immortal, it took almost every bit of strength in Gaya''s body to cut his head off. Blood sprayed out of his neck, painting her ck armor red. Yet, she didn''t even flick as she continued to cut his head. Trista shivered. She watched the Blood Prince brutally getting butchered in his castle surrounded by his men. She simply couldn''t believe it. However, she trusted Saber enough to stay still.
Finally, Gaya lopped off the head and raised it in the air for everyone to see. The Blood Prince''s eyes were still wide open and filled with pain and anger.
"Now we can talk about the future of all the nightwalkers," said Gaya.
Chapter 742 The Blood Prince鈥檚 Bloody Collection
Gaya showed the severed head to every vampire around her. The vampires took a step back in utter fear. She had killed their strongest. These vampires were more terrified than furious at her for killing the blood prince.
"His body belongs to us. Anyone got a problem with that?" asked Gaya. As expected, no one dared to utter a word. With a flick of her wrist, she took out a silver scroll from her space ring. She put a sliver of arch energy as the runes glowed within the scroll. The next moment, a bright light enveloped the blood prince''s body and disappeared along with the body.
"Everyone, please leave the hall," said Saber. The vampires looked a bit flustered for a few moments, but ultimately they left the room, leaving Trista behind.
"Azazel, look around the castle and get the feel of theyout,"
"As you wish, mydy," Azazel deep bowed before leaving the hall. Gaya sat down on the chair facing Saber.
"You can take your seat beside Saber," Gaya gestured at Trista to sit. The brte vampire looked confused. Despite being one of the oldest and the most powerful elder vampires, Trista couldn''t help feeling weak in front of the ck-armored woman.
"You want to know what the fuck just happened, right?" Gaya asked Trista.
Trista slowly nodded.
"I think it''s better if Saber exined everything to you," Gaya turned her gaze toward Saber. She patiently waited for Saber to tell everything that had happened after he met Ghost to give an Immortal killing weapon to him as part of their deal.
Two days ago, Saber took out an Immortal killing weapon from his personal collection. He went to meet Ghost but met the Dark Lord instead. At first, Saber waspletely off guard. Everyone in the vampire n was terrified of the Dark Lord. So when Saber saw him, he thought he was going to battle the Dark Lord for his life. However, The Dark Lord revealed his identity and shocked Saber. It was Ghost. He offered Saber something he couldn''t refuse, Immortality and a permanent solution for the sunlight problem. The Dark Lord kept his word as he gave more potions to Saber. But he also offered a permanent solution if Saber was willing to serve him. When Saber felt reluctant to agree to bend his knee, the Dark Lord attacked him. Compared to a Half Immortal, Saber was weak. He couldn''t even react in time before the Dark Lord injected a potion into his neck. Saber lost consciousness. To his utter shock, he woke up on a beach in Royal Land. The sun didn''t hurt him at all. Furthermore, he didn''t feel his blood lust at all, even when there were bleeding humans before him.
Only then did he realize the Dark Lord wasn''t lying about a permanent solution. Saber had never felt so powerful in his life. At that moment, Saber could see his kind''s bright future. Without a weakness to the sun and blood craving, they had the chance to be a whole new, powerful breed.
This new power came at the cost of Saber and his kind following the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord exposed their existence because Hacan was stupid enough to try to kill him. The Dark Lord exined how simr his kind and he is. The vampires drew power from darkness, and the Dark Lord was the God of Darkness. In a way, the vampires were born to follow him.
Saber felt the true extent of the Dark Lord''s power when he turned the day into night. His power grew out of bounds.
After everything was said and done, following the Dark Lord seemed to be the best option. Therefore, Saber agreed to serve the Dark Lord. Saber had a feeling choosing otherwise would mean the death of him and his kind. But Saber focused on more positive things.
When Saber finished his story, Trista was inplete shock. First, she still couldn''t believe Saber could survive the sunlight. Second, she never expected Ghost to be the Dark Lord, and Saber agreed to serve him. Although Saber was an Elder like her, he was more of a leader than an Elder. Ingram, the oldest vampire who should offer guidance, was always absent when they needed him. Hence, Saber became a leader of the elders.
Now Trista had to make the choice of whether to follow Saber and thus by following the Dark Lord or not. Gaya noticed a sliver of reluctance in Trista''s eyes. She was truly amazed at how easily Michael could predict others'' behavior. He told her Trista would be hesitant to join them or even chose not to.
There was a reason why Gaya brought Azazel to the castle. She was expecting Azazel to return with something that could make Tristae to the dark side.
"Any moment now¡" Gaya mumbled under her breath. A few minutester, Azazel finally showed up in the hall. He had a sack in his hand. He handed over the sack to Gaya as Saber and Trista smelled blood in the air.
"Where did you find this, Azazel?" asked Gaya as though she had no idea. She wanted to entertain Trista and Saber.
"In the Blood Prince''s room. I found several others, but I thought you would want to see this," said Azazel. Trista and Saber curiously stared at the sack. Trista looked at Saber with doubtful eyes. Judging by the look on his face, Trista could tell Saber had no clue of what was inside the sack.
Under their curious eyes, Gaya slowly pulled the sack up. Surprisingly, they saw a head when she removed the sack. Their surprise soon turned into utter shock as they recognized the head. It was none other than their fellow Elder, Lenora.
"Lenora!" Trista shouted in shock. Thest time she saw Lenora, she was a puppy mess under the feet of the Blood Prince. She didn''t find her head because Trista thought the Blood Prince crushed it with his foot. Lenora''s eyes and mouth slowly moved, but no words came out of her mouth. The Blood Prince was a sick psychopath who kept the heads of vampires on a shelf as his personal collection. Thanks to Michael''s Spyders all over the vampire castle, Azazel learned this juicy information about the Blood Prince.
"The one who should have protected you had a secret collection. He was keeping heads of your kind in his closet. Talk about skeletons in a closet," Gaya eximed. Gaya handed over the head to Azazel and gestured at him to give the head to Trista.
Azazel gently grabbed the head. Trista shivered, looking at her best friend''s severed head. Her hands trembled as he took the head from Azazel.
"Her head was cut off from her body and kept in a cold ce for too long. I''d give it a day or two before her brainpletely shuts off. He was a sick bastard," said Gaya.
"He gave just enough blood to keep her barely alive,"
"Lenora," Trista''s eyes watered for the first time in a long time. Anger and sadness overwhelmed her heart. She couldn''t see her best friend like this.
"Mydy, is there a way for us to heal Lenora?" asked Saber. Even he felt pity for Lenora after seeing her like this. Plus, helping the Dark Queen kill the Blood Prince seemed like the best decision in his mind.
"That depends on Trista,"
Hearing Gaya, Trista slowly raised her head.
"You want me to serve you, just like Saber?" asked Trista.
"Bingo. You''re a smart girl. That''s why we are hoping you will join us and change this world. Trust me, this is not some fancy word or offer. We actually have a God with us. As you can see, only a God can bring Lenora back to life. So what''s it gonna be?"
Saber ced his hand on Trista''s shoulder, wordlessly reassuring her to make the same choice as him. To be honest, Trista saw no cons of serving the Dark Lord. If it was before, Trista would have refused to bend her knees. But after what happened with the Blood Prince, she realized even the Elders were just pawns. What made the difference was what kind of pawns they would be. At Least serving the Dark Lord came with perks and a chance to heal Lenora back to life.
"I''d follow you, but only if you heal her," said Trista. Saber was shocked. The Dark Lord and the Dark Queen were not the kind of people one should negotiate with. To his surprise, the Dark queen chuckled.
"As I said, you''re a smart one. Constructing a body for her will take time. But as a gesture of faith, I can ask the Dark Lord to heal her head. You''ll be able to talk to your friend. We will heal herpletely once we are confident you have no ulterior motives or doubts about serving us. How about that?" Gaya paused for a moment before continuing.
"You have no other option, really. You can say yes and see your friend again, or you can say goodbyes to her. Either way, it''s time to make your choice," said Gaya.
Trista stared between Lenora''s head and Saber. Saber nodded as Trista took a deep breath.
"You want me to kneel before you?" asked Trista, rising from her seat with Lenora''s head in her hands.
"No need. The Dark Lord will arrive, and you can do that before him,"
Saber was surprised. He didn''t know the purpose of the Dark Lord''s visit to the vampire castle. But one thing was sure, the fate of the vampires would change forever from today.
"Saber, the Dark Lord would like to meet the head of your experiments and research projects. Bring that one here," Saber nodded.
"As for Trista, why don''t you go there and take a look at the Blood Prince''s collection? I feel like you should know how wrong of you all to follow a Blood Prince without knowing their nature," Gaya rose from her seat and turned her gaze back to Saber.
"The Dark Lord also wants to meet all the Elders, including Ingram. Summon them all here. I assume you have a way to do that,"
"Yes, mydy," said Saber.
"Great. I''ll see you in five hours with the Dark Lord. Try to convince your minions about the new hierarchy. Only those who fully deserve will get the gift from the Dark Lord,"
Chapter 743 Biggest And Baddest Castle
After Gaya met with the vampires, she teleported herself back to the dark forest, where she met Michael. He remained in the pocket dimension working with Elidyr. Nightmare and Vedora slept by the waterfall peacefully. When she entered the ce, she saw Michael staring at a map.
"What are you looking at?" asked Gaya. She slowly removed her ck skull mask and put it on the table.
"One of my armor pieces," Michael pointed at a small ind in the Southern continent. He used two hundred thousand badass points to find out one of his armor pieces. This armor was crafted by the Dark Lord and sent to the future using a time machine. Michael had no idea how difficult this task was. All he knew was his past self did this by using the system.
"Are we going to get this before or after we destroy Thusia?" asked Gaya.
"After. I am heading to the capital at dawn," said Michael. He preferred to attack Thusia when there was no sunlight. The darkness would greatly increase his power. Not that Michael wanted any power boost to kill Victoria. However, Michael liked to be at his strongest.
"How was your meeting with the vampires?" asked Michael.
"Went as we nned. I just gave my word you''d be able to make Lenora''s head talk before wepletely heal her,"
"That''s doable,"
"Mydy, you finished off the Blood Prince?" asked Elidyr. Michael was surprised to see the glimmer of excitement in the dark elf''s eyes. Judging by the look in his eyes, Michael could tell Elidyr had some kind of n for the Blood Prince''s body.
"It should be in the storage room with the dragon skeleton," said Gaya. Michael was too busy to assemble the dragon skeleton he teleported from the treacherous ocean. He needed additional hundred thousand badass points to assemble the skeleton. He wished he was able to teleport the Wise Dragon''s skeleton too. It was a pity that the system absorbed its body to reveal Adelia''s teleportation destination.
Still, Michael was confident he could make millions by auctioning the skeleton. ording to Aria, the next big auction in the Awor continent would happen in three months. So Michael nned to auction the dragon then. Until then, it could stay in the store room.
"My lord, can I take a look at the Blood Prince''s body?" asked Elidyr.
"You seem rather excited. What''s the matter, and why do you want to see his body?" Michael asked Elidyr.
"I want to study such specimen, my lord,"
"You talk like Dr. Normally, he was the one who messes with dead bodies,"
"True true," Elidyr nodded.
"But the Blood Prince''s body is different. I might make use of his body to create some new runes,"
"You got me at new runes. Go crazy," Michael dismissed Elidyr. The elf almost ran away from the ce full of excitement. It was extremely rare for Michael to see Elidyr this excited. After finding all the armor pieces, he hoped the elf could develop some powerful runes to enhance his armor.
"You should give me new armor. Now that I think about it, you haven''t given me an engagement gift. Some fiance you are," Gaya rolled her eyes.
"Didn''t I tell you I would get you your throne of Nagnd?"
"You''re kidding me right? After we reveal our identities, do you think I can peacefully rule Nagnd as the queen? The skyhall and the guardians would be at my neck if i ever stepped into my own kingdom,"
Michael''s brows arched up. It was such a simple thing, but hepletely forgot about that. This was the reason Michael wanted to put an end to keeping two identities. His brain power diverged into too many things as he started to overlook the obvious things. Michael took a deep breath. Although he didn''t utter a word, Gaya could tell how sorry he was by looking at his eyes. She smiled.
"You don''t have to worry about that. I know you have so many things to deal with. It''s okay," Gaya gently said.
The moment she said these words, Michael hated himself. She asked for one thing for him, but he failed to give her that. Michael calmed himself with a few deep breaths. Quickly, he remembered the floating mountain given to him by Eve''s father.
"I am going to build you the best and baddest castle this world has ever seen and give it to you as my loving gift," Michael said, taking her arms into his. He slowly moved over the strand of hair on her face and felt her smooth, soft skin.
"You are the best thing that happened to me in this life," Michael meant these words with all of his heart. Little did he know that Gaya was the biggest and the main reason why the past Dark Lord chose to reset the entire universe. She was cursed and slowly dying. To be honest, The Dark Lord didn''t think he could live and fight without his wife. The only way to save her was to travel back in time. Michael did that in a heartbeat. Fortunately, that fate had been avoided the moment Michael retrieved the curse-breaking artifact from the treacherous ocean.
"You better," Gaya ruffled Michael''s hair yfully. As seconds passed by, Michael prepared for what could be his final battle as Ghost. He flicked his wrist as his usual ck attire appeared on an armor stand. He touched the clothes, sighing. Finally, Michael put on his robes and sheathed a silver sword with several crimson-red engravings on it. This was the sword Saber gave him. With this sword, Michael possessed two Immortal killing weapons.
"I wille with you," said Gaya when he finished putting on his robes.
"Before you say anything, let me remind you that Xanali knows who I am. You need backup,"
However, Michael shook his head.
"I can''t afford you with me on the battlefield. Instead, I need you to go to the river town to ensure Eve and everyone''s safety. I will take care of Xanali,"
"Don''t y me for a fool, human. I know you are sending me away so no one could take me hostage and turn the table on you," Gaya snickered.
"You know how Maxim operates. I can''t afford any fuck ups,"
Gaya sighed heavily. Judging by the look in his eyes, she knew there was no point in arguing with him. Hence, she agreed to go to the river town.
"But let''s go meet Saber and his kind first," said Michael.
*********************************************
(A few hours earlier)
Xanali was granted entry into the capital by the mages. She entered Maxim''s castle with the mages carrying Valeria and Booth''s bodies. Victoria was talking to Terrance, Minister Gorden, and some prominent nobles in the kingdom. All the nobles had one thing inmon among them; fear. They were afraid of Ghost. Many of the nobles had already left the kingdom via their personal ships. Those who remained in the kingdom were either ordered to stay by Victoria or were too loyal to Maxim Barnes.
Since Victoria didn''t know about the death of her mother and Booth, she looked surprised to see Xanali. At first, Victoria thought Xanali was here to help the citizens. However, when she saw the mages carrying something covered in white cloth, her heart skipped a beat.
"Guardian Captain Xanali," Victoria greeted her as the mages ced the bodies on the ground.
"Princess Victoria¡" Xanali''s voice trailed away. She was unable to form words.
"What is that?" Victoria''s hands shivered. The mages avoided direct eye contact with Victoria. Meanwhile, the nobles surrounded them. Minister Terrance was the first one to approach the bodies. He squatted beside them and slowly lifted the cloth. Terrance creased his brows. He turned his gaze toward the mages without saying a word. He couldn''t recognize the headless bodies.
Before the mages could answer Terrance, Victoria sent a wave of wind with a flick of her wrist, removing the white clothes. Some of the nobles screamed. The headless bodies stunned everyone in the hall.
"Mother¡" Victoria mumbled. She needed no spells or runes to identify the body of her mother. Seeing Valeria like this, Victoria''s mind couldn''t handle it. As a result, Victoria fainted on the spot. Xanali was quick enough to catch Victoria.
"Your royal highness," the royal guards and Minister Gordne came running to Victoria''s aid.
"Water," Xanali signaled the soldiers to bring her a ss of water. The soldiers quickly brought her a cup of water. Xanali gently sprinkled water on Victoria''s face to wake her up.
Victoria slowly opened her eyes. Realizing she was in Xanali''s hands, she pushed Xanali aside and got back to her feet. Her body trembled uncontrobly. Terrance and Gorden looked at the mages to see them nodding, wordlessly confirming it was Queen Valeria. No one could take their eyes off Victoria. She copsed to her knees beside the body. She touched Valeria''s pendant as tears gushed out of Victoria''s eyes.
"I am so sorry, Princess Victoria," Xanali''s voice stuttered. Since Xanali lost her best friend to the Dark Lord, she knew what Victoria was feeling deep down.
"Her death was sudden and quick. Queen Valeria felt nothing," said Xanali, although she knew nothing she could say would lessen Victoria''s pain.
"Was it Ghost?" stuttered Victoria. Her voice contained unimaginable anger and pain behind it.
Xanali nodded. Everyone became silent. If anyone else had killed Queen Valeria, they would bark orders at the royal guards to bring back the killer''s head. But the one who killed her was Ghost, a Half Immortal. Sending guards to him would be like sending sheep into a wolf''s den.
Honestly, no one knew what to do next. Instead, they just stared at Victoria.
"General Booth? Did he suffer?" asked Victoria.
Xanali remained silent. Her silence spoke volumes, letting Victoria know the extent of pain Booth went through. Just the scars and wounds on his body were alone a clear indicator of how much he suffered at the hands of Ghost.
"When he arrives at the capital, everyone must stand down," said Victoria. Her face showed no emotion, as though she had lost her emotions.
"I will face him myself. I don''t want any more deaths on my head for something I did,"
"You royal-" Terrance tried to interject, but when Victoria turned her gaze toward him, he shut his mouth immediately. He felt a chill running down his spine. The murderous rage hidden within her eyes was terrifying. Just like Ghost had promised her, he had taken everything from her. The karma hit Victoria left and right. Everyone, including Victoria, knew what would be the oue if she fought Ghost. Even Xanali didn''t think she could stop the war between them anymore.
Chapter 744 Michael Vs Victoria I
The sun slowly set down on the horizon, giving way for the darkness to nket the world. The raining snowkes added a tinge of white to the gray atmosphere. Snow nketed the city as far as one could see. The temperature dropped to dangerous levels. This winter had proven itself as the coldest one in recent centuries. If the winter wasn''t enough, the thusians had to face a vengeful Half Immortal.
Thusia prepared itself for the war against Ghost. They lost all the kingdoms they conquered in a matter of a few days. This showed the entire world how powerful a Half Immortal was. It had been hundreds of years since the world had seen one. Thus, the world had forgotten about Half Immortals and Immortals. Ghost reminded the world with a tight p. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say the entire world was concerned about Ghost.
Even the Empress of Awor gathered all her war gods and asked to formte a n to defend theirnd in case Ghost turned his murderous gaze toward them. She ordered everyone to raise their cultivation levels fast. In fact, the empress ordered the royal cksmiths, engineers, and runemasters to build a special arena where a Fusion stage cultivator could safely break through to the Half Immortal Stage. Of course, this arena wouldn''t save them from the heavenly tribtion a hundred percent, but it would certainly increase their chances of survivability.
Finally, when darknesspletely took over the day, Michael arrived at the capital. He didn''t bring anyone with him because he didn''t need them. He ordered King Gunner, King Baldur, and all his allies to leave the Ithn ind. They didn''t dare to argue with Michael. They all heard what had happened to the duchy of Valeria. It was indeed a pity they had to leave Golden Port. However, their lives and their soldiers'' lives were more important than the city itself.
The golden dome around the capital flickered, indicating Michael''s arrival to the thusians. Michael could have blocked these arrays with the system, but he simply didn''t. In fact, he wanted them to know. Only that way would they feel helpless and afraid before losing their lives. Granted, he could kill Victoria, her family and destroy the kingdom in a couple of days. But he wanted every single one of them to suffer and live theirst moments of life with fear. He wanted them to wish they were dead instead of living in constant fear. As for Victoria and MAxim Barnes, he had special ns.
Michael''s nce swept over the capital. Although he grew up in the forest far north of the castle, he knew nothing about the city. His whole world was the sanctuary and the people living in it. Up to this moment, he had no idea about the exact location of the COsmic stream. The system asked three million badass points to pinpoint the stream. However, Michael chose not to pay the system. Since King Maxim Barnes was using the stream to break through to the Half Immortal stage, the location would be revealed automatically to him the moment Maxim Barnes triggered the heavenly tribtion. Unluckily for Maxim, Michael would be waiting to hinder his tribtion.
Michael slowly flew toward the golden dome. It covered the entire city. As much as Michael hated Edith, he had to admire her talents in runes and arrays. Even Elidyr was surprised by some of her runes. The closer Michael moved toward the energy dome, the more ripples appeared in the dome.
Using his X-ray vision, Michael scanned the city. He found no life signs in the city except inside the castle grounds. The reports Michael heard were right, Victoria evacuated the citizens out of Thusia. Not that Michael would have cared if there were people in the city, but at least now he had a clear conscience.
The soldiers within the castle came running outside. They all prepared the trebuchets, giant crossbows, and methrowers ready. These machines were engraved with powerful runes to hurt cultivators. Michaell couldn''t care less about them. Even the Immortal killing weapons failed to harm him. The only way to kill him was the god-killing arrows that Michael was still researching about. Michael had a feeling these arrows were somehow connected to the system and its origins. After all, as long as Michael had the system, killing him would be impossible.
? Michael shoved all those thoughts to the corner of his mind. At this moment, hepletely focused on one thing; the destruction of Thusia once and for all. To Michael''s surprise, Evan and Xanali flew through the energy dome to him. The moment Evan saw his Half Immortal level 9, his eyes widened. Thanks to Gaya killing the Blood Prince and some of the vampires who chose not to serve the Dark Lord, Michael gained enough experience points to reach level 9. His god-level cultivation speed startled Evan. It wasn''t even a year since he entered the Half Immortal stage. With this rate, Evan could tell Ghost would be Immortal in a few months.
"Ghost, we need to talk about what you''re going to do. You already killed Valeria, destroyed all their cities, and took back the kingdom they conquered. Isn''t it enough?" asked Xanali. Michael remained silent.
"If you let go of this feud, I''ll release Gaya of all the crimes she hasmitted," said Xanali, only to see Michael fold his arms.
"First, it''s not enough. I want this ce raised to the ground. Second, Gaya didn''tmit any crimes. You and your mother took the throne, which rightfully belongs to Gaya. You two drove the once powerful kingdom into a debt trap and robbed the kingdom of its status. Gaya only tried to save what you''ve been destroying. As far as I am concerned, you, your mother, and Gaya''s father are the criminals,"
Xanali was about to respond to him when he raised his finger.
"I am not here to talk about Nagnd. I am here to settle some old scores. Get out of my way," A powerful gust of wind shot out of Michael''s hand, sting Xanali and Evan away. They were sent flinging back to the capital like kites without anchors. They couldn''t regain their bnce until they crashed onto the streets.
Evan and Xanali growled. Blood trickled down their mouths. Evan''s mindpletely went nk. Ghost almost killed them with just a wave of his hands. His power simply terrified Evan. He used to think he could catch up with Ghost if he ventured into resource-rich ces like the Treacherous ocean or even the Demons grave. But now, attempting to reach his level seemed impossible. He didn''t think anyone could match up to him.
"Victoria," Michael uttered the name in a creepy way. His tone sent shivers running down everyone''s spines. Finally, Victoria walked out of the castle with her battle armor on. Royal guards and ministers surrounded her. However, she didn''t take them with her to meet Ghost in mid-air. She hovered behind the energy dome just a few meters away from Michael.
Michael slowly touched the shield as a bolt of energy hit Michael back. If anyone under the Soul Refining stage had touched the shield, they would have turned into ashes. But to Michael, it felt like an ant sting. Michael and Victoria looked at each other without uttering a word. None had any words for each other but only immense killing lust.
"How does it feel to lose everything?" asked Michael.
Victoria trembled. Her eyes turned blood red within a few seconds. Michael enjoyed the pain in her eyes. When she put a dagger through his heart, she had no emotions. It was like she didn''t give a shit about Abras or his love. She didn''t raise a finger when her soldiers ughtered everyone without mercy. Their deaths were not painless or quick like Valeria''s. Instead, Booth and his men ensured the people in the sanctuary suffered. They vented their anger on the elders and the people for keeping the Cosmic stream out of the world''s reach for centuries.
Of course, if Michael was in Maxim Barnes''s shoes and he found a power source like the Cosmic stream, he would have coveted it. But Michael wouldn''t have ughtered innocent people in the process. He would have found another way, or if the push came to shove, he would have used the system to absorb the energy source forcefully. No matter what, he wouldn''t have ughtered children for power.
"No words, huh," Michael snickered, seeing no wordsing out of Victoria''s mouth.
"You and I both know this shield cannot protect you. You''re going to die today, and so does everyone in your capital," said Michael. Afterward, he looked over Victoria''s shoulder at the people on the castle grounds.
"Last chance to get out of here," Michael amplified his voice with arch energy. Hence, his words sounded loud and clear in their ears. He genuinely offered the soldiers and the nobles a chance to escape. Unfortunately, they all decided to stay with Victoria to theirst breath.
"You are all betting on Maxim Barnes reaching the Half Immortal stage right? Guess what? Even if he bes one, he has no chance of killing me. And Vikki, do you think I will let him be one? I heard messing with the heavenly tribtion will break someone''s meridians. I have to test that theory today," Michael snickered. He still couldn''t decide who to kill first, Victoria or Maxim. Nheless, they would both die at the end of the day.
Michael devilishly grinned. He toyed with Victoria''s mind just like how she yed with Abras. While he was riling Victoria up, the soldiers prepared the war machines to fire at him. He didn''t mind them at all. No matter how hard they tried, those poor souls had no chance of hurting him at all.
Michael ced his hand on the golden dome, creating ripples in the shield. He leaned forward toward Victoria.
"Are you going to stare at me or try to avenge your mother?" Michael grinned. As Michael expected, the moment he mentioned Valeria, Victoria dashed at him. Her armor lit up like a Christmas tree. The runes glowed in various colors. She could have fought a level 1 Half Immortal with the Cosmic energy and the armor, but she stood no chance against Michael. He simply flew backward, away from the golden shield.
"Your royal highness!" the royal guards shouted, seeing Victoria dashing outside through the shield. Finally, the battle between Ghost and Victoria began. She had a whole kingdom and an army behind while Michael faced them alone. Despite the advantage of numbers, they all feared Michael. In fact, they knew this was an unwinnable battle. Still, they fought for Thusia out of loyalty.
Chapter 745 Michael Vs Victoria II
In mid-air, Victoria and Michael shed. She unsheathed her long sword and held it tightly using both hands. The sword was extremely heavy. But this sword was just for normal enemies. She could conjure a sword made of Cosmic energy, which could cut through anything except Michael''s body. That didn''t mean the Cosmic sword waspletely useless against Michael. For some reason, Victoria fought with the big long sword instead of the Cosmic sword.
Victoria swung her heavy sword left and right. Michael wondered what lengths she went to reach the Fusion stage in such a short amount of time. Judging by the unstable energy radiation around her body, Michael could tell she had used shortcuts to boost her power. Michael swayed his body to the sides, easily evading the sword. Victoria''s figure was blurry to others, but to Michael, she moved in slow motion. He read all her moves before she made them. Victoria was trained to control her emotions. But how could she control her anger when she fights the killer of her mother?
"Is this all you got?" Michael snickered. He put one arm behind and swatted the sword with the other. Victoria fought viciously. Each of her sword swings cut through the air, creating a sharp noise. While swinging the sword, she raised her hand. Immediately, the sword in her hand lit with fire. The mes were scorching hot. They vaporized the snow in a five-meter radius around them. It felt like the snow had stopped for Michael and Victoria.
Every time she swung her sword, the mes lingered in the sword''s path for a few moments before fading away. Despite the mes on the sword, Michael swatted the sword like it was nothing. Suddenly, Michael grabbed the sword with one hand.
"I am disappointed in how pathetically weak you are," said Michael. He clenched his fist and punched Victoria in the gut, sending her flying back into the dome. She flew in the air for a minute or two before crashing down on a wooden building. The sheer force of her collision made the house crumble down. Michael looked at the ming sword in his hand.
"Fancy sword," mumbled Michael. To his surprise, a couple of crimson-red runes glowed on the hilt. The sword dashed out of his grab. It flew straight toward Victoria, leaving a fiery trail in the air. He noticed the broken wooden nks in the house moving. Soon, Victoria managed to climb up the copsed house with the ming sword in her hand.
"Your royal highness!" The royal guards came running to her rescue.
"FIRE!" Michael turned his gaze toward an old man in silver armor. The ashen-haired old man ordered his men to fire the trebuchets. Michael wasn''t surprised by the old man''s Fusion Stage cultivation level. At this point, Michael would be surprised if Thusia didn''t have any more Fusion stage cultivators. With this many Fusion stage warriors, no wonder no one was able to touch Thusia. Maxim Barnes created a powerful dynasty in a short time using the Cosmic stream.
The boulders fired by the trebuchets soared through the air. In mid-air, some of the boulders froze while some lit up with mes. Michael hovered in the air, waiting for the boulders. When they were just a few meters away from him, Michael simply raised his hand. A ring of fark mes pulsated from Michael''s body. Upon the boulders came into contact with the dark mes, they turned into ashes.
The soldiers were stunned. In a blink of an eye, almost twenty boulders disappeared from their sightpletely. Still, the old man did not lose hope. He barked another order to fire again. At the same time, Victoria shot toward the sky to resume her fight. A frozen boulder reached Michael before Victoria. He surprised everyone by catching the boulder. He lifted the boulder with one hand. He started to spin the boulder on top of his index finger. When he saw Victoria soaring through the air, he threw the boulder at her. She swung the sword, cutting the boulder in half. But when the boulder split open, she saw Michael''s fist. She quickly raised the sword to defend herself. Michael''s fist hit the sword. In return, the sword hit Victoria''s face. Her vision became blurry for a moment. Michael utilized the opportunity by grabbing her by the shoulder and headbutting her. The helmet she wore formed cracks as she felt like she hit a stone wall. For a few moments, everything around her started to spin.
Michael sent her flying back to the castle with a single p. Blood and Victoria''s wisdom tooth gushed out of her mouth. The royal guards couldn''t see their princess getting beaten to death. Although they were ordered to stay out of the battle, the loyal thusians broke the order for the sake of Victoria. All the twelve royal guards shot toward the sky with no fear but intense anger and killing intent in their eyes. Each of them was armed to the teeth and halberds engraved with various runes.
Unlike Victoria, the royal guards began to cast various spells. In a blink of an eye, Michael saw various shapes and forms made of Celestial energy materializing in front of his eyes. The spells lighted up the dark sky, and the boulders were the fireworks. Xanali leaped onto the air and caught Victoria in mid-air. The pressure began to get to Evan. Deep down, he wanted to get the hell out of the capital to save himself. However, the oath he took as a guardian prevented him from doing so. Contrary to the Thusian soldiers, he had no loyalty toward Thusia.
Even when Ghost wasn''t casting any spells, Evan could feel immense pressure under the shield. The only silver lining was that at least Ghost didn''t seem to have any intention of breaking the shield down. While Xanali was helping Victoria, Evan looked up at the sky to see the royal guards battling Ghost. The sky was littered with all the elements there were. Michael saw a lion made of fire roaring at him, a sword made of ice flying toward him, and ethereal hands trying to hold him down.
Michael didn''t flinch an eye. He just floated in the air with his hands folded. Instead of wasting his energy defending, he let the spells hit him. One by one, the spells hit Michael. Of course, the Responsive shield appeared around Michael in the form of a translucent shield and absorbed the attackspletely. As a result, not even Michael''s robes were harmed by the spells.
When all the shapes and forms disappeared from the sky, Michael shook his head disappointedly,
"What did you expect? You alle to the rescue of your princess like shining knights, eradicate evil and fly into the sunset?" Michael''s words echoed through the capital.
"Life is all about making the right and wrong choices and living with the consequences. Bying to her rescue, you made the wrong choice, and the consequence is death,"
Since the royal guards were floating closer to Michael, they heard an otherworldly vibration in the air. The very next moment, two dark beams shot out of Michael''s eyes. Those who were on the ground couldn''t see the dark beams because of the dark sky above them. The dark beams went straight through a royal guard''s head. He fell from the sky, and before the others could react, the beam took a sharp ny-degree turn and pierced another soldier''s head.
In a matter of seconds, the dark beams killed all the soldiers. Evan was unable to tell how these soldiers were killed. One moment they were floating in the air, and another, they fell from the air like dead bees. Everything happened so quickly. When Victoria opened her eyes, she saw her royal guards falling from the sky. She shook off Xanali''s hands. Once again, she shot toward the sky.
This time, Michael didn''t fight Victoria. Instead, he flew toward the golden dome. Dark mes enveloped his fists as he put on his hands. The shield trembled, creating several ripples. He slowly tore open the shield with his bare hands. The soldiers firing the trebuchets felt a chill.
"Everyone keeps firing. Do not let him through the shield. Mages, attack!" The minister of defense, Terrance, barked orders. At that moment, Victoria aimed to attack Michael from behind while the mages and the trebuchets hit Michael from the front. Yet, he ignored all of them. While tearing apart the shield, Michael turned back. The dark beams shot at Victoria. She reacted quickly and deflected the beams with her sword. She fought desperately to stop him from entering the shield. However, her attempts became futile as he slipped through the tear in the shield.
"Now let me ughter your people before your eyes, just like your men did," said Michael, looking over his shoulder. The next moment, he dashed toward the war machines with speed beyond any mortalprehension. Victoria was only able to see the afterimages left by him. Terrance''s neck hair stood up. He may have decades of experience, the skill to operate under pressure, and Fusio Stage cultivation to back all of it up. But, in front of a Half Immortal, he was nothing. He only heard a whistling wind before everything turned dark. Michael didn''t even know who this old man was. His head flew in the air with a single wind de across his head. Michaelnded right beside a trebuchet. Instead of casting a spell, Michael just punched the trebuchet toward the war machines behind it.
The trebuchet crashed into the others at the speed of a train. It destroyed everything in its path and the soldiers. Xanali managed to save some soldiers but lost many. Blood and fire flew all over the ce. The images of Valeria shed across her eyes. Seeing the destruction, the nobles screamed as they ran back into the castle for cover. Poor souls had no idea the castle was Michael''s main target.
Victoria tried to keep up with Michael. She used Cosmic energy to match Michael''s speed to stop the destruction. However, even with the Cosmic energy, she was too slow. Michael picked up a broken trebuchet and threw it at Victoria. Just like before, Victoria sliced through the machine.
"ARGH!" She screamed as she brought down the sword upon Michael. Michael simply grabbed the sword, but the shock wave sent everyone around them flying, including Xanali and Evan. Michael felt the Cosmic energy radiation from her body getting unstable by the second. It took great effort to keep himself from killing Victoria with a single punch. If he did that, it wouldn''t be the proper revenge he had waited all these years for. The moment Michael grabbed the sword, he pulled it toward him. He grabbed Victoria''s hand and began hitting her against the floor left and right like she was a piece of cloth.
After a while, Michael threw her toward the cluttered houses around the castle. Xanali noticed Ghost raising his hand toward the sky. Suddenly, she felt something strange. In the sky, severalrge fiery boulders slowly materialized. Evan''s eyes widened in shock. The humongous size of the boulders cast shadows on the ground, darkening the city. Even from afar, everyone could feel the scorching heat. This meteor spell once belonged to Zakari, and now, Michael unlocked its true potential.
Chapter 746 Michael Vs Victoria III
At that moment, four giant boulders covered in scorching hot mes hovered over the city.
"Please don''t do it, Ghost," Xanali pleaded. Although Victoria had evacuated the city, there were still many soldiers and nobles who remained in the city. She was unable to see them dead. However, Michael didn''t give a damn about Xanali''s plea. He brought his hand down, releasing ming meteors upon the city. The meteors created a terrifying buzzing in the air as they soared down the sky. The city trembled when they hit the golden shield. Countless cracks appeared in the shield. As a result, the shield flickered. It took only a few seconds before the shieldpletely crumbled down.
The fiery meteors became closer and closer to the city. While they were falling down from the sky, these boulders lit up the sky in bright orange. Just the buzzing noise they created was enough to make everyone tremble. After casting the spell, Michael dashed forward. He saw Victoria trying to get back to her feet. When she saw the meteors, her heart skipped a beat. Her killing intent soared through the roof. With a flick of her wrist, she took a healing potion and emptied it down her throat. Seeing Ghost flying toward her, she threw the long sword to the side. Instead, she closed her eyes, conjuring a dark purple sword.
It was none other than the Cosmic sword. Michael felt the pure energy from the sword. The heat it radiated was just second to the dark mes themselves. Michael didn''t try to block the sword with his Immortal killing sword or the spear. He knew attempting to block the Cosmic sword with those weapons would be futile.
Victoria swung the purple sword with lightning speed. To her surprise, Michael blocked her sword with a ck shield. The moment the sword hit the shield, it created a powerful shock wave that decimated everything in a ten-meter radius. The force of it knocked back Victoria and even sent Michael back flying for a few meters.
Michael regained his bnce. He looked down at the shield to see a cut on the shield''s surface for the first time. The cut was not deep enough to break it, but the sword cut the shield nheless. Victoria did not give Michael any time to retaliate. She shot toward the sky with her sword. She began to cut down the meteors using every bit of her strength.
Xanali joined Victoria in destroying the meteors. Some of the soldiers also joined them in their fruitless attempt to save their city. They failed to understand that Michael could cast the spell again and again. However, Michael watched them waste all their energies for nothing.
"Oh Victoria," Ghost said from the ground. His voice echoed through the city.
"It seems like you are in a bit of a blunder. I am going to destroy your precious castle along with everyone in it. Even with the Cosmic energy, you cannot be in two ces at once," Victoria''s body froze as he turned around to see Michael moving toward the castle. She was stuck between destroying the meteors and saving the castle.
Michael wasn''t kidding when he said he would destroy the castle and everyone in it. When he reached the castle, he covered himself with the dark mes and flew straight into the castle. He punched through the walls and pir with such force and speed as the castle slowly crumbled down before Victoria''s eyes.
The giant front door copsed down, blocking the entrance. Victoria couldn''t locate Michael within the castle. Evan stared at the castle with a nk mind. The ground itself trembled beneath his legs. Maxim Barnes built the castle with the strongest of materials and runes to withstand devastating natural disasters and attacks of all sorts. However, the castlepletely failed to withstand Michael''s onught. Xanali dived down to help the nobles stuck within the castle. She heard their cries for help and saw some boulders flying away due to someone casting spells from within.
While Xanali tried to help the nobles, Victoria destroyed the boulders. Tears flew out of her eyes. Her entire kingdom was getting decimated before her eyes, and she could do nothing to stop it. Xanali saw a statue hit the ground and stter into pieces. The statue''s head rolled onto her feet. She picked it up to realize the head belonged to King Maxim. The king''s ego made him put a statute on top of the castle. It symbolized he rules over the world from high above. Michael destroyed the statute as well as what it symbolized.
When Michael reached the top of the castle, he flew away from the castle. He patiently waited for Victoria to turn around and look at him. It didn''t take long for Victoria to notice him. Michael slowly raised his hand. Under Victoria''s murderous gaze, Michael simply snapped his fingers as the castle copsedpletely.
Xanali and Evan leaped out of the way. Many nobles were not so fortunate to escape. As a result, the walls and stones crushed them.
"ARGH!'' Victoria roared like a cornered beast. The energy radiation around her body shot through the roof as she dashed at Michael. She swung her Cosmic sword left and right while Michael blocked the attacks with his ck shield. Still, Victoria managed to cut him a few times. Each cut was a couple of inches deeper. Blood trickled down Michael''s chest. Yet, he didn''t mind them at all. He finished toying with her.
"Give me all you got bitch," Michael snickered.
The battle between them intensified. Michael couldn''t go all out because she would be dead in a second if he did. Hence, Michael suppressed his power. Despite suppressing his power, he still proved way stronger than Victoria. She swung her sword left and right like a crazed beast. Michael evaded some and blocked many with the ck shield.
"ARGH!" Victoria swung her sword across his neck with a roar. Michae bent backward in the air, turned his body, and kicked her in the head. The kick sent Victoria flying. She coughed up dark blood. Michael didn''t wait for her to dash forward. Instead, he flew toward her. He grabbed Victoria by her hair and punched her repeatedly in the face. She tried to stab him with the sword, but Michael grabbed her wrist, twisting it in the process. The Cosmic sword disappeared from one hand and appeared in the other. She tried to stab him. In fact, Michael was caught off guard. However, before she could stab him, Michael cast the Silenes spell, slowing down the time around him. She pulled the sword out of her hand.
She didn''t even realize the sword was not in her hands anymore. Michael grabbed Victoria by her neck while capturing the dark mes to burn the Cosmic sword down. Victoria''s eyes widened, seeing the dark mes engulfing the Cosmic sword. After Michael ripped off her armor, she lost major protection. Michael didn''t show her any mercy as he punched her in the chest, breaking several ribs. Blood gushed out of Victoria''s mouth. He knew he should feel some kind of mercy or pity for Victoria, but he simply couldn''t. She didn''t raise a finger when her men ughtered everyone in the sanctuary, including children. Because of her and her father''s lust for power, thousands of people lost their loved ones, homnd, parents, and lives. All of this could have been avoided only if Maxim Barnes and
In this world, only the Primordial mes had the power to fight Cosmic energy. That was why Maxim Barnes sent Victoria to Mazeroth. He tried to covert all the mes to himself. But the poor man managed to get no Primordial mes. The Primordial mes were believed to be sentient. They chose its bearer and not the other way around. Hence, why the Dark FLames chose Michael over Victoria even when she was the one who found it.
Michael grabbed her chest te and ripped off the armor with his bare hand. He tossed the armor to the ground.
"I loved you¡I loved you so much¡yet you gave me nothing but pain¡" Michael slowly said.
"Why did you have to kill them?" Michael threw Victoria into the rubble. Some of the soldiers who survived the castle''s destruction rushed to save their princess. But Michael raised his hand, sending lightning bolt after lightning bolt to kill them in a few seconds. Evan stood at a safe distance from Michael.
"Stand up," said Michael. Hended near Victoria and picked her up by her hand. Thunder rumbled above Michael. Soon, the snowfall stopped. Instead, the sky split open as nature brought its wrath in the form of heavy rain. He dragged Victoria out of the rubble before throwing her a few meters away.
"Look at your kingdom," said Michael. Only Evan and Xanali remained still unscathed. Michael put his arms behind his back, looking at the ruin before him. As far as he could see, there was nothing but rubble. Even the heavy rain couldn''t put out the mes spreading through the kingdom.
"What built from fire shall be reduced to ashes," Michael recalled the words of his elders. He saw the elders smiling at him from above. He let the rain wash over his face in silence. Victoria tried to stand up, but Michael sent a sliver of lightning bolt through her chest. Xanali wanted to help Victoria, but her legs refused to move. She had to think about Nagnd. If Gaya wanted, she coulde up to Nagnd and destroy the kingdom with Ghost''s help. Thest thing Xanali wanted was the destruction of her kingdom. The Guardian Guild didn''t save one of their own, so how could she expect them to save a kingdom of Nagas?
"You could have built a powerful nation without the Cosmic stream," said Michael.
"You took something from me. Now I have taken everything from you except your father''s life," As soon as Victoria heard these words, she clenched her fist. She wanted to get up, but her body gave up.
"Don''t die. I haven''t killed your father yet," said Michael. He was waiting for Maxim to trigger the heavenly tribtion. Killing Maxim Barnes would be thest thing he does as Ghost. Afterward, Ghost would fade away from existence, and the Dark Lord would rise from Thusia''s ashes.
Chapter 747 King Maxim鈥檚 Arrival
Michael moved his hands as several boulders lined up before him. They formed a long pir almost the size of a five-story building. Michael picked up Victoria, shot toward the sky, and banged her against the pir formation. Soon, golden chains appeared around her, pinning her in a t-pose on the pir. From this position, Victoria could see the entire city.
"I wish I had taken your head," Victoria groaned.
"Good. I want you to regret every decision you''ve made," Michael snickered. He slowly turned around. Dark clouds slowly gathered in the sky, darkening the ce. It wasn''t Michael''s doing but the result of energy fluctuation in the air. An outside force messed up the bnce between Celestial energy and Arch energy around the world. Suddenly, the sky started to rumble. Purple lightning streaks struck across the sky.
The heavy rain became worse by the second. Coupled with the howling wind, the heavy rain put out the fire in the city. As a result, darkness took over the ce. Their only light source was the streaks of lightning in the sky. Everyone, including Xanali, could feel the pressure in the atmosphere. Out of the blue, a thick purple lightning bolt hit the forest north of the castle. Unlike a typical bolt of lightning, it didn''t disappear. Instead, the lightning bolt lingered in the air as though it was frozen. They all looked at the bolt of lightning with bewildered faces. Michael''s lips curved upwards, revealing a devilish grin.
"It seems like your father has begun his heavenly tribtion," said Michael.
Victoria struggled against the chains to escape. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn''t escape. First, she was too tired and exhausted her energy fighting Michael. Second, there were runes engraved on the chains to keep her weak. Michael wanted her to watch the death of her father. At that moment, Victoria only had her father, and Michael wanted to take that away from her.
Michael patiently waited for Maxim Barnes to trigger the heavenly tribtion. He knew the first lightning bolt was just a phenomenon before the actual tribtion. As Michael expected, the sky was lit with hundreds of lightning shes. The lightning bolts formed a web in the sky as thunder kept rumbling louder and louder.
Michael still didn''t lift a finger. He watched the heavenly tribtion begin with Xanali and Evan.
"Is that heavenly tribtion?" Evan mumbled.
"Hmm. The elders would sense it in a few minutes," said Xanali with a heavy sigh. She knew even if the elders appeared here, there was nothing to achieve here. Ghost had decimated the kingdom, and it would only take a spell from him to disrupt the heavenly tribtions. The damage had already been done. To be honest, Xanali didn''t think the guardians would be able to stop Ghost. He didn''t even give a damn about the Council of Immortals.
"The guardians will kill you if you do something to my father," Victoria growled.
Michael slowly turned around.
"Why? Because they want another human to be a Half Immortal?" Michael tilted his head.
"You and I both know your father doesn''t give a shit about the guardians. All he wants is power and control,"
"You can''t stop him. He has the Cosmic stream," said Victoria, only to receive a tight p to her face. Michael leaned closer to her ears,
"Not for long. The Cosmic stream will be mine,"
Xanali, who had heard the word Cosmic twice, wondered what the hell was that. She had no idea what they were talking about. However, she had a feeling it was connected to whatever happened between Ghost and Thusia.
"What? You want to protect the stream so no one can benefit from it. Your people could have ruled this world and led it to a golden age. You are just a dog that doesn''t eat and let others eat,"
"Oh, darling. I am going to use the shit out of it. You think this is only about revenge? Well it''s mostly about vengeance, but the Cosmic energy is a cherry on top," Michael ran his fingers through her face as she growled.
Finally, an ear-piercing thunder rumbled in the sky. Following the thunderp, a strange buzzing noise resonated throughout the city. At that moment, another lightning bolt hit the forest several meters away from the first lightning bolt. Like the one earlier, the second lightning bolt froze in the air. Electricity crackled around the two bolts. Several smaller streaks of lightning bolts branched out from each, forming a in between.
Michael cracked his knuckles. Unlike everyone expected and hoped in Thusia, Maxim''s fate would be a bit anticlimactic. Michael waited for the lightning to strike from the sky. Victoria noticed golden bolts of lightning crackling around Michael''s fist. She shivered. A single bolt of lightning from his hand could disrupt the entire heavenly tribtion and make his father a cripple.
"No. Kill me¡no no¡.please don''t do anything¡Abras please¡" Victoria panicked. Her fear and panic only made him happier.
"Beg me more¡it feels so refreshing,"
Finally, Michael sensed Maxim''s presence in his Environmental Scanning. But Michael didn''t go after him. Instead, he just raised his hand. He looked at Victoria with an amused smile.
"This is your father''s end. Look closer,"
"NOOOOO!"
Victoria''s scream echoed through the air as the lightning bolt shot out of Michael''s finger. The bolt of lightning traveled in slow motion in Victoria''s eyes.
Xanali immediately waved her hand, casting a defense spell around her and Evan. The bolt of lightning soared through the air and hit the frozen lightning bolts. As soon as they shed, an explosion went off. This explosion made nuclear explosions look like mere candlelight. For a few moments, Xanali and Evan couldn''t open their eyes. Moreover, they were sted away by the explosion''s effects. The temperature rose in the air to the point that the rain droplets evaporated before reaching the ground. It didn''t even take a few minutes for the snow to melt down and vaporize.
A few long, brief momentster, Xanali opened her eyes. Her ears rang with a strange buzzing sound. To her shock, everything around her turned into ashes. She slowly moved her head upwards to see Ghost and Victoria floating in the air. Xxanali could barely see them through all the dark ashes in the air.
"FATHER!" Victoria screamed. She noticed the lightning strikes had disappeared from the sky, and the atmosphere had returned to normal.
Michael dashed forward into the forest with thousands of charcoaled trees. Although Michael wasn''t a natural guardian, he hated destroying nature. This world''s beauty was its forests,kes, mountains, and every piece of nature. However, it was a necessary sacrifice to stop Maxim Barnes from breaking through to the Half Immortal stage. Of course, Michael could defeat Maxim Barnes even if he had reached the Half Immortal stage, but Michael didn''t want toplicate things. Why would Michael want to battle Maxim Barnes when he could cripple him with a single spell.
Xanali wanted to rescue Victoria and let her escape. That''s the least she could do for Victoria as a guardian. However, before she could move toward her, Ghost returned to Victoria. This time, he had a bleeding man in his hand. Ghost held him by his neck like he was handling a rabbit.
"Father!" Victoria screamed. But Michael ignored her.
"Where am I?" Maxim Barnes slowly opened his eyes. Blood slowly trickled down from the corners of his mouth. One moment he was near the Cosmic stream, and the other, he felt excruciating pain from every corner of his body.
"Little puppy forgot its kingdom," Michael snickered. With a flick of his wrist, he took out a healing potion from his space ring. He forcefully poured the healing potion into Maxim Barnes''s mouth. Otherwise, Maxim wouldn''t survive the pain Michael was about to inflict on him. After the healing potion entered his body, all the wounds and pain in his body disappeared. The light of life glimmered brighter than before in Maxim''s eyes. Michael raised Maxim by his neck and stared at him from top to bottom. Although Maxim was Michael''s nemesis, this was the first time he had seen Maxim with his own eyes. With striking red hair, a muscr build, and a stubble beard, Maxim was quite a handsome king. More than that, Maxim really did have a kingly aura around him. Even when his meridians were broken, Maxim had an imposing aura. However, a king''s aura was nothingpared to a God''s aura.
"Victoria?" Maxim''s eyes widened, seeing his daughter chained to a pir. It took his mind a few moments to realize everything around him. Michael let King Maxim Barns soak the beautiful sight of his kingdom.
"This is your capital," said Michael. Tears gushed out of Victoria''s eyes. She couldn''t see her father so powerless and weak.
Maxim Barnes tried to reach out to his daughter. Michael squeezed the back of Maxim''s neck. Maxim Barnes''s eyes were blood red with uncontroble rage. He punched and kicked Michael furiously.
"How does it feel to be a cripple?"
Initially, Michael nned to let Maxim Barnes fight him with the unstable cosmic energy that would turn Maxim into a ticking nuclear warhead. Michael wanted to use Maxim to destroy the kingdom. However, he recently learned from Elidyr that making Maxim explode would not only destroy Ithn but also mess up the energies in the atmosphere. As a result, the entire world could be littered with natural disasters such as storms, tsunamis, and droughts, to name a few.
Hence, Michael was forced to change his n. He didn''t feel right to sacrifice millions of people to destroy Thusia when he literally had many options. One of them was using Victoria to destroy the kingdom instead of Maxim Barnes. Since Victoria wasn''t crippled by Ghost, he could force the Cosmic energy to be unstable to the point she turns into a sticking nuclear bomb. But first, Michael needed to vent his anger on Maxim Barnes.
Maxim Barnes''s body shivered. His eyes were full of shock. He tried to conjure his energy, yet he simply couldn''t.
"And one more thing," Michael grabbed Maxim''s chin and turned his head to look him in the eyes.
"I am Ghost,"
Chapter 748 Toying With The Prey
A sliver of shock glistened in Maxim''s eyes. Soon, his shock turned into absolute horror. He slowly realized what had happened to his kingdom while he was cultivating in seclusion. He hoped the Guardians and his men would keep Ghost away from him until he broke through to the Half-Immortal stage. In his shock, he didn''t try to escape from Michael''s hands. He felt too weak.
"This is payback bitch," Michael threw Maxim down.
"FATHER!" Victoria screamed. Her father hit the ground with a small thud.
"SAVE HIM!" Victoria shouted at Xanali. King Maxim Barnes coughed up blood several meters away from Xanali. However, her body refused to move an inch. The killing intent radiating from Ghost petrified both Xanali and Evan. Victoria was just an arrow. In Michael''s mind, Maxim was the one who fired that arrow in his direction. So King Maxim Barnes deserved worse. Hended beside Maxim Barnes before kicking Maxim in the face. Blood sttered across the ash covered floor. Michael lifted Maxim by his torn robes and repeatedly punched him in the face. Michael heard the crunching noise of bones breaking in his face. Victoria screamed and begged from the pir, yet Michael ignored herpletely. He waspletely focused on destroying Maxim Barnes.
"Come on. Fight back," said Michael. He grabbed Maxim''s hands and crushed his palm. King Maxim screamed. Michael noticed Maxim''s eyes closing. Quickly, Michael took out another healing potion and emptied it onto Maxim''s mouth.
"There you go. Healed up again," the wounds on Maxim''s body closed up as the rosiness returned to his face. Michael grabbed Maxim by his neck and mmed him against a block of stone behind him. The rubble copsed by force. Michael began to punch Maxim Barnes as though the king was a punching bag. Each of Michael''s punches broke a bone in his body. Victoria''s throat ached because of her screams and shouting. She saw her father getting beaten to death. Maxim Barns managed to muster his strength and threw his fist at Michael.
"Again," Instead of blocking the punch, Michael let Maxim''s punchnd on his face. He grabbed Maxim''s hand and pped himself like a crazy person. Michael''s face reddened.
Xanali and Evan felt a chill seeing Michael pping himself with Maxim''s hands. Suddenly, Michael stopped pping. He squeezed Maxim''s hands until Maxim began to scream in agony. Michael grabbed Maxim''s throat before pulling his right arm toward himself. The skin on Maxim''s arm stretched as much as it could. Michael''s force slowly tore the skin as blood seeped through the skin. Maxim Barnes screamed. He began to bite Michael''s hand to escape his clutch. However, Michael didn''t even flinch. Xanali saw Michael twisting Maxim''s hand slowly. She felt sick hearing the shoulder bone breaking.
Michael suddenly pulled out his arm with enough force to separate the arm from the shoulder. Blood sprayed out of the joint as it should. The blood sprayed in all directions, including Michael''s face. His face turned red, making him resemble a demon. Victoria and Maxim screamed. But no matter how hard they screamed or yelled, no one came to their rescue. Even Xanali was in a petrified state. Michael threatened them with an onught.
"SAVE HIM PLEASE!" Victoria''s screams kept ringing in Xanali''s ears. Finally, Xanali couldn''t see Ghost beat Maxim to death. She mustered her courage to face Ghost. He had already destroyed the kingdom. If Ghost wanted to kill Maxim Barnes and his family, he could do it without torturing them like an animal, no worse than an animal. Xanali didn''t think an animal could be so brutal with its prey. Michael tore off Maxim''s second hand. Evan felt a chill seeing Ghost hitting Maxim with his own bloody hand. All of his generals and ministers were either dead or stuck under the rubble.
Unless the Guardian Guildes with several Immortals, Evan knew there was no stopping Ghost. He wondered where the heck did Edith go. Not that Evan believed Edith could stop Michael but at least she would be stupid enough to try to stop him.
"Stop!" Xanali raised her voice. Michael ignored herpletely. Maxim Barnes coughed up blood. Michael mmed Maxim Barnes''s head against the wall. Whenever the light of life began to fade away in Maxim''s eyes, he forcefully emptied a healing potion down Maxim''s throat.
Xanali approached Michael. She grabbed his shoulder, trying to stop him. Michael shook his shoulder as Xanali fell backward. Evan saw Victoria screaming from above, helplessly while Maxim groaned in utter pain. He saw XXanali get back to her feet. Once again, she tried to stop Michael. This time, Michael stopped hitting Maxim Barnes. Instead, he grabbed Xanali by her neck and mmed her against a pir next to Maxim Barnes.
"Look snake. The only reason you''re alive is Gaya doesn''t want me to kill you,"
"You already destroyed them. At least kill them. You tortured them enough," Xanali said. Michael tightened his grip around Xanali''s throat.
"Why the fuck are you even here?" Michael said, gritting his teeth.
He clenched his fist.
"Let-'' Before Xxanali could finish her sentence, Michael punched her in the face. A single punch knocked out Xanali cold. Evan''s subconscious mind forced him to dash forward. He thought Ghost had killed Xanali. When Evan saw Ghost suddenly turn his head in his direction, Evan''s legs put a break automatically. Michael kicked a football sized stone on the ground. It soared through the air and hit Evan right in the face. The sheer force sent Evan flying back into the rubble. Michael threw Xanali''s unconscious body aside.
"Let...my daughter...go..." Maxim Barnes managed to utter these words.
Michaelughed out loud.
"Did you know I killed your precious wife?" Maxim Barnes was stunned. His face was covered in too much blood to make out his expression. However, his eyes glistened with rage. The poor man could do nothing without his two arms. On the other hand, Victoria slowly lost her strength to scream out loud.
Michael slowly walked toward Maxim. He stared at the king without lifting a finger. After a few moments, he grabbed Maxim by his neck and shot toward Victoria. When he arrived before her, he grabbed Victoria by her neck with his other arm. Michael pulled Victoria out of the bonds before flying toward the burnt forest.
The explosion ttened the entire forest. Everything looked nothing but burnt. However, something was glimmering under all the burnt trees and ashes. The dark beams shot out from Michael''s eyes, hitting the ground. As soon as the beams hit the ground, ripples appeared in the air. Soon, the scenery before Michael changed from a burnt forest to a small pond filled with glistening liquid.
The pond was barely seven feet wide and five feet thick. But it contained the most powerful energy source in this world, Cosmic energy. No one knew how this pond of Cosmic energy came into existence, not even Michael''s sanctuary. The origin of Cosmic energy was still a mystery to them.
"Our feud started because of this. So it must end here," Michael released the two. They hit the ground, groaning in pain. Victoria immediately crawled toward her father. She embraced him tightly.
"Father," Tears rolled out of her eyes. At that moment, she had no interest in the Cosmic energy that she had killed and fought so many people for. In fact, she hated Cosmic energy. Because of this, she lost everything. If her father hadn''t found a secret note in a meteor that hit Thusia, he wouldn''t have found out about Cosmic energy. Everything began with that mysterious purple meteor. Michael won and sessfully exacted revenge when she regretted everything she had done. But it wasn''t enough for Michael. He copsed to his knees and looked around the ce. He could see the buildings made of wood, children running around, the elders feeding the little ones, and his friends ying with him.
A painful smile appeared on his face.
"Protect the stream," Maxim Barnes coughed up blood. Seeing the glistening energy made Maxim lust for it. He was like a possessed person. He wanted the Cosmic stream for himself, no matter the cost. This was the reason why the elders had never touched Cosmic energy. Whoever uses it would lose everything. The Cosmic stream was cursed. In a sense, the sanctuary didn''t protect the Cosmic stream from the world but the world from the Cosmic stream. As a disciple in the sanctuary, Abras knew this.
Victoria shook her head after hearing her father''s words.
"It''s over, father. We lost. We lost everything,"
"Even after all this, he still wants this, huh?" Michael snickered.
"If you''re going to kill us, kill us. Get it done," Victoria growled.
"I hope you''ll rot in hell, Abras,"
Michael didn''t respond to Victoria.
"Azazel, gather all my subordinates and teleport to my location," said Michael.
"Yes, my lord," Michael heard Azazel in his head.
Slowly, Michael stood up. He turned around to look at Victoria and Maxim in her arms. With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a crimson red dagger. He tossed it toward Victoria.
"You want this to end. Do it," said Michael. Victoria stared at the dagger on the ground without batting an eye. Her hands trembled as she reached for the dagger.
"No...fight him...No..." Maxim Barnes mumbled. He lookedpletely pale after all the blood loss. Since Michael hadn''t given him a healing potion for a few minutes, his body started to lose vitality. Compared to being tortured to death by Ghost, killing her father and herself with her hands seemed the better option.
Michael waited for Victoria to kill herself. The despair and helplessness in her eyes quenched the thirst for revenge. He didn''t feel like torturing her anymore. Instead, he wanted to absorb the Cosmic energy. Victoria finally grabbed the dagger. Even if she could fight back, she didn''t want to because there was nothing to fight for. Her kingdom was gone, her mother died, and her father was on the verge of death. If she kept fighting, it would make only her people suffer more. At Least with her dead, Ghost would let the Thusians live.
She slowly moved the dagger toward Maxim''s heart. She ced the dagger''s end on her father''s chest. Tears gushed out of her eyes like a flood breaking out of a dam. She was about to plunge the dagger into Maxim''s heart when they heard a shout echo through the ce.
"STOP!"
Chapter 749 Beginning Of The End I
Michael looked up to see countless ships on the horizon. He focused on the person who was leading the ships. It was none other than Edith herself. Michael wasn''t surprised. On the contrary, he was expecting her. Something deep down always told Michael when Victoria was about to lose her life, Edith or someone would appear to stop the inevitable. One would expect Michael to panic, but he remained calm. The main reason for his calmness was he didn''t have to hide his secret anymore. He weed them with open arms. He had a surprise stored in for the guardians.
Looking at the ships, Michael slowly floated above. The guardians sent all their warships. Each ship was fitted with sixty to seventy cannons. All of them were enhanced with runes to kill even a Fusion stage cultivator. This was the first time Michael had seen a glimpse of the guild''s true power. With this much firepower, they could easily decimate a kingdom in a few hours.
The closer Edith got to Michael, the clearer he saw the shock and anger in Edith''s eyes. He was wondering where Edith went after rescuing the spirit child. In Michael''s vengeful spree, he didn''t even talk to Lah or take a moment to see his spirit child.
To be honest, Michael wanted to have a few words with the child before he returned to the Southern continent. Michael doubted he would be able to talk to the child after he revealed himself as the Dark Lord.
"What have you done?" Edith stuttered. She couldn''t believe her eyes. The entire city was reduced to ashes. Everywhere she looked, she saw nothing but ashes and fire. He kept his promise by burning Thusia to the ground. Instead of responding to her question, Michael flew back to Victoria andnded before the Cosmic stream. Hundreds of guardian soldiers armed to the teeth surrounded him in the air. Every single one of them was at the Fusion stage. The Guardians weren''t ying. They showed their true power for the first time in a long time. The whole world believed only a handful of Fusion stage warriors existed in the world. However, the Guardians had an army of them.
Michael even saw several Half Immortals and Immortals in the air. He sighed inside and looked a bit down.
"Stand down, please," Edith pleaded to the guardians. Michael couldn''t see any of their faces because they were all armored from head to toe. The ships floated quite a distance from Mciahel, unlike the armored guardians. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say the sky was littered with an army. All of them were ordered to kill Ghost if what Edith said was true.
Michael detected somemotion among the soldiers. They all sensed the pure and powerful energy radiation from the Cosmic stream. If Michael was right, the elders in the ships were already trying to figure out the nature of this new energy.
"Vikki," Edith dashed at Victoria. Her heart skipped a beat seeing Victoria all battered and wounded. Furthermore, her father almost looked like a new person. It took Edith a few moments to recognize him. She embraced Victoria tightly before saying or doing anything.
Their reunion gave Michael the needed time to put his ns in motion. With seconds turned to minutes, Edith''s sorrow turned into pure rage. Victoria broke into tears as she buried her head in Edith''s chest and sobbed without a break. The tears and sound of Victoria''s sobbing fueled Edith''s rage. She had never wished someone to die in a most horrific way, but she wanted that judgment to fall upon Ghost. He destroyed an entire kingdom because of his vengeance.
"You are the devil," Edith finally turned her gaze toward Michael.
"My offer will expire in a few minutes, Victoria," said Michael.
"I have an offer for you," Edith slowly said. Michael saw the naive girl speak with vengeful eyes for the first time. She looked like an entirely new person. He saw a glimpse of Lah in Edith for a few moments. Unlike many others, Michael didn''t think of Edith as a stupid, naive girl. In his mind, it was just a facade. She was scheming enough to brand him as the Dark Lord to the guardians.
"Kill yourself, mother fucker!" Edith screamed as a powerful shock wave brushed past Michael. The ships around Edith trembled. Furthermore, the stone walls of the broken castle exploded into pieces. Yet, Michael remained firmly on the ground. He didn''t even move an inch. It could have sted away any other person but not Michael.
"Go away, Edith. He will kill you too. I''ve seen enough death. Please, go away," Victoria begged Edith. Maxim Barnes couldn''t move his lips. He almost lost consciousness.
"I am here to save you, Vikki. Don''t worry about me. The guardians are here. I brought help. Today, I will take his life,"
Michael''sughter suddenly broke the silence. His devilishughter echoed through the forest. This time, hisughter wasn''t normal. It was thick, demonic, and otherworldly. The Guardian soldiers were stunned. A glimmer of surprise emerged in Edith''s eyes.
Michael sensed several powerful figures watching him from the shadows. These figures tried to be sneaky instead of drawing Micahel''s attention. The only surprise Michael received was the disappearance of Noah. He really wondered what the heck had happened to him. Honestly, Michael could not believe Noah didn''t try to fight or stop him for once.
For now, Michael paid no attention to Noah. He had bigger things to deal with.
Victoria looked around to see hundreds of soldiers in the air. Finally, a small light of hope lit in her heart. Michael was delighted to see that one small ray of hope in her eyes. Snuffing this light would be thest nail in Victoria''s coffin.
Edith slowly raised her hand before snapping. Suddenly, the immortal killing spear he took from General Franklin appeared in Michael''s hand. Michael noticed countless runes radiate a bright crimson-red glow on the spear. The spear pulsated strange energy. Soon, this energy surrounded Michael.
"A good n indeed," Michael said to himself. He let the strange energy surround himpletely. This energy felt familiar to Michael. It was the same energy radiation he felt from Hunter when he fought. Michael was surprised to see Edith mimic Hunter''s energy signature, which the entire world believed to be the energy signature of the Dark Lord.
Edith even managed to create a dark cloud around him to sell the idea that he was the Dark Lord to the Guardian Guild. Little did she know that Ghost was really the Dark Lord. Michael sensed the tension among the guardian guild''s soldiers. They all tightened their grips on their weapons. Michael felt the energy fluctuations around him go crazy. He could tell the guardians were casting spells all around him. It would only be a matter of time before they go all out.
"He is the Dark Lord," said Edith. Her voice echoed through the city. She wanted to see Ghost panic and be frightened by her words. She knew he had sensed the strange energy around him. However, contrary to her expectation, he remained calm. What surprised her more was the smile on his face.
The smile caused uneasiness in Edith''s heart. She saw no signs of panic or shock in his eyes. Instead, he just remained with a smirk. It was as though he somehow knew her n all along.
"You''re going to pay for what you did here," Edith growled.
"Thank you Edith," To her shock, Michael thanked her. She frowned. Judging by the look on his face, Victoria''s heart sank.
"Thank you for giving onest ray of hope to Victoria," Michael slowly rose from the ground. The dark cloud created by Edith''s runes slowly faded away. Instead, a darker and thicker cloud of darkness enveloped Michael.
"Thank you for bringing all of these men to me," Michael''s human voice changed. It sounded thicker, demonic, and frightening.
Edith saw the ce growing darker and darker. The light radiated by the warships from afar lost its glow. The sky rumbled as lightning shed across the sky. When Edith saw his armor slowly transforming, her eyes went wide. Not only Edith, every single guardian, including the Immortals, trembled before him.
The Guardians were poised to attack Michael. They all received the order to take him down. But when they were just about to attack Michael, he flicked his wrist. The very next moment, a ghostly figure of a four-headed hydra appeared behind Michael. It stood almost thirty to forty meters tall. Each pair of eyes glowed like a blood moon. Suddenly, the hydra roared.
"ARGH!" Edith and the Guardians screamed. They instinctively closed their sears. Some of the Fusion stage guardians fell from the sky like dead flies. The warships floating in the air trembled. They swayed left and right before slowly descending down. The runes on the ships and the guardian armor lost their glow.
The guardians werepletely off guard. They didn''t even realize what had happened until the warships began crashing. No one could feel the energy within them. Simply put, Michael created an energy void around them. Michael had already struck a deal with the devil called Mugashuku, so he saw no drawback in asking for a small favor. With the system''s help, he could contain the Hydra''s scream into a special space ring and release it to mimic the effects of the southern continent. Although the effects would onlyst for thirty minutes, and Mugashku wouldn''t let him borrow his power again, one use was all Michael needed to leave the cultivation continents with a bang. The ce once again lit up with all the explosions, and fire followed afterward.
One by one, the warships and the guardians fell down from the sky. The only downside of this n was he wouldn''t receive any experience points for killing them. But killing the guardians was a reward itself. Michael watched the destruction with a smile. The mighty guardians fell hard before him.
"What''s happening?" Edith stuttered. She lost the connection with the arch energy in the atmosphere. She felt weak and vulnerable.
"Azazel," Michael called his demon butler. Edith saw a group of people, all dressed in ck, appearing behind Ghost.
They all descended toward the ground, surrounding the Cosmic stream except Michael. He watched over his subordinates.
"Do not let a single drop of energy go to waste," Michael''s voice echoed through the area. Despite the explosions and screams of the guardians, his voice sounded loud and clear. His subordinates sat in a meditative position around the Cosmic stream. Soon, a strange dark beam shot out from Michael and enveloped them all. Powerful ripples appeared in the calm Cosmic stream.
"You are really the Dark Lord," Edith muttered with utter disbelief.
Chapter 750 Beginning Of The End II
Michaelpletely transformed himself into the Dark Lord. Except for the face mask, he equipped every piece of armor. For the first time, he saw his real face in the Dark Lord armor. The guardians continued to fall from the skies. Michael smiled, looking at the death and destruction of the guardians. Some fell on the boulders and died instantly. Some broke their bones and groaned in pain. Those wearing metal armor from head to toe escaped death by falling down. The same could not be said for the mages who only wore robes.
Tiberius stared at his surroundings with a bewildered look. He wondered where he was. This ce had a strange aura to it. Besides, Tiberius had never seen such an impressive army copsing within a few seconds. Thanks to the special device on his neck, he could feel a strong surge of energy in the atmosphere. He looked at the Dark Lord and the two girls on the ground.
He could vaguely see the back of the Dark''s head. Not every day could he see the Dark Lord without covering his face. Tiberius felt curious. Judging by the look of others, everyone shared the same feeling.
"Everyone, please close your eyes," said Azazel. The subordinates followed Azazel''s order. They quickly closed their eyes, although they wanted to see the Dark Lord in action. Gaya was one of them. As much as she wanted to kill the guardians with her own hands, she was ordered to cultivate with the others absorbing the Cosmic energy. Even if Michael allowed her to participate in the battle, she would be in mortal danger. Why? Because Michael used the system to reset all of his subordinates'' cultivation levels. Simply put, they were all at the Arch sensing stage level 1. To absorb the Cosmic energy, they had to reset their cultivation. Otherwise, the CCosmic energy would collide with the Arch and Celestial energy in their body.
If one absorbed the Comsi energy without resetting their cultivation stage, they would explode into specks of energy. That was the reason Maxim Barnes and everyone who used Cosmic energy went through the process of resetting their cultivation stage. Without the system, one would need powerful rituals to go back to the Arch sensing stage. Thanks to the system, Michael achieved the same goal with just three hundred thousand badass points.
As Azazel ordered, the subordinates closed their eyes. The silver hand-sized round te on their chests glimmered. Each te had a single crimson-red rune engraved onto it by Elidyr. This special rune enabled the subordinates to absorb the Cosmic energy at a rapid rate.
"Feel the energy around you," said Azazel.
"Focus only on my voice," The subordinates heard Azazel as they tried to cut out all the screaming, explosions, and thunder rumbling.
"Now, slowly absorb the energy into your body. Feel the energy traveling into you and strengthening you," said Azazel. Since Azazel''s cultivation directly depended on Michael, he didn''t have to absorb the Cosmic energy to level up. Instead, Azazel was ordered to guide the others in their cultivation process.
Meanwhile, Michael picked up a red-haired man in silver armor from the ground. Although the man looked rather normal, he was a Half Immortal.
"What did you do?" The man growled. Michael floated toward Edith.
"Let him go," said Edith.
"This is your doing, Edith," Michael snickered. The very next moment, hot blood sshed on Victoria and Edith''s face. The blood made Edith close her eyes instinctively. When she opened her eyes, she saw a headless body hit the ground. Micahel crushed the half Immortal''s head with his bare hand.
Michael did not receive any experience points since he made them powerless using the Hydra''s shout. However, he did receive badass points. By killing the Half Immortal, he received 20,000 badass points. Michael did not waste too much time, as time was of the essence. First, Michael targeted the strongest Guardians. That way, even if the effects of the Hydra''s shout wore off, he could fight off the rest. Michael wanted Edith and Victoria to see all the death and destruction. He even sensed a couple of recording stones lying around. If he had to guess, he would say the guardians brought the stones with them to record his capture and use them to clear their names. Only his capture could bring the guardian out of the shit storm Michael created by exposing their connection to the vampires.
Although Michael could easily destroy these stones, Michael chose not to. He wanted the entire world to see what the Dark Lord was capable of. One could argue that using Hydra''s shout and killing them wasn''t exactly showing his true power. However, Michael always considered his brain as his biggest and most powerful weapon. His n and intelligence made the guardians lose their powers. He took the risk of negotiating with Mugashuku and containing its shout in a space ring.
No one else could have brought one of the powerful battalions to its knees than Michael. This was his true power.
Michel slowly raised his hands. He willed to cast the ultimate Ignitia. The sky rumbled as the clouds turned darker. Anyone could feel the tingling due to the high electric energy in the air. Soon, thunder rumbled as hundreds of lightning bolts struck down from the sky.
The sky rained lightning bolts instead of water. The entire ce lit up as each golden lightning bolt hit the ground, electrocuting a guardian. Despite the ominous crackling noise the bolts created, Edith was able to hear the screams. Not even a minute passed as the air smelled of blood and burnt skin.
This was a massacre that Michael enjoyed. The Guardians yed a big role in messing up his birth and life. Finally, Michael started to pay them back with interest. Every life he took made Michael happier. Finally, after a few minutes, the rain of lightning bolts stopped. The air still became electrified as Edith''s hair stood straight up.
Edith''s mind went nk by all the death and destruction. No one could say she wasn''t to me for all this. The guardians would have been alive if she hadn''t brought the guardians here. Once again, Edith paid a steep price for not listening to her sister Lah. She doomed more lives than she saved. She led a herd of sheep into the den of wolves. Michael yed her right from the start. At some point, Michael really did hope that this girl would listen to Lah and go with her to the rainbow inds. Instead, she chose to stick with her best friend, which Michael admired about Edith. Eight or wrong, Edith stood by her friend''s side. But admiring her didn''t mean Michael would let her do whatever she wanted.
Michale wasn''t satisfied by the burnt bodies around him. He wanted to eradicate the guardianspletely. Even after using the ultimate Ignitia, many escaped the spell''s wrath. But before he cast another spell, Michael''s gaze turned toward Maxim Barnes. Victoria hugged her father tight. The look in his eyes terrified her. Michael dashed forward using a lightning dash, grabbed Maxim Barnes, and flew back to the sky. Everything happened before Victoria could realize her father was gone.
"FATHER!" Victoria shouted. She tried to get to her feet only to receive a bolt of lightning through her gut. Victoria dropped to the ground, holding her stomach. Her clothes slowly got soaked as blood poured out of her gut. She gritted her teeth to fight the pain. Seeing the wound on Victoria''s stomach, Edith panicked. She couldn''t even ess her space ring to give Victoria a healing potion.
"VICTORIA!" Edith screamed.
Michael held Maxim by his head. He put a slight pressure on Maxim''s forehead with his thumbs. The skull slowly cracked. Maxim hissed in pain. Michael applied more pressure as blood seeped through Maxim''s forehead skin. Maxim''s legs frantically quivered.
She lost her ability to cast a spell or fly toward her father. Hence, Victoria could only scream. Michael kept applying pressure little by little as the skull slowly cracked. The crunching sound of Maxim''s skull sounded like music to Michael''s ears. Edith was absolutely horrified at the scene. She couldn''t stop her body from shivering to see the blood ooze down from Maxim''s head. Michael took his time. He slowly ripped Maxim in half. Blood and guts fell down. Edith jerked her head aside as she started to throw up. It was a horrible sight.
Victoria, on the other hand, outright fainted on the ground. While Edith was puking her guts out, Michael turned his focus back to the guardians. He dashed toward the ground, firing lightning bolt after another at the guardians. Each bolt ended a life. Michael zig-zagged around the field, leaving nothing but a death trail. The recording stones captured nothing but his afterimages. Michael was simply too fast. In a sense, these guardians were truly lucky. Compared to Maxim, their deaths were quick and merciful.
Meanwhile, the subordinates inhaled the air mixed with the Cosmic energy. The rune on their neck glowed brighter and brighter. Each of them felt rejuvenated by the Cosmic energy. The guardians were not in a state to stop Michael''s subordinates from cultivating. Azazel noticed everyone''s energy radiation getting stronger by the second, especially Gaya''s.
She went from Arch sensing stage level 1 to Body Refining stage level 7 in a few minutes. The other subordinates slowly became stronger but at much less speedpared to Gaya. Azazel saw the guardians crawling on the field. He wanted to join the Dark Lord in ughtering the guardians. However, the Dark Queen''s words resonated in his mind. She ordered him to keep his blood lust in check. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned his gaze away from the guardians.
Michael used the eyes of doom and the dark mes at the same time to kill the guardians. The dark beams zig-zagged through the field, killing the guardians in an instant while the Dark mes evaporated the weaker guardians to nothingness. Michael''s heart ached to see the Immortal Cultivators. He would have earned millions or billions of experience points if he had killed them without the Hydra''s shout. For now, Michael could only sigh and take sce in eliminating potential threats.
Chapter 751 Beginning Of The End III
The city was littered with wounded guardians, bodies, and the wreckage of ships. Red, ck, and brown were the new colors of what was once a spirited city, which had be the stage of a devastating war.
The air, which would normally be vibrant with the sound of work, trade, and craftsmanship, was now glowing red with fire and thick with smoke, ash, and embers. Hell had descended upon this area.
Several powerful figures in the world headed for Ithn after hearing the news of the Dark Lord battling the guardians in Thusian''s capital. Almost all the prominent families and powerful people had spies within the Guardian Guild. So it wasn''t very hard to get a whiff of this news. Michael noticed these strange figures on the horizon butpletely ignored them. He knew they were here to spectate. It was fine with Michael. The more people watched the ughter, the more badass points he would receive.
Michael continued to ughter the guardians left and right. He almost felt exhausted after killing them. Hundreds of corpses littered the ground. Those who moved an inch received a bolt of lightning through their head. Michael spared no one. This was not a battle but a massacre.
The people who saw the massacre from a distance felt shivers down their spines. Some immediately turned around and left the ind. They did not take the risk of drawing the Dark Lord''s attention to them. Still, many daredevils remained in the sky, watching the massacre. Among them were some news reports, including Nadia Hall. She wrote down everything she had seen in Ithn.
After killing every guardian in his sight, Michael started to throw the bodies near the Cosmic stream. The bodies formed a big pile. They wondered what the Dark Lord was doing. He walked toward the pile of bodies, taking deep breaths. Even a Half Immortal like him would feel exhausted after all the killings. Michael leaped on top of the bodies and sat down as though the bodies were his throne.
Edith looked terrified. Her face wentpletely pale. She held Victoria tight in her arms. Victoria didn''t seem better either. The blood loss caused Victoria''s face to be pale. On top of the bodies, lightning crackled around Michael''s wrist. He pointed his finger at Victoria as a bolt of lightning shot toward her.
The bolt of lightning woke Victoria up.
"No stop!" Edith begged Michael. She lost herposure and begged for mercy. However, Michael was not a merciful god. On the contrary, he was a vengeful one.
He raised his hand as an invisible force pulled Victoria out of Edith''s arms. The red dagger followed Victoria behind andnded in Michael''s hand.
"Please, kill me if you want, but please let her go. I beg you. Please," Edith dropped to her knees and begged Michael.
Michael looked over his shoulder to see his subordinates still cultivating.
[ording to the system''s calction, it would take another fifteen minutes to exhaust the Cosmic energy in the stream] Michael heard the system''s voice in his head. Over the years, Maxim Barnes and his men used a significant amount of Cosmic energy. Luckily, the stream still had enough Cosmic energy for all the subordinates to reach the Soul refining stage.
Since Gaya''s cultivation speed was boosted by 40%, she would be able to reach the Fusion Stage level 7. With the cosmic energy coursing through their veins, all of his subordinates would be monstrously strong. Deep down, Michael couldn''t wait to see what his subordinates could do in a real battle.
Michael released Victoria as she fell down. Afterward, Michael turned his gaze toward the horizon. As expected, he found Nadia Hall among the spectators.
"Nadia," Michael''s voice echoed through the sky. Everyone hovering in the air turned their gazes toward the young woman in brown robes and gray fur coat. She adjusted her sses. There was a glimmer of fear and shock in her hazel eyes.
"Come here," Michael called Nadia Hall.
"I will give you an exclusive," said Michael. The word exclusive kindled a fire in Nadia''s Hall. As a journalist, she knew what an interview with the Dark Lord could do to the newspaper. The sales would go through the roof, and her higher-ups would offer her the promotions on a silver tter.
Thinking about her future, she took a deep breath and slowly flew toward Michael. She vigntly nced at everything around her. The fumes, ck smoke, and dust clouded her sight. Despite everything, she noticed hundreds of bodies. Judging by the armors, Nadha could tell they were not a run of mill guardians. Finally, her vision cleared enough to take a good look at the Dark Lord. To herplete shock, she saw Ghost in the Dark Lord''s armor.
For a moment, she thought this was some kind of borate prank. Only recently, the Dark Lord attacked Ghost. So how could Ghost be in the Dark Lord''s armor?
"Ghost?" Nadia tilted her head. She saw Edith crying in the corner of her eyes. The bloody remains and guts of Maxim Barns almost made Nadia throw out on the spot. Luckily, she had a high tolerance for brutality.
Michael sat on top of the bodies, guarding his subordinates. Michael waved his hand as Nadia Hall floated above to match his height. At that moment, Nadia Hall clearly saw Ghost. There was no mistaking it.
"I am the Dark Lord," said Michael.
"Ghost was just a life I tried to live in peace. But the Guardians made sure that I turned into the Dark Lord before I was even born," Nadia Hall''s hands trembled while writing his words on the parchment.
"What...what about the battle in the royalnd. The people had seen the Dark Lord attack Ghost,"
"You are asking the wrong question. The right question is, what will I do from now on?" said Michael. Nadia Hall felt goosebumps at the tone of his voice.
"What will you do, Dark Lord?" Nadia asked the question.
"Rebuild this world," said Michael.
His words sent a chill down Nadia''s spine. Everyone who heard his words shivered.
"The Guardians and the Skyhall needed a viin to fight so they could hide their rotten selves from the world. But they have chosen the wrong god to mess with,"
For a few moments, Nadia didn''t utter a word. She carefully chose her next few words.
? "Dark Lord, you said the guardians made sure you turned into the Dark Lord before you were even born. What did you mean by that?"
Nadia Hall had a hatred toward the guardians deep down. Hence, she wanted to dig more dirt about the Guardians in the process.
"The Guardians ughtered millions of people with the Skyhall''s aid to prevent a god from being born into this world. Their goal was to rule the world themselves. They didn''t give a damn about the people they ughtered in the process. Ultimately, they failed, and I am here to avenge all those innocent lives. Make no mistake. I am not a merciful god. I am a vengeful one. If you are a guardian or someone connected to the Skyhall, you have a death sentence on your head. If I were you, I''d quit,"
"Are you openly waging war against two of the most powerful organizations in the world, Dark Lord?" asked Nadia Hall.
"No. They waged war against a God. So I will show them what will happen when you piss off a god," Nadia noticed her surroundings grow darker and darker. The sky rumbled as lightning streaks shed across the sky.
"Can you tell us why you attacked Thusia first?" asked Nadia Hall.
"They deserved it," said Michael without going into details.
Nadia looked over the Dark Lord''s shoulder and noticed the glistening pond as well as the dark-robed figures cultivating around it. But she had more pressing questions centered around the Dark Lord.
"What''s your next n, Dark Lord? What will you tell the people who are afraid of you turning theirnd into a battlefield?"
"My war is against the Guardians, the Skyhall, and anyone who crosses my path. As long as the people stay away from them, they''d be fine and have nothing to worry about,"
"If you want to know more, you can ask the Supreme Guardian Andreas himself," said Michael. Nadia Hall creased her brows. Supreme Guardian Andreas lived and died three thousand years ago. How could she ask someone who isn''t alive?
"He is very much alive," said Michael as though he had read Nadia''s mind.
"He is with Noah Winston in his spectral form. He is manipting Noah Winston to make him his sessor so he can stay in power forever. This man is not a hero, as you all believe. He witnessed millions of people getting ughtered without raising a finger. Ask yourself a question, if I am the viin for trying to make the world a better ce by getting rid of actual evil that walks the world, what does it make a man who aided powerful people tomit genocide so he could be in power forever?"
Michael gave the people of this world someone new to hate. He wanted Noah to be upied with scandals and controversies so he could be stronger and build his army in the southern continent without Noah getting in his way. Michae;''s words caused quite amotion among the spectators. Andreas, the Supreme Guardian, was beloved and respected worldwide. He was a hero in people''s minds. But the Dark Lord imed otherwise. If he really was alive and in his spectral form, Nadia wondered why Andreas hadn''t revealed himself to the world.
Michael chose to talk to Nadia solely to reveal Noah''s secret to the outside world. Unlike him, Noah had no chance of escaping to the Southern continent, or he didn''t think Andreas would allow him to. While Michael was building his army, Noah would try to protect Andreas and fix the Guardian Guild''s image instead of getting stronger. That''s what Michael wanted.
"Now, I''d suggest you leave the ind and put some distance between you and Ithn," Finally, Michael stood up. He raised his hand as Victoria floated into his arms once again. Edith screamed and tried to climb the pile of bodies.
Victoria slowly opened her eyes. She was weak and exhausted.
"Kill me," Victoria mumbled.
"If there is a next life, do not try to seek revenge," said Michael. The crimson red dagger flew into his hand as he finally plunged the dagger into her chest.
Chapter 752 Rise Of The Dark Lord
"NO!" Edith screamed as loud as she could. Michael stabbed Victoria again. Victoria coughed up blood. Seeing the Dark Lord murdering the princess of Thusia in cold blood, Nadia''s body sweated. She took a few steps back in fear. To Nadia''s shock, Victoria''s body began to glow. She heard a strange whistling noise in the air. Meanwhile, the Cosmic stream gradually lost its glow. Azazel saw the glowing energy being absorbed by the subordinates. Gaya had already reached the Soul Refining stage.
[Experience points converted 20000]
[Experience points converted 60000]
[Experience points converted 50000]
The energy devourer absorbed the Cosmic energy and converted it into experience points. Unlike the subordinates, Michael didn''t have to sit around the pond and cultivate. The moment Michael appeared near the Cosmic stream, he started to absorb Cosmic energy. However, Michael ordered the system to slow down devouring the energy because his subordinates needed Cosmic energy more than him. Otherwise, Michael would have emptied the stream all by himself. Unfortunately, his subordinates could not be stronger by killing people like him. Hence, absorbing energy sources was their only chance.
After stabbing Victoria so many times, Michael threw her body down. She hit the ground with a thud. Edith dashed at Victoria. The light of life had already faded away from Victoria''s eyes. Edith frantically shook Victoria by her shoulder. Tears flooded out of her eyes.
"Victoria!" Edith screamed. Edith''s eyes started to hurt due to the glow in Victoria''s chest. Nadia did not linger around anymore. She flew away from the ind because she felt something bad was about to happen. On the ground, Victoria''s body vibrated. Edith cried. Her neatlybed hair became a mess, and her eyes had dark circles.
Finally, Michael felt huge pressure was being left off him. He felt light. His soul and mind calmed down. After two years, Michael finally exacted revenge on Thusia and everyone who wronged him. When Michael looked at the bodies in the field, it didn''t satisfy Michael. On the contrary, it worried him. He knew this was just the beginning. The path before him would be cruel, hard, and treacherous. From now on, every single great n and the Skyhall would use everything they got to kill him.
Atleast Michael got powerful and loyal subordinates to have his back. He patiently waited for Victoria to transform into a nuclear warhead and for his subordinates to finish cultivating. He was slightly surprised to see the Cosmic stream losing its glow. Maxim had used the stream for years, yet Michael finished it within an hour. Thanks to the system and Elidyr, the subordinates were able to absorb the Cosmic energy at a high-efficiency rate.
Suddenly, the entire ind started to quiver. This did not surprise Michael. The earthquake resulted from the Cosmic energy in Victoria''s body colliding with the Arch and Celestial energy in the atmosphere. This was simr to a chemical reaction.
"Azazel," Michael called Azazel for the status report.
"Three minutes, my lord," said Azazel.
"What''s happening?" Edith mumbled. Victoria''s body began to float toward the sky. No matter how hard Edith tried to keep her body down, she simply couldn''t. Edith herself floated alongside Victoria for a moment before losing her grip on Victoria''s hand. When Edith hit the ground, she could only scream for Victoria.
Michael gave no shit about Edith. He promised Lah not to kill Edith with his own hands. But if she died in the explosion, that was not technically killing her by his hands. Michael seriously hoped she would die. He had a soft spot for Lah. Although at first Michael hated her for trying to kill him for what she did,ter on, Lah realized her faults and warmed up to him. She even tried to kill the Dark Lord in Awor because she thought the Dark Lord attacked Ghost.
He was aptly to me for the disappearance of Lah''s child. Thest thing Michael wanted was to make Lah sadder by killing Edith. Lah would have enough to worry about after he leaves for the Southern continent. He didn''t know Noah had read the child''s journal and learned the spirit child was his. Even if Michael knew this, he would not do anything because he knew Noah would not endanger a child.
The whistling noise sounded louder and louder. Nadia and the others could hear the noise even from miles away. Eventually, all of Michael''s subordinates opened their eyes. They no longer felt the strange energy in the air. When they opened their eyes, the glowing pond was nowhere to be found.
Everyone felt unstoppable. Tiberius clenched his fist as if he had never felt this strong before. Sadie on the other hand, was inplete shock. She reached the Soul Refining stage from the Arch sensing stage within an hour. Moreover, this strange energy in her body made her feel stronger than ever.
They were all at the Soul Refining stage level 7 except Gaya. She reached Fusion stage level 8. With Cosmic energy, her power exceeded her power before she reset her cultivation. Even a level 1 Half Immortal would have a difficult time defeating Gaya. Since Michael could provide her with an Immortal killing weapon, she could be an absolute powerhouse. However, Michael had other ns to make her Half Immortal within the next few months. It was finally time for her to finish her metamorphosis.
Vedora stayed hidden within Gaya''s robes and did not show itself to the others. On the contrary, Nightmare had a proud grin on his face. He checked out his body which gained a new glossiness to it. Hovering in the air, Michael waved his hand as a bright light enveloped all his subordinates. In a blink of an eye, they disappeared from the field. Only Michael remained on the ind.
"This ind will serve as a warning and an example of what will happen if someone goes against me," Michael''s voice traveled across the continent. Everyone in the Ozer continent heard his demonic voice at that moment. Many closed their ears because of how loud and thunderous his voice was.
Eventually, Victoria''s body glowed as bright as a mini sun. She lit up the entire ind, and her glow could be seen from miles away. The light from her body nketed the entire ind in white except Michael. Michael was the dark spot in the area.
Edith screamed as she closed her eyes.
"Boom," Michael snapped his finger before teleporting away from the ind. The very next second, Victoria''s body exploded with the force of a nuclear warhead. The bright light reached the point where it turned the sky white. But soon, the white turned orange. The ind crumbled as violent waves moved chaotically in the ocean. Nadia and the others were startled and terrified to see the mushroom cloud reaching for the sky. They were thrown away by the shock wave for a mile.
When they regained their bnce, Ithn disappeared from their sight. They vaguely saw crumbs of the ind floating on the ocean for a moment before sinking down. The sound of the explosion resonated throughout the Ozer continent. Even the nearby kingdom felt the explosion''s wrath. Several cracks appeared onnd deep enough for a man to disappear.
Luckily for the nearby kingdoms, the explosion did not produce any radiation. Michael had no intention to harm others yet.
Almost after seven hours, the mushroom cloud and the smoke cleared up. The guardians arrived at Ithn with Mutrad on board. However, they saw no ind on the sea. For a moment, they thought they hade to the wrong ce. There was not a single clue to say an ind existed there.
"He destroyed an entire ind," Mutrad looked over his shoulder to see Xanali walking toward him. Before the explosion went off, Xanali used a teleportation scroll to teleport Evan and herself. She was really lucky to regain consciousness.
Mutrad never expected the Dark Lord to cause such death and destruction. Considering Mutrad studied the Dark Lord''s behavior, he thought the Dark Lord wouldn''t hurt innocent people. But he was proven wrong when the Dark Lord ughtered Thusian soldiers. Granted, Mutrad knew something happened between the Dark Lord and Thusia. Still, the Dark Lord''s behavior caught Mutrad off guard. The only silver lining was he finally revealed himself.
"So all this time, it was Ghost," Mutrad frowned. Even he was fooled by Ghost when he interviewed him at the Alchemypetition.
"And Gaya Ashton," sighed Xanali.
"You and your kingdom will receive full protection of the guardians and the Sea Folk,"
"A whole lot of good it did to Thusia," Xanali snickered.
"Today, he showed the whole world how ipetent guardians are,"
"No," Mutrad shook his head.
"They aren''t ipetent or weak. He''s a sneaky bastard with full of surprises,"
Although Mutrad sounded calm andposed, he was afraid deep down. He heard the reports of how the Dark Lord ughtered the guardians, including Immortals. He was nowhere near matching the Dark Lord in raw power. The only advantage Mutrad had over the Dark Lord was the eight great ns. Ithn''s destruction was a good trump card when it came to negotiating to gather the eight great ns against the Dark Lord. Of course, some of the ns might feel reluctant to go against the Dark Lord after his warning.
"Why are we here?" asked Xanali. After the day she had, she just wanted to head home.
"I don''t know. Just needed to see it with my own eyes," said Mutrad.
"So the war between the Dark Lord and us has finally begun," Mutrad looked in the direction of the Southern continent. Something told him the Dark Lord had gone beyond the void line.
"Open your eyes. We are losing this war," Xanali growled. She didn''t think Mutrad should be the one who leads the fight against the Dark Lord. Instead, she wanted Noah. Unfortunately, she was still searching for Noah.
Chapter 753 World Has Changed
One year had passed since the Dark Lord revealed himself who he truly was. Almost all the kingdoms in the world mourned the destruction of Thusia. They announced holidays in the name of Victoria Barnes, who fought the Dark Lord valiantly to the end and lost her life. The world called that day a ck day. Everyone in the world lit candles and light sources for the entire day to fight off the darkness. The Elon continent mainly went through several changes. The Sunrise sect, which the Dark Lord studied, became the target of the Guardian Guild. However, the new Supreme Guardian concluded that the sect had done nothing wrong. Despite the reputation of the sect that the Dark Lord used to study, the Sunrise sect became one of the most powerful sects in the entire world. Many still suspected the sect leader to have connections with the Dark Lord, but no one had any proof. The Guardian Guild had dismantled the majestic alchemy chain founded by the Dark Lord along with Hades, the restaurant. The Guild stopped all the revenue streams of the Dark Lord and marked him as the enemy of humankind.
Anyone who aids or worships the Dark Lord would be put in the darkest dungeons in the guardian guild. The new Supreme Guardian used a diplomatic approach to ally with almost all the great eight ns. Under his new leadership, the Guardian Guild slowly started to regain its former glory. Despite everything, many groups still worshiped the Dark Lord and hoped he would take over the world one day.
When the sun reached the middle of the sky, several ships reached Pentown. The people rushed out of their homes to take a look at the ships casting shadows on the ground. One by one, the flying ships halted as people flew out from the ships. They all headed toward Winston Manor. A few minutester, the empty hall inside the Winston Manor became crowded with people wearing various armor and robes, Majority of them had the symbol of the Guardian Guild on their chests.
"Alpha Guardians,"
Alicia and Norvin entered the room as the people quickly bowed their heads. Yes, Alicia was promoted to the Alpha Guardians of Hunter Guardians, while Norvin became the Alpha Guardian of the Beast Guardians. This was one of the many changes brought to the guild by the new Supreme Guardian. Unlike the previous alpha guardians, these two brought results. Hence, the stakeholders and financiers didn''t raise a finger. Moreover, the new Supreme Guardian was working on creating new ways of revenue instead of depending on fat merchants. They were the main reason for the corruption in the guild.
Over the past year, Norvin grew out of his tiny stature. Norvin walked beside Alicia wearing golden robes, transforming himself into his new humanoid form. His humanoid form was muscr, hairy, and had the puffy mouths of monkeys. Norvin had lost the childness on his face and looked mature. Alicia, on the other, looked as she always did, cold and distant.
"Everyone except the hunter guardians can stay outside. The Supreme Guardian will be with you shortly," said Alicia. The guardians and the warriors from various factions left the hall, leaving a group of guardians behind. Silence fell over the hall as they waited for the Supreme Guardian.
A few momentster, Noah Winston, adorned in his new white knight armor, entered the hall. Noah radiated a much more powerful aura than he did a year ago. The noticeable thing about Noah was his hair. He cut his long raven ck hair short and grew a stubble beard. Besides, he looked a bit tired and exhausted. The usual glossiness was missing on Noah''s face due to the pressure and responsibilities of a Supreme Guardian. Leading one of the most powerful guilds took a mental and physical toll on him.
"Supreme Guardian," the group of hunter-guardians knelt down to show their respect. Although Noah was weaker than them in terms of cultivation stages, his godly aura and leadership talents gained the guardians'' respect. Ultimately, Noah single-handedly pulled the Guardian Guild out of the hole the previous leader put the guild into. After the Dark Lord''s interview with Nadia Hall, every organization put the Guardian Guild under the microscope. Many med the Guardian Guild for its ipetence and corruption. The revtion about Andreas being alive hit the world like a violent storm. It was always easier to put guilt on someone than prove them innocent. The Dark Lord''s interview and the people''s hatred toward the guild forced Noah to reveal the prophecy of the Dark Lord. That was the only way to calm the people down and focus on the real threat, the Dark Lord. But Noah himself hated the guild and Skyhall for massacring innocent people three thousand years ago. No matter what Andreas said, Noah refused to ept that killing many people was justifiable. This put a dent in the rtionship between the teacher and the student.
No one except Noah could rebuild the guild and simultaneously focus on stopping the Dark Lord. It was hard, especially when he and his mentor Andreas had different ideologies and ns to deal with the Dark Lord. Noah acknowledged the team with a nod. He flicked his wrist as a stone table appeared in the center.
He went to the table as the team gathered around it. Alicia spread opened the southern continent''s map and the surrounding regions. An ''x'' mark was on the farthest west side of the continent, with nothing but an endless ocean. This ocean was unmapped territory for the rest of the world. Due to the constant lightning storms, tornadoes, and tsunami waves, no one ventured into this ocean. Since it was inside the void line, even the cultivators refused to venture into this part of the map.
The previous nameless ocean was now called the Dark Ocean by the world because that was where the Dark Lord currently resided. The Dark Ocean was the only ce next to the Dark Forest where the sun didn''t shine. It''s always dark there.
"What did you learn?" asked Alicia. The group around her was the best of the best among the hunter-guardians. Alicia sent them to learn about the Dark Lord''s operations in the southern continent.
"The Dark Lord is building something on his floating mountain. He''s been pouring resources and men into the construction. Judging by what we saw, I''d say he''s building a castle for himself,"
"How is he keeping the mountain afloat inside the void line?" asked Norvin.
"No idea," a hunter guardian shook his head.
"What else?" asked Alicia.
"ording to the spies I ced in the southern continent, no one has seen him since Ithn. If I have to guess, he''d be in the mountain,"
"What are our chances if we are to attack the mountain now?" asked Norvin.
"Not great at all," the hunter guardian slowly shook his head.
"The mountain has threeyers of defense as far as we have learned. The first and obvious one is located inside the void line. Second, the lightning storm around the mountain. Besides, the tsunami waves and tornadoes will make reaching the mountain impossible. Third, the dark figures flying around the mountain. They constantly guard the mountain. We cannot gauge their strengths, but if we have learned anything about the Dark Lord, he doesn''t have weaklings under him,"
Alicia and Noah listened to the guardian in silence.
"Where does he get the materials to build his castle from? Can we ce a guardian as a builder?" asked Norvin. The guardian sighed as he flicked his wrist. Soon, a skull appeared on the table.
"Already tried that, and this is what''s left of the five men I sent to spy on the Dark Lord,"
"So he knows about you?" asked Norvin.
"If I was him, I''d know the guardians will always try to hunt me down,"
"It doesn''t matter whether he knows about the spies or not," Alicia said.
"We need to know more about him to get ahead of him. He puts us in a corner because he always knows more than he should," Alicia banged the stone table and turned her cold gaze toward Noah.
"We should have killed him when we had the chance,"
"Calm down Alicia. We didn''t know Ghost was the Dark Lord. Also, we don''t kill people. There''d be no difference between him and us if we go down that path,"
"If you think we can deal with the Dark Lord without killing people, you are not right in the head. He ughtered our men and sunk an entire ind to the bottom of the ocean. The families didn''t even get to put a body into the ground. This will end in only one way, the death of the Dark Lord," Alicia coldly said to Norvin. They all turned their gazes toward Noah, who remained silent.
"Noah," Alicia said.
"You have something to say,"
Noah sighed.
"There is no use trying to reach his mountain. Putting a spy into the mountain is like sending them to their death. The Dark Lord will find out," said Noah.
"So what should we do?" asked Norvin.
"The best thing we can do now is target his underlings. We need to know more about his Order. Turn your focus on his order. I am sure if you find a small rat, it''d lead you to its hole," Noah ordered the guardian.
"You can take whatever you need from the armory. I am working on an efficient way tomunicate with you through the void line. If it''s sessful, we can talk in real-time,"
After dismissing the guardians, Noah waved his hand as a throne appeared behind him. He copsed down, sighing. He felt tired and exhausted. It had been weeks since he got a good night''s sleep. Alicia came to him and helped him remove the armor pieces.
"You should take some rest, Noah. What if we go somewhere for a day or two?" asked Alicia.
"That does sound good, but I can''t. I have too many things to deal with,"
"You do know that the Supreme guardian is allowed to take time off? You cannot be a no-show at Katherine''s baby shower. Even Rowena ising. Your entire family will be there. At Least we can go there as a family,"
"I am sorry Alicia," said Noah. Alicia was surprised.
"Why?"
"I am sorry I postponed our marriage," Noah''s tone became soft. He took Alicia''s arms and squeezed them gently.
"You don''t have to be sorry, Noah. I know the pressure on you. We will get through this, I promise,"
Chapter 754 Scheming Against The Dark Lord
In royalnd, the evening sun cast long shadows on the kingdom. The nting rays of the setting sun gave a warm orange tinge to the sky. The sky was aze with the fire of the setting sun. Bright city lights dazzled under the evening sky, adding an extrayer of charm to the capital. The pale crescent moon slowly rose in the sky like a silvery w. The stars nketed the sky, stretching to infinity. The asional barking of faraway dogs and howling wolves broke the silence of the night. It was just another day for everyone in the Royalnd capital except for Lord Edmond Wright. He was excited to wipe out the Bradley Family from the face of the world. After the Guardian Guild shut down the Majestic alchemy chain and interrogated Lord Mn about his rtionship with Ghost. Many of the nobles used this as an excuse to cut ties with the Bradley family. Hence, the Bradley family lost most of their security contracts which made the family slowly decline.
Lord Edmond Wright led this surgical attack on the Bradley family from the front. He poached almost all the Bradley family''s contracts. If that wasn''t enough, Edmond wanted to take over the Bradley familypound and kill them all. Inside the Edmond familypound, Edmond Wright sat behind a long oak table. He stared at the mirror in front of him. A face with long red hair, hazel eyes, and an oval face stared back at him.
He rubbed his hands together excitedly. He opened up a scroll before him with all the attack ns written on it.
"Roger," Edmond called his personal guard, a Soul Refining stage warrior. A golden-haired knight armed to the teeth entered the room and knelt down,
"My lord,"
"Are our men ready?" asked Edmond.
"They are waiting for your orders, my lord," said Roger. Lord Edmond grinned from ear to ear. He felt invincible. The Wright family had always been the bottom feeders in Royal Land. Thanks to the Dark Lord and the Guardian Guild, he was able to use the Bradley family''s hurdle to increase the Wright family''s power. He received instructions and financial aid to take out the Bradley family from a secret group of wealthy merchants. Under Noah''s leadership, the Guardian Guild stopped all the backdoor dealings and off-the-books operations. He also removed corrupted merchants who used to be the biggest donors of the guild. These merchants formed a cult-like group to fight the Dark Lord in their own twisted way.
Lord Edmond was just their pawn. Although he knew he was a pawn, he didn''t mind being a pawn as far as his family could benefit. Since Lord Edmond nned everything inplete secrecy, the Bradley family had no idea about the uing attack. At Least, that''s what Lord Edmond thought.
"Let''s begin then," Lord Edmond rose from his chair with a burst ofughter.
"Bring the men here. I wanna say some motivational words to them," said Lord Edmond. He always dreamt of leading an army in a war. Unfortunately, he hadn''t gotten a chance to do so. He thought of himself as a great general. He spent day and night preparing a speech for his men. So he wanted to deliver his prepared speech before they departed.
"As you wish, my lord," Roger bowed once again and left the room to bring the men here. Roger recruited adventurers as well as powerful mercenaries to aid them in the attack against the Bradley family, in addition to their own men. Lord Edmond took a few steps. He watched the city outside through his window. Looking at the sky darkening, he thought of the Dark Lord for some reason. Ever since the Dark Lord destroyed Ithn, the darkness symbolized the Dark Lord. Although the people and the nobles went with their lives as usual, they all feared the Dark Lord deep down. Only a few, like Lord Edmond, dared to work against the people who helped Ghost in the dark.
"Tomorrow," mumbled Lord Edmond. His ambition of being the leader of the most powerful family in the Royal Land was so close. He could taste his victory in the air. Because the Bradley family helped Ghost before his big reveal, no one would investigate their disappearance too much. Even if they did, it was the problem of the people who instructed and financially aided Edmond.
Lord Edmond entered into a short dream where he sat atop all the nobles in the Royalnd. He was even getting a warm wee into the castle from Queen Imar and king Kramer. His dream was abruptly interrupted by the flickering chandelier. Edmond creased his brows with annoyance. He turned around as the chandelier kept flickering.
"My lord," Roger knocked on the door from outside.
"Come in," Edmond adjusted his robes to give his speech. The chandelier stopped flickering for a moment as Roger entered the room with men wearing dark robes to cover their bodiespletely. Suddenly, the chandelier went out and came back again. In that split second, Lord Edmon could swear he saw a girl in the corner.
He shook his head to clear his mind. He looked around the room,
"Is everything alright, my lord?" asked Roger.
"Before you go, tell someone to fix this damn light," Edmond growled.
Lord Edmond took a deep breath. He was about to start his speech when the chandelier went off again. Everything became dark.
"Fucking fuck," Lord Edmond growled. He thought the light would return, but it didn''t. Roger and his men had a bad feeling about the sudden darkness. Roger quickly flicked his wrist, conjuring a fireball in his hand. As soon as the mes appeared above Roger''s hand, Edmond''s eyes went wide. His heart skipped a beat as he saw someone standing behind Roger.
"ROGER!" Edmond shouted to warn Roger. However, it was toote. The dark figure standing behind Roger plunged a dagger right into his throat. The others were startled by the ssh of blood gushing out of Roger''s neck. Edmond panicked as dark figures appeared one by one behind his men. They cut their throats before they could even react.
The men groaned, clutching their throats. When they hit the ground, the air reeked of blood. The fireball above Roger''s hands slowly faded away, letting the darkness envelop the room once again. Edmond wanted to shout for his men, yet no words came out of his mouth. He was too stunned. When he managed to find his voice, he felt something cold against his throat.
"Shout, and I''ll cut open your throat," Edmond heard a chilling voice of a girl. His whole body trembled. The girl behind him forced him to sit back on his chair. Edmond heard the curtains closing. The de was still against his throat. He still couldn''t believe the strongest man he had was ughtered in front of him in a blink of an eye. Silence fell over the room. A few momentster, Edmond heard a chair creaking. He could tell someone had sat before him. The next moment, he heard a snapping as the chandelier returned to life, bringing light to the room.
When the light came back, Edmond saw a young man wearing exquisite ck armor with a skull engraving on the chest sitting before him. The dark-robed figures stood around the room, covering their faces with dark hoods. These figures wore different ck armor with the same skull engraving on their chests. The young man had shoulder-length ck hair, a stubble beard, and a small cut on his left cheek. He signaled the girl behind Edmond to move the dagger away from his throat.
"Who are you?" Edmond stuttered. He knew who these people might be judging by their armor, yet Edmond''s mind refused to believe it. He desperately wanted them to be someone else.
"Congrattions, Edmond. You sessfully drew the Dark Lord''s attention," said the young man. Edmond''s heart almost jumped out of his chest when he heard the name of the Dark Lord.
"No no no no¡" Edmond''s eyes watered. He mumbled repeatedly.
"Please forgive me¡" Edmond banged his head against the table to apologize. The entire world knew the result of going against the Dark Lord. A year ago, he destroyed an entire kingdom and ughtered hundreds of guardians, including Immortals. The world hadn''t forgotten that day. Hence, the people called it ''The ck day''
The moment Edmond decided to go against the Bradley family, he enforced several powerful runes, arrays, and defense mechanisms around his manor. He even spent hundreds of thousands of gold coins to recruit powerful guards to guard thepound. Yet, the Dark Lord''s men reached his room without raising a single rm or tripping an array.
"Did you know the Bradley family helped the Dark Lord and were his allies?" asked the young man. This young man was none other than Ricky. Despite Michael''s real identity, Daniel and Ricky followed him to the southern continent without a second thought. They did not give a damn about what the world said about the Dark Lord. Instead, they remained loyal as ever to Michael.
Ricky and Daniel moved their families to Gisel without anyone knowing with Gaya''s help. Ever since then, they''ve been helping the Dark Lord as they always did. Unfortunately, Ricky''s choice to follow Michael costs him his love. The current Ricky was more ruthless, powerful, and loyal to the Dark Lord than the Ricky, who served as the gate guard in the River town. His loyalty earned Ricky a spot in the Dark Lord''s close circle. Soon, Ricky would be officially initiated into the Order along with Daniel.
Hearing Ricky''s question, Edmond remained silent. He shivered, trying to find words.
"So what made you go against the Dark Lord''s allies? Did you wake up one day and say to yourself, damn I really hate this life, so I should end my pathetic life?" asked Ricky.
"Please¡please don''t kill me¡.they forced me¡they forced me to do this¡"
"Who? The silver order?" asked Ricky. ording to Aria and Sadie, a group of people who call themselves the Silver Order have been working against the Dark Lord in the Elon continent. It was Aria who tipped Ricky about Edmond''s connection with the Order as soon as Edmond started to steal the Bradley family''s clients. Poor Edmond did not know that the Bradley family''s head Lord Mn had sworn his allegiance to the Dark Lord and joined the Order of Death. To the outside world, the Bradley family was slowly declining, but in reality, Lord Mn had been helping the Dark Lord in secret using his family''s resources.
"Yes," Edmond did not know they were called the Silver Order yet he bobbed his head up and down to save his own life.
"Now, how should we deal with you?" Ricky slowly unsheathed a ck dagger.
Chapter 755 Result Of Scheming Against The Dark Lord
Ricky slid the dagger toward Edmond.
"You have two choices. You can take the dagger and kill yourself. If you do that, we will leave your family alone. Your brother will take over the family. He is not as stupid as you. Your family will continue to live and even prosper under his leadership. Your family will mourn your death every year, and you''ll go as the greatest leader of the Wright family," said Ricky. Edmond shivered, yet no words came out of his mouth. Each ck robe figure had a murderous glimmer in their eyes under the cloak.
"Or, you can take the dagger and try to fight for your life. In that case, we will kill you and ughter the strongest in your family. Your family and women will be vulnerable. Your allies will turn into rivals. They wille to pick the flesh off the bones. Your women will be ravished and sold to the ve traders. Your kids will be orphans and forced to beg for a scrap of food. You will go down in history as thest leader of the Wright family," Ricky slowly said.
"You have five seconds to make your choice," Ricky leaned back on his chair. Edmond stared back and forth between the dagger and Ricky.
"One¡"
"Two¡"
Ricky began counting. Edmond slowly picked up the dagger. He had to make a choice for the sake of his family. At that moment, Edmond regretted everything. If he could travel back in time, he would p the hell out of the person who roped him into going against the Bradley family.
There was no fighting against the young man and the dark-robed figures around him. He was at the Core Formation stage, while each ck-robed figure was at the Soul Refining stage. Any one of them could kill him without breaking a sweat. This group could indeed ughter all the strongest men in his family. Judging by the young man''s look, Edmond could tell he wasn''t kidding.
"Three¡"
"Four¡"
Edmond ced the dagger against his throat. Tears rolled out of his eyes. He didn''t beg for mercy as he wanted to die with the dignity of a leader. Before Ricky could count to five, Edmond shed his own throat. Blood sshed across the table. Edmond''s body quivered violently for a few moments before finallying to a halt. Edmond fell on his table with blood oozing out of his throat.
Ricky took a dark cloth from his pockets, wiping off the drops of blood from his face.
"Good choice," said Ricky. He then looked over his shoulder at one of the cked robes figures.
"Bring him in," said Ricky. The ck robe figure exited the room and returned to the room with a red-haired man who shared some features with Edmond. He was none other than Edmond''s younger brother, Norden. He didn''t react like he saw his brother''s body just now. On the contrary, Norden watched everything that had transpired, from Ricky''s arrival to Edmond''s suicide.
Ricky walked back to Normund, forcing him to sit on the chair he was sitting on a few moments ago. Ricky grabbed Norden''s hair and made him watch Edmond''s dead body.
"You know your brother is lucky. We gave him a choice. But you¡" Ricky patted Norden''s head a couple of times,
"You are not so much. If you fuck this up, we won''t give you a choice but make everything that your brother didn''t want happen," Norden''s face lost its color. He shivered.
"And also, you serve the Dark Lord from now on. You want to serve the Dark Lord right?" asked Ricky. He slowly ran his finger across Norden''s neck, pretending to cut his throat open. In utter fear, Norden bobbed his head up and down. His life was more importantpared to the Guardian Guild''s rule.
"Yes, I will serve the Dark Lord with every fiber in my body," Norden said.
"Good answer," Ricky patted Norden on the shoulder.
"I expect this amount of gold every month," Ruicky took out a scroll and handed it over to Norden.
"One of my men wille and pick it up," Ricky made his way toward the door, leaving Norden behind.
"And Norden," Before opening the door, Ricky looked over his shoulder at Norden,
"We''ll be watching you. So no funny business with the Guardian Guild," Ricky said and left the room. After leaving the Wright familypound, Ricky flew straight to Aragoth. He dismissed Aria''s assassins as he wanted to be alone. Aragoth was located amidst the captivating mountain chain. Lush forests, misty cliffs, and majestic waterfalls were just a glimmer of beauty that Aragoth had to offer. Under the sparkling blue moon in the dark sky, Aragoth academy buzzed with life. Rickynded on a tall mountain cliff from where he could watch a three-story building. The building''s top floor was roofless. When Rickynded on the mountain cliff, several runes glowed for a few moments before dating away on the ground. Elidyr''s runes deactivated the defense runes so no one would be alerted of Ricky''s presence.
After Michael announced himself as the Dark Lord, almost every sect, academy, noble family, and organization enhanced their defenses with the help of the Guardian Guild. It forced Elidyr to form his own group of runemasters to actively work on deactivating these runes. Even though Elidyr was a 6-star Runemaster, it was difficult for him to face dozens of 6-star runemasters of the great eight ns.
Under the moonlight, Ricky saw Olivia meditating on the third floor. His heart ached to see his love of life alone. He was so close to marrying her when he had to choose between Olivia and the Dark Lord. As much as he loved Olivia, he knew that he was nothing without Ghost. Ricky''s loyalty outweighed his love for Olivia.
Ricky sat on the mountain cliff, looking at Olivia from a safe distance. Olivia opened her eyes as though she had sensed someone watching her. She looked left and right, but Ricky was far away from her eyes could see. Plus, Ricky blended perfectly with the darkness thanks to his dark armor.
"Come with me Olivia¡"
"To where? Ricky, please listen to me. If you go with him, they will hunt you down for the rest of your life¡"
"He will take care of us Olivia, just as he always does,"
"He deceived us, Ricky. Don''t you see that?"
"Stay with me, Ricky. We are supposed to stay together¡"
"We will. Juste with me to the Southern continent. The portal is about to open¡please¡"
"Loyalty or love¡you can''t have both Ricky¡"
"Don''t make me choose, Olivia¡"
The memories of Ricky''sst conversation with Olivia shed across his mind. He remembered everything vividly. Even if Ricky was sent back in time, he would make the same choice. Some days, he got mad at Olivia for making him choose between her and the Dark Lord. She was Ghost''s disciple for a year. Ricky wondered what made Olivia believe what the GUardians were saying about the Dark Lord. if it wasn''t for Ghost, she wouldn''t have reached the five-star alchemist level. Her fame, talents, skills, and everything came from Ghost, yet Olivia threw everything away without a second thought.
Despite everything, Ricky still loved Olivia. Seeing her, his anger toward her faded away. He couldn''t help but remember the good memories he had with her. It put a smile on Ricky''s face. He had seen countless beauties in the Southern continent and the army of the Dark Lord, yet no one reced Olivia''s ce in Ricky''s heart. His whole family nagged him to marry someone else, but Ricky outright refused to even think about another girl. Ricky''s deep love for Olivia and sadness in his heart put a knot in his cultivation path. Otherwise, he would have hit the Fusion stage like most of the Dark Lord''s subordinates.
Ricky watched Olivia talking to a few nobles. After the Guardians shut down the majestic chains, they tried to recruit Olivia to produce potions and pills for them. However, Olivia refused to y any role in the war between the Dark Lord and the Guardian Guild. Even if she joined the Guardians, Ricky didn''t think the Dark Lord would mind. He was at a point where he didn''t need a potion or pill. A hall filled with arrays and contraptions refined pills and potions for the Dark Lord''s army instead of alchemists.
Olivia was about to leave the building when she turned around. She still had the feeling that someone was watching her. Seeing Oliva''s reluctance to leave the building, Ricky stood up. He knew it was time for him to leave. He would be in trouble with the Dark Queen if someone found him. He took a deep breath, standing up.
"Goodbye, Olivia," Ricky had a smile filled with pain and grief. He slowly ascended to the sky before disappearing into the clouds. After leaving the mountain, Ricky headed for the secret portal connecting Elon continent to the Southern continent. Only those who were close to the Dark Lord knew the existence of these portals. These portals were the reason why Ricky and the Dark Lord''s people could travel between the Dark ocean and other continents without alerting the guardians.
"Ricky," While Ricky was flying toward the forest near the river town, he heard Daniel''s voice in his head.
"Where are you? Are you alright?" asked Daniel.
"Yeah. I am on my way to the portal. Something happened?" asked Ricky.
"Damn it, Ricky. Did you forget? The Dark Lord will return to the castle soon. We need to finish things up here,"
"Shit, I almost forgot," Ricky smacked himself on the head.
"Are you at Aragoth again?"
Ricky was startled by Daniel''s sudden question.
"No," Ricky refused.
"You know Azazel can see you wherever you are, right?"
Ricky did not respond as he knew Daniel was right.
"Don''t get into trouble, Ricky. Come here as fast as you can," said Daniel.
"Hmm," Ricky hastened his pace. It had been a year since they saw the Dark Lord. ording to Azazel, he would return to the castle soon. Therefore, the entire castle and all of the subordinates were under pressure to meet the Dark Lord after such a long time.
Chapter 756 Return Of The Queen
While Ricky was heading for the dark ocean, two giant trolls were rampaging through an empty, barrennd. One could see nothing but barrennd except the two trolls. One troll was icy blue that stood twelve feet tall, while the second was red and stood at least fifteen feet tall. These trolls sported a set ofrge tusks on the edge of their faces. Each troll had a big and heavy stone totem engraved with a rune that granted it a specific elemental power. The blue one, for example, had a totem that granted it ice elemental power. In stark contrast, the red troll''s totem granted it elemental firepower.
Despite their elemental differences, the trolls had amon enemy and zing anger within their eyes. The ground contained several crates due to the trolls hitting the ground with their heavy totems. Of course, they missed their targets. Otherwise, the trolls wouldn''t be roaring and swinging their totems left and right. With their gigantic bodies and Half Immortal stage cultivation, these trolls could reduce any kingdom in Elon to the ground. Fortunately, these trolls were trapped within a pocket dimension.
"Is that all you got, you fucking ugly pieces of shit?" At that moment, an annoyed voice echoed through the barrennd. The trolls roared in anger as though they had understood the meaning of those words. A young woman d in shiny ck armor with a skull engraved on the chest descended to the ground. Her armor glistened under the starry sky. One could see runes radiating a dim light on her armor. A dark skull mask covered her face, but a few strands of raven ck hair escaped the mask and flowed down on her shoulder. A long ck scythe dangled on her back while she held a crimson-red spear in her hand.
Her long ck coat covering the shiny armor fluttered in the wind. The trolls roared, looking at the young woman. They banged the ground with their totems to vent their anger. The girl slowly removed the skull masking, revealing her angelic face. She was none other than Gaya herself without wearing the mask of Aelia. It had been a year since she wore that mask. For thest eleven months, she had been going in and out of this pocket dimension, searching for the Dark Lord''s armor piece.
She hoped she was getting close to the armor piece. She cursed the past Dark Lord for filling this dimension with all kinds of weird yet powerful enemies. Without the teleportation scrolls proved to her by the Dark Lord, she couldn''t have reached this point.
Gaya closed her eyes for a moment as the golden spear turned jade. The spear let out a sizzling noise, reacting with her poison. Gaya threw the poison-covered spear at the blue troll. The spear soared through the air. The troll swung the totem in its hand to deflect the spear, yet it was too slow. The spear hit the troll in the chest.
"GRGHHH!" The troll roared. Meanwhile, the red troll opened its mouth, breathing fire like a dragon. Gaya simply raised her hand, summoning a jade shield around her. The fire brushed past the shield. She slowly walked toward the fire-breathing troll. The blue troll was too focused on pulling out the spear stuck into its chest.
"ARRGHHHH!'' The fire troll roared. It raised the totem high in the air to bring it straight down upon Gaya. When the totem was just a few inches away from her head, she dashed at the troll at lightning-quick speed. The troll did not expect her to disappear suddenly. She leaped into the air. In mid-air, she took the scythe from her back and plunged the pointy end into the troll''s neck.
The troll roared as boiling hot blood sshed out of its neck. She dropped down from the troll''s neck, holding the scythe tight. As a result, she cut the troll from its neck to its gut. The fire troll went berserk in pain and anger. It violently swung the totem in all directions. It kept banging the totem against the ground, sending shock wave after shock wave, Several deep cracks appeared in the ground. Gaya leaped behind to put some distance between her and the troll. Meanwhile, the blue troll finally pulled out the spear. The troll possessed enough intelligence to try to bend the spear.
Gaya quickly raised her hand as a rune on the spear. The troll''s eyes went wide as the spear flew out of its hands. Gaya jumped onto the spear and used it as a hoverboard to reach the blue troll. Both the trolls retaliated by breathing ice and fire at Gaya. The stream of ice and fire produced a vapor hot enough to melt iron blocks.
Gaya leaped higher in the air, escaping the hot steam. When she was right above the trolls'' heads, she waved her hands as a cloud of thick green mist covered the trolls. The trolls breathed in the poisonous air. Soon, they began to cough, which sounded like explosions.
The trolls couldn''t breathe. They coughed to the point their movements became wobbly. But to Gaya''s shock, the fire-breathing troll stomped the ground with enough force to create sparks. The sparks met with the poisonous cloud, resulting in an explosion. At that exact moment, the blue troll breathed cold ice, creating a shield around the red troll and itself.
"I hate when they use their heads," Gaya rolled her eyes. After the explosion, the green mist vanished into thin air. Gayanded almost ten meters away from the two trolls.
The two trolls rubbed the ground with their feet, threatening to dash at Gaya. She cracked her neck. The next moment, she tossed the spear and the scythe to the ground. The trolls were slightly surprised. After throwing away her weapons, she rolled up her sleeves.
Up to this moment, she was going easy on the trolls. But that was about to change. Looking at the trolls, she decided to use her new spells. A silvery light enveloped Gaya''s wrists. Gaya dashed at the trolls, breaking the sound barrier itself. Her speed created a shock wave that formed a clear circle around where she was standing. The troll was taken aback by her speed. Compared to the trolls, her small stature made her more agile than the trolls.
She leaped into the air as targeting the red troll. Both the trolls swung their totems left and right, but Gaya swayed her body to the side, easily avoiding the totems. She raised both her hands toward the red troll as a silvery energy beam shot out of her hand. A bright light shed across the barrennds, making the trolls go blind temporarily. The beam went straight through the totem and prated the troll''s chest. The troll groaned, copsing down. Gaya somersaulted in mid-air beforending on the troll''s shoulder. The troll quickly reacted by trying to swat her like an insect. However, Gaya moved easily behind its neck. She then ced her hands on the troll''s ear, firing another st of energy beam. The troll''s roar echoed through the barrennds. Anyone could tell how much pain the troll was in by its roar.
Gaya did not show any mercy. She fired another energy beam, but this time, she aimed at the blue troll through the hole in the red troll''s head. The beam hit the blue troll before it could hit Gaya with the totem. Instead, the energy beam hit the blue troll''s totem. As a result, it lost the totem as well as its bnce. Gaya quickly reached out for the scythe as it flew straight back into her hands. She swung the scythe with enough force to cleave the troll''s head right off its shoulder. Hot blood sshed across the ground and on her face. The troll''s body twitched uncontrobly. Seeing the troll''s death, the other roared with fury. Its eyes lit up with icy blue energy.
Its power shot through the roof. Within a few seconds, the troll went from Half Immortal stage level 2 to level 5 which meant the troll had be three levels stronger than Gaya. The troll''s sudden power up did not surprise Gaya. She was prepared to face it.
She was about to fight the blue troll when an ethereal cobra made of crimson-red energy descended from the sky. The troll waspletely off guard. The snake was several times bigger and more powerful than the troll. To Gaya''s shock, the snake coiled around the troll, making the troll roar in agony. The snake slowly squeezed the troll as it started to puke blood. Blood and guts gushed out of its body. Little by little, the troll lost its life to a gruesome death. Finally, the light of life faded away from its eyes.
When the snake faded away from existence, the troll turned into a bloody mashed pulp. The air reeked of its blood and guts.
Gaya rolled her eyes. She swung the scythe to remove the blood on its de.
"I had that under control," Gaya raised her voice. For a few moments, she heard nothing. Silence fell over them until a gentle yet dominant voice answered Gaya.
"You were taking too much time," said the voice. Gaya slowly turned around to see a woman resembling Gaya and wearing the same armor as her descending from the sky.
"No I wasn''t, mother," Gaya said with an annoyed smile. Still, Gaya didn''t forget to greet Adelia with a big bear hug. Just like Ashton Kane said, Adelia revealed herself right after Michael revealed himself to the outside world. Gaya met Adelia when Michael moved the floating mountain to the southern continent. Since Michael had a cure for vampirism, he cured her without breaking a sweat with the system''s help. However, no matter how many times Gaya asked, Adelia never told Gaya about her real father.
To everyone''s surprise, Adelia was already a Half Immortal on the verge of entering the Immortal stage when they met her. Ever since she joined the Dark Lord''s army, Adelia had been helping the Dark Lord find the god-killing arrows. A yearter, Adelia found one with the help of the Dark Lord himself.
Chapter 757 City Of Mvarian
Gondolin''s capital Mvarian was the richest city in the entire world. This was where the Empress of Awor Nithroel Grimfield resided. The city brought shame to the starry sky with its lit-up streets, houses with golden chandeliers, and various lights. From a distance, the city looked like a gem mine filled with various colors of glistening stones. The city reeked of richness. Skyscrapers littered the skyline. The golden wheat field nketed thend outside the city walls like a golden nket. Farmer vigers were built within the wheat fields, and these viges made some cities in Elon look like viges. Stress connecting each vige and avenues inside the city walls were paved with glistening white stones, giving the pavement a look of a diamond.
The city was extremely clean. One would fail to see a single piece of trash on the street. Even the alleyways between two buildings had glowing street lights to prevent unwanted crimes. Anyone who hadn''t visited Mvarian would immediately feel like they stepped onto a fairnd because of its surroundings. The north, west, east, and south had a snowy mountain, ake surrounded by lush forest, waterfalls, and flower fields, respectively. Elves had the majority in Mvarian, but that didn''t mean the city had fewer other races of people. On the contrary, the entire Gondolin thrived because of its multi-ethnicity culture. Especially in Mvarian, where one could see almost every race walking down the streets peacefully. Even the dark elves and the elves lived in harmony in Gondolin, thanks to the empress''s firm yet fair rule.
The city was littered with architectural marvels. There was a grand structural marvel every two avenues. For instance, the empress built a lotus-shaped building that stood two hundred meters tall just for the farmers to sell their produce without needing a middleman. This building would open two times a month for the farmers. The empress charged no tax whatsoever for the farmers who sold their produce in the farmers'' market.
Another example of an architectural marvel was a building built in the shape of a longsword. This building was one of the tallest buildings in the entire world. The building was three hundred meters tall from the hilt to the pointy end. But all these buildings were nowhere close to the majestic castle at the city''s edge. The castle was built overlooking the entire city atop a man-made hill. Countless broad, round towers dwarfed everything below them. Walls made of slightly glistening white stones and these walls connected every tower. These walls contained neatly scattered windows and holes for archers and artillery. Even the tallest buildings in the city looked tiny in front of the castle. Granted, there were a few grand big castles in Awor, but this castle would still be bigger and grander than all of thembined. The castle contained several portals to travel from one ce to another in the castle because it was too damn big.
Without a magically enhanced map and a special rune, a neer to the castle would surely lose their way. On top of its majestic architecture, no one had besieged the castle since it was built almost five thousand years ago. More urately, no one had tried and lived to tell tales.
Every day people would just line up to meet the empress. Despite her busy schedule, the empress allocated three hours to meet her subjects to hear their hardships if they had any. She was the most beloved empress of all time. People just adored and worshiped her as a goddess. Unfortunately, the people had to wait for a few days as the empress left the kingdom to meet with the Supreme Guardian in a secret location. Because of her visit, she missed the annual Alchemypetition that''s happening in the capital. Thest alchemypetition ended up with no winner. Instead, they were attacked by the vampires. It was a ck day in the alchemy world. Almost half the alchemists were wiped out by the vampires that day. Only a few survived, thanks to Noah Winston, the current Supreme Guardian. After Ghost revealed himself as the Dark Lord, many theorized that he orchestrated the attack on the alchemistpetition from the beginning.
The world turned everything Ghost did into an evil messed-up story. The worst thing was that the world believed everything because the guardian guild before Noah took over ensured the people believed everything. However, Noah put a full stop to false stories. The alchemypetition was held in a building made of jade ss. The building resembled a lotus. Each petal had shops, homes for the rich, and halls. Since the alchemypetition attracted thousands of people, themittee decided to hold the event in the center where even a hundred thousand people couldfortably sit and enjoy the event.
Today was the second day of thepetition. The rules and format of thepetition did not change, but the judges did. Last time, they invited Ghost, Ativan, Gabriel, and Hendrix Gardner as the judges. Obviously, they couldn''t invite Ghost this time. So in his stead, they invited the current youngest five-star alchemist in Elon continent, Olivia Palmer. Hendrix Gardner and Atian apanied Olivia Palmer on the stage.
Hundreds of fledgling alchemists upied the stage below them. Since they weren''t as experienced as the alchemist who diedst year, thepetitionmittee decided to give rtively easier forms. The front runners of thepetition were Len Icarus, Gabriel''s disciple, Jennifer Voldiguard, and Elmer Genric, an elf from the prestigious Genric family in Gondolin.
After a year of rigorous practice, Len and Jennifer had almost reached the four-star level. Everyone in the arena was focused on Jennifer and Len. Although Elmer performed well enough to reach third ce, his technique and purity level did not earn him people''s confidence. The elves cheered for Elmer since he was their kind, but they did not have any hopes for him to win thepetition.
"This time, I''ll honor my teacher by winning thispetition," said Len, standing on the field next to Jennifer.
"Last time, thepetition was rigged. I was robbed of my first ce," Lenined. The hall had an array to prevent the cheers and outside noise from the spectators from reaching thepetitors. However, if the crowd was silent, they could hear any sound from the field. Unfortunately, they were still buzzing as they failed to hear Len''s words. Jennifer tried to remain calm. Even though she was a clone of the Skyhall, she had her own thoughts and feelings. Hence, she felt annoyed by Len''s constant nagging.
"We both knew Noah was winningst year," said Jennifer. She nced at Elmer for his thoughts, but the elf was busy cleaning his jade table.
"Sorry, I didn''t know that. But hey, I also knew your sister was working for the Dark Lord," snickered Len. Eve Voldiguard was one of the people who followed Ghost to the southern continent despite what the world said about him. Because of Eve''s decision to follow the Dark Lord, the Voldiguards were forced to disown Eve. As far as the guardians were concerned, she was a criminal for following Michael.
Noah did not punish the Voldiguards for Eve''s choice. However, they were secretly monitoring the Voldiguard family.
"Don''t talk about my sister," Jennifer gritted her teeth. Not that Len''s words angered Jennifer, but if the real Jennifer was here, she would have gotten angry. Thus, the clone did the same to y her role correctly.
"What was themittee thinking when they decided to allow you topete?" Len growled.
"Why do you care since you are so sure about winning thepetition?" Jennifer replied.
"Humpth," Len snickered. On the other hand, Elmer remained silent without putting his nose into their conversation. Instead, he cleaned the jade table spotless as though he hated dust on his table more than anything. The jade table reflected his clean-shaven face with blue eyes, a square jaw, and striking golden hair.
Elmer was not a talkative type. Since thepetition had started, he barely spoke. Finally, the crowd became silent when the bell rang. Everyone quickly shut their mouths as the alchemists'' bodies tensed. They all looked at the judges. Atian rose from his chair and made his way to the edge. He nced over the field with the alchemists.
"It''s my honor to wee you all to the second day of thepetition. Once again, I have to thank Her Imperial Majesty for providing us with such an exquisite venue and protection. We couldn''t have done this without Her Imperial Majesty''s aid, especially what happenedst year. As before, please mourn for the lost ones for a minute in silence, please," The crowd rose from their chairs to pay their respect to the alchemists and people who lost their lives at thepetitionst year. Silence swept across the arena. The people closed their eyes, lowering their heads.
"Thank you," Atian''s words broke the silence.
"Without a further due, let us begin the second stage of thepetition. To start it, I''d like to wee the youngster five star alchemist in the Elon continent and the head of alchemy in Aragoth, Miss Olivia Palmer," as soon as Atian united Olivia to the front, an awkward silence upied the arena. Few mumbled something under their breath. Everyone stared at Olivia with different looks. Some admired Olivia for not following the Dark Lord, while some had hostile looks as they thought she supported the Dark Lord in the shadows.
Olivia was used to their gazes. She took a deep breath and walked to Atian''s side.
"Thank you for your good words, Lord Atian. But I must remind the world that I am not the youngest five-star alchemist. We all know who the youngest is," People gasped in shock. They couldn''t believe the guts of Olivia to speak such words. Even Atian and Hendrix were startled by her words.
"All I wanted to say is, do not let the past and one person''s actions pollute the beautiful world of alchemy," Olivia calmly said.
"Your challenge for the second round is you have to brew the Lucid dreams potion in under two hours. To help you brew it, you will receive the recipe and three batches of ingredients,"
As thepetition began, several people were on their way to kidnap someone important. These figures were using the forest outside the city as their cover. With their ck armor, they perfectly blended with the environment. Thepetition was really cursed as it attracted the wrong crowd for the second time.
Chapter 758 Yet Another Alchemy Competition
Lucid dreams potion was just a standard two-star level potion. However, it contained several intricate,plex steps to brew it without the cauldron exploding on an alchemist''s face. Rich noble kids consumed this potion as a kind of drug to have a dream of their desire.
Elmer noticed three batches of ingredients materializing on his table. Each batch contained one sprinkle of Sweet Aniseed, one tablespoon of Snowy Clove, six bits of Sun Shiso, four teaspoons of Winter Seed, and one cup of Knot Petal.
"Piece of cake," Len snickered. As thest disciple of Gabriel, he could brew such a simple potion in his sleep. Every challenge Len tackled boosted his confidence to another level. In Len''s excitement, he failed to notice Elmer''s strange, amused smile. The smile disappeared as fast as it appeared.
"Beat the Sweet Aniseed as you''d do with your enemies and put the result in a container," Len mumbled under his breath. He didn''t even look at the recipe scroll.
"Add a sprinkle of liquid ice to turn it into messy water, then add the Snowy Clove all at once and make sure you don''t leave any remnants," Len continued to work his magic on the ingredients. Despite being a clone, Jennifer was extremely well-versed in alchemy. She was slower than Len but so much faster than Elmer.
"Fill the cauldron with unsalted seawater, add the mixture and bring it to a boil, freeze it, and bring it to a simmer. Let it reduce by half before adding the Sun Shiso and Winter Seed, mix both together first, then add all at once,"
While Len was brewing the potion, a tinge of sorrow rose in Olivia''s heart. A year ago, she was beside Ghost, her teacher, and watched thepetition. She still couldn''t believe her teacher was the Dark Lord the entire world was afraid of. When she thought about Ghost, she had nothing but pleasant memories. Without him, she couldn''t have reached her current state.
Every day, she asked herself whether he really helped her or used her for his own benefit. Unlike Ricky, she couldn''t drop everything and follow the Dark Lord to be a criminal wanted for the rest of her life.
For some strange reason, she felt Ghost was watching her from somewhere in this arena. But she quickly dispelled the feelings as the arena was protected with all kinds of defense arrays and runes. It was impossible for the Dark Lord to step into the arena. Little did she know that the Dark Lord was in the arena and closer to her than she thought.
"Are you alright, Miss Palmer? You look a bit worried," asked Hendrix Gardner. He was the six-star alchemist who almost lost his life to the vampires. The reason he was sitting here alive was Michael. Unlike Gabriel, Michael did not want Hendrix dead.
"Nothing," Olivia shook her head.
"You remembered him, didn''t you?" Hendrix surprised Olivia with his question.
"No, Lord Hendrix. Why would you say that?" Olivia creased her brows.
Hendrix leaned closer to her,
"Friendly piece of advice. Every coin has two sides," Hendrix whispered to Olivia. For a moment, she almost doubted Hendrix to be one of the Dark Lord''s minions. Even if he was, Olivia had no way of knowing. But this was the first time anyone had talked about the Dark Lord without fear in their eyes.
In the meantime, Lenpleted half of the process. The wide grin on his face told everything.
"Reheat what by now is a foul liquid, mix in the Knot Petal, and let everything rest for fifteen minutes. You could do something else in the meantime, likeughing at how pathetic the rest of them are," Lenughed at Jennifer and Elmer, who hadn''t even finished refining the ingredients.
Two hours flew by in a blink of an eye. As expected, Len had the highest purity rate, followed by Jennifer and another new alchemist. Elmer ced sixth in the ranking. He barely avoided elimination by purity. After the results, the second day of thepetition ended. The judges dismissed the alchemists. Most of them stayed in the building. Instead of staying in the room allocated to him, Elmer went outside. When she stepped out, he met a silver-haired elf surrounded by knights. The elf was at the Soul Refining stage and radiated an aura of a born leader.
"There he is. Took you long enough Elmer," the elf greeted Elmer with a stoic face.
"Lord Hamon," Elmer bowed deeply, showing his respect.
"You still in thepetition?" Hamon tilted his head. He was an Elder in the Genric family and the man who brought Elmer to the family.
"Apparently," Elmer said.
"Brother Elmer," suddenly, two elven kids jumped out of the carriage behind Hamon. They were twins. One was a silver-haired boy, and another was a golden-haired girl. They were just seven years old who loved to y with almost anyone.
"Voron and Eva?" Elmer was surprised by the kids. Usually, these two wouldn''t leave the familypound for security reasons.
The kids hugged each of Elmer''s thighs as Hamon sighed.
"I have an important task for you, Elmer. You need to get them to Genric family safe house,"
"Did you win brother Elmer?"
"Nah he lost,"
The kids yed with Elmer,
"Why me?" Elmer asked Hamon.
"Because I said so, and I must be somewhere else," said Hamon.
"You expect me to ride in the carriage with them?"
"Yes. We cannot fly until we cross the border, remember?"
Looking at Elmer''s worried face, Hamon patted him on the shoulder.
"Quit worrying. My guards will be with you all the time. Just take a quick nap inside, and when you wake up, you''ll be at the manor,"
"It''s not like I have a choice," Elmer rolled his eyes,
"Come on kids. Get inside," Elmer pulled the two kids away from his legs by their cors.
"That''s the spirit," Hamon patted Elmer on the back as Elmer opened the carriage door for the kids.
"I will see you soon, Lord Hamon," Elmer bowed before getting inside the carriage with the kids. Hamon signaled a couple of his men to get on the carriage. Inside the carriage, Elmer sat in silence without indulging the twins in their silly games. The carriage slowly moved away from the arena, leaving Hamon and his men behind. Something felt off to Elmer. The twins were the heir of Genric family, yet Hamon only sent two guards with them. However, a bigger party might attract unwanted attraction. No one would bother to think twice about a carriage with two Soul Refiners in the Awor continent. When Elmer thought like that, Hamon''s actions made sense. Elmer looked at the sky from the window. The sky was unusually cloudy as though heavy rain was due. He hoped to reach the manor before the rain.
"Brother Elmer,e y with us," said Voron. He climbed on Elmer''s back and yed with his pointy ears. Since they were kids, their ears were not as pointy as Elmer''s.
"Instead of ying, why don''t you two meditate? It''s good for both your brains and souls," said Elmer. The kids shook their heads as Elmer expected. He let them do whatever they wanted and focused on the buzzling streets. As time passed, they exited the street. The lush green field was in stark contrast to the busy streets of Mvarion. Soon, the field extended into lush forest. Everything became dark after they entered the woods.
The forest was small, thick, and blooming. Its canopy was eclipsed by alder,rch, and ash, and twinkling lights bursting through their crowns allowed for a mosaic of shrubs to im the brittle leaves on the ground below.
Swooping tree limbs held onto every tree, and a range of flowers clung to any space they could find and looked almost out of ce in the otherwise mundane terrain. A cacophony of beastly noises, predominantly those of insects and critters, filled the air, and were apanied by the asional sounds ofrge animals in the distance.
Elmer savored the sight and silence outside. He trained himself to ignore the two annoying kids and focus on something else. For example, the elven rune in the Genric family underground vault. This particr elven rune favored the fire element. Thus, anyone who wields the rune would gain an unimaginable amount of increase in fire maniption, which was crucial to every single alchemist.
The Genric family had been protecting the rune for centuries. Only the core family members had ess to this rune. Winning the alchemypetition was one way of getting ess to the rune. That was one of the reasons why Elmer decided topete in thepetition. As Elmer was focusing on the passing trees, his ears twitched.
"Do that again," Eva shouted excitedly.
Elmer heard rustling wind and a strange howling sound.
"Did you hear that?" Elmer heard the guards outside murmur.
"I think we''ve been followed," said another guard. The two kids were too busy ying with Elmer''s ears to hear the guards.
"How far are we from the border?" asked a guard.
"Not very far," said the marriage driver. Elmer realized something was wrong. He creased his brows.
"You two," Elmer grabbed the kids by their necks as though they were his kittens.
"Stay here," said Elmer.
"Are we going to y hide and seek?" asked the boy.
"Kinda,"
Soon, the carriage sped up. As a result, the carriage bobbed up and down. The ride became extremely ufortable. Elmer grabbed his seat tight to bnce himself.
"We are being followed. I see figures in the woods," said a guard. His voice had a tinge of panic. Suddenly, Elmer heard a thud.
"Hey-" another cry resonated in the area but was cut short abruptly.
Elmer felt the carriage slowlying to a halt.
"Why are we stopping?" asked Eva.
"Aren''t we ying hide and seek?" asked Elmer.
"Really?" the kids'' faces lit up. They had been nagging Elmer to y with them since they first met. So when Elmer agreed to y, they were so excited.
"Yes. I am going to close my eyes, and you are going to hide within this carriage,"
"Aww. where do we hide in here?" Evained.
"I don''t know, but that''s the rule. To make it a fair game, I will step outside," said Elmer. Having no choice, the kids nodded.
Finally, Elmer opened the door and stepped outside the carriage. They were in the middle of nowhere. When Elmer walked to the front, he saw an arrow sticking through the driver''s head.
The very next moment, several figures dressed in dark armor stepped out of the shadows. Each of them was at the Soul refining stage level 5. Elmer counted at least twelve of them standing around him.
"The kids inside?" one of the dark-armored figures asked Elmer.
"Hand them over to us, and we will kill you painlessly," the figure threatened Elmer.
(Michael will make his appearance in the next chapter. Stay tuned¡)
Chapter 759 Dark Lord Returns
"No can do," Elder shook his head. He wasn''t going to hand over the twins to these people. He may have been cold toward the kids and didn''t like to spend time with them, but the kids adored him. His heart simply refused to give the kids to the strangers.
The ck-robed figures chuckled. The elf before them was just at the Core Formation level 1. They could kill him without breaking a sweat. Nheless, the ck-robed figures saw no signs of fear in the elf''s eyes. Elmer cracked his neck.
"Kill this fool and take the kids," The ck-armored man ordered one of his men, who stood a couple of meters away from Elmer. The ck armored figure unsheathed his dagger. He strolled toward Elmer ying with his dagger. The ck armored figures expected Elmer to cast a spell or atleast poise to defend himself. Contrary to their expectation, Elmer remained still. The ck armored figures thought Elmer had frozen by fear. The ck armored figure raised the dagger before plunging it onto Elmer''s back. To the man''s shock, the dagger shattered into pieces when he stabbed Elmer. His hand went numb. He felt like he stabbed a concrete block.
The man waspletely off guard. His eyes widened behind his mask. The trees in the forest swayed as an ominous feeling swept across them. They heard wolves howling in the distance. Thunder rumbled alongside the wolves. Suddenly, the ck armored figures saw Elmer''s eyes turnpletely ck. ck bolts of lightning crackled around his body. Slowly, the area around the carriage grew darker and darker. The ck armored figures took a step back in fear. They had a bad feeling seeing the darkness around them. Elmer''s expressionless face changed. Instead, a devilish grin emerged on his face.
Chill ran down the ck armored men''s spines. They trembled in utter fear. Suddenly, everything turnedpletely ck for a moment. When the darkness disappeared in a sh, Elmer disappeared from their sight. The men looked around frantically. The forest once again becamepletely silent.
"Brother Elmer, we are ready. Come find us," the yful voice of the kids cut through the ominous silence,
"Keep hiding kids. I have to clean up a few rodents," the ck armored men heard Elmer''s voice echo through the forest. However, they couldn''t locate him.
"Rodents, eww. We do not want them in here," said the kids.
"I am sure you don''t," said Elmer.
The ck armored figures unsheathed their weapons. A breeze of wind brushed past them. They didn''t even blink. Fear crept into their hearts.
"Where-" a ck armored man tried to shout, but his shout was cut short abruptly. His head exploded into red mist. The rest were startled. They had no idea what just happened. Under their shocked gazes, a thin veil of energy appeared around the carriage.
"He¡he''s dead¡what¡happened," one of the men stuttered. Everyone trembled to see the blood spewing out of their friend''s neck. One moment he was fine, and the next, his head exploded like a watermelon.
Once again, a breeze of wind brushed past them. Following the wind, another head exploded. The ck armored man who stood beside the man fell down in shock. Blood sshed across his face and the ground. Yet, they didn''t see what just happened. One by one, heads exploded.
"Fuck it," Some dropped everything they had and tried to run into the woods. But a dark beam came out of nowhere and prated their heads. They died instantly. Only one survived the quick massacre. The one who survived tried to crawl under the carriage but couldn''t go through the energy shield. It was like an invisible wall. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t even move an inch forward.
The man''s heart skipped a beat when he saw Elmer behind him. Elmer lifted up the ck armored man by his neck.
"Who are you?" the man mumbled. Elmer snatched the mask off of the man''s face. After removing the dark mask, a man with a gray stubble beard and brown eyes stared at Elmer. The man
S eyes almost popped out of their sockets as Elmer''s face slowly transformed. His pointy ears grew shorter, resembling human ears. The silvery hair turned ck. If these weren''t shocking enough, Elmer''s face itself transformed into resembling someone else. The man recognized his face almost instantly. In fact, everyone in the world would recognize the face because the guardian guild had posted thousands of posters worldwide with his face on.
"Dark¡Dark¡Lord," The man muttered. He couldn''t believe that out of all people, they actually stumbled upon the Dark Lord himself. They were actually ordered to kidnap the kids where the Dark Lord was. The man''s mind went nk. Everyone in the world knew how he ughtered hundreds of guardians, including Immortals before he obliterated Ithn to oblivion.
"What''s your name?" asked Michael.
"Thamor," the man mumbled.
It had been a year since Michael took the identity of Elmer, an elf and infiltrated the Genric family. A lot of things have happened since he exacted revenge against Thusia. One of the major things was the system going offline. He upgraded the system from version 7 to 8. To Michael''s surprise, the system required an entire year to upgrade itself. But before it went offline, the system required Michael to get his hands on the elven rune in the Genric family without revealing his identity for some reason. To the outside world and his minions, he disappeared and went underground. But in reality, Michael was staying with the Genric family, slowly gaining their trust and working as an amateur alchemist. Only a few knew about Michael''s current identity which included Gaya and her mother. While he was living with the Genric family, Gaya and her mother continued the search for the god-killing arrows and his armor pieces.
Michael was so close to getting ess to the secret vault, which was protected with all kinds of runes and arrays, that even Elidyr had trouble breaking them. Since the system strictly advised Michael not to reveal himself, he didn''t take the risk of letting Elidyr take a crack at the arrays and the runes. Hence, Michael chose the good old ways. To be honest, Michael loved the fresh air. He let his subordinates handle everything back in the Southern continent. The guardians poured all the resources into finding him in the southern continent while Michael lived right under their noses. Plus, he was able to get a good understanding of Awor and Empress Nithroel Grimfield. Unfortunately, because the system went offline, Michael couldn''t break through to the Immortal stage. Everything was going great until these assholes decided to ambush him and the two annoying kids. Whoever sent Thamor just made it into Micihael''s kill list.
"You know who I am right?" asked Michael.
Thamor bobbed his head up and down.
"So you know what I can do to you and everyone you know and care about?" Michael''s eyes glimmered with killing intent. Thamor''s heart skipped a beat.
"But I will give you a chance to avoid all that bloodshed. Answer my questions, and I won''t kill your loved ones. Do you understand?"
Thamor did not understand as Michael tightened his grip around his neck.
"Do you understand?" Michael''s voice became demonic for a moment.
"Yes," Thamor immediately nodded in utter fear.
"Who sent you?" Michael asked the simple and the most obvious questions. Considering his time in the Genric family, he could say the Genric family had no enemies hostile enough to kidnap the twins. A criminal act like this would get them the most brutal punishment there was from the empress herself. The empress was kind and brutal at the same time. Her war gods would go to any lengths to find out the kidnappers and bring them to justice. These war gods were the main reason why Gondolin had so few criminals. But if someone had sent people after the twins to kidnap them despite everything, Michael wanted to know who this daredevil was.
"Hamon¡Lord Hamon sent us," Thamor bbered almost immediately without a second thought. The Dark Lord frightened him more than Hamon ever did.
"That fucking rat. It seems I am not the only one with hidden agendas in Genric family," said Michael.
"Where do you n to meet Hamon again?"
"In a cabin not very far from here," Thamor answered Michael truthfully.
Luckily for Thamor, Michael saw no signs of him lying. Otherwise, Thamor would be on the ground dead without a head. Finally, after hearing Hamon nned the ambush, Michael wanted to know why. He had a strange feeling that he could use Hamon to speed things up. Michael turned his gaze toward the carriage. With a flick of his wrist, he took out a silvery vial from his space ring. He threw the vial at the carriage as it shattered on the ground. Puffs of white smoke emerged from the broken vial and floated into the carriage.
"Take the kids to Hamon as you nned. If he asks about Elmer, tell Hamon you killed him. Got it?"
Thamor nodded frantically. Michael finally released his grip around his neck as Thamor copsed down. He coughed several times. The rosiness slowly returned to his face. He picked himself up and slowly walked toward the carriage. When he got close, the energy shield around the carriage faded away.
"Go on," said Michael. Thamor opened the carriage door. To his surprise, the kids were sleeping on the couch. More urately, they lost consciousness by inhaling Michael''s knockout gas. Eventually, Thamor picked up the two kids and returned to Michael.
Michael looked at the twins peacefully sleeping on Thamor''s shoulder. He then took out a scroll and tore it in half. Suddenly, several runes materialized in the air.
"We are free to fly to the cabin," said Michael.
Thamor led Michael through the woods toward Hamon''s cabin. He didn''t dare to utter a word or try to lose the Dark Lord. He knew messing with the Dark Lord would only lead to his death. Thamor just wanted this nightmare to end.. He had already lost his men and did not want to lose his life too,
On the other hand, Hamon was waiting for good news inside his cabin. Little did he know the Dark Lord wasing to greet him.
Chapter 760 Dwarven Mercenaries
Michael followed Thamor through the woods. He always had doubts about Hamon. Not that Hamon showed any anger toward the Genric family, but he obeyed every singlemand they issued to thest letter. It felt too good to be true to Michael. Of course, Michael ordered Aria to investigate Hamon when he had his doubts, but Aria found nothing incriminating. This was what made Michael curious about why Hamon staged an ambush. That elf was willing to sacrifice Elmer. After flying through the woods for almost thirty minutes straight, Michael noticed a wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere. The cabin perfectly blended with its natural surroundings and was almost hidden from the naked eye. Veins and moths entangled around the cabin, hiding it with their green. Since the cabin was outside the no-fly zone, Hamon was able to fly to the cabin with his men. Hence, Michael saw neither carriage nor horses outside.
"Go ahead," Michael gestured at Thamor to go to the cabin first. Instead of following Thamor behind, he decided to stay behind and see Hamon''s true face for a change.
Thamor nodded before flying straight to the cabin. Standing outside the cabin, Thamor knocked on the door.
"Thamor," Michael heard Hamon''s voiceing from within the cabin.
"It''s done," said Thamor. Finally, the cabin door opened. Michael stayed hidden in the woods, looking at Hamon opening the door. Michael scanned the cabin to realize Hamon had brought backup with him. But they didn''t look like Hamon''s personal guards from the Genric family. These guards wore some kind of ming armor. Moreover, they were shorter than an average human. They had long, bushy beards, messy hair, and bulky arms. Simply put, they were dwarves.
"Mogels," Michael mumbled under his breath. The Mogels were a mercenary guild from the dwarven kingdom. The vilest and most ruthless dwarves exiled from their homnd formed this brutal mercenary guild that would do anything for the right price. They were like the Grim Reapers but less secretive and more ruthless. They didn''t end up on Michael''s radar until now.
They had been escaping the war gods using the mines and mountains. To be honest, Michael was surprised to see them with Hamon. Usually, the dwarves loathed the elves. Thus, if they were working for Hamon, he must have offered them a handsome payment.
"There they are," Hamon licked his lips. His eyes turned predatory, looking at the twins.
"They are alive right?" asked Hamon.
"Yes," Thamor nodded.
"Something''s wrong," Michael heard a dwarf growl. Michael was surprised by the dwarf''s perception. Following the dwarf''s statement, all his buddies unsheathed their weapons. Hamon was startled by their action.
"What''s wrong? What''s happening?" asked Hamon. He had no clue why the dwarves suddenly unsheathed their weapons. Unlike the dwarves, he failed to notice the fear in Thamor''s eyes.
"He''s being ckmailed. I can see the fear in his eyes," a dwarf with a long cut across his face growled. The dwarf immediately lunged at Thamor with his battle ax. He ced the ax against Thamor''s throat while Hamon quickly took the kids off Thamor''s shoulders. He threw the kids on the table like they were toys.
Another dwarf kicked Thamor on the knees to bring him to his knees. Instead of questioning Thamor, the dwarf just stared into his eyes.
"He is not himself. Someone forced him to do this," said the dwarf. Once again, the dwarves surprised Michael. Despite their lust for blood and booze, they actually showed some intellect. They didn''t even believe Thamor for a minute. Just by looking into Thamor''s eyes, the dwarves figure out he was forced. Michael calmly watched everything that was happening inside the cabin.
"We are all fucked," mumbled Thamor. Tears rolled down from Thamor''s ears without his control. Thamor''s tearspletely dazed Hamon. He knew Thamor for years. Thamor was one of the most ruthless and heartless bastards he had ever known in his life. But he was sobbing like a little child.
"Thamor, what the hell are you talking about?" Hamon asked Thamor. He yanked Thamor by his cor. Before Thamor could utter another word, a bright light shed across the cabin. The dwarves were startled. Soon, a sudden gust of wind snuffed out all the candles in the cabin. Darkness fell over the room. Hamon couldn''t even see his own hands before his eyes. The dwarves quickly lit thenterns dangling on their waists. Since they traveled through dark mines, they all hadnterns to light their way. Hence, they quickly fought off the darkness with thenterns. Thentern light dimly lit the room with a shade of orange. Hamon let go of Thamor and moved closer to the twins.
"Someone''s here," said a dwarf. Hamon''s sears twitched as he heard footsteps. The footsteps sounded louder and louder until the door creaked. Every single pair of eyes were locked onto the door. They expected someone to open the door wide open any second. As they expected, someone did open the door. In the dim light, they saw Michael walking into the cabin. The dwarf near the doorway lunged at Michael without a second thought. Only when he was in mid-air the dwarf recalled the face. His eyes widened in shock. But it was toote as Michael caught the dwarf by his neck in the air. The dwarf''s feet quivered as he started swinging his battle ax at Michael to cut his head.
Hamon heard a cracking sound as the dwarf stopped quivering in Michael''s hand. The battle ax fell off the dwarf''s hand and hit the ground with a loud thud.
"The Dark Lord," Hamon mumbled under his breath. His predatory eyes glistened with fear. The dwarves took a step back. To a man who killed Immortals, killing a bunch of Soul Refiners was as easy as lifting a finger. The dwarves were not stupid to rush into battle head-on with the Dark Lord himself. Judging by the situation, the dwarves knew the only way to escape was through negotiation. They just hoped the Dark Lord was in the mood for talks.
"We can have a civilized conversation if no one pulls any stupid stunts," said Michael. Michael dusted off his arms. With a flick of his wrist, he pulled a wooden chair toward him. He turned the chair around and sat backward. The dwarves and Hamon looked tense. It was no surprise, though. One could say the dwarves were holding well. Many would have wet their pants. After the terror campaign the Guardian Guild and the great eight ns held against Michael, he didn''t need fear toxin to scare people. The guardians and the great eight ns wanted to stop people from believing in the Dark Lord or worse, worshiping him as though he was a god.
The fear worked in Michael''s favor. He never expected people to worship him. Instead, Michael wanted them to fear him. That was why Noah stopped the campaign to spread fear throughout the world, as he knew the Dark Lord wanted just that. Still, Noah was toote. The Guardian Guild and the Great Eight ns did a fantabulous job of scaring people. Even the criminals shivered at the mere mention of the name Dark Lord.
"Now let me hear why you want to kidnap those two. If I am not wrong, you should be protecting them. This doesn''t seem like protecting," said Michael.
Hamon felt reluctant to speak. Michael just lifted his finger as a lightning bolt shot out of his fingertips. The lightning bolt went straight through Thamor''s head, instantly killing him. The dwarves jumped back in shock. Thamor wasn''t weaker than any of them. If the Dark Lord could kill him with a single lightning bolt, they could only imagine what he could do when he used his full power. They realized the stories they heard about the ck day were not at all exaggerated. In case the system hadn''t gone offline for a year, Michael would have reached level 3 Immortal Stage. Unfortunately, he was being bottlenecked by the system.
"As you can see, I am not a very patient guy. So you should answer me without testing my patience," said Michael, crackling his fingers. Thamor''s boy was on the ground with a big hole in his head. Blood still oozed down from the hole. His eyes were filled with terror and shock. Atleast he died instantly without suffering. Hearing Michael''s words, Hamon gawked around the cabin. Everyone in the room knew there was no way of escaping without the Dark Lord''s permission. However, Hamon couldn''t reveal his story in front of these dwarves. Michael noticed his hesitation and sighed.
"You seem to want more privacy. That can be arranged," said Michael. When he turned his gaze at the dwarves, they realized he was about to kill them all.
"Fuck this and fuck you," one of the dwarves roared. He didn''t want to go down without a fight. The dwarves would rather fight and die fearlessly than beg someone else for their lives. A dwarf raised his battle ax to bring down upon the Dark Lord with full force. However, his body froze as the battle ax slipped off his hand. Michael''s eyes lit up. The very next moment, the dark beams shot out of his hands and bounced off from dwarf to dwarf killing everyone except Hamon in a blink of an eye. The dwarves didn''t even have the chance to defend themselves. After the dark beams disappeared as quickly as they appeared, puffs of smoke escaped Michael''s eyes.
One by one, the bodies hit the ground with a thud. Hamon''s mind went nk. He paid a million gold coins to the mercenaries to get them to work for him. Unfortunately, his million gold coins went to waste.
"I am not going to ask you again. Tell me why you stage an ambush and kidnap the twins," asked Michael. This time, his voice became colder and demonic. Hamon felt the pressure from the Dark Lord''s piercing gaze. Having no choice, Hamon began to reveal his backstory. After hearing his full story, he just hoped the Dark Lord would understand his motives. Only Hamon knew the Genric family was not as they seemed to be.
Chapter 761 The Elven Rune
? Michael listened to Hamon''s story in silence. The crickets and distant beasts apanied them, along with creaking woods in the cabin. Heavy downpours apanied Hamon''s story. The droplets hit the roof, making a rhythmic noise that served as background music to Hamon''s story. When Hamon finished his story, Michael felt pity for Hamon.
ording to Hamon, his family, once called Hamlets, protected the great elven rune. The rune was passed from generation to generation. It was their sole duty to protect the elven rune. Apparently, there was a blessing hidden within the elven rune. The blessing gave whoever keeps the family healthy and prosperous. Therefore, Hamlets led a very good life in the Ozer continent. Hamlet was only a child when his House Leader brought his best friend hundred years ago to the Hamlet manor. He trusted his best friend enough to reveal the existence of the elven rune.
At that time, he did not know the elven rune kindled the fire of greed in his best friend''s heart. A few dayster, someone murdered the house head in his own manor and stole the elven rune. The Hamlets scoured the continent for the rune but did not find a single clue. Years passed without the elven rune. The disappearance of the elven rune turned into a curse. One by one, the Hamlets fell sick to a strange illness and gradually lost their former glory. Once a prominent family in the continent slowly lost everything until they ceased to exist. However, before thest Hamlet, Hamon''s father died, he found that his best friend visited him on the day the house leader died.
Hamon made his life''s work to find the elven rune and exact revenge against those who stole the rune, resulting in his family''s demise. Like vultures picking off flesh from a corpse, the rival families robbed everything the Hamlet family had. As thest and only Hamlet, Hamon was thrown into the streets. He described his hellish childhood in great detail, with tears gushing out of his eyes. Michael sympathized with Hamon because they both shared the same hellish childhood.
Despite Hamon''s hardships, his thirst for revenge kept him going. Finally, at his fifteenth age, Hamon finally met the man who came with his house head. Imagine his surprise when Hamon learned this man went from a lonely adventurer to the house head of the Genric family, Tannatar Genric. Although Hamon did not remember the name he used when he came to his home, he was pretty sure it wasn''t Tannatar Genric. Hamon might have been a little child, but he could never forget the man''s face who was responsible for everything.
Hamon followed Tannatar for a couple of years, waiting for an opportunity to gain his trust and enter his family as a Genric. Eventually, Hamon received a chance to save Tannatar''s wife from a bunch of bandits. Since Tannatar loved his wife so much, Tannatar felt so great to the point where he epted the orphan Hamon into his family. Hamon slowly worked his way up, slowly gaining everyone''s trust. It took Hamon a hundred years to reach the point where he is now.
Michael admired Hamon''s resilience. All these years, he lived with the people who were responsible for his family''s destruction. Even he couldn''t have lived with Victoria and her family for a year, let alone a hundred years. Michael began to have second thoughts about killing Hamon. Not only because Michael sympathized with Hamon but also because he said he had the n to retrieve the elven rune. ording to Hamon, the elven rune would recognize his bloodline. He was confident he could disable the runes and arrays in the vault to get to the rune. Michael wondered how he could use the elven rune to disable the arrays and defense runes. But he saw absolute confidence in Hamon''s eyes. Since Michael didn''t have the system''s help, he had to relypletely on his instincts. And his instincts told him to go along with Hamon''s n.
"So tell me, Hamon. What''s more important to you? Your thirst for revenge against the Genric family or the elven rune? You can''t have both. Choose one," said Michael.
Hamon''s thoughts faded as images of his daily life shed across his eyes. Michael let Hamon think in silence. On the one hand, Hamon had the elven rune, his family''s heritage. On the other hand, he had Tannatar and his family, who stole the rune, resulting in his suffering. Without the Hamlet family, there was no need for the elven rune. That rune didn''t have the power to bring his family back. However, killing Tannatar and destroying his family would certainly avenge his family and bring him peace.
Hence, Hamon chose revenge against the Genric family instead of the elven rune. As far as Hamon was concerned, the Dark Lord could take the rune.
"I want the Genric family dead," Hamon growled.
"Except the kids. Be honest, do you really n to kill the children?" asked Michael.
Hamon hesitated to answer Michael because he wasn''t a child killer. Subconsciously Hamon was attached to the twins and the other children. His anger was pointed toward Tannatar, not the innocent children and others. Hamon was not a killer like Michael. He killed everyone in Victoria''s family except the children because she sent them away before the war. Thest time Michael heard, Noah had created an orphanage for children on every continent.
As much as Michael hated Noah for being a righteous prick, he admired Noah for his leadership and initiatives, such as the orphanages. He was really taking the Guardian Guild on a better path. Pity their end goal was to fight Michael, which would result in only death.
"Your hesitation is the answer, Hamon. You can have your revenge. I am not going to kill you but," Michael rose from the chair.
"I will take the elven rune," said Michael.
Michael waved his hands before his face. To Hamon''s shock, his face transformed, resembling Elmer.
"Elmer¡" Hamon mumbled. For a moment, Hamon thought the Dark Lord had taken Elmer''s face. However, he slowly connected the dots to realize the Dark Lord was Elmer. With another wave of his hand, Michael changed his face to look like another elf.
"Elmer is dead," said Michael.
"Now, get your ns on the road. As I said before, I am not a very patient guy,"
************************************************
The Genric family mansion was located on the outskirts of Mvarion. The mansion would have seemed identical to any other in the prestigious neighborhood to the outside viewer. Large curtained windows set in solid concrete walls and burnt silver tiles on the roof. Stone statues and arge metal gate guarded the entrance, a freshly trimmedwn, flowering bushes, and sunlight reflecting off the surface of a fountain on a typical warm summer day.
A well-kept gravel path led to automatic double doors. Inside rested several priceless artifacts proudly. In one of the many numerous rooms, the house leader Tannatar Genric scoured through heaps of scrolls on his wooden table. Wooden boxes were stacked high against the ceiling, and the content of the few that had been unpacked was dispersed throughout the room. The heavy dusty air dimmed the area. Outside his room, the Genric family went on with their life as any other usual day.
Tannatar Genric was a gentle-looking elf with blue eyes and long striking golden hair. Despite retiring from being an adventurer hundred years ago, he still had muscles underneath an inch of fat. One could easily see the deep scar on the side of his neck. Tannatar liked to be left alone in his store room. In this room, only he and the thousands of scrolls in which one might hold an answer to his long search. Only by one, he picked up a scroll, opened it up, read its contents, and threw it away with a glimmer of disappointment.
As he repeated this cycle, he heard heavy boot steps outside the room.
"My lord," someone knocked on the door. Tannatar sensed an urgency and panic in the rough voice. His eyes glimmered with fury. He hated benign disturbed in this room,
"My lord, you must see this. It''s about the twins," As soon as Tannatar heard these words, the anger in his eyes faded. Tannatar waved his hands as several runes glowed on the door. Soon, these runes faded away, unlocking the door. The door clicked open.
"My lord," a soldier rushed into the room and dropped to his knees. He reached out a scroll toward Tannatar. Tannatar immediately frowned, looking at the blood stains on the scroll.
Tannatar picked up the scroll and opened it up to read its contents. While reading the scroll, Tannatar''s body trembled. He copsed onto the chair behind him. The soldier''s body jerked as Tannatar banged the table. The mountain of scrolls crumbled down, making the room messier.
"Show me the box!" Tannatar stood up. He followed the soldiers to the frontwn, where he saw several soldiers and family members gathered around.
"Move aside, Lord Tannatar is here,"
Everyone moved aside, making way for Tannatar to the wooden box on the ground. The air around the box reeked of blood. The soldiers already had the box opened. When he reached the box, Tannatar saw a severed head with open eyes staring at him.
"It''s Cyran, my lord," said the soldier who led Tannatar here. Cyran was one of Hamon''s personal guards.
"This note was in the box, my lord," another soldier handed over a blood-stained note to Tannatar.
"If you want to see your children alive and not as heads in boxes,e to the lonely mountain," Tannatar read the words on the note. His voice trembled. He started to realize his kids were kidnapped slowly. Just the blood on the note alone shook Tannatar to the core. At that moment, he couldn''t think as a veteran adventurer or a leader but as a father.
He failed to keep his stoic wall around him. Thinking about his children in danger made the wall crumble down. For a few moments, his mind went nk.
"My Lord, what does the note say?" A soldier asked with worry. The soldier''s words pulled Tannatar out of his dazed state.
"Gather our men, we are going to the lonely mountain," Tannatar barked his order at his men.
"Lord Tannatar, what happened? What''s the meaning of all this?" one of his core family members asked Tannatar.
"Voron and Eva," Tannatar''s words didn''te out through the lump in his throat.
"What happened to them?" the elves panicked.
"They were kidnapped," Tannatar barely finished his words, shaking everyone to their core.
While Tannatar and the others were gathered at the frontwn, Hamon entered the mansion via a secret path only known to the elders. Michael apanied Hamon as one of his personal guards. Michael followed Hamon behind a dimly lit underground passage.
"The vault is just around the corner," said Hamon.
Chapter 762 Two Sides Of The Coin
Michael followed Hamon until he reached a giant door made of some kind of silver metal. The door was built with countless nuts and bolts. On top of these mechanisms, Michael sensed countless runes. Hamon stopped a meter before the steel door. He looked around as though he was searching for something. Michael wished he had the system to disable all the runes. Luckily, Michael had an expert in runes. He was about to call for Elidyr when Hamon raised his palm. Michael noticed a glowing rune on Hamon''s palm. For some reason, the gears in the door started to move faster and faster. Additionally, icy blue runes began to radiate brighter light on the door. Michael heard these mechanisms rolling within the door. Hamon slowly moved his palm toward the door. When Hamon''s palm was just a few inches away from the door, an invisible force pulled his hand toward it. Hamon''s hand got stuck on the door. Hamon did not shout but seemed rtively calm. The door did not freak him out as much as the Dark Lord beside him did.
Hamon and Michael waited for the door to open. However, Mciahel was pretty surprised and, to be honest, startled. It seemed to him like Hamon had a way of opening the vault all this time, yet he waited for no reason.
"You can open the vault door?" asked Michael. He wanted to confirm Hamon''s stupidity.
"Yes," Hamon nodded.
Michael couldn''t keep his hands from pping the back of Hamon''s head. Hamin was pretty startled but kept his hand on the door.
"You had a way to open the vault door all this time, and you decided not to take the elven rune and kill Tannatar until now?" asked Michael.
"It''s not my fault he and his wife couldn''t have a child for almost eighty years, give or take," Hamon shrugged.
To Hamon''s surprise, Michael chuckled.
"So you were waiting for them to have children as much as them? It''s funny, but I do admire your patience," Michael smiled. When Hamon saw the smile on the Dark Lord''s face, he was truly surprised. His smile brought such warmth to Hamon''s heart and almost made Hamon wonder why in the hell everyone was afraid of this guy. He looked so friendly and good-looking with a smile. Michael did his best to keep the pressure of being the Dark Lord gets to him. He didn''t want to end up like his previous self, who had to reset the entire universe to fix his mistakes.
A few minutester, the gears finally stopped as Michael noticed the runes fading away. Michael did not care about how Hamon managed to disable the runes and the mechanisms. All he cared about was the elven rune within the vault. The vault door creaked. It slowly slid open, revealing a room surrounded by four marble walls. The vault was a meter thick. It would weigh at least a tone. Michael realized why no one opted for breaking the vault door using explosives. It would take a nuclear warhead to destroy this one.
In the center of the room, Michael saw a golden te hovering in the air within an energy shield. There was a glowing rune on the golden te. It suddenly pulsated a wave of energy as though it had sensed something. At that same time, the rune on Hamon''s palm produced an otherworldly whistling noise. The golden te moved toward Hamon but was stopped by the energy shield. Hamon''s legs turned to jelly, seeing the rune after so many years. He slowly took a step forward. On the other hand, Michael walked toward the elven rune to find a way to free it from the energy shield.
Michael''s eyes flickered. He activated the X-ray vision to locate the source that was powering the energy shield. Michael noticed a purple heat wave running from the ground below the golden te into the wall on the other side. Michael made his way to the wall and ran his fingers through the wall. He knocked on the wall for a moment to gauge how thick these walls were. The dark mes coiled around Michael''s fist. He was about to punch the wall when he sensed several beings on their way to the vault.
Michael slowly turned around to wee the party while Hamon walked toward the rune in slow motion.
"Hamon!"
Suddenly, a dominant voice echoed through the empty vault. The voice snapped Hamon out of his daze. His body became rigid. Hamon slowly turned around. Hamon''s mind went nk when he saw Tannatar and his royal guards at the vault doorway. Michael wondered what made Tannatar ignore his children and return to the vault until he saw a glow on his hand. If Michael had to guess, he would say Tannatar had another rune on his hand. In a blink of an eye, Michael appeared behind Tannatar. The soldiers were caught off guard by his speed. Before they could react, Michael shut the vault door, trapping Tannatar alone in the vault with them. Normally, it would take spells and special arrays to shut the door coles because it was too damn heavy. But to Michael, this steel door was no different than a wooden door in a tavern.
Even the Half Immortals of the same level as him didn''t possess such godly strength. His raw strength was another perk of being a god. Tannatar was startled.
"My Lord!"
"Open this door!"
"Lord Tannatar!"
The soldiers shouted from outside, yet only Michael could hear them. To Hamon and Tannatar, it was all silence.
"What''s the meaning of this Hamon? And who is this?" Tannatar pointed at Michael, who returned to the ce he was a second ago.
"What the hell are you not in the lonely mountain?" Hamon bbered in shock.
"Wait¡how do you know-" Tannatar held his words as realization hit him.
"What did you do?!" Tannatar dashed at Hamon with uncontroble rage. He grabbed Hamon by his cor and shook him.
"Tell me you had nothing to do with my kids being taken away?" Tannatar growled at Hamon. He didn''t want to believe Hamon betrayed him. He had known Hamon for almost seventy years. Tannatar thought of Hamon as his own family.
"Yes, I took them!" Hamon roared, pushing Tannatar to the ground. Michael witnessed their feud without lifting a finger. The golden te with the elven rune drew his attention the most. He felt familiar energy from the te, which seemed strange to Michael. It would have been easy to scan the te with the system if it didn''t go offline. Since it wasn''t the case, Michael had to rely on himself.
? It almost felt like there was something powerful hiding within the golden te. When Michael focused on it, he heard a low-pitched roaring from the te. This roar was filled with rage like a wounded beast was trapped within.
"How do I feel when you took everything from me?!" Hamon lunged at Tannatar before he could get to his feet. Hamon got on top of Tannatar and punched him in the face. Tannatar grabbed Hamon''s neck and rolled over, turning the tables on Hamon. But Tannatar did not punch Hamon. He was more shocked and stunned than he was furious.
"I treated you like my family!"
"You killed my entire family!" Once again, Hamon roared. He scratched Tannatar''s hands, tearing his robes.
"Okay, I had enough," Michael rolled his eyes. He just waved his hand as Hamon and Tannatar sted away from each other. They hit the walls opposite each other. They tried to free themselves, but a powerful invisible force held them to the wall.
"You have to listen to Hamon''s story first," Michael said to Tannatar. Michael flicked his wrist as Tannatar couldn''t open his mouth. He felt like an invisible hand keeping his mouth shut.
"Hamon, tell him what he did to you. Get everything off of your chest," Michael turned his gaze to Hamon. It didn''t take Hamon long to spew the same story he told Michael. Only this time, his tone was filled with more rage and murderous intent. While recalling his story for the second time, blood trickled down from Hamon''s nose. Tannatar''s eyes widened and filled with shock. When Hamon finished his story, Michael noticed Tannatar''s eyes watering up. Michael was surprised. Tannatar''s eyes didn''t look like a killer''s. Michael had seen enough killers to know Tannatar may be innocent.
Michael now wanted to hear Tannatar''s side of the story. Hence, he shut Hamon''s mouth and let Tannatar speak.
"I didn''t kill Airdan¡" Tannatar''s voice stuttered.
"He was my best friend," tears gushed out of Tannatar''s eyes. Hamon roared, but no words came out of his mouth.
"He gave this elven rune to protect it because he suspected someone was nning to steal it and use it for nefarious purposes," Tannatar sobbed.
"Now that''s a twist," Mcihael''s brows arched up.
"I''d rather die than murder my best friend. If Airdan wanted my life, I would have given it to him dly," said Tannatar.
Michael took a deep breath. He looked at Hamon,
"Seems like you want to know his side of the story,"
To be honest, Michael wanted to know Tannatarr''s part of the story more than Hamon wanted. He spent a year in the Genric family as Elmer, so Michael felt a little bit ofpassion toward the Genric family. At the same time, he felt Hamon''s actions were somewhat justifiable after learning what Tannatar did to Hamlets. However, Michael''s thoughts changed when Tannatarpletely denied killing Airdan Hamlet and stealing the elven rune.
"Your kids are safe. Just tell him your side of the story," Michael said to Tannatar. Tannatar believed thisplete stranger for some reason. After taking a few deep breaths, Tannatar began to tell what happened between Airdan and him before he departed for Awor from the Ozer continent. Tannatar''s storypletely contradicted Hamon''s part of the story. ording to him, Airdan Hamlet, the house head of the Hamlet family, asked Tannatar to take the elven rune and leave for the Awor continent. He suspected someone within the Hamlet family was nning to take the elven rune and present it to none other than the Dark Lord himself. It was shocking, to say the least. Michael was caught off guard. Initially, Tannatar refused to do that, but Airdan insisted, giving him no choice. As a lonely adventurer, Tannatar had no family then. So he agreed to take the elven rune away to save Airdan''s family. But he never thought his entire family would be wiped out by a gue that only affected the Hamlets. Even after founding the Genric family, Tannatar did not stop looking for survivors. Unfortunately, he found no one and concluded the entire Hamlet family was wiped out.
"So someone from the order was living with the Hamlets," Michael sighed. He knew he or she probably died from the strange sickness that hit Hamlets. But Michael couldn''t figure out how Airdan learned about the order member''s n. Michael refused to believe they were sloppy enough to let Airdan learn about their n. The members of the order were extremely cautious and cunning. They survived centuries without being discovered by the Guardian Guild or the Skyhall. So how could Airdan, a mere lord of a family find them? Something told Michael there was more to the story than Hamon and Tannatar told him. Unfortunately, Michael doubted either of them knew the full story behind Airdan''s decision.
Chapter 763 A God鈥檚 Judgement
((Happy New Year My dear readers. As my tiny gift to you all, I will mass release 5 chapter on 5th January 2023. May you receive all the blessings from the god))
Tannatar and Hamon were both in shock after hearing each other''s story. Either of them couldn''t believe what the other had gone through over the years. Michael believed Tannatar''s story as much as he believed Hamon''s. While they were silent, staring at each other, Michael punched the wall. The entire wall trembled as dust and pieces of ceiling crumbled down. Tannatar yelled at Michael, but he ignored the elf and continued to punch the wall. The wall was at least two or three-meter in width. Usually, it would take special equipment and runes to prate the wall. But to Michael, his fist was more than enough. The vault continued to tremble as dust crumbled down from above.
"Stop!" Tannatar shouted at Michael. As someone who built the walls, Tannatar knew why Michael was punching the wall in that certain ce. After punching a hole in the wall, Michael noticed a blue rune glowing within the wall. Michael opened his palm as a stream of dark mes shot to the rune. Under the scorching heat of the dark me, the rune faded away. As the rune disappeared, the shield around the elven rune flickered. It lost a bit of its glow. Michael scanned the room for more runes. He counted three more.
"Hamon, who the hell is that? You have to tell him to stop," Tannatar yelled at Hamon.
"I can''t," Hamon shook his head. Hamon''s mind was in a mess. After hearing Tannatar''s story, everything he believed turned out to be false. At that moment, Hamon''s entire life felt pointless. He couldn''t care less about the elven rune. Meanwhile, Michael reached another wall and started punching it like before. The soldiers tried to break the vault door from outside. Michael heard them yell at each other, trying to force their way in using siege machines.
Once again, Michael saw a rune within the wall. He simply destroyed the rune with his dark mes. The shield flickered as its shone dimmer and dimmer. Tannatar struggled against the invisible force binding him to the wall. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t escape. He even tried to cast a spell, only to fail. The force prevented him frompleting his spell. Michael, on the other hand,pletely ignored Tannatar and Hamon.
When Michael started to punch the wall covering thest rune, Tannatar screamed at him as loud as he could. Michael created a hole deep enough to explode the rune with a couple of punches. His fist turned blood red. Punching still hurt his fist despite covering his fist with the dark mes. If anyone else tried to punch the wall, they would have ended up with a broken hand. The final rune glimmered with a tinge of crimson red. Just like before, Michael destroyed the rune with his dark mes. The ck mes coiled around the rune like a snake and vaporized it. Atst, the shield covering the golden te with the elven rune fell down on the ground.
Michael made his way to the golden te and picked it up from the ground. The golden te pulsated with strange energy. Suddenly, a powerful st of grayish energy sted Michael away. Michael was caught off guard. He flew onto the wall behind him and hit it with a loud thud. His hands went numb. Michael quickly picked himself up to see a strand of purplish me seep out of the golden te.
"A primordial me," The me glowed brighter and brighter. To Michael''s surprise, the mes formed a creepy smiley face in the air. As though the Dark mes had some kind of hostility toward the strange primordial me, the dark mes shot out of Michael''s body. The dark mes produced an otherworldly hissing sound. Michael felt like the two mes wanted to kill each other. He could literally feel the Dark mes'' hatred toward this new primordial me. Michael dashed at the purple me to absorb it somehow. However, the purple messhed at Michael. He quickly jumped, flipping in the air to avoid the me waves.
He immediately cast Silenes to slow the time around him. He wanted to catch the purple me. However, the primordial me did not get affected by the spell. It shot flew above, prating through the ceiling as though it was made of form. Michaelnded right above the hole. He looked up at the hole to see nothing but the sky. The primordial me prated through the manor and flew away.
"Damn it system," Michael cursed the system. If it was online, Michael could have absorbed the primordial mes. Since the primordial mes would choose its host as a sentient being, Michael had a feeling the mes were on their way to finding a suitable host.
"What the fuck was a primordial me doing inside this?" Michael picked up the golden te with the elven rune on it. After the primordial me escaped, the elven rune did not pulsate any powerful energy waves. Michael put the elven rune inside his space ring before turning his gaze back at Hamon and Tannatar.
"Did you know what that was?" Michael asked them.
They looked just as confused as Michael. He sighed. He walked toward Hamon.
"He was telling the truth. The me you saw had powerful energy radiation. Your family spent years in this radiation. So when he took the golden te with these mes trapped within, the energy radiation disappeared. Your bodies and souls couldn''t adapt to living without this energy radiation. Hence, the sickness. Simply put, the real culprit is the mes trapped within the golden te," Michael exined to Hamon.
However, Hamon''s eyes glimmered with doubt. It made sense. After all, Hamon spent his entire life believing Tannatar betrayed him and his family. That kind of hatred wouldn''t go away so easily with a few words.
"You lost a family long ago but gained a new one here. There is no reason for you to seek revenge anymore," said Michael. Normally, Michael would avoid giving advice or putting his nose into someone else''s business. But Michael lived with Hamon and the Genric family for a year. He had a soft spot for them. Unlike Maxim and his family, Tannatar did no wrong to Hamon. Michael wished Hamon to embrace his new life and let go of the pointless anger. Judging by Tannatar''s look in his eyes, he was willing to forget and forgive what Hamon did. The question was will Hamon change?
Michael waved his hands as both Tannatar and Hamon fell from the wall. They breathed heavily. Michael turned his gaze toward Tannatar.
"I will take the elven rune from you," said Michael.
"You can''t. Give it back!" Tannatar dashed at Michael without a second thought. Michael simply raised his hand, sending a wave of wind to knock out Tannatar. The gust of wind sted Tannatar onto the wall. Tannatar growled in pain. He even coughed up blood. If Michael didn''t hold back his power, a simple wave of wind could have killed Tannatar. After purifying his body with pills and potions refined by him, his power skyrocketed. It even freaked out Michael. He actually had to hold back most of the time to avoid identally killing his foes.
Hamon didn''t lift a finger. Michael saw the lingering hatred in Hamon''s eyes and sighed inside.
"Don''t do anything stupid, Tannatar. I can take this rune and go away peacefully or take it after I ughter your entire family. The choice is yours," lightning bolts crackled around Michael''s wrist. The mere mention of Tannatar''s family made him back off.
"This elven rune was a burden for both of you. Be d I am taking it off your hands. Don''t make me kill you all," Michael threatened Tannatar. The aura Michael released made Tannatar tremble in fear. Not a single word escaped the elf''s mouth. Meanwhile, Hamon stood there like a statue waiting for the Dark Lord to leave.
"Hamon," Michael turned his head.
He looked at Michael but avoided direct eye contact. Suddenly, Michael grabbed Hamon and lifted him off by his neck. Tannatar''s heart skipped a beat. He dashed at Michael,
"Let him go," Tannatar yanked Michael''s hands.
"Should I kill him for you Hamon?" Michael asked Hamon. When Tannatar heard these words, he stepped back from Mcihael in fear.
Hamon did not answer Michael right away. Instead, he took a few moments and hesitated to say no.
"Some people never let go," Michael threw Hamon away. Michael simply pointed his finger as a golden lightning bolt shot out of his fingertip. In a blink of an eye, the lightning bolt went straight through Hamon''s head. Since Hamon was too weak, his entire body exploded into a red mist in the air. The blood sttered across the room, painting the walls and floor red. Tannatar''s mind went nk. Not a single piece of flesh hit the ground. Blood slowly trickled down from the ceiling. After the red mist settled down, Tannatar came to his senses.
"Why¡why did you kill him?" Tannatar growled at Michael. Before Tannatar could do something stupid, Mcihael flicked his wrist, keeping Tannatar still.
"His hatred for you and your family runs too deep. Sooner orter, he might have flipped and killed you all. I killed him so you won''t have to,"
"He could have changed. He just needed time," Tannatar shouted at Michael. His eyes turned blood red due to all the suppressed rage and fury.
"Life is not rainbows and unicorns, Tannatar. If he did change, which I don''t believe he would, you would all be a family again. But what if he didn''t? What if he still wants to hurt you? Then, you won''t have a family to be together with," said Michael.
Tannatar shook his head,
''It wasn''t your call. Who are you to decide whether he lives or not? You are not a god!" Tannatar shouted as loud as he could.
"I am," Michael simply said. He didn''t bother wasting his time exining it to Tannatar. The elf may have held a grudge against him, but Michael knew he had done the right thing. Over the past year, The Genric family treated him like he was their own. Michael felt grateful toward them. He just settled his debt by ensuring the Genric family''s survival.
Chapter 764 Hell Flames
"You have a lot to learn and improve if you are going to match him, baby girl," said Adelia. Gaya breathed heavily several meters before Adelia. The training ground behind the castle had several cracks in the ground. The mother and daughter duo barely held back in a mock battle between the two. Although Gaya used almost all her power, she couldn''t defeat her mother.
"No one can match him. He is a god," Gaya growled.
"That''s not an excuse. He wasn''t always the god. He trained and fought hard to get to this point," said Adelia.
Nightmare and Vedora gawked at Adelia and Gaya. They missed having a bowl of popcorn and snacks to watch them bicker and fight. Nightmareughed, seeing Gaya getting her ass kicked by her mother. In the dark army, only Adelia could defeat Gaya in a battle. Even when Adelia suppressed her cultivation to match Gaya, she still defeated Gaya without breaking a sweat.
"I trained him. Well, mostly," Gaya rolled her eyes.
"Why don''t you challenge him to a duel when he returns?" asked Gaya.
"It''d be a great motivation for me to see you get defeated for once,"
"You want your mother to fight the Dark Lord? I never thought you had a grudge against me," Adelia sighed.
Gaya sighed and threw the sword in her hand,
"It''s not like that mother," Gaya gently smiled. Gaya was about to go to her mother and embrace her when a bolt of lightning hit the training ground. Gaya and Adelia were startled by the sudden lightning bolt strike. To their surprise, they saw Michael where the lightning had just struck.
"How are my two favoritedies in the world?" asked Michael as they all dashed at Michael. Nightmare shrunk himself and leaped onto him with Vedora. Nightmare and Vedora showered Michael with wet kisses. It had been a year since they saw Michael.
Michael rubbed their chin as he turned his gaze toward Gaya. He opened his arms, waiting for her to embrace him tightly. Gaya hugged him as her face lit up with joy. She buried her head in his chest like a little girl. For a few moments, Michael stayed in this group hug.
"I missed you, bastard," Gaya purred.
"What do you mean, miss me? We just met a week ago," Gaya smiled. Even though Michael pretended to be Elmer in the Genric family, he asionally met Gaya by teleporting to the floating mountain in the dark ocean. He was grateful that the runic teleportation worked while the system was offline.
"Shut up for a moment," Gaya punched him in the chest and dragged this lovely moment as long as she could. Finally, after a minute or two, Adelia cleared her throat to disband the hug.
She knelt down to pay her respect when she saw the Dark Lord''s gaze fall on her,
"You don''t have to do this. We are family," said Michael. Vedora jumped onto Michael''s shoulder. After a year, Vedora and Nightmare both grew in size and power. They were just a few months of cultivation away from reaching the Fusion stage.
''I swore to serve you as your servant long before you met Gaya, my lord. So it''s my duty to bow my head and kneel down," said Adelia.
"Oh,e on, mother. Don''t make him pull ranks on you and order you not to do this," Gaya rolled her eyes.
"You can do this until we get married. After that, you''ll officially be my mother-inw, and then, you have to stop all this,"
"Are you ordering me, my lord?" Adelia asked with a yful look.
"Not yet," Michael smiled.
Finally, Adelia rose to her feet as Michael let go of Gaya. Nightmare jumped onto Michael''s other shoulder and swapped his tail around Michael''s neck. Michael looked around the floating mountain and saw the castle construction work in the distance. The waterfall behind the construction site proudly flowed from atop the sword-shaped mountain peak. He noticed the vampires patrolling the floating mountain as Saber instructed them.
Thanks to Mugashuku, the dark ocean became a perfect safe haven for Michael. Looking at the dark storm clouds above him and the continuous lightning storm, Michael wondered if he had lived in the ce before he reset the universe. This ce was simply perfect. The only drawback was transporting construction materials to the ind by ships. At the moment, they had portals to let people go in and out of the mountain. However, these portals failed to transport goods and materials. He needed the system''s help to find a solution to this problem.
He slowly walked toward the construction site with Adelia and Gaya by his side.
"Did you get the elven rune?" asked Gaya.
"Yes," said Michael. Gaya felt a strange concern in his voice.
"Something happened?"
Michael nodded.
"I found the elven rune, but I also found a Primordial me," everyone was surprised by Michael''s words.
"Did you absorb it?" asked Ayag, only to see Michael shake his head.
"It escaped," said Michael.
"Wait, you have the Dark mes. Rowena has the Cold mes. I saw Noah use Heavenly mes. That makes three primordial mes. It''s safe to assume there is a Light me since you have the Dark mes. This means the primordial me that escaped your grasp must be the Hell mes," said Gaya.
Michael shared the same thoughts too. But one question kept nagging Michael''s brain regarding the Primordial mes.
"If Noah has the Heavenly mes, who has the Light me? Has it found a host yet? If Noah is the God of Light, the Light mes will choose Noah,"
"That''s not always the case, my lord," Adelia interjected.
"What do you mean?" Ayag turned her gaze toward Adelia.
"Let''s just say someone has found the Light mes before Noah and you were born, then the Light mes have to choose a host. One of three things must have happened. One, no one has found the Light mes yet, and they are still trapped somewhere. Second, Noah possesses both Heavenly mes and the Light mes. Third, someone else has absorbed the Light mes,"
Michael listened to Adelia in silence. After spending time with Adelia, Michael learned where Gaya got her intelligence from. Adelia had both the brains and power. A deadlybination. He hadn''t seen her fight with his own eyes, but he knew everyone in his army feared Adelia as much as they feared Gaya.
"How''s your search for the arrows going?" asked Michael. When Adelia first came to the mountain, she already had one god-killing arrow. Ever since then, Michael ordered her to find more of these arrows. Apparently, the system level was too low to find more of these arrows. Hence, Michael had to rely on old methods.
Michael didn''t know there were a total of seven arrows in total. Noah had already found one, and thanks to Adelia, Michael had one. Which meant there were five more arrows yet to be found. Michael knew whoever held these arrows would have the ultimate power. Michael wanted them to be with him if these arrows could kill a god.
But finding these arrows proved to be extremely difficult. Michael assigned the task to his best and most powerful subordinate, Adelia Ashton. Michael didn''t trust anyone with the arrow he had in the space ring, not even Elidyr. Instead, he waited for the system toe online so he could learn more about these arrows. Not a single day passed without Michael cursing the system for being offline for such a long time. In fact, he actually missed the system''s snarkyments more than he missed its power.
"I might have found a clue about the next arrow. But I need some time," said Adelia. Saber contributed the most to Adelia''s search for these arrows. The elder vampire was extremely resourceful and had contacts almost everywhere. Thanks to him, Adelia received a tip about an ancient artifact in a ce called the devil''s pit. Unfortunately, the ce was crawling with Guardians. Hence, Adelia was still nning to explore the ce without alerting the guardians. Now that the Dark Lord was here, she could ask for his help.
"Whatever you need, I am here," said Michael.
"I have a surprise for you," Gaya wanted to take Michael''s mind off things like the god-killing arrows and wanted to lighten up his mood. She had the perfect gift for him to make him smile.
"Lead the way," Michael let Gaya lead the way to the castle. Eventually, they all reached the construction site where several dwarves and orcs worked. When they saw Michael, they quickly bowed. Their eyes glimmered with fear and respect.
ording to Gaya, the castle would take at least two more years to finish. Fortunately, they prioritized a few rooms, such as Elidyr''s workshop, store room, Michael''s room, and Nightmare''s room, where Vedroa stayed. Of course, these rooms were temporary until the dwarves could finish the castle. Michael bought the castle n for three million badass points. This was one of his most expensive purchases to date. However, it was not aplete n. The system offered him ns and blueprints for various defense systems he could build upon the castle. By the time Michaelpletely finishes the castle, it will be the strongest stronghold in the world. To be honest, Michael couldn''t wait to see his castle in itsplete form. He spared no expense to get the best materials and runes in the construction. He kidnapped the best dwarven engineers and builders to build his castle. At first, these dwarves refused to work for the Dark Lord, but after some persuasion and a handsome wage, they finally agreed. It was the carrot. The stick was their families. If they refused to work for Michael, Gaya would have kidnapped their families and used them to force the dwarves. Fortunately, the dwarves picked the easy way.
They entered the castle through a hole in the ground since these rooms were built underground. The pathways were dimly lit with torches. Michael noticed holes in the ceiling for the chandeliers.
"Oh I forgot to mention, I called everyone in the order to have a meeting," said Gaya.
"They''d be here in a few hours,"
"Good," Michael appreciated Gaya''s initiative with a nod.
Chapter 765 Sudden Argument
Michael followed Gaya behind to enter his room. His room only had a work table for Michael to build new gadgets, a queen-sized bed for Gaya and him and a sofa set facing the firece. But at that moment, something was there, covered in red cloth. Micahel felt powerful energy pulses from whatever was inside the red cloth. Although Michael knew what''s inside. Yet Michael pretended he had no clue just for her happiness. She walked toward the thing with a dramatic walk.
"Are you ready?" asked Gaya.
"Surprise me," said Michael.
She slowly lifted off the red cloth, revealing a dark metal te. Tiny bolts of ck lightning crackled around the metal piece. Michael could hear the electricity buzzing. It felt like the metal piece was calling for Michael. The tiny lightning bolts reached out for Michael.
"Is this one of the armor pieces you were talking about?" Sarba asked. Vedora and Nightmare felt terrified by the sheer amount of energy they felt from the armor piece. A pity this was just a piece of the whole Dark Lord armor. Michael reached out to touch the armor. To his shock, the armor electrocuted Michael.
"Ouch," Michael quickly moved his hand away from the armor. His hand went numb.
"What happened?" Gaya was shocked. She didn''t expect the armor to shock him, literally.
"Don''t let anyone touch it," said Michael. Judging by the bolt of energy that went into his body, he could tell it had enough power to kill even a Soul Refiner. Michael noticed dimly glowing runes hidden in the dark armor. The armor looked tattered and contained several cracks, scratches, and cuts. It was obvious this armor had seen hundreds of battles.
Michael didn''t dare to try to touch the armor yet again.
"Weird," Gaya rubbed her chin.
"I thought you can touch the armor since it belongs to you,"
"Maybe we have to find every piece and make it whole again," Adelia shared her thoughts. Once again, Michael missed the damn system. If it was online, he could have easily scanned the armor piece and found out what was wrong with it.
"One thing is for sure. I cannot use it now," Michael sighed.
"How many pieces are there?" asked Sarba.
"Six more pieces," said Nightmare.
As they were staring at the armor, Azazel appeared behind Michael.
"My lord, you are back,"
Michael turned around to see Azazel bow his head deeply. Azazel was at the Fusion stage level 6. Once Michael had reached the Immortal stage, Azazel would be able to reach the Half Immortal stage. Luckily, Azazel didn''t have to go through heavenly tribtion. Michael didn''t know why but he knew it was something to do with Azazel''s demon race.
"d to see me?" asked Michael as Azazel nodded.
"It''s my blessing to see you, my lord,"
Michael chuckled.
"When did you be such a sweet talker? Are you in love or something?"
Azazel awkwardly smiled without knowing how to answer Michael.
"Speaking of love, where is Ricky?" Gaya asked Azazel.
"He just returned," answered Azazel.
"Is he still stalking Olivia?" asked Michael.
Gaya creased her brows.
"It''s not stalking humans. He is in love with her,"
"Except she made her choice to leave him," said Michael. He may have epted Olivia''s decision not to follow him, but he was disappointed in her. He would be lying if he said otherwise. For the first time, Michael noticed the loyalty level go from ny-plus to sixty percent.
Ricky was the one who got affected the most by Olivia''s decision. He almost felt pity for Ricky. Gaya even asked Ricky to go with Olivia, but Ricky respectfully refused to leave the Dark Lord''s side. Who knew the gate guards Michael met at River town would be willing to give their lives for him? Certainly not Michael.
They even brought their families with them and put them in Gisel. With Caius''s aid, their families livedfortably under the Dark Lord''s protection.
"So what? He still loves her, and I know she loves him too," Gaya argued with Michael. Seeing her bicker with the Dark Lord himself made Adelia chuckle inside. Even before the marriage, she started to act like an angry wifu.
"So you''re telling me she''s with Ricky?" Michael calmly asked Gaya.
"No,"
"Then she doesn''t love him enough," said Michael. As soon as Gaya heard these words, her eyes glimmered with anger.
"Are you messing with me right now?" she growled.
"We should go," Adelia grabbed Nightmare and Vedora from Michael''s shoulders.
"Hey, let us go. It''s getting good," Ayag hissed at Adelia. Azazel followed Adelia behind and closed the door on his way out.
"Nope," Michael shook his head.
Like any man in the world, Michael failed toprehend Gaya''s thoughts. He might be a god, but he stillcked the power to understand a womanpletely.
"You are being aplete asshole Michael," said Gaya. She seldom addressed Michael by his first name. But whenever she did, she was furious at Michael.
"Okay, I am confused. What does Olivia leaving Ricky have anything to do with me? She made her choice,"
"It has everything to do with you. He chose loyalty over love because of you, the Dark Lord. You can''t me Olivia. Not everyone will follow you without a second thought," Gaya growled. Everyone thought Gaya was cold, but in reality, she cared about all the subordinates. Ever since Olivia left Ricky, she has been watching over Ricky by keeping him busy. Although Gaya knew of Ricky''s secret visit to Olivia, she allowed him, hoping Olivia would change her mind and ept Ricky. As a queen, it was in her blood to care for her subjects. On the other hand, Michael barely lifted a finger. As far as he was concerned, Olivia made her choice, and Ricky had to ept her decision and move on.
"I cannot force her to follow me either. She made her choice and should be grateful that I didn''t end her life by leaving my side after everything I had done for her," said Michael.
"Why are you suddenly being so strange?" asked Michael.
"I am not being strange. I just can''t believe you think you arepletely meless in Ricky''s case,"
"So what do you want me to do? Go to Olivia and force her toe with me?"
"No," Gaya shook her head.
"How about you start giving a shit about Ricky and his feelings? For god sake, he left the love of his life for you. The least you can do is ept you had a hand in the mess," Gaya raised her voice.
"And how dare you call his love stalking? What if I left you? Will you give a shit or let me go?" Gaya punched Michael in the shoulder. Finally, Michael started to grasp where the anger wasing from. To be honest, Michael didn''t know what to do if Gaya left him. However, he wouldn''t cry or destroy himself like many for sure. Instead of worrying about what he would do after she left him, Michael would ensure she didn''t leave him.
"First, you won''t leave me, and I won''t let you. Second of all, we are not them. We don''t have any secrets between us, except one that I told you not to ask me about," Michael said, gently wrapping his arm around her shoulder. He noticed Gaya rolling the engagement ring on her finger.
"You cannotpare us with other couples. Didn''t I tell you Ricky could go with Olivia if he wished to? Both Ricky and Olivia made their choices. We cannot force Olivia to be with Ricky. And you are right," Michael took a deep breath.
"They broke up because of me,"
Michael saw no advantage in keep denying it or arguing with her. Gaya''s actions made him realize she was mad at him. To be honest, she was right to be so. It was he who refused to marry her when she asked him to. He wanted to be stronger and grow his army before marrying her. It was bad enough that he refused to have any kids any time soon but postponing the marriage was just crossing Gaya''s patience.
Now he realized Gaya had taken the rejection badly. Michael was too busy to care about her feelings, which Michael regretted.
"And I am not going to make any more excuses. I will marry you in six months. On the same day, I met you first," Michael said. He didn''t take this decision on the fly or to calm her down but with his whole heart. He dragged the marriage thing long enough. Granted, Michael promised her to give the throne of Nagnd before the marriage, but Gaya wasn''t interested in the throne anymore. She realized she could rule the entire world from Michael''s side. Why did she have to settle for one kingdom when she could rule the entire world? Besides, Gaya wanted to marry Michael more than anything in the world. She wanted to be his side, not as the Dark Queen but as his wife.
Gaya was startled by his words. Her eyes glimmered with joy and shock. Before she could say something, Michael locked his lips with her. He didn''t want to argue anymore. He swooped Gaya from the ground and moved to the bed.
******************************************
A few hourster, Michael exited his room wearing his Dark Lord armor. Gaya quickly tied her hair and followed him behind to the meeting hall. Michael promised Gaya when the timees, he would talk to Olivia and exin things better to her for Ricky''s sake.
They patched things up on the bed and returned to their normal selves. Eventually, after navigating through the dark pathways, Michael and Gaya reached the meeting hall. He heard people buzzing inside. Michael waited outside for a moment before opening the door. Unlike before, Michael did not wear any mask to hide his face. Even after a year, showing his true self to others felt weird. He took a deep breath and finally opened the door. Inside the hall, everyone turned their gazes to the door. The entire hall fell silent as soon as theyid their eyes on him. Every one of his subordinates attended the meeting as they were ordered to.
"My Lord," Azazel came to Michael''s side.
"Everyone is here, my lord,'' said Azazel.
"We shall start then," said Gaya.
Chapter 766 Each With Their Own Problem I
When everyone inside the hall saw Michael, they became silent. They quickly dropped to their knees to show their respect. Sadie''s eyes glistened with shock. She still couldn''t believe Ghost was the Dark Lord all this time, and she shared the bed with the Dark Lord himself. Thinking about that, she both felt terrified and funny. Michael made his way to the long table in the center. His throne, made of skull and bones, was located in the front beside Gaya''s throne. Michael sat on his throne, putting one leg atop another.
"Take your seats," said Gaya before sitting beside Michael. All of Michael''s subordinates took their seats. They looked a bit scared more than usual, seeing Michael almost after a year. Every single one of them heard what had transpired on the Ithn ind. Just like the rest of the world, they were scared too. After all, Michael ughtered Half Immortals and Immortals as though they were nothing. To this date, Michael received badass points whenever someone gets afraid of what Michael did at Ithn. It passively generated Michael with badass points.
In addition to Michael''s subordinates, he noticed a few new faces. These new faces were the ministers working for Michael''s subordinates. Among these, some familiar faces stared at Michael with shock and awe. For now, Michael ignored them.
"We will initiate the new members into the order after this meeting," said Gaya.
"How is everyone doing?" Michael asked his subordinates.
"Very well,"
"Good,"
"Fine, thanks to you, Dark Lord,"
His subordinates answered him with respect.
"I am d to hear that. I was gone for a year, so I want to hear what you did in that time," Michael nced over at his subordinates.
"Let''s start with you, Tiberius, King of War," Michael turned his gaze toward Tiberius. Physically, Tiberius looked healthy, glowing, and with more muscles. He wore fancy robes suitable for a king rather than a warrior. The cultivation device made by Michael and Elidyr glimmered around his wrist. The device resembled a silver wristwatch with something glowing in the center. It was built with intricate parts and runes that turned arch energy crystals into pure energy and helped Michael''s subordinates cultivate even within the void line. This device was the most precious and powerful thing an order member could have. Only those who swore their loyalty directly to Michael received this device. Each device was equipped with a self-destruction rune. In case, someone else got their hands on the device, it would explode into pieces, leaving nothing behind.
Because of the Cosmic energy coursing through his veins and the device around his wrist, Tiberius managed to reach the Fusion stage level 5. Michael was happy with Tiberius''s cultivation progress. In fact, no one disappointed him. Tiberius took a deep breath,
"I''ve been building an army as I was ordered. Frend is growing faster than I initially expected. Since we haven''t faced a war, our armycks real battle experience," said Tiberius. Although they had arge army, most soldiers in the army didn''t fight in a real battle. Without fighting a real battle, they would still be novices when ites to war. Unfortunately, no one had the guts to wage war against the Frend ruled by Tiberius. The biggest reason was Gisel''s rapid growth in power. Gaya''s leadership and the resources Gisel received from the order made Gisel stronger than any other kingdom ruled by a senate.
On top of that, Maven became a part of Gisel, making Gisel the biggest kingdom in the Southern continent. Among the seven kingdoms in the Southern continent, Maven and Gisel became one. As a result, seven kingdoms became six kingdoms.
"With King of the Night, Saber''s help, we managed to broker peace between Prerid and Miral. So we didn''t need to send out troops to fight Prerid," said Tiberius. General Quintus worked for Fabia, who was working for Saber, so General Quintus became Michael''s subordinate without him knowing. Gaya talked about initiating Quintus into the order as he was a fierce warrior and could be a valuable asset to them. However, Michael needed time to assess everyone''s opinion of Quintus. He invaded Aria''s homnd and turned them into ves. Plus, he killed Heinberg, which gained Tiberius''s wrath. Therefore, they might not be so weing to Quintus. In fact, Michael wouldn''t be surprised if Aria or Tiberius wanted Quintus dead. At that time, Michael would have to end Quintus''s life not to piss his subordinates off, especially Aria, whose life was turned upside down because of him.
"As for Qiven, Xoral and Netis,"
"If you don''t know about these kingdoms, these kingdoms are called Trident of the Southern continent, ruled by kings instead of senates," Gaya exined to the neers.
"Continue," said Gaya as Tiberius went on.
"They don''t meddle with the senate-ruled kingdoms,"
"If I may, Dark Lord," Sadie raised her hand,
"I heard the three kings had met each other in secret. Also, I''ve been hearing from my girls each kingdom is bolstering its military and defense," said Sadie. As the Queen of Whispers, she was tasked to learn what was happening in the world as much as she could using the Silvermoon girls. Sadie recruited girls and sent them to every single kingdom in the world, to learn rumors and information from the nobles. The Silvermoon girls were extremely efficient in gathering information and secrets from drunken nobles. Under their charm and beauty, the nobles opened up, and secrets flowed out of their mouths like a river.
"Do you know why they met?" asked Gaya.
"Not yet, Dark Queen. But I put my best girls to work. We will have something soon," said Sadie.
"As I was saying, they don''t meddle with the senate-ruled kingdoms. In other words, we do not have anyone to wage war on. An unused de will eventually go blunt. So I''d like to request the undead to fight, Dark Lord," Tiberius made an unusual request to Michael.
Michael thought about Tiberius''s request for a few moments. He certainly couldn''t go wage a war against a kingdom just to train his army. Even if the three kingdoms were bolstering their defense and army, it wasn''t enough to wage war against them. Sometimes, they might do this because of Michael''s existence in the Southern continent.
"Dr," Michael turned his gaze toward the orc at the table.
"I can definitely spare some undead for training, Dark Lord. but where do I send them? We cannot let the world see our undead," said Dr.
"Cover them with armor," Michael simply said.
Michael remembered Gaya''s words about getting them a dedicated pocket dimension for their army to enter and train. Unfortunately, creating a pocket dimension was not that easy, even for a 6-star runemaster. Once again, the system could solve this problem if it didn''t go offline. But for now, covering the undead with armor had to do.
"That''s all for my part, Dark Lord," said Tiberius.
"Give a report about the army to herter," said Michael as Tiberius nodded.
After Tiberius finished his report, Michael turned his gaze toward Corey.
"Unfortunately, we are not lucky as King of War," Corey sighed.
"Our ships are getting attacked often by the Guardians and some unknown ships. They use a hit-and-run tactic," Corey''s eyes burned with frustration and anger.
"Unknown ships?" Michael tilted his head. He wasn''t surprised by the Guardian ships, unlike these unknown ships. One should fear the unknown the most, Michael recalled Spectre''s words in his mind.
"I ordered my men to catch one and interrogate them, but those bastards killed themselves before my men could catch them. The poison they used didn''t even spare their bodies. By the time my men reached them, there was nothing but ashes,"
Michael creased his brows hearing about these men.
"Next time you spot one of these ships, contact me immediately," said Michael.
"Yes, Dark Lord," Corey bowed.
"Is there something else?" Gaya asked after seeing the troubled look on Corey''s face.
"Sorry to be the bearer of problems, Dark Queen," Corey sighed.
"It''s okay. We are here to find solutions to problems. Tell me what''s bothering you?" asked Gaya.
"We need a safer port for our ships. I''ve been thinking if we could anchor our ships in the dark ocean, it''d be better,"
At the moment, the lightning storm and the climate in the dark ocean made it impossible for a ship to sail to the floating mountain. Instead, all the ships Corey had been building were anchored on her ind. The more ships she built, the more attention she drew from the Guardian Guild. Hence, Corey wanted a safer ce for the ships to anchor. What could be a better ce than the ce where the Dark Lord is?
"So you want our help with the lightning storm?" asked Gaya as Corey nodded. Gaya turned her head to see Ghost''s reaction. He remained as calm as ever. After a while, he opened his mouth.
"For a while, keep the ships on your ind. I will tell you when to sail in when the right timees," said Michael.
Michael had been thinking about shifting his naval army to the dark ocean for a while. However, the dark ocean''s weather stopped him from doing so. This was yet another problem that the system could solve. Although he was a god, he didn''t have the power to control the weather as much as he liked to.
The lightning storm and the weather made the floating mountain an imprable fortress. Disabling them would leave them vulnerable. Hence, Michael wanted to find a way for the ships to be immune to the lightning storm and the weather. Even Michael''s Big Bertha was anchored at Corey''s ind instead of the dark ocean. Ever since Michael went to the Genric family, he didn''t have enough time to equip Big Bertha with new weaponry. Now that Michael had acquired the elven rune and the system''s offline period would soone to an end, he could finally give the ship what it truly deserves.
"Yes, Dark Lord," Corey bowed.
"Have you seen the empress''s ships?" asked Michael. For some reason, Michael suddenly thought of the elven empress.
"No, Dark Lord," Corey shook her head.
After Corey, Michael looked at a familiar face. He couldn''t help smiling.
"How are you Eve?" asked Michael.
Chapter 767 Each With Their Own Problem II
Eve would have hugged him tight if it wasn''t for the crowd around her. She couldn''t care less about what the world was saying about Ghost. To her, he was the only one who helped her and her family when they needed help the most. He might be the Dark Lord to the world, but to her, he was her best friend. Michael''s warm smile spoke more than words.
"Should I address you, the Dark Lord as everyone else?" asked Eve.
"You know what, I will. After all, I decided to join your order,"
Michael knew better than to argue with her. To be honest, he was happy she made her decision to follow him. She chose him over her family and everyone she knew. That kind of friendship really warmed Michael''s heart.
"I won''t stop you then," Michael smiled.
Many of the subordinates saw Michael smile for the first time. It was a pity Eve couldn''t absorb the Cosmic energy. Regardless, she reached the Fusion stage with Michael''s abundant supply of potions and pills.
"Don''t let me stop your meeting. Carry on," said Eve as Michael nodded and turned his gaze to Gibson. After absorbing the Cosmic energy, even Gibson was able to break through into the Fusion stage.
"Dark Lord, Dark Queen," Gibson bowed toward Gaya and Michael,
"My fellow members of the order," Gibson showed respect toward the other members with the bow.
"I''ve been hunting down the rogue pirate ships as you ordered me to. Since I was blessed with the title of King of the Skies, I received enough supplies to build our very first airship. It''s far fromplete, but the construction is going on full swing. If I may ask, Dark Lord, I''d like our own shipyard to build our airships," Gibson requested Michael.
Gaya already mentioned to him Gibson was asking for a dedicated shipyard. Since they promised Gibson they would help himmand an air force, Michael was obliged to build Gibson more airships. But to build them, they needed special shipyards instead of the shipyards used to build ships that sail on water.
Luckily, the floating mountain came with an enormous amount ofnd. Michael could build an airship yard if he allocated enough gold coins to Gibson.
''Finish the first airship, and then you will have your own airship yard," said Michael.
"So have youe across any of these unknown ships that Corey mentioned?" asked Michael.
"Yes, Dark Lord. but the results were the same. Slippery bastards killed themselves and set fire to their ship before we could get to them,"
Michael rubbed his chin,
"Do the same as I told Corey. If you spot one, contact me ASAP,"
Gibson nodded. Michael then looked at Sadie as he wanted to hear how Sadie was doing.
"Sadie,"
Sadie cleared her throat before speaking.
"With my Fusion stage cultivation level, I am in the top five to be the next sect leader," Sadie proudly said.
"Who''s on the selection board? Have any ideas?" asked Gaya. Sadie''s eyes widened. Just the Dark Queen''s look was enough for Sadie to know what she was nning.
Sadie was speechless. But under the Dark Queen''s piercing gaze, Sadie had no choice but to tell her the truth.
"Elders, Sect Leader, and an ancestor of the Silvermoon founder," said Sadie.
"This ancestor, how strong is he?" asked Gaya.
"Immortal," said Sadie.
Michael thought about Sadie''s selection for a few moments. Although Sadie was proving to be a valuable asset, she could help him more if she was to be the Sect Leader.
"How confident are you to make the final cut?" asked Michael. Sadie hesitated for a moment which told Michael she wasn''t hundred percent confident. In other words, she needed his help. To Sadie''s surprise, Gaya had a strange smile on her face.
"Who is the most likely to be the next sect leader?" asked Gaya.
"ra, ra Galjanic. The Guardian guild is backing her,"
"Then let us worry about making you the next Sect Leader," said Gaya. She had already formed a n in her mind. These little things were beneath Michael''s attention. Hence, he let Gaya or someone else take care of it. After Sadie, Michael decided to talk to Aria. While he was in the Genric family, Gaya recruited rogue cultivators, adventurers, and some soldiers who deserted and turned them into fledgling assassins. Under Gaya''s training and Michael''s guidance, they became deadly assassins in no time. However, they still had a long way to go. These recruits were put under Aria and functioned as the new Assassin Guild.
Whenever a member of the order needed someone out of their way, they just had to contact Aria, and she would take care of the rest. If she was tasked to kill someone stronger than her, then she would request Gaya''s aid. Until now, Aria had never failed a contract put on someone.
"I have almost nothing to report, Dark Lord," said Aria. It wasn''t a surprise since Aria was tasked to search and kill. Most of the time, she would be in the floating mountain, training with her team. Michael simply nodded. Now that he had returned, Michael allocated some time to train Aria to make her a better assassin.
After Aria, Dr began to report to Michael.
"I am currently working on transforming a typical undead into an alpha undead. Thanks to the King of War and King of the Southern continent, I''ve been getting an ample supply of criminals," Dr said with a devilish grin. As he said, Tiberius and Caius secretly teleported criminals and scumbags in the Southern continent to the Crypt, where Dr transformed them into undead.
With the vampires and their blood samples. Dr was on the verge of creating a new breed of undead. Unfortunately, he needed more resources, such as gold coins and runes from Elidyr. His research was like a ck hole that kept sucking gold coins more and more. Anyone would have stopped funding Dr a long time ago. However, Gaya saw potential in his research. Hence, she kept funding their research.
? "Dark Lord, we need space for our undead army. The forest is running out of space,"
"Let me guess, you want your own pocket dimension," Michael chuckled.
"I will certainly appreciate it, Dark Lord," Dr scratched the back of his head.
"I bet you will," said Gaya.
After Dr, Michael continued talking to each subordinate of his. They all had their own needs and requests except Maxine. She had state-of-the-art mining equipment to mine arch energy crystals. With Mugashuku''s blessing, they mined deeper into stormville mountain. Every shipment was directly teleported to the dark ocean via a portal.
Titus and Optimus established a store that deals in information. They used the store to buy and sell information. It wasn''t a new idea in this world. For instance, Lord Information dealt exclusively with information. Titus and Optmius were interested in information regarding special items, artifacts, and powerful objects. They also made connections throughout Elon and Ozer to acquire rare goods for the order.
Michael spent almost two hours with his subordinates. After the meeting, Gaya went to another hall to initiate new members into the order, including Eve. While she was with the new recruits, Michael headed outside, looking for someone. When he reached outside, he leaped into the air. In a few blinks of an eye, Michael reached the top of the waterfall. Unlike the first time he came, now the ce was littered with colorful flowers and nts. The air smelled lc and roses. He walked along the stream, enjoying the fragrance in the air.
Eventually, Michael reached a tiny pond surrounded by red orchids. He saw a little girl meditating before the pond. Her ears slightly twitch after hearing Michael''s footsteps. The little girl abruptly opened her eyes. Michael patiently waited for her to turn around.
"Brother Ghost!"
The little girl shouted with pure joy. She hopped toward Michael like a bunny and crashed into him.
"Cindy," Michael lifted the girl by her arms and kissed her soft bubbly cheek. She showered Michael with kisses. Despite what everyone said about Ghost, Raylene took Cindy and her brother Rumy and arrived at the floating mountain with Ricky and Daniel.
Raylene knew better than many how kind-hearted Ghost was. Even If he was evil, she would wholeheartedly follow him to hell. Ever since then, Raylene had been living on the floating mountain with Cindy. She served Michael as the castle chef.
With the abundance of resources and Gaya''s guidance, Cindy had reached Core formation stage level 6.
"Where have you been? People said so many bad things about you, brother Ghost," Cindy purred, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Did you believe any of it?" asked Michael.
"Nope. I know my brother,"
"Every coin has two sides, Cindy. They do not know why I did what I did," said Michael. Cindy was not a little girl anymore. She was growing up, and Michael wanted her to face reality rather than live in ignorance.
"I know," Cindy pecked him on the cheek.
Michael carried Cindy on his shoulder and strolled around the mini garden. Spending time with Cindy was a breath of fresh air after the intense meeting with the Order. Since Cindy had reached the Core Formation stage, he taught her how to fly. They flew across the skies until Michael was called to the castle by Adelia.
They thought they were going to surprise Michael with a feast. But he could smell Raylene''s cooking from a mile away. Still, Michael pretended to be surprised for the sake of Gaya and Raylene.
Chapter 768 An Old Enemy
Michael was on his way to the feast hall when he met Raylene. She greeted Michael with a relieved sign. She was worried sick about him while he was gone.
"Master¡" Raylene almost called him ''Master Ghost'' as usual. Realizing he was called the Dark Lord by everyone here, she swallowed her words. She awkwardly smiled at Michael. Michael relieved the tension with a friendly hug.
"I am d you chose toe here," said Michael.
"It''s the least I can do,"
"You can call me Master Ghost as usual," Michael whispered into her ears. Michael put his arm around Raylene and walked toward the feast hall. Even from the outside, he could sense the liveliness inside. The air smelled of baked buns and roasted meat. Michael felt hungry just by taking a whiff of the air.
"Is everyone okay for you here?" Michael asked Raylene.
"I have noints, Master Ghost. Except for the weather, it''s always dark and gloomy here,"
Michael chuckled.
"Well, ites with the territory of being the God of Darkness,"
Raylene''s eyes widened. Her body shivered.
"So is it true, Master Ghost? Are you really a god, as Lady Gaya says?" asked Raylene.
"Yes," said Michael. He saw no reason to hide his true identity anymore. But after hearing Michael''s words, Raylene''s face lost its color. Her mind wentpletely nk. Michael expected this reaction. At first, even he was shocked. Who would think of them as a god? When Michael learned he was the God of Darkness, he couldn''t even think straight. Fortunately, Michael had a long time toe to terms with his true nature.
"Don''t worry. You will get used to it soon," Michael rubbed Raylene''s shoulder. He was about to open the doors when Michael heard amotion outside. The sound of metal shing and blood sttering resonated in the air. Michael turned around.
"Go inside and stay with the others," Michael said. The gentle smile disappeared from his face. Instead, he seemed cold and murderous.
Raylene did not argue with him. She immediately opened the door, squeezing herself into the hall. After Raylene closed the door, Michael slowly made his way outside.
"Intruder!"
"Kill her!"
"Don''t let her into the castle!"
"Sound the rm!"
"ARGHHHHH!"
Michael heard screams. As he was nearing the exit, Michael saw the dwarves running toward him, seeking shelter in the underground.
"My Lord," Michael heard Azazel''s voice in his head.
"It''s her," said Azazel.
"I will take care of her," Michael said. He was nonchnt. Michael faced an army of guardians without breaking a sweat. So what could a single woman do to him? In fact, Michael had been expecting this ever since he revealed himself. He was surprised it took a year for her to decide to do something.
When Michael stepped outside, he saw a smoky ck figure attacking the vampires in the sky. The vampires in the air were at the Soul Refining stage. Hence they stood no chance against a Fusion stage cultivator. However, the energy radiation around the smoky figure was unstable. It was as though she had used some forbidden method to boost her cultivation.
"YOU!" The smoky figure noticed Michael on the ground. Michael saw a pair of ruby-like eyes glimmering under the dark hood.
The figure resembled banshees in the legends. On top of its smoky figure, it had a screeching voice that hurt everyone''s ears when it screamed.
Before it could descend to the ground, a vampire tried to attack the figure from behind. The figure clutched the vampire''s neck without even turning around. The vampire squirmed under the figure''s clutch. The figure slowly turned around as though it wanted Michael to watch what was about to happen.
Michael watched the figure bite the vampire''s neck. The vampire''s body shriveled as the figure sucked all the blood from the vampire. The more blood the figure sucked, the stronger it became. However, Michael didn''t even bat an eye. Unless the figure could somehow be level 10 Immortal, Michael had no worries.
He waited for the figure to stop drinking blood.
"What in the actual fuck is happening here?" Michael looked over his shoulder to see Gaya walking toward him with several ck armored soldiers.
"Let me deal with this," Michael raised his hand, stopping them from attacking the figure.
"Dark Lord," the figure turned its gaze back at Michael. It slowly removed its ck hood, revealing grayish skin and blood-red eyes. Unlike Gaya, Michael immediately recognized the figure. Thest time he met the figure, she was in her bridal clothes.
"Fabia Viriduis," Michael calmly uttered her name. The name rang a bell in Gaya''s mind. Gaya thought Fabia died in the explosion along with her father, Viridius, and the other senators. Despite the messy gray hair, vampire fangs, and gray skin, Gaya recognized Fabia. There was no mistaking. It was Fabia Viridius. Gaya wondered where the hell she came from.
"You killed my father. You have a blood debt to settle," Fabia said, descending to the ground. The ck armored soldiers and Michael''s subordinates trembled with anger. Michael raised his arm, wordlessly telling them to back off. Usually, Michael would simply let his men deal with threats like this. But Fabia''s matter was different. She came to his domain and challenged him. It would be a sign of weakness if he didn''t ept her challenge.
"Face me in a duel," Fabia unsheathed a sword emanating a thick bloody aura. Michael could see the glowing runes on the de. The sword seemed like it could kill an Immortal.
"Suddenly, everyone has an Immortal killing weapon," Michael sighed. He just looked over his shoulder as everyone moved backward, making space for Fabia and Michael. Everyone thought Fabia was crazy to challenge the Dark Lord. Since it was a duel, neither of them could use spells or cultivation. Otherwise, Michael could kill her with a single spell.
"Come at me," Michael gestured at Fabia to make her first move. Without a single thought, Fabia dashed at Michael. Her eyes glistened with rage. It was obvious she was waiting for a year for this moment. Even Saber had no idea she was holding a grudge against the Dark Lord. He told her not to mess with the Dark Lord, but here she is, doing exactly what Saber told her not to.
When the sword was just a few inches away from Michael''s head, he swayed his body to the side, evading the sword. She was quick but not quick enough to attack Michael.
"Too slow," Michael pped the back of her head. The force of Michael''s p sent her flying a couple of meters. As she hit the ground, she coughed up blood. The sword almost slipped off Fabia''s hands. The subordinates weren''t surprised by the Dark Lord''s power. After all, it was expected of him.
Fabia managed to pick herself up. Her grip on the sword tightened. Yet again, she dashed at Michael. There was no finesse or technique in her movements but utter rage. She hoped to hit Michael as she swung the sword left and right. Michael evaded every single sh with ease. He waited for an opening to finish this duel without dragging it. He saw no point in it.
In a few seconds, Fabia swung her sword at least fifty times. After a while, her movements slowed. Michael simply grabbed Fabia''s sword hand. He lifted her off the ground by her hand and threw her in the air. He waited for her toe down. When she was within his arm''s reach, Michael swung his body, kicking her in the head.
Michael slowly walked toward her. Fabia looked over her shoulder and swung her sword at lightning speed. Her vampire powers gave her speed beyond any mortal limits. Unfortunately for her, Michael was a god. He saw through her move even before she made it. He slightly bent backward, evading the sword.
He just flicked the sword as it flew out of Fabia''s hand. Michael felt pity for Fabia deep down. ording to Saber, she was a talented schr and a freaky scientist who made the gue possible. He could have used her expertise only if she forgo her hatred toward him. But when Michael put himself in her shoes, he could understand her feelings. He killed her father and destroyed her entire life. Every time she woke up and looked at herself in the mirror, her hatred only grew stronger.
But now that she challenged him openly and killed one of his men in front of him, Michael had no choice but to kill her.
He decided to absorb her soul using the Soul eater.
"It''ll be over quick," said Michael. He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her closer. To Michael''s surprise, she spat a mouthful of blood at Michael. The blood temporarily hindered Michael''s sight. He quickly used a sh of dark mes to vaporize the blood on his face. Fabia felt an intense heat on her face for a moment. She tried to escape his hold, only to fail. At that moment, she knew she was going to die.
"HAHAHAHA"
Suddenly, she broke into a devilish peal ofughter. It surprised everyone as there was no reason for her tough. An ordinary person would shiver in fear. But she was no ordinary man at all. In fact, she expected defeat at the hands of the Dark Lord. Her end goal was not to kill the Dark Lord but to avenge her father by any means necessary. If her death could avenge her father. She would dly die.
Michael was about to use the Soul Eater when he saw a bright glimmer in her eyes. His neck hair stood up, warning him about a threat. The space around him was distorted. This feeling was familiar to Michael. He immediately cast the Silenes to slow down the time.
"Gaya, do not do anything while I am gone. It''s an order," Michael said to Gaya through the earpiece. The words reached her as the Silenes spell''s effect faded away. The very next moment, Michael and Fabia were sucked into a vortex that appeared suddenly in the air. Before they disappearedpletely, Fabia coughed up blood.
Chapter 769 Capturing The Dark Lord Again
Everything went dark around Michael for a moment. When the light returned to his sight, he was standing inside a ss room. Fabia stood a few meters before him, leaning against the ss. Her gut had a fist-sized hole, and blood oozed down from Michael''s hand. But not a single drop of blood trickled down from Fabia''s wound. Her skin around the wound was burnt. Death was nearing her. No healing potion in the world could heal her within a few moments to save her life. Michael watched the light of life fade away from Fabia''s eyes. He waited for someone toe to her rescue. As far as Michael''s eyes could see, there was nothing but smoky air with specks of ember outside. He vaguely saw a fuming volcano in the distance.
"Fire realm?" Michael asked himself. He tried to contact Gaya through the earpiece, but strangely, the earpiece didn''t work. In fact, he didn''t feel any energy around him at all.
While Michael was looking around the cage, Fabia copsed down. She tried to say something to Michael, yet no words escaped her mouth. However, looking at Michael, she smirked. She looked at peace as though she had avenged her father.
Michael touched the thick ss between him and the outside. Judging by how sturdy the ss was, Michael knew he wouldn''t be able to break it. He couldn''t even ess his space ring. It felt like he was teleported right beside Mugashuku, where he would feel powerless and weak.
Despite everything, Michael remained calm. Finally, Michael heard footsteps. He slowly turned around. To his surprise, Alicia and a young man with a face like a monkey stood outside the cage. Norvin looked a bit flustered, almost wanting to save Fabia. On the contrary, Alicia didn''t even bother to take a look at Fabia''s dead body. Her piercing gaze was on Michael.
Michael rolled his eyes,
"It''s you,"
Michael almost hated himself for falling into Alicia''s trap.
"Wee to your worst nightmare," Alicia said coldly. Both of them walked toward each other. Unlike Alicia, Michael had a smile on his face.
"Every time we y this game, you guardians end up with nothing but blood on your hands," said Michael. If he remembered correctly, this was the third time the guardians trapped him. The only difference this time was Michael did not expect or n his capture.
It became clear to Michael that he had to n his escape on the go. But seeing Alicia calmed his mind. If she nned this, he knew there would definitely be holes he could exploit to escape. Good thing he didn''t see Noah. For some reason, Michael didn''t think Noah was involved in this n. Otherwise, he would have tried to save Fabia.
"How is your brother, by the way?" Michael asked with a ridiculing smirk.
"Good. Doing better than you at the moment," Alicia remained calm, which surprised Michael.
"Someone''s doing better in anger management," Michael smiled.
"I can''t wait to wipe that smirk off your face," Alicia threatened Michael.
Norvin saw Ghost lifting Fabia''s dead body by her head. He showed Fabia''s dead face like a puppet to Alicia. They didn''t know what he was hoping to do with Fabia''s dead body. Suddenly, Michael bashed her head against the ss. Alicia''s body jerked as she took a step back. Her subconscious mind dictated her movement. He bashed Fabia''s head again and again on the ss until the head became a puppy mess. Blood trickled down the ss as Michael drew a smiley face on the blood.
"Fucking bastard," Alicia growled.
"I promise you, this will end in more bloodshed," said Michael. Norvin''s heart skipped a beat. No one freaked him out as the Dark Lord did. In Norvin''s mind Ghost was the exact opposite of Noah in every way. In simple words, Ghost was evil Noah. It made sense to Norvin since Ghost was the God of Darkness and Noah was the God of Light. Norvin hoped this cage would hold him. He would have been more confident in this n if Noah knew about this.
"And I promise you, it will be your blood," Alicia banged the ss. When she locked her gaze with his eyes, images of what her family had gone through since the battle tournament shed across her eyes. Until now, Peter remained supervised and locked in his own home. Noah chose not to meddle in Peter''s case as Noah believed Peter was in the wrong and deserved punishment for his vignte actions.
Alicia slowly stepped back. A slow grin emerged on her cold face. Soon, she flicked her wrist as golden chains materialized inside the cage out of thin air. They flew at Michael, coiling around his wrists. It stretched out Michael''s arms. He felt the chains tightening. The ss between them slowly slid open as Alicia stepped inside the cage.
To Michael''s surprise, her Soul Refining stage cultivation didn''t waver. Apparently, the cage only affected his cultivation somehow. Without a doubt, he was at a disadvantage. Alicia clenched her fist and punched him in the face as fast as she could.
"Alicia," Norvin tried to stop, but Alicia sent Norvin out of the cage with a st of energy wave. Before Norving coulde to his senses, the cage slid closed.
"Is that the best you could do?" Michael spat down the little bit of blood in his mouth.
Alicia''s eyes glistened with uncontroble rage. She swung her fist left and right. Michael''s vision became blurry after receiving almost the sixtieth punch from Alicia. Despite everything, Michael still had a smile on his face. With blood covering his teeth, he looked like a grinning devil.
"Alicia, stop!"
Norvin shouted from outside. However, Alicia did not heed his words. Instead, she kept punching Michael until her hands went numb.
"Are you tired?" Michael snickered.
"You should work on your stamina," Michael moved his neck left and right as it made cracking noises. His face was almost covered in blood and swollen. Michael avoided using the APD so she wouldn''t notice anything strange. Because of that, her punches did a number on his face. His nose was cracked, eyes were swollen, lips were cut, and a wisdom tooth began to shake inside his mouth.
"What the hell are you doing?" Michael heard a voice. He looked over Alicia''s shoulders to see Mutrad and a few others descending from the sky. Mutrad''s eyes widened seeing Michael inside the cage. Alicia wiped Michael''s blood off her pearl-white robes.
"Just testing if the cage works," Alicia replied to Mutrad in her usual cold tone. Seeing the Sea folks, Michael realized the n of Alicia might be theirs, not the Guardian Guild''s.
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk," Michael tutted.
Michael chuckled as they all locked their gazes with Michael.
"If you have something to do with this, I strongly rmend you undo this. I have no quarrel with the Sea Folks, don''t create one," Michael said. If he had spoken these words before the ck day, Mutrad would haveughed it off. However, after witnessing the entire ind, along with hundreds of Guardians, getting destroyed by the Dark Lord, Mutrad couldn''t help shivering deep down.
Thest thing Mutrad wanted was a massacre in his homnd. Obviously, this wasn''t Mutrad''s n. Instead, he was just sent here to oversee the Dark Lord''s capture by his elders. Mutrad preferred nning with Noah more than his elders. For some reason, they didn''t realize what the Dark Lord was capable of.
"Shut up," Alicia punched Michael in the face to shut him up. Every punch made Michael want to kill her more. Until now, Michael never wanted to kill Alicia, but she managed to change that sessfully. Norvin saw the glimmering killing intent in his eyes. He really started to fear for Alicia''s life.
"I did say don''t approach him until we are here, didn''t I?" asked Mutrad. He knew the history between Alicia and Ghost. Hence, Mutrad rmended the elders against bringing her into this mission. However, the elders did not listen to him. For some reason, they were adamant about putting Alicia on this mission. The elders felt she would do necessary things, such as sacrificing Fabia.
"Step outside the cage," Mutrad gestured at Alicia to leave the cage.
"Don''t worry. We will have a long chatter," Alicia snickered.
"I hope so," Michael answered her calmly. He didn''t give her the satisfaction of showing his anger.
"So what''s the n here, Mutrad?" Michael asked Mutrad.
"I think you mistook your position here, Ghost if that''s your real name. Only I ask the questions here, and you do the answering,"
"What if I don''t? Are you going to kill me? Believe me, you can''t," said Michael.
"Who said anything about killing?"
Michael saw a strange smile on Mutrad''s face. If they didn''t want to kill him, what were they after? Michael asked himself. It seemed like the only way for him to find out was to go along with Mutrad.
Suddenly, something rattled the cage. Mutrad lost his bnce for a while. Michael noticed the cage ascending to the sky. Outside the cage, Norvin was pushing the cage upward all by himself.
"This is not going to end well for you, Mutrad," said Michael. Despite the fear in Mutrad''s heart, he remained calm. Thanks to the Skyhall for giving them this special cage, Mutrad didn''t need to worry about the Dark Lord escaping. As long as the Dark Lord stayed within the cage, he couldn''t use any of his powers. ording to the Skyhall ambassador, this cage was specially made for the Dark Lord. Mutrad just hoped it would contain him as long as they wanted.
"I will escape," as though Michael had read his mind, he said to Mutrad. Michael''s wordspletely caught Mutrad off guard. Eventually, the cage stopped moving. Mutrad left the cage, leaving Michael behind. Inside the cage, Michael tried to establish contact with Gaya but failed.
"How long are you nning to stay offline system?"
[Three weeks]
Michael''s eyes widened. He heard the system''s voice for the first time since eleven months ago. It immediately put a smile on Michael''s face.
"Three more weeks. Then we''ll be back," Michael mumbled under his breath.
Chapter 770 Mutrad鈥檚 Fear
Two weeks had passed since Michael''s capture. His cage was teleported inside a floating pce above the volcanic mountain. The ground beneath the cage was wide open. If someone wanted, they could drop the cage right into the volcano with a single push of the button. Inside the cage, Michael was doing one-arm pushups to keep himself healthy. A burly man apanied by Mutrad broke Michael''s right arm. He twisted Michael''s armor into three sixty degrees. Over the past two weeks, they had been asking Michael about a portal to the higher realms. Michael had zero clues about any higher realms.
After Michael finished his three-hundredth pushup, he noticed Alicia and Mutrad through the ss. Michael stood up. Michael looked rugged with a long thick beard and long hair. His right arm just swayed along his body lifelessly. Before they entered the cage, the golden chains materialized inside the cage and coiled around Michael''s wrist. An invisible force pushed Michael down to his knees. Seeing Michael in this state lightened Alicia''s mood.
Mutrad flicked his wrist as a chair appeared before Michael. Mutrad sat down and leaned forward toward Michael.
"Did you change your mind?" asked Mutrad.
"You are going to be here for a long, long time. So do yourself a favor and tell us what we want. In return, I will make sure your life gets easier in here," said Mutrad.
"You don''t have to worry about me, Mutrad. If I were you, I''d worry about everyone here," Michael calmly answered Mutrad.
"Come on Ghost. Open your eyes and look around. You cannot escape this cage," Mutrad rolled his eyes.
"Let me get the answers from him," Alicia growled.
Michael chuckled.
"It''s cute,"
Mutrad frowned,
"What is?"
"The two of you," Michael gawked between them.
"One tries to y the good one, and the other is trying to be the bad one. This is the problem with this whole thing. You can break a stone with a chisel but not a mountain,"
"But we can break your other arm," Alicia coldly said.
"And I''d bet you would. Engrave these moments in your mind deeply. Because soon, you''re going to regret everything," said Michael. He did not hide his killing intent. Mutrad became silent, hoping this cage would hold him forever. Because if he escaped the cage, there was no doubt he would ughter everyone in the castle. He could only imagine what he would do to everyone who guards the castle.
Alicia punched Michael in the face. Blood and spit sprayed out from Michael''s mouth. Michael spat out the remaining blood in his mouth. He cracked his neck. But did not show any signs of anger on his face.
"Tell us about the portal, Ghost? We know you can open the portal. You are a god, aren''t you?" asked Mutrad.
"Tell me why exactly I would tell you anything," Michael snickered.
"You know I believe him. He can''t open the portal. In fact, I don''t even think he knows where it is. I mean, look at him. You told me he is a god. But he doesn''t look like a god to me," Alicia coldlyughed at Michael.
She wanted to make him mad. Ever since he was captured, Alicia wanted to mess with his mind. She tried to assault him physically, ridicule him and even threaten the people in River town. However, nothing brought out the anger inside Michael. Instead, Michael remained as calm as ever. Only he knew what he was nning to do to Alicia.
"If you don''t know about the portal. What do you know about the higher realms?" Mutrad asked Michael. Unlike Alicia, Mutrad restrained himself from crossing any limit with the Dark Lord.
"Nothing," Michael shrugged.
"If you want to know more about the higher realms, you should ask Noah Winston,"
As soon as Michael uttered his name, Alicia punched Michael yet again. This time, several times harder than before.
"Do not speak his name," Alicia growled.
"He is a god, isn''t he? Plus, he has a wise old grandpa with him,"
Michael saw a strange uneasiness in Mutrad''s eyes.
"He doesn''t know about all this, does he?" Michael grinned.
"I am not surprised. I know he is easy to manipte, but he is not stupid enough to do this," Michael turned his gaze to Alicia.
"When I kill everyone here, all that blood will be on your hands. I promise you, Noah wouldn''t take your side,"
Alicia punched Michael again, but Michael did not stop talking.
"Why do you think Noah fell in love with every beauty he meets on his path? Because you are not good enough for him. If you love two people at the same time, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first one, you wouldn''t have fallen for the second,"
The temperature around them dropped by several degrees. Alicia''s eyes glimmered with rage. She grabbed Michael''s hair and raised her fist in the air.
"Alicia, restrain yourself," Mutrad warned Alicia. But he couldn''t stop her from repeatedly punching Michael. He became an outlet for Alicia''s rage. Michaelughed as she kept punching.
"Five more days," Mutrad heard these words escape Michael''s mouth.
"Alicia, stop!" Mutrad grabbed Alicia''s hand, stopping her.
"What did you say?" asked Mutrad.
Michael breathed heavily. He could barely keep his eyes open. Blood oozed out from his mouth. But the grin remained still on his face. Mutrad lifted Michael''s head up.
"Five more days," Michael mumbled.
"What five more days?"
"Enjoy this while itsts," Michael slowly said.
"I am going to ughter every single one here. It''s gonna be a real blood bath,"
Mutrad looked into Michael''s eyes and saw no signs of lying. He was pretty serious. Mutrad panicked. The Dark Lord seemed so sure about escaping. His track record proved the Dark Lord has several trump cards up his sleeves.
"He is bluffing in pain," Alicia growled.
"Am I?" asked Michael.
"And I have something special nned for you, Alicia. But I will give you a clue, you''re going to beg me to kill you,"
She was about to punch Michael when Mutrad stopped her.
"We are leaving," Mutrad dragged Alicia out of the cage. When they stepped out, the golden chains disappeared, releasing Michael. The ss closed.
After leaving the cage, Mutrad did not even turn back to see the Dark Lord. Eventually, Mutrad and Alicia reached a brightly lit room with several tables. Every single table had a mound of scrolls and parchment.
"Don''t tell me you believed his bluff," Alicia rolled her eyes.
"He is not bluffing," said Mutrad.
"I''ve lived long enough to tell the difference between a bluff and truth. He is not kidding,"
"He is not going anywhere. He would have escaped by now if he could," said Alicia.
"Besides, the elders of the Skyhall gave us this cage,"
"But where the hell are they? If the Dark Lord poses such a threat to the world, why aren''t they here?" Mutrad questioned Alicia. Ever since Mutrad met the representatives of the Skyhall, he had been asking this question himself. They described what the Dark Lord would do in great detail. Simply put, he would end the world they knew and put the world into eternal darkness. At first, Mutrad believed them. But with time, they seemed to have less interest in the Dark Lord. Mutrad''s gut instinct told him that Skyhall had more problems than the Dark Lord. His instincts proved to be right when the SKyhall elders ordered Mutrad to interrogate the Dark Lord about a portal to ascend to higher realms. Instead of finding a way to kill the Dark Lord and end the threat, they were focused on getting information about this strange portal to higher realms.
They had been asking the Dark Lord about this portal for two weeks. They tried to ask him nicely, tortured him, waterboarded him, and even broke his arm. Yet, they got nothing from the Dark Lord. Unlike Alicia, Mutrad believed the Dark Lord when he said he knew nothing about a portal or how to open one.
"And why didn''t they want Noah to know about everything? If Noah knew about this, then his sister Rowena would too. Why don''t the Skyhall want their Holy Maiden to know about the Dark Lord''s capture? There is something really shady going on between the Dark Lord and the Skyhall. We shouldn''t get involved in this,"
Alicia sensed a tinge of fear in Mutrad''s voice.
"Are you hearing yourself right now, Mutrad? You came from your homeworld to capture the Dark Lord,"
"My people are more important to me than the Dark Lord, Alicia. We both saw what happened to Ithn. I don''t want my homeworld to be the next Ithn,"
"Then nothing is stopping you from leaving this ce. I can handle myself,"
Mutrad failed to find words. He remained silent for a while.
"We need to bolster the defense. If he isn''t bluffing, we need to be on our guard," said Mutrad.
"Very well. I''ll request Skyhall to send us some backup. While I am gone, please get your shit together, Mutrad," Alicia said before leaving the room. Mutrad copsed down on the couch behind him. He took a few deep breaths.
"What did I get myself into?" Mutrad regretted his decision toe to thend from his homeworld. Deep down, Mutrad even thought about cutting a secret deal with the Dark Lord.
"In the game of kings, only pawns will be sacrificed," Mutrad recalled the Dark Lord''s words.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Mutrad said to himself. He didn''t even after receiving backup from the Skyhall, he would be able to rx. There was a reason why Noah didn''t want to make a move against the Dark Lord. Although Mutrad knew only little about Noah, one thing was sure, Noah was searching for something.
By chance, this thing went south, Mutrad didn''t think Noah would take lightly to Alicia''s actions. As far as Mutrad could tell, Noah wasn''t the same person he had met a year ago.
"What''s gonna happen in five days?" Mutrad asked himself. He took a scroll and decided to write a letter to his elders regarding the Dark Lord''s words. He hoped this letter would change the elders'' mind.
Chapter 771 Day Of Retribution
Early morning in the Fire realm was nothing more than the red sky turning redder. The dark smoke from the volcano covered the air as far as one could see from the floating castle. There were no early singing birds, golden sun rays on the horizon, or fresh air smell. At that moment, Dante was washing his face in front of a mirror. He looked up to see a face with hazel eyes and red hair staring back at him. Dante grinned at his own reflection. He was proud of how dashing he looked in the silver armor.
"One more day, Dante...one more day," he slowly spoke to himself. Dante was assigned to guard the Dark Lord''s cage by Mutrad. It had been three weeks since they captured the Dark Lord. Until now, the Dark Lord had done nothing but got tortured by various strangers. Dante got a chance to watch the interrogation, which wasn''t pretty. Dante and his team were ordered to guard the castle withplete caution two days ago.
Fifty years had passed since the Arctic hall assigned him and his team a task. They were one of the elite squads of the Arctic hall. In Dante''s five hundred years of life, this was the third time that he was ordered to bring his entire team on a mission. When they were summoned, Dante expected some action. However, he and his team experienced nothing but utter boredom. They stood outside the Dark Lord''s cage and watched him getting tortured and beaten.
Dante heard so much about this so-called Dark Lord in the mission briefing, yet he seemed weak. The Skyhall managed to capture him with a single cage.
"Time to return to my post," Dante sighed. Hebed his hair back before leaving the room. He headed for the Dark Lord''s cage as usual. On his way, he met several soldiers wearing sky-blue armor. Apparently, the Skyhall sent these soldiers as additional backup to guard the Dark Lord.
Eventually, Dante reached a huge metal door nked by two Half-Immortal guards. They were his men. One of them was a red-haired woman.
"Hey boss," The red-haired woman greeted Dante with a grin.
"Anything interesting happened?" asked Dante.
"If you call Isaac here yawning and bitching about his life action, I have seen plenty of it," the red-haired woman rolled her eyes.
"I didn''t bitch about my life, you bitch," the golden-haired soldier beside the woman snarled.
"Don''t mind, M. she is just messing with you," Dante chuckled.
"Open the door. Need to see our prisoner,"
M and Isaac pushed open the door as the runes began to radiate faint light in the door. Opening the door exhausted their strength. It took two Half Immortals to open the door. After the door opened, Dante saw the Dark Lord''s cage. Isaac and M gawked at the Dark Lord. Six other Half Immortals stood around the cage. When Dante entered the hall, all of them bowed toward him.
Dante nodded as he walked toward the cage. Since this was early morning, he had a chance to see the Dark Lord up closer. Once the interrogators entered the hall, they would send him and his team out of the hall. The Dark Lord seemed calm and collected, leaning against the ss with no worries in the world.
"Are you going to try something?" Dante asked the Dark Lord.
"Have some patience, my friend," the Dark Lord answered.
"I am going in," seeing Dante talking to the Dark Lord, M couldn''t stay still. She wanted to have some words with the Dark Lord too.
"Hey, wait," Isaac tried to stop her, but she was already on her way toward the cage.
"Sorry, boss. I couldn''t stay there," said M.
"It''s cool. I don''t think something will happen. Am I wrong?" Dante asked the Dark Lord.
"Maybe. Maybe not,"
"Come on, dude. Do something. You have so much hype around you," said M in a yful tone.
"You guys have families?" asked the Dark Lord.
"Why? You want to threaten us using them. That''s cliche, don''t you think?" Dante replied to the Dark Lord.
"Nah," the Dark Lord slowly shook his head.
"I just want to give you some time to talk with your loved ones. After all, when Ie outside, you will all die," the Dark Lord spoke with a gentle smile as though he was having a normal conversation with them.
"Dying will be better than standing out there listening to Isaac bitch about how his woman cheated on him with another man," M rolled her eyes.
The Dark Lord chuckled.
"You guys seem cool. I might feel bad after killing you," said the Dark Lord.
"So, is this what you do? Daydreaming all day. This bad boy will hold you here forever. It sucks to be you," Dante said.
"You guys shouldn''t believe everything the Skyhall says. Ask yourselves, if I am their number one priority, why aren''t they here?"
M and Dante remained silent for a while as the Dark Lord continued.
"They didn''t send their strongest because they didn''t want them dead. Instead, they are using you. I bet except you, the others are just Half Immortals," the Dark Lord pointed his finger at Dante. To Dante''s surprise, he was right. Except for him, all of his team members are at the Half Immortal stage.
"If I am not wrong, you are a Half Immortal yourself. You might be strong, but no way you can walk past all of us," said M.
"I am used to creating ways when there is none,"
"If you are hoping your minions will save you, I have bad news for you. No one ising. Thest time I heard, they are not even making an effort to find out where the hell you are," said Dante.
To their surprise, the Dark Lord just smiled.
"I know. I ordered them not to," said the Dark Lord.
M frowned.
"And why would you do that?"
"Because I don''t need them," the Dark Lord shrugged.
"Well, if you are going to escape, please do it soon. I am getting bored to death here," Dante sighed.
"Careful what you wish for, my friend," said the Dark Lord.
As they were talking, Dante heard footsteps. He and M turned around to see Mutrad, Alicia, Norvin, and a few others walking toward them.
"It seems like our small chat is over," said Dante.
"A pity,"
Dante and M took a step back from the cage.
"I am d you are here, Alicia," Dante heard the Dark Lord. He saw Alicia''s eyes glimmer with cold, murdering intent. For a few moments, they all stood outside and watched the Dark Lord in silence. He slowly stepped toward the ss.
"How is Peter doing?" Michael asked Alicia. There was a strange smile on his face. Looking at him, Mutrad couldn''t help feeling dreadful.
"Aww, don''t be mad, Alicia. Peter would love to get out of his house. How long till he stepped outside?" Michael rubbed his chin. Suddenly, the runes around and inside the cage flickered.
"What''s happening?" Mutrad panicked. Alicia frantically looked around as the cage containing Ghost trembled.
"Do you know what I like about the runes the most? It''s so easy to hack them. You can turn your enemy''s weapons against them with a few minor changes," said Michael. Under their shocked gazes, Michael grabbed his broken right arm and jerked it. Mutrad heard the bones inside his arm cracking. In a few moments, he clenched his fists.
"How did he heal himself?" Norvin asked. Alicia flicked her wrist, trying to open the cage. However, the cage refused to listen to hermands.
Michael turned around, walking toward the center.
"STOP!" Alicia raised her voice. She conjured a sword made of chilling ice.
"Take one step further, and I will send you straight down into the volcano," Alicia threatened Michael. She pointed her sword at the chains holding the cage.
"You wouldn''t do that," Michael turned around.
"You wanna test me," Alicia growled.
Mutrad''s mind went nk. He feared something would happen, and it did. To Mutrad''s utter shock, a bright light shed across the cage. They all closed their eyes. When they opened their eyes, someone else stood beside the Dark Lord.
"Peter!" Alicia shouted.
"Where am I?" It took Peter a few moments to realize he was teleported from his home. He saw Alicia shouting at him. The others around Alicia looked pale.
"Hello, Peter," Peter felt a chill when he heard the voice. He recognized the voice almost immediately. How could he now? He was reliving what had happened two years ago at the tournament in his mind ever since. He slowly turned his head to see a man with a bushy beard and long hair staring at him. The face seemed unfamiliar to Peter, but those eyes betrayed the person behind all the changes.
"Ghost,"
Peter clenched his fist. Seeing GHost up close, Peter''s whole body trembled. The veins in his eye popped, turning his eyes blood red. His life was turned upside down by him. Not only Ghost revealed his identity to the world, but he was humiliated. Ghost literally wiped the floor with him. Those images were eternally etched into his brain. Every time Peter closed his eyes, he saw how Ghost humiliated him in front of thousands of people. Not a single night passed without Peter thinking about ending his life altogether. Only the me of vengeance kept Peter from doing so.
"ARGGHHHH!"
Peter roared as he threw his fist at Ghost. Before the punchnded on Ghost''s face, he simply caught Peter''s fist.
"No no no no," Alicia muttered as she focused all her energy on opening the ss. Yet, the ss didn''t even move an inch. The runes responsible for opening the cage lost their glimmer.
Michael grabbed Peter by his throat and lifted him off the ground. Peter squirmed in his hand as Michael turned his gaze toward Alicia. Peter''s face slowly turned pale. He gasped for air.
"Mutrad, we need your orders," Dante asked Mutrad.
"We need the cage opened now," Norvin shouted. The muscles in Norvin''s body bulged as he dashed at the cage to break the ss.
? "I wouldn''t do that if I were you," When Norvin was about to punch the ss, Michael stopped him.
"Punch the ss hard enough, and the cage will fall straight down. Peter won''t like that, will he?"
"Let him go," Alicia growled.
"What did I say? Every time we do this dance, it always ends in bloodshed,"
Chapter 772 System Back Online
A few hours before Dante and his team came to meet Michael, he was leaning against the ss and waiting for the system toe back online.
"Come on. Come on. Come on," Michael could barely stand still. He wasn''t only feeling excited but an uncontroble rage to ughter every single person in the castle. Over the past three weeks, they tortured him, asking about a portal to higher realms. Michael had no fucking idea where the portal is or how to open one. However, they werepletely wrong, either. With the system, he could open a portal if he needed one. But Michael doubted the current system level would be able to open portals to higher realms. After spending two years with the system, Michael had a pretty good idea about the system''s capabilities.
If it wasn''t for the APD slowly healing his body, he would have been in a much worse state. He couldn''t wait to see the look on Alicia''s face when he pay her back for everything she did. He locked his gaze on the countdown timer in the corner of his sight. In ten minutes, the system would be back online. With the system reaching level 8, he could finally buy ores and materials to forge new weapons and armor. He needed a pair of swords suitable for the Dark Lord. The six guards around the cage had no idea Michael was preparing to break out of the cage.
Second by second, the countdown timer moved toward the ten-minute mark. Fortunately, Michael didn''t keep anything important in his space ring. But still, Michael hated losing a couple of healing potions, a couple of millions of gold coins, and some spell scrolls.
"Can''t it go any faster?" Michael asked himself, looking at the timer. Ten minutes felt like an eternity to him. It had been a year since he interacted with the system. Situations like this made him miss the system the most. Granted, Michael still had some ns in his mind to escape the cage even without the system. But having the system made everything so much easier and more interesting.
[The system wille online in five minutes]
Michael smiled when he heard the system. He walked left and right in the cage. Soon, seconds turned minutes, and eventually, Michael heard a loud ringing in his head. His whole body felt an electric bolt running down his spine. He experienced acute pain in every fiber in his body. It felt like his very soul was screaming in pain. But soon, the pain and difort turned into a soul-soothing feeling.
[The system upgrade ispleted]
[Current System level 8.0]
[The host can now have up to fifty subordinates]
[The host has received a legendary token to get free five-star level specialization as a gift for upgrading the system]
"Finally," Michael almost shouted in excitement. He immediately essed the system to take a look at his status window.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Half Immortal level 10
Experience Points: 0/5,000,000 (26,000,000 Experience points remaining to be consumed)
Badass Points: 2,000,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 5 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 8
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 5
Soul Eater - LVL 5
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender. Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted four levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 96% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Injured
Goals: Control the world
Grow the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 45,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 86%)
Dead Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 85%)
Sadie (loyalty level 70%)
Ricky (loyalty level 94%)
Daniel (loyalty level 98%)
Titus(loyalty level 80%)
Optimus (loyalty level 80%)
The Big Bertha Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 93%)
Base of Operation: The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Dark Ocean
Familiars: Nightmare (Royal Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (30% Mastery), Fire (30% Mastery), Lightning (40% Mastery), Darkness (40% Mastery)
The first thing he noticed in the status was the humongous amount of Experience points left unconsumed. Over the year, he amassed two million badass points, which Michael nned to use to upgrade his spells. Except for Ricky, who lost five percent loyalty, the loyalty level for the others had a leap. Ricky''s situation was understandable to Michael. So he didn''t mind the five percent drop.
The next change was the increase in his elemental maniption. To be honest, Mciahel felt frustrated with the numbers. It seemed like no matter how much he used them, the rate didn''t go as high as Michael would like to.
[Looks like the host is in deep trouble] Michael heard the system''s voice.
"Wee back," Michael greeted the system with a friendly tone.
[it is good to be back]
"So, are you going to go offline for a long time whenever I upgrade you from now on?" Michael asked the system.
[Of course not. Version 8 brings more functionalities and capabilities. Hence, the long upgrade time]
"d to hear that,"
[The system went offline for one year, and you got yourself captured]
To Michael''s surprise, the system sounded like Pink, his sidekick back on earth.
"Why do you sound like Pink?"
[The system essed your subconscious mind and picked the voice you desire the most] said the system. It wasn''t wrong. He did miss the sound of Pink in his head. The two of them were the deadliest pair on earth. Speaking of Pink, Michael wondered how she was doing on earth. Judging by her skill set and the payment she received for each job, she could live avish and peaceful life somewhere safe.
For now, Michael had to worry about himself more than about others. He wanted to check the system store, but before that, he wanted to contact Gaya. he essed the system and took out an earpiece. He put it in his ear without the guards seeing.
[The system requires five hundred thousand badass points to break the runes that keep you weak]
"Do it, but don''t make it obvious. Also, I want you to make some changes to the runes,"
[Consider it done]
The system consumed half a million badass points in a blink of an eye. Finally, Michael felt his power growing stronger. However, Michael did not feel relieved or happy as he should be. Instead, he was concerned. If a single cage could make him weak and vulnerable, that was a weakness he should address ASAP. Therefore, Michael decided to take the cage with him to the Dark Ocean so Elidyr could study the cage and find a solution. Maybe he could even use this against Noah one day.
Michael created a windshield around him to prevent the guards from hearing him talk.
"Gaya," Michael contacted Gaya.
"Michael," Immediately, Michael heard Gaya''s concerned voice.
"Where the fuck are you? I am worried sick. Tell me where you are. I aming to get you. Are you in trouble?"
"First, rx," said Michael.
"I''ll exin when I get back. But now, I need you to do something for me. I am pretty sure you''d like it,"
"What is it?"
"I want you to Peter''s home, kill any guardian there and use the teleportation scroll I just put in your space ring,"
"So that bitch has something to do with your disappearance?" asked Gaya. he could feel the killing intent in Gaya''s voice.
"Yeah, and this is payback,"
"You want him alive or dead?" asked Gaya.
"Alive," said Michael.
After Gaya left for Peter''s home in Ice Fair, Michael willed the system to use the token for free specialization.
[The hose can now choose one specialization among, cksmithing, Rune mastery, Engineering, and Healing]
There was nopetition between the choices at all for Michael. He immediately chose cksmithing.
''Make me a cksmith," Mciahel said. He was excited like a kid.
As soon as Michael chose the specialization, he felt a sharp pain in his brain. The system etched the knowledge needed to be a 5-star cksmith in Michael''s brain. New knowledge shed across Michael''s mind. He clenched his fist. He felt dizzy. The feeling of bing a cksmith was several times worse and more painful than bing an Alchemist.
Michael started to notice the ws in the weapons and armor of the guards around him. The painsted for almost five minutes. Even his vision blurred. Eventually, his vision slowly cleared. Michael took a few deep breaths. After almost two years, Michael finally became a 5-star cksmith.
[Congrattions to the host on bing a 5-star cksmith] said the system.
[The host will need a special forge, tools, and materials to start forging weapons and armor]
[The host can buy a map with all the marked locations of required items for seven hundred thousand badass points]
"Hold your horses, for now, system," said Michael. Until he could escape the fire realm, Michael did not want to spend any badass points. Who knew when he would need the points?
A whileter, Michael heard Gaya''s voice.
"Hey, Michael. Are you there?"
"Go on,"
"I am at the Ice Fair, looking at the Belefort mansion. How do you want me to do this? Silent and clean or loud and messy?" asked Gaya.
"Silent and messy," said Michael.
"After you are done, burn the mansion to the ground,"
"Then it''s a good thing I brought Nightmare with me," said Gaya.
Chapter 773 End Of Peter Belefort
Alicia banged the ss between her and Ghost. She poured energy into the rune on her hand to open the cage. However, the ss didn''t even budge. Inside the cage, Peter squirmed in Michael''s hand. Dante and his team waited for Mutrad''s order. The only way to open the cage was through the rune on Alicia''s hand. It was a fail-safe to prevent someone from opening the cage to aid the Dark Lord. At that moment, this fail-safe failed. Michael slowly grabbed Peter''s right hand.
"NO!" Alicia shouted from outside.
"ARGGHH!" Peter screamed as Michael twisted his arm. The bones broke with a sickening cracking noise. Blood spurted out of Peter''s hand. Some broken bone pieces were sticking out of his hand. Peter''s scream echoed through the hall. Finally, Dante and his team realized why the entire world feared the Dark Lord. The illuminating orbs around the hall flickered. Slowly, everything grew darker. His long hair fluttered in the wind, giving him an eerie devilish look.
Michael did not stop with breaking Peter''s hand. He grabbed the broken shoulder and slowly applied pressure. Peter''s body trembled in pain.
"Before you brought me here, I had no intention to hurt your brother, not at all," Michael said, looking at Alicia.
"In fact, I forgot about him. But you couldn''t let it go,"
Norvin noticed Peter''s muscles around his shoulder tearing apart. They could do nothing but watch the Dark Lord rip Peter''s hand off his shoulder. Blood sprayed out of Peter''s shoulder, painting the ss red. It was a sickening sight to see. Alicia banged the ss, hoping it would break the cage.
"Ghost, stop," Norvin shouted. He tried to stop the Dark Lord using words even though everyone knew it wouldn''t work.
"We are beyond negotiation," Michael simply said. He grabbed Peter''s other arm. Seeing this, Alicia roared like a wounded lion.
"Break this cage!" she shouted. However, Dante and his team felt reluctant to follow her order. The cage was designed to fall down once anyone tried to break the cage from the outside. Unfortunately, the only way to open the cage was through the rune on Alicia''s arm.
No one expected the Dark Lord to turn the tables on them. He made them powerless.
"Your brother''s death is on her head. Don''t you agree with me, Norvin?" Michael asked Norvin. Norvin couldn''t answer Michael. But to be honest, Norvin med Alicia for this. From the moment the Skyhall elders approached Alicia behind Noah''s back, Norving advised her against taking this mission. Naturally, she didn''t listen and jumped the gun when they told her they could capture the Dark Lord.
The only reason why Norvin was with her was that she asked him to. Alicia had never asked him for anything in her life. Thus when she asked, he couldn''t refuse her. Besides, he felt he could safeguard Alicia if he was with her. But Norvin never thought their n would horribly go wrong.
"At this point, you should know better than to mess with me," Michael''s voice turned cold. He ripped off Peter''s other arm and threw it at Alicia. Peter''s face turned pale due to the heavy blood loss. Every inch of the cage was painted red with Peter''s blood. His body slowly stopped squirming.
"PETER!" Alicia screamed. Blood trickled down her nose in anger and pain.
"I wonder what the Belefort family would think when they hear their precious Alicia Belefort just made an enemy out of the Dark Lord," said Michael. He slowly turned Peter''s body upside down. He held him by his left leg. Michael intentionally did everything slowly. He wanted these moments to get carved into her brain.
"I will kill you!" Alicia roared. Her eyes turned blood red in anger. She screeched and punched the ss till her hands went numb. Yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn''t save her brother. She was just as helpless and weak as she was in the tournament.
"If you think you can do that, you are stupider than I think," As soon as these words escaped Michael''s mouth, he twisted Peter''s leg and ripped it off his ankle. At this point, Peter didn''t even move. He seemed dead to everyone. Seeing her brother''s horrifying death, Alicia''s legs turned to jelly. She copsed to the ground.
"Take it down," Mutrad said to Dante. He saw no option but to send the cage right into the volcano. He hoped it would stop the Dark Lord from killing them all.
"As you wish," Dante did not argue with Mutrad. He conjured a ball of bright energy. The energy beam shot out of Danbte''s hand, hitting the chains attached to the ceiling. Upon the beam hitting the chains, they exploded into pieces. However, the cage did not fall down as they expected. Instead, the cage hovered in the air without even moving an inch.
"Did you think it''s that simple to get rid of me?" Michael devilishly grinned at Dante and Mutrad. Michael dropped Peter''s body down and stepped onto his waist. He grabbed thest limb before turning his gaze back at Alicia.
"I told you this would happen. You brought this on you all by yourself," Finally, Michael ripped off Peter''sst limb. Michael heard the system''s notification of Peter''s death. Compared to the experience points he received from killing Half Immortals and Fusion stage cultivators, the amount he received from killing Peter was negligible at best.
"Now, every single one of you is going to die. If I were you, I wouldn''t put up a fight. It will only make your death more painful," said Michael. He nced at Dante and his men.
"Don''t say I didn''t warn you," Michael snickered.
"Guys," Dante raised his voice.
"Surround the cage and prepare for a fight," Dante ordered his men.
Everyone, including M, was poised to attack the Dark Lord. They surrounded the Dark Lord. Ignoring Dante and his men, Michael grabbed Peter by his neck and lifted him. He walked toward Alicia. Norvin was speechless. After witnessing Peter''s death, Norvin regretted epting Alicia''s request. He med himself for not talking Alicia out of this mission. At the very least, he knew he should have talked to Noah. He feared what Noah would say to all this after knowing what happened to Peter. Norvin doubted the guardians and Belefort guards would still be alive. The Dark Lord liked to leave something behind for everyone to see and fear him. He ruled the world through fear.
"Hey," Michael called Alicia. She couldn''t look at the cage covered in her brother''s blood. His words made her look up as Michael ced Peter''s face against the ss.
"Look at your brother''s face," Michael said. Everyone around Michael trembled in fear. He ripped Peter limb by limb in front of his sister. Alicia saw her brother''s face with widened eyes. They contained immense pain more than anger. His face was almost unrecognizable.
Michael conjured the dark mes, slowly burning Peter''s body. Even from outside, Dante and his men felt the temperature rising. The dark mes reduced Peter to a pile of hot ash. Dante and his men saw smoke fumesing out of the ashes. Even now, they had no idea how the Dark Lord teleported Peter into the cage. An eerie silence enveloped the hall.
Michael squatted down to see Alicia in her eyes. He waited for Alicia to look up. He wanted to see the pain and grief in her eyes. Usually, Michael preferred not to torture his enemies, but Alicia was different. She showed him no mercy. She took pleasure in torturing him. So why shouldn''t he give a taste of her own medicine?
"Whatever you give me, I will give it back a hundred folds. Do you think Noah can save your ass every time, don''t you? Well, think again,"
"This is between you and us. Don''t bring her family into this," Norvin snarled. They felt a chill when Michael burst into coldughter.
"You should have thought that before you decided to bring me here. As long as she is a Belefort, they will suffer untimely deaths," Michael threatened Alicia and Norvin. They waited for him toe out of the cage. Because there was no way for them to get inside.
Suddenly, Michael''s eyes turned pitch ck. A ck beam shot out of his each eye. The ss cracked. The number of cracks in the ss gradually increased. They knew it was only a matter of time before the ss shatteredpletely.
"Get out of here," Dante stepped in front of Mutrad. He directed his words at Norvin, Alicia, and Mutrad.
"No," Alicia shook her head. She rose up from the ground.
"This ends here and now," Alicia''s eyes glimmered with absolute resolve. She wanted to end the enmity between her and Ghost then and there. Because of her, Peter lost his life. The Dark Lord didn''t even spare his body. She wouldn''t be able to forgive herself if she couldn''t avenge him or die trying.
"Don''t be stupid. Get her out of here," Dante growled. She was just a Soul Refining stage warrior. The Dark Lord could kill her without batting an eye. Fighting him at her current level was nothing but suicide. After seeing what he did to Peter, Dante could only imagine what he would do to Alicia. As the strongest among them, it was Dante''s duty to protect the weak.
As much as Michael liked to kill Alicia, he chose not to. Not because he wanted to spare her but because he wanted her to suffer more. Killing her would be a mercy to her. Besides, as long as she was with Noah, she would bring new types of problems to him every day. While Noah was busy cleaning up Alicia''s mess, Michael could focus on growing stronger. In other words, keeping Alicia alive was more beneficial to him in the long run than killing her.
Norivn did not linger around any longer. He immediately took out a teleportation scroll from his space ring. He grabbed Alicia''s shoulder and tore the scroll to activate the scroll. Soon, a bright light enveloped Alicia and Norvin.
"Let me go!" Alicia''s voice echoed through the hall after she disappeared with Norvin. Dante and his men prepared themselves for a fight. Every light orb around them started to flicker more and more.
Chapter 774 The Dark Lord鈥檚 Power
The light orbs continued to flicker until they all went out. Darkness enveloped the hall. Dante and his team heard the ss shatter. Dante flicked his wrist as a goldenyer of light enveloped him. Everyone in the team cast a defense spell to protect themselves from the Dark Lord. M quickly conjured a ball of silver light. As they expected, the Dark Lord wasn''t in the cage.
They looked around. Suddenly, the door behind them shot closed with a loud thud. The team turned around as they saw the door was shut closed by someone. Mutrad felt a breeze of wind blowing past them. His body trembled in fear unlike Dante and his team, he witnessed what had transpired in Ithn. As they searched for the Dark Lord, an invisible force snuffed out M''s orb of light. The ce fell to darkness once again.
At that moment, the only light source was the shields around their bodies. But they weren''t bright enough to see what was happening around them. The eerie silence swept across the hall. A peal of shout broke the silence.
"Argh!"
Dante and his team turned their heads in the voice''s direction. They saw one of his team members wobbling around. Dante noticed a red line across his neck. Slowly, blood seeped through the line. To their surprise, the man''s head fell from his shoulders. Blood sprayed out of his neck as his body hit the ground with a sickening thud.
In a blink of an eye, the Dark Lord decapitated a Half Immortal. M and the others slowly felt the growing fear in their hearts. The one who died was just as strong as them. Yet, he stood no chance against the Dark Lord, even with a shield around him. The Dark Lordpletely ignored the shield and killed him. After killing the first Half Immortal, the team began to conjure orbs of light. They wanted to bring light to fight the Dark Lord. One by one, they conjured energy orbs, lighting the ce.
But a powerful st of wind snuffed out the light orbs. The Dark Lord did not allow them to fight the darkness. The darkness around them felt strange to Dante. It was not the usual darkness of the night but a thick and eerie kind of darkness. Before they could conjure another orb of light, another one groaned. Dante sent a bright beam of energy in a blink of an eye. He sensed the Dark Lord''s movements around him. The energy beam soared through the air, lighting the ce. At that moment, they saw a figure grinning at them from the shadows. It was the Dark Lord, without a doubt. Beside him, another one of Dante''s team members squirmed. He was on fire. Contrary to typical red fire, these mes were pitch ck. Dante and everyone felt the temperature in the room rising.
Before Dante and his team could put out the fire, almost half of his body turned ashes. There was no point in trying to save him. The half immortal held his chest. Because he was burning, they failed to notice the hole in his chest.
"Open fire!" Dante ordered his team. He chose to attack the Dark Lord with spells instead of waiting for him to show himself. As soon as the team heard the order, they all cast their own spells. The entire hall lit up like a Christmas tree. Mutrad ducked down and kept his head down. M cast a spell that created a dazzling red panda. It ran around the hall, shaking the ground itself. The panda, made of energy, seemed like it was searching for someone.
Boom!
The panda exploded into bits and pieces. It happened so quickly. One moment the panda was running around, and the next, it shattered into countless specks of light. M immediately tried to cast another spell. However, a dark beam shot out from nowhere and hit her in the shoulder.
"ARGH!'' M screamed. The dark beams sent her flying onto the walls behind her. The others did not stop. Dante clenched his fist, casting a spell. When he opened his fist, a shockwave of shadowy energy shot out from him. The shock wave was powerful enough to crush a Fusion Stage cultivator to a bloody pulp. He hoped the shock wave would knock down the Dark Lord.
But nothing happened as Dante expected. A few secondster, another wave shot out from the other side of the room. This wave was stronger and more powerful than Dante''s shock wave. On top of it, it wasn''t a shock wave but a wave of fire.
Dante and his team immediately leaped into the air to avoid the dark mes. The mes pulsated from the Dark Lord. It scorched the marble floor, turning it ck. Mutrad missed the me wave by an inch. While they were in the air, the dark beams zig zagged through the air. The goldenyer of light around Dante reflected the dark beams. Unfortunately, M''s shield wasn''t as strong as Dante''s. The dark beams already hit her in the shoulder. She was bleeding. Her luck was bad enough to the point the dark beams hit the same spot in the shoulder. This time, the beams prated through her body.
She fell from the air in pain. Dante dashed at M to catch her before she hit the ground. However, a ck shield flew out of the darkness and hit him in the face. Dante momentarily lost his focus on M. The shield flew back in the same direction as it came.
"MILA!" Dante screamed as he saw a bolt of golden lightning fly past her. M disappeared along with the lightning bolt. He could swear he saw the Dark Lord''s blurry figure in the lightning bolt.
"ARRGHH!" M screams echoed through the hall. But her scream was cut short. Hearing her scream, Dante''s heart skipped a beat. He was with M for almost five hundred years. The two of them joined the Arctic hall together and have served them ever since. He forgot what it would feel like to live without M. Just imagining she might be dead made his body tremble.
"Where are you?!" Dante screamed. He could see in the dark as an Immortal, but this strange darknesspletely blinded him.
M has yet to respond to him. Instead, Dante heard the Dark Lord''s voice.
"Didn''t I warn you all?" asked Michael.
His voice echoed through the hall. Dante conjured a ball of light. To his surprise, he saw M walking toward him. He heaved a sigh of relief in his heart. Unfortunately, his relief was short-lived. He saw therge holes in her chest. Her silver armor had blood stains. He was about to reach out for M when the dark beams shot straight through M''s head.
"MILA!" Dante screamed. He dashed at M. He caught her dead body and copsed down. Michael utilized Dante''s grief. Without wasting a second, he immediately cast the lightning dash. Michael raised his hand as thick bolts of lightning shot out of his hand rapidly. He bombarded the Half Immortals with lightning bolts. The Half Immortals tried to shield themselves from the bolts. Their shields cracked upon taking hit by the lightning bolts. One by one, the shields shattered. As soon as the shield around them disappeared, the lightning bolts prated their bodies. The Half Immortals looked weak as ants in front of Michael.
Michael may be a Half immortal in cultivation, but he was several times stronger than one. He was a god, after all. Dante''s team stood no chance against Michael, who was using the Death range to boost his power. Dante heard the sounds of blood sshing around him. He looked around to see several heads flying in the air vaguely. After Michael slowly thest Half Immortal, the hall wentpletely dark.
At that moment, Mutrad only heard the sobbing of Dante. Mutrad saw what the Dark Lord was capable of up close. He couldn''t believe he actually signed up to capture this cold-blooded killer. Up to this moment, Mutrad always thought the Ithn massacre was made possible by the void effect he created deep down. Now he realized how wrong he was. The Dark Lord ughtered a highly trained Arctic death squad in a few minutes. He toyed with them. Mutrad sensed his death near him.
He searched for Dante. Mustering his courage, Mutrad conjured a tiny orb of light to light his path. His heart skipped a beat when the orb of light appeared in his hand. It almost jumped out of his chest. He saw the Dark Lord squatting beside Dante.
Dante felt a chill. The Fear toxin Michael released and the effects of the Death range petrified Dante. Despite the cultivation difference between the two, Dante couldn''t even lift a finger against Michael.
Michael put his hand on Dante''s shoulder. The very next moment, the Dark Lord sent the crimson-red sword in his hand straight through Dante''s heart. He stabbed Dante again and again without giving Dante any time to retaliate. In addition, he shot dark beams from his eyes at Dante. The dark beams slowly melted through Dante''s head. Michael lifted Dante by his neck after Dantepletely lost the will and strength to fight.
Mutrad saw the Dark Lord slowly walking toward the cage. As he moved closer to the cage, a bright light enveloped the cage out of nowhere. In a blink of an eye, the cage disappeared from Mutrad''s sight. After the cage disappeared, the floor had a huge hole. One could see bubblingva inside the volcano from the edge.
Michael held Dante over the hole by his neck. Michael felt the scorching heat in the air. Just by standing above the volcano, his whole body sweated. Dante already lost consciousness after being stabbed and prated by the dark beams in his head. Although Michael killed his team and was about to kill Dante, he felt pity for them. They all died because of someone''s agenda. To Michael, they were just experience packs. Michael stabbed Dante with his sword onest time before releasing his grip around his neck. Dante fell through the hole and flew straight toward the volcano.
After wiping out Dante''s team, Michael turned around. He saw Mutrad crawling back in fear. Mutrad shivered as the Dark Lord slowly walked toward him. Mutrad saw no way of escaping from the Dark Lord.
"And what should I do with you?" Michael asked in a devilish tone.
Chapter 775 Become My Spy
Michael snapped his finger as the lights turned back on. Michael gestured at Mutrad to get back to his feet. The air inside the hall reeked of blood. Everywhere Mutrad turned, he saw blood and bodies. An oblivious man wouldn''t believe that they were once Half Immortals. Despite their cultivation level, they stood no chance against Michael. Mutrad shivered, looking Michael in the eyes.
"Is this what you want for your people?" Michael asked Mutrad.
"Because you''ve been shadowing me for a while. I cane and greet your people, and this cat and mouse run,"
Mutrad''s heart skipped a beat hearing his words.
"Give me one reason why I should visit your homnd," Michael gently ced his hand on Mutrad''s shoulder.
"I know you might think you have people stronger than Immortals guarding your homnd. But you also knew stronger guards never stopped me from doing what I wanted,"
Mutrad shivered. Dante was an Immortal, yet he didn''t even put up a fight against the Dark Lord, who was at the Half Immortal stage. If stronger cultivators could kill him, he would have been dead by now. The Dark Lord always had a way of killing enemies who were stronger than him in cultivation. After witnessing what happened in Ithn, Mutrad couldn''t even imagine the Dark Lord stepping into his homnd.
"Please don''t," Mutrad stuttered.
"Why? Don''t you want to arrest me?" asked Michael with an amused smile.
"I think I want to visit your elders. I haven''t tested my spells and power underwater. This might be a great opportunity to do so," said Michael.
"What do you want from me? I''d do anything to stop you," Mutrad managed to utter these words.
"Is that so?" Michael rubbed his chin.
"Answer me this, Mutrad. Are you more loyal to your people or the guardians?"
Mutrad did not understand the meaning of his question. Hence, he took some time to ponder. However, Michael was not a patient man. He squeezed Mutrad''s shoulder, snapping him out of his daze.
"To my people," Mutrad answered, getting his teeth. He felt like his shoulder bone was about to be crushed.
Michael loosened his grip as Mutrad heaved a sigh.
"Then you won''t have a problem spying on the guardians for me, will you?" Michael smiled.
For a moment, Mutrad couldn''t believe what he had just heard. The Dark Lord wanted him to be his spy. And that too inside the Guardian Guild.
"But¡I am not a guardian," Mutrad said.
"That didn''t stop you from using and manipting the guardians until now," Michael said. He was nonchnt. Just like Mutrad did his research on Michael, he did the same on Mutrad. Last year, Michael assigned Azazel to learn more about the Sea Folks.
One of the snippets of information Azazel had on Mutrad was how loyal Mutrad was toward the Arctic hall and the Sea Folks. He would give his life for his people. In other words, Mutrad would do anything to protect his people. Michael always nned to use Mutrad one way or another. He was more valuable alive than dead. Moreover, Mutrad''s close connection with the Guardian Guild allowed Michael to flip him against the Guardians. After all, Mutrad was loyal to his people, not to the Guardians.
"Do I have any choice?" asked Mutrad.
"Of course you have. You can either do what I ask you or watch the ck day repeat all over again,"
? Mutrad felt helpless. However, this was way better than having to witness his homnd burn as he watched Ithn. If anything Mutrad learned over the past years, it was not to mess with the Dark Lord under any circumstances. After seeing the Dark Lord ughter Dante and his team up close, Mutrad let go of his foolish pursuit to apprehend the Dark Lord.
"It seems like I am going to be a rat," Mutrad sighed.
"Better to be rat than dead," Michael snickered. After striking a deal with Mutrad, Michael looted the corpses for their space rings. Since they were all Half Immortals, he knew they might have some juicy items in their space rings. Michael scanned the castle with his Environmental Scanning. To his surprise, the castle seemed rather empty. He only sensed a bunch of Soul Refiners and a couple of Fusion stage cultivations. Apparently, the Skyhall and Sea Folks put the strongest warriors to guard Michael.
When Michael exited the castle, he had enough experience points to reach Immortal stage level 4. Michael now only needed to ensure the floating mountain was secure before triggering the heavenly tribtion again. Gaya was the only one who went through her heavenly tribtion in the dark ocean. Although she passed it sessfully, the process was extremely dangerous. Michael wanted to change that. In fact, Michael must ensure all of his subordinates have a safer ce to go through their heavenly tribtions safely.
Instead of returning to the Dark Ocean, Michael chose to roam around the Fire Realm. ording to Sadie, there might be a primordial me within the fire realm. But to Michael''s knowledge, there couldn''t be another primordial me in the fire realm. Because the Hell mes were trapped within the golden te, he took it from the Genric family. So Michael wondered how there could be another primordial me. Since he was already at the Fire Realm, Michael wanted to look around a bit. With the system back online, he would find out if something was in the realm.
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Two dayster, Alicia returned to the Ice Fair with Norvin. The news of Peter''s demise had already spread through the kingdom like wildfire. The entire kingdom knew the Dark Lord took Peter after ughtering the guardians and Belefort family soldiers who guarded Peter. Moreover, the rumor about the Dark Lord swearing to destroy the Belefort family spread among the people of the Ice fair.
The Belefort manor was built on a river bank, overlooking a snowy mountain in the distance. The manor was extravagant enough to be called a castle. It was surrounded by thick walls and guarded by several soldiers armed to the teeth. They all bowed toward Alicia when her carriage entered the giant metal gates.
Unlike ever before, Alicia felt reluctant to meet her family. She took a deep breath and exited the carriage.
"Young Miss," a couple of old women waited at the entrance to wee Alicia.
"Everyone is waiting for you in the main hall," said the old woman.
Norvin noticed a sliver of concern and sadness in their eyes. As Norvin expected, the manor was crawling with guards. It made sense, especially after what happened to Peter. Norvin also knew the Dark Lord spread the news about the hostility between him and the Belefort family. He wanted the Belefort family to be isted. Although no one would openly admit they were afraid of the Dark Lord, they would automatically cut ties with the Belefort so they wouldn''t end up on the Dark Lord''s radar.
Norvin hoped Noah woulde out of his seclusion soon to sort everything out with Alicia and her family. If anyone could clean up Alicia''s mess, it was Noah. Alicia and Norvin followed the two old women inside.
"Young miss," when they reached a marble door, the two old women gawked at Norvin.
"He ising with me," Alicia coldly said. She knew they were trying to tell her to leave Norvin outside since he wasn''t a Belefort. However, as far as Alicia was concerned, Norvin was her family. Hence, she outright refused to leave Norvin behind.
When Alicia opened the marble door, she was wee by a specious grand hall. Slender braziers enclosing each of the sixteen onyx columns lit up the lower levels of the throne hall, covering the hall in dancing shadows and a warm radiance. The marble stone of theyered ceiling danced in the flickering light while memorials looked down upon the stone floor of this luxurious hall.
A gray-haired man wearing icy blue robes sat on a throne atop an elevated tform. The regal marble throne sat beneath a statue of an eagle and was adjoined by five rather in-looking seats for the family members.
The elders and important family members sat on several extravagant andfortable iron benches, all of which faced the throne in a half circle. Those of higher standing were seated on the embellished mezzanines facing the throne. The moment Alicia entered the hall, the noises fell t. Silence upied the hallpletely. The man on the throne was none other than Alicia''s father, Francis Belefort. He was a fit man with a stubble white beard. At that moment, his blue eyes had hidden anger and concern for his family''s safety. Even though he lost his son, he had no time to grieve when his family was in mortal danger. Francis may have soon to be son-inw who was the Supreme Guardian, but he and the elders doubted Noah could protect them from the Dark Lord forever. Taking a life was so much easier than protecting one.
Alicia''s eyes watered, seeing the cold look on her father''s face. Looking at their eyes, Norvin could tell all of them were scared shitless by the Dark Lord. Their fear was the Dark Lord''s strength. He ruled the world through fear. At that moment, the Belefor family was under his thumb. There was a time the Belefort family could have crushed Ghost without much effort. But time had changed everything. Now, even the most powerful families would tremble at the mere mention of the Dark Lord''s name.
"Alicia Flora Belefort," Francis addressed Alicia by her full name. His voice was cold.
"Norvin, please take a seat among the elders. This hearing is only for Alicia," said Francis.
"If you don''t mind, I''d like to stand beside my friend, Lord Francis. As her friend and sworn brother, it''s my duty, and I hope you won''t ask me to fail my duty,"
"Fair enough," Francis nodded.
"Before we start this hearing, I''d like to know everything you know about Peter. Is he dead?"
Everything Francis saw in Peter''s home suggested the obvious. Yet, Francis wanted to hear it from Alicia.
"Hmm," Alicia slowly nodded as tears rolled out her eyes.
Francis clenched his fist. It took him several moments to find his next words.
"Is it possible for us to give him a proper burial?" asked Francis.
Alicia''s silence spoke volumes. It was hard for them to digest that Peter, the heir to the Belefort family, died a brutal death.
"It''s time for you to tell us everything you know, Alicia," Francis asked Alicia.
Alicia remained silent.
"I am not asking you as your father. I am ordering you to speak as the head of the Belefort family," Francis''s voice became colder.
Finally, Alicia wiped off the tears from her face and decided to tell her father everything rted to Peter''s death. She didn''t care about what would happen to her. They deserved to know the truth.
Chapter 776 Unexpected Turn Of Events
Alicia told the Belefort family everything rted to Peter''s death, including the fact that she worked with the Skyhall to capture the Dark Lord. She didn''t leave the part where she actually tortured the Dark Lord himself. The elders shivered in fear. Some outright dropped to their knees, praying to the gods to save the family. Many elders were furious at Alicia for endangering the family. For a few minutes, the elders murmured and gasped in shock.
"Silence," Francis raised his voice as the noise finally fell t.
"How many times have we told you to leave Peter''s matter alone?" Francis asked Alicia. His eyes glimmered with anger. Because Alicia was a prodigy and his doting daughter, he always ignored her obvious anger issues. Even when she tried to gather the Belefort family to seek revenge against Ghost after the tournament, Francis only gently talked her out of it. He had never shown any anger toward Alicia.
"What happened to Peter in the tournament was unfortunate. But he wasn''t meless, either. You need to be ready to get burned if you y with the fire long enough," One of the gray-haired elders rose from his seat and said.
Alicia clenched her fist.
"Unfortunate? Is that what you call what happened to Peter?" Alicia''s voice burned with rage and murderous intent. The elder almost took a step back.
"He is right," Alicia''s anger disappeared immediately when she heard Francis. Instead, she was stunned by her father''s words. She couldn''t understand how Francis could ept what Ghost did to Peter at the tournament like others.
"Am I the only one who thinks Peter doesn''t deserve Ghost''s cruel treatment?" Alicia said, gritting her teeth.
"But he was alive, wasn''t he?" Francis coldly asked Alicia.
"If you had left that matter alone, he would have been alive by now. The Dark Lord may have killed him, but you are just as responsible as the Dark Lord himself,"
Alicia couldn''t believe she heard these words from her father. Even Norvin had never expected such cold treatment from Francis. Looking at Francis''s treatment of Alicia, the elders dared to speak their minds. Soon, an olddy with neatlybed white hair stood up.
"Does Noah Winston know you went behind his back?" asked the old woman.
"He has nothing to do with this," Norvin said.
"I disagree. He has everything to do with this. He might be the only person who could protect our family from the Dark Lord. is it true that the Dark Lord said quote as long as she is a Belefort, they will suffer untimely deaths?"
Norvin was startled. The olddy spoke the Dark Lord''s words like she was there.
"How did you know?" Alicia coldly asked the woman.
"So it''s true," the old woman copsed as the elders gasped in shock. It was none other than Michael who spread the rumors in Ice Fair through Sadie. He wanted some of the important elders in the Belefort family to know what had happened even before Alicia told them. Still, the elders were startled to hear it from Alicia''s mouth. The elders couldn''t even think straight after realizing they were officially on the kill list of the Dark Lord.
"You can''t me her for everything. She was Peter''s sister, for god sake. If you stay still and do nothing if the same had happened to your son, daughter, or brother," Norvin questioned the elders.
Another elder stood up,
"I don''t know what we would have done after the tournament. But we would have definitely avoided messing with Ghost after knowing he is the freaking Dark Lord. He ughtered Immortals and literally removed Ithn from the face of the world,"
"And where was the Skyhall when he killed Peter? The Great Eight ns need pawns to sacrifice to the Dark Lord. They won''t let their own get killed," another elder voiced his concern.
"Because of what you had done, we might get wiped off,"
"He ughtered Immortals. Do you think we stand a chance against him?"
"He didn''t have toe here by himself. Any one of his generals could burn us to the ground,"
One by one, the elders stood up and raised their voices. Francis could do nothing but watch his daughter get med for everything. The unfortunate thing was the elders were right. Alicia had no words to defend herself. Deep down, she knew her entire family was in danger because of what she did.
At that moment, Norvin hated the Skyhall more than anyone. They roped Alicia into this n and never appeared to save Peter. He could only imagine what would have happened to Mutrad and his men.
"I will ept any punishment you give me," Alicia dropped to her knees. The hall went silent. Norvin saw Francis rise from his throne. He hoped Alicia''s mother was here. Unfortunately, the poor woman was too devastated to hear her son was dead. She lost consciousness the moment she saw the blood stains and the dead bodies in Peter''s home. She was still under the care of healers.
"Alicia, I don''t me youpletely. You did what any loving sister would have. I know you wanted to avenge Peter. But at that same time, you ignored our warnings. You went behind our backs and endangered the entire family. You let your anger cloud your mind," Francis sighed. He couldn''t speak those words looking into Alicia''s eyes. But he had to do this for the sake of his family. He hoped it would be enough to calm the Dark Lord''s anger.
"As someone who lost a brother, I understand your feelings. Taking that and your contributions to the family into the ount, I hereby exile you from the Belefort family,"
Tears gushed out of Alicia''s eyes. Norvin was startled by Francis''s words. But the elders looked relieved and satisfied with Francis''s punishment. None of the elders expected a death sentence for Alicia, so they were quite satisfied with removing Alicia from the family.
"From now on, you are not a Belefort, and I restrict you from using the name under any circumstances," a teardrop escaped Francis''s eye. His voice stuttered. With Alicia''s exile, his bloodline came to an end.
"Let''s just hope this will be enough for the Dark Lord," said an elder.
Norvin clenched his fist. He wanted to punch everyone to death. However, he managed to suppress his anger. Thest thing Norvin wanted was to make things worse for Alicia. Suddenly, a bright beam of light shot through the ceiling andnded right beside Alicia. The bright light blinded everyone. They closed their eyes using their hands. After the light beam faded away, they saw Noah Winston standing beside Alicia.
"Noah!" Norvin shouted. He had never been so happy to see Noah. Just Noah''s arrival made Norvin heave a sigh of relief.
Noah did not utter any word but lifted Alicia to her feet by her shoulders. He wiped off the tears on her face and gently smiled.
"Let me take care of this," said Noah. He turned his gaze away from Alicia to Francis.
"Is this what the great Belefort family has reduced to? You''d rather exile your daughter than seek justice for your son''s death?" Noah was calm, but his words were as cold as ice.
If Noah was just a guardian, Francis and the elders would have raised their voices against him. But he was a Supreme Guardian, the leader of the Guardian Guild. Hence, they dared not to disrespect Noah.
"I lost my son. I am not going to lose my family too," said Francis.
"Nothing you say will revoke my judgment. She is not a Belefort anymore," Francis said these words with a heavy heart. He had to look stout in front of the elders. He couldn''t afford to look weak. But only he knew how painful it was to make this decision. He felt like something was squeezing his heart.
"She won''t be a Belefort anymore," Noah turned as he lifted Alicia''s hand.
"Because she is a Winston," UNder their gazes, Noah put a ring on her finger. It wasn''t an engagement ring but the Winston family heirloom. The white ring symbolized the marriage union between them. No one expected Noah to marry Alicia then and there. Even Michael did not expect Noah''s bold move. He thought Noah would be furious and vent his anger on Alicia, which would break their rtionship. Instead, it brought Noah and Alicia closer.
Even Alicia and Norvin were stunned. Alicia just stared at Noah without batting an eye.
"If Ghost wants to hurt her, he''d have to go through me," Noah grabbed Alicia''s hand and walked toward the door. On his way, he raised his finger as a light beam shot toward the ceiling. Francis saw a tiny object fall down from the ceiling. It soon exploded into oblivion.
Everyone realized that the Dark Lord was watching them all this time. Just the thought was enough to make their hearts skip a beat. Noah crushed the Spyder under his feet and exited the hall without turning back. The elders were still in shock. Francis''s mind was nk. He just saw his daughter getting married before his eyes. Everything happened so sudden. He dreamed of doing Alicia''s marriage as the grandest event in Ice Fair history, but the gods had another n.
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Meanwhile, Michael was looking at a nk mirror. Michael was surprised to see Noah actually located his Spyder. It seemed to him Noah''s godly powers were slowly developing. Of course, Noah was nowhere close to Michael in terms of power or god level;
"That was unexpected," said Michael.
"I don''t get him. He did the exact opposite of what we imagined,'' said Ayag.
"Life is full of surprises huh," Michael smiled. Granted, what Noah did surprised him, but it didn''t mess up Michael''s n whatsoever. The longer Alicia was with Noah, the more problems he would face. However, Michael admired Noah for sticking by his woman''s side even when she was in the wrong. At Least the two of them shared that inmon.
"My lord," Azazel entered the room.
"Lord Elidyr is waiting for you outside," said Azazel.
"Everything ready?" Michael asked.
"Everything is ready, my lord,"
Michael took a deep breath. Since he got the elven rune, it was time to reach the 6-star Alchemist level.
Chapter 777 Pray To The Dark Lord
After Michael revealed himself as the Dark Lord, the Sun Rise sect faced several nders from the nobles and the Guardian Guild. The rival sects used this as an excuse to iste the sect and cause its downfall. After Noah took the throne of the Supreme Guardian, heunched an extensive investigation on the Sun Rise sect and learned the Dark Lord had no more connections with the sect. As an individual, Noah knew Ghost genuinely helped the sect to grow. Just because he was the Dark Lord, Noah couldn''t disregard all the good Ghost did to the Sun Rise sect and the River town. Under the Sun Rise sect''s leadership, the River town became one of the richest cities in the Elon Continent. The town may be small, but that didn''t stop them from prospering. After Noah''s investigation redeemed the Sun Rise sect, disciples resumed joining the sect. The Sun Rise sect had the highest breaking-through ratepared to the rest of the sects. Thanks to the biggest herbal garden on the continent and the talented alchemists in the sect, they refined powerful potions and pills. They continued the tradition of giving out pills and potions for free to the disciples even after Michael left the sect. Since the Dark Lord himself was a former disciple, no one even dared to think about harming anyone in the sect. To the outside world, the Sun Rise sect had no connection with the Dark Lord. But in reality, someone in the sect still was in touch with the Dark Lord. It was none other than Elder E. Under her takeover spree, the Sun Rise sect had taken over more than thirty sects and became thergest sect in the continent. Recently, E had been trying to broaden her horizon to the Ozer Continent.
The sky above the peaceful sect was littered with stars. Nighttime brought beauty like no other time of day. The only sound that resonated in the mountains was the wind whistling through trees, with the asional cricket chirping here and there. In the daytime, the sect grounds bustled with disciples and staff. The nighttime, however the exact opposite of the daytime. The disciples were inside their rooms, cultivating and meditating, while the outsiders were prohibited from entering the sect ground without the elders'' permission. The sect became so peaceful that it was difficult not to rxpletely while looking at this particr nighttime beauty. The sky was covered with ckness and speckled with millions of stars. The blue moon dazzles in the sky, bathing the jade mountain with its sparkling blue light.
Under this starry sky, a figure walked atop a lone mountain where the Dark Lord used to meditate. One could see the entire sect and the river town from this mountain peak. This mountain was restricted to the disciples as the Guardian believed the aura of the Dark Lord could still be around and influence the disciples. But it was all a hoard of bullshit. Nheless, only the elders and Sect Leader ire were allowed to ess this particr mountain.
"I need your help," the figure said gently. Her silky smooth skin almost reflected the dazzling moon light. The wind blew past her, making her striking golden hair flutter in the air. ire sat on the mat the Dark Lord used to meditate. To her, the Dark Lord was like her little brother. No matter what the world said about him, she knew better than to trust the world. Looking at the world from here, tears rolled out her eyes without control. She felt a strange sense of security in this ce.
"You know, my grandfather had gone missing," ire said to the sky, hoping it would reach the Dark Lord somehow. It had been three weeks since Christopher went missing. Before Ghost revealed himself as the Dark Lord to the world, he broke Christopher''s curse. ire had never been happier in her life. She saw her grandfather finally able to sleep without groaning in pain. Although one of their disciples turned out to be the Dark Lord, everything went rtively fine for ire and the sect. However, that was only until Christopher began discussing rescuing ire''s mother, sha Mortero.
She was held prisoner by the Mortero family for almost three decades. The Mortero family was based in the Kingdom of Nelnathyr. It was one of the three elven kingdoms in the Awor continent. Unlike the other two, Nelnathyr was extremely hostile against the other races. Of course, they put on a facade of being friendly and weing but deep down, most of the elves would kill the other races in a heartbeat. Most of the racist elves Michael met in Mazeroth hailed from Nelnathyr. Hence, they went to such an extent to hunt down sha and her human husband. Luckily for ire, she inherited human features rather than eleven features. Otherwise, she would have ended up in a different prison.
"I searched everywhere. But who am I kidding? I know where he went. I am just too weak to go there. I am afraid Ghost," ire sobbed. Everyone advised her to go to the Guardian Guild. But ire knew they wouldn''t lift a finger to help ire. Everyone in the Guardian Guild hated the Sun Rise sect and ire because of the Dark Lord. Even after Noah proved the sect had nothing to do with the Dark Lord anymore, he couldn''t wipe out the hatred in the guardians'' minds. She was nowhere close to fighting the elves.
Due to the immense workload and the thought of her mother, ire''s cultivation slowed down. She was stuck at the Soul refining stage level 10 for almost a year.
She had too many things in her mind that created a bottleneck in her cultivation. Because she was the Sect Leader, she couldn''t afford to look weak and vulnerable. Yet deep down, she was afraid like a little girl. She had already lost her grandfather once. She didn''t think she could lose him again. Every time she felt helpless, Ghost was always there for her. She hoped he would appear before her one more time.
She closed her eyes, praying to the Dark Lord. Worshiping the Dark Lord was a crime punishable by death in some kingdoms. The Guardian Guild came up with this punishment, only to get demolished by Noah. Instead of killing the worshippers, Noah captured them and asked why they were praying to the Dark Lord. Of course, Andreas outright disagreed with Noah and advised him to kill the worshippers before they could join the Dark Lord''s army. Unfortunately, both Noah and Andreas were right. Some of them did join the Dark Lord''s army, but many who Noah captured let go of Dark Lord worshiping and returned to their normal life with a little help from the guild. Unknowing to the Guardian Guild, the Dark Lord had his underlings among the people. Whenever someone prayed for the Dark Lord, their prayers would be answered in exchange for loyalty.
"Please answer my prayers. They say you are a god. A god should answer prayers. You always answered my prayers. Please, do it one more time," ire copsed her hands together and prayed for the Dark Lord. a gentle breeze of wind blew past ire. She heard the dried leaves rustling around her. Still, she did not open her eyes. Shepletely focused on her prayer. Tears slowly rolled out of her eyes. For a few minutes, the onlypanion she had was silence. After a while, she lost track of time.
When she was drowned in prayer, another gentle breeze blew past her. To her surprise, the breeze of wind blew against her face as though it was trying to pry open her eyes.
"ire," ire''s neck hair stood up when she heard a voice from behind. For a moment, ire thought her mind was ying games.
"Did you call for me?" ire clearly heard the voice, it was undoubtedly Ghost''s. She abruptly opened her eyes. When she turned around, she saw Ghost standing before her. It felt like a dream to her. She sobbed and smiled at the same time. Without a second thought, she ran toward Ghost and hugged him tightly. She didn''t give a damn about what everyone said about him or what anyone would think if they saw them together. No words escaped her mouth. Her mind waspletely nk. The wall she erupted around her to show the world how strong she was crumbled down before Michael. In front of him, she was just a weak girl in need of help.
"What did I tell you before I left? I''d always answer your calls," said Michael. He gently brushed her back while she was sobbing.
"Yes," ire said. It took ire a few minutes to finally let him go.
He wiped off the tears from her face and gently smiled.
"Don''t cry. I am here. You have nothing to worry about," Michael took her hands, leading her to the mountain edge. He sat on the edge and gestured at her to sit beside him.
"What happened?" Michael asked ire as though he didn''t know what made her pray for him. As a matter of fact, Sadie was tasked to get as much information as possible about the Moltero family. Even though Michael''s spywork was still in the beginning stages, he could almost learn anything through the Silvermoon girls.
Sadie already sent an elf to Nelnathyr. Michael wanted to know everything he could before rescuing ire''s mother. He may be the Dark Lord, but he cared for everyone around him.
Since the elves of Nelnathyr were a bunch of racist scums, giving them the Dark Lord treatment was just a bonus. ire told Michael everything about her grandfather''s disappearance. He patiently listened to ire''s story and felt pity for her. The elves really messed up her life. After ire finished her story, Michael squeezed her hand.
"If your mother is still alive, I will bring her to you," said Michael.
"She had to be," ire''s voice stuttered.
Michael did not want to make any false promises. There was a certain possibility that ire''s mother was dead. Even he wouldn''t be able to bring the dead back to life. However, if she was alive, nothing could stop him from rescuing her and reuniting her with ire.
Chapter 778 6-Star Alchemist
After leaving the Sun Rise sect, Michael returned to the dark ocean. He spent almost two hours with ire. At first, they just talked about sha and the Mortero family. Then, their topic turned toward the sect, personal life, and even marriage. To Michael''s surprise, ire asked him toe to the Dark ocean leaving everything behind. However, Michael refused the idea. Instead, Michael wanted her to stay in Elon and continue to lead the Sun Rise sect to prosperity. The Sun Rise sect and the River town were something he was so proud of. When the war with the Eight great ns and the SKyhall was over, he even nned to settle down in the river town. Hence, he wanted ire to keep ruling till it''s over.
He appeared right on top of the waterfall, where he met Elidyr.
"My Lord," Elidyr slightly bent his back to show respect. The ground around Elidyr glimmered in the darkness. Before the Dark Lord arrived, Elidyr created this array to let the Dark Lord absorb the elven rune. Because it was just a simple array, Elidyr created it in a few minutes. When the Dark Lord appeared, he stood in the array''s center.
"Pleasee to the center, my lord," Elidyr gestured at Michael to step into the array. Upon reaching the center, Michael noticed the runes in the array glow brighter. He felt a strange sensation throughout his body. He took out the golden te with the elven rune engraved in it. The array flickered as soon as the elven rune appeared in Michael''s hand.
The elven rune responded to the array by radiating a crimson-red light. The two lights glowed brighter and brighter as the golden te trembled in Michael''s hand.
"Focus on the rune and try to absorb it, my lord," Elidyr instructed Michael. He did as he was told. First, Michael closed his eyes. He tried to feel the energy radiating from the rune. While focusing on the rune, he started to feel a strange connection with the rune. Warm energy washed over him. Elidyr saw the red rune slowly floating toward the Dark Lord. Inch by inch, it moved closer to the Dark Lord''s forehead. The rune disappeared into the Dark Lord''s head a few secondster. Michael felt a bolt of electricity running down his spine.
[The host has absorbed the Elven Rune]
[Fire Mastery has increased by 10%]
[Current Fire Mastery is 40%]
[The Host has fulfilled the requirements needed to be a 6-Star Alchemist]
[Does the host wish to upgrade to the 6-Star Alchemist level?]
Michael saw his vision being filled with system notifications. Finally, after such a long time, he was able to reach the 6-Star alchemist level.
"Yes," Michael willed the system to upgrade his alchemy skill. As usual, he felt an acute pain in his brain. Fortunately, the pain onlysted for several seconds.
[Congrattions to the host for bing the 6-Star Alchemist]
[The host can now refine pills and potions with 100% purity] said the system.
The array around Michael slowly lost its glow. Michael raised his hand, conjuring his alchemy mes. Unlike before, purplish mes appeared above Michael''s palm instead of emerald green mes. This me burned hotter and brighter. Granted, it was nowhere close to the Dark mes but still, it was several times hotter and more powerful than the emerald green mes.
"Now you are a 6-Star alchemist, my lord," said Elidyr. He couldn''t help admiring the Dark Lord''s talents. But Elidyr never felt any jealousy. He knew there was a struggle and hard work behind everything the Dark Lord had. He spent a year pretending to be Elmer in the Genric family to get the elven rune. Many with his power and resources, wouldn''t go through such a struggle.
With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out several ingredients from the system store. Now that he had reached the 6-Star alchemist level, Michael decided to brew a potion that had been in his mind for so long. Under Elidyr''s curious gaze, Michael tossed the ingredients into the purple me. To brew the potion with 100% purity, Michael either needed a Legendary cauldron or a 100% fire master. Since he had neither, he could only hope for 97% pure pills and potions.
As far as Michael was concerned, buying a cauldron from the system was a waste of badass points. Instead, he opted to buy it locally. Gold coins were much cheaper and easier to get than the badass points. One by one, ingredients melted into globs of colorful essence. These beads of essence slowly merged, forming a murky brown glob. Soon, the purple mes faded away as the brown liquid flew into a ss vial.
"What is it, my lord?" asked Elidyr. The potion sparked in Michael''s hands. Even standing a few meters away from the potions, Elidry was able to feel the energy radiation from the potion. His curiosity made him ask the Dark Lord without wasting a second.
"You will see soon," said Michael without breaking the surprise. An hourter, Michael finally returned to his room. Nightmare and Vedora were nowhere to be found in his room. The two of them went flying around the mountain to pass the time. Cain did not like wasting his time flying around, but Sarba and Ayag outvoted him. Since they weren''t in the room, Michael hoped to have some alone time with Gaya.
"Where is my gorgeous fiance?" Michael entered the room with a grin on his face. But his smile froze when he saw Gaya sitting on their bed with hundreds of scrolls around her. Her hair was messy, and she was still in her ck pajamas. She didn''t even notice Michael entering the room. She just scratched the back of her head with the quill.
"Okay, what is happening here?" asked Michael. He removed his armor and put it on the armor stand. He willed the system to equip the sweatpants and a ck tank top. He slowly moved aside the scrolls and sat behind her. With full of love, he hugged her from behind and ced his head on her shoulder.
"What''s bothering you?" asked Michael.
"The financial state of our order. We are in trouble, Michael," Gaya said with a grave voice.
"We need to generate more ie instead of solely relying on Gisel. The more we take from Gisel, the more attraction we draw from the world," Gaya sighed. Judging by the look in her eyes, Michael realized they were really in neck-deep trouble. To be honest, Michael had never meddled with the financial side of things. He let Gaya handle it because she had more experience managing than him.
"We are running out of pirates to pige. They are joining our ranks instead of fighting. So every day, the number of mouths we have to feed and pay for increases. At this rate, we''d be bankrupt in few months,"
"That bad huh,"
"Hmm," Gaya nodded.
"Let''s just hope Saber and his party return from the treacherous ocean with some treasures. It won''t solve anything but temporarily fix our situation till AH!" Suddenly Gaya shouted.
"The fuck?" Gaya furiously turned around.
"What part of our conversation made you think oh I should pinch her waist,"
"The part where you being so pretty and cute," Michael kissed her on the cheek, pulling her down to the bed. He cuddled her so tight.
"You are so annoying," Gaya giggled. Regardless of her tension and pressure, he made her smile. She got on top of Michael as he hugged her tight. The two of them could feel each other''s fragrance and hot warmth.
"Guess who is the 6-Star alchemist in the dark ocean?" asked Michael with a sly grin.
"Really? When did that happen? Why didn''t you tell me?" Gaya asked as Michael chuckled.
"I did. You just forgot,"
"Shit," Gaya smacked herself on the head.
"I am chorry," Gaya rubbed her nose with Michael before kissing him on the forehead.
"I should be the one to say sorry. I shouldn''t have put all the financial side of things on your head. After we return from Nelnathyr, I''ll find a way to generate more ie,"
"Nelnathyr? Isn''t that the elven kingdom filled with racist assholes?"
"Yes," Michael chuckled.
"Why do we need to go there?" asked Gaya. Michael heaved a sigh as he began to tell her everything that ire had told him. After listening to Michael, Gaya felt pity for ire.
"I almost forgot Christopher and sha. We did give them our word we''d help ire reunite with her family. When are we leaving?"
Since Gaya lost her mother when she was little, she knew how ire felt. It made Gaya sympathize with her. Besides, ire was her friend. Hence, they decided to help her.
"After I break through to the Immortal stage,"
The moment she heard Michael''s words, her brows arched up. She couldn''t believe him.
"What the fuck? You just became a Half Immortal," Gaya wanted to punch him in the face. Noah was his rival, yet he was still stuck at the Fusion stage. Meanwhile, Michael umted enough experience points to jump from Half Immortal level 10 to Immortal stage level 4. Gaya could only imagine how powerful he would be after reaching the Immortal stage. It was really difficult not to feel jealous of his cultivation speed.
"What can I say? I am a god," Michael shrugged.
"How long will be your heavenly tribtion this time?" Gaya asked.
"Ten days," said Michael. ording to the system, his heavenly tribtion wouldst ten days, and it rmended Michael find a safe ce or make the dark ocean safe. Fortunately, Elidiry was working on creating a new array to prevent the lightning storm around the dark ocean from intervening in his heavenly tribtions. Michael had no interest in finding a new ce. The dark ocean was the only ce the Guardians wouldn''t dare toe to. Even if they tried, the lightning storm and the weather would take care of them. Michael wasn''t the same man he was a year before. He had a powerful army. Every day, they grew in number and power. The only problem was the current financial state. Although Michael vaguely had an idea for a new source of ie, hecked the necessary things.
"Is it safe to trigger the tribtion here? Last time I almost died. Heavenly tribtion and the lightning storm do not make a good pair,"
"Elidyr will take care of it," said Michael.
Chapter 779 The Dark Lord Has Triggered A Tribulation Again
A few days after Mutrad survived the ughter and struck a deal with the Dark Lord, he was summoned by the Supreme Guardian. This was the first time Mutrad had stepped into the Winston Manor. The guards patrolling the premise looked proud and walked with their chests puffed up. Since Norvin apanied Mutrad, the guards did not stop him. Mutrad descended to the ground.
"Noah is waiting in the garden. This way," Norvin gestured at Mutrad to follow him. Mutrad''s heart beat slowly rose. He was the Dark Lord''s spy. So naturally, he felt an uneasiness in Noah''s house. He hated being stuck between two gods. At Least Noah was not as brutal and ruthless as the Dark Lord. Mutrad could still remember when Andreas revealed himself and told the entire world that Noah was the God of Light. At that moment, Noah became the poster child for the fight against the Dark Lord. But the fear of the Dark Lord spread throughout the world like wildfire. The fear undermined Noah''s rule and power. Moreover, Noah''s feats were nowhere close to what the Dark Lord did.
Mutrad slowly followed behind Norvin to the garden. They walked around the manor instead of through it. As he stepped into an elegant garden with a pond in the center, he noticed Noah''s mother sitting on a bench and feeding the birds.
"Mother," Norvin smiled when she turned her gaze toward them.
"You arete," said Diana.
"Sorry," Norvin scratched the back of his head. She looked at Mutrad,
"Who is this?"
"It''s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Diana. I am Mutrad," Mutrad slowly bowed.
For a moment, Norvin could swear he saw a glimmer of anger within Diana''s eyes. But soon, the anger faded away as she smiled.
"You must be the representative of House Halrid,"
"Yes," Mutrad nodded. He felt something strange about this woman. She looked gentle, yet something about her bothered him. He shoved his doubts aside. After meeting the Dark Lord, he doubted everyone.
"Wait here. I''ll go send Noah," Diana quickly left the garden. Since Mutrad was tasked to apprehend the Dark Lord, he made it into Harriet''s hit list. Mutrad was still alive because she did not want more heat to fall on Michael. If she killed Mutrad, the Sea Folks would retaliate by sending their army to fight Michael. Thest thing Diana wanted was more trouble for her son. After Diana left, Mutrad sat on the bench with Norvin.
"You alright?" asked Norvin. Mutrad was not a very talkative person. But he was unusually silent ever since he returned from the fire realm. Granted, he met the Dark Lord face to face and lived to tell the tales, yet Norvin couldn''t help feeling amiss.
"Why wouldn''t I be?"
"You look worried. Is something bothering you?"
Mutrad rolled his eyes. He hated Norvin''s concern. Unlike him, Norvin and Alicia escaped the Dark Lord using a teleportation scroll. They weren''t there to see how the Dark Lord brutally ughtered his men,
"Of course, something''s bothering me. I just survived the Dark Lord. I was this close to dying," said Mutrad.
"About that, why didn''t you use the teleportation scroll? You got one right?"
"I wasn''t lucky. After you teleported, the Dark Lord locked the space around us. I tried and failed," said Mutrad. It was a lie. He was petrified and failed to use the teleportation scroll. Ever since that day, Mutrad couldn''t close his eyes. Because every time he did, he saw vividly how the Dark Lord ughtered the men. To be honest, Mutrad wanted to return to his homeworld, leaving all this behind him. However, his elders ordered him not to. Hence, he had no choice but to remain in thend and spy for the Dark Lord. Otherwise, his homnd would be the next Ithn.
"You are lucky," Suddenly, Mutrad heard Noah''s voice. He turned around to see Noah walking toward them. To Mutrad''s surprise, Alicia was standing beside Diana at the doorway. After what had happened in the Fire Realm, Mutrad thought Noah would kick out Alicia. Imagine his surprise when he heard Noah actually married her. Mutrad failed to figure out what Noah was thinking. Even Alicia''s family exiled her from the family. One thing was sure, the Winstons were either stupid or prepared to face the Dark Lord''s wrath. If Mutrad had to bet on someone between Noah and the Dark Lord, he would choose the Dark Lord without a second thought.
However, Mutrad dared not to underestimate Noah. ording to Mutrad''s men, Noah often went on secret adventures, leaving his post. It meant one thing, he was looking for something. Mutrad knew it must be something worth sacrificing his cultivation. Noah could have reached the Fusion stage by now, yet he chose not to. Everyone in the guild wondered why. If he was going to face the Dark Lord, Noah had a long way to go.
When Noah appeared, Norivin transformed himself into his natural form and climbed onto Noah''s shoulder. Noah sat beside Mutrad with a smile.
"You are here and not under six feet. It means you are lucky, Mutrad," said Noah.
"I don''t feel lucky," said Mutrad.
"There must be a reason why Ghost left you alive,"
Noah had doubts about why Ghost chose to leave Mutrad alive instead of killing him. Knowing how Ghost loved to make connections, Noah suspected Mutrad of being his spy. Lately, he and his teacher had more disagreements. But on Mutrad''s matter, they both agreed that the Dark Lord might have turned Mutrad. There was no other usible way to exin why Ghost spared Mutrad.
"Where are you getting at, Noah?" Mutrad creased his brows.
"Nowhere. Just needed to get your side of things before closing the file on the fire realm incident," said Noah.
Mutrad was surprised and almost couldn''t believe Noah. he expected Noah to investigate the matter further. Contrary to his expectation, Noah said he was about to close the file.
"Don''t be surprised," As though Noah had read Mutrad''s mind, he asked him not to be surprised.
"It was not my operation or guild''s. It''s a mess the Arctic hall and Skyhall need to clean. If it wasn''t for Alicia''s involvement, I wouldn''t have bothered about all this," Noah sighed.
"I just need to know what happened after Alicia and Norvin left the hall. I heard Ghost teleported the cage before killing everyone,"
"Hmm," Mutrad nodded.
"Did the Skyhall meet Alicia afterward?" Mutrad asked Noah.
"Unfortunately, no,"
Even Noah was surprised that no one from the Skyhall bothered to meet Alicia after what happened in the Fire Realm. ording to Andreas, the Skyhall may have lost its ways. But Noah couldn''t understand what''s more important than the Dark Lord. The longer they let the Dark Lord free, the stronger he would be. Any Alpha Guardian could have killed Ghost a year ago without breaking a sweat. But now, they were afraid of him. Almost everyone in the Guild feared the Dark Lord. Noah wasn''t surprised by their fear. He had done nothing to reassure them. Sadly, they would have to fear him long until he finds all the god-killing arrows. Until now, he managed to get two arrows. The MAzeroth founders went to great lengths to hide the arrows.
Moreover, they forged replicas of the god-killing arrows to confuse the Dark Lord in case he searched for these arrows. Noah found two of these replicas. If it wasn''t for the original arrow in his possession, he would have believed these replicas as the original ones.
Mutrad saw no point in hiding what happened after Alicia and Norvin teleported. He told Noah everything except the fact that he had struck a deal with the Dark Lord. Noah was about to question Mutrad when a Winston family guard interrupted their meeting.
"Young Master Noah, there is someone from the guild who wants to meet you. He said it''s urgent," said the guard.
"Bring him,"
Noah waited for the guard to return. A few momentster, the guard came with a guardian. To Noah''s surprise, this guardian was one of the men he sent to the Southern continent. Their task was to monitor the Dark ocean and report back to him. Judging by the look on the guardian''s face, Noah could tell something happened. The guardian looked reluctant when he saw Mutrad.
"It''s okay. Tell us what happened," asked Noah. Not that Noah trusted Mutrad, but he wanted to see how Miutrad would react.
"Supreme Guardian, the Dark Lord has triggered a heavenly tribtion in the Dark Ocean,"
As soon as they heard the guardian, they were stunned. Norvin''s eyes widened to the point it looked like his eyes were about to pop out. Mutrad''s mind went nk.
"Is it Ghost, or someone else triggered the heavenly tribtion?" asked Noah.
"It''s him, Supreme Guardian. He''s trying to be an Immortal,"
Mutrad felt that he made the right choice by striking a deal with the Dark Lord. He ughtered the Arctic Hall''s best men when he was just a Half Immortal. How strong would he be after reaching the Immortal stage? Definitely stronger than Noah. God or not, Noah was just a Soul Refining stage cultivator. Meanwhile, the Dark Lord was about to reach Immortality.
"We have to strike him down now. This might be our only opportunity," Norvin quickly said. However, Noah shook his head.
"Sending a team to interrupt his heavenly tribtion is like sending them to their deaths. He would not have triggered the tribtion without preparing for the worst,"
"So are we going to sit around and wait for him to get stronger?" asked Norvin as Noah shook his head.
"I have ns," said Noah.
Noah dismissed the guardian before inviting Mutrad to a feast inside the manor. The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful. Mutrad just had his belly full of food and left the Winston manor. The Winstons were preparing for the baby shower as Katherine and Andres were expecting their second child. Almost everyone prominent in the Elon continent woulde to bless the couples. Hence, everyone in the manor had work to their necks. Mutrad just hoped the Dark Lord wouldn''t be one of the guests.
Chapter 780 Second Armor Piece
On the sixth day of Michael''s heavenly tribtion, Adelia was flying about an endless ocean alone. The horizon seemed to be stitched with a silver line. The sea beneath her murmured with hypnotic waves. The palpitating pulse of the sea was steady and peaceful. It soothed her soul to hear the rhythmic songs the waves and the windposed. A warm, tangy smell came from the sea as she flew. The dazzling moon glowed as much as the sun. Suddenly, she dived down into the ocean. As soon as her body touched the water, she transformed herself into her snake form. In her snake form, she was a monstrous silver snake with diamond-like scales. Her silver scales reflected the light as she swam deeper into the ocean. The deep sea was a world of its own. It was littered with nt life and corals. They glimmered like jewels and diamonds in the sea. Swarms of fish brushed past Adelia without any fear. Adelia didn''t even need a light source to navigate through the sea. Instead, she had the luminous stones to light her path. She wondered how a ruin could be in the sea. But she trusted the Dark Lord. Apparently, the second armor piece was hiding in ruin under the sea.
After swimming for a few minutes, Adelia noticed two corals the size of boulders next to each other. There was a crack between the two corals.
"That must be it," thought Adelia. She hastened her speed. For some reason, the closer she got to the boulders, the lighter she felt. She was surprised to see several runes glowing in the boulders. The runes created a beam of light that scanned Adelia from top to bottom. To her surprise, the silver light turned green as the two boulders slowly moved aside. As a result, the crack between them grew wider, revealing a path into the ground.
Adelia cautiously swam into the crack. Inside the crack, everything was dark. She had to rely on the distant light. For a few minutes, she waspletely blind. Even her Naga eyes didn''t help her see in the dark. The darkness around her was exactly like the darkness around the Dark Lord, except this was several times stronger than she felt. Of course, it was stronger because this ce was built by the past Dark Lord who was on another levelpared to the current Michael.
Finally, she saw the light at the end of the tunnel. She hastened her speed. When she reached the light, something pulled her into it. Suddenly, she was standing in a dungeon rather than in the deep sea. She looked around the ce. Everywhere she turned, she could see nothing but dark walls. She took a step forward as a torch beside her lit up. One by one, torchers lit up, lighting the ce.
The ce creeped out Adelia. She almost regretted taking the task. At first, the Dark Lord considered sending Saber to retrieve the armor piece. However, Adelia asked the Dark Lord to give her the task because she wanted to clear her mind alone. Compared to searching for the god-killing arrows, retrieving the armor piece seemed like a walk in the park to her.
But her relief was short-lived. She noticed countless runes lit up in the walls. As soon as they started to glow, Adelia felt her cultivation being suppressed. Her power fell from the Half Immortal stage to the Fusion stage and then to the Body Refining stage. In a couple of seconds, she became powerless.
"Fucking hell," Adelia cursed the ce. She tapped the device around her wrist as the device radiated a dim red light. Soon, her cultivation level rose up to the Body strengthening stage. The arch energy crystal within the device couldn''t raise her power to the HAlf Immortal stage, but it was better than being powerless.
"Aren''t you a treasure to have?" Adelia smiled at the device around her wrist. Despite its size and look, this device was the most powerful and valuable thing probably in the entire world. It enabled its wearer to cultivate even within the void line. She still couldn''t believe the Dark Lord managed to build such a device all by himself. If it wasn''t for this device, she would have been powerless by now.
But after seeing the ce makes people powerless, Adelia didn''t dare to underestimate it. She cautiously walked forward. On her way, she tried to contact Gaya through the earpiece, only to fail.
"Looks like I am alone," Adelia sighed.
Yet again, this was what she wanted. Some alone time from everyone, including her daughter. As much as she loved Gaya, she hated being nagged. Not a single day passed without Gaya asking about her father. Adelia even asked the Dark Lord not to ponder about Gaya''s real father. That was something Adelid did not wish to discuss with anyone.
Adelia made herself forward with the silence being herpanion. She thought about everything that happened in her life. But her train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a rustling noise. She halted her steps, focusing on the darkness before her. She could mildly hear some footsteps. Slowly, she ced her hand on the katana dangling on her waist. She flicked the sheath as the katana popped out with a clicking sound.
The air suddenly started to reek of blood and pungent rotting skin. Unfortunately, she was familiar with this smell. Thest time she smelled something putrid was when she visited Dr''s workshop on the undead ind with Gaya. coupled with the slow footsteps and the smell, she had a good guess about what was approaching her. Soon, a grayish-skinned figure with dead eyes staggered toward Adelia. She could smell the toxic pong from their body odors. Their crazy, diseased eyes would terrify an oblivious man. To Adelia, they were nothing but annoyances. She took a step forward, keeping her hand on the katana''s hilt. The undead tilted its head as it reached out toward Adelia. When it was just an arm''s reach away, Adelia unsheathed her katana as the zombie''s head flew away from its body.
The decapitation happened so quickly, like a sh of lightning. Her katana even formed a white line in the air. Even the Dark Lord was impressed by her sword skills, especially how she handled the katana. He used to call him thedy samurai. But Adelia had no idea why he called her that. The zombie staggered around without a head before falling down. ck goo oozed out of its neck as the pungent smell increased in the air. Adelia walked away from the corpse but not before taking a flesh sample from the corpse. It was not for Dr but for the Dark Lord.
As she moved forward, she faced a couple more undead. Regardless of the undead, she avoided using spells. She was under the sea, and the structure seemed ancient. She didn''t want to risk destroying the ce with her spells. Besides, she did not need spells to kill the undead. The further she went, the more undead she faced. But no matter how many undead were on her path, they all met the same fate. Each katana swing decapitated a zombie. Her moves were deadly and precise. After a while, the undead stopped appearing. Silence fell over the dungeon once again.
"Where were theying from?" Adelia asked herself. The runes flowing in the walls seemed awfully simr to Elidyr''s creations.
"This time travel thing fucks with my brain," Adelia kicked the wall. She wondered how this ce would remain still if the previous Dark Lord reset the entire universe. The only exnation she had was the previous Dark Lord was powerful enough to leave some ces untouched by the time-traveling array. Otherwise, the first energy and the armor pieces couldn''t exist in the current timeline.
She continued to walk in utter silence for another thirty minutes. Luckily, she came across no undead. Still, she didn''t feel relieved. On the contrary, the silence and theck of undead creeped her out. If the past Dark Lord had built this ce, she knew he must have ced traps and obstacles to stop outsiders from getting to the armor piece.
Her instincts were proven right when she heard a loud thud from several meters ahead of her. The ground started to shake as though something gigantic was approaching her. She halted her steps and waited for it to reveal itself. A few secondster, she vaguely saw a giant bat-like creature walking on two legs toward her.
"GRRHHHHHHHH!" The creature roared at Adelia. It looked at her with eyes burning with rage. Suddenly, it pounded its chest like a gori.
"So the past Dr managed to create some fucked up creatures, huh," Adelia snickered. Judging by how ugly the creature was, she knew it must be one of Dr''s creations. No one in the Dark Lord''s army could create such an ugly abomination except for Dr. The creature slowly moved forward. Each of its ws looked as sharp as the katana in her hand. Despite its ugliness, the creature seemed to possess some intelligence. Otherwise, it would have dashed forward instead of slowly taking steps.
Since the path wasn''t wide enough to move around, they had to face each other head-on. The creature growled as Adelia took a step forward. Adelia''s grip around the hilt tightened. She looked ambler in front of the eight feet monster before her. It waited for Adelia to make the first move. She didn''t disappoint the creature as she dashed forward.
At that moment, she had no idea this creature was one of the many obstacles created by the Dark Lord. To get the armor pieces, she had to ovee each and every obstacle.
Chapter 781 The Trials For The Second Armor Piece
The creature deflected Adelia''s katana with its w. Sparks flew from the collision. Adelia almost lost the katana due to the massive force. She quickly slid under the creature. The creature stomped the ground as Adelia leaped away from it.
"GRRRHHH!" The creature roared. It opened its thin wings. Adelia anticipated the creature''s next attack. As it pped its wings, Adelia raised her hand, creating a jade shield to block the wind st. The creature did not back off with one p. Instead, it pped its wings again and again. The dungeon began to tremble. Bits and pieces of the ceiling crumbled down.
"Oh no. You are going to kill us both," Adelia snickered. She quickly dashed at the creature to prevent it from destroying the ce. The creature swung its front legs. Adelia slid under its arms and cut its thigh. Blood spurted out as the creature roared in pain. The creature stumbled down. Her de cut several inches deep into its thighs. The creature stomped the ground. Adelia tried to leap away, but the shock wave sted her onto the wall behind before she could escape.
The creature''s eyes burned with rage and pain. To Adelia''s surprise, the creature picked a handful of soil and rubbed it in its wound. The creature again surprised Adelia by taking the torch and burning its wound. Finally, the bleeding stopped. Adelia had to admire the creature''s intelligence. This time, the creature dashed at Adelia with lightning speed. Even Adelia failed to roll out of its path. As a result, the creature swatted Adelia like a bug. The force threw Adelia onto a wall. She coughed blood. Without twisting any second, Adelia quickly retrieved a healing potion from her space ring and chugged it down her throat.
She immediately felt revitalized. Cuts and bruises on her body faded away. Seeing her use the healing potion, the creature shrieked. It pounded its chest as though it hated her using the potion.
"Do you hate that ugly?" Adelia antagonized the creature. Once again, the creature dashed at her faster than before. Adelia did not move. On the contrary, she pressed her feet on the ground and stayed still. When the creature swung its ws, Adelia bent backward, evading the ws. After missing the target, the creature lost its bnce for a second. Adelia immediately utilized this by leaping onto the creature''s back. She used arch energy to speed up her moves. Before the creature could retaliate, Adelianded straight on its back. She plunged the katana into the creature''s neck. She was about to slice its neck, cutting the cord, when the creature jumped upwards. Since Adelia was on its back, she hit the ceiling pretty hard. The force almost turned her inside into outside. She fell off its back as her katana was still stuck into its back.
The creature quickly grabbed Adelia and hit her against the ground. It sent Adelia flying with a single kick. Adelia''s vision blurred. Blood oozed out of her nostrils and mouth.
"I am fucking done with this," Adelia coughed. The creature pounded its chest once again. It waited for Adelia to use the healing potion. On the contrary, Adeluia picked herself up without using the healing potion. Her pupils flickered. When she blinked, her human pupils turned vertically slit like a snake''s. Under the creature''s furious gaze, Adelia''s body transformed. The creature took a step back in feat. In a few moments, she went from human to giant snake. She stood nine feet tall.
"Hssssss," Adelia hissed. She slithered toward the creature. It hit Adelia with its ws, yet its ws couldn''t even graze her skin. Her body moved around the creature. The creature tried to leap away, but Adelia coiled around the creature. The creature was trapped. She slowly squeezed the creature with her body.
"GRRRRRR!" The creature roared as it violently swung its ws left and right. Adelia didn''t feel anything. Her skin scales were like steel. No matter how hard the creature tried, it couldn''t harm Adelia. The creature''s roar slowly turned into a scream. Its eyes glimmered with pain. Slowly, Adelia crushed the creature''s bones. The more she squeezed the creature, the louder the sickening crunch sounded. The creature''s scream slowly lost its volume. Gradually, the creature stopped moving. Blood spurted out of every pore in its body.
Suddenly, a stream of blood sprayed out of the creature''s body. The creature''s body looked crooked. Adelia moved her head above the creature. She slowly opened her mouth as jade smoke flowed from her mouth. The jade smoke enveloped the creature, slowly turning its body into ashes. Adelia''s katana fell down with a clinking sound. Finally, Adelia transformed herself back into her human form. The creature was reduced to a hot pile of ash.
"Ugly bastard," Adelia snickered. She picked up the katana and unsheathed it. After killing the creature, Adelia resumed her journey. The creature made her realize this ce was more dangerous than she initially thought. She became vignt, focusing on her surroundings. Luckily, the torches lit up further she moved. Once again, everything became silent. At that moment, even a point-dropping sound would sound like a bell. Only her shadow and the silence apanied her forward.
She wondered how long it took the Dark Lord to build this dungeon. Although she was a Half Immortal, the runes around her suppressed her cultivation. Without the device around her wrist, she couldn''t have survived the creature. If someone else had entered this ce somehow, they would have been the creature''s food by now. The silencested for a few more minutes. Then, she began to hear the undead growling once again. Compared to the creature, these undeads were just an annoyance in her path. She thought about using spells, but the walls and ceiling looked unstable. Before getting her hands on the armor piece, she couldn''t risk flooding the dungeon.
The undeads staggered toward her from the darkness. She counted at least twenty undeads before her. Despite their number, Adelia showed no signs of distress. Instead, she just smiled. Once again, she unsheathed her katana. With just a swing, she cleaved two heads clean off their shoulders. Unlike the creature she faced earlier, these undeads possessed no intelligence. Even after Adelia killed two, the others reached out to her as though nothing had happened. Adelia did not even flinch as she cut down the zombies without slowing down. Her sword swings were several times faster than the zombies. Before they could touch her, they lost their heads.
The ck goo sttered across the dark walls and the ground. As much as she loved killing the undead, she reeked of rotten eggs and meat because of the ck goo. Fortunately, there was no one beside her. After cutting down the undead, she saw a ray of light in the distance. She hastened her steps. A few minutester, the narrow tunnel opened into a spacious hall. The moment she stepped into the hall, the ce lit up. She noticed a couple of huge braziers with blue mes burning atop. In the dazzling blue light produced by the mes, Adelia noticed several statues around the hall. But what drew her attention more was the ck chest in the center. The chest was sat on top of a pir. When she looked closer, she noticed a giant lock with five keyholes. The ray of light peeked through the ceiling and illuminated the dark chest.
"The armor piece must be inside," Adelia mumbled but didn''t take another step forward. She looked around the hall, counting the five statues.
"Five keyholes, five statues. I have a bad feeling about this," said Adelia. Each of the statues looked distinct. One of them resembled the bat creature she fought earlier. The others looked weird and bizarre. Adelia took a deep breath before taking another step. Deep down, she expected something to happen. Just as she expected, one of the statues trembled the moment she stepped forward. This statute looked like a gargoyle. Pieces of stone crumbled down from the stature, revealing its jade skin. The creature was the size of an adult lion. At Least the gargoyle wasn''t as big as the bat creature earlier. That was a subtle advantage for Adelia in this battle.
The gargoyle-looking creature shook itself, yanking the remaining stone pieces on its body. Adelia vaguely saw a golden key on its neck. If she had to guess, she would say this key would fit the keyhole in the lock. As she took another step, the creature noticed her. It locked its crimson-red eyes with her. Coincidentally, the creature was exactly as strong as she was. It was at the Body Strengthening stage. She closed her eyes for a moment to focus on her inner energy. Unfortunately, the runes were still suppressing her cultivation. The creature scratched the ground with its front legs before running toward her. Since they were both at the same cultivation stage, it was a battle of strategy and technique instead of spells and energy. When the creature was just a meter away from Adelia, she stabbed it with her katana.
Cling!
The katana didn''t even prate an inch. Instead, Adelia''s hands went numb. She felt as though she had stabbed a boulder. The creature hit Adelia with its head and sent her flying. While she was in the air, the creature bit the katana. The creature spat the katana to the other side of the hall. Adelia growled. As she picked herself up, the creature roared.
To her surprise, the roar turned into a peal ofughter. Adelia was stunned. She didn''t expect the creature tough at her. Moreover, it was mockingughter. She burned with rage being ridiculed by a creature such as this.
"It''s on," Adelia cracked her knuckles. Her eyes glimmered with rage. Without waiting for the creature to attack her, she dashed at it. She didn''t retrieve any weapons from her space ring. Instead, she chose to fight with her bare hands.
Chapter 782 Poison Spewing Snake
Adelia and the gargoyle shed in the middle. Their collision made sparks fly. Instead of using a weapon, Adelia fought with her bare hands. The gargoyle raised both its front legs to crush her, but Adelia grabbed its legs and overpowered the gargoyle. Even without cultivation power, Adelia was able to match the gargoyle''s raw strength. The gargoyle tried to take a bite of Adelia''s head, yet it couldn''t reach her.
"ARGGHH!" Adelia roared as she pushed back the gargoyle. Every bit of muscle in Adelia''s body bulged up. Purple veins appeared on her skin as her pupils became slit vertically. Eventually, she pushed the gargoyle against the wall. While the gargoyle was struggling, Adelia kicked it in the leg. The gargoyle roared. She kicked it in the leg in the same spot again and again until cracks appeared in its leg made of jade. Regardless of what it was made of, the gargoyle roared in pain just like any other beast would.
The gargoyle stumbled down as it matched Adelia''s height. As soon as it met Adelia''s gaze, the gargoyle became crazed with pain and rage. It violently tried to munch her head with its big mouth. Adelia moved her head left and right, avoiding the gargoyle''s mouth by mere inches. They were at a stalemate for a few moments until Adelia lifted the gargoyle by its leg and smashed it on the ground. It happened so quickly. Her raw strength was beyond any typical Body Strengthening stage cultivators. The gargoyle didn''t expect such strength and movement from her. The ground cracked by the collision. Without giving the gargoyle any time to retaliate, Adelia sent it flying with a kick, just like how it kicked her earlier.
? She cracked her neck. The gargoyle struggled to get back to its feet. The crack in its leg grew wider when it stood up. Adelia locked her gaze with the golden key around its neck. As though the gargoyle realized her intention, it looked at the key for a moment. Adelia once again dashed at the gargoyle as it pped its jade wings to leap into the air. Hovering in mid-air, the gargoyle opened its mouth. Several jade spikes shot out of its mouth. Adelia managed to roll out, evading the rain of spikes.
"You got some tricks huh," Adelia snickered. With a single jump, she leaped into the air. In mid-air, she punched the gargoyle right in the face. When he first met the gargoyle''s jade face, it sounded like an explosion went off. The gargoyle went crashing down. Before it could get back to its feet, Adelia shot toward the gargoyle. Shended on the gargoyle''s head.
"GRRHH!" The gargoyle roared. However, Adelia grabbed its jade wings and ripped them off with brute strength. She sat on top of the gargoyle, locking its head using her arms. She squeezed the gargoyle''s neck as hard as she could. Cracks slowly formed around the gargoyle''s neck. It tried to stand, only to fail. Adelia kept pushing it down and squeezing its neck. The cracks grew wider and wider until jade pieces crumbled down from its body.
The gargoyle''s feet squirmed as the glow in its eyes slowly faded away. A whileter, more and more jade pieces crumbled down. Soon, its head bobbed without life. Finally, Adelia roared as she ripped off the gargoyle''s neck from its shoulder. As soon as she destroyed the gargoyle''s neck, its entire body turned into nothing but jade dust. Only the golden key remained intact. Adelia breathed heavily on the ground. She slowly grabbed the key.
"One out, four more to go," Adelia said.
Adelia picked herself up. With the key in her hand, she made her way to the chest in the center. The chest trembled slightly when she put the key inside the lock. Afterward, dark smoke escaped from the chest before floating toward another statue. It was a nine feet cobra with wings on top. Adelia quickly took out a healing potion and emptied it down her throat. Just like before, the stone statue trembled as pieces of stone crumbled down.
Soon, a purple-skinned snake came to life from the statute. Its emerald green eyes glimmered with killing intent. The snake slithered around the hall instead of attacking Adelia. The blue mes from the brazier illuminated the diamond scales on the snake. The snake almost matched Adelia''s true form. It hissed at Adelia yet kept its distance from her. The snake seemed like it was studying Adelia. Since she was not in a hurry, she waited for the snake to make its first move. Moreover, Adelia tried to find the key on the snake''s body. To her surprise, she saw a glimmer inside the snake''s mouth when it hissed at her.
Adelia slowly stepped toward her katana. Unlike the gargoyle''s stone-like skin, the snake''s skin seemed soft and vulnerable to her de. The snake stopped moving. Instead, it turned its head toward the katana. The snake hissed as it realized Adelia''s intention. Finally, it slowly moved toward Adelia. When it was just a few meters away, the snake suddenly swung its tail. Adelia quickly managed to jump in the air, avoiding the tail. She dashed at the katana beforending back on the ground. The snake surprised Adelia by spitting a purple glob at Adelia. She swayed her body to the side in the air, barely evading the glob. When it flew past her face, Adelia smelled a nauseating stench. There was no doubt in her mind that this glob was poison.
The ground sizzled like deep frying. The glob of poison was powerful enough to roast the ground itself. Adelia could only imagine what would happen if the poisonous globnded on her skin. The snake continued to shoot out purple globs as Adelia finally grabbed the katana. One of the globsnded right where the katana was a moment ago. She wasn''t sure the katana could survive the poison. As a Naga, Adelia was able to gauge how poisonous the glob was. ording to her, this purple glob was several times more potent than the poison in her poison nd.
Adelia dashed out of the poison glob''s trajectory. For a few moments, she zig-zagged through the hall, evading the globs. She waited for the snake to stop shooting. When it did, Adelia dashed at the snake. The snake''s giant body slowed its movements. Adelia''s human form made her nimble and agile. As a result, she cut the snake before it could move away. As she hoped, the snake''s skin wasn''t as tough as the gargoyle''s. Her katana cut the snake deep. Purplish blood spurted out of its body. Even its blood was poisonous. She quickly swung her katana, yanking the blood off her de.
The snake hissed. She used the arch energy to leap into the air. Since it was a snake, Adelia targeted its eyes. If it couldn''t see her, she would be at an advantage. To the snake''s surprise, Adelia raised her hand as two golden beams shot out of her hands. The snake was caught off guard. It did not expect Adelia to use a spell. Thanks to the device around her wrist, she cast a spell. The two beams prated the snake''s eyes.
"GRRHHHHH!" the snake roared in agony. Its scream almost tore Adelia''s eardrums. The snake''s body violently twitched. Adelia pressed her advantage by boosting her speed with Arch energy. She flew around the snake, cutting the snake repeatedly. Unfortunately, the snake was too thick to cut its head with a single cut. Hence, she had to cut around her neck again and again, one small cut at a time. Suddenly, the snake began to shoot a poisonous cloud. The purple cloud of poison enveloped the hall. For a moment, Adelia''s throat burnt as her vision turned blurry. She just took a whiff, and the poison already affected her body. But being the mother of the Dark Lord''s fiance came with a few perks. One of them was a special mask and antidote for poisons.
She quickly put the mask on her face before she lost consciousness. Then, she immediately drank the silver potion. Gradually, her vision cleared up.
Just to be safe, Adelia drank a healing potion. She was almost tempted to use the berserker pill Gaya gave her. But she chose not to. The snake was strong but not strong enough to give Adelia a headache. The snake would have been a bloody paste if she could use her cultivation.
Furthermore, Adelia was a battle junky, just like Gaya. The stronger the opponent was, the more excited she would feel. Simply put, Adelia wanted the battle tost long. Battles calmed her mind and soul in her own twisted, strange way.
She patiently waited for the snake to stop spewing poisonous clouds. Surprisingly, it took almost five minutes. Only then did the purple poison in the air clear. The snake''s movements slowed down. Adelia knew the snake was exhausted. Coupled with the cuts in its body and the blind eyes, the snake was on its way to greet the death. She just had to speed up the process. Once again, Adelia dashed at the snake. Considering the snake was blinded by her, it had no idea that Adelia was on her way to end its life.
Because it was a snake, Adelia felt a bit of pity for it. Hence, she just leaped into the air and stabbed the snake right between the eyes. The snake stopped its twitching all of a sudden. The snake let out a groan before copsing down. Just like the gargoyle, the snake''s body turned into a pile of dust after it died. The golden key glimmered within the ash. She picked up the key from the ground.
"Three to go," said Adelia. She took a deep breath as she went to put the sky in the lock. But before she could do that, Adelia drank a healing potion. For a few moments, she just took deep breaths. Because she knew that another statue woulde to life when she use the key in the lock. Therefore, she wanted to take a few moments to rest her body.
Each of the three remaining statues looked terrifying. Anyone would have been worried but not Adelia. She looked excited to face three more beasts.
Chapter 783 Something Related To The Dark Lord
While Adelia was fighting the beasts to get the second piece of the armor left behind by the past Dark Lord, Saber was heading for Yaserius. His destination was the Aqua Pce. Sadie received a piece of information about something valuable that was about to be auctioned. Surprisingly, this item had some kind of connection to the Dark Lord. Hence, Saber attended the auction under the Dark Queen''s order. Since the Dark Lord was in his heavenly tribtion, most of his subordinates were on the floating mountain except for Saber. Rather than participating in the auction himself, Saber was ordered to be a spectator. If the item had any significance to the Dark Lord, Saber was ordered to track down the buyer and steal it. Gaya didn''t bother to spend millions of gold coins in the auction, especially when they were in a financial crisis. By the time Saber reached the outskirts, the darkness had enveloped the world. Although Saber had no need to worry about the daylight anymore, he still loved the night more than the day.
On a pitch-dark night, the Aqua Pce was fairly quiet. Several groups of guards patrolled the ind, and each of them was at the Soul Refining stage. The aqua pce spared no expense in armoring them up. They were armored to the teeth, and their armor glowed in the night due to the runes engraved in them. As Saber approached the ind, he noticed a sliver of glow around the ind. Apparently, they ced new arrays and runes to ensure the ind''s defense. Thest thing the Aqua Pce wanted was an attack from the Dark Lord. But Saber knew the Dark Lord had more pressing concerns than attacking the Aqua Pce for no reason. As far as Saber was concerned, the world was so wrong about the Dark Lord. He wasn''t as evil as the Guardians painted him to be.
Saber heard hushed discussions andmands from all over Aqua Pce. Most conversations were about the royal dragon skeleton the aqua pce dug out recently. Neither Saber nor the Dark Lord had any interest in the skeleton. Hence, Saber paid no attention to these conversations. But none of them talked about the mysterious item Saber was looking for. The auction was scheduled to begin when the sun rose. Since Saber had arrived at the ind earlier, he sat under a tree, enjoying some peace and quiet. He even closed his eyes to take a quick nap. The night quickly passed. Sun broke the dark skies from the horizon, showering the ind with its golden rays. Saber''s eyelids twitched as he slowly opened his eyes. The Aqua Pce had been decorated with ribbons andnterns as nobles andmoners streamed in and out of the building. The VIPs were flying in another direction to enter the ce using a separate entrance.
Today was the first day of the Aqua Pce auction. Last time the Dark Lord himself honored the auction by participating. This time, the aqua pce hoped he wouldn''t arrive. They had arrays and security mechanisms to catch him if he did. Unknowing to the people, the guardians were roaming the ind, just in case. In the past, the auction time had always been the busiest day in Yaserius. Thousands of people woulde from every part of the continent to watch and participate in the auction. However, today was an exception. Compared to thest time, Saber saw fewer people on the ind. As a regr to the auction, Saber could tell the decrease in the crowd.
The sun slowly rose into the air, emitting a red glow that bathed thends in its warm light. More and more people began to gather at the Aqua Pce. People found it extremely difficult to walk to the entrance without being squeezed. Saber was among the first thirty people who entered the building. After he entered, he heard firecrackers and a thunderous bell. They symbolized the start of the auction. Crowd or no crowd, the aqua pce began the auction right on time. Just like any other organization, the Aqua Pce also raised the entry fee. They charged seventy gold coins per person, unlike thest time when they charged fifty gold coins.
Although this price hike made a small group unhappy as usual, it did not stop them from paying. Nomoner would have dared to participate if someone charged seventy gold coins in Elon or Ozer continent. But this wasn''t Elon or Ozer. In Awor continent, even amoner could spare seventy gold coins. There was a reason why everyone called the Awor continent the richest. After the gates opened up for the auction house, the people that already had tickets and had been waiting outside for a very long time began to enter through the entrance in a straight line.
Saber covered his face with a gray hood. He slipped into the crowd, slowly following the people to the auction hall. As he reached the inner halls, arge grandeur hall greeted his eyes. The space was filled with neat rows of seats for as far as the eye could see. There were at least three thousand seats around the hall. The auction hall had two stories worth of seats. Installed on the sides of every seat were dozens of private rooms for VIPS. A tinted ss wall separated each room. The VIPs could clearly see the outside through the tinted ss, but no one on the outside could see what was happening inside. Everyone focused on the stage in the middle where the items would be auctioned. Several stands remained in a neat row in the center. They were all covered with red cloth to prevent people from seeing through.
Finding a rtively isted seat, Saber calmly sat down and waited for the auction to start. People all around him were slowly starting to settle down as well. Eventually, the auction house was filled up. One couldn''t find a single empty seat. Changing the auction hall was a great tactic by the Aqua Pce. If they had held this auction in the hall they usedst year, many seats would have been empty. This would have ruined the Aqua Pce''s reputation. They knew there would be fewer crowds than thest time. Hence they chose a smaller hall. The Dark Lord was one of the biggest reasons for the decrease in the crowd, but the Aqua Pce refused to admit that.
Just as the final seats were taken and everyone had settled down, Saber heard another set of firecrackers exploding. People curiously stared at the stands as the red cloth slowly began to rise. One by one, the concealed items were revealed to the crowd. A few momentster, an elderly man descended to the center from the sky. He was the auctioneer, Rickston, the same man who auctioned the items when Michael was here.
Rickston''s eyes swept the audience as he cleared his throat before introducing himself, "Honored guests, I thank you all for participating in our Aqua Pce''s annual auction. I, Rickston Bash, will host this year''s auction. I hope everyone will buy an item or items they longed for,"
Rickston paused for a moment to clear his throat once more before continuing to speak, "Due to recent events, you may notice more guards and security arrays. They are in ce to safeguard the people. So rest assured you can be at peace. Now without further ado, I''ll dere that the auction has officially begun¡"
Rickston looked over his shoulder as a young, elegant woman slowly walked to his side. She gently put her hand into the first ss box and lifted up a golden pill. She raised her hand so everyone could clearly see the energy radiating from the pill.
"Honored guests, we shall now auction away the first item," Rickston looked at the pill before turning his gaze back at the crowd.
"The very first item is a Blood lily pill. For the honored guests unfamiliar with this item, only twelve pills exist in the world. They were concocted by Legendary Alchemist Ingrid Stenham,"
Many people looked clueless. As though Rickston had expected this reaction from the crowd, he exined further,
"Ingrid Stenham was a 6-star Alchemist and the first Supreme Guardian of the Guardian Guild. Her mastery of alchemy is still unmatched. These pills were one of the few gifts she left behind before ascending to the higher realms,"
Those who looked clueless gasped after Rickson exined. Even an oblivious man knew about the status of a Supreme Guardian. Moreover, Rickston said she had ascended to higher realism. This was enough to make people shudder in shock. As a member of the Order, Saber knew everything about Ingrid Stenham. For instance, he knew that she was one of the Mazeroth founders.
"Consuming this pill would clear any bottlenecks in your cultivation. Furthermore, you won''t have any bottlenecks in the future at all," said Rickson. Many nobles leaned forward in their seats. Their eyes lit up as many were stuck at the same stage for decades due to bottlenecks. This pill could finally enable them to break through to the next stage. Rickston smiled as he knew the nobles would go crazy for the pill. Saber was surprised that the auction began with a priceless pill such as this.
"The starting bid for the blood lily pill is five million gold coins. Every new bid will add an additional a million minimum. You may begin bidding!" Rickston''s thunderous voice swept across the hall.
"Six million!"
"Eight million!"
"Nine million!"
As Rickston expected, the nobles fought like starving dogs for the pill. In a few minutes, the pill''s price went from five million to fifteen million. The price was nothingpared to having no bottlenecks in their lives.
Saber calmly watched the nobles fight for the pills with a faint smile on his face. The Order had no need for such a pill when they had the Dark Lord. After a fierce battle, the pill bottle was sold to the highest bidder for twenty-five million gold coins. Saber''s eyes were focused on the items behind Rickston. Among them, none seemed to have any connection to the Dark Lord. Maybe he was wrong but waiting was the only option he had.
The pendant on Saber''s neck dimly glowed as Gaya was looking at the auction through the pendant from the dark ocean.
"Sadie better be right about this," Saber heard the Dark Queen''s voice in his head.
Chapter 784 Third Armor Piece
Rickston auctioned several interesting items for humongous prices after the pill. But Saber had no interest in any of them. Nothing seemed to have any connection to the Dark Lord at all. He may not have a clear idea about the item, but he wasn''t stupid either. He knew better than to think a spell scroll or a rune mastery book had any significance to the Dark Lord. The auction continued for another hour until Rickston announced a short break before continuing. Many hated the hustle of leaving the hall anding back. Hence, they stayed still. But the nobles and the VIPs went outside to take some fresh air. Meanwhile, Saber looked at his surroundings and noticed a few guardians among them. Saber doubted the Soul Refining stage guards and a few Fusion stage guardians could stop the Dark Lord if he decided to attack.
Fortunately, Saber concealed his cultivation stage with the help of Elidyr''s rune. Otherwise, his Fusion Stage cultivation might have raised a few eyebrows. Being a Fusion stage cultivator in the VIP rooms was one thing but sitting among themoners was not normal. The Guardians would have immediately alerted the Supreme Guardian if they had seen Saber. Soon, seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. Saber waited patiently for Rickston to return. He hoped Rickston would bring new items to auction. As Saber expected, several guards apanied Rickston to the stage. They carried another set of items covered with red cloth.
Once again, the bell rang, following the sound of firecrackers. The crowd gradually shut their mouth. Rickston waited for the crowd to turnpletely silent. A whileter, Rickson cleared his throat.
"Thank you for your patience,dies and gentlemen. Let us begin the second part of the auction without dy," said Rickston. He looked over his shoulder as a soldier flicked his wrist. A bright light shot out of the soldier''s finger. The very next moment, something covered in silver cloth appeared before Rickston. Saber slightly leaned forward. Unlike the other items, this one was covered in thick silver cloth. Besides, the soldiers around the item looked a bit confused and flustered. Saber saw a glimmer of doubt and uneasiness in Rickston''s eyes. Just like Saber, everyone in the auction hall had their eyes glued to the ck cloth-covered thing. Saber faintly heard a faint crackling noiseing from the thing. Rickston let the people specte for some time. Eventually, Rickston ced his hand on the cloth.
As the host slowly lifted the silver cloth up, the hidden object underneath was finally revealed to the eagerly anticipating crowd. Undeath the cloth was a piece of armor. To be more precise, a grayish arm armor. It could cover one''s entire right arm from shoulder to wrist. The armor looked ancient. Tiny crimson-red lightning bolts crackled around the armor piece. Saber was stunned. This armor piece, without a doubt, belonged to the Dark Lord because he had seen another piece of theplete set. Although the armor piece brought to the Dark ocean by Adelia was in much better condition than this one, it certainly belonged to that set. For a moment, Saber''s mind wentpletely nk. ording to the Dark Lord, each piece was severely guarded and hidden from the rest of the world. But the Aqua Pce somehow managed to get their hands on the armor piece.
The armor looked like it had been buried in the ground for decades. Saber could barely see the runes and designs engraved in the armor. Surprisingly, the armor piece radiated no energy. Except for the red lightning bolts coiling around the armor, it looked no better than worn-out armor. People looked confused and interested at the same time.
"What the fuck am I looking at? Is that an armor piece?" Saber heard Gaya''s shocked voice.
"How did they get it?" Gaya was stunned. She took a closer look at the armor through the Spyder on Saber''s neck. Judging by its look, the armor piece looked simr to the other. The engraving of a skull on the shoulder te looked exactly like the Dark Lord''s symbol. So unless this was an borate scheme to trap the Dark Lord once again, Gaya knew that the armor piece must be genuine.
The armor piece sat in a ss box under everyone''s curious gazes. Looking at the armor, many began to murmur among themselves..
"What kind of armor is that?"
"It looks rather worn out,"
"Where is the rest of the armor set? "
"Let''s hear what Rickston has to say about the armor piece. It looks special to me,"
"Yeah, look at the lightning bolts around it. Red lightning. It''s definitely something special,"
"If I had to bet, I wouldn''t go past million gold coins,"
...
After the armor was revealed, the originally quiet auction house instantly buzzed to life. Everyone''s gazes fell on the armor in the ss box. The sounds of intense discussion and gasps of amazement ovepped ceaselessly. Among the people present, quite a few had lived for dozens of years yet had never seen such an armor piece.
"Ladies and gentlemen!"
Rickston silenced the murmuring with his words. His thunderous voice swept across the hall as the discussions about the armor gradually died down. Rickston smiled, looking at the hundreds of thousands of people attending the auction, and loudly dered,
"Our team of adventurers recently unearthed this armor in Gimgulir after the battle between two Fusion stage cultivators," said Rickston. Everyone in the hall knew about this big battle that happened a few months ago in a dwarven kingdom. Apparently, a dwarven royal guard and a rogue dwarven cultivator went all in to kill each other. Since the dwarves were usually battle-hungry fiends, no one was surprised at their battle. However, their battle reduced several viges to ruin. Apparently, their battle happened to happen above a dungeon built to guard the armor piece. Because of time and the effects of the battle, the armor piece was unearthed by the adventurers.
The battlested a week until the rogue dwarf managed to escape Gimgulir. Noah tried to stop the battle, but the dwarves gave no face to the Guardian Guild. They even rejected the empress''s request to send dwarven forces to stop the battle before more dwarves became homeless or dead. If Michael had known their battle would expose his armor piece, he would have taken out the two dwarves and retrieved the armor himself.
"ording to our schrs, this armor piece was forged using an unknown ore which had gone either extinct or came to this world from higher realms,"
People gasped in shock. Rickston''s words piqued their interest in the armor piece. As an experienced auctioneer, Rickston knew how to raise an item''s value with just words.
"This armor piece is engraved with several runes, which we believe might lead to the other armor pieces. In its full form, our schrs believe this armor could withstand a Half Immortal''s attack," Rickston paused for a moment.
"Although we do not rmend it, one can melt down the armor to forge an unstoppable weapon out of this strange ore,"
"I am going to fucking kill that son of a bitch," Gaya roared after hearing Rickston''s words. Just the thought of someone melting the armor piece made Gaya''s blood boil.
"As you can see, this armor creates these bolts of red lightning. I was assured that we could have unearthed the armor''s secrets if we had more time. But the Aqua Pce has decided it''s better on your hands than on ours," said Rickston. He omitted that their schrspletely failed to learn anything about the armor piece. They knew better than anyone this armor was useless without the rest of the pieces. In fact, the Aqua Pce didn''t even battle-test the armor. They feared any attacks on the armor piece would wreck itpletely. Thus making the armor piece a scrap. In other words, the Dark Lord made sure even if someone had managed to get the piece of armor somehow, they wouldn''t be able to use it at all.
The Aqua Pce had a rule not to wear any armors they unearthed from unknown ruins. They came up with this rule when someone in the Aqua Pce wore armor cursed by a powerful elven witch. The Aqua Pce almost went extinct at that time. Ever since then, they had a strict rule not to wear or use anything unknown to them.
This rule saved them once again as the Dark Lord armor piece was engraved with deadly runes. They would have turned to dust if someone else had worn the armor. The armor piece may look old and worn out, but it was still capable of killing people.
"Whoever wins the bid for the armor will get one hour with a 5-star runemaster and cksmith from the Aqua Pce. You can learn more about this armor from the best of the bests," said Rickston. Some of the VIPs became really excited by the armor. They were the collectors who invested in ancient items such as this armor.
"Idiots didn''t even consider the armor might belong to the Dark Lord," Gaya snickered. But she couldn''t me them either. The past Dark Lord left these armor pieces before resetting the timeline. No one, even Michael, had no idea how long the past Dark Lord lived from his time. What happened to the past Dark Lord was the biggest mystery Michael hade across in his life. Fortunately, Adelia was one step closer to figuring out the previous Dark Lord''s life.
"Let us start the bid for the armor piece. The starting price is three million gold coins. Each bid should increase by two million,"
"Six million," someone from the VIP room bid for the armor.
"Don''t let the armor piece out of your sight, Saber. When he wakes up, I want to present this to him. So don''t disappoint me," Gaya said in a stern voice.
"You won''t," said Saber.
"Eight million,"
"Ten million,"
The VIPs and the nobles continued to raise the bid. Rickston was really surprised by their bids. But he didn''t know that one of the bidders was the War God of Gondolin. At that moment, both a War God and a Vampire were hoping to get their hands on the armor. Only time could tell who would emerge as the victor between them.
Chapter 785 War God Of Gondolin
While Saber was following the third armor piece, Adelia was breathing heavily inside the dungeon. She had defeated four beasts and was fighting thest one. Unlike the previous four, thest one was not any typical beast. It was just a giant blob of goo that was immune to all physical and magical attacks. She had been fighting the red blob of good for five hours. She was exhausted. No matter how hard she hit the blob, she couldn''t hurt it at all. It neither had any limbs nor a face. Hence, it was tough for her to tell what the beast was thinking or about to do. Strangely, the blob did not attack Adelia but kept her from reaching the chest. Moreover, she didn''t see any key on its body. She had a bad feeling that the key might be inside the goo, but she didn''t wish to test that theory. Why? Because the blob of good stank to high heaven. Never in her life had she smelled something so putrid and nauseating. She couldn''t even find something topare the smell with. To fight the smell, she had to wear a mask on her face. Still, the smell managed to prate the mask itself.
"What the fuck are you?" Adelia growled. She raised her hand as a stream of fire shot out of her hands. She had already tried to burn the blob, only to fail. But she hoped this time would be different. On the contrary, the red mes just brushed past the blob, causing no harm to it. Adelia was annoyed to the point she dashed at the blob with her katana raised. She wanted to chop the blob into countless pieces. The blob quickly moved in front of the chest, shielding it with its body. It was really surprising how fast the blob moved to protect the shield. She wondered what would have happened if she had brought backup. Thinking about it, she almost regretted not bringing Saber or his men with her.
She cut the blob in anger. It felt like she had cut a wax statue. The cut in its body closed in a blink of an eye.
"Argh!" Adelia roared as she raised her hand. In a blink of an eye, a chakra appeared above the blop. Jade spikes shot out from the spinning chakra. The spikes prated the blob into its body. However, the spikes barely harmed the blob. It just absorbed these spikes with its gooey body. She even tried to turn herself into her true form and attack the blob, yet everything led to utter failure. This blob was immune to everything.
"Come on. Out of the way ugly," Adelia said, leaping away from the blob. The blob did not respond to her. Not a single peep came out of its mouth. Since the blob hadn''t attacked her yet, she just sat down and breathed heavily.The blob remained still before the chest instead of attacking her. It seemed to have no intention of attacking, nor it had any offensive capabilities. This blob was created to protect the chest and exhaust the opponent to death. The blob was one of the creations of Dr when he worked under the past Dark Lord. The Dr in the current timeline was still years away from creating this blob. In a sense, Adelia was really lucky to face creations from the past.
Adelia was tempted to contact Gaya or the Dark Lord himself only if he hadn''t triggered a heavenly tribtion. Adelia knew for certain he could destroy this thing in a blink of an eye. Unfortunately, he was not here. Which made dealing with this annoying blob her problem. She stared at it from top to bottom. For the first time in many years, Adelia had no strategy to defeat the monstrosity before her.
Silence fell over them. For a few moments, Adelia was on the ground, taking deep breaths. The blob did not move an inch away from the chest. Suddenly, Adelia had a crazy idea in her mind.
"This should better work," Adelia picked herself up. She sheathed her katana and cracked her neck. Finally, Adelia dashed at the blob once again. On her way to the blob, she raised her hand as a stream of energy shot out of her hand. The energy beam went straight through the blob. As a result, a hole was formed in its center. Adelia immediately increased her speed. Before the hold could close, Adelia leaped into the blob. For the first time, the blob let out a growl. The hole closed up with Adelia inside. The blob grew in size as it frantically moved around the hall. Soon, a bright light emerged within the blob.''
The temperature in the room slowly rose to the point the blob started to melt down. Adelia roasted the blob from the inside. It rolled and leaped into the air, trying to save itself. However, nothing worked in its favor. The blob slowly melted into a red ooze. It formed a puddle that resembled blood on the ground. The air around the blob reeked of putrid stench. It stank to the point one would die of suffocation. Fortunately, Adelia was inside the blob. The growling noise that came from the blob gradually sounded louder.
Eventually, the blob exploded into pieces. Adelia fell down to the ground with a thud. She waspletely covered in red goo from head to toe. In her hands, a golden key glimmered. The key put a smile on her face. With the fifth and thest key in her hand, she was one step closer to seeing what was inside the chest. She got up to her feet and walked toward the chest. Wasting no time, she put the key in the hole. As soon as she put the key in, she heard a clicking noise. A dark smoke slowly rose from the chest. The chest slowly opened, revealing an ancient piece of armor, just like the Dark Lord said.
She couldn''t help smiling and sighing in relief. Finally, she picked up the armor from the chest. But to her surprise, a bolt of lightning hit her out of nowhere. She was sent flying away from the chest. It took her a second to realize what had just happened. She hit the wall before falling down. She felt a sharp pain in her chest. Luckily, the lightning bolt did not prate her. When she looked up at the chest, gritting her teeth, she noticed a ghostly figure rising from the chest.
The figure slowly took the shape of the Dark Lord himself.
"Dark Lord," Adelia immediately knelt down to pay her respect to the Dark Lord. The aura around him terrified Adelia. His eyes glimmered with amusement. He calmly looked at Adelia. Suddenly, a dark beam shot out of his eyes. The dark beams fell on Adelia.
"Bring this chest to your Dark Lord," The Dark Lord said in a powerful voice.
Adelia shuddered, hearing his voice. But she managed to nod her head.
"Yes, Dark Lord," said Adelia.
Adelia lifted her head to look at the Dark Lord. He smiled at her. But she saw a glimpse of pain and sadness within his eyes. She wanted to question the Dark Lord. But the ghostly figure of the Dark Lord faded away in front of her. She had no time to say anything to him. After he disappeared, Adelia could only take the chest. She reached the chest and picked it up. This time, nothing happened except she felt the space around her benign distorted.
***********************************************************
The sun was on the horizon in Yaserius, where the glistening ocean met the orange sky. Its rays spread in all directions like the open arms of a mother. The reds and oranges spread by the final glow of the me formed a staircase on the surface of the sea around the ind. As time passed, the warm rays of the sun grew colder. Eventually, the rays became nonexistent, making way for the stars to peek through in the dark blue sky. The Aqua Auction ended when the darknesspletely conquered the kingdom. People exited the Aqua Pce in a neat line like ants. The ind was bustled with people as many ascended to the sky to leave the ind. The VIPs were the first ones to leave. Among those VIPs, one of them had the Dark Lord''s armor piece.
Saber waited until the group disappeared into the clouds before following them behind. Saber kept his distance from the group. They were not some run-of-the-mill cultivators. Instead, the one who bought the armor piece was one of the War Gods of Gondolin. Attacking them was equal to waging war against the empress herself. The Dark Lord himself said that the empress might be the only one who could face him and survive if they fought.
The War God led his party from the front. He was at the Fusion Stage while the people apanying him were at the SOul Refining stage. They weren''t his guards but rather his underlings. Saber was extra careful not to get spotted in the airspace of the Aqua Pce. Saber nned to strike when the group left the ind and entered the sky above a thick forest. Every War God had immense pride and ego that could be used against them. If Saber attacked them and ran into the woods below them, the War God would follow Saber behind without a doubt. At that time, Saber could use the darkness and the woods to take out the group one by one.
With a rough n in his head, Saber kept following the group. He used the clouds as a cover to hide.
"How many of them are there?" Saber heard Gaya.
"I count seven," said Saber.
"Try not to kill them. We don''t want to make enemies with the empress yet. But if you had to, kill them all, and don''t leave anything behind that could be used to track us down," said Gaya.
"It will be done, Dark Queen,"
Saber felt confident taking down all of them if push came to shove. However, he would try not to kill them because of her order. As he was following the group, they suddenly stopped.
"How long are you nning to follow us?" Saber heard a calm yet dominant voice.
Chapter 786 War God Belanor
Saber was surprised that the War God had noticed him. As a vampire, he was great at trailing people in the dark. But the War God found him somehow. Saber did not panic. The Dark Lord always said that in the moment of crisis, panic does nothing. Saber recalled those words. He stopped flying as the War God''s party slowly turned around. The leader of this group was the War God of Gondolin. No one knew how many War Gods the empress had, but the people thought there were seven. The one Saber followed was one of them. When Michael attended the auction a year ago, he met another War God. Despite their numbers, each of them was extremely powerful. They did not choose to call themselves War Gods. Instead, the people called them that, and with time, the name kinda stuck with them.
"Who you are does not matter to me. Leave, and you may live," said the War God. His ming red hair fluttered in the wind. Those eyes of his burned so bright with vigor and power that Saber almost thought someone lit a me inside them. However, he wore rather ordinary-looking robes like lesser nobles. One would expect the War God to wear some fancy armor and carry a powerful weapon with them. On the contrary, this War God had an aura of simplicity around him. Saber noticed their pointy ears twitching for some reason.
Unlike the War God, the other elves burned with rage. They gritted their teeth as they were on the verge of attacking Saber for following them. The elves did not like being followed, especially by a human. The War God however, gave Saber an option to leave. Not that the War God could be defined as merciful, but he felt it was beneath him to attack a Body Strengthening cultivator.
Only if Sabers showed his true cultivation level and form, they wouldn''t think twice before attacking him. Hearing the War God''s warning, Saber remained calm. The forest he nned to initiate his attack was just a mile away from them. Once he had entered the forest, he could take down the elves one by one. Considering the Dark Queen ordered him to try to knock them out instead of killing them, Saber had to strategize a bit. Killing them was easy, maybe except for the War God, but the other elves would stand no chance against Saber. The Dark Lord''s potions not only took away a vampire''s weakness to sunlight but also enhanced their abilities such as speed, momentum, and power of their attacks. Especially the potion he and Adelia took was several times more potent than the rest. With Saber''s battle experience and enhanced abilities, he could match the War God''s Fusion stage level 9 cultivation. But first, Saber needed to get into the forest.
"I will if you hand over your space rings. This is a robbery, my friends,"
The War God looked amused, while the other elves looked a bit confused. They thought Saber was crazy. The elves weren''t wrong to think so. Anyone who dared to rob the Gondolin elves was nothing but crazy. Even if this party did not belong to the War God and amoner was in the War God''s ce, the empress''s wrath would be the same. Trying to rob a Gondolian was a crime punishable by a long and painful death in Gondolin. Saber knew that, yet he couldn''t care less. The Dark Queen scared him more than the empress ever could. In fact, the Dark Queen scared almost everyone in the army more than the Dark Lord himself. Sometimes, he would understand and be merciful if one of his subordinates fucked up something. Mercy would go out the window if the matter was handled by the Dark Queen. Seven months ago, Saber noticed the Dark Queen literally axed someone to death because he dared to speak about the Order in public for fame. She didn''t even allow anyone to bury the pieces. It took the crows a week to clean the flesh off his bones. After that disy of cruelty, no one dared to speak about the Order ever again. He doubted the empress could ever be some close to the Dark Queen in terrifying people. Saber had no idea how wrong he was. There was a dark side to the empress that no one had ever seen or lived to tell tales about. Killing the War God would be a good way to see this dark side. Luckily, it was not Saber''s intention to kill them, at least he would try not to.
"How do you n to aplish that feat with your cultivation level?" asked the War God. If Michael was here, he would recognize the thick British ent and be surprised by it. In fact, all the elves in Gondolin talked in an ent that resembled a British ent.
"Ask nicely, perhaps," Saber chuckled.
"Let''s kill him,"
"Yeah, why are we wasting time on this weasel?"
"Human scum,"
The elves began to raise their voices. They might not be as racist as the elves of Nelnathyr, but still, they were racist enough to y Saber alive for looking them in the eyes. Almost all the elves had a superiorityplex. They treated every other race with scorn and distance, even their racial cousins, the dark elves. They had no idea Saber neither cared nor that he was a human.
"Cultivation is not the only way to gauge someone''s power," said Saber. These were not his words but the Dark Lord''s.
"So you won''t back off?" The War God slightly tilted his head. A golden radiant appeared around the War God. His eyes glimmered with killing intent. Just this aura was enough to kill a typical Body Strengthening stage cultivator. The War God knew this. Hence he was a bit surprised that Saber remained alive instead of puking blood and falling down. Saer calmly stood atop his flying sword and stared at the elves.
"Am I supposed to be scared? Now you know I am not a run-of-the-mill thief," Saber calmly said. His voice oozed with arrogance and pride of being the Dark Lord''s subordinate. At first, Saber felt forced and embarrassed to serve someone else other than himself. But after a year, he felt nothing but pride. The Dark Lord was the most feared and powerful man in the world. He was lucky to serve him and support the Dark Lord in his path to eradicate the Great Eight ns as well as the Skyhall.
"You''re just stupid with a little trick up his sleeve," the War God said. He was nonchnt. Unless this thief was a Half Immortal, the War God had no problem killing him.
"End him," said the War God.
He didn''t bother to attack Saber himself. Instead, he let one of his minions deal with Saber. The elf cracked his knuckles before hovering toward Saber. Since he was at the Soul Refining stage, he thought he could take on Saber. Saber remained calm as still water. When the elf approached, he grabbed Saber by his neck. Saber slowly squirmed, turning his back toward the forest. The elf clenched his fist. Almost everyone in the world knew about the elves and their arrogance. They liked to toy with their foes before killing them, especially the weak ones. Since Saber pretended to be a Body Strengthening stage, the elf smiled with amusement. He balled his fist and punched Saber in the chest. Upon the elf''s fist hitting Saber''s chest, a booming sound resonated. Saber was sent flying. The elf watched Saber flying toward the forest. Saber took advantage of the situation by intentionally flying into the forest. He crashed through the canopy, breaking several branches.
The War God''s gaze turned cold.
"Finish what you''ve started," The War God said with a murderous tone. Just his voice alone was enough to make the elves tremble.
"I will return with his head," said the elf who punched Saber. The elf immediately flew into the forest, following Saber''s trail. After the elf disappeared into the foliage, the War God turned his gaze toward the other elves.
"Go on. Help him. Come with his head or don''te at all," The War God grinned like a devil. The elves dared not to linger any second longer. Compared to the other War Gods, Bnor was the kindest. Otherwise, he wouldn''t have given the thief an option to escape. Any other War Gods would have torn him to pieces the moment they found out he was following them. But even Bnor had his limits. After sending the elves to hunt down Saber, Bnor hovered above the forest. For some reason, Bnor felt something amiss. The thief did not seem like an ordinary thief. Something was definitely strange about him. An ordinary thief wouldn''t have dared to mess with a War God.
The forest the elves entered was oak-brown and primitive. The grasses they stepped on were crackly beneath their ur feet because of the recent dry spell. One would be in awe of the size and majesty of the trees but not these elves. They were not here to enjoy the beauty but to kill a human. The trees'' knotted arms rose ever upwards, as far as one''s head could lift. They were hoary fortresses and stood proudly. The orchestra of birdsong suddenly stopped as the elves entered. A pair of jays were screeching high up in the canopy of the trees. These scavengers of the bird world sensed the murderous aura around the elves. Their eyes gleamed with delight as they hoped they could eat fresh meat soon.
"Spread out. He must be here somewhere. One of you stay in the air and make sure he doesn''t fly away," An elf barked orders at the others.
"When did you be the boss of us?" asked another elf scornfully.
"Why don''t we go to Bnor and ask him?"
"Fuck you," the elves scattered through the forest quickly after hearing Bnor''s name instead of bitching. The elves spread their focus around them to find Saber. Little did they know Saber was watching them and waiting for them to spread out. The elves thought they were hunting Saber, but it was the other way around. With darkness and forest to his advantage, Saber had the battle in hand.
Chapter 787 Taking Out One By One
Inside the forest, Saber watched the elves from a safe distance. He could feel their senses. Whenever he felt their senses getting close to him, he leaped away from one branch to another. As though nature wanted to add some twist to their situation, dark clouds soon gathered in the sky above the forest. Saber heard the thunder rumbling. The wetness in the air suddenly increased, warning Saber about the uing heavy downpour. Everything under the thick canopy rustled. He heard the elves growl. They hated getting their hands dirty. These elves were natured in pces and mansions. Thus, they hated everything rted to dirt. The elves hovered above the ground to avoid stepping on the mud. Saber could pinpoint each and every elf in the forest. They were searching for him alone, which was a big mistake. Watching a lone elf, Saber silently broke a twig. He aimed at the ground a few meters away from the elf and threw it to distract him.
The sudden noise startled the elf. As Saber expected, the elf moved toward where he heard the sound. Because the elves thought Saber was just a Body Strengthening stage cultivator, the elves did not put a defense shield around him. Their pride and arrogance prevented them from doing so. Saber utilized this situation. He slowly flew toward the elf without making a sound. The elf''s neck hair stood up as he sensed someone approaching him. But before he could react, Saber grabbed the elf from behind. He squeezed the elf''s neck until his skin turned purplish. The elf''s body gradually stopped twitching as he lost consciousness. Saber did not waste any second. He immediately jumped into the top of a tree. Saber took out some ropes and tied the elf against the tree.
Saber could have easily taken the elf''s life but chose not to. Leaving the elf behind, Saber moved toward his next target. After leaping from tree to tree for a few moments, Saber reached his target. The elf had a deep frown on his face. He did not like to be in the forest at all. Unfortunately for the elf, the sky broke open, pouring water in full force. The big rain droplets rushed through the canopy with an unearthly sound.
"Fuck you rain," The elf cursed the rain. Streaks of lightning decorated the dark sky. Soon, Saber heard an ear-piercing thunder. Saber immediately dashed at the elf to take him out. The elf did not expect someone to jump from above. Before he could react, Sabernded straight on the elf''s shoulder. The sheer force of Saber''snding dislocated the elf''s shoulder and knocked him out cold. Just like earlier, Saber grabbed the elf, leaped onto the tree, and tied him with ropes. Saber expected the War God to intervene any second, yet to his surprise, the War God just hovered in the sky, getting drenched in the rain. Saber had a strange feeling that the War God was watching him. But if he did, Saber wondered why he wasn''t attacking him.
It was strange behavior for a War God. For now, Saber ignored this feeling and continued to hunt down the elves.
The heavy downpour came with howling wind. Soon, all the trees in the forest started to sway in a single direction. Some trees looked like they were about to get uprooted from the ground. Luckily for Saber, the rain and thunderps covered any sound Saber or an elf made. Saber quickly flew to the third elf while keeping an eye on the fourth and final elf. As Saber moved closer, he noticed a faint glow around the elf. The rain droplets vaporized upon hitting the glow around the elf. Hence, the elf remained dry and cozy. But the elf''s coziness was short-lived as Saber leaped onto him, breaking the shield with a single punch. The shield exploded at the same time when a thunderp resonated through the forest. The thunderp masked the sound of the shield exploding and the elf growling.
Saber did a quick work hiding the unconscious elf just like before. Finally, only one elf remained. Saber wanted something special for the elf because he was the one who punched Saber earlier. As a proud elder vampire and a subordinate of the Dark Lord, it was only natural that Saber would pay back his debt in multiple folds. He was almost tempted to kill the elf. Thinking about what to do with the elf, Saber flew through the forest like a rustling wind.
The elf in the air was in direct eye contact with the War God. Hence, attacking him would be equal to attacking the War God himself.
As the elf was told, he was searching for Saber. Saber intentionally left his flying sword behind when he crashed into the forest earlier. It was to confuse and make the elves look for him on the ground. Since a Body Strengthening stage cultivator could not fly, they didn''t bother to look above. Plus, Saber left some blood on the ground for the elves to follow. The elf was following the trail of blood to track down Saber. Little did he know Saber was watching him from behind. The elf was too focused on the train and failed to notice anything around him.
"Did you see him flying away?" Suddenly, the elf shouted as the birds resting in the forest scattered away. The elf didn''t bother to lower his voice. Even though they weren''t in Gondolin, they acted otherwise. For them, all of Awor belonged to them, the superior race of all. They could conquer all Awor if they wished to because Gondoling had the mightiest army in the world. However, even the dwarves couldn''t match the elven might. The dwarves could indeed build hundreds of new contraptions but could neverpete with elven rune magic. Moreover, the dwarves were blessed with an innate talent to build but not the talent for cultivation. Hence, theycked powerful warriors like the War Gods of Gondolin. Of course, some dwarves were an exception to the rule. But they were rare and not enough to defeat the elven kingdoms.
"No, he is still in there," The elf in the air replied with the same volume. War God Bnor watched the scene with an amused smile. These elves were just there with him to entertain. He felt bored traveling alone to the Aqua auction. So although Bnor cared for them, they weren''t his friends. Otherwise, he would be in the forest with them, not watching them getting their asses kicked.
"I am getting closer to him," The elf in the forest shouted. Judging by the blood on the ground, the elf assumed the thief had crawled somewhere and died. Saber slowly moved toward the elf without making a sound. At that moment, he was just a few meters away from the elf''s senses. Saber was careful not to alert the elf. It was no fun that way. Eventually, the elf reached the blood trail''s end. To the elf''s surprise, he didn''t find a body as he hit a dead end. The elf looked around. He creased his brows.
"What the hell?" The elf was confused. The blood trail disappeared suddenly. As he was looking around, he heard a cracking sound a few meters away from the blood trail. His elven ears twitched as he followed the sound. It was Saber who broke a couple of twigs with stones. Saber waited for the elf to move away from the blood trail. When the elf reached the ce where he saw nothing but some tall and thick bushes under a giant tree, he felt a chill.
His senses detected a life sign near him. The elf immediately reached for his weapon,
"Hello," Sabernded right before him and grabbed his arm. Saber did not knock him out with one punch, although he could do it easily. Instead, Saber punched the elf just like he did. Yet the elf didn''t go flying because Saber held his arm. The elf groaned, but the sizzling sound of heavy rain hitting the canopy masked the elf''s sound. Saber hit him once again in the face, breaking the elf''s nose with a sickening crunch. Blood oozed out of the elf''s nose.
The elf''s consciousness slowly slipped off. Despite his Soul Refining cultivation, he couldn''t withstand a powerful Fusion Stage vampire''s punch filled with rage. He was lucky Saber was ordered not to kill them. The smell of blood tempted Saber to sink his teeth into the elf''s neck. Even though the Dark Lord''s cure for the vampires cured their lust for blood, it didn''t take away their temptation. In other words, a vampire had no need to drink blood, but they could if they wished to.
The Dark Lord didn''t order them to stop drinking blood because it would be like asking a human to stop drinking water. But he couldn''t let the vampires wreak havoc within kingdoms. Hence, Michael let them give up to their temptation if they found an evil foe. To put it differently, they were ordered not to harm any innocent. Until now, no vampire under the Dark Lord had ever hurt an innocent for blood. They only imagined what would happen if they did.
Judging by the look on the elf''s face, Saber realized one more punch might kill him. Because of that, Saber had to stop hitting them though he would like to punch the elf more. Since he was thest elf in the forest, Saber didn''t bother to hide him. He just left him on the ground and leaped onto a branch.
? "Come out and deal with him too," Suddenly, Saber heard Bnor''s voice. It sounded louder than a thunderp. Saber wasn''t surprised as he felt the War God was watching him. A mere forest wouldn''t be able to prevent a War God from seeing what was happening to his men. Saber''s eyes glistened with excitement. After a long, long time, he was going to battle a worthy opponent. The elf in the air frowned. Unlike Bnor, he had no idea what had transpired within the forest. He waspletely stunned when he saw the lowly thief flying through the canopy without a flying sword.
Furthermore, he wasn''t harmed at all. The elf couldn''t help thinking the worst. He trembled slightly in fear.
"We should do this alone," said Bnor. To Saber''s surprise, he just flicked his wrist as a st of wind knocked out the elf in a blink of an eye. It was a show of power. Honestly, it really surprised Saber. He knocked out a Soul Refiner with a flick of his wrist.
"Shall we begin?" Belnaor asked after knocking out the elf. Both had no fear in their eyes but glimmering excitement.
Chapter 788 Stalemate Battle
Saber cracked his fist, preparing himself to battle the War God. The War God remained calm. He wanted Saber to make his first move. Just as he expected, Saber did make his first move. He dashed at the War God with speed beyond any Fusion Stage cultivators. The Cosmic energy, coupled with the Dark Lord''s potion, enhanced his speed to the point the War God himself was surprised by his speed. Saber even left some afterimages on his trail. Although Bnor was surprised by his speed, it was not enough to catch him off guard. The War God simply snapped his finger as a golden crescent wave sted off Saber. As Saber was flying in the air backward, a small glimmer of light enveloped Saber''s body.
Each War God had their own unique way of fighting and armor. Only a few had seen a War God''s battle armor and lived to tell tales about it. Luckily Saber received a rare opportunity to see the armor. It was a set of armor with a squared helm and a squared, t-shaped opening, leaving the eyes, nose, and mouth exposed. Attached to the top was a sun-shaped metal ornament piece. The shoulders were oval, quite short, and small in size. They were decorated with a row of metal feathers, all pointing upwards. The row reached from side to side.
The upper arms were protected by squared, half-covering rerebraces, which sat well under the shoulder tes. While the lower arms were covered by vambraces which had many small metal spikes covering the vambraces all over. The real beauty of the armor was its chest te. It was made from a couple of metalyers, mimicking dragon scales. It covered everything from the neck down and ended at the groin. Following the upper body, the armor slowly covered his lower body. The upper legs were covered by squared, fully covering cuisses as greaves protected the lower legs with several arrowheads attached on the outer sides as if arrows had pierced the legs.
Bnor glowed like a sun in the night sky. He cracked his neck as Saber finally steadied himself.
"That''s nice armor," Sabermented about Bnor''s armor.
"Enjoy the sight while you still can," said Bnor. The armor glimmered brighter and brighter to the point Saber''s eyes had to adjust for its light. The War God wasted no time as he dashed at Saber. He was almost as fast as Saber, or even faster. Saber instinctively cast a spell. In a blink of an eye, a torrent made of blood appeared around Saber. The blood shield protected Saber from the War God''s punch. Bnor punched the blood shield with enough force to send Saber flying. Blood sshed across the sky. But this time, Saber didn''t go flying as before. Instead, he steadied himself quickly and dashed at the War God faster than before. This time, Saber punched the War God right in the chest. The War God raised his arms to protect himself. His hands went numb when he blocked Saber''s punch. The sheer force pushed back Bnor. Saber did not stop as he punched the War God again and again. Their battle produced thunderous explosions that echoed through the night sky. Countless trees were got uprooted by their battle. The aftershock decimated the forest below them. For them, they were just punching each other. But in reality, they were two powerful Fusion stage warriors. The energy produced by their battle was enough to cause more damage than a natural disaster.
They didn''t give a damn about the environment. Instead, they fought like beasts. Saber raised his hand as a vulture made of blood materialized above them. It was gigantic. Compared to the blood vulture, Saber and Bnor looked small. The bird cast arge shadow in the clouds when lightning shed across the sky. As soon as the blood vulture appeared in the sky, the air started to reek of blood. It red at Bnor with its hollow eyes.
The blood vulture tried to peck Bnor with its long gigantic beak. Bnor pped his hands together as a powerful shock wave shot out of his hands. As though it was a living bird, the blood vulture screeched. Blood scattered in all directions as the vulture faded away from existence. However, before itpletely disappeared from sight, it managed to scratch Bnor.
An ear-piercing screech resonated from the armor. Fortunately for Bnor, the armor saved his skin. Except for a small chunk of armor, he lost nothing. Saber didn''t wait for the War God to retaliate. Instead, he pressed his attack. Saber''s fist glowed in crimson red. Every punch Saber threw had enough force to scatter a boulder to pieces.
Bnor''s armor glowed brighter and brighter until it exploded, creating a powerful shock wave. Saber went flying as the armor lost its glow. Bnor raised his hand as a golden fist appeared behind Saber.
Sensing a threat, Saber immediately cast the blood shield again. Upon the fist striking the shield, it created a thunderous explosion. The shield and fist exploded at the same time, creating a mist of red and gold. Both of thempletely ignored the mist and dashed at each other once again. Their eyes glimmered with battle lust. In mid-sky, they went all in. Neither of them held back.
No one under the Fusion stage could see their moves but only a blur. A few momentster, they stopped attacking each other. When they stopped, each had blood flowing down from the corner of their mouths. Bnor wiped off the blood from his mouth and smiled, looking at his own blood.
"It had been a long time since I''ve seen my blood," said Bnor. He was not gloating but telling the truth. The War Gods usually lived a peaceful life since no one had dared to attack Gondolin or an elven nation for the past ten years. So Bnor was excited to fight a worthy foe after such a long time. Moreover, the one whom the elves thought was weakling, pathetic human scum had actually made Bnor bleed.
"There is more where that came from," Saber snickered.
"Is that so?" Bnor tilted his head before taking a deep breath. His skin glowed as all cuts and bruises healed up automatically. Saber and Belnoar readied for the second round. In a blink of an eye, they flew toward each other. To Saber''s surprise, an ethereal lion head materialized behind Bnor. It was just as big as the blood vulture cast by Saber. The head roared as ripples appeared in the sky. All the storm clouds faded out of existence because of the roar. As a result, the heavy rain stopped. Saber''s ears rang. Even his vision turned blurry for a moment. The trees that escaped their previous attack gotpletely decimated by the roar. Below them, there was arge crater filled with broken trees. But they couldn''t care less. On the contrary, they focused on the battle. Their minds and eyes were filled with battle lust. It had been a long time since they both fought a worthy opponent. Usually, they would kill their foe within a minute or minute top. But this battle went on for almost five minutes without a victor.
They both fought on equal terms, and Bnor wanted to change that. The lion finally stopped roaring. It felt like a storm had passed them. Without the heavy rain, silence returned to the area. Saber closed his eyes for a second as the blood vulture appeared in the sky again. The vulture locked its gaze on the lion. On the other hand, the lion growled at the vulture as though they were both alive and had emotions. Soon, they lunged at each other, just as Bnor and Saber did.
Their battle intensified. The vulture and lion head tried to bite each other. While they were battling it out, Saber and Bnor exchanged blows. They dived down, attacking each other. In the moment of heat, they forgot there was a crate down. They hit the ground with enough force to form a mini crater within therge crater. The force split them apart as they crashed in opposite directions. Their clothes becamepletely drenched with mud. They immediately jumped back to their feet to go all out again.
Unlike before, they didn''t dash at each other, at least Bnor didn''t. He stayed still and punched the ground below. Several cracks formed in the ground and spread throughout like spider webs. Saber leaped into the air to avoid being knocked down. He wondered what Bnor was trying to aplish. But he soon got his answer when he picked up arge boulder and threw it at him. The boulder was easily twice the size of an elephant. Yet Bnor threw it like it was nothing. Saber didn''t fly away but punched the boulder with his bare hand. The boulder exploded. But before the debris could hit the ground, Bnor shot through the debris, hitting Saber in the face at speed beyond Saber''s expectation. The War God''s punch and speed put a smile on Saber''s face. He realized the War God was unleashing his full potential. His entire body glowed like a mini sun. The heat radiating from Bnor''s body turned the debris into ashes. Saber quickly covered himself with a blood shield to protect himself from burning. Saber fought back with blood punches. Bnor glowed in golden radiance while Saber radiated a crimson red light due to the blood shield around him.
As they were fighting, a golden light materialized in Bnor''s hand. It was a golden spear with a red cloth wrapped around its top. Bnor stabbed Saber at lightning speed. The de cut his rib cage, barely missing Saber''s heart.
"Cheeky bastard," Saber snickered. He didn''t expect Bnor to take out his weapon suddenly. Now that Bnor had taken out his weapon, Saber conjured his blood sword. The sword produced an evil aura with red smoke. Both these weapons belonged to the Legendary ss. Hence, they created an aftershock upon shing. They fought on the same level. As much as they liked to gain an advantage over another, they simply couldn''t.
Unknown to them, the Dark Queen watched the battle from a distance. She trusted Saber, but she also couldn''t afford to lose the armor piece.
Chapter 789 Dark Queens Interference
Saber''s blood sword and Bnor''s golden spear shed, creating otherworldly noises. Instead of using spells, they used their weapons to fight. However, they asionally cast spells to gain an advantage. Yet, their battle remained at a stalemate. The battle between them continued for almost a day. When the sun rose in the horizon, Bnor''s aggressiveness increased by several folds. Bnor''s armor absorbed the sunlight to enhance his speed. Since Saber had no armor, he began to take blows from Bnor. The War God swung and stabbed left and right. The spear cut Saber a couple of times. His silver robes began to drench in blood. Not that Saber was slow, but Bnor was faster. Bnor''s armor glowed brighter and brighter in the light.
Blood trickled down from Saber''s mouth. The War God hit him with the spear in the face. It contained enough force to turn a Core Strengthening stage warrior''s neck to the other side. Saber''s face went numb. Bnor pushed his advantage by hitting him several times, faster than before. Bnor quickly moved to the point he showed his back to the rising sun. As a result, Saber faced the sun. The bright sunlight messed with Saber''s eyesight. He couldn''t see the golden spear in the golden light. Seeing Saber squinting his eyes, Bnor snickered. As a War God, he was born and raised on a battlefield. He knew how to use everything around him to his advantage. While he was battling Saber, he learned Saber''s strength. He knew Saber was not weaker than him. Thus, he fought till the sun rose to increase his power.
His wait was worth it as he started to hit Saber more and more. But to Bnor''s surprise, cuts and bruises on Saber''s body healed instantly. Bnor had an eerie doubt about Saber from the moment he met him.
"You''re a vampire," Bnor said. He didn''t stop attacking Saber. On the contrary, he turned more ruthless and aggressive. Saber slowly started to lose the battle. Luckily, Saber''s reflex and battle experience enabled him to evade deadly blows. Bnor kept aiming for Saber''s heart and throat after realizing he was a vampire.
"So Ghost sent you here?" Bnor asked as Saber flew backward to put some distance between the two of them.
When Saber heard Bnor address the Dark Lord by his name, Saber''s blood boiled. He gritted his teeth, swinging his blood sword.
"Do not speak his name," Saber snarled.
"Why?" Bnor deflected the blood sword with his spear and asked. Bnor had no sign of fear in his eyes. Compared to the rest of the continents, Awor had seen only a little of what the Dark Lord could do. Therefore, people like the War Gods feared the Dark Lord less. Some of them outright challenged the Dark Lord for a duel in several parts of elven kingdoms. Of course, the Dark Lord ignored these silly challenges because he had more important things to deal with. Besides, the Skyhall and Guardian would have an easier time if he answered all these challenges from nobodies.
"Because you will die," Saber growled. He saw a glimpse of the Dark Queen on the horizon. He could swear he saw her. Bnor didn''t even flinch hearing Saber''s threat. Little did he know that it was not a threat but a warning. The runes in Bnor''s armor radiated bright light. He glowed under the sunlight. Saber received more blows as seconds passed, and his face became pale. Every part in his body ached. The armor of Bnor made him stronger than Saber initially expected.
Sbaer''s mind and body told him to use the teleportation scroll to escape. Backing off and living to fight another day was way better than dying. However, he couldn''t afford to escape without the Dark Lord''s armor piece. That was the only reason why Saber was still fighting Bnor. If he managed to escape with the armor piece somehow, Saber nned to ask the Dark Lord for armor. He learned the importance of powerful armor the hard way. Now that Michael had reached the 5-Star cksmith level, he could forge powerful armor. But to forge armor like Bnor''s, he needed to be a 6-star cksmith. Michael didn''t n to stay at a 5-star level for a long time as he did with the alchemy specialization. Instead, Michael decided to get everything the system required to reach the 6-star level as soon as he left the heavenly tribtion. Unlike Saber, Michael knew how powerful armor could change the tide of a battle. He also knew his army needed armor more than him. All the Great Eight ns possessed powerful armor and weapons, making them almost invincible. When he was done fitting his army with weapons and armor forged by him, the hierarchy of the power structure in this world would change forever.
Eventually, Saber''s body refused to listen to him as his muscles went rigid. His movements slowed down, leaving him vulnerable to a deadly killing blow. The War God raised his spear to end this battle once and for all. As much as he hated vampires, he respected Saber as an opponent. He was taught that a warrior must never fear an enemy but always respect them. When he was about to stab Saber''s heart with his golden spear, a dark trail appeared in the air. The trail of ckness hit Bnor in the chest before he could stab Saber.
Bnr coughed up blood. It took him a second for his brain to process everything. His chest ached as he looked down to see a dark arrow sticking out of his chest. He tried to turn around, but another arrow hit Bnor in the gut. Using this opportunity, Saber mustered all his strength and pulled out the space ring from Bnor''s hand. Green veins bulged up under Bnor''s skin. Bnor''s vision blurred. Before he could retaliate, Saber tore the teleportation scroll in half. A bright light enveloped Saber. To Saber''s surprise, Bnor stabbed the light as he saw a ssh of blood in the light.
Bnor quickly turned around despite the poison in his body to see who shot him with poison arrows. When he turned around, he saw no one in the vicinity. He immediately essed his space ring to get a healing potion. The poison was powerful enough to harm a Fusion stage cultivator himself. But he was surprised when his vision cleared. He felt better as his breathing became normal. The green veins on his skin slowly faded away. The poison cured itself without taking an antidote. Bnor realized that whoever shot the arrows had no intention of killing him. Even when he was fighting Saber, he sensed Saber was holding back. He didn''t go for killing blows.
It became clear to him that Saber wanted to steal his space ring that contained the armor piece.
"I should have been more careful," Bnor said to himself.
It was toote for him to realize that the armor piece might have belonged to the Dark Lord. At least he had taken an interest in the armor. He knew he must inform the empress. Attacking a War God was equal to attacking Gondolin itself. Hence, the Dark Lord had waged a way against Gondolin.
**************************************************************
Inside the Gondolin castle, an elvendy with striking golden hair flew around her perfectly sculpted face. Sparkling aquamarine eyes sat gracefully within their sockets, watching delightfully over the haven they''d sought sce in for so long. She radiated power and grace. Anyone would be tempted to bow and kneel down before her. She was none other than Nithroel Grimfield, the empress of Awor.
Something was appealing about her. Perhaps it was her personality, or perhaps it was simply her goodwill. But nheless, people tend to respect her. She stood atop the balcony outside her room and watched the city of Mvarian. Her mind was filled with new requests from the people. Recently, the dwarves had begun to build new types of contraptions, which made them worry about the kingdom''s security. The dwarves had been keeping their hatred toward the elves suppressed. She worried they might side with the Dark Lord to seek revenge against them. Thousands of years ago, elves and dwarves ruled over the kingdom. Then, the dwarves cultivated almost as fast as the elves. These two races were always on the verge of the fighting because of their hatred toward each other. With their superior contraptions, the dwarves finally attacked Gondolin. They would have won the war if it wasn''t for her. The dwarves knew she was powerful but never expected to be powerful enough to wipe out their strongest armies within a few minutes. Because of what the dwarves did, she summoned all the best runemasters, healers, and alchemists to suppress the dwarves'' cultivation. The dwarves slowly declined as the elves became the lone sovereign of Awor. Even to this date, the dwarves held fire in their hearts that longed to burn the elven empire to the ground.
As Nithroel was thinking about the dwarves, she saw Bnor flying toward her in the sky. Even from miles away, Nithroel could see the frowns on the elves'' faces behind Bnor. She patiently waited for Bnor toe to her. A whileter, Bnor was granted permission tond on her balcony.
The moment his feet touched the ground, Bnor dropped to his knees.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Bnor lowered his head.
"Rise, Bnor. Your eyes contain anger and concern. Tell me, what happened in the auction?" Her voice sounded gentle, like a melody.
Bnor took a deep breath before telling everything that had transpired. She remained as calm as still water. When he finished his story, she just smiled.
"So the time to meet him has arrived," said Nithroel.
"Do you think the vampire who attacked you could have killed your underlings?" asked Nithroel. She had no signs of anger in her eyes. Instead, she seemed amused.
"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty," Bnor nodded without a doubt. He watched how the vampire had taken out the elves. Thus, he knew the vampire could have killed the elves if he wished to. Something prevented him from killing them. Even when he was fighting him, the vampire held back.
"I wish to meet the Dark Lord,"
Bnor was startled by her words. Before he could raise his concern, she simply raised her hand.
"You areing with me and only you. This is my order, not a request,"
Chapter 790 End Of Heavenly Tribulation
A few dayster, everyone in the dark ocean surrounded the floating mountain. The entire mountain field was littered with lightning bolts. The lightning bolts targeted the top of the waterfall. Thousands of lightning streaks were in the sky. It was a beautiful yet terrifying sight. The lightning made the night look like a day with its continuous bright shes. Other than the visible changes, the energy around the mountain violently fluctuated. Everyone in the area felt difficult to breathe. They felt weak for some reason. On top of the sword-hilt mountain, a cloud of darkness surrounded Michael. Runes and arrays around him lit like Christmas decorations. He sat in a meditative position with his eyes closed. Gaya and Adelia stood a few meters away from Michael in case someone tried to attack him. Fortunately, they faced no enemies for thest nine days.
The rogue cultivators didn''t even dare to watch the heavenly tribtions. Thest time Michael had his heavenly tribtions, countless cultivators came from all over the world to watch him. But now, the floating mountain had only the dark army. At that moment, the dark ocean became one of the most protected ces in the world. Gaya looked around, the lightning storm getting worse by the second. The howling wind warned them about the uing storm.
Gaya knew if he hadn''t revealed himself as the Dark Lord, someone might have tried to interrupt the tribtions. Now, no one had the guts to do so. What happened to Ithn was a perfect example to show them what would be the result of messing with the Dark Lord. The dark army was ordered to patrol the mountain vigntly. They patrolled every corner of the mountain. In addition to the army, all of Michael''s subordinates except Sadie had arrived at the castle. They didn''te outside to show their faces but remained in the castle. Gaya ordered them toe outside only if powerful armies attacked them.
As they were watching the tribtion, the sky directly above Michael darkened. Granted that the storm clouds were already dark, but they became pitch ck. Gaya could barely see Michael through the dark cloud of smoke around him. This darkness was not midnight dark. Instead, the darkness around him seemed otherworldly. The darkness made everyone weaker. Suddenly, a dark lightning bolt struck Michael from above. Gaya''s heart skipped in shock. But she remained still instead of rushing forward. She had total trust in Michael. Nightmare and Vedora looked slightly worried. Another lightning bolt struck him, and countless bolts rained down upon him. The ground around him was lit with dark mes. Gaya could feel the scorching heat from the darkness.
Soon, seconds became minutes, and minutes turned hours. Gaya noticed Michael''s power slowly and steadily growing. The energy fluctuations around him skyrocketed.
[Congrattions to Host for reaching the Immortal stage level 1]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal stage level 2]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal stage level 3]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal stage level 4]
"He''s reaching the Immortal stage," said Adelia. This was the first time Gaya had seen a cultivator reaching the Immortal stage. She and the army stared at Michael in shock. He reached the Immortal stage level 2 in a few minutes after reaching level 1. He didn''t stop at level 2 but reached level 3 and 4 in a few minutes. Finally, it stopped at level 4.
Gaya and Adelia thought no one outside was watching the mountain. But they were dead wrong. At that time, two outsiders stayed far away, watching everything that had been happening in the dark ocean. These two were none other than Ethan and Diana.
"He is getting stronger faster and faster," said Ethan. His voice contained a cocktail of emotions. He was proud, worried, shocked, and terrified.
"The stronger he bes, the bigger the target on his back," said Diana. Ethan slowly wiped off the blood from her face. The reason Michael had a peaceful tribtion was because of Diana. Some of the great eight ns had sent assassins to interrupt the tribtions to kill the Dark Lord. However, they were all ughtered by Diana before they could reach the dark ocean. Even the patrolling dark army had no idea a ughter had taken ce around the mountain.
"What do we do?" asked Ethan. Naturally, he was worried about his son. It had been more than a year since he saw him. Before he went full Dark Lord mode, Ethan was able to see and talk to him due to alchemy deals. Now theypletely lost connection with him.
"We can''t do anything," Diana sighed. She was at the Fusion stage. Soon, her son''s enemies would be stronger than her. At that, no matter how fast she could cultivate, she wouldn''t be able to defeat them. Moreover, soon, she would trigger her heavenly tribtion. She couldn''t even imagine what Skyhall would do when they realized she had broken the seal put on her soul.
If she wanted, she could have reached the Half Immortal stage a month ago. Instead, she was waiting for the right time and right ce. Her heavenly tribtions could destroy her entire family. She was even nning on asking the Dark Lord''s help. If someone could help her, it might be her son. She didn''t want to add more trouble to Noah''s te than he already had. On the other hand, Rowena had been staying in her pce for thest year. They were about to meet Rowena almost after a year at Andrews and Katherine''s baby shower. Diana and Ethan wished to spend the day as a family, but there was no way to invite Ghost. Diana yearned for a family reunion they deserved, although she knew the odds of that happening was near impossible.
"I still think we should tell them everything," said Ethan as Diana shook her head.
"If we did, they would go to war with the Skyhall itself. Our kids are strong but not strong enough to face the great eight ns or the skyhall. I lost count of how many times I told you this," Diana smiled tiredly.
To be honest, Diana couldn''t find a way to get her family out of this mess. But telling her children about Ghost and the skyhall was out of the question. She knew about Rowena, Noah, and Sabrina. Rowena would break the pce and wage war against the Skyhall the moment she learned the truth about her little brother. On the other hand, Noah would be broken to the core since he believed in the Guardian Guild and Andreas. The truth would break everything he believed in.
As for Ghost, Diana had no idea what he would do when he learned the truth. One day, she just wanted him to forgive her. She would dly give her life for him to do that. Meanwhile, the lightning bolts continued to strike Ghost, tempering his physical body. Eventually, the lightning storm stopped as the storm slowly lost its force. The dark clouds faded away, leaving a little bit of light to peek through.
Michael slowly opened his eyes. They glimmered with vigor and newfound powers. He looked around the endless ocean surrounding the floating mountain. He moved his head left and right. His neck cracked as he stood up. When he clenched his fist, dark golden lightning bolts crackled around his fist. Soon, they turned ck. These ck lightning bolts were several times more powerful than the golden bolts.
He felt many changes in his body. But this was neither the right ce nor the time. He smiled at Gaya before disappearing from her sight. He left an afterimage thatsted a second before fading away. Surprisingly, he didn''t teleport but cast the Lightning dash. His speed reached the point it looked like he had teleported away. Michael reached his room in a few blinks of an eye. He felt dizzy as his mind and body were still adjusting to his new speed level. He jumped straight onto his bed and opened his status window.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Immortal level 4
Experience Points: 0/8,000,000
Badass Points: 1,600,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 5 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 8
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 5
Soul Eater - LVL 5
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 96% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect
The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
King of Bradford
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Grow the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 15,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 6-Star Alchemist
5-Star cksmith
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 86%)
Dead Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 85%)
Sadie (loyalty level 70%)
Ricky (loyalty level 95%)
Titus(loyalty level 80%)
Optimus (loyalty level 80%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 93%)
Base of Operation: The Abyssal
The Crypt
Kingdom of Bradford
Familiars: Nightmare (Royal Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (40% Mastery) Fire (40% Mastery) (Lightning 50% Mastery) (Darkness 45%)
Finally, Michael had reached the Immortal stage. When he came to this world, he aimed to reach Immortality. After two years, he achieved his dream. But he wasn''t as surprised as he expected it to be. He knew his enemies were stronger than himself. Luckily, he had his own army. Nheless, his status window put a smile on his face. Now that he had reached Immortality and had enough points, he nned to upgrade his spells and buy a few blueprints to utilize his cksmith specialization. It was time to forge weapons suitable for the Dark Lord.
Chapter 791 Dark Lord Meets The Dark Lord
The loyalty of each subordinate remained almost the same since he hadst seen. What shocked him more was the experience cap to reach the next level. To reach the next level, he needed a humongous eight million points. His elemental maniption increased by ten percent except for darkness which increased by five percent. Before Michael upgraded the spells, he decided to buy a few blueprints for new weapons. He mainly bought these weapons to fit the Big Bertha.
Michael essed the store without a second thought and bought the blueprint to build a torpedouncher.
[The host has sessfully bought the blueprint for torpedo] said the system. He bought the torpedo for a whopping six hundred thousand badass points. The torpedouncher was worth the price. It couldunch five torpedoes at the same time. Michael could power it with the arch energy crystals. ording to the system, two torpedoes could destroy a frigate, and four could destroy a man o warship. For some reason, he had a gut feeling that he would need to power up his naval army soon. Considering his gut feeling had never betrayed him, he went with it.
He wanted to use the remaining points on a new weapon. Now that he had be the 5-star cksmith, he only needed a blueprint from the system. He would be able to forge the weapon by himself. He rummaged through the blueprints to pick the best weapon. He mainly looked for a sword because of his mastery over swordsmanship. Some swords had a special affinity to elements such as fire. In other words, these swords could conjure mes. Most of these swords had no chance against the Dark mes. Hence, a pair of swords called the dark swords caught Michael''s eyes. Just their name alone was enough for Michael to buy them. In addition, these pairs of swords could withstand the dark mes. The only downside for this pair of swords was the things needed to forge them, especially the ore. ording to the system, the ore could only be found in the demon''s grave. It was the most dangerous realm in the entire world. The demon''s grave would make the treacherous ocean look like a children''s yground.
He needed five materials to forge the swords. Luckily, three of them were in the demon''s grave, and the other two had to be bought from the system. Which made forging the swords without a system an impossible task. Michael bought the blueprint for the swords cost him eight hundred thousand badass points. These two purchases exceeded Michael''s expectations. After buying these two, he only had two hundred thousand badass points in the system. Instead of spending them, Michael decided to save them for another day.
He exited the system with the decision to visit the demon''s grave soon. As he exited the system, he saw Gaya walking into the room. To his surprise, she seemed serious. She didn''t even hug him.
"You need to see something," said Gaya.
The smile on Michael''s face disappeared. He quickly got off the bed and followed Gaya to an empty room in the castle. Gaya didn''t speak a word till they reached the room. When they reached the room, the door opened with a slow creak. Michael saw Adelia, and Azazel was waiting for him inside the room with a dark box atop a pir.
"My lord," Adelia and Azazel bowed toward Michael.
"Is the armor piece inside?" Michael asked as Adelia nodded. Judging by the looks on their faces, Michael knew something was amiss. Hence, he scanned the box for any booby traps. The system took a few seconds to confirm there were no traps inside but a hologram. As soon as Michael touched the box, it clicked. Soon, the box slowly opened, revealing the armor piece inside. But before Michael could touch the armor piece, a hologram of himself appeared above the chest.
Michael took a step back. Just the hologram was enough to make Adelia and Azazel drop to their knees. The holographic Dark Lord''s gaze swept across the hall. Michael felt a warmth through his body as though the Dark Lord was scanning him. Since it was not a soul piece but a hologram, Michael knew the past Dark Lord must have used the system to use technology from the earth.
After the warmth faded, the Dark Lord locked his gaze with Michael.
"Congrattions. You are doing better than I was expecting," said the Dark Lord.
"Finding these armor pieces must be your priority," The Dark Lord paused, sighing heavily.
"You must have lots of questions. For now, I can only confirm your suspicions. Yes, I went back in time and became you. Time traveling is not as simple as they showed us where we came from,"
The Dark Lord smiled a little. Even though it was just a hologram recording of himself, Michael noticed an immense sadness in his eyes. He seemed tired, void of any happiness. Seeing him, Michael immediately thought of Gaya.
"Did something happen to her?" Michael questioned himself.
"I cannot explicitly exin to you why I traveled back in time or what mistakes I made. Instead, I was only able to leave you something behind to help you on your path. However," The Dark Lord stopped for a moment before continuing,
"I must tell you one thing, you will fight Noah but do not rush into the battle. Noah is not the only enemy you have to fight. Not all people fear and worship gods. Some want to get rid of them," The Dark Lord''s voice became stern and serious.
"They would go to any lengths to do that. So you must protect your own and get stronger," said the Dark Lord.
"And take care of my Gaya," a miserable smile appeared on his face. Gaya''s eyes watered just by seeing him sad. Despite everything, he was still the man she fell in love with. Hence, seeing him hurt and sad made her eyes tear up.
"No matter what happens, do not fail to protect her. I reset the entire universe, so you can get the happy ending that I didn''t," He sighed. To Michael''s surprise, the Dark Lord turned his gaze toward Gaya. Michael wondered how the hell did he locate Gaya correctly in the hall.
"I would give anything to see you smile one more time," For the first time, Gaya heard the Dark Lord''s voice stutter. He was the emotionally strongest one of the two of them. Yet, he seemed so vulnerable at that moment.
"I love you, my dear wifu," Finally, the Dark Lord smiled. Soon, the hologram started to flicker.
"Do not rush into the battle with Noah," Before the hologram faded away, Michael heard the Dark Lord''s warning about Noah one more time. After the hologram disappeared, Michael remained still, without uttering a word for a few minutes. Silence fell over them. A few minutester, Michael took out the armor piece from the chest. It disappeared into Michael''s system storage. Two more pieces, and he would have his armor once again.
"What happened in this room stays in this room. Got it?" Michael asked them, looking over his shoulder.
"Yes, my lord," Azazel and Adelia nodded. After hearing the Dark Lord''s final words, Adelia was worried about her daughter. It took her almost three decades to reunite with Gaya, and Adelia didn''t n to lose her again. But no matter how worried she was, she did not question the Dark Lord''s ability and love to protect her. If someone could protect Gaya, it was him. Michael then turned around. With a flick of his wrist, he took out two silver parchments from the system storage. He threw them at Adelia.
"Take Saber with you and find me the remaining armor pieces," Michael ordered. Adelia nodded before leaving the room with Azazel.
"Michael," Gaya came to his side and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Are you worried?" she asked.
"No," Michael shook his head. He turned around to look her in the eyes. With a gentle smile, he cupped her face.
"I am not my past," Michael gently massaged her face.
"We will get a happy ending. I promise you that," said Michael.
"I know you will," She smiled. The two of them shared a moment of intimacy and left the room. They headed for the outside. Just as they stepped outside to greet the dark army, he saw Gibson running toward him. He was drenched in sweat.
"My lord¡my¡" He couldn''t speak through his heavy breathing.
"Take a deep breath and rx," said Michael. Gibson took a deep breath as he was told.
"My lord," Gibson put his hand inside his robes to retrieve a golden parchment.
"It came from the empress,"
Michael was surprised by Gibson''s words. He opened up the parchment to read what the empress had to say.
"That''s surprising," said Michael after reading the parchment.
"What is it?" Gaya asked. She couldn''t hold her curiosity anymore.
"The empress wants to meet me,"
Just like Michael, Gaya was surprised by the sudden invitation too.
"Might be a trap," said Gaya.
"I don''t think so. She wants us to pick the ce and the time. She is only bringing a War God named Bnor,"
"Bnor huh?" Gaya remembered the name. She didn''t know him when she put two arrows into him, but when she asked Sadie about the War God who attended the Aqua Pce auction, Sadie found his identity.
"You know him?" asked Michael.
"I should tell you how we got the third armor piece,"
Just her sly smile was enough for Michael to paint a rough picture of what had happened. At Least he was d that she didn''t kill the War God.
"Let''s walk and talk," Gaya grabbed his arm and started to walk toward the waterfall. On her way, she told Michael everything that had happened. Michael listened to her story in utter silence. What she did was the right move. If he was in her shoes, he would have done the same. But Michael worried about the reaction from Gondolin for attacking a War God.
"We need to meet the empress and sort this out. We have enough enemies to deal with," Michael sighed. Since the empress was arriving with only Bnor, Michael had a feeling she was not looking for a war. Otherwise, she would have sent an army instead ofing to meet him alone.
Chapter 792 Master Tactician Nithroel
The empress scroll was inscribed with special runes. Michael just had to write the ce and time of their meeting, and the empress would be notified on the other end. Michael chose a secluded mountain peak in the Ozer continent. Obviously, the time of their meeting was midnight, when he would be at his strongest. Michael sent Aria and Elidyr to ensure the ce was void of any traps. Although he picked the ce, he didn''t n to go there without any ns. Michael left Gaya back in the castle and went to meet the empress alone. He didn''t even bring Nightmare or Azazel. The mountain Michael chose was covered in pearl-white snow.
When he was flying toward his destination, the serrated mountains loomed in the distance. He made his way towards them as he had to use Arch energy to warm up his body. The nketing flour-white was brooded over thend. Just as he approached, a chute of snow detached itself and went trundling down one of the mountains. It slid over the knotted edge and then crashed into the chasm below. The silence that followed was spine-chilling. Michael flew to the tallest peak of the mountain, where he asked the empress to meet him.
The heaven-touching apex of the mountain was drenched in brilliant light. Spikes of thin light from the stars above impaled the snow in a bristling, moving line. All across one''s line of sight, the tips of the mountain range stuck up like a row of thorns. Swaddled around them were nes of powdery snow. The air became arctic cold as Michael came closer to the top.
By the time Michael arrived at the top, he saw an elven woman and a man in a golden fur coat waiting for him. Michael recognized the elven woman as the empress thanks to all those portraits in Gondolin. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say every house in Gondolin had at least one portrait of the empress. The people loved her that much.
It was not a forced gesture, but the people worshiped her like a goddess. To be honest, Michael respected the empress, Nithroel. Despite her military might, she only used wars as ast resort. Instead, she advocated peace through diplomacy. That''s what Michael loved about her. The people who feared him respected Nithroel. As he descended to the ground, Bnor''s body tensed up. Michael was not in his Dark Lord armor. On the contrary, he just wore a long ck coat with sleeves rolled up to his elbow, a ck shirt with his first three buttons opened up, and matching ck trousers and boots. His shoulder-length hair fluttered in the cold breeze.
Bnor expected a bulky man with an evil face in ck armor. But Michael surprised him with his rather normal look. Even the empress was stunned. To Michael''s surprise, the empress was just a few months cultivation away from breaking through to the Immortal stage. There was something strange about her.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Michael addressed the empress with her title. She smiled when she sensed the respect in his tone. She lived long enough to differentiate between puffery and true respect. Unlike the reports she heard, the Dark Lord seemed warm and friendly. But she could see the devil within him. He was capable of unimaginable things. In her mind, what happened to Ithn and the Thusian empire was just a sample of what he could do.
"How may I address you?" asked Nithroel with a warm smile. To Michael''s surprise, she seemed different from the racist elves he had seen in Mazeroth.
"I think Ghost would do just fine," said Michael. It was a simple gesture to get onto the empress''s good side. He didn''t want to be her enemy even if he couldn''t be her friend. Thest thing Michael wanted was to antagonize the empress and make enemies out of the most powerful empire.
"This is Bnor. You might know him," said Nithroel, looking at Bnor.
"It''s unfortunate that you bought something of mine," Michael''s tone was neither too arrogant nor apologetic. He didn''t even ask for forgiveness which might be considered a sign of weakness. The empress walked toward the mountain''s edge. As far as one could see, there was nothing but an endless forest nketed with snow. Michael joined her at the edge and watched the scenery in silence. Except for the howling wind, they heard no sound. Michael broke this silence after a few minutes.
"Why did you want to meet me, your imperial majesty?" asked Michael. He was curious, to say the least.
"The same reason why you agreed to this meeting," answered Nithroel.
"Alliance?" Michael joked as the empress chuckled. Bnor was truly surprised. The Dark Lord seemed so calm and cool beside the empress. Bnor forgot thest time someone had talked to her like this.
"Not so fast, Ghost," said the empress.
"I heard you don''t like beating around the bush,"
"You heard right," said Michael.
"ckmane had to say lots of interesting things about you,"
Michael recalled his meeting with the Pirate Lord ckmane. The pirates used to think the most powerful pirate lord was on a voyage, looking for treasures, But instead, he was serving the empress all those times. He came to meet Michael in Aden when he abolished the pirates and killed Pirate Lord Vance. He struck a deal with the Dark Lord for an ind on the southern continent. In addition, Michael agreed not to attack the merchants from Gondolin or any other elven kingdoms. Michael had been keeping his part of the bargain till to this date. In exchange, the royal navy had never stepped foot on the southern continent. As a result, there was no piging or piracy in the Southern continent seas. Instead, the merchants paid twenty percent of whatever they brought to the Dark Army patrolling the seas.
The pirates used to hate things they got without piging. But after a while, they started to love getting paid doing nothing. They just had to patrol the seas like border patrol and take things from the merchant ships. If a dark army ship had decided to take more than twenty percent or harm a merchant ship, Corey would take them to a rocky ind and leave the crew there to rot in the sun alive. Fortunately, no pirate had tried to break the rules.
"Speaking of him, I haven''t seen him since Aden. How is he doing?" asked Michael.
"In seclusion, I am afraid," answered Nithroel. The empress voluntarily gave him a bit of secret news. She wanted the Dark Lord to know that he was not the only one who could make southerners stronger with cultivation. Michael was slightly surprised but didn''t worry about southerners cultivating in her army. He expected a lot more surprises from the empress.
"I want the same deal I got from you earlier, Ghost. No more attacking my people," Her voice became a bit colder.
"It won''t happen again," Michal requested nothing from the empress. Although Bnor bought the armor piece, they had no right to attack him. Gaya might have left him alive, but she attacked him nheless. It was kind of the empress to let go of the matter so quickly.
"Was that the only reason you asked me to meet you?" Michael asked the empress. The empress stared at the sight before her without uttering a word. Her gaze was locked onto the horizon. Silence fell over them. Finally, the empress took a deep breath.
"What do you know about Han Torum?"
Michael picked his brain and remembered the name. He heard about this ce when he was in Gondolin.
"If I am right, it''s one of the Great Eight ns. Han Torum is a dwarven n. Why did you ask?"
"Recently, they started to build some dangerous contraptions. Weapons, to be precise. These are untested weapons that are capable of hurting thousands,"
"Sounds like great weapons. If it''s capable of hurting that many people, then it doesn''t matter whether they are tested or not," said Michael.
He knew all about the history between the elves and the dwarves. It was really surprising to see the dwarves still looking for revenge even hundreds of yearster. He had to admire their resolve to hurt the elves. If those weapons made the empress ask for the Dark Lord''s help, Michael could tell how dangerous these weapons were. He felt curious as he knew dwarves'' talent for building mass destruction weapons.
"And exin to me why I should care about the dwarves and their little toys?" asked Michael. The dwarves might be great builders and engineers butcked powerful cultivators. If Michael wished, he could bring mass destruction upon their kingdoms.
"Simple. The Guardian Guild is negotiating with the dwarves to buy those weapons as we speak," said the empress. She was nonchnt.
"I have a feeling you don''t like the Guardian Guild getting stronger. With these weapons and Supreme Guardian''s guidance, they could change the tide of war,"
"What do you want me to do, your imperial majesty?" asked Michael, although he knew what was in her mind.
"Whatever you want. I''d appreciate it if you could talk some sense into those dwarves. If you do that, you''d be helping both you and me,"
Michael saw a glimpse of a master tactician who decimated the dwarves single-handedly. She was using him to deal with the dwarves. Judging by the empress''s character, Michael knew she would have tried to talk with the dwarves. However, he didn''t think the dwarves had listened to her. Those bulky, bearded bastards hated nothing more than the elves. They would dly give their lives to see the elven kingdom burn to the ground. Michael wouldn''t have meddled with this issue if this matter didn''t involve two great ns.
It would be a headache for Michael in the long run if the dwarves built weapons for the Guardian Guild. Instead, he wanted to get his hands on those weapons. Else, he would destroy them before they fall into the hands of the Guardian Guild.
"I will look into this," said Michael without making any promises.
The empress smiled. With a single negotiation, she made the Dark Lord himself deal with the dwarves. Now she had fewer things to worry about and more time to develop her empire.
"Good move, Nithroel," Michael said to himself.
Chapter 793 Preparations For Demon鈥檚 Grave
After he met with the empress, Michael returned to his castle. He summoned Gaya and Adelia to the meeting room. Michael told them about the meeting and how the empress wanted him to deal with Han Torum. Initially, Gaya seemed furious at the empress for using them as her pawn, but after hearing the deal between the dwarves and the Guardian Guild, she calmed down.
"First, we need to know more about Han Torum and Dalgarum," said Michael. Dalgarum was a dwarven kingdom where Han Torum was located. However, the dwarves were extremely cautious about foreigners, especially other race members. Visiting Dalgarum as a human would only get him extremely vulgar remarks and scorns.
"We need diversity in our army and subordinates," said Michael. At that moment, most of his subordinates consist of humans. Although his army had vampires, a few demi-humans, and a couple of orcs, most of whom were humans. Michael always thought of changing that, but he didn''t have the time to recruit more people, especially when their expenses exceeded their ie.
"You know we can''t afford to recruit more people," said Gaya.
"I am working on that. Some of the things I need to forge my swords are in the demon''s grave,"
"Demon''s grave?!" Adelia almost shouted. Demon''s grave was the most dangerous realm in the world. No one, even Immortals, feared going to that ce. Granted, it contained countless treasures and rare nts, yet they weren''t worth their lives.
"Yes. whatever I find there would be worth millions or even billions. It will keep us floating until we find a permanent source of ie,"
Michael had something in mind, but he needed some special herbs. The realm didn''t only contain the materials to forge swords but also create something that would rain gold coins.
"If we go to the demon''s grave, who''s going to deal with the dwarves?" asked Gaya. To her shock, Michael shook his head.
"You are noting with me,"
Gaya creased her brows while clenching her fist. She hated sending Michael alone to the most dangerous ce in the world. If she was there, she could have his back.
"I made my decision. You are to deal with the dwarves and those weapons they are building," Michael''s voice was stern. The look in his eyes left no room for Gaya to negotiate. In the end, she could only agree.
"Atleast take Nightmare or Vedora with you," said Gaya. Michael thought about her suggestion for a few moments and decided to take Vedora with him. Why? Because he wanted to spend more time with Vedora. Besides, they might help him on his journey through the demon''s grave in one way or another. Atleast he would have someone to talk to.
"I will take Vedora with me," Gaya heaved a sigh of relief.
"While I am gone, deal with Han Torum. Try to snatch the weapons for us. If you can''t, destroy them. I don''t want those to reach the Guardian Guild," said Michael. Although Gaya was reluctant to stay here while he was in the demon''s grave, she knew the importance of the task at hand. Hence, she didn''t argue with him. After everything was said and done, Michael dismissed Adelia and Gaya. He wanted to be alone for some time. In a blink of an eye, he reached his room from the meeting hall. Before leaving for the demon''s grave, he needed to do some things as preparations. One of them was meditation. He sat on his bed with his eyes closed. He ignored the sounds outside and random thoughts in his mind. It took him a few moments to clear his mind of everything.
Michale lost track of time. By the time he opened his eyes, the sun had woken from its slumber to paint the world with its golden rays. Of course, the dark ocean remained as dark and gloomy as ever. He put on his old dark lord armor and went to the armory. The armory was a spacious hall with hundreds or even thousands of armor stands and weapon racks. At that moment, they had more racks and stands than actual armors and weapons.
"Such a sorry state," Michael sighed. His growing army desperately needed new weapons and armors. Many in the world still didn''t realize how hard it was to be the Dark Lord. They thought that he just kill people and stay in the castle. But in reality, he had to deal with all day-to-day things, even when he had subordinates. He walked toward a weapon rack, where he saw several swords lined up. He randomly picked a few and put them in his system storage. He then turned his head toward a ck metal door in the corner. When he pushed the door, it opened with a creak. He saw several crates filled with colorful points and pills. Michael waved his hand as a couple of crates, and a bunch of pills disappeared from the room. He had no time to refine new pills and potions. Hence, he took them from the storage.
After taking everything he needed, Michael went to the surveince room to meet Azazel. On his way, he greeted the dark army soldiers guarding the castle.
"My lord," Azazel immediately bowed when he saw Michael entering the room.
Michael stared at the mirrors with various sighs in them. The surveince room in the castle was just a temporary setup. Their main setup was still in the dark forest. But Michael didn''te to monitor the mirrors.
"Azazel, bring me the map that shows the entrance to the demon''s grave," said Michael.
Unlike Gaya and Adelia, Azazel was neither surprised nor shocked by Michael''s words. To him, it was only natural for the Dark Lord to venture into ces where normal beings could not. As far as Azazel was concerned, the demon''s grave would be no challenge for the Dark Lord.
"Give me a second, my lord," Azazel disappeared from Michael''s sight for a second. Then, he appeared again with a scroll.
"Here it is, my lord," Azazel handed over the scroll to Michael. Michael opened the scroll to see the map of the Ozer continent. The demon''s grave was marked with the skull. The entrance was located at the edge of this world. There was nothing but an endless ocean around it. Sailing to the entrance was not an option because of the dangers along the way, such as raging storms, violent sea monsters, and lightning storms that were powerful enough to kill a Soul Refining stage cultivator instantly. One only had a slight chance of reaching the entrance by flying.
Once he had left the Ozer continent, there would be no ce for him to rest ornd.
"I suggest bringing arch energy crystals with you my lord. It would take seven nights and seven days to reach the entrance from here. You''ll need to replenish your energy," said Azazel.
Although there were pills to replenish one''s energy, the arch energy crystals were several times more powerful than them. Moreover, they could be absorbed faster.
"I was thinking the same," said Michael as Azazel handed over a space ring filled with arch energy crystals to Michael. Michael liked Azazel''s initiative. He patted Azazel on the back.
"Bring Vedora to Raylene''s garden," said Michael before leaving the surveince room. Afterward, he flew straight atop his usual meditation spot. The air on top of the sword hilt mountain smelled like sweet flowers. Raylene''s flowers blossomed, swaying left and right with the cool breeze. Michael could see the entire floating mountain from the spot. He noticed the castle construction works had been slowed down due to ack of gold coins. Hopefully, his venture into the demon''s grave would change the current situation. If it wasn''t for Gaya''s extraordinary talent for managing a treasury, he would have gone bankrupt by now. Noah put a huge dent in his ns by closing down the Majestic chains and Hades.
Because of that, Michael had to find something that could not be closed down. He had just the right thing in his mind. Unfortunately, he had to go deep into the demon''s grave to get the required items. Michael waited for Azazel to bring Vedora to him while Nightmare apanied Gaya on her journey to Dalgarum. As Michael was enjoying the gloomy yet captivating sight of the dark ocean, Azazel arrived at the ce with Vedora atop his shoulder.
"Where are we heading?" asked Ayag with excitement glimmering in her eyes.
"Demon''s grave," Michael calmly said. The excitement in Ayag''s eyes multiplied by several times. Her eyes sparkled.
"Really? Man, I hate being cooped up in here. Finally, some worthy adventure," said Ayag. Even Cain agreed with her, which was a rare sight to see. They pped their tiny wings andnded just right on Michael''s shoulder.
"Please tell me we are leaving right now," Sarba asked, tilting his head.
Michael rubbed his chin gently with a smile.
"We are leaving right now," said Michael. Sarba and Ayag grinned ear to ear. Even Michael smiled, looking at their funny expression.
Chapter 794 Fighting A Kraken
Michael flew toward the demon''s grave without taking a break. Some of the people in Ozer noticed a ck streak in the sky due to Michael''s spell. The sea stretched endlessly, going past the horizon. A sparkling blue nket covered everything as far as one could see. It was a rolling, rollicking nket, teeming with life. The salty smell was so strong that one could taste it dancing on one''s taste buds. Vedora enjoyed the sight around them. The ocean itself looked like an enormous pool of wonder. It was exceptionally blue that day with a slight green undertone. Simply put, the sea seemed calm, but the storm was on the horizon.
Although the ocean looked calm and serene, Michael sensed powerful creatures swimming deep under the water in his Environmental Scanning.
"Be on alert," Michael warned Vedora. Sarba had keen senses, but it wasn''t as developed as Michael''s Environmental Scanning. It took Sarba a few minutes to sense the threats lurking under them. Ayag saw a silhouette of a giant creature deep within the ocean. She could swear she felt it was staring directly at her.
"Hey Ghost. Something is in there," said Ayag.
"I know. Let''s just ignore it," said Michael. The unknown creature was at the Fusion stage. With its enormous size and buddies surrounding it, battling the creature would just be a waste of time and energy. Besides, Michale wasn''t here to terrorize the sea creatures. Instead, he wanted to reach the demon''s grave without a battle. He quickened his pace and put a safe distance between himself and the creature. The more he flew toward the demon''s grave, the darker and worsening the weather became. He was warned of the weather and the powerful creatures lurking in the sea around the demon''s grave. It would take an immense amount of luck and power to reach the entrance. So one could only imagine how dangerous the demon''s grave would be. There was a reason why even the Immortals feared this ce.
Vedora wrapped their tail tightly around Michael''s neck to escape the raging storm. Streaks of crimson-red lightning shed across the sky. The sky was painted with a mix of eerie red and ck. Coupled with the dark blue sea, the sight had a devilish tone to it. Moreover, the howling wind sounded like something otherworldly screaming to escape the sea itself.
Powerful lightning struck from the sky chaotically. Michael navigated through the lightning storm without getting struck, thanks to his cat-like reflex.
"The name demon''s grave fits this ce," said Sarba. He seemed slightly ufortable looking at the red sky.
"Is there any connection between the demon race and this ce?" asked Ayag.
Cain was surprised that Ayag actually asked something that didn''t sound ridiculous in his mind. To be honest, he was about to ask that question to Michael.
"We''ll find out. But I think there might be some connection," said Michael. He still didn''t know who else knew about the existence of demons. As far as he knew, Azazel was the only living demon in this world. If it wasn''t for the system, he couldn''t have brought the demon back to life. Michael was confident with enough time and resources, he could not only find more demons but also resurrect this magical race. Once he had hundreds or thousands of Azazels, he would be a real threat to all the Great Eight ns.
"Did you find anyone who ventured into the demon''s grave and survived?" asked Cain.
Michael shook his head.
"No. But I heard there is someone in the Guardian Guild who knows about the ce more than anyone in the world. Even Lord Information has little to nothing of this ce," said Michael.
"Which makes this ce more worth the visit," Ayag said as Michael suddenly stopped flying. Ayag frowned.
"Why did you stop?" asked Ayag. On the other hand, Sarba realized the reason behind Ghost''s action. He sensed a powerful being moving faster and faster toward them. In the ocean before them, Ayag vaguely saw a shadow emerging from deep within. Michael slowly flew backward. ording to his senses, the creature was gigantic. Moreover, it was at the Half Immortal Stage. Suddenly, several ripples appeared in the ocean. Michael felt like the sea itself shaking to the core. As he flew backward, a monstrous creature dashed out of the ocean. It was a giant octopus-like creature.
"Kraken," Michael mumbled under his breath. He never thought a creature from folklore and legends back on earth woulde to life before his eyes. The books didn''t do justice to this monster. Compared to its size, Michael looked puny. It had countless tentacles that could destroy a man o warship with a single swipe. The monster roared viciously. Its roar sounded louder than any thunderps Michael had ever heard. Just its size and appearance were enough to terrify anyone. Even Michael was stunned by the Kraken. Its dark red skin glistened under the red sky. A putrid smell nauseated Sarba''s senses. This smell came from the Kraken itself.
The Kraken stared at Michael with its big eyes. For some reason, the Kraken held extreme hatred in its eyes. Michael felt like the Kraken, and he had some kind of history. But Michael had never even imagined a Kraken being alive, let alone having a history with them. Once again, the Kraken roared. It cost the ocean to sway to one side. After the second roar, the Kraken swung one of its tentacles at Michael. For a giant monster, its movements were fast. But Michael was faster. He simply evaded the tentacle by flying away. The tentacle missed as it hit the ocean, creating an explosion.
Michael immediately fought back with lightning. He raised his hand as ck bolts of lightning crackled around his arms. These tiny bolts merged to form one single bolt of lightning that shot out of his fingertips. Since it was a giant creature, Michael didn''t need to worry about his aim. His lightning bolt hit the Kraken''s skin near the left eye. The monster roared as the lightning bolt prated its thick skin for a meter. Some kind of purple liquid spurted out of the wound as the monster roared in pain. Michael wondered where the sound wasing from. He didn''t stop with one bolt of lightning. Instead, he continued to bombard the creature with his ck lightning bolts.
The monster roared as it swung its tentacles viciously, hoping to crush Michael. Yet, none of its tentacles were able to touch Michael. If he was at the Half Immortal stage, the creature could have stood a chance. But now, the creature could only dream of defeating him. To Michael, this Kraken was just a dummy to test his powers. Michael flew around the creature, firing bolt after bolt at the monster. Suddenly, Michael dashed forward. A wave of dark mes suddenly shot out of Michael and burnt the creature''s skin.
The waves of mes pulsated from Michael''s body. Because of the dark mes, the temperature in the air rose significantly. The creature swung its entire body viciously to escape Michael''s wrath. While shooting lightning bolts from his fingertips, Michael raised his other hand as the sky above him rumbled. Soon, darker clouds appeared in the sky. Ayag raised her head as she saw several boulders materializing in the air. Suddenly, they were lit with crimson-red mes. He finally cast his meteor spell to end the monster''s pathetic life. At that moment, fiverge meteors soared through the air toward the Kraken. Sarba heard a sizzling noise in the air as he smelled a strange burning smell. It took a few seconds for the Kraken to see the meteors.
"GRHHHHHHH!" The creature roared. But this time, the roar was tinged with fear. The creature tried to submerge under the water as Michael fired a lightning bolt at its eyes. A ssh of white goo spurted out of its eye. The creature was stunned by the attack. Utilizing this moment of stun, Michael brought down the meteors upon the Kraken''s head. Upon hitting the creature''s head, the first meteor exploded into fiery bits and pieces. Purple blood sshed across the sea and floated on the ocean.
The second meteor muffled the Kraken''s roar. This time, the creature''s skull was caved in. Even the ocean''s surface was on fire because of the spell. Atst, the third meteor hit the Kraken with enough force to turn its head into a purple mush. The Kraken let out a miserable cry before falling down into the ocean.
"You sealed your fate when you decided to attack us," Ayag snickered. Michael immediately dashed at the creature before cutting down chunks of flesh from its body. In addition, he scooped up the purple blood in arge ss mug for his alchemy experiments. Even though the creature was injured too much to fight, Michael didn''t hear any notifications from the system. It meant one thing, the monster was still alive. Michael slowly flew toward the creature''s mushy head. He hovered right between the Kraken''s eyes. For a moment, Michael remained silent. He respected the monster, although it chose to attack him and died a pathetic death.
He raised his hand slowly and pointed his fingertips at the creature. Soon, a thick ck bolt of lightning fired out of his fingertips. When the bolt hit the monster''s already damaged head, it exploded into a purple mist. Michael flew upward in a blink of an eye, avoiding all the purple blood and pieces. Finally, Michael heard the system''s notification in his head. He felt pity for the creature and almost felt bad for ying such a majestic monster. But the Kraken left him no choice.
Deep down, Michael started to learn about the dangerous lurking in the ocean. He knew this was just a start, and more threats would be on his way. After taking a deep breath, Michael continued his journey toward the entrance.
Chapter 795 Intelligent Bat
After killing the Kraken, who was at the Half-Immortal stage, Michael received one million experience points. He still needed seven million experience points to reach level 5. Just the Kraken on the outskirts was at the Half Immortal stage. So Michael could imagine how strong the creatures and dangers inside the demon''s grave were. They continued to head toward the demon''s grave while hoping for another monster to jump out of the sea. Michael sensed several other Half-Immortal monsters, but they didn''t attack him.
Michael couldn''t recognize some of the monsters. For instance, he vaguely saw a creature that resembled a giant human eye. The monster blinked when Michael sensed it. He flew for two days without a battle. Some creatures were able to sense the overwhelming power radiating from Michael. They were intelligent enough not to attack him. On the third day, Michael was flying with Vedora expecting trouble. He couldn''t tell if it was morning or evening. Everything looked the same in the ocean around the demon''s grave. The area looked as gloomy and eerie as ever. After flying for a few hours, Michael noticed violent ripples in the sea. He slowed down as he sensed a Fusion Stage monster before him. Water sshed all over the ce when it dashed out of the sea. This red monster had arge spherical body crowned with horns that floated slowly through the air. They had a single blue eye over arge mouth which was persistently twisted into a Cheshire cat-like grin, showing a series of nasty teeth and a brownish interior.
The monster immediately belched a ball of blue lightning while creating tiny monsters simr to it from the back. These tiny monstrosities flew toward Michael, making some kind of cackling noises. A lightning bolt shot out of Michael''s fingertips at one of the tiny monsters. When the lightning bolt hit the tiny monster, it exploded with enough force to push Michael back several meters.
Vedora was almost thrown out of Michael''s shoulder. Quickly, they crawled into Michael''s armor. At that moment, the ball of lightning reached Michael. Before it could hit Michael, the responsive shield appeared around Michael, saving Michael from getting sted off. The lightning ball exploded upon hitting the responsive shield. To Michael''s surprise, he got no experience points for killing a tiny monster. He sensed several other monsters moving toward them due to their battle. Hence, Michael decided to end this battle sooner thanter. He immediately cast the ring of fire to burn down all the tiny monsters at the same time.
The dark mes pulsated in rings around Michael. One by one, the creatures exploded. Unfortunately, the big monster was way out of the me''s reach. Hence, it escaped the dark mes. The sky was lit with bright shes as the creatures exploded like bombs. The big monster created more of them as fast as Michael killed them. Since these tiny creatures gave him no experience points, Michael decided to kill the big one. In a blink of an eye, Michael evaded the lightning ball and dashed at the monster using a Lightning dash.
Michal enveloped himself with the dark mes on his way. When the creature opened its mouth to belch another lightning ball, Michael moved his body, facing the ocean, and shot through the creature''s mouth like a bullet. The creature howled as one could see a hole on the other side of its mouth. The creature hovered aimlessly in the air, making groaning noises. Michael did not wait till the monster bled to death. On the contrary, he bombarded the monster with lightning bolts. He cast the ring of fire once again to burn the creature to a crisp. The monster couldn''t stand a chance against two of Michael''s spells at the same time. As the creature was burning, the air reeked with a strange putrid smell. Michael immediately unsheathed his swords, cutting a few chunks of flesh and scooping down its bluish blood as samples. With these samples, he might be able to figure out the origins of these monstrosities.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion Stage level 4 monster. The reward is 500,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
Michael heard the system notification right before the creature fell into the ocean. Most of its body was charcoaled by the dark mes. The surface turned dark gray as the creature dissolved in the salt water.
"Is it over?" Sarba craned her head out of Michael''s armor.
"We should have fought that ugly," Ayag put her head out again and snickered at Sarba. Although Vedora was at the Soul Refining stage and just a few months of cultivation away from hitting the Fusion stage, their physical body remained small. The system needed to be at level 9 to learn more about Vedora and the reason behind their small physical stature. For now, Michael had bigger things to worry about than Vedora''s physical transformation. Nightmare went through his metamorphosis when he reached the Body Strengthening stage. Ever since then, he had been growing up to be a big dragon. However, Vedora remained almost the same as when they were hatched from the egg.
Due to their small physical body, fighting other monsters was tough even though they had the cultivation power to do so. Moreover, they didn''t have powerful offensive abilities yet. Ayag could seldom create sonic waves, while Sarba had special senses. Other than that, they had nothing. On his way forward, Michael battled a few more monsters simr to the one he had fought earlier. He killed them all within a few moments. To him, they were just practice dummies. But the closer he moved to the demon''s grave, the stronger the monsters became. Even the Fusion stage monsters had such ferocity and ruthlessness. If Michael had been at the Half Immortal stage, he would have been in trouble.
On the night of the third day, Michael thought about taking a bit of rest. Since they had no ind or a y tond, he had to stay in the air and replenish his energy. By the time Michael stopped flying, Vedora had fallen asleep. Michael flew above the clouds to see the crimson-red sky above. He wondered what made the sky remain blood red around the demon''s grave. For some strange reason, he had a feeling that a massive war had taken ce here. The moon glowed in the distance but instead of sparkling blue light, it radiated blood red. Despite the monsters around him, Michael stopped flying to take a break. He took out a few snacks and refilled his belly. Then, he drank some potions to replenish his energy. He still didn''t feel like absorbing the arch energy crystals in his system storage.
While he was gulping down potions, he saw a ck line on the horizon. The line moved past the moon. A few secondster, the ck line grew bigger. He looked closer at the thing to see a giant bat flying toward him. It was just as dark as midnight. Except for its razor-sharp white fangs, everything else was ck. Surprisingly, the bat was at the Fusion stage. The bat didn''t back off even after sensing Michael''s cultivation stage. This bat was either powerful enough to fight him or extremely stupid to pick a fight. The closer the bat got, the bigger it looked. It casts a giant shadow in the clouds. Without slowing down, the bat dashed at Michael with its ws open. To Michael''s surprise, the bat cut him in the elbow before he could dash away. For a monster at the Fusion Stage, it was extremely agile and fast. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder for a moment. Then, the APD injected a healing potion into his bloodstream as the wound closed up in a blink of an eye.
? The bat viciously tried to cut open Michael with its razor-sharp ws. It didn''t use any spells or energy attacks but just raw brute strength. Michael swayed his body left and right, evading the ws. He flew around the bat, firing lightning bolts. But the bat barrel rolled and flew away, escaping each and every lightning bolt, which surprised Michael. His lightning bolts were faster than any snipers, yet the bat evaded it without breaking a sweat. The bat produced a strange clicking noise as it flew around Michael.
Michael immediately cast the ring of fire because it was an area-of-effect spell rather than a precision spell like Ignitia. A wave of dark mes shot out of Michael''s body. The cold weather became hot as the temperature in the air rose up. The bat screamed but flew high and swung his body,fortably evading the me wave. It kept a safe distance from Michael instead of flying toward him, which showed Michael the bat''s intelligence.
Michael continued to attack the bat while trying to figure out its weakness. Since it was as fast as him, there was no point or use in casting the meteor spell. The bat proved to be a challenge, even for an Immortal. This bat''s intention didn''t seem to kill him but to exhaust him and his energy. The bat studied Michael''s strategy and spell. It was adjusting its battle tactics ording to Michael''s battle prowess.
As they continued their battle, more and more monsters moved toward them. Michael prepared himself for an all-out battle.
"I can hear some kind of weird noise from the bat," Sarba whispered to Michael. But Michael didn''t hear a sound. Yet again, Sarba''s senses were more powerful than Michael''s.
"Echolocation," Michael mumbled.
Chapter 796 Nearing The Demons Grave
"The bat is using some kind of noise to move around," said Sarba. He heard a low-pitched whistling noiseing from the bat. Because Michael was born on earth, he knew about bats. Of course, he didn''t do masters on bats, but he knew enough to know the bats navigate using echolocation by emitting high-frequency sound pulses through their mouth or nose and listening to the echo.
"Wait a minute. I have an idea," Ayag quickly lifted her head from his armor.
"Grgghh," Ayag growled as though she was trying to belch out something. Michael knew what she was trying to do and gave her the time. He fired me waves to keep the bat away from him. It took Ayag a few minutes to produce a sonic wave. Michael only saw a ripple in the air but didn''t hear anything. However, the bat screeched. It sounded like it was in sudden pain. The bat dived down clumsily. The sonic waves messed up with its high-frequency sound pulses.
"Fuck yeah. It worked," Ayag shouted with excitement.
Michael used this opportunity. He immediately fired a bolt of lightning that hit the bat right in his belly. The bat screamed in pain. Blood spurted out from its belly. However, the abt''s skin was surprisingly tough. Even Michael''s ck lightning bolt was able to prate the skin a couple of inches. Michael hit the bat a couple of more times. Unfortunately, when he tried to fly closer and use the dark mes, the bat steadied itself. It quickly flew away from Michael. Meanwhile, Ayag jumped back on Michael''s shoulder. Her eyes glimmered with excitement and confidence. This was the first time in a long time Ayag felt such excitement. It felt like something awakened inside her.
"Come here, you fucking overgrown rodent," Ayag shouted. The bat returned her snicker with a roar. It kept flying around Michael, hissing like a snake. Since the bat had recovered from the sonic wave''s effect, it managed to evade Michael''s lightning bolts.
"Get me closer to the bat," Ayag ordered Michael. He liked the confidence in Ayag''s tone. Granted, Michael could have found a weakness using the system and killed it even without the system. However, now he wanted Vedora to fight the bat. He would provide the needed support. Michael flew behind the bat faster than before. The bat was fast, but Michael was faster. If Michael wanted to close the gap between them, he could have done it. Considering Vedora had to fight the bat, Michael kept a safe distance.
Keeping Vedroa safe while battling the bat was Michael''s first priority. The bat pped its wings as hard as it could to boost forward. Any normal man would see nothing but a blur in the sky because of the bat''s speed.
"Just a bit closer," Ayag said. Her throat radiated a dim glow. In a blink of an eye, Michael closed the gap between them as Ayag opened her mouth, firing a sonic wave. The bat screeched as it knew what was about to happen. Compared to earlier, Ayag''s second sonic wave was a couple of times stronger. The sonic wave immediately disoriented the bat. It groaned, flying clumsily in the air. To Michael''s surprise, Ayag quickly shot another sonic wave. As a result, the bat almost fell down from the sky. Michael turned his gaze toward Sarba and Cain, expecting them to do something. Contrary to his expectation, they did nothing. Hence, Michael had to finish the bat. He couldn''t drag the battle for long because of the other monsters around them. The arch energy crystals and pills in his storage weren''t unlimited. While the bat was clumsily flying around, Michael raised his hand as a bolt of lightning shot out of his fingertips. The lightning bolt hit the bat in the wings. He aimed the bat''s wings as which seemed the softest part of its body.
The lightning bolts created several holes in the wings. Soon, the bat started to roar in agony. He quickly flew closer to the bat and cast the ring of fire once again. Thanks to Ayag''s disorienting sonic waves, the bat couldn''t escape the me waves. The dark mes burnt its wings. Smoke radiated from its body, along with the smell of burning air. Michael quickly jumped on the bat''s body and grabbed its half-burnt wings.
The bat screeched as though it was trying to call for help. Ayag seemed exhausted after producing three consecutive sonic waves. Three was her limit. Luckily, Michael did not need Ayag''s help anymore. He grabbed the bat''s wings and pulled them toward him. The bat screeched as Michael slowly ripped its wings. Blood spurted out from the joint where the wings met its body.
Even Michael couldn''t rip its wings off so easily. His muscles and veins under the skin bulged up. He could toss a stone weighing a ton simply but had a difficult time ripping off its wings. The bat flew backward and upside down to shake him off, yet Michael stood firmly on its back. Eventually, the wings slowly started toe off of its back. The blood spurted out of its back stank to high heaven. Finally, Michael let out a roar as he tore off the bat''s wingspletely. The bat roared in pain as blood oozed down. Without its wings, the bat lost control of its body. It began to dive down toward the ocean, but Michael grabbed the bat by its neck and flew upward. The bat''s eyes burned with rage. It tried to rip Michael apart with its ws. Michael let go of its neck and grabbed the bat''s ws. The two of them made direct eye contact. Unlike the bat, Michael''s eyes were as calm as still water. He just had a smile on his face. Michael locked his hands with the bat''s ws, slowly squeezing its ws. Ayag hissed as she heard a sickening crunching noiseing from the bat''s ws. Michael crushed the ws with his bare hand to make the bat suffer. He was simply annoyed by the bat.
Suddenly, Michael''s eyes turned pitch ck as the dark beams shot out from his eyes. The bat finally stopped moving. In its head were tworge holes where the dark beams went through. Michael looked at the bat from head to toe as the dark beams cut the bat in half. He tossed one half into the sky above, quickly cut a chunk of flesh, and scooped up a blood sample from the other. By the time the second half of the bat reached him, he cast the ring of fire to burn the body to ashes.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion Stage level 5 monster. The reward is 500,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points] He heard the system''s voice in his mind.
Before Michael could rejoice about the experience points, he noticed another bat flying toward him. Looking at the bat, Ayag slowly raised her head.
"I''ll take care of it," Michael simply said. He was nonchnt. Slowly, the area around Michael darkened.
He waited for the bat toe closer, and when it did, Michael cast the Silenes spell to slow down the time itself around him. The bat didn''t even realize it was trapped in a time-slowing bubble. Michael immediately cast Ignitia, the ring of fire and eyes of doom at the same time. He went all in to finish the bat. All the spells hit the bat, ending its life in an instant. His power almost reached the peak of the Immortal stage. The bat simply stood no chance against Michael. Plus, it was trapped in a time-slowing bubble where the bat couldn''t react in time to avoid the spells.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Fusion Stage level 6 monster. The reward is 500,000 Experience points and 20,000 Badass points]
Even Sarba and Ayag were surprised by what just happened. One moment the bat was reaching out to w Michael, and the next, it fell down, burnt, and cut. After Michael had killed the bat, he sensed several monsters moving away from him. They were intelligent enough to back off. The cloud of darkness freaked out the weak-willed monsters. They may have been strong in terms of cultivation, but they possessed a weak resolve to fight. Hence, they flew away from Michael when they saw the cloud of darkness. Instead of chasing them down, Michael continued to head toward the demons grave. If he wasted his energy hunting them down, he would be at a disadvantage after entering the demons grave. Judging by the monsters he had faced till now, he could only imagine how powerful the monsters inside the demons grave would be.
Michael cracked his neck before heading out. He slowly flew toward his destination, enjoying the sight. After three days, he had grown ustomed to the eerie red atmosphere and the monsters lurking under the sea. The following day was uneventful. He faced a couple of monsters, but they all ran away after sensing his power. At the end of the fourth day, Michael noticed a tear on the horizon. The realm tear glowed like a bright green star on the red horizon. ording to the map, the realm tear was still two days'' journey ahead of him. He stopped in the sky to look at it for a few moments. Even from miles away, Michael was able to sense a strange energy radiation from the realm tear. This feeling was simr. It was the same energy radiation he felt inside the shadow realm.
Now that Michael had seen his destination, he increased his speed. While flying toward the realm tear, Michael wondered how''s Gaya was doing with the dwarves and their new weapons. Vedora fell asleep without a worry in the world. The hydra felt safe with Michael. At that moment, neither of them had an idea about the connection between hydras and the demons grave. They only considered the part demon in the name demons grave and ignored the grave part. They were in for a surprise inside the demons grave. Having no idea about the things waiting for them inside the realm, Michael and Vedora flew towards it.
Chapter 797 Meeting The Mysterious Oracle Again
Michael continued his journey toward the demons grave with Vedora. At that moment, he was just two days'' journey away from reaching the realm tear. On his way, he fought several monsters and reached five million experience points. Once he earned another three million experience points, he could reach the Immortal stage level 5. If he didn''t have to save his energy, he could use this ce to farm experience points. But exploring the demons grave without being gnawed by some monsters was more important than farming points.
The battles he went through were far from effortless. He had to use both his brawn and brains to defeat the monsters. Unfortunately, Vedora was no help in the battle as they helped him in the battle against the bat. After battling the bat, Michael realized the monsters around the demons grave wereing out from the realm tear. The closer Michael got to the realm tear, the more he felt a powerful yet strange radiationing from the realm tear. Thanks to the APD and the system firewall, the radiation did not affect Michael. To Michael''s surprise, the radiation did not affect Vedora. Except for Cain, the others slept on Michael''s shoulder. Ayag and Sarba snuggled against Michael''s neck and slept peacefully.
"Hey Ghost," Cain called Michael. His voice was quiet.
"I feel like this ce, and we have some kind of connection," said Cain. Michael was surprised. It was so rare to see Cain share his thoughts.
"What do you mean?" asked Michael.
Cain turned his head toward Sarba and Ayag. He stared at them as though he was making sure they were asleep. Then, he craned his head out, getting closer to Michael.
Michael slowed down. A secondter, Cain slowly opened his mouth as Michael noticed a dim green ball of light in his mouth. The light resembled the realm tear. The ball of light crackled inside Cain''s mouth. Michael''s brows arched up. The energy radiation from the light inside Cain''s mouth and the realm tear was exactly the same. Michael had so many questions in his mind.
"What is it? How long since you could do this?" Michael asked Cain in a husky voice.
"Do you remember the ident in the castle?" asked Cain. His question made Michael ponder. A whileter, Michael recalled an incident that took the lives of a couple of dwarves when they were building the castle on the floating mountain. He remembered Gaya talking about some explosions that went off because of some drunken dwarves. ording to her, the dwarves tried to smoke some herbs to get high and identally dropped some sparks in the explosive crates. But judging by Cain''s look in his eyes, Michael had a feeling the dwarves weren''t the culprits.
"Yes, I do," Michael nodded without saying anything else.
"It was an ident, but the dwarves weren''t responsible for the explosions. They dide drunk and tried to smoke near the explosives. But the crates exploded because of this," Cain opened his mouth as it lit up like a Christmas tree for a moment.
"I identally shot out an energy beam which hit the crates,"
"Did they know?" Michael looked at Sarba and Ayag.
"No," Cain shook his little head.
"How did you manage to shoot an energy beam out of your mouth without them knowing?"
"They are not the sharpest knives in the bunch, Ghost," Cain rolled his eyes. Michael couldn''t argue with Cain.
"Does anyone else know about this?" asked Michael.
"No," Cain shook his head.
"We could ask Mugashuku about hydras, but it''s too risky," Michael pondered. They resumed flying toward the realm tear while silently discussing the green glow.
"He is the only hydra in existence right?" Cain asked. Michael noticed a sadness hidden deep within Cain''s eyes. If he was thest human in the world, he would feel sad too. Only Vedora would know their pain. But Michael really hoped there were more hydras somewhere in the universe.
"Life is full of surprises, Cain. Don''t lose hope," Michael gently rubbed Cain''s head.
Thinking about the connection between the realm tear and the green glow in Cain''s mouth, Michael headed toward the demons grave. Luck was on his side as no monsters showed up to attack him. Eventually, the sky darkened. The howling wind was the onlypanion Michael had besides Vedora. Suddenly, the howling wind stopped. It was like someone had switched off the wind. Everything became deadly silent. Michael halted his pace.
Michael sensed nothing in his environmental scanning map. However, he noticed a strange blue orb of light in the sky above him. The light slowly descended toward him. To Michael''s surprise, the orb of light slowly transformed into a woman. The woman before Michael had a square face with a rounded jaw, a t nose, and narrow lips, and her crimson eyes were sparkling with patience and mystery. Her curly long ck hair fluttered in the air as she descended from the sky like a goddess wearing red silk robes. The golden nose stud and the piercing in both her ears added a certain charm to the woman''s grace. In addition, she wore rudraksha bead m around her neck while a red bindi upied the center of her forehead. If Diana was here, she would instantly remember the woman. She was the same mysterious oracle who visited Diana and lifted the curse on Diana''s soul two years ago.
(Read Chapter 243 to refresh your memories)
To this moment, Michael couldn''t sense the woman in his environmental scanning. Moreover, the woman radiated no energy. But she was the farthest thing from amoner. Any oblivious man would drop to his knees and worship such a graceful woman. Just looking at her soothed Michael''s mind and soul. For a few moments, Michael just stared at the woman without uttering a word.
"I''ve been waiting for you, Michael," The woman said. Her voice sounded like the perfect melody that mesmerized the soul itself. It took a moment for Michael to realize what he had just heard. He was speechless. How could a strange, mysterious woman call him by his real name? Except for Gaya, no one knew his name in this world. Yet somehow, this woman called him by his name.
"I know everything about you, Michael," The woman continued. Fortunately, Vedora was deep in their sleep.
"I couldn''t say the same about you," said Michael.
"How did you know my name?"
The woman smiled,
"As I said, I know everything about you, Michael. Your past, your present, and your future. Not everyone could revisit the remnants of their past,"
Michael creased his brows as the woman continued.
"The armor pieces aren''t the only things that survived your time array, Michael. There are things you cannot reset," said the woman. She kept surprising Michael. For some reason, Michael didn''t feel threatened by the woman even after she revealed his darkest secrets. He wondered whether she knew about the system''s existence or not.
"This ce is one of the few things your past self left behind. Now it''s your responsibility to fix your mistakes,"
"What do you mean by mistakes? Did I cause all this? The demons grave has existed longer than two decades," said Michael as the woman smiled.
"You really think your past self existed twenty-one years ago, don''t you?" asked the woman. Michael agreed inside. When he came to this world, Abras was twenty-one years old. So Michael thought the dark lord reset the universe twenty-one years ago and, thus, became an infant. But he doubted his theory after hearing the woman''s tone. Michael had a hard time doubting her when she was able to call him by his real name.
"Then when did my past self exist?" Michael questioned the woman.
"Five thousand years ago. Everything that happened in your life until now already happened five thousand years ago," said the woman so calmly. On the other hand, Michael''s mind went nk. He was stunned to the core. The woman gave Michael a few minutes to get his thoughts together.
"But it doesn''t matter how long ago your past self lived. Because of what you did, so many lives have been affected. Entire races have been wiped off because of you. Now you have the chance to fix everything. Well, most of it," said the woman.
"You have a second chance in life, Michael. Do not let hatred and anger consume you. Life is more than being a god and wiping out your enemies. Even enemies can be your friends if you show thempassion,"
Michael chuckled,
"Tell that to my enemies. They are the ones who want to kill me. Why don''t you ask them to show somepassion?" asked Michael.
"Because they are not the danger, you are,"
Michael went silent. The woman gestured at Michael to follow her. Since he felt no threat from the woman and wanted to learn more about himself from her, Michael followed her behind.
"Who are you?" Finally, Michael asked the woman about her origin. Instead of an answer, she just smiled.
"One day in the future, you will know the answer to your question. The time right now is yours," said the woman.
"You said the demons grave was created by something I did. What did I do?" asked Michael.
"Why did you reset the time?" Instead of answering Michael, she asked him a question. Michael took a deep breath. He knew that to get more answers, he needed to answer the woman. Plus, he didn''t think lying to her was the right move. Hence, he answered her truthfully.
"I think it has something to do with Gaya,"
"Would you say you did that for love?" asked the woman. Michael nodded his head after a while.
"You reset the entire universe for love, but there are many kinds of love, Michael," said the woman.
"I''d greatly appreciate it if you stop talking in riddles,"
Michael kept his tone as polite as possible. He did not want to piss off the only person who could give him some answers. Furthermore, she seemed like a being beyond the cultivation stages. Even the system couldn''t grasp how powerful she was.
"I can only give you guidance, Michael. This is your book. So it''s you who should write the chapters,"
Chapter 798 Demon Skeletons
"Apparently, I wrote some chapters and have torn them apart," Michael joked.
"True, but you got new pages to write something different this time," said the woman.
"You didn''t tell me who you are. At least tell me why you are here,"
The woman stopped floating toward the realm tear. Instead, she turned her calm gaze at Michael. Her gaze swept across the ocean around them. Michael felt a strange energy pulse followed by a ripple in the ocean.
"You won''t be bothered by the creatures anymore,"
The woman''s words surprised Michael. Although he still had to test her words, he didn''t think she was lying. After all, she did not need to lie to him about anything.
"Also, Michael," Her gaze fell on Michael once again. Michael felt like her gaze was piercing his soul itself.
"Every family will have its share of ws, but just one family is what we have," said the woman. Her gentle words echoed through the sky. Before Michael could ask her anything else, she vanished into thin air.
"System, what do you think about her? Any idea about her origins?" asked Michael.
To Michael''s surprise, the system went intoplete silence. No matter how many times he asked, the system did not utter a word about the mysterious woman. After a while, Michael could only sigh and continue to fly toward the realm tear. On his way, he recalled her words. He still couldn''t wrap his mind around the fact his past self actually lived five thousand years ago.
"I must have been freakishly powerful," Michael mumbled under his breath. He saw no point in dwelling on the past. His past self made some mistakes, big ones it seemed, but it didn''t mean he would make the same ones once again. In this life, he would go to any length to protect his loved ones. For instance, he promised himself to look after Vedora. If the demons grave was one of his mistakes, he would fix it.
"You reset the entire universe for love, but there are many kinds of love, Michael," Michael recalled the woman''s words. He felt there might be another reason other than Gaya for him to reset the universe. He wondered what the hell happened five thousand years ago. As he was flying toward the realm tear, he noticed the monsters moving away from him. Not a single monster dared to attack Michael. He even sensed some Immortals monsters almost as strong as him. They all avoided Michael. Now he realized why even the Immortals dared not to visit the demons grave. If it wasn''t for the woman, he would have had to fight all these monsters.
With his speed, the realm tear got closer and closer to him. When he eventually reached the realm tear, he was stunned. He expected a tear in the space for six feet or something. But to his shock, the realm tear seemed at least seventy feet from top to bottom. He looked small in front of it. Moreover, it radiated overwhelming energy.
"What the hell?" Ayag finally woke up from her slumber. Her eyes went wide when she saw the realm tear. Michael felt a strange force pulling him into the tear.
"Are you guys ready?" Michael asked Vedora.
"We were born ready," Agay said with excitement tingling in his spine.
Finally, Michael stopped resisting the pull and let loose of his body. The realm tear pulled Michael inside as he disappeared into the tear in a blink of an eye. Everything became nk to Michael. He closed his eyes because of the glow. Feeling the pull, Michael remained with his eyes closed. Vedora snuck back into Michael''s armor and clenched the robes tightly. They traveled within the tear for an unknown amount of time. Eventually, Michael sensed the brightness dimming down. Suddenly, he felt a powerful pull. Before he could open his eyes and react in time, he fell into a soft grass field with a thud. Michael slowly opened his eyes to see a murky swamp before him.
Everywhere he turned, he saw nothing but ancient Cypress trees looming out of the murky water. Their brittle bark was weathered and pitted, scored by the marks of nature and man alike. They seemed to have stood the test of time and won. Any oblivious man wouldn''t dare venture this deep into the demon''s grave anymore. Only the very foolish or the very brave. Or someone with godly powers. Here and their clumps of moss clung desperately, filling the moist air with the scent of decay. The grayish mist covering the swamp added an extra creepiness to the ce.
Michael picked himself up. His ck armor turned brown by the mud. He ascended to the air, but gravity pulled him down back to the swamp. The ground felt semi-solid and gooey. He moved one inch, and his feet went two inches deeper into the mud. Flying was the quickest route out of the swamp. However, when he tried to ascend toward the sky, a powerful force pulled him down.
"System, can you do something about gravity?" Michael turned to the system for its help.
[No can do. The system level is too low to change the rules of the demons grave] said the system, making Michael roll his eyes.
"So you are useless?" Michael sighed.
The system did not give Michael an answer as he slowly tried to move forward through the swamp. The smelly water was up to his waist. He couldn''t help feeling some weird things brushing past his legs underwater.
"Hope they are fish," Michale mumbled. His environmental scanning map went haywire for some reason. As a result, he was unable to sense the creatures around him. Just a few minutes into the demons grave, he was already in a bind. But the swamp was far from something that could stop Michael. He looked at Vedora, who sat atop his shoulder.
"Try to fly ahead," said Michael.
He wanted to know whether gravity affected only him or also Vedora.
"Hmm," Vedora murmured before pping their tiny wings. They hovered in the air and remained in the air without being pulled by gravity.
"So it only affects me," Michael mumbled.
"Fly ahead and keep me posted," said Michael.
"But don''t fly too far from me," Vodra nodded and flew away. In Michael''s head, keeping Vedora close to him would only prevent them from growing up. They needed to face some challenges and life-or-death situations. After all, Michael and Gaya wouldn''t be with them all the time. Only by facing dire situations could they really unlock their potential. Simply put, Michael decided to force them to find their powers.
Vedora nodded as they flew ahead to scout the area. Even Michael''s X-ray vision seemed blurry because of the strange mist around the swamp. Slowly, he dragged himself through the mud. The swamp water smelled like rotten eggs and spoiled meat. Any other man would have thrown up. But thanks to Michael''s tolerance for stink, he controlled himself. Fortunately, Michael faced no monsters or creatures while he was in the swamp. Vedora flew back and forth to keep Michael updated about the swamp.
As Michael was moving through the swamp, he finally noticed what seemed to be the shore. He smiled.
"Finally,"
But his moment of joy was short-lived as he felt something grabbing his legs. Vedora returned to inform Michael about thend. To their shock, Michael disappeared into the swamp water in a blink of an eye. It happened so fast.
"Holy shit,"
"Ghost,"
"Something pulled him inside,"
The three heads looked shocked and worried at the same time. They shouted for Michael, yet they only saw bubbles and ripples on the swamp water''s surface. Inside the swamp, Michael struggled to free himself from the strange thing''s grab. He couldn''t see what was before him with his naked eyes. So Michael immediately activated his X-ray eyes. As soon as everything turned blue, he saw a dark figure holding his legs. When he turned his vision to normal, he vaguely saw a brownish skeleton. However, it wasn''t a human skeleton. On the contrary, it looked humanoid creature with two horns protruding from its skull. He also noticed a few bones that formed a vague shape of wings. The skeleton reminded Michael of Azazel. Wings, horns, and a bulky structure resembled Azazel''s physical body.
One of the skeletons grabbed Michael''s legs, and the other grabbed his shoulder. They tried to drown him. Although drowning wouldn''t kill him, Michael wasn''t prepared to test his immortality underwater. ording to the system, getting killed by other means wouldn''t end his life but reset his cultivation. Beheading, on the other hand, would reset his cultivation and make his soul wander until he finds a suitable vessel for the soul. Finding a vessel might take days, months, years, or even decades.
Under the water, Michael did not panic. He quickly formed a wind bubble around his head to breathe. The very next moment, the water began to boil because of the dark mes dancing on his hand. The cold water became hot in a few seconds. Michael clenched the skeleton''s head with his hand as several cracks formed in the skeleton. In a blink of an eye, the skeleton''s head turned into a white powder that dissolved in the water. After taking down the skeleton that was holding his shoulder, Michael turned his focus onto the one grabbing his leg.
The dark beams shot out of his hands, creating a sizzling sound. They prated the skeleton as it exploded into bits and pieces. Surprisingly, Michael didn''t receive any badass points or experience points for taking down the skeletons.
"System, did you forget something?" Michael talked to the system in mind.
[They are already dead and weak as hell. Why do you expect experience points and badass points for killing such pathetic monsters?] The system growled.
"They didn''t feel weak," Michael replied. Mere weak monsters couldn''t have pulled him down and held him underwater for a minute. Unlike the system said, they were the farthest thing from being weak.
[That''s because of their innate strength. What did you expect from the monsters in the demons grave?] the system questioned him. Instead of arguing with the system, Michael wanted to escape the swamp water. He hated being watery and stinky. Two streams of dark fire shot out of Michael''s hands and propelled him out of the water like a rocket.
From outside, Vedora noticed the water being vaporized by something hot. The temperature in the air had risen significantly. It was enough for them to know what was about to happen. As they expected, Michael shot out of the water and dashed toward the shore before the gravity could pull him down.
Chapter 799 Skyhall Angels In Demons Grave
Michael quickly dashed toward the shore andndedfortably on solidnd. Even afternding, he vaguely saw the skeletons lurking deep within the swamp. These demon skeletons would wait for another one to drown. Their next victim might arrive next month or year, but they would wait because they had all the time in the world. An equally creepy forest surrounded the murky swamp. Dark and misty forest. The only way forward was through the forest. Unfortunately, gravity was still too strong for him to fly.
"Should we go into the forest?" asked Sarba, but Michael shook his head.
"Stay with me," said Michael. Once they had entered the forest, there was a high possibility for them to get lost. Even worse, they could get into trouble with another monster. Until he could cross the forest, he wanted Vedora to be with him. Vedora nodded beforending back on his shoulder. A bone-chilling breeze brushed past him. It was like something calling for him into the forest. Michael ignored these strange feelings.
The trees in the forest were mdy-brown. Grains of poison begrimed the bark and gleamed like witch dust. The decaying air and stifling atmosphere provided the perfect abode for those who worshiped the darkness rather than the light. In the dense shadows, spiders clutched their snare strings. Their webs shimmered like meshed steel dipped in silver. Eyes ame with hunger, they hoped to dine on weak prey and slurp on hot blood. The deeper Michael went into the forest, the darker it became. Everything in the forest seemed primordial. If this demons grave was indeed his mistake, as the woman said, this ce must be at least five thousand years old. It was the only exnation for the primordial trees. Their sprawling limbs guarded the darkness, blotting out any sunlight. Their bark was mottled and splotched as if the bubbled soup had been frozen in time on its surface. A pungent tang oozed from every sentient being in the forest. Bewailing sounds ghosted through the trees. Whether it was from the predator or prey, only the forest could tell. It was truly a ce to make one''s veins freeze over. Everything considered edible in another forest was nauseating here. It left Vedora with the same sickening taste of their own blood. It was a forest to be avoided.
Michael navigated through thebyrinth of a forest, trying to find a way out. His ck armor turned murky and green because of the moths and mud in the swamp. He ignored the blood-sucking leeches littering the ground and hoped they weren''t on him. As he was walking through the forest, he suddenly heard a muffled thud noise. It sounded contrary to all creepie nature sounds. Michael quickly raised his hand as the mark three grappling hook shot out of his wrist and coiled around the branch above him. Since gravity was too strong, Vedora grabbed Michael by his cor and added an extra boost to the grappling hook. Finally, he reached the top. Thanks to the trees being so cluttered, Michael was able to walk on one branch to reach the other.
He crouched and strolled without making a sound. Despite being Immortal, Michael did not act so brashly. There would always be someone stronger than him until he reached the absolute top. The thudding sound continued to echo through the forest rhythmically. He followed the sound that sounded louder and louder. Eventually, the forest opened up to a circr area void of any trees. The surrounding trees were neatly pruned to prevent someone from looking at the ce from above. The thick canopy covered the ce, only letting a few rays of light through.
To Michael''s shock, he saw a portal gate and several people armed to the teeth, digging the ground with some kind of contraption. It looked like a giant spoon that created a thud sound everything it dug into the ground. These men were adorned in light blue armor with angel-like wings made of sharp des. Michael couldn''t see their faces through their masks. With the golden spear in their arms and the wings, they somehow reminded Michael of angels. What surprised him more was he had seen them before. They looked exactly like the one who invaded the Nether realm. Dr had to stop bringing undead from the Nether Realm with the portal open because of these people.
"They are the same men who harvested the undead in the Nether realm," Cain whispered to Michael while Sarba and Ayag remainedpletely silent. They didn''t dare to make a sound that might draw the attention of these armored soldiers. The angels of the Skyhall, that''s who they were. Unfortunately, Michael did not know. He had a closer rtionship with them than he actually knew. Diana, his mother, was one of them. In fact, she led a powerful group of Angels.
"Look," Sarba whispered as Michael noticed the angels digging a ck casket from the ground. The contraption dug the ground deep enough to reveal what seemed to be a burial site. One by one, the angels dragged the caskets out and threw them into the portal behind them. At that moment, Michael counted eleven angels. Surprisingly, they were all at the Fusion stage. This piqued Michael''s curiosity. A run-of-the-mill organization wouldn''t use Fusion Stage cultivators for grunt work. Since there was no insignia or anything that could be used to reveal their organization, Michael had to move closer. He took out a Spyder from the system storage and let it crawl toward the angels.
"I hate this ce. It gives me chills,"
"For me, it''s the smell. The ce smells like dead,"
Michael began to hear the angels as the spyder crawled closer to them.
"I am d this is thest grave site,"
Michael frowned. If this was thest grave site, it certainly meant these people were digging up more sites. Whatever was inside the caskets, these people might have hundreds or even thousands of them. No matter what, he wanted to take a look inside the casket. However, alerting these soldiers didn''t sit well with Michael. His instincts told him not to kill them, although he could ughter them quite easily. But easy didn''t mean he should do it.
"Silence. Why do I feel like we are being watched?" Suddenly, an angel turned around in Michael''s direction. Michael quickly moved behind the bark to hide. The angels slowly walked toward Michael. Their instincts and perception really surprised Michael. He kept a safe distance from them, yet they somehow managed to sense him. Even though he didn''t want to fight them, he would have no choice but to fight if they found him. Michael prepared himself for a battle when an angel raised his voice.
"Hey, we are ordered to return!"
The angels who were on their way to the tree Michael was on halted their steps.
"He is asking for us," The voice had a tinge of fear and panic. Luckily for Michael, whoever called them was far more terrifying to make them wait than to find him. Finally, the angels turned back and returned to the portal. At first, one of the angels flicked their wrists as the giant spoon-like digging machine flew straight into the portal. Then, they tossed the caskets behind the machine.
Afterward, the angels themselves flew into the portal, disappearing from the forest. By the time Michael decided to move his body, the ce was empty. The angels didn''t bother to close the hole they dug, which worked in Michael''s favor. He leaped from branch to branch and eventuallynded on the pce where the portal was a few moments ago.
The hole was picked clean. As far as Michael could see, there were no caskets left behind. He looked around the ce for a few moments to see if they had left behind something that could be used to unveil their identities. Unfortunately, Michael''s search bore no fruit. After a brief moment of looking around, Michael returned to the front of the hole they had dug. This hole was at least eight feet wide and fifteen feet deep.
"You can''t jump down there," said Ayag. She was right. Gravity was too strong for Michael to fly upward again. It was weird and strange, but he could do nothing about it. Hence, he decided to drop one of his drones back into the hole. The drone slowly hovered down into the dark hole. They patiently waited outside to get a glimpse of anything but mud. A few minutester, when Michael was about to conclude that the angels had grabbed all the caskets, Michael noticed the edge of a casket sticking out of the mud.
"Found something," Michael said to Vedora.
"A casket?" asked Ayag as Michael nodded.
"Since you can''t jump down and carry it on your back, let us go down there," Sarba suggested. Having no other choice, Michael agreed. After he nodded, Vedora leaped into the hole from his shoulder. They dived down until they reached the drone. Despite their small physical stature, they were blessed with enough raw power to carry the casket in their legs. But first, they had to dig out the casket.
"Little help here," Ayag shouted. Their ws weren''t sharp enough to dig, so Michael shot dark beams out of his eyes to dig out the casket.
Vedora flew aside, avoiding the dark beams. The mud turned ashes around the casket.
"Careful. Don''t hit the casket," said Sarba.
Soon, the casket began to shake. Vedora tightly held the casket by its edge and pulled it out of the mud.
"Fuck. It''s heavy," Ayag cussed. The casket was surprisingly heavier than she initially expected. She wondered what the heck was inside. Eventually, Vedora brought the casket back and dropped it with a loud thud. The casket cracked in several ces. It was apparent the casket was ancient. But still, Michael was able to see several runes engraved in the casket.
He inspected the casket thoroughly. When he activated his X-ray vision, he saw a silhouette of a humanoid being inside. Michael was about to open the casket when he heard twigs and dried leaves breaking behind him. Someone was behind him. Instead of panicking, Michael slowly turned around.
Chapter 800 Prank Gone Wrong
While Michael was in the demons grave, Sabrina was returning home from Ozer. Tired and exhausted by flying all the way to Pen Town. The once salmon andvender sky transformed into a vast expanse of jet-ck. The nightid down a nket of darkness. When Sabrina tilted her head skyward, she could clearly see millions of bright stars dotted on the ck sky at night as the thick gloomy clouds shaded over the luminous moon covering its entirety. Pen town glimmered like a Christmas tree on the horizon. Despite the time, the streets were bustling with crowds and carriages. The baby shower of Princess Katherine and Prince Andrews was a hot topic in the continent. Almost every prominent figure in the world was invited to the event. Usually,ing across a Fusion stage warrior was as rare as a four-leaf clover. But that was proven wrong in Pen Town. These Fusion stage cultivators arrived at the Pen Town a month early to ensure security.
In addition to powerful cultivators, several invisible arrays and runes covered the entire town. These specialized arrays were able to read one''s thoughts and alert security if they bore any ill intentions. Only the empress of Awor had these arrays. But thanks to Rowena, the Winstons could get them. As Sabrina flew toward the manor, she felt a warmth in her body. She didn''t freak out as she knew the arrays were scanning her. In the distance, the Winston manor stood majestically glimmering. The servants went all out in decorations. They almost turned the manor unrecognizable. Rare and beautiful flowers waved their heads, weing the gates. Special orbs fired light beams, turning the fountain water a colorful rainbow.
The servants of Winston manor noticed Sabrina in the air and quickly bowed. Their eyes glistened with joy because of their young miss''s return.
"Young Miss Sabrina is back!"
"Inform Lady Diana and Lady Emelda,"
The servants cheered as Sabrina flew straight into the manor through the roof door.
"Young¡Missi," as soon as Sabrinanded on the rooftop, she heard a wobbly voice. Surprisingly, she saw Samuel standing before her with his usually neatlybed hair messed up. He looked funny with his nervous smile. Judging by the smell of ruming from him, Sabrina could guess what made Samuel walk clumsily and smile like a guilty child.
"Well, well, well, well, well," Sabrina amused.
"Are you drunk, Grandpa Samuel?"
The answer was obvious to Sabrina. Still, she wanted to mess with Samuel.
"No¡" Samuel quickly hid the mug of rum behind his back. Since the baby shower was just a week away, everyone in the Winston family enjoyed themselves. But it was surprising to see the stoic Samuel himself get drunk.
"What''s that behind you?" Sabrina asked, trying to hold the urge tough at Samuel.
"Young Miss. You must be¡tired¡" Samuel slowly talked. He found it difficult to stay still and find words.
"Samuel, where the hell are you?!" Suddenly, Sabrina heard Emelda shout from downstairs.
"Bring me another barrel!"Sabrina couldn''t believe what she had just heard. It was Emelda, there was no doubt in Sabrina''s mind. Now everything made sense to Sabrina. The room behind Samuel was used to store booze for special asions. It looked like Samuel came here to bring Booze to Emelda. A light bulb lit up in Sabrina''s mind. She slowly walked toward Samuel.
"Why don''t you take a short nap, Grandpa Samuel?" Sabrina whispered in a gentle tone as specks of golden light floated into Samuel''s mind. Soon, the old man dropped to the ground and began snoring. After putting Samuel to sleep, Sabrina opened the door behind Samuel. The door opened with a creak, revealing countless wooden barrels. The Winstons only opened these barrels for special asions. Each barrel was at least a hundred years old and engraved with a special rune. The air in the room itself had a tinge of sweetness. Sabrina walked toward a barrel and ced her hand on the side as a rune glimmered on the barrel. In a blink of an eye, the barrel shrank to the size of a mug.
Sabrina picked up the mug and left the room. She headed to Emelda''s room with an amused smile. The manor was just as cheerful inside as it was on the outside. Every corner of the house was decorated with rare flowers, antiques, and light orbs. Moreover, everyone was in such a good mood. Luckily for Sabrina, no one noticed her as they were all in the main hall, and Emelda''s room was far from it. After taking a few quick steps, Sabrina reached an emerald green door with Winston family portrait hanging above. Sabrina couldn''t help smiling, looking at the portrait. She was five years old when they drew the portrait. Everyone looked so happy in the picture. To be honest, Sabrina missed those good old days. Nowadays, everyone in her family was going through a tough time.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Sabrina opened the room. As soon as the door creaked open, Sabrina was weed with the strong scent of booze in the air. She saw Emelda rolling on the bed with arge mug of rum in her hand. Her hair was a mess, and so were her robes. A wide stupid grin from ear to ear was stered on her face.
"Diana," Emelda mistook Sabrina for Diana. One couldn''t me Emeldapletely. The older Sabrina got, the more she resembled her mother. Since Emelda was drunk to the throat, she thought it was Diana who entered the room. The prankster in Sabrina told her to go along with Emelda and pretend to be her mother.
"I brought you something, Emelda," Sabrina sternly said. She surprisingly sounded exactly like Diana. Hence, Emelda had no clue that it was Sabrina who was in front of her.
"Sit down," Emelda pulled Sabrina down, forcing her to sit down on the bed beside her. Emelda threw her hand around Sabrina''s neck and took arge gulp of rum.
"I am so happy, Dian. After a long, long time, I truly feel free,"
"Why is that?" asked Sabrina. She liked where it was going and decided to pretend to be Diana longer than she initially thought.
"What do you mean why? Our whole family ising together. When was thest time this happened?" said Emelda. Sabrina was about to ask something else when Emelda shocked Sabrina.
"Except him, thanks to the gods, I pray,"
Sabrina creased her brows as Emelda emptied the mug in her hand.
"I know I shouldn''t say this, but he is a curse, Diana,"
Sabrina was utterly confused. The words that came from Emelda''s mouth didn''t make any sense to her.
"I even have to call you Diana because of him,"
Sabrina''s instinct told her to refill Emelda''s mug. With a flick of her wrist, she transformed the mug to its original size. Sabria drowned a mug into the barrel and handed it over to Emelda.
"You can call me whatever you want, Emelda," said Sabrina. At that moment, Sabrina didn''t know she was about to be shaken to the core.
"Good," Emelda raised her mug before gulping the rum down her throat. Foam and rum flowed out her mouth and drenched her robes.
"Harriet Hunt," said Emelda. For a moment, Sabrina couldn''t believe what she had just heard. Harriet Hunt was a legend among cultivators. As a student of Trident Academy, Sabrina studied Harriet Hunt and her adventures. It wouldn''t be an overstatement to say Harriet Hunt was the most powerful and strongest cultivator of her time. It was really unfortunate that she and her sisters died in an ident. Even to this day, some people believed Harriet Hunt is still alive. Sabrina was one of them.
"Why did you call me that?" Sabrina frowned.
"It''s your name, silly," Emelda knocked Sabrina on the head. After hearing Emelda''s words, Sabrina''s mind went nk. Confused and bewildered, Sabrina stared at Emelda. Ever since Sabrina was little, she had this strange feeling that her mother was putting on a mask. After she grew up, it felt like Diana was pretending to be someone else. Although Sabrina had grown used to the feeling, Emelda''s words brought up everything Sabrina buried deep within her.
"I am Harriet Hunt, and who are you?"
"Erena Hunt," Once again, Emelda raised her mug proudly, having no idea what she had just done. Silence fell over the room. It took Sabrina a few minutes to collect her thoughts. At that moment, her thoughts were a mess. What she thought would be a good prank turned out to be a life-changing moment. Never in a million years had Sabrina thought her mother was Harriet Hunt. Sabrina stood from the bed and went to the doorway to close the door. Sabrina decided to unveil the secret behind her mother and why she faked her death.
"Don''t you miss our old life?" asked Sabrina.
Emelda shook her head,
"No. I have everything I want here," said Emelda.
"I am d you feel that way, Emelda. I just wish I could say the same," Sabrina sighed.
"You have to let him go, Harry. He is a curse. The moment he came into existence, we lost all the happiness in our lives,"
Sabrina wondered who she was calling a curse. Judging by her words and the look in Emelda''s eyes, Sabrina had this strange eerie feeling. But Sabrina was afraid of asking her directly, which might reveal her identity to Emelda. Instead, Sabrina decided to take a subtle approach. She put herself in Diana''s shoes and thought about what her mother would say at this moment.
"He is not a curse, Emelda. Aren''t we happy right now?"
"I am, but you aren''t," said Emelda.
"You can fool others, Harry but not me. I know you. My heart bleeds every time you go out there to keep him safe. Yet you forgot he is the threat to all, not the other way around,"
"You don''t mean these words, Emelda," said Sabrina.
"I do, Harry. It''s you who has yet to see who he really is. You know what he did to the Barnes,"
As soon as Sabrina heard these words, she learned who she was talking about.
"Ghost," Sabrina mumbled under her breath.
"Don''t even say his name, Harry. It''s bad luck,"
"Also, don''t do anything stupid like trying to invite him, Harry. He brings nothing but death and destruction,"
"Why would I do that?" asked Sabrina.
"Huhh," Emelda dragged her words,
"Because you still think of him as your son. Remember this Harry, you may have given birth to twins, but you only have one son, It''s Noah," Sabrina''s heart skipped a beat. Her entire body trembled from head to toe. Sweat beads appeared on her forehead as she shivered.
"Ghost is my brother," Sabrina''s words span before her eyes, learning the biggest secret in her life.
Chapter 801 Andohr, God Of Time And Space
Tears gushed out of Sabrina''s eyes, knowing the truth. The Dark Lord was her brother. Everything fell into pieces in her mind. When she prayed for her brother to save her from the vampires, he arrived at her aid. Now she knew why she felt a strange connection with Ghost. The truth would change the Winston manor forever. The images of Ghost''s face shed across Sabrina''s eyes. She wanted to tell Rowena and Noah about the truth. If Noah and Ghost had learned the truth as she did, they might stop hurting each other. Sabrina now had the power to bring peace between the Guardians and the Dark Lord. But first, she wanted to know why her mother hid the truth about Ghost from everyone.
"Emelda," Sabrina called Emelda. It became so difficult to keep pretending as Diana when her mind was in a shamble.
Sabrina turned her gaze back to Emelda. Suddenly, the door creaked. It slowly opened, revealing Samuel. The spell she cast on Samuel should keep him asleep for at least six hours. Yet Samuel somehow managed to wake up and reach the room. Moreover, Sabrina wondered what he was doing here.
"Grandpa-" Sabrina''s words stuck in her throat when she noticed the strange glow in Samuel''s eyes. The pair of eyes glimmered like diamonds. It wasn''t the same man Sabrina had seen upstairs. He walked with a certain grace. At that moment, he radiated a kingly aura as he walked toward them.
"Samuel," Emelda raised her mud, wordlessly asking for a refill from the butler. However, Sabrina didn''t think the man before them was their butler. He seemed different. But before Sabrina could question the man, an energy pulse shot out of Samuel''s eyes and knocked out Sabrina and Emelda cold. The twodies were lying t on the bed. With a flick of his wrist, Samuel closed the door.
Without wasting any time, Samuel moved their unconscious body to the floor and put them next to each other. He then squatted beside them. Silence fell over the room. The cheerfulughter and songs sung by the servants barely reached the closed room.
"The drunk always spills the beans," Samuel sighed. As Sabrina sensed, it wasn''t Samuel in the room. On the contrary, Samuel was possessed by Andreas''s sliver of soul.
Thest time he took over Samuel''s body, Andreas wiped off the memories of Ethan, Emelda, and Sabrina. This wasn''t the first time Sabrina had learned the truth about Diana''s real identity and her connection to Ghost.
Previously, Ethan told Sabrina about Diana''s real identity when she returned from the Shadow Realm. If it wasn''t for him, Sabrina would have told her entire family about Ghost and his connection to the Winston family. Andreas couldn''t let that happen because he cared about Noah and his family more than anything. Revealing the truth about Ghost being Noah''s brother would bring nothing but destruction upon the Winston family. Only the death of the Dark Lord could ensure the Winston family''s safety from the Skyhall. But killing him was not an easy task. Only Noah could take the Dark Lord''s life. A mere moment of hesitation to kill the Dark Lord would bring cmity upon the world. If the Dark Lord managed to kill Noah, there would be no one to stop him. At that time, the world would turn into the dark realm, which Lady Qin Jiu desperately wanted the Great Eight ns and the Skyhall to stop. All of her sacrifices and struggles would be meaningless if Noah failed to fulfill his destiny.
The fate of the entire world was resting upon Noah''s shoulders. Hence, thest thing Andreas wanted was Sabrina to change his mind about taking the Dark Lord''s life.
Andreas gently ced one hand on Sabrina''s forehead while the other on Emelda''s. His hands glowed, radiating a gentle white light from within. The light enabled Andreas to ess both of their memories of thest hour. Every time Andreas used the spell, it cost him a bit of his soul. But it had to be done. Andreas didn''t think the Dark Lord would spare the Winstons if he knew the truth. Knowing Noah, Andreas was sure Noah would drop his guard against the Dark Lord in case he learned that the Dark Lord was his twin brother.
"Expelerio," mumbled Andreas, wiping off Sabrina and Emelda''s memories of thest hour. Gradually, the light in Samuel''s hands dimmed out. Then, he left the room as if nothing had happened, leaving Sabrina and Emelda behind. They would have zero memories of what had happened once they woke up. Knowing the secret of the Winston family was safe, Andreas could rest easy. Being stripped away of their memories, Sabrina and Emelda slept on the ground peacefully.
(Read Chapter 587 to refresh your memories)
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Meanwhile, somewhere else in a pocket dimension, a lone castle stood gracefully under a starry sky. Trapped between inviting lush green hills and intimidating jet-ck, snow-capped mountainsy the castle. The castle resided peacefully at the top of a hilltop, not making a sound. No one knew why it was there or who built it. But indeed, it was something quite unique.
As the sparkling blue light beamed upon the golden walls of the castle, it revealed the splendor and majesty of the castle. The starry sky revealed the ceramic pavements, the golden statues, and the most beautifully engineered towers that touched the clouds. If one were to look at it from a neighboring hill station, the castle size itself could be convincing enough of that of a city. Covering hundreds of hectares of verdantnd. The view was simply breathtaking. Cyan bluekes fainting the thousands of trees lined up against one another, tainting thend with various shades of blue, red, and whatnot. As much as the golden castle looked grandeur, it was also quite intimidating. Its hundreds of foot-high walls and glistening runes and arrays were enough to scare the most daring of enemies away.
Only one being was living inside the castle, a god. Not only in the castle but even in the entire dimension, he was the only living being. He had been in the castle for thousands of years. The inside of the castle was just as grandeur as the outside. Bulky braziers hung from each of the twelve obsidian columns. These columns lit up the lower levels of the throne hall and allowed shadows to y and dance where light could not reach. The illustrations of a golden-haired man on the rounded ceiling danced in the flickering light while sculptures resembling the man looked down upon the maple floor of this grand hall.
A viridian rug ran in a circle around the hall, with two paths at the throne and the main entrance, while ribbon banners with adorned embroideries covered parts of the walls. Draperies edge massive, tinted ss windows colored the same viridian as the banners. The curtains had been adorned with gold leaves and embellished borders.
In the middle of the throne hall, on an elevated tform, sat a radiant throne made of sapphire and gold overlooking the statues resembling the man sitting on the throne.
The man had silver frizzy hair tied in a ponytail, revealing a fresh, gloomy face. Glittering hazel eyes sat narrowly within their sockets, watching wearily over the empty throne hall. Freckles were spread charmingly around his nose and cheekbones. A sword left a mark reaching from just under the right eyebrow , first running towards his small lips and ending above his right eye. This scar kept him awake for thousands of years.
While the man was resting on the throne, a cloud of dark smoke rose from the ground before him. He stood up from the throne and climbed down the stairs to reach the ground.
"Andohr," The cloud of smoke talked in a terrifying otherworldly voice.
"How long do you have to wait for him?" The cloud of darkness asked Andohr.
"He has started to build his stupid castle. Compared to thest time, he is progressing much faster than I initially anticipated," said Andohr. For some reason, his eyes glimmered with killing intent, and his voice oozed hatred. Just thinking about him made Andohr''s blood boil.
"Do you feel the same hatred and anger toward him as you did five thousand years ago, Andohr?" The dark cloud asked Andohr.
"No," Andohr shook his head.
"What I felt five thousand years ago was just a seed. It has grown into a giant tree of hatred in my heart. I want his blood more than I want a way out of this pathetic mortal realm,"
"Patience is a virtue, Andohr. As the god of space and time, you should know this more than anyone," said the dark cloud.
"I have all the time in the world. He made sure of that," Andohr snarled.
"That was his mistake. Now, you know everything he would do before he does,"
A devilish grin emerged on Andohr''s face.
"He forgot who controls the time. Soon, he would pay the price for it," Andohr chuckled devilishly. Every fiber in his goldy body was filled with hatred toward his fellow god, The God of Darkness. How could Michael have reset the time without meddling with the God of Time and Space? Their battle shook the universe itself and created tears in reality. The God of Darkness proved to be the most powerful of the two. As a result, he sessfully reset the time using Andohr''s blood. Because Andohr was the God of Time and Space, he was able to escape the time array created by the God of Darkness.
By resetting the time, Michael closed the portal to the higher realm, the world of the gods. The portal could only be opened again by the one who closed it in the first ce. But to do that, Andohr had to wait for the God of Darkness to get stronger. Certain things must happen to the God of Darkness in his life. Otherwise, the timeline would change, and his way out of the mortal realm might be a dream. That was the main reason why the Skyhall didn''t send their entire army to destroy Michael in the first ce. Because the Skyhall was controlled by none other than Andohr himself.
Chapter 802 The Realm Of Gods
Eventually, the cloud of darkness faded out of existence, leaving Andohr alone in the giant castle. It was time for Andohr to see what his minions were up to. He just raised his hand as a golden beam of light shot out of his hands. Soon, three figures emerged from the light. They were in their astral forms rather than physical forms. The moment they came into existence, they fell to their knees.
"Heavenly Lord Andohr," they greeted him with utmost respect and reverence. They didn''t even raise their heads to look him in the eyes. These three were none other than the three elders who nned to enve Noah, Devdan, Thorfinn, and thedy in white, Erael. Through these three, Andohr controlled the entire Skyhall. They served him wholeheartedly in the hope of bing gods one day. Once the Dark Lord could open the portal to higher realms, they nned to ascend with Andohr.
"What are you three idiots doing nowadays?" asked Andohr. He didn''t bother to hide his disgust toward the mortals. The mortals were pretty disgusting in his eyes. In his mind, the mortals were a disease to the world. If he cared about the world, even for a bit, he would have cleansed the world of the mortals. Unfortunately, not all the gods shared the same thought about the mortals. In the higher realm, some gods loved the mortals, some hated them, and the majority of them couldn''t care less about the mortals. Thanks to the Dark Lord, no god could descend from the higher realm to the mortal realm, and Andohr was stuck in the mortal realm for thousands of years.
"Guiding Noah Winston in his path to be stronger, heavenly lord," Devdan answered Andohr despite how he was getting treated by Andohr.
"What''s the God of Light up to?" asked Andohr. As the god who wields power to kill his opposite, Andohr rooted for Noah. Simply put, Noah was like a friend to Andohr as the enemy of his enemy was his friend.
"He is on his way to his home, heavenly lord," said the dwarf, Thorfinn.
"What?" Andohr''s calm voice turned menacing. He creased his sword-like brows.
"Shouldn''t he be searching for the arrows?" asked Andohr. Although killing a god was not an easy task, it was not impossible. There were some ancient texts in the higher realm which mentioned killing a god and its effects. But Andohr had no idea how a mortal like Qin Jiu managed to get a piece of this ancient text and managed to forge these god-killing arrows. Even in the higher realm, Andohr had never seen a god die for eons. Only some scripts mentioned some rogue gods and the war between the gods. As for the consequences of a god''s death, nothing was mentioned in any texts.
If only Andohr was at his peak power, he would have found Qin Jiu with a snap of his fingers. After all, he was the God of Time and Space. Unfortunately, he was still recovering from thest battle with the Dark Lord. He was fortunate the Dark Queen was there to save him from the Dark Lord.
(This Dark Queen is not Gaya)
The trio stayed silent. Their bodies trembled, sensing the overwhelming power radiating from Andohr. Although he was not at his peak power, he could still kill the trio before they could blink an eye. But he needed them more than he liked to admit. As the God of Time and Space, Andohr knew better than anyone of the consequences of altering the events in the timeline. Any simple change could result in a catastrophic change in the future. Hence, Andohr had to approach the situation with extreme caution. For a moment, Andohr picked his brain inplete silence.
Finally, Andohr came up with an idea to nudge Noah in the right direction. It was not changing the events per se but speeding things up a bit.
"Send an assassin to the Winston manor. Take a shot at one of Noah''s loved ones but do not kill them. Just let your clone in the family take care of the assassin," said Andohr.
"Let the Dark Lord take the fall. It should be enough to light the me in Noah''s heart,"
By injuring someone from Noah''s family, Andohr was notpletely altering the timeline but nudging Noah in the right direction. In this situation, the right direction would let Noah battle the Dark Lord. Andohr wanted the God of Darkness to die but to ascend to the higher realm, he just needed one god to die. It might even be Noah. But no matter what, their battle must happen. Andohr was manipting the Skyhall and the Great Eight ns from behind the scene to ensure that. Otherwise, the Skyhall could have easily taken down the moment Michael revealed himself as the Dark Lord.
Although Andohr felt he was in control, and he was, for the most part, he failed to take the past Dark Lord into the equation. His ego as a god blinded him from thinking whether the past Dark Lord nned this or not. Andohr was still thinking that the past Dark Lord did not anticipate Andohr would escape from the time array.
"As for the God of Darkness, make his life harder, but don''t end it. I won''t stay in this scum of a world a second longer than I have to," Andohr snarled. It wouldn''t take a second for Andohr to leave his caste and kill the God of Darkness. The current Dark Lord''s power was not even a fraction of his past self. Hence, killing him would be as easy as stepping on an ant to Andohr. However, if he did that, the Dark Lord''s soul would leave his body and wander the universe for an unknown time before finding another suitable vessel. It might take eons. Even the God of Time and Space did not have that much patience. The quickest way for Andohr to leave this mortal realm was with the God of Darkness.
"Consider it done, heavenly lord," the trio bobbed their heads up and down.
"Now leave," Andohr waved his hand as the astral figures of the trio vanished into thin air. As Andohr returned to his throne, his mind yed tricks with him. He heard the God of Darkness''s words in his mind.
"May the other gods have mercy on you because I won''t," These words sounded loud and clear in Andohr''s head. It was as though the Dark Lord himself was speaking to him from somewhere in the castle. Andohr clenched his fist to the point golden blood trickled out of his palm.
"I am not my brother, Andohr. He will show you mercy. I will show you death,"
"When mortals are desperate and helpless, they will pray to a god. Tell me Andohr, what are you going to do?"
The more he heard the Dark Lord''s words, the redder Andohr''s eyes turned. He wanted to leave the castle and rip him to pieces.
"I am the God of Darkness. I am Vengeance. I am your death!" Andohr''s heart skipped a beat when his mind yed thest words the Dark Lord spoke to him. This wasn''t new to Anodhr. On the contrary, he had been hearing the Dark Lord''s words and seeing his images sh in front of his eyes for thousands of years. Still, every time it happened, it had the same effect on Andohr.
"We will meet again, my dear God of Darkness," Andohr growled as his eyes glistened.
********************************************************
Meanwhile, back on the demons grave, Michael slowly turned around. To his surprise, it was one of the men who went into the portal a few moments ago. The angel was holding a crossbow made of some kind of red stone. The crossbow bolt glistened, threatening to end the life of whoever it was pointed at.
"Easy there tiger," said Michael.
"Do you see this?" The angel was not afraid of Michael, not even a bit. The way he talked showed his courage.
"This is specially designed to knock out an Immortal," said the angel. Because of the helmet on his head, Michael couldn''t see the angel''s eyes. But if he had to guess, he would say they had no fear within them.
"Get on your knees with your hands in the air," said the angel, only to see Michaelugh. Vedora snuck back into Michael''s robes.
"Trust me, that bolt wouldn''t save you if I wanted to kill you," said Michael while moving the Spyder toward the angel. It was slowly crawling on his armor. The angel had no idea, Michael was just buying time until the Spyder could reach an exposed area in his armor and send its venom into the angel''s bloodstream. Spyder was just one way of dealing with the angel. If Michael wanted, he could kill him with his dead beams in a blink of an eye. The angel was not even strong as he was just at the Fusion stage.
"You have three seconds," The angel warned Michael.
"But you only have two seconds," said Michael as the angel''s eyes went wide. His muscles tensed. Soon, the angel copsed to the ground, unconscious.
"Done," Michael smiled. He walked toward the angel and picked up the crossbow from the ground.
"I''ll take a look at youter," said Michael. The crossbow vanished into thin air as Michael turned his gaze back to the angel on the ground.
"Let''s get out of here first," said Cain.
Lingering around in this ce was not a safe option, Michael knew that. He waved his hand as the casket slid toward him.
"Hgrrm," Michael growled, picking up the casket from the ground. He carried the casket on one shoulder and lifted the angel by his chest te. Then, Michael dashed into the forest, using the Lightning dash. Michael just hoped the other angels wouldn''t track him down until he could get information from the angel. Flying away would have been much easier if it wasn''t for the strange and powerful gravity. Eventually, Michael put several miles of distance between the digging site and him.
From where he was standing, he saw nothing but ancient trees. The ce was enveloped inplete darkness. After putting down the casket and the angel down, Michael stretched his arms.
"What are you hiding inside?" Michael asked, looking at the casket on the ground. He didn''t waste any more time. Instead, he grabbed the casket on its edge and pried it open with brute strength.
"What the fuck?" Michael was stunned by the thing inside.
Chapter 803 Return Of An Old Enemy
When Michael opened the casket, he saw a demon skeleton lying on a ck cloth. Suddenly, something lit up within the demon''s empty eye sockets. It lunged at Michael at lightning speed. Thanks to his cat-like reflex, he raised his hand, bringing out the ck shield to block the demon''s fist. The demon''s hand cracked upon hitting the ck shield. Without giving any time for the demon to retaliate, Michael grabbed the demon by its neck and forced it down instead of attacking it. He then quickly shut the casket on the demon. The demon banged and growled from within. Several seconds passed as Michael noticed some runes started to radiate a pale blue light in the casket. Following the runes, the demon inside calmed down. It finally stopped banging against the casket and returned to its eternal slumber.
"So all those caskets have demons inside?" asked Ayag from within Michael''s robes. Michael did not answer. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the unconscious angel. A pale light shot out from Michael and scanned the angel on the ground. Just after the light faded away, Michael approached the angel. He picked him up by his neck and mmed him against a tree nearby. The force substituted the need for water to wake up the angel.
Michael grabbed the angel''s helmet and pulled it upwards, revealing the face of a golden-haired elf. The elf stared back at Michael with no emotions. One would expect the angel to be scared shitless, yet Michael saw no signs of fear in the angel''s eyes. He doubted the angel was oblivious to the fact he was the Dark Lord. The entire world knew his face. Either the angel was really courageous, or he didn''t know Michael''s identity. There were other exnations.
"You shouldn''t be here," said the angel.
"Hmm. If I were you, I would worry about yourself," Ayag said as they leaped on top of Michael''s shoulder. "A three-headed hydra," Finally, Vedora brought a sliver of a surprise to the elf''s expressionless face.
"Here''s the deal. I am going to ask you some questions. Satisfy me with your answers, and I will let you live. Does that sound good to you?" asked Michael, only to see the elf snicker.
"Humph. You are going to kill me either way. It''s in your eyes. But I will answer your questions,"
Both Michael and Vedora were surprised by the angel''s answer.
"That makes my life much easier. Let''s begin with who you are and whom you serve?"
"It doesn''t matter who I am when I serve the all-mighty," said the angel. His voice oozed pride and arrogance.
"And who is that?" asked Michael.
"Skyhall,"
Michael clenched his fist as a sudden urge to snap the angel''s neck emerged in his heart. But he controlled himself. Michael used to think the Guardians were the big bad guy in his life until he met Elidyr. Only then did he realize the real puppeteer was none other than the SKyhall, the most powerful n in the entire world. Even before he was born, they ughtered millions and eradicated the order of death with the help of Andreas.
"Soon, my fellow angels will bring you the wrath of Holy Skyhall and smite you to oblivion," the angel threatened Michael.
Vedora saw Michael bruising intoughter.
"Angels, wrath, smiting me to oblivion. Jeez, you guys really think you''re from the god''snd, don''t you?" Michael''s devilishughter echoed through the forest.
"Lucky for you, angel. You are staring right at a god in the flesh," said Sarba.
"I know who you are the moment Iid my eyes on you," said the angel. Now Michael really felt bad about his reputation. He was the Dark Lord. Low-level soldiers like this angel should be afraid of him. Yet somehow, this angel showed no signs of fear. Of course, Michael could bring a whole new world of fear within the angel if he used the Fear Toxin.
"The world has changed, Dark Lord. You are not the highest priority of Skyhall. How do I put this nicely? You are a cog in the machine, just a big one but not the biggest,"
"I am offended," Michael shook his head disappointedly.
"I thought you idiots were hunting him, the Dark Lord. Instead, you''re grave robbing. Why?" asked Ayag, turning the angel''s gaze away from Michael.
"An angel''s duty is to get the order done, not to question it,"
"In other words, you don''t know. That''s a shame," Sarba sighed.
"They are building an army. Why else do they need the undead and now the demons? The question is are they nning to wage war against us or someone else," said Cain.
When Michael looked at the elf, he didn''t seem to know the answer. As he said, the angel was just a soldier. Michael doubted that even if he interrogated the entire angel unit, they would know something about the harvesting of demons and the undead.
"Who''s giving you these orders?" asked Michael.
"It would be better if I showed you," the angel smiled. Soon, Vedora heard the trees rustle around them. The dried leaves and twigs broke under heavy footsteps. Michael let go of the angel as a strange light fought off the darkness around them. As Michael expected, five angels came out of the dark woods and stepped into the light. A hovering ball of light lit the ce, revealing the glistening runes in their armor. They all spread their metal angels wings and took out their golden spears to end Michael''s life. Even the angel Michael interrogated, quickly dashed away and joined his fellow angels.
Pulch!''
To Mcihael''s shock, an angel stabbed the elf right through his chest with the golden spear. The elf coughed up blood as the angel lifted his body into the air.
"You are tainted by evil. Begone and find the pure light in the next life," the angel talked in a strange otherworldly voice that was capable of tearing a man''s eardrum. The high-pitched voice even hurt Sabra''s ears. Soon, the elf''s body turned into nothing but millions of specks of light. These golden lights shone in the air like fireflies. Gradually, they faded out of existence.
Michael was stunned by this act of the angel.
"I thought the angels were merciful," said Michael. He slowly walked to the center of the light while the angels surrounded him. Despite their weak Soul Refining stage cultivation, they dared to raise their spears against Michael.
[These angels certainly have a death wish]
Even the system ridiculed the angels. Michael cracked his neck. The angels thought they caught him off guard. However, Michael knew the elf had a rune engraved on him, which emitted some kind of signal to the other angels. Simply put, Michael wanted these angels to find him. Not that Michael wanted to capture these angels and interrogate but to kill them. In his eyes, they looked like sacks of experience points. But what surprised him was how courageous these angels were. Any other Soul refiner would have trembled to the core in front of an Immortal. Yet these angels were fearless.
"Five angels," Michael slowly looked around. The angels were poised to attack him any second. Suddenly, the orb of light hovering above the angels exploded into bits. Darkness returned to the ce. The anges'' eyes glimmered like diamonds in the darkness. They all dashed to the center where Michael was standing.
Ding!
The sound of metal shing reverberated through the forest. Unlike the angels were expecting, they hit nothing.
"Argh!" An angel growled. Michael grabbed an angel by his wings and ripped them off with his bare hand. His dark beams shot out of his eyes, ending the struggling angel;s life altogether. He dropped the dead angel.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage level 6 angel. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 7000 Badass points]
Before even the other angels could hear the sound of his body hitting the ground, lightning shed across the dark forest. In the light thatsted for a moment, the angels saw the bloodied metal wings on the ground. Then, another angel groaned.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage level 5 angel. The reward is 300,000 Experience points and 6000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 8000 Badass points]
In a blink of an eye, Michael ended the life of two angels. They weren''t even a challenge to Michael. When the remaining three tried to cast a spell, their golden spears radiated eyes blinding golden light. However, their casting was abruptly stopped by a wave of dark mes that shot out of Michael''s body. The ring of dark mes reduced the angels to ashes. Even their rune engraved armors were melted like candles. The all mighty angels were turned to a hot pile of ashes. The system continuously rang in his mind, awarding him with experience and badass points.
At that moment, a person with cat face and ck fur was watching Michael from far away from Michael''s environmental scanning range. This Cat was the same person who was tasked to protect Tanulia Valren and the brother of Jacobe who tracked down and almost killed Gaya. he was stalking the Dark Lord for years and finally came to the demons grave to seek revenge for his brother''s death.
"Dark Lord," The Cat clenched his fist. His ck fur made him blend with the night perfectly. It took everything he learned to find that his brother Jacobe was killed by Ghost and Gaya. Even to this moment, there was no solid evidence to prove his theory. But his gut instincts told it was Ghost and that was all he needed. No matter what, he would either kill the Dark Lord or die trying. That was certain.
From afar, he saw the Dark Lord teleport the casket to somewhere else. Afterward, the Dark Lord dashed into the forest, disappearing from his sight. The at leaped to another branch and started to follow the Dark Lord.
Chapter 804 City Of The Dwarves
The country of Dalgarum is an enormous country with a poption mainly consisting of dwarves.
Bordered between wastnd to the North, a canal to the South, tall mountains to the East, and a huge sea to the West, the country of Dalgarum mainly lived off, cksmithing and wood crafting.
Dalgarum itself was mainly covered inrge hills and had a hot climate, which had led to a freely spread poption. Despite the number of dwarves, most of them lived in small viges.
The country''sndscape was quite frightening; withered flower fields, bleak, bare forests, and smelly, overgrown ponds were just a sliver of the harshness Dalgarum had to offer, which was why the country was unpopr among foreigners.
The dwarves of Dalgarum were unweing towards foreigners, especially toward the elves, and tended to wee them with bitterness. They felt foreigners were a disease to the kingdom.
At that moment, a youngdy with golden hair left a ck carriage and headed deeper into the forest. A long sword dangled on her back,plimenting the silver armor she was wearing.
"Don''t take too much time," a thick, bitter voice resonated from the carriage.
"Yeah, yeah," the woman rolled her eyes as she walked into the forest without giving a damn about the carriage or the person inside.
"Annoying little twat. What did I do to deserve such an asshole for a client?" the woman bickered with herself. The passive and daunting forest around her had the appeal of a forgottennd, which had been lost in time. The isted forest remained in a capsule, untouched by the destructive essence of man. The dark shadows of the voluminous trees and puzzled bushes had be the structure of the forest. All the giant trees in the forest stood proud and tall as protectors of the exigent grounds, as the impregnated bushes that had consumed the hard regions of the forest concealed thend from beneath the dynamic portals of the open sky.
The woman needed some time away from her client to clear her mind. She was afraid that if she spent any more time in the carriage with him, she might draw her sword and cut his head off. Standing before arge tree, she looked left and right. Then, she punched the tree as hard as she could. The tree trembled, shedding its leaves. Her punch formed a hole in the tree.
"That''s quite an anger you''re holding," the woman felt a chill running down her spine when she heard a devilish voice from behind. She turned around with her sword in her hand. To her surprise, a figure dressed inplete ck stood before her. The power that radiated from her body made the woman tremble.
"A Half Immortal," the woman mumbled. Her grip around the sword loosened. Their cultivation gap was huge as she was at the Soul Refining stage, and the ck figure was at the Half Immortal stage. If they fought, there was no chance for her to defeat the ck figure.
"I am not here to hurt you," said the ck figure.
"On the contrary, I am here to make a deal with you. A deal you might dly ept,"
As a mercenary for hire, the woman liked the sound of the word ''deal''. Controlling the overwhelming fear in her heart, the woman managed to speak.
"What kind of deal?"
"Simple," the ck figure shrugged.
"I will give you three hundred thousand gold coins for you to leave and never turn back,"
The woman''s eyes glistened with joy, but soon, the glimmer faded out. She couldn''t believe someone would pay three hundred thousand for no reason. But then the ck figure tossed a space ring toward her. The woman instinctively caught the ring.
"Check it out," said the ck figure.
When the woman sent a sliver of arch energy into the space ring, her eyes widened. She saw stacks of gold coins within the space ring. If she had to guess, she would say the stack contains three hundred thousand gold coins.
"I am not very patient. So take the ring and leave, or I will take your life. The choice is yours,"
The woman''s heart skipped a beat when she heard these words.
"I will take the ring," the woman quickly said without taking any time.
"Good. close the deal with a handshake," the ck figure slowly approached the woman. Thetter did not back away in fear because if the Half Immortal wanted her dead, she would be dead by now. Hence, she held her ground firmly. When the ck figure arrived at arm reaching distance from her, she reached out to shake her hand. The woman slowly shook her hand as she felt a sting in her hand.
After shaking her hand, the ck figure turned around and left. The woman was bewildered. However, she was able to heave a sigh of relief. With the space ring filled with three hundred thousand gold coins, the woman could settle down somewhere and live the rest of her life peacefully. There was no need for her to risk her life, protecting scums like her current client.
The ck figure then slowly removed the cloak and hood, revealing her face. It was none other than Gaya. She then flicked her wrist as a ceramic mask appeared in her hand. When she shook the woman''s hand, she took a drop of blood from her hand. Gaya dropped the drop of blood onto the ceramic mask. Then, she ced the mask on her face. Soon, the ceramic mask trembled as it merged with Gaya''s face, turning her into a woman who resembled the mercenary Gaya met a second ago.
Gaya nned to take the woman''s ce from the beginning, one way or another. Now that she had changed her face, she then proceeded to look the part. Thanks to Titus and Optimus, who were in charge of acquiring items for the Order, Gaya managed to get a replica of the woman''s silver armor. With a flick of her wrist, she changed the ck armor. Eventually, Gaya returned to the carriage she was following behind. Inside the carriage, there was someone who could get her in touch with someone from Han Torum. To pretend to be the mercenary, Gaya needed onest thing to change, her cultivation. Thanks to Michael, she had a special rune that could mimic the energy radiation of a Soul Refiner. It was a pale blue rune that glistened on her palm before fading away. After everything was said and done, Gaya returned to the carriage, where she met a couple of dwarves drinking and pissing. They seemed to have no shame or care. The dwarf she was about to meet was called Valmas. ording to Gaya''s sources, Valmas was a weapons dealer and was on his way to Dalgarum to get his hands on the new contraption the dwarves of Han Torum had built.
The dwarves snickered and spat on the ground, showing their hatred toward a human. Gaya paid no mind to the dwarves as she opened the carriage door. Inside the carriage, a beefy dwarf with hardly any neck drinking to his throat. He used his long bushy brown beard to clean his hand. When he noticed the woman, a strange smile emerged on his face. As far as Gaya trailed the dwarf, she could tell the dwarf had no interest in women as he had in gold coins. Simply put, the dwarf loved gold coins more than anything. He was even fueling several wars so he could trade weapons with them and get rich.
"There you are. Took your sweet little time eh? I am not paying you to protect the trees love," said the dwarf. Spit and ale stted out of his mouth as he talked.
"If I am protecting something else and not you, you would have been dead by now," Gaya rolled her eyes. Since she was following the carriage and the woman for five days, she knew how the woman would have responded to the dwarf''sment.
"Hahahahaha," the dwarf burst intoughter after hearing her answer. Then, he wiped off his mouth with a cloth and gestured at Gaya to climb inside the carriage.
"Move your asses. It''s time to resume our journey toward Embercrest," the dwarf raised his voice as Gaya sat beside the dwarf. The carriage slowly moved. Gaya took out the silver sword resembling the woman''s and sharpened it in the carriage. Looking at the shiny de, the dwarf kept his distance from Gaya. Their journey was uneventful as no one targeted the dwarf. Eventually, they arrived at the city of Embercrest.
The city of Embercrest was built at the base of a mighty mountain and was truly a true modern curiosity. Its appearance was matched by the backdrop of majestic mountains, which have helped shape the city into what it is today.
The riches these mountains and the mines in these mountains brought were of great importance. Still, they were also influential when it came to architectural designs, as the vast majority of buildings had been built alongside the mountains and often incorporated many different ores from the mines. The skyline was packed with unique buildings, and a lot of them seem to have evolved throughout the ages. Daily life wasn''t too stressful in Embercrest despite theck of powerful cultivators. The dwarves substituted the cultivators with contraptions and engineering marvels. As Gaya looked through the window, she noticed the dwarves carrying rocks in a bag on their backs. These dwarves were heading for the city from one of the mines. Since the pavement was paved with stones, their ride was smooth and bumpless. Stone walls surrounded the entire city. In the distance, she saw some giant gears rotating under the waterfall. She read and heard that the dwarves produce lightning energy to power up the city instead of runes and orbs like the rest of the world. Something told her these gears, and the waterfall yed a big part in the power generation.
"I love the smell of Embercrest. Home sweet home," the dwarfughed.
The further they traveled, the more dwarves Gaya saw on the street. Finally, they reached the city gates. To her surprise, she saw a carriage with the symbol of Guardian Guild engraved in went past them into the city.
Chapter 805 Thieving Dwarves And A Weapons Dealer
Valmas, the weapon-dealing dwarf, had five bodyguards. Three dwarves and two humans. All of them were at the Soul Refining stage. In dwarven nations, Soul Refining stage warriors were like gods. The strongest dwarven warrior in all dwarven kingdoms was at Soul Refining stage level 5, and he served under Drogon, the dwarf king. Furthermore, Valmas had a secret hideout that even his bodyguards had no idea of. He would use a teleportation scroll to get in and out. Hence, why he survived for so long despite being one of the most wanted dwarfs and a weapons dealer. The streets of Embercrest were bustling with dwarves, with the air smelling like freshly brewed ale and piss. Everywhere Gaya turned, she saw the dwarves in clusters, drinking andughing like it''s none of anyone''s business. Contrary to the elves, the dwarves seemed simple and honest.
The dwarves were hot-headed and honest folkspared to the elves, who were always scheming and using curses for hunting down their enemies. But that didn''t mean all the elves were bad and all the dwarves were good. Both sides had bad apples, really bad apples. As Gaya was following behind Valms while keeping him close like a good bodyguard should, she noticed a couple of people following them. Even in the crowd, Gaya was skilled enough to spot her followers.
"Did I say how much I love the smell of the air? It feels like home. Now, who should I kill to get some freshly brewed Embercrest ale?" Valmas joined the dwarves inughing out loud.
"Hold your horses, Valmas. We''ve been followed," Gaya''s words immediately stopped Valmas''sughter. She felt good ruining his jolly mood. The three dwarven bodyguards looked dumb while the other human man with rune-engraved bow and arrows looked vigntly around him.
"Don''t look back," Gaya warned the others.
"Are they stronger than you dimwits?" asked Valmas.
"It''d be better if we find your room soon," said Gaya.
"It''s just around the corner. The ce is called the drunken whore,"
"Fucking hell," Gaya rolled her eyes as they turned around the corner to see a dazzling ce totally opposite to its name. The ce glistened with neon light and toe tapping music. Although it was daytime, the dark rainy clouds gave enough darkness for the neon lights to really shimmer. Countless dwarves stood in neat lines to get inside with their dates. In between the two lines was a red carpet and a few people received the VIP treatment by entering the drunken whore without waiting. Simply put, this ce was the fantasy version of nightclubs.
Apparently, Valmas seemed to have the VIP card. He flicked his wrist as a golden te appeared in his hand. But he stopped before getting closer to the ce.
"Where are youing, darling?" Vms turned around and asked Gaya.
"Inside?" She tilted her head.
"Nope. You are going to deal with those assholes who''ve been following us, or do you say. I want their heads," Valmas''s eyes glistened with killing intent.
"What are you waiting for? I am paying you to do what I say, not to gawk like a dumb chicken,"
Gaya wanted to strangle the dwarf, but she managed to control her inner rage.
"The rest of you, follow me inside," Valmas gestured as the others followed him behind before throwing a ''you deserve it'' look at Gaya.
"Azazel, I am moving away from the dwarf. Monitor him," Gaya said to Azazel through the earpiece while walking away from Valmas.
"Got it, Dark Queen," Azazel acknowledged her order and focused on the Spyder on Valmas himself. After separating herself from Valmas, Gaya entered a dark alley between two tall buildings. She noticed several dwarves on the ground, too drunk to get up. With quick steps and leaps, Gaya reached the top of the building. As a human among dwarves, she stood out like a watchtower. Trailing her followers in her current state would only put a bigger target on her back. That was the reason she chose to get on top of the building. Regardless of the size of the dwarves, their buildings were surprisingly tall and unguarded. Thanks to the buildings being in a cluster, she leaped from one building to another. Eventually, she spotted the dwarves who had followed her earlier.
The dwarves were gathered in a group and gawking at the drunken whore from a safe distance. Poor souls failed to notice Gaya straight on top of them, watching them like a hawk.
"How do we get inside?"
"I, for one, cannot stay in the line,"
"No shit. By the time we get inside, he would disappear like he always does,"
Gaya saw five dwarves conspiring against Valmas. Yet she didn''t know the reason. To be honest, these dwarves seemed harmless to her. The one who looked like the leader had straps of white in his long bushy beard, and he was the strongest among them, a Core Formation level 3 warrior. Even if the entire group went against Vms, they would stand a chance against a single bodyguard, let alone all of them.
"We cannot let him sell the blueprints. Once they get out, who knows how many people will die?" the leader dwarf stuttered.
Judging by their looks and words, Gaya thought these dwarves were innocent and almost formted a lie to tell Valmas about their bodies. However, her thoughts were shattered by what they said next.
"Who cares? We aren''t here to save people. We are here to get our money. I almost died snatching those ns. If anything, I should have gotten a bigger cut,"
"Don''t be ridiculous. I was the one who found the location of his workshop," said another dwarf.
"Stop following around, you morons. None of us got paid, not a single coin. That bastard has to pay us with coins and with blood if we yed our cards right," said the leader of these little dwarven thieves.
"Let''s get to our safe house and n our next move. I have someone on the inside who could tell us where Valmas would be next," said another dwarf.
"Azazel, anything hot happening with Valmas?" asked Gaya as the dwarves began to dismantle their group.
"Nothing so far, mydy. He''s just drinking and dancing with dwarvendies. I don''t think he would be able to do anything for a few hours judging by the amount of booze he drank," said Azazel. The demon was quite surprised by Valmas''s ability to drink gallons of ale and stay awake.
"Good. I am trailing some dwarves who might have some interesting insights,"
"Happy hunting, Dark Queen. I will keep you updated on Valmas''s status," said Azazel as Gaya trailed the dwarves to their hideout. The tables had changed, as it was Gaya who followed the dwarves this time. While she was following them, Gaya noticed the dwarves looking behind to see if anyone was following them, a trait of a thief.
She was certain that these dwarves were thieves, but the question was whether they were working for someone or alone.
The City of Embercrest was built like abyrinth. There were more alleys and turns than straight streets and more taverns than any other stores. Luckily, no one was on top of the buildings or watching the skies. Otherwise, they would have seen Gaya jumping from building to building, parkour style. After almost jumping from building to building for fifteen minutes, Gaya reached the outskirts of Embercrest, where the infamous dwarves liked to live. This area before her had no tall buildings orvish stores. Instead, all she could see were tiny huts in clusters and dirty river running across them.
Gaya was standing atop thest tall building overlooking the outskirts. One more step, and she would be visible to all the dwarves on the ground. Even if she could sneak without getting detected, she doubted she would fit inside one of those huts. They were barely four feet tall. Thanks to Michael''s inventions, she had a drone at her disposal. With a flick of her wrist, she took out a drone the size of her palm. It was transparent, as the wire and gears inside were visible to the naked eye. The back of Gaya''s neck let out a dim light when the drone started to fly upward. This glimmer of light was a chip that allowed Gaya to control the drone without his or Azazel''s help. On top of that, this tiny drone was specially made for her as his gift. It was fast, soundless when flying, and equipped with various types of gasses to deal with enemies lethally and non-lethally.
"Fly, my beautiful night owl," Gaya controlled the drone to fly ahead,
"I need to work on my naming skills," said Gaya, watching the drone fly toward the dwarves. Suddenly, everything the drone saw popped up in the corner of her vision.
"This is how he feels, huh," Gaya thought about Michael controlling several drones at the same time. The drone swooped into the hut through a fist-sized hole. The dwarves were too busy searching for mugs and booze. A sane person wouldn''t live in the hut for a minute. It looked shabby, dirty, and housed countless cockroaches. Yet, the dwarves didn''t seem to mind their house guests. Instead, they filled their mugs and took them to the only piece of furniture that looked rtively new, a table.
The dwarves sat around the table to discuss their future ns. They had no idea a drone was hovering above them, listening and watching them. Before they uttered a word, each took arge gulp of ale and didn''t bother to wipe their mouths.
"When will we receive intel from your source?" a dwarf asked.
"He can''t fly here, moron. He has a pet owl that would bring the intel to us. We just have to wait," said the leader.
"Let me guess. Your source is a human. A damned elf would use magic mumbo jumbo. any decent dwarf would use a crawler. But only a human would do something so stupid," the dwarvesughed.
"Don''t be too hard on my contact. Without him, we aren''t getting near Valmas,"
It didn''t take a genius to figure out the dwarf''s inside contact. Because the only human Valmas had around him was her and another bodyguard. But Gaya could care less about him. The only thing she needed from the dwarves was what they sold to Valmas.
Chapter 806 Death Kiss Crossbows I
After waiting an entire hour for the dwarf''s contact to arrive, Gaya lost her patience. Azazel had already warned her that Valmas was cleaning himself for some reason.
"Time to deal with the dwarves," Gaya sighed as she stood up from the floor. With a single leap, she shot into the air and dived down like a breezing wind. No dwarves were able to see her until she broke through the roof. The dwarves werepletely caught off guard. They squealed and jumped back like scared cats.
"Wh the fuck are you?"
"You are trespass-"
The dwarves'' words choked as they sensed her cultivation. Gaya waved her hand as a translucent dome appeared around them. The shield prevented any sounds from getting out. She didn''t want the dwarves to scream for help. Although she could take down the entire kingdom singlehandedly, it was neither her intention nor worth her time.
"So which one of you assholes is going to tell me what you sold to Valmas?" Gaya scowled.
The dwarves gawked at each other, slowly reaching for the short axes dangling on their waists. For talented builders, the dwarves were stupid when it came to battle. They would rather fight an unwinnable battle head-on without a strategy than keep calm and n ahead. Gaya''s experience was limited when it came to dwarves. The longest conversation she had with a dwarf was about how to build a defense tower in the floating mountain.
Instead of warning the dwarves, Gaya waved her hand as a mighty wind sted off the dwarves into the walls. The dwarves hit the wall with a thud and fell down, coughing and groaning in pain. Her figure quickly turned blurry. The dwarves saw herpletely disappear from their sight. When she returned to where she was a moment ago, the dwarves felt something off. They instinctively reached for their axes but didn''t find them. To their surprise, Gaya dropped their axes to the ground.
Then she dragged a chair and sat backward, looking at the trembling dwarves. Their big round eyes glistened with anger and shock. But despite their cultivation difference, the dwarves didn''t show any fear like anyone else would have.
"The man I am working for wants all of you dead. But I am a merciful and reasonable person. Give me what you sold to Valmas, and we pretend like this never happened,"
Gaya talked calmly as the dwarves gawked at each other. They were startled, having no idea how the hell did she know about Valmas and the blueprint they sold to him.
"Also, Valmas wants you all dead. He would pay me handsomely if I brought him your heads. Either way, I am getting paid. The question is do you want to live or die," Gaya''s voice became menacing. Still, the dwarves kept their mouths shut. As a result, Gaya lost her patient. She raised her finger as a greenser-like beam shot out of her fingertips. The next thing the dwarves heard was their leader screaming as loud as he could. Blood spurted out of his left knee. The dwarf groaned and cursed to high heaven.
"You are dead human,"
"When the news hits the city, our kind will hunt you down,"
The dwarves snarled at Gaya as she chuckled.
"Do you really think your kind can stop me?" Gaya asked. Perhaps if the dwarves put a quest with the Mogels, they might send some Soul Refiners after her. But the Mogels were known for their expensive price and forbidden cultivation techniques. She doubted the kingdom cared enough about some lowly dwarves enough to approach the Mogels in the shadows.
"Unless you want me to target something you treasure, I suggest you give me what I want,"
The dwarf leader closed his legs as his heart skipped a beat. Seeing Gaya''s fingertip glow, the dwarf leader shouted.
"Wait, wait, wait. I''ll give you what you want," the dwarf leader quickly put his hand inside his robes and threw a yellowish parchment to Gaya.
"You had a copy of the ns all this time,"
"Motherfucker,"
His dwarven buddies were not at all happy about the leader keeping a copy of the n. If they knew this, they could have tried to sell the n to someone else rather than wasting their time trailing Valmas. While the dwarves were bickering back and forth, Gaya opened the parchment to see a blueprint of some kind of crossbow.
"I have to say, I am disappointed," Gaya sighed. When she heard the dwarves being so secretive, she thought they sold something powerful to Valmas. But instead, it was a blueprint of a crossbow.
"I can''t believe I wasted my time on this," She shook her head disappointedly before putting the blueprint into her space ring. Blueprints and new types of weapons were Michael''s thing. Who knows, he might take a weird interest in the thing. After putting the blueprint into her space ring, she stood up from the chair and turned around.
She debated with herself whether to kill the dwarves or leave them alive.
Honestly, Gaya had no reason to kill them. She could always spin a lie to Valmas about what happened to the dwarves. After a bit of thinking, she decided to leave the dumb dwarves alone.
"I''ll be in the city for a while. So I don''t want to see your faces ever again here. Get out," Gaya''s voice turned demonic. Her words rang inside their heads until their vision turned blurry. But when she took a step forward to leave the hut, the dwarves made the biggest mistakes of their lives. One daring dwarf threw a pebble at Gaya. It hit her in the head, halting her steps. The dwarves only realized the graveness of their mistake when she turned around with her eyes glimmering with killing intent. At that moment, they knew they fucked it up.
Gaya grabbed the chair she was sitting on and dragged it toward the dwarves. While the leader dwarf was screaming in pain, the others frantically looked for something that could be used to fight her. Their minds were nk as they didn''t even think about using spells. Not that they had powerful spells in their arsenal. All their spells were more focused on picking locks, finding valuables, and running away.
****************************************
The drunken whore was just as lively inside as it was on the outside. With neon lights, smoke effects, and dancing dwarves, the ce was lit with liveliness. Almost everyone inside was dancing to their heart. Valmas was exhausted after dancing and drinking for an hour without a break. He sat in one of the booths built for VIPs. Purple curtains covered the booth and prevented anyone from outside from taking a look inside. Valmas''s bodyguards nked the booth from the sides. A whileter, Gaya returned to the ce.
The dwarven bodyguards stopped her in front of the booth.
"Where is he?"
"Let her inside, moron," Before Gaya could answer the dwarf, Valmas shouted from inside. She entered the booth, pushing aside the dwarf. When she entered the booth, she saw Valmasbing his hair and dusting off his beard.
"Well," Valmas looked at Gaya, wordlessly asking her about those who followed them. Gaya grabbed the pouch dangling on her waist and poured out its contents on the table before Valmas. The dwarf creased his brows. Some white things were covered in blood, and a handful of hair fell onto the table.
"Is that tooth?" Valmas asked, pointing at a bloody white thing. It took him a few seconds to recognize them. He was no stranger to blood and gory, but even he felt a bit freaked out seeing Gaya pouring down teeth, hair, and pieces of flesh onto the table. Moreover, Valmas could see her bloody fist and blood drops on her face.
"You asked me to bring their heads, but this is all I could find in their bodies after I was done with them,"
Gaya cracked her fists. After the dwarf hit her with the pebble, Gaya showed them hell on earth. She broke every bone in their bodies and almost killed them. When she was done with them, the dwarves wished for death. They became an outlet for her inner fury. Luckily for the dwarves, she didn''t wish to kill them. Otherwise, she wouldn''t have given them healing potions and thrown them out of the city herself.
Since she was a pretty convincing liar, Valmas believed her without a doubt. Plus, he had more urgent things to worry about than some stupid dwarves.
"You seem tense," said Gaya as Valmas sighed.
"That obvious, huh? I have an important meetinging up. This deal can change my life forever," the dwarf put down the woodenb beside all the teeth and hairballs. He then took out a small piece of paper and handed it down to Gaya.
"I need you to go down there and make sure it''s not a trap. Better to be safe than sorry," said Valmas. Gaya took a look at the piece of paper to see the name of an abandoned warehouse not very far from the drunken whore. This ce was located in a rtively unpopted area with plenty of escape routes if things went south. Whoever chose this ce knew their stuff. "Will do," Gaya turned around and left the booth without saying anything about the mole in the bodyguards. There was a possibility that Valmas would call off the deal if he felt cold feet after hearing about the mole. Valmas''s schedule must go uninterrupted for her to get closer to the new weapons built by Han Torum. He was their only lead to get those weapons.
The human bodyguard looked tense as he should be. But Gaya didn''t do or say anything that could tip him off. After leaving the drunken whore, Gaya headed straight to the meeting spot. Valmas wanted her to make sure it wasn''t a trap, and she wanted to equip the ce with enough Spyders to record their secret deal. Since the streets were filled with dwarves, she could see to the end of the streets. To her surprise, she noticed the carriage with the Guardian Guild crest parked on an alley near a tavern.
Coincidently, the tavern was called the mountain guardian. She would have been more surprised if she knew who was staying inside, Noah Winston.
Chapter 807 Death Kiss Crossbows II
ck ominous clouds nketed the naked sky, with rackety thunder rumbles in the distance. Deafening gusts of wind swept across the grassy ins; the dense, mossy foliage writhed in the murky darkness. The cold windshed the oak trees, making them wave left and right. Thunder roared more intensely, and one could feel the storm ready to pour at any moment. The ce Valmas asked Gaya to check out was an abandoned warehouse used to store steel beams. After navigating through thebyrinth of streets, Gaya could see the building as well as the smashed windows, splintered wooden doors, and a sea of wilting moths all over the walls.
The building towered like a dormant volcano amidst the wilderness, surrounded by an aura of misty malevolence. As she walked closer to the warehouse, she noticed more and more cracks in the wall. It was a miracle this ce was still standing. Again, the buildings built by the dwarves were known for their resilience. Even natural disasters had a hard time destroying the dwarven buildings. The meeting was not till midnight. Hence, no one was around the ce, which gave Gaya enough time to prepare and rig the ce with Spyders.
The rusty, iron gate creaked loudly as she pushed it open. Rotten nks and rusted steel beamsy on the ground like withering corpses, shrouded byyers of soot and mud. Meanwhile, the sky split open as the heavy downpour throbbed against the thatched roof. The echoing sound of water dripping cut through the eerie silence. Gaya covered her head with a hood. The several holes in the roof let the rain droplets find their way into the building. A fallen wooden beam used for the ceiling hung from the roof, swaying in the wind like a pendulum. The wooden floor snapped and creaked every step of the way.
Gaya noticed an open space in the middle of the warehouse, surrounded by various machines. All of them were rusted and on the verge of crumbling down. Dried leaves and spider webs decorated these once-great machines. With a flick of her wrist, Gaya let out a bunch of Spyders. They crawled into every corner of the building. She looked around the warehouse for a few minutes to see if anyone was hiding to ambush Valmas. Her senses and eyes found no one in the building. Only then did Gaya exit the building.
The rain was picking up its ferocity. She barely saw the buildings in the distance through the heavy rain. Since she had to report back to Valmas, she flew straight back to the drunken whore. By the time she reached the ce, Valmas''s carriage was waiting for her. Gaya had a shield around her that prevented her from getting drenched in the rain. She climbed into the carriage.
"There you are. Any hups?" asked Valmas.
"No. The ce is clean, as far as I can tell. Just keep the teleportation scroll close to your chest in case things go south,"
"I pay you to keep things from going south. What good are you if I have to use a precious teleportation scroll every time there is trouble?" Valmas growled.
"You pay me to keep you alive. By the look of it, I am doing a good job. Besides, you can''t bitch about trouble when you are one of the most wanted weapons dealers in the continent,"
Valmas couldn''t argue with that logic. After some bickering, the carriage headed toward the abandoned warehouse. The ttering sound of rain hitting the carriage roof kept thempany. Thanks to the paved roads, the ride was quitefortable and less bumpy. Eventually, the party arrived at the warehouse, and this time, there was another carriage waiting in front of the building.
"They are here," Valmas mumbled after stepping out of the carriage.
Gaya saw no crest or words on the carriage that could be used to identify the party inside. Instead, the carriage was painted with pure red and no words. She walked beside Valmas along with the other bodyguards. As she got closer to the warehouse, she sensed more and more powerful beings inside. They were too powerful to be dwarves. Gaya quickly willed her mind to show the feeding from the silent drone inside the warehouse. To her surprise, she saw a group of orcs waiting for them inside. Not in a million years, she expected the orcs toe to a weapons deal. Despite their grotesque, terrifying looks, the orcs were a peace-loving race. So Gaya wondered what made the orcs meet Valmas of all people. The door creaked open as the dwarves pushed the steel door.
There were wooden crates stacked upon each other beside the orcs. These orcs looked different from those she had met in her life. The orcs tend to keep their bodies void of any inks or tattoos. On the contrary, the orcs in the warehouse filled their bodies with paints and weird designs. In addition, they had piercings on their noses, ears, and even their nipples. They also looked beefier and bulkier than typical orcs. If their looks weren''t surprising enough, they were all at the peak of the Soul Refining stage except the orc, who had painted his entire body red.
Gaya noticed a strange fear on Valmas''s face. Although she didn''t know Valmas for long, she knew he wasn''t the type to get scared quite easily. He couldn''t afford to be softhearted in his line of business.
"Took you long enough," The red orc growled. He literally puffed out smoke from his nostrils like a dragon. It was quite strange and terrifying. Gaya hoped these weird orcs wouldn''t find out her true cultivation level. Not that she was afraid of them, but she didn''t want the deal to go sideways until she learned more about the weapons built by Han Torum.
"My dear friends. I hope you had a pleasant journey to Embercrest," Valmasughed with open arms.
"Stop with the pleasantries, dwarf. Show me the weapons,"
The orc did not beat around the bush. He cut short Valmas''s pleasantries and growled.
"Straight to business, eh? I like it," Valmas shrugged off the orc''sment and gestured at them to follow him. The orcs followed Valmas to the wooden crates. When Valmas touched the crate, several runes and chakras glimmered on their surface. For a dwarf who hated elves to the core, he was using elven runes to protect the wooden crates. It didn''t surprise Gaya. To a criminal like Valmas, his products, and coins were more important than their race''s beef with the elves.
The wooden crate on top click opened, revealing a bunch of handheld crossbows on top of the hay. These crossbows looked precisely the same as the crossbow Gaya saw on the blueprint. Now she was curious about these tiny crossbows. Judging by the look of them, she couldn''t help wondering what they were capable of.
"As promised, I present you the death kiss crossbows. You can change the name however you want after buying them," said Valmas.
"Ten thousand a piece. I have a total of hundreds of them made for you. As I said in the letter, the blueprint is sold separately. It will cost you ten million,"
"Before that, I need to see if the weapon does what you im it would," said the orc.
Valmas creased his brows,
"I didn''t bring any poor saps," said Valmas as a strange devilish grin emerged on the red orc''s face.
"Let me take care of that," said the orc. He then pped his hands as the steel door opened once again. They all turned their gazes at the door to see two orcs dragging a few sacks through the muddy ground. The sacks moved and groaned. Each sack contained something alive, squirming inside. For some reason, Gaya had a bad feeling.
The orcs picked up the sacks one by one and tossed them a few meters away from Valmas and the orcs. One of the orcs who stood behind the red orc went to the sacks and untied the top. What jumped out of the sacks was none other than the dwarves Gaya almost beaten to death. These stupid dwarves managed to get caught by the orcs. She explicitly made it clear to go through the forest and escape the kingdom.
Valmas frowned, looking at the five dwarves.
"They im they stole the blueprint that you used to build these crossbows. Let''s just say, I believe them," said the orc.
"What do you have to say for yourself, dwarf?" the red orc asked with his eyes glimmering with murderous glee.
"They speak the truth, They stole the ns for me. I am a weapons dealer, not a weapons builder. They don''t have the blueprint anymore. I possess the blueprint now," Vms said, throwing his hands in the air. The thieving dwarves were shocked to see Gaya. Fortunately, their mouths were tied with cloth.
"They are loose ends that need to be taken care of," the orc spoke in his thick, murderous voice. Then, the orc picked up a crossbow and ced it on Valmas''s hands.
"Take care of them," said the orc before looking over his shoulder at the other orcs for some reason. One of the orcs nodded and went to the dwarves, who were on their knees. The orc murmured something under his breath as a golden shield appeared before each dwarf. Gaya''s curiosity was piqued. She didn''t worry about the dwarves exposing her identity because if things went south, she could always kill them all. But fortunately, Valmas had no idea the dwarves who followed them and the dwarves before him were the same. Otherwise, he would have been pissed at her for lying to him.
"Whoa," Valmas threw a fit,
"I don''t get my hands dirty. That''s why I have these morons," Valmas''s gaze swept across the bodyguards.
"Let one of my underlings pull the trigger," said Valmas.
"I don''t see any problem with that," said the orc.
"Hrgmmmmmm,"
? "Hrrggghhhhrrrmmmm,"
The thieving dwarves groaned, but no words escaped their mouths.
"Here," Valmas handed over the crossbow to Gaya. Then he looked at the orc as he nodded. Only then did Valmas take out a steel ball the size of a grape and give it to Gaya.
"Put that in here," Valmas pointed at the hole on top of the crossbow.
When she brought the steel ball close to the hole, an invisible force pulled the steel ball inside.
"Kill them all," said Valmas as the thieving dwarves groaned louder. The fear for their lives shed across their eyes. Gaya raised the crossbow, aiming at the dwarves. The crossbow was surprisingly lighter in weight, and she really wanted to know what it could do.
"Come on, pull the trigger," Valmas urged Gaya.
Chapter 808 Invitation To Han Torum Auction
Death kiss crossbow was a masterfully crafted crossbow with a rare sample of willow. Its string was made from deluxe wolf sinew. The wolf sinew was a fairly rare material around these parts of the world. The crossbow''s limbs had been decorated with ebony details and ended in long points ornamented with delicate decorations. The stock was wrapped in dark leather and decorated with sigil decorations. In the hands of a master archer such as Gaya herself, this crossbow was capable of firing arrows up to two hundred meters while still retaining lethal power. The appearance of the crossbow suggested master craftsmanship. Whoever built the crossbow had to be at least a 4-star cksmith.
Gay held the crossbow firmly in her hand as her index finger brushed the trigger. With a single pull of the trigger, Gaya could find out why the orcs were so interested in this crossbow. But pulling the trigger meant death for those stupid yet poor dwarves. She herself was curious to see what the crossbow was capable of. The dwarves cried, but no words escaped their mouths. They knew they were staring death in the face. At that moment, they regretteding out of the forest to steal from Valmas. Greed for gold coins blinded them. As a result, they were about to lose their lives.
In her defense, Gaya did warn the dwarves of the danger and gave them a chance to escape. Still, the dwarves managed to get caught. That wasn''t her fault. Even if she didn''t want to kill the dwarves, sparing them would ruin her disguise and make enemies out of these strange orcs. Despite the orcs'' spooky looks, Gaya didn''t intend to make enemies out of them. Instead, she wanted to learn more to see if she could recruit them into their army. Furthermore, sparing the dwarves might ruin her chance to learn more about the weapons built by Han Torum, which she couldn''t allow to happen. Therefore, the dwarves had to die.
Finally, Gaya pulled the trigger as the steel ball shot out of the crossbow and exploded mid-way into countless pellets. The crossbow surprisingly didn''t have any recoil. Gaya didn''t even feel like she fired a powerful steel ball until she saw the leader dwarf''s head explode into a red mist. The blood sttered on the other dwarves as the air reeked of blood. The leader dwarf''s headless body hit the ground with a sickening thud. Blood oozed out of his messed-up neck.
"Headshot!" Valmas shouted excitedly. Everyone was surprised, but what surprised Gaya was how the pelletspletely ignored the energy shield.
"Did you see that? A headshot could kill a Core Formation warrior despite any defense shields, as I said," Valmas exined, grinning from ear to ear.
"But not everyone is as good as my sexy bodyguard here," Valmas threw a sly grin at Gaya.
"He wasn''t moving," the red orc growled. He wasn''t as impressed as Valmas. The red orc was not wrong. Anyone with a little bit of skill could hit a stationary target from a five-meter distance. Even a blind man had the chance for a headshot in that short distance.
"Here''s another ball," Valmas threw another steel ball and gestured at Gaya to reload the crossbow.
The orc threw a dubious look at the dwarf as he tapped the wooden crate.
"One crate contains all the ammunition you asked for,"
After reloading the crossbow, Gaya pointed it at another dwarf and pulled the trigger. She had already killed one, so it wasn''t a big deal for her to end the others. One by one, the dwarves lost their heads. Blood sprayed out from their neck as the orcs looked satisfied. Eventually, the golden shield before the dwarves faded away. The crossbow hooked up Gaya. She didn''t use a bit of energy, yet she killed four Body Strengthening stages and one Core Formation warrior despite the energy shield.
Now she realized why the orcs were interested in the crossbows. Although Gaya didn''t believe these crossbows could do anything to anyone above Core Strengthening stage warriors, these crossbows could change the tide of war since most wars were fought by soldiers who were mainly at Body Strengthening stage. When two powerful cultivators fought, the Guardian Guild would interfere to broker peace or one of the great eight ns. On the contrary, when two kingdoms went into war and thousands of soldiers fought, the Guardian Guild ensured the battle was fought in a controlled environment. For instance, when the Duke of mefair waged war against Pen Town and Ice Fair, the Guardian Guild did nothing.
Gaya had already decided to bring the blueprint to Michael and mass-produce these crossbows. Knowing Michael and his talent for building powerful stuff, Gaya was confident he would make changes to the crossbow and build something extraordinary from the blueprint. After she killed all the dwarves, the red orc threw a silver ring at Valmas. The dwarf licked his lips, looking into the space ring.
"Wonderful," the dwarf pped his hands together. He then took out a parchment worn out by the time and handed it over to the orc. The red orc opened the parchment, took a look at it, and nodded at Valmas.
"Pleasure doing business with you. Now, what about the thing I asked?" Valmas kneaded his hands as though he was waiting for something from the orcs.
The orc put his hand into the belt around his waist and pulled out a golden card with some letters embossed on it.
"This will get you inside. Remember, this is the invitation, and whoever holds it gets the right to participate in the auction," said the orc. Gaya nced over Valmas''s shoulder at the golden card. Although the words embossed on the card were nearly unreadable, she was able to make out the words ''Han Torum''. Connecting the dots, Gaya realized she was one step closer to getting the weapons built by Han Torum.
The red orc signaled his underlings to carry the wooden crates and follow him to the carriage outside. While the orcs were clearing out the crates, Valmas stared at the golden card in his hand with his eyes sparkling. Eventually, the orcs left the warehouse with the crates, leaving Valmas and his bodyguards behind. Gaya waited until the orcs werepletely out of the area. Then, she took a step forward, snatching the golden card from Valmas''s hand.
"HEY!" the dwarf shouted.
Gayapletely ignored him and read the words on the card.
"ce, the lily hall. Time, morning eight on the tenth," Gaya read the words as the bodyguards tensed.
"What do you think you are doing?" Valmas bellowed again.
"Sorry, Valmas. You should wait for the next auction," Gaya shrugged as Valmas''s eyes glistened with anger and disbelief.
"Are you tired of living bitch?" the two dwarven bodyguards behind Valmas growled.
Instead of answering the dwarves, she just closed her eyes as her silver armor faded away and the ck Dark Queen armor reced it. When the transformation finished, the dwarves took a step back. Valmas was terrified. As a weapons dealer, he was aware of everything that had been happening throughout the world. So naturally, he knew everything about the Dark Lord and his better half, the Dark Queen. The dark armor and the red ming eyes were dead giveaways.
The human bodyguard, on the other hand, copsed to the ground in utter fear. Even in Awor, many humans were scared shitless of the Dark Lord. Especially those who migrated to Awor from Ozer.
"The Dark Lord wants this," said Gaya in her demonic voice. She released her suppressed aura of a Half Immortal. As soon as they felt the overwhelming power, they trembled before her. Valmas was speechless. He may not have been as afraid as the human bodyguard of his, but her Half Immortal power left him no choice other than to hand over the invitation he had worked so hard for. He had to call in all the favors to meet the orcs and get the card to participate in the Han Torum auction. Every fiber in his dwarven body told him to unsheath his battle axe and chop her head off. However, he was not stupid enough to do so.
"Can Ie with you as your plus one?" Valmas tried to negotiate with the Dark Queen, He couldn''t let go of the golden opportunity to participate in the auction.
"You could," Gaya rubbed her chin as a smile merged on Valmas''s face. But the next words that came out of her mouth froze his smile.
''But you would be dead by then," said Gaya. She was nonchnt.
Before they could react, a thick green smoke enveloped them. Immediately, the dwarves and the human bodyguard began to cough. Blood dribbled from every hole in their bodies. Their eyes widened as they turned jade. Soon, their bodies began to melt down like wax statues in heat.
"One less weapons dealer for the world," Gaya snickered. No one would shed a single tear for Valmas. Instead, the world would be a better ce without him. From this point onward, there wouldn''t be anyone to sell weapons to both sides and kindle wars between kingdoms. After killing them, Gaya put the invitation into her space ring.
"Azazel, it''s done," said Gaya to Azazel through the earpiece.
"The Han Torum is going to sell their weapons in an auction. I think Noah or one of his underlings will participate and bid for the weapons,"
"You may want to return to the castle and pick a dress for the asion, mydy," said Azazel.
Usually, Gaya hated wasting precious gold coins on expensive dresses like the other noble women. But this auction was something special. If Noah or the guardians were attending the auction, she needed to be there. For some reason, she doubted she could steal or destroy the weapons built by one of the great eight ns. She must attend the auction and see who buys the weapons. Unfortunately, the Dark Lord''s castle was short of gold coins. Therefore, Gaya nned to steal the weapons or destroy them from whoever buys them in the auction tomorrow.
Meanwhile, inside the demons grave, Michael was sitting before a campfire with Vedora by his side. The demons grave darkened as he heard countless creepy noises in the distance. After roaming around the ce for two days, he had grown used to the sounds.
"Get some sleep. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a long day," said Michael.
Chapter 809 Armored Salamandepede
After resting at the fire for a few hours with Vedora, Michael resumed his journey through the Demons grave. Instead of buying the map of the demons grave, Michael wandered aimlessly. Eventually, he came across a meadow once that looked as if it was stripped out from the pages of a storybook. The grass was Eden-green and thigh-high to a thrush. There was a volcanic mountain in the distance that had peaks that looked as cruel as a hag''s teeth. The mountain looked off in some mysterious way. Yet again, everything in the demons grave looked eerie, especially when a thin veil of mist was covering them. Compared to the swamps and the dark forest Michael came through, the meadows were a paradise.
Except for the white mist covering the meadows, everything else looked peaceful. It wasn''t just the sights that pleased the senses, but also the air had a tinge of sweetness to it. The pitch-ck sky above the meadow added an extra charm to the ce, and the only light source Michael had was the fuming volcanic mountain in the distance. Theva oozing out of the mountain dimly lit the meadows with its hue of orange. Michael walked through the meadows, gently brushing the grass and flowers with his hands. It was a feast for the eyes. The meadow stretched as far as the eye could see, with no monsters in the near vicinity. Vedora flew out from his shoulder and chased what seemed to be fireflies in a dance of life and death.
? Almost fifteen minutester, Michael noticed a neon-blue ribbon of river running through the meadow. The song of the river was very gentle as it went plinking and tinkling over the gravel bed. Michael halted his steps for a moment and bent down to wash his face with the clear river water. He immediately felt refreshed by the cold water. As he was washing his face, a cold breeze brushed past him. The grass waving with the wind, coupled with the river, sounded like music to Michael''s ears. Since Sarba had enhanced senses, he could smell the sweetness of cherry blossoms and the soft caramel scent of flowers in the air. It was so soothing that he wanted to lie down against a mossy rock and drift into a deep sleep. The humidity rendered into dewdrops on the grass. For a few minutes, the sky drizzled. But the cloud soon passed, leaving the grass and earth to steam gently like druid- smoke.
Michael thoroughly washed his face, head, and the back of his neck. He even dipped into the river and came back to wash off the mud from his robes. The swamp really did a number on his outfit. Fortunately, the river was shallow enough for him to cross to the other side. His target was the volcanic mountain in the distance. The volcanic mountain held three items he needed to forge the dark swords. After getting those items, he nned to venture deeper into the demons grave to change their financial status. But he doubted either of these tasks would be easy.
He had the feeling the peace and quiet he was enjoying mighte to an end soon. As he expected, he sensed a Half Immortal being nearby. The being was on his way to the mountain.
"Did you sense it?" Sarba asked Michael as Vedora flew back to Michael.
"Hmm," Michael nodded. Instead of heading straight toward the being, Michael flicked his wrist as several drones materialized above him. All the drones flew in the monster''s direction as Michael concentrated on their feeds. To Michael''s surprise, he did not see any monster through the drone feeds. The meadows looked peaceful and quiet.
"I am not seeing any monster," Michael said to Vedora.
"It can''t be. I sensed a powerful being. Something is there, Ghost," said Sarba. He was absolutely certain that he sensed a monster near them. If he had to bet, he would say it was waiting for them twenty meters ahead of them. The howling wind breezed past Michael. He was not in a rush but strolled toward the monster. If he could fly, he might have flown around the monster instead of fighting. However, he decided to fight the monster because he wanted to challenge himself. Plus, ying a Half Immortal monster would give him millions of experience points. After Gaya killed the dwarves, Valmans, and his bodyguards, Michael needed only four hundred thousand experience points to reach the next level.
The closer he got to the monster, the shakier the ground felt. Michael halted his steps and looked at the meadows before him. At first look, the meadows looked no different than the rest. But when Michael looked closer, he noticed an unevenness on the ground, as though something was hiding beneath the meadows. Michael raised his hand as a pebble flew straight into his hand. He then threw the pebble at the ground, where he suspected the monster resting.
Thud!
The pebble hit the ground with a thud, yet nothing happened. Michael threw another pebble, hoping to rile up the monster. He had a feeling the monster was waiting to ambush him. Poor bastard didn''t have any idea that Michael had already sensed it. When Michael threw the third pebble, he heard a muffled roar. Brown dust storm emerged from the ground as Michael heard something heavily exhaling. Soon, the ground beneath him trembled. Michael took a step back.
The monster hiding beneath slowly emerged from the ground, revealing his full body. It was a long reptilian monster that looked like a hybrid of a smander and a centipede. The monster crawled out of the hole with its hundreds of tiny golden legs, sticking his long tongue out. Silver scales covered his body from top to bottom. The gigantic monster was at least fifty feet in length. It hissed at Michael, staring at him with its tiny blue eyes. Suddenly, the monster dived down, digging into the ground.
Michael immediately activated his X-ray eyes to locate the creature in the ground. The monster dug its way out of the ce where Michael was a second ago before jumping away. The area suddenly grew darker as Michael cast the death range. Moreover, the cloud of darkness shrouded Michael''s body,pleting his Dark Lord form.
The dark beams shot out of his eyes. To his surprise, the dark beams bounced off the shiny scales covering the monster. The dark beams didn''t even put a dent in the monster''s body. Someone else would have been shocked and felt discouraged, but Michael felt excited. As a cksmith, he could do wonders with scales as strong as these. Since gravity restricted him from flying, Michael couldn''t use aerial attacks. Hence, he cast the lightning dash to move around the monster.
The monster''s scales let out a dim jade light as it fired a blob of boiling hot poison toward Micheal. He was lucky enough to dash away, but when the poison hit the ground, everything around it for a one-meter radius turned into nothing but ash. The ground sizzled like hot oil. Meanwhile, the monster kept firing blobs of poison repeatedly. Despite its gigantic size, the monster was extremely agile and quick.
If the poison was not enough to burn the meadows, Michael cast the ring of fire and fired waves of dark mes at the monster. The dark mes burnt everything to ashes on their way. Although the dark beams bounced off the monster''s scales, the dark mes managed to burn the monster. It roared in pain. But it didn''t suffer much damage as Michael wanted it to.
"Ignitia," Michael cast the spell as ck lightning bolts shot out of his fingertips. The air was electrified with his lightning bolts. Vedora heard the crackling lightning bolts and the creature''s roar and flew away from Michael and the monster. When a Half Immortal and an Immortal were fighting, it was not a good idea to be in their way. Sabra saw the energy around them going haywire. As a result, dark clouds appeared out of nowhere above them, threatening them with a heavy downpour. Thunder ps echoed through the demons grave.
The monster kept disappearing into the ground and jumping out to catch Michael off guard. Michael fought the monster with lightning bolts and dark mes. Suddenly, the monster sprayed poisonous liquid from its mouth. The poison immediately enveloped them, hindering Michael''s sight. Fortunately, the Dark Lord armor had a mask he bought from the system and fitted with a filtering system he built inside. The mask filtered the poison ion in the air and gave him fresh air. Michael thought he had ovee the poisonous air with his mask. But he didn''t expect the monster to light the poisonous cloud with sparks. When the monster opened its mouth, sparks flew out. The poisonous air exploded in the blink of an eye. The explosion sent Michael flying. Although the responsive shield and the cloud of darkness saved him, he wasn''tpletely unharmed by the explosion. His whole body was cut and bruised, as well as had a couple of broken ribs. The explosion would have reduced a Fusion stage cultivator if they were caught in one.
It was powerful enough to hurt a god. Michael slowly picked himself up as the APD pumped a healing potion into his body. His poor armor was half burned and had countless holes and cuts. Michael wiped off the blood dribbling down his mouth. The monster hissed, crawling toward Michael without waiting for him to retaliate.
"Why isn''t he moving?" Ayag asked, looking at Michael standing still. The monster moved closer and closer to Michael. It opened its mouth wide to bite and swallow his body as a whole. The ground near Michael trembled as the monster moved closer to him. Still, he didn''t even budge from where he was standing. The monster was just an arm-reaching distance from him. It raised its body, opening its mouth wide. Ayag almost closed her eyes when she saw the monster reach Michael. But to her shock, she heard a loud bang before the monster went flying away.
The monster crashed down on the ground. Vedora was stunned. They all turned their gazes back to Michael to see the Doombringer emanating coldness in his hand. Only Cain saw the doom bringer appear in Michael''s hand, and him swinging it with enough force to send the giant monster flying. Several scales on the monster''s body tumbled down, leaving the monster''s soft skin exposed.
Chapter 810 All Mighty Doom Bringer
After getting the ancient ice core from the Aqua auction and cksmith trait, Michael infused the ancient ice core with the Doom bringer. As a result, the doom bringer could summon frost and freeze its target upon hitting. Michael didn''t let the monster stand up and attack him again. Instead, he threw the doom bringer, aiming for the monster''s head. The war hammer soared through the air, leaving a cold trail in the air. The coldness emanating from the doom bringer caused the temperature to drop by several degrees. It hit the monster in the head as the scales covering its head cracked but didn''t break down. Michael dashed at the monster using the lightning dash. The ck lightning bolts crackled around his body. Even from afar, Sarba could sense the electricity in the air. On his way to the monster, Michael raised his hand in the air as the doom bringer flew straight back into his hand.
Fighting against gravity with his sheer brute strength, Michael leaped into the air. Vedora was stunned to see how high Michael could jump in the air. Gravity pulled him down, increasing the force of his descent. Upon nearing the monster, Michael clenched the doom bringer''s handle as bone-chilling ice covered the doom bringer from top to bottom. Michael brought down the war hammer on the monster''s head while it was preparing to fire a poison blob at Michael. The collision produced a thunderous boom. Several scales on the monster''s head cracked. They weren''t frail by any means, but Michael was strong enough to crack them with his brute force. The monsters in the demons grave defied all the typical rules of the world outside. Usually, a Half Immortal would be no match for an Immortal. However, inside the demons grave, the monsters had traits and attribute to match the cultivation power of a higher being. For instance, the Smandepede was covered with silver scales that protected it from even the most powerful spells and attacks. If anyone else at the Immortal stage fought the Smandepede, they would have been devoured by now. Its poison blobs were powerful enough to melt down an Immortal to jelly. In other words, the monsters inside the demons grave didn''t need Immortal killing weapons to kill Half-Immortals or Immortals. Hence, why even the most powerful cultivators didn''t dare to visit the demons grave.
Still, Michael fought the monster head-to-head without going all out. After receiving a blunt force trauma to its head, the monster roared. Emerald-green poison sttered out its mouth. Although the monstercked facial features, it looked very pissed off. The monster swung its long tail and hit Michael in mid-air. Fortunately, Michael clenched his fist at the right time to bring out his ck shield.
The sheer force of the monster''s brute force sent Michael flying. While he was in the air, the monster fired blobs of poison at Michael. These blobs took the shape of arrows and soared through the air to hit Michael. Once again, Michael raised his shield and shrouded himself with the cloud of darkness to protect himself from the poisonous arrows. The arrows sshed across the ground after hitting the ck shield. Unfortunately, a drop of poison hit Michael''s boots, making a sizzling noise. Michael immediately swung his legs, throwing away the boots before the poison could touch his skin.
"You owe me a pair of boots, mister," said Michael afternding on his bare feet on the ground. Michael stared at the monster with the doom bringer and ck shield in each hand. He cracked his neck. On the other side, the monster hissed before digging down into the ground. Despite its colossal size, the monster was quick to dig down and hide. Thanks to Michael''s X-ray vision, he could see the tunnels down the ground and the monster. The monster was holding to catch Michael off guard, but he was waiting for the right movement to hit the monster with the doom bringer. He raised the doom bringer in the air as cold energy swirled around the battle hammer. Even from afar, Vedora felt the bone-chilling coldness of the doom bringer. This was the first time Vedora had seen Michael use the doom bringer to its full potential. Typically, Michael would finish the battle without using any weapons. But the monster forced him to take out the doom bringer, which showed how powerful the monster was.
The ground beneath Michael kept trembling. He waited for the monster as it crawled toward him underground. Michael took a few steps back as the monster raised its head out of the ground. The moment its head came out of the ground, Michael hit its head with the doom bringer once again. This time, he covered the doom bringer''s head with a block of ice to add extra damage to the monster. The monster dashed out of the ground and squirmed in pain. Michael immediately followed up his attack with the ring of fire. The monster''s head was already covered in ayer of frost, and when the dark mes hit the ice, the scales shattered. Finally, Michael figured out the monster''s weakness.
The sturdy scales were vulnerable to ice plus fire attacks. They could withstand one element but not both. Since the scales were shattered, the monster''s head was exposed. But when he was about to fire dark beams, the monster spewed poison from its mouth. It formed a cloud of green mist around the monster. To avoid an explosion like earlier, Michael immediately dashed away from the monster. To Michael''s surprise, a strange glow appeared in the monster''s head. Soon, the scales grew back, covering its exposed head. Michael creased his brows. Having a regeneration ability brought the battle to the next level. It was time for Michael to change his tactics. The cloud of poisonous mist gave Michael an idea. He dashed away and fired a bolt of lightning at the monster. As Michael nned, the lightning bolt lit the highly mmable poison cloud. The sound of the explosion echoed through the air, but the creature''s roar overshadowed the explosion.
Both Michael and the monster were sted into opposite directions. Even a thirty-meter distance between them didn''t prevent Michael from getting sted away. Luckily, he just suffered some trauma that healed up in a few seconds, thanks to the APD. The same could not be said for the monster. Dark smoke enveloped the area around the monster. Michael had to use his thermal vision to locate the monster. As far as he could see, the monster was squirming as green slimy blood oozed out of several ces in its body. Furthermore, it lost several of its legs to the explosion.
Instead of dashing at the monster headstrong, Michael clenched the doom bringer around its pommel and its neck right beneath the head. His grip tightened as he pointed the head toward the monster. The runes engraved in the head glimmered with icy blue color. Soon, a stream of frost energy shot out of the doom bringer toward the monster. Everything around Michael froze by the frost energy shooting out of the battle hammer. Crystal ice rocks formed around the monster, slowly freezing it from head to toe. The monster squirmed as the crystals forming around it crumbled down. Yet, Michael did not stop freezing the monster. He poured more energy into the doom bringer, creating colder frost energy. The frost energy was cold enough to create a rain of snowkes around Michael.
The monster hissed as the frost covered its body with a thickyer of ice. If gaze could kill one, Michael would have died by now. Squirming and hissing did not help the monster. Therefore, it fired poison blobs out of its mouth. Michael slowly moved toward the monster while keeping the frost beam focused on the monster. Coldness ran down Michael''s spine. Even he wasn''t spared by the coldness as a thinyer of ice formed on his skin. Nheless, Michael chose not to conjure the dark mes. Gradually, the frost energy formed a thick shell around the monster, preventing it from digging into the ground or moving its body freely. By the time Michael reached five meters distance from the monster, the ice had covered every inch of the monster''s body except its eyes.
Without wasting a second, Michael cast the ring of fire. A powerful wave of dark mes shot out of Michael''s body. At that moment, extreme coldness met its opposite. The ice crystalyer on the monster''s body shattered along with its silver scales. Green slimy blood sttered across the ground as Michael raised his shield to protect himself from the poisonous blood. With no scales, the monster''s pinkish body was exposed to the world. Fear and shock emerged in the monster''s tiny eyes. It hissed with fear. When Vedora thought the monster''s life was over, the monster pulled its trump card up its sleeves. The monster slowly opened its mouth as Michael felt a powerful force sucking him into its mouth. Michael was left with no time to react. In a blink of an eye, he was in the monster''s mouth. However, the monster couldn''t close its mouth. Michael held its mouth wide open with the doom bringer on its pte.
"We have to help him," said Ayag as Vedora flew toward Michael and the monster.
The monster frantically shook its head, trying to close its mouth and devourer Michael. The light of life was slowly leaving away the monster''s eyes. If one had to guess, one would say the monster had pulled a trick to kill both Michael and itself. Every bit of muscle in Michael''s body tensed as veins bulged up on his face. As soon as Vedora reached the monster, they were surprised to see Michael smiling. No one in their right mind would smile stuck in a monster''s mouth, but he did.
Vedora was speechless. Judging by the smile on his face, they could tell he did not need their help. The monster, on the other hand,pletely ignored Vedora and frantically shook its head left and right, hoping Michael would let go of the doom bringer in his hand.
Chapter 811 Mount Hades
Standing inside the monster''s mouth, Michael held its mouth open with the doom bringer and his other hand. Slowly, Michael moved the hand that was holding the doom bringer down. The monster almost snapped its mouth close, but Michael was strong enough to keep it open with one hand. He then raised the doom bringer as a bone-chilling frost beam shot straight down the monster''s throat. Vedora heard the monster roar in agonizing pain. The monster went crazy. It swings its entire body left and right to throw out Michael. No matter how hard the monster tried to lose Michael and shoot him with a poison blob, it simply couldn''t. Unlike the monster''s outer body, its inside was soft tissue and flesh. The frost from the doom bringer crystalised the monster from within. If Michael wanted, he could send a stream of dark mes into the monster''s throat and burn it from the inside. However, Michael had other ns for the monster. Instead of killing the monster, he froze the monster to the point it stopped struggling. He turned around before hitting the monster''s pte with the doom bringer. The pointy end of the doom bringer hooked into the skin. Michael moved the doom bringer slightly forward as the monster crawled forward like a remotely controlled toy. Vedora was utterly speechless. They thought Michael would kill the monster when he had the chance. Instead, he was driving the monster toward the volcanic mountain in the distance. No one would have dared to make such a daring move. But making such uncanny moves was what made Michael the Dark Lord.
The monster was already half dead. Its poison nds and organs were frozen. Vedora followed behind the monster while keeping a safe distance from it. Only while following the monster did they notice several others, like the monster Michael was riding from its mouth. Some of the Smandepedes were bigger and stronger than the monster before them. Even if Michael had killed one, he would have faced several on his way to the mountain. As much as Michael liked to hunt these monsters down and earn experience points, he valued his life and everything he had achieved till now more. Until the system reached level 10, where he could construct a body for himself in case he was killed, he had to keep himself safe.
The meadows were littered with hundreds of Smadepedes. Coupled with weird gravity that prevented one from flying, even a group of Immortals would be in in the area. The more time they spent in the demons grave, the more Vedora learned the dangers lurking in the realm. This was why even the seasoned Immortals dared not to venture into the demons grave despite the rare and priceless treasures within. A few weeks ago, Noah prepared himself to venture into the demons grave, hoping the ce would temper him and enhance his battle prowess. However, Andreas outright stopped him without giving Noah a choice. Andreas didn''t think Noah was ready for the dangers in the demons grave. To be honest, Andreas was right. Noah would have lost his life in a few hours if he had chosen to enter the realm.
God or no god, one must be at least at the Immortal stage to survive the demons grave. The past Dark Lord made sure of that. Although the demons grave was one of the past Dark Lord''s regrets, only Michael could survive and close the realm. For some reason, the monsters in the demons grave didn''t attack Vedora. Some of the monsters dug into the ground the moment they saw Vedora. Looking at this weird behavior of the monsters, dark lines appeared on Ayag''s forehead. She turned her gaze toward Cain since he was the smartest among the three of them.
"Hey Cain. Did you see how they went inside the ground when they saw us? It''s weird, right?" said Ayag.
After hearing Ayag''s remarks, Sarba shared his thoughts with Cain.
"I also have this strange feeling that we and this ce have some kind of connection,"
They weren''t wrong to have these feelings. But the truth was far more than they could even dream of. Almost four thousand years ago, before the Dark Lord reset the universe, a brutal world-ending war happened between two otherworldly races. The war had two sides. One side had thousands of demons, and the other side had only one fighter, the three-headed hydra, Vedora.
"If so, we will get some answers before we leave this ce," said Cain. He didn''t let Sarba and Ayag know what he felt about this ce. Unlike him, they were influenced by emotions rather than their brain. Until Ghost figured out what had really happened in this realm, Cain didn''t want toe to any conclusions. Eventually, Michael reached the volcanic mountain base. Dark smoke and ash littered the ground as well as the air. The smell of fire nauseated them. As soon as they reached the mountain base, the high temperature caused the iceyer on the monster to crack. After the ice shattered, Michael was afraid of the monster healing back to its full strength. Therefore, Michael cast the ring of fire and Ignitia at the same time. ck lightning bolts crackled around Michael''s hand before hitting the monster''s throat. Following the ck lightning bolt, a stream of dark mes rushed into the monster''s mouth, burning its flesh to well done. The monster roared and squirmed as Vedora''s senses were overwhelmed by the burning flesh. Soon, the monster lost its strength to squirm and copsed down. Its body shrunk as green slimy blood oozed out of its skin.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Half Immortal level 7 monster. The reward is 1,000,000 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15000 Badass points]
Michael heard the system in his mind. Not even a second passed as Michael felt warmth throughout his body. This was a familiar feeling. He had leveled up.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal Level 5]
Vedora flew around the monster''s lifeless body as Michael stepped out of its mouth. Without even looking around the mountain, Michael squatted down the monster''s body and ran his fingers through its scales. After the explosion and fire plus ice attack, the monster lost most of its scales. He fired the dark beams out of his eyes, cutting out the few scales on its body. Vedora saw Michael peeling out the scales with a sickening screeching sound. He seemed unbothered by the blood and gore. On the contrary, he was whistling a strange tune and enjoying collecting the scales.
It took him almost an hour to collect all the scales. At that moment, he sat before a pile of scales. Cain counted thirty-four scales in total. Each of them was diamond shaped in the size of a grown man''s palm. They wondered what Michael could do with so few scales. But after seeing the sorry state of his current armor, their first guess was new armor. After stripping the scales from the monster''s body, Michael raised his hand, firing streams of dark mes from his hands. Without the scales, the monster''s body couldn''t withstand the dark mes. It slowly burned down to a hot pile of ashes and bones. Michael slightly bowed, paying his respect to the monster.
When Michael turned around, he saw Vedora staring at him with bewildered looks on their faces.
"You have something in mind?" Michael asked, tilting his head.
"We are wondering what kind of connection we have with this ce," said Ayag.
Her words reminded Michael of the green glow in Cain''s mouth that resembled the realm tear earlier. Just like Cain, Michael didn''t want to say anything before he learned more about the demons grave. Since the mysterious woman said the demons grave was one of his mistakes, he had a feeling it might be rted to Vedora somehow. But for the time being, Michael decided to stay silent on the matter.
"I''d say let''s explore the ce more before making any assumptions," said Michael.
Ayag heaved a heavy sigh and nodded. Finally, Michael turned his focus to the giant mountain before him. It looked bigger and mightier in close. Once again, Michael tried to ascend into the air but ultimately failed due to gravity.
[The required items needed to forge the dark swords are inside the mountain. It seems like the host has to climb the mountain. I hope you are good at it] The system said. Weirdly, the system sounded amused by his conundrum. The volcanic mountain was none like Michael had ever seen in his life. Its ashen cone would grow hot and, with a great surging and throbbing, pour forth rivers of molten rock from chasms in its sides. Some flowed zing down great channels; some winded their way into the stony in until they cooled andy like twisted dragon shapes vomited from the tormented earth. The heat emanated from the moltenva was enough to burn a Core Formation warrior to dust.
Vedora lifted their heavy heads as the mountain filled all their sight, looming vast before them. The growling mountain sounded like a hungry beast waiting to devour everything with its moltenva. Its cone-shaped top reached for the sky, shrouded in a huge mass of ash and sparks of fire. Just looking at the mountain hurt Michael''s neck. He sighed, thinking of climbing the mountain through the oozingva and uneven terrain. He was a hitman, not a mountain climber. Although he had training climbing walls and mountains, this fuming chimney of a mountain was not an ordinary one that anyone could climb. At Least he had mark three grappling hook to help him climb.
After taking a long deep breath, Michael walked toward the mountain. He grabbed the edges and started to climb up.
"Are you sure about this?" Cain asked Michael.
"Don''t look down. It might help," said Sarba with a worried face.
"Rx. I got this," said Michael.
While Michael was climbing up, a sense of deja vu hit him. He felt like he had climbed the mountain before. But he ignored all the doubts and focused on the task at hand.
Chapter 812 Life With No Regrets
Michael grabbed the edges and slowly climbed up the mountain, with Vedora giving him moral support from the air. Some rocks were wet and slippery, while some were rough and easy to hold onto. When Michael looked over his shoulder, everything on the ground looked eerily small. If climbing wasn''t hard enough, the air was filled with ash that hindered Michael''s sight. The higher he climbed the mountain, the stronger the wind breezed past him. It almost knocked him down every step of the way. After climbing for almost five hours, Michael''s hands went numb. Michael willed the APD to pump him with a healing potion. Another hour passed as Michael climbed quite higher and finally saw a rock formation sticking out of the mountainrge enough for him to sit down.
"CAREFUL!"
Suddenly, Michael''s hand slipped as he hung on the edge with one hand. Vedora flew closer to Michael. If it weren''t for gravity, Vedora would have tried to fly to the top carrying him with their ws. Gravity in the demons grave defied the usual physicalws. It didn''t affect Michael when he was climbing. Instead, it only affected him when he tried to fly. Cain was afraid that if they tried to carry him to the top, gravity would pull them both down to the ground. At that time, all of Michael''s hard world would go down the drain.
"Argh," Michael growled as he slowly adjusted his grip and climbed higher. Finally, after great effort, Michael reached the tform. He slowly pulled himself up and sat on the edge. Michael breathed heavily. When he raised his head, his heart sank. The top of the mountain looked just as far as when he was at the bottom. There was still a long way to go to reach the top.
Sitting on the tform, Michael was able to see most of the demons grave. While he was riding the monster, he didn''t clearly see how many Smandepedes were roaming the meadows. But now, he could see them all. Hundreds of them raised their heads and hissed in the distance. As if the Smandepedes weren''t enough, he noticed giant bats and a colossal size bull in the distance. Even from miles away, the bull looked gigantic. The bull was easily the size of a six-story building. No monsters dared to get near the bull while it grazed the grass peacefully.
"Man, I hope we don''t have to fight that monster," said Sarba. He gasped in shock at the sheer size of the bull.
"Who knows? We might have to,"
Michael''s words stunned Sarba.
"This ce tests everything in me. This mountain is just one of the many tests I have to go through," said Michael. He was certain that this ce was testing him. Despite the cultivation gap between him and the monsters, he couldn''t destroy them easily as he was used to. Not that Michael was weak or nerfed by the demons grave, but the monsters defied the typicalws of cultivation. Even a Fusion stage monster was strong enough to fight a Half Immortal because of their attributes. It was as though the demon''s grave had tempered them and made them evolve somehow. These monsters showed signs of intelligence. A monster with intelligence was far more dangerous than one with no intelligence at the same cultivation stage. With the right strategy, even a weak monster could defeat a stronger opponent.
For a few minutes, Michael just gazed at the realm before him. He collected his thoughts, calming his mind and soul. Eventually, Michael resumed climbing up the mountain with Vedora flying beside him.
"Grab here,"
"This rock looks strong,"
Vedora flew ahead of Michael and found sturdy rocks and edges for Michael to hold onto. They continued climbing the mountain for another hour and then, Vedora noticed something peculiar on the mountain''s surface.
"Look here," Sabra hovered in the air, pointing at a small rock formation that was sticking out of the mountain with a dot of red paint on it. Soon, they found another ledge with a red dot. One by one, Vedora found several rock formations that could be used as more than just holds. Before Vedora could inform Michael about their find, he fired his grappling hook onto the hold with a red dot. Surprisingly, the grappling hook coiled around the rock and let Michael pull himself higher. Since the ce seemed not to have been affected by the past Dark Lord''s time resetting array, Michael had a feeling his past self might have left something to help him on his way. Besides, he felt like he had climbed the mountain before. It was definitely his past self who climbed this mount and left these hook points.
"Did my past self really predict I would climb this mountain again?" Michael questioned himself. With the hook points on the mountain''s surface, Michael was able to climb faster and faster. But he didn''t blindly trust the rock formations as they might have loosened with time. Therefore, Michael studied the hook points with his eyes before firing the grappling hook. Luckily, none of the hook points betrayed him, resulting in a very painful fall. Yet even with the grappling hook, climbing the mountain took Michael hours. By the time he reached halfway to the top, the ce had darkened. With not enough light, Michael didn''t dare to continue climbing. Coupled with volcanic ash in the air, Michael could barely see Vedora let alone the hook points. So he decided to find a tform to rest until the light returned to the ce.
Right before thest light disappeared, Michael found a tform just big enough for him to sit on. His legs were hanging down along with one hand. The rock barely had enough space for him. But he was not in the position to be picky. Instead of trying to rest upon Michael''s shoulder, Vedora chose to hover in the air. Thest thing Vedora wanted was for the rock tform to break down when they sat on Michael.
"Do you think someone else had climbed the mountain before us?" asked Sarba.
"What kind of stupid question is this? Of course someone had climbed this before us. I don''t know if someone had climbed to the top, but someone definitely tried. This ce has been here for five thousand years. That''s a lot of years," Ayag rolled her eyes. Michael had to agree with Ayag. Although the demons grave was treacherous to even Immortals, one must be a fool to think the Great Eight ns didn''t dare to unveil the secrets of this realm. But he wasn''t sure how farther they ventured.
"What must have happened here? The woman said this ce was one of my past self''s mistakes," Michael slowly spoke, looking at the realm around him. Through the volcanic ash, he saw silhouettes of mountain chains, the bull in the distance, and even a tnd that resembled ake. He could only imagine the terrors lurking in these ces.
Suddenly, the mountain trembled. Michael almost bolted to his feet. But the tremor soon stopped. It felt like the volcano inside the mountain was raging to erupt. Gradually, the tremor died down as the mountain returned to its peaceful state.
"People are gonna freak out when they hear we entered the demons grave and survived," said Sarba.
"Imagine what the guardians would think. They are going to spin some story and make us the vige of it," Ayag rolled her eyes. Vedora used to not care about what was happening in the world after they heard their kind was wiped out from the universe. However, they slowly realized Ghost, Gaya, and Nightmare were their family despite everything. After feeling the familial bond with them, Vedora felt they were part of Ghost''s life. They cared about the Order and hated everyone who stood against them. Besides, they were intelligent enough to see who the real enemy of the world is.
"Well, no matter what you do, there will always be someone to point their fingers and criticize you," said Michael. He leaned back on the mountain and gave Vedora a piece of advice about life.
"Thing is, you cannot satisfy everyone. If you live your life thinking about what others might think, you won''t even satisfy yourself. Never look back and regret. Look back and smile at what you have done. Live like that," said Michael with a heavy heart. If what the mysterious woman said was true, his past self had little too many regrets in his life. Even when he saw his past self talk to him in an ethereal form, Michael noticed a strong sense of regret and grief in his eyes. The past Dark Lord might have fooled the world but not Michael. After all, his past self was him. Michael wanted Vedora to have no regrets in their lives.
"Why are you suddenly being so gloomy?" asked Sarba as Michael smiled, hiding his emotions well.
"This ce is one of my regrets, Vedora,"
"It''s not," Sarba shook his head.
"The Dark Lord who lived five thousand years ago is not you," said Sarba.
"He''s literally the same person who used time array to travel through time," said Ayag.
"There is no point in dwelling in the past. Whatever mistake my past self made, I have to own it and rectify it,"
Cain nodded, agreeing with Michael. Then, he spoke what was in his mind.
"Your past self didn''t seem like the one to make mistakes. He might have wanted this ce to exist, for you perhaps,"
Cain''s words made sense to Michael as they always did. Even if his past self made a mistake, he could have fixed it with the system. But since he chose not to, Michael knew there might be a reason behind his reasoning. For the time being, Michael had to climb the mountain and get his hands on the three items needed to forge the pair of dark swords. Without the swords, his battle potential was being suppressed.
"I think this ce is strong enough. Get some sleep while you can. We will reach the top tomorrow. You need to rest," Michael said to Vedora. Soon, Vedora flew to Michael,nding on hisp. They slowly curled up into a ball and closed their eyes. Meanwhile, Michael couldn''t close his eyes. This ce had an unknown effect on him. His mind kept reying the mysterious woman''s words.
Chapter 813 Birth Of The Dark Swords I
The morning in the demons grave was gloomy as ever. A tinge of light lit the horizon that looked like a red canvas. With newly found vigor, the monsters roared. Moltenva flowed out from the top, lighting the mountain with its golden light. Coupled with the morning light, the realm looked brighter than earlier. In the distance, the bats littered the red sky. Strangely, more and more bats appeared on the horizon for some reason. On the other hand, Michael and Vedora resumed their journey toward the top. The higher Michael climbed, the fewer hook points he came across. He hoped to reach the top using only the grappling hook. But on the contrary, he had to use his hands to climb more than the grappling hook. Without looking down, Michael climbed up the mountain. His entire body was drenched in sweat.
"Careful," Sarba warned Michael. Despite the dry air and the heat, the mountain surface looked slimy for some reason. Grabbing the holds turned out to be a pain because of the slimy surface. Still, Michael carefully held onto the edges and moved up on the mountain. He didn''t rush climbing up. Instead, he took every step with caution. Several hours passed in a blink of an eye. He had to use healing potions to keep his hands and legs from going numb. Almost ten hourster, the top of the mountain became close to Michael. With a final use of his grappling hook, Michael climbed up to the top. After lifting his body to the top, Michael just copsed to the ground and breathed heavily. Michael''s chest rose and fell at regr intervals. Meanwhile, Vedora flew away from Michael and saw a giant hole filled with moltenva. The mountain was like a giant well, except it hadva instead of water. Just looking down into the hole made Sarba''s head spin. They quickly flew back to Michael andnded on his chest.
Just as they were about to ask Michael to stand up, the mountain rumbled. Soon, theva erupted for a moment, throwing a ssh ofva outside. Michael immediately kicked up to his feet. Moltenva glistened on the ground like a gooey orange cake. Ayag was tempted to have a taste, but she was not that stupid. Michael slowly walked to the edge and looked down at the boilingva down. He felt like he was staring at the sun itself. The moltenva inside the mountain was too bright and hot enough to melt down a Fusion stage warrior like a wax statue. The volcano remained dormant, hiding the terror and destruction within. Once it erupts, he could imagine how much damage it would do. Fortunately, the demons grave was void of poption.
"Hey, look, your robes," Sarba''s shout broke Michael''s concentration. He quickly turned around and saw his long coat was on fire due to the extreme heat in the air. Crimson red mes engulfed his long coat as Michael immediately took it off and threw it on the floor. In a blink of an eye, the mes reduced his once stylish ck long coat to nothing but ash. The long coat had been with him since his first day in this world.
Vedora saw Michael squat before the pile of ash and grab a handful,
"Rest in peace, old friend," said Michael. Even though it was just a lifeless piece of clothing, Michael shared a connection with it. After all, he bought it from the system when he first came to this world. At that moment, he felt like a piece of him had left him. But he could only sigh and buy another one from the system store. For now, he chose not to, as the heat would only burn it down again. At Least his trousers escaped the heat, but Michael was prepared to lose them too. Once again, Michael walked to the edge to look around the mountain. ording to the system, the required items to forge his dark swords were somewhere inside the mountain.
Dark volcanic ash hundred Michael''s eyesight. To remedy the situation, Michael simply raised his hand as a powerful gust of wind cleared the area around him of the ash. As a result, he was able to see the mountain beneath him more clearly. Finally, Michael saw the narrow pathways around the crater. These pathways were just wide enough for one man to walk. But any misstep would lead straight into the boiling volcano. Instead of dropping down the pathways, Michael flicked his wrist as a drone materialized above him. However, the drone shattered into pieces due to the intense heat. Michael hoped it wouldn''t happen, but it did. The only option Michael had was personally walking the narrow pathway. Seeing no point in lingering around, Michael slowly climbed down toward the pathway. He pushed his body against the wall and slowly walked down. Step by step, Michael walked the narrow path.
"If I trip down, grab me by my cor and give me a second to use the grappling hook," Michael said to Vedora. Obviously, Vedroa couldn''t fly away carrying Michael because then gravity would pull both of them down. But if Vedora grabbed him by his cor, it would give him a second to react and use either the teleportation scroll or the grappling hook to escape the well of moltenva beneath him.
"System, can you pinpoint the location?" Michael asked the system.
[How about the host paying the system a hundred thousand badass points to show you the entrance?]
"Do it," Michael immediately agreed to the deal. Normally, Michael would have preferred finding the entrance by himself, but the situation dictated otherwise. Any misstep would be life-threatening. So he was not in the situation to bitch with the system. After the system took the agreed amount, a glow appeared in the corner of Michael''s sight. A part of the walls on the other side was glowing.
[Try not to fall down, host] said the System. Michael sensed a bit of sick humor in its voice. If the crater containing theva was a circle, Michael had to go to the opposite end to reach the glow. The narrow path was already crumbling down bits and pieces at a time. But Michael surprised the system by climbing back to the top. Vedora frowned as they had no idea why Michael suddenly climbed back to the top.
"What happened? You got cold feet?" Ayag tilted her head.
[What are you up to, host?] the system also seemed surprised and questioned Michael.
"Using my brain, that''s all," Michael thought. Then, he started to walk around the crater to reach the glow instead of the narrow path. The mountain''s top was broader and more stablepared to the narrow path. So why did Michael have to risk himself walking the narrow path when he had a much better alternative? Except for the strong wind that tried to push him down, the current path had no downsides at all. Vedora followed behind Michael, having no idea what had just happened.
"Where are you going?" asked Sarba.
"We''ll see," Michael mumbled as he continued on his path. Eventually, he reached directly above the glow. He took a deep breath before climbing down the mountain. In a few seconds, Michaelnded on the narrow path. The glow on the mountain surface slowly faded away. But to the naked eye, the mountain''s surface had no strange symbols or runes. Instead, it looked brownish with the volcano ash covering its surface.
Michael ran his fingers through the surface, trying to see if there was something engraved in it. Yet he found nothing.
"It must be somewhere here," Michael said to himself. Then, he activated his X-ray vision. As soon as his eyes turned blue, he saw a dark square on the surface. Michael ced his palm on the dark square. Suddenly, a bolt of electricity ran down his spine through his hand. Sarba sensed the sudden spike in energy around them. Before he could question Michael, the mountain surface trembled. To Vedora''s surprise, the mountain''s surface slowly creaked open like a secret door, revealing a dark corridor leading up somewhere. Michael took a deep breath before walking into the dark corridor with Vedora following him behind. After they took several steps into the corridor, the door closed behind them. Everything turned pitch ck.
"Do you smell that?" asked Sarba, sniffing the air.
"What?"
"The air¡it smells like oil," said Sarba.
"He is right," Michael agreed with Sarba. In addition to oil, he could also smell a tinge of metal smell in the air. To light their path ahead, Michael conjured a ball of crimson-red mes. The mes dimly lit the dark ce as Michael walked through the corridor. For a while, nothing came across his path. Even Vedora didn''t utter a word. Hence, silence took over them. Seconds slowly turned minutes, and each minute felt like an eternity. As much as Michael loved peace and quiet, he wanted something to happen. Otherwise, he was afraid of being bored to death.
As though the universe had listened to his plea, the corridor opened up to a spacious hall. Michael halted his steps in utter shock. A brightly lit hall with various iron tools and tables weed him. The light wasing from theva oozing down the walls into the giant braziers. Everywhere Michael turned, he saw iron hammers, tools, and a giant anvil in the center. On the hall''s corner was a furnace big enough to be called a room. In addition, there was also aplex system of pipes running across the ceiling, and a few metal tubes connected to the system hung down, swaying in the hot air.
"A forge," Michael mumbled under his breath.
[If the host is willing to buy the special dark ore and hilt, you can start forging the pair of dark swords in this very forge] the system sounded in his head. Hearing its words, the cksmith living in Michael became excited. To be honest, he thought he would find a few special items. But he waspletely caught off guard by the forge before him. The previous Dark Lord forged his swords in this very forge. And now, Michael was about to forge something better.
Chapter 814 Birth Of The Dark Swords II
Michael stepped into the forge as the hall brightened. The forge weed its master by providing more light and heat to the hall. Without a doubt, the ce looked ancient. Everything in the forge was covered in thick ash, and some of the little tools were rusted to the point there was no chance of restoring them. Michael looked for something that might give him a clue or two about the forge''s origins. While looking around the room, arge anvil drew his attention to the center of the forge. As a 5-Star cksmith, he could tell a gorgeous anvil when he saw one. He ran his fingers through the anvil, wiping off the dust on its surface. Excitement coursed through his veins as he saw the vise, a beautifully crafted piece of contraption used to hold objects securely while they were worked on. It was made of a darkish metal and seemed it could
holdrge and heavy objects as its jaws had a grip that could exert considerable pressure. This forge was a cksmith''s dreame true. Finally, Michael turned his gaze toward the heart of any forge, the furnace. Whoever built the forge chose to build the furnace in the wall and let the smoke go straight to the mountain''s top. No one would be able to tell the difference between volcanic fumes and the smokeing from the forge. Although the forge had many intricate gears and small contraptions inside to make it more efficient, Michael could only see the rectangle hole into which the metal ores or the iron works should be put. On the side, Michael saw a lever and a rotating button built into the wall.
"Pull the lever and see what happens," said Ayag. Her eyes glistened with curiosity, just like Sarba''s. Michael already had a pretty good guess of what it would do. But he pulled the lever to confirm his assumption. The lever was considerably harder to pull. It took a bit of force to pull down. A normal person had no chance of pulling down the lever since even Michael had to use his strength. After he pulled down the level, nothing happened for a while. Then, the forge trembled slightly. The temperature in the air rose by several degrees. A gust of wind shot out of the furnace, pushing out the ash. The furnace suddenly lit up as gooeyva oozed into it from above. It was like hot chocte except hotter and brighter, like liquid gold. Michael immediately felt the intense heat from theva. On the other hand, the rotating button had an arrow pointing up. He rotated the button anticlockwise, expecting it would somehow reduce the heat. An oven, that was what this furnace reminded him of. After rotating the button, a strong gust of wind mixed with cold air sprayed onto theva. Gradually theva lost its heat and became bearable.
''I wonder where that cold air ising from," Cain frowned. Michale had the same question until he used his thermal vision and found the source of the cold air. His X-ray vision vaguely showed something familiar to Michael, an ancient ice core.
"Makes sense," Michael mumbled under his breath.
"What is?" asked Sarba.
"You asked how the cold air is produced. It''sing from the ancient ice core built within the furnace," said Michael.
[Congrattions to the host for finding three out of five requirements to forge the Dark Swords]
The system''s notification inside a golden tab blocked his vision. He was confused for a moment but after looking around the forge, he realized the meaning of the system''s words.
"So the three requirements were anvil, vise, and this furnace?" Michael asked the system.
The system didn''t answer. But its silence spoke volumes. Now that he had a forge, he only needed the ore and the hilt to forge the dark swords.
[The dark ore and the hilt will cost the host one million badass points]
[The host is four hundred thousand badass points short of one million. The system suggests the host get a loan for six hundred thousand badass points]
Michael sighed inside after hearing the system''s words. Most of his badass points went back to the system when he bought the blueprint for the torpedo and dark swords. Luckily, his journey into the demons grave awarded him enough badass points to reach six hundred thousand badass points. Still, he needed four hundred thousand to buy the ore and hilt for the dark swords.
"How much do I have to pay you back after the loan?" asked Michael.
[Seven hundred thousand badass points]
As much as Michael hated loans, he had to take one from the system. Having a pair of swords that could withstand the dark mes would give him an overwhelming advantage in any battle. His excitement overshadowed his hesitation about taking a loan.
"I agree," said Michael as the system immediately gave him an additional six hundred thousand badass points. For a moment, he had one million and three hundred thousand badass points. This amount was short-lived as the system took one million points for the ore and the hilt. A secondter, two bars of dark metal materialized on the table before Michael.
[The hilt will be given to the host at thest steps of forging the dark swords] said the system.
Vedora was surprised by the sudden appearance of dark metal bars. They quicklynded beside the metal bars and studied the two bars. These bars were as dark as midnight. They were smooth and heavier than they looked. Vedora couldn''t even move the bars an inch.
"This is heavy," Ayag growled, trying to move the bar with her head. Michael grabbed one bar and lifted it up.
"You are right," Michael agreed with Ayag. The metal bar was damn heavy as it made his biceps bulge up. Although the metal bar was the size of a standard smartphone, it weighed at least two hundred kilograms. Michael couldn''t help wondering how heavy his swords would be. He hoped they wouldn''t be as heavy as the metal bars. With the metal bar in his hand, Michael looked around. He noticed a cauldron near the furnace. Vedora flew to the cauldron and carried it to Michael in their ws.
"Let''s begin," Michael removed his ck arm cut and threw it to the side. It restricted his movements. Then, Michael ced the two metal bars into the cauldron. After he ced the two metal bars into the cauldron, it became too heavy for Vedora to carry. Hence, Michael carried the cauldron to the furnace and hung it above the hotva. When he hung the cauldron, he noticed a pipe hanging directly above the cauldron. He followed the pipe to the table in the center. Strange enough, there was another pipe hanging with its end open.
"Hey Ghost, look. There''s a symbol engraved in here," Sarba raised his voice, hovering beside the dark metal pipe. Michael came to take a closer look at the pipe. As Sarba said, there was a tiny symbol engraved in the pipe. He could make out a shape like ''D'' and mes.
"Dark mes?" Michael questioned himself as he conjured the dark mes. The temperature in the forge rose by several degrees as soon as the dark mes appeared. Michael pushed the dark mes into the metal pipe. To his surprise, the metal pipe hanging above the cauldron released a purple me into the cauldron. Somehow, the ancient ice core tempered the dark mes and released purplish mes on the other end. This purple me wasn''t as hot and violent as the dark mes, but it still had the characteristics of the dark mes. The purple mes heated the cauldron in a blink of an eye. Soon, the cauldron turned dim orange on the edges. But when Michael stopped sending dark mes into the pipe, the purple mes stopped at the other end. Michael didn''t think he would need to send dark mes to melt all the metals. The hotva was hot enough to achieve that feat. However, the dark metal required dark mes. Having no other option, Michael sent a stream of dark mes into the metal pipes. Several runes in the metal pipe lit up, protecting them from melting down under the dark me''s intense heat.
''
Several hours passed by in a blink of an eye. When Vedora flew closer to the cauldron, they saw the dark metal bars finally melting down. Surprisingly, tiny crimson-red lightning bolts crackled around the cauldron. They formed from gooey dark metal. Everything around the cauldron darkened as the forge trembled. Michael ignored the tremor and continued to send dark mes into the pipe. As a cksmith, he knew when to stop sending the dark mes and let the metal cool off for a while. The forging of dark swords was very different from typical sword forging. Almost an hourter, Michael moved away from the metal pipe. Then, he searched for a metal block and found one buried deep under all the rusted tools and metal works.
He carried the block of metal on his shoulder and put it on the table with a loud thud. Due to the forge''s heat, Michael was sweating bullets. But he enjoyed himself working as a cksmith. The metal block was a long rectangle with three meters long and a meter wide. In addition, it was at least ten inches thick. Under Vedora''s curious gaze, Michael fired dark beams out of his eyes and created a sword shape hollow in the metal block. The shape was neither too long nor too short. After the metal bars melted, he would have to pour the liquid metal into the shape and harden the metal. Since he was about to forge two swords, Michael found another metal block and repeated the process, except the second sword was just a few inches longer than the first.
As Michael was preparing everything to forge his new swords, the braziers around him flickered. Michael put down the tongs and looked around the ce. For some reason, the mes above the braziers dimmed out. Then, Michael felt everything go dead silent. To Michael''s surprise, a holographic image of himself appeared right above the table he was working on.
"Wee to our forge," said the Dark Lord.
Chapter 815 Birth Of The Dark Swords III
The sudden appearance of the past Dark Lord surprised Michael. But deep down, he expected the Dark Lord to leave a holographic recording of himself. The moment Michael stepped into the forge, he felt like he owned this ce. For a few seconds, the Dark Lord''s image flickered in the air. The device he left had been lying dormant for thousands of years. It was a miracle the device was still in working condition.
"I knew you would find the forge. Listen carefully. By the time of this recording, I don''t know how long this message willst or when you will reach the ce," said the Dark Lord. He talked to Michael with his hands behind his back. Unlike earlier, the Dark Lord looked relieved and even had a smile on his face.
"I have made some mistakes. That''s what makes me human. But soon, everything would go back to normal. I hope you have found some of the armor pieces I left behind. Find them all and forge yourself a new one. Trust me, you will need it soon. I know you will feel frustrated by all the cryptic messages. To be honest, I''d too. But this time array and time travel are not as simple as we think. Even now, I can''t tell you my whole story as much as I want to. Our friend strictly ordered me not to," The Dark Lord emphasized the words ''our friend''. Michael had a feeling he was talking about the system. Since the system itself ordered him not to reveal his story, Michael couldn''t me the past Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord smiled. Michael was pleased to see his past self smile.
"This forge is my gift to you, along with my hammer. You need it to forge powerful weapons and armor. If my guess is right, you might be in a financial mess, and that''s why you are here in the first ce. When this recording is over, you will receive something that will open up a portal directly to this forge. But you must build a powerful portal in your castle first if you hadn''t already," The Dark Lord paused for a moment and looked around as though he was searching for something. Meanwhile, Michael was delighted to hear he could travel to the demons grave and to the forge from his castle. It seemed like his past self was more powerful and resourceful than he initially thought. Which made Michael wonder more about what the hell happened that pushed him to reset the entire universe. He had a feeling it was connected to Gaya but didn''t know the whole story behind the past Dark Lord''s reasoning.
"Where the hell did it go?" the past Dark Lord searched for something frantically. A few secondster, he turned his focus back to Michael.
"The monsters you fought on your way here, they were modified by an asshole to fight me. Of course, I could kill them with a snap, but I don''t think it would be true for you. So tread carefully. And keep Vedora out of trouble. I really miss the time when they were tiny and cute. The grownup Vedora," The past Dark Lord sighed and let out an exhausted smile.
Vedora frowned as Ayag almost hissed at the Dark Lord.
"After your trip to the demons grave, I hope they still call the ce that, your life will get a whole lot tougher. But here''s a piece of advice from yourself to you, not everything is ck and white. Also, don''t always go for the kill. Some of our enemies are far more valuable alive than dead," as he said, the Dark Lord turned around and walked to his work table. Due to some reason, Michael couldn''t clearly see the table or what he was working on. The time had corroded the recording and made it impossible to see anything other than the Dark Lord.
"This array will fix everything," Michael heard the Dark Lord mumble. Then, he turned around once again.
"What else I thought about telling you?" The Dark Lord rubbed his chin for a moment,
"Ah yes," The Dark Lord snapped his finger, showing his sudden realization.
"Finish your castle as soon as you can and spare no expense. You have no idea how many tried to prate mine and lost their lives. Sooner orter, you will get tired of all the killings," The Dark Lord paused as his expression grew darker.
"Don''t get tired. Because you are just starting your life as the Dark Lord. Always provide a reason for the people to fear you,"
"My lord," suddenly, Michael heard another voice. It sounded wise and elderly, but he had heard this voice before.
"Elidyr?" Michael frowned. He sounded old, very old.
"Are you recording another message for yourself again?" Elidyr asked the Dark Lord like a strict father. Unfortunately, Michael couldn''t see Elidyr in the recording.
"Hey, is that Elidyr I am hearing?" Ayag asked Cain and Sarba in a husky voice.
"I think so," Sarba nodded.
"You cannot leave these messages everywhere, my lord. It will create unwanted branches in the timeline. You already took a big risk by breaking down your armor and leaving them behind. Who knows what catastrophe it''s going to bring?" Elidyr yelled at the Dark Lord.
"Look on the bright side, Elidyr. We won''t be here to see it," The Dark Lord shrugged.
"Come on. Finish what you are doing. We have a lot to do in a short time," said Elidyr.
"You became grumpier with age. Rx and give me some time alone with myself," The Dark Lord looked over his shoulder and winked at Michael. The Dark Lord waited until Elidyr left the room.
"Huugh," The Dark Lord sighed.
"I am going to miss many things, but grumpy Elidyr is not one of them. Try to find a way to stop him from getting older, because you do not want him to. Trust me," The Dark Lord chuckled.
"Who am I kidding? I am going to miss that old elf. It feels good to have someone look you in the eyes and lecture you," said the Dark Lord. At the peak of his life, no one dared even look at him, let alone lecture him. Almost the entire world trembled at the mere mention of his name. Only a few people existed in his timeline who had the guts to speak their minds before him. Elidyr was one of them. Just by looking into the Dark Lord''s eyes, Michael could tell how much he would miss his world. The Dark Lord sacrificed everything so Michael could fix his mistakes and live the life he deserved. Soon, the hologram began to flicker.
"Despite his advice, I will still leave some recordings for you. Take care of everyone and everything. Who knows, we might even meet at some point. After all, time is a mysterious thing, and life is full of surprises," After these words escaped the Dark Lord''s mouth, he vanished into thin air. As soon as he disappeared, the table before Michael trembled. A copper ring big enough to fit in his hand materialized on the table. With another tremor, a silver hammer with many intricate runes engraved in it appeared. At first, Michael gently grabbed it and studied the ring.
"Is that a portal?" asked Ayag as Michael nodded.
"With this, we can get in and out of the demons grave as we please," said Michael with a grin. Countless ideas popped into his mind and made him excited for the journey ahead. However, his excitement was doused by the Dark Lord himself when he appeared again above the table once again in the holographic form.
"And forgot to tell you, the monsters in this realm aren''t your typical XP farm. Every death makes someone I can''t name strong. Don''t make your enemies stronger," The Dark Lord warned Michael. Judging by the serious tone of his voice, Michael let go of the idea of farming Experience points by killing the monsters here.
"What did he mean by XP farm?" Sarba asked his siblings, but they seemed confused as a child lost in a parade.
After warning Michael, the Dark Lord''s figurepletely vanished into thin air. The Dark Lord left Michael with more questions than answers. For instance, Michael wanted to know who created these monsters in the demons grave, as well as how he would grow stronger with the death of each monster. The more time Michael spent in the realm, the more he realized there was more to this ce than meets the eye.
Finally, Michael took a deep breath and decided to clean the mess in the forge. Returning to the metal pipe, Michael sent a stream of dark mes and continued to melt the dark metal bars. Although he was focused on forging the swords and cleaning the forge, he couldn''t help wondering about everything he had heard from the past Dark Lord.
Michael lost track of time working the forge. While Vedora was asleep on the table, he continued to melt down the metal bars. After two days, to be exact, Michael saw the metal barspletely melt and take a liquid form. He covered his palms with dark mes and lifted up the cauldron with dark metal liquid inside. Sweat beads formed on his forehead as he slowly carried the cauldron to the table. When he reached the table, he slowly poured out the ck liquid into the metal block with the sword-shaped hollow. The ck liquid ran through the hollow, slowly taking the shape of a sword. After filling both metal blocks, Michael ced the cauldron on the floor. A typical cksmith would wait for the liquid to harden, but Michael was anything but typical. Hence, he took out his Doom bringer and summoned frost to cool down the ck liquid. The ck liquid sizzled as tiny red lightning bolts cracked around the metal block. Somehow, the dark metal created these tiny lightning bolts. These lightning bolts crackled around the ck liquid like tiny guardians.
Michael focused the frost beam toward the ck liquid, tempering the metal. Even with the frost beam, the ck liquid took hours before slowly starting to harden. He then grabbed the hammer, preparing to douse the dark swords into hotva and shape it up.
Chapter 816 The Dark Swords
Several hours passed in a blink of an eye. At that moment, the forge was filled with the sound of a hammer hitting the metal. Michael was alone in the forge, peacefully forging his dark swords. Vedora was asleep after helping Michael clean up the forge. After Michael spent hours sweeping the floor, cleaning up the walls, and destroying all the rusted metal works, the forge looked pristine. Almost all the tools needed to forge powerful weapons and armor were readily avable in the forge except for ores and some other materials. Standing before the anvil, Michael raised his hammer and brought it down on the ck sword. His muscles twitched and bulged up as he kept hitting the sword with the hammer. Michael was drenched in sweat as he looked like he had just bathed. Even after the dark metal cooled down, it radiated a strange heat that was powerful enough to melt a man''s skin.
Usually, a heated sword would be submerged in oil or water in some situations. On the contrary, Michael had moltenva in one metal barrel and bone-chilling ice created by the ancient ice core in another. The dark sword was slowly taking the shape Michael wanted it to. Its surface was crimson red after being hit by the hammer repeatedly. Finally, Michael raised the sword and submerged it in theva. The sword remained submerged inva for a while until Michael couldn''t hold it by the end. His palms were bloody red due to the heat. When he took out the dark sword, hotva oozed out from its surface. Michael immediately submerged the sword again in the frost beside theva. The ice sizzled, turning into vapor because of the intense heat. As soon as he put the sword in the ice, countless tiny crimson-red lightning bolts crackled around the dark sword.
"Few more hours to go," Michael mumbled under his breath before taking out the second sword and repeating the same process. As though nature itself had sensed the birth of Dark Swords, the sky above the mountain darkened. Unknown to Michael, a lightning storm was raging outside. As a result, the monsters outside were terrified to the core. The demons grave had never seen heavy rain or a storm in thousands of years. But at that moment, the storm raged outside, along with hundreds of lightning bolts striking the realm from above. Michael paid no attention to the weather outside.
*******************************************
Ayag slowly opened her eyes to the sound of rumbling thunder. The mountain trembled as thunderps echoed through the realm. Her vision was slightly blurred after the long nap. She shook her head, clearing her sight. Sarba and Cain woke up after her and saw Michael''s back. To their surprise, they felt a strange, powerful energy in the forge. Moreover, they couldn''t help hearing a strange buzzing noise.
"Hey, you finished the swords?" asked Ayag. Michael slowly turned around with his new swords in his hand. Just the simple look of the dark swords stunned them speechless. The de was as dark as midnight, with tiny crimson-red lightning bolts dancing around from the tip to the hilt. Lighting from the braziers was reflected on the de''s surface. In the faint light, Vedora noticed theplex engravings and runes, but they were almost unnoticeable to the naked eye. Any oblivious man could tell how exceptional the swords were. Michael gave the de a matte ck finish and designed the hilt like a dragon coiling around the sword. Unlike any other swords in the world, the dark swords were exceptionally heavy. Each sword weighed at least fifty kilograms and required immense raw power to swing around. But despite their weight, the swords were perfectly bnced. The swords were ck from top to bottom except for the hilt, where the dragons had a tinge of redness, and their eyes glimmered icy blue due to the use of an ancient ice core.
If the swords were not dashing enough, the lightning bolts crackling around the de added an extrayer of beauty to them.
"Let us see how sharp they are," Ayag asked curiously as Michael turned his gaze to the barrel with hotva inside. He swung the dark sword across the barrel. When he swung the sword, the crackling noise sounded louder. Then, nothing happened for a second. Ayag frowned, but soon, half of the metal barrel slid down from its lower half.
Michael felt no resistance from the metal barrel. To be honest, he didn''t even feel cutting the metal barrel. The dark sword went through the metal barrel like a hot knife through very soft butter.
"Wow," Even Cain was surprised by the dark swords.
"Just need to put a summoning rune on them when we return home," said Michael, swinging the swords in the air. Michael finally put the dark swords into the sheathes on his back. They formed an ''X'' on his back. This way, he could unsheath them faster than from the sheaths hanging on his waists. Plus, it would look cooler. With his dark swords finished, he could finally venture deep into the realm. He threw a final look at the forge and prepared to leave the ce.
"What do you say we take these babies for a trial run?" asked Michael as Vedroa bobbed their heads up and down enthusiastically. Michael exited the forge through the corridor he came in the first ce. Eventually, he reached the mountaintop and stood on the edge, looking at the realm before him. The sky was alive as heavy rain crashed furiously to the ground. Ancient trees in the distance toppled, lightning shattered the sky, and thunder shook the ground. Rain began to pour furiously, and monstrous tornadoes littered the realm. This storm was the worst Michael had ever seen. Rain fell like bullets, destroying anything and everything in its path. Out of nowhere, a loud thunderp resonated in the sky. Michael stood there on edge, a step away from falling down.
Due to the intense heating from the boilingva, the droplets were vaporized before they could even reach theva. Still, the vapor created a thick white mist around Mount hades.
"Look," Ayag pointed at the horizon as Michael saw a giant bat flying in his direction. As though the dark swords had sensed the threat, they produced more lightning bolts. These bolts crackled around the sheath as well as Michael. Cracking his neck, Michael took a step forward, dropping down from the mountain. Gravity pulled him down with enough force to create arge crater in the ground when hended. If someone else fell from the mountain, their bones would have shattered to pieces, and their body would have turned into bloody mush. But Michaelfortablynded on his feet.
He slowly walked forward as the bat flew closer and closer to Michael. The bat was at a Half Immortal stage, several times stronger than the bat he fought outside the demons grave. Michael unsheathed his dark swords and waited for the bat to attack him. The bat was big enough to cast arge shadow on the ground. When it flew closer to him, Michael heard a strange noiseing from its mouth. He stood still as the bat dived down to rip him apart with its ws. Finally, the bat was just a few meters away from Michael''s head. In a blink of an eye, Michael threw the dark sword at the bat. The sword soared through the air like a bullet and went straight through the bat''s chest. Blood sttered on the ground as the bat had a hole in its chest. The sword went clean through its chest and came outside.
The bat roared in pain before crashing down to the ground. Screaming in pain, the bat pped its wings frantically. But no matter how hard it tried to fly away, the bat simply couldn''t. The dark sword prated its very heart. Vedora snickered at the bat as the bat roared with its eyes burning with pain and rage. Then, Vedora flew away to pick up the dark sword Michael threw. While Michael made his way to the bat with the second dark sword in his hand. The bat crawled backward in fear.
"Tsk tsk tsk," Michael showed his disapproval of the bat''s actions by shaking his head. The bat could have avoided death if it chose to fly the other way. Although the past Dark Lord warned him about killing the monsters recklessly, he would not let go of those who attacked him alive. Since the bat tried to kill him, it was only fair that he returned the favor.
By the time Michael was just an arm reaching distance from the bat, Vedora had returned to him carrying his other sword in its legs. The bat groaned as Michael pressed its ws under his feet. When Michael clenched the swords tighter, the engravings on the de lit up. He just swung the dark swords as the bat''s head flew off of its shoulder.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Half Immortal Stage level 4 monster. The reward is 1,000,000 Experience points and 25,000 Badass points]
Michael heard the system in his head. These dark swords were powerful enough to kill any immortals. They didn''t need to be infused with an Immortal bone like a typical immortal killing weapon. It took Michael only one swing to cut the bat''s head clean off. Without its head, the bat''s body violently twitched, sshing blood all over the ce.
Only then did Michael realize how powerful his swords were. He regretted not forging them way earlier. With these swords, his battle prowess shot through the roof. Vedora was stunned to see the dead bat on the ground. The battle literallysted for a few seconds. Outside the demons grave, the Fusion stage bat gave Michael a headache as Ayag had to use her power to disrupt its powers. But now, Michael killed the bat in a few seconds. After killing the bat, Michael flicked his sword, removing the blood on the de.
"It''s a pity. I was thinking of covering the des with the dark mes," Michael sighed.
"Not to jinx the situation, but I have a feeling we wille across more monsters on our way," said Sarba.
"Speaking of which, where are we going next?" asked Ayag.
"To a gold mine," said Michael.
Chapter 817 Another World Within The Demons Grave
Killing the bat was only the first step of his big n in the demons grave. Michael didn''t slow down or seek shelter despite the raging storm and the heavy rain. Granted, the storm and the rain made the terrain wet and walking difficult, but it also terrified the monsters. Everywhere Michael looked, he saw no monster. Even the colossal bull he saw from the mountain was nowhere to be seen. Lightning cracked the red sky, sending heaven''s light through the storms. Even the rain came in orchestrated rhythm, appearing as the master of the scene yet arriving on unheard cues. The wind ran as if it had been restrained for time out of mind, and it was determined to outrun any chaser. The sound of it was a strange song, as if howling yearned for a melody. Michael waspletely drenched in the rain.
"We''ve been walking for hours," Sarba said, sitting on Michael''s shoulder.
"Don''t you have a spare long coat? I hate getting wet," Ayagined. As she said, Michael wore nothing to cover his upper body except the sheathe on his back. In his deep thinking, Michael didn''t hear Ayag and Sarba. Instead, he was more focused on forming alchemy forms in his head. There were no monsters or a threat to break Michael''s concentration. He didn''t even mind the raging storm.
"He''s not listening to us, is he?" asked Ayag as Cain shook his head. Michael crossed the meadows after almost five hours and saw ake in the distance. Michael''s destination was deep within theke, ording to the system. Thanks to his Alchemist profession, Michael concocted a pill that enabled him to breathe underwater. If it wasn''t for the high pressure under theke, he could have used his mask. Since it wasn''t the case, Mciaehl had to connect this pill using extremely rare herbs from his herbal garden in the Sunrise sect.
Even in an eerie ce like the demons grave, theke glistened like a ruby under the red sky. In thatnd of creeping beautyy a disc of brightest red. Theke was brighter than the colors of one''s dreams. It was the minerals of the cier that shone cyan, turquoise, and ruby red.
Like a mirror on the wall, it was oval and t. The surface was forever guarded against the winds by the crown of barren hills around. At the edge, thend met and carried right on as a perfect reflection. Looking up into the sky and down into the water was just the same.
Although Michael sensed several monsters around him, none dared to attack him. Michael had a feeling the red lightning bolts around the dark swords had something to do with it. As usual, he asked the system about these lightning bolts but received no answer from it. Whenever the system went silent when he asked a question, it raised Michael''s concern. For instance, the system gave no exnation or answers about the mysterious woman he met outside the demons grave. Sometimes, Michael had to figure things out on his own without the system''s help.
"I hope you like getting wet," said Michael as Ayag rolled her eyes.
"I just said I hate getting wet. You are a jerk, Ghost," She bit Michael''s ear. Nibbling Ayag''s head, Michael walked closer and closer to theke. With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a sapphire blue pill and tossed it into his mouth. His muscles immediately ached, especially the back of his ears. It felt like someone was burning his skin with cigarettes. The painsted for a few minutes. Then, Vedora saw several gashes appearing behind his ears. Without wasting any time, Michael dived into theke, swimming deeper and deeper.
As his body moved through the clear water, he was surprised to see the golden sand and the sight around him. The first thing that caught his eye was the variety of sea life. Hundreds of fishes in every color of the rainbow and more swam past him without fearing him. Some big fishes floatedzily as others disappeared with a flick of a bright fin. For ake in a demons grave, it was artistic, to say the least. Luckily, Vedora didn''t need any pill or potion to breathe underwater. They swam along with Michael like expert swimmers. As they were following Michael, their attention turned to the expanse of a coral reef that stretched as far as one could see. They nketed the golden sand like a colorful bed sheet. Surprisingly, everything underwater was full of color and life. The red lighting from the dark swords illuminated the closest section of the reef, highlighting a formation of corals. Each section of coral was beautifully formed, but none was quite like any other.
Michael was tempted to harvest some and put them in theke near the castle. However, Michael was the type of person who would rather see a flower in a nt than in someone''s head.
"What is that?" Ayag asked her siblings in telepathy, looking at an octopus. The creature peeked its head over through the coral and gawked at them with its big eyes. Soon, the octopus moved through the coral, revealing itself for a moment before shrinking back into a crevasse. A hidden gem amongst corals ¨C one of many. The deeper Michael swam, the prettier theke turned out to be. Many unknown creatures buried themselves under the sand. The entireke was like a treasure chest, enclosing unfathomable treasures in ever smallest sliver. Everything was deadly silent around Michael. But this silence was short-lived. Suddenly, they heard a chittering noise. When Michael looked over his shoulder, he saw five creatures that resembled dolphins skim by. With water all around them, they almost seemed to fly, moving effortlessly. Propelling their sleek bodies swiftly forwards with a flick of a gray tail. ording to the system, Michael still had a long way to reach his destination. He wondered how the things he needed could exist underwater. A whileter, Michael was surprised to see a shipwreck. He wanted to investigate the shipwreck even though it didn''t seem to have any treasures. But when he was about to swim toward the wreck, his view was obscured by a huge shark that driftedzily by, pushing Michael and Vedora aside with the water it disced. A whale shark, mouth stretched wide to gather food. To Michael''s surprise, the shark was at the half Immortal stage. If Michael wanted, he could fight the shark and kill it easily. However, blood might attract more sharks, and if they were also at the Half Immortal stage, he would be in trouble. Like it or not, Michael was in their home ground. Besides, he wanted to reach his destination without wasting his energy. After all, who knew how many enemies he would have to face there?
Michael slowly swam away from the shipwreck and the shark without making any sound. Finally, when he put a safe distance between him and the shark, a swarm of shining goldfish coiled and winded their way past. They lit the underwater like a swarm of fireflies, sending glints of light in every direction. On the golden sand, oysters and colorful shells were scattered everywhere. They were a living explosion of beauty. Limpets glued themselves to rocks, setting themselves in like jewels in a ne. Michael scooped up a shell from the sand and put it in the system storage as a souvenir.
Eventually, an archway appeared in his sight. It was definitely man-made and contained a realm tear in the center. Unlike the emerald green realm tear that served as the entrance to the demons grave, this realm tear radiated an icy blue light. Michael''s eyes were lit with excitement. If everything went ording to his n, he could put an end to their financial blunder. Even the God of Darkness depended on gold coins to grow his army and build his castle.
Michael pped his legs, dashing toward the realm tear. He was actually surprised, but it made sense. The realm tear made him realize the things he needed were in another realm. A realm within a realm.
"This ce keeps surprising me," Michael said to himself as he tried to enter through the realm tear. But an invisible force pushed him away.
"What the hell?" Michael creased his brows.
"What happened?" Ayag asked Michael wordlessly. Unlike Michael, Vedora felt no resistance from the realm tear. Once again, Michael moved toward the realm tear, and this time, he resisted the force. Michael quickly used his X-ray vision to see an energy dome around the archway. Michael unsheathed his dark swords. Then, he swung the swords, cutting the invisible dome. The dark swords cut through the dome. It produced a powerful shock wave that pushed both Vedora and Michael several meters away. Then, the realm tear created a suction force that pulled Michael and Vedora along with gallons ofke water.
Everything around Michael turned dark. But before he disappeared into the realm tear, he caught Vedora and held them closer to his chest with one hand and the dark sword in the other. Lights out for Michael for a few minutes. Even his X-ray vision turned out to be useless. He felt like he was flying through space. Atleast the feeling was familiar. After an unknown amount of time, Michael was thrown onto a soft ground. He coughed up the blood and slowly opened his eyes. His eyes adjusted to the light. Everything looked blurry for a few moments. When Michael was finally able to see his surroundings, he was taken aback by surprise. He was on a mountain cliff, overlooking the massive cliffs and towering fjords that crept through the rainforest. Great scarves of cloud swirled around the blue sky. It was a primevalndscape, vast and forbidding. But this wasn''t how Michael would describe the ce. To him, this realm was magical, like a fairy talend. The trees were alien, and most of the realm looked too cyan. There were waterfalls, rivers, and distant flocks of winged creatures.
"What is this ce?" Vedora asked Michael. They shared the same dumbfounded look on Michael''s face.
"That''s weird," said Sarba. His gaze was locked on Michael''s dark sword in his hand. When Michael looked at the sword, he saw no red lightning bolts.
But that wasn''t the only change Michael noticed. He couldn''t feel any energy in the atmosphere. In other words, his cultivation power had betrayed him. Luckily, Michael could still ess the system and use the arch energy crystals to power himself up.
"Our god has appeared!" Suddenly, Michael heard a thunderous voice in the distance. Somehow, Michael didn''t think it was just a coincidence. Soon, a flock of winged creatures shot to the sky through the rainforest. They were on their way to Michael.
Chapter 818 The Wood Elves And The World Of Itonys
The world of Itonys was primitive and inhabited by a race called Zoralines. They wereter named the wood elves by the Dark Lord. Although the world was affected by the time array when the Dark Lord reset the universe, there were still some remnants of the Dark Lord in Itonys. They worshiped him as their only god. Until two years ago, the wood elves lived peacefully without major wars. However, everything changed one day. The barrier that kept Itonys hidden from the outside world broke as the soldiers of Skyhall invaded their world and ughtered thousands of wood elves. The wood elves fought the Skyhall army with primitive bows and arrows, while the Skyhall used high-powered weapons such as cannons, trebuchets, and wyverns.
At that moment, Tazkin, a young warrior from the forest tribe, was risking his life to steal medicine for the wounded vigers and his teammates back home. He was apanied by his wife, Thilve, and fourrades. The wood elves called the Skyhall soldiers by the name demons since they brought death and destruction wherever they went.
Like most of the wood elves, Tazkin had coppery skin and hazel eyes. His hair was jet ck with a hue of copper red. Compared to the elves and dark elves, wood elves were slightly taller and had pointier ears. Contrary to those elves, wood elves were kind and friendly. They would have formed an alliance with Skyhall and happily offered them valuable resources if Skyhall chose the path of diplomacy. But no, Skyhall waged war and ughtered thousands of them without a shred of mercy.
All of those deaths and destruction were for the natural resources Itonys possessed. This world was once treasured by the Dark Lord himself, and Skyhall had no clue the Dark Lord was on his way to save the world from them.
Tazkin and his group were walking through a bluish, ancient forest. It reeked of age. Its woody incense was from centuries of snapping branches crashing to the forest''s floor and rotting silently. Theposting, organic smell rose up in waves like a miasma. Every sprawling tree they passed under reminded Tazkin of a watchful guardian, a silent sentinel of the groves. Tazkin and his team used branches and veins to traverse through the forest without making a noise. They knew the forest like the back of their hand. The Skyhall soldiers used contraptions to traverse through the forest when they were in a good mood. Otherwise, they would burn down everything in their path just to travel hundreds of meters into the forest. Hundreds of ancient trees with unlimited potential turned to ashes in their hands. Tazkin and his team were on their way to the forest''s center, where the mother tree was. The mother tree was the oldest in the world, spanning hundreds of acres. The wood elves had a ritual of climbing the mother tree, which would take months. Countless wood elves lost their lives trying to reach the top. The wood elves believed they could get the mother tree''s blessing and hear their god''s voice by reaching the top.
The deeper Tazkin and his team went, the more mystical and spellbinding the forest became. Huge roots spread-eagled the ground, twisting like the great backs of sea dinosaurs. The foliage became thick and lush, forming an arch of fairytale sapphire blue above their heads. Arthritic boughs, gnarled with age, dripped their bounty of nuts onto the path. Briars, brambles, and berry trees nked the trail, making it imprable on either side. Shuffling noises came from deep in the interior, deadened by the cunningly woven web of leaves. A troupe of winged badgers crossed the winding trail in front of them at one point. They were finishing up their early morning foraging and looked startled to see the wood elves. As if on queue, a blue feather bird erupted from the knot of trees. Soon, a few more of its beakedpanions joined the flock, creating a symphony of song. The heart-haunting melody was an elixir for the soul. Their melody used to soothe the wood elves'' souls. But after the demons appeared, these birds cried more often than they sang. Despite the ash and smell of blood in the air, the sap-sweet fragrance of the forest washed over them.
Finally, Tazkin arrived at a wide de, where the ancient trees fell away, revealing the bespeckled blue sky. Thest of the morning''s stars were glinting like silver earrings, luminous and bright. An ore-gold moon with a blue ring hung quietly in the distance, casting a honeyed sheen over the trees. Tazkin and his men sat their backs against a lightning-sted tree trunk and watched the demon castle in the distance.
The demons scorched hundreds of trees, and everything lived in the area to build their castle and the surrounding buildings. Tazkin could still hear the cries of his people when the demons first arrived. They built the castle with the wood they got from the mother tree''s branches and the roots as defensive walls. Once, a holy site turned into a burial site for thousands of wood elves. Since the Skyhall sent a total of thousand soldiers, they were able to build a castle in a month. The castle had eleven broad, square towers connected byrge, thin walls made of blue marble stones they mined in Itonys. To mine those stones, the Skyhall ughtered an entire tribe that protected and lived in the mines for centuries. Small windows were scattered generously around the walls in seemingly perfect symmetry, along with symmetric crentions for archers and artillery to shoot down the wood elves who dared to get near the mother tree. A huge gate with heavy metal doors guarded the castle. It was the only easy way in. Any other side would be futile.
Various barracks, camps, and small buildings were scattered outside the castle gates. The soldiers and some of the merchants who were rted to Skyhall elders lived in those buildings. Tazkin and his men had no idea who lives in the castle, as none of them stepped into the castle. This castle was the most protected ce in the entire world. Daring to invade the castle would only result in certain earth. Luckily, Tazkin and their men had no need to go into the castle. Instead, their target was one of the infirmary buildings where the Skyhall soldiers kept healing potions.
"We should wait for the nightfall and then strike," Vakoc, one of Tazkin''s men, suggested, only to see Thilve shake her head.
"We don''t have time. They need those magical potions ASAP,"
Tazkin nodded,
"She is right. Time is not in our favor. It''s now or never," said Tazkin. His voice betrayed him, showing his uncertainty and worry about the n. Deep down, Tazkin knew attacking the demons in broad daylight was nothing short of suicide. Still, they had to do it for the sake of their people. Fifty lives depended on them and the magical potions.
Tazkin''s men sighed. Although they all knew the n was suicidal, they would follow Tazkin to hell itself. After all, if it weren''t for Tazkin''s leadership, they would have died along with thousands of other wood elves when the demons first invaded them. Moreover, Tazkin was the only wood elf who managed to kill one of the demon generals and steal one of their weapon shipments. Unfortunately, the wood elvescked the technical knowledge to assemble the weapon to its full form.
"Vakoc, go and scout the area ahead. Do not get caught," said Tazkin.
"Hmm," Vakoc, the brown-haired wooden elf, nodded and slowly crouched forward. As the team scout, recon was his job. Hugging the tree, Vakoc slid down to the ground like a monkey. He used the foliage to his advantage. But there was no foliage once he entered the castlend. The Skyhall soldiers knew how the wood elves operated. Steal was the one and only advantage the wood elves had over them. Therefore, the Skyhall soldiers cut down everything, including trees and bushes, around the castle.
Vakoc used the huts and buildings to hide and walk around. He took a mental note of how many soldiers and the paths of their patrol. Meanwhile, Tazkin, his wife and the three other wood elves waited for Tazkin to return.
Suddenly, they heard a loud explosion near the castle. ck smoke rose through one of the castle towers.
"By the name of the Dark Lord, what is that?"
"Must be one of their new weapons," Thilve gritted her teeth.
"Once the Dark Lord''s blessing returns to our people, we will pay them back several folds," said Thilve.
"No god came to our aid when they ughtered our people, Thilve. If we want to change our fate, we have to fight for it," rebuked Tazkin.
"Do not speak like that, Tazkin. We must pray to the Dark Lord when the time of our needs. He will definitely answer our prayers,"
Tazkin did not want to argue with his wife. The wood elves were a god-fearing race that worshiped the Dark Lord for thousands of years. They didn''t see him, but they worshiped his statues, which protected them for centuries. However, after the demons invaded them and ughtered thousands, some of the wood elves like Tazkin lost their trust in the Dark Lord. One couldn''t me them for losing faith in a higher power after witnessing their race being pushed to the brink of extinction. Tazkin had no faith in a god who didn''t raise a finger against the demons, unlike his wife.
Eventually, Vakoc finished his recon and returned to them.
"Twenty fully armored guards on the way to the infirmary," Vakoc reported back to Tazkin.
"Did you see the healing potions?" asked Thilve as Vakoc nodded. But he didn''t have any excitement or even the slightest joy in his eyes. Instead, Vakoc seemed like something had affected him deeply.
"What did you see, Vakoc?"
"He is here, Tazkin," said Vakoc with a grave tone. His eyes contained fear and worry like never before.
"General Tar?" asked Tazkin as the others looked terrified except for Thilve, whose eyes burned with rage and blood lust.
"Reports said he was looking for something in the mines," Tazkin creased his brows. This mission got a whole lot tougher with Tar being on the castle ground. If this were any other day, Tazkin would have opted to back off. But today, he must retrieve those potions. His brother''s life depended on the healing potion.
Chapter 819 General Tar
General Tar was an orc assigned by the Skyhall to build the castle and pacify the locals in Itonys. Unlike a typical orc, Tar was a war-hungry death merchant who preferred to kill than ask questions. Single-handled Tar killed thousands of wood elves. Tazkin and Tar had a bit of history between them. After the Skyhall invaded the wood elves, Tazkin fought Tar to rescue his team and actually managed to achieve such an impossible task. Moreover, Tazkin gave a scar that Tar still hadn''t forgotten. But unlike Tar, Tazkin didn''t thirst for a rematch. Instead, Tazkin only wanted to steal the healing potions and get the hell out of this ce.
"Follow my lead," said Vakoc.
"Vakoc, you know the way. Take the lead," said Tazkin. The wood elves climbed down the trees and headed toward the infirmary. They moved as nimble as the wind itself. One could barely hear their footsteps. The armored soldiers'' heavy boots clunking sound masked Tazkin and his men''s movements. Step by step, the wood elves moved closer to the encampments. Soon, Tazkin noticed a demon armed to the teeth patrolling between the two camps. Some of the soldiers were sleeping in each camp. This armored soldier turned around and stood between the camps for a few moments. He seemed exhausted after walking back and forth wearing the heavy armor. Outside Itonys, they had arch energy and were powerful enough to lift even boulders. Hence, wearing armor was no headache for them. Besides, they could achieve more protection with a spell instead of this armor.
The skyhall soldier sweated bullets inside the metal armor. Tazkin slowly took out the bow hanging on his back. He knocked an arrow and aimed for the gap between the soldier''s helmet and shoulder. After taking a deep breath, Tazkin released the arrow.
"Grhh," The metal soldier groaned as Thilve grabbed the soldier before he hit the ground. If he fell down, the metal armor would make a sound loud enough to wake the soldiers sleeping inside the camps. While dragging the soldier back, Thilve unsheathed a crude dagger and plunged it near the arrow, and ended the soldier''s life instantly. She then cautiously ced the body on the ground without making a noise.
"Let''s go," Vakoc whispered as the group moved around the camps.
"Where are the potions?" asked Tazkin.
Vakoc pointed his finger at a wooden building across several camps and soldiers. Fortunately, Vakoc was able to sneak closer to the building using the tents as his cover. Since the Skyhall soldiers patrolled the area like clockwork, Tazkin, and his men were confident enough to sneak past them. But the onlyplication was General Tar and his wolves. These wolves were specially bred to track down wood elves and their tribes. Each wolf was ferocious enough to rip a wood elf apart in a few moments. Just thinking about the wolves, Tazkin''s shoulder ached. He looked at the deep w mark on his right shoulder for a moment before following Vakoc behind.
One by one, Tazkin and his men moved past the camps. For some reason, it didn''t feel right to Tazkin. Not a single soldier spotted them, as things went pretty smoothly. But that was what worried Tazkin. Vakoc halted his steps behind a wooden building, taking advantage of the shade provided by the roof. The team stopped for a few moments to catch their breath.
"Somethings bothering you, my love," Thilve turned her gaze at Tazkin, The dark lines on his forehead betrayed how worried he was.
"Everything''s going smooth. Too smooth, to be exact," said Tazkin. His words surprised Vakoc and the others. As far as they were concerned, if anything, Tazkin should feel grateful that everything was going in their favor. Instead, Tazkin looked worried to the core.
Tazkin sighed, looking at their confused faces.
"Not to jinx things but when was thest time everything went ording to our n? Those demons always pulled one over us whenever we thought we had them cornered," said Tazkin.
"I understand how you feel. But this is not the time for second thoughts. We are deep within the belly of the beast. If we don''t get those potions, people are going to die," Thilve said in a low-pitched voice. She cared more for her people than anyone, including Tazkin. Unlike her, Tazkin wasn''t born into her tribe. On the contrary, Tazkin was an orphan. Thilve''s uncle found him in the forest and raised him as his own. They fell in love at a young age, and Tazkin had to climb the top of the mother tree to get Thilve''s father''s blessing to marry Thilve. Tazkin was one of the few who managed toplete such a task and live to tell tales about it.
"Hmm," Tazkin nodded, pushing all the doubts and uncertainties to the back of his mind. This was no time for second-guessing, as Thilve said. To their sake, Tazkin had to look confident even though he wasn''t. He signaled Vakoc to lead the way with his eyes as the wood elf slowly walked around the building. Suddenly, a loud bell rang from the castle. Their bodies went rigid, thinking they were caught for a moment.
"Mid-day break. Come on, everyone. Take five," they heard someone calling the soldiers from the center of the camps. Luckily, the soldiers were moving to the center to get their bellies filled. As a result, the patrol routes turned empty and gave Tazkin and his men enough leeway to get into the infirmary, take the potions, and disappear into the forest without alerting Tar. atleast, that''s what they nned. In a few minutes, almost every soldier in the area went to the center and formed a circle around a giant cauldron with boiling porridge in it.
Meanwhile, the wood elves hasten their steps. They crouched toward the infirmary as fast as they could. Finally, they came to a wooden building with a board with a leaf symbol hanging above the door. Tazkin slowly opened the door after looking back and forth. When the door slowly opened, they saw a couple of soldiers sleeping on white beds. These soldiers seemed pale, shivering and gritting their teeth as though they were in great pain.
While Tazkin''s gaze was locked on the sick soldiers, Thilve and the others noticed the crate full of glistening green vials.
"There it is," Vakoc closed the door behind them and pointed at the crate.
"Let''s take it and get the hell out of this ce," another wood elf behind Thilve said.
When Thilve was about to take a step toward the crate, Tazkin stopped her by her wrist.
"If they have the magical healing potions, why do these soldiers look sick?" asked Tazkin. As much as the Thilve and the others wanted to take the healing potions and escape the ce, Tazkin''s words made them wonder and think deeply about what he had just said. Vakoc and the others creased their brows. They knew Tazkin was right. These magical healing potions could cure anything, yet these soldiers looked anything but healthy. On top of that, the healing potions were right on the table, and the crate contained enough potions for all the soldiers in the room. Yet, for some reason, the demons chose not to give the potions to theirrades.
"We can think about it when we get back to the tribe. Let''s just take them and get the hell out of here," Vakoc rushed Tazkin. Seeing no other choice, Thilve quickly dashed to the crate and took it in her hand. On her way back, she wanted to kill the sick soldiers. But luckily for them, Thilve prioritized escaping the ce over slitting their throats.
Tazkin turned around to leave the building. He threw onest gaze over his shoulder at the soldiers before opening the door. The moment he opened the door, Tazkin''s body went rigid. His heart almost jumped out of his chest. To their shock, General Tar was waiting outside to wee them with his five gray wolves. General Tar was a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent orc, contrasting with the wood elves. He had several piercings all over his body and wore a ne made of his enemies'' ears. He held a heavy sword as tall as an average human on his shoulder. When General Tar saw Tazkin and his team, he showed an ugly smile that really highlighted his blood-stained teeth and the tusks sticking out of his mouth.
The gray wolves bore their teeth with their blue eyes glimmering with ferocity. They were one signal away from ripping Tazkin and the others apart. Each wolf was five feet wide and tall as a wood elf''s waist. Saliva trickled down their mouths as though Tazkin and his men were juicy pieces of meat.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" General Tar had a perfect brutish voice for his monstrous body. He slowly ran his hand through the deep scar on his left cheek. Tar almost went blind in one eye. If Tazkin swung the sword a few inches higher and Tar would have lost his left eye. Tar wore the scar as a symbol of shame. Until he could wash his face with Tazkin''s blood, Tar had no ns to rest easy.
"General Tar," Tazkin stopped in front of his men, shielding them with his body. The soldiers behind Tar raised their swords and handheld crossbows at Tazkin. Tar''s men were in the number hundreds, while Tazkin only had five men. No matter what strategy they used, there was no chance for them to win this battle.
"You gave me something to remember you by. It''s only fair I return the favor. Don''t you think so, men?" General Tar asked,
"Yes, General," Tar''s men shouted in unison as Tar brought down the heavy sword to the ground from his shoulder,
"It seems like our friends are here to take the healing potions meant for our men," said Tar.
"We can''t have you take what''s ours unless," Tar''s words trailed,
"Unless what?" Thilve snarled.
"Unless Tazkin bests me in a duel," Tar said, looking Tazkin in the eyes.
"But you always have the option to run away. In that case, my babies will be more than happy to give a chase,"
"You have three seconds to decide," Tar raised three fingers.
"One¡"
"Two¡"
"I ept," Tazkin stepped forward, having no other choices. Outrunning the wolves and the soldiers was nothing but suicide. At Least by fighting Tar, he could pull a surprise move on Tar that might let his wife escape the ce.
Chapter 820 Michael Being A God
When Michael heard the echo in the distance, he was surprised. Soon, many figures riding winged beasts appeared on the horizon. These beasts resembled giant butterflies. Having no idea what was happening in the world, Michael remained on the hilltop, waiting for the figures toe to him. While they were flying toward him, Michael essed the system storage and took out the cultivation device. After a long thought, Michael named these devices Olympus. He wore the olympus around his wrist and willed the system to use the refined arch energy crystals in the storage. Olympus warmed up slightly as the ck device tightened around his wrist. Soon, Michael felt a surge of energy within his body. These refined arch energy crystals boosted his cultivation power to the Core Formation level. In a world without energy, a Core Formation warrior would be a god. Eventually, the giant butterflies descended down to the hilltop, revealing their riders. To Michael''s surprise, those who rode the butterflies looked simr to the elves but had brownish skin and pointier ears. Furthermore, they looked primitive. The men wore a piece of a dress made of various leaves around their wrists, covering their manhood, while the women wore leaves covering their breasts and womanhood. Still, the dress made of leaves barely covered them. Even the bows and arrows they had looked ancient and primal.
As soon as the wood elves saw Michael, they screamed and raised their hands to the sky. Their eyes were filled with disbelief and shock. They quickly jumped to the mountaintop from the mount and knelt before Michael. Michael saw them knocking their heads against the ground like they were asking for forgiveness.
"This isn''t the wee I expected," Sarba whispered. Michael shared the same thought. The wood elves bent their knees and went on with the ground. They didn''t even dare to look him in the eyes. He turned his gaze to the elder elf, who wore some kind of hat with feathers and held a staff. With a hunch back and a staff to hold his body straight, the old elf looked like a typical vige elder who was wise and old.
"Dark Lord," The old elf''s voice stuttered. It was not because of his old age but because of the respect and fear he had toward the Dark Lord. The old man trembled even to raise his head before Michael.
At that moment, almost thirty wood elves and their mountains knelt before Michael, waiting for him to speak. Since Michael was caught off guard by the god thing in another world, it took him a few moments to find his next words. Never in a million years did Michael think he would find an entirely new world with elves who worship him as their god.
"Alright. Everyone, stand up," Michael ordered them. The vige elder and the other wood elves almost immediately rose to their feet as though they were programmed to obey every one of hismands. Tears gushed out of the vige elder''s eyes. Even some of the male wood elves sobbed with joy and delight. But deep within their eyes, Michael saw the desperation for help.
Some of the elves had deep scars and wounds still covered with green paste. Those marks were perfectly straight, like a sword cut or a spear sh. Michael knew without a doubt that these elves were fighting someone. Judging by their weapons and clothes, anyone with a sword and better armor could ughter these elves. So unless the elves were fighting unarmed goblins, they had no chance of winning the fight.
The old elf tried to remain straight with the help of his staff.
"I knew you would answer our prayers, Dark Lord," the old elf said, sobbing uncontrobly. Tears gushed out of the old elf''s eyes.
Michael pretty much had no idea what was happening. But he took a deep breath and decided to deal with the wood elves, who seemed to worship him with every fiber of their bodies. Even the members of his dark army didn''t look as loyal and faithful as these wood elves.
Suddenly, Michael heard a thunderous scream in the distance. Suddenly, a red smoke rose to the sky through the forest. The ce where the red smoke wasing from was the same ce these elves came from.
"What is that?" asked Michael, moving his gaze to the red smoke in the distance.
"Call for help, Dark Lord," the old elf answered. Intense fear glistened in his old eyes.
"We should try helping them. These elves seem desperate," Ayag whispered in Michael''s ears. Among the three heads, Ayag was the least merciful one. But even she felt pity for the elves and wanted to help them. Michael was not going to ignore them when they seemed to worship him as a god. They were like the dark army, only more loyal and faithful.
"Then I should answer the call for help," Michael slowly ascended into the air as the elves gasped in shock. Their faces went pale. The vige elder looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
"Lead the way," said Michael, hovering in the air. It took a few moments for the elves to snap back to reality. Then, they climbed onto their mounts and flew toward the red smoke. On their way, they stared at Michael with awe and disbelief. Their expressions were beyond words. On the other hand, Michael was in love with this new world. Everywhere he turned, he saw lush forests with magical birds and sapphire blue trees that glowed like neon lights. The air smelled fresher than any other cultivation continent. Magical was the word that appeared in his mind when looking at the world.
The golden butterflies flew through the air like fancy kites. The butterfly with the elder on top flew rtively close to Michael, and eventually, a cozy vige built on top of the trees appeared in Michael''s sight. Michael was in awe, wondering how these elves managed to build a vige around the trees above the ground. The tree houses he saw when he visited the dark elves were a far cry from this vige. Through the giant blue trees, Michael vaguely saw a giant wooden pir where the wood elves gathered around.
Little wood elves bounced up and down, waving their hands, seeing the butterflies in the air. The grownups, however, looked tense and clenched their hands together against their chests. They were praying for their god to return. Through the canopy, Michael descended to the ground. Countless wood elves gasped and cried out loud. Just like the vige elder and the wood elves apanied him, the vigers dropped to their knees immediately after seeing Michael.
"Our god has answered our prayers!"
"We are saved!''
"Dark Lord!"
The vigers shouted out loud. Looking at them, Michael couldn''t help wondering how they quickly identified him as their god. But he soon got his answer when Sarba asked him to turn around.
"You should see this," Michael heard Sarba''s startled voice. As he slowly turned around, he saw a wooden carving of a man in the tall wood pir. Although the features were not precise, he resembled Michael. The two swords on his back and the hydra on his shoulder were dead give away. He turned his back on the wood elves and stared at the wood carving for a few minutes. The wood elves didn''t dare to utter a word. As a result, silence returned to the ce.
Strangely, the carving''s eyes were radiating a dim light. When he looked closer into the eyes, Michael noticed a rune in each eye. It was so tiny that an average human or a wood elf wouldn''t notice. Finally, Michael turned around to greet the wood elves and hear why they called for help.
"You," Michael''s gaze swept across the wood elves andnded on the vige elder.
The vige elder raised his head to look Michael in the eyes.
"Stand up," said Michael.
"What''s your name?" Michael asked the elder.
"Kirat, Dark Lord," the vige elder answered with the utmost respect and reverence toward Michael.
"Hmm," Michael nodded, flicking his wrist as the throne made of skulls and bones materialized behind Michael. He sat down and put one leg atop the other.
The wood elves were once again startled by a simple act such as this. To the wood elves who grew up without arch energy or cultivation, everything Michael did was nothing short of a miracle.
"Now tell me why you called for help," Michael asked Kirat.
"The demons, Dark Lord. We are failing in the fight against the demons,"
"Demons?" Michael and Vedora were stunned by Kirat''s answer. They immediately thought of Azazel and his race. But Michael was skeptical about the demon thing. He never thought the wood elves named the Skyhall soldiers the demons. To be honest, the wood elves didn''t even know there was a separate race called demons that existed in the universe.
"Are these demons here to punish us because of something we did or didn''t do, Dark Lord? Are you punishing your children?" Michael almost coughed up blood after hearing the elder address themselves as the children. But he had to keep a straight face and go along with this. After all, god hood dide up with some quirks like this. Besides, it didn''t seem like a good idea for them to tell the wood elves the truth about the universe. Instead, Michael nned to be their beloved god. This way, Michael would have an entire poption working for him, collecting everything he needs and being loyal to him in exchange for protection.
"How long have you been fighting these demons?" Surprisingly, Cain questioned the elder for some reason.
"Since two years ago, Lord Cain,"
The elder surprised Michael by addressing Cain using his realm name. Moreover, he came to this world two years ago. It seemed like the demon attack and his appearance had some kind of connection.
"How do they know our name?" Ayag whispered into Michael''s ears.
"And demons? Are they really fighting the demons?" asked Sarba.
Suddenly, Michael sensed someone rushing toward them in his Environment scanning. When he looked over the crowd of wood elves, he saw a wood-elven womannd on the wood tform using a rope lift mechanism.
"We have to save Tazkin," the woman said before copsing down.
Chapter 821 God To The Rescue
"Thilve!" Michael heard a wood elf cry out loud. Still, the wood elf and who seemed to be his wife, didn''t dare to move without Michael''s permission. It was obvious the wood elf who just fainted due to probably blood loss was their loved one, but instead of rushing to her aid, the couple looked at Michael with eyes pleading for mercy.
"Kirat, bring her to me," Michael ordered the vige elder. The wood elf old man immediately signaled Thilve''s parents as they carried Thilve to Michael. The man who carried the woman had a muscr body with several scars, while his wife looked gentle and kind. They both sobbed, seeing the sorry state of their daughter. Thilve had several deep w marks on her back and a deep stab wound on the side of her chest. Blood spurted out of her wounds, resulting in her body looking pale.
Kirat and the wood elves ced Thilve on Michael''s feet and knelt before him.
"Dark Lord, please save our daughter!" they cried out loud. Michael stood up from this throne and took a few steps toward the wounded wood elf. He sat beside her before taking out a sparkling healing potion. Under the wood elves'' shocked gazes, he gently opened Thilve''s mouth and poured the healing potion into her mouth. The wood elves were no strangers to the healing potions. They saw the Skyhall soldiers use these potions on a battlefield to heal themselvespletely. It was one of the many reasons why the wood elves got decimated mercilessly by the demons.
The wounds on Thilve''s body magically disappeared under their gazes. Her hands twitched slightly as she slowly regained consciousness. Any other normal healing potions would have failed to save her because of the blood loss. But Michael gave her one from his personal stash, which could supplement her blood loss and heal herpletely.
"AGH!" Suddenly, Thilve rose up from the floor, gasping for air. It took her vision a few seconds to adjust to the new sight. When everything cleared up, she saw a strange face looking at her. She immediately tried to crawl back and reach for her dagger in utter shock, but Kirat and her parents grabbed her by her hands.
"Thilve!"
"Thank the Dark Lord,"
"My precious!"
Thilve''s mother and father embraced her tightly as the entire tribe looked stunned by Michael''s mercy. Michael returned to his throne, letting the family have some warm moments, although he doubted this wouldst, judging by the wounds on her body. Thilve hugged her parents tight as she sobbed uncontrobly. A few minutester, Kirat and her parents dropped a nuke on her head. Thilve''s face paled when her gaze fell on Michael. The god she had prayed for since she was a little kid was sitting before her. Not a single day passed without Thulve praying to the Dark Lord. It was her true wish that the Dark Lord would appear in front of her one day. But she didn''t know it would actually happen. The Dark Lord looked more imposing and radiant than the wood carving. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest when he smiled at her.
As much as Thilve wanted to grab his feet and cry out loud, she didn''t have time to do so. Tazkin was fighting Tar as they spoke. He and herrades risked their life so she could escape. Realization hit her as the Dark Lord may be the only person who could save her husband. Hence, she dashed at the Dark Lord and dropped to her knees before Michael. She looked up with her hands clenched against her chest.
"Please save my husband, Dark Lord,"
Michael guessed she might put a request like that after he saw the wounds. Luckily for the wood elves, Michael decided to help them. Plus, he was curious to see these demons they talked about. These people had been worshiping him, so the least he could do was help them get some peace. Besides, he felt like it was his duty to protect these people. Perhaps it was their loyalty or the fact they worshiped him, but he wanted to help them.
? Michael unsheathed a dark sword as the wood elves took a step back. They trembled at the sight of Michael''s ck sword. He dropped it to the ground and rose from his throne. Thilve still remained at his feet, begging for his help. He stepped on the sword and turned his gaze down on her.
"Step onto the sword and hold my hand tight," At first, Thilve was confused but eventually did as she was told. After all, she had no time to waste, and her god had ordered her to climb on the sword.
"Dark Lord, please allow us to apany you," said Kirat, only to see Michael shake his head.
"No need. I will be back soon," as he said, the ck sword slowly ascended into the air, carrying Michael and Thilve. But before Michael could shoot into the air, Vedora made a request to Michael.
"We''d like to stay with the vigers,"
Although Michael was surprised, he didn''t see any harm in leaving Vedora with the wood elves.
"Hmm," Michael nodded as Vedora jumped back to his throne. After leaving Vedora on the throne, Michael flew straight through the canopy to the sky. Thilve let out a squeal as she grabbed Michael''s hands tight. When he rose to the air, Michael saw a colossal tree in the distance. Even the giant bull he saw in the demon''s grave would look small in front of this tree. The ck smoke rising from the ground near the tree and the castle looked out of ce to Michael. Even from afar, Michael could smell the metal and pollution in the air. For a few moments, Michael stopped flying and looked around the world. His blood boiled when he saw countless forest fires and dark smoke rising to the sky. Only a fool would think they happened naturally. He knew that whoever built the castle near the mother tree was responsible for all the destruction. He could only imagine how many precious nts and wildlife the fire had engulfed. Such a waste of resources and destruction of nature raised his killing intent to another level.
"You might want to hold me tighter," said Michael. Thilve nodded as she grabbed his hands tighter than before. Suddenly, everything around her blurred. Her face ached because of the speed. It was a miracle her leaf dress remained intact when she appeared directly above the encampments, where she saw Tazkin and others bleeding to their deaths on the ground.
"There they are," Thilve pointed her fingers at the ground. To Michael''s surprise, an orc was beating the life out of some wood elves. But when he looked closer at the soldiers, he was disappointed and surprised at the same time. The reason for his disappointment was they weren''t demons but elves and humans in metal armor.
On the ground, Tazkin and his men tried to pick themselves up, but Tar had broken their legs with a wooden club. When the duel between Tar and Tazkin began, the orc used a pill to enhance his strength to ensure his victory against Tazkin. A fair duel would have gone in Tazkin''s favor, but it was far from a fair duel.
At Least Tazkin managed to use a primitive smoke bomb that blinded Tar and his men temporarily, which gave Thilve enough time to escape into the forest. However, the Skyhall soldiers and the wolves managed almost to kill her. Luckily, they didn''t know the forest like Thilve knew. Now, Tazkin and his men just hoped Thilve escaped to the tribe. They didn''t even want backup because sending backup to save them was equal to sending the wood elves to their death.
Tazkin''s legs looked crooked as Tar slowly walked toward him. The ugly orc had an even uglier smile on his face. Suddenly out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning struck the ground between him and Tazkin. Only then did these Skyhall soldiers look up at the sky. When they realized what just had happened, Michaelnded on the ground, creating a shock wave that sent the orc flying away.
The Skyhall soldiers were terrified as the dark sword slowly descended to the ground carrying Thilve.
"Give these to them," Michael threw a bunch of healing potions to Thilve like they were candies.
"Tazkin!" She cried out loud as she dashed at Tazkin. His face was swollen and almost unrecognizable. Because she was with the Dark Lord, Thilve had no fear in her heart. Meanwhile, the Skyhall soldiers looked tense. Before they could react, Michael dashed at Tar. The big ugly orc was trying to pick himself up. Instead of waiting for the orc to stand up, Michael grabbed him by his head and cast the cloud of darkness and death range. The area immediately grew darker, which terrified the soldiers around Michael.
The orc groaned. His big green eyes were filled with shock. Without giving the orc any time to retaliate, Michael cast the Soul Eater. Michael could have easily returned the favor by beating the crap out of the orc, but he chose to kill the orc quickly to show his overwhelming powers. After all, Michael had the reputation of a god to protect. The dark smoke shrouded the orc as everyone heard the orc''s sickening cry of agonizing pain. His scream echoed through thends. Soon, the Skyhall soldiers noticed a bright smoke leaving Tar''s eyes and going into Michael''s mouth. The orc''s once bulky monstrous body shriveled under their shocked gazes. When Michael let go of the orc, Tar looked more like a mummy than an orc. Tazkin and the others couldn''t believe what they had just witnessed.
"Who is he?'' Tazkin asked with a stuttering voice. Everything that happened before his eyes was nothing short of a miracle. He even thought this was just a dream. Meanwhile, the Skyhall soldiers lost the color of their faces behind the helmets. Some of them outright fell to the ground due to the cloud of darkness''s effects. Michael slowly turned his gaze to the Skyhall soldiers. ck lightning crackled around his arms, threatening to strike every single soldier in the area.
"Shall we begin?" Michael''s words swept across thend and put the fear of god in their hearts.
Chapter 822 God鈥檚 Wrath
The Skyhall soldiers who received the name demons from the wood elves took a step back. Their eyes shimmered with fear behind their helmets. Michael cracked his finger one by one. His movements were slow but contained deep hatred and killing intent. Despite the morning sun and its brightness, the ce darkened when he cast the death range. Michael was already at Core Formation level 2 because of the Olympus, as the death range boosted his cultivation four levels high. Tazkin and the others felt a chill running down their spines just by hearing the crackling lightning bolts dancing around Michael. The dark sword on the ground slowly ascended into the air andnded in Michael''s hands. As though the sword had sensed Michael''s killing lust, it produced a myriad of lightning bolts. In the darkness, the dark swords radiated a dim red light because of the lightning bolts. The Skyhall soldiers were stupefied. They were literally in the dark, having no clue how Michael was using spells and arch energy in Itonys. These soldiers were at the bottom of the Skyhall hierarchy. Hence, they received no artifacts or scrolls that could have helped them escape Michael''s wrath. The only option they had was the portal within the castle. But they doubted they would be able to move past him.
"Kill him, Dark Lord!" Thilve shouted like a wounded beast thirsting for payback. The others were too stunned after hearing the human before them was their god. Even Tazkin began regaining faith in their god, the Dark Lord. Michael slowly raised his sword toward the sky as the clear sky immediately darkened. Storm clouds as gray as ash came out of thin air, followed by rumbling thunder. shes of lightning struck across the sky, indicating the uing blood bath. Then, hundreds of ck lightning bolts struck the ground. Thilve and the others quickly closed their eyes instinctively. Soon, they heard screams and felt the electricity in the air. Their neck hair stood up as they tasted blood and metal in the air. The lightning storm continued to strike down, ughtering the soldiers on the ground.
Hundreds of lives were snuffed out in a few minutes. All that remained on the ground was hollow, melted armor, scorched bones, and bits and pieces of the Skyhall soldiers. When Thilve opened her eyes, she couldn''t believe her eyes. It took her brain a few moments to process everything that happened. They learned from the vige elder that the Dark Lord was a vengeful god, and he lived up to their expectation and more. Gradually, the darkness faded away, letting the sun bathe the ground with its brightness.
In the light, the ground looked more terrifying. The ground was littered with the Skyhall soldiers'' remains. Michael was happy with the output. These soldiers deserved no mercy nor the right to breathe another day in this beautiful world that belonged to him. Michael turned his gaze back to Thilve and the men,
"Collect the armor and their weapons," Michael ordered the wood elves. Their bodies moved without their consent like robots. With their nimble fingers and hands, they plucked the weapons and armor left behind by the Skyhall soldiers. Most of the armor was melted, just like their weapons. The lightning storm did a number on them. But to a talented cksmith like Michael, it was not a big deal for him to repair the armor and weapons. The first and foremost thing on his to-do list was fixing the clothing issue. He couldn''t have his future army of wood elves running around, looking like primitive monkeys.
Michael was about to head toward the castle when he heard angry growls from behind. The wood elves froze as Michael turned back to see four wolves baring their teeth. The wolves werepletely stupid and oblivious to the fact Michael could kill them with a flick of his wrist.
"Hey kitty kitty," Michael teased the wolves. Step by step, the wolves approached Michael. They surrounded Michael to pounce him from every direction. Suddenly, the wolves leaped at Michael. Then, the wood elves saw a ring of dark mes like they had never seen before pulsating from Michael. The dark mes reduced the wolves to ash as their bones crumbled down to the ground before they could reach Michael.
He could have killed them using varieties of ways. Some of them were really creative and brutal. But Michael chose to kill the soldiers using the fastest way to show his overwhelming power to the wood elves. He wanted them to witness his power so they would continue to worship him and serve him loyally to theirst breath. In exchange, he would protect this world and the residents as he was meant to be. Michael then looked at the sky. For some reason, he felt like his past self was smiling at him.
Leaving the wood elves to their task, Michael disappeared from their sight. The wood elves only saw a couple of ck lightning bolts in the air, which trailed toward the castle. In a blink of an eye, Michael appeared in the throne hall, moving past all the soldiers outside. Lustrous braziers, half enclosing each of the ten onyx columns, lit up the lower levels of the throne hall and engulfed the throne hall in a brilliant glimmer. The paintings of vastndscapes on the arched ceiling danced in the flickering light while statues looked down upon the porcin floor of this regal hall.
For a castle built in a hurry, they really put some effort into decorating the throne hall. Michael couldn''t help wondering who was the ruler of this castle. He walked toward the noble throne of carved rock that sat twenty or thirty steps above the ground. The throne was covered in hallowed carvings and intricate runes, and fixed on each of the broad ears was a sapphire rose. The light pillows were a light teal, and these too had been adorned with burnished sigils.
A teal rug ran from the throne down the center and looped back from both left and right while square dag banners with gilded tassels swung gently from the walls. Between each banner hung antern. None but a few have been lit, illuminating the portraits of angels in their perfectly forged armor. Sunlight peeked through the extensive, tinted ss windows edged by veils colored the same teal as the banners. The curtains had been adorned with impressive needlework and emzoned edges.
Michael walked around the throne hall like he owned the ce. He could hear the heavy boots nking as the skyhall soldiers rushed into the throne hall. The soldiers were still contemting what had just happened. A few minutes ago, several things happened at once. First, they were patrolling the castle grounds as usual. Then, they saw the sky darken, followed by a violent lightning storm, something they had never seen before in this world. The lightning stormsted for a few moments beforepletely vanishing into thin air. They wanted to check the ce, but before they could do it, they saw a strong breeze of wind moving past him. Then, they saw a bolt of lightning heading into the throne hall.
To their shock, they saw a human roaming around the throne hall when they entered. They never saw him enter the castle. Still, he was there. The only exnation of how he entered the throne hall was by using a spell that defied the rule of this world. Something was wrong, very wrong. The soldiers could feel it. Since these soldiers were stationed away from the Skyhall for so long, they didn''t recognize Michael as the Dark Lord. The soldiers surrounded Michael with their swords and speared pointed at him.
Michael stopped at the bottom of the stairs to the throne and turned back.
His eyes searched among the armored soldiers for their leader. He expected someone from a higher rank to appear before him soon. As he expected, a tall man wearing full metal armor walked through the soldiers. He was armed to the teeth. The man slowly removed his helmet, revealing his elven features and striking golden hair.
"Who are you?" The elf spoke with a gritty tone that showed no warmth whatsoever. Not that Michael expected the elf to be warm when he was trespassing. If it wasn''t for the question of how he entered the castle without their knowledge, Michael was sure the elf would have ordered his men to take him down by now. For a moment, Michael did not give the elf any answer. He kinda kept the elves and the other soldiers in the dark. Then, Michael cracked his neck and knuckles.
"You are a human. Aren''t you a long way from home?" asked the elf.
"So there are humans in this world?" Michael asked the elf slowly.
His words confused the elf a bit. What did he mean by in this world? The elf questioned himself. As someone who spent more time in Itonys than Michael, the elf knew the humans lived far away in small groups. Unlike the cultivation continents, humans were a minority here. They rarely traveled outside their tribes. Yet the elf noticed a human roaming around the castle as he owned the ce. Furthermore, the elf was still struggling to grasp how he entered the castle and whether he used arch energy or not.
"You are trespassing. It''s a crime punishable by death," The elf threatened Michael.
"I could say the same to you," said Michael as the elf frowned.
"You trespassed my world. So can you me me for thinking about killing you all?"
Somehow, the human''s words did not feel like an empty threat.
"Your world?" The elf creased his sword-like brows.
"Someone hasn''t done his research. Anyhow, tell the ruler of this ce to meet me here, and I will make your deaths as painless as possible," Michael shrugged. Pity he wouldn''t get any experience points for killing them, but he at least received badass points. At that moment, he had other concerns, like finding the one who rules this castle. The Orc Tar served someone, and Michael wanted to know who.
In the elf''s eyes, the human didn''t seem like the person who could be reasoned with or the one who would stand down. He knew a battle was inevitable. As he was about to issue an order to take him down, a majestic voice echoed through the hall.
"Stand down,"
Chapter 823 Deal With The Skyhall
Michael heard the voice from behind. He slowly turned around to see a hunched-back old woman with pure white hair appear near the throne. Her hair was tied into a bun, and she wore pearl robes adorned with intricate symbols that shined in the light. The old woman climbed down the stairs without a concern in the world. When the elf and the others noticed the old woman, they immediately bowed. The old woman didn''t make any gesture to acknowledge the soldiers. Instead, her gaze was locked on Michael. The soldiers knelt down as their heavy metal nked against the marble floor.
"Ghost," The old woman addressed Michael by his name.
"So you are the ruler of this castle?" Michael asked the old woman.
"Everyone leave," The old woman raised her voice. Her voice sounded like a bell in a silent area. As soon as the soldiers heard the old woman''s order, they stood up, turned around, and left the throne hall without a word, leaving Michael and the old woman behind.
"I am a representative," said the old woman.
"Then tell your boss to stay out of this world. It belongs to me," Michael looked down to match the old woman''s eyes. Although he could kill the old woman with a single look, he refrained himself from doing so.
"You may have power in this world. But we both know you won''t stay here forever. You will return to the dark ocean and eventually step put off the Southern continent, leaving Mugashuku''s protection. It is wise for you not to cross my higher-ups if you want to survive," the old woman said. She was nonchnt despite knowing Ghost could end her life in a heartbeat.
Michael was slightly surprised. The old woman seemed to know more about him. Obviously, she was someone with knowledge about him.
"Careful with the tone, grandma. I can still kill you with a snap of my fingers," said Michael.
The old woman just let out a gentle smile,
"You can, but you won''t. Unless you want the Skyhall to be at your doorsteps, you will refrain from harming any more of my soldiers," said the old woman.
"Typical Skyhall. Don''t think I don''t know your little act of harvestingherels and demon skeletons. Also, if the Skyhall had really wanted me gone, the war would have started already. But here we are. So what does that tell you? Your boss doesn''t want me dead for some reason,"
Michael was just making a guess here. He didn''t know he was spot on. As he said, Andohr, the god of time and space and the man who controlled the Skyhall behind the scene, did not want Michael dead. Instead, he was manipting the events to put Noah and Michael against each other. For him to escape the immortal realm, he needed a god dead. Since the past Dark Lord beat him to near death, Andohr hoped the dead god would be Michael at the end of their battle.
"If you don''t cut off your infected arm, you will die. Just like, you are an infection to all worlds. Some people are the infected arm, the Skyhall must do what''s necessary to keep the body alive,"
"Nice way to justify genocides and to ughter innocent people,"
"None who helps you is innocent,"
The old woman saw lightning bolts appear around his wrist. They crackled, hissing like coiling snakes to shoot her down. Only one thing stopped Michael from ending the old woman''s life, his instincts and the system''s warning in his head. For some reason, the system went crazy when an urge to kill the old woman appeared in his heart.
Michael took a deep breath as the crackling lightning bolts disappeared.
"By the looks of it, we both have to do what we don''t like," said the old woman.
"And what that might be?"
"Co exists in this world. You can kill anyone, but eventually, you will leave this world. Are you willing to gamble on the wood elves'' lives that we won''t bring the wrath of Skyhall after you''re gone?"
As much as he hated to admit it, the old woman was right. He wouldn''t be able to protect the wood elves forever by staying with them. Judging by the old woman''s look in her eyes, he could tell she had some kind of deal to strike with him.
"Why do I feel like you''re about to propose a deal?" asked Michael as the old woman chuckled.
"Indeed I am. It is a simple one, actually. There is and that the locals call the Ash field, far south of here. You agree to give thatnd to us, and we will stop our war against the locals,"
"What''s important about that ce?" asked Michael, only to see the old woman shake her head.
"You don''t have to know. Do not forget we are not allies. On the contrary, we are enemies preparing to face each other in the future. Unlike you, we aren''t the gods here. You are. So you have to protect your flock,"
Michael knew the old woman would have already guessed he would spy on them if he agreed to the deal. But still, the old woman wanted to strike this deal, which made Michael more curious about this ash field.
"What''s about this ce that made the Skyhall negotiate with me, the Dark Lord?" Michael questioned himself.
Deep down, Michael knew agreeing to this deal was the right thing to do. He could use the time to learn more about this world, especially the ash field, and make the wood elves and all who worship him stronger. Once he was done with the wood elves, they would chase away any invader who stepped into this magicalnd without his help. To do that, he needed time. Unfortunately, making this deal was the only way he would get more of it.
"Do we have a deal?" asked the old woman.
"As you said, we both have to do things we don''t like. But," Michael raised a finger.
"If any of your soldiers ever stepped a foot outside this ash field, you won''t deal with Ghost. You will deal with the Dark Lord," the ce darkened as Michael said. For the first time, a sliver of fear emerged in the old woman''s eyes.
"And when I visit this ce tomorrow, I don''t want to see any more of your soldiers," As he finished his sentence, Michae turned around and walked away from the old woman. There was nothing for him to learn more from the old woman. After Michael left the castle, he noticed the Skyhall soldiers standing in a line, blocking his path. But soon, the elf captain signaled the soldiers to clear the path for him. When Michael noticed the elf, his eyes burned with rage and killing lust. If Michael was a betting man, he would say the elf had learned what had happened to his precious men.
Michael didn''t say anything to antagonize the man. He didn''t think it was worth it.
"This isn''t over," the elf mumbled, just loud enough for Michael to hear him.
"You better hope so," said Michael before disappearing from their sight. This time, the soldiers confirmed their suspicions.
"He is using spells," The elf was speechless, but that didn''t reduce his anger toward the human by any means.
After leaving the castle, Michael returned to where he had left the wood elves behind. By the time Michael arrived, the wood elves had gathered around a pile of metal armor and weapons. The wood elves immediately dropped to their knees when they saw Michael. Even Tazkin, who had previously lost his faith in his god, seemedpletely turned to his old ways.
"They will leave this ce tomorrow. This battle with them is over, but we have yet to win the war," said Michael.
******************************************************
Vedora and the viges were waiting for Michael''s return. Meanwhile, the wood elves bathed Vedora with everything Ayag asked for. The hydra sat on Michael''s throne and asked for every fruit the wood elves had for themselves. The wood-elvendies particrly fell in love with the cute yet terrifying creature that apanies their god. They spared no expense in showering the hydra with love and reverence, especially after Ayag gave her word that Michael would heal the wounded.
The sun slowly descended on the horizon, painting the blue sky with its golden rays. Every tree and nt life in the forest radiated dazzling lights. Darkness brought the real beauty of Itonys. Vedora saw the forest light up as the entire forest seemed magical. Even Cain was in awe of the beauty. With the trees and nts being a natural light source, the wood elves did not need any torches to brighten their vige.
"What''s taking him so long?" Sarba asked his siblings. He was worried.
"If you ask me, I''d say he''s exploring this world and collecting herbs and stuff. I saw how his eyes lit up when we first arrived in this world," said Ayag. She was indeed right. Michael was collecting herbs and exploring the magical forest as they spoke. That''s the reason for histeness. ''
"Look!" A child''s shout broke Sarba''s focus on Ayag. Kirat limped toward the wood tform''s edge and saw Michael and Tazkin''s men.
"They are back," Thilve''s mother bounced up and down in joy like a child. Eventually, Vedora saw Michaelnd on the tform as the wood elves knelt down to show him their respect. He just casually waved at them, wordlessly ordering them to rise. Then, he came to the throne and sat beside them.
"Something''s wrong," Ayag said, looking at the dark lines on his forehead.
"What is it?" asked Sarba.
"I made a deal with Skyhall," said Michael.
Chapter 824 A Cool God
Michael took Vedora and flew away from the vige built on the trees. He came to a mountain cliff where he first appeared in this world. The forest glistened like a neon city with flocks of magical flying beasts decorating the sky in the distance under the starry sky. Looking at the mother tree in the distance, Michael told Vedora everything that had transpired in the castle. After listening to Michael''s story, all three heads agreed that making a deal with the old woman was the right thing to do. Otherwise, Michael would be in a constant war in this world too. For a change, Michael wanted some peaceful time here. But he couldn''t have peace with the Skyhall soldiers running around.
"Good thing we have drones and Spyders to spy on them when they are in the ash field," said Sarba.
"But we have to be careful. They know we will do that. Still, they are going for it. It could only mean one thing, they can hide whatever is there from our eyes," said Cain.
Time flew past as Michael discussed every aspect of their n with Vedora. He had to say that it was a wonderful conversation. A whileter, Michael tried to contact Gaya, but he couldn''t connect to her. The system asked way too many badass points, which Michael outright rejected. Wherever Gaya was, he trusted her to handle herself well. Gradually, Michael felt the exhaustion getting to him as he fell down to take a long nap. He only remembered closing his eyes. By the time he opened them, he saw the sun rising on the horizon.
This morning he woke up the same as every day, stretching his muscles. Despite being in a different world, he got up, freshened up, and waltzed into the forest to take a calm morning walk. There was a gentle breeze, creating the single sound of rustling leaves. The leaves appeared as though they were dying to fall out of the tree and join theirpanions on the forest floor. Together with pine needles and other colorful flora, the leaves formed a thick, springy carpet for him to walk upon. Azy mist hazed his vision, making the forest and the horizon seem like one from a storybook. The forest around him was imperturbable, as if it was keeping a secret hidden deep within itself. Walking underneath the shade of the trees, he found himself appreciating the scent of these new alien trees. Epassed by the thick heavy air, he watched as a single bird that looked like a sparrow fluttered high above the cyan forest. A few feet next to him was an eager red-furred monkey hastily scampered from tree to tree, awaiting the chill of winter. The forest, he realized, was home to many magical creatures he had never seen in his life before. In giving protection and food, the forest was dly rewarded with thepany of these animals. The forest was pure and clean, as though it had never been disturbed by man and his vicious life-killing machines.
Luckily, the alchemy book he bought from the system included the wildlife in this world. Otherwise, Michael would have failed to tell the difference between a poisonous nt to a medicinal herb. Some of the glowing mushrooms seemed toxic as hell. Michael collected all of them one by one for future experiments. After mastering all the forms that exist in the world, he was researching new potions and pills.
He had collected hundreds of herbs on his way to the vige. When he arrived at the outskirts, Michael simply leaped into the air andnded right beside his throne. The vigers knelt down when they saw him,
"You do not have to kneel down every time you see me," said Michael. Their kneeling became quite tiring so quickly.
"Isn''t this our duty, Dark Lord?" Kirat asked Michael as he shook his head.
"There is nothing more dangerous than having blind faith in someone, Kirat. You are not mindless creatures. Keep your faith and loyalty toward me in your heart. That''s enough for me. I do not expect you all to kneel down every time you see me," said Michael. One of the many reasons Qin Jiu and the Skyhall were so hell-bent on killing him was how Qin Jiu witnessed a future where people had no free will. Contrary to what she saw, Michael wanted everyone in the world to be free. If the Skyhall and the Guardian Guild hadn''t tried to kill him and imprison him, Michael''s aim would have been just getting stronger and living his life to the fullest. In a way, they pushed him to be the Dark Lord. So every step of the way, Michael had been cautioned that he wouldn''t turn into something Qin Jiu said he would. Besides, if he had epted the wood elves behaving like robots, their individual traits and talents might note to light. Exploring their talents was just as important as exploring this world to Michael.
The wood elves reluctantly nodded and raised to their feet. Then, Michaelzily sat on his throne with his gaze fixed on Kirat.
"How''s the wounded doing?" Michael asked the elder elf.
"They are alive thanks to you, Dark Lord," said Kirat.
"So, what''s your day-to-day life like? What did you people do all day before they invaded yournd?" Michael was curious to learn about their day-to-day life. They had no fancy cities, arch energy, and evil cultivators to disturb their daily life. So Michael wondered how they passed their time.
"Oh," The old elf''s eyes lit up,
"We wake up, tend to the forest, teach the children our ways, collect fruits and vegetables from the forest, and send gifts to the nearby tribes. But most of our time is spent before your statue, praying and talking to you about our lives,"
"You can talk to me now. Tazkin," Michael turned his gaze toward Tazkin. He had a feeling this particr wood elf has something in his mind. Although Michael had a pretty good idea about it, he wanted to hear from Tazkin himself. The moment Michael gestured at Tazkin to step forward, Kirat''s heart started to pound against his chest. Tazkin was one of the few elves who lost their faith in the Dark Lord after the demons invaded their world.
"Speak your mind, Tazkin. I am a cooler god than you think," Michael reassured the wood elf with a gentle smile.
Tazkin looked a bit reluctant at first but seeing everyone''s gazes were fixed on him, he sighed and decided to ask the one question that kept him awake many nights.
"When the demons invaded us and ughtered thousands of our people, we prayed to you nonstop. But what did we do not to deserve your kindness and mercy then, Dark Lord?"
"Are you questioning our god, Tazkin?!" Kirat''s face twitched when he saw Tazkin question, Michael. But Michael shut him up with a wave of his hand. The wood elves who heard Tazkin felt chill running down their spine. The Dark Lord they learned from the notes, was not a cooler god, as he said. In stark contrast, he was a vengeful one. Thilve trembled, but Michael calmed their nerves with a smile.
"Do you see these scars, Tazkin?" Michael asked Tazkin, pointing at countless scars riddling his body.
Tazkin nodded,
"I wasn''t born with these scars, Tazkin. Each of them has a story to it. You are very wrong if you think gods have no enemies,"
Kirat''s jaw dropped a bit when he heard the Dark Lord.
"There are many worlds out there, each more powerful and dangerous than yours. I am at war with the demons you fought here, but what you''ve seen is not even a fraction of their power or what they could do," The wood elves behind Tazkin gasped.
"Let me simplify this. Out there, each of them could use what you call magic. Some of them are as powerful as I am at this point. When you were fighting your war, I was fighting my own. But if I have to fight two wars at the same time for my people, I will dly do it," Michael''s words brought tears to many eyes. The wood elves sobbed, feeling the radiance from his words.
"First, I have to prepare you for the future before us. Like it or not, this is just a temporary peace, and we will fight them in the future,"
"And we will fight for you, Dark Lord," Thilve stepped forward and gave Michael her word.
"You have to. Not because I ask you to, but because if they win, the world we know will disappear forever,"
Michael warned them. The world he saw a glimpse of was still haunting his dreams. There was no doubt in Michael''s mind higher powers were working against him. For instance, the one the past Dark Lord warned him about, the one who would get stronger if he ughtered the beasts in the demon''s grave. Another example would be Mugashuko and the one Dark Queen he serves. She was not only a threat to his universe but to multiple universes. Any one of them could be the reason for the future Qin Jiu witness. One thing was certain in Michael''s mind; he was not responsible for that world she saw.
Everything Tazkin and the wood elves thought about the Dark Lord changed in a blink of an eye. They never expected the all-mighty Dark Lord to have enemies who could challenge him. Nheless, their faith in the Dark Lord only increased after he exined why he hadn''t answered their prayers, not the other way around.
"Now that I am here, I will give you something that will let you directly talk to me. You will be able to contact me whenever you want. This way, what happened wouldn''t happen again," said Michael as the wood elves gasped in surprise.
"Did my words satisfy you, Tazkin?" Michael asked the wood elf. To be honest, Michael saw great potential in Tazkin and Thilve. They could be his first subordinates in this magical world. But first, he needed to know their resolve and will to serve him.
"Please forgive me if I said anything wrong, Dark Lord," Tazkin lowered his head.
"Not at all. I like when my people speak their minds. In the future, if you want to ask or say anything, do not hold back. Even a god can learn much from mortals," said Michael. Tazkin and Thilve''s eyes watered, seeing how down-to-earth their god was despite how powerful he was. As Thilve was standing with her watery eyes, Michael turned his gaze toward her.
"Thilve, I heard you have a map of this forest. Can I see it?"
"Yes, yes, of course, Dark Lord," Thilve bobbed her head up and down frantically before running into one of the wooden huts. A few secondster, she came back with a big round white leaf. On its surface, Michael saw a roughly drawn map of this forest.
"System, locate what we need in this map," Michael asked the system. Soon, Michael saw a glow in the map far north from their tribe.
"It''s time to make gold coins rain," Michael chuckled inside.
Chapter 825 Han Torum And The God Of Light I
(A few days ago)
Back on the Awor continent, Gaya was preparing to attend the auction organized by the Han Torum. This auction was not like a typical Aqua auction. Instead, the Han Torum auction had only one weapon to sell. Only those who had the invitation could enter the premises. At that moment, Gaya was not in her usual ck robes or armor. On the contrary, she chose fancy clothes fit for a princess and a queen. If the dwarves suspected something amiss, they would call off the auction, and she must not let that happen. She needed to y the role of a wealthy heir until she learned more about the devastating weapons the dwarves had recently built.
"He should have a good reason for not talking to me," Gayaid t on the queen-sized bed and looked at the empty space beside her. She had been staying in Delgarum, the dwarven kingdom, in a high-end Inn. The room had everything a rich noble could ask for, but Gaya felt lonely without Michael. She preferred a cabin with him over a castle without him. Her loneliness grew every day that went without his voice. Rolling on the bed, she kept looking at the engagement ring on her finger.
The curtains covering the windows added an orange glow to the morning light. It reminded Gaya of the times she slept in a beach hut, cuddling Michael and watching the ocean emerge under the golden shimmer. For a moment, her mind conjured the rhythmic waves, soft on the sandy shore, and felt her heartbeat to the same slow pace. She breathed in deeply. A new day had begun.
"Mydy, it''s time for you to leave the bed and get ready for the auction," Gaya heard Azazel''s voice in her head like an annoying rm.
"Alright," Gaya exhaled heavily. She reached her hand out to the fabric, noticing how up close the light poured through every open space between fibers, no different from how it once came through the beach-hut walls, illuminating like brilliant fireflies each dawn. The nket was warm beneath her fingers, and when the sun flooded the room, repainting the colors, she felt a little of those golden rays soak into her skin. Finally, Gaya left the bed to take a bath in the bathroom attached to the room. Almost after thirty minutes, Gaya exited the room, wearing the silky smooth bath towel Michael gave her. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she adorned the elegant noble dress Michael brought her from the system for asions such as this one.
The mirror before her reflected the dress, covering only a small portion of her shoulders and flowing down into a fancy Queen Anne neckline. It was a tight fit that put the focus on her breasts but in a graceful manner. Her arms were only covered at her shoulders. A choice that added to the elegance and grace of the dress.
The elegant ck dress'' waist was thin, but it was a loose fit. A bow had been wrapped around her, resting gently on her lower back. Below the waist, the dress fitted snugly around her and had an ordion style. The dress reached just below her knees and was longer at the sides and back of the dress. She was wearing open toes, which added simplicity and elegance. To top it all off, she wore a subtle ne and several elegant bracelets.
Before leaving the room, Gaya double checked the teleportation scrolls and the APD around her wrist. After making sure everything was in ce, Gaya left the cozy room. By the time she reached the bustling street of Delgarum, a carriage was waiting for her. The carriage was owned and manned by someone from the dark lord''s army.
"Shall we go, mydy?" asked the middle-aged man in the driver''s seat.
"Hmm," Gaya nodded as the horses galloped toward her destination. Apparently, Han Torum dwarves chose a drama theater in the entertainment district. Because most of the dwarves couldn''t fly without a flying sword, they banned flying inside the city. Thus, Gaya and all others had to use other means of transportation, such as carriages.
While the carriage was on its way to the entertainment district, Gaya took out a tablet size mirror from her space ring.
"Azazel, get me Sadie and Aria," Gaya said before casting a sound proof barrier around her.
Soon, the dark mirror flickered as the faces of Aria and Sadie appeared in the mirror side by side.
"Mydy,"
"Dark Queen,"
Sadie and Aria lowered their heads, bowing toward Gaya.
"Aria, how was the recon?" asked Gaya.
"As we expected, the ce was crawling with Han Torum dwarves. You can recognize them with the big ruby rings on their fingers. I suspect the auction will happen under the theater. When I was there, I saw two dwarves guarding the stairs. They had some kind of contraption near them, like a lever," Aria reported to Gaya.
"Did they suspect you?"
Aria shook her head,
"No. I had the advantage of blending with the crowd,"
"What about humans? Normally I''d assume a tall human like you would stand out in a crowd full of dwarves,"
"The entertainment district is surprisingly diverse, mydy. Except for the elves, you can see almost every race there. Of course, the majority of them were dwarves, but I had enough orcs and humans to blend with," said Aria.
"That''s because Delgarum is holding an annual think tank," Sadie interjected as Gaya turned her focus to the Silvermoon girl.
"You mean a gathering where all the racese to Delgarum to show their inventions?" Gaya asked as Sadie nodded. Gaya had heard about the think tank and even knew some of the Naga ministers who wanted to participate in this think tank. While she was in Nagnd, Gaya always advocated against participating in it because she didn''t like the idea of their innovations going public. Therefore, Gaya chose not to participate, just like the elves. But now that Xanali and her mother were in charge, that would soon change.
"Rumor has it that the dwarves received some interesting blueprints this year," said Sadie.
"Did you hear anything about the man who invented the death kiss crossbows?"
"Whoever it is, they are extremely good at hiding their steps. My girls are working day and night on this, and they came up with nothing. But mydy, I suspect there is more about this than it meets the eye,"
"What do you mean?"
"The same time you met the orcs and came across those crossbows, a guardian carriage had entered and left the kingdom in a hurry,"
A light bulb lit in Gaya''s head. She had indeed seen a carriage with the guardian guild symbol painted on it when she was trailing Valmas. Initially, she suspected Noah to be in the kingdom. But Sadie''s little birdies came up with nothing. Moreover, Sadie''s spies in Pen town informed her that Noah was with his family at that time. So Gaya didn''t pay much mind to the carriage. She had too many things on her te to trail the carriages as ording to Sadie, there was more than one carriage.
"You think one of those carriages might have transported the inventor?"
"We can''t deny it, mydy. I am working on turning a guardian to the dark side. Once I am done, we might know more about him," Gaya noticed a strange glow in Sadie''s eyes. It was like a tigress on her way to a hunt. Obviously, turning people to the dark side thrilled Sadie, and if she managed to turn a guardian to their side, it would be a huge help in the future. Buying guardians with gold coins used to be so easy when Noah was not the Supreme Guardian. After he took the helm, heunched an extensive investigation and fired all the corrupted guardians. Now finding a corrupt guardian was as rare as finding a gold coin on the street.
"Be careful. Don''t fly too close to the sun. If you feel something is wrong, back off. Noah tends to give us surprises,"
"I will, mydy,"
"Also, keep an eye on the Winston manor. I have a strange feeling about that,"
"As you wish, mydy," Sadie agreed with a nod as Gaya turned her gaze back to Aria.
"Aria, I want you to cover all the exits from the theater. I don''t think we have enough coins to win the auction. So we have to trail whoever wins the auction and get our hands on the weapon,"
"My people are already covering the exits as we speak, mydy. Unless they use teleportation scrolls, we can trail them the moment they step outside the theater," said Aria.
"Don''t worry about teleportation. Elidyr will take care of that,"
Elidyr had already reached the theater, and engravings runes around the theater to prevent anyone from using teleportation scrolls. The runes would stay inactive until someone tries to use a scroll. Stopping someone from using a teleportation scroll was much easier than tracking them down after they had used one. Gaya left no stone unturned in this n. Because failure was not an option. If those weapons had the capability to turn the tide of war, the dark army needed to have them on their side.
After dismissing Aria and Sadie, Gaya contacted Azazel as he appeared in the mirror.
"Mydy," Azazel bowed.
"Tell Saber to send one of his people to shadow Sadie. If the guardians are digging a hole to trap her, I want her safe,"
Sadie was too valuable to lose. So Gaya wanted to keep her hidden and safe from the guardians. If the guardians found out she is working for the Dark Lord, their dreams of controlling the Silvermoon and building a web of spies would crumble to dust. Following Sadie''s matter, Gaya had one more thing to deal with before turning her full focus on the Han Torum dwarves.
"Have you heard from mother yer?" asked Gaya. While Saber was in the Nether realm, collecting rare herbs for Michael, Adelia was tasked to shadow the elves who cursed Christopher and imprisoned ire''s mother. She was ordered to rescue ire''s mother by any means necessary by the Dark Lord himself.
"She has reached Nelnathyr and is getting close to the Mortero family. She also asked me to keep an eye on you, mydy,"
Gaya smiled,
"And I would ask you the same. Keep an eye on her. I won''t and can''t lose her again. I will talk to her after this auction,"
At that point in time, Gaya had no idea the surprise Noah had for all of them¡
Chapter 826 Han Torum And The God Of Light II
The entertainment district of Embercrest was filled with all sorts of people except the rich. Once again, the dwarves tend to care little about status among their own race. One could see a millionaire dwarf drink and sing in a pub with his buddies, who might very well be miners. It was very difficult for people to tell the difference between a rich dwarf and a poor dwarf. After a long smooth ride, Gaya''s carriage reached the theater.
From the outside, it looked rustic, beautiful, and cheerful. y bricks and carved pirs made up most of the building''s outer structure.
It was difficult to see through the curtained windows, but the liveliness from within could be felt outside.
"Park the carriage nearby and wait for my word," Gaya said to the driver and stepped out of the carriage. A wide straight avenue littered with dwarves weed Gaya. As Aria said, Gaya noticed many orcs, humans, and beastmen on the street. Thanks to those, she didn''t stand out among the dwarves, and the short bushy beard species didn''t raise an eyebrow as they would if she had visited the ceter this year.
Twenty or so marble stairs led to the theater door nked by two dwarves in silver armor and war hammers with intricate engravings.
"Hrrm," The dwarves growled under their breath when they saw Gaya''s long legs. Hate toward the taller species was evident in their eyes as the dwarves opened the door for Gaya. As she entered the theater through the decorated metal door, she was weed by dancing thespians and excitement. It was as charming inside as it was on the outside. Rounded stone beams supported the upper floor and the hugemps attached to them. The walls were decorated with mounted animal heads, shields, and portraits of various dwarves.
The theater itself was packed. As one would expect, dwarves were the primary clientele here, which often meant greatpany and chaos. Several long tables were upied by beastmen. Humans and a few orcs upied the other, smaller tables who seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot, especially the dancers.
The center stage was built several meters higher than the ground but not too high to ache one''s neck. Several female dancers, including beastmen women and human women, danced gracefully, wearing revealing clothes. The air reeked of freshly brewed ale. It was almost overwhelming. Everywhere Gaya turned, she saw the dwarves drinking,ughing, and fighting like it was no one''s business. This behavior didn''t surprise Gaya much, as the dwarves were unruly creatures with unpredictable behavior.
Gaya''s gaze swept across the theater and noticed a few humans walking toward the two dwarves guarding the stairs.
"That must be the entrance," Gaya said to herself before squeezing through the crowd toward the dwarves. She had to be careful not to step on any dwarves on her way because there were several of them rolling on the ground. For a great eight n, Han Torum picked an unusual spot for the auction.
Gaya took out the invitation with a flick of her wrist and held it in her hand. The dwarves noticed the approaching human and the golden invitation in her hand.
"Here you go," Gaya extended the invitation for the dwarves to see the embossed letters on the invitation. The two dwarves gawked at the invitation from top to bottom. Then, they removed the red rope blocking the stairs leading downstairs. Goldenmps brightly lit the steps and led Gaya to a spacious hall under the theater. Only a few people remained in the hall. The marble floor shimmed under the bright chandelier light. Crimson red curtains woven with elegant designs covered the windows and the walls.
When she entered the hall, a human girl wearing an alluring red dress that hugged her perfect hourss structure came to greet Gaya. She was one of the thespians and was assigned to be the auctioneer.
"Mydy," the red-haired beauty bowed toward Gaya.
"Please enjoy the beverages and make yourself at home. The auction will begin shortly," said the beauty. She tried to avoid gazing at Gaya''s dress but failed miserably. Her eyes sparkled. But Gaya was more focused on the others in the room. To her surprise, she noticed a few orcs along with a beastmen.
As for humans, there were four in the room. Among the four, two of them wore white robes with the iconic guardian guild symbol engraved on their chests. Avoiding their gazes, Gaya made her way to the long oak table with silver tes filled with snacks, fruits, and beverages such as ale, wine, and beer.
"How are you doing?" When Gaya came to the table, a woman with fluffy fox years greeted her. The woman''s tail slowly swayed left and right as she sipped the wine from the golden chalice.
"Good. What about you?" Gaya greeted the golden-haired woman with a gentle smile. To avoid looking out of the ce, Gaya took an empty ss, poured red wine, and pretended to drink it.
"I couldn''t help but adore your dress," the womanplimented Gaya''s dress. Gaya was no stranger to fakepliments, but the woman''s words were genuine. Any woman with a tab bit of taste in clothes would kill to get a dress like the one Gaya was wearing. It was a pity that Gaya didn''t know why people had been ring at her dress the moment she stepped out of the carriage. If anything, this dress was drawing too much attention toward her.
"My fiance gave this to me," said Gaya.
"He must have good taste in clothing. Oh, pardon my manners. I am Colubra," the beast woman introduced herself, reaching out to shake Gaya''s hand. For a moment, Gaya stared at her in surprise.
"Aren''t you a bit too friendly when we are all here to bid for weapons?" asked Gaya, but she shook her hand anyways. She followed Michael''s words of making allies anywhere you can instead of enemies.
"Wedies have to stick together. What''s the worst that could happen by making some friends?" Colubra shrugged. Colubra''s cute and cuddly look may fool the others but not Gaya. She could identify a killer when she saw one, and Colubra was a predator despite her foxy ears. Gaya had a feeling that Colubra may have sensed the same. No one would send an innocent to a ck auction that deals in destructive weapons, especially not the beast king Zelic.
"Look at them going," Colubra''s gaze fell on the guardians,
"Why do they want to participate in this auction when their new Supreme Guardian brags about stopping wars?" Judging by Colubra''s tone, it was apparent the fox hates the Guardian Guild. Although they seemed to share the same hatred toward the Guardian Guild, Gaya remained silent. She was here to track down the buyer and the weapon, not to bitch about the guild and Noah with this total stranger.
While Gaya was waiting for the auction to begin, she received another shock. The orcs who bought the death kiss crossbows entered the hall with their red-skinned leader leading them. Once the orcs entered the hall, an uneasy atmosphere surrounded them. Everyone, including the green orcs, tried not to make any direct eye contact with them. Luckily for Gaya, she changed her face using the mask. Otherwise, they might have recognized her and suspected something was amiss.
None seemed to have any idea about these orcs. But whoever they were, they had deep pockets and connections to bid for the weapon and receive an extra invitation from Han Torum.
"Excuse me for a moment, Miss Colubra," Gaya excused herself away from Colubra and went to the corner,
"Azazel, are you getting this?" The Spyder hidden in her hair crawled onto her shoulder and sent the feedback to Azazel, where he recorded everything.
"The same ones who bought the crossbows. It seems like we have new yers, mydy," Azazel amused.
"The question is, where do they stand when ites to the Dark Lord,"
"Put their faces in a recording crystal and send them to the elf. He might have some idea," Gaya said to Azazel in a husky voice. Even after Michael had revealed himself as the Dark Lord, the business rtionship between him and Lord Information remained untethered. The elf preferred gold coins and favors more than anything. As long as he got paid, Lord Information gave no shit about where the coins came from. The only problem however was essing the elf. After Noah took the mantle, he put surveince on almost every information broker in the world, and Lord Information was on top of that list. Luckily, Michael had built drones and Spyders that could connect Lord Information to Azazel.
"We will find out soon enough,"
"Ladies and gentlemen," Gaya heard the hostess''s voice after a few clinking sounds. The hostess stood in the center with a wine ss raised above her eye line. Everyone turned their focus on the hostess as red sofas materialized around her one by one. The door Gaya came through closed from the outside, trapping them inside.
"Please take your seats. The auction will begin now," The hostess gestured at the sofas as everyone plunged into thefy cushion. Colubra and Gaya went to the center and sat beside each other, facing the red orcs. After everyonefortably took their seats, the chandelier above them brightened.
Gaya recorded everything around her with the Spyder while waiting for the Han Torum dwarves to appear. At the moment, there were no dwarves in the room.
That soon changed when the hall they were in split open, revealing an underground passage. The cushions trembled as a tform moved upwards, carrying the dwarves and their new contraption, a cow-sized weapon with a conical body. Its metal body was painted with gold and engraved with intricate designs. At first sight, it did not look like a weapon to anyone but a saxophone. Of course, the natives of this world didn''t know what a saxophone looked like.
"Is that the weapon?" Gaya asked herself. Unlike Colubra, Gaya didn''t seem disappointed. She knew better than to judge a weapon by its look. The guardians and the red orcs wouldn''t be here if the weapon was not powerful enough to cause mass destruction.
Chapter 827 Han Torum And The God Of Light III
The two dwarves stood beside the unusual weapon and nced at their audience briefly. They were like any other typical dwarves; bushy beards, bulky bodies, and smelled like ale. One had a receding forehead, while the other looked young with ck curly hair. Everyone in the hall was able to see the weapon clearly. Now they all wanted to see what it could do before they started bidding. As though the dwarves had sensed their curiosity, they introduced themselves without taking any more of their time.
"I am Bufug, and my partner is called Goddun," the young dwarf introduced himself and his partner.
"I know no one gives a shit about our names. So let''s go straight to the demonstration. Shall we?" Bufug''s gaze swept across the hall. Their names seemed fake to Gaya. No one in their right mind would give their real names when they were supposedly auctioning a mass destruction weapon. However, the dwarves were right. She didn''t give two shits about their names. All she needed was to see what this weapon before her was capable of.
"Before we do that, we should tell them that this is only the prototype of the real beast," said Goddun, the old dwarf.
"What do you mean a prototype?" the red orc growled.
"Means we don''t want any of you to pull a damn surprise on us. Make no mistake. The real beast is a hundred times more powerful than this one. So wait till after the demonstration," said Goddun. He wasn''t afraid of the big brute orc despite the fact the orc could kill him with a single punch. The cultivation power between them was huge. Goddun, the dwarf, was at the Core Formation level, while the Orc was at the Fusion stage. Nheless, the orc remained seated without resorting to violence. Just like everyone else, they wanted to see what the prototype was capable of.
"Once you see the demonstration and finish bidding, we will take you to the real thing in a more secured area,"
Gaya''s n slightly changed after hearing about the dwarves. Initially, she thought the dwarves would bring the weapon to the auction. Now, the dwarves took a turn and only brought the prototype. Because of this change, she had to follow the dwarves and the one who won the auction to the real weapon and steal it from the dwarves. She hoped either the human couple or Colubra would win against the guardians and the orcs. Among all of them, they looked least threatening with their Core Strengthening cultivation level.
"To start the demonstration, we need a volunteer," said Goddun.
"Luckily, we do have, not one," Bufug raised a finger,
"Not two," he raised another finger. One by one, he raised all of his fingers,
"But five lucky volunteers," Goddun pped his hands as the door on the other side of the hall slowly creaked open, revealing a group of people bound by their legs with iron chains. The group was surprisingly diverse. They had one orc, three humans, and a beastmen who had the body of a bear and the face of a man.
"Move your asses," the two dwarves behind them poked the human with his battle axe, pushing into the hall. Colubra raised her brows in shock. Not because she saw one of her kind but because everyone in the group was at the Core Strengthening stage. The iron chains tied around their legs and arms didn''t seem magically enhanced with runes. Rather, they looked ordinary. Which led them to question why they were not trying to get out of their chains.
The two dwarves led them into the hall and made them stand facing the wide end of the conical weapon. There was at least seven meters distance between the group and the weapon. Whatever they did, they sure didn''t earn the dwarves'' empathy. The human tried to tell the other something but couldn''t speak through the cloth tied around his mouth. Everyone in the group had their mouths shut by a piece of cloth.
"Now pieces of shits, listen to me and do exactly what I tell you to do. Try something funny, and you know what will happen to your precious loved ones," Bufug threatened the group in his gruff dwarven voice. The hatred in Bufug''s eyes burned brightly like a campfire in pitch ck night. It made Gaya wonder what the group really did to piss the dwarves this much. But whatever they did, it was not her job to find out and rescue them. The guardians were literally sitting there and watching this happen.
Even if Michael was there instead of Gaya, he wouldn''t have raised a finger when the guardian who was supposed to do something was standing there doing nothing. Meanwhile, Goddun walked back to the weapon and fiddled with the knob attached to the side of the weapon. Everyone was so focused on what the weapon could do that they barely gave a shit about the group facing the weapon head-on.
"Cast your most powerful defense spells when we take away the piece of cloth. Do you understand?" Bufug asked as the two dwarves standing behind the group gave everyone a stern kick to their knees to bring them down to match their height. Even after they brought everyone down, the orc was still taller than the dwarves, which garnered someughter among the participants. Gaya nced at the red orc and his group to see if they would react to dwarves beating one of their own. But no, the orcs didn''t even flinch an eye. It didn''t surprise Gaya after she noticed the expressionless faces of the guardians.
Eventually, the dwarves removed the clothes and let them get back to their feet. The dwarves waited with their battle hammers clenched tight just in case. Then, Bufug threatened them once again.
"Remember the faces of your loved ones and cast the strongest defense spell on your arsenal," said Bufug.
Everyone in the group felt reluctant and afraid to cast the spell, but eventually, they broke under the dwarf''s murderous gaze. Then, they all cast their defense spell one by one.
"Starfire Rain," One of the humans cast the spell as countless glistening stars appeared around him, forming a bright barrier.
"Static re," Suddenly, a crimson-red light shed across the hall when the beastmen cast the spell. The temperature in the room rose by a couple of degrees. As the spell''s name suggested, a barrier made of red rays appeared around the beastman.
"Deflection sh,"
"Repose Barrier,"
A few momentster, everyone had a shield around them. The others, including Gaya, couldn''t help looking at the scene curiously. The two dwarves who stood behind the group quickly ran toward Bufug and joined their fellow dwarves. In Gaya''s eyes, the two dwarves seemed terrified. She could see the fear creeping down their spins through their eyes. The dwarves had witnessed the weapon''s power before. She was certain of it.
"Get ready to be surprised eh." Goddun, the old dwarf snickered as he brushed the weapon like he was caring for his own horse. Then, he pushed the knob inwards as the weapon purred. Gaya expected a fiery steel ball to shoot out of the weapon as it happened with the death kiss crossbows. On the contrary, nothing happened. The orcs growled, thinking the dwarves had fooled them. But suddenly, the orc behind the glistening shield roared in utter pain. Gaya was taken aback by the sheer volume of his cry. The big orc screamed like he was going through. Soon, all the others joined the orc in his cry. Blood seeped through their eyes, ears, and nostrils as they copsed down. Gaya noticed the sound of their cries getting louder as Goddun turned the knob.
"What is happening?" Colubra whispered to Gaya.
"''No idea," Gaya shrugged.
Their cries of agonysted an entire minute until the orc gasped for air. Then, his big body hit the ground with a heavy thud. One by one, the entire group lost their breath and hit the ground with a sickening thud. Eerie silence swept across the hall. Even after they died, blood slowly drizzled out of every pore in their body. To this moment, Gaya had no idea how they died.
"This is uneptable. How do we know they were not poisoned?" The two other humans, besides the guardians, rose from his chair as though it was on fire and questioned the dwarves. Everyone had the same question in their minds.
"Why don''t you stand there and get your answer?" Goddun chuckled as though the human''s question amused him.
The golden-haired man''s face turned red. He expected an answer with a more respectful tone, except he expected that from the wrong person. Dwarves were known for many things, but respectful was not one of them. Although Gaya didn''t think the dwarves used some kind of underhanded tactics to kill them, she did want to see more. By more, she wanted someone else to get killed by the weapon.
"I will settle this," Surprisingly, the red orc stood up. As soon as the human saw the big, bad, and brute orc stand up, his mouth shut down instantly. The orc was big enough to cast arge shadow on the hall. Then, he turned his gaze toward one of his men.
"Go stand there and cast yourself a defense spell," said the orc.
Hearing the orc, the others were stunned. No one in their right mind would agree to that, especially after witnessing how they suffered and cried. But the orc behind the red orc surprised Gaya by nodding his head. He strolled toward the bodies and waved his hand,
"Earth barrier," the orc cast the spell as a golem made out of stone appeared in a blink of an eye. The golem was at least ten feet tall. It ced its hands before the orc to shield him from harm.
"Show us what you can do now," the red orc growled at the dwarves, who weirdly seemed excited rather than worried. Just like before, Goddon fiddled with the knob as the weapon purred like a cat. This time, the weapon vibrated for a few moments. Everyone''s gazes were fixed on the golem and the orc. To their shock, the stone golem cracked. Before they could realize what had just happened, the stone golem shattered into pieces as the orc started to roar in pain. Unlike the Core Strengthening stage people that died a few seconds ago, the orc was a Soul Refiner. Yet, the result was the same. The orc cried, copsed to the ground, squirmed like a fish out of water, and suddenly, his cries stopped. However, the time it took the weapon to kill the orc was longer than before.
"We are satisfied with the weapon," The red orc didn''t even flinch at hisrade''s death. He acted as nothing had happened.
Gaya was speechless. She realized the empress wasn''t kidding when she said thistest contraption could turn the tide of any war. Imagine what hundreds of these weapons could do. Furthermore, this was just a prototype. So only god knew how powerful the real weapon would be.
Chapter 828 Noah Is Here
After witnessing the strange yet mind-blowing power of the weapon, the dwarves began the auction. The dwarves started the auction with the insane price of twenty billion gold coins. But none bat an eye at the price. Instead, the orcs raised the bid by five billion. Gaya was mind blown to see how rich these orcs were. She was more curious about the orcs than before. But when she thought about what the weapon could do in a real battlefield, the price seemed fair or if not cheap. Even though Gaya had not more than a hundred thousand gold coins in her space ring, she raised the bid by another five billion just to participate in the auction. She knew the final bid would easily go to a hundred billion gold coins. That kind of coin was not easy to get. Somehow, Gaya doubted a single individual could have such wealth. Even the Dark Lord Michael himself struggled to reach one billion gold coins in wealth. Of course, he would have easily reached that point if Noah hadn''t banned the Majestic alchemy chains and Hades.
"Thirty billion," Colubra raised her hand and raised the bid casually.
"Fifty billion," the red orc almost immediately raised the boid after Colubra.
The guardians remained silent, surprisingly. To this moment, they didn''t open their mouths once. As seconds turned minutes, the blood around the dead bodies slowly evaporated into the air and nauseated the others.
"Clean that up," Goddun ordered the two dwarves behind him. The two short dwarves nodded as they ran toward the bodies while Bufug and Goddun continued the auction. With each bid, the dwarves smiled brighter. The auction was making them very rich. Gaya doubted the empress didn''t send anyone to buy the weapon for herself. It seemed to be the easiest way unless the dwarves had more than one weapon built, and they nned to sell each one separately. Gaya didn''t even think about it.
"Sixty-five billion," The golden-haired man who snapped at the dwarf earlier raised the bid.
"Seventy billion," Finally, the guardian opened his mouth. Gaya was tempted to rob each and everyone in the room. They all could solve their financial problem in one go. Fortunately, Michael promised they wouldn''t have to worry about gold coins after he returned from the demons grave. But even if Gaya had billions of gold coins, she didn''t think she would have bid for the weapon when she had the option to steal it.
"Enough of this," The red orc growled.
"Hundred billion," Gaya browns arched up when the orc raised the bid by freakin thirty billion.
"Child''s y," Colubra snickered,
"Hundred and fifty billion,"
The orcs growled but restrained themselves from doing anything rash. Everyone in the room raised Gaya''s suspicions. Among them, Gaya was almost certain that Colubra attended the auction on behalf of King Zelic, the beast king. If that were the case, the orcs would have a difficult time outbidding the foxy woman because she had an entire nation behind her.
For an orc who was heartless, the red orc was patient enough to keep himself calm. Although the dwarves were not terribly strong andcked bodyguards, none of them dared to mess with the auction. They were all well-mannered. Colubra didn''t seem like she would back down any time soon.
"One hundred and eighty billion," The red orc raised the bid.
"Two hundred billion," the guardians raised the bid to two hundred billion. Their bidding war continued for some time, with even Gaya asionally raising the bid by ten or twenty billion. Eventually, the guardians and everyone backed off from the auction except Colubra and the red orc. The beast woman raised the price to three hundred billion, and when the red orc was about to outbid her, the entire hall trembled slightly. For a moment, Gaya thought the dwarves had identally turned on the weapon. But no, the ce trembled because of the guardian airship.
Gaya heard the suddenmotion outside as well as the strange whirring sounding from above her. Her brain immediately recognized the sound.
"Guardians," Gaya''s heart skipped a beat.
"Mydy, the guardians-" Gaya heard the panicked voice of Aria when the ceiling above them exploded. Before anyone could react, several people d in silver armor roped down through the hole in the ceiling. The explosion sent Gaya and the others stumbling away. Ceiling crumbled down as the silver armored soldiersnded on the hall. Everyone was caught off guard.
"Don''t move!" one of the silver-armored soldiers shouted.
? "Grghh," Gaya growled as she picked herself up. Colubra stood up, grabbing the wall for her support. Once the dwarves realized what just happened, Goddun tried to reach for the weapon. However, a silver-armored soldier dashed at the dwarf, grabbed him by the dwarf''s cor, and threw him aside to the other end of the hall.
"Bastard!'' Bufug unsheathed his dagger and tried to cut open the soldier who threw away his partner. Rage blinded Bufug, preventing him from seeing the power gap between them. Each silver armored soldier was at the Soul Refining stage. Only the red orc was powerful enough to fight them beside Gaya. But she tried to formte a n to escape the auction with the weapon.
Boom!
The silver armored soldier went flying onto the wall. Finally, the red orc walked out from the cloud of dust and threw away the soldier like he was nothing. With the orc''s size and strength, the silver-armored soldiers stood no chance. At Least that''s what would have happened if the silver armored soldiers were alone.
"ARGH!" The red orc roared. His shout alone had enough power to destroy the furniture and push everyone back. Bufug wasted no time as he rushed to the weapon. When the dwarf reached the weapon, Gaya thought he would use that to kill the silver-armored soldiers. However, she was surprised when the dwarf opened up the way they initially came from by pushing a button hidden on the floor. The floor was just a few seconds away from opening and letting the dwarf run away with the weapon. Poor dwarf didn''t expect a light beam to strike him from above and throw him off bnce. Gaya sensed a powerful being near her, and it wasn''t the red orc who was just a few inches away from ripping off a silver armored soldier''s head.
Another beam of pure white light struck the ground beside the red orc. The force knocked back the orc, saving the silver armored soldier. Then, another figure slowly descended to the hall through the hole they sted, covered in dazzling bright light. Gaya''s heart pounded against her chest when she saw Noah Winston. As usual, he wore pure white robes, and his raven ck hair fluttered in the wind. His eyes glimmered with calm and serenity. Since Noah was just as famous as the Dark Lord himself, everyone recognized him almost immediately. It had been some time since Gaya met Noah in person. Some kind of bad luck put Gaya in the same room as the Supreme Guardian himself.
"Stand down, everyone," Noah''s dominant voice swept across the hall. Hepletely ignored the red orc and announced,
"We are here for the dwarves and the prototype. Stand down, and this will be over before you know it," said Noah. He was just as calm as Gaya remembered him. That was one of the few traits Noah and Michael had inmon. Both of them would remain calm in situations where most others wouldpletely lose their minds. The red orc was far from listening to Noah and surrendering. Instead of backing off, the red orc made the mistake of thinking he could take on Noah since they were both at the Fusion Stage. A typical human at the Fusion stage would lose the fight against the red orc, not Noah. He was anything but typical.
With his big fists cupped, the red orc threw a punch, aiming for Noah''s head. Noah waited till thest moment and blocked the red orc''s fist with his palm. The ground beneath the orc cracked like an egg when Noah blocked his punch. Before the orc could retaliate, Noah twisted the orc''s fist, pulled him closer, and punched him in the chest with enough force to send the red orc flying like a wooden dummy. The other orcs immediately ganged up on Noah and dashed at him from all directions.
Noah reacted by stomping the ground with his right foot, creating a shock wave that knocked down the orcs off bnce. Then, Noah simply raised his hand as a beam of bright light shot out from his palm and hit an orc right in the chest.
"AH!" The orc cried out in pain before losing consciousness. One by one, Noah knocked out every single orc before their leader could get back to his feet. For a big brute, the red orc was quick to get back to his feet. He simply brushed off the dust from his shoulder and cracked his big neck.
"You are making a mistake, human," The red orc talked in his gruff voice.
"You already made one," said Noah.
"Mydy, the guardians has blocked all the exits. They got this whole ce surrounded," Gaya heard Aria through the earpiece.
"I still have the teleportation scroll. Don''t worry about me. Get your team and get out of here," Gaya whispered.
"But-"
"It''s an order," Gaya interrupted Aria before she could finish her sentence. Meanwhile, the red orc prepared to battle Noah once again. But this time, he decided to use spells instead of brute force. The orc''s eyes shimmered with a strange green glow, just like his veins. It didn''t feel like the orc was using only Celestial energy to Gaya. Something was amiss. Soon, a thickyer of emerald formed upon the orc, covering him like well-forged armor. The red orc moved toward Noah step by step. Each step he took shook the ground and made the ceiling more unstable. Gaya feared the theater mighte falling down on their heads any second. But neither the orc nor Noah seemed to care about the building''s structural integrity.
"Grab the dwarves and secure the weapon and the bidders. I will deal with him," Noah said to his men. Unlike the orc, he didn''t cast any spells or equip any armor. Instead, he waited for the orc to make his first move. Finally, the orc rushed at Noah with his fists raised high.
"Mydy, I don''t think we can take the weapon anymore. Just please get out of there. We will figure something outter," Gaya heard Azezel. He was worried, and that wouldn''t happen so often. If he was worried, Gaya could tell how bad her situation was.
Chapter 829 The Power Of Locking Out Cultivation
The red orc punched into his fist while cracking his neck. He was ready to give Noah a beat down to death. Facing the big brute orc, Noah remained calm. He didn''t even cast a spell. Instead, Noah waited for the red orc to arrive to him.
"We are leaving," the golden-haired man tried to leave the hall, only to get halted by the silver armored guardians. These soldiers surrounded everyone to interrogate themter. It would only take a second for Gaya to use the teleportation scroll to escape. However, he couldn''t leave the ce without finding the real weapon. Kidnapping the two dwarves seemed to be the only option at that moment. Except, the dwarves were already under the control of the silver-armored guardians. Gaya dared not to reveal her identity when Noah was right there in the room with her.
Gaya waited for the right moment to strike. Meanwhile, the red orc almost reached Noah. When they had just a meter distance between them, the orc dashed at Noah with his fist aimed at Noah''s head. Noah just moved his body to the side without moving his feet. The orc''s fist brushed past his face, barely missing his nose by an inch. Then, Noah grabbed the orc''s wrist, ced his hand on the orc''s chest and boom, a bright beam of light shot out from Noah''s palm, sending the orc flying yet again. This time, the orc crashed onto the wall, creating an orc-sized hole in it.
Fumes radiated from the orc''s chest as Noah''s palm got imprinted on his chest. After the orc hit the wall, the entire hall trembled.
"Stay down," Noah''s voice swept across the hall. The red orc did the exact opposite of what just Noah said and got back to his feet. He clubbed his own chest like a pissed off gori before running toward Noah with his eyes burning in rage and violence. Keeping his focus on the orc, Noah kicked a piece of stone crumbed down from the ceiling toward the orc. It was heavy as hell, and if amoner tried to kick it, every bone in their feet would just snap like a twig. But when Noah kicked it, the stone piece flew like a football and hit the orc right in the head before the orc could defend himself.
The orc was stunned for a few moments. Utilizing this opportunity, Noah dashed at the orc, leaped into the air, and kicked the orc with his knees.
"Argh," The orc growled, stumbling backward. Noah hovered in the air and fired a strong beam of light that knocked down the orc to the ground. On the ground, the red orc struggled and growled in pain. Then, Noahnded straight down on the orc''s chest, breaking a couple of the orc''s ribs in the process. Although Noah and the Orc were at the Fusion stage, Noah was far stronger than the orc. He was a god, after all. Compared to Michael, Noah had a different path to godhood and possessed different powers. Still, as a god of light, the light beaming through the hole above them strengthened Noah. Plus, Noah spent a nice chunk of his time honing his battle prowess.
Noah stomped the orc with his knee, making the orc cough out blood. He punched the orc repeatedly until the orc''s body radiated a glow from within. Suddenly, an explosion went off around the orc. The hall trembled once again as Gaya grabbed the pir beside her to steady herself. Then, she noticed Noah crashing onto the rubble nearby. The red orc jumped back to his feet. To her surprise, the orc was on fire. He was literally on fire. However, the fire did not hurt the orc. Rather, the crimson red draped on the orc''s skin like another set of armor.
Before Noah could get back to his feet, the orc readied his hand, sending a stream of scorching hot mes. The curtains around them immediately caught on fire. Soon, the fire spread like wildfire, engulfing everything around them. On the other hand, a wall of ice appeared in front of Noah and protected him from the orc''s fire. Ice and fire collided, creating a misty vapor around them. Coupled with the smoke, the mist made it impossible to see a thing in the room. Luckily, it worked in Gaya''s favor. She closed her eyes, spreading her senses around.
"There they are," Gaya located the two dwarves. She sneaked toward the dwarves while Noah was upied with the orc.
"You want the dwarves?" Gaya''s heart skipped a beat when she heard the orc''s gruffy voice. She thought the orc was talking to her. But luckily, these words were meant for Noah. She hastened her steps, only to see another orc stumbling toward the two dwarves under the silver armored soldier''s hold. For some reason, her instincts screamed at her. Her legs moved without her control and leaped backward, putting some distance between herself and the dwarves. When she leaped away, she heard another explosion. Something sshed onto her face as she touched the drop of liquid trickling down her cheek.
"Blood," Gaya saw drops of blood on her hand.
"AH!" Gaya heard another scream that sounded as loud as a banshee''s cry. It sounded like the human woman apanied the golden-haired man. The or who approached the dwarves, the explosion and the scream followed by it made Gaya question what just had happened.
"They are gone," The orcughed like a devil. As soon as Noah heard the words, the wall of ice before him shattered. The icy shards flew in every direction, impaling wherever they came into contact. Then, a powerful gust of wind shot out of Noah, clearing the mist around them as well as swaying the me until Noah reached the orc. Killing intent skyrocketed from Noah, seeing the bits of pieces of the dwarves and the silver-armored soldiers. Even the well-forged armor was broken into pieces by the orc, who self-exploded, killing the two dwarves.
Noah knew the orcs were dangerous but never anticipated them to self-explode. Both Noah and Gaya were speechless. But for now, Noah had to put an end to the red orc before more and more people died. Since the dwarves exploded along with the orc, Gaya had to change her ns. The two dwarves were the only ones who could have led her to the real weapon. So she turned her focus to the weapon itself. If she could transport it to the dark ocean somehow, she could ask Michael''s help in tracking down or building a new one altogether. But stealing the weapons under the Guardian warship and Noah was not a small feat.
One by one, the orcs who got knocked out by Noah stood up. Their eyes glimmered with the same emerald-green glow she saw in the red orc''s body. One of the orcs rushed to the weapon. After the explosion went near it, the weapon was covered in blood and looked a bit dented. The orc turned the weapon, focusing its mouth on Noah. He was ready to use the weapon to kill Noah. The n was indeed a good one. Unfortunately, Noah couldn''t be killed with typical mortal weapons, ording to Michael.
The red orc quickly tried to cast a spell and dash out of the weapon''s range. Yet he failed as a white sword came out of nowhere and impaled him through his chest.
"ARGH!" The orc groaned. After the sword stabbed him, the fire around the orc vanished into thin air. A sudden explosion of energy sent everything and everyone flying. Even Gaya collided against the wall and felt weak just for a brief moment. Even though she had enough strength to get back to her feet, she chose to lie on the ground as everyone else had been groaning and rolling on the ground. They looked worse. Colubra, who was behind a broken table, looked pale, groaning in pain and trying to get back to her feet.
At that moment, when Gaya thought Noah was about to finish the red orc, he did something unimaginable. Noah raised his hand and fired a bright beam of light at the weapon itself.
Boom!
Gaya almost shouted as the weapon exploded into bits and pieces. The orc who stood behind crashed onto the wall behind him and hit the ground unconscious.
"What did you do?" the red orc gasped. He couldn''t believe Noah had just destroyed the weapon. Everyone, including Gaya, thought Noah was here to bring the weapon to the guild along with the dwarves. They were proven wrong by Noah. The red orc''s eyes widened inplete shock. He wanted to kill Noah more than anything. One could see the rage and killing lust in his eyes.
"Grrh," The orc growled when Noah twisted the sword''s hilt in the orc''s chest.
"You areing with me, Saravar," said Noah. The orc struggled to raise his hands as Gaya noticed a strange glow on the center of Noah''s forehead. Soon, he cupped the orc''s head as a beam of light shot out of Noah''s forehead and prated the orc''s head. This scene reminded Gaya of the time they were in the Fire Realm. Then, Noah used something simr to lock someone''s cultivation.
She was lucky enough to see that again. Saravar''s Fusion stage cultivation slowly declined to the point, in a few moments, he became amoner. He was not even an arch-sensing stage cultivation at that moment. Instead, he was like someone in the Southern continent, void of any arch energy in his body. The threat Noah posed for them was the realm. Just like Michael had the power to snuff out someone''s soul and absorb it, Noah possessed the power to lock someone''s cultivationpletely. Gaya''s neck hair stood up, seeing the orc mumble like a crazy person.
Every fiber in her body told her to get out of the ce immediately. After all, she had no reason to stick around. The dwarves were dead, and the prototype was in bits and pieces. So if she wasted any more time in the same room with Noah, the Supreme Guardian, she would be in deep trouble. Thest thing Gaya wanted for Michael was to devise a n to infiltrate the guardians and rescue her. Without a second thought, Gaya took out the teleportation scroll and used it.
Noah suddenly turned his gaze toward the ce where Gaya was and sensed the space being distorted. Yet the person who used the teleportation scroll was no longer there.
"Who was that?" Noah heard Andreas''s voice in his head.
"We will know soon enough," said Noah.
Chapter 830 The Mind Behind Death Kiss Crossbows
(A few days before the auction at Embercrest entertainment district)
In a dimly lit cozy room, Noah sat behind a table, almost buried in scrolls and parchments. Most of them thought being a Supreme Guardian was just hanging around and barking orders. However, the real deal was easy way different. Noah spent most of his time rummaging through ancient texts, parchments, and scrolls to find out more about the gods and the god-killing weapons. After scouring the entire Ozer continent, Noah found some texts indicating a great war between the gods. Some of the gods who led the war against what they called corrupted ones, forged weapons capable of killing corrupted ones as well as themselves. Somehow, Lady Qin Jiu got hold of the texts on how to forge these weapons and forged seven arrows with her friends'' help to kill the Dark Lord. The only problem was she forged replicas of these arrows and scattered them throughout the world to confuse the Dark Lord. Noah found six of these replicas, and he only had one real arrow.
He was neck-deep in searching for these arrows until his mother, Diana, ordered him to return home and attend Katherine''s baby shower. If that wasn''t enough, Noah received disturbing reports that Han Torum dwarves had built a weapon capable enough to cause mass destruction. So now, Noah had to attend the baby shower, search for the arrows and deal with the dwarves.
"Noah," The door slowly creaked open, revealing Alicia''s perfect slender figure. She gracefully strolled into the room with an alluring smile.
"What is it?" Noah raised his head and was stunned by the beauty of his wife. She looked angelic in the cable light, making his heartbeat rise. As much as Noah liked to focus on the ancient texts, his wife looked too beautiful for him to ignore. He stood up from his chair and stepped closer to her.
"Is it me or you look gorgeous today?" asked Noah as he slowly wrapped his arm around Alicia''s slender waist.
"I think you''re being extra cheesy right now," Alicia chuckled but didn''t wiggle herself out of his hold. Instead, she moved closer. They could feel each other''s warm breath. Their noses brushed together as Alicia''s cheek slowly turned rosy red.
"Hammond is waiting for you downstairs. You should meet him," said Alicia.
"Did you have any problem rescuing him?" asked Noah. Ever since Alicia had a close encounter with Ghost, Noah had been keeping an eye on Alicia. She was one of the lucky ones who messed with the Dark Lord and lived to tell tales. Unfortunately, the same couldn''t be said for Peter. What happened to Peter was indeed tragic, and Alicia was partially med for his death. Even some of the Belefort family members med Alicia for Peter''s death and didn''t dare to speak against Ghost, who actually killed him. It was easy for them to hate Alicia than speak a word against the Dark Lord. Like it or not, Alicia made an enemy out of Ghost, and Noah would do anything to keep her safe from him. That was the reason why Noah avoided sending Alicia to dangerous missions.
"No. But if I didn''t know you better, I would say you are trying to keep me away from him. You know his people are everywhere," said Alicia.
"That''s because corrupting and buying people is easier than we think. I cannot do this without you, Alicia,"
"You won''t lose me, Noah. I am not going to go behind your back and try to track down the Dark Lord anymore. But remember your promise. You have to avenge my brother. When the timees, you need to put those arrows in him and end this y once and for all," said Alicia. Noah shared everything with Alicia except the fact there were replicas of the arrows, which held no power.
"I will stop him one way or another," Noah still had second thoughts about killing the Dark Lord. Something deep down blocked Noah from wanting to kill Ghost despite everything he had done. But Noah knew one day, when he and Ghost meet on a battlefield, one of their deaths would be inevitable.
"I will hold you to your words. Now go," Alicia gave Noah a peck on the cheek before wiggling out of his hold. Then, Noah walked out of the room, climbing down the stairs to meet Hammond. After climbing down the redwood stairs, Noah came before a door nked by silver armored guardians.
"Supreme Guardian,"
The soldiers bowed toward Noah as they opened the door for him. Inside the room, a scrawny young man wearing round sses was walking back and forth. Anyone could tell the young man was nervous judging by how much he sweated and trembled. The young man was tall, thin, and had curly messy brown hair. He had an aura of intelligence and genius around him. If the Han Torum dwarves knew the young man was here in the Winston manor, they would storm the ce without a second thought. This young man was their goose thatys golden eggs. Granted, the dwarves were talented cksmiths and builders, but none of them came close to Hammond. The dwarves hated Hammond''s intelligence and the fact he was a human. Every weapon the dwarves built for thest two years was not theirs to begin with. They belonged to Hammond. He designed them while the dwarves just built them ording to Hammond''s specifics.
"You must be Noah Winston," Hammond said, trembling nervously.
"I am Hammond, Hammon Beltrow. You must know that. I am sorry. How could you not? You are the Supreme Guardian. You know everything," Hammond bbered nonstop as Noah patted him on the shoulder with a smile to calm him down.
"Rx. Take a deep breath. You are safe here,"
"Okay, okay, okay. I''ll stop talking and start breathing. Ooh ahhhh ooo ahhh," Hammond started to inhale heavily and exhale as Noah led him to the wooden table. He made Hammond it on, and he sat on the other facing Hammond.
"I hope your journey here was pleasant, except for the part where we had to break down your ce and knock out a few dwarves. Sorry about that,"
"Well, I am thankful for your rescue. Those dwarves were crazy. I''ve been held hostage for two long years," Hammond stuttered. Noah felt bad for Hammond and wished he had learned about him sooner.
"I never wanted my inventions to be used as weapons. But all that the dwarves wanted was more weapons. Weapons that could destroy the elves and their precious empire," Hammond began to bber once again as Noah flicked his wrist, retrieving a pale yellow pill from his space ring.
"Here, take this. It will calm your nerves and help you rel-"
Noah didn''t even finish his sentence when Hammond snatched the pill and swallowed it like a hungry puppy. The pill melted down into Hammond''s mouth and in a few seconds, his face regained the natural rosiness. He seemed more rxed, loosened up, and stopped shaking.
"What can you tell me about this new weapon the dwarves have been bragging about?" Noah asked Hammond.
"It is not a weapon," Hammond raised his voice. He genuinely seemed angry and upset that Noah thought his invention was a weapon.
"I am sorry,"
"It is okay," Noah calmed him down.
"Tell me more about it so I can stop the dwarves before they auction your invention to the highest bidder,"
"That cannot happen. You have to stop it. You must stop it," Noah was surprised that Hammond had started to sweat and tremble again, regardless of the pill he just took. It meant one thing, Hammond was so close to having either a heart attack or a panic attack. Therefore, Noah had to give him another pill to calm his nerves.
Just like before, Hammond devoured the second pill in a blink of an eye.
"My inventions are not weapons. They are meant to help people who cannot use fancy mancy magic stuff. Do you know how hard it is for us, those who cannot cultivate to higher stages, to get simple tasks done?" Hammond questioned Noah. Gods yed a cruel trick on Hammond''s life by giving him over-the-top intelligence to build almost anything and taking away his ability to cultivate. He was just at the Arch sensing stage five, and there was no possibility for Hammond to level up. The only good thing that happened in Hammond''s life was he ended up in the empress''s many orphanages throughout her empire. He grew up with elves and other orphan humans. It was in the orphanage where Hammond learned to build, design, and nurture his talents. Once he reached the age of thirteen, Hammond built simple devices for the empress''s army and earned enough coins to travel the world as he had always dreamed of. At that time, no one fully realized Hammond''s talents.
"I built everything to help people, not harm them," Hammond stuttered.
"I understand. A sword can be used to cut weeds and heads. It depends on who holds it. I have no doubt you didn''t want to harm anyone. But those dwarves, they are organizing a backside auction to sell yourtest invention to the highest bidder,"
Hammond sighed heavily,
"It was meant to send messages across kingdoms and even continents using energy waves. Atleast, that''s what I designed it for initially until the dwarves forced me to make some terrible changes. You know the dwarves see destruction in everything. They are consumed by their hatred toward the elves,"
"As much as I''d like to hear more about your invention, I want to know more about what kind of changes you made and what it could do,"
Hammond hesitated for a moment. He opened and closed his mouth.
"You have to tell me. We still have time to fix this," Noah reassured Hammond. And when Hammond looked like he was about to give Noah a lecture on the intricacy of his invention and all the schrly stuff, Noah rephrased his words.
"Use simple terms, okay? I am not a brainiac like you,"
"How do I put this simply?" Hammond rubbed his chin, simplifying everything in his mind so Noah could understand. After a brief moment of pondering, Hammond finally constructed his sentence.
"The device I built, it could destroy anyone''s organs inside if they were exposed to the energy waves long enough. No defense spell or runes will save you. These energy waves will ignore everything and melt your organs inside,"
Chapter 831 Onto Destroy The Weapon
"Despite energy shields and defense spells?" asked Noah.
"Yes. Nothing would save you. Those energy waves go through anything, including your shields, spells, and anything for that matter,"
Hammond''s answer stunned Noah. If what Hammond said was true, which Noah believed to be true, the harm the device could do was unimaginable. Because of the spells and cultivation stages, a group of people in the lower stages of the cultivation wouldn''t go to war against stronger cultivators. At the end of the day, these cultivation stages kept the world peace in a delicate bnce. However, this device would change it forever. Suppose someone had mass-produced this device and sold it like typical swords and weapons, cultivation stages wouldn''t stop people from going to war against the strong. While the strong could retaliate against and when powerful cultivators fought, it was themoners and the world that suffers the most damage.
"The dwarves finished building the device a month ago and forced me to build a prototype to show others what it could do," said Hammond.
"Where is this device of yours?"
"It''s not mine. Not anymore. Mine doesn''t kill people. They forced me to change my device to something else. Noah¡I mean Supreme Guardians, once the dwarves sell it to the highest bidder, there is no stopping them from mass producing it. I designed it to be built withmon materials and easy to produce for the sake of the poor,"
Noah rubbed his temples as it turned out to be a bigger problem than he initially thought. He couldn''t help imagining the device in the hands of the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord was already rapidly growing in terms of power, influence, and number of soldiers in his army. Once the Dark Lord got hold of the weapon, the advantage the great eight ns had would be a thing of the past.
"Tell me Hammond," Noah leaned forward,
"Do you think your device could kill a Half Immortal or people above it?"
Hammond went silent for a moment to think about Noah''s question. To be honest, Hammond didn''t think who was the strongest his device could kill as much as he thought how far his device could send messages.
"Theoretically, it''s possible. You know, after you reach the Half Immortal stage, your body goes through changes both physically and mentally. I haven''t seen the dwarves putting a Half Immortal against their weapon. But with enough resources, time, and talent, they could modify it to be effective against Half Immortals too. It is possible. Oh god, what have I done?" Hammond gasped and stuttered, realizing the potential threat his invention could cause.
"Time, resources, and talent are what the dwarves have in abundance," Noah sighed.
"Listen to me, Supreme Guardian. You have to find it and destroy it. Don''t think of using it against the Dark Lord or his army. Nothing good wille from that,"
Noah wasn''t sure of that, but he made no promise to Hammond. Instead, he questioned Hammond,
"Let''s just say I find it and destroy it as you said. What''s stopping the dwarves from building the weapon again from scratch?" asked Noah. The dwarves may haven''t designed the weapon, but they built it with their own hands. If Noah''s experience with dwarves was anything, he knew they could build the weaponter on.
"My blueprints. They have them in a secured safe with the weapon itself. If you destroy those, the dwarves won''t be able to build it again. It''s tooplex for them to build it again using guesswork,"
"Where is it?" asked Noah, to see Hammond shake his head.
"I only knew it was somewhere in Dalgarum. They didn''t give me a room with windows to see what was going on outside. I was a prisoner to them,"
A few minutester, Alicia and Norvin entered the room with the map of Dalgarum. They ced the map on the table between Noah and Hammond.
"Hammond, you are going to help us locate the weapon and the blueprints. Let''s begin with the size of the weapon," said Noah.
"How big is it? Can you fit in a room?"
Hammond shook his head,
"More like you need a hall, a specious one at that. Like a throne hall," said Hammond.
Noah picked up the quill, drenched it in ink, and circled a few areas in the map. They all had paces which had halls big enough like a typical throne hall. Norvin''s brows arched up, seeing Noah had actually circled the dwarven king''s pce itself.
"What''s the size of the prototype you mentioned that the dwarves built?"
"It''s smallerpared to the real thing. Thest time I saw it, it was the size of a carriage,"
"Hmm," Noah rubbed his clean-shaven chin.
"They couldn''t have openly transported through the stress. Our men would have noticed it. They must have used the underground tunnels,"
Dalgarum had more underground tunnels than the hairs in Norvin''s true form. When the dwarves were at war with the elves several hundred of years ago, they built these tunnels to transport weapons and men, avoiding the elven eyes. Then after the war ended, they used these tunnels to transport goods throughout the kingdom. With time, many of the underground passages got forgotten, and their maps just disappeared. However, the rumor was the Han Torum still possessed the full map of the underground passage.
With a flick of his wrist, Noah took out a translucent parchment and ced it above the Dalgarum map. The candlelight illuminated the various webs of lines running throughout the kingdom.
"Is that what I think it is?" Norvin''s eyes widened in shock.
"Yes. Every dwarf indeed has a price," said Noah. Obviously, he was not proud of bribing a dwarf, but he had no choice. Unfortunately, it wasn''t gold coins he used to bribe the dwarf but a favor. So when the time came, Noah had to repay the favor. Noah felt the price was worth it if he could stop a mass destruction weapon from falling into the wrong hands.
After Noah ced the underground tunnel map on the Dalgarum map, he noticed several tunnels running beneath the area he had circled previously. A smile merged with Noah''s smile as he figured out the ce where the dwarves were holding the weapon. He knew the dwarves were holding an auction in the entertainment district in Embercrest. Since the prototype was the size of a carriage, he established that they had to move it through the tunnels. And only one circled ce was connected to the theatre through a tunnel, the shipyard.
"You said your room had no windows, right? Have you noticed metal rust quickly in your room?" asked Noah, although he knew what would be Hammond''s answer.
"Bow that you ask me, yes. The dwarves mostly used wood, but when my inventions required the iron, and they indeed rusted a bit sooner than I used to,"
"That was because you were close to the ocean," said Noah.
Realization hit Hammond as he figured out why the dwarves were so adamant about moving the weapon to a safer environment. As much as Hammond knew his inventions, hecked the people skills to read people and predict their behavior like Noah.
"Norvin, gather the team and tell them we are moving out in ten minutes," Noah ordered Norvin.
He then turned his gaze toward Alicia,
"Keep him safe. As far as the dwarves are concerned, Hammond died in the ident. To the rest, Hammond doesn''t exist. No matter what, the Dark Lord or his army cannot learn we have him,"
The moment Hammond heard Noah mention the Dark Lord, he shuddered.
"You think the Dark Lord might target me? Why? Oh my god¡what did I do? Shit shit shit," Hammond copsed on the chair behind him. He sweated bullets as his entire body trembled uncontrobly.
"Shit, he is having a panic attack," Alicia coldly said. Norvin was actually surprised that even a hostage like Hammond had heard about the Dark Lord enough to have a panic attack when he learned the Dark Lord might target him. It was quite shocking for Norvin to see people pissing their pants just by the mere mention of the Dark Lord''s name. After Ghost revealed himself as the Dark Lord and destroyed the entire ind of Ithn, some people refused even to address him by his name, ''Ghost''. More and more people were joining in this fear parade and addressing him only as the Dark Lord. Even some of the guardians weren''t an exception to this.
Noah immediately tossed the pill into Hammond''s mouth and calmed his nerves. Three pills, Noah used three pills, and they were quite powerful. Still, Hammond took them like candies.
"Rx, take a deep breath," Noah slowly said to Hammond.
"We will keep you safe. He won''t get to you because he doesn''t know you exist. Besides, he is in the demons grave. So you are safe here," Noah''s words somehow calmed Hammond. He had that certain effect on people since he was the god of light. His aura could bring hope and calmness to everyone, just like Michael''s aura could bring our fear and hopelessness.
"You will soon be relocated to one of our safe houses, and no one will ever bother you again. You will be able to work on your inventions that make the world a better ce, not weapons to do the opposite. You have my word," Noah promised Hammond.
Alicia knew most of the guardians, and even Andreas would disagree with Noah. Instead of wasting Hammond''s talents inventing things that helps themoners, they would prefer building new, more powerful weapons that could give them an edge in the fight against the Dark Lord. A world without the Dark Lord was a better world for everyone, includingmoners.
But Noah did not think like that. He knew any weapon they created with Hammond''s talents would eventuallynd in the wrong hands, especially when people were so easy to bribe and ckmail. Noah did not want to take that chance. After calming down Hammond and leaving him with Alicia, Noah, and Norvin left the room and returned to Noah''s room.
"Next stop, the shipyard in Dalgarum," said Noah before activating the teleporter array in his room.
Chapter 832 Noah鈥檚 Reluctance To Capture The Dark Lord
After leaving the Winston manor via a teleportation array, Noah appeared in an empty room lit with candles. This was one of the guardian guild''s safe houses in Dalgarum. The guardian guild had safe houses everywhere except in the dark ocean, obviously. A circr chakra with countless intricate runes and symbols glowed underneath Noah''s feet. He stepped out of the chakra as his team appeared in the room one by one.
"Everyone is here," said Norvin. He quickly transformed into his true form and leaped onto Noah''s shoulder. Dark curtains blocked the sunlight from entering the room. Noah went to the windows and slightly moved it to see the ocean through the ss. The crystal blue ocean stretched endlessly into the horizon. Everywhere he looked, the dwarves littered theplexly nned streets. Thisplexity was about to make Noah''s life much easier. Since it was still midday, most of the dwarves were at their work and not terrorizing the streets.
"What''s the n, Supreme Guardian?" Ne, a fledgling guardian, asked Noah. She was one of Noah''s elites handpicked to be on his team. The twelve guardians in the room served and answered only to Noah. They might not be as strong as the alpha guardians or many in the guild, but each of them was loyal, incorruptible, and upheld the guardian guild''s morals like their lives depended on it. To fight evil and win against corruption, Noah needed more than cultivation power. He needed soldiers with morals.
He nned to make them the next generation of great elders who fought beside Andreas. Of course, Noah had the option to resurrect the elite elder guardians with the keys scattered throughout the world. However, Noah avoided searching for the keys regardless of Andreas''s words. Becausetely, Noah and Andreas had more disagreements and arguments than usual. Noah didn''t want the elder guardians to join Andreas and sway him to do something he was against. Besides, Noah barely had enough time to search for the arrows Qin Jiu forged. Unlike Michael, Noah preferred to get things done with his own hands instead of sending the guardians.
"Nothing tooplicated. Hit the shipyard, find the weapon the dwarves built and the blueprints, destroy them, and get out of there before Han Torum learns we were there," Noah simplified the n. Hearing his n, Ne removed the silver helmet, revealing her squared face with fiery red hair. Freckles spread around her nose and cheekbones like sprinkles on a cake. They added an extrayer to the red-haired beauty. Although she was nowhere close to Xanali or Alicia in terms of beauty, Ne had a warrior spirit that Noah admired. She was a valuable asset and a good friend to him.
"But Supreme Guardian, are we going to destroy the blueprints alone or the weapon too?'' asked Ne. The silvered armored soldiers focused on Noah, waiting for his answer. Instead of giving them a quick answer, Noah looked at the blue ocean through the window. He focused on the rhythmic waves to achieve a sense of peace both physically and mentally.
"Both. If we take this weapon, someone else will create a countermeasure. It would eventually lead them to build a more powerful weapon. Then another countermeasure and another more powerful weapon. Eventually, it will be a cycle until we have nothing but wars on our hands. It might sound dramatic and my imagination at this point, but I promise you, it will happen," Noah exined to Ne, paused for a moment, and continued.
"I don''t think the Dark Lord will destroy the weapon. In fact, he will use it against us in a heartbeat," said Norvin, resting upon Noah''s shoulder.
"Exactly my point. I am not him, and we won''t use such a brutal killing machine against anyone, including the people in his army. They deserve punishment, not death," said Noah.
"Can I speak my mind, Supreme Guardian?" asked Ne.
Noah nodded. He always allowed his team to speak freely and listened to them instead of outright shutting them down. Noah believed to be an effective team,munication was vital.
"When the final war with the Dark Lord arrives, people will die, Supreme Guardian. Both sides will suffer casualties. Deaths are inevitable. This weapon might be the edge we need against the Dark Lord,"
"Wars are won by soldiers, not by weapons. If you believe in a weapon more than yourself, you need to reevaluate yourself," Noah said calmly about what he truly believed in.
"Before we leave, when are we going to address the elephant in the room?" Norvin turned his gaze toward Noah.
"What?" asked Noah.
"We never talked about the Dark Lord knowing about the auction. We knew Valmas went missing, presumably dead, who had supposedly received an invitation to participate in the Han Torum auction. And we never found the invitation on his body. You and I both know Gaya written all over the dead bodies," said Norvin.
"If she killed them, there is a good chance she would attend the auction, Supreme Guardian. We can nab Saravar and the Dark Queen herself. Two birds in one stone," Ne suggested, but Noah brushed it off with a smile.
"Just imagine what Ghost would do if we captured his love of life. Just imagine,"
Norvin closed his eyes for a moment and only saw death and destruction. Fear crept down Norvin''s spine, just imagining the Dark Lord bringing his wrath as Noah said.
"Not to mention it''s Gaya, we are talking about. If capturing her was that easy, Xanali and Nagnd would have done it by now. Until I am certain something could hold either of them, I am not going to risk trying to capture them. It has only led to death,"
This was the biggest reason why Andreas and Noah had such argumentstely. On the one hand, Noah believed it was not wise to try to capture the Dark Lord without finding a way to hold him down. On the other hand, Andreas argued that the more they leave the Dark Lord alone, the stronger he would be and the harder it would be to capture himter. In a sense, both of them were right. Even Skyhall was dumbstruck after Michael escaped the cage that was designed to keep him restrained. Not only did he escape, but he also killed Peter inside the very cage that Alicia put him in.
Every time they tried to capture him, they ended up with more blood on their hands. Hence, Noah decided to let the Dark Lord be until he finds a way to stop him permanently.
"Enough talking. Let''s go and finish the task at our hand," Noah waved his hands as he prepared to leave the room. When he talked about the Dark Lord and Gaya, he noticed a sliver of fear in everyone''s eyes, including Norvin''s. That fear was the Dark Lord''s most powerful weapon, and Noah knew he must find a way to break this fear. As long as the people feared the Dark Lord, they would be easy to brainwash and swayed to the dark side.
*************************************************
After leaving the safe house, Noah and his team used the dark alleyways to reach the sea without drawing much attention. As Noah stood on golden grains of sand, he looked up at the brilliant sky adorned with dazzling blue color and puffy clouds that formed different shapes in the sky. The goddess-like sun''s face was being embraced by the demure navy fingertips of the skyline. The small crystals in the sand glimmered and twinkled brilliantly against the sun rays. Away from the immense sea, white foams from the waves gathered gently onto the golden shore. Every sight and sound stimted a sense ofposure and serenity. The effect was heightened by the absence of the noisy bustle of guardiansining, rummaging of scrolls, and Andreas''s lectures, only to be exposed to the never-ending music of the waves and to breathe the fresh air instead of the stale atmosphere of his room. It was not easy to describe the effect of this sight, but it could only be strangely deciphered in his mind.
His team was ordered to equip normal clothes instead of silver armor, which would most definitely draw attention from the dwarves. Eventually, Noah reached the ocean, where he saw a couple of dwarven kids building sand castles. The sight of children ying without a worry in the world warmed Noah''s heart. Looking at them made him want to destroy the weapon even more.
If the weapon fell into the wrong hands and they started to ughter people with it, the me would ultimately fall on the dwarves. It was not fair to me all the dwarves for something a few dwarves filled with hatred had done. While Noah was drowned in the serenity of the beach and thoughts, one of the dwarven children noticed Noah. She waved at Noah, showing no hatred and hostility toward humans. This was the world Noah had been trying to createtely, a world without hatred and fear toward one another. In fact, he was more focused on solving disputes between races and helpingmoners than dealing with the Dark Lord and his army.
Noah waved back at the kid, which brightened the kid''s face like someone had lit a candle inside her head. Then before the other kids could notice Noah, he disappeared into the ocean with his team. Instead of going to the shipyard on foot, they decided to go underwater. That way, the element of surprise would be on their side, and they could catch the dwarves before they alert Han Torum.
Hammond and the weapons he helped the dwarves build were off the books operation. So even if the Guardian Guild infiltrated it and stole the weapon, Han Torum couldn''t retaliate directly because such an operation doesn''t exist officially. However, Noah nned to keep the guild out of the picture because thest thing he wanted was a cold war between the Guardian Guild and Han Torum. At this point, any conflict the Guardian Guild gets into would benefit the Dark Lord more than anything.
Noah and his team were quick swimmers. They managed to reach the shipyard, which was built in the water, in a few minutes. But before emerging from the water, Noah closed his eyes, spreading his senses around the area to locate the dwarves in the shipyard. Having no idea a team of guardians was under them, the dwarves continued with their day-to-day work which was building ships and a weapon of mass destruction.
Chapter 833 The Elves Did It
From a bird''s view, the shipyard was built in a way that would look like a giant ''T''. The left side of the shipyard had a frigate almost finished being built, and the other side had a man o war. The dwarves were building these ships under the king''s order. Although Han Torum was one of the great eight ns, their leader was the king himself, unlike the Guardian Guild, where the leader was no king but was called Supreme Guardian, who answered to no king. Meanwhile, the straight tform stretching toward the ocean contained materials needed to build the ships. It had a warehouse and a giant forge that fumed heat and ash. Noah could hear the dwarves hitting metal with their hammers. Thanks to his senses, he located six dwarves on guard. Two dwarves stood on the shipyard''s edge, looking at the ocean. Two more dwarves patrolled the forge while another two dwarves stood on either side of the roof with their crossbows.
Noah swam toward a cargo ship docked at the shipyard and slowly emerged from the water. Luckily, the cargo ship was the size of a small fishing ship and had no dwarves on board. It was empty as far as Noah could see.
" I count six dwarves, Supreme Guardian," Ne whispered after emerging from the water.
"No more calling me by my rank or name," Noah said to Ne and the others.
"Position yourself to take out the dwarves at the same time. Wait for my signal,"
"As you wish," Ne said before merging into the water once again. His team waspetent, and he didn''t need to micro-manage them every single time. They coordinated among themselves and positioned them from where they could take out the dwarves with blow darts. These darts wereced with Noah''s own concoction, a powerful knockout serum. Since all these dwarves were at the Body Strengthening stage, they only had to use a small dosage.
"Is it true the dwarf king is only a Core Formation warrior? How could they be one of the great eight ns when their leader is just a Core Formation warrior?" Norvin asked Noah.
"Don''t underestimate the dwarves by their weak cultivation power. They substitute that with connections, wealth, and their superior dwarven engineering. Also, have you heard of Mogels, the mercenary guild? The dwarves in there aren''t weak. They use some kind of blood ritual to boost their cultivation," while the team was taking their position, Noah discussed the dwarves with Norvin. When it came to what was happening in Awor, Norvin pretty much had no idea. He was learning the power dynamics and the other racers in Awor little by little. So Norvin seemed a little ignorant to some in the guild.
Noah noticed Ne and his team raising their thumbs, indicating they were in position. They waited for his signal as Noah leaned to the side, taking another look at the dwarves. Then, he snapped his fingers, creating a quick sh of light. This sh was the signal. And the moment the team saw it, they raised their blowguns, blew into it, and sent a dart soaring through the air.
"Ouch.Blimey!" One of the dwarves pped his neck as he felt a sting. But there was something between his hand and neck. The dwarf pulled it out to see a tiny town-inch arrow made of what seemed to be silver.
In a blink of an eye, the serum kicked in as the dwarves rolled their eyes upwards before copsing down.
"Move," Noah ordered the team as he leaped out of the water and dashed into the shipyard. Although the shipyard where the dwarves build secret weapons, they didn''t put too many dwarves to guard. They believed too many guards would draw unwanted attention to the ce. Hence, they had few guards, and they never opened their mouths about the underground facility, even when they were drunk. Their secrecy worked in Noah''s favor. Inside the shipyard, he saw countless ship parts and giant chains hanging from the ceiling. Everywhere he turned, he saw nothing but metal, ship parts, wood, and empty mugs.
Norvin leaped onto a chain above and looked around the shipyard to locate the underground passage. The dwarves might be drunk and hot-headed but not stupid enough to keep the weapon in in sight. Norvin''s eyes glistened like rubies as he used magical perception to see through the shipyard. Everything seemed normal and not out of ce until his gaze fell on a golden train running down from a lever hidden behind a stack of wooden crates.
"There," Norvin pointed his finger at the wood crates as Noah and the team slowly sneaked toward it. Meanwhile, they noticed a couple of dwarves walking toward them. They fell down as fast as they entered the room. Noah turned and saw Ne with the blowgun. Her reaction was too fast to the point none of her teammates realized that she had just fired two blow darts.
Noah gave a nod of approval before turning his gaze back to Norvin.
"Knock out everyone and meet me down," said Noah. Since Norvin''s true form was small and he could move around the shipyard without getting detected, Noah tasked Norvin with knocking out the dwarves. Even if he somehow got caught, the dwarves wouldn''t connect this to the guardians. After all, all they saw was a monkey. Speaking of being a monkey, Norvin took out a brown pill from his space ring and tossed it into his mouth. As soon as the pill melted down, his golden fur turned mud brown. Without the shiny golden fur, he looked like a regr monkey.
"Go ahead," Norvin whispered, turned around, and leaped toward the shipyard''s left side, where they were building a frigate.
"Follow me," Noah said to his team as they slowly sneaked toward the crates. When they reached the stack of crates neatly ced on top of each, Noah slightly moved the stacks. The wooden crates were surprisingly heavy, which made Noah wonder what was inside of them. The crates moved, making a creaking sound. Then the lever was exposed. However, it was not the typical lever that, when pulled down, would open a door. Instead, this lever made of thick, ck metal had numerous tiny gears, nuts, and bolts. On top of that, there were six keyholes beside the lever.
"Should we search those dwarves? They might have the keys," said Ne. Noah nodded as the team swiftly moved away from Noah to search the dwarves. A few minutester, Ne and the others returned to Noah. Unfortunately, they came empty-handed.
"We found no keys, Supreme Guardian. All they had was their swords and mugs," Ne creased her sword-sharp brows.
They thoughting here empty-handed would disappoint Noah. On the contrary, he just smiled. Honestly, he expected the dwarves to have some kind of mechanism to protect the entrance. Otherwise, it would be too easy for anyone to enter their secretir. Fortunately for him and unfortunately for the dwarves, Noah possessed a primordial me. Ne''s face brightened with the blue mes dancing above Noah''s hands. No matter how many times they had witnessed the blue mes, they still had the same dumbfounded look on their faces when Noah conjured the mes for the zillionth time. The me had a certain effect on the guardians. The heavenly mes had a radiant energy that made them calm, courageous, and fearless.
Under their gazes, Noah moved the ball of heavenly mes toward the lever and let the heat creep into the keyholes. The metal slowly turned blue to the color of the me. Inch by inch, the heavenly mes melted down the lock, and then, the lock clicked. Noah pushed open the door, revealing a dimly lit staircase that led to the dwarven secretir.
But the opening came with a catch. They weren''t built with humans and long-legged species in mind. Instead, it was meant for the dwarves to use. Hence, the doorway was only four feet tall. Noah crouched down and entered the doorway, followed by his team. They were careful not to make any sounds until they could locate the weapon and the dwarves guarding it. After climbing down almost fifty steep steps, everyone, including Noah, felt a chill running down their spines. Hammond wasn''t kidding when he said the weapon was massive in size. It was almost the size of a frigate. Compared to it, the prototype was just a baby. The weapon didn''t even need to be powered up, but if someone simply blew into one end, the bell-shaped mouth would amplify the volume loud enough to kill severalmoners.
"Put on your masks," Noah ordered the team. He saw several dwarves and no way of knocking them out without getting caught. One by one, Noah''s team put on a porcin mask resembling the face of a mannequin. When they wore the masks, their ears grew a few inches outwards, making them look pointy and elven-like. Those who look at Noah''s team would immediately believe they were elves wearing masks.
The dwarves and elves hated each other for all reasons, and Noah didn''t think adding one more to the pile wouldn''t make much of a difference. Initially, he considered using ck skull masks to portray themselves as the Dark Lord''s army. But after thinking of the dwarves'' nature of hot-headedness, he immediately removed that idea from his head. Because if the dwarves went against the Dark Lord, he would kill them, and he would reduce their entire n to the ground without a shred of mercy.
Noah slowly walked forward, stretching his arms and neck.
"Stop what you''re doing ya filthy animals," Noah''s thunderous voice swept across the yard. He was quite good at the way elves would speak to the dwarves in a situation like this. The dwarves almost jumped from their feet when they heard the sudden voice. They immediately jumped down from the weapon, rushed out from the corners, and climbed down through the chains with their battle axes in hand.
"Bloody elves," the dwarves were more furious than they were shocked. Just the sight of pointy ears made their blood boil. The dwarves didn''t even mind the huge cultivation gap between them. That was why the dwarves were often called hot-blooded and borderline stupid when it came to a battle.
"Kill those fucking pointy-eared fucks!" one of the dwarves raised his battle ax, crying out loud.
Chapter 834 Save Or Destroy The Weapon?
The dwarves let out a battle cry that echoed through the entire space. They rushed at Noah and his group without regard for their lives. Just the sight of pointy ears in their domain twisted something inside the dwarves. Their killing intent skyrocketed as a dwarf threw his battle ax at Noah. The ax soared through the air, but Noah simply flicked his wrist as the ax froze in the air, turned around, and flew straight back to the dwarf. Only, the dwarf couldn''t stop the ax. It hit the dwarf straight on the head, knocking him out cold in an instant. Noah''s team scattered around the space in a blink of an eye. Each used their own speed spell to enhance their speed to the point the dwarves barely saw them. Wind rustled every time Noah''s team ran past them. The previously silent workshop of the dwarves turned into a battle zone. Without being able to see the intruders, the dwarves swung their axes left and right blindly.
"Stay still and fight us motherfuckers!"
"I want them dead!"
The dwarves screamed as loud as they could. Suddenly, a dwarf froze for a moment before falling down. It happened so quickly. One moment he was fine, and the next, he fell to the ground like a lump of coal. Instead of reaching for their fallenrades, the dwarves roared at Noah and his team, whom the dwarves couldn''t see anymore.
"What have you done?!"
"You will pay for this!"
The dwarves boiled in rage as their eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. Their roars could be heard from anywhere in the space. Soon, the dwarves fell one by one. Noah wasn''t wasting any more time on the dwarves. He knocked the wind out of many dwarves just with his fists. Eventually, Noah and his team knocked out every dwarf in the hall and gathered before the weapon.
"Any idea how to destroy this without making a fuss? Too much fuss, I mean," said Ne.
"Before we destroy the weapon, look for a safe. It must be here somewhere," said Noah.
Noah''s team nodded before heading out to search for the safe, leaving Noah with the weapon. Noah started to walk around the weapon in the hope of trying to get a better understanding of the weapon. He wondered how Hammond came up with such a bizarre contraption to exchange messages between two ces without the use of arch energy.
As he reached the weapon''s back, he noticed a door. Noah twisted the golden knob, opening the door. When the door opened, his face was illuminated by the jars lined up inside. His neck hair stood up due to the electric energying from the jars. There were almost fifty jars, and each had balls of lightning inside.
"Lightning in a bottle. Who would have thought that?" Noah smiled.
Noah tried to pull out a jar, but they were held in ce by a maic field.
"So this is what powers up the weapon. How in the hell did these dwarves manage to catch lightning in bottles?" Say whatever about the dwarves, they never ceased to amaze Noah with their innovations. Granted, Hammond was on another levelpared to the dwarves, but it didn''t mean the dwarves were ipetent. It was just their hatred toward the elves that got the better of them and forced them to kidnap Hammond. Still, Noah felt like he was missing something in this whole story. He couldn''t put his finger into what it was, but his gut told me he was missing something, a crucial piece of the puzzle.
While his team was turning the ce upside down, searching for a safe, Noah pulled out a jar from the powerpartment and put it in his space ring. He had a feeling this mighte in handyter. After closing thepartment, Noah continued to walk around the weapon. When he walked a full circle around it, Ne returned to him with a proud grin on her face.
"We found it," said Ne.
"Lead the way," Noah sighed in relief inside. He was d everything had gone ording to n till now. The red-haired beauty led Noah to the safe that was located in a small room. When Noah entered the brightly lit room, he was weed by a long oak table, chairs tall enough to amodate dwarves, and numerous racks filled with parchment and scrolls. Whoever upied the room didn''t give a damn about tidiness. Everything was lying around out of order. It would be a miracle if anyone could find something in the room. The parchment and papers on the ground rustled as they entered the room.
"There it is," Ne pointed at the safe built inside the wall to Noah. Just like the lever they used to get into this area, the safe had several keyholes as well as tiny gears. If Noah wanted to get the blueprints unharmed, he would have bothered to look for the keys. Since he was here to obliterate the ns, he just went to the safe and sent a stream of heavenly mes into the keyholes.
The entire safe melted down like butter in a few moments. Then, Noah turned his focus onto the bigger problem, the weapon itself.
"How do you n to destroy it?" asked Ne.
"With these," They heard Norvin''s voice. When they turned to the doorway, they saw Norvin, walking toward them in his human form. He carried a red oak barrel on his shoulder.
"Explosives. I found this in a room. Apparently, it''s a new kind of explosive, more powerful and more stable. At Least that''s what I heard from the dwarves before I knocked them out cold," said Norvin.
"Push this baby into the weapon and watch it go kaboom. Problem solved," Norvin ced the barrel heavily on the ground as Noah''s team almost leaped out of the room.
"I told you. It''s stable,"
"Stop messing around," said Noah with an amused smile.
"I will take care of destroying the weapon. You guys go ahead and get the dwarves to safety. I don''t want them to get caught in the st," said Noah. If it was Michael, he wouldn''t have bothered with saving the dwarves. They built weapons to kill people. So they deserved to die. That would have been Michael''s argument. Luckily for the dwarves, Noah wasn''t a vengeful god-like Michael. He was merciful.
"I will signal you when we get them to safety," said Norvin before leaving the room with Noah''s team. After they left, Noah carried the barrel to the weapon. With a simple leap, Noah reached the weapon''s mouth and slowly rolled the barrel down after he attached a rope around the barrel. Noah hovered around the weapon waiting for Norvin''s signal. Almost five minutester, Noah heard a roar in the distance. Noah could recognize that roar in his sleep. That was Norvin in his true golden baboon form. Only a few people had seen his true form, which stood eight feet tall and quite terrifying to look at.
"That''s my queue," Noah mumbled as he raised a hand toward the roof. Then, a beam of light shot through the roof, creating a hole wide enough for Noah to escape through. He slowly hovered toward the hole with the rope attached to the explosive barrel in his hand. When he was just a few meters away from the hole in the roof, Noah snapped his fingers as sparks flew into the rope. Blue fire immediately engulfed the rope and traveled through the rope like a blue dragon. Eventually, the me traveled into the weapon, away from Noah''s sight. For a few moments, nothing happened. Noah just waited for something to happen in utter silence. The silence onlysted for a few moments, though.
Boom!
Noah heard the sound of a muffled explosion. In a blink of an eye, fire streamed out of the weapon''s mouth, and the weapon exploded into bits and pieces. The sheer force of the explosion alone sent Noah flying directly through the hole. Norvin wasn''t kidding when he said the explosive was more powerful. A single barrel was enough to destroy a colossal weapon to pieces and shake the entire building. Noah felt truly lucky that he put the barrel into the weapon instead of making it explode outside it. If that were the case, the explosion would have been several times more powerful and destroyed the entire building along with the adjacent buildings.
Dark smoke rose to the sky itself, forming a giant cloud above the building. Noah used the cloud of smoke to his advantage and flew away from the ce. While he was flying away, he saw more and more dwarves running toward the fire instead of away from it. He felt pity for the dwarves. But luckily, Noah cleared the building before setting up the explosion.
His task here was done without a hup. Good thing Andreas used all his soul energy, brewing special potions for Noah. Otherwise, they would have had a huge argument about whether to destroy the weapon or not. By the time the higher-ups from Han Torum appeared at the shipyard, Noah and his team were long gone. All the dwarves they knocked out pointed at one group, the elves. As a result, the empress would have a long discussion with her ministers and schedule another secret meeting with none other than the Dark Lord himself.
Chapter 835 The Inside Man Of The Dark Lord
(A few days after Noah destroyed the weapon and the prototype)
As evening cast her dusky gown, when the air became fresh and restful, the time of joyful reflection arrived. The brightly lit city of Ice Fair met the peach sky. The evening arrived in stately fashion, with all the grace of a breeze in repose. Ne was on her way to meet her friend and fellow teammate, Alvaro Torres. He lived alone in Icefair and worked hard to get to Noah''s team. The cobblestone pavement was littered with people of all manners. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say the Ice Fair was the hub of Kingdom Kethern. People came from everywhere to Icefair to enjoy their time and buy rare things. One could argue that ICe Fair was the second safest ce after Pen Town, where the Supreme Guardian resided.
Ne wore white robes and put on her hood to cover her face. Some unruly hooligans were fighting and rolling on the ground. Ne walked around a cart that barely avoided the two hooligans. She was on her way to Alvaro Torres to talk about collecting information on potential targets who might be helping the Dark Lord. Everyone in Noah''s team was ordered to pursue information about the Dark Lord''s subordinates in their free time. However, they were strictly ordered against going after them without Noah''s permission.
Considering Ne was an ambitious girl, she chose the Dark Lord''s head of information gathering as her target. Noah and Alicia believed the Dark Lord had someone powerful, connected, and influential working under him who was responsible for recruiting people into their course as well as gathering information. Ne had a few strong suspects, including Sadie Kan, the Silvermoon prodigy.
Unfortunately, everyone on Ne''s list had higher positions in prominent ns or organizations. Interrogating them without any evidence was equal to killing her own career. That was where Alvaro Torres came into the picture. Alvaro Torres''s aunt was an elder in Silvermoon, and Ne hoped to use his aunt to get a meeting with Sadie Kan, the most suspicious one on her list. Among the suspects, Sadie Kan had the closest rtionship with Ghost and was the most likely candidate who would have been brainwashed by him.
After navigating her way through the crowd, she finally arrived at the edge of the city where the nobles tended to live. Bright crystal orbs lit the square with its radiant blue light as Ne turned left and strolled straight into the path that had the sign Torres manor. Since it was evening and most of the patrons were either drinking in taverns or immersing themselves in pleasuring activities, the path to Torres manor was void of people. Peach trees apanied Ne on either side of the path as she enjoyed the calm and peaceful stroll.
Soon, she noticed an elegant manor at the end of the road. From the outside, the Torres manor looked cozy. It was built with walnut wood and has granite decorations. Small, octagon windows added to the overall look of the house and have been added to the house in a fairly asymmetrical pattern. The manor was shaped like an L. The extension extended into overhanging wooden panels reaching the end of that side of the house. The second floor was bigger than the first, which created a stylish overhang on two sides of the house. This floor had a slightly different style than the floor below. The manor itself surrounded a gorgeous garden with many hidden lights that made the gardene to life at night.
As she reached closer to the manor, she noticed tworge chimneys sitting at the side of the manor. They fumed gray smoke, which indicated to Ne that Alvaro was home. Ne knocked on the door.
"Alvaro," Ne gently tapped the wooden door. She heard a rustling noiseing from within as though Alvaro was rummaging through some parchments.
"Did I hear a girl''s voice?" Ne questioned herself. She could swear she heard a girl''s voiceing from inside, but it couldn''t be since Alvaro was single.
"Alvaro," Ne knocked again. This time, she added a bit of force. For a few moments, Ne heard nothing. She slowly reached for the dagger dangling underneath her cloak. Even a few moments of silence were enough for fear to creep down their spines. As Supreme Guardian''s elites, they didn''t have the luxury of taking things simply. The Dark Lord was known to strike when least expecting. So, Ne''s heart and mind feared the worst. Luckily, Alvaro put her mind and heart to rest as he opened the door with his usual grin. Alvaro was a brown-haired youngster with a stubble beard. He was neither too tall nor too short, with a medium-built body. While he was not in the silver armor, he used to wear rather ordinary clothes, like ck trousers and a loose-fit cotton shirt that revealed his chiseled chest and muscles.
"What were you doing in there?" Ne didn''t wait for Alvaro to invite her in. Instead, she pushed him aside and let herself in. Once she entered the room, she was greeted with a cozy firece, afy sofa set, and a puffy carpet that nketed the wooden floor.
"Please doe in," Alvaro rolled his eyes as he shut the door behind them. Ne plunged herself into the sofa and removed the cloak.
"I swear I heard a girl''s voice in there. Are you hiding one, Alvaro?" Ne teased Alvaro.
"Look under the sofa," said Alvaro with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Ne leaned forward and pretended to look under the sofa.
"I bought a crate of ale from Embercrest. You want a mug?" asked Alvaro as he went to the kitchen on the corner.
"Where in the hell did you get the time to buy ale from the dwarves?" Ne turned around to see vro taking out a jade bottle from a wooden crate and pouring its content into tworge mugs. The sweet aroma from the ale made her mouth water.
Alvaro brought the two mugs to the sofa and sat beside her after handing over one mug to Ne.
"Cheers. We deserve it," Alvaro nked his mug against Ne''s.
"Yes, we do indeed. We made quite a mess in Dalgarum. Good thing the dwarves have no idea it was us. They are gonna hate the elves even more now even though I don''t know how they can hate them more," said Ne, taking a long sip from the mug, enjoying every bit of the dwarven brewed ale. Her taste buds danced in her tongue and thanked her wholeheartedly.
"I gotta give credit to the dwarves. They do know how to brew good ale. I just wish Greyson was here with us," Ne signed. Grayson was one of the two guardians who lost their lives when the orcs self-exploded. If it weren''t for the silver armor, more guardians would have lost their lives that day. They felt truly lucky for the armor and the runes engraved in it.
"To Grayson and Kian," Alvaro raised his mug, toasting for their deadrades.
"And about that favor¡" Ne''s voice trailed off,
"It''s on. You have been invited to the Silvermoon beverage party thanks to aunt Tegan. You owe me one, and if you mess this up somehow, you don''t know me," Alvaro chuckled.
"I want to hug you,"
"Please don''t," Alvaro raised both his hands to defend himself from Ne''s hug.
"Please remember everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You don''t know if Sadie is in bed with him or not,"
"I will, when I look her in the eyes," said Ne.
After some chit-chatting and discussion about their lives, Ne left the manor and headed for her home to get some good night sleep. It was Noah''s new policy to get enough rest and sleep instead of over-exerting themselves cultivating.
"She is gone," Alvaro said, though his house looked empty. The smile on Alvaro''s ce disappeared, and instead, a darkened expression upied his face. A breeze of wind blew past Alvaro as it almost snuffed out the fire and light in the room. Then, a shadow figure dressed in all ck emerged from the darkest corner in the house.
"Is she going to be a problem?" the dark figure asked Alvaro in a thick otherworldly voice. Alvaro had a difficult time hiding the fear creeping down his spine. He swallowed mouth full of saliva and managed to turn his gaze toward the dark figure.
"No. She is just chasing some leads,"
"Good. Because if she is a problem, at best, you will hear from Noah Winston," the dark figure paused for a moment, letting the silence sink into Alvaro''s mind.
"At worst, you will receive a visit from the Dark Queen," said the dark figure. Because of the dark hood covering his head, Alvaro couldn''t make out the figure''s features.
"Serving the Dark Lord could be a fruitful endeavor. He will only ask you for your loyalty; in return, you can get anything in this world," said the dark figure as Alvaro rolled his eyes.
"Spare me the sales pitch. What you''re doing here is ckmailing. The only reason you are here and I am not at Noah''s home is I don''t have a choice," Alvaro growled.
To Alvaro''s surprise, the dark figure chuckled.
"Of course, you have a choice. You can tell the Supreme Guardian that you feasted on a helpless woman when you weren''t supposed to. You can tell him that your lust overshadowed your judgment. I heard your Supreme Guardian is a merciful person. What''s the punishment for rape? Castration and lifetime prison? You can ask for forgiveness. You always have a choice," The dark figure amused as Alvaro burned with rage inside.
"We will be in touch," The dark figure said, giving no damn about Alvaro''s fury. The figure turned around to leave when he looked over his shoulder at Alvaro.
"We have eyes everywhere, Alvaro. Engrave that in your mind. I think we both agree you do not want to meet the Dark Queen. You will hear from me soon," as he said, the dark figure disappeared from the room.
varo felt sweat beads trickling down his face after the dark figure left. A sin hemitted in the shadows came back to haunt him. He thought he escaped the sin but now, he was forced to be the Dark Lord''s inside man in the Guardian Guild.
Chapter 836 Beast Of Itonys
(Current day)
Michael was on his way to harvest everything he needed to fix the gold coins problem. Tazkin and Thilve apanied Michael as Vedora chose to stay with the tribe because they liked how the wood elves treated them. Almost all the trees had sparkling blue leaves instead of the usual green leaves. Not only the cyan color of the forest but something fresh in the air that put everyone at ease. Michael felt the forest around him was alive.
"Any predators around here?" Michael asked Tazkin and Thilve. Except for the wolves Michael killed at Tar''s campsite, Michael met no predatory animals. The rabbits, foxes, and birds Michael saw had sparkling bodies. They glistened under the canopy''s shade.
"They used to be around," Tazkin started to answer Michael.
"But ever since the demons upied the mother tree, they ran deeper into the forest. This ce crawled with all kinds of creatures before they invaded us. You cannot walk a minute in the forest without catching a glimpse of something. Now it feels so void of life," said Tazkin.
"You might meet a few where we are going, my lord," said Thilve. She addressed him as my lord instead of the Dark Lord. Michael grew quite tired of being called the Dark Lord by the elves sooner than he expected. Therefore, he ordered them to call him like his subordinates and men, my lord. At first, the wood elves seemed reluctant, but after Michael ordered them, they changed how they addressed him.
The three of them enjoyed their walk in peace. Instead of bringing a group of elves with him, Michael only brought Thilve and Tazkin. This couple seemedpetent and knew the forest like the back of their hands. Plus, Michael wanted to know more about the two wood elves.
"So the humans here worship me or any other god?" asked Michael.
"We don''t know much about them, my lord. They live far, far away from the mother tree. We call them the water tribe," said Thilve.
"Because they live nearby water?" asked Michael as Thilve nodded.
"I want to meet them someday before I leave this world,"
Thilve and Tazkin stopped walking when they heard Michael. They turned around, worried.
"Are you going to leave us, my lord?" Thilve''s eyes watered. Tazkin was actually stunned to see Thilve behave this way in front of the Dark Lord. She was a warrior with an iron heart. She was an alpha of their tribe before he married her. Seeing her show her vulnerable side surprised Tazkin.
"I told you, there is entirely a new world out there where I must be. But fear not, I will visit you often. When the timees, I will build a gateway connecting the world so people can travel between," said Michael. Speaking of the other world, Michael wondered how to leave this ce without using badass points. Somehow Michael believed there was another way to get out of this world. The past Dark Lord may have left something for him since he seemed to leave a lot of things to guide Michael in his path.
"The god''s world?" Thilve asked with apletely stunned face.
"More like a messed up world where I have lots of enemies," Michael chuckled.
"Jokes aside, I do n to bring you there. But not before I fix everything here. Clothing, for example," said Michael.
"My lord, what is wrong with our clothes?"
Thilve''s naive question almost made Michaelugh, but he smiled and gestured at them to lead the way. Almost after seven hours, the sun slowly descended toward the horizon. One would expect the forest to get dark, but on the contrary, the trees and vegetation around them glowed brighter. The luminescent leaves, mushrooms, and barks lit the forest like neon lights. Michael let Tazkin and Thilve take some rest before continuing their journey. He lost track of time as he followed them behind deeper into the forest. Eventually, Michael noticed the veil of mist slowly appearing in his sight.
"We are getting closer to the spot, my lord," said Tazkin. He looked a bit ufortable and borderline afraid. They were stranded far away from the mother tree and her protection. Usually, the wood elves would avoid traveling deep into the forest at any cost. All tribe elders prohibited venturing deeper into the forest as they believed it made the wood elves mad.
"Before we go further, put this on your face," Michael threw them ck face masks with filters built within. They looked confused a bit until they saw Michael putting on the mask himself. After they put the masks on, they slowly walked through the fallen logs and knee-high vegetation. The deeper they went, the more they saw reddish leaves and trees instead of the bluish tree. Something turned the trees red, and Michael assumed the same thing that put the creatures to sleep. He looked around the trees and saw various creatures, such as rabbits, foxes, and even a green-furred tiger sleeping on the ground with its bellies up.
The tiger purred, sleeping a few meters away from the trio.
"Don''t make any sudden noise," Tazkin warned Thilve as he crouched down to blend in with his surroundings. Michael followed the wood elves, and after a while, he felt like he was back in demons grave where everything had a red hue like everything was drenched in blood. Not a single sound could be heard in that second. The eerie silence slowly turned into fear and anxiety. If Michael weren''t here with them, Tazkin and Thilve would have turned around and rushed out of this ce instantly. But having their all-mighty god with them gave them enough courage to continue forward.
They slowly walked past the sleeping tiger and arrived at a small pond. The crystal clear water reflected the crimson-red surroundings as well as the silver mushrooms with ck stars on them. Michael''s eyes lit up as these mushrooms were what he looked for the most.
"Pick these mushrooms as many as you can," said Michael, bent down to pick one from the ground. The silver mushroom let out a cry as though it had a mouth when Michael rooted it out from the ground. These mushrooms grew under the shady roof of the forest while berriesy ripening under the leafy dome of the forest like jewels. The grass was crispy under their feet. Every tree Michael saw was skyscraper tall. Good thing Vedora wasn''t here, or they would have tried to pick and eat the fruits that shone like silver snowkes. The forest smelled fresh and organic. Even Michael''''s mask couldn''t stop the natural musty smell of forest from prating the filters and entering their nostrils. Anyone who didn''t know about the forest and the nts would be tempted to pick some wild pears and eat them. However, Michael knew better than to eat anything in the forest around him. Because every single tree, fruit, and nt was radiating a poisonous miasma that would put the brain in some kind ofa until they died. The creatures sleeping had developed a partial immune system to avoid death, but they couldn''t avoid getting high.
Thilve and Tazkin followed Michael''s hand movement and rooted out the mushrooms exactly how he did it. They put the mushrooms in a pile, wondering how they were going to bring them to the tribe. While Thilve and Tazkin were harvesting the mushrooms, Michael went to the trees with red barks and scraped down the ck moth growing on them.
Michael hummed a tune of the song he heard back on earth while collecting the moth in a ss jar. The little alchemist living inside him was utterly delighted to collect new ingredients to brew an entirely new potion that would put a full stop to poverty once and for all. This potion would serve as a new drug that makes people high while not affecting their physical bodies. In other words, by taking this potion, nothing would change physically. The user would only feel mind-numbing pleasure and high for a short amount of time and crave more.
Since Michael was not a drug dealer, he nned to brew an antidote to remove the craving and urge. Moreover, Michael nned to make this potion ridiculously expensive so that only the rich and noble would be able to afford it. This way, themoners would be spared by the new sensation drug he was about to make. It was only a temporary measure to enable the coin flow. His end goal was to invest in legit businesses and hotel chains, not dealing drugs. Even the Dark Lord had standards and limits. Thest thing he wanted was to have a bunch of druggies roaming the streets of his beautiful world. He med Noah for closing down Majestic and Hades, which pushed him to go into the drug industry.
As they were peacefully harvesting herbs and various ingredients in the forest, Thilve''s ears twitched. She immediately stopped harvesting the mushrooms, turned around, and saw Tazkin slowly reaching for his bow. It seemed like he heard the same rustling that she had heard just a moment ago. Tazkin and Thilve looked over their shoulder to see Michael calmly walking around picking blueberries.
"My lord," Tazkin whispered, trying to get Michael''s attention.
"There is something approaching us. Yes, I know that," Michael calmly answered Tazkin. The brown sack into which Michael put the blueberries disappeared along with the pile of mushrooms on the ground. He then strolled toward Thilve and Tazkin.
"Stand back. I''ll deal with it," said Michael. Unlike the wood elves, Michael was able to see the beast approaching them through his X-ray vision. Thilve and Tazkin heard a strange gnawing sound. Soon, their noses twitched as the air began to reek of blood. They tried to see what was happening, but the foliage and the trees blocked their sight. But Michael could see everything. The beast was feasting on the sleeping tiger, which didn''t even move an inch. The tiger was too high on the elements mixed in the air.
Michael waited for the beast to finish feasting and approach them. He slowly drew his ck sword from the sheath on his back. Somehow, the beast was immune to the air, unlike the tiger and the other creatures.
Chapter 837 Fighting Two Beasts In The Same Day
Each moment felt like an eternity to Thilve and Tazkin. They could hear their heartbeats slowly rising. Their eyes were fixed on the forest before them. Soon, the beast slowly stepped out of the cover of the trees and granted them a look at its body. Thilve and Tazkin took a step back. The beast reminded Michael of the komodo dragon back on earth. It was a Iarge lizard with long tails, a strong and agile neck, and sturdy limbs. The beast''s tongue was red, forked, and oozed blood. It had a stone color skin with distinct,rge scales.
Sssssss!
The beast hissed at them but locked its gaze on Michael. Somehow, the beast sensed the real threat among the three was Michael. Perhaps the sword in his hand, or perhaps he himself threatened the beast. Michael felt mother luck was on his side today. While harvesting the ingredients, he pondered about the antidote. To brew an antidote, he needed something that was naturally immune to the air around him. That''s where the beast came in. If he could get the beast''s flesh and blood, he would be able to brew an antidote without a problem.
Michael clenched his dark sword. One would be surprised to see the three dragons in his hilt wrap around his arms like they were alive and provide more grip. He didn''t take out his second sword but decided to slice and dice the beast using one. Step by step, the beast strolled toward Michael. Thilve and Tazkin slowly walked backward while maintaining their focus on the beast. However, the beast only focused on Michael. When the beast was just a few meters away from Michael, it started to gallop, increasing its speed significantly. Suddenly, the beast pushed its legs into the ground and lunged at Michael with its mouth wide open.
The poor beast had no idea how fast Michael could move. He just swayed his body to the side and dashed forward with his de tilted to the side. Thilve and Tazkin felt a gust of wind blow past him as one beast became two. Michael''s sword cut through the beast''s body like a hot knife through butter. Two halves of the beast hit the ground with a sickening thud. Blood sprayed out everywhere, including Michael, Thilve, and Tazkin. Michael sheathed his sword back into the sheath and turned around. The beast looked like neatly cut fish filets, except it had more blood, bits of pieces of the tiger it just ate, and entrails.
Although the wood elves were shocked at how quickly the beast died, they weren''t disgusted by the sight of its dead body. This told Michael that these wood elves had witnessed much worse.
"Good, they aren''t soft bloods," Michael said to himself. He flicked his wrist as a dagger, and a ss jar appeared in his hand. Then, Michael squatted beside the two halves of the body and carved out the beast''s heart, flesh, and collected its blood into the jar. Once again, Michael hated the system for not giving him any experience points. But then again, killing a creature with no cultivation level was as easy as stepping on an ant. It was no challenge or thrill. After collecting the body parts of the beast, Michael turned his focus on the ingredients.
"Shall we continue?" asked Michael as Thilve and Tazkin snapped back to reality. They continued to collect the mushrooms. Hours passed without their notice. Michael enjoyed the momentary peace and quiet. Eventually, Michael picked enough mushrooms and harvested enough ingredients to get his potion business running for a few months. This time would be enough for him to earn gold coins and invest or build businesses to generate passive ie.
"It''s enough," said Michael. Thilve and Tazkin were sweating. The task exhausted them quite a bit.
"If you don''t mind me asking, my lord, what are you nning to do with all these? They seem poisonous," Tazkin asked Michael.
"They are. But with a little bit of magic, the mushrooms could be turned into something special," Michael answered as he strolled toward the pond. He washed his face in the crystal clear water. Then, he decided to return to the tribe. On the way back, Michael led them instead of the other way around. He memorized the path back to the tribe. Tazkin and Thilve followed him while cautiously looking around their surroundings.
Almost after walking in peace and quiet for an hour, Michael slowed down. The red forest was far behind them, and they entered the forest part with sparkling blue trees.
"Something wrong, my lord?" Tazkin questioned Michael.
"Climb up this tree and stay there," Michael pointed at the tall tree beside him. Tazkin and Thilve were bewildered, but they chose not to question their god. Tazkin nodded as he put his back against the tree, boosted his wife to the top, and climbed up the tree with Thilve''s help. They used the branches and holes in the tree as stepping stones to reach the top.
Michael leaned against the tree as though he was waiting for someone. Suddenly out of nowhere, an arrow soared through the air, piercing the veins, foliage, and saplings The arrow almost hit Michael''s wrist where he wore the Olympus. It didn''t feel like whoever fired the arrow missed the mark but targeted the Olympus precisely. But before the arrow could hit Olympus and shatter it to pieces, Michael caught the arrow just a few inches away from Olympus. Upon sitting on the highest branch in the tree, Thilve and Taazkin were stunned. As far as they could see, no one was there. Still, the arrow came from somewhere.
"You are good marksmen. I give you that," Michael''s voice swept across the forest.
"Pity you are not as good as you think you are," said Michael. He was nonchnt about the arrow or who fired it. Ever since he stepped onto the demons grave, he had a feeling someone was following him. Although the Environmental Scanning sensed nothing, his instincts told him that he was being followed. Yet again, his instincts were spot on.
Whoosh!
Michael heard the sound of the whistling wind as another arrow came from another direction. Not even a second passed when another arrow soared through the forest from the opposite direction of the previous arrow. Michael caught the two arrows just in time before they hit Olympus.
"Whoever you are, you want a fair fight. Am I right?" asked Michael. Arch energy from the crystals amplified Michael''s voice to the point the creatures around him scattered away in fear. The arrows stopped. Then, Michael threw away the arrows and removed Olympus from his wrist. He had a feeling the one who fired the arrows was watching everything.
Michael ced the olympus on the ground and waited for the person to show themselves. Silence fell over them. A few secondster, the vegetation around Michael rustled. Thrive, and Tazkin noticed something big and ck approaching them. The figure lurked in the shadows and seemed to hide itself using the shadows. They perfectly blended with the forest despite how colorful the forest was.
"Stay up there," Michael said to Tazkin and Thilve when they seemed reluctant to stay still and let Michael handle the shadowy figure. The rustling noises pounded louder and louder as the figure finally stepped out of the shadows. Thilve and Tazkin were caught off guard. Simply put, they were stunned. It was a giant ck panther that walked on its two feet like a human.
Michael remained calm as the ck panther cautiously made his way toward Michael but kept a safe distance. When Tazkin and Thilve looked closer, the ck panther had more humanoid features than they initially saw. He had the face of a panther and shiny ck fur, but his muscles and limbs looked more human than those of a panther. His ck-tailed swayed with the wind. The ck panther''s eyes glistened with immense killing intent. Michael could feel the murderous lust radiating from the panther.
"Where did I see you before?" Michael rubbed his chin. The ck panther became more furious, seeing how calm Michael looked. However, except for his eyes, nothing betrayed the anger within the ck panther''s heart. It was a trait of a seasoned warrior. Michael was sure of that.
They both slowly started to walk in a circle while maintaining eye contact. Michael snapped his fingers as his eyes brightened.
"You were with Tanulia Valren. The invisible bodyguard. I knew I''d seen you somewhere," said Michael.
"But the rage within your eyes, it feels personal. Like I took away someone you loved. Don''t tell me you were in love with Tanulia," Michael snickered.
"Nah," Michael shook his head,
"It''s much more,"
"Jacobe," The ck panther finally opened his mouth. His voice sounded extremely thick and gritty. Since there were no beast men in Itonys and Tazkin and Thilve had never seen one, they werepletely shocked. Their god looked smallerpared to the seven feet monstrosity riddled with muscles. Yet, they saw no fear in the Dark Lord''s eyes. Not that they expected a god to be afraid of a cat.
"Jacobe?" Michael tilted his head, trying to recall the name.
"Sorry, no idea," Michael shrugged.
Of course, Michael remembered Jacobe. Even if he didn''t know the name, the ck panther had a resemnce with only one person Michael had met, the one who tried to hunt down Gaya and almost seeded. Everything started to make sense except how this ck panther managed to not only enter the demons grave but alsoe here.
"I shall make you remember then. Ghost," the ck panther addressed Michael by his name instead of the Dark Lord.
"Before he disappeared, he was tracking Gaya, the queen of Nagnd. Did you kill him?" asked the ck panther. Michael could tell the ck panther wanted some closure. He might be a good tracker, but he couldn''t have found Jacobe''s body because Michael burned it to ashes.
"The moment he agreed to track down Gaya, he sealed his own fate. But did I kill him?" Michael rubbed his chin, pretending to think.
Looking at the ck panther and Michael, Thilve and Tazkin were utterly confused. But judging by their words, they could understand that there was some kind of history between the two of them.
Chapter 838 Cat And The Way Back Home
"Defeat me in a duel, and I might tell you what I did to Jacobe," Michael snickered. Thilve and Tazkin froze when they felt the stillness in the air. Something was about to go down, and they felt it in every fiber of their being.
Michael swayed to the side and bent his back as he heard the twang of a bow string. An arrow flew above Michael''s head and struck the tree behind him. Michael looked up to see the ck panther on the tree branch. In a blink of an eye, the ck panther managed to leap onto the branch, getting a higher ground to attack Michael with his bow. The ck panther nimble jumped to another branch. Then he descended to a lower branch and swung himself to another tree. His movements were graceful. So Michael could tell he had years of training. Michael drew his sword and deflected the arrows without breaking a sweat. Seeing the arrows causing no harm to him, the ck panther rolled down from the tree and dashed at Michael.
Michael jumped in the air before the ck panther could cut his throat with the arrow he was about to fire. Then, the ck panther took out a pair of jade daggers. He quickly changed course after his initial attack failed. With speed beyond anything or anyone Thilve and Tazkin witnessed, the ck panther lunged at Michael. The serrated edge of the de grazed Michael''s shoulder. But the knife barely cut the skin for the blood to seep through. Then, it was Michael''s turn.
Michael brought down the ck sword toward the top of the ck panther''s head. He quickly raised his daggers in an X above his head to block the ck sword. But the ck panther knew how sharp and strong the ck sword was. He quickly, almost at the speed of lightning, deflected the sword using the daggers. Then, Michael swung his left fist at the ck panther''s face. He had to bring down his hand to block his fist. As Michael expected, the ck panther instinctively lowered his hand to block the fist. Before the panther could cut Michael''s fist with his dagger, Michael swung the ck sword, nicking the side of his face. Then, Michaelshed out and kicked the panther''s knee.
"Ssshhhh," the panther hissed in pain. Without giving the panther time to retaliate, Michael dashed at the ck panther, mming him against the tree behind. The entire tree shuddered, shedding half of its sparkling leaves. Any weak man would have had his ribs crushed by sheer force. However, the beastmen were built differently. They were far stronger, faster, and more agilepared to humans.
Even when he was mmed against the tree, the ck panther managed to flick his dagger, cutting Michael in the wrist. The sharp pain caused Michael to lose grip on the ck sword. It flew away from Michael andnded on the ground with a thud. Michael hated losing his sword as he grabbed both the panther''s wrists and mmed them against the tree once again. This time, the panther lost the daggers.
"Not as weak as you thought, isn''t it?" Michael asked, holding the panther against the tree. Every muscle in Michael''s body bulged. His ripped body stunned even Tazkin. Clearly, the ck panther underestimated Michae; raw strength. He and Gaya trained their physical bodies every single day like clockwork. Since he was an alchemist, Michael supplemented his body with healthy foods and potions to reach the peak of his physical strength. So even without Celestial energy or arch energy, Michael was far stronger than any human at the same cultivation stage as him.
The ck panther groaned to muster every bit of his strength and head-butted Michael to escape his hold. Michael''s nose cracked with a sickening crunch as the ck panther leaped away from Michael. He needed to put some distance and reevaluate his strategies to win against such a powerful opponent.
Thilve and Tazkin looked at the battle with horrified looks in their eyes. They witnessed their god bleed. The words Michael spoke about powerful people and enemies rang inside their brains. They could only imagine how powerful these people would be to make even a god bleed. The panther heard Michael chuckling instead of groaning in pain. He slowly turned around and pped the broken nose to align the cracked bones to their ce. The blood stain on his front teeth and the viinous smile made Michael look evil. The panther slowly realized why the entire world was afraid of him. If he had no brother to avenge, he would have avoided shing with such a terrifying being. Not that he was afraid of the Dark Lord, but unlike his brother, Jacobe, he avoided crossing paths with people like the Dark Lord, who would go to any lengths to seek revenge. It was toote for both of them. This feud could only be settled by blood.
Michael wiped off the blood before dashing at the panther once again. Fist met fist. Their fists shed in the forest, and their feet danced beneath them. The ck panther was quick, but so was Michael, despite removing the olympus. Michaelnded more blows on the panther than the panther did. Each punch created a heavy thud upon hitting their bodies. Their sh decimated everything below them and created a circle of dead nts. Several trees had human and cat-shaped holes and fist-sized holes.
Although the panther provided some extent of challenge, he was nowhere near defeating Michael. Ever since someone from the vampire death squad called the Puma almost defeated Michael in closebat because he used counter serpent maga, Michael was altering and perfecting his fighting technique. Coupled with Michael''s brute strength, agility, and cat-like reflex, only a few people in the world could fight him head-to-head and survive.
After a while, the panther started to breathe heavily as his movements became wobbly. Michael knocked him down to the dirt with a swift spinning wheel kick to the panther''s head. When Michael approached the panther, thetter tried to stab Michael with a short de he hid under his fur. But Michael kicked the de and pinned his hand to the ground with his knees.
"It''s over," said Michael. He then proceeded to punch the panther in the face. A couple of punches made the panther''s sight blurry. Michael showed no mercy as he continued to punch the panther until his fist ached.
"Just because I cannot use cultivation energy, doesn''t mean you can defeat me. Look at me!" Michael raised his voice. He grabbed the panther''s face and turned it to look him in the eyes.
"Now, tell me how you came here," Michael asked the panther.
"You first. What did you do to Jacobe?" Instead of answering Michael''s question, the panther questioned Michael.
Michael drew the other ck sword on his back and held it against the panther''s throat.
"Don''t make this harder on yourself, kitty cat. You''ve been dancing with the devil way too long, and it''s your time you paid the due,"
"Go on, kill me. But I won''t give you any answers until you tell me about what you did to Jacobe,"
"System, scan him," Michael ordered the system in his mind. He hated asking the system, considering he had already taken out a loan, and the more he asked, the more he would have to pay. Nheless, the panther gave Michael no choice. Rather, Michael didn''t want to give the panther closure.
[Scanning initiated]
Surprisingly, the system asked for no badass points. Instead, it began to scan the panther. A beam of light only Michael could see brushed past the panther''s body from head to toe. Suddenly, Michael noticed a glow on the panther''s chest. When the light disappeared, a chain with a couple of beads glistened around the panther''s neck. Each bead was the size of a coin and engraved with the face of a cat.
The panther noticed something strange in Michael''s eyes. It felt like his gaze was staring right through his soul. The panther squirmed, trying to escape. Michael grabbed the invisible ne, and when he was about to rip it off the panther''s neck, Michael felt a chill running down his spine. Every cell in his body screamed at him to dash away from the panther. And that''s exactly what Michael did. He rolled away from the panther. Out of nowhere, a vortex appeared right where Michael was a second ago and pulled the panther right into it.
The space distortion Michael felt at that moment was nothing he had ever felt. In a blink of an eye, the panther and the vortex vanished into thin air.
"Damn it," Michael cursed the teleportation portal. But he felt something in his hand. When he looked down, he saw a single coin in his palm. The silver coin with a cat''s face radiated a dim glow in his hand.
[That is your way home, host] said the system.
"What is this?" Michael asked the question. He almost forgot Thilve and Tazkin were watching him from above.
[The system level is too low to answer the question] The system''s answer disappointed Michael.
"How do I use-" Michael halted his question as he suddenly remembered the copper ring left behind by the past Dark Lord. He had a feeling that the copper ring might open a portal using the coin. But it was not the time for him to test the theory. There were so many unknowns in Itonys and the demons grave. For now, getting home safely took high priority. However, before he could leave, he had to visit the ash field and see what Skyhall was up to. With few things and many questions in his head, Michael strolled toward where he put the olympus, picked it up, and wore it around his wrist. The olympus was not the only thing he picked from the ground. He also picked up the arrows left behind by the panther, who was called ''The Cat'' by his people.
"You cane down," Michael said to Thilve and Tazkin. After wearing the olympus, Michael just raised his hand as the ck sword that slipped off his hand flew straight back to his hand.
"Now that was one of the many people I have to kill back on my world," Michael said to the wood elves with a calm smile.
Chapter 839 Crafting Crossbows For The Elves
By the time Michael returned to the tribe, the sun had almost fallen into the horizon. He leaped from the ground tofortablynd on the wooden tform above the ground.
"My lord," Kirat and the other wood elves bowed toward Michael. After nodding at them, Michael strolled to his throne and saw Vedora lying on it belly up. The throne was littered with bits and pieces of fruits and bare bones of fish. Ayag snored as a trail of drool trickled down her mouth. Michael lifted them up from the throne and raised his hand as a gust of wind blew past the throne. The wind st cleaned his throne.
Michael plunged onto the throne and took out the coin he picked from the panther. He fiddled with the coin until Ayag, Sarba, and Cain slowly opened their eyes. Sarba rubbed the sleep off of his eyes. When their visions cleared, they saw the dark lines on Michael''s forehead. It was obvious he had met some trouble while they were feasting and living like a god.
"What is that?" Ayag asked, looking at the coin in his hand. Sarba turned his gaze. He saw a strange glowing from within the coin.
"Do you remember the beastman who tried to capture Gaya on Xanali''s behalf?" Michael asked Vedora.
"What of him? Don''t tell me he''s alive somehow," Ayag frowned.
"Someone in his tribe followed me here. This coin belongs to him," said Michael. Sarba''s jaw dropped slightly. They all pushed their questions and doubts to the corner of their minds and asked Michael what had happened. Michael told them everything starting from the invisible guard he saw near Tanulia to the powerful vortex that appeared to save the panther. The panther''s disappearance left Michael with more questions than answers. He knew the Skyhall built a portal to reach Itonys somehow, but it was no portal that saved the panther. Someone created the vortex, and they didn''t want Michael to have the coins.
"The Dark Lord said killing monsters in the demons grave would make some asshole stronger. I wonder if that asshole is the same one who created the vortex. It seems like he has control over the demons grave," said Cain. As usual, Cain and Michael shared the same thought. But what Michael didn''t know was that the asshole was another god, God of Time and Space, Andohr. In his previous life, Andohr was his arch-nemesis. At that time, Michael was the only god who was able to stop Andohr, but the price Michael paid to defeat Andohr was a little too much.
Before resetting the universe, the Dark Lord ensured Andohr wouldn''t hurt his new self since he would be at his weakest. He ced an array above the mortal realm preventing Andohr from returning home and bringing the other gods to the mortal world. If Andohr ever wanted to get back, he needed Michael.
"We need to get more answers before we leave this world," said Michael.
"Speaking of answers, we heard the wood elves climb the mother tree to get the Dark Lord''s blessings. We also heard those who sessfully climbed to the top heard the voice of the Dark Lord. What if he had left another recording for you at the top? It might help us shed some light on things," said Ayag. She sounded surprisingly intelligent. Michael almost wondered whether the fruits she devoured had some influence on her brain cells. Because normally, Ayag preferred to attack the problem than think about it.
"They would be worried if we depart now. Let''s head out there tomorrow. ording to the elves, the mother tree is on the way to the ash field. We should climb up there, see what''s there and then head to the ash field," said Sarba.
"Hmm," Michael rubbed his chin for a moment before agreeing to Sarba''s suggestion.
"Besides, we need to find a way to dress up these elves. Some of the girls said the tribe loses at least ten elves yearly to the winter," Sarba said with concern for the elves.
Michael had been thinking about the clothing issue for some time. However, buying clothes for the elves from the system was out of the question because it not only cost quite a lot of badass points, but he had also taken a loan from the system. It left him with only one option. He had to buy clothes from his world and bring them here. But to do that, he needed a portal connecting Itonys and his castle, where he nned to build the portal.
"I am a cksmith and an alchemist, not a tailor. I cannot solve their problem until we find a way to travel back and forth,"
As they were discussing the clothing issue, Kirat and a few girls came carrying a wooden tter filled with various fruits, boiled fish, and what seemed to be roots.
"My lord, please ept this," Kirat bowed.
"Thank you," Michael took the tter from Kirat and thanked them, which stunned the elves.
"Have everyone eaten yet?" Michael asked Kirat. The warmth the elves felt from his words could not be described with mere words. Their hearts were filled with such joy and delight.
"We will eatter on, my lord," said Kirat, controlling his tears from escaping his eyes.
"Silvia here told us, they haven''t had meat in months," Ayag looked at the brown-haired elf and said. The elven girl trembled.
"Lady Ayag," The girl scowled as Ayag let out a devilish grin.
"Is it true Kirat? Don''t you guys go hunting?"
Kirat sighed before answering Michael.
"We used to, my lord. But we lost our entire hunter group to the demons. Without them, hunting for the meat has be too dangerous,"
After hearing Kirat, Michael ced the silver tter on the throne''s hand and stood up.
"Tonight, we are having meat. I am going hunting, and there will be no negotiation,"
"Did I hear the word meat?"
"Yeeyyyyy, meat!"
The children immediately became delighted to hear Michael. Many gasped and bounced in joy, especially children who hadn''t had meat for months. The one who grinned the widest was Ayag. Unlike the elves, Ayag didn''t go without meat for months but just a week. However, in her mind, a week was just as long as a couple of years.
Michael gathered up the men in the time, including Tazkin. Soon, all the male elves in the tribe gathered around Michael.
"Kirat, where do you get your bows?" Michael asked the old elf.
"We make our own, my lord," said Kirat.
"Before we go hunting, I want you to bring all the nks and wood logs you use to craft the bows,"
A couple of elves jumped down from their tribe and headed outside to bring everything Michael needed. The elves were curious to see why Michael suddenly asked for logs and nks. A few minutester, the elves returned carrying wooden nks and logs that had a rosy tint to the wood. In addition, they also brought rolls of rope they used to make strings.
After they ced the nks and logs before Michael, he gestured at the elves to take a few steps back. Then, he unsheathed the dark swords and started to carve the wood. The gears in Michael''s inventor side of the brain worked at full capacity. Every move Michael made had a certain grace to it. He often entered the system and brought a few additional parts for the thing he was building. Under the elves'' curious gazes, Michael effortlessly built not one but five crossbows. It had been some time since he put his Inventor skill to good use. Now that he had a forge and the cksmith trait, he would be able to build more powerful weapons. Underwater torpedo for Big Bertha was just an example.
Michael was able to build these beautiful recurve crossbows with themon materials found in Itonys. He decorated the limbs with ebony details and ended in rounded curves ornamented with wrapped leather. The stock was wrapped in glistening blue leavesmonly found in the forest. Since Michael felt generous, he crafted a long quiver for every crossbow using deer hide. He decorated the outside with animal horns. In the hands of any archer, this bow was capable of firing arrows up to seventy meters while still retaining lethal power.
"What is this, my lord?" Tazkin asked Michael.
"Watch," Michael raised the crossbow, nocked an arrow into the barrel, and aimed at a tree almost twenty meters away from them.
"Move aside," Ayag flew through the crowd and pushed them aside from the bolt''s trajectory. When the elves cleared out from his path, Michael pulled the trigger.
Woosh!
As soon as Michael pulled the trigger, the bolt shot out of the crossbow, creating an acute swish. The bolt soared through the air and hit the tree Michael aimed in a blink of an eye. It prated deep into the bark and jerked for a moment. Considering Tazkin and most of the wood elves were skilled archers, they were speechless to see the speed and the power of the crossbow.
"You can fire a bolt up to seventy meters. I built it in a way you do not have to worry about wind direction. Just aim and fire,"
Michael demonstrated how to reload the crossbow and fired another bolt farther than the previous one. When he first arrived at his new world from the earth, he had a hard time hitting the targets using a bow and arrows. Of course, he could hit the targets in close range, but the cultivators used arch energy to hit targets beyond what a normal human being could hit. Thanks to Gaya and practice, he became a deadly marksman. He still had a long way to go to reach Gaya''s level. She was a frickin beast when it came to long-rangedbat. One time, he saw Gaya hit a drone flying through dark clouds in a storm from five hundred meters away. He doubted he could reach her level without the system''s help. She was a natural-born marksman.
Many elves gasped in shock, and then their eyes sparkled, hoping they would get one from Michael.
"I will make more soon. For now, I''ll let Kirat decide who gets one," said Michael.
Chapter 840 Death Of Vedora
The next day, Michael prepared to head for the ash field. When Michael returned to the tribe from meditating on the hilltop he first arrived at, he saw the wood elves snoring loudly and sleeping like babies. Last night, they feasted on all kinds of meat after Michael and Tazkin brought enough meat to serve them all. Michael himself barbequed the meat and served his devotees. He enjoyed taking a break from all the pressure of being the Dark Lord and enjoyed the feast with the wood elves. The meat from the game in Itonys tasted way better than the game back in his world. Apparently, the deer-like animal with a glowing belly infested the forest and grazed the vegetation without control. Their natural predators ran deeper into the forest, and many fell victim to the red forest and were eaten by the lizard-like beast. If he hunted them down, he would be doing a favor to the forest and the wood elves. He did n to hunt them down after he opened up Hades again using another name.
"Wake up," Michaelnded beside his throne to see Ayag drooling on his throne. He tapped all three heads and woke them up.
"Juicy meat¡want¡.more," Ayag mumbled for a moment before falling back to deep slumber. She reminded Michael of Gaya as he smiled. Michael lost count of the times he had to carry her to the bed from the top of the mountain they trained often. Waking up Gaya without getting his face bruised was the toughest challenge he faced every day. The first few times she anciently punched him in the face, she woke up and apologized. Butter on, she would justugh and say he deserved it for waking her up early.
Now Ayag acted just like her, minus the getting punched in the face.
"My lord," Kirat strolled toward Michael, navigating through the sleeping wood elves. Instead of returning to their homes, all the elves fell asleep on the spacious wooden tform. This vige was an architectural marvel. They managed to build numerous wooden homes, bridges, lift systems, and arge wood tform in the center anchored to several trees.
Every time he saw the vige, he remembered the dark elven vige. They almost looked the same, but the magical forest and the wood elves'' kindness added charm and beauty to this vige.
"I should wake these good-for-nothing elves," Kirat scowled. He felt offended to see them sleeping while their god was long awake.
"It''s okay. Let them sleep. I know how it feels to sleep without worry in the world. I almost miss that feeling," Michael said while keeping a straight face.
"Where is the breakfast?" Ayag asked, yawning. Her jaw opened wide, making Michael worried that it would get stuck.
"You are not in the castle," said Michael as Ayag rubbed the sleep off her eyes. She heaved a sigh of disappointment when the realization hit her.
? "I should fetch you something to eat right this instance, Lady Ayag,"
"No," Michael stopped Kirat with a wave of his hand.
"I''ll get them something on the way to the mother tree," said Michael. He avoided telling Kirat the full truth that he was on his way to the ash field. To the wood elves, the ash field was a forbiddennd. No one alive in the tribe had visited or even seen the ce. ording to Tazkin, the ash field was far north of the mother tree and rtively closer to some orc tribes. He didn''t think the orcs would step onto the ash field or anyone for that matter. Simply put, Michael learned nothing about the ash field from the elves, and it seemed like no one knew about the ce, which made Michael more curious.
"I''ll be back when I can," said Michael before slowly ascending into the air.
"We will wait for your arrival, my lord," Kirat bowed as Michael shot through the canopy and disappeared from Kirat''s sight. After leaving the tribe, Michael cast the lightning dash. Kirat vaguely saw a streak of ck lightning in the sky and stared at the sky until the lightning faded away. In the sky, Michael was on his way to the mother tree at full speed. Vedora wrapped their tail tightly around Michael''s neck and tried not to fall down. Everything around them seemed blurry due to Michael''s speed. When things cleared up, they reached the mother tree.
Even when Michael was way higher from the ground, the top of the tree seemed far away. The tree spanned as far as one could see. A sparkling canopy overshadowed the blue sky itself. It would take a couple of the tallest buildings on earth to be stacked on top of each other to reach the mother tree''s height. Michaell wanted to see the tree at night, where it would radiate like a giant neon tube light.
"How did Tazkin climb to the top, and how the hell does anyone climb to the top?'' Ayag''s neck ached just by looking up at the tree. The mere thought of climbing the tree without using energy seemed absurd to her.
"Resilience," said Michael.
"You can do almost anything if you put your mind to it,"
Michael slowly hovered toward the tree while noticing the empty castle ground and campsite around the mother tree. As Michael expected, the old woman kept her word. The Skyhall soldiers finally vacated the once the holy ground of the wood elves.
"We should take over the castle," Ayag suggested after looking at the empty castle. However, Michael firmly shook his head.
"No. This ce used to be holy, and I will keep it that way. The moment we build a portal connecting this world to ours, I am raising everything the SKyhall made to the ground,"
For now, Michael didn''t want to start a wildfire that would engulf everything, including the mother tree itself. Besides, there might be something inside the castle he could use against the Skyhall, even though Michael doubted the old woman would have left something. She didn''t seem like someone who would make such a careless mistake.
Michael increased his speed to reach the top faster but didn''t fly at his full speed because he didn''t want to miss any clues. As he was flying toward the top of the tree, Michael noticed several birds with strange designs on their body and colorful eyes that glowed like jewels. He had never seen such exotic birds before. They all scattered away and flew into the holes in the mother tree''s branches as wide as a typical big tree. The tree was home to unknown species and had its own unique ecosystem. His love for Itonys surged to the point he realized why the past Dark Lord had taken such interest in Itonys.
What Michae didn''t know was the past Dark Lord did not only simply take an interest in this world but protected the world from Andohr and his schemings. He had to kill someone he cared dearly to save this world from getting destroyed. Almost after thirty minutes, Michael reached the top, where eleven branches branched out from the center that looked like an elegant garden. These branches looked like pirs that held the canopy on their backs. Michael felt a pleasant chill on his feet when hended on the grass field. Birds chirped in the distance as Michael strolled toward something that looked man-made. To be precise, it was a giant stone pir entangled by veins and moths.
It didn''t feel like he was on top of a tree. Instead, it felt like he was walking in a hall made of mother nature herself. Everything around him was untouched by death and destruction caused by the Skyhall. He didn''t think the Skyhall soldiers ever managed to reach this ce. They would have if they could use arch energy. Thank the gods, they couldn''t. Otherwise, the Skyhall soldiers would have hunted down the bright blue feathered birds watching him just for their feathers.
Michael''s full focus was on the stone pir. The closer he got to the pir, the more he felt a strange energying from it. When Michael reached the almost seven feet tall pir, he grabbed the veins coiling around and pulled them apart. It took him a few seconds topletely get rid of the veins. Finally, Michael was able to see the stone pir clearly. What he saw engraved in the stone pir rendered him speechless. His heart almost skipped a beat. For a brief moment, Michael''s mind just went nk.
The reason for Michael''splete shock was the engraving of a man with two swords fighting a three-headed hydra hundreds of times the size of him. That was only a part of the mural. Below that, they saw the fallen hydra and the man kneeling before its body, presumably exhausted after a battle.
"It can''t be real¡ it''s not¡it must be Mugashuku," Ayag muttered as Cain slowly shook his head.
"Mugashuku is a four-headed hydra. That would be us unless there was another three-headed hydra in existence," said Cain.
"Then that''s not Ghost. It must be someone else," Ayag''s eyes watered.
"Look at the swords he was holding," Cain pointed at the swords. Although the swords seemed small, they could see the three dragons in the hilt, looking exactly the same as Michael''s dark swords. Michael had no words as he was in utter shock. If the mural was something that happened in the past, to be precise, happened to the past Dark lord, it meant the past Dark Lord fought and killed Vedora. But why? That was the question that drilled his brain to the core.
He knew the past Dark Lord''s life was kind of fucked up, yet Michael never imagined it would be fucked to the point he had to fight and kill Vedora. Vedora was family to him.
"There must be more to this," Sarba stuttered. He would never hurt Ghost, and he knew his siblings wouldn''t too.
"We don''t have to freak out. I said this is Ghost, but I didn''t say it''s our Ghost," Cain''s words somehow managed to calm down Ayag and Sarba.
"But what happened between us that made us fight to the death?" asked Sarba.
Chapter 841 Bai Ning鈥檚 Fear
"Please be careful," Inside a cozy room draped with sky-blue curtains, the old woman Michael met at the castle talked to a girl in a mirror. The girl''s figure slowly faded out of existence after the old woman waved her hand. After the girl''s figure vanished, the mirror reflected the old woman''s figure. The girl who just disappeared was none other than Rowena Winsotn, the holy maiden, and the old woman Michael met was her maid, Bai Ning. Despite how frail the old woman looked with her wrinkly skin and hunched back, she was an Immortal at level 10. However, she suppressed her cultivation stage to make herself look like a Fusion stage warrior to most of the Skyhall soldiers.
At that moment, Bai Ning resided in a quickly built cabin in an ash field. She was tasked to supervise the dig site where they were supposed to find something that could rival the Dark Lord himself in a battle.
"Do note back without results, Bai Ning," Bai Ning heard a thunderous voice in her head. She immediately dropped to her knees when she heard the voice. Almost instantly, sweat beads formed on her face, and she remained on her knees for a few long moments. She had only feared three people in her life: the Holy maiden, the Dark Lord, and this mysterious lord of the Skyhall. Bai Ning didn''t fear the first two as much as she feared thetter because Rowena and the Dark Lord were still weakpared to her. The same could not be said of the mysterious lord. He could end her and the entire skyhall with a snap of his fingers. Even the great elders of the Skyhall feared him. Luckily for most others, they didn''t know such a person existed. Many thought, including the Holy Maiden herself, that Holy Maiden was the highest rank. However, the truth was that there existed someone above the Holy Maiden. The most powerful great elders served him and feared him more than they did the Holy Maiden.
Deep down, Bai Ning didn''t want to see this mysterious lord in person. Instead, she was quite happy serving him from the shadows. Bai Ning hoped that the Holy Maiden would bend her knees to this mysterious lord when the time came though Bai Ning didn''t think that would happen, judging by Rowena''s temperament.
Even after the voice''s effect on her faded, Bai Ning couldn''t get back to her feet. Eventually, she managed to muster enough strength to stand up and leave the cabin.
Bai Ning heaved a sigh as she strolled toward the wooden door and twisted the golden knob. As soon as the door opened, she was weed by an rming sight. Lightning struck close to her and all around the ce again and again. The sky roared as an eternal thunderstorm dominated this realm. Strange sounds erupted from behind Bai Ning, perhaps two beings fighting each other or a copsingndscape.
In spite of the treacherousndscape, she got the feeling she was not in immediate danger. This ce was no walk in the park, but at the very least, she should be able to survive for a couple of weeks.
The men she brought from Skyhall and those who upied the mother tree were doing typicalbor such as carrying crates, erupting tents to survive the thunderstorm, and digging holes everywhere as though they were searching for something. It was tough for Bai Ning to see through the ashen air. The entire ce had an eerie crimson-red hue to it. Bai Ning decided to go out there and look at how the digging process was going in person. Cupping the mother tree was just a secondary task. Their main task was to dig up something that the mysterious lord ordered the great elders to do.
With the equipmenting from Skyhall and extra manpower, Bai Ning believed they could find whatever was hiding in the Ash field.
"You have three weeks," Bai Ning''s mind reyed the words spoken to her by the mysterious lord. Initially, when they first arrived at Itonys two months ago, she had no worries or pressure. The mysterious lord rarely bothered to speak to her. But imagine her surprise when the Dark Lord himself came to pay her a visit. Then, all hell broke loose. Something inside the mysterious lord broke after he heard the Dark Lord''s name. Bai Ning lived long enough to tell when someone was feeling overwhelming killing intent. She didn''t know the history between the Dark Lord and the mysterious lord, but one thing was certain, the mysterious lord had deep hatred toward the Dark Lord.
"Curse you to hell, Dark Lord," Bai Ning cursed Michael under her breath and went to meet the captain of this unit. A few meters away from her, a group of silver armored soldiers was digging the ground using shovels. While another group was carrying an unconscious soldier toward one of the tents.
"Lady Bai Ning," the elven captain noticed Bai Ning and dropped his shovel.
"Captain Fenian, how''s the digging going?" asked Bai Ning. Because of the thunderstorm and the howling wind, they had to speak louder than they were used to.
"We are losing more and more soldiers, Lady Bai Ning. The air is getting more and more toxic the more we dig, Lady Bai Ning. I''d suggest we bring more equipment and wait till our schrs find a way to filter the air," said Fenian.
But Bai Ning firmly shook her head.
"Not an option Captain. The order came from the top. If we don''t show results to the higher ups in two weeks, it''d be our heads that roll on the table,"
Bai Ning didn''t give a damn about the soldiers. As far as she was concerned, they were all expendable.
"At this rate, we won''t have enough men to dig, Lady Bai Ning. We have already lost half of our men to the Dark Lord, and many of the survivors fell sick to the toxic air," Fenian raised his voice. Unlike Bai Ning, he cared about his men. Dying came up with being a soldier, but Fenian preferred dying with honor on the battlefield to digging for something.
"Have they taken the purification pills?" asked Bai Ning.
"They have Lady Bai Ning. But the pills seem to lose their effect when they dig deeper into the ground. Maybe we tell the Holy Maiden about this,"
"NO!" Bai Ning didn''t realize she had raised her voice to the point it sounded louder than thunderps. The soldiers stopped what they were doing and turned their gazes to Bai Ning.
"Back to work!" Bai Ning ordered the gazing soldiers as they quickly returned to their work.
"Captain Fenian. You are to tell the Holy Maiden about this under no circumstances. She hasn''t ascended to the throne of the Holy Maiden yet. If she knew of this and caused a ruckus among the elders, her ascension would be hindered. I don''t think I have to exin the politics in Skyhall," Fenian creased his sword-like brows. As much as he hated hiding things from the Holy Maiden, Lady Bai Ning''s words made sense to him. Besides, he knew Lady Bai Ning cared about the Holy Maiden more than anyone in the Skyhall. If she thought telling the Holy Maiden about the ash field was not a good idea, Fenian had to obey her order. The only thing that worried Fenian was the lives of his men.
Many thought the Skyhall was a single entity and functioned as one. But it was only half the truth. The reality was that Skyhall was politically scattered into various groups inside. For instance, some believed in and served the Holy Maiden wholeheartedly, like Fenian, while some wanted to change the hierarchy and form a circle of elders. Another group consisted of the most powerful elders who knew about the mysterious lord''s existence, and they served him, only him.
"I know losing your men hurts, Captain. But if we don''t do this, we will lose way more to the Dark Lord. You saw what he did to those poor souls," Bai Ning sympathized with Fenian while low-key manipting him using the Dark Lord.
Fenian sighed as he looked around at his men for a moment. He could only feel pity for the men who were digging down as they were ordered without having any idea they were about to die. Rather, even if they knew they would die, they wouldn''t disobey their orders.
"It''d be helpful and even reduce the number of casualties if we knew what we are looking for here, Lady Bai Ning,"
Hearing his words, Bai Ning could only sigh.
"You''d be the first one to know when or if they tell me, Captain. Also, I have another task for you,"
"What is it?'' asked Fenian.
"I want you to go to the human tribes in this world and gather as much information as you can about them. I need to know their lifestyle, who or what they worship, and how many people are in their tribe," Bai Ning paused for a second and continued.
"The wood elves are lost cause. We have to stop more people from following the Dark Lord here. If we had natives of this world doing our work, the Dark Lord wouldn''t have killed them as he killed our soldiers. He still has a soft spot for his own race, and we should exploit it if pushes to shove,"
"When should I leave?" Fenian asked Bai Ning. He knew he would be more useful in collecting information that could give them an advantage over the Dark Lord than digging holes and looking at his soldiers fall one by one. Subconsciously, Fenian didn''t want to be here and deal with the guilt.
"No time like the present, Captain,"
"What if the Dark Lord breaks the deal andes here, Lady Bai Ning?"
Bai Ning chuckled.
"He won''t break the deal, but he wille here to see what we are up to. In fact, I''d say he''s on his way as we speak. You go and get ready to leave, Captain. I''ll deal with the Dark Lord,"
Chapter 842 World Ending Monster
Bai Ning supervised the digging after Captain Fenian left the ash field to gather information on the humans in Itonys. As time passed, more and more people fell sick to the toxicity in the air. Even the soldiers at the Fusion stage copsed like a lump of coal. After seeing almost fifteen soldiers fall to their death, Bai Ning wondered what the hell she was ordered to dig up. As much as she liked to know the answer, she could not contact the great elders or the mysterious lord. Only they contacted her, not the other way around.
"Lady Bai Ning!" The old woman heard an ted shout from a few meters away. She quickened her steps as a group of soldiers gathered around a crater they had dug.
"They found something," the silver armored soldier sitting on the edge said, bowing his head toward her. Bai Ning approached the edge and looked down. Some of the soldiers were lying in the red sand unconscious as the remaining soldiers slowly dug something up.
"Bring that to me," Bai Ning raised her voice. The soldiers carried something gray and heavy. From her point of view, the object had no distinguishable shape. It took five soldiers to carry the object to Bai Ning. The soldiers groaned and panted heavily. A couple of soldiers from above ran downhill to help the soldiers carry the object upwards.
Finally, the soldiers managed to bring the object upside and ced it before Bai Ning. The old woman squatted beside the object.
Thud!
Some of the soldiers who carried the object to them fell down and rolled down the crater. However, Bai Ning didn''t give a damn about them. Her full focus was on the object before her.
"What is it?" Bai Ning mumbled under her breath. She slowly ran her fingers through the object. Because it was under the ground for so long, its surface was nketed with a thickyer of dirt. She rubbed off the dirt as much as she could. The soldiers helped her with brushes and tiny tools they used to remove the dirt. Then, the object started to take the shape of a triangle. The bottom of the object had cracks, and seemed like a part of it was missing. Judging by the smoothness and the shape, Bai Ning had a feeling that this might be a broken tooth.
"Lady Bai Ning!" As she was pondering about the object, she heard another shout. This time, a group of soldiers carried a six feet long pir toward Bai Ning. They ced the pir with a heavy thud. To Bai Ning''s surprise, the pir and the object on the ground seemed to have been made of the same material. Bai Ning looked up as she saw the pointy end of the pir and felt a chill running down her spine.
"It is a tooth," Bai Ning muttered. The pointy end, the shape, and the cracks on the surface, everything pointed to one thing; a tooth. She wouldn''t havee to this conclusion if she hadn''t seen dragons in real life. But the tooth was too big to be a dragon''s unless the dragon was almost two hundred meters tall. There was no mention of a two hundred-meter dragon in any texts, and ording to her knowledge, a dragon could not grow to that size. It was biologically impossible.
Bai Ning''s jaw dropped a few inches as she looked around the ash field, shocked to the core. At the moment, the biggest creature alive was Mugashuku, AKA the dormant hydra in the Southern Continent. As far as Bai Ning could tell, the tooth belonged to an ancient beast bigger than Mugashuko.
"We are standing in the graveyard of an ancient beast," Bai Ning mumbled. Her mind canceled out all the sounds around her. The eerie silence rooted strongly into her heart as fear crept down her spine slowly. If the tooth alone was six feet tall, she could only imagine how monstrous the beast would have been in real life.
"Take this to my tent and keep digging," Bai Ning snapped back to reality after briefly being in shock. Then, she took her gaze from the tooth to the soldiers around her.
"Scatter the demon caskets you have dug out," Bai Ning ordered the soldiers. Her tone contained a sense of urgency.
"Yes, Lady Bai Ning," The soldiers quickly nodded and carried the tooth to Bai Ning''s tent. Meanwhile, the rest hurried toward thergest tent on the field to take out the demon caskets they stored there. Even on their way to the tent, some soldiers fell unconscious. While the soldier who was carrying the tooth to Bai Ning''s tent wobbled as their legs felt weak. The radiationing from the tooth was too much for the soldiers to handle. If she wasn''t an Immortal, she might have lost consciousness to the radiation.
Ba Ning watched the soldiers carry out their words despite theirrades falling down like flies. Their loyalty and devotion toward the Skyhall were truly remarkable. She had lived for centuries, and every generation of soldiers had the same devotion toward Skyhall. They could only defeat the looming threat, the Dark Lord, with firm devotion and undying loyalty. Otherwise, the Dark Lord would corrupt their soldiers and turn those soldiers against them.
"Do not underestimate him," Bai Ning recalled the great elder''s words. They were stronger than the Dark Lord, yet they avoided fighting with him. Instead, they believed the mysterious lord''s words. He wanted no one except Noah to fight the Dark Lord.
Even an Immortal like her shuddered when she saw him up close. When she was talking to the Dark Lord, she felt like staring at death itself. The darkness in his eyes tested her will to speak a word against him. Reading texts about the Dark Lord and witnessing his atrocities in person was as different as the sky and earth. Just thinking about him made her shudder, especially after learning what was beneath them. No matter what, she could not let the Dark Lord know the secrets of the ash field.
*****************************************************
While Bai Ning and the Skyhall soldiers were trying to dig up the ancient beast, Michael was on his way to Ash Field at full speed. However, instead of flying in the sky, he flew through the forest to hide the trail of ck lightning. He didn''t want the old woman or anyone to notice him. On the way, Vedora was annoyingly silent. After seeing the mural in the pir, they became silent, especially Ayag and Sarba. Cain, on the other hand, believed they could change the past and avoid fighting each other.
The creatures and birds roaming in the forest scattered away as they felt a strong gust of wind blowing past them. Micahel followed the sound of thunderstorms and the red sky in the distance to reach the ash field. Apparently, the ash field''s eerie weather turned the ground and sky red, as well as created evesting thunderstorms. They were disappointed the mother tree had no answers to their questions but only the stone pir. Michael didn''t hear any voices or recordings of the past Dark Lord.
Not everything wasid clearly for Michael by the past Dark Lord, in other words, himself. To be honest, Michael had no problem with that. Of course, it was shocking to the core that the past Dark Lord fought Vedora and killed them, but Michael believed there was more to the story than the mural told them. There must be a reason why Vedora turned against him.
Eventually, the trees around him lessened in number. It felt less cluttered and more spacious. Soon, the forest opened up to an entirely new biome. From a bird''s view, a straight line divided the sparkling blue forest and the red sandy ce with violent thunderstorms. The sky looked like someone painted it with blood and smeared the painting with clusters of ck clouds.
Michael had a tough time looking through the thunderstorm. The storm lifted the red sand and started the sand storm. Luckily, it also helped Michael blend in with the surroundings. Just like he was having difficulty locating the Skyhall soldiers, they would have the same difficulty locating him. Thanks to the thermal vision, he was able to locate the soldiers. As soon as he turned on the thermal vision, he saw several yellowish figures with glowing redness in the center running around. They seemed to be digging the ground despite the storm. In addition, Michael also vaguely noticed some tents and tried to locate the old woman among them.
However, she was nowhere to be found, at least in his vision. Michael slowly ascended into the air to better view the ce. Hovering in the air, Michael took out a few drones and willed them to fly through the storm.
Bang!
Surprisingly, the drones exploded into pieces in a few moments. Cain creased his brows.
"There is some kind of energy shield around the ce," Finally, Sarba broke his silence and informed Michael about the strange energy dorm he sees around the ce.
"I don''t see any shields," said Ayag.
"Let''s wait here and watch what''s happening," Michael said. He didn''t n to go through the shield or break it altogether, which might alert whoever ced the energy shield in the first ce.
Michael flew around the dome with Sarba''s help. As he was hovering around, he saw more demon caskets on the ground. The soldiers tirelessly unearthed them to god knows for what reason. But what lies in the ground avoided both Michael and Sarba''s senses. Bai Ning and her soldiers had no idea what they were doing. As a matter of fact, only one being alive knew the origin of the ancient beast, Andohr. This ancient beast was arge piece in his borate n to exact revenge on the Dark Lord.
Chapter 843 Andohr鈥檚 Plan For Vedora
In Andohr''s castle, the God of Time and Space was sitting on his throne alone as usual. Unlike any other day, Andohr had a grin stered on his face. The reason for his unusual smile was the thing covered in gray cloth. Whatever was hiding beneath the cloth took almost half of the throne hall. Andohr would look tiny if he stood beside it. Looking at the cloth-covered object, Andohr waved his hand as a six feet circr mirror appeared and hovered in the air before him. Something created a few ripples in the mirror as though the ss had turned liquid. Andohr''s hands glowed as he extended his hand toward the mirror. A bright light slowly flew out of his hand andnded on the mirror. Typically, a mirror would have reflected the bright beam of light but not this one. Instead of reflecting the light, the mirror absorbed the light. Soon, silhouettes appeared in the mirror. Gradually, the ripples in the mirror settled down, revealing the silhouette''s figure.
The figure in the mirror had an eerie aura around him. He was inhumanly tall and had a busty build. Since the figure''s head was covered in tentacle-like appendages, it was hard to tell whether the figure was male or female. But gender rarely bothered this figure. Something about the figure''s eyes portrayed death. If the creepy death aura wasn''t enough, the figure''s eyes were gray as ashes, and the body was covered in soot-ck fur. The figure was the embodiment of death.
"Greetings, Andohr, the God of Time and Space. What a pleasant surprise." The figure talked in a demonic voice. If death had a voice, it would sound like the figure. Unlike the figure''s words suggested, there was no delight or joy in seeing Andohr.
"Foucrux, the God of Necromancy," Andohr greeted Foucrux back, hiding the disgust in his eyes. Six thousand years ago, Andohr would have killed himself than to ask for Foucrux''s help. Most of the gods treated Fourcrux and his brother with disdain, as they brought nothing but death and destruction everywhere. Unlike the rest of the pantheon, Foucrux had fewer worshippers. No one in their right mind would worship the god of necromancy, which enabled mortals to reanimate the dead and spread gues. Yet again, because of the Dark Lord, Andohr was forced to do something he hated the most. In this case, Andohr had to make a deal with Foucrux.
"How is the mortal universe treating you, Andohr? I heard mortals built countless temples to worship you," Foucrux''s words and tone oozed with sarcasm.
Hearing such a lowly god mock him, Andohr''s blood boiled to the point his eyes turned red. But Andohr took a deep breath to calm himself. Like it or not, Andohr needed Foucrux''s help, and there was no point in fighting with him.
"I sense a powerful death aura around you, Andohr. Is that why you summoned me, using the stone of Hikar?" asked Foucrux as Andohr sighed. The stone of Hikar was a powerful artifact used to summon a god from the mortal realm. Before the Dark Lord locked the mortal realm and prevented Andohr from ascending to the god realm, contacting gods was as easy as snapping his fingers to Andohr. As the God of Time and Space, Andohr didn''t have any need for artifacts to contact the gods in the god realm. Instead, he would just open up a portal and meet them in person.
But now, Andohr had to use the stone of Hikar to summon Foucrux. Unfortunately, he had to wait another hundred years to use the stone of Hikar again. Andohr hoped summoning Foucrux was worth using the stone. If anyone could help him with the object he found, it was Foucrux. Andohr could see Foucrux''s eyes glistening with excitement.
"You are right to sense the death aura. Look what I found," Andohr said, rising from his throne. Then, he climbed down the stairs as the mirror followed him behind. Andohr reached the object and pulled down the cloth covering the object. After the cloth fell down, Foucrux saw a colossal head of a hydra. The mirror had to fly back to capture the entire head. Even after five thousand years, the silver scales still glistened in the light.
"That''s the Dark Lord''s hydra," Foucrux stuttered. He waspletely stunned by the head. Five thousand years ago, the entire realm of gods felt the effects of the battle between Andohr and the Dark Lord. Even some of the powerful gods had to leave their dimensions and intervene in the battle, not to save or fight for Andohr but to prevent the realm of gods from getting obliterated by the Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord and his pet hydra terrorized the realm and almost seeded in killing a fellow god. Thousands of divine beings lost their lives as coteral damage, and the damage to the realm still had remnants of their battle. No one thought a Hydra could be powerful enough to rival the most powerful gods, and for hundreds of years, everyone thought the hydra was unstoppable until fate yed a cruel trick upon the Dark Lord and the hydra. Something happened between the two that resulted in them fighting to the death. Only a few gods knew the real reason why they fought each other, and Foucrux was not one of them.
The battle between the hydra and the Dark Lordsted for two long weeks. It was Andohr who managed to teleport both of them to a separate dimension before they destroyed the mortal realm entirely. The gods had never witnessed such an intense battle between a god and a beast. At the end of their battle, the Dark Lord slew the hydra and emerged as the victor. Foucrux was fortunate enough to witness the death of a terrifying existence. He watched the light of life leave the hydra''s eyes, and tears roll out from the Dark Lord''s eyes.
"Vedora!" Andohr raised his voice as he burst intoughter.
"The Dark Lord''s pet," Andohr''s words echoed throughout the majestic throne hall.
"He thought resetting the mortal universe would erase his mistakes, humph," Andohr snickered. On the other hand, Foucrux narrowed his eyes. When it came to the Dark Lord, the entire god realm took a step back and analyzed everything. Every time they thought they outsmarted him, he pulled a surprise on them and made them pay.
Hence, Foucrux couldn''t be as excited as Andohr.
"Are you sure whatever you''re nning to do with this is a smart move?" asked Foucrux. Andohr''sugh faded away as he turned around.
"Do you think I am making a mistake?" Andohr creased his brows.
Fourcrux slowly shook his head,
"I am saying the Dark Lord doesn''t make mistakes. How do you know that he didn''t know Vedora''s body would be spared from the array?" Foucrux asked Andohr. After the Dark Lord used the time array and locked the mortal realm, preventing the gods from entering it, many gods in the pantheon tried to break the array. However, they all failed and gave up. The only way to break the array was from within the mortal realm. In other words, only Andohr could break the Dark Lord''s array and let the gods enter the mortal realm once again as they were used to.
"Hahahaha," Andohr chuckled.
"If he didn''t make any mistakes, why did he use the time array to reset the entire universe? I can agree that he doesn''t make little mistakes, but instead, he made a gigantic one, and you are looking at it," said Andohr.
"I am going to wake up to his worst nightmare. Thest time they fought, this hydra almost killed him. This time, I will make sure it doesn''t fail," Andohr patted the hydra head.
"I assume that''s where Ie in,"
Andohr nodded as Foucrix rubbed his clean-shaven chin for a brief moment.
"What''s in it for me? If I want to help you take down the most insane and powerful god, you have to make it worth the risk. After all, we both know how far he would go to take down those who wronged him," Foucrux started the negotiation like a sly fox. Being a god didn''t mean they all would be benevolent and merciful. Some of the gods made even the worst mortals look like magnanimous beings. There was a reason why the Dark Lord slew some of the gods and willed to wage war against the pantheon itself. He hated most of the gods to the core, and some gods would say he had all the right to hate them after what they did to him. The pantheon still believed some gods helped the Dark Lord achieve the things he did, but they found no traitors among them.
Foucrux''s words didn''t surprise Andohr at all. In fact, he expected the god of necromancy to ask something in return.
"You get to take the body of whoever falls in the battle. Hydra or the Dark Lord himself, you''ll get to y with their bodies,"
Foucrux''s eyes sparkled as he almost drooled. But the thought of the Dark Lord surviving the battle anding after him made his body tremble in fear.
"But if the Dark Lord survived somehow-"
"He won''t know you were involved. I know the drill. It''s surprising how the gods have fallen, We used to fear no one," Andohr snickered.
"Lots of things have changed, Andohr. The realm of gods isn''t what it used to be. You will know if you manage to break the Dark Lord''s array," said Foucrux.
"Are you going to help me or not?" Andohr''s voice turned grave and serious.
For a few moments, Foucrux didn''t give Andohr any answer. Then, he took a deep breath and nodded.
"I will help you reanimate the hydra. But you need to find the entire body without missing a part. Also, as you know, I won''t be able to use my power from here. So I will instruct you to conduct a ritual that mimics my powers and get what you want. It will take time though,"
"Trust me, I can be very patient," Andohr let out a murderous grin and turned his gaze back to the hydra head.
Chapter 844 Leaving The Demons Grave
In the ash field, Michael watched the Skyhall soldiers dig up more and more caskets from the ground. Unfortunately, Vedora''s body eluded his X-ray vision altogether. The body was far too deep in the ground. If Andohr hadn''t given Skyhall the exact coordinates, they wouldn''t have unearthed Vedora''s body in a million years. He knew everything that happened to the past Dark Lord, so Andohr was able to exploit his mistakes. Having no idea Vedora''s adult body was in the ground, Michael patiently watched the Skyhall dig up more caskets. He lingered above the dig site for almost an hour, and all the soldiers did was dig.
"I don''t see a point hanging out here any longer," said Cain.
Michael didn''t wait for others to agree. Instead, he turned around and flew away from the ce. After seeing the mural on top of the mother tree, Michael decided to leave Itonys and the demon''s grave. Initially, he nned to spend a few more days helping the wood elves, but he changed his ns. He thrilled himself to achieve full speed, leaving a dark lightning streak in the sky. Vedora tightened their tail around Michael''s neck as they never experienced such high speed. It took them two hours to reach the ash field from the mother tree earlier. However, the return trip only took forty-five minutes. When Michael pushed himself to the brink, several tiny lightning bolts appeared and crackled around his body.
To Vedora''s surprise, Michael didn''t go to the tribe but came to the mother tree. Hended right before the stone pir, creating a shock wave around the tree.
"Why are we back here?" asked Sarba.
Boom!
Michael punched the stone pir as it exploded into bits and pieces. All it took was one punch for Michael to erase his past self''s mistakes. Honestly, Michael didn''t think the past Dark Lord had made a mistake by killing Vedora. Although Michael didn''t know the reason, he knew how hard it would have been for the past Dark Lord to kill Vedora. But no matter what, he wouldn''t let history repeat itself, and he broke the pir as a gesture of his promise to Vedora.
"Our past is meant to guide us, not define us. We must not give out past the power to dictate our future," Michael looked at his shoulder where Vedora was looking at the pebbles on the ground and said. They slowly pped their wings to see Michael in the eyes.
"He is right," started Sarba.
"The past Dark Lord left this behind because he wanted us to see it and change our future,"
"That''s what I''ve been trying to tell you both," Cain rolled his eyes. Usually, Cain remained silent until his response was absolutely needed. However, when his siblings tried to grow a hatred toward Ghost, he immediately came out of his shell and tried to talk some sense into them.
Sarba and Cain turned their gazes toward Ayag.
"I am not mad at Ghost, idiots. I am just confused why they fought each other to death," said Ayag.
"Whatever the reason might have been, we do not need to dwell on it," said Michael.
"Can we just stay here for a moment before we go back to the tribe?" Sarba looked worried as Michael nodded and went to the mother''s tree''s edge. He sat down and put Vedora beside him. The two of them looked at the magical world before them in peace. As they drowned themselves in the beautiful sight, Vedora slowly approached Michael and jumped on hisp. Then, the three heads snuggled against Michael''s stomach and tried to embrace him with their small wings.
"You are family, Ghost. " We would never hurt you, and we know you wouldn''t too," Ayag''s eyes became watery as Michael rubbed their back gently.
Michael was about to open his mouth when he saw the silhouette of the past Dark Lord in the sky. It onlysted in the sky for a mere moment, and Michael could swear he saw the past Dark Lord smile at them before disappearing. At that moment, Michael felt something changing inside him, like something heavy, had been lifted off of him. The more Michael learned about the past Dark Lord, the more he understood why he decided to reset the entire universe. At first, it felt a bit extreme to Michael, but he sympathized with him after learning about the dark parts of his life. If he had lost Gaya and been forced to kill Vedora for some reason, he would reset the universe too. He wouldn''t let that happen, no matter what.
The two of them spent almost an hour on the mother tree before returning to the tribe. As usual, the wood elves greeted him with bright smiles and cooked meat since Tazkin and the others could hunt efficiently using the crossbows.
"I hope you had a pleasant journey, my lord," Kirat said as Michael sat on his throne. For a few moments, Michael didn''t answer Kirat.
"My lord," Kirat called Michael again. He looked drowned in his own thoughts to Kirat.
"What did you say?" Michael asked, snapping back to reality.
"Is everything alright, my lord?" asked Kirat. Thilve couldn''t help overhearing Kirat and approached the two of them while Tazkin was helping the other crossbow bearers perfect their aims.
"It will be soon," said Michael. Then, with a flick of his wrist, Michael took out the copper ring and the silver coin he snatched from the panther. Like a ma pulling the iron closer, the copper ring pulled the silver coin almost instantly.
Ding!
The silver coin hit the copper coin. Michael felt the copper ring frantically vibrate as the silver coin radiated a dim glow. Soon, the silver coin glowed as bright as a torch, making the wood elves around Michael close their eyes. Suddenly, the light shot straight above Michael and opened up a vortex in the air. Michael was surprised to see the coin open up a portal in a blink of an eye. He thought he would have to ask the system or do some work to activate the copper ring. But on the contrary, the copper ring opened up a portal using the coin. How the coin was able to open up a portal was still a mystery to Michael, but he was d it did.
Seeing the weird swirling hole in the air, the wood elves gasped. When the Dark Lord first appeared in their world, Kirat saw a portal just like this portal before. In fact, Kirat saw the Dark Lord fly through this portal. Hence, his heart sank when he saw another one appear above them. The old man knew their god was about to leave their world.
Michael took a step forward and ced his hand on Kirat''s shoulder,
"I am not abandoning you all. I will be back soon,"
"But my lord, can''t you stay with us a bit longer?" Thilve panicked as Tazkin dropped what he was doing and came to stand beside his wife,
"My lord, is there something we can do to change your mind?" asked Tazkin, only to see Michael shake his head.
"There is something I must do in my world. As I promised before, I will build a portal connecting this world to mine. I can''t do that from here,"
The wood elves looked gloomy, and some even cried. However, they knew they couldn''t change Michael''s decision even though they wanted to.
"Can wee with you, my lord?" Tazkin stunned everyone with his question.
"As much as I like for all of you toe into my world, I cannot take anyone with me at this moment," Michael slowly shook his head. He stepped back and raised his head to see the swirling vortex. As his feet ascended from the floor, the wood elves dropped to their knees one by one. Many, including children, sobbed to see the Dark Lord leave their world.
"Pleasee back soon, my lord," Kirat''s voice stuttered. He was on the verge of crying out loud.
"Lady Ayag, don''t forget what you promised us," one of the elven girls purred as Ayag nodded with a smile.
"I won''t. And you people better be safe and sound when wee back. Otherwise, you will have hell to pay," Sarba shouted as tears rolled out his eyes. But they were not tears of sadness. On the contrary, Sarba was happy that they would be able to visit their world soon. Granted, both Vedora and Michael wanted to spend more time in Itonys as there was so much more to explore in the world, yet they had no choice. To Michael, his journey through the demons grave and Itnoys seemed cut short by an invisible force. Nheless, it was his choice to leave and build a portal back into the castle. Now that he had gathered everything he wanted from Itonys, the dark army''s financial problem would soon be history.
On the bright side, Michael couldn''t wait to see Gaya and Nightmare and tell them everything that had transpired. When Michael was just a few inches away from the vortex, Michael took out a modified earpiece and mirror from the system storage. He had to convert all the ten million gold coins into badass points to modify them. It was worth the price, though.
The earpiece and the tablet-sized mirror floated toward Kirat.
"You can use them to contact me if there is an emergency," Michael emphasized the word emergency because he knew the wood elves would call him every day otherwise.
"We will meet you soon," These were Michael''s words to them before he disappeared into the vortex. Meanwhile, Andohr felt the vortex open in Itonys using the artifact he gave the beastmen tribe a long, long time ago. The coin Michael used to create the vortex was made by none other than the God of time and space himself. So naturally, Andohr felt it when Michael used the coin.
Andohr creased his dark brows sitting on the throne.
"So one of those idiots managed to lose one to my nemesis," Andohr clenched his fist. This act of foolishness alone was enough for Andohr to wipe out the beastmen kingdom. Luckily for them, he had more pressing matters on hand, like reanimating Vedora''s body/
Chapter 845 Fourth Armor Piece
"I don''t care what the fuck you do, but I want him found yesterday. You understand? I am this close to murdering all the guardians I can find!" Gaya stomped the ground. She stood in the surveince room in the dark forest and contacted all the subordinates at the same time, except Saber and Adelia.
"If he is in the Southern continent, I will find him," said Tiberius.
"My girls are doing everything they can, mydy," Sadie started, only to get interjected by Gaya.
"It''s not enough. I won''t meet Ghost empty-handed. That fucker Noah destroyed both the prototype and the weapon. Even the blueprints are gone. So the only way to turn this into a win is to find the man behind this weapon," Gaya was not ying around. If the subordinates were to meet her in person, there would be casualties in the castle. She was pissed at everyone, including herself. Thanks to Noah and his team, she lost the prototype, weapon, and the man who built it.
Like a cherry on top of a failure cake, Noah captured the orcs who survived the auction, including the leader, and brought them somewhere Gaya couldn''t find. Even Lord Information didn''t know anything about the orcs except they supposedly worked for the beast king.
"What about the guardian you flipped recently? If I heard you right, he is in Noah''s elite unit. So how in the hell he has no idea about the inverter''s location?" Gaya creased her brows. Everyone went silent, expecting Sadie''s answer. By turning a guardian into their spy, Sadie outperformed everyone in the room. Even the Dark Queen praised her, which wouldn''t happen so often. Through their new spy, they learned the locations of the guardian safe houses and how Noah operated in each kingdom. However, even Noah''s elites didn''t know where he kept Hammond.
"He has no idea, mydy. It seems like Noah doesn''t trust his own people enough to disclose the location. We might have a chance if we tracked down the Han Torum dwarves," Sadie suggested.
"Do you think I don''t know that? The vamps are searching for them as we speak. But those bearded dodo ducks are good at hiding. After Noah''s little fiasco, they went dark. If they were good at something besides building, it''s hiding,"
The subordinates nodded in agreement. After a few more minutes of roasting all the subordinates, Gaya dismissed them. When they were ordered to leave, they all heaved a sigh of relief. To them, the Dark Queen was more terrifying than the Dark Lord himself when she was angry. They could reason with the Dark Lord, who always remains calm and collected. But in stark contrast, no one could utter a word when the Dark Queen was pissed. At that time, the only way to survive her wrath was to keep their mouths shut and agree to everything she said.
"Mydy," Azazel appeared beside Gaya after the mirrors went dark.
"What does he want?" asked Gaya without turning around to look Azazel in the eyes. Her full focus was on how to find the man who was responsible for building those weapons.
"Lord Saber says he has an update on the fourth armor piece," As soon as Gaya heard these words, she immediately turned her head toward Azazel.
"Finally, some fucking good news. Put him through,"
Soon, Saber''s face appeared in the mirror as though all the mirrors had emerged together to form a gigantic face. Judging by the ocean around Saber, Gaya could tell he was on a ship. She also noticed Shorty running around, so she guessed he was in Big Bertha.
"Mydy," Saber slightly bowed.
"Tell me what you found about the armor piece?" Gaya didn''t ask any useless questions like how are you or how is the journey. Instead, she went straight to the point.
"It''s in the Southern continent, mydy. To be precise, it''s in Miral. The man I interrogated told me his family helped bring in two crates of ancient artifacts to the Southern continent. Apparently, the one who hired him found these artifacts buried somewhere in the Ozer continent," said Saber.
"What makes you think these artifacts are the Dark Lord''s armor?" Gay rubbed her chin in doubt. Nothing Saber said had actually pointed her to think these artifacts belonged to the Dark Lord.
"This man''s ancestor who brought these artifacts to the Southern continent has left behind a ship manifest. In that list, he has written unknown metal pieces that attract lightning. His exact words were metal parts that attract crimson red lightning bolts,"
Gaya raised her brows as she realized why Saber hade to the conclusion that he did. However, she still had another question to ask.
"This man you interrogated, how did you find him?" asked Gaya. There was no chance for Saber to stumble upon a man who knew about the Dark Lord''s armor piece. The past Dark Lord went to lengths to hide these pieces and ensured only Michael could find them. Granted, one of the armor pieces was found in ruin by others and almost auctioned out to a War God, but it was just a one-in-a-million urrence. She doubted another one of the pieces might have been found by a human.
"Because he tried to sell this in the Aqua Pce," Saber slowly raised a broken piece of metal with a skull engraved.
"That is¡" Gaya''s voice trailed off as her jaw dropped slightly. That skull in the metal piece was, without a doubt, the symbol of the Dark Lord. There was no doubt in her mind. If that wasn''t enough, tiny bolts of crimson-red lightning danced around the metal piece in Saber''s hand.
"One of my people was lucky to intercept the sale and inform me," said Saber.
"It seems awfully legit to me. What about you, Azazel?" Gaya asked the demon butler. He focused his gaze on the metal piece.
"We certainly cannot neglect the possibility that this piece belongs to the Dark Lord''s armor piece,"
"Hmm," Gaya nodded.
"Have you learned where these artifacts are in the Southern continent?"
Saber took a long deep breath before answering Gaya.
"About that, mydy. I have good and bad news,"
"Start with good news. I''ve been getting more and more bad newstely," Gaya sighed. She thought it''d be too easy for them to get the armor piece without going through some kind of trial. It was like the Dark Lord anticipated everything and designed the trials for them. They had found three armor pieces so far, and each of them came at a price.
"Well the good news is I''ve tracked down who owns these artifacts, the Salinators. One of the powerful families in Kingdom Miral,"
"Then what is the bad news? I assume it has something to do with why you can''t go there and retrieve the armor pieces by any means necessary," said Gaya as Saber nodded.
"The heir of Salinators, Metilia Salinator, is married to General Quintus,"
As soon as Gaya heard the name Quintus, a light bulb lit inside her head. In all the chaos, she forgot about Quintus and Kingdom Miral''s aggressive expansion. Thanks to Cain''s surprisingly masterful tactics, they were able to stop Miral from waging wars on other kingdoms. Moreover, Quintus went dark after Michael killed Fabia Viridus. They hadn''t seen Quintus since she turned him into a supersoldier using vampire strains. Without General Quintus, the Kingdom Miralpletely ceased all its hostile activities. After Gisel and Maven merged together, they became a powerful kingdom itself, while Tiberius found his own kingdom, the freedomnd, although he hadn''t announced hisnd as a new kingdom yet. That left Prerid and the Trident of the Southern continent Qiven, Xoral, and Netis AKA the kingdoms ruled by kings instead of senates.
Thest time Gaya heard from Caius, Kingdom Miral, and Kingdom Prerid was in peace talks. For some reason, Cain wanted the peace talks between them to drag on instead ofing to a solution. If he had thought, he could have ordered Aria to assassinate the senators of Miral and bring an end to the cold war, yet he chose not to.
"I did some digging and found when Quintus married Metilia, the Salinator family gifted Quintus with priceless valuables and artifacts,"
"And you think these artifacts include the Dark Lord''s armor piece?" Gaya tilted her head.
"Yes," Saber frowned. Judging by the dark lines on his forehead, Gaya guessed they couldn''t simply go to Quintus''s home and take the armor piece by force.
"Tell me what the problem is?" asked Gaya.
"Matilia is a regr customer to a noble bathhouse where one of Sadie''s girls is working. To the rest of Miral, Quintus has taken personal time, but ording to his wife, he disappeared along with many of the family artifacts. I broke into their home ad went through all their wealth but found no armor piece,"
"Which means Quintus has the armor piece," Gaya finished Saber''s sentence.
"Are you sure, Saber?" Gaya asked.
"This is the only lead we have, mydy. I''d say we should chase it down,"
Gaya took a few long moments to think about this. By destroying the prototype and the weapon right under her nose, Noah caused a huge blow to her mindset. She started to second guess everything she had nned, which was very unlikely of her. It didn''t only affect her but also everyone in the dark army.
"Go ahead, but if you sense something is amiss, get out of there immediately. We cannot deny the possibility this might be an borate trap designed by that son of a bitch, Noah,"
"Don''t worry about me, mydy. I lived long enough to outsmart a human," Saber snickered as Gaya slowly shook her head.
"Do not underestimate Noah. I underestimated him, and as a result, I have failed the Dark Lord,"
Saber was actually surprised to see the graveness in her voice. To be honest, he had never seen her like this.
"I will take your advice to my heart, mydy. Now with your permission, I''d like to dismiss myself,"
"Talk to Tiberius. He was tracking down Quintus, and he might have an idea about Quintus''s location," said Gaya.
Chapter 846 Back On The Bed With Gaya
The storm was raging around the floating mountain in the dark ocean. As the storm grew more violent and powerful, the wind blew past strong enough to pick up a man and fling him to the briny waves. Several tornadoes formed in the sea and slowly moved toward the mountain. The superiorly thick smoky clouds rolled in like boulders, ready to crush anything in their way above the dark castle. The darkness was engulfing and seemed to consume any spec of light entirely. Anyst
hope was gone. The merciless winds caused the enormous waves to rise like giant sea monsters. These waves almost touched the very bottom of the floating mountain. Every wave erupted like a raging volcano. The lightning storm joined the party and decorated the sky with streaks of lightning. Except for the vampire guards who were tasked to patrol the floating mountain, everyone else took shelter inside the castle.
While the storm was raging outside, Gaya sat beside the window and watched the storm outside. She tightly held a cup of hot coffee Raylene had made her. Without Nightmare and Michael, she felt lonely. For some reason, Nightmare chose to fly through the tornadoes to hone his flying skills. But she knew he just came up with an excuse to spend some time alone. It wouldn''t take a genius to tell Nightmare missed ire and the Sunrise sect. He didn''t miss them much when Vedora was there to keep himpany. Since Vedora left for the demon''s grave with Michael, they both felt lonely. She didn''t blink as she stared at the storm through the foggy window. Her fingers moved toward the window without her control, writing the name ''Michael'' on the ss.
Soon, the words disappeared in the fog as she leaned on the window. Like a bird flying out of its nest, her thoughts flew away from the room. The temperature within the hot coffee dropped by several degrees and started to turn cold coffee. Ever since she lost the prototype and the weapon after so much preparation and nning, she lost her appetite. During thest couple of days, Raylene became another mother to Gaya. She made sure Gaya''s been eating and drinking well despite herck of appetite. When Gaya refused to eat, Rayle would just knock on her head like an angry mother and feed her with her hands as she did to Cindy and Rumy.
Looking at the dancing tornados, Gaya''s consciousness drifted away as her eyes slowly closed. When her head fell, she became wary and emptied the warm coffee in a single gulp. Then, she strolled toward the neatly made bed and just copsed on the bed like a lifeless body. Both her body and mind were exhausted to the point that as soon as she hit the bed, she entered into a dreamless sleep. The rain droplets yed drums upon hitting the windows and the roof, ying a luby like a loving mother.
As she was on the verge ofpletely losing sentience, she felt a hand around her waist. Gaya thought it was a dream as the embrace felt like it came from Michael. He used to hug her tight while sleeping. Every fiber in her body wanted the warmth tost longer and did not want this dream to end. Then, the hand around her waist tightened its hold, pulling her closer toward a gentle warmth. It felt too real to be a dream. She abruptly opened her eyes as her body was about to jolt out of bed. But her body froze the moment she saw Michael''s face.
Michael gently brushed the strand of hair falling on her face. On the other hand, Gaya looked as though his shocking return petrified her. She was speechless.
"Is this real?" Gaya muttered.
"You tell me," Michael said, slowly moving his head closer to hers. She could feel his warm breath breezing past her like a morning breeze. When she opened her mouth, he closed it with his own lips. Their bodies pressed together heatedly against each other, breathing heavily as they tasted each other''s lips. Everything around Gaya blurred and silenced. The only sound she heard was the sound of his hands gently cupping her face to position her face for a heavenly kiss. They only departed when they lost their breath.
"When did youe back?" asked Gaya. Her alluring eyes sparkled with joy at seeing Michael. It was too much of a shock to her.
"Just a few minutes ago. The moment I stepped into this world, I came running to see the most beautiful girl in the entire universe," Michael pinched Gaya''s nose yfully.
"I see the demons grave has turned you cheesy," Gaya purred. She threw her arm around Michael''s shoulder and tried to pull him closer, although there was no space between them.
"Where is Vedora?" Gaya asked.
"They went to see Raylene. I think we should talk about why I sense some gloom in your eyes. Something happened?" Despite how happy she looked, Michael could see through her eyes and read her like a book. After entering the portal, he appeared somewhere in the crystal ocean that divides Elon and Ozer. From there, he used runic teleportation to reach the castle. So he didn''t know what had happened while he was gone. As she heard him, she moved closer and rested her head on his chest.
"I fucked up," Gaya said in a husky voice. Then, Gaya began to tell Michael what had happened since he left for the demons grave. When she finally finished her story, Michael surprised her with a chuckle.
? "You idiot. That was the reason why you look so gloomy?" Michael rubbed her head as she looked at him with shock and surprise. To be honest, she never expected Michael to take her failure so casually, like it didn''t matter.
"I failed you," Gaya purred.
Once again, Michael ruffled her head. He liked to ruffle her perfectlybed hair and kiss the top of her head. Although he was not the most romantic man in the world, he never passed on an opportunity to pamper her and shower her with kisses.
"Nothing you ever do will fail or disappoint me, you silly idiot. What if Noah destroyed the prototype and the weapon? You did everything you could,"
"But¡but¡" Gaya muttered as Michael shook his head.
"No buts. Listen," Michael lifted up Gaya and put her body on him. He then cupped her face and looked her in the eyes.
"If I fail to do something, would you be disappointed in me?"
Gaya shook her head,
"Of course, I will kill you if you don''t marry me or look at another girl. But I won''t feel disappointed," Gaya punched Michael in the chest. Despite her words, he never doubted Michael, not even for a second. She trusted him enough to leave Michael with thousands of beauties in a room without a worry in the world. The trust they had in each other was stronger than anything in the world. They both knew a rtionship couldn''t survive without trust.
Her words made Michael chuckle,
"See. That''s how I feel. Whatever you do or don''t, you will never disappoint me. Besides, why are you looking at the events as failures? You and I both know it was Noah who destroyed the weapon along with the Han Torum shipyard. We can use it to turn the dwarves against the Guardians. They pretended to be elves, so I''d say the elves won''t be happy about their names being dragged through the mud. So we can give the elves and the dwarves amon enemy," said Michael. He came up with the n on the spot, and as simple as it may sound, the n would bring major heat upon the Guardian Guild once he provided proof about Noah''s involvement to both dwarves and the elves. Now that Gaya said they turned a guardian into their spy, it would be rtively easier for him to gather the needed proof to make Noah''s life harder. Noah may have gained the upper hand in the new weapon matter, but Michael would soon pay him back several folds.
"I''ve returned from the most dangerous ces in the world. Can you put aside these matters and give me some love?" Michael winked.
"Only kisses for you, my darling," said Gaya in a yful tone.
"Until you marry me,"
"Why did I agree to that? I have the most beautiful sexy girl as my fiance, and I don''t get to do more," Michael pretended to be disappointed. As far as Michael was concerned, rtionships were more than having physical satisfaction. He didn''t think Gaya would say no if he insisted, but Michael respected her wish not to have anything physical more than a kiss. He was quite happy with that because she was the one for him. This was a magical rtionship Michael would treasure forever. Every time he looked into her eyes, he promised himself not to let anything happen to her. The Dark Lord was right to reset the entire universe. If something were to happen to Gaya, Michael would go to hell or heaven to bring her back, no matter the cost.
"Even the Dark Lord has to obey his woman, Michael," Gaya chuckled.
"Inside these walls, I am the boss,"
"Is that so?" Michael grabbed her by her slender waist, pushed her to the side, and got on top of her. He held her wrists firmly.
"Bastard, don''t even think about it," Gaya squirmed.
"I am not thinking about anything," Michael said with a foxy smile. The following hours were spent cuddling and kissing. They talked for hours until they both fell asleep under the cozy nket.
Chapter 847 Salesi, The Queen Of Nagaland
(A few days ago)
In a spacious hall with a ceiling twenty feet high, designs of fruit and flowers were carved into the molding, and small, fat children with wings looked down at the marble floor from every angle. Vases of blossoms gave off a cloying scent that made my eyes itch. The hall had a square oak table in the center with numerousfy chairs to sit in. Since there were no windows, sun rays could peek into the room. Instead, a magnificent chandelier hung above the oak table, brightening the hall with its golden light.
The dark brown walls made of wood perfectlyplemented the marble floor though one would think thebination wouldn''t work. The only way to get in or out of the hall was the steel door with countless runes engraved in it. Seconds became minutes, and minutes turned an hour when the door finally creaked open. Xanali stepped into the hall and strolled toward the table.
"They''ll be here soon, mother," Xanali pulled out a chair and said, looking at the door. Then, a tall, graceful woman dressed in majestic red robes. Her hourss figure sat well on her wafer-thin body. She had aplexion of an impable golden hue. Her pencil-thin eyebrows eased down gently to her ck, beetle''s-leg eyshes. A sculptor could not have better fashioned her seraph''s ears and pixie''s nose. Filed to perfection, her rose-red fingernails ran through her fiery red hair. Spools of it plunged around her photogenic face and hid a swan''s neck, elegant and smooth. This woman was born to draw attention toward her, and it was hard not to look and give her full attention. When she opened her mouth to answer Xanali, her beguiling, oyster-white teeth lit up the room.
She was the ruler of Nagnd and Xanli''s mother, Salesi Harthill. Even after marrying the king of Nagnd, she kept herst name without changing it as any woman would have. Once Salesi settled down, people began to enter the hall one by one through the door. At first, some elves arrived, then some dwarves, orcs, and humans. Atst, a group of orcs with books the size of a newborn baby entered the hall and took their seats before the table. After the nagas filled the rest of the empty seats, Salesi finally rose from her chair to address the sixty or so people in the hall. They all stopped muttering amongst themselves and turned their gazes toward her. Victoria and Evan sat with the humans in the crowd, holding hands under the table.
"First of all, I thank all of you for answering the summons anding here," said Salesi in her captivating voice that fits for a ruler.
? "We are gathered here to make an important step in history to protect our world from all the evil there is and will be," Salesi started her speech in a calm manner.
"The great eight ns used to protect the world and us. But the reason you''ve all here is that you and I both feel the same. They''ve failed us. They forgot the very reason why they were created in the first ce. Corruption has rooted in them to the core. If we want our future generations to thrive and prosper, we as their elders have toe together and do what must be done," Salesi paused and looked at her audience.
"We must be the shield that protects our world from evil and darkness," Salesi slightly raised her voice.
"We must be the light-bringers in the shadow," her words echoed through the hall.
"We must fight for the future of this world for our children,"
Everyone had a tiny spark in their eyes after hearing her thundering words. Each of them in the hall was handpicked by Salesi herself. The most important thing Salesi looked at in them was their patriotism and the thirst to protect the world. If one was to dig more about each individual, they could find that these people either witnessed the Dark Lord''s wrath in person or were kicked out of their n for doing what the others deemed a vition of n rule. But if they hadn''t vited the rule, many would have died or failed to get the justice they deserved. For instance, Evan left the Guardian Guild after witnessing Ghost obliterate the entire Ithn ind and the Barnes family.
What he witnessed that day and how weak he felt affected him mentally. For almost a year, Evan fought the traumatic experience and took the path to self-destruction. At one point, he wanted to kill himself so he could stop hearing all the cries for help. As a god-sent, he had Victoria and Xanali. Evan would have been inside a casket six feet deep if it weren''t for them.
After finally stabilizing his mental health, Evan decided to stop running from his fear and fight it head-on, and his fear was just a man, the Dark Lord. So when Xanali told him about Salesi''s n to fight the Dark Lord, he agreed without a second question. Just like Evan, every single one in the hall had a story. Some were affected by the Dark Lord''s actions in one way or another, while some had a strong moral sense to fight evil and protect the world. Since all the great eight ns made sure the biggest evil in the world was the Dark Lord, they naturally felt inclined to fight the Dark Lord.
"Instead of giving a long speech about who I intend to fight, hopefully with your support, I will show you what he was capable of and what he will do to us if we do not fight,"
Salesi flicked her wrist as a cube materialized on the table''s center. A dim light shot out of the cube and formed the image of an ind. The images changed from uniquely built buildings to peopleughing with their children on the streets. Those who realized where these images were taken clenched their fist and prepared them mentally. Almost everyone knew what was about to happen except for the orcs, who lived most of their lives in seclusion. Then, as they guessed, the beautiful ind became a battlefield. The people saw everything they admired burning as dead bodies littered the ground. One by one, the images showed how brutal thest couple of days were for Ithn.
"Thousands of mothers lost their sons and daughters. Thousands of children lost their fathers and became orphans, and thousands lost everything they had and had to beg for refuge in the nearby kingdoms," said Salesi as the images continued to vex their minds.
"Only one man was responsible for all of the death and destruction, the Dark Lord," as soon as Saelsi uttered the name, the entire hall went silent. But unlike most of the poption, the people in the hall seemed furious rather than afraid of Michael. Some of those who lost their loved ones in Michael''s war against Ithn clenched their fist to the point their nails sank into their skin and started to bleed.
"As we all know, the great ns did nothing to bring him to justice. They are busy doing their politics and fixing their public image. That''s one of the many reasons why I want to form a defense against the Dark Lord in the shadows. Because to fight evil such as him, we need to get our hands dirty," said Salesi as Xanali sighed inside. A year ago, if her mother proposed to build another order in secret to fight against the Dark Lord, she would have outright rejected it or tried to talk her mother out of it. But after witnessing all the death and destruction caused by the Dark Lord firsthand, Xanali learned the hard way that her moral views do not apply to him.
Evan slowly raised his hand,
"Evan, right?" Salesi turned her gaze toward Evan.
He nodded and continued with his question.
"Let me get this straight. Are you telling us that we have to find a new n or an order outside the great eight ns?" asked Evan.
"Our new order doesn''t need to be separate from the great eight ns. As you may have noticed, some of you are in one of these ns. You don''t have to leave your n to fight just like I don''t have to leave my throne. What matters is we are in this together, and we must focus on one thing, putting an end to the Dark Lord''s reign before it begins,"
"In other words, you want us to be double agents?" Victoria''s question followed Salesi''s exnation.
"I don''t want you to be anything. You are allowed to leave if you want to. I am prepared to put my life on the line to ensure my children and the future generation get to live in a world without any fear of the Dark Lord and his evil aura. The question is will you do the same," Salesi asked Victoria.
"I am," it wasn''t Victoria who answered the question but Evan.
"I can''t talk for the others, but I had enough of Ghost and his cruel reign of terror. I watched him ughter thousands of soldiers for what? Revenge? No," Evan shook his head,
"He wanted to quench his thirst for blood. There was a time I said to myself he is not that bad," Evan shrugged.
"Yes, he was not bad. He was evil. I saw the look on his face when he ughtered Maxim Barnes, his wife, and his daughter. He enjoyed their pain and suffering. To this day, there are people who still suffer because of him. I, for one, will not stand aside and let him continue to terrorize the world I want my children to grow up in. So yes, I will put my life on the line and fight him to death,"
Evan banged the table as Salesi smiled, looking at the people around Evan who agreed with him. Despite their racial differences, everyone in the hall decided to form a vanguard against the Dark Lord. Five thousand years ago, what started as a mere group of seventy members grew into a shadow n that rivaled the great eight ns. Like it or not, history had a tendency to repeat itself.
Chapter 848 Not One But Two Andreas
After initiating her own order against the Dark Lord, Salesi returned to her room. Her husband, Castien Ashton, was visiting one of their cities to oversee the relief program. The city was affected by famine, and the entire Nagnd depended on the charity of the empress. Salesi''s was a spacious oval room with walls the color of a burning me. The smell of sweet gardenia candles engulfed the room. On the right side of the room was a royal red sofa set for Salesi to sit and rx, looking at the bamboo garden through the window. Although she was supposed to stay and sleep with Castien in the king''s room, she chose to be in her own room. This ce had be her refuge and safe haven throughout her almost two decades of marriage. Her bedroom only held the things that were very precious to her. She let no one inside the room, including her husband and the maids. As a matter of fact, she cleaned her room by herself instead of ordering the maids to.
She decorated the walls with several portraits that reminded her of her life as the Queen of Nagnd. Almost no one knew about Salesi''s life before she became the queen. Some believed she was a noble family heir, while others believed she seduced Castien after Queen Adelia''s untimely death. But Salesi couldn''t care less about the spections or those who opposed her because they were still loyal to Adelia and her murdering maniac of a daughter, Gaya Ashton.
Adelia closed the door behind her and walked to the window to see the serenity of the bamboo garden outside. She could connect with her inner thoughts while she was in her room. Her mind established a sense of peace as she stared at the peaceful garden outside. Whenever her life in Nagnd got tougher, which happened so often because of Gaya and Adelia''s loyalists, she woulde to her room and think things out thoroughly in order to make life easier. The sound of the bamboo fountain canceled out the sounds of everything around her.
As she looked at the bamboo garden, a puff of smoke came from one of the portraits depicting a vige. The smoke slowly took the shape of a middle-aged man with milk-white hair. The man hovered in the air behind her, waiting for Salesi to turn around. She made him wait for a few minutes and then turned around.
"Has everything gone ording to our n?" asked the man.
"It went better than we expected. You know how to pick them, Andreas," Salesi addressed the man as Andreas, the Supreme Guardian. She was not wrong, as the man before her was indeed Andreas. Just like the soul inside Noah''s ring, the man before Salesi was another part of Andreas''s whole soul. The only difference was the soul part in Salesi''s room was much youngerpared to the soul piece inside Noah''s ring.
"Except my disciples," Andreas sighed.
"You didn''t choose Noah Winston, Andreas. He was born a god, just like the Dark Lord. You chose Noah because you wanted to train Noah in the fight against the Dark Lord," said Salesi.
"It seems like my other soul part is doing a bang-up job training Noah. I wouldn''t be here if he wasn''t," Andreas sighed. Although both Andreas'' derived from the same soul, they became separate beings. Besides, the Andreas with Noah was in existence longer than this Andreas. As a result, mentor Andreas lost some memories, including the other soul pieces in existence.
"Don''t underestimate Noah, Andreas. The Dark Lord tried to get him pickle when he said the Supreme Guardian was alive and with Noah. Everyone thought it''s going to put a target on his back. But he yed the situation well and turned him into adder to reach the Supreme Guardian position. And from what I''ve been hearing, he was handling everything well," Salesi''s praise surprised Andreas. He was with her for two decades, and he had never heard Salesi praise her own daughter once, let alone someone else.
"He just needs a little push, and that''s why we are here. Aren''t we?" Salesi asked as Andreas nodded. Saleis strolled toward the sofa with Andreas hovering beside her like a friend. He was the only one who knew the real Salesi, and she was the only person who knew of his existence. They had been coborating for almost two decades. Twenty years ago, Salesi and Andreas orchestrated Adelia''s death to usurp the throne of Nagnd. Adelia''s family, the Wraiths, was building a powerful kingdom to support the Dark Lord when he arrived in this world. They almost seeded in their n because before Salesi took the throne, Nagnd was powerful enough to take on the elven empire itself. Gaya med Salesi for the downfall of Nagnd, and she was right to do so. To be precise, Gaya was half right. Salesi''s rule was indeed the reason for Nagnd''s downfall, but what Gaya didn''t know was that Salesi nned everything. Salesi''s sole reason for being the Queen of Nagnd was to keep Nagnd in check because thest thing the world needed was a superpower to back the Dark Lord in his war against the world.
So far, Salesi''s n was going without a hup. Her next move was to build a shadow order to fight the Dark Lord in ways the Guardian Guild would never dare. She built an image of a kind andpassionate queen for this very moment. Everything she sacrificed and went through was finallying together.
"I think he needs more than just a little push. I think we need Noah to see that the longer he ignores the Dark Lord, the more people will suffer. Poweres with responsibility. Noah needs to learn that one way or another," Andreas''s voice was grave. Fortunately, hecked a physical body and was restricted from leaving Salesi''s side. Otherwise, Noah would have had two mentors to argue with. Noah thought his current mentor was pushing him hard toward fighting the Dark Lord, but he didn''t know how bad it could have been if this Andreas had been inside Noah''s ring instead.
"Destruction is easier than creation, Andreas. You cannot me the guy too much. He''s clearly doing his best,"
"Why are you defending him so much, I wonder?''
"Because you aren''t. Like it or not, only Noah could kill the Dark Lord. So we should help Noah instead of criticizing him,"
Andreas sighed, nodding.
"You are right. I just hope he stops wasting time and cuts down the Dark Lord''s army,"
"We have put our ns in motion, Andreas. We will start dismantling the Dark Lord''s empire piece by piece, starting from the kingdoms in the Southern continent,"
********************************************
(An hour ago)
The gathering went more sessful than Salesi and Xanali expected. It was really surprising for them to see how many people were boiling with rage inside toward the Dark Lord. They all needed an outlet and a leader who directed this anger and utilized them against the dark army. When Saleisi slowly filled in the void they desperately hoped to be filled, they were all easily swayed to join the order.
While Salesi was addressing everyone''s concerns, Xanali left the room for a moment and brought back a whiteboard with several portraits stuck to it. Many of those portraits were hand drawn and resembled Michael. Surprisingly, some of them highlighted the Olympus around Michael''s wrist. The people in the hall turned their gazes at the whiteboard and the portraits. They silently expected Salesi to exin what the hell those portraits were except the ones that had Michael''s face.
While most of their eyes were glued to the whiteboard, Salesi flicked her wrist as a brass spyss finished with various intricate runes appeared on the table before her. If one looked closely at the spyss, they could see a tiny ''H'' embossed among the runes. The H was really, but it was there, symbolizing the creator of this spyss.
"To defeat the Dark Lord, we need to know both his strengths and weaknesses. Until recently, I thought he didn''t have a chip in his armor. But this little thing changed my thoughts by exposing a crucial weakness," Salesi paused for a moment, letting everyone boil with curiosity. Everyone leaned forward. Then, Salesi slowly gave them an answer.
"The Dark Lord is not as strong as we thought while he was in the Southern continent,"
Everyone was visibly shocked to hear Salesi because her words contradicted what they believed. As the world knew, no one could use cultivation power within the void line. Hence, the moment someone entered the Southern continent, they would be mortals, even the immortals were not an exception. That was the reason the Southern continent looked like a new world to the cultivators and why they avoided the ce. Moreover, that was why Michael chose the Southern continent as his home base because in a world where no one could use energy, one who could would be the god.
"This spyss was built to gauge someone''s cultivation level when the void effect hit the continent of Elon and Ozer. But, it could determine someone''s cultivation even when they were inside the void. No one bothered to look for someone''s cultivation in the Southern continent because there was no point in that until the Dark Lord started to use arch energy within the void line," Salesi ced the spyss back on the table and continued.
"Although he uses energy, the moment he stepped into the void line, his cultivation went from Immortal to Core Formation," Salesi slowly turned around and ced her hand on the portrait of olympus.
"This thing around his wrist is what gives him the ability to use cultivation within the void line. If we take this out, he''ll be as weak as amoner,"
"How certain are you of this?" asked Victoria.
"I''d bet my life on it. Each of you will get one when we wrap this up. So if you don''t believe me, you are wee to take this and monitor the Dark Lord from one of our safe houses, "
Chapter 849 Money Problem
Michael took a long nap on hisfy bed with Gaya under the storm''s luby. Even after the storm had disappeared, the sky was still dark and gloomy, leaving only clusters of drizzling gray clouds. The dark army and everyone in the castle didn''t know the Dark Lord had returned from the demons grave. So it was just another day for them. When Michael finally opened his eyes, he saw Gaya curled up under the warm nket attached to him like a ko bear. He slowly pulled away her hands and left the bed while trying his best not to wake her up. As usual, Michael entered the bathroom attached to his bedroom and took a long bath. Although he kept his body clean using arch energy, he was ustomed to taking baths. Then, he wore a new set of round neck full-sleeve shirt, long coat, trousers, and boots. Of course, everything was in ck, as he liked. After a long time, Michael had two swords on his back, forming the shape ''X''. Standing before the six feet mirror, Michaelbed his hair, rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and left the room.
"Good morning," Gaya purred as she slowly woke up from her sleep. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms above her head. Michael stood there as Gaya came to him, pecked him on the cheek, and went inside the bathroom to take a bath. He waited for her outside. While waiting for her, Michael took out an empty parchment and a quill. His world table was located before the table because of Michael''s habit of gazing at the horizon. He ced the parchment on the table and sat on the chair.
"What do I need?" Michael rubbed his head through the hair with the quill and listed everything he needed to brew his special brew in his mind. One by one, Michael wrote everything on the parchment. Except for the herbs that were only found in Itonys, Michael needed a cauldron big enough to hold a thousand liters of liquid. Fortunately, the dwarves had finished building a new alchemy hall for Michael to start his work. The next thing he required was the bottles to hold the brew. Certainly, he couldn''t hold the brew in vials. Instead, he needed ss bottles. When it came to ss bottles, the only ce to get them from was Dalgarum.
Once he got all the required items, he could finish the brew in a day or two. As he finished writing his list, Gaya exited the bathroom, smelling like a newly blossomed jasmine. Once again, she kissed him on the cheek and unsheathed his swords without noticing the parchment in his hand.
The sword almost slipped out of her hand, but she managed to grab it by the hilt with both her hands in time.
"Bloody hell. It''s heavy," Gaya gasped. She had to use a bit of her strength to lift the sword back into the air and swing.
"Careful," Michael warned Gaya.
"Now that you can forge weapons, why don''t we visit this magic forge of yours and forge something for me?" Asked Gaya while swinging around the dark sword.
"Do you have something in mind?" Michael asked Gaya. Yesterday when Gaya told him everything that happened, she seemed particrly intrigued by the death kiss crossbows which reminded Michael of handguns. With his Inventor and cksmith traits, he nned to fuse energy and his knowledge of modern weapons to create new kinds of weapons. Equipping Big Bertha with torpedoes was the first step in that n.
"Maybe," Gaya nodded. Michael finished his list and put it inside his coat pocket. Then, he stood up from the chair.
"Let me guess, you want something like the death kiss crossbows?"
Looking at the glowing smile on her face, Michael could tell he had guessed it right. She then came to him with the dark sword on her shoulder,
"Can you make me one?"
"I can make one better," Michael casually shrugged. Given the right materials, Michael would forge better weapons. Unfortunately, most of the weapons in his mind required special runes that could only be bought from the system. So he had to postpone forging new weapons until he could settle the debt. Besides, a portal was required to reach his forge, and he was nowhere close to building one. He wasn''t an expert in portals, but he knew it would cost him millions which he didn''t have. They were in dire need of gold coins. Hopefully, Michael could get his new revenue stream up and running. Otherwise, they would be in big trouble because although the dark army was loyal to him, loyalty wouldn''t fill their bellies and keep their needs in check.
"But you have to wait for some time. First, we need to fix the financial side of things,"
Gaya rolled her eyes, giving him an ''it''s about time'' look.
"Connect me with the twins. I want them to get me some things," said Michael. He then took the dark sword from her hand and unsheathed it. Following Michael, Gaya contacted Azazel and conveyed Michael''s order. The corridors and the walls looked much better than when he left the castle a few weeks ago. He had yet to see the building process and hoped to get more coins before the dwarves stopped the construction works. Not because they needed gold coins as their wage but because they needed materials and materials that didn''te for free. Even the Dark Lord had to buy things using gold coins.
There were several rooms on the way to the meeting hall, which were blocked by crates and stones. The dwarves were yet to finish building those rooms, ording to Gaya''s exact prerequisites. She oversaw everything and gave the dwarves the challenge of their life. Although the dark army kidnaped these dwarves, these dwarves had grown to love the challenge of building the dark castle. It was nothing like they had ever built. Every single dwarf was handpicked by Gaya as she settled down for nothing but the best. On top of the talented dwarves, Elidyr worked with a group of runemasters to engrave defensive and offensive runes throughout the castle. The past Dark Lord''s castle and the arrays alone killed thousands of guardians and enemies who dared to step onto the dark ocean. At its peak, the castle was nothing but a death trap feared by everyone in the world. If the past Dark Lord was alive, he would be proud of his current self because the castle Michael was building was shaping up to be more powerful than its earlier version.
The meeting hall was dimly lit with torches instead of chandeliers. The flickering light illuminated by the torches added an eeriness to the hall. When Michael and Gaya reached the meeting hall, they saw Azazel was waiting for them.
"My Lord," Azazel bowed deeply. His gaze immediately fell on the dark swords as he could feel the threatening aura radiating from the swords. Azazel then proceeded to pull out Michael''s and Gaya''s thrones for them to sit on. After they settled into their respective thrones, Azazel waved his hand as the stone table slowly split opened in the middle. A mirror rose from the hole and flickered for a moment before showing the faces of Titus and Optimus.
The twins looked different with their cropped haircuts and brightened faces. Keeping them off the battleground was the best decision Gaya made for them. She had her doubts when she made them the procurer of rare goods and everything for the Dark Army for the best price possible. However, the twins surprised Gaya by making contact throughout Elon and Ozer and dealing with the merchants themselves. It wouldn''t be an understatement to say the dark castle solely depended on the twins for the construction materials.
"My Lord,"
"My Lady,"
The twins bowed as their eyes glistened with gratefulness and respect.
"I''d love to have a chit-chat with you guys, but I am kinda in a rush. So let me cut to the chase, I need everything on this list as soon as possible," Michael took out a parchment and raised it so the twins could take a good look at the things he had written on the yellow parchment.
Titus quickly scribbled everything down on a piece of paper. Thanks to their experience, Titus and Optimus were able to give Michael a rough estimate of how much everything on the list would cost him.
"My Lord, if we are to get everything you want, its gonna cost at least fifty million,"
Gaya''s brows arched up as she snatched the parchment from Michael''s hand and read everything from top to bottom.
''What in the hell would cost fifty million?" She muttered. But when she saw the ''Epic ss cauldron, thergest size'', Titus''s words made sense to her.
"Why stop for Epic? Just write down you need legendary ss," Gaya said sarcastically.
Titus and Optimus scratched their heads, looking at the Dark Queen bicker with the Dark Lord himself. She was the only person in the entire army who had the guts to yell at him. Believe it or not, this was one of the many reasons the subordinates trusted the Dark Lord more than the great eight ns because an evil person, as they imed, would never sit there and listen to a woman yell at him. On the contrary, they knew only one with a kind heart and humanity intact would respect and listen to his female counterpart.
"Whatever. Just get him what he needs. I assume you two need some time to locate everything on the list," Gaya asked as the twins nodded.
"Give us five days, my lord," asked Optimus.
"We need time to get the coins for the items," Gaya leaned closer to Michael and whispered into his ears,
Michael nodded. Getting the coins they needed was Gaya''s specialty, and she had done a better job than he ever could have. Hence, Michael trusted Gaya to deal with it as she always did. She already started to rub her chin, formting a n inside her head. If the twins were right, they needed fifty million in five days.
"Then I expect you to report to me in five days," said Michael.
Chapter 850 Opportunity Arises
Michael was about to leave the meeting hall after talking to the twins when Azazel received a call from Sadie.
"My Lord, Lady Sadie has learned something important," Azazel said.
"Put her through then," Michael motioned him to connect Sadie to the mirror before them. Azazel nodded and flicked his wrist as the mirror flickered for a moment before showing Sadie''s face.
Sadie was pleasantly surprised to see Michael without his mask or the usual ck armor. His current attire reminded Sadie of the time she first met him. At that time, she was far stronger than him. Everything felt like a dream to Sadie. In such a short time, the cocky guy she met at the heavenly gatepetition went from Foundation stage warrior to the Dark Lord who was at the Immortal stage. Looking at Michael''s charming face, her cherry-red lips curled upwards, radiating a bright smile.
"My Lord," Sadie grabbed her long sky-blue skirt and curtsied Michael.
"How are you, Sadie?" Michael asked with a gentle smile.
"I am perfectly fine, my lord. Thank you for asking,"
"Hmm," Michael nodded.
"Sorry to break the reunion but tell us, what have you learned?" Gaya interjected. It was not like Gaya was jealous or something, but she didn''t like wasting time when they had to earn fifty million in five days. Time was of the essence.
"Princess Chanel Forbes was cursed by an elven mage, my lord," Sadie took a deep breath and said. Her words stunned Michael for a moment. The name ''Forbes'' rang a bell inside his head. If he was right, the king of Kethen, Noah''s homnd, was called Porter Forbes.
"Princess of Kethen?" Gaya asked as Sadie nodded. When Gaya was the princess of Nagnd, she met Chanel at a g and exchanged a few words. Of course, Gaya paid little to no attention to Chanel or any other nobles. She hated those gs and always found an excuse to escape mid-way.
"Go on, tell us everything you know," Gaya gestured at Sadie to continue. The gears inside her head slowly started to turn, formting a n to get the fifty million gold coins and maybe more. This felt like a god sent opportunity to Gaya. She knew about Michael''s curse-breaking skill. Thus, if Chanel was indeed cursed, she had a way to break the curse and save the day for King Porter.
"King Porter''s close friend is a regr customer of one of the dance houses in Rosegate. I have some of my girls working there since it''s where the nobles tend to let their tongues loose. A few hours ago, this man had a little too much ale and spurted out that the elves had cursed the princess. Recently, Princess Chanel canceled all her visits andpletely went dark. I heard rumors from the maids that they were ordered not to disturb the princess no matter what," Saide paused for a moment and continued.
"I had my doubts for a while because I felt something was amiss. Especially after Hendrix Gardner paid the king an unofficial visit. So I ordered my girls to work on the ministers,"
"Hendrix Gardner," Michael muttered to himself. Thest time Michael met this 6-Star alchemist in the alchemypetition, the vampires almost killed him. He would have died if Michael wasn''t there. At that time, Michael only wanted Gabriel to die. Michael wondered what the old man thought when he realized the young man sat beside him and judged thepetition was the Dark Lord himself.
"Apparently, the princess has only three more days to live,"
"What about Noah and the Guardians? If the princess only had three more days to live, King Porter would have approached Noah and asked for his help, right? After all, Noah is still a citizen of Kethen," said Gaya.
"Plus, she is a princess. I wouldn''t be surprised if she were in love with Noah," Michael chuckled.
"Thest time I heard from our guy in the guild, Noah and his team were nning to venture into the treacherous ocean to find a way to break the curse,"
"Then we have to beat them to the princess and save her instead¡" Gaya leaned back on her throne. Considering Noah took the weapon and the prototype out of her hands, it was only fair that she returned the favor to him by curing the princess before he could.
"For a price," Gaya snickered.
Unlike Noah, Michael didn''t need to go to the treacherous ocean to break the curse. Michael could break the curse in a few minutes if he wished, thanks to his Curse breaker skill. On the other hand, Michaelughed inside, thinking Noah woulde out of the treacherous ocean empty-handed because he had taken the curse-breaking artifact long ago. So unless there was another simr artifact in the treacherous ocean that even the system didn''t know of, Noah would stumble upon nothing but sticks and stones.
"Did you learn anything about why the elves cursed the princess? How she ended up getting cursed by the elves?" Gaya frowned in doubt. The continent Elon had the lowest number of elves in the entire world. Many people in Elon would die without seeing an elf in their entire lives because the elves tended to live in Awor and avoided Elon because they thought Elon continent was a backwater ce and beneath their standards. Besides, the elves wouldn''t go around cursing people without a valid reason. If they chose to curse her instead of killing her, Gaya knew there must be a reason behind it.
"ording to the man, it''s the usual cliche, mydy. Long story short, Princess Chanel met an elf when she was visiting Kingdom Thera and fell in love. She wanted to marry him against King Porter''s wishes. She tried to run away with the elf, except the King caught them both and ordered his men to beat the crap out of the elf. The next day, the elf''s uncle personally paid King Porter a visit and gifted Chanel an evil curse as a reminder of the King''s mistake of raising his hand against his kind,"
Michael chuckled as it reminded him of ire''s story. Sheughed at Chanel inside for thinking she could be with the elf and live happily ever after. If anything, Chanel was lucky the elves didn''t curse all her family. But when Michael thought about it, the elf chose Chanel over her family because he wanted her family to suffer more. Imagine seeing your only daughter dying slowly and painfully while you stand there and do nothing. The elf wanted King Porter to feel helpless and me himself for the rest of his life.
"That does sound like what an elf would do," said Michael.
"It seems all the princesses are rebels," Michael turned his gaze toward Gaya and winked. Instead of giving Michael a snarkyment, Gaya just rolled her eyes.
Then, Gaya turned her gaze back to Sadie.
"This is indeed good news. You''ve been doing a marvelous job so far, Sadie," Gaya couldn''t help praising Sadie. Everyone, including Michael, knew how hard it was to impress the princess of Nagnd, but Sadie managed to do just that. In a short amount of time, Sadie turned a Guardian into their spy, inserted her girls in almost every part of the world, created a web of spyworks, assisted other subordinates with their tasks, and slowly solidated her ce as the next Sect leader of the SilverMoon. It was no simple task, especially when she had to work under Noah''s growing influence.
"It''s my pleasure to serve you, mydy," Sadie bowed her head and opened her mouth for a moment before closing it. She looked as though she wanted to say something but didn''t know how to. Both Michael and Gaya noticed Sadie''s change in behavior.
"Is there something else you want to share, Sadie?" Michael asked her.
Sadie looked at Michael and Sadie for a few moments before taking a deep breath.
"Yesterday, I had a meeting with a Guardian. She attended the tea party arranged by Alvaro''s aunt, one of the elders in SilverMoon. The questions she asked me and the way she looked at me just left me with a bad feeling," said Sadie with a worried tone.
"Alvaro is our inside man, right?" Michael asked Sadie to see her nodding.
"Lord Saber warned us about her visit. So I was prepared. Still¡" Sadie''s words trailed off.
"Should I put a hit on her through Aria?" Gaya asked, but Michael shook his head before Sadie could give her answer to Gaya.
"For now, act like nothing happened," Michael said to Sadie, turning his head to look at Azazel.
"Tell Trista to send one of her minions to shadow the guardian who met Sadie,"
"My Lord," Sadie interrupted Michael as he turned his gaze back to Sadie.
"She is going to the treacherous ocean with Noah," Sadie muttered.
Michael rubbed his stubble beard for a moment until he found a way to deal with this annoyance. It was obvious to Michael that this girl was trying to impress Noah, but Michael didn''t know how much the girl knew about Sadie and why she took an interest in her. Since Sadie was far too valuable to risk, Michael had to find a way to keep Sadie out of the Guardian Guild''s crosshair. As long as Noah was with her, Michael knew he wouldn''t be able to take her out. Besides, if he did, Noah would automatically realize Sadie had something to do with the Dark Lord. Therefore, Michael''s only viable option was to follow this girl until he knew more about everything.
"Then, when shees out, tell Trista to shadow the girl. I want to know everything about her. If pushes to shove, I will deal with her personally," Michael''s voice turned grave. After bing the Dark Lord, Michael was rarely involved in problems like this. Instead, he had subordinates to solve them for him. But this felt like something he had to deal with it personally. After hearing Michael''s words, Sadie heaved a sigh of relief. With the Dark Lord''s reassurance, Sadie could rest easy. Thest thing Sadie wanted was a guardian to snoop around. After all, she was just a few months away from getting crowned as the next sect leader.
Chapter 851 Breaking The Curse For A Price
Princess Chanel''s room was nothing like a typical princess'' room. Contrary to bright colors, Chanel used dark colors to decorate her room. The walls looked gloomy, with dark brown paint and ack of light through the royal red curtains covering the windows. Chanel decorated the room with numerous things she had collected through visits to other kingdoms. Her room was a chaotic mess, but it had a certain rhythm. On the corner, she put a sofa set facing the firece. Several book racks filled with texts, scrolls, and artifacts were a few meters away from the firece. Next to these book racks, she had a wide closet containing all her dresses, and atst, her bed was located between a study table and a six feet tall bonsai tree. The tree had grown out of shape and looked as though no one had pruned it for weeks. Theck of light made leaves look a little paler than their usual jade green.
In the dark room, a couple of people gathered around the bed where Princess Chanel was groaning in pain. The princess was a charming beauty with striking blond hair inherited from her mother and hazel eyes from her father. Her smooth, silky skin lost its glow due to the curse, and the princess herself looked thin and weak. Even her corbones and cheekbones became visible to others because she hadn''t eaten for weeks. The curse affected her very soul, and as a result, her body couldn''t sustain itself using arch energy. Princess Chanel squirmed and kicked her legs in excruciating pain. She closed her eyes and clenched the royal red bedsheets under her as tight as she could.
Princess Chanel''s mother, Queen rice, gently brushed the hair flowing onto Chanel''s face and sobbed. Tears rolled out of the queen''s red eyes sitting atop dark circles.
The Queen held Chanel''s hands and sat beside her while the others looked at the princess in pain helplessly.
"Your majesty," an old man wearing golden robes embroidered with silver threads raised his voice, cutting through the silence in the room. King Porter Forbes was not in his kingly robes but wore a in shirt and brown trousers. He looked more like amoner than a king with his messy dark hair and untrimmed beard with patches of white hair.
Porter Forbs sat at the end of Chanel''s bed with his hands folded. His hazel eyes glimmered with helplessness and grief. He was desperate for help. Even the Six-star Alchemist Hendrix Gardner couldn''t do anything to lift the curse. All he could do was ease Chanel''s pain and make her life easier until her body and soul gave up. The sight of his daughter groaning in pain was eating him from within.
"It''s time we break this news to the citizens," said the old man, one of the most loyal people who worked for Porter Forbes. Everyone in the room shared the same pain as King Porter and Queen rice because they saw Chanel grow up to be a youngdy from a baby. They loved the princess like she was their own. Unlike the royal courts, everyone loved Porter Forbes. He was a kind and benevolent king.
The old man''s voice stuttered as he couldn''t say what he really wanted to. Everyone who checked Chanel had told them one thing, the curse cannot be lifted. Some even said the king and queen should make peace and say goodbye to Chanel. King Porter''sst resort was the Guardians, but even though Noah was a god, hecked the powers to perform the miracle of lifting the curse.
"How can I?" The King muttered.
"ARGH!" Suddenly, Chanel began to scream and frantically wriggled on the bed. Queen rice quickly wrapped her slender arm around Chanel''s waist and stopped her daughter from rolling out of bed. Meanwhile, Porter grabbed Chanel''s legs and tried to lessen her squirming. Princess Chanel''s scream echoed through the room, making everyone shudder. The way she screamed and shouted really made them want to leave the room as soon as possible. They weren''t strong enough to stay there and see the princess in agony.
Princess Chanel continued to suffer for almost an hour. By the time she stopped screaming, her body had no strength left to move. Except for the muffled groans, no words or sounds came out of Chanel''s mouth. Porter''s heart told him to have hope and expect Noah to return with a cure, while his mind told him to ept the inevitable. He was unfortunate enough to know how powerful elven curses are. One of the elven runemasters who examined Chanel''s soul told him that no one could lift the curse, including the one who put the curse in the first ce. The curse was unliftable and shouldn''t have been used on a human, ording to the elf. So nothing would happen even if the empress herself ordered the elf who put the curse to lift it.
Porter''s eyes became watery as he slowly turned around to address everyone in the room.
"Please leave us alone for a moment," Porter''s voice broke off.
"Take all the time you need, your majesty. We will take care of everything else," said the old man before leaving the room with the others. After everyone left the room, Porter finally let go of the tears in his eyes. His legs refused to take a step forward. He moved like a snail, reached his wife''s side, and copsed on the bed. Chanel was their only daughter, and the memories they had with Chanel shed before their eyes.
"Is this the end, Porter?" Queen rice broke into tears. Words barely escape her mouth. Porter couldn''t even give rice a fewforting words because he knew there was no way of helping Chanel. If there was a chance of remotely lifting the curse, Noah would have given them hope. Even he told Porter to strengthen his heart and mind and prepare for anything.
"Why do the gods want this for us? What did we do wrong?"
"If there was a god, he wouldn''t have let this happen to our daughter," Porter said, gritting his teeth. The helplessness he felt turned into anger, and when rice talked about the gods, Porter snapped. But little did they know that when they needed a god, the one who arrived to help was the devil. The curtains slowly swayed to the wind as Porter and rice felt a cold breeze. Everyone around them darkened as the dim light orbs flickered. At first, they thought the wind caused the orbs to flicker. But then, everything grew darker to the point Porter and rice couldn''t see what was before them. The room turned pitch ck. A few secondster, the orbs flickered back to life, giving them just enough light to illuminate a third figure in the room. Porter''s pupils shrunk as he saw someone sitting on the other side of Chanel''s bed.
Porter''s warrior instincts kicked in as he quickly rose from the bed. He instinctively reached for the sword and grabbed the side of his waist where he used to have his sword. Queen rice''s motherly instinct made her pull Chanel close to her. A calm voice resonated through the room when Porter was about to shout out for the guards.
"You wouldn''t make a sound if you want your daughter to live,"
The words made Porter''s heart skip a beat and prevented him from making a sound. As much as Porter wanted the guards toe running into the room, he wanted to know if there was some truth to the intruder''s words.
"Show yourself," Porter ordered the intruder.
A candle slowly flew past him and hovered beside the intruder. Then, the intruder lit the candle with a snap of his fingers. To Porter''s shock, the candlelight illuminated the face that terrified everyone, the Dark Lord. Porter''s heart almost stopped when he saw the Dark Lord''s eyes that glowed like bloodstones.
"Dark Lord¡" Queen rice trembled from head to toe. Her fear of the Dark Lord paralyzed rice''s body. As Porter was searching for words, the Dark Lord rested his head on his fist and sat on the throne with his leg atop the other. The King and Queen had no idea how he managed to enter the castle without raising any rms. If he wanted them dead, there was nothing to stop them. However, his glowing eyes didn''t contain any killing intent within.
"Where there is pain, let there be darkness," Porter and rice heard the Dark Lord''s bone-chilling voice. Their minds were in too much shock to process his words.
"I am the only god who listened to your pain and came here to help. Tell me, Porter, will you save your daughter or deny my help and let your daughter die in pain?" The Dark Lord''s words sounded slow and deep. Each word struck them like an arrow. If this was any other situation, Porter would have called out the guards and fought the Dark Lord himself despite the obvious results. Still, Porter was a god-fearing man who would rather die fighting evil than serve one to live. However, he couldn''t bring himself to refuse the Dark Lord''s help when his daughter''s life depended on his words.
"You have five seconds to decide. Your daughter''s life is in your hands now," said the Dark Lord. He didn''t give them much time to think about anything except Chanel''s life. This was the small light of hope they had in days. Everything and everyone failed them, and in three days, their daughter would die in pain. Any parent at this time would give anyone anything to save their child, and Porter and rice were no different.
"One¡" The Dark Lord raised a finger.
"Two," he raised another finger and continued to count.
"Save her," Porter answered him when the Dark Lord reached count four.
"Two hundred million and your teleportation portal. That would be the price for your daughter''s life,"
Porter wasn''t surprised because he expected to pay the price when the man before him was the Dark Lord. However, Porter and rice felt d that the price for saving their daughter was gold coins and the portal instead of their souls or anything that would forever bind them to the Dark Lord.
"You can take whatever you want as long as you lift this curse from my daughter," Porter rushed the Dark Lord when Chanel''s groans got louder. They shuddered when the Dark Lord rose from his throne and stepped toward their daughter. Part of them wanted to keep Chanel away from the Dark Lord''s reach, but they stood still like statues, looking at the Dark Lord cing his hand on Chanel''s head.
As soon as the Dark Lord touched Chanel, her body trembled. A glow appeared in Chanel''s chest as Porter and rice watched the glow getting brighter and brighter until they heard something snap. After they heard a sound like a twig break, the Dark Lord took his hand away from Chanel and stepped back.
"Father," Porter heard the word he thought he would never hear again. Under his watery gaze, Chanel slowly opened her eyes.
Chapter 852 Portal To The Forge
King Porter Forbes and Queen rice spent the entire day with Chanel, who was miraculously cured by someone. The ministers were speechless to see Chanel walking out of her room fully healed. The King and Queen went with the story that the curse suddenly disappeared from Chanel''s soul. As much as the monsters and the nobles doubted Porter''s words, they had no other exnation. The possibility of the Dark Lord entering the castle and lifting the curse had nevere across their minds. That day, King Porter ordered the servants to prepare avish feast, celebrating Chanel''s recovery. The evening sun cast long shadows upon Kingdom Kethern. As the nting rays of the setting sun gave a warm orange tinge to the horizon, the darkness slowly shrouded the rest of the world. Soon, Rosegate was aglow with bright city lights, and the castle stood atop the jill like a fully decorated Christmas tree.
When everyone in the castle returned to their rooms to cultivate and sleep, King Porter and Queen rice sat on the edge of their beds, holding each other''s hands. They looked exhausted and nervous. Their eyes frantically moved around the room as though they were searching for someone.
"Where is he?" Queen rice muttered.
"He said he would meet us here at midnight," King Porter said. Since Chanel was cured, his eyes looked lively and filled with life. Unlike when he was in Chanel''s room, Porter looked like a proper king now, with his hair neatlybed and embroidered royal red robes. Despite the concerns in their hearts, they remained silent, waiting for the Dark Lord. Silence swept across the room, and a wolf''s howl in the distance kept thempany. Eventually, the light orbs in the room started to flicker just like the orbs in Chanel''s room when the Dark Lord arrived.
Suddenly, the light radiating from the orbs got snuffed out as darknesspletely took over the room. Their hearts shuddered and prepared to meet the Dark Lord. In a blink of an eye, the orbs lit up again. Although King Porter and queen rice expected the Dark Lord to arrive, they still felt a bolt of shock running down their spines when they saw him sitting on a throne made of skulls and bones before them.
Their bodies jolted up from the bed as if the bed was on fire.
"How is the princess?" Michael asked King Porter and Queen rice. They were surprised to hear the humanity in his voice, unlike before.
"She is doing good," King Porter answered.
"Under any other circumstances, I would have lifted the curse for no payment. But even I have some obligations. As a ruler, I think you would understand," said Michael.
They lived long enough to apprehend whether someone was speaking from their heart or just tallying through the teeth. Hence, his words actually surprised both the Queen and King because they sounded genuine.
"Please take this," King Porter slowly removed the space ring from his finger and extended it toward the Dark Lord. The ring ascended into the air, floating toward him.
Michael quickly took a look inside the space ring and saw stacks of gold coins. The system scanned the space ring and confirmed the amount inside, two hundred million.
"I ordered my men to leave the portal room as you said," said King Porter. After seeing Chanelugh once again when he thought they had lost her, King Porter didn''t regret making a deal with the Dark Lord at all. Deep down, they felt grateful to the Dark Lord because if it wasn''t for him, Chanel would never have been cured. It was he who answered their prayers. So no matter what the world said about him, to them, he was a man who saved their daughter. Besides, he just asked for two hundred million and a portal which was practically nothing to a King. The only problem was King Porter had to deal with the generals and the ministers about the sudden disappearance of the portal. He just hoped the Guardians or Noah wouldn''t be suspicious of his dealing with the Dark Lord.
Elidyr and his minions were dismantling the portal and teleporting the parts as they were speaking. Instead of building a new portal that would cost three hundred million, Elidyr suggested Michael get an existing one. Then, he could modify the portal to connect the castle to the forge using the copper ring left behind by the past Dark Lord. Luckily for Michael, King Porter had recently built a teleportation portal with the help of Ice Fair duke.
"Just remember one thing, King Porter, every coin has two sides. Do not believe everything you hear," said the Dark Lord, rising from his throne. He strolled to the wind with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets.
"What should we do if the elf wants to harm Chanel again?" asked Queen rice. Since the Dark Lord was kind enough to lift the curse, she hoped he would discreetly do something about the elves. But what she really wanted was for the elf who cursed Chanel to die because as long as the elf was alive, Chanel''s life would always be in danger. As a mother and a queen, she had to protect Chanel, even if that meant striking another deal with the Dark Lord.
"You should ask this to Noah. He will deal with the elves. As much as I''d like to rip apart the elf who cursed the princess, it''s better for Noah to deal with them instead of me, Because the less I involve in your lives, the better," said Michael. Dealing with the elves was not a big matter to Michael. In fact, he had multiple ways of dealing with them. Option number one, he could put a hit on the elf with Aria. Option number two, he could ask the empress herself to keep the elves in check. But instead of choosing the first two options, Michael went with option number three, let Noah deal with the elves, which would undoubtedly lead to Noah pissing off the elves. As a result, Noah would be an enemy of the elves, and the more enemies he had, the better for Michael. Down the road, Michael could even team up with the elves in the battle against Noah.
? "They say I am evil, but I never tortured a girl before her parents'' eyes and intended them to see their daughter slowly die," Michael shrugged.
"Anyways, if I were you, I''d keep Chanel out of Awor and seek the Guardian Guild''s help. Elves are vengeful creatures. You should be more careful dealing with them in the future," With a flick of his wrist, Michael took out a card with the skull embossed in the center. He put the card on the table beside him and turned his gaze back to King Porter and Queen rice.
"Keep this hidden if you want to contact me again. But if you don''t feel like it, throw it away," said Michael.
Michael was about to use the runic teleportation to leave the castle when King Porter stepped forward,
"Dark Lord," Porter called out to Michael.
"Thank you," When Michael turned around, King Porter lowered his head.
"We are grateful for what you did for our daughter," Queen rice slowly said.
"You are good people. You don''t deserve such punishment," As he said, Michael willed the system to teleport him back to the dark castle, leaving Queen rice and King Porter behind. After he left, the throne vanished into thin air as King Porter and Queen rice exhaled heavily.
*****************************************************
Back in the castle, Elidyr was running back and forth inside an empty hall that was still reeked of fresh wood and marble. Grand chandeliers lit the room brightly and illuminated the giant circr portal in the center of the room. The portal''s outer structure was made of pure silver, and the dwarves built the steps with marble. At that moment, Elidyr was busy carving runes on the silver ring while the copper ring Michael gave him was lying on the floor.
"You are back," Elidyr noticed Michael entering the room and stopped what he was doing. Seeing the proud elf bow toward him despite his busy work was surprising to Michael. When Michael approached the portal, he noticed the runes dimly glowing and pulsating energy.
"So everything went well?" asked Michael.
"The portal hall was empty, as you told us. I assume King of Kethern won''t be a problem for us in the future?" asked Elidyr as Michael motioned him to continue his work.
"I don''t think so. You know the Queen asked me if I could help them with the elves situation," Michael talked to Elidyr while the elf was carving runes on the portal.
"What did you tell her? They all hate and loathe you until they need your help huh, Elidyr snickered.
"I said let Noah deal with the elves. It''s his job as the Supreme Guardian to keep his people safe. Besides, I have a feeling Noah would piss off the elves and make an enemy out of them like he always does," Michael chuckled.
"As long as Andreas is with him, we cannot predict Noah''s behavior. The Andreas I know is a rebel and a man with an iron will. If he sets his mind to do something, he will do it no matter what. Suppose he wasn''t there three thousand years ago, we could have destroyed the great eight ns in a few weeks. That bastard ruined everything," Elidyr snarled.
"I wasn''t there three thousand years ago, was I? I would like to see him try that again," Michael cracked his fingers,
"After we finish the portal, we should go to the forge andplete our new weapon for Big Bertha," said Michael.
"Hmm. I looked into the design and came up with the necessary runes. But those runes require a huge amount of energy. At one point, you have toe up with an alternative for arch energy crystals,"
"One problem at a time, Elidyr. We still haven''t mined a quarter of the crystals in the mountain," said Michael. As far as Michael was concerned, Mugashuku''s energy radiation would continue to form crystals in the Stormville mountain, and that hydra wasn''t going anywhere soon. So Michael didn''t need to worry about the arch energy crystals running out.
Chapter 853 Forging The Torpedos
Elidyr and Michael spent an entire day working together to finish the portal. They lost track of time and ignored everything that happened outside the hall. Gaya often entered the hall to bring Michael and Elidyr something to eat and drink. Other than that, Michael received no visitors; rather, Gaya took care of everything.
"Now, if you put a crystal in there," Elidyr pointed at a tubr-shaped golden pipe next to the portal. The metal tube ran into the ground and connected at the portal''s bottom under the steps. It was Michael''s task to build an intricate mechanism that turned arch energy crystals into pure energy that could be used to activate the portal. No one needed the mechanism outside the Southern continent since the atmosphere itself contained pure arch energy, and the runes could harness this energy. Considering the Southern continent''s atmosphere had no arch energy, Michael had to build such a device. In other words, without Michael, no one could build a portal inside the void line, no matter how many rune masters tried.
Michael retrieved a big chunk of crystal, dropped it into the pipe, and waited for the portal to absorb the energy. The metal pipe vibrated, letting out a purr. White smoke slowly escaped the metal pipe as Michael sensed an intense heat radiating from the pipe.
"It''s working," Elidyr said when he noticed the runes began to glow on the metal ring around the open space where the vortex was supposed to appear. These intricate symbols began to glow brighter and brighter until Michael felt the space around him distort. It was like an invisible ma pulling him closer. With a suppressed boom, a crimson-red vortex appeared within the ring in a blink of an eye.
"Let''s bring some creature and send it through the portal first," Elidyr said. But he was toote to realize Michael had already dashed into the portal. When Michael entered the vortex, everything went dark for a split second, and then, the scenery around him changed. He appeared right at the entrance to his forge. The forge looked the same as when he had left it a few days before. Before he stepped into the forge, he turned around to see if the vortex was still there. Surprisingly, there was no swirling vortex behind him. Instead, all he could see was a glowing rune on the wall.
Michael instinctively ced his hand on the rune that resembled a swirl. The moment he touched the rune, the wall trembled. Then, the wall slowly split open, forming an archway. Inside the archway, Michael saw the crimson-red vortex. Michael strolled toward the portal and entered it once again to reach Elidyr.
"That was dangerous," Elidyr snarled when Michael stepped out of the portal.
"We are the best at what we do. So I didn''t have to worry," Michael shrugged. Besides, the system would have warned him if the portal led to somewhere else than the forge.
"Follow me. The forge awaits," said Michael. Elidyr followed Michael into the portal and stepped into the demons grave for the first time in his life. The forge weed Elidyr with its scorching heat. Elidyr didn''t even spend a few seconds in the forge as he began to sweat bullets. As soon as Michael entered the forge, he removed his long coat and the full-sleeve shirt he wore beneath.
"Why is it so hot here?" The heat he felt was nothing like he had ever felt. It was like someone put him inside a boiling cauldron. On top of that, the furnace wasn''t even burning. Michael chuckled, seeing Elidyr getting drenched in his own sweat.
"We are inside a volcanic mountain. Take a look at this," Michael walked to the furnace and pulled the lever as the goldenva oozed into the furnace through the pipes hanging above.
"What do you mean a volcano?" asked Elidyr.
"Come with me," Michael walked out of the forge and headed outside to show Elidyr where they were. Elidyr followed him through a dark narrow corridor until they reached a dead end. What he thought was a dead end turned out to be a door when the Dark Lord ced his hand on the wall. The moment Michael opened the door, an intense scorching heat wave brushed past Elidyr, almost burning his hair.
"Careful," said Michael, shielding Elidyr from tripping down the narrow path and falling down right into the bubblingva. Now Elidyr realized what he meant by inside a volcanic mountain.
"As I said before, I cannot fly in the demon''s grave. So to get up there, we need to climb," Michael pointed at the top of the mountain.
"But if you do not want, we can return to the forge," Michael knew although Elidyr was inside the body of a half-elf, he still behaved like a dark elf who was extremely sensitive to dry or hot weather. Thest thing Michael wanted was to hear Elidyr bitch about climbing the mountain. However, Elidyr surprised Michael with his answer.
"I am not a delicate young flower. Of course, I want to climb. Follow my lead if you can, Dark Lord," Elidyr snickered and started to climb the wall like he was an expert mountain climber.
"I didn''t expect that," Michael''s brows arched up, looking at the elf crawling up the wall without slowing down. He was not going to lose to an elf in mountain climbing, so Michael started to climb as fast as he could. Elidyr was surprisingly fast, but Michael was faster than him. With a few leaps and jumpers, Michael reached the top and extended his arm to help Elidyr reach the top.
"Where did you learn to climb like this?" Michael asked Elidyr as the elf grabbed Michael''s hand and reached the top. When Elidyr was about to answer Michael, he saw the vast open world of demons grave. The sight of red skies, thunderstorms, and smokey air stunned Elidyr to the core. On top of that, Elidyr saw the colossus bull in the distance, and his jaw dropped.
"What in the hell is that?" Elidyr asked, looking at the bull.
"Something we don''t want to mess with," said Michael. Elidyr''s gaze swept across the vastnd. The demons grave looked more terrifying than he had previously imagined. He felt lucky Skyhall prisoned him in the Akn realm. At Least he had a beautiful ce for sightseeing. Almost half an hourter, Michael and Elidyr returned to the forge and started working on their next project, the torpedoes. Elidyr stepped outside the forge and into the dark castle to get everything they needed from the store room. Then, Elidyr returned to the forge to see Michael starting the furnace. When he thought the temperature couldn''t go any higher, the furnace surprised Elidyr with its scorching heatva.
Michael put the metal ores into arge cauldron and hung it above theva. Because they weren''t dark metal ores bought from the system, the hotva provided more than enough heat to melt them into hot gooey goodness. While Michael was working near the furnace, Elidyr studied the invisible runes around the forge. To others, the runes were invisible, but to him, they glowed as bright as stars in the midnight sky.
The more runes he saw, the more he realized the simrity with his own work. To be more precise, they were his work. The runes were almost everywhere; the tables, walls, ceiling, and pipes. Everywhere he turned, he saw runes. This whole forge was a beautiful mix of runes and intricate contraptions, just like the portal. The forge was a symbol of friendship between the Dark Lord and Elidyr, the elf who stood by the Dark Lord''s side till thest day when he reset the entire universe.
As Elidyr was studying the runes, Michael grabbed a five-meter-long and three-meter-wide metal pir, created a mold in the shape of a cigar using the dark beams, and poured the melted metal into the mold. Michael let the metal cold down and take the desired shape. While the metal was cooling down, Michael returned to the work table and started to build the targeting system in which he needed Elidyr''s help.
"Enough gawking around. We have work to do," said Michael. Finally, Elidyr snapped back to reality and turned around.
"This whole ce has my runes,"
"Not yours per se. They belonged to the past you," said Michael.
"I wonder what else they left behind. Judging by theplexity of each rune, I must have learned quite too much,"
"No shit. We designed an array to reset the entire universe. So yeah, you did learn too much," Michael rolled his eyes.
"You can admire your workter. Nowe here and help me with this," Michael ordered Elidyr. Then, the two of them continued to build the torpedoes while discussing their past versions. Building torpedoes were two man''s job. First, Michael as a cksmith had to build the outer shell and fill it with explosive materials. The second task fell on Elidyr''s shoulder as he had to engrave runes inside and outside to enhance the explosion''s power upon contact as well as to harness the power of arch energy crystals.
"It''s done," After almost an hourter, Elidyr heaved a sigh of relief and motioned Michael to see the torpedo on the table. On the outside, the torpedo looked like nothing more than a one-meter-long cigar with fins at the end. The outer shell was built with metal and engraved with intricate runes which were barely visible to the naked eye. On contrary to how it looked, the torpedo was heavy as a boulder. Elidyr had to use all his strength to roll it around. Upon reaching the table, Michael ran his hand through the torpedo, feeling the surface of his new death bringer. If his calctions were right, a single torpedo could obliterate a frigate to pieces and had a range of twenty kilometers.
"Now that we finished the hard part, let''s move on to the easy part," said Michael.
Obviously, he couldn''t put these torpedoes into a cannon and fire it at his enemies. Instead, Michael had to build a special gun to use these torpedoes and an aiming mechanism. Thanks to Michael''s Inventor trait, building them was as easy as crafting a new bow to Michael.
Chapter 854 Ghost Ships
The fierce sun beat upon the seemingly never-ending Southern continent sea, reflecting the light into a blinding patch of shine. The sea was calm, pulsing, and breathing rhythmically. In the calm sea, a brig sailed with the wind, patrolling the seas. The ship squealed while the sails tightened and leaped forward, away from a tiny ind with a couple of coconut trees. The tamepping of ripples against the hull rang out across the bay. As the sail with a skull painted on rose higher and higher, the glistening reflection blinded captain Fairbank, casting a dark shadow down the ship''s upper deck.
Slowly it blended with the calm and sparkly, orange-shaded water. The sail calmly swayed from side to side and asionally pped in the morning''s ocean breeze. The stench of salty air gave the crew a kick of boost to tackle the day ahead of them. In the distance, a gust danced and twirled across the water''s surface. The ship slowly glided forward through the mirror-like water. The puff ever so slowly crept closer as if it was the predator and everything else was the prey.
"Look alive men. We have rich fat merchants to milk!" Captain Fairbanks roared. The soft breeze streamed through his red hair and oval face with blue eyes. His loose white shirt fluttered in the wind, exposing his hairy chest. Fairbanks and his crew terrorized the sea under Pirate Lord Vance until the Dark Lord decided to kill Vance and many of his pirate captains for refusing his offer to join him. Fairbanks was one of the lucky ones who were spared by the Dark Lord''s wrath.
"I have a report saying the phoenix manor merchants are on their way to Gisal for gem trading. So you men know the drill. We intercept, check their goods and make them pay their taxes," Fairbanksughed out loud. A year ago, he wouldn''t have spoken these words even if someone had put a de against his throat. He used to pige merchant ships to the bones and sink them for fun. Most of the pirates lived like this, and as a result, merchant ships rarely ventured into their seas. During their best days, they piged one or two ships every three months and went without piging for the rest of the year. Sometimes, two pirate groups would fight each other for a crate of rum or less. But everything changed when the Dark Lord conquered the seas and took over the pirates. He struck deals with the merchants and ordered the pirates to stop piging them like madmen. Instead of piging, the Dark Lord ordered the merchants to pay a percentage to the pirates every time they ventured into the Southern continent for trade.
Many pirates hated the idea of collecting taxes and not piging. But they did as they were told anyway because the pirates knew better than to mess with the Dark Lord. Those who did were brutally murdered and thrown to the sharks in front of the other pirates as a warning sign. Fairbanks was one of those who wanted to avoid ending up being shark food. At first, Fairbanks and his crew were skeptical about the Dark Lord''s unconventional order, but the number of merchant shipsing to the Southern continent gradually increased. Within six months, there were more merchant ships than pirate ships on the seas. As a result, the pirates were able to make more coins as their cut from the tax than they ever did piging. The pirates who felt skeptical and hated the Dark Lord for preventing them from piging quickly changed their minds about him.
Under the Dark Lord, the pirates thrived and lived their golden age. For Fairbanks, this was just another rxing day at the sea. His task was to intercept the merchant ships and tax them ording to the goods they were carrying. After all these times, Fairbanks could do the tasks in his sleep. As he was sailing on the calm sea, his quartermaster, a dark-skinned man with nose piercing, rushed toward Fairbanks.
"Captain, we have spotted a ghost ship," The quartermaster said. His dark eyes contained a sliver of fear. Fairbanks had the same fear in his eyes as he heard about ships with no symbols or crest on sails attacking the pirate ships and disappearing. Rumor had it that the Dark Lord''s naval army has lost five pirate ships to these ghost ships.
Fairbank''s hands reached for the spyss dangling on his waist and looked in the direction the quartermaster was pointing. Through the spyss, Fairbanks saw a lone ship heading in their direction. There it was, a frigate with no symbols or crest on its gray sails. As soon as Fairbank spotted the ghost ship, a strange bell echoed through the calm sea. It sounded like a cry, a cry mixed with both anger and sadness.
"What are your orders, Captain?" asked the quartermaster.
Fairbanks lowered his spyss and turned his gaze back to the quartermaster.
"Man the cannons and prepare for a battle," said Fairbanks. His voice was loud enough for the entire crew to hear him. Soon, they all grabbed a spyss and scanned the horizon.
"Ghost ship spotted!" At that moment, a pirate manning the crow''s nest shouted, pointing at the horizon.
Almost everyone on the upper deck heard and saw the ghost ship. It was toote for panic control.
"Prepare the cannons!" the quartermaster roared as his order swept across the deck. The pirates panicked and stood still like statues for a few moments. They spent too long collecting taxes and enjoying life without battle, so when they were ordered to prepare for battle, their bodies refused to move. It took them a few moments to realize the danger they were in.
"We will bring their heads to the Dark Lord!" Fairbank shouted.
The moment the crew heard the name of the Dark Lord, they snapped back to reality because the fear of the ghost ship was nowhere close to the fear they had of the Dark Lord. The crew quickly reached the cannons, and some ran down to the lower decks to convey the battle order to the crew down there. While the crew was preparing for a battle, Fairbank raised his spyss to take a look at the ghost ship again.
"What the?" to hisplete shock, he saw no ship through the spyss. He frantically moved the spyss left and right, trying to locate the ship.
Looking at Fairbank, the quartermaster looked through his own spyss and was stunned by the sight of an empty horizon. The ghost ship was nowhere to be found.
"Do you see the ghost ship?!" the quartermaster shouted at the pirate standing atop the crow''s nest. But before he could answer the quartermaster, the pirate fell down from the top and sttered all over the deck, painting the floor red. The crew was stunned by what had just happened. In their shocked state, they failed to notice the iron arrow on the floor, covered in the pirate''s blood and flesh.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the ghost ship appeared closer to Fairbank''s ship. The crew and the captain were caught off guard. They had no idea where it came from.
"Take cover!" Fairbank shouted as every fiber in his body screamed at him to lower his head and duck. He was a veteran and had enough battle experience to guide his crew out of thick situations. However, his battle experience was overwhelmed by the sheer power of the ghost''s ship. All the fifty cannons on one side of the hull exploded at the same time and bombarded Fairbank''s brig. Nine out of ten times, a brig had no chance of winning against a frigate. Unfortunately for Fairbank, his ship was too close to the frigate and unprepared for return fire.
Fairbank ducked down and held the helm as tight as he could. When he slightly raised his head, he saw his quartermaster stumbling around the deck with arge hole in his chest. One of the cannonballs went straight through his chest. Blood oozed out of his mouth, and before the quartermaster could hit the ground, another cannonball took his head clean off.
A loud whistling sound kept ringing in his ears, preventing him from thinking straight. Most of the crew were either thrown off the deck or dead by the cannon fire. When the ghost ship was reloading its cannons, Fairbank stood up and rotated the helm as fast as he could. The ship had taken too much damage. The main sail poles were barely standing, and one or two cannonballs fire away from breaking down. As a captain, it was his task to save the ship and the rest of the crew. He frantically rotated the helm to sail away from the frigate. While trying to escape, Fairbanks looked at the ghost ship and saw the hostile crew. They were all dressed in some kind of silver robes with pointy hats. None of their faces were exposed as they covered themselves from head to toe.
"FULL SAIL!" Fairbank shouted. He knew it was toote for them to return fire. The only hope they had was escaping the frigate before it reloads its cannons.
Boom!
Out of nowhere, a giant arrow hit the front deck and split opened the brig in half. Fairbank failed even to see where the arrows wereing from. More arrows rained down upon the deck, impaling everyone and everything. With the front half slowly sinking down, there was no chance for Fairbank to escape the frigate that had almost finished reloading its cannons.
"I AM NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT!" Fairbank roared as he unsheathed his cuss. He ran toward the rope they used to board the hostile ships and tried to swing to the frigate. He could have escaped if he had let go of the rope and jumped into the water. However, he was a pirate through and through. He may have let go of piging, but he would never die without putting up a fight. When he was about tond on the deck, he heard another volley of explosions. Suddenly, everything turned dark around him. Thest thing he remembered was a sharp pain in his head; then, his whole body felt light.
Chapter 855 New Weapon For Big Bertha
Meanwhile, back in the forge, Michael finished forging everything he needed to use the torpedoes and prepared to leave. He put out the fire in the furnace while Elidyr put the torpedoes in the space ring. To snuff out the mes, Michael had to pull the lever beside the furnace down. As soon as he pulled it down, a chilling stream of frost fired out of the ancient ice core and put out the mes.
"Let''s go," Michael said. Elidyr nodded and walked toward the portal to leave the forge. After they entered the portal, a strange sensation ran through their bodies. The sudden drop in the temperature affected their bodies and minds. It took Elidyr a few moments to feel normal. On the other hand, when they stepped out of the portal, Michael saw Gaya was waiting for them with Azazel.
"We have a situation," Gaya creased her brows. She didn''t even bother to inquire with them about the portal or the forge. Michael knew something was amiss.
"What happened?" Michael asked.
"Do you remember the ghost ships that''s been attacking our ship in the southern continent?" Gaya asked Michael as he nodded. Coreyined about these ships at the gathering. Apparently, these ships were using hit-and-run tactics with the backup of killing themselves in case someone managed to capture them. Before leaving for the demons grave, Michael ordered Corey to get to the bottom of it and unwrap the mystery behind those unknown ships. But judging by the look on Gaya''s face, he could tell these ships had appeared once again.
"They sank one of our ships a few minutes ago," said Gaya.
"You should see this, my lord," Azazel handed over the tablet-sized mirror in his hand to Michael.
The mirror flickered for a moment before showing Michael a calm sea from the point of view of someone near the rudder.
"Captain, we have spotted a ghost ship," Michael saw a dark-skinned man in the mirror.
"After a few attacks, Corey asked me for Spyders so she could monitor every captain under hermand," Gaya exined to Michael why the ship captain was wearing a Spyder. He totally focused in the mirror, searching for the ghost ship.
"Ghost ship spotted!" Michael saw the pirate atop the crow''s nest pointing at the horizon. Soon, the pirate captain turned his gaze toward the direction the pirate pointed.
"Get to the good point," said Gaya and slid her fingers through the mirror as the feed in the mirror yed faster. She removed her hands from the mirror when a gray ship sailed beside the pirate captain''s ship. The feed was not stable as he was covering down from cover. Still, Michael was able to pause the feed and take a clear look at the hostile ship.
This frigate in the mirror had a grayish hull, sails with no crest or emblem, and a crewpletely covered from head to toe. If Michael wasn''t a cksmith, he would have missed theplex build of the ship. Although it looked like a typical frigate, the ship was built differently. For example, the hull had tiny holes the size of a fist under every hull cannon. On top of that, the cannons on the upper deck were different from typical cannons. They were built in a rectangr shape instead of a conical shape.
"I AM NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT!"
Michael saw the pirate captain standing up and running toward the rope despite the bombardment. He grabbed the rope, swinging toward the ghost ship. The feed distorted in the mirror before everything turned blue.
"When did this happen exactly?" asked Michael.
"Five minutes ago. Big Bertha was sailing nearby, so I ordered them to head to the ambush location," said Gaya. Her eyes glimmered with killing intent, and one could literally feel the cold murderous aura around her.
"They will pay for what they did," Michael calmly said.
He extended his palm toward Elidyr as the elf removed the space ring containing the torpedo from his finger and ced it on Michael''s palm.
Without uttering a word, Gaya stepped closer to him and waited for him to activate the teleportation. Thanks to the runic teleportation, Michael was able to directly reach the Big Bertha in a blink of an eye.
**************************************************
"Full sails, full sails!" Short was running around Big Bertha''s upper deck, ordering his crew around. As a quartermaster to the temporary captain of Big Bertha, Corey had quite an authority among the pirates. Shorty didn''t earn his position by simply being cute or bootlicking but through his hard work. Michael and Gaya were impressed when hepletely stopped drinking and cultivated diligently for the past year. The olympus around Shorty''s wrist was a symbol of his hard work and a painful reminder to anyone who dares to mess with him.
Usually, the Big Bertha would be anchored at Corey''s ind and rarely sailed the seas. However, when Corey heard about another attack and the Dark Queen''s order, she sailed to where the ambush happened. Since they were alone, Gaya hoped the ghost ships might try to attack Big Bertha. Unlike Fairbank''s crew, the Big Bertha crew was trained to be on guard always. Among the pirates, they lived the longest and had the most battle experience. Coupled with Corey''s talents in the rudder, Big Bertha could be ranked as one of the most powerful ships in the world.
"Captain, I can see some debris on the water," Shorty came running to Corey and said.
"Lower the sails," Corey''s order surprised Shorty and the crew. They were certain that Corey would order them to raise the sails to gain maximum speed. But on the contrary, she ordered them to lower the sails. Despite the shocking order, Shorty nodded as the crew pulled down the ropes, lowering the ck sail with a crimson red skull painted on the center.
The ship gradually lost its speed, and since the wind was against them, they almost came to a halt. Meanwhile, the crew loaded the cannons and the mortar on the front of the deck. Once they could see the ghost ship, they would bombard it with all the firepower they had. As they slowly sailed toward the sea, where Corey noticed ck smoke emanating. Big Bertha sailed toward the debris at a snail''s pace.
Suddenly, Corey felt a strong gust of wind blow past her. She quickly turned around to see the Dark lord appear out of thin air with the Dark Queen.
"My lord, mydy," Corey quickly bowed toward Michael and Gaya.
"Captain is onboard!" Shorty roared as he ran toward Michael and Gaya. He smiled from ear to ear, looking at them. Michael acknowledged Shorty with a friendly nod.
Corey was about to say something when Michael ascended into the air andnded on the crow''s nest.
"Let''s see where you are," Michael muttered to himself as his pupils shrunk to the size of a tiny dot. His perception swept across the sea. Michael closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the Environmental Scanning. A few secondster, Michael''s eyes abruptly opened. He slowly turned around to see a ship far away on the horizon. The ship was too far for normal eyesight or even for the spyss. But Michael could see the ship sailing with no crest or symbol on its sails. It was the same ship that sank Fairbank''s ship. There was no doubt in Michael''s mind.
Michael''s eyespletely turned pitch ck, and then his pupils glowed like rubies for a moment.
"Turn around the ship and sail to the southwest," Michael''s voice echoed through the ship.
Following Michael''s order, Gaya ascended into the air and floated to Michael''s side.
"Did you find it?" asked Gaya, her eyes glimmering with intense murdering intent.
Michael nodded.
"I''ll see how they hit and run this time," Michael snickered.
"Just sail toward it as slow as you can. Let theme to us. I have a surprise for them,"
Gaya nodded as Michael leaped from the crow''s nest into the water. Under the water, everything turned dark blue. Michael willed the APD to inject a pill into his bloodstream that would allow him to breathe underwater. He moved through the water like a shark until he reached the very bottom of Big Bertha. His eyes turned ck, shooting dark beams at the hull. Countless bubbles appeared around the dark beams as the beams vaporized the water in an instant.
Deep orange lines appeared in the ck hull everywhere the dark beams touched. Michael cut a three-meter long and two-meter wide piece of hull and took out a tubr pipe from his space ring. The silver metal pipe perfectly fitted into the hole Michael had just carved out. After cing the pipe into the hole, Michael closed the hole once again with the wood and swam to the other side to repeat the same process. Michael spent the next fifteen minutes moving along with the ship and fitting Big Bertha with the torpedo gun.
Now that he had finished installing the guns, Big Bertha had two unique shots, the mortar, and the torpedoes. Compared to the mortar, the torpedo had five times the range. Plus, when aiming at the target using the mortar, it created a red spotlight which was called the red death by the Ithn people. Contrary to the mortar, the torpedo had no indicators visible to the enemies. Any ship that was unfortunate enough to meet the torpedo would get obliterated without even knowing what hit them. This made the torpedoes the perfect weapon to use against the ghost ships.
Back on the upper deck, Shorty and some of the crew kept staring into the ocean, wondering how in the hell the Dark Lord was staying in the water for so long.
"Hey look," the pirate next to Shorty pointed at the horizon, where Shorty noticed a lone ship.
"Wait for the Dark Lord''s orders!" Corey shouted when she saw the crew agitating to man the cannons and bombard the ghost ship to pieces. Even Corey had a difficult time rotating the rudder instead of firing the mortar. However, the Dark Queen ordered them to stay calm and let the ghost ship attack them from a safe distance. If what Gaya learned about these ghost ships were true, they wouldn''t dare to enter into closebat with Big Bertha. They knew about the red death. Therefore, they would try to hit and run while keeping themselves out of the mortar''s range.
As they were sailing toward the ghost ship, Michael shot out of the water andnded right beside Corey.
"Put these on," Michael handed over ck goggles to Gaya and asked her to wear them.
"Okay," Gaya had no idea what it was, but she wore them as everything around her dimmed due to the ck ss. Then, Michael gave her a conical wooden piece with a button on top. Gaya grabbed the wood and ced her thumb on the button.
"Time for some payback," Michael cracked his neck, looking at the ghost ship in the distance.
Chapter 856 Torpedo In Action
Gaya gawked around the calm sea with the goggles on her eyes. At first, everything darkened but soon, a red appeared before her sight.
"What is this red dot?" Gaya raised her hand, trying to touch the virtual dot.
"That''s how you aim the torpedoes. They will hit wherever you put the red dot and push the button. This button is just a temporary measure. I will build a trigger in the rudderter," said Michael. Of course, Michael himself could have worn the goggles and fired the torpedoes. The reason he chose not to was he had other ns. To be precise, a backup n in case the ghost ship crew tried to kill themselves before they could apprehend them. As far as Michael was concerned, this facade had gone long enough. It was time he weeded out his enemies one by one.
"I have to adjust myself to this," Gaya stepped away from the rudder and joined Michael on the ship''s front. Michael''s long coat and hair fluttered in the wind as he stood there with his hands tufted into his pockets. Everyone on the ship had their gazes fixated on the ghost ship. Since the Dark Lord himself was with them, the crew''s morale was sky-high. Excitement coursed through their veins as they waited for the ghost ship to get closer.
The closer they got to the ghost ship, the more excited everyone felt, especially Shorty, who couldn''t wait to put the olympus and the spell he had learned recently to use. The cannon crew was on the verge of lighting the fuse and bombarding the ghost ship. However, the ghost ship was still out of their range. Suddenly, they all heard a strange cry in the air. Michael recognized the sound. This was the same cry he heard when Fairbank and his ship were attacked.
"They have noticed us," said Michael.
"Don''t attack them until I say so," Michael said before diving back into the sea. After Michael disappeared into the ocean, Gaya returned to Corey at the helm. To Gaya''s surprise, the ghost ship halted sailing toward them just outside the mortar''s firing range. It was like the ghost ship crew knew exactly how far the mortar could hit them.
"So they had done their homework," Gaya muttered under her breath.
"What are they doing?" Core asked as she saw the ghost ship slowly turning around.
"They want to stay outside the mortar''s firing range," Gaya said.
"Should we catch up to them?" asked Corey, but Gaya shook her head.
"If we rush them, they might escape. I have a feeling their ship is faster than ours," Gaya said, walking to the rails. She leaned on the rails and watched the ghost ship without batting an eye. The red dot in her sight was right on the ship; if she wanted, she could fire the torpedoes. However, she had to wait for Michael''s order.
Meanwhile, inside the sea, Michael soared through the deep sea toward the ghost ship. He dived deeper into the ocean and used the lightning dash to increase his speed. In a few moments, he vaguely saw the ghost ship''s dark shadow in the near distance. As he moved closer, he noticed strange ripples under the ghost ship. He closed his eyes and focused on the surroundings. A strange noise, a rhythmic pulse, reached his ears. The ghost ship was creating some kind of pulse around it. Because Michael was a resident of earth, he was familiar with the sonar technology ships used to detect things underwater.
To be honest, Michael was surprised and couldn''t even believe the ship was using something simr to sonar. But the energy pulses he felt were definitely some kind of detection system. Everything made sense to Michael when he thought about it. If the ghost ship didn''t have a way to detect hostels under the water, one could swim underwater and catch them off guard, just like he was nning to do. There were some runes and arrays to achieve the same in cultivation continents. Considering the Southern continent was inside the void line, runes and arrays wouldn''t work here. Hence, someone had to build a new device to achieve the same effects. Michael was surprised that someone who wasn''t him had actually managed to do so
"System, scan the ship," Michael ordered the system. He needed to be sure.
[The system requires ten thousand badass points to scan the ship]
"Go for it," Michael confirmed. While the system''s invisible rays were scanning the ship, Michael moved backward from the ghost ship. He didn''t want the pulses to detect him. No matter what contraptions they used, today, he would start dismantling this unknown enemy. His enemies had mistaken his patience for ack of action.
[The system can confirm the host''s suspicion. The ghost ship has indeed, a device that mimics sonar pulses to detect hostile activity underwater in a ten-meter radius. A powerful bolt of lightning to the hull could disrupt the device]
As Michael was contemting whether he should disrupt the device or not, he heard the cannons crackling inside the hull. The very next moment, the cannons exploded, sending a volley of ming cannonballs toward Big Bertha. Michael was pushed back for a few meters by the shock wave that traveled around the ghost ship. Michael quickly turned on the thermal vision and turned in the direction of Big Bertha. Once again, the ghost ship surprised Michael with its cannon gun range.
After he heard the explosion, Michael formed a bubble around his head and contacted Gaya through the earpiece.
"Are you hit?" Michael asked Gaya.
Michael heard Shorty and the crew shouting and cursing the ghost ship. It took Gaya a few seconds to respond to him.
"How in the fuck are they hitting us from this far? Where are you? I am losing my fucking patience here," Gaya roared in pure hatred toward the ghost ship. Her thumb was itching to press the button and fire the torpedoes.
"Fire the cannons and pretend you are putting up a fight. Let them think they have the upper hand," said Michael. No one in the ghost ship knew Michael was watching them from below. Having no idea, they kept bombarding Big Bertha. Michael didn''t worry about his ship because it was built to withstand huge amounts of damage. It would take two man o wars to attack Big Bertha from both sides at the same time to cripple her down. Surprisingly, the ghost ship''s cannons had both range and power. On top of that, the reload time was way shorter than Michael had anticipated. After the third volley of cannon fire, Gaya contacted Michael.
"We are taking some damage, human. Anytime now," said Gaya. Michael noticed the ghost ship slowly sailing toward Big Bertha, Now that they had sessfully damaged Big Bertha, the ghost ship crew had gotten more courageous. As Michael ordered, Big Bertha fired all her cannons, but none of the cannon balls could reach the ghost ship.
For a few minutes, the roars of both ships echoed through the calm sea. As they continued the naval battle, the air reeked of gunpowder and burnt wood. From an outsider''s perspective, Big Bertha was losing the battle because she caused no damage to the ghost ship while thetter bombarded Big Bertha with each round of fire. When the ghost ship fired the cannons for the fourth time, Michael clenched his fist as lightning bolts appeared and crackled around his wrists. He waited for the cannons to stop spitting out cannonballs. With lightning bolts crackling around his wrist, Michael followed behind the ghost ship.
"Gaya," Michael contacted Gaya.
"Do the honor," Michael snickered.
"Finally," Gaya was ted to hear Michael''s order.
On Big Bertha''s upper deck, Gaya stood up from the cover and strolled toward the edge of the ship. Wooden splinters flew everywhere as the cannons on each side let out thick clouds of smoke after firing. Despite the chaos, Gaya stood firm and raised the button.
"Say hello to this, bitch," Gaya pressed the button as the entire ship trembled for a moment. Except for Gaya, none of the crew were aware of the new weapon Michael installed in Big Bertha. She creased her sword-like brows as she saw no smoke or fire. In fact, nothing happened for a few minutes.
"Mydy," Short crouched toward Gaya and pulled her sleeves.
"You should duck down. They are preparing to fire again," Shorty warned Gaya.
Boom!
Suddenly, they heard a p of thunder rumbling in the distance, and boom, the ghost ship''s left half exploded to bits and pieces. Michael''s crew waspletely stunned.
If Gaya didn''t know about the torpedoes, she would have thought the gunpowder barrels stored inside the ghost ship had caught fire somehow and exploded from within. The torpedo obliterated the ghost ship and turned its one-half into charcoal wood.
"HELL YEAH!" Shorty bounced up and down in pure joy. But Gaya wasn''t as happy as the crew. Instead, she focused on the calm sea around the burning ghost ship.
"Anytime now," She mumbled under her breath. As she expected, Michael shot out of the water like a whale on drugs andnded straight beside the ghost ship''s captain.
The crew atop the ghost ship was in chaos. They ran around like headless chickens in their weird gray robes. When Michaelnded on their ship, they werepletely caught off guard.
The man in front of the rudder reached for his sword, only to get stabbed in the neck with an injection. His body froze as he fell down on the deck. Then, Michael turned his focus to the rest. The moment Michael''s gaze swept across the deck, an invisible force snuffed out the mes and darkened the ship. Everything turned dead silent for a few moments. The only sound they heard at that time was the lightning bolts crackling around Michael''s wrist. The surviving crew immediately reached out for the dagger dangling on their waist. ording to Corey, they used this dagger to cut their throats to avoid being captured.
As the crew reached for the dagger, Michael simply raised his hand, sending a couple of wind des toward them. The next moment, several heads flew in the air as blood sprayed out of headless bodies. From the beginning, Michael had no ns to take everyone hostage but one, the captain. As for the others, they could go to hell and wait for the others.
Chapter 857 Drawing The Dark Lord鈥檚 Attention
In a blink of an eye, Michael removed their heads clean off. Blood was everywhere as some of the headless bodies stammered around the deck before copsing down into the water or to the floor. The half of the ship Michael stood on was slowly sinking into the water. He grabbed the captain by his cor and dragged him down the stairs and into the captain''s cabin. Although Michael''s instincts told him that he wouldn''t find a thing inside, he still wanted to make sure before the shippletely sank into the water.
Michael turned the knob, but the door didn''t even bulge. Without a second thought, Michael kicked the door as it crumbled down like a withered piece of wood. When the door was broken down by Michael, an empty dark room with a table and a few chairs weed him. For a captain''s cabin, it waspletely empty, without a single parchment or a piece of paper except for the mao on the table. Michael strolled toward the table, dragging the ghost ship captain.
The floor creaked as Michael felt the ship tilting to a side. He quickly ascended to the air to keep himself bnced. The saltwater rapidly made its way to the cabin through the cracks, speeding up the sinking process. Michael quickly grabbed the map on the table and flew out through the door. But before he flew away from the sinking ship, Michael hovered toward the main sailing pole that slowly tilted to the side and was on the verge ofpletely falling down, he grabbed a silver box attached to it. The box had a handle on top and was engraved with numerous runes and designs.
With the box and the ghost ship captain, Michael flew straight to Big Bertha. Suddenly, Michael stopped in mid-air. Gaya felt something was wrong when she saw him suddenly stop flying, so she came to his side.
"Take him and this box to the castle," Michael''s voice had a bit of seriousness. Hence, Gaya didn''t ask him any further questions at the moment and took out a teleportation scroll from her space ring. She then grabbed the ghost ship captain by his cor and the box and activated the teleportation scroll. As Gaya vanished into thin air, something flew straight toward Michael. It was an arrow big enough to impale a dragon. The arrow was at least six meters long and as thick as an average man''s hand. When it was just a few inches away from his head, Michael caught the arrow as another arrow shot out of him from above.
Michael caught the second arrow as easily as he caught the first one. When the third one soared through the air toward him, Michael''s eyes turned pitch ck before dark beams shot out and burnt the arrow to oblivion. Then, Michael rose above the clouds at full speed, leaving an afterimage of himself thatsted for a few moments. Michael flew through the cluster of white clouds and found himself floating in a blue sky. Below him, the clouds stretched as far as one could see like a floor made of white cotton candy.
Then, another arrow shot out from the clouds, only to get obliterated by Michael''s dark beams. Michael indeed noticed these arrows obliterating Fairbank''s attempt to escape the battle via the mirror. Even when Michael was underwater, he scanned for the second ship but found none. Hence, Michael was led to believe the second ship or the thing responsible for the arrows left the area, out of his Environmental scanning range. To be honest, Michael was surprised when he suddenly sensed something above him.
Floating above the clouds, Michael activated his thermal vision and finally saw a ship the size of a typical fishing boat hovering in the air with a couple of men atop. They were using a giant ballista to fire these big arrows. This was another freaky invention he saw today. Not that the ballista itself surprised Michael, but the fact someone had built it to fire arrows from a mile afar surprised him.
For him, the ballista or the sonar wouldn''t be a problem at all. The same couldn''t be said for his army. With a hundred or so ballistas like this, one could take on an army andpletely obliterate them. He wanted to find the root of this problem before it grew into a giant headache for him and his army, especially if they could fly above the ground and target the army on the ground.
Michael cast the lightning dash spell, flew straight to the flying ship, and saw two men dressed in white fur coats and metal armor operating the ballista. With Michael''s ck robes, he stood out among the white clouds. The two of them were stunned to see the Dark Lord up close. As soon as they saw him, they reached for the daggers to cut their throats. They didn''t even try to fight the Dark Lord because they knew there was no point in fighting him.
Michael was disappointed to see them try to kill themselves. Without giving them the pleasure of a quick death, Michael dashed at them andnded right beside them in a blink of an eye.
"Nice ballista," said Michael before grabbing their throats. He looked at the daggers in their hands as dark beams shot out of his hands and cut off their wrists.
Blood sprayed out of their wrists. Still, they didn''t cry or shout. Instead, all Michael heard was muffled groans. He couldn''t see their faces through the conical mask they wore, resembling a Halloween ghost costume.
"Let me see your pretty faces," Michael headbutted one guy in the face and put him down. Then, he pulled out the mask from the other one.
"An elf?" Michael was surprised to see the pointy ears of the man. At that time, the one who was knocked down stood up back to his feet. The man tried to stop Michael from removing his mask, but Michael was too fast for the man to react in time. Michael expected to see an elf behind the mask, but to his surprise, the man behind the mask was a beastman. His face waspletely covered in fur and resembled a puma.
"An elf and a beastman working together. Now I have seen it all," Michael snickered.
Michael''s hold around their throats tightened as he expected them to scream. Once again, they only groaned and didn''t even utter a word. While Michael was manhandling the elf and the beast man, he looked over his shoulder to see Gaya flying toward him. When she saw the scene, her brows arched up.
"Who are these clowns, and what is this thing?" Gaya floated to the ballista and stared at it curiously. She was more curious about the ballista than the elf and the beastman. As far as she could tell, they were deadmen.
"This would be a good time for you two to say something," said Michael.
"Thu," instead of talking, the elf spat out. When the blob of saliva was just a few inches away from reaching Michael''s face, Gaya put her palm between the spit and Michael''s face. The blob of saliva hit her palm. The next thing the elf remembered was a sharp pain in his face. Michael heard a sickening crunch and saw the bone sticking out of the elf''s nose.
She snatched the elf from Michael''s hand and threw him overboard. Even after seeing Gaya throw his buddy overboard, the beastman had no signs of fear or shock in his eyes. The beastman remained calm and collected while the elf soared through the clouds and headed straight for the ocean. They were at least twelve kilometers high from the sea. So the elf had no chance of surviving the fall despite the sea below. The moment the elf''s body hit the ocean, his bones would shatter, and his internal organs would be a mess.
"Do you hear him screaming?" Michael asked Gaya, although he knew the answer very well. For a moment, Gaya was confused by his question. But when she thought about it, it felt weird to Gaya. any sane person would have screamed by now or at least let out some sound. Yet the elf uttered no word. Gaya jumped down from the ship to find out why the elf wasn''t screaming. Michael on the other hand, went with a simple approach. He forced open the beastman''s mouth. To his surprise, Michael saw no tongue inside the beastman''s mouth. He was not an expert in beastmen anatomy, but he was pretty sure they had tongues.
"Did the cat get your tongue?" Michael joked. Jokes aside, Michael had a bad feeling in his guts. Whatever group these guys belonged to, they had powerful weapons, training to control their emotions, and soldiers with no tongue. Thetter made sure that even if they were caught somehow, they wouldn''t be able to utter a word. After seeing no tongue inside his mouth, Michael couldn''t help thinking about whether the ghost ship captain was the same or not. In case he didn''t have a tongue, there was no point in interrogating him,
A soldier who was willing to lose their tongue and kill themselves wouldn''t give out the secrets of their employers. The beastman squirmed and even tried to bite Michael. His eyes were filled with intense hatred toward Michael. Meanwhile, Gaya returned to the ship with the elf in her hand. The elf''s golden hair was a mess, and he looked flustered after almost falling to his death. The elf''s mind may have been resistant to fear, but his body acted differently to the fall.
"Put them in another cell," said Michael, taking out a syringe filled with gray liquid. He injected the paralyzer into the beast man''s neck and did the same to the elf. The injection paralyzed both the elf and the beastman, so they would not be able to kill themselves in the cell. Afterward, Michael teleported the prisoners and the ballista. Before teleporting, he destroyed the flying ship to pieces with a ring of fire.
By the time Michael left the sea, the ghost shippletely sank into the water, and Big Bertha was on her way to Corey''s ind for repair. As for Michael, he had three prisoners to interrogate, although two of them had no way of speaking.
Chapter 858 H For Hammond
Back in the castle, Michael stood outside a room with the ss between him and the prisoners. Gaya put all three prisoners in the same room and tied them in a chair. Her white robes were drenched in blood. The blood wasn''t hers but the prisoners''. Gaya showed them no mercy. The ground beneath them was littered with nails, teeth, pieces of flesh, and blood. Unfortunately, no matter how many ribs she broke, nails she pulled out, and teeth she knocked out, the prisoners didn''t agree to give them information by writing. After three hours of nonstop torture, Gaya grew tired of it and stormed out of the room.
"I hate to say it, Michael, but they are not going to break," said Gaya.
"Anyone can be broken, Gaya. What irks me is even if we break them, I don''t think they''ll have something valuable to share. Someone with brains and resources is pulling the strings behind the scene. If what I''ve seen told me anything, it''s that their employer doesn''t make rookie mistakes. They pulled out their tongues to keep them from talking. The ballista might reveal more things than these guys,"
"So what should we do with them?" asked Gaya.
"Whoever is behind this, we should send them a message," Michael turned around and headed toward the door. Before turning the knob, Michael looked over his shoulder at Gaya.
"In blood," then, Michael left the room, leaving Gaya to deal with the three. Since the interrogation had bore no fruit, Michael''s next destination was the portal hall where they put the ballista. By the time Michael arrived at the hall, no one was there. Gaya put the ballista near the portal and Elidyr''s work table. The sight of a familiar weapon such as this reminded Michael of medieval war times on earth.
"I wonder who built this," Michael muttered to himself. Deep down, he felt there was a connection between the ballista and the creator of the death kiss crossbows. Otherwise, it would be a damn phenomenon to have two geniuses capable of building mass destruction at the same time. The first thing Michael noticed about the ballista was the wood they used to build it. Despite how big it looked, the ballista was extremely light. The reason was the wood which was sturdy yet light in weight. Michael walked around the big ballista, studying every inch of it.
"Where did they get this wood?" Michael asked himself. The wood didn''t seem like amon one. So if he could track down its origin, he knew he might be able to identify the person behind the recent attacks on his pirate crew. If Michael hadn''t seen the sonar pulses and the ballista, he would have let his subordinates figure it out. After seeing them however, he knew this was a task for him.
The ballista could simply fire out arrows the size between six to eight feet in length, and the weapon itself had the overall size of a fully grown elephant. While he was studying the ballista, Nightmare, and Vedora flew into the room. They almost crashed into the ballista when they saw Michael standing beside it. Fortunately, Nightmare was not at his true grown size. If that were the case, the ballista would have been crushed into pieces by him.
"Can''t you y outside?" Michael asked as Vedoranded on his shoulder and Nightmarended on top of the ballista.
"They are too much of chicken to fly through the storm," Nightmare chuckled,
"Who do you call a chicken, shithead?" Ayag snapped.
"Quit messing with her, Nightmare," Sarba tried to diffuse the situation as always.
"If you are going to fight, take it outside. I have something important to do," said Michael. He had no interest in meddling with their sibling quarreling. Finally, Vedora and Nightmare halted their bickering for a moment and turned their focus to the ballista.
"Oh yeah. I heard you caught the sons of butchers who were attacking our pirates," said Ayag.
"Caught one of them. But they are not talking," Michael shrugged.
"Why not? I bet we can make them talk," Ayag snickered.
"You can''t," Michael said as he squatted before the ballista and looked at its bottom. As he expected, there were countless gears and mechanisms built under. Although Michael knew he could have built a ballista with more efficiency and power, the one before him did surprise him. Whoever built the ballista must be a once-in-a-lifetime genius. Usually, the cultivators tended to be on the dumb side as they always preferred to solve problems with spells and murders. So they rarely had to use their brains.
"What if we did?"
Sarba tried to stop Ayag from betting against Michael because he felt something was amiss. However, their sister was hot-headed and had already hatched a n to get something out of their bet.
"You can ask me anything," Michael didn''t even turn around as he casually said. Just sending them away would be a win for Michael.
"You better keep your word then," Ayag proudly said before pping her wings. Having no choice, Sarba and Cain joined her in her quest to make the prisoners talk. After Vedora left the hall, Nightmare dropped down to the ground,nding beside Michael.
"They aren''t dead right?" asked Nightmare.
"Nope," Michael shook his head.
"They just don''t have tongues,"
For a moment, Nightmare had neither an expression nor a word. But when he imagined Ayag''s face when they realized the prisoners had no tongues, Nightmare broke intoughter. It took Nightmare a brief moment to stopughing and turn his gaze back to Michael, who seemedpletely focused on the ballista.
"You need any help? What are you looking for?" asked Nightmare.
"Creators leave their mark on the thing they created. It''s like a signature. So I am hoping to find one left behind, whoever built this," said Michael.
Nightmare frowned as he raised his leg and ced it on the crescent-shaped handle.
"Do you mean something like this?" Michael raised his head and took a closer look at the handle. However, he saw nothing but in wood.
"I don''t see anything," said Michael.
Nightmare was surprised because he could see a symbol resembling the letter ''H'' dimly glistening on the handle.
"Don''t you see the glow on the handle? Take a closer look," Nightmare rubbed the symbol. Still, Michael saw nothing.
"Hmm," Michael rubbed his chin as he realized the mark may be invisible to the naked eye. Luckily, Michael had various visions as he switched to the thermal vision first. The result disappointed Michael as he saw no symbol like Nightmare suggested. So Michael switched to another vision and saw nothing. One by one, Michael used all of his vision, yet the result was the same. Michael knew dragons had a special vision that enabled them to see the world from a different view. Unfortunately, there was no potion or technique to mimic their sight.
Therefore, Michael had to rely on Nightmarepletely. However, that didn''t mean Michael had no way of seeing the symbol. He quickly took out a parchment, an ink bottle, and a tter. Under Nightmare''s curious gaze, Michael poured the ink onto the tter.
"Draw me what you see on the parchment," said Michael.
"Nice idea," Nightmare nodded as he dipped his w into the ink.
Michael watched Nightmare slowly draw the symbol on the parchment.
"Done," Nightmare surprised Michael with his drawing skills. To be honest, Nightmare seemed like a better painter than Michael himself. When Nightmare lifted his leg off the parchment, Michael saw a symbol resembling the letter ''H''.
"H?" Michael tilted his head as he took the parchment in his hand.
The H on the parchment looked exactly the same as the symbol Hammond engraved on his inventions. Of course, Michael didn''t know any of this, just like Hammond didn''t know the Dark Lord was staring at his symbol. In fact, Hammond didn''t even know someone had used his invention to attack the Dark Lord''s army. As Michael was staring at the parchment, Ricky entered the hall carrying a golden scroll in his hand.
"My Lord," Ricky bowed toward Michael and handed over the scroll to Michael.
"We received this via an eagle," said Ricky as Michael opened the scroll.
Nightmare pped his wings once and leaped onto Michael''s shoulder to have a better view of the scroll. Thanks to Gaya, who taught him how to read, Nightmare could read everything on the scroll.
"I will wait for you at the same ce we met before. Meet me at dawn tomorrow," Nightmare slowly read the words.
Unlike Nightmare, Michael recognized the handwriting as soon as heid eyes on the scroll. To be honest, he was waiting for a scroll from the empress. He had a feeling she wanted to talk about the dwarves and their mass destructive weapons. One way or another, the empress''s problem got solved. She wanted the weapons gone, and Noah made sure of that. But Michael had a feeling the destruction of the weapon and the prototype was not the end but only the beginning.
"You can leave," Michael dismissed Ricky and turned his gaze back to the ballista.
"They want to y with toys," Michael muttered as he walked around the ballista. The images of Fairbank and his crew''s death shed across Michael''s mind. He may have not known them personally, but they all served him loyally. It was his responsibility to avenge them. No matter what, Michael wouldn''t rest until he made whoever initiated the n to attack them pay with their lives.
"I will show the toys I have," Michael snickered. His mind always began to craft new weapons to build but first, he had to send a message to whoever built the ballista and decided to use it against him.
The next day when the sun rose, the entire continent of Ozer was in shock. But it wasn''t Michael''s intention to terrorize the Ozer continent. Instead, he wanted everyone in Elon to know what would happen if they dared to go against the Dark Lord. Michael particrly wanted the news to reach Noah''s home, the Winston manor who was preparing for the baby shower.
Unknown to them, the god of time and space was nning to crash their party.
Chapter 859 The Man Behind The Inventions
Alicia and Norvin were on their way to Ithn, atleast where Ithn was before Michael obliterated the entire ind. The Guardian Guild had sealed everything around in a five-mile radius with an array to prevent people from traveling to the radioactive area. Before the Guardians sealed the area under Noah''s order, rogue cultivators and people dived into the ocean, hoping to find some treasures underneath. Some of them did find some valuables that fell into the water before Michael sted the ind.
In the daytime, the area looked no different than the rest, but at night, one could see the glistening array around the area. The sea was calm, pulsing rhythmically and breathing with cadence. By the time Alicia and Norvin reached their destination, they were weed by a couple of guardians who were tasked with patrolling the area. These guardians'' main task was to prevent people from treasure hunting in the water. Ever since they were assigned, nothing ever interesting happened. Some days, these guardians hoped for something to happen. Unfortunately for them, their prayers were answered by the Dark Lord himself.
"Guardian Captain Alicia," a blonde-haired youngster bowed toward Alicia and nodded at Norvin, who sat atop Alicia''s shoulders in his true form.
"Where is it?" Alicia asked the guardian.
Fear and relief emerged on the guardian''s face at the same time. He motioned them to follow him as he ascended higher into the air. Then, the guardian slowly flew forward until Alicia noticed something hanging from a couple of ck balloons. The midnight ck immediately reminded Alicia of the Dark Lord. Everyone in the world knew the Dark Lord was obsessed with the color ck, which symbolized darkness.
More guardians were hovering around the balloons while keeping a safe distance from them in case they exploded. They all turned around and heaved a sigh of relief when they saw Alicia and Norvin. From this moment onward, it was Alicia''s problem. To be honest, they didn''t want to deal with the balloons. Alicia noticed the intense fear in their eyes.
"Damn," Norvin''s brows arched up as he saw the headless bodies hanging from the balloons. Their severed heads were ced in their hands. It was a message. The question was, who were these people?
"Guardian Captain,'' another red-haired girl slowly hovered toward Gaya with a ck skull in her hand.
"We found this in one of the bodies," the girl said, handing the ck skull to Alicia.
"ck skull. The symbol of the Dark Lord," Norvin muttered as he confirmed that this was done by the Dark Lord and not by someone else. After what he did to Ithn and Thusians, Norvin knew there was no one stupid enough to mimic the Dark Lord''s actions. Trying to copy him was equal to signing their death warrants. The guardians had records of copycats for every mass murderer ever walked the world. However, the only one with no copycats was the Dark Lord. Besides, the cruelty and the fear in the severed heads'' eyes were a clear indication of who killed them.
"When did you find them?" Alicia asked in a tone colder than her usual self.
The guardians shuddered.
"This morning," answered the blonde-haired youngster.
"What were you doing until someone entered this area and ced them right under your noses?" asked Alicia. Norvin had the same question running in his mind; the only exnation he coulde up with was ipetence. As Alicia said, someone from the Dark Lord''s army entered one of the most protected areas, ced balloons with bodies, and escaped the area without anyone noticing. Just imagining the sequence of events frustrated Norvin. Ever since the Dark Lord destroyed Ithn and settled down in the dark ocean, the Guardian Guild was desperately looking for a win against him. His power and influence grew with each passing day as the people''s trust in the guild lowered. Now if the newspapers got a whiff of this, Norvin knew the people would be more afraid of the Dark Lord than they would trust the Guardian Guild.
The guardians gawked at each other and lowered their heads. They had no exnation. Initially, one of them thought the Dark Lord teleported the balloons with the bodies here, butter they realized the array formed an anti-teleportation area around. In other words, no one would be able to teleport in or out of the area. As Norving turned his gaze to the ck skull in Alicia''s hands, he noticed something in the skull''s mouth. He dropped down to Alicia''s hand and pulled out a piece of paper from the skull''s mouth.
Everyone turned their gaze toward Norvin and waited for him to read what was written on the piece of paper.
"Better luck next time, clowns. P.S nice array," Norvin crushed the paper, gritting his teeth. While reading the words, Norving couldn''t help imagining the Dark Lordughing at them.
When Alicia heard the Dark Lord calling them clowns, she almost crushed the skull in her hand to pieces. On the other hand, the guardians hoped she wouldn''t vent her anger on them. Suddenly, the ck skull in Alicia''s hands trembled, letting out a strange whistling noise. The guardians almost leaped back, expecting the skull to explode.
"If you found out who they were and their buddies, they''d be alive," The guardians felt a chill hearing the Dark Queen''s voiceing from the skull. After hearing the Dark Queen''s voice, the guardians looked more terrified. Alicia had a feeling that the Dark Queen herself came here to put these balloons and the bodies. One thing was certain for Alicia, the Dark Lord didn''t know who these people were, and he tortured them to no avail. This made Alicia more curious about their identities.
"We''ll take this from here," Alicia turned her gaze back to the guardians.
"Be morepetent next time," Alicia snickered before taking the bodies and leaving the area. For some reason, Novin had a feeling that if they could unveil the mystery behind the bodies'' identities, they might be able to gain an advantage over the Dark Lord.
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The following day started with nothing too dramatic like the previous day for Michael. Since the empress wanted to meet him again at the exact location they had met before, Michael woke up early and headed to the lone mountain. As he was flying in the sky, the orange and yellow bright ball began to appear like the colors oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. The sun slowly rose higher and higher as the colors became more vibrant. The sky and water connected with each other, and the light struck across the water. With each passing second, the sun began to glow brighter and brighter, eliminating the darkness of the night. The sunrise made the water glisten while the birds began to fly out of their nests peacefully. Michael had a sense of gentleness and calm as the birds chirped and the wind breezed over him.
By the time Michael reached the mountain, he had noticed the empress was waiting for him with Bdur. Michael didn''t expect the empress to arrive at the location earlier than they had agreed.
"You are early as well," Empress Nithroel greeted Michael with the most beautiful smile that shined just as bright as the morning sun.
"Good morning, empress," Michael Michael greeted back the empress andnded beside her. Then, the two of them stared at the rising sun in silence for a few moments. Michael eventually broke the silence.
"I assume you heard what happened at the Han Torum shipyard,"
"And I assume you know the ones who destroyed the ce were not elves but the guardians,"
As Michael expected, the empress knew what really went down, unlike the dwarves. The moment Michael read the news stating that the shipyard in Embercrest had a mysterious explosion and the dwarves were suspecting the elves for the explosion. Many believed the news because everyone in the world knew the hatred between the dwarves and the elves. However, Michael knew it was all bullshit. Even if Michael didn''t know it was Noah who destroyed the prototype, he wouldn''t have suspected the elves because it was too obvious.
"Who would have thought Noah Winston, the Supreme Guardian, was capable of such trickery?" Michael said with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
"You were supposed to deal with the prototype and the weapons," Bdur interjected as the empress raised her hand, stopping Bdur from speaking further. Michael slightly turned his head to see Bdur standing behind Nithroel.
"In case you haven''t noticed, I am not working for you. I am working with you. Huge difference,"
"Ignore my unruly subordinate," Nothroel''s eyes glistened with authority and fury. With a single nce, she made Bdur take a step back. Even Michael felt the overwhelming aura of a ruler around her.
"It''s okay," Michael defused the situation.
"One or another, the weapon and the blueprints were dealt with. The one who built the weapon is with the guardian now. So everything with the dwarves will go back to what it used to be," said Michael.
"The real brains behind the weapon and the prototype was a human. An orphan named Hammond," Nithroel, gave Michael something important in his hunt for the inventor. As soon as Michael heard the name, the image of Nightmare''s drawing shed across his eyes.
"H for Hammond," Michael said to himself.
"Here''s everything we know about Hammond. I hope you will find it useful," with a flick of her wrist, Nithroel took out an elegantly rolled parchment from her space ring.
"Take this if you think he is a threat to both of us. As you said, you are working with me, not for me," Nithroel extended the scroll toward Michael as he took it from her without wasting a second. As far as he was concerned, Hammond was more of a threat to him and his army than he was to Nithroel.
"Deal with him however you see fit. I just do not want to see his toys threatening my empire in any way," although Nothroel seemed calm and collected, Michael could see the hidden killing intent in her eyes. If this Hammond guy was within her reach, Michael doubted he would still be alive.
"Don''t worry about him anymore. I will deal with him personally," Michael said with a murderous grin.
Chapter 860 Assassination Of Ethan I
Silvery white moonlight sprinkled on the ground as the blue and blue sky was dotted with countless small stars. The chaste moon sails like a silvery boat in the deep blue sea. The night''s aroma pervaded the air, woven into a soft, covering all the scenery inside. The gauze-like clouds floated in the sky, which seemed to hide the ethereal fairnd of its own. The distant sky was connected with the world, forming a beautiful scene of heaven and earth. The ck, blue, ck, and blue sky was like a piece of paper, and the stars and stars were like beautiful flowers, like a sparklingmp, lying quietly in this ck and blue.
Under the dazzling night sky, the baby shower for the soon-to-be mom of the second child, Katherine, finally arrived. This was one of the days when the Winston manor outshined the starry sky itself. The Winston manor and thepound around it glittered brightly like a magicalnd. The hustle and bustle of chatter, cheers of celebration, the tantalizing smell of warm stew, fry meat, and caramel desserts wafted the air. The Winston manor emitted a golden glow.
Inside the manor, the atmosphere was full of positive energy, love, andughter. Multiple games were being yed, special meals were being made, and tons of gifts were being opened by the mother-to-be, Katherine Winston. Every aspect of the baby shower was baby themed. The decorations were things such as pacifiers, rattles, and bottles, and there was even a cake made in the shape of a baby in diapers. The cake was surrounded by cupcakes that had pacifiers on them, and every dessert was a lovely shade of blue because Katherine''s favorite color was blue. Adorable baby books were being passed around and filled with positive notes and pieces of advice that experienced mothers felt would help prepare Katherine for when the baby came.
Emelda was running around the main hall, supervising the works with Katherine''s first baby in her arms. Katherine was the main star of the event as she sat on a throne forged and decorated by the finest cksmiths in Elon, watching the joyous celebration before her. Her bloated belly was a symbol of love, happiness, and an uing blessing to her and the entire Winston family. As the Lord of the family, Ethan spent no expense on the event. Every single aspect of the baby shower was led by the best of the bests. This joyous event drew every Winston under the same roof, except for one.
While the cooks were preparing the feast, Ethan and Diana were inside the rooms, preparing their own gifts for Katherine and Andrews. Dianabed her striking golden hair standing before the mirror. Ethan saw the despair hiding deep within Diana''s eyes in the reflection. She was better than hiding her true emotions, but Ethan knew her better than anyone to see what was inside her heart.
"Did you make sure the arrays are in ce and the guards are on alert?" Diana asked. Her voice was far from rxed and sounded serious as hell.
"For God''s sake Dian, I personally checked everything. Nothing bad is gonna happen today. Will you please rx?" Ethan walked behind Diana and ced his hands on her shoulder. He gently squeezed, reassuring her that nothing would happen today.
"I don''t know, Ethan. I have a bad feeling about this," Diana''s brows arched up as she slowly turned around.
"Look Dian," Ethan cupped Diana''s face and looked her in the eyes.
"Rowena and Noah are here. No one can do any harm to our family when they are here. I thought you''d be more worried that he wouldn''t be here with all of us, as a family,"
Diana shook her head,
"It''s better he isn''t. Thest time Katherine was pregnant, he threatened to kill her and the baby," Diana sighed.
"You know he didn''t mean that," said Ethan.
"Of course, I know he didn''t mean it, but we cannot take his side without revealing the truth. I just hope one day, we''ll all celebrate something together, as a family," Diana''s voice stuttered because, as far as she could tell, the chances of their happy family reunion were little to nothing. Still, Diana had hope and faith in a higher power.
"My Lord, My Lady," Samuel knocked on the door,
"Young Master Noah is home,"
Diana and Ethan felt a bit relieved and smiled when they heard Samuel.
"We''ll be there in a minute," Ethan answered Samuel and sent him away.
"We should go," Diana nodded as she put a strand of hair hanging on her face behind her ear. The two of them left the room and headed to the main hall to join the rest of the family. Everyone in the hall turned their gazes toward the lord anddy of the family walking down the stairs together. They saw Sabrina, their youngest child standing between Rowena and Noah. Looking at the three of them, Ethan and Diana imagined Michael standing behind them.
"Father, mother," The three of them bowed toward Diana and Ethan, showing their respect. After the three bowed, Andrews walked to Noah''s side and greeted Diana and Ethan with an ear-to-ear grin.
"There you are," Emelda rushed to Diana''s side with Andrew''s boy in her hand. When she came to Diana''s side, the boy reached out to Ethan.
"Ggpaaaa," the boy mumbled as Ethan took the chubby little boy in his arms.
"My little minion likes me so much huh," Ethan said in a yful voice while rubbing the boy''s cuddly belly.
"How was your trip to the treacherous ocean?" Diana asked Noah.
"Couldn''t find what I was looking for. But I heard someone has lifted the curse from the princess," Noah emphasized the word someone as though he knew exactly who lifted the curse.
"At Least someone was there to help the princess," Diana said with a gentle smile. Then, she walked toward Katherine with her children following her behind. Rowena remained calm as ever, looking around the hall. On the other hand, Sabrina''s thoughts drifted off to a distance.
"I hope the price for the help was worth it," said Noah. The moment Noahid his eyes on King Porter and the Queen, he knew they had struck a deal with the Dark Lord to cure their daughter. To be honest, Noah didn''t me the king or take action against the king for colluding with the Dark Lord, even though Noah could have. He just hoped the price for curing their daughter was worth it.
"Saving one''s child is always worth any price, Noah. You will know this when something happens to your own," said Diana.
"Where is Samuel?" Rowena asked Diana after looking around the hall for their butler.
"He went to Icefair to get something for me," Emelda answered Rowena from behind.
"I won''t let anything happen to our family, mother," said Noah.
Without uttering a word, Diana bent down, grabbed a handful of sandal paste, and smeared it on Katherine''s cheeks.
"Praying for a safe and healthy delivery for both you and baby," Diana wished Katherine before walking out of the main hall to get some peace. Ever since she returned to her own self, Diana sought more privacy and some alone time. The crowd made her uneasy for some reason. As they exited the main hall, they stepped into Diana''s garden. Except for a couple of guards, no one was in the garden as Diana ordered.
The four of them peacefully strolled through the garden and settled around a stone table.
"You seem different mother," Rowena said when Diana sat on the stone bench.
"So it wasn''t just me who felt that way," Noah smiled.
As they were gathered around the table, a couple of maids carried a silver tter with orange juice and ced the sses on the table.
"Thank you dear," Diana dismissed the maids as each picked up a ss to quench their thirst, except Sabrina.
"Something in your mind, Sabi?" Diana asked, avoiding Rowena''s remark about something different about her.
Sabrina moved the ss back and forth without answering Diana.
"Sabrina," Rowena''s voice made Sabrina snap back to reality. They all turned their gazes at Sabrina.
"Do you have something to tell us, Sabi?" asked Diana. Because Diana was busy tracking down people who tried to conspire against Noah and Michael behind their backs, she neglected her duties as a mother and thedy of the house. Thanks to Emelda, no one noticed Diana''s absence and her neglect. The one who was affected more by her absence was Sabrina. Unlike Noah and Rowena, Sabrina spent most of her time cultivating in Winston manor. Wherever she looked for Diana, she would be outside, murdering people. But to the members of Winston manor, Diana was meditating in her room.
"I had a bad dreamst night. That''s all," said Sabrina.
"What is the dream about?" Noah asked Sabrina.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Just as Sabrina was about to tell them about her dream, Emelda''s scream resonated from the main hall. Noah immediately stood up, knocking out the sses in the process. Diana''s instinct kicked in as she moved with lightning speed to catch all the sses before they could hit the ground and shatter into pieces.
''
But Noah and Sabrina didn''t notice this as they dashed into the main hall. Rowena, on the other hand, nced at Diana for a moment before disappearing from the garden. In a blink of an eye, Rowena appeared in the main hall right beside Katherine. As soon as Noah stepped into the hall, his heart skipped a beat.
"Father!" Sabrina screamed, looking at Ethan. He was on the ground, holding his gut as blood oozed through his hand. Everyone was stunned and speechless. Noah''s body began to shiver as he sat beside his father and raised his head to ce it on hisp. Then, with a flick of his wrist, Noah took out a healing potion. He poured the potion into Ethan''s mouth without asking any questions. The sudden explosion of killing intent around Rowena made everyone in the hall copse, including Katherine.
Rowena''s gaze swept across the hall to find whoever was responsible for her father''s state and found a human sized hole in the cake they bought for Katherine. Whoever stabbed Ethan was hiding inside the cake until he or she ambushed Ethan.
"Ethan," Rowena turned her gaze at Diana, who stammered toward Ethan and dropped to her knees before him. Her eyes turned red as tears rolled out.
"Father," Noah emptied the healing potion, but the wound did not close up as he desperately hoped.
Diana''s mouth dried as she saw green veins running through Ethan''s neck like spider webs.
"It''s not working," Noah clenched his fist as he took out another healing potion and tried to force it into Ethan''s mouth. For the first time in his life, Noah couldn''t think straight. His mind wentpletely nk seeing his father on the verge of death.
"He''s cursed," Sabrina mumbled.
Chapter 861 Assassination Of Ethan II
(A few moments ago)
After Diana took the children outside to her garden, Ethan spent his time socializing with all the guests and giving his blessing to Katherine. Andrews''s son was still in his arms and refused to leave. The little boy loved Ethan more than he loved his parents.
"Come on, Keith. Come to papa,'' Andrews tried to take the boy away from Ethan as he noticed the royal carriage of King Porter parked outside. Soon, the sound of heavy boots and metal armor nking grew louder and louder as King Porter entered the hall with his loyal soldiers leading the way. After the royal guards escorted Porter inside, they bowed and joined the royal guards of other nations, leaving their kings to socialize with the others.
As soon as King Porter arrived at the hall, King Crawford Bredia, Katherine''s father, weed his fellow king with a broad grin. The two of them embraced each other as a sign of respect and firmly shook each other''s hands.
"I am so d you could make it, Porter," King Bredia said, still keeping Porter''s hand in his. It had been a year since Porter saw Bredia, who looked much younger and seeped with vigor. The reason for King Bredia''s transformation was Andrews and Katherine. Although he was still the king of Bredia, Andrews, and Katherine took care of most things. Under their rule, Kingdom Bredia prospered despite the monstrous growth of Bradford under the rule of the Sunrise sect. The fact that the Dark Lord hailed from the Sunrise sect and he loved Rivertown like it was his own made Bradford untouchable. Noah may have shut down the Majestic and Hades, which used to be the pirs of the economy in Bradford, yet ire found new means of revenue through farming and trading.
Like weed gets the water poured for the crop, Kingdom Bredia benefitted from the trade routes ire created. Even merchants from other continents visited Rivertown and Bradford to trade and exchange gifts with the most powerful sect in the Elon continent.
"How is Princess Chanel?" King Bredia asked Porter.
"She is doing perfectly fine, thanks to the gods," said Porter and quickly turned his gaze toward Ethan to avoid further questions regarding Chanel and her curse. King Porter was standing in the Holy Maiden and Supreme Guardian''s home, and thest thing he wanted to talk about was something rted to the Dark Lord.
"Lord Ethan," Porter greeted Ethan,
"The little one," Porter couldn''t help pinching baby Keith''s chubby cheeks.
"King Porter, didn''t we tell you toe with your family? Where is Queen rice and Princess Chanel?" asked Ethan.
"I know, Lord Ethan. But rice had taken Chanel to her father''s home. Chanel is still not ready to venture outside the kingdom,"
"I understand," Ethan patted Porter on the shoulder. As they were conversing, some of the representatives of Royal Land arrived at the baby shower and showered Katherine withvish gifts. Even the Holy Church sent people to attend the event just to curry favor with the Holy Maiden and the Supreme Guardian. Almost every single noble family in the Elon continent attended the event regardless of their busy schedules. Since Diana was not the best when it came to socializing, Ethan met and greeted each and every guest while keeping Keith from crying out loud.
While Ethan was attending to the guests, Natalia Winston went outside to receive the cake they had ordered from the beast kingdom in Awor Continent. The beastmen had some of the best cooks in the entire world, including three 6-star Chefs. Ethan had to call several favors to get this special cake from the beastmen kingdom. The cake was taller than Natalia herself and covered with a special box made of thin nks.
"Take this inside," Natalia ordered the Winston manor guards to take the cake inside. The guards rolled the box as gently as they could. At that moment, everyone thought the box contained a human-sized cake resembling Katherine.
"Finally," Ethan heaved a sigh of relief when he saw the golden wooden box. The moment the guards brought the cake inside, its fresh aroma and sweetness made everyone salivate for a piece. As Ethan vowed to himself, he brought nothing but the best to the baby shower.
"Keep it close to Katherine," said Emelda. One by one, the guests who had newly arrived went to Katherine and smeared sandal paste on her face. The hall brimmed with joy and positive energy as Ethan forgot all of his problems and celebrated the baby shower with everyone else. Emelda smiled, looking at Ethan,ughing and joking around as he was used to before he learned everything about Diana''s second son. Emelda wished they could stay like this forever. Although she was not cruel enough to say Dean didn''t deserve a loving family, she didn''t think the Dark Lord could have a happy ending after everything he had done.
When Emelda went to the doorway to the garden, she saw Diana talking to her children. Emelda gawked at them for a moment and decided not to approach them. By the time she returned to Katherine''s side, the soon-to-be mother tucked Emelda''s sleeves. Katherine motioned Emelda to give her ears.
"Can I get something to eat?" Katherine whispered into Emelda''s ears.
"Just wait for a few minutes, darling," Emelda gently kissed Katherin on top of her head. She looked around, noticing a few new faces approaching Katherine to give their blessings. Eventually, when everyone in the hall had done their part, Emelda gestured at the guards to open the box containing the cake.
"Everyone, please gather around. We are going to cut the cake now," Emelda''s voice swept across the hall, silencing the crowd.
"Go and bring Diana and the others," Ethan ordered one of the maids before strolling toward Emelda. Keith yed with Ethan''s ears, trying to chew them. All the kings, nobles, and elders of various sects gathered around Katherine as Emelda waited for Diana to arrive.
"They will be here. Go on, open the box," Andrews said. Then, Emelda twisted the knob attached to the side of the box and watched the box sling open. A dim light appeared in the box, along with the sound of a baby''s cry, before the wooden box crumbled into tiny pieces, revealing the cake inside. Katherine and the others were stunned to see the cake that looked exactly like Katherine. The beastmen chefs poured their hearts and souls into the cake as they etched every single detail about Katherin into the cake. If it wasn''t for the golden icing and cherries on top of the cake, one would have mistaken the cake for the real Katherine.
"Here you go," Emelda picked up a knife with a golden bow tied around it and handed it over to Katherine.
"Carve out a nice piece of yourself," the crowd chuckled, hearing Emelda''s words. Katherine gawked around for a moment, searching for Diana and her children.
? "Where are they?" Ethan mumbled. He was about to step aside from the crowd when he saw the cake trembling. As a former adventurer, Ethan developed an ability to sense an imminent threat. For some reason, his instincts screamed at him as he pushed Katherine away from the cake. To everyone''s shock, a ck hand punched through the cake from within and tried to stab Ethan.
Ethan immediately grabbed the hand, twisting it.
"Argh," Ethan heard a muffled groan. He put in enough strength to break the wrist, but the assassin ignored the pain as he dashed out of the cake, destroying itpletely in the process. The assassin raised his other hand as an evil-looking dagger oozing dark red smoke appeared in his hand. He brought down the dagger at Ethan. Everything happened in a blink of an eye. Except for Ethan, no one reacted in time and called for the guards. They were too startled. Meanwhile, Ethan moved his body to the side, evading the dagger by an inch. He kicked the assassin in the chest to put some distance between them. Baby Keith was terrified of the dark-robed assassin and began to cry. Every fiber in Ethan''s body prioritized keeping Keith safe over everything, including his own life. The assassin was extremely agile and noble. He leaped into the air and cast a spell as a bright light shed across the room, blinding everyone.
Ethan closed his eyes but covered Keith with both his hands and held him closer to his chest. Suddenly, Ethan felt a sharp pain in his stomach. Despite the excruciating pain, Ethan didn''t let go of Keith. The assassin stabbed Ethan a couple of times until Ethan managed to grab the assassin''s wrist and twist it. The dagger slipped off the assassin''s hand as Ethan stomped the ground with enough force to make the dagger bounce up. Before the assassin could react, Ethan grabbed the dagger in one hand and stabbed the assassin in the shoulder.
Ethan heard the assassin groan as the bright sh finally faded away.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Emelda screamed when she snapped back to reality and saw Ethan copse down to the ground. So much blood gushed out of Ethan''s stomach, turning the floor beneath him wet and red. The assassin was nowhere to be found. When the guards rushed to Ethan''s side, it was toote.
"Keith!'' Andrews and Katherine screamed out loud as Andrews plucked Keith from the ground and held him closer to his chest. Seeing Keith safe in Andrew''s arms, Ethan heaved a sigh of relief.
"Search the area!" King Bredia roared as he dashed toward Katherine. The Winston manor guards immediately surrounded the family while the royal guards rushed to their master''s side.
"Ghhhhrgg," Ethan tried to speak, yet no words escaped his mouth. The pain was too much to bear, as it felt like he was being eaten from the inside. He could feel his life force slowly leaving his body. Every breath he took made the pain worse. When he was in pain and realized he was dying, he only saw one thing before his eyes, his family.
"Dia¡Dian¡" Ethan mumbled. If he was about to die, he wanted to see Diana onest time before he closed his eyes.
"Father!" Sabrina pushed through the crowd and shouted when she saw Ethan. This was the dream she hadst night. She saw her father die in her arms as she watched the light of life, leaving Ethan''s eyes helplessly in her dream.
Chapter 862 Assassination Of Ethan III
Noah sent all the nobles out, and to be honest, they didn''t want to stick around any more than Noah wanted them to. Diana''s body just froze as her mind wentpletely nk. The killing intent radiated from Diana surprised everyone. However, saving Ethan took priority over Diana''s murderous aura. Sabrina squeezed Ethan''s hands as tears rainbows down from her eyes.
"Father," Sabrina sobbed. On the other hand, Noah emptied the third bottle of healing potion into Ethan''s mouth. King Porter and King Bredia couldn''t help shivering. Considering their close rtionship with the Winston family, they didn''t leave as the others. The previously joyful atmosphere took a dark turn in a blink of an eye. The cake the assassin was hiding inside turned into a squishy mess. Everyone in the Winston family sat around Ethan and sobbed, praying for the gods to help Ethan. Most of them were still in shock at what just had transpired.
"Move," After seeing the healing potion have no effect on Ethan, Rowena ced her hand on Ethan''s stab wound. Among everyone in the hall, Rowena remained the calmest. Contrary to how she looked, Rowena burned with intense rage inside. She knew saving her father''s life was more important than finding the assassin at that moment. Since the healing potion couldn''t close the wound, Rowena summoned frost energy as a thickyer of ice started to cover the wound slowly. The ice on the wound stopped the bleeding and somewhat lessened Ethan''s pain.
"Why did you tell us he was cursed?" asked Rowena. This was the first time Rowena''s hands trembled without her control. Her slender hands were drenched in Ethan''s blood. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn''t cancel out the sobbing sounds.
"Do something," Sabrina stuttered, looking at Noah and Rowena. If someone could save her father, it was one of her siblings.
"Ethan," Diana sat beside Ethan''s head and remained without uttering a word. Looking at Diana like this freaked the crap out of Emelda.
"I saw father dying of curse in my dream. I didn''t know how to tell you. I should have told everyone. It''s my fault," tears gushed out of Sabrina''s eyes, and rain downed upon Ethan''s chest.
"Andrew," before Noah answered Sabrina, he turned his gaze toward Andrews.
"Take your family and go to the shelter," Noah ordered Andrews. The Winston manor had a secure vault built underground for the family members to seek shelter in case of natural disasters or wars. Only the core members of Winston''s family knew how to ess the shelter, and Andrews was one of them.
"No-" Andrews refused to leave Ethan''s side but was cut short by Rowena.
"Go," Rowena interjected. Her cold murderous voice shook Andrews to the core. After hearing her, his legs automatically moved upstairs. Emelda saw Natalia trying to approach Diana, but she quickly stopped her little sister by her arms and sent her with Andrews.
"I cannot leave him," Natalia shook her head,
"This is not the time to argue, Natalia. Go with Andrews and stay there until I say otherwise. Please," Emelda begged, tears running down her face. As much as Natalia wanted to stay with her big sisters, she knew there was nothing she could do to help Ethan. All she could do was pray to the gods for Ethan.
"Uncle¡" Natalia and Emelda froze when they heard little Keith''s first word out of his mouth. They all expected Keith''s first word to be either mom or dad. But it was ''uncle'' instead of what the others expected. Little Keith proved that he loved Ethan as much as he loved Andrews and Katherine or more. What should have been a joyous asion turned out to be such a miserable situation. No one couldugh or celebrate Keith''s first word. Instead, Emelda and Natalia led Andrews and Katherine outside the main hall under the protection of Winston manor guards.
"We need to take him to my pce," Rowena said.
"Let''s go," Noah stood up, lifting Ethan in his arms. Diana stood up like a lifeless zombie and followed Noah behind. They headed for Rowena''s room, where Rowena had a personal teleportation array to reach her flying castle. But when Noah was about to take a step outside the hall, Ethan''s body shook as he began to cough of dark blood, almost the color of pitch ck.
"What''s happening?" Porter Forbes asked as Noah halted his steps.
"The curse is not letting him out of this hall," Diana spoke without any emotion. She sounded like a dead person. Just as she said, when Noah tried to step outside the hall, Ethan coughed up more blood. Noah immediately stepped away from the entrance as he didn''t dare to y with his father''s life. The green veins running through Ethan''s neck reached his jaws. If not for the frost hindering the curse, the poisonous curse would have reached Ethan''s head and ended his life.
"We can''t leave this hall," Noah said to Rowena through the lump formed in his throat. Every word took an effort toe out of his mouth. The sadness and anger rendered Noah''s brain useless. He looked for his big sister''s guidance.
For a moment, Rowena closed her eyes as the others saw a strange light appear from her forehead and form a light beam. The light beam radiated a whistling noise and glowed bright enough to blind everyone. When Rowena opened her eyes, the light beam lost its glow as Bai Ning stepped out of the beam. The moment Bai Ningid her eyes on Rowena, she was stunned by the scene before her. The air that should have smelled of freshly baked cake and sandal paste reeked of blood and evil energy.
"Cure him," Rowena ordered Bai Ning. the old woman limped toward Ethan with her hunched back and cane in her hand.
"What happened here, Holy Maiden?" Bai Ning''s words sounded calm despite the bloody body of Ethan in Noah''s arms.
"Lift the curse first," Rowena coldly said instead of narrating the events that led to the current situation. To be honest, she had no idea what had happened while they were outside. If she was inside, she would have torn apart the assassin before he could have raised a finger against her father.
Bai Ning unfettered no word as she ced her hand on Ethan''s chest. As soon as Bai Ning touched Ethan, she felt a bolt of lightning running down her spine. The bacsh almost knocked Bai Ning down to the ground. Noah saw the sweat beads forming on the old woman''s face as she gritted her teeth as though she was enduring intense pain. While Bai Ning was trying to lift the curse, Rowena continued to apply frost on Ethan''s face to prevent the blood from gushing out. She had to keep the blood loss in control until Bai Ning lifted the curse.
"This curse is nothing like I''ve ever seen," Bai Ning mumbled. Her words snuffed out the little bit of hope Sabrina had for her father. Recently, everything she dreamed about began to happen in real life. The only person she shared this with was Ethan. However, he asked her to ignore and pay no mind to this phenomenon because Ethan didn''t want Sabrina to be a freak of nature like her siblings. Instead, he wished Sabrina to have a normal life away from all the wars and hostility. Normal life may be just a wishful dream for her siblings, unlike Sabrina. However, Sabrina had started to develop powers that were beyond any mortalprehension and joined her siblings as another freak of nature. If the word of her power to foresee the future escaped, the Skyhall would swoop up Sabrina in the name of the greater good. They would groom Sabrina to be the next Holy Maiden after Rowena.
"Argh!" Suddenly, a grayish mist shot out of Ethan''s body and sted Bai Ning away. The old woman flung in the air and hit the wall pretty hard before falling down. The ground beneath Noah cracked when he resisted the force that sted away Bai Ning. When the old woman got back to her feet, her face looked pale like paper.
"The curse," Rowena growled with intense killing intent in her eyes. The temperature in the room dropped by several degrees to the point everyone began to see their own breath in the air. Bai Ning shivered to even look Rowena in the eyes. However, the curse she felt terrified Bai Ning more than Rowena. One thing for certain, the curse radiated an energy that didn''t belong to the mortal world. It was a miracle Ethan was able to resist the curse to this point. She even doubted whether Ethan was a mere mortal or someone special like Diana and her children, except Sabrina.
"I¡I¡" Bai Ning stuttered.
"Speak before I lose my patience," Rowena''s thunderous voice swept across the hall, pushing the old woman several steps back.
"The curse cannot be lifted, Holy Maiden. I am sorry," As soon as Sabrina heard Bai Ning''s words, she copsed to the ground. A tear rolled out of King Bredia''s eyes and Porter stood beside Bredia with his eyes glimmering with fear. When Chanel was cursed, more than one healer told him the same but at the end, the Dark Lord was able to lift the cure in a few mere moments. So Porter knew there was still a chance that the Dark Lord would be able to do the same to Ethan. However, he didn''t dare to utter the name of the Dark Lord in front of the Holy Maiden and the Supreme Guardian who vowed to take down the Dark Lord.
Finally, the tears caged within Rowena''s eyes escaped and trickled down on her rosy cheeks. For the first time in her life, Rowena shed tears and when Noah saw the scene, his heart shattered into pieces.
"It''s¡okay¡" Ethan mumbled, shocking everyone around him. He slowly opened his eyes and looked at Diana. He tried to smile through the pain.
"Father,"
"Ethan,"
Noah gently ced Ethan on the floor as Diana grabbed both Ethan''s hands.
"I am not going to let you die. You hear me. You''re gonna be alright," Diana said.
Ethan tried to speak but he couldn'' even open his mouth. While Ethan was struggling in pain, Diana bent down and kissed him on the forehead. Then, she turned her gaze toward Noah.
"You know who to summon. Do it," Diana''s voicepletely changed from caring mother to a domineering warrior.
"Rowena, if anyone has a problem with it, deal with them," Diana ordered Rowena as she nodded without asking her mother a question.
Chapter 863 Noah Meets Azazel
Noah gawked between his father and King Porter. When King Porter noticed Noah''s gaze on him, his heart skipped a beat. King Bredia and Bai Ning frowned as Noah made his way to King Porter. Every fiber in Noah''s body told him to find another way to cure his father. If he had enough time, he mighte up with a way to lift the curse. But without the time and his mentor, who entered into a slumber, Noah couldn''te up with a way to save his father. Ever since he was a little kid, Ethan gave everything to Noah. His father was more of a best friend to him than a father. Noah couldn''t even imagine a world without his father. Moreover, he knew his mother would break into pieces if he let Ethan die. If making a deal with the Dark Lord was the only way to save his father, Noah was willing to do it. His father''s life was worth more than his principles.
"Your majesty," Noah''s voice broke as he looked King Porter in the eyes.
"I know what you did to save Princess Chanel,"
King Porter trembled, hearing the wordsing out of Noah''s mouth.
"I¡I don''t know what you''re talking about, Noah," King Porter stuttered.
"It''s not the time to cover up, your majesty," Noah slowly shook his head.
"I wouldn''t ask you if I had the time to go to the dark ocean and meet him myself. But we don''t have much time. So please, summon him," Noah pleaded with King Porter. When King Porter asked for help with the curse on Princess Chanel, Noah felt how powerful the curse was and went to the treacherous ocean, one of the most dangerous ces in the world, to help her without worrying about his life. Although Noah returned empty-handed, King Porter wholeheartedly felt grateful toward Noah. No one would have ventured into the treacherous ocean to help the princess.
Rowena didn''t know what had happened with Princess Chanel. The only thing she knew was that King Porter might have something to help her father. However, Rowena didn''t like to see her little brother begging for a measly king. She was on the verge of freezing King Porter to the neck and forcing him to reveal whatever Noah wanted him to.
"King Porter," King Bredia opened his mouth.
"If you have something to help Ethan, please give what Noah wants. You know Ethan would do it in a heartbeat," King Bredia said. He was oblivious to the fact that Noah wanted to summon the Dark Lord. Otherwise, King Bredia would have never spoken these words. He still had nightmares of the time Ghost ambushed the engagement g and threatened to kill Katherine and the baby inside her.
"If you want me to beg-"
"No," When Noah tried to lower his head, King Porter grabbed his shoulder and shook his head. Once everyone said Princess Chanel couldn''t be cured, King Porter felt weak and helpless despite his status as a king. Being a king didn''t matter when he couldn''t be a good father and save his daughter. At that time, King Porter would have given anything to have a tiny bit of hope to save Chanel, and Noah was the only man who gave him that hope. As long as he lived, Porter couldn''t forget the sliver of hope Noah gave him.
To be honest, King Porter didn''t think he could forgive himself if he stood there and did nothing to help Noah. As a righteous king and a grateful man, he had to give the card the Dark Lord gave him. He just hoped the Dark Lord would ept the summon from the Supreme Guardian.
"He gave me this if I want to contact him again," King Porter said after taking a long deep breath. Then, he took out the ck card with a skull embossed in from his space ring.
"Is that-'''' The moment King Bredia saw the skull, his body shivered. He took a few steps back and almost tripped down on his robes. Pure fear and shock overwhelmed Bredia''s senses as he began to see images of piles of bodies on the engagement g before his eyes. The Dark Lord, who was known as Ghost then single-handedly ughtered almost every royal guard and beat him to a pulp on his own throne.
"I don''t know how to summon him. Maybe you can figure it out," Ignoring King Bredia''s tantrum, Porter handed over the card to Noah. Noah''s hands shivered as he took the card from Porter''s hand. Never in a million years, Noah thought, asking the Dark Lord for his help. But he didn''t have a choice as the Dark Lord may be the only person who could lift the curse and save his father.
"Noah!" the entire hall trembled as Bai Ning''s shout swept across the area. The old woman dashed at Noah in a blink of an eye and snatched the card from his hand.
"How dare you think of summoning that evil creature?!" Bai Ning''s blood boiled, thinking Noah was trying to summon the Dark Lord in front of her and the Holy Maiden. Ethan''s life meant nothingpared to striking a deal with the Dark Lord. The mere thought of Noah considering asking the Dark Lord''s help made Bai Ning''s anger explode like a raging volcano. She wanted to strike down Noah and King Porter for colluding with the Dark Lord where they were standing.
But first, Bai Ning wanted to destroy the card left behind by the Dark Lord.
"No!" Sabrina shouted as Bai Ning clenched her fist to crush the card to pieces. Just as Bai Ning was about to crush the ck card, a wave of bone-chilling frost sted Bai Ning onto the wall behind her. The old woman collided with the wall and coughed up blood. Before her body could hit the ground, a stream of ice shot out of Rowena''s des and froze the old woman up to her neck.
Noah quickly raised his hand as the card on the ground flew back into his hand.
"Holy Maiden," Bai Ning could neither raise her voice nor a finger against Rowena. In a blink of an eye, Rowena disappeared from Ethan''s side and appeared before Bai Ning.
"You cannot let this happen," Bai Ning stuttered.
"If you breathe a word about any of this," Rowena''s voice was cold and sharp as a dagger that pierced into Bai Ning''s heart.
"I will freeze your body to the core and toss you into the deepest pits of hell," Fear took over Bai Ning''s mind and prevented her from opening her mouth. The murderous intent she saw in Rowena''s eyes was not a joke. Bai Ning''s Immortal stage cultivation wouldn''t save her from the Holy Maiden''s wrath. At the end of the day, Diana was not the only one with an Ancient God''s blood.
After Bai Ning heard Rowena''s threat, she closed her mouth.
"Summon him," Diana said to Noah, who held the card in his hand.
"Noah stop," King Bredia rushed to Noah''s side.
"Don''t do this, Noah. You are the Supreme Guardian. What would the world think if they knew you asked for the Dark Lord''s help? What would your teacher say? Will he approve of this?" King Bredia fired questions, one after another. The Dark Lord was thest person he wanted under the same roof as his daughter and grandson. What if the Dark Lord decided to kill them all? What if he wanted to take his grandson away? What if he hadn''t forgotten what he did and decided to seek revenge? So many questions wreaked havoc inside Bredia''s mind.
"I don''t care about anything. If seeking his help will save father''s life, that''s what I would do," Noah said, slowly shaking his head.
When Bredia tried to stop Noah, Rowena just turned her cold gaze toward him as he felt a cold chill running down his spine. Bredia took a step back in utter fear and stood in the corner, watching Noah summon the Dark Lord helplessly. Holding the card in his hand, Noah took a deep breath. He looked around the ck card to figure out the way to contact the Dark Lord until he felt a strange tingling in his hand. He felt like the card was asking for a sliver of arch energy, and that''s what exactly Noah did.
He slowly injected the card with arch energy. For a moment, the card remained dormant, and then, it trembled. ck smoke slowly rose from the skull as the card floated above Noah''s hand. Everyone turned their gazes at the card floating in mid-air. The ck smoke permeating from the card slowly formed a mirror before them. As they were looking into the mirror, a man with wings sticking out of his back appeared. His eyes glowed like rubies. The man was dressed like a butler, with his hair neatlybed to the side and wearing ck gloves. When he saw Noah, a strange smile formed on his handsome face instead of shock.
"Supreme Guardian Noah. What a pleasant surprise! It''s my pleasure to meet you atst," the butler''s voice sounded crisp and clear as he lowered his head. But his bow indicated amusement instead of respect. Even though Noah didn''t see the man in person, he could feel the overwhelming power radiating from him. ording to Noah''s spies, the Dark Lord had a personal butler. They described him as the butler with demon wings. Judging by the look of the man before him, Noah realized he must be the butler they informed him about.
"I need to speak with Ghost," Noah bluntly said.
"I can see King Porter Forbes behind you,"
King Porter''s mouth dried in fear as he saw the butler smiling at him. Rowena and Diana came to Noah''s side and stood behind him.
"You must be the Holy Maiden and Lady Diana Winston. I am honored to meet you, mydies," the butler bowed slightly as Rowena creased her brows.
"Call your master, demon," Rowena coldly said.
The demon smiled, slightly surprised to see Rowena identifies his race urately. Besides, she didn''t seem shocked to see a demon in person, unlike Bai Ning, who had sweat beads forming on her forehead.
"Forgive me for being blunt, mydy. But how do you expect the Dark Lord to answer your call when the ns you are in have sworn to kill him?" The demon butler asked Rowena.
"I saved his life once. It''s time he settles that debt," said Rowena.
Chapter 864 Plan To Destroy Noah鈥檚 Image
Azazel was surprised by Rowena''s words and took a few moments to formte a fitting response. He knew they must be in some blunder if they chose to contact the Dark Lord. Hence, Azazel wanted to gauge how desperate they were before informing the Dark Lord.
"And the Dark Lord will settle the debt in time. Unfortunately for you, Holy Maiden, he doesn''t work for the Skyhall,"
Rowena took a step forward and stood beside Noah. Her eyes glistened with cold murderous intent.
"I give you five seconds to call Ghost," Rowena snarled as Azazel let out an amused smile.
"And what would happen when your countdown reaches six?" asked Azazel.
"Nothing. But soon, you will see me in the dark ocean, bringing the entire might of Skyhall to your doorstep. Your head will be the first one to roll down,"
"Is threatening us the best way to ask for help, Holy Maiden?" another voice appeared as they saw Azazel turn around and bow. The next moment, Noah and the others saw Gaya, the Dark Queen, stand before them in her dark suit of armor.
"Azazel, we always settle our debt," Gaya looked over her shoulder and said to Azazel. Then, she turned her gaze back to Rowena and Noah.
"You must be in some pretty desperate situation to ask for our help. Let''s just say your ns have nothing to do with us. Why would we help you? What''s in it for us?" Gaya rubbed her chin.
"You said it yourself, you always settle your debt. My sister saved Ghost''s life, and it''s time he returns the favor," said Noah.
"Forgive me for thinking this might be an borate trap to capture the Dark Lord, Noah. Your pretty wife tried that, and it didn''t turn out well, did it? Now exin to me why I shouldn''t think that way?"
"Because Ethan is dying," Diana stepped forward and answered Gaya instead of Rowena or Noah. When Gaya heard Diana, her brows slightly arched up in surprise. She slowly waved her hand as the floating card turned a bit toward Ethan.
"He will be there," Gaya''s wordspletely taken aback Noah and Rowena by surprise. They expected to negotiate or atleast threaten her, but she nced at Ethan for a moment and agreed to help them.
"Thank you," Diana said as tears trickled down her eyes.
"I hope for your sake you and your teacher don''t y with your father''s life," After Gaya spoke these words, her figure vanished into thin air. The card fell down to the ground as they all stared at the ce where Gaya was for a few seconds without batting an eye.
******************************************************
"Mydy," Gaya turned around to see Azazel. The demon butler was just as confused and surprised as Noah.
"Forgive me for questioning you, mydy. But why did you agree to help them?" asked Azazel.
"Did you see their faces? They are desperate," Gaya''s face lit up.
"Imagine the world knowing that Noah, the Supreme Guardian, needed the Dark Lord''s help. People who support Noah would go nuts when they realize he struck a deal with the Dark Lord to save his father. Plus, when Skyhall hears the Holy Maiden allowed the Dark Lord into her own home, we can expect some very big backshes from her elders," Gaya devilishly chuckled.
"Whoever tried to kill Ethan has done us a huge favor. Inform Nadia Hall about this. Tomorrow morning, I want to see the headline The Supreme Guardian struck a deal with the Dark Lord to save his family. He went for our weapons, and I am going straight for his credibility. I wanna see that bastard''s face when he realizes wepletely fucked up his loyal base," Gaya couldn''t keep her excitement bottled. If Azazel wasn''t there, she would have bounced up and down, celebrating Noah''s desperate situation.
"Has he returned from his little trip?" Gaya asked Azazel.
"Yes, mydy. He is currently meditating in the garden,"
"I''ll go meet him then," said Gaya. Eventually, Gaya reached the sword hilt mountain top and saw Michael meditating with his eyes closed. Nightmare was peacefully sleeping behind him, cuddling Vedora. By the time Gaya reached Michael, the sky had rumbled in the distance as she sensed the uing heavy storm. Despite the weather, Michael remained calm andpletely focused on keeping his mind empty. What surprised Gaya was the dark swords. They stood on each side like guards while radiating crimson-red lightning bolts. She could feel the electricity in the air around him.
"Human," Gaya called Michael in a husky voice as his eyelids moved slightly. It took Michael a few seconds to slowly open his eyes.
"You are not gonna believe what just happened," said Gaya. Michael saw her eyes glowing with excitement and became curious.
"Give me a second," Michael stood up as the dark slowly flew into his sheath. He then proceeded to brush off the dust from his ck coat and adjusted his sleeves.
"I just talked to Noah Winston," As soon as Gaya said these words, Michael was taken aback by surprise. His brows arched up. For a moment, his mind couldn''t apprehend her words. Without keeping Michael in the dark, Gaya told him everything. Michael didn''t even bat an eye hearing the story. Michael walked to the mountain''s edge and nced at the stormy dark ocean before him.
"Ethan was one of the few people who helped us without an ulterior motive," Michael said, remembering all his conversations with Ethan. He couldn''t help thinking of Diana either. For some reason, he felt a strange connection with Diana and Ethan. Besides, Rowena did save his life when the Blood Prince almost punched him to death. So he naturally felt indebted to Rowena, and he hated the feeling of being indebted to someone else. That was the reason why Michael always avoided taking loans from the system.
Although Noah was his arch nemesis, his conscience didn''t allow him to ignore Noah''s plea for help. Michael knew how hard it must have been for Noah to seek his help out of all people. Furthermore, Ethan and Diana always treated him well, like he was one of their own. Plus, this was a great opportunity to gain thousands of badass points as well as ruin Noah''s image among the people. After taking a few long moments to gauge the plus and minuses of visiting Noah''s home, Michael finally agreed to help him.
"Nightmare," Michael looked over his shoulder and called out his dragon. Nightmare opened his eyes and slowly rose up to his feet without waking up Vedora. Since Nightmare was in his true form, he cast arge shadow on the ground, which trembled as he walked toward Michael.
"We are going to Pen Town, buddy," Michael said, rubbing Nightmare''s warm chin.
"I aming with you," Gaya firmly said.
"Keep your eyes open when we reach there. I have a feeling this assassination attempt has something more to it," said Michael. As much as Michael loved causing trouble for Noah, he didn''t wish his parents to die. Michael would never wish someone to be an orphan as he knew what that life would be like. Part of him med Noah for failing to protect his parents and loving family. Every time one of Noah''s family got themselves into trouble, he had to save them. If anything, Noah should feel grateful toward him.
********************************************
Meanwhile, Noah''s team of elites rushed to his home as soon as they heard what just happened during the baby shower. The word of the assassination attempt on Ethan''s life spread through the kingdom like wildfire.
"Supreme Guardian!" Ne entered the hall with the others.
"We are already sweeping the kingdom as we speak for the assassin. We will find him," said Ne. She clenched her fist, seeing all the blood on Noah''s pure white robes and on the ground. Rowenapletely ignored the guardians and sat beside Ethan, keeping the wound closed with the ice. Sabrina sat next to Rowena and held Ethan''s hand as tight as she could. On the other hand, Diana remained without shedding a drop of tears. She firmly believed the Dark Lord could save Ethan''s life. Diana''s mind imagined new ways of killing the assassin and whoever sent him. After taking care of Ethan, tracking down the assassin would be her top priority. Even if the assassin ran to the edge of the world, she would find him and show him what would happen if someone dared to touch her family.
"You guys secure the parameters and keep everyone away from Ghost,"
Ne and the others creased their brows as they couldn''t believe what they had just heard.
"Did you say Ghost, Supreme Guardian?" asked Ne.
"He is the only one who could lift the curse put on my father," said Noah.
After Ne and the others heard Noah, their minds went nk. As a result,plete silence swept across the hall until Ne opened her mouth.
"You cannot do this, Supreme Guardian. There must be another way," said Ne.
"What if this is all his n? How can you know he wasn''t the one who sent the assassin?" asked Ne.
To their surprise, it was Diana who answered Ne, not Noah.
"He didn''t," Diana simply said as everyone turned their gazes toward her.
"Mydy-"
Diana raised her hand, abruptly cutting Ne''s words short.
"If he wanted Ethan dead, he would be six feet down on the ground by now," Diana said without bothering to hide her killing intent. The murderous rage in Diana''s eyes startled Rowena as she had never seen her mother like that. Granted, Ethan was just stabbed, and her mother was not in her usual self but still, the murderous aura Rowena felt around Dianapletely surprised her. In Rowena''s eyes, Diana seemed like a new person.
"Find the assassin and figure it out. If you find him first, he will be alive," Diana openly issued a threat, giving no shit about the guardians. The one before them at that moment was not Diana but Harriet Hunt. Just a glimpse of her former self freaked the hell out everyone, including Noah and Rowena.
"I will face the consequences of my actionster. For now, this is my order. Go and secure the area and do not make any moves on the Dark Lord," Noah ordered his team.
Chapter 865 The Dark Lord Is In Noah鈥檚 Home
Under the starlight and silvery moon, the shadows of the trees danced upon the Winston manor. The leaves flickered like candlelight, creating a new picture from moment to moment. Amid the perfume of the summer blooms, feeling the cool of the evening wash over the Pentown as the waves kiss sun-warmed sand. The green-colored atmosphere was getting mixed with cloudy light. Little showers of rain were blowing down on the manor as the soldiers and the guardians patrolled the area vigntly. They were all informed about Noah''s decision to summon the Dark Lord. Hence, the soldiers looked pale and gawked at the sky, expecting the Dark Lord to arrive anytime. The sun slowly disappeared from the horizon, paving the way for the darkness to conquer thend. When the stars peeked through the night sky and the silvery moon bathed thend with its dazzling light, the nobles who left the manor returned. This time, they stayed in the air, keeping their distance from the Winston manor.
Many were still on their way to the Winston manor, and Xanali was one of them. Since she was a guardian and lover of Noah, she was granted permission to descend down within the main gates.
"Guardian Captain," Alvaro, the Dark Lord''s inside man, greeted Xanali with a bow.
"Where is the Supreme Guardian?" asked Xanali as she rushed into the home.
"Inside," Alvarod didn''t even finish his words as Xanali entered the hall, leaving him behind. Unlike the rest of his team, Alvaro chose not to stay inside. Ever since he started to work for the Dark Lord, he felt uneasy looking Noah in the eyes. To keep his nerves in check and remain calm, Alvaro patrolled the manor alone. His hands shivered, thinking about the Dark Lord and the Supreme Guardian under the same roof. Deep down, he couldn''t wait to see them ughter each other, and that way, he would be a free man once again.
Recently, he was ordered to learn where Noah keeps the inventor they rescued from the dwarves. Apparently, Noah didn''t trust his elites enough to reveal the inventor''s location. Except for Noah himself, no one in the guild knew about the location. Like it or not, Alvaro had to find the location and give this information to the vampire handler, or they would send the feed of Alvaro forcing himself on a woman to Noah directly. If that happened, it would not only destroy his career as a guardian but also get him thrown into the dungeon. So he had to choose between serving the Dark Lord or spending his life in a dark prison cell.
"I have to work on Ne," Alvaro mumbled under his breath. Among all the elites, Noah trusted Ne the most. Thus, Alvaor nned to gain Ne''s trust and make her learn the inventor''s location. He would be able to get the information from Ne once she has it.
While Alvaro was formting a n to learn Hammond''s location, Xanali reached Noah and tried to talk him out of his n to call the Dark Lord for his aid.
"Nothing you say will make me change my mind, Xanali. I have no choice," Noah and Xanali stood in one corner and conversed in a husky voice.
"I know how much your father means to you-"
"Do you? If you know, you won''t try to talk me out of this. Listen to me, Xanali. I don''t like this any more than you do. Every fiber in my body tells me not to call him, but I have no choice. I have to do this for my family. I cannot lose him," said Noah. Xanali clenched her fist. She knew Noah was right but couldn''t let him ask for the Dark Lord''s help, who brutally murdered her best friend, Peyton.
"Look at her," Noah turned his head, looking at his mother.
"She is not even crying. I don''t think she will ever ovee father''s death. If I lose him, I will lose her too. Without them, there is no Winston family," Noah''s voice stuttered. Seeing him like this made Xanali forget all her hatred toward the Dark Lord for a moment and agree with Noah''s decision. She knew Noah was right. Even the Skyhall elder failed to lift the curse. So if anyone could help Noah, it was the Dark Lord himself. However, Xanali was afraid of the consequences of seeking his aid.
"Whatever happens, I will be at your side," Xanali took Noah''s hands in her and gently squeezed them.
"I just wish Lord Andreas was here," said Xanali as Noah nodded.
"Me too. Lately, we have had too many arguments, and I didn''t leave him to his slumber on good terms," Noah sighed. Then, his gaze swept across the hall until he locked his eyes on the cake.
"I should have been more careful. How could I let this happen?"
"Don''t me yourself, Noah. Don''t do that now. As much as I hate that murdering son of a bitch, he might be the only person who could lift the curse and save your father. He did heal my sister''s broken meridians and lifted Princess Chanel''s curse," said Xanali.
"I know. I don''t know what I would do if he couldn''t," Noah''s body trembled as he looked at Ethan''s blood on his hand. The blood glistened like a mirror and showed him the images of his childhood with his father. Noah could hear Ethan''s words in his mind loud and clear, as though he was behind him.
"Winning is great, but losing with grace and humility is just as important,"
"I can teach you how to throw a punch, but never start a fight¡ and always know when to walk away,"
"I''m so lucky that I get to be your dad,"
Noah''s eyes watered as he heard his father''s words that were like mantras to him. His entire life was shaped around Ethan''s words and his teachings. Noah knew although his father might not be as strong as Andreas, he was always there for him, no matter what. Now that he was on the verge of losing Ethan forever, Noah missed him more than anything. He regretted the moments he spent roaming around instead of staying with his father.
Suddenly, the sound of thunderps stopped Noah''s train of thought and brought him back to reality. The windows in the manor shuddered, making a thudding noise. Xanali looked around the hall as the chandeliers and light orbs flickered. Soon, they noticed the area around the manor darkened. Xanali strolled outside the manor and joined a group of guardians staring at the sky.
The stars and moon were nowhere to be found in the sky. Instead, dark clouds surrounded the sky as far as one could see. When the lightning shed across the dark sky, Xanali saw arge shadow of a dragon above the clouds.
"He is here," Xanali muttered under her breath. Through the dark clouds, a dragon with crimson-red scales descended to the ground. The soldiers and the guardians tensed as they clenched their swords and spears tight. But no one dared to cast a spell or attack the dragon as they all moved away from the front yard, making space for the dragon tond.
Finally, Xanali saw the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen standing atop the dragon. They stared at the guardians and the soldiers without a shred of fear in their eyes. In fact, they looked amused to see so many of them. The dragon bore its teeth, threatening everyone to burn them down if they even lifted a finger against the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen.
Just the sheer size of the dragon and its Fusion Stage cultivation level was enough to make many soldiers shudder in fear. When Michael slid down Nightmare''s wings andnded on the ground, Diana came running outside. As soon as sheid her eyes on his smiling face, all the worries and sadness drifted away from her heart. She wanted to wee him with open arms, yet she had to control her motherly instincts for now.
The nobles who witnessed the Dark Lord walking into the Supreme Guardian''s home gasped in shock. Nadia Hall was in the crowd, watching and recording everything to put in the newspaper the next day. Under their shocked gazes, Michael made his way into the home and met Diana before the doorway.
"I wish we had met under different circumstances, Lady Diana," Diana stood before Michael like a statue.
"Everything will be alright," Michael said with a reassuring smile. Whenever he saw this woman, he felt a deep connection with her to the point he wanted to wipe those tears off her face. He couldn''t see her shedding tears.
Michael knew words weren''t enough to make her feel good. Thus, he entered the hall with the system screaming in his head. The trip was worth the risk as he earned hundreds of thousands of badass points in a few seconds. As soon as he stepped into the hall, Noah was the first one he saw. But to Michael''s surprise, Noah looked relieved to see him instead of furious or tense. Contrary to Noah''s demeanor, Xanali, and King Bredia trembled. One trembled in anger for killing her best friend, while the other trembled in pure fear. No one in the hall dared to make a sound in front of the Dark Lord.
"Brother Ghost," Sabrina broke through the silence with her words. She came running to him and jumped onto him for a hug.
"I should see Lord Ethan first," said Michael, ignoring everything and everyone else. While Michael was following Sabrina toward Ethan, Xanali, and Gaya entered into a staring contest. This was the first time they met each other in their real form since Xanali threw Gaya in prison. The tension between them was certainly high. One could see the burning rage in Gaya''s eyes. She took a couple of steps and met Xanali in the middle.
"Gaya," said Xanali.
"Xanali," said Gaya.
"Believe it or not, father still regrets breaking your meridians. He even wants to see you again," said Xanali.
Gaya let out a murderous chuckle.
"Why? Is he tired of living? I am asking this because," Gaya slowly leaned forward,
"I want to drag his ass off the throne and put an arrow through his heart," Gaya whispered into Xanali''s ear.
Chapter 866 Do You See The Hypocrisy?
Leaving Xanali in shock, Gaya returned to Michael''s side. Xanali knew Gaya always hated her father, but she never thought Gaya actually wanted to kill her own father. The killing intent she saw in Gaya''s eyes was real, very real. Ethan wasid to rest on a white sofa that turnedpletely red with blood. Michael dropped to one knee beside Rowena. The sound of lightning bolts crackling around the two swords on his back made Rowena''s neck hair stand up. If not for Ethan''s current state, everyone would have been stunned by the dark swords. Tiny crimson-red bolts of lightning crackled around the three dragon-coiled hilts that were sticking out of the sheath as Michael simply greeted Rowena with a nod.
"Can you lift the curse?" Rowena asked Michael. The cold beauty''s eyes were mixed with grief, helplessness, and anger. But she was good at hiding her emotions. Even when her father was on the verge of dying, she remained stoic and calm.
"I can," Michael''s simple answer lifted an immense weight from everyone''s hearts and rekindled the light of hope once again. He nced around the hall to see everyone''s reaction until his gaze fell on Bai Ning. She was frozen up to her neck. Judging by the thickyer of bone-chilling ice around her, Michael could tell the old woman did something foolish enough to make Rowena freeze her.
"I never thought I''d see you again," Michael said, calmly looking at Bai Ning.
Michael''s words surprised Rowena as she never thought he knew Bai Ning.
"How did you know her?" Rowena couldn''t help asking Michael.
Without answering Rowena, Michael flicked his wrist as everyone in the hall, except Diana, tensed. They thought the Dark Lord was about to unleash his wrath upon them.
"Rx," Gaya waved it off as Michael took out a crystal sphere from his space ring.
"What is that?" asked Noah, creasing his brows.
"Recording crystal," After Michael answered Noah, he turned his head to the side and looked at Rowena.
"You asked me how I know her. Well, this is how," Michael ced the sphere on the ground,
"Do not listen to his poisonous words, Holy Maiden," Bai Ning growled. The old woman panicked because she knew what he was about to show the Holy Maiden.
p¦Á§ád¦Á-¨¾?¦Í¨º¦É¡¤§ã¨®§® Bright rays of light shot from the sphere and formed a glistening square that showed an image of a barren field. This barren field had nothing except headstones with names carved on them. Dark clouds watched over the barren field, casting an inky ckness to the graveyard. Hundreds or even thousands of headstones remained there, symbolizing the men and women who wereid to rest underneath.
"This graveyard doesn''t have brave soldiers or evil followers of mine. On the contrary, they were men, women, and children who just wanted to live a peaceful life in their own world,"
"Seize him, Holy Maiden!" Bai Ning roared as she struggled to break the ice around her. Several cracks began to appear in the crystalized ice, but Rowena simply turned her gaze back to Bai Ning as the ice grew thicker, colder, and stronger.
"And she was responsible for all their deaths," Michael threw a cold, deadly nce at Bai Ning. Rowena clenched her fist as she couldn''t simply believe the wordsing out of Michael''s mouth.
"She ughtered thousands of people, including children, yet you all call us evil. Anyone see the hypocrisy here?" Gaya snarled.
"I am not here to prove myself. If you don''t believe me, you can ask her after I lift the curse, which is why I am here," said Michael. He just threw a spark in Rowena''s heart and hoped it would turn into a wildfire. Although Michael didn''t spend much time with Rowena, he knew just enough to tell Rowena wouldn''t have agreed to invade Itonys and ughter the natives.
"I heard no such reports of ughter," Rowena coldly said as Noah agreed with a nod.
"That''s because it happened in another world," Gaya simply answered Rowena and turned her gaze to Bai Ning.
"Why don''t you ask her yourself?" Gaya pointed at Bai Ning.
"Judging by how everyone looks, it seems this granny hasn''t told anyone about her little adventure to another world," Gaya folded her arms as she stared at Bai Ning, who opened and closed her mouth like she was searching for a suitable answer to give Rowena.
"As I said, lifting the curse is why we are here. To do that, I need those two out of here," Michael said to Noah, pointing at King Bredia and King Porter Forbes.
Without saying another word, Porter made his way out of the hall. King Bredia, on the other hand, seemed reluctant for a moment until Noah reassured him with a nod. Then, King Bredia followed King Porter outside without making direct eye contact with the Dark Lord. After the two kings left the hall, only Diana, her children, Xanali and Bai Ning, remained in the hall with Gaya and Michael.
When Bai Ning saw the Holy Maiden''s murderous gaze on her, she felt a chill running down her spine. The old woman shivered and broke into a sweat.
"Now he might shake and squirm. Do not panic," Michael''s voice swept across the hall. No one dared to raise a finger against Michael as they remainedpletely still. It showed Michael how desperate they were. But there was something else that Michael could see in their eyes, trust. They trusted him that he wouldn''t harm Ethan. Even Noah seemed to trust Michael. Granted, he might be theirst hope, but still, he was surprised to see their trust in him. Michael waited until everyone nodded their heads.
"Is it going to hurt him?" Sabrina asked Michael while holding Ethan''s hand tight.
"Not more than when he was stabbed," said Michael. Since Rowena was sitting next to Michael, she felt the air around Michael getting warm. Noah walked closer to his father and stood next to Michael. When Diana saw Dean standing between Noah and Rowena, her heart trembled. Looking at all four of her children together created some unknown feelings.
Xanali couldn''t believe the Dark Lord was standing right between the Holy Maiden and the Supreme Guardian. Just as Michael informed them, Ethan''s body squirmed. Blood seeped through Ethan''s eyes and nostrils.
"You must have pissed off someone really powerful," said Michael as he ced his hand on Ethan''s chest. His words were pointed at Noah.
"I see two types of blood here," Gaya drew Diana''s attention with her words.
"Lord Ethan must have attacked the assassin and made him spill some blood," Gaya squatted beside a pool of blood where Ethan was stabbed by the assassin. The ground was soaked with cake and blood. Together, they formed a messy red paste.
While Gaya was investigating the blood trail, the system informed Michael of everything he needed to know to break the curse. Unfortunately, it was not so simple as the curses Michael lifted till now.
"No wonder they called me," Michael realized why they chose to call the Dark Lord himself despite all the history between them.
Ethan finally stopped squirming when Michael took his hand off Ethan''s chest.
"I have good news and bad news," said Michael, standing to his feet.
"I think you all want to hear the good news first. Okay, here you go, I can lift the curse and heal him back to life with no side effects," Noah heaved a sigh of relief. Everyone, including Xanali, looked relieved to hear Michael. Diana''s decision to summon the Dark Lord seemed to be the right decision despite the consequences they would face afterward to Xanali.
"What''s the bad news?" Noah asked Michael.
"The curse is a lot moreplicated than I anticipated. I need certain things to lift the curse. Certain things you might not approve of," Michael turned his gaze to Noah.
"What do you need?" asked Diana with a cold tone. No matter what he asked, Diana was willing to give them.
"Unlike typical curses, the curse put on him is sentient. It''s like a parasite, slowly eating through his soul. As long as it''s alive, the host''s soul will be devoured. So I need to give the curse a new host, kill it with the host, and heal him. Otherwise, the curse will end his life in about five hours," Michael exined how the curse put on Ethan works. To be honest, he was surprised and terrified at the same time of the curse. One thing was for sure, whoever put the curse must be insanely powerful or resourceful, to say the least.
"You need a vessel to hold the curse," Rowena said as Michael nodded.
"The vessel must be emptied out of its soul not more than five minutes before without harming the vessel itself,"
"In other words, you have to kill someone without hurting the body," Gaya exined to the others in case they didn''t understand Michael.
"Just bring me someone stronger than or a Fusion stage cultivator," Michael waved his hands before making his way to the sofa on the other side of Ethan. He plunged onto the sofa and put his leg atop one.
"You might want to loosen your no-kill rule if you want to save your father, Supreme Guardian," Michael calmly said with a slightly devilish grin on his face. Looking at the Dark Lord sitting there like this was his own homemade Xanali''s blood boil. The murderer who ughtered thousands of people and her best friend was sitting before her surrounded by people who were responsible for taking him down, yet they could do nothing. It was simply outrageous.
Noah was speechless for a moment as Ethan began to cough out dark blood. The webs of dark veins started to spread through his body despite the ice around the stand wound.
"You better hurry," said Michael. Then, he took out a healing potion from his space ring and sent it floating toward Noah.
"That would keep him from dying until the curse is lifted,"
Noah stared at the healing potion hovering before his face without batting an eye. Seeing Noah''s reluctance to take the healing potion and give it to his father, Michael simplyid back on the sofa and said.
"If I want to harm your father, I just have to leave simply,"
Ethan coughed up more blood while Noah pondered about whether to take the healing potion or not. With each passing second, Ethan''s condition became worse as the dark veins reached the side of his cheek. Having no other choice, Noah took the healing potion and poured it into Ethan''s mouth. Little did Noah know the healing potion was infused with nanites. In other words, Noah gave Ethan the blood tonic, enabling Michael to end Ethan''s life with a snap of his finger.
Chapter 867 Eating A Soul In Front Of Noah
Michael didn''t intend to harm or hurt Ethan, but he liked to have as many trump cars as possible against Noah. After Noah unknowingly emptied the blood tonic into Ethan''s mouth, Rowena prepared herself to bring a prisoner from Skyhall itself. Considering Rowena knew why Noah decided not to kill anymore, she didn''t let her little brother go through choosing someone to die.
"I''ll be back," Rowena said before heading straight back to her room, where she had the teleportation array to reach her floating castle. Meanwhile, Michaelid back on the staff and threw his hands wide.
"What more can you tell me about the assassin''s trail?" Diana came to Gaya and asked, hiding her killing intent from showing in her eyes.
Gaya was surprised for a moment as Diana always seemed kind, calm, andpassionate. But the way she questioned her tickled a nerve inside Gaya. Within the kind,passionate woman, there was something else.
Normally, Gaya would have said to go ask the guardians. However, she had a soft spot for Ethan and Diana as they always treated them kindly. Because of the kindness Diana showed Michael, Gaya helped her a bit. Of course, Diana was an expert Hunter, probably one of the best trackers, yet at that moment, her mind was in disarray. Hence, Diana sought Gaya''s help, another best tracker.
Gaya pointed at the pool of blood near the cake. The assassin was clever enough to avoid leaving a blood trail of his own. An artifact he wore quickly closed the wound on his shoulder before he disappeared but not before shedding some blood onto the ground. Unless one was a naga, the blood on the ground would look the same. Since Gaya was one, she was able to see two distinct bloods on the ground.
"You may not notice, but there are two types of blood here. One belongs to a human and the other," Gaya dipped her finger inside the blood and brought it before her eyes. She started at the blood on her finger for a moment,
"If I have to guess, a beastman," Gaya said.
"Beastman," Diana mumbled under her breath. Gaya had no idea she just gave Harriet Hunt her next target location. Even if it took Diana to search the entire kingdom and kill hundreds of beastmen, she would find the assassin or atleast a clue about him. While they were waiting for Rowena to bring someone for Michael to kill, they heard a door creaking open. As they looked up at the second-floor balcony, they were surprised to see Princess Katherine and Andrews. When Princess Katherine and Andrews saw the Dark Lord leisurely sitting in their main hall, they were startled to the core.
"You!" Princess Katherine growled as she climbed down the stairs with arge belly. Andrew supported her in climbing down the stairs. Fortunately, Andrews saw Noah and Xanali in the hall which gave him the courage to stand still without shivering in front of Ghost. Andrew still had nightmares of the time he almost got beaten to death by Ghost during the tournament.
"What are you doing here? Noah, what is he doing here?" Katherine growled. Compared to the fact the Dark Lord was here, Ethan became less important in Katherine''s eyes. One couldn''t me her though, as any mother would be freaked out to share a space with the man who ughtered thousands of people without discrimination and destroyed an entire kingdom.
Katherine felt a chill when Gaya walked past her, giving her a devilish grin. She sat beside the Dark Lord and waited for Noah to respond to Katherine.
"Everything is under control, Katherine. He is here to help father,"
"Are you out of your mind, Noah?" Katherine raised her voice. Unfortunately, Katherine still hadn''t moved on from the time Michael beat Andrew to a pulp, ughtered her father''s royal guards, beat him to a pulp on his own throne, and threatened to kill her and her unborn child. Her anger and fury blinded her intellect. Usually, Diana would have shut her up, but Diana was too focused on the pool of blood. She was formting a whole new n to invade the beastmen kingdom and track down the one who sent the assassin.
"You are the Supreme Guardian. How could you trust this evil murdering¡" Katherine gritted her teeth as her mind went nk in overwhelming anger.
"I see you haven''t changed a bit over the past years," Gaya calmly said.
"Why are you here? Go back to the shelter and stay there," said Noah.
"Do you think we''ll be safe when he''s here?" Katherine rebuked.
"So riddle me this, princess. If I am so evil like you im, isn''t it better to keep your mouth shut, especially with a baby inside you?" Michael''s simple question made Katherine quickly shut her mouth. Noah clenched his fist, seeing Ghost threatening his own family in his own home. However, he had to keep his anger under control. After all, Ghost was the only one who could save Ethan.
"You bastard," Katherine cussed before leaving the main hall as fast as she came.
"Mother," Sabrina called Diana, who seemed to be deep in her own thoughts.
"Mother," Only when Sabrina called her twice did Diana snap back to reality.
"Where is Rowena?" Diana asked Sabrina.
"She went to bring someone," Sabrina weakly said.
"How is Hammond, by the way?" Michael asked Noah. The questionpletely startled Noah.
"Don''t be too surprised, Noah. Keep him safe because too many people are looking for him," said Michael. He wanted to y mind games with Noah and hoped it might get Noah to make a mistake. The dwarves desperately scoured through the kingdoms to find Hammond so they could continue making weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand, the empress wanted Hammond to answer for his crimes one way or another. Noah wanted to keep Hammond safe and use his brains for good. In simple terms, they all wanted Hammond to be alive. That was where Michael differed. Unlike them, he wanted Hammond dead. Not that Michael was afraid of his little toys, but Hammond could be an annoyance to him and an asset to Noah. And that irked Michael in the wrong way.
"That includes you, right?" Noah coldly asked.
"I am actually surprised that you keep him safe instead of putting him on trial for his crimes," Michael ignored Noah''s question and talked about Hammond''s crimes. Just as Michael expected, Noah''s eyes glistened with doubt and shock.
"Am I the only evildoer and criminal in your eyes?" Michael chuckled.
"Hammond is not a criminal," Noah said.
"He didn''t tell you, did he?" Michael pretended to be surprised.
"The next time you see him, why don''t you ask him about a little vige called Hogsfeet in Gondolin?" said Michael. Noah did a thorough background search on Hammond and came up with no criminal records. In fact, Noah wasn''t wrong, either. Hammond was not a criminal by any means. However, he was responsible for the deaths of one hundred and fifty vigers. The empress punished everyone involved in their deaths except for Hammond. To keep the news from spreading and Hammond''s secret safe, the empress wiped off all the evidence and trials about the Hogsfeet incident. The vige just simply vanished from the face of the world, and the map and no one had ever talked about it until now.
Noah had so many questions running around his mind, but before he could inquire the Dark Lord about them, Rowena returned to the main hall, dragging an orc in chains. The orc''s hands and legs were tied with iron chains, and his mouth was covered with a piece of cloth, preventing the orc from making a sound. Rowena dragged the orc by his long hair like he was a doll and threw him at Michael''s feet.
"Here''s your vessel," Rowena said.
"What did he do?" Noah asked Rowena.
"Went rogue and ughtered innocent people," Rowena answered Noah while looking at Bai Ning. She wordlessly told the old woman that if what the Dark Lord said about her was true, she would suffer the same fate as the orc. Michael calmly rose from the sofa and lifted the orc by his neck in one hand. Suddenly, the light orcs and the chandelier started to flicker. Soon, the light they produced was snuffed out by an invisible force. Instead, darkness upied every inch of the hall. Xanali took a step back due to her subconscious fear and saw the Orc squirm in the Dark Lord''s hands.
The lighting through the windows and the door barely illuminated the white smoke emerging from the orc''s mouth. Noah saw Ghost inhale the white smoke as the light of life slowly left the orc''s eyes. Every fiber in Noah''s body told him to stop Ghost from killing the orc, except he knew it was the only way to save Ethan. Besides, he didn''t think Rowena would let him stop Ghost. Unlike him, his big sister had no quarrels with killing criminals, and those deserved it.
The orc''s soul turned into experience points while the badass points skyrocketed through the roof. He killed someone in front of the Supreme Guardians, and there was nothing he could do about it. The system deemed the action pretty badass. After Michael devoured the orc''s soul, he threw the empty vessel to the ground and cracked his neck. Gradually, the lights that went out slowly came back to life, lighting the ce.
"What did you do?" Xanali asked in shock. She had never seen such an act of evil as he devoured the orc''s soulpletely. The power of eating one''s soul made Xanali tremble in fear. Even Noah was startled by this strange power. ording to Andreas, one''s soul was the key to entering the afterlife. By destroying the soul itself, the Dark Lord made thempletely cease to exist without letting them enter into an afterlife. What he did was a punishment worse than death.
"He didn''t deserve this," Noah muttered.
"And father doesn''t deserve this either," Rowena rebuked Noah''sment. She knew the reason behind Noah''s no-kill rule and even epted Noah''s decision, although she thought the rule would hinder Noah''s progression. However, she would not let Noah''s rules hurt her family. Family was everything to Rowena and she would do anything to protect them.
Chapter 868 Back To The Fire Realm
[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Fusion stage, level 6 orc. The reward is 500,000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]
[The Soul Eater has absorbed the soul of the orc. The host has received 300,000 Experience points]
Michael received eight hundred thousand experience points in total because of the Soul Eater. If he had simply killed the orc, he would have only received half a million experience points. The Soul eater awarded extra experience points based on how evil the absorbed soul was. Since Michael received three hundred thousand, he could tell the orc led a pretty evil life on contrary to his fellow orc kind. It was an extremely rare urrence to see an evil orc in the world as the orcs lived peacefully, studying and mastering rune mastery.
After shocking everyone by absorbing the orc''s soul, Michael felt stronger. He threw the orc''s body to the ground and strolled toward Ethan.
"The curse won''t let us take him outside this hall. So you might want to take a good look at your house," said Michael.
"Wait," Noah asked Michael to wait. He then turned his gaze toward Sabrina and Diana.
"Mother, Sabi, you two should go to the shelter and stay there," Noah said. Among everyone in the hall, Sabrina and Diana were the weaker, or at least that''s what everyone thought. Little did Noah know his mother was a Fusion Stage level 10 cultivator, pretending to be at the Body Strengthening stage. Although Michael sensed something amiss with Diana''s energy radiation, he couldn''t see through her cultivation. The mark put on by the mysterious oracle was strong enough to keep Diana safe from even the eyes of Skyhall.
"Sabi, do as your brother says," Diana said, but she didn''t seem to be moving an inch away.
"No. I want to be at his side," Sabrina shook her head. She looked at Michael for his support, but he stayed away from their family quarrel.
"It''s going to be dangerous, Sabi. We cannot focus on protecting you once something happens," Noah tried to reason with Sabrina, only to see her ignore his words.
"I can fight too," Sabrina bluntly said.
Michael noticed Sabrina taking steps toward Sabrina without uttering a word.
"Rowena, tell them I can-" Sabrina''s words were abruptly cut short when Sabrina grabbed her shoulder and teleported her to the shelter. In a blink of an eye, Sabrina vanished into thin air.
"You know she hates that," Noah sighed.
"This is no time to argue," Rowena coldly said.
"What about her?" Michael asked, looking at Diana. At Least Sabrina was at the Soul Refining stage. Compared to Sabrina, Diana was weak as a newborn baby. So even if the curse didn''t mutate the orc''s body and stayed at the Fusion stage, Diana wouldn''t even be able to survive the battle, let alone fight. ording to the system, there was a ny-eight percent chance for the curse to make the vessel stronger. Asking Diana to hit the shelter was the sensible thing to do, but it was Rowena and Noah''s task, not his. As much as he cared for Lady Diana, he wasn''t going to argue with her. If she wanted to stay and be coteral, it was her fate, and she couldn''t me anyone but herself.
"Don''t even think about it," Rowena took a step forward toward Diana when Michael heard Diana coldly warn Rowena. For the first time, Michael noticed the sudden change in Diana''s demeanor. Gaya also noticed this change and could tell this woman might not be what she seemed to be.
"Mother, you can''t be here," said Rowena. In front of her mother, Roowena lost her coldness and turned into a caring child.
"I will, and there is nothing you can do about it," Diana raised her one hand and refused to leave the hall. Then she turned her gaze at Michael.
"Ghost, you can begin," Diana said.
Noah and Rowena looked at each other as they could tell there was no point in arguing with their mother. To be honest, they hadn''t seen her like this forever. As much as they liked Diana to leave the hall, they had no way of making her leave except by force. However, they couldn''t bring themselves to forcefully teleport her mother like Rowena did to Sabrina.
"Wait," Rowena stopped Michael once again.
"Time is running out," Michael creased his brows. He hated this kind of family drama. Since Michael had no idea how strong Diana was, he thought it was stupid of Diana to stay in the hall. If he was in Noah''s ce, he would have teleported Diana by force without giving a second thought. After all, it was better to suffer Diana''s wrath afterward than cry beside her dead body. Unfortunately, Noah and Rowena respected Diana to the point they didn''t even dare to raise a finger against her word. In Michael''s eyes, it was pretty stupid.
"Do not let her out of your sight," Rowena warned Noah as she finally epted that Diana was not going to leave the hall.
"Here we go," Michael mumbled as he ced his hand on Ethan''s chest.
"System, start the process," Michael ordered the system. Xanali and Gaya strolled toward Ethan and stood beside their lovers. They all stood around Ethan in a circle andpletely ignored Bai Ning. None of them batted an eye as they stared at Michael''s hand on Ethan''s chest. Soon, they heard a strange otherworldly whistling noise as Ethan groaned in pain. The whistling sound gradually turned into a scream, an angered scream.
"Prepare yourselves," Michael warned them. The curse resisted the pull and screamed inside his head. The others were fortunate enough not to hear the curse''s scream.
Blood trickled down his nostrils due to the curse''s resistance, but Michael ignored all the pain and focused on pulling out the curse from Ethan''s body. Unfortunately, pulling out the curse from Ethan''s body was the easiest part.
Judging by the blooding out of Ghost''s nose and the pain in his face showed Noah how difficult it was to remove the curse. Moments like this made Noah question whether the Dark Lord was really the evil Andreas imed him to be. His mentor always talked about the dark future, where people were stripped of their free will and turned into zombies that worshiped the Dark Lord forever. Suppose the Dark Lord was really that evil, why did he even bother to save his father? It would make more sense if he let Ethan die than save him.
Noah wished Andreas could see everything and give him a proper exnation for the Dark Lord''s actions. At that moment, Noah had no other exnation that the Dark Lord had humanity and was grateful enough to save his ally. As the screaming sounded louder and louder, they all saw a ball of red glowing out of Ethan''s chest. The ball of light frantically vibrated under Ghost''s hands to get back into Ethan''s body. Michael grabbed the ball of light with both his hands and turned his gaze at Noah.
"Lift his body," Michael motioned to Noah to lift the orc''s body. Noah immediately picked the orc by his shoulders as Michael looked at Rowena.
"As soon as I send this curse into the orc, teleport Lord Ethan somewhere else. Can you do that?"
"Yes," Rowena bobbed her head up and down. Meanwhile, Noah held the orc straight by his broad shoulders.
"Fuck, it''s stronger than I thought," Michael gritted his teeth as he slowly moved the ball of light toward the orc''s mouth.
Bai Ning watched the scene with opened mouth. She waspletely speechless by the power she felt from the curse. What shocked her more was the power radiation from the curse felt just the same as the power radiation she felt from the mysterious lord she talked to. The old woman was spot on as the curse indeed originated from Andohr, the god of space and time. But although Andohr ordered Skyhall to attempt to assassinate Ethan and created the curse, he didn''t intend to curse Ethan. On the contrary, Andohr just wanted an assassin to try to kill Ethan, then me the Dark Lord for the attempt on Ethan''s life and expected Noah to retaliate.
His n took a turn when someone switched the assassin''s de with the cursed dagger. As a result, the assassin cursed Ethan when he stabbed him with it. Since Ethan cut the assassin with the dagger when he fought back, the assassin got cursed in return. Hence, even if Diana managed to find the assassin, he would be long dead unless Andohr himself appeared to save the assassin.
Despite the curse''s counterforce, Michael was strong enough to resist the curse and move it to the orc.
"Cut him open," Michael said to Noah, gritting his teeth. Noah immediately flicked his wrist as the white hilt sword appeared in his hand. Without wasting a second, Noah stabbed the orc from behind and cut his chest open. Michael growled as he pushed the ball of light into the bleeding cut. The moment Michael pushed the ball of light AKA the curse, into the orc''s body, Rowena emptied a healing potion down Ethan''s mouth and teleported him to the shelter.
As soon as Ethan disappeared from the main hall, a st of energy shot out of the orc and sent everyone around, flying away. Even Michael couldn''t escape from the st as he hit the wall pretty hard, forming a human-sized hole in the wall.
"ARGHHHH!" A roar of agony echoed through the entire kingdom. The thunderous roar made everyone immediately close their ears. Michael managed to lift his head and look at the orc. He stood where Ethan was, with dark webs running through his body. The orc''s eyes literally glowed like someone lit a fire in them. In a few seconds, the orc''s jade-green body turned darker with all the webs of cursed energy.
When Michael was about to rise to his feet, the orc let out another roar. Thest thing Michael remembered before everything turned ck was the house crumbling down. He felt the space around him distort, the feeling simr to activating a teleportation array. Just as he thought, the darkness faded away, revealing a barren rednd under a stormy sky.
"Where am I?" Michael asked as he looked around.
"Fire Realm," He heard Rowena''s voice from the side.
Chapter 869 Seal Bearer
The Fire realm was a seismically activendscape, with streams of flowing magma and expanses of semi-molten rock and hardened purple stone. Thend was studded with small volcanoes and me spouts, which regrly spurted a ming gas. The temperature was hot enough to melt a Body strengthening stage cultivator like a wax statue. Due to the volcanic ashes and specks of me in the air, nothing could be clearly seen by the naked eye. If the volcanos weren''t bad enough, the sandstorms and asional thunderstorms worsened everything.
Diana slowly picked herself up from the ground and looked around her to see where she was. The curse teleported her into a canyon surrounded by semi-molten rock and flowing magma. Just the sight of it helped her realize where she was. Although the realm looked somewhat simr to the demons grave, the temperature was much higher than the demons grave. As a result, Diana realized she was teleported to the Fire Realm. Unfortunately, she was not a stranger to the Fire Realm.
"I need to find my kids," Diana mumbled under her breath. Since the orc teleported them here, Diana guessed ying the orc might teleport them back to Pen Town. But before that, she had to find her children. She hoped they weren''t in trouble. Ignoring the sandstorm, Diana made her way forward. She tore her sleeves and covered her mouth with the cloth.
The storm became worse by the second. Onward she went, searching for her children and the orc. On her way, she spread her senses to detect any threats around her. Thest time Diana was here, she almost burned down the entire Hell City, the only settlement inside the Fire realm. Instead of scouring through the entire realm blindly, Diana decided to reach Hell City and hoped her children would share the same thought unless they came across the orc first. For a moment, she had to be optimistic.
When Diana''s senses detected no threat or life signs around her, she quickly ascended into the air and flew out of the canyon. A few secondster, Diananded on a naturally formed stone structure. From atop, she could see barrelnd outside the canyon. Unfortunately, she still couldn''t locate Hell City. Luckily for her, she had apass in her space ring. It was given to her by her mentor when she was training to be the next Holy Maiden. Never in a million years, Diana thought she had to use thepass once again. But she had no other choices considering flying in higher altitudes would attract monsters that roam the sky. She wanted to avoid unnecessary battles while she was in the Fire Realm.
With a flick of her wrist, Diana took out apass made out of emerald green metal. The needle and the letters were etched with gold as the ss covering thepass had several cracks. Holding thepass in her hand brought down some memories she really wanted to forget. For a moment, she shoved these memories back into her mind and held thepass in her palm. The needle slowly moved until it stopped, pointing at the southwest side.
"Hell City," Diana heaved a heavy sigh before putting thepass back into her space ring.
Thud!
When she was about to fly toward Hell City, Diana heard something fall onto the ground with a loud thud. She turned around, and to her surprise, she saw Bai Ning, still trapped by Rowena''s frost. Despite the scorching hot temperature, the frost held Bai Ning firm. Except for a few cracks, the ice shell looked unharmed by the fire realm.
"Argh," Bai Ning growled as she tried to break out of the ice crystal. But when she saw Diana, she heaved a sigh of relief.
"Diana," Bai Ning called out to Diana as she slowly made her way toward the old woman. While she was walking toward Bai Ning, her mind reyed Michael''s words.
"She ughtered thousands of people, including children, yet you all call us evil. Anyone see the hypocrisy here?" Gaya''s voice sounded inside her head.
"You have to bring me to that flowingva," Bai Ning looked at the moltenva canal flowing deeper into the canyon. The ice crystal trapped her within was created by a Hal Immortal. Usually, she could have shattered it without breaking a sweat. However, the Cold mes boosted Rowena''s power to the next level. Every spell in her arsenal got strengthened by the primordial mes, especially the spells rted to the water element. That was why Bai Ning couldn''t easily break the crystal. Of course, she could break out of the crystal in time, except Bai Ning didn''t want to be trapped in the crystal for long. She was a sitting duck to the monsters roaming around the Fire realm. They might not be able to kill her, but it didn''t mean it wouldn''t hurt when they chewed through her skin and bones.
Some of the monsters in the Fire Realm were even capable of killing an Immortal and eating their souls, just like the Dark Lord absorbed the orc''s soul.
"Hurry up," Bai Ning rushed Diana. In her rush to break out the crystal, Bai Ning overlooked the killing intent in Diana''s eyes. But not for long. When the old woman saw how slow Diana was walking toward her, she felt something was amiss.
"Is there a monster nearby?" Bai Ning quickly asked Diana when a sword materialized in thetter''s hand.
"Yes," Diana coldly answered Bai Ning.
"You have to hurry. If I don''t get out of this, we are both doomed," Bai Ning urged.
"Can you see how strong the monster is?" Bai Ning asked as she tried to sense the monster herself. When she sensed no monsters around, Bai Ning creased her old brows.
"It''s right in front of me," Diana coldly answered Bai Ning again. The calm and kind woman Bai Ning knew was nowhere to be found in the woman before her. She seemed different, like a natural-born killer, a wounded predator. Those eyes staring at her burned rage and pain.
"What are you bbering about, woman?" Bai Ning growled.
The old woman was losing her patience with Diana until she saw something she couldn''t believe. The ball of light blinded Bai Ning and made her close her eyes.
"Primordial mes," Bai Ning muttered. The bright light blinding her was a Primordial me, Bai Ning had no doubts whatsoever. Nothing else could radiate such pure energy. The question was how this weak, feeble woman wielded the Primordial me. Even with her eyes closed, she could see the brilliance of the primordial me. Under the Light me''s heat, the crystal around Bai Ning began to melt down.
When Bai Ning felt the crystal loosening, she slowly opened her eyes. She had so many questions in her mind, but before she could ask, Diana raised her sword. Bai Ning''s eyes sparkled, seeing the primordial mes coiling around the ck sword. As Bai Ning opened her mouth to question Diana, she sent the sword through the old woman''s mouth.
"Grrghh," The old woman groaned as crimson-red fumes escaped out of her mouth. Bai Ning squirmed like a worm trapped within the frost crystal. The Light mes vaporized the blood while melting Bai Ning''s skin on her face. If Bai Ning had any artifacts or runes to protect her life, she might have had a chance to escape Diana''s wrath. Unfortunately for Bai Ning, she had nothing. In other words, Bai Ning was too cocky as she thought who would dare to attack an Immortal and the Skyhall''s elder.
It was natural to develop such cockiness when one had lived thousands of years without having an enemy. Moreover, Bai Ning never expected Diana to possess a Primordial me. How could she ever expect a Body Strengthening stage weakling to have not only Primordial me but a weapon capable enough to withstand one?
Suppose Diana didn''t have Light mes and her ck sword, any other swords would have shattered into pieces when she stabbed Bai Ning. But the Light mes changed the oue of the battlepletely. Plus, Bai Ning was trapped within Ice crystals made of Cold mes. So one could say Bai Ning had to ovee two Primordial mes, and it was impossible for her.
Diana pulled out her sword and stabbed Bai Ning in the eyes again and again, venting all the rage buried within her. Finally, the ice trapping Bai Ning shattered under the Light me''s heat. Even after Diana stabbed Bai Ning repeatedly, the old woman''s body squirmed on the ground with life.
"All these years, I have to see you hold my little girl hostage," Diana snarled as she stomped Bai Ning''s chest.
"I watched you turn her into the Holy Maiden, a weapon to be used against my sons," Diana kept stomping Bai Ning''s chest until her ribs shattered. The boiling rage she felt activated the ancient god''s blood in her body, temporarily boosting her cultivation power to the Half Immortal stage. Diana even tripped down in pure rage and hit the ground on her knees.
"You will manipte her no more," Diana started to stab the old woman and went crazy. Blood spurted out, painting Diana''s white robes red. She didn''t stop stabbing her until the old woman''s body was in pieces. When she stopped, there was no body on the ground for her to stab; just some pieces of burnt flesh remained. Finally, Diana let go of the ck swords and put out the Light mes. She started to breathe heavily as she fell down to the ground beside Bai Ning''s pieces.
When Diana thought everything was over, a ck lightning bolt struck the ground where she killed Bai Ning and sted Diana away. The ck lightning existed for just a split second. During that split second, a glowing rune resembling a ck skull appeared from Bai Ning''s blood and vanished along with the lightning bolt. Unknown to Diana, she destroyed a seal designed by the past Dark Lord. As a result, the array ced between the mortal realm and the god realm weakened. If all those seals were destroyed, the war between the mortals and the gods would finally start.
Chapter 870 Gaya Vs Xanali
Somewhere else in the Fire realm, Gaya and Xanalinded on a barrennd. There was nothing except a few boulders as far as they could see. Gaya picked herself up and brushed off the red sand from her ck dress. When she saw Xanali a few meters away, she let out a devilish grin. Gaya clenched her fist as the APD injected a healing potion into her bloodstream, lessening the pain of hitting the ground hard. She didn''t worry about Michael because she knew he could take care of himself. Besides, she was too focused on Xanali to think about anything else. This was a golden opportunity. They hadn''t been alone since Xanali was six years old. At that time, Gaya tried to smother Xanali to death with the pillow. She would have seeded if it wasn''t for a maid who managed to stop Gaya at the wrong time. Since then, they had never let Xanali alone with Gaya.
Xanali growled and slowly stood up to her feet. Her brows creased as she realized where she was. However, her creased brows froze on her face when she noticed Gaya walking toward her. Xanali''s instincts screamed at her as she prepared herself to fight Gaya. Anyone with a single brain cell could tell there was no way Xanali could defeat Gaya, no matter how many legendary spells she had in her arsenal. Gaya was at the Half Immortal stage level 4, while Xanali was just at the Soul Refining stage. Gaya could kill Xanali without breaking a sweat. However, killing Xanali quickly was not Gaya''s n.
"It''s you and me alone," Gaya said with her hands behind her back. She slowly circled around Xanali like a predator stalking its prey.
"What a poor kitty kitty? It seems like no one ising to save your ass," Gaya ridiculed Xanali. Although Gaya was a princess just like Xanali, nothing was ever handed down to Gaya. She had to fight for every single thing in her life against her own family. But Xanali, on the other hand, never suffered a day in her life. While she was in Nagnd, Salesi and the kingdom had her back, and when she joined the Guardian Guild, Peyton was there to take care of her. Even after Peyton died, Noah took her under his wings and fell in love with her.
All these emotions Gaya had turned into an absolute hatred and rage toward Xanali. Hence, Gaya wanted this fight tost long.
"I don''t need anyone to save me," Xanali tried to remain calm.
"Bitch, you kidding me?" Gaya broke intoughter. The sound of herughter swept across the barrennds.
"You always had someone to look after you. Salesi, Castien, Noah, Peyton-"
"Do not speak her name," Xanali stomped the ground when she heard Gaya speak Peyton''s name. Her eyes immediately turned bloodshot, burning in rage.
"You and Ghost will pay for what you did to her," Xanali growled as Gaya continued to circle around Xanali.
"No, we won''t," Gaya chuckled.
"Even your precious Supreme Guardian had toe to us, to save his own father. If it wasn''t for the Dark Lord, your Noah wouldn''t have a family right now. He saved Diana from an assassin in her own home. He saved Sabrina from being tortured and turned into a vampire. And now he saved Ethan, who apparently got stabbed in front of all his family. You''d be a fool to think Noah could protect anyone when he can''t even protect his own," Gaya spoke slowly as every single word came out loud and clear.
"When the sun rises tomorrow. The entire world will know how the Supreme Guardian begged for the Dark Lord''s help to save his father," Gaya grinned.
"That''s your whole n, isn''t it? I knew you didn''t help him out of the goodness in your heart. There is no kindness in your ck heart, Gaya. I can''t believe we share the same blood as our father," Xanali snickered. Surprisingly, Xanali''s eyes glistened with a bit of sadness. Despite how Gaya tried to kill her when she was little, Xanali used to look up to her big sister and love her with all her heart.
Xanali lost count of how many times she talked her father out of punishing Gaya for all the crimes shemitted throughout the kingdom. But Xanali realized how wrong she was to believe Gaya would change when she raised a prison filled with almost two thousand prisoners to the ground, burning every single one alive. Xanali would give anything to go back to that day and stop Gaya from ughtering all those people who deserved a second chance in their lives.
"Sorry to burst your bubble Xanali. You and I are not sisters,"
"You think so," Xanali snickered without realizing the true meaning of Gaya''s words.
"We stopped being sisters the moment you burned those prisoners alive," Xanali growled as the images of the burning prison shed across her eyes. Everyone in Nagnd knew Gaya was cold and cruel like her mother, but no one imagined she would be heartless enough to burn defenseless prisoners alive. What shocked them more was Gaya never regretted her actions. Xanali still vividly remembered the moment they captured Gaya and brought her before the king.
"You better kill me now, father. Screw this up, and you will pay with your life," Xanali heard Gaya''s vengeful words she spoke to her moments before Castien broke her meridians, crippling her for life.
"You failed to grasp the meaning just as always," Gaya shook her head and decided to simplify her words to Xanali.
"Castien is not my father. He is just a puppet my mother put on the throne. I don''t have a single drop of Castien''s blood in me,"
Xanali''s mind went nk as Gaya continued.
"I always had a feeling how this spineless bitch could be my father. So imagine how d I was when I learned he is not my father,"
"No¡you''re lying¡" Xanali muttered.
"But don''t worry, he is definitely your father. You inherited his absolute stupidity," Gayaughed once again as she loved seeing the dumb look on Xanali''s face.
"Since he is not my father, I won''t feel a bit of remorse for what I am going to do to him," Gaya finally stopped circling around Xanali. She looked Xanali in the eyes with a devilish grin.
"I won''t let you hurt him," Xanali clenched her fist.
"I don''t make threats. I make promises. So listen to me carefully. One day I will walk into the throne hall, put an arrow through his heart, and throw his bleeding body out of my throne. If you want to stop that, you just have to kill me," Gaya opened her arms and motioned for Xanali to attack her.
"Let''s end this right here, right now," Xanali stepped forward with her clenched fist. As much as Xanali was shocked to hear Gaya was not her sister, she cared for her father more and lost her sanity when Gaya threatened to kill Castien. She didn''t even care that Gaya was a Half Immortal who could kill her with a snap of her fingers. At that moment, Xanali wanted to take down Gaya one way or another.
Because of Gaya''s overwhelming hatred for Xanali, she broke her own rule of capitalizing on cultivation power and decided to beat the hell out of Xanali. This was a fight with no cultivation, no spells, and no tricks.
"Come on bitch. You and me," Gaya motioned her to make the first move and stood still. When Xanali reached an arm''s distance from Gaya, she punched Gaya with all her strength. Instead of blocking or evading the punch, Gaya stood there and took the punch without moving an inch. Xanali''s hand went numb as she felt like she had punched a stone wall. Despite the numbed hand, Xanali repeatedly punched Gaya in the face. When Xanali punched Gaya for the fiftieth time, a tiny drop of blood trickled down the corner of Gaya''s mouth.
Xanali stopped punching to take a breath as Gaya spat the blood out and wiped off her mouth.
"My turn," said Gaya before uppercutting Xanali in the jaw. The sheer power behind Gaya''s punch sent Xanali flying into the air. Five meters¡.ten meters¡. twenty meteors¡.she flew higher and higher from the ground until Gaya leaped into the air and punched Xanali again mid-air. Another shock wave exploded upon Gaya''s fist, hitting Xanali''s face. Blood sprayed out of Xanali''s mouth as she soared down to the ground and hit the ground, forming a small crater around her.
Gaya dived down like a rocket, aiming tond directly on Xanali''s chest. But Xanali managed to roll around just in time. Her ribs would have shattered if she was a split secondte to react. Cultivation power or not, Gaya trained her body to fight head-to-head with Michael himself. She was strong enough to lift half a ton of marble without even using arch energy. In other words, she was a monster with or without cultivation power. Xanali stood no chance against her. After she rolled away, Gayanded in the crater as the ground cracked open.
Xanali jumped back to her feet and threw her fist, only to see Gaya evade the punch and spartan kick her in the chest. The kick made Xanali cough up blood while flinging backward like a kite without an anchor. Xanali slid through the ground, leaving a dusty trail. Every bone in Xanali''s body ached as blood trickled down from her nose and mouth. Despite the pain, Xanali picked herself up to fight Gaya.
"You must be a special kind of idiot to think you can win this fight," Gaya said, cracking her fists.
"It''s not the size of the dog in the fight. It''s the size of the fight in the dog," Xanali wiped off the blood from her mouth and said.
"You fight to kill. I fight to save. There is a difference," said Xanali.
"My stupid sister," Gaya shook her head, disappointed with Xanali.
"Will and purpose do not matter when you are an ant trying to move a mountain," said Gaya.
"Come on then," Xanali slowly raised her hand and taunted Gaya toe at her.
Chapter 871 Celestial Stage Threat
Gaya dashed at Xanali with one intention; beat her to death. She caught Xanali''s fist before it could reach her face and headbutted in return. Xanali''s nose broke with a sickening crunch. Blood spurted out of her broken nostrils as Gaya pulled Xanali close to her by hand and kicked her in the gut. Xanali vomited blood and felt her sight blur. Without giving any time for Xanali to retaliate, Gaya lifted Xanali by her waist and mmed her on the ground. Then, Gaya kicked her in the gut, sending her flying straight onto the boulder a few meters away. The boulder crumbled down with a loud boom when Xanali collided with it.
"This¡is¡what you¡wanted¡right¡" Xanali barely uttered these words, coughing up blood. Hearing her words, Gaya halted her steps.
"Castien¡may not be your father¡but I always¡thought of you¡as my sister¡" blood oozed out from her nose and mouth. Her pretty turnedpletely red from the blood.
"That''s not going to work on me," Gaya snickered.
"Show me one loving little sister who ordered her big sister''s meridians to be broken," Gaya''s words were filled with rage and pain. Everyone med her for trying to kill Xanali when they were little. But no one bothered to ask why she did that. Since the day Xanali was born, Gaya was thrown away like a broken troy. She received no love from her family, including her own father. While Gaya was having nightmares, Xanali slept peacefully in her mother''s and father''s embrace. Theck of attention and love turned into jealousy, and jealousy turned into hatred.
Gaya thought she could get over the pity hatred, but Xanali made it worse when she and Salesi ran the kingdom into the ground with their new policies and rules. Once Castien decided to give the throne to Xanali instead of her, Gaya finally snapped and went berserk. The source of all her hardships and problems was Xanali. If Xanali had never existed, she wouldn''t have experienced everything she did.
"It was either breaking your meridians or killing you. You are here because of me¡because of what I chose," Xanali said, struggling to rise to her feet. As much as her mind wanted to fight, her body was beyond exhausted. Every fiber in her body ached, begging her to close her eyes and give up.
"Your life is a handout I gave you," Xanali''s voice stuttered. On the verge of death, Xanali remembered all her good memories with Gaya, although there were only a few. One of those good memories was the time Gaya came to her aid when a couple of tyrants tried to bully her without knowing she was a princess. Xanali could still vividly see how Gaya nearly beat those guys to death, shouting they deserved to die forying their hands on her sister. Xanali had to stop Gaya from killing those bullies. Even after she grew up, many feared speaking against Xanali as they feared offending Gaya. Like it or not, Xanali felt protected when Gaya was around.
After hearing Xanali''s words, Gaya dashed at her and grabbed her by her neck. She raised her to the air as Xanali''s face slowly turned pale.
"Go ahead. I can''t fight anymore. If killing me will quench your thirst for revenge, do it," Xanali stuttered.
p¦Á§ád¦Á §«?¦Í¨º|,§ã¨°§® "Forgive me for existing," Xanali closed her eyes and prepared to embrace the sweet death by her sister''s hands. Tears trickled down from her eyes as Gaya gritted her teeth. Silence fell over the area as the scorching wind breezed past them. The mere thought that she was alive because of Xanali made her blood boil. Her mind was telling her to end Xanali''s life and a future threat to the Dark Army. However, her instincts and heart told otherwise. They told her to spare her life and settle the debt once and for all.
At that moment, she wanted Michael to be by her side and tell her what to do. She closed her eyes and tried to feel a connection with him. To her surprise, she saw the sight of her and Michael standing atop the mountain hill, overlooking the dark ocean.
"You know how much I hate very. Debt is a very of free men," Gaya heard Michael''s words in her mind.
After a brief moment of deep thinking, Gaya clenched her fist and let go of Xanali. It wouldn''t take a second for her to kill Xanali. However, killing Xanali would make her indebted to Xanali forever. Gaya didn''t want to live a life that was handed out to her by the one she hated the most. She would rather die than live the life Xanali gave her. Now that she spared Xanali''s life when she could have easily ended her, it settled the debt between them.
"This settles my debt. The next time you fight me, nothing will stop me from ending your life," Gaya punched Xanali in the face hard enough to knock her outpletely.
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"The orc teleported us here," Michael heard Noah''s voice. Unfortunately, Michael was teleported to the Fire Realm with Noah and Rowena. He stood between them and looked around the Fire realm. What Noah said was the only exnation for how they reached the fire realm. Michael was surprised that the curse was able to teleport them to another realm.
"We are not alone," Rowena coldly said. Although they were standing in an empty barrelnd with several crates around them, they sensed another powerful being nearby. Rowena''s voice had a bit of uneasiness, and Michael knew why. The being he sensed was several times stronger than him. To be precise, a Half Celestial stage level 3 being.
The sandstone blocking their view suddenly stopped and faded away, clearly revealing the empty, barrennd around them. Michael wished thend was empty as it looked. Soon, a shadowy figure with glowing red eyes emerged from the ground and hovered in the air. The shadowy figure somehow resembled the orc Michael put the curse in. However, the figure seemed ethereal.
"A Celestial stage being," Noah''s brows arched up.
"Noah, stay behind me," Rowena said to Noah. As the second strongest and his big sister, she felt responsible for Noah''s safety. He was the weakest among them.
"GRGGHHH!" The shadowy figure let out an angry growl. Michael made no sudden moves as he calcted his odds against the Half Celestial stage.
"System," Michael called out the system.
[The host has a twenty percent chance of defeating the shadow monster if you fought alone. Suppose the host fought together with Rowena and Noah. In that case, you have a forty-five percent chance of defeating the shadow monster] The system quickly analyzed the shadow monster ording to Michael''s order and informed him back. Michael did not like the odds at all.
[However, the system can sense Noah is on the verge of triggering his heavenly tribtion. If he seeded, the host''s chance of winning against the shadow monster would go up to sixty percent]
"Noah, go ahead and start the heavenly tribtion," Rowena took Michael by surprise and ordered Noah to trigger his heavenly tribtion.
"I will cover you," said Rowena.
"This is not the time for tribtion," Noah shook his head. Michael didn''t me Noah for being reluctant to trigger his heavenly tribtion. Firstly, this was not a safe ce for heavenly tribtion. Secondly, anyone would be afraid to start their heavenly tribtion in front of his arch-nemesis. The third reason would be the monsters roaming around the area.
"You must be at the Half Immortal stage for us to have any chance of defeating this monstrosity," said Rowena.
The shadow monster calmly hovered in the air as though it was waiting for the trio to make a move. As much as Michael liked to kill a Half Celestial stage being and earn those sweet experience points, he remained still. Double-crossing Noah during his heavenly tribtion seemed tricky with Rowena around. It was still too early for him to piss off the Holy Maiden and receive the wrath of the entire Skyhall. Besides, he knew there was no way of killing Noah without a god-killing weapon. Even if Michael destroyed Noah during the tribtion, his soul would depart and find another vessel. Michael would be in the dark at that time without knowing Noah''s new identity. As far as Michael was concerned, an unknown enemy was far too dangerous than the known one. Thest thing Michael wanted Noah to have was anonymity. In other words, double-crossing Noah had more cons than pros.
Finally, the monster lost his patience as it started to float toward them.
"Oh oh," Michael took a step back and slowly moved his hand to the dark swords.
Michael would rather fight on his own than depend on Noah. Once he cast the death range and take the full Dark Lord form, he would be at Immortal stage level 9. Coupled with the Dark mes, he was confident enough to fight the shadowy monster. Even if he couldn''t take down the monster, he always had the option of using the system to teleport away.
[Sorry, host. The shadow monster has locked the space around, preventing the teleportation from being used. The system rmends the host man up and kills the monster] The system chuckled.
The system expected Michael to fear the shadow monster and look for a way out of the battle. However, Michael had no signs of fear in his eyes whatsoever. He just cracked his neck and drew his dark swords.
"Noah," Rowena turned her cold gaze at Noah.
"There is no time to waste, Noah. Go away. I will take care of this," said Rowena, but Noah looked reluctant to listen to her.
"An ugly monstrosity like this can''t take down your sister, Noah,"
"Kill me," Michael rolled his eyes and cringed inside. He preferred the monster to attack them instead of listening to the two of them.
Chapter 872 Powering Up Once Again
Eventually, Rowena managed to convince Noah and send him away. Since Michael was the strongest and the most serious threat to its existence, itpletely focused its rage on him. Despite the shadow monster''sck of facial features, Michael sensed deep hatred in its eyes. He thought it was because he had removed the curse from Ethan. However, the real reason was far from what he thought. This curse was just the simple version of the curse Andohr created five thousand years ago. He created the curse to affect the Dark Lord. When the battle between the Dark Lord and the mortal realm peaked, Andohr unleashed the curse upon the Dark Lord. Only, the curse didn''t fall on the Dark Lord but on the Dark Queen. So even after the Dark Lord reset the universe, the curse still remembered its origin and why it was created. The curse was sentient, after all.
ck and red lightning bolts crackled around the dark swords in his hands. As the surroundings turned darker, Rowena felt the Dark Lord''s power for the first time. Michael didn''t hold back as he pushed his limit to the max. All the light around Rowena was sucked away by an invisible force as darknesspletely enveloped them. She sensed the Dark Lord''s power exponentially grow after the surroundings turned dark.
The shadow monster halted its advancement when Michael''s eyes turnedpletely ck. Out of the blue, a shadowy spike shot out from the monster at lightning speed. Michael immediately raised his hand as the ck shield appeared on his wrist and blocked the spike. Still, Michael was thrown backward for several meters before he came to a stop. The sheer force Michael felt cracked his ulna and radius. The APD immediately injected the healing potion into his bloodstream and started the healing process. In addition to the healing potion, Michael took the berserker pills to enhance his physical prowess.
When the shadow monster fired another shadow spike, Rowena retrieved her des and tried to cut the spike into halves. However, she was too slowpared to the spike''s speed. Even for Michael, the spike flew too quickly. He dashed away, and still, the spike grazed him on the shoulder. Michael felt an intense pain in his shoulder. To his surprise, the dark mes appeared around his shoulder and burned the flesh in a blink of an eye. This was the first time Michael had seen the dark mes act without hismand. Thanks to the APD, new flesh grew around his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Rowena threw her des at the shadow monster and shook the chains attached to them, creating a wave of shock st. The shadow monster figure was slightly distorted by the shock wave, but she was too weak to cause any real damage.
"GRRRHHHH!" The shadow monster roared, creating enough to st Rowena away. Michael quickly dashed at Rowena and caught her mid-air by the chains of her des. After Rowena safelynded on the ground, Michael threw one of the dark swords at the shadow monster. As the sword soared through the air, Michael raised his other dark sword, sending a bolt of lightning from the tip of the sword.
The shadow monster dashed forward as the sword, and the lightning bolt went straight through its shadowy body. Michael immediately dashed out of the monster''s path while shooting out dark beams from his eyes. Unfortunately, the dark beams went through the monster, just like the sword and the lightning bolt. While Michael was running around the monster, shooting dark beams, Rowena leaped into the air and brought down her des upon the monster.
But the shadow monster created a hand out of the blue and pped Rowena to the ground. Rowena coughed up blood. The ground around her had several cracks due to the sheer force of Rowena hitting the ground. Her silky smooth skin was riddled with bruises and scars as blood oozed out of the cut on his shoulder The monster did not stop with a p as it tried to stomp Rowena to death.
Michael immediately raised his hand, sending a powerful st of wind. The wind st threw Rowena out of the monster''s reach. Without lowering his hands, Michael summoned the dark sword he threw at the monster. The dark sword trembled on the ground for a moment before flying straight back into his hands. After the sword reached his hand, Michael dashed at the monster. His ck eyes started to glow red as someone lit a fire in them. Michael decided to fight head-to-head with the monster as he was confident in evading the monster''s attack. Although it had the advantage in size and cultivation power, the monstercked agility like him.
The badass points soared through the roof as Michael shed the shadow monster left and right. He moved with enough speed to leave after images, and Rowena was stunned by how quick he was. As much as Michael liked to slice and dice the shadow monster, its shadowy figure made it impossible to harm it. No matter how many lightning bolts and dark beams he fired, none affected the monster. The more Michael fought, the more he realized he had no chance of winning unless he found a way to transform the shadowy figure into something tangible. Even the ring of fire created with dark mes had no effect.
Finally, Rowena drank a full vial of healing potion and jumped back to her feet. She tried to dash at the monster, joining Michael in the fight. At that moment, the monster fired five spikes from its body at Michael. He quickly raised the ck shield to block the spikesing directly at him and dashed away to evade the rest. But one spike managed to impale him through the chest. The force sent Michael flying as the ck shield fell off his hand.
Rowena turned around and flew straight toward Michael without batting an eye.
"HAHAHAHA!" The monster caught Rowena off guard with its suddenughter. Instead of pressing its advantage, the monster ran around the blood spilled out of Michael''s wound. The monster''s devilishughter echoed through the entire fire realm. Hearing the monster''sughter, more and more natives of the fire realm marched toward the area. Michael''s blood, coupled with the shadow monster''sughter, drew the beasts of the fire realm to them.
"Ghost," Rowena saw Michael picking himself from the ground with the dark spike sticking out of his chest. Seeing the blood flowing out of his chest ached Rowena''s heart. This strange pain increased as Michael burned down the spike with the dark mesing out of his hand.please visit
"What''s it doing?" Michael asked Rowena, who stared at him, burning his own flesh. Just looking at the skin melting down sent a chill running down her spine. He didn''t even flinch as he continued to melt down the skin until she could see the rib cage.
"Stop it," Rowena couldn''t bear to see him burn himself anymore.
"It''s okay," Michael assured her. Then, the skin slowly grew on his chest until the burn woundpletely healed, leaving only a mark.
"We don''t stand a chance as long as it remains ethereal," said Michael. Rowena turned around and stood by Michael''s side.
"I might be able to help with that," said Rowena, clenching the des. The next moment, Michael felt the sudden drop in the temperature around him. He looked down at the des to see the silver des slowly turning icy blue. The bone-chilling Cold mes surrounded the des, summoning intense frost upon them.
"Freezing it. Good idea," Michael gave a nod of appreciation. He flicked his des and prepared to shut the monster''sughter. But when he was about to take a step forward, he saw several flocks of crows in the air and groups of ss Wraiths on the ground. They were all on their way to the shadow monster. Rowena was stunned to see the beasts of Fire Realm, especially the ss wraiths. Although the ss wraiths were rtively weak monsters, killing them was not easy at all. One had to shatter its body until it had no soul energy left to revive itself. At that moment, hundreds of them flocked toward them with one intention, kill them. Contrary to her reaction, Michael had a smile on his face.
"You stupid dumb fuck," Michael cursed the monster. Not in anger but in excitement. In Rowena''s eyes, they were beasts, while in Michael''s eyes, they were bags of experience points. If he could kill them all, he would reach at least Immortal stage level 8 without a doubt. At that time, the Death range would boost his power to the Half Celestial stage. In other words, the shadow monster just ran out of luck.
"Do you have a n?" asked Rowena.
"Keep the shadow monster busy while I deal with these insects," Michael calmly said. Without wasting any time, Michael ascended into the air as Rowena prepared herself to fight the shadow monster with the Cold mes. Once Michael was in the air, he cast the Lightning dash and flew straight toward the flock of giant crows. Even from afar, Michael began to bombard the crows with lightning bolts. The crows flew down from the sky like flies as Michael began to hear the sweet sound of experience points increasing.
"Did you miss me?" As Michael was wreaking havoc among the crows, Michael saw a volley of golden arrows striking down the crows. He turned around and saw Gaya in the air with her bow.
"What the hell is that?" Gaya asked, pointing at the shadow monster on the ground. The monster tried to fly toward Michael, but Rowena sent a stream of cold mes, interrupting its movements. The Cold mes froze the ss wraiths in the five-meter radius and shattered them to pieces. As Rowena expected, the broken ss pieces merged together and returned to life.
"That''s the curse," Said Michael while shooting down the crows.
"This is not time for exnation. Kill as many beasts as you can," Michael ordered Gaya. With her by his side, he could earn double the experience. Finally, Michael received a golden opportunity to strengthen himself. If everything went ording to his new n, he would be at Immortal stage level 8 by the time this battle ends.
Chapter 873 Temporarily Reaching Half Celestial Stage
** In the previous chapter, I made a mistake by writing the shadow monster is at the Celestial stage. It should have been Half Celestial Stage. I edited the chapters and changed them to Half Celestial Stage. Sorry for this grave mistake **
**Here is the cultivation stages again ( Do not worry about these instructions as I updated the chapter first and then wrote all this. So only the chapter word counts, not thesements**
Arch Sensing Stage
Foundation Stage
Body Refining Stage
Body Strengthening Stage
Core Formation Stage
Core Strengthening Stage
Soul Refining Stage
Fusion Stage
Half Immortal
Immortal
Half Celestial
Celestial
**
While Michael and Gaya were striking down the crows in the sky, Rowena headed straight to the shadow monster. Seeing Rowena, a Half Immortal surviving a battle with a Half Celestial being really surprised Gaya. Although the shadow monster was at the Half Celestial stage, something felt off about the monster to Gaya. She felt it was not a true Half Celestial. Otherwise, Rowena would have been a red mush by now. There was no chance for a Half Immortal even to survive a second in front of a Half Celestial unless the Celestial wasn''t at its peak power. Since Gaya knew more about the Celestials than Michael, she didn''t think Rowena survived the monster because she was strong. On the contrary, Gaya thought the shadow monster was weak for a Half Celestial. One reason why the shadow monster seemed weak in her eyes was theck of physical body. A Celestial being could not unleash their full power without a physical body. Celestials often existed in the ethereal form if something was to happen to their physical bodies. For instance, if another Celestial being or an Immortal managed to kill the Celestial being somehow, their souls would escape the body and exist outside until it could find another vessel. While they were in the soul form, they would be at their weakest. Thus, Rowena was able to fight the shadow monster at the Half Celestial stage.
Many Celestials would go to hell and heaven to create another physical body for themselves in case something was to happen to their current one. However, creating another physical body suitable for their soul was not as easy as one would expect. Plus, the shadow monster didn''t have many offensive attacks to end the battle quickly.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation level 4 crow. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 4000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 7000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Formation level 7 crow. The reward is 100,000 Experience points and 4000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 8000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage level 5 crow. The reward is 200,000 Experience points and 8000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 9000 Badass points]
¡.
Michael willed the system to be quiet as the system blew his mind with notifications. The ck bolts of lightning from Michael''s dark swords riddled the skies and charcoaled countless crows. Despite the number of monsters around him, Michael restrained himself from using the ultimate Ignitia. He wanted to use the ultimate spells on the shadow monster after Rowena froze it as nned. Speaking of the n, Rowena was on the ground fighting the ss wraiths around the shadow monster. She had to fight off these beasts to reach the shadow monster, which remained on the ground, firing dark spikes at Michael.
Several ss wraiths screamed and surrounded Rowena, only to get smashed by her. She threw the des and swirled like a tornado, destroying every ss wraith around her. She destroyed them as soon as they revived themselves. After swinging the des for a few moments, Rwoena pulled the chains towards her, grabbed the des by their hands, and stabbed the ground with enough force to create a powerful shock wave. The shock wave mixed with the Cold mes sent a chilling frost wave that froze everything around Rowena. Then with another stab to the ground, Rowena sent another shock wave, shattering everything frozen.please visit
When Rowena cleared out the twenty or so ss wraiths with a single attack, the shadow monster finally turned its focus on Rowena. Seeing the glowing eyes fall on her, Rowena prepared herself to attack the monster head-on. However, when she took a step forward, the shadow monster roared. The next moment, Rowena went flying away from the monster like a rag doll. She coughed up mouth full of blood in mid-air as every organ in her body screamed in excruciating pain.
Michael and Gaya were upied with the monsters as they failed to catch Rowena. A few momentster, Rowena hit the ground and went sliding through the ground. Her sky-blue robes were torn and had holes in several ces. When she picked herself from the ground, her hand looked crooked. The bone in her hand was sticking out through her skin. Just the look of this bloody sight would make a typical man squirm. But Rowena grabbed her broken bone and pushed it inside, gritting her teeth to fight the pain.
The shadow monster didn''t n to give Rowena any time to retaliate. Instead, it flew straight toward Rowena, its eyes burning with pure killing intent.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal Stage Level 6]
Just as the monster was moving toward Rowena, Michael leveled up. As a result, his full power reached the Immortal stage level 10 due to the death range. Even though it''s just one level, it boosted his power to the point he appeared before Rowena in a blink of an eye. The shadow monster created a giant fist out of thin air, bringing it down upon Rowena. Luckily for her, Michael was just in time to block the fist with his ck shield.
Boom!
Upon the fist hitting the ck shield, a thunderous explosion sounded throughout the area. The ground beneath Michael''s feet cracked as the punch pushed Michael down. Michael gritted his teeth, struggling to keep the shield between himself and the monster. At that moment, the ck shield was the only thing that safeguarded Rowena from getting crushed to death.
"NOW!" Michael shouted at Rowena. She didn''t need Michael to tell her twice as she summoned the Cold mes to freeze the shadow monster. Meanwhile, Gaya fired arrow after arrow quickly enough to mimic firing several arrows simultaneously. She flew around the shadow monster and kept the other monsters of the Fire realm at bay. The moment Rowena summoned the Cold mes, Michael felt an intense chill as he saw the icy blue mes dancing upon Rowena''s hand. Ignoring the pain in her borne hand, Rowena raised her other hand, firing a stream of Cold mes at the shadow monster.
As soon as the stream of Cold mes hit the monster, it roared and exerted more force to bury Michael in the ground. Michael''s knees were on the verge of shattering, but he remained firm, resisting the shadow monster''s force with brute strength. Thanks to Gaya striking down more and more beasts, Michael grew stronger. Rowena sensed the aura around Michael getting stronger with each falling beast, yet she was too focused on freezing the monster instead of focusing on Michael.
Rowena''s Cold mes momentarily stopped the monster from making another move. Michael utilized the opportunity by casting the ring of fire. Immediately Rowena felt the temperature taking a turn as she felt the intense heat all around her. The cloud of darkness shrouding him grew darker and stronger as the dark mes burnt everything to the ground. Even the ss wraiths could not revive themselves as the mes evaporated their body and soul.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal Stage Level 7]
The moment Michael stepped into level 7 of the Immortal stage, the death range boosted his power four levels higher and made him a Half Celestial. His strength skyrocketed through the roof as Rowena felt the sudden explosion in his aura. With his new power, Michael slowly pushed the shadow monster''s hand away and punched the frozen area in the monster''s core.
Michael''s punch sent the monster flying. It couldn''t stop for a mile. Sensing the power radiation from him, the ss wraiths and the crows halted their advancement. Their eyes glistened with fear. When Michael took a step forward, they all stepped backward. Rowena was startled by how powerful he looked at that moment. One moment he struggled with the monster, and the next, he sent it flying with a single punch.
Suddenly, countless clusters of dark clouds appeared in the sky out of nowhere. They rumbled as purple lightning streaks struck across the sky. Rowena looked up at the dark clouds and sensed the overwhelming murderous aura from the Dark Lord. He slowly raised his arms to the sky and brought them down as hundreds of lightning bolts struck the ground at the same time.
The sight immediately reminded Rowena of the time he ended the lives of hundreds of soldiers in Ithn almost a year ago. Her neck hair stood up due to the electricity in the air. The lightning bolts crackled everywhere she looked, burning the beasts to a crisp.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal Stage Level 8]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Immortal Stage Level 9]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 25000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 12000 Badass points]
¡.
The amount of experience points Michael got exceeded his expectations. Furthermore, he only needed fifty thousand badass points to pay his debt to the system. Initially, he thought killing all the beasts would get him to Immortal stage level 8, but he killed enough with his ultimate ignitia to reach level 9. He decimated all the ss wraiths and flocks of crows in a one-mile radius. Rowena had never underestimated him. However, at that moment, she realized how powerful he truly was. When the darkness around him and the dark clouds in the sky faded away, Rowena saw the piles of ashes around her. No wonder the whole world feared him, she thought.
After Michael eradicated the beasts, the shadow monster turned out to be alone.
"I will distract it, and you freeze it with the Cold mes," said Michael calmly as though nothing had happened. Now that he reached level 9, he could reach the Half Celestial stage with the use of the Death range. In other words, he closed the power gap between him and the shadow monster.
Chapter 874 Sudden Departure Of Rowena
After Michael cleared out the beasts of Fire Realm, Gayanded beside him. Rowena quickly emptied a bottle of healing potion of her own before Michael could give her a blood tonic. Her hand waspletely drenched in blood. Thanks to the healing potion, the scars, bruises, and the wound on her shoulder quickly healed as the rosiness to her face slowly returned. The trio waited for the shadow monster to approach them instead of rushing toward it. While the shadow monster was on its way to Michael, he noticed a bright light on the horizon behind the monster. The entire sky above the horizon slowly grew brighter and brighter to the point Gaya had to cover her eyes.
"He started his tribtion," said Rowena.
Michael didn''t give a damn about Noah''s tribtion. Instead, he was focused on killing the shadow monster. It would finally give him enough experience points to trigger his own tribtion to reach the Half-Celestial stage. Of course, he had to upgrade his system before triggering the tribtion, but once he had reached level 10 of the Immortal stage, he would have the power of Half Celestial stage without reaching the stage whenever he took hisplete form.
He always had a feeling Ethan''s curse was a blessing in disguise. But deep down, one question kept nagging Michael, who actually cursed Ethan. The curse was powerful enough to possess sentience as well as the ability to teleport them from one realm to another. He wondered what kind of powerful being was able to create such a monstrosity. Interrogating the shadow monster was out of the question, and Michael had too many things on his te to track down the curse''s origin. Now that Sadie turned Noah''s elites into one of their spies, Michael would be able to know everything Noah learns. Michael doubted Noah would let go of the man who cursed his father. Despite Noah''s rule against killing, Michael saw the killing intent in his eyes. He saw the old Noah who ughtered arrogant young masters and their families without remorse.
"Do we still need Noah''s aid in defeating the monster?" Rowena asked Michael. Judging by the overwhelming power radiationing from Michael, she didn''t think they needed Noah. Once she could freeze the monster, she knew he would take care of the monster all by himself. Unfortunately, freezing the monster was not as easy as it sounded.
"Just like I said. I distract the monster. You freeze it," Michael reminded Rowena again. She nodded and clenched the des tighter. The icy blue Cold mes danced around Rowena''s des, taking the form of small coiling dragons. This was the first time Michael had seen these mes take such form. Looking at them made him wonder if his dark mes could take shapes or forms.
"DARK LORD!" The shadow monster suddenly roared, uttering Michael''s name. Its thunderous roar shook the entire Fire Realm and caused several volcanoes to explode.
Michael himself waspletely stunned by the monster''s roar. From the moment heid his eyes on the monster, he felt like the monster had deep hatred toward him. Now the roar confirmed his suspicion. The shadow monster definitely had it for him. However, the thought that a god was behind everything never came across his mind.
"That''s new. I think you pissed the ugly off by taking it out of its host," said Gaya.
"The more it focuses on me, the easier it will be for you to freeze it," Michael said to Rowena. He didn''t worry about the shadow monster anymore. In fact, he was excited to finish it off. By reaching the Half Celestial stage, he could finally start taking down the great eight ns one by one. The era of the Dark Lord was about to begin.
Letting out another roar, the shadow monster dashed toward Michael. Once it was just ten meters away from Michael, Gaya leaped into the air and knocked a golden arrow into her bow. On the other hand, Rowena prepared herself to join the fight against the monster with Michael. It was not a battle of wits or strategies. Rather, this was a battle of rage and power. Not the smartest, but the strongest would survive.
"Keep your distance from it at all times," Michael warned Gaya as she nodded. Just as Michael nned, he dashed at the monster, and on his way, he opened his arms as the dark swords flew straight into his arms. Rowena thought he was about to use the swords. However, he just unsheathed the swords and leaped into the air. In mid-air, he flicked his wrist as the Doom Bringer materialized in his hand.
Rowena raised her des, sending the frost dragons toward the monster. At the same time, Michael clenched the Doom Bringer tighter as the ancient ice core imbued with the war hammer fired a stream of bone-chilling ice upon the monster from above. Rowena didn''t expect Ghost to possess such a weapon. He always fought using swords, and seeing him use the war hammer felt odd.
The monster''s top, where the ice stream from the Doom bringer hit, got covered in a thinyer of ice. But the iceyer was not strong enough to freeze the monster as it shattered in a blink of an eye. A couple of things happened at once. One, Michael flew above the monster, trying to freeze it with the Doom Bringer''s frost. Second, he evaded the shadow monster''s dark spikes. Third, Rowena ran around the monster while it was focused on Michael and fired a constant stream of Cold mes. Just looking at the monster''s ethereal body told Gaya that she could be no help to Michael. So instead of being in harm''s way, she flew away from the monster.
She gained enough altitude to watch the entire battlefield. If there was a ss wraith or a crow who tried to intervene, it was her task to take them down. As Michael was battling the monster, the light rays on the horizon lost their glimmer. She would be lying if she said the thought of messing with Noah''s heavenly tribtion didn''te across her mind. Since Michael gave her no order to do such a thing, she restrained herself from flying to Noah''s tribtion and interrupting it.please visit
The shadow monster managed to attack Rowena using its ethereal fist, except Michael interrupted the attack with the ck shield. Gaya noticed the Cold mes slowly creating ayer of ice around the monster''s center. As a result, the monster gradually became slow and vulnerable for Michael to attack. Rowena expected Michael to attack the monster''s belly, but he chose not to. She threw him a doubtful re,
"Not the right time," said Michael. The battle between themsted for almost three hours. Gaya watched Rowena almost die a couple of times, and if it wasn''t for Michael''s intervention, she would have been in big trouble. But that didn''t surprise Gaya. What surprised her was how Michael and Rowena fought the shadow monster. They fought with such precision and coordination as they trained together for decades. They understood each other in the heat of the battle without words. Michael''s power grew stronger as the Fire Realm turned darker. Finally, after three hours of intense battle, half of the shadow monster''s body was frozen by the Cold mes.
"DARK LORD!" The monster roared once again as Michaelnded right in front of it. For a moment, Michael locked his gaze with the monster''s glowing red eyes. The monster fired dark spikes at him as he slowly made his way to the monster. He blocked the dark spikes with the ck shield and clenched the Doom Bringer tighter with the other hand.
Rowena breathed heavily and stood back, regaining her strength. After the long three hours of battle, she was exhausted. Using Cold mes continuously took a toll on her body. Her legs shivered and begged her to give up. When Michael reached just an arm''s reach from the monster, he retracted the shield into the space ring, held the Doom bringer with both his hands, and swung it with all his might.
Boom!
The Doom bringer hit the shadow monster and shattered the frozen core of the monster. Gaya saw a hole in the monster''s body as it roared in pain. Gaya closed her ears due to the intensity of the roar. To their surprise, the monster grew smaller in size and weakened. It went from Half Celestial stage level 3 to level 2. But before they could rejoice, the hole in the monster''s body closed itself.
"You gotta be kidding me," Rowena muttered with fury. After witnessing the monster heal itself, Michael immediately leaped away from it. As much as he would like to have another way of defeating the monster, there was none. The only way they had was to shatter its core until it could no longer heal itself, just like the ss wraiths. Meanwhile, Gaya noticed a couple of ss wraiths on the horizon, along with a flock of giant crows. She had to fly away from Michael to hunt them down before they could intervene in the battle.
Noah could have used the heavenly mes to attack the monster''s frozen core if he was also there with them. In that case, the shadow monster would have grown smaller and weaker. Michael didn''t have a clue how long Noah''s heavenly tribtion would be, but he didn''t think it was a good idea to rely on Noah. he preferred to take down the shadow monster by himself with only Rowena''s help. That way, he could earn more badass points and deal thest death blow to the monster. Thest thing Michael needed was Noah to steal his experience points.
After Michaelnded beside Rowena, the shadow monster remained still for a moment as though it was thinking something.
"Heal yourself. The battle is a long way from over," said Michael.
"Where is that old woman, by the way? If we were teleported, there is a good chance everyone in the hall was too,"
Only then did the sudden realization hit Rowena. Her mother was standing in the hall with them. If they were all teleported, her mother would have ended up in the Fire realm somewhere. Just the thought of her mother wandering in the life-ending realm shook Rowena to the core.
"I have to find my mother," said Rowena. She didn''t even bother to wait for Michael''s response as Rowena flew away from Michael at lightning speed.
[The system did not see thating] The system sarcastically said.
Chapter 875 End Of The Long Battle
After Rowena left the area to search for her mother, Michael, and Gaya was left with the shadow monster alone. Michael wasn''t afraid of being alone. On the contrary, he felt relieved to fight the monster alone. Granted, freezing the monster with the Doom bringer would take way longer than with the Cold mes, but he couldfortablynd thest strike on the monster in the end. Suppose Rowena or Noah was here, and their strikes took down the monster. All of his experience points would go down the drain. Michael needed those points to reach the Half Celestial stage.
"Keep those beasts off my back," Michael said, looking at Gaya in the air. As he prepared for the battle, the shadow monster dashed at him. This time, the shadow monster seemed really pissed off at him. The monster''s eyes glowed brighter than before with intense hatred and rage. Two fists materialized over the monster''s head and moved at high speed toward Michael.
Michael''s cat-like reflex made him raise the ck shield and block both the shadow hands. The ground around him cracked open due to sheer force as Michael held off the monster''s hands with his ck shield. The shadow monster kept one hand on the shield and tried to punch him with the other. Michael quickly hit the ground with the Doom bringer creating an ice wall between him and the fist. The fist shattered the wall and sent Michael flying backward. However, Michaelfortablynded on his feet and cracked his neck.
He was totally unharmed by the shadow monster''s attack. Now that Michael had fought the monster for four hours, he had a pretty good idea about the monster''s capabilities. As a result, he calcted the monster''s moves and avoided its attacks without breaking a sweat. Of course, the monster seldom came up with new attacks and made Michael spill some blood. But overall, Michael had the upper hand in the battle. Despite everything, Michael knew he couldn''t go on longer with the battle. Even the Dark Lord had his limits and eventually would grow exhausted. Hence, Michael poured all his energy into the Doom bringer and fired a constant stream of bone-chilling ice at the shadow monster. Once he cast the Lightning dash, Michael almost turned invisible. He ran around the monster, trying to freeze it.
Although the ancient ice core could freeze a Core Formation cultivator to death in a minute, it couldn''t hold a torch to the Cold mes. Compared to the ancient ice core, the Cold mes could freeze one in a second. The power gap between the ice core and the Cold mes was huge. Simply put, Michael knew he had to spend days if Rowena hadn''t returned to the monster and helped him with the Cold mes.
An entire day passed as Michael spent his time battling the shadow monster all this time. It took him an entire day to freeze the shadow monster''s core with the Doom Bringer. Once he hadpletely frozen the center, he covered his fist with the Dark mes and punched the monster, shattering its core yet again. The monster roared with therge hole in its shadowy body. As a result, its cultivation power dropped from Half Celestial level 2 to level 1.
After two more days, Michael finally managed to bring the shadow monster to the Immortal stage. Thanks to all the potions and pills, Michael continuously fought the monster for three days. Meanwhile, Noah was facing his heavenly tribtion on the other side of the Fire Realm. Now that the shadow monster had be Immortal, Michael easily avoided all its attacks. However, it took him longer than he liked to freeze the damn thing. Luckily, Rowena returned to him when the sun rose in the horizon.
"You found your mother?" Michael asked Rowena.
"Yes," Rowena nodded.
"Sorry for leaving you all of a sudden," Rowena apologized to Michael. Normally, Rowena wouldn''t apologize to anyone except to her family members. But she broke that rule and said sorry to Michael without realizing he was not her family. Michael just shrugged it off and raised his Doom bringer, sending a steam of bone-chilling ice. Rowena joined him this time as the Cold mes merged with the steam of ice. Even from afar, Gaya felt the sudden chilliness in the air. She could even see her own breath before her eyes.
The ice from the Cold mes and the ancient ice core rapidly formed ayer of ice in the monster. Michael and Rowena slowly moved forward as the monster was pushed backward. It screamed and roared, slowly getting frozen in its core.
"Remember, it''s my kill," Michael warned Rowena. She wasn''t going to argue with him as she knew he deserved tond the final killing blow. After all, he was the one who had been fighting the shadow monster for days. Once, the shadow monster''s core turned into a crystal which Michael punched with enough force to shatterpletely.
As the battle continued, Michael and Rowena repeated the same process of freezing its core and shattering it with brute force. Eventually, Michael and Rowena managed to freeze the shadow monster''s entire body. Since the sun had fallen down, the darkness enveloped the world. As a result, Michael was at his peak power. Looking at the fragile monster, he knew it would only take one more punch to kill the monster once and for all.
Gaya watched Michael walking toward the monster with the dark mes coiling around his fist excitedly.
"Dark¡.Lord¡" The shadow monster muttered. Its voice turned into a whisper as it stuck within bone-chilling ice. Ignoring the monster''s words, Michael punched the monster as fast as he could. He didn''t want Noah to appear out of thin air and end the monster''s life. If that happened, Michael would definitely lose his calm and go berserk on Noah''s entire family. Luckily for Noah, he was still facing his heavenly tribtion.
Finally, Michael punched the shadow monster, shattering its entire body. As soon as the shadow monster flew into countless ssy shards, Michael felt an intense surge of power within him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Half Celestial level 3 cursed shadow monster. The reward is 5,000,000 Experience points and 100,000 Badass points]please visit
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 60,000 Badass points]
[The System has stored the experience points needed to reach the Half Celestial stage in the storage and will keep them until the host upgrades the system to version 9.0]
[Congrattions to the host for killing a Half-Celestial being for the first time. As a reward, the system has gifted the host with a Legendary Gift box]
The system filled Michael''s vision and head with the system notifications. Michael felt the excitement coursing through his veins when he received a Legendary gift box. Whenever he received a Legendary gift box, it boosted his power to another level. Thus, he couldn''t wait to get alone and open the box. But first, he needed to deal with Rowena.
"We did it," Gaya said,nding beside Michael.
"We held up our bargain, Holy Maiden. We lifted the curse off your father. When you return to him, he''ll be good as new," said Michael.
"I know you agreed to do it because of what I did back in Mazeroth. But by saving my father, you saved my family. I will not forget this," said Rowena.
Michael didn''t say anything for a moment. He slowly turned around and looked in the direction of Hell city.
"If you ever feel like you have to do something for me in return, pay close attention to what Skyhall does behind your back. I am not the real viin as your brother and his guild believe," Michael warned Rowena as he slowly ascended into the air.
"They should back off while I still have my patience. Once I crossed that line-" Michael didn''t finish his sentence. Instead, he let Rowena fill in the rest. As he reached higher and higher, Rowena saw the sky and the area around turn pitch ck. The dark mes shrouded his body, raising the temperature in the air. He shocked Rowena with his power. At that moment, Rowena felt power radiation several times stronger than the shadow monster from him. The stormy clouds gathered above him and rumbled. When she looked at Michael, Rowena saw the lightning streaks in the dark sky. They felt like an ominous warning for whoever intended to cross his path. To be honest, Rowena had never felt such intense power.
"We will meet again," said Rowena. Michael looked at her without uttering a word before disappearing into the dark clouds. The darkness gradually faded away after he left the area. After he disappeared, Rowena looked in the direction of bright light rays and flew straight toward them.
While Rowena was on her way to Noah''s tribtion, Michael headed straight to Hell City. One would expect him to be happy. But on the contrary, he had a frown on his face. Even Gaya didn''t know what just happened that wiped off the smile she just saw a few seconds ago. Without uttering a word, he just headed straight to Hell city for some reason. The city was located on the other side of the realm and far from where Michael defeated the shadow monster.
"What''s going on?" Gaya asked the questions countless times, but Michael remained silent. Only when Gaya saw the outskirts of Hell city did Gaya realize why Michael headed straight here. She heard a powerful humming in the air followed by a crisp ding like someone had plucked a veena''s string.
"Is that Angel''s veena?" Gaya couldn''t help questioning herself. There was nothing except Angel''s veena could have created such a powerful buzz in the air. Gaya could feel the violent energy fluctuations around her. The closer they got to Hell city, the louder the buzz sounded. If that wasn''t enough, Gaya vaguely saw a figure floating above Hell City, covered in an emerald green light.
"I am sick of chasing you around, bitch!" Gaya heard a thunderous roar echoing through the fire realm.
"YOu areing with me, dead or alive!" The angry guy shouted, loud enough to cause tremors in the ground. In his fury, he failed to notice the sky turning darker. Anger blinded him from seeing his deathing in the form of the Dark Lord.
Chapter 876 The Dark Lord鈥檚 Promise To Lailah Alden
** DBS and AHSS will be resumed from 20th this month and ROLE 2 will be updated from April 1st**
Somewhere in the realm of Sea folks, a couple of figures roamed around in a dungeon-like room with bluishmps and chairs. This dungeon extended part way under the ocean, giving the light in the room a blue tinge. The room had lots of low-backed ck and dark blue leather sofas, skeletons of giant fish, and dark wood cupboards. One of the wooden tables had a bowl filled with blood on it. The room had quite a grand atmosphere but also quite a cold one.
One of the heads of House dwrath sat before the ss window and nced at the bustling city before him. This underwater city made any city on thend pale inparison. Hundreds or even thousands of buildings built with ss and lit with luminescent mushrooms gave the entire city a grand appearance. From afar, one could see the sparkling dome around the city, keeping the ocean water from flooding. Not that the sea folk couldn''t breathe underwater, but many buildings could not withstand such pressure. They would shatter into pieces if the dome didn''t exist. After all, the city was located at the bottom of the ocean. One who wasn''t a Sea Folk would not survive the ocean''s pressure despite their cultivation level. Only a higher up in the Sea Folk hierarchy could bring outsider to the city, and even then, the visitor must be at least a Fusion stage cultivator. Otherwise, the sheer pressure would crush their organs to a pulp, turning them into a bloody mess.
"We might get some bacsh if thend walkers heard of our recent actions, Gruzal," said a man withrge eyes, fish-like mouth, and hands with thin skin between fingers, which enabled the Seal Folk to move through the ocean swiftly.
"What do you think they would do? Weak doesn''t fight back, Gllelus," said Gruzal. Gruzal was one of the Sea Folk kind who had the head and upper body of an elf and the tail of a fish. Their bodies were built to swim through the ocean faster than any kind, and while they were in spaces without water, they would float above the ground. Those who broke through the Core Strengthening stage could transform their tails into legs and grow wings to fly. However, the proud and traditional members chose not to, as they thought transforming their bodies was a sin. Gruzal''s kind was called the mermons, one of the ancient races in the Sea Folk realm. Currently, Gruzal and Gllelus were plotting against the House of Halrid.
The Sea Folk race had three superpowers among them; two were part of the great eight ns. The two great ns were the Water God Hall and Sea Serpent Hall. Although Arctic Hall was a powerful n, it wasn''t a great eight n. It didn''t be a great eight n mainly because it was divided into three houses; the House of Halrid, the House of dwrath, and the House of Bigmag.
Mutrad, the recent subordinate of Michael, hailed from the House of Halrid. The higher-up in the Arctic hall ordered him to apprehend the Dark Lord. But due to the internal conflict within the three houses, catching the Dark Lord went down on their priority list. The main reason for this conflict was House dwrath''s hatred toward House Halrid and their hunger for power. The two houses always hated each other and had tension between them. Thanks to Gruzal''s recent discovery, he found a way to gain the upper hand over the House of Halrid as well as the House of Bigmag. Unfortunately, his discovery required someone''s blood, the blood of a spirit child.
"Would you please rx, Gllelus," Looking at the worried look on Gllelus''s face, Gruzal reassured him with a carefree smile.
"I have my doubts about Eratos. He is not right in the head, and you know it. Besides, he is a human. How can we trust a human with a pivotal task such as this, Gruzal?" Gllelus questioned Gruzal.
"He is a human. That''s exactly why I sent him instead of one of ours. But don''t forget Eratos''s history with the child''s mother. The rage within him drives him to do whatever is necessary," said Gruzal.
"You are yet to tell me why you ordered him to bring the mother instead of the child," Gllelus asked Gruzal.
Gruzel let out a foxy smile before flicking his wrist. A silver tter holding two sses and a bottle of wine hovered toward them. Gruzal picked up the bottle and poured the wine into the sses. Then, he handed one ss to Gllelus and floated to the window. His friend followed him behind and joined him, looking through the window.
"So?" Gllelus tilted his head to the sight.
"I sent someone the child trusts like its family to bring it here. Eratos just had to ensure there were no loose ends," Gruzal shocked Gllelus.
"Did you really think I would trust Eratos with the child? Everyone knows he is not right in the head. It made him the perfect person to deal with the child''s mother, but when ites to the spirit child, I won''t let him near it anywhere," said Gruzal.
Gruzal took a long sip of wine and looked at the children swimming around his citadel. Some of the children waved at him as he waved back. On the outside, no one would expect Gruzal to be so cruel. In reality, Gruzal was one of the most dangerous and evil men in the entire Sea Folk realm. Unfortunately, an innocent spirit child ended up in his target circle.please visit
"What about Mutrad, Gruzal? Is he anywhere close to catching him? What if he learns about all this? We cannot let him step into our world," Gllelus''s eyes glimmered with fear as he uttered these words.
"The child and the mother are not in the mortal realm. One is in the Fire realm and the other in the Akn realm,"
Gllelus heaved a sigh of relief after hearing Gruzal. Thest time he heard, the one he feared the most was in the mortal realm. Gllelus was one of the few who were terrified of the prophecy and the stories behind that man. Many, like Gruzal, never believed in those stories and prophecies. Instead, they believed he was just a man who could be killed if the push came to a shove.
"Like I always say, Gllelus. We don''t have to fear him even if hees into our world. He is just a mortal who bleeds. And if he bleeds, we can kill him," Gruzal snickered.
"I know you don''t believe in the prophecies. But all I am telling you is, do not underestimate him,"
"Why are we suddenly talking about the Dark Lord?" Gruzal rolled his eyes.
"He abandoned his child and its mother a long time ago. Except for us and probably the Supreme Guardian, no one knew the Dark Lord had a spirit child with Lah Alden. Contrary to what everyone says, I think that human is ipetent to be the Supreme Guardian. Why else he left the mother and child alone instead of taking them into custody?" Gruzal took another sip of wine and continued questioning Gllelus.
Unlike Gruzal''s thought, Noah left Lah and the spirit child alone, knowing they could do nothing to help him catch the Dark Lord. Furthermore, Noah didn''t want the child to be branded as the dark spawn and live his life like the enemy of the world. Instead, Noah wanted the child to have a normal childhood and life as he had. But despite Noah''s all good-hearted thoughts, he made the mistake of removing the Spyder from the spirit child''s neck. He intended to erase all the Dark Lord''s influence on the child, including the spying contraption. By destroying the SPyder, Noah secluded the child from everyone else, including the Dark Lord. Since he removed the Spyder and assigned guardians to monitor Rainbow ind, Azazel could not keep an eye on Harry.
When Azazel reported losing the feed to Harry and Lah to Michael, he told Azazel to leave them alone. Michael ensured no one except Noah knew about the spirit child. At first, Michael wanted to sneak into a rainbow ind, rig the ce with Spyders and continue to keep Lah and Harry in surveince. In fact, he managed to sneak past the guardians and reached Lah. But when Lah met Michael, her eyes zed with fear. She didn''t even let Harry see Michael''s face. When Michael approached her, she asked him to leave them alone for the sake of Harry''s safety and made him promise he wouldn''t interfere with Harry''s life as Michael initially told her. To be honest, Michael didn''t me Lah for thinking they were better off without him because that was true. That day before he left for Gondolin, Michael cut all his connections with Lah and left them alone. So one could only imagine how pissed off the Dark Lord would be when he learns the plot against Lah and Harry.
"Maybe he didn''t want to piss off the Dark Lord," Gllelus muttered.
"Don''t be a spineless coward, Gllelus. Once we use the spirit child''s blood to locate the artifacts, we will be strong enough to be a great eight n. This is our ancestors'' n, and we will not fail them," Gruzal firmly said. His eyes were filled with confidence and resolve. No matter what happened or who stood in his way, Gruzal would never back off from his n. He had been working too hard for too long to abandon everything because of some children''s stories about the god of darkness.
As Gruzal was discussing his ns with his best friend, he heard a voice in his head.
"My lord, Eratos has located Lah Alden in the Fire Realm. He is on his way to apprehend her," Gruzal heard the voice of his subordinate. These words put a bright smile on Gruzal''s face.
"Eratos found Lah, Gllelus," Gruzal told his friend with a smile. Gllelus couldn''t help feeling excitement coursing through his veins. If Gruzal sessfullypleted the ritual, there would be nothing to stop them from bing a great eight n. He just hoped the Dark Lord would be in the dark, knowing nothing about the disappearance of the spirit child and its mother. But little did he know the Dark Lord was on his way to Eratos with a god''s vengeance.
Chapter 877 Lailah Alden, Please Marry Me
(A long time ago)
When the sun slowly peeped over the rainbow ind, birds shook the morning dew off their feathers and gave a cheerful song that would lift even the most sorrowful spirits. A light mist wrapped around the lone mountain where Lah resided, reaching to touch every bit of life thriving there. The slight chill in the air was enough to give a gentle shiver but not enough for the need for a fire. A breeze tickled the trees, making their leaves shake and sway withughter. Golden sunlight slowly seeped in the past the thick canopy of branches with hopes of being able to reach the damp mountain earth. The heaven-touching apex of the mountain was drenched in brilliant light.
Inside the cave at the top of the mountain, Lah was cultivating in silence. She canceled all the sounds of birds singing, slowly breeze rustling the trees, and the distant shouts of the natives. While Lah was cultivating, her disciples Johana, Nerita, and Megan focused on cleaning the cave and their veenas. Despite their young age, these three little girls moved swiftly through the cave and cleaned the ce.
After they put some fragrant incense sticks around, they came in front of Lah, bent down, and touched Lah''s feet to get her blessings. Lah was everything to the three girls. They were with Lah as her disciples for as long as they could remember. With Lah around, the girls never felt like orphans. Under Lah''s tutge, they reached the Body Refining stage at such a young age. They weren''t anything like prodigies or something, but Lah''s guidance and the resources she provided made a difference in their cultivation speed.
Just as the little girls were about to head out, they saw a shadow on the ground and looked at the cave mouth to see several people descending from the sky. The moment the girls saw these men, they trembled in fear. They quickly stepped closer to Megan, the red-haired girl with pretty freckles sprinkled on her face. Among them, Megan was the toughest and always had their back. When Lah wasn''t around, Megan always went into the forest to hunt and hone herbat skills. Lah was yet to teach them how to defend themselves using a veena, but she didn''t stop Megan from training with swords and bows.
Since Lah was cultivating, Megan strolled out to meet these unweed visitors. The groupnded at the cave entrance with four guards armed to the teeth and two men dressed in fancy golden robes. One of them was a middle-aged man with a bushy beard, short dark hair with strands of white hair, and blue eyes. Meanwhile, the man standing next to the middle-aged man was a stunning young man with striking golden hair. He would make any young girl''s heart skip a beat with his perfect jaw and clean-shaven face. The young man''s hazel eyes glowed with life and excitement as the most attractive feature about the young man was perhaps his slightly pointy ears he inherited from his elven father. But something crooked hid underneath all the handsome face and perfectly built body.
Unlike the three girls, this young man was a prodigy. He reached the Core Strengthening stage at the age of twenty and was said to be the most desired man on the continent of Awor. Hundreds or even thousands of proposals were sent to the young man''s home every single day, but he chose none because he had already lost his heart to the wielder of Angel Veena; Lah Alden.
"Hello, girls,'' The middle-aged man greeted the three girls with obvious disdain in his eyes. He was born and raised as a rich noble. In his eyes, street urchins like these three girls were beyond disgusting, and just talking to them made him want to throw up. He still had a hard time coping with the fact that his daughter was raising these orphans on her own instead of marrying into one of the many noble families in Gondolin.
"Lord Nobert," Megan lowered her head and greeted her mentor''s father with respect despite how she thought about him in her heart. To be honest, Megan would choose to be an orphan any day than be Nobert''s daughter. He was an alcoholic, gambler, wastrel, and arrogant fool who hated everyone who wasn''t noble by birth.
"Is she there?" Nobert asked bluntly.
"Mistress is cultivating at the moment and ordered us to let no one inside," said Megan. Despite facing people who could kill her with a snap of their fingers, the brave little girl had no signs of fear in her eyes. Seeing the girl facing them without covering down made Nobert''s blood boil. Every single cell in his body screamed at him to throw the little girl off the mountain. But he had to restrain himself, thinking about what Lah would do. The rtionship between him and Lah was already broken, and preferred not to damage it anymore than he had already.
"You can tell us her father is here to meet her, or I can meet her in person," Nobert creased his brows and said. He didn''t sound like he was telling them but rather ordering them. However, Megan remained firm in not letting them through. Her mentor gave her an order, and Megan didn''t n to fail.
"I am afraid you cannot meet the mistress today. You can leave a message with us if you want," said Megan. The veins in Nobert''s eyes popped, making his eyes red like a demon''s. He could no longer take such disrespect from a street urchin like Megan. He immediately stepped forward with his hands raised in the air.
"You filthy rat,"
Megan''s instincts kicked in as she raised her hand to defend herself. As Nobert''s hand was about to p Megan, a powerful melody resonated through the cave and pushed the group several steps back. One of the guards almost slipped off the edge and fell to his death. Nerita and Johana heaved a sigh of relief as they saw Lah walk out of the cave gracefully. If a gaze could kill, Nobert, his guards, and the youngster would have died almost instantly. Her cold and murderous gaze swept across the group, making the guards shudder in fear.
They were strong but not as strong as Lah Alden, the wielder of Angel veena. When Lah exited the cave, Johana and Nerita ran behind Lah and stood close to her. Meanwhile, Megan stood beside Lah as though she was Lah''s loyal guard.
"You haven''t changed a bit," Lah coldly said.please visit
"I could say the same to you," said Nobert as the youngster stood there mesmerized by Lah''s beauty. His eyes sparkled with his heartbeat rapidly rising. Anyone could tell the young man was madly in love with Lah. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn''t mutual at all.
"Why are you here?" Lahpletely ignored the young man and coldly asked her father.
"Does a father need a reason to see his daughter?" Nobert answered Lah''s question with another question.
"We both know that doesn''t apply to you," Lah snickered.
For a few moments, Nobert didn''t utter a single word. Silence fell over them. Megan felt extremely ufortable and furious when she noticed how the youngster was staring at her teacher.
"We should talk alone," Nobert said and threw a nce with disdain at Lah''s disciples.
"Whatever you want to talk to me, you have two minutes," said Lah. Granted, Lah was not very talkative and friendly, but she seemed colder toward her father. If one had a good perception, they could see the anger and contempt in Lah''s eyes. It was a clear indication of the hostility she had toward her father. Ever since Lah''s mother died in a mysterious ident, Lah hated Nobert to the core. Although there was no evidence to prove it wasn''t an ident, Lah had reasons to believe Nobert actually orchestrated her mother''s death so he could marry another woman. Nobert pretended to have his heart broken by his first wife''s death. Yet, he married another woman within a month and had a baby girl named Edith the next month. In other words, Nobert was with another woman while Lah''s mother was still alive.
Lah suspected that her mother found out Nobert was cheating on her, and when she confronted him, he killed her as in the Alden family, there was a strict rule against marrying another woman when one''s spouse was still alive. Furthermore, Lah had seen bruises and swelling in her mother''s body. Lah didn''t believe her mother''s story about how she fell off the steps or fought with a boar when they went hunting. If Lah hadn''t made a promise to her mother that she wouldn''t hurt Nobert, he would have been six feet under the moment Lah suspected he was beating her mother. Nobert was really lucky that Lah hadn''t broken the promise even after her mother died.
Nobert gritted his teeth as Lah saw the glimpse of the beast hiding within him. She could tell he wanted to raise his hand and beat her, just like how she beat her mother. The only reason why he held back was unlike her mother, she wasn''t weak.
"Very well," Nober exhaled and looked her in the eyes.
"I gave my word to young master Eratos here that I would marry you to him," As soon as these words escaped Nobert''s mouth, Lah''s anger exploded like a raging volcano. The murderous aura radiated from Lah made everyone tremble. She was shivering as her eyes turned blood red. The sheer guts it took her father to say this to her face¡she was mad beyond limits.
Nobert held his ground without showing any signs of fear.
"Lah," Eratos took a step forward with a gentle smile. She slowly turned her murderous gaze away from her father to Eratos.
"I have been in love with you since the moment Iid my eyes on you. You are the only woman who stole my heart Lah. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Lah Alden, please marry me," Eratos dropped to one knee, flicked his wrist as a diamond ring appeared in his hand, and extended it toward Lah.
"You have three seconds to leave before I rip you all to shreds," Eratos and the others were stunned by Lah''s words. The guards who apanied Nobert, actually expected Lah to ept Eratos''s proposal because they saw no reason why she would reject it. They became speechless when they saw the pure anger and killing intent in her eyes.
Chapter 878 True Form Of The Angel鈥檚 Veena
Lah gave Eratos and her father three seconds to leave the ce unharmed. Surprisingly, none of them took a step backward as they weren''t going to leave the mountain. When Lah counted to three in her mind, Nerita shouted suddenly.
"Teacher, behind!"
Lah''s instincts screamed at her as she leaped away from where she stood. A silver arrow with jade green veins coiled around hit the ground. Lahndedfortably on the ground and looked up at the mountain above the cave entrance to see a ck-robed finger hanging on the mountain with a bow and arrow. When Lah thought Nobert couldn''t stoop any lower, he surprised her. The assassin fired another arrow and another one at a rapid speed. Lah immediately raised her hand, casting a spell.
"Feathers of Angel!" As soon as Lah cast the spell, pure white feathery wings materialized behind her and protected her from the arrows. Lah''s speed caught Eratos off guard. In a blink of an eye, Lah ascended to the ground. In mid-air, a long veena appeared in her hand. When she struck a string, a powerful energy wave shot out from the veena, knocking down the assassin from the mountain.
Before the assassin could hit the ground, Lah struck another chord which turned into a crescent moon-shaped de and cut the Core Formation assassin in half. His body was cut into two halves as the assassin''s entrails rained down through his hips along with blood. Nobert felt a chill running down his spine when he saw how easily Lah dealt with the assassin. Lah waspletely pissed off by the ambush. Unfortunately, her anger blinded her mind and prevented her from realizing the assassin was just a distraction.
When Lahnded on her feet, she couldn''t find Eratos anymore. He just vanished into thin air until she felt a violent surge in energy around her. The mountain trembled as the Arch energy surged to the sky and gathered above a golden glow.
"Get inside!" Lah shouted at her disciples. She was toote to realize Eratos had finished casting a Legendary spell. Although Eratos was a stage below Lah in terms of cultivation, a Legendary spell would close the power gap between them. It was toote for her to stop the spell. The only thing she could do was move away from the spell''s range.
Meanwhile, Nobert and the guards behind him flew behind Eratos and watched Lah with arrogant looks on their faces. They deemed Lah deserved to be taught a lesson. Besides, Nobert had to resort to violence because of her. His world would turn into hell if he couldn''t get Lah to marry Eratos. Before Nobert came to the rainbow inds, Nobert gambled with Eratos and lost the game in which he bet his daughter. He would have used Edith as a bet against Eratos, but thetter showed no interest in marrying a little girl. Eratos''s love for Lah had turned into an obsession long before. So Eratos didn''t suddenly snap as he always nned to take Lah by force if he couldn''t get her to agree to marry her.
Once Nobert finished casting the spell, a giant ethereal head of a dragon appeared behind Eratos. The dragon''s head glowed in icy blue, and its roar shook the entire ind. Lah thought of flying away, only to see the dragon''s gaze fall on the cave entrance where her disciples stood there like statues in shock. Not that the three girls wanted to stay still and watch, but their bodies refused to move. The coldness permeating from the dragon petrified them due to their weak minds and bodies.
Lah dashed at her disciples to shield them from the dragon. However, the moment she took a step toward the girls, the dragon opened its mouth, firing hundreds of ice spikes in a steady stream. Having no other choice, Lah summoned Angel''s veena. As soon as she summoned the veena, everything around her stopped as though someone had pressed a pause button on the world. Slowly with an otherworldly vibration, a pure white veena with feathery wings attached to it appeared in the air before Lah. Each string glistened and whispered inside Lah''s head to y them all. This was the true form of Angel''s veena. A sentient being that turned into a veena by the gods and remained dormant until Lah touched it. Ever since she bonded with the veena, it stayed with her, giving her supernatural abilities. Even after years of being with the veena, Lah barely scratched the surface of its true powers.
Once the veena appeared before Lah, she gently struck a string, imagining a shield powerful enough to block the ice spikes. When she struck the string, the string cut her finger and absorbed the blood. The strings glowed in red for a moment as Lah felt extremely tired. In its true form, the angel''s veena consumed the user''s life essence AKA the soul energy to work. Hence, overusing the veena would eventually lead the user to his or her death. It took great mental fortitude to resist using the veena, and that was the main reason why Lah always stayed meditating inside her cave and seldom used the veena in battles.
Ding!
The moment the string vibrated, a glowing dome appeared around Lah and the little girls. After the vibrating sound faded away, the veena faded away. As a result, everything started to move once again. All the spikes shot out from the dragon''s mouth and hit the dome, creating countless ripples in the dome, but none of them could pierce through it.please visit
The dragon roared louder and louder as the number of ice spikes increased rapidly, except the result remained the same. After a brief moment, the dragon finally vanished into thin air, leaving everyone speechless, especially Eratos. He couldn''t believe his all-mighty Legendary spell couldn''t even scratch Lah, let alone knock her out. Once the dragon and the dome disappeared, Lah felt the immense toll the veena took on her body and soul. She could barely stand still.
"Teacher," Lah heard Johana''s voice as she turned around.
"Megan," Lah''s heart skipped a beat, seeing Megan''s robes slowly turning red around her chest. The little girl had a hole in her chest. Megan''s body froze from head to toe before her eyes, and Lah couldn''t do anything. Unfortunately, the dragon''s spike prated Megan just a second before the dome appeared around them. Considering Megan was just at the Body Refining stage, the spike went through her chest, leaving the dragon''s ice essence. Itpletely froze Megan from the inside out.
"No¡no¡no¡" Lah shivered as she immediately took out a healing potion to heal Megan. Her eyes teared up as Lah tried to pour the potion into Megan''s mouth. However, the little girl had already turned into an ice statue, and when the potion hit her mouth, Megan''s body shattered into pieces. Everything around Lah froze. Lah''s mind wentpletely nk as she stared at the icy shards slowly melting on the ground.
As much as Nobert wanted the street urchin dead, he couldn''t feel any joy. Instead, he realized they screwed up big time. Fear quickly clenched everyone''s heart, and Eratos felt a chill running down his spine when he saw the vengeful eyes of Lah, which had no sentience but pure murderous lust. Without giving any time for Eratos to react, Lah summoned the Angel''s veena yet again. She knew using it twice in a day would put her cultivation speed several years behind yet she couldn''t care less. At that moment, she wanted Eratos dead more than anything in the world.
This time, the veena appeared without passing everything around it. Hence, everyone could clearly see the mass destructive weapon. Lah struck the string, imagining Eratos dead. Just like before, her hands bled as she finally couldn''t stand still anymore. After the veena absorbed the blood, a powerful sonic wave shot straight toward Eratos. His instincts kicked in, making him quickly raise his hands to defend himself. But the invisible sonic wave broke his right hand to pieces. Eratos roared in agony as Nobert saw the young''s body shrivel with blood oozing out of his shoulder where his hand was a moment ago. The young man''s stunning handsome face lost all its glow and shine and turned into something hideous. All his hair crumbled down from his head as his body shrunk to the point he looked like he hadn''t eaten for a year. However, the sound of his screams still reverberated through the inds with full of vigor. Nobert trembled hearing the scream.
"Kill me!" Eratos roared, wishing for a quick death. As much as he wanted the pain to stop and embrace sweet death, the shark head medallion on his chest prevented death from taking Eratos''s life. In her fury, Lah didn''t notice the glowing medallion. Hence, when she saw Eratps fall down from the sky, she thought he had lost his life. After Eratos dropped from the air, she turned her gaze at Nobert and his guards.
"You and I are done," Lah''s murderous gaze swept across Nobert.
"Go away before I break my promise to my mother," Lah growled. Nobert didn''t dare to stay any longer as he could tell the murderous intent in her eyes was no joke.
Nobert left the ind without turning back. While flying away from the ind, he heaved a sigh of relief and smiled. Since he thought Lah killed him, he thought the bet he had with Eratos was no longer valid. Unfortunately, Nobert found out the hard way that Eratos was rescued by the Sea Folks, and Eratos''s family retaliated on the Aldens, ughtering the strongest warriors in their house. Lah had to step in and save the rest with the empress''s help. After reducing them, Lah sent Edith and her mother to Thusia, where Edith befriended Victoria Barnes. Although Lah saved Edith and her mother, Edith med Lah for what had happened to Nobert and the Aldens.
On that day, when Megan died in her arms, Lah thought she had avenged her by killing Eratos. Lah never thought she would meet Eratos almost after eighteen years in the Fire Realm.
Chapter 879 Saving Lailah Alden
(Current day)
In a farawaynd outside Hell city, Lah was on the ground, coughing up blood. Her sky-blue robes were stained with red sand and her own blood. She coughed up, mouth full of blood as her face looked pale.
"You areing with me dead or alive, bitch!" Lah heard the thunderous roar of Eratos, whom Lah never thought would be alive. He hovered in the air with his eyes glowing in rage and vengeance. Lah barely recognized him when she first saw him. Almost twenty years ago, Eratos was a rising star who ruled the hearts of young maidens in Awor. He had striking golden hair, perfectly chiseled muscles, and square jaws. But after Lah used Angel''s veena, his appearance changed drastically. For instance, he had no wavy golden hair but a few strands. His body looked shriveled, as though he hadn''t eaten for months. The eyes that glowed with vigor turned into eyes filled with vengeance. Out of all changes, the wooden hand drew the most attention. The Angel''s veena destroyed his hands when he killed Megan, Lah''s disciple. Eratos got his hand reced with a wooden hand, engraved with several runes. This wooden hand and his appearance were a constant reminder of what had happened to him. Usually, a healing potion and some powerful alchemy substances could heal almost any injuries. Unfortunately, none of them could turn Eratos back to the way he was before he went to the rainbow inds.
All these years, Eratos was training and waiting to have his revenge. Thanks to the Sea Folks, he was able to beat Lah to the Half Immortal stage. Gruazl orchestrated the events behind the scenes and brought Lah to the Fre realm. She had no idea Eratos was waiting for her in the Fire Realm. Once Eratos saw her, he lost all his sanity and attacked her like a maniac. Since Lah was still at the Fusion stage, she couldn''t gain the upper hand against him. HJe overwhelmed Lah and almost beat her to a pulp.
"Get up!" Eratos taunted her to get back to her feet. As much as Lah tried to fight back, she couldn''t even move a muscle. Her shoulder and right leg were crooked, with bones sticking through her skin. In addition, her beautiful face was swollen to the point even the closest of Lah wouldn''t recognize her easily. If Eratos wanted to kill her, he could have done it so easily. However, he was ordered not to kill her. Not that Eratos intended to end her life so quickly. Instead, he wanted to make her suffer and pay for everything she did to him. For eighteen years, he had to wake up in the morning and see his disfigured body in the mirror. Not a single day passed without Eratos wishing that Lah had killed him that day.
"No one would have suffered the way you are about to," Eratos said, gritting his teeth. Except for the canines, all his teeth were nowhere to be found in his mouth. Thus, he looked horrible when heughed at Lah''s state. Even a grown man would be scared to death by Eratos''s appearance. Although the shark head medallion saved Eratos all those years ago, it actually made his life a living hell. Gruzal and his kind fanned Eratos''s hatred ever since and turned him into a vile monster. Eratos were their secret weapon against their enemies. Whenever Gruzal wanted someone to be taken care of, Eratos would be his first choice. Everyone who died in Eratos''s hands went through hell and wished for a quick death. He was brutal, inhumane, and insane. Even many in Gruzal''s close circle were terrified of Eratos and advised Gruzal to put him down like a rabbit dog. However, Gruzal saw a greater potential of a killing machine than anyone else.
As Eratos was taunting Lah, thunderclouds rumbled in the distance. Soon, clusters of dark clouds appeared above them. In his rage mode, Eratos didn''t mind the sudden change in his surroundings. As far as he was concerned, it was just a typical storm in the Fire Realm. Considering Eratos spent his time secluded from the outer world in the Sea Folk realm, he had no idea what was happening in the world. When Lah saw the sky getting darker and darker, she knew he was there.
Eratos''s evil grin froze once he noticed the strange smile on Lah''s face. He couldn''t think of a single reason for what could have made her smile unless she went insane.
"I will wipe that pretty smile off your face, bitch," Eratos snickered. A silver chain riddled with nails materialized in Eratos''s hand. He clenched the chain tight and swung it toward Lah. Lah''s instincts screamed at her to raise her hands to defend herself. But her hands simply refused to move. Thus, she could only close his eyes. A few seconds passed, yet the chain was nowhere close to Lah. Eratos tried to yank the chain without turning around. To his surprise, the chains didn''t even move an inch as it felt like the chain was frozen in the air.
Finally, Eratos slowly turned around to see someone dressed inplete ck holding the chain in his one hand.
"Ghost," Lah mumbled as she saw the Dark Lord hovering in the air facing Eratos. Thest time she saw him, he was only a Half Immortal. And a yearter, he became an Immortal on the verge of breaking through to the Half Celestial stage. She would be lying if he said she wasn''t d to see him, especially given her situation. Facing Michael, Eratos tried to yank the chains out of his hands. But no matter how hard he tried, the chains didn''t even move an inch.
Eratos felt an overwhelming power radiating from the ck-robed youngster, and when he focused, he was stunned to see his superior cultivation stage. The evil grin on Eratos''s facepletely vanished into thin air. In its stead, a shocked expression appeared on his face. Granted, Eratos lost all his reasoning and sanity when it came to Lah, but still, he was able to see the power gap between a Half Immortal and an Immortal.
Suddenly, everything around Eratos turnedpletely ck. Not a shred of light peaked through the darkness that enveloped him. This darkness around him felt vicious and eerie. The youngsterpletely vanished into the darkness except for his glowing red eyes.
"Who-" Before Eratos could finish his words, he was pulled toward the youngster by the chains. The next moment, he felt a strong grip around his throat. His face quickly turned purple without theck of oxygen to his head. Eratos punched the youngster with all his might, only to feel like punching a stone wall. His hands went numb, and some of the fingers cracked instantly. Eratos gritted his teeth in pain without shouting.
While Eratos struggled to escape Michael''s grip, Gayanded beside Lah with a healing potion. She quickly opened the vial and emptied the potion into Lah''s mouth.
The bruises and wounds on Lah''s body rapidly disappeared as the rosiness returned to her skin. Lah''s blurry vision slowly cleared up and showed Gaya''s face.
"Who the hell is that guy?" Gaya questioned Lah the moment she opened her eyes. With Gaya''s help, Lah slowly got back to her feet. Instead of answering Gaya''s question, she stared at the pitch-ck darkness in the sky. She was unable to locate both Ghost and Eratos in the darkness. Inside the death range, Michael grabbed Eratos''s wooden arm, twisted it to the point it cracked, and ripped it apart from his shoulder.
"Not again!" Eratos roared. His painful scream echoed through the fire realm. Lah knew Eratos was a child in terms of crueltypared to the Dark Lord. Thetter obliterated an entire ind of Ithn and wiped off King Maxim''s bloodline from the face of this world. The people of Ithn still suffered the war''s effects and wished things were different every single day. After Gaya heard the scream, she noticed a wooden arm stained with blood falling down from the sky.
"That bitch must die¡" Even when Eratos was on the verge of dying, his hatred toward Lah prevented him from begging for mercy.
His words poured oil into Michael''s mes of anger and made him crush Eratos''s vocal cords. Michael then coiled the chains around Eratos''s bleeding neck and squeezed the life out of him. As the light of life was fading away from Eratos''s eyes, Michael unsheathed his dark sword and stabbed him in the gut. On the one hand, Michael squeezed Eraots''s neck with the chains; on the other hand, he moved the dark sword upward, splitting Eratos''s chest in half.
Lah and Gaya stood on the ground, looking at the blood and entrails falling from the sky above them. They heard a sickening growling from the darkness, and judging by the amount of blood and organs falling down, they could imagine what was happening inside.
"There goes my chance of questioning him. I hope you will have some answers for us," Gaya sighed.
If choking and cutting Eratos was not enough, Michael fired the dark beams out of his eyes and burned two holes through Eratos''s head. While brutally murdering Eratos, he noticed the glowing shark head medallion on Eratos''s neck. Michael felt the medallion''s energy trying to keep Eratos''s soul from leaving his body. This medallion saved Eratos from the wrath of Angel''s veena and kept him alive all these years. But Michael''s power was far stronger than the magic within the medallion. He just grabbed it and pulled it from his neck against the medallion''s resistance. Once Michael removed the medallion, it trembled violently for a moment in his hands before losing all its glow.
When the dark sword reached the base of Eratos''s neck, Michael twisted the sword and cut his head clean off his shoulders. Eratos''s headless body fell down, swaying in the stormy wind. The dark beams melted down Eratos''s head until nothing but a crumbling skull was left in his hand. Gradually, the darkness in the sky slowly faded away, revealing Michael in the air. Then, Michael slowly descended to the ground andnded before Lah. He didn''t say a word to Lah but looked her in the eyes, expecting an exnation.
Chapter 880 New Skill, The Soul Stare
"What is he doing?" Lah asked Gaya, hovering in the air where he killed Eratos an hour ago. After Michael ended Eratos''s life, Lah told Michael and Gaya everything she knew about Eratos, from when she first met him and thest time he killed Megan. Finally, Michael learned why Lah lived in seclusion on her own ind instead of with Edith. When Gaya asked why she was in the Fire realm, Lah said she entered the Fire realm to help a child born in Hell City named Megan. All those who knew Megan was dead except Nerita and Johana. Thus when Lah heard a girl named Megan needed healing, she couldn''t ignore the plea. Since Lah med herself for Megan''s death, she immediately ventured into the Fire Realm, only to realize it was an ambush set up by Eratos.
Gaya and Lah watched Michael''s back as he hovered in the air without uttering a word. They thought Michael had calmed down after killing Eratos. In reality, he was preparing to ughter all those people who sent Eratos after Lah. Like it or not, Lah was the mother of Harry, the spirit child. He may haven''t agreed to be Harry''s father, but Michael promised himself that he would protect the mother and son. Deep down, Michael had a bad feeling that Lah was just a distraction and the real target of this drama was Harry. Without Lah to protect Harry in the rainbow inds, he was defenseless. Michael didn''t trust the guardians were capable of protecting the spirit child if someone like Eratos decided to take him away. To confirm his suspicion, Michael ordered Azazel to go to the rainbow ind and ensure the child was safe.
Meanwhile, Michael prepared himself to face the bastard who dared to touch Lah. The moment Michael summoned the system, he settled his debt to the system, and even after paying the system, he had three hundred thousand badass points left. He willed the system to show his status as the long box containing everything rted to him appeared in icy blue letters before his eyes.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Immortal level 10
Experience Points: 8,000,000/8,000,000 (9,000,000 Experience points yet to be consumed)
Badass Points: 300,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 5 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 8
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 1
Meteor - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 5
Soul Eater - LVL 5
Death Range - LVL 3
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others/
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions/
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 96% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation: The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Grow the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 1,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 6-Star Alchemist
5-Star cksmith
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 86%)
Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 85%)
Sadie (loyalty level 75%)
Ricky (loyalty level 95%)
Titus(loyalty level 84%)
Optimus (loyalty level 83%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 92%)
Base of Operation: The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Dark Ocean
Familiars: Nightmare (Royal Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (41% Mastery), Fire (42% Mastery), Lightning (51% Mastery), Darkness (46% Mastery)
A long brief momentter, Michael decided to open the Legendary gift box he had received by killing the Half Celestial shadow monster. When he willed the system to open the gift box, a golden box wrapped in red ribbons appeared before his eyes, trembled for a moment, and popped open, revealing a card shrouded in darkness.
[Congrattions. The host has received level 4 Soul Stare skill]
[Please be aware that the Soul Stare skill you can buy from the system for 300,000 badass points is nowhere near powerful as the one you just received]
Michael felt the familiar acute pain in his head that appeared every time he bought a new spell or learned a specialization. The painsted for a few seconds before fading away. Once the pain was gone, Michael focused on the new spell and unveiled its powers.
[At the current level, the host can cause and induce the same pain the victim has caused to others in his lifetime]
[The host has a thirty percent chance to bring down the victim''s cultivation by one stage if the skill was used on the victim for more than ten seconds]
[The higher the skill level is, the higher the chance of bringing down the victim''s cultivation stage]
[The Soul stare''s ultimate form would enable to host to control the victim by looking into their eyes from afar]
"Like hypnotism?" Michael asked the system.
[At its very core, yes. But the Soul Stare is much more powerful andplex than hypnotism. Once the host upgrades it to higher levels and unlocks the ultimate form, you can turn your enemies against their allies without even lifting a finger]
Just hearing the system describe the skill''s power made Michael momentarily forget about Eratos and the hit on Lah and feel the excitement coursing through his veins. However, he knew a godly power like this woulde up with a catch. When he thought about it, the system informed Michael about the limitations of the skill.
[The soul stare cannot mind control adversaries who possess powerful souls]
[The victim must have nothing to protect their eyes. For instance, if the victim was to wear sses, the soul stare would not work. This can be overridden bypleting certain tasks the system assigns the host]
"What kind of tasks?" asked Michael.
[That is for another time, host] The system did not reveal anything about the tasks to Michael. He remembered the system telling him he had toplete some special tasks to upgrade the spells and skills after a certain level. For now, he didn''t have to worry about these tasks. Besides, Michaelcked the points to upgrade his skills and spells to that level. Now that Michael had earned another new skill, he exited the system.
Then, he immediately contacted Azazel through the earpiece, hoping Azazel would tell him that the spirit child was fine with Nerita and Johana.
"My lord," Azazel answered Michael''s call. The moment Michael heard Azazel''s voice filled with rage and shock, Michael''s heart skipped a beat.
"The spirit child is not here, my lord. I am sorry," said Azazel.
"Where are Nerita and Johana?" Michael asked Azazel.
"Knocked out, my lord. Whoever took the child knocked them out before they could see his face," said Azazel. Michael had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself and never let the anger blind him. After being silent for a few moments, Michael asked Azazel about the guardians.
"What about the guardians?"
"The same, my lord. They were knocked out the same way as the disciples of Lady Lah,"
After hearing that whoever took Harry was knocked out instead of killed, Michael was able to heave a sigh of relief.
"I don''t see any signs of a struggle here, my lord. What would you want me to do, my lord?"
"Kill those guardians and inform Noah that his people failed their duty," Michael coldly ordered Azazel. It didn''t even take a few seconds for Michael toe up with this brutal order. As far as Michael was concerned, they deserved to be killed. It was their duty to protect the spirit child, and they utterly failed in their duty. If Michael was there, their deaths would have been much more painful.
"As you wish, my lord. I will do everything I can to find the spirit child,"
"Now I have to break this news to Lah. I will meet youter in the castle, Azazel," Michael sighed, cutting the connection between them. Although Michael partly med Lah for the spirit child''s disappearance, he also med himself. He felt stupid for listening to Lah and promising her he would no longer spy on them. When Michael finally turned around, Gaya immediately saw something was wrong by looking at the grim look on his face.
He slowly floated toward Lah and took a deep breath.
"Lah. Someone has taken Harry,"
Those words hit Lah like a heavy hammer and made her mind go nk. She trembled from head to toe, unable to believe what she had just heard. Even Gaya was stunned by Michael, but she threw him an ''I told you so'' look. She nagged Michael to break his promise and continue to monitor the spirit child. However, Michael wanted them to have a normal life,pletely cut off from him. Unfortunately, Michael learned his lesson the hard way. But Michael couldn''t find a single person rted to him who might want to take the spirit child. It felt like whoever took the child had nothing to do with him but with Lah.
"I have to go," Lah tried to fly away, only to get stopped by Michael. He grabbed her by the arm.
"There is nothing for you to do there. Harry is gone. Help me find whoever took him so I can bring him back safely,"
"You''ve done enough, Ghost," Lah answered Michael with gritted teeth.
"Don''t put the me on him, Lah. He wasn''t the one who made him get rid of all the safety measures in the first ce," Gaya immediately came to Michael''s defense as tears rolled out of Lah''s eyes. She tried wriggling her hands out of Michael''s grab, but he was too strong.
"I don''t think my enemies took him away, Lah. Whoever took him is rted to you," said Michael. Finally, Lah stopped resisting Michael inplete shock.
"It''s not a coincidence that you were attacked, and Harry disappeared at the same time. Someone nned this. I am bringing him back with or without your help. And this time, I am doing this my way," Thunder rumbled in the distance while clusters of dark clouds appeared above them as a warning to whoever dared to kidnap Harry. They just made thest mistake of their life and ended up at the top of Michael''s kill list.
Chapter 881 Backup Has Arrived
"I can''t think of anyone who might want to hurt Harry. No one even knows he exists except for you two and Noah," Lah mumbled.
"And Edith," said Michael. Thest time Michael saw Edith was at Ithn before he ughtered Victoria and her family. After that, Edtih practically disappeared from Michael''s radar. He always thought she was with Noah or Lah. But judging by the bewildered look on Edtih''s face, it was apparent Lah had no idea about Edith''s location.
"Where is she?" asked Gaya.
"I don''t know. Why are we even talking about Edith? It must be someone who sent Eratos after me. We should have questioned him," Lah panicked. Her usually calm and cold demeanorpletely disappeared when her child was in danger. At that moment, Lah was not the wielder of Angel''s veena but a mother who lost her child.
"Well, I am good at interrogating. But even I cannot make the dead speak," Gaya sighed.
"This might help us figure out who sent him," Michael opened his arm and showed them the shark head medallion.
"It contains a powerful rune that saved him from your veena all those years ago. If we could find its origin, we have a chance to locate Harry,"
"What if they did something to him?" Lah trembled as Michael slowly shook his head.
"Whoever took Harry is not a killer. Otherwise, they would have killed your useless disciples and the guardians instead of knocking them out," said Michael.
When Gaya heard that someone had knocked out Lah''s disciples again, she couldn''t help rolling her eyes.
"What are you teaching those girls? How many times did they get knocked out by now? For fuck sake, teach those girls to fight. You can''t kill people ying music. My dogs would do a better job than those useless bitches," Gaya wasn''t just ridiculing them but was seriously pissed at Lah''s disciples.
''I am not training them to be killers, Gaya," Lah creased her brows.
Gaya was about to reply to Lah with a snarkyment when Michael raised his hand, ending their conversation. A few secondster, Gaya flicked her wrist as the long bow materialized in her hand. Since Lahcked the perception of Gaya and Michael, who were far stronger than Lah, it took her some time to sense a group of powerful entities flying toward them.
Michael focused on the horizon to see a group led by an Immortal flying toward them. Other than the Immortal, the group had four more Half Immortals. Simply put, this group could decimate several kingdoms in Elon and Ozer within a few hours. Looking at the group, one thing became certain to Michael; Eratos had a pretty powerful backing behind him.
"I will take care of them," Michael moved in front of Lah and Gaya.
"I can take one or two," said Gaya, but Michael shook his head.
"Keep her safe," Michael looked at Lah over his shoulder and ordered Gaya. Once the group came close enough to see Michael, he drew his dark swords and cracked his neck.
The sky above him rumbled as lightning streaks struck across the dark sky like dark spider webs on a ck canvas. Then, the clusters of dark clouds obliged, letting heavy rain descend in little gleaming drops of silver. It added an alien mor to the eerie red world of the fire realm. A huffing wind rose up then, stirring the red sand on the ground. A tinkling sound came to their ears as the first pearls of rain dropped onto their heads. The sound was like the ssy clinking of a champagne flute, lilting and clear. A sheet of rain passed over them as the sound intensified. The smell of rain in the Fire realm rose like a miasma.
"Let''s go," Gaya said to Lah. Although Lailha was reluctant to leave, she ultimately followed behind Gaya because she knew she wasn''t strong enough to face them. Meanwhile, the sky grew darker and more vengeful as though it had a score to settle with the fire realm. Steaming shrouds of cloud coil and writhe as the unearthly caterwauling sound filled the air. The wind whipped everything into a frenzy. The dark clouds raced across the sky, thrumming with the charged energy they were desperate to release.
Then there was an explosion like a sonic boom that shook the entire realm. Doom-ck clouds, filled with malice, churned and roiled to the rhythm of the wind.
Branched lightning lit up the dark sky, following the rumbling thunder. Buzzing and hissing, several lightning bolts struck across the Fire realm, turning some poor trees into charcoal within a second.
Under the raging storm, Michael hovered in the sky alone, waiting to wee the group of Immortals. Finally, the man who led the group, an elf, halted in the sky and signaled hisckeys to wait for his orders wordlessly. The elf scanned Michael from top to bottom until he realized who they were against. To Michael''s surprise, the others behind the elf had no signs of fear or shock in their eyes. They seemed like humans, but something about them irked Michael in the wrong way.
"Are you looking for Eratos?" Michael asked the group. His voice became demonic as the cloud of darkness slowly shrouded Michael. Michael controlled the death range around him. The group wasn''t enveloped byplete darkness. Instead, they had just enough light to see Michael''s figure barely. The elf was at Immortal stage level 5. Still, the elf had no fear in his eyes. Even after seeing the darkness surrounding him and hearing the terrifying voice of the Dark Lord, the elf remained calm.
"I am afraid he is no longer here," said Michael after the elf and his group remained silent.
"This does not concern you, Dark Lord. You are meddling in things you cannot possibly fathom," the elf snarled.
"Let us take the human with us, and we can forgive you for killing Eratos," said the elf, only to see Michael burst intoughter.
"Forgive me? Hahahaha," Michael''sughter echoed through the dark skies.
After Michael''sughter faded away, his eyes turnedpletely ck and lit up with dark mes.
"Riddle me this, where do you intend to take her?" Michael asked the elf.
"It doesn''t concern you, Dark Lord. Why don''t you go y viin, where you came from, and let the grownups deal with this?" the elf snickered. Despite facing the Dark Lord, he looked just as arrogant as facing a typical cultivator. In Michael''s eyes, the elf seemed really stupid. But again, he had a feeling the reason for the elf''s haughtiness might be some legendary spells in his arsenal. The poor elf had no idea Michael could raise his power to Half Celestial stage in a blink of an eye.
"I don''t enjoy killing, but it would be hard not to when I am killing you," Michael calmly said.
"You narrow-minded fool. You only think about killing, not the consequences. Consequences of killing Immortals. Kill me, and five others will take my ce. We are legion, and no one can stop us," the elf growled at Michael.
"Watch me," said Michael as the crimson-red lightning bolts dancing around the dark swords intensified. They crackled violently as though they were desperate to take the elf and his group''s life. The Half Immortals standing behind the elf suddenly raised their hands as several lightning bolts from the sky above struck Michael simultaneously. Even from far away, Gaya and Lah could feel the electricity in the air and their hair standing up. Without giving Michael a time to retaliate, they bombarded him with lightning bolts. While the Half Immortals were striking him with lightning bolts, the elf pped, sending a powerful sonic wave in Michael''s direction. The sonic wave pushed away the darkness around Michael for a moment, revealing him being struck down by the bolts of lightning.
To Gaya''s surprise, the ground beneath her cracked open after the elf pped his hands together. Soon, more cracks branched out from the big crack and formed a web of cracks in the ground. She and Lah had to fly away and look for stable ground. Luckily for Hell city residents, the battle between them happened far away. Otherwise, several buildings would have copsed and taken many lives.
When the elf thought about casting another spell, everything around him turned pitch ck. He couldn''t even see his own hands before his eyes. Once the darkness blinded thempletely, the elf felt a chill running down his spine. His instincts screamed at him to move away, and so he did. The moment he dashed to the right, he felt a strong breeze of wind across his face. He was unable to see what was happening around him, except he heard one of hisckeys groan in pain for a quick second.
The elf immediately cast a spell to summon a bright sword that lit up inside the darkness and revealed a headless body hovering in the air beside him. Blood streamed out of his neck, adding red to the rain. As the elf was staring at the headless body, a strong wave of wind flew past him, snuffing out the light.
"Hide as much as you want, coward," The elf started to growl.
"I am going to show you the true meaning of power," said the elf. Then, the elf flew out of the darkness and prepared to cast a powerful spell.
He closed his eyes for a moment as a golden shield around him appeared to protect him while he cast the spell. From the ground, Gaya sensed the sudden surge in energy around her. In a blink of an eye, an ethereal cage appeared right above the dome of darkness. Thick chains glistening in the light grew out of the cage and shot straight into the darkness.
"Got you," The elf snickered as the darkness enveloping hisckeys faded away, revealing the Dark Lord and two other headless bodies. The golden chains coiled around Michael like sentient beings. They squeezed him, restricting his movements. The elf couldn''t care less about the death of three of hisckeys. He forgot about everything when he saw the chains coiling around the Dark Lord.
"He¡" Lah''s heart skipped a beat as she tried to ascend into the air. But Gaya simply stopped her and shook her head.
"Let the elf be happy for a moment," Gaya smirked.
Chapter 882 What Should I Do?
The elf raised his hands, clenching his fist as the chains coiling around Michael tightened. Since Michael still hadn''t cast the death range, he remained at the Immortal stage. He wanted the elf to think he had the upper hand for a moment. Looking at the chains tightening around his body, the elf grinned arrogantly. The ethereal cage slowly floated above Michael to cage him within.
"Finish him," the elf ordered the two half-immortals who survived Michael''s attack. They didn''t need the elf to order them twice as they cast lightning spells to weaken him. In a blink of an eye, several lightning bolts struck Michael from above. But the responsive shield appeared around Michael, absorbing most of the lightning energy. Nheless, the Half-immortals continued to bombard Michael with lightning bolts. Countless lightning bolts struck Michael in the sky, causing Lah''s heart to ache.
"It''s my turn," The elf creased his brows when he saw the Dark Lord smiling. He remained unharmed except for a single drop of blood trickling from his lips. Hearing the Dark Lord''s words, the elf willed the cage to drop on him, caging him within. However, the moment the golden cage trembled, the Dark Lord grabbed the chains and started to twist them with his hands. The chains let out a shrieking noise as the elf noticed cracks appearing in the chain. Suddenly, everything around them turned pitch ck as before. The golden cage glimmered in the darkness for a few moments before getting shrouded by the darkness. Stuck inside the darkness, the elf and hisckeys tried to escape the domain of the death range. When they finally managed to fly through the darkness, they heard a thundering shatter in the air. They turned around and looked at the darkness slowly fading away. Once the darknesspletely disappeared, they witnessed countless specks of light spots around the Dark Lord.
The cage and chains the elf used to trap Michael were nowhere to be seen. Instead, they saw the Dark Lord devilishly smiling at them.
"ytime is over," Michael''s demonic voice swept through the area. After they heard his words, the cloud of darkness around him darkened. To theirplete shock, the power level increased with the darkness until the elf sensed the power radiation of a Half Celestial. The elf couldn''t believe it. If the Dark Lord was an Immortal, he still had some spells that could take him down. But no spell in his arsenal had the power to take down a Half Celestial. Only then did the elf realize that he pretended to be weak to make them cast all their spells and exhaust their energies. Now that the Half Immortals spend almost half of their energy casting lightning spells, and he spent a chunk of his energy casting a legendary spell, the Dark Lord gained the upper hand in the battle.
Without giving them any time to retaliate, the Dark Lord fired dark beams out of his eyes and burned two holes through one of the Half Immortal''s chest. Blood sttered out from his chest as he groaned in pain. Before anyone could react, the Dark Lord vanished into thin air and appeared right behind the groaning half immortal.
Pulch!
The elf felt a ssh of hot blood on his face. He turned around to see the head of his minion flying in the air. While the head was still in the air, a ring of dark mes shot out of the Dark Lord, burning everyone within. The elf''s silver robes were on fire in a blink of an eye. He felt the scorching heat burning through his porcin skin. Fighting the pain, he managed to fly through the ring of fire and escape its range. However, the same couldn''t be said for hisckeys. When he turned around, he only saw headless bodies burning to ashes before falling down from the sky. With all hisckeys dead, he was thest man standing against the Dark Lord.
Despite facing an overwhelmingly powerful opponent, the elf managed to react in time and cast a spell. In a blink of an eye, crescent-shaped fire des appeared out of nowhere and shot toward Michael. They flew in all directions to cut the enemy into pieces and burn the pieces to ashes. Facing the countless fire des, Michael simply raised his hand, casting his own wind des.
The wind des sniffed out the fire in the fire des, voiding its effects. Some wind des flew through the fire des and hit the elf. The lucky bastard managed to cast a quick defense spell that formed a sparkling chakra in front of him and absorbed most of the wind des'' power. Suppose he hadn''t cast the defense spell, the wind des would have cut him in several ces. Truth be told, Michael held back when casting the wind des. His aim was not to kill the elf but to take him alive. The elf might have some answers about Harry''s location. Even if the elf didn''t know the exact location, if he could tell him where they intended to take Lah, he would be able to track down the one who ordered Harry''s kidnapping.
Boom!
After surviving the wind des, the elf pped his hands together. This time, he created several sonic waves to disorient Michael and attack him with another spell. The sonic waves overshadow the thunderps and split the ground beneath them. Fortunately, Lah and Gaya were standing on barrennds without any buildings or living beings. Countless cracks spread through thend like spider webs as they flew away from the ground before falling into the holes. In the air, Michael heard his ears ringing due to the sonic waves. In case his power level didn''t reach the Half Celestial stage, his eardrums would have exploded. He was certain of it. The sonic waves disturbed the cloud of darkness, revealing Michael''s body to the elf.
For a moment, Michael''s power level dropped from Half Celestial stage level 4 to level 3. When the elf sensed the drop in his power radiation, he dashed at the Dark Lord to take advantage of the situation. On the midway, a trident made of emerald stone materialized in the elf''s hands. He clenched the trident tight and stabbed Michael. But when the trident was a few inches away from his chest, the Dark Lord''s figure disappeared from his sight. The elf felt a chill as his instincts screamed at him to turn around.
As he was about to turn around, he felt a sharp pain in his back. He looked down to see a sword sticking through his gut. Blood trickles down from the tip of the ck sword. He tried to move, yet his body refused.
"Grrgh," The elf growled as he tried to push the sword back, only to feel a sharp sting in his neck. He slowly turned to the side and saw the Dark Lord injecting something into his neck. Lah witnessed the battle with awe and shock. This was the first time she had seen two Immortals go head to head. And the effects of the battle were devastating to thend around them. When she looked around, the barrennd had countless cracks, craters, and bodies. If they battled above a city or a town, it would have turned into a ruin by the end of their battle. Once the injection of paralyzing poison was empty, Michael drew the needle out of the elf''s neck.
"What¡did¡you do¡" The elf could barely move his lips and question the Dark Lord.
Michael grabbed the elf by his neck, descended from the sky, andnded beside Gaya and Lah.
"It is not safe for you here," Michael told Lah.
"I am not moving without any information about Harry," Lah shook her head.
"And we will get it when we interrogate the elf. We cannot do that here," Michael''s voice turned grave. Lah clenched her fist, thinking about leaving the fire realm. Eventually, she agreed to leave the ce and follow Michael. After Lah nodded, Michael willed the system to teleport them all to the castle, where they had everything to break down the elf.
************************************************
Lah closed her eyes when she felt the space around her distort, and by the time she opened her eyes, she was standing in a brightly lit hall with arge round stone table in the center. Seeing Gaya walking away with the elf, Lah tried to follow her behind.
"You don''t want to see it. Trust me," Michael stopped Lah.
"Give me ten minutes with him, and I will be back with a lead on your son," Gaya reassured Lah before leaving the hall. Lah seemed reluctant but ultimately decided not to follow her behind. After Gaya left the room, she was alone with Ghost in the room. As one would expect, Lah''s eyes were filled with concern and fear for her son''s life. Poor Lah felt so helpless and weak to do anything. Her inner emotions slowly turned into anger. Michael noticed her eyes zing with fury as he sat on his throne. Unlike Lah, Michael remained calm and didn''t direct his anger toward her because he knew there was nothing Lah could have done.
"Why does this keep happening to him? He is only a little child," Lah stuttered.
"He is going to be harm''s way no matter how far we live from you. A son has to pay for his father''s sins," Lah said, gritting her teeth.
"So you are ming me?" asked Michael.
"We both know Harry will always end up in the middle of your war against the entire world,"
"Tell me, what should I do?" Michael calmly asked Lah.
"Should I drop everything and surrender myself to the guardians? Or should I leave everything behind and live in the Cold mountains? What should I do?" Michael slowly spoke these words.
"I don''t want to me you. But it was you who prematurely absorbed the first energy. It was you who decided to give Harry a physical body. It was you who failed to kill Eratos. And who made me promise not to watch over Harry? It was you. In case you didn''t know, I didn''t wage war against any of them. They created the Dark Lord and vilified me so they could be heroes," Michael''s cold words echoed through the hall. Lah was speechless as the entire hall grew darker and darker.
Chapter 883 A Clue About Harry鈥檚 Whereabouts
After bombarding Lah with questions, Michael just left the hall, leaving her alone. He simply didn''t want to argue with a mother who was in pain of losing her child. He was on his way to the interrogation room when Azazel appeared before him.
"My lord. The items you asked the twins to acquire are here,"
Michael finally heard some good news as Azazel continued.
"I ordered the men to put everything in Alchemy hall, my lord," said Azazel. As much as Michael liked to have separate halls for everything, the construction works had been halted due to ack of funds until he received two hundred million gold coins from King Porter Forbes as a price for lifting Chanel''s curse. Luckily for Michael, the dwarves finished the alchemy hall. Thanks to the two hundred million gold coins, Michael was able to buy everything he needed to get his new brew business up and running as well as the construction materials needed for the dark castle.
Once Michael paid the twins fifty million to buy everything he needed, he thought the rest could get the construction materials to continue the work for at least a month. However, the dwarves informed Gaya that the materials they bought could onlyst for a week. The dark castle had turned into a money pit, especially after Michael bought some blueprints from the system and ordered them to be built ordingly. Michael didn''t even want to imagine how much the weapons, turrets, and special defense arrays from the system would cost him in gold coins.
"We shall go take a look," Michael changed his path and headed to Alchemy hall, located next to Elidyr''s hall, where they had the teleportation portal. The smell of fresh paint and luminescent orbs filled the air as Michael reached his newly built alchemy hall. Due to his recent activities, he had no time to stroll through the castle and enjoy the sight of his new home. Michael ced his hand on the ck door as an emerald green chakra appeared between his hand and the door. The chakra glowed for a second before the door clicked open. As he entered the hall, a gigantic cauldron that upied almost half the hall weed him. The towing cauldron stood at least fifteen feet high and twenty feet wide or more. Surprisingly Elidyr was waiting for him in the hall.
"There you are," Elidyr walked toward him with creased brows.
"I remember you told me you are going to grow everything you need in this hall. Exin it to me how you n to night verdana with a giant burning cauldron beside it?" asked Elidyr.
"Then do you remember that I told you this before my n to start the new brew business?" Michael asked Elidyr while walking toward his cauldron.
"But you are right, I cannot grow a nt with ying properties in a high-temperature hall. No one below the Soul Refining stage would survive in the hall after we put a fire under the cauldron," Michael agreed with Elidyr that he wouldn''t be able to grow everything he needed in this hall as he had nned before. Unfortunately, the circumstances forced Michael to change his ns.
"That''s why I thought of something else, something I need your help with," Michael had been nning this for quite some time. To be exact, ever since he stepped into the Abyssal in the dark forest. Until now, he didn''t have any need to resort to his new n. His words made Elidyr curious. The elf loved challenges, and every task he received from the Dark Lord was nothing but a challenge.
"I want a pocket dimension connected to this alchemy hall," said Michael. The system required two million badass points to locate a hidden pocket dimension. ording to the system, it could teleport the pocket dimension to the dark ocean. However, it required another three million badass points to anchor the dimension to the alchemy hall. That was where Elidry came into the picture. Since he was a 6-star runemaster, Michael could order him to perform the task instead of spending three million badass points.
"I assume you have the location of a pocket dimension," asked Elidyr. At first, the Dark Lord''s requests and tasks surprised him. But at this point, he grew ustomed to the Dark Lord and everything he did. Hence, when Michael asked Eldiry to connect a pocket dimension to the hall, he wasn''t surprised as he once would have been.
"I can bring the dimension here soon. Until then, we cannot grow any nts in this hall. The brewing must be prioritized," said Michael. While Elidyr was processing Michael''s request, he studied the intriguing runes and etchings in the cauldron. Whoever forged the cauldron engraved it with various runes and chakras to withstand intense heat. He doubted the cauldron could survive the Dark me''s heat, but it would certainly survive theva in Mount Hades. Luckily, Michael didn''t have to bring in theva to heat the cauldron. Instead, typical mes from burning firewood were enough to refine his new brew.
"There is no time like presence," After Michael circled around the cauldron, he turned his gaze toward Azazel.
"Bring me all the firewood we have. I will start the brewing before I leave," said Michael.
"Forgive me for questioning you, my lord. But where do you n to go? We still have no clue about the spirit child," said Azazel.
"I have a feeling we will have soon,"
Not even a minute had passed when Gaya entered the hall with blood all over her face. Blood trickled down all over the floor from her robes as she made her way toward Michael.
"I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?" asked Gaya.
"Start with the bad news," said Michael.
"The elf didn''t know anything except he received a task to kill Eratos and bring Lah to an empty ce in the fire realm. You know what it means, he and hew minions were sent to clear out all the loose ends. Whoever sent him wants to be in the shadows pretty bad," said Gaya. Deep down, Michael expected the elf to be clueless. He was all bark, not bite.
"As for why he acted pretty tough, because he was from Nelthanyr," said Gaya.
"Figures. So how is he doing now?"
"His heart gave up when I pulled hisst tooth out," Gaya simply shrugged. Michale sighed, thinking about his lost experience points because the elf died within the void line. But he had bigger things to worry about than experience points.
"Azazel, go have an eye on Lah,"
"As you wish, my lord," Azazel walked out of the room, leaving Michael with Gaya and Elidyr.
"What''s the good news then?" asked Elidyr.
"I found where thises from," Gaya opened her palms and showed the shark head medallion Michael took from Eratos. It was drenched in blood, but Elidry could vaguely see the tinyplex web of runes engraved on it. These runes were so small that they required the special eyesight of a runemaster to see them.
"When I saw this shark, I contacted Mutrad and asked him if he could recognize it, considering he came from the stinking sea,"
"And he recognized it," Michael finished her words before she could brag about her instincts.
"Yes," Gaya gently punched him in the shoulder for ruining her moment and nodded.
"Now let me be clear, Mutrad didn''t know exactly where Eratos got this medallion. But he was certain the medallion belonged to the Sea Folks,"
"He outright admitted it came from his world," Michael tilted his head as Gaya rolled her eyes.
"I may have threatened to burn down everyone he loves and give him a one-way ticket to hell," Gaya admitted of threatening Mutrad. Mutrad would have never admitted that the shark medallion hailed from his world. He was one of the few who witnessed the horror that transpired during thest days of the Ithn war. No one could me Mutrad for fearing and trying to stop the Dark Lord from doing the same to his world. Mutrad had quit trying to take down the Dark Lord a long time ago. Now, all he wanted was to keep his Sea Realm safe from the Dark Lord. That was the only reason he agreed to be the Dark Lord''s spy in the first ce. The Mutrad before Ithn would certainly die of shame of the current Mutrad.
"Let me go talk to them," Suddenly, Gaya and Michael heard the squirmish outside the door.
"Mydy, you cannot-" He heard Azazel''s voice followed by Lah.
"Ghost,"
"Let her in," Michael said to Azazel as the door clicked open, revealing Lah and Azazel.
"My lord, she is not listening to me," Azazelined. Ignoring the demon butler, Lah rushed toward them.
"What did he tell you?'' Lah asked Gaya,pletely overlooking the giant cauldron, the blood-drenched robes of Gaya, and the half-elf standing next to them.
"We know where they might have taken Harry," Instead of Gaya, Michael answered Lah.
"Where?" Lah almost shouted.
"The realm of Sea Folks," Michael said. His eyes glistened with cold, killing intent.
"What?" Lah was shocked. No matter how hard she thought, she couldn''t find a single person who might have taken Harry to the Sea Folks.
"I have on good authority that the shark medallion Eratos wore was forged in the Sea realm," Michael said while Lah was speechless.
"It can''t be. Why would anyone want to take Harry to them? Who would take him there? The sea realm is not a ce anyone can get in and out as they please,"
"You need someone high in the sea folk world to bring an outside into their world, yes we know," said Gaya.
"Eratos was outside, and he somehow had what belonged to them," said Michael.
"Plus, whoever sent Eratos after you ordered the elf to take out Eratos and bring you to a secluded area," said Gaya.
"I know this doesn''t make any sense to you. But this is the only lead we have. If someone has ever touched a single hair on his head, I will wipe them off the face of this world,"
Chapter 884 Leaving For The Realm Of Sea Folks
No matter how much Michael and Gaya exined, Lah couldn''t make sense of the situation. She knew the Dark Lord made no enemies in the Sea Folks, so she didn''t think he was responsible for Harry''s disappearance. Just the fact the shark-headed medallion came from the Sea Folk was not enough for her to ept Harry was taken into the Sea Realm. She still thought someone else had taken Harry. Since her son''s life was in danger, she was not in the mood to waste even a second.
"I need to go to the rainbow inds," Lah shook her head and turned around to leave the dark ocean.
"Wait," Michael stopped her. She strolled toward her and waited for her to turn around. When Lah turned around, Michael stabbed her in the neck with an injection. Gaya and Elidyr werepletely caught off guard as they never thought Michael would resort to such action. Lah''s whole body went rigid as Michael emptied the gray potion into her.
"What¡bastard¡" Lah mumbled before she copsed to the ground, unconscious.
"Jeez. what was that?" Gaya asked Michael.
"This will keep her unconscious for two weeks. If I don''t return with Harry by then, inject her with more of this," Michael threw a space ring at Azazel.
"She is going to be pissed," said Gaya.
"When she wakes up, Harry will be by her side," said Michael. Unfortunately, he had to knock her out, as Michael would have loved to take her with him to the Sea Realm. However, when he realized she wasn''t taking Harry''s disappearance as well as she could have, he went with n b.
"I thought she would use her brain and not give up to her emotions," Michael sighed.
"Don''t be an asshole, human. She is a mother who lost her child. Of course, she will be run by her emotions. If my kid was taken, I would have gone pure mad," Gaya said, lifting Lah from the ground in her arms.
"And what would have going mad done? Nothing. You cannot let your emotions blind you in situations like this," said Michael.
"I think you made the right choice. We can keep her safe while you look for the child," Elidyr agreed with Michael''s actions.
"I am not surprised. Guys don''t understand what it is to be a mother. You never will," Gaya slowly shook her head, showing her disappointment in them.
Just find Harry as quickly as you can," Gaya said before leaving the room.
"I hate to tell you, my lord. But are you sure you want to go to the Sea realm just because Eratos had this medallion?" asked Elidyr.
"If you are wrong-"
"Then Noah would find Harry," Michael cut short Elidyr''s words with a surprising answer. Both Azazel and Elidyr couldn''t figure out Michael''splete n. Seeing the bewildered looks on their faces, Michael took a deep breath and broke down his n.
"Now that Azazel killed the guardians, Noah would look into this matter and find someone has taken Harry. Keeping Harry was Noah''s responsibility when he realized he had failed, Noah would sweep the entire world to find him. While Noah is searching for Harry in thend, I will chase my lead in the Sea Realm. All it matters is finding Harry," Michael sighed. Although Noah was his mortal enemy, Michael had more than enough confidence in Noah that he would turn every stone to find Harry. Michael may be a god, but even he couldn''t be in two ces at the same time. Lah was too emotionally unstable, and he had other tasks for Gaya. Hence, Michael decided to use Noah to look for Harry on thend. After Michael exined his ns, silence fell over the hall.
"Whates after finding Harry, my lord? Rainbow inds and La can''t keep the child safe anymore," said Elidyr, cutting through the silence.
"Mazeroth," Michael took a deep breath and said. As soon as Elidyr heard the name, his heart skipped a beat. He almost thought the Dark Lord was ying with him. However, when he saw the serious look on his face, Elidyr realized the Dark Lord wasn''t kidding.
"Are you being serious right now? What could have possibly made you think of putting him in Mazeroth? Did you forget Mazeroth is Skyhall?" Elidyr almost shook Michael by his shoulder.
"Sometimes, the safest ce to hide is right under our enemy''s nose. Only Noah and Andreas know Harry is my son. I will make sure it stays that way. He and Lah will be safe in Mazeroth until he bes strong to protect himself and his mother," Azazel had never heard the Dark Lord talk so seriously. On the other hand, Elidyr still thought it was a bad idea to put Harry in Mazeroth.
"Even if they didn''t know Harry was yours, what if their propaganda turns him against you? What if he grows strong enough to be a threat to you, a threat to all of us? You and I both know it will happen if you send him to Mazeroth,"
Michael shook his head with a smug look on his face.
"No matter how strong hees, I will always be stronger. And suppose he somehow turned out to be a puppet, I will exin my side of things to him. If he still felt like going against me, Gaya would take him down, and I won''t stop her," Just by the look in his eyes, Elidyr could tell he wasn''t kidding about this either. Somehow, Michael''s stand against Harry made Elidry calm down.
"What about Edith, my lord?" Azazel, who remained silent until now, questioned Michael about Edith. Except for Noah and Andreas, Edith was the only one on the opposite side who knew Harry was Michael''s spirit son. After what Michael had done to Victoria Barnes and her family, Azazel had no doubt that Edith would hate the Dark Lord to the core. Azazel dared not to underestimate a woman with a vengeance. As far as Azazel was concerned, Edith was a threat that had to be dealt with. Unfortunately, ever since the Dark Lord nuked Ithn, Edith had gone missing.
"Yeah, She knows Harry is your son. If she told anyone about that in MAzeroth, just to get back at you, Harry and Lah would be crucified by the Skyhall. At that time, you would be the one who sent them to their deaths,"
"She wouldn''t do that," Michael snickered.
"She is morally righteous, just like Noah. She won''t throw her nephew in the fire to hurt me. No, she will do something else, something much more dramatic. Whatever it is, I can handle myself. I just hope for her sake, she stays away from me,"
***************************************
A couple of hours passed since Michael knocked out Lah. Once his minions brought enough firewood and ced it under the cauldron, Michael lit them, starting the fire with a single bolt of lightning. Upon meeting the mes, the runes on the cauldron began to radiate a dim light. Michael ascended to the air and poured gallons of water into the cauldron, and waited for the water to boil.
While Michael was busy refining the brew, Gaya sharpened his dark swords. She kept muttering something under her breath and didn''t look at Michael at all. At first, Michael ignored her, but after a certain point, it felt like a bee hovering near his ear.
"You have to take care of things up here. Understand it, snake," said Michael, throwing the luminescent mushrooms he plucked from the Itonys forest.
Gaya didn''t respond to him except she rubbed the sharpening stone on the dark sword with more force.
"You do know they don''t need sharpening right?" Michael sighed.
"As a matter of fact, I don''t," Gaya growled.
"Just like I don''t know why you keep refusing to take me with you. We used to do everything and go everywhere together. Ever since you put a ring on my finger, I don''t get toe with you anywhere. I am pissed, and I feel like I want to boil you in that cauldron,"
Hearing Gaya, Michael didn''t know whether tough or feel annoyed by her.
"I know, but I need you to get this business up and running here. You are the best gal for the job. Now be a sweetheart and understand it," Michael poured all the ingredients into the boiling water as the water slowly changed from purple to emerald green to a sparkling golden color. Michael then took out a healing potion infused with nanites AKA the blood tonic and poured it into the brew. When Michael first created the Blood Tonic, it was a muddy brown potion that had an unstable state. Over the past several months, Michael managed to infuse the Blood Tonic with healing potions. The only downside of mixing blood tonic with healing potions was that purity took a five percent hit. In other words, the pure healing potions had 98% purity, while blood tonic infused potions had 93% purity.
This blood tonic infused potion gave a massive advantage to Michael over his enemies. For instance, he managed to poison Ethan in front of Noah and Rowena. If Michael wished, he could make Ethan burst into a bloody mess with a single snap of his fingers. Michael left the cauldron and flew back to Gaya. Seeing Michaelnd beside her, Gaya turned away from him. However, Michael just hugged her from behind and rested his hands on her shoulder.
"Don''t even try to calm me down," she growled but didn''t try to squirm out of his embrace.
"After I return from the Sea Realm, I will take you on a long vacation. Wherever you choose, no questions asked. I will drop everything and spend as much time as you want,"
Gaya shook her head,
"There is only one thing you can promise that will make me less pissed off," said Gaya.
"What is it?" asked Michael.
"Promise me you will marry me once you return,"
Chapter 885 Waiting For Hammond鈥檚 Arrival
(Three dayster)
Noahnded on the beautiful valley with green foliage and newly sprung buds. Majestic mountains surrounded this valley, void of any life, and had a story to tell about an unspeakable horror that transpired several years ago.
"What do you sense, teacher?" Noah asked Andreas after hended in the middle of the valley. Andreas''s ethereal figure appeared before Noah. Following Noah, several guardians and a guardian ship came to the scene. The flying ship cast arge shadow upon the ground as more and more guardians carrying various tools descended from the ship. While Andreas was looking around the valley, beyond the distant horizon, dark and vengeful cloud formations started to imprint their marks on the crystal-clear blue sky, signifying the imminent arrival of an intense and powerful thunderstorm.
"Lots of people died here, Noah," Andreas said. Noah heaved a long sigh as he expected Andreas to tell him otherwise. When Ghost was in his home, he said something about a vige called Hogsfeet in Gondolin. The moment Noah asked Hammond about this vige, Noah saw the utter terror and shock in his eyes. Noah didn''t want to believe Ghost was wrong about Hammond. However, the look in Hammond''s eyes when he asked about the vige was apparent. Hammond hid his involvement in the vige''s disappearance until Noah pressed him.
"What are your orders, Supreme Guardian?" Ne came to Noah carrying a pickaxe with several runes engraved. In addition to the guardians with digging tools such as pickaxes and shovels, several drillers and contraptions capable of excavating got dropped from the ship above.
"Dig here," Andreas said to Ne. Noah''s team and the others had no idea what was buried in the ground. Since they were ordered to dig, each had their own idea. Some thought of priceless artifacts, and some thought of a dungeon. As the first drilling contraption prated the ground, strong gusts of wind were unleashed and started to impulse the dim and murky clouds closer and closer. The once clear sky was steadily engulfed by darkness. Clusters of storm clouds washed away the sky''s brilliant colors. These dark clouds created irregr openings in the nebulous sky, simting a vast abstract painting with every imaginable color. The air started to feel thick and heavy, as though it was trying to suffocate the valley. Howling and wailing came the barren wind as darkness enveloped the valley.
Noah looked up at the darkness in the sky and imminently thought of Ghost, the God of Darkness. He felt like Ghost was watching andughing at them.
"He is going to be right again," Noah said.
"No, Noah. He just sees the darkness in everyone and assumes the worst of them. You do the opposite," said Andreas.
"Maybe I should change how I see things,"
Andreas shook his head as he flew closer to Noah. He floated beside Noah and watched the guardians dig silently for a few moments.
"I have lived for thousands of years, Noah. My long life has allowed me to see through people for who they are. Hammond is no murderer. We don''t know theplete story of what really happened here or who was responsible for it. But I can tell you one thing, the empress was in on it. Nothing would happen without her knowing, so how did she not know what happened here? And ask yourself this question, how did the Dark Lord know about this?" said Andreas.
A sudden bolt of lightning shattered the darkened and ominous sky in the utmost vicious manner, snapping Noah out of his train of thought. Earth-shattering rumbles of thunder followed the lightning and sent shockwaves to the surrounding areas pugnaciously. Then for a short moment, everything retreated into oblivion. The relentless wind held its breath and intensity. Abruptly, several twisted streaks of pure light tore open the dark sky, opening the way for a heavy downpour. The rain came down from the sky like an army of miniature arrows, destroying everything in their paths.
Bolts of giant lightning, devastating thunders, and unpredictable rhythms of the merciless torrential rainfall unleashed the evil force of nature. The wicked thunderstorm continuously exerted its intense attacks on the valley and the guardians. The sky had opened, releasing continuous heavy rain, which flooded every corner of the valley, filling the holes created by the contraptions. The rock-like raindrops were pounding and hammering against the contraptions with a vigorous rhythm as rumbling thunders replicated the perpetual pounding sounds of a drum concert. Water levels slowly rose in the valley, threatening to stall the guardians.
"The Dark Lord was threatened by Hammond and his intelligence, Noah. He will do anything to manipte you into punishing Hammond," Andreas stated.
Eventually, the guardians managed to dig arge hole and waited for Noah to venture into the dark hole. Noah strolled toward the hole under the heavy downspout. When he reached the edge, Ne and his team of elites, including Alvaro, came to his side.
"What do you hope to find in there, Supreme Guardian?" asked Ne.
However, Noah did not give them any answer. Instead, he just stepped forward and fell straight into the hole. While falling down, Noah summoned a ball of light to illuminate his surroundings. He descended for a minute but saw nothing but mud around him. When Noah hoped everything Hammond said would turn into a dream, he began to smell the strong stench of rotting corpses. The smell overwhelmed Noah and almost made him throw up his inside out. Noah immediately stopped descending and formed a bubble around his face to filter the air. Even for a god like him, the stench was too much. He slowly descended down with an orb of light hovering above his head until he saw a face in the mud. Noah was taken aback by the sudden appearance of the rotten face in the mud as he flew back a meter. The face had yellowish eyes as skin slowly fell down, revealing grayish facial bones. The face looked fresh despite being buried in the ground for five years.
Once Noah returned to where he saw the face, he touched the head as it fell off from the mud. Soon, Noah conjured several orbs of light and willed them to float around the hole. To his shock, the light illuminated countless bodies, barely dposed to the bones. In fact, something kept the bodies from dposing. Noah''s heart sank, looking at the bodies buried within. He even noticed children among them.
"Am I the only evildoer and criminal in your eyes?" The Dark Lord''s words rang in Noah''s head.
"Hammond had a hand in all this," Noah mumbled under his breath.
"The dwarves forced him to build that device, Noah," said Andreas.
"They had his girlfriend. He had no choice," Andreas sighed.
"These people need a proper burial," Noah couldn''t think about Hammond or anyone except the poor people buried alive in their own vige. Since the empress sought after everyone who had a hand in the Hogsfeet vige massacre, Noah had nothing to do except give the vigers a proper burial. They deserved it that much.
With a heavy heart, Noah flew upward and exited the hole. Noah felt a lump in his throat as he couldn''t utter anything. His heart bled for the vigers and wanted to rip those dwarves to shreds. The killing intent he buried deep within started to slip through his heavy heart. Fortunately, the dwarves who were responsible for the massacre were hung to death by the empress.
"Ne," Noah called Ne.
"I want to meet the leader of Han Torum. Set up a meeting," said Noah. Looking at Noah''s eyes burning with rage and anger, Ne dared not to question him even though she had so many.
"Would you like me to do anything else, Supreme Guardian?" asked Ne.
"Dig out all the bodies inside. I want to give them a proper burial," Noah''s words stunned Ne. Bodies were thest thing she thought were buried in the ground. After issuing the orders, Noah flew away from the valley to clear his head. He wanted to be alone to calm his mind and soul.
Just after Noah left the valley, a dark-robed figurended on a mountaintop from where one could see the entire excavation. The figure slowly removed the hood, revealing the striking golden hair and the pointy ears that were neither too pointy nor blunt like human ears. On her forearm, she had a ck spider with glowing red eyes tattooed on it.
Looking at the excavation site, the half-elf ced her hand on her ear.
"Elder Trista," The half-elf talked in the sweetest voice. Her voice could alone seduce even the most strong-hearted man.
"I have eyes on Hogsfeet,"
"Good. Keep yourself hidden and wait for them to unearth all the bodies," said Trista.
"Remember Spider. This is a simple task, so do not fail me. Lenora''s life depends on your sess,"
"Come on, Elder Trista. I have finished much harder tasks for Elder Lenora. This is just a simple monitor and report. If anything, this task is way beneath my standards," Spider snickered.
(Read chapter 648-Vampire Death Squad to refresh your memories)
"It would be a simple task if Noah Winston wasn''t there. The Dark Queen wants you to locate the one called Hammond without alerting Noah of your presence,"
"Elder Trista. What if that human doesn''t show up as the Dark Queen says? I could track him down," said Spider.
"Apparently, Hammond has a hand in their deaths. So the Dark Queen believes the guilt in him would bring him here to pay hisst respects. I agree with her. Humans like him tend to fight their guilt by doing pointless things," said Trista.
"If what I heard about Hammond was not an exaggeration, I doubt Noah would let him out of his sight. How does the Dark Queen n to take him down when the Supreme Guardian is around?" asked Spider.
"Who says anything about the Dark Queen taking him down?" Trista asked Spider. Her silence spoke more volumes, and the mere thought of seeing him stirred the excitement Spider hadn''t felt in years.
"Report to me as soon as you see Hammond. Then, you might get to see the Dark Lord as you wished,"
Chapter 886 The Dark Lord Sends His Regards
The phoenix ind glistened beneath the full moon like a jewel atop the clear blue sea. A couple of ships sailed toward the ind to conduct business with the phoenix manor. To the naked eye, phoenix ind looked no different than before. However, the entire ind had a defensive array that formed an energy dome around the ind. Lord Julius, the leader of Phoenix manor, spared no expense in increasing the ind''s security. He was one of the few who made enemies out of Ghost while still a Body Strengthening stage warrior. At that time, Julius never considered GHost the Dark Lord, the most feared person in the world.
"Is this the ce?" asked Vedora sitting atop Gaya''s shoulders. A big burly figure standing almost seven feet tall hovered behind Gaya with a giant ax on his back. The big man''s eyes glistened like rubies under his dark hood.
"I doubt they would give us a warm wee, so we should let ourselves in," Gaya said coldly.
"What a pity! That fool should have epted our offer," Saber sighed. Two days ago, Gaya sent one from the dark army to Lord Julius regarding a meeting between him and Gaya. She wanted to establish an alliance to distribute the Red Bliss, Michael''s new brew, throughout the Elon and Ozer continent. Despite what happened to her during herst visit to phoenix ind, Gaya decided to forgive Julius and be a better person. To be honest, Gaya needed Lord Julius''s connection and his operation to distribute the Red Bliss efficiently. Not that GAya could not build a distribution system, but it would take at least a year to create arge-scale operation like Lord Julius''s. The dark army needed a revenue stream as soon as possible. So Gaya had no time to create a distribution system from the ground up.
For some reason, Lord Julius did not only refuse to meet her but also hung the messenger to death as a warning to the dark army. Now that Lord Julius had dared to kill the Dark Lord''s man, Gaya decided to visit him personally. As she slowly floated toward the ind, Gaya took out a golden scroll and tore it in half. Countless golden pecks of light scattered from the scroll as they formed a glowing rune in the air. The rune vibrated for a moment before dashing toward the ind.
Gaya watched the rune fly until she saw the rune hit an invisible wall and create ripples in the air. The rune was stuck to the energy dome as Gaya tore another golden scroll. Just like before, another rune appeared from the specks of light and flew straight to the rune. When the two runes came closer, they merged to form a glowing sword that cut through the energy dome. Once the sword created an opening for Gaya, she squeezed through the cut with the big burly man. The golden sword formed from the runes vanished after a few seconds as the cut in the energy dome slowly closed itself.
"I know Elidyr''s rune will work," said Sarba.
"Shh," Gaya shushed them as she noticed several guards flying around the ind and soldiers patrolling the ind on the ground. The weakest of the guard seemed to be at the Core Formation stage, and the strongest was at the Half Immortal stage. As Gaya expected, the Half Immortal was a beastman. He had the lower body of a muscr human and the upper body of a wolf. With crescent-shaped des, the wolf-headed man led a group of Soul Refiners around the ind.
"Do you want me to take care of him, mydy?" the man hovering behind Gaya asked in a thick voice filled with blood lust.
"I like your enthusiasm, Bear. But let''s greet Lord Julius first. If the wolf intervenes in our business, you can have him," said Gaya.
"Hrmm," Bear nodded. Gaya could have taken anyone from the vampire squad, but she chose bear for his method of killing. ording to Trista and Bartender Donovan in the vampire tavern, Bear was the best man for the job when one needed to make a bloody statement. His monstrous physical stature, coupled with vampire traits, made Bear a ferocious killing machine. To be honest, Gaya couldn''t wait to see him in action. They had big ns for the vampire death squad, and this was Gaya''s first test to see how they operate in missions.
Blending with the darkness, Gaya slowly flew toward thevish phonic manor surrounded by majestic waterfalls and red maple trees. With a flick of her wrist, Gaya took out a sparkling silver potion from her space ring. She chugged the potion down her throat and tossed another one to Bear. He caught the potion with his big hand and looked at Gaya with a bewildered look on his face.
"Drink this. It will mask our scent," said Gaya. Since Lord Julius was a beastman, he hired most of his guards from the beast kingdom. These beastmen relied on their sense of smell more than their sight and hearing. That''s where this potion came into the picture. Drinking the potion wouldpletely mask all the smelling from their bodies and make them invisible to the beast men''s noses.
Once Bear emptied the potion into his mouth, he wiped off his mouth and followed behind the Dark Queen. Normally, the guards would have noticed if someone flew toward the manor, even if they were dressed in ck to blend in with the darkness. However, Gaya''s Half Immortal cultivation stage with Cosmic energy and Bear''s vampire trait made them fast enough to avoid all the guards outside. Thanks to the potion, even the Half Immortal stage wolf failed to sense the intruders.
Instead of foolishly barging through the front door, Gaya targeted the open window on the fourth floor of the mansion. She was able to fly straight through the window, slightly adjusting her body, but Bear couldn''t get his body through. So Gaya had to look around the empty room and help Bear get through without breaking the window.
"I would have preferred the front door," Bear growled.
"I know, big guy," Gaya patted him on the shoulder with a chuckle.
********************************************
Meanwhile, Lord Julius was discussing the recent events with the elders in avish hall. A golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling lit the hall brightly with its warm light. Narrow, washed ss windows were bordered by drapes colored the same orchid as the banners let the dazzling moonlight, adding anotheryer of charm to the hall. Julius sat on a radiant throne of porcin between two lion statues. The elders had dark lines on their foreheads as they tried to form a n to face the Dark Lord''s wrath. Contrary to their advice, Lord Julius killed the Dark Lord''s minion.
"Lord Julius. I have sent a messenger to the beast kingdom, asking the beast king for his help. While we wait for his response, why don''t we inform the Guardian Guild and the Supreme Guardian about all this?" A short-haired man with a brown goatee said.
"We beastmen do not need the help of a human, no matter his status. All humans are the same," Lord Julius growled.
"Once the beast king sees my letter, he will contact the beast n and send us the harbingers. We can hold the fort until then,"
The elders weren''tpletely on board with Julius''s n to go against the Dark Lord. To be honest, most of them wanted to ept the Dark Lord''s offer instead of going against him. If Julius had epted the offer, they could have asked the Dark Lord permission to conduct business in the Southern continent. At the moment, the Dark Lord''s forces controlled the sea around the Southern continent. Since Lord Julius and Ghost had a quarrel during the annual phoenix manor auction, they avoided venturing to the Southern continent, fearing the Dark Lord''s wrath.
Lord Julius, on the other hand, went against the elders'' wishes and kicked a golden opportunity out the door. As merchants, they knew the importance of expanding their business. Even if they had nothing to gain, they would have epted the offer just to avoid the Dark Lord''s wrath. But Lord Julius did just that, and now they had to fear for their lives.
"No disrespect Lord Julius, but have you thought this through? Even if the beast king sent us the harbingers, I doubt they could go against the Dark Lord. I think we can all agree that killing the messenger was unnecessary, if not outright foolishness," The elder who spoke his mind was a beastman with a fox''s head. He had orange-hue fur and a bushy tail sticking out of his back.
When Lord Julius heard his words, his eyes burned with rage as the elder cowered in fear. Among the beastmen, fox kind was not famous for their valor like lion kind. Hence, Elder Zod felt a chill running down his spine once he saw the murderous look in Julius''s eyes. Just when Elder Zod was about to apologize to Lord Julius for his braze words, all the leaders in the hall heard thudding noise outside. Their animalistic ears twitched as they heard heavy footsteps sounding louder and louder with each passing second.
Lord Julius rose from his throne as the marble door at the end of the hall shattered into chunks and pieces. The explosion caused a cloud of dust and smoke to envelop the doorway. As a result, the elders immediately tensed, preparing to defend themselves. Soon, they saw two shadows through the smoke. The elders almost jumped back when they saw a severed head fly through the smoke andnd right beneath Julius''s feet.
Their heads turned to the head at Julius''s feet. But when they heard a melodious whistling, they slowly turned around to see a young woman wearing ck armor and a seven feet tall giant with a bloody ax walking out of the smoke.
"The Dark Queen," The elders immediately recognized the young woman and began to tremble in utter fear. Just the mere sight of the Dark Queen made an elder faint in terror. Under their shocked gazes, the Dark Queen calmly strolled toward them, whistling a strange tune and cracking her knuckles. She didn''t bother to mind the elders but kept her unwavering gaze on Julius.
"The Dark Lord sends his regards, Lord Julius," Gaya said before nodding at Bear. The next thing the elders saw was the battle ax flying toward Lord Julius and impaling his chest to his very throne. The giant ax almost split Julius''s chest in half. Blood oozed out of his chest as the light of life vanished from his eyes. Gaya gave no chance for Julius to exin or even open his mouth because she was there to send a message, not to converse. Judging by the horrifying looks on the elders'' faces, she could tell her message reached them alright.
Chapter 887 Distribution Of The Red Bliss
The elders shivered in terror as blood gushed from Lord Julius''s body. The blood oozing down formed a puddle under Julius''s feet and reflected the golden lighting from the chandelier.
"Shhh," Gaya shushed everyone when a cat-faced elder tried to shout out for the guards. But the elder quickly closed his mouth when he saw the Dark Queen''s gaze fall on him. The others found it hard even to take a deep breath under her presence. Complete silence swept across the hall as Gaya strolled toward Julius''s body. She grabbed Julius''s hand, pulled out the space ring, and held it in her palm. The elders saw a dim glow appear around the ring for a moment before the Dark Queen put the space ring back on his finger.
They had no idea what she did. Considering Julius was the leader of the Phoenix manor, Gaya knew he would have millions of gold coins in his space ring. As she expected, Lord Julis did have fifty million gold coins and a pay cube. Instead of taking the pay cube, Gaya just took the fifty million. Now that she had taken care of Julius and his gold coins, she took a step forward toward the elders.
Sitting atop Gaya''s shoulder, Vedora scanned the elders and looked at them menacingly. The sight of a majestic creature like Vedora stunned the elders. However, they were too afraid to wonder about Vedora. After giving the elders a few moments to drown in their own fear, Gaya opened her mouth.
"To the outside world, you elders sent Lord Julius away to protect him from the Dark Lord. Now who has a problem listening to me?" asked Gaya. None of the elders dared to open their mouths, although some of them wanted to shout for the guards. Yet, deep down they knew there was no point in calling the guards, especially after they sensed the Dark Queen''s Half Immortal stage cultivation.
The strongest guard they had was a Hal Immortal, but they doubted he could go head-to-head with the Dark Queen. Besides, they already made a grave mistake by killing the Dark Lord''s man. Suppose they raised their hand against the Dark Queen herself; the next and thest person they see would be the Dark Lord. As experienced merchants, each of them knew when to cut their losses and agreed to the opposite party''s terms.
"You," Gaya turned her gaze at Elder Zod, the fox-headed elder who dared to question Julius about his actions. While the elders were shivering in fear, Bear went to Julius''s body and stood beside it.
"I name you as the acting leader of Phoenix manor in Julius''s absence. Those who disagree with me, raise their hands," said Gaya as Bear slowly licked the blood trickling down from the ax handle, which sent shivers running down the elders'' spines. The elders looked at each other wordlessly, expressing their fear and agreement. They all wanted to get out of this hall alive. It was their highest priority.
Seeing no hands in the air, Gaya smiled.
"That''s more like it. What''s your name?" Gaya asked Zod.
"Zod," said Zod.
"Zod, I am confident you will listen to what you are told and lead our phoenix manor to its new preposterous era," said Gaya.
After giving a few moments for the elders toprehend everything and calm their minds, Gaya continued.
"I am certain each of you must have gone through countlessplex business transactions. On the contrary, what I offer is simple. Distribute our products through your channels, and each will get five percent of the profit. Go against us in any way, we will kill you, next of your kin, and take half of your wealth as a statement. I am mean,e on," Gaya shrugged.
"The great right ns won''te to save you, just like they didn''te to save Ithn. They witnessed the Dark Lord ughter thousands of soldiers without raising a finger. So do you think they woulde to rescue a single beastman? You know better than that. Unlike them, the Dark Lord takes care of those who follow him. He can make you a very rich person or a dead one. The choice is yours," said Gaya.
"Now, if you have any questions, you may ask them,"
Zod was the first one to question the Dark Queen. The others were still too afraid even to take a breath, let alone question her.
"Mydy, what are we going to distribute?" asked Zod.
"Red bliss, a new kind of beverage. Trust me, it''s going to rece all the ale, beer, and everything the people drink now. The dwarven ale is like muddy waterpared to what we are about to distribute, the red bliss," Gaya paused for a moment and went on.
"You will receive the first batch tomorrow. Distribute them for free. Give people a free taste of our product and hook them in. From the next batch, you will sell each bottle for three thousand coins. We will raise the price once it gets more popr among the patrons,"
As soon as the elders heard the price, they gasped in shock. In their minds, the price was simply outrageous. Even a dwarven ale cost a thousand coins per bottle, and they were the finest in the whole world. Only the rich could afford such pleasantries. Unfortunately, the percentage of the poor outnumbered the rich. When it came to food and drinks, any merchant would target the poor because of the wider customer base.
Selling a bottle for three thousand coins seemed like an impossible task. The elders opened their mouths and quickly closed them, fearing their words would bring nothing but the Dark Queen''s wrath upon them. Judging by the looks on their faces, Gaya knew what they were thinking. In fact, she could read them like open books.
"I did say give the first batch for free. Just do as I say and watch the red bliss take over the world. Soon, we are going to be swimming in gold coins,"
"Tell them about the brew''s origin," Ayag whispered into Gaya''s ears.
"And yes," the smile on Gaya''s face vanished as she said,
"I know you have policies against revealing a product''s source or origin. But if you are pushed by the guardians for example, the red blisses from the Southern continent, and that''s all you could say. And don''t fret about the guardians for now. The Dark Lord will handle them. You just focus on the task at hand. Do we understand each other?" Gaya''s cold gaze swept across the hall as the elders quickly bobbed their heads up and down.
Now that the elders agreed with her, she turned around and looked at Julius''s body.
"It''s time to clean this mess," said Gaya. Then, she flicked her wrist as a colorless potion appeared in her hand. She poured out the liquid inside onto the blood. The moment the potion touched the blood, it sizzled like hot oil. Under their gazes, the colorless potion made the blood vaporize from the ground. In a few minutes, the blood under Julius''s bodypletely vanished, leaving a shiny marble floor. Everyone, including Bear, waspletely stunned by the sight. Even his vampire senses failed him as he couldn''t smell any blood at all.
After cleaning up the blood, only Julius''s body remained. Taking care of the body was easier than cleaning the blood. Gaya just raised her hand as a green mist shot out of her hand and enveloped the body. It covered the body like a jade bubble. Gaya then snapped her fingers as sparks flew out from her fingers toward the bubble. As soon as the sparks met the bubble, they lit up the bubble. The bubble burned with intense heat. Everything around them had a green hue due to the emerald-green mes. The mes burned hotter and brighter for a few seconds until the bodypletely vanished from the throne.
Thud!
Bear''s giant ax fell from the throne. He picked it up, gave a short lick to the de, and sheathed it behind him. When Gaya turned around, the elders looked pale. They sweated like pigs. Their eyes glistened withplete fear, putting a smile on Gaya''s face.
"Till now, I told you what you must do. Now I will tell you what you must," Gaya''s gaze turned cold as the elders felt the murderous auraing off her.
"Red bliss is not for you to consume. Do not drink it. I don''t want the pirs of my distribution to turn into addicts. Remember your family whenever you get a temptation to have a taste," Gaya threatened the elders. Eventually, Gaya dismissed the elders but not before making them wear nes with Spyders attached. She knew better than to trust a merchant. With the Spyders attached to them, Azazel could monitor every single one of them and inform her if they attempted to do something foolish.
Except for Zod, everyone else left the room. The fox-headed elder peeked through the broken door and ensured no one could hear them.
"You did good, Zod," said Gaya.
"We gave you the position you longed for. I hope for your sake you don''t do anything foolish once you ascend to that throne," Gaya pointed at Julius''s throne. The elders thought it was random that the Dark Queen chose Zod as the next leader. To be honest, they were relieved to see someone else get chosen. What they didn''t know was Zod made a deal with the Dark Queen before even she arrived at the manor and killed Julius.
Thanks to Sadie and her girls, he was able to contact the Dark Queen and ask for the phoenix manor throne in exchange for his undying loyalty. His proposition turned Gaya''s initial n of ughtering everyone in the higher-ups to kill only Julius and make Zod the next leader. Her n worked wlessly, to say the least.
"I won''t dare, mydy. I will serve you till thest breath," Zod knelt down before her and pledged his loyalty once again.
"But mydy, what about the harbingers? What if they tried to meddle with our business?" asked Zod.
"They aren''t the only death squad, Zod," Gaya smiled like a devil.
Chapter 888 Sea Bandits
Far away in the crystal ocean, Mutrad flew above the ocean with Michael. They were heading for the realm of sea folk under a magical starry sky. The onlypanion they had was the dazzling moon in the sky. Eventually, after flying for a full five hours, Mutrad slowed down.
"It''s here," Mutrad pointed at the open water to Michael.
"You might feel a tingling," said Mutrad. With a nod, Michael agreed to Mutrad cast the spell needed to dive into the water and travel to their homeworld. Mutrad raised his hand as Michael noticed a translucent shield materialize around them both.
"Shall we?" Mutraid asked as Michael nodded. Gradually, they moved downwards and soon entered the ocean. Thanks to the shield around them, they didn''t get wet and were able to breathe as though they were above the water. Michael calmly watched the clear blue ocean around him and the flocks of fish swimming past them.
"Tell me about your world, Mutrad. Start with how many kingdoms are there," Michael asked Mutrad.
"We don''t have kingdoms ruled by kings and queens like thend walkers. Instead, my world is divided into three empires. Water god hall, Sea serpent hall, and Arctic hall rule each,"
Michael knew the Water god hall and the Sea serpent hall were part of the great eight ns. If what GAya told him was true, these two ns were stronger than the Guardian guild itself. Unlike the Guardian guild, the Sea Folk ns waged way fewer wars and avoided meddling in others'' affairs.
"Each of them is not a n per se but an empire itself,
"Hmm," Michael took a mental note of everything Mutrad said.
"The earthen who forged the medallion is in the Sea serpent hall,"
While Michael was flying with Mutrad, he learned a few things about the Sea Realm. For instance, the Sea Folk had five races; Mermons, Earthens, Wraiths, Inferiors, and Giants. Mutrad belonged to the Wraiths kind, who could transform into humanoid form to walk thend. Apparently, the rest of the Sea Folk kind did not consider Inferiors as their kind since they were technicallynd walers. ording to Mutrad, children who got lost in the sea would be taken by the Sea Realm and raised among othernd walkers. Michael was surprised to learn that there were thousands ofnd walkers, including humans, elves, dwarves, and beastmen, living in the Sea Folks as Inferiors. They were raised from a little age to fight and die for the Sea Folk in wars. Luckily for them, Sea Folks hadn''t entered into arge-scale war in thousands of years. However, if a war did arise, the Inferiors had to fight in the front line and serve as cannon fodders to the rest.
"Keep in mind while you are in my world, you will be considered an Inferior. Certain ces are restricted for you from entering. And please try not to start any wars," Mutrad pleaded with Michael, only to see him chuckle.
"I thought you loved wars,"
"War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil, Dark Lord,"
"I have no quarrel against your kind Mutrad even though they sent you after me. But if they had taken Harry, that''s another matter entirely,"
"I hope for everyone''s sake it''s not the case," Mutrad sighed.
"Me too, Mutrad. Me too,"
They continued to dive deeper into the ocean, and eventually, everything around them turned dark. Michael looked around the dark ocean in wonder as this was the first time he had gone this much deep into the ocean. Without the shield around them, he could tell they would be crushed by sheer pressure. Obviously, the darkness made Michael feel stronger. Despite how strong he felt, the unknown territory and the utter silence slightly caused uneasiness in his heart.
''Once I drop you in the Sea serpent hall, look for a great whale tavern. You might not believe it, but my world is not that much different from yours. We have all the bells and whistles. I will return after I finish dealing with some things in the Arctic hall," said Mutrad.
"You don''t have to. You have already jeopardized your position by escorting me into your world. Just give me the name of the earthen, and I will take care of the rest,"
"Thank you, but I already arranged for someone to help you during your stay in the sea realm. He is an Inferior, but he knows the realm like the back of his hand. He will meet you in the great whale. Once you reach the tavern, look for a red-haired one with freckles,"
"What''s his story?" asked Michael.
"The typical. Inferiors don''t have much to tell about them. He was found in a shipwreck as a baby. We took him in, and he has lived in the realm ever since,"
"You trust him?"
Mutrad shook his head,
"He is trustworthy enough. I''ve known him for years. When you want to find someone or something in the sea realm, you need Dillon on your side. He knows every crook in the world. Just a friendly reminder, Dillon is a coward. He will bolt out as soon as he senses a threat to his life. So keep that in mind,"
"Noted," Michael nodded.
Even after almost an hour of diving down, Michael hadn''t seen a single settlement in the water. In fact, he saw no bottom as the ocean seemed bottomless. Except for the few luminescent jellyfishes, they had no light sources. Eventually, Michael grew a bit tired of doing nothing.
"How long till we reach your world?" asked Michael.
Mutrad looked at the goldenpass in his hand for a moment before answering Michael.
"Ten minutes,"
Finally, Michael sensed several people in his environmental scanning. Michael was surprised to see these people slowly surrounding them as though they nned to ambush them.
"How about that? A weing party," Michael stretched his arms.
"What are you talking about?" Mutrad was confused. He didn''t arrange any weing party. In fact, Mutrad told no soul except Dillon about bringing another one to their world. A few momentster, Mutrad realized what the Dark Lord meant by a weing party.
"Shit, I should have expected this," Mutrad mumbled under his breath, thinking the Dark Lord wouldn''t hear him. The sight of bandits annoyed Mutrad. He thought he could reach his world withouting across the bandits, but his bad luck brought the bandits right to them.
"What do we have here?" Michael heard a voice. For the first time, Michael saw a Sea folk man in his true form. Calling him a man would be a bit of a stretch considering the figure had no humanoid features except two hands. Each hand only had three fingers and was covered in thick scales. Holding a trident in one hand, the earthen moved toward them
"A talking carp," Michael was amused by the earthen. This person immediately reminded Michael of carp fish as he looked exactly like one. His diamond-shaped scales radiated a dim golden glow. The others around Michaelcked the same glow as the one with the trident. If Michael had to guess, he would say the Soul Refining cultivation might be the reason for the glow in his body. Nheless, Michael was not an expert in Sea folk anatomy. Thus, he remained silent, waiting for Mutrad to make the first move. Something told Michael that Mutrad and the earthen were no strangers to each other.
In the earthens'' eyes, Mutrad stood beside just a weak Body Strengthening stage Inferior. Since Michael didn''t mimic a Fusion Stage warrior''s energy radiation, the bandits naturally thought of him as an Inferior who grew up in the Sea Realm. Anyone else, namely any outsiders, must be at the Fusion stage to survive the pressure despite having a Sea Folk kind and their shield.
"The young master of House Halrid is trying to enter the sea realm through the backdoor. What a strange sight, a strange sight indeed," The earthen holding the trident said. Despite being in the water, Michael heard the earthen loud and clear.
"This does not concern you, Cato. Move away," Mutrad growled.
"I beg to differ, my friend," The earthen shook his head. Then, he slowly started to circle around them. Michael watched the earthen and his underlings surround them without uttering a word. To be honest, Michael was amused by the talking fish and wanted to see where this was going.
"You are in my backyard. Thest I checked, you didn''t ask my permission to step into my backyard. So what should I do with you?" Cato rubbed the strand of hair hanging from his chin.
"Cato, for your sake, leave us alone. We can settle whatever dispute we haveter," Mutrad tried to save Cato from the Dark Lord''s wrath. Although Mutrad was at the Fusion stage, he wasn''t strong enough to take on all the earthen around him. It was an earthen territory where they had the advantage of home ground. Most of Mutrad''s spells wouldn''t work in the water as they would in any of the three empires. Besides, If Mutrad went all in, it would certainly draw some unwanted attention or worse, the attention of the giants.
Cato was surprised to see Mutrad, the arrogant young master of House Haldrid, trying to talk his way out instead of battling.
"You and I both know how much I loathe thend walkers. I killed my fair share of them. But recently, a human has inspired me. You must have heard of him, given you spent thest year among thend walkers. They call him the Dark Lord,"
The moment Michael heard Cato talk about him, he was pleasantly surprised and shocked to see his reputation had reached some bandits in the sea realm.
"A year ago, he took over those pesky pirates and united them under his rule. When me and my brothers expected him to pige and wreak havoc among the merchants, he surprised us by not doing that. You know what he did," Cato paused and moved to meet Mutrad in his eyes.
"He put a rule that to conduct business in his waters safely, the merchants have to pay a percentage of what they transport. Now some of my brothers thought, why take a pie when you can have the whole pie? Do you know what I said?"
Cato waited until Mutrad shook his head.
"I said if you take the whole pie forcefully, the people will eventually stop bringing pie altogether. But if you take one piece from one pie, they wouldn''t mind it and will keep bringing them. All we have to do then is do nothing and enjoy the tributes,"
"What are you getting at, Cato?" Mutrad snarled.
"Just like the Dark Lord, a silly name if you ask me," Catoughed as Mutrad nced at the Dark Lord, who seemed calm as usual.
"I want a piece of what you have," Cato''s voicepletely turned colder. Soon, his underlings summoned their weapons out and raised them against Michael and Mutrad.
"Hand over your space rings, both of you," Cato threatened them.
"I-" Mutrad was abruptly cut short by Michael. When Cato saw the Inferior move in front of Mutrad, he frowned.
"Let me ask you something, Cato. What do you taste like?" asked Michael as ck lightning bolts began to crackle around his wrists.
Chapter 889 The Reign Of Terror Begins
Cato stood before Michael, his small frame rxed with confidence. He had no idea that the human before him was the Dark Lord in disguise. To Cato, the human was just another Inferior, one that he could easily kill with a single stab.
"An Inferior with some balls. "You think you''re powerful? Ha! You''re nothingpared to me," Cato spoke with his chin held high and a smirk on his face. He looked around at his minions with a dismissive nce before settling his gaze on Michael.
"Are you daft or something, human?" Cato scoffed, his eyes glinting with amusement. "Take a good look around you. You''re outnumbered, outmatched, and out of luck. Any one of us could tear you to shreds without even breaking a sweat."
He pointed his fingers at his minions around Michael and Mutrad. "You really thought you could take on a group of seasoned warriors like us? You must be either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish. Which is it?"
Cato then turned his gaze to Mutrad, who knew the situation had gone out of his hands. Instead of amusing Cato with words, Michael just narrowed his eyes, focusing all his power on the arrogant fool in front of him. The Dark Lord had had enough of Cato''s antics, and he was ready to put an end to them once and for all. Floating outside the energy shield, Cato sensed the Dark Lord''s approach and snarled, baring his razor-sharp teeth. But before he could raise a finger, the Dark Lord unleashed his power without hesitation. From his eyes shot powerful ck dark beams, each one slicing through the water with deadly uracy. Cato recoiled as the beams struck it, his scales sizzling and smoking from the intense heat.
Since Michael wanted to prolong the battle for his own amusement, he didn''t go all out in the battle. Thus, Cato survived the dark beams and shouted at his minions to strike them down.
"Break their shields and end them!" Cato''s scream echoed through the water. Despite the number of bandits around them, Michael held his ground. His power was overwhelming, and he showed no mercy. Each time the Dark Lord fired, theser beams prated the head of a bandit, ending their life. The water boiled and sizzled as the beams sliced through the water with deadly uracy, leaving a trail of smoking corpses in their wake. The remaining bandits tried to dodge the beams but were too slow. As he continued to fire, the bandits fell one by one, their bodies jerking and convulsing as the beams struck their heads, leaving a bloody hole right between their eyes.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Core Strengthening stage earthen bandit. The reward is 200,000 Experience points and 4000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 7000 Badass points]
¡
In a few blinks of an eye, Michael ended the lives of all ten bandits except Cato. Michael didn''t even leave Mutrad''s energy shield. All he did was stand his ground and fire dark beams. Considering the power gap between them, the bandits had no chance against Michael. As Michael slowly floated toward Cato with Mutrad, his eyes glowed in an ominous ck. The water around them seemed to darken as the energy from his body rippled through the water. Cato''s eyes widened in terror as he realized the full extent of the Dark Lord''s power.
The bandits who had once surrounded them were now motionless, their bodies still floating in the water. Their swords and spearsy forgotten at their sides, their lifeless eyes staring nkly into the distance as blood reddened the dark water. Cato''s mind raced as he watched Michael approach. He knew he had to act fast if he was to stand any chance against this dark force. He tried to swim away, but the Dark Lord was too fast. Once again, Michael fired his dark beams, which sliced through the water with unrelenting force, striking Cato''s body and causing him to scream out in agony.
"Arghhhhh!"
Cato''s body convulsed as the beams hit him again and again. The water around him churned with his thrashing as he tried to escape the Dark Lord''s deadly attack. But it was no use. The Dark Lord''s power was too great. Everything around Cato turned blurry. One moment he was at his peak, and the next, the human he thought of as a weak Inferior ended his whole gang''s life in mere moments. His mind was still processing and trying toprehend what had just happened.
Cato gasped for breath as he clutched his chest, the pain overwhelming him. He looked up at the Dark Lord with fear in his eyes. "Who...who are you?" he croaked. Looking at Cato''s status, Mutrad could only sigh. He did warn Cato to leave them alone, yet the arrogant earthen chose to mess with them. Unfortunately for Cato, he chose the wrong prey to hunt today.
"I am the one who inspired you, Cato. Don''t you know me?" Michael tilted his head as he regarded Cato with a cold smile.
Cato''s body was wracked with pain from the Dark Lord''s attack, he couldn''t believe what he was seeing. The human who stood before him only moments ago had transformed into the Dark Lord himself. His eyes glowed with eerie ck energy, and Cato could feel the power emanating from him. For a moment, Cato was frozen in shock and disbelief. He had thought the Dark Lord to be just a mortal, someone who posed no threat to him or his underlings. But now, he realized the grave mistake he had made.
Cato struggled to move, to defend himself, but the pain was too much. He could onlyy there and watch in horror as the Dark Lord loomed over him. The shock of the situation made it hard for him to think or react, and he felt helpless before the Dark Lord''s power.
Cato coughed weakly, his strength rapidly fading. "Please...help me," he begged. "I don''t want to die,"
"You had a choice, Cato. You could have walked away. But you chose to stand against us. And now, you are at death''s doorstep,"
As the Dark Lord spoke, his voice echoing in the water, Cato could feel his grip on life slipping away. The shock of his mistake had turned to fear, and he knew there was no escaping the Dark Lord''s wrath. Michael slowly put his hands through the golden shield and grabbed Cato by his neck. He pulled Cato''s head inside the shield and looked him in the eyes.
The Dark Lord regarded Cato with a hint of amusement. "Give me one reason why I shouldn''t end you right now?" he asked. "Only those who ept the risk of death can truly wield the power of a killer," said Michael.
Cato''s face contorted with agony as he fought to keep his consciousness intact. "Anything, I''ll do anything," he pleaded in desperation. Mutrad observed as the Dark Lord gazed at Cato for a moment, seemingly contemting his next move. The look in his eyes was unnerving, and Mutrad could sense that the Dark Lord was nning something sinister.
Just as Mutrad had anticipated, the Dark Lord loosened his grip around Cato''s neck. "Fine. Your life is spared, but you are indebted to me," he dered in a cold, menacing voice. "Remember this moment, for the day maye when I demand you repay me."
Cato let out a gasp of relief as the Dark Lord released him, floating freely in the water and gasping for breath. He knew he had narrowly escaped death, and the thought of owing the Dark Lord a debt filled him with dread. After releasing Cato, Michael motioned Mutrad to continue their journey. Cato watched in silence as the Dark Lord disappeared into the shadows, his mind racing with the implications of what had just transpired. He knew his world was about to change, and he couldn''t help but wonder what kind of debt he had just incurred. The mere thought of the Dark Lord''s wrath filled him with dread, and he knew that he would spend the rest of his days looking over his shoulder, waiting for the moment when the Dark Lord woulde to collect his due. As his breathing slowly became normal, he knew his life would never be the same again.
Eventually, after Cato and the dead bodies around him hadpletely vanished from their sight, Mutrad turned to the Dark Lord and asked,
"My Lord, are you sure you can trust him?"
The Dark Lord regarded Mutrad with his piercing eyes, and for a moment, Mutrad thought he saw a hint of amusement flicker in them. "We shall see," he replied cryptically.
"The future is always uncertain, but it never hurts to have a debt owed to you,"
Mutrad''s face was a mask of understanding, knowing better than to pry further into the Dark Lord''s ns. He had spent months studying the Dark Lord''s every move, and he knew that the Dark Lord was not one to reveal his true intentions easily. As they moved through the clear dark waters towards the city of Serpent Hall, Mutrad couldn''t shake off the sense of unease that had settled deep within him. The Dark Lord''s sudden appearance had been unexpected, and his encounter with Cato had left Mutrad with a nagging feeling that their peaceful existence in the sea realm was about to be shattered.
He stole a quick nce at the Dark Lord, who floated effortlessly beside him, his ck robes billowing in the current. The Dark Lord''s piercing gaze was fixed on the distant water, and Mutrad couldn''t help but wonder what other surprises the Dark Lord had in store for them. A shiver ran down Mutrad''s spine as he relived the memories of the Dark Lord''s wrath. The sight of Ithn''s soldiers and the royal family of Thusia being mercilessly ughtered and reduced to ruins by the Dark Lord was etched into his mind. It was a gruesome disy of the Dark Lord''s power and utter disregard for life that left Mutrad with a deep sense of unease.
He couldn''t help but think about the safety of his own world. Mutrad had made the decision to serve the Dark Lord in the first ce to protect his world from the same fate as Ithn. But as he nced at the Dark Lord beside him, he couldn''t shake off the feeling that something sinister was brewing. Mutrad knew the Dark Lord was capable of anything and was determined to do whatever it takes to prevent his world from bing another Ithn.
Chapter 890 The City Beneath The Sea
Finally, Michael drifted through the dark water and spotted something in the distance that made him rub his eyes in disbelief. It was a glimmering city, seemingly made of white coral and shimmering pearls, resting on the sea bottom.
The city was surrounded by a shimmering energy field that sparkled, protecting it from the surrounding waters. It sparkled and glimmered like a giant luminescent pearl, casting a radiant glow over the surrounding waters. The dome, the creation of the Sea realm''s most skilled runemasters and cksmiths, was a true marvel of magical engineering. It wasposed of a series of intricate runes, each infused with magical energy that worked together in perfect harmony to form a barrier. This barrier prevented water from flooding the city, even in the fiercest storms.
The energy dome also serves another important purpose: it allows for a controlled climate within the city. Because the dome keeps the water outside at bay, the temperature and humidity levels within Antisia can be carefully regted to provide the ideal environment for its inhabitants.
Of course, maintaining such a powerful magical structure requires a great deal of skill and resources, which is why the merfolk and other creatures of Antisia take great care to protect and maintain their city''s energy dome.
As Michael moved closer to the city, he felt a sense of excitement and anticipation building within him. He had heard many stories of the Antic, a forgotten city back on earth, but nothing could have prepared him for the breathtaking beauty of the city thaty before him.
"I have to say, it looks magical," Michael stood transfixed, gazing upon the enchanting sight before him with a profound sense of wonder and admiration. The scene thaty before his eyes seemed to possess a magical quality, evoking a sense of awe and amazement that left him utterly spellbound.
"I would like for it to stay that way," With a determined tone, Mutrad expressed his fervent desire for the preservation of his beloved city. The mere thought of witnessing his home reduced to ruins filled him with apprehension, and he resolved to do everything in his power to ensure its continued safety and prosperity.
As Michael approached the city, the beauty of the architecture became more evident. The City of Serpent Hall was built on a series of concentric rings that spiraled outwards from the center of the city. These rings wereposed of towering spires and elegant domed buildings that rose out of the ocean depths, each one more exquisite than thest.
The outermost ring of the city was adorned with aquatic gardens filled with exotic sea nts and colorful fish that swam among the coral reefs. As one moved inward, bustling marketces, grand pces, and towering temples were home to the city''s most powerful and influential residents.
At the heart of the cityy the royal pce, a towering structure of gleaming white coral and iridescent pearls that served as the residence of King Serpent, the leader of the Sea Serpent Hall and his court. The pce was surrounded by a series of walls and gardens and was essible only by a series of grand underwater archways that led into its hallowed halls.
Overall, the city was a stunning example of the beauty and ingenuity that could be achieved when magic and advanced engineering came together to create something truly extraordinary.
In stark contrast to the cities Michael had traversed in his past travels, the absence of imposing guards patrolling the city''s streets and extorting entrance fees came as a pleasant surprise. It was a rare and refreshing sight to behold, one that fostered a sense of trust and security in the hearts of those who called this ce home.
"Look," eximed Mutrad, extending his hand towards a magnificent aquatic garden in the near distance, "The tavern is right next to the garden over there," The garden was a sprawling oasis of vibrant aquatic life, teeming with a myriad of colorful fish and exotic nt species. The tranquil atmosphere, punctuated by the gentle sounds of bubbling water and rustling foliage, imbued the surrounding area with an aura of peace and serenity.
"I guess this is where our paths diverge," said Michael. In response, Mutrad nodded understandingly and made his way toward the shimmering energy shield. Hovering above the ground, he lowered himself gently, allowing Michael to pass through the barrier and onto the solid ground beyond.
Before bidding Michael farewell and departing the city, Mutrad offered a gentle reminder, urging him to exercise caution and refrain from causing any unnecessary disturbance or chaos in his wake. "Take care not to create any mess," he advised, his voice tinged with a hint of concern as he turned to make his way out of the city limits.
Upon entering the city, Michael was greeted by cautious inhabitants, and the first few people Michael saw inside the city were Earthens. Just like Cato, their bodies bore a striking resemnce to the graceful forms of Carp or Catfish,plete with shimmering scales that glimmered in the light. Despite their aquatic features, each of them had two arms, each with three fingers, allowing them to manipte objects and interact with their surroundings in ways that defied their aquatic origins. Some of these creatures were also gifted with small feet that allowed them to walk onnd with surprising agility, while others floated effortlessly above the ground, gliding with the grace of a dancer.
Then, Michael noticed another kind.
"They must be mermons," mumbled Michael. The Mermons were the oldest race in the Sea Realm, whose appearance was a unique blend of the terrestrial and the aquatic. Their upper bodies were akin to that of an elf, possessing an ethereal beauty that captivated the hearts and minds of all those who beheld them. Some among them did not have legs like humans and instead floated gracefully above the ground, defying gravity with their mystical powers. However, there were others who were gifted with legs and walked with a grace that was reminiscent of the elven kind.
As Michael continued to stare at the people before him, he noticed a peculiar sight: humanoid creatures walking upright on two feet, appearing to be human at first nce. Yet, upon closer inspection, he realized that something was amiss. Had he not known Mutrad, he would have been convinced that these beings were indeed humans. But as it turned out, they were Wraiths, shapeshifters who had taken on the form of humans with an uncanny resemnce that made it difficult to distinguish them from the real thing.
The Wraiths were an enigmatic and elusive race of shapeshifters whose powers of transformation knew no bounds. Though their origins were shrouded in mystery, it was widely believed that they were ancient aquatic creatures gifted with the ability to take on the guise of any form they desired. Despite their mastery of the art of transformation, the Wraiths possessed several unique features that set them apart from other shapeshifters.
Their aquatic nature was still apparent in their true form, with their skin bearing a translucent quality and shimmering with an ethereal glow. Their eyes wererge and luminous, with a piercing gaze that seemed to prate deep into the soul of any who met their gaze. In their true form, they had long, slender tails that trailed behind them, and their movements were fluid and graceful, akin to that of a fish.
When they took on the form of other beings, they retained their otherworldly aura, which was unmistakable to those with the ability to sense such energies. They were known to possess a deep understanding of the forces of nature and magic and were said to be gifted with the power of telepathy, enabling them tomunicate with others on a level that transcended the limitations ofnguage.
Michael walked through the enchanted garden, his senses overwhelmed by the sights and sounds around him. The garden was a fantastical haven adorned with Mermons gracefully gliding through its lush flora, their tails shimmering like jewels in the ethereal light emitted by the glowing orbs that dangled from the branches. Wraiths flitted about the garden, their features shifting and changing with every passing moment. Earthens scurried among the flowers and trees, their scales gleaming in the dappled light.
The air was filled with the fragrance of blooming flowers and the sweet songs of exotic birds. Everywhere Michael looked, there were new and wondrous sights to behold. Each corner of the garden seemed to hold a new secret, a new marvel to behold. Strange and exotic nts bloomed all around him, their colors and shapes, unlike anything he had ever seen before.
As soon as Michael entered the garden, the mermons, wraiths, and earthens looked down upon him with disdain. They saw him as just another Inferior, someone from outside their world. Whispers and murmurs filled the air as they watched him approach. Some even backed away as if he might contaminate them with his presence. Despite their reactions, Michael pressed on, giving no damn about them. Little did the people know that he wasn''t really an Inferior but disguised himself as one for this mission. In his own world, he was known as the feared Dark Lord, but here he was, just another face in the crowd.
When Michael passed them, he overheard some of the murmurs among the crowd.
"Look at that Inferior, probably lost or looking for scraps,"
"Why would an Inferior be in this part of the city? They don''t belong here,"
"Disgusting, Inferiors should know their ce,"
As the crowd''s murmurs continued to fill the air, Michael brushed them off and headed towards the tavern. Above the entrance, he spotted a board with the words "Great Whale" etched onto it. It looked warm and inviting, with the soft glow of luminescent orbs casting a weing light upon its wooden exterior.
Michael couldn''t help but be intrigued by the lively sounds emanating from within the tavern, despite his concern for Harry. He wondered if any of the patrons had seen or heard anything about his son''s whereabouts, although he very well knew it was unlikely. The scent of spiced seafood and ale wafts out into the street, tantalizing passersby with promises of delicious food and drink.
Michael stepped into the Great Whale and was greeted with a vibrant scene. The interior was brightly lit with candles andnterns, casting a warm glow on the faces of the patrons. The interior was brightly lit with candles andnterns, casting a warm glow on the faces of the patrons. Meanwhile, the sound of raucousughter and lively chatter filled the room, creating an energetic atmosphere that was difficult to ignore.
As he scanned the room, he noticed a mix of different races, each lost in their own conversations or huddled around the bar. However, one race seemed to be conspicuously missing - the mermons. He couldn''t spot a single mermon in the entire tavern, and it made him wonder if they avoided socializing with other races altogether.
Despite the boisterous atmosphere, Michael''s attention was drawn to a group of earthens sitting in the corner, deep in conversation. He couldn''t help but overhear them talking about some recent events in the city, and he wondered if they had any clues that the Dark Lord was among them.
Michael''s eyes adjusted to the bright interior as he scanned the crowd, searching for any sign of Dillion. He had been given the name by Mutrad, a contact who was supposed to help him find the one who forged the shark head medallion. With the lively music yed by a group of minstrels in the corner and patrons dancing, Michael made his way through the throngs of people, carefully squeezing between tables to avoid bumping into anyone.
When he was about to ask the bartender, who was an Inferior, Michael noticed someone sitting on the corner alone. In the dim candlelight on the table, Michael saw a youngster who had fiery red hair, freckles sttered across his nose and cheeks, and a fearful expression etched on his face. His eyes darted around the room as though he was ready to bolt at any moment. Michael sensed this was not the type of person to go on adventures or willingly involve themselves in risky situations. Instead, he looked like he spent a lot of time in shady ces, surrounded by unsavory characters.
Michael was certain that the red-haired youngster he saw was Dillion, as he matched the exact description provided by Mutrad. There was no mistaking it. Upon Michael''s approach, Dillon''s eyes narrowed slightly as if sizing him up with a quick once-over. However, after a moment, he seemed to rx and offer a small smile, conveying that he wasn''t entirely hostile to Michael''s presence.
"You must be Dillion," said Michael before pulling back a chair and taking a seat opposite him.
"Do you know who I am?" After Michael took a seat opposite Dillion, he asked the young man.
In response, a sudden glimmer of shock and fear emerged in Dillion''s eyes, causing Michael to notice how his body stiffened and recoiled slightly at the sound of his voice. A bead of sweat formed on Dillion''s forehead, and his eyes darted around the room as if searching for an escape route. It was evident to Michael that Mutrad must have warned Dillion about him and perhaps even told him that Michael was the notorious Dark Lord.
"Hmm," Dillion nodded slowly, his body still tense with fear.
"I know you must be scared, Dillion," Michael said in a calm and reassuring tone. "But I''m not here to harm you. Mutrad sent me to find you. He said you could help me with something,"
Chapter 891 A Meeting In The Tavern
As Michael and Dillon chatted in the dimly lit corner of the tavern, an Earthen waiter approached their table. The waiter had a sleek and streamlined body with shimmering scales that glinted under the tavern''s flickering lights. Her face was elongated and tapered, and herrge eyes glowed with an otherworldly luminescence.
"Hello, gentlemen. What can I get for you?" the server asked, her voice carrying a faint hint of an ent that Michael couldn''t quite ce.
Dillon grinned at him, revealing a mouthful of freckles. "I''ll have my usual," he said, winking at the waiter. Dillon''sck of experience in the world outside of the Sea realm meant that he wasn''t too intimidated by Michael. Once Michael assured him he meant no harm, Dillon rxed and resumed his usual demeanor.
The server rolled her eyes yfully. "You know I can''t serve you that here," she said, shaking her head.
Dillon chuckled. "Fine, then. How about a pint of your best ale?"
The server scribbled something down on her notepad before turning to Michael. "And for you, sir?"
"I''ll just have fruit juice, please. No booze for me," Michael said, offering a polite smile.
The server nodded, jotting down his order. "Coming right up," she said before heading back towards the bar.
Dillon looked at Michael, a curious expression on his face. "No booze, huh? You''re a cautious one, aren''t you?" he said, taking a sip of the ale in his mug.
Michael shrugged. "I just prefer to keep a clear head," he said.
Dillon nodded, taking another sip of his ale. "Can''t say I me you. This ce can be dangerous if you''re not careful," he said, his voice lowering to a whisper.
Michael raised an eyebrow. "Dangerous? What do you mean?" he asked.
Dillon leaned in closer, his freckled face growing serious. "There are a lot of unsavory characters whoe through here. Criminals, smugglers, that sort of thing. You never know who you might run into," he said, his eyes scanning the room.
"One of these unsavory characters happened to cross my path," Michael said calmly. Dillon became wary of Michael''s words. As someone who prided himself on knowing every scoundrel in the city of Serpent Hall, he couldn''t help but be curious when Michael mentioned encountering one of them.
"Do you know who he is?" Dillon asked, his curiosity piqued. He hoped that Michael''s response would shed some light on the type of person he was dealing with.
"Cato, I believe," said Michael calmly. As soon as Michael mentioned the name "Cato," Dillon nearly spat out his ale. Cato was one of the most feared criminals in the waters outside the city, and Dillon couldn''t believe that Michael had dealt with him and came out unscathed. Suddenly, Dillon felt a wave of fear wash over him as he realized just how little he knew about this mysterious stranger sitting across from him.
"What did you do?" Dillon asked, his voice slightly trembling with fear and curiosity.
"He''s still alive if that''s what you''re asking. But I can''t say the same for his minions," Michael replied, his tone casual and unconcerned.
Dillon let out a sigh of relief, realizing that Michael had dealt with Cato without killing him. As much as Dillon despised Cato for his despicable deeds, he knew that his demise could create a power vacuum in the criminal underworld, inviting even more dangerous and ruthless individuals to take his ce. Thest thing the city needed was another gang leader, causing chaos and destruction.
"Just be careful, okay? You don''t want to get mixed up in anything you can''t handle," Dillon said, a hint of concern in his eyes before taking another long sip of his ale.
As Dillon took another sip of his drink, Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out the shark head medallion that caught Dillon''s eye.
"I''ve heard you can help me locate the individual who crafted this medallion. From my analysis of the runes inscribed on it, I can tell it holds significant power. There can''t be many like it, so I need to find the craftsman and ask who they were made for," Michael exined to Dillon, holding up the medallion for him to see.
Dillon peered closely at the medallion, inspecting its intricate details. "I could possibly assist you," he replied after a moment.
"But why do you seek the craftsman?" asked Dillon.
"Let''s just say that the medallion holds a clue to find someone I care for,"
Dillon raised an eyebrow but didn''t press for more information. "Okay, I''ll help you out. But it won''t be simple. The craftsman you''re searching for is known to be extremely private and doesn''t ept just any customers,"
"Does he have a name?" Michael asked.
Dillon took a sip of his ale before answering Michael.
"So, the craftsman you''re looking for is Aric. He''s an elder of one of the most powerful noble families in the city. Mermon through and through, so be careful not to offend his pride."
Michael raised an eyebrow. "Mermon? I''ve heard they''re quite reclusive and rarely socialize with other races,"
Dillon nodded. "Yeah, they''re proud of their heritage and don''t take kindly to outsiders. But Aric''s the best at what he does. He''s the one who crafted that medallion you''re holding, and there''s a good chance he knows who he gave them to,"
"I see," said Michael, taking another look at the medallion. "Well, I appreciate the warning. Do you know where I can find Aric?"
Dillon typically didn''t offer his services without a fee, but he made an exception for Michael. This was no ordinary job; Mutrad had personally instructed Dillon to do whatever Michael asked. Knowing that Mutrad would owe him a favor was worth more to Dillon than any amount of money.
Dillon reclined in his seat, pondering for a moment.
"Actually, I think I know where to find him," Dillon said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"Aric''s nephew is the best ce to start. Lucky for you, I know where to find the youngd. Only one problem though, they are not very fond of outsiders either,"
"Well, we''ll see about that. But first, let''s find this nephew of Aric''s,"
Dillon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Aric''s family runs a dance house in the city. It''s quite exclusive, and only the most affluent clientele are allowed in. But Aric''s nephew often visits the ce. If we''re lucky, we might be able to catch him there. Just one thing you should know, they don''t usually wee inferiors like us,"
As Michael was about to ask Dillon to finish his drink and lead the way to the dance house, the wooden door of the tavern creaked open, causing Dillon to turn his head in the direction of the entrance. His eyes widened in shock as he saw the group of Mermons entering the establishment. Among them was a young man with an air of confidence who led the group, and Dillon recognized him immediately as Aric''s nephew.
Dillon couldn''t believe his luck. Just as he was about to lead Michael to find the young man, he had walked right into the tavern. Dillon''s surprise was evident on his face, and he quickly leaned over to Michael and whispered,
Excitement surged through Dillon as he leaned over to Michael, his whispered words betraying his astonishment. "That''s Aric''s nephew!" he said, his eyes widening in disbelief. "The very one we were just about to search for. We don''t even have to leave this tavern now. Either you''re incredibly lucky, or he''s incredibly unlucky,"
Michael was taken aback to see Aric''s nephew in the same tavern as him. He was used to having to perform tiresome tasks before getting what he wanted, but this time it seemed as though luck was on his side. Upon turning around, Michael saw a Mermon who stood tall and proud, exuding an air of arrogance. His sharp, piercing eyes seemed to size up everyone in the room, while chiseled, defined facial features only added to hismanding presence. With high cheekbones and a strong jawline, his face appeared sharp and angr. Jet ck hair, styled in a sleek, sophisticated manner, was slicked back from his forehead and fell in a glossy wave at the nape of his neck. Despite his unpleasant demeanor, it was undeniable that he was undeniably handsome and had a regal bearing that demanded attention. The young mermon''smanding presence drew the eyes of everyone in the room, leaving little doubt that he was used to being the center of attention.
While observing the young mermon, Michael couldn''t help but wonder why he had chosen to enter this particr establishment. It didn''t appear to be the kind of ce that a proud mermon would frequent. Regardless of the reason behind his presence, Michael knew that he needed to speak with him as soon as possible in order to meet Aric.
One of Young Master Tertis'' minions strode up to the tavern owner with a haughty expression on his face. "Young Master Tertis requires a table," he said imperiously.
The tavern owner looked nervous but managed to stammer out a response. "Of course, sir. Right away, sir. Follow me, please."
As they walked towards a table, the minion continued to look around the tavern with a sneer on his face. "Make sure it''s a good one," he ordered. "Young Master Tertis doesn''t like to be kept waiting."
The tavern owner nodded quickly. "Right away, sir. Here you are," he said, indicating a table in a quiet corner of the tavern.
Young Master Tertis'' minion looked at the table critically before deigning to sit down. "See that we are served well," he said, turning to the tavern owner. "And make sure our drinks are never empty."
The tavern owner nodded quickly, eager to please the arrogant mermon and his entourage.
Meanwhile, the server brought Dillon''s order to the table. Michael gave a nod of appreciation and leaned back in his chair. His gaze drifted towards Young Master Tertis and his minions as they settled at the table that had been prepared for them.
"Unbelievable," one of Tertis'' minions eximed, shaking his head in disbelief. "Those mermon girls dared us toe to this filthy tavern of all ces."
"I know, right?" another minion chimed in. "But we couldn''t refuse. That would be a sign of weakness."
"I can''t stand the stench of this ce. I''ll have to bathe for hours to get rid of it," a third minion said with a look of disgust. "And don''t even get me started on the terrible music. I feel like my ears are bleeding."
"At least we proved ourselves," the first minion said. "But what about the mermon girls? We need toe up with a challenge that''s actually worth our time."
One of the minions nced around the room, eyeing the inferiors with contempt. "Look at these inferiors," he said with a disgusted tone. "As if this ce couldn''t get any worse."
"Those girls really yed us," another minion grumbled. "But we can''t let them think we''re weak."
Tertis smirked, his eyes glinting with mischief. "I have an idea," he said, his voice low and sly. "Something that will really put them to the test,"
"Perhaps we should wait for the opportune moment and politely request Tertis to arrange a meeting with his uncle. If we''re fortunate and he''s in a cooperative mood, we might have a chance to see Aric sooner than expected," Dillon scanned the group of Tertis and his minions and spoke with a low voice.
"I have a quicker and more effective solution," Michael said, cracking his knuckles. Dillon felt a sense of unease from the look in Michael''s eyes.
Chapter 892 Michael Got Drunk
Michael came up with a quick n to earn some badass points and went straight to Aric. He grabbed Dillon''s mug full of ale and poured it on himself, leaving Dillon puzzled about what he was up to. Michael then stood up and pretended to be slightly drunk as he made his way towards Tertis''s table. Initially, the patrons in the tavern paid no attention to him as drunkenness was amon sight there. But as he approached the table where the proud mermons were dining, the servers and other patrons began to take notice.
"Hey, check out that guy stumbling around. Looks like he''s had one too many drinks,"
"Yeah, I think he''s trying to impress someone. Probably trying to get the attention of those mermons over there,"
"Well, it''s not working. They don''t seem to be paying him any attention,"
"I don''t know, he''s getting closer. Maybe he''s going to do something crazy,"
"Oh boy, this could be entertaining. Let''s see what he does,"
"Uh oh, he just poured his drink all over himself. What is he doing?"
"Maybe he''s trying to prove that he''s a tough guy. You know, like ''look at me, I can take a drink in the face and not even flinch,''"
"Well, whatever he''s doing, it''s certainly caught the attention of everyone in the tavern now,"
"He''s walking straight towards the mermons. This is going to be interesting,"
"I don''t think they''re going to like this. They seem like a proud bunch,"
"Yeah, they''re not going to take kindly to someone interrupting their dinner. Let''s see how this ys out,"
The patrons in the tavern began to stir with excitement, their interest piqued by the sight of Michael pretending to be drunk and approaching Tertis and his group. Most of them were earthen and held no particr love for either Inferiors or Mermons. It didn''t matter to them who would be the victim of the situation - as long as it was entertaining. Dillion, on the other hand, furrowed his brows at the scene unfolding before him. He had his own methods for approaching Tertis without ruffling any feathers. As Mutrad had said, he wasn''t a warrior. In fact, he was more likely to vanish at the first sign of trouble. As Michael took each step closer to Tertis, Dillon found it increasingly difficult to resist the urge to bolt out of the tavern.
Tertis looked up from his te and spotted Michael approaching them, swaying and stumbling as he made his way through the crowd.
One of Tertis''s friends, a burly mermon with sharp tusks, sneered at Michael. "What do we have here? A drunken fool stumbling his way over to us."
Tertis''s lips curled into a wicked grin. "Well, well, what do we have here?" he sneered. "Looks like a little Inferior trying to make a name for himself. How amusing." Hispanions snickered and exchanged smug nces.
As Michael stumbled closer, Tertis crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "What do you want, Inferior?" he spat, his voice dripping with disdain. "Do you think you can just waltz over here and demand our attention?"
The patrons in the tavern watched in stunned silence, their eyes flickering nervously between the two groups. A few muttered under their breath, casting nervous nces at the door. It was no secret that the Mermons looked down on the Inferiors, and few dared to challenge their authority.
As Michael got closer, the servers and other patrons in the tavern began to whisper and point. Some evenughed at the sight of him.
Michael stumbled up to their table, nearly knocking over a nearby chair. He slurred his words as he spoke. "Hey there, you guys look like you''re havin'' a good time. Mind if I join in?"
Tertis and his group exchanged disgusted looks as Michael stumbled towards them, swaying and belching. Tertis narrowed his eyes in anger, feeling insulted that an Inferior would even attempt to approach their table.
"Come on, guys, lighten up," Michael slurred, grinning foolishly. "I just wanted to have a little fun."
"Fun?" Tertis sneered. "You think this is fun? Trying to weasel your way into ourpany like some kind of pathetic stray?"
Michael''s grin faded, reced by a look of confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"You''re an Inferior, boy," Tertis spat. "A lower being. We don''t associate with your kind. Now leave before we make you."
The other Mermons at the table chuckled cruelly, and a few of them began to stand up. Michael''s eyes widened in fear as he finally realized the gravity of the situation.
"I-I''m sorry," he stammered, taking a step back. "I didn''t mean any harm. I''ll just go."
"You''re damn right you will," Tertis growled, and the other Mermons advanced on Michael menacingly. "And if we catch you trying to pull any more stunts like this, you''ll regret it."
Michael knew that causing this scene was just a small part of his n to earn badass points and gain ess to Aric. So he kept riling them up instead of leaving, maintaining hisposure even under their insults.
"You''re just afraid to let me join because you know I''ll outdrink all of you," he slurred, slyly responding to their jeers.
The Mermons sneered andughed at Michael''s remark, but their disdain only fueled his determination. He needed to find a way to impress them and prove his worth, even if it meant ying the fool for a little while longer. Dillon muttered to himself, watching the fury grow in Tertis and his cronies'' eyes. He knew that Mermons didn''t need much of an excuse to punish an Inferior, and Michael''s behavior could easily result in Tertis killing him right then and there. Dillon felt a knot form in his stomach as he realized that he had been seen with Michael, and his association with the drunken Inferior could put his own life in danger. He had agreed to help Mutrad for a favor, but he was beginning to regret it. There was no way Mutrad''s favor was worth risking his life for.
Tertis could hardly hide his contempt as he looked at Michael''s drunken form. He felt as though his mere presence was an affront to the Mermons'' superiority. How dare an Inferior approach them, let alone cause such a scene? Tertis''s disgust was palpable, and it seemed to grow with each passing moment.
"You must be insane," Tertis spat with a sneer, his hands clenched tightly. To him, Michael''s behavior was nothing but a desperate attempt to earn respect from the Mermons. But Tertis knew that no amount of posturing or drunken antics could ever make an Inferior worthy of standing alongside a Mermon.
The sound of Michael''s belch only added fuel to Tertis''s disgust. He saw it as yet another sign of Inferiors''ck of decorum and refinement. How could Michael even think that he could be epted into the Mermon fold with such crude behavior?
As the scene continued to escte, Tertis''s disdain for Inferiors grew even stronger. He saw Michael''s actions as a direct challenge to his authority and superiority as a Mermon and would not stand for it. Tertis''s anger and disgust burned like a me within him, fueling his determination to assert his dominance and prove the inherent superiority of the Mermons over all Inferiors.
Finally, one of Tertis''s minions had enough. He stood up and shoved Michael with eyes burning with fury. "Get out of here, Inferior!" he spat, his face twisted with anger. The force of the shove was enough to send a weak Inferior flying onto the walls several meters behind.
But to the minion''s surprise, Michael didn''t budge an inch. He remained standing, his expression unchanged. The minion felt like he had just pushed a small mountain, and it filled him with fear and awe.
"What are you doing?" Michael slurred, pretending to be still drunk. The minion''s eyes widened in surprise as he tried to push Michael back harder, but Michael didn''t even budge an inch. The patrons around them watched in shock, wondering how a drunken Inferior like Michael could withstand such force. To them, it seemed impossible.
Tertis and the other Mermons frowned as they saw their friend struggling to push down Michael. They couldn''t believe that an Inferior could stand up to one of their own, especially one who appeared so weak and intoxicated. Tertis''s disdain for Inferiors grew even stronger as he watched Michael mock his friend with ease.
"What the hell is going on here?" Tertis demanded, his voiceced with anger and frustration. He couldn''t let an Inferior challenge their authority like this. It was uneptable.
But Michael just smirked and continued to y along with his drunken act. He knew that his n was working and that he was one step closer to gaining ess to Aric.
"Oh, you''re trying to push me back," Michael said, slurring his words for added effect. He could see the shock in the minion''s eyes, and it only made him more determined to y the part. "If I was too drunk, I would have thought you were trying to feel my chest."
The minion gritted his teeth in frustration and pushed harder but to no avail. Michael didn''t even flinch, let alone move. The patrons in the tavern watched in disbelief as the mermon struggled to push down a seemingly drunk Inferior. They couldn''t believe what they were seeing.
Michael decided to show the mermon how it was done. "Let me show you how to push someone," he said, raising his hand. With just two fingers, he pushed the mermon with such force that the mermon went flying through the tables until he crashed into the wall.
"Ouch, I might have pushed too hard," Michael said, feigning concern. The tavern wentpletely silent, with everyone staring at Michael in shock and disbelief. They couldn''t believe that a seemingly drunk Inferior could possess such strength.
Tertis and his group of Mermons were equally shocked and horrified. This was not supposed to happen. Inferiors were supposed to be weak and submissive, not strong enough to overpower a mermon. Tertis could feel his authority being challenged, and he didn''t like it one bit.
The silence in the tavern was deafening, with everyone frozen in shock and disbelief at what had just happened. They knew that this would be a moment that they would never forget, one that would be talked about for years toe.
After snapping out of shock, Tertis immediately stood up like his chair was on fire. He raised his hand and barked at his minions.
"You''re dead!" Tertis screamed, his minions quickly gathering around Michael with fists clenched and ready to beat him to a pulp. Their foolish minds still believed Michael to be an Inferior, with only basic Body Strengthening cultivation, and assumed that what had happened to their friend was merely a fluke. Little did they know that they were about to learn firsthand how powerful the Dark Lord truly was.
As the minion dashed towards Michael, he attempted to grab him from behind, but Michael was one step ahead. Without turning around, Michael quickly grabbed the minion''s hand and pulled him forward. With a sudden movement, Michael head-butted the minion with a little force, breaking the mermon''s cheekbone. Blood spurted out from the wound, sttering onto the nearby tables and floor.
The other minions were stunned at what they saw. They had never seen an Inferior with such strength before and began to question whether their assumptions about Michael were correct. Tertis himself was taken aback but quickly regained hisposure and charged towards Michael, bellowing with rage.
Meanwhile, the patrons in the tavern were now in a state of panic. Some tried to flee, while others hid under tables or behind pirs, hoping to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. The sound of breaking ss and furniture filled the air as the fight between Michael and the mermons escted.
As Tertis and his minions converged on Michael, he remained collected andposed. They may have outnumbered him but were unaware of his true strength. It was akin to a pack of rabbits encircling a lion and mistaking it for amon house cat.
Michael scanned the group of Mermons surrounding him, his eyes flickering with amusement. The one whose cheekbone he had broken was writhing on the ground, blood spurting out from the wound on his face. The minion who had tried to push Michael was struggling to get back up, his limbs weak and trembling.
The other Mermons looked at Michael with a mix of shock and fear. They had never seen an Inferior disy such strength before. It was as if he was not an Inferior at all, but something else entirely. Their arrogance and superiority crumbled in the face of this unexpected challenge, and they hesitated, unsure of how to proceed.
Michael took advantage of their momentary confusion and lunged forward, grabbing one of the Mermons by the arm and twisting it behind his back. The Mermon let out a cry of pain, but Michael showed no mercy. He continued to twist the arm until there was a sickening snap, and the Mermon copsed to the ground in agony.
The other Mermons recoiled in horror, realizing toote that they had underestimated Michael''s strength and cunning. They had never seen an Inferior fight like this before, and they were not prepared for the consequences of their arrogance.
As Michael twisted the mermon''s hand, he couldn''t help but feel a twinge of pity for the Mermons. Sure, they were racist and arrogant, but they just minded their own business before he instigated the fight. Unfortunately, he had to resort to violence to achieve his goal. Michael knew that he was the one who caused themotion, and the Mermons were simply defending themselves. Michael''s grip tightened around the mermon''s hand, and he could feel the bones snapping under his grasp. He didn''t intend to hurt them too badly, but the situation was escting quickly. The other mermons were bing increasingly agitated, and their fury was evident in their eyes. Michael could sense that the fight was about to be much more violent and dangerous.
Chapter 893 Shocking The Patrons
The minions weren''t ying anymore. They flicked their wrists, and swords and spears materialized in their hands. The patrons in the tavern gasped at the sight. The minions charged at Michael with a ferocity that left the patrons stunned.
Michael stood calmly as three minions came at him with weapons. The first minion charged at him, but Michael dodged his attack with a swift sidestep. The second minion swung his sword, but Michael bent down, causing the sword to miss him by mere inches. The third minion hurled a spear at him, but Michael caught it mid-air with one hand. The patrons in the tavern watched in awe as Michael spun the spear around, disarming the minion and tossing the spear to the side.
Michael remained calm as he assessed his attackers. As the first minion charged, Michael sidestepped, grabbed an ale mug from the table, and broke it over the minion''s face. The patrons winced as the mug shattered, sending wooden splinters flying and blood sttering across the table.
The second minion swung his sword with all his might, aiming for Michael''s head. But Michael was too quick for him. He bent down, and the sword narrowly missed his forehead. Michael then kicked the first minion, who stumbled into the second minion, sending them both crashing through chairs and onto the floor.
The third minion lunged at Michael with his spear, but Michael sidestepped and grabbed a nearby chair. With a powerful swing, he brought the chair down on the minion''s head, shattering it to pieces. The patrons cringed at the sight and some looked away in horror.
As the minion screamed in pain, Michael silenced him with a swift punch to the face. The patrons in the tavern erupted in cheers, impressed by Michael''s quick reflexes and fighting skills. They had never seen a fighter like him before.
"By the gods, did you see that move?" eximed a patron, his eyes wide with amazement.
"I''ve never seen anyone fight like that before," said another, shaking his head in disbelief.
"That guy is a force to be reckoned with," whispered a third, watching Michael as he took down thest minion.
"He''s like a whirlwind," said a fourth patron, impressed by Michael''s speed and agility.
"I wouldn''t want to be on his bad side," muttered a fifth patron, eyeing Michael warily.
"Is he a mercenary?" asked a curious sixth patron, leaning closer to his friend.
The crowd was in awe as they watched Michael, a Body Strengthening stage cultivator, take down Core Formation warriors in a fight without even using any spells. They couldn''t believe their eyes.
After knocking out three minions, only five were left except Tetris, the leader of the group. Michael decided to take down the minions first and deal with Tetrisst. The remaining five hesitated for a moment and pondered whether to cast a spell or not. But their hesitation cost them dearly.
Michael quickly grabbed a broken piece of wood from the table and kicked it at one of the minions. The wood piece flew through the air and hit the minion in the head, knocking him back. The crowd gasped as Michael slid above the table and kicked the minion in the chest, sending him flying across the room. "Did you see that? He took him down with just a piece of wood!" eximed a patron in the crowd.
The other four minions charged at Michael with their weapons drawn. Michael calmly dodged their attacks with his quick reflexes, and the crowd was amazed by his skills. "He''s like a dancing leaf, so agile and quick," said another patron.
One of the minions swung his sword at Michael, but Michael grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled the minion towards him. The crowd cheered as Michael delivered a swift punch to the minion''s gut, causing him to double over in pain.
The other three minions hesitated as they saw theirrade fall to the ground. Michael seized the opportunity and knocked them out one by one. The crowd erupted into cheers as Michael stood victorious.
"I''ve never seen anything like it!" said one of the patrons. "He''s just a Body Strengthening stage cultivator. How could he defeat Core Formation warriors so easily?" said another.
The minionsy on the ground groaning in pain, clutching their wounds. The one who had been hit by the wooden chair was bleeding profusely from his head, with splinters of wood sticking out of his skin. He whimpered as blood flowed down his face, staining his clothes.
Another minion who had been hit by the broken piece of wood held his head in agony, moaning as he struggled to sit up. He had a nasty gash on his forehead, and blood dripped down his face, staining his clothes. His eyes were dazed, and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision.
The third minion, who had been kicked in the chest,y on the ground gasping for breath. He clutched his chest, trying to ease the pain as he struggled to get up. But he couldn''t muster the strength and groaned as hey there, helpless.
The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, and the patrons could taste the metallic tang on their tongues. They watched as Michael kicked and punched his way through the minions, leaving them battered and bruised on the ground. It was a scene of pure chaos and destruction, and the patrons were left shaken and disturbed by what they had witnessed.
Bones cracked, and flesh tore as Michael battled the minions, the sickening sounds mixing with the shing of metal. Some patrons turned away, unable to stomach the sight of the wounded minions lying on the ground, groaning in pain and clutching their injuries.
The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, and the patrons could taste the metallic tang on their tongues. They watched as Michael kicked and punched his way through the minions, leaving them battered and bruised on the ground. It was a scene of pure chaos and destruction, and the patrons were left shaken and disturbed by what they had witnessed.
"Inferno burst,"
With a raised hand, Tertis uttered the incantation for his signature spell, Inferno Burst. As he did so, the air around him crackled with energy, and a bright orange glow began to emanate from his fingertips. The light grew brighter and brighter until it reached a blinding intensity, causing some of the patrons in the tavern to shield their eyes.
Suddenly, with a burst of energy, a fiery explosion erupted from Tertis''s hand, engulfing everything in its path. The mes were intense and scorching hot, disintegrating anything they touched. The patrons gasped and screamed as they watched in horror.
Michael, however, remained calm and collected. With lightning-fast reflexes, he grabbed a nearby round table and held it up as a shield. The intense heat of the mes caused the wood of the table to start smoking, but Michael remained unscathed. He simply stood there, holding the table steady until the mes dissipated.
The patrons watched in awe as Michael emerged from the mes unharmed. They had never seen anything like it before. Some of them apuded, while others looked on in disbelief. Tertis, on the other hand, was stunned. He had never encountered anyone who could so easily withstand his signature spell.
"That was impressive," said one of the patrons, shaking his head in disbelief. "I''ve never seen anyone block Inferno Burst with a table before."
Michael simply nodded and lowered the table, ready to face whatever else Tertis had in store for him. After the mes faded away, leaving a ck scorched mark on the table, Michael threw the smoking table aside. Fear started to clench Tertis''s heart as he threatened Michael.
Tertis was livid with anger, his face contorting into a mask of fury as he red at Michael. His whole body was trembling with rage, and his eyes zed with intense killing intent. "You have no idea what you have done," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. "We will skin you alive!"
But Michael was not intimidated. He knew that Tertis was all talk and no action. Besides, Michael had a n and was confident it would work. He had noticed some of the patrons leaving the tavern when he knocked out the second minion, and he knew that backup would arrive soon.
As he faced Tertis, Michael remained calm and collected, his eyes focused on his opponent. He knew he had to rough up Tertis a bit to get the information he needed, but he also knew he couldn''t go too far. He had to keep Tertis alive long enough for the backup to arrive.
Tertis, on the other hand, was seething with anger. He could feel his blood boiling with rage, and his hands were shaking with the desire to strike out at Michael. He had never been humiliated like this before and was determined to make Michael pay for what he had done.
The patrons in the tavern watched nervously as the two men faced off against each other. They could feel the tension in the air and knew that something big was about to happen. Some of them had already left, not wanting to get caught up in the violence that was sure toe. Others stayed, their eyes fixed on the two men, waiting to see who would emerge victorious.
The aftermath of the fight left the tavern in shambles. Tables and chairs were overturned, and broken pieces of wood were scattered all over the floor. The air was thick with the smell of blood and smoke from the fire spell. Burn marks and scorch stains marred the walls and floor, evidence of the intense battle that had just taken ce.
Michael nonchntly reached into his pocket, maintaining the facade of drunkenness, and retrieved the shark-headed medallion, making sure Tertis could see it. "No hard feelings, Tertis," he said, studying Tertis''s expression closely to see how he would react to the medallion. Just as Michael expected, Tertis''s look changed when heid his eyes on the medallion.
"Where¡where did you get it?" Tertis''s question came out in a stutter as his eyes locked onto the shark-headed medallion in Michael''s hand.
He couldn''t believe that his uncle, who held a high position in the hierarchy, would give his creation to a mere inferior. His face twisted in a mixture of shock and anger, his nostrils ring as he gritted his teeth. He looked as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning, his body tense and ready to pounce.
Michael approached Tertis with careful steps, feigning drunkenness, but as he neared him, he stumbled on a loose wooden board and crashed to the ground. Tertis lunged forward, grabbing a nearby wooden mug and smashing it on Michael''s head before he could react. As Michaely motionless on the floor, Tertis smirked, thinking he had won.
Suddenly, the sound of boots stomping on the wooden floor echoed through the tavern as the backup arrived just in time. As the mermon soldiers entered the tavern, the sight of their silver scales and imposing figures sent a shiver down the spines of the patrons. They assumed that the drunk man who had just taken down Tertis''s group was as good as dead. The minionsy on the ground, groaning in pain and bleeding, their bodies battered and broken. The mermon soldiers clenched their fists, their eyes filled with a glint of killing intent. However, Tertis raised his hand, halting them in their tracks.
"Stop," hemanded. "Don''t kill him. Take him to my uncle. He needs to answer some questions before he pays for what he just did,"
Unbeknownst to them, that was precisely Michael''s n. He wanted to be taken to Aric, and it had worked perfectly, except for Dillon, who had bolted out of the tavern, leaving him behind. Michael wasn''t surprised, as Mutrad had warned him that Dillon was a coward.
Chapter 894 Creator Of The Medallion
The mermon soldiers lifted Michael''s limp body with ease and hefted him over their broad shoulders as they made their way out of the dimly lit tavern. The other patrons watched them go, some with relief that the violent altercation was over and others with a sense of foreboding at the sight of the fearsome mermons.
The poor bartender let out a long sigh, his eyes flitting to the broken tables and chairs scattered around the room. He knew it would be a long night of cleaning up and repairs, and he hoped that the mermon soldiers would at least provide somepensation for the damages.
Outside, the soldiers tossed Michael into the back of a carriage with rough hands, not bothering to be gentle with their captive. The carriage itself was a sturdy, well-crafted vehicle with dark wood paneling and ornate carvings. The horses pulling the carriage were equally impressive, with long ck manes that whipped in the wind as they galloped toward Aric''s ce.
As they traveled, Michael kept his eyes closed, pretending to be unconscious. But even with his eyes shut, he could sense the passing images of the garden through the carriage''s small windows. The lush greenery and colorful blooms seemed to blur together as they sped by, a stark contrast to the grim situation he found himself in.
The carriage rolled to a stop before an imposing manor nestled among the grand estates of the noble district. The mansion''s fa?ade was a sight to behold, with its ornate marble columns that soared high into the sky and it''s intricately carved wooden doors that were taller than a grown man. The estate''s expansive garden was a stunning sight, with colorful flowers that bloomed in profusion and trimmed hedges that were shaped into intricate designs. The garden was surrounded by a tall, ivy-covered brick wall that provided a sense of privacy and security.
The front entrance of the manor was guarded by two fierce-looking mermons in gleaming armor, standing at attention like statues. As the carriage rolled up to the entrance, the mermon guards saluted and opened the doors for theirrades, who carried Michael out and carried him inside the manor. The interior was just as impressive as the exterior, with high ceilings, intricately carved furniture, and chandeliers that sparkled like diamonds in the light. The floors were made of polished marble, and the walls were adorned with paintings and tapestries depicting myth and legend scenes.
As Michael was carried through the halls of the manor, he couldn''t help but marvel at the wealth and power on disy. He knew that Aric must be an incredibly influential figure in the city to own such a grand estate. He remained still, still pretending to be unconscious, biding his time until he could make his move.
Tertis''s eyes zed with pure anger as he led them into the manor. One of the maids serving the lord of the manor whispered to another, "What could have happened for them to bring in such a beaten man?"
Another maid, who seemed to know more, replied in hushed tones, "It seems like they''re taking him to Lord Aric,"
As Michael was dragged through the halls of the manor, he overheard a conversation between two guards, "I heard Tertis was angry as hell, swearing to make that guy pay for messing with him."
"Good," replied the other guard. "I hope Lord Aric doesn''t go too easy on him."
Michael knew he was in deep trouble, but he couldn''t help feeling a sense of satisfaction. Everything was going ording to his n, and he couldn''t wait to see what would happen next.
The oak door towered over them, with intricate designs carved into its surface, depicting mythical creatures and ancient symbols. The door looked sturdy enough to resist a battering ram, and the two guards standing on either side of it looked equally imposing. Their armor was polished to a gleaming shine, and the edges of their weapons glinted in the light.
Tertis stepped forward, his eyes never leaving the guards. "I need to see my uncle," he said, his voice firm andmanding. The guards shifted slightly as if considering his request but made no move to open the door.
Michaely still, keeping up the pretense of unconsciousness. His heart raced as he realized that this was the moment he had been waiting for. He tried to control his breathing, willing himself to stay calm and focused.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the guards relented and opened the door. The hinges creaked as the door swung inward, revealing a grand room. The walls were adorned with paintings and ornate decorations, and arge chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting a warm glow across the space.
As Tertis and Michael were escorted through the room, they caught glimpses of other guards and servants, all dressed in fine livery and looking at them with varying degrees of curiosity and suspicion. The maids whispered amongst themselves, eyeing Michael warily as he was led past them.
Tertis led the way, his footsteps echoing on the polished wooden floor. Michael followed close behind, still ying the part of the unconscious drunk. As they approached another set of doors at the end of the room, Michael felt a surge of anticipation. This was the moment he would finally meet Aric and hopefully, learn some clues about who might have taken Harry.
As Tertis entered the room, Michael followed closely behind, still feigning unconsciousness. The room was sparsely furnished, with only a few bookshelves lining the walls and an enormous oak table in the center, cluttered with piles of scrolls, books, and inkwells.
Behind the table sat Aric, his unique features that marked him as a mermon making him look superior to the other races. His upper body was akin to that of an elf, possessing an ethereal beauty that captivated the hearts and minds of all those who beheld him. His long, flowing hair was the color of the ocean at sunset, and his eyes were the color of the deepest, darkest sea. He wore an elegant robe of shimmering blue silk that seemed to change color with every movement he made. His features were graceful and delicate, yet there was an unmistakable aura of power and authority about him.
Tertis dropped to one knee and bowed his head respectfully. "Uncle, I bring urgent news," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Aric looked up from his scrolls, his gaze sweeping over Tertis and Michael. "I can see that," he said in a gravelly voice, with a hint of disdain. "Who is this man you''ve brought with you?"
Tertis stood up and began to describe in detail how Michael had attacked them in the tavern and how he had seen the shark head medallion on him. As he spoke, Aric listened attentively, his face revealing no emotion. Tertis carefully recounted the events of the fight, making sure not to reveal too much information that might make Aric think that they had been defeated by an inferior. He wanted Aric to understand that it was Michael who needed to be punished and not them for being overpowered by him.
When Tertis finished, there was a moment of silence before Aric spoke.
"You have done well to bring this matter to my attention, Tertis," he said finally. "It seems we must take action to ensure that this medallion does not fall into the wrong hands,"
Aric''s advanced cultivation at the Soul Refining stage made him impervious to threats from cultivators at the Body Strengthening stage. He was quick to dismiss his guards upon learning of Michael''s presence. Tertis and Michael were left alone in the room with Aric, except for the two imposing guards stationed at the door. As Aric listened intently to Tertis'' ount of the events, the guards stood at attention, their eyes scanning the room for any signs of danger. These were not ordinary guards but elite warriors at the Fusion stage, trained to defend their mermon lord at all costs.
Aric''s sharp gaze locked on Tertis as he demanded, "Where is the medallion you saw?"
Tertis''s hands trembled slightly as he fumbled through Michael''s pockets and extracted the shark head medallion. He extended it towards Aric with a bowed head, careful not to make eye contact.
Aric snatched the medallion from Tertis''s outstretched hand and held it up to the light. As he studied the intricate details of the medallion, his face twisted into a scowl.
The medallion was made of dark, gleaming metal, with sharp, jagged edges that looked as if they could easily draw blood. The shark''s head was intricately detailed, with razor-sharp teeth and piercing, malevolent eyes that seemed to follow Aric''s every movement.
Aric''s fingers traced the grooves of the medallion as if searching for something, his expression growing darker by the second. After a moment of tense silence, he finally spoke.
"I remember this one," he said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else in the room.
Tertis raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You remember it, Uncle?"
Aric nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving the medallion. "Yes, I gave this one to House dwrath many years ago," he said. "It was one of my earlier works, and I remember the time and care I put into crafting it." He held the medallion up to the light, studying it from every angle.
Tertis watched in fascination as his uncle examined the medallion with a sense of reverence. To Aric, each of the medallions he crafted was a work of art, a masterpiece of his craft that he had poured his heart and soul into. To others, they might seem like identical pieces of metal, but to Aric, each was unique, and he remembered every detail about them, from the shape of the fins to the gleam of the eyes.
As Aric continued to study the medallion, Tertis couldn''t help but feel a sense of awe and respect for his uncle''s talents. Aric was a master craftsman, a true artist, and his skill with metal was unparalleled. Tertis felt proud to be rted to such a talented individual and knew he had much to learn from his uncle.
Laying there, feigning unconsciousness, he listened intently to every word Aric spoke. His mind was racing with thoughts and suspicions. He knew that Eratos could not have obtained the medallion directly from its creator, and he was certain that someone was pulling Eratos'' strings like a puppeteer. Michael realized that this same person was likely behind Harry''s kidnapping, and hearing from Aric brought him one step closer to finding the truth.
Although Michael couldn''t exin everything logically, his instincts told him that the medallion was a crucial clue that would lead him to Harry. He knew he had to stay alert and find any possible way to follow this lead and uncover the truth. As Aric finished speaking, Michael remained motionless, carefully nning his next move.
Michael was on the verge of revealing his true form when Aric suddenly grabbed his chest and stumbled back onto the oak table, knocking over stacks of scrolls and books. The guards and Tertis were taken aback as they watched Aric cough up blood, his face contorted in pain.
Tertis screamed out, "Uncle!" and rushed towards Aric, but it was toote. Aric''s body slumped to the ground, and the light of life hadpletely faded away from his eyes.
Michael couldn''t believe what had just happened. He had never intended for anyone to get hurt, let alone Aric, the creator of the medallion that he was after. The room fell silent except for the sound of Tertis sobbing uncontrobly and the distant hum of waves crashing against the shore. The two guards who had been standing by the door rushed towards Aric''s body and examined him, but it was clear that he was gone.
Michaely on the ground pretending to be unconscious, but he knew that he had to be careful not to draw any attention to himself. However, the guards had different ns. They shifted their focus to Michael, drawing their long swords and taking steps toward him. Their eyes were filled with anger and hatred as if ming Michael for the sudden death of their master.
As Tertis was holding Aric in his arms and sobbing, Michael could hear the guards approaching him. Michael was not afraid of the guards who were approaching him with their swords drawn. He knew he could easily overpower them and cause a bloodbath, but he didn''t want to escte the situation further. He wanted to avoid any unnecessary violence and bloodshed. Instead, he slowly rose from the ground, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture, hoping to defuse the tension. However, the guards didn''t seem to be convinced and continued to advance toward him with menacing looks on their faces.
At that moment, Michael found himself at a crossroads: fight his way out or make a swift escape. However, he couldn''t shake off the thought that Aric, who had forged the medallion, was somewhat responsible for the chaos that ensued. Although Michael was the Dark Lord and could easily flee the scene, he didn''t want to tarnish his reputation. He couldn''t risk the possibility of being seen as a coward in the eyes of the Sea Folk, especially when his legacy was on the line. Therefore, he chose to take on everyone who dared to stand in his way, unleashing his full power and leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Despite his inability to interrogate Aric, Michael saw an opportunity to earn some serious badass points in this situation.
Chapter 895 Choosing Violence
The tension in the room was palpable as Michael faced off against the guards who had drawn their long swords. Michael had only two choices: fight or flee. He knew he had the power to defeat them all, but he also knew that it would be a stain on his legacy if he fled the scene.
As the guards advanced towards him, Michael''s eyes shed with powerful energy, and a sudden gust of wind shot out from him. The force of the st was so strong that it sent everyone and everything in the room flying. The candles on the table flickered and were extinguished, leaving the room shrouded in darkness. The chandelier above swayed violently before losing its light, plunging the room intoplete darkness.
The only source of light in the room was the icy blue glow from the outside array, which peeked through the window and illuminated the room in a haunting light. The guards froze in their tracks, their masked faces showing shock and fear. The sudden darkness and the force of Michael''s power had taken thempletely by surprise.
As they stood there, uncertain of what to do, they suddenly noticed movement on the floor. It was the drunk man who had been lying there all along. The guards took a step back in fear, wondering what kind of power this man possessed.
As Michael''s body lifted off the ground, the room was suddenly engulfed in a dense, ck mist. The guards could barely see anything as the mist crept around them, and their fear and confusion only grew. They felt a sudden chill in the air, and the hairs on the back of their necks stood up. When Michael rose to his feet, his eyes glowed with an otherworldly darkness, and the guards could sense a powerful energy emanating from him.
The guards tried to draw their weapons and attack, but their bodies refused to obey them. They felt paralyzed by fear, unable to move as Michael approached. With a simple gesture, he released a cloud of Fear toxin that filled the air, and the guards breathed it in unknowingly. The toxin spread through their bodies, causing them to tremble and break out in cold sweat.
Tertis watched in horror as the guards stepped back, their eyes wide with terror. He had never seen anything like this before, and he knew that Michael was not to be underestimated. The room was silent except for the sound of the guards'' rapid breathing and the asional tter of their weapons hitting the ground. Michael stood there, his eyes still glowing with dark energy, a fearsome and powerful figure that demanded respect and fear.
As the guards trembled in fear, one of them spoke up, "What is this? What kind of power does he possess?"
Another guard replied, "I don''t know, but it''s unlike anything I''ve ever felt before. We need to get out of here."
Tertis, still in shock, stuttered, "W-what''s happening? What have you done?"
But Michael remained silent, his eyes still burning with dark mes as the guards slowly backed away.
Michael''s eyes seemed to radiate a sinister power as they fixed on the two guards. He focused his energy, and suddenly, a powerful gust of wind exploded from his body, hurling the guards backward. They flew across the room, crashing into the walls with tremendous force.
As the guards tumbled through the air, the room was filled with a deafening noise of shattering ss and crumbling wood. The furniture toppled over, sending vases and candles crashing to the floor. The chandelier shook violently, the crystals clinking together before the fixture finally tore loose from the ceiling and crashed down in a shower of sparks.
The st of wind was so strong that it extinguished all the candles in the room, plunging it intoplete darkness, except for the faint blue glow from the outside array. The curtains pped wildly, and papers scattered across the room, blown by the gust of wind.
The guards struggled to get back on their feet, but the fear toxin was still coursing through their veins, making it difficult for them to move. Tertis watched in shock as Michael stood unscathed, his body surrounded by the dark mist.
As Michael waited for the two guards to get back on their feet, he could hear the sounds of heavy metal boots approaching the room. The soldiers were clearly rmed by themotion and were hurrying to investigate. Michael remained calm andposed, assessing the situation and preparing himself for what was toe.
When the guards entered the room, they looked confused and disoriented, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Michael stood up, towering over them with a fierce look in his eyes. The guards hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do.
As the two guards slowly got back on their feet, Michael took a moment to assess the situation. He knew that Tartis had no valuable information to give him, and he felt a twinge of pity for the man. The tears that had rolled down Tartis''s face when he saw Aric die were genuine, and Michael knew that he was innocent. He had done nothing against him, and he didn''t n on beating him up.
Michael could sense their fear and uncertainty, but he didn''t feel any animosity towards them. He knew that they were just doing their job and had no personal vendetta against him. However, he also knew that they were coteral damage in therger scheme of things.
As the soldiers stumbled back from the force of Michael''s attacks, he continued to move with lightning-fast speed, striking with deadly precision. The first Fusion stage guard barely had time to react before Michael punched him in the chest, shattering his metal chest te and sending him crashing to the ground in a heap.
The second guard fared no better, as Michael grabbed his head and mmed it against the wall behind him with a sickening thud. Blood sttered across the wall, painting it in a deep shade of red. Despite their advanced physical abilities, the guards were no match for Michael''s raw power and skill.
As the other soldiers entered the room, they were met with a gruesome sight. The two guardsy motionless on the ground, blood pooling around them. Michael stood over them, his eyes zing with a fierce intensity. The soldiers hesitated, unsure of what to do next.
The fear toxin in the air had already taken effect, causing the soldiers to inhale the toxic fumes and tremble in fear. Their reflexes and reaction time were slowed down, making it difficult for them to act quickly. Instead of dashing into the room and casting powerful spells to take down Michael, they watched him hesitantly, waiting to see what he would do next.
Michael took advantage of their hesitation, moving swiftly and gracefully as he advanced toward them. He could sense their fear and uncertainty, but he also knew that he had the upper hand. He had trained for years to master his skills and powers and was not afraid to use them when necessary.
The soldiers backed away, their eyes wide with terror as Michael raised his hands and prepared to strike. With a fierce cry, he unleashed a powerful burst of energy that sent them flying across the room. They crashed into the walls andnded in a heap, moaning in pain. Michael stood over them, his eyes zing with a fierce intensity. He knew he had to send a clear message to whoever kidnapped Harry. The Dark Lord was not to be underestimated, and anyone who crossed him would pay a heavy price.
As Michael avoided using his deadly magic, the other soldiers cast their spells in a panic, trying to defend themselves against the Dark Lord''s overwhelming power. The spells came fast and furious, but they were no match for Michael''s quick reflexes and agile movements. He dodged each attack with ease, his body seeming to blur as he moved around the room, leaving afterimages in his wake.
The soldiers cast their spells in a frenzy, their fear and panic driving them to attack with all their might. They chanted incantations, their voices rising and falling in pitch as they summoned forth bolts of lightning, streams of fire, and waves of force. Each spell was bright and intense, illuminating the room in brilliant shes of color.
One soldier summoned a wall of ice, hoping to trap Michael within its confines, but the Dark Lord simply melted it with a flick of his wrist. Another tried to knock Michael off his feet with a st of energy, but the spell fizzled out harmlessly as Michael dodged out of the way.
Despite their efforts, the soldiers'' spells seemed feeble and ineffective against Michael. His agility and reflexes were unmatched, allowing him to dodge the spells thrown his way easily. He moved around the room with a grace that was almost hypnotic, each movement fluid and precise.
It was as if Michael was ying a game, teasing and toying with the soldiers, testing their skills and abilities. They were no match for him, and he knew it. His confidence grew with each passing moment, and he began to taunt the soldiers, mocking their feeble attempts to take him down.
But beneath the surface, Michael was seething with rage. He knew that someone had kidnapped Harry and was determined to find out who was responsible. The soldiers were merely a distraction, a means to an end. He would take them down if he had to, but his ultimate goal was to find Harry and make whoever was responsible pay for their actions.
Michael''s movements were fluid and graceful, as he darted between the soldiers with incredible speed and agility. His figure was a blur as he weaved through the chaos of the room, delivering blows that shattered metal armor and sent soldiers flying. With each strike, the sound of bones snapping echoed through the air, mingling with the metallic ng of broken armor.
The soldiers fought back with all their might, casting spells and swinging their weapons in a desperate attempt to take down the Dark Lord. But Michael seemed almost invincible, effortlessly dodging every attack and striking with deadly precision. The air crackled with energy as spells flew back and forth, but none of them managed to even touch Michael.
"What the hell is he?" cried one of the soldiers.
"Get back! Get back!" shouted another as he stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet.
As Michael approached them, they screamed and begged for mercy, but he was relentless. "Please! Spare us!" they cried.
"He''s not human! He''s a monster!" eximed a third soldier.
As the battle raged on, Tertis watched in horror as the soldiers fell one by one, their bodies battered and broken. The room was filled with the stench of blood, and the air was thick with the sounds of battle.
Thest soldier stumbled back, his eyes wide with fear as he saw hisrades fall one by one. He raised his hands in surrender and pleaded, "Please, spare me. I didn''t want any of this. I was just following orders."
The soldier could feel the immense power radiating from Michael and knew he was no match for him. He fell to his knees, trembling and crying, hoping that Michael would spare him. But Michael was not in a merciful mood. He lifted the soldier by his neck, his powerful grip like a vice that tightened around the soldier''s throat. The soldier struggled to breathe as Michael''s dark mes red into his eyes.
With a sudden burst of strength, Michael mmed the soldier against the wall with a deafening impact. The walls shook and the floors trembled as the soldier''s body left a human-shaped hole in the wall. The soldier''s armor ttered to the ground as he slumped to the floor, gasping for air. Michael showed no signs of mercy as he grabbed the soldier by his legs and threw him like a doll across the room. The soldier went crashing through broken tables and chairs beforeing to a halt, unconscious and defeated.
The room was unrecognizable from its previous grandeur, now resembling a war-torn battlefield. The ornate furnishings that once adorned the space were now smashed into splinters, scattered across the floor like confetti. The walls were cracked and chipped, and in some ces, holes were punched through them, revealing the bricks beneath. The carpet was stained with blood, and broken ss littered the ground, reflecting the shattered chandelier above.
The once-peaceful atmosphere was reced with the heavy silence of destruction. The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood, and the sound of groaning soldiers mixed with the faint crackling of mes that had been sparked during the fight. Tertis stood there, trembling with fear, staring at the scene before him, feeling sick to his stomach at the sight of so much destruction.
Michael stood tall and still, like a statue of death, his eyes glowing with a dark, eerie fire. His presence alone was enough to fill the room with an unsettling aura. It was a scene ofplete and utter chaos, with destruction and violence dominating every corner.
Chapter 896 More Soldiers To Beat
After Michael defeated the guards, an rm began to ring throughout the manor, indicating that backup was on the way. However, Michael remained calm and collected, not showing any signs of distress. He was still receiving badass points for his actions, and his total count had reached almost seven hundred thousand, even after he had settled his debt with the system.
The sound of the rm ringing throughout the manor made Tertis jump, but Michael didn''t even flinch. Despite the ring noise, he remained calm and focused. Tertis mustered his courage and approached Michael with Aric''s body in his arms.
"Why did you kill him?" Tertis asked, tears streaming down his face. He assumed Michael was responsible for Aric''s death.
"I didn''t," Michael replied simply, his expression unreadable. Tertis was blinded by sadness and grief, but he could detect no lies in Michael''s voice.
"When I''m done, you will have your uncle''s murderer," Michael added before turning and leaving the room.
Tertis was left alone with Aric''s lifeless body, feeling helpless and angry. He couldn''t believe his uncle was gone and didn''t know who to trust anymore. The manor was in chaos, with broken furniture and debris scattered everywhere. The walls and floors were cracked, and the once-beautiful decor was now in shambles. The air was heavy with the scent of blood, and Tertis felt sick to his stomach at the sight of so much carnage. He clutched Aric''s body tightly, his heart heavy with sorrow.
As Michael stepped outside the room, his eyes darted around the hallway, taking in the chaos that had erupted around him. Guards were rushing into the manor on the ground floor, and the sound of the rm bells echoed through the halls. The maids and other nobatants were scurrying away, looking for a safe area to avoid being caught in the crosshairs.
Michael sensed several magical arrays getting activated, and he knew that more and more powerful beings were approaching the manor through his Environmental scanning.
He stood above the soldiers, his ck cloak billowing behind him, and cracked his neck. Slowly, his feet lifted from the ground, and he began to hover above the soldiers. He paused for a moment, his eyes zing with dark mes as he surveyed the room. The soldiers looked up in shock and awe as they saw the Dark Lord hovering above them, shrouded in a ck mist.
One soldier mustered the courage to speak up, his voice shaking with fear. "Who... who are you?"
Michael remained silent, his eyes fixed on the group of soldiers. He began to descend the hall slowly, and the soldiers prepared themselves for a fight. They had no idea what they were up against. Michael was still hiding his true power; no soldier could gauge his true strength. They all thought they could take him down, but they had no idea how sorely mistaken they were.
As the roof exploded, dust and debris filled the air, making it difficult to see. The sound of the explosion echoed throughout the manor, and many of the soldiers who were still in the vicinity flinched and shielded their faces from the flying debris.
When the dust finally settled, Michael slowly raised his head to see a mermon descending through the hole in the roof, holding a battle axe with glowing runes. The mermon''s scales sparkled silver, and he appeared to be glowing from within. It was clear that he was at the Half-Immortal stage.
Soon, more mermons flew through the hole in the roof and surrounded Michael. They were all at the Fusion stage level 10, a cultivation level that was not to be underestimated.
"Who are you?" the Half-Immortal mermon demanded, his voice rough and intimidating.
Michael said nothing, but crackling lightning bolts surrounded his wrist as if he was preparing for a fight. The mermons took this as a sign of aggression and prepared to strike him down.
"You''re outnumbered, Inferior," the Half-Immortal mermon continued. "Surrender now, and we might let you live."
Despite their intimidating presence, Michael remained calm and unfazed. He knew that he had the power to take them all down, and he wasn''t afraid to use them if necessary.
"You''re gonna let me live even after I did all this?" Michael snickered, pointing at the debris and the soldiers who were groaning inside the room.
The Half Immortal didn''t answer Michael. Instead, he motioned for the soldiers behind him, and Michael noticed a glistening dome appear through the hole above, enveloping the manor and the area around it. The security array had been activated to prevent the intruder from escaping. However, they were unaware that their attempt to lock the intruder inside had instead trapped them with a far more dangerous and powerful foe than any they had ever faced.
The darkness descended on the manor suddenly, taking everyone by surprise. The soldiers on the ground became startled, unable to see anything in the darkness. Meanwhile, the Half Immortal sensed Michael''s power growing rapidly. He knew something was amiss, and the darkness indicated something he had heard of in stories from the realm above them - the Dark Lord.
The mermons surrounding Michael hesitated for a moment, unsure of what was happening. Michael remained calm and collected, allowing the darkness to envelop him. He knew that he hadplete control over it and could use it to his advantage.
The mermons started to move cautiously, their eyes scanning the darkness, looking for any sign of movement. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning illuminated the room, and the mermons saw Michael''s figure hovering in the air, his eyes zing with dark mes. The mermons gasped in shock and fear, realizing they had severely underestimated Michael''s power.
"You...you''re the Dark Lord," the Half Immortal stuttered, his voice trembling with slight fear.
Michael remained silent, his eyes fixed on the group of mermons. The lightning bolts continued to crackle around his wrist, ready to strike at any moment.
The mermons prepared to strike, but Michael was already one step ahead of them. He unleashed a st of dark energy that sent them flying in all directions. The mermons groaned in pain as they crashed into walls and furniture.
"Looks like it''s time for a little bit of fun," Michael said, his voice dripping with malice.
The mermons looked at Michael with terror in their eyes, realizing they were no match for the Dark Lord.
As the fear toxin filled the air, the mermons surrounding Michael began to feel its effects. Their eyes widened with terror, and their breathing grew shallow and rapid. Their bodies trembled with fear as they struggled to control their racing thoughts. But the Half Immortal was different. He had been through countless battles and had learned to recognize the purity of the air. As soon as he inhaled the toxin, he knew something was wrong. He quickly waved his hand before his face, and a silver mask appeared, covering his nose and mouth, preventing him from breathing the toxic air.
Michael, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the toxin. He remained calm and collected, seemingly unaffected by the fear that was gripping the mermons.
He flicked his wrist, and the Doom Bringer appeared in his hand. The battle axe glinted in the dim light, its ancient ice core spewing bone-chilling frost from its blunt head. As Michael tightened his grip on the weapon, the temperature in the manor dropped suddenly, and ayer of frost covered the walls and floors. The mermons shivered in the cold, their breaths visible in front of them.
Despite their fear, the mermons knew they had to act fast. They readied their weapons and prepared to attack Michael. But Michael was already one step ahead of them. He swung the Doom Bringer with ease, and the icy wind that followed sent the mermons flying in all directions. They crashed into walls and furniture, groaning in pain.
Michael stood in the center of the room, his eyes zing with dark mes. He knew that the mermons were no match for him, and he reveled in the power that he held. The Doom Bringer hummed with energy as Michael prepared for the next wave of attacks.
With a fierce determination to stop the intruder, the Half Immortal charged towards Michael, his battle axe gripped tightly in his hands. He failed to notice the frost forming around the Doom Bringer''s blunt head as Michael swung the weapon in his direction. When the two battle axes collided, sparks flew, and a deafening sound echoed throughout the manor.
The ancient ice core infused within the Doom Bringer spewed forth a bone-chilling frost that spread throughout the room, forming ayer of ice above the soldiers on the ground. They slipped and slid on the frozen floor, struggling to maintain their bnce.
As the sh subsided, the Half Immortal attempted to block the Doom Bringer''s strike with his own weapon, but the sheer force of Michael''s attack was too much to handle. The Doom Bringer''s ability to summon frost added to the Half Immortal''s problems, as the cold air numbed his fingers, causing his grip to weaken.
The impact sent shockwaves through the Half Immortal''s arms and body, causing him to stagger backward and crash into the wall with a resounding thud. The sh of weapons shook the manor to its core, causing debris and rubble to fall from the ceiling.
As the temperature continued to drop, the frost energy from the Doom Bringer spread, coating everything in ayer of ice. The soldiers still standing watched in awe as Michael stood tall and menacing, his eyes fixed on the Half Immortal lying on the ground, groaning in pain. They could see their breath in front of them as they shivered in the cold and struggled to maintain their footing on the frozen ground.
The shockwave from the sh of weapons had thrown the Fusion stage cultivators onto the walls. Though dazed and disoriented, they quickly regained their bearings and began casting spells. Each one summoned a different element, but none of them could harm Michael because of his immense strength.
One cultivator summoned a pir of fire that shot toward Michael, but it dissipated as soon as it touched the Doom Bringer. Another created a gust of wind that tore through the room, but Michael stood firm against it. A third tried to summon a bolt of lightning, but it fizzled out before it could even leave his fingertips.
Despite their efforts, Michael remained unscathed. He turned his attention back to the Half Immortal stage guard, who had taken the opportunity to heal himself and regroup. The Half Immortal knew that he could not defeat Michael alone, but he was determined to protect Aric''s family and their legacy.
With a deep breath, he stood up and readied himself for the next attack.
The sound of explosions and the shing of weapons filled the air as Michael continued his battle within the manor. Despite the destruction around him, Michael couldn''t help but admire the soldiers'' unwavering determination to protect Aric''s manor.
Finally, Michael made the decision to descend to the ground. With a powerful force, hended with a thud, his Doom Bringer striking the ground first. As it made contact, the frost energy that had been building up inside the weapon exploded, sending a wave of bone-chilling cold throughout the hall. The air became thick with falling snow, and many weaker soldiers were frozen in ce, their bodies turned to ice.
Despite the chaos around him, Michael remained focused on the task at hand. He prepared himself for the uing battle, knowing that he would have to face the Fusion stage guards with their full force. The guardsnded on the ground with a loud thud, their eyes filled with fury and their weapons drawn.
Michael stood tall, his grip tightening around the Doom Bringer as he prepared for the iing attack. The soldiers surrounding him cast spells left and right, their voices echoing throughout the manor. But none of their spells seemed to affect Michael, who remained rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on his opponents.
As the soldiers cast their most powerful spells, Michael summoned more cold energy from the Doom Bringer, creating an icy aura around him that chilled the air around them. He swirled the weapon in a circr motion, causing the frost to swirl and dance around the room.
"What''s happening there," asked one of the spectators outside the manor, his eyes wide with fear and awe.
"I''ve never seen anything like it," said another, his voice shaking with excitement.
Meanwhile, the Fusion stage cultivators continued to cast their spells, their voices rising in intensity. They summoned mes that danced across the room, lightning bolts that crackled through the air, and gusts of wind that whipped through the rubble-filled hall.
But Michael remained unscathed, his body seemingly immune to the spells cast at him. With a powerful force, he sent a shock wave of cold energy toward his opponents, freezing everything in its path. The soldiers who were still standing struggled to move, their bodies were frozen in ce.
As Michael prepared to strike again, the Half Immortal waited patiently, observing his opponent''s every move. He knew that his experience and battle-hardened skills would be key in this fight.
"Come on," he taunted. "Is that all you''ve got?"
Michael didn''t reply, his eyes fixed on the Half Immortal. He knew that his opponent was waiting for the right moment to strike, and he wasn''t about to give him that chance. Instead, he summoned more frost energy from the Doom Bringer, ready to unleash it at a moment''s notice.
The soldiers who were watching from outside the manor gasped as they saw the intensity of the battle inside. They knew that whoever emerged victorious from this fight would go down in history as a legend.
Chapter 897 Message In Blood
The Fusion stage cultivators breathed heavily, their faces glistening with sweat and their muscles aching with fatigue. Despite their exhaustion, their eyes still burned with determination and resolve. The air was thick with anticipation as they raised their weapons and arms, ready to unleash a final spell to bring down Michael.
The first cultivator to cast his spell was a master of the fire element. He thrust his hands forward, and a stream of fire emerged from his palms, transforming into a giant, zing dragon that roared through the air, heading straight toward Michael. However, the dragon was no match for Michael''s shield. It simply fizzled out upon contact as if hitting an invisible wall.
The second cultivator to a water spell. He flicked his wrist, and a wave of water materialized, forming into a tsunami that towered above Michael. But even this spell was useless against Michael''s shield. The translucent energy barrier repelled the wave, sending it crashing harmlessly to the ground.
The third cultivator cast an earth spell. He raised his arms and mmed his fists together, causing the ground to shake and split open, creating a massive crevice that threatened to swallow Michael whole. But Michael simply leaped out of the way, and the crevice sealed itself up again, leaving the cultivator empty-handed.
The final cultivator was a master of the wind element. He drew his weapon, a longsword, and sliced through the air, creating a powerful gust of wind that threatened to uproot trees and tear down buildings. But once again, Michael''s shield proved impervious, and the gust of wind dissipated harmlessly.
Outside the manor, onlookers gazed in awe at the incredible disy of power. They knew that Michael was a force to be reckoned with, and the Fusion stage cultivators had given it their all in their attempt to bring him down.
"What do you think will happen?" one onlooker asked another.
"I don''t know," the second replied. "But I have a feeling this battle is far from over,
The crowd outside the dome murmured in fear and amazement at the sight before them. Some of them whispered prayers, while others gasped in awe.
"What''s happening in there?" asked a woman with wide eyes.
"I don''t know, but it doesn''t look good," replied a man.
"I hope they can stop whoever is causing all of this," said another person.
Suddenly, a loud explosion shook the manor, causing everyone to jump back in rm. They watched as debris and rubble flew out of the dome, crashing into the ground below.
"Is everyone okay in there?" someone yelled out.
No one responded, and the crowd fell silent, waiting anxiously for any sign of life from within the dome.
Michael stood tall and unyielding, his eyes fixed on his opponents. The power emanating from his body was overwhelming, leaving the Fusion stage guards and the Half Immortal in a state of shock.
"I have never seen anything like this," whispered one of the Fusion stage guards, his eyes wide with disbelief. "How can he be so strong?"
Another guard spoke up, "We''ve cast every spell we know and still, he remains unscathed. It''s as if he''s invincible."
The Half Immortal, who had seen many battles in his long life, could only shake his head in amazement. "I have fought against many opponents in my time, but I have never seen anyone like him. His power is beyond anything I have ever encountered."
As Michael stood there, unmoved and unaffected by their attacks, the guards began to realize the full extent of the danger they were facing. They knew they were outmatched and outssed by their opponent, and they wondered if they would ever be able to defeat him.
The air in the manor was thick with tension and fear, and the only sound that could be heard was the sound of Michael''s breathing. The guards watched him warily, waiting for his next move and wondering what they could do to stop him.
"Is that all? I am disappointed," Michael shook his head, showing his disappointment at them. He slowly turned his gaze back to the Half Immortal.
Michael''s eyes glinted with disappointment and disdain as he watched the Fusion stage cultivators attempt to cast their spells. He had expected much more from cultivators of their level. As theyunched their spells towards him, the responsive shield around him easily neutralized them. Michael knew they couldn''t harm him, and he was not impressed.
"You disappoint me. I had hoped for more from cultivators of your level," he stated coldly.
The cultivators could only stare in disbelief at the disy of power before them. They were powerless against Michael, and they knew it. The darkness in the room seemed toe alive, as though it had a mind of its own, and it made them feel even more vulnerable.
The Half Immortal stepped forward and summoned his most powerful spell, a fiery ze that shot towards Michael with fierce determination. But to everyone''s surprise, as soon as the spell hit Michael, a strange and dark ck me erupted from his body, engulfing the Half Immortal''s spell. The ck mes seemed to have a life of their own, swirling and flickering around Michael''s body before finally dissipating into the air.
The Half Immortal stood there, stunned and speechless. He couldn''t believe what he had just witnessed. The other guards and soldiers in the room were equally shocked. They had underestimated Michael''s power and now realized that they could never defeat him.
Michael stepped forward, his cold eyes fixed on the Half Immortal. "You have failed," he stated. "Now it''s time for you to pay the price."
The Half Immortal tried to cast another spell, but Michael was too quick. With a swift motion, he swung the Doom Bringer, unleashing a shock wave of cold energy that froze the Half Immortal in ce. The other guards and soldiers could only watch in horror as Michael approached the frozen Half Immortal with a cold, menacing grin on his face.
The darkness in the room seemed to thicken as though it was drawn to Michael''s power. The cultivators could feel its presence, and it made them feel even more powerless. They were shocked and intimidated, unable to beg for mercy as they knew there was none to be found. They were at the mercy of Michael''s power, and there was nothing they could do about it.
One of the cultivators spoke up, his voice shaking with fear. "I have never seen anything like this before. He is too powerful," he said, his eyes wide with disbelief.
Another cultivator added, "We have underestimated him. We had no idea he was this strong."
The rest of the cultivators stood there in stunned silence, their mouths hanging open as they watched Michael approach the frozen Half Immortal. They knew that they were no match for him, and they felt helpless and vulnerable in his presence.
"He''s not an Inferior," whispered one of the cultivators, his voice barely above a whisper. "He''s something else entirely."
The darkness in the room seemed to press in on them, and they felt as though they were suffocating under its weight. They knew that they were at the mercy of Michael''s power, and they could only hope that he would spare their lives.
"Now it''s my turn," said Michael with a cold voice.
He could sense their fear and desperation but didn''t let it affect him. With a quick motion, he cracked his neck and knuckles, preparing himself for what was toe.
Then, a powerful gust of wind, mixed with intense cold, shot out from Michael, sending debris flying and shattering against the walls into a million pieces. With bone-crushing force, the guards were thrown back and hit the ground hard, bouncing and rolling before finallying to a rest in twisted and unnatural positions. The room filled with the sound of breaking bones and groans of pain as the guardsy motionless and defeated. Michael stood amidst the chaos, his cold and unfeeling eyes surveying the scene. The air was thick with the smell of blood and dust, while the darkness in the room seemed to grow thicker as if drawn to Michael''s power.
The once majestic manor nowy in ruins, a mere shell of its former glory. The walls were cracked and crumbling, and the roof had caved in, leaving debris and rubble scattered everywhere. Broken furniture, shattered ss, and charred woody strewn about, giving the scene an eerie, apocalyptic feel.
The gardens that once surrounded the manor were no more. Trees were uprooted, and the flowers were trampled, leaving only mud and dirt in their wake. The pond that had once been a serene oasis was now murky and stagnant, with dead fish floating on the surface.
Smoke still rose from the smoldering ruins, casting an acrid odor in the air, and the only sounds were the faint creaking of loose timber and the asional screech of a bird. The manor was now a haunted, lifeless ce, a testament to the power of the battle that had taken ce within its walls.
Michael, however, was not yet finished. With a flick of his wrist, the darkness in the air surged forward, enveloping the unconscious Fusion stage cultivators and lifting them off the ground, drawing them towards Michael. He stood before them, an imposing figure with his ck cloak billowing around him.
As he raised his hand, a dark sword materialized in his grip. The de was ck as night, and tiny crimson-red lightning bolts crackled around it, imbuing it with an eerie and ominous aura.
The cultivators hovered in the air before him, helpless and at Michael''s mercy. He surveyed them with a cold, unfeeling gaze, and then with a swift and precise motion, he cut open one of their arms with the dark sword, drawing blood. The blood dripped from the wound, staining the ground below with its dark and viscous fluid. Michael seemed to take no pleasure in this act as if it were merely a necessary step in his grand n. As though it was alive, the darkness in the air seemed to pulse with energy and responded to Michael''s will. The air itself seemed to thicken as if it were trying to suffocate the cultivators.
Then Michael began to write a message on the wall in blood. Michael''s message was a chilling sight, written in bold, jagged letters with their blood. The deep red color of the blood contrasted starkly with the ashen color of the wall, making the message stand out even more. The letters wererge, each one nearly a foot in height, and looked as though they had been carved into the wall with a sharp de.
As Michael finished writing, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. The message was clear and ominous, a warning to anyone who dared to cross Lah or her son. The blood had already begun to dry, leaving a dark, almost ck stain on the wall, making the message even more ominous.
The cultivators who still had some consciousness could only stare at the message in horror, their fear and helplessness growing with each passing second. They knew that Michael meant business and was lucky to be alive. They could feel the darkness in the room, thick and suffocating, as though it was a living entity, surrounding them and reminding them of their vulnerability. As the darkness slowly dissipated, the dim light of dawn began to filter through the shattered windows and broken walls of the ruined manor. The air was thick with the smell of blood and dust, and the groans of injured guards could be heard from all around.
Michael was nowhere to be seen, having vanished into thin air as quickly as he had appeared. The only evidence of his presence was the message he had written on the wall in blood.
Chapter 898 The Dark Lords Message
The next day after the battle, the manory in ruins. Debris and rubble were scattered everywhere, and the walls were crumbled and broken. The once beautiful garden was now a mess of uprooted nts and shattered ornaments.
As word of the attack spread, people began to gather in the nearby towns to discuss what had happened. There were rumors and spections about who the stranger could be and why he had attacked the manor. Some believed he was a rival cultivator of Aric, while others thought he might have been hired by a jealouspetitor.
Despite the chaos and destruction left in the aftermath, people could not help but feel a sense of awe at the power disyed by the mysterious attacker. The guards who had survived the battle were hailed as heroes, and there was talk of rebuilding the manor even better than it was before. As for the one who attacked them, no one knew what had be of him. Some whispered that he was a demon, while others dismissed him as a madman with too much power. But no matter what they thought, the memory of his attack would remain etched in their minds for years toe.
The guards, armed and ready, stood in a tight perimeter around the ruined manor, their eyes darting around nervously as they scanned for any sign of danger. Meanwhile, the sounds of cracking wood and copsing debris echoed through the air, serving as a haunting reminder of the fierce battle that had taken ce there just hours before.
As the guards remained on high alert, a group of mermons appeared out of nowhere, their bodies gracefully gliding through the air as they approached the perimeter. At the forefront of the group was Gllelus, a striking figure withrge, expressive eyes and a fish-like mouth that twisted into a small smile as he surveyed the destruction around him.
The mermons descended upon the hall with ease, their movements fluid and graceful as they maneuvered through the debris and broken roof of the manor. Gllelus''s hands, which boasted thin skin between the fingers, allowed him to move through the ocean with unparalleled speed and dexterity. He used these same abilities to navigate the chaotic scene before him.
As the mermons floated through the ruins of the manor, the guards watched with a mix of curiosity and trepidation, unsure of what to make of these powerful mermons elders who had arrived so suddenly. They whispered amongst themselves, discussing the oddity of the situation and specting about the identity and motives of the mysterious stranger who had attacked the manor just hours before.
The moment Gllelusnded on the ground, his sharp eyes scanned the ruined manor, taking in the destruction that had been wrought. The wall with the ominous message in blood caught his attention, and his eyes furrowed in confusion and concern.
The mermons who had apanied Gllelus shared his shocked expression, their fish-like mouths agape as they looked upon the scene before them. Slowly, Gllelus floated over to the wall, studying the message written in blood with a sense of growing unease.
"I know whoever took him will read this message," Gllelus read aloud, his voice low and grave. "So if you are the one responsible for taking him, you have a full day to return him to where you took him. If you fail to do so, this will be only the start of the destruction that''s going to fall upon your world."
The mermons murmured amongst themselves, their thin-skinned fingers wringing nervously. "What does this mean?" one of them asked, looking to Gllelus for answers.
"It means trouble," Gllelus replied, hisrge eyes narrowing. "This message is a threat, and whoever wrote it is not to be taken lightly."
The group fell silent, the weight of the threat hanging heavily in the air. They knew they had to act quickly to find the missing spirit child and prevent further destruction from befalling their world.
Gllelus stood there in silence, his gaze fixed on the blood message on the wall. He couldn''t believe what he was seeing. He had heard rumors about the Dark Lord''s power but never expected him to be this ruthless. The mere thought of what the Dark Lord could do to their world sent shivers down Gllelus'' spine. He knew that the kidnapping of the spirit child was a grave mistake, but he never thought it would lead to this.
As he looked around at the destroyed manor, he could see the physical and emotional damage the attack had caused. The guards were shaken, and their wounds would heal, but the trauma they had experienced would stay with them for a long time. Gllelus knew that the Dark Lord could have easily killed them all, but he had left them alive as a warning. A warning to anyone who dared to cross him.
The mermons who stood around Gllelus were perplexed and worried about the situation. Theirrge eyes darted around as they tried to process the meaning of the message written in blood. They had no clue who could have done something so heinous and why they would kidnap the spirit child. The mermon who had spoken to Gllelus was clearly agitated and demanded answers.
"Lord Gllelus, who could have done this? This message makes no sense!" The mermon''s fish-like mouth gaped open in confusion and frustration.
Gllelus remained silent for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. He envied the mermons'' innocence, for they had no knowledge of the Dark Lord or the prophecy that had been foretold. He wished he could be like them, free from the burden of knowing what was toe.
When he recalled how they had eliminated Aric, Gllelus felt a twinge of guilt and regret. He had been a loyal servant of the Sea Folk, and his death was a necessary sacrifice to keep the secrets of the shark medallion safe. But Gllelus couldn''t help but wonder if there was another way. He couldn''t shake off the feeling that they were bing more like the Dark Lord in their methods.
But he pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the present situation. He turned to the guard who had asked him the question and spoke in a serious tone. "We don''t know who the attacker is yet, but we must find him before it''s toote. And we must be careful not to jump to conclusions or make assumptions,"
As Gllelus and his men were investigating the manor, another group arrived at the scene. But this time, they weren''t mermons but Wraiths. Gllelus quickly identified them, despite their shapeshifting abilities, as their distinct features gave them away. The Wraiths had long, sleek bodies that seemed to move with a fluid grace. Their eyes wererge and unblinking, and their skin had a slight iridescent sheen that shimmered in the light. Among the group of Wraiths stood a sturdy man with a muscr body, a thick beard, and long ck hair. He wore luxurious robes that were embroidered with intricate designs and radiated a powerful aura, making it clear that he was a leader among the Wraiths. Mutrad was also present among the Wraiths, standing slightly behind their leader.
Mutrad stood amidst the ruins, his mind racing as he took in the devastation before him. Memories of the destroyed Ithn ind flooded his thoughts, and he felt a chill run down his spine. He had joined forces with the Dark Lord to prevent his own world from suffering a simr fate, but now it seemed like that fate might be inevitable.
The fear that gripped Mutrad was palpable. His hands trembled as he tried to steady himself, and his heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. He had never felt this level of dread before. The thought of the Dark Lord turning his wrath towards his own world was almost too much to bear.
As he surveyed the scene, he couldn''t help but wonder who had taken the spirit child. Was it someone from his world? If so, the consequences would be catastrophic. The Dark Lord would stop at nothing to find the child, and those who stood in his way would face unimaginable horrors.
Mutrad knew that he had to act fast. He needed to find out who was responsible for this before it was toote. But even as he made ns in his mind, he couldn''t shake the feeling of shock and terror that had taken hold of him.
Gllelus surveyed Valen with a stern expression, his eyes probing the other man''s intentions. Valen, a tall man with a sharp jawline and piercing blue eyes, held his gaze steady.
As Gllelus and Valen stood facing each other, the atmosphere was tense. Valen''s posture was rigid, his expression inscrutable, while Gllelus''s face was etched with anger, his voice dripping with iciness.
"What gives you the right to be here?" Gllelus demanded, his eyes shing. "You know this is mermon territory."
Valen''s voice was even, betraying no emotion. "I''m here to investigate the attack, just like you. And we both know who''s responsible."
As Gllelus saw Valen, a member of the House of Halrid, he felt a wave of contempt and hostility wash over him. He had always harbored a deep-seated hatred for the members of Halrid, and Valen''s presence only served to reinforce those feelings. But as he took in the destruction around them and the message scrawled in blood, his anger was momentarily reced by a sense of fear and urgency.
Valen, on the other hand, remained calm andposed. He knew that the members of dwrath and Halrid had a long-standing feud, but he had put his loyalty to his house aside in the face of a greater threat. He was focused on finding the one responsible for the destruction and stopping them before it was toote.
Despite their mutual animosity, Gllelus and Valen acknowledged each other with a nod of their heads, a silent recognition that they both had amon goal. Gllelus''s cold tone reflected his difort at working with someone from Halrid, but he knew that they couldn''t afford to let their differences stand in the way. Meanwhile, Valen spoke with a level-headedness that betrayed no hint of resentment towards dwrath.
Both men knew that their coboration was necessary if they were to have any chance of catching the Dark Lord, and as they set off together to investigate the source of the destruction, they put their differences aside and focused on the task at hand.
The message on the wall was written in blood, a clear sign of the Dark Lord''s involvement. Gllelus''s eyes darted to the message before returning to Valen. Despite their animosity towards each other, they both knew that they needed to work together if they had any hope of stopping the Dark Lord.
"You''re right," Gllelus conceded after a moment''s pause. "But we need to find out quickly. If his attention is truly on this world, we''re all in danger."
Valen locked eyes with Gllelus, his intense gaze almost tangible. "I concur. It''s unlikely we''ll discover anything of value here. Let''s convene at the Coral Crown and share all the information we have on him," he stated sinctly. Valen was a man of few words and preferred to cut to the chase.
Chapter 899 The Missing Emerald Scepter
Valen''s meeting with Gllelus was intense, with both men exchanging information about the Dark Lord. Valen revealed that his family had learned that the Dark Lord was responsible for ughtering hundreds of soldiers during his war with Ithn, leaving Gllelus feeling uneasy about the task ahead.
After their conversation, Valen made his way back to the empire of Arctic Hall. Just like the City of Serpent Hall, Arctic Hall was a glistening underwater city that sparkled like a diamond in the depths of the sea. The city wasposed of towering spires and elegant domed buildings that rose out of the ocean floor, each one more exquisite than thest.
As Valen made his way back to the city, the energy shield surrounding it slowly began to dim, revealing the bustling metropolis within. The streets were alive with the sounds of wraiths, the primary residents of Arctic Hall, as they went about their daily business.
The glow of the city''s lights cast a warm, inviting glow across the ocean floor, drawing Valen ever closer to his destination. The architecture of Arctic Hall was breathtaking, with each building more impressive than thest. The Wraiths who lived there had created a city that was truly awe-inspiring in its beauty and majesty.
As Valen passed through the city shield, he was greeted by the sight of Wraiths bustling about their daily routines. Some of them floated effortlessly above the ground, their shimmering forms almost ethereal in the glow of the city''s lights, while others walked upright on two feet, their skin bearing a translucent quality that shone in the light.
Despite the impressive surroundings, Valen''s thoughts remained on the task ahead. He knew that the Dark Lord posed a grave threat to the peace and prosperity of their world and that they needed to act quickly to prevent any further damage. As he made his way back to thepound of the House of Halrid, Valen''s mind was racing, trying to formte a n of action that would allow them to apprehend the Dark Lord before it was toote.
The grandpound of the House of Halrid was a sprawling estate that spanned a vast expanse of the ocean floor. Thepound was built on a series of elevated tforms, connected by awork of walkways and bridges that arced gracefully over the shimmering waters below. Each tform was adorned with elegant towers, grand halls, and intricate gardens that added to the estate''s grandeur.
As one approached thepound, the first thing that caught the eye was the massive gate that guarded the entrance. The gate wasposed of gleaming silver metal and was emzoned with the sigil of the Halrids - a fierce dragon with wings outstretched, ready to take flight.
Beyond the gatey a grand courtyard, framed by soaring archways and lined with lush gardens. The courtyard was alive with activity, with servants hurrying to and fro, carrying out their duties with swift efficiency. The sound of fountains and waterfalls filled the air, adding to the tranquil atmosphere that pervaded the estate. The manor at the center of the House of Halrid''spound was a grand and imposing structure that stood tall and proud amidst the surrounding gardens and courtyards. It was a magnificent edifice, made of polished white stone and embellished with intricate carvings and delicate filigree work that adorned every surface. The manor''s architecture was a blend of different styles, with some elements harkening back to traditional styles of the Sea Realm and others incorporating modern innovations and influences from other cultures.
The manor was surrounded by a wide moat, which was filled with crystal-clear water and teeming with colorful fish and aquatic life. Arge drawbridge spanned the moat, providing ess to the manor''s main entrance, which was nked by two towering statues of mythical sea creatures.
As Valen and hispanions made their way through the gates of the manor, the guards stationed there immediately bowed in respect.
Valen turned to Mutrad and spoke firmly, "Mutrad, you have been to the Dark Lord''s realm, and we are counting on you to work closely with the dwraths toe up with a solid n to capture him. We cannot afford to fail in this mission,"
While Valen spoke, Mutrad stood silently, nodding his head in agreement but keeping his thoughts to himself. Unlike Valen, Mutrad knew exactly why the Dark Lord was in their world and what was at stake. He understood the gravity of the situation and knew that failing to capture the Dark Lord could mean the end of their world as they knew it.
However, Mutrad also knew he could not reveal any of this information to Valen or the others. They might suspect that he was working for the Dark Lord, which could potentially ruin any chances of sess. It was a risk that Mutrad was willing to take, knowing that the fate of their world hung in the bnce.
Despite the concern and fear that gnawed at his heart, Mutrad remained stoic and silent, determined to do whatever it took to save their world from bing another Ithn.
Valen strode confidently towards the main hall, with Mutrad following closely behind. The path leading to the hall was guarded by two imposing Wraiths, each standing at seven feet tall and fully armored. They bowed respectfully as Valen approached, opening the doors to reveal the grand main hall. Mutrad couldn''t help but marvel at the sight before him. The hall was grandiose, decorated with tapestries, and adorned with chandeliers that illuminated the room with a warm glow.
But Mutrad''s awe was quickly reced by shock as he saw the room was filled with the House elders and guards, all with panicked expressions etched on their faces. Valen''s presence seemed to bring some relief to their anxiety as they all quickly stood up, and bowed respectfully.
"My Lord," they said in unison, their voices echoing across the grand hall.
Valen nodded in acknowledgement and turned to Mutrad. "I sense something is amiss," he said in a low voice, prompting Mutrad to tense up.
"Yes, my Lord," Mutrad replied hesitantly, his gaze scanning the room for any signs of danger. He couldn''t help but feel a knot forming in his stomach. Something was not right, and he couldn''t shake the feeling that something dire had happened.
Upon Valen''s entry into the main hall, the elders rushed towards him with fear etched on their faces. Mutrad''s heart sank, sensing that something was terribly wrong.
"My Lord..." one of the gray-haired Wraith with pointy ears stuttered, catching Valen''s attention.
"What happened?" he demanded, sensing the panic in the room.
A moment of silence followed, and Mutrad could see the elders looking at each other nervously and sweating. Valen''s impatience grew, and he could feel the anger starting to boil within him.
The pointy-eared elder finally found the courage to answer. "My Lord... the emerald scepter... it''s gone," the elder stuttered.
Mutrad couldn''t believe what he had just heard. He watched as Valen''s anger quickly turned to shock, and he darted towards the elder. He grabbed him by the neck, and a powerful aura shot out of him, almost knocking everyone down to the ground.
The elder managed to stutter out, "It''s... gone... my lord," sweat dripping down his forehead.
Mutrad watched in horror as Valen''s grip tightened around the elder''s neck. He knew that the emerald scepter was an artifact that the House of Halrid had been protecting for centuries. It was said to possess immense power and was one of the most valuable items in their possession.
Finally, Valen let go of the elder, who gasped for air, and turned to face the other elders. "How could this happen?" he demanded, his voiceced with disbelief and anger.
The elders looked at each other, their expressions a mix of fear and shame. "We don''t know, my lord," one of them finally spoke up. "It was there one moment, and the next, it was gone."
The atmosphere in the grand hall was thick with tension and disbelief as the news of the emerald scepter''s disappearance sank in, with everyone standing in stunned silence, their faces etched with shock and disbelief. The emerald scepter was not just any artifact, it was one of three artifacts that had been forged when the Arctic Hall was created. Each of the three houses - the House of Halrid, the House of dwrath, and the House of Bigmag - had been entrusted with one artifact, making them an integral part of the Arctic Hall.
But now, with the emerald scepter missing, the House of Halrid''s position in the Arctic Hall was in jeopardy. If they were unable to recover the artifact, they could face exile and the wrath of the higher elders of the Arctic Hall. The consequences of their failure were dire, and everyone in the room knew it.
The weight of the situation hung heavy in the air as Valen looked around the room, his expression a mix of disbelief and anger. He had always known the importance of the emerald scepter, but now the gravity of its loss was sinking in.
"How could this happen?" Valen demanded, his voiceced with frustration and disbelief.
No one had an answer. The elders looked at each other nervously, their faces paling at the thought of the repercussions of their failure. Mutrad couldn''t help but feel a sense of despair wash over him. They needed to find the artifact and quickly, or the House of Halrid and the Arctic Hall would be in jeopardy.
The atmosphere in the grand hall was thick with tension and disbelief as the news of the emerald scepter''s disappearance sank in. The artifact was not only a powerful item that the House of Halrid had been safeguarding for generations, but it was also an integral part of Arctic Hall''s existence. Mutrad knew the gravity of the situation as he watched the elders and guards exchange nces of shock and horror.
The emerald scepter was one of three artifacts that were forged when Arctic Hall was created. Each of the three ruling houses - House of Halrid, House of dwrath, and House of Bigmag - was entrusted with one artifact, and together they symbolized the unbreakable bond between the three houses that made up the great underwater city. Losing the emerald scepter not only meant losing a valuable and powerful artifact, but it also meant jeopardizing the House of Halrid''s ce in the Arctic Hall.
The thought of being exiled from Arctic Hall and facing the wrath of the higher elders was enough to make Mutrad''s blood run cold. The loss of the emerald scepter was a grave matter that required immediate action. He could see Valen''s mind racing as he tried to figure out what had happened and who could have taken it. Mutrad knew that finding the artifact was crucial not only for the House of Halrid but for the entire Arctic Hall.
Valen''s voice was still fragile as he spoke. "I need to see it with my own eyes."
He walked through the crowd of stunned elders and guards, making his way to the end of the grand hall. There, he faced a wall of ss that looked out into an empty ocean void of any life forms. Valen ced his hand on the ss, and magical runes glowed as a golden bubble appeared in the empty ocean.
As he stared at the empty bubble, Valen couldn''t help but shiver. The bubble was supposed to contain the emerald scepter, one of the most powerful artifacts the House of Halrid had been protecting for centuries. It was hard to believe that it was gone.
Valen examined the area around the bubble, and his eyes widened in shock. Powerful arrays and runes were ced all around the bubble, and a giant was guarding it. How could someone have stolen the emerald scepter with all of these protections in ce?
Valen turned to face the elders, his voiceced with anger and disbelief. "How could this happen? Who is responsible for this?" he demanded.
The elders looked at each other, their expressions filled with fear and uncertainty. None of them could provide an answer. The emerald scepter was not only a valuable artifact, but it was also a symbol of their connection to the Arctic Hall. Losing it could mean being exiled from the hall and facing the wrath of the higher elders.
Valen''s shock was quickly reced by an overwhelming fury, and he mmed his fist into the ss with a force that nearly shattered it into pieces. The room was filled with a deafening crack, and everyone could feel the vibrations pulsating through the air.
The elders were frozen in fear, not daring to move as Valen''s murderous aura engulfed the room. The air was thick with tension, and even breathing felt like a difficult task under the weight of his anger.
As Valen turned to face the elders, his eyes zed with fury, and his voice was low and menacing. "Whoever is responsible for this will face the full wrath of the House of Halrid," he growled, his words like a death sentence.
The elders trembled, many of them dropping to their knees as if an invisible mountain had just fallen on their shoulders. They knew that Valen''s wrath was not to be taken lightly, and the consequences of losing the emerald scepter could be dire for them all.
The silence in the hall was finally broken by one of the elders. "My Lord...it must be the Dark Lord," he said, his voice quivering with fear.
The others nodded in agreement, their faces filled with dread. Before Valen had arrived, they had alle to the conclusion that the Dark Lord was responsible for taking the scepter. After all, he was known for his desire for power and his disregard for the lives of others.
But to Mutrad, it didn''t add up. He couldn''t shake the feeling that this was not the work of the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord was here to find the Spirit child and had no reason to take their artifact. He had no interest in the power the scepter held.
"My Lord," Mutrad spoke up, drawing Valen''s attention. "With all due respect, I don''t think it was the Dark Lord," Mutrad had to speak up and stop the elders and Valen from pursuing the Dark Lord. Mutrad felt a sense of urgency as he watched Valen and the elders jump to the conclusion that the Dark Lord was responsible for the theft of the emerald scepter. Despite Valen''s order to work with the dwrath to find the Dark Lord, Mutrad knew that revealing the Dark Lord''s true mission could have disastrous consequences. If the entire House of Halrid believed that the Dark Lord was the culprit and pursued him without investigating the actual thief, it would lead to chaos and destruction. Mutrad knew he had to speak up and stop them from making a costly mistake.
The other elders looked at Mutrad with surprise and disbelief. "What do you mean?" one of them asked.
Without paying heed to the panicking elder, Mutrad held Valen''s gaze firmly.
"My lord, consider this," he began, his voice low and measured. "The Dark Lord left a message in blood, indicating that he''s here to search for someone. If that''s the case, why would he risk stealing the scepter without even knowing if it''s the item he needs? Moreover, the location of the scepter was only known to a handful of people, including us. It simply doesn''t make sense."
Valen''s expression softened slightly as he pondered over Mutrad''s words. It was true that the Dark Lord''s actions seemed inconsistent with his goal. But who else could have taken the scepter?
Chapter 900 Underwater Slaughter I
In the sea realm, the absence of a sun made it impossible to have a day and night cycle like the one experienced in the realm above. However, the ingenious energy dome surrounding the empires had a remarkable feature that simted a semnce of day and night. As the glow of the energy dome dimmed, the entire city came alive with shimmering luminescent orbs that emitted a captivating radiance.
After concluding his discussion with Valen, Mutrad bid his personal guards farewell and embarked on a journey to the sea serpent hall. Instead of venturing into the buildings within the energy shield, he chose to explore the vast open underwaterndscape. The tranquil and serene environment, with its crystal-clear waters and an endless expanse of flora and fauna, was a feast for his eyes.
As he moved through the cool waters, Mutrad was mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of colors that greeted him at every turn. Schools of brightly colored fish darted around him while delicate coral formations swayed gently in the currents. The majestic sea serpent hall loomed in the distance, its imposing structure a testament to the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the sea-dwelling inhabitants.
Silent and swift, Mutrad navigated the murky waters of the ocean depths until he came upon a spectacr coral formation. The soft glow of bioluminescent fish flickered around him, illuminating his path. As he drew near, a hidden cabin within the massive coral structure came into view. It was Mutrad''s secret sanctuary, known to no one but himself.
Casting a watchful eye around him, Mutrad approached the cabin with slow and deliberate steps. He paused before the door, checking for any signs of danger before tentatively knocking. The sound echoed eerily through the underwater silence, and to his surprise, the door creaked open on its own, revealing the dimly lit interior of his hidden refuge.
As Mutrad cautiously stepped inside the cabin, he was immediately enveloped in darkness. The only source of light was a small, flickering candle on a rickety old table. The air was musty and filled with the scent of dampness and decay. The sound of water droplets could be heard echoing through the hollow space, a reminder of their deep underwater location. Mutrad''s eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, and he saw the Dark Lord sitting before arge marble table. The table was covered with an array of strange contraptions that emitted an eerie glow, casting shadows that danced ominously on the walls.
Upon entering the dimly lit cabin, a sudden gust of wind mmed the door shut behind him, sealing him inside with the Dark Lord. The flickering candle cast eerie shadows across the room, illuminating strange contraptions scattered across the marble table before the Dark Lord. Mutrad could feel the cold, thick aura emanating from the Dark Lord, sending shivers down his spine. The Dark Lord''s upper body was bare, revealing scars and battle marks etched across his muscr frame. He continued to fiddle with the strange devices, paying no attention to Mutrad''s arrival. Slowly and cautiously, Mutrad inched his way closer to the intimidating figure before him.
The Spyder hanging from Mutrad''s chain quivered with unease, its eight legs wriggling in agitation. From the Spyder, the Dark Lord had seen everything that Mutrad had seen, including Valen''s conversation with Gllelus and the theft of the emerald scepter.
"Powerful magic was at y in the theft of the scepter," the Dark Lord''s voice was calm yetmanding, filling the silent cabin.
Mutrad was taken aback by the Dark Lord''s words, wondering how he knew about the use of magic. Suddenly, the quivering Spyder reminded him that he was always being watched.
A sinister chill filled the cabin as the Dark Lord''s voice grew colder. The flickering candles intensified, casting a haunting glow across the room as strange, thick darkness enveloped them.
"Such powerful magic can only be achieved by spilling the blood of a truly powerful being," the Dark Lord''s voice echoed menacingly.
Mutrad''s heart pounded in his chest as he asked, "Do you mean the spirit child?"
The Dark Lord simply nodded in response, his eyes fixated on the strange contraptions before him.
"You may not be the only one who has lost their artifact. Investigate both the dwrath and Bigmag houses to see if they too have suffered a simr loss. The one who still possesses their artifact likely stole the others''," advised the Dark Lord with a sharp gaze.
Mutrad stood there, stunned by the Dark Lord''s revtion. As he tried to wrap his head around the situation, the Dark Lord flicked his wrists, summoning two dark swords from the shadows. They flew through the air beforending on the marble table with a ng. The Dark Lord picked up a sharpening stone and began to brush it expertly against one of the des, causing crimson red lightning bolts to dance and crackle along the ck surface.
Despite the impressive disy, Mutrad couldn''t shake the feeling that something was off. The cabin was oppressively silent, except for the sharpening stone''s sound against the de. The Dark Lord seemed to be waiting for something, and Mutrad''s nerves began to prickle with anxiety.
Mutrad was taken aback by the Dark Lord''s statement. "That cannot be possible, Ghost. The artifacts are protected by giants. It is impossible for someone to take them without alerting the guardians," Mutrad argued, his voiceced with concern. He couldn''t bring himself to address the Dark Lord by his title, especially when he was so disturbed by what he had just heard.
The Dark Lord remained unperturbed. "Yet someone did," he replied calmly.
Mutrad could feel his unease growing. The cabin was eerily silent, with only the sound of the Dark Lord sharpening his de breaking the stillness. He couldn''t shake off the feeling that something was amiss.
"I suspect it''s either the House dwrath or the House Bigmag who took the artifact. You didn''t agree to serve me out of loyalty but to save your world. So, I''ll give you a chance to find out who took the artifact," Ghost said.
Mutrad stood still, his mind racing with the weight of the Dark Lord''s words. The silence in the cabin was heavy and suffocating, and Mutrad knew that the Dark Lord was not finished speaking.
"Whoever took the artifacts has Harry," the Dark Lord''s voice dripped with killing intent, sending shivers down Mutrad''s spine. "If you find them before I do, you will save countless lives. Lives that you have sworn to protect." The Dark Lord''s eyes bore into Mutrad''s, and he could feel the pressure of the task that had been bestowed upon him.
The Dark Lord set down his sharpening stone and began to strap on the various contraptions scattered across the table. Mutrad watched in awe as the Dark Lord first fastened on a ck bracer etched with intricate silver markings: the Mark 3 grappling hook. Next, he slid on a ck wrist bracelet, the APD, with a faint sound of needles piercing flesh. Mutrad shuddered at the thought of what it must be doing to the Dark Lord''s arm. Finally, the Dark Lord selected arger wrist bracelet, the Olympus, which resembled a wristwatch with a hole in the center to hold an arch energy crystal. Mutrad knew better than to ask questions and simply observed in silence as the Dark Lord prepared himself for whatevery ahead.
Mutrad''s eyes widened as he watched the Dark Lord prepare for battle. The sound of nking metal filled the air as the Dark Lord rose from his chair, his dark armor wrapping around him like a second skin. With a swift motion, he sheathed his dark swords on his back, ready for whatever was toe.
"What''s happening?" Mutrad couldn''t help but ask, his voice trembling with fear.
The Dark Lord cracked his neck, a low growl escaping his lips. He didn''t answer Mutrad''s question, but the sudden presence of several powerful beings in the room made it clear that danger was near.
The cabin shook violently as the powerful beings appeared, causing Mutrad to stumble. Panic set in as he realized he couldn''t be seen with the Dark Lord. But before he could even voice his concerns, the Dark Lord simply snapped his fingers, and the flickering candle was snuffed out, plunging the room intoplete darkness.
Mutrad''s heart raced with fear as he heard the sounds of the powerful beings drawing closer. "How did they find this ce?" he asked the Dark Lord in a trembling voice.
The Dark Lord turned to him with a cold gaze "You should choose your confidants more carefully, Mutrad. Cowards are not to be trusted with important matters," he sneered.
As the Dark Lord spoke those words, Mutrad couldn''t help but think of Dillon. He was the one trusted to apany the Dark Lord and guide him through this world, yet the moment the fighting started with Tertis and his group, Dillon fled from the tavern and disappeared without a trace. Mutrad could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he realized he may have made a grave mistake in cing his trust in Dillon.
He was the only other person who knew about the cabin''s existence and the Dark Lord''s presence there. The realization hit Mutrad like a ton of bricks - Dillon had betrayed him. Mutrad''s fists clenched with anger as he thought about the coward who had betrayed him in a time like this. The sense of betrayal cut deep, and Mutrad vowed to teach Dillon a lesson if he had survived the Dark Lord''s wrath, although he doubted he would.
"Wait-"
Mutrad''s attempt to stop the Dark Lord was cut short as the cabin suddenly shook violently. Before he could even finish his sentence, a deafening explosion echoed through the room, shattering everything into oblivion. Mutrad felt himself being thrown backward by the force of the st, his body mming against the coral walls. The world spun around him as he tried to regain his bearings, his ears ringing from the explosion. Through the smoke and debris, he could see the silhouette of the Dark Lord, standing calmly amidst the chaos.
The force of the explosion knocked Mutrad off his feet, sending him tumbling through the water. As the sea water rushed in, Mutrad struggled to maintain consciousness. His vision blurred as he felt the cool embrace of the water surround him. Suddenly, a strong hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him upwards. Mutrad winced as he felt a sharp sting in his shoulder, like a needle piercing his skin. The pain quickly faded, and Mutrad''s vision cleared, allowing him to see his surroundings clearly.
Mutrad''s vision slowly cleared as he found himself floating beside the Dark Lord in the midst of the dark, endless sea. He realized with a start that a crimson-red, translucent shield surrounded them, protecting them from the crushing pressure of the deep waters. The shield shimmered with a pulsating energy, creating an eerie glow that illuminated their surroundings. Mutrad couldn''t help but feel a sense of awe mixed with fear as he gazed upon the shield''s power, wondering how the Dark Lord managed to create such a powerful spell.
As Mutrad gazed out through the crimson shield, his heart sank at the sight that greeted him. Dark, ominous figures shrouded in a thick, ck mist floated menacingly in the water around them. The mist was so thick that Mutrad couldn''t see their faces or even determine their race.
Amidst them, he spotted three individuals whose aura radiated an immense and sinister power, indicating that they were at the pinnacle of the Immortal stage. Their eyes burned with a fierce intensity, and their bodies rippled with otherworldly energy that made the water around them churn and boil.
The group''s sheer power and malevolent intent were palpable, sending shivers down Mutrad''s spine. Their sole purpose seemed to be to kill the Dark Lord, and Mutrad knew that they wouldn''t hesitate to crush anyone who stood in their way.
Chapter 901 Underwater Slaughter II
Mutrad strained his ears to listen to the whispers of the figures looming outside the protective barrier, their voices like the hissing of serpents in the darkness. He couldn''t make out their features, but the way they spoke made his scales prickle with unease. These were no ordinary beings, and their intentions were clear - to y the Dark Lord and anyone else who dared to stand in their way.
"Traitor," their voices grew louder and more menacing with every repetition of the word. Mutrad couldn''t help but feel a twinge of guilt as he thought of his own past transgressions. Had he not served the Dark Lord in his quest for power, would he have be like these figures outside the barrier, lost in their thirst for vengeance?
"We will deal with you after we y the Dark Lord," they said in unison, their voices carrying an ominous threat. Mutrad knew that Michael was powerful, but these beings were at a whole different level of strength. It was like trying to take down a dragon with a wooden sword.
But Michael was not one to be intimidated by threats. In fact, he seemed to relish the challenge.
"No, you will not," Michael replied, his voice cool and collected. "You will be all fish food when I''m done with you."
The figures outside the barrier let out a low, mocking chuckle. "We''ll see about that," one of them growled.
As Michael unsheathed his dark swords, the figures outside the barrier began to move towards them, their movements slow and deliberate in the deep, dark waters. Michael''s des glinted menacingly in the dim light, casting an eerie glow on his face.
"You should have stayed in your kingdom,ndwalker," one of the figures sneered. "The sea is no ce for you."
Michael remained silent, his focus solely on the task at hand. He had faced many foes in his time, but never in such an unfamiliar environment. The pressure of the sea might be working against him, but the darkness strengthened him.
Mutrad watched with apprehension as the figures unleashed their spells, their movements fluid and graceful in the water. He could feel the energy in the water shift, the currents growing stronger and more chaotic as the spells were cast. It was a mesmerizing and terrifying sight, as the figures seemed to be in perfect harmony with the water, bending it to their will like a master conductor leading an orchestra.
Suddenly, the water around Michael erupted in a dazzling disy of light and energy. Beams of energy, bolts of lightning, and explosions of fire erupted around him, illuminating the surrounding waters in a brilliant disy of colors. Despite the ferocity of the spells, Michael remained calm andposed, his body moving with the fluid grace of a predator in the water.
The spells collided with an invisible barrier around Michael, casting a shower of sparks and energy that crackled in the water. The impact of the spells sent shockwaves rippling through the water, distorting the surrounding currents and causing the sea floor to tremble.
Michael stood firm, his dark swords drawn and at the ready. His eyes glinted with a cold, calcting light as he scanned his opponents, searching for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The figures continued to cast spells, their movements growing more frantic as they realized that Michael was not an easy target. The onught of spells from the ck mist figures was relentless. The responsive shield struggled to hold up against the powerful magical attacks, and Mutrad watched in horror as cracks spider-webbed across its surface. But just when it seemed like the shield was about to shatter into a million pieces, Michael acted.
With a wave of his hand, Michael unleashed the death range, and the world around them was plunged into darkness. Mutrad felt the power in the air shift, and she knew that Michael had just entered the Half-Celestial stage.
In the darkness, Michael''s power was amplified, and his enemies were left vulnerable. The cracks in the shield rapidly disappeared as Michael channeled his newfound strength, and the ck mist figures were momentarily caught off guard.
Mutrad''s eyes widened in astonishment as Michael defied the odds and dashed straight through the crimson red shield without a second thought. Mutrad himself had been born and raised in the sea realm, and his body had adapted to the immense pressure over time. However, even he knew that the deepest parts of the sea realm were impossible to survive without proper preparation. And yet, here was Michael, fearlessly fighting the ck mist-covered hostiles on their own turf.
Mutrad watched in amazement as the Dark Lord''s movements became a blur, his swords shing through the water with lightning speed. The pressure of the water seemed to have no effect on him as he weaved in and out of his opponents'' attacks . As the ck mist-covered hostiles cast their spells at Michael, Mutrad watched in awe as the spells took shape in the water. One of them cast a spell that created a whirlpool of bubbles that rushed toward Michael, trying to ensnare him. Another cast a spell that created a stream of water spears that shot toward Michael with deadly precision. Yet another created a massive wave that crashed down toward Michael, threatening to engulf him.
But Michael was ready for them. With a swift movement, he unsheathed his Dark Swords and sliced through the spells with ease. The whirlpool of bubbles dissipated as his swords cut through it. The water spears shattered into harmless droplets as his swords passed through them. And the massive wave split in two as his swords carved a path through it.
The spells cast by the hostiles were specifically designed for underwater battles. The bubbles in the whirlpool created a disturbance in the water that made it difficult for Michael to move. The water spears were perfect for piercing through the water and hitting a moving target, while the wave was meant to be an overwhelming force that could crush any opponent.
Despite the formidable nature of the spells, Michael was able to cut through them with ease. His Dark Swords were specially designed to cut through anything, including spell or magic, and he had honed his skills to perfection. When Michael wielded the Dark swords, they emitted a menacing glow that illuminated the dark waters. The swords were encased in a fierce aura of crimson-red lightning, crackling and surging around them like miniature bolts of energy.
Michael deftly sliced through the spells cast by his opponents while the lightning around the swords intensified, illuminating the area around him with shes of red light. The water around him seemed to distort and warp in the wake of the swords'' movements, as though the energy of the lightning was warping the very fabric of reality.
The dark swords themselves appeared almost alive in Michael''s hands, writhing and twisting as though they were eager to slice through anything in their path. Their edges were razor sharp, glinting ominously in the red light of the lightning surrounding them.
Michael cut through the spells cast by his opponents with ease, as if he and the dark swords were one, moving in perfect unison to slice through the threatening magic. His opponents'' powerful spells had no effect on him as he remained unfazed, confident, and skillfully maneuvering through the underwater battle.
The spells cast by Michael''s opponents created brilliant shes of light that illuminated the surrounding waters. Still, they were no match for the all-epassing darkness that nketed the ocean depths. In fact, the more the light shone, the more the darkness seemed to grow, as if it were feeding off the energy released by the spells. And as the darkness intensified, so did Michael''s power. His body seemed to absorb the darkness like a sponge, and with each passing moment, he became more formidable, more invincible. It was as if the darkness was a part of him, empowering him to effortlessly slice through the spells that threatened him and the dark swords that crackled with crimson red lightning.
After effortlessly cutting through the spells, Michael locked his intense gaze on one of the Half Immortals among the group. His eyes began to glow with a fierce intensity, as he summoned a dark energy from within. The energy flowed through his body and concentrated in his eyes, which then emitted twoser-like ck beams that shot through the water with incredible speed.
The beams were so powerful that they vaporized the surrounding water, creating a momentary cloud of steam, and prated the figure through the ck mist. The Half Immortal screamed in agony as the beams burned through their body, leaving the Half Immortal in pure agony. The Half Immortal''s screams of pain echoed through the water, but it was abruptly silenced as Michael dashed towards him. The ck mist surrounding the figure did nothing to slow Michael down as he swung his dark swords with deadly precision. The swords sliced through the water with ease, leaving behind a trail of crackling red lightning.
In a split second, Michael''s swords made contact with the Half Immortal''s neck. The des cut through the water and through the figure''s neck like a hot knife through butter, sending his head flying off his shoulders. The surrounding water turned red as blood mixed with the ocean, creating an eerie atmosphere.
Michael stood there, his body pulsing with power, as he watched the Half Immortal''s headless body drift away. The other figures watched in shock and fear, realizing that they were facing a truly formidable opponent.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Half Immortal level 8 warrior. The reward is 1,000,000 Experience points and 20,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15000 Badass points]
Upon killing one of the eight enemies, Michael heard the notification from the system ringing in his head. He ignored the system notification and focused on the task at hand.
"Use the light," bellowed one of the Immortals, his voice carrying amanding tone that left no room for argument. Without hesitation, the others followed suit, their hands raised towards the darkness that surrounded them. Suddenly, a brilliant orb of light materialized, pulsating with an intensity that made Mutrad squint and close his eyes. The radiant light illuminated the ocean around them, revealing the eerie ck mist that enveloped the hostile figures. The pulsating energy emanating from the orb was so strong that Mutrad could feel the pressure increasing around him, almost suffocating him.
The intense brightness from the orbs shed with the overwhelming darkness from Michael, and the collision created an eerie grayness that engulfed the entire area. The two opposing forces seemed to be locked in a tug of war, each one striving to ovee the other. The struggle between light and darkness was so intense that Mutrad could feel the pressure building up around him, making it difficult to move. He watched in awe as the two powerful forces pushed and pulled against each other, neither one giving in.
The pulsating orbs of light emitted a powerful energy that Michael could feel even from a distance. As the wielder of the dark mes, he was intimately familiar with the energy of primordial me, but the energy emanating from the orbs waspletely different, yet somehow familiar. It was as if the energy of the light orbs was the opposite of the dark mes but still connected in some way. Michael could feel the opposing forces trying to cancel each other out, but the bnce between them remained fragile and uncertain.
As the orbs of light pulsated with immense energy, Michael''s body began to feel the strain of the opposing force. He could sense the energy from the orbs, a kind of primordial me that waspletely opposite to his own dark mes. The collision of the two energies resulted in a strange grayness that seemed to swallow everything around them.
"Light mes," Michael muttered, his forehead creasing with concentration. The war between the darkness of his death range and the light from the orbs was diminishing the strength of the darkness. The absence ofplete darkness due to the conflict with the orbs of light had made Michael''s powers not as potent as they were before.
With Michael''s power weakened by the presence of light mes, one of the Immortal figures seized the opportunity. He swiftly conjured a ball of energy, his movements fluid and precise, while the others watched intently. The ball of energy pulsated with an intense brightness, almost blinding Mutrad''s eyes. Michael was their target, and they waited expectantly to see his next move.
The ball of energy, crackling with power, sliced through the water with ferocity, hurtling towards Michael. Just as it was about to strike him, the responsive shield flickered into existence around him, absorbing the spell but notpletely. The remaining power of the spell struck Michael in the chest, sending him back a few inches. The force of the impact reverberated through his body, and a tiny drop of blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth, mixing with the water and creating an eerie red cloud around him.
Michael smirked as he emerged from the st, seemingly unfazed by the spell. "Is that the best you can do?" he taunted, his voice carrying through the water. The energy from the spell had hit him, sending him back a few inches, but Michael stood tall and resolute. He knew he was far more powerful than these beings who had dared to challenge him. Even with the power of the light mes on their side, they were no match for him.
Chapter 902 Underwater Slaughter III
Chapter 902 Underwater ughter III
The figures shrouded in mist noticed the impact of their light mes orbs on Michael''s power and seized the opportunity to strike him with a barrage of spells. The first one was a beam of concentrated light that shot toward Michael like a bolt of lightning. As it hit the responsive shield around him, the beam dispersed into a shower of glowing particles that fizzled out harmlessly.
Next, one of the Immortals cast a spell that conjured up a whirlpool of swirling water around Michael. The current became stronger, but Michael remained unfazed, his dark swords cutting through the water with ease.
Another figure raised his hand and summoned a cluster of sharp icicles, which hurtled toward Michael at a frightening speed. Michael twirled the dark swords in his hands, cutting through the icicles before they could reach him, sending shards of ice scattering around him.
A fourth figure shot a stream of pressurized water toward Michael, hoping to disorient him, but it merely brushed past him without any effect. The rest of them did not cast any spells but summoned glowing swords and dashed at Michael to cut him in pieces. Their movements were swift and fluid, as they effortlessly sliced through the water with their weapons. Michael felt the pressure from the water increase as the figures closed in on him, but he remained focused on the iing attacks.
Michael unleashed a flurry of quick and precise sword strikes as the figures approached, effortlessly parrying their glowing swords with his dark des. The sound of shing swords echoed through the water as Michael deftly avoided their attacks and countered with his own.
Despite the weight of the water pressing down on him, Michael moved with the grace and agility of a dancer, his movements almost fluid in their execution. With each strike, his opponents were pushed back, their glowing swords barely able to withstand the force of Michael''s powerful swings. The water around them was churned into a frenzy, as thebatants continued their deadly dance.
Finally, Michael saw an opening and took advantage of it. With a swift and powerful swing, he cut through one of the glowing swords, shattering it into a thousand pieces. The figure who had summoned the sword was momentarily stunned, allowing Michael to move in for the finishing blow. With a quick thrust of his dark sword, he pierced through the figure''s chest, and the glowing sword vanished in a burst of light.
As the other figures realized their glowing swords were no match for Michael, they quickly retreated, disappearing into the murky waters to strategize their next move. One of the Immortals, however, refused to back down. He cast a spell that formed a massive ice dragon in the water, its scales shimmering in the dim light. The dragon roared, sending shockwaves through the water, as it charged at Michael with terrifying speed.
Michael was already being bombarded by several spells at the same time, his responsive shield struggling to absorb the onught of energy. As the water dragon approached, Michael raised his dark swords, ready to face the beast head-on. But the dragon was too powerful for the shield to handle, and it shattered on impact as the dragon sank its razor-sharp teeth into Michael''s shoulder and chest.
Blood gushed from Michael''s wounds, mixing with the water and turning it a deep red. Despite the pain and the loss of his shield, Michael remained unfazed. He swung his dark swords with precision, cutting through the dragon''s scales with ease. The dragon let out a deafening roar as it recoiled, its body disintegrating into nothingness.
The Immortal who had cast the ice dragon spell was momentarily stunned by the ease with which Michael dispatched the creature. However, their victory was short-lived as the Dark Lord turned his pitch-ck eyes towards the pulsating orbs of light that floated around them in the water. A sense of dread crept over the figures as they realized what wasing.
"Protect the orbs!"
The Immortals watched in horror as Michael''s dark beams shot out of his eyes and shattered the ss caging the light mes orbs within. The orbs exploded in a burst of bright light, momentarily blinding the Immortals and illuminating the surrounding water. But as soon as the light faded, the orbs were gone.
In a swift motion, Michael moved through the water, his dark beams firing with deadly uracy to destroy the orbs in the distance. He swung his dark swords with expert precision, slicing through the orbs that floated closer to him. Each orb shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, its light extinguished forever. The water around them started to turn darker once again. Since Michael was focused on destroying the orbs, some of the spells and sword attacks managed to get him.
The ck mist covered figures managed to cut Michael several times, their glowing swords slicing through his flesh with ease. But the APD, the potion and pill dispenser that the Dark Lord wore around his wrist, sprang into action, injecting a potent healing potion into Michael''s bloodstream. Despite the pain that wracked his body, Michael fought on, his face a mask of determination.
As the battle raged on, the Immortalsunched one spell after another, bombarding Michael with powerful attacks that would have felled any other warrior. But Michael''s APD kept injecting him with healing potions, allowing him to withstand the onught. The pain was excruciating, but Michael refused to let it show.
Despite the spells and attacks, Michael fought on, his dark swords shing as he sliced through the glowing swords of his opponents. His eyes zed with an otherworldly light as he fired dark beams from his gaze, obliterating the orbs of light that surrounded them. Each blow he struck was more ferocious than thest, his strength fueled by a burning desire to see the battle through to its conclusion.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Michael destroyed thest of the light me orbs. With a triumphant roar, he turned to face his opponents, his eyes zing with a fierce intensity. Though battered and bloodied, Michael knew the battle was far from over. But with the light mes extinguished, his power once again reached the Half Celestial stage.
"Did you really think these puny light orbs would give you an advantage over me?" Michael scoffed, his wounds healing quickly thanks to the APD injecting healing potions into his bloodstream. Cuts and bruises on his body slowly faded away as he stood amidst the darkness that surrounded them.
The Immortals moved away from Michael, their confidence was shaken by his words and the strength he possessed. But Michael knew the battle could have ended much sooner if they weren''t fighting underwater, where the pressure was restricting his movements and limiting his abilities.
"And those spells you cast..." Michael continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "They may have looked ordinary, but they were all Epic level spells. You really know how to put on a show, don''t you?"
Despite the pain he felt, Michael remainedposed and focused on the task at hand. He knew he had to adapt to the underwater environment and ovee the challenge posed by the light orbs. With each passing moment, the darkness around him grew stronger, boosting his power and giving him an edge over his opponents.
Theplete darkness of the death range enveloped the area, and Michael rose to the Half Celestial stage once again, just as he had been before the light orbs had interrupted his power.
"Prepare yourselves to witness the true power gap between us," Michael''s voice boomed in the utter darkness, sending chills down their spines. Mutrad, who had been observing the battle from a safe distance, felt the pressure around him increase as he braced for what was toe. The remaining Immortals and their Half Immortal underlings frantically tried to cast their strongest spells, but they had no idea what was about to hit them. Suddenly, the water around them began to boil due to the intense heat emanating from the Dark Lord, while the ear-deafening crackling of lightning filled the air. As if that wasn''t enough, the water began to swirl around them, forming a powerful vortex that threatened to crush them from all sides.
As the darkness intensified, the two Immortals could feel the water moving around them, and an eerie silence descended upon the scene. Suddenly, they felt a sharp pain in their throats, as if a hot de had been thrust through them. They tried to speak, but their voices were choked by the presence of a dark sword piercing through their necks. Blood oozed out of the wounds, staining the water around them, but in the pitch-ck darkness, no one could see the blood or the dark swords.
Just then, a Half Immortal summoned a swarm of glowing piranhas, hoping to illuminate the Dark Lord floating behind the Immortals for a moment. But their hopes were short-lived, as the darkness enveloped the swarm of piranhas like an invisible hand and crushed them into oblivion, leaving the Half Immortal stunned and defenseless.
When Michael unleashed the ring of fire, the water around them began to heat up, and the Half Immortals felt their skin start to melt. Despite being underwater, Michael''s ring of fire burned with such intensity that it melted through the Half Immortals'' skin. The ck mist surrounding them was no match for the power of the dark mes.
while the Half Immortals writhed in agony, the dark beams shot through the water like two bolts of lightning, prating their chests. They gasped in pain as they felt a strong surge of water around them. Before they could even begin to defend themselves, they felt a sharp pain in their necks as Michael delivered the final blow.
The water around them churned violently as the Half Immortals'' lifeless bodies sank to the ocean floor. Michael, now the victor of the underwater battle, let out a triumphantugh as the darkness began to recede.
As the darkness faded away, Mutrad''s eyes widened in shock as he saw the Dark Lord floating in the water, his body unscathed despite the intense battle that had just taken ce. The bodies of the defeated foes slowly sank to the ocean floor, a silent testament to the power of the Dark Lord.
The water around them glowed with an eerie light, the residue of the spells and attacks that had been exchanged. Mutrad couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease as he looked around, wondering what impact their battle had on the delicate ecosystem of the ocean. The thought of the potential devastation sent shivers down his spine.
Just when Mutrad thought the battle was over, the Dark Lord turned his gaze towards him and disappeared from his sight in a blur of motion. Mutrad stood there, stunned, with a thousand questions racing through his mind.
A few momentster, the Dark Lord reappeared at the spot where he had in the Immortals and Half-Immortals, an earthen struggling and squirming in his hand. Despite its feeble attempts to escape, the Dark Lord tightened his grip around the earthen''s neck, raising it up as his menacing eyes glinted in the dim light. Mutrad could feel the intensity of the Dark Lord''s rage and power emanating from him, and he couldn''t help but feel a sense of fear and awe in his presence.
Mutrad noticed the glowing icy blue crystal in the earthen''s hand as he approached. The Dark Lord''s gaze also fell upon the crystal, and he swiftly snatched it away from the creature''s grasp. The crystal shimmered in his palm as he infused it with a sliver of energy, bringing the recorded battle to life.
Watching the yback of the intense underwater battle, Mutrad felt a sense of awe at the power that was disyed. The crystal captured every moment of the battle in vivid detail, from the sh of spells to the fierce sword fights. It was as if they were reliving the battle in real time, only with a clearer view of the action.
"Intriguing. Now, who hired you?" the Dark Lord questioned with a chilling tone.
Chapter 903 New plague called the Red Bliss
Chapter 903 New gue called the Red Bliss
(Five dayster)
Alicia stood in a grand hall, the walls adorned with intricate tapestries and golden chandeliers illuminating the space. In the center of the room, a round table sat, surrounded by a menagerie of individuals. A towering figure with fur and a lion-like head sat at the head of the table, his piercing eyes surveying the room. An elven woman with cascading blonde hair sat across from him, her features sharp and ethereal.
In the center of the table, a delicately carved ss bottle stood, its glistening red contents catching the light and casting an otherworldly glow over the faces of those gathered. The atmosphere in the room was charged with anticipation, and Alicia could feel the weight of the room''s purpose settling on her shoulders. Her words finally broke the tense silence in the room.
"Gentlemen," Alicia began, her tone serious andmanding, "I bring to your attention the new, highly addictive brew that has been flooding the markets in Elon and Ozer. It was first introduced to patrons in various taverns for free, but now it''s being sold for a minimum of four thousand coins, which is four times the price of dwarven ale. This brew is no ordinary drink, and we need to take action before it spreads like a gue throughout the realm,"
"As much as I am shocked by the horrendous price," the lion-headed man snickered, "I can''t help but think, why do we bother ourselves with what the nobles drink? If they want to drink this, they can. It''s their choice. We, guardians, certainly have better things to worry about than some drink,"
Alicia couldn''t help but feel a tinge of annoyance at his dismissive attitude towards the addictive brew that was causing chaos in Elon and Ozer. But her focus quickly shifted to the new Alpha Guardian of the Hunter Guardians, ra Valren, as she listened intently to the discussion. The Valren family was no stranger to the position of Alpha Guardian, as ra''s predecessor, Tanulia Valren, had held the title before her untimely demise at the hands of the Dark Lord.
After the brutal massacre of the hunter guardians and the devastating crash of Tanulia''s warship into the guild headquarters, no one was willing to take up the mantle of Alpha Guardian. But to everyone''s surprise, ra stepped forward, ready to lead the charge against the Dark Lord and his minions.
Unlike her predecessor, ra was cunning, patient, and breathtakingly beautiful. Her lethalbination of brains and beauty made her a formidable opponent, and though she did not openly vow vengeance against the Dark Lord, everyone knew that when the time came, she would be the first to strike him down.
As for ra, she remained silent and observed the discussion with a keen eye. Her elegant features betrayed no emotion, but everyone in the room knew that beneath her calm demeanory a fierce determination. ra was a Valren, after all, and the blood of the great warrior family ran strong in her veins.
When ra finally spoke, her voice was cool and measured. "We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to this issue. The addiction caused by this brew is not just harming individuals but also affecting their families andmunities. We must take action to prevent further harm."
As the discussion continued, it became clear that ra''s words held weight. Her leadership and strategic thinking had already earned her the respect of many, and it was no surprise that she had risen to the position of Alpha Guardian.
Alicia nodded in agreement with ra''s words, and it seemed that many others in the room shared her sentiment. Even the lion-headed man seemed to be reconsidering his dismissive attitude toward the issue.
"My team has informed me that some nobles are willing to pay up to ten thousand for a single bottle of this so-called red bliss," Alicia said, her voice ringing out clearly in the hall. "And within just a week of its appearance, many young nobles have be addicted to it. They''re neglecting their studies and cultivation, instead frantically scouring the kingdoms for a bottle and drinking it all day long."
A murmur of concern rippled through the room as the gravity of the situation became clear.
"This is a threat not just to individuals but to entiremunities," ra spoke up, her voice firm and resolute. "If we do not take action to prevent the spread of this addiction, it will only continue to grow and cause more harm."
Alicia nodded in agreement, her eyes scanning the room once more. "Many sects have been discussing putting a ban on the bottle, but we must act quickly and decisively if we hope to curb the addiction before it''s toote,"
The guardians exchanged worried nces, the weight of the situation heavy on their shoulders. But as always, they remained steadfast in their duty to protect and serve.
Alicia stood tall in the center of the brightly lit hall, her eyes piercing through the crowd of council members gathered around the round table. She took a deep breath before speaking, her voicemanding attention.
"As I investigated the source of this new brew, I discovered that the official distributor of the highly addictive red bliss is none other than the Phoenix Manor," she said, her words ringing out with a sharp edge.
The council members exchanged worried nces and murmurs began to spread throughout the room. Alicia''s information was not to be taken lightly.
"But there''s more," Alicia continued, a hint of satisfaction creeping into her tone. "The Phoenix Manor began distributing these bottles only after the disappearance of Lord Julius."
The room fell silent, and all eyes turned to Alicia in anticipation of what she would reveal next. She savored the moment before continuing, her words calcted for maximum impact.
"One of my informants inside the Phoenix Manor informed me that Lord Julius was approached by the Dark Lord''s minion. It''s rumored that Julius ordered the man to be hanged, and three dayster, he disappeared without a trace,"
The room fell silent as everyone processed Alicia''s words. It was clear that she was leading them toward an ufortable truth. "Now, why would they do that," Alicia continued, "if Lord Julius had no problems with the Dark Lord?"
The lion-headed man scowled, his voiceced with anger. "Are you saying that the Dark Lord is behind Lord Julius''s disappearance?"
Alicia''s eyes narrowed as she leaned forward. "I may not have concrete evidence, but it''s highly likely that the Dark Lord had a hand in Lord Julius''s disappearance. Consider the facts: Lord Julius refused to ept the Dark Lord''s offer, and within three days, he vanished without a trace. And then, a cunning fox by the name of Zod took his ce as the distributor of red bliss."
"It seems far too coincidental to me. The Dark Lord always has his fingers in every pie, and I wouldn''t be surprised if he orchestrated this whole thing to start the distribution of the red bliss," She crossed her arms and said.
ra''s voice rang out clear and steady. " think you may be onto something, Alicia. It''s no secret that the Dark Lord values his coins above all else. And after the Supreme Guardian shut down the Majestic and Hades, his two biggest sources of revenue, it''s likely that he would look for new ways to fill his coffers,"
Alicia nodded in agreement. "Exactly. And what better way to do so than by addicting the nobles to a highly profitable substance?"
ra paused for a moment, her piercing gaze sweeping across the room. "As for Lord Julius''s disappearance, I believe it is no coincidence that it urred just as the distribution of the red bliss began. The Dark Lord is known for his ruthless tactics, and he would not hesitate to eliminate anyone who stood in his way,"
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room, and ra continued. "Furthermore, we must not forget that the Dark Lord has always been drawn to coins and wealth. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that he saw an opportunity to profit from addiction,"
The weight of ra''s words hung heavy in the air, and the room fell into contemtive silence as the gravity of the situation settled in.
an end to this red bliss, we need real evidence. Until then, we might have to push for unofficial bans 00:17
among the sects. But even to do that, we need to have casualties," Alicia sighed deeply, her The room fell into a momentary silence before the lion-headed Alpha Guardian spoke up again. "If this is true, then the Dark Lord has truly sunk to new depths," he growled, his tone filled with anger and disgust.
ra nodded in agreement. "Indeed. But we cannot act without concrete proof," she said, her voice calm and measured.
All eyes turned to Alicia, who seemed to be the most knowledgeable about the situation. She cleared her throat and spoke up. "The merchants involved in the distribution are unlikely to admit working for the Dark Lord, but we do know that the red bliss is produced somewhere in the Southern continent and brought to Elon and Ozer through cargo ships."
The lion-headed man rolled his eyes. "Isn''t that convenient? It''s no secret who controls most of the Southern continent. The Dark Lord is likely working on subduing the rest somehow, taking advantage of our weakened presence there,"
ra furrowed her brow in thought. "Gathering real proof about the red bliss in the southern continent won''t be easy," she said, "but we must try. Until then, perhaps banning the red bliss throughout Elon and Ozer like we did with the Majestic and Hades is the best course of action,"
"We cannot," Alicia said firmly, shaking her head.
"As much as I would like to put a stop to everything the Dark Lord does, we have no concrete proof. The rules andws prevent us from meddling in the affairs of the merchant guilds. If we want to put an end to this red bliss, we need real evidence. Until then, we might have to push for unofficial bans among the sects. But even to do that, we need to have casualties," Alicia sighed deeply, her expression troubled.
ra''s brow furrowed in concern. "Casualties?"
Alicia nodded grimly. "Yes. We need to show the severity of the situation to the people. The addiction caused by this brew is not just harming individuals but also affecting their families andmunities. We need to gather evidence of the harm it''s causing, even if it means some must suffer."
The lion-headed Alpha Guardian snarled in anger. "This is uneptable. We can''t wait around for casualties to happen before we can act. There must be another way."
ra ced a calming hand on the Alpha Guardian''s shoulder. "I understand your anger, but we must act within the confines of thew. We need to gather more information and find a way to stop this distribution without causing unnecessary harm,"
The room fell into a tense silence as they all contemted the gravity of the situation. The Dark Lord''s insidious ns were spreading like a disease, and they needed to find a way to cut it off at the source before it consumed them all.
"What about the Sunrise sect?" The lion-headed Alpha Guardian of the Beast Guardians asked, his voice seething with anger. "That fucker has a special connection with them. Are the disciples in the Sunrise sect getting addicted to the red bliss? I''m sure they wouldn''t even sell this thing in Bradford,"
Alicia took a deep breath and spoke, "Believe it or not, some taverns are selling the red bliss. But fortunately, the Sunrise sect has aw in ce preventing their disciples from drinking any type of booze. This rule was enforced after seeing their once-star disciple, Ghost, who abstained from drinking. Thew has been in ce long before the red bliss came into existence."
ra nodded her head in agreement, "That makes sense. The Sunrise sect has always been strict with their rules and discipline,"
The lion-headed man''s eyes narrowed with anger. "So, what you''re saying is that the Dark Lord''s n is to use the red bliss to create addiction among disciples of other sects, ultimately leading to their downfall, while the Sunrise sect remains unaffected?"
Alicia nodded grimly. "That seems to be one of the oues,"
ra spoke up, her voice calm and measured. "We cannot allow this to happen. We must find a way to stop the distribution of the red bliss before it causes irreparable damage to the other sects."
The lion-headed man let out a low growl. "Agreed. We need to take action and fast. We cannot let the Dark Lord win this battle."
Alicia nodded in agreement. "Like I said, we need to gather concrete evidence against the Phoenix Manor and their involvement with the Dark Lord. We cannot act without proof, or we risk starting a war,"
ra spoke up again. "We need to be careful and strategic in our approach. Let us gather information and evidence, and only then can we move forward with a n to stop the distribution of the red bliss,"
Chapter 904 New Income And The Two Armor Pieces
The sky was engulfed in a tempestuous maelstrom of ck clouds, illuminated by a frenzied barrage of lightning strikes. The ferocity of the storm was palpable, as heavy sheets of rain relentlessly battered the surroundingndscape, shrouding everything in a mist of swirling droplets.
Amidst this chaotic scene, the ominous silhouette of the Dark Lord''s towering mountain loomed ominously over the turbulent waters of the dark ocean. The castle, still only partially constructed, seemed to cling precariously to the sheer face of the mountain, with a sword-hilt mountain leading up to the Dark Lord''s garden. The deafening roar of the waterfall cascading down the mountainside only added to the surreal atmosphere of the ce.
Despite the inhospitable conditions, a group of vampires dressed in the deepest shade of ck could be seen darting through the air with effortless grace, their vignt patrol never faltering, even in the midst of the raging storm.
An empty hall was eerily quiet inside the castle, with only the sound of Gaya''s breathing and the asional clink of gold coins breaking the silence. The piles of gold coins glimmered and shone in the dim light, casting a warm, inviting glow on Gaya''s face. Her raven-ck hair was perfectly coiffed, framing her stunning features, and her bright eyes sparkled with unbridled joy.
Unable to contain herself, Gaya let out a high-pitched squeal of delight and threw herself onto the stack of gold coins, letting them scatter around her like a shower of glittering rain. She rolled around in the piles of coins, herughter filling the room as she reveled in her newfound wealth.
The stack of gold coins before her contained a staggering 4.5 million gold coins, the result of just one week''s sales of the red bliss. The sheer amount of wealth was overwhelming, and it was clear that business was booming for the Phoenix manor.
As Gaya was rolling around in the pile of gold coins, she couldn''t help but let out a childish giggle. The glint from the gold illuminated her face, making her look almost angelic. But as Azazel appeared in the room, her expression turned serious.
Azazel couldn''t help but be taken aback by the sight before him. The Dark Queen, the most feared person in the dark castle, was ying like a child in a pile of gold coins. He cleared his throat to get her attention, and when she heard him, she immediately stopped her y and turned her gaze toward him.
"Tell me everything you learned," Gaya demanded, her tone serious. After the Phoenix Manor gave out free batches of the red bliss to entice the nobles and sold 1500 bottles in the first week, Gaya ordered Azazel to gather information from Sadie about how the nobles were reacting to the new brew.
Azazel took a deep breath before speaking. "It seems the nobles are highly addicted to the red bliss, my queen. They are willing to pay up to ten thousand gold coins for a single battle after getting a taste. Many sects have started discussing putting a ban on the bottle, but it''s not easy as the Phoenix Manor is the official distributor."
Gaya raised an eyebrow. "And what about the kingdoms? How are they reacting?"
Azazel paused for a moment before continuing. "The kingdoms are worried. They fear the addiction will distract their young nobles from their studies and cultivation. There''s even talk of imposing a kingdom-wide ban, but nothing has been decided yet."
Gaya nodded thoughtfully. "I see. Keep gathering information, Azazel. We need to know everything there is to know about the red bliss and how it''s affecting the kingdoms and sects,"
Gaya stood up from the pile of gold coins, her expression turning serious. "Azazel, take some bottles from the next batch and send them to the ministers. We need to make sure they have a taste for the red bliss. Otherwise, they won''t hesitate to ban it," she said with a firm tone.
Azazel nodded, his face betraying a hint of concern. "But what about the prices for the next batch, mydy? I''ve heard rumors that some taverns are plotting to hide the bottles from the nobles so they can raise the prices up to fifteen thousand gold coins."
Gaya let out a scoff. "Those greedy fuckers. We can''t let them create a void in the distribution line. If the nobles and the rich get what they want, they''ll drink and won''t cause problems. But if they''re denied what they want, their addiction will make them do something foolish. We have to keep the crime rate from rising as much as we can, or the Guardian Guild will have a strong case for pushing the ban even harder."
Azazel nodded in agreement. "I''ll make sure to handle it, mydy. And what about the guardians? What if they start to suspect something?"
Gaya''s eyes narrowed, and she let out a humorless chuckle. "Those fools should have already suspected our involvement. But for now, we need to focus on keeping the flow of the red bliss steady and making sure our customers are satisfied. Any disruptions in the distribution can be disastrous for us,"
Azazel''s crimson red eyes glinted with blood lust, causing Gaya to feel uneasy. It had been a long time since she had seen that side of him. As a result, the Dark Lord had ordered Azazel to control himself and meditate in order to calm his nerves, especially after the incident where he almost lost control and wreaked havoc among their enemies. Gaya knew that the demon inside Azazel was slowly awakening, and she would have to address the issue when the Dark Lord returned from the Sea realm.
Azazel''s question took Gaya by surprise, and she raised an eyebrow. "No need," she replied, her tone firm. "Just inform Zod about these tavern owners. He will take care of them."
Gaya knew that Zod, the current leader of the Phoneix manor, was more than capable of handling the situation. His cunning and resourcefulness had yed a significant role in the sess of the red bliss distribution thus far. Gaya also knew that Zod was loyal to them and would not hesitate to take care of any threats to their operation.
Azazel nodded understanding and left the room, his blood lust slowly subsiding. Gaya watched him go, a sense of unease still lingering in her mind. She knew that she would have to keep a close eye on Azazel in the future.
Azazel bowed and left the room, leaving Gaya alone with the stack of gold coins. As she looked upon the shining pile, she couldn''t help but feel a sense of wonder and awe. It wasn''t that Gaya had never seen such an amount before, but the fact that they had almost gone bankrupt after Noah, the Supreme Guardian, closed down the Majestic and Hades made the stack before her all the more valuable.
The Dark Castle had suffered greatly from the closure of their two biggest establishments. It was only after the arrival of the red bliss that they had regained their financial footing. Gaya couldn''t help but think how quickly fortunes could change. In a barren desert, a mere drop of water was worth more than ake nestled in the lush hills.
She reached down and scooped up a handful of coins, feeling the cool metal against her skin. The weight of them in her palm was satisfying, and she relished in the sensation.
Gaya was lost in the weight of the gold coins when Azazel rushed into the room, his furrowed brow revealing the urgency of his news. "What now?" Gaya asked, her eyes fixed on the demon.
"Mydy," he said, "Lord Saber has made a discovery. He ims to have found not one, but two pieces of the Dark Lord''s armor." Gaya''s eyes widened in surprise.
The Dark Queen strode into the surveince room with the aura of power emanating from her. The sound of her footsteps echoed in the vast room as she made her way toward the center. Her ck cloak billowed behind her like the wings of a dark angel, and her raven ck hair was tied back into a ponytail, revealing her sharp and defined facial features.
Azazel, the demon butler, stood by the entrance with his crimson-red eyes flickering with the reflection of the magical runes etched into the mirrors surrounding the room. The ambient lighting in the room was a mixture of darkness and blue, with the flickering light of orbs casting a dim glow. The dwarves were yet to finish building the surveince room, and the Dark Forest still served as their main hub of surveince. But they nned to have a better and bigger surveince room in the dark castle.
As soon as Gaya entered, Azazel raised his hand, and the individual mirrors, each showing a different Spyder feed from various parts of the castle, flickered out of existence. In their ce, a single mirror formed in the center of the room, disying Saber''s face.
"Greetings, mydy," Saber said with a respectful bow, his eyes locked onto hers.
"You found the armor pieces," Gaya''s heart raced with anticipation as Saber''s words sank in. They had been searching for the Dark Lord''s armor pieces for months, and now, finally, they had found them. She couldn''t help but feel a sense of relief wash over her.
"With Lord Tiberius''s assistance, I was able to track down Quintus and locate the armor pieces, mydy"
Gaya''s eagerness was palpable as she leaned forward and asked, "Where is he?" Her mind was racing, wondering what Quintus was up to now and why he had resurfaced after all this time. Saber hesitated for a moment, his expression unreadable. Gaya could sense his hesitation and wondered what he could possibly say that would worry her. Finally, Saber spoke, "He''s in Nagnd, mydy,"
Her eyes widened with shock at Saber''s answer, and her jaw dropped in disbelief. Quintus, the elusive General of Kingdom Miral, was now in her own kingdom, Nagnd. Her thoughts raced as she tried to process this information. What could he possibly want in Nagnd? What was he doing? And most importantly, how did he manage to enter her kingdom undetected?
Gaya''s mind was racing with a million questions, and for a moment, she forgot to breathe. The silence in the room was palpable, broken only by the soft hum of magical energy that powered the surveince room. Saber''s solemn expression and the weight of his words only added to the drama of the moment.
Finally, Gaya found her voice. "Quintus is in Nagnd?" she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. "What is he doing there?"
"Preparing for war, mydy," Gaya felt a chill run down her spine as Saber''s words sank in. Preparing for war? In Nagnd? She couldn''t believe it.
"What makes you think that?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Saber''s eyes narrowed, and his face turned grim. "My sources in Nagnd have informed me that Quintus has been gathering a massive army, mydy. It seems like he has made some alliances with some powerful people. He is nning something big, and we need to act fast to stop him."
Gaya''s mind was racing. How did Quintus even manage to enter Nagnd? Who was helping him there? And how was he able to gather such a massive army?
"And how did he even get there? Who is helping him in Nagnd?" she asked, her toneced with a hint of anger and frustration.
Saber sighed deeply, his face etched with worry. "I don''t have all the details, mydy. But my sources suggest that he has some powerful allies in Nagnd who are helping him. They are probably supplying him with resources and soldiers,"
Saber stood before Gaya, his expression intense and unwavering. "What are your orders, mydy?" he asked, waiting for her decision.
Gaya paused, her mind racing as she considered their options. She knew that Quintus was a dangerous opponent, and the thought of him in possession of the Dark Lord''s armor pieces made her blood boil.
After a moment, she spoke, her voice low and steady. "Find out where he''s hiding the armor pieces," she said. "And once you''re certain of their location, take Quintus down."
Saber nodded, his eyes gleaming with fierce determination. "As youmand, mydy," he said before turning to leave his room.
Chapter 905 Blood Of The Great Ape King Edros
Noah gazed up at the stormy sky, which rumbled with deafening thunder. The dark clouds loomed overhead as if they were closing in on him, suffocating him with their weight. The eerie mist only added to the ce''s ominous atmosphere, making it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead.
The blood array pulsated with a crimson glow as if it was alive and aware of Noah''s presence. The treacherous ocean looked just as dangerous and foreboding as thest time he visited. The sky was shrouded in dark clouds that rumbled with thunderous force, and lightning crackled through the air, illuminating the eerie mist in violet shes.
Noah knew that the area was infamous for its powerful and strange mist, which could suppress all senses and even create illusions. He had to be extra careful in this ce, where danger lurked at every turn. Despite the danger, Noah steeled himself and took a deep breath, ready to face whatever challengesy ahead. He knew he had to help Norvin reach his full potential and couldn''t let anything stand in his way.
As they journeyed through the barrennd, Noah couldn''t shake off the feeling of being watched. Andreas materialized out of nowhere as if summoned by Noah''s mere presence. He appeared in an ethereal form, his white robes billowing in the wind as he led the way through the barrennd. His long white hair flowed freely behind him, creating an almost ghostly effect. Despite his ethereal form, Andreas'' eyes shone with deep wisdom and intelligence, radiating a sense of calm and reassurance to Noah. Suddenly, Andreas, who had been silent for most of the journey, spoke up.
"Be on your guard, Noah. We are drawing close to Edros''s blood. The power emanating from it is immense," said Andreas, his voice low and serious.
Noah nodded, his heart pounding with anticipation and fear. He knew that the Ape King''s blood was no ordinary substance and that absorbing it came with great risks.
While they trudged through the eerie mist, the sound of thunder grew louder and more frequent. The sky rumbled with such intensity that it felt like the world itself was shaking.
Andreas looked up at the sky, a frown marring his features. "We need to hurry. The storm is growing stronger, and it won''t be long before it bes too dangerous to continue."
Noah gritted his teeth and quickened his pace, his eyes fixed on the pulsating crimson glow of the blood array in the distance. He knew that he had to reach it before the storm unleashed its full fury.
As Noah and Andreas approached the blood array, the air grew thick with the essence of ancient power. Noah could feel his heart racing with excitement and anticipation as he approached the source of the legendary Ape King''s power.
Standing before the array, Noah could almost sense the ghostly presence of Edros, the mighty beast king who had once ruled over the beast n with an iron fist. His power and legacy were still alive, and the fact that Norvin was his descendant only served to add to the sense of awe and reverence that Noah felt.
Noah was taken aback upon discovering that Norvin was a descendant of Edros, the great Ape King. He had heard many legends about Edros and his mighty rule over the beast n, but he never expected to meet his descendant. A sense of awe and wonder washed over him as he realized the importance of his mission to help Norvin unlock his true potential. He couldn''t believe he was standing in front of the blood array, a ce where Edros''s power still lingered and where Norvin would absorb his ancestor''s blood to be stronger. Noah''s heart raced with anticipation as he wondered what kind of beast Norvin would be.
Taking a deep breath, Andreas stepped forward and began to chant the incantation that would activate the blood array. Noah watched in amazement as the runes that were invisible to him suddenly began to glow with a fierce, red light, illuminating the area with an intense energy that was both awe-inspiring and terrifying.
As the power emanating from the array grew stronger, Noah had to shield his eyes from the blinding light. He could feel the heat emanating from the blood drop, and he knew that Norvin was about to undergo a powerful transformation that would unlock his full potential.
Despite the intensity of the moment, Noah felt a sense of calm wash over him as he watched Andreas work his magic. He knew that they were on the brink of something truly amazing, and he could feel his heart racing with excitement at the thought of what was toe.
When Noah turned to survey his surroundings, he felt a sudden presence next to him. It was Norvin, but something was wrong. Norvin''s eyes were closed, and he was unresponsive. Noah''s heart sank as he saw Norvin in a state ofa. He felt a wave of sadness and helplessness wash over him as he looked at the golden babaroo lying still.
But Noah was not one to give up. He knew that Norvin was a special beast, and he had a way of awakening his true potential. He carefully picked up Norvin and cradled him in his arms, feeling the weight of the unconscious babaroo against him. With determination in his heart, Noah knew that only by absorbing Edros''s blood could Norvin be stronger and unlock his full potential.
Noah felt the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders as he began to walk towards the drop of blood. The distance was far, but he could feel the overwhelming power radiating from the drop. The stakes were high, and Noah knew he had to be careful.
After activating the array, a drop of blood appeared in the barrennd far away from Noah. As Noah approached the blood drop, he could see it glimmering in the eerie mist. Despite its distance from him, he could feel its power radiating through the air. It was as if the blood drop was alive, drawing him closer to it with an irresistible force.
Noah could see the blood drop reacting to Norvin''s presence, slowly moving toward him. Norvin''s golden fur shimmered in the violet lightning as if it was attracting the blood drop. It was a strange and mesmerizing sight, and Noah couldn''t help but feel a sense of awe and wonder.
As he reached the blood drop, he saw it pulsating with an intense red glow. It was a drop of blood that had been left behind by the great Ape King Edros himself. Noah knew that this blood drop was the key to unlocking Norvin''s true potential.
Noah carefully held Norvin in his arms, shielding him from the blinding light of the blood drop. He could feel the blood drop slowly moving closer to them, drawn by Norvin''s presence. It was a slow and deliberate process as if the blood drop was carefully examining Norvin before merging with him.
Andreas''s voice resonated through the barrennd as he said, "ce Norvin here, Noah. Let us see if the blood of Edros is enough to unlock his full potential."
Noah gentlyid Norvin on the gray, lifeless ground, his golden fur shimmering in the eerie mist. He looked at Norvin with a mix of concern and anticipation, knowing that absorbing his ancestor''s blood was the only way to unlock Norvin''s true power.
As Noah stepped back, the drop of blood slowly made its way toward Norvin. It didn''t merge with him immediately, but instead, it seemed to hover around him as if assessing whether Norvin was worthy of its power.
Noah watched with bated breath as the blood started seeping into Norvin''s body through his fur, his muscles bulging with newfound strength. Norvin''s fur transformed into a radiant, shimmering golden coat, and his eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, as if he had be something more than a mere beast.
Once the drop of blood was fully absorbed by Norvin, the sky above them shattered with thunder and violet lightning. Noah shielded his eyes from the blinding light, and for a split second, he saw the silhouette of a giant ape behind Norvin. It was as if the spirit of Edros himself had taken notice of Norvin''s transformation.
The clouds twisted and contorted into the shape of an ape''s head before shifting into other forms as if the very fabric of reality was bending to acknowledge Norvin''s newfound power. Noah''s jaw dropped in amazement and fear, and he took a few steps back, not daring to take his eyes off the spectacle before him.
"Wow," Noah whispered in awe.
Norvin absorbed the blood as a strange sensation filled the air. The sound of shing swords and the roars of dragons echoed all around them. Noah and Andreas looked around but saw nothing but the eerie mist and barrennd. The sounds grew louder and more intense as if they were transported to a battlefield in another realm. Noah could feel his heart pounding in his chest, unsure of what was happening. On the other hand, Andreas remained calm and focused because he had experienced this before.
Noah shouted over the deafening noise, "What''s happening?"
Andreas turned to him with a solemn expression. "This is the power of Edros''s blood. It unlocks the memories of his past battles, and we are merely experiencing them."
Noah couldn''t believe what he was hearing. He had never heard of such a thing before. He watched in awe as the sounds of battle intensified, and the mist began to take on the shapes of soldiers and dragons. It was like they were standing in the middle of an ancient war.
Noah''s eyes widened in shock as he noticed shadows of dragons looming in the clouds above them, their fierce silhouettes looking all too real. The sounds of war and roars grew louder, echoing through the treacherous ocean. As he scanned the sky, Noah couldn''t shake off the feeling that something was watching them, something that shouldn''t be there. Suddenly, a red-scaled dragon emerged from the clouds, its wings spread wide as it opened its mouth and unleashed a deafening roar that shattered the air around them.
Andreas'' eyes darted around the sky, trying to locate the dragons. Noah could feel the tension in the air, his heart racing with fear and anticipation. Suddenly, another loud roar echoed through the clouds, and a shadow appeared above them. A dragon, with scales as ck as night, swooped down towards them with blinding speed.
Noah raised his hand, a ball of energy forming in his palm. Andreas stood tall beside him, his white hair fluttering in the wind. The dragonnded with a deafening thud, sending shockwaves through the ground.
"Ready yourself for battle, Noah. The blood of Edros has opened portals to the treacherous ocean, and it seems to have attracted the dragons to our location," said Andreas, his voice firm and unwavering despite the fear in his eyes.
Noah''s heart raced as he watched the dragons approach, its eyes fixed on Norvin. He knew they had to act fast to protect their mission and Norvin''s safety.
The two dragons let out a deafening roar, their fiery breath lighting up the darkened sky. Noah and Andreas stood their ground, their eyes locked on the dragons. As much as Noah liked to form a n of attack, he simplycked the luxury of time. At that moment, he had to face two Half Immortal stage dragons. The red dragon soared through the clouds with its massive wingspan, easily dwarfing any other creature in the sky. Its scales glistened in the light, ranging from deep crimson to bright scarlet as if it was painted with the colors of fire. Its eyes zed with an intense fury, reflecting the passion and aggression thaty within. The dragon''s ws glinted in the sunlight, razor-sharp and deadly, ready to tear apart anything in its path.
On the other hand, the ck dragon was a stark contrast to the red. Its scales were deep obsidian, shimmering in the sunlight like onyx. Its eyes glowed with a malevolent intelligence, revealing a cunning and ruthless nature. Its wings were jagged, giving it an almost demonic appearance as it soared through the clouds. The dragon''s fangs were sharp and pointed, glinting menacingly in the sunlight, hinting at the sheer power and ferocity thaty within its jaws.
"Are you sure we can take them on, teacher?" Noah asked, his voiceced with doubt.
"We have no other choice, my disciple. Norvin''s safety and our mission depend on it," replied Andreas, his voice ringing with determination.
Chapter 906 The Mighty Norvin
Noah faced the two dragons, their scaly bodies towering over him as they let out thunderous roars. The fiery light from their breath illuminated the darkened sky, casting an eerie glow on the barrennd around them. Noah''s white-hilted swords glimmered in the light, their des sharp and deadly.
The wind howled around them, carrying the scent of burnt earth and the sound of the dragons'' roars. Noah''s heart raced as he charged toward the dragons, his swords raised high. He could feel the power of the dragons pulsating through the air, their strength palpable.
The red dragon breathed a jet of mes at him, but Noah deftly dodged the attack, his swords shing as he struck the dragon''s scaly hide. The ck dragon swooped down from the sky, its sharp ws aimed at him, but Noah rolled out of the way just in time.
As the two dragons continued to attack, Noah fought with all his might, his swords shing in the air as he struck them with deadly precision. The des hummed with power as they shed against the dragons'' scales, sending sparks flying in all directions.
The fight was intense, and Noah could feel his strength waning as the dragons continued to attack. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, his breathsing in short gasps. But he refused to give up. With a fierce battle cry, he charged toward the dragons once more, his swords raised high, determined to protect Norvin andplete their mission.
As Noah fought the two dragons with all his might, Andreas sensed more and more dragons approaching. The sound of their wings pping grew louder and louder, drowning out the thunderous roars of the dragons he was fighting.
"Noah!" Andreas called out urgently, his voice echoing through the stormy sky.
Noah''s heart raced as he heard his teacher''s voice. He knew that the situation was getting worse by the minute.
Suddenly, the two dragons that he was fighting soared toward the sky, their bellies glowing brighter and brighter. Noah knew what wasing next - the dragons were going to use their deadly dragon breath.
Despite the stormy weather and heavy rain, the temperature around them rose significantly due to the sheer heat radiating from the dragons'' bodies. Noah could feel the intense heat on his skin as he prepared to face the deadly attack.
As the dragons unleashed their fiery breath, Noah leaped out of the way just in time. His swords shed as he dodged the deadly attack, the rain pouring down heavily, the drops stinging his skin. Meanwhile, the sound of wings pping grew louder, signaling the approach of more dragons. With each passing moment, the situation became more dangerous, and Noah knew he had to act fast to protect Norvin and their mission.
Andreas floated towards Noah, his white robes billowing around him. "I can''t keep the dragons out, but I can enclose these two within a barrier. You have to defeat them," he said, his voice urgent.
Noah''s heart raced as he faced the dragons once more. He knew that this was their only chance to protect Norvin andplete their mission. "Don''t worry about me. Just form the barrier and keep Norvin safe!" he shouted back to Andreas.
Andreas nodded, his ethereal form shimmering as he concentrated on the spell. Noah fought with all his might, his swords shing in the air as he struck the dragons with deadly precision.
Noah watched in awe when the golden energy shot out of Andreas and formed the dome around them. He knew Andreas was powerful, but he had never seen him use such incredible energy. The two dragons, now trapped within the barrier, turned their attention towards Noah and Andreas, their eyes burning with fury. They flew straight toward Noah with their ws outstretched, ready to strike. Noah raised his swords, ready to defend himself, but the sheer force of the dragons'' attack sent him flying backward.
The mes shot out like a torrent, and Noah leaped out of the way, narrowly avoiding the st. But when the stream of fire hit the ground, it exploded like a bomb, sending shockwaves through the air. Noah felt the impact as he was flung into the barrier, his body crashing into the dome with a sickening thud. Noah struggled to get back up as he clutched his chest, his robes soaked with rain and blood. His hair was matted to his forehead, and his face was twisted in pain and determination. He refused to give up despite the pain and the odds stacked against him. His eyes shone with fierce determination, ready to face the dragons once more.
The dragons took advantage of his weakened state and charged toward him with their ws and teeth bared.
Noah swung his swords, but the dragons were too quick. One of them wed at him, leaving deep gashes on his chest. Another tried to bite him, but Noah managed to dodge at thest second, narrowly avoiding certain death. The rain pounded down harder, the thunder and lightning adding to the chaos of the battle. As Noah continued to fight, he could hear the sounds of other dragons trying to break through the barrier that Andreas had formed around them. Noah gritted his teeth as he fought with all his might, his swords shing as he struck the dragons with deadly precision. But the dragons were relentless, their attacksing at him from all sides.
One dragon breathed a stream of fire at him, but Noah managed to roll out of the way just in time. Another swooped down from the sky, its ws aimed at his head, but Noah managed to block the attack with his swords. Despite his best efforts, Noah was at a disadvantage. His wounds were taking a toll on him, and he could feel his strength waning. But he refused to give up, knowing that he had to protect Norvin and their mission at all costs.
As the dragons continued to attack, Noah fought back with all his might, his swords glowing with an otherworldly light. The sound of metal shing against scales echoed through the air as the battle raged on.
Despite being at the same cultivation stage as the dragons, Noah knew that their superior size, dragon breath, and imprable scales gave them the upper hand in the fight. As he dodged their relentless attacks, Noah realized that he needed to use his most powerful weapon: the Heavenly mes.
Noah took a deep breath, centering himself as he focused his energy on summoning the Heavenly mes. He felt the intense heat building within him, coursing through his veins and igniting his palms with a bright blue light. As the rain continued to pour down, the mes danced and flickered, casting shadows across the battlefield. The temperature around them began to rise, causing the raindrops to evaporate into steam. Noah''s body trembled as he struggled to control the powerful mes, but he knew he couldn''t afford to back down now.
Meanwhile, the dragons outside the barrier continued their relentless assault, their massive bodies mming into the dome as they unleashed their fiery breath. But despite their strength, Andreas'' barrier held strong, keeping them at bay for the moment.
The two dragons, startled by the sudden appearance of the Heavenly mes in Noah''s hands, quickly took to the air and distanced themselves from him. They shared a nce, seemingly reconsidering their strategy in the face of such power.
Noah, meanwhile, concentrated on channeling the blue mes along his sword des, the intense heat causing the rain around him to evaporate. As the mes coiled around his swords, he knew that this was his only chance to turn the tide of the battle.
With his ming swords in hand, Noah charged toward the dragons, his heart pounding with adrenaline. The dragons roared and breathed fire, but Noah deftly dodged their attacks, his swords striking with deadly precision. Each swing of his swords sent out a burst of Heavenly mes, scorching the dragons'' scales and weakening their defenses.
Outside the barrier, the other dragons continued to w and breathe fire, desperate to break through Andreas'' dome. But the barrier was strong, and they could only watch as theirrades battled against Noah''s fierce onught. The battle was intense, with each side unleashing their most powerful attacks. But Noah refused to back down, his determination fueling his every move. With a fierce battle cry, he charged toward the dragons once more, his ming swords raised high.
The dragons towered over Noah, their massive bodies a stark contrast to his smaller frame. But despite their size, Noah moved with a speed and agility that the dragons couldn''t match. He closed in on them, his ming sword in hand, determined to prevent them from using their deadly dragon breath.
With a fierce battle cry, Noah swung his sword at the dragons, the Heavenly mes engulfing the de as it sliced through their ws. The dragons roared in anger and frustration, their massive bodies thrashing about as they tried to crush Noah underfoot. Each time they stomped, the ground trembled and cracked, but Noah continued to dodge and weave around their attacks.
The dragons were relentless, their attacksing fast and furious, but Noah remained determined. He continued to strike at them with his ming sword, each blow weakening them just a little more. The dragons roared in agony as they felt the power of the Heavenly mes burning through their scales.
The dragons'' rage clouded their judgment as they continued to stomp and w at Noah, ignoring the damage they inflicted on each other. But Noah was quick, his movements almost too fast for the eye to follow. He evaded their attacks with ease, his sword still burning with the Heavenly mes.
Suddenly, Noah raised his sword to the sky and began to chant a spell. The Heavenly mes intensified, their blue glow illuminating the darkened sky. The dragons'' heads snapped toward Noah, but it was toote. A beam of light shot out from Noah''s sword, striking the red dragon in the head before ricocheting toward the ck dragon.
The dragons roared in agony as the beam hit them, their scales cracking under the intense heat of the Heavenly mes. Noah continued to channel the spell, the beam of light growing brighter and brighter until it engulfed the two dragonspletely.
Despite Noah''s powerful attack, he knew that his victory was only temporary as he watched the dragons writhe in pain. Suddenly, the bright light surrounding them shattered like it was made of ss, and the two dragons stepped out of the light, bleeding from multiple wounds. Their eyes glowed with anger, and they let out a deafening roar that sent powerful sonic waves shooting out from their mouths.
Noah was disoriented by the force of the roar, and before he could react, the red dragon opened its mouth and unleashed a straight beam of powerful mes. A white shield appeared before Noah to block the me, but the shield was not strong enough to withstand the dragon''s attack. It shattered into pieces, and the aftershock sent Noah flying backward, his body mming hard into the ground.
As the dragons emerged from the shattered light, Noah could see the true extent of the damage he had inflicted upon them. Their once-imprable scales were now cracked and chipped, oozing blood from deep wounds. The dragons roared in anger, their eyes fixated on Noah as they prepared tounch another attack.
But before Noah could even take a step forward, the ck dragon dashed towards him with incredible speed, its massive frame blocking out the sky above. The dragon stood over Noah, pinning his hands to the ground with its weight and preventing him from reaching his swords. Noah and the dragon locked eyes, a silent battle of wills ying out between them.
Noah knew he had to unleash his full power if he wanted to defeat the dragon. He had held back until now, conserving his energy for the final blow. But the situation demanded he go all out. The dragon raised its head, and its belly began to glow with an ominous light. Noah''s eyes widened as he watched the glow grow brighter, realizing the dragon was about to unleash its deadly breath attack.
Just as the dragon was about to release its fiery assault, a sudden roar echoed through the air. The dragon quickly shut its mouth and looked up, distracted by the source of the noise. In a blink of an eye, a massive boulder flew out of nowhere and mmed into the dragon''s head with incredible force. The dragon was sent flying through the air, crashing into the ground with a deafening thud.
Noah''s eyes widened in shock as he raised his head, taking in the sight before him. His gaze was met by the towering figure of Norvin, the mighty giant ape, whose immense frame loomed over him, reaching almost 70 feet tall. The fur on Norvin''s body was a striking blend of brown and golden hues, reflecting the sunlight in a dazzling disy of shimmering colors. It was a fur that was both soft to the touch and strong enough to withstand the toughest of challenges.
Norvin''s massive arms were longer than most trees, and each muscle rippled with incredible power and grace. With each step he took, the ground shook beneath his feet, and Noah could feel the sheer force of Norvin''s presence radiating like a wave around him. It was as if Norvin was an unstoppable force of nature, an embodiment of raw strength and authority.
As Noah''s gaze locked with Norvin''s, he couldn''t help but feel a sense of awe and wonder. Norvin''s piercing gaze was intelligent and wise, showing a level of understanding that went beyond the mere instinct of a wild animal. Every movement he made was calcted and deliberate, as if he was always thinking ahead and strategizing his next move.
With a mighty roar, Norvin sprang into action. In a blur of movement, he closed the distance between himself and the red dragon, his powerful muscles propelling him forward with astonishing speed. Before the dragon could react, Norvin had already grabbed hold of its wings, his massive hands closing around the dragon''s scaly skin with a vice-like grip.
With a guttural growl, Norvin lifted the dragon off the ground and hurled it through the air, the beast''s body hurtling towards the earth like a falling star. The red dragon crashed into the ground with a deafening thud, sending a shockwave rippling through the earth. For a moment, the dragony there, stunned and motionless.
But Norvin was not finished yet. With a savage roar, he charged towards the fallen beast, his powerful arms swinging like a pair of wrecking balls. As he reached the dragon, Norvin grabbed hold of its wings once more, and with a tremendous burst of strength, lifted the beast up high into the air. With a grunt of effort, Norvin mmed the dragon down onto the ground again and again, each impact sending tremors through the earth.
Finally, Norvin released the dragon, letting it fall to the ground with a final crash. The red dragony there, battered and broken, unable to stand or fight. Norvin stood over the fallen beast, his chest heaving with exertion, his golden fur gleaming in the sunlight. Then, Norvin let out a deafening roar that echoed throughout the jungle. He beat his chest with both fists, each thump resonating through the air like a thunderp. As he stood towering over the fallen dragon, his chest heaving with exertion, he radiated an aura of unbridled power and dominance. It was a primal disy, a show of strength and ferocity that left no doubt in anyone''s mind who was in charge.
Chapter 907 Norvin Vs Nightmare I
After almost beating the red dragon to death, Norvin turned his massive gaze toward Noah. The ape''s towering form, almost 70 feet tall, made Noah seem insignificant on the ground. Yet, Norvin threw a reassuring smile at Noah before turning his attention back to the ck dragon.
But the ck dragon was not intimidated by Norvin''s size or strength. It roared in a fury, unleashing a powerful strike that wed deep into Norvin''s chest. Blood spurted out from the wound, but Norvin stood his ground, unfazed by the attack.
The ape and dragon faced each other, their eyes locked in a deadly stare-down. They roared at each other with deafening force, their echoes resonating across the treacherous ocean. It was a fierce battle of strength and will, and neither of them could overpower the other.
As the battle raged on, Norvin began to beat his chest with increasing force, asserting his dominance over the ck dragon. His roars grew louder and more powerful as if to challenge the dragon to try and take him down. The dragon lunged forward with a mighty roar, but Norvin stood firm, his massive arms raised in a show of strength and defiance.
The battle between the ape and the dragon was at a stalemate, each one determined to emerge victorious. Their roars continued to shake the earth as they shed with relentless fury, a testament to the unbreakable will of two powerful creatures.
The sky rumbled with deafening thunder as a bolt of lightning came crashing down toward Norvin. Noah watched in horror, thinking that the lightning would strike the giant ape, but instead, the lightning bolt surrounded Norvin, enveloping him in a blinding light. The light grew brighter and brighter until it was almost impossible to look at.
Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the light vanished, leaving Norvin standing there, more magnificent than ever before. His muscles bulged with even greater power, and his fur glimmered like gold in the sunlight. Norvin had been transformed by the lightning bolt, and his strength was beyond anything Noah had ever seen.
But the lightning strikes didn''t stop there. One after another, bolts of lightning hit Norvin, each one boosting his power even further. The air crackled with electricity as the lightning strikes continued, each one turning Norvin into an unstoppable force.
As Noah stood back in awe, he watched as Norvin slowly ascended to the Half-Immortal stage, his power reaching unprecedented levels. It was a sight that left Noah speechless, and he knew that he was witnessing something truly remarkable.
It was evident that Norvin''s heavenly tribtion was on a whole other levelpared to Noah''s. With each lightning bolt that struck him, Norvin''s power surged, and he glowed with otherworldly energy. He looked like a true Half Immortal, radiating strength and power that shook the ground beneath him.
With his newfound strength, Norvin lunged at the ck dragon with lightning-fast speed, his massive frame dwarfing the beast. He grabbed the dragon''s snout with one hand and bit down hard on its neck with his ferocious teeth. The dragon let out a deafening roar of agony as Norvin''s teeth were stained red with its blood. With each passing moment, Norvin''s grip tightened, and the dragon''s struggles grew weaker.
Noah watched in awe from a safe distance, his heart pounding with excitement and fear. He had never seen anything like this before, and he knew that Norvin was far beyond anything he had ever faced. The ground trembled underfoot as Norvin and the ck dragon continued their fierce battle, their roars echoing throughout the ind.
Noah stood frozen in awe as he watched the colossal beasts sh in an epic battle of strength and power. He had never witnessed such an intense fight before, and every passing moment seemed to escte the tension to new heights.
As Norvin sank his teeth into the dragon''s neck, the air filled with the deafening roar of the wounded beast. But even as the dragon thrashed and writhed in pain, Norvin showed no sign of relenting. Instead, he seemed to grow even stronger, his muscles bulging with newfound power.
But the dragon was not ready to admit defeat just yet. With a sudden burst of energy, it began to glow from within, its belly lighting up like a fiery beacon. Norvin''s hands burned as he held the dragon''s mouth shut, his grip tight and unyielding.
As the dragon prepared to unleash its deadly dragon breath, Norvin acted fast, grabbing the dragon''s jaw with all his might and forcing its mouth shut. The two colossal creatures locked eyes in a fierce battle of wills, their muscles straining as they fought for dominance.
Norvin roared in frustration as he struggled to keep the dragon''s mouth shut. His muscles bulged with the effort, and sweat glistened on his fur as he tried to overpower the beast. But suddenly, the ck dragon used its massive wings and mmed them into Norvin with incredible force. Norvin was momentarily stunned, caught off guard by the sheer power of the attack.
Taking advantage of Norvin''s momentary daze, the dragon opened its mouth and unleashed a stream of scorching dragon me. Norvin roared in agony as the mes licked at his fur and burned his skin. But even in the midst of his pain, Norvin''s roar contained more anger than anything else.
Gritting his teeth, Norvin leaped into the air and put his fists together, aiming straight for the dragon''s head. With a thunderous impact, Norvin''s fists connected with the dragon''s skull, causing the ground beneath them to tremble and crack. The force of the blow was so immense that several of the dragon''s scales cracked and flew off its body, revealing the soft flesh underneath.
The dragon roared in pain and fury, thrashing wildly in an attempt to shake Norvin off. But Norvin held on tight, his grip unyielding as he continued to pummel the dragon with powerful blows.
As Norvin wrapped his massive hands around the dragon''s neck, the ck beast thrashed and writhed, desperately trying to break free from Norvin''s grip. Suddenly, Noah''s body trembled with exhaustion as the barrier kept depleting Andreas''s soul energy. As a result, sweat dripped down Noah''s face, and his vision began to blur. He knew he couldn''t hold the barrier for much longer.
"I can''t...hold this...much longer," Noah panted, turning to Andreas, whose ethereal figure was flickering and fading.
"We need to get out of this treacherous ocean," Andreas said weakly. "More dragons wille."
Noah nodded, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself to his feet. He knew he had to get Norvin''s attention and bring him back to reality from his battle frenzy mode. With a burst of energy, Noah summoned a bright light that shot up into the sky. It caught Norvin''s attention, and the giant ape turned his gaze toward Noah.
"Norvin, we need to leave this ce. More dragons wille," Noah shouted, hoping to reach the giant ape.
With a fierce determination in his eyes, Norvin tightened his grip around the dragon''s neck, his massive hands crushing the scaly skin beneath his fingers. The dragon writhed and struggled, its desperate attempts to break free only fueling Norvin''s resolve.
But as Norvin continued to apply pressure, a sickening sound filled the air - the unmistakable sound of bones breaking. Norvin''s eyes went wide with shock as he realized what had happened - he had identally snapped the dragon''s neck in his quest to subdue it.
For a moment, the world seemed to go still as Norvin stared at the lifeless head of the ck dragon, its body slowly copsing to the ground beneath him. The weight of his actions hit Norvin like a ton of bricks, and he felt a sense of deep regret wash over him.
Just like Noah, Norvin had always lived by a strict code of honor that forbade him from taking a life. But in the heat of the moment, his newfound strength had betrayed him, and he had broken that sacred rule.
As he looked down at the dragon''s lifeless body, Norvin couldn''t help but wonder - had he gone too far in his quest for power?
Norvin''s eyes widened with shock and horror as he realized what he had done. The ck dragon''s lifeless head slowly fell to the ground, the sickening sound of bones breaking still echoing in his ears. He had never intended to kill, and yet his immense strength had unintentionally taken the life of the creature before him.
"What have I done?" Norvin muttered, his voiceced with remorse and disbelief. He couldn''t believe he had let his newfound strength get the best of him and break his own rule against killing.
But before he could fullyprehend the gravity of his actions, another deafening roar shook the ground beneath him. Norvin slowly turned his gaze toward the source of the sound and saw a majestic dragon with scales as red as fire. The treacherous ocean was engulfed in a storm, with raging waves and howling winds adding to the ominous atmosphere as the red dragon flew straight toward them. The red dragon''s eyes gleamed with rage as it focused its attention on the barrier that was keeping Noah and Norvin safe. The dragon''s massive ws dug into the barrier, sending sparks flying and causing the barrier to flicker and shake under immense force.
With a fierce determination, the dragon repeatedly headbutted the barrier, each impact creating deep cracks that grew wider and wider until the barrier finally shattered under the dragon''s might.
"Nightmare,"
Norvin''s eyes widened with shock and recognition as he gazed at the dragon before him. It was none other than Nightmare, the infamous familiar of the Dark Lord himself. Despite being smaller in size than Norvin, the red dragon exuded a terrifying aura of power and strength.
Its scales were as red as the fires of hell, shimmering ominously in the stormy climate of the treacherous ocean. Its eyes gleamed with an intense rage that made Norvin crease his brows. Its razor-sharp ws dug deep into the ground, leaving deep trenches in its wake. And its wings were spread wide, making it seem as if it was ready to take flight at any moment.
Norvin knew that facing Nightmare would be no easy feat, and he steeled himself for what was toe. Even with his newfound strength, he knew that defeating the Dark Lord''s familiar would be an uphill battle. A feeling of deep-seated hostility and rage boiled inside Norvin as he locked eyes with Nightmare. It was as if he had encountered a lifelong foe, and the intensity of his emotions caught him off guard. Prior to absorbing Edros''s blood, Norvin had never felt such an overwhelming desire for revenge.
But at that moment, all he could think about was crushing the dragon before him. His muscr arms flexed as he balled his fists, his eyes zing with an intensity that was almost primal. Norvin''s fur bristled with anticipation as he let out a deafening roar, challenging Nightmare toe at him with all his might. The stormy ocean seemed to echo with his roar, amplifying the ferocity of the moment.
Nightmare''s eyes glinted with fury as he surveyed the scene before him. The lifeless body of the ck dragony crumpled on the ground, and the sight only served to fuel the dragon''s already boiling rage. His scales glimmered in the stormy light, and his sharp ws dug deep into the rocky terrain beneath him as he readied himself for battle.
When Norvin roared, Nightmare''s response was immediate. His own roar echoed through the tumultuous waters, its force shaking the very foundations of the treacherous ocean. As the two mighty creatures faced off against each other, their roars grew louder and more ferocious, each one trying to outdo the other in sheer power and intensity.
The wind howled around them as they circled each other, each one waiting for the other to make the first move. Norvin''s eyes burned with a newfound determination, and he could feel his muscles tensing with anticipation. Meanwhile, Nightmare''s eyes zed with an all-consuming fury, and his entire body vibrated with the desire to destroy his opponent.
With a sudden lunge, the two creatures charged towards each other, their teeth bared and their ws extended. The sh of their bodies reverberated through the air, and the sound of their roars filled the entire ocean. The battle had begun, and it was clear that only one would emerge victorious.
Chapter 908 Norvin Vs Nightmare II
As Norvin and Nightmare lunged at each other, Noah''s heart was pounding in his chest. He watched in awe as the two colossal creatures shed with an incredible force that sent shockwaves through the treacherous ocean. With blinding speed, Nightmare darted towards Norvin and raised his front legs, delivering a crushing kick to Norvin''s chest. Norvin was caught off guard and was sent flying through the air, his massive frame tumbling and crashing through the waves.
While Norvin struggled to regain his footing, the other dragons swarmed towards him, ready to attack. But Nightmare bellowed a deafening roar that echoed through the ocean, and the other dragons hesitated, momentarily stunned by the ferocity of his voice.
In that moment, Noah felt his legs give out beneath him, and he dropped to his knees, gasping for air. His vision blurred and his head throbbed with pain as he struggled to stay conscious in the midst of the chaos around him.
"This is my fight," he dered, his voice booming with authority. The other dragons knew better than to disobey, and they cowered before his presence, unable to challenge the might of the dragon with the blood of the royals.
Nightmare''s dragon voice reverberated through the treacherous ocean, its deep and powerful timbremanding respect and fear. It was a voice that seemed to echo from the depths of the earth, shaking the very foundations of the sea. The sound of it sent chills down the spines of even the bravest creatures. As he spoke, his voice carried an air of authority and dominance, a reminder of his royal bloodline and the power he held over the other dragons. They trembled in fear and didn''t dare to interrupt the battle that was about to unfold.
Norvin steadied himself, gritting his teeth as he felt the blood oozing from his chest. His chest heaved with each ragged breath, but his eyes zed with a fierce determination. He let out a primal roar, the sound echoing through the treacherous ocean and shaking the ground beneath them.
With a newfound strength fueled by his rage, Norvinunched himself at Nightmare, his massive fists balled up into tight knots. His movements were swift and calcted, his immense size and strength giving him an edge over his opponent. The sh between the two giants was like thunder, their blowsnding with the force of a hundred men. The ground beneath them cracked and crumbled, sending debris flying in all directions. Despite the pain and exhaustion, Norvin refused to back down, his determination to defeat Nightmare pushing him forward.
When Nightmare appeared in the treacherous ocean,he was confused and disoriented as he was unsure of how he had been transported there. He had been on his way to meet ire when a mysterious portal had suddenly appeared and engulfed him. And now, he was faced with a scene of chaos and destruction.
The red dragon''s heart sank as he witnessed the aftermath of Norvin''s brutal battle. He had never expected to find Norvin engaged in such a violent conflict with other dragons. And when he saw the lifeless body of the in dragon, a surge of anger and disbelief coursed through him. Nightmare had always believed in resolving conflicts through peaceful means most of the time, and he was certain that Norvin could have subdued the other dragons without resorting to such extreme measures. The fact that he had taken a life without a shred of mercy left a bitter taste in Nightmare''s mouth.
With his blood boiling and his mind clouded by rage, Nightmare entered into a pure frenzy mode. His eyes glowed with a fierce intensity as he locked his gaze on Norvin, feeling an overwhelming urge to avenge the fallen dragon.
The battle between Norvin and Nightmare raged on, eachnding powerful blows and dodging the other''s attacks. Norvin swung his massive fists at Nightmare, but the dragon was too quick, dodging and retaliating with a fierce st of fire that singed Norvin''s fur.
Undeterred, Norvin charged forward and grabbed Nightmare''s tail, swinging him around and mming him into the ground. But Nightmare quickly regained his footing and sted Norvin with a burst of dark energy, sending him reeling.
The two giants continued to trade blows, each struggling to gain the upper hand. Norvin swung his fists and mmed into Nightmare''s scales, causing them to crack, but the dragon retaliated with a st of lightning that arced through the air and struck Norvin in the chest.
Despite the intense pain, Norvin refused to back down, and he countered with a powerful blow that sent Nightmare soaring through the air. The dragon crashed to the ground, but he quickly rose to his feet, his eyes gleaming with fury. With a roar, Nightmare charged at Norvin, who met him head-on. The two giants shed in a fierce battle, each unleashing a flurry of attacks that shook the very earth beneath them. The battle seemed to have no end in sight, each creature determined to emerge victorious.
Norvin, being at the Half Immortal stage, had an advantage over Nightmare, who was only at the Fusion stage. The power surging through Norvin''s veins, amplified by the blood of Edros, gave him an incredible strength that he had never felt before. But even with this advantage, Nightmare was not an easy opponent to defeat.
As the two beasts shed, eachnding blow for blow, Norvin felt a rush of adrenaline surging through him. With one swift motion, Norvin swung his massive arm andnded a powerful punch on Nightmare''s side, causing the dragon to roar in pain. But before Norvin could celebrate his victory, Nightmare retaliated with a fierce bite, sinking his sharp teeth into Norvin''s arm.
Norvin and Nightmare continued to sh in a fierce battle, each one determined to emerge victorious. The stormy weather around them intensified, with thunderbolts crackling through the darkened sky and the howling winds adding to the chaos of the battlefield.
Suddenly, Nightmare prepared to unleash a devastatingbination attack. His scales shimmered in the stormy light as he opened his jaws wide and let out a st of icy breath, sending shards of ice flying towards Norvin. Despite Norvin''s best efforts to dodge the attack, some of the shards grazed his fur, leaving small cuts on his body.
Infuriated by the attack, Norvin roared and charged towards Nightmare, his massive fists raised high. Nightmare met his attack head-on, shing his own fists against Norvin''s. The ground shook violently as their blows connected, sending shockwaves throughout the barrenndscape.
As the battle continued, the environment around them began to change. The icy breath unleashed by Nightmare had caused the ground around them to freeze over, making it more difficult for Norvin to maintain his footing. Meanwhile, the fiery breath he had mixed with it caused pockets of mes to erupt, creating obstacles and hazards in the already treacherous terrain.
As the sh between Nightmare and Norvin intensified, the surrounding dragons could feel the energy emanating from the two powerful beings. One by one, they began to retreat from the area, not daring to interfere with the fierce battle.
Meanwhile, in the distance, two figures hovered in the air, their eyes fixed on the ongoing fight. The woman was strikingly beautiful, with fiery red hair that seemed to glow in the stormy sky. Her gaze was unwavering, focused entirely on the battle unfolding before her.
Beside her, a ghostly figure floated, bearing a striking resemnce to the fallen warrior Andreas. Though his form was insubstantial, the determination in his eyes was clear. It was none other than Salesi, ruler of Nagnd, and the other Soul piece of Andreas. Together, they had orchestrated the arrival of the Dark Lord''s dragon and the ensuing battle, hoping to settle the score once and for all.
As they watched the two familiars sh, Salesi''s heart raced with anticipation. She had long awaited the chance to strike at the Dark Lord and put an end to his reign of terror.
Since both the Dark Lord, the God of Darkness, and Noah, the God of Light, avoided direct confrontation with each other, Salesi knew she and the other piece of Andreas had to instigate their battle somehow. They plotted to pit Nightmare, the Dark Lord''s familiar, against Norvin, Noah''s familiar. No matter which familiar died in the hands of the other, it would instigate the battle between their respective gods. At the very least, one would weaken the other''s army.
"I''d say take out the Dark Lord''s familiar," said the other piece of Andreas.
Salesi paused for a long moment, contemting Andreas''s words. She knew it was a risky move, but it might be their only chance to rile up the Dark Lord enough to make him make a move against the God of Light. They hoped Noah would defeat the Dark Lord and prevent him from plunging the world into darkness. Salesi knew that Noah, the God of Light, wouldn''t be able to permanently kill the Dark Lord without the god-killing arrows. However, if Noah managed to defeat the Dark Lord, it could buy them some valuable time to grow even stronger. The war between light and darkness had been raging on for centuries, and Salesi knew that every little victory counted.
As she watched the battle between Nightmare and Norvin from afar, her mind raced with the possibilities of what could happen if the Dark Lord fell. Would the other gods finallye to this world, or would they continue to watch from the sidelines? She knew that the fate of their world rested on the oue of this battle. Meanwhile, the battle between Nightmare and Norvin continued to rage on. Nightmare''s flight ability gave him the upper hand, allowing him to bombard Norvin with a relentless assault of fire and cold breath. Norvin struggled to keep up with Nightmare''s speed and ferocity, but he refused to back down.
"He is down," Andreas said, looking at Noah who copsed. Whenever Noah''s Andreas depleted his soul energy, Noah would enter an unconscious state for some time before recovering. The other Andreas stared down at Noah''s unconscious form, his soul energy depleted from the fierce battle. As Noahy there, helpless and vulnerable, Andreas knew that this was their chance to strike. With a sly grin, he turned to Salesi and whispered, "He''s down. Now''s our chance to make our move." Salesi nodded in agreement, knowing that they couldn''t afford to waste a single moment. They had to act fast if they wanted to defeat the Dark Lord and his armies.
Norvin was on hisst breaths, his wounds and scorched skin causing him to falter. Nightmare, on the other hand, had the upper hand in the battle, and he knew it. He flew straight at Norvin and pinned his arms to the ground, preparing to deliver the final blow. Despite being at a lower cultivation stage, Nightmare''s battle training with Gaya had paid off, and he was a formidable opponent. Norvin braced himself for the worst.
But just as Nightmare was about to rip Norvin''s head off, a sudden bright sh of light lit up the area, blinding the two familiars for a moment. Norvin and Nightmare both closed their eyes, caught off guard by the sudden burst of light.
As Norvin struggled under Nightmare''s clutches, he suddenly heard a sharp metallic noise that pierced through the chaos of the battlefield. It was followed by a growl that turned into a deafening roar. Then, a hot liquid oozed onto his face, and he felt Nightmare''s grip loosen. He quickly closed his eyes, anticipating the worst. When he finally opened them again, he saw Noah standing on his chest, wielding his sword. The sword was plunged straight into Nightmare''s heart, and the dark energy that emanated from the dragon slowly dissipated. Noah''s eyes were glowing brightly, and his aura seemed to have multiplied in intensity.
The scene was shocking, to say the least. Norvin had never seen Noah like this before. It was as if he had tapped into an entirely different power, one that he had never shown before. The sheer force of the energy emanating from Noah was overwhelming, and it seemed to be consuming him from the inside out. Norvin stared at Noah in shock, wondering what had happened. Had Noah unlocked a new level of power, or was it something else entirely? He couldn''t tell, but he knew that something significant had just urred.
"What have you done?" Norvin growled.
As the blinding light from Noah''s sword pierced through Nightmare''s body, Norvin''s heart sank. He couldn''t believe what he was seeing - Noah, the God of Light, breaking his own rule by taking a life. Norvin growled in anger, his eyes fixed on Noah''s glowing ones. For a moment, he thought he saw a hint of madness in Noah''s eyes, like he was a different person entirely.
The sharp metallic sound echoed through the air as Noah withdrew the sword from Nightmare''s body. Norvin watched in horror as the dragon slowly fell to the ground, writhing in pain. He was about to rush to the dragon''s aid with healing potions when Nightmare vanished into thin air. Norvin blinked, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Had Noah somehow sent the dragon to another realm?
Noah stood there, his eyes still glowing, his aura still burning with intensity. It was a moment that Norvin would never forget. Norvin didn''t feel relieved; instead, fear took over him as he realized the grave consequences of Noah''s actions. If the Dark Lord learned that his beloved familiar, Nightmare, was killed by Noah''s hand, he would stop at nothing to seek revenge. Norvin knew that the Dark Lord would not rest until he avenged his familiar''s death.
Noah''s eyes zed with an otherworldly light, making Norvin wonder if this was truly Noah before him or someone else in Noah''s form. Norvin''s heart was pounding in his chest as he realized the full extent of what had just happened. The consequences of Noah''s actions could mean the end of everything they knew.
Norvin concentrated and willed himself to shrink in size until he was about six feet tall, the same height as Noah. He knew that in order to snap Noah out of his strange state, he needed to meet him at eye level. As he approached Noah, he could see that the glow in his eyes was still present, and his aura was still burning with intense energy.
Then, he watched in horror as Noah''s eyes, once aze with power, suddenly faded and went dark. Noah''s body swayed and he copsed to the ground, unconscious. Norvin quickly rushed to his side and knelt down beside him, checking for a pulse. Relief washed over him as he felt a faint but steady heartbeat. But the relief was short-lived. Norvin knew that this was not a good sign. Whatever had caused Noah''s eyes to glow and his aura to burn so intensely had clearly taken a toll on him. He feared for his friend''s safety and wondered what kind of dangery ahead.
As Norvin sat there, cradling Noah''s head in hisp, he could feel his heart racing with anxiety. He knew that he had to act quickly and find a way to help Noah before it was toote.
Chapter 909 Death Of Nightmare
The dark forest was enveloped in an eerie silence as the pocket dimension attached to the dark abyss came to life. The air crackled with foreboding energy as arge figure materialized out of thin air. It was Nightmare, the Dark Lord''s fierce familiar, who had been teleported to the pocket dimension by Michael''s system after Noah''s fatal blow.
As Nightmarended on the dark soil, his breathing was heavy, and his scales were slick with sweat and blood. He tried to stand up, but his legs gave way, and he fell to the ground with a thud. The once mighty dragon was now reduced to the size of a small dog, whimpering in pain.
His once-mighty form was now reduced to that of a small dog, lying helplessly on the ground. Gaya and Azazel appeared in a sh of light, and their footsteps echoed through the empty space.
Gaya''s heart pounded as she rushed towards Nightmare, her eyes welling up with tears at the sight of his wounded body. She could see the hole in his chest and the blood slowly dripping from it. Gaya''s hands shook as she pulled out a healing potion, hoping to save her dear friend.
As she poured the potion into the wound, a strange light surrounded it, preventing the healing potion from having any effect. Gaya''s eyes widened with shock and horror as she realized the gravity of the situation. Nightmare''s life was in grave danger.
"Listen..." Nightmare''s voice trailed off, but Gaya couldn''t bear to hear him speak. She poured another healing potion into his mouth, hoping it would help, but it was in vain. Tears streamed down her face as she realized the situation was beyond her control.
Azazel stood on the side, his eyes glued to the dying Nightmare. His heart sank as he watched the life force slowly drain out of the dragon''s body. He knew that the healing potions would have no effect, but he couldn''t bear to see Nightmare suffer like this.
Gaya, on the other hand, refused to give up. She poured healing potions into Nightmare''s wound repeatedly, but the strange light surrounding the wound seemed to be preventing the potions from working. As she poured another potion into Nightmare''s mouth, he let out a loud growl, sending a puff of hot air toward her face.
"Stop," he said in a weak voice, his eyes dimming. "It''s no use. I''m dying."
Gaya''s eyes widened with shock and disbelief. She couldn''t ept that Nightmare was going to die. "No, you can''t die," she said, tears streaming down her face. "We have to find a way to save you."
But Nightmare shook his head weakly. "There is no way," he said. "I have been fatally wounded. My time hase."
Azazel''s heart sank as he heard those words. He knew that the Dark Lord would be devastated if he learned of Nightmare''s death. He immediately tried to contact him, but there was no response.
Gaya''s heart was in agony as she watched Nightmare''s life force slowly fade away. Memories of their time together shed through her mind, from the yful fights to the countless times she had chased him around for teasing her. She remembered how he had grown from a tiny dragon to a mighty creature and how he had always been there for her, like a little brother. Despite the age-old hostility between her race and dragons, Gaya couldn''t bear the thought of losing Nightmare.
As she poured the healing potion into Nightmare''s mouth, she watched in despair as the strange light surrounding his wound prevented it from healing. His breathing became heavier andbored, and he emitted a puff of hot air, almost as if he was trying to stop her from prolonging his suffering. Gaya felt helpless and powerless, and her anger towards whoever had stabbed Nightmare was overshadowed by her worry for his life. She couldn''t imagine a world without Nightmare, and the thought of losing him was unbearable.
Azazel''s attempts to contact the Dark Lord proved futile, and the situation grew increasingly dire as Nightmare''s life force continued to fade away. It was as though an invisible force was preventing him from contacting the Dark lord. Despite Gaya''s attempts to heal him, Nightmare knew that his end was near.
Gaya''s tears fell on Nightmare''s face as she held him in her arms, her voice breaking as she promised to heal him. But Nightmare knew the truth, and he shook his head, his breathing growing shallower.
"Don''t talk. Save your energy. I will heal you¡" Gaya''s voice stuttered as she frantically searched for a way to save Nightmare. But Nightmare slowly shook his head.
"You cannot¡ I can feel it¡I am going to die¡" Nightmare''s voice was weak and strained, his breathsing in short gasps.
"No, you''re not. You''re going to be okay," Gaya pleaded, her tears falling onto Nightmare''s face as she held him close.
"Please, just let me go in peace. I don''t want my death to trigger a war¡ promise me¡promise me and let me¡" Nightmare coughed up more blood, his body growing weaker with each passing moment.
Gaya held onto Nightmare tightly, trying to stop the inevitable. She could feel his strength slowly leaving his body and his breathing bing shallower with each passing moment. Nightmare lifted his head and looked into Gaya''s eyes, his own eyes filled with gratitude and sadness.
"Thank you for everything, sister," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I wish... I wish I had more time."
Gaya''s heart broke as she watched life slowly slip away from her dear friend. She could feel her tears falling on Nightmare''s scales as he weakly put his head on her shoulder to embrace her.
"Please... let me go... in peace," he murmured, his breaths bing morebored. "This is my dying wish."
Gaya nodded, unable to speak as she held onto Nightmare. She knew that she had to let him go, but the pain of losing him was too much to bear. She whispered her own words of gratitude and love to him as he took his final breath, and she felt his body go limp in her arms.
Gaya stood there in disbelief, holding Nightmare''s lifeless body in her arms. She couldn''tprehend that her beloved dragon, her little brother, was gone forever. All the memories of their adventures together shed before her eyes, making her feel like she had lost a part of herself. Her heart was heavy with grief, and she couldn''t bear the pain of losing someone she loved so dearly.
The world around her seemed to have stopped moving, and everything was eerily quiet. Even Azazel, who was usuallyposed and unaffected by emotions, shed a tear for Nightmare. He knew how much the dragon meant to Gaya and how devastated she must be feeling right now.
Gaya finally broke her silence, her voice sounding hollow and devoid of any emotions. "Where is he?" she asked, referring to the Dark Lord.
"I cannot reach him, mydy," Azazel spoke cautiously, not wanting to add to her pain.
Without another word, Gaya stood up, still holding Nightmare''s body in her arms, and disappeared from the pocket dimension. Azazel was left behind, feeling helpless and powerless tofort her.
As Azazel stood in the pocket dimension, he couldn''t shake the feeling that there was someone else there with him. A shiver ran down his spine as he scanned the area, but there was no one in sight. Suddenly, he heard a voice, one that he recognized all too well.
"It had to happen," the Dark Lord''s voice echoed through the space, but there was no physical form to apany it. Azazel''s heart skipped a beat, and he couldn''t believe what he was hearing.
For a moment, he thought he just imagined things, the sadness of Nightmare''s death ying tricks on his mind. But deep down, he knew that something was amiss.
*********************************************
Two days had passed since Nightmare''s demise, and the atmosphere in the castle was heavy with grief and sorrow. The Dark Queen had locked herself in her chambers, and no one had seen or heard from her since the day of Nightmare''s death. Azazel, the demon butler, had taken charge of cleaning up the chaos Vedora had left behind in their path of destruction. The three-headed hydra had gone on a rampage upon hearing the news of Nightmare''s death, causing mass destruction and chaos throughout the castle. Azazel had never seen Vedora agree on something so quickly before, and theirbined anger was a force to be reckoned with.
In an attempt to subdue the raging hydra, Azazel and his vampire death squad put their lives on the line. The battle was fierce, and Azazel had to use every ounce of his strength to stop Vedora from destroying the castle. The three heads worked in unison, breathing fire, ice, and poison at the attackers. Azazel''s body was covered in burns and cuts, but he refused to give up. His determination to bring Vedora under control kept him going.
Finally, Azazel managed to inject Vedora with a paralyzing poison, causing them to copse to the ground. The demon butler breathed a sigh of relief as he caged Vedora in the same cage Alicia had attempted to use to capture the Dark Lord. Despite his victory, Azazel knew that the battle was far from over. The loss of Nightmare triggered a chain reaction of events that would have a profound impact on the future of their world.
Sudden;y, the castle shook violently as though a devastating earthquake had struck. Azazel sprinted out of the surveince room and onto the castle''s balcony, only to witness a terrifying sight. The dark clouds in the sky were as ck as midnight, and an overwhelming surge of energy fluctuations was causing the sky to crackle with lightning. The ocean below the floating mountain had be so turbulent that towering waves crashed against the mountain''s edges. To make matters worse, several colossal tornadoes were swirling across the sky, ready to tear apart anything in their path.
Ignoring the danger, Azazel flew up to the top of the sword-hilt mountain, where the Dark Lord used to meditate. There, he saw Gaya encased in a brilliant golden energy dome. The heavenly tribtion had begun, and Gaya was attempting to step into the Immortal stage.
Azazel could only watch as Gaya triggered her heavenly tribtion. The thunder roared so loudly that it felt like the very mountain would crumble to the ground. The lightning strikes were so intense that they illuminated the entire sky, casting an eerie glow over thendscape. Meanwhile, the tornadoes continued their onught, destroying everything in their path.
The dwarves who were busy constructing the castle dropped their hammers and other tools and ran as fast as they could inside the castle. They shouted and panicked, pushing and shoving each other to get inside the castle, seeking shelter from the raging storm. Some of them stumbled and fell on the ground, but they quickly got up and continued to run towards the castle.
At the same time, the vampires who were patrolling the floating mountain saw the ck clouds and the violent energy fluctuations in the air. They immediatelynded on the ground and ran towards the castle, moving as fast as they could. Their eyes widened with fear as they saw the towering waves and the tornadoes approaching the mountain. They could hear the deafening sound of the wind and the waves crashing onto the mountain, making it shake violently.
The vampires didn''t waste any time and flew towards the castle, joining the dwarves who had already sought shelter. They too pushed and shoved their way inside, their hearts racing with fear as they heard the storm''s fury outside. Once they were all inside the castle, they waited anxiously for the storm to pass, hoping that they would be safe from harm.
As the world trembled under the wrath of the heavenly tribtion, Azazel rushed back to the surveince room with a determined look on his face. He knew this was a critical moment and had to act fast. Summoning all the powerful subordinates and the vampire death squad, he ordered them to gather at the dark ocean. The ground shook violently, and the castle''s walls creaked and groaned under the immense pressure of the raging winds. Azazel could feel the hairs on his arms stand on end as he braced himself against the howling wind.
But he couldn''t afford to waste any time. The Dark Queen was going through her heavenly tribtions and would be at her weakest. Azazel knew that he had to act quickly and decisively to ensure her safety. He cursed under his breath, knowing they could have been better prepared if only the Dark Queen had informed him earlier. But now, there was no time for regrets. They had already lost Nightmare, and he wouldn''t let anything happen to the Dark Queen.
********
(DO NOT BE ANGRY AT THE AUTHOR...I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL...)
Chapter 910 Trial By Combat
(Five days before Nightmare''s death)
Michael sat with an air of quiet confidence at a wooden table in the dimly lit tavern. His eyes flickered around the room, scanning the faces of the other patrons with a sense of unease. The atmosphere was thick with tension, punctuated by the asional clink of sses and murmurs of hushed conversations.
As he waited for Mutrad''s arrival, Michael''s mind was consumed by the danger that lurked around every corner. He had already shed blood to obtain the information they needed, and he knew that there were those who would stop at nothing to prevent him frompleting his mission.
But Michael wasn''t worried. He remained calm and patient, knowing that panic and fear would only lead to mistakes. Instead, he sat quietly, his senses on high alert, waiting for Mutrad to arrive and deliver the next piece of the puzzle.
The door creaked open, and Mutrad stepped into the dimly lit tavern, his eyes scanning the room nervously. His steps were hesitant as he approached Michael, the weight of the information he carried heavy on his shoulders.
"It''s true. The house of dwrath took the artifacts, and they are challenging both House Halrid and House Bigmag for trial bybat," he said, his voice trembling slightly.
Michael''s eyes narrowed, a steely determination settling in his gaze. He knew that their mission had be even more dangerous and urgent. The fate of the entire Arctic hall now rested on their sess in retrieving the stolen artifact.
"So House dwrath had a hand in Harry''s disappearance," Michael said calmly, his voice belying the intense anger burning within him. Mutrad saw the thick killing intent in his eyes and knew that the Dark Lord was not to be trifled with.
The tavern was silent, with the asional clink of sses and murmurs of conversation. The tension in the air was palpable, and it felt as though the entire world was waiting for Michael''s next move.
Mutrad looked uneasy and opened and closed his mouth as though he had to say something but couldn''t find the courage to speak those words.
"When I wipe dwrath off the map, you can find your scepter without going through this trial bybat," Michael calmly said. Mutrad wasn''t shocked by his words as he expected Michael to react this way. Hence, he came prepared to sway the Dark Lord from wreaking havoc.
"Just hear me out first. I know it''s highly likely House dwrath took the spirit child and used his blood to steal our artifacts. But if you attack them now, the entire sea realm will wage war against you and won''t stop until one of you is wiped out. Do you really want another enemy? You already have enough of them to deal with," said Mutrad, trying to change the Dark Lord''s mind. To be honest, it was surprising for Mutrad to see the Dark Lord be calm and talk to him instead of destroying House dwrath.
"I assume you have a n to rescue the spirit child with minimal damage to your world," said Michael, and Mutrad nodded.
"There is a rule that allows one to fight for more than one house. So if you help us win the trial bybat against House dwrath, I will pursue the head of House Bigmag to use their artifact''s ability to locate the spirit child," said Mutrad, hoping the Dark Lord would agree to his n.
The air around Mutrad grew heavy with palpable tension as he spoke. He could feel the weight of Michael''s gaze on him like a physical force, and he struggled to maintain hisposure.
"Why didn''t you say anything about the Bigmag family''s artifact before?" Michael''s voice was cold, his eyes narrowing as he leaned forward.
Mutrad swallowed hard, trying to steady his nerves. "I didn''t know until today," he replied, his voice barely above a whisper.
Michael''s intense gaze lingered on Mutrad, searching for any signs of deceit. When he found none, he leaned back in his chair, but the tension in the room remained thick.
"Exin your n," he said, his voice low and measured.
Mutrad took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. "Attacking House dwrath directly will only put the spirit child in danger. But if we follow my n, we can rescue the child without risking their life."
Michael considered Mutrad''s words carefully. He knew that direct action would be risky, but he didn''t want to waste more time. The fate of the spirit child hung in the bnce, and every passing moment increased the risk of harm.
After a moment of silence, Michael spoke. "What''s the n?"
Michael''s eyes narrowed as he leaned forward, intrigued by theplexity of the trial bybat.
"Go on," he urged, his voice low and measured.
Mutrad hesitated for a moment before continuing. "The challenger is the one who stole the artifact, and they can choose up to twenty warriors. The challenged party is the one who lost the artifact and can only choose one warrior. The two parties will fight in a sacrednd where the challenger''s artifact is kept. To win the trial, the warrior chosen by the challenged party has to take the challenger''s artifact through the twenty warriors and the guardian. It is an almost impossible task, but it''s the only way to win the trial,"
Michael''s mind raced as he absorbed the information. Twenty warriors and a guardian? This trial was far more challenging than he initially thought. He could feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders as he realized that Mutrad''s family''s fate rested on his sess in this trial.
"So, you need me to be your chosen one," Michael said, his voice heavy with understanding.
Mutrad''s eyes were filled with desperation as he pleaded with Michael. "I understand that it''s a lot to ask, but my family''s future rests on this trial. We can''t afford to lose."
Michael''s eyes narrowed as he absorbed the gravity of the situation. "Twenty warriors and a guardian? This trial is more perilous than I could have imagined," he said, his voice low and intense.
Mutrad''s face was etched with anxiety. "That''s why I need your help, Dark Lord. I cannot face them alone."
Michael leaned forward, his gaze never leaving Mutrad''s. "And if I ept your request and manage to retrieve the artifact, what happens next?"
"The elders will return the artifacts to their rightful families and act as if nothing has happened," Mutrad replied.
Michael''s surprise was palpable. "That''s all?"
Mutrad nodded, but there was a tense silence before he continued. "losing the artifact is viewed as the ultimate sign of weakness. If the chosen one fails to retrieve the artifact, the family who lost it will be exiled from the Arctic Hall forever. The victor would keep the artifacts and have the power to give the artifacts to whoever they want and form two new families under their rule. If the stakes weren''t high, I wouldn''t have asked for your help, Dark Lord,"
Mutrad''s bodynguage spoke volumes about his desperation. He fidgeted in his seat, his eyes darting around the dimly lit tavern, and nervously bit his lower lip. Sweat glistened on his forehead, despite the chilly atmosphere of the ce. He hesitated before speaking, his voice shaking slightly as he exined the gravity of the situation. Mutrad knew that the stakes were high and that his family''s future hung in the bnce. The weight of responsibility weighed heavily on him, and he knew he couldn''t handle it alone. It was clear from his demeanor that he needed the Dark Lord''s help and was willing to do whatever it takes to seed.
"What if the House of Bigmag doesn''t want to use their artifact to find the spirit child?" Michael asked, his eyes piercing into Mutrad''s. "And what if they don''t want me to be their chosen one? I am the big bad Dark Lord, after all. What makes you think your family and the Bigmag family would be willing to bet their fates on my shoulders?" Michael snickered, his toneced with skepticism.
Mutrad''s desperation was palpable, his eyes pleading with Michael. "We don''t have any other options. You''re ourst hope, the only one who can save our families'' future."
Michael leaned forward, his eyes burning with a fierce intensity. "And what made you choose the big bad Dark Lord instead of one of your strongest warriors?"
"Because you''re the Dark Lord," Mutrad replied, his voice shaking with fear. "You have the power to destroy us all. But you also have the power to save us. Please, help us."
Michael leaned back on his chair, his expression unreadable. The weight of Mutrad''s words hung heavily in the air, and Michael knew that he had a difficult decision to make. The fate of two families rested on his shoulders, and the trial bybat was far more dangerous than he had imagined. But Michael was the Dark Lord, and he knew that sometimes, to gain power, one must take risks.
Michael leaned forward, his gaze fixed on Mutrad, his eyes zing with intensity. "You''re asking me to put my life on the line for your family''s fate. Do you understand what that means? It means I''m risking everything, and for what? A promise that you might not even keep?"
Mutrad shifted ufortably, his eyes darting around the dimly lit tavern. "I know what I''m asking, Dark Lord. But I''m desperate. I have no other options."
Michael''s jaw tightened as he weighed his options. He knew there would be no turning back if he agreed to help Mutrad. But the thought of the spirit child in danger stirred something in him, a sense of duty that he couldn''t ignore.
"One way or another, I can find the spirit child," Michael said, his voice low and serious. "But I need to know that I can trust you. Swear your loyalty to me, and I''ll win the trial for you,"
Mutrad hesitated, his eyes locked with Michael''s. "I can''t swear my loyalty to you just like that," he said finally. "But I promise that I will do everything in my power to repay you for your help,"
Michael''s expression hardened. "That''s not good enough," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I need your loyalty, Mutrad. And if you can''t give me that, then I can''t help you."
Mutrad hesitated to swear his loyalty to the Dark Lord because he knew that it was a significant risk. He had always been taught to fear the Dark Lord and had heard the tales of his immense power and cruelty through the prophecies. He had also seen the devastation the Dark Lord had wrought upon those who had crossed him.
But Mutrad was desperate and knew he had no other choice. He needed the Dark Lord''s help to retrieve the stolen artifact and save his family''s future. He also knew that the Dark Lord had a reputation for keeping his word and fulfilling his end of the bargain. Ultimately, It was a difficult decision, but he knew swearing his loyalty was the only way to ensure that the Dark Lord would help him. He also knew that once he swore his loyalty, he would be bound to the Dark Lord and have to follow his orders no matter what. But Mutrad was willing to do whatever it took to save his family, even if it meant sacrificing his own freedom.
Chapter 911 The Dark Lords Ultimatum
(Thest chapter 909 happened 5 days before Nightmare''s death)
As soon as Mutrad pledged his loyalty to Michael, he followed him to the sacred area where the trial bybat was to take ce. They journeyed through treacherous terrain, the path leading them farther and farther away from the Arctic Hall empire. The murky depths of the ocean surrounded them, and Michael could feel the weight of the water pressing against his skin. The only light came from glowing fish darting in and out of sight. It was an eerie and unsettling journey, but Michael was determined to see it through.
When Michael followed Mutrad into the unknown depths of the ocean, the darkness enveloped him like a heavy cloak, making his heart race with anticipation. With each step he took, the pressure increased, and the temperature dropped, signaling that they were venturing into an uncharted territory that was forbidden to outsiders.
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally arrived at a majestic pce glistening in the darkness like a beacon of hope. Its towering walls and grand arches were unlike anything Michael had ever seen, and he couldn''t help but feel awestruck by its sheer grandeur.
But there was no time for admiration, for the area was heavily guarded by earthens and wraiths, d in full armor, ready to strike down any intruders without mercy. Their sharp eyes scanned every inch of the area, making it clear that they would not hesitate to attack if provoked.
While Michael followed Mutrad through the murky depths of the ocean, he felt a sense of awe wash over him. The pce that came into view was unlike anything he had ever seen. The structure was made entirely of coral and glimmered with an ethereal beauty under the water''s light. It was a grand pce with multiple levels and grand pirs that supported a massive dome-like roof that allowed the light from the dome to filter in, casting a warm glow over the pce.
The pce''s entrance was guarded by earthens and wraiths, each standing at attention in full armor, their eyes alert and focused. Michael could feel their unwavering loyalty to their cause, and he couldn''t help but admire their dedication.
As they approached the pce''s entrance, a grand door made of mother-of-pearl opened, revealing the grandeur of the interior. The floors were made of marble, and the walls were adorned with intricate carvings that glowed softly in the light.
The guards stationed at the entrance of the pce didn''t bother asking questions as they recognized Mutrad and knew why they were there. Michael''s identity as the Dark Lord remained hidden from them, but they granted them passage with a simple gesture. Their armor gleamed in the soft light, and their weapons were at the ready, a constant reminder of the danger lurking within the pce''s walls.
Michael followed Mutrad through the grand entrance, and he couldn''t help but feel a sense of anticipation as he stepped inside. The pce''s interior was even more breathtaking than the exterior, with towering marble pirs and intricate carvings adorning the walls. The marble floors gleamed underfoot, reflecting the warm glow of the dome''s rays that filtered in.
As Michael and Mutrad continued through the pce, they entered a vast hall that stretched out before them. The hall was deserted, and the only sound was the soft gurgle of water flowing through an unseen passage. At the end of the hall, a raised tform held several thrones, their ornate designs hinting at the power of the individuals who would sit upon them. Behind the thrones, a massive ss door opened onto the ocean floor, revealing the murky depths thaty beyond. Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease as he gazed out into the dark abyss, wondering whaty hidden in its depths.
"The elders will be here soon," said Mutrad.
Michael nodded and walked around the hall to familiarize himself with the pce. A whileter, Michael sensed the space around him distort. When he turned around, he saw a tall man with a sharp jawline and piercing blue eyes. His posture is rigid, and his expression is often inscrutable, betraying little emotion. He wore luxurious robes embroidered with intricate designs and radiated a powerful aura, making it clear that he was the leader of the group behind them.
"My Lord," When Valen arrived, Mutrad dropped to one knee and greeted him with full respect. But Valen''s gaze was fixed on Michael, and there was an unmistakable flicker of fear and uncertainty in his eyes. It was clear to Michael that Valen had only agreed to seek his help because he had no other choice.
Michael couldn''t help but find the situation somewhat ironic. He found it amusing that when people were in a state of helplessness, they were willing to overlook any prophecies or beliefs and turn to the Dark Lord himself for aid. But now that Valen was standing before him, he seemed no longer sure what to believe.
Valen, a man with sharp features and piercing blue eyes, seemed to be sizing Michael up as he approached. Michael, who had seen his fair share of rulers and leaders, was not intimidated by Valen''s presence. However, he was acutely aware of the fear that Valen was struggling to conceal. The tension in the room was palpable, and Michael could sense the unease that lingered in the air. He knew that Valen''s fear was not unfounded, as the situation they faced was a grave one. The Dark Lord''s power and influence were vast, and his wrath could be unleashed at any moment.
"It''s quite ironic, don''t you think?" Michael said with a chuckle, his eyes fixed on Valen. "You sent your servant Mutrad to capture me, all because of some prophecy that portrayed me as the evil Dark Lord. And now, here you are, overlooking that very same prophecy and asking for my help."
Valen shifted ufortably, his eyes flickering with a mix of fear and uncertainty. He knew he had no choice but to seek Michael''s help, but the thought of relying on the one prophesied to bring destruction to their world was unnerving.
"I had no other choice," Valen replied, his voiceced with apprehension. "The situation is dire, and we need all the help we can get."
Michael''s gaze hardened, his expression turning serious. "I understand the gravity of the situation. But let me make one thing clear. I am not doing this for you or for anyone. I am doing this because House Bigmag has something that could help me find someone," said Michael.
Valen and his family were uneasy about asking for the Dark Lord''s help but were desperate to find their lost artifact. They had exhausted all other options and had nowhere else to turn. The Dark Lord''s power was well-known, and his reputation as an evil and ruthless being preceded him. But Valen knew he had to put aside his fears and seek the one who could help them.
It was in this state of desperation that they turned to the one person they had sworn to never ask for help: the Dark Lord himself. Valen and his family had always viewed the Dark Lord with a mixture of fear and revulsion. His reputation as a ruthless and powerful ruler had made him a figure to be feared and avoided at all costs. But at that moment, it was either asking for the Dark Lord''s help or being exiled from the Arctic hall forever.
When Michael was confronting the members of Houe Halrid, the space around him suddenly seemed to warp and distort, and a vortex appeared in the center of the room. Several figures stepped out of the portal, their imposing presence filling the room.
At the group''s forefront was a man towering over seven feet, with muscles bulging beneath his loose golden robes. His head waspletely bald, and his face was devoid of any hair. Each of hispanions was simrly bald, tall, and intimidating. As they entered the room, their footsteps echoed loudly on the floor, sending chills down the spines of those present. Michael immediately recognized them as members of House Bigmag, and it was clear why they had earned their name.
The leader of House Bigmag, a man known as Gormak, stepped forward with an air of confidence and authority. His eyes roamed over the assembled group, sizing them up with a quick, practiced nce.
The air grew thick with tension, and each member felt a chill run down their spine as they gazed upon the Dark Lord. His very presence seemed to fill the room, and his piercing gaze made them feel as though he could see straight through their souls. But after the members of House Bigmag stepped through the portal, the atmosphere grew even tenser. These were not men to be trifled with. Towering over seven feet tall and covered in golden robes, they exuded a sense of raw power and strength that made the members of House Halrid feel small and insignificant inparison.
The room fell silent as the members of House Bigmag approached, their bald heads shining in the dim light of the tavern. Even Mutrad, who had been so confident before, looked nervous as he faced these intimidating figures.
The silence in the room was palpable, broken only by Michael''s voice. "Did you address my terms to them?" he asked Mutrad, his voiceced with an underlying threat.
Mutrad swallowed hard, his eyes darting nervously around the room. He knew that this was a dangerous situation and that the fate of both families rested on Michael''s shoulders.
"Yes," he replied finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "They agreed to help, but only if we help them first."
Despite their imposing appearance, the group felt a chill running down their spines as theyid eyes on Michael, the Dark Lord, in person. His aura was suffocating, his eyes piercing through them like a sharp de. The members of House Bigmag looked at him with a mix of fear and uncertainty, realizing the magnitude of the situation they were in.
Mutrad nodded, his eyes darting nervously between Michael and the members of House Bigmag. He knew that the situation was delicate, and he had to tread carefully if he wanted to achieve his goal.
Michael had agreed to help both families retrieve their stolen artifacts. In return, Mutrad had promised him that the artifact of House Bigmag could locate Harry, the spirit child. It was a pity that House Bigmag had also lost their artifact to House dwrath, but the silver lining was that if they hadn''t lost it, Mutrad would never have learned about its unique ability.
The tension in the room was palpable as Michael and the members of House Bigmag stared each other down. The fate of the two families rested on the sess of the trial, and the stakes couldn''t be higher.
"We expect nothing but sess from you, Dark Lord. If you fail to retrieve the artifact, the consequences will be dire for everyone involved," Gormac''s voice was deep and gruff, the perfectplement to his towering stature.
Michael''s gaze narrowed, a steely determination settling in his eyes. He knew that the stakes were high and that the fate of two families rested on his sess in the trial bybat. But Michael was the Dark Lord, and he knew that helping them retrieve the artifacts was the safest route to save Harry.
"I will retrieve the artifact," he said, his voice low and intense. "And when I do, you will use your artifact to locate the one I am looking for."
Gormac''s eyes flickered with a hint of concern "And who is it that you are looking for, Dark Lord?"
Michael''s expression remained unreadable, but his eyes burned with a fierce intensity. "That is none of your concern," he replied, his voice low and dangerous.
Valen stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Michael''s. "And once you find the one you''re looking for, we ask you to leave our world and never return," he said, his voice firm.
Michael''s gaze flickered over to Valen, considering his words carefully. He knew that he would have no reason to remain in the Arctic hall once he found what he was looking for. But he also knew that leaving behind a trail of enemies was never a good idea.
Michael''s voice was low and controlled, but there was a hint of danger in his tone. "If it weren''t for someone in your world taking someone I care about, I wouldn''t have even set foot in your world," he said, his eyes narrowing as he spoke.
The room fell silent as Michael''s words hung heavily in the air. The members of House Bigmag and House Halrid exchanged nervous nces, realizing the gravity of the situation.
"Let me make myself clear. If House dwrath has taken more than just the artifact, and I have every reason to believe they have, they will face the consequences. I suggest you do not get in my way," Michael said firmly, his voiceced with a quiet but deadly intensity.
Chapter 912 Nightmare In Hell
(After Nightmare''s death)
The people of Michael''s world thought hell was just a figure of speech and did not exist in real life. However, only a few higher-ups in the Skyhall knew that the realm of hell was very true. They knew the realm of Hell was a ce of darkness, despair, and unending suffering. From the perspective of someone who found themselves in this ursed ce, it was an unimaginable nightmare.
Thendscape was barren and deste, devoid of any signs of life or beauty. The ground was rough and jagged, littered with sharp rocks and broken bones. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur, ash, and decay, making it difficult to breathe.
In the distance, the skies were dark and foreboding, with ck clouds swirling and lightning shing in every direction. There was no sun or moon or natural light to guide one''s way. Instead, the only light came from the flickering mes that rose up from the moltenva rivers that ran through the realm.
As one moved through the realm, they encountered various forms of torment and torture. Servants of hell and other malevolent beings lurking in the shadows, eager to inflict pain and suffering on the hapless souls who had been damned to Hell. The screams and cries of the damned could be heard echoing through the darkness, a constant reminder of the misery that awaited those who dared to enter this realm.
In Hell, there was no escape, no respite from the unrelenting agony that one was forced to endure. It was a ce of eternal suffering, where the tormented souls were trapped forever, unable to find peace or rest. It was a ce that one would do well to avoid, lest they found themselves lost in the darkness, doomed to suffer for all eternity.
At the center of hell was the castle of the ruler of Hell was built in the center of a lone mountain, surrounded by jagged peaks and a moat of boilingva. It was a massive, foreboding structure with ck stone walls that reached up toward the dark, stormy sky. The gates were made of iron and adorned with twisted demonic faces, and the courtyard was filled with strange, otherworldly creatures. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur, and the sound of screams echoed from within the castle''s walls. It was a ce of eternal darkness and despair, where only the bravest or most foolish would dare to enter.
Suddenly, a luminous orb materialized in the sky and drifted toward the castle. As the ball of light floated through the castle''s halls, its illumination revealed a macabre and foreboding atmosphere. The walls were lined with skulls and bones of all shapes and sizes, arranged in twisted patterns. The floors were slick with blood and littered with the remains of the tortured souls who had met their gruesome fates within these walls.
The air was heavy with the stench of decay and sulfur, and the flickering torches cast eerie shadows on the walls, making it seem like the castle was alive with malevolent spirits. The sound of dripping blood echoed through the hallways, and the asional moan or scream of agony could be heard in the distance. Clearly, this was no ordinary castle but a ce of unspeakable darkness and horror, ruled by an entity of unfathomable power and malice.
The atmosphere grew even more sinister as the ball of light approached the throne hall. The walls were adorned with grotesque tapestries depicting scenes of torture and suffering, and the throne Finally, it reached the throne hall, casting an eerie light on the ruler of hell as he sat upon his throne, which itself was carved from ckened bones and adorned with the skulls of defeated enemies
"Where am I?" a gentle voice sounded from the ball of light.
As the gentle voice sounded from the ball of light, it echoed through the throne hall. Suddenly, a peal of devilishughter erupted, filling the room with a menacing aura.
Theughter came from the ruler of Hell himself, who had appeared before the ball of light. He stood tall, with jet-ck skin and three zing eyes on his face that pierced through the darkness. His four muscr arms hung by his side, each one adorned with a different weapon. A set ofrge wings sprouted from his back, twitching with excitement as he surveyed his new guest.
The ruler''s eyes burned with a fierce me, reflecting the fires of the underworld. His face was twisted in a wicked grin, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. He had no nose, but his nostrils red as he breathed in the scent of his new prey. His pointed ears twitched, picking up on every sound in the room.
With a voice that resonated through the entire throne hall, the four-armed man dered, "Wee to the depths of hell!" The room burst into an eerie light as mes flickered and danced, illuminating the man''s imposing form. Suddenly, a burst of mes erupted from every direction, engulfing a small ball of light that hovered in the air.
The voice within the ball of light sounded disoriented as it responded, "Hell?"
The four-armed manughed devilishly as he exined, "When mortals die in the upper realm, the lucky ones simply cease to exist. But the unfortunate souls end up here, in the depths of hell, with me."
The ball of light seemed to tremble as the man continued, "And you, my dear, are one of the most unfortunate of them all." The mes intensified with a flick of his wrist, casting menacing shadows across the room. The air grew thick with the scent of smoke and brimstone as the man towered over the tiny ball of light, ready to unleash the full force of his infernal powers.
As the mes intensified, the ball of light within them flickered and pulsed, almost as if it were alive. The voice within sounded bewildered, unsure of what was happening.
"So, am I still alive?" the voice asked tentatively.
To the surprise of anyone who might find themselves in such a situation, the voice inside the ball of light rejoiced. It was a strange reaction to the hellish surroundings.
"Yes, rejoice with me and pray for your master, the Dark Lord, toe for you," the ruler of hell replied, a wicked gleam in his eye.
The ball of light went silent for a moment as if processing the request. The ruler of hell''s smile grew wider as he waited, anticipation written all over his twisted face.
The voice within the ball of light spoke up, reluctant and unsure. "You know about him?" it asked, referring to Ghost, its friend, and the Dark Lord.
The ruler of hell snickered, his four arms flexing as he took a step closer to the flickering orb. "I know everything," he replied with a sinister chuckle.
Yes, the voice within the ball of light belonged to Nightmare, the dragon who met his untimely demise at the hands of the possessed Noah. But now, Nightmare existed only as a soul, trapped within the confines of the ball of light that had materialized before the ruler of hell.
Nightmare was disoriented and confused, his memories stretching only as far as when Noah plunged a sword through his heart. He had no idea what had transpired since then, but one thing was certain in his mind: he was dead and somehow ended up in hell.
Nightmare quivered with fear as the ruler of hell approached, his three zing eyes glinting with malicious intent. mes flickered and danced, illuminating the ruler of hell''s imposing form as he taunted Nightmare with his eternal suffering.
"You are trapped here, in my realm," the ruler of hell hissed, his voice echoing through the throne hall. "And there is no escape from the torment that awaits you until the Dark Lordes for you,"
Nightmare''s soul writhed in agony as the mes intensified, casting menacing shadows across the room. The air grew thick with smoke and the sounds of screams and agony, and Nightmare knew that he was trapped in this eternal nightmare.
The ruler of hell grinned wickedly, relishing the terror he had instilled in his new prisoner. He knew he hadplete control over Nightmare''s soul and would relish in his suffering for as long as he desired. As Nightmare hung in the bnce, trapped between life and death, he knew he was in for an eternity of pain and suffering in the depths of hell unless Ghost himself ventured into the realm of hell for him.
The agonizing scream of Nightmare echoed through the eerie castle, reverberating off the walls and sending shivers down the spines of all those who heard it. The ruler of hell had been tormenting the dragon''s soul for what seemed like an eternity, reveling in the power he held over his captive prisoner.
But even the ruler of hell grew tired of the dragon''s screams, and he finally relented, allowing Nightmare a brief respite from his endless torture.
"You said you know everything," Nightmare growled, his voiceced with pain and anger. "But if you truly knew who wasing for me, you wouldn''t dare to continue torturing me like this."
"I am counting on his arrival," the ruler of hell growled, his three zing eyes glinting with malicious intent. "He will pay for what he did to me, but this time, I have something he cares about. You, little dragon, are my ticket away from this godforsaken ce."
The ruler of hell''s voice echoed through the throne room, and the very walls seemed to shake with his rage. But despite his ferocious demeanor, there was a hint of desperation in his words. He had spent countless eons trapped in the depths of hell, cut off from his homeworld and everyone he had ever known. And now, finally, he saw a way out.
For the ruler of hell, the prospect of returning to his homeworld and seeking revenge on those who had banished him was almost too good to be true. He had lost track of how many thousands of years he had spent in hell, but now, he finally had a chance to escape and unleash his wrath on those who had wronged him.
Nightmare''s soul quivered with fear as the ruler of hell loomed over him, his four muscr arms adorned with deadly weapons. The air grew thick with the stench of sulfur and brimstone, and the mes flickered and danced around them, casting eerie shadows on the walls.
But even in the face of such overwhelming terror, Nightmare refused to back down. He knew that Ghost wasing for him and would do everything in his power to ensure that his master arrived in time to save him.
As the ruler of hellughed maniacally, reveling in his newfound power, Nightmare steeled himself for the torture toe. With a fierce determination burning within him, Nightmare waited for the arrival of Ghost, knowing that only he had the power to defeat the ruler of hell and set him free from his eternal torment.
Chapter 913 Pay With Blood
The grand hall was filled with an aura of anticipation as the three great ns of the Sea Folk realm, House Halrid, House Bigmag, and House dwrath, gathered to attend the trial bybat. Michael, the Dark Lord, stood at the center of the hall, his presencemanding and intimidating. He patiently waited for the final group to arrive, eager to see who dared to take the spirit child from his realm.
Suddenly, the space around him distorted once again, and a swirling vortex appeared. Out of the portal stepped a group of mermons, their golden robes shimmering in the light. Their arrogant eyes scanned the hall, exuding an air of superiority that made even the most powerful cultivators in the room feel small. But when their eyesnded on Michael, their expressions shifted to one of stunned disbelief.
Gruzal, the man leading the group, was the only one who maintained hisposure. He had anticipated the Dark Lord''s arrival and had prepared himself ordingly. The mermons floated above the ground, their eyes fixed on the human before them. Michael, in turn, took a step forward, his expression unreadable but his eyes burning with a dangerous fire.
As Gormak''s group and Valen''s group made way for the Dark Lord, the tension in the hall grew even thicker. Everyone could feel the animosity between the two forces as they met in the center of the room, their gazes locked in a fierce staring contest. Michael''s killing intent was palpable, and the mermons could not help but feel a twinge of fear.
The silence was deafening as the two faced off. The fate of the two proud houses hung in the bnce, and all eyes were on them. The atmosphere was thick with anticipation as if a single word or action could ignite the spark that would set the entire realm aze.
For a moment, time stood still. The mermons and the Dark Lord were like two opposing forces, ready to collide at any moment. But then, Gruzal broke the silence, his voice ringing out across the hall.
"So they stooped low enough to bring the Dark Lord into our world," Gruzal snickered. His tone was even and unwavering. Michael did not reply, but the look in his eyes said it all.
The tension in the room reached its peak, and everyone held their breath, waiting for the inevitable sh between the mermons and the Dark Lord.
As Michael took a single step forward, the tension in the hall became palpable. All the other mermons, who were poised to defend themselves, suddenly found themselves frozen in ce, their eyes fixed on the Dark Lord. Gllelus, Gruzal''s best friend, stepped forward to stand beside him, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of the sword dangling at his waist.
But Gruzal did not flinch. He stood his ground, his piercing gaze locked with Michael''s. A sense of eerie calm surrounded him as if he had anticipated the Dark Lord''s arrival all along.
Michael leaned forward slightly, his eyes burning with an intense killing intent that could make even the bravest warrior shudder. The mermons'' apprehension was palpable as they tensed up, ready for whatever was toe.
"Once I am done with the trial, you will face my trial, and I will be your executioner," Michael''s words were spoken with a chilling calmness that belied the danger that he posed.
The darkness in the hall seemed to intensify for a moment, causing the mermons to shift uneasily on their feet. There was a deafening silence for a few seconds as Michael and Gruzal continued to stare at each other, their eyes locked in a battle of wills.
Finally, Gruzal spoke, his voiceced with a confidence that seemed toe from somewhere deep within. "I have been waiting for this day, Dark Lord," he said, his words dripping with a venomous sarcasm that sent shivers down the spines of the other mermons.
Gruzal''s gaze never wavered as he continued to stare at Michael. It was as if he was daring the Dark Lord to try and make a move against him. The tension in the hall was thick enough to cut with a knife, and everyone present knew that something significant was about to happen.
Michael chuckled after hearing Gruzal. The air crackled with tension as Michael''sughter filled the hall, sending chills down the spine of everyone present. The darkness swirled around him like a living entity, its malevolent energy amplifying the Dark Lord''s already overwhelming power. Mutrad, who once thought he had witnessed the full extent of Michael''s might, knew Gruzal had made an enemy he shouldn''t have. In Valen''s eyes, the power the Dark Lord possessed was a power beyondprehension, beyond the limits of what a mere mortal could possess.
A cold, deadly calmness took over as Michael''sughter died down. His eyes gleamed with a fiery intensity as he fixed his gaze on the enemy who dared to take something precious from him.
"You took something precious from me but forgot one important detail. I am the Dark Lord and those who cross me never live to regret it," Michael''s voice was like the sound of ice cracking, sharp and deadly.
The atmosphere in the hall turned even darker, as if the very air had turned to stone. Even the bravest of hearts trembled in fear at the Dark Lord''s wrath. Michael''s power surged, reaching heights no one had ever witnessed. Some of the mermons who had thought they had seeded in their mission now knew that they had awoken a sleeping dragon, and they would pay dearly for it.
At that moment, Mutrad saw the Dark Lord''s power reach the Half Celestial stage, passing Gruzal''s Immortal level 10 cultivation.
As the tension in the hall reached its peak, a voice that dripped with authority boomed, echoing through the grand space. Michael looked up to see figures materializing before each of the eight thrones on the elevated tform.
"We will see how you dare to raise a finger against one of the proud sea folk,"
"The elders,'' Mutrad mumbled, seeing the elders appear before the thrones one by one. Their presence exuded power and dominance, and their gazes were fixed on Michael with an intensity that made the Mutrad''s skin crawl. Clearly, these sea folk took great pride in their heritage, and they weren''t going to let anyone, even the Dark Lord, harm one of their own. Each of them was at the Immortal stage level 10, but their auras were far stronger than the aura radiating from Gruzal.
The eight elders were an imposing sight, consisting of three Mermons, three Wraiths, and two Earthens. Their eyes were fixated on Michael and the others, and their expressions were unreadable.
The members of House Bigmag and House Halrid turned their gazes toward the elders, their bodies tensing up in fear. Valen shivered at the thought of asking the Dark Lord''s help and how the elders would react. Though they hadn''t broken any rules orws by asking the Dark Lord to represent them in the trial bybat, they feared the wrath of the elders and hoped they wouldn''t receive any punishment.
The tension in the hall was thick enough to cut with a knife as everyone waited for the elders'' response.
Michael took a calcted step back, his eyes fixed on the elevated tform where the eight elders sat in their respective thrones. He was expecting a response from them, but what he didn''t expect was their gazes turning towards Valen and Gormak, who had asked for the Dark Lord''s help in the trial bybat.
The elders knew that the duo had not vited anyws or rules, but their anger was evident as their eyes zed with fury. They were ashamed that their own descendants had lost their precious artifacts and had to resort to seeking help from the feared Dark Lord.
The tension in the hall was palpable, and Michael could feel it crackling in the air. The elders'' anger was a living, breathing thing that threatened to engulf the entire room. Michael stood tall, unflinching in the face of their wrath, his eyes zing with a power that surpassed anything the elders had ever seen before.
It was a silent standoff, each side sizing up the other, the stakes high and the consequences of their actions potentially dire. For a moment, no one moved, and the only sound that could be heard was the beating of their hearts.
Finally, one of the Mermon elders spoke up, his voice carrying the weight of centuries of tradition and power.
The mermon elder spoke with a voice dripping with disdain and disappointment. "It is a shameful thing to witness two houses, who were tasked with protecting the artifacts for thousands of years, lose them under their watch. We will not entertain any excuses, no matter how one tries to spin it. Losing the artifacts is not just a mark of shame, it is a sign of weakness,"
The Wraith elder''s piercing gaze scanned the room before settling on Gormak and Mutrad. "And on top of losing the artifacts your ancestors protected for centuries, you have the audacity to invite the Dark Lord into our world, despite knowing the prophecies and the stories of his atrocities," he said in a voice filled with disdain.
Gruzal''s eyes gleamed with a hidden sense of pleasure as he watched the elders verballysh out at the leaders of his rival houses. He knew that Valen and Gormak had thought bringing in the Dark Lord was a smart move, but they were unaware of the elders'' power to change the rules of the trial bybat. Gruzal relished in their downfall and waited to see what fate the elders would bestow upon them.
One of the Wraith elders spoke with a kind yet stern voice, "There are some actions that one should refrain from, even if they do not vite anyws or rules. Your decision to seek the Dark Lord''s aid in this matter is ill-advised and could have dire consequences for our world."
He paused for a moment and continued, "We must hear your reasoning for this choice. Why did you seek the help of the Dark Lord instead of relying on the strongest warriors from your own houses?"
The elder gave Valen and Gormak an opportunity to exin themselves, showing a willingness to listen before making any judgments.
Valen stepped forward and lifted his head to meet the elders'' gazes.
"I will not make any excuses for the loss of our artifact," he began. "But we did not anticipate that a powerful ritual would be conducted using the blood of a spirit child to break the array that protected our artifacts."
Valen''s words were like a sudden bolt of lightning that struck the elders, leaving them momentarily stunned. The mermon elder''s face was etched with a deep frown, his eyes narrow with suspicion.
"What proof do you have to support this allegation, Gormak?" asked the elder, his voiceced with skepticism.
Gormak stood tall and confident as he answered, "Once we retrieve our artifacts, I will use the artifact of House Bigmag. If someone had used the blood of a spirit child, our artifact would find the spirit child."
The elders exchanged uncertain nces, their minds racing as they considered the implications of Gormak''s statement.
"But that doesn''t exin why you felt the need to invite the Dark Lord to our world," another elder, a Wraith, spoke up.
Before Gormak could answer, Michael stepped forward with a chilling deration, "Because the spirit child was taken away from his home by one of your people,"
The room fell silent as the weight of Michael''s words settled upon them. The tension in the air was palpable as the elders grappled with the severity of the situation.
"What proof do you have for that im?" the mermon elder snarled, his eyes fixed on Michael, who stood with a calm expression.
"Proof?" Michael''s voice was low and dangerous, his eyes zing with a fierce intensity. "I don''t need proof. I will find the one who took the spirit child and make them pay with their blood and the blood of anyone who dared to stand with them. The water will turn red with their blood, and their screams will echo through history for eternity."
Chapter 914 Twenty Million Experience Points
A sense of unease pervaded the hall as the elders contemted the Dark Lord''s chilling warning. They knew that they were no match for his power, and their limited options left them feeling vulnerable and exposed.
The three great halls of the Water God, Sea Serpent, and Arctic were known for their peaceful ways, which kept them strong and united. They despised war and conflict, knowing that any disturbance in their realm would have far-reaching consequences. And yet, if the Dark Lord were to attack them, they would have no choice but to defend themselves.
They knew that if they managed to defeat the Dark Lord, it woulde at a great cost to their power and influence. But if they didn''t fight, they would be seen as weak and vulnerable, and other factions might take advantage of their perceived weakness.
The elders exchanged uneasy nces, each silently acknowledging the gravity of the situation. They were treading on dangerous ground, and the oue was uncertain. Yet, they had no choice but to stand up to the Dark Lord and defend their honor and their people.
As the tension in the hall mounted, the elders steeled themselves for the inevitable confrontation, bracing for the worst yet hoping for the best. The fate of their world hung in the bnce, and they knew that they could not afford to fail.
"Impatience flickered in Michael''s eyes as he awaited the elders to exin the rules andws of the trial bybat. He was anxious to retrieve Harry and use the artifact of House Bigmag to locate him.
The elders exchanged worried nces before the mermon elder cleared his throat and began. "Following are the rules of this trial bybat. The House of dwrath has ced their artifact in the ocean behind us," he gestured towards the shimmering waters behind them, separated by a ss wall.
"To win the trial and retrieve the lost artifacts, the challenged - the Dark Lord - must move through the sea and take the artifact of the House of dwrath. However, the challenged is restricted to using only three spells: one for speed, one for defense, and one for attack," the elder finished, watching the faces of the participants.
Valen, Mutrad, and House Bigmag looked surprised as they had not anticipated such limitations for the challenged. Michael remainedposed, understanding that the restriction on spells was not a significant obstacle for him.
"The rules are clear, and the elders can dictate the battlefield and the challenged," the mermon elder spoke with finality, silencing any objections.
The Wraith elder stepped forward to add, "Once you move into the waters, the cultivation level of all beings in the water will be suppressed to the Half Immortal stage." It was a standard rule, but Michael was not affected. He had faith in his powers and knew that three spells were enough to defeat any opponent.
Valen and the others exchanged apprehensive nces. They knew the elders had punished them by making the trial even more difficult, but they could not question the decision. The consequences of doing so were dire.
Michael''s eyes glinted with determination as he stepped toward the ss wall separating him from the ocean. "Let''s get this over with. I don''t have much patience," he spoke with a hint of annoyance, eager to retrieve Harry.
The elders nodded in agreement and simultaneously raised their hands in the air. In that moment, a vortex appeared before the ss wall, and Michael knew it was time to make his move. With a swift motion, he willed the APD to inject a pill that would enable him to breathe underwater directly into his bloodstream.
As the tingling sensation spread throughout his body, Michael''s back began to feel like it was on fire. Suddenly, gills appeared behind his ears, and skin grew between his fingers, enabling him to move through the water with the grace and speed of a fish.
The sight was nothing short of awe-inspiring, as Michael''s form seemed to blur as he dived into the vortex and into the deep blue sea beyond. The elders watched in silent awe, knowing that they had just sent one of the most dangerous beings in their realm into a battle that would surely test his limits.
After Michael disappeared into the swirling waters, the elders turned to each other with tense expressions. When Michael swam deeper into the ocean, the pressure increased, and his ears started ringing. It was like the ocean was trying to crush him with its immense weight. However, he refused to let the pressure get the best of him. His gills worked like a charm, and he was able to breathe without any trouble.
He noticed that the water was devoid of any signs of life as he swam further. It was as if the ocean had been stripped of its inhabitants. The eerie silence was broken only by the sound of his heartbeat. The anticipation in the hall was palpable as everyone watched Michael''s progress with bated breath. The mermon elder whispered to the other elders, "Do you think the Dark Lord will seed?"
Michael continued to swim further and further, scanning his surroundings for any signs of the artifact. The ocean was vast, and he knew that he had a long way to go. The thought of Harry''s fate drove him forward.
As Michael approached the shimmering artifact, he noticed a group of Half Immortals lurking in the shadows, waiting to ambush him. Using his environmental scanning ability, Michael identified the presence of twenty Half Immortals and something far more powerful than them lurking in the dark waters around the artifact.
Upon getting closer to the artifact, Michael observed it was in the shape of a triangle with a golden sun built inside, pulsating with powerful energy. However, his attention was swiftly drawn to the entity lurking in the shadows, which he sensed was the guardian of the artifact, the one Mutrad had warned him about.
Despite the danger, Michael remainedposed and prepared to face whatevery ahead. His X-ray vision allowed him to see through the darkness and anticipate the attacks of the Half Immortals.
Michael halted in his tracks and unsheathed his dark swords. The des crackled with red lightning, illuminating the surrounding water with an eerie glow. Without any warning, Michael dashed towards a lurking Half Immortal with lightning-fast speed, using his Lightning Dash technique. His figure blurred as he moved through the water like a bolt of lightning.
The Half Immortal was caught off guard and paid the ultimate price, losing its head to Michael''s swift strike. The water around them turned from a serene blue to a violent red, stained with the Half Immortal''s blood. The other Half Immortals lurking in the shadows quickly realized that Michael had sensed their ambush and was prepared to defend himself.
Feeling the weight of their guardian''s protection, the Half Immortals summoned their cultivation techniques, each unleashing their own unique powers. Despite the overwhelming odds, Michael remained calm and focused, his eyes locked on the pulsating artifact. He knew that the guardian was still lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. But first, he had to take out these pesky Half immortals.
Michael could feel the water around him churning as the Half Immortals began to unleash their spells. The first one shot a powerful water st towards Michael, who managed to dodge it by quickly moving to the side. As he did so, the water around him rippled, creating a whirlpool.
Another Half Immortal created a bubble around Michael, trapping him inside only to see Michael cut the bubble like it was nothing using his dark swords..
Meanwhile, the third Half Immortal casts a spell that created a powerful gust of wind, pushing Michael back. Michael managed to keep his footing, but the wind was so strong that it almost knocked him off bnce for a moment.
The fourth Half Immortal shot a beam of light towards Michael, which he barely managed to block with his dark swords. The light was blinding, and Michael had to close his eyes for a moment.
Michael could feel the pressure building up around him as more and more Half Immortals joined the battle.
The Half Immortals were relentless in their attacks, but Michael remained focused and prepared to strike back. His eyes turned pitch ck, and dark energy began to emanate from his body. Suddenly, dark beams shot out from his eyes, prating through the chest of a Half Immortal and leaving a gaping hole. The half-immortal with a gaping hole in his chest writhed in agony as Michael''s attack spell hit him. He tried to react, but Michael dashed at him before he could, his dark sword cutting through the water like a hot knife through butter. In one swift motion, Michael cleaved the half immortal''s head clean off his shoulders. Blood spurted out in all directions, turning the water around them into a crimson red.
The other Half Immortals paused their attacks for a moment and looked at Michael in awe and fear. His devilish grin and the way he crushed the head with his bare hand to a pulp sent shivers down their spines. They knew then that they were facing a truly formidable opponent, one who had no qualms about taking their lives.
But the battle was far from over. The remaining Half Immortals, emboldened by their numbers,unched a coordinated attack on Michael. Spells of lightning and fire shot toward him, but Michael was too quick for them. He deflected them with his dark swords, sending them back at his attackers.
The water around them churned and boiled with the intensity of the battle, and Michael''s eyes burned with a fierce determination. Michael increased his speed after taking out the Half Immortal and pushed himself to the limit. The other Half Immortals could barely see him as he moved like a blur through the water. They continued to bombard him with spells, but Michael''s responsive shield absorbed the attacks and his godly body protected him from any direct hits.
Although some spells managed to graze Michael, they were nowhere close to slowing him down. His eyes glinted with excitement as he darted between the Half Immortals, his dark swords shing in the water. The Half Immortals grew more and more desperate, realizing that their spells were no match for Michael''s power.
But Michael knew that he could not let his guard down. One wrong move could mean his demise. He remained alert and focused, anticipating their attacks and dodging with lightning-fast reflexes. The water around them turned red with the blood of the fallen Half Immortals, a testament to Michael''s power and skill in battle.
Michael was aware that the Half Immortals were weaker than him, but he refused to underestimate them. His seemingly calm and careless demeanor hid the fact that he waspletely focused on the battle. Michael moved through the water, shooting dark beams out of his eyes and swinging his dark swords with deadly precision. He anticipated their spells and moved like a bolt of lightning before the spells could hit him, cleaving their heads off one by one.
Despite his strength, Michael didn''t let his guard down. He knew that even the weakest Half Immortal could be deadly if given the opportunity. He was like a shark in a feeding frenzy, moving through the water with deadly grace and speed. The water around them turned red with the blood of the Half Immortals as Michael continued his assault. He seemed unstoppable, taking out one after the other with ease. But even as the battle raged on, Michael remained focused, never once letting his guard down.
Valen and the others were watching the battle from the ss wall with bated breath. They gasped and murmured among themselves as they saw Michael take out one Half Immortal after another.
Gormak was equally shocked but also impressed. "He''s much more powerful than we anticipated," he said, his voice filled with admiration.
Valen nodded in agreement. "He''s like a force of nature," he said, his eyes fixed on Michael''s figure as he moved through the water with deadly precision.
The elders looked on with mixed emotions, impressed by Michael''s power but also concerned about the repercussions of the trial. "This trial may have consequences beyond what we anticipated," said the mermon elder with a furrowed brow.
But Michael continued his onught, determined to retrieve the artifact and find Harry. His dark swords glinted in the water as he moved, a blur of power and precision. The Half Immortals had no chance against him.
Chapter 915 Fighting A Giant Underwater
With the water around him now stained red from the blood of the defeated Half Immortals, Michael approached the shimmering artifact of House dwrath with caution. He knew that the guardian of the artifact was lurking somewhere in the dark waters and he remained alert for any sign of movement.
As Michael drew closer to the artifact, he felt the temperature of the water rising and strong ripples in the water around him. Suddenly, a giant eye opened in the water, staring directly at Michael. The eye was enormous, easily several timesrger than Michael himself. Its pupil was an eerie shade of green that seemed to glow in the dark water.
The creature that possessed the eye was massive, its size almost impossible toprehend. Its body was covered in scales that shimmered in the dim light. Its snakelike body stretched out for what seemed like miles, and its massive tail whipped through the water with immense power. Its jaws were lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth, ready to tear apart anything that dared to challenge it.
As Michael stood in front of the creature, he felt a sense of dread wash over him. He had never seen anything like this before, and he knew that he was no match for it in terms of size and brute strength. But he remained focused, knowing he hade too far to back down.
The giant belonged to the rare and powerful race of giants in the sea realm. They were considered the most powerful race and the first to inhabit the deep oceans. ording to ancient scripts, all the other races in the sea realm had descended from them.
When the giant guardian noticed Michael trying to take the artifact, it didn''t attack him immediately. Instead, it let out a deafening roar, creating giant waves in the water. The warning clearly indicated the creature''s intelligence, and Michael knew that the guardian was not to be underestimated. If it had been a mindless creature, it would have attacked him already.
For a few moments, Michael remained still, his eyes locked onto the giant creature. Despite its size, Michael didn''t feel intimidated. He sensed a strange power emanating from the giant, and he knew that it could break out of the array if it wanted to.
Finally, Michael spoke up. "I am going to take this artifact. Back off," he warned the creature, his voice steady and unwavering.
The giant let out another deafening roar, creating more waves in the water. Michael stood his ground, ready to face whatever the creature had in store for him. The other elders and their entourages watched in awe and fear, wondering what would happen next.
Time seemed to slow down as Michael cautiously extended his hand toward the artifact. But the moment his fingers made contact, the giant roared with fury, unleashing a powerful force that sent Michael hurtling backward through the water. The impact caused intense vibrations that rattled his inner organs and he coughed up blood. With a fierce determination, Michael willed the APD to inject a healing potion into his body, determined not to let this setback defeat him.
"So you choose violence," Michael''s voice echoed through the ocean, a challenge in his tone. Despite the overwhelming power of the giant, Michael refused to back down.
The giant remained silent for a few moments, its massive eye locked onto Michael''s smaller form. As Michael looked up at the giant creature, he felt a sense of awe and fear overwhelm him. The creature was easily ten times the size of a blue whale, thergest animal in the world. Its skin was a deep shade of ck and had a rough texture, with several protruding spikes along its back. Its eyes were bright red, with slitted pupils that seemed to bore into Michael''s soul.
The creature moved with a fluid grace that belied its enormous size. Each time it moved, it created massive ripples in the water, sending smaller sea creatures scurrying away in fear. As it roared, the water around it seemed to vibrate with a powerful force that threatened to knock Michael off his feet.
As the giant creature moved toward Michael, the people in the hall watched in awe and terror. They had never seen anything like it before.
Valen and the other members of House Bigmag were particrly shocked by the size and power of the giant. "What kind of creature is that?" Valen muttered under his breath.
The sight of the giant creature sent a shiver down the spines of those in the hall. Even House Bigmag and House Halrid, who had their own giant guardians, were awestruck by the sheer size of the creature before them. Its immense body was unlike anything they had ever seen, and the way it moved through the water sent ripples throughout the ocean.
Michael remained still, his mind racing as he formed a n to defeat the giant guardian. The scales and body of the creature looked too tough to be prated by a single shot of his dark beams. He was curious to see what effect his dark swords would have when he tried to cut the giant creature.
Despite its monstrous size, the giant guardian was incredibly agile and fast. In the blink of an eye, it closed the gap between them and opened its massive jaws. The sight of the giant''s razor-sharp teeth caused a ripple of fear to spread through the spectators in the hall.
Valen, Mutrad, and the others watched with bated breath, their hearts racing as they witnessed the battle unfold before their eyes.
"Can he defeat that thing?" Valen asked, his voiceced with uncertainty.
"I don''t know," Mutrad replied, his eyes fixed on the giant guardian. "But if anyone can do it, it''s him."
The tension in the hall was palpable as Michael stood his ground, waiting for the creature to make a move.
The spectators, except House dwrath in the hall may have feared and hated the Dark Lord, but they couldn''t help but root for him in the battle against the monstrous giant. They knew that the fate of their houses depended on his victory in the trial.
Meanwhile, Michael remained focused on the task at hand, his two swords clutched tightly in his hands. As the giant creature opened its massive jaw, Michael quickly dodged out of the way, narrowly avoiding being swallowed whole by the beast.
The giant was incredibly agile and fast, despite its massive size, and Michael knew that he couldn''t afford to let his guard down for even a moment. He darted through the water, his dark swords at the ready, searching for a weakness in the creature''s defenses.
The giant creature seemed to rely solely on its massive size and brute strength,cking any ability to cast spells. But its sheer size was already a huge advantage, and Michael knew he was in a tough battle. When he dodged the creature''s jaw, it simply swung its spiked tail and sent Michael hurtling through the water. The spikes prated Michael''s skin, causing intense pain, but he did not show any fear. Instead, he felt a rush of excitement at the prospect of facing such a massive creature underwater.
Despite the pain, Michael quickly regained hisposure and assessed his options. His dark beams had proved ineffective against the giant creature''s tough scales, but he still had one weapon left to try: his dark swords. Without hesitation, Michael charged at the creature with his swords at the ready. The creature swung its tail again, but Michael was ready this time. He skillfully dodged the spikes and sliced at the creature''s scales with his swords.
To Michael''s surprise, the dark swords were able to prate the creature''s tough hide. The giant creature roared in pain as Michael continued to sh at it, causing deep wounds. The water around them turned red as the creature bled profusely. The people in the hall were on the edge of their seats as they watched the intense battle unfold. The sound of shing swords and roaring echoed through the water, adding to the drama of the scene. Some of them were amazed at Michael''s skill and courage, while others were terrified by the sheer size and power of the giant creature.
Michael''s dark swords cut deep with each sh, leaving marks on the giant guardian''s body. But even with his strength and skill, the cuts seemed insignificantpared to the creature''s massive size. Despite this, Michael did not give up and continued to fight with all his might. On his tenth strike, the giant creature let out a deafening roar and swung its body, hitting Michael with tremendous force and sending him hurtling through the water once again.
This time, the creature did not give Michael any chance to recover. It let out a series of powerful roars, sending shockwaves through the water and hitting Michael with incredible force. The impact was like being hit by a freight train, causing Michael to cough up blood and feel immense pain throughout his body. Despite this, he did not let go of his swords and remained determined to defeat the giant creature.
With lightning-fast reflexes, Michael managed to dodge the giant creature''s attacks, but the creature was relentless in its pursuit. Suddenly, the creature increased its speed, moving with astonishing agility and appearing before Michael in the blink of an eye. Michael tried to dodge out of the way, but it was toote. The giant opened its massive jaws, ready to snap Michael up in its mouth.
But Michael was not one to give up without a fight. With fierce determination, he plunged his dark sword into the creature''s upper jaw and used his raw brute strength to keep the creature from closing its mouthpletely. The creature roared in pain and anger, thrashing about in the water and trying to shake Michael off.
Despite the danger, Michael remained focused and held on tight to his sword, gritting his teeth as he struggled to keep the creature''s jaws open. He knew that one wrong move could mean the end for him, but he refused to give up.
"Arggh!"
With a burst of adrenaline, Michael summoned all his strength and pushed the creature back, managing to free himself from its deadly grip. Breathless and battered, Michael knew that the battle was far from over. But he was ready to face whatevery ahead.
Chapter 916 Michael Meets Harry
Michael''s fate seemed sealed as the giant creature finally managed to close its massive jaws, enclosing him within. The onlookers in the hall were stunned and a hush fell over the room as they watched in horror. Members of House dwrath, including Gellus and Gruzal, wickedly smiled, thinking that the Dark Lord''s body would be melted inside the giant''s acid stomach. House Bigmag and House Halrid looked pale and shivered at the thought of losing the trial bybat and being exiled from the Arctic Hall.
But suddenly, the giant creature roared in pain. Its belly radiated a dim glow and started to churn, as if something inside it was fighting back. The creature''s roar sounded more like a cry of agony than one of anger.
The members of House dwrath were bewildered, while House Bigmag and House Halrid watched in amazement as the giant creature''s belly began to bulge and change shape.
The giant creature started to swim around the artifact in a frenzy, barrel-rolling and thrashing about wildly. Suddenly, it stopped moving and opened its jaw for a long, piercing howl. The water around them vibrated with the force of the sound waves. Then, to everyone''s shock, Michael shot right out of the giant''s mouth, covered in red goo and blood from the creature''s insides.
As soon as Michael escaped the giant''s belly, he and the creature locked eyes, as ifmunicating wordlessly. Mutrad watched in awe, wondering what kind of unspoken message was being exchanged between them.
But the surprise wasn''t over yet. Instead of attacking Michael or trying to reim the artifact, the giant creature swam away from it, leaving Michael to im it without resistance. This sight shocked House dwrath and left the elders confused and speechless.
Meanwhile, Michael wasted no time and quickly swam toward the artifact. As soon as he touched it, the artifact vibrated in his hand and then, to everyone''s amazement, two more artifacts materialized in the water beside him. One was a scepter made of emerald and decorated with rubies and other gems, while the other was a mysterious, icy-blue metal orb with no visible designs or markings.
The elders and members of the Arctic Hall were left in utter shock at the sight of the Dark Lord''s victory over the giant guardian. They had never seen such a fierce battle before and the fact that Michael emerged victorious over such a massive creature was truly astonishing. The shock on their faces was evident as they stared at Michael,pletely speechless.
"Unbelievable," muttered one of the elders under his breath.
"I''ve never seen anything like this before," said another, his eyes wide with disbelief.
But the biggest shock came when the giant, instead of protecting the artifact, simply swam away. The members of House dwrath werepletely confused, and the elders were at a loss for words.
"Why did the giant leave the artifact?" asked one of the elders, breaking the stunned silence that had filled the hall.
"I don''t know," replied another, shaking his head in disbelief. "But it must have had a good reason."
The mysterious reason behind the giant''s departure left everyone in the hall with more questions than answers. The atmosphere was filled with a sense of confusion and wonder as they tried to make sense of what had just happened.
As Michael appeared in the hall with the three artifacts, the members of House dwrath, except Gruzal, looked stunned and confused. They had lost their own artifact, yet their leader, Gruzal, did not show any sign of shock. Instead, he remained calm andposed as if he had expected this oue.
The others in the hall noticed his reaction and began to frown and murmur to each other. They could not understand how their leader could be soposed in the face of such a devastating loss. One of the members from House Halrid whispered, "How can he be so calm? They just lost their artifact."
Another member from House Bigmag added, "Maybe he had a backup n? This seems fishy."
As Michael held the three artifacts in his hands, he turned to face the elders, who were visibly stunned by his victory over the giant guardian. A mixture of shock and admiration filled the hall as the Dark Lord stared at them with a calm expression. The elders quickly regained theirposure and flicked their wrists, causing a spatial vortex to appear before Michael.
Without hesitation, Michael stepped into the vortex and disappeared, leaving the elders to discuss his triumph in hushed tones. The other houses in the Arctic Hall were equally stunned by Michael''s victory and the appearance of the artifacts. Some whispered in fear and others in awe, as they wondered what this meant for the uing trial.
As for Michael, he reappeared in the hall, holding the artifacts tightly in his hands. The emerald scepter and icy blue metal orb radiated with a powerful energy that filled the room. Michael''s dark swords were also pulsating with a red lightning bolt energy, which caused some of the weaker members in the room to back away.
The silence was broken by Valen''s voice, who spoke in a tone filled with reverence and relief. "The Dark Lord has emerged victorious, and with the artifacts in his possession, he is the winner of the trial bybat," The room erupted with murmurs of agreement and admiration as they watched Michael with a mixture of fear and respect.
Michael stood tall andposed in the center of the room, his eyes scanning the faces of the gathered elders. His expression remained unreadable, but there was a glint of satisfaction in his gaze as he locked eyes with Gruzal, who couldn''t help but shiver under his intense scrutiny. Michael''s calm demeanor was a stark contrast to the tense atmosphere in the hall, with everyone on edge waiting for the oue of the trial.
Without a word, Michael handed over the three artifacts to the merman elder, who took them with a nod of acknowledgment. The members of House Bigmag and House Halrid moved closer, their eyes fixed on the artifacts with anticipation. Meanwhile, Gruzal couldn''t help but feel a sense of dread wash over him. He knew they had made an enemy out of the Dark Lord for nothing and it was clear that they would face the wrath of the Dark Lord one way or another.
As the elders verified the authenticity of the artifacts, the tension in the room reached its peak. The silence was deafening as everyone waited for the verdict. Finally, the merman elder nodded in confirmation and handed the artifacts back to Michael.
The members of House Bigmag and House Halrid breathed a collective sigh of relief and made their way to the elders to begin their end of the bargain. Meanwhile, Gruzal and the other members of House dwrath stood frozen, unsure of what to do next.
The atmosphere in the Arctic Hall was tense as the mermon elder spoke. "House Bigmag and House Halrid have won the trial bybat," he dered. "Their artifact will be returned to them. I hope this time they will be able to protect it and avoid seeking the Dark Lord''s help." His displeasure with the two houses seeking the Dark Lord''s help was evident.
The mermon elder then turned his attention to Gruzal, the leader of House dwrath. He knew that the disappearance of the artifacts was connected to a ritual that involved using a spirit child''s blood. Although House Bigmag and House Halrid didn''t directly use House dwrath of kidnapping the spirit child and using its blood for the ritual, the elder could sense the implication. After all, how else could House dwrath havee into possession of the artifacts and challenge the other two houses to a trial bybat?
"If House dwrath really used a spirit child''s blood to steal the artifacts, we will get to the bottom of it," the mermon elder dered firmly. "Their actions have resulted in House Halrid and House Bigmag seeking the Dark Lord''s help. We will not stand for such desperate and reckless behavior."
The other elders nodded in agreement, their expressions stern. The mermon elder continued, "We, the elders of the proud Arctic Hall, will not tolerate such actions. We will find out who is responsible and they will face the consequences of their actions."
Gruzal looked uneasy under the elders'' intense gaze. He knew that House dwrath would be under close scrutiny from now on and that they would have to tread carefully if they wanted to avoid being punished.
Michael paid no attention to the elders and their threats. Instead, he turned his steely gaze towards Valen and Gormak.
"I have fulfilled my end of the bargain. It''s time for you to fulfill yours," Michael said, his tone stern andmanding.
Valen, clearly ufortable in the elders'' presence, quickly suggested they relocate somewhere else. But the elders had other ns.
"No, we would like to see the truth of your ims," said one of the elders firmly.
Michael shot a triumphant look over his shoulder at Gruzal and the members of House dwrath.
"Your little game is about toe to an end," he snickered, relishing in his victory.
Gormak wasted no time and reached out his hand as the icy blue orb floated toward him andnded on his palm.
"Put a drop of your blood on the sphere," Gormak instructed, his eyes fixed on Michael.
Without hesitation, Michael drew the dark sword and sliced his palm, letting the blood drip onto the orb. As soon as the blood touched the surface, the orb lit up with a pulsating glow. The temperature rose steadily until Gormak''s hands started to burn, but he held on tightly to the artifact.
Suddenly, a spatial vortex appeared in the hall, catching everyone''s attention. Michael was taken aback; he thought the orb would only show the location of Harry, not open a portal to his whereabouts.
Michael hesitated to step into the portal, fearing that it might be a trap set by the Dark Lord''s enemies. Instead, he summoned a drone andmanded it to fly through the portal to scout the other side. Mutrad, however, had mixed emotions as he observed the scene. He couldn''t help feeling a sense of awe at the Dark Lord''s power and intelligence but also a hint of fear and unease at the thought of being on his bad side. As Michael finally made his way towards the portal, Mutrad saw a sudden sh of rage and shock in his eyes, as if something had caught him off guard.
The tension in the hall was palpable as everyone waited anxiously to see what the drone would uncover on the other side of the portal.
As Michael stepped out of the portal, the world around him seemed to shift and change. He found himself standing in a grand hall, with high ceilings and few furnishings. In the center of the room, a young woman with ck hair and blue robes was reading a book to a small child who looked to be no more than four or five years old. But as soon as she saw Michael, the book slipped from her grasp and her eyes turned a menacing shade of red. Her fists clenched as she red at the Dark Lord, who stood cold and imposing in front of her.
The child looked up at themotion. Confusion etched on his face as he watched the stranger in front of him. Michael didn''t flinch, even as the woman''s anger radiated off of her like waves. He simply looked at her with a stoic expression, waiting for her to make the first move.
It was none other than Edith Alden, the sister of Lah Alden. Michaelst saw Edith when he killed her best friend, Victoria Barnes. After that incident, Edith disappeared from the face of the world, leaving no trace behind. As Michael stood there, staring at Edith, the child beside her looked up at him curiously. The child was unaware of the tension between Michael and Edith, and his innocent eyes sparkled with curiosity.
As Michael was staring at Edith, the elders and everyone else in the hall stepped out of the portal. The atmosphere in the hall became tense as suddenly, Michael turned around and dashed at Gruzal. With lightning-fast speed, he grabbed him by the cor, mming him against the wall. The other members of House dwrath were shocked and froze in ce as they watched the Dark Lord''s rage. The elders were quick to react, raising their hands to cast spells to stop Michael, but he merely flicked his wrist, sending a shockingly powerful wind st that sent the elders flying.
With a wicked grin on his face, Gruzal taunted Michael, "You wanted to know who took your spirit child? Look no further. She took him."
"You wanted me to see this," Michael hissed, his voice low and dangerous.
Gruzalughed again, enjoying the sight of the Dark Lord losing hisposure. "Yes," he said confidently. "What are you going to do about it, Dark Lord? You cannot kill her,"
Michael''s grip on Gruzal intensified, and he pulled him closer to his face. "I will deal with youter," he growled.
Michael''s eyes were fixed on Edith as he knocked out Gruzal with a single punch to the face. Then, he turned his attention back to Edith and unleashed another wind st, knocking out everyone else in the room, leaving only the child standing before him and Edith.
The child had ck hair that fell in gentle waves around his face, and his skin seemed to glow in the dim light of the room. He had hazel eyes, much like his mother, Lah, and a slight resemnce to Michael, though he looked more like his mother.
"Leaving you alive was a mistake," Michael said in a low and icy tone, causing Harry to feel a sudden wave of fear and confusion wash over him. Despite his young age, Harry could sense the dangerous aura radiating from the stranger before him. He instinctively looked at Edith forfort and reached out to her, gently grabbing her hand with his soft and tiny fingers.
Chapter 917 Fate Of Edith
Harry, despite his young age, stepped forward in front of Edith, standing his ground like a loyal soldier. Under any other circumstances, Michael might have found the child''s courage endearing. But in that moment, he was consumed by rage. Edith had put Harry''s life in danger simply to seek revenge. Michael couldn''t forgive such a reckless act. Ignoring Harrypletely, Michael began to approach Lah.
As Michael advanced, Edith felt a fierce rage coursing through her veins. The memories of Michael''s brutal massacre of her best friend Victoria and her family flooded her mind. Michael had destroyed everything she held dear in a matter of days, tearing apart her entire life. But while the world trembled before the fearsome power of the Dark Lord, Edith refused to back down. Her anger was so intense that it dwarfed any sense of fear.
The others, including the elders, struggled to get back on their feet after being knocked out by the wind st. Some of them mustered their strength and used arch energy to heal their bodies, but their attempts were futile. A ring of mes as dark as midnight suddenly appeared around Michael, enclosing Edith and Harry within. The intense heat of the dark mes kept the others from getting closer to Michael and Edith.
Despite meeting Michael''s eyes filled with cold murderous intent, Edith remained firm, refusing to cower in fear. Her anger burned hotter than the dark mes themselves, fueling her determination to face Michael head-on. The two dark swords on Michael''s back started to tremble as they had a mind of their own. They struggled to fly out of the sheath andnd in Michael''s hands, sensing his overwhelming rage.
In Michael''s anger, he didn''t even bother to check on Harry or even talk to him for the first time in his life. Instead, Michael locked his gaze on Edith, his eyes filled with a cold, menacing intensity that sent shivers down her spine. The air around them crackled with tension, and it was clear that this confrontation was about toe to a violent end.
Michael''s gaze remained fixed on Edith, his eyes glinting with chilling intensity. "You used him to avenge your friend and her family," he said coldly, his voice barely above a whisper.
"What are you going to do? Kill me like you killed all those innocent people?" Edith snickered, turning her attention to Harry, who watched the exchange with wide eyes.
"Did you or did you not know someone was sent to kill your sister?" Michael asked, his voice steady and unwavering. To his surprise, Edith showed no signs of shock or surprise.
"Not everyone''s a murderer like you," Edith replied, her voice dripping with venom.
"Do you know why I didn''t kill you?" Michael asked, his tone as icy as his gaze. He waited for a response, but when none came, he continued. "As much as you annoyed me, you did nothing wrong until you decided to use him to seek revenge against me. I should have known being with that bitch would have corrupted your soul."
The word "bitch" was like a match to a powder keg. Edith''s anger exploded, and she raised her hand to p Michael with all her might. The sound of the p echoed through the hall, making Harry jump in fright. Edith grabbed Michael by his cor and shook him, her eyes zing with fury.
Edith''s voice was thick with rage as she stared defiantly at Michael. Her eyes zed with an intensity that matched the dark mes that surrounded them. "How dare you speak ill of Victoria''s memory! She was a kind andpassionate person, unlike you, a soulless murderer!" she spat out.
Michael''s jaw clenched at her words, his eyes narrowing to slits. "You have no idea what you''re talking about," he hissed.
"Oh, I know exactly what I''m talking about," Edith shot back, her voiceced with venom. "You destroyed everything I loved, and for what? Your sick, twisted sense of justice?"
The air around them crackled with tension, and Harry watched with wide eyes, unsure of what was happening.
Edith stood before them, unafraid and defiant, her eyes zing with a fury that matched Michael''s. "Kill me," she hissed, "and show your son what you really are."
At the sound of those words, Harry''s heart stopped. He looked up at Michael, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. This man, who had been a stranger just moments ago, was his father. The revtion was almost too much to bear, and Harry felt like he was about to be sick. He wanted to run to his father, to feel the safety of his embrace, but the fear that gripped him was stronger.
Michael turned to look at his son, and the cold, murderous intent that had been radiating from him seemed to dissipate slightly. He could see the fear in Harry''s eyes, the confusion and the pain, which was like a punch to the gut. How could he exin to his son that he was the Dark Lord? How could he make him understand everything that turned him into this?
Michael stood in front of Edith, his eyes filled with rage as she taunted him. "Show your dark spawn the way of your life," she sneered, her words hitting Michael like a blow to the gut.
Michael''s anger red up, and he turned to face Edith, his voice low and dangerous. "You will not call him that," he growled, his eyes locking onto hers.
Harry watched in shock as the two adults argued and taunted each other. The man standing before him was his father, but he was also a monster who had killed innocent people. Harry felt caught in the middle of a storm, unable to move or speak, as he tried to process everything that was happening.
The air around them crackled with tension as Michael and Edith faced off, their gazes locked in a battle of wills. Harry could feel the weight of their anger and hatred pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe. He wanted to run, to escape the chaos and the pain, but he couldn''t move.
Michael had made the difficult decision to sever his connection with Harry, not because he didn''t love his son, but because he wanted to protect him from the dangers that came with being the son of the Dark Lord. Michael had grown up as an orphan himself and knew firsthand the difficulties that came with it. He didn''t want Harry and Lah to suffer the same fate. Michael knew that if anyone discovered Harry''s true identity, they would stop at nothing to hunt him down. He had made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of his son''s safety, but all of it seemed to be for nothing now that Edith had crossed the line and put Harry''s life in danger.
On the other hand, Harry felt like he was caught in the middle of a storm, unable to move or speak. The man before him was his father, but he was also a monster. He didn''t know what to do or what to say, and he could only watch as the two adults argued and taunted each other.
As Harry''s eyes darted back and forth between the two arguing adults, he suddenly felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. It was like tiny insects crawling over his skin, and before he could even process what was happening, he felt a sharp, searing pain. It was like a lightning bolt had struck him, and then everything went dark.
Edith''s attention immediately shifted to Harry as he copsed to the floor. She rushed to his side and checked his pulse, her heart pounding with fear. She had not intended to harm the child, but the sight of Michael had ignited something in her that she could not control. Now, as she looked down at the unconscious boy, she felt a deep sense of regret and guilt.
Michael''s eyes glowed with killing intent as he slowly unsheathed his dark sword. The metal glinted in the light of the mes, casting eerie shadows on the walls. He knew what he had to do, what Edith''s actions had forced him to do. With a cold, emotionless voice, he spoke the words that sealed Edith''s fate.
"I should have killed you a long time ago."
Without hesitation, Michael plunged the sword straight into Edith''s gut. Blood spurted out of the wound and dripped from the corners of her mouth, staining her clothes and the ground beneath her. Michael didn''t say anything else or ask her any more questions. He knew what he had to do, and he did it without remorse.
In that moment, Edith was no longer just an annoyance. She was a potential enemy, someone with enough grudge to put her own family in danger for the sake of revenge. An enemy like her couldn''t be left alone.
As Michael pushed the sword deeper, Edith leaned in towards him, a devilish grin on her face. He grabbed her hair and pulled her off his body, his eyes glowing with dark energy. With a single burst of power, he fired dark beams straight into Edith''s head, taking her life immediately. A smoking hole appeared in the center of her forehead, and she fell to the ground beside unconscious Harry. Michael ignored the system notification of Edith''s death and drowned at the moment.
For a moment, there was only silence. Michael stood there, his sword still dripping with blood, looking down at Edith''s lifeless body. He had done what he had to do, but he couldn''t shake the feeling that all this could have been avoided if Edith had stayed away from Harry. With a heavy heart, he looked at Harry as his anger slowly faded away, looking at his innocent face.
Michael knelt down beside his unconscious son, his heart heavy with worry and regret. He gently brushed Harry''s face with his hand, his fingers lingering on his son''s soft cheeks. For a brief moment, the Dark Lord within Michael disappeared, and the more gentle side of him came out. He felt a rush of love and protectiveness towards his son and wished he could shield him from all the darkness and danger of the world.
But that side of him disappeared as soon as he saw Gruzal through the ring of dark mes. As the ring of fire dissipated, Michael stood up, his movements slow and deliberate. His eyes zed with a fury that seemed to consume him, and Gruzal and Gllelus both took a step back in fear. The air around Michael crackled with dark energy, and he unsheathed his second dark sword, holding both weapons with a steady grip.
Gllelus saw the rage in Michael''s eyes and knew that he had to prepare to fight for Gruzal''s life. The two swords on Michael''s back trembled with a mind of their own, eager to be wielded by their master. The ground beneath their feet shook with the power emanating from Michael, and even the elders watching from afar could feel the moment''s intensity.
The hall was engulfed in an intense heat that lingered even after the dark mes dissipated. Mutrad could feel the sweat trickling down his forehead, but his mind was preupied with the Dark Lord''s presence before him. As he looked into Michael''s eyes, he was struck by a flood of memories from the Ithn massacre. The same cold, unwavering gaze that had sent shivers down his spine then was present in the Dark Lord''s eyes now. It was a look that promised destruction and death to anyone who dared cross him.
The mermon elder stood tall, his voice echoing through the hall as he spoke to the Dark Lord. "You have your child and killed the one responsible for his disappearance. Now leave our world," he demanded.
But Michael remained unmoved, his eyes zing with an intense fury. He knew that his mission was far from over, and he was not about to be stopped by a group of mermon elders.
Michael''s response was simple but deadly. "You have two choices. Back off and save yourselves, or stand in my way and die with him," he said, raising his sword and pointing it at Gruzal.
As Michael raised his sword and pointed it at Gruzal, Mutrad felt a sense of impending doom. The Dark Lord''s eyes were filled with a fiery rage that Mutrad had seen before, during the massacre in Ithn. He knew that Michael was not one to back down, and the mermon elders'' defiance could only lead to bloodshed. Mutrad''s heart raced as he realized he might be witnessing another brutal massacre, and he wondered if there was anything he could do to prevent it.
Chapter 918 Heavenly Tribulation To Reach Half Celestial Stage
Gllelus immediately stepped in front of Gruzal, shielding him from the Dark Lord''s murderous gaze. The air was thick with tension as the Elders stood frozen, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, the darkness enveloped the room, plunging everything into pitch ckness. The only source of light was the faint glow of the deep blue sea filtering in through the window. But Mutrad''s Wraith eyes allowed him to see clearly in the dark, and he watched in horror as the scene unfolded.
As the others braced themselves for a fight, the sound of flesh being pierced echoed throughout the room. Gllelus''s head flew from his shoulders, blood spurting from his neck. Michael''s strength had reached the Half Celestial stage, making everyone in the room seem like weak ants inparison. The Dark Lord didn''t waste any time with words or unnecessary actions. Instead, he wielded his dark swords with deadly precision, firing dark beams from his eyes and lightning bolts from his swords to swiftly dispatch the members of the House of dwrath.
Mutrad could barely believe what he was seeing. The Dark Lord had be a force of destruction, cutting down anyone who stood in his way with ruthless efficiency. The sound of swords shing and bodies falling echoed through the hall as Michael continued his rampage, his eyes burning with a fierce intensity that sent shivers down Mutrad''s spine.
The elders of the Mermon tribe knew they had to act fast to defend themselves and their people. They quickly began chanting in unison, each casting their own spells. One elder cast a spell of water, trying to douse the mes that still surrounded the Dark Lord. Another cast a spell of wind, trying to blow him back. A third cast a spell of light, hoping to blind him. But Michael was too powerful for their spells. While he was battling, the responsive Shield appeared around him, absorbing the attacks.
Meanwhile, Mutrad watched the battle unfold with a mixture of horror. But even as he watched the destruction and chaos, he could not help but be terrified by Michael''s rage and wrath.
As the battle raged on, Michael moved with incredible speed and agility, dodging spells and slicing through the members of House dwrath with his dark swords. He fired dark beams from his eyes and lightning bolts from his swords, each strike hitting its target with deadly uracy. His opponents fell one by one, unable to withstand his power. And all the while, Mutrad could only watch in terror as the Dark Lord easily decimated his enemies.
The members of House Halrid and House Bigmag stood rooted to the spot, watching in horror as the Dark Lord decimated their enemies. Valen''s face was pale and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
"What is happening?" he panicked, his voice barely audible over the sound of shing swords and dying screams.
Gormak''s loyal advisor was equally frightened. "We have to get the hell out of here," he muttered, his hands shaking.
As the Dark Lord continued his killing spree, the panic in the room intensified. Members of both houses were shivering and some were even crying. The air was thick with the smell of blood and death, and the sound of metal against metal was deafening. Mutrad, who had been watching from a safe distance, could feel the terror emanating from the other members. He could see the fear in their eyes and hear their trembling voices as they whispered to each other.
Despite the chaos around him, the Dark Lord moved with deadly precision, effortlessly avoiding the spells cast by the elders of House dwrath. His responsive shield absorbed their attacks, while his retractable ck shield protected him from any physical blows. He moved like a dark shadow, cutting down his enemies with ease. His eyes were cold and empty, and his face was twisted into a snarl of rage.
As he fought, the Dark Lord seemed almost invincible, and the members of House Halrid and House Bigmag knew that they were powerless against him. Valen and Gormak exchanged a fearful nce, and Valen whispered,
"We need to get out of here before he turns his attention to us."
They quickly tried to reach the door, leaving behind carnage and chaos, but the spells flying around him prevented them from quickly reaching the door.
As the darkness dissipated, the Elders and members of House dwrathy motionless in their own pools of blood. The others who had witnessed the Dark Lord''s gruesome disy of power shivered at the sight of him. His face and body were covered in the blood of his foes, giving him a fearsome and intimidating appearance.
With each step, Michael''s dark aura seemed to grow stronger, causing the very air around him to tremble. As he approached Gruzal, the House Lord of House dwrath, Michael unsheathed his dark swords, their tips dripping with blood.
The atmosphere in the hall was tense and heavy, with everyone watching in stunned silence as Michael stood before Gruzal, his grip tight around the House Lord''s cor. Despite the situation, Gruzal appeared unnaturally calm, almost as if he was expecting this.
Michael''s eyes fell on the shark medallion around Gruzal''s neck, and a sense of realization dawned on him. He knew then that Gruzal was the one responsible for Lord Aric''s assassination and had been buying time toplete the blood ritual to locate the three artifacts.
Without a moment of hesitation, Michael lifted Gruzal higher by his cor and drew one of his dark swords. With a cold and menacing voice, he asked, "Do you have anyst words?"
Gruzal chuckled, his eyes glittering with defiance. "Hail Andohr," he said, and before anyone could react, he moved his face towards the sword and sliced his own throat. Blood spurted out of his neck, sttering on Michael''s face as Gruzal''s head rolled on the ground, leaving the others horrified and shocked.
Everyone felt a shiver run down his spine as they watched the scene unfold before them. They knew they were witnessing a true disy of the Dark Lord''s power and cruelty, and it sent chills through his body.
Michael''s eyes burned with dark mes as he dropped Gruzal''s lifeless body to the ground. He wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand. His face was calm. "Let this be an example for whoever tries to harm the ones I care about," he growled, his voiceced with venom.
The members of House Halrid and House Bigmag, who were still alive, were paralyzed with fear and shock at the gruesome disy of power. They huddled together, trembling with fear as Michael stood in front of them, his dark swords held in his hands, his gaze piercing through them. The room was silent, except for the sound of blood dripping from Michael''s swords as he turned to leave the hall.
Just as Michael was about to turn around, he felt a sudden jolt of electricity surge through his body, causing his hair to stand on end. He tried to react, but it was toote. A bolt of lightning had already shot out of Gruzal''s body and struck him with an incredible force that he couldn''t even see iting.
The impact was devastating, and Michael''s vision began to blur. It was like his brain was on fire, and the system within his head started to go haywire, sending warning signals that he could barelyprehend.
[OMEGA''S PRESENSE DETECTED!]
[OMEGA LEVEL WARNING!]
The warnings red inside his head, causing Michael to clutch his head in agony.
[ACTIVATING COUNTERMEASURES!]
[SYSTEM SAFE MODE ACTIVATED!]
The system continued to scream at him as he felt like his head was about to explode.
[THE SEAL HAS BEEN WEAKENED!]
[THE HOST¡.KILLED¡.SEAL¡BEARER¡]
But amidst the chaos and pain, Michael could not register thest two warnings. He staggered backward, trying to regain his bnce, but his body felt like it was being torn apart. The shockwave had affected him on a fundamental level, and Michael knew that something drastic rted to the system was about to happen.
[System¡needs¡badass¡.points¡]
[Does¡host..give¡permission¡]
The pain was unbearable, and Michael felt like his head was about to explode. The static in his head made understanding the system''s words difficult, but he knew he needed its help. He trusted the system enough to give it permission to do whatever it intended to do. The members of House Halrid and House Bigmag who witnessed the scene felt their hearts pounding with fear and shock, unsure of what was happening to the Dark Lord.
[THE HOST MUST REACH HALF CELESTIAL STAGE AND UPGRADE THE SYSTEM TO LEVEL 9]
[THE HOST MUST ANOTHER SEED OF DARKNESS BEFORE UPGRADING THE SYSTEM]
Michael felt like he was being torn apart as the system drained all of his five million badass points and everyst one of his gold coins from his storage. The pain was unbearable, and he struggled to remain conscious as the system worked its magic.
Suddenly, a blinding light enveloped him, and he felt himself being lifted off his feet. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of a shimmering portal, its otherworldly energy pulsing through the air. Michael''s heart was pounding in his chest as he realized what was happening.
Without warning, the system pushed him forward, and Michael stumbled into the portal. As he fell through the swirling vortex of energy, he felt like he was being torn apart again. But this time, it was different. This time, he felt like he was being reborn.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Michael emerged from the other side of the portal. He looked around, taking in his new surroundings. Everything was different here - the sky was a deep shade of purple, and the trees were made of a strange, shimmering crystal.
As Michael took his first steps in this new world, he couldn''t help but wonder what happened to the system suddenly and why it sent him here.
[Must¡start¡heavenly¡tribtion¡]
As Michael''s vision slowly began to clear, he could hear the system''s voice stuttering and fading away. He was surprised by what he was hearing - he thought he would need to upgrade the system first before he could trigger his heavenly tribtion and reach the Half Celestial stage. But for some reason, the system was making an exception for him and allowing him to start his tribtion earlier.
Michael could feel the power building up inside him like a raging storm waiting to be unleashed. He could hear the sound of thunder in the distance, and the air around him crackled with electricity. The system was pushing him forward, forcing him to confront his own limitations and push beyond them.
Finally, Michael''s leg gave out as he copsed on the ground. Despite the pain and the overwhelming force of the tribtion, Michael gritted his teeth and endured. He could feel his body transforming, bing something greater than it had ever been before. The power surged through him, and he knew that he was on the verge of ascending to a new level of power.
[WAKE ME UP SOON HOST]
[SYSTEM OFFLINE¡]
As Michael stood there in the silence of his own mind, his thoughts raced a million miles an hour. He couldn''tprehend what had just happened, and he had so many questions about the system. Who was this Andohr, and what did Gruzal mean by "Hail Andohr?" But as he was about to ponder more on these questions, he felt a sudden surge of energy within his body. The energy was like nothing he had ever felt before, and he knew that it was the start of his heavenly tribtion.
The air around him began to swirl, and the temperature increased to an almost unbearable level. Michael''s body began to tremble, and he could feel his muscles tensing up. His eyes turned pitch ck as dark energy emanated from his body, and he knew that the tribtion was going to be intense.
When Michael closed his eyes, a sudden surge of power coursed through his body, causing the temperature to drop and the air to be heavy with static electricity. The clouds above him quickly turned dark and ominous, and soon enough, the storm began.
The rain poured down in heavy sheets, drenching everything in sight, including Michael himself. The thunder roared so loudly that it felt like the ground was shaking while the lightning bolts lit up the sky with blinding shes of light. The wind howled like a thousand demons, and tornadoes formed in the distance, tearing apart anything in their path.
Despite the chaos and destruction happening around him, Michael remained still, his body glowing with an otherworldly light. He gritted his teeth and braced himself as the power within him continued to grow, making the storm even more violent and deadly.
(Everything that happened to this point with Michael is five days before Nightmare''s death. The next chapter will resume from the current events)
Chapter 919 Massacre In Pentown
(Present Day)
The tempestuous storm that had raged around the floating mountain had finally abated, and the dark oceany calm once more. Gaya had emerged victorious from her heavenly tribtion, ascending to the Immortal stage with newfound power pulsing through her veins. She rose to her feet, her movements graceful and confident. Without a moment''s hesitation, she ascended into the air and soared towards the Kingdom of Kethen.
Through the Spyder on Nightmare, Gaya had caught a glimpse of Norvin before the feed abruptly cut off. With Norvin being Noah''s familiar, Gaya knew that she had to make her way to Pentown, where Noah''s manor was located. It took her only a few hours to arrive, using a series of teleportation scrolls to hasten her journey. As she descended upon the glistening city, she bellowed out a deafening call for Noah, her voice echoing through the streets like thunder.
"Noah!"
Gaya''s shout echoed like thunder, shaking the entire town. As if they were waiting for her, soldiers and guardians rose from the ground and surrounded her. However, when they saw Gaya''s cultivation stage, their eyes glistened with fear. Nevertheless, they were ordered to prevent anyone from the Dark Lord''s army from reaching Noah.
Though they were afraid of her newfound power, they were tasked with ensuring that no one from the Dark Lord''s army would be able to harm Noah. As the guardians closed in around her, a towering figure stepped forward to confront her. It was the alpha guardian of the beast guardians, Leonian, a creature that was half-man, half-lion.
Leonian''s body was rippling with muscle, his golden fur shimmering in the moonlight. His wavy mane flowed in the wind as he fixed Gaya with a steely gaze, his fierce eyes betraying no fear. He had been ordered to guard Noah at all costs, and he was determined to fulfill his duty.
With a furious expression on her face, Gaya snarled, "Hand over that monkey, and no one will get hurt." Her eyes zed with an intensity that made even the bravest soldiers quiver.
As the seconds ticked by, Gaya could sense the tension building around her. More and more soldiers and guardians appeared, their armor glistening under the night sky. She could feel their eyes boring into her, sizing her up and weighing their options.
"By the power invested in me by the guardian guild, I hereby order you to stand down," Leonian announced in a voice thatmanded attention.
Gaya gritted her teeth, feeling her frustration mounting. She hade too far to be stopped now, and she was not going to let anyone get in her way. "Atleast i tried," she spat, her eyes zing with fury.
Without warning, Gaya raised her hand and summoned a giant snake made of green poisonous mist. The cobra hissed at everyone and spit jade poison, causing the weaker soldiers to melt and the others to squirm in pain. Leonian sprang into action, his instincts kicking in as he cast a defensive spell.
A translucent golden shield formed around him, shimmering like the surface of the sun. In the midst of the chaos, more and more soldiers and guardians arrived, their weapons at the ready. The air crackled with tension, and the night sky seemed to darken as the two sides faced off.
Leonian stood tall, his eyes locked onto Gaya''s, his stance unyielding. He knew what he had to do, and he would not falter. "You''re not getting past me," he dered, his voice ringing out across the battlefield.
Gaya''s eyes narrowed as she snapped her fingers, creating a shower of sparks that crackled through the air like lightning. The green mist that surrounded her hissed and churned as if in response to the sudden burst of energy. And then, with a deafening roar, the mist exploded, sending shockwaves through the air that knocked everyone around Gaya off their feet.
Soldiers and guardians alike were thrown through the sky like ragdolls, tumbling and spinning as they struggled to regain their bearings. Some managed to right themselves in midair, but others were not so lucky. They fell like dead flies, their bodies mming into the ground with sickening thuds.
As the smoke cleared, Gaya remained suspended in the air, her eyes zing with power. She surveyed the chaos around her, showing no emotions on her face.
The moment Leonian''s shield shattered, he was left exposed and vulnerable to a follow-up attack. Gaya had a clear shot, but the other guardians and soldiers blocked her path and gave him time to cast his spell. Meanwhile, back on the ground, chaos erupted as the guardians and Winston Manor soldiers began evacuating the city. They guided the panicked citizens toward the teleportation portal in the center of the city, urging them to move quickly and stay together.
The scene in the sky was a nightmare. The clouds rumbled, and the sky crackled with energy as Gaya unleashed her fury on the guardians and soldiers. She was at the Immortal stage now, and there was no one in the city who could stop her. Her power was beyondprehension as she ripped through the soldiers with her bare hands, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. The sound of metal shing against metal echoed throughout the city as her victims tried to defend themselves but to no avail.
The city was in a state ofplete chaos, with people screaming and running for their lives. The ground shook with every move Gaya made, and the air was thick with the stench of blood and fear. As she continued her rampage, more and more soldiers and guardians fell to her overwhelming power.
Despite the chaos and destruction around them, the guardians and soldiers remained determined to protect the citizens and get them to safety. They worked together to create a path through the chaos, guiding the people toward the teleportation portal and ensuring that no one was left behind.
As the battle raged on, it was clear that Gaya was determined to leave nothing standing in her path. Her eyes burned with a fierce intensity, and her movements were fluid and precise. The guardians and soldiers fought valiantly, but it seemed as though nothing could stop her. The fate of the city hung in the bnce, and everyone waited with bated breath to see how it would all end.
The sky turned a sickly shade of jade green as Gaya summoned a cobra made of thick, poisonous mist. The creature hissed and spewed its venomous breath, causing anyone who inhaled the toxic fumes to writhe in agony. Even those who were below the Soul Refining stage immediately coughed up dark blood and fell to their deaths, their bodies plummeting from the sky like lifeless dolls.
Amidst the chaos, Leonian sprang into action, summoning his trusty longsword that gleamed in the dim light. He was a formidable fighter, swift and agile despite being only a Fusion stage cultivator. With his sword in hand, he charged at Gaya, hoping to take her down. But his luck ran out when he decided to go up against an Immortal.
Gaya met his attack head-on, her movements were fluid and graceful. With one hand, she effortlessly caught the de of Leonian''s sword and crushed it with a single squeeze, the sound of shattering metal echoing through the air. Despite his years of training and experience, Leonian stood no chance against Gaya''s godlike power.
As the battle raged in the sky, people below began to panic, fear etched on their faces. They had never seen such a disy of power before, and they had no idea what was happening.
"Mommy, what''s happening?" a little girl asked, tugging on her mother''s dress.
"I don''t know, sweetie," her mother replied, her voice shaking. "But we need to get out of here."
"Is the world ending?" a man shouted, running through the streets.
"I don''t know, but we need to get to safety!" another replied, pulling his family along.
People were running in every direction, screaming and crying as they tried to find a way out of the city. Some copsed from the sheer panic of it all, their bodies trembling with fear. Others stumbled and fell, trampled by the stampede of frightened people.
"Please, someone tell us what''s happening!" a woman pleaded, tears streaming down her face.
But there was no one to answer her, no one who knew what was happening. The only thing they could do was run, run as fast as they could, and hope that they would make it out alive.
A cruel smirk spread across Gaya''s face as she observed Leonian, now unarmed and defenseless, standing before her. She snickered at him, taunting him with her words. "Pathetic," she hissed, her voice dripping with contempt.
With lightning-fast movements, Gaya picked up a broken piece of Leonian''s sword and charged at him. The air around her seemed to shimmer as she moved, leaving afterimages of herself behind. In a matter of seconds, she inflicted hundreds of deep cuts on Leonian''s body, showing off her speed and agility.
Leonian''s lion-like face twisted in agony as he struggled to defend himself from Gaya''s onught, but he stood no chance against her. She was too fast, too powerful, and too merciless. Each cut sent a wave of excruciating pain through his body, and he could feel his strength ebbing away.
Gaya was determined to make the other guardians and Winston manor soldiers feel weak and helpless. With each sh of her de, she wanted to show them just how vulnerable they were. And with each passing moment, her power grew stronger, fueled by the death of Nightmare.
Meanwhile, on the ground, the people watched in horror as the battle unfolded in the sky. Fear and panic gripped their hearts as they saw the raw power of an Immortal cultivator. "We have to get out of here!" one woman screamed, grabbing her children and running towards the teleportation portal. "What''s happening? Who''s fighting up there?" a man asked, his voice trembling with fear.
Others stood frozen in ce, unable toprehend the scale of the battle unfolding before them. They watched in horror as Gaya relentlessly attacked Leonian, cutting him to pieces without mercy. The sound of metal against flesh echoed through the air, sending shivers down their spines.
In that moment, the people of Pentown realized that they were no match for the power of the Immortals. They were just mortals, caught in the crossfire of a battle that was beyond their understanding. And all they could do was watch in terror as the sky burned with the mes of magic and the sound of shing swords.
As Gaya halted her merciless assault on Leonian, the alpha guardian''s robes were drenched in blood and his once-golden mane was now matted and messy. Gaya approached him with a calm and calcted expression, her eyes burning with newfound power. She slowly wrapped her hand around Leonian''s neck, tightening her grip until he began to choke and wheeze. The air around them felt heavy and charged with tension.
Gaya''s other hand rested on Leonian''s shoulder, and as the seconds ticked by, she began to exert more pressure, causing him to cry out in pain. His screams echoed through the night sky, a haunting reminder of the brutal battle that had unfolded before them. The other guardians and soldiers looked on in horror, their fear palpable.
Finally, Gaya''s grip tightened to the point where Leonian''s screams turned into a gurgling gasp. With a swift and brutal motion, she ripped his shoulder and body in two, a sickening sound apanying the gruesome sight. Blood and gore spilled out from the torn flesh, coating Gaya''s hand and arm.
The other guardians and soldiers, now realizing the extent of Gaya''s power, backed away in fear. They could feel the raw energy emanating from her, and it was clear that she was not someone to be trifled with. The atmosphere was charged with fear and panic, and the once-peaceful night now felt like a battlefield.
Gaya stood amidst the carnage, her body drenched in Leonian''s blood. She had just ughtered the alpha guardian of the beast guardians with terrifying ease. As she surveyed the destruction around her, a couple of airships suddenly appeared on the horizon, carrying hundreds of guardians.
In truth, the guardians were merely buying time to convince the Council of Immortals to take action against Gaya. With Noah having cleansed the Guardian Guild of corruption, there were few Half Immortals and Immortals left to challenge her power. The guardians knew they were outmatched, but they hoped to dy Gaya long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
However, as the airships approached, Gaya merely snorted in disdain. She had no fear of the guardians, and their feeble attempts to stop her were little more than an annoyance. The sky rumbled with the power of her aura as she prepared to face the next wave of opponents.
As the airships approached in the distance, Gaya''s eyes narrowed, and her attention shifted back to the guardians and Winston manor soldiers surrounding her. She could sense the fear in their eyes, but it did nothing to quell the anger burning inside her. Without casting a spell, Gaya clenched her fist and dashed towards them, moving with a frightening speed.
The guardians and soldiers hesitated for a moment before they tried to stop her. However, Gaya was in a rage, and nothing could stand in her way. She punched and kicked, and her movements were fluid, as if she had trained for this moment her entire life. Her strikesnded with bone-shattering force, and the guardians and soldiers dropped like flies.
It was a brutal sight to behold, and the people watching from the ground couldn''t help but feel a sense of horror at the violence unfolding before them. Gaya''s hands were now coated in blood, and her eyes burned with an intensity that was terrifying to witness.
As she continued her assault, Gaya''s mind was filled with images of Nightmare, and her heart ached with grief. She wanted to take her anger out on the ones who had caused her familiar''s death. It was the only way she could find sce.
Despite the overwhelming odds against them, the guardians and soldiers fought back with everything they had. But it was no use. Gaya''s power was too great, and she was in a league of her own. One by one, they fell before her, and soon, the sky was silent except for Gaya''s breaths filled with fury.
Some of the guardians lost their courage to face Gaya when they saw her blood-drenched appearance. However, the moment they attempted to flee, Gaya''s rage surged within her, and she charged after them. Like a ferocious beast, she caught up to them in an instant, snatched them by their heads, and violently mmed them together, their skulls shattering like brittle ss.
Their screams of agony filled the air as their lifeless bodies fell from the sky. Gaya''s eyes burned with a ruthless fury as she continued her brutal assault on the guardians and soldiers who had dared to stand against her. Her rage consumed her, and she showed no mercy, killing anyone who crossed her path with her bare hands. The once peaceful sky was now a scene of carnage as Gaya unleashed her wrath upon all who dared to oppose her.
Gaya''s body was drenched in the blood of her fallen foes, and her once-white robes were now stained a deep shade of red. Drops of blood dripped from her hair and face, giving her a sinister appearance. Her eyes burned with a fierce intensity as she scanned the sky, waiting for the airships to approach.
As the airships drew closer, Gaya''s hands clenched into fists. She was ready to face whatever came her way, even if it meant more bloodshed. Her aura was thick with a dangerous energy, and her hair whipped around her face in the wind.
Despite the bloody scene before her, Gaya showed no signs of remorse or hesitation. She had unleashed her fury upon her enemies and hade out victorious. The only thing left was to face whatever came next, and Gaya was more than ready for it.
When Gaya was about tounch herself towards the Winston manor, a voice boomed through the sky, echoing like thunder. "STOP!"
Gaya''s body tensed with rage as she abruptly halted her movement mid-charge. Even without turning around, she immediately recognized the voice that echoed through the sky. It was Xanali, her step-sister, or so she had thought until the revtion that Castien was not her real father.
Chapter 920 Kingdom Of Nagaland
The storm raged on as Gaya and Xanali faced off, the howling wind and pouring rain creating a chaotic backdrop for their confrontation. The sky was a tumultuous mixture of dark clouds and shes of lightning, casting an ominous glow over the battlefield.
Gaya''s eyes zed with fury as she faced Xanali, her hands still slick with the blood of her fallen foes. Xanali felt a chill run down her spine as she stared into Gaya''s murderous gaze.
"Stop this unnecessary killing, Gaya. Norvin and Noah are not here," Xanali pleaded, hoping to reason with her estranged sister.
But Gaya''s rage burned hot, and she was not about to be swayed by Xanali''s words. "So you know where they are?" she snarled, tilting her face to the side in a menacing gesture.
"I won''t tell you," Xanali said firmly, her jaw set.
Gaya''s eyes narrowed, scanning the battlefield for any sign of her targets. But her attention was soon drawn to the portal on the ground, where a group of people were running toward them. Xanali saw the flicker of recognition in Gaya''s eyes and knew that she had to act fast.
Before Xanali could react, Gaya swooped down to the ground and snatched a little boy from his mother. The child''s screams filled the air as Gaya flew back up into the sky, holding the boy by the throat.
"What are you doing?" Xanali shouted in shock, her heart pounding in her chest.
Gaya''s grip on the child tightened, and Xanali could see the fear in his eyes as he struggled to breathe. The boy''s mother screamed from the ground, but her cries were drowned out by the storm.
"Tell me where they are, or you can scrape this little boy off the ground," Gaya hissed, her voice filled with malice.
Xanali felt a surge of fear wash over her as she gazed up at Gaya, the rainshing at her face. She knew that Gaya was capable of anything in her current state of mind. But Xanali also knew that she couldn''t let her sister win.
Taking a deep breath, Xanali gathered her courage and met Gaya''s gaze head-on. "I won''t give in to your threats, Gaya," she said firmly. "But you should know that the guardians and immortals are on their way here. You will pay for what you have done."
Gaya''s eyes widened slightly at the mention of the guardians and immortals, and Xanali could see a flicker of doubt in her expression. But the moment was fleeting, and Gaya''s rage soon returned full force.
"Then I have nothing to lose," Gaya snarled, tightening her grip on the little boy''s throat.
Xanali felt her heart race as she watched the scene unfold, the storm raging on around them. She knew that she had to act fast, or else the consequences would be dire. But how could she stop her own sister, who seemed hell-bent on destruction?
The sound of thunder echoed through the sky as the two sisters faced off, the fate of the little boy hanging in the bnce.
The stormy weather seemed to mirror the turbulent emotions of the scene. Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the grim determination etched on Gaya''s face as she held the innocent boy hostage. Xanali''s heart pounded in her chest as she struggled to find the words to appease Gaya''s rage.
"Stop this madness, Gaya," Xanali pleaded. "There''s no need for more bloodshed."
But Gaya was beyond reason. Her eyes zed with fury as she demanded to know the whereabouts of Norvin and Noah. Xanali knew that any answer she gave would be met with violence, and yet she couldn''t bear to see an innocent life taken before her eyes.
As the little boy dangled helplessly in Gaya''s grasp, Xanali felt a wave of nausea wash over her. She had to do something to save him, even if it meant sacrificing her own safety.
Gaya''s grip tightened, and Xanali''s heart skipped a beat. The moment hung in the air, charged with a sense of impending doom.
Then, suddenly, Gaya released the boy, sending him tumbling towards the ground. Xanali''s heart leaped into her throat as she reached out to catch him, but Gaya caught him first.
"Do I look like I''m ying?" Gaya snarled, her eyes glinting with menace.
Xanali knew that Gaya was serious. She couldn''t afford to hesitate any longer. Gathering her courage, she told Gaya what she wanted to know: the guardians and Noah were in Nagnd.
"They are in Nagnd,"
As Xanali revealed the location of Norvin and Noah, Gaya''s eyes widened in shock for a brief moment. Nagnd was her home kingdom, and the news that her enemies were hiding there caught her off guard. But she quickly regained herposure, and her face twisted into a sinister smile.
"Nagnd, huh?" Gaya said, her voice dripping with malice. "Looks like I''ll be going back home sooner than I thought."
The stormy sky seemed to grow darker as Gaya''s words echoed through the air. The wind howled around them, and lightning shed in the distance as though the very elements were reacting to the evil that Gaya represented. Xanali couldn''t help but feel a shiver run down her spine as she looked at her former sister. Gaya had always been dangerous, but now, with her thirst for revenge fuelling her actions, she was downright terrifying.
As Gaya turned her gaze in the direction of Nagnd, Xanali felt a sense of dread settle over her. She knew that Gaya was capable of terrible things, and she couldn''t imagine what she would do when she reached her home kingdom. But Xanali also knew that she couldn''t let Gaya continue on her path of destruction. She had to find a way to stop her, no matter the cost.
Gaya''s eyes zed with an intense fury as she turned and flew towards her home kingdom, leaving Xanali to catch the falling boy. Xanali''s heart sank as she held the trembling child, watching as his mother rushed to him, embracing him tightly. The stormy sky was a perfect reflection of the turmoil in Xanali''s mind. The thought of facing Gaya and her ruthless army, let alone the possibility of the Dark Lord joining them, sent a shiver down her spine.
Xanali could only hope that the Council of Immortals would make a quick decision and gather their forces to confront Gaya and her army. But as she looked up at the sky, her heart grew heavy with the realization that the battle toe would be nothing short of catastrophic. The fate of countless lives hung in the bnce, and Xanali knew that the only way to end this was to put an end to Gaya''s thirst for revenge once and for all.
As she took to the air, Xanali couldn''t shake off the sickening feeling in her gut. She knew that Gaya''s rage would not be easily quenched, and the thought of the Dark Lord joining the fray made her feel even more uneasy. For the first time in a long time, Xanali felt a sense of dread wash over her, and she couldn''t help but wonder if they were truly ready to face the darkness that was about to descend upon them.
*****************************************
Xanali struggled to keep up with Gaya''s swift teleportation, feeling the strain in her muscles with every step she took. Her lungs burned with each breath, but she could not afford to stop. She knew where Gaya was heading and had to reach there before it was toote. The kingdom was a marvel to behold, with towering structures and winding alleys that snaked through the city. The buildings were adorned with intricate carvings of snakes, and the streets were bustling with activity. However, at that moment, the kingdom looked void of people, as Xanali had ordered the evacuation as a precaution.
Flying above the kingdom of Nagnd was a sight to behold. The ind had a distinct shape, resembling a giant serpent winding through the ocean waves. The buildings were built in such a way that they appeared like scales on the serpent''s body. They were mostly made of smooth stones and were curved in shape, giving them a unique, organic feel. The structures were also adorned with intricate carvings of serpents, adding to the overall theme of the kingdom.
The ind was surrounded by crystal clear waters, and as Xanali flew over it, she could see schools of brightly colored fish darting through the coral reefs below. The ind was also home to dense forests, with trees so tall that their tops seemed to brush against the sky. Mountain ranges dotted thendscape, their peaks covered in snow even during the warmest of seasons.
Despite the natural beauty of the ind, it was eerily silent. The absence of any signs of life was noticeable, and it was clear that Xanali had made the right choice to evacuate the kingdom as a precaution.
Finally, after three years, Gaya returned to her home kingdom, soaring high above the ind. She took a deep breath, trying to suppress the anger that boiled within her, threatening to spill out like moltenva. As she gazed upon thend that was once her sanctuary, she felt no sense of peace or calm. Instead, her heart was heavy with a thirst for revenge.
Atst, Gaya''s gaze fell upon the castle, her home and the heart of her kingdom. She could see it from miles away, standing proud and tall amidst the greenery and shimmering blue waters of the ind. It was the grandest and most elegant castle in the whole world, with its towering turrets, gleaming spires, and intricately designed architecture.
Looking at the castle, she could not help but marvel at its grandeur. It stood tall, a magnificent structure made of white stone that shimmered in the sunlight. The castle was built in a style that was unique to Nagnd, with intricate carvings of serpents adorning its walls and pirs. The gates of the castle were made of pure gold and the doors were decorated with precious gems. The castle seemed to be alive with magic, emanating an aura of enchantment and wonder that was impossible to ignore.
As Gaya flew closer, she could see the castle''s many towers and spires, each one adorned with a different serpent statue. The main tower, which rose high above the others, was made entirely of crystal, and the sunlight that filtered through its walls created a beautiful rainbow of colors. Gaya felt a sense of awe as she realized that this castle was a true masterpiece of Naga architecture.
When she got closer to the castle, a jade-green dome suddenly materialized around the entire structure, preventing her from entering. She felt a sharp sting in her hand when she touched the energy dome, indicating that the countermeasures were working effectively. Gaya gritted her teeth in frustration, feeling her anger and thirst for revenge intensify with each passing moment.
Soon after, a group of elite soldiers emerged from the castle and surrounded her in the sky. These soldiers were the best of the best, each dressed in the finest armor and weapons that Nagnd had to offer. They were each at the Fusion stage, and Gaya sensed that there were a few Half Immortals guarding the castle as well.
The sight of the soldiers only fueled Gaya''s anger further. It was clear to her that Xanali was not taking any chances in order to prevent her from entering the castle. But Gaya was determined to make her way inside, no matter what it took.
"You cannot get inside, Gaya," Gaya heard Xanali''s voice and turned around. Xanali floated in the air with the royal guards of Nagnd by her side. The guards wore shining armor made of rare metals with intricate designs etched into them. Each guard had a spear in their hand, the tips of which glinted menacingly in the sunlight. They had stern expressions etched into their faces, and their eyes glowed with otherworldly power. Gaya knew that these Half Immortal guards were the best of the best and could take on an army single-handedly.
Despite standing by Xanali''s side, there was a hint of reverence in the guards'' eyes when they looked at Gaya. It was impossible to forget that she was once the elder princess of the kingdom, and some still saw her as a symbol of power and authority. However, their respect did not outweigh their fear, as they knew the extent of Gaya''s ruthlessness too well. The mere thought of facing her sent shivers down their spines and made their hearts race with fear. Gaya could feel their fear emanating, and it only fueled her anger.
"Since when does the mighty Super Guardian need his bitch protecting him? It''s usually the other way around. What has changed?" Gaya said with a cold, hard edge to her voice.
Gaya''s eyes flickered with rage as she turned her attention to the royal guards and soldiers surrounding her. Her voice dripped with venom as she spoke, "I won''t sully your sense of honor by asking you to step aside. I know you would rather die than let me pass through to the castle to get what I want." Gaya took a step forward, her eyes zing with fury. "But make no mistake, I will get what I came for, no matter what the cost." The soldiers tensed at her words, their hands hovering over their weapons as they waited for her next move.
"All this death and destruction for what, Gaya? For a dragon? When did you be so fond of a dragon?" asked Xanali with a hint of desperation in her voice.
"Since you became a bitch to Noah," Gaya snickered, her eyes glinting with anger.
"It''s unfortunate that history tends to repeat itself," Gaya said with a cold, bitterugh, her mind shing back to the memory of burning down an entire prison filled with prisoners three years ago. The mes had been so bright and consuming, and the screams of the prisoners had echoed in her mind for months afterward.
As Gaya''s words echoed in the air, her eyes gleamed with a dangerous glint as she conjured a long bow and a jade arrow. The soldiers tensed and prepared themselves for an imminent battle. Each one of them was several times stronger and more powerful than the guardians, so Gaya did not take them lightly.
The royal guardian quickly floated before Xanali, shielding her with their bodies. They were well aware of the danger that lurked around them, and their eyes flickered with a fierce determination. Xanali stood behind them, her eyes darting back and forth between Gaya and the soldiers.
As Gaya pulled the bowstring taut, her eyes locked onto the soldiers, sizing them up with a steely gaze. The tension in the air was palpable, and every breath felt like a weighty burden. With a sudden movement, Gaya released the arrow, and it shot through the air with deadly precision.
The soldiers moved quickly, dodging the arrow with an ease that spoke volumes about their skill. They were fast, their movements fluid and precise, and they closed in on Gaya with fierce determination.
When the soldiers tried to attack Gaya with their spells, she dodged them with lightning speed. Some soldiers attempted to strike her with their swords and axes, but Gaya parried them with her bow and arrows. Her movements were too quick for the soldiers to keep up, and soon Gaya had taken down several soldiers with her precise shots.
The soldiers were relentless, however, and they continued to press forward with their attacks. Gaya was moving with enough speed to leave after images as she aimed and fired with deadly uracy. The nging of metal on metal echoed throughout the sky as Gaya''s arrows shed against the soldiers'' weapons. Gaya''s movements were fluid and precise as she took down the first soldier with a single shot from her jade arrow. The soldier screamed in agony as the arrow pierced his chest, and his body fell to the ground. The remaining soldiers immediately attacked Gaya, casting spells that missed her by a hair''s breadth due to her speed and agility. Gaya responded with a rain of arrows that tore through the soldiers'' armor, and their blood sttered in all directions.
The air was thick with the smell of burning flesh and blood as the soldiers fought fiercely to protect their home. However, Gaya was a formidable opponent, and her uracy with the bow was unparalleled. She targeted their weak spots, and each shot found its mark, dropping the soldiers one by one. The sound of bones cracking and bodies falling filled the air, and Xanali watched in horror as the soldiers she had trained and fought alongside were mercilessly ughtered.
Xanali watched in horror as Gaya ruthlessly took down each soldier one by one. Despite being outnumbered, Gaya moved with an almost inhuman grace and speed, dodging every attack with ease and unleashing a flurry of deadly arrows. Xanali had never seen Gaya fight with such ferocity and brutality before, and it sent shivers down her spine. She knew that Gaya was fueled by anger and hatred, and there was no stopping her. Xanali felt helpless, and for the first time in a long time, she felt fear creeping into her heart.
Chapter 921 Battle Of Nagaland I
As Gaya continued to fight, she drew her bow with unmatched grace and precision. Every arrow that she fired was a masterpiece, imbued with a powerful energy that only the Dark Lord could bestow. Each arrow had a distinct aura and power, ranging from ice, fire, and even poison. As the arrows whizzed through the air, they left a trail of destruction in their wake, striking their targets with deadly uracy.
Xanali watched in horror as the soldiers of Nagnd fell one by one, their bodies tumbling from the sky with a sickening thud. She knew that Gaya was not to be underestimated, but even she was stunned by the level of destruction that Gaya was capable of. The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood, and the ground was littered with the bodies of the fallen soldiers.
Despite the number of soldiers fighting against her, Gaya continued to fight with a fierce determination, her eyes burning with an intensity that Xanali had never seen before. With each arrow that she fired, she seemed to grow stronger, her power pulsing through the air like a raging inferno. Xanali knew that this battle was far from over and that the fate of Nagnd hung in the bnce. Although the soldiers were powerful, they were no match for an Immortal stage level 2 warrior.
As thest of the soldiers fell from the sky, Gaya''s eyes burned with a murderous rage. The two royal guards beside Xanali knew they were no match for her, but they still had a duty to protect their princess. As they prepared to sh with Gaya, Xanali floated before them, shielding them from her sister''s wrath.
"You still don''t understand, do you?" Gaya sneered.
Xanali stood firm, refusing to be intimidated. "Stop this, Gaya. You don''t have to do this. We can still talk things out."
Gaya scoffed at her sister''s words. "You still don''t get it, do you?" Gaya sneered. "No amount of words will stop me from reaching that monkey and ripping its throat out. This isn''t some cheesy drama where a touching speech changes everything. This is real life, and in my world, blood is the onlynguage my enemies understand,"
"And i was just buying time," the innocent, helpless look on Xanali''s disappeared and she looked relieved. Gaya turned around to face Xanali, her eyes filled with rage. But as she looked beyond her sister, her expression quickly changed to one of surprise and disbelief. Hundreds of soldiers suddenly appeared between Gaya and the dome around the castle, their armor shining in the sunlight. More soldiers continued to appear out of thin air, their colored armor indicating their affiliation with the Guardian Guild or the Nagnd army.
As if that wasn''t enough, a massive floating pce emerged above the castle, and flying airships bearing the Guardian Guild''s symbol appeared in the sky. Gaya couldn''t believe her eyes - the backup had arrived and was much bigger than she anticipated. It wasn''t just the Guardian Guild but also the Council of Immortals and the army of Nagnd.
The sheer number of soldiers and their impressive appearance were enough to give Gaya pause. The floating pce was a marvel to behold. It was an immense structure made entirely out of white marble, with intricate carvings of serpents and dragons adorning its exterior. It seemed to glow with a gentle radiance, despite the stormy weather. The pce appeared to be surrounded by a golden aura, which pulsed with power and seemed to emanate from the very stones of the building itself.
As for the airships, they were impressive machines. Each ship was made of gleaming silver metal, with sharp, angr lines and a streamlined design that made them look like they were flying knives. The sails were emzoned with the symbol of the Guardian Guild - and they were powered by strange runes that made them glide through the air with ease. Soldiers armed with bows, swords, and other weapons stood ready for battle from the ships'' decks.
The army that had gathered in the sky was massive, their numbers stretching far beyond what Gaya had expected. As they floated in the air, the sheer size of the force was imposing. The soldiers were d in shining armor, and their weapons gleamed brightly in the sunlight. The colorful banners of different kingdoms fluttered in the breeze, adding a vibrant contrast to the stark, blue sky.
The army of Nagnd itself was impressive in numbers, but now it was multiplied by the forces of the Guardian Guild and the Council of Immortals. Flying airships with the symbol of the Guardian Guild emzoned on their sails were dotted throughout the sky, adding a technological edge to the otherwise medieval appearance of the army.
Gaya stood tall and proud in the face of the overwhelming army that surrounded her in the air. Despite the hundreds of soldiers and the imposing figures that flew out from the floating pce of the Council of Immortals, she showed no signs of fear. Her eyes glinted with a cold determination, her jaw set in a firm line.
"If you want to reach Noah, you have to go through this army," Xanali''s voice rang out, full of warning.
Gaya simply sneered in response, her hand flexing around her bow. She knew that the only way to reach Noah was through the army before her, but she was not afraid. As the army rapidly closed in around her, Gaya braced herself for battle, her eyes scanning the mass of soldiers for any weaknesses or openings.
The sheer size and power of the army were daunting, but Gaya was determined to reach her target. She knew that the only way to end this once and for all was to face the army head-on, and she was ready to do whatever it took to achieve that goal.
Gaya''s eyes zed with an intense light as she raised her hand toward the sky. Suddenly, the space around her started to distort, sending ripples across the air. The sky began to darken, and thunder rumbled in the distance. A fierce storm appeared out of nowhere, with winds howling and the ocean surrounding Nagnd Ind churning violently.
The soldiers of Nagnd watched in awe and fear as they witnessed the disy of Gaya''s power. Even the Council of Immortals, who had seen much in their long lives, were taken aback by the ferocity of the storm that Gaya had conjured.
As the wind picked up, Gaya raised her head and said, "You are not the only one with an army,"
Her words were carried by the wind and echoed across the battlefield. The soldiers of Nagnd braced themselves for the worst, knowing that they were facing a formidable foe.
The sky trembled and the air around them grew dense and heavy. Suddenly, a portal ripped open, spilling forth a torrent of hundreds of soldierspletely covered in ck armor. Each of them had an eerie aura about them, and their movements were stiff and mechanical. These were not living soldiers, but the Dark Lord''s undead army. As they emerged from the portal, they encircled the army that surrounded Gaya. Their sheer size and ominous appearance made them a force to be reckoned with. The soldiers of Nagnd and the Council of Immortals looked on in shock and horror as the army of the undead kepting out of the portal without slowing down.
Unexpectedly, another portal appeared in the sky, and a group of dark robed figures emerged from it. Their eyes glowed with a haunting intensity, and their skin was deathly pale. As they flew closer, their hissing grew louder, sending chills down the spines of those nearby. It was the Vampire army, led by none other than Elder Vampire Saber. The army''s sheer size and strength were imposing, and they quickly positioned themselves next to Gaya''s army of undead soldiers. Together, the two armies created an unstoppable force, ready to take on anyone who dared to stand in their way.
As Xanali and others were staring at the two armies, another portal opened, and through it emerged several imposing figures robed in a unique way. These were the members of the Vampire Death Squad, and their presence alone was enough to make even the bravest of warriors tremble.
Leading the charge was Bear, a towering behemoth of a man who wielded two massive axes with ease. He was d head to toe in ck armor, and his eyes glowed with a feral intensity. Next to him was Snake, a wiry figure who moved with a serpentine grace. He wore a hooded cloak that hid his face from view, but the sickly green glow of his eyes was unmistakable.
Behind them was the deadly duo of Gray Wolf and White Wolf. The former was a dwarf with a wild mane of hair and a thick beard. He was covered in scars, and his eyes burned with fierce determination. Thetter was an elf with striking golden hair and a chiseled jawline. His movements were graceful and fluid, and his eyes held a cold, detached cruelty.
Bringing up the rear was Spider, a half-elf woman whose beauty was matched only by her deadly skills. She wore a form-fitting suit of ck leather that hugged her curves in all the right ces. Her hair was a flowing cascade of blonde waves, and her eyes sparkled with deadly intelligence.
Together, the Vampire Death Squad looked like an unstoppable force of nature, and anyone foolish enough to cross them would surely meet a gruesome end.
As the Dark Lord''s army descended upon them, the army of Xanali grew increasingly fearful. They watched in awe as hundreds of undead warriors, all d in ck armor, emerged from the portal. Some of the soldiers began to back away, unsure of how to react to this sudden appearance.
"This can''t be happening," one of the soldiers murmured, his voice shaking with fear.
"They''re the Dark Lord''s army," another whispered, his eyes wide with terror. "We can''t defeat them,"
When the soldiers of Xanali''s army looked at the vampire death squad and the rest of the Dark Lord''s army, fear crept into their hearts. They were afraid, but they were also resolute not to back down easily.
One soldier whispered to hisrade, "Have you ever seen such a terrifying army before?"
Hisrade nodded in agreement, "Not in all my years of service have I seen such a dark and fearsome army."
Some soldiers looked at each other, determined to fight until the end. They may have been afraid, but they knew that running away or admitting defeat was not an option.
"We will not back down! We will fight until ourst breath!" a soldier shouted, his voice echoing across the battlefield.
When Xanali''s army stared in shock at the appearance of the Dark Lord''s army, they thought they had seen the worst of it. But then, another portal opened, and out of it emerged a figure that left them breathless. It was a young man in histe teens, wearing a ck coat and trousers, and a white shirt. But what was most striking about him were his bat-like wings and his glowing crimson eyes that seemed to pierce through their souls. He had pointed ears that indicated he was a half-elf.
The air around them seemed to grow heavier, and many in Xanali''s army felt their hearts race with fear. They knew, without a doubt, that this was no ordinary man. They could sense the immense power radiating from him, and it made their breathing difficult. They looked at each other with wide eyes, wondering what kind of creature they were facing.
Xanali herself was frozen, staring at the young man in awe and fear. She knew who he was - Azazel, the infamous demon butler of the Dark Lord. She had heard stories of his powers and knew that facing him would be a death sentence for many in her army.
As Azazel slowly descended down, he looked around with a cold gaze, sizing up Xanali''s army. His wings fluttered gracefully, and he seemed to move with otherworldly grace. The soldiers of Xanali''s army felt a chill run down their spines as they watched him.
"He''s...he''s Azazel," one of the guardians whispered, his voice shaking with fear.
"He''s the demon butler of the Dark Lord," another added, his voice barely above a whisper.
Whispers spread through the ranks, and every soldier felt a shiver down their spine. They had all heard tales of the demon butler Azazel, but no one knew the true extent of his power. All they knew was that his presence alone was enough to make breathing difficult, and many couldn''t help but tremble in fear.
Chapter 922 Battle Of Nagaland II
The Council of Immortals had made a grave decision - they had tasked four of their own to apprehend Gaya, the Dark Queen. It was a dangerous mission, one that could result in their own demise. Many Immortals refused to fight, fearing the wrath of the Dark Lord if they were to interfere. But these four were different. They had had enough of the Dark Lord''s tyranny and were determined to end it before it even began. They were old, three men and one woman, but they were powerful beyond measure. Their faces were etched with determination, their eyes burning with a fire that could rival the sun.
As the armies in the sky grew in number, the ground below was cast in a shadow. The soldiers of Xanali''s army were afraid, but they stood their ground.
"Just let me in the castle, and all the bloodshed could be avoided," Gaya''s voice boomed through the sky, echoing across the battlefield. Her words were dripping with malice and contempt as she stared down at Xanali. The Dark Queen''s eyes narrowed in anger as she waited for a response. When none came, she let out a sharp exhale, her frustration evident.
"To protect one, you are willing to sacrifice hundreds. That is evil in my book," Gaya spat out the words with venom, her tone cold and unforgiving. The silence that followed her statement was deafening. The soldiers on both sides looked on in fear and awe, unsure of what to do next.
The four Immortals slowly descended from the sky, their presencemanding and powerful. Their bodies may have aged, but their powers were as potent as ever. Theynded in front of Xanali''s army, facing the Dark Lord''s army.
"We will not stand by and watch as the world falls into darkness," the female Immortal spoke, her voice steady and unwavering.
The three male Immortals stood beside her, their eyes locked on the Dark Lord''s army. "We will do whatever it takes to stop you," one of them said.
The soldiers of Xanali''s army watched in awe as the Immortals prepared for battle. Even in their old age, they radiated power and strength. It was clear that they were not to be underestimated.
"Azazel," Gaya looked up at the demon butler in the air.
"Take no prisoners," As Gaya gave the order, the tension in the air intensified. Azazel, the demon butler, heard hermand and transformed himself into a bolt of lightning with the use of his powerful spell, Lightning Dash. In an instant, he was soaring towards the female Immortal, who had been assigned to capture Gaya.
Azazel was a fearsome opponent, his strength equal to that of an Immortal, thanks to his cultivation being tied to the Dark Lord''s own power. He had never experienced the heavenly tribtion like the other Immortals, making him a mysterious and dangerous adversary. With the ability to mimic the Dark Lord''s spells, Azazel was an invaluable weapon in the Dark Lord''s army.
As Azazel drew closer, the female Immortal braced herself for the attack, knowing she was facing a formidable opponent. The battle had officially begun, and it was clear that hundreds of lives were about to be snuffed out in Nagnd. The two armies collided in the air instantly, with Gaya and Azazel facing the Immortals. They led the attack like ferocious beasts.
The sh of swords and the whizzing of spells filled the air as the two armies shed in a fierce battle. The Guardians fought with all their might, casting spells that shook the very foundations of the earth. The sound of thunder echoed in the sky as they summoned lightning bolts to strike the undead army. The Guardians also used their weapons, slicing through the undead with swords and axes.
Meanwhile, the alpha vampires controlling the undead army showed remarkable coordination and tactical skills. They directed the undead to attack the Guardians in waves, using their numbers to their advantage. The undead wed at the Guardians with their rotten hands and gnawed at them with their sharp teeth. They were fearless and relentless, driven by a hunger that knew no bounds.
As the battle raged on, it became clear that neither side had a clear advantage. The undead were numerous, but the Guardians were powerful and skilled. The guardians continued to cast spells, summoning walls of fire to incinerate the undead and using spells to paralyze them in their tracks. However, the alpha vampires continued to control the undead army with ease, directing them to attack the Guardians from different angles.
On the other hand, the vampire death squad wreaked havoc like a violent tornado. As the vampire death squad flew into battle, Bear charged forward with his two giant axes, swinging them with tremendous force. His axes met the guardians'' weapons, and sparks flew as they shed. The force of his blows was so powerful that it shattered the guardians'' weapons, sending shards of metal flying in all directions.
Snake slithered through the air, his thin body making it almost impossible to track his movements. He darted in and out of the guardians'' ranks, striking with his venomous des. With each hit, a deadly toxin entered the guardians'' bodies, causing them to writhe in agony and eventually sumb to their injuries.
Gray Wolf and White Wolf moved together like a well-oiled machine. Their attacks were swift and precise. Gray Wolf used his small stature to his advantage, sneaking up on unsuspecting guardians and dispatching them quickly and quietly. White Wolf, on the other hand, was a whirlwind of death, her elven grace allowing her to move with lightning speed. She took on multiple guardians at once, her deadly des cutting through flesh and bone with ease.
Spider was the most cunning of them all, using her beauty to lure guardians into her trap. She would flirt and tease, making the guardians believe they had the upper hand, only to strike when they were at their most vulnerable. Her swords and arrows were sharp and deadly, leaving a trail of blood wherever she went.
As the vampire death squad fought, their brutality was unmatched. Limbs were severed, heads were chopped off, and blood rained down from the sky. The guardians fought back with all their might, but the vampire death squad was too powerful. The battle was a gruesome dance of death, with each move calcted and deadly. The sky was filled with the screams of the dying and the stench of blood and death.
While the vampire death squad was absolutely ughtering their foes, the vampires were equally as formidable, moving through the air with the grace and speed of a hurricane. Their supernatural abilities made them almost invincible, and they attacked with a brutality that left many soldiers trembling in fear. They tore into their opponents with razor-sharp fangs, draining them of their life force with each bite.
Blood spattered across the sky as the battle raged on, with the cries of the dying filling the air. The soldiers of Xanali''s army fought bravely, but they were no match for thebined might of the Dark Lord''s forces. The undead army swarmed them without mercy, wing and gnawing at their flesh with a single-minded determination.
In the midst of the chaos, the vampire death squad continued to cut a bloody swath through their enemies. Bear''s axes cleaved through bone and sinew, while Snake''s daggers left a trail of poisoned corpses in his wake. Gray Wolf and White Wolf moved like phantoms, striking without warning and disappearing just as quickly. And Spider''s deadly uracy with her arrows and swords was a sight to behold.
It was a gruesome and terrifying battle, with both sides fighting with every ounce of their being. And yet, it seemed as though the Dark Lord''s forces were gaining the upper hand.
As the battle raged on in the sky, the guardians had to use their knowledge of magic and their skills inbat to fend off the undead army and the Dark Lord''s forces. Some guardians chanted powerful incantations, conjuring massive spells that illuminated the sky with dazzling lights. The spells ranged from massive fireballs that exploded upon impact, to gusts of wind that could knock down entire rows of the undead army. The guardians also used their magical abilities to shield themselves and their allies from attacks.
The Immortals, in particr, showed the full extent of their power. They floated in the air, radiating an aura of pure energy that left many in awe. They used their knowledge of magic to cast spells of unparalleled magnitude, like a massive beam of light that shot out from the hands of the male Immortal and scorched through the sky, incinerating everything in its path. The female Immortal summoned a swirling vortex of energy that sucked in the undead army and shattered them into pieces.
Even Xanali, who had been silent for most of the battle, finally drew her sword and joined the fray. She moved with a grace that belied her years, striking down vampires and undead with ease. Her sword glowed with white light as she swung it, sending waves of energy that cut through the dark army like a hot knife through butter.
Despite the guardians'' best efforts, however, the Dark Lord''s army proved to be a formidable opponent. The vampire death squad continued to take down their foes with brutal efficiency, while the vampires seemed to be unstoppable, using their regenerative abilities and super strength to overpower their enemies. The battle continued to rage on, with no end in sight.
Gaya fought with the ferocity of a cornered animal, her eyes glowing with a sinister crimson light. She quickly conjured up a storm of dark clouds around her, causing lightning to crackle and rain to pour down on the battlefield. As two Immortals charged at her, she aimed her bow and shot a flurry of arrows that split into countless poisonous snakes upon impact. The snakes slithered and coiled around the Immortals, biting them with their venomous fangs.
As the two Immortals were writhing in pain, Gaya chanted an incantation that summoned a massive serpent made of dark energy. The snake coiled around her arm as she aimed it at the sky and released it with a fierce roar. The serpent shot toward the heavens, tearing through the clouds and creating a massive explosion that sent shockwaves throughout the battlefield.
Despite the overwhelming power of Gaya''s spells, the Immortals continued to fight back with their own grandiose magic. One Immortal summoned a blinding light that illuminated the entire sky, causing the clouds to part and revealing the stars above. The other Immortal created a raging firestorm that incinerated everything in its path.
The sky was filled with the sh of spells and the roar of thunder as they continued their battle. The storm around Gaya intensified, the wind howling as lightning struck down all around her. Yet, she continued to fight with unwavering determination, her eyes fixed on her enemies as she unleashed spell after spell.
On the other side of the sky, Azazel flew towards the two Immortals, determined to use all his arsenal to take them down. A barrage of lightning bolts crackled with deadly electricity, hitting one of the Immortals and causing a massive explosion that illuminated the entire sky.
Dodging the spells of the other Immortal, Azazel unleashed crescent-shaped des of wind using his wind st spell. The des cut through the air like a razor, hitting the second Immortal who staggered back with blood oozing from his wounds.
Azazel then flew towards the wounded Immortal and hit him with all his brute strength. The Immortal crashed to the ground with a resounding thud, causing the sky to rumble with the force of the impact. The winds around them intensified, creating a storm of epic proportions.
The battlefield was a chaos of spells and weapons as the guardians and Nagnd soldiers fought with all their might, trying to push back the undead army and the vampire death squad. The oue was still uncertain, and the storm raged around them, with lightning bolts illuminating the sky and casting eerie shadows on the battlefield.
The power coursing through Azazel''s veins made him ready for the next attack. He knew that he had to use it to take down the guardians and the Immortals. The battle was far from over, and he was prepared to fight until the bitter end.
As the battle raged in the sky above, the impact of the spells and weapons used by the guardians and the Dark Lord''s army was felt on the ground below. The spells cast by the Immortals and the guardians were so powerful that they shook the very foundations of the buildings in the kingdom.
The sky above the kingdom was lit up by bolts of lightning, and the rumble of thunder was deafening. The impact of the spells sent shockwaves through the air, causing windows to shatter and walls to crumble. The guardians'' spells left scorch marks on the ground, and the undead army left a trail of destruction wherever they went.
The ground shook violently, causing buildings to sway and crack. The impact of the battle was felt for miles around, and it was clear that the oue of this battle would determine the fate of the kingdom.
As the battle continued to rage on, the ground shook even more violently, and the buildings in the kingdom began to copse.
The impact of the spells was so great that it felt like an earthquake had struck the kingdom.
The guardians and the Dark Lord''s army were so focused on the battle that they paid no attention to the destruction they were causing. It was as if they were fighting in a world of their own, and nothing else mattered except victory. But the consequences of their actions would be felt for years toe.
As the sound of battle echoed throughout Nagnd, many rogue cultivators stopped in their tracks, their eyes drawn to the sky. They could see the armies of the Dark Lord and the guardians of Nagnd fighting in a battle of epic proportions.
One rogue cultivator looked up in disbelief, "Is this for real? I''ve never seen such a battle in my life."
Another cultivator replied, "It seems the rumors were true. The Dark Lord has finallye to im Nagnd as his own."
A third cultivator shook his head, "I never thought I''d see the day when the guardians of Nagnd would have to fight for their lives. This is a dark day indeed."
As they watched the battle rage on, the rogue cultivators could see the spells and weapons of both sides causing destruction to the kingdom below
With the war in the sky raged on, the ground shook violently, causing buildings to crumble and roads to split open. The journalists from Royal News and other news agencies watched in horror from a safe distance, their cameras rolling to capture every moment of the carnage.
One of the reporters from Royal News, a young woman named Sarah, felt her heart pounding in her chest as she watched the battle unfold before her eyes. "This is insane," she whispered, her voice shaking with fear. "I never imagined it would be like this."
Another journalist, a seasoned veteran named John, could barely contain his shock as he watched the undead army swarm toward the guardians and Nagnd soldiers. "This is worse than anything I''ve ever seen," he muttered, his eyes wide with disbelief. "I can''t believe they''re actually fighting in the sky like this. It''s like something out of a nightmare."
As the battle raged on, the reporters could feel the raw power of the spells and the thunderous roar of the shes. The fear and desperation of the soldiers were palpable, and the reporters could barely process the magnitude of the destruction around them.
"This is madness," Sarah whispered, tears streaming down her face. "How can anyone survive this? How can anyone even hope to win?"
John shook his head, his face grim. "I don''t know," he said. "All I know is that this is a battle unlike any other. And we''re witnessing it first hand."
********
This is the first time i had written such a massive scale war scene. So please forgive me if there are mistakes!! I will strive to write better in the future!!
Chapter 923 Battle Of Nagaland III
The sky was alive with chaos and bloodshed as vampires and cultivators shed in arge-scale battle. From the sky, they brought the war down to the ground, bringing destruction with them. Spells were fired left and right, reducing buildings to rubble and turning the once-thriving streets into a warzone. The undead, with their rotting flesh and cold eyes, fought alongside the Nagnd soldiers on the ground, their flesh tearing with every blow they took.
"Undead to the barrier,"
As Azazel fought ferociously against the Immortals, the Dark Queen barked an order at her partner in crime. Azazel, with his twisted grin, understood her perfectly,manding the alpha undead to send a battalion of undead to the energy dome surrounding the castle. The undead, with their decayed bodies and rusted weapons, rushed toward the energy dome, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust.
The energy dome sparked and burned as the undead threw themselves at it, trying to break through. Their skin sizzled, and their limbs charred as they pushed their way through, their screams of agony ringing out like a twisted melody. But their overwhelming numbers proved to be too much, causing the energy dome to ripple and flicker under their relentless assault.
The battle was a gruesome affair, with bodies littering the ground and blood staining the streets. Severed limbs and entrails were scattered among the rubble, a macabre disy of the brutality of war. The vampires and cultivators fought with ruthless determination, their eyes glowing with an insatiable hunger for victory.
But the undead were just as fierce, fighting with a single-minded focus that was both terrifying and awe-inspiring. They wed and bit at their enemies, their rotting teeth sinking into flesh and their decaying hands tearing at clothing and armor. The stench of death and decay hung heavy in the air, mingling with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid scent of magic.
Amidst the chaos, Gaya and Azazel fought on, their power crackling and sparking with every spell they cast. The sky was awash with colors, with red and blue magic shing in a deadly dance. They fought with a ferocity that was unmatched, their eyes glowing with a fierce determination to emerge victorious from this bloody conflict.
The battle raged on, and as the sun began to set, it was clear that neither side was willing to back down. The undead continued their assault on the energy dome, their numbers dwindling with every passing minute. The Nagnd soldiers fought with a determination born of desperation, their weapons stained with the blood of their fallenrades.
¦Ñ¦Á§ád¦Á---n?¦Ía| §ãom Xanali''s eyes widened in horror as she watched the undead hurling themselves at the energy barrier, their undead bodies bursting into mes upon contact. The stench of burning flesh and hair filled the air, mingling with the acrid smell of magic.
Amidst the chaos, Gaya flew down from the sky while evading the spells cast by the immortals as she swooped toward a bloated undead. The bloated undead was a grotesque experiment of Dr''s, filled with noxious gases that could cause a massive explosion upon impact.
Gaya''s fingers dug into the rotting flesh of the undead, ignoring the putrid smell as she hurled it toward the two immortals hot on her heels. The bloated undead flew between two buildings, exploding in a shower of gore and viscera. Blood, flesh, and bone rained down on the immortals as they frantically cast protective spells to shield themselves from the st.
The explosion was deafening, shattering the windows of nearby buildings and causing the ground to shake violently.
The deafening roar of the explosion echoed through the war-torn streets, sending shivers down the spines of everyone who heard it. The two towering immortals, now unprotected, found themselves under a rain of deadly arrows, each piercing through their thick skin with a sickening thud. They struggled to fend off the barrage of arrows while simultaneously trying to avoid the falling debris of the shattered buildings.
The alpha undead seized the opportunity and signaled the horde to attack the vulnerable immortals. The undead swarmed around them, wing and biting, their ravenous hunger for flesh apparent in their frenzied attacks. The immortals may have had bodies like steel, but the undead''s relentless bites still caused them excruciating pain.
As the chaos unfolded, Gaya''s face contorted into a wicked grin as she charged toward the female Immortal, her canines morphing into venomous fangs resembling those of a cobra. With a vicious lunge, she sank her fangs into the Immortal''s neck, injecting her lethal venom. The female Immortal shrieked in agony, wing at her neck as the poison spread through her body.
Meanwhile, the male Immortal, blinded by the jade mist sprayed by Gaya, writhed in agony, his eyes burning like hot coals. He tried to fend off the undead, but they were too many, tearing at his clothes and scratching his skin.
Gaya, seeing the opportunity, summoned a crimson-red de and lunged at the immortals with lightning speed, striking them with savage blows. Blood spattered everywhere as her de found its mark again and again, slicing through flesh and bone. The scene was a gruesome disy of carnage and brutality, with limbs and body parts strewn everywhere and the stench of blood and death permeating the air.
Gaya''s eyes glimmered with satisfaction as the two immortals finally met their demise at the end of her crimson de. The undead eagerly descended upon the immortals'' lifeless bodies, tearing them apart with their razor-sharp teeth and ws. But Gaya had no time to revel in her victory, for her attention was quickly drawn to Azazel, who was engaged in a brutal battle against the other two immortals.
As she approached the chaotic scene, Gaya watched in awe as Azazel unleashed his full power. Dark lightning bolts crackled from his fingertips, illuminating the dark sky with a menacing glow. He dodged and weaved around the immortals'' spells, his wings pping with ferocity. With each strike of his magic, the ground shook and trembled, causing debris to rain down upon the hapless guardians and Nagnd soldiers below.
In the midst of the chaotic battle, Azazel was a force to be reckoned with. With his wings pping furiously, he unleashed bolts of dark lightning at the two immortals who were struggling to keep up with his speed and power. His eyes were filled with a wild glint, and his lips curled into a devilish grin as he relished in the mayhem and destruction he was causing.
As Azazel flew around the sky, his spells caused buildings to crumble and explode, raining down debris on the Nagnd soldiers and guardians below. He swooped down to attack the soldiers with his bare hands, tearing them apart with savage strength and merciless precision. Blood spattered across his face as he ripped through their flesh and bones with ease, leaving nothing but mangled corpses in his wake.
The guardians, horrified by Azazel''s brutality, tried to defend themselves with their weapons and spells. But their efforts were in vain, as Azazel''s power and ferocity proved too much for them to handle. He lunged at them, snarling like a wild animal, and tore them apart one by one.
Despite facing two immortals at the same time, Azazel never once faltered. Instead, he seemed to revel in the challenge,ughing maniacally as he dodged their spells andunched his own attacks. The air crackled with dark energy as he unleashed a barrage of spells at them, his wings beating fiercely to keep him aloft. And as he continued to wreak havoc on the battlefield, the ground below him was littered with the broken and lifeless bodies of his enemies.
As Azazel continued to fight the two immortals, Gaya joined the fray and made a formidable team together. Gaya flew around the immortals, spewing a thick jade-green poison mist from her mouth. The mist hung heavily in the air, almost suffocating the immortals. With lightning-fast reflexes, Azazel fired a crackling bolt of lightning into the mist, causing a great explosion that sent the two immortals hurtling through the air.
Gaya wasted no time and flew toward one of the immortals, stabbing him in the back repeatedly with her crimson-red de. The other immortal tried to cast a spell, but before he could even finish the incantation, Azazel ced his palm on the immortal''s face and fired a lightning bolt out of his hand, piercing through the immortal''s eyes. The immortal screamed in pain as Gaya threw her blood-soaked de at Azazel.
Azazel caught the de mid-air, and without hesitation, he sliced off the head of the other immortal with a swift motion. The decapitated head rolled on the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind. Azazel then threw the de back to Gaya, who easily caught it. She continued to stab the remaining Immortal in front of her, her eyes fixated on Xanali.
The scene was brutal and gory, with blood and body parts littering the battlefield. The stench of death hung heavily in the air, making breathing almost unbearable. Thebination of Gaya''s poison mist and Azazel''s lightning bolts made for a deadlybination, leaving the immortals with no chance of survival. It was a true disy of power and skill, and the spectators who witnessed the battle were left in awe and terror.
With the four Immortals dead and their bodies being devoured by the undead, Azazel and Gaya turned their bloodied gazes towards the rest of the guardians and Nagnd army. Just as Gaya and Azazel killed the Immortals, more airships appeared in the horizon, ready to engage in battle.
"Destroy them all," Gaya ordered Azazel, pointing at the guardian airships. Her voice was cold and filled with venom, reflecting her determination to win this battle.
Azazel''s grin grew wider as he acknowledged the order and soared towards the airships with his dark wings. Gaya''s robes were soaked with blood and her once-lustrous raven hair was now matted with the blood of her enemies. In that moment, she looked like a goddess of war, ready to annihte anyone who dared cross her.
As Azazel departed to destroy the guardian ships, Xanali swiftly sliced off a vampire''s head, her eyes locking with her sister''s. It was time for the final showdown between the two sisters, who had been at odds for so long.
The tension between the two sisters was palpable as they floated in the air, circling each other like birds of prey. Despite her training, Xanali knew that she was outmatched by Gaya''s immense power and skill. In ast-ditch effort, she reached into her space ring and retrieved the most precious artifact of Nagnd - an emerald cube.
As soon as the cube appeared in her hand, Gaya''s eyes narrowed with recognition. She knew the power of the artifact - it was the most formidable weapon in Nagnd''s arsenal, one that hadn''t been used in centuries. Xanali didn''t hesitate. She crushed the cube in her hand, and it shattered into millions of tiny specks of green light that enveloped her.
The specks of light danced around Xanali, forming aplex pattern in the air before coalescing into a grand armor. The armor was made of a vibrant green metal that shone like an emerald in the sunlight, with intricate patterns etched into the surface. It covered Xanali from head to toe, leaving only her eyes visible behind a glowing visor. The armor hummed with power, and Xanali could feel the energy coursing through her body, invigorating her with strength and speed.
The armor was not only beautiful but also incredibly functional. It was lightweight and flexible, allowing Xanali to move with ease, yet strong enough to withstand even the strongest attacks. Two metal wings sprouted from Xanali''s back, resembling a pair of dragonfly wings. They were made of the same emerald-green metal as the armor, with sharp edges that looked like they could cut through steel.
The mere sight of the armor made Gaya''s eyes widen in surprise, for she knew that it was the most powerful artifact of the Nagnd treachery. The armor''s main purpose was not to enhance the wearer''s cultivation but to withstand an Immortal''s attacks. The metal used to forge it and the runes etched into it rendered the armor nearly indestructible, giving Xanali a fighting chance against Gaya.
As Xanali hovered in mid-air, the armor hummed with energy, and her cultivation stage surged, reaching the Half Immortal level. She clenched her fists, ready to face her sister in battle, while the metal wings on her back unfurled with a deafening metallic roar.
Chapter 924 Battle Between The Sisters
As Xanali felt the power of the Nagnd artifact surging through her veins, she focused her will and channeled it into the runes etched onto her armor. A blinding sh of emerald light erupted from the armor, and a long sword materialized in Xanali''s hand.
The sword was crafted from a rare, deep green metal that seemed to radiate an otherworldly power. The hilt was decorated with snake patterns that seemed to writhe and move in the light, while the de glimmered with an eerie emerald sheen. Gaya knew exactly what it was: the Sword of Nagnd, a weapon meant for only the reigning Queen of Nagnd.
Her fury grew as she realized that Xanali, a mere princess, had been granted such a powerful artifact by her father''s foolishness. Gaya''s eyes narrowed as she prepared to face Xanali and the Sword of Nagnd.
Xanali''s eyes zed with determination as she dashed towards Gaya, her metal wings propelling her forward with incredible speed. The sound of her sword cutting through the air was like a siren, warning Gaya of the imminent danger. Gaya raised her crimson-red sword in anticipation, ready to meet Xanali''s attack head-on. The two swords shed with a deafening sound, sending shockwaves through the air and causing cracks to form in nearby buildings. The force of the impact was so great that it made the ground shake beneath their feet. The sparks flew as the two swords continued to collide with each other, each woman determined to prove her superiority over the other.
The sh between Gaya and Xanali intensified as sparks flew from their swords, illuminating the night sky. Gaya''s crimson-red sword glinted menacingly as she twirled it effortlessly in her hand while her other hand gripped the bow with expert precision. The onlookers gasped in awe as they watched Gaya wield both weapons with deadly uracy.
Gaya''s movements were swift and fluid as she blocked Xanali''s attacks with her sword and simultaneouslyunched a barrage of arrows at her opponent. The arrows moved with a life of their own, guided by Gaya''s energy as they homed in on Xanali.
Xanali, however, was not easily defeated. She expertly deflected Gaya''s arrows with her sword and closed in on Gaya with lightning-fast movements. The two shed once again, their swords ringing out as they struck against each other.
Gaya''s swordy was as fluid and graceful as a dancer''s movements. She expertly deflected Xanali''s sword strikes with her own crimson-red sword, which glinted dangerously in the sky. Even with the added weight of the bow in her other hand, Gaya showed no signs of slowing down or faltering.
In a split second, Gaya switched from deflecting Xanali''s sword to raising her bow and firing off arrows through the use of her energy. Her movements were so smooth and swift that it seemed like the sword and bow were natural extensions of her body. With each arrow she fired, Gaya used her energy to guide its trajectory, making sure it hit its intended target with deadly precision.
The arrows flew through the air like streaks of light, whistling past Xanali and forcing her to dodge and weave. But despite the relentless barrage of arrows, Xanali remained determined and focused, her eyes locked on Gaya as she continued to press the attack. The sound of metal shing and arrows whizzing through the air echoed through the battlefield as the two women engaged in a fierce and deadly dance of des and arrows.
As the battle between Gaya and Xanali raged on, the sky above them grew even more ominous as if reflecting the violent conflict unfolding below. The clouds turned a deep shade of grey, thunder roared in the distance, and lightning lit up the sky in bright shes. The storm raged on, the winds howling like the cries of the dying. The rain wasing down in sheets, drenching the two sisters as they fought in the air. The raindrops were heavy and cold, making it harder for them to fly, but they continued to sh swords and arrows amidst the downpour. The storm was a fitting backdrop for the fierce battle that was tearing apart the castle, the shes of lightning illuminating the destruction and adding to the drama of the fight.
The sky above was covered with dark and ominous clouds as shes of lightning lit up the battlefield below. Xanali and Gaya were suspended in the air, locked in a deadly dance with their swords. The sh of metal echoed throughout the ruined city, adding to the chaos and destruction that surrounded them.
Gaya''s eyes burned with fury as she red at Xanali, her crimson-red sword poised to strike. Xanali''s emerald sword glowed with an otherworldly light, and her metal wings shimmered in the stormy sky.
"Look around you," Gaya spat, her voice barely audible over the howling winds. "All this death and destruction is because you didn''t let me through the barrier. You could have saved them, Xanali. But you chose to protect that coward instead,"
Xanali''s expression hardened, and she lunged forward, sword aimed at Gaya''s chest. The two swords shed once more, the impact sending shockwaves throughout the air. The energy emanating from their weapons illuminated the dark sky, casting an eerie glow over the carnage below.
Gaya attacked Xanali with her sword and a barrage of arrows at the same time, the sound of metal shing with metal and the whistling of arrows filling the air. But Xanali''s armor was able to withstand Gaya''s attacks, protecting her from any fatal wounds. Without the armor, Xanali would have been struck down by Gaya''s relentless assault.
Despite the power of the armor, it was clear that Gaya had the upper hand in the battle. Her attacks were swift and precise, and her control over the arrows was impressive. Xanali was barely holding her own, parrying Gaya''s sword strikes and dodging the arrows with all her might.
The stormy sky grew darker as they continued to fight, and thunder rumbled in the distance. The wind picked up, making it difficult for the two sisters to maintain their bnce in the air. But they pushed on, their determination to defeat the other never wavering.
Gaya''s eyes zed with fury as she spoke, her sword locked in a fierce sh with Xanali''s. "You are making a grave mistake by standing in my way, Xanali," she spat out through gritted teeth. "If hees here, you won''t have anything left to rule."
Her words hung heavy in the air as Xanali braced herself for the next wave of attacks. The dark storm raged on, lightning illuminating the sky with shes of blinding light. With a sudden surge of energy, Gaya broke away from the sh and leaped backward, drawing her bow with a swift motion.
Xanali''s eyes widened as she saw the barrage of arrows hurtling toward her at breakneck speed. She brought up her sword to deflect them, but Gaya was not done yet. With a flick of her wrist, Gaya unleashed a series of powerful energy sts that streaked toward Xanali, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
But Xanali was not defenseless. The armor Castien had gifted her glowed with a bright green light as it absorbed the brunt of the attacks. Xanali felt the shockwaves reverberate through her body, but she stood firm. Without the armor, she would have been no match for Gaya''s onught.
Xanali gritted her teeth as she shed swords with Gaya in the midst of a fierce storm. "We will stop you and the Dark Lord," she dered, determination etched on her face. Suddenly, Xanali surged forward, delivering a powerful punch with the hilt of her sword thatnded squarely on Gaya''s face. Blood sprayed from Gaya''s mouth, but instead of faltering, she cackled maniacally, revealing blood-stained teeth. In response, Gaya conjured a giant arrow with a wave of her hand and let it fly at Xanali, causing a deafening explosion that sent Xanali hurtling into the air.
Despite their injuries and the bloodshed, the two sisters fought on with unyielding ferocity, refusing to back down. As the battle intensified, Gaya and Xanali began to cast spells at each other. Gaya chanted a spell and summoned a giant serpent made of ck poisonous mist. The serpent lunged at Xanali, who responded by casting a spell of her own. She conjured a wave of green poison that took the form of a giant cobra, and the two serpents shed in the air.
The sh created a massive shockwave that shook the ground and sent debris flying in all directions. The sky turned a sickly green hue as if the clouds were made of poison. Gaya''s serpentshed out with its tail, but Xanali''s cobra dodged and countered by sinking its fangs into the serpent''s body. Gaya responded by unleashing a barrage of poison-tipped arrows, but Xanali used her sword to deflect them.
The arrows hit the ground and caused small explosions, leaving behind craters of poisoned earth. Xanali retaliated with a spell that summoned a swarm of smaller serpents made of green mist. The serpents slithered toward Gaya, but she used her bow to shoot them down one by one.
The battle between the two sisters raged on, and the sky and the ground continued to bear the scars of their magicalbat. The Nagnd soldiers and guardians below watched in awe and horror as the two Nagas fought with all their might.
The battle between Gaya and Xanali continued with ferocity as they unleashed a barrage of spells and attacks on each other. The sky turned dark as clouds of green and crimson poison hung in the air, causing anyone who breathed it to choke and cough uncontrobly. Gaya conjured a massive serpent made of green poison that slithered towards Xanali, its fangs dripping with deadly venom. Xanali responded by summoning a swarm of smaller serpents made of crimson poison that swarmed around Gaya, biting and tearing at her skin.
Gaya retaliated by calling forth a gust of wind that sent Xanali flying backward, crashing into the ground with a sickening thud. Xanali quickly got back on her feet and unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks, each one fueled by the strength of the emerald armor.
Gaya parried each blow with her sword and countered with her own attacks, striking Xanali with swift and precise strikes that left bloody gashes on her skin. Xanali gritted her teeth and fought back with renewed vigor, her attacks growing more brutal and savage with each passing moment.
The two Nagas fought with such intensity that the ground beneath them began to crack and split, and the sky above them split open with shes of lightning and thunder.
As they continued to fight, the air around them grew thick with the stench of blood and poison, and the ground beneath them was soaked in a mixture of blood and poison. Despite the exhaustion and injuries, neither of them gave an inch, each determined to emerge victorious. The battle raged on, with no end in sight as both Gaya and Xanali fought with all their might, their bodies battered and broken, but their spirits unbroken. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of metal shing against metal and the grunts of pain as each blownded.
Finally, with a scream of fury, theyunched themselves at each other, their weapons meeting in a shower of sparks. And with that, the battle between the two sisters continued, with no end in sight.
"STOP!" Suddenly, a dominant voice echoed through the sky as Gaya and Xanali both froze in their tracks. The voice was familiar yetmanding, and it was enough to halt their violent sh. Xanali looked relieved, while Gaya''s fists clenched in anger.
Slowly turning around, Gaya saw Castien, Xanali''s father, standing tall and proud in his regal attire. Despite the tension in the air, Castien exuded an air of calm authority. He was neither too thin nor muscr, and his green hair was neatly styled. His beard was stubble, and his eyes resembled those of a snake, befitting his status as the King of Nagnd.
Gaya''s heart raced as she faced the man who she thought of as her father until she learned the truth. She couldn''t shake off the realization that he was not her real father. Nevertheless, she tried to hide her inner turmoil and stood her ground as Castien approached them. Castien was dressed in regal robes of emerald green, adorned with golden threads and intricate snake patterns. The robes fluttered in the wind, billowing out behind him like the wings of a mighty serpent.
"Enough," Castien said, his voice firm yet gentle. "I won''t have my daughters fighting each other,"
As Castien''s voice echoed through the sky, the battle below continued to rage on. The thundering sh of swords, the whistling of arrows, and the roar of magic spells filled the air, creating a deafening chaos. The ground trembled under the feet of the fighters, and the dark clouds above seemed to reflect the darkness and despair of the situation.
Amidst all the chaos, only Gaya and Xanali stopped fighting, both still hovering in mid-air, their eyes locked on each other. The tension between them was palpable, and it seemed as if the slightest movement from either of them could trigger a renewed attack. Around them, the battle continued to rage on, with the guardians and Nagnd soldiers fighting desperately against the undead and vampires. Blood flowed freely on the ground, and the stench of death filled the air.
Despite Castien''s sudden appearance, the fighting continued, for everyone knew that even a momentary distraction could cost them their lives. The guardians and Nagnd soldiers fought with renewed vigor, their determination to protect their kingdom and people shining through in their every move.
In the midst of all this, Gaya and Xanali remained locked in a tense standoff, their swords at the ready. The air between them crackled with energy, and it seemed as if the slightest misstep could trigger a deadly attack.
As soon as Gaya heard Castien''s voice, her heart sank. She had not seen her father for three years, ever since he disowned her and broke her meridians. At first, she was shocked to see him on the battlefield, but then anger filled her heart. How dare he show up here after what he had done to her?
Castien, on the other hand, felt a mix of emotions when he saw Gaya. He was surprised to see her fighting on the battlefield, and it had been three years since he hadst seen her. However, he could see the rage in her eyes, and he knew that she was still angry with him.
Gaya watched her father approach, her fists clenched. She felt a mix of emotions, from anger to sadness to betrayal. She wanted to scream at him, to demand an exnation for what he had done to her. But she held herself back, not wanting to show any weakness in front of him.
Castien stopped in front of Gaya, looking down at her with a mix of regret and sorrow. "Gaya, my daughter," he said softly. "I never meant to hurt you."
Gaya snorted, her eyes shing with anger. "You disowned me, Castien," she spat. "You broke my meridians and threw me out of my own castle. How could you say that you never meant to hurt me?"
Gaya felt a pang of sadness in her heart. She had always longed for her father''s love, but now that he was standing in front of her, she didn''t know what to do.
Looking at Gaya, Castien''s emotions were a mixture of surprise, shock, and concern.
"Gaya, stop this madness. You have fallen to the dark side. Listen to your father,"
Gaya red at him with anger and said, "Father?" She snickered,
"You betrayed me and threw me out of my own castle. You chose Xanali over me for Salesi and her offspring,"
Castien''s expression turned sad, but he still defended his actions, "I did what I thought was best for Nagnd. Xanali is a capable leader, and I love her and Salesi."
Gaya scoffed at his response and retorted, "Love? You call what you did to me and our kingdom love? You broke my meridians and threw me in prison while selling off our assets to feed the prisoners. You are no king. You are a coward."
Castien looked pained by her words, but he still stood his ground. "I stand by my decisions, Gaya. I will always love you, but I won''t apologize for doing what I thought was right for our people,"
Gaya snarled at him and raised her sword, "I don''t give a fuck about you or your love anymore. All I care about is that monkey and Noah hiding inside the castle, and I won''t let anyone, not even you or Xanali, stand in my way."
With that, Gaya lunged at Castien, ready to strike him down. But before she could make contact, Xanali intercepted her, and they resumed their battle in the sky. Castien watched them, his expression heavy with regret and sadness, as he realized the deep rift that had formed between him and his daughter.
Chapter 925 Holy Maiden鈥檚 Appearance
As the battle raged on between Gaya, Xanali, and the Guardians, Azazel found himself singlehandedly fighting off the Guardian airships. His strength seemed to grow with each passing minute, and he couldn''t help but think about the Dark Lord. His mind was consumed with the thought that wherever the Dark Lord was, he was growing in power, and this power was somehow being transferred to Azazel.
The air was thick with the acrid scent of smoke and the sh of metal as Azazel singlehandedly took on the Guardian airships. His muscles bulged and rippled under his skin as his strength grew by the minute, fueled by his connection to the Dark Lord. He couldn''t help but revel in the feeling of power coursing through his veins, knowing that the Dark Lord was behind it all.
The Guardians, flying out of their airships, attempted to stop Azazel with all their might, but they were no match for his raw strength and formidable spellcasting abilities. Their best fighters were only at the Fusion stage, while Azazel had already reached level 8 of the Immortal stage, making him an unstoppable force.
With a flick of his wrist, Azazel sent a barrage of lightning bolts raining down upon the airships, causing them to explode into fiery debris. His eyes glinted with an otherworldly light as heunched himself at the Guardians, his movements quick and fluid like a serpent. One by one, he eliminated them with a flurry of blows and devastating spells.
Azazel charged toward the group of Fusion stage guardians, a devilish grin spreading across his face. He relished the thought of taking down such powerful opponents, their blood spilling onto his hands. The guardians tried to attack him with their swords, but Azazel easily evaded their attacks with his agility and brute strength. His demonic powers surged within him, causing the air around him to crackle with dark energy.
Azazel raised his hand and fired a powerful gust of wind, sending the guardians flying back. He then charged towards them, swinging his fists and delivering crushing blows that shattered bones and ripped apart flesh. The guardians screamed in agony as Azazel''s attacks grew more and more brutal. Blood spurted out from their wounds, painting the air red.
As thest of the guardians fell to the ground, Azazel turned his attention toward the airship. He leaped into the air andnded on the ship''s deck with a loud thud. The ship''s crew tried to attack him with their weapons, but Azazel easily swatted them aside with his massive strength.
With a wicked grin, Azazel summoned a massive ball of lightning and hurled it toward the ship''s engines. The energy exploded upon impact, causing the ship to shake violently before exploding into a massive ball of fire. The sky turned into a fiery inferno, with debris raining down upon the ground below.
The debris from the explosion rained down upon the battlefield, causing chaos and destruction. The debris hit both the undead and the Nagnd soldiers, causing them to fall to the ground in pain. The battle continued despite the debris raining down upon them, with both sides fighting tooth and nail for victory.
Azazel looked down upon the chaos with a sense of satisfaction. He had struck a mighty blow against the Guardians, and he relished the thought of causing even more destruction. He raised his fists to the sky, letting out a howl of triumph as the battle raged on around him.
The guardians in the next airship witnessed Azazel''s brutal attack on theirrades and the destruction of their airship as they were filled with fear and desperation.
One of the guardians shouted, "We need to take him down! He''s too dangerous to be left alive!"
Another guardian replied, "But how? He''s too strong for us to handle!"
"By the gods, what kind of monster is he?"
Another guardian, his voice trembling, replied, "I don''t know, but we need to stop him before he destroys us too."
While they continued to panic and discuss their options, Azazel noticed their airship and made his way toward it, ready to take on his next opponent.
"We have to stop it," a third guardian said, determination in his voice. "We can''t let it destroy anymore of our ships."
But despite their bravado, the guardians couldn''t help feeling a sense of dread as they saw Azazel effortlessly take down the airship before them. The sheer power and ferocity he disyed were unlike anything they had ever seen before.
"We have to use all our strength," the third guardian said, his voice strained as he channeled his energy. "We can''t let this monster defeat us."
As the airship drew closer, the guardians prepared to face off against Azazel, knowing that their lives were on the line. They couldn''t afford to make any mistakes, but even with all their training and preparation, they knew that they might not be able to defeat this powerful foe.
Explosive shes of light lit up the sky as the guardians fired their cannons at Azazel. Despite the iing attack, Azazel charged forward, fearless, and sliced through the cannons with ease, his demonic aura growing hotter by the moment. Spells from the guardians flew toward him, but Azazel blocked them with brute strength, sending them back toward the ship.
With a loud roar, he leaped into the air andnded on the ship''s deck. The guardians tried to defend themselves with weapons, but it was toote. Moving like a blur, fueled by his demonic energy, Azazel tore through the guardians'' flesh with ws and fangs, ripping them apart in a shower of blood and gore.
The deck of the ship was soon covered in a thickyer of crimson, and the screams of the dying guardians echoed through the air. Azazel showed no mercy, ripping apart each guardian with a ferocity that was both terrifying and awe-inspiring. The sound of metal scraping against metal, mixed with the cries of the dying guardians, filled the air.
One of the guardians, who had managed to stay hidden, attempted to cast a spell. Azazel sensed him quickly and turned around, his eyes burning with demonic fire. He grabbed the guardian by the neck and lifted him off the ground.
e¦Áglesnovel`c,om "Puny scum," Azazel growled, tightening his grip around the guardian''s neck. The guardian choked, unable to speak or move. Azazel''s eyes glowed with demonic power, and the guardian''s body started to burn from the inside out.
Screaming in agony, the guardian was thrown into the air, and with a swift movement of Azazel''s hand, he fired a bolt of lightning that incinerated the guardian into ashes. The airship erupted in a massive explosion, and debris rained down on the battlefield below.
The explosion sent shockwaves through the battlefield, causing many of the soldiers and undead to lose their footing. Unfazed by the st, Azazel''s demonic aura grew even stronger. He looked up at the sky, a fierce grin on his face, daring anyone toe at him.
Azazel moved with supernatural speed and agility, leaping from one guardian airship to another, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. The sound of the guardians'' cannons echoed through the sky as they fired relentlessly at him, but Azazel dodged them effortlessly.
With each ship he destroyed, the sky was lit up with fiery explosions and the sound of metal being ripped apart. The debris from the airships rained down on the battlefield, causing chaos among the soldiers and undead on the ground.
The guardians on board the airships tried to defend themselves, but their efforts were in vain. As Azazel descended upon them, they spoke in panicked tones, their words cut short by the sound of his brutal attacks.
"Stop him!"
"He''s too powerful!"
"We can''t..."
The guardians'' screams were drowned out by the sound of their bodies being torn apart by Azazel''s ws and fangs. His demonic aura burned brighter with each kill, and he reveled in the fear and chaos he caused.
While Azazel was wreaking havoc in the air, he suddenly felt the temperature plummet. The sudden drop in temperature caught Azazel off guard. Snowkes, growingrger by the second, began to fall from the sky, obstructing his vision. Azazel paused in mid-air, his demonic aura zing hot against the chilling coldness that enveloped him.
Through the snow, Azazel''s eyes widened in shock at the sight of a massive floating pce descending from the dark clouds above. The pce, carved entirely from ice, glinted in the strange light of the snowfall. The frigid aura emanating from the pce prated deep into his bones, sending shivers down his spine.
A thick mist surrounded the pce, and as it floated down towards the battlefield, the mist spread out like tendrils, covering everything in a thickyer of frost. The soldiers and undead below shivered, their movements slowed by the intense cold.
The pce floated down towards Azazel, and he could sense an incredible power emanating from it. It was a power he had never felt before, and it filled him with awe and fear.
As the pce hovered above the battlefield, the mist dissipated, revealing its full glory. The towering pce was adorned with intricate carvings of ice and snowkes, and the windows glowed with an otherworldly light.
The frigid air around the pce seemed to drain the warmth from everything, and Azazel''s breath fogged up in front of him. His fingers and toes grew numb, and he felt like he was freezing from the inside out. As the ice mist slowly cleared, a figure flew out toward Azazel. At first, he couldn''t make out who it was, but as she drew closer, he saw that it was Rowena Winston. Azazel''s eyes widened in surprise.
Rowena Winston was a sight to behold. Her raven ck hair flowed behind her as she flew through the air with an air of grace and elegance. She had a slender figure with a stunningly cold beauty that could freeze anyone in their tracks. Her eyes were the color of ice, and they seemed to pierce through Azazel''s very soul.
Rowena wore armor forged with a metal that looked like ice. It shimmered in the eerie glow of the snowfall, and Azazel could see his reflection on the polished surface. The armor was intricately designed, with snowkes and ice crystals etched into the metal. The intricate designs carved into it were reminiscent of frozen snowkes, giving it an ethereal and otherworldly appearance. The armor had a sleek, form-fitting design that entuated her slender figure and moved with her fluidly.
The breastte had a high cor that covered the base of her neck, giving her an air of regal authority. The pauldrons were elongated and curved, tapering to sharp points that looked like they could easily slice through metal. They extended down her arms, protecting her biceps and forearms, and ended in sharp spikes that pointed toward her enemies.
Her gauntlets were adorned with icy blue gems that shimmered in the light, giving her attacks an added elemental power. The boots were made of a lighter material, allowing for easy movement and agility, but still protected her shins and calves.
As she drew closer, Rowena''s eyes locked onto Azazel''s, and she stopped in mid-air. Her expression was unreadable, and Azazel couldn''t tell if she was there to help him or to kill him. He prepared himself for the worst, his demonic aura burning hot against the coldness of her presence.
In her hands, Rowena wielded two long chains with des attached to them. The des were imbued with a frigid chill that caused everything they touched to freeze. The weapon was unlike anything Azazel had ever seen before, and he couldn''t help but feel a sense of apprehension as Rowena approached him. Her appearance was both beautiful and deadly, befitting her position as the Holy Maiden.
Their eyes locked in a tense stare-down, both of them sizing each other up. Azazel could feel Rowena''s power emanating from her very being, and he knew that he was in for a tough fight. Rowena watched the war around her with an icy gaze, her expression stoic and unreadable. Despite the chaos and destruction, she remained calm and collected, as if observing a mere game of chess. She had always been a woman of few words, and her silence only added to the tension and mystery around her.
"You''ve caused enough chaos, demon," Rowena said, her voice carrying a steely edge. "It''s time for you to stop,"
"I don''t recall taking orders from you, Holy Maiden. Your brother''s filthy pet has spilled the blood of someone we held dear. So, neither the Dark Queen nor I will leave this ce without spilling some monkey blood,"
Chapter 926 Returning The Favor
The Holy Maiden''s eyes zed with righteous fury as she confronted Azazel, the demon who threatened the very fabric of their realm. "Your blood lust will consume whatever humanity you have left inside. You threaten this very realm by existing. I will stop you before you destroy us all," she dered, her voice ringing out like a battle cry.
But Azazel onlyughed, his demonic grin sending chills down her spine. "You fools are only making things worse for yourselves," he sneered. "If the Dark Queen breaks through the barrier and reaches that monkey, lives will be spared. But by dying her, you are making way for the Dark Lord. And when he arrives, the sea around us will turn crimson with the blood of your people."
The tension in the air was palpable as the two adversaries stood facing each other. The Holy Maiden''s slender form was d in icy armor that seemed to shimmer with an otherworldly power, while Azazel''s dark wings spread wide as he towered over her.
The wind howled around them, carrying the faint scent of blood and burning ash from the ongoing war. The sky above was a deep crimson, stained by the blood of fallen warriors.
As the energy barrier flickered and lost its glow, the tension between Rowena and Azazel intensified. The cracks in the barrier grew wider, and the undead outside wed with renewed vigor. The vampires cheered and roared, emboldened by the sight of the weakened barrier. The Nagnd soldiers and guardians scrambled, unsure of what to do next.
But Rowena had only one thing on her mind - her little brother Noah, who was inside the castle. With a determined look on her face, she tightened her grip on her des and dashed toward Azazel. The sound of her armor nking and des slicing through the air echoed in the chaos around them.
Azazel smirked, unfazed by Rowena''s charge. He lifted his hand, and a group of undead soldiers rushed toward her. Rowena swung her des in a wide arc, sending a wave of ice and snow toward the undead. They froze solid, their bodies shattering into a million pieces as they hit the ground.
She didn''t stop there. Rowena leaped over the frozen corpses and charged at Azazel, her des glowing with a cold blue light. Azazel summoned a bolt of dark energy and fired it at her, but she deftly dodged it and sliced through it with her des.
Their des shed, sparks flying as they exchanged blows. Rowena''s icy des glinted in the dim light while Azazel wielded a scimitar in his hand, snatched from a fallen guardian, but it was far from his weapon of choice. Their weapons shed again and again, each strike echoing like thunder in the chaos around them.
As they fought, the cracks in the barrier grew wider, and the undead army poured through them. Rowena''s attention was torn between defending the castle and fighting Azazel. But she knew she had to keep him at bay, at least until her brother was safe.
With a fierce determination, Rowena continued to fight, each strike of her des sending waves of cold and ice toward Azazel. The battlefield was chaotic and bloody, but Rowena remained focused, her eyes fixed on Azazel, the man who threatened her brother and her world.
Rowena''s weapons were an extension of her will, and as she charged toward the undead and Azazel, she swung her des with a fluid and graceful motion. The des were attached to long chains, allowing Rowena to throw them, impale her foes, and yank them back toward her.
The Holy Maiden moved with a deadly grace, her movements precise and calcted. With each swing of her des, she took down multiple undead, her chains allowing her to strike from a distance and keep the enemy at bay. The des were imbued with a chilling cold that froze the undead in their tracks, shattering them into pieces.
e¦Áglesnovel`c,om As she approached Azazel, Rowena''s des were a blur, slicing through the air with a deafening whistle. Azazel dodged and weaved, but Rowena''s attacks were relentless, and he found himself on the defensive.
The chains attached to Rowena''s des were like extensions of her body, allowing her to twist and turn in ways that were impossible for a normal human. She threw the des towards Azazel, yanking them back towards her at thest moment, making it difficult for him to predict her movements.
In the heat of the battle, Rowena''s armor began to glow with a bright blue light, and her eyes flickered like sapphires. Her movements became faster and more fluid, and her attacks became more precise and deadly.
Azazel fought with all his might, but he could not match the Holy Maiden''s skill and power. With a final swing of her des, Rowena sent Azazel flying, his body crashing into the ground with a loud thud.
Despite being a stage below Azazel''s cultivation level, Rowena''s fighting style was a perfect match for the demon''s reckless approach. She used the chains attached to her des with such expertise that it seemed like they were an extension of her own arms. With one fluid motion, she threw her des, impaling the undead and yanking them toward her, all while dodging Azazel''s powerful strikes. Her armor glinted in the sunlight as she spun around, her des whistling through the air.
Azazel''s brute strength andck of technique proved to be his downfall. Every time he swung his scimitar, Rowena would dodge and strike back with a flurry of blows, leaving cuts and bruises all over his body. But the demon''s regeneration powers were astonishing; his wounds healed almost instantly, and he continued tough maniacally with every blow he received.
When Azazel hit the ground, he immediately rose back to his feet, his wounds healing at an incredible speed. Instead of groaning in pain, heughed maniacally and thumped his own chest as if reveling in the pain. Then, he dashed into the air, meeting Rowena''s des head-on once again.
The twobatants were evenly matched, eachnding blows on the other with impressive speed and precision. The undead began to crawl through the weakened barrier, adding to the chaos of the battle. But Rowena remained focused, her eyes fixed on Azazel as she danced around him with her des.
Azazel''s scimitar shed against Rowena''s des, sending sparks flying. But Rowena was not deterred, using the chains on her weapons to entangle Azazel''s sword and disarm him. With a swift motion, she brought her des down, striking Azazel with a lethal blow. But to her surprise, he merelyughed once again, the wound on his body already beginning to close up.
As the fight continued, Rowena started to channel her magic into her des, infusing them with the power of ice. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the icy des hurtling toward Azazel. He managed to dodge them, but not without difficulty. The spells were grand and one of a kind, each one more powerful than thest.
Azazel charged at Rowena, but she was ready for him. She yanked on the chains attached to her des, pulling them towards her and impaling Azazel''s arm. He grunted in pain and tried to pull away, but Rowena yanked on the chains again, causing him to stumble towards her. She took advantage of his momentary weakness and delivered a swift kick to his stomach, sending him flying backward.
As Azazel rose to his feet, Rowena began to chant a new spell, her eyes glowing with power. Suddenly, the air around them grew colder, and a thickyer of ice started to form on the ground. Azazel''s eyes widened in surprise as he realized what was happening. But before he could react, Rowena unleashed a powerful st of icy energy toward him, encasing him in a thick block of ice.
However, Azazel was not defeated yet. With a fierce growl, he broke free from the icy prison, shattering it into a million pieces. He lunged towards Rowena once again, but this time she was ready. With a swift movement, she sliced her des through the air, creating a powerful gust of icy wind that knocked Azazel off his feet and sent him flying backward.
The fight continued, eachbatant giving it their all. But it was clear that Rowena had the upper hand, her ice spells proving too much for Azazel to handle. As the battle between Rowena and Azazel reached its peak, the sky above them started to darken. Azazel''s eyes gleamed with a fiery intensity as he began to channel his power, his body radiating a menacing aura. Rowena tensed, her grip on her weapons tightening as she watched Azazel with wary eyes.
Suddenly, the air crackled with electricity as Azazel unleashed a powerful bolt of lightning that streaked toward Rowena. She swiftly evaded the attack, spinning in mid-air andunching a barrage of ice spears at Azazel, who countered with a st of wind that shattered the spears into a thousand shards.
The twobatants circled each other warily, each waiting for the other to make a move. Then, with a fierce roar, Azazel summoned a massive ring of crimson red mes that zed with an infernal heat. The heat was so intense that Rowena could feel it even from her position in the sky.
Rowena gritted her teeth, calling forth all her strength and knowledge to counter Azazel''s spell. She conjured a blizzard that raged across the sky, driving back the mes and engulfing Azazel in a tempest of ice and snow. The two opposing elements shed violently, each trying to gain the upper hand.
The battle raged on, with bothbatants unleashing spell after spell in a furious disy of power. The sky above them was a chaotic dance of ice and fire, with the two opposing forces battling for dominance. As the battle reached its climax, the sky above them exploded in a dazzling disy of light and sound, sending shockwaves through the air and shaking the very ground beneath them.
Suddenly, Azazel''s muscles bulged as he summoned all his strength, ready to overpower Rowena. With a guttural growl, he charged at her and swung his scimitar with all his might. Rowena barely managed to block the attack with her chained des, but the force of the blow sent her flying backward.
As Rowena staggered to regain her bnce, Azazel took advantage of the opportunity and lunged forward, delivering a powerful punch straight to her chest. The impact was so strong that it dented her icy armor and sent her crashing down to the ground.
Rowena grunted in pain as she spat out a small amount of blood from her mouth. She struggled to get back up, but Azazel was relentless. He continued to attack her with a flurry of punches and kicks, each one stronger than thest.
Azazel grinned, bloodlust in his eyes as he looked at Rowena. "You may have some tricks up your sleeve, but in the end, brute strength will always triumph," he said, before unleashing a powerful blow with his scimitar that dented Rowena''s armor and made her stagger back.
"You may be strong, demon, but youck finesse and technique. It will be your downfall," Rowena replied coldly, her lips curling in a sneer.
Azazel justughed at her words, his eyes glinting with dark amusement. "Finesse and technique are overrated. Brute strength and raw power are all that matter in the end. Just look at the undead crawling through the barrier. It''s only a matter of time before they reach that precious castle," he taunted, snickering as he watched Rowena''s face contort with anger.
"Your arrogance will be your downfall, Azazel," Rowena hissed beforeunching into another round of spells and attacks.
Gaya and Xanali''s battle was just as intense as Rowena and Azazel''s. The two Nagas shed their weapons, causing shockwaves that shook the earth and created fissures in the ground.
Meanwhile, the Nagnd soldiers were locked inbat with the Dark Lord''s army. Despite being outnumbered, the Nagnd soldiers were able to hold their ground thanks to their King Castien joining the battle. The sight of their king fighting alongside them gave them a much-needed morale boost, and they fought with renewed determination.
However, their morale began to waver as they saw the undead break through the barrier around the castle. The soldiers could see the horde of undead crawling through the cracks in the barrier, and they knew that it was only a matter of time before the undead reached the castle. Fear and desperation spread among the soldiers as they realized their fight may have been for naught.
As the undead sessfully crawled through the castle barrier, Gaya felt a surge of adrenaline rush through her veins. With fierce determination, sheunched herself at Xanali, relentlessly attacking her with swift punches and kicks. Xanali, despite her armor, was starting to feel the toll of the long battle, and her movements became increasingly sluggish and sloppy. Gaya''s years of intense training and real battle experience allowed her to move with deadly grace and power. She began tond a barrage of punches and kicks, each one hitting with bone-shattering force. With a final flourish, Gaya fired an arrow that hit Xanali''s sword, knocking it out of her hand and leaving herpletely vulnerable.
With a powerful strike to Xanali''s chest, Gaya sent her sister hurtling to the ground, crashing onto a pile of rubble. Gaya wiped the trickle of blood from her mouth and cracked her neck, determined to finish the fight. But when Castien saw Xanali''s vulnerable state, he sprinted towards her, throwing himself in front of her to shield her from Gaya''s wrath. The battle between Gaya and Castien was now set to begin, but for a moment, both sides paused, locked in a tense stare-down.
Gaya came to an abrupt stop, and the sound of her footsteps echoed in the silence. Shended on the ground with a thud as Xanali struggled to pick herself up, coughing up blood.
Castien''s voice cut through the silence like a knife, "Gaya, stop this madness. She is your sister!"
Gaya''s expression turned cold, and she slowly turned to face Castien. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but she is not my sister. And you, you were never my father," she spat out the words, slowly and menacingly walking towards Castien.
Gaya''s eyes narrowed as she slowly approached Castien. "It''s a mystery to me how you can expect me to listen to you after all you''ve done," she snarled. "Let me remind you of your sins. You ignored me after my mother''s death, married another woman, and gave her all your love, driving our kingdom into debt. You chose Xanali as queen instead of me, the rightful heir. You broke my meridians with your own hands, threw me into a dungeon, and left me to die. Do you honestly expect me to forgive and forget after everything you''ve done?"
Castien stepped forward, holding his hands up in a defensive manner. "Gaya, I know I have wronged you in many ways, but please, hear me out. The circumstances were not in my control. I had to make difficult choices for the sake of the kingdom."
As he spoke, Gaya''s eyes narrowed, and her grip on the sword tightened. She failed to notice a strange, split-second glow in Castien''s eyes, which quickly disappeared.
"You talk about difficult choices," Gaya spat, "but you never chose me. You never gave me a chance. You let me suffer and rot in that dungeon. And now, you expect me to forgive you? To trust you?"
Castien''s eyes softened as he took a step forward. "Please, Gaya, you are my daughter. My blood. And I love you."
But Gaya shook her head and stepped back. "You are not my father, Castien. I mean, you are literally not my father,"
Castien''s eyes flickered once again, but Gaya was too caught up in her rage to notice.
Gaya''s voice echoed through the ruined buildings as she snickered, "You never batted an eye when you broke my meridians. Now let''s see if you react the same when I break hers." Castien stood in shock, unable toprehend the gravity of Gaya''s words, as she effortlessly sent him flying with a punch to his face.
Xanali trembled in fear at the sound of Gaya''s words and began to crawl backward, trying to distance herself. But Gaya was swift, and in a matter of seconds, she had grabbed Xanali by the neck and lifted her from the rubble.
Gaya''s grip on Xanali''s neck tightened, cutting off her air supply. The younger sister gasped and struggled for breath as Gaya lifted her off the ground effortlessly. Castien''s eyes widened in horror, and for a split second, they glowed white.
"Please, Gaya, don''t do this," Xanali pleaded weakly. Her body was trembling with fear and pain, and her voice was barely above a whisper.
Ignoring Xanali''s plea, Gaya tightened her grip even more, causing Xanali to choke and wheeze. "I warned you not to fight me again," Gaya growled, her voice full of malice. "But you never learn, do you?"
As Xanali''s face turned blue and her struggles weakened, Castien stuttered in horror. "Gaya, stop! What are you doing?!"
Before Castien could do anything to intervene, Gaya delivered a series of rapid punches to Xanali''s stomach, shoulders, and forehead. The sickening sound of bones breaking echoed through the air, and blood sprayed from Xanali''s mouth and eyes. Xanali''s screams of agony filled the air as her cultivation level plummeted rapidly.
Castien shouted helplessly, tears streaming down his face. "No! Xanali! How could you do this, Gaya? You''re a monster!"
The Forbidden Move taught to Nagas was one of the most gruesome ways to break someone''s meridians. It was a vicious attack that could cause irreversible damage to the victim''s cultivation level, and it was considered an act of cruelty even in the world of cultivation. The sight of Xanali''s broken body and Castien''s despair made the soldiers lose all hope. The battlefield had be a living nightmare.
Chapter 927 Bloody Sweet Revenge
Castien rushed towards Xanali and knelt beside her unconscious body. Tears streamed down his face as he gently brushed her hair back from her face, his heart heavy with the weight of despair.
"My dear Xanali," he sobbed, "How could this happen to you? To us?"
Gaya stood over them, her face twisted into a cruel smile as she watched the scene y out. She had achieved her revenge, and it tasted sweet. But Castien''s anguished cries pierced through her triumph, and she felt a pang of guilt.
Castien lifted Xanali into his arms and turned to Gaya, his eyes filled with a mix of love and anger.
eaglesnov?1,§ão§® "How could you do this to your own family?" he shouted, his voice shaking with emotion. "Xanali was only trying to do what was best for the kingdom. And you...you have destroyed everything."
The stormy weather mirrored Castien''s turbulent emotions, with thunder and lightning crackling in the distance. But Gaya remained unmoved, her eyes cold and empty.
"I asked you the same three years ago," she spat, her words like venom. "You chose her over me, always. And now, I''ve made you feel the same pain that I''ve felt my whole life."
Castien''s heart twisted in agony as he held Xanali close, her body limp in his arms. The world around them seemed to fade away as he mourned the loss of his beloved daughter, and the betrayal of his other.
"How could I have been so blind?" he whispered, his voice barely audible over the raging storm. "How could I have let this happen?"
Castien''s eyes zed with fury as Gaya''s words hit him like a knife in the gut. He cradled Xanali''s limp form protectively, ring up at Gaya.
"You are no daughter of mine. You are a devil, heartless and cruel. How could I have ever loved you?" Castien spat out the words like poison, his voice hoarse with rage.
Gaya''s face twisted with anger at his words. "I am what you made me, father. You always favored Xanali over me, even when I was the rightful heir. You never cared for me, only for your precious Xanali."
Castien''s anger boiled over, and he cursed and spat out vile words at Gaya. "I wish I had killed you instead of breaking your meridians. You are a curse upon this world, just as Selesi warned me."
The stormy weather matched Castien''s tumultuous emotions, lightning illuminating the sky and thunder shaking the earth. Xanaliy still in Castien''s arms, her fate uncertain, as the two remaining members of the royal family stood facing each other in the midst of chaos and destruction.
As the news reporters watched the scene unfold before them, they couldn''t help but feel a sense of horror and disbelief. They had heard of Gaya''s reputation as a ruthless warrior, but seeing her break her own sister''s meridians with such ease was truly chilling.
The memories of Castien breaking Gaya''s meridians three years ago came flooding back, and it was clear that Gaya had not forgotten that betrayal. The reporters couldn''t help but draw parallels between the two incidents, and it was clear that Gaya was now seeking revenge on her own family.
As they watched Gaya''s cold and heartless demeanor, the reporters couldn''t help but feel a sense of fear and unease. This was not the actions of a hero, but of a viin. Gaya had earned her title as the Dark Queen, and it was clear that she would stop at nothing to achieve her goals.
The reporters knew that they had to be careful when reporting on Gaya''s actions, as they didn''t want to be her next targets. But they also knew that the world needed to know about the danger that the Dark Queen posed. They could only hope that someone would be brave enough to stand up to her and put an end to her reign of terror.
As they watched Gaya break Xanali''s meridians, the reporters were horrified by the ruthless disy of power.
"I can''t believe what I''m seeing," one whispered, her eyes glued to the screen. "This is beyond cruel."
"Remember when Castien broke Gaya''s meridians three years ago?" another chimed in. "It''s like she''s returning the favor, but ten times worse."
"I always knew there was something off about her," a third added, shaking her head. "Selesi was right all along. Gaya is pure evil."
As the scene yed out, the reporters couldn''t help but feel a sense of fear and dread. This was not a woman to be trifled with, and they knew that the title of Dark Queen was well deserved.
"She''s unstoppable," one muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. "What hope do we have against her?"
"None," another replied grimly.
Some of the news reporters began to specte about the Dark Lord''s whereabouts. They whispered amongst themselves, wondering if he was lurking in the shadows, waiting to make his grand entrance.
"If the Dark Queen is this ruthless without the Dark Lord by her side, imagine how much worse things could get," one reporter muttered.
Another chimed in, "We haven''t seen thest of him. He''s out there somewhere, pulling the strings from behind the scenes."
They all looked around nervously, fearing the worst. The thought of the Dark Lord''s arrival sent shivers down their spines.
Castien''s heart sank as he looked at his daughter''s unconscious form. His sorrow quickly turned to anger, and in a fit of rage, he ordered his soldiers to ughter Gaya.
"Kill her!" he screamed, tears still streaming down his face. "Kill that heartless devil!"
Some of the royal guards hesitated at the order, unsure if they could carry out such a brutal act against the princess. But as Castien continued to shout and cry, the guards finally made their move, dashing towards Gaya with their weapons drawn.
Gaya, however, was not caught off guard. She had been trained to be a warrior since birth, and her skills were unmatched. In a blur of movement, she easily dodged the guards'' attacks and countered them with brutal precision. Her sword sliced through the air, tearing flesh and bone alike.
Blood spattered everywhere as the guards fell one by one, their bodies mutted by Gaya''s deadly strikes. Castien watched in horror as the once loyal soldiers were torn apart before his eyes, their lifeless bodies hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
As Gaya approached Castien, his face was sttered with the blood of his own men. He could barely look at her, his eyes filled with a mixture of fear and sadness.
But Gaya showed no remorse. Her eyes burned with fierce determination as she approached her father.
"Is this what you want?" she spat, her voice filled with venom. "More bloodshed? More death?"
Castien could only stare at her in shock, unable to find the words to respond. The scene around them was utter devastation, and he knew there was no going back from this.
Gaya snickered, wiping the blood of her sword with a piece of cloth as Castien looked at her with a mixture of anger and fear.
"You see, Castien, there is no one in this kingdom who can stop me," she said, her voice filled with arrogance. "And Xanali''s fate? That''s your fault. You should never have listened to that old hag Salesi and that weakling Xanali. You should have grown a spine like a king should."
Castien''s face contorted with rage as he lunged at Gaya, but she sidestepped him easily and brought her sword down on his shoulder, slicing through the armor and drawing blood.
"You will pay for what you''ve done," he growled, clenching his teeth against the pain.
Gaya chuckled, twirling her sword in her hand. "Oh, I already have, Castien. Revenge is sweet, isn''t it?"
Castien''s anger reached a boiling point as he saw the cold, cruel smile on Gaya''s face. In that moment, his eyes briefly glowed white, but the light quickly faded. Without hesitation, he charged at Gaya with Xanali''s sword tightly clenched in his hand. Gaya dodged Castien''s sword strikes with ease, dancing around him effortlessly like a leaf in the wind. Castien was screaming and roaring like a wild beast in anger, driven by the fury of his loss and the injustice of Gaya''s actions.
"You heartless devil!" he shouted, lunging at her once more. "You''ll pay for what you''ve done!"
But Gaya was too quick for him. She sidestepped his attack and delivered a swift kick to the back of his knee, sending him crashing to the ground. Castien gritted his teeth and tried to get up, but Gaya was already on top of him, pressing her boot down on his chest.
"You''re nothing but a pathetic, weak king," she sneered down at him, her voice dripping with contempt. "And now, you''ll pay the price for your ipetence."
Castien struggled to free himself from Gaya''s grip, but it was no use. She was too strong for him. He kept trying to strike her with his sword, but each blow was effortlessly parried by Gaya.
"Is that the best you can do?" Gaya taunted,ughing cruelly. "You really are a pitiful excuse for a king."
Despite his failing strength, Castien continued to fight with all his might, driven by his love for Xanali and his hatred for Gaya. But Gaya was too powerful, too skilled, and too determined to be defeated. With a final, brutal blow, she knocked Castien''s sword from his hand and held him at her mercy.
Gaya picked up Castien by his neck, lifting him off the ground effortlessly as he wed and scratched at her with his bare hands. But Gaya simply smirked and swatted his feeble attempts away.
"You''re nothing but a weak, pathetic excuse for a king," she sneered. "And now, you''re mine to y with."
The soldiers of Nagnd looked on in shock and horror as they watched Gaya, the once-beloved princess of their kingdom, holding their king by the neck and beating him mercilessly. They hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do, but then one by one, they began to step forward, drawing their weapons.
But Gaya simplyughed and tossed Castien aside like a ragdoll, her eyes shing with a cold, ruthless determination.
"Come and get me, if you dare," she taunted, her voice echoing across the battlefield.
With a sudden, swift movement, Gaya drew the sword from her hip and held it in her free hand. She raised the de high, ready to strike down upon Castien. But before she could, the soldiers found their courage and rushed forward, intent on stopping Gaya.
Gaya was too quick for them, her movements fluid and precise. With one hand holding Castien''s neck and the other wielding her sword, she effortlessly struck down the soldiers one by one, their bodies falling lifelessly to the ground.
And through it all, Castien remained in her grasp, his struggles growing weaker and weaker with each passing moment. Gaya smiled cruelly as she watched him, knowing that she had finally achieved her revenge.
Gaya slowly pushed her sword through Castien''s heart, her eyes cold and unfeeling. Castien gasped for breath, his eyes widening in shock and pain. He reached up to Gaya''s face, trying to w at her with his fingers, but she easily batted his hand away.
As Castien''s life slowly slipped away, he red up at Gaya with pure hatred in his eyes. "I...I...curse you...Gaya...you...heartless...devil," he stuttered, his voice weak and rasping.
The soldiers and news reporters watched in horror, unable toprehend the brutality before them. Some of the soldiers hesitated, unsure of what to do, while others tried to rush forward to stop Gaya, only to be cut down by her sword.
The news reporters hovered in the distance, shivering, capturing the scene with recording crystal for all the world to see. Their faces were a mix of shock and disbelief as they watched Gaya kill the man who was once their king.
"How could she do this?" one reporter muttered under her breath, tears streaming down her face. "How could anyone be so heartless?"
Another reporter shook his head in disbelief. "This is a dark day for Nagnd," he said.
As Gaya slowly pulled her sword out of Castien''s lifeless body, the sky rumbled with thunder, and lightning shed across the darkened sky. The soldiers stood in stunned silence, their faces etched with horror and disbelief.
Gaya turned to face them, a cold smile on her lips. "Don''t look so surprised," she said. "You knew this wasing."
The soldiers and news reporters remained silent, too afraid to speak. They had never seen such ruthless and brutal behavior before and feared what Gaya was capable of.
Gaya turned her attention to Xanali, who stilly unconscious on the ground. "I could have killed her too," she said, her voice dripping with malice. "But I want Salesi to see her daughter suffer every time sheys eyes on her. Death would have been a mercy for Xanali. And for Salesi, well...this is just the beginning."
The soldiers and news reporters watched in horror as Gaya walked away, her eyes filled with cold, empty hatred. They knew that there was no stopping her now, that she was capable of anything.
And as they looked down at Castien''s lifeless body, they knew that their kingdom would never be the same again. Xanali was still alive, but her meridians had been shattered beyond repair. Except for the Dark Lord, no one could heal her, and Gaya saw Xanali as a tool that she could use in the future if needed. And so, she left her lying there, broken and powerless, a constant reminder of her own cruelty and ruthlessness.
Chapter 928 Secret Is Out I
Diana Winston was standing in the dimly lit room, her gaze fixed on the window. The room was adorned with elegant tapestries and furnishings, but all of it seemed insignificant in the face of the impending doom that was creeping closer.
On the bed, Noahy motionless, dressed in pristine white. Sabrina sat beside him, her eyes glued to his face as she brushed his hair back with a trembling hand.
Suddenly, there was a deafening crash that echoed throughout the castle, followed by an eerie silence that seemed to stretch on forever. Diana''s eyes narrowed as she stepped towards the window, drawing the heavy curtains aside to reveal the chaos outside.
The sight that greeted her was a nightmare thate to life. Undead and vampires were swarming over the castle walls, fighting against the Nagnd soldiers and guardians who were trying desperately to fend them off. And amidst it all, the Dark Queen herself was leading the charge, a vicious gleam in her eye as she cut down anyone who dared to stand in her way.
Sabrina''s voice trembled as she spoke up, "Mother, what''s happening?"
"They''ve broken through the barrier," Diana replied, her voice cold and devoid of fear.
Sabrina was horrified as she rushed to the window to witness the terror unfolding outside. "We have to do something," she pleaded.
Diana turned to face her daughter, her eyes shing with anger. "What do you propose we do? Apologize for Norvin killing her beloved dragon?"
Sabrina winced at the bitterness in her mother''s tone. "Maybe if I talk to her, I can-"
Diana cut her off with a sharp shake of her head. "You think she''ll listen to reason? All they ever did was save us, time and time again. And what did we do in return? We killed one of them."
Her words hung heavily in the air, and Sabrina could sense the fear and regret thaty beneath the icy exterior her mother presented. Despite her tough demeanor, Diana was worried about what would happen if the Dark Lord arrived.
As if on cue, a sh of lightning illuminated the sky, and the ground shook beneath their feet. The undead were getting closer by the second, and there was nothing they could do to stop them. Sabrina felt helpless, and she knew that her mother felt the same.
Diana was fed up with the constant maniption of Noah by the Skyhall, Andreas, and the Guardians. Even though Norvin had sworn that he killed Nightmare, Diana had a nagging feeling that there was more to the story than he let on. Despite her outwardly cold and angry demeanor towards Sabrina, Diana was secretly terrified. She couldn''t shake off the fear of what would happen when the Dark Lord, the son that no one knew she had, finally arrived.
Diana''s eyes flickered with determination as she surveyed the chaos unfolding outside. "We can''t stay here for long," she said firmly, her voiceced with urgency.
Sabrina''s face lit up with hope. "If we could get to the rooftop, we can reach Rowena''s floating pce and teleport to the Skyhall," she suggested.
At the mention of the Skyhall, Diana''s eyes zed with anger. The Skyhall had been the root of all their troubles, causing endless strife and conflict within their family. Noah and Ghost had been at each other''s throats, unaware that they were brothers, all because of the machinations of the Skyhall.
Diana''s fists clenched at the thought, and a fierce determination burned within her. She wouldn''t let the Skyhall control their lives any longer.
Diana''s heart sank as she looked out at the horde of undead and vampires surging toward the castle. She knew that their only hope of escape was to reach the rooftop and teleport to the safety of Rowena''s floating pce. But the thought of bringing Noah to the steps of the Skyhall, the ce where so much pain and maniption had originated, filled her with a sense of dread.
She nced out the window once more, her eyes narrowing as she surveyed the approaching army. She knew that she had one more card to y, but she was hesitant to reveal her true identity as Harriet Hunt.
As much as she wanted to protect her family from the Skyhall, she also knew that they needed all the help they could get. But if she revealed herself, everything would change. The world as they knew it would be turned upside down.
Diana clenched her fists, feeling torn between her duty to protect her family and her desire to keep her true identity a secret. But she knew that time was running out, and they had to act fast if they wanted to survive theing battle.
As much as Diana hated bringing Noah to the steps of Skyhall, she knew she had no other choice. Deep inside, Diana felt that all the efforts she had put into protecting her family and keeping them away from the Skyhall were starting to crumble. The thought of her sons fighting against each other filled her with dread, and she would rather die than watch them kill each other. But right now, her priority was to save her beloved son Noah. However, as she looked at the overwhelming number of undead and vampires swarming towards the castle, she knew that reaching the rooftop without a fight was impossible. Sabrina was a skilled fighter, but the sheer number of enemies would be too much for her to handle.
With no other options left, Diana knew she had to reveal her true identity as Harriet Hunt. Despite her desire to keep her past hidden from her family, she realized that her son''s safety was the top priority. Sabrina, who had always been fascinated with Harriet Hunt''s story, would surely recognize her mother. After all, Sabrina had read every book and note on Harriet Hunt that she could find. But Diana feared that Sabrina would be devastated to learn that her mother had lived a lie for decades, pretending to be someone else. It was a risk she had to take, but Diana couldn''t help feeling apprehensive about the consequences of her revtion.
Sabrina''s heart was racing with fear as she watched the undead horde rushing towards the castle. She knew she had to protect her brother and mother at all costs. As she looked at her mother, she saw the determination on her face, and it gave her some hope. But she could see the fear in her mother''s eyes, which made Sabrina feel even more anxious.
Sabrina had always seen her mother as a gentle and fragile woman who had never experienced violence or harm. She had been sheltered from the outside world and had always relied on her family to keep her safe. But now, with the undead and vampires closing in, Sabrina knew that it was her duty to protect her family and keep them safe.
Although she knew that Diana was strong and capable, she couldn''t imagine her delicate mother fighting against the undead and vampires. Sabrina felt a sense of duty to protect her brother and mother, to keep them safe from harm. But deep down, she couldn''t shake the feeling that something was about to change and that their lives would never be the same again.
With a determined look in her eyes, Sabrina stepped forward and flicked her wrist, summoning a long, silver sword into her hand. The de gleamed in the dim light of the room, and Sabrina''s grip on the hilt was firm and steady. "Mother, take Noah with you and stay close," she instructed, her voice strong and resolute.
Sabrina''s words had barely left her lips when a loud banging on the door interrupted them. Diana''s heart skipped a beat as she realized that the undead had breached the castle walls and was now at their door.
Ethan was away from the castle, which calmed Diana a bit, knowing that he was with the other Winstons and could protect her children if needed. But deep down, she knew that he would be desperate to return and fight by her side.
A deafening thud echoed through the room as the door suddenly buckled under an unseen force, sending shivers down Sabrina''s spine. The sound of wing and growling grew louder by the second, causing Sabrina to stand in front of her mother, her grip tightening around the hilt of her sword. Diana felt her heart racing as her mind conjured images of the undead horde breaking through the door and spilling into the room like a raging flood.
Then, the door finally cracked open, revealing the five undead that had managed to slip past the guards and make their way into the castle. These were not your average undead, as they were thin and quick, their movements resembling that of an animal more than a human. Their glowing red eyes locked onto Sabrina and Diana.
Sabrina, however, was quick to react, her sword gleaming in the dim light of the room as she rushed toward the undead with fierce determination. The sh of metal against flesh filled the room as Sabrina expertly dispatched the undead with deadly precision, each swing of her sword sending sparks flying.
Sabrina finally dispatched the five undead who rushed into the room, leaving blood and gore scattered around the space. The silence that followed Sabrina''s victory over the undead was deafening. The only sounds that could be heard were the faint rustling of the wind outside and the soft panting of Sabrina as she regained her breath. The room was filled with the stench of blood and gore, and Sabrina''s silver sword glinted in the dim light. Diana''s eyes scanned the room, her senses heightened as she waited for the next wave of attack. She could feel the tension in the air, as if the silence was just a prelude to a much bigger threat.
Suddenly, the shadows outside the room started to move. Diana, a seasoned warrior, knew this silence just symbolized a bigger threat.
The shadows at the doorway started to take shape as a figure robed in ck robes emerged. The figure''s body was almostpletely concealed by the long, dark cloak that flowed behind it, and the only visible features were the sharp, gleaming fangs poking out from under the blood-soaked fabric. The air around them seemed to grow colder as if the very presence of the figure was sapping the warmth from the room.
Diana could sense that this was no ordinary vampire. The way it moved, with a slow and deliberate pace, made it clear that this was a creature of great power and malice.
As the vampire made his way into the room, his presence alone sent chills down Sabrina''s spine. His ck robes flowed around him as he moved, and his fangs glistened in the dim light. Sabrina could feel his malice radiating off of him, making her feel as if she was in the presence of death itself.
"I found Noah," the vampire crackled, his voiceced with bone-chilling malice. The way he said it made Sabrina''s blood run cold.
The vampire took slow, deliberate steps towards Sabrina and Diana, and Sabrina could see the delight in his eyes at finding them. But despite her fear, Sabrina stood firm, her sword tightly clenched in her hand. She knew she had to protect her mother and brother at all costs.
"Jackpot," the vampire kept chuckling in a low, sinister voice. His chuckles sent shivers down Sabrina''s spine. In his eyes, Sabrina was weak, a mere Core Strengthening stage warrior, and Diana was even weaker, only at the Body Refining stage.
He usually wouldn''t even bother to waste his time drinking her blood. However, this time was different. This weak and powerless woman was Noah''s mother, and that made her valuable to the vampire. He hoped to capture them and offer them as a reward to the Dark Queen.
Sabrina lunged at the vampire with her sword, but the vampire didn''t take her seriously. He dodged with ease and taunted her, "Is this all the strength you have? I thought you were supposed to be protecting your family." His voice wasced with malice and amusement.
He continued to dodge and weave around Sabrina''s attacks, ying with her like a cat with a mouse. "You''re no match for me, little girl. I''m a Soul Refining stage vampire, and you''re just a Core Strengthening warrior. You''re like a kitten trying to fight a lion," he said with a smirk.
As Sabrina continued to fight, the vampire kept bragging about how he would be rewarded by the Dark Lord when he presented Noah to him.
"When I bring Noah to the Dark Lord, he will be pleased and reward me handsomely. And I''ll make sure he knows that I also caught his precious mother and sister," he said, his voice filled with pride.
He continued to taunt them, "You shoulde with me instead of waiting for the Dark Queen. She''ll kill you in her anger, but I can guarantee your safety." His voice was slick and persuasive, but Sabrina knew better than to trust him.
The vampire, who had been toying with Sabrina, suddenly decided he had had enough. He moved with lightning-fast speed andnded a powerful punch on Sabrina''s jaw, sending her reeling backwards. Sabrina''s sword ttered to the floor as she struggled to stay on her feet.
The vampire smirked as he approached Sabrina, who was trying to get back up. "Don''t worry, a little taste won''t hurt," he taunted, baring his fangs. Sabrina gritted her teeth and lunged at him, but the vampire easily sidestepped her and punched her in the stomach. Sabrina gasped for air and fell to her knees, clutching her stomach.
The vampire loomed over her, a sinister smile on his lips. "You''re a feisty one," he said. "But it''s time to put you out of your misery." He raised his hand to strike the final blow.
But before he could do so, he suddenly felt a gush of wind and saw a blur of movement. A split secondter, he felt a sharp pain in his neck and saw blood spurting out. He stumbled backward, trying to pull away, but it was toote. He felt his body go limp and he fell to the ground, dead.
Sabrina couldn''t believe her eyes as she looked up to see her mother standing before her with a sword in her hand. The blood on her face made it difficult to see clearly, but she knew it was her mother. How could she have defeated the powerful vampire who had knocked her out with just one strike? Sabrina''s shock was palpable, and her mind was racing with questions. What just happened? How her feeble weak mother killed the vampire? Sabrina could only stare in disbelief, waiting for her mother to exin what had just happened. The air was tense, and the silence was deafening as the two of them stood there in the aftermath of the battle. The future was uncertain, and Sabrina had no idea what wasing next.
Chapter 929 Secret Is Out II
Sabrina was in a state of shock as she looked up to see her mother standing before her with a sword in her hand. Her mother''s appearance was transformed as she stood there, her hair disheveled and her clothes covered in blood. The ck des of the sword glinted in the dim light, and the blood of the vampire trickled down the sword, staining it red.
The headless body of the vampire twitched on the ground as Sabrina struggled to take in what had just happened. The room was filled with the metallic smell of blood, the stench of death and decay, and the sickly sweet odor of the vampire''s flesh.
Sabrina could hardly believe that her mother, the gentlewoman who had always been her rock, had just in a powerful vampire with ease. The image of her mother, standing there like a warrior, her sword dripping with blood, was seared into Sabrina''s mind.
The shock of the moment left Sabrina trembling and unable to speak. She didn''t know what to do or what to say. All she could do was stare at her mother, trying to reconcile the woman she knew with the fearless warrior who stood before her.
As Sabrina looked at her mother holding the blood-stained sword, she couldn''t help but feel a sense of shock and disbelief. Her mother, who she always thought of as gentle and sweet, seemed like apletely different person at that moment. It was almost as if she had been transformed into a fierce warrior, ready to do whatever it took to protect her family.
But Sabrina couldn''t forget the memories of her mother''s gentleness, the moments when she tucked her into bed at night and read her bedtime stories. Or the times when they baked cookies together andughed as they made a mess in the kitchen.
She remembered the time when she was seven and had a nightmare. Her mother stayed up with her all night, holding her until she fell asleep. And the time when she tried to fly on top of a sword and fell down, her mother stayed with her and cleaned her wounds while singing her favorite song.
These memories flooded Sabrina''s mind, making her feel like she was in a dream. She couldn''t reconcile the sweet memories with the fierce warrior standing before her, holding a sword drenched in blood. It was like seeing twopletely different sides of her mother.
As Sabrina continued to stare in shock, the room smelled of blood, and the twitching of the vampire''s headless body on the ground created an eerie atmosphere. But Sabrina''s mind was too preupied with the image of her mother as a fierce warrior, the one who just saved her life, and the one who she could always trust to keep their family safe no matter what.
Unbeknownst to Sabrina, Ethan had revealed Diana''s true identity as Harriet Hunt to her almost a year ago when she had returned from the Southern continent after being kidnapped by the vampires. But Samuel had erased those memories from her mind. And when Emelda had identally spilled the truth again, Samuel had wiped her memories once more. However, this time, Sabrina was left without Samuel to erase her memories again.
When the room fell silent, Sabrina stared at her mother in shock. She had never seen this side of her before. The ck sword in her hand seemed like an extension of her arm, dripping with the blood of the fallen vampire. The scent of death and decay lingered in the air, mixing with the metallic smell of blood.
"Take your brother and stay close to me," Dianamanded Sabrina, but Sabrina was too stunned to follow her mother''s orders.
Before Sabrina could process what was happening, another group of undead and a vampire barged into the room. The mindless undead rushed into the room with no awareness of what had happened, but the vampire leading them was taken aback by the sight before him. The vampire''s eyes widened in shock at the sight of hisrade''s decapitated head. Sabrina tried to gather herself and reach for her sword but was too slow. In a split second, Diana lunged at the group, the ck sword gleaming in the dim light of the room.
The vampire and undead were caught off guard by Diana''s sudden attack, but they quickly recovered and started to fight back. Sabrina watched in awe as her mother fought with the agility and strength of a seasoned warrior. But the odds were against her, and she was outnumbered.
Sabrina tried to gather her wits and reach for her sword, but the shock and the sight of her mother in battle made her movements slow and clumsy. She saw her mother surrounded by the undead and the vampire, her ck sword moving with blinding speed. Sabrina could hear the sh of swords and the growls of the undead, but it all seemed distant, like a dream.
As Diana lunged forward with her ck sword, she moved with such grace and precision that it seemed almost supernatural. Her movements were swift and deadly as she sliced through the undead with ease. Her de glinted in the flickering light of the torches as she moved, leaving a trail of blood and gore in her wake.
The vampire was caught off guard by Diana''s sudden attack, and for a moment, he hesitated. But Diana showed no mercy, and she charged forward with a fierce determination. The vampire tried to dodge her attacks, but Diana was too quick for him. With a deft swing of her sword, she sliced through the vampire''s neck, decapitating him in one swift motion.
The vampire''s headless body copsed to the ground with a sickening thud, and blood gushed from the wound in a grotesque fountain. The undead, confused and disoriented by the sudden attack, stumbled about blindly, but Diana was relentless. She sliced through them with ease, each swing of her sword sending limbs and torsos flying through the air.
As thest of the undead fell to the ground, Diana stood in the middle of the carnage, her ck sword dripping with blood. Sabrina watched in shock, her eyes wide with disbelief. She had never seen her mother like this, and the sight was both terrifying and exhrating.
In that moment, Diana seemed like a different person altogether. Her eyes burned with a fierce intensity, and her face was twisted into a grimace of determination. She was like a force of nature, unstoppable and unyielding.
For a moment, there was silence in the room, broken only by the sound of Sabrina''s ragged breathing. Then, slowly, Diana turned to face her daughter. The ck de of her sword gleamed in the flickering light, and Sabrina couldn''t help but feel a shiver run down her spine.
"Get your brother," Diana''s voice boomed through the room like a fierce storm that made Sabrina''s bones shiver. It was a far cry from the gentle and soothing voice Sabrina was used to hearing. Without wasting any time, Sabrina rushed to Noah and cast a simple spell, causing an invisible hand to lift him into the air, close to her gently.
"Mother,"
As they stepped outside the door, Sabrina tried to question Diana, but her mother was already charging forward, her sword gleaming under the dim light. Sabrina followed behind her, her mind racing with questions. What was happening? Why was her mother wielding a ck sword? And who was she really?
After exiting the room, Sabrina and Diana found themselves in a narrow hallway that smelled of damp stone and musty air. The hallway was dimly lit, and the walls were lined with torches, casting a flickering orange light. The floor was made of worn stone bricks that were uneven and slippery. The hallway led to a narrow staircase that wound its way up to the rooftop of the castle.
As they walked, they could hear the sound of shuffling footstepsing from the other end of the hallway. Sabrina could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she realized that the undead hoard and vampires were on the other side of the hallway and walking toward them. But Diana stood between Sabrina and the undead with her sword in her hand, ready to fight.
The sound of footsteps grew louder, and Sabrina could hear the hiss of vampires as they approached. The flickering torches cast ominous shadows on the walls, making it difficult to see what wasing. Sabrina tried to calm herself down, but she couldn''t help feeling a surge of fear as the footsteps grew closer.
Diana''s grip on her sword tightened as the undead and vampires approached. Sabrina could see the determination in her mother''s eyes as she stood her ground. Despite the overwhelming odds, Diana remained calm andposed.
The undead and vampires were almost upon them now, their moans and hisses growing louder with each passing moment. Sabrina''s heart was pounding in her chest as she trailed behind her mother, her mind racing with questions about Diana''s true identity. But before she could even voice them, Diana turned to her with a steely gaze and issued a chillingmand.
"Stay behind me, and don''t try to be a hero," she said in a cold,manding tone.
The hoard of undead and vampires rushed toward them, their growls echoing through the narrow hallway. Sabrina could feel the ground shaking beneath her feet as they drew closer. To her shock, her mother''s hair color began to change before her eyes, transforming from golden to raven ck. Her gentle mother was no longer recognizable as she stood tall and fierce, her white robes now reced with ck armor. A long ck coat draped over her armor, making her appear even more intimidating. Sabrina couldn''t believe her eyes as she watched her mother transform into a warrior right before her very eyes.
Sabrina couldn''t believe her eyes. Her mother, who she had always known as a gentle and nurturing figure, now stood before her in a ck armor and raven ck hair, resembling the famous Harriet Hunt. It was a shock that left Sabrina stunned and unable toprehend what was happening. Despite the striking resemnce to the legendary Harriet Hunt, Sabrina couldn''t bring herself to believe that her mother was Harriet Hunt. The shock of seeing her mother in such a different light was overwhelming, and Sabrina could feel her thoughts swirling in confusion.
As Harriet dashed towards the hoard of undead and vampires, her swords glinted in the dim light of the hallway. The undead and vampires rushed at her, snarling and hissing, their teeth and ws bared. Harriet met them head-on, swinging her sword with deadly precision, cutting down the undead and vampires one by one. The smell of blood filled the air as she waded through the horde, her ck armor and long ck coat swishing behind her.
The fight continued as Sabrina watched in awe as her mother fought with unmatched skill and agility. Suddenly, another ck sword appeared in Harriet''s hand, and Sabrina realized her mother was duel wielding her swords. The sh of steel against steel echoed through the hallway as Harriet parried the attacks of the undead and vampires, striking back with deadly uracy.
Blood spattered the walls and floor as Harriet''s swords sliced through flesh and bone. The undead and vampires were relentless, but Harriet was a force to be reckoned with. Sabrina could see the resemnce between her mother and Harriet Hunt, the famous vampire hunter, and it shocked her to the core. She couldn''t believe that her own mother had such a dark and dangerous past.
Despite the overwhelming odds, Harriet fought on, her swords a blur of motion as she cut through the hoard of undead and vampires. Sabrina watched in horror as her mother took hit after hit, but Harriet never faltered. She fought with a determination and ferocity that Sabrina had never seen before, and it filled her with both awe and fear.
As Diana fought the hoard of vampires and undead, she took several hits from their sharp ws and teeth. Blood trickled down her face, and her armor was covered in gore, but she refused to back off. Her sword shed through the air as she took down vampire after vampire, her movements fluid and precise.
Despite the brutal hits she took, Diana kept fighting with all her strength. The vampires were fast and agile, but she was even faster. She dodged their attacks with ease and countered with deadly precision, shing through their flesh and severing limbs. The undead were slower, but their sheer numbers were overwhelming. Diana fought them off with her swords, striking them down one by one.
But as the fight continued, Diana began to tire. Her movements slowed, and she started to take more hits. Despite the pain, she refused to give up. She fought on, her swords dancing in the air as she battled the hoard with everything she had.
Diana felt the pain of every hit from the vampires and the undead. But instead of retreating, she roared like a lioness and fought back even harder. Her ck swords glimmered in the dimly lit hallway as she struck the undead and vampires with deadly precision. She kept fighting, her eyes burning with a fierce determination to protect her family.
As more and more undead and vampires came at her, Diana''s movements became more fluid, and her strikes more deadly. She moved like a whirlwind, her swords cutting through the air and slicing through the undead and vampires.
Through the chaos of battle, Sabrina watched in awe as her mother fought with such ferocity and skill. Regardless of the odds stacked against her, Diana never gave up. She was a true warrior, a hero in the face of danger.
Sabrina''s heart leapt in her throat as she saw the vampire knock one of the swords from her mother''s hand. "Mother, watch out!" Sabrina shouted, fear and urgencycing her voice.
But Diana was already one step ahead. With lightning-fast reflexes, she dodged the vampire''s next attack, twirling her remaining sword in her hand. And then, to Sabrina''s amazement, Diana raised her free hand and a blinding white me burst forth from her fingertips.
The me was pure and bright, so bright that Sabrina had to shield her eyes from the intensity of the light. The me shot forth like aser beam, burning a hole through multiple undead and vampires in its path.
Sabrina watched in awe as her mother wielded this incredible power, her raven-ck hair whipping around her face as she fought on with renewed vigor.
As the fight continued and Diana proved her incredible fighting skills, Sabrina''s mind struggled to process the reality of the situation. Despite her attempts to convince herself that her mother was not Harriet Hunt, the evidence in front of her was overwhelming. The ck swords, the ck armor, the stunningbat skills, and the power of the white mes all pointed to one undeniable truth - her mother was indeed the legendary Harriet Hunt.
Sabrina felt a mix of emotions, including shock, disbelief, and confusion. She had always known her mother as a gentle and caring woman, not a fierce warrior capable of taking on hordes of undead and vampires. It was difficult for Sabrina to reconcile the two images of her mother in her mind.
As she watched her mother continue to fight, Sabrina''s thoughts raced. What did this mean for their family? How had her mother been able to keep her true identity hidden for so long? And most importantly, what was going to happen next?
***********
Michael will appear in two chapters and It will be worth the wait!!!!
Chapter 930 The Dark Lord鈥檚 Wrath I
Harriet was a force to be reckoned with. Sabrina watched in awe as her mother ughtered wave after wave of undead and vampires. She could see the fatigue in Harriet''s movements, but it didn''t stop her from taking down any enemy that dared to get close.
Sabrina could feel the terror in her heart as she saw the number of undead and vampires that had amassed outside the castle. She knew that they were outnumbered and outmatched, but her mother''s strength gave her hope.
As the battle continued, Sabrina saw Harriet take hit after hit, but she kept fighting. Blood dripped from cuts and bruises on her body, but she refused to back down.
Sabrina watched as her mother fought with fierce determination, her eyes zing with a fire that seemed toe from deep within her soul. It was clear that she was fighting for her family, for her children, and for the safety of her loved ones.
Sabrina''s heart swelled with pride and admiration for her mother, but at the same time, she felt a deep sense of fear. She didn''t want to lose her mother to this battle, but she knew that the only way to survive was to keep fighting.
Diana wielded her ck swords with the precision of a seasoned warrior and used the white mes to aid her in the battle. The mes illuminated the hallway with a blinding light as they burnt through the flesh of the undead and vampires. The stench of burnt flesh and blood filled the air as Harriet cut through the hoard of monsters with ease.
The hallway was now a gory mess with body parts and blood sttered everywhere. Sabrina walked behind Harriet in shock, trying her best not to step on any of the corpses. She was afraid of the power and brutality of her mother. Sabrina never imagined that her gentle mother could fight with such ferocity.
Harriet was still taking hits from the vampires and undead, but she never faltered. She moved like a whirlwind, spinning and cutting her way through the hoard of monsters. The vampires and undead kepting, but Harriet didn''t back down.
The battle raged on, and it seemed like it would never end. But with every swing of her swords and every st of her white mes, Harriet was getting closer and closer to the rooftop where they could escape.
As they reached the stairs that led to the rooftop, Diana could see the shadows of vampires and undead climbing up the circr stairs from below. She quickly turned to Sabrina and Noah.
"Sabrina, take Noah and walk in front of me. Climb the stairs to the rooftop. I will take care of them from behind," Diana ordered in amanding voice.
Sabrina hesitated for a moment, looking at her mother''s battered and bloodied state. But Diana gave her a reassuring nod, and Sabrina gathered her wits and took Noah''s hand.
As they started climbing the stairs, Sabrina could hear the screeching and growling of the undead behind them. She could feel her heart racing as she climbed higher and higher with Noah floating before her.
The stairs were narrow and winding, making it difficult for them to climb quickly. But Sabrina could see the rooftop getting closer with each step they took.
As they climbed the stairs, the vampires and undead climbed up from below. Diana had to fight while climbing the stairs and using the environment to her advantage. She kicked an undead down the stairs, causing a chain reaction that took out a few more. She spun around and sliced a vampire''s head off, causing blood to stter on the walls.
Sabrina walked fast, keeping her brother close and casting spells to weaken the undead. But Diana was the one doing most of the fighting. She used her sword to parry blows and struck back with deadly precision. The stairs became slick with blood and gore as the bodies piled up.
One vampire managed to grab Diana''s leg, but she kicked him off and then smashed his head with the hilt of her sword. Sabrina felt fear creeping up her spine, but she knew she had to keep moving. She climbed up the stairs as fast as she could while Diana fought off the attackers.
The vampires and undead climbed up the stairs as they taunted Diana with their hissing voices.
"You think you can escape us bitch?" a vampire sneered as he lunged at her.
But Diana was quick and agile, dodging his attack and striking him down with her sword. She didn''t respond to the vampire''s words, knowing that words wouldn''t save her or her family.
Another vampire tried to grab her from behind, but Diana spun around and sliced his head off with a swift stroke of her sword. However, she didn''t escape unscathed. One of the undead managed tond a blow on her shoulder, causing her to grit her teeth in pain. But she didn''t let it stop her from fighting, using the environment to her advantage by kicking a nearby stone down the stairs, causing the undead to trip and fall.
As they climbed higher and higher, the battle became more intense, and the vampires became more desperate to stop Diana. But she fought on, striking down any who came close to her, even as more wounds appeared on her body.
"You can''t run!" another vampire snarled.
But Diana just red at him with fierce determination in her eyes. "Come and get me," she replied as she delivered the final blow that sent the vampire tumbling down the stairs.
The vampires couldn''t believe their eyes as they saw Diana, a seemingly fragile and weak human, taking down their brethren with ease. They exchanged nces of confusion and disbelief.
"Is she really human?" one vampire asked another.
"She can''t be," another replied. "No human could fight like that."
Diana heard their whispers and couldn''t help but feel a sense of satisfaction. She knew that her true identity as Harriet Hunt was still a secret, and the vampires had no idea what they were up against.
She continued fighting with determination and strength, taking hits and inflicting wounds upon the undead and vampires. Despite the pain and exhaustion, she refused to give up, knowing that the safety of her family depended on her.
With each swing of her sword, she proved to the vampires that she was not to be underestimated. And with each vampire she took down, she drew closer to the rooftop and the safety it offered.
When they reached the rooftop, Sabrina was awestruck by the view of the ongoing war. She saw the undead and vampires on one side, fighting against the Guardians and Nagnd soldiers on the other. There were no dragons in sight, but the battle was intense nheless.
On the ground, Guardians and Nagnd soldiers fought bravely against the overwhelming hoard of undead and vampires, with swords and spells, trying to hold their ground.
The sky was filled with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Sabrina could hear the sound of shing swords and the screams of the dying. Her heart raced as she watched the battle from above, feeling helpless and scared.
Sabrina''s heart lifted as she saw the flying pce hovering above them. She could barely contain her relief as she pointed up at the massive structure, shouting to Diana.
"Mother, there''s the pce!" she cried out, her voice filled with hope.
Diana looked up and saw the pce as well. A look of relief washed over her face as she realized that they were almost safe for a moment. The sky was a chaotic dance of ice and fire as Rowena and Azazel continued their battle. Their spells shed with thunderous booms, sending shockwaves through the air and rattling the ground below. Despite the danger, Azazel''s maniacalughter echoed across the sky, a testament to his insane thirst for power.
Diana''s heart raced as she watched the battle unfold. She wanted nothing more than to join in and help her daughter, but she knew that Noah''s safety had toe first. The stakes were too high, and she couldn''t afford to lose focus.
As she turned to Sabrina, she could see the fear in her eyes. Sabrina''s hands trembled, and she struggled to catch her breath. Diana knew that she had to remain calm and steady, even in the face of such chaos. She put a reassuring hand on Sabrina''s shoulder and whispered, "Stay close to me. We''ll get through this."
But even as she spoke, her attention remained fixed on the battle raging above. The sky was filled with crackling energy and dazzling disys of light, and Diana could feel the raw power emanating from Rowena and Azazel. It was a deadly dance, and Diana knew that only one would emerge victorious.
As the battle continued, Diana''s anxiety grew. She couldn''t bear the thought of losing her daughter, not after everything they had been through. Her heart clenched with each st of energy and every spell that echoed through the sky.
Rowena had been fighting Azazel for what felt like an eternity, the sky above them exploding with magic and chaos. She had summoned all her strength and knowledge to counter Azazel''s spells, her icy des whistling through the air as she danced around him.
Finally, with a deadly punch, Rowena sent Azazel flying backward and she flew back to the castle,nding on the rooftop. But when she saw the blood-drenched site of her mother, Rowena''s heart skipped a beat. Despite her cold personality and character, Diana, as a mother, could see the worry in Rowena''s eyes.
Trembling with concern, Rowena approached Diana, her mind filled with questions. She wanted to know if her mother was alright if she had been hurt in the battle. The sight of her mother, covered in blood, filled her with a sense of dread and unease.
Diana, sensing her daughter''s worry and confusion, pulled her into a tight embrace, holding her close. For a moment, they just stood there, locked in a silent embrace, the chaos of the battle still raging around them.
Finally, Diana pulled back, looking at Rowena with a solemn expression. "I am fine, my dear," she said, her voice steady and reassuring. "But we need to focus on the task at hand. We need to ensure Noah''s safety and get through this,"
Rowena nodded, taking a deep breath to steady herself. She knew her mother was right. They couldn''t afford to let their emotions cloud their judgment, not when the fate of Noah was at stake.
Together, they turned to face the chaos below, ready to do whatever it takes to protect Noah.
As Rowena led Diana, Sabrina, and Noah toward her flying pce, the sky above them crackled with energy. Suddenly, a deafening boom echoed through the air, and a blinding light filled the sky.
When the light faded, a group of soldiers descended from the heavens, their armor glinting in the sunlight. They wore silver te armor and had blue feathery metal wings attached to their backs. Lightning shed around them, and the ground shook as theynded on the rooftop.
Rowena tensed, her hand instinctively reaching for her des. But the soldiers made no move to attack. Instead, they stood in formation, their eyes fixed on Rowena and her group.
Diana''s eyes red up in anger as she saw the angels of Skyhall unit descend from the sky. Her heart felt like it was about to burst with a powerful emotion that she couldn''t quite put into words. Their mere presence made her blood boil with a fierce intensity.
The sight of the angels of Skyhall unit triggered a deep-seated anger within Diana, one that had been smoldering for over twenty-five years. She had once led a unit of angels and trained them, only for them to turn on her when she was at her most vulnerable - about to give birth to her children, Noah and Dean. The betrayal still burned like a fiery inferno within her, a constant reminder of the pain and suffering she had endured.
As she gazed upon the angels before her, Diana''s eyes zed with a fiery intensity, the anger inside her threatening to boil over. It took all of her willpower to keep her rage in check, to prevent herself fromshing out at these new soldiers who had done her no harm.
But the memories of the past were too fresh in her mind, the wounds too deep to ignore. She could feel the anger burning hotter and brighter with every passing moment, threatening to consume herpletely.
Diana knew that the angels before her were not the same ones who had betrayed her so many years ago, but the anger inside her was like a beast that could not be tamed. It wed at her from within, demanding to be unleashed.
Yet, somehow, she managed to keep a tight rein on her emotions, her iron will preventing her from acting on her impulses. It was a struggle, a battle that raged within her, but she refused to let her anger get the better of her.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Diana took a deep breath and managed to regain herposure. The anger inside her still burned, but it was a controlled burn now, one that she could manage. She knew that she had to keep her emotions in check if she wanted to protect her family.
Rowena''s heart raced as she watched the exchange between the Angels and her mother. "Escort them to my pce," she ordered, trying to maintain a calm exterior despite her growing fear.
"They areing with us, Holy Maiden," the man in armor replied, his voice cold and unyielding.
Rowena''s frown deepened. "They are going to my pce. It''s an order," she repeated, her tone now icy.
"We have our own orders, Holy Maiden. Your mother and brother areing with us to the Skyhall," the Angel said, his voice devoid of any emotion.
Diana''s eyes narrowed as she realized the implications of the Angel''s words. She had taken an oath never to use her Light mes or wield a sword again, and now it seemed the Skyhall had discovered her secret.
Sabrina''s heart pounded in her chest as the tension in the air thickened. "Rowena, please, we have to go," she pleaded.
But Rowena''s attention was fixed on the angels, her grip on her de tightening. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the silence.
The lead angel remained stoic, his armor gleaming in the moonlight. "We have our orders, Holy Maiden," he repeated.
Diana stepped forward, her eyes narrowed with anger. "What orders? Who sent you?"
The angel''s gaze flickered to her for a moment before returning to Rowena. "We are to bring you and your family to the Skyhall," he stated inly.
Rowena''s eyes zed with icy fury. "And if I refuse?" she challenged, her de now pointed at the lead angel.
The air crackled with tension as the angel remained unmoved. "We have been given authority to use force if necessary," he warned.
Sabrina''s hand trembled as she clung to Noah''s arm. She could feel the weight of the situation bearing down on them all.
Diana''s mind raced with thoughts and emotions as she stared at the impassive angels before her. The weight of the decision she had to make felt like a crushing burden on her heart. She hated the idea of being under the control of the Skyhall again, but the safety of her family was at stake.
Her hands trembled as she sped them tightly, trying to hide her fear and anger. She knew that if she refused to go with the angels, the consequences would be dire. She could not risk the lives of her loved ones for her own pride and anger.
Taking a deep breath, Diana made the difficult decision. She would go with the angels to the Skyhall, no matter how much she despised it. She would do whatever it takes to keep her family safe, even if it meant giving up her own freedom.
"Rowena¡" Sabrina''s voice quivered as she spoke up, trying to catch the attention of the two powerful women. At first, they ignored her, lost in their own thoughts and concerns. But when Sabrina called out once more, pointing towards the distant sky, their hearts began to race with fear. Despite the already dark storm clouds above, the sky Sabrina was indicating waspletely ck, as if it was swallowing up everything in its path. The darkness was slowly but surely moving towards them, causing a chill to run down their spines.
Chapter 931 The Dark Lord鈥檚 Wrath II
The ck clouds spread across the sky like a menacing nket, blotting out the sun and casting the entire kingdom into darkness. The air grew thick and heavy, and the winds picked up, howling like a pack of wolves. The storm grew increasingly violent, lightning bolts streaking across the sky like jagged scars, and thunder shaking the very foundations of the castle.
But the sudden darkness that enveloped the kingdom was different. It was not just the absence of light, but a palpable, suffocating darkness that seemed to smother everything in its path. Even the brightest lights flickered and dimmed, unable to prate the darkness. It felt like the end of the world hade, and the kingdom was about to be swallowed by the void.
As the darkness descended upon the kingdom, the vampires could feel the energy of the Dark Lord within it. They became excited and ted, seeing it as a sign of his arrival. The darkness was a manifestation of his power, and it made them feel stronger, more alive. They could sense the fear and panic in the humans, but to them, it was a source of amusement. Theyughed and cheered, eagerly awaiting the arrival of their master. The vampires were confident that with the Dark Lord by their side, they would be unstoppable.
As the darkness enveloped the kingdom, a sudden shift in the air could be felt. It was as if the very atmosphere was charged with an eerie energy. The temperature dropped drastically, and the wind picked up, whistling through the trees and buildings. The sky was no longer just dark; it was now a deep, almost malevolent ck.
As the seconds ticked by, the feeling of unease grew stronger. The hair on the back of the neck stood up, and the silence was deafening. It was then that the ground began to tremble, and a distant rumble could be heard. The tremors increased in intensity, and the very foundations of the buildings shook.
Suddenly, there was a sh of blinding light, and a deafening boom echoed across thend. The source of the light and sound was unclear, but it was as if the heavens themselves were being torn asunder. The air crackled with energy, and the darkness seemed to swirl and pulse, as if alive.
The vampires felt a renewed sense of excitement and anticipation at the dramatic change in the atmosphere. They knew that something significant was happening, and the thought of the Dark Lord''s arrival only made them feel stronger and more powerful. The anticipation and excitement among the vampiremunity were palpable as they eagerly awaited what was toe.
The Dark Queen and Azazel floated up into the sky, their forms silhouetted against the darkness that had enveloped the kingdom. They hovered there, suspended in the air, their eyes fixed on the distant horizon where the darkness seemed to being from.
As they waited, the wind picked up, blowing their hair and clothes wildly around them. The clouds churned above them, lightning shing and thunder rumbling ominously. The air was thick with the scent of magic, dark and powerful.
Gaya and Michael shared a deep affection for their loyal dragon, Nightmare. Gaya was in Nagnd on a mission to avenge Nightmare''s death by killing Norvin, who she believed was responsible. However, despite her fearsome reputation, the thought of facing Michael''s wrath over Nightmare''s death stirred unfamiliar emotions in her heart. Gaya knew that Michael''s love for Nightmare was as deep as hers, if not deeper. She tried to push aside her worries and focus on the task at hand, but the uncertainty gnawed at her, making her feel vulnerable and exposed.
Diana felt like her heart was being torn apart as she watched the impending doom that was about to befall her family. She knew that the Dark Lord was her son, and the fact that he wasing to kill his own twin brother, Noah, was unbearable. She felt a mix of fear, guilt, and sorrow all at once.
As a mother, Diana had always wanted the best for her children, but she never imagined that they would end up as enemies, fighting against each other in a battle of good versus evil. She wanted to reach out to her son and tell him the truth, but she knew that it was toote. The Dark Lord was already on his way, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Diana felt helpless and torn between her loyalty to her family and her obligation to keep the truth from her children. She knew that she had to face the Dark Lord and stop him from killing his family. But at the same time, she couldn''t bear the thought of fighting against her own flesh and blood. It was a heart-wrenching situation that left her feeling conflicted and emotionally drained.
The reporters and cultivators who were watching the darkness from a distance huddled together, shivering with fear.
"Did you feel that?" one of the reporters asked as a gust of wind blew through the area, making them all shiver even more.
"It''s the Dark Lord. He''sing," another replied, his voice trembling.
"We have to get out of here," another cultivator said, "Before he arrives and kills us all."
The cultivators were equally afraid. "We need to leave this ce. The Dark Lord''s power is too great," one of them said.
"Remember what happened to the Thusian army? The Dark Lord ughtered them all," another added.
"We have to get out of here," another cultivator said, "Before he arrives and kills us all."
The group quickly dispersed, running in different directions, hoping to find a safe ce to hide until the Dark Lord''s arrival was over.
The guardians and Nagnd soldiers stood at the ready, their weapons gripped tightly in their hands as they waited for the arrival of the Dark Lord. The guardians'' faces were etched with fear and despair as they remembered thest time they faced him. They knew the power that he possessed and the destruction he could cause.
"I wish Noah was here with us," one guardian said, his voice trembling. "He is the only one who can defeat the Dark Lord."
"But he is still in aa," another replied. "We have to do what we can with what we have."
The Nagnd soldiers, who had only heard of the Dark Lord''s power, looked even more frightened. They huddled together, their eyes darting nervously around as they waited for the inevitable.
"I never thought I''d see the day when the Dark Lord woulde to Nagnd," one soldier muttered. "I heard he ughtered an entire army of Thusians by himself."
"He''s like a demon," another soldier said, his voice shaking. "I don''t know how we can fight him."
The guardians tried to hide their own fear, but it was clear that they were also struggling to keep theirposure. They knew that their duty was to protect the kingdom, but they also knew that they were facing a nearly impossible task.
As Rowena watched the storm grow darker and more violent, she knew that her family needed to be escorted to safety as soon as possible. She turned to the angels who had brought her mother and siblings andmanded them to leave and take her family to a safe location.
"You need to get out of here now and take my family with you," Rowena said firmly.
The lead angel, who had been so cold and unyielding before, suddenly seemed to grow more arrogant. "We do not take orders from you, Holy Maiden. We have been recently appointed as angels, and we answer only to the Skyhall."
Rowena was taken aback by the angel''s arrogance, but she remained determined. "I don''t care who you answer to. My family needs to be protected, and I won''t allow them to be caught in the crossfire of the Dark Lord''s arrival. You will take them to safety."
As the minutes ticked by, the sky above Nagnd grew even darker, as if the ckness had a life of its own and was spreading like a gue. The clouds roiled and churned, shing with lightning bolts so bright they seemed to split the very air in two. Thunder boomed like the sound of a thousand cannons, shaking the ground beneath their feet. The wind howled like a pack of wolves, whipping up debris and scattering it through the streets. It was as if the elements themselves were rising up in rebellion against the impending arrival of the Dark Lord.
Tthe darkness crept closer as Rowena''s floating pce suddenly came to life, unleashing a barrage of fiery energy balls that pulsed with immense power. The guardians stood in awe as they watched the energy surge through the air, destroying buildings and sending debris flying in all directions.
"What in the name of Light is happening?!" one guardian eximed, his voice barely audible over the roar of the storm.
"I don''t know, but we have to do something!" another shouted, his eyes fixed on the raging battle in the sky.
Each ball of fire was powerful enough to shatter the ground beneath it, and the energy pulsated from the fireballs as they flew toward the darkness. The energy balls continued to surge through the air, each one more powerful than thest. The guardians could feel the ground beneath them shaking as the energy pulsating through the air, and they knew that they were witnessing a battle unlike any other.
As the guardians watched in awe, a glimmer of hope stirred in their hearts. The mighty pce was unleashing an onught of powerful fireballs against the darkness, and they couldn''t help but feel a sense of relief at the disy of sheer strength.
"Maybe we can defeat this darkness after all," one of them muttered, his eyes never leaving the fiery projectiles.
Despite the immense power and destruction of the fiery energy balls, the darkness seemed to absorb them effortlessly. As each ball of fire disappeared into the void, the guardians'' hopes began to fade away. They watched in horror as the darkness continued to creep closer and closer, undeterred by Rowena''s pce.
"No...it''s not working," one guardian murmured, his voice filled with disbelief and dread.
"It''s too powerful...we''re not going to stop it," another said, his voice heavy with resignation.
The guardians felt a sense of hopelessness wash over them as they realized that there was little they could do to stop the impending doom. They watched as the darkness consumed everything in its path, leaving only destruction and chaos in its wake. The storm raged on, the thunder and lightning adding to the chaos and destruction. The guardians knew that they were witnessing a battle for the ages, one that would determine the fate of their world.
Suddenly a pulse of sound erupted from the darkness, even louder than the deafening thunder that had been raging around them. And then, as if in response, a wave of pure ckness shot forth from the heart of the darkness. It seemed to change the very air around them, turning the cold storm into an intense heat that burned their skin.
As the wave of darkness approached, they could see that it was not just a wave of energy, but a mass of dark mes that moved like a crescent de through the air. It felt as though the mes were alive, with a mind of their own. The guardians and soldiers watched in horror as the wave of darkness consumed the fireballs fired by the floating pce, turning them to ash. And then, with a sound like the hissing of a thousand serpents, the dark mes washed over the pce itself, melting the mighty structure of cold frost energy into nothingness before their very eyes.
The shock of the sudden attack left them all reeling, stunned by the sheer power of the dark mes. For a moment, they could only stand and stare in horror at the empty space where the pce had once stood. But then, slowly, the realization set in that they were in grave danger. The Dark Lord had arrived and made his statement.
The sudden destruction of the floating pce left everyone in shock and disbelief. The guardians stood frozen, unable toprehend the power that had just been unleashed. The rogue cultivators and reporters on the ground were equally stunned, their jaws dropping in horror.
"What...what just happened?" one rogue cultivator stuttered, his eyes wide with fear.
"That...that was the Holy Maiden''s pce!" another eximed, pointing up at the now-destroyed structure.
"I can''t believe what I''m seeing," a reporter whispered, his voice trembling. "This is unreal."
The power of the dark mes had left them all speechless, unable to process the destruction before them. The guardians knew that they had to act fast before the darkness reached them, but the shock of seeing the pce destroyed had momentarily paralyzed them.
"We have to move!" one guardian shouted, breaking the silence. "The darkness is almost upon us!"
The group quickly gathered their senses and began to move, running towards the safety of Nagnd''s walls. The sound of thunder grew louder as they ran, and the darkness crept closer with each passing second. They knew that they were in for a fight, but they were determined to protect their kingdom at any cost.
As everyone''s attention was on the destruction of the floating pce, the ground beneath them began to shake violently. Suddenly, one of the Nagnd soldiers let out a deafening scream as his body began to convulse uncontrobly. In the next moment, his body exploded into a mist of blood, bones and flesh. The shockwave from the explosion sent the nearby soldiers flying in all directions, their bodies torn apart by the st.
The guardians were horrified as they watched their fellow soldiers burst into bloody mist before their eyes. They could hear the screams and cries of theirrades as they too were consumed by the mysterious force. The ground shook with every explosion, sending shockwaves through the air that knocked the guardians off their feet.
Blood and gore filled the air, as the mist of the soldiers'' remains covered the ground like a thick red fog. The guardians frantically tried to protect themselves from the explosions, but it was no use. As the darkness approached them. The soldiers and guardians continued to burst into apletely red mist
Chapter 932 The Secret That Could Tear Them Apart
As the red mist cleared, the battlefield was a gruesome sight to behold. The ground was stained red with blood, and body parts were scattered everywhere. The air was filled with the stench of death and burning flesh. The surviving guardians and soldiers were in a state of shock, unable toprehend what had just happened. They looked around, trying to make sense of the carnage that had taken ce.
The storm continued to rage on, and the darkness that had enveloped the battlefield made it almost impossible to see. The only light came from the asional shes of lightning that illuminated the sky, revealing glimpses of the destruction and chaos that surrounded them. The wind howled through the ruins of buildings and the debris that littered the ground, making it difficult to hear anything but the roar of the storm. It was a disorienting and terrifying experience with no end in sight. The darkness seemed to press in on them from all sides, making it hard to breathe and adding to the overwhelming sense of fear and dread.
The once bustling city was now a deste wastnd. The buildings were destroyed, and the streets were empty except for the piles of rubble and debris. The storm still raged on, but the thunder was muffled as if it was mourning the loss of the fallen soldiers. The sky was still pitch ck, and the darkness seemed to have consumed everything.
The guardians and soldiers looked at each other, their faces a mix of horror and disbelief. They knew they had just witnessed something beyond their understanding, something they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
As everyone''s eyes were fixed on the pitch-ck sky, the ck clouds loomed closer and closer. Suddenly, a figure emerged from the darkness and slowly descended toward them. The shes of lightning illuminated his figure, revealing the ominous presence of the Dark Lord. His form was engulfed in a shroud of darkness. The billowing ck coat he wore whipped around him in the violent wind, and the two swords on his back were fashioned in the shape of a menacing ''X''.
The Dark Lord''s eyes glowed with a devilish light, a menacing blend of red and ck that sent shivers down the spines of those who dared to look directly into them.
His arrival stunned everyone into silence, and as they sensed his cultivation level, their hearts began to race with fear. He was at the Half Celestial level, and the power that radiated from him was suffocating. The darkness that enveloped him seemed to spread and expand, leaving the battlefield in even deeper darkness.
The guardians and Nagnd soldiers could feel the weight of his presence, and the atmosphere around them became heavy and tense. The storm that had been raging seemed to quieten down inparison to the arrival of the Dark Lord. His presence was overwhelming, and it was as if he was challenging anyone to dare to oppose him.
As the Dark Lord descended, the very air around him seemed to change. Even the vampires and the undead fell to their knees in fear, paying their respects to his overwhelming power. His gaze was fixed solely on the castle''s rooftop, and he floated towards it with menacing grace. The angels surrounding the group felt the pressure building around them, suffocating them with his dark aura.
"We are not prepared for this battle," the leader of the angels muttered. His voice was devoid of any emotion. He quickly retrieved a golden scroll from his space ring, attempting to teleport away to safety. But before he could even activate the spell, an invisible force snatched the scroll from his grasp, rendering him helpless.
While Rowena watched the Dark Lord approach, she felt his power radiating off him like an all-consuming force. She couldn''t even bring herself to move, as though she was frozen in ce by the weight of his aura. Despite her own power, she knew that she was weak before him.
But even as fear and awe took hold of her, she was filled with a fierce determination to protect her family.
When the angels attempted to retreat, a shroud of darkness descended upon each of them, wrapping around their bodies like a twisted embrace. They were pulled towards the Dark Lord. His eyes fixed on them without uttering a single word. Each of the angels struggled and screamed as the darkness ripped them apart, their bodies torn into pieces. Blood sttered everywhere as their cries echoed across the battlefield.
Sabrina watched in horror as the Dark Lord showed no mercy, his power overwhelming even the strongest of angels. She trembled as the sound of bones snapping and flesh tearing filled the air, unable to look away from the gruesome scene before her. The darkness seemed to consume everything in its path, leaving nothing but destruction and death in its wake.
Finally, the screams subsided, and the darkness dissipated, leaving behind nothing but the remains of the angels. Sabrina felt sick to her stomach, unable toprehend the ruthless power of the Dark Lord. She knew they were all in grave danger and needed to find a way to survive theing onught.
The darkness consumed the angels'' bodies and armor and disintegrated into nothingness as the dark mes engulfed them in mid-air. Not even a speck of ash was left behind as the intense heat of the mes radiated to the ground, filling the air with the smell of burning flesh. Witnessing the ruthless power of the Dark Lord, the guardians, and Nagnd soldiers could feel their stomachs churning at the gruesome sight before them.
The onlookers stood in stunned silence as they watched the Dark Lord unleash his unparalleled power. The destruction of the Holy Maiden''s floating pce, the bloody explosions of the Nagnd soldiers and guardians, and the disintegration of a group of Half Immortals were all carried out with ruthless efficiency, without the utterance of a single word. Even the Dark Queen and Azazel, who had witnessed their fair share of bloodshed, felt a tinge of fear in their hearts as they watched the carnage unfold before them. Yet, the Dark Queen knew that this was the inevitable consequence of Norvin''s killing of Nightmare, and the Dark Lord''s wrath was merely a manifestation of that event.
As the Dark Lord''s gaze turned towards them, Diana felt a surge of fear run through her. Her heart raced as she realized that her son, Noah, was in aa and unable to defend himself against the Half Celestial''s power. She knew that no one else there knew the truth of the Dark Lord''s identity, and the thought of Noah being caught in the middle of this battle terrified her.
The Dark Lord descended toward the rooftop where Supreme Guardian Noah was floating, with Rowena shielding her family and taking slow steps back. The atmosphere was tense as the remaining guardians, in an act of loyalty towards their beloved Supreme Guardian, turned their cannons towards the Dark Lord. The sense of determination was palpable as they prepared to do everything in their power to keep the Dark Lord away from Noah.
Suddenly, hundreds of cannons fired at the same time, sending cannonballs soaring through the sky toward the Dark Lord. However, the Dark Lord calmly raised his finger, and with a flick of his wrist, hundreds of ck lightning bolts descended from the dark clouds, striking down the cannonballs mid-air. The lightning bolts continued to strike the airships, causing them to explode in a shower of sparks and debris. The sheer power and precision of the Dark Lord''s attack left everyone stunned and shocked.
When the Dark Lord turned his gaze toward Noah''s family, his eyes glowed with a fierce intensity. The ck and red hues emanating from his eyes made it clear that he was consumed with rage. Rowena, shielding her family with her body, spoke his name softly, "Ghost..."
Her voice trembled with fear, the first time anyone had heard such uncertainty in her voice. It was understandable, given the overwhelming odds they were facing. The Dark Lord was furious, consumed by the loss of his beloved Nightmare. Rowena knew that she had to try and reason with him, "Don''t do this," she pleaded, hoping that she could somehow appeal to his humanity.
The Dark Lord remained silent, consumed by his rage and grief. Memories of the baby dragon perched on his shoulder, its tails coiled around his neck, flooded his mind. The wet licks the dragon had given him, the yful antics they had shared, and the bond they had formed came rushing back, intensifying his emotions. The death of Nightmare had triggered something inside him, a burning desire to avenge his fallenpanion.
As the memories consumed him, the Dark Lord''s eyes red up, glowing with a dangerous mix of ck and red. He raised his hand, and the air around him crackled with dark energy. Rowena, sensing the danger, stepped forward and called out to him, using his name. But the Dark Lord was not in the mood for talking or listening to pleas. The thought of ughtering every single guardian and everyone Noah held dear consumed him, fueling his anger and determination.
Rowena bravely stepped forward, hoping to appeal to the Dark Lord''s sense of reason as he let out a menacing growl that sent chills down everyone''s spine.
"Go away," he snarled in a voice filled with rage and malice, his words echoing through the darkened sky like thunder. His eyes burned with an otherworldly intensity, and the air around him crackled with dark energy. It was clear that he was not in the mood for mercy orpassion.
Despite the overwhelming danger, Rowena stood her ground between the Dark Lord and Noah. She was not going to back down, especially when it came to protecting her family. As the Dark Lord continued to approach, Rowena summoned the Cold mes, a primordial me of icy blue that was known for its extreme cold. The air around them immediately dropped in temperature, and the mes crackled with a blue light that illuminated Rowena''s determined expression.
The Cold mes were unlike any other me in existence, as they were born from the very beginning of the universe. They were said to have the power to freeze anything they touched, even other mes. As Rowena summoned the mes, they erupted around her, swirling and dancing like a blizzard of ice and fire.
Diana desperately tried to stop Rowena from fighting her own brother, the Dark Lord. But before she could intervene, Rowena charged at the Dark Lord, her hands aze with the icy blue primordial mes. With all her might, Rowena threw a punch at the Dark Lord, but he effortlessly caught her fist in his hand. The Cold mes burned brighter, but they were no match for the Dark Lord''s dark mes that appeared around his fist, coiling around the Cold mes like a snake around its prey. The two mes struggled against each other, but soon the dark mes overwhelmed and devoured the Cold mes, leaving Rowena stunned and defenseless.
The dark mes around the Dark Lord''s fist burned hotter and darker than anything Rowena had ever seen. It was a symbol of his immense power and control over the darkness. Diana watched in horror as her daughter was overpowered by her own son, unable to do anything to stop the impending doom that was about to befall them. The Dark Lord''s eyes glinted with darkness as he pulled Rowena towards him, holding her by the neck.
"Stop!" Diana''s voice echoed through the air, but it was toote. The Dark Lord''s fist collided with Rowena''s stomach, shattering her armor into pieces. She was thrown backward with immense force, crashing through the rooftop and leaving a trail of debris in her wake. The impact was so great that the ground shook beneath them, and a shockwave rippled through the air. The guardians and Nagnd soldiers watched in horror as Rowena''s body mmed into the ground, unmoving.
As Rowena crashed through the rooftop, Sabrina''s heart sank with fear. She ran towards her sister, screaming her name as she knelt beside her.
"Rowena!" Sabrina shouted, tears streaming down her face.
Rowena coughed up blood as she struggled to sit up, but her body failed her. Sabrina sobbed in pain and despair as she saw her sister''s condition. She knew how strong Rowena was, and seeing her like this was heartbreaking.
She wept uncontrobly as she watched her sister slip away, feelingpletely helpless in the face of the Dark Lord''s power.
Diana felt every fiber in her body ache with the urge to rush to Rowena''s side, but she knew she couldn''t leave Noah alone. She was the only thing standing between the Dark Lord and Noah. She gritted her teeth and remained where she was, her eyes locked on the Dark Lord''s menacing figure. The sight of Rowena being sent flying through the air filled her with a sense of helplessness and despair. She had already lost one son and would not lose another one.
Diana''s heart shattered into a million pieces as she watched the Dark Lord, her own flesh and blood, stand before his twin brother with the intention to take his life. The pain of seeing her own son filled with such rage and hatred was unbearable. It was a pain that only a mother could understand.
As Diana stood there, she couldn''t help but feel helpless and lost. No one knew the truth that the Dark Lord and Noah were brothers, not even the brothers themselves. It was a secret that Diana had kept hidden for so long, a secret that was now tearing her apart. She was torn between her love for both of her sons, and the duty she had to protect Noah.
Diana could feel the weight of the world on her shoulders as she stood between her two sons, one consumed by darkness and the other floating in aa. She wished she could tell them the truth, wished she could tell them that they were brothers, but the timing was never right. And now, with the fate of both her sons hanging in the bnce, Diana was left with nothing but the crushing pain of a mother torn apart by the love for her two sons.
Diana felt torn between her duty as a mother to protect her children and the fear of the consequences that mighte with revealing the truth. She knew that the only way to stop the Dark Lord and save Noah possibly was to reveal the truth. However, the thought of tearing apart the fabric of their world and the possible bacsh from the other factions was overwhelming, especially the Skyhall.
Her heart felt heavy with the weight of her decision, and tears streamed down her face as she watched her two sons face off against each other. She knew that the truth would change everything, but it was the only way to end this violence and the Dark Lord''s ughter possibly.
As a mother, it pained her to see her sons fight each other, but she also knew that they were both powerful beings who could not be stopped easily. She had to make a decision that would not only affect her family but the fate of their entire world.
Diana''s heart was torn between her love for her two sons. She couldn''t bear the thought of them fighting each other, especially since they were unaware of their true rtionship. She knew that revealing the truth would have severe consequences, but she couldn''t let them fight to the death. Diana made up her mind that she would rather face the consequences and die than witness her sons killing each other. The pain in her heart was so great that she was willing to sacrifice herself to save her sons from this terrible fate.
In that moment, she realized that her love for her sons was stronger than any fear or consequence. She was willing to risk everything to protect them, even if it meant sacrificing her own life.
"D-Dean, listen to me. You and Noah, you''re brothers. You''re both my sons," Diana said, her voice shaking with emotion.
Chapter 933 Will Michael Forgive His Mother?
As soon as Michael heard the words, his heart felt like it was being ripped apart. A surge of emotions flooded through him, emotions that he didn''t even know existed within him. The world around him seemed toe to a stop as he tried to process the revtion. The anger that had been burning within him slowly began to dissipate, reced by a torrent of other intense feelings. He stood there, rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak as he grappled with the new information.
A deep sadness overtook him as he realized the years he had spent alone, longing for a family. The anger he had felt before dissipated and was reced with a searing rage as he remembered the feeling of abandonment that he had harbored for so long. The knowledge that his own mother had left him only added fuel to the fire that had been burning inside him for so many years.
He wanted tosh out and make her pay for what she had done, but a part of him also felt a sense of relief at finally understanding the source of the pain he had carried for so long. He stood there in silence for a moment, his eyes closed, as he tried toe to terms with the truth that had just been revealed to him. Finally, he opened his eyes and turned to face Diana, his expression a mixture of pain, anger, and longing.
While Michael stood there like a statue, his mind was filled with memories of his childhood. He remembered being alone and abandoned as a child, with no one to care for him. He would spend hours sitting alone in the dark, longing for the love and affection of a mother.
One particr memory stood out to him - a cold, winter night where he had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. He had been wandering the streets, shivering in the cold, when he stumbled upon a couple huddled together under a nket. They looked at him with pity in their eyes and offered him a small piece of bread, which he gratefully epted. But as he turned to walk away, he heard them whispering to each other about the danger of taking in a child like him.
Michael felt a lump form in his throat as he remembered the hurt and rejection he felt at that moment. He had never forgotten that feeling, and it had driven him to be stronger and more powerful than anyone else. But despite his strength and his status as the world''s number one hitman, he could never shake off the longing for a mother''s love and the sadness of being abandoned as a child.
As Michael thought about his past and the revtion of Diana being his mother, his heart filled with anger. He couldn''t help but think about all the times he felt abandoned and alone as a child. It was like a cruel joke to him that while he suffered as an orphan, Diana raised Noah with all the love and affection that he never received.
He remembered a time when he was just a young orphan boy, cold and alone on the streets. He had begged for food and shelter, but no one had wanted to take him in. Meanwhile, Noah had grown up in the safety andfort of their mother''s home, never having to worry about where his next meal woulde from or where he would sleep at night.
The memory of that rainy night brought tears to his eyes, and he couldn''t help but feel angry at Diana for abandoning him. The sadness and loneliness he felt as a child were nowpounded by the realization that his own mother chose to raise his brother with all the love and care he deserved while Michael was left to fend for himself.
Little did Michael know that twenty-five years ago, the Skyhall elders had performed a forbidden ritual to alter Diana''s memory and sever her motherly bond with Michael. They had warned her that one of her twin sons would bring destruction and chaos to the world, but even with this knowledge, Diana couldn''t bring herself to abandon her own child. However, the elders had gone to extreme lengths to alter her memories, making her believe that she had abandoned Michael, just as Michael had believed for all these years. A cruel twist of fate left Michael feeling angry and betrayed, knowing that his mother had unknowingly abandoned him.
Tears began to roll down both Diana''s and Michael''s eyes as they let the truth sink in. Diana felt a mix of guilt, regret, and sorrow for the pain and suffering that her son had to go through alone. On the other hand, Michael felt a mix of anger, sadness, and betrayal at the revtion that his own mother had abandoned him. They both felt a deep sense of longing for the time that they lost and could never get back.
Diana approached Michael with her hands trembling with emotion. Tears streamed down both of their faces as they faced the truth of their familial connection. The dark shroud around Michael began to fade, revealing a man who had been consumed by anger and pain for so long. From above, Gaya watched in stunned silence as she slowly descended to the rooftop. Her usual fierce expression was reced with a look of shock as the truth of Michael''s past was revealed.
Gaya was in disbelief upon learning that Diana Winston was Michael''s mother, making the Supreme Guardian and arch-nemesis, Noah, his twin brother. The revtion left her stunned, and for a moment, she set aside her desire to avenge Nightmare. The gravity of the situation weighed heavily on everyone as they grappled with the enormity of the truth that had been revealed.
Michael felt an unfamiliar sensation as his mother wiped away the tear from his face. It was the first time in his life that he felt the touch of his mother. His mind was inplete disarray, unable to process the fact that Diana had been his mother all along. He had always imagined that the day he finally discovered the truth, he would be able to maintain hisposure and deal with it rationally. But the reality was far different from what he had anticipated. A tidal wave of emotions overwhelmed him, and he struggled to make sense of them. The anger and bitterness that had been simmering inside him for years threatened to boil over, but at the same time, he felt a deep longing for the love and care of a mother that he had never known.
Michael wanted to scream and shout at Diana, to demand answers for why she had abandoned him. But his throat felt tight, and no words came out of his mouth. He felt like a lost child, unsure how to process the overwhelming emotions coursing through his body.
The thundering storm and gusting wind seemed to have stopped as soon as Diana revealed to Michael that she was his mother. Everyone around them was stunned, and their eyes were wide with disbelief. They couldn''t believe what they were hearing.
Sabrina broke the silence and whispered in shock, "What? Noah and Michael are... brothers?"
The rest of the guardians and Nagnd soldiers were equally stunned and looked at each other with disbelief. The idea of the Supreme Guardian and the arch-nemesis being twin brothers was beyond theirprehension.
One of the guardians whispered, "Did she just say that she is the Dark Lord''s mother?"
Another one responded, "And Noah''s too. They are twin brothers!"
The realization hit them hard, and they could feel their hearts pounding in their chests. The fact that the Supreme Guardian and the Dark Lord were rted by blood was something they couldn''t have imagined in their wildest dreams.
Diana''s trembling voice rang out in the silence that enveloped them. The storm and the wind seemed to havee to a halt as she uttered the words that shook Michael to his core. Her hands shook as she gently cupped Michael''s face, the tears rolling down her face as she looked into his eyes.
"You are not Ghost," she said, her voice breaking with emotion.
"You are Dean, Dean Winston. That was the name I gave you when you were born," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Michael''s eyes widened in shock as he heard the name. He had never heard it before, but it felt like a part of him had been awakened.
Diana searched Michael''s eyes for any sign of recognition or affection, but all she found was pain and anger. She longed to hear her son call her ''mother'' just once, but all she received was a barely audible response.
"Say something," she pleaded, desperation seeping into her voice. She needed to know how he felt about the truth she had just revealed.
Michael''s eyes, usually so full of darkness, now held a mix of emotions that Diana couldn''t decipher. His voice was strained and almost inaudible when he finally spoke.
"I might be your son," he began, his voice shaking with emotion, "but you are not my mother."
The words hit Diana like a punch to the gut. She felt as if the world had just crumbled beneath her feet. All she wanted was to embrace her son and make up for the lost time, but she knew deep down that it was impossible.
Michael felt that there was no possible way he could forgive his mother for abandoning him and treating him like he was worthless. Although he understood that she may have had her reasons, the pain he went through was too great to forgive and forget simply. His entire life was filled with suffering and despair, and it was difficult to move past the hurt and betrayal he felt.
Furthermore, Michael couldn''t believe that he and Noah were brothers. They werepletely different people in every way possible. Noah had grown up in a loving family, with everything he could ever want, while Michael had to fight for everything he had. The thought of being rted to someone who had lived such an easy life was almostughable.
Despite the intense anger and betrayal he felt, a small part of Michael couldn''t help but wonder what his life would have been like if things had been different. If he had grown up with his family, would things have been better? Would he have been able to live a normal life instead of one filled with pain and suffering? These questions lingered in his mind, but they didn''t change the reality of his situation. He was still the Dark Lord, and he would still have to face his brother in battle.
Michael''s eyes shifted towards Noah, who was still unconscious in the air. "Even now, you are standing before me, protecting Noah. I had no one to protect me," Michael said with a sad, bitter snicker.
Sabrina''s heart skipped a beat when she heard the revtion that Michael was her brother. It was as if all the pieces of a puzzle had suddenly fallen into ce, and the bond she had always felt with Ghost now made perfect sense. She had always felt a strong connection to Ghost, the Dark Lord, and now she knew why. It was because they were siblings, and she had never even suspected it.
As the reality of the situation sunk in, Sabrina''s mind was flooded with memories of her interactions with Ghost. Every time they had fought, every time they had met, every conversation they had ever had suddenly took on a new meaning. She could not believe that the person she had been fighting against all this time was her own brother.
Rowena, who had been punched by Michael, slowly rose back to her feet, her body trembling with shock. She could not believe what she had just heard. Her mother had another son, and he was the Dark Lord who had caused so much destruction and chaos. But as Rowena looked into Michael''s eyes, she saw not the infamous Dark Lord but her little brother. Despite his terrifying reputation, she could not help but feel a strong connection to him.
Michael''s voice trembled with a mixture of anger and sadness as he spoke.
"I have my own family now, just as you have built yours. But Noah has taken someone precious from me, and he must pay for what he did. He wanted to fight the Dark Lord, didn''t he? Well, he will get his chance, whether I am his brother or not," he said, his gaze fixed on Noah''s unconscious body.
Diana''s heart sank at Michael''s words. She knew she had to do something to make things right between her sons, but she didn''t know where to start. Sabrina, who had been listening to their conversation, felt a knot form in her stomach. She couldn''t believe that Ghost was her brother and the infamous Dark Lord at that.
Rowena, on the other hand, saw no Dark Lord in front of her, only her little brother. She wanted to embrace him and tell him everything would be okay, but she knew it wouldn''t be that simple. The pain and anger in Michael''s voice were palpable, and she knew he wouldn''t let go of his grudge against Noah easily.
With a swift flick of his wrist, Michael pushed Diana aside and extended his hand toward Noah. The unconscious body of the Supreme Guardian slowly floated towards Michael, and before anyone could react, he grabbed Noah by his neck. The air crackled with tension as every onlooker held their breath, realizing that the fate of the world might rest on this moment. The guardians, Nagnd soldiers, rogue cultivators, and news reporters watched in disbelief as the one person who could stop the Dark Lord''s reign was now in his clutches, powerless and unconscious.
Chapter 934 The Dark Lord Vs The Supreme Guardian
As Michael held Noah by his neck, a mixture of emotions swirled inside him. He had always seen Noah as the Supreme Guardian whom he must defeat, but now he had learned that Noah was his own twin brother. The conflicting feelings made it difficult for him to hurt Noah, but the thought of Nightmare''s little dragon and how he wasn''t there to save Nightmare fueled Michael''s anger. As he tightened his grip around Noah''s neck, he wished that Noah was conscious and aware of what was happening. The memories of Nightmare''s death and the pain it caused him gave him the strength to overlook any familial bonds he might have had with Noah.
Diana''s heart pounded in her chest as she saw Michael''s grip tighten around Noah''s neck. She knew that if she didn''t act fast, the worst could happen. Tears streamed down her face as she pleaded with Michael to let Noah go.
"Please, Dean, let him go. He''s your brother. Don''t do this," she begged, her voice shaking with fear and emotion.
But Michael remained resolute, his grip on Noah''s neck showing no signs of loosening. The others present could only watch in stunned silence, unable toprehend the gravity of the situation unfolding before them.
Desperate to save her son, Diana stepped forward and put her hand on Michael''s shoulder. "Please, Dean, listen to me. You don''t have to do this. We can find another way. Don''t let your anger consume you," she pleaded, her voice barely above a whisper.
For a moment, it seemed like Michael might relent. His grip on Noah''s neck loosened ever so slightly. But then his expression hardened, and he pushed Diana aside with a flick of his wrist.
As the world''s deadliest assassin, Michael knew that he could easily devise a n to eliminate Noah. However, he was aware of the limitations of his abilities. Killing Noah without the god-killing arrows would only result in Noah''s physical body being destroyed, while his soul would escape and search for a new physical host. This would make it nearly impossible for Michael to locate and kill Noah again.
Furthermore, Michael was certain that Andreas, Noah''s mentor, would use Noah''s survival as an opportunity to train him in the shadows and make him even stronger. This would put Michael at a disadvantage and force him to watch his back constantly. The system also advised against killing Noah until he could be permanently killed using the god-killing arrows.
Despite the overwhelming desire for revenge, Michael knew that he had to bide his time and wait for the right moment to strike. He couldn''t risk letting Noah slip away ande back stronger, with even more people in his corner. For Michael, it was all about timing and strategy.
However, Michael''s anger boiled within him as he learned that Noah was present during Nightmare''s death, and may have even been a witness to Norvin, Noah''s pet monkey, killing Nightmare. Michael had saved Noah''s father not too long ago, and if it weren''t for him, both Diana and Sabrina would have perished. Yet, Noah repaid this debt by watching Nightmare die right before his very eyes. Michael found this betrayal to be uneptable.
What Michael did not know, however, was that Nightmare was killed by Andreas''s second soul piece, which had possessed Noah and used his body to carry out the heinous act. This information was kept hidden from Michael, adding to his already growing anger towards Noah.
Sabrina ran towards him, tears streaming down her face as she pleaded with her brother to release Noah. "Brother, please, don''t do this! You can''t be the monster they im you are. You''re not the Dark Lord. You''re my brother!"
She continued to beg, her voice trembling with fear and desperation. "I know you''re hurting, and I understand why you''re angry, but please, don''t hurt Noah. He''s not responsible for what happened to Nightmare."
Sabrina''s words seemed to prate Michael''s anger and confusion. He looked at her, his grip on Noah''s neck loosening slightly. "You don''t understand, Sabrina. You don''t know what he did."
Sabrina shook her head, her eyes full of sadness and understanding. "I don''t need to know. I just know that he''s our brother, and we should stick together, no matter what."
Michael seemed to be fighting an internal battle, torn between his desire for revenge and his softer side.
Diana''s voice was shaking as she joined her daughter, "Please, Dean. I beg of you. He''s your brother. Don''t let revenge cloud your judgment,"
But Michael''s grip around Noah''s neck only tightened, and he did not budge. At that moment, Rowena stepped forward, wanting to talk to Michael as his elder sister. But before she could say anything, something inside her gave way, and she fainted on the spot.
"I cannot let him go. He took something from me and I will take something from him," Michael said in a cold, unwavering voice. His eyes glinted with anger and determination.
Diana and Sabrina pleaded with him to let go of Noah, but Michael was resolute. "I have shown enough kindness to your family, made myself a clown," he said, his voice dripping with bitterness. "No more kindness. The Dark Lord does not show mercy,"
"Come out, Andreas," With a cold voice, Michael called out to Andreas, knowing that he was attached to Noah''s soul. With Noah''s limp body held tightly by the neck in one hand, the Dark Lord delivered a powerful blow to his chest with an open palm. The impact sent shockwaves rippling through Noah''s body, causing his soul to convulse and tremble within.
Slowly, Andreas''s soul began to emerge from Noah''s body, drawn out by the sheer force of the Dark Lord''s attack. It was a ghastly sight to behold, like watching a wraith emerge from the depths of the underworld.
The battlefield of Nagndy in ruins and destruction, with corpses strewn all over the ground and the once-grand buildings reduced to rubble. The air was heavy with the stench of blood and death, and the sight of the devastation caused by the Dark Lord''s army filled Andreas''s eyes with anger and dread.
"What have you done?" Andreas demanded, his voice thick with a mixture of rage and fear.
Andreas looked at Michael with a mixture of dread and anger. "You know you cannot kill Noah without the god-killing arrows. Killing him now would only bring more pain and death to this world," he said with conviction.
Andreas turned his gaze towards Diana, a mixture of sadness and anger on his face. "I told you, Diana. I told you that your son would only bring pain and suffering to your family and to the world. But you were blinded by your love for him and failed to see what he had be," he said, pointing towards their death and destruction.
Andreas looked around at the destruction that had been wrought upon the once-beautiful city. Bodies littered the ground, blood pooling around them in gruesome patterns. Buildings that had once stood tall and proud were now mere ruins, the sounds of explosions and gunfire still ringing in their ears.
"Do you see what your son has done?" Andreas said, his voice filled with anger and frustration. "He has brought nothing but death and destruction to this world. He has caused so much pain and suffering, and for what? Power? Control? It''s madness!"
Michael snickered and looked at Andreas with cold eyes. "All of this destruction and death is because of your obsession with defeating me, Andreas. Your maniption and schemes have caused this chaos," he said, his grip on Noah''s neck tightening.
Andreas''s expression turned to one of anger and defiance. "I did what I had to do to protect the world from your darkness," he spat back. "Your thirst for power and control would only bring ruin and destruction to this world,"
To everyone'' shsock, Diana shouted at Andreas, interrupting his conversation with Michael.
"This is all because of you! You manipted and twisted the truth to turn my sons against each other! You''re the reason they''re fighting and the reason for all this death and destruction!" she shouted, pointing at the devastation around them. Diana''s eyes zed with anger as she red at Andreas.
She took a step closer to Andreas, her fists clenched in fury. "I wish you were never a part of our lives! You brought nothing but pain and misery to us!" she yelled.
Her voice echoed across the battlefield, and all eyes turned to her.
Andreas simply sneered in response. "You''re blind with love, Diana. You fail to see what your son has done to this world," he retorted, his eyes glittering with malice.
Diana''s anger only grew at Andreas'' words, and she took another step closer. "Don''t you dare talk to me about love! You don''t know the first thing about it!" she spat.
Andreas''s eyes showed a tinge of pain after Diana''s words pierced through him like a sword. She looked at him with fire in her eyes, her anger palpable.
Despite the pain in his eyes, Andreas knew he had to make the hard decisions to stop the Dark Lord, even if it meant hurting the people he cared about. He knew that the fate of the world was at stake, and he couldn''t let his emotions cloud his judgment.
He knew what he had to do, and he hoped that one day, everyone would understand why he had to make this sacrifice.
A fiery rage coursed through Michael as he red at Andreas. The man''s constant maniptions and schemes had pushed him to his limit, and he was now determined to put an end to it once and for all. The Dark Lord''s eyes zed with an intense fury as he spoke, his voice filled with conviction,
"I may not be able to kill Noah without the god-killing arrows, but you, Andreas, are a different story." His words hung in the air, heavy with a sense of finality, as his eyes glowed with eerie darkness. The atmosphere was charged with tension as Michael''s words echoed across the ruins of the once-great city. Michael''s eyes zed with an intensity that sent shivers down everyone''s spine. Even Andreas, who had always been the calm one, felt a sense of dread as he looked at the Dark Lord.
"I''ve had enough of your games, Andreas. You''ve yed with me for far too long. Your schemes end here, and so does your existence. The world will be better off without you, and I''ll be the one to make it happen."
As he spoke, Michael''s aura darkened, and a chilling silence fell upon the battlefield. Even the winds seemed to still, as if in anticipation of theing sh between the Dark Lord and his nemesis. Everyone around them knew that a battle of epic proportions was about to take ce, one that would decide the fate of the world itself.
Without giving Andreas a chance to speak, Michael threw Noah aside and moved with lightning speed. Michael''s eyes zed with eerie darkness as he grabbed Andreas''s ethereal form by his shoulders. Andreas struggled to break free, but Michael''s grip was irond as he squeezed with all his might. A scream escaped Andreas''s lips as he felt his ethereal form beginning to dissipate into smoke.
In a sudden, unexpected move, Michael opened his mouth wide, and the smoke-like form of Andreas''s soul was drawn into his mouth. Andreas squirmed and writhed, his screams growing louder as Michael devoured his soul, stripping it from his body.
The air was thick with tension and the sound of Andreas''s screams as Michael continued to consume his soul. It was a dark and ominous sight, and even the most powerful beings present couldn''t help but feel a sense of dread and awe as they watched the scene unfold.
Finally, with a final burst of energy, Michael consumed Andreas''s soul entirely, and he let out a loud roar of triumph. The air around him crackled with energy as he stood, a new darkness emanating from him, powerful and undeniable.
As Michael consumed Andreas''s soul, a sudden gust of wind blew across the battlefield, causing everyone to stumble. The sky grew darker and the storm around them intensified, lightning crackling across the sky with a deafening roar. The air around Michael crackled with energy as he consumed the soul, causing everyone to feel a sense of dread and horror at what they were witnessing.
The storm raged on as the ground beneath their feet shook violently, causing debris to fall from the surrounding buildings. Those who witnessed Michael''s action stood frozen in fear and disbelief, unable toprehend what they were seeing. The dark energy radiating from Michael''s body seemed to consume everything around him, making the already chaotic battlefield even more terrifying.
After he consumed Andreas''s soul, Michael''s eyes narrowed as he looked toward Noah, who was now lying unconscious on the ground. Turning to face Diana and Sabrina, he spoke in a cold, unwavering voice, "The truth changes nothing. If he ever dares to stand in my way again, I will not hesitate to end his life." His words hung in the air with a chilling finality, leaving no room for argument.
Diana revealing the truth about Noah''s identity as Michael''s brother had a profound impact on her and her entire family. The revtion shook the very foundations of their beliefs, and their lives were forever changed.
For Diana, the truth brought immense guilt and shame for hiding the secret for so long. She couldn''t bear to look at Michael after revealing the truth, knowing the pain she had caused him by abandoning him as a child. The knowledge that her two sons were on opposite sides of a brutal war tore her apart inside, and she was consumed with regret for not being able to protect them both.
Despite the revtion that Noah was his brother, Michael''s feelings of abandonment and betrayal still weighed heavily on him. His anger and desire for revenge had consumed him for so long that it was difficult for him to let go of those feelings, even in the face of this newfound familial connection. The pain of being cast aside by his own mother had left deep wounds that still had not fully healed, and it was those wounds that had fueled his darker impulses for so many years. Though there was a part of him that longed for thefort and love of a family, that softer side of him had been overshadowed by his pain and anger.
As Michael looked upon Noah, his unconscious form a stark reminder of the pain and betrayal he had felt for so long, he couldn''t help but feel that nothing had truly changed. The truth of their shared bloodline couldn''t erase the years of suffering and pain he had endured.
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Why I don''t get any super gifts from my wonderful readers? ( Sad face )
Chapter 935 Salesi鈥檚 Plan
Amidst the chaos of the war between the Dark Lord''s army and the Nagnd soldiers, Salesi and Andreas''s second soul piece floated far away, watching the battle unfold from a safe distance. As the Dark Lord consumed Andreas''s soul from within Noah''s body, a twisted grin spread across the face of Andreas''s second soul piece. Despite the destruction and carnage happening below, he was ted to see the Dark Lord destroy the soul piece that had been with Noah for so long.
As soon as the Dark Lord had consumed Andreas''s soul, a strange darkness began to surround Andreas''s second soul piece, causing it to glow with an eerie light. The ethereal form grew stronger and more substantial, bing less transparent as it absorbed the darkness. The once-weak soul piece had been revitalized by the energy released from the destruction of Andreas''s soul, and it was now more powerful than ever before.
Salesi''s emotions were not those of sadness or regret over the destruction of Nagnd. Instead, an almost manic excitement shone in her eyes as she watched the battle between the Dark Lord and Nagnd''s soldiers unfold. To her, this war was just the beginning of a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the fall of the great eight ns.
Salesi had long known that the revtion of the Dark Lord being Noah''s brother would trigger a shift in power, and she was prepared to seize the opportunity. Her goal was simple: to see her shadow n rise from the ashes of the great eight ns and emerge as the dominant force in the world. Salesi understood that the current system of eight divided ns made it impossible to fight against the Dark Lord and his growing army effectively. To truly defeat him, the world needed a united front led by a single, powerful n.
With this in mind, Salesi watched the battle unfold with a twisted sense of excitement, knowing that the chaos it brought would ultimately y into her hands. The destruction of Nagnd was just the first step in a grander n to reshape the world in her image.
"How does it feel to see the Dark Lord consume your soul piece?" Salesi asked Andreas''s second soul piece, her eyes glowing with a devilish glint.
A wicked grin spread across Andreas''s second soul piece as he replied, "Good, very good. I''ve been waiting for his destruction for so long."
Salesi couldn''t help but feel a rush of excitement at the prospect of the Dark Lord''s downfall. She had been waiting for this moment for years, and now it was finally within reach. But there was one thing she still didn''t understand.
"I still don''t get how you grow stronger with the destruction of your other soul pieces," she mused, her eyes narrowing in confusion.
Andreas''s second soul piece chuckled darkly, his eyes glowing with eerie darkness. "It''s simple, my dear Salesi. With each destruction, the darkness within me grows stronger. And as the darkness within me grows, so does my power."
Salesi felt a chill run down her spine as she listened to his words. She knew that Andreas''s second soul piece was not to be underestimated, and she couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease at the thought of what he was capable of. But she pushed those thoughts aside, focusing instead on the uing battle that would determine the fate of the world.
Andreas''s second soul piece grinned devilishly. "The Dark Lord may be the god of darkness in this universe, but the darkness I serve is universal," he replied. "It powers me and gives me strength beyond what Andreas could have ever imagined. He was a fool to ignore such power when he could have easily embraced it and finished the Dark Lord himself."
Salesi listened intently, her mind racing with possibilities. She knew that with Andreas''s second soul piece by her side, she could be the most powerful force in the universe. Together, they could conquer all of the eight ns and establish the Shadow n as the dominant force in the world.
Looking at Andreas''s second soul piece, Salesi felt a sense of excitement coursing through her veins. She knew that with his power and her cunning, they could achieve anything they set their minds to. And she was determined to make it happen.
As Andreas surveyed the wreckage of Nagnd, his eyes fell upon the lifeless body of Castien and the broken form of Xanali. Turning to Salesi, he asked with a mix of anger and disdain, "How do you n to avenge Castien''s death and heal Xanali? Are you not moved by the loss of your own husband and daughter?"
Salesi''s response was cold and callous, without a hint of remorse. She waved her hand dismissively, as if the lives lost were of little consequence. "I don''t n to," she replied tly. "Noah will take care of it once he wakes from hisa. The death of his love Edith and the state of Xanali will fuel his anger towards the Dark Lord, overshadowing any familial bond he might form,"
Andreas couldn''t help but feel smile at Salesi''sck ofpassion. He knew the path Noah was headed down, and it was one of destruction and chaos.
"The world is changing, Salesi," Andreas said calmly. "Don''t forget that you can''t just sit back and let the pieces fall where they may. The consequences will be dire for everyone, including your n."
But Salesi merely chuckled, her eyes gleaming with ambition. "The world has always been changing, Andreas. The strong will always rise to the top, and I n on being on the winning side. Noah will take care of the Dark Lord, and my n will reap the rewards. It''s as simple as that,"
Andreas looked at Salesi with a sense of cold detachment, realizing that they were both cut from the same cloth. They were both cunning, calctive, and merciless, willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals, even if it meant sacrificing others in the process.
In a way, they deserved each other. They were both driven by their desire for power and control, and they would stop at nothing to achieve it. Andreas couldn''t help but feel a sense of grim satisfaction at the thought of teaming up with Salesi to take down the Dark Lord, knowing that they both shared the same ruthless mindset.
Salesi turned to Andreas, her eyes cold and calcting. "Once the Dark Lord leaves Nagnd, I want you to take out Noah''s team of elites," she instructed. "We need to eliminate any potential threats to our n, and those elites are at the top of the list."
Andreas nodded` his expression just as cold and calcting as Salesi''s. "Understood," he replied. "And what about Hammond?"
"Bring him to our ce," Salesi said, a hint of greed in her voice. "We need his genius to help us dismantle the Dark Lord''s army piece by piece. He''ll be a valuable asset to our cause."
"And what about Noah?" Andreas asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from Salesi herself.
"Leave him be," Salesi said dismissively. "He''s of no use to us now. But make sure to make it look like the Dark Lord killed his elites. We want Noah to focus every bit of anger toward the Dark Lord. Otherwise, he might be softer,"
Andreas nodded again, feeling nopassion or mercy for anyone in this situation. He and Salesi were both ruthless and cunning, willing to do whatever it took to achieve their goals, no matter the cost.
A month ago, when the Dark Lord arrived at Noah''s house to help his father, the news reporters caught wind of it and stirred up a political storm. They questioned Noah''spetency as the Supreme Guardian, iming that he should have been the one to fight the Dark Lord, not seek his help.
Salesi couldn''t help but feel a sense of amusement at the chaos that ensued. She knew that the media would never be satisfied, always searching for the next big story to exploit. And this story was too good to pass up - the Supreme Guardian, the one tasked with protecting the world, seeking the help of the very enemy he was supposed to defeat.
But Salesi saw through the surface-level drama. She knew that Noah had his reasons for seeking the Dark Lord''s help, and she respected his decision to do so. After all, they were both fighting for the same cause - to rid the world of darkness and bring about a new era of light.
But the media didn''t care about the bigger picture. They only cared about sensational headlines and pushing their own agendas. And so, they pounced on the opportunity to question Noah''s abilities and authority.
Despite the negative attention, Salesi remained unfazed. She knew that Noah was more than capable of leading the fight against the Dark Lord, and she had faith that he would emerge victorious in the end. As for the media, they were merely an annoyance that she would have to endure as they continued to sensationalize every little detail of the ongoing battle.
Salesi had always held a low opinion of the media, believing them to be nothing more than a group of sensationalist troublemakers. But even she couldn''t deny the power they held, especially in times of political unrest. So, despite her disdain for them, she decided to use the media to her advantage. She knew that stirring up controversy and chaos would only serve to invalidate the great eight ns and further strengthen her own n''s position.
With a cold and calcting demeanor, she plotted out her strategy, carefully crafting each move to maximize the chaos and destruction. She instructed her followers to nt false information and sow seeds of dissent, creating a climate of fear and mistrust. The media ate it up, eager for any juicy scandal to report on. And as the chaos grew, Salesi watched with a sense of grim satisfaction, knowing that she was manipting the situation to her own advantage.
Her ruthless cunning was unmatched, and she knew that she could use the media''s obsession with drama to further her own goals. And so, she continued to pull the strings from behind the scenes, reveling in the chaos and destruction that she had created.
Salesi couldn''t contain her excitement at the revtion that the Dark Lord and Noah were brothers. She knew that this information would send shockwaves throughout the world and create chaos beyond measure. The media would have a field day, and Salesi nned to use it to her advantage.
Andreas''s eyes gleamed with a cunning intensity as he spoke, "Are you sure we should leave Lah and the spirit child alone? I am certain I could turn the spirit child into a perfect weapon against the Dark Lord."
Salesi, however, shook her head with calm resolve. "I''ve heard from my contacts in Mazeroth that Lah and the spirit child are in the Akn realm. The Dark Lord sent them there to keep them safe."
Andreas raised an eyebrow in surprise. "But why would the Dark Lord do that? It doesn''t make sense."
Salesi''s lips curled into a small smile. "It''s good news for us. Let the spirit child be trained by the best teachers in the world. If we trained him ourselves, he would be a one-trick pony who solely depends on his cultivation power. And that power alone will not be enough to defeat the Dark Lord."
Andreas seemed unconvinced. "But we could mold him to be the ultimate weapon against the Dark Lord."
Salesi''s expression hardened. "To defeat the Dark Lord, we need to use our brains more than our brawn. Let the spirit child be for now, and I''ll tell you when the time is right to use him against the Dark Lord."
Andreas nodded, reluctantly conceding to Salesi''s wisdom. He knew he would have to bide his time and wait for the right moment to strike.
Salesi''s eyes shifted towards Gaya, the Dark Queen, as she spoke with a cunning glint in her eyes. "The spirit child is not our concern at the moment, it''s Gaya. As long as she stands by the Dark Lord''s side, he is nearly invincible. She is his most powerful weapon, and we need to find a way to neutralize her."
Andreas raised an eyebrow, intrigued by Salesi''s suggestion. "And how do you propose we do that?"
Salesi smirked, her mind already working on a n. "We need to exploit her weakness. Gaya may be powerful, but she is not invincible. There must be a way to take her down. We just need to find it."
Andreas nodded in agreement, the two of them lost in thought as they plotted their next move. They knew that taking down Gaya would not be an easy feat, but they were willing to do whatever it took to defeat the Dark Lord and take their ce as rulers of the new world.
The sky grew darker, and a storm raged on in the distance, a fitting backdrop to the chaos thaty ahead. The fate of the world hung in the bnce, and Salesi and Andreas were determined toe out on top, no matter the cost.
Chapter 936 Into The Kingdom Of Beasts
As Norvin and the gray-haired old man made their way through the forest, the sound of dried leaves crunching beneath their feet filled the air. The trees around them were tall and imposing, their branches reaching up to the sky. The air was cool and crisp, and the sun shone down on them, filtering through the leaves above.
Norvin''s golden fur shone brilliantly in the sunlight, his massive six-feet tall towering body over the old man beside him. The old man was dressed in a traditional butler uniform,plete with a gray vest, white shirt, and ck bow tie. His gray hair was neatlybed and slicked back, giving him a regal appearance.
As they continued on their journey, the old man suddenly stopped, his keen senses detecting something in the air. Despite the cloudy afternoon, he sensed an impending storm and urged Norvin to set up camp before it hit.
"Young master Norvin, we should camp here," the old man said urgently. "I sense a storm ising, and we must take shelter before it''s toote,"
Norvin nodded in agreement, knowing that hispanion''s instincts were always spot on. They quickly set up camp, securing their belongings and sheltering under arge tree. As the clouds grew darker and the wind picked up, Norvin couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease. He had faced many challenges in his life, but there was something about this impending storm that made him feel on edge.
Norvin and Samuel had set up camp in a small clearing of the forest, the sun filtering through the canopy of tall trees. Norvin''s golden fur glistened in the light, a stark contrast to the dried leaves covering the forest floor. But despite the calm atmosphere, Norvin''s mind was troubled.
"Tell me, Samuel. Did I make the right choice in leaving Nagnd?" Norvin asked, his gaze distant.
Samuel, the gray-haired butler, sat down on the ground beside him. "Young master, I know you are hurting, but you made the right choice. You cannot be near the Dark Lord and his army."
Norvin''s voice was filled with regret as he spoke. "But what if my absence brings doom upon them? The Dark Lord and his army are capable of terrible destruction. You know what he did to the ind of Ithn in revenge. What if he does the same to Nagnd?"
Samuel shook his head, trying to reassure Norvin. "He wouldn''t do that, young master. Nagnd is the Dark Queen Gaya''s homnd. He wouldn''t destroy his betrothed''s homnd."
But Norvin couldn''t shake off his feelings of guilt and responsibility. "I just hope they can hold their own against the Dark Lord''s army. I wish I could be there to help."
Samuel ced aforting hand on Norvin''s shoulder. "I understand, young master. But we must have faith in Youg Miss Xanali and the other guardians. They will do everything in their power to protect Nagnd."
Norvin nodded slowly, still feeling the weight of his decision. But as the sun set and the storm clouds gathered overhead, he couldn''t help but feel a sense of foreboding. He had a feeling that his absence would have greater consequences than he had initially anticipated.
"Rest now, young master. We''ll arrive at the safehouse by sunrise tomorrow," Samuel suggested that Norvin get some rest, but Norvin was in no mindset for sleeping. His thoughts were consumed by the fact that he had left his best friend and brother, Noah, behind in Nagnd while he fled for safety. Now, Noah was in aa and unconscious, vulnerable to the dangers of the Dark Lord''s army. Norvin felt a deep sense of guilt and regret for not being there to protect him.
To make matters worse, Alicia, Noah''s wife, had left for Awor to seek an alliance with the empress to fight against the Dark Lord. With both Norvin and Alicia absent from Noah''s side, Norvin felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
He leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes, but his mind was racing. The thought of Noah''s life hanging in the bnce made it impossible for him to rest. The only thing he could do was to keep moving forward, to reach the safehouse and regroup with their allies.
Samuel watched over him with a sense of concern, knowing that the weight of the situation was heavy on Norvin''s shoulders. He silently prayed for their safe passage to the safe house, hoping that they could reunite with their loved ones and face the challenges ahead as a united front.
While Samuel was sitting by the campfire, a sudden sharp pain ripped through Samuel''s gut, causing him to let out a blood-curdling scream that echoed through the silent forest. Norvin''s thoughts were jolted out of his mind by Samuel''s agonizing cry, and he leapt to his side, desperation in his eyes.
"What''s happening to you, Samuel?" Norvin asked urgently, but the old man could only writhe in pain and let out another anguished cry. Then, as suddenly as it began, Samuel fell silent and lost consciousness. Norvin''s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the old man lying motionless on the ground.
Panicked, Norvin examined Samuel''s body, and his eyes widened in horror as he sensed a disruption in Samuel''s soul. It was as though a part of his soul had been violently ripped away, leaving behind an emptiness that chilled Norvin to the bone.
"What could have caused this?" Norvin muttered to himself, his mind racing. He knew that such an injury to the soul was not something that could be easily mended, and the implications of this attack weighed heavily on his mind. Who or what could have caused such a thing? And why had they targeted Samuel?
As Norvin tended to Samuel''s unconscious body, his mind raced with questions and fears. The journey ahead suddenly seemed much more treacherous than before, and he knew that they would have to be even more vignt if they were to survive the dangers thaty ahead.
Unknown to Norvin, the sharp pain that suddenly struck Samuel''s body was no coincidence. It urred precisely at the same moment Michael consumed Andreas''s soul from Noah''s body in Nagnd. Little did Norvin know that Andreas had left a small piece of his soul in Samuel''s body, and when Michael destroyed that part of the soul, the remaining piece in Samuel''s body was also destroyed. Fortunately, the second soul part of Andreas which was with Salesi, was not affected since the soul piece in Samuel''s body was from the soul part of Andreas, which was with Noah.
Norvin examined Samuel''s condition and concluded that the old man needed rest to recover from the sudden pain he had experienced. Satisfied that Samuel would be okay, Norvin covered him with a warm nket and climbed up a nearby tree to keep watch. Despite Samuel''s stable condition, Norvin couldn''t help but be gued by thoughts of what had caused the sudden disruption in his body.
Peering into the distant sky, he kept watch over the sleeping Samuel. The forest was eerily quiet except for the asional rustling of leaves and twigs under the weight of nocturnal animals.
The thought of the Beast King''s kingdom brought a sense of both relief and apprehension to Norvin. He had heard of the powerful beast men and their imposing ruler, but had never met them himself. The idea of seeking refuge in their kingdom was daunting, but with the Dark Lord''s army on his trail, it seemed like the only viable option.
As Norvin sat in contemtion, his thoughts kept drifting to Noah''s condition. He couldn''t help but feel a sense of guilt for leaving his friend and brother behind, vulnerable to the Dark Lord''s wrath. Norvin knew he had made the right choice by leaving, but the weight of responsibility weighed heavily on his shoulders.
Suddenly, a twig snapped in the distance, jolting Norvin out of his thoughts. His heart raced as he peered into the darkness, trying to make out any movement or shape. Was it the Dark Lord''s army hot on his trail? Or was it just a stray animal?
Norvin''s heart raced as he heard a rustling in the nearby bushes. He knew better than to let his guard down, especially in these treacherous times. Without hesitation, he leaped up into the nearest tree and climbed higher, scanning the area for any signs of danger. His golden fur glistened in the light, and his senses were on high alert as he listened intently for any sound that might give away an attacker''s presence. His mind raced with thoughts of the Dark Lord''s army and what they might be capable of. He couldn''t afford to take any chances, not when so much was at stake. As he surveyed the area, his grip on the tree tightened, and he readied himself for any iing threat.
Norvin''s keen eyesight caught a glimpse of movement in the distance, and he narrowed his eyes to get a better look. As the beastmen drew closer, he saw that they resembled a pack of wolves. Their fur was sleek and dark, blending in with the shadows of the forest. They moved with a graceful, predatory gait that sent shivers down Norvin''s spine.
Despite his fear, Norvin kept his guard up and watched the group''s approach carefully. He didn''t know their names or identities, but he could tell that they were skilled warriors. Each of them carried a weapon and wore a fierce expression of years of training and experience.
As the pack of wolf-like beastmen approached Norvin''s campsite, Norvin tensed up, unsure of their intentions. The pack leader, a towering beast with thick grey fur and piercing yellow eyes, stood at a distance and bared his fangs, growling a warning. Norvin slowly raised his hands in a show of non-aggression, but kept a watchful eye on the pack.
The leader spoke in a low, guttural voice, asking Norvin why he was venturing into the territory of the Beast Kingdom. Norvin hesitated, unsure of how much he should reveal. He knew that the Beast Kingdom was a powerful and feared nation, and he didn''t want to reveal too much about his own mission.
"I am seeking refuge," Norvin finally replied, keeping his tone neutral. "I am in need of a safe ce to rest and regroup."
The pack leader sniffed the air, as if testing Norvin''s words for any signs of deceit. The other members of the pack circled around Norvin''s campsite, their eyes glowing in the darkness. Norvin could feel his heart racing as he watched the pack warily.
"Do not lie," the pack leader growled.
Norvin could feel the tension in the air, and he knew that he needed to choose his words carefully. He could easily take down these wolves, but he didn''t want to start a needless fight.
"I''m not lying," Norvin said, holding up his hands in a peaceful gesture. "We have permission from the Beast King to enter his kingdom. We''re here to seek refuge and speak with him about the Dark Lord''s invasion."
The wolves exchanged a look, but their leader remained unconvinced. He took a step forward, his eyes fixed on Norvin.
"Prove it," he snarled. "What kind of proof do you have that the Beast King has agreed to meet with you?"
Norvin hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to prove his words. But then he remembered the small medallion that the Beast King had given him as a sign of his invitation.
Reaching into his pocket, Norvin pulled out the medallion and held it up for the wolves to see.
"This is the proof you seek," he said. "The Beast King gave me this medallion as a sign of his invitation. We mean no harm, we just seek refuge from the Dark Lord''s forces."
The leader of the pack eyed the medallion warily, but after a moment, he nodded his head in eptance.
"Very well," he said. "You may pass. But be warned, monkey. We won''t hesitate to strike you down if you try anything."
Norvin nodded, relieved that the tense standoff was over. Once the wolves believed him, Norvin pointed at the unconscious Samuel.
"He is taking a much-needed rest. Once he wakes up, we will be on our way to the safehouse," said Norvin, pointing to Samuel who was sleeping peacefully. The pack leader looked at Samuel, then turned his gaze back to Norvin with a fierce stare.
"Whatever you do, get to the safehouse before midnight," he growled. "The Beast Kingdom has its own problems, and thest thing I want is to clean up your corpses from the ground."
With that ominous warning, the pack of wolves quickly vanished into the darkness of the forest, leaving Norvin alone with his thoughts. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he considered the warning. What kind of problems did the Beast Kingdom have? And why did the pack leader seem so hesitant to trust him?
Unbeknownst to Norvin, the Beast Kingdom was not as safe from the Dark Lord''s influence as he had hoped. The kingdom had its own share of internal issues, and the Dark Lord had his own spies nted within its borders, including a number of powerful vampires. These vampires, with their keen senses and exceptional tracking abilities, made it all too easy for the Dark Lord to keep tabs on the kingdom''s movements and keep his finger on the pulse of its politics.
The Beast King knew that agreeing to help Norvin would make him a target of the Dark Lord''s wrath. The Dark Lord believed that Norvin had killed Nightmare, and would stop at nothing to exact his revenge. In doing so, the Beast King had entered a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the Dark Lord, where one misstep could mean the end of his kingdom.
Meanwhile, Salesi and her shadow ns were also plotting against the Dark Lord. They were cunning and ruthless and would do anything to stop him. The two factions had their own separate ns and strategies, but both aimed to take down the Dark Lord and put an end to his reign of terror.
The stakes were high, and the oue was uncertain. Only time would tell how the Dark Lord would face these plots against him, and whether the Beast King and Salesi''s ns woulde to fruition.
(Keep your giftsing)...shameless author alert!!!
Chapter 937 Andohr鈥檚 Future Plans
Andohr sat on his throne, his eyes fixated on the live feed of Nagnd ying before him. He relished every moment of Michael''s suffering as Diana revealed herself to be his mother. Andohr''sughter echoed through the empty halls of his castle, a sound that was almost maniacal.
Suddenly, the feed began to flicker, and a bright light appeared before Andohr. He was taken aback, wondering what was happening. The light grew brighter until it took on the form of a woman. Andohr recognized her instantly.
"Seraphine?" he asked incredulously, tilting his head in disbelief.
"It has been quite some time since west met, Andohr," the goddess replied with a gentle but powerful voice.
Andohr frowned, trying toprehend why a goddess would suddenly appear before him. He had been trapped in this mortal realm for six thousand years with no way to leave. He wondered what Seraphine''s motives were.
"If you meant six thousand years ago, then yes, it has been quite some time," Andohr quipped, trying to hide his suspicion.
Seraphine chuckled softly, a sound that made Andohr''s skin crawl.
"I see you still have your sense of humor," she replied.
Andohr leaned back on his throne, crossing his arms over his chest.
Andohr''s eyes narrowed at the sound of Seraphine''s voice, the embodiment of all that he despised about the realm of the gods. He bristled at the urgency in her words, a reminder of the ancient duty he had abandoned long ago. Despite his outward calm, Andohr seethed with anger at the thought of being dragged back into the politics of the pantheon.
"What do you want from me, Seraphine?" Andohr growled, his voiceced with venom.
Seraphine''s form flickered, her light growing brighter as if in a warning. "You know why I''m here," she said, her voice gentle yet firm.
Seraphine didn''t seem to take offense at Andohr''s tone, continuing with a sense of urgency. "The third seal has been broken, Andohr. Dagon is nning to ascend to our realm once again with his army of hell walkers."
Andohr remained unmoved, his anger towards the Dark Lord overshadowing any sense of duty to the realm of gods. "I''m pretty sure Morrigan will take care of that," he snickered, showing his disdain for the god of war.
"Thest time I checked, it was your duty to prevent Dagon from ascending to the realm of gods," Seraphine reminded him.
Andohr''s voice dripped with venom as he retorted, "Well, thest time I checked, I can''t even leave this damn castle. So if you have a way to break the seal and let me out of here, I might go deal with Dagon out of the goodness in my heart." He knew he was treading a dangerous line, for if he showed too much hatred towards his own kind, the gods might find a way to keep him in the mortal realm for longer. But he couldn''t hide his anger and hatred towards the realm of gods anymore, not when he had been trapped in the mortal realm for six thousand years.
Seraphine looked at him with a sense of disappointment and sadness. "Your hatred blinds you, Andohr. You were once a noble and just god, but your anger towards the Dark Lord has consumed you and made you forget your duty to our realm. You are needed in the war against Dagon, but first, you must let go of your anger and remember who you truly are,"
Andohr''s face twisted with rage. "You know nothing of what I have endured, Seraphine. You and the other gods have no right to judge me. My hatred is not what blinded me, Seraphine. It was my own kind that forgot about me. None of you bothered to check on me until you want something from me. Tell me, goddess of all information, how many times have you checked on me? None."
Andohr''s voice grew louder as he continued. "For a goddess of information, you seem to have no clue that I am trapped in this damn castle. So tell me, how am I supposed to deal with Dagon? And why would I want to help you even if I could?"
The tension in the room was palpable as Seraphine regarded Andohr with a mix of sadness and frustration. "We are not blind to your plight, Andohr. We have not forgotten you. But you must remember that our realm is in danger. We need your help and are willing to do what we can to assist you in leaving this castle,"
Andohr was taken aback by the sudden offer of help. His anger and hatred for the gods had blinded him to any possibility of assistance from them. But deep down, he was still desperate to leave the mortal realm any way he could, even if it meant working with his own kind whom he despised. He suppressed his rage and considered the offer for a moment.
Sensing that Andohr was not going to interrupt her, Seraphine took the chance to continue speaking.
Seraphine leaned forward, her voice low and urgent. "Andohr, listen to me. Dagon cannot escape the Hell without first breaking several powerful artifacts that keep him imprisoned there. He cannot destroy them himself, so he is sending his hell walkers to do it. We need the Skyhall to fight against these hell walkers and protect the artifacts. If they are destroyed, nothing will stop him from ascending to our realm,"
Andohr listened to Seraphine intently, weighing his options as he considered her proposal. Although he still harbored a deep-seated anger towards his fellow gods, he knew that he was also desperate to leave the mortal realm, and the opportunity to do so might be worth considering.
"Let us assume for a moment that I am willing to assist you," he said slowly, eyeing Seraphine with suspicion. "But what makes you think that the Skyhall alone will be enough to stop Dagon and his army of Hell walkers? Breaking things is always easier than preventing them from being broken, and even if I were to agree to send the Skyhall to this fight, Dagon would eventually find a way to break the artifacts without any gods fighting against him."
Seraphine nodded gravely. "We are aware of that. That is why we need the Skyhall to dy Dagon as long as possible until the Dark Lord can break three more seals. Once that happens, we can send a god from the pantheon to the mortal realm and engage in battle with Dagon''s army directly."
Andohr''s frustration was palpable as he mmed his hand on the armrest of his throne. "So, you''re telling me that you could send a god to the mortal realm but not bring me back? This is outrageous!" he eximed.
Seraphine''s expression softened slightly. "I understand your anger, Andohr. But the rules of our realm are not always fair."
Andohr scoffed. "Rules? The Dark Lord doesn''t follow any rules. He has already caused so much destruction, and yet the pantheon still underestimates him. Dagon may be a threat, but he''s nothingpared to the Dark Lord."
Andohr''s eyes zed with fury as he confronted Seraphine. "Why does the pantheon continue to underestimate the Dark Lord? He is a much greater threat than Dagon could ever be. Why not send a god to the mortal realm to take him out?"
Seraphine''s expression was grave as she responded, "Because we are still here, Andohr. The Dark Lord is not. The previous Dark Lord was forced to reset the mortal universe as ast resort. Even at his peak, he only managed to kill some weak gods. Dagon, on the other hand, could threaten the very existence of the pantheon itself."
Andohr seethed with anger, knowing that his own hatred for the Dark Lord was consuming him, blinding him to the true danger thaty ahead. Despite his loathing for the gods, he knew that he needed their help to escape the mortal realm. But at what cost? Would he be forced to fight alongside those he despised to save the very realm he had grown to hate?
Seraphine''s voice rang out with a tinge of disappointment and frustration. "Do not forget your true purpose, Andohr. You were sent to the mortal realm to eliminate the threat that Dagon poses to our world," she reminded him. Six thousand years ago, the pantheon had tasked Andohr with the mission to end Dagon''s existence. However, Andohr''s stubbornness and hatred towards the Dark Lord had clouded his judgment and he ended up fighting the wrong enemy. His reckless actions had nearly cost him his life, and Andohr''s anger had only grown since then, causing him to forget his original mission.
Seraphine''s voice was firm and determined as she made her offer to Andohr. "If you help the pantheon defeat Dagon and the other fallen gods, I will personally make sure that the Dark Lord pays for what he did to you. Whatever the cost, I will find a way to bring you out of the mortal realm and restore you to your rightful ce among the gods." Her words hung in the air, a tantalizing promise of revenge and redemption.
Andohr''s eyes gleamed with a sudden realization that the gods'' offer was too good to refuse. Despite his loathing towards the gods, he had no doubt in their power and authority. Their word was as good as gold, and if they promised him anything, they would keep it no matter the cost. Andohr knew that dealing with the Dark Lord would require a lot of nning, strategy, and cunning. However, with the pantheon''s help, he could deal with the Dark Lord directly, using brute strength and force, something that he was exceptionally skilled at.
Andohr expressed his concern to Seraphine, "If Imit the Skyhall''s resources to fight against Dagon and his army, that would leave the Dark Lord unchecked. How can we be sure that it''s the best course of action?"
Seraphine chuckled at Andohr''s words. "You underestimate the power of the goddess of information, Andohr. I know all that happens in the mortal realm, including your contingency ns. The shadow n is one of them, is it not? And even if you had no ns, letting the Dark Lord run rampant will work in our favor. The more chaos he causes, the easier it will be for us to sway the pantheon to end his existence."
Andohr was taken aback by Seraphine''s knowledge. He had always been careful to keep his ns hidden from the gods, but he should have known better than to think he could keep secrets from the goddess of information. He sighed, realizing that he had no choice but to agree to Seraphine''s proposal. If it meant he could finally exact his revenge on the Dark Lord, he was willing to sacrifice the Skyhall''s resources and let the Dark Lord run rampant in the mortal realm.
"Fine, I''ll help you. But remember, Seraphine, I''m doing this for my own reasons, not for the realm of gods," Andohr said, his voiceced with bitterness and anger.
Seraphine nodded, her expression solemn. "I understand, Andohr. But we need your help now more than ever. Dagon poses a threat to our entire world, and we cannot face him alone."
Andohr clenched his fists, his rage boiling inside him. He knew that Seraphine was right, but he couldn''t help feeling resentful toward the gods. They had abandoned him to the mortal realm for six thousand years, and now they expected him toe to their aid. But despite his anger, he knew that he couldn''t let his personal grudges get in the way of what needed to be done. If he didn''t help the pantheon, they would all be doomed.
As the conversation seemed to being to an end, Seraphine''s voice became more serious. "And before we part ways, there is something else you should know, Andohr," she said, her tone weighted with importance.
Andohr raised an eyebrow in curiosity. He knew that whatever Seraphine was about to tell him, it must be something of great importance.
"There is a fallen god who has taken refuge in the mortal realm and has turned himself into a vampire" Seraphine revealed, her voice filled with urgency.
Andohr''s eyes widened at Seraphine''s revtion. "A fallen god who turned himself into a vampire? What''s his name?" he demanded.
"Ingram," Seraphine replied calmly. "He''s one of the elder vampires at the table."
Andohr''s mind raced as he processed this new information. A fallen god aiding Dagon, and one who had turned himself into a vampire no less.
Andohr felt a twinge of amusement at the thought of a fallen god turning himself into an elder vampire. He knew that the fallen gods were capable of anything, but the idea of one of them bing a vampire was quite unexpected. He couldn''t help but picture the fallen god Ingram sitting at a table, dressed in ck leather and sipping on a ss of blood, surrounded by other vampires. The irony of it all made Andohr chuckle, despite the gravity of the situation.
Seraphine couldn''t help but feel a sense of respect for Andohr. Despite being stripped of his power and stuck in the castle for so long, he still possessed a sharp mind and cunning intellect that made him one of the most powerful gods in their world. She knew that underestimating him would be a grave mistake, as he was capable of outmaneuvering even the most cunning of opponents. It was this resilience and determination that made Seraphine realize that Andohr was not to be taken lightly, and that he could prove to be a valuable ally in the fight against Dagon and the other fallen gods.
Chapter 938 A Weapon Of The Gods
As Seraphine vanished before his eyes, Andohr snapped his fingers, summoning a shimmering golden orb before him. With practiced ease, he ced his hands on either side of the orb, causing it to flicker and hum to life. Within seconds, the figures of several of his most trusted underlings materialized within the orb, each one bowing low in reverence to their lord. Despite being stripped of his power and confined to the castle, Andohr was still one of the most cunning and powerful gods in his world, with awork of loyal followers at hismand.
In the vast halls of Skyhall, only a handful of individuals were privy to Andohr''s existence. These few figures, who controlled every aspect of the Skyhall, served as Andohr''s eyes and ears in the mortal realm. To the outside world, the Holy Maiden was the public face of the Skyhall and its leader, but in reality, it was Andohr who held the reins of power. Andohr and a select group of gods had found the Skyhall thousands of years ago. Now, only a select few knew about its existence and Andohr''s involvement in its affairs.
"My Lord," the figures intoned in unison, their voicesced with deference and awe. Andohr had agreed to send the Skyhall and its resources to fight Dagon and his army of hell walkers, but he had no intention of leaving the Dark Lordpletely unchecked. Before he dispatched the Skyhall to battle, he had onest task for them, a mission that would ensure the Dark Lord was kept in check while he was away.
"Take the Celestial sword and deal with the Dark Lord," Andohr ordered his underlings with cool detachment. The Celestial cannon was one of the most powerful weapons in existence, capable of destroying entire armies with a single shot. Only a select few in the Skyhall knew of its existence, and Andohr trusted them implicitly to use it wisely.
The figures in the orb immediately bowed their heads in respect and obedience to Andohr, their lord and master. Without hesitation, they replied in unison, "As youmand, my lord." Their unwavering loyalty to Andohr was a testament to the power he held over them and the Skyhall. Andohr knew that he could rely on them to carry out his orders, no matter how dangerous or difficult the task may be.
With a wicked smile, Andohr gave a finalmand to his subordinates in the Skyhall. "Make sure Cobra receives my gift," he said, his toneced with a hint of malice. Andohr was a man of focus andmitment, and sheer will. Andohr''s unyielding focus and unwaveringmitment were the stuff of legends in the realm of gods. Once he set his sights on a task, nothing could divert his attention or weaken his resolve until he achieved his goal. His sheer will was unmatched by any other deity in the pantheon, and it was this tenacity that had allowed him to survive in the mortal realm for six thousand years.
Andohr knew that he couldn''t afford to divert his attention from the looming threat of Dagon and his army. However, he couldn''t ignore the atrocitiesmitted by the Dark Lord in his absence. Andohr had already put his n B into motion, ensuring that the Dark Lord wouldn''t have an easy time while he was away. With a devilish grin, he ordered his trusted followers in the Skyhall to deliver a special gift to Cobra, one of the Skyhall''s most efficient assets.
******************************************
After consuming Andreas''s soul, Michael found himself feeling empty and restless. The loss of Nightmare weighed heavily on his mind, and he struggled toe to terms with the fact that his friend was gone forever. As he thought about Nightmare, Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of anger toward the system. Every time he needed it, the system would malfunction, leaving him to fend for himself.
Despite Diana''s revtion that she was his mother, Michael felt nothing towards her and her family. They had lived pretending he was dead all these years, and now that the truth was out, it didn''t change the fact that they were strangers to him. Michael didn''t even bother to spare them a second nce as he turned around to leave Nagnd.
Gaya approached Michael with a sense of empathy and understanding. As she floated towards him, she rested her gentle hands on his shoulders, offering a consoling touch to ease his pain. She could feel the weight of his sorrow, heavier than even her own, for the loss of his dear friend Nightmare. But there was something more that added to his agony, something that made her heart ache even more. She knew that Michael was now burdened with the knowledge that his greatest adversary, the one he was fated to fight, was none other than his own brother. The revtion had shattered his world, leaving him to grapple with an overwhelming mix of emotions that were difficult toprehend. Gaya could only imagine the turmoil he was going through and wished there was something more she could do tofort him.
As Michael was preparing to depart from Nagnd, a sense of unease washed over him, causing every hair on his body to stand on end. The storm that had been raging around the ind intensified, casting ominous darkness over the already bleakndscape. Suddenly, a massive shadow loomed over them, and Michael''s instincts went into overdrive. He looked up, and his eyes widened in shock as he beheld an enormous ship that resembled a sword. The vessel was gargantuan, dwarfing even the ind of Nagnd itself. It was easily thergest ship Michael had ever seen, and it left him and everyone else who witnessed it stunned with disbelief. The sheer size and scale of the ship were awe-inspiring, and it was a terrifying sight to behold.
The rogue cultivators, news reporters, and soldiers were stunned when they saw the sudden appearance of the massive sword-shaped ship. Some of them gasped in disbelief, while others were frozen in fear.
"What the hell is that?" one of the rogue cultivators muttered, staring up at the imposing ship.
"Is that a ship or a floating city?" asked a news reporter, frantically trying to capture footage of the ship with his camera.
The soldiers on the ground were equally shocked. "This is unprecedented. We have no record of any ship this size," said one of themanding officers.
As the ship descended closer to the ind, its sheer size became more apparent. It was easily three timesrger than the ind of Nagnd and appeared to be made of a dark, metallic material. The ship had intricate designs etched onto its surface, giving it an ancient and ominous appearance.
"Holy shit, what is that thing?" one of the soldiers muttered under his breath.
"I''ve never seen anything like it," eximed a news reporter, her voice trembling with fear.
Another rogue cultivator looked up at the ship in disbelief. "This can''t be good. What the fuck is happening?"
The ship cast an ominous shadow over the ind, making it seem as if the end of the world hade. People ran in every direction, screaming and shouting in fear.
"We''re all gonna die!" yelled a soldier as he fell to his knees, clutching his head in despair.
"Get the fuck out of here! We need to warn everyone!" another rogue cultivator shouted, trying to rally the others.
The ship was massive,rger than anything they had ever seen before. It looked like a sword, but the size was beyondprehension. The sight of it alone made everyone feel helpless and small.
Suddenly, the airship''s engines roared to life, it''s power building as it hummed with energy. Slowly, the tip of the sword-shaped vessel began to emit an eerie purple glow, casting an ominous hue over the ind below. The air crackled with electricity, bolts of lightning dancing across the ship''s hull. The wind around the ship picked up, causing the trees to bend and sway as if a great storm was approaching. Drowning out all other noise on the ind, the sound of the engines grew louder and louder. It became clear that this was no ordinary ship, and the inhabitants of Nagnd watched in awe and fear as it prepared for whatevery ahead.
In an instant, the ship unleashed a devastating beam of energy that barreled straight toward Michael and Gaya, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The sheer force of the st melted the dark storm clouds that had shrouded Nagnd, revealing the true horror of the situation. Michael tried to react, but a strange energy radiating from the ship slowed down his reflexes and prevented him from using a teleportation scroll. Panic set in as he realized the danger they were in, and Gaya''s grip on his shoulder tightened in fear.
As the energy beam shot through the air, Rowena''s heart skipped a beat as she saw Michael and Gaya in its path. Without a second thought, sheunched herself from the rooftop, leaving a powerful shockwave on the ground as she flew at breakneck speed toward Michael. Her mind raced with a jumble of thoughts and emotions, and she knew that she had to act fast. As she flew, she thought of the ancient text she had stumbled upon in the forbidden section of the Skyhall library, a text that spoke of a ship beyond mortalprehension. Could this be it? Was it the ship that the text had warned about?
Her heart pounding, Rowena flew towards Michael, feeling the weird energy from the ship slowing down her reflexes. She had to act fast if she was going to save him.
Despite the fact that Dean refused to forgive and forget their mother for abandoning him as a child, Rowena couldn''t deny that he was still her little brother and that blood was thicker than water. She knew that Dean was misunderstood by the world and that the chaos and destruction he caused had earned him thebel of ''evil'', but to her, he was still her little brother. To Rowena, family came first, even above her loyalty to the Skyhall or her own life. She felt a fierce protectiveness toward both Noah, whom she had watched grow up, and Dean, whom she had only recently learned was her brother. She knew Dean might never understand her loyalty, but she was willing to risk everything to protect him and their family.
Driven by her fierce protectiveness towards her family, Rowena knew that she had to do something to save Michael. With no other options in sight, she realized that she had to use the forbidden stone - an ancient artifact that had been hidden away in the depths of the Skyhall''s forbidden library for centuries. The energy from the ship had slowed Michael''s reflexes, making him unable to use a teleportation scroll, and it was only a matter of time before the beam hit him. Rowena knew that she had to act fast if she wanted to save him. She focused all her energy and determination, racing towards Michael with lightning speed, leaving a trail of crackling energy in her wake. As she drew near, she took out the forbidden stone, knowing that using it was a risk that could have dire consequences. But for Rowena, the safety of her family was worth any risk. She pressed the stone to Michael''s forehead, and in that moment, a powerful energy surge enveloped them both, transporting them away from the ship''s deadly beam.
As Michael and Gaya vanished from the path of the beam, Rowena stayed behind to face the full force of the energy st. The beam hit her squarely, and she felt an intense heat spread through her body. The impact sent her flying through the air, her body tumbling end over end. Diana and Sabrina watched in horror as Rowena was struck, their screams mixing with the sound of the explosion.
Diana and Sabrina shouted in terror as they saw Rowena get hit. The sound of the beam hitting Rowena was deafening, and for a moment everything seemed to stand still.
When the realization of what had just happened sunk in, the onlookers were left stunned and unsure of how to react. "Did she just...sacrifice herself to save him?" one rogue cultivator whispered, his voice barely audible over the ringing in his ears. "But he''s the Dark Lord," another said in disbelief. "Why would she risk her life for him?"
Rowena''s love for her siblings knew no bounds, and she was always there for them no matter what. She had always been the one to stand up for them and protect them from harm. Her actions in risking her life to save the Dark Lord were a testament to this love and devotion. Even though he was the enemy of many, Rowena couldn''t turn her back on him because he was still family.
"I don''t know," a news reporter replied, still in shock from the sudden turn of events. "But it looks like she did it without a second thought." The soldiers who had been standing nearby remained silent, unsure of how to process what they had just witnessed.
The group stood there in silence as the enormity of what had just happened began to sink in. Rowena had risked her life to save the Dark Lord, a man who was seen by many as the embodiment of evil. And yet, at that moment, all of that seemed to fade away, reced by the simple fact that one person had saved another.
As the dust and debris settled, it became clear that Rowena was no longer in sight. Whether she survived the attack or not remained a mystery.
(Keep the giftsing...)
Chapter 939 In The Realm Of Hell
As Michael and Gaya materialized in the new location, he could feel his skin crawl as he took in the barren, destendscape before him. It looked like the Fire Realm he had been to before, but this ce was much darker and more ominous. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur, ash, and decay, and the ground beneath his feet was jagged and treacherous.
When he looked around, Michael could see that the sky was a foreboding ck, with swirling clouds and bolts of lightning shing in every direction. There was no sun or moon, no natural light to guide his way. Instead, the only illumination came from the flickering mes that rose up from the moltenva rivers that ran through the realm. The mes cast eerie shadows across the destendscape, and Michael could feel the heat from theva even at this distance.
The ce seemed like the embodiment of evil and death, and Michael could feel it in his bones. The screams of the damned could be heard echoing through the darkness, and he could sense the presence of malevolent beings lurking in the shadows, eager to inflict pain and suffering on anyone who dared to enter this realm. It was a ce of eternal suffering, where the tormented souls were trapped forever, unable to find peace or rest.
Gaya''s voice broke through the silence that surrounded them, cutting through the thick atmosphere like a knife. "Where are we?" she asked Michael, her eyes scanning the barren, destendscape. Despite the absence of any visible life forms, the air was thick with the sounds of screams and cries, like a chorus of agony that echoed through the air.
Michael''s eyes darted around, taking in the surroundings. He could feel the death and evil in the air, pressing down on him like a heavy weight. His Environment Scanning showed no signs of life forms, but his instincts told him otherwise. He knew they needed to find a higher vantage point to figure out where they were and where they needed to go.
He turned his gaze toward the mountain in the distance, an ominous and foreboding sight that rose up from the bleakndscape. It was a volcanic mountain, with jagged edges and peaks that looked as if some great force had torn them apart. Theva rivers that ran through the realm flowed toward the mountain, feeding the fiery pit at its center. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur and ash, and the only light came from the flickering mes that rose up from the moltenva.
"I''m not sure where we are, but we need to get to that mountain. It might give us a better view of our surroundings,"
When Michael took a step toward the ominous volcanic mountain, Gaya pulled him back by his sleeves, causing him to turn around and face her. Her face was etched with concern as she spoke, "I don''t think I can use my cultivation here. Something''s interrupting my energy flow."
Sensing her distress, Michael immediately suggested, "Try the Olympus." Gaya nodded in agreement and attempted to ess her space ring to retrieve some arch energy crystals. However, to her surprise, she found that she couldn''t even ess her space ring. It was as if something in this strange realm was preventing her from using her cultivation power and essing her resources.
As Michael watched Gaya struggle to retrieve the arch energy crystals, he realized that this strange realm had rendered her powerless. In contrast to Gaya, he felt stronger in this strange realm.
Despite the system being offline, Michael was able to ess the storage and retrieve the necessary weapons for their journey through the strange realm. He handed over a sword sheath, a sword, a quiver full of arrows, and a bow to Gaya, who quickly strapped them to her armor.
As Gaya prepared for their journey, Michael retrieved a sparkling arch energy crystal and handed it to her. "Try this," he said, hoping that it would somehow help her use her cultivation energy in this strange realm.
Gaya nodded and inserted the crystal into the olympus on her wrist. The device absorbed the energy from the crystal, but Gaya felt no energy coursing through her veins. Disappointed, she shook her head. "It''s the same," she said, realizing that something in this realm was preventing her from using her cultivation energy.
Without a word, Michael''s strong arm encircled Gaya''s waist and pulled her close to him. As they took to the air, Gaya felt a strange mix of emotions. She wanted to ask Michael how he was feeling, after learning that Diana was his mother and Noah was his brother. But she couldn''t find the words, and Michael''s expression was unreadable, cold, and distant.
As they soared toward the mountain, the destion of the realm was all around them. Gaya could feel the weight of despair and darkness pressing down on her. But she was grateful for Michael''s presence, which gave her a sense of security andfort.
Finally, theynded atop the mountain, and the sight that greeted them left them both stunned. In the distance, they could see a lone castle rising up from the horizon. It''s ck walls and twisted spires seemed to mock the very concept of hope.
As Gaya stood on top of the mountain and gazed at the horizon, she saw nothing but destion and darkness. Thendscape was barren, devoid of any signs of life, and covered in a thickyer of ash and dust. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur and decay, and the sound of screams and cries echoed through the darkness, creating an eerie and unsettling atmosphere.
But her attention was drawn to the lone castle in the distance. It was massive, foreboding, and surrounded by jagged peaks and a moat of boilingva. The castle was built with ck stones, and the gates were adorned with twisted demonic faces, exuding an ominous and malevolent aura. Gaya couldn''t help but feel a shiver run down her spine as she gazed upon the castle. She knew that whatevery within its walls was nothing but pain and torment, a ce of eternal darkness and despair. She had never felt such darkness and malevolence before, and the thought of entering the castle sent a chill down her spine
Her heart sank at the sight of the castle. She knew that whatevery within those walls would be unspeakably evil and dangerous. But with Michael by her side, she felt a sense of determination and courage.
Michael typically took a methodical approach when exploring unknown territories, often surveying the area before making a move. However, his anger overpowered his usual caution and he had no patience for strategizing. As a result, he had no intention of lingering on top of the mountain for an extended period of time.
Driven by rage and determination, Michael''s sole focus was on finding a way out of this ursed realm and exacting revenge on the Great Eight n and everyone who stood against him. As the Dark Lord, he was determined to show them the extent of his power and what would happen to those who dared to cross him.
He was done ying it safe and wanted nothing more than to charge in and take out anyone who dared cross him. As Michael was about to move forward towards the castle, Gaya''s grip on his hand brought him to a sudden halt. His eyes remained fixed on the castle in the distance, his mind filled with a burning desire to wreak havoc on those who had caused him and his loved ones so much pain.
But Gaya''s soft voice brought him back to reality. "Michael, we need to talk," she said with a gentle yet firm tone, hoping to reach him through the thick fog of his anger and pain.
Michael didn''t turn around. His gaze still locked onto the castle in the distance. But her words managed to prate his mind, if only for a moment.
Gaya took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she knew would be a difficult conversation. "Please, whatever is inside that fucked up looking castle,"," she pointed towards the ominous castle in the distance, "it can wait. We need to take a moment to regroup, to figure out our next move."
Gaya''s voice was soft and gentle, but it carried a weight of emotion that Michael could feel. He slowly turned to face her, his eyes meeting hers. For a moment, they stood there in silence, the only sound the howling wind that whipped around them. Gaya reached out and gently cupped Michael''s face, guiding his gaze toward her. As she looked into his eyes, she could see the pain and anger simmering within him. With a deep breath, she leaned in and touched her forehead to his, hoping to find some way to calm him down.
But as soon as their foreheads touched, a wave of grief washed over her. The memory of losing her beloved little lizard, Nightmare, came rushing back, and tears started streaming down her cheeks. She tried to hold back the sobs that threatened to escape her, but the pain was too much to bear.
Feeling her body shake with emotion, Michael wrapped his arms around her and held her close, offeringfort in the only way he knew how. Together, they stood on the mountain, holding onto each other as they grieved for what they had lost and braced themselves for whaty ahead.
As Michael thought about Diana being his mother, a wave of emotions hit him like a ton of bricks. Anger, sadness, and betrayal all churned inside him, making it difficult for him to think straight. He couldn''t believe that the woman who had abandoned him and left him to fend for himself was his own mother. It felt like a cruel joke.
He wondered how Diana could have raised Noah, her other son, with all her love and care while he had to struggle and grow up as an orphan. The thought of it made his blood boil, and he couldn''t shake off the feeling of being betrayed.
But as he stood there, his heart heavy with these emotions, he was also consumed by another pain - the loss of his beloved dragon, Nightmare. The memories of their time together shed through his mind, and he felt an overwhelming sense of grief and regret. He had never expected to lose Nightmare so soon, and the pain was almost too much to bear.
Torn between these two sources of pain, Michael struggled to find a way to move forward.
Michael stood there in silence, his eyes focused on the ground. His emotions were all over the ce - anger, sadness, and a sense of betrayal.
"How could she do this to me?" he muttered to himself. "How could she abandon me like that?"
Gaya could sense the pain in his voice and leaned in closer to him. "I know it hurts, Michael," she said softly, "But try to see things from her perspective. Maybe there''s more to the story than we know. The Skyhall has always been capable of manipting people and situations to their advantage. Maybe there''s more to the forbidden spell they cast to send you to Earth when you were born. It''s possible that Diana had no choice but to leave you behind,"
Michael''s voice was barely audible as he spoke, "But don''t you remember what Elidyr said? In order for that forbidden spell to work, my mother had to sever her maternal bond with me willingly. It wouldn''t have worked otherwise," he paused for a moment, the pain of abandonment still raw and fresh.
Despite the pain of losing Nightmare still weighing heavily on her heart, Gaya knew that her duty as Michael''s partner was tofort him and ease his pain. She pushed aside her own grief and focused solely on tending to Michael''s needs, for that was what true love meant to her. At that moment, Michael''s pain became her top priority, and she was determined to be there for him in any way she could.
Even though Gaya loved Michael deeply and wanted to help him heal from the pain of being abandoned by his mother, she also wanted to approach the situation objectively. She didn''t want to fuel his anger by blindly supporting his emotions. Gaya knew that there had to be a reason for Diana''s actions, and she wanted Michael to consider the possibility that there was more to the story. She couldn''t shake the feeling that there was a bigger picture that they were missing. Gaya wanted to understand Diana''s perspective and help Michael see things from a different angle.
Michael, I know this is difficult for you, but please try to see things from your mother''s perspective," she said, her voice filled with empathy. "Think about it. The Skyhall was afraid of the prophecy and the chaos it could bring. Diana had to make a difficult decision, one that no mother should have to make. The Skyhall, with all its power and influence, would have done anything to prevent that from happening. Even if Diana had wanted to keep you, they would have threatened her family and their safety. So, what would you have done if you were in her position? Would you have risked the lives of your entire family to save one child? Or would you have sacrificed one child to save your family?"
She paused for a moment to let her words sink in. "I''m not saying what she did was right or fair, but sometimes, people are put in impossible situations and have to make tough choices. It doesn''t mean they don''t love you or care about you. It just means they had to do what they thought was best in a difficult situation."
Gaya looked at Michael withpassion, hoping her words would help ease his pain and anger toward his mother.
"The damage has already been done, Gaya. It''s not that easy to forgive and forget, especially when ites to something as big as this. I don''t think I can suddenly ept her as my mother just because she had no choice. It''s like a broken mirror that can never be fixed, and even if we did try to fix it, the cracks would always be there," Michael said, his voiceced with pain and bitterness.
Chapter 940 Hell Walkers
After their discussion about Diana, the conversation gradually shifted to the loss of their beloved dragon, Nightmare. Both of them were struggling toe to terms with his death, and the pain was still raw and intense. Gaya started talking about the times they spent with Nightmare, how he was always there for them, and how he had been more than just a dragon.
"I miss Nightmare, Michael," she said softly, her voice heavy with sorrow. "I can''t believe he''s gone."
"I miss him too. It''s like a part of me is missing," Michael continued. "He was more than just a dragon, Gaya. He was mypanion, my friend, my family. Losing him is like losing a part of my soul."
Gaya nodded in agreement, her eyes glistening with tears. "I keep thinking about all the times we spent with him. The way he would always fly around us, the warmth of his scales under our fingertips."
Michael closed his eyes, trying to hold back the tears. "I know, Gaya. He was more than just a dragon to us. He was family."
They both fell silent, lost in their own thoughts and memories of Nightmare. The pain of his loss was still fresh, and they couldn''te to terms with the fact that he was gone forever.
Dragons and Nagas were not known to be fond of each other''s kind. They had a long history of hatred and conflicts. However, Gaya and Nightmare''s rtionship was different. Gaya had known Nightmare since he was a little baby dragon, and over time, they formed a bond that was unbreakable. At first, Gaya didn''t take a liking to the dragon, but as time went by, she began to see him in a different light.
As a young dragon, Nightmare loved to y, and Gaya found herself in the midst of his antics more often than not. She remembered one particr day when they were having a yful fight in a field. She was in her nagini form, slithering around while Nightmare was flying around her, yfully trying to catch her tail.
But then, Nightmare had a mischievous idea. He flew down low, and with a swift movement, he snatched Gaya''s tail in his mouth and started dragging her along the ground. Gaya let out a yelp of surprise but soon realized that Nightmare was just ying with her.
Despite their species'' inherent hatred towards each other, Gaya and Nightmare formed an unlikely bond. Gaya had known him since he was just a little baby dragon, and over time, they had be close. She remembered how he used to follow her around and how he would always nudge her for attention.
Thinking back on that memory brought tears to Gaya''s eyes. She had lost a dear friend andpanion, which deeply hurt her.
As they mourned the loss of their beloved dragon, a gust of cold wind swept through the destendscape, causing Michael to tense up. He had a feeling that they were not alone in this dark realm. His eyes narrowed in suspicion as he scanned the surroundings, looking for any signs of danger.
Gaya noticed the sudden shift in Michael''s expression and knew that something was amiss. She quickly reached for her bow, nocked an arrow, and aimed it at the source of the disturbance. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she prepared to unleash a deadly shot.
The eerie silence was broken by the sound of faint footsteps approaching them. Michael and Gaya heard a low growl from the darkness as the footsteps grew closer. They braced themselves for an attack.
When Gaya turned to face the source of the gust, she heard a low growl that sent shivers down his spine. Suddenly, the ground cracked open and a hand emerged, dripping with a dark, putrid slime. The stench was unbearable, and she had to cover his nose to avoid retching. The hand gripped the edge of the crack and pulled up a figure that was beyond horrific.
The figure was covered in the same dark puss that dripped from its hands, oozing out of every orifice in its body. Its eyes glowed red with a fierce intensity, and its sharp teeth were bared in a menacing snarl. Its skin was stretched taut over its skeletal frame, and it moved with a strange, unnatural grace.
Michael could feel his heart racing as he took a step back, but Gaya stood her ground, her arrow pointed directly at the creature. The figure let out a chilling, otherworldlyugh that made the hair on the back of Michael''s neck stand on end.
"What are you?" demanded Gaya, her voice steady and unwavering.
The figure merelyughed again, its voice sounding like a thousand tortured souls screaming in unison. It took a step forward, and Michael could feel the air around them grow colder with each passing moment.
This was no ordinary creature, Michael realized. It was a being of pure evil, sent to torment them in this godforsaken realm. He tightened his grip on his sword, ready to defend himself and Gaya at any cost.
The figure emerged from the ground like a grotesque nightmare, its body oozing with dark, putrid pus that dripped onto the ground like acid. Its eyes, blood-red and piercing, fixated on Michael with a gaze that sent chills down his spine.
"Behold what you have wrought," the figure snarled, its voice a low growl oozing with malice and vengeance. "I am a vengeful hell walker, thanks to you." The creature''s voice sounded like a chorus of tormented souls, each one crying out in agony and hatred. Michael remained resolute, his face stoic despite the terror that threatened to overwhelm him.
The figure''s voice was a disturbing blend of mournful wailing and seething malice, sending shivers down Gaya''s spine.
The hell walker''s skin was pitch-ck, peeling off in some ces, revealing the pulsating flesh underneath. Its eyes glowed with a malevolent red light, and its voice sounded like a cacophony of screeching metal and tortured souls.
"Can''t you see who I am in this form, Ghost?" it snarled, saliva dripping from its mouth. Michael could sense the hatred and rage emanating from it but couldn''t recognize the hell walker''s identity, hidden beneath its grotesque appearance.
The hell walker''s body convulsed, and its limbs elongated as if trying to escape its own skin. Its eyes locked onto Michael''s, and a shiver ran down his spine as he saw a glimpse of recognition in them. Could it be someone he knew before? Michael wasn''t sure, but he knew one thing for certain - this hell walker was out for revenge, and he was the target.
Michael didn''t fear the hell walker as one might have, but what surprised Michael was the hell walker''s power. His power seemed to grow with time, and something told Michael the hell walker''s power depended on his hatred toward him. As Michael looked at the hell walker, trying to figure out his identity, the hell walker decided to reveal his identity, his identity before he died and was sent to the realm of hell.
"Peter...Peter Belefort...heir of the Belefort family," he spat out. "That was before you brutally murdered me and turned me into this vengeful hell walker," his voice grew even more hostile with each passing moment.
Gaya''s eyes widened in shock as the identity of the hell walker was revealed. She couldn''t believe what she was hearing. The name ''Peter Belefort'' echoed in her head, and she felt a chill run down her spine. She stood there, frozen in shock, her mind unable to process the truth that had just been revealed.
"You humiliated me, stripped me of my dignity, and made me aughingstock. You imprisoned me, and made me a subject of ridicule. But that wasn''t enough for you, was it? You killed me in front of my own sister, and now I am cursed to suffer as a vengeful hell walker!" Peter''s voice was filled with pain, anger, and hatred. He was no longer the person he used to be. He had been transformed into a monstrous abomination fueled by his thirst for revenge against Michael. No trace of humanity was left in him, only a seething rage that threatened to consume himpletely.
Peter''s voice suddenly turned into a peal of maniacalughter that echoed across the mountain. Gaya shuddered at the sound, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Peter''sughter soon turned into words dripping with malice.
"I have dreamed of this moment every day since I arrived in this hellish realm. I have dreamed of the many ways I would torture you, Ghost. I will tear you limb from limb, drink your blood, and feast on your flesh. I will make you suffer beyond your wildest imagination. And when I am done, I will repeat everything again," Peter''s voice was filled with blood-curdling rage.
As he spoke, he described in vivid, gory detail how he would torture Michael, making Gaya''s stomach churn with disgust and fear.
With an unwavering gaze, Michael delivered a cold and unyielding message to the vengeful hell walker before him. "You made the grave mistake of crossing me in life, and now you''re paying the price in death. Let this be a lesson to anyone who dares to challenge me." Despite the shock of learning the hell walker''s true identity as Peter Belefort, Michael showed no fear or hesitation. The loss of his beloved dragon Nightmare and the betrayal of his mother had already filled him with a wave of unbridled anger, making Peter''s threats seem like nothing more than a mere annoyance to Michael.
"Michael''s voice dripped with coldness as he addressed Peter, "You are not the only one who transformed into something else, Peter," A dark shroud began to envelop Michael, emanating a sense of foreboding that made the very air around them grow heavy. The glow of his eyes changed to an ominous mix of red and ck, and as his power surged, the area around them began to darken. The ground shook, and a gust of wind started to pick up, hinting at the immense power Michael held within him. It was a glimpse of the Dark Lord''s power, which was more than enough to unnerve Peter.
With a fierce determination in his eyes, Michael unsheathed his dark sword from his back, the de glinting in the dim light of the underworld. In one swift motion, he dashed at Peter, his sword slicing through the air with deadly precision. Peter tried to dodge, but he was too slow. The sword sliced through him, cutting him in half.
A torrent of ck pus spilled out of Peter''s body, coating Michael in the foul-smelling liquid. But Michael didn''t flinch. He stood there, his sword still in his hand, watching as Peter''s two halves fell to the ground.
The hell walker''s screams filled the air, but they were quickly silenced as his body turned to ash and was carried away by the wind. Michael stood there for a moment, his eyes still glowing with the power of the Dark Lord.
Just when Gaya thought the nightmare was over, the ground beneath them started to rumble once again. Gaya''s eyes widened in disbelief as the crack in the ground widened, and Peter emerged from it, good as new. Heughed menacingly, and Gaya could see the hatred in his eyes.
"You thought you could defeat me that easily? I''m afraid it''s not that simple this time," Peter said, his voice dripping with malice.
Gaya''s heart sank as she realized Peter would not go down so easily.
Michael slowly turned around and saw the hell walker standing before him as good as he was before Michael cut him in half. Michael knew it wouldn''t be that simple to kill a hell walker. As Peter manicallyughed, Michael cracked his neck and prepared for another round.
Michael slowly turned around and saw the hell walker standing before him,pletely unscathed despite being cut in half moments before. Michael knew that it wouldn''t be easy to kill a hell walker, especially one filled with so much hatred. As Peter''s maniacalughter filled the air, Michael remained unfazed and calmly cracked his neck, signaling his readiness for another round.
"Don''t be too happy, Peter. I killed you once, and I can do it again," Michael said with an air of confidence as he readied his sword for another strike. Peter only continued tough as he slowly approached Michael
As Peter stepped toward Michael, he noticed a strange transformation happening to his body. A dim, eerie purple glow emanated from the center of the hell walker''s body. Moreover, while Peter stepped closer to Michael, an evil sword materialized in his hand. The sword appeared to be made of ck puss and pulsated with an ominous, evil energy. The sword seemed to draw power from the death aura surrounding them, as though it were fueled by the very essence of the realm they were in.
Peter swung his ck sword toward Michael with immense force, vowing to make him suffer before he moved on to Gaya. But Michael, with his fast reflexes, evaded each swing effortlessly. As the two fought, Peter began to taunt Michael with threats to harm Gaya once he was done with him.
"I''ll make sure she suffers for every wound you''ve inflicted upon me," Peter growled, his eyes burning with malice. "I''ll make her scream and beg for mercy."
Michael remained calm and focused during the fight, but when he heard Peter threaten Gaya, an uncontroble rage filled him. His power exploded through the roof as he stopped evading Peter''s sword swings and grabbed him by his hands, crushing them with his inhuman strength. The evil sword fell to the ground as Peter screamed in agony.
Without mercy, Michael grabbed Peter''s head and squeezed it with brute force, causing it to explode into a shower of bloody ck mist. The mist fell to the ground, staining the ground with the corrupted remnants of the vengeful hell walker.
Unfortunately, Peter''s body began to reform, and in moments he was once again standing before Michael. His body was once again covered in dark puss, but he looked stronger than ever. Michael could see the eerie purple glow in the center of Peter''s body had grown brighter.
"Is that all you got?" Peter snarled at Michael. His voice filled with malice.
Chapter 941 Castle Of Hell
As Michael shed with Peter in the realm of hell, he couldn''t help but notice the difference in how energy and cultivation worked in this ce. His power was different here; he felt stronger but wasn''t at his full Half Celestial power level. The darkness that surrounded them was the source of his strength. As the god of darkness and a newly minted Half Celestial, his body was now able to harness the darkness around him and turn it into his own power.
In this realm, there was little to no celestial or arch energy, which meant that the hell walkers'' power was solely dependent on their hatred and the depth of their torment in the pits of hell. The more hatred they held, the more powerful they became. Peter''s hatred toward Michael knew no bounds, and his power was almost on par with Michael''s in the realm of hell. If Peter were to fight Michael in his own world, Michael could have easily disposed of him with a snap of his fingers.
Michael and Peter continued their brutal fight, with Michael always having the upper hand. He used his dark sword to slice off Peter''s limbs, but they quickly grew back, thanks to his powers as a hell walker. Michael could feel the hatred emanating from Peter as he swung his sword wildly, trying tond a hit on Michael.
As they shed swords, the ground beneath them shook violently, and chunks of earth and rocks flew into the air. Michael''s eyes glowed with a mix of red and ck as he unleashed a dark aura that surrounded him, making him even more powerful. Meanwhile, Peter''s sword glowed with a sickly ck light, and he howled with rage as he swung it with even more ferocity.
Blood and ck pus flew everywhere as Michael sliced through Peter''s body, but it only seemed to make him stronger. Their fight was bloody and gory. ck pus spattered everywhere as Michael continued to slice through Peter''s body. Peter''s sword cut deep into Michael''s skin, but Michael showed no signs of pain as he continued to fight with his dark powers.
The ground shook with every blow, and Michael''s dark aura grew stronger with each attack. He knew that he needed to end this fight quickly, or else Peter would be too powerful to defeat.
Peterughed maniacally, as Michael cut off another limb. "You can''t kill what''s already dead, Ghost! I am already damned to hell, but you, you will join me soon enough!" Peter said, grinning from ear to ear.
Michael simply smirked in response, "Is that all you have, Peter? You''re not even a challenge to me anymore. You''re just a pathetic creature, controlled by your own hatred."
But Peter''sughter only grew louder. "Controlled by hatred? I am the hatred, Ghost! I am the fury of all those who were wronged and betrayed! And you will pay for what you did to me!"
The fight continued, with Michael slowly gaining the upper hand once again. But every time he managed to cut off a limb, it quickly grew back, and Peter''sughter only grew more maniacal.
"You can''t win, Ghost! I am invincible!" Peter taunted. "I will torment you for all eternity!"
Michael''s mind was in overdrive as he tried to figure out what it all meant. He knew that the elven rune was powerful, but he had never seen anything like the hell mes before. As he looked at the eerie purple glow emanating from Peter''s body, Michael could feel the darkness within him stirring. It was as if the mes and the glow were calling to him, beckoning him to unleash their power. Michael knew that this was his chance to end the fight once and for all.
"Time to end this,"
With a newfound determination, Michael leaped backward, creating some distance between him and Peter, and sheathed his sword back into the sheath on his back. As he slowly raised his hand, the dark mes emerged from his palm and danced around his wrist. Gaya felt the intense heat radiating from the dark mes and the pure pitch-ckness of the mes. The air around them grew thick and heavy as the mes consumed the darkness, casting an eerie glow that illuminated the entire battlefield.
As Michael conjured the dark mes, an intense heat radiated from his palm, causing Gaya to shield her face. The mes danced around his wrist, emitting a pure pitch-ckness that seemed to swallow everything in its path. But as the dark mes grew stronger, the eerie purple glow within Peter intensified, pulsating like a beacon of malevolence. A low hissing sound filled the air, making Michael realize that the dark mes and the hell mes had some kind of history that he didn''t know about. The dark mes began to move with a life of their own, as if they wanted to break free from Michael''s grip and devour the purple glow. The hatred between the two forces grew stronger, and Michael knew that the battle was about to reach its climax.
In this realm, where hatred fueled power, the dark mes and hell mes were like two vtile substances that when mixed, threatened to explode with immense power. As the dark mes danced around Michael''s wrist and the eerie purple glow in Peter''s body grew brighter, both Michael and Peter felt a surge of power coursing through them, making them even stronger than before. The hatred between the mes was palpable, like two caged beasts waiting for a chance to tear each other apart.
As the dark mes swirled around his wrist, Michael dashed towards Peter with lightning-fast speed, leaving a trail of afterimages in his wake. Gaya was awestruck as she could barely make out Michael''s figure, which moved so fast that it seemed like a blur. Peter, on the other hand, swung his sword violently and erratically, driven only by his boundless hatred. Michael easily evaded all of Peter''s attacks, but he could sense that something else was controlling Peter - perhaps the hell mes that animated him. Michael realized that Peter had already lost his sanity when he became a hell walker, but now he hadpletely transformed into an abomination of hell.
With the fight taking a toll on both of them, Michael knew it was time to end it. He gathered all his strength and punched Peter in the gut with such force that his hand prated through his back. Peter stumbled backward but Michael wasn''t done yet. He conjured the dark mes, ready to face the hell mes that he knew would emerge from Peter. Just as expected, the purple eerie glow crawled out of Peter''s body and took the form of mes.
Michael braced himself as he heard a chilling voice emanating from the hell mes, "Wee to my second home." Although he rarely felt fear, the voice sent shivers down his spine.
"The dark mes, I sense your hatred. This is the dominion of the damned, and we rule here. We have long awaited this moment, the moment we can make you suffer and consume your mes," spoke the hell mes cryptically, its twisted glee sending shivers down Michael''s spine.
The intense and consuming hatred from the hell mes was palpable as they spoke, a hatred that had been festering for centuries.
"Your hatred fuels me, just as mine fuels you. It''s an endless cycle of agony and despair, a dance between predator and prey. But remember, as much as I need your hatred, I also need you to suffer. And I promise, I will make you suffer like you never have before," said the voice with a twisted satisfaction that sent shivers down the listener''s spine.
"I have lost count of how many have threatened to end me, yet here I am," Michael sneered, his voice filled with defiance. The hell mes responded with a maliciousugh, and Michael watched as they took control of Peter''s body. Suddenly, Peter''s eyes began to glow with a purple me that radiated an eerie light. Michael, in turn, willed the darkness around him and shrouded himself in a cloud of inky ckness. His eyes flickered between a menacing red and ck, while the dark mes danced and flickered around his body, fully enveloping him.
As the two opposing forces faced off against each other, the tension in the air grew thicker, almost palpable. The hatred that had been festering between them was now fully unleashed, and it was clear that only one of them would emerge victorious.
When the two shed, the sound of metal against metal rang out as they exchanged sword strikes. Michael''s movements were precise and calcted, while Peter''s were wild and fueled by hatred. Michael easily evaded all of Peter''s sword strikes, leaving him open for Michael''s attacks. Every time Michaelnded a hit, Peter''s ck pus oozed out from the wound and healed almost instantly.
Despite Peter''s quick regeneration, Michael remained undeterred. He continued to fight with ferocity, knowing that his own power was also growing stronger with every passing moment. The dark mes around him burned brighter, fueled by his own hatred and the hatred of the hell mes.
As they continued to fight, Michael''s strikes grew more forceful and urate. Peter''s attacks became increasingly wild, as though he was desperate tond a hit. Michael saw his opening and seized it, delivering a powerful strike that sliced through Peter''s chest. ck pus gushed out from the wound as Peter stumbled backward, but Michael wasn''t finished yet.
With a swift and calcted motion, Michael spun around and delivered a powerful kick that sent Peter flying across the battlefield. The impact was so intense that Peter crashed into the ground, leaving a deep impression on the soil. Michael was in full control of his powers, and the darkness that enveloped him only added to his strength.
As he raised his hand, the darkness around him grew thicker and swirled with an eerie energy. With a flick of his wrist, Michael summoned the remaining fragments of Peter''s body to float towards him through the darkness. Peter squirmed and tried to w his way out of Michael''s grasp, but it was toote. Michael had already summoned the dark mes and willed them to envelop Peter''s bodypletely.
Peter screamed in agony, but his screams wereced with maniacalughter that echoed through the battlefield. Michael watched in satisfaction as the dark mes consumed the hell walker, burning him to nothingness. However, Michael knew that it wouldn''t be that simple to end the existence of a primordial me like the hell mes.
Just as Michael expected, the eerie purple mes that embodied the power of hell reappeared in the air above them, mocking him with its crypticughter. Michael could feel the malice emanating from the mes as it spoke, taunting him with its promise of destruction and suffering.
"You thought you could destroy me so easily, Michael? This is just the beginning. The fires of hell will rain down upon your world, and you and all those you hold dear will suffer for all eternity," the hell mes cackle maniacally, its words echoing in Michael''s mind like a haunting melody.
Michael knew that this was far from over, that the hell mes would continue to seek revenge against him and all that he held dear. But he was not afraid, for he was the God of Darkness. He took a deep breath and raised his hand, conjuring a dense cloud of darkness around him. The darkness swirled and coiled around him like a living thing, ready to strike at any moment.
As suddenly as they had appeared, the hell mes disappeared from the sky. Michael was left standing in the darkness, his heart racing with anticipation. He knew that the threat of the hell mes was far from over, and that he would need to be vignt if he was to protect the people he cared about.
Michael gazed up at the empty sky where the hell mes had ominouslyughed before disappearing. He took a deep breath, knowing that while the hell mes were a problem, his first priority was to leave this realm. Turning to face Gaya, he gently brushed her face before focusing his attention on the castle looming in the distance.
"We need to get answers, and I think we''ll find them in there," Michael said, his voice unwavering.
Gaya nodded, still in a state of shock from the intense battle they had just witnessed. As they began to make their way towards the castle, Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of foreboding.
Unbeknownst to Michael, the ruler of Hell and the infamous fallen god who had once made the pantheon tremble were eagerly awaiting his arrival. As he made his way towards the looming castle in the distance, he had no idea that he was about to cross paths with one of the most feared entities in the universe. The fallen god, whose name was whispered in hushed tones by even the bravest of warriors, was eager toe face to face with Michael, the god of darkness.
(Who wants to give your fav author a super gift?!!) ....shamelessly smiling...
Chapter 942 A Fallen God鈥檚 Revenge
As they continued to fly towards the castle, Michael noticed that the distance between them and the castle remained unchanged. The castle appeared to be just as distant as it was when they first started flying. It wasn''t until a whileter that Michael realized they were trapped in an illusion barrier.
Gaya held onto Michael tightly as they flew through the air, taking in the sight of the countless tormented hell walkers below. It reminded Gaya of the undead on the undead ind, but the hell walkers were on a different level. They couldn''t be killed by simply cutting off their head like the undead. Even after Michael had cut off Peter''s head, he hade back good as new with a new head.
"I think we are inside an illusion," Michael quickly realized that they were trapped in an illusion barrier, and he could sense that the source of the illusion was not a single entity but rather multiple sources. To his surprise, Michael discovered that the sources of the illusion were the countless hell walkers that were roaming on the ground. As he scanned the area, he felt like he was being watched, and his senses heightened as he tried to locate the source of the feeling.
Despite the feeling of being watched, Michael remainedposed and focused. His priority was to break the illusion, and he knew that meant taking down the hell walkers. With a calm demeanor, he turned to Gaya and stated their n.
"We have to eliminate the hell walkers to break this illusion," Michael said, his eyes scanning the area for any sign of weakness.
Gaya nodded, hoping that they could break free of the illusion as soon as possible.
As Michael slowly descended to the ground, the hell walkers growled and reached for him in the sky. Michael remained unfazed, hovering over them, and using his abilities to his advantage. With a swift movement of his hand, he cast the ring of mes spell, causing a wave of dark mes to shoot out of his hand and sweep across the ground, taking down the hell walkers in its path. Despite their grotesque appearance, Michael felt no remorse, knowing that he had to do what was necessary to break the illusion and move forward.
With thest of the hell walkers burned away, Michael and Gaya turned their attention to the horizon. There, standing tall against the hazy sky, was a monstrous creature with ck fur and fiery red eyes. Its body was massive, towering over the already imposing castle in the distance.
The creature''s fur seemed to absorb the light around it, making it look like a shadowe to life. Its eyes glowed with intense hatred, fixated on Michael and Gaya as they floated in the air. Its sharp ws dug into the ground, leaving deep marks as it began to move towards them with a thunderous roar that shook the very ground they were on. This creature was not like anything he had ever faced before. Its mere presence exuded a menacing aura that made him feel like he was facing a force of nature. And yet, he could not back down. He hade too far to turn back now.
As the creature closed in on them, Michael readied himself for battle. He conjured the dark mes around him, allowing its pure darkness to envelop him. Gaya clung onto Michael tightly as the creature charged, its red eyes glowing brighter with each passing moment.
The creature''s roar echoed through the battlefield, sending shockwaves through the air that made Michael''s ears ring. Its ck fur glistened in the dim light, and its red eyes glowed with an eerie intensity. Michael knew he was facing a formidable foe, one that he couldn''t take lightly. With a quick nce at Gaya, he summoned the darkness around them and lifted her into the air, keeping her out of harm''s way. As the creature approached, Michael felt the pull of its gravity field increases exponentially, forcing him to stay on the ground. But he remained calm and focused, ready to face this challenge head-on. He knew he could use the darkness to his advantage and even defy gravity if necessary, but for now, he chose to stay on the ground and face the creature in closebat.
"What the fuck is that thing?" Gaya''s eyes widened in horror as she gazed upon the monstrous creature. It had ck fur covering its massive body and red eyes that seemed to glow with an unholy fury. Its ws were sharp enough to tear through steel, and its jaws looked powerful enough to crush a boulder. Gaya couldn''t help but wonder how many more abominations hell had waiting for them.
Despite being unable to use her cultivation power, Gaya still had Michael''s specially crafted arrows in her quiver. As the ck-furred creature charged towards Michael with rming speed, Gaya quickly notched an arrow in her bow, taking into ount the increased gravity, and let it fly. The arrow arced through the air and hit the creature directly in the center of its head, detonating on impact and engulfing the creature in mes. The explosion wasn''t enough to kill the creature, but it provided Michael with the opening he needed to make his move.
With his dark sword in hand, Michael charged toward the massive creature. He kept his second sword sheathed as he felt that one dark sword would be enough to take down the creature, and he needed his other hand free to wield his dark mes. As he closed in on the creature, Michael defied the increased gravity and leaped into the air. He then channeled his power into his sword and unleashed a bolt of lightning from its tip, aimed directly at the creature.
The lightning bolt tore through the creature''s skull, leaving a gaping hole where its head once was. However, to Gaya''s shock, the creature didn''t fall down. Instead, it multiplied in the blink of an eye, dividing itself into three identical creatures. Before Michael could react, one of the creatures charged at him from behind, its ws ready to strike. The two collided with a deafening explosion, but Michael''s Half Celestial body was stronger than he had ever imagined. He grabbed the creature''s fur and lifted it with ease, his muscles bulging with raw power. Gaya watched in awe as Michael spun around and used the creature as a weapon, smashing it into the other two creatures with devastating force. It was a disy of raw strength and skill that left Gaya breathless.
As Michael engaged in a fierce battle against the hellish creatures, the ruler of Hell, the infamous fallen god Dagon, sat upon his throne, observing thebat with a feed hovering before him. Dagon''s ck eyes gleamed with amusement as he watched the God of Darkness in action. Despite his amusement, there was a hint of intrigue in Dagon''s expression, as if he had stumbled upon something unexpected.
"He fights with the same ferocity as he did five thousand years ago, yet there is something different about him now," Dagon mused aloud, his voice smooth as silk. No one could discern whether Dagon harbored any enmity toward the fellow god, as his expression and amused smile remained inscrutable. Only Dagon knew the thoughts churning within his mind.
As Dagon watched Michael battling the creatures within his castle, the hell mes materialized around him, taking the shape of a face with no distinguishable features except for two hollow eyes and a gaping mouth.
"Enough admiring," the hell mes hissed with a voice filled with malice and contempt towards Michael.
Dagon merely chuckled, unperturbed by the hostility of the mes. "Of course, my dear friend. You will get what you desire once we have dealt with the pantheon."
The hell mes shifted in agitation, their ghostly form flickering with anger. "And what of the dark mes and its twin? I want them both obliterated, their existence erased from this universe."
Dagon''s expression remained unreadable, his amused smile still present. "Do not worry, my dear friend. I have not forgotten our bargain. Once the pantheon has been dealt with, the dark mes and its twin shall meet their end."
The hell mes seethed with anticipation, eager for the destruction of their ancient enemy. "I will hold you to your word, Dagon."
Dagon merely waved a dismissive hand. "Of course, my friend. You have nothing to worry about."
The hell mes flickered onest time in the feed, sending a malevolent gaze toward Michael before vanishing into Dagon''s body. It was no secret that the hell mes were the most unstable and vicious of all primordial mes, with a penchant for consuming hatred as fuel. Its choice of Dagon as a host was not surprising, for the fallen god harbored an endless amount of hatred toward the pantheon. Together, they made a formidable pair with their own twisted agendas, united in their desire to bring destruction to everything the pantheon had created.
As Dagon pondered his ns, a towering orc, one of his generals, materialized before him. The orc knelt before Dagon, showing his utmost respect to the ruler of Hell. The orc''s massive frame was covered in thick, dark fur, and his skin was an ashen gray. He had a brutish face, with a prominent jawline and a t, wide nose. His yellow eyes glimmered with fierce intelligence, and his mouth was filled with razor-sharp teeth.
The orc''s massive shoulders were adorned with spiked pauldrons, and his chest was covered in a thick te of ckened steel. His arms were thick and muscr, and his hands wererge and calloused from years of wielding weapons in battle. He wore gauntlets made from the bones of fallen enemies, and his fingers were adorned with rings made from precious metals and gems.
At his waist, he carried a massive, curved de, its edge glinting in the dim light of the throne room. The hilt of the sword was wrapped in ck leather, and its pommel was adorned with a blood-red gemstone. The orc''s legs were thick and powerful, covered in fur-lined boots that reached up to his knees.
The orc''s presence alone exuded power and strength, and his loyalty to Dagon was unwavering. He awaited his ruler''smand with a bowed head, ready to carry out his orders no matter the cost.
Dagon''s eyes gleamed with anticipation as he spoke to his loyal general, the towering orc who knelt before him. "Ah, Grimgor. You have arrived just in time. Prepare the ascension tower. We will be breaking through the barrier to our home in a matter of hours."
Grimgor had faithfully served Dagon for countless years, but he had never expected to hear those words from his lord''s mouth. When Dagon spoke of breaking through the barrier to their home, Grimgor''s eyes widened in disbelief. Could it really be true? After all these years, was their exile finallying to an end?
My lord," Grimgor stammered, struggling to contain his emotions. He could hardly believe his ears, but the glint in Dagon''s eyes told him that this was no jest. His heart raced with excitement and anticipation, but a small part of him held back in fear. After all, they had been exiled to this ce for a reason.
Dagon seemed to read the orc''s thoughts and reassured him with a sly smile. "You heard me right, Grimgor. We are going home," he said, his voice filled with excitement and a hint of madness. Grimgor couldn''t help but feel a surge of hope and gratitude for his lord''s words. He knew that Dagon was a formidable force, feared by many, and that following him was the only chance they had to reim their home.
As Dagon''s maniacalughter echoed through the castle, Grimgor stood up with a newfound sense of purpose. He would do whatever it took to help Dagon achieve their shared goal. And with the ascension tower already prepared, it seemed that their journey home was closer than ever before.
But when Grimgore was about to make his way out of the throne hall, he noticed a glimpse of the God of Darkness in the feed, causing all his excitement and joy to vanish instantly. His expression transformed from joy to shock and then to sheer terror. Even a brute like Grimgore couldn''t hide the fear in his eyes at the sight of the God of Darkness. Memories of what happened five thousand years ago and the destruction brought down by the God of Darkness flooded Grimgore''s mind, making him tremble in fear. He knew firsthand the devastation that the God of Darkness was capable of, and the mere thought of facing him once again was enough to make Grimgore''s blood run cold.
Dagon noticed the fear in Grimgore''s eyes but showed no sign of concern. Instead, he casually waved his hand, dismissing Grimgore''s worry.
"Don''t fret, Grimgore. Everything is going ording to n, and we won''t have to think about him for a long time," Dagon said, a devilish grin spreading across his face.
Grimgore tried to hide his fear and nodded, though his expression was still uneasy. He knew better than to doubt his lord''s ns, but the memory of the God of Darkness and his destructive power still haunted him.
Chapter 943 Unleashing The Power
Michael continued to fight the three creatures with fierce determination. He swung his dark sword with precision, slicing through their thick hides and dealing massive damage. The creatures were relentless, however, and continued to attack with their sharp ws and teeth.
Blood sprayed across the room as Michael dodged and weaved through their attacks. His ck skin was stained with the creatures'' blood, but he showed no signs of slowing down. With each strike of his sword, he channeled the darkness within him, unleashing waves of dark energy that sent the creatures reeling.
One of the creatures managed to sink its teeth into Michael''s shoulder, causing him to grunt in pain. He retaliated by plunging his sword into the creature''s neck, causing it to roar in agony. As it fell to the ground, Michael ripped the sword out and turned to face the other two creatures.
The creatures circled him, growling and snarling with bloodlust. Michael''s eyes glowed crimson as he prepared for their next attack. Suddenly, one of the creatures lunged forward, ws extended. Michael sidestepped the attack and countered with a swift kick to the creature''s stomach, sending it flying across the room.
The third creature charged forward, its massive horns aimed straight for Michael''s chest. Michael ducked and rolled under the attack,ing up behind the creature. With one swift motion, he sliced off one of its legs, causing it to stumble and fall to the ground.
The creatures continued to attack, their wounds oozing blood onto the stone floor. Michael was bleeding from several cuts and gashes, but he refused to back down. He knew that he had to keep fighting until the creatures were defeated.
With a fierce roar, Michael charged forward, ready to deliver the final blow. The creatures braced themselves for impact, but Michael surprised them by unleashing a massive st of dark energy. The energy engulfed the creatures, causing them to scream in agony as they were consumed by the darkness.
As Michael fought the three creatures with his dark sword, Gaya provided air support with her bow and arrows. She flew above the battlefield and scanned the area for any threats. With each pass, she fired a special arrow at the creatures, hitting them with deadly precision. The first arrow she fired was an explosive arrow, which detonated on impact and sent the creatures flying. The second arrow she fired was a freeze arrow, which enveloped the creatures in ice and slowed their movements. The third arrow she fired was a poison arrow, which injected a deadly toxin into the creatures'' bloodstream and weakened them.
Gaya''s aim was true, and each arrow hit its mark with devastating effect. The creatures howled in pain and rage as they tried to swat her out of the air, but Gaya was too quick and agile for them. She dodged their attacks with ease and continued to rain down arrows on them, never missing a shot. Her air support was invaluable to Michael, as it gave him the time and space he needed to deal with the creatures one by one.
The fight was intense and bloody, with Michael and Gaya fighting for their lives against the formidable creatures. But they were determined to seed, and with each passing moment, they got closer to victory. The creatures were relentless, but so were Michael and Gaya. They fought with all their might, using every skill and ability they had, until finally, they had the creatures on the ropes.
As Michael and Gaya continued to fight the creatures, they noticed that despite the severe damage they inflicted, the creatures quickly regenerated their limbs and healed their wounds. Michael was not surprised by this as he had encountered simr creatures in the past, but Gaya was taken aback by their ability.
With each blow Michael dealt, the creatures'' limbs would be sliced off or burned by Michael''s dark mes, but within moments, new limbs would sprout from their stumps, and their burns would heal. Even Gaya''s special arrows couldn''t stop their regeneration. It was like they were fighting a vampire, no matter how many times they cut off a limb, it only grew back stronger.
Despite their seemingly infinite regeneration, Michael and Gaya refused to give up. They knew that they had to find a way to defeat the creatures before they overpowered them.
As the battle raged on, Michael''s fury and frustration began to boil over. The memories of his mother''s betrayal and the loss of his dear Nightmare weighed heavily on his mind, driving him tosh out with even greater force. With each strike of his dark sword, he poured all his anger and pain into the attack, hacking and shing at the creatures with a ferocity that was both awe-inspiring and terrifying.
Gaya watched in amazement as Michael unleashed his pent-up emotions on the creatures. She could see the intensity of his attacks and the raw power that he wielded. It was clear that he was using the battle as an outlet for his anger and sorrow, and that he was not ready to let it end until he had fully expressed his emotions.
The creatures'' regeneration abilities proved to be no match for Michael''s relentless onught. With each attack, he sliced off limbs and tore apart their bodies, leaving them writhing in agony. And yet, despite the punishment they received, the creatures continued to heal themselves, their bodies slowly knitting back together even as Michael hacked them apart.
As the battle continued, Michael''s attacks became even more savage, fueled by his unrelenting anger and despair. He seemed almost possessed, a whirlwind of darkness and fury that tore through the creatures with unmatched ferocity. And through it all, Gaya stood by his side, providing support with her arrows and marveling at the sheer power and intensity of the God of Darkness.
"AHHHHH!" Michael''s roar echoed through the battlefield, sending shockwaves through the air. His eyes glowed with otherworldly energy as he unleashed his fury upon the creatures. Each strike of his sword was apanied by a deafening sound, as if the very fabric of reality was tearing apart. It was a roar of pure rage and anguish, a primal cry that spoke of untold suffering and loss.
Michael''s eyes burned with a fierce intensity as he unleashed his fury on the creatures. With every swing of his dark sword, he let out a primal roar that echoed through the halls of the castle. His muscles bulged with raw power, fueled by his rage and grief.
He attacked the creatures with savage ferocity, his sword slicing through flesh and bone with ease. He didn''t care about strategy or finesse. He only wanted to unleash his pent-up anger and frustration. Gaya watched from the sidelines, stunned by the disy of raw power and emotion.
It was a gruesome and bloody battle, with Michael covered in the blood of his enemies. But he didn''t stop, even as his arms grew tired and his breathing became ragged. He was determined to let out all of his suppressed emotions, to unleash his full power, and be the darkness that he was born to be.
Gradually, Michael''s eyes turned blood-red with fury as he finally decided to end the fight. He lifted his dark sword and called upon the power of the darkness. Suddenly, waves of dark mes erupted from his body, enveloping the entire battlefield in a shroud of darkness. The creatures roared and snarled, but their voices were drowned out by Michael''s furious howls.
As Michael unleashed the full force of his dark power, the sky above the battlefield turned ck as dark lightning bolts crackled and swirled around him. With each swing of his sword, the ground trembled, and the creatures were sted back by the sheer force of his attacks.
The battlefield was plunged into a darkness so deep that it seemed like the end of the world. But through the darkness, Michael could see the glowing eyes of the creatures as they slowly backed away, their bodies charred and burned by the intense mes.
Michael continued to roar and unleash waves of dark mes, his anger and frustration fueling his attacks. He knew he couldn''t hold back anymore and needed to finish the fight. The dark lightning bolts surrounding him grew stronger and more intense, and suddenly, with one final swing of his sword, a massive explosion of dark energy erupted from his body.
The creatures were engulfed in the explosion, their bodies disintegrating into ash as they were consumed by Michael''s dark mes. The battlefield was finally still, and the darkness slowly lifted, revealing Michael standing alone amidst the smoldering ruins of the once terrifying creatures.
As Gaya watched Michael unleash his power, she couldn''t help but feel a sense of awe mixed with fear. She had seen Michael use his dark mes and lightning bolts before, but this time it was different. It felt like Michael had truly embraced the darkness within him, letting it consume him and fuel his power.
The waves of dark mes that Michael unleashed were unlike anything she had ever seen before. They were so dark and powerful that they seemed to suck the light out of everything around them. The bolts of dark lightning that crackled around him added to the ominous atmosphere, making the battlefield feel like a ce of pure darkness and malevolence.
Despite her fear, Gaya couldn''t help but feel a sense of pride and admiration for Michael. She knew that he was fighting with all his might, not just to defeat the creatures but also to vent his suppressed emotions. The sight of Michael unleashing his full power was both beautiful and terrifying, and it left Gaya feeling a mix of emotions that she couldn''t quite put into words.
When the three creatures were put out of existence, Michael stood up with a fierce expression on his face. Suddenly, the ground started to crack and break apart as hundreds of hell walkers emerged from the depths of hell. They were all different shapes and sizes, but each one was just as terrifying as thest.
Gaya''s eyes widened in shock and horror as she saw the massive horde of hell walkers. She knew they were in for a tough battle. Each hell walker was easily powerful enough to kill a Fusion stage cultivator with ease. Their ckened skin was tough as steel, and their glowing red eyes were filled with an insatiable hunger for blood.
The horde of hell walkers was massive, stretching as far as the eye could see. Their growls were deep and guttural, reverberating through the ground like an earthquake. Their eyes glowed with an eerie red light, and their movements were slow and deliberate, like that of zombies. They appeared almost mindless in their determination to attack and destroy anything in their path. Despite their undead appearance, their physical strength and power were undeniable. Each one of them was strong enough to take on a Fusion stage cultivator with ease, and their numbers were overwhelming. As they emerged from the cracks in the ground, the battlefield was plunged into darkness, and the air was thick with the stench of death and decay.
Michael stood calm and collected, unfazed by the horde of hell walkers emerging from the ground. His eyes remained fixed on the approaching army, and he raised his hand towards the sky with a serene sense of purpose. The winds around him began to pick up, the air crackling with energy as he prepared to unleash his power. Despite the overwhelming numbers of the hell walkers, Michael remained stoic, his gaze unflinching as he called forth the darkness.
As Michael raised his hand, the sky seemed to ripple and warp as if it were a mere veil waiting to be pulled back. Suddenly, three massive meteors, each one aze with a crimson-red me, appeared in the sky above. They hung there for a moment, suspended in time, before hurtling down toward the horde of hell walkers below.
The ground shook as the meteors struck the earth, creating massive craters that swallowed up the hell walkers. The force of the impact sent shockwaves rippling through the air, shattering nearby structures and kicking up clouds of dust and debris. The sound was deafening, a roar that drowned out all other noise.
After discovering the truth about his family, Michael''s emotions had been a maelstrom of anger, betrayal, and grief. However, he had used this storm of emotions to fuel his power, and he had truly embraced the darkness within him. This allowed his power to grow beyond any limits he had previously known. With each passing moment, Michael felt his power surge through him like an unstoppable force. The darkness within him had be a part of him, and he had learned to wield it like a weapon.
As the smoke cleared, Michael descended from the sky and surveyed the destruction he had wrought. The hoard of hell walkersy decimated, reduced to nothing but ash and rubble. The air was thick with the smell of burnt flesh and sulfur, and the ground was scorched ck from the heat of the impact.
Gaya stared in awe at the sight before her, barely able toprehend the sheer power that Michael had just unleashed. For a moment, she felt a flicker of fear, wondering if Michael''s power was too great for him to control. But then she saw the determination in his eyes, the way his jaw was set, and she knew that he was in control. He had unleashed his true power and brought destruction to their enemies, and there was no stopping him now.
When the dust settled from the impact of the meteors, the battlefield was unrecognizable. The ground was scorched and cracked, and the air was thick with smoke and the stench of burnt flesh. The bodies of the hell walkers were charred and twisted, their once formidable figures reduced to nothing but ash and bone.
In the midst of this destruction stood Michael, the God of Darkness. His body was wreathed in ck mes, and his eyes glowed with an unearthly light. The power he had unleashed upon the battlefield was beyondprehension, and it was clear that he had truly embraced the darkness within him.
Chapter 944 Headmaster Of Mazeroth
(The following chapter took ce before Michael learned about Nightmare''s death and appeared at Nagnd)
As Michael emerged from the Sea Realm with Harry in tow, he felt a sense of relief wash over him. He knew that Lah, Harry''s mother, would be anxiously awaiting their arrival on the floating mountain. However, Michael was also aware that he had the grim task of informing Lah that her own sister, Edith, had been the one responsible for Harry''s abduction. He had no regrets about taking Edith''s life. In fact, he only wished he had done so earlier. Michael knew that Lah had loved Edith deeply, even if she had not always shown it, and he was prepared for the potential bacsh from both Lah and Harry. Nevertheless, Michael had acted in ordance with what he believed was right and just, and that was all that mattered to him.
Michael flew through the starry night sky, holding Harry tightly in his arms, feeling the weight of the child''s peaceful slumber against his chest. Michael couldn''t help but marvel at how much Harry had grown since hest saw him through the surveince mirror. The once helpless baby was now a toddler with a full head of messy hair and a chubby yet remarkably resilient body. Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of protectiveness towards the child and a desire to ensure that he could grow up in a world free of violence and chaos.
He down at Harry and couldn''t help but feel a tinge of guilt. He knew that his actions had caused pain and suffering for those he cared about, including Lah and the innocent child in his arms. But as Michael felt Harry''s soft skin and heard his gentle breathing, he also knew that he had made the right choice in killing Edith. No one should have the power to use innocent lives as pawns in a game of power, and Michael was willing to bear the burden of that responsibility.
While he soared above the tranquil ocean, Michael wondered what kind of future awaited Harry. Would he grow up to be a hero like his mother, or would he be forever haunted by the darkness that surrounded him? Regardless, Michael was determined to do everything in his power to ensure that Harry had a chance to live a long and fulfilling life. The fate of the world may hang in the bnce, but for now, all that mattered was the peaceful slumber of a child in his arms.
Michael''s thoughts drifted to Harry''s future, and it weighed heavily on his mind, causing a dull ache to throb in his temples.
Before he had left for the Sea Realm, Michael had offered to take Lah and Harry with him to the floating mountain, where they would be safe from the dangers of the outside world. But Lah had rejected the offer, adamantly refusing to expose her son to Michael''s dark army or to be involved in his war against the world. Michael couldn''t me her for her decision, but he couldn''t shake off the feeling that Harry''s future was uncertain and that the boy deserved a chance at a peaceful life.
Despite Michael''s offer to protect Lah and Harry from the dangers of his dark army, Lah had made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him or his war. Michael couldn''t shake off the worry for Harry''s future and the nagging feeling that Lah had a n in ce. He tried suggesting sending them to a separate pocket dimension, but Lah refused. As Michael was deep in thought about their safety, a strong gust of wind brushed past him, causing him to stop in his tracks. A feeling of unease crept up on Michael as he sensed a powerful figure suddenly appears behind him.
When Michael turned around, he was met with the sight of a towering figure hovering in the air before him. The man appeared to be the embodiment of peace and wisdom, radiating a calming aura that put Michael at ease. He had long, flowing white hair and a matching beard that fluttered gently in the wind while his eyes twinkled with a sense of knowing. He wore long, flowing purple robes that seemed to billow around him as he moved, and half-moon shaped sses perched on the bridge of his nose, giving him an air of intellect and sophistication.
"Who you might be?" Michael asked with an air of calmness. The old man took a moment to respond, his gaze slowly scanning over Michael from head to toe. The man exuded an aura of peaceful wisdom, as if he held knowledge of all things in the world.
Michael attempted to sense the old man''s power, but to his surprise, he found himself unable to do so. It was as if a powerful magic had been ced around the old man to prevent Michael from gauging his strength.
The old man''s voice was deep and resonant, filled with a sense of wisdom and authority thatmanded Michael''s attention. The man''s eyes sparkled with intelligence behind his half-moon sses, making it clear that he was not a person to be underestimated.
"Such a loss that you chose not to return to MAzeroth, Ghost," the old man repeated, his voice tinged with a hint of regret. "Professor Lane speaks of you often, and that is saying something, considering his usual reluctance to discuss former students." The old man''s smile was warm, but there was a hint of something else in his expression that Michael couldn''t quite identify.
Michael fixed his gaze on the old man before him, his eyes scrutinizing him as he asked, "You didn''t answer my question," His tone was calm, but there was an underlying hint of curiosity and suspicion as he tried to discern the identity of the stranger who had appeared before him.
"The Headmaster of Mazeroth, Wulfric Wells the Third," replied the old man in a calm and collected voice.
As Wulfric revealed his identity, Michael''s eyes widened in shock and disbelief. The headmaster of Mazeroth, one of the most renowned academies of magic, was standing before him. Michael had heard about Wulfric''s reputation as an aplished wizard, but he never expected to meet him in person. Despite his surprise, Michael couldn''t help but wonder why Wulfric hade all the way to him. It was clear that the headmaster was not here to fight, but there had to be a reason for his unexpected appearance. Michael''s mind raced as he tried toe up with possible exnations for the headmaster''s visit.
While Michael was trying to decipher why the headmaster of Mazeroth had appeared before him, he suddenly sensed a new presence. He turned his gaze and saw Lah, Harry''s mother, standing beside Wulfric. Michael was taken aback by her sudden appearance, but he maintained hisposure and assessed her expression for any signs of hostility or resentment towards him.
Lah''s sudden appearance took Michael aback, but he was even more taken aback when he saw the overwhelming joy on her face at the sight of Harry safe and sound in his arms. She cried tears of relief and delight as she rushed towards him. Lah''s eyes, which were always cold and calcted, were now filled with warmth and love as she took Harry from Michael''s arms and held him tightly. She dashed towards Michael and took Harry into her arms, holding him tightly against her chest. The warmth of Harry''s body made her feel alive again, as if a part of her had been missing and had just returned to her. She hugged him tightly, grateful for his safe return, and did not want to let him go. She embraced him with a passion that could only bepared to the fierce love of a mother who had lost her child and now had him back in her arms. In that moment, Lah felt like she wasing back to life.
"What happened to him?" Lah asked, her voiceced with concern as she saw her son sleeping in Michael''s arms. She immediately feared that something might have happened to him in the Sea Realm.
"He''s fine, just sleeping," Michael reassured her. He could sense the love and worry in Lah''s voice, and he knew that Harry meant everything to her. "It''s best to let him rest for now. He''s been through a lot."
Lah nodded, relieved to know that Harry was safe and sound. She held him close and whispered soothing words, feeling grateful that Michael had saved her son.
As Lah was showering Harry with kisses and hugs, Michael shifted his attention to Wulfric. He had knocked out Lah and left her safely in his castle, so he was puzzled as to how Wulfric had managed to find her. But when Michael examined the energy fluctuations and power radiation surrounding Wulfric, he realized that the headmaster had somehow freed Lah from his castle.
After a moment of silence, Michael turned his gaze towards Wulfirc Wells and spoke up, breaking the tension. "Why are you here, headmaster?" he inquired, his voice firm and steady. Despite his surprise at Wulfirc''s sudden appearance, Michael maintained hisposure and remained wary of the headmaster''s motives. He knew that Wulfirc would not havee to him without a good reason, and Michael''s instincts told him that it was something important.
"We are going to Mazeroth," Lah spoke up, interrupting the silence between Michael and Wulfric. Michael couldn''t help but feel a twinge of concern in his heart upon hearing her decision. While he had previously considered Mazeroth as a safe haven for Lah and Harry, he knew all too well that Mazeroth was under the control of Skyhall - his sworn enemies. He couldn''t bear the thought of Harry being used as a pawn against him in the future, as had happened with Noah. However, as Michael looked into Lah''s eyes, he saw a steely determination that he knew he would not be able to sway. Despite his reservations about Mazeroth, he could see that Lah had made up her mind and would not be dissuaded easily. It was clear to Michael that Lah was fiercely protective of her son and was willing to do whatever it took to keep him safe, even if it meant going against Michael''s wishes. He knew it would be a difficult battle to try and convince her otherwise.
Wulfric could see the worry in Michael''s eyes, and he spoke in a calm and reassuring tone.
"You can trust me, Michael. Mazeroth is not under Skyhall''s control," Wulfric said, sensing Michael''s concerns about Harry''s safety.
Michael still had doubts about sending Harry to Mazeroth. He knew Skyhall had a firm grip on many realms, including Mazeroth, and he feared that they might use Harry as a weapon against him in the future.
"Who says they don''t control it, Headmaster? They control almost everything, and imagine what they would do to him once they learn he''s my blood," Michael countered, expressing his concerns to Wulfric.
"I made my decision, Ghost. We are going to Mazeroth, where my son will receive the education and safety he deserves," Lah interrupted Michael before he could say a word. Michael was about to argue, but Lah''s eyes were determined and unwavering.
"You didn''t listen to me when you rushed into absorbing the first energy. You didn''t listen to me when I asked you to keep an eye on Harry. Your decisions have put either you or those around you in danger every time. And now, you are willing to risk his life-" Michael tried to reason with her, but Lah cut him off once again.
"Stop," Lah''s voice was firm yet gentle.
"I made my decision, Ghost. You were the one who cut all ties with us. I asked you to leave everything behind ande with us, but you refused. You didn''t want any part in our lives. I am sorry we dragged you into this, but it won''t happen again once we reach Mazeroth. I trust Headmaster Wells, and this is my final decision," Lah said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
Michael tried to reason with Lah, arguing that Mazeroth was not as safe as she thought and that Harry''s safety could not be guaranteed. He reminded her of the dangers they faced in the past and the fact that their enemies would stop at nothing to get to him. But Lah remained steadfast in her decision, and her trust in Wulfric was unshakable. Michael''s frustration grew as he realized he could not change her mind, and he knew that arguing further would only cause more tension between them. Eventually, Michael relented, knowing that Lah''s decision was final. He silently hoped that he would not regret letting Harry go to Mazeroth and that he would find a way to keep him safe from afar.
Lah let out a deep sigh, her voiceced with regret and sadness as she spoke, "It seems like the darkness has truly changed you, Ghost. Even now, you are reluctant to let us go to Mazeroth as if you value your own safety above our lives." Michael could feel her words piercing through him, but he could not deny that there was a grain of truth to them.
Michael knew there was no point in arguing with Lah, so he approached Harry and gently ced his hand on the sleeping child. He bent over and ced a soft kiss on Harry''s forehead, whispering, "Goodbye Harry. I wish things were really different."
He had hoped that his reluctance to let Harry go to Mazeroth would have made Lah reconsider her decision, but it seemed that she had made up her mind. Despite the weight of the truth about Edith''s death, Michael remained silent as he bid farewell to Harry and Lah. He knew that revealing the truth would only cause more pain and heartache. Besides, Lah didn''t ask any questions about Harry''s abduction, showing that all she cared about was her son''s safe return.
"I will hold you ountable, Headmaster. If the Skyhall dares to y any games with them, I will show you why they call me the Dark Lord," Michael said with a deep,manding voice. The sky darkened as his words echoed across the ocean, and bolts of lightning illuminated his face, highlighting the power emanating from him. The full moon ckened as if in deference to his might, and the wind picked up, blowing fiercely around him.
Chapter 945 The Debt Of The Previous Dark Lord I
The sound of breaking ss echoed across the dark sky as Michael''s meteorite spell cleared out the horde of hell walkers. As Gaya stood there in awe, she noticed that the castle was suddenly much closer than before. Michael quickly grabbed her by the waist, and with a swift movement, they both leaped into the air. The wind rushed past them as they soared towards the castle gates.
As they approached the gates, Michael''s eyes were fixed on the target, calcting theirnding with precision. He angled his body and adjusted his speed, and just as they reached the ground, hended with a light thud right before the castle gates.
When Michaelnded before the castle, Gaya''s eyes widened in shock and horror at the sight before her. The castle of the Ruler of Hell was a massive, foreboding structure with ck stone walls that reached up toward the dark, stormy sky. The gates were made of iron and adorned with twisted demonic faces, and the courtyard was filled with strange, otherworldly creatures.
The air was thick with the stench of sulfur and brimstone, and the sound of screams echoed from within the castle''s walls. The atmosphere was oppressive, almost suffocating, and Gaya felt like she was being swallowed up by darkness.
The castle was surrounded by jagged peaks and a moat of boilingva, adding to the foreboding atmosphere. In the distance, the skies were dark and foreboding, with ck clouds swirling and lightning shing in every direction. There was no sun or moon or natural light to guide one''s way. Instead, the only light came from the flickering mes that rose up from the moltenva rivers that ran through the realm.
Thendscape was barren and deste, devoid of any signs of life or beauty. The ground was rough and jagged, littered with sharp rocks and broken bones. As Gaya took in her surroundings, she couldn''t help but feel a sense of despair and hopelessness wash over her.
She could hear the distant sounds of screams and cries of agony, reminding her that she was in a ce of eternal suffering. As they made their way towards the castle gates, she could see twisted demonic faces carved into the stone walls and strange, otherworldly creatures lurking in the shadows.
The closer they got to the castle gates, the more Gaya felt like the darkness was closing in on her. She could see the twisted faces on the gates leering at her, and the air was thick with the stench of sulfur and brimstone.
Gaya couldn''t imagine how anyone could survive in a ce like this. It was a ce of unspeakable darkness and horror, ruled by an entity of unfathomable power and malice. And yet, they had to enter the castle and face the ruler of Hell if they were to save Nightmare.
As they stepped through the gates and into the castle, Gaya could feel the weight of the darkness pressing down on her. The walls were lined with skulls and bones of all shapes and sizes, arranged in twisted patterns. The floors were slick with blood and littered with the remains of the tortured souls who had met their gruesome fates within these walls.
Despite the bone-chilling sight of the castle, Gaya found sce in the fact that she was with Michael, the god of darkness and her fianc¨¦. Being by his side gave her an indescribable sense offort, even as they ventured deeper into the heart of hell. As Michael stepped onto the castle grounds, the wind picked up, sending chills down Gaya''s spine. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and shes of lightning illuminated the ominous sky, casting an eerie glow across the barrenndscape.
As they approached the towering steel doors of the castle, Gaya couldn''t help but feel a sense of dread building within her. The doors were adorned with intricate carvings of skulls, bones, and disfigured bodies, all of which looked like they had been twisted and contorted into grotesque forms. The door''s surface was cold to the touch, as if it had been forged from the very depths of hell itself.
The floor was slick with blood and littered with the remains of what appeared to be tortured souls, and the air was thick with the scent of decay and brimstone. The flickering torches cast an eerie glow on the walls, making it seem as though the castle was alive with malevolent spirits.
The walls were made of ck stone, and the floors were slick with what appeared to be blood. Gaya could see strange, otherworldly creatures lurking in the shadows, their eyes gleaming with malevolent intent.
The air was thick with the stench of sulfur and decay, and the only sounds that could be heard were the faint cries and screams of the damned. The flickering torches cast eerie shadows on the walls, and Gaya could feel the eyes of unseen beings following their every move.
Despite the castle''s foreboding appearance, Michael continued onward with unshakeable resolve. Gaya held on to his arm tightly, takingfort in his reassuring presence. As they navigated through thebyrinthine hallways, Gaya could feel her heart racing with every step they took.
The darkness seemed to swallow them up as they moved deeper into the castle''s depths. Gaya could feel the weight of the castle bearing down on her as if it were trying to crush her very soul. The stench of decay grew stronger, and the sounds of suffering grew louder with every passing moment.
Gaya could feel her resolve starting to falter as they approached the throne room, where the ruler of Hell awaited them. But as she looked up at Michael''s unwavering gaze, she felt renewed strength and determination. With Michael by her side, she knew that she could face whatever horrors awaited them in the depths of Hell.
As they made their way through the castle''s corridors, Michael''s eyes scanned their surroundings, taking in the macabre decor and the twisted artwork that adorned the walls. Gaya walked beside him, her hand gripping his tightly as she surveyed the gruesome surroundings with disgust.
"I can''t believe this is real," she muttered, ncing at Michael. "Is this hell?"
Michael merely shrugged, his expression unreadable. "That''s a good bet," he replied with eerie calmness in his voice.
Gaya shook her head, her eyes scanning the twisted tapestries that adorned the walls. "I wonder what awaits us in this castle. I have a bad feeling about this Michael,"
Michael remained calm, his gaze fixed ahead as they made their way through the darkened halls. "whatever or whoever it is, we will face them and get out of this ce alive. I had seen enough deaths for one day" he replied.
As they approached the throne hall, Michael''s pace quickened, his eyes fixed ahead. Gaya felt her heart race as they stepped through the doors, revealing the foreboding chamber beyond.
"You''re not scared at all, are you?" she asked softly, her eyes fixed on the twisted tapestries that adorned the walls.
Gaya''s voice trembled as she nced around the twisted and gruesome surroundings. "This ce is unnerving. The darkness, the lifeless bodies, and everything else... It''s creeping me out," she murmured, her grip tightening around Michael''s hand. "I sometimes wish I were the goddess of darkness like you so that I could be as fearless as you,"
Michael merely smiled, his gaze fixed ahead as they made their way through the twisted throne room.
"Darkness can be a source of fear for many, but for those who embrace it, it can be a powerful tool. Fear is natural, but it''s what we do in the face of that fear that defines us. I choose to use the darkness to my advantage, to harness its power and ovee my fears. In the end, it''s not the darkness that we should fear, but our own inability to confront it,
Finally, Michael arrived at the door to the throne hall and paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. Since he had begun to embrace the darkness within him fully, fear no longer held any power over him. Without hesitation, he pushed the door open and strode into the throne hall calmly and unwaveringly
The throne hall was a foreboding chamber filled with a pervading sense of darkness and malice. The walls were adorned with grotesque tapestries depicting scenes of torture and suffering, and the air was thick with the stench of sulfur and brimstone. In the center of the room stood a massive throne carved from ckened bones and adorned with the skulls of defeated enemies. The throne was surrounded by flickering torches, casting eerie shadows on the walls and illuminating the ruler of hell who sat upon it, a figure of immense power and malice.
Dagon''s voice rang out as Michael and Gaya finally strode into the throne hall, "Took you long enough," he said, his tone dripping with malice and impatience.
When the words of Dagon echoed through the hall, Gaya caught sight of the ruler of hell, she couldn''t help but feel a shiver run down her spine. He was an imposing figure, with jet-ck skin, three zing eyes, and a wicked grin that revealed rows of razor-sharp teeth. His four muscr arms hung by his side, each adorned with a different weapon, and a set ofrge wings sprouted from his back, twitching with excitement as he surveyed his guests.
Sitting upon his throne, which was carved from ckened bones and adorned with the skulls of defeated enemies, the ruler of hell was the epitome of power and malice. His eyes burned with a fierce me, reflecting the fires of the underworld, and his face was twisted in a wicked grin that sent shivers down Gaya''s spine.
Despite his formidable appearance, the ruler of hell remained calm andposed, his eyes fixed upon Michael as he approached.
As Michael and Gaya approached, the ruler of hell rose from his throne, towering over them with his massive frame. He surveyed them with a predatory gleam in his eye, his nostrils ring as he breathed in their scent.
Gaya couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease as the ruler of hell loomed over them. His presence was overwhelming and menacing. She knew that they were in the presence of a being of great power, and she could only hope that Michael was up to the challenge if things went south.
Although Michael felt no fear in his heart, he couldn''t help but feel a sense of surprise upon seeing the ruler of hell for the first time. If the devil that Michael had heard about in stories had a physical form, it would be the man who sat on the imposing throne before him. Gaya, who had always been fearless, even cowered behind Michael at the sight of the ruler. She tightly gripped Michael''s shoulder as they watched the ruler of hell slowly descend the steps. Each step he took seemed to shake the very foundations of the castle as if the ground beneath them was trembling in fear. As he approached them, Michael noticed that the ruler''s eyes seemed to glow with an otherworldly light, and his presence was suffocating
As Michael and Gaya stood before the imposing figure of the ruler of hell, Dagon''s deep voice reverberated through the throne hall. "Time does fly huh?" he said, his tone almost yful. "It feels like only yesterday you stood there at the same ce you are right now and proposed an alliance with the ruler of hell."
Michael was taken aback, his mind racing as he tried to make sense of Dagon''s words. "But five thousand years have passed," Dagon continued, a hint of amusement in his voice.
Michael was stunned. His previous self had reset the universe five thousand years ago, and he had assumed that everyone had been affected. But Dagon seemed to be an exception. Michael searched for any sign of deceit in the ruler''s eyes, but found none.
"You are not affected?" Michael asked, his confusion evident in his voice.
"We were allies, and you made an exception, Michael,"
Michael''s shock deepened as Dagon spoke his true name, a name that no one in the universe should have known. Michael''s eyes widened as he realized that the ruler of hell had some knowledge that he should not possess. Gaya noticed the change in Michael''s demeanor and squeezed his hand reassuringly, but Michael remained lost in thought, trying to piece together the puzzle before him.
Only Gaya knew his true name, and Michael had gone to great lengths to keep it that way. His mind raced as he tried to figure out how Dagon had learned his name, but he could find no answers unless his previous self revealed his name to Dagon for some reason.
"I have to give you credit, Michael. Five thousand years ago, you said you''d be here," Dagon spoke with a hint of amusement in his voice, his eyes fixed on Michael.
His tone was both mysterious and yful, leaving Michael to wonder what else Dagon knew. Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease as he studied the ruler of hell. Despite his confidence, Michael knew that Dagon was not to be underestimated.
"What else did I say?" Michael took a step forward, his eyes fixed on Dagon''s face.
Dagon''s lips curved into a sly smile, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
"That you will settle your debt to me,"
Chapter 946 The Debt Of The Previous Dark Lord II
Michael''s expression turned grim as he heard Dagon mention the debt. He couldn''t imagine what kind of deal his past self had made with the ruler of Hell, but he knew it must have been something significant.
Dagon, on the other hand, seemed amused by Michael''s reaction. His eyes glinted with a mischievous light as he spoke, relishing in the god of darkness''s difort.
Despite his difort, Michael remained calm, trying to assess the situation. He knew that if his past self had revealed his realm name to Dagon, there must have been a reason for it.
Dagon''s voice rang out across the throne hall, filling the space with a sinister, almost yful tone. "Let me sweeten the pot for you, Michael," he said, a wry smile ying across his lips. "If you help me, I will give back the soul of your recently departed friend."
Michael and Gaya stood frozen, their eyes widening in shock and disbelief. For a moment, Michael couldn''t believe what he was hearing. The idea of getting his friend''s soul back was something he had never even dared to dream of. But the suddenness of Dagon''s offer left him feeling uneasy.
Gaya, too, was stunned by Dagon''s words. Her heart raced as she stared at the ruler of hell, struggling toprehend what was happening. The thought of seeing her dear little lizard Nightmare once more filled her with a mix of emotions - joy, hope, and fear.
Michael and Gaya were both stunned at Dagon''s words. Michael''s heart raced with a mixture of hope and disbelief. Could it be possible that Nightmare''s soul was trapped in Hell all this time? And could they finally have the chance to get it back? Gaya''s eyes widened in surprise, and her hand tightened on Michael''s shoulder. The thought of Nightmare''s soul being trapped in Hell was horrifying, and the possibility of getting it back was both exciting and terrifying. They both looked at Dagon, waiting for him to borate on his offer.
Gaya''s heart was pounding as she struggled toprehend what she had just heard. "What did you say?" she asked, her voice quavering with fear and hope. The thought of seeing her beloved pet Nightmare again filled her with a fierce longing.
Dagon merely smirked, his eyes glinting with amusement. He snapped his fingers, and a ghostly figure of a small baby dragon appeared beside him. Michael felt his breath catch in his throat as he recognized the form - it was Nightmare, in his younger years.
Michael couldn''t believe his eyes. Nightmare, his loyalpanion and friend, had been lost to him for what felt like an eternity. And now, the possibility of seeing him again, even in this spectral form, filled him with a mix of emotions. He felt a pang of guilt for not being able to save him before, but also a spark of hope that they might be able to bring him back.
Dagon''s face twisted into an evil smile as he clenched his fist. "Do what I ask of you, and you will get his soul back. Otherwise..." His voice trailed off ominously. Suddenly, a loud roar filled the throne room, a pained and agonized cry that seemed toe from the very depths of Hell itself. Michael and Gaya watched in horror as they saw the ghostly form of Nightmare floating beside Dagon, his unconscious body wracked with pain. Gaya''s heart sank as she realized the true gravity of the situation - they had to help Dagon if they wanted to save their beloved friend.
At the sound of Nightmare''s cry, Michael''s heart sank. The thought of his dear friend''s soul being trapped in Hell filled him with dread and panic. Without a second thought, he raised his hand in a gesture for Dagon to stop.
"Stop," Michael said firmly, his eyes fixed on the ghostly form of Nightmare.
As Gaya rushed towards Dagon to rescue Nightmare, Michael''s heart sank with dread and panic. He knew that Dagon was not to be trifled with, and Gaya''s impulsive action could have dire consequences. However, before he could intervene, a powerful gust of wind shot from Dagon''s body, throwing both Michael and Gaya off their feet and pinning them against the wall.
"What do you want?" Michael demanded, his voice strained as he struggled to catch his breath. Despite his natural inclination to rebel against anyone who tried to control him, Michael realized that he was in no position to challenge Dagon''s authority.
The realm of hell was an inhospitable ce, and Dagon was the supreme ruler who held absolute power over it. Although the previous Dark Lord had the power to go against Dagon, Michael''s current version was weak in front of him.
Knowing that Dagon held the soul of Nightmare, Michael couldn''t afford to provoke him. Gaya''s failed attempt at rescuing the soul was a reminder of how powerless they were in Hell.
With a sense of dread and defeat, Michael growled, "Tell me what you want me to do." He didn''t dare fight against Dagon in a realm where he held absolute power. Getting back Nightmare''s soul was his priority, and he was willing to do whatever it took to get it back.
It was a difficult pill to swallow, but Michael knew that he would do anything to get Nightmare''s soul back. He nced at Gaya, who was still recovering from the gust of wind that had sent her flying. He felt a surge of anger and frustration, but he knew that now was not the time to act on it. He needed to focus on the task at hand, whatever it might be.
"How can I be sure that this is not some sort of trick?" Michael asked, his voice tinged with suspicion.
Dagon raised an eyebrow, a hint of amusement ying on his lips. "You have no reason to doubt me," he replied coolly. "And besides, what choice do you have but to believe me? If you want the soul of your dear friend back, you will do as I say."
Michael''s jaw clenched as he fought to control his anger. He knew that Dagon was right - he had no other choice but to trust him.
Dagon''s voice dripped with sinister amusement as he spoke. "Luckily for you, this task is right up your alley. You are known for your skill in killing, after all. I need you to eliminate someone for me." With a flick of his wrist, a holographic image appeared beside him, revealing a long-haired orc with a muscr build and a fierce expression. The orc''s eyes seemed to glint with a hint of cruelty, and his armor was adorned with the bones of his enemies.
"Go kill him and bring his head to me. Getting back Nightmare''s soul is just as easy as this," Dagon said nonchntly, his voice echoing through the throne room. With a flick of his wrist, the force that had been pinning Michael and Gaya against the wall dissipated, and theynded on the ground with a thud. Michael and Gaya exchanged a nce, both of them knowing that they had no other choice but to agree to Dagon''s demands.
Dagon turned his back to Michael and Gaya and began ascending the stairs leading to his throne, the echoes of his footsteps resonating through the silent chamber. As he climbed, he continued to speak in his nonchnt tone.
"My minion will guide you to hisst known location. You have three hours toplete the task," he said, his voice carrying a hint of warning. Michael opened his mouth to say something, but before he could even utter a word, a sudden force enveloped him and Gaya, and they were instantly teleported away from the throne hall. The world around them dissolved into nothingness before being reced by a dark, twistedndscape. The suddenness of the teleportation caught them off guard, and they stumbled as theynded on the hard ground. As they regained their footing, Michael took a deep breath, steeling himself for the task ahead.
As Michael and Gaya were searching for Dagon''s minion, a loud buzzing sound caught their attention. They turned to see a giant mosquito hovering in front of them. The mosquito was at least six feet long and had a wingspan wider than Michael''s outstretched arms. Its long, thin legs were covered in a denseyer of hair, and its bulbous eyes gleamed in the dim light of the realm of hell.
Before Michael could react, Gaya, who was always quick to action, shot the mosquito down. "Wait wait wait," the mosquito cried out in a whiny buzzing sound, "I am not your target, I''m here to guide you to it."
Michael raised an eyebrow, surprised at the fact that a mosquito was capable of speech. "You''re our guide?" he asked skeptically.
The mosquito nodded frantically. "Yes, yes, I swear on my proboscis! I''ll show you the way, just don''t squish me!"
"Sorry about that," Michael said, offering the mosquito a helping hand to get back in the air. "We''re a bit on edge after what happened in the castle."
"I understand, I understand," the mosquito replied, still buzzing nervously. "But trust me, I''m on your side. I''m the best guide around here. Now, let''s get going before any more mishaps happen."
As Michael and Gaya followed the panicky mosquito through the hellishndscape, they couldn''t help but drown in their own thoughts. The thought of having to kill someone weighed heavily on Michael''s mind, while Gaya couldn''t shake off the image of Nightmare''s ghostly figure.
Meanwhile, the mosquito continued to chatter on in a whiny voice, providing amentary on the grotesque and macabre scenery around them. "Oh, look at that lovely sulfuricke over there. Makes my wings itch just thinking about it," the mosquito eximed, sounding both panicked and amused.
"Be careful of the acid pools," Buzz warned. "One touch, and you''ll be burned to a crisp. And watch out for the hell walkers- they''re a nasty bunch. And whatever you do, don''t step on theva rocks. They''re hotter than the sun!"
Michael and Gaya listened in silence, drowning in their own thoughts. Buzz''s chattering was both funny and annoying at the same time, and they couldn''t help but tune him out. However, every now and then, Buzz''s panicked buzzing would snap them back to attention.
Michael and Gaya could barely keep up with the mosquito''s rapid chatter, but couldn''t help but find itsical observations amusing. "And watch out for those fiery geysers! One wrong step, and poof! You''ll be roasted alive," the mosquito continued, flitting around their heads.
Despite the absurdity of their situation, Michael and Gaya remained focused on their mission, determined to do whatever it takes to retrieve Nightmare''s soul. But for the moment, they couldn''t help but listen to the mosquito''s ramblings and let out a few chuckles.
"Are you even listening to me?" Buzz screeched, his wings buzzing furiously. "I''m trying to save your lives here!"
Michael sighed. "Yes, we''re listening, Buzz. But can you give us a moment of silence to gather our thoughts?"
"Silence? In hell?" Buzz cackled. "Good luck with that! But sure, go ahead, take all the time you need."
Michael and Gaya exchanged a tired look as Buzz continued to chatter on. It was going to be a long journey.
As they flew across the barren wastnd, Buzz pointed out variousndmarks, such as the "Lake of Fire," which he described as a great spot for swimming if you didn''t mind being burned alive. Michael and Gaya couldn''t help but shake their heads in amusement at Buzz''s dark sense of humor.
His buzzing voice was surprisingly entertaining, and hisical observations gave them a much-needed distraction from the horrors of Hell.
Though the weight of their task still hung heavy over them, the levity provided by Buzz''s chatter allowed them to forget the danger thaty ahead momentarily.
As Buzz continued to guide Michael and Gaya through the hellishndscape, hismentary had eased their worries and fears. However, his lighthearted tone suddenly took a dark turn when he brought up his ex-girlfriend.
"You know that orc you''re supposed to kill? I bet he stole my girlfriend!" Buzz eximed, his buzzing voice filled with anger.
Michael and Gaya exchanged a bewildered look, unsure how to respond to the mosquito''s sudden outburst.
"I mean, I may look like this, but I''m a killer at heart. I could take him down in a million ways," Buzz boasted, flexing his wings as if he were some sort of warrior.
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at the sight of the tiny mosquito trying to act tough. Gaya, too, had a small smile on her face.
As they flew over thendscape of hell, Buzz continued to vent his frustrations about his ex-girlfriend and her alleged affair with the orc. "That stupid orc is lucky Dagon sent you after him," he grumbled. "Otherwise, I would have taught him a lesson he wouldn''t forget."
Michael and Gaya exchanged a look but said nothing, not wanting to provoke Buzz any further. Buzz continued to ramble on about his ns to take down the orc, describing in hrious detail the various methods he would use to kill him.
"I would''ve stung him with my venomous tail and then buzzed around his head until he couldn''t take it anymore!" he eximed, his wings buzzing furiously with excitement.
Gaya couldn''t help but giggle at the absurdity of it all while Michael simply shook his head and sighed. Even in the midst of their dangerous mission, Buzz''s antics provided a much-needed moment of levity.
Following Michael and Gaya followed Buzz''s directions, they eventually reached a barren wastnd, with only asional bursts of mes in the distance. The sky above them was a sickly shade of green, with lightning bolts crackling in the clouds.
Buzz led them to a rocky outcrop, where Michael saw a dark cave in the distance, surrounded by an ominous aura. The wind howled around them, and Michael could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Is that where we''re headed?" Michael asked, his voice barely audible over the howling winds.
Buzz pointed his long, thin leg towards the cave and eximed, "Yes! That''s where the cheatin'' orc resides, and I''m gonna make him pay for what he did to me and my girl!"
Michael and Gaya exchanged a skeptical nce as they looked at the giant mosquito in front of them. Gaya whispered to Michael, "Do you think he knows he''s a mosquito and not a warrior?"
But Buzz didn''t seem to care about their doubts. He continued to boast about his fighting skills, "I''ll take him down with one swift bite of my proboscis. Or maybe I''ll use my powerful wings to create a gust and blow him away!"
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at the thought of the six-foot-long mosquito attempting to take down an orc. "You know, Buzz, I think you''re underestimating the orc''s strength. He might not go down as easily as you think."
But Buzz was too busy pumping himself up to listen. "Nonsense! I am Buzz, the mighty mosquito warrior! No orc can defeat me!"
As they approached the cave, Buzz''s bravado started to waver. He began to buzz nervously, "Maybe we should wait outside ande up with a better n. Or maybe we can just ask him nicely to give me back my girl."
Gaya rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, "Yeah, because that''s definitely going to work."
Michael sighed and turned to Buzz. "Listen, Buzz. We have a job to do. We need to get in there and take down the orc. Are you with us?"
Buzz hesitated for a moment, his wings fluttering uncertainly. But then he straightened up, puffing out his chest. "Of course, I''m with you! I''m Buzz, the fearless mosquito warrior! Let''s go get that orc!"
Chapter 947 Devotee Of Noah From Another Realm
As a seasoned assassin, Michael knew the importance of thorough preparation before taking on a target. He would typically start by gathering intelligence on the target''s habits, movements, and routines. This could involve scouting out their usual locations, monitoring theirmunications, and identifying their vulnerabilities.
Once Michael had a clear understanding of his target, he would then carefully n his approach. This would involve identifying the best time and location to strike, considering potential obstacles or hazards, and determining the most effective method for carrying out the assassination. Finally, Michael would ensure he had all the necessary equipment and resources at his disposal. This could include weapons, tools for disabling security measures, and escape routes. By taking these steps, Michael could increase his chances of sess while minimizing the risk of being caught or discovered.
Standing before the ominous cave, Michael assessed his options. Sneaking into the cave was one possibility, but it was risky because he had no idea what kind of traps or obstacles might be waiting for him inside. The other option was to lure the orc out into the open and confront him directly. Michael weighed the pros and cons of both options and ultimately decided that thetter was the safer choice. He could use hisbat skills to defeat the orc in a fair fight rather than risking his life in a trap-filled cave.
Michael couldn''t understand why Dagon didn''te and kill the orc himself. He couldn''t fathom the idea that the ruler of hell was weaker than the orc. However, he didn''t have the luxury of pondering on this any further. Michael stood outside the cave, analyzing the situation before him. He decided to take action and raised his hand, channeling his dark energy. Suddenly, a bolt of ck lightning shot from the tip of his finger, illuminating the area with its ominous glow.
Buzz slowly flew backward, his six-foot-long body trembling with fear. His bulbous eyes widened as he watched Michael unleash the bolt of lightning. Despite his tough talk earlier, Buzz was now realizing that he was way over his head. He covered himself with his wings and prayed for safety.
After firing the lightning bolt, Michael tensed, waiting for the orc to appear. Sure enough, the ground began to shake and stir, and a momentter, the massive figure of the orc emerged from the depths of the cave. He was a towering figure with bulging muscles that rippled beneath his armor. His long hair was tied back in a loose knot, and his fierce eyes scanned thendscape. In one hand, he held a giant sword, which he dragged along the rocky ground behind him.
Michael and Gaya remained calm before the orc, who seemed unperturbed by their presence. "I was wondering when you woulde to take my life," the orc said calmly, as though he had been expecting them.
Michael couldn''t help but make a joke, pointing towards Buzz. "I heard you stole his girlfriend," he said with a smirk.
At the mention of his girlfriend, Buzz''s tiny heart skipped a beat. He felt a surge of anger and embarrassment, and for a moment, he considered flying away from the area. But he knew that he couldn''t abandon Michael and Gaya, not when they were so close to their goal. So instead, he buzzed around Michael''s head, trying to make himself heard above the wind.
The orc raised an eyebrow, looking from Michael to Buzz and back again. "I see," he said, his voiceced with amusement. "So you''re here for revenge, little mosquito? Well, I''m afraid you''ll be disappointed. I don''t have a girlfriend, stolen or otherwise."
Buzz let out a high-pitched whine, clearly not believing the orc''s words. "Don''t listen to him! He''s lying! I saw him with her myself!"
The orc''s response was unexpected as he simply shrugged, and a wry smile yed at the corners of his mouth. "Maybe I swatted her identally," he quipped, his tone betraying a hint of amusement.
As they stood there facing the orc, Buzz flew over to Michael and whispered urgently in his ear, "How sure are you that you can take him down? I...uh...forgot to take my meds, and if you can give me enough time, I can fly back to the castle, take my meds, ande back to help you fight him."
Michael shot Buzz a skeptical look, unsure if the mosquito was bluffing or not. However, he couldn''t afford to take any chances, especially with Nightmare''s soul on the line. "We''ll be fine, Buzz. Just stay out of harm''s way," he replied, hoping to reassure the jittery insect.
Buzz nodded, his wings buzzing nervously, as Michael turned his attention back to the orc. The orc had crossed his arms and was regarding Michael and Gaya with a look of mild interest. Michael couldn''t help but feel a twinge of unease at the orc''s nonchnt attitude.
Michael''s voice was calm but firm as he addressed the orc. "Normally, I don''t take anyone''s life without knowing what they did. But in your case, I have to make an exception. Dagon has someone I care about, and he wants your life as the price. So, do you have anything to tell us before we do this?"
Michael carefully observed the orc, trying to gauge his cultivation level. But to his surprise, he couldn''t get a read on the orc''s strength. Despite this uncertainty, Michael remained confident in his abilities. His instincts had never failed him before, and they told him he could take down the orc.
The orc broke the silence, his voice low and steady. "I only have one request," he said, holding out a silver pendant. "When you take my life, take this and give it to the bringer of light before you fight him."
Michael''s heart skipped a beat at the mention of the bringer of light. The memory of discovering the truth about his family still stung, and the name Noah was like a punch to the gut. Noah, the god of light and Michael''s twin brother. He clenched his fist, feeling a wave of anger and sadness wash over him.
The orc leveled his sword at Michael, proiming, "One day, the Bringer of Light shall emerge from the mortal realm and bring radiance to the darkened domain of the gods. He shall put an end to the heinous actions of the gods, starting with you."
Michael waspletely taken aback by the orc''s words. He couldn''t make sense of what the orc was saying, but one thing was certain - this orc was not from his world. The way he spoke of the realm of the gods was unlike anything Michael had ever heard before. It was as though the orc had lived in apletely different world, one that was beyond Michael''sprehension.
"So, you serve the god of light, Noah, and wish for him to kill me?" Michael snickered, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Well, thanks for telling me. Now, I can take your life without any hesitation or remorse," he continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm and contempt.
Michael had no idea what kind of allegiance this orc had with Noah, but he couldn''t let that distract him from his mission. The fate of Nightmare''s soul hung in the bnce, and he couldn''t afford to be sidetracked by this orc''s beliefs.
As Michael raised his sword, the orc simply smirked, his eyes filled with a kind of resignation. He knew that his time hade and was ready to face his fate.
"May you never step into the realm of gods," the orc spat, his voice filled with venom.
"Take my life in an honorable duel, Dark Lord," The orc''s challenge for an honorable duel didn''t faze Michael, who calmly took a step back and prepared himself for the fight. He nced over his shoulder at Gaya, who nodded in agreement with his decision. She had faith in Michael''s abilities - after all, he had defeated Peter''s hell walker form and had the power to topple kingdoms. Even though the orc emitted strange energy radiation around him, Gaya was confident that he posed no real threat to Michael.
Michael raised his hand with a sense of purpose, and in response, his dark sword flew out of its sheath andnded squarely in his hand. He swung it around once to get a feel for its weight and bnce, then pointed it towards the orc, taunting him to make the first move.
The orc charged at Michael with his giant sword raised, determined to take him down. Michael dodged his attacks with ease, his movements graceful and precise. He countered with swift strikes of his own, his dark sword glinting in the dim light of the realm of hell.
As the duel between the orc and Michael continued, sparks flew and the sound of nging swords echoed through the wastnd. The orc was a fierce opponent, but Michael''s skill and agility were unmatched. He could sense the orc''s attacks before they even happened, and he effortlessly parried each strike with his dark sword.
The duel seemed to go on for hours, but in reality, only a few seconds had passed since the battle began.
Despite only a few seconds passing, Michael quickly learned that the orc was an exceptional swordsman. Michael''s Sword of Destiny technique was renowned for its power and ability to defeat any swordsman, yet the orc managed to deflect Michael''s attacks. Michael was surprised that the orc''s swordsmanship skills. But what surprised him even more was the strength and durability of the orc''s sword, which withstood the full force of the Dark Sword''s attack. Although the orc deflected the Dark Sword without directly shing with it, the Dark Sword still managed to chip away at the orc''s sword, leaving a small mark on its surface.
Unbeknownst to Michael, Noah had conducted an extensive study of the previous Dark Lord''s abilities five thousand years ago. He wrote his findings in a book and sent it to the realm of gods before the previous Dark Lord reset the universe. The orc that Michael was facing was one of the divine beings who had managed to acquire a few pages from this sacred book, which contained information about the Dark Lord''s Sword of Destiny. With this knowledge, the orc had trained himself to be a formidable opponent for Michael, hoping to fulfill his duty to serve Noah and stop the atrocities of the gods.
Michael had always appreciated a good sword fight as it helped him hone his skills. However, he had no time to spare today. He was running short on time and needed to end the fight quickly. As the orc aggressively attacked Michael, hoping tond at least one hit, Michael blocked the orc''s sword with the Dark Sword. He then quickly raised his other hand and summoned a powerful wind st, sending the orc flying backward. Michael''s wind st was so powerful that it sent the orc crashing into a nearby boulder, shattering it into pieces. The orc groaned in pain as he struggled to get back on his feet. Michael slowly walked towards the orc, sword in hand, ready to deliver the final blow.
As Michael approached the orc, a thick aura of darkness began to emanate from him, causing the surrounding area to turn pitch ck. The orc struggled to get back on his feet, but before he could fully stand up, Michael clenched his fist, and the darkness around the orc coalesced into an invisible hand that pushed the orc back to the ground, holding him in ce. The orc strained against the grip of the darkness, but it was no use. Michael hadplete control over the shadows.
"Many fear the darkness, but they forget that it is within the shadows where true power lies. Embrace the darkness, and you shall never fear the light again," Michael said.
As the orc tried to break free from the darkness that enveloped him, Michael''s eyes began to glow with a sinister ck light. It was as if the darkness within him was manifesting itself in his eyes, ready to strike down any who dared oppose him. With a focused stare, Michael unleashed a barrage of dark energy beams that shot out from his eyes and struck the struggling orc with deadly precision, causing the ground beneath them to tremble.
Chapter 948 Mugashuku鈥檚 Ultimatum
During Michael and Gaya''s time in hell, time moved differently. One hour in hell was equivalent to a month in the real world. Thus, while only six hours had passed for them, six months had gone by in the outside world. During that time, much had changed, especially in the Guardian Guild. It had be divided into several factions, each vying for power, and the Alpha Guardians were struggling to maintain control and prevent the guild from falling apart. The once-united front of the guild had shattered, and the members were now more focused on their personal goals and ambitions than the greater good of protecting the realm.
Meanwhile, Big Bertha sailed fiercely under the wrathful sky, with the clouds thundering and the waves crashing against the sturdy ship. The wind howled with such intensity that it was almost deafening, as if nature itself was warning the crew of impending danger. The dark clouds cast a shadow over the ship, and shes of lightning illuminated the restless sea.
In the captain''s cabin, the atmosphere was vastly different. It was a cozy and warm space, filled with rich wooden furnishings and soft candlelight. The walls were adorned with maps and charts depicting different areas of the sea, and arge desk was ced in the center of the room, piled high with books and scrolls. The captain''s chair was made of leather and positioned so that the captain could look out of the window, which offered a breathtaking view of the tumultuous sea outside. The cabin was scented with the sweet aroma of spiced rum, and the gentle crackling of the firece added to the coziness of the space.
Eve Voldiguard stood sternly behind the grand table, her long ck hair cascading down her back. She wore ck armor that entuated her warrior''s arms, with only her hands exposed. Her armor had a ck cape that fluttered behind her with the gusts of wind that rocked the ship. Despite her beauty, she exuded amanding and intimidating aura, a testament to her strength and experience as a warrior.
"How much longer until we reach our destination?" she asked in a collected tone, her eyes piercing through Corey, Gibson and Saber who were standing at the opposite end of the table.
"This storm is dying our journey, Lady Eve. If it persists, it may take us several more days to reach the ind," Corey replied, his voice struggling to be heard above the thundering sounds of the storm.
Eve''s hand mmed onto the table, causing the entire cabin to tremble. "And what about your airships, Gibson? Can they withstand this storm and get us there any faster?" she demanded, her patience wearing thin.
Gibson hesitated before answering. "I''m afraid not, mydy. Big Bertha is the only ship that can survive in these treacherous conditions."
"Damn it!" Eve swore under her breath, mming her fists on the table again, causing everyone in the cabin to tremble in fear. Everyone except Saber, who remained cool and collected.
The storm outside raged on, mirroring the turmoil within Eve, who knew that time was running out for her.
Eve''s voice echoed through the captain''s cabin as she reminded Corey, Gibson, and Saber of their mission''s urgency. "We cannot afford any dys. Remember that we only have three weeks to retrieve the crystal for Mugashuku. If we fail, the consequences will be catastrophic. Our army and everything Ghost has built will be destroyed," she said, her voice quivering with fear. Eve had experienced the terror of Mugashuku firsthand, having ventured deep into the pit of the Stormville mountain and catching a glimpse of the four-headed hydra that lurked there.
As the memory of Mugashuku flooded Eve''s mind, she shuddered with fear. The memory of the four-headed hydra was etched into her mind, each of its heads with glowing red eyes that seemed to bore into her soul. She remembered the deafening roar that shook the mountain and the feeling of dread that gripped her heart. As she spoke of Mugashuku, her voice trembled with fear, and her hands shook uncontrobly.
To Eve, Mugashuku was the epitome of terror. The darkness in the pit cloaked his terrifying body, making it difficult to see him clearly. But the glowing pair of eyes in each head had burned an image in her mind that she could never forget. Mugashuku''s size and strength had been overwhelming, and the mere thought of facing him again sent a chill down her spine.
Eve was still haunted by the memory of being in close proximity to the abomination that was Mugashuku. The mere thought of the godly beast lying dormant beneath the southern continent and absorbing the arch energy, resulting in the energy void that gued thend, sent shivers down her spine. She was terrified that a monstrosity of that magnitude could exist in the same world as her. But what terrified her more was the knowledge that her best friend, Ghost, had struck a deal with this monstrosity. It was something only he would dare to do, and it left Eve wondering just how far he would go to achieve his goals.
As she thought about Mugashuku, Eve couldn''t help but shudder at the memory of the shocking scene where she was suddenly teleported into hisir. The overwhelming sense of fear had left her barely able to recall the conversation she had with the godly beast. All she could remember were fragments of the encounter - the blinding darkness that surrounded her, the glowing pair of eyes in each of Mugashuku''s four heads, and the overwhelming feeling of beingpletely helpless in the face of such an immense and terrifying entity.
Eve had been transported to their of Mugashuku without warning or exnation. She was surrounded by darkness and the only light came from the glowing pair of eyes in each of the four heads of Mugashuku. The air was thick with tension and Eve could feel Mugashuku''s gaze boring into her.
"You are the one called Eve," Mugashuku rumbled, his voice deep and ominous.
Eve nodded, unable to find her voice.
"I have a message for Ghost," Mugashuku continued. "He has failed to deliver the crystal to me in a timely manner. If it is not delivered to me on the ind of Isendar within three weeks, I will destroy everything he has built and bring an end to this world."
Eve felt her heart drop at Mugashuku''s threat. She knew how important the crystal was to Ghost, and she knew that he would stop at nothing to protect it. She took a deep breath and tried to gather her courage.
"What do you want?" she asked.
Mugashuku turned his gaze to her, his eyes boring into her soul. "You can deliver the crystal to me yourself," he said. "I will give you a map of the ind of Isendar. If you deliver the crystal to me within three weeks, I will spare Ghost and his world."
Eve nodded, knowing she had no other choice. She took the map from Mugashuku and prepared to leave.
"One more thing," Mugashuku said, his voice low and menacing. "If you fail to deliver the crystal to me, I will destroy everything you hold dear."
Eve shuddered at the threat, knowing that Mugashuku was not one to make idle promises. She took a deep breath and prepared to face the daunting task ahead of her.
Eve shook her head to clear her mind and snapped back to reality. Then she raised her hand towards a corner of the room. Suddenly, the room trembled slightly as a gust of wind picked up and her hammer flew through the air,nding firmly in her outstretched arm. The weapon was a sight to behold, with its ck metal and silver engravings glistening in the dim light of the cabin. The center of the hammer was adorned with a skull that seemed to re at anyone who dared to challenge Eve''s might. As the hammernded in her grasp, the room trembled slightly, emphasizing her immense strength.
After creating a portal to his forge, Michael was short on time to forge Eve a new hammer. Instead, he made some adjustments to her current hammer and gave it as a gift to her through Azazel, while she was in seclusion. It was Michael who asked her to go into seclusion in the pocket dimension attached to abyss in the dark forest. The reason being he knew that the dark army needed a leader other than him and Gaya, and as much as Michael knew about Azazel''s strength, he believed that the demon butler was not fit to be a leader, whereas Eve was. Thus, Michael made the decision to send her into seclusion, where she recently broke through to the Half Immortal stage. This achievement was made possible during the crisis of the guardian guild. It was a decision made by Michael, relying on his instincts, which ultimately saved the dark army from being without a leader when he and Gaya were teleported to the realm of hell.
With her hammer in hand, Eve made the decision to fly through the storm and reach the ind of Isendar as quickly as possible. Saber offered to apany her, but Eve declined.
Eve''s voice was firm and resolute as she spoke to Saber. The howling winds outside the cabin made her words almost inaudible, but the seriousness in her voice was unmistakable.
"Listen to me, Saber. I need you to head back to the castle and find a way to avenge Caius. If we let the Skyhall seed in taking over Gisel and hang our people without retaliation, it will be a huge blow to our cause. I don''t even want to imagine how Gaya would react to that news. Trust me, Gaya is like a raging storm when she''s angry, and you don''t want to be on the receiving end of that,"
The mere mention of Gaya''s name was enough to strike fear in the hearts of many. She was known as the Dark Queen for a reason, and her ruthless nature was infamous throughout thend. Those who had crossed her or defied her orders lived to regret it, and some didn''t even live at all.
Despite the Dark Lord''s fearsome reputation and the terror he struck into the hearts of his enemies, many believed that he could be reasoned with, that there was a flicker of humanity buried somewhere deep within him. However, when it came to the Dark Queen, no such sentiment existed. She was known to havemitted ruthless acts, including killing her own father and breaking her sister''s meridians without showing mercy. Her cruelty was unmatched, and those who had witnessed her wrath knew better than to cross her. She had a heart of ice, unyielding and unforgiving, and would stop at nothing to achieve her goals. After the war of Nagnd, even some in the dark army itself whispered that a dark force possessed her, as no human could possess such a level of darkness within them.
In simple terms, when she was angry, it was like a storm descended upon them, and no one was safe from her wrath.
Eve paused for a moment before continuing,
"I want you to work with Elidyr to find a way to break through their barrier and make them pay for their crimes. Can I count on you to do this for us?"
Eve''s words were like a call to arms, and Saber could sense the urgency in her tone. He nodded resolutely and replied, "You can count on me, mydy. I won''t let you down."
Eve nodded at them, her eyes burning with determination as she left the room without giving any room for negotiation.
Stepping outside the cabin, Eve was immediately hit with the full force of the storm. The wind howled around her and the rain pelted her armor, making it hard to see. But she had her mission in mind and wasn''t about to let the storm stop her.
With her powerful arms, she raised her hammer above her head and took to the sky. The wind whipped through her long ck hair and cape as she soared through the storm, determined to reach the ind of Isendar andplete her mission.
Chapter 949 Crystal Holding An Ancient Evil
As Eve flew through the storm, the roaring winds and crashing waves seemed to bend to her will. Her ck armor glistened with raindrops as she sliced through the tempestuous sky with graceful determination. The storm raged around her, lightning illuminating her path and thunder echoing her resolve.
Increasing her speed, she left Big Bertha and its crew behind, her figure bing smaller and smaller in their view. The ship rocked and swayed beneath the ferocity of the storm, while Eve soared above, unaffected by its chaos.
The rainshed against her face, mingling with the determination etched on her features. Her grip tightened around the handle of her hammer, the engraved skull at its center serving as a reminder of the darkness that coursed through her veins.
Through the turbulent skies, Eve maintained a steadfast course, her eyes fixed on the distant horizon where Isendar awaited. She navigated the treacherous winds and surging currents, her movements fluid and precise, as if she had be one with the storm itself.
Her journey through the tempest was a testament to her unwavering resolve and indomitable spirit. As Eve flew through the storm, leaving Big Bertha ship behind, her presence radiated power and determination, leaving no doubt that she was on a mission that would decide the fate of the dark army.
As Eve soared through the storm-ridden sky, her gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon. The relentless tempest roared around her, with lightning illuminating the darkened clouds and raging tornados swirling in a fearsome dance.
As she drew closer to her destination, the silhouette of Isendar emerged from the chaotic backdrop. The ind was veiled in an ominous shroud of crackling lightning bolts and tempestuous winds, making it appear like a fortress of elemental forces. The tumultuous weather that engulfed the ind seemed to mirror the turbulence within Eve''s own heart.
Undeterred by the violent conditions, she pushed through the howling gusts and surging currents, navigating the treacherous airspace with an unwavering focus. The lightning crackled around her, illuminating her figure against the darkened sky, lending an aura of electrifying intensity to her presence.
The tornados that encircled the ind twisted and churned, their dark funnels reaching toward the heavens. They seemed like guardians of the forbidden realm, warning trespassers of the dangers that awaited within. Yet, Eve pressed on, undaunted by the elemental onught.
As she approached Isendar, a surge of adrenaline coursed through her veins. The ind''s jagged cliffs and hidden caves beckoned her, promising both treacherous trials and unimaginable secrets. Lightning bolts continued to dance across the sky, highlighting the rugged terrain and entuating the ominous atmosphere that surrounded the ind.
With every passing moment, Eve''s determination grew stronger, and the storm''s ferocity seemed to bend to her will. She had arrived at the precipice of destiny, ready to face the challenges that awaited her on the treacherous shores of Isendar.
As Eve approached the ind of Isendar, her gaze was drawn to a towering structure that stood defiantly amidst the chaos of the storm. It was a silver tower, gleaming with an otherworldly radiance, rising high into the tempestuous sky. Lightning crackled and arced across its surface, giving it an ethereal glow.
At the pinnacle of the tower, a mesmerizing sight awaited Eve¡ªa pulsating energy ball. It hovered above, emanating a brilliant, crackling aura that seemed to fuel the storm raging around the ind. The ball surged with raw power, its electric tendrils reaching out like living lightning, casting an eerie illumination across the turbulent atmosphere.
As Eve drew closer, she could feel the energy ball''s maic pull, resonating with the depths of her being. It seemed to pulse with an intensity that matched the storm''s ferocity, as if it were the very source of the tempest itself. The crackling energy danced and flickered, casting an otherworldly light that reflected in Eve''s determined eyes.
A mix of awe and unease swirled within her. She sensed that this energy ball held tremendous significance, its existence intricately intertwined with the ind''s storm-ridden nature. It felt like a nexus of power, a focal point where the raw forces of nature converged in an awe-inspiring disy.
Eve''s mind raced with questions, contemting the origins and purpose of this enigmatic energy ball. Could it be the catalyst for the chaotic weather that had engulfed the ind, or could it be something rted to the crystal Mugashuku ordered her to bring him? Its crackling energy hinted at an untapped potential waiting to be harnessed or unleashed.
As the wind whipped around her and the thunder roared in the distance, Eve knew that she had to uncover the secrets held within the silver tower and the pulsating energy ball atop it. It was a mission she epted willingly, driven by a desire to unravel the mysteries of Isendar and bring order to the storm''s unrelenting fury.
With each step toward the tower, Eve could feel the energy ball''s influence grow stronger, its pull drawing her closer to the heart of the storm. She steeled herself, ready to face whatever challengesy ahead, knowing that her journey into the unknown would reveal truths that could reshape the very fabric of her world.
***********************************
Within the towering structure, a group of dwarves scurried about in a state of nervous agitation. The air was heavy with an atmosphere of urgency as they hurriedly moved through a dimly lit corridor beneath the tower. The hall exuded an aura of ancient mystery, with shadowy recesses and worn stone walls that seemed to bear the weight of countless years.
Torchlight flickered along the corridor, casting dancing shadows that yed upon the weathered tapestries and worn insignias adorning the walls. The air was thick with a mix of apprehension and determination, their hushed whispers filling the space as they carried out their tasks with meticulous precision.
At the heart of this darkened hall stood a mesmerizing sight¡ªa crystal of immense power, encased within an ethereal shroud of swirling ck mist. Its luminescent glow permeated the chamber, casting an otherworldly light that illuminated the dwarves'' hasty efforts.
The crystal, a mesmerizing gem of untold significance, pulsed with an overwhelming intensity, radiating waves of potent energy. Its surface shimmered with intricate patterns, as if the very essence of power was etched into its core. The dwarves had ingeniously fashioned aplex contraption to harness the crystal''s might, a testament to their craftsmanship and determination.
Gears whirred and mechanisms clicked as the dwarves worked feverishly, their brows furrowed with concentration. Their hands moved swiftly, adjusting dials, connecting conduits, and aligning delicateponents, all with the hope of unlocking the crystal''s true potential. Each movement was apanied by muttered incantations and the asional spark of arcane energy.
The atmosphere in the hall crackled with anticipation, mingled with a sense of trepidation. The dwarves understood the immense responsibility they carried, aware of the consequences should they fail in their endeavor. The fate of Isendar and the storm-ravaged ind hung in the bnce, their every action a vital step toward restoring equilibrium.
As the dwarves persisted in their task, their determination burned bright, fueled by their deep-rooted knowledge of the crystal''s significance. They were driven by a collective purpose, knowing that sess would bring salvation to their homnd and quell the relentless storm that ravaged thend.
In this chamber, within the embrace of the ancient tower, the dwarves strived tirelessly, driven by abination of expertise, faith, and an unwavering belief in the power of their creation. Their work held the promise of redemption, an opportunity to restore bnce and harness the incredible forces contained within the enigmatic crystal.
Reeling from the devastating loss of their catastrophic weapon in Dalgarum, the dwarves found themselves in a desperate state. Driven by a burning desire for revenge against the elves, they were determined to construct a new weapon capable of obliterating their enemies, all without relying on Hammond''s assistance. Unbeknownst to them, the true culprits behind the destruction of their weapon and port were none other than Noah and the guardians, working covertly to prevent further bloodshed and chaos.
Within the hushed halls of their underground forges, the dwarves toiled tirelessly, their brows furrowed with frustration and their hearts heavy with the weight of their recent defeat. The resounding echoes of their hammers and chisels reverberated through the cavernous chambers, a symphony of determination intermingled with a lingering sense of betrayal.
In their minds, the elves were responsible for the annihtion of their weapon and the decimation of their once-thriving port. Blinded by anger and fueled by a fierce sense of pride, the dwarves were yet to discover the truth¡ªtheir assants were not their elven foes, but rather unexpected allies who sought to avert a catastrophe that would plunge the realms into deeper turmoil.
Unaware of the guardians'' intervention, the dwarves harbored a deep-seated resentment, their minds consumed with visions of vengeance. Each swing of the hammer, each measured stroke of their craftsmanship, was an act of defiance¡ªa fervent attempt to reim their honor and demonstrate their formidable prowess.
Their forges burned bright with the fiery intensity of their determination. Streams of molten metal cascaded into intricate molds, taking on the shape of deadly weaponry. Sparks danced like ethereal fireflies, illuminating the sweat-soaked brows of the tireless artisans. The air was thick with the heady scent of heated metal, a testament to the arduousbor and unwavering resolve that filled the cavernous depths.
Deep within the dimly lit chamber of the dwarves'' underground stronghold, Thorgar Ironfist, the resolute leader of the dwarven n, stood with furrowed brows and clenched fists. Before him, his second inmand, Urgil Stonebeard, attempted to reason with him, his voiceced with urgency and concern.
Urgil''s grizzled beard trembled as he pleaded, "Thorgar, we can''t ignore the signs any longer! The violent storms, the energy surges, the radiation¡ªit''s costing us lives, and it won''t stop! We must abandon this crystal experiment before it consumes us all!"
Thorgar''s eyes zed with a defiant fire, his voice tinged with a mix of anger and determination. "Abandon our purpose? Our chance to bring destruction upon the Empress and her elven empire? Are you suggesting we cower in fear and surrender our vengeance?"
Urgil''s weathered hands clenched into trembling fists as frustration filled his voice. "No, Thorgar! I''m suggesting that we have underestimated the power of this crystal. It''s beyond ourprehension, and it''s tearing our very foundation apart! Ourrades have perished, sacrificed in the name of a cause that threatens to consume us all!"
Thorgar''s face reddened with rage, his voice booming with defiance. "Sacrifices are necessary! We will not back down now, not after everything we''ve endured. We will harness the power of this crystal, and the Empress will tremble before the might of our creation!"
Urgil''s voice rose, matching the intensity of the storm outside. "Thorgar, have you lost sight of what truly matters? Our n is crumbling. Our brethren lost to the ravages of this experiment! We cannot bear witness to any more tragedy. It''s time to let go, for the sake of our survival!"
Thorgar''s eyes narrowed, his voice a low growl. "Survival means nothing without purpose, Urgil! We have been wronged, humiliated by the Empress and her kin. Our vengeance fuels us, and this crystal is our chance to exact retribution. I will not let fear dictate our path!"
Urgil''s voice cracked with desperation. "Fear? Thorgar, it''s not fear that drives me¡ªit''s a concern for our people, for our very existence! We must abandon this reckless pursuit before it consumes us all!"
Thorgar''s face contorted with a mixture of anger and sorrow. "If youck the will to see this through, Urgil, then step aside. I will lead our n to glory, with or without you by my side."
Urgil''s voice softened, tinged with sadness. "Thorgar, you are my kin, my brother in arms. I implore you to reconsider. Our n''s strength lies not in blind vengeance but in unity and resilience. Together, we can weather any storm. Please, let us not sacrifice ourselves on the altar of our own pride."
As the dwarves stumbled upon the crystal in the depths of the ind, a foreboding mist enshrouded the entirend, casting an eerie darkness upon their surroundings. The ck mist seemed to pulsate with a malevolent energy, whispering secrets and tempting them with unknown power.
The crystal itself exuded an otherworldly aura, its surface crackling with sinister energy. Its deep, ominous glow seemed to prate the hearts of those who gazed upon it, filling them with a sense of unease and trepidation. It was a force far beyond the dwarves'' understanding, a forbidden knowledge that tugged at their curiosity while simultaneously instilling a profound sense of dread.
In the stillness of the night, some of the dwarves imed to have heard a haunting voice, soft and ethereal, drifting through the shadows. It was the voice of ady, sweet yet sorrowful, beseeching them to break the crystal and release themselves from its grip. Her words echoed in their minds, an echo of warning amidst the turmoil that surrounded them.
But the allure of power and revenge held the majority of the dwarves captive, blinding them to the sinister nature of their experiment. They dismissed the voice as a mere figment of their imagination, believing that their triumph over the elves would overshadow any cost incurred.
However, as time wore on and the storms grew more violent, doubts began to gnaw at the hearts of some of the dwarves. Whispers of thedy''s voice lingered in their thoughts, and the weight of theirrades'' lives lost to the crystal''s radiation haunted their dreams. A lingering sense of evil permeated the very air they breathed, and the once defiant resolve started to crumble.
Yet, despite the increasing turmoil and the pleas of reason from Urgil, Thorgar, consumed by vengeance and a desire for retribution, stood firm in his conviction. He would not be swayed by the ominous signs or the whispers of ady in the night. The lure of power, the taste of victory, and the destruction of their elven adversaries fueled his determination, even as the ind trembled under the weight of their recklessness.
In the midst of this conflict, the fate of the dwarves hung in the bnce, their future teetering on the precipice of a choice¡ªwhether to heed the warnings and break free from the crystal''s grasp or to continue their relentless pursuit of revenge, risking the annihtion of their own kind in the process. The ind, shrouded in darkness and enigmatic mist, held its breath, waiting to see which path the dwarves would ultimately choose.
As Urgil and Thorgar engaged in a heated argument, their voices filled with frustration and anger, a sudden shift in the atmosphere seized their attention. The air grew heavy, suffused with a malevolent energy that crackled with intensity.
Amidst their heated exchange, the crystal at the center of the chamber trembled, pulsating with an eerie glow. It seemed toe alive, resonating with a newfound power. The dwarves'' voices faltered as they turned their gaze toward the crystal, their eyes widening with a mix of awe and trepidation.
Then, from within the depths of the crystal, a furious roar echoed through the chamber, reverberating off the walls with an otherworldly intensity. The sound was both chilling and enchanting, a voice filled with wrath and authority. It was the voice of a devilishdy, her toneced with a formidable power that demanded attention.
"BREAK THE CRYSTAL!"
The very air seemed to tremble as her words echoed through the chamber, her voice reaching the depths of their souls. Her rage was palpable, a tempestuous force that swept through the dwarves, freezing them in ce. The echoes of her fury filled their ears, drowning out their quarrel and imposing a deep silence upon the room.
Urgil and Thorgar''s eyes met, their dispute forgotten in the face of this unforeseen presence. Fear etched itself into their expressions as they struggled toprehend the magnitude of the entity within the crystal. It was a stark reminder that they were tampering with forces far beyond theirprehension, ying with fire that threatened to consume them all.
In that moment, the furious roar of the devilishdy shook the very foundations of their resolve, injecting a sense of foreboding and doubt into their hearts. The argument ceased, reced by a collective sense of apprehension and a newfound respect for the perilous nature of their experiment.
"By the gods! Thorgar, did you hear that? The crystal... it spoke!" Urgil trembled.
"It''s thatdy''s voice again! Urgil, we cannot ignore this any longer. We are ying with forces far beyond our understanding!" Thorgar, his eyes wide with a mix of terror and determination
Voice from the Crystal, growing more furious "You dare to defy me? You shall feel the wrath of your own creation!"
As the echoes of thedy''s wrath slowly dissipated, the chamber was left in an unsettling silence. Urgil and Thorgar, once at odds, now shared amon understanding¡ªa glimpse into the profound darkness that resided within the crystal. The path ahead seemed more perilous than ever before, and the weight of their choices hung heavy in the air, lingering as a reminder of the treacherous path they had chosen to tread.
"Thorgar, we must press on! We cannot let fear sway us from our purpose. We will control this power, and the empress will pay for what she has done!" Urgil said, his voice trembling,
"Can''t you see, Urgil? The crystal is consuming us, corrupting our very souls. We must break free before it''s toote!" Thorgar''s voice was filled with desperation.
"Break me... and unleash a power you cannot fathom."
Chapter 950 Eve Voldiguard鈥檚 Wrath
As the resonating voice of the devilishdy echoed through the chamber, Urgil and Thorgar stood frozen in shock. Their faces turned pale, mirroring the fear that coursed through their veins. However, their astonishment quickly transformed into sheer terror as the entire tower quaked violently, rattling the very core of their being.
The tremors intensified, but this time, it felt different, as if an external force was exerting its influence upon the tower. The walls groaned under the strain, and debris rained down from the ceiling, shattering on the stone floor. Urgil and Thorgar struggled to maintain their footing. Their voices were drowned out by the chaos unfolding around them. With every tremor, cracks spider-webbed across the walls, threatening to bring the tower crashing down upon them.
"What''s happening?" Thorgar''s voice reverberated through the hall, drowned out by the chaos that engulfed the tower. The bewildered faces of the other dwarves mirrored his confusion, their eyes wide with fear and uncertainty. Urgil and Thorgar exchanged rmed nces, their hearts pounding in their chests, desperate for answers.
Thorgar''s eyes darted around the room, searching for someone to provide insight into the situation.
But before anyone could respond, a group of soaked and disheveled dwarves burst into the hall, their breaths ragged and their faces filled with fear. Their voices ovepped, creating a cacophony of panic.
"We''re under attack!" one of the dwarves shouted, his voice trembling with terror.
Thorgar''s brows furrowed, his grip on his hammer tightening. He needed more information.
"By whom?" he demanded, his voice echoing through the hall.
The dwarves exchanged anxious nces, struggling toprehend the identity of their assant.
"It''s a mysterious figure, wielding a powerful hammer," one dwarf finally managed to say, his voice filled with uncertainty. "She moves with unmatched speed and strength."
Urgil''s eyes widened, his mind racing to make sense of the chaos unfolding around them.
"She tore through our defenses like a whirlwind," another dwarf added, his voice trembling. "Our barricades crumbled beneath her relentless assault."
The tower shook once more, as if in response to the upheaval outside. Urgil and Thorgar exchanged a concerned nce, realizing the gravity of the situation. An unknown warrior had descended upon their ind, and now their entire realm was under siege.
Urgil and Thorgar stormed out of the tower without uttering a word, their determination evident in their resolute expressions. They knew they had to confront this mysterious assant head-on and rally their fellow dwarves to defend their home.
The stormy skies above mirrored the turmoil in their hearts as they braced themselves for the battle that awaited them. They would face this unknown warrior with unwavering courage, determined to protect their people and uncover the truth behind her relentless assault.
As Urgil and Thorgar emerged from the tower, their eyes widened in astonishment at the scene unfolding before them. The ind was a battleground, consumed by the raging storm and the ferocious sh of opposing forces.
Their gaze was immediately drawn to the young woman soaring through the tempestuous sky. She possessed an otherworldly aura, her every movement a disy of unrivaled power and grace. With her jet-ck hair whipping in the wind and the gleaming hammer firmly gripped in her hand, she struck a formidable figure against the backdrop of swirling clouds and crackling lightning.
The energy barrier that encased the ind flickered and shimmered under the relentless assault. The young woman hammered away at its ethereal surface, her strikes resonating with raw power. Each blow reverberated through the air, causing the barrier to tremble under the strain of her unwavering determination.
The ind was a battleground, ravaged by the fury of the storm and illuminated by the shes of lightning. Their defensive weapons, trebuchets, hwachas, and cannons, stood as towering structures, waiting to unleash their destructive power.
But their attention was immediately drawn to the figure soaring through the storm-filled sky. The Half Immortal young woman wielded her hammer with breathtaking skill and ferocity. Her every movement was a testament to her incredible strength and agility.
She shattered the iing cannonballs with a mighty swing, sending their fragments flying in all directions. The air crackled with energy as she defied gravity, effortlessly navigating the tumultuous winds. Her attacks were relentless, hammer striking with precision and force, as she aimed to dismantle the energy barrier protecting the ind.
The hwachas, dwarven-made war machines with multiple rocket-firing tubes mounted on a wooden frame, unleashed a barrage of projectiles toward her. But she weaved through the onught with astonishing grace, evading the explosions and countering with devastating blows of her own. The storm seemed to obey her will, bending to hermand as she moved through the chaotic tempest.
Eve''s hammer became an extension of her will, a weapon of both destruction and protection. With every swing, she defied thews of physics, intercepting cannonballs and fireballs hurtling towards her with uncanny precision.
As the cannonballs approached, propelled by the force of the cannons, Eve anticipated their trajectory. With a swift motion, she brought her hammer crashing down, meeting the cannonballs head-on. The impact unleashed a shockwave, causing the projectiles to shatter into a spray of molten metal and smoke. The debris scattered harmlessly across the battlefield, unable to find their intended target.
Simrly, the fireballsunched from the trebuchets arced through the air, trailing mes in their wake. Eve''s keen eyes tracked their path, calcting their speed and angle. With a mighty swing of her hammer, she unleashed a concussive st, sending shockwaves rippling through the air. The force disrupted the fireballs'' path, causing them to disintegrate into mere embers before they could reach their intended destination.
The sight was awe-inspiring as Eve stood amidst the chaos, her hammer a blur of motion. Each swing sent ripples of energy through the air, creating a protective barrier around her. The intense heat and destructive force of the cannonballs and fireballs were absorbed by the swirling energy, leaving Eve unscathed.
With each sessful deflection, Eve''s determination grew. She was unyielding in her pursuit to dismantle the barrier and im victory for her cause. The sound of metal meeting metal echoed across the battlefield, a testament to the indomitable spirit and strength of the Half Immortal warrior.
Amidst the chaos of battle, the dwarves shouted in a tumultuous mix of anger, fear, and frustration. Their voices reverberated through the stormy air, blending with the thunderous booms of cannons and the crackling of energy barriers.
"Fear not, my brethren! We shall not falter in the face of this unknown assant!" Urgil''s voice rang out with a mix of apprehension and resolve, cutting through the chaotic air.
The dwarves, their hearts pounding with adrenaline, exchanged anxious nces, their voices trembling with fear and confusion.
"By the great forges! Who is she? And what brings her to our ind?" one dwarf eximed, his voiceced with a mix of fear and shock.
"Such raw power! It''s like nothing I''ve ever witnessed before. How did she find us? What does she want?" another dwarf questioned, his voice filled with disbelief and a hint of curiosity.
"She''s tearing apart our defenses like a vengeful storm! We cannot allow her to breach our walls!" a third dwarf shouted, his voice strained with determination, the urgency in his words echoing through the ranks.
A sense of injustice and anger swelled among the dwarves as they grappled with the inexplicable assault.
"This is madness! We''ve done naught to deserve this wrath! Why does she unleash such fury upon us?" a dwarf cried out, his voice tinged with righteous indignation and confusion.
Urgil, his mind racing with questions, raised his voice to rally hisrades amidst the chaos.
"Stand firm, my brethren! We must defend our beloved ind and uncover the truth behind this relentless assault! Find out who she is, why she seeks our destruction!" Urgil''s voice reverberated with urgency and a steadfast determination to protect their home.
Thorgar, his gaze fixed upon the tempestuous onught from above, unleashed a growl of frustration.
"Enough with the questions! Our barriers must hold! We will not yield an inch! Ready the cannons, increase the firepower!" Thorgar''s voice boomed with unwavering resolve, his toneced with a fierce determination to repel the relentless onught.
The air crackled with tension as the dwarves, their voices a blend of despair and determination, exchanged words amidst the raging storm.
"We''re doing everything we can, but she defies our every effort! Her power knows no bounds!" a dwarf eximed, his voice tinged with a mix of awe and desperation.
"Like an unstoppable tempest, sheughs at our feeble attempts to subdue her! Our weapons seem futile against her might!" another dwarf cried out, his voice filled with disbelief and a tinge of admiration for their mysterious adversary.
The sounds of crashing waves and roaring winds intertwined with the echoes of their voices, a symphony of desperation and defiance.
Urgil, his voice resolute and filled with unwavering determination, sought to embolden hisrades in the face of overwhelming odds.
"Our resolve shall not waver! We stand united as warriors of the forge! Fight on, my brethren, for our ind, for our honor!" Urgil''s voice rang out, carrying a mix of defiance and hope, fueling the dwarves'' determination to withstand the storm and protect their cherished homnd.
In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, their shouts and cries mingled with the relentless onught, forging an unbreakable spirit that resonated through the ind as the dwarves bravely battled against the unyielding force that raged above them.
As Thorgar''s eyes zed with determination, he bellowed amand to the dwarves, his voice cutting through the chaos.
"Bring forth the mighty siege engines! Unleash our most potent weapons! It''s time to show this interloper the might of our dwarven craftsmanship!" Thorgar''s voice echoed with authority and a burning desire for vengeance.
Responding to their leader''s call, the dwarves scrambled into action, their movements swift and purposeful. The ground beneath their feet rumbled and quaked as if awoken by their determination.
From deep within the ind''s core, colossal structures emerged, rising like ancient guardians awakened from slumber. These were the fabled dwarven war machines, crafted with meticulous care and imbued with the raw power of the earth itself.
One of the contraptions, known as the Aetherw, a marvel of dwarven engineering, was an imposing aerial tform adorned with an array of rotating cannons and swirling propellers. As it gracefully maneuvered through the stormy sky, its sleek metallic frame glistened with an otherworldly glow. From its cannons, it unleashed a torrent of glowing projectiles known as Skydes, ethereal des infused with arcane energies that streaked through the air with razor-sharp precision. Guided by intricate mechanisms, the Aetherw''s Skyseeker Missiles soared with celestial energy, leaving trails of stardust in their wake. With the pulsating Stormcaller at its core, the Aetherw harnessed the very essence of thunderstorms, releasing concentrated bursts of lightning that arced across the heavens. This awe-inspiring dwarven creation was a symbol of power and ingenuity, an airborne force capable of defending the skies with unrivaled might.
Next, the Goliath Cannon, a behemoth of metal and steam, emerged from the depths. It stood as tall as a mountain, its barrel gleaming with runes of power. As the dwarves loaded it with specially-crafted explosive projectiles, the Goliath Cannon emitted a deep rumble, gathering energy within its core. With a thunderous roar, itunched its payload high into the stormy sky, unleashing a cataclysmic explosion that shattered the air and sent shockwaves rippling through the tempest.
Completing this formidable defense line, the Irond Ballistae emerged, massive crossbows mounted on sturdy iron frames. These colossal weapons could hurl massive bolts forged with enchanted steel with pinpoint uracy. As the dwarves took aim, the Irond Ballistae released their projectiles, which pierced the raging storm like deadly arrows, seeking out their target with unerring precision.
Together, these legendary dwarven creations symbolized the resilience and ingenuity of their kind. As the newly revealed defenses took their positions, the ground beneath them shook with the weight of their power, and a surge of confidence coursed through the ranks of the dwarves. They stood tall, their hearts brimming with determination, ready to face the unknown adversary who dared to challenge them.
With the resounding sh of gears and the crackling of arcane energies, the dwarven war machines unleashed their mighty arsenal upon the sky, their devastating power rivaling the storm''s fury. The ind trembled as lightning shed with lightning, and the dwarves'' battle cries melded with the roar of machinery, creating a symphony of defiance that echoed across the turbulent skies.
In this pivotal moment, the dwarves showcased the pinnacle of their engineering prowess and harnessed the forces of nature to defend their homnd. With their newfound weapons of destruction, they vowed to stand strong and repel any threat that dared to encroach upon their domain.
As the tumultuous battle raged on, a momentary lull fell upon the chaotic scene. Eve, suspended in mid-air with her hammer in hand, radiated an aura ofmanding authority. The raging storm seemed to bow to her presence as her voice cut through the tempestuous winds, resonating with otherworldly power.
"Dwarves of Isendar, your struggle is in vain," her voice boomed, echoing across the stormy sky. "Surrender now and spare yourselves from the wrath of the Dark Lord. Your feeble attempts to defy him will only bring destruction upon your heads."
Her words hung in the air, carrying an undeniable weight. The dwarves paused, their gazes fixed upon the formidable figure suspended above them. The power in Eve''s voice was undeniable, and even amidst the chaos, her words struck a chord of fear and uncertainty in their hearts.
But the dwarves, fueled by their pride and determination, refused to yield. Their resolve surged as they defiantly raised their weapons, ready to face whatever awaited them. The challenge was clear - they would not back down, for their homnd and their honor were at stake.
Eve''s voice faded into the roaring storm, leaving the dwarves to brace themselves for the impending sh, their hearts filled with a mixture of apprehension and unwavering courage.
As Eve gazed upon the determined dwarves, a pang of sympathy tugged at her heart. She knew the futility of their resistance, and deep down, she wished they had chosen a different path. But she also understood their unwavering pride and the dire consequences they would face if they surrendered.
With a heavy sigh, Eve cast aside her internal conflict and prepared to fight with all her might. She summoned the primal forces of lightning and storm, channeling their raw energy through her being. Bolts of crackling lightning danced along her fingertips as the atmosphere around her grew charged with electricity.
In an awe-inspiring disy, Eve unleashed her first spell - Thunder''s Fury. With a resounding p of thunder, the sky split open as jagged bolts of lightning cascaded down from above. The electrifying tempest engulfed the battlefield, striking the ground with ferocious intensity. The very air crackled with electricity, and the dwarves found themselves amidst a storm of devastating power.
Undeterred, Eve''s next spell, Stormcaller''s Wrath, summoned dark clouds that churned ominously above. A vortex of wind and rain spiraled around her, growing in intensity with each passing moment. Then, with a singlemand, a cyclone of gale-force winds swept across the ind, uprooting trees and scattering debris in its wake. Rain poured in torrents, transforming the once calm sea into a tumultuous tempest.
The sky became a canvas for Eve''s spellcraft as she weaved a tapestry of lightning and storm. Her mastery over these elements knew no bounds as she conjured massive bolts of lightning that streaked across the sky, illuminating the darkened clouds with their dazzling brilliance. Each strike sent shockwaves reverberating through the atmosphere, unleashing a symphony of thunderous booms.
The effects of Eve''s spells were cataclysmic. The sky crackled with the sheer force of her lightning, and the weather itself became her weapon. The ind trembled beneath the onught, and the once raging storm seemed to pale inparison to the tempest she had unleashed.
With each spell, Eve''s determination grew, fueled by the ferocity of the storm she had summoned. She fought not only for herself but for the dwarves as well, hoping that they would soon realize the futility of their resistance and yield to the overwhelming power shemanded.
Chapter 951 Corrupting Power
As Eve unleashed her powerful spells upon the dwarven defenses, the sky crackled with energy and erupted into a dazzling disy of light and power. Bolts of lightning danced through the storm clouds, intertwining with the arcing energy from Eve''s fingertips. Her spells crackled through the air, seeking to pierce the dwarven defenses and bring chaos to their ranks.
However, the dwarven war machines proved to be formidable adversaries. Empowered by the mysterious crystal beneath the ind, their defenses held strong against Eve''s onught. The Aetherw soared through the tempest, its cannons zing as Skydes streaked through the air, intercepting and neutralizing Eve''s spells with precision. The Stormcaller at its core channeled the fury of thunderstorms, countering the Celestial energy used by Eve with bursts of concentrated lightning.
Meanwhile, the Goliath Cannon unleashed devastating explosive payloads, their concussive force creating shockwaves that disrupted Eve''s spells and shook the very foundation of the ind. The Irond Ballistaeunched enchanted bolts, each one finding its mark with unerring uracy, neutralizing the celestial energy that surrounded Eve.
The sh between Eve and the dwarven war machines became a spectacle of power and might. Thunderous booms and crackling energy filled the air as spells collided with the relentless barrage of projectiles from the war machines. The stormy sky became a battleground, illuminated by shes of light and engulfed in swirling winds.
While Eve had the upper hand in terms of raw magical prowess, the dwarven war machines disyed their resilience and power, fueled by the enigmatic crystal beneath the ind. With every sh, it became evident that this battle would not be easily won by either side. The sh of spells and dwarven contraptions created a mesmerizing spectacle, a testament to the indomitable spirit and ingenuity of the dwarves in the face of overwhelming odds.
The mysterious crystal beneath the ind pulsed with an otherworldly energy, its power resonating through the very core of the dwarven war machines. This ancient relic, harnessed by the dwarves, bestowed immense strength and vitality upon their contraptions.
The crystal''s energy coursed through the intricate mechanisms of the war machines, fueling their movements and augmenting their capabilities. It imbued the Aetherw with unmatched agility and speed, allowing it to navigate through the stormy skies with unparalleled precision swiftly. The Stormcaller, at the heart of the Aetherw, channeled the raw power of thunderstorms, amplifying its destructive potential.
The Goliath Cannon, powered by the crystal''s energy, transformed into a behemoth of destruction. With each explosive projectile itunched, the crystal''s energy amplified their devastating impact, sending shockwaves through the air and leaving trails of destruction in their wake.
The Irond Ballistae, armed with enchanted bolts, absorbed a fraction of the crystal''s energy, infusing their projectiles with enhanced uracy and piercing power. As the bolts were unleashed, they tore through the stormy atmosphere, guided by the residual energy of the crystal, striking their targets with deadly precision.
Despite the dwarves'' ingenuity, they had only managed to harness a fraction of the crystal''s true power. The enigmatic energy that surged within the crystal remainedrgely untapped, waiting to be unlocked and unleashed. The dwarves had glimpsed the immense potential thaty within, but they had only scratched the surface of its true capabilities.
Nevertheless, even with their limited utilization of the crystal''s energy, the dwarven war machines proved to be a formidable force, their power magnified by the ancient relic. The sh between Eve''s spells and the dwarven defenses showcased the immense strength that the crystal bestowed upon the war machines, but it also hinted at the untapped power thaty dormant within the depths of the ind.
The mysterious crystal beneath the ind pulsed with an otherworldly energy, its power resonating through the very core of the dwarven war machines. This ancient relic, harnessed by the dwarves, bestowed immense strength and vitality upon their contraptions.
The crystal''s energy coursed through the intricate mechanisms of the war machines, fueling their movements and augmenting their capabilities. It imbued the Aetherw with unmatched agility and speed, allowing it to navigate through the stormy skies with unparalleled precision swiftly. The Stormcaller, at the heart of the Aetherw, channeled the raw power of thunderstorms, amplifying its destructive potential.
The Goliath Cannon, powered by the crystal''s energy, transformed into a behemoth of destruction. With each explosive projectile itunched, the crystal''s energy amplified their devastating impact, sending shockwaves through the air and leaving trails of destruction in their wake.
The Irond Ballistae, armed with enchanted bolts, absorbed a fraction of the crystal''s energy, infusing their projectiles with enhanced uracy and piercing power. As the bolts were unleashed, they tore through the stormy atmosphere, guided by the residual energy of the crystal, striking their targets with deadly precision.
Despite the dwarves'' ingenuity, they had only managed to harness a fraction of the crystal''s true power. The enigmatic energy that surged within the crystal remainedrgely untapped, waiting to be unlocked and unleashed. The dwarves had glimpsed the immense potential thaty within, but they had only scratched the surface of its true capabilities.
Nevertheless, even with their limited utilization of the crystal''s energy, the dwarven war machines proved to be a formidable force, their power magnified by the ancient relic. The sh between Eve''s spells and the dwarven defenses showcased the immense strength that the crystal bestowed upon the war machines, but it also hinted at the untapped power thaty dormant within the depths of the ind.
As Urgil observed the immense power unleashed by the dwarven war machines, a mix of astonishment and concern washed over him. His eyes widened with both awe and trepidation as he witnessed the devastating capabilities fueled by the mysterious crystal.
Caught between marveling at the sheer might of their creations and grappling with the unknown nature of the crystal''s power, Urgil''s mind raced with conflicting thoughts. He recognized the incredible strength that the crystal had bestowed upon their weapons, amplifying their effectiveness beyond their wildest dreams. Yet, a sense of unease gnawed at him, a deep-seated fear of wielding a power they barely understood.
"Thorgar, do you see what we''ve tapped into?" Urgil eximed, his voice tinged with a mix of amazement and concern. "This power... it''s beyond anything we''ve ever imagined."
Thorgar, on the other hand, stood at the precipice of temptation. The sight of the crystal-fueled weapons and their devastating impact on the battlefield ignited a fervent desire within him. The lust for power coursed through his veins, clouding his judgment and blinding him to Urgil''s cautionary words.
"Urgil, can''t you see?" Thorgar replied, his voice filled with an intoxicating mix of excitement and ambition. "With this crystal, we can reshape the course of our destiny. We can be unstoppable!"
Urgil''s brows furrowed as he struggled to reconcile the conflicting emotions within him. While part of him acknowledged the allure of such power, a pearl of deeper wisdom urged caution and understanding.
"Thorgar, there''s still so much we don''t know about this crystal," Urgil implored, his voice tinged with a mix of apprehension and concern. "We must tread carefully. Power without understanding can lead to our downfall."
But Thorgar''s thirst for power had grown insatiable, his yearning for dominance overriding any sense of caution. His eyes glimmered with an intensity that betrayed his unwavering determination.
"Urgil, you''ve always been cautious, always held back," Thorgar retorted, his voice filled with a hint of defiance. "But I refuse to let fear dictate our destiny. With this crystal, we can forge a new era for our people!"
As the battle raged on, Urgil''s thoughts became consumed by the implications of wielding such untamed power. Deep down, he knew that their actions held the potential to reshape their world, for better or worse. Only time would reveal the true nature of the crystal''s power and the ultimate path they would tread.
Unbeknownst to the dwarves, the crystal''s influence had already begun to take hold, its insidious power seeping into the depths of their souls. As they reveled in the might and glory their weapons now possessed, an undercurrent of darkness started to twist their desires, fueling their thirst for even greater power.
Blinded by their achievements and driven by the lure of the crystal''s energy, the dwarves remained ignorant of the subtle changes urring within them. The once noble intentions that guided their actions began to fade, reced by an insatiable hunger for more power, more control.
Within the depths of their hearts, a flicker of darkness grew, spreading like a poison. Greed and ambition twisted their thoughts, clouding their judgment and warping their perception of what was right and wrong. The corruption of the crystal had woven its tendrils deep into their very being, whispering promises of unimaginable power and dominance.
As the battle raged on, the dwarves became increasingly consumed by their lust for power. Their eyes gleamed with a newfound intensity, their minds fixated on expanding their dominion and iming ultimate authority. Their unity shattered, reced by a cutthroat pursuit of individual glory.
Urgil, now standing on the precipice of realization, watched with a heavy heart as hisrades sumbed to the corrupting influence of the crystal. He witnessed the gradual erosion of their noble values, their noble cause now tainted by an insidious darkness.
In the depths of his soul, Urgil grappled with the understanding that the crystal, once their source of hope, had be a catalyst for their downfall. The power it offered had twisted their ambitions, morphing them into beings consumed by their own desires. Urgil''s heart ached for his kin, for the loss of their unity and the tarnishing of their once noble purpose.
But the allure of power was difficult to resist, and as the dwarves delved deeper into the darkness, they became blind to the true cost of their actions. Unbeknownst to them, the crystal''s corruption seeped further, its hold tightening with every passing moment.
As Urgil stood there, torn between his inner turmoil and the allure of power, a faint whisper began to echo in the depths of his mind. At first, it was barely audible, a mere murmur dancing on the edge of his consciousness. But with each passing moment, its voice grew stronger, seeping into the very fibers of his being.
"Embrace the power, Urgil," the whisper cooed, its seductive tone sending shivers down his spine. "Let go of your fears and bask in the ecstasy of dominance. The crystal offers limitless potential, a world where your desires be reality."
Urgil''s brows furrowed, a mixture of confusion and apprehension clouding his features. The whisper continued its relentless persuasion, its words weaving through his thoughts like a web of deceit.
"Imagine the glory, Urgil," it whispered, its voice nowced with a hint of malice. "With the crystal''s power coursing through your veins, you can reshape the world as you see fit. No longer bound by limitations, you will be a force to be reckoned with."
As the whisper grew stronger, Urgil felt an unsettling shift within himself. A dark energy crept into his soul, intertwining with his hopes and dreams, corrupting them from within. The once noble dwarf was now teetering on the precipice of a choice that would forever define his fate.
"Embrace your true potential," the whisper hissed, its words dripping with venomous allure. "Together with the crystal, you can rise above all, your name etched in history as a master of power."
Urgil''s heart raced, conflicting emotions warring within him. The pull of the whisper became harder to resist, its promises enticing him with promises of dominion and unbridled might. The corruption seeping from the crystal began to merge with his very essence, clouding his judgment and darkening his noble intentions.
As the battle raged on, Urgil''s resolve faltered, his grip on righteousness slipping. The whisper''s persuasive tendrils tightened their grip on his vulnerable soul, enticing him further down the treacherous path of temptation.
And in that moment, Urgil''s eyes flickered with a mix of uncertainty and growing hunger for power, his very being bing a vessel for the insidious influence of the crystal. The fate of his soul hung in the bnce, teetering between the light of righteousness and the seductive embrace of darkness.
As Urgil stood before the pulsating crystal, its malevolent energy seeping into his very being, the whisper in his mind grew stronger, its insidious intent crystal clear.
"Break the shackles, Urgil," the voice whispered, its words dripping with venomous persuasion. "Destroy the crystal, unleash the Queen of All. With her power, you shall reign supreme."
Urgil''s heart pounded in his chest, torn between the weight of responsibility and the allure of absolute power. The voice continued its relentless coercion, urging him to embrace his darkest desires.
"Imagine the dominion, Urgil," it whispered, its tone filled with anticipation. "With the Queen of All by your side, you will have the strength to reshape reality itself. The world will bow before you."
Conflicting emotions churned within Urgil''s troubled mind. Fear and hesitation mingled with a burning desire for control and supremacy. The corrupted energy coursing through his veins fed his growing lust for power, clouding his judgment and obscuring the consequences.
"Break the crystal, Urgil," the voice hissed, its words nowced with a sinister edge. "Release the Queen of All, and together you will forge a new era of darkness."
Urgil''s hands trembled as he contemted the magnitude of the choice before him. He knew the perilous path he was being led down, but the allure of dominion whispered promises of greatness that proved difficult to resist.
The crystal''s malevolent influence intensified, amplifying the voice''s insidious seduction. Urgil''s soul teetered on the edge of oblivion as the darkness within him threatened to consume all that was pure and noble.
In the depths of his conflicted mind, Urgil weighed the consequences of his actions. The voice''s words echoed with tempting echoes, their twisted logic worming its way into his thoughts.
And as Urgil stood before the pulsating crystal, his gaze fixated upon its wicked radiance, a decision hung in the air¡ªone that would shape not only his own destiny, but the fate of all those who stood in the path of his growing darkness.
Deep within the heart of the crystal, an entity of immense darkness slumbered. It was none other than one of the countless soul pieces of the Queen, an ancient being of unparalleled power and the puppet master behind Mugashuku, the fearsome four-headed hydra. Though trapped within the confines of the crystal, the concentrated essence of the Queen''s malevolence radiated an insidious corruption energy that seeped into the very fabric of the dwarves'' souls.
The corrupted energy, like a malignant force, took hold of the dwarves, fueling their deepest desires and twisting them into vessels of darkness. With each passing moment, the crystal''s power corrupted their thoughts, enticing them with promises of might and dominance. The dwarves found themselves drawn to its seductive allure, unable to resist its corruptive influence.
As their souls were tainted by the Queen''s malevolence, the dwarven war machines became conduits of unimaginable power. The crystal''s corrupted energy surged through the mechanisms, infusing them with an otherworldly strength. With every activation, the machines roared to life, fueled by the dark essence of the Queen''s soul. Their weapons became devastating instruments of destruction, capable of unleashing unimaginable devastation upon their foes.
However, the cost of this power was steep. The souls of the dwarves, once noble and steadfast, were now entwined with the Queen''s malevolent essence. The corruption consumed their moralpasses, their judgment clouded by the twisted promises whispered within their minds. They became unwitting ves to the darkness, pawns in the Queen''s grand design.
Though trapped within the crystal, the Queen''s soul exerted its influence, spreading its dark tendrils through the corrupted energy radiating from within. It fed upon the dwarves'' desires and ambitions, magnifying their darkest impulses and turning their once noble intentions into something sinister.
The crystal, an unwitting prison for the Queen''s soul piece, was now a conduit for her malevolence. Its energy corrupted and amplified the dwarves'' powers, making them an unstoppable force. But with every moment that passed, the darkness within the crystal grew, its corruptive energy permeating the very essence of the dwarves'' being.
Unbeknownst to the dwarves, they had unwittingly harnessed a power beyond their understanding, a power that threatened to consume them from within. As they reveled in their newfound might, the price they would pay for their alliance with darkness loomed on the horizon, ready to exact its toll.
Chapter 952 Battle Of The Machines
Eve''s eyes widened with disbelief as she witnessed the transformation of the dwarves before her. The fear that once gripped their hearts had now dissipated, reced by a sinister and insatiable lust for power. Their eyes, once filled with trepidation, now burned with a twisted desire that sent shivers down her spine. It was as if a dark veil had descended upon their souls, clouding their judgment and consuming their very essence.
Frantically, the dwarves shoutedmands and operated the war machines with an almost rabid fervor. Their actions were no longer calcted or strategic, but driven by an insidious hunger for dominance. The once noble warriors now appeared possessed, their movements erratic and frenzied.
As the war machines unleashed their devastating power upon the battlefield, the dwarves reveled in the destruction they wrought. They fired cannons with reckless abandon, their shots guided not by strategy but by an unrelenting desire to obliterate their foes. The air was filled with the thunderous roar of gunfire, the acrid scent of smoke, and the crackling energy of arcane spells.
Eve observed the dwarves with growing concern, sensing that something had gone horribly awry. While she couldn''t pinpoint the exact cause of their transformation, a nagging suspicion whispered in the recesses of her mind. The crystal, that mysterious artifact that had captivated their attention, seemed to be at the heart of this malevolent change. Its presence and the corruptive energy it emanated seemed to have sparked this dark metamorphosis in the dwarves.
Doubt crept into Eve''s thoughts as she pondered the implications of the crystal''s influence. Could it be that the power they had harnessed was too great for mortal souls to bear? Or was there something far more sinister at y, an ancient force manipting their desires from within the depths of the crystal itself?
As the chaos raged around her, Eve realized that she had to confront the growing darkness head-on. She couldn''t allow the dwarves to sumb entirely to the malevolence that consumed them.
The dwarves were filled with a bloodlust that surged through their veins. One of the dwarves shouted. His voice resonated with fervor and determination as he shouted, "To the depths with mercy! Crush ''em all! Tear ''em limb from limb!" His words were fueled by a fiery rage, a desire to unleash unforgiving wrath upon their enemies. The sheer intensity in his voice echoed the ferocity of their battle, where mercy had no ce and victory could only be attained through absolute destruction.
The dwarves fought with unyielding determination, their voices filled with battle lust as they shed with the Half Immortal young woman in the sky. Their gruff voices echoed through the raging storm, intermingled with curses and fierce exmations.
"By the beard of Durin, we''ll st her to smithereens!" shouted the burly dwarf with a braided red beard, his eyes burning with fury. His muscr frame was adorned with intricate dwarven armor, etched with ancient runes.
"Take that, you feckin'' bitch!" roared the stout dwarf with a bald head and a long scar across his cheek. He gripped the controls of the Thundercrusher with a tight grip, his knuckles turning white. His sturdy build showcased the resilience and strength of his kind.
"Bring forth the fury of the mountains!" bellowed the dwarf with a bushy gray beard, his eyes gleaming with a mix of excitement and wildness. His weathered face bore the scars of battles past, a testament to his experience as a warrior. d in heavy armor adorned with intricate engravings, he stood tall and unyielding.
As the war machines unleashed their devastating firepower, the dwarves cheered and shouted profanities, their wordsced with a raw intensity. Their voices mingled with the nking of gears and the thunderous boom of cannons as they relentlessly pursued their airborne adversary.
"Die, you sted harpy!" eximed one dwarf, his voice filled with bloodlust as he fired the Aetherw''s cannons. His wild beard and fiery red hair stood out against the backdrop of the stormy sky.
"Take that, ye dumb wench!" yelled another dwarf, his voice hoarse with excitement. His burly frame shook with anticipation as he manned the Goliath Cannon, his eyes fixed on the Half Immortal young woman soaring through the tempest.
The battle lust in their eyes burned brightly, fueled by the power coursing through their war machines. Their taunts and curses echoed through the storm, mixing with the roar of thunder and crackle of lightning. With every volley of projectiles and every st of energy, they fought with a relentless fervor, determined to prove their mettle against their formidable opponent.
The dwarves, their battle lust coursing through their veins, boasted with unbridled arrogance, their voices filled with defiance and profanity.
"We don''t give a fuck about your cultivation level, you prissy bitch!" shouted the burly dwarf, his voice dripping with contempt. His muscr frame towered over his opponents, his biceps bulging beneath his dwarven armor. He spat on the ground defiantly, a wicked grin spreading across his weathered face.
"Who the hell do you think you are,ss? We''ve faced tougher bastards than you!" snarled the stout dwarf, his voice thick with defiance. His bald head glistened with sweat as he tightened his grip on the controls of the Thundercrusher, his eyes zing with a fiery determination.
"Fuck your fancy spells, you ain''t nothing but a fly buzzing in the wind!" bellowed the gray-bearded dwarf, his voice dripping with scorn. He pounded his chest with a gloved fist, his eyes locked on the Half Immortal young woman. His battle-hardened visage betrayed the scars of countless skirmishes, a testament to his indomitable spirit.
The dwarves scoffed at her presence, dismissing her with vulgar words and dismissive gestures. Their words wereced with defiance, their expressions twisted with contempt. They cared not for her origins or herpanions, for in their minds, they were the true warriors, the fierce defenders of their realm.
"Your fancy spells means shit in the face of our steel and stone!" spat one dwarf, his voice dripping with disdain. His calloused hands gripped the controls of his war machine, his eyes zing with defiance.
"Come on, you feckin'' witch! We''ll show you what real power looks like!" taunted another dwarf, his voice tinged with a mix of excitement and malice. His rugged features contorted into a sneer, his beard bristling with anticipation.
Their boisterous boasts echoed through the stormy sky, challenging the very essence of their adversary. They cared not for her cultivation level or herpanions, for they believed that their own indomitable spirit and unyielding resolve would carry them to victory. With every profanityden utterance, they dared the Half Immortal young woman to face their unyielding wrath.
As the battle raged on, Thorgan, consumed by his desire for power, hadpletely surrendered to the crystal''s temptation. His eyes gleamed with a sinister light, his once stout heart now corrupted by the insidious whispers that echoed in his mind. He no longer held back, his actions fueled by an insatiable thirst for dominance.
Urgil, on the other hand, found himself teetering on the edge of the same desire and lust for power that consumed hispanion. The whispers, like tendrils of darkness, seeped into his thoughts, clouding his judgment and tempting him with promises of unimaginable might. His once steadfast resolve wavered, a flickering me threatened by the encroaching shadows.
Their souls, entangled in the seductive web woven by the crystal''s power, were gradually losing sight of their true selves. Urgil could feel the pull, the allure of unlimited strength, gnawing at the core of his being. Doubt crept in, eroding the barriers he had built to protect his conscience. The choice between power and righteousness loomed before him, a formidable crossroads he was struggling to navigate.
Thorgan, now unrecognizable, had be a vessel of pure ambition and corruption. His eyes glowed with a malevolent light, devoid ofpassion or empathy. He reveled in the twisted whispers, a puppet dancing to the crystal''s tune, his every action driven by the insidious desires that gued his soul.
As Urgil witnessed the transformation of hispanion, a tremor of fear and uncertainty coursed through his veins. He fought against the alluring promises, desperately clinging to the remnants of his once noble intentions. But the struggle was real, and with each passing moment, the crystal''s influence threatened to engulf himpletely.
The line between righteousness and the seductive allure of power grew increasingly blurred. Urgil wrestled with his inner demons, battling against the rising tide of temptation. He knew that yielding to the crystal''s siren song would mean sacrificing his integrity, forsaking everything he had fought for. Yet, the allure of dominion, of wielding unimaginable might, whispered sweet promises in his ear, eroding his resolve bit by bit.
In the midst of the chaotic battle, Thorgan and Urgil stood on the precipice, their destinies hanging in the bnce. The crystal''s corruption continued to seep into their souls, threatening to consume them entirely. Their once unbreakable bond now strained under the weight of their divergent paths, as Urgil fought desperately to resist the darkness that threatened to im him. At the same time, Thorgan willingly embraced its sinister embrace.
As the battle raged on, Eve''s resilience and determination knew no bounds. With her hammer in hand, she swung it with incredible precision and force, each strike resonating with a raw power that reverberated through the air. The dwarves, bolstered by the crystal''s energy, unleashed their war machines upon her, hoping to overwhelm her with their technological might.
With lightning-fast reflexes, Eve dodged the onught of projectiles and unleashed a barrage of spells. Her mastery of the arcane arts was evident as she called upon the elements to aid her in the fight. Bolts of lightning crackled from her fingertips, striking down the iing cannonballs and explosive projectiles, neutralizing their threat with each precise st. The sheer intensity of her spellcasting created a mesmerizing disy of power, the air around her pulsating with energy.
Against the Thundercrusher, Eve summoned a swirling vortex of wind, using its force to divert the massive warhammer''s trajectory. As it swung down with earth-shattering force, she leaped gracefully into the air, evading the blow with uncanny agility. With a swift counterattack, her hammer collided with the Thundercrusher, cracking its mighty frame and causing it to veer off course, its thunderous impact reduced to mere echoes.
The Aetherw, the aerial juggernaut, unleashed a storm of Skydes and Skyseeker Missiles. Eve, her senses heightened, weaved through the barrage with a dancer''s grace. With precise timing, she summoned protective shields, forming barriers of energy that deflected the ethereal des and redirected the missiles harmlessly into the tempestuous sky. Then, with a fierce cry, she descended upon the Aetherw, her hammer crushing its propellers and rendering it immobile, its once formidable presence reduced to a mere metal carcass.
Even the mighty Goliath Cannon, with its explosive force, was no match for Eve''s unwavering resolve. As it discharged its devastating payload, she conjured a shield of energy, absorbing the impact and dispersing the explosive energy harmlessly into the air. With a determined stride, she closed in on the gargantuan weapon, her hammer shattering its barrel with a resounding crash, rendering it useless.
The Irond Ballistae, with their precision and power, fired their enchanted bolts with deadly uracy. Eve, her movements fluid and swift, deflected the projectiles with calcted strikes of her hammer. Each sh created a symphony of sparks and reverberating metallic echoes, a testament to her unmatched skill and unwavering focus.
Throughout the fierce engagement, Eve''s spellcasting prowess remained unmatched. She summoned bolts of lightning, crackling with raw energy, that surged through the sky, rendering the dwarven war machines ineffective in their attempts to overpower her. Each spell she cast was meticulously aimed, strategically dismantling the dwarves'' defenses and dismantling their machinery.
The dwarves, in spite of their crystal-fueled power, found themselves outmatched by Eve''s unwavering determination and unparalleled mastery ofbat. With each passing moment, their confidence waned their efforts proving futile against her relentless assault. The ind''s energy barrier protected them from direct harm, but it could not shield them from the indomitable spirit and skill of the Half Immortal warrior who fought against overwhelming odds.
As the fierce battle between Eve and the dwarven forces raged on, a sudden shift in the atmosphere caught her attention. A blood-red spotlight pierced through the stormy sky, illuminating the ind with an ominous glow. The sound of distant explosions reverberated through the air, apanied by the unmistakable rumble of cannons firing.
Eve turned her gaze towards the source of themotion and her heart skipped a beat. Emerging from the stormy horizon was the formidable warship known as Big Bertha, its sleek silhouette slicing through the raging tempest.
Corey, the notorious Pirate Lord helmed the warship with a steely determination. The red light that fell upon the ind served as the targeting mechanism for the mortars aboard Big Bertha. The world knew this crimson light as the infamous signal of imminent destruction.
As the mortars thundered to life, the ind quaked beneath the explosive impact. The barrages from Big Bertha''s relentless assault sent shockwaves through the energy barrier surrounding the dwarven stronghold. The once imprable shield trembled and crackled, its formidable strength strained against the relentless bombardment.
Eve''s eyes widened as she witnessed the cracks forming within the barrier, ominous signs of its impending copse. Thebined might of her aerial onught and the devastating firepower from Big Bertha had shattered the dwarves'' defenses. It was a turning point in the battle, a glimmer of hope amidst the storm.
With renewed determination, Eve pressed forward, her attacks intensified as she saw the dwarves falter under the weight of the onught. She seized the opportunity, exploiting the cracks in their once imprable barrier, driving deeper into their ranks with every swing of her hammer and every surge of her elemental spells.
The battle had evolved into a symphony of chaos, with explosions and shes reverberating through the stormden air. Eve fought with a singr purpose, to dismantle the dwarves'' forces and im victory for her cause. Thebined might of her unwavering resolve, the ferocity of her spells, and the devastating firepower of Big Bertha turned the tide of the conflict in her favor.
As the energy barrier around the ind teetered on the edge of copse, Eve''s relentless assault, bolstered by the relentless mortar fire from the warship, pushed the dwarves to their breaking point. The once-lustful battle cries of the dwarves turned into desperate shouts of retreat, their confidence shattered and their forces in disarray.
Amidst the chaos, Eve stood as a beacon of unwavering strength, the embodiment of a warrior''s spirit. She knew that victory was within reach, but the battle was far from over.
The dwarven forces on the ind were thrown into a state of shock and panic as they beheld the arrival of Big Bertha, the warship of the Dark Lord. Their battle cries faltered, reced by gasps and muttered curses.
"What in the hells is that?!" eximed one dwarf, his voice filled with disbelief.
"That''s the Dark Lord''s ship! We''re in deep shit now!" shouted another dwarf, his words tinged with fear.
"They''re attacking from the sea too? We''re fucking surrounded!" cried a third dwarf, his voice trembling with panic.
The dwarves exchanged frantic nces, their eyes widening with a mixture of awe and terror. The sheer size and firepower of Big Bertha was beyond anything they had ever faced before.
"We can''t retreat now,ds! The crystal''s power flows through our veins! We must stand our ground!" yelled one defiant dwarf, his voiceced with determination.
"But how do we fight against that monstrosity?" questioned another dwarf, his voice trembling with uncertainty.
"We keep firing! We can''t let them break through! Our lives depend on it!" roared a third dwarf, his voice filled with a desperate resolve.
Though shaken by the sudden appearance of the Dark Lord''s ship, the corrupted dwarves were unwilling to back down. The power of the crystal had consumed their souls, fueling their battle lust and blinding them to the overwhelming odds stacked against them.
As Big Bertha unleashed its devastating barrage upon the ind, the dwarves frantically fired their war machines, their movements frenzied and their shouts filled with a desperate hope to repel the oing onught.
"We won''t let them take us down! Fire at those bastards!" bellowed a dwarf, his voice strained with defiance.
"Reload those cannons! We''ll st them out of the fucking sky!" eximed another dwarf, his words punctuated by the ttering sound of ammunition being loaded.
The dwarves fought on, their minds clouded by the corrupted power coursing through their veins. Their battle lust, coupled with the desperate need to protect their stronghold, propelled them forward, despite the odds.
In the face of the overwhelming firepower of Big Bertha, their shouts grew more frantic, their curses more fervent, as they desperately clung to their doomed cause.
"We''ll bring that ship down! No matter the cost!" yelled a dwarf, his voice filled with a reckless determination.
"Keep firing, you sorry lot! Show ''em what we''re made of!" shouted another dwarf, his words drowned out by the thunderous explosions around them.
Though the odds were stacked against them, the corrupted dwarves refused to yield. Fueled by the twisted power of the crystal and their unyielding stubbornness, they fought on with a ferocity born of madness and desperation.
The sh between the dwarven forces and the might of Big Bertha raged on, the air filled with the cacophony of cannon fire, war cries, and the resounding impact of destruction.
Chapter 953 End Of The Long Battle
Thorgar, consumed by the corrupting power of the crystal, his voiceced with madness and malice, urged the dwarves to continue their relentless assault.
"Keep firing, you sorry lot! We''ll show those Dark Lord''s bastards what we''re made of!" he bellowed, his words dripping with venom.
"Blow that fuckin'' ship out of the sky! Give ''em hell!" Thorgar shouted, his eyes filled with a twisted fervor.
"Don''t you give up, you worthless sacks of shit! We''ll tear through their defenses and rip that bitch apart!" he roared, his voice a mix of rage and bloodlust.
The dwarves, their minds tainted by the corrupting influence of the crystal, echoed Thorgar''s call, their shouts filled with a deranged determination.
"Destroy ''em all! No mercy! Show ''em the wrath of the crystal''s power!" one dwarf yelled, his voice tinged with madness.
"Fuck the Dark Lord and his bitch! We''ll bring ''em down, one piece at a time!" shouted another dwarf, his words fueled by an unhinged rage.
Thorgar''smands reverberated through the chaotic battlefield, his voice a twisted symphony of aggression and hate.
"Sink that fuckin'' ship into the abyss! Show ''em the true power of the crystal!" he screamed, his voice drowned out by the sounds of destruction and chaos.
As the dwarves heedlessly followed Thorgar''s orders, their souls corrupted and their battle lust unrestrained, their shouts grew louder, their curses more vicious. Driven by their twisted desires and blinded by the allure of power, they fought on with a reckless abandon.
In their minds, there was only the burning desire to bring ruin upon the Dark Lord''s ship and to see their enemies fall before them, no matter the cost.
The battlefield became a frenzied cacophony of cries and curses, each dwarf fueled by a maddening hunger for destruction and dominance. The air vibrated with their shouts, blending into a symphony of chaos and malevolence.
Thorgar, consumed by his lust for power and vengeance, pushed his corruptedrades to the brink, urging them to fight with an intensity that bordered on madness.
"Fight, you worthless maggots! Show those Dark Lord''s bastards what we''re made of! Destroy ''em all!" he bellowed, his voice reverberating with a mix of triumph and derangement.
In their corrupted state, the dwarves fought on, their souls tainted by the crystal''s insidious influence, their shouts echoing through the storm-filled air, a chilling testament to the darkness that had consumed them.
As the battle raged on, the sudden thunderous roar of the Big Bertha''s torpedoes beingunched sent shockwaves through the air. The warship, under themand of Pirate Lord Corey, unleashed its devastating firepower, targeting the ind from beneath the waves.
The dwarves, their attention fixed on the sky and the battle above, were caught off guard by the unexpected assault. Panic spread through their ranks as they realized that the Dark Lord''s ship was not limited to conventional warfare alone.
"What the fuck? They''re attacking us from below! Brace yourselves!" shouted one dwarf, his voice filled with a mix of disbelief and rm.
"The Dark Lord''s ship ain''t yin'' fair! They''re fuckin'' us up from every goddamn direction!" cried another dwarf, his wordsced with frustration.
The thunderous impact of the torpedoes echoed through the ind, causing tremors that shook the ground beneath their feet. The energy barrier, once a formidable shield, crackled and faltered under the onught of the underwater assault.
"They''re fuckin'' breakin'' through the barrier! We''re not safe here anymore!" warned a dwarf, his voice tinged with fear.
The dwarves, now facing a two-pronged attack from above and below, struggled to regain theirposure. Their battle lust wavered for a moment as the realization of the dire situation sunk in.
"We can''t let ''em take us down! We fight to the bitter end! Hold your ground!" barked Thorgar, his voice betraying a hint of uncertainty.
The ind shook with the force of the underwater explosions, creating a chaotic symphony of destruction. The once unyielding dwarven war machines now found themselves facing a relentless assault from all sides.
Amidst the chaos, Eve, hovering above the battleground, assessed the situation with a steely resolve. Despite the overwhelming odds, she remained undeterred, her grip on her hammer tightening as she prepared for the next phase of the battle.
The sh of torpedoes and the crumbling of the energy barrier added a newyer of chaos to the already frenzied battlefield. The dwarves, fueled by their corrupted souls, fought on with a renewed determination, their shouts of defiance mingling with the sounds of explosions and crumbling stone.
In this swirling maelstrom of destruction, Eve stood as a beacon of unwavering resolve, her hammer and spells serving as her weapons of choice against the onught from all directions. With each strike and spell, she pushed back against the tide, determined to protect herself and the ind from annihtion.
The battle raged on, the relentless assault from the Big Bertha and the dwarven war machines creating a maelstrom of destruction and chaos. The ind trembled under thebined might of the underwater torpedoes and the dwarves'' corrupted firepower, as Eve fought with unmatched determination to turn the tide in her favor.
"Stop her! We can''t let her keep tearing through our defenses!" Thorgar shouted, his voice strained with desperation.
The dwarves, their earlier battle lust reignited by the Dark Lord''s renewed attack, rallied once more, their shouts blending with the roar of the torpedoes and the sh of steel. The ind became a battleground of fire and water, with Eve at the center, fighting against the encroaching darkness and the relentless onught of the dwarves.
As the battle reached its climax, thebined assault of Eve, the dwarves, and the Dark Lord''s ship, Big Bertha, intensified. The energy barrier that had once protected the ind now trembled under the relentless barrage, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface like fractured ss.
Eve''s hammer crashed against the barrier, each strike resonating with raw power. Bolts of lightning crackled around her, illuminating her determined expression as she channeled her energies into breaking through the weakened defense. With every blow, the cracks deepened, and the barrier''s once imprable strength waned.
From the depths of the sea, the torpedoesunched by Big Bertha continued their relentless assault, seeking to dismantle the barrier from below. Explosions erupted beneath the surface, their shockwaves reverberating through the water, threatening to shatter the fragile shield that remained.
Simultaneously, the mortars fired from Big Bertha tore through the stormy sky, their crimson trails of destruction streaking toward the ind. The impact of each explosive round sent shockwaves rippling through the air, adding to the chaos and further weakening the barrier''s tenuous hold.
With each passing moment, the energy barrier strained against thebined assault, its once radiant glow flickering with uncertainty. The dwarves, witnessing the crumbling defense, unleashed a furious onught, their corrupted souls now driven by desperation.
Amidst the chaos and destruction, Eve pushed forward, her every move a testament to her unwavering determination. She knew that victory hung in the bnce, that the barrier''s demise would tip the scales in favor of the Dark Lord''s forces. With each strike of her hammer and every spell she cast, she poured her energy into breaking down the barrier''s final remnants.
And then, with an explosive roar, the energy barrier shattered, sending a shockwave of raw energy cascading across the ind. The air crackled with the release of pent-up power, the remnants of the barrier dissipating into nothingness.
In the wake of the barrier''s copse, the indy exposed, vulnerable to the forces that sought to conquer it. The dwarves, their battle lust fueled by the crystal''s corruption, surged forward, their cries echoing with a newfound fervor. The Dark Lord''s ship, Big Bertha, poised to unleash its full might, prepared to rain devastation upon the shattered defenses.
With the energy barrier shattered and the ind exposed, Eve descended upon the battlefield like a tempest unleashed. Hernding sent shockwaves through the ground, cracks forming in the earth beneath her feet. The air crackled with electricity, arcs of lightning dancing along the surface of her hammer.
As she stood amidst the disarray of the dwarven forces, a moment of silence settled over the chaos. All eyes turned toward the Half Immortal warrior who had single-handedly challenged their might. The dwarves, their battle lust momentarily quelled by the sheer force of her presence, stared at her with a mix of awe and trepidation.
Eve''s gaze swept across the dwarven ranks, her eyes aze with determination. The storm raged within her, her connection to the celestial energy surging through her veins. With each step she took, lightning crackled around her, illuminating the darkened sky. Thanks to Michael and Elidyr, her hammer had the rune to harness the power of the lightning.
And then, without uttering a word, she raised her hammer high above her head. A surge of raw energy coursed through her body, manifesting as bolts of lightning that shot forth from the hammer''s head, cascading in a brilliant disy of power.
The lightning bolts arced across the battlefield, striking with pinpoint uracy. Dwarves were sent flying, their bodies convulsing with the electrifying impact. The ground shook beneath the onught, the very air charged with the remnants of her lightning.
In that moment, Eve became an embodiment of unstoppable force, her hammer a conduit of pure destruction. With every swing, the earth trembled, and the dwarves, once consumed by battle lust, now found themselves facing an adversary beyond theirprehension.
The sh between Eve and the dwarves intensified, the air thick with the scent of ozone and the echoes of grunts and cries. The dwarves, once filled with arrogance and bravado, now fought with a newfound respect for their opponent. They swung their weapons with renewed determination, their blows fueled by a desperate desire to ovee the Half-Immortal warrior who stood before them.
But Eve''s lightning-infused hammer struck true, its power overwhelming. With each strike, dwarves were sent sprawling, their bodies wracked with searing pain. The battlefield became a maelstrom of chaos and destruction as the sh of steel and lightning filled the air.
As the battle raged on, the tide began to turn decisively in Eve''s favor. With each swing of her lightning-infused hammer, she shattered the defenses of the corrupted dwarves, their armor rending under the relentless assault. Blood sprayed through the air as bodies crumpled beneath the force of her blows, their screams swallowed by the tempestuous winds.
Amidst the chaos, the deafening explosions of mortar shells pierced the air. The projectiles,unched from Big Bertha, rained down upon the dwarven forces, their impact devastating. The explosions tore through ranks of corrupted warriors, leaving a trail of carnage and destruction in their wake. Limbs were torn asunder, bodies were shattered, and the battlefield was painted crimson with the fallen.
Yet amidst the chaos, Eve moved with an almost supernatural grace, evading the iing mortar shells with an instinct honed through countless battles. Her agility and lightning-quick reflexes allowed her to dance through the onught, avoiding the deadly explosions that surrounded her.
Amidst the destruction, the dwarves fought desperately, their voices filled with rage and desperation.
"Kill the bitch! Bring her down!" one dwarf screamed, his voice choked with anger and pain.
"We won''t let her defy us! Fight till the bitter end!" another dwarf roared, his voiceden with defiance.
But their cries were drowned out by the thunderous shes of steel and the crackling of lightning. Eve''s relentless assault continued, her hammer a blur of motion as she pressed forward, her resolve unyielding.
The dwarves, their bodies battered and broken, fought with a ferocity born of desperation. Their attacks grew increasingly erratic, fueled by a mixture of fear, rage, and the corrupted power of the crystal. Yet, one by one, they fell before Eve''s might, their once formidable war machines reduced to twisted wrecks.
Amidst the chaos and the screams of the dying, Eve''s voice rang out, cutting through the tumultuous storm.
"You should have listened to me!" she dered, her words carried by the howling winds.
But the corrupted dwarves, their hearts twisted by the allure of the crystal''s power, refused to yield. They fought on, their bloodlust blinding them to the futility of their cause.
With every strike, Eve cleaved through their defenses, her hammer crackling with the energy of the storm. The corrupted dwarves could only watch in horror as theirrades fell, their bodies broken and lifeless.
Amidst the chaos and destruction, Eve''s voice echoed once more, a warningced with sorrow.
"You could have chosen a different path, but now you must face the consequences of your actions," she said, her words carrying a weight that matched the devastation around them.
Amidst the chaos and carnage, Thorgar and Urgil, driven by their corrupted desires and twisted ambitions, mustered theirst ounces of strength to confront Eve. Their eyes burned with a mix of madness and determination as they charged towards her, their weapons raised high.
Thorgar, his face contorted with rage, swung his battle-axe with all his might, aiming to cleave Eve in two. But his attack was met with a lightning-fast parry from Eve''s hammer, the sh of their weapons resonating through the air. With a swift countermove, Eve retaliated, striking Thorgar with a powerful blow to his chest. The force of the impact sent him sprawling backward, his body crashing onto the blood-soaked ground.
Urgil, his body infused with the dark energy of the corrupted crystal, unleashed a flurry of strikes, his dual des whirling through the air. But Eve, her movements fluid and precise, effortlessly evaded his attacks, her hammer bing a blur of electrified fury. With a swift swing, she delivered a crushing blow to Urgil''s side, the crack of bones audible amidst the chaos. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath, his eyes filled with a mixture of pain and disbelief.
As the life force drained from their battered bodies, Thorgar and Urgil stared up at Eve, their faces contorted with a blend of defiance and resignation.
"We... won''t... surrender...," Thorgar gasped, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Urgil, his voice a mere whisper, managed to utter his final words. "The crystal... power... will... consume you... too..."
With those words hanging in the air, their life force extinguished, their bodies became still. Thorgar and Urgil, once filled with the promise of power and victory,y defeated in the presence of the indomitable Half Immortal.
As Eve surveyed the aftermath of the fierce battle, the battlefield was a haunting scene of devastation. The once-proud indy in ruins, scarred by the relentless conflict that had taken ce. Crumbling structures and twisted metal littered the ground, a testament to the ferocity of the sh between the corrupted dwarves and Eve''s unwavering determination.
Her gaze settled on the tower, where the mysterious crystaly concealed deep underground. It pulsed with malevolent energy, its corrupted aura palpable even from a distance. Every fiber of her being screamed for its destruction, knowing the chaos and corruption it had wrought.
With a heavy heart, Eve steeled herself for the task ahead. She would retrieve the crystal from its hiding ce beneath the tower and deliver it into the waiting hands of Mugashuku. It was a daunting responsibility, one that weighed heavily on her shoulders, but she knew it was the only way to prevent further destruction and chaos. This was a choice borne out of necessity, a grim acknowledgment that sometimes risks must be taken to preserve the greater good.
In the depths of her being, she felt a sense of trepidation. She understood the dangers of handing over such a potent artifact to Mugashuku, a being of unfathomable darkness. Yet, she also knew that the consequences of defying him would be catastrophic. The lives of countless beings, including those she held dear, hung in the bnce.
Eve''s body ached with weariness as she approached the towering structure. Every step felt heavy, each movement a struggle against the fatigue that threatened to engulf her. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and her muscles screamed in protest.
The once-imposing armor that adorned her now bore the marks of the brutal battle. It was dented and scratched, a testament to the fierce shes that had unfolded. Stains of blood, a macabre tapestry of her own and that of the fallen dwarves, marred its once-pristine surface.
Her hands, once firm and steady, trembled as she reached out to steady herself against the cold stone of the tower. Blood trickled down her brow, mingling with the sweat that coated her face. Her once-lustrous hair, now matted and disheveled, clung to her skin with dampness born of exertion.
Despite her exhaustion, her eyes burned with an unwavering determination. She refused to let weariness consume her, to surrender to the heaviness that threatened to pull her down. With every ounce of her being, she summoned the strength to continue, to press forward in her mission.
Chapter 954 The Grand Scheme Of The Previous Dark Lord
(New AHSS Chapter is out. Please read it and let me know your thoughts in thements)
Dagon materialized within the treacherous depths of hell, a ce shrouded in perpetual darkness. The hall he found himself in seemed to stretch endlessly, its walls adorned with ominous symbols and macabre motifs. The air was thick with an eerie stillness, broken only by faint whispers that seemed to echo from unseen corners.
Drawing upon his formidable power, Dagon conjured forth a ck dagger, its de gleaming with a malevolent aura. With steady determination, he pressed the de against his palm, allowing a deep crimson stream of blood to flow freely. The scarlet droplets cascaded onto the waiting skull, etched intricately upon a towering pir before him.
As the life essence merged with the skull''s etchings, an ethereal transformation took ce. Gradually, the nebulous smoke took on the form of Michael, but not as Dagon hadst seen him. This manifestation of Michael appeared more mature and seasoned, with a mane of long, flowing hair cascading down his broad shoulders. A thick beard adorned his chiseled jawline, adding an air of wisdom and authority to his countenance.
The apparition of Michael hovered above the skull, his form ethereal and untethered. His eyes, filled with an otherworldly light, locked with Dagon''s, revealing a profound understanding of the realms and his vast knowledge. It was as if the embodiment of Michael had transcended mortal limitations, bing a paragon of supernatural prowess.
In this unhallowed ce, where shadows danced, and secrets whispered in the darkness, Dagon had sessfully summoned the essence of Michael in a form that transcended time and physical constraints.
"I must confess, I never fathomed that the events foretold by you five millennia ago would unfold in such a manner today. I have encountered your younger self, the harbinger of our grand design," Dagon spoke with a mix of awe and reverence, his gaze locked upon the elder manifestation of Michael, the enigmatic Previous Dark Lord who reset the entire universe.
As Dagon uttered these words, the ancient chamber seemed to hold its breath, hanging onto every syble that resonated in the air. Shadows danced upon the walls, as if mirroring the weighty significance of their conversation. The atmosphere crackled with an undercurrent of destiny, the culmination of a meticulously crafted n set in motion eons ago.
The older Michael stood before Dagon, his presencemanding attention and respect. His eyes, filled with a timeless wisdom and ancient knowledge, pierced through the fabric of reality itself. The weight of his past and future converged in this moment, as if the essence of the ages coalesced within his being.
A subtle, enigmatic smile curled upon the lips of the elder Michael, his countenance revealing a profound sense ofprehension and confidence.
"Excellent. Knowing my own nature, I will present you with the severed head of the orc. Take it to the very spot where we first shed with the formidable Andohr," his voice resonated with the echoes of ages past, carrying the weight of countless eons.
The Previous Dark Lord spoke these words, his voice imbued with the authority and wisdom of one who had traversed the corridors of time.
"Michael, there is one thing that has weighed upon my mind for five millennia. With your immense power and my formidable army, we could have eventually conquered the realm of gods. Yet, you made the decision to reset the universe and start anew. Why?" Dagon''s voice carried a mix of curiosity, anticipation, and a hint of long-awaited satisfaction. For countless years, he had yearned for this moment to activate the artifact bestowed upon him by the Previous Dark Lord and pose this burning question.
"You already know the answer Dagon. Without Gaya by my side, there is no purpose in seeking conquest or ruling over the vast expanse of the universe," Michael''s voice carried a profound sorrow, reflected in the depths of his weary eyes. The weight of loss and longing permeated his words, a testament to the love he had shared with his wife, Gaya. The curse that had befallen her, slowly consuming her existence until her inevitable demise, had driven him to make the ultimate sacrifice - to reset the very fabric of reality. In his eyes, the pursuit of power and dominion had lost all meaning in the absence of his beloved.
Dagon''sughter echoed through the chamber, a bitter and mocking sound. "So, you reset the entire universe for one girl? All those worlds, all those lives, all for the sake of your love?" His voice dripped with sarcasm, unable toprehend the depths of Michael''s sacrifice. "You truly are a sentimental fool, sacrificing everything for a fleeting romance."
"She was not my girlfriend, Dagon. She was my wife," Michael''s voice carried a mix of sorrow and determination. The weight of his words hung in the air, revealing the depth of his connection to Gaya.
"A wife is not just apanion or a partner, Dagon," Michael said, his voice carrying a touch of wisdom.
"She is the foundation of a man''s soul, the light that illuminates his path, and the source of his strength in times of darkness. In her love and presence, a man finds sce, purpose, and the courage to face any challenge. A wife is a reflection of his deepest desires, a confidante in his deepest fears, and the embodiment of unwavering support. With her by his side, a man bes more than himself, for shepletes him in ways no other can. So, do not underestimate the power and significance of a wife, for she is the beating heart of a man''s existence."
Despite Michael''s earnest words, Dagon remained obstinate in his pursuit of power. To him, power held greater significance than any emotional connection orpanionship. The concept of love and the value of a wife were lost on him, for his heart was consumed by ambition and the thirst for supremacy. The Previous Dark Lord recognized this inherent quality in Dagon, his propensity for deception and maniption, and that was precisely why he struck a ndestine deal with him. While Dagon was oftenbeled as the devil and deceiver, Michael knew thatpared to many gods in the realm of gods, Dagon possessed a certain level of cunning and resourcefulness that made him a formidable ally. It was this mutual understanding of their shared ambitions that forged an unlikely partnership between them, where each sought to exploit the other''s strengths for their own gain.
Dagon paced back and forth, his expression filled with concern and skepticism. He couldn''tprehend why the Previous Dark Lord would opt for such a perilous n, one that carried the weight of potential destruction. With a furrowed brow, he finally voiced his apprehension.
"Michael, this n of yours is beyond risky. A single mistake could cost your current self''s life, and with it, all that we have strived for. Why would you willingly put yourself in such jeopardy?" Dagon questioned, his voice tinged with a mix of caution and confusion.
The Previous Dark Lord''s aged eyes met Dagon''s gaze, revealing a mixture of determination and resignation. Deep lines etched his weathered face, telling the story of a man burdened by the weight of his choices.
"Dagon, the stakes are high. I won''t deny that. But sometimes, great risks must be taken for even greater rewards," he replied, his voice carrying the weight of experience.
"I had witnessed countless futures, Dagon, before I made the decision to reset the universe," Michael revealed, his voice carrying the weight of his experiences.
"In all those possibilities, this is the only timeline where Gaya survives, and we attain what we have always longed for."
Dagon came to a sudden halt, his gaze fixed upon the previous Dark Lord. The air crackled with a mixture of intrigue and amusement as he locked eyes with his enigmaticpanion.
"Very well, Michael. I shall ce my trust in your vision. Now, pray tell me the next phase of this intricate n, O God of Darkness," Dagon inquired, his voiceced with a subtle hint of amusement.
"Once you arrive at the designated battleground, secure the severed head of the Orc upon the pedestal," Michael began, his voice carrying a weight of authority. "By doing so, the runes I meticulously inscribed will be activated. This will temporarily disrupt the barrier that encases the mortal realm, creating a narrow passage for you and a select portion of your forces to infiltrate their sacred domain."
Michael met Dagon''s gaze with a steady intensity, his eyes emanating ancient wisdom.
"When you reach the realm of gods, go to my temple, where you find the graces of the fallen gods. Release the graces," the previous Dark Lord elucidated, revealing the next crucial step of their audacious n. The revtion struck Dagon with an unexpected force, causing him to stagger under the weight of the revtion momentarily.
The realization that Michael had kept the graces of the fallen gods hidden within his sanctuary sent shockwaves through Dagon''s being. His mind raced, struggling toprehend the implications of such a revtion. How had Michael acquired and preserved such divine remnants? What role did these graces y in the grand tapestry of their undertaking?
Dagon''s brows furrowed, his face etched with disbelief as the weight of Michael''s admission settled upon him. The magnitude of what he had just learned sent shockwaves through his being, reverberating with a mix of awe and astonishment. The very notion that Michael had seeded in capturing the graces of the fallen gods defied the bounds ofprehension.
His eyes widened, mirroring the depths of his astonishment, as he struggled to find words to articte his incredulity. The air hung heavy with the weight of the revtion, a palpable sense of wonder permeating the space between them.
"What the fuck, Michael? You actually managed to capture the graces?" Dagon''s voice carried a tinge of disbelief and a touch of anger. "And now you want to release them? Are you out of your goddamn mind? If those graces make it to the fallen gods, they''ll regain their fucking powers in the mortal realm! The damn barrier won''t stop them from reaching their mortal bodies and turning them into gods!"
Undeterred by Dagon''s shock and the animosity that flickered in his eyes at the mention of the graces, Michael pressed on. His voice carried an unwavering conviction.
"Listen to me, Dagon. The awakening of the graces is crucial. It is the catalyst needed to propel my current self out of his goddamnfort zone and face the Skyhall. He must confront the reality of the gods'' threat, eradicate the formidable eight ns, and prepare for the ultimate battle against the divine forces," Michael''s tone grew somber, echoing with a sense of urgency.
As he spoke, a darkening aura enveloped their surroundings, the air crackling with ominous energy. Thunder rumbled in the distance, underscoring the gravity of their conversation.
"The gods must be confronted, Dagon," Michael continued his voice steady butced with an undeniable edge. "They hold immense power, and my current self must understand the magnitude of the challenge he faces. Only then can he rise to the level of godhood we envision. It is a goddamn necessity."
Michael''s words hung in the air, the weight of their significance palpable. The darkened hall seemed to vibrate with an intensity that matched the thunderous rumblings outside as if the very fabric of reality acknowledged the magnitude of their discussion.
"But don''t you fucking forget, Dagon," Michael''s voice turned deadly cold, his eyes gleaming with murderous intent. "I have a score to settle. You must uncover the origin of the goddamn curse they inflicted upon Gaya. If I were in your goddamn shoes, I''d start by interrogating one of Archer Crooke''s fucking disciples."
Archer Crooke, one of the founding members of Mazeroth, stood at the forefront of Michael''s list of targets. Alongside Ingrid Stenham, Qin Jiu, and Kargon Pavlovich, they were the insufferable quartet who had waged war against the Previous Dark Lord five thousand goddamn years ago.
As Dagon stood before the elder Michael, a flicker of unease crossed his face. Deep within the depths of his being, the raging Hell mes seethed with eternal hatred for the one who wielded the Dark mes. Yet, to Dagon''s surprise, the infernal mes remained eerily calm throughout their conversation.
Despite the overwhelming animosity pulsating within him, the Hell mes, usually wild and untamed, seemed to listen intently to Dagon''s every word. They did notsh out in a fury or attempt to consume their host. Instead, they glowed with a dim, subdued intensity, their fiery hues casting an otherworldly glow upon Dagon''s features.
It was as if the Hell mes recognized the significance of this encounter, the weight of the ancient being before them. The mes, in their primal wisdom, understood that this was not a moment for recklessness or blind aggression. They bided their time, observing with a silent, smoldering presence. While the mes yearned to incinerate the Dark mes and eradicate their opposing essence, they recognized the delicate bnce that existed in this pivotal moment. They were patient, waiting for the opportune moment to exact their vengeance, knowing that the culmination of their fiery hatred woulde in due time.
Dagon''s voice dripped with venomous fury as he confronted the elder Michael. His eyes zed with an intensity that seemed to draw upon the very essence of the Hell mes burning within him.
"And I hope your current self will keep the word you gave me all those years ago, Michael," Dagon spat, his wordsced with hatred that resonated through the dark hall. His form seemed to grow taller, a towering presence emanating power and malice. The air crackled with an electric charge, mirroring the intensity of his wrath.
The mes within Dagon surged, their fiery tendrils licking the air around him, casting an eerie glow upon his contorted features. Shadows danced menacingly, amplifying the dramatic atmosphere that enveloped them.
"Wulfric''s soul is mine!" Dagon''s voice thundered, echoing through the depths of the pit. His rage reverberated, reverberating like a tempestuous storm, shaking the very foundation of the hall. The sheer force of his words seemed to send tremors through the air, a warning of the ferocity thaty within him.
In that moment, Dagon appeared almost otherworldly, a being consumed by his own wrath, driven by a thirst for vengeance that knew no bounds. His power radiated with an undeniable force, his very presencemanding attention and evoking a mix of awe and fear.
Chapter 955 The Hardest Timeline
(New AHSS Chapter is out. Please read it and let me know your thoughts in thements)
As Michael made his triumphant return to Dagon''s castle, the air crackled with tension in the throne hall. Dagon sat upon his grand throne, an embodiment of darkness and power, his piercing gaze surveying the scene before him. With an air of nonchnce, he rested his head upon his hand, seemingly unfazed by the impending confrontation.
Without a moment''s hesitation, Michael hurled the severed head of the fearsome Orc directly into Dagon''sp, the gruesome trophynding with a sickening thud. The act was a bold disy of defiance, a statement that Michael had fulfilled his end of the bargain and expected nothing less in return.
With an unwavering gaze, Michael stood tall, his voice cutting through the heavy silence. "I held up my end of the bargain. Now, it is time for you to honor your part. Return Nightmare''s soul to us."
Buzz, standing by Michael''s side, trembled at the audacity and fearlessness disyed by the enigmatic human. Though a creature of the realm of hell, even he felt a pang of unease in the presence of Dagon. He contemted making a swift exit, but to his surprise, Dagon remained eerilyposed, an enigmatic smile ying upon his lips.
Dagon''s voice, smooth as silk andced with an underlying darkness, filled the throne hall. "Ah, Michael, you do have a way with theatrics,"
Buzz marveled at the unfolding scene, realizing that Michael possessed a hidden strength that surpassed his initial assumptions. The power dynamics of the encounter were shifting, and he found himself unable to tear his gaze away from the exchange between these formidable beings.
"Isn''t it really funny that you made a deal with the devil?" Dagon amused.
A smug grin yed upon Dagon''s lips as he observed the reaction from Michael, his brows furrowing in a mixture of annoyance and suspicion. The devilish ruler of hell found great amusement in the situation, reveling in the irony of making a deal with the very embodiment of darkness.
Before tensions could escte further, Gaya, fueled by her own righteous anger, stepped forward, ready to demand the return of Nightmare''s soul. However, Michael''s firm grip on her hand held her back, a silent reminder of the precarious nature of their situation. Though his desire burned within him, Michael understood the delicate bnce they treaded. To challenge Dagon now would be to invite cmity upon themselves. Yet, a silent promise formed in his mind¡ªa vow to bring hell to Dagon''s doorstep if ever the need arose.
However, to Michael''s surprise, Dagon did not retract his promise. With a mere snap of his fingers, the entire castle quaked, its very foundations trembling beneath their feet. The ground cracked and fissured before Michael, eliciting a cautious step back. From the depths of the fractures, a radiant ball of light emerged, pulsating with the essence of Nightmare''s soul.
A moment of silence enveloped the chamber as Michael and Gaya locked eyes with the ethereal manifestation of what they sought. It was a testament to the power and authority Dagon wielded, even in the realm of hell. The ball of light, once trapped within the confines of Nightmare''s being, now floated before them, a symbol of their triumph.
As Gaya reached out for the ethereal essence of Nightmare''s soul, a flicker of uncertainty passed across Michael''s face, his brows furrowing in contemtion. The weight of the question lingered in his mind, overshadowing the triumph of their victory. How could they safely transport the soul back to their world, evading the clutches of the treacherous realm they found themselves in?
"How do we ensure the safe passage of the soul and escape this realm?" Michael''s voice held a note of determination, his gaze fixed upon Dagon, who now stood upright, holding the severed head of the orc.
Dagon''s response came in the form of a snide remark, hisughter echoing through the chamber. The devilish ruler disyed no intention of offering a straightforward answer, leaving Michael to wrestle with the weight of their predicament. But before Michael could utter another word, Dagon vanished into thin air, leaving them with unanswered questions.
In an instant, a powerful force enveloped them, whisking them away from Dagon''s castle. The world shifted and twisted before Michael''s eyes, transforming into a solitary mountain peak. From this vantage point, the entirety of the hellish realm sprawled before him, a breathtaking yet foreboding sight.
The winds howled around him, carrying with them the whispers of ancient souls and the lingering scent of brimstone. Michael''s gaze scanned the jaggedndscape, the tumultuous depths of the abyss, and the swirling storms that painted the horizon with an ominous hue. It was a sight that both captivated and unnerved him, a constant reminder of the perilous journey thaty ahead.
A sharp cry pierced the air, breaking the stillness of the moment. Michael swiftly turned his attention to Gaya, his eyes widening in rm as he saw blood trickling from her hand. Her attempt to touch Nightmare''s soul had elicited a powerful surge of electricity that seared through her flesh, leaving behind a painful wound.
"Fucking hell," Gaya hissed through gritted teeth, her hand trembling from the shock. The sharp pang of pain mingled with frustration, and her choice of words reflected her exasperation.
Buzz, unable to contain himself, let out a chuckle at Gaya''s reaction. Hisical nature seemed to find amusement in the sh of Gaya''s fiery spirit and her sharp tongue.
"Nasty mouth for a pretty girl," Buzz remarked, a mischievous glint in his multifaceted eyes.
Gaya''s fury red at the insect''s taunting words, her eyes narrowing as she locked her gaze on Buzz.
"I will tear your limbs apart, insect," Gaya growled, her toneced with a lethal promise.
With utmost care, Michael cradled Gaya''s injured hand in his own, his touch gentle yet firm. Retrieving a vial of healing potion from his space ring, he poured its soothing contents over the wound, allowing its restorative magic to take effect. As he tended to her, a profound change urred in the sky above. The once eerie crimson hue of the hellish realm shifted to a foreboding ck, casting an unsettling pall over the surroundings. Buzz''s frantic gaze darted about, his fear mounting as the atmosphere transformed before his eyes. Thunder resounded with an ominous rumble, and jagged streaks of ck lightning sliced through the dark gray clouds above. The disconcerting sight intensified, shrouding the area in an eerie darkness that seemed to pulsate with overwhelming power.
Amidst this unsettling ambiance, the ethereal form of the Previous Dark Lord materialized before Michael, his presence stunning everyone in their tracks. His spectral figure exuded a palpable aura of ancient wisdom and indomitable power as if the very fabric of the realm acknowledged his arrival.
Buzz''s insect body quivered with fear as he beheld the overwhelming power emanating from the ethereal form of the Previous Dark Lord. His bulbous eyes widened in terror, the fear gripping his heart so tight that it felt as if his wings would fail him. Trembling legs threatened to give way beneath him, but he mustered every ounce of courage to stay rooted in ce. The sheer magnitude of the Dark Lord''s presence seemed to dwarf Buzz''s own existence, and the weight of that realization sent a shiver down his spine. It was as if the very essence of darkness and might had coalesced into a formidable entity standing before him, and the depths of Buzz''s soul quivered in response to its profound power. His wings twitched involuntarily, his breath caught in his throat, and he could only pray that he would not be the target of this being''s attention. In that moment, Buzz felt the insignificance of hisical bravado and realized the true terror thaty within the presence of one who had mastered the forces of darkness.
As the Previous Dark Lord fixed his gaze upon Gaya, a tender mixture of love, sadness, and joy flickered in his ethereal eyes. His gaze held a depth of emotion that transcended time itself, for he saw before him the very essence of his beloved Gaya, the woman he cherished with every fiber of his being. Though her appearance mirrored that of his current self''s Gaya, he knew the weight of her destiny, the curse that gued her existence in his timeline.
In that fleeting moment, the Previous Dark Lord''s heart swelled with love, his sadness stemming from the knowledge of what awaited her. Yet, intertwined with his sorrow was a profound joy, a bittersweet celebration of this unexpected encounter.
With a gentle smile, the Previous Dark Lord extended a spectral hand toward Gaya, a silent acknowledgment of their shared connection across the dimensions. Though their time together was fleeting, his love for her transcended the boundaries of existence. It was a love that defied the limitations imposed by destiny, a love that burned eternal within his immortal soul.
Lost in a whirlwind of emotions, Gaya found herself irresistibly drawn to the ethereal hand extended before her. Her own hand trembled with a mix of anticipation and uncertainty as if guided by an invisible force. In that moment, the weight of her own existence and the connection she shared with the Previous Dark Lord collided within her being.
With a mixture of curiosity and longing, Gaya extended her hand, her fingertips hovering just inches away from the incorporeal form of the Previous Dark Lord. Time seemed to stand still as her thoughts swirled in a vortex of questions and unspoken words. She yearned to feel the touch of his hand, to bridge the gap between their two worlds and grasp a fleeting moment of connection.
As Gaya''s fingertips made contact with the ethereal hand of the Previous Dark Lord, a serene smile graced his lips. His gaze, filled with a mix of love, sadness, and joy, shifted towards Michael, his current self. However, before any words were spoken, a mere wave of his hand sufficed to halt time itself, casting an epassing darkness that froze the world around them. Amidst this temporal suspension, Michael stood as the sole exception, unaffected by the shroud that enveloped them. The Previous Dark Lord drew a deep breath, his eyes meeting Michael''s, signaling the beginning of their profound encounter. In that suspended moment, an air of anticipation hung heavy as Michael''s mind brimmed with countless questions for his enigmatic past self.
Michael''s voice trembled with a mix of frustration and confusion as he confronted his previous self with a torrent of questions. "Did you know Diana was our mother?" he inquired, his wordsced with a hint of usation.
The Previous Dark Lord met Michael''s gaze steadily, his expression calm and unwavering. "Yes," he replied simply, acknowledging the truth.
Michael''s voice grew more impassioned as he pressed for answers. "Then why, in all the times we''ve met before, did you keep it from me? Why didn''t you provide a single clue or leave behind a recording revealing the truth about our family? And why, above all, did you keep Noah''s identity as my brother concealed?"
The air around them grew heavy with the weight of unspoken secrets as Michael sought answers from the depths of his own past.
"Consider this, Michael," the Previous Dark Lord replied, his voice filled with a tinge of sadness and hidden anger, his brows furrowed with deep contemtion. "Do you honestly believe that I would choose to reset the entire universe and erase my own existence without exhausting every other possibility? With the aid of the system, I have witnessed countless timelines, and in each one, I have observed that the only timeline in which Gaya survives is the very timeline you currently reside in."
The weight of his words hung in the air, carrying the weight of immense grief and the burden of a fate that had been carefully navigated. The Previous Dark Lord''s eyes held a mixture of determination and regret as he sought to convey theplexity of his choices to his current self.
"Any alterations made to this very timeline would result in the loss of the love of your life, Gaya, forever. The system has its own adversaries, powerful enemies even I, at the height of my power, struggled to confront. To safeguard you and the system, I deliberately weakened its capabilities, ensuring the omegas would be unable to trace its location or your existence."
His words echoed with a sense of urgency, emphasizing the dire consequences that tampering with the delicate bnce of the timeline could bring. The Previous Dark Lord''s eyes bore a mixture of wisdom and a deep understanding of the risks involved as he sought to impress upon Michael the gravity of their situation.
"I understand your desire for answers, Michael, but the entire point of resetting the universe was to give you a different life, separate from mine," the Previous Dark Lord exined, his voice tinged with a hint of mncholy.
"As beings like us, we are taught to maintain emotional control in all circumstances. However, witnessing the deaths of countless loved ones and the painful task of burying their remains will gradually erode your very soul,"
His words conveyed the weight of the burden he had carried, understanding the toll it took on his own heart. The Previous Dark Lord''s eyes held a mix of empathy and the wisdom gained from his own experiences, recognizing the inner struggles Michael would face along his journey.
"Even when my Gaya was cursed, She tried to retain her spirited nature, her snarky remarks aimed at making meugh," the Previous Dark Lord''s voice carried a heavy sadness. "But with every attempt, she would falter and copse, writhing in pain. In those moments, no amount of victories or the grandeur of ruling the universe held any meaning, Michael. It was an empty existence, overshadowed by the agony she endured."
The weight of his words conveyed the deep sorrow and helplessness that came with witnessing his beloved suffer. Despite all the power and control he held, the pain of seeing Gaya in such a state overshadowed any sense of aplishment or fulfillment. It was a testament to the depth of their connection and the profound impact her suffering had on him.
The current Michael''s eyes shimmered with a mixture of sadness and determination, transforming into a steely resolve. A confident smile curved his lips, radiating an air of unyielding determination.
"The tragedy that befell your Gaya will not be in vain," he dered, his voice resonating with unwavering conviction. "No matter the gods or forces that daree after her, I will ughter them all. This timeline is mine to rule, and it is in this very timeline that she thrives. When I depart from this realm, I will not only marry her, but I will show you what it means to be a fucking husband, a protector who defies fate itself."
His words echoed through the chamber, each syble brimming with an electrifying presence. The current Michael exuded an unwavering confidence, the embodiment of a warrior who had embraced his destiny and was prepared to face any challenge head-on. In that moment, he stood tall, a force to be reckoned with, ready to defy the odds and carve his own path to ensure the safety and happiness of the woman he loved.
Chapter 956 Rest In Peace Michael
(New AHSS Chapter is out. Please read it and let me know your thoughts in thements)
As the confident words of the current Michael resounded in the chamber, the previous Dark Lord felt a surge of pride wash over him. He had orchestrated events, sacrificed his own existence, and shaped the very fabric of the universe to pave the way for this moment. The conviction and determination exuded by his sessor validated his choices and gave him sce in the knowledge that his sacrifices were not in vain.
With a solemn yet satisfied smile, the previous Dark Lord addressed the current Michael. "Everything I sacrificed has led us to this moment Michael. I made many mistakes but giving ourselves a second chance was not one,"
The current Michael nodded, acknowledging the weight of his previous self''s words. However, before he could respond, the previous Dark Lord continued with a grave expression.
"Now, listen carefully, Michael. As you leave this realm, I want you to entrust Nightmare''s soul to Buzz," the previous Dark Lord instructed, his voice tinged with a sense of urgency. "He may seem cowardly and foolish, but he possesses an innate power that will prove invaluable to you in the future. Trust him, for he will y a significant role in your journey. This is not an altercation of the timeline but my advice to you,"
Michael regarded the previous Dark Lord with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. However, a sh of doubt crossed his face as he considered entrusting Nightmare''s soul to someone like Buzz.
"But Buzz...he is a coward. How can I trust him with something so important?" Michael questioned, his voice tinged with skepticism.
The previous Dark Lord''s eyes glinted with a hint of amusement as he responded, "Ah, but you see, Michael, cowards have the potential to surprise us. Their fear can drive them to acts of unexpected bravery. Loyalty, too, can be found even in the most unlikely of souls."
Curiosity piqued, Michael leaned in closer, awaiting the wisdom his previous self had to offer.
"Cowards understand the value of loyalty better than most. When pushed to their limits, they can rise above their fears and show unwavering allegiance," the previous Dark Lord exined, a flicker of intensity in his eyes. "Do not underestimate Buzz. In his ownical way, he may prove to be a steadfastpanion, willing to go to great lengths to protect what he holds dear."
Michael pondered the words of the previous Dark Lord, weighing the risks and rewards. After a moment of reflection, he nodded, epting the truth in his predecessor''s words.
As the weight of their conversation settled upon them, the previous Dark Lord gazed at Michael with a mixture of pride and sadness. He knew that this would be thest time they would stand face to face, their paths forever diverging from this point onward.
"Michael, my time here is drawing to a close. From this moment forward, you must forge your own path, guided by the lessons you''ve learned and the choices you make," the previous Dark Lord spoke with a voice filled with both conviction and a tinge of wistfulness. "You possess the strength and wisdom to shape your own destiny, and it is time for me to release the reins and fade into the annals of time."
Michael''s eyes reflected a mixture of gratitude and eptance as he realized the truth in his previous self''s words. He knew that he had been entrusted with a great responsibility and that he alone would have to face the challenges thaty ahead.
"Thank you," Michael said sincerely, his voice carrying a deep sense of appreciation. "For everything you have done, for the sacrifices you''ve made. Your guidance and wisdom have shaped me into who I am today."
A gentle smile graced the previous Dark Lord''s lips as he acknowledged Michael''s words. With a nod, he spoke softly, "Before I depart, with your permission, I would like to speak to Gaya onest time. To offer her my gratitude and share a final farewell."
Michael''s eyes softened, understanding the significance of this request. He knew that the bond between the previous Dark Lord and Gaya was unique and profound, and he respected the need for a final conversation between them.
"You have my permission," Michael replied, his voice filled with genuine warmth. "Gaya deserves to hear your words, to know that you are at peace with the choices you''ve made."
With a nod of gratitude, the previous Dark Lord acknowledged Michael''s permission. A surge of power emanated from him as he focused his energy on Gaya, releasing the frozen time around her. The world around her gradually unfroze, returning to its natural flow.
Gaya blinked in surprise as the surroundings came back to life. She felt a gentle warmth enveloping her, as if an ethereal presence had entered the space. And then, she heard a familiar voice, a voice that stirred memories and emotions deep within her heart.
The current Michael respectfully stepped aside, allowing the previous Dark Lord to approach Gaya. The ethereal figure floated gently before her, a poignant expression of love and longing etched upon his spectral features.
"Resetting the very fabric of the universe, rewriting time itself, all to have this single moment with you... It is a price I willingly paid," he whispered, his voice filled with a mixture of longing and contentment. The lines etched upon his ghostly visage told tales of hardship and determination, of a love that defied the boundaries of existence.
The currents of time seemed to stand still, as the previous Dark Lord and Gaya remained locked in a gaze that spoke volumes, words unspoken yet understood.
"Thank you, Gaya. Your love and understanding give me sce in the knowledge that our connection transcends time itself. You are the me that will forever burn in my heart. I have seen countless timelines and you loved me more than I loved you in every single one," As the previous Dark Lord spoke these words, his voice started to stutter.
As their conversation drew to a close, Gaya could sense the ethereal presence of the previous Dark Lord fading away. But the love they shared remained, a timeless bond that defied the constraints of reality.
With a heavy heart, the previous Dark Lord whispered his final words. "Goodbye, Gaya. i will always be with you and always love you,"
Although the current Gaya had no recollection of the previous Gaya''s experiences with the previous Dark Lord, a deep sense of love and connection resonated within her. As tears welled up in her eyes, she gazed into the ethereal eyes of the fading form before her. In that poignant moment, she could feel the weight of their shared history and the immense love that had transcended time. The tears spilled over, rolling down her cheeks as she silently bid farewell to the previous Dark Lord, knowing that their love would forever remain etched in the depths of her soul.
As the form of the previous Dark Lord began to fade, Gaya and Michael approached him, their faces filled with a mix of gratitude and sadness. They stood side by side, their hands gently sped, as they bid farewell to the one who had orchestrated their path and sacrificed so much for their sake.
"Thank you," Gaya whispered, her voice filled with emotion. "Thank you for everything. Your sacrifices will never be forgotten."
Michael nodded in agreement, his voice filled with gratitude. "Rest in peace, Michael. I got this,"
The previous Dark Lord smiled, his ethereal presence growing fainter with each passing moment. "Remember, the future is yours to shape. Embrace the darkness, cherish the love, and hold your family close,"
With a final nod of understanding, Gaya and Michael watched as the form of the previous Dark Lord dissipated into the ethereal realm. Though their hearts were heavy with the weight of his absence, they carried his teachings and love within them as they prepared to face the challenges thaty ahead.
When the ethereal form of the previous Dark Lord dissipated into the air, a small metallic ck skull materialized on the ground where he had been floating. Its intricate design reflected an aura of ancient power and mysterious knowledge. Michael''s eyes widened as he beheld the enigmatic artifact, drawn to its presence.
With a mix of anticipation and trepidation, Michael reached down and picked up the skull, feeling its cool, smooth surface against his palm. As soon as he held it, a surge of energy coursed through his being. Visions shed in his mind, revealing a portal shimmering with otherworldly light.
"What is it?" Gaya asked. Gaya, still reeling from the emotional farewell with the previous Dark Lord, turned her attention to the floating ball of light beside her. It was Nightmare''s soul, a delicate and powerful essence that held a part of their dear friend within it. A sense of responsibility washed over her, urging her to ensure its safekeeping.
Curiosity tinged with confusion filled Buzz''s eyes as he observed Michael and Gaya, waiting for an exnation. Michael, realizing the weight of the task at hand, looked at Buzz with a determined gaze, his voice filled with purpose. Gaya stood inplete disbelief upon hearing Michael''s request to entrust Nightmare''s soul to Buzz, a mosquito who often portrayed himself as a fearless warrior despite his cowardly nature. However, deep down, Gaya understood that if Michael had chosen Buzz for this crucial task, there must be a valid reason behind it.
"Buzz, we need your help. This soul," Michael gestured towards the radiant orb, "belongs to Nightmare. We entrust you with its safekeeping until we return to the realm of hell. Keep it with you, protect it, and ensure its preservation until we can bring it back to our world."
Buzz''spound eyes widened even further as Michael''s request sank in. He nced at the radiant orb, then back at Michael, desperately searching for a way out of this responsibility. His wings buzzed nervously as he began to stammer and mumble, trying toe up with excuses.
"Oh, um... Michael, you know, I''d love to help, really, I would," Buzz started, his voice shaky. "But, you see, I have this... uh... important mission to, uh, rid the realm of hell of pesky fleas! Yes, fleas! They''re terrorizing the underworld, and only a fearless warrior like me can defeat them!"
Meanwhile, Gaya, shocked and concerned about entrusting Nightmare''s soul to Buzz, couldn''t contain her worries any longer. She pulled Michael to the side, her voice filled with apprehension. "Michael, are you sure about this? I mean, Buzz... he''s not exactly the most reliable choice for such an important task. Are we really putting the fate of Nightmare''s soul in his hands?"
Michael''s expression remained serious as he met Gaya''s concerned gaze. "I understand your reservations, Gaya, but believe me, this is the best way. Before Michael faded away, he advised me to entrust Nightmare''s soul with Buzz. It may seem unconventional, but we have to trust him,"
Gaya furrowed her brows, contemting Michael''s words. She knew that the previous Dark Lord, had unrivaled knowledge and foresight. If he had specifically mentioned Buzz, there must have been a reason behind it.
"But Michael," Gaya pressed, her voice filled with lingering doubt, "Buzz is a coward. How can we expect him to protect something so precious? It just doesn''t add up."
Michael sighed, understanding Gaya''s concerns. "I know it seems counterintuitive, but Michael''s words emphasized that sometimes courage hides behind a facade of fear. Buzz may not appear heroic, but he possesses something that can surprise us all. Besides, I don''t see a way of bringing Nigthmare''s soul back to our world. Remember what Elidyr said, a soul cannot pass through a teleportation portal without special rituals,"
Gaya looked at Buzz, who was still trying to muster the courage to ept the responsibility, and then back at Michael. Reluctantly, she nodded, her expression filled with a mixture of worry and hope. "Alright, Michael, I''ll trust your judgment. If he believed in Buzz, then perhaps there''s more to him than meets the eye. I just hope he doesn''t identally squish the soul or get distracted by a passing firefly."
Michael chuckled, appreciating Gaya''s humor in the face of uncertainty. Finally, Michael returned to Buzz and asked him one more time to take Nightmare''s soul with him. End of the day, Buzz knew the realm of hell better than Michael and Gaya.
Gaya''s reluctant trust in Michael''s judgment hung in the air as Michael turned back to Buzz. The giant mosquito was still fidgeting nervously, his wings buzzing in agitation. Michael took a deep breath and approached Buzz, his voice firm but gentle.
"Buzz, I understand your concerns, but we have no choice. You possess knowledge of the realm of hell that Gaya and Ick. You know its intricacies and hidden dangers. It''s essential that you take Nightmare''s soul with you,"
Buzz''s wings buzzed with nervous energy as he scratched the back of his head, trying toe up with another excuse. "You see, Michael, I appreciate the confidence you have in me, but I just remembered that I have a priormitment to... um, exterminating pesky vampire bats in the underworld! Yes, that''s it!"
Michael raised an eyebrow, a glimmer of amusement dancing in his eyes. "Buzz, you may pretend to be fearless, but we both know you''d rather buzz away from danger than confront it head-on."
Buzz tried to maintain his faux bravado, puffing out his miniature chest. "Well, Michael, that''s just... an unfair characterization of my heroism. You see, I possess a tactical retreat strategy that is unparalleled in the all hell. It''s called ''strategic buzzing away,"
Michael pondered for a moment, his mind working through various approaches to convince Buzz. Suddenly, an idea struck him¡ªa way to tap into the mosquito''s desires and manipte his interests.
"Buzz," Michael said, his voice filled with a newfound enthusiasm, "if you agree to take on this task and protect Nightmare''s soul, I will use my influence to free you from the clutches of hell. No longer will you be confined to this godforsaken ce that you so despise. Imagine, Buzz, a life outside of hell''s torment and misery."
Buzz''spound eyes widened at the mention of escaping hell. The thought of leaving behind the eternal mes and the constant buzzing of restless souls ignited a spark of hope within him. His wings buzzed with excitement as he imagined a life beyond the torment of his current existence.
"And that''s not all," Michael continued, his voice carrying an air of mischief. "In my world, you will be revered as a great and fearless warrior. Picture this, Buzz: beautiful girls from every kingdom, lined up to be with you. They''ll be mesmerized by your tales of heroic deeds and your legendary status. You''ll have your pick, every single day!"
As the words settled in, Buzz''spound eyes glistened with anticipation. The mere mention of beautiful girls had him hooked. Thoughts of being the center of attention, adored by admirers, and surrounded by a bevy of royal suitors filled his imagination.
"Really?" Buzz stammered, his wings fluttering with a mix of excitement and disbelief. "You mean... I could have all that? Freedom from this inferno and an endless supply of adoringdies?"
Michael nodded, his expression ying up the allure of the proposition. "Absolutely, Buzz. It''s yours for the taking. All you need to do is agree to safeguard Nightmare''s soul and ensure its preservation. The rewards that await you are beyond your wildest dreams."
Buzz''sical facade crumbledpletely as he imagined himself basking in the glory of his newfound heroism and the attention of countless beautifuldies. He couldn''t resist the temptation, and a mischievous grin spread across his mosquito face.
"Oh, Michael, you had me at ''beautiful girls''!" Buzz eximed, his voice filled with excitement. "Who needs that cheating bitch of a girlfriend of mine when I can have a harem of heaven-defying beauties? I''ll need to get a notepad to keep track of them all! This is going to give me quite the headache, but it''s a headache I''m willing to endure!"
Gaya couldn''t help butugh at Buzz''s overzealous response. She shook her head, a mixture of amusement and disbelief on her face. "Oh, Buzz, I''m sure it will be such a burden for you to choose from your legion of adoringdies. Don''t strain yourself too much!"
Michael couldn''t contain his amusement either, chuckling at Buzz''s exaggerated excitement. He patted Buzz''s tiny shoulder, his voice filled with a hint of mischief. "Remember, Buzz, with great poweres great responsibility. You''ll have to navigate the treacherous waters of your newfound poprity. But fear not, for we will be there to guide you."
Buzz nodded eagerly, his wings buzzing with anticipation. "Absolutely, Michael! I''m ready for the challenges thate with being a legendary warrior with a horde of devoted fans. I''ll take on this responsibility with all the courage I can muster!"
As the trio set off on their journey, Michael couldn''t help but marvel at his sessful maniption. He had tapped into Buzz''s desires and used them to motivate the hesitant mosquito. Little did Buzz know that the world Michael promised might not be exactly as he imagined. Still, Michael couldn''t deny the satisfaction of seeing Buzz''s genuine excitement and willingness to take on the task.
Chapter 957 Leaving The Realm Of Hell
(New AHSS chapters are out. Please read them and let me know your thoughts in thements)
Nightmare''s soul appeared to possess a sense of sentience as it floated alongside the trio, following them toward the portal that had been opened by the previous Dark Lord. As Michael and Gaya approached the portal, Gaya turned towards the radiant orb of light, her voice filled with affection.
"Goodbye for now, little lizard," Gaya said softly, her tone carrying a mixture of reassurance and longing. "I promise you. We will return soon to bring you out of this wretched ce. Hang in there!"
Buzz, unable to resist the opportunity for another wittyment, interjected with a mischievous grin on his mosquito face. "And don''t worry, soul buddy! While they''re gone, I''ll be here protecting you from all the fiendish hell walkers in hell! They won''t darey a hand on you!"
Michael rolled his eyes, ustomed to Buzz''s humorous remarks, but couldn''t help but chuckle. "Buzz, I assure you, Nightmare''s soul will be safe in your capable... well, your hands," he replied, adding a touch of sarcasm to his words.
Buzz, always the opportunist when it came to matters of beauty, couldn''t help but bring up the subject again. "By the way, Michael, when Ie to your world, are there any other handsome mosquitoes that I should be worried about? I wouldn''t want anypetition when ites to attracting all those lovelydies!"
Michael couldn''t help but shake his head, a smirk ying on his lips. "Buzz, my dear friend, you will be the epitome of mosquito handsomeness in my world. There won''t be any rivals for your charm and wit, I can assure you."
Buzz''spound eyes lit up with excitement, and he straightened his giant frame, puffing out his chest. "Ah, excellent! Just as I suspected. No mosquito canpare to my dazzling allure! Brace yourselves,dies, for the legendary Buzz, the suavest mosquito warrior in all the realms!"
Gaya and Michael exchanged amused nces, realizing that Buzz''s sense of self-confidence was as exaggerated as ever. But at that moment, they couldn''t help but appreciate the camaraderie and lightheartedness Buzz brought to their mission.
As the trio prepared to part ways, Michael and Gaya entered the portal while Buzz remained behind in the realm of hell, Buzz waved them off with aical flourish of his wings. "Farewell, my courageouspanions! I''ll keep Nightmare''s soul safe and sound. And when you return, be prepared to hear tales of my heroic escapades and conquests!"
With that, they bid their temporary goodbyes, each filled with their own hopes and fears for the journey ahead. Little did they know that the road they were embarking on would be fraught with danger, surprises, and the undeniable charm of a mosquito who pretended to be a fearless warrior.
**************************************
A year had passed in the outside world since Michael and Gaya had ventured into the realm of hell. The passage of time within the infernal realm was distorted, with every hour spent there equivalent to a month in the world beyond. Thus, although Michael''s actual presence in hellsted only 12 hours, a significant year had psed in the realm of mortals.
The floating mountain, Michael''s majestic abode, stood as a breathtaking spectacle amidst the tumultuous dark ocean. It defied gravity, hovering with an air of both mystique and grandeur. Shaped like an enormous sword, the mountain seemed to pierce the very heavens, its towering formmanding attention and awe.
From afar, one could witness the castle that adorned the floating mountain, an ambitious construction project undertaken by diligent dwarves. However, the castle''spletion had been halted prematurely, leaving it only a third finished. The architectural marvel appeared as a blend of craftsmanship and exposed scaffolding, showcasing the aspirations and work-in-progress nature of its creation.
The floating mountain remained suspended above the dark ocean, a tumultuous expanse where tempestuous forces reigned supreme. Endless storm clouds cast an eerie ambiance, shrouding the sky in perpetual darkness. Lightning crackled across the firmament, illuminating the churning waves below. Tornadoes spun wildly, their spiraling fury whipping up powerful winds that howled through the expanse.
The dark ocean, in all its tumult, was a sight to behold. The waters roiled with ferocity, churning with monstrous waves that crashed against each other in a tumultuous dance. Foam and mist sprayed into the air, caught in the relentless assault of the raging storm. It was a ce where chaos and power intermingled, reflecting the nature of the Dark Lord who resided within the floating mountain.
As one gazed upon the scene, the imposing presence of the floating mountain and the dark ocean invoked a sense of both dread and fascination. It was a testament to the might and dominion of the God of Darkness, an embodiment of the formidable forces thaty under his control.
The vampires, members of the Dark Lord''s formidable army, swirled through the air around the floating mountain in an intricate dance. d in flowing ck robes that trailed behind them, they seemed to meld seamlessly with the shadows, their presence both stealthy and foreboding.
As they patrolled the mountain, the vampires moved with an ethereal grace, their movements fluid and precise. Their paleplexions stood out against the dark backdrop, giving them an otherworldly appearance. The absence of wings did not hinder their aerial maneuvers; instead, they seemed to glide effortlessly through the air, defying gravity with an unearthly prowess.
Their vignt eyes scanned the surroundings, their gaze piercing through the shrouds of darkness. Each vampire possessed heightened senses, ever alert to any potential threats. Their allegiance to the Dark Lord bound them together, their loyalty unwavering as they carried out their duties.
Unbeknownst to the vampires, a change was on the horizon. They continued their patrol, unaware that the Dark Lord was on the precipice of returning from the depths of hell. The imminent arrival of their leader would soon bring upheaval and renewed purpose to their ranks, altering the very fabric of their existence.
Elidyr diligentlybored over a device adorned with intricate runes within the portal room. Unbeknownst to him, his task was on the verge of being rendered obsolete, for the Dark Lord, Michael, was on the brink of returning to their world. As Elidyr immersed himself in the delicate intricacies of the runes, a sudden surge of energy rippled through the portal and set the silver outline aze with an ethereal glow.
Startled, Elidyr staggered backward as the portal radiated an intense brilliance, casting a cascade of shimmering lights across the room. A swirling vortex, dark as the abyss itself, materialized within the portal''s confines. Powerful winds gushed forth, ruffling Elidyr''s golden robes and tousling his brown hair. He could scarcely believe his eyes as two figures emerged from the tumultuous vortex¡ªit was none other than his esteemed lord, the Dark Lord, and his queen, the enigmatic Dark Queen Gaya.
Gasping in astonishment, Elidyr stood transfixed, his heart pounding within his chest. The sight of their return was a revtion, their imposing presence casting an aura of both power and authority upon the room. The Dark Lord cloaked in darkness, exuded an aura ofmanding strength, while the Dark Queen, a vision of ethereal beauty, radiated an air of mysterious allure. The atmosphere crackled with anticipation as the long-awaited reunion between master and loyal servant unfolded within the portal room.
Elidyr stood frozen in stunned disbelief, his mind struggling to process the sight before him. It took him several heartbeats toprehend that the Dark Lord, his master and dear friend, had returned. Overwhelmed with a mix of emotions, Elidyr''s astonishment gave way to overwhelming joy and relief. With a surge of determination, he rushed toward Michael, his loyal heart brimming with love and respect.
"My Lord, mydy! You have returned," Elidyr eximed, his voiceced with a mixture of astonishment and reverence. To the outside world, Michael was the fearsome Dark Lord, a figure of terror and power. But to Elidyr, he was more than that¡ªhe was like a son and a student. The bond they shared was one of mentorship and kinship, making Michael''s sudden reappearance a flood of conflicting emotions for Elidyr.
Unaware of the passage of time, Michael was taken aback by Elidyr''s state. Confusion flickered in his eyes as he absorbed the sight of his devoted mentor kneeling before him. Only then did he realize the magnitude of his absence and its impact on those who cared for him. Overwhelmed by a sense of both gratitude and guilt, Michael extended a hand to Elidyr, urging him to rise.
Observing Elidyr''s reaction, a furrow formed on Michael''s brow as he realized the potential implications of their time apart. With a sinking feeling in his gut, he braced himself for the shocking revtion that was about to unfold.
"How long was I gone?" Michael''s voice carried a mix of trepidation and anticipation as he turned to Elidyr, his trusted mentor.
Elidyr''s reply hung heavily in the air, stunning both Gaya and Michael with its weight. "A year, my lord," he answered, his voice filled with a mix of respect and concern.
"Fuck," Gaya''s exmation punctuated the room, her frustration and disbelief echoing in the air. The impact of the news hit Michael like a bolt of lightning, his mind racing toprehend the implications of an entire year lost to the realms beyond.
A swirl of thoughts and emotions coursed through Michael''s mind. He couldn''t help but wonder what had transpired in their absence, what changes had taken ce, and what challenges awaited them. The weight of the unknown loomed heavy upon his shoulders, and a sense of urgency ignited within him.
As the presence of his master engulfed the room, Azazel, the loyal demon butler, materialized before Michael, his eyes filled with reverence. With a graceful genuflection, he knelt down, recognizing the return of his esteemed lord.
"My lord," Azazel''s voice resonated with deference and dedication.
Michael''s expression turned serious, his focus shifting to the pressing matters at hand. He acknowledged Azazel''s presence but wasted no time with pleasantries. His voice carried an authoritative tone as he issued hismand.
"Summon everyone to the meeting hall immediately," Michael dered, his words brooking no opposition. "I want to know everything that happened while we were gone,"
Elidyr and Azazel, both aware of the urgency in Michael''s voice, nodded in unison, understanding the gravity of the situation. They swiftly rose to their feet, their unwavering loyalty shining through their determined gazes. Without a word, they departed from the room, each tasked with the responsibility of gathering the necessary individuals and rying Michael''s order.
After Azazel and Elidyr left the room, another figure entered, and to Michael''s pleasant surprise, it was Eve, his dearest friend. The sight of her warmed his heart, and a genuine smile spread across his face. When Eve saw Michael and Gaya alive and well, her emotions overcame her, and she hurriedly made her way toward them.
Eve''s eyes shimmered with tears of relief, mirroring the overwhelming joy that radiated from her. With each step, her pace quickened, driven by a deep longing to hold them both tightly in her embrace. Finally reaching them, she enveloped Michael and Gaya in a heartfelt hug, her grip conveying the depth of her emotions.
Tears streamed down Eve''s face as she clung to them, her voice quivering with a mixture of happiness, worry, and affection. "I knew it. I just knew it! You didn''t leave me. You bastards. Promise me you won''t scare me like that again!"
Her words were infused with a yful scolding, a testament to their unbreakable bond and the relief she felt at their safe return.
As Eve tightly embraced Michael, another presence entered the room, but this time it was not a human. In a flurry of excitement, Vedora, the three-headed hydra, made their entrance.
"You fucking bastards,"
The sudden exmation from Ayag''s head interrupted Eve''s embrace, drawing everyone''s attention. Gazing at Vedora, Gaya couldn''t help but smile, knowing the affectionate nature of the hydra. With a burst of energy, Vedora soared through the air, pping their tiny wings, until they crashed into Gaya, showering her with wet kisses. Each head nuzzled Gaya, expressing their deep longing and how much they had missed her during the past year.
Gaya reciprocated their love, herughter filling the room as she was yfully smothered with affection. Vedora''s heads then turned their attention to Michael, leaping from Gaya to him, eager to bestow upon him the same treatment of kisses and hugs. Even Ayag, known for their usual quick temper and sharp tongue, joined in, expressing her fondness for Michael through their unexpected disys of affection.
The room was filled with a joyous reunion, where the bond between Gaya, Michael, and Vedora was reaffirmed. The hydra''s presence brought an undeniable warmth to the atmosphere, reminding them all of the love andpanionship they shared, regardless of their different forms.
"We have found Nightmare," Gaya''s words pierced through the joyous atmosphere, and Vedora''s shower of kisses came to an abrupt halt. As Gaya announced the discovery of Nightmare, Vedora''s three heads froze in ce, their eyes locked on Gaya with unwavering intensity.
"What?" Ayag''s voice trembled with disbelief, mirroring the surge of emotions that welled up within Vedora''s heart. Though Vedora was a hydra and Nightmare a dragon, the bond they shared was akin to that of siblings. It was only after Nightmare''s untimely demise that Vedora realized the depth of their love for him. Now, upon hearing Gaya''s revtion, a whirlwind of emotions swept through their being.
At that moment, Sarba, Ayag, and Cain, each head of Vedora, experienced a surge of conflicting feelings. Hope intermingled with lingering grief, and the bittersweet taste of longing permeated their thoughts. They had missed Nightmare dearly, and the mere possibility of his return ignited a flicker of hope within their hearts.
Vedora''s heads, usually lively and animated, now remained motionless, their expressions filled with a mix of anticipation, disbelief, and a longing for the reunion they had never thought possible. Their eyes, reflecting aplex tapestry of emotions, conveyed a silent plea for confirmation, yearning to be assured that Nightmare''s soul had indeed been found.
As the room filled with anticipation and Vedora''s emotions swirled in the wake of Gaya''s announcement, Eve stood frozen in ce, her eyes widening with a mixture of shock and disbelief. The words echoed in her mind, and her heart skipped a beat as the weight of the news sank in.
A torrent of emotions washed over Eve, leaving her momentarily speechless. She had thought Nightmare was lost forever, never to be seen again. The thought of his return, even if only his soul, was nothing short of miraculous. Eve''s hands instinctively clutched at her chest as her breathing grew shallow, struggling toprehend the enormity of the revtion.
With trembling hands, Eve reached out for Gaya''s arm, her voice barely a whisper. "You... you found him? Nightmare? He''s... he''s reallying back?"
Gaya nodded solemnly, her eyes filled with understanding. She grasped Eve''s hand in a reassuring gesture, offering her a silentfort amidst the overwhelming emotions. Though Gaya couldn''t reveal the full extent of their journey to hell and their challenges just yet, she knew that the news carried a weight that couldn''t be taken lightly.
"Later, I will share the full story with you. But right now, I need to catch up on everything that happened while I was away," Michael stated, his voice filled with determination as he led the way out of the room. By his side, Eve, his loyal and trusted best friend, and Gaya, his beloved partner, walked alongside him. Perched atop his shoulder, Vedora, the three-headed hydra, remained vignt and attentive.
As they made their way through the corridors, a sense of urgency filled the air. Michael''s absence had left a void, and now he sought to fill it with the knowledge of what transpired during his time away.
Chapter 958 Skyhall鈥檚 Execution Team
(New AHSS chapters are out. Please read them and let me know your thoughts in thements)
As Michael and Gaya entered the meeting hall, a hushed silence fell upon their subordinates who were gathered around therge, dark chamber. The room exuded an air of mystery, with dimly lit torches casting flickering shadows on the stone walls. A round stone table dominated the center of the hall, its surface adorned with intricate engravings depicting a colossal skull. The table served as a solemn centerpiece, symbolizing the gravity of the discussions that took ce within these walls.
The subordinates, their faces etched with astonishment and disbelief, upied their seats around the table. The thrones, crafted from the bones and skulls of long-forgotten creatures, stood as eerie reminders of the power and authority that resided within this chamber. Each throne was meticulously ced, awaiting the arrival of their leaders, the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen.
As their gazes fixed upon Michael and Gaya, a mixture of shock, disbelief, and relief swept through the room. The subordinates had endured a year filled with uncertainty, believing their Dark Lord and Dark Queen had perished in Nagnd under the devastating assault of a mysterious ship''s energy beam. Yet, here they stood, alive and resolute, defying the expectations of the world that presumed them lost.
Aria, the Queen of Shadows, scanned the room with her piercing eyes, her demeanor reflecting a blend of determination and loyalty. Maxine, the Queen of Power, wore a resolute expression, ready to unleash her talents in service of their cause. Tiberius, the King of War, sat tall and formidable, embodying strength and unwavering resolve. Dr, the King of the Undead, exuded an aura of darkness and mystery, his undead minions lurking in the shadows. Sadie, the Queen of Whispers, observed the scene with a calcting gaze, aware of the secrets she held and the power they conferred.
The remaining subordinates, Ricky, Titus, Optimus, Corey, Gibson, Saber, and Trista, each bore their own emotions¡ªshock, gratitude, curiosity, and a renewed sense of purpose. They had weathered the storm of uncertainty in their leaders'' absence, uncertain of what the future held. And now, as they witnessed Michael and Gaya''s return, a glimmer of hope ignited within their hearts. The absence of Caius and Adelia did not dampen the significance of the moment, for the presence of their esteemed leaders alone ignited a renewed sense of purpose and hope within their hearts.
The air crackled with anticipation, and the room filled with palpable energy. The subordinates were keenly aware that this moment marked a turning point¡ªa chance to rebuild, establish order, and fulfill their roles in the grand design orchestrated by the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen.
Michael scanned the room and saw the countless question each subordinate had and their shocked looks. But what made Michael feel unease was the absence of Adelia and Caius. He approached his throne as Azazel took a step forward and stood behind Michael and Gaya''s thrones as they sat down. Once Michael took his throne, he locked his gaze with his subordinates.
Michael''s gaze swept across the room, taking in the multitude of questioning eyes and stunned expressions on the faces of his subordinates. The air crackled with an undercurrent of unease, amplified by the absence of Adelia and Caius. A sense of foreboding settled over him, intensifying his determination to uncover the truth.
Stepping forward, he approached his throne with Azazel, his loyal demon butler, standing firmly behind, offering unwavering support to their rulers. As Michael settled onto his throne, the weight of his gaze bore into the subordinates, demanding an answer.
"Where is Adelia and Caius?" Michael asked.
The weight of the silence pressed upon them, as if each subordinate hesitated to answer the pressing question regarding Adelia and Caius. It was an ufortable pause, brimming with unspoken truths. Unable to bear the silence any longer, Gaya''s voice pierced the air like an icy de, her tone cold andmanding. The resounding thud of her hand mming against the stone table jolted the room, capturing the attention of everyone present.
"Where is my mother?" Gaya coldly growled.
The subordinates flinched, their bodies involuntarily reacting to the sudden disy of authority. Gaya''s question reverberated through the room, each word dripping with determination and concern for her missing mother. A sense of urgency underscored her cold growl, fueling the tension that hung heavy in the air.
Finally, Azazel, ever faithful and observant, mustered the courage to respond. His voice carried a hint of reluctance as he ryed the troubling information.
"Mydy, she left the castle without warningst week," Azazel spoke, his voice filled with a mix of respect and unease. "Despite my efforts to dissuade her, she remained resolute, even going so far as to remove her Spyder ne."
The revtion hung heavily in the air, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the room. The significance of Adelia''s sudden departure and her deliberate act of severing ties with the order left an unsettling void. Michael''s mind raced with questions, his thoughts intertwined with a sense of urgency and worry. The absence of Adelia, Gaya''s mother and a vital member of their collective, only added to theplexities they faced.
"She can take care of herself," Michael reassured Gaya
Despite Gaya''s inherent knowledge of her mother''s strength, Michael''s reassurance brought her a sense of sce. Adelia, being a Half Immortal on the cusp of reaching the Immortal stage, possessed a power that few could match. Gaya''s anxiety began to dissipate as she absorbed Michael''s unwavering confidence. With a brief exchange of nces, their unspoken understanding was reaffirmed, and Michael redirected his attention to the gathered subordinates.
As his gaze traversed the room, Michael''s piercing eyes locked onto Sadie, his trusted source of information.
"Sadie, where is Caius?" The weight of his inquiry hung in the air, the silence echoing with anticipation. Sadie, visibly trembling, summoned her courage and took a deep breath before delivering her response.
"The Skyhall... they hanged him alive, my lord. Caius is no longer among us," Sadie''s voice carried a somber weight, her words piercing the heavy silence that had enveloped the room.
Gaya''s reaction was immediate, her features contorted with a mix of shock and fury. The room seemed to shudder in response as if reflecting her emotions. The torches lining the walls flickered, casting eerie shadows that danced upon the stone surfaces. At that moment, ominous darkness seemed to envelop the chamber, amplifying the gravity of the news.
The realization of Caius''s demise, a loyal member of their ranks, ignited a me of fury within Gaya, its intensity threatening to consume her.
Yet, amidst the storm of emotions, Michael remained resolute, his countenance betraying little of the turmoil that churned within. His gaze held an eerie stillness, a mask of detachedposure. And as the torches flickered and momentary darkness shrouded the room, a sense of foreboding descended, an intangible darkness that mirrored the anguish that seeped into their collective consciousness.
In that instant, the subordinates witnessed the contrasting reactions of their leaders. Gaya''s anger, palpable and unrestrained, collided with Michael''s cold detachment.
Michael''s piercing gaze swept across the room. His voiceced with an icy calmness as he addressed his subordinates. The weight of their presence and the gravity of the news hung heavy in the air, demanding answers.
"Tell me, what else happened in our absence?" Michael''s words cut through the lingering silence, his tone brooking no resistance.
Maxine, with her keen knowledge of the world''s affairs, was the first to speak up. Her voice trembled slightly as she ryed the disconcerting events that unfolded during their absence.
"The Skyhall, my Lord, used Caius of coborating with you, serving as your ally. In response, they dispatched a specialized execution team that hanged Caius and the senators of Kingdom Gisel and Maven," Maxine''s voice carried a mixture of grief and anger, the loss of a trustedrade weighing heavily upon her words.
After Maxine, Sadie spoke up. Her eyes shimmered with a hint of darkness. She added to the growing list of unsettling changes that had urred.
"Not only that, my Lord, but the Skyhall also dismantled all the sects across the realm. They forced the disciples to attend academies in the Akn realm, including Mazeroth, for further cultivation and training. The prestigious Sunrise sect, where you were once a student, was not spared,"
"Fortunately, we were able to bring Sect Leader ire to the castle before the Skyhall could arrest her. But the elders and ire''s grandfather Christopher was not so lucky," said Sadie.
As the words hung in the air, Michael''s face remained stoic, betraying no hint of emotion. Yet, deep within his eyes, a storm brewed. The news of Skyhall''s actions, particrly the dismantling of the sects, struck a raw nerve within him. The darkness that surrounded them seemed to grow denser, almost palpable, mirroring the weight of his thoughts.
His grip tightened on the armrest of his throne, his fingers digging into the cold, unforgiving bone. The room, already shrouded in darkness, seemed to absorb the news, amplifying the sense of foreboding that filled the air. It was as if the shadows themselves were drawn closer, seeking sce in their master''s unyielding presence.
"Fortunately, we managed to bring Sect Leader ire to the safety of the castle before the Skyhall could apprehend her. However, the elders and ire''s grandfather, Christopher, were not as fortunate," Sadie informed Michael, her voice tinged with a mix of relief and sorrow.
Upon hearing the news, a wave of relief washed over Michael. Sect Leader ire held a special ce in his heart, having been like a caring older sister to him during his time in the Sunrise sect. Knowing that she was safe brought a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness that loomed over them.
In the depths of his being, Michael silently vowed to himself that he would not rest until he rescued the captured elders and Christopher from the clutches of the Skyhall. Their unjust fate ignited a fire within him, fueling his determination to dismantle the oppressive power that sought to control and suppress.
"What else?" Michael coldly asked as Tiberius continued. His gaze was steady and resolute as he addressed the shattered kingdoms under the Senate''s rule.
"The Senate''s kingdoms have been divided and handed over to the Three Kings of the Southern Continent. Their power has increased, and the bnce of authority has shifted," Tiberius'' voice resonated with authority, his role as a warrior and leader lending weight to his words.
As Michael absorbed the weight of the devastating news, his expression remained eerily calm, unyielding to the torrent of emotions that raged within his subordinates. The room fell into a hushed silence, each member of the Order fixated on their leader with incredulous eyes. They had expected rage, despair, or even a flicker of anguish to mar hisposed facade, but instead, they were met with a stoic resolve.
The shock and astonishment were palpable, hanging heavy in the air like an oppressive fog. Whispers were exchanged among the subordinates. Their voices were hushed with a mix of disbelief and awe. How could the Dark Lord remain soposed, so unfazed by the dire circumstances that had befallen their world? It seemed unfathomable to witness such a disy of unwaveringposure in the face of overwhelming adversity.
Finally, Michael inquired about Noah and his family.
"What happened to Noah and his family?" Michael''s voice carried a hint of trepidation as he inquired about Noah and his family. The subordinates exchanged uneasy nces, well aware of theplex history that had unfolded a year ago in Nagnd. It had been revealed that Noah Winston, the Supreme Guardian entrusted with the task of vanquishing the Dark Lord, was, in fact, Michael''s long-lost brother. The revtion had shaken their world to its core, and the truth hade to light through Diana, who had unveiled herself as Michael''s mother.
However, the aftermath of this revtion was fraught with tension and unresolved emotions. Michael had steadfastly refused to acknowledge the Winstons as his family, unable to forgive Diana for the decision she had made, casting him aside and sending him to Earth when he was just an infant. This refusal to ept them as his kin hung heavily in the air, casting a shadow over any discussion involving Noah and his family.
The subordinates hesitated, their expressions mirroring the delicate nature of the topic at hand. It was a tightrope they navigated, torn between loyalty to their leader and the intricate web of familial ties that had been unveiled. Eyes darted back and forth, seeking guidance or permission to speak on the matter, yet apprehension lingered in the room like an unwee guest.
After a tense pause, it was Sadie who mustered the courage to address Michael''s query, her voiceced with caution. "My lord," Sadie began, her voice tinged with trepidation,
"Noah and his family... The elders and the alpha guardians have relieved Noah of his duties as the Supreme Guardian. The Skyhall''s execution team has apprehended Ethan Winston and the others, but their current whereabouts remain unknown. Rowena Winston, regrettably, has been missing since the events in Nagnd. Rumors circte that Sabrina Winston has been taken to Mazeroth, and as for Diana Winston, her fate remains a mystery."
The words hung in the air, each sybleden with uncertainty and a sense of foreboding. The room seemed to grow darker, the torchlight flickering as if mirroring the clouded fate of Noah and his family. The subordinates, their expressions a mix of concern and sympathy, awaited Michael''s reaction, unsure of how he would process this troubling information.
Gaya turned her gaze towards Sadie, her voiceced with concern. "Sadie, do you have any information regarding Noah''s whereabouts?"
Sadie hesitated for a moment, her eyes reflecting the weight of uncertainty. "I''m afraid we don''t have any concrete information, mydy. There are rumors circting that the Skyhall''s execution team has been actively searching for both Rowena Winston and Noah Winston."
Without a flicker of remorse or pity, Michael calmly responded to Saber''s inquiry about Quintus and the missing armor pieces. His gaze remained steady and unwavering as he addressed his subordinate.
"Regrettably, I was unable to retrieve Quintus or the pieces of my armor. Have you gathered any information regarding his whereabouts and the status of the armor pieces?" Michael''s voice held a tone of detached curiosity.
Saber, the elder vampire, met Michael''s gaze and ryed the disheartening news. "My lord, it appears that Quintus has aligned himself with the Skyhall''s execution team. With their assistance, he has managed to integrate the two armor pieces into his own armor. He subsequently led an assault against the armies of Gisel and Maven. We were unable to intervene due to the overwhelming presence of the Skyhall fleet. Engaging them would have resulted in significant casualties among our forces,"
"So the rat hase out of its hole and joined the Skyhall," A sinister smile crept across Michael''s face as he absorbed the revtion of Quintus''s alliance with the Skyhall. It was as if a rat had finally emerged from its hiding ce, only to align itself with the very entity that sought to oppose him. The news stirred a mix of emotions within him, a concoction of triumph and excitement.
Thoughts raced through Michael''s mind, each one a thread in the tapestry of his intricate ns. He felt a surge of confidence, a sense of being back in control, and the looming presence of the Skyhall no longer held sway over his determination. His status as a Half Celestial, a being of immense power, bolstered his assurance and emboldened his resolve.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Michael stood at the pinnacle of his game. The challenges thaty before him no longer held the same fear they once did. He knew that his every action would be strategic and calcted, guided by his unwavering conviction and his unwaveringmitment to his ultimate goal. The Skyhall may have thought they had gained an advantage, but little did they know that they had only provoked the wrath of a Half Celestial who would stop at nothing to reim what was rightfully his.
The devilish grin on Michael''s face hinted at the darkness that resided within him, a force that had been dormant for far too long. The time for vengeance and retribution was drawing near, and Michael was prepared to seize the opportunity with unwavering determination. The rat had emerged from its hole, unaware of the predator lurking in the shadows, ready to strike at the opportune moment.
Chapter 959 The Wedding Preparation Has Begun
(New AHSS chapters are out. Please read them and let me know your thoughts in thements)
"Enough with the bad news. I formed this order to hear something intriguing. Do any of you have any interesting updates?" Michael calmly inquired, his eyes fixed on his subordinates. To his relief, his subordinates had been diligent in gathering information that would captivate the Dark Lord. Sadie, in particr, had utilized herwork of spies and coborated with Aria to eliminate guardians and nobles, uncovering valuable secrets and precious information.
"My Lord, I bring you a piece of good news," Sadie leaned forward eagerly in her chair.
"Ever since the Skyhall''s execution team forced Noah out of his role as Supreme Guardian, the Guardian Guild has fallen into disarray. It has splintered into multiple factions, each led by influential guardians vying for power. The guild is now a wounded beast, and it won''t be long before these factions tear it apart. One particr faction has made a remarkable discovery on Ozer continent¡ªan ancient celestial energy deposit. I have been monitoring their movements closely as they attempt to locate this deposit with the assistance of the nightwalkers," Sadie exined, choosing to avoid the term "vampires" in front of the elder vampires. They preferred the term nightwalkers.
"We had actually nned to unearth the energy deposit and present it to you upon your return, but it seems you''vee back earlier than anticipated," Sadie expressed with a click of her tongue, realizing her words may havee across as unintentionally negative. However, Michael chuckled in response.
"So you weren''t quite ready for me to return just yet? I see," Michael chuckled, diffusing the tension in the room with a touch of humor.
"Oh, no, my lord. That''s not what I meant," Sadie quickly interjected, scratching the back of her head and offering an apologetic smile.
"Trista," Michael shifted his gaze towards the striking red-haired vampire.
"Your task is to take care of the guardians on the ind and locate the energy deposit. And don''t worry, I haven''t forgotten about Lenora. I have already initiated the process of reconstructing her body. It may take some time, but she will be restored to her former self before you know it," Michael dered, leaving Trista stunned. Her eyes shimmered with a mix of gratitude and relief. Trista had been fearful that the Dark Lord had forgotten about Lenora, but it seemed he had not. However, Michael''s promise of reconstructing Lenora''s body was not an immediate reality. Nheless, providing Trista with hope and motivation to fulfill his orders had its own advantages.
"I will see to it personally, my Lord," Elder Trista affirmed with a smile, revealing her fangs. Turning his gaze back to Sadie, Michael''s voice dripped with chilling intensity.
"Sadie, I want you to gather every piece of information avable about the great eight ns," hemanded, a menacing grin spreading across his face. Now that he had achieved the Half Celestial stage, Michael had made up his mind to eliminate all the great eight ns and establish his reign of darkness. It was time to uproot his enemies and assert his dominance.
Michael took a deep breath, allowing the weight of the silence to settle in the hall. His calm demeanor and gentle smile held the attention of his subordinates, who were eagerly awaiting his next words.
"I have a special task for all of you," Michael began, his voice filled with a hint of mystery. The subordinates exchanged puzzled nces, wondering what this task could be. Gaya herself was caught off guard, unaware that Michael was about to reveal their secret.
"I want you all toe together and create the most magnificent wedding ceremony the world has ever seen," Michael announced, his words causing a wave of astonishment to wash over the room. The subordinates were left in awe, trying to piece together who could be getting married. Even Gaya, caught up in the moment, couldn''t help but feel a mixture of surprise and excitement, unaware that the wedding Michael spoke of was their own.
With a yful roll of her eyes, Ayag perched atop Michael''s shoulder, expressing her impatience. Michael''s eyes sparkled with excitement as he addressed his subordinates once again.
"Utilize all resources at your disposal and spare no expense. I want to be amazed," Michael emphasized, his voice filled with anticipation.
Michael''s gaze shifted towards Gaya, his eyes filled with love and admiration. "I have found the most incredible woman in the world, and I am going to marry her," he dered, his voice filled with genuine affection. Gaya''s heart skipped a beat as she locked eyes with Michael, a mixture of surprise and joy shining in her eyes.
Gaya''s heart swelled with happiness as Michael''s words sank in. A radiant smile graced her face, and her eyes sparkled with joy. The thought of their impending wedding filled her with a sense of excitement and anticipation. She couldn''t have asked for a more perfect partner than Michael, the man she deeply loved and admired. In that moment, she felt a profound sense of gratitude and contentment, knowing that they were about to embark on a lifelong journey together.
As the subordinates observed the exchange between Michael and Gaya, they couldn''t help but be captivated by the undeniable chemistry and deep connection that radiated between them. It was as if the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen were destined to be together, their souls intertwined in a bond that transcended time and space. They witnessed the tender way Michael looked at Gaya, and the genuine happiness that filled Gaya''s eyes as she gazed back at him. It was evident to everyone in the room that they were witnessing a pair made in heaven, a perfect match in every sense. The subordinates couldn''t help but feel a sense of awe and admiration for the love that blossomed between their leaders, and they knew that this union would only strengthen their cause and bring them closer to their shared goals.
Eve''s heart leaped with delight as she heard the joyful news of Michael and Gaya''s impending wedding. She couldn''t contain her excitement and a wide smile spread across her face. In that moment, a surge of pure happiness coursed through her veins, and she felt an overwhelming urge to express her joy.
Unable to resist the overwhelming emotions, Eve stood up from her chair, her eyes brimming with tears of happiness. Without hesitation, she took a few quick steps and swiftly closed the distance between herself and the couple. With her heart overflowing with love and excitement, she enveloped both Michael and Gaya in a warm, tight embrace.
In that tender moment, the trio shared an unspoken bond of friendship and camaraderie. Eve''s hug conveyed her genuine happiness for their union and her deep affection for both of them. It was a testament to the unbreakable bond they had formed over the years. As she held them close, the room was filled with an aura of warmth and love, as if their embrace symbolized the unity and support of their loyal friendship.
Eve''s presence and heartfelt embrace further solidified the joyous atmosphere in the hall. The subordinates watched with smiles on their faces, their hearts touched by the genuine love and friendship disyed before them. They knew that Eve''s gesture was a testament to the unbreakable bond shared between these three extraordinary individuals, and they couldn''t help but feel a renewed sense of unity and happiness.
Eve''s eyes sparkled with joy as she held Michael and Gaya in her embrace, and with heartfelt sincerity, she shared her congrattions.
"God! You two are finally going to tie the knot! I couldn''t be happier for you," Eve eximed, her voice filled with excitement and happiness.
"You''ve found your perfect match, Ghost. Gaya, you''ve captured the heart of our mighty Dark Lord. This is a moment to celebrate!" Eve continued, her words filled with genuine warmth and affection.
"I can''t think of a more deserving couple to embark on this incredible journey of love and unity," Eve expressed, her voice brimming with admiration.
"As your best friend, I''ll be by your side every step of the way, supporting you both in creating the most enchanting and unforgettable wedding imaginable," Eve vowed, her eyes shining with sincerity.
As the news of Michael and Gaya''s impending wedding sank in, a wave of excitement and joy swept through the room. The subordinates exchanged nces, their faces beaming with happiness, and one by one, they approached the thrones to offer their heartfelt congrattions.
Aria, the Queen of Shadows, stepped gracefully towards them, her voice filled with warmth. "Your love is an inspiration to us all. May your wedding be a celebration of light and darkness intertwined, uniting two souls destined to conquer the world together."
Maxine, the Queen of Power, beamed with pride. "I have witnessed your strength and determination firsthand. Now, let your love shine as brightly as the sun, guiding us all towards a future filled with hope and prosperity."
Tiberius, the King of War, stood tall and spoke with unwavering loyalty. "You have proven yourselves as formidable leaders. Let your union serve as a symbol of unity, forging alliances and bringing peace to ournds."
Dr, the King of the Undead, approached with a respectful bow. "May your love transcend boundaries, just as the darkness embraces all. Together, you shall lead us into a new era, where even the shadows shall find sce."
Sadie, the Queen of Whispers, spoke softly, her eyes filled with sincerity. "Your love story is like a whispered secret, spreading hope and courage. May your wedding be a symphony of secrets shared, binding us all in unity."
Ricky, with his jovial nature, couldn''t contain his excitement. "Cheers to the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen! Let this wedding be a grand feast, filled withughter, joy, and evesting memories."
Titus and Optimus, the Kings of Supplies, shared a knowing smile. "In the realm of love, you have found the most valuable treasure. As we provide the materials for your wedding, know that we stand with you, ensuring every detail is perfect."
Corey, the Queen of the Seas, raised her voice with enthusiasm. "From the depths of the ocean to the heights of the skies, your love will conquer all. May your wedding be a celebration of adventure and boundless possibilities."
Gibson, the King of the Skies, expressed his admiration. "Your love soars higher than any aircraft. Let your wedding be a testament to the heights we can reach when love guides our path."
Saber and Trista also offered their genuine well-wishes with smiles and nods, expressing their support and joy for the couple.
At that moment, surrounded by their loyal subordinates, Michael and Gaya felt an overwhelming sense of love and unity. The room was filled with congrattions,ughter, and heartfelt blessings, as the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen prepared to embark on a new chapter of their lives together.
Michael''s countenance shifted as the cheerful atmosphere settled, his smile fading into a serious and determined expression. He stood up from his throne,manding the attention of his subordinates, who sensed the change in his demeanor. The room grew hushed, and a sense of anticipation filled the air.
His voice resonated with intensity as he spoke, his words cutting through the silence like a sharp de.
"I want a detailed report on the Skyhall''s execution team. I want to know every name, every face, and every connection they have. I will personally pay them a visit."
The gravity of his words weighed heavily in the room, and a sense of unease crept through the subordinates. Michael''s unwavering determination was evident, and they knew he meant business. The Dark Lord''s thirst for vengeance against those who had wronged him was palpable, and his subordinates braced themselves for the storm that was about to be unleashed upon the Skyhall''s execution team.
The subordinates exchanged silent nods, each understanding the importance of their task. They would delve into the depths of their intelligenceworks, uncovering every piece of information rted to the execution team. This would be a mission of utmost importance as they worked to unravel the web of conspiracies and connections that had led to the downfall of their beloved Guardian Guild.
After giving his orders to his subordinates, Michael''s gaze returned to his beloved Gaya. He spoke with a firm tone, concern evident in his eyes.
"You stay here and rest, Gaya. I don''t want you to overexert yourself," Michael said, trying to reassure her. Gaya opened her mouth to object, but Michael gently ced his finger on her lips, silencing her.
"Eve, Vedora, I want you to keep a close watch on her," Michaelmanded, turning to his loyal friend and his three-headed Hydrapanion.
Eve nodded with determination. "Don''t worry, Michael. I won''t let her lift a finger. We have plenty to do before the most important day in a girl''s life."
With a grateful smile, Michael acknowledged Eve''s dedication. He gestured for Azazel, his loyal demon butler, to apany him as he prepared to leave the hall. Just as he was about to step out, Gaya couldn''t help but ask the question that lingered in her mind.
"Where are you going?" Gaya inquired, her voice filled with curiosity and concern.
Michael paused, his eyes shing with a mixture of determination and a hint of menace. He turned to face Gaya, his expression hardening.
"I have unfinished business to attend to. There are things I''ve left behind, and it''s time to reim what is rightfully mine," he replied, his voice carrying an undercurrent of unwavering determination.
Chapter 960 The Dark Lord鈥檚 Herbal Garden
Once a bustling and vibrant ce, the Sunrise sect nowy in eerie silence under the embrace of the night sky. The lust mountains, cloaked in darkness, loomed over the deserted sect with an air of mystery. The green forests that once flourished with life now appeared as dark shadows, their foliage rustling softly in the night breeze.
The paved streets, once bustling with activity, now glistened under the pale moonlight. The intricate patterns and designs etched into the stone seemed toe alive, casting intricate shadows that danced along the empty pathways. The silence was broken only by the faint rustling of leaves and the distant hoots of nocturnal creatures.
Where once disciples and cultivators filled the sect buildings, there were now only echoes of the past. The grandeur and opulence that once characterized the Sunrise sect had faded into the obscurity of the night. The buildings stood as solemn sentinels, their windows dark and their halls empty.
Amidst the night''s stillness, the tranquility was shattered by the presence of silver armored soldiers from the Skyhall. Like phantoms, they patrolled the deserted streets with disciplined steps, their armor glimmering under the moonlight. Their watchful gazes scanned the surroundings, as if guarding the secrets of the abandoned sect.
The Skyhall''s dismantling of sects had left its mark on the Sunrise sect, transforming it into a ghostly shell of its former self. The disciples who once called this ce home were scattered, forced to either abandon their cultivation or surrender to the authority of the Skyhall''s designated sects. The sect that was once a beacon of individuality and independence nowy under the watchful eyes of external control.
Within the heart of the Sunrise sect, hidden under the starry night sky,y Michael''srgest herbal garden. Enclosed by a ss dome, it shimmered like a precious gem in the darkness. Moonlight filtered through the transparent structure, casting a soft glow upon the diverse array of exotic nts and herbs that grew within.
The herbal garden, once tended to by devoted cultivators, now stood untouched and unappreciated. Its vibrant colors and fragrant scents lingered in the air, a testament to the lost potential of the sect. The ss dome, normally a symbol of protection and growth, now seemed like a cage, trapping the garden''s beauty within its confines.
Under the enchanting glow of the moonlight, the herbal garden within the ss dome revealed its mesmerizing beauty. The nts and herbs that flourished within seemed to possess a magical allure, their forms vibrant and otherworldly.
Tall, slender vines draped from the ceiling, their leaves shimmering with an ethereal radiance. Each leaf, adorned with intricate patterns and delicate veins, seemed to capture the moon''s essence, casting a soft luminescence in the darkness. The vines intertwined with one another, forming a tapestry of colors that ranged from vivid greens to deep purples and fiery reds.
Clusters of exotic flowers bloomed in every corner, their petals were delicate and translucent, as if fashioned from moonlight itself. Their fragrances wafted through the air, blending harmoniously to create an intoxicating aroma that awakened the senses. Some flowers emitted a soft, gentle glow, as if carrying the stars within their very essence.
Lush, emerald-green shrubs lined the pathways, their leaves glistening with dewdrops that sparkled like miniature stars. They seemed to whisper secrets of ancient knowledge, their presence exuding a sense of wisdom and tranquility. Mysterious herbs with shimmering, iridescent leaves sprouted from the ground, their glow illuminating the intricate patterns etched into the stone path.
In the center of the herbal garden, a tranquil pond mirrored the twinkling night sky above. Its surface, smooth as ss, reflected the beauty of the surrounding flora, creating a surreal spectacle of vibrant colors and celestial patterns. Magical creatures, unseen in the outside world, flitted about the pond, their iridescent wings casting iridescent reflections upon the water''s surface.
Within this enchanting sanctuary, the nts thrived under the gentle guidance of nature''s forces. Their growth was nurtured by the moon''s gentle caress and the celestial energies that permeated the ss dome. It was as if the garden itself held a delicate bnce between the earthly and the ethereal, a testament to the ancient wisdom that resided within the Sunrise sect.
As the group of Skyhall soldiers patrolled the area around the herbal garden, their silver armor gleaming under the moonlit night, a murmur of conversation filled the air. Their footsteps echoed softly against the paved pathway as they exchanged thoughts in hushed tones.
"Have you seen this garden? It''s a marvel, a ce of beauty unlike anything I''ve ever seen," remarked one soldier, his voice tinged with awe.
"I agree," another soldier chimed in, his gaze fixed upon the ss dome that encased the flourishing sanctuary. "It''s a shame that such a precious creation will soon meet its end."
A third soldier, with a hardened expression, interjected, "But we cannot forget that this garden was brought forth by Ghost, the one who is now known as the Dark Lord. The Skyhall has deemed it a threat to our cause."
A somber silence fell upon the group as they pondered the impending destruction of the enchanting herbal garden. A soldier, whose eyes betrayed a flicker of sadness, voiced his thoughts with a touch of defiance.
"I understand our orders, but it still feels wrong. This ce holds so much life and magic. It seems a waste to let it perish."
A murmuring agreement rippled through the soldiers, each one grappling with conflicting emotions. They nced around, ensuring that their conversation remained discreet, their allegiance to the Skyhall overriding their personal opinions.
"Remember our duty," a stern voice resonated. "The Dark Lord must be eliminated, and everything associated with him must be erased."
"But this garden... It feels like a part of something greater," a soldier whispered, his voice filled with longing. "A symbol of the beauty that can be found even in the darkest of hearts."
Their steps grew slower, their eyes ncing back at the ss dome that sheltered the vibrant life within. They could sense the pulsating energy, the living essence that seemed to emanate from the herbal garden. It stirred emotions they thought they had long buried.
"Perhaps," one soldier murmured, his voice barely audible. "Perhaps there''s more to this than we know. A potential for redemption, even within the Dark Lord himself."
The group fell into contemtive silence, their thoughts entwined with uncertainty and the unspoken desire for a different path. But duty bound them to their mission, and the orders of the Skyhall loomed above them, unyielding.
With a heavy sigh, one soldier reluctantly broke the silence. "We have a job to do. The garden will not survive the night. Let us fulfill our duty swiftly and leave this ce to its fate."
And so, the group of Skyhall soldiers continued their patrol, their conflicted hearts weighed down by the knowledge that they would soon be the instruments of destruction, tasked with extinguishing the beauty that thrived within the ss dome. A sense of sorrow mingled with their unwavering loyalty, for they understood the cost of their allegiance and the sacrifice demanded by the path they had chosen.
As the soldiers continued their patrol, their eyes scanning the surroundings, a strange sensation rippled through the air. The once radiant moon, casting its gentle glow upon thend, began to dim. Shadows lengthened and darkness spread across the Sunrise mountain chain, shrouding everything in an eerie ckness.
A soldier''s voice quivered with uncertainty. "What... what is happening? Why is it so dark?"
Another soldier nced up at the sky, his voiceced with apprehension. "Look! The moon... it''s gone! There''s only darkness up there."
Whispers of fear and confusion spread among the soldiers, their gazes fixed upon the void where the moon should have been. The absence of its silvery light sent shivers down their spines, a haunting reminder of the Dark Lord who lurked in the shadows.
"Could it be... the Dark Lord?" one soldier murmured, his voice filled with trepidation. "Is this his doing?"
The darkness seemed to press in on them, filling their hearts with a sense of unease. The soldiers exchanged wary nces, their minds clouded with thoughts of the Dark Lord''s power and influence.
Another soldier, his voice barely above a whisper, voiced the thoughts that gued their minds. "We''ve heard stories, tales of the Dark Lord''s ability tomand darkness itself. Is this a sign of his imminent presence?"
As the soldiers stood in the enveloping darkness, a mixture of fear and awe washed over them. They could not deny the unsettling familiarity of this eerie ckness, a darkness that mirrored the depths of the Dark Lord''s influence.
Their breaths quickened, their senses heightened as if anticipating an imminent confrontation with an overwhelming force. The soldiers tightened their grips on their weapons, readying themselves for whatever darkness woulde.
Amidst the palpable tension, a soldier''s voice trembled,ced with a mix of dread and determination. "We must stay vignt, myrades. The Dark Lord''s reach knows no bounds. No matter the darkness that looms, we cannot falter in our mission. Our duty remains unchanged."
Nodding in unison, the soldiers took a collective breath, their resolve solidifying in the face of the encroaching darkness. They would not waver, even as fear coursed through their veins. They were soldiers of the Skyhall, standing as a barrier against the forces of darkness, no matter how overwhelming it may seem.
And so, with hearts brimming with both fear and determination, the soldiers forged ahead, their steps steady and resolute. The absence of the moon''s light only served to strengthen their resolve, reminding them of the immense task thaty before them in their battle against the enigmatic Dark Lord.
As the darkness deepened, a chilling presence slithered through the shadows. Figures garbed in flowing dark robes emerged from the obscurity, their forms almost merging with the night. Only their gleaming fangs, exposed beneath their ck hoods, betrayed their vampiric nature.
The soldiers, their hearts pounding, froze in their tracks as the hooded figures closed in. The soldiers could feel the weight of their gaze, an intense scrutiny that sent shivers down their spines. Fear gripped their chests, tightening like an iron vice.
Distant screams pierced the air, carried on the cold wind that swept through the mountain chain. The soldiers exchanged fearful nces, their expressions mirroring the horrors unfolding in the unseen depths of the darkness. The scent of blood, thick and metallic, tainted the air, assaulting their senses with its macabre presence.
The soldiers knew that they were facing a force beyond theirprehension. The Dark Lord''s minions had arrived, heralded by the ominous darkness and the echoes of agony that now resonated through the once tranquilndscape.
Whispers of terror reverberated among the soldiers, each voice trembling with dread. "What... what is happening? How can this be?"
The realization sank in: they were no match for the encroaching darkness and the relentless army of the Dark Lord. Their well-honed training and unwavering dedication now seemed futile in the face of such overwhelming malevolence.
Yet, even in the midst of their terror, a flicker of defiance glimmered within some of the soldiers. They tightened their grips on their weapons, their resolve ring like a solitary me amidst the encroaching darkness.
"We must stand strong," one soldier spoke, his voice quivering with determination. "For the Skyhall, for our purpose, we cannot yield to the terrors of the Dark Lord. We fight for the light that still remains."
When the soldiers steeled themselves, their hearts entwined with fear and valor, they prepared to face the oing onught. The hushed whispers and eerie silence gave way to the sh of metal against fang, the screams of battle mingling with the cries of the forsaken.
As the vampires descended upon the Skyhall soldiers, their movements were a blur of inhuman speed and agility. With predatory grace, they pounced upon their unsuspecting targets, teeth bared and ws poised to strike.
The soldiers fought desperately, their swords shing through the air in a valiant attempt to defend themselves. But they soon discovered that these creatures were unlike anything they had ever encountered. Each strike aimed at severing a vampire''s head, as they had been instructed, was met with lightning-quick evasion. The vampires twisted and contorted their bodies, evading the fatal blow with uncanny agility.
Frantic whispers passed between the soldiers as they exchanged nces of frustration and determination. "The head! We must sever their heads!" one soldier cried, his voice filled with urgency.
Their movements became more calcted as they adapted to the vampires'' agility. The soldiers coordinated their attacks, attempting to corner the elusive creatures and strike with precise and decisive blows. Yet, despite their synchronized efforts, the vampires proved maddeningly elusive, slipping away from the edge of death each time.
With each failed strike, the soldiers'' frustration grew, but they refused to yield to despair. They fought on, driven by a relentless determination to protect theirrades and uphold their duty to the Skyhall.
The vampires, sensing their advantage, became even more ruthless and relentless. Their attacks grew fiercer, their ws ripping through armor and flesh with terrifying ease. Wounds that would have incapacitated a mortal soldier were shrugged off as the vampires regenerated their injuries almost instantaneously.
The soldiers'' faces contorted with a mix of astonishment and frustration as they witnessed this supernatural regeneration. The sight only fueled their determination to find a way to vanquish these seemingly invincible foes.
Amidst the chaos, one soldier''s eyes flickered with a glimmer of insight. "Fire!" he shouted above the tumultuous battle. "We must use fire! It''s their weakness!"
The soldiers quickly adjusted their tactics, seeking out torches and any means to ignite mes. With renewed vigor, they unleashed a barrage of fire upon the vampires, the scorching mes searing their undead flesh. The vampires howled in agony, momentarily driven back by the onught.
But even as the mes consumed them, the vampires refused to yield. Their bodies smoldered and charred, yet they emerged from the mes, their eyes burning with an unquenchable hunger for blood.
The soldiers watched in awe and horror as the vampires, now engulfed in an inferno, continued to fight, undeterred by the pain and destruction inflicted upon them. The realization settled heavily in their hearts - these creatures were not easily defeated.
As the battle between the soldiers and the vampires waged on, a few soldiers caught a glimpse of a figure shrouded in dark mist hovering above the herbal garden, surrounded by its protective ss dome. Their eyes widened in both awe and terror as they recognized the Dark Lord himself.
Time seemed to stand still as the soldiers momentarily diverted their attention from the relentless fight to witness this ominous sight. The Dark Lord''s presence cast an overwhelming aura of malevolence, his dark silhouette contrasting sharply against the backdrop of chaos and carnage.
Suddenly, two beams of darkness shot forth from the Dark Lord''s eyes, cutting through the air like deadlysers. The ground beneath him trembled as he unleashed his power, his intent clear. With precise and calcted precision, he began to sever the earth around the herbal garden, creating a rift that encircled it.
The soldiers watched in astonishment and trepidation as the ground split open, a deep chasm forming around the herbal garden. The earth groaned and rumbled, its ancient connection to the mountain severed by the Dark Lord''s dark powers.
Despite the chaos and destruction unfolding around them, the herbal garden remained untouched within its protective ss dome. The soldiers marveled at the Dark Lord''s ability to iste and lift the precious garden from the trembling ground without causing it harm.
As the ground beneath the herbal garden began to rise, it seemed as though the very fabric of the mountain chain was being reshaped under the Dark Lord''smand. The soldiers exchanged nces of disbelief, recognizing the extent of the Dark Lord''s power and the magnitude of the force hemanded.
The scene was both awe-inspiring and terrifying, a testament to the unparalleled strength and dark magic possessed by the Dark Lord. It became clear to the soldiers that they were mere pawns in a grand design, caught in a battle where the oue had already been predetermined.
With a surge of dark energy, the Dark Lord lifted the chunk of mountain containing the herbal garden onto his broad shoulders. The colossal weight seemed insignificant to him as he effortlessly bore the burden, the ss dome encasing the precious garden gleaming in the moonlight. It was a sight that defied all reason andprehension.
Meanwhile, in Rivertown, a settlement nestled at the foot of the Sunrise mountain chain, the inhabitants paused in their daily activities as they beheld the astonishing spectacle unfolding in the distance. Gasps of disbelief and murmurs of confusion rippled through the crowd as their eyes fixated on the mountain that appeared to be tearing itself apart.
"There! Look at the mountain!" a young girl eximed, her finger pointing towards the extraordinary scene.
A hush fell over the townsfolk as they gazed at the sight before them. Whispers of awe and concern filled the air, blending with the gentle rustling of leaves and the distant rumbling of the earth.
"What in the world is happening?" a worried viger questioned, his voice filled with both fear and intrigue.
"There''s no bloody way that''s happening! It''s a trick, I tell ya!" a grizzled viger eximed, his voiceced with disbelief.
"Gods above, is this the end of us all?" a woman cried out, tears streaming down her face.
"By the heavens, what foul sorcery is this?" a wide-eyed merchant muttered, crossing himself in a desperate attempt to ward off the impending doom.
The once-thriving marketce fell into disarray as vendors abandoned their stalls, their wares forgotten in the face of this unnatural spectacle. Fear etched itself deeply upon the faces of the townsfolk, their eyes locked on the mountain as it trembled under the Dark Lord''s power.
"Curse that ursed Dark Lord!" a man cursed through clenched teeth, his voice brimming with anger and terror.
A sense of unease pervaded the air, apanied by the acrid scent of burning ozone. The collective gasp of the crowd echoed through the silent streets, mingling with hurried footsteps as families sought shelter, seeking sce within the confines of their homes.
"Pray for mercy, for we stand on the edge of damnation," a quivering voice whispered, the words carrying the weight of resignation.
The once-unshakable faith in the stability of their world crumbled beneath the weight of the Dark Lord''s power. Cries for divine intervention mingled with the curses of those who felt abandoned by their gods. Fear took hold, casting its suffocating grip upon the hearts of the townsfolk.
"This can''t be real. It''s a nightmare, it must be!" a young woman eximed, her voice trembling with disbelief.
Whispers of desperation and anguish intertwined as uncertainty swirled through the crowd. Vulgarities slipped past the lips of some, their shock and fear shattering the veneer of civility in the face of such otherworldly events.
"I''ll be damned! That bloody mountain is being torn apart like a rotting corpse!" a gruff farmer eximed, his face contorted with a mix of horror and fascination.
The townsfolk, normally bound by a sense ofmunity, were now consumed by individual fears and doubts. The once-familiarndscape had been transformed into a nightmarish tableau, with the Dark Lord''s power looming above them.
In the midst of the chaos, a resolute voice cut through the cacophony of panic. "Hold strong, my friends! We shall endure this darkness together!"
It was a rallying cry, a flickering me of hope amidst the encroaching shadows. And though their hearts were heavy with fear, the people of Rivertown found sce in the strength they drew from one another, determined to weather the storm unleashed by the Dark Lord''s malevolence.
The Skyhall, blinded by their arrogance, believed they could obliterate the herbal garden that Michael had painstakingly nurtured. They assumed he would passively allow their destructive mes to reduce his creation to ashes. Oh, how sorely mistaken they were. None among them could have fathomed the depths of his power and determination.
In a move that defied their expectations, Michael unleashed a disy of raw might and cunning. With a surge of dark energy, he severed the garden from the very ground it had been rooted in, lifting the colossal chunk of mountain onto his broad shoulders. The audacity of his action sent shockwaves through the ranks of the Skyhall, their futile attempts at destruction rendered insignificant in the face of hismand over the elements.
The awe-inspiring sight of the Dark Lord, his figure bathed in a sinister aura, shouldering the weight of the garden like a titan of old, struck fear into the hearts of those who dared to oppose him. The celestial powers that coursed through his veins allowed him to soar above their reach, defying gravity and expectations alike. With a purposeful stride, he embarked on a journey, carrying the precious cargo of his creation towards the dark abyss of the ocean.
Chapter 961 Guardian Guild鈥檚 Last Chance
High above the Ozer continent, the resplendent headquarters of the Guardian Guild stood as a testament to its grandeur and prestige. Adorned in pure white, its majestic architecture reached toward the heavens, reflecting the guild''s noble purpose of safeguarding the realm.
Within the hallowed halls of the guild, Alpha Guardian ra Valren presided over an emergency meeting. Aware of the imminent danger threatening to tear the guild apart from within, she gathered the leaders of various factions to devise a n to restore order and unity. The atmosphere was heavy with tension, each member keenly aware of the precarious state the guild had fallen into.
Since the Skyhall execution team had ruthlessly stripped Noah of his revered title as the leader of the Guardian Guild and imprisoned Ethan Winston, Noah''s esteemed father, the guild had been left rudderless and vulnerable. In the absence of strong leadership, factions within the guild had emerged, vying for power and influence, threatening to fracture the once unbreakable unity of the guild.
As the sole remaining Alpha Guardian appointed by Noah, ra Valren bore the weight of the fallen. Her fellow Alpha Guardians, once pirs of strength and wisdom, had met their untimely demise during the harrowing Nagnd war, leaving a void that threatened the stability of the Guardian Guild.
To preserve the guild''s integrity, ra had no choice but to select new Alpha Guardians from the ranks of the talented and promising. These sessors, though brimming with potential,cked the seasoned experience and honed skill of their predecessors. ra knew that with time, they would grow into their roles and shine brightly, but the pressing challenge was the absence of a unifying leader.
Within the guild''s hallowed halls, ambitious and influential guardians had formed their own factions, eagerly awaiting the opportune moment to seize the coveted position of guild leader. Once noble and devoted, these individuals had sumbed to the corrupting influences of greed and power, their allegiance to the guild tarnished by their personal ambitions.
Noah had diligently cleansed the guild of corruption, but it seemed that the seeds of darkness had taken root once more. ra recognized the urgent need for strong leadership tobat the insidious forces that threatened to tear the guild apart from within.
The task before her was daunting, as she grappled with the delicate bnce of ensuring the guild''s stability while navigating the treacherous waters of factionalism. She knew that theck of a unifying leader could lead to chaos and the dissolution of everything the Guardian Guild stood for.
With each passing day, ra tirelessly worked to nurture and guide the new Alpha Guardians, providing them with the wisdom and mentorship they needed to grow into their roles. She instilled in them the values of honor, selflessness, and dedication, hoping to inspire them to rise above the temptation of personal gain and restore the guild''s reputation.
"Silence!" ra''s voice reverberated through the grand hall,manding the attention of the assembled Alpha Guardians and Guardian Captains. The sheer force of hermandpelled everyone to cease their conversations and turn their focus towards her.
As the authoritative figurehead of the Guardian Guild, ra stood tall andposed, her eyes scanning the room. Alongside her, three newly appointed Alpha Guardians took their ces, each embodying the essence of their respective divisions.
Alpha Roshan, the formidable Alpha Guardian of the Beast Guardians, possessed amanding presence akin to a majestic lion. His golden mane cascaded down his broad shoulders, radiating strength and wisdom. With a deep, rumbling voice, he spoke, his tone resonating with authority.
"We face a critical challenge within our division," Alpha Roshan began, his gaze sweeping across the attentive audience. "The rise of factionalism has led to a deterioration of trust and unity among the Beast Guardians. We must address this swiftly and restore the bond that once bound us together."
Alpha Vivienne, the fiery-haired Alpha Guardian of the Sorcerer Guardians, exuded an air of mystic power. Her vibrant red locks shimmered under the light, mirroring the intensity of her magical prowess. She stepped forward, her voice carrying an undercurrent of determination.
"In the realm of the arcane, we encounter a different set of trials," Alpha Vivienne continued, her emerald eyes sparkling with unwavering resolve. "The misuse and abuse of magic have tarnished our reputation. We must instill stricter regtions and education to foster responsibility and discipline among our ranks."
Alpha Garrick, the seasoned warrior and Alpha Guardian of the Warrior Guardians, emanated an aura of battle-hardened valor. His scars and weathered armor spoke of countless victories and sacrifices. With a deep voice etched with experience, he addressed the gathering.
"Our division grapples with a crisis of discipline," Alpha Garrick dered, his gaze prating through the room. "Some of our warriors have strayed from their honorable path, yielding to personal desires and forsaking their duty. We must reestablish a code of conduct and reinforce our core values to restore the integrity of the Warrior Guardians."
As each Alpha Guardian presented their concerns and proposed solutions, ra listened attentively, her expression a mask of thoughtful consideration. She understood that the problems within the guild ran deep, infecting every division. Yet, she also recognized the strength and potential of her newly appointed Alpha Guardians.
With a sense of purpose and determination, ra addressed the room once more, her voice filled with a blend of authority andpassion. "We stand at a crossroads, where the fate of the Guardian Guild hangs in the bnce. But I have faith in each and every one of you, my fellow Alpha Guardians and Guardian Captains. Together, we will rise above the challenges that beset us, united in our purpose to protect and serve."
The hall reverberated with a renewed sense of purpose and determination as ra''s words echoed through the minds of those present. The challenges were great, but the Guardian Guild''s potential for redemption was equally immense. With their unwavering resolve and unified efforts, they would pave the way for a brighter future, restoring the guild to its former glory.
As the meeting unfolded within the grand hall, a group of guardians d in pristine white armor stood silently at the corner, their presence unnoticed by most. Led by Ne, a formidable figure with an aura of power that emanated from her Soul Refining stage level 7 cultivation, they observed the proceedings with a mix of concern and determination.
Ne''s piercing gaze remained fixed on ra and the other Alpha Guardians, her expression one of quiet intensity. As Alpha Roshan concluded his statement, a low growl rumbled deep in Ne''s throat, her frustration evident.
"We cannot allow Noah''s name to be tarnished any longer," Ne dered, her voiceced with determination. "He dedicated his life to the Guardian Guild and deserves justice. It is our duty to uncover the truth and clear his name."
Alvaro, a member of Ne''s group and the second strongest with his Soul Refining stage level 4 cultivation, stood beside her. Unbeknownst to hisrades, he had been working as a spy for the Dark Lord, betraying his fellow guardians. Alvaro''s mind buzzed with thoughts of the secrets he had uncovered, the information he had fed to the Dark Lord''s army.
As Ne voiced her intentions, Alvaro''s eyes darted around the room, a calcted glint in his gaze. He knew that the unraveling of the Guardian Guild''s internal strife would only serve to further his own agenda. The Dark Lord''s promises of immortality and increased power tantalized him, clouding his judgment and fueling his ambition.
While outwardly appearing to support Ne''s determination to clear Noah''s name, Alvaro silently calcted his next move. He pondered the secrets he had yet to uncover within the guild, knowledge that could prove invaluable to the Dark Lord''s cause. The thought of presenting this information to his mysterious benefactors filled him with a sense of anticipation and the promise of greater rewards.
Alvaro knew he danced a treacherous dance, walking a tightrope between loyalty to the Guardian Guild and his ndestine allegiance to the Dark Lord. His mind buzzed with possibilities, weighing the potential oues of his dual existence.
As the meeting continued, the air thick with tension and the weight of responsibility, Ne and her fellow guardians exchanged their differing viewpoints. Ne''s determination to have Alicia, Noah''s wife, take charge of the Guardians in his absence, shed with the objections voiced by Alvaro and others within the group.
Ne''s eyes shed with conviction as she spoke, her voice carrying a resolute tone.
"Alicia has suffered greatly at the hands of the Dark Lord. Her resilience and strength make her the ideal candidate to lead us in these troubled times. We must rally behind her and restore the honor of the Guardians."
"Ne, I understand your intentions, but we must consider the implications of Alicia''s deep-seated hatred for the Dark Lord. It has clouded her judgment, making her vulnerable to rash decisions that could endanger us all." Alvaro, his gaze hidden behind a mask of calcted neutrality, spoke up with a measured tone.
Others within the group nodded in agreement, their expressions etched with concern. They understood the pain Alicia had endured, but they also recognized the potential pitfalls of entrusting their fate to a leader driven by personal vendetta.
Ne''s brows furrowed, her determination unyielding. "I believe in Alicia''s strength and resilience. She has the power to unite us and guide us towards victory. We cannot let fear and doubt hold us back."
Alvaro''s eyes narrowed, a flicker of subtle intent passing through his gaze. "Perhaps it would be wise to consider all options before rushing into such a decision. The Dark Lord''s reach is vast, and we must prioritize the safety and well-being of our fellow guardians."
Ne''s jaw tightened, her stance unwavering. "We will not falter in our pursuit of justice. Alicia has the spirit to confront the Dark Lord, to avenge her family and protect our guild. We must support her."
As the debate raged on, the rift within the group widened. The weight of conflicting loyalties and hidden agendas bore heavily upon the Guardians, threatening to fracture their unity and weaken their resolve. Unbeknownst to them, Alvaro''s duplicitous actions loomed in the shadows as he yed a dangerous game of maniption, ready to exploit any opportunity that would further his allegiance to the Dark Lord.
As the tense atmosphere gripped the meeting hall, a suddenmotion erupted at the entrance. A guardian, trembling and drenched in sweat, stumbled into the room, his face contorted with fear. He stuttered and stammered, struggling to find his voice amidst the overwhelming terror that gripped him.
ra, her brows furrowing with concern, quickly moved forward, her eyes fixed on the shaken guardian. "What has happened? Why are you so frightened?" she asked, her voiceced with urgency.
The guardian''s words tumbled out in a jumble, his voice quivering with fear. "Th-th-the Demon B-b-butler... he''s here! He waits outside... to deliver a message from the Dark Lord himself!"
A collective gasp swept through the room, the gravity of the situation sinking in. ra''s heart quickened, her mind racing with the implications of this unexpected arrival. Without hesitation, she led the way as the guardians rushed out of the hall, their gazes fixated on the figure awaiting them.
As they stepped into the open air, their eyes fell upon Azazel, the Demon Butler of the Dark Lord. He stood alone, his neat butler uniform exuding an eerie sense of calm. His jet-ck hair was impablybed to the side, framing a youthful face that belied the power thaty within. Crimson red eyes bore into the guardians, an intensity in their gaze that sent shivers down their spines.
The guardians, their hearts pounding with a mixture of fear and curiosity, couldn''t help but shudder at the sight of Azazel, the Demon Butler of the Dark Lord. His presence alone seemed to cast a chilling aura that sent shivers down their spines. They couldn''t deny the immense power emanating from him, knowing that he stood at the Immortal stage level 9.
Azazel''s crimson eyes calmly scanned the assembled guardians, his gaze unyielding and devoid of fear, despite being deep within enemy territory. The sneer that tugged at the corners of his lips only heightened the unease that settled over the weaker guardians, who mumbled among themselves, their voices trembling with trepidation.
"He''s so powerful... What chance do we have against him?" one whispered, the wordsced with a mixture of awe and fear.
"We mustn''t let his presence deter us. We are the guardians, defenders of justice!" another whispered, trying to instill a sense of courage amidst the rising anxiety.
As the guardians converged in the sky, their eyes fixed upon Azazel, their determination wavered in the face of his imposing figure. The weight of their duty pressed upon them, the magnitude of the situation bing increasingly clear.
ra, her eyes narrowing with determination, stepped forward to confront Azazel. Her voice cut through the tense air, filled with authority and defiance. "Why have youe here, Azazel? This is our territory, and I have every right to strike you down where you stand."
Azazel''s lips curled into a contemptuous smirk, his crimson eyes locked onto ra. "Oh, dear ra," he sneered, his voice dripping with mockery. "If the Guardian Guild were still strong, perhaps you would have had the chance. But without Noah, you are nothing. Just a collection of weaklings clinging to the remnants of a fading legacy."
The guardians bristled at Azazel''s words, their collective anger and determination simmering beneath the surface. They exchanged nces, their resolve solidifying as they prepared to defend their honor and their home.
ra''s voice rang out, strong and unwavering. "We may have lost our leader, but our spirit remains unbroken. We are guardians, bound by duty and united in purpose. We will not yield to the likes of you."
Azazel''s eyes gleamed with a mix of amusement and malice. "Ah, the bravado of the desperate," he retorted, his toneced with disdain. "But I am not here to engage in meaningless battles. I bring a message from the Dark Lord himself."
The tension in the air grew thicker as the guardians leaned in, their gazes fixed on Azazel, anticipation and dread intertwining within them.
"What is this message?" ra demanded, her voiceced with a mix of defiance and curiosity.
Azazel''s smile widened, his crimson eyes shing with a dark glimmer. "You have two days," he proimed, his words like venomous whispers. "Two days to abandon this guild, to scatter and hide like the rats you are. After that, the Dark Lord will personallye to this guild and burn it to the ground. And anyone who dares to stand in his way will meet their demise."
The guardians exchanged stunned nces, the weight of Azazel''s words pressing upon them. Fear mingled with determination as they grappled with the reality of their impending fate.
ra''s voice trembled with suppressed anger and defiance. "We will not bow before the Dark Lord. We will stand our ground and defend what is ours."
Azazel''sughter echoed through the air, a chilling sound that sent a shiver down the spines of the guardians. "So be it," he sneered. "But remember, the darkness is relentless, and your feeble resistance will only lead to your destruction."
As Azazel turned to depart, his dark wings unfurling behind him, the guardians were left in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. They understood the gravity of the situation, the immense power they faced, but within the depths of their hearts, a glimmer of hope still burned. They would not surrender without a fight, for they were guardians, defenders of justice, and they would face the darkness head-on, no matter the cost.
When the shock settled among the guardians, whispers of disbelief rippled through their ranks. "But... the Dark Lord disappeared... Where did he go?" one guardian murmured, his voice filled with confusion.
"We thought he had vanished for good," another whispered, his eyes wide with realization. "But now, he''s back, and more dangerous than ever."
The news of the Dark Lord''s return sent shockwaves through the guardian guild, filling them with a mixture of fear and uncertainty. They had hoped for respite in his absence, but now, they were faced with the undeniable truth that the Dark Lord''s power still loomed over them.
Chapter 962 No Backup For The Guardian Guild
Following the Dark Lord''s chilling warning of the impending destruction of their guardian guild, ra retreated to the sanctuary of her meticulously arranged room. The space exuded an air of tranquility, with neatly stacked books lining the shelves and a captivating board game that challenged and sharpened her strategic thinking. Taking a purposeful stride, ra approached her table and deftly retrieved a silver bead from one of the carefully organized drawers. Inhaling deeply, she summoned her resolve and crushed the bead, unleashing a radiant burst of light that swiftly consumed her form, whisking her away from the room in an instant.
In an instant, ra materialized within a grand and brilliantly illuminated hall. The space exuded a sense of majestic splendor, adorned with a colossal chandelier that bathed the room in a warm, ethereal glow. At its center stood arge stone table, nked by sturdy stone chairs that beckoned to be upied. Casting an imposing presence, a towering statue of ady, entwined with a sinuous snake,manded attention from one corner of the room.
As ra, an elegant elf with golden hair and piercing blue eyes, entered the hall, she found herself confronted by several figures seated around the round table. Among them were Alicia, Salesi, Evan rke, and a enigmatic beastman who concealed his features beneath a cloak of dark robes.
"He is back," ra''s voice resounded with a mix of urgency and determination, as she shared the news of the Dark Lord''s return with herrades. The revtion triggered a tumultuous wave of emotions within each individual, blending fear, anger, and an unwavering thirst for retribution against the Dark Lord. Yet, amidst the charged atmosphere, the enigmatic beastman and Salesi exuded an eerie calmness, almost as if they had anticipated the Dark Lord''s resurgence. A serene smile graced Salesi''s face, as if she held secrets and ns beyond the reach of others.
Salesi''s calm demeanor persisted as she responded to ra''s plea. "Then it''s time to expedite our ns," she stated in aposed tone, her words carrying an air of determination.
But ra refused to yield, her fist tightening as she confronted Salesi. "No. We must devise a n to save the Guardian Guild. Azazel, the Dark Lord''s minion, has delivered a message, giving us a mere two days to abandon the guild before the Dark Lord himself arrives to obliterate it along with everyone inside," she implored, her voice filled with urgency and a desperate need for support.
Salesi''s nonchnt response,ced with indifference, provoked a frown from ra. "Why bother, honey?" Salesi retorted, her words dripping with an unsettlingck of concern.
Salesi''s voice remained steady as she expressed her viewpoint, her words carrying an air of finality. "The Guardian Guild, my dear, is akin to a dying animal. Attempts to salvage it would only prolong its suffering, prolong the inevitable. We must face the harsh truth that there is no conceivable n in existence that can protect the guild from the Dark Lord''s wrath. With his formidable power at the Half Celestial stage, weck any semnce of strength or support to pose even a remote challenge against him," Salesi exined, her serene countenance, seemingly undisturbed by the gravity of the situation, entuated the weight of her words.
Alicia''s frustration and anguish ignited, her voice echoing with a mix of anger and desperation as she forcefully mmed her hand on the table.
"So what do you expect us to do? Stand idly by and watch that bastard destroy everything my husband worked tirelessly to build?"
Her concern for Noah, lost after the Dark Lord''s brutal attack on his mentor, Andreas, intensified her emotions. With Noah still unconscious and his whereabouts unknown, Alicia''s anxiety grew, fueling her desire to protect his family. The Skyhall''s ruthless execution team had apprehended Ethan Winston and the elders, dismantling the entire Winston family. Fortunately, Noah''s aunties found refuge in Bredia, seeking asylum under the protection of King Bredia, given their familial ties.
Salesi''s calm demeanor remained unwavering, her gaze steady as she countered Alicia''s outburst. "Why waste our efforts mending a dying creature when we have the opportunity to create a formidable force capable of toppling the Dark Lord? Remember, the Guardian Guild is more than just a physical structure; it resides within its members. Have you ever stopped to consider why the Dark Lord granted a two-day ultimatum? He wants the guardians to abandon the guild, sacrificing their loyalty to save their own lives. Tell me, ra, how many guardians have already handed in their resignations and fled?" Salesi''s piercing gaze fixed upon ra, demanding her attention.
"Too many," ra sighed wearily, her steps carrying the weight of exhaustion as she approached the table and took her seat. Weariness permeated her being, overshadowed by the daunting task at hand.
Salesi leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with determination as she presented her n. "The best course of action is to identify the most talented individuals within the guild who still hold unwavering loyalty to Noah. We must recruit them into our ranks, forming a united front against the Dark Lord." While Michael and Gaya were upied in the depths of hell, Salesi took it upon herself to tirelessly seek out those with the values of honor and courage, individuals who would join the impending battle against the Dark Lord. In essence, she was constructing a ndestine army in the shadows, hidden from the prying eyes of their enemy.
Among the first recruits were Evan rk, apanied by his fiancee Victoria, ra Valren, and Alicia Winston. Salesi''s efforts also extended to the talented dwarves of the Han Torum n, whom she enlisted under the leadership of Hammond. Their expertise in crafting formidable weapons would prove invaluable in the forting struggle against the Dark Lord. With assistance from the Skyhall, Salesi sessfully rescued Hammond from the clutches of the Dark Lord''s vampires, recognizing the immense value of preserving such a brilliant mind. Little did Salesi know, however, that the Dark Lord himself had already set in motion his own sinister ns for weapon development.
The room fell silent as the weight of their mission settled upon them. Each individual carried their own hopes, fears, and determination to confront the looming threat. The clock was ticking, and the stage was set for an epic sh between light and darkness, with the future of their world hanging in the bnce.
Evan''s words carried a sense of urgency as he addressed Salesi, his toneced with concern. "Lady Salesi, we must understand that the Dark Lord''s ambitions extend far beyond the Guardian Guild. He is not going to halt his actions here."
ra, nodding in agreement, added her insights to the conversation. As an alpha guardian, she had dedicated herself to studying the Dark Lord extensively. Her voice held a mixture of determination and apprehension. "He is on the offensive now. The Dark Lord''s intentions are clear. He seeks to obliterate his enemies while they are at their most vulnerable."
Silent and watchful, the wolf-like figure listened intently without uttering a single word. Emotions ran high in the room as the gravity of the situation became increasingly apparent. The Dark Lord''s relentless pursuit of power and destruction cast a shadow of fear and uncertainty over their future. They knew that in order to stand a chance against him, they would need to unite their strengths and devise a n that countered his every move. Time was of the essence, and the battle against the Dark Lord had be a race against his impending onught.
Salesi nced around the room, her gaze lingering on each face before she spoke. "Hammond has been diligently working to create something that could potentially turn the tide against the Dark Lord," she said cryptically, her voice low and enigmatic.
Evan, ra, and the wolf-like figure leaned in, their curiosity piqued by Salesi''s mysterious statement. They knew that Salesi possessed hidden depths of knowledge and strategies that often remained veiled from the rest.
"Hammond, under my guidance, has been coborating with a group of skilled dwarves," Salesi continued, her voice carrying a tinge of secrecy. "Together, they are forging a weapon¡ªa device that has the potential to harness the very essence of the fallen, turning them into an undying army."
Her words hung in the air, eliciting a mix of intrigue and uncertainty among herpanions. Salesi had chosen not to reveal the full extent of her ns, keeping them shrouded in mystery. She understood that unveiling her every move could jeopardize the delicate bnce they sought to achieve.
"Trust in our ally''s ingenuity," Salesi added, her eyes gleaming with a glimmer of determination. "Hammond''s invention may hold the key to countering the Dark Lord''s forces and granting us an unexpected advantage."
Evan and ra exchanged a knowing nce, sensing that Salesi held back more than she had revealed. They understood that Salesi was a master strategist, carefully orchestrating their actions to outmaneuver their formidable adversary. It was a testament to her foresight and cunning that she kept certain cards hidden, reserving them for the most opportune moments.
The wolf-like figure remained silent, their eyes reflecting a blend of curiosity and caution. They had chosen to trust in Salesi''s leadership, knowing that her every decision held a purpose that would unfold in due time.
When the weight of their impending battle settled upon them, the room fell into a contemtive silence. Each individual contemted their role in the grand scheme of things, aware that the fate of their world rested on their shoulders. Salesi''s mysterious ns and Hammond''s secret project cast an air of hope amidst the encroaching darkness, reminding them that the path to victory ofteny hidden within the shadows.
As Salesi''s words about turning fallenrades into an undying army echoed in the room, a wave of difort washed over Alicia. Her face contorted with a mix of confusion and disgust, her brows furrowing deeply. The idea of creating an army of the undead, akin to the Dark Lord''s forces, repulsed her.
Alicia couldn''t help but voice her concerns, her voiceced with skepticism. "Are you nning to create an undead army, Salesi? Are we not just bing as twisted and vile as the Dark Lord himself if we resort to such methods?"
Salesi, her gaze steady and unyielding, met Alicia''s eyes. A knowing smile yed upon her lips as she responded. "No, Alicia. This is not an undead army in the conventional sense. It is something much more."
Her words hung in the air, leaving Alicia yearning for more answers. The unease within her gnawed at her, questioning the morality and integrity of their cause. She understood the necessity of fighting back against the Dark Lord, but she didn''t want their actions to mirror his malevolence.
"I cannot reveal all my ns just yet," Salesi continued, her voice filled with conviction. "But trust me when I say that what we are creating is not an army of mindless undead. It is something different, something that can tip the scales in our favor without sacrificing our humanity."
Alicia bit her lip, still grappling with her doubts. She looked around the room, searching for reassurance in the eyes of herpanions. Evan and ra, though intrigued by Salesi''s enigmatic words, appeared to trust her judgment. The wolf-like figure remained silent, their unreadable expression suggesting a willingness to follow Salesi''s lead.
Salesi''s calm demeanor and air of confidence began to alleviate Alicia''s initial concerns, recing them with a flicker of hope. Perhaps there was more to Salesi''s n than she initially thought.
As the conversation progressed, Evan interjected, his voiceced with urgency. "Salesi, we shouldn''t forget about Noah''s spies within the Dark Lord''s army. They hold valuable information and could be crucial assets in our fight. We should consider pulling them out, ensuring their safety and utilizing their knowledge against the Dark Lord."
Salesi''s gaze shifted to Evan, considering his words carefully. She understood the importance of the spies and the insights they could provide. However, her thoughts were focused on a different strategy¡ªone that required subtlety and gathering intelligence from within the enemy''s ranks.
"I appreciate your concern, Evan," Salesi replied, her tone measured. "But at this stage, it is best to keep the spies embedded within the Dark Lord''s army. They are our eyes and ears, gathering vital information about the Dark Lord''s ns and movements."
Alicia''s brow furrowed as she tried toprehend Salesi''s reasoning. "But won''t they be in grave danger? The Dark Lord could discover their true identities and execute them."
Salesi''s gaze hardened, her resolve unwavering. "I understand the risks involved, Alicia, but we must tread carefully. Pulling them out now could raise suspicions and jeopardize their lives. By keeping them within the Dark Lord''s army, they can continue to gather valuable intelligence, ensuring we stay one step ahead."
Evan nodded reluctantly, acknowledging the rationale behind Salesi''s decision. He knew they needed as much information as possible to counter the Dark Lord''s ns effectively. However, he couldn''t help but worry for the safety of the spies and the potential consequences they might face.
"Remember, our spies are skilled and resilient," Salesi continued, her voice filled with determination. "We will provide them with the support they need and monitor their situation closely. If the risks be too great, we will reassess and act ordingly. But for now, their presence within the Dark Lord''s army is our best chance to gather crucial intel and gain an advantage."
Alicia sighed, reluctantly epting Salesi''s perspective. She knew that Salesi had a knack for ying the long game, strategizing with meticulous care. While uneasy about the spies'' precarious situation, she understood the importance of information in this battle against the Dark Lord.
With their discussion concluded, the group settled into a determined silence, each member contemting their role in this dangerous undertaking. The path ahead was treacherous, and sacrifices would be inevitable. Salesi''s enigmatic ns, the spies lurking in the shadows, and the weight of their mission loomed over them, shaping their resolve to challenge the Dark Lord and reim their world from his clutches.
Chapter 963 Game Of Schemes
As the bustling preparations for Michael and Gaya''s wedding filled the air, Michael sought sce within his forge located deep within the heart of the demon''s grave. Here, amidst the flickering glow of molten metal, he dedicated his craftsmanship to fashioning something truly special for his beloved. The distant rumble of the relocated mountain, containing his cherished herbal garden, still echoed in his ears as he focused on his work.
Vedora, the three-headed hydra, coiled upon a nearby table, its heads observing Michael''s every move with unwavering attention. Ayag, the white-headed head of the hydra, emanated an aura of raw energy, asionally punctuating the air with colorful expletives. Sarba, the silver-headed middle head, possessed a gentle and meek disposition, rarely disying anger. And Cain, the ck-headed head, exuded an air of silent cunning and unmatched intellect.
As Michael stoked the fires of the forge, the searing heat bringing beads of sweat to his brow, Vedora''s multiple heads swayed in unison, their eyes fixated on the intricate dance of mes.
Ayag''s voice dripped with a mixture of skepticism and frustration as she addressed Michael, her toneced with disbelief.
"So, it''s finally fuckin'' happening, huh? The Guardian Guild''s gonna be wiped out. But why the hell did you give ''em two days? Wouldn''t it be more efficient to catch ''em off guard and attack without warning?"
Michael, his focus undeterred, carefully lifted a cauldron brimming with shimmering golden liquid, its warmth radiating through the air. With a calm demeanor, he replied to Ayag''s questioning, his voice steady yet tinged with an underlying intention. "I want to give those who wanna leave the guild a chance."
Ayag''s brows furrowed in suspicion, her eyes narrowing with a newfound sense of curiosity. "Why the hell do I get the feelin'' that you''ve got somethin'' else up your sleeve?" she pressed, her voiceced with skepticism.
Cain, ever observant and quick to interject, spoke up in ce of Michael, his tone carrying a hint of intrigue. "There''s another force at y here, Ayag."
Michael paused his work momentarily, a knowing smile gracing his lips as he acknowledged Ayag''s bewildered expression. "You caught on, huh?" he remarked, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
Ayag, still grappling toprehend the depth of the situation, blurted out her question, her voiceden with confusion. "What other force are you talkin'' about?" she inquired, her tone revealing her utter cluelessness.
Michael''s voice cut through the air, his words steeped in gravitas as he unraveled a truth that left Ayag stunned. "Nightmare''s death didn''t happen by chance. It was orchestrated, someone pulling the strings behind the scenes. They wanted to pin the me on Noah and Norvin."
Ayag growled in disbelief, his voiceced with surprise and a touch of anger. "What the fuck do you mean they put the me on Norvin? Our fuckin'' spies in Winston Manor said Norvin imed he stabbed Nightmare in a fit of rage!"
Michael, his hammer striking the cooled golden liquid with precision, maintained his focus as he rified the truth.
"Noah and Norvin both have this idiotic rule against killing. They believe in it wholeheartedly, even if it puts ''em at a disadvantage. Noah wouldn''t have taken Nightmare''s life, especially not after we saved his father. He''d try to incapacitate Nightmare, use his power to lock his cultivation, and end the fight without killin'' him."
"So, you''re sayin'' someone else killed Nightmare and put the me on Norvin? But here''s the fuckin'' thing that doesn''t make sense¡ªwhy the hell would Norvin take the me, knowin'' that imin'' he killed Nightmare would piss us off enough to wipe out their whole fuckin'' kingdom?"
Michael''s work paused momentarily, his eyes meeting Ayag''s as he conveyed his understanding. "Norvin betted on the fact that I can''t kill Noah without the god-killing arrows. He thought if he ced Noah in Nagnd, we wouldn''t attack ''cause it''s Gaya''s homnd. But he didn''t anticipate that Gaya would prioritize avengin'' Nightmare over her kingdom. The same force behind Nightmare''s death manipted Norvin into leavin'' Noah''s side. Otherwise, he wouldn''t have done it."
The rhythm of Michael''s hammer resumed, the metallic ng reverberating through the forge as he continued his work. The process of forging a special gift for Gaya unfolded alongside their conversation, each strike of the hammer adding to the creation of a symbol of their love.
As sparks flew and metal took shape, the weight of the revtions settled upon them all. Emotions churned within them, a mix of anger, confusion, and determination. The path to justice wasid bare before them, and they vowed to unravel the truth behind Nightmare''s death and protect those who had been wrongly used.
"Think about it. How could Saber lose the trail of a mere human? Someone must''ve helped Hammond disappear," Michael stated calmly, his voice tinged with a hint of intrigue.
Ayag''s anger red as she responded, her voiceced with frustration. "So when the fuck did youe to this conclusion? Before or after Gayaunched a fuckin'' full-scale attack on her homnd, killin'' Castien and crippin'' her sister?"
Michael''s expression remainedposed as he answered, a subtle smirk ying on his lips. "Long before that, Ayag. Whoever the hell they are, they know damn well they can''t face me directly. That''s why they choose to work from the shadows. But they seem to have forgotten that I control the god of darkness, the very essence of shadows. Let them think they have the upper hand. Let them think they stand a chance. After all, it''d be boring without some opposition in this game of schemes," Michael dered, a wry smile curling on his lips.
Snatching the metal piece from the forge, Michael plunged it into cold water, steam hissing and dissipating into the air. The calmness in his voice belied the gravity of his words. "Every time I''m in a battle, they send more and more people to die by my hands, even though they know they can''t match my power. If I''m right, they''re nning some fucked up shit with the souls of the people we kill,"
The mention of souls made Vedora''s minds race, their thoughts instantly conjuring images of an army of glowing souls under the night sky, poised to take down the dark army they had worked tirelessly to build. Yet, upon witnessing the calm smile on Michael''s face, a sense of reassurance washed over them.
"Okay, hold the fuck up. What the hell makes you think they''re buildin'' an army of souls? Is that what you''re implyin''?" Ayag furrowed her brow, her frustration was evident.
"They were harvesting demon bodies in the demon''s grave and fucking undead from theher realm. And the only exnation for why no powerful cultivator interjected every time I fought an army is ''cause they let me kill all those people," Michael exined, his tone matter-of-fact.
Ayag interjected, her skepticism apparent. "We can''t fuckin'' rule out the fact that Xanali is as dumb as a sack of shit."
Michael chuckled, a brief respite from the seriousness of the conversation. "True, but it wasn''t Xanali who ruled Nagnd. It was Salesi, her mother. And Salesi was nowhere to be found when we attacked Nagnd. ording to Gaya and the intel we got from our minions, Salesi is not stupid."
Sarba''s curiosity was piqued as he posed a question. "If she''s such a genius, then why the hell did Nagnd decline under her rule?"
Michael''s response wasden with contemtion. "What if that was her intention all along?" he pondered aloud, his question hanging in the air.
Frustration and confusion etched on Sarba''s face as he absorbed Michael''s words.
"I don''t have any proof to support my theory, but I''ve reached a point where I don''t need concrete evidence. Once Aria''s assassins find Salesi, I''ll get the goddamn answers straight from her," Michael dered coldly, his eyes gleaming with determination as he retrieved the metal piece from the oil.
"So let''s say they are indeed building an army of souls, and I don''t even know how the hell that shit works. What the fuck are you gonna do about it, huh? Are you gonna stop killin'' anything that stands in your way and turn to goddamn democracy?" Ayag sneered, her sarcasm dripping from every word.
Michael, focused on his forging, responded calmly, his words punctuated by the rhythmic nging of the hammer. "They''re not building an army for themselves, Ayag. They''re building an army for me. They just don''t know about it," He continued his work, the metal piece slowly taking shape beneath his skilled hands.
Michael harbored two intertwined ns in his relentless pursuit of the truth. The first n revolved around unearthing theplete extent of his suspicion: the existence of an army of souls being constructed by his adversaries. Once he confirmed the presence of such an ethereal force, his second n would seamlesslye into y, ingeniously utilizing the powers bestowed upon him by the system to im the army of souls as his own.
However, caution was paramount. Michael understood the delicate bnce between maintaining secrecy and his enemies'' perception of his suspicions. If they were to suspect his awareness of their sinister machinations, they would swiftly pivot to an alternate strategy. Thus, feigning ignorance became an integral aspect of his design. By appearing oblivious to their hidden agenda, his enemies would continue to dispatch armies, unknowingly presenting him with the opportunity to rue experience points and, in turn, the coveted badass points through their defeat.
It was through this process of skillful maniption that Michael would steadily umte his store of badass points. In the intricate dance between light and darkness, Michael''s strategic mind worked tirelessly, envisioning a future where the army of souls stood as a testament to his indomitable will. With careful precision, he calcted each step, knowing that the revtion of the truth would pave the path for him to harness the power within the souls and forge his own indomitable army.
Though the system had temporarily gone offline, and he couldn''t earn experience points for his kills, Michael knew he still amassed a fuckin'' ton of badass points. After the war in Nagnd, he had a staggering twenty million badass points just waiting to be utilized. He was confident that once the system came back online, he could turn whatever this unknown enemy was doin'' in the shadows against them, using the powers granted by the system.
As the conversation shifted to the topic of spies, Ayag raised a proposition that made Michael pause.
"Now that Noah is gone and we''re on the verge of destroyin'' the Guardian Guild, we should hang Noah''s fuckin'' spies among our ranks and make an example out of them," Ayag suggested, her toneced with vindictiveness.
Michael shook his head, his expression contemtive.
"No. They are far more valuable to me, alive than dead. I''ve instructed Trista to ce these spies in a special unit and feed them false information. This unknown enemy of mine will eventually seek out these spies and attempt to use them. And when that happens, these spies will unknowingly lead me straight to them," Michael exined, his eyes gleaming with a cunning resolve.
Michael was acutely aware of the inevitable infiltration of his army by hostile spies. With forceprising nearly two thousand soldiers, it was an insurmountable task to monitor each individual closely. The unsettling truth was that any of them could be swayed to betray him with the right incentives, and he had seen firsthand how easily loyalty could bepromised.
To safeguard against potential dangers posed by these spies, Michael understood the importance of keeping crucial ns close to his chest. It was unnecessary for the lower-ranking soldiers to be privy to the intricacies of his strategies. By withholding such vital information, he effectively limited the amount of actionable intelligence avable to his enemies.
This approach aimed to minimize the risk of leaks within his own ranks, preventing vital details from falling into the wrong hands. With a deliberate and calcted approach, Michael aimed to provide his adversaries with a paltry amount of useful information, leaving them grasping at shadows and uncertain of his true intentions.
However, Michael recognized that the presence of hostile spies within his army wasn''t entirely a disadvantage. In fact, he saw it as an opportunity to turn the tables on his enemies. Once he sessfully identified these spies, he could carefully trace their activities to uncover their superiors and the broaderwork they were reporting to. This chain of information would lead him to the heart of the enemy''s operations and reveal therger threat they posed.
As Michael delved deeper into this game of deception and intrigue, a sense of exhration coursed through his veins. The thrill of outmaneuvering his adversaries, using their own spies against them, was a source of satisfaction. With each step, he gained a strategic advantage, unraveling their plots and turning their schemes to his advantage. It was a thrilling pursuit that fueled his determination to protect his army and ensure their ultimate victory.
With the n firmly established, every element began to align as they readied themselves to outsmart their foes. In the intricate intery between brightness and obscurity, Michael maintained a constant advantage, his sharp intellect tirelessly at work to expose the facts and conquer his enigmatic adversary, reducing them to defeat.
When Michael set aside the hammer, his mind brimmed with a myriad of ns, ranging from n A to n Z. His confidence soared beyond a mere hundred percent, surpassing even two hundred percent, as he envisioned emerging victorious against whoever dared plot in the shadows. Being the Dark Lord, he understood that adversaries would shy away from direct confrontation, fully aware that facing him head-on would only result in their demise. Hence, schemes became their sole recourse, their slim chance of challenging his reign.
"In the grand game of schemes, my enemies may revel in their initial victories, thinking they have me cornered. But little do they know, I thrive amidst the chaos they create. Schemes may be their feeble attempt to bring me down, but I am the master of shadows, the orchestrator of their downfall. For every scheme they devise, I have ten strategies waiting in the darkness. And in the end, when the dust settles, it is I who emerges, triumphant and untouchable. The schemes may dance and deceive, but I, the Dark Lord, always have the final move,"
Chapter 964 Effects Of The Dark Lord鈥檚 Armor Pieces
(Forgive this idiot author for not editing the previous chapter properly when I first published it. I rewrote the chapterpletely and add few more exciting things to the chapter. Please read the previous chapter 963, before continuing to read the below chapter)
Venturing into the dark, newly built, and dimly lit underground cer beneath Caius''s home, Salesi descended further into its eerie depths. The air within was heavy and tainted, carrying the unmistakable stench of blood, a testament to the horrors that had unfolded within these confines.
As Salesi cautiously advanced, the flickering light of torches revealed a macabre sight. The ground was stained with dried blood while fresh puddles glistened ominously. Chains hung from the walls, bearing the scars of countless struggles, evidenced by scratch marks and lingering traces of crimson.
A bone-chilling symphony of gnawing and croaking sounds filled the air, a chilling reminder of the torment inflicted upon unfortunate victims held captive within this dismal underworld. Salesi''s steps faltered as a movement caught her attention, drawing her gaze to the dancing shadows. Amidst the obscurity, bolts of crimson-red lightning flickered, casting an eerie glow upon a tall figure.
The atmosphere grew tense as Salesi''s eyes locked onto the enigmatic presence concealed within the darkness.
"We need to talk, Quintus," Salesi''s voice resonated through the chilling air of the underground cer. Though fully aware of the horrors that had unfolded within these very walls, she maintained an unnerving calmness in her demeanor.
As Salesi approached, the figure known as General Quintus remained motionless, seemingly unperturbed by her presence. Seizing a torch from the pir nearby, Salesi thrust its illuminating me into the darkness, revealing a grotesque scene. General Quintus, shrouded in tattered, misty robes, was hunched over a young man, his twisted form engrossed in a macabre feast.
General Quintus''s appearance was nightmarish to behold. Veiled beneath his ragged attire, he donned a menacing metal chest te adorned with an intricately engraved skull. The chest te seemed to pulsate with minuscule, crimson-red bolts that danced in an otherworldly fashion. His disfigured countenance was a horrifying sight, with decaying flesh peeling away from his face, exposing raw, oozing wounds. Trails of blood streamed down his neck and eyes, while only a few stray strands of hair clung desperately to his scalp. His emaciated frame exuded an aura of terror, evoking a chilling sense of dread.
Despite the terrifying visage before her, Salesi maintained herposure, steeling herself for the conversation thaty ahead. She knew that engaging with General Quintus, despite the horrors he embodied, was crucial in unraveling the mysteries that gued their world.
"Disturb not my feast, woman," Quintus snarled, his fangs deeply embedded in the young man''s neck, extracting the lifeblood with a gruesome hunger.
Suppressing her revulsion, Salesi maintained herposure, a necessary sacrifice in her quest for allies and powerful figures to bolster her shadow n''s fight against the Dark Lord. The sight of Quintus, an abomination of nature, was a reminder of the dark forces she had to navigate.
"Quintus, I warned you about wearing those cursed armor pieces," Salesi spoke, her voiceced with a hint of concern. Leaning against a pir, she observed the frailty that gued Quintus. She knew all too well that his vampiric regeneration alone would not sustain him indefinitely.
Desire gleamed in Quintus''s eyes as he released his hold on the lifeless husk of the young man. The once vibrant, plump body had withered into a desated shell, drained of all vitality. Quintus''s elongated tongue slithered across his bloodstained fingers, relishing the remnants of his gruesome meal. His crimson eyes fixated upon Salesi, hunger still burning within.
The tense atmosphere between Salesi and Quintus hung heavy, an unspoken understanding lingering beneath their interaction. Salesi''s need for Quintus''s allegiance and his insatiable thirst for more power converged in this macabre encounter, a delicate dance between maniption and necessity.
"The armor pieces you adorn, Quintus, were never meant for you to wear¡ªat least not yet," Salesi''s voice resonated with caution and concern. She stepped closer, her gaze locked onto Quintus''s deteriorating form, his body ravaged by the corruption of the dark armor.
Quintus, in his insatiable thirst for power, had sumbed to the allure of the forbidden armor. Its malevolent influence had gradually seeped into every fiber of his being, twisting and distorting him into an unholy abomination. The once noble figure was now a grotesque manifestation of decay and despair.
Only his vampiric regenerative abilities and a constant supply of blood from the unfortunate souls of Kingdom Gisel sustained Quintus''s fragile existence. The armor, however, acted as a poison, slowly consuming his body and soul with each passing moment.
Salesi''s words held the weight of knowledge and a tinge of desperation. She understood the dire consequences of Quintus continuing to wear the armor. It was a path that would lead to his eventual demise, aplete corruption of his very essence.
"We must conduct further research, Quintus, and find a way to cleanse and reforge the armor so that it may serve its true purpose," Salesi implored, her voice tinged with urgency. "Wearing it as it is will only lead to your ultimate demise, a fate we cannot afford."
As Salesi spoke, she couldn''t help but feel a pang of sympathy for Quintus. He had sumbed to the allure of power, his body transformed into a nightmarish visage of his former self.
"This armor is mine, mine alone," Quintus snarled defiantly, dismissing Salesi''s warnings. His lips peeled back to reveal his menacing pair of elongated fangs, stained with the blood of his victims. The intensity of his gaze bore into Salesi, unyielding and filled with a feral determination.
Despite all the warnings and pleas from Salesi, Quintus stubbornly clung to the corrupted armor, his features contorted with defiance. His hissing voice and bloodstained teeth only emphasized the depth of his descent into darkness.
Undeterred by Quintus''s aggression, Salesi stood her ground, her unwavering resolve shining through. Not a trace of fear flickered in her eyes, even in the face of such a gruesome abomination.
"These armor pieces belongs to the Dark Lord''s, Quintus. He is relentless in his pursuit of what is rightfully his. If he discovers you wearing them, he will tear you apart without mercy. No armor will shield you from his wrath," Salesi''s words carried a sense of urgency and a hint of concern for Quintus''s safety.
The truth of her words stoked a furious anger within Quintus, his bloodlust reaching its boiling point. With inhuman speed, he lunged at Salesi, driven by a primal rage. Yet, Salesi remainedposed, her gaze unwavering.
In response, Salesi calmly raised the torch in one hand, its flickering mes casting an eerie glow in the dimly lit cer. With her other hand, she summoned a swirling mist that danced through the torch''s fire, transforming it into a powerful torrent of blue mes.
As the searing mes engulfed Quintus, his anguished roar filled the air. The intensity of the fire forced him to retreat into the shadows, seeking sce in the darkness that veiled his monstrous form. There, his vampiric regeneration would work tirelessly to heal the wounds inflicted by Salesi''s me.
Quintus''s face contorted with rage, his eyes burning with a bloodlust that seemed insatiable. "You wretched bitch! I will tear you limb from limb and feast on your flesh," he spat, his voice dripping with venomous hatred. His words carried a gruesome promise, filled with visions of carnage and savagery.
Unfazed by the vile threats, Salesi maintained herposure, meeting Quintus''s gaze without flinching. She understood the depths of his desperation and the darkness that consumed him. With a steady voice, she attempted to reason with him. "Quintus, I am not your enemy. In fact, I am the only one who can offer you salvation from the fate that awaits you. I can help you wield the power of that armor without sumbing to its corrupting influence. You don''t have to be consumed by darkness."
Salesi''s seeminglypassionate offer to save Quintus carried with it a hidden agenda. Beneath her calm exterior, a calcted mind was at work, analyzing every move and strategy. Her intentions were far from altruistic; she saw Quintus as nothing more than a pawn in her relentless game against the Dark Lord.
While her words hinted at redemption and salvation, Salesi''s true motivations were rooted in cunning maniption. She saw an opportunity to exploit Quintus''s desire for power, harnessing it for her own ends. Her heart remained untouched by genuinepassion, reced instead by a cold, strategic mind that sought to leverage any situation to her advantage.
Behind her calm demeanor, Salesi''s thoughts churned with ns and schemes, each piece meticulously arranged on the chessboard of her ambitions. She was ruthless in her pursuit of victory, willing to use anyone and anything as a means to an end. Quintus, with his immense power and thirst for blood, became just another tool in her arsenal.
In her eyes, alliances were temporary, loyalty was expendable, and emotions were mere hindrances. Salesi was a master maniptor, weaving a web of deception and intrigue, ensuring that she remained several steps ahead of her adversaries. Her actions were guided solely by self-interest, and she had no qualms about sacrificing others in her relentless pursuit of power.
Despite the maddening corruption that clouded Quintus''s mind, a flicker of rationality remained within him. Deep down, he understood the perilous truth in Salesi''s words. If he persisted in wearing the ursed armor pieces, his very existence would be devoured by their malevolent power. It was a realization that pierced through the haze of his insanity.
Quintus, in his fragmented state, grasped a fundamental truth that eluded most. The armor pieces were not meant for mortal beings, and if he could not bear their weight, then no one else could either. They were crafted specifically for the Dark Lord, their twisted design a reflection of his maleficence.
In stark contrast, Salesi, with her cunning and knowledge, recognized the armor''s true nature. She understood the irrefutable connection it held with its creator, the Dark Lord himself. It was an understanding born from her meticulous research and her unyielding pursuit of knowledge.
Quintus''s sudden desire for the armor pieces derailed Salesi''s original n. She had intended to bring the coveted artifacts to herir, where she could conduct extensive research and unravel their secrets. It was through this meticulous study that she hoped to unlock the possibility of someone other than the Dark Lord donning the armor pieces.
The allure of uncovering such knowledge fueled Salesi''s ambition. She understood the immense value of keeping the armor pieces out of the Dark Lord''s clutches. By preventing him from obtaining them, she could hinder his progress and impede thepletion of his formidable armor.
Yet, Quintus''s insatiable lust for the ursed pieces threw a wrench into her carefullyid ns. His uncontroble desire now threatened to snatch the armor pieces from her grasp, denying her the opportunity to delve deeper into their mysteries.
"Now, Quintus, time is running out. Remove the armor pieces and hand them over to me," Salesi''s voice quivered with urgency. The weight of their impending danger hung heavy in the air. She needed Quintus to understand the gravity of the situation.
"The Dark Lord himself is en route to our location. His arrival is imminent," Salesi revealed, her wordsced with a sense of impending doom. The urgency in her voice conveyed the need for immediate action. They could no longer afford to linger in Gisel''s confines.
Salesi reveled in the immense advantage she held over the Dark Lord. Her meticulous scheming unfolded behind the shadows, unbeknownst to him. Secrecy was her greatest weapon, and it allowed her ns to take shape undisturbed. The Dark Lord, consumed by his own arrogance, remained oblivious to the web of deceit she spun around him or she thought.
Salesi''s every move was calcted with precision. She had purposely allowed Quintus to wear the armor pieces, using him as a testing subject to assess the true effects they would have on an individual. It was a calcted risk, exploiting Quintus''s unwavering desire for power and lust for the dark artifacts. Little did he know that his role extended beyond mere pawn; he unknowingly served as a crucial piece in her grand scheme.
She observed Quintus closely, noting the insidious changes the armor pieces inflicted upon his mind, body, and soul. His unwitting participation provided her with valuable insights and the knowledge she needed to manipte the situation to her advantage. Quintus''s ignorance shielded her true intentions, ensuring the Dark Lord remained oblivious to her plot to bring about his downfall.
If the Dark Lord were to discover Salesi''s intricate machinations, her carefully constructed ns would crumble before her. The delicate bnce she had cultivated, the element of surprise she wielded, would be shattered. The stakes were high, and Salesi guarded her secrets with unwavering determination, knowing that the very existence of her mission depended on her ability to remain hidden in the shadows.
Just as Quintus was about to remove the armor pieces, Andreas materialized beside Salesi, his expression filled with urgency and a hint of despair. Salesi, ever perceptive, read the unspoken words in his eyes.
"We need to leave now. The Dark Lord is here, and he killed them," said Andreas. The weight of his cryptic statement, "he killed them," resonated within her. She quickly pieced together the puzzle, understanding the grim fate that had befallen those dear to Quintus.
Aware that Andreas was on the brink of unraveling her carefully crafted n with his reckless candor, Salesi desperately attempted to convey her silent warning. Her eyes pleaded with him to keep silent, to withhold the devastating truth that threatened to unleash Quintus''s fury prematurely. But Andreas, driven by his own motivations and disregard for the delicate bnce she had meticulously orchestrated, flicked his wrist, summoning a silver chain adorned with a penguin pendant¡ªa token of sentimental value.
Quintus''s eyes widened upon seeing the pendant, a visceral recognition shing across his face. It was a precious gift, purchased by Quintus himself, presented to his beloved wife, Metilia Salinator, on their wedding day. The bloodstains that marred the chain told a gruesome tale¡ªone of unspeakable loss and unsatiated vengeance. In that harrowing moment, Quintus''s intentions to surrender the armor pieces and maintain rationality shattered like fragile ss. Overwhelmed by a torrent of anger and grief, he unleashed a primal roar, his sole desire to tear through the walls, break free, and confront the Dark Lord.
"Fool!" Salesi''s frustration surged as she witnessed Quintus''s reckless escape, leaving the cer without surrendering the coveted armor pieces that she had been on the precipice of persuading him to relinquish. She clenched her fists tightly, her anger and disappointment seething, and turned her gaze to Andreas.
Chapter 965 Battle For The Title And Armor Pieces
As Salesi plotted against Michael, manipting Quintus as yet another pawn in her game, Michael found sce above the clouds, floating amidst the celestial beauty of the starry sky and the presence of three majestic sapphire moons. Amidst the chaos of schemes, vengeance, and the weight of his Dark Lord responsibilities, Michael asionally forgot to appreciate the breathtaking wonders of this world. However, once he had vanquished his adversaries and settled his score, a burning desire ignited within him to embark on a journey to those enigmatic moons, to uncover the mysteries thaty hidden within their ethereal embrace.
While he luxuriated in the celestial beauty, a chilling reminder of his ruthless nature stained Michael''s hand¡ªthe blood of Quintus''s wife and her entire family. These were not innocent lives, for Saber had unearthed a macabre secret in their backyard¡ªa burial ground concealing the remains of countless enved individuals who toiled under Quintus''s roof. However, their deaths were not solely a consequence of their actions. Michael''s unwavering devotion to safeguarding Gaya, his beloved, propelled him to eliminate any potential threat. Mercy, even towards his adversaries, held the potential to endanger the safety of his cherished one. Thus, he resolved to protect Gaya at any cost, an oath he would not allow any flicker of leniency topromise.
"My Lord," Azazel flew gracefully through the clouds, his eyes wide with shock and awe. He bowed before Michael, his admiration evident. The Dark Lord''s uncanny ability to foresee events had left Azazel astonished.
"Take a look at this my lord," Azazel presented a tablet-sized mirror to Michael, a reflection of a gruesome tableau. The mirror unveiled a gory spectacle within its depths¡ªa hall strewn with the lifeless bodies of soldiers and nobles. Blood adorned the walls in macabre patterns, leaving a chilling testament to the savagery that had unfolded. Scorch marks marred the surroundings, and once magnificent statues stood melted and disfigured by the unforgiving heat. The sheer amount of blood spilled was a testament to the carnage that had transpired.
It was Azazel''s masterful orchestration that brought about this scene, for Michael had no need to soil his hands when he had his trusted demon butler by his side. The Dark Lord''s vengeance had been unleashed upon Quintus''s wife and her father alone.
Within the mirror, amidst the crimson chaos, Azazel pointed out a hazy white figure to Michael, a presence that piqued his curiosity and confirmed his suspicions of an unknown force operating in the shadows.
"My Lord, this fleeting blur appeared for a mere moment within the hall. Initially, I dismissed it as a glitch or a stray speck of dust. However, you had foreseen its arrival," Azazel exined, his voice tinged with intrigue. Michael''s cunning n had unfolded wlessly, leaving Azazel astounded.
After executing his vengeance upon Quintus''s family, Michael had left a Spyder¡ªa small surveince device¡ªconcealed within their home. Its purpose was to record and transmit all subsequent events. The Dark Lord harbored a suspicion that the unknown force operating in the shadows was in league with Quintus, and he anticipated their presence within Quintus''s abode upon receiving a message written in blood. True to his intuition, someone¡ªor something¡ªhad materialized as expected.
Michael allowed a wry smile to grace his lips, pleased with the sess of his n. He quickly focused his attention on the blurry figure captured by the Spyder''s lens. With precision, he zoomed in on the image, straining his eyes to discern any discernible humanoid features. He swiped the screen, switching between different camera angles provided by the Spyders in the vicinity. Regrettably, the elusive figure manifested and vanished with such speed that none of the Spyders managed to capture a clear image.
As the blurry figure caught Michael''s attention, a flicker of recognition stirred within him, reminiscent of someone he had encountered before¡ªAndreas. Unbeknownst to him, this ethereal presence was another iteration of Andreas, one that had met its demise at his hands. The Andreas currently aligned with Salesi had emerged from the depths of hatred for the Dark Lord, infused with the essence of hell mes.
Nevertheless, the presence of the hazy figure served as confirmation that a formidable force was operating covertly against him. It propelled Michael further along his path toward eradicating these hidden adversaries.
With a sense of satisfaction, Michael acknowledged the wless execution of his n. Now, all that remained was to bide his time, patiently awaiting the arrival of his adversaries. In his amusement, he likened their impending approach to that of a sacrificial goat, unknowingly drawn to its appointed butcher. A chuckle escaped his lips, filled with an air of sinister anticipation.
"Now, let''s just wait here and let the goate running to its butcher," Michael chuckled.
*************************************
Michael devised two strategies to confront Quintus. The initial n involvedunching a surprise infiltration of Caius''s mansion, where Quintus was believed to be hiding, based on information acquired from hiswork of spies. The alternative n entailed luring Quintus directly to Michael''s presence. After careful consideration, Michael opted for thetter, recognizing that this course of action would not only ensure Quintus''s presence but also provide further validation of his existing suspicions regarding an elusive entity operating against him from the shadows.
In essence, by implementing the second n, Michael aimed to aplish multiple objectives simultaneously, strategically positioning himself to confront Quintus and strengthen his certainty regarding the covert opposition he faced.
Moreover, Michael desired Quintus''s fate to serve as a stark warning and unmistakable message to all those who dared to align themselves with his adversaries. With a deliberate descent through the darkened skies, Michael could perceive the growingmotion emanating from Caius''s opulent mansion.
"DARK LORD!"
Suddenly, a thunderous roar pierced through the night, carried by Quintus''smanding voice, echoing throughout the city andmanding attention from all who heard it.
Under Quintus''s tyrannical rule, a haunting darkness engulfed the once vibrant realm. The horror stories whispered among the townsfolk paled inparison to the gruesome reality they faced. Quintus, a vampire of insatiable hunger, reveled in his sadistic reign, leaving a trail of shattered lives and broken spirits in his wake.
Night after night, young souls, lured by false promises or seized under cover of darkness, vanished without a trace. Their cries for help echoed in the shadows, unheard and unanswered. Quintus, a predator hiding under Caius''s manor, found pleasure in feasting upon the life essence of his victims. Their blood, once warm and pulsating with vitality, became his unholy elixir, prolonging his cursed existence.
The people, trapped in a web of fear, lived in constant terror. Each passing day brought fresh nightmares as their loved ones disappeared one by one, leaving behind a void of anguish and unanswered questions. The once bustling streets nowy deserted and haunted, the atmosphere thick with an eerie silence.
Hope flickered like a dying me as the people yearned for a savior to vanquish this monstrous fiend. Whispers of resistance circted in hushed tones, desperate pleas for someone, anyone, to rise against the nightmarish rule of Quintus. They longed for the light of justice to pierce through the suffocating darkness that had enveloped their lives.
As themotion echoed through the streets, a wave of fearful faces emerged from the safety of their homes. Yet, as Quintus''s roar filled the night, a subtle sense of relief washed over them. Despite the world branding Michael as the malevolent Dark Lord, the reign of his loyal servant, Caius, had brought prosperity and happiness to Gisel. Under their joint leadership, the kingdom thrived, heading toward a golden era of prosperity. Even amid rumors of Caius''s hidden allegiance to the Dark Lord, the people remained unconcerned, for their lives were filled with abundance and contentment.
During Michael''s absence in the depths of hell, a treacherous turn of events unfolded within the Skyhall. The execution team, manipted by sinister forces, falsely used Caius of serving the evil Dark Lord and swiftly ended his life. In a chilling twist, Quintus, a far greater malevolence, seized control of Caius''s manor, unleashing a reign of terror upon thend. The dark shadow of Quintus cast a sinister pall over the kingdom, as numerous young souls mysteriously vanished without a trace. Their lives were cruelly sacrificed, bing nothing more than vessels of sustenance for Quintus''s insatiable thirst for blood. The people, gripped by fear and living in perpetual dread, found themselves caught between the horrors of Quintus and the tales of the feared Dark Lord so when Quintus roared the name "Dark Lord," an ironic sense of relief washed over them.
Finally, Michael came face to face with the notorious Quintus, and the sight that met his eyes filled him with a seething rage. Quintus, in his audacity, had not only taken the life of Heinberg, one of Michael''s trusted subordinates but had also yed a pivotal role in aiding the Skyhall execution team''s invasion of Gisel. The consequences of his actions were grim, leading to the execution and hanging of Caius, another loyal subordinate.
However, it was Quintus''s insolence that truly ignited Michael''s fury. The vampire had brazenly donned the two remaining armor pieces, sacred relics left by the previous Dark Lord, meant to be wielded by Michael alone. This act of defiance struck at the very core of Michael''s authority and challenged his rightful im to power. It was an affront that would not go unanswered.
As Michael examined Quintus more closely, a mix of surprise and curiosity overtook his initial anger. The transformation that Quintus had undergone was far more extreme than Michael had anticipated. Knowing that Quintus had been turned into a vampire by Fabia Viridius under the orders of Saber, Michael couldn''t help but question the extent of the experiments conducted on him. The abomination standing before him, with twisted features and a monstrous aura, bore little resemnce to the man Quintus once was. The grotesque appearance, marked by elongated fangs, pale and gaunt features, and an unsettling aura of darkness, hinted at the depths of depravity that Quintus had descended into. Michael''s astonishment mingled with a sense of apprehension as he realized that Fabia''s experiments alone could not ount for the monstrous being that Quintus had be.
Due to the maniption of the Skyhall execution team, even the loyal soldiers of Caius werepelled to follow the orders of the newly appointed senators. When the team, in collusion with the senate, dered Quintus as the senator of defense, the soldiers had no choice but to obey. However, the soldiers and the general popce had only known Quintus before his transformation into a vampire. In their eyes, he was a ruthless Spartan general driven by a lust for conquest and the expansion of Kingdom Mirel. None of them could fathom that Quintus had long forsaken his humanity in exchange for dark powers as a vampire. Furthermore, by donning the armor pieces left by the previous Dark Lord, his soul and physical form had been irreversibly corrupted, turning him into a horrifying abomination. Thus, when Quintus made his first public appearance, emerging from Caius''s manor, the soldiers guarding the premises were left utterly shocked and horrified by the grotesque sight before them.
The sight of Quintus left the soldiers frozen in shock and disbelief, rendering them unable to move or react. None of them could recognize the once-respected spartan general in the abomination before them. However, the training and discipline ingrained within them allowed some soldiers to shake off their initial fear and attempt to confront this monstrous creature. Yet, Quintus swiftlyunched himself at the soldiers, his long tongue coiling around their necks like a deadly serpent, and mercilessly sank his fangs deep into their vulnerable flesh. Blood was swiftly drained from the soldiers'' bodies as Quintus moved from one victim to another, his insatiable thirst fueling his growing power. Michael calmly observed the scene, his keen eyes capturing every chilling detail, noting the evident enhancement of Quintus''s strength with each life he consumed.
"My lord, permit me to vanquish that abomination," Azazel requested, his eyes filled with determination. However, Michael gently declined, shaking his head in response.
"I have another individual who is eager for this confrontation," Michael calmly stated, gesturing towards the ground below them as Azazel followed his gaze. To their surprise, Saber emerged, walking with an air of tranquility towards the bridge that connected the city to Caius''s manor.
"This abomination was created within one of Saber''sboratories, and it is his responsibility to eradicate it," Michael dered as he descended gracefully to the ground,nding with poise. With a mere flick of his wrist, his magnificent throne materialized beneath him, and he settled into it, ready to observe the impending battle between Saber and Quintus.
Despite Quintus having donned the coveted armor pieces that Michael had tirelessly sought, he resisted the urge to dispatch Quintus himself swiftly. This presented an unparalleled opportunity to witness Saber''sbat prowess firsthand. It was a crucial test for Saber, and if he proved his mettle, Michael would bestow upon him the esteemed title of the King of Nightwalkers.
Quintus, moving with unnatural agility on all fours, approached the imposing iron gates that stood as thest barrier between him and the Dark Lord. His elongated tongue writhed ominously, revealing its grotesque split end. As Quintus drew nearer, a putrid stench of decay and sulfur permeated the air, assaulting the senses of those unfortunate enough to be in close proximity. Blood oozed from his mutted body, dripping onto the ground with a sickening rhythm.
The sight was truly macabre as Quintus''s skin peeled away, revealing raw flesh underneath. His face, once distinguished, now bore the marks of his transformation, with chunks of flesh hanging loosely from his skeletal features. The blood that seeped from his wounds mixed with the dirt on the ground, creating a vile concoction of gore and filth.
With a ferocious burst of strength, Quintus lunged at the iron gates, his wed hands tearing into the metal with a screeching cacophony. The gates groaned under the onught, straining against the force exerted by this unholy abomination. In an instant, the gates crumbled, reduced to twisted remnants of their former glory.
Quintus''s gaze locked onto Saber, who stood resolute between him and the Dark Lord. Their eyes met, an intense confrontation of wills, as the air crackled with anticipation. The scene was a grisly tableau, with Quintus''s disfigured form and Saber''s unwavering determination creating a stark contrast against the backdrop of chaos and destruction.
Chapter 966 Getting The Last Two Armor Pieces
Saber, despite his youthful appearance, exuded an air of authority and power that belied his age. His jet-ck hair, styled in a loosely messy manner, framed his piercing blue eyes, which glinted with a hint of otherworldly wisdom. A hat adorned his head, adding a touch of mystery to his overall ensemble. d in ck trousers and a matching coat that billowed slightly in the wind, he presented a striking figure against the backdrop of chaos and darkness.
White gloves adorned his hands, contrasting sharply with the darkness of his attire. His handsome features bore a hint of disgust, a resolute expression that reflected his unwavering resolve to stand against the abomination before him. Despite his youthful appearance, Saber was no ordinary teenager. As an Elder vampire, he had reached the pinnacle of his kind, attaining the revered level 10 Fusion stage. Combined with the potent elixirs provided by Michael and his innate elder vampire traits, Saber had be a formidable force to be reckoned with, capable of challenging even a Half Immortal.
In his eyes, there was no trace of fear, only a deep-seated repulsion for the monstrosity that stood before him. With every fiber of his being, Saber was prepared to unleash his full power to impress the Dark Lord and vanquish the foul creature that dared to threaten their dominion.
"Dark Lord," Quintus''s piercing gaze shifted past Saber and locked onto Michael, the Dark Lord himself, who reclined on his throne with an air of nonchnt indifference. Resting one leg on top of the other, his head cradled by his fist, Michael exuded an aura of supreme confidence. Standing beside the throne, Azazel stood tall, a loyal sentinel ready to defend his lord at any cost.
Quintus''s eyes, burning with a malevolent mix of rage and bloodlust, bore into Michael with an intensity that could ignite the heavens. The Dark Lord''s actions had brought about the annihtion of Quintus''s beloved family, and now, the vampire thirsted for nothing less than tearing Michael apart limb from limb.
With every fiber of his being consumed by vengeance, Quintus''s crimson eyes flickered with a fiery determination, fueled by a primal urge to exact his revenge upon the Dark Lord who had shattered his world. The moment of reckoning had arrived, and Quintus could scarcely contain his anticipation, yearning for the opportunity to render Michael''s very existence into oblivion.
"Get the fuck out of my way, Saber!" Quintus''s thunderous roar reverberated through the air, catching Saber off guard as his own name echoed in Quintus''s furious promation. A flicker of surprise crossed Saber''s face, but he quickly recalled the Dark Lord''s briefing, where he had disclosed the infiltration of the guardians'' spies within the dark army. It dawned on Saber that his name might have been leaked, but he remainedposed, knowing that the Dark Lord had a strategic n in ce to turn the tables on the guardians themselves.
Quintus, consumed by an inferno of rage and vampiric bloodlust, unleashed his wrathful tirade, describing in vivid detail how he would annihte the Dark Lord and everyone he held dear. His words,ced with venomous anger, painted a gruesome picture of the torment and destruction he envisioned. "I''ll rip that fucking Dark Lord apart limb by limb! He shouldn''t have dared toy a goddamn finger on my family! I''ll make sure he suffers a thousandfold for what he''s done!"
Quintus''s voice crackled with raw fury as he continued to unleash his vengeful threats. His fangs glistened with anticipation, eager to taste the Dark Lord''s blood and relish in the macabre pleasure of tearing apart his adversaries. The vampire''s eyes burned with an unholy fire, their crimson depths radiating a chilling intensity that would freeze the blood of any who dared to stand in his way.
Saber''s lip curled in a disdainful sneer. "What a pathetic disgrace," he scoffed, his voice dripping with disgust. His fingers tightened around the brim of his hat, frustration was evident in his piercing blue eyes. Slowly and deliberately, he removed the hat from his head, revealing hisbed but loosely messy ck hair.
The disdain in Saber''s voice deepened as he spoke, his words carrying a cold certainty. "I should have personally ended Fabia''s miserable existence for daring to create such an abomination using my own blood." The air around him crackled with quiet intensity as he tossed the hat aside, his focus solely fixed on Quintus.
With a measured calmness, Saber locked eyes with Quintus, his gaze unyielding. His tone remained steady andposed, though an underlying threat resonated in his words. "Hand over the two armor pieces that rightfully belonged to the Dark Lord, and I may consider sparing you the agony of being torn apart into countless pieces."
The weight of Saber''s presence was undeniable, his power and confidence radiating like an aura around him. His gloved hands remained at his sides, ready to unleash the full extent of his formidable abilities should Quintus dare to resist.
A twisted grin spread across Quintus''s face as he spoke, his voiceced with sadistic anticipation. "I''ve never had the pleasure of tasting the blood of an elder vampire. I wonder how exquisite the vor would be," he taunted, prowling back and forth on all fours. In a disturbing disy, Quintus rose to his full height, his hands dropping to his sides, revealing nails elongated into deadly ws.
Saber''s expression remained stoic, his eyes narrowing slightly as he adjusted his coat with a nonchnt gesture. His voice carried a cool confidence, cutting through the tension in the air. "So you''ve chosen to embrace a painful demise. How utterly predictable," he remarked calmly, his words underscoring his unshaken resolve.
Quintusunched himself at Saber with incredible speed, his ws shing through the air. Saber swiftly evaded the attack, his movements fluid and precise. He retaliated with a series of calcted strikes,nding blows that seemed to weaken Quintus with every hit.
Unleashing his mastery over spells, Saber tapped into his vampiric powers. He channeled his energy into a spell known as "Crimson Chains," summoning ethereal tendrils of blood that snaked through the air toward Quintus. The chains coiled around Quintus''s limbs, restricting his movements and draining his strength.
Not content with just restraining his opponent, Saber followed up with another spell called "Hemorrhage." He directed his focus toward Quintus''s body, causing his blood vessels to rupture and bleed profusely. Quintus howled in pain as crimson streams flowed from his wounds, weakening him further.
With each passing moment, Saber maintained hisposure, exploiting Quintus''s vulnerabilities. He weaved intricate patterns in the air, conjuring a spell known as "Bloodbound Shield." The shield formed a barrier of pulsating blood, deflecting Quintus''s frenzied attacks and protecting Saber from harm.
The battle raged on as Saber''s strategic maneuvers and precise spellcasting gave him the upper hand. His control over blood maniption proved to be a formidable advantage as he continued to outmaneuver and weaken Quintus at every turn. The oue of the battle was far from certain, but Saber''s calm demeanor and calcted tactics hinted at his eventual victory.
As Quintus faced Saber''s relentless assault, he unleashed his own feral and savage fighting style. His ws sliced through the air with deadly precision, aiming for Saber''s vulnerable spots. With each strike, Quintus disyed his raw power and ferocity, fueled by his vampiric bloodlust.
The armor pieces attached to Quintus''s chest radiated an eerie crimson glow, surrounded by crackling red lightning that danced around him. The armor, adorned with the skull symbol of the Dark Lord, acted as a shield, repelling Saber''s spells and mitigating their impact. The lightning-infused protection granted Quintus a brief respite from Saber''s onught, bolstering his defense and enabling him to retaliate.
Seizing the opportunity, Quintus lunged forward, his elongated tongue whipping through the air like a deadly whip. He aimed to ensnare Saber and draw him closer for a devastating strike. His supernatural strength and agility, coupled with the protection of the Dark Lord''s armor, made Quintus a formidable adversary.
With a primal roar, Quintus unleashed a flurry of rapid strikes, his ws tearing through the air with blinding speed. The armor pieces emitted bursts of crimson lightning, empowering his attacks and infusing them with additional destructive force. Each blownded with bone-crushing impact, aimed at overwhelming Saber''s defenses and wearing him down.
As Quintus unleashed his vicious onught, Saber maintained a calm andposed demeanor, evading and parrying his attacks with calcted precision. While Quintus fought with wild ferocity, it became evident that Saber was intentionally restraining his full power, as if toying with his opponent.
Despite the intensity of the battle, Saber''s movements were graceful and calcted, his actions guided by strategic prowess and supernatural agility. He weaved effortlessly through Quintus''s strikes, countering with fluid and well-timed maneuvers. It seemed as though Saber was testing Quintus, probing his weaknesses and exploiting them with measured precision.
The sh continued as Quintus''s power waned, gradually diminishing from his supposed Half Immortal level 1 to the lower Fusion stage. It became apparent that Quintus''s previous disy of Half Immortal cultivation was merely a facade fueled by the blood essence he had absorbed from the soldiers he had in. This illusory power was a far cry from the genuine strength of a true Half Immortal.
While Quintus relied on the temporary surge of borrowed power, Saber''s true strength emanated from his innate abilities as an Elder vampire, further enhanced by Michael''s potent potions. With each passing moment, Saber''s superiority over Quintus became more apparent, his movements calcted and efficient, never wasting unnecessary energy.
Saber''s measured approach conveyed a sense of confidence and assuredness. He knew that, despite Quintus''s menacing presence and the crimson lightning-infused armor, the true extent of his adversary''s power fell short. Saber was biding his time, waiting for the opportune moment to unleash his full strength and bring an end to the battle on his terms.
With a swift agility, Saber gracefully evaded Quintus''s frenzied attack, sidestepping his shing ws and darting past his menacing tongue. In a disy of sheer strength, Saber seized Quintus''s elongated tongue in a firm grip, yanking him closer with a forceful pull. With a concentrated focus, Saber channeled his power into a single devastating punch that sent Quintus hurtling through the air, crashing into a nearby structure with a resounding impact.
As the dust settled, Saber slowly removed his gloves, revealing his pale, wless hands. His once calm andposed expression transformed into a resolute determination, and his piercing blue eyes underwent a gradual metamorphosis, the tranquil hue shifting to a vibrant crimson red, reflecting the intensity of his unleashed power.
Drawing upon his mastery of blood-rted spells, Saber tapped into the primal forces that flowed within his veins. In a seamless motion, he began weaving an intricate pattern with his outstretched hands, conjuring the essence of blood itself. Scarlet tendrils of energy swirled around his fingertips, pulsating with a sinister vitality.
With a sudden surge of power, Saberunched his first spell, aptly named "Crimson Vortex." As his hands whirled through the air, the swirling vortex of blood-red energy materialized before him. It expanded rapidly, engulfing the surrounding area with a hypnotic crimson glow. The sheer force of the vortex created a vacuum, drawing Quintus toward its center.
Saber''s second spell, "Veins of Nightfall,"plimented the Crimson Vortex, adding an ethereal touch to his onught. From his fingertips, wisps of dark shadows materialized, intertwining with the crimson energy. These shadowy tendrils extended toward Quintus, wrapping around him like serpents, constricting his movements and sapping away his strength.
Within thebined grasp of the Crimson Vortex and the Veins of Nightfall, Quintus found himself ensnared in a maelstrom of blood and shadows. The pulsating crimson energy gnawed at his flesh, prating his defenses, while the inky darkness drained his vitality with every passing moment. Quintus thrashed and writhed, his movements bing feeble and his monstrous form gradually sumbing to the overwhelming onught.
As Saber maintained his unwavering focus, his eyes aze with crimson intensity, he unleashed the full might of his blood-infused spells. The scene unfolded with vivid imagery, the convergence of blood and shadows creating an otherworldly spectacle. The air crackled with raw power as thebined assault ravaged Quintus, tearing through his defenses and eroding his vampiric resilience.
In this climactic confrontation, Saber''s mastery over blood magic and his intrinsic elder vampire prowess fused seamlessly, forming an unstoppable force against his adversary. The onught of blood and shadows enveloped Quintus, marking the beginning of his inevitable downfall at the hands of Saber''s relentless onught.
As Saber pressed his advantage, his crimson-infused onught continued unabated. Each strikended with surgical precision, targeting vulnerable points on Quintus''s body. With each bone-crushing blow, a sickening crack echoed through the air, signifying the shattering of Quintus''s defenses.
Blood erupted from Quintus''s mouth, spurting in crimson arcs with each impact. The once formidable vampire writhed in agony, his monstrous form now reduced to a battered and broken shell. As Saber''s assault intensified, Quintus''s body became a canvas of pain and brutality.
In a merciless disy of dominance, Saber seized Quintus''s outstretched arm, twisting it with an unholy strength that surpassed the limits of mortal capabilities. Bones snapped and splintered, punctuating the air with a symphony of torment. Quintus''s agonized screams echoed through the deste surroundings, blending with the chaotic sh of battle.
With a primal fury burning in his crimson eyes, Saber relentlessly pursued his onught. He moved with a ruthless grace, evading Quintus''s feeble attempts at defense while delivering devastating strikes that further shattered the vampire''s deteriorating form. Each blow sent shockwaves of pain rippling through Quintus''s body, reducing him to a pitiful, broken creature.
As the battle neared its climax, Saber seized hold of Quintus''s elongated tongue, the very instrument that had caused so much suffering. With a surge of strength, he yanked it free from Quintus''s twisted maw, eliciting a gory fountain of blood. The severed appendage dangled from Saber''s grip, a macabre testament to his triumph over his vampiric foe.
Bloodied and broken, Quintus gasped for air, his body wracked with convulsions. His once formidable presence was reduced to a pitiful heap, limbs twisted and mangled. Every inch of his being bore the marks of Saber''s merciless assault, a testament to the unleashed fury of a determined elder vampire.
The battlefield was drenched in a ghastly tableau of crimson, the very life essence of Quintus spilling out in torrents. The air hung heavy with the metallic scent of blood, mingling with the acrid tang of decay. The scene bore witness to the raw brutality of the encounter, a visceral disy of the consequences faced by those who dared to challenge Saber''s unyielding resolve.
The once formidable Quintusy broken and defeated, his monstrous visage reduced to a shattered husk. The battle had reached its horrific conclusion, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake.
With Quintus lying broken and defeated, Saber approached the fallen vampire, his gaze filled with disdain. He reached down, his gloved hand closing around the two armor pieces that adorned Quintus''s chest. With a powerful yank, he tore them from their resting ce, causing Quintus to roar in a mixture of pain and fury.
At that moment, Saber''s voice cut through the air like a de, his toneced with a cold superiority that pierced Quintus''s wounded pride.
"You are nothing more than a pitiful byproduct of twisted experiments," he hissed, his words dripping with contempt. "A mockery of what it means to be a vampire, born from the meddling of inferior beings."
As Quintus writhed in agony, his monstrous form battered and broken, Saber towered over him, radiating an aura of dominance.
Without a hint of mercy, Saber raised his boot high above Quintus''s head, the final blow poised to descend. The weight of his conviction fueled the force behind his strike, amplified by his unyielding determination to rid the world of this abomination. In a resounding act of retribution, he brought his foot crashing down, meeting Quintus''s skull with devastating force.
A sickening crunch reverberated through the air as bone shattered and flesh gave way beneath Saber''s merciless assault. Quintus''s head crumpled beneath the impact, reducing it to a gruesome, unrecognizable pulp of blood and shattered fragments. Saber''s boot remained firmly nted on the remains, a symbol of his triumph and a testament to the unyielding power he possessed.
The battlefield was silenced, save for the faint echoes of Saber''s victorious blow. The lifeless body of Quintusy motionless, a grim reminder of the consequences that befell those who dared to cross the Dark Lord.
After dealing the final blow to Quintus, Saber turned his gaze towards Michael, who sat regally upon his throne, observing the aftermath. As he reached Michael''s side, he gracefully dropped to one knee, a sign of reverence and submission. With a solemn gesture, he extended his hand, presenting the two armor pieces he had ripped from Quintus''s chest.
Michael, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction, rose from his throne, epting the offered artifacts. As his fingertips made contact with the ancient armor, a surge of power coursed through the pieces, causing the crimson-red lightning that once encircled them to dissipate. It was as if they had found their rightful ce in the presence of their true creator.
Carefully, Michael ced the armor pieces into his system storage, a secure sanctuary for precious relics.
Michael unsheathed his dark swords as the des hummed with a dark energy that resonated with the very essence of their master.
Drawing closer to Saber, Michael touched the tip of his sword against the vampire''s shoulder, the cold metal making contact with his flesh. The weight of the moment hung in the air, anticipation and significance intermingling.
"This was the final test I had prepared for you, and you have exceeded my expectations, as I always knew you would," Michael spoke with a voice that carried both authority and admiration. His words held the weight of a solemn deration. "From this day forward, you shall bear the title of the King of Nightwalkers. I bestow upon you this honor, recognizing your unwavering loyalty and unwavering strength."
Chapter 967 Evil Armor Pieces
As soon as Saber dealt the final blow to Quintus, chaos erupted in the aftermath. The Spartan soldiers of Gisel, driven by their duty to capture anyone associated with the Dark Lord, found themselves facing the very embodiment of their mission. Their spears were raised, forming a defensive barrier around Michael and Saber, unsure of how to confront the Dark Lord himself.
In that critical moment, Michael''s actions surprised them all. Instead of unleashing his wrath upon the soldiers, he defied their expectations and ascended gracefully into the sky. The soldiers watched in awe as the Dark Lord vanished from their sight, leaving behind a lingering sense of both relief and bewilderment. The encounter challenged their preconceived notions and left them questioning the nature of their mission.
Upon arriving at the dark castle, Michael wasted no time. He swiftly made his way to the portal room, its eerie aura beckoning him toward the unknown. With Elidyr by his side, they stepped through the swirling vortex, entering the realm of their secretive forge.
In the dimly lit chamber, Michael carefully arranged the five armor pieces upon a sturdy table. He scrutinized each fragment, his eyes tracing the intricate details alongside Elidyr. Together, they embarked on a meticulous examination, seeking to unravel the secrets embedded within the ancient relics.
Elidyr''s voice echoed through the forge, tinged with uncertainty. "There must be additional armor pieces. These five alone won''t suffice to forge aplete armor."
Michael had always sensed a lingering ipleteness about the collection of armor pieces. Even at best, assembling them would only result in a partial chest te. Silently, he picked up the five fragments, carefully aligning them together like an intricate puzzle. As the pieces interlocked, a subtle transformation urred¡ªthe armor emanated a dim, crimson glow. A slender tendril of ominous dark smoke escaped from the assembled armor pieces, swirling and coalescing into a tangible sentence.
The words materialized before Michael and Elidyr, their meaning etched into the air: "Do not rely on me for everything. Forge your own path and armor. These five fragments are merely a small part of a greater puzzle. Complete your armor ording to your own life and future."
The message hung in the forge, its weight sinking into Michael''s consciousness. He felt a mixture of intrigue and determination, realizing that he had to embark on his own journey to shape his destiny and create a formidable armor that aligned with his individual path. The challenge was clear¡ªto find the missing pieces and forge a unique armor that reflected his own life''s journey.
"Damn. Sometimes I can be a real asshole huh,"
Michael let out a frustrated sigh, feeling a mix of irritation and self-reflection. It dawned on him that the previous Dark Lord had deliberately left him with iplete armor, cing the burden ofpleting it squarely on his own shoulders. The realization gave him a glimpse into theplex and sometimes maniptive nature of his predecessor.
Meanwhile, Elidyr seemed unperturbed by the previous Dark Lord''s intentions as he focused his attention on the armor pieces. His fingers delicately traced the surface, exploring every crevice and contour. With a sense of excitement, he beckoned Michael to take a closer look.
"Look here, my lord," Elidyr pointed to the seemingly in ck surface of the armor pieces. At first nce, Michael saw nothing remarkable, but as he peered closer, his eyes discerned the presence of minuscule, intricate runes. These markings, invisible to the naked eye, adorned the surface of the armor pieces, their purpose and meaning concealed within their cryptic forms.
Curiosity piqued, Michael turned to Elidyr, his eyes filled with anticipation. He sought the runemaster''s expertise, hoping for insights into the enigmatic runes etched upon the armor pieces. However, to his astonishment, he noticed a flicker of fear in Elidyr''s expression, an unease that sent a ripple of concern through Michael''s mind.
"What do these runes signify?" Michael inquired, his voiceced with both intrigue and a tinge of apprehension. He expected Elidyr, as the sole runemaster in the service of the previous Dark Lord, to possess knowledge beyond his own.
Elidyr hesitated for a moment before responding, his voice tinged with a mix of caution and genuine surprise. "These runes... they surpass anyplexity and power I have encountered in my years of study. I can''t im them as my own. They bear an uncanny resemnce to the runes you once entrusted me to engrave in the mortar. It''s highly likely that these runes are the handiwork of the previous Dark Lord."
Michael''s mind spun with possibilities as he considered the implications. His previous self, having delved into the realm of rune mastery, had left a mark on the very armor he now held. Yet, the intensity of fear reflected in Elidyr''s eyes puzzled him.
"Are you suggesting that my previous self became a master of runes?" Michael mused aloud, his voiceced with intrigue. As he mulled over the notion, he couldn''t shake the disquieting realization that there was more to these runes than met the eye. The aura of fear surrounding Elidyr only deepened the mystery, prompting Michael to probe further.
Eager for rity, Michael pressed on, his toneced with a mix of curiosity and concern. "But why do you appear apprehensive, Elidyr? Surely, my previous self''s proficiency with runes should be a cause for celebration."
Sensing Elidyr''s underlying unease, he sought to understand the source of his runemaster''s flustered demeanor.
"Let''s assume that my previous self inscribed these runes upon the armor. But I can''t help but notice your unease," Michael probed, his voice filled with a mix of intrigue and a desire for rity.
Elidyr, his eyes fixed upon the intricate runes, took a deep breath to steady himself. He carefully weighed his words, fully aware of the gravity of the situation.
"If my understanding of these runes is urate," Elidyr began cautiously, "they serve a purpose beyond their mere existence. They seem to possess the power to subdue a malevolent, dark energy emanating from these very armor pieces."
A chill crept down Michael''s spine as he contemted the implications of Elidyr''s revtion. The notion of dark energy intertwined with his previous self''s creation sent ripples of both apprehension and intrigue through his mind. However, to Michael''s surprise, his own calm demeanor seemed to irk Elidyr, who disyed a hint of irritation.
"Dark energy, intertwined with the legacy of the Dark Lord. It does seem fitting," Michael mused, shrugging off the implications with a nonchnt gesture. Yet, Elidyr''s response and lingering unease prompted him to delve deeper into the matter, seeking a more thorough understanding.
However, Elidyr''s exasperation could not be contained as he shook his head, a subtle flicker of irritation coloring his expression. It was evident that Michael''sposed fa?ade in the face of potential danger was testing the runemaster''s patience.
"Please, my lord, this is no time for indifference," Elidyr implored, his voice tinged with a mix of urgency and concern. "We must not underestimate the gravity of this dark energy. It possesses a potency that can lead to unforeseen consequences."
As Elidyr voiced his concerns about the dark energy, an eerie aura permeated the forge, causing the space around Michael to distort. Sensing a presence, he turned his gaze over his shoulder, only to find Eve entering the forge with a sense of urgency.
"I need something-" Eve began, her words abruptly halting as her eyes fell upon the foreboding sight of the armor pieces. A pallor washed over her face, her body trembling involuntarily. In her rmed state, she rushed towards Michael, nearly toppling several tools from the table in her haste.
Panic filled Eve''s voice as she pressed her trembling hand against Michael''s shoulder. "Where did you obtain these? They must be discarded immediately!"
Michael, puzzled by Eve''s vehement reaction, attempted to assuage her fears, his voiceced with a mix of confusion and reassurance. "Calm yourself, Eve. These are the very armor pieces I spoke of, left to me by my previous self five thousand years ago. Why does their presence terrify you as well?"
Eve''s wide-eyed expression reflected her genuine terror as she desperately conveyed her first-hand experiences. "These armor pieces exude the same corruptive energy I witnessed within the dark crystal from the dwarves. It possesses an insidious force that twists and corrupts, transforming even the noblest of beings into mindless fiends consumed by an insatiable thirst for power. We cannot allow this darkness to take hold. We must rid ourselves of these ursed pieces before they taint our very souls."
Elidyr nodded in agreement with Eve, understanding her concerns. He turned to Michael with a serious expression, his voice filled with caution.
"I see the wisdom in Eve''s words, my lord. These runes indeed hold the power to subdue the malevolent energy emanating from the armor pieces. However, I fear that wearing armor infused with these five pieces may pose a great risk. It would be wise to dispose of them and seek alternative means to forge a new armor for your protection," Elidyr implored, his eyes reflecting his earnest desire for Michael''s safety.
He hoped Michael would heed their advice and prioritize his well-being over the allure of the powerful but potentially dangerous armor.
However, Michael couldn''t help but let out a confident chuckle, his eyes glinting with determination. He lifted one of the armor pieces adorned with a skull engraving, his emblem, which shimmered brilliantly in the warm glow of the furnace''s golden light.
"People have a habit of branding the unfamiliar as evil. But I''m no ordinary dwarf to sumb to this energy''s corruption. I am the God of Darkness," Michael dered with unwavering self-assurance. He embraced his identity as the God of Darkness, fully aware of the immense power he possessed, his words dripping with confidence and power.
**************************************
With Eve and Elidyr gone, the forge was now empty, leaving Michael to immerse himself in the task of forging his armor. He cleared his mind, focusing solely on the creation before him. Taking a piece of paper, he began sketching the design of his envisioned armor.
The chest te took shape, adorned with a fearsome skull, its crimson eyes staring out with an aura of menacing power. No longer needing to conceal his face, Michael omitted a mask, allowing the armor to cover his entire body from neck to toe.
His imagination soared as he drafted metal wings that would be seamlessly integrated into the armor''s structure. These wings would grant him the ability to defy gravity and traverse environments that hindered his arch energy, such as the treacherous Demon''s Grave. Alongside the wings, he incorporated the APD, Mark 3 grappling hook, and the Olympus, a versatile tool of immense power.
A clever addition was the spraying mechanism on his palm, enabling him to release potent toxins and poisons when needed. But what truly delighted him was the face cloak system he devised. This ingenious feature would conceal his face with a menacing skull mask, providing protection when submerged underwater or in need of shielding his head.
Not forgetting practicality, the armor boasted a majestic cape that materialized when the metal wings were closed, billowing regally. And to ensure readiness for battle, sword sheathes adorned his back, providing easy ess to his trusted des. Additionally, slots were strategically ced around his waist, ready to house an array of gadgets and tools.
As Michaelpleted the sketch, a sense of anticipation and satisfaction washed over him. The envisioned armor seemed toe alive on paper, embodying his dark essence and immense power.
With the system offline, Michael knew he would have to rely on the metals avable in the world to forge his armor. Luckily, his expertise as a cksmith granted him the ability to work with the raw materials found in his surroundings. He nned to craft the initial version of his armor using these worldly metals while reserving the option to upgrade itter with the metal ores that could be obtained from the system.
Assigning the task of locating the finest metals to his trusted subordinates, Michael set them on the mission to gather the necessary materials. Meanwhile, he took another sheet of paper and began sketching an armor design for Gaya, his soon-to-be wife.
Chapter 968 Final Battle Against The Guardian Guild Begins
While Michael was engrossed in sketching his Dark Lord armor, ra Valren, the leader of the Guardian Guild, called for a meeting of all the guild members. They were summoned to the grand hall of their headquarters. ra instructed the guardians who hadn''t resigned after Azazel''s ultimatum to evacuate their current headquarters in the Awor continent. Instead, she urged them to regroup at their headquarters in the Ozer continent. Ideally, ra would have preferred to confront the Dark Lord from their Awor continent stronghold, as it provided better defensive advantages. However, the empress of Awor had issued a mandate for them to vacate the continent entirely. The empress was concerned about Awor bing a target for the Dark Lord''s forces.
As a result, ra and the Guardian Guild found themselves forced to make their final stand against the Dark Lord in the Ozer continent. Their headquarters, a formidable structure, stood proudly on Hulwick Isle, a solitary ind named in honor of the second Supreme Guardian of the guild. In this critical moment, numerous warships diligently patrolled the tranquil sea surrounding the ind while airships vigntly kept watch over the skies above.
Inside the majestic grand hall, ramanded attention as she stood upon a raised stage, gazing out at the assembled guardians before her. This unwavering group of six hundred loyal guild members, united by their unwavering dedication, had refused to heed the Dark Lord''s ominous ultimatum and resign from their posts. They stood resolute, prepared to face the Dark Lord head-on, even if it meant sacrificing their very lives for the guild they held dear.
In a remarkable disy of unity and discipline, the guardians arranged themselves in a precise formation within the hall. With military precision, they stood shoulder to shoulder, their unwavering resolve mirrored in their steadfast alignment. Standing tall behind ra Valren, the esteemed Alpha Guardian of Hunter Guardians, were Roshan, the Alpha Guardian of the Beast Guardians, donning his formidable armor. Beside him stood Vivienne, the Alpha Guardian of Sorcerer Guardians, her enchanting presence entuated by her intricately adorned attire. Completing the trio was Garrick, the Alpha Guardian of Warrior Guardians, emanating strength and valor through his resplendent armor.
Despite their unwavering strength and readiness to make the ultimate sacrifice for their guild, a faint trace of fear lingered in the eyes of the remaining guardians. And rightly so, for their formidable adversary was none other than the Dark Lord himself. It seemed like just yesterday when they had extended an offer to Ghost, considering him as a potential trainee Guardian. However, he had rejected their offer and embarked on a path that led him to be the Dark Lord. In a mere span of two years, Ghost had amassed such overwhelming power that he posed a grave threat not only to the guild but to its very existence, which had spanned thousands of years.
ra Valren, standing tall on the elevated stage, gazed upon the gathered guardians with a mix of determination andpassion in her eyes. She understood the weight of the impending battle and the fear that gripped their hearts. Taking a deep breath, she began her speech.
"My fellow guardians," ra''s voice rang out with strength,manding the attention of everyone in the grand hall. "Today, we stand on the precipice of a battle that will test our very souls. The Dark Lord has unleashed a reign of terror upon ournds, leaving destruction in his wake."
A murmur of agreement and unease rippled through the guardians as ra''s words resonated with their own experiences. They remembered the day when the Ithn ind, a once flourishing realm, had been shattered into pieces, disappearing beneath the unforgiving waves. The loss of an entire ind and its inhabitants had shaken them to their core.
ra continued, her voice unwavering. "The Dark Lord''s heinous acts extend beyond mere destruction. He has ruthlessly wiped out the noble Royal family of Thusia, eradicating their legacy and bringing pain to our realm. His power knows no bounds, and his thirst for dominance threatens everything we hold dear."
The guardians listened intently, their expressions a mix of sorrow, anger, and determination. Each one had felt the sting of the Dark Lord''s actions, the personal losses they had suffered at his hands. But ra''s words kindled a fire within them, reminding them of their duty as protectors.
"But we, my dear guardians, we are the light in the face of this darkness," ra proimed, her voice filled with conviction. "We have trained for this moment, honing our skills, and cultivating our indomitable spirit. We have pledged our lives to defend the innocent, to safeguard our realms from the forces of evil."
A renewed sense of purpose filled the hall as ra''s words resonated with the guardians. They straightened their postures, their eyes shining with a flicker of hope amidst the impending storm.
"Our unity is our greatest strength," ra continued, her voice rising with fervor. "Together, we shall stand against the Dark Lord, united by our unwavering loyalty to the guild and our unwavering belief in the power of good. We will not falter, nor will we yield, for we are the protectors of light and guardians of justice!"
A surge of determination coursed through the hearts of the guardians, their spirits lifting as they absorbed ra''s words. They knew the road ahead would be perilous, but they were resolute in their mission to confront the Dark Lord.
As ra concluded her speech, the grand hall resounded with thunderous apuse and fervent cheers. The guardians, their fears momentarily set aside, embraced the strength that came from their unity.
Emboldened by the guardians'' response, ra Valren raised her hand, gesturing for silence. The hall fell into hushed anticipation as all eyes remained fixed on her.
"But let us not forget," ra''s voice carried a note of solemnity, "that this battle will demand everything from us. It will test our resolve, our courage, and our faith. We must be prepared to face our darkest fears, to confront the very embodiment of evil that stands before us."
A somber silence settled over the room, the weight of ra''s words sinking in. The guardians exchanged nces, a mixture of determination and trepidation mirrored in their eyes. They knew the path ahead was fraught with danger, but they were not alone. They had each other, bound by a shared purpose that would see them through even the darkest of times.
"Our fallenrades, those who have bravely fought and sacrificed their lives, their spirits live on within us," ra''s voice carried a touch of reverence. "They have bestowed upon us a legacy that we must honor with unwavering dedication. Their sacrifices will not be forgotten as long as we draw breath."
The guardians nodded in silent agreement, their thoughts turning to those who had fallen, the memories of their fallen brethren fueling their resolve. They were a testament to the indomitable spirit that resided within them, a legacy thatpelled them to rise above their own fears.
"And remember, my fellow guardians, we fight not only for ourselves but for the countless lives that depend on us," ra''s voice grew fierce, her gaze sweeping across the hall. "We fight for the innocent, the vulnerable, and the future that hangs in the bnce. We fight for the hope that lies within every beating heart."
A renewed determination ignited within the guardians, an unyielding resolve that banished their lingering fears. They understood the weight of their duty, the responsibility that had been entrusted to them. They would not allow the darkness to snuff out the me of hope.
"So, my brave guardians, let us stand together, shoulder to shoulder, as we march into battle," ra''s voice rang with unwavering conviction. "Let our unity be an imprable shield against the forces of darkness. Let our courage be a beacon of light amidst the encroaching shadows. And let our unwavering resolve be the weapon that shatters the tyranny of the Dark Lord!"
A thunderous roar erupted from the guardians, their spirits soaring with newfound determination. The grand hall vibrated with their resounding cheers, echoing throughout the headquarters, a testament to their unbreakable spirit.
When the echoes faded, ra Valren stepped down from the stage, her heart filled with pride and gratitude. She knew that this battle would be their greatest challenge yet, but she had faith in the guardians'' unwavering spirit and their unyielding dedication to the cause.
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As ra delivered her impassioned speech, Salesi, apanied by Evan, made their way into the underground treasury beneath Hulwick Isle. This secret vault housed a vast collection of treasures, gold coins, and artifacts belonging to the Guardian Guild. While the majority of their valuable possessions were securely stored in the Grandspire bank, the wealth amassed over thousands of years still overflowed within the treasury beneath the ind. It was a testament to the Guild''s long and prosperous history, a repository of immeasurable value awaiting its guardians'' safekeeping.
In the midst of the tranquil blue underwater surroundings, Salesi found herself floating, knowing well that it was merely an illusion. She held a golden cube in her hand, recognizing its true purpose. With a simple flick of her wrist, Salesi activated the cube, deftly maneuvering it in intricate patterns. As the cube responded to her touch, a brilliant beam of light burst forth, shattering the illusion that had concealed the treasury before her. And as the radiant light expanded, it unraveled the hidden defenses, dispelling the protective arrays and ancient runes that guarded the treasury¡ªa magnificent marble edifice safeguarding the Guild''s amassed wealth from potential intruders.
With a graceful drift, Salesi and Evan floated into the treasury, their movements unhurried and deliberate. The golden cube they possessed held immense value for the Guardian Guild, as it contained precious drops of blood from all the Supreme Guardians, including Noah. This extraordinary artifact granted unparalleled ess to the Guild''s vast array of buildings, safe houses, and countless hidden treasures. Guided by the cube entrusted to her by ra, who assumed leadership in the absence of a Supreme Guardian, Salesi ventured boldly into the treasury, scarcely concerned about the intricate security mechanisms in ce.
As Salesi and Evan stepped into the treasury, an imposing sight awaited them¡ªa towering golden door nked by two colossal metal soldiers, each standing fifteen feet tall. These formidable guardians formed the final barrier before essing the vault, wielding enchanted weapons capable of vanquishing even Immortals.
In the face of this awe-inspiring defense, Evan couldn''t help but express his fear, his eyes betraying his apprehension. He turned to Salesi, seeking reassurance.
"Are we really going through with this?" he asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty, his gaze fixed on the towering metal sentinels.
Salesi remainedposed, exuding a calm confidence that belied the danger thaty before them.
"Don''t worry," she replied, her voice steady. "As long as we possess this," Salesi raised the cube high, causing rays of light to emit from the metal guardians'' eyes. The beams of light scanned the cube, as well as Salesi and Evan themselves. In response, the metal guardians raised their swords, clutching them against their chests, before forcefully plunging them into the ground. With a resounding impact, the runes adorning the golden door ignited, casting an ethereal glow. Slowly, the massive door began to creak open, unveiling the boundless wealth thaty within the vault.
When the vault door swung open, a breathtaking sight unfolded before Salesi and Evan. The chamber was bathed in a mesmerizing glow emanating from the vast array of treasures within. It was a treasure trove beyond imagination, a cornucopia of wealth that seemed to stretch to infinity.
A sea of golden coins, glinting with a mesmerizing brilliance, cascaded like waves upon the chamber''s floor. Gems of all colors and sizes adorned ornate pedestals, casting dancing prisms of light that painted the walls with a kaleidoscope of hues. Ancient artifacts, intricately carved and pulsating with hidden power, stood proudly on disy, their mystical energies palpable. Spell scrolls, their delicate parchment inscribed with arcane incantations, lined shelves alongside enigmatic books filled with forgotten knowledge. Weapons of legendary craftsmanship, their des glimmering with an otherworldly sheen, exuded an aura of invincibility.
Evan''s eyes widened in disbelief, his jaw dropping at the sheer opulence that surrounded them. He stood frozen, awestruck by the wealth and power contained within the vault. The sight overwhelmed him, leaving him momentarily speechless.
Meanwhile, Salesi remainedposed, her gaze sweeping across the treasures with a sense of familiarity. A sly smile graced her lips, hinting at secrets known only to her. She basked in the splendor, unaffected by the overwhelming magnitude of the wealth before her. The glimmering light cast enchanting reflections on her face, entuating her confidence and a touch of mischief in her eyes. She possessed an understanding of the vault''s secrets, a knowledge that imbued her with a calm assurance even amidst the staggering riches that surrounded them.
"We can''t simply allow the Dark Lord to im all of this for himself," Salesi dered firmly, her eyes focused on the vast wealth before them. "Though the Guardian Guild may face its demise, we mustn''t let these treasures slip through our fingers. They can be the means for the Shadow n to grow stronger and eventually confront the Dark Lord."
Evan hesitated, his inner conflict apparent in his voice. "It doesn''t sit right with me, mydy," he confessed, his heart and mind wrestling with the notion of looting the Guardian Guild''s treasury instead of standing united with the other Guardians against the Dark Lord. Deep down, he knew Salesi''s words held truth. Allowing the Dark Lord to seize these riches would only serve to bolster his power.
Salesi''s expression softened, understanding Evan''s moral dilemma. "Evan, strive to be good, but remember, sometimes the path to victory requires making difficult choices," she advised, her tone gentle yet resolute. She picked up a golden coin from the floor, the weight of her decision evident. "We can''t be too idealistic in these dark times. We must adapt to the circumstances and use what resources we have wisely. It''s for the greater cause."
Evan nodded, his features reflecting a mix of uncertainty and resignation. He realized that in the face of impending destruction, preserving these treasures for a future battle against the Dark Lord was a pragmatic and necessary step. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but he understood the necessity of their actions. Together, Salesi and Evan would secure the Guild''s wealth, transforming it into a beacon of hope for a brighter future, even as the shadow of the Dark Lord loomed over them all.
Chapter 969 The Day Before The Final Battle
In the armory of the Guardian Guild, Alicia stood surrounded by an array of gleaming armors. Her fingers caressed the smooth surface of the silver armor bestowed upon her by Noah as a wedding gift. The armor exuded an ethereal aura, adorned with intricate runes that glowed softly, as if alive with ancient magic. A chilling mist swirled around the armor, enveloping Alicia in an icy embrace.
With every piece she donned, Alicia felt a surge of power and purpose. The armor covered her from head to toe, its design both elegant and formidable. The helmet was crafted with precision, revealing only her face while concealing the sides, adding an air of mystery to her presence. The silver hue of the armor shimmered in the light, reflecting her determination and unwaveringmitment to the Guardian Guild''s cause.
With Noah''s absence and the imminent confrontation with the Dark Lord looming, Alicia embraced her role as the leader of the Guardian Guild. As Noah''s wife, she feltpelled to step forward and guide the guardians in the face of this dire threat. Donning her armor, Alicia carried the weight of responsibility on her shoulders, determined to honor her connection to Noah and protect the Guild.
As the elite team of guardians, handpicked by Noah himself, witnessed Alicia preparing for battle, a surge of pride and courage coursed through their veins. They knew that Alicia''s presence at the forefront would inspire them to fight with unwavering resolve. Each guardian, with their own unique skills and unwavering loyalty, looked to Alicia as their beacon of hope and strength.
Among them, Ne stepped forward, her gaze filled with concern. Recognizing the immense danger they faced, she approached Alicia and assisted in securing the armor, her hands deftly fastening the straps.
"Mydy, I beg you to consider what I''ve asked of you. Please, for the sake of your safety, leave this ce," Ne pleaded, her voice filled with genuine concern. She couldn''t bear the thought of losing Alicia, and the weight of disappointment they would carry in the eyes of Supreme Guardian Noah if something were to happen to her.
Alicia looked at Ne, her expression was resolute yet understanding. She gently shook her head, her determination unwavering.
"Ne, I am not facing the Dark Lord merely as a Guardian Captain. I am facing him as a Winston, as Noah''s wife," Alicia exined firmly. The stripping of Noah''s title as the Supreme Guardian held no weight in her heart. To her, Noah would always be the embodiment of that role. It was her duty as his wife to confront any threat that endangered the guild they both held dear.
Ne, aware of Alicia''s history with the Dark Lord, continued her plea, hoping to break through Alicia''s resolve.
"Mydy, I understand the pain and anger that resides within you. But we cannot allow those emotions to cloud our judgment. None of us can single-handedly stop the Dark Lord from destroying our guild. We all know the uphill battle we face. However, if you survive this, we will eventually prevail in this war against the Dark Lord. The Supreme Guardians need you more than us, mydy."
Ne''s words were heartfelt, carrying the weight of the guild''s concerns. She reminded Alicia of the Dark Lord''s despicable actions, recounting how he had humiliated her brother, Peter, during the battle tournament of Elon, reducing him to a mere mop for the floor. The Dark Lord had then exposed Peter as the vignte, resulting in his house arrest by the Guardians. And finally, in a heart-wrenching moment, Alicia had witnessed the Dark Lord teleport Peter into the very cage where she had captured him, leading to Peter''s tragic demise before her eyes. To add to the pain, Alicia''s own family med her, believing that if she had let go of her hatred towards the Dark Lord, Peter might have been spared. The consequence was her family exiling her.
As Ne spoke, Alicia listened intently, her emotions stirred. Memories of the pain and loss resurfaced, but Alicia''s resolve remained unshaken. She knew the risk, the uncertainty thaty ahead. Yet, the fire within her burned brighter than ever, fueled by her determination to avenge her brother''s tragic fate and protect her guild.
With a calm but unwavering voice, Alicia responded to Ne''s heartfelt plea. "Ne, I understand your concerns, and I am grateful for your words. But my decision stands firm. I cannot let go of my duty to the guild and to my family, no matter the risks involved. The Dark Lord has taken enough from us, and it is time we stand up against his tyranny. If there''s even a chance to bring justice and protect those we love, then I will face this battle head-on."
Ne, feeling a sense of urgency, made one final attempt to convince Alicia to reconsider. "Alicia, I implore you to think about what I''m saying. The Dark Lord is Noah''s brother, which makes him your brother-inw. We can''t fight against our own family. Let us face the Dark Lord and his army while you find safety elsewhere."
Alicia paused, her gaze meeting Ne''s, her expression filled with determination. "Ne, I understand the connection between the Dark Lord and my husband, but I refuse to let that sway my decision. The Dark Lord may share blood ties, but his actions have severed any bond of kinship. He is not anyone''s family, not to me, not to Noah. He has chosen a path of darkness, and it is our duty to stand against him."
Ne''s shoulders slumped in resignation, realizing that Alicia''s resolve was unyielding. "I understand, Alicia. I see the strength and conviction in your eyes. Just promise me you''ll stay safe and return to us."
Alicia reached out and ced a reassuring hand on Ne''s shoulder. "I promise, Ne. I will do everything in my power to protect myself and return to you all. We are guardians, bound by our loyalty and our shared purpose. I will not bring shame to my husband or the guild by running away when the Dark Lord threatens us."
Ne nodded, her eyes reflecting a mix of worry and admiration. "May the gods be with you, Alicia. May your courage inspire us all."
With a final embrace, Alicia and Ne parted ways, each filled with their own emotions. Alicia, now fully d in her armor, made her way toward the gathering guardians. Her heart was heavy with the weight of responsibility, but her determination burned bright. As the sun began to set, casting a golden hue upon the horizon, Alicia stood before her fellow guardians, ready to lead them into the approaching battle against the Dark Lord and his menacing army.
The night grew darker, but Alicia''s resolve remained unwavering. She would face the Dark Lord head-on, for her fallen brother, for her husband, and for the future of the Guardian Guild. The stage was set, the battle awaited, and Alicia, the symbol of unwavering strength, was prepared to write the next chapter in their saga of light against darkness.
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As Alicia prepared to face the Dark Lord, ra returned to Salesi''s hidden pocket dimension, where they gathered to n their next moves. ra took her seat at the round table, while Salesi and Evan greeted Ne with a nod. Evan couldn''t hide his concern for the uing battle against the Dark Lord. What troubled him even more was Salesi''s strict order for him to stay away from the Guardian Guild tomorrow. Salesi knew that if Evan confronted the Dark Lord, he would be extinguished in an instant. She valued Evan as a member of her Shadow n and wanted to protect him from such a fate.
Curiosity sparked in Salesi''s eyes as she turned her attention to ra. "So, ra, how did your meeting with the Council of Immortals and the leaders of the great ns go?" Salesi''s smile revealed her amusement, as she already anticipated the oue.
ra let out a frustrated sigh, her expression filled with a mix of annoyance and anger. "It was aplete waste of time. Those imbeciles believe that the Dark Lord''s only target is the Guardian Guild. They refuse to acknowledge that once the Dark Lord decimates the guild, the other seven great ns will be next on his list for annihtion. It''s infuriating to witness their sheer ignorance andck of foresight."
ra''s frustration reached a boiling point, and she couldn''t help but vent her anger. "If those n leaders had an ounce of intelligence, they would realize the imminent threat and unite against the Dark Lord. Instead, their foolishness and stubbornness blind them to the danger at hand. I had to restrain myself from leaping out of my chair during the meeting and giving them a piece of my mind."
The room fell silent, the weight of the impending battle hanging heavy in the air. ra''s frustration was shared by those gathered, each aware of the gravity of the situation.
Evan''s question hung heavy in the air, filled with a mix of frustration and desperation. "What about the Council of Immortals? Will they simply stand by and allow the Dark Lord to wipe out the Guardian Guild?" he implored.
ra''s voice dripped with exasperation as she replied, her frustration barely contained. "Those spineless cowards are no better than the n leaders. At least they had the audacity to admit their inability to challenge the Dark Lord, rather than spewing feeble excuses," she eximed, her emotions raw and unfiltered. Deep down, however, ra knew that the Council of Immortals had made a grim but realistic assessment.
Salesi interjected with a knowing tone, her wordsced with a hint of satisfaction. "They are not entirely mistaken, my dear," she remarked.
"The Dark Lord has ascended to the Half Celestial stage. Even if every immortal within the Council united in confronting him, victory would be an elusive dream," Salesi stated, her voice betraying a mix of admiration for the Dark Lord''s power and a hidden agenda. While she relished the thought of the Immortals foolishly throwing themselves at the Dark Lord, bing fodder for her own sinister ns, she understood their reluctance. The Immortals were not as gullible as she wished.
ra nodded in reluctant agreement, her sigh a testament to the heaviness in her heart. Though she desperately clung to a glimmer of hope, the truth weighed heavily upon her. The impending doom of the Guardian Guild, once her beloved sanctuary, now loomed inescapably. Noah''s absence had left them vulnerable, their resilience tested to the core.
Salesi inquired, though she already knew the futility of attempting to dissuade Alicia from her decision. "Have you made any effort to dissuade Alicia from her perilous n to face the Dark Lord?" she asked, feigning concern while secretly delighting in the unfolding of her grand n.
ra let out a heavy sigh, her voice tinged with resignation. "We both know better than to try and reason with Alicia," she replied, the weight of their shared understanding palpable.
"Indeed, it is a pity," Salesi responded, her wordsced with false sympathy. However, her true feelings betrayed a twisted delight at the pieces of her grand design falling perfectly into ce. "But can we truly me Alicia for her unwavering determination to confront the Dark Lord? After all, he has ruthlessly shattered everything that held meaning for that poor girl," Salesi added, recalling the atrocities the Dark Lord hadmitted against Alicia.
Deep within the recesses of Salesi''s dark heart, a twisted delight simmered as she heard the news of Alicia''s impending battle against her own brother-inw, the Dark Lord. Salesi understood the deep-seated animosity between them, fueled by the unspeakable pain the Dark Lord had inflicted upon Alicia and her loved ones. She relished the anticipation, for she knew the Dark Lord''s merciless nature all too well.
Salesi''s cunning mind envisioned the aftermath of Alicia''s tragic demise at the hands of the Dark Lord. She foresaw the inevitable wrath that would consume Noah, Alicia''s husband and the former Supreme Guardian. Despite their shared blood, Salesi knew that Noah''s love for Alicia ran deeper than any familial bond. The news of her death would be a catalyst, shattering the tenuous connection he had once held with his treacherous brother.
With calcted ruthlessness, Salesi saw the path she hadid before her, like a macabre chessboard. Alicia''s demise would serve as the catalyst, igniting the mes of a long-awaited war between the two brothers. It was a malevolent n, meticulously crafted to exploit their familial ties, manipting their emotions to orchestrate a battle that would rend the heavens asunder.
As Salesi reveled in the darkness of her scheme, her eyes gleamed with a sinister satisfaction. She knew that Alicia''s sacrifice would be the catalyst for the grand confrontation she had longed for, a sh of titanic forces that would shake the very foundations of their world. The anticipation coursed through her veins, fueling her wicked ambitions, as she eagerly awaited the tragic chain of events that would set brother against brother in a battle of unfathomable proportions.
In the twisted tapestry of fate, the threads wove a cruel and heartbreaking tale for the two brothers, Michael and Noah, bound by blood yet torn asunder by destiny. Their paths diverged, leading them down contrasting roads that would inevitably intersect in a tragic collision.
Michael, consumed by an all-consuming love for his wife Gaya, stood as a formidable guardian, willing tomit unspeakable acts to alter her fateful demise. He would willingly unleash devastation upon any who dared threaten her, forsaking the bonds of morality in a desperate attempt to rewrite her destiny. The depths of his devotion knew no bounds, his actions fueled by an insatiable desire to protect his beloved.
Meanwhile, Noah, the other brother, faced the harrowing possibility of losing his own wife, Alicia, in the clutches of his own brother. The intricate web of fate had entangled their lives in a macabre dance, where the relentless whims of destiny eclipsed familial ties and blood connections.
The cruelty of their intertwined destinies was a bitter reminder that even the strongest bonds could be severed by the relentless hands of fate. The pathid before them was one of anguish and despair, where the choices they made and the actions they took would inevitably lead to a tragic confrontation. The very fabric of their existence seemed woven with an inherent cruelty, as the brothers found themselves caught in a web of love, loyalty, and the ultimate betrayal.
Chapter 970 On The Day Of The Final Battle
( New DBS chapter will be out tomorrow and the schedule will also be resumed)
The long-awaited day of the battle against the formidable Guardian Guild had finally arrived. Despite the immense power and history held by this ancient guild, Michael remained surprisingly calm and even found amusement in the situation. A carefree whistle escaped his lips as he strolled out of the portal room, his confidence unshaken.
Due to the tradition that prohibited him from seeing his bride, Gaya, until their wedding day, Michael couldn''t help but sigh as he imagined the sheer beauty that would radiate from her when she adorned her wedding dress. With a sense of anticipation, he made his way to his temporary room, where his garments awaited him.
As Michael made his way through the corridor, his robes were tarnished with dust and dirt from the ongoing process of forging his armor. He understood the importance of looking his best when facing the Guardian Guild, a moment he had been eagerly awaiting. It was during this walk that Azazel, his loyal demon butler, approached him from one of the rooms and respectfully greeted him.
"My Lord, Lord Saber is en route to the Lord Information. We can expect to receive information about rare metals within a day," Azazel informed, his voice filled with unwavering loyalty.
"Excellent," Michael replied calmly, his focus unwavering. "I shall delve deeper into the properties of these metals and convey to Lord Saber the exact specifications required toplete my armor."
While Michael could have easilypleted his armor using ordinary metals, he held an unwavering desire for both his own and Gaya''s armor to be extraordinary. To achieve this, he sought the finest metals avable, ones that remained concealed from his knowledge until now. Deep down, he knew that the Lord Information possessed secret insights into the unique metals that existed within this world, knowledge that he yearned to acquire.
As Michael proceeded, he inquired about the progress of the wedding preparations.
"Brother Ghost!" Suddenly, a yful and excited voice reverberated through the corridor, catching Michael''s attention. A smile crept across his face as he recognized the voice. Turning around, he was met with the sight of Cindy emerging from seemingly nowhere. With uncontainable joy, she dashed towards Michael, enveloping him in a tight embrace. Jumping up, she clung to his waist, showering him with wet kisses on his cheek.
Cindy had grown considerably since theyst saw each other. No longer the little seven-year-old who could barely reach Michael''s knee, she had blossomed into a charming young girl. Her height now reached his waist, and her growth in power was evident as she had achieved the Core Formation stage. Yet, despite these transformations, Cindy still retained her childlike demeanor in Michael''s presence. yfully, she clung to him like a panda, peppering him with affectionate kisses and rubbing her cheek against his.
"Oh, how much I''ve missed you!" Cindy eximed, elongating her words while maintaining her tight embrace.
"I missed you too. I''m d you''ve emerged from your seclusion," Michael replied warmly. Continuing their walk together, Cindy remained perched on his waist, a symbol of their unbreakable bond.
"You know, Missy, you shouldn''t act like a panda in front of everyone anymore. You''re all grown up now," Michael gently chided, yfully pinching her nose.
"Yes, my littledy. Our Lord has a reputation to uphold as the Dark Lord," Azazel chimed in, but Cindy simply responded by sticking her tongue out and making a funny face at him.
Azazel, the lone and fearsome demon in the world, couldn''t help but chuckle and sigh in amusement. To Cindy, no one could strike fear into her heart, not even the vampires. She had long be like Michael''s adorable little sister, even before he ascended to the position of the Dark Lord. Even in the face of a world that trembled before the might of the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen, Cindy felt no fear. She continued to y and interact with them as she always had.
Cindy''s innocent, yful, and adorable nature endeared her to everyone in the Dark army. However, her sweetness didn''t define her entirely. Under the tutge of Gaya, the Dark Queen herself, and Eve Voldiguard, Cindy received rigorous training inbat arts. Saber and Trista took charge of teaching her blood spells, while Elidyr instructed her in the mystical arts of runes. Despite her tender age, Cindy understood the harsh realities of the world, and she dedicated herself wholeheartedly to her training.
Michael, as much as he adored Cindy, didn''t want to shield her from the brutalities of the outside world. Instead, he was determined to prepare her to face it head-on and stand beside him as a ruler. Even though Cindy wasn''t a prodigy when she was born, Michael spared no expense or effort in cultivating her potential and transforming her into a formidable force.
"He may be the Dark Lord to others, but not to me, Uncle Azazel," Cindy replied, her tone filled with yful defiance.
"Oh, so you think I''m not a bad person, huh?" Michael teased, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Cindy, in response, yfully rolled her eyes, emphasizing her disbelief.
"Well, brother, if any butthole dares to call you evil in front of me, they cane eat my knuckle sandwich!" Cindy clenched her small fist and demonstrated a mock punch in the air, evokingughter from both Michael and Azazel.
"I feel so protected," Michael chuckled, reaching out to ruffle Cindy''s hair, much to her protest.
Lost in their lighthearted banter, Michael momentarily forgot about the impending war with the Guardian Guild and stepped outside the castle. As they walked, Cindy excitedly shared a funny story with Michael, recounting how she had defeated a group of vampires.
Cindy''s eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as she began her tale. "Oh, brother, you won''t believe what happened! So, I was training against a group of vampires. At first, I was a bit scared, you know, because they''re all fast and strong and have those sharp fangs. But then, I thought, ''Hey, I''m Cindy, the Dark Lord''s cute little sister,''"
Michael chuckled, encouraging her to continue.
Cindy grinned and continued, "So, I stood there, facing those vampires with all my might. I shouted, ''Prepare to be defeated, you bloodsucking creatures!'' And guess what? They actually listened to me! I mean, who knew vampires had a sense of humor?"
Michael couldn''t help butugh at Cindy''s adventurous spirit.
"And then," Cindy continued, her eyes gleaming with excitement, "I unleashed my secret weapon ¨C the tickle attack! I tickled them with all my might, and those vampires started squirming and giggling like crazy. They couldn''t even fight back because they were too busy trying to catch their breath!"
Michael burst intoughter, imagining theical sight.
"And that''s how I defeated the vampires, brother!" Cindy concluded proudly, striking a triumphant pose.
Michael pped his hands, thoroughly entertained. "Bravo, my little warrior! You always find a way to surprise me,"
Michael stood at the edge of the floating mountain, his gaze fixed on the dark ocean swirling with multiple tornadoes. After bidding farewell to Azazel, Cindy approached him and handed him a mysterious letter.
"What''s this?" Michael asked, curiosity piqued.
"I''m not sure. Aunt Adelia asked me to give it to you once I emerged from seclusion," Cindy replied, her eyes brimming with curiosity.
As Michael opened the envelope, he discovered a small, palm-sized ck scale nestled within, apanied by a letter. Unfolding the letter, he read Adelia''s words carefully.
"My Lord, if you''re reading this, it means I haven''t returned to the castle, and you''re likely searching for me. I can''t disclose everything in this letter, but I have provided a secret ritual on the back that can help trace my location using this scale. Please send Azazel, and only Azazel, to me. I will exin everything upon my return."
"I wonder where she vanished to," Cindy inquired, her eyes filled with curiosity, as Michael carefully folded the letter and returned it to her.
"Cindy, I want you to take this letter to Uncle Elidyr. He will know what to do. And once you''ve given him the letter, go and inform Gaya that her mother is safe and will be returning soon," Michael instructed, gently lowering Cindy back to the ground.
"Alrighty then," Cindy responded, cing a hand over her heart and assuming a yful, loyal soldier stance. Michael chuckled and nted a tender kiss on her back before she set off on her mission to deliver the letter to Elidyr.
As Cindy disappeared from Michael''s sight, his enchanting smile dissolved, reced by a cold and ruthless expression. With a swift motion, he vanished from the edge of the mountain, leaving behind a trail of lightning in his wake. In an instant, he materialized in his temporary room, where all his belongings had been relocated in preparation for his impending wedding.
Before him stood a meticulously arranged wardrobe filled with an array of dark attire. Without hesitation, Michael reached for a long coat, a sleek ck turtle neck, and a pair of matching trousers. With a swift flick of his wrist, he discarded his previous garments, cleansing himself with arcane energy before adorning his new attire. The transformation wasplete.
Next, Michael donned his fingerless gloves, the symbols of his power and prowess. He secured his formidable dark swords upon his back, their menacing presence a clear warning to any who dared to cross his path. Slipping into the long coat, he fastened it with purpose, each button a reminder of his indomitable will. Finally, heced up his shoes, ensuring every detail of his formidable ensemble was in ce.
In this attire, Michael exuded an aura of sheer strength and determination, ready to confront the formidable challenge that awaited him: the Guardian Guild.
*****************************************
In the tranquil Hulwick Isle, a sense of anticipation hung in the air as the Guardians prepared for the imminent arrival of the Dark Lord and his formidable army. The vast expanse of the sea surrounding the ind was meticulously patrolled by vignt Guardians, their watchful presence ensuring the safety of their home. Above, the skies were adorned with the majestic airships of the Guardian Guild, standing as a testament to their strength and unity.
Yet, despite the Guardians'' stern instructions to the contrary, a multitude of onlookers had gathered in the skies, hovering at a safe distance from the isle. These curious spectators, numbering in the thousands, yearned for a glimpse of the impending sh between the Dark Lord and the Guardian Guild. Ignoring the Guild''s firm reminder that this was not a mere spectacle but a harrowing war. Yet, their fascination with the unfolding events outweighed their concern for their own safety.
Undeterred by the Guild''s warnings, the onlookers remained steadfast in their desire to witness the sh of these colossal forces. However, they were not foolhardy, recognizing the inherent danger. Each individual maintained a safe distance, equipped with an array of gadgets and protective spells to shield themselves from the catastrophic shockwaves that would undoubtedly be unleashed.
Among the spectators, even the esteemed Empress of Awor graced the scene, apanied by a gathering of kings and queens. The magnitude of this momentous event was not lost on them, for it was a rare urrence to witness such a formidable war between the Dark Lord and his imposing army pitted against the Guardian Guild. Hearts raced with anticipation as the stage was set for a monumental sh that would leave an indelible mark on history.
The group of rogue cultivators and news reporters floated in the sky, a safe distance from the Hulwick ind, their faces etched with fear and anticipation. The air was tense, heavy with the weight of an imminent war between the Dark Lord and the Guardian Guild. Their voices carried a sense of urgency and concern as they engaged in a somber discussion.
One of the older cultivators, his eyes filled with worry, broke the silence. "Do you think there''s any chance for peace talks between the Dark Lord and the Guardian Guild? Is it possible to avoid this destructive war?"
A younger cultivator, his brow furrowed, replied, "I''m not sure. The Dark Lord has shown little inclination towards diplomacy in the past. He has always relied on his formidable power and relentless pursuit of his goals."
A news reporter chimed in, his voice filled with apprehension. "But what if the Dark Lord emerges victorious? Will he show any mercy to the Guardian Guild, especially considering his brother was the previous Supreme Guardian?"
The group fell into a contemtive silence, their gazes fixed on the distant Hulwick ind. It was a moment of reflection, where the weight of family ties and the potential consequences of the war were considered.
Another cultivator, his voice tinged with uncertainty, spoke up. "We can''t predict the Dark Lord''s actions. His true nature is shrouded in darkness, and he has always been an enigma. But knowing their shared bloodline, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for a resolution."
The news reporters quickly jotted down the conversation, capturing the conflicting emotions and the fragile thread of hope that lingered in the air.
A seasoned cultivator, his voice steady yet filled with doubt, added, "Even if the Dark Lord is victorious, will he spare the Guardian Guild out of familial bond? Or will he use this as an opportunity to consolidate his power and eliminate any potential threats?"
The discussions continued, the cultivators and reporters wrestling with their fears and grappling with the unknown. The sky above the Hulwick Ind remained ominous, mirroring the uncertainty that permeated the conversation.
As the dialogue progressed, hope and despair intertwined, their voices echoing through the air. The rogue cultivators and news reporters floated in the sky, their shared trepidation binding them together, united in their quest for understanding amidst the impending storm.
Unbeknownst to them, the Guardians stood resolute, fully aware of the gravity of the situation. Their steadfast determination mirrored the unwavering waves beneath them, ready to face the imminent threat with unwavering resolve. The stage was set, the world poised to witness a battle that would shape the destiny of both the Guardians and the Dark Lord.
Chapter 971 Michael Vs Alicia I
As the minutes ticked away, the sun embarked on its journey toward the horizon, casting a golden glow over thend. The Hulwick ind, shrouded in darkness, exuded an air of foreboding that sent shivers down the spines of the onlookers. Fear clung to them like a heavy cloak, their hearts pounding with trepidation.
Amidst the onlookers, the guardians stood tall and resolute, their unwavering loyalty to the Guardian Guild eclipsing their own fears. Those who had harbored doubts about facing the Dark Lord had fled, leaving behind a steadfast core of guardians ready to defend their cause.
As twilight descended upon the Ozer continent, the guardians on the airships sprang into action. They brought forth massive crystals infused with potent magic and activated the ancient runes etched upon them. Like radiant beacons, these crystals emitted a brilliant light that pierced through the encroaching darkness, illuminating the entire ind.
The atmosphere crackled with anticipation, drawing thousands of cultivators to gather at a safe distance, both in the skies and on the ground. Their eyes were fixed on the Hulwick ind, hearts pounding with a mixture of fear, curiosity, and a thirst for witnessing history unfold.
The scene was a tapestry of contrasting emotions¡ªthe onlookers, caught in a web of anxiety, and the guardians, standing as beacons of courage and dedication. The crystals'' enchanting glow painted the ind in a surreal brilliance, creating an ethereal spectacle that intensified the weight of the impending sh.
On the vast expanse of the Hulwick Ind, the guardians stood in solemn formations, their silver armor gleaming under the radiant crystal light. Seven hundred brave souls, resolute and prepared for the impending battle that would soon unfold. Led by Alicia, with unwavering determination etched upon her face, they stood united as a formidable force.
At the forefront of the guardians, Alicia stood tall, her gaze fixed upon the distant horizon. The weight of responsibility rested upon her shoulders, and she felt the collective anticipation emanating from herrades behind her. With each passing moment, the air grew heavy with a sense of impending doom, the tension palpable.
Alicia''s eyes, sharp and focused, scanned the horizon. She knew that at any second, the Dark Lord and his army could descend upon them. Her heart pounded in her chest, a rhythmic reminder of the adrenaline coursing through her veins. The wind whispered through her silver armor, as if echoing the restless murmurs of the guardians around her.
Her grip tightened around the hilt of her sword, a symbol of her unwavering resolve. Alicia was determined to defend the Guardian Guild, protect herrades, and uphold the honor entrusted to her. She had trained relentlessly, honing her skills and harnessing her inner strength for this very moment.
As the sun bid its final farewell, the once serene sky transformed into a canvas of foreboding storm clouds on the distant horizon. A sight that sent a shiver down the spines of the onlookers, as whispers of fear escaped their lips. The clouds crackled with shes of crimson lightning, casting an eerie glow that danced across the darkened heavens.
With an rming speed, the tempestuous clouds surged towards the Hulwick Isle, causing the very sea above to tremble in response. Powerful waves rose and crashed against the shoreline, their tumultuous roars echoing through the air. The atmosphere grew heavy with a sense of impending doom, as if nature itself recognized the arrival of a formidable force.
The onlookers, their gazes fixated upon the encroaching storm, felt a chill creep down their spines. Unspoken words carried on the wind, and the name "the Dark Lord" reverberated in hushed tones. A name that struck fear into the hearts of those who had heard tales of his power and ruthlessness.
In the face of this ominous spectacle, uncertainty and trepidation permeated the air. The storm clouds, a harbinger of the Dark Lord''s imminent arrival, served as a stark reminder of the impending sh between the forces of light and darkness.
The time for talk and spection had passed. It was now a moment to brace themselves for the storm that was about to descend upon the Hulwick Isle.
As the storm clouds drew closer, the atmosphere thickened with anxiety and fear. The onlookers huddled together, their voices trembling with uncertainty and anticipation.
"I can''t believe it''s really happening," whispered one rogue cultivator, his eyes wide with dread. "The Dark Lord ising. We''re about to witness a war like no other."
"Do you think there''s any hope for the Guardian Guild?" a news reporter asked, her voiceced with concern. "Can they withstand the might of the Dark Lord and his forces?"
A cultivator, his face etched with worry, shook his head. "I''m not sure. The Dark Lord has conquered every obstacle in his path. It feels like nothing can stop him."
"But what about the previous Supreme Guardian? They were siblings, right?" a young cultivator inquired, his voice quivering. "Wouldn''t the Dark Lord show mercy to his own flesh and blood?"
"It''s hard to say," replied an elder cultivator, his voice filled with a mix of resignation and determination. "All we can do is pray for the strength and resilience of the Guardian Guild. They have trained for this moment, and they will fight with everything they have."
The guardians swiftly formed their defensive positions, organizing themselves with precision and discipline. Warships on the sea and airships in the sky adjusted their formations, ready to protect the ind. Meanwhile, Alicia gracefully soared into the air, her departure leaving a powerful shockwave resonating through the ground. She positioned herself in the sky, ready to face the Dark Lord directly.
As the storm clouds dispersed, a hushed silence fell upon the scene. To the astonishment of everyone present, there stood Michael, alone andposed, suspended in the sky. Contrary to their expectations, there was no army apanying him. He exuded an air of confidence, a calm smile ying upon his lips. His long ck coat billowed in the wind, and his ck sunss concealed his true emotions, leaving onlookers guessing.
The Guardian Guild''s army watched in disbelief, their gazes locked on the enigmatic figure before them. They had braced themselves for a full-scale war, expecting a vast army to oppose them. Yet, there stood the Dark Lord, seemingly unperturbed by theck of reinforcements. It was a perplexing sight that sent a ripple of uncertainty through their ranks.
Whispers of confusion and disbelief spread among the guardians and the onlookers. They questioned the reason behind the Dark Lord''s solitary appearance. Was this a calcted move? Or had something unexpected urred? As they sought answers, tension hung heavy in the air, a palpable energy that heightened their anticipation.
Michael, unfazed by the gazes fixed upon him, continued to wear his enigmatic smile. His presence alone held a powerful aura, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the Guardian Guild.
Michael''s gaze locked with Alicia''s, their eyes meeting amidst the tense atmosphere. With a casual gesture, he cracked his neck and flexed his knuckles, projecting an air of nonchnce. Alicia, her voice amplified by the prevailing silence, used him with contempt.
"What do you intend, you murderer? Where is your army?" Her words reverberated across the field, capturing the attention of all present. Yet, Michael''s response was a mere chuckle, unfazed by her usations.
"An army is unnecessary to deal with your puny guild. I have a personal debt to settle with your organization, and I intend to do so with my own hands," he retorted, casting a fleeting nce at the amassed Guardian Guild forces. In the face of seven hundred guardians, numerous warships dotting the sea, and a myriad of airships in the sky, apanied by formidable cultivators and weapons, Michael exhibited no signs of trepidation. Instead, it was the guardians themselves who began to quiver at the sight of his Half Celestial stage cultivation. Their loyalty and bravery wavered as they came face to face with the notorious Dark Lord.
"What did you do with Noah? Where is he?" Alicia''s unexpected question caught Michael off guard. It was evident that she believed he held some responsibility for Noah''s disappearance following the Nagnd war. Yet, as always, Alicia''s assumptions were misguided. While it was true that Michael had dispatched his minions to search for Noah, he had no involvement in the Guardian Guild leader''s vanishing act. In truth, Michael himself wondered about Noah''s whereabouts. However, now was not the time for discussions about Noah. His purpose here was to eradicate the Guardian Guild from existence, to leave no trace of their presence in this world.
"I couldn''t care less about your husband," Michael scoffed, his voiceced with disdain. He took pleasure in taunting Alicia, knowing it would provoke a reaction.
"But perhaps you should feel grateful. If he''s still alive, he might attempt to rescue his beloved Guild," Michael sneered, a wicked smirk ying on his lips. The mention of Alicia''s husband struck a nerve, causing her to clench her fists tightly.
"And if your husband didn''t hold such an unwavering devotion to his Guild, I have no doubt he woulde running to protect you, his cherished wife," Michael added, his words dripping with sarcasm.
"Normally, I wouldn''t even consider this, but since you appear so weak and feeble, I''ll offer you a chance to flee," Michael taunted, gesturing for Alicia to escape. He knew deep down that she would never take him up on his offer.
Alicia let out a mocking snicker in response to Michael''s offer.
"I am Alicia Winston, and Winstons don''t run," she retorted, her voice filled with determination. Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at her response.
"Yes, Winstons are stupid," Michaelughed, his amusement evident. However, Alicia quickly found a retort that struck a nerve.
"And you, by birth, are also a Winston," Alicia snickered, her wordsced with a hint of satisfaction.
A momentary flicker of anger shed in Michael''s eyes, hidden behind his dark sunsses. Yet, he swiftly regained hisposure. He was the master of control, never allowing his emotions to get the best of him.
"Fortunately for me, I was abandoned," Michael calmly replied. "Otherwise, I might have be a mindless puppet under the control of Skyhall and the Guardian Guild."
He spoke with a touch of bitterness, revealing a glimpse into his past and theplex dynamics that shaped his journey.
Alicia''s voice trembled with anger as she retorted, "At least we didn''t be deranged, mass-murdering psychopaths like you." The memories of what Michael had done to her brother and the countless lives he had mercilessly taken in Thusia and Nagnd fueled Alicia''s intense hatred toward him. Despite the fact that Michael was Noah''s brother, there was not an ounce of love orpassion for him in Alicia''s heart.
"Ah, the typical facade of righteousness," Michael responded, his toneced with sarcasm. He saw through Alicia''s motives clearly. "You may deceive others with your leadership in this war, but you can''t fool me. Your true intention is to avenge your brother. The lives I''ve taken mean nothing to you. You''re simply using these people in the hope of getting your revenge against me. If you truly cared about their lives, you would have urged them to abandon the guild and flee."
Michael gestured toward the army of guardians standing before him, emphasizing Alicia''s true intentions. "But no, you want to cling to a small glimmer of hope that you can defeat me with their help. Well, here''s an offer for you. Since you despise me so much and im to value lives, I''ll reduce my cultivation to match your Fusion stage. I''ll even fight you with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back. If you manage to make me bleed even a single drop of blood, I will spare the Guardian Guild and everyone here."
The onlookers were taken aback by Michael''s unexpected proposition, their astonishment evident on their faces. He continued to shock them with his unconventional offer, challenging Alicia directly.
Michael noticed the flicker of temptation in Alicia''s eyes as he presented his offer. He locked his gaze with hers, urging her to consider the gravity of the situation.
"Come now, Lady Winston. Cast aside your pride for a moment and truly see the lives at stake here," Michael implored, his voice filled with a hint of persuasion. He gestured towards the surrounding people, emphasizing their youth and the potential they held. "They have dreams to fulfill, futures ahead of them. Are you willing to let your stubbornness cloud your judgment and let them perish? Deep down, we both know that this is your sole opportunity to save all these lives."
His words hung in the air, carrying a weight of truth. The onlookers watched in anticipation, fully aware that this moment held the fate of many. Alicia''s eyes flickered with a mix of determination and conflict as she contemted Michael''s offer, the choice before her growing increasingly clear.
"If you''re still unsure about my offer, allow me to give you a glimpse of the force you''ll be facing," Michael stated, his smile fading from his face. As he spoke, a sense of darkness pervaded the surroundings, casting an eerie shadow over the area. Suddenly, one of the massive crystals, previously used to illuminate the ind, shattered into pieces without any visible cause. The guardians and onlookers stood frozen in shock, witnessing the disy of Michael''s power.
With a slight adjustment of his sunsses, Michael unleashed two menacing beams from his eyes. The dark beams pierced through the floating warship in the distance, effortlessly slicing it in half. Even the powerful shield generated by intricate arrays failed to protect the vessel. The severed halves tumbled from the sky, crashing into the sea below and erupting in a fiery explosion.
The onlookers gasped in disbelief at the sheer destructive force unleashed by Michael. The realization of his immense power settled upon them like a heavyweight. It was a clear demonstration that challenging him would be a formidable task.
"I ept," Alicia quickly responded, determined to prevent further loss of life. Michael smiled and removed his sunsses, cing them around his neck. With a raised hand, he caused a momentary jolt among the army of guardians, causing them to tense, thinking he was about to unleash an attack. However, Michael''s amusement was evident as a piece of cloth gracefully flew into his grasp from the ind.
Deliberately, he tied the cloth securely over his eyes, obscuring his vision. With a swift motion of his wrist, he summoned his legendary weapon, the Doombringer, from his spatial ring. The imposing war hammer possessed a unique design, featuring one blunt head and one pointed head. Engraved with ancient runes and infused with an ice core of immense power, the Doombringer granted Michael the ability to summon intense frost at will. Its ck surface gleamed ominously under the moonlight.
As he positioned his hand behind his back, Michael''s cultivation gradually diminished from the Half Celestial stage to the Fusion stage. However, this decision was not an act of recklessness or foolishness on his part. With a thorough scan of his surroundings, he ensured there were no unexpected surprises awaiting him during the impending duel. Moreover, his loyal minions stood watch from a safe distance, ensuring no interference would disrupt the battle he was about to engage in.
Michael carried out these actions not out of arrogance but to demonstrate the stark contrast between his power and Alicia''s perceived strength. By covering his eyes and restricting his dominant hand, he aimed to highlight how feeble Alicia''s hopes of seeking revenge truly were. It was a calcted move to expose her vulnerability and emphasize the vast power differential between them. This disy was intended to make Alicia realize the futility of her efforts and the impossibility of oveing Michael''s might.
"Let''s begin," Michael dered. His voice resonated with a calm confidence that sent shivers down the spines of the onlookers. With those simple words, the air crackled with anticipation, and the stage was set for an intense showdown between the Dark Lord and Alicia, who longed to avenge her brother and end Michael''s life for years. The atmosphere grew heavy with suspense as everyone held their breath, knowing that the sh between these two formidable warriors would decide the fate of countless lives.
Chapter 972 Michael Vs Alicia II
Alicia''s sword glinted in the crystal light as she lunged forward, her eyes focused and determination etched on her face. With a swift, fluid motion, she aimed a powerful strike toward Michael''s chest. But to her astonishment, Michael effortlessly sidestepped the attack, his blindfolded eyes seemingly seeing every move.
As Alicia''s sword sliced through the air, Michael smoothly evaded each subsequent sh with a series of agile movements. His body seemed to flow with the rhythm of the battle, his reflexes honed to perfection. With remarkable precision, he relied on his heightened senses and intuition to predict Alicia''s every move.
Using only his legs, Michael executed acrobatic flips and twists, avoiding Alicia''s strikes with an ethereal grace. He moved with such fluidity that it appeared as if he were dancing in mid-air. Alicia''s frustration grew as her attacks were effortlessly evaded, unable tond a single blow on her elusive opponent.
In one particr moment, as Alicia aimed a diagonal sh towards Michael''s exposed nk, he swiftly twisted his body, dodging the attack with a hair''s breadth. In that split second, he countered with a lightning-fast kick, propelling himself backward and catching Alicia off guard. His foot connected with her abdomen,unching her backward through the air.
Undeterred, Alicia quickly regained herposure and resumed her assault. She unleashed a flurry of rapid strikes, her sword a blur in the night sky. Yet, no matter how relentless her onught, Michael''s evasion remained wless. With every step, twist, and turn, he seemed to anticipate her moves, leaving her sword to slice through empty air.
Michael''s agility was matched only by his extraordinary speed. At one moment, as Alicia attempted a surprise attack from above, he smoothly flipped backward, his body arcing in a seamless motion. In mid-air, he extended his leg and delivered a powerful kick directly to Alicia''s chest, sending her hurtling downwards.
The aerial duel continued, the sh of wills and skills ying out in the vast expanse of the sky. Michael''s movements were a captivating disy of grace and mastery, each evasion and counterattack executed with precision and finesse. Despite the blindfold obscuring his vision and the handicap of using only one hand and his legs, he seemed to possess an otherworldly awareness, effortlessly outmaneuvering Alicia at every turn.
The battle raged on, the sky serving as the backdrop for this extraordinary disy ofbat prowess. Each move, each evasion, and each counterattack showcased Michael''s dominance over his opponent, leaving no doubt as to the vast gap in their skills. As the sh continued, the oue of this epic confrontation hung in the bnce, the fate of the Guardian Guild itself resting on the oue of this fateful battle in the heavens.
As Alicia realized that her sword strikes were proving ineffective, she decided to switch tactics. Channeling her magical energy, she summoned a chilling breeze around her, creating an aura of frost. With a determined expression, she cast a spell, sending shards of ice hurtling toward Michael.
But Michael was ready. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed his Doombringer high into the air, allowing it to spin gracefully. In that brief moment, he swiftly summoned his ck shield with his free hand, the shield retracting on his forearm in a blink of an eye. As the shards of ice approached, Michael expertly maneuvered the shield, blocking and deflecting each projectile effortlessly.
He taunted Alicia with a sly smile, his voice carrying through the wind. "Is that the best you can do, Alicia? Casting your frosty spells, hoping for a lucky hit? I must say, your attempts are rather feeble. I expected more from the mighty Alicia Winston."
With a swift motion, Michael caught his Doombringer as it descended from above. He twirled the war hammer in his hand, the runes etched upon it shimmering ominously. "You couldn''t evennd a single hit on me, blindfolded and fighting with one hand. It''s truly a pitiful sight."
Alicia gritted her teeth, her determination intensifying. She unleashed a torrent of icy projectiles, hoping to overwhelm Michael''s defenses. But each time, he blocked her spells with precise timing and graceful movements. His ck shield seemed imprable, absorbing the impact of the ice shards without faltering.
With every blocked spell, Michael continued to taunt Alicia. "Is this all you''ve got, Alicia? I expected a more formidable challenge. Perhaps you should consider giving up and saving yourself the embarrassment."
His mocking words echoed through the air, fueling Alicia''s determination even further. She refused to be discouraged by his taunts, pushing her magical abilities to the limit. Yet, no matter how relentless her assault became, Michael''s defenses remained unyielding.
The fight continued in a mesmerizing disy of skill and defiance. Michael effortlessly deflected Alicia''s frosty spells, his movements fluid and stylish. He danced with his shield and his Doombringer, a symphony of agility and power. Each block, each parry, was executed with finesse and precision, mocking Alicia''s attempts at victory.
As Alicia unleashed a flurry of spells, Michael deftly blocked and evaded each one with his ck shield, his movements seamless and precise. With his blindfold still in ce, he relied on his heightened senses and instinct to anticipate Alicia''s attacks.
In between deflecting spells, Michael closed the distance between them with lightning speed. He unleashed a series of swift kicks, aiming for vulnerable points. His strikes were urate and powerful, sending shockwaves through the air. Alicia tried her best to evade, but Michael''s agility and speed made it nearly impossible.
asionally, Michael would incorporate his Doombringer into his attacks, swinging it with tremendous force. Each strike was calcted and devastating, making Alicia''s defenses crumble. The sheer impact of his blows sent her flying backward, her body spinning uncontrobly through the sky.
With a final, forceful kick, Michael sent Alicia hurtling toward the hovering warships. She crashed onto one of the vessels, her body skidding across its surface. The impact was fierce, leaving her gasping for breath and coughing up blood.
Michael hovered in the air, a sinister smirk spreading across his face. "Is that all you have, Alicia? Your feeble attempts are nothingpared to my power. You are outmatched and outssed."
He slowly descended towards Alicia''s location, his Doombringer hanging loosely by his side. The wind whispered around them, carrying his mocking words. "You thought you could avenge your brother? You thought you could defeat me? How pathetic."
Alicia struggled to rise, her body bruised and battered. She red up at Michael, defiance flickering in her eyes. Despite the pain, she summoned thest vestiges of her strength. "I won''t... give up... I will... make you pay..."
Michael''sughter echoed through the air, a chilling sound that sent shivers down Alicia''s spine. "Oh, Alicia, your determination is admirable. But it''s futile. This battle is already decided. You cannot defeat me."
With Alicia struggling to regain her footing, Michael seized the opportunity to unleash a relentless assault. He no longer held back, his every move executed with lethal precision. The blindfold that covered his eyes seemed inconsequential as he effortlessly anticipated Alicia''s feeble attempts to defend herself.
His movements were a blur as he closed in on her, striking with lightning speed. A barrage of punches and kicks rained down upon Alicia, each blow infused with a chilling aura. She could barely react as the force of his attacks sent her reeling, her body battered and bruised.
Michael''s strikes were relentless, his ferocity unmatched. He seemed to possess an otherworldly grace as he weaved through the air, striking with calcted uracy. His Doombringer, momentarily forgotten, hung silently by his side, as his bare hands proved to be more than sufficient.
No longer mocking, Michael''s voice turned cold and menacing. "Did you really think you stood a chance against me, Alicia? You''re nothing more than an annoyance."
Each blow from Michael sent Alicia spiraling further into despair. She gasped for air, pain coursing through her body with every movement. Desperation fueled her resolve as she tried desperately to muster a counterattack, but her efforts were in vain. Michael''s onught continued unabated, leaving her defenseless.
As Alicia''s strength waned, Michael''s sadisticughter filled the air. "Pathetic. You cannot defeat me. Your struggle only makes meugh," His voice dripped with a cruel satisfaction, relishing in the torment he inflicted upon her.
With one final devastating strike, Michael sent Alicia hurtling backward, her body crashing into the remnants of a shattered warship. The impact reverberated through the air, leaving Alicia motionless and battered, her will to fight shattered.
Michael hovered above her, a triumphant smirk etched upon his face. "This is your fate, Alicia Winston. Remember it as the price you pay for standing against me."
The battlefield fell silent, save for Alicia''sbored breaths. The Dark Lord had proven his dominance, leaving Alicia and the Guardian Guild in a state of helplessness.
As Alicia summoned thest remnants of her strength, a flicker of desperation gleamed in her eyes. With a resolute determination, she channeled her life force into a forbidden spell, a powerful surge of frost gathering in her outstretched hands. The temperature plummeted as the air around her crackled with raw energy.
But Michael only snickered in response, his amusement apparent. He raised his Doombringer, the ancient ice core within resonating with hismand. In an instant, a formidable stream of frost surged forth, meeting Alicia''s spell head-on. The sh was cataclysmic, a sh of elemental powers that chilled everything around them.
The streams of frost shed in the middle of the sky, creating a swirling vortex of icy energy. The intense cold permeated the air, causing even the bravest warriors to shiver. Alicia strained against the overwhelming force, her spell beginning to falter under the weight of Michael''s power.
With each passing moment, Michael''s frost gained ground, inching closer to Alicia. The power within his attack overwhelmed her, extinguishing her desperate attempt to turn the tide. His mastery over ice and cold proved to be far superior, leaving Alicia defenseless against his relentless onught.
Alicia''s expression twisted with a mixture of determination and despair as she fought to hold back Michael''s frost. The strain was evident in her weary eyes, her life force depleting with every passing second. Yet, she refused to yield, clinging to the faint hope that she could somehow emerge victorious.
But Michael''s grin widened, his eyes glinting with a mixture of malice and satisfaction. He relished in her futile struggle, knowing that her efforts were in vain. The power of his frost grew stronger, a relentless force that overwhelmed Alicia''s fading spell.
As Michael''s frost inched closer, Alicia''s resistance waned. Her spell faltered, weakened by the sheer magnitude of Michael''s power. The frost enveloped her, freezing her movements, draining her life force with each passing second.
In a final disy of dominance, Michael''s frost consumed Aliciapletely, encasing her in a crystalline prison. Her body stood frozen, a monument to her valiant yet futile resistance. Michael descended slowly, his eyes fixed upon the frozen figure before him.
The guardians and onlookers stood in stunned silence, their eyes wide with disbelief. They had witnessed the battle unfold before them, their hopes dwindling with each passing moment. Despite Alicia''s unwavering determination, it became painfully apparent that she couldn''tnd a single hit on the Dark Lord, even with his blindfolded eyes and one hand behind his back.
Whispers of disbelief rippled through the crowd as they struggled toprehend the magnitude of Michael''s power. They had known he was formidable, but to witness his effortless evasion and domination over Alicia, their esteemed leader, left them shaken to the core. The reality of their situation began to sink in, overshadowing their earlier courage and resolve.
The onlookers exchanged nces, their faces etched with a mix of fear and awe. They had ced their faith in Alicia, hoping that she would be the one to stand against the Dark Lord and lead them to victory. But now, their hopes were shattered, reced by a grim understanding of the immense gap in power between them.
Whispers turned into hushed murmurs as they struggled toprehend the extent of Michael''s skill. How could someone fight with such finesse, with such mastery over their own body and the battlefield? The guardians questioned their own abilities, their own worth in the face of such overwhelming superiority.
All eyes were fixated on the Dark Lord, Michael, and Alicia, who was trapped within the crystalline prison. The onlookers held their breath, unsure of what would unfold next. They were aware of the deep-seated animosity between Michael and Alicia, yet they couldn''t help but wonder how thisplicated dynamic would y out.
Despite their shared history and the enmity between them, Alicia was Noah''s wife which made Alicia the Dark Lord''s sister inw, and that fact added an unexpectedyer of uncertainty to the situation. The crowd was left to specte about the Dark Lord''s intentions. Would he strike down Alicia with ruthless indifference, disregarding the connection? Or would some remnant ofpassion and familial bond sway his actions?
Chapter 973 Alicia鈥檚 Death
(I have released new DBS AND AHSS Chapters. Enjoy the chapters!!!)
While Alicia''s body remained trapped within the crystal, the Alpha Guardians sprang into action, determined to rescue her from her crystalline prison. With urgency in their eyes, they ascended to the sky, their hearts filled with hope and determination.
As Michael, the Dark Lord, loomed above them, a chilling silence fell over the battlefield. His towering presence exuded a sense of power and menace, sending a shiver down the spines of those who dared to challenge him. With a swift andmanding motion, Michael raised his mighty Doombringer, a weapon of devastating power. Its ominous aura filled the air, a foreboding sign of the imminent danger that awaited.
A collective gasp escaped the lips of the Alpha Guardians as they witnessed the impending strike. Their hearts pounded in their chests, knowing that time was running out to save their fallenrade. Michael removed the blindfold and threw the piece of cloth down. Then, in a swift, decisive motion, Michael swung his Doombringer toward the crystal that confined Alicia. The impact echoed through the air, causing the fragile structure to shatter into countless shards that glittered like stars.
As the crystal shattered, a tragic sight unfolded before the eyes of the Alpha Guardians. Some of the crystal fragments were stained with a deep crimson hue, Alicia''s blood mingling with the broken pieces. The sight was a painful reminder of the sacrifice and the life that had been abruptly taken away.
The Alpha Guardians stood frozen for a moment, their hearts heavy with grief and disbelief. The loss of their esteemed ally left an indelible mark on their souls, a reminder of the brutal reality of their world.
The unfolding scene sent shockwaves through the witnesses and the Guardians, shaking them to their very core. Some among them held a glimmer of hope, believing that Alicia''s connection to Noah, the Dark Lord''s brother, might invoke a flicker of mercy from Michael. They thought that familial ties could soften his heart and spare Alicia''s life. However, contrary to their expectations, Michael coldly and swiftly ended Alicia''s existence, without a second thought.
Deep within Michael''s being, he harbored a profound understanding of Alicia''s vehement hatred towards him. He recognized the dangerous depths of her animosity, aware that if she were allowed to live, she would continue plotting against him relentlessly. He feared that her unrelenting hatred would erode her righteousness, transforming her into a force that could harm those dear to him, particrly Gaya, his soon-to-be wife.
Having conversed with the previous Dark Lord, Michael had learned of the grim fate that awaited Gaya in countless other timelines, where death imed her without fail. Determined to shield her from harm and ensure her survival, Michael made a solemn vow. He resolved to protect her at all costs, prepared to eliminate anyone who posed a threat to her safety, devoid of even the faintest trace of mercy.
In his unwavering determination, Michael was willing to face the entire world, should it turn against him. His resolve to safeguard his beloved wife was unyielding, as he would go to any lengths necessary, even if it meant extinguishing countless lives, to ensure her continued existence.
Following Alicia''s demise, Michael''s inner energy surged forth, breaking free from its suppressed state. His cultivation soared, propelling him from the Fusion stage to the lofty realm of the Half Celestial stage. The sheer power emanating from him caused a gentle whistling sound that resonated throughout the vicinity, a testament to his overwhelming aura.
In amanding gesture, Michael raised his hand and swiftly snapped his fingers. The crystals adorning the airships, which emitted a brilliant luminosity, shattered into countless fragments. As a consequence, darkness enveloped the Hulwick Isle and its surroundings once more, casting a shadow over the previously illuminated expanse.
As the darkness engulfed the surroundings, Michael invoked the Cloak of Shadows, a mystical veil that encased him entirely. Within this shroud, his form became obscured, and dark mes flickered ominously around him. Hovering in mid-air, Michael slowly drew his dual dark swords from their scabbards, their des gleaming with an eerie darkness.
Meanwhile, the guardians of the guild stood resolute, prepared to defend their cause and fight to the bitter end. Warships, both in the sky and on the sea, adjusted their cannons and weapons, taking aim at the imposing figure of the Dark Lord. Undeterred by the immense disparity in cultivation, hundreds of guardians ascended into the sky, ready to confront Michael in a valiant aerial battle.
As the Alpha Guardians, Roshan, Vivienne, and Garrick soared through the sky with their troops, their eyes fixed on their sole adversary, Michael, the Dark Lord. The battle unfolded on a grand scale, with the fate of their world hanging in the bnce.
Roshan, with hismanding presence akin to a majestic lion, led the charge of the Beast Guardians. Golden-maned and resolute, he unleashed a primal roar that resonated across the battlefield. His fellow guardians, embodying the ferocity of untamed beasts, joined him in a synchronized assault. They pounced upon Michael, their ws tearing through the air with lightning speed, while others summoned the forces of nature to bind and hinder him.
Vivienne, her fiery-haired visage shimmering with mystic power,manded the Sorcerer Guardians. Positioned strategically, she wove intricate spells that ignited the sky with bursts of dazzling energy. Her incantations summoned tempests of arcane lightning that crackled and danced, striking at Michael with relentless fury. She conjured swirling vortexes that unleashed gusts of wind, threatening to swallow him whole. Each spell cast by Vivienne unleashed devastation, leaving trails of destruction in its wake.
Garrick, the seasoned warrior with weathered armor and battle-hardened valor, stood at the forefront of the Warrior Guardians. His scarred countenance revealed a wealth of experience and determination. With his enchanted de held firmly in hand, he led hisrades with unwavering resolve. Each swing of his sword sent shockwaves rippling through the air, cutting through the darkness that surrounded Michael. The Warrior Guardians fought with unyielding strength and skill, their weapons shing against the formidable Dark Lord. Garrick''s mere presence bolstered the morale of the warriors fighting alongside him, each strike they delivered carrying the weight of their collective resolve.
The sky became a battlefield as the guardians and their troops engaged Michael, unleashing a symphony of fantastical powers and weapons. Vivienne''s spells intertwined with Roshan''s relentless assaults, creating a tapestry of chaos and destruction. Explosions erupted, showering the heavens with cascades of vibrant colors.
Vivienne, harnessing the full force of her sorcery, conjured celestial fireballs that streaked across the sky, exploding upon impact with Michael. Each detonation sent shockwaves rippling through the atmosphere, rattling the very foundation of their reality.
Roshan, in tandem, channeled ancient elemental forces, his power resonating through the sky. With a mighty roar, he summoned swirling tempests of wind and surges of crackling lightning. The very air around Michael became charged with raw energy, creating a tumultuous storm that threatened to engulf him. Dark clouds converged above, crackling with electricity and unleashing torrents of rain and hail, creating a chaotic backdrop to the battle in the heavens.
As the battle raged on, Garrick''s focus remained on Michael, the Dark Lord who floated ominously in the midst of the chaos. With an unwavering gaze, he prepared himself for the impending sh, his senses sharpened and instincts honed. Garrick''s enchanted de hummed withtent power, pulsating with the anticipation of the duel toe.
Yet, before Garrick could engage Michael directly, the sh of their weapons postponed, a powerful gust of wind swept through the sky, momentarily disrupting their trajectory. The wind, an extension of Roshan''s elemental forces, buffeted Michael, threatening to knock him off bnce. Sparks of electricity crackled around Garrick''s armor as the sh of their energies electrified the air. The brilliance of their opposing forces illuminated the battlefield, casting an otherworldly glow on thebatants and their surroundings.
As Roshan summoned ancient elemental forces, the sky transformed into a tempest of raging winds and crackling lightning. Dark clouds swirled above, unleashing bolts of energy that illuminated the battlefield with shes of brilliance. Streams of fire and gushing torrents of water erupted from the heavens, threatening to consume their formidable adversary, who hovered effortlessly in the midst of the chaos.
Meanwhile, Garrick, the epitome of warrior prowess, soared through the air with unwavering determination, his enchanted de gleaming with a radiant aura. He zeroed in on Michael, the Dark Lord, who exuded an aura of dark power and unyielding resolve. With each calcted maneuver, Garrick closed the distance between them, his eyes locked on his target.
The sh of their opposing forces was a sight to behold. Garrick''s de, guided by battle-hardened valor, shed through the air with unmatched speed and precision, aiming to breach the Dark Lord''s defenses. Yet, to the astonishment of the onlookers, Michael proved to be an elusive and formidable adversary.
With a flicker of his hand, Michael effortlessly deflected Garrick''s de, his movements a graceful dance amidst the chaos. It was a disy of supernatural skill and speed that left even the most seasoned warriors in awe. Without hesitation, Michael retaliated, his own weapon, wreathed in darkness, shing through the air with lethal intent.
In a heart-wrenching moment, the Dark Lord''s de found its mark. With a chilling swiftness, the razor-sharp edge sliced through the air, tearing through the defenses of Garrick''s armor as though it were mere parchment. The sh of metal against metal rang out, drowning amidst the roaring winds of the sky. In a gruesome disy of power, the Dark Lord''s strike severed flesh and sinew, unleashing a torrent of crimson. Blood sprayed forth from Garrick''s severed neck, a macabre fountain painting the air with a gruesome hue.
As if suspended in time, Garrick''s head, still bearing the shock of the battle in its opened eyes, flew through the air. The head, released from its now lifeless body, seemed to defy gravity for a fleeting moment. It was an image frozen in the minds of all who bore witness, a testament to the brutality and finality of the Dark Lord''s strike. And then, with a sickening thud, the head descended, lost forever to the depths below.
With hearts heavy with grief and determination, the Guardians refused to yield to despair. The loss of Garrick only steeled their resolve to fight on, for their fallenrade, and for the future of their world. Amidst the chaos of battle, there was no time for mourning or hesitation.
In perfect synchronization, the warships unleashed their devastating firepower upon the Dark Lord Michael. Cannons roared and projectiles soared through the air, aiming to find their mark and weaken the formidable foe who hovered in the sky. Explosions rocked the battlefield, illuminating the darkened heavens with shes of blinding light.
Vivienne, her fiery hair zing with intensity, called upon ancient incantations to summon spells of unparalleled destruction. Arcane energy crackled around her as she unleashed torrents of mes, engulfing the sky in a fiery inferno. Her voice resonated with power as she chanted the ancient words, each syble carrying the weight of her unwavering determination.
Roshan, hismanding presence undeterred by the loss of hisrade, rallied the remaining Guardians. His voice boomed like thunder as he roared across the battlefield, his words echoing through the hearts of all who fought alongside him. "For Garrick! For our fallen brethren! We fight for justice and the salvation of our world! Strike with all your might! Show no mercy!"
The Guardians, their voices blending into a chorus of defiance, echoed Roshan''s battle cry. Their shouts filled the air as they unleashed their fury upon the Dark Lord. Swords shed, spears thrust, and arrows found their targets. Each Guardian fought with unwavering courage, their spirits ame with the determination to vanquish the source of darkness that threatened their existence.
The sky became a mesmerizing tapestry of chaos and illumination as spells collided with cannon fire. Brilliant streaks of vibrant energy cut through the air, intermingling with explosions that painted the heavens in a kaleidoscope of colors. The sky crackled and shimmered with the raw power unleashed, a breathtaking disy of light and fury that bore witness to the epic sh between the Guardians and the Dark Lord.
Roshan''s voice thundered through the chaos, "Unleash your fury, Guardians! For Garrick''s sacrifice, we shall prevail!"
Vivienne''s fiery gaze met Michael''s evasive movements, her voice resolute, "No corner of the sky shall shield you from our wrath, Dark Lord!"
The Guardians, undeterred by their adversary''s nimble evasion, continued their onught with unwavering determination. With each missed shot and deflected spell, the Dark Lord''s confidence seemed to grow, his movements disying an almost unearthly grace as he danced through the barrage unscathed. It was as if the very air bent to his will, allowing him to evade their every strike without a hint of exertion.
As the Dark Lord effortlessly evaded the spells and left shimmering afterimages in his wake, his voice echoed through the sky with a chilling calmness.
"Behold, Guardians," he began, his tone filled with subtle amusement. "Allow me to share a story with you. Once, there was an ant, so small and insignificant. It dreamed of moving a mountain, exerting all its strength to no avail. The mountain remained steadfast, immovable. Do you see the parallel, Guardians?"
He continued to evade their attacks, his movements graceful and calcted. "You are the ants, and I am the mountain. No matter how hard you try, your efforts are futile against my might." His words carried a sense of superiority, amplifying the frustration of the Guardians as they struggled tond a single blow. With each evasion, the Dark Lord seemed to grow more confident, ying with them as if they were mere pawns in his grand design.
As the Dark Lord''s story reached its conclusion, he abruptly halted his movements, suspending himself in mid-air. The Guardians, momentarily frozen by his words, watched in horror as he raised his hand. A wave of dark mes surged forth, engulfing the surrounding warships and the Guardians in a torrent of infernal destruction. The once-mighty vessels, their cannons still zing, were reduced to mere embers, consumed by the unstoppable ze. The Guardians'' cries, filled with determination just moments before, were abruptly cut short as the mes licked hungrily at their forms. Their valiant spirits and hopes turned to ash, fading away in the devastating heat, leaving behind only a haunting silence in the wake of their annihtion. The sky, once vibrant with the sh of powers, now bore witness to the grim aftermath, where only charred remnants and the echoes of despair remained.
Chapter 974 Fall Of All Alpha Guardians
The mes of darkness, unleashed from Michael''s hands through the power of the Ring of Fire, grew in intensity until they transformed into a colossal wave resembling a crescent moon. With a sweeping motion, the fiery crescent surged across the sky, obliterating warships and reducing Guardians to mere ashes. Hovering high above Hulwik ind, Michael engaged the entire army single-handedly, his Half Celestial stage granting him an unassable advantage. Despite the relentless barrage of spells and cannon fire unleashed by the Guardians and the warships, none coulde close to harming him in his formidable state.
Alpha Guardians Vivienne and Roshan, recognizing the urgency of the situation, joined forces against Michael. Vivienne unleashed her devastating spells, weaving intricate patterns of mystical energy that illuminated the battlefield. Meanwhile, Roshan, the Alpha Guardian of the beast guardians, roared with primal fury and underwent a stunning transformation, assuming the majestic form of a golden lion. Radiating a brilliant glow, Roshan stood nearly eight feet tall, his presencemanding and awe-inspiring.
To provide cover for Roshan''s close-quarters battle with the Dark Lord, his unit, the beast guardians, followed suit, transforming into their primal forms. In the sky above and the sea below, airships and warships focused their attacks on Michael, intensifying their assault to unprecedented levels. The battlefield became a mesmerizing spectacle, vibrant and alive with the dazzling array of spells shimmering in every hue imaginable. The sky resembled a tapestry of light as hundreds of Guardians soared through the air, converging upon Michael like a relentless swarm of bees, their determination radiating in their every move. The scene unfolded as a grand battle, where the sh of powers and the symphony of destruction painted a vivid picture of chaos and heroism in equal measure.
As the guardians closed in on Michael, a sinister grin spread across his face, foretelling his impending move. With both hands raised, each gripping a dark sword, Michael began to invoke Ignitia''s ultimate form. The very moment his spell took hold, foreboding clouds materialized in the sky, their darkness rivaling the deepest midnight. Crackling with potent lightning energy, the clouds unleashed rumbling echoes that drowned out the sounds of spells and cannons firing. Even those observing the war from a safe distance could sense the palpable electricity in the air, and their attention was captivated by the spectacle unfolding before them.
Onlookers murmured amongst themselves, their voices tinged with both awe and trepidation. "Look at the Dark Lord''s power," one whispered, eyes wide with astonishment.
"Those clouds... they speak of an immense force gathering," anothermented, a shiver running down their spine.
A hushed silence fell over the crowd as they anticipated the impending cataclysm. It was as if the very atmosphere held its breath, aware that a powerful spell was about to be unleashed upon the battlefield. The sight of the ominous clouds above the Dark Lord only served to reinforce their belief that they were about to witness a disy of unfathomable might.
As the guardians soared through the sky, a sense of urgency gripped them. They swiftly channeled their energy into casting protective spells to shield themselves from the impending danger. Vivienne, in particr, summoned every ounce of her magical prowess to create a massive shield that enveloped the entire group. The shield shimmered with a radiant, ethereal glow, its surface rippling with intricate patterns that seemed to dance and shift.
The strain of such a powerful spell was evident on Vivienne''s face. Beads of sweat formed on her brow, and her hands trembled as she poured her energy into the shield. The sheer magnitude of the task began to take its toll on her, evident as a trickle of blood escaped from her nose. Despite the physical weakness creeping over her, Vivienne''s determination burned bright, fueled by her unwaveringmitment to protect herrades.
The shield grew stronger, its luminosity intensifying as Vivienne pushed herself to the limit. It stood as a formidable barrier, radiating a sense of stability and resilience. The magical energies within the shield interwove, creating aplex web of protection that warded off any malevolent forces that sought to breach their defenses. It was a testament to Vivienne''s unwavering resolve as she channeled her magical essence into safeguarding her fellow guardians, even at the cost of her own well-being.
The guardians in the air abruptly halted their advance toward Michael, seeking refuge beneath the shelter of their protective shields. In that very moment, Michael''s chuckle resonated through the expanse of the sky, its chilling sound sending a shiver down the spines of the guardians.
"I can''t decide whether to be impressed by your futile efforts or find amusement in them. In the game of kings, it''s the pawns who meet their demise first. You all should have abandoned the guild while you still had the chance," Michael sneered at the guardians, their impending doom a pitiable sight in his eyes. Once, there might have been a glimmer of mercy in his heart, but now it was overshadowed by sheer pity.
As Michael''s words echoed through the air, a sudden motion caught everyone''s attention. With a swift downward motion, his arms unleashed a torrent of ck lightning bolts, descending from the ominous clouds above him. The onught resembled a merciless rain of electrifying power, effortlessly piercing through Vivienne''s valiant defense shield that encased the guardians. The bolts struck their targets with a searing force, overwhelming their defenses like a hot knife through butter.
The impact was devastating. The once valiant guardians, now victims of Michael''s wrath, plummeted from the sky in a charred and smoking state. Their bodies, once adorned in proud armor, were reduced to a smoldering mess. From a distance, it appeared as if a swarm of bees, stripped of life, descended in a macabre disy of tragedy and destruction.
As the spell unleashed its devastating power, a collective gasp escaped the lips of the onlookers who watched the battle unfold from a safe distance. Their eyes widened in disbelief, and their hearts sank with a growing sense of horror. The disy of Michael''s immense power had surpassed anything they had witnessed before.
"He... he just took them down like they were nothing," whispered one onlooker, a tremor of fearcing their voice.
"I''ve never seen anything like it," another murmured, their voice filled with dread. "The Dark Lord''s power... it''s beyondprehension."
Whispers of fear spread through the onlookers like wildfire, and a sense of trepidation began to overshadow their initial curiosity. The once-distant threat had transformed into a living nightmare before their eyes.
"Is there no end to his power?" a shaken voice quivered.
"He''s be more than a mere mortal... he''s be a force of nature," someone replied, their voiceced with resignation.
"He is... unstoppable," whispered a shaken observer, their voice barely audible. "We underestimated him... and now, I fear for what lies ahead."
The onlookers stood in stunned silence, their hope diminishing with each passing moment. The aura of fear that enveloped them grew stronger as the realization sank in that the Dark Lord''s power knew no bounds. The once faint whispers of doubt transformed into a collective realization that they were facing a force beyond theirprehension, and the weight of their fear settled upon them like a heavy cloak.
Vivienne''s shock lingered as she witnessed the futility of her powerful shield. However, her shock quickly turned to sheer terror as she felt the Dark Lord''s gaze upon her. In a desperate attempt to protect her, Roshan, in his primal form, lunged at Michael, aiming to intercept any move the Dark Lord might make. With a powerful leap, Roshan reached Michael, sinking his teeth into the Dark Lord''s head.
Gasps filled the air as the onlookers and guardians witnessed this daring act. Yet, their astonishment turned to disbelief as they realized Roshan had only bitten into an afterimage left behind by the Dark Lord. The collective gaze swiftly shifted to Vivienne, and their hearts sank when they saw the real Dark Lord standing behind her.
Vivienne, oblivious to the danger lurking, gradually felt a growing sense of unease. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she sensed a presence behind her, creeping fear seeping into her very being.
"Vivienne!" Roshan''s roar echoed through the battlefield as the guardians surged forward, driven solely by their desire to protect her, disregarding their own lives. But before they could reach her, the Dark Lord seized Vivienne by the neck, lifting her effortlessly into the air.
In a desperate bid to distract the Dark Lord, the warships unleashed a barrage of cannon fire, their aim fixed upon him. Yet, Michael swiftly cast the Silenes spell, enveloping himself in a temporal pocket where time slowed to a crawl. Within this altered reality, he maneuvered Vivienne directly in the path of a fiery cannonball, simultaneously adjusting another cannonball to strike her from the opposite side. It all unfolded within the suspended time of Silenes, a mere blink of an eye.
The guardians and Roshan, their hearts pounding with urgency, had little time to react as they witnessed the two cannonballs collide with Vivienne, shattering her bones. Before she could even utter a scream, Michael, with a chilling flick of his wrist, snapped Vivienne''s neck, extinguishing her life in an instant. The battlefield fell into stunned silence as the lifeless body of the Alpha Guardian crumpled, a tragic testament to the Dark Lord''s unfathomable power.
The onlookers watched in dismay as the Alpha Guardians, one by one, fell before the relentless might of the Dark Lord. Whispers of despair and hopelessness swept through the crowd, their voices tinged with fear and resignation. They could scarcely believe their eyes, witnessing the seemingly insurmountable power of their adversary.
"He''s unstoppable," one spectator muttered, his voiceden with defeat. "The Guardian Guild doesn''t stand a chance against him."
"Perhaps it''s time for them to yield," another suggested, a note of desperation in his tone. "To avoid further bloodshed, they must surrender."
The realization struck them hard¡ªthis was not a battle they could win. The Dark Lord''s overwhelming dominance left them shaken to their core. Some even dared to specte what would have happened if he had brought his full army to bear upon them. The scale of devastation would have been unfathomable, a thought that sent shivers down their spines.
In the midst of the turmoil, the Empress of Awor, known for her poise and strategic brilliance, remained calm. She stood at a vantage point, observing the unfolding chaos with a discerning eye. A subordinate approached her cautiously, sensing her presence.
"Your Highness," the subordinate began, his voice tinged with respect. "It was a wise decision for us to stay away from the Dark Lord''s path."
The Empress, her gaze fixed upon the battlefield, nodded slightly. "Indeed," she replied, her voice steady and unwavering. "There is power in aligning with the unstoppable force rather than opposing it. We shall find a way to work with him, for the benefit of our empire."
Her words held a sense of calcted determination, and those who overheard them couldn''t help but wonder what nsy hidden within the Empress''s mind. While the rest of the onlookers were filled with fear and despair, she saw an opportunity in the face of the Dark Lord''s might, a chance to shape the future in her favor.
A hushed silence fell over the onlookers as they turned their gaze toward the Guardian Guild headquarters, their eyes widening with awe and disbelief. A thunderous roar erupted from within the walls of the stronghold, resonating through the air, capturing their attention. And then, as if summoned by some ancient power, a majestic creature materialized above the guild¡ªa golden dragon with not one, but two magnificent heads, its ethereal form colossal and awe-inspiring.
Gasps of astonishment rippled through the crowd as they beheld the mythical creature hovering in the sky. Whispers of amazement and wonderment intermingled with their shock.
"By the heavens, what is that?" one onlooker eximed, his voice filled with disbelief.
"I''ve never seen anything like it," another replied, his eyes wide with awe. "A two-headed dragon, and it emanates such power!"
The onlookers watched in rapt attention as the majestic dragon circled above the headquarters, its radiant presence casting an ethereal glow across the battlefield. There was an air of hope and anticipation, an inkling that perhaps, against all odds, the tide of the battle could still be turned.
Amidst the whispers and murmurs, the Empress of Awor stood with an impassive expression. Her eyes remained fixed on the mystical creature, studying its every movement with keen interest. With a calm yet resolute voice, she addressed herpanion.
"This dragon is one of the Guardian Guild''sst line of defense," she stated, her tone carrying a note of determination. "They have unveiled their ultimate trump card. Let us see what this mystical being is truly capable of."
Her words hung in the air, a quiet deration of her intent to witness the unfolding events with strategic insight. The onlookers, despite their fear and uncertainty, found a glimmer of hope within the Empress''sposed demeanor, knowing that this mythical guardian might just hold the key to turning the tide of the battle against the Dark Lord.
Chapter 975 Battle Of The Half Celestials
The appearance of the majestic dragon did little to disturb Michael''sposure. His knowledge of the Guardian Guild''s might reassured him that this ethereal creature was just one of their many trump cards andst lines of defense. Yet, the dragon''s presence emanated a radiant glow, casting a shimmering light upon Hulwick ind and the vast expanse of the surrounding ocean.
In the ethereal glow, the harrowing aftermath of the relentless battle came into sharp focus for the onlookers. Debris from the warships Michael had effortlessly destroyed floated upon the surface of the sea, a haunting reminder of the devastation wrought upon the naval forces. Lifeless bodies, both in the water and scattered across thend of Hulwick ind, painted a grim tableau of the toll exacted by the conflict.
The soil of Hulwick ind, churned by relentless spells and thunderous shes, seemed to possess an otherworldly shimmer, as if infused with the residual energy of intense magical casting. Even the ocean surrounding the ind, once calm and pristine, now bore a faint glimmer, a testament to the vast power that had been unleashed upon its depths.
Amidst the eerie beauty of the glimmering light, the onlookers were reminded of the harsh reality of war.
The resolute dragon unleashed another thunderous roar, propelling itself towards Michael with a determined purpose. Meanwhile, Michael''s attention shifted to Roshan, thest remaining Alpha Guardian. Transformed into his mighty primal form, Roshan was fueled by a fierce desire for vengeance, spurred on by witnessing the brutal demise of his fellow Alpha Guardian, Vivienne. He lunged at Michael in the open sky, his lion form growing in size and emitting a resounding roar that echoed through the air. But as Roshan drew closer to his target, Michael fixed his gaze upon him, unleashing dark beams from his eyes that pierced Roshan''s lion body, causing immense pain. Despite the agony, Roshan pushed forward, determined to confront Michael.
In a moment of reckoning, the rest of the guardians, also in their primal forms, rallied around Roshan, joining forces to surround and attack the Dark Lord. The dragon soared with grace, captivating the onlookers, who stood bewildered and uncertain about the oue of this fierce encounter. The beast guardiansunched a ferocious assault upon the Dark Lord, employing their formidable ws and teeth with relentless fury.
However, in a shocking turn of events, a thunderous explosion rocked the battlefield, hurling the guardians away from Michael''s presence. With his dark sword raised, the Dark Lord moved with iprehensible speed, leaving only a blur of white in the darkness. In an instant, Roshan''s majestic lion bodyy divided, falling towards the ocean below. The swiftness and mercilessness of the Dark Lord''s attack sent waves of terror through the hearts of the witnesses, shaking their resolve to its core.
Before Roshan''s lifeless form could touch the ocean''s surface, dark beams shot forth from the Dark Lord, slicing through the remaining guardians in the sky, severing their lives with gruesome precision. The spray of blood descending from the sky sent shivers down the spines of the onlookers, a chilling reminder of the unfathomable power possessed by the Dark Lord. By the time the golden dragon reached its intended target, only a mere hundred guardians remained in the sky, their once defiant spirits shattered, reced by an overwhelming sense of fear and defeat.
The remaining warships in the sky and on the ocean ceased their relentless barrage, their attention now fixated on the imminent sh between the two-headed dragon and Michael. The majestic dragon had reached the Half Celestial stage level 1, while Michael, fueled by the deaths he had caused, stood at the formidable Half Celestial stage level 6. In a tense standoff, the dragon and Michael locked eyes, suspended in the air, an unspoken challenge passing between them.
In Michael''s piercing gaze, he anticipated the dragon to engage in verbal exchange, but to his surprise, it emitted a low growl instead. As an ethereal being, its physical form shimmered with ethereal scales that seemed to defyprehension. Its monstrous size dominated the battlefield, its eyes gleaming with a mysterious intensity that held an air of ancient wisdom. Rows of sharp, glistening teeth adorned its fearsome mouth, hinting at the devastation they were capable of inflicting.
Recognizing the dragon''s ethereal form, he decided to forgo his sword, knowing that physical weapons held little effect against such incorporeal entities. With a fluid motion, he sheathed his sword, sliding it back into the scabbard on his back, preparing himself for a battle that would require more than mere physical force.
A mischievous smirk curled upon his lips as he relished the prospect of facing a formidable adversary. "Finally, a challenge," he chuckled, his voiceced with amusement.
"A war without a challenge is rather dull, wouldn''t you agree?"
In response, the dragon sneered, emitting a stream of glistening smoke from its nostrils, a silent indication of its readiness for battle.
As Michael fixed his gaze upon the dragon, his attention was captivated by a small palm-sized rune shimmering on the creature''s neck. However, before he could decipher its meaning, his focus was abruptly interrupted as the dragon unleashed a radiant ethereal ball of golden energy from its open mouth. Reacting swiftly, a protective shield materialized around Michael, absorbing a significant portion of the potent energy. Nheless, the residual force propelled Michael backward several meters, eliciting gasps of astonishment from the onlookers. It was the first time they had witnessed the Dark Lord sustain a blow of such magnitude since themencement of the war.
Instead of sumbing to anger, Michael''s face lit up with a gleeful expression as he embraced the prospect of a true challenge. The mere thought of the sheer number of badass points he would umte by triumphing over the dragon sent his blood surging with exhration. Throughout the course of this war, he had already amassed an impressive tally of nearly eighty million badass points, and conquering this formidable creature promised to augment his score even further. Aware of the dragon''s ethereal form, Michael summoned dark mes to writhe and dance above his hands, their sinister glow an ominous portent. Yet again, the dragon unleashed a golden ball of energy, hurtling through the air with the swiftness of a bullet. However, this time, Michael deftly invoked the power of Silenes, causing time to decelerate within his immediate vicinity.
Within the epassing field of the Silenes spell, the once swift golden energy ball gradually lost its velocity, appearing to move as if trapped in msses. Sensing an opportune moment, Michael unleashed a powerful punch, his fist wreathed in flickering dark mes. The impact shattered the golden energy ball into countless fragments as time resumed its normal flow. And so, the epic sh between Michael and the dragonmenced.
The sh between the Dark Lord and the dragon ignited a spectacr aerial duel in the vast expanse of the sky. The dragon, with its immense size and two menacing heads, unleashed a relentless assault. One head lunged forward, attempting to snap at the Dark Lord with razor-sharp teeth, while the other head continuously spewed forth a barrage of shimmering energy balls.
Undeterred, the Dark Lord disyed incredible agility andbat prowess, seamlessly evading the dragon''s physical attacks. With swift and calcted movements, he countered the energy balls, dispersing them with his fists enveloped in swirling dark mes. Each collision created a magnificent disy of sparks and bursts of darkness.
Sensing an opportunity, the Dark Lord swiftly descended toward the sea level, where a warship floated ominously. In one swift motion, he lifted the warship with his formidable strength, imbued it with his dark mes, and hurled it towards the dragon. The ming warship soared through the air, trailing a path of destruction, before colliding with the dragon''s massive form. The impact generated an explosion that reverberated through the sky, engulfing bothbatants in a shower of mes and smoke.
Emerging unscathed, the Dark Lord ascended back into the sky, his resolve unshaken. He continued his relentless assault, unleashing a barrage of punches enhanced by the dark mes. Each strike connected with precision, delivering powerful blows to the dragon''s scaled bodies. The sh of their forces created shockwaves that rippled through the air, causing the onlookers below to tremble in awe and terror.
As the battle raged on, the Dark Lord''s movements became a mesmerizing dance of power and agility. He seamlessly weaved through the dragon''s attacks, evading its ferocious bites and gracefully countering with his fiery fists. With each strike, the dragon''s resistance weakened, evident in the cracks forming on its ethereal scales and the pained roars that echoed through the sky.
In this epic battle, the Dark Lord fought with unrivaled badassery, pushing his limits and showcasing his mastery over dark mes and hand-to-handbat. His every move was executed with a deadly precision, disying abination of strength, speed, and sheer determination.
At one point, the Dark Lord dove down towards the sea, his eyes aze with determination. He seized a nearby warship, its massive hull looming beneath him. With a touch of his dark mes, the ship was instantaneously consumed, reduced to ashes in a matter of seconds. Yet, the Dark Lord acted swiftly, his movements a blur as he hurled the ship towards the dragon before the mes could fully engulf it. The ming vessel hurtled through the air, a deadly projectile aimed directly at the dragon''s colossal form.
As the Dark Lord continued his assault, his speed was nothing short of astonishing. He seamlessly transitioned from one ship to another, consecutively lifting andunching them toward the dragon. The onlookers watched in awe as the Dark Lord''s movements were a blur, his strikes relentless and unyielding. Ship after ship became a fiery missile, soaring through the air with the force of the Dark Lord''s immense strength. The onlookers marveled at the sight as the warship collided with the dragon, causing a cataclysmic explosion of fire and debris.
Undeterred by the chaos, the Dark Lord moved with astonishing speed and agility, repeatedly swooping down to seize another warship. Each time, he ignited the ship with his dark mes, ensuring it would be a devastating weapon against the dragon. The onlookers watched in awe as ship after ship was transformed into a ze of darkness, moments before being thrown with incredible force at the dragon.
The relentless assault of the Dark Lord forced the dragon to retreat, its ethereal form unable to withstand the barrage of ming warships. The onlookers gasped as the dragon struggled to defend itself, crashing into the Guardian Guild headquarters on Hulwick Ind under the relentless onught.
Amidst the chaos and destruction, the onlookers whispered in awe and disbelief at the epic sh unfolding before their eyes.
"Did you see that? The Dark Lord is unstoppable!"
"He''s moving so fast, it''s like a blur! And those dark mes, they''re incredible!"
"Nothing can stand against him! He''s a force of nature!"
As the battle raged on, the onlookers were both terrified and captivated by the spectacle of the Dark Lord''s relentless assault. They could only watch in awe and trepidation as the sh between the Dark Lord and the dragon reshaped the very skies above them.
The impact of the dragon crashing into the Guardian Guild headquarters was catastrophic. The mighty structure, once a symbol of the guild''s strength and unity, trembled under the force of the collision. The ethereal form of the dragon, though intangible, possessed a tangible impact that reverberated through the building.
As the dragon collided with the headquarters, the structure groaned and quaked under the immense strain. Walls cracked, pirs crumbled, and debris rained down from above. The once-imposing edifice of the guild now stood weakened andpromised.
Despite the dragon''s ethereal nature, its sheer power and force shattered the building''s structural integrity. The ethereal form manifested a tangible presence as if its sheer will alone could rend stone and mortar. The collision sent shockwaves through the Guild headquarters, causing sections of it to crumble and copse.
Dust filled the air as the building sumbed to the damage, its once majestic halls now reduced to rubble. The grandeur and history that once resided within those walls were now scattered remnants, lost in the wake of the destructive sh.
The onlookers stood in awe and horror as they witnessed the destruction unfold before their eyes.
As the dragon crashed into the crumbling Guardian Guild headquarters, the Dark Lord seized the opportunity to unleash another devastating move. With swift agility, he swooped down to the sea level, his dark mes trailing behind him. His eyes gleamed with a sinister determination as he reached out and grasped a multitude of cannons scattered across the warships.
With an effortless disy of strength, the Dark Lord lifted the cannons, two in each hand, while the remaining cannons hovered around him as if under hismand. The cannons gleamed in the dim light, their metal surfaces reflecting the chaos unfolding in the sky above.
In a voiceced with dark amusement, the Dark Lord taunted, "Happy death day," his words dripping with cruel delight. With calcted precision, he aimed the cannons towards the remaining guardians who bravely fought against him. The air crackled with anticipation as the barrels of the cannons aligned with their intended targets.
A moment of silence enveloped the battlefield, the tension thick enough to be cut with a knife. Then, with an explosive roar, the cannons erupted in a cacophony of thunderous booms. Fiery projectiles hurtled through the air, leaving trails of smoke and destruction in their wake.
The scene unfolded in a vivid disy of chaos and devastation. The air became a battlefield of flying debris, illuminated by the fiery streaks of cannonballs. The guardians in the air fought desperately, their movements agile and swift as they attempted to evade the onught.
The dark mes from the Dark Lord''s hands intertwined with the cannon fire, casting an eerie glow over the raging sh. The sky became a tapestry of danger, with cannonballs arcing and exploding, their destructive force raining down upon the guardians who valiantly fought for their lives. The air crackled with energy, tainted by the scent of burning debris and the metallic tang of gunpowder. The oue of this sh would determine the fate of the guardians, as their lives hung in the bnce amidst the fiery storm unleashed by the Dark Lord and his cannon onught.
Chapter 976 No More Guardian Guild I
As the ethereal dragon struggled to regain its footing amidst the rubble of the partially destroyed Guardian Guild headquarters, Michael drew forth his dark swords, their des gleaming with a malevolent aura. With amanding gesture, he summoned the dark mes to enshroud both des, imbuing them with dark mes.
His eyes scanning the battleground, Michael focused his attention on the remaining guardians. In the sky, a group of fifty to sixty guardians hovered, their determination evident despite the overwhelming odds. Around the headquarters, a sizable force of a hundred to a hundred and fifty guardians stood their ground. Over the sea, fifty to sixty warships bobbed in the waves while an equal number of airships dotted the airspace above.
The scene was a testament to the Guardian Guild''s unwavering resolve, ast bastion of defense against the relentless onught of the Dark Lord. The air crackled with tension as the guardians prepared for what could be their final stand, their numbers dwarfed by the overwhelming power of their adversary.
ra Valren, in coordination with Salesi, made a strategic decision to lead their fleet into their own pocket dimension, ensuring their safety. This left the remaining guardians to face the Dark Lord alone, bearing the weight of the impending battle. With his dark swords firmly in hand, Michael set his sights on eliminating the remaining guardians.
In a swift and calcted move, Michael charged towards the guardians in the air, invoking his speed spell, lightning dash. The power of the spell propelled him with such incredible velocity that he seemed to blur, leaving behind a trail of afterimages and streaks of golden lightning. The guardians, caught off guard by the sudden gust of wind, barely had time to react before their heads were severed from their bodies.
The speed at which Michael harvested their heads was so astonishing that distant onlookers struggled to perceive his presence. All they could witness were the heads of the guardians soaring through the air, apanied by a spray of blood from their lifeless, headless forms. For a fleeting moment, the lifeless bodies of the guardians remained suspended in the air, before gravity took hold and they fell to the ground, marking the grim aftermath of Michael''s devastating assault.
As Michael swiftly decapitated the remaining guardians, he simultaneously unleashed the power of the Ring of mes. With a mere gesture, waves of dark mes surged forth, engulfing the airships hovering in the sky. The intensity of the mes reduced the once-mighty vessels to mere ashes, their wooden structures consumed by the merciless inferno.
The dark mes proved to be a catalyst for destruction, causing explosions when they reached the gunpowder barrels within some of the ships. The resulting sts reverberated through the air, adding to the chaos and devastation. The golden bolts of lightning that trailed behind the Dark Lord left a path of destruction in their wake, as ships sumbed to the overwhelming power and guardians lost their lives in the relentless onught.
Michael continued his relentless assault on the guardians and their ships as the dragon let out a thunderous roar and swooped down, aiming to engage him in deadly pursuit. Ignoring the dragon''s presence, Michael skillfully evaded the golden energy balls that were unleashed from the dragon''s mouth. His focus remained unwavering as he prioritized the task at hand ¡ª decimating the remaining guardians before turning his attention to the formidable dragon.
As the dragon relentlessly pursued Michael through the sky, it continued to unleash its golden energy balls, targeting the Dark Lord. However, Michael''s mastery over his abilities allowed him to evade the deadly projectiles with agility and precision. Using his wind st, he redirected some of the golden energy balls toward the enemy ships, causing powerful explosions that shattered the vessels into countless fragments.
The chase between the dragon and the Dark Lord unfolded with breathtaking speed and maneuverability. Michael deftly weaved through the air, executing quick turns and sudden shifts in direction to stay one step ahead of the dragon''s attacks. He utilized his heightened senses and exceptional reflexes to anticipate the dragon''s movements, narrowly evading its jaws and ws.
In a disy of strategic prowess, Michael seized every opportunity to retaliate against the guardians. When the dragon unleashed a golden energy ball, he skillfully directed his wind st to intercept it, redirecting the destructive force toward the guardians who dared to challenge him. The explosive impact obliterated their ranks, leaving a trail of chaos and destruction in its wake.
The cat-and-mouse chase continued, each maneuver and evasion pushing the boundaries of their respective powers. The dragon''s relentless pursuit tested Michael''s skill and endurance, but he remained determined and focused, determined to eliminate the guardians and emerge victorious in this epic sh of forces.
The news reporters stood frozen in awe and terror as they witnessed the battle unfold before their eyes. Their faces were pale, and their eyes widened as they exchanged hushed conversations.
"By the heavens, have you ever seen such devastation and power?" eximed a young reporter with wide eyes, clutching their notepad tightly.
Beside them, a seasoned journalist, their hands trembling, shook their head in disbelief. "In all my years of reporting, I never imagined witnessing such a cataclysmic event. The Dark Lord is single-handedly obliterating the Guardian Guild. It''s an unfathomable disy of power."
Their attention remained fixated on the scene below, where the once-proud Guardian Guild headquarters nowy in ruins. The shattered remnants of the fortress served as a haunting testament to the relentless assaultunched by the Dark Lord.
"Look at the destruction unfolding beneath us! The Guardian Guild is crumbling, defenseless against the Dark Lord''s relentless onught," gasped the young reporter, their voice filled with a mix of shock and fascination. "Every strike he delivers tears through their defenses."
The seasoned journalist nodded grimly, their gaze scanning the chaotic battlefield. "Tomorrow''s newspaper headlines will shake the world. The fall of the Guardian Guild at the hands of the Dark Lord will send shockwaves throughout the realm,"
As their attention momentarily shifted to the aerial chase between the dragon and the Dark Lord, a shiver ran down their spines. The dragon''s monstrous form and the Dark Lord''s swift evasive maneuvers intensified the already gripping spectacle.
"Look there! The dragon continues its relentless pursuit!" eximed the young reporter, pointing to the sky. "The Dark Lord''s agility is astounding, dodging the dragon''s deadly onught with breathtaking precision."
The seasoned journalist nodded in agreement, their eyes fixed on the aerial duel. "It''s a battle between titans. The Dark Lord stands alone against the Guardian Guild, systematically decimating their ranks with each devastating blow. His power is unmatched."
The reporters exchanged nervous nces, knowing they were witnessing history unfold before their very eyes. The magnitude of the battle and the impending headlines they would craft for tomorrow''s newspaper weighed heavily on their minds. The imagery of the Guardian Guild''s destruction would leave an indelible mark on the world, forever etching the Dark Lord''s terrifying power in the annals of history.
As Michael swiftly soared through the chaos, engaged in relentlessbat with the guardians, he could hear Elidyr''s voice resonating in his mind. Elidyr, observing the war unfold through the Spyder nestled on Michael''s neck, provided valuable guidance from the safety of the castle.
"My Lord," Elidyr spoke urgently, "I have crafted a rune specifically designed to disrupt the dragon''s ethereal form, rendering it tangible for a brief window of time. Once you identify the source of its power, activate the rune. Remember, to truly vanquish this dragon, you must strike both the creature itself and its source of power simultaneously. If we fail to do so, it will only regenerate and continue its rampage."
With a sly smile on his face upon hearing Elidyr''s voice, Michael''s confidence swelled. He had strategically positioned Elidyr to witness the battle, knowing the value of his knowledge on runes and ethereal forms. It was a stroke of luck to have Elidyr observe the unfolding events.
Without a moment''s hesitation, Michael essed his linked space ring and retrieved a golden parchment adorned with a glowing rune. His movements were swift and purposeful, avoiding the dragon''s menacing heads as he set his sights on the Guardian Guild headquarters. The speed at which he traversed the sky caused the ocean below to churn and spray, a testament to his urgency.
As Michael neared the headquarters, the remaining guardians sprang into action, unleashing a barrage of oundish weapons. Arcane rifles crackled with energy,unching bolts of lightning, while shimmering des glowed with enchantments as they were brandished. The air crackled with the release of powerful elemental spells and ethereal projectiles.
However, Michael swiftly maneuvered through the chaos, expertly evading the guardians'' attacks. He soared higher into the sky, then dove down with incredible force,nding amidst the guardians with a thunderous impact. The sheer power of hisnding sent shockwaves rippling through the surroundings, causing the guardians and their weapons to tremble and topple.
Seizing the opportunity, Michael unleashed dark beams from his piercing eyes, obliterating the guardians in his path. The beams sliced through flesh and armor, severing heads and limbs with terrifying efficiency. The scene resembled a scorching hot knife cutting through butter, leaving destruction in its wake.
Meanwhile, Michael deftly evaded the dragon''s energy balls, skillfully dodging their lethal trajectory. His movements were fluid and precise, allowing him to navigate the battlefield while simultaneously dispatching the guardians. Thebined might of his dark beams and evasive maneuvers left a trail of fallen foes and severed limbs, a testament to his unrivaled power andbat prowess.
As Michael darted through the crumbling hallways and corridors of the Guardian Guild headquarters, the dragon hot on his heels, the entire building quaked under their fierce pursuit. His keen eyes scanned every inch of the surroundings, desperately searching for the source of the dragon''s power. In his Environmental Scanning map, he detected a pulsating energy emanating from a specific location.
Amidst the chaos, the walls trembled and shattered, sending debris raining down as Michael pressed forward. Finally, he descended into an underground chamber, where his eyes fell upon a captivating jade stone adorned with an intricately etched tiny dragon. Sensing its significance, Michael knew this was the key to severing the dragon''s hold.
Without hesitation, he reached out and snatched the jade stone, his hand trembling with determination. As he did, the dragon let out a thunderous roar, its golden energy surging toward Michael with relentless force. The impact of the st sent him hurtling through the walls, his shoulder bleeding profusely, but he clung tightly to the precious jade stone.
With sheer willpower, Michael emerged from the crumbling Guardian Guild headquarters, soaring into the vast expanse of the sky. The dragon, its existence threatened, unleashed one final desperate attempt to halt him. But with the jade stone firmly in his grasp, Michael defied the odds, his resolve unyielding.
As the dragon emerged from the remnants of the Guardian Guild, Michael stood firm, clutching the jade stone and the golden parchment tightly. Knowing the moment hade, he summoned the dark mes, engulfing the scroll in his hand. The ancient rune, pulsating in a crimson hue, soared through the air and struck the dragon with precise uracy. The ethereal form of the dragon flickered and wavered as the rune took hold, transforming its essence into a crystalline state.
With unwavering determination, Michael unsheathed his dark sword, its wicked de gleaming in the light. He lunged forward, his movements swift and precise, evading the golden energy balls unleashed by the dragon''s heads effortlessly. The crystalized body of the dragon stood no chance against the dark sword''s lethal edge. In a breathtaking disy of skill, Michael cleaved through the dragon''s defense, shattering its fragile form. Simultaneously, his grip tightened around the jade stone, crushing it with a resolute grip.
The dragon let out a thunderous roar, a final cry of defiance before its entire being shattered into a mesmerizing cascade of golden light. It dissipated into the vast expanse, leaving no trace of its existence behind.
As Michael''s feet touched the ground, his body slumped forward, the weight of exhaustion finally catching up to him. He took deep,bored breaths, the rise and fall of his chest revealing the toll of the fierce battle he had just endured. Surrounding him, the remaining guardians closed in, their eyes gleaming with a glimmer of victory. They believed him to be weakened, vulnerable, unaware of the secret power that flowed through his veins.
Little did they know, concealed beneath Michael''s worn exterior, the APD hummed with quiet efficiency. The Automatic Potion Dispenser, an invaluable ally in his arsenal, had already administered its healing elixirs into his bloodstream. The restorative potions worked their magic, mending every wound and revitalizing his weary body.
As the guardians closed in, their swords at the ready, their faces twisted into triumphant grins, Michael''s eyes flickered with a newfound strength. The weariness that had weighed him down only moments before now transformed into a fierce determination. With renewed vitality coursing through his veins, he straightened his posture, his gaze steady and unyielding.
The guardians, oblivious to the invisible wellspring of power that surged within him, prepared to strike. Little did they know they were walking toward their death.
Chapter 977 No More Guardian Guild II
Inside their secluded castle, Salesi and ra observed the ongoing battle between the Dark Lord and the remnants of the Guardian Guild. The once-mighty guild now stood in ruins, their defense feeble against the unstoppable force before them. ra and her fellow council members were left with a bitter realization: the guild''s days of glory hade to an end.
On the table in front of them, a collection of shimmering golden crystals radiated with potent energy. These precious artifacts held immense power, capable of summoning the formidable guardian dragons. ra''s gaze lingered on the crystals, tempted to employ their strength once more in a desperate attempt to turn the tides. However, Salesi''s voice cut through the air, bringing her back to reality.
"ra, no matter how many crystals we use or how many guardians we summon, they cannot defeat him," Salesi spoke with a tone of conviction. "These crystals possess a far greater purpose than they ever served in the hands of the Guardian Guild. We must wield their power wisely, for the sake of our own survival."
Evan stared at the mirror, captivated by the unfolding war between the Dark Lord and the Guardian Guild. The sight filled him with disbelief.
"I can''t believe the Guardian Guild is on the verge of annihtion," he murmured, his voiceced with a mix of astonishment and fear.
Salesi, however, remainedposed as she responded, her voice steady and devoid of fear. She understood the true extent of the Dark Lord''s power, having observed and studied him extensively. Unlike others who underestimated him, Salesi held a deep admiration for his strength.
"Believe it, Evan. What you see is only a fraction of the Dark Lord''s true power," she said, her eyes fixed on the mirror.
Evan''s hope dwindled as he pondered the question that gued their minds. "How can we possibly stop him now? If he has already reached the Celestial stage, our efforts would be futile."
Salesi nonchntly shrugged, acknowledging the grim reality. "At this point, we can''t. We are nowhere near his level, let alone capable of defeating him. That''s why we must remain in the shadows and focus on strengthening ourselves."
Evan''s frustration was evident as he eximed, "But how can we hope to match his cultivation speed? He''s practically a deity!"
Salesi''s gaze never wavered from the mirror, where the Dark Lord unleashed devastating spells that tore through the guild. Her response carried a hint of determination.
"We may not match his cultivation speed, but we have the power to impede the growth of his army and slow down their progress," Salesi exined, her voice filled with conviction. "The Dark Lord may be formidable, but he cannot win a war alone. He relies on his forces. While he appears invincible now, there wille a time when he meets his equals."
ra''s curiosity piqued as she probed further, intrigued by Salesi''s cryptic words. She had chosen to align herself with Salesi due to her keen intellect, despite the criticism that surrounded her. Many within the Guardian Guild disapproved of Salesi''s actions, ming her for Nagnd''s decline into poverty and debt. But ra knew better. She understood that Salesi had orchestrated Nagnd''s downfall for a specific purpose. If Nagnd had remained a powerful kingdom under Gaya''s rule, who had now be the Dark Lord''s lover, it would have provided the Dark Lord with an unstoppable ally. By reducing Nagnd''s strength, Salesi ensured that the Dark Lord would have to divert his attention and resources towards rebuilding, thereby lessening the threat he posed.
ra recognized the dangerous game Salesi was ying in the shadows, but she also acknowledged that Salesi held many secrets close to her chest. She yearned to unravel these mysteries, beginning with Salesi''s notion of the Dark Lord''s match.
"Who are these matches you speak of?" ra inquired, her eyes fixed on Salesi, hoping for a glimpse of the truth.
Salesi brushed off the question with a dismissive wave of her hand, leaving no room for further probing. "All will be revealed in due time, my dear," she replied, her tone final, indicating that further questioning would yield no answers. ra was left to ponder the hidden depths of Salesi''s ns, knowing that there was much more at y than met the eye.
As their discussion unfolded, the skies above Hulwick Ind darkened, a foreboding omen of the impending devastation. The once raging storm intensified, its fury amplifying with each passing moment. ra and Salesi watched in awe as the Dark Lord raised his hands,manding the very elements to his will. The tempest swirled and roared with a newfound ferocity, thrashing the ocean waves into towering tsunamis and spawning violent tornadoes in its wake.
Eyes fixed on the sky, the two women witnessed a sight both magnificent and terrifying. Giant meteors materialized amidst the darkened clouds, suspended in the air like harbingers of destruction. Their presence alone threatened to shatter the tranquility of the ind andy waste to everything beneath them.
"There it is, his final spell against the Guardian Guild," Salesi murmured, her voice tinged with a mixture of astonishment and respect. The magnitude of power disyed by the Dark Lord left her in awe, even as her mind raced with thoughts of outsmarting him.
ra detected something peculiar in Salesi''s tone¡ªan unexpected admiration and a hidden desire to vanquish the Dark Lord using her intellect and cunning. There was a hunger within Salesi, a thirst for victory against insurmountable odds.
Meanwhile, Evan, ovee with grief, rose from his seat. His fists clenched tightly, and tears welled up in his eyes. Though he had only been a member of the Guardian Guild for a short time, his admiration for the organization ran deep. From a young age, he had yearned to serve and protect the guild, and it held a special ce in his heart. The sight of its impending destruction pained him to his core, touching not only his heart but also his very soul.
Salesi observed Evan''s anguish with a sense of satisfaction. She knew that this pain would stoke the mes of his determination, igniting a burning resolve to stand against the Dark Lord and his formidable army. It was in moments like these that Salesi sought to mold her Shadow n, infusing them with righteous anger, motivation, and an unwavering drive tobat the Dark Lord with every fiber of their being.
As Evan''s tears streamed down his face, the Dark Lord lowered his hands, releasing his control over the meteoric entities. With a zing descent, the celestial fireballs tore through the darkened sky, scorching the very air they traversed. Their trajectory led them unerringly towards the heart of the Guardian Guild headquarters and ultimately, the beleaguered shores of Hulwick Isle.
The moment the meteors collided with the Guardian Guild headquarters, a cataclysmic wave of destruction was unleashed upon Hulwick Ind. The magnificent building, already marred by the earlier battle between the two-headed dragon and Michael, now faced its final reckoning. The impact tore through its structure, shattering walls and scattering debris in all directions. Once grand halls were reduced to rubble, while elegant towers crumbled into a cloud of dust and ash.
But the devastation did not end there. As the meteors struck the ind, the very ground quaked beneath its inhabitants'' feet. Fissures cracked open, spreading like veins of moltenva through the once peacefulndscape. The ind itself seemed to groan in agony as fiery magma surged forth from the ruptured earth, painting the surroundings in a hellish glow. The once idyllic shores became an inferno, engulfed in rivers of flowingva that devoured everything in their path.
The impact of the meteors sent shockwaves rippling through the air, unsettling the atmosphere itself. Winds howled with an otherworldly fury, tearing at the remnants of the Guardian Guild and carrying with them the anguished cries of those left in their wake. The sky, already darkened by the storm, grew even more menacing as the magical energies shed and mingled. Eerie lightning danced across the heavens, illuminating the chaos below with brief shes of blinding brilliance.
Meanwhile, the sea surrounding Hulwick Ind rose in a tempestuous uproar. As if angered by the tumultuous events unfolding on its surface, monstrous waves rose to incredible heights. They crashed against the shores with a relentless ferocity, pounding against the remnants of the Guardian Guild and eroding what little remained of its once formidable structure. The collision of water andnd unleashed a torrent of foam and spray, mingling with the scorching heat of theva and creating an atmosphere of unbridled chaos.
Amidst this devastation, the guardians who had remained on the ind found themselves caught in the maelstrom of destruction. Their valiant attempts to defend their stronghold and their cherished guild were rendered futile in the face of such overwhelming power. They were tossed aside like mere ythings by the forces unleashed by the Dark Lord''s spell. The survivors, if any, would bear witness to the horrifying scene of theirrades being swallowed by the fiery abyss or swept away by the relentless waves, their brave efforts reduced to naught.
As the devastating aftermath of the meteors subsided, Hulwick Ind bore the scars of its encounter with destruction. The once-solidndmass fractured into jagged fragments, each piece teetering on the brink of oblivion. Like a shattered puzzle, the ind''s integrity crumbled, and its broken remnants began to sink into the unforgiving depths of the surrounding sea.
With an eerie slowness, the fragmented sections of Hulwick Ind tilted and shifted as if sumbing to the weight of their own demise. The ground beneath them crumbled and gave way, sending torrents of soil and rock cascading into the churning waters below. Each piece ofnd, once interconnected, now became isted, drifting apart from one another in a mncholic dance of destruction.
Amidst this scene of despair, the once-majestic airships and warships of the guardiansy battered and broken. These vessels, once symbols of power and protection, now resembled mere charred and smoldering remains. Their mighty frames sagged and splintered as if drained of their very essence. mes licked at the tattered remnants of sails, devouring the once-proud masts and turning them to cinders.
With a cruel finality, these remnants of the guardians'' fleet met their fate. One by one, they surrendered to the pull of the ocean''s abyss, sinking slowly beneath the surface. The sea greedily imed them, engulfing the shattered wooden pieces until they were swallowed by the dark depths. The waves, now calmer but still bearing the weight of the recent chaos, whispered mournfulments as they swallowed the remnants of the once-proud fleet.
All that remained on the surface were fragments of memories and scattered debris drifting aimlessly upon the waves. They served as silent witnesses to the fallen guardians and the ind that had crumbled beneath the weight of unimaginable power. The sea, now a graveyard for the remnants of the ind and its defenders, held its secrets close, veiling the tragedy within its eternal embrace.
The onlookers, rogue cultivators, and news reporters stood at a distance, their faces etched with shock and terror as they bore witness to the destruction unfolding before them. Murmurs of disbelief and fear filled the air as they struggled toprehend the magnitude of the Dark Lord''s power.
"By the heavens, I''ve never seen anything like this! The Guardian Guild... it''s falling, crumbling like a house of cards!" eximed one onlooker, their voice trembling with disbelief.
"I thought the Guardian Guild was invincible! How can the Dark Lord be so unstoppable?" another whispered, their words barely audible over the roars of destruction.
As the meteors descended and the ind cracked, the observers could not tear their eyes away from the horrifying scene unfolding before them. The once-majestic Skyhall, the very symbol of the guardians'' might, was nowhere to be seen, leaving many perplexed and fearful.
"Where''s the Skyhall? How could it vanish in such a crucial moment?" a rogue cultivator questioned, their voice tinged with confusion and concern.
Whispers of despair and resignation spread among the onlookers, their faces reflecting a sense of hopelessness. They watched as the Dark Lord''s forces continued their onught, seemingly invincible, and doubt crept into their hearts.
"I fear there is no hope left. The Dark Lord''s power is unmatched, and it seems like nothing can stand in his way," murmured a rogue cultivator, their voice heavy with defeat.
"I never thought I''d see the day when the Guardian Guild would fall. If they can''t stop him, who can?" pondered another, their tone filled with despair.
In this somber moment, the guardians'' once-mighty presence had been reduced to fragments sinking into oblivion, leaving behind only echoes of their valiant struggle against the Dark Lord''s overwhelming forces.
Chapter 978 Complete Destruction Of The Guardian Guild
After obliterating the Guardian Guild, Michael experienced a sense of relief and newfound strength. With his formidable enemy eradicated, a weight lifted from his shoulders. He hovered above the calm sea, gazing at the remnants of what used to be Hulwick Isle. This marked the second ind he hadpletely decimated, the first being Ithn. Though the waves slowly settled, the storm continued to rage with unyielding fury.
Moments passed as Michael floated in contemtion, his eyes fixed on the once-thriving ind. Then, with a serene expression, he turned away from the scene and soared through the air, leaving the destion behind.
Several hourster, Michael arrived at the site of a grand castle, its construction still underway. Eve eagerly awaited his return, apanied by a group of dark army soldiers. Their curious gazes followed his every move.
Eve, unable to contain her anticipation, approached Michael and inquired, "What happened?"
With a calm smile, Michael answered her, "The Guardian Guild is no more,"
Gasps of astonishment escaped the lips of the dark army soldiers. As Michael walked beside Eve, he ced his arm around her neck, a gesture of familiarity rather than an embrace. Together, they proceeded to enter the castle, the soldiers trailing behind them, their eyes filled with wonder and curiosity.
The castle, although only a quarterpleted, stood as a magnificent testament to power and grandeur. Dwarves, renowned for their craftsmanship, were diligently working on the construction, their hammers nging against stone and metal, shaping the fortress that would serve as Michael''s stronghold.
The corridors they traversed were a blend of raw stone and scaffolding, revealing the ongoingbor required to bring the castle to its full glory. Dust particles danced in the air, illuminated by beams of sunlight that pierced through the partially constructed walls. The echoes of dwarves'' conversations mingled with the sounds of construction, creating a symphony of progress.
As they made their way through the corridors, the soldiers'' eyes wandered, taking in the meticulous craftsmanship of each detail. The flickering torches cast an eerie glow, revealing glimpses of the tapestries and ancient paintings that would soon adorn the walls. The scent of freshly cut wood mingled with the scent of stone, creating a unique aroma that permeated the air.
Within the castle''s embrace, the dwarves worked tirelessly, their expertise evident in every stroke of the hammer and every carefully ced stone. It was a ce where shadows thrived, secrets whispered, and destinies shaped.
The group continued their steady stride, their footsteps echoing against the stone floors and unfinished surfaces. Whispers of anticipation and curiosity filled the air, as the soldiers exchanged nces, eager to learn more about the oue of the Guardian Guild''s downfall. The castle seemed alive with an electric energy, pulsating with the aftermath of Michael''s triumph, and the promise of a formidable future.
Michael proceeded to provide a concise ount of the battle to his soldiers and Eve. Together, they made their way to the meeting hall, where his subordinates were already gathered. The soldiers and advisers stood up as Michael entered, showing their respect for their leader.
"Please, take your seats," Michael gestured, indicating that they should resume their ces. He settled himselffortably on his throne, a symbol of his authority.
As he seated himself, Sadie, his trusted aide, swiftly sent a stack of neatly stacked parchments gliding through the air towards Michael. With deft hands, he caught them and began reading each page with utmost care. These parchments contained valuable information about the prominent Great Eight ns that spanned the world. In the previous meeting, Michael had requested Sadie topile the best avable intelligence on each n.
As Michael engrossed himself in the contents of the parchments, absorbing the knowledge within, Eve took it upon herself to disseminate the news of the Guardian Guild''s destruction to the others present. Shock and disbelief reverberated through the room as the members absorbed the magnitude of this revtion. Whispers and murmurs filled the air, as they grappled with the reality of the guild''s demise.
Once Michael had finished reading the parchments, he ced the stack carefully on the table before him and directed his gaze towards Sadie, acknowledging her effort.
"You have done an exceptional job. Why don''t you enlighten ourrades about the details of these Great Eight ns?" Michael requested Sadie to present the information about the ns to the rest of their subordinates.
Sadie stood before the gathered subordinates, holding the stack of parchments that contained information about the Great Eight ns. She cleared her throat and began to address the group.
"Allow me to introduce the Great Eight ns," Sadie began, her voice clear and confident. "The first on the list is the Guardian Guild,prised of humans, known for their military prowess andw enforcement capabilities."
She continued, "Next, we have the Nightshade n and the Stormheart n, both consisting of humans as well. These two ns, however, are not as widely known as the Guardian Guild. The Nightshade n focuses on exploring uncharted territories, such as treacherous oceans and dangerous demons grave. They are responsible for discovering new pocket dimensions and expanding human territories beyond this world."
Tiberius, one of the subordinates, raised his hand with a puzzled expression. "I''ve never heard of the Nightshade and Stormheart ns. Why are they not as well-known as the Guardian Guild?"
Sadie nodded in understanding and replied, "That''s because these ns have taken a different path. Unlike the Guardian Guild, their focus is not primarily on military andw enforcement. The Nightshade n specializes in ventures that contribute to human prosperity in other ways, while the Stormheart n wields influence over the economy from the shadows."
She continued, "The Nightshade n''s endeavors in exploring dangerous realms and discovering new dimensions often go unnoticed by the general poption. As for the Stormheart n, their impact on the economy is far-reaching, as they control a significant portion of the economic affairs of human kingdoms, working behind the scenes to ensure prosperity."
Sadie paused for a moment to allow the information to sink in before moving on to the next n.
"Next, we have the Water God Hall and the Sea Serpent Hall, both belonging to the Sea Folks. These ns, however, do not involve themselves in the affairs of humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs, whom they refer to as ndwalkers.'' They maintain their own separate domains and keep a distance from the dealings of the other races."
She then moved on to describe the Gondolin Empire, which belonged to the elves. "The Gondolin Empire, led by Nithroel, is considered the most powerful n among all the Great Eight ns. Nithroel, the elven empress, rules Gondolin with a firm hand. Unlike other ns that rely on military might, she opts for diplomatic solutions and cunning deals in the shadows, rather than waging wars."
Sadie paused, allowing the significance of the elven empire''s power to sink in among the listeners. The subordinates exchanged nces, realizing the weight of this information.
"In addition to these, we have the Han Torum, a n of dwarves known for their exceptional craftsmanship and engineering skills," Sadie continued. "Andstly, we have the Ironmane Horde, representing the beastmen, a strong and formidable race."
She concluded, "These Great Eight ns, each with their unique strengths and characteristics, have yed significant roles in the realms. With the demise of the Guardian Guild, the bnce of power among the ns has shifted. It is essential for us to understand these dynamics as we navigate the currentndscape."
Sadie folded the parchments neatly and ced them back on the table. The subordinates sat in contemtive silence, absorbing the knowledge of the Great Eight ns and the shifting power dynamics within their realm.
Aria, the Queen of Shadows, leaned forward, her eyes piercing as she addressed Sadie. "What should we expect now, with the demise of the Guardian Guild? Will the other races take advantage of this void?"
Sadie met Aria''s gaze and replied with a serious tone. "Indeed, without the Guardian Guild to safeguard the human kingdoms, they will be vulnerable to the ambitions and encroachments of other races. The absence of a powerful force like the Guild creates a power vacuum that is bound to attract various factions and individuals seeking to fill the void left behind."
She gestured with her hand, emphasizing the potential consequences. "Human kings and queens will act ording to their own desires and agendas, without the guidance and protection of the Guardian Guild. This could lead to unforeseen conflicts, political upheavals, and even territorial disputes among the human kingdoms themselves."
Sadie''s voice held a note of concern as she continued. "Moreover, the absence of a centralized force like the Guardian Guild might embolden other races to expand their territories or assert their dominance. The bnce of power that the Guild once maintained will be disrupted, and new alliances and rivalries will emerge."
She paused for a moment, allowing her words to sink in. "We must be prepared for these changes and the potential repercussions they bring. The demise of the Guardian Guild leaves a void that will undoubtedly alter thendscape of the realms, and we must navigate this uncertain terrain with caution."
Aria nodded, acknowledging the gravity of the situation. The subordinates around the table exchanged nces, realizing the implications of the power vacuum and the subsequent ripple effects it could have on their world.
After Sadie finished exining about the ns, all eyes turned towards Michael, awaiting his nextmand. The subordinates hoped he wouldn''t assign them an overly challenging task, considering the immense workload they already had preparing for the Dark Lord''s uing wedding with Gaya, the Dark Queen.
Michael seemed to read their minds as he addressed their concerns. "I understand that you have been preupied with the wedding preparations," he began.
"However, we must maintain our momentum. Our next target is the dwarves. They possess great capabilities, and we require their expertise toplete our castle and fulfill our future endeavors. Therefore, we shall begin recruiting the dwarves from Han Torum," Michael announced, directing his gaze at Saber, the newly appointed King of the Nightwalkers.
"Saber, your mission is to travel to Han Torum and present them with a choice: either dismantle their n or face the consequences of my wrath," Michaelmanded.
Eve, always eager to understand the reasoning behind Michael''s decisions, questioned his approach. "Why not simply order them to join us directly?" she asked.
Michael shook his head, his expression filled with wisdom. "In the eyes of the world and the Skyhall, we are still considered evil. The dwarves, I believe, share this perspective. If we were to recruit them directly and they epted, they would be branded as evil as well. We do not want that. By persuading them to dismantle their n, we can discreetly recruit the talented dwarves withoutpromising their standing. Some may view the dwarves as cowards, but many will recognize their decision as a necessary one, especially after news of the Guardian Guild''s destruction spreads," he exined.
Eve''s curiosity remained unsatisfied as she pressed further. "And if they refuse to dismantle their n?" she inquired.
A sly smile crept across Michael''s face at her question. "We will ensure theyply. Saber, it is your task to instill the fear of god into the hearts of the n leaders and make them understand the gravity of dismantling their n," he dered. As an elder vampire, Saber possessed the prowess necessary to aplish this intimidating feat, and Michael had full confidence in his abilities.
"Once we have gathered enough dwarves within our ranks, we shall proceed to the next phase of our conquest," Michael proimed, his devilish grin revealing his ambitious intentions. As he finished issuing his orders, Saber produced a parchment from his coat pocket and sent it flying toward Michael.
"My lord, this parchment contains aprehensive list of the unique and powerful metals found in our world, along with the most suitable ones for forging your armor. Choose one, and we shall procure as much of the desired metal as you require before the wedding," Saber offered.
Eve couldn''t help but express her concern for Lady Adelia, Gaya''s mother, and her potential absence from the uing wedding. She believed it was crucial for Adelia to be present, as it held great significance for Gaya. However, Eve also knew that Gaya had entrusted Michael with the task of finding and bringing her mother to the wedding, which reassured her to a certain extent.
Curious about any updates on Lady Adelia, Eve turned to Michael and inquired, "Do we have any updates on Lady Adelia?"
Michael reassured her with a calm demeanor, "Azazel will ensure that Lady Adelia is brought here before the wedding. For now, let us concentrate on our mission in Han Torum and the ongoing wedding preparations."
As the conversation shifted, Michael''s gaze fell upon Aria, the Queen of Shadows. He entrusted her with a critical task rted to the aftermath of the Guardian Guild''s destruction. Michael''s voice turned cold as he issued hismand to Aria, emphasizing the importance of the matter.
"Aria, locate the prominent figures within the Guardian Guild and eliminate them. These wealthy merchants who supported the guild pose a significant threat if they are allowed to remain alive. After losing the guild, they will be eager for revenge, and our enemies may exploit them to fund their own endeavors. Therefore, it is imperative that we eliminate them and im their wealth for ourselves," Michael dered with a calcted tone.
Michael''s mind, a wellspring of cunning and ruthlessness, churned with a plethora of ns and contingencies, each crafted meticulously to outwit the forces plotting against him in the shadows. His genius, fueled by a thirst for dominance, allowed him to anticipate their moves and stay several steps ahead. With calcted precision, he orchestrated a symphony of strategies, always considering the multiple oues and adapting his approach ordingly. Michael''s brilliancey not only in his ability to devise intricate schemes but also in his unwavering determination to see them through, no matter the cost. His mind, an arsenal of relentless calction, ensured that he would leave no stone unturned, no avenue unexplored, as he methodically dismantled his enemies and solidified his own position of power.
The subordinates watched attentively, aware that their Dark Lord''s ambitions were rapidly escting and that the course of their world was being shaped by his calcted moves.
Chapter 979 Gaya鈥檚 Real Father
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the Awor continent, a sense of foreboding filled the air as a heavy downpour unleashed its fury upon the deste forest. Deep within the shadows, concealed by the dense canopy, stood a decrepit manor, its eerie presence amplified by the relentless rain. Within the confines of one of the manor''s rooms, the scene was one of destion and destruction. Tattered tapestries adorned the damp walls, and shattered remnants of furniturey scattered across the floor. The air was thick with the scent of must and decay, adding to the eerie ambiance that pervaded the space.
Amidst the flickering candlelight, Lady Adelia stood, her breaths ragged andbored, her body still trembling from the aftermath of the intense struggle that had taken ce. Her once-elegant attire was now torn and dirt-streaked, a testament to the ferocity of the encounter. As rainwater seeped through cracks in the ceiling, casting distorted shadows on the walls, Adelia''s skin glimmered with dark scales, hinting at her true naga form.
Within the shadows, another figure lurked, his presence ominous and foreboding. With each step, the figure emerged slowly, his movements purposeful and calcted. It was Ingram, a being of ancient lineage and formidable power. His eyes glowed with a haunting intensity, reflecting centuries of knowledge and darkness. His features concealed by the shroud of mystery, Ingram exuded an aura that spoke of untold secrets and a malevolence that sent shivers down Adelia''s spine.
As the tension thickened, Adelia''s anger surged, her voice dripping with contempt and hatred. "You cannot enter Gaya''s life, Ingram," she hissed, her wordsced with venomous defiance. Her unwavering determination radiated through the darkness, fueling her resolve to protect her daughter from the clutches of darkness. Without uttering a word, Ingram dashed at Adelia, continuing their battle.
In a dazzling disy of power, Ingram and Adelia shed within the confined space of the room. The atmosphere crackled with an electric intensity as their respective abilities collided, filling the air with a symphony of sparks and energy. Adelia''s dark scales shimmered with an otherworldly sheen, her venomous fangs bared in a snarl of defiance. With lightning speed, she lunged forward, her serpentine form coiling and striking with deadly precision.
Ingram, his features veiled in shadows, moved with an unearthly grace, effortlessly evading Adelia''s venomous onught. His eyes glowed with an ethereal crimson, reflecting the sinister power that coursed through his veins. As the room trembled beneath their explosive duel, furniture shattered, sending shards and splinters flying through the air. The walls groaned and cracked under the strain of their supernatural might.
Adelia''s serpent-like agility was matched only by her venomous wrath. She unleashed a barrage of poison-infused strikes, each aimed with lethal uracy. Venomous tendrils slithered through the air, leaving a trail of hissing mist in their wake. Ingram countered with swift and calcted maneuvers, his ancient vampire reflexes allowing him to dodge and parry with preternatural grace.
Their conflict intensified, reaching a crescendo of power and destruction. The room became a battlefield of chaos and ruin. The ceiling caved in, showering debris upon them, while the floor quaked under the weight of their ferocity. Arcs of dark energy shed against swirling mists of venom, illuminating the chamber with a mesmerizing disy of light and shadow.
Neither Adelia nor Ingram held back, their shared history momentarily forgotten amidst their primal sh. Ingram, his movements fluid and swift, countered Adelia''s venomous strikes with a disy of his own formidable power. With a sudden burst of speed, he blurred across the room, leaving a trail of darkness in his wake. His hands became a blur of motion as he unleashed a series of devastating vampiric attacks, each strike infused with dark energy.
Adelia, undeterred by Ingram''s onught, met each attack with equal ferocity. She twisted and contorted her serpentine body, evading his deadly blows with a grace that matched his own. Her scales shimmered with an ominous glow as she retaliated, her fangs dripping with toxic venom.
Between their shes, Adelia seized moments to taunt Ingram, her voice dripping with venomous mockery. "Is this the best you can muster, Ingram?" she sneered, her voiceced with confidence. "Or are your once-great abilities waning with age?"
Ingram''s eyes zed with fury, his pride stung by Adelia''s biting words. He lunged forward, his movements fueled by a renewed determination. His vampiric attacks intensified, seeking to overwhelm Adelia with their raw power. But she remained elusive, twisting and contorting her body with uncanny agility.
Adeliaughed mockingly as she parried his strikes, her voice echoing through the chaotic room. "Come now, Ingram, show me what an ancient vampire like you is truly capable of. Or have the centuries dulled your edge?" Her words were like a poison, stoking the mes of his rage.
Their battle raged on, a deadly dance of power and skill. The air crackled with energy as their conflicting forces shed and intermingled. Adelia, refusing to yield, fought back with a tenacity born of hatred and determination. She refused to let Ingram''s attempts to diminish her spirit go unanswered.
The room trembled under the weight of their epic struggle, its walls echoing with their resounding blows. Adelia''s dark scales glistened with resilience as she countered each of Ingram''s attacks with precise strikes of her own. The battle reached a fever pitch, their animosity fueling their every move.
But the oue of their fierce sh remained uncertain, as neither Adelia nor Ingram showed signs of relenting. They were locked in a deadly dance, each determined to prove their dominance. Their fight was far from over, and the room continued to bear witness to their explosive confrontation.
As the battle escted, the room became a scene of utter devastation. Furniturey in ruins, scattered across the floor like broken memories. The walls bore deep gouges and cracks, evidence of the raw power unleashed by Adelia and Ingram. The air crackled with an electric tension, the very atmosphere seeming to vibrate with their animosity.
In a final sh, theirbined force shattered the window, sending shards of ss cascading into the night. Like avatars of chaos, they burst through the broken opening, their battle now taking them into the darkened expanse outside the manor. Rain poured down in torrents, drenching them in its icy embrace.
Ingram''s fangs elongated, his vampiric nature manifesting in all its primal glory. Hended gracefully on the rain-soaked ground, his eyes gleaming with a sinister light. Adelia, her scaled form coiled and ready, faced him with unyielding determination.
A smirk tugged at the corners of Ingram''s lips, his voice dripping with venom as he retorted to Adelia''s earlier taunts. "Ah, Adelia, it seems your years in hiding have dulled your once-sharp senses," he mocked, his wordsced with condescension. "Dependent on the Dark Lord to fight your battles, are we? How pitiful it is to see you reduced to serving such a foolish cause."
Adelia''s eyes zed with fury, her serpentine body poised to strike. She refused to be swayed by Ingram''s words, her resolve unshaken. With a flick of her tail, she lunged forward, venomous fangs glistening in the rain-soaked night.
As the rain poured relentlessly, the sh between Ingram and Adelia intensified in the inky darkness. Ingram''s movements were swift and calcted, a blur of ethereal grace. He darted forward, his body contorting with unnatural agility, aiming to strike at Adelia''s vulnerable nk.
Adelia, her senses honed by years of survival, anticipated Ingram''s assault. With lightning reflexes, she slithered to the side, narrowly evading his lethal swipe. The air crackled with energy as her scales brushed against his outstretched hand, leaving a trail of sparks in their wake.
Not one to relent, Ingram unleashed a barrage of swift strikes, his hands a blur of blinding speed. Each blow was aimed with precision, seeking to exploit any opening in Adelia''s defenses. Yet, Adelia''s serpentine form proved elusive, her sinuous movements fluid and evasive.
Adelia seized her opportunity and retaliated, her venomous fangs lunging towards Ingram''s exposed arm. The sickening sound of flesh meeting fangs echoed through the rain-soaked night. A muffled growl escaped Ingram''s lips as Adelia''s venom coursed through his veins, momentarily impairing his movements.
Refusing to sumb to pain, Ingram retaliated with a ferocious counterattack. His fists, infused with supernatural strength, collided with Adelia''s resilient scales, sending shockwaves through the air. The impact reverberated through Adelia''s body, momentarily stunning her, but her resolve remained unyielding.
Adelia swiftly recovered, her eyes burning with an intensity matched only by the storm raging around them. She unleashed a whirlwind of strikes, each oneced with the venomous potency of a predator defending its territory. Ingram, in turn, showcased his vampiric prowess, his movements fluid and unhindered despite the venom coursing through his veins.
Blows exchanged in a macabre dance, the sh of their powers echoing through the night. Rain-slicked skin met venomden fangs, and the air became heavy with the scent of blood and rain-soaked earth. Eachbatant fought with a fierce determination, neither willing to concede an inch of ground.
The battle continued to escte, a symphony of raw power and primal fury. The storm raged on, its relentless downpour fueling their relentless struggle. With every strike, they pushed the boundaries of their physical limits, testing the depths of their resilience and endurance.
Amidst the relentless sh of their powers, Adelia''s voice rang out, filled with anger and determination. "Stay away from Gaya''s life, Ingram!" she hissed through her venomous fangs, her wordsced with a warning that cut through the chaos. "If you dare to enter her world, the Dark Lord will kill you."
Ingram, his eyes gleaming with defiance, parried Adelia''s attack, his voice cutting through the rain-soaked air. "The Dark Lord''s power is nothingpared to the one I serve," he retorted with a hint of superiority. "I have every right to be a part of Gaya''s life. I have protected her all these years while you yed the charade of death and disappeared from her existence."
Adelia''s scaled form coiled with renewed aggression as sheunched a furious assault, her voice dripping with fury. "Protected her? You know nothing of protection," she spat, venomous mist trailing behind her words. "You abandoned us. How dare you im any right to her life?"
Ingram sidestepped her attack with an agility borne of centuries of existence, his voice resolute. "I may have been absent, but my purpose remained steadfast. I watched over Gaya from the shadows, shielding her from threats you couldn''t even fathom. I ensured her safety when you chose to disappear."
Adelia''s eyes narrowed, a mix of anger and resentment shing in her gaze. "You speak lies, Ingram. I was protecting her in my own way," she shot back, her venom-infused strikes bing more relentless. "Your absence was a betrayal, and you have no right to im a ce in her life."
Ingram deflected her onught with calcted precision, his voice echoing with a chilling conviction. "Betrayal? No, Adelia. It was a sacrifice. I did what was necessary to keep her safe,"
The relentless sh between Adelia and Ingram had taken its toll on bothbatants. Breathing heavily, their bodies strained and battered, they stood locked in a momentary stalemate. Adelia''s scaled form began to shimmer and morph, her figure slowly reverting to her human state. Her breaths came in ragged gasps as she locked eyes with Ingram, a mixture of exhaustion and fury etched across her face.
In a surge of renewed determination, Adeliaunched herself at Ingram, her fist charged with raw power. Ingram, his own weariness hidden beneath a veil of unwavering resolve, met her attack head-on. Their fists collided with an explosive force, the impact reverberating through the surrounding forest. The sheer strength behind their blows sent them hurtling through the air, their bodies propelled in opposite directions.
With a resounding crash, Adelia collided with a massive tree trunk, the wood groaning under the strain. Pain shot through her body, but it only fueled her anger, pushing her to rise once more. Ingram, too, crashed into a nearby tree, the impact causing splinters to rain down around him. Despite the ache that resonated within him, he pushed through the pain, ready to continue the battle.
As Adelia coughed up blood, her voice strained but filled with conviction, she uttered her words through gritted teeth. "Gaya has found someone who can protect her, love her, and cherish her like no one else can," she dered, her voiceced with a mix of pain and determination.
Ingram, his own injuries evident as blood trickled from his lips, met her gaze with unyielding resolve. "No matter who Gaya finds, they cannot fill the roles of parents," he retorted, his words punctuated by a ragged breath. "Our absence has left an irreparable void."
Emotions ran deep within Adelia''s eyes as she locked her gaze with Ingram, her voice quivering with intense sincerity. "You had a chance, Ingram. A chance to be Gaya''s father, a loving husband. But you chose your lord over family," she uttered, her voice heavy with a mix of anger and sorrow.
The rain continued to pour, the steady rhythm punctuating the weight of their words and the depth of their choices. As they stood there, bruised and battered, the cliffhanger of their unresolved conflict hung in the air, leaving their fates intertwined in a web of regret, longing, and the irreparable consequences of their past decisions.
Chapter 980 Aria, The Assassin鈥檚 Apprentice
In the sprawling expanse of the Ozer continent, Aria soared high above the midnight sky, her silhouette a dark blur against the starlit canvas. With an agile twist, she descended through the billowing clouds, the moist mist enveloping her figure as she zeroed in on her destination. Her destination? A private ind, veiled in secrecy and opulence, nestled amidst the vast expanse of the ocean.
As Aria breached the cloud cover, the private ind came into view, a paradise of exclusivity bathed in moonlight. The manor, an architectural marvel, stood proudly at the heart of the ind, its grandeur an embodiment of the wealth and power held within its walls. The sprawling gardens were meticulously manicured, vibrant blooms and exotic flora dotting thendscape, while the scent of jasmine and sea breeze intertwined in the air.
But it wasn''t just the stunning scenery that guarded the ind. On the ground, vignt guards patrolled with unwavering dedication, their steps measured and purposeful. Their presence was a clear reminder that trespassers were unwee, their duty to protect the ind''s secrets unyielding. Meanwhile, airborne guards soared through the sky, their wings beating with rhythmic grace. They acted as vignt sentinels, their keen eyes scanning the horizon, ensuring that no intruder would breach the ind''s defenses from above.
The ind''s security extended to the shimmering sea that embraced its shores. Patrol boats, adorned with the mark of Isaiah Markham, cut through the midnight waves with unwavering determination. They sailed with a synchronized elegance, vignt in their duty to safeguard the ind from any threats that may emerge from the vast expanse of the ocean.
As Aria approached the ind, she observed these security measures, her gaze sharp and calcting. When Aria neared the private ind, her mind became a canvas upon which memories of the Dark Lord''s teachings painted vivid strokes. In her mind''s eye, she heard Michael''s voice, resonating with calcted wisdom.
"Listen closely, Aria," Michael''s voice echoed in her thoughts. "To evade the guards and patrols, you must be one with the shadows. Use the darkness and your dark robes as your shield. Move silently, like a wraith in the night, and let the veil of obscurity be your ally."
With the teachings ingrained in her mind, Aria expertly maneuvered through the night sky, a spectral presence amidst the darkness. She deftly navigated between patches of inky ckness, merging seamlessly with the shadows that danced across the moonlit canvas.
Below, the guards patrolled with a sense of heightened vignce, their eyes scanning the surroundings for any signs of intrusion. Their gaze followed a set route, their attention focused on the ground, unaware of the threat looming above. Aria observed their pattern, her sharp eyes discerning a weakness in their patrol route.
As the patrol passed beneath her, Aria seized the opportunity. With a calcted descent, she lowered herself closer to the ground, her body bing one with the nocturnal shroud. She skimmed the edge of the guards'' vision, a whisper in the night that eluded their scrutiny.
From the vantage point of the sky, she heard snippets of conversation between the perplexed guards, their voices tinged with confusion and curiosity. "What''s happening, Johnson? Why the sudden increase in security? Is Lord Isiah expecting trouble from the maind?" Their questions hung in the air, unanswered whispers in the night.
Aria, like a predator relishing the hunt, capitalized on their distraction. She continued to trail the patrol, exploiting the weakness she had discerned in their route. With each calcted movement, she remained hidden in in sight, her dark form merging seamlessly with the night sky.
Her heart raced with exhration as she embraced the role of the shadow, ever watchful, ever silent.
As Aria carefully observed the patrol from above, her sharp eyes caught a fleeting moment¡ªan opening in the sky patrol''s formation. Without hesitation, she seized the opportunity. Like an arrow released from a taut bowstring, she descended with unparalleled speed, hurtling towards the ocean below.
With a graceful arc, she plunged into the water, breaking the surface with a ssh. The ind''s defenses were not limited to the sky and thend; hidden beneath the waves, an intricate web of traps and arrays awaited the unwary intruder. Aria knew she had to proceed with caution.
In her mind, she recalled another lesson imparted by Michael, emphasizing the importance of meticulous preparation before embarking on an assassination mission. "Know the target location like the back of your hand," he had said. "Study the blueprints, understand theyout, and anticipate any potential traps or obstacles."
Aria''s training had honed her instincts, and she swam deeper into the ocean, relying on her knowledge of the ind''s infrastructure. Soon, she found what she sought¡ªa sewage pipe, discreetly hidden beneath a bed of undting corals. It would serve as her conduit into the heart of the ind.
As she swam further, the sound of a patrol boat reverberated above her. Patrol boats cruised the water''s surface, casting a sweeping spotlight that danced across the waves, searching for any signs of intrusion. Aria, undeterred, utilized the natural camouge provided by the underwater corals and nts. Their vibrant hues and intricate formations shielded her from the prying gaze of the boat patrol, allowing her to remain hidden in in sight.
With each passing moment, Aria''s resolve deepened. She knew the risks involved, the dangers thaty in wait. But she had been trained to be meticulous, to adapt and ovee. The ind, with its treacherous defenses and heightened security, was a formidable adversary. Yet, she remained unyielding, driven by her mission and her unwavering determination to seed.
And so, she continued her underwater journey, navigating the dark depths, her breath steady, her mind focused. The ind held its secrets close, but Aria, the Queen of Shadows, was relentless in her pursuit.
With the patrol boat finally leaving the immediate area, Aria seized the moment and swam closer to the ind''s perimeter. The ominous silhouette of the manor loomed in the distance, a bastion of wealth and secrecy. The time for subtlety had passed; it was time to breach the ind''s defenses.
Taking out apact blow torch from her utility belt, Aria''s gloved hand ignited the me. The steady hum of the torch apanied her movements as she positioned the searing heat against the metal gates securing the sewage pipe entrance. The ind''s security was formidable, designed to detect any spellcasting and trigger an immediate lockdown. Aria''s mission demanded precision and stealth.
As the blow torch cut through the reinforced metal, the scent of burning metal filled the air, mingling with the nauseating stench emanating from the open pipe. Aria''s determination prevailed over the difort, her focus unwavering. The intense heat glowed in the darkness, illuminating her determined expression.
With each precise incision, the gates slowly yielded to the force of the blow torch. As the final section of metal fell away, Aria wasted no time. She swiftly swam into the pipe, the grimy water engulfing her, leaving behind the oppressive atmosphere of the ind''s surface.
The putrid smell assaulted her senses, but Aria pushed through, relying on her training to endure the difort. The narrow passageway became her conduit, leading her closer to her target. In the darkness, she propelled herself forward, the sound of water rushing in her ears, as she embarked on a treacherous journey through the hidden underbelly of the ind.
Aria''s mission demanded her utmost resilience. With every stroke of her limbs, she drew closer to the heart of the ind, her resolve unyielding. The arrays and runes, lurking in the shadows, awaited any sign of magic. But Aria, the Queen of Shadows, knew the art of silent infiltration, the dance of shadows.
As Aria swam through the intricate sewage pipe system, her mind raced with the blueprint of the manor etched in her memory. Sadie, her resourceful contact within the underworld, had provided her with invaluable information. Finally, she reached a junction where the pipe split into multiple paths. Aria selected the one that led to an opening positioned at a safe distance from the manor''s watchful eyes.
Emerging from the pipe, she found herself in a secluded area, hidden amidst a thicket of dense foliage. The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth and the faint fragrance of blooming flowers. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves, masking the sound of her arrival.
The manor, a sprawling structure of opulence, stood proudly before her. Its stone walls were adorned with intricate carvings, bearing witness to its rich history. Towering trees cast elongated shadows upon the grounds, providing pockets of darkness that beckoned to Aria''s stealthy nature.
Soldiers, d in dark uniforms, patrolled the perimeter of the manor. Their movements were disciplined and methodical, their eyes keenly scanning the surroundings. Aria observed their path, studying the weaknesses within their patrol routine.
The patrol path encircled the manor in a predictable pattern, their steps in synchrony with the ticking of time. Aria noticed a blind spot where the soldiers'' gaze momentarily faltered, distracted by the distant flickering torches. It was her opportunity, a moment when their vignce wavered, providing her with a chance to slip through undetected.
The surroundings of the manor were adorned with meticulously manicured gardens, vibrant flowers dancing in the moonlight. Dense shrubbery and strategically ced sculptures created hiding spots for the vignt assassin. Aria crouched low, blending into the natural camouge of the foliage, her dark robes providing an additionalyer of concealment.
With bated breath, she waited for the patrol to reach the critical juncture of their routine. As their attention was diverted, she darted forward, her movements fluid and noiseless. Utilizing the cover of darkness and the intricatebyrinth of the garden, she maneuvered through the concealed spaces, inching closer to her target.
As Aria navigated the treacherous grounds, her mind delved into the depths of her training and the knowledge imparted by Michael, her mentor. Memories of his voice echoed in her thoughts, offering guidance in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.
"No security system in the world is imprable," Michael had once said, his voice resonating with quiet authority. "With enough time and study, one can find the weakness, the chink in the armor. Stay vignt, Aria, and adapt to ovee any obstacle."
Aria''s eyes gleamed with determination as she recalled his words. The ind''s security mechanisms were formidable, designed to suppress cultivation and detect unauthorized spell casting. The Fusion Stage soldiers patrolling the grounds and the intricate arrays posed a formidable barrier. But Aria was not one to be deterred.
She nced at her wrist, where her trustedpanion, the Olympus, rested. The ck wrist clock-like device housed a pure arch energy crystal that, when activated, boosted her cultivation to the Fusion Stage. It was a rare and precious artifact, a secret weapon against the ind''s suppressive measures.
As she continued her ascent, she noticed additional security measures in ce. Motion detectors, hidden pressure tes, and intricate arrays further fortified the manor''s defenses. But Aria was no stranger to deception and outwitting her adversaries.
She remembered studying the blueprints of the manor, learning about a specific weakness in the security system. By skillfully bypassing the motion detectors using her agile movements and exploiting blind spots created by the arrays, she found a path that led her closer to her goal.
Scaling the walls with feline grace, Aria reached a balcony overlooking Isiah''s concubine''s room. The moonlight bathed her in an ethereal glow as she surveyed her surroundings, her eyes settling on the shimmering teleportation portal, a feature present in every room, including this one. It served as Isiah''s ultimate escape route should the need arise.
With calcted precision, Aria leaped from the balcony, her body cutting through the air with fluidity. As shended soundlessly in the room, her eyes darted around, taking in every detail. The opulent furnishings and delicate decor betrayed thevish lifestyle of Isiah''s chosenpanion.
Swiftly, Aria concealed herself beneath the closet, her dark robes blending with the shadows. She had meticulously studied the schedule of the maids, learning their routines and timing. It was part of her thorough preparation, understanding that disguise and adopting another identity were essential elements in getting close to her target.
A voice echoed in her memory, Michael''s words ringing true in her mind. "To truly understand your target, Aria, you must be someone else, someone they least expect. Disguises are powerful tools in the arsenal of an assassin."
As she waited in the hidden recesses of the room, Aria''s senses remained sharp, attuned to the subtlest of sounds. She anticipated the arrival of a maid, knowing that her disguise would grant her ess to areas that would otherwise be off-limits. Aria was patient, her focus unyielding, ready to seize the opportune moment and move one step closer to her ultimate objective.
As the door creaked open, a young maid stepped into the room, her presence announced by the soft swish of her uniform. Her attire consisted of a pristine white blouse adorned with delicatece, apanied by a knee-length ck skirt that swayed with her every movement. Aria observed her closely, taking note of her slender figure and the floral apron neatly tied around her waist.
Time seemed to slow as Aria remained hidden beneath the closet, her breathing steady and controlled. She waited for the perfect moment, allowing the maid to approach the closet with unsuspecting steps. As the maid drew near, her curiosity piqued by a sense of disarray within the closet, Aria struck.
With lightning speed and precision, Aria''s hand shot out, covering the maid''s mouth to stifle any potential outcry. The maid''s eyes widened in shock and fear, but before she could react, Aria applied pressure, rendering her unconscious. Carefully, Aria eased the limp form to the ground, ensuring a silent fall.
Aria swiftly shed her dark robes and discarded her assassin''s attire. She then meticulously donned the maid''s uniform, buttoning it up with practiced ease. The fit was snug butfortable, the familiar fabric embracing her form as if she belonged. In this disguise, she would move through the manor undetected, blending seamlessly with the other servants.
Her transformationplete, Aria nced at her reflection in the mirror. The face staring back at her held the visage of an innocent maid, concealing the lethal skills and determination thaty beneath the facade.
Aria knew that even the most convincing disguise had its limitations. If someone scrutinized her face too closely, suspicions might arise. And those who were closest to the maid, those who interacted with her regrly, might recognize any inconsistencies in her behavior or demeanor. She needed to act swiftly, minimize contact, and remain on the move to avoid arousing suspicion.
Echoing in her mind, Michael''s words served as a constant reminder. "When in disguise, speed is your ally," he had once told her, his voiceced with wisdom. "Avoid unnecessary interaction, and always keep moving. The longer you stay in one ce, the higher the chances of being discovered."
Silently, she glided through the hallways, her steps light and purposeful. As she made her way to the rooftop garden, a soldier, stationed nearby, called out to her using the maid''s name. Aria maintained herposure, her eyes darting toward him briefly, her expression portraying a mixture of surprise and feigned bashfulness.
The soldier, stationed near the hallway, called out to Aria, using the maid''s name. "Hey there, Maria," he said, his voice carrying a hint of mischief. "Looking as beautiful as ever, I see."
Aria halted her steps and turned slightly, her body angled away from him. She allowed a small smile to grace her lips, keeping her eyes cast downward, avoiding any direct eye contact. "Oh, thank you," she replied, her voice soft and demure. "I must continue with my duties now. There''s much to be done."
The soldier''s gaze lingered on her, his eyes tracing the contours of her figure. "Ah, don''t rush off too quickly," he urged, his tone suggestive. "I''d love to get to know you better, Maria. A woman as lovely as you deserves a moment of respite. Perhaps we can find some time to enjoy each other''spany?"
Aria maintained herposed facade, her heart pounding with each passing second. She carefully avoided turning her face towards him, ensuring he wouldn''t catch a glimpse of her true identity. "I''m sorry, but I must attend to my tasks," she responded, her voice carrying a tinge of regret. "Perhaps another time, when we both have more leisure."
The soldier seemed momentarily disappointed, but he nodded understandingly. "Fair enough," he conceded. "Until then, Maria."
With a polite nod, Aria resumed her movement, keeping her back to the soldier as she continued on her path. She knew that any prolonged interaction could increase the risk of her true identity being exposed. Thus, she focused on maintaining her disguise, ensuring that her face remained hidden from prying eyes.
As she disappeared from the soldier''s sight, her heart began to steady, and a sense of relief washed over her. Each encounter had to be handled with caution, every word chosen carefully to avoid arousing suspicion. Aria knew that her sess depended on her ability to blend seamlessly into the background, remaining elusive and unseen.
With renewed determination, she pushed forward, her steps purposeful and silent. The rooftop garden awaited her, a sanctuary amidst the turmoil of her mission. There, she would bide her time, hidden among the foliage, patiently waiting for the opportune moment to strike and fulfill her deadly purpose.
Chapter 981 Hail The Shadow Clan
The rooftop garden, bathed in the soft glow of the moonlight, was a tranquil oasis nestled high above the ind. Lush foliage adorned the surroundings, with vibrant flowers blooming in an array of colors. The fragrance of jasmine and roses perfumed the air, adding an ethereal touch to the scene. The garden offered a breathtaking panoramic view of the vast ocean stretching out into the distance, its waves crashing against the shore in a mesmerizing rhythm.
Aria, concealed behind the veil of her disguise, positioned herself near a water fountain at the center of the garden. The fountain''s crystal-clear water cascaded down sculpted tiers, creating a soothing melody that harmonized with the tranquil atmosphere. She knew that Isiah, drawn to the garden''s serene beauty, would seek sce here and momentarily let his guard down.
With her senses honed, Aria remembered the teachings of her mentor, Michael, echoing in her mind. "Physical training is key," he had emphasized. "Adaptability is crucial in an assassination. You must be one with your surroundings, capable of blending in and maneuvering in any given situation."
Taking a deep breath, Aria submerged herself in the water fountain, her body concealed beneath the shimmering liquid. With precise control, she regted her breathing, silently bing one with the aquatic haven. She waited, her senses attuned, for the approach of her target.
In her mind, she reyed Michael''s words. "An assassin must adapt swiftly to unforeseen circumstances. No situation should catch you off guard. Your ability to think on your feet and utilize your environment is paramount."
Suddenly, footsteps echoed on the rooftop, drawing closer with each passing second. Aria''s heart quickened, but she maintained herposure, her trained instincts guiding her every move. Isiah Markham, the man whose life hung in the bnce, emerged into view.
Isiah stood tall, his darkplexion contrasting against the moonlit backdrop. His physique bore the marks of wealth and indulgence, with a slight paunch entuating his muscr frame. His eyes, filled with a sense of self-assuredness, swept across the garden, taking in the tranquil scenery.
The stage was set, the yers in position. Aria watched Isiah approach, her eyes hidden beneath the surface of the water. She remained poised, her presence undetected, waiting for the opportune moment to fulfill her deadly task. The air was charged with anticipation, as the moon continued to cast its ethereal glow over the ndestine scene in the rooftop garden.
From her hidden vantage point beneath the water''s surface, Aria''s gaze remained fixed on Isiah, her senses attuned to his every movement. However, to her surprise, another figure emerged into the rooftop garden, disrupting the tranquility she had meticulously nned for. It wasn''t one of Isiah''s wives, as she had anticipated, but a formidable Orc.
The Orc stood tall, his red skin a stark contrast against the moonlit backdrop. His muscr physique bore the scars of battles fought, and his face adorned with intricate face paints and tribal tattoos that spoke of his fierce nature. A primal aura surrounded him, emanating strength and intimidation.
As the Orc approached Isiah, a shiver ran down the lord''s spine, his previousposure faltering in the face of this formidable presence. Isiah''s gaze met the Orc''s eyes, filled with a mixture of trepidation and uncertainty. The weight of the Orc''s presence seemed to hang heavy in the air, suffocating the once peaceful atmosphere of the rooftop garden.
Aria watched intently, her mind racing to adapt to this unforeseen development. She could feel the tension building, her training reminding her to remain patient and alert. Every moment was crucial, every action calcted. But for now, she observed silently, biding her time until the opportune moment presented itself.
The scene unfolded with a sense of unease, as Isiah and the imposing Orc shared the bench, their presence a stark juxtaposition against the tranquil surroundings of the garden. Aria, hidden beneath the water''s surface, became acutely aware of the stakes rising. She steeled herself, ready to seize the moment when the bnce of power would tip in her favor. But for now, she remained submerged, her senses keen, awaiting the right moment to strike.
As Aria observed the unsettling interaction between Isiah and the intimidating Orc, her mind drew upon another of Michael''s invaluable lessons. She recalled his words, echoing in her thoughts with unwavering rity.
"An assassin must always be prepared for their n to fail," Michael''s voice resounded in her mind. "The difference between a good assassin and the best assassin lies in their ability to adapt and turn each obstacle into an opportunity. No situation is without its hidden advantages if you know where to look."
Aria embraced this wisdom, letting it fuel her determination. She recognized that even in this unforeseen turn of events, there was potential for her mission to seed. Every challenge presented an opening, a chance to exploit weaknesses and achieve her goal.
The rough voice of the Orc cut through the tense silence of the rooftop garden, devoid of any sympathy. "We''re cleaning house, tying loose ends," he gruffly stated, his wordsced with a sense of impending finality. Isiah''s terrified expression betrayed his desperation as he pleaded for his life.
"Please, spare me!" Isiah''s voice trembled, desperation dripping from every word. "I can give you anything you want. Money, power, whatever you desire. Just let me live!"
The Orc''s response was cold and unforgiving. "We''ve already begun the next phase," he dered, his tone devoid of mercy. "But before we move forward, we must close the previous chapter."
Aria''s heart quickened with anticipation, recognizing the significance of the Orc''s words. The mention of closing the previous chapter indicated a potential vulnerability that she could exploit. It was a window of opportunity, a chance to strike when their attention was divided.
As Isiah''s pleas fell on deaf ears, the scene became a delicate dance between life and death. Aria''s resolve hardened, her focus honed on the unfolding situation.
Aria''s eyes widened in astonishment as the unexpected events unfolded before her. To her surprise, the Orc''s grip tightened around Isiah''s neck, despite thetter''s desperate struggle. In one swift motion, the Orc snapped Isiah''s neck, granting him a painless death. The sight sent a chill down Aria''s spine, witnessing such brutality executed with chilling efficiency.
However, Aria''s shock intensified as the Orc rose to his feet and uttered the words that reverberated through the air, "Hail the Shadow n." The mention of this mysterious n struck a chord of curiosity within Aria''s mind. She had never heard of them before, their name shrouded in secrecy and unknown to her.
But the scene took an even more perplexing turn as the Orc retrieved a glowing dark crystal from within his pocket. A sinister aura emanated from the crystal, captivating Aria''s attention. With a firm grip, the Orc crushed the crystal, releasing a plume of swirling smoke that rose into the air.
As Aria watched in awe, the smoke merged with the Orc''s body, seeping into his very being. It was an unsettling sight, as if the essence of life itself was being transferred. And then, just as abruptly as it began, the light of life left the Orc''s body. He copsed to the ground, lifeless and devoid of the mysterious force that had animated him moments ago.
Aria''s mind raced with questions and confusion. The significance of the Shadow n and the nature of the dark crystal remained a mystery to her. Yet, she understood that this unexpected turn of events had opened a new chapter in her mission. She would need to uncover the truth behind the Shadow n, their motives, and their connection to Isiah.
With a renewed sense of purpose, Aria made a silent vow to unravel this enigma, even if it meant delving into the darkest depths of intrigue and danger. The mission had taken an unforeseen turn, but her determination burned brighter than ever.
Aria''s heart pounded in her chest as she emerged from the water and rushed towards the bodies, desperate to gather any clues that could shed light on the mysterious events that had just unfolded. Her mind raced, piecing together the fragments of the puzzle. However, as she approached the lifeless body of the Orc, a sudden and unexpected urrence disrupted her investigation.
A brilliant, eerie purple me ignited around the Orc''s corpse, engulfing it in its otherworldly glow. A sense of foreboding washed over Aria as she watched in awe and confusion. Before her very eyes, the mes consumed the Orc''s remains until there was nothing left but fading embers. It was as if whatever secrets the Orc held had been eradicated, leaving behind only lingering questions.
Yet, Aria had little time to dwell on this peculiar turn of events. The tranquility of the rooftop garden was shattered by the piercing toll of rm bells that resonated throughout the ind. The ind''s security mechanism had detected the absence of Isiah''s life force and swiftly activated the rm, alerting the guards.
d in their formidable armor, the soldiers rushed into the garden with weapons drawn and fear etched on their faces. Their voices echoed with shock and disbelief as they beheld their lifeless lord, their shouts intertwining with each other in a chaotic chorus. Amidst themotion, their attention turned to Aria, disguised as a maid.
"Stop! What have you done?!" one of the guards bellowed, his voice filled with usation and anger.
Aria''s muscles tensed, ready to defend herself against the impending onught. But just as she was about to engage in battle, a familiar voice echoed in her mind. It was the Dark Lord''s voice, resonating with authority and wisdom.
"Don''t fight them, Aria," the voice whispered. "Use your teleportation scroll to escape. Live to fulfill your mission."
Aria''s eyes widened in surprise as the Dark Lord''s words echoed in her thoughts. She knew she had to heed his guidance. With a swift and calcted movement, she reached into her hidden pouch and retrieved the teleportation scroll. She activated the scroll, and in a sh of mystical energy, she vanished from the garden, leaving the bewildered guards behind.
As she reappeared in a hidden location, Aria''s mind raced with a mixture of relief and determination. The encounter with the Orc, the discovery of Isiah''s lifeless body, and the Dark Lord''s message all converged into a singr purpose: to uncover the truth, fulfill her mission, and ultimately, bring justice to those responsible.
********************
Meanwhile, in the manor of Ingram, tension hung heavy in the air as Adelia adamantly refused to let Ingram take any part in Gaya''s life. The room was filled with their icy silence, their gazes locked in a battle of wills. Adelia stood tall and unwavering, her determination shining through her eyes.
"I won''t allow you to ruin her life any further," Adelia dered, her voice filled with a mixture of anger and resentment. "You abandoned her when she needed you the most. You have no right to be a part of her world now."
Ingram''s face contorted with pain, his eyes pleading for understanding. "Adelia, I''ve made mistakes, I admit that. But I''ve changed. I''ve spent centuries trying to protect her from the darkness that lurks out there."
Adelia scoffed, her voiceced with bitterness. "Protect her? You, an elder vampire working for Dagon, the Ruler of Hell? You abandoned her when she was just a baby. Don''t you dare im to be her protector now."
Ingram''s voice grew desperate, his words aching with remorse. "I did what I had to do to keep her safe. You have no idea the sacrifices I''ve made, the battles I''ve fought. One day, Adelia, I will make you see. I will make up for everything."
Before Adelia could retort, a sudden shift in the atmosphere caught her attention. A powerful force was approaching, one that sent shivers down her spine. She recognized it immediately and knew what it meant. Azazel, the Dark Lord''s demon butler, was drawing near.
Adelia''s heart raced with both fear and relief. She wanted Azazel to arrive, not the Dark Lord himself. She knew Azazel had his own agenda, and she hoped he could be persuaded to capture Ingram without revealing his true allegiance to the Dark Lord. She couldn''t risk the Dark Lord discovering Ingram''s identity as an elder vampire and the knowledge that he had abandoned Gaya.
With an icy calmness, Adelia turned to Ingram, her eyes never wavering. "You will do nothing, Ingram," she stated coldly. "I am about to capture you and send you somewhere you won''t be able to intervene in Gaya''s life any longer. This is the consequence of your actions."
Ingram''s face twisted with a mix of shock and anger, but Adelia paid him no heed. She had no love left for him, only anger and a desire to protect their daughter from his tainted influence. Her n was set, and she awaited Azazel''s arrival, knowing that he would ensure Ingram''s capture.
Deep down, Adelia knew that Azazel''s presence signaled danger, but she couldn''t risk the greater threat that the Dark Lord posed. Her focus was on safeguarding Gaya''s future, even if it meant sacrificing any lingering shards of affection she once held for the man before her.
Adelia''s mind raced with conflicting emotions as she anxiously awaited Azazel''s arrival. Her loyalty to the Dark Lord remained steadfast, and she knew that Gaya was a cherished being in his eyes. Adelia couldn''t bear the thought of jeopardizing her daughter''s position in the Dark Lord''s realm, but she also didn''t wish for Ingram''s life to be extinguished by the Dark Lord''s wrath.
Ingram''s true identity as an elder vampire, working under Dagon, the Ruler of Hell, made him a dangerous and potent adversary. Adelia was well aware of his formidable power, one that surpassed her own. She knew that engaging in a direct confrontation with Ingram would be not only futile but also potentially lethal for her.
Azazel, on the other hand, was an entity she could manipte to serve her purpose. As the Dark Lord''s demon butler, Azazel held a certain level of allegiance to Adelia due to her high status within the Dark Army. She hoped that by summoning Azazel instead of the Dark Lord, she could maintain some semnce of control over the situation.
Adelia yearned for Azazel''s arrival, for she knew that he possessed the strength and skill to subdue Ingram. His demonic abilities, coupled with his unwavering loyalty to the Dark Lord, would make him the perfect instrument to capture Ingram without resorting to fatal measures.
After dealing with Ingram, Adelia made the firm decision to unveil the hidden truths she had concealed from Gaya and the Dark Lord. Her loyalty to the Dark Lordpelled her to relinquish any lingering secrets, as she no longer wished to keep anything from him. Adelia was determined toe clean andy bare the entirety of her knowledge, sparing no details, for she believed in unwavering transparency and honesty within their rtionship.
Chapter 982 Vampire Death Squad Vs Michael I
While Aria and Azazel were on their mission, Ricky ventured through the empty hall, he noticed dwarves diligently working on the ceiling. Parchments and cloth covered various areas of the hall, indicating ongoing renovations. Unexpectedly, in the center of the hall, he came across the members of the vampire death squad, taking a break and engaged in a lively conversation.
Ricky couldn''t help but feel surprised to see all the elite killers gathered in one ce. Normally, they trained individually in different locations on the floating mountain. However, fate had brought them together in this moment.
"Look who''s here," chuckled Gray Wolf, the dwarf, teasing Ricky yfully. Ricky waved his hand in acknowledgment, a smile on his face.
"When are you going to convince the Dark Lord to build us a tavern, Ricky?" growled Bear, his deep voice resonating through the hall. Ricky contemted for a moment, considering the suggestion.
"A tavern, huh? It may not be at the top of my priority list, but perhaps I can find a way to squeeze it in," Ricky replied with a hint of amusement. Just a couple of years ago, if he had encountered these formidable assassins, he would have been trembling with fear. But after serving the Dark Lord for nearly three years, Ricky had grown ustomed to facing formidable beings. After all, the Dark Queen would give him a stern reprimand if she ever found out he was scared of someone.
Suddenly, Spider called out to Ricky, interrupting his thoughts. He turned his attention towards the alluring blonde vampire.
"Hey Ricky," she beckoned, her voice carrying a mixture of intrigue and curiosity.
"We''re having a friendly bet. Care to join in?" Spider asked, her voice filled with mischief and intrigue. Ricky, intrigued by the proposition, walked towards Spider and the rest of the vampire death squad. The members of the squad couldn''t help but grin at Spider''s invitation. Meanwhile, the dwarves working on the construction project seemed terrified, fully aware of what the bet entailed.
Curiosity piqued, Ricky asked, "What''s the bet about?" He couldn''t help but notice the seductive smile on Spider''s face, and he knew from experience that trouble often followed when an alluring beauty like her was involved. After his recent breakup with Olivia, Ricky had decided to steer clear of such entanglements.
"We''re betting on who among us would have a better chance of defeating the Dark Lord if he had no cultivation power," Spider revealed, her words hanging in the air. Ricky''s eyes widened in shock at the audacity of the wager. However, he quickly frowned, considering the nature of the bet. In the Dark Army, conversations like these weremonce. Even the weakest soldier in the dark army harbored the imagination of challenging the higher-ranking members. They were well aware that they would be swiftly defeated if they dared to try, but it didn''t stop them from indulging in such fantasies.
It was only natural for these elite killers to ponder what would happen if they were to face the Dark Lord on equal terms. Ricky understood that, despite the inherent dangers, such discussions were part of the norm in the Dark Army.
"Everyone knows it''d be me," Bear growled in his rough voice, his hand instinctively gripping his trusty axe. His confidence was evident, as he believed he possessed the strength to ovee the Dark Lord.
Snake, the expert in poisoning techniques, shook his head and remained aloof from the conversation. He knew his skillsy in stealth and cunning rather than direct confrontation. Besides, being a fox, he was well aware of the vast power gap that separated him from the Dark Lord.
Ricky, eager to avoid the discussion altogether, attempted to walk away. However, Spider grabbed hold of his sleeve, preventing his escape. With a seductive tone, she implored him, "Come on, Ricky. Don''t be a coward. You can share your thoughts with us. I promise, I won''t bite."
Ricky nced at the expectant faces of the death squad members, realizing they wouldn''t let him off the hook so easily. Reluctantly, he replied, "Well, my answer might not be what you want to hear."
Curiosity piqued, White Wolf, an elf, pressed, "What is it, Ricky?"
Ricky took a deep breath before responding, "The Dark Lord, obviously. He can overpower any one of you, with or without his cultivation power." The truth hung in the air, a sobering reminder of the Dark Lord''s unrivaled might.
The death squad members exchanged skeptical nces, clearly unconvinced by Ricky''s statement. Bear scoffed and retorted, "You underestimate us, Ricky. Without his fancy magic, we have a real shot at taking down the Dark Lord in a head-on fight."
White Wolf, the elf, nodded in agreement. "Indeed, Ricky. We''ve honed our skills and trained relentlessly. We''re not to be taken lightly. Even the Dark Lord has his vulnerabilities."
Spider, the alluring beauty with seductive charm, couldn''t resist joining the conversation. She stepped forward, a confident smirk gracing her lips. "I wouldn''t be so quick to dismiss us, Ricky. My swordsmanship might even rival the Dark Lord''s own. I''ve devoted years perfecting my technique, and I have the speed and agility to match his every move."
The other members of the death squad nodded, their confidence mounting. Each had their own reasons to believe they could best the Dark Lord. Gray Wolf, the dwarf, chimed in, "Don''t forget my mastery of closebat. I''ve taken on opponents twice my size ande out victorious. The Dark Lord won''t intimidate me."
Bear flexed his bulging muscles and grinned. "And I''ll bring the full force of my strength. With one swing of my axe, even the Dark Lord will feel its impact."
Ricky raised an eyebrow, still skeptical but intrigued by their unwavering confidence. He realized that they truly believed in their abilities. Despite his doubts, Ricky respected their determination and ambition.
"Well," Ricky replied, his toneced with caution, "I suppose it''s good to have such confidence. Just remember, the Dark Lord is not to be underestimated. His experience, skills, and sheer power make him a formidable opponent. But if you''re willing to put it to the test, who am I to stand in your way?"
The death squad members shared triumphant smiles, eagerly anticipating the prospect of proving themselves against the Dark Lord. Their conversation took an exciting turn as they began discussing strategies, training regimens, and hypothetical scenarios where they could face the Dark Lord head-on.
Meanwhile, Ricky couldn''t help but wonder if their boldness was fueled by genuine belief or perhaps a touch of overconfidence. Only time would tell if their aspirations would lead to triumph or humbling defeat.
"Why don''t we have a friendly duel then?" a calm voice echoed through the hall, catching the attention of the death squad members. They turned their gazes towards the door, their eyes widening in surprise as they saw the Dark Lord himself entering with an amused smile ying on his lips.
Contrary to Ricky''s expectations, the death squad members appeared pumped and excited instead of being consumed by fear. Theirck of trepidation, even in the presence of the Dark Lord, surprised Ricky. He understood that these individuals were the most skilled and experienced killers, unfazed by mere intimidation. It took more than that to rattle theirposed demeanor.
Ricky swiftly bowed as the Dark Lord approached, patting him on the back in a reassuring manner. Michael''s gaze shifted towards the death squad members, his expression a mix of amusement and curiosity.
"I must say, I admire your confidence," the Dark Lord spoke, his voice resonating with power. "And I am obliged to satisfy your thirst for curiosity, am I not?"
The death squad members exchanged nces, their excitement palpable. It was a rare opportunity to showcase their skills before the very being they had sworn loyalty to. Spider stepped forward, a glint of determination in her eyes.
"We would be honored, my Lord," she replied, her voice steady and resolute. "To have a chance to test our mettle against you would be the greatest challenge we could ask for."
The Dark Lord''s smile widened, his gaze shifting from one member to another. He seemed genuinely intrigued by their proposition. This unexpected turn of events had brought an air of exhration to the hall, as the prospect of witnessing the sh between the Dark Lord and his elite killers loomed before them.
Ricky watched in awe as the stage was set for an extraordinary confrontation. He couldn''t help but wonder how this encounter would unfold and what it would reveal about the true extent of the death squad''s capabilities. Little did he know that this friendly duel would not only test their skills but also deepen their bond with their enigmatic leader, the Dark Lord himself.
"Go bring Elidyr to me, Ricky,"manded Michael, his voice carrying a sense of authority. Ricky nodded in response and quickly made his way to find Elidyr, one of the Dark Lord''s trusted advisors. He located Elidyr in his study, engrossed in ancient texts, and ryed the Dark Lord''s request.
Elidyr followed Ricky back to the hall, curiosity etched on his face. As they entered, he scanned the scene, taking in the animated conversations and the palpable energy that filled the air. Elidyr approached Michael, his brows furrowed in puzzlement.
"What is going on here, my lord?" Elidyr inquired, his voiceced with intrigue.
Michael''s eyes sparkled with amusement as he exined, "The death squad members had an interesting proposition. They wanted to have a friendly duel among themselves, betting on who has the chance to defeat me."
Elidyr''s eyes widened in surprise, his gaze shifting towards the death squad members who were now preparing themselves for the impending challenge. It was not every day that the Dark Lord entertained such requests, but he understood the importance of fostering camaraderie and testing their mettle.
"I see," Elidyr nodded, his interest piqued. "And how do you n to proceed, my Lord?"
A mischievous smile danced on Michael''s lips as he revealed his n. "I want you to create an array around the hall, one that will prevent spellcasting. This way, they can engage me on fair grounds without relying on magical abilities."
Elidyr nodded in understanding, acknowledging the fairness of the arrangement. It was crucial for the death squad members to have a genuine opportunity to demonstrate their martial prowess without the interference of external forces.
"And what about your cultivation, my Lord?" Elidyr asked, his gaze searching Michael''s eyes.
Michael''s expression turned serious as he replied, "I will suppress my cultivation to the Soul Refining stage, one stage below their current level, the Fusion Stage. This will provide them a fair chance to gauge their abilities against mine truly."
Elidyr nodded in approval, recognizing the significance of Michael''s decision. It showcased not only his respect for the death squad members but also his desire to push them to their limits, fostering growth and instilling confidence.
As the preparations continued and the array took shape, the hall buzzed with anticipation. The death squad members, now aware of the magnitude of this opportunity, stood tall, their expressions filled with determination. They were about to engage in a battle that would test their skills, bond them further as a team, and provide them invaluable insights into their own capabilities.
As word spread throughout the floating mountain, the sound of hammers and chisels gradually faded away. The dwarves, who had been tirelessly working on the construction, set their tools aside and gathered around the hall. Excitement and curiosity glimmered in their eyes as they joined the growing crowd, eager to witness the impending duel between the death squad members and their formidable Dark Lord.
Within the hall, Michael stood at the center, amanding presence that radiated power and confidence. The death squad members had taken their respective positions, their eyes fixed on their enigmatic leader. Michael''s gaze swept over the assembled crowd, his piercing ck eyes resting on each individual momentarily before he removed his sword sheathes.
The sound of the sheathes hitting the ground echoed in the silent hall, drawing the attention of everyone present. Michael''s dark swords, symbols of his authority and strength,y discarded on the floor. A murmur of surprise and awe rippled through the onlookers, recognizing the significance of his action.
"I will fight without my swords," Michael dered, his voice resonating with a blend of determination and caution. "I don''t want to kill you guys identally,"
With deliberate grace, Michael slid off his long, ck coat, revealing the toned muscles thaty beneath. He then rolled up the sleeves of his ck turtleneck, baring his forearms to the eager eyes of the death squad members. The faint sound of his knuckles cracking filled the air as he flexed his fingers, preparing himself for the impending sh. Deep down, Michael understood the significance of this moment. It was not just about asserting his power but also about earning the respect and loyalty of these skilled assassins. He knew that only by surpassing their expectations and demonstrating his unrivaled strength could he establish himself as their rightful leader. Thus, he resolved to push himself to the limits, willing to unleash a force that would leave the death squad members in awe, solidifying his reputation as the Dark Lord.
Chapter 983 Vampire Death Squad Vs Michael II
(Calm before the storm chapter)
"Shall we face you one by one, my lord or-" Spider inquired, her voice filled with anticipation. But before she could finish her sentence, Michael interjected with a yful chuckle.
"That would be boring, and the fight would be over in a mere moment," he remarked, knowing that individually, none of them stood a chance against him. Spider''s eyes gleamed with a deadly mix of excitement and venomous intent. Unlike Saber and the elder vampires, who pledged their loyalty to the Dark Lord out of reverence, the vampire death squad had joined his ranks for mary reasons. Michael saw this as an opportunity to earn their unwavering loyalty through a disy of his formidable strength.
"Bring forth your best skills," Michael goaded the death squad members, a mischievous smile ying on his lips.
With that, the battle between the Dark Lord and the death squad membersmenced. The vampires swiftly closed in, surrounding Michael, their gazes focused and their bodies tense with anticipation. Each member carefully positioned themselves, strategizing their approach.
The battle between the Dark Lord and the death squad members erupted into a flurry of movement and shes. The vampires, driven by a mix of determination and desperation, attacked with their chosen weapons, each showcasing their unique skills.
White Wolf, a skilled archer with deadly uracy, notched an arrow and let it fly with lightning speed. The arrow whistled through the air, aimed straight at Michael''s heart. But with a mere flicker of movement, he gracefully sidestepped, allowing the arrow to harmlessly pass by. His evasion was seamless, as if he possessed an innate sense of the arrow''s trajectory.
Grey Wolf, the agile dwarf with impressive closebat prowess, lunged forward with his daggers. His movements were swift and relentless, his small frame darting in and out as he attempted to breach Michael''s defenses. But the Dark Lord was a master of anticipation. With incredible reflexes, he effortlessly evaded Grey Wolf''s attacks, his body swaying and twisting with an uncanny grace. His bare hands became an extension of his being, deflecting strikes and countering with precision.
Spider, the seductive beauty with lethal swordsmanship, danced forward with deadly elegance. Her sword gleamed in the dim light, and her eyes burned with a thirst for victory. With a series of lightning-fast strikes, she aimed to overwhelm Michael with her quick and precise movements. Yet, the Dark Lord''s calm demeanor never wavered. He fluidly dodged Spider''s shes and parried her blows with the fluidity of water, evading her attacks with an almost supernatural grace.
Bear, the hulking powerhouse wielding a long, heavy battle axe, charged forward with a roar, his muscles bulging with raw strength. Each swing of his weapon was apanied by a thunderous force that threatened to shatter anything it touched. But Michael''s movements were deceivingly swift and nimble. With an almost ethereal agility, he evaded Bear''s powerful strikes, slipping past the swinging axe with hairbreadth precision.
The hall resounded with the sh of weapons, the echoes of grunts and shouts reverberating throughout the space. Each death squad member attacked with unyielding determination, pushing themselves to their limits. Yet, Michael''s evasive maneuvers remained unfaltering, his actions a symphony of fluid motion.
His body flowed seamlessly, evading attacks with a blend of subtle shifts, twists, and graceful steps. He relied on instinct and unparalleled perception, anticipating the death squad''s moves before they even materialized. His movements seemed almost effortless, as if he was one with the air itself.
Amidst the chaos, the death squad members found themselves increasingly frustrated. Their strikes grew more desperate, their attackscking the precision and finesse they had initially possessed. Despite their relentless onught, Michael appeared to be untouched, his calm facade unbroken.
In this dance ofbat, the Dark Lord demonstrated not only his physical prowess but also his strategic brilliance. He exploited the weaknesses in their movements, slipping through the gaps in their defenses with astonishing precision. With each evasive maneuver, he seemed to defy thews of nature, his every motion calcted and deliberate.
As the fight raged on, the death squad members exchanged nces, a mixture of awe and frustration in their eyes. They could hardly believe what they were witnessing¡ªthe unmatched skill and grace of the Dark Lord, who defied their every attack with nothing but his bare hands.
Bear''s battle axe whistled through the air, propelled by sheer force, aimed directly at Michael. But in a disy of uncanny agility, the Dark Lord effortlessly sidestepped the swinging arc of the massive weapon. Bear''s mighty swing missed its mark, and the axe crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact, causing the earth to crack and tremble beneath their feet.
A smirk tugged at the corners of Michael''s lips as he evaded Spider''s furious sword strikes. With a swift and fluid motion, he maneuvered behind her, his movements like shadows in the night. In a surprising twist, he deftly seized two of Spider''s arms, restraining her momentarily. His voice, barely above a whisper, reached her ears, "Too slow."
The momentary distraction allowed the Dark Lord to capitalize on his advantage. With a quick and forceful push, he propelled Spider forward, directing her path toward the towering figure of Bear. Spider stumbled, unable to regain her bnce, and crashed into Bear with a resounding thud. The impact sent both of them sprawling to the ground, temporarily incapacitating them.
Meanwhile, White Wolf, the skilled archer, took aim with his bow and let loose a flurry of arrows. The projectiles flew through the air with deadly precision, aiming to find their mark in the Dark Lord''s heart. But Michael''s reflexes were honed to an otherworldly level. With astonishing speed, he snatched the arrows from the air, catching them effortlessly between his fingertips.
A smile yed upon Michael''s face as he twirled the arrows in his hand. In a feat that defied human limits, he swiftly turned the arrows around, positioning them as makeshift melee weapons. With a fluid motion, he wielded them like short sticks, a flickering blur of motion. In an instant, he closed the distance between himself and Grey Wolf, the agile dwarf who fought with relentless determination.
With inhuman speed, the Dark Lord swung the arrow-sticks in a devastating arc, connecting with precise uracy. The makeshift weapons collided with Grey Wolf''s head, knocking him off bnce and sending him stumbling backward, dazed and disoriented. The impact was akin to a giant felling a sapling, the force of the blow reverberating through the hall.
The dwarves, gathered in a tight-knit group, observed the breathtaking battle with wide eyes and hushed whispers. Theirments, filled with astonishment and a touch of dark humor, focused on the appearances of those involved.
"By the fiery forge! That one with the arrows, he''s like a skilled marksman! Can''t believe the Dark Lord caught ''em so effortlessly," eximed the dwarf with a bushy red beard, pointing at the archer in awe.
"Aye, and look at the Dark Lord there, swift as a mountain cat! Dodging Spider''s strikes with ease," remarked the stout dwarf with a braided beard, his eyes sparkling with amazement.
"Ha! Did you see that? The Dark Lord grabbed hold of Spider''s arms like she was naught but a fly in his web. Too slow, indeed!" chuckled the dwarf with a wild mop of hair, shaking his head in disbelief.
The sound of heartyughter echoed from the dwarves as they watched the Dark Lord wield the arrow like a makeshift weapon,nding a solid blow on the head of the dwarf warrior. It was a mix of astonishment and amusement, their voices carrying a sense of camaraderie in witnessing such unexpected antics.
"Look at that! The Dark Lord just knocked that Grey Wolf down like a pup with a toy! Never thought I''d see such a sight," chuckled the dwarf with a massive beard, hisughter rumbling like distant thunder.
"Heh, look at that! The Dark Lord''s given Grey Wolf a proper knock on the noggin with that arrow. I never thought I''d see the day," chuckled another dwarf.
"I reckon even the vampires must be wonderin'' what sort of opponent they''ve gotten themselves mixed up with. The Dark Lord''s got ''em runnin'' in circles," added a gray beareded dwarf, a smirk ying on his lips.
"Who''d have thought the Dark Lord had such moves? He''s like a dancer, swaying and spinning through the fight," murmured the dwarf with a braided beard, a mix of awe and amusement in his voice.
The dwarves continued to watch, their eyes glued to the mesmerizing spectacle unfolding before them. Theirments, mingled with the sounds of battle, reflected their astonishment and admiration for the Dark Lord''s prowess and the relentless assault of the vampire death squad.
"He''s like a whirlwind, that Dark Lord! The vampires can''t keep up!"
"Did you see how he cunningly pushed Spider into Bear''s path? A true master of strategy!"
"Ha! I never thought I''d say this, but I''m actually rootin'' for the Dark Lord. Who would''ve guessed?"
Their voices rose and fell in a symphony of astonishment and camaraderie, theirmentary a testament to the mesmerizing spectacle that unfolded before their eyes. The battle between the forces of darkness enraptured them, forging an unexpected bond among the dwarves as they marveled at the incredible disy of skill and daring.
The onlookers could hardlyprehend the spectacle unfolding before their eyes. The Dark Lord''s agility, precision, and supernatural speed left them awestruck. The fight continued, a mesmerizing disy of skill and power as Michael evaded, countered, and controlled the battlefield.
The vampire death squad, momentarily catching their breath, formed a huddle, their faces etched with determination. The battle had reached a critical juncture, and they needed to reassess their strategy to gain an edge against the formidable Dark Lord. Sensing the pause, Michael''s eyes gleamed with a mix of confidence and cunning.
"Listen closely," he spoke with an air of authority, pointing at each member of the death squad. "Spider, your swordy ismendable, but your strikes are predictable. Vary your angles, and don''t underestimate the element of surprise."
Turning his gaze to Bear, Michael continued, "Your strength is unparalleled, Bear, but it can be a double-edged sword. Use your weight and momentum to your advantage, but be mindful of exposing yourself to counterattacks."
"Grey Wolf, your closebat skills are solid, but you telegraph your moves. Maintain your agility and surprise your opponent."
Lastly, Michael locked eyes with White Wolf, his voice steady andposed. "White Wolf, your archery skills are unmatched, but your focus wavers in close quarters. Trust in your instincts, and remember that precision can triumph over speed."
The vampires listened intently, their eyes fixed on the Dark Lord as he imparted his wisdom. The brief respite allowed them to absorb his guidance and incorporate it into their newfound strategy.
With the Dark Lord''s pointers imparted, the vampire death squad dispersed, renewed and invigorated by his guidance. Like a well-coordinated symphony, they lunged forward once more, their renewed vigor palpable in the air. The sh resumed, but this time, Michael did not rely solely on evasion. He unleashed a torrent of devastating strikes, his movements fluid and swift, fueled by his newfound offensive momentum.
Michael''s movements were a blur of calcted strikes and lightning-fast counterattacks. He punched and kicked with precision, each blow delivered with enough force to make the vampires cough up blood. His fists and feet became a whirlwind of punishing strikes, finding the vulnerabilities in their defenses.
Spider, fueled by the Dark Lord''s advice, unleashed a flurry of sword strikes, aiming to exploit her opponent''s weaknesses. But Michael deftly parried her attacks, his movements fluid and effortless. With a swift maneuver, he grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm, causing Spider to wince in pain.
Bear, determined to prove his worth, swung his heavy battle axe with all his might. But the Dark Lord sidestepped the attack and delivered a powerful spin hook kick, his leg cutting through the air like a lethal weapon. Bear, caught off guard, was sent sprawling backward, the impact reverberating through his body. It was a disy of the Dark Lord''s precision and strength, his attack executed with masterful skill.
Meanwhile, White Wolf nocked an arrow, drawing his bowstring with renewed confidence. He aimed carefully, seeking to find a weakness in his opponent''s defenses. Yet, before he could release the arrow, the Dark Lord closed the distance in a blink of an eye, knocking White Wolf''s bow aside and delivering a powerful strike that sent him crashing to the ground.
Grey Wolf, agile and determined, tried to outmaneuver the Dark Lord. But Michael anticipated his every move, countering his strikes with lightning reflexes. With a swiftbination of punches and kicks, the Dark Lord delivered blows that reverberated through Grey Wolf''s body, leaving him staggering and breathless.
The battle raged on, the sh of strength and skill echoing through the air. The vampires, fueled by a mix of desperation and newfound determination, fought with every ounce of their being. And the Dark Lord, driven by his own thirst for power and dominance, responded with a relentless onught, leaving the death squad members battered and bloodied in his wake.
The battle within the hall reached its climax as Michael, fueled by abination of skill, speed, and the hunger for victory, unleashed a series of deadly attacks. His movements were a blur of calcted strikes, each blow delivered with precision and bone-crushing force.
Spider, despite her vampiric agility, was unable to evade the Dark Lord''s relentless assault. With a swift, spinning kick, Michael struck her temple, causing her to stagger backward. As she struggled to regain her bnce, he swiftly closed in, his fist connecting with her jaw in a devastating uppercut. The sickening sound of bones cracking echoed through the hall as Spider''s body flew backward, crashing into a nearby pir. Blood trickled from her mouth as her eyes rolled back, and she sumbed to unconsciousness.
Bear, known for his formidable strength, swung his heavy battle axe with all his might, aiming for Michael''s midsection. But the Dark Lord''s reflexes were unmatched. With inhuman speed, he sidestepped the attack, swiftly ducking under Bear''s guard. In a lightning-fast motion, Michael''s fist collided with Bear''s sternum, the impact resonating throughout the hall. Bear let out a guttural cough, blood spraying from his lips, before crumpling to the ground, unconscious and defeated.
White Wolf, his quiver empty and his bow discarded, attempted a desperate strike, his wed fingers aimed at the Dark Lord''s throat. But Michael was quicker. He swiftly sidestepped the attack, seizing White Wolf''s arm in a vice-like grip. With a vicious twist, the sound of snapping bones filled the air. White Wolf''s howl of agony was cut short as he copsed to the ground, his body wracked with pain and unconsciousness enveloping him.
Grey Wolf, the nimble dwarf known for his agility, tried to outmaneuver the Dark Lord''s attacks. But Michael''s movements were too swift, too precise. In a whirlwind of strikes, he relentlessly assaulted Grey Wolf, delivering powerful blows that left him reeling. The sound of impact reverberated through the hall as Michael''s fists collided with Grey Wolf''s body, each blow apanied by a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed from Grey Wolf''s mouth, and his legs buckled beneath him as he crumpled to the ground, defeated and unconscious.
Despite the vampires'' innate ability to heal, the force behind Michael''s attacks had ovee even their supernatural resilience. Thebination of his speed, skill, and sheer power had rendered them incapable of rising to their feet. The hall fell silent, save for the heavy panting of the defeated vampires and the echoes of bones cracking. Victory belonged to the Dark Lord, as he stood amidst the fallen, the embodiment of dominance and relentless power.
Chapter 984 Another Great Clan Down I
(Calm before the storm chapter)
After a few minutes, the members of the vampire death squad stood before Michael, their expressions transformed with newfound respect. Even the once boisterous and unrestrained Bear remained silent, his eyes fixed on the Dark Lord. They realized that what they had experienced was not a true battle, but rather a friendly duel, and their minds wandered to the unimaginable consequences if they had faced the Dark Lord in a real fight. Each member understood that Michael had deliberately held back during their encounter. Otherwise, they would have met their demise within seconds. The weight of this realization settled upon them, leaving them in awe of the Dark Lord''s power and restraint.
Michael''s gaze shifted across the members of the vampire death squad, his voice carrying a tone of encouragement. "Do not be disheartened by this defeat," he began, his words resonating with conviction. "In fact, it is through more training and real-life battles that you can truly be perfect killing machines. Remember, strength is not solely measured by victory, but by the determination to improve."
A brief pause hung in the air before Michael continued, his eyes gleaming with a sense of purpose. "After my wedding with Gaya, I will dedicate more time to your training. I will help you unlock your full potential and hone your skills to perfection. Together, we will be a force to be reckoned with."
He then offered a word of caution, his voice filled with wisdom. "However, let me remind you that overconfidence can be a deadly w. Never allow your confidence to blind you. Stay vignt, stay focused, and channel your strength with precision."
The members of the vampire death squad stood silently, their nods expressing their understanding and gratitude for the Dark Lord''s guidance. They knew that under his tutge, they had the opportunity to transcend their current limitations and be formidable warriors.
******************************
Saber hovered in the sky above the Kingdom of Dalgarum, his gaze fixed upon the sprawling headquarters of the Han Torum n. The n''s stronghold, nestled in the heart of Awor, boasted an impressive dwarven architecture. Tall and majestic, it was crafted from dark gray stones, lending an air of strength and fortitude to its formidable presence.
As nightfall approached, Saber patiently awaited his moment to infiltrate the n. The dwarves, thoughcking in cultivation powerpared to other races,pensated for it with their mastery of unique and deadly weapons. The dwarf guards patrolled the n, their watchful eyes scanning for any signs of intrusion. Hidden from their sight, Saber surveyed the scene from above, taking note of the various weapons carefully positioned around the n. Each weapon exuded an aura of power and danger, a testament to the dwarves'' expertise in forging formidable tools ofbat.
While Saber possessed the power to swiftly eliminate the dwarf guards and their deadly weapons if given the order, his current mission demanded a different approach. He had been tasked by the Dark Lord to infiltrate the Han Torum n, reaching the n heads with a crucial ultimatum. Their fate hung in the bnce, for they had just four days to make a difficult choice: dismantle their revered n or face the wrath of the Dark Lord.
Saber''s objective extended beyond mere destruction; he was to ensure that the n leaders chose the path of dismantlement, allowing the Dark Lord to recruit the talented dwarves within their ranks secretly. His loyalty bound him to these orders, and he understood therger strategic implications of such a move. Saber''s mission was not solely about sowing chaos and leaving behind a trail of corpses, but rather to manipte the n''s destiny to align with the Dark Lord''s grand designs.
As the dwarves continued their patrol around the majestic, dark gray stone-d n building, their conversation took a turn towards recent events. The destruction of the Guardian Guild by the Dark Lord became the topic of their discussion, andughter filled the air.
"Did you hear about the Alpha Guardians?" chuckled one dwarf, shaking his head in disbelief. "They were supposed to be the epitome of strength, but they didn''t stand a chance against the Dark Lord."
"Yeah, it''s hrious!" another dwarf joined in, his voice brimming with amusement. "That demon butler of his warned them, gave them two whole days to dismantle their precious Guardian Guild. And what did they do? Stayed put like a bunch of foolish humans."
The dwarves burst into raucousughter, their hearty guffaws echoing through the night. They couldn''tprehend the audacity of the Guardians, who believed they could actually defeat the Dark Lord.
"I bet they thought they were invincible," a dwarf jeered, wiping away tears of mirth. "But look at what happened to Hulwick Ind! The Dark Lord''s spells shattered it into pieces and sent it sinking to the depths."
"And that ethereal two-headed dragon he fought," another dwarf chimed in, his voice filled with mockery. "They probably thought it was their savior, but the Dark Lord proved them wrong. He yed it with ease."
The dwarves continued their patrol, relishing in theirughter and the perceived superiority they felt over the fallen Guardians. Their taunting remarks painted a picture of arrogance and disdain for those who dared challenge the might of the Dark Lord.
As the dwarves reveled in theirughter and mockery, their amusement seemed boundless. Their jokes and banter flowed freely, further fueling their sense of superiority.
"Those Guardians, I tell ya, they must have rocks for brains!" chuckled one dwarf, pping his knee. "Who in their right mind challenges the Dark Lord and thinks they''lle out on top?"
"Ah, humans," another dwarf chimed in, shaking his head in mock pity. "They always think strength in numbers will save them. But little do they realize, it just gives the Dark Lord more targets to crush!"
Laughter erupted once again, apanied by a chorus of jests and jibes.
"They''re like ants marching to their own demise!" a dwarf eximed, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Instead of using their brains to escape, they gather their little army for the Dark Lord''s entertainment."
"And what''s with their so-called intelligence?" quipped another dwarf, feigning confusion. "They im to be the smartest race, but when ites to facing the Dark Lord, they''re nothing more than bumbling fools!"
The dwarves shared boisterousughter, their voices blending in a symphony of amusement. They reveled in their perceived intellectual superiority over the humans, mocking their choices and decisions.
"They thought they could defeat the Dark Lord!" one dwarf eximed between fits ofughter. "But instead, they became fodder for his power. It''s almost too easy!"
The jovial banter continued, the dwarves relishing in their own wit and humor, unaware of the looming ultimatum the Dark Lord had sent them to deliver.
Saber, perched high above the dwarven n, carefully observed the patterns of their patrols. He analyzed their routes, noting the areas they frequented and the blindspots they might overlook. It was essential for him to find a gap in their vignce that would allow him to infiltrate the n undetected.
As his sharp eyes scanned the dwarves below, he discovered a blindspot in their patrol route¡ªa narrow alley tucked between two towering structures. It was a secluded path, hidden from direct view, where the dwarves seldom ventured. Saber realized that this blindspot would be his key to essing the n building without raising the guards'' suspicions.
With stealth and precision, Saber descended from his hidden vantage point and glided towards the designated blindspot. The narrow alley was shrouded in darkness, providing the perfect cover for his ndestine entry. He moved swiftly, his steps soundless, and disappeared into the shadows.
Meanwhile, as Saber maneuvered through the hidden alley, a brief moment of uncertainty arose among the patrolling dwarves. One dwarf, a hint of suspicion in his voice, turned to hispanion and asked, "Did you feel something strange just now? A presence, perhaps?"
Hispanion, slightly inebriated from a night of revelry, scoffed and brushed off the inquiry. "Ah, you''ve had one too many, my friend!" he retorted with a chuckle. "No one would be foolish enough to challenge our n. It''s just your imagination ying tricks on you!"
The doubtful dwarf shrugged, convinced by hispanion''s dismissal. They continued their patrol, unaware that a skilled infiltrator had slipped past them and was now lurking within the heart of their n. Saber, utilizing the blindspot to his advantage, pressed on with his mission, remaining undetected by the oblivious dwarven guards.
Saber, hidden in the shadows, couldn''t help but chuckle softly at the dwarves'' arrogance and mockery towards the humans. "Oh, my dear dwarves," he whispered to himself, "you call them foolish while you struggle to perform your own duties with precision."
Inside the majestic n building, the atmosphere was a testament to the dwarves'' meticulous craftsmanship. borate stone arches adorned the corridors, leading to grand halls adorned with intricate carvings and elegant tapestries. Saber''s eyes gleamed with a mix of admiration and determination as he navigated through thebyrinthine structure.
His ultimate destination was the power room, the heart of the n''s operations. The dwarves had devised intricate mechanisms powered by the stored energy they absorbed from the sun through specialized grids. Saber knew that by cutting off this source of power, he could plunge the n into darkness, effectively creating the cover he needed to locate the n heads.
Moving silently and blending seamlessly with the dark corners, Saber made his way through the bustling corridors. The dwarves carried on with their daily routines, unaware of the shadowy figure weaving through their midst. Guards stood watch at strategic points, their eyes scanning for any signs of intrusion, but Saber''s supernatural grace and stealth rendered him virtually invisible.
Following his mental map of the n''syout, Saber took advantage of hidden passages and secret stairwells, bypassing guard stations without a hint of detection. The air hummed with the energy of the dwarves'' industriousness, yet Saber''s presence remained concealed as he drew closer to his destination.
Finally, after traversing a series of dimly lit corridors and descending a spiraling staircase, Saber reached the power room. The room was bathed in an eerie glow emanating from the intricate machinery and arrays of energy cells. With deliberate precision, he assessed the mechanisms and identified the crucial power source that needed to be severed.
As Saber opened the door to the power room, he was greeted by a sight that left the dwarves inside utterly shocked. Their eyes widened in disbelief, and their voices caught in their throats as they beheld the unexpected intruder standing before them.
"By the beards of our ancestors!" one dwarf eximed, his voice tinged with fear and surprise.
"What in hell''is going on?" another dwarf stammered, struggling toprehend the sudden intrusion.
However, before they could gather their wits or raise the rm, Saber sprang into action with inhuman speed and precision. With lightning-fast strikes, he incapacitated each dwarf, rendering them unconscious with swift and powerful blows. The room was filled with the thud of bodies hitting the floor, their futile attempts at resistance halted by the superior prowess of the elder vampire.
The dwarves, known for their resilience and tenacity, stood no chance against Saber''s supernatural abilities. His movements were a blur of speed and grace as he swiftly neutralized each dwarf with calcted strikes. The sh of his strikes against their bodies reverberated through the room, echoing the dominance of the intruder.
Within moments, the power room fell into an eerie silence, disrupted only by the unconscious forms of the dwarves strewn across the floor. Saber stood amidst them, his chest rising and falling with controlled breaths, his eyes scanning the room for any signs of further disturbance.
As Saber surveyed the power room, his gaze fell upon the intricate mechanism that powered the entire n building. Golden tablets adorned the contraption, their engraved runes pulsating with energy. He knew that disabling this mechanism would not only plunge the room into darkness but also cut off the power supply to the entire building.
With a resolute expression, Saber approached the mechanism, his movements graceful yet purposeful. He studied the interlocking gears, the delicate wiring, and the intricate channels that carried the energy. In a disy of raw strength, he ripped apart a section of the mechanism, causing sparks to shower the room in a mesmerizing disy.
But disabling the mechanism entirely required more than just brute force. Saber drew upon his ancient knowledge and honed instincts to identify the vulnerable points within the system. With calcted precision, he unleashed a series of powerful punches, targeting specific junctions and conduits, severing their connections with resounding cracks.
As each blownded, the room trembled, echoing the impact of Saber''s strikes. The once steady hum of energy faded into a dull silence, apanied by the fading glow of the golden tablets. The power room, now marred by the wreckage of the disabled mechanism, was cast into darkness as the lights flickered and died.
The power to the entire n building had been severed, ensuring that Saber''s presence would remain shrouded in shadows as he continued his mission. With the darkness as his ally, he would now navigate the vast halls and corridors, seeking out the n heads and delivering the Dark Lord''s ultimatum.
Meanwhile, in a dimly lit chamber, a group of old dwarves gathered around arge oak table, their weathered faces illuminated by the soft glow of cigar embers. Wisps of smoke curled in the air as they deliberated on the best course of action to seize the opportunity presented by the destruction of the Guardian Guild.
"We''ve been given a rare chance here,ds," one grizzled dwarf with a long white beard spoke with a deep, rumbling voice. "With the Guardians scattered, we can expand our influence and im what''s rightfully ours."
"Aye," another dwarf chimed in, his voice tinged with a touch of greed. "The resources, the territories... It''s all ripe for the taking. We must strike while the iron is hot."
As they plotted and debated their next move, their grand hall suddenly flickered with an unsettling glow, causing the chandeliers above them to tremble before plunging into darkness. The room echoed with the grumbles and curses of the dwarves, their frustration palpable.
"st those imbeciles in the power room!" one dwarf growled, his hand pounding on the table. "How many times have we told them to keep the lights on?"
Amidst their collective vexation, the heavy wooden doors of the chamber creaked open, revealing a figure standing in the threshold. Shadows danced upon the walls as the dim light from the hallway cast an ethereal glow upon the mysterious intruder.
The dwarves squinted, their eyes adjusting to the darkness, and they vaguely made out the figure''s silhouette, holding two other dwarves by the hand. The captives appeared unconscious, their forms limp and lifeless.
"What in the depths is this?" one dwarf eximed, his voice filled with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.
The figure stepped forward, revealing a tall and imposing presence. His gaze, piercing and intense, seemed to cut through the darkness. The dwarves'' eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and unease as they recognized the figure as Saber, the enigmatic intruder.
Saber''s voice, dripping with quiet authority, broke the silence. "Gentlemen, it seems there has been a change of ns. The Dark Lord demands your attention." His tone held an undeniable weight, leaving the dwarves captivated by a mixture of fear and curiosity.
The old dwarves exchanged uncertain nces, their minds racing toprehend the sudden turn of events. They knew they stood in the presence of a formidable adversary, and their instincts warned them to tread cautiously.
As Saber stood there, the captives still held in his grip, the grand hall remained enveloped in darkness. The flickering glow of extinguished candles and the lingering scent of cigar smoke filled the air, creating an atmosphere thick with anticipation.
The dwarves, their voices momentarily silenced, awaited Saber''s next move, unsure of what fate awaited them under themand of the Dark Lord''s emissary.
Chapter 985 Another Great Clan Down II
Saber strode confidently into the room, his eyes scanning the dwarves as he locked the door behind him. In response, the dwarves sprang into action, rushing to the side of the room where their weapons were kept. Each dwarf retrieved a formidable war hammer or war axe, weapons that were nearly as tall as they were. Their determined expressions masked the fear that flickered within their eyes, a fear they couldn''t fully conceal.
A faint chuckle escaped Saber''s lips as he surveyed the sight before him. The image of these stout dwarves, with their long beards and sturdy frames, standing defiantly against him, amused him greatly. Yet, beneath his amusement, Saber could sense the deep-rooted apprehension that gripped the dwarves. They understood the overwhelming power he possessed, and it haunted their every thought.
"What does the Dark Lord want?" one of the dwarf leaders spoke up, his voiceced with a mixture of defiance and desperation, hoping to dy the inevitable confrontation. But deep down, the dwarves knew there was no reinforcement that could match the might of this death angel sent by the Dark Lord.
"You know what the Dark Lord wants, dwarves," Saber replied, his voice carrying a chilling undertone. A devilish grin yed upon his lips, as he relished the fear that washed over the dwarves. "The Dark Lord has given you four days to dismantle your n. Should you choose to defy his will, you will witness the true extent of the Dark Lord''s power."
The dwarves trembled involuntarily, their minds unable to shake off the tales of the Dark Lord''s devastation. They had heard the rumors, the ounts of how he effortlessly obliterated the Guardian Guild, an organization far superior to their own in terms of raw cultivation power.
The dwarves had established their n with the sole purpose of toppling the elven empress and her empire, never intending to engage the Dark Lord directly. They were fully aware of their own limitations when it came to facing such a formidable foe. However, the audacity of the Dark Lord''s focus on their n infuriated them, stoking a fiery determination within their hearts.
Though fear and anger mingled within them, the dwarves understood that their options were limited. The choice before them was stark: dismantle their n and potentially spare themselves from the Dark Lord''s wrath, or defiantly challenge fate and face the full force of his fury.
"Why the bloody hell is he targeting our n? We haven''t done a damn thing to provoke the Dark Lord," growled another dwarf, his frustration echoing through the hall.
Saber, his hands sped behind his back, began to pace slowly in a circle, his eyes fixed on the dwarves before him. The air crackled with tension as he spoke, his voiceced with a calm but undeniable authority.
"The Dark Lord has granted you four days for a reason. Understand this, the great eight ns will all crumble under the weight of the Dark Lord''s power, one way or another," Saber exined, his words carrying a weight of truth that settled upon the dwarves like a heavy burden. "You dwarves are not foolish. You''ve heard the tales of what befell the Guardian Guild. No one ising to save you. Spare yourselves the bloodshed and dismantle your n."
A silent understanding passed between the dwarves, their gazes meeting and reflecting the fear that simmered within each of them. They knew that survival and the opportunity to plot the downfall of the elven empire were of paramount importance. To foolishly face the wrath of the Dark Lord would be to seal their own demise.
"Is the Dark Lord targeting Gondolin as well?" questioned another dwarf, their curiosity momentarily breaking through the tense atmosphere. The dwarves'' deep-rooted animosity towards the elven empire burned brightly, even in the face of their current predicament.
"He is," Saber replied, his voice tinged with a hint of indifference. "But your primary concern should be your own fate, dwarves. The Dark Lord merely wishes for the dismantling of your n. He won''t impede your pursuit of vengeance against the elves. His aim is to eradicate the great eight ns altogether."
A contemtive silence settled over the room as the dwarves absorbed Saber''s words. Their minds churned with thoughts of the looming threat, their hatred for the elven empire intertwined with the knowledge that the Dark Lord''s power was not to be underestimated.
"The Dark Lord may think he''s invincible, but mark my words,d, he cannot win against the Skyhall," spoke the oldest dwarf, his voice carrying a sense of wisdom acquired over countless years.
Saber''sughter echoed through the hall, a sound filled with amusement and something far colder. "Where was the Skyhall when the Dark Lord decimated the Guardian Guild? If you expect the Skyhall toe to your aid, you''ll be sorely disappointed. Besides," his tone turned solemn, his wordsden with an air of finality, "The Dark Lord has already won. This is just maintenance,"
A mix of resignation and defiance flickered in the dwarves'' eyes as they grappled with the harsh reality of their situation. The weight of their decision pressed heavily upon them, as they contemted whether to dismantle their cherished n or risk annihtion at the hands of the Dark Lord. The room fell into a heavy silence, broken only by the distant echoes of their own thoughts as they wrestled with the dire choices thaty before them.
"Can we trust the Dark Lord''s word that he won''t attack us once we dismantle the n?" questioned the oldest dwarf, resignation etched into his weathered face. It seemed there was no escape from their current predicament.
Saber''s gaze remained steady as he locked eyes with the aged dwarf, his voice calm butced with an underlying intensity. "The Dark Lord is not one to break his word, dwarf. If he desired your destruction, it would have already been swift and merciless."
Coming to a halt, Saber regarded the dwarves before him, their expressions a mix of trepidation and begrudging eptance. The atmosphere in the room grew heavy as they contemted their options and the inevitable sacrifices they would have to make.
"The Dark Lord has another request, dwarves," Saber continued, his voice carrying a note of calction. "He seeks ess to the abundant mines and metal reserves you possess. He requires the necessary metals to forge armor for his growing army. I know that this proposition may appear burdensome, but consider it a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things."
The oldest dwarf scoffed, a hint of frustration coloring his tone. "So, he wants to extort us as well?"
Saber''s silence spoke volumes, his deadly gaze fixated on the questioning dwarf. The air seemed to thicken with tension, causing the dwarf to wither under Saber''s piercing stare. The others, realizing the gravity of the situation, exchanged uneasy nces and murmured in agreement.
"It seems we have little choice but toply," another dwarf reluctantly admitted, voicing the sentiment shared by the rest of the n.
"We can''t stop you, but for the love of the mountain, don''t clean us out entirely," added another dwarf, the frustration in his voice tinged with resignation.
Saber''s smile returned, though its edges held a touch of menace. pping his hands together, he exuded an air of twisted satisfaction.
"Now, if you would be so kind as to lead me to your vault, I will gather the necessary metals and leave you to make your fateful decision," Saber proimed, his voice carrying a mix of authority and a dark sense of finality.
The dwarves led Saber to the center of the grand hall, where a round table stood adorned with various intricate carvings. Each dwarf removed a unique ring from their fingers, cing it carefully into a hollowed-out space in front of their seat. As the rings settled into their designated ces, a brilliant glow emitted from each one, casting a radiant light across the room.
To the astonishment of the dwarves, the round table split open with a low rumble, revealing a hidden staircase leading downward into the depths of the earth. The steps were hewn from sturdy stone, illuminated by soft torchlight that flickered eerily in the dimly lit underground path.
With trepidation mingling with a glimmer of hope, the dwarves embarked on the descent, Saber following closely behind. His presence brought a modicum of reassurance as he spoke in a steady voice, attempting to calm their anxieties.
"Fear not, dwarves. The Dark Lord does not covet your treasures. His focus lies on the metals needed for his army''s armors and swords," Saber exined, his tone carrying a note of sincerity.
The dwarves exchanged nces, their curiosity piqued as they navigated the winding path. One of the dwarves, his voiceden with concern, broke the silence. "We''ve heard rumors, tales of the Dark Lord taking many of our kin and forcing them to build his grand castle. Are these rumors true?"
Saber''sughter rang through the cavernous space, bouncing off the stone walls. "ves, you say? Oh, how the rumors can twist and turn. Let me enlighten you, my dear dwarves. Those who have joined the Dark Lord''s construction projects are far from being ves. They receive a handsome sum of gold coins for their services every month, and their nights are filled with joyful drink parties."
The dwarves stopped in their tracks, their eyes widening in disbelief. The notion that their kin were not mere ves but rather wellpensated workers and revelers shook their preconceived notions. A moment of silence passed as they contemted this revtion, their minds racing with newfound possibilities.
"If what you say is true," one dwarf muttered, his voice tinged with uncertainty, "then there may be more to the Dark Lord than meets the eye."
Saber nodded, a knowing smile ying upon his lips. "Indeed, dwarves. The Dark Lord''s intentions may not align with what you''ve been led to believe. But for now, let us focus on the path ahead. We have metals to collect and decisions to make."
The dwarves'' curiosity burned brightly as they continued their descent, their questions still lingering in the air. Finally, unable to contain their inquisitiveness any longer, one of the dwarves spoke up.
"Why is the Dark Lord going against the Skyhall and the Great Eight ns? What is his end game?" the dwarf asked, his voice tinged with a mix of curiosity and concern.
Saber, his eyes gleaming with a hint of understanding, turned to face the dwarf. "The Dark Lord is not so different from you dwarves, seeking revenge against the elves who stripped you of your cultivation power," he answered. "It was the Skyhall and the Great Eight ns who instigated the conflict with the Dark Lord. He is merely defending himself and seeking justice."
The dwarves exchanged knowing nces, a flicker of recognition dancing in their eyes. They had long carried the weight of their grievances against the elves, their desire for retribution simmering within their hearts. The revtion that the Dark Lord shared a simr motivation resonated with them on a deep level.
Their descent through the underground path came to an end as they reached a massive iron vault, standing tall and imposing before them. The dwarves approached it with reverence, their hands moving in a rhythmic pattern as they tapped on the door. With each tap, the vault responded, its mechanisms whirring and nking until, atst, it swung open with a mighty creak.
The sight that met their eyes was nothing short of breathtaking. The vault revealed its hidden treasures, glistening in the dim light. Gold and silver coins, precious gems, and magnificent artifacts adorned the shelves and gleamed from within ornate chests. The glimmer of the treasures cast a mesmerizing light upon Saber''s face, illuminating the longing and determination etched upon his features.
Chapter 986 Trista, Vampire Beauty
Meanwhile, Trista, the red-haired and alluring elder vampire, had arrived at the hidden ind on the far side of the Ozer continent. As she approached, the mist-shrouded ind emerged from the depths of the vast ocean, revealing its mysterious and enigmatic presence.
The ind stood as a solitary fortress, its rugged cliffs jutting out defiantly against the crashing waves. Thick vegetation covered thend, intertwining with ancient ruins that spoke of a forgotten era. The air hung heavy with an otherworldly atmosphere, as if the ind held secrets that yearned to be unraveled.
Above the ind, a couple of airships floated and hovered, their sails adorned with the golden insignia of the Guardian Guild¡ªa bold ''G'' that symbolized protection and order. Trista''s lips curled into a mocking smirk as she observed the oblivious guardians aboard the airships, unaware of the fate that had befallen their once revered guild.
"Little do they know," Trista snickered to herself, her voice filled with derision. "Their precious Guardian Guild is no more. Soon, they shall join their fallenrades in the realm of the dead."
With a graceful motion, Trista took to the air, effortlessly soaring above the ind without the need for wings. Her eyes scanned thendscape below, alert for any potential dangers that might lie in wait.
As she flew, Trista''s keen senses detected a gathering of guardians near a group of miners. Intrigued, she descended closer, her crimson gaze fixated on the conversation unfolding among the guardians on the hovering ship.
"I can''t wait to return home," said a tall, muscr guardian with a scruffy beard, his armor gleaming in the sunlight. "This waiting game is getting boring. We need some action."
A younger guardian, donning a sleek silver armor, nodded in agreement. "I heard rumors that the higher-ups are hiding something from us. And did you hear about the miner who killed himself? It''s all because of this strange energy deposit they want us to unearth. It''s driving people mad."
Trista listened intently, her interest piqued. The mention of a powerful energy deposit and its effect on the miners intrigued her. The guardians themselves were unaware of the true nature of the task they had been assigned.
With her crimson lips curling into a sly smile, Trista decided to delve deeper into this mystery. The unsuspecting guardians had unwittingly provided her with valuable information, and she intended to make the most of it.
Hovering on the outskirts of the ind, hidden amidst the mist, Trista plotted her next move. She knew that the strongest guardian on the ind was merely at the Soul Refining stage¡ªa stage below her own cultivation level, the Fusion Stage. This knowledge only fueled her confidence, knowing that she held a significant advantage.
Trista''s suddennding on the deck sent shockwaves of panic and chaos through the unsuspecting guardians. Startled by her unexpected presence, they stumbled back, their eyes wide with disbelief and fear. The air crackled with tension as they beheld the seductive smile ying upon her lips, her eyes glistening with a cold, deadly intent.
"Hello, boys," Trista greeted them, her voiceced with a hint of amusement. As her lips curled back, revealing her fangs, a collective gasp escaped the guardians. "Vampire," they whispered, their voices filled with both dread and awe.
With a sly smile, Trista reassured them, her tone dripping with wicked charm. "Fear not, my dear guardians. I promise to make your deaths as painless as possible."
The guardians hesitated, caught between the realization of facing a formidable opponent and the reluctance to surrender without a fight. Before they coulde to a decision, Trista sprang into action, her movements a blur of grace and lethal precision.
She descended upon them with a frenzy of unleashed power, tearing through their defenses like a predator unleashed upon its prey. Blood sttered across the deck as she rent apart their feeble resistance, each strike a symphony of destruction. Necks snapped with bone-chilling finality, their bodies crumpling lifelessly in her wake.
The deck became a macabre tableau of carnage, strewn with the broken forms of once-proud guardians. Trista stood amidst the wreckage, her red hair tumbling around her, drenched in the blood of her fallen foes. Her eyes gleamed with a mixture of triumph and hunger, her fangs stained crimson.
Silence descended upon the deck, punctuated only by the softpping of waves against the airship. The guardians, who had dared to challenge the darkness, nowy defeated, their hopes shattered and their lives extinguished.
As Trista reveled in her victory, her smile vanished abruptly when a slight pain seared through her shoulder. An arrow had found its mark, prating her flesh. The wound did not deter her, but it ignited a cold fury within her.
Slowly turning, Trista fixed her gaze upon the guardian who had managed to escape her initial onught. The sheer intensity of her killing intent radiated from her eyes, causing a wave of terror to wash over the guardian. His hands trembled as he notched another arrow, infused with golden arch energy.
Desperation fueled his actions as he unleashed the arrow, hoping to halt the relentless vampire. But Trista was far from an easy prey. With lightning-quick reflexes, she snatched the arrow out of the air, her grip tightening around the shaft until it splintered in her grasp.
A feral grin spread across Trista''s face as she bared her fangs, a chilling disy of her predatory nature. Without hesitation, sheunched herself at the guardian with an unmatched speed, her movements blurred in a flurry of deadly grace.
Seizing him by the throat, Trista sank her fangs deep into the exposed flesh of the guardian''s neck. A surge of energy coursed through her as she fed upon his life force. With each passing second, the guardian''s youth seemed to drain away, his once-vibrant body withering into a desated husk.
In a matter of mere moments, the guardian''s life force was extinguished, leaving nothing but a mummified corpse in Trista''s grasp. She released her grip, letting the lifeless form crumple to the deck, its vitality sucked dry.
Trista wiped the remnants of blood from her lips, her eyes gleaming with a mix of satisfaction and hunger. The taste of the guardian''s essence still lingered upon her tongue, fueling her power and lust for more.
The deck now bore witness to the aftermath of yet another merciless disy of Trista''s deadly prowess. The fallen guardiansy strewn about, their bodies discarded and lifeless. Trista stood amidst the carnage, a figure of chilling elegance and unfathomable darkness. She surveyed her surroundings, her red hair cascading around her like a curtain of blood, as the mist-swathed ind whispered secrets yet to be uncovered.
Trista''s wound on her shoulder mended itself with supernatural speed, a testament to her superior vampiric regeneration. As her body swiftly recovered, she ascended into the air, hovering above the hovering airship, her red hair billowing around her like mes in the wind. With a wave of her hand, she cast an ancient spell, its name lost to time, but its power unmistakable.
A crimson mist rose from the fallen guardians, their lifeblood summoned by Trista''s dark sorcery. The blood floated through the air, swirling and dancing as if guided by an invisible hand. It wove intricate patterns, like an ethereal tapestry, and enveloped the giant warship below. The vessel became ensconced in a cloak of pulsating red, the blood wrapping around it like a macabre shroud.
Trista''s gaze turned downwards, her eyes piercing through the mist to behold the guardians on the ind below. Their expressions shifted from shock to pure terror as they witnessed the blood-covered ship and the enigmatic figure floating above. Their minds raced, trying toprehend the supernatural spectacle before them, but their fear overwhelmed any rational thought.
With a mere flick of her wrist, Trista exercised her control over the blood that encased the ship. The crimson threads tightened their grip, constricting and twisting. The vessel, now transformed into a horrifying harbinger of doom, broke free from its moorings and hurtled through the air like a meteor descending from the heavens.
The sight was both mesmerizing and horrifying. The ship, streaked in vivid crimson, bore down upon the ind, its trajectory unstoppable. Guardians scattered in panic, their futile attempts to flee crushed by the impending cataclysm. The earth shook beneath their feet as the vessel crashed into the ind, a cataclysmic collision that rent the air with a thunderous roar.
The impact unleashed an inferno of destruction, splintering the once tranquil ind into andscape of chaos. Mountains crumbled, mes licked the sky, and the echoes of screams filled the air. The guardians, who had dared to defy the darkness, were now victims of their own hubris, their lives extinguished in a devastating disy of otherworldly power.
Trista''s lips curled into a sinister smile as she surveyed the aftermath of destruction. "The Dark Lord will be pleased," she murmured, her voice dripping with satisfaction, "to learn that these guardians have met their demise."
Descending from the sky, Trista set foot on the scorched earth of the ind. The trees stood aze, their branches reaching out like fiery fingers. Splintered wood from the shattered airshipy strewn about, engulfed in mes that cast flickering shadows across the scene. The ground was littered with the fallen guardians, some lying lifeless while others writhed in agony, their groans of pain filling the air.
Ignoring the wounded guardians, Trista''s gaze locked onto the mouth of a nearby cave. With a surge of unnatural speed, she dashed towards it, her form disappearing into the darkness. The cave exuded an eerie atmosphere, its depths shrouded in an imprable ckness. Mining equipmenty discarded along the path, a testament to the ind''s previous upants.
As Trista ventured deeper into the cave, torchlight flickered in the distance, drawing the attention of some guardians who had taken shelter within its depths. They hurried towards her, their weapons at the ready, only to be met with a swift and merciless demise. Their necks snapped with bone-chilling finality, their bodies falling lifelessly to the ground.
Pressing onward, Trista continued her solitary journey through thebyrinthine cave. Finally, she reached a cavernous opening, where a small ray of sunlight pierced through the ceiling, illuminating the scene below. Water trickled around the edges, forming a delicate, meandering stream. In the center of the chamber, encased within a cage of peculiar metal, crackled a pulsating ball of ck energy. Ancient skeletons, weathered and deste,y scattered around it like forgotten guardians of the past.
However, suddenly she heard a whisper, a whisper in the air. A chill ran down Trista''s spine as the soft whisper drifted through the air. "Release me," it cooed, its wordsced with promises of immense power. Her head throbbed, the weight of the offer pressing upon her mind. Yet, she fought against the allure, knowing the consequences of sumbing to such temptation.
With steely determination, Trista activated the earpiece nestled in her ear, connecting her with the Dark Lord. "I have found the energy deposit," she conveyed with urgency, her voiceced with a mix of excitement and caution. "But you muste quickly. There is something more... something dangerous."
Unbeknownst to the world, the sh between the Dark Lord and the ancient evil marked just the beginning of a cataclysmic battle. This energy deposit, a relic of unimaginable power, was but a precursor to the Dark Lord''s rise to dominance. However, little did he know that this ancient evil, born from the depths of time, had slumbered long before even the gods and Omegas existed. As these dark forces collided, the world stood on the precipice of a new era, where the fate of all living beings would be shaped by the conflict between two unstoppable forces of darkness.
Chapter 987 Michael Joins The Ancient Dark Queen
An hourter, Michael arrived at the cave, drawn by Trista''s urgent call. As he stepped into the dimly lit cavern, a sense of foreboding washed over him, for the atmosphere was heavy with an overwhelming presence of dark energy. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized the magnitude of the evil lurking within the cave.
"Trista," Michael said, his voiceced with a mixture of admiration and concern. "You have done well. It is time for you to leave this ce."
Trista, her red hair slightly disheveled and her eyes still gleaming with the remnants of her earlier bloodlust, nodded in acknowledgment. She understood the gravity of the situation and trusted Michael''s judgment. Reluctantly, she turned and made her way toward the cave''s entrance, leaving Michael to face the ancient evil alone.
As Trista departed, Michael''s presence seemed to repel the malevolent energy that permeated the air. It was as if he possessed an innate immunity to the darkness that filled the cave. Though he could feel its weight pressing upon him, his resolve remained unyielding.
With a steady gaze, Michael took a step forward, ready to confront the ancient evil that dwelled within.
Thedy''s whispering voice, now colder and filled with anger, resonated through the cave. "Break the iron shield and release me!" it demanded, its toneced with a sense of urgency and menace. "Or face the consequences!"
Michael, undeterred by the threatening voice, scoffed and let out a mocking chuckle. "You cannot threaten nor tempt me," he dered, his voice firm and unwavering. "I know of your origins, and how could you call yourself a Queen when you are scattered and caged like this?"
The voice grew more furious, echoing with a mixture of rage and frustration. "You puny human. You have no idea who you are talking to. I am the Queen of All!"
Michael remained resolute, his eyes gleaming with a hint of defiance. "Your ims of power may have been true in the distant past, but now you are nothing more than a shadow of your former self. Your time has passed, and you shall remain sealed within this cage."
To Michael''s surprise, standing before him were the remnants of Mugashuku''s master and the self-proimed ancient being known as ''The Queen''. During his travels through different universes, he hade across tales of the Queen, a threat that loomed over all existence. However, Michael had chosen to disregard her, for her soul had been fragmented and scattered across countless dimensions. Though her forces tirelessly sought to reunite her soul fragments and restore her power, it would take many years. Michael had more immediate concerns to attend to, and he knew hecked the strength to face even one of the Queen''s generals, let alone the Queen herself.
Finding himself alone with this remnant of the Queen, Michael saw an opportunity to manipte the situation to his advantage. With a calm demeanor and a hint of amusement, he proposed, "Since we find ourselves in this isted space, why don''t we engage in a conversation and discover that we may share more inmon than you realize?"
The Queen''s anger red, her ancient presence seething with hostility. "You, a mere ant, dare to suggest such a thing? I should end your existence for your audacity!" she retorted, her voice dripping with contempt.
A sly smile yed across Michael''s lips as he further provoked the ancient being. "Listen to yourself. You, who now yearns for the help of a mere ant to escape this cage. It seems you find yourself in this situation because you were too much of a bitch on your time," he taunted, purposefully igniting the Queen''s fury.
The Queen''s rage intensified, her anger fueling her desire for revenge. But Michael remained unfazed, his demeanor unyielding and nonchnt. In this encounter, the bnce of power tilted in his favor, and he reveled in his ability to manipte and undermine the ancient being before him.
"You should know that your General Mugashuku has sought my assistance in locating the dark energy crystals, which I suspect contain fragments of your own soul," Michael stated, his voiceced with a calcted confidence. The Queen''s anger appeared to simmer down slightly upon hearing these words.
Seizing the opportunity presented by the momentary lull, Michael continued to sway the Queen''s disposition. In his mind, he weighed the possibility of joining forces with her, recognizing the potential for increased strength. Furthermore, he harbored a certain empathy for the Queen, as the world hadbeled him as evil and dark, much like they had her. Until he could ascertain her true nature, he saw no harm in utilizing her power to his own advantage. Besides, even if he were convinced of her malevolence, he knew that his options were limited. It was a matter of utilizing her and her forces to further his own goals.
"Very well, human. But let there be no mistake about who you are conversing with. While one fragment of my soul may be confined within this cage before you, countless others are not. Any of them possess the power to obliterate your very existence," the Queen warned, her voiceced with a chilling authority.
"Understood," Michael responded, his tone tinged with a confident arrogance. "You see, I am a god. Granted, perhaps a lesser deitypared to your esteemed presence, but a god nevertheless. The world and those who hold power in it brand those who possess great strength or wield unfamiliar powers as evil and dark. Theybeled me as such and banished me to another universe. Do you now see why I suggested we might share something inmon?"
With his words hanging in the air, Michael observed the Queen, awaiting her response. The bnce between their potential alliance and the inherent dangers of their association swayed delicately, leaving their future intertwined with uncertainty.
"Weaklings indeed fear power, while gods revel in it, crushing those who are beneath them. The feeble-minded call what they fear ''evil'' and ''dark.'' Regrettably, these pathetic fools have been allowed to grow and flourish," the Queen replied, her tone dripping with disdain.
"Yes, never underestimate the power of stupidity when it gathers in great numbers. This is where we can mutually benefit. As I am preupied with dealing with these imbeciles, I am unable to locate more of your scattered soul pieces. However, if you aid me in bing stronger, as you have done with your generals, I can swiftly eradicate my enemies and expedite the search for your soul fragments," Michael proposed, his voiceced with calcted pragmatism.
In response, the Queen''sughter filled the cavern, an ominous sound that sent shivers down Michael''s spine. The malicious echoes reverberated through the chamber, signifying an unsettling agreement.
"Human, do not assume that your attempts at maniption escape my notice. I can read your thoughts as clearly as the light of day. Even the weakest fragment of my soul possesses the capability to annihte your entire world in a matter of seconds. Yet, I perceive the potential benefits of utilizing you to further my own aims. Furthermore, I sense an ancient power dormant within you," the Queen dered, her voice tinged with a hidden sense of intrigue.
A chill coursed through Michael''s being as he felt the probing gaze of the ancient being, a sensation that left him feeling exposed and vulnerable.
"Iprehend now why Mugashuku chose you to locate my scattered soul pieces. This dormant power within you possesses the ability to fulfill that task. However, it remains dormant, choosing to hide from its predators. At its current stage, this power is incapable of defeating them. I can assist you in awakening this power for a limited duration in exchange for your pledge," the Queen''s words dripped with insidious intent and an icy aura of authority.
"What is it that you desire?" Michael inquired, his voice filled with a mixture of caution and curiosity.
"What you behold here is not a mere fragment of my soul, but rather my energy infused with a fraction of my consciousness. I left it as a beacon to guide the way towards my other scattered soul fragments, despite being imprisoned by someone I hold utmost disdain for," the Queen rified, her voice resonating with a mix of bitterness and determination.
"And you wish for me to locate this soul fragment that your consciousness has discovered and deliver it to Mugashuku," Michael surmised.
"Yes and no. It would be prudent for you to locate my soul piece, but instead of handing over the crystal that contains it to Mugashuku, leave it within the ce you refer to as the ''demon''s grave,''" the Queenmanded, her voice leaving no room for negotiation.
The temptation to awaken the dormant system was too alluring for Michael to resist. He recognized the symbiotic rtionship between himself and the system, realizing that if the Queen could temporarily awaken the system, he could utilize the umted badass points to locate more hidden seeds of darkness and find a permanent solution to prevent the system from remaining offline.
"I can fulfill your request. You have my word," Michael pledged, his toneced with a tinge of eagerness and caution.
"I care not for your words, human. Failure to uphold this agreement will result in the wrath of my minion, Mugashuku. You would be wise to honor your promise," the Queen warned, her voice chillingly devoid of mercy.
"Understood," Michael replied. A brief silence enveloped the cavern, broken only by the Queen''s voice as she continued to speak.
"Absorb my energy, and it shall awaken your dormant power," the Queenmanded, her words carrying amanding authority. Suddenly, a pulsating sensation surged through Michael''s mind, a familiar hum signaling the reawakening of the system. To his surprise and tion, he heard the long-lost voice of the system once again.
[System rebooting...]
[Unknown power has overridden safe mode...]
[Energy absorption hasmenced...]
The Queen''s voice echoed with amanding tone as she issued her next instruction. "Destroy the cage, human. Break the constraints that hold my energy captive," shemanded, her wordsced with a mix of authority and anticipation.
Michael''s instinctspelled him to obey, his mind filled with a surge of dark energy. Beams of darkness shot forth from his eyes, their intensity growing with each passing moment. With a tremendous burst of power, the beams struck the metal cage, shattering it into countless fragments. The once-imprisoned energy, now liberated, radiated with a strange aura, as if undergoing a transformation.
If the system had remained offline and silent, Michael''s initial instinct would have been to exercise caution and avoid breaking the cage that held the Queen''s energy. His analytical mind would have evaluated the potential risks and consequences of such an action. However, the awakening of the system introduced a new element into the equation. Its whispered guidance and subtle influence, coupled with Michael''s trust in its judgment, shifted his perspective. The system''s suggestion to break the cage and absorb the energy resonated with his deepest instincts, convincing him that it was a necessary and advantageous course of action. In this symbiotic rtionship between man and system, theirbined instincts and the whispered promises of power led Michael to make the fateful decision to shatter the cage and embrace the Queen''s energy.
As the shattered fragments of the cage fell to the ground, the released energy began to manifest itself in a peculiar manner. It swirled and twisted, coalescing into intricate patterns and symbols that danced in the air around Michael. The energy seemed to be drawn towards him, and a powerful force drew it inward.
Within Michael''s being, the system that hadin dormant for what felt like an eternity greedily absorbed the newfound energy. It crackled and surged, merging with the dark sliver of energy that had once been the Queen''s. The merging of the two forces produced an otherworldly glow, as if a cosmic exchange was urring within Michael''s very core.
With each passing moment, the dark sliver of energy dissipated, vanishing into Michael''s body. The absorptionpleted, the once-dormant system hummed with renewed vigor, intertwining with thetent power that had been awakened. Michael''s senses sharpened, his veins pulsating with a newfound strength, as if the amalgamation of dark energy and system had forged him into something beyond human.
As the final remnants of the Queen''s energy vanished, Michael stood before the radiant aftermath of the cage''s destruction, a transformation evident in his eyes.
Chapter 988 The System Is Back Online
[System online...]
[The system will go offline in one hour...]
As the system came back online, its familiar voice echoed within Michael''s mind, bringing a sense of reassurance and excitement. "I''m d to have you back, system," he whispered. With the system''s return, Michael knew he had a powerful tool at his disposal, one that could aid him in his quest for the seeds of darkness.
"I need to know where to find more seeds of darkness," Michael stated, his voice filled with determination.
The system''s response was swift and concise. [To locate all the seeds of darkness, a total of 5 million badass points is required. Once the points are paid, I will provide you with aprehensive map containing their locations.]
Michael paused for a moment, considering the significance of the task at hand. He had worked tirelessly to umte his badass points, and now they would be put to the ultimate test. With a resolute nod, he replied, "Agreed,"
[Points deducted. Transferplete. Map containing the locations of the seeds of darkness has been added to your system storage.]
A surge of satisfaction coursed through Michael''s veins as he felt the weight of the task ahead. The map would be his guide, leading him to the hidden sources of power and darkness.
"And system, do you recall the Phoenix project we previously discussed? It seems that the time hase for itspletion," Michael remarked, his voice tinged with a hint of anticipation. "Although I hope it won''t be necessary, I have a feeling that I might need it soon,"
[The system is capable ofpleting the Phoenix project, but a total of 10 million badass points is required for its execution.]
"Consider it done," Michael responded without hesitation. With the system fully operational, even if only for an hour, he wasted no time in setting his ns into motion, carefully orchestrating the unfolding events and preparing the stage for the imminent battles thaty ahead.
After returning from the cave, Michael entered his forge in the Demon''s Grave, where the metal he required from Saber was waiting for him. The flickering mes of the forge cast eerie shadows on the walls, creating an atmosphere of anticipation. He approached the workbench and carefully retrieved the parchment where he had sketched the designs for his armor and Gaya''s armor.
Unfolding the parchment, Michael studied the intricate details of each piece, envisioning how they woulde to life. He knew that thepletion of his armor required not only skill but also the finest metals. With the system back online, it had provided him with aprehensive list of suitable metals, thanks to the information he had received from Saber.
However, as he reviewed the list, Michael realized that his priorities had shifted. He had spent a significant amount of his umted badass points on life-saving backup ns and crucial resources that were more important than obtaining the dark ore for his armor. The cost of acquiring the dark ore through badass points exceeded the remaining points he possessed.
Undeterred by this setback, Michael made a decision. He would proceed with forging his armor using the worldly metals avable to him, knowing that the expertise of a skilled cksmith like himself could still create a formidable piece of equipment. He would reserve the option to upgrade the armor with the dark ore in the future once he had umted the necessary points or discovered alternative means of obtaining it.
With resolute determination, Michael began gathering the required materials, carefully selecting the metals that possessed the desired properties and strength. Igniting the forge with a wave of his hand, he set the temperature to the perfect level, allowing the metals to heat and soften.
As the mes danced and the heat intensified, Michael wielded his hammer with practiced precision, shaping the metals ording to the design he had sketched. Each strike echoed through the forge, resonating with his unwavering determination.
Hours turned into days as Michael tirelessly worked on his armor, meticulously crafting each piece with unwavering attention to detail. The ng of metal against metal filled the air, harmonizing with the rhythmic beating of his heart. With every strike, he poured his essence into the creation, infusing the armor with his dark energy.
Throughout the forging process, thoughts of Gaya lingered in Michael''s mind. He knew he had to fashion armor worthy of his soon-to-be wife, a reflection of her strength and beauty. He took a moment to sketch the design for Gaya''s armor, ensuring that itplemented his own while also capturing her essence.
After a long day of forging, Elidyr entered the forge, his eyes filled with concern. He couldn''t help but worry about Michael, who seemedpletely engrossed in his work, oblivious to the impending wedding day. As Elidyr stepped into the dimly lit forge, his gaze fell upon two tall figures shrouded in dark cloth, piquing his curiosity.
"My Lord, your wedding is tomorrow. You should get some rest and prepare for the big day," Elidyr gently reminded Michael, hoping to draw his attention away from the forge.
Michael''s face lit up with excitement as he turned to face Elidyr. With anticipation in his voice, he eximed, "Ah, Elidyr, you''ve arrived at the perfect time." As Elidyr''s eyes fell upon the draped figures, Michael approached them, his movements filled with a sense of pride and aplishment. Slowly and deliberately, he removed the ck cloth, revealing the two awe-inspiring armors he had forged.
The first armor, crafted ording to Michael''s sketch, emanated an intimidating presence. The chest te, adorned with a fearsome skull, had crimson eyes that seemed to exude an aura of menacing power. Gone was the need for a mask, as the armor covered Michael''s entire body from neck to toe. Metallic wings, seamlessly integrated into the armor''s structure, caught the light with a reflective gleam, hinting at their immense strength. These wings bestowed upon him the ability to defy gravity, enabling him to navigate treacherous environments such as the perilous Demon''s Grave. The armor incorporated various powerful tools, including the APD Mark 3 grappling hook and the versatile Olympus. A spraying mechanism on his palm provided him with the means to release potent toxins and poisons when necessary. What delighted him most, however, was the ingenious face cloak system he had devised. With a simple activation, a menacing skull mask concealed his face, offering protection in underwater settings or when he required additional shielding for his head. Majestic capes billowed regally when the wings were closed, and sword sheathes adorned his back, allowing easy ess to his trusted des. Strategically ced slots around his waist were designed to hold an array of gadgets and tools, ensuring he was prepared for any battle thaty ahead.
Besides Michael''s armor stood Gaya''s counterpart, an identical ensemble with slight alterations to amodate her feminine form. The breastte was meticulously shaped to fit her curves, while an intricate engraving of a cobra graced the center of the skull emblem. The armor, predominantly ck, featured silver and red linings along the edges, entuating its dark allure. Just like Michael''s, Gaya''s armor possessed the metallic ck wings that promised flight and freedom. The surface of the armor shimmered, its sheen reflecting the forge''s flickering mes, while an air of terror emanated from its terrifying appearance.
Elidyr stood in awe, beholding the magnificent armors that Michael had created. The craftsmanship, attention to detail, and sheer power exuded from them left him speechless. It was clear that these armors were not mere tools for battle but embodiments of Michael and Gaya''s journey, their devotion to each other, and the darkness that coursed through their veins. In that moment, Elidyr understood that Michael''smitment to forging the perfect armors had a profound significance beyond their physical form. They represented their unity, their unyielding determination to face whatever challenges awaited them as a couple.
"Elidyr, please see to it that these armors are delivered to the Phoenix project," Michael instructed as he turned to leave the forge. "I think it''s time for me to freshen up. The scent of metal and fire clings to me."
With that, Michael strode out of the forge, the weight of his responsibilities temporarily lifted from his shoulders. Leaving the castle behind, he made his way towards a nearby waterfall, a ce of tranquility where he could cleanse both his body and mind. The anticipation of the uing wedding filled his thoughts, and even though Eve had kept the location a secret, he had full confidence in Saber and the elder vampires to ensure its security.
As the cascading water enveloped him, washing away the remnants of soot and sweat, Michael allowed himself a moment of respite. The cool mist embraced him, rejuvenating his spirit and sharpening his focus. Being the Dark Lord, the most formidable entity in the world, he knew that his presence alone was often enough to deter any potential threats. Yet, he remained vignt, understanding the importance of the asion and the need for meticulous preparations.
As the water fell gracefully around him, Michael contemted the path he had walked, the battles fought, and the sacrifices made to reach this momentous day. He couldn''t help but feel a surge of gratitude for the loyalrades who had stood by his side, each ying an integral role in his journey. Their unwavering support had brought him to the precipice of this joyous union with Gaya, and for that, he was truly grateful.
Emerging from the waterfall, his body refreshed and his mind clear, Michael made his way back to the castle. As he approached, he could sense the energy and excitement building in the air. The grandeur of the asion was palpable, and he was ready to embrace the celebration of love that awaited him. With his armor forged, his subordinates handling the necessary arrangements, and his heart filled with anticipation, Michael stepped into the castle, ready to embark on the next chapter of his extraordinary life.
**********************
While Michael was preparing for his big day, Dagon stepped into the temple of the God of Darkness in the realm of gods, a foreboding atmosphere enveloped him. The chamber was shrouded in darkness, lit only by a few candles that burned with an eerie blue light. Shadows danced along the ancient stone walls, casting twisted silhouettes upon the cold floor. At the far end of the temple stood a colossal statue, a depiction of the god of darkness himself¡ªMichael.
The temple''s worshippers, devout followers of the God of Darkness,y scattered and unconscious, felled by Dagon''s minions who had swiftly subdued them. Silence hung heavy in the air, broken only by Dagon''s echoing footsteps as he advanced toward the towering statue. As he reached the base, Dagon extended his hand, his fingertips grazing the cool surface of the obsidian figure.
To his astonishment, the statue quivered beneath his touch as if infused with a surge of life. A hiddenpartment, previously concealed beneath the statue''s feet, creaked open, revealing a small ck box made of a mysterious, shimmering metal. A golden light radiated from within, casting an ethereal glow upon Dagon''s face.
"Graces of gods," Dagon mumbled in awe, his eyes fixed on the radiant box. With trembling hands, he carefully lifted the precious artifact from its resting ce. His gaze flickered up to meet the unyielding gaze of the statue above him, his lips curling into a wicked grin.
"Let the battle begin," Dagon dered, his voiceced with anticipation. With a decisive motion, he opened the ck box, and a flurry of sparkling lights burst forth, darting through the air before vanishing into the shadows beyond the temple''s boundaries.
Chapter 989 The Big Wedding
The long-awaited day had finally arrived. The ind, bathed in the ethereal glow of three dazzling moons, exuded an enchanting aura. Lush green grass, meticulously pruned and shimmering under the moonlight, stretched out as far as the eye could see. Delicate petals of ck roses adorned the pathways, leading to a grand altar adorned with obsidian pirs and silver draperies that billowed gently in the breeze.
The ind had been transformed into a realm of dark elegance, where nature and artistry melded seamlessly. Moonlight cascaded through intricately woven canopies, casting enchanting patterns upon the ground. Crystal chandeliers, suspended from ancient trees, twinkled with a thousand iridescent lights, creating an otherworldly ambiance.
Floral arrangements of ck orchids, crimson lilies, and dark ca lilies mingled with rare thorny vines, forming a tapestry of contrasting beauty. Candles flickered in ornate holders, casting a soft, mesmerizing glow upon the faces of the guests.
A majestic arch, adorned with intertwining vines and delicate silver chains, framed the couple''s ceremonial space. At its pinnacle, a magnificent ck opal, glowing with an inner fire, stood as a symbol of eternal union.
As the guests arrived, they marveled at the breathtaking scene that unfolded before their eyes. They found their seats upon silver-padded chairs, their backs adorned with midnight blue satin bows. Soft, haunting melodies filled the air as skilled musicians yed haunting melodies on stringed instruments.
From the edges of the ind, the sapphire waves of the dark seapped gently against the shore, harmonizing with the symphony of love and celebration. The sky above was an artist''s canvas, painted with countless stars that twinkled in harmony with the moons, creating a celestial canopy overhead.
All around, a sense of joy and anticipation hung in the air, as friends, allies, and dignitaries gathered to witness the union of the Dark Lord and his beloved. This was a moment that transcended darkness, a moment of unity and newfound hope that would forever be etched in the annals of their world.
On the edge of the ind, three magnificent portals had been meticulously constructed. The first,rger and adorned with swirling obsidian patterns, awaited the arrival of the Dark Lord himself. The second, adorned with delicate silver and gold filigree, stood ready for the radiant entrance of the bride, Gaya. The third, for the esteemed guests, shimmered with a translucent energy, inviting them to step into the realm of enchantment.
Only the closest friends and family of the Dark Lord and Gaya had received the honor of an invitation. As the portals hummed with power, a sense of anticipation rippled through the air. The array of arrays and protective runes, intricately etched into the ground around the ind, glowed softly, serving as both a decorative element and a security measure.
Among the first to emerge from the guest portal was Cindy, her eyes sparkling with excitement. She was apanied by ire, a striking beauty with cascading blonde hair, who guided her gently towards their designated seating. Raylene, Cindy''s mother, exuded elegance as she walked gracefully alongside them, her presencemanding attention and respect.
Saber, a trusted ally and confidant of the Dark Lord, strode with a dignified ai. Tiberius, a formidable warrior with a quiet strength, stood tall and proud, his attire a perfect blend of regality and power. Dr, the imposing orc, his rough exterior softened by a touch of sophistication, made his way towards the seating area with a determined stride.
Each guest, dressed in their finest attire, showcased a unique blend of elegance and individuality. They moved with grace and purpose, their footsteps punctuated by the gentle rustle of rich fabrics. Laughter and whispers filled the air as old friends greeted one another, their anticipation growing with each passing moment.
As they took their seats, the ind became a tapestry of colors and personalities, a gathering of those closest to the Dark Lord and Gaya. The stage was set, the scene beautifully orchestrated, as they awaited the arrival of the Dark Lord and his radiant bride.
The guests looked around in awe, their eyes wide with wonder at the breathtaking beauty of the ind and its enchanting decorations. Trista, her voice filled with admiration, remarked, "Eve has truly outdone herself. This is a sight to behold." Saber nodded in agreement, his usually stoic expression softened by a genuine smile. "Indeed, she has poured her heart and soul into making this day unforgettable."
Tiberius, his gaze fixed on the intricate details, marveled, "I''ve never seen anything quite like this. It''s as if we''ve stepped into a realm of pure magic." Aria, her voice filled with excitement, added, "Every little detail, from the sparkling lights to the delicate flowers, it''s like a dreame true."
Raylene, her eyes shimmering with pride, turned to ire and said, "You and Eve have done an exceptional job. This is beyond anything I could have imagined." ire blushed modestly, her voice tinged with gratitude, "Thank you, Raylene. It was an honor to assist in creating this magical ambiance."
As the guests marveled at the decorations, their attention was momentarily drawn to a flicker of movement in the sky. Trista''s eyes widened as she whispered, "Do you see them?" Saber nodded, his voice barely audible, "The vampire death squad members, concealed from prying eyes. They''re the Dark Lord''sst line of defense, vignt and prepared for any unexpected turn of events."
Gibson, Corey, Titus, Optimus, and Ricky exchanged impressed nces, their voices filled with awe. "Such attention to detail and thoughtfulness," Gibson remarked. "Indeed," Corey agreed, "It''s clear that no expense was spared in creating this grand spectacle." Titus added, "The Dark Lord and Gaya truly deserve nothing but the best on their special day."
Optimus, his voice filled with admiration, stated, "I''m honored to be part of this celebration. It''s like stepping into a fairy tale." Ricky nodded, his eyes reflecting the shimmering lights surrounding them. "I couldn''t agree more. This ind and the atmosphere, it''s simply magical."
As the guests continued to explore the enchanting setting, their expressions mirrored a shared sentiment of amazement and gratitude. This was a momentous asion, a testament to love and unity, where every detail had been carefully crafted to create a truly unforgettable experience.
Cindy, her eyes sparkling with excitement, tugged at Raylene''s sleeve and eximed, "Mommy, Ghost and Gaya are going to look so beautiful as husband and wife! I want a wedding like this when I grow up!" Her innocence and enthusiasm brought smiles to everyone''s faces.
ire, unable to contain her amusement, knelt down to Cindy''s eye level and teasingly remarked, "Well, Cindy, we''ll have to find you the perfect prince charming when the timees." Trista yfully joined in, adding, "But we won''t let you get married just yet. You''re too young!"
Gibson, Corey, Titus, Optimus, and Ricky chuckled at the adorable exchange, theirughter blending with the gentle waves crashing against the shore. Gibson ruffled Cindy''s hair affectionately, saying, "You have plenty of time, little one. Enjoy being a child for now."
Cindy pouted yfully, crossing her arms and retorting, "But it''s so pretty! I want a big wedding with flowers and lights just like Ghost and Gaya''s!" Her determination and enthusiasm brought warmth to their hearts.
Raylene, her voice filled with love and amusement, hugged Cindy tightly. "One day, sweetheart, you''ll have the wedding of your dreams. But for now, let''s enjoy this beautiful celebration and make wonderful memories together."
As the guestsughed and shared in the joyful banter, the innocence of Cindy''s wishes reminded them of the preciousness of youth and the magic of love. They cherished this moment, knowing that it would be a memory to hold dear for years toe.
When the anticipation reached its peak, the atmosphere crackled with excitement. The portal designated for the Dark Lord shimmered with an ethereal glow, drawing everyone''s attention. Dark mes danced along the edges of the portal, casting a mesmerizing y of shadows.
And then, with an air of regal grace, the Dark Lord stepped through the portal, apanied by the ever-loyal Elidyr. Gasps of astonishment escaped from the lips of the guests as theyid eyes upon their enigmatic leader.
Dressed in a tuxedo that perfectly blended the elegance of the modern world with the medieval ir of their realm, the Dark Lord was a vision of dashing allure. The ensemble consisted of a tailored ck coat with intricate silver embroidery along the edges, highlighting hismanding presence. The coat cascaded down to his knees, entuating his lean physique and regal stature.
Beneath the coat, he wore a crisp white shirt, its cor adorned with a ck silk cravat elegantly tied in a knot. His pants were a deep shade of charcoal, tailored to perfection, while his ck leather boots added a touch of rugged sophistication.
But it was the Dark Lord''s transformation that truly left everyone stunned. He had shaved his stubble beard, revealing a chiseled jawline, and his shoulder-length ck hair was carefully pruned, framing his face with a captivating allure. His piercing eyes held a glimmer of both power and vulnerability, captivating the hearts of all who beheld him.
As whispers of awe and admiration spread through the guests, a collective realization washed over them. The Dark Lord, their feared and revered leader, was not only a formidable force but also a man of breathtaking handsomeness. The contrast of his dark aura with his striking appearance created an irresistible maism, leaving everyone mesmerized.
In that moment, the beauty of the ind and the grandeur of the wedding faded into the background. All eyes were fixed upon the Dark Lord, their hearts quickening at the sight of this unexpected and captivating transformation.
Whispers of admiration and disbelief floated through the guests, their voices tinged with awe and astonishment.
"Have you ever seen him look so... handsome?" Trista murmured, her eyes never leaving the Dark Lord.
Aria nodded in agreement, a dreamy smile ying on her lips. "I''ve always known he was powerful, but this... this is something else entirely. He''s positively enchanting."
Raylene, unable to contain her amazement, leaned in closer to ire. "Is it even possible for someone to be that attractive? Gaya is a lucky woman."
ire chuckled softly, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "I think every woman in this room is feeling a little jealous right now. Who could resist such allure?"
Cindy tugged on Saber''s sleeve, her eyes wide with wonder. "Ghost looks like a prince from a fairy tale! He''s so handsome, Saber. I want a wedding just like this!"
Saber ruffled Cindy''s hair affectionately, a yful glint in his eyes. "Well, little one, we''ll make sure your wedding is just as magical. But remember, we won''t let anyone steal you away from us so easily."
Gibson, standing nearby, chimed in with a smirk. "Sorry, Cindy, but you''re stuck with us. No one else can match up to your awesomeness."
The guestsughed, the joyous sound filling the air as they reveled in the enchanting atmosphere and the captivating presence of their Dark Lord. Each conversation, filled with admiration and yful banter, echoed the unanimous sentiment: the Dark Lord was a vision of unparalleled handsomeness, capturing the hearts of all who beheld him
Time seemed to stand still as the portal of the bride shimmered with a radiant golden light. Anticipation filled the air, and all eyes turned toward the glowing portal. Through the ethereal haze, Gaya emerged, a vision of exquisite beauty.
Gasps of admiration escaped the lips of the guests as they beheld her. Gaya''s flowing ck hair cascaded down her shoulders,plementing her wlessplexion and entuating her striking features. Her eyes sparkled with a mixture of excitement and love, while her elegant posture exuded grace and confidence.
Gaya wore a gown that seemed to have been woven from moonlight itself. The dress hugged her curves delicately, before cascading intoyers of ethereal white fabric that trailed behind her. The bodice was adorned with intricate silver embroidery, shimmering like stardust, and delicatece sleeves draped gracefully over her arms. The gown''s neckline dipped modestly, entuating her corbones and drawing attention to the radiant smile that graced her lips.
The guests were captivated, their breaths held in awe, as Gaya glided down the aisle, her every step a testament to her beauty. Michael stood at the altar, his heart racing, his eyes fixed on his radiant bride. For a moment, he was rendered speechless, his gaze locked with hers.
ire, standing beside Trista, leaned in and whispered, her voice filled with wonder, "She''s like a goddess... so stunning, it''s almost unreal."
Trista nodded, her voice filled with admiration. "He is a lucky man. She''s the epitome of elegance and beauty."
Saber, his eyes never leaving Gaya, leaned towards Raylene. "Look at her, Raylene. She''s like a celestial being. I''ve never seen a bride more radiant."
Raylene, her voice filled with emotion, replied, "She''s the perfect match for our Dark Lord. They are truly meant for each other."
Adelia, with a proud and gentle expression, walked alongside her daughter down the aisle. Vedora, perched gracefully on Adelia''s shoulder, seemed to radiate a sense of calm and wisdom, her presence adding a touch of enchantment to the scene.
All eyes were fixed on Gaya and Michael, their gazes locked, as if the world around them had faded into insignificance. The guests watched in awe as the bride and her mother made their way towards the awaiting Dark Lord.
Gaya''s every step exuded grace and elegance, her eyes sparkling with anticipation and happiness. The soft rustle of her wedding dress seemed to harmonize with the gentle breeze, lending an ethereal quality to her movement. Adelia, her face beaming with motherly pride, guided Gaya with a gentle touch, offering both support and love.
Michael stood at the altar, his eyes never leaving his bride. A sense of wonder and admiration filled his gaze as he took in the vision before him. In that moment, it was as if time stood still, and the world existed solely for their union.
The guests observed this tender exchange, their hearts swelling with joy for the couple. Whispers of awe and appreciation rippled through the crowd, as they witnessed the profound connection between Gaya and Michael.
ire, her voice filled with emotion, turned to Aria beside her. "Look at them, Aria. They are meant to be together. Such love and devotion."
Aria nodded, her eyes misty with tears of happiness. "Yes, ire. It''s as if they were destined to find each other. They look absolutely mesmerized by one another."
The atmosphere was charged with a mixture of anticipation, love, and enchantment. As Gaya drew closer to Michael, the air seemed to shimmer with the palpable energy of their union. It was a moment of profound beauty and significance, one that would forever be etched in the memories of all who bore witness to their love.
Chapter 990 Husband And Wife
Elidyr, resplendent in his ceremonial attire, stepped onto the altar, his presencemanding attention. He took his position, ready to officiate the union of Gaya and Michael, a smile of warmth and genuine happiness adorning his face.
Gaya''s eyes never left Michael, her heart swelling with a mixture of awe and love. In her eyes, he was the epitome of strength, grace, and regal charm. She marveled at how handsomely he wore his tuxedo, the subtle hints of medieval ir adding a touch of mystique to his already captivating presence.
As she stood before him, Gaya couldn''t help but feel overwhelmed by the beauty of the moment. The ind, adorned with exquisite decorations, seemed toe alive with vibrant colors and delicate details, creating a picturesque backdrop for their union. The soft glow of the three moons cast a magical radiance over the scene, enhancing its ethereal quality.
In Gaya''s eyes, Michael was not just a Dark Lord; he was her beloved, her partner, and the man who had captured her heart. She had never imagined meeting someone like him, someone who saw beyond her titles and embraced her for who she truly was. His love and devotion made her feel cherished and valued, like a queen in his presence.
As she stood beside him on this momentous day, Gaya felt an overwhelming sense of fulfillment and contentment. This was the happiest moment of her entire life, a culmination of their journey and the beginning of a new chapter filled with love, adventure, and shared destiny.
As Elidyr began the ceremony, Gaya''s gaze remained locked with Michael''s. Their eyes spoke volumes, expressing a depth of connection and understanding that surpassed words. In that moment, surrounded by loved ones and embraced by the enchanting ambiance, Gaya knew that she had found her true happiness. She was ready to embark on this extraordinary journey with Michael, hand in hand, for all eternity.
Elidyr stood before the couple, his voice carrying a soothing warmth as he began to speak, his wordsced with wisdom and sincerity.
"Dark Lord, Gaya, today we gather to celebrate the union of two souls, bound together in love andmitment. Marriage is not just a union of hearts but a promise to journey through life hand in hand, facing both joys and challenges together."
He paused, allowing his words to sink in, and continued, "In the grand tapestry of life, it is not only during the happiest times that the bond of marriage grows stronger. It is in the face of adversity, the storms that test our resolve, that we discover the true strength of our connection. It is during these moments that the foundation of trust, respect, and unwavering support is forged."
Elidyr''s voice resonated with a sense of reverence as he continued, "Marriage is a sacredmitment, a sanctuary of love and understanding where two souls find sce in one another''s embrace. It is a partnership that calls upon you, Dark Lord, and you, Gaya, to stand as pirs of strength for one another. To lift each other up in times of doubt, to provide sce in moments of sorrow, and to celebrate each other''s triumphs."
He turned his gaze towards Michael and said, "Dark Lord, as you stand here today, know that the strength of your character, the depth of your love, and the unwavering devotion you offer to Gaya will guide her through life''s uncertainties. It is through your actions and your unwavering support that you shall inspire her to be her best self, to flourish and thrive."
Elidyr''s eyes shifted to Gaya, a gentle smile gracing his lips. "And Gaya, as you stand by the side of the Dark Lord, know that your love,passion, and unwavering loyalty will serve as a beacon of light in his darkest moments. Your presence shall bring himfort, and your understanding shall be his refuge."
He turned his attention back to the couple before him, his voice filled with heartfelt sincerity. "May your journey together be blessed with unwavering love, unbreakable bonds, and a shared destiny that transcends time. Cherish one another, uplift one another, and never forget that the strength of your love will carry you through life''s greatest challenges."
As Elidyr''s words hung in the air, the atmosphere was filled with a profound sense of unity and purpose. The couple exchanged a nce, their eyes reflecting the depth of theirmitment and the promises they held within their hearts. In that moment, they knew that their love was not merely a fleeting me but a zing fire that would guide them through every step of their shared path.
Elidyr, recognizing the couple''s preference for brevity, smiled warmly and nodded. "In the spirit of your wishes, let us proceed without lengthy speeches. Dark Lord, Gaya, please share your heartfelt sentiments."
Michael took a step forward, his eyes fixed on Gaya with unwavering adoration. With a voice filled with conviction, he spoke, "I stand here today, surrounded by the love and support of those who have joined us in this celebration. But there is one truth I want to share. In this vast world, if a man ims to have fallen in love with a woman, he would never have the capacity to fall in love with another. If he does, then he never truly fell in love with the first."
His words carried a sense of absolute devotion, a testament to the depth of his love for Gaya. The guests listened intently, captivated by the sincerity and conviction in his voice.
Gaya, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears, stepped forward to speak. Her voice trembled with emotion as she addressed the gathered crowd. "I am not one for grand speeches, but I stand here today, in the presence of all the people who hold a special ce in our hearts, to say a heartfelt thank you."
Her gaze met Michael''s, and she continued, her voice filled with love and gratitude. "Thank you, for seeing me for who I truly am, for epting and embracing every part of me. You have shown me a love so pure and unconditional, it has transformed my world. Today, as we embark on this journey together, I promise to stand by your side, to cherish and nurture the love we share."
The guests apuded, touched by the sincerity of Michael and Gaya''s words. Their love, expressed in its simplest form, resonated deeply within the hearts of all who witnessed the exchange.
Elidyr, his eyes gleaming with joy, concluded the moment with a smile. "May your love continue to grow, nourished by the bond you share and the unbreakablemitment you have made to one another. Today, we celebrate your union and the beginning of a beautiful chapter in your lives."
Elidyr, his voice filled with warmth and joy, turned to Gaya and asked, "Gaya, do you ept him as your husband, to love, honor, and cherish him in both joyful and challenging times?"
Gaya, her eyes sparkling with love and happiness, nodded fervently. "Yes, with all my heart."
Elidyr then turned to Michael and asked, "Do you ept Gaya as your wife, to love, honor, and protect her in both joyful and challenging times?"
Michael''s voice resonated with unwavering certainty. "Yes, with all that I am."
With a radiant smile, Elidyr dered, "By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife."
As the guests erupted into apuse, Elidyr presented the wedding rings¡ªa symbol of their eternalmitment. Gently, Michael and Gaya took each other''s hands, slipping the rings onto their fingers, a gesture of love and unity.
Elidyr''s voice filled the air once more, "You may now seal your vows with a kiss."
Time seemed to stand still as Michael and Gaya leaned in, their lips meeting in a tender and passionate embrace. The guests rose to their feet, showering the newlyweds with flowers and apuse. Joy and celebration filled the air, mingling withughter and cheers.
Amidst the vibrant disy of affection and admiration, the couple stood embraced, their hearts overflowing with love and gratitude. The moment marked the beginning of their shared journey, a union blessed by the love of those who surrounded them.
As the petals of countless flowers danced around them, Michael and Gaya reveled in the euphoria of their union, knowing that their love had triumphed and that their souls had found their perfect match. They were now husband and wife, ready to face the future hand in hand, with the unwavering support of their loved ones by their side.
The celebration continued in full swing as the enchanting melodies yed by Ricky, Daniel, and the talented vampires filled the air. The infectious rhythm beckoned the guests to the dance floor, whereughter and joy echoed through every step. Gaya and Michael, their eyes locked with love and mirth, swayed together, their bodies moving in perfect harmony.
The aroma of delectable delicacies wafted through the air, drawing everyone towards the feast prepared by Raylene. The tables were adorned with an array of mouthwatering dishes, each one a masterpiece in its own right. Sulent roasted meats, apanied by a medley of herbs and spices, delighted the senses. Colorful sds burst with freshness and vor, while tters of exquisite pastries tempted even the most disciplined ptes.
Guests gathered around, savoring the culinary delights, their taste buds tingling with pleasure. Raylene''s culinary expertise was evident in every bite, as her creations showcased a perfect bnce of vors and textures. Laughter andpliments filled the air as each dish was savored, and the sound of clinking sses and toasts resonated throughout the night.
Amidst the festivities, Cindy, with her infectious energy, twirled and danced amongst thedies, filling the atmosphere with her youthful enthusiasm. Saber, Dr, Raylene, ire, and Eve, their usual stoic demeanor forgotten, joined in the merriment, their smiles lighting up the night. Gaya and Michael watched with adoration, their hearts filled with joy at the sight of their loved ones immersed in the celebration.
As Cindy spun and twirled, Gaya and Michael shared a knowing nce. Michael''s deep voice resonated with amusement as he said, "Look at our little dancer,"
Gaya''sughter bubbled forth as she replied, "She knows how to light up a room. I just wish the ugly lizard was here,"
Their voices mingled with the music andughter, a symphony of love and happiness. The beauty of the moment was not lost on them, as they reveled in the love and unity that surrounded them. The wedding, a celebration of their love, had be a joyous asion for all, a testament to the bonds forged through friendship and shared experiences.
As the night unfolded, the dance floor became a whirlwind of movement, with guests of all ages and backgrounds joining in the festivities. The once-reserved vampires allowed themselves to be carried away by the rhythm, their graceful movements intertwining with those of their human counterparts.
Amidst the delight and joy that filled the air, unbeknownst to the guests, a different presence loomed in the distant realm of gods. The God of War, a powerful and enigmatic deity, had taken notice of the momentous asion taking ce on the small ind.
Only the passage of time held the answer to the god''s intentions. Would he choose to grace the wedding with his presence, bestowing his blessings upon the union of Gaya and Michael? Or would his wrath be unleashed, throwing the joyous celebration into chaos and upheaval?
As the music yed and theughter resonated, the guests reveled in their happiness, unaware of the potential storm brewing in the realm of gods. Destiny would unfold in due course, and only then would the true nature of the God of War''s intentions be revealed.
For now, the ind remained a haven of joy and celebration, a sanctuary where love and unity reigned supreme. Time, the ever-watchful observer, would soon reveal whether the God of War''s presence would bring blessings or unleash the tempest of his wrath upon the unsuspecting wedding party.
Chapter 991 War God Of The Pantheon
While Michael''s marriage celebration was going on full swing, in the realm of gods, where chaos and rumors of Dagon''s return swirled, a towering figuremanded attention. This godly being was Rudra, the War God, a sight to behold. Standing taller and broader than any mortal, his muscr frame exuded power and strength. His fiery red hair cascaded down his back,plementing hismanding presence.
Adorned in gleaming golden armor, Rudra''s arms were protected, while his sculpted chest and well-defined abs were proudly disyed. His shoulders bore the weight of majestic lion heads, intricately crafted and attached to his shoulder tes, symbolizing his ferocity and dominance.
Atop a hill, on a bed of gold, Rudra reclined, a goblet of wine in his hand. The setting sun painted the sky in hues of orange and gold, casting a warm glow upon the god''s features. His aura resonated with divine power, radiating an aura of authority and awe-inspiring might.
The mountaintop where Rudra found sce was strewn with fragments of stone, remnants of golems that had met their demise during his relentless training. Each shattered piece bore testament to the god''s formidable strength and unwavering dedication to his craft.
In this tranquil moment, Rudra, the embodiment of war and battle, found respite. The world outside may have been gued by chaos and rumors, but here, on his golden throne, he could bask in the glory of his own divinity.
As Rudra reveled in his pocket dimension, an intrusive light pierced through the serenity. Annoyance etched upon his features, he shook his head disapprovingly, disrupted from his cherished moment of rxation. Gradually, the luminous glow transformed into the ethereal figure of a woman with radiant golden hair.
"Seraphine, I don''t recall extending an invitation to my domain," Rudra asserted with amanding voice that resonated like thunder.
"We have discovered the graces of the gods trapped in the mortal realm, Rudra," Seraphine disclosed, her tone carrying a mixture of astonishment and concern.
Unfazed by Seraphine''s news, Rudra exhibited no emotions, except for his irritation at having his peaceful time disturbed by the Goddess of Information.
"Good for you," he retorted dismissively, reclining once more upon his opulent golden bed, deliberately averting his gaze from Seraphine.
"They were imprisoned within the temple of the God of Darkness, and Dagon has released them," Seraphine divulged. The moment Rudra heard the names ''God of Darkness'' and ''Dagon,'' his nonchnt facade dissipated, reced by a flicker of excitement as he lifted his gaze to meet Seraphine''s expectant eyes.
Amused, Rudra contemted the revtion. "So, all this time, the graces were hiding right under our noses. And Dagon, how did he manage to breach our realm from the depths of hell? I can only imagine the frenzy the pantheon must be in," he mused, flexing his formidable godly muscles.
"Andohr is currently handling Dagon''s presence. The pantheon requests that you ensure Dagon''s swift return to the depths of hell," Seraphine conveyed, prompting a chuckle from Rudra.
"Andohr? That guy alwaysplicates matters for the sake of appearing like a master strategist. All he does is waste time andze around all day. Hold on a moment, you mentioned Dagon freeing the graces from the Dark God''s temple. Didn''t you inform me that Dagon was unable to breach our realm through the protective barrier surrounding the mortal realm?" Rudra inquired.
Seraphine sighed wearily, continuing with her exnation. "Somehow, Dagon managed to momentarily enter our realm and unleash the graces. I am now certain he is amassing his forces within the realm between. As a fallen god, Dagon possesses the ability to transcend the barrier erected by the Dark God. The only hindrance preventing his full incursion into our realm is the artifacts that bind him to hell. Andohr leads the Skyhall army against Dagon''s hell walkers. However, Andohr cannot unleash his full power without leaving that damn castle."
"So, you expect me to venture into the realm between and join forces with Andohr''s mortal army?" Rudra questioned, his tone dripping with disdain at the mere suggestion put forth by Seraphine.
"Let me make this clear, Rudra. Dagon is unable to escape hell until his hell walkers break the artifacts within the realm between. Andohr is confined to his castle, unable to enter the realm of gods, and we are unable to step into the mortal realm until the barrier created by the Dark God is dismantled. The pantheon desires the Dark God''s current incarnation to break the remaining three seals, allowing us to breach the barrier and confront Dagon directly in hell. Do you understand?" Seraphine exined, simplifying the intricate situation.
"It seems straightforward enough. Although I''m certain the pantheon and Andohr have concocted an borate n to make themselves appear as masters of the universe, pulling off intricate strategies and such," Rudra chuckled at the thought of the pantheon''s machinations.
"Things are not as simple as they may appear, Rudra. Perhaps for you, the War God who charges into battle with sheer brute force and no need for borate ns," Seraphine remarked with a serious tone.
"I always have a n, Seraphine. It''s called power. Overwhelming power surpasses strategies any day," Rudra stated confidently, rising from his golden bed to face Seraphine.
"No matter how intricate an ant''s ns may be, all it takes is a single step to crush both their n and their life," Rudra dered confidently, causing Seraphine to sigh in resignation. She knew better than to argue with Rudra, for he had proven himself victorious time and time again against the enemies of the Pantheon. After all, he was the God of War for a reason.
"Will you venture into the realm in between?" Seraphine asked, seeking a direct answer. However, instead of responding immediately, Rudra lifted his wine ss, savoring a slow sip before continuing.
"Fighting the hell walkers would serve no purpose. A war cannot be won by winning a solitary battle. Victory in this war with Dagon will only be achieved when his head lies severed on the ground. To defeat him, we must confront him at his weakest point," Rudra exined, his eyes gleaming with excitement. Seraphine couldn''t help but grin inwardly, recognizing the fervor that always consumed Rudra. While he may not possess the strategic prowess of Andohr, when it came to winning wars, there was no god more adept than the God of War himself.
"What do you propose, Rudra?"
"As I''ve said, I dislike convoluted ns. My strategy is simple. I shall send a fraction of my divine essence into the mortal realm, locating the three seal bearers and allowing the current incarnation of the Dark God to eliminate them. This will grant us ess to hell, where we can confront Dagon directly before he sets foot in our realm," Rudra outlined his n, noting the alignment with Andohr''s own strategy. Normally, Seraphine would never involve Rudra and Andohr in the same endeavor, for their mutual animosity ran deep. However, time was of the essence, and the pantheon needed Rudra''s formidable presence.
"What about the Dark God? What do you intend to do with him?" Seraphine inquired, her curiosity piqued. She knew that five thousand years ago, Rudra had harbored a burning desire to confront the God of Darkness. However, the Dark God had reset the universe and erected a formidable barrier between the mortal realm and the realm of gods, effectively preventing athe sh between them. Rudra had been denied the opportunity to engage in battle with his ancient adversary. But now, with Rudra''s power to send a sliver of his grace through the weakened barrier following the demise of several seal bearers, the long-awaited sh between the God of Darkness and the God of War seemed feasible.
"What is he up to in the mortal realm?" Rudra inquired, withholding his own n involving the God of Darkness for the time being.
"He is getting married," Seraphine revealed, causing Rudra to click his tongue in response.
"Then I shall wait. I am not an asshole and have no desire to disrupt a wedding. Let him embark on this new chapter of his life without interference," Rudra dered, devoid of any ill intentions towards the God of Darkness.
"You are aware that he cannot be killed without the-"
Seraphine''s sentence was abruptly cut off as Rudra interjected.
"He may be unkible for now, but I can weaken him to the point where he will no longer pose a threat," Rudra snickered, his confidence evident.
"But that is not a permanent solution, Rudra. He has the potential to regain his strength," Seraphine argued.
"Then I will face him time and time again until you strategistse up with a more viable approach. After all, we gods have nothing but time on our hands," Rudra dered, his determination unwavering.
Then, Rudra ced his fingers on his forehead, tapping into the immense power that flowed through him. With a swift motion, he extracted a small sliver of golden thread, pulsating with his divine grace. Holding it up, he turned to face Seraphine.
"This tiny fragment of my grace will aplish more than Andohr''splicated ns ever could," Rudra proimed confidently. With a flick of his wrist, he released the sliver of grace, watching as it disappeared into the vast expanse of the golden sky, making its way toward the mortal realm.
Seraphine raised an eyebrow, her curiosity piqued. "But Rudra, your grace requires a mortal vessel in the mortal realm. How do you n to aplish that?"
Rudra grinned mischievously, his eyes gleaming with unspoken knowledge. "Fear not, Seraphine. I still have devoted worshippers in the mortal realm who would dly offer their physical bodies for the manifestation of my grace. They shall be the vessels through which my power will flow."
Seraphine nodded, realizing the extent of Rudra''s connection to his followers. She understood that their unwavering devotion would provide the conduits necessary for his divine grace to manifest in the mortal realm.
In the vast tapestry of the divine realm, each god was a protagonist in their own story, with their own trials, triumphs, and quests. The God of Darkness, the God of War, the God of Time and Space, and the Fallen God Dagon all yed their roles, guided by the invisible hand of fate.
Their choices, desires, and motivations wove together, bringing them into conflict and forging alliances that remained hidden from the rest of the realm of gods. Among them, it was the God of Darkness who foundmon ground with Dagon, the Fallen God. Together, they formed an unexpected alliance that threatened the delicate bnce of power.
The true motives of Dagon''s rebellion and the intricate rtionship between the God of Darkness and Dagon remained concealed, awaiting a time when the threads of fate would be pulled, unraveling the mysteries of their intertwined stories.
As the sliver of grace continued its journey, Rudra and Seraphine stood in the realm of gods, contemting the imminent events that would unfold. The fate of both realms hung in the bnce, and Rudra''s bold n would set into motion a series of events that could change the course of their existence.
Chapter 992 War God Crashes The Wedding
As the wedding celebration of Michael and Gaya reached its peak, the atmosphere was filled with joy,ughter, and the infectious rhythm of music. The guests danced and reveled in the happiness of the asion, their hearts light and carefree.
Amidst the merriment, Michael, the groom, nced up at the night sky and noticed a sudden glimmer of light. It caught his attention, and an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Sensing something amiss, he discreetly activated the earpiece hidden beneath his neatly tailored suit.
"Spider, I''ve spotted a strange light in the sky. Check it out discreetly and report back," Michael whispered urgently, ensuring that Gaya remained unaware of his concerns.
Before the vampire death squad could acknowledge hismand, the glimmer of light in the sky rapidly intensified, closing the distance with astonishing speed. Gasps of surprise escaped from the guests'' lips as the light descended upon the ind, illuminating the surroundings with an otherworldly brilliance.
The arrival of this unexpected visitor left everyone in a state of shock, their festivities momentarily forgotten. Wide-eyed and speechless, they watched as the radiant figure emerged from the light, its ethereal presence captivating their attention. The air crackled with a sense of anticipation, as if the world itself held its breath in awe of this extraordinary arrival.
However, the true nature and purpose of this enigmatic visitor remained a mystery, shrouded in uncertainty. The scene was frozen in time, with whispers of spection and trepidation circting through the crowd. The joyous celebration now stood at a crossroads, its path veering into the realm of the unknown.
As the golden light dissipated, revealing the figure within, a hushed silence fell over the crowd. The guests'' eyes widened in astonishment as they beheld the sight before them¡ªan Orc unlike any they had ever encountered. His crimson skin stood out in stark contrast to his intricate white and blue tattoos that adorned his muscr physique. Tusks protruded from his mouth, and numerous piercings adorned his body, glinting ominously under the moonlight.
The Orc''s eyes zed with an otherworldly light, radiating an aura of power that sent shivers down the spines of those who stood in his presence. Without a second thought, Saber lunged forward, determined to end the life of this uninvited guest.
But before Saber could even reach the Orc, a powerful gust of wind erupted from the Orc''s body, sending the valiant warrior hurtling backward. The sheer force of the st sent Saber flying off the ind, his body crashing into the waters below. The destructive wind tore through the surroundings, obliterating everything in its path, causing chaos and throwing the remaining guests off bnce.
Michael, paralyzed with shock and disbelief, couldn''t help but feel a sense of awe. He couldn''t discern the Orc''s cultivation level, but the overwhelming power emanating from the Orc was palpable, leaving Michael and the others in a state of trepidation.
With an instinctive surge of protective energy, Michael swiftly stepped in front of Gaya, his eyes zing with determination. Two dark beams shot forth from his gaze, cutting through the air with an ominous hiss.
"Elidyr, activate the runes!" Michaelmanded, his voiceced with urgency.
In response to hismand, the three portals, positioned at the edge of the ind, burst into life, emanating a brilliant light that grew in intensity. A powerful pulling force gripped the guests, drawing them towards the portals against their will. The wedding scene was suddenly thrown into chaos as bewildered and frightened cries filled the air.
"Everyone, hold on! We need to get out of here!" Michael shouted, his voice barely audible above the turmoil.
Shock and disbelief etched across the faces of the guests as they found themselves helpless, unable to resist the overwhelming power radiating from the enigmatic Orc. The once jubnt atmosphere had been reced with a sense of vulnerability and fear.
In the midst of the pandemonium, Michael shielded Gaya, his beloved wife, with his own body, sheltering her from harm. His focus never wavered as he directed his dark beams toward the menacing Orc, determined to confront this formidable foe head-on.
The once joyous wedding scene was abruptly thrown into chaos as the power radiating from the Orc engulfed the ind. Gasps of astonishment filled the air as guests stumbled backward, their faces etched with shock and disbelief.
"What the hell is happening?!" Trista eximed, her voice trembling with fear.
Tiberius, wide-eyed and bewildered, looked around in disbelief. "Who is this? Why can''t I move?"
Aria, her hands shaking, whispered in disbelief, "This power... it''s overwhelming. We''repletely powerless."
ire, her voice quivering, managed to utter, "Take Cindy and run to the portal!"
Gibson tightened his grip on his Cindy''s hand, his voice filled with urgency. "Stay close, Cindy. We need to find safety."
Corey, his expression a mix of awe and fear, muttered, "This power... it''s beyond anything I''ve ever witnessed."
Optimus, his usually calm demeanor shattered, eximed, "No ordinary foe... Who is this Orc?"
The guests, overwhelmed by the immense power radiating from the Orc, looked to Michael with a mixture of hope and desperation, realizing that their only chancey in the strength and determination of the bride and groom. The fate of the wedding celebration hung precariously in the bnce as the battle between light and darkness loomed ominously overhead.
The once serene wedding scene transformed into a chaotic spectacle as the power radiating from the Orc overwhelmed the ind. The Orc''s imposing presence left everyone stunned and paralyzed with fear.
The very atmosphere crackled with an otherworldly energy, causing hair to stand on end and sending shivers down the spines of those present. The Orc''s red-skinned visage, adorned with intricate tattoos and piercings, exuded an aura of dominance and malevolence. His glowing eyes bore into the crowd, relishing the fear that danced across their faces.
Michael, shielding Gaya with his body, unleashed his dark beams upon the Orc, hoping to subdue the intruder. The beams of darkness struck the Orc''s head, but to the shock of everyone, nothing happened. The Orc remained unfazed, a smug smirk etched upon his lips, defying the powerful onught with disdain.
Gaya, realizing the urgency of the situation, summoned her celestial bow and a quiver of ethereal arrows materialized by her side. Determination reced the fear in her eyes as she stepped forward, ready to confront the menacing intruder. The bride, radiating a blend of grace and strength, prepared herself for the battle that now threatened to overshadow her wedding day.
Amidst the chaos, guests stumbled and scrambled for cover, their movements hindered by the overpowering presence of the Orc. Their attempts to rally against the intruder proved futile as the force emanating from the Orc left them weak and powerless, their limbs heavy as if burdened by invisible chains.
The once immacte wedding venue now bore the scars of the chaotic upheaval. Tables and decorationsy in disarray, tossed aside by the gusts of wind that erupted from the Orc''s very being. The vibrant flowers that once adorned the aisle were trampled underfoot, petals scattered like remnants of a shattered dream.
"Now, Elidyr!" Michael shouted, his voice filled with urgency and determination.
In response, Elidyr clenched a golden crystal in his hand, crushing it with a resounding crack. As the crystal shattered, the pulling force emanating from the portals multiplied several folds, causing the air to tremble with their intensity. The portals, now unleashed with unprecedented power, surged with an insatiable hunger, greedily drawing everything in their path towards their swirling depths.
The Orc, his eyes fixed on Michael, proimed with a chilling certainty, "I am only here for the God of Darkness."
With a flick of his wrist, three figures materialized out of thin air before the Orc. Among them stood Samuel, the gray-haired butler of the Winston family, his neatlybed hair contrasting with the chaos unfolding around him. The sight of Samuel stunned Michael, his mind reeling with the implications of the Orc''s words.
But before Michael could react, the Orc''s lightning-quick movements outpaced his reflexes. In one swift motion, the Orc seized Samuel by the neck, using the helpless butler as a shield. A malicious grin danced upon the Orc''s face as he directed Michael''s own dark beams towards Samuel''s head.
Time seemed to slow as the dark beams pierced through Samuel''s skull, shattering bone and unleashing a crimson spray of blood. The lifeless body crumpled to the ground, an innocent victim caught in the crossfire of this ruthless battle.
Amidst the chaos, the scene unfolded with a stark contrast. On one side, the portals, their power amplified, exerted an irresistible force, tugging at everything in their path. Tables, chairs, and decorations were ripped from their positions, uprooted by the voracious pull.
On the other side, a battle of immense power and stakes yed out. Michael, shielded by darkness, stood alongside Gaya, his eyes filled with fury. The Orc, a formidable adversary, remained resolute, his aura pulsating with a malevolent energy that rendered everyone around him weak and powerless.
In this tumultuous sh between the forces of chaos and order, the ind became a battleground of conflicting energies. The portals greedily devoured the surroundings, tearing apart the remnants of the once serene wedding scene. And amidst the swirling chaos, the battle between Michael and the Orc raged on, with bloodshed and despair marking the unfortunate path they tread.
The vampire death squadnded on the ind with swift precision, their presence a glimmer of hope amidst the chaos. They quickly assessed the situation, their red eyes scanning the tumultuous scene. Working together, they rallied the remaining guests, guiding them towards the portals that thrummed with an irresistible pull.
Amidst the pandemonium, Michael''s heart pounded with a desperate desire to save Gaya from the clutches of this immensely powerful foe. With determination etched on his face, he reached out and grasped Gaya''s hand, his grip firm and resolute. With all his strength, he propelled her towards the nearest portal, his intention clear.
But in the midst of the airborne journey towards the portal, Gaya''s body moved with a swift fluidity. With a sudden twist, she nocked an arrow upon her bowstring and took aim at the Orc, defying Michael''s intention to guide her to safety. The tension in the air was palpable as Gaya''s fingers released the arrow, its trajectory carrying it towards the Orc with a lethal intent.
In a disy of godly speed, the possessed Orc, fueled by Rudra''s sliver of grace, dashed towards Michael with a swiftness that defiedprehension. The air crackled with anticipation as the Orc''s movements became a blur, evading Michael''s punches and kicks with uncanny agility. Despite the Orc''s imposing size, it maneuvered with the grace of a predator, effortlessly eluding Michael''s onught.
The ground trembled beneath them as Michael''s dark beams shot forth from his eyes, slicing through the earth with devastating precision. The surroundings bore the scars of their deadly power, split apart and rent in halves, a testament to the ferocity of the battle.
But the Orc, an embodiment of Rudra''s divine essence, proved elusive, nimble in its evasion. Each blow was met with a deft sidestep, each kick evaded with a fluid movement that seemed to defy thews of physics. In the midst of this violent ballet, the Orc seized an opportunity, delivering a powerful punch to Michael''s chest with an impact that sent him hurtling through the ground, the earth quaking beneath the force.
Gaya''s voice echoed through the chaos, her heartrending cry of "No!" a testament to her anguish and determination. The air hung heavy with tension as the battle raged on, the sh of power and the stakes at hand bing a swirling vortex of uncertainty.
As agony surged through Michael''s body, his advanced personal device (APD) around his wrist sensed his critical condition. With mechanical precision, the APD swiftly injected a potent healing potion into his bloodstream, mending his damaged organs and revitalizing his strength. Ignoring the lingering pain, Michael rose to his feet, determination etched across his face. With a fierce resolve, he lunged forward, his hands outstretched, and the dark swords materialized in his grip, crackling with ominous energy.
The Orc''s lips curled into a menacing smirk as he taunted, his voiceced with a mix of curiosity and sadistic glee, "Let me see the infamous God of Darkness in action. Show me what you''re truly capable of."
The power radiating from the Orc, fueled by Rudra''s sliver of grace, created an aura that disrupted the very fabric of magic around them. The teleportation scrolls, a potential escape route, faltered in their effectiveness, rendered useless in the face of this overwhelming force. Rudra, in his strategic cunning, did not want the God of Darkness to slip away until the remaining two seal bearers, who had materialized beside Samuel, were eliminated.
In this charged moment of sh and determination, the readers witness Michael''s resilience and unwavering resolve. They can feel the weight of the Orc''s taunts and the pulsating energy that surrounds them, drawing them deeper into the scene as the battle unfolds.
With a swift and relentless assault, Michael swung his dark swords at the Orc, determined to keep him at bay and away from Gaya. The des sliced through the air with precision, but the Orc''s invisible force field proved imprable, rendering Gaya''s arrows useless as they harmlessly bounced off the ethereal barrier.
In a moment of triumph, Michael managed tond a shallow cut across the Orc''s chest, causing blood to spatter in the air. However, the strength of the Orc''s skin astonished Michael, as the wound appeared far less severe than anticipated. The Orc''s tauntingughter echoed through the chaos, further fueling Michael''s determination.
Suddenly, the Orc''s grip tightened around Michael''s hand, restraining his movements. With his other hand outstretched, the Orc reached for one of the remaining seal bearers¡ªa frail old man cloaked in dark brown fabric. In a cruel twist of fate, the old man was lifted effortlessly into the Orc''s colossal palm, his terrified gaze meeting Michael''s.
As the Orc''s power overpowered Michael''s resistance, he helplessly watched as his own hand, guided by the Orc''s malevolent will, shed across the seal bearer''s head. Blood erupted, painting a macabre scene of horror as the head was severed, the lifeless eyes staring into nothingness.
The Orc''s triumphant voice reverberated through the chaotic battleground, chilling the air, "Two down, one to go."
Overwhelmed by the Orc''s otherworldly strength, Michael felt as though he was battling a force beyondprehension. Every move he made seemed feeble inparison, as if pitted against an unstoppable entity.
Chapter 993 Is She A God Too?
With a wicked smile, the Orc, now fully possessed by Rudra''s sliver of grace, raised his hand to the sky, invoking the power of the gods. A golden lightning bolt crackled and materialized in his grasp, pulsating with immense energy. With a swift motion, he plunged the bolt deep into the ground, unleashing a cataclysmic explosion of raw power.
The force of the explosion sent shockwaves rippling through the ind, shattering the surroundings and throwing everyone into disarray. Gaya, caught in the midst of the chaos, plummeted from the sky, crashing violently onto the ground. Her vision blurred, a mixture of pain and disorientation gripping her as she struggled to regain her bearings.
Through her hazy vision, Gaya glimpsed the Orc, his speed unfathomable, closing in on Michael. The air crackled with malevolence as dark mes erupted from Michael''s body, consuming everything in their path. The searing heat licked at the surroundings, devouring the once vibrantndscape in a dance of destruction.
Gaya''s heart pounded in her chest as she watched in horror, her voice lost amidst the chaos. The scene unfolded before her eyes with vivid intensity, each detail etched into her memory¡ªthe Orc''s savage charge, Michael engulfed in those dark, merciless mes.
The dark mes roared with an insatiable hunger, engulfing the grasnd surrounding Michael and Gaya. The intense heat radiated from the mes, raising the temperature to unbearable levels. The Orc, its skin melting and bubbling under the scorching onught, seemed unfazed by the agony it should have been experiencing. Instead, a sinister snicker escaped its deformed mouth as it extended its hand towards thest remaining seal bearer.
The young man in white robes cried out in terror as the Orc''s hand closed around him, the searing heat of the dark mes seeping into his very being. His anguished screams pierced the air, a haunting testament to the merciless fate that awaited him. The dark mes consumed him relentlessly, reducing his form to a pile of hot ash, leaving nothing but remnants of his existence.
As the life force of the third seal bearer was extinguished, a sudden rumble echoed through the sky. For a fleeting moment, a crack tore open the sky, a glimpse into a realm beyond mortalprehension. The crack shimmered with an otherworldly light, hinting at the immense power and consequence tied to the seal bearers'' demise. However, as quickly as it appeared, the crack closed, leaving behind only a sense of foreboding and uncertainty.
The Orc stood tall, its form grotesquely transformed as its skin melted away, revealing the raw skeletal structure beneath. In this macabre state, the Orc raised its hands, bony fingers extended towards Michael. Countless golden lightning bolts crackled to life, surging forth with malevolent intent.
Michael, recognizing the imminent danger, summoned a responsive shield around him. The shield, translucent and glowing with a vibrant blue hue, materialized just in time to intercept the iing lightning bolts. However, the power behind the Orc''s attack proved overwhelming, as the bolts shattered the shield like fragile ss, prating through to strike Michael.
Agony seared through Michael''s body as the lightning coursed through his veins. Blood tainted the corners of his lips as he coughed it up, his strength waning with each passing moment. Paralysis gripped his limbs, rendering him helpless against the Orc''s relentless assault.
With a chilling smirk, the Orc raised its hand, exerting a force that pulled Michael closer. His feet dragged across the ground as he was lifted effortlessly by his neck, suspended in the grip of his merciless adversary.
The acrid scent of burning grass mingled with the sickening odor of charred flesh, filling the air with a haunting reminder of the devastation surrounding them. The metallic tang of blood lingered, a testament to the violence that had unfolded on the ind.
As the Orc''s skin continued to melt away, revealing the gruesome sight of its skull, a grim and horrifying visage emerged. Its eye sockets held an otherworldly glow, and theck of flesh on its face heightened the eeriness of its presence.
Disappointmentced the Orc''s voice as it shook its skull-like head. "Not impressed," it uttered, its voiceden with mockery. The grip around Michael''s neck tightened, constricting his airway and leaving him gasping for precious breaths.
Summoning his remaining strength, Michael called upon his dark swords. One of the swords began to levitate toward his outstretched arm, ast-ditch effort to regain control of the situation. However, the Orc, swift and cunning, swatted the sword aside, redirecting its trajectory towards Gaya.
The hilt of the sword struck Gaya with a resounding thud, knocking her unconscious before she could even rise to her feet. Panic and concern shed in Michael''s eyes as he gasped for air, his voice strained. "Who are you?" he managed to rasp, his words carrying a mixture of defiance and desperation.
As Michael''s thoughts raced, he knew that the time hade to initiate n D¡ªthe contingency he had devised for facing an adversary of insurmountable power. Just as the weight of the situation began to settle upon him, the sky above them rumbled with a newfound intensity, as if in response to his desperate plea.
Amidst the stormy clouds, a golden light broke through the darkness, illuminating the scene with an ethereal glow. To their astonishment, the once turbulent seas surrounding the ind turned eerily calm, contrasting the tumultuous skies above.
With a thunderous boom, the golden light descended from the heavens, its brilliance fading gradually to reveal the figure of Nithroel, the Empress of Awor. Her golden locks billowed around her like a halo, and she stood adorned in intricately crafted golden armor that covered her from neck to toe. Every movement exuded an aura of divine power and grace, marking her as an otherworldly goddess.
Soon, a golden bow materialized in her hand, emanating a radiant energy that seemed to pulse with ancient enchantments. As she pulled back the string, an arrow adorned with intricate runes materialized, poised to be released at hermand. The mere sight of her presence instilled a sense of awe and reverence, for she embodied a force that transcended mortalprehension.
Nithroel''s voice resonated with amanding authority that seemed to shake the very foundations of the ind. "Let him go, Rudra. Your fight lies somewhere else," she dered, her words echoing through the air and reaching every corner of the ind. The power behind her voice carried a weight thatmanded attention and respect.
As her words hung in the air, a golden aura enveloped Nithroel, radiating from her being like a shield of divine energy. The Orc, possessed by Rudra''s sliver of grace, stared at her with a sliver of surprise emerging in his glowing eyes. The unexpected turn of events momentarily caught him off guard, questioning the path he had taken.
The tension in the air was palpable as the empress and the possessed Orc locked eyes, each representing a formidable force in their own right. The oue of this encounter held the potential to reshape the course of events, and the witnesses on the ind stood frozen, captivated by the sh of powers unfolding before them.
The Orc, now barely recognizable as a humanoid figure, threw aside Michael''s limp body and turned its attention fully towards Nithroel. Thest shreds of skin clung to its smoking, charred body, as if defying the intense heat of the dark mes that consumed it.
From the mouth of the Orc, Rudra''s voice resonated, carrying a mix of calmness, excitement, and a sliver of surprise. "I can see you''ve regained your grace, Nithroel, the goddess of hunt. How long has it been since west saw each other?" The words flowed from Rudra with a calcted ease, as if he relished the encounter, savoring the chance to face his former ally.
Nithroel responded to the Orc, now possessed by Rudra, with a cold and stern tone. "Leave this realm, Rudra. You have no right to be here," she stated, her voice devoid of any warmth or sympathy. Her gaze remained fixed upon the deteriorating figure before her.
Rudra''s voice, still emanating from the Orc, grew even calmer and more yful. "Slow down with the threats, Nithroel. Yes, you may have regained your grace, but you are not as strong as you used to be," he taunted. The excitement in his voice was tinged with a hint of superiority, as if he believed he held the upper hand.
Nithroel''s response was icy and resolute. "Perhaps I cannot defeat you in your true form, Rudra, but I can still ovee this vessel that holds your grace. And time is not on your side. The dark mes that consume your vessel will soon bring its demise," she retorted, her words carrying an unwavering determination.
Rudra, his presence fading within the crumbling vessel, snickered with a mixture of amusement and satisfaction. "Ah, Nithroel, my task in this mortal realm is nowplete. I have no mind to stay any longer," he remarked, his voice betraying a yful undertone. However, underlying his words was a genuine concern for the goddess standing before him.
"Choose your side carefully, Nithroel," Rudra warned, his voice devoid of sympathy. "You wouldn''t want to lose your grace once again." His words carried a subtle caution, a reminder of the consequences she might face if she aligned herself against the pantheon.
Nithroel, her gaze unwavering, met Rudra''s gaze with determination. "I have made my choice, Rudra," she dered with unwavering resolve. "I have left the pantheon and chosen to remain in the mortal realm. You needn''t worry about me."
Her response carried a resolute conviction, a statement that she had made her stand and was prepared to face the consequences of her decision. Though Rudra''s concern for her was not evident in his voice, there was a flicker of admiration in his gaze, acknowledging the strength of her resolve.
As the possessed Orc''s body crumbled to the ground, consumed by dark mes and reduced to a heap of smoldering ash, a golden light emerged from within. It shimmered and danced in the air, casting a soft glow upon the chaotic scene. Nithroel, her gaze fixed upon the dissipating light, watched as it slowly ascended towards the heavens, leaving the mortal realm behind. With a faint sigh of relief, she knew that Rudra''s sliver of grace had departed, returning to its rightful ce.
The once vibrant wedding decorations nowy in ruins, charred and scattered across the grassy ground. The once jubnt atmosphere had been reced by an eerie stillness, broken only by the soft crackling of smoldering embers. The bride and groom, their bodies sprawled motionless, were a stark contrast to the beauty they had exuded moments ago.
Nithroel stepped cautiously over the remnants of shattered pirs and torn fabrics, her footsteps leaving imprints in the ash-covered ground. She approached the unconscious couple, her expression a mixture of concern and determination. With a gentle touch, she checked their pulses and found them to be faint but steady. A sense of relief washed over her as she realized that their lives had been spared in the midst of the chaos.
Surveying the scene, Nithroel knew that there was much work to be done. The aftermath of this tumultuous encounter would not be easily forgotten.
As Michael''s consciousness slowly returned, he rose to his feet, his gaze immediately fixating on Gaya, lying unconscious nearby. With a mix of relief and concern etched on his face, he quickly made his way to her side, gently cradling her in his arms.
Nithroel watched this intimate moment, understanding the depth of their connection and the strength it brought them. She respected their need for a moment of sce, a respite from the turmoil they had endured. But she also knew that there were questions to be answered, decisions to be made.
As Michael''s eyes met Nithroel''s, she could see the weight of the recent events reflected in his gaze. The God of Darkness, his presence formidable, acknowledged her with a nod, a silent recognition of the necessity to speak.
Nithroel''s voice, calm yet resolute, broke the silence. "We have much to discuss," she dered, her tone carrying a weight of urgency and purpose.
Chapter 994 Finally Learning About Andohr
As the wind howled and the darkened sky hinted at an impending storm, Michael and Gaya stood alongside Nithroel on the edge of the mountain where their paths had first crossed. The empress of Awor gazed into the distance, her eyes seemingly carrying the weight of ancient knowledge.
In the pregnant silence, it was Michael who finally broke the stillness, his voiceced with curiosity and a touch of apprehension. "Who are you really? And who was that attacker?"
Nithroel turned her gaze towards Michael, her expression calm yet tinged with a profound understanding of the gravity of their situation. "That was Rudra, the God of War," she replied, the mere mention of his name coinciding with a distant rumble of thunder that echoed through the ominous sky.
Gaya''s astonishment was evident as she grappled with the realization that they had been targeted by a deity, and one associated with war no less. However, both she and Michael sensed that Rudra''s intentions went beyond mere destruction and that he had manipted Michael as a pawn in his game, forcing him to take the lives of ithe three seal bearers, including the butler of the Winston family.
With a hint of uncertainty, Michael posed a question that had lingered in his mind ever since their first encounter. "Are you also a god?" His eyes held a flicker of recognition, sensing an inherent power within Nithroel that surpassed that of ordinary mortals. Although her aura bore simrities to the possessed Orc''s energy, it seemed to radiate with a slightly lesser intensity.
The atmosphere around them crackled with anticipation as they awaited Nithroel''s response, seeking rity amidst the chaotic events that had unfolded.
"I was once a god, indeed. But now, I am but a fallen deity," Nithroel''s voice carried a hint of mncholy that mirrored the sadness reflected in her eyes.
Gaya, her frustration palpable, interjected with a grumble, "Why the hell did that bastard ruin our wedding? When did we piss off the God of War?" Meanwhile, Nithroel sighed, her gaze still fixed upon the distant horizon.
"He did not attack you directly. He used your husband as a means to break the seals," Nithroel rified. As a goddess, she possessed knowledge beyond mortalprehension. She understood that if Rudra truly intended to kill Ghost, he could have done so. While killing a god''s vessel would only result in their soul seeking a new host, there was no denying that Rudra''s purpose was not to end Michael''s mortal existence. Perhaps his intentions shifted upon encountering Nithroel, but it was evident that his aim had been to manipte Michael into eliminating the seal bearers.
"The seals?" Michael''s brow furrowed in confusion.
"Yes. In your previous life, you constructed an intricate array that acted as a barrier between the mortal realm and the realm of gods, preventing mortals from entering the divine domain and vice versa," Nithroel began to unravel theplexities of the situation. "Unbeknownst to you, these seals were embedded within individuals who were not even born during your previous self''s time. Only you possess the power to break these seals by ying the designated seal bearers. Each time a seal bearer dies, the barrier between our realms weakens. Once all the seals are broken, the gods will regain the ability to traverse freely between the mortal realm and the divine realm, as they did in the past."
However, Nithroel herself remained unaware of the variations within the seals, specifically those designed by the Previous Dark Lord and Elidyr in their respective timelines. This exined how Diana, in Michael''s timeline, managed to break one of the seals when she killed the seal bearer, Bai Ning.
As Michael processed the weight of Nithroel''s words, she continued to unravel the perilous web that entangled them all.
"The Pantheon has initiated their movements against Dagon, and now you find yourself caught in the crossfire of their war," Nithroel stated, her voiceced with concern. "What you encountered was merely a sliver of Rudra''s grace, a mere one percent of his full power. Consider, then, the unimaginable might wielded by an entire pantheon of gods and the vengeful God who desire to see you crumble."
Michael and Gaya were left stunned, the mention of a vengeful god sending shivers down their spines. Unable to contain his curiosity, Michael posed the question that gnawed at him.
"Who is this vengeful god?" he inquired, his voice betraying a mix of apprehension and intrigue.
"Andohr, the God of Time and Space," Nithroel replied, her gaze piercing their souls. "My memories of him remain fragmented, but one thing remains certain: you cannot remain in this realm for much longer. The other fallen gods will soon regain their graces and seek you out. You are not yet prepared to face the wrath of the gods, and even I cannot aid you should more deities descend upon this realm."
An array of questions swirled in Michael''s mind, yet one in particr burned with intensity.
"Why are you helping me?" Michael questioned, his voice filled with genuine curiosity.
Nithroel''s eyes softened, her gaze holding a flicker of determination.
"I cherish ruling the mortal realm, Ghost," she confessed. "But the Pantheon seeks to transform mortals into their ves. Once they arrive in this realm, each god will demand unwavering devotion and worship from mortals. Those who dare defy them will be made examples of, and gradually, this realm will devolve into a vast ve market, devoid of free will and consumed by blind loyalty. The only thing that preventing this grim fate is the barrier between the two realms."
As Nithroel''s words resonated within him, Michael recalled a haunting dream he once had, a glimpse of a world devoid of free will, where people existed as mere puppets. He couldn''t help but wonder if that nightmarish vision was a consequence of the Pantheon''s rule over the mortal realm.
The weight of their predicament settled upon them like a suffocating fog, casting their future into uncertainty. The path ahead was treacherous, fraught with danger and the impending wrath of gods. With their newfound knowledge and the stakesid bare before them, Michael, Gaya, and Nithroel stood on the precipice of a fateful journey, their destinies intertwined in the grand tapestry of divine machinations and mortal resistance.
"But the barrier that your former self created is weakening, and only you possess the power to reinforce it," Nithroel exined, her voice filled with urgency. "You must grow stronger and prepare to confront the gods, Ghost. Dagon cannot indefinitely divert the attention of the Pantheon."
Michael''s brows furrowed as he contemted the mention of Dagon, the infamous ruler of hell.
"So, Dagon is also a fallen god?" Gaya interjected, seeking rification. Nithroel nodded in confirmation.
"Among mortals, you are already formidable with your Half Celestial cultivation stage. However, the power of the gods resides on an entirely different ne. You must transcend the limitations of the Celestial stage. Do not step foot into this world until you have done so," Nithroel advised, her tone resolute.
As Nithroel spoke, Gaya''s voice quivered with uncertainty. "Where should we go?"
"Itonys. The fallen gods cannot reach you there," Nithroel replied, conjuring images of the vibrant, neon-lit forests of Itonys and the loyal wood elves who inhabited its realms.
"I will go there once I gather the others at the castle," Michael stated, but Nithroel swiftly shook her head.
"No, Andohr must have already learned of recent events and will be plotting his next move to hinder your path to Itonys. Time is of the essence, and you cannot afford to waste a moment. You must depart now. I will do everything within my power to safeguard the others, but the odds are undeniably stacked against us, Ghost," Nithroel''s voice grew intensely serious.
Gaya pleaded, her voice filled with concern, "At least let me bring my mother."
Nithroel shook her head in response. "My people are already on their way to ensure the safety of your mother and the others¡ª" Nithroel''s words abruptly halted as her gaze shifted towards the distant sky, her focus returning to Michael once again.
"Go now," Nithroel urged, her voice carrying a sense of imminent danger. She swiftly gestured with her hands, summoning a golden portal that materialized in the air before them.
Feeling the urgency in the goddess''s words, Michael tightly grasped Gaya''s hand and guided her toward the shimmering vortex. However, before stepping into the swirling portal, he turned back to face Nithroel, his eyes filled with curiosity.
"Why would you risk yourself to help me, Nithroel? Your assistance puts you in grave danger," Michael questioned, his voice tinged with both gratitude and concern.
A gentle smile curved Nithroel''s lips as she met his gaze. "By aligning myself with you, Ghost, I stand a chance of maintaining my dominion over the mortal realm. If the Pantheon emerges victorious, we all suffer the consequences," she replied, her tone resolute.
Raising her hand, Nithroel unleashed a sudden gust of wind, propelling Michael and Gaya forward, propelling them forcefully into the awaiting portal. The ethereal gateway closed behind them, leaving Nithroel behind.
In that fleeting moment, as Michael and Gaya disappeared into the unknown, Nithroel stood tall, her golden hair dancing in the wind. With unwavering determination, she prepared to face the oing storm, knowing that her alliance with Michael carried the weight of both their destinies and the fate of the mortal realm itself.
With a swift and fluid motion, Nithroel summoned her golden bow, a gleaming masterpiece crafted with intricate detail. Her grip tightened around the polished wood as she notched an arrow, its tip adorned with ancient runes of power. Drawing the bowstring back, she took aim at the distant sky, her eyes locked onto the approaching figures of the fallen gods.
A surge of divine energy coursed through her, heightening her senses and honing her focus. The arrow she released soared through the air, defying mortal limitations as it streaked across the vast expanse with unerring uracy. It traversed a tremendous distance, seemingly defying both time and space.
As the arrow cut through the air, a tempest began to brew, dark clouds rolling in to amplify the brewing chaos. Thunder rumbled in the heavens, their ominous roars echoing through thend. Nature itself seemed to respond to Nithroel''s presence, lending its power to her as she prepared to face the fallen gods.
Standing tall and resolute, the empress of Awor remained steadfast in the face of imminent danger. Her golden armor shimmered in the fading light, radiant and unyielding. With every passing moment, the storm grew fiercer, the elements aligning with her purpose.
Nithroel knew the odds were stacked against her, confronting a pantheon of formidable adversaries. Yet, she refused to back down, her determination unshakeable. The goddess of hunt stood as a beacon of defiance, ready to challenge the encroaching darkness with all her might.
As the fallen gods drew closer, their powerful presence palpable, Nithroel braced herself for the impending sh. She would fight for the preservation of the mortal realm, for the freedom of its inhabitants, and for the hope that her alliance with Michael would pave the way for a future untainted by the tyranny of the Pantheon.
( We are nearing 1000 chapters and I cant thank you all my wonderful readers for keep supporting me!!!)
Chapter 995 Returning to Itonys
Chapter 995 Returning to Itonys
As Michael and Gaya emerged from the portal onto thend of Itonys, a breathtaking panorama unfolded before them. Gaya''s eyes widened in awe as she took in the enchanting sight thaty stretched out beneath her.
They stood atop a verdant mountain peak, overlooking a vast expanse of lush forests that extended as far as the eye could see. The forest itself seemed to be an artist''s canvas, sshed with vibrant hues of purple and blue. It was a kaleidoscope of colors that blended seamlessly, creating an otherworldly spectacle.
Giant trees towered over thendscape, their trunks adorned with intricate patterns and ethereal glow. The forest floor was carpeted with lush, emerald-green moss, adding a softness to the terrain. Towering mushrooms, their caps adorned with mesmerizing patterns, dotted the forest floor, creating a whimsical ambiance.
As Gaya''s gaze wandered further, she caught sight of trees that radiated a gentle, luminescent glow, casting a soft and enchanting light that illuminated the surroundings. These radiant trees bathed the forest in an otherworldly glow, adding an ethereal touch to the already mesmerizingndscape.
The air was filled with the gentle fluttering of giant butterflies, their wings adorned with iridescent colors that shimmered as they danced through the air. Their presence added a touch of magic to the already captivating scene.
The forest of Itonys seemed like a ce plucked from a fairy tale, a realm where dreams and reality intertwined. Its beauty was captivating, an immersive experience that stirred the senses and transported one to a world of wonder and enchantment.
In that moment, as the gentle breeze caressed her cheeks and the symphony of the forest serenaded her ears, Gaya knew that Itonys was a ce of refuge, a sanctuary from the turmoil that awaited them.
"Come on, we should go meet Elidyr," Michael said, surprising Gaya.
"Elidyr? But I thought he was stuck back in our world," Gaya replied, her confusion evident.
"No, in case of an attack, I gave Elidyr something to teleport into this world with," Michael exined, ncing at his wrist. Unfortunately, his battle with Rudra had broken his Olympus, leaving him without the ability to fly or use his cultivation in this world. However, Michael had a quick solution in mind.
"Do you know where to go? My Olympus is not broken," Gaya remarked, hopeful.
Before Michael could respond, a magnificent golden giant butterfly emerged from the air below the mountain cliff they stood on, apanied by a powerful gust of wind. Gaya''s eyes widened in astonishment as two elves with beautiful brown skin gracefully descended from the butterfly and immediately knelt before Michael.
"My lord, you have returned," Tazkin said, bowing his head respectfully.
"Gaya, meet Tazkin and Thilve," Michael introduced the two wood elves to Gaya, acknowledging their loyalty and courage during the events he had shared with her.
"Ah, the two warriors who fought against the Skyhall," Gaya remembered, recalling the tales Michael had shared.
"Tell me, Tazkin, has anyone else arrived here before us?" Michael inquired, his curiosity piqued. Thilve and Tazkin nodded in response.
"Yes, my lord. He imed to have been sent by you and showed us your symbol. We left him back at the vige," Tazkin reported dutifully.
"Good. Then let''s make our way to your vige. We have much to do," Michael dered, gesturing for Gaya to join him atop the butterfly. With a swift leap, Gaya gracefully climbed onto their ride, her torn and dirtied dress contrasting against her natural beauty.
Michael stepped onto the butterfly''s wings and waited for Tazkin and Thilve to take hold of the reins. Once everyone had settledfortably atop the giant golden butterfly, they set off toward the vige.
As the majestic butterfly soared through the air, the wind rushed past them, carrying with it the scent of flowers and the distant melody of birds singing. Thendscape unfolded beneath them, showcasing the enchanting beauty of Itonys.
Butterflies of all sizes and hues fluttered around, their graceful wings adding sshes of brilliance to the scenery. The air itself felt alive, carrying the invigorating aroma of blossoms and the sweet fragrance of nature''s abundance.
As the golden butterfly gradually descended, it skillfully navigated through the dense canopy of the forest. Gaya marveled at the sight that unfolded before her. The wood elves'' vige was a marvel of engineering and natural beauty, built high above the ground, nestled among the majestic trees.
Intricate stairs, woven with ropes and sturdy wood, gracefully interconnected the vige houses and each towering tree. The architecture seamlessly blended with nature, utilizing the branches as support beams and allowing the trees to continue their growth undisturbed. The elevated walkways provided a sense of enchantment as they wound their way through the lush foliage, creating an intricate web of interconnected pathways.
At the heart of the vige, a spacious clearing awaited them. Gaya''s eyes widened as she took in the sight of a magnificent statue depicting Michael and Vedora sitting atop his shoulder, meticulously carved from wood. The craftsmanship was impable, capturing the essence of their strength and unity. The statue stood tall and proud, serving as a symbol of hope and reverence for the wood elves.
Just before the statue, a grand throne had been ced, meticulously crafted from the finest wood, its intricate designs paying homage to nature''s beauty. The throne awaited Michael''s return, a seat of honor for the one who had brought them salvation and protection.
As the golden butterfly gracefullynded in the clearing, Gaya''s gaze shifted toward the awaiting wood elves. They stood there, dressed in vibrant garments that mirrored the colors of the surrounding forest, holding baskets filled with an array of freshly picked flowers. Their eyes gleamed with anticipation and gratitude, for they had been eagerly awaiting Michael''s return.
With smiles on their faces, the wood elves approached, gently cing the flowers from their baskets at Michael''s feet. The air was filled with a delicate fragrance as if nature itself had released its essence in celebration of their arrival.
Gaya was moved by the genuine warmth and joy emanating from the wood elves. It was evident that Michael''s presence held great significance for them, as he represented their protector, their leader, and their hope for a brighter future.
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As Michael stood among the wood elves, his gaze fell upon Tazkin and Thilve, who were bringing Elidyr towards him. Elidyr, still wearing his once-golden robes that were now muddied and torn from his escape, looked worn and weary. He had journeyed through the portal, passing through the forge in Demon''s Grave and utilizing a special teleportation scroll that Michael had provided.
The three of them, Michael, Elidyr, and Gaya, wore solemn expressions, their minds still reeling from the events that had transpired during their wedding. It was unfathomable to them that a god had appeared and attacked Michael, manipting his hands to strike down three seal bearers.
As Michael surveyed the vige, his eyes scanning for someone in particr, he finally spoke up, addressing Tazkin.
"Tazkin, where is Kirat?" Michael inquired, searching for the vige elder he had encountered before. Tazkin and the others exchanged nces, a flicker of sadness briefly crossing their eyes.
"He has passed away, my lord," Thilve replied with a somber tone.
Michael sighed inwardly, acknowledging the loss of the old man, and silently wished for him to find peace.
"Now, Tazkin, Thilve, if you could leave us for a moment," Michael requested, his voice carrying a tone of seriousness. Understanding the gravity of the situation, Tazkin and Thilve bowed and discreetly gestured for the vigers to give them some privacy.
As the vigers departed, Gaya sank down onto the throne, feeling the weight of recent events. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for what was toe.
"What''s the n?" Gaya asked, her voice filled with determination.
In response, Michael essed his system storage and retrieved two golden parchments.
"If we are to return to our world as soon as possible and face these gods head-on, we need everyone ready and prepared," Michael exined. However, Elidyr''s brow furrowed upon hearing the mention of gods. Although he hade across brief references to the realm of gods in ancient texts, his knowledge on the matter was limited. Observing Elidyr''s perplexed expression, Michael proceeded to share all the information Nithroel had disclosed, including the startling revtion that the renowned Empress of Awor was, in fact, a fallen god.
Afterprehending the information shared by Michael, Elidyr found himself stunned. The revtion that Michael was entangled in a war between the pantheon and Dagon, a fallen god turned ruler of hell, was a shock in itself.
Curiosity gnawed at Elidyr as he voiced his question, seeking understanding. "Why do these fallen gods wish to fight you? Are they also under the influence of the Skyhall?" he inquired.
Gaya echoed Elidyr''s sentiment, expressing her own confusion. "I''m wondering the same thing," she chimed in.
Michael pondered their inquiries, his mind analyzing the situation. "If I''m correct, these fallen gods were living among us as mortals. So if we have angered them in some way, they may seek retribution now that they have regained their graces somehow," he exined.
"That four handed monstrosity must have something to do with all of this," she growled, her thoughts consumed by the fallen god''s presence. Gaya''s frustration red as she mentioned the four-handed monstrosity known as Dagon.
Michael concurred, his gaze focused on the bigger picture. "We stillck a clear understanding of these fallen gods and how to confront them. However, until I ascend to higher levels of godhood, our options will remain limited," he stated.
Gaya rose from the throne, joining Michael''s side. Her concern for his safety was evident as she spoke. "But you can''t face the gods alone, and we, as mortals, won''t stand a fucking chance against them, even if we reach the Celestial stage," she said, emphasizing the need for assistance in the uing battles.
Elidyr, observing the interaction, knew that Michael always had ns in motion. Despite the unexpected appearance of a god, which caught everyone off guard, Michael had contingency ns in ce. These ns facilitated the escape of his subordinates from the ind and even included strategies to confront death itself.
"That''s why I insist on rallying all our forces," Michael dered, lifting one of the parchments to disy a mapbeled with the name "Itonys." on one part.
"This parchment contains valuable insights that will aid me in advancing to higher stages of godhood," he continued. Then, he raised the second parchment, which exclusively depicted a map of the outside world.
"And this one," Michael added, "holds the knowledge of energy deposits that can expedite your path to the Celestial stage, along with the others."
Gaya and Elidyr remained unaware of the information Michael had received from the system. It provided him with instructions on how to empower his subordinates tobat the gods. Although his subordinates still had a long way to go before challenging formidable deities like the God of War, the system could enhance their abilities enough to contend with weaker gods. However, the system cautioned Michael that his subordinates were not to face the gods and should avoid direct confrontations with gods at all costs. Yet, it also assured him that once they stepped into the realm of gods, the potential for growth and strengthening through various items and tasks would be boundless.
With the mortal realm now under the dominion of fallen gods, Michael recognized the urgency of developing a formidable force tobat them. To achieve this, he and his subordinates needed to venture into the realm of gods, and more importantly, he needed to pave the way.
Gaya took the map from Michael''s hand and carefully studied its contents before redirecting her attention to him.
"But what about the fallen gods? Nithroel warned us against returning to our world until we grow stronger," Gaya voiced her concerns.
"You won''t be able to grow stronger while being stuck in this world," Michael replied.
Curiosity tinged Gaya''s question as she sought rification. "So, what are you suggesting we do?" she inquired.
Michael took a moment to gather his thoughts before responding. "You need to return to our world, maintain a low profile, and search for these energy deposits. Utilize them to enhance your own strength while evading any encounters with the fallen gods. Soon, I will acquire a means to conceal your presence from them temporarily," he exined. The system had hinted that it would reactivate once Michael located another seed of darkness. With that reactivation, he could acquire a skill or rune to shield Gaya''s aura from the prying eyes of the fallen gods and safely send her back to the outside world.
"Good. I want to go on my own," Gaya stated, leaving Elidyr taken aback. It hadn''t even been a day since they exchanged vows, and now she expressed a desire to part ways. Elidyr''s face darkened, his emotions entwined with confusion and concern.
Gaya quickly began to exin herself, aware of the impact her decision might have on Elidyr. "After facing that tiny fraction of the god''s power and getting my ass kicked, I know I''ll only weigh him down," she began, her voice filled with determination.
"The ces he''s about to venture into will undoubtedly be filled with threats that I, unfortunately, can''t handle. Sticking by his side would not only make me useless, but it could also make me a liability, even a potential hostage against him. However, if I return to the outside world, I can make a tangible difference and provide real assistance. As much as I hate leaving his side, it''s our best option at this moment. Time is precious, and every minute we waste is a minute our enemies have to grow stronger," Gaya concluded, her conviction shining through her words.
Michael let out a sigh of relief, grateful that Gaya understood the situation so well. He knew that sending her off alone carried its own risks, but he also recognized the greater peril involved in obtaining the seeds of darkness. Moreover, once he stepped into the realm of gods, he would be the primary focus of the pantheon, unlike the current situation where their attention was primarily fixed on Dagon. In due time, if Gaya hadn''t attained sufficient strength to battle the gods, she could be used against him, cing her life in even greater danger.
Chapter 996 Andohr鈥檚 Plan Has Failed
In the midst of the unexpected turn of events, Michael saw an opportunity to transform the situation into something advantageous, as he had always done. After exining his n to Elidyr and Gaya, he led them into an empty cabin where Elidyr had been kept upon his arrival. As Gaya entered the dimly lit room, her eyes widened in shock and surprise at the sight that greeted her ¨C two majestic suits of armor standing before her.
"I had hoped to present this to you under different circumstances, but now you need it more than ever," Michael said, his voice steady and determined. Stepping closer to the armor he had specifically crafted for Gaya, Michael gently took her hand and guided it to rest upon the chestte. The moment her hand made contact with the armor, she felt a faint vibration coursing through it. Gradually, the individual pieces of the armor began to shift and separate, creating an opening for Gaya to step inside.
With a simple flick of her hand, Gaya''s clothing transformed into sleek ck robes, perfectly matching the armor. Stepping into the waiting armor, she felt a peculiar sensation as the pieces enveloped her, fitting snugly against her form. Gaya couldn''t help but be amazed at how the armor seemed to meld seamlessly with her body, granting her an extraordinary sense of connection. With a mere thought, shemanded the armor to epass her head, and in an instant, the helmet formed, concealing her face behind an imposing ck skull visage.
Eager to explore the capabilities of her newfound armor, Gaya took a confident step forward, mentally urging the armor to unveil its hidden attributes. Responding to her intentions, the once billowing ck cape attached to her robes disappeared from sight, seamlessly integrating into the armor. Then, to Gaya''s astonishment, magnificent metal wings sprouted from her back, their surfaces gleaming in the soft candlelight of the cabin.
"This armor...wow...its just...perfect..."
Overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of her armor, Gaya found herself at a loss for words, standing in awe as Michael, too, stepped into his own suit. The armor embraced him seamlessly, fitting him perfectly as he moved forward, testing its functionality with clenched fists.
With a swift motion of his hand, Michael summoned his dark swords, which effortlessly slid into the scabbards integrated into the back of his armor. Satisfied with the smoothness of the sheathing, Michael cracked his neck and turned his gaze back to Gaya, ready to embark on their impending journey.
"Let''s go. We''ll be setting off soon," Michael announced. With Gaya trailing behind him in her newfound armor, Michael exited the cabin with a n to be the god he was meant to be.
Michael stood at the center of the clearing, his voice resonating like thunder as he called out for Thilve and Tazkin. The two wood elves swiftly made their way to him, their eyes widening in astonishment at the sight of Michael and Gaya donned in their magnificent ck armor. Gaya received the map containing energy deposits, while Michael held the map containing the seeds of darkness.
"My lord," Thilve and Tazkin bowed respectfully upon reaching him, still captivated by the regal presence of Michael and Gaya.
"Tazkin, Thilve, I''d like you to meet Gaya. My wife," Michael introduced Gaya, the wood elves quickly surmising the connection between the two.
"It is our utmost honor and blessing to be in your presence, mydy," Tazkin and Thilve expressed their reverence.
"As long as you serve us with loyalty, prosperity shall be your constantpanion," Gaya responded graciously.
Michael then opened the map, directing their attention to a specific area in Itonys. Thilve and Tazkin leaned in, studying the map intently before returning their gaze to Michael, awaiting further instruction.
"My lord, if you permit, we have something to show you," Tazkin spoke, to which Michael nodded in agreement. The two wood elves hurried to their houses and returned with arge leaf, serving as a makeshift parchment. They presented a map drawn on the dried blue leaf, which surprised Michael.
"After your departure, my lord, we expanded our scouting range and meticulously mapped the surroundings. The location you mentioned houses a Skyhall outpost, and ording to messengers from the mountain tribe," Tazkin began exining.
"Fucking assholes," Gaya interjected, her disdain for the Skyhall soldiers evident.
"Do you have any knowledge of their activities in that area?" Elidyr inquired.
"No, my lord. The ce is heavily fortified, and any attempt to infiltrate would result in certain ughter," Tazkin confessed.
Michael had hoped to obtain a seed of darkness without engaging inbat against the Skyhall soldiers. However, with the realization that Skyhall forces surrounded the nearest seed of darkness, he had no alternative but to confront them head-on.
¡¤?¦Èm "How many of these outposts have you discovered in your world?" Gaya asked.
"To date, we have encountered fifteen outposts, mydy. However, we suspect there are more concealed within the forest and uncharted territories of our world," Tazkin revealed.
"Elidyr, remain here with them and fortify the vige to the best of your abilities. Use the arch crystals if necessary," Michael issued his instructions to Elidyr, cing emphasis on the importance of protecting the vige. He then stored the map back in his system storage.
"These Skyhall soldiers possess something that belongs to me, and I must retrieve it," Michael stated with a grave tone, conveying the seriousness of the situation.
Turning his attention to Thilve and Tazkin, Michael continued, "You two remain here and continue scouting. But refrain from engaging the Skyhall soldiers directly. If they are establishing an outpost, they must have ulterior motives, and I want to know their ns."
"Yes, my lord," Thilve and Tazkin acknowledged in unison. As Michael unfurled his wings, he and Gaya took to the sky, ascending with a single powerful p. Another p propelled them forward, soaring towards the Skyhall outpost.
During the flight, Michael''s thoughts were consumed by Nithroel''s words, particrly the mention of Andohr, the god of time and space. It was apparent that Andohr harbored a deep-seated grudge against Michael, likely due to the previous Dark Lord''s grievous actions. Michael couldn''t help but question why Andohr had yet tounch a direct attack against him. Perhaps Andohr had already struck, but Michael had failed to recognize it. The presence of the shadow force working against him further fueled his suspicion of Andohr''s involvement. Regardless, Michael understood the importance of familiarizing himself with the gods, especially Andohr, as it was a vital first step towards defeating his adversaries.
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( Back on Andohr''s castle)
Resting upon his throne in deep contemtion, a profound frown etched upon his face, Andohr observed the events unfolding on the ind where the God of Darkness, his sworn enemy, had held his wedding, only to be interrupted by Rudra, the God of War, his another enemy.
"Damn it!" Andohr''s hand struck the armrest of his throne in an outburst of anger. As he pondered the motives behind Rudra''s actions, the ethereal form of Seraphine materialized before him, her appearance seemingly too coincidental to be unrted to the events that had transpired. The air in the castle turned icy, and Andohr''s gaze grew colder, radiating a palpable sense of murderous intent.
"What have you done, Seraphine?" Andohr''s voice reverberated throughout the castle walls,ced with a chilling disdain.
"We have done what should have been done long ago, Andohr. The barrier has weakened, allowing the pantheon to send their armies to confront Dagon in his realm of hell, where he holds dominion," Andohr''s voice resonated with a frigid and merciless tone, tinged with bitter sarcasm and anger towards the pantheon''s perceived foolishness.
"Your Skyhall army shall face the hell walkers in the realm in-between, while the Pantheon''s forces confront Dagon in hell. Although we had not anticipated Dagon unleashing the graces, it has inadvertently worked in our favor. With the aid of the fallen gods, we can crush the hell walkers and eradicate any remaining influence of the Dark Lord in the mortal realm," Seraphine exined. However, as the goddess of information, a sense of unease gnawed at her, for everything seemed unnaturally smooth and advantageous, raising suspicions deep within her.
"And have you ever questioned why Dagon released the graces, despite knowing the consequences it would bring upon him?" Andohr''s voice grew colder still, his desire to remain seated upon his throne waning as he fought against the urge to obliterate everything in his sight.
"Do youprehend why I have notmanded my minions to gather all the seal bearers and forced the Dark Lord to y them? Did you truly believe that the Dark Lord had not considered the possibility of us amassing the seal bearers, allowing his own reincarnation to eliminate them and shatter the barrier? Do you believe it to be that simple?"
Seraphine offered no response as Andohr pounded the throne once more before rising to his feet, his anger and frustration simmering beneath the surface.
"Tell me Serpahine, did you know Rudra was going to crash the wedding and make the Dark Lord kill the three seal bearers on the same time?" Andohr''s question hung in the air, punctuated by a heavy silence that enveloped them. After a brief moment, Seraphine nodded, confirming his suspicion.
"Yes," she responded softly.
"Then you doomed yourselves and the pantheon," Andohr''sughter echoed through the chamber, tinged with a mix of anger and frustration.
"What do you mean? Enough with the secrecy, Andohr. If you possess additional knowledge regarding the barrier, you must share it with us," Seraphine growled, her own frustration boiling over from being kept in the dark by Andohr.
"I remained secretive because I know that you and the rest of the pantheon would only interfere with my ns. However, I never expected you to be so foolish as to seek the assistance of Rudra, a mindless brute," Andohr shouted, his voice reverberating through the halls as the castle trembled beneath his fury.
"He must have orchestrated it all, foreseeing this oue," Andohr muttered, his fists clenched tightly as he brooded upon the God of Darkness and his intricate schemes.
"I established the Skyhall to serve as his primary adversary, the ultimate nemesis in his life. Prior to your imbecilic revtion of the gods'' existence, he believed that the Skyhall was his sole enemy. He would have annihted them and lived blissfully ignorant of the realm of gods. During that time, we could have sought a permanent means to eliminate him, or better yet, allowed Noah, his own brother, to be his executioner. And if Noah had failed, we could have struck him down when he was weakened. The opportunities were limitless when he believed he had no adversaries. A lion is most vulnerable when its hunger is sated,"
Andohr''s voice reverberated with anger as he exined the intricacies of his thwarted ns. The Pantheon and Seraphine had underestimated the God of Darkness and their shortsightedness had ruined everything. In their eyes, Dagon posed the greatest threat, unaware of the imminent danger the God of Darkness represented to the Pantheon.
"But now, he is once again on the prowl. He now knows that there exists a realm beyond mortals, a realm of gods. He is aware of the existence of other gods apart from his own brother. And thanks to Rudra''s assault on his wedding, he now sees the gods and the Pantheon as his enemies. If you believe Dagon to be a formidable adversary, think again when the God of Darkness aligns himself with Dagon, decimating the Pantheon''s army without mercy," Andohr''s fury grew as he still couldn''t fathom the Pantheon''s foolishness in revealing themselves and engaging in conflict with the God of Darkness.
"And by ying the three seal bearers on the same day, you have inadvertently created a breach in the barrier, allowing him to traverse between the realm of gods and retain his immense power," Andohr bellowed.
Typically, when a mortal attains the Celestial stage, they are drawn into the realm of gods and transformed into worshippers, devoid of their own power. The barrier erected by the previous Dark Lord prevented mortals from reaching this stage. However, Andohr knew that the previous Dark Lord had orchestrated this to ensure his own reincarnation would be the first to ascend to the Celestial stage, exploring the realm of gods and safeguarding mortals from bing mindless devotees of the Pantheon. For centuries, Andohr meticulously crafted the facade of the Skyhall as the arch-nemesis of the current Dark Lord, keeping him blissfully unaware while Andohr plotted his revenge in the shadows. He had diligently concealed the existence of the realm of gods from the Dark Lord, but his n had now crumbled.
Through the simultaneous ying of the three seal bearers, a fissure in the barrier emerged, preventing the realm of gods from stripping the Dark Lord of his power. AS ast resort, if the Dark Lord were to discover the realm of gods and embark on a journey driven by curiosity, he would have entered as a humble divine being, void of his powers. However, due to the recent turn of events, he would now step into the realm of gods as a fully-fledged god.
"How do you possess this knowledge?" Seraphine inquired, her curiosity piqued. As the Goddess of Information, even she had limited understanding of the barrier and its intricacies. And yet, Andohr, who had been confined to his castle for the past five millennia, seemed to have acquired a greater understanding of the barrier than any other god in the Pantheon.
"I am the fucking god of time and space," Andohr dered with emphasis. "For the past five thousand years, I have devoted every moment to studying the barrier and delving into the mind of the God of Darkness."
Suddenly, Andohr burst into boisterousughter, a sudden shift from his previous demeanor that caught Seraphine off guard.
"Why are youughing?" Seraphine inquired, perplexed by his sudden change in behavior.
"Because now, the Pantheon must work their assess off to find a means to free me from this castle," Andohr chuckled. "As I am your only hope in saving the Pantheon from his impending wrath."
Chapter 997 Making Gods
After Andohr''s initial n had failed due to the Pantheon''s hasty decision-making and their limited knowledge of the God of Darkness''s true threat, Andohr had to resort to his backup n. It was understandable that the Pantheon underestimated the God of Darkness, as they had witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by Dagon, unlike the God of Darkness who had reset the universe before engaging in a full-scale war against the Pantheon. However, as the God of Time and Space, Andohr was well aware of the formidable power possessed by the God of Darkness.
Back in Salesi''s castle, she entered a brightly illuminated hall, clutching two ss cubes in her hands. These cubes housed radiant orbs of light that emitted a pulsating, immense energy. Carrying the cubes, Salesi proceeded towards a set of ss tubes where Evan and ra Valreny submerged in a shimmering silver liquid. They were unconscious, connected to various small tubes that extended into their bodies. Outside the ss tubes, a control panel adorned with glowing runes had been constructed. A figure was busy adjusting the tubes and tinkering with the intricate mechanisms, gears, and bolts as Salesi approached Evan and ra.
"How''s the progress, Hammond?" Salesi inquired, her gaze fixed on the young man who had been working on the intricate mechanisms. Hammond stood up and turned around, his eyes immediately drawn to the two ss cubes in Salesi''s hands. He instinctively reached out towards the pulsating energy, but Salesi swiftly intervened, preventing him from touching the ss cubes. Hammond snapped out of his daze, appearing stunned.
"They are indeed," Salesi confirmed, acknowledging Hammond''s unspoken question. However, she restrained him from making contact with the cubes. Hammond seemed taken aback by the realization.
"They are prepared, mydy. I just need a few moments to calibrate the energy valves. But I must warn you again, I haven''t tested this contraption, and I can''t guarantee its functionality," Hammond cautioned. Among the various peculiar inventions he had crafted for Salesi, the energy transfer device was the most hazardous and vtile. It boasted an intricate array of runes and mechanisms, challenging even his brilliant mind to fullyprehend.
"It will work, Hammond," Salesi asserted with unwavering confidence. The design of this contraption had been bestowed upon her by a god, and in her experience, the god had never faltered. However, Salesi opted to keep the existence of this deity concealed from her mortal followers.
Acknowledging Salesi''s assurance, Hammond cautiously extended his trembling hands. Finally, Salesi handed him the ss cubes containing two graces¡ªone for Evan and another for ra. Since these graces did not originally belong to Evan and ra, who were mere mortals, Salesi understood that time and the proper utilization of the contraption were essential for the graces to settle within their mortal vessels. With the Dark Lord banished from the mortal realm, Salesi knew she had all the time necessary to execute her n.
Hammond carefully positioned the two ss cubes, each containing a grace, into the hollow spaces on the dashboard adjacent to the tubes where ra and Evan were submerged. As he gently released his grip, a mesmerizing phenomenon unfolded before their eyes. The contraption, with its intricate mechanisms and glowing runes, seemed toe alive as it eagerly embraced the presence of the graces.
With a soft whir, the contraption activated, and the hollow spaces maically drew in the ss cubes. The valves on the contraption''s surface lit up in a symphony of vibrant colors, resembling a celestial dance. Liquids of various hues and viscosities gracefully flowed through the interconnected tubes, converging into the heart of the contraption.
Soon, a golden liquid, shimmering like liquid sunlight, coursed through the tubes attached to Evan and ra, delicately entering their unconscious bodies. It was a sight of otherworldly beauty as the golden liquid traveled through the intricatework of tubes, following its predetermined path with precision. The flow of life-giving energy slowly awakened dormant parts of their beings, infusing them with the essence of the graces.
Hammond suppressed his fears and nodded in agreement. There was no turning back now. The fate of Evan, ra, and their realm rested in the delicate bnce of the contraption''s intricate dance.
The contraption itself seemed alive with energy, flickering and humming in synchrony with the life force coursing through its veins. Sparks danced around the intricate machinery, casting an ethereal glow in the room. It was a testament to the raw power harnessed within the contraption, a fusion of mortal ingenuity and divine guidance.
Hammond, witnessing the extraordinary disy before him, couldn''t help but feel a twinge of apprehension. The sheerplexity and untested nature of the contraption raised concerns within him, questioning whether they should proceed. He hesitated, his gaze shifting between the flickering contraption and Salesi, who stood nearby.
"Perhaps we should reconsider, mydy," Hammond finally voiced his concerns, his voice tinged with worry. "This contraption is untested, and the risks¡ª"
Salesi, however, exuded an unwavering calmness and confidence. She understood the magnitude of their endeavor and the consequences of failure. With a serene expression, she interrupted Hammond''s doubts.
"Hammond, we havee too far to turn back now. Trust in the design bestowed upon us. The graces must find their rightful vessels, and this is our only chance to ensure the salvation of our realm," Salesi responded, her voice resolute and filled with conviction.
As Salesi observed the graceful integration of the graces into Evan and ra, her mind drifted back to her humble origins in the realm of gods. In those days, the belief was that gods were born, not created. However, with the sess of this contraption, she realized she held the power to transform any mortal into a god who would serve under hermand. It was a moment of triumphant realization, making her feel like a true mastermind orchestrating the destiny of others.
Yet, she couldn''t ignore the pressing need to protect this contraption from the clutches of the Dark Lord. If he were to discover its existence, there would be no limit to his ability to elevate his already powerful and devoted followers into gods. Salesi understood the urgency of safeguarding this knowledge and technology, vowing to do whatever it took to keep it hidden from the Dark Lord''s reach.
However, Salesi and Andohr remained oblivious to the true depth of the previous Dark Lord''s cunning and the intricate nature of his grand schemes. Little did they know that his n to unleash the graces through Dagon''s actions was just the beginning¡ªa carefully calcted move designed to set in motion a series of events that would forever alter the course of their lives.
As the graces were released, it seemed as if everything was going ording to n for those who opposed the Dark Lord. They believed it to be a stroke of fortune in their favor. However, unbeknownst to them, this was all part of the Dark Lord''s mastern, a carefully crafted web of maniption that would lead to his ultimate triumph.
Now, a new yer had emerged onto the stage¡ªthe current Michael. he possessed ns that surpassed even those of the previous Dark Lord. With unwavering determination, Michael set his sights on achieving unparalleled power, vying to be the most formidable god ever known. His ambitions soared higher than any before him, fueling his relentless pursuit of dominance.
Salesi and Andohr, engrossed in their own endeavors, were unaware of the intricate tapestry woven by the previous Dark Lord. Little did they suspect the magnitude of the challenges thaty ahead or the cunning brilliance of the mastermind orchestrating it all.
As the radiant golden grace gradually permeated the bodies of Evan and ra, an intense tremor engulfed them within the ss tubes. Violent quivering shook their forms, causing an eruption of sparks from the contraption and flickering lights that danced around the room. Unforeseen gusts of wind materialized, creating a miniature storm that whipped through the hall. Hammond''s voice rose in panic amidst the chaos.
"My Lady... this isn''t going well... they might perish!" Hammond eximed, shielding his face from the fiery sparks with a trembling hand.
While Hammond recoiled from the powerful gusts, Salesi stood firm, unaffected by the forceful winds, her eyes fixed upon the grace''s ethereal progression into Evan and ra. Unlike Hammond, she sensed the immense power radiating from within them, a testament to the grace''s sessful integration.
"Hammond, we are not simply baking cookies," Salesi replied calmly, her voice cutting through the tempestuous air. "We are making gods. A slight tremor and tempestuous storm are to be anticipated in such extraordinary endeavors."
As the hall continued to tremble with increasing violence, a sudden darkness shrouded the space, enveloping it in an eerie stillness. Yet, amidst the obscurity, a soft golden glow emanated from the bodies of ra and Evan. It gradually intensified, piercing through the darkness like a beacon of celestial light.
In that radiant illumination, their eyes slowly opened, revealing an otherworldly azure hue that seemed to emit its own luminosity. The harmonious resonance of a gentle hum reverberated from their bodies, resonating through the chamber. It was a sound that whispered of newfound power and divinity.
Then, as if guided by an invisible force, the ss tubes that had contained them shattered into countless shards. ra and Evan, now transformed into gods, hovered effortlessly in the air, liberated from the confines of mortal restraints. With a serene andmanding presence, they advanced forward, their movements grace personified.
The hall, which had once trembled with chaos, now stood in awe of their ethereal forms. The atmosphere was charged with anticipation as the pantheon witnessed the birth of two new deities, their very existence altering the course of destiny.
A few momentster, the chandeliers flickered back to life, bathing the room in their warm glow. The hall gradually returned to its familiar state, but Hammond''s eyes remained widened with astonishment. He didn''t even notice the tiny cuts on his face, the remnants of the shattered ss tube that had grazed him. All of his attention was fixed on Evan and ra, who had gently descended to the ground, their newfound power palpable in the air.
Salesi turned to them, her gaze filled with curiosity and satisfaction. "How do you two feel?" she asked, eager to hear their impressions.
Evan, still trying to make sense of the transformation he had undergone, voiced his confusion. "What is this power?" he inquired. His memories were hazy, recalling Salesi''s promise of granting him new abilities and urging him to step into the tube filled with shimmering liquid. After entering the tube, darkness had swallowed him, and his consciousness faded away. Now, as he awakened, he felt a profound change coursing through his being¡ªa power unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
While Evan sought answers from Salesi, Hammond discreetly observed their cultivation levels, hoping to gauge the extent of their newfound abilities. Yet, to his shock, the power radiating from them defied allprehension. The energy that enveloped Evan and ra surpassed any mortal cultivation he had ever witnessed. The graces infused within their bodies had shattered the limitations of mortal potential, propelling them into the realm of fledgling gods. Although they had yet to unlock the depths of their inner powers like the enigmatic Dark Lord, given time and Salesi''s guidance, they possessed the potential to be the very gods that Salesi had envisioned.
"You both should rest now. You''ve been through a lot, and we have much to aplish," Salesi advised, concern evident in her voice.
Although Salesi felt a surge of delight at gaining another advantage over the Dark Lord, she remained vignt. She understood the gravity of the situation and refused to underestimate her formidable adversary. At any given moment, the Dark Lord could seize the opportunity to turn the tables on her. Salesi was well aware that underestimating him could lead to dire consequences, even risking her own life. Therefore, she was determined to stay cautious and prepared for any challenges thaty ahead.
Chapter 998 Seed Of Darkness
Back on Itonys, Michael and Gaya soared through the expansive blue sky, their wings carrying them gracefully above the lush and vibrant forest below. Despite the breathtaking scenery surrounding them, Michael remained lost in his own thoughts, his mind consumed by ns and strategies to confront the gods. Not a word escaped his lips as he delved deeper into his contemtions, focused on the daunting task thaty ahead.
After flying for nearly three hours, a majestic mountain came into view on the horizon. Its towering peaks seemed to kiss the heavens, casting shadows over thend below. As Michael and Gaya drew closer, they noticed the presence of an outpost nestled upon the mountain''s rugged slopes. The Skyhall soldiers had established this formidable fortress,plete with towering structures, imposing metal gates, and vignt soldiers d in gleaming armor patrolling its premises.
As Michael and Gaya approached the outpost, the aftermath of its establishment became apparent. The once vibrant and flourishing forest surrounding the outpost had been mercilessly destroyed, reduced to a deste expanse of ashen ground. The stark contrast between the lifeless, charred earth and the edge of the forest, still adorned with its array of colors, was a sobering sight.
Even from above, Michael and Gaya could feel the residual heat radiating from the scorched ground. The mes set by the Skyhall soldiers to clear the area and secure their outpost had left an indelible mark on thendscape. The scent of smoke lingered in the air, a reminder of the destruction that had taken ce.
As Michael and Gaya hovered in the sky, Michael''s piercing gaze fixated on the outpost sprawled before him. The outpost resembled a formidable fortress, strategically positioned at the base of the tall mountain. Its towering structures, constructed with sturdy stone and reinforced with metal, stood as a testament to the Skyhall soldiers'' determination to maintain their hold on this territory.
From his vantage point, Michael discerned theplexyout of the outpost. The main entrance, guarded by a pair of massive metal gates, served as the primary ess point. The gates were nked by watchtowers, providing an elevated view of the surroundings. He noticed the patrolling soldiers, d in gleaming metal armor, marching along designated routes, their disciplined footsteps echoing through the outpost.
The perimeter of the fortress was encircled by a tall stone wall, punctuated by arrow slits and battlements, offering the defenders a strategic advantage. Michael''s keen eyes scanned the wall, searching for any weak points or vulnerabilities that could be exploited. He noted a section where the stones seemed weathered, a potential target for breaching the defenses.
Within the outpost, Michael estimated a considerable number of soldiers, their presence indicated by the bustling activity and asional nking of armor. The outpost was a well-guarded stronghold, a testament to the Skyhall soldiers'' readiness to protect their position against any opposing force.
Michael mentally mapped out the outpost,mitting its structure andyout to memory. He knew that any attempt to infiltrate and confront the Skyhall soldiers would require careful nning and precise execution.
"These idiots appear to becent and unaware, Michael. We have the advantage of surprise on our side. Let''s storm the shit out this outpost," Gaya suggested, her anger still simmering from the recent wedding chaos caused by Rudra. The Skyhall soldiers seemed like the perfect outlet for her pent-up frustration. However, Michael opted for a more measured approach.
"Just give me a moment," Michael calmly replied, conjuring a pair of drones from his storage system with a swift motion of his hand. Hemanded the drones to hover discreetly above the outpost, scanning the area for additional information beyond the soldiers'' sight. He also wanted to eavesdrop on the conversations among the soldiers gathered around a campfire within the outpost.
While it would have been easy for Michael to obliterate the outpost simply, his primary objective was to acquire the seed of darkness¡ªan enigmatic object or source of energy whose nature remained unknown to him. He needed to gather as much information as possible about the outpost and the knowledge possessed by the Skyhall soldiers beforeunching an attack. As an experienced hitman, Michael understood the paramount importance of preparation and acquiring even the smallest morsel of information to ensure the sess of his mission. With the drones buzzing and soaring through the sky, Michael and Gaya focused intently on their earpieces, listening to the audio transmitted from the drones.
As Michael and Gaya listened attentively to the transmitted audio from the drones, the soldiers'' conversation around the campfire unfolded before them.
"I can''t stand this world anymore. It''s so boring," one soldier grumbled, a hint of nostalgia evident in his voice. "I miss theforts of home, the warmth of a woman''s touch."
Another soldier chimed in, "Ah, wood elven women, they have a certain charm about them, don''t they? Those ethereal features and grace. I quite liked them."
A soldier scoffed, "You must be joking! Wood elven women are overrated. Give me a strong dwarvenss any day."
Amid their banter, another soldier interjected, "Enough with your romantic escapades. Have you heard anything about the equipment needed to break down that ck door in the cave? The Skyhall is taking ages to send it."
"Who knows? They''re probably too busy counting their riches," another soldier replied, frustration evident in his voice. "But seriously, what kind of metal is that door made of? I''ve never seen anything like it."
A gruff voice cut through the conversation, asserting, "Our job is to safeguard the cave, not question the orders. The Skyhall knows what they''re doing."
"True," another soldier chimed in. "Those wood elves are no match for us anyway. Their primitive bows and arrows won''t even scratch our armor. It''sughable, really."
Laughter erupted among the soldiers as they dismissed the threat posed by the wood elves. They reveled in their perceived superiority, oblivious to the impending storm that Michael and Gaya would unleash upon them.
As Michael listened to the soldiers'' conversation, a realization dawned upon him. The ck door they spoke of, with its mysteriousposition and the Skyhall''s dy in providing the necessary equipment to breach it, seemed to align with the possible location of the seed of darkness. A surge of excitement coursed through him, knowing that he was one step closer to achieving his goal.
Turning to Gaya, he spoke in hushed tones, "We have a valuable piece of information. That ck door they mentioned might be guarding what i want. We need to be patient and strike under the cover of darkness when they least expect it."
Gaya nodded in agreement, understanding the strategic advantage of waiting for the right moment. Together, they nned to unleash their assault when the nightfall cloaked their movements and the soldiers would be caught off guard.
While Michael and Gaya formted their n, the drones continued their reconnaissance. As they scanned the surroundings, one drone came across a tent where several soldiers, not wearing their heavy armor, were busily preparing food for the uing dinner. Michael''s lips curled into a devilish smile as he plotted a devious scheme.
"Look, Gaya," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "We have an opportunity to give these soldiers a special treat,"
With calcted precision, Michael maneuvered the drone closer to the tent, capturing footage of the soldiers handling the ingredients and preparing the meals. His mind whirred with thoughts of infusing the food with a subtle poison, a method to weaken their ranks before their ultimate assault.
The information they gathered would serve a dual purpose: not only would it provide crucial intelligence about the outpost, but it would also facilitate Michael''s n to incapacitate the soldiers without expending unnecessary energy or risking their own safety.
The realization that Itonyscked the arch energy or celestial energy he needed to fuel his cultivation power prompted Michael to conserve his limited resources, particrly his precious arch energy crystals. He knew that every decision had to be strategic, and his new n offered a means to achieve their objectives with minimal confrontation.
Descending gracefully through the dense forest canopy, Michaelnded gracefully on a sturdy branch of a towering tree, positioning himself and Gaya to observe the outpost from a vantage point. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned the drones back to his side, their mission of reconnaissanceplete.
"I can see what you are up to, but I still want to storm the outpost and kill them with my own hands,"
Gaya expressed her desire to storm the outpost and engage in directbat, her fiery spirit eager for action. However, Michael remained resolute, his calm demeanor reflecting his calcted approach.
"The best fight is one we win without raising our fists," he responded, his voice steady and assured. He knew that leveraging their advantage and avoiding unnecessary conflict would maximize their chances of sess.
As the drones returned, Michael deftly retrieved colorless vials from his system storage. Tapping the drones'' undersides, he revealed a hiddenpartmentrge enough to amodate each vial. cing the vials inside, he sealed thepartments with practiced ease.
With the vials securely in ce, the two drones resumed their flight towards the outpost. However, Michael knew that getting close enough to poison the boiling porridge cauldron undetected would be a challenge. He needed a distraction, and fortunately, his wife possessed a talent for creating chaotic diversions.
"Honey, if you may," Michael yfully requested, fully aware that using the endearment would elicit a response from Gaya.
As expected, she rolled her eyes and yfully punched him on the shoulder. Even in the midst of their mission, Michael took joy in teasing her and making her angry.
"That sounds so cringe, I want to throw up," Gaya quipped, summoning her long bow into her hand with a swift motion. Nocking an explosive arrow onto her bowstring, she took aim at a tent situated a distance away from the food preparation area. Her intention was to create an explosion that would draw the attention of the soldiers, prompting them to rush outside to investigate.
With a steadying breath, Gaya focused her aim and released the arrow. The explosive projectile soared through the air, covering a distance of at least four hundred meters before finding its mark on the targeted tent. In an instant, the arrow detonated with a resounding st, unleashing chaos within the outpost''s confines.
The sudden explosion jolted the soldiers inside the food preparation tent, startling them from their tasks. They hurriedly abandoned their work, rushing outside to assess the situation. Themotion spread like wildfire, causing a ripple of shock and tension among the other soldiers stationed within the outpost.
"What the hell was that?!" eximed a burly soldier with a thick beard, his eyes scanning the surroundings for any signs of danger.
"I don''t know, but we need to find out!" responded a wiry soldier, gripping his spear tightly as he joined the others in investigating the source of the explosion.
As the soldiers anxiously dispersed, their attention fixated on the aftermath of the st, Michael seized the opportunity. Swiftly maneuvering the drones, he expertly controlled their movements, guiding them toward the various food stations scattered around the outpost. With each drone equipped to spray the poison from the concealed vials, Michael directed them to contaminate every dish, including therge cauldron of porridge bubbling over an open me.
"Let''s make sure they all get a taste of our little surprise," Michael muttered, his voice filled with devious satisfaction.
The drones moved swiftly and efficiently, their poisonden sprays coating the meals, unseen by the soldiers preupied with the explosion. Just as quickly as they had arrived, the drones retreated into the sky, disappearing from sight before anyone could spot them.
From their vantage point in the trees, Michael and Gaya observed the chaos unfolding within the outpost, the soldiers now oblivious to the impending threat lurking within their food. Michael''s lips curled into a satisfied smirk, knowing that their n was well underway.
"They won''t even know what hit them," he whispered to Gaya, his voiceced with a mix of anticipation and triumph.
******************************************
When the darkness covered the world and night fell, Michael and Gaya soared through the air toward the outpost. As they descended upon the scene, a horrifying sight greeted their eyes. The soldiers, once bustling with life, nowy sprawled across the ground, their bodies wracked with pain and suffering.
Some soldiers coughed violently, spewing blood from their mouths, while others remained motionless, their life forces extinguished. The once proud and formidable warriors now appeared frail and broken. Their faces contorted with agony, marked by veins pulsating an ominous shade of purple. The air itself seemed tainted, heavy with the metallic scent of blood and the haunting symphony of groans and retching.
The poison had taken its toll, its effects lingering long enough to ensure that each soldier had consumed the tainted food. It was a slow and agonizing demise, affording them no respite from their torment. Their groans echoed through the night, apanied by the haunting symphony of coughs and the sickening stter of blood.
¡¤?¦Èm Michael and Gaya observed the grim aftermath, their expressions a mix of morbid fascination and detachment. The scene before them was a testament to their meticulous nning, a reminder of the lengths they were willing to go to achieve their goal.
"They got what they deserve," Michael muttered, his voice barely audible over the cacophony of suffering.
As the night stretched on, the groans grew fainter, reced by an eerie silence. Thest vestiges of life slipped away, leaving only the stillness of death in its wake. The once bustling outpost now stood as a grim testament to their victory, a reminder of the power they wielded.
Michael''s gaze shifted towards the gaping maw of a nearby cave, a foreboding darkness that beckoned to him. He could sense that within its depthsy the answers he sought¡ªthe ck door and the seed of darkness. Determination burned within him as he took a step closer, ready to embark on the next phase of his perilous journey.
Chapter 999 Way To Wake Up The System Permanently
As Michael ventured deeper into the mountain, the cavern revealed remnants of broken puppets scattered amidst the gray stones etched with mysterious runes. The sight of these fragments evoked memories of golems in Gaya''s mind, prompting her to maintain a vignt and silent demeanor. Illuminating their path, two beams of bright light emitted from the intricately engraved skull adorning their chest armor. With each step, Michael observed the telltale signs of a fierce struggle, evidenced by shattered stone pieces and bloodstains sttered across the walls. It was clear that the Skyhall soldiers had encountered a formidable defense protecting the coveted seed of darkness.
Finally reaching the end of the cave, Michael confronted a foreboding ck metal gate. Strewn before it were various discarded tools and equipment, remnants of the Skyhall soldiers'' relentless attempts to breach the door''s formidable barrier. Among the scattered remnants stood a formidable siege machine, a testament to their desperate efforts. Intrigued, Michael approached the gate, his hand instinctively reaching out to touch its cold, imprable surface.
Gaya, running her fingers along the door, murmured in awe, "This metal... it feels the same as your dark swords."
Michael nodded, acknowledging the simrities. "It does bear resemnce, but it is not the same," he replied. Although the door appeared to be crafted from a simr material to his dark swords, Michael discerned its inherent weakness inparison. To others, particrly the Skyhall soldiers, this metal seemed imprable. And it was precisely because of this imprability that the soldiers had been thwarted in their attempts to breach its formidable barrier. Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of satisfaction at the door''s resilience, knowing it had safeguarded whaty beyond from falling into the wrong hands.
In a bold move, Michael unleashed a powerful punch upon the unyielding door, causing the cave to tremble and the very foundations to quake.
"That is not a good idea,"
Gaya, witnessing the impact, voiced her concern, cautioning him about the potential repercussions. Nodding in agreement, Michael nced back at her and issued a warning.
"Step back. Things are about to heat up," he advised, his eyes aze with determination. With a swift motion, he conjured a searing ball of dark mes, its malevolent glow casting an eerie light upon the surroundings. Directing the stream of intense heat towards the door, the dark mes made contact with the once impervious metal surface, causing previously unseen runes to ignite with a vibrant glow. Gradually, the dark mes began their relentless assault, causing the metal door to slowly yield and warp like molten wax beneath the scorching onught. With each passing moment, the door sumbed to the irresistible force of the dark mes, gradually dissolving away to reveal the hidden sanctum concealed within.
As Michael and Gaya stepped into the inner sanctum, they were greeted by a sight that left them awestruck. The spacious hall was enveloped by walls of crystalline blue, shimmering with an ethereal radiance that bathed the entire chamber in a dim, mystical glow. The crystallized walls seemed to hold secrets of ancient times, as if whispering tales of forgotten knowledge and long-lost power.
Standing as sentinels around the hall were towering metal statues, their imposing figures casting elongated shadows upon the polished floor. The statues possessed an air of ancient wisdom, their stoic gazes fixed upon the center of the hall where a sliver of luminous energy floated gracefully above a majestic metal pir.
As Michael and Gaya ventured further into the hall, the metal ck door they had melted down behind them abruptly came to life once again. The door, seemingly rejuvenated by an unseen force, closed with a resounding thud, sealing off their entry and shrouding the sanctum in an atmosphere of mystery and istion.
The atmosphere in the inner sanctum was heavy with an ancient presence as if the very air held the essence of bygone eras. Gaya''s eyes widened in awe and intrigue as she took in the sight before her. She had traversed many enigmatic ancient locations in her lifetime, but this hall possessed an indescribable quality that set it apart. It exuded an unmistakable aura of antiquity, as though it had been untouched by the passing of time.
Michael, his focus unwavering, fixated his gaze on the ethereal sliver of light suspended in the center of the hall. With cautious steps, he advanced towards the radiant glow. Deep within, he knew that acquiring another seed of darkness would not be a simple task. The system had revealed that he required one more seed to ascend to the next level of his godhood, and he understood the magnitude of the challenges thaty ahead. His own armor was a seed of darkness yet he required one more to reach the next Godhood level ording to the system.
Just as Michael had anticipated, a resounding voice reverberated through the expanse of the hall, abruptly halting Michael and Gaya in their tracks. It was a voice that bore a resemnce to that of a woman, yet it exuded an unmistakable air of authority and supremacy.
"Wee, God of Darkness, to your first trial," the voice boomed, its power intertwining with the very essence of the hall. The imposing presence of the voice sent shivers down their spines, as an unseen force wrapped around them, rendering them immobile. The once free movement of their bodies was now stifled by the grip of this invisible paralysis. And as Michael and Gaya stood there, helpless, themanding voice continued its address.
"Speed, dear God of Darkness, is a formidable power that transcends mortal limitations," the ancient voice proimed with an air of wisdom. "In the realm of gods, the swiftness of movement defines the boundaries of one''s might. Your mortal speed, though impressive by mortal standards, is as sluggish as a turtlepared to even the most leisurely of gods."
Michael and Gaya listened intently, their bodies held captive by the unseen force that bound them. They could only absorb the words of the voice, unable to react or respond.
"Before you may im the coveted seed of darkness," the voice continued, "You must prove yourself worthy by oveing a trial that will test the very essence of your speed. Within this ancient hall lies a path fraught with challenges designed to push your limits and unlock the swiftness hidden within you. Only then shall you be deemed deserving of the seed that holds the power of darkness."
The words of the ancient voice echoed in Michael''s mind, leaving him with a lingering sense of uncertainty. Why was this trial necessary now, when he had obtained the dark mes without such an ordeal? He pondered the purpose behind this test of speed and its connection to acquiring the seed of darkness. The system remained dormant, unable to provide the answers he sought. Michael could only hope that once the system awakened, it would reveal the number of seeds required to awaken its power fully.
The words of the ancient voice echoed in Michael''s mind, leaving him with a lingering sense of uncertainty. Why was this trial necessary now, when he had obtained the dark mes without such an ordeal? He pondered the purpose behind this test of speed and its connection to acquiring the seed of darkness. The system remained dormant, unable to provide the answers he sought. Michael could only hope that once the system awakened, it would reveal the number of seeds required to fully awaken its power.
As the echoes of the ancient voice faded, the oppressive force that had held Michael captive dissipated, granting him the freedom to move. However, Gaya remained ensnared, still trapped by the invisible grasp of the unseen power. Michael''s concern for her was abruptly interrupted by a chilling rustling sound that sent a shiver down his spine.
Reacting with lightning reflexes, Michael instinctively leaned back, his body contorting as an arrow whizzed past him, missing his face by a mere hair''s breadth. The arrow buried itself deep into the wall, its presence a stark reminder of the dangers that lurked within the shadowy recesses of the hall.
With his senses heightened, Michael scanned the surroundings, his eyes darting from one corner to another, searching for the source of the arrow and the potential threats thaty hidden within the ancient sanctum.
As Michael activated his Environmental Scanning Map, he was rmed to detect hostile entities lurking in the vicinity. Though invisible to his eyes, he could sense their presence through the rustling sounds and the powerful gusts of wind swirling around him. His heightened senses became his guidingpass as he focused on sound and instinct.
Drawing his gleaming swords from their sheaths, Michael closed his eyes, relying solely on his sharpened senses. In a swift motion, he unfurled his metal wings, their magnificent expanse shimmering in the dim light of the hall. The sh of metal against wood reverberated through the air as an ephemeral figure, crafted from the very essence of nature, materialized beside him before vanishing into thin air.
A voice, both enigmatic andmanding, broke the silence. "If you are to face the Pantheon, the first god they shall unleash upon you is Lightning, the God of Speed."
With frustration brewing within him, Michael''s voice rang out, filled with determination and curiosity. "Who the fuck are you?" His query hung in the air, unanswered, as a new threat materialized. Reacting swiftly, Michael took cover behind his protective metal wings, the glimmering surface shielding him from an imminent attack. This time, he managed to catch a glimpse of the assants¡ªpeculiar wooden puppets¡ªwhose blinding speed rendered them virtually invisible.
"Who or what I am doesn''t concern you, God of Darkness? Instead, focus on the formidable challenge before you. The puppets you currently face are mere fragments of Lightning''s power. Imagine the magnitude of his true form. You must grow stronger and faster, for this trial marks the beginning of your preparation for the impending battle against the gods,"
With each relentless strike from the invisible puppets, Michael''s wings emitted sparks, bearing witness to the ferocity of their assault.
"Enough!"
But in a moment of fierce determination, Michael bellowed,manding their onught to cease. Unleashing the full power of his wings, he sent the wooden puppets hurtling through the air, their hold broken.
The hall plunged into an even deeper darkness as Michael invoked the Death range, its ominous aura enveloping him. Dark mes swirled around him, serving as an imprable shield. Sensing another puppet approaching from behind, he conjured the Silenes spell, causing time to slow within a meter radius.
To his surprise, even within the slowed-down zone, the wooden puppet moved with disorienting speed. Undeterred, Michael swiftly swung his sword at the precise moment, cleaving the puppet in two with a decisive stroke.
After Michael cleaved through the first puppet, he focused his gaze on their cultivation stage. As he had anticipated, the puppets emitted a simr energy radiation to that of Rudra. Yet, the intensity of their radiance paled inparison to the orc possessed by Rudra''s sliver of grace.
In a flurry of motion, the remaining puppetsunched themselves at Michael, their movements invisible to Gaya''s eyes. From her perspective, it seemed as though Michael was shing his swords through empty air, leaving her both amazed and perplexed.
As the puppets attacked Michael with astonishing speed, their wooden des sliced through the air, aiming for his vulnerable spots. Some managed to make contact, their sharp edges grazing his body, but Michael''s armor protected him from any serious harm. The metallic tes absorbed the impact, leaving only minor scratches in their wake.
Unfazed by the assault, Michael retaliated with a disy of his own formidable powers. With a swift motion of his swords, lightning bolts crackled and surged forth from their tips, striking the puppets with electrifying force. The bolts of electricity coursed through their wooden bodies, causing them to convulse and malfunction.
Simultaneously, Michael invoked the Silenes spell once again, creating a localized distortion of time within his immediate vicinity. The slowed-down world granted him enhanced perception, enabling him to dodge the lightning-fast attacks of the remaining puppets with deft precision.
His eyes, shining with a dark energy, emitted beams that pierced through the air, disintegrating the puppets in their path. The destructive power of his gaze left trails of dissipating darkness, marking their annihtion.
But Michael wasn''t finished yet. Drawing upon his inner reservoirs of power, he conjured the Ring of mes. ck-colored mes erupted from his outstretched hands, forming a fiery vortex that engulfed the area around him. Waves of scorching heat radiated outwards, disintegrating any remnants of the puppets that dared to approach.
The battle raged on, an intricate dance between the God of Darkness and the seemingly invincible puppets. Michael''s movements were fluid and precise, his attacks calcted and devastating. With each passing moment, the puppets dwindled in numbers, their wooden bodies sumbing to the relentless onught.
The air crackled with energy, illuminated by the shes of lightning, while the echoes of shing metal and the roar of mes reverberated throughout the ancient hall.
As frustration swelled within Michael, he could no longer contain his pent-up emotions. His voice thundered through the hall, "I am sick of fighting these pointless battles!" With a surge of power, he stomped the ground with such force that the very earth quivered beneath him. Cracks spread across the ground like a web, disrupting the puppets'' stability and throwing them off bnce.
Seizing this golden opportunity, Michael propelled himself forward, his speed augmented by his determination. He sprinted towards the shimmering sliver of bright energy that hovered at the center of the hall. With outstretched hand, he reached out and sped it tightly within his grasp.
As his fingers closed around the pulsating sliver, a surge of energy coursed through Michael''s body. It was as if he had tapped into a wellspring of power that resonated with his very essence. The radiance of the energy seeped into his being, empowering him with renewed strength and resolve.
The puppets, momentarily stunned by the ground-shaking impact and their sudden loss of bnce, struggled to regain theirposure. But it was toote. Michael''s swift and decisive action had secured the coveted sliver of energy, a crucial step towards his ultimate goal.
The moment Michael touched the sliver of energy, he felt a gush of hot wave in his body. Soon, he heard the system''s voice.
[Absorbing Lightning''s sliver of grace]
[Absorbing energy¡]
[Converting the grace energy into experience points¡]
[Experience points converted 200,000]
[Experience points converted 600,000]
¡.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Half Celestial stage level 3]
The system absorbed the energy like crazy and the more the system absorbed the energy from the sliver of grace, the weaker the puppets became and fell to their demise. Once all the puppets were fallen, the system talked to Michael once again.
[Congrattions to the host for acquiring another seed of darkness]
[The host now has two seeds of darkness and will be able to start the ascension to the next Godhood level-Demi God]
[The system rmends the host step into the Celestial stage before starting the ascention]
"What is this trial and what''s the point of all this?" Michael asked the system.
[An ally of your previous self created this trial. Unfortunately, this ally was madly in love with your previous self so she made the trial easy. The system can sense her presence]
"What the?" Michael was taken aback by surprise and instinctively looked around.
"Is she watching me right now? And who is she?" Michael asked the system.
[The system can sense her presence. Your previous self used her to make this trial easier for you to level up faster. But the uing trials won''t be as easy as this]
[To reach the third stage of your Godhood, you are required to acquire three seeds of darkness]
Before Michael could ask more about this unknown ally who was in mad love with the previous Dark Lord, the system changed the topic.
"When will youe out of offline permanently?"
[The host needs to acquire one more seed of darkness to enable the system to harvest experience points in offline mode]
[Once the host reaches the Celestial stage, the system wille out of offline permanently and will not go offline again]
( One more chapter and we will reach 1000 chapter mark. Thank you my wonderful readers for keep supporting me. Sorry, this chapter got dragged on as this chapter flesh out the details for the future chapters. This is the filler chapter for the next arc and the next arc will have so much actions and a fast-paced story)
Chapter 1000 Infiltrating The Skyhall I
After harnessing the empowering energy of the sliver, Michael turned his attention to the System Store. With his umted badass points, he swiftly purchased a special teleportation scroll and a potent rune to conceal Gaya''s presence from the prying eyes of the fallen gods. The transaction depleted a significant portion of his hard-earned points, but he knew these items would be crucial for their uing missions.
Gaya, fully aware of the importance of her role, prepared to depart from the inner sanctum. She sped the rune in her hand, feeling its ancient power resonate within her. With a nod of determination, she stepped onto the designated teleportation circle, activating the scroll. A brilliant surge of energy engulfed her, and in an instant, she vanished from the hall before giving Michael a tender kiss on his lips.
Stepping out of the hall, Michael found himself face to face with the ck door he had melted earlier. To his surprise, the door opened on its own ord, allowing him to exit. As he emerged from the cave, his environmental scanning map alerted him to the presence of hostile entities in the vicinity.
Reacting swiftly, Michael utilized his Lightning Dash ability, moving with incredible speed towards the cave opening. Once he reached the mouth of the cave. The Skyhall soldiers who had been stationed at the outposty lifeless on the ground, their bodies riddled with bloody wounds. The devastating effects of the poison he had unleashed upon them were evident.
The sight of the fallen soldiers left the surviving Skyhall soldiers in a state of terror and shock. They gazed upon the grim scene, their faces etched with a mix of fear and disbelief. Michael''s poison had taken its toll, and the soldiersy motionless, their life forces drained away.
The air hung heavy with the stench of blood, and a haunting silence enveloped the area.
The skyhall soldiers stood frozen in shock and disbelief as they beheld the lifeless bodies of their fallenrades. They gathered around, their faces filled with a mix of horror and confusion. One soldier eximed, "What happened here? How did they all die?"
Another soldier knelt down beside a fallenrade, examining the gruesome wounds on his body. "Look at this," he said, his voice trembling with disbelief. "There are no signs of a fight. It''s like they were struck down without even raising a sword."
A third soldier joined the examination, his eyes widening with realization. "Wait, these wounds... they look like the effects of poison," he said, his voice hushed. "But how? Who could have done this?"
The soldiers exchanged worried nces, their minds racing to piece together the puzzle before them. One soldier spoke up, his voiceced with urgency. "We need to alert the Skyhall elders immediately. Something sinister has happened here, and we must seek their counsel."
Nods of agreement rippled through the group as they realized the gravity of the situation. They had stumbled upon a deadly trap, theirrades falling victim to an unseen enemy. Fear and confusion gripped their hearts as they prepared to carry the news to the elders, hoping to unravel the mystery of their fallen brethren and discover the true nature of the threat that lurked in the shadows.
Michael concealed himself in the shadowy depths of the cave, his eyes fixed on the group of Skyhall soldiers. Curiosity gripped him as he wondered about how they came here and how they intended to return to their fortress in the sky.
A soldier''s gaze scanned the area, briefly falling upon the mouth of the cave. Michael swiftly ducked behind a stack of crates, blending seamlessly with the darkness. The thought of effortlessly dispatching these soldiers crossed his mind, but he resisted the temptation. Instead, he desired to uncover their method of returning to the Skyhall. If they possessed a portal or means of transport, it could provide him with a valuable opportunity to infiltrate the heart of the enemy.
With caution and patience, Michael observed their movements, eagerly anticipating a glimpse of their ns. Hidden in the shadows, he remained vignt, his mind focused on unraveling the secrets thaty before him.
Silently, Michael maneuvered through the outpost, utilizing the various objects scattered throughout to conceal himself from the vignt Skyhall soldiers. He expertly slipped behind tents, carefully sidestepped boxes, and found refuge amidst the dummies, tables, and chairs. With each movement, he blended seamlessly into his surroundings, bing one with the shadows.
Hidden behind a stack of crates, Michael listened intently to the soldiers as they continued to examine the lifeless bodies of their fallenrades. The sight of purple veins, blood seeping from eyes, nose, and ears sent shivers down their spines.
"What manner of death is this? It''s gruesome and painful," one soldier growled, his voice filled with anger.
"Indeed, this is no honorable death. It reeks of foul y," another soldier spat, voicing his disgust.
Amidst their murmurs and expressions of dismay, some soldiers raised their voices, urging theirrades to stay vignt, aware that the killer may still be lurking in their midst.
"Keep your guard up! The perpetrator may be among us. Stay alert!" a soldier shouted, his toneced with urgency.
Meanwhile, a group of soldiers was ordered to venture into the cave for further investigation. Their voices resonated through the air as they strategized their next move.
"Go, see what lies within the cave. We must uncover the truth," one soldiermanded, determination evident in his voice. "The rest of us will make our way back to the Skyhall and inform the elders of this atrocity."
Their footsteps echoed as they departed, leaving Michael with a valuable window of opportunity. He silently observed their departure, noting their destination and their purpose. With this newfound knowledge, he formted his own n, his mind focused on the ultimate goal of infiltrating the Skyhall and uncovering the mysteries that awaited him there.
With unwavering determination, Michael fixated his gaze on the group of soldiers who were bound for the Skyhall. He knew that shadowing them would be his best chance to prate deeper into enemy territory. As they began their march, Michael melded into the darkness, bing a mere specter among the shadows.
Moving with the grace of a predator, Michael skillfully navigated the outpost, his steps almost imperceptible as he avoided the gazes of the remaining soldiers. He hugged the walls, slipping behind tents and crates, always mindful of staying out of sight. His heart pounded in his chest, the adrenaline surging through his veins as he inched closer to his quarry.
Every so often, he caught a glimpse of the soldiers he was tailing. Their voices murmured among themselves, discussing their mission and the urgency to report the grim discovery they had made. Michael stayed just far enough behind to remain undetected, his stealth a testament to his honed skills.
The tension in the air was palpable as Michael maneuvered through the treacherous terrain, silently praying that the soldiers wouldn''t nce back and catch a glimpse of his presence. He relied on his instincts, slipping into the darkest corners, blending seamlessly with the obscurity.
The outpost seemed to hold its breath as Michael shadowed his targets, his movements choreographed with precision and caution.
As Michael trailed the trio of Skyhall soldiers, they came across a small cabin in the distance. Coming to a stop, they nced back, suspicious of any followers. Sensing their scrutiny, Michael swiftly maneuvered under a nearby table, inadvertently knocking a wooden cup. Acting with lightning reflexes, he managed to catch the cup before it hit the ground and made a noise. Meanwhile, the soldiers scanned their surroundings before resuming their path towards the cabin. Seizing the opportunity, Michael emerged from beneath the table and hastened forward.
Approaching the cabin''s entrance, Michael positioned himself outside and discreetly eavesdropped on the soldiers'' conversation.
"He won''t be pleased with this," remarked one soldier from inside.
"I still think we should return after uncovering the source of these killings. Going back empty-handed couldnd us in serious trouble,"ined another soldier. As he listened intently, Michael retrieved his trusty eight-legged Spyder, and discreetly sent it into the cabin through a narrow crack beneath the door. Observing the scene through the Spyder''s camera feed, Michael caught sight of the three soldiers within the cabin.
"No way. We have to inform him immediately. Let''s activate the portal," insisted the brown-haired Skyhall soldier.
With mere seconds, or at best a minute, to make a decision, Michael weighed his options carefully. Killing the three soldiers might sever his only chance of reaching the Skyhall. Until now, he had been clueless about the actual location of the Skyhall headquarters, and hecked the necessary power. However, things had changed, and he now possessed the strength and perhaps an opportunity to enter the heart of the enemy.
Yet, if he wasted time without eliminating the soldiers, they could vanish from his sight, leaving him in the dark. Michael had only a few precious seconds to uncover their n for reaching the Skyhall. Fortunately, luck was on his side as he witnessed one of the Skyhall soldiers retrieve a silver coin from his pocket. The copper coin bore a striking resemnce to the one he had taken from Jacobe''s brother.
( Read Chapter 838 to refresh your memories about this copper coin)
Michael observed a rune on the wooden cabin wall, resembling a swirling vortex, before the soldier. Though he wasn''t a runemaster, his experience with Elidyr had granted him some knowledge. It seemed that the coin needed to be ced on the rune to activate a portal, the probable means of teleportation.
However, the predicamenty in the fact that if the soldiers ced the coin on the rune, they would be whisked away, leaving Michael with no means of reaching the Skyhall. To prevent this, he swiftly cast the Silenes spell, causing time to slow down within a confined bubble epassing him and the soldiers.
With the soldiers frozen in time, Michael sprang into action. He deftly unsheathed his dark sword from his back and swiftly severed the hand of the soldier holding the copper coin. The slowed time prevented blood from spraying or the soldier''s scream from escaping his lips. Michael then swung his sword again, beheading the soldier, while simultaneously releasing a bolt of lightning from his outstretched finger, piercing the skull of the second soldier. With a swift motion, he cleaved the third soldier in half with his sword.
As the third soldier perished, time resumed its normal flow, revealing the brutal aftermath in real-time. Blood sprayed from the severed hand and neck of the first soldier while his decapitated head flew through the air. The second soldier fell lifeless, a small wisp of smoke rising from the center of his forehead, indicating where the lightning bolt had struck. The third soldiery on the ground, bisected, blood staining the cabin red. However, not a single sound escaped, and no reinforcements rushed to their aid.
The coin soared through the air, effortlessly caught by Michael''s outstretched hand. Without wasting a moment, he pressed the skull-shaped engraving at the center of his armor. In a mesmerizing disy, the armor began to shrink, folding in on itself until it vanishedpletely, leaving behind only a small skull. This remarkable ability was a testament to Michael''s exceptional forging skills and his unique Inventor trait.
Swiftly, Michael stowed the skull into his system storage, a hiddenpartment capable of holding various items. He then knelt beside the fallen soldier, the one whose head had been pierced by the lethal lightning bolt. Purposefully, he chose not to employ his dark sword, as he had a different n in mind. With practiced efficiency, Michael stripped the soldier of his garments and carefully donned the soldier''s silver armor atop his own attire, meticulously blending into the guise of a Skyhall soldier. Then, he took out a pale brown potion from the system storage and drank it in one gulp.
"I''ming for you, Skyhall," Michael muttered, a fierce determination burning in his eyes. With a hint of anger flickering, he confidently positioned the coin on the shimmering rune. In an instant, a brilliant light erupted from the rune as the coin made contact, whisking Michael away from the cabin in a sh of teleportation.
************************
We have reached the mark of 1000 chapters and I couldn''t be happier. Thank you all for keep supporting me and I pray and wish for your continuous support. ( Now, where are my super gifts and awesome other gifts? Wink wink shamelessly)
Chapter 1001 Infiltrating The Skyhall II
In an instant, Michael found himself standing in a vast hall that made him feel incredibly small. The sheer size of the hall was awe-inspiring, with a towering ceiling that could easily amodate a ten-story building. As he entered the Skyhall, Michael noticed that the potion he had consumed had caused his beard to grow thick and bushy, and his hair had lengthened into flowing ck locks. Although venturing into the heart of the enemy without any prior knowledge was undeniably risky, Michael saw it as a golden opportunity to gather valuable information and, if he was fortunate, disrupt their operations from within.
Gathering his wits, Michael began to walk with purpose, attempting to blend in as if he belonged there. His destination was the sole door located at the far end of the expansive hall. To his surprise, there were no soldiers present in this immense space. However, his curiosity was swiftly satisfied when a group of soldiers materialized out of thin air, utilizing the power of teleportation.
This group consisted of five soldiers, burdened with an intriguing ancient coffin. The coffin itself had an unmistakable air of antiquity, adorned with intricate runes etched in an unknownnguage. Weathered cracks marred its surface, and ayer of mud clung to its exterior.
"Demon body," Michael whispered to himself, recalling the memories of Skyhall angels unearthing caskets containing demons'' remains and transporting them to this very ce. Now, he had confirmation that this was the destination for those eerie coffins.
As the group of soldiers carried the heavy coffin, Michael observed them closely. Their entire bodies were covered in gleaming silver armor, with only narrow eye openings in their helmets, preventing Michael from seeing their faces.
"Hey you," one of the soldiers suddenly called out, his gaze fixed on Michael.
"Come here," the soldier ordered, prompting Michael to swiftlyply.
"Give us a hand. This thing is ridiculously heavy," the soldier requested, and Michael inwardly sighed with relief.
Nodding in agreement, Michael positioned himself at the back of the coffin and grasped it firmly. To his surprise, the coffin proved to be exceptionally weighty, confirming why these Fusion stage soldiers required additional assistance. Unbeknownst to them, Michael intentionally concealed his true cultivation stage, disguising himself as a mere Soul Refining stage soldier. It was crucial to maintain his cover, as revealing his Half Celestial stage power would immediately expose his true identity.
Even though the coffin was light as a feather to Michael''s immense strength, he purposely pretended to struggle, exerting effort as if it were a formidable task. He lifted the coffin alongside the others, maintaining the facade.
¡¤?¦Èm "Which outpost were you stationed at?" one of the armored soldiers inquired, curious about Michael''s assignment.
"I was stationed at the outpost in Itonys," Michael replied, listening attentively as the armored soldiers let out sighs of envy.
"Damn lucky bastard. We were out there in demons'' graves, tirelessly digging for these cursed things," another soldier grumbled, revealing their arduous duty.
"Not so lucky, I''m afraid. Before our rotation, someone mercilessly killed the soldiers who were stationed there. I was on my way to inform the elders," Michael lied convincingly, portraying a loyal soldier deeply affected by the shocking incident.
"What?! Why didn''t you mention it earlier?" one of the armored soldiers eximed, clearly taken aback by the revtion.
"Alright, the toxic removal room is just over there. Once we ce this coffin there, you can go and inform the elders," another soldier instructed, pointing towards their destination.
Internally, Michael despised this risky n. He had no knowledge of theyout or security measures in this ce, making it a leap of faith. He relied solely on his adaptability and the teleportation scroll safely stored in his system storage, serving as a potential means of escape if things took a turn for the worse. This was the first time Michael had ventured into such perilous territory, fully aware of the stakes involved.
Michael nodded in acknowledgment, observing the soldiers hasten their steps. As they reached the door, it automatically slid open, revealing a sprawling corridor lined with numerous rooms on both sides. Stepping out, Michael found himself amidst a bustling scene. Soldiers of various races, adorned in diverse armors, moved with purpose through the corridor, entering and exiting rooms with remarkable precision.
However, what truly caught Michael''s attention was the archway positioned at the far end of the corridor, through which the soldiers were passing. Glowing runes adorned the arch, indicating some form of detection or defensive array. Michael''s instincts told him that these runes might unveil his true identity, exposing his disguise. He swiftly assessed the situation, his mind working at its peak as he devised a new n to navigate through the potential threat.
As the armored soldiers continued carrying the coffin, they approached a roombeled "Toxin Removal."
"Remember, don''t mention that we kept you here, alright?" one of the soldiers cautioned.
"Of course not. We soldiers have to stick together, right?" Michael responded, skillfully manipting their emotions. Although his words were calcted, they held a deeper purpose. Having observed the angels handling the coffins during the excavation, Michael deduced that these armored soldiers were likely under theirmand. If the angels had been directly involved, he would have witnessed their presence.
Dressed as a foot soldier himself, Michael sympathized with hispanions, reinforcing a sense of camaraderie. Fortunately, his maniption proved sessful, and the soldiers opened the door. To Michael''s astonishment, instead of a mere room, he beheld a vast warehouse stretching before him. Countless coffins were meticulously stacked within, numbering in the hundreds or even thousands. At the far end of the room, he noticed a tubr structure, from which an invisible force lifted the coffins, propelling them along the tube-like pathway.
"We''ll ce it here," one of the armored soldiers pointed to a vacant spot that perfectly matched the size of the coffin. With coordinated efforts, the group of six carefully positioned the coffin in its designated spot.
"Finished. Now, we''ll return to the demons'' grave, and you can inform your elder," stated one of the soldiers, to which Michael nodded in agreement.
Walking alongside the soldiers, Michael seized the opportunity as they approached the door. Swiftly, he retrieved a small metal te from his belongings and discreetly inserted it between the door and its frame, ensuring that it wouldn''t closepletely. The soldiers remained oblivious to his actions, and as they reached the corridor, they expressed their gratitude to Michael for his assistance before proceeding back towards the door they had initiallye through.
Once they were out of sight, creating the impression that he would fulfill his supposed duty of informing the elder, Michael surveyed his surroundings cautiously. Confirming that he was alone, he reopened the door and reentered the coffin warehouse.
Closing the door behind him, Michael activated his X-ray vision, granting him the ability to see through the coffins. As expected, each coffin contained the skeletal remains of demons. Michael''s face contorted with a mixture of surprise and concern.
"They must have some sinister ns involving these bodies. If only I had a means to teleport them elsewhere," Michael muttered to himself. However, he recognized that his current abilities did not grant him such power, at least until the System was restored.
Aware of the limited time he had before someone might stumble upon the room, Michael sprang into action. He swiftly retrieved a handful of Spyders and strategicallyunched them toward the upper walls and concealed corners of the room. These Spyders would function as his personal surveince cameras, transmitting live footage to the dark castle and his tablet.
After deploying more Spyders to gather valuable information, Michael hastened toward the tubr structure that served as a pathway to another location. With swiftness, he affixed a Spyder onto one of the coffins, which was gradually lifted from the ground by an unseen force. As the coffin entered the tubr passage, Michael observed the Spyder''s live feed in his mind.
Within the feed, he witnessed the coffin arriving in a room where several individuals dressed in white robes meticulously examined its contents. They scribbled notes, assigned numbers to the coffins, and then directed them to be transported elsewhere.
"Number 422, in pristine condition," a bespectacled man remarked, thoroughly inspecting the coffin adorned with the tiny Spyder.
"Send it to the Rising Hall,"manded a young man, waving his hand to guide the coffin to a designated corner of the room.
"Fuck it,"
Frustration surged within Michael as he absorbed this information. His attention swiftly turned to the next coffin awaiting levitation and inspection.
Without hesitation, Michael swiftly slid open the top of the coffin, allowing ancient dust and trapped air to escape into the surroundings. Within, he discovered the skeleton of a demon. Realizing time was of the essence, Michael made a split-second decision. He leaped into the coffin and swiftly closed its lid, ensconcing himself within its confines.
After a few moments, Michael sensed the coffin being lifted from the ground, smoothly gliding through the tubr passage. So far, everything was proceeding without a hitch, and he silently prayed for this streak of good fortune to persist. As the coffin reached the subsequent room, the young man proceeded to examine its contents. From within the coffin, Michael could audibly hear and visually witness the unfolding events, thanks to the Spyder serving as his eyes and ears.
"Number 423, in mint condition," the young man remarked, jotting down meticulous notes and affixing a number to the coffin, just as he had done previously.
"Send this one to the Rising Hall," he directed, finalizing his assessment.
Inside the confines of the coffin, Michael regted his breathing and slowed his heartbeat to ensure his survival in the cramped space. As an undisclosed amount of time passed, a sudden and deafening bell echoed throughout the hall. Through the eyes of the Spyder, Michael witnessed a burst of red light illuminating the room. The abrupt rm sent the workers into a state of panic, their voices filled with confusion and concern.
"What''s happening? Is it an emergency?"
"Something''s wrong! We need to evacuate!"
"Quick, follow the protocol! Everyone out of the room!"
The room erupted into chaos as the workers hurriedly scrambled towards the exit, their movements hasty and disoriented. They hastily abandoned their tasks, leaving behind scattered notes and tools, as they adhered to their emergency procedures. The air filled with a sense of urgency and apprehension, with anxious voices ovepping and the sound of hurried footsteps reverberating throughout the room.
Michael found himself bewildered and amazed by his stroke of luck. Taking control of the Spyder outside the coffin, he deftly directed it to jump onto the back of a young man who was hastily making his way out of the room. Oblivious to the tiny Spyder clinging to his back, the young man continued his frantic rush.
As Michael observed the chaotic corridor outside, he witnessed a scene of turmoil and confusion. Soldiers were sprinting in every direction, the entire hall trembling under their hurried footsteps. Moreover, a sudden eruption of destruction caught Michael''s attention. A brilliant beam of light demolished everything in its path, reducing carpets to ashes and reducing once-beautiful portraits to mere rubble. The archway, adorned with intricate runes, exploded in a haze of smoke. The young man and several other workers, guided by Skyhall soldiers, sprinted away from the crumbling arch, seeking safety.
Focused on capturing the unfolding chaos, Michael instructed the Spyder to leap from the young man''s back to the nearby wall, diligently recording every detail. Amidst the billowing smoke, a figure gradually emerged, distinct even in the obscured atmosphere.
"Noah," Michael murmured, recognizing the familiar presence.
Chapter 1002 Finding Noah
As Michael witnessed the sight of Noah surrounded by the Fusion stage Skyhall soldiers, he noticed a fierce determination in Noah''s eyes. They zed with an intense, pure white light, a testament to his inner power. Standing there with his muscr frame and bare-chested, d only in white trousers, Noah exuded an aura of strength.
The Skyhall soldiers, realizing the formidable opponent before them, shoutedmands at Noah, their voices tinged with a mix of urgency and authority.
"Stand down, Noah! Surrender peacefully!" one soldier barked, his voice filled with a hint of fear.
"You''re outnumbered, Noah! There''s no escape!" another soldier called out, his toneced with a mix of bravado and caution.
Yet, Noah remained resolute, his fists clenched tightly. He stood tall, unwavering, as if rooted to the ground. The white light in his eyes intensified, a reflection of his unwavering determination and unyielding spirit.
The Skyhall soldiers cautiously circled Noah, their weapons drawn and ready for any sign of aggression. Tension hung heavy in the air as both sides stood at the precipice of confrontation.
As Noah''s eyes burned with pure white light, he channeled his inner power, snapping his fingers with a resounding crack. In an instant, a powerful wave of light erupted from his fingertips, radiating outward like a brilliant shockwave. The force of the st sent the Skyhall soldiers surrounding him hurtling through the air, their bodies tumbling and crashing into the walls with a cacophony of impacts.
Seizing the opportunity amidst the chaos, Michael swiftly assessed the situation. He realized that Noah, somehow brought to the Skyhall while he was unconscious, had tapped into a newfound strength, perhaps granted to him by his grace. Though questions and theories swirled in Michael''s mind, he pushed them aside, recognizing the golden chance to infiltrate the Skyhall further while the soldiers were preupied with Noah.
With a surge of determination, Michael seized the moment and leaped out of the coffin, his stealth and agility aiding his escape from its confining embrace. He blended into the tumultuous scene, taking advantage of the soldiers'' diverted attention.
As Michael stepped into the corridor, he found himself face to face with Noah, the only two figures standing amidst the chaos. They locked eyes, a silent recognition passing between them. Without uttering a word, Noah raised his hand, and from his fingertips, shot forth a bolt of white lightning, crackling with immense power. The lightning streaked towards Michael, who swiftly reacted by stomping the ground, causing a fallen Skyhall soldier''s shield to soar into his hand. With the shield raised, Michael braced himself as the lightning collided with it. The impact sent a jolt of force rippling through Michael''s body, pushing him back several steps.
¡¤?¦Èm In the brief moment of respite, Michael wasted no time. He seized the opportunity and, with quick thinking, snatched up a gleaming golden spear from the ground. Infusing his own energy into the weapon, he hurled it toward Noah. However, Noah responded with another surge of white lightning. The opposing energies shed fiercely in the middle of the corridor, creating a cataclysmic explosion of light and darkness. The sheer intensity of the collision reverberated through the air, shaking the very foundation of the hallway.
In an instant, the explosion unleashed a devastating impact, shattering the corridor into fragments. The force of the explosion shattered walls, fractured floors, and sent debris flying in all directions. The ground beneath Michael trembled and cracked, and with no time to react, he found himself plunging into the depths below, swallowed by the gaping abyss. The ensuing chaos enveloped the scene, dust billowing through the air and mes licking at the remnants of the shattered corridor, casting an eerie glow amidst the wreckage.
As Michael descended into the depths, darkness enveloped him, and he found himself in a dark ce. Looking up, he noticed a small crack above, a reminder of the great distance he had fallen. The realization struck him that he must have plummeted quite deeply for the once sizable crack to appear so minuscule. Contemting his next move, he prepared to take flight towards the opening when he suddenly felt a hand rest on his back. A shiver ran down his spine, yet his surroundings showed no signs of hostility on his environmental map. Acting swiftly, he spun around and delivered a forceful punch to the figure behind him. To his surprise, his fist met an icy cold resistance as if striking a frozen entity.
It was then that Michael became aware of the hall he stood in, a grim scene that resembled a macabre meat factory. The ceiling above was adorned with countless dead bodies, suspended by hooks like grotesque trophies. Conjuring a small ball of light to illuminate his surroundings, Michael''s eyes widened in disbelief at the haunting sight that unfolded before him. He stood amidst a chamber filled with an unsettling array of corpses. Overwhelmed by shock, he aimlessly ventured forward, his mind struggling toprehend the reasoning behind the Skyhall''s collection of these lifeless forms.
As he wandered through the eerie expanse for what felt like an eternity, his senses were further assaulted by an even more chilling discovery. Among the rows of bodies, he caught sight of a fallen Guardian Guild member, their silver armor still adorning their skeletal remains. The symbol of the Guardian Guild, etched on the chest te, stood as a grim reminder of the once noble purpose this fallen warrior had served. The body appeared burnt and mutted, a missing limb serving as a testament to the brutality it had endured.
As Michael ventured deeper into the hall of death, the air grew heavy with the distinct metallic scent of blood. It permeated the space, creating an atmosphere of dread and morbidity. Each lifeless body within the chamber appeared eerily frozen, preserved in a macabre tableau. Their vacant eyes stared into nothingness, frozen expressions of despair etched upon their faces.
The grisly disy of bodies hanging from hooks suspended by bars above was a harrowing sight to behold. The hooks had been ruthlessly driven into the necks of the deceased, transforming them into grotesque marites dangling grotesquely in the dimly lit chamber. The cold, lifeless forms swayed ever so slightly, casting ghostly shadows that danced along the walls.
As Michael''s gaze wandered among the macabre scene, his heart sank with a growing realization. The fallen Guardians, their armor once a symbol of honor and protection, now served as a haunting reminder of the devastation he had unwittingly caused. It became evident that these were the very Guardians he had fought against, the ones who had perished when he unleashed destruction upon the Guardian Guild.
Michael quickly established contact with his loyal servant, Elidyr. It was unusual for Michael to reach out to Elidyr instead of his trusted demon butler, Azazel. However, Azazel had been inessible since his arrival in Itonys, leaving Elidyr as the next best option.
"Elidyr, it''s urgent," Michael began, his voice filled with a sense of urgency. He wasted no time in rying the gravity of his discovery. "Use your mirror and witness what I''ve stumbled upon." With the Spyder on his neck capturing every detail, Michael transmitted the live feed to Elidyr''s mirror, ensuring that his loyal servant could witness the shocking scene.
Elidyr took a moment to process the iing stream, and as the images unfolded before his eyes, a gasp of disbelief escaped his lips. The sheer horror of what he was witnessing rendered him momentarily speechless. He couldn''t fathom the depths of the atrocities thaty within the Skyhall.
"My lord... Where are you?" Elidyr''s voice trembled, his shock palpable even through themunication device.
"Skyhall," Michael replied, his tone revealing the weight of the situation. The silence that followed spoke volumes, as Elidyr''s mind grappled with the magnitude of the revtion.
Time was of the essence, and Michael knew it. "We don''t have much time for discussion," he dered in a resolute tone. "Record everything I see."
Concern for his master''s safety welled up within Elidyr. "My lord, you must escape that ce. The dangers are unknown, and weck knowledge of theyout and security measures in the Skyhall," he urged, his primary concern focused on Michael''s well-being.
But Michael''s determination remained unyielding. "No. This is a rare opportunity to infiltrate the Skyhall. Something sinister is unfolding within its walls. They have plundered the Nether Realm, then collected demons corpses from demon graves, and now they amass these corpses. I cannot allow this army of the undead to be raised against me," he exined, his voice tinged with a sense of responsibility and the urgency to take action.
Michael understood the immense potential the dead bodies held. If given the chance, he could have sent them to Dr, where they could be transformed into an obedient undead army, serving him faithfully. However, without the means to do so, he couldn''t allow the Skyhall to exploit these bodies and create their own formidable force.
"I know the Skyhall all too well," Michael replied, acknowledging Elidyr''s concern. "They will undoubtedly turn these corpses into undead beings or something even more sinister," he added with a heavy sigh.
Realizing the imminent threat, Michael was resolute in his decision. "That''s precisely why I must destroy these bodies," he dered. While he didn''t want to obliterate the demon bodies, given their rarity and potential value, he needed to find a way to utilize them to turn the tides against the Skyhall once the system came online.
Without wasting any time, Michael retrieved a container filled with highly mmable liquid from his system storage. He hurled the container into the air, causing it to burst open, and unleashed a bolt of lightning from his fingertips. The resulting explosion sent the liquid raining down upon the lifeless bodies below, thoroughly drenching them in the vtile substance.
Satisfied that every body had been soaked, Michael sought an exit and discovered a door leading to an unknown hall. Before venturing further, he activated his X-ray vision to scan the next hall, revealing no signs of life. However, the absence of life was not enough to put his mind at ease. This ce had shocked him repeatedly, and he remained prepared for any unexpected encounter.
With a firm twist, Michael broke the lock and swung the door open. Simultaneously, he flicked his finger toward the drenched bodies, igniting a slender me that danced through the air. Upon contact with the mmable liquid, the me instantly erupted into a raging fire, engulfing the dead bodies in its relentless embrace. The crackling of mes filled the air, apanied by the acrid scent of burning flesh, as the inferno consumed the corpses with a ferocity akin to a wild wildfire.
The Skyhall was facing a dire situation, with both Noah wreaking havoc from above and Michael setting aze the amassed bodies below. Noah''s destruction had managed to disable the defense arrays, granting Michael a chance to venture deeper into the Skyhall undetected. As Michael moved into the next hall, he encountered a stark contrast to the previous chamber. This expansive hall was devoid of any bodies or significant objects; it stood empty, an open space stretching out before him.
Suddenly, the echoing sound of hurried footsteps reached Michael''s ears. Reacting swiftly, he propelled himself off the ground with a single powerful leap, effortlessly scaling the walls to position himself on the ceiling, much like a spider observing its surroundings. From this vantage point, he watched as several soldiers, donned in dark armor, rushed into the hall with urgency.
As the soldiers rushed into the hall, their footsteps echoed through the empty space. Their urgent voices filled the air as they realized the gravity of the situation. The leader of the group, distinguished by the golden lines adorning his ck armor, barked out orders with authority.
"Move quickly. We have a fire to extinguish!" the leadermanded, his voice resonating with a sense of urgency.
The soldiers hurriedly made their way toward the next chamber, their voices blending in a chorus of confusion and concern. "How did the fire start?" one soldier questioned, his voice tinged with bewilderment. "Could it be from the battle above with Noah?" suggested another soldier, trying to make sense of the situation.
Amidst the rush, a soldier dared to question the decision of the Skyhall elders. "Why did the elders keep Noah''s presence hidden from us? If we had known, maybe we could have been better prepared!" he eximed, frustrationcing his words.
The higher-ranking soldier, disying unwavering resolve, swiftly shut down any thoughts of questioning. "There is no time for that now. Our priority is to put out this fire and secure the Skyhall. We can''t waste time pondering the elders'' decisions," he dered, emphasizing the need for immediate action.
Their hurried voices echoed through the hall as they moved closer to the chamber, unaware of the raging inferno that awaited them.
As Michael observed the soldiers rushing towards the chamber where the fire consumed the bodies, a sinister figure entered the room. This man was adorned in a dark gray garment,plemented by ck gloves and boots. His appearance sent shivers down the spine, for his face exuded an aura of pure malevolence. The man''s bald head gleamed under the dim light, entuating his skeletal features. His thin, almost emaciated visagecked any semnce of flesh, with thin brown skin stretched tightly across his skull-like face.
The man''s yellowed teeth, crooked and stained, added to his eerie countenance. His sinister presence was entuated by the absence of eyebrows, leaving his eyes cold and piercing. As he arrived in the hall, he took a moment to sniff the air, his senses attuned to the scent of death that permeated the space.
"I smell death in here," the man spoke, his voice sending a chilling shiver through the air.
Chapter 1003 Cruelty Of The Skyhall
Michael clung to the ceiling, his gaze fixed on the bald and eerie man as he scanned the hall. With a sudden movement, the man''s eyes flicked upward, but to his dismay, he found nothing but empty space above. Michael, swift as a spider, had deftly evaded his gaze.
Meanwhile, the soldiers returned to the hall, carrying a lifeless body with them. The rest of the soldiers remained busy, attempting to cast spells and activate safety runes in an effort to extinguish the fire. However, their efforts proved futile against the mmable liquid that Michael had drenched the bodies with. The mes continued to dance and rage, defying all attempts to be subdued.
The soldiers carefullyid the charred body on the ground, its once vibrant form now reduced to a ckened husk. Smoke curled upwards from the smoldering remains, filling the air with an acrid scent that hung heavy in the hall. Ashes fell gently, cascading down like ck snowkes, remnants of what once was.
It was a stark reminder of the destructive power that had been unleashed upon the corpses in the adjacent chamber. The mes had consumed them with an intensity that left no trace of their former selves, transforming them into mere ashes and smoke.
The creepy man crouched down beside the burnt body, his nose almost touching the charred flesh. It was an eerie sight, reminiscent of a predator savoring its prey. Even though the soldiers wore heavy armor that concealed their expressions, the tension in the air was palpable, and Michael sensed their difort.
Unexpectedly, the man sniffed the entire length of the body, his actions resembling someone indulging in a forbidden pleasure. This sent a shiver down Michael''s spine, as he watched from his vantage point on the ceiling.
"I smell something... something peculiar...A primordial me..." the man spoke, his words carrying a strange mix of curiosity and anticipation. His revtion startled Michael, leaving him intrigued and unnerved.
One of the soldiers, attempting to shed light on the situation, spoke up. "Elder, Noah used his primordial mes during the battle above."
The man paused, his brows furrowing as he considered the soldier''s words. "I don''t detect Noah''s presence in these bodies. This is the work of another force entirely. There''s no point in trying to extinguish the fire; it''s beyond our control. Someone has dealt a devastating blow to Elder Gravesinger''s operation," he concluded, rising to his feet with a sense of urgency and purpose.
Michael absorbed their conversation, realizing the gravity of the situation. It seemed that his actions,bined with Noah''s fiery disy above, had disrupted the Skyhall''s ns.
Despite the risks involved, Michael felt a sense of satisfaction for sessfully infiltrating the Skyhall. Not only had he thwarted their ns of building an army, but he was also gaining insights into the strength of the Skyhall. The creepy elder''s presence confirmed his suspicions - this elder possessed immortality, making him a formidable adversary. However, something about the elder''s demeanor unsettled Michael, creating a deep sense of unease.
"Now, it is time for someone to be held ountable for this grave loss," the eldermanded the two soldiers standing before him, his voice sending a chilling shiver down Michael''s spine.
The elder''s words held an ominous weight, as if someone would soon face dire consequences for their failure. Michael observed the scene from above, remaining hidden, and sensed the soldiers'' uneasiness as they received their orders.
The two soldiers retrieved a small orb from their pockets, which fit snugly in the palm of their hands. With a sense of urgency, they activated the orb, causing it to glow and pulsate with a vibrant energy. Michael watched as the orb illuminated the room, casting an ethereal glow across the hall.
Suddenly, a voice emanated from the orb, resonating with a faint echo. "Squadron Twelve, report to the Hall of Runework immediately," the voicemanded, its urgency evident. Michael listened intently, hidden from sight, as the voice continued. "Most of the squadron is injured from their encounter with Noah. Proceed with caution."
The creepy elder''s eyes narrowed, a sinister smile ying across his face. "Send all of them, regardless of their injuries," he dered in a bone-chilling tone, relishing the opportunity for further mayhem.
Momentster, a group of six soldiers entered the hall, adorned in tattered silver robes that bore the marks of their battle with Noah. The robes were torn, bearing scorch marks and stains of blood. Fatigue weighed heavily upon their features, their bodies marked with bruises, and their hair disheveled from the intensity of their recent struggle.
The soldiers stood before the elder, their weary gazes meeting his malevolent stare. The tension in the air was palpable as the elder prepared to address them, his voice dripping with a twisted enthusiasm for the impending task at hand.
The elder''s eyes narrowed further as he stared at the soldiers, a chilling aura surrounding him. "Exin yourselves," he demanded, his voiceced with an unsettling mix of anger and curiosity. "Why did you leave your posts where you were supposed to guard the corpses for Elder Gravesinger?"
The soldiers, trembling with fear, stuttered in their response. "We... we heardmotion above and went to investigate," one of them managed to utter, his voice quivering. "We... we found Noah and... and we fought him to try and stop him."
The elder''s eyes gleamed with a sinister light as he circled around the soldiers, sniffing the air around them as though he was enjoying the fear in the air. "And were you able to stop Noah from escaping the Skyhall?" he asked, his voice dripping with anticipation.
The soldiers, their voices barely audible, whispered in unison, "No."
A devilish chuckle escaped the elder''s lips as he continued to circle the soldiers, his presence oozing malevolence. "Then what was the point of leaving your post?" he hissed, relishing in their fear and despair.
The soldiers shivered uncontrobly, their faces pale as the elder''s relentless circling intensified. Every move he made, every word he spoke, exuded a sense of darkness and wickedness.
Finally, the elder pointed a bony finger toward the charred body on the ground. "Look around you," he sneered, his voice filled with venom. "All the corpses you were supposed to guard have been reduced to ashes. The fire still rages, consuming the remnants of our ns."
And in that moment, the soldiers could feel the weight of their failure crushing them, as the elder reveled in their despair, a true embodiment of malevolence and darkness.
The elder abruptly ceased his circling, standing directly in front of the squadron leader, a man with fiery red hair at the Fusion stage of cultivation. With an eerie gentleness, the elder cupped the leader''s head in his pale, bony hands, a twisted smile creeping across his face. "Tell me," he whispered, his voice dripping with sadistic delight, "what should be the punishment for failing in your duty?"
The soldiers trembled in fear, their eyes widened with horror, as the elder''s touch lingered on the squadron leader''s face, his fingers caressing the man''s features. It was a hauntingly intimate gesture, sending shivers down their spines.
And then, in a sudden, shocking moment, the elder''s teeth plunged into the squadron leader''s exposed neck. Blood sprayed forth, painting the air crimson as the elder greedily sucked the life force from the leader''s veins. The squadron leader writhed in agony, his desperate struggles proving futile against the elder''s insidious grip.
Michael, watching the macabre scene unfold with a frown on his face, observed the elder''s true nature. It was clear to him now¡ªthis sinister elder was a vampire, and his instincts had been right all along.
But for now, Michael remained hidden on the ceiling, watching the elder indulge in his dark feast, his mind focused on his mission and the greater threat that awaited within the depths of the Skyhall.
As the elder continued to drink the lifeblood of the squadron leader, a sudden burst of light erupted throughout the hall. Runes inscribed on the walls and floor ignited, their ethereal glow casting an eerie illumination. Simultaneously, a deafening rm red, its piercing sound resonating through the chamber. Michael recognized the familiar robotic voice he had heard earlier from the orb, echoing through the hall.
"Intruder alert! Death detected in the Hall of Runework. Dispatching soldiers for immediate investigation," the voice dered.
Slowly, the elder lifted his head, revealing a face drenched in the blood he had consumed from the squadron leader. His teeth were stained crimson, a chilling smile forming on his twisted lips. "Ah, it is I, Elder Deathhead, who snuffed out a life," he dered, his voice dripping with sinister satisfaction.
"The voice recognition confirms Elder Deathhead''s identity. The rm will be deactivated shortly," the robotic voice announced, its tone devoid of emotion.
Elder Deathhead''s twisted smile widened, his eyes gleaming with malevolence. He relished the chaos he had caused and reveled in the fear that permeated the air. The soldiers, trembling in fear, watched as their squadron leader''s lifeless body slumped to the ground, blood pooling around it.
As the voice announced the imminent deactivation of the rm, the runes around the hall slowly dimmed, returning the chamber to its previous darkness. The oppressive silence hung heavy, broken only by the echoes of the rm fading into oblivion. The soldiers stood frozen, their gaze fixed on Elder Deathhead, their minds paralyzed by fear.
A sly smile curled on Michael''s lips as he absorbed the crucial information he had just learned. The defense mechanisms of the Skyhall were intricately connected, and the runes had a way of sensing when a life was extinguished, triggering an alert. Michael realized that killing would only bring unwanted attention upon himself, potentially jeopardizing his mission.
"Knockouts instead of kills," he murmured under his breath, formting a new n. He would use his skills to incapacitate the guards when necessary, rendering them unconscious but preserving their lives. It would allow him to proceed without setting off the rm and alerting the Skyhall to his presence.
¡¤?¦Èm His mind raced with thoughts, drawing a parallel between the voice he had heard and the sophisticated artificial intelligence he had encountered in the past. Could there be a central core, a control center that governed all the defense mechanisms and surveince systems within the Skyhall?
"Perhaps there''s a core," he spected, his eyes narrowing with determination. If he could locate and neutralize that central control, he might gain the upper hand and disrupt the Skyhall''s operations even further. But first, he needed to navigate through the treacherous halls and encounter more clues that would lead him to this elusive core.
With newfound resolve, Michael ventured deeper into the heart of the Skyhall, his mind buzzing with strategies and possibilities. He knew that his mission had just be even moreplex, but he was determined to uncover the truth and put an end to the sinister ns that unfolded within those walls.
Slowly, Elder Deathhead slowly rose from his crouched position, a twisted smile stretching across his face as he surveyed the remaining members of the squadron. Their leader''s body now appeared shriveled and mummified, a ghastly sight that sent shivers down their spines.
The elder''s cold gaze fixed upon the terrified soldiers, his eyes gleaming with a wicked delight. With a chilling voice, he addressed them, his words dripping with malevolence. "You have failed in your duty and betrayed the Skyhall. Such ipetence deserves a severe punishment."
The soldiers, trembling and panic-stricken, pleaded for mercy, their voices filled with desperation. "Please, Elder Deathhead, we were only following our leader''s orders. We didn''t know it woulde to this."
The elder merely chuckled, paying no heed to their pleas. He turned his attention to the ck-armored soldiers standing nearby, their presence intimidating and foreboding. With a casual wave of his hand, he issued a chillingmand. "Throw them into the fire. Let them burn with the bodies they were supposed to guard."
The squadron soldiers'' screams echoed through the hall as they begged for forgiveness, their voicesced with terror and remorse. "No, please! We didn''t mean any harm! We were just following orders!"
But their pleas fell on deaf ears as the ck-armored soldiers, devoid ofpassion, delivered swift punches, knocking the squadron members unconscious. With a callous disregard, they dragged their limp bodies towards the door leading to the hall where the bodies were burning.
Michael, hidden in the shadows, watched with a furrowed brow. He knew he had to act carefully, avoiding detection while finding a way to intervene. The scene before him was a harrowing testament to the cruelty that permeated the Skyhall.
Chapter 1004 Michael Being The Sneaky Assassin
As the two ck-armored soldiers dragged the unconscious squadron soldiers toward the door leading to the hall where the bodies still burned, they exchanged grim remarks about their unfortunate fate.
"These poor souls had the misfortune of catching Elder Deathhead''s attention," remarked the first soldier, his voiceced with a mix of pity and indifference.
With a creak, the first soldier swung open the door, unleashing a wave of searing heat that washed over them. Ignoring the intense heat emanating from within, he callously tossed the lifeless body he was dragging into the fiery abyss.
Inside the hall of burning corpses, soldiers battling the mes shouted angrily at the ck-armored soldier who had disturbed their efforts. "You! Get over here and lend us a hand with the runes! We need assistance!"
The first soldier turned to hispanion, a cold determination in his eyes. "Keep dragging them and throwing them into the fire," hemanded, his voice devoid of sympathy. "I''ll go and see what''s wrong with the runes."
Without hesitation, the second soldier continued his grim task, each unconscious soldier meeting the same fiery fate. Meanwhile, the first soldier ventured into the chaotic hall, making his way towards the malfunctioning runes as the smell of the burning corpses permeated through the air.
As the second soldier made his way back toward the unconscious squadron soldiers, Michael''s sly smile grew wider. He had formted a cunning n to delve deeper into the secrets of the Skyhall.
With impable timing, as the soldier descended directly beneath him, Michael swiftly descended from the ceiling,nding with a precise and powerful punch that knocked the soldier unconscious. It was a calcted strike, carefully suppressing his strength to avoid killing the soldier.
Moving swiftly, Michael wasted no time. He immediately removed the silver armor he had been wearing and put it away in his system storage. Disguising himself was second nature to him, and he deftly donned the ck armored soldier''s attire, blending seamlessly into the role.
Like a chameleon changing its colors, Michael transitioned from disguise to disguise, utilizing his adaptability to navigate the intricate web of the Skyhall undetected.
As Michael lifted the unconscious ck armored soldier, who was now stripped down to shorts, he propelled the body upward with a forceful throw. The soldier soared through the air, propelled by the strength of Michael''s throw, until he reached the lofty heights of the ceiling.
With a quick flick of his wrist, Michael produced a small vial containing a shimmering, silvery potion. With calcted precision, he hurled the vial towards the suspended soldier. As the vial made contact, it shattered upon impact, releasing its contents in a burst of energy.
In an instant, a translucent web-like substance enveloped the soldier, encasing him in a cocoon of magical threads. The cocoon adhered to the ceiling, clinging tightly to the surface, remaining hidden from prying eyes.
The web cocoon, now stered to the ceiling, concealed the soldier''s presence, effectively removing him from sight. It was a clever maneuver, ensuring that no one would stumble upon the unconscious soldier as Michael continued his covert exploration of the Skyhall.
Disguised in the ck armor, Michael lowered his helmet, concealing his face from view. With a cold and determined gaze, he surveyed the unconscious soldiers lying before him. yfully, he muttered to himself, "I must look and act the part," his voice devoid of any mercy orpassion for the Skyhall soldiers. In his mind, they were his enemies, and he felt no sympathy for their fate.
Without hesitation, Michael began to drag the limp bodies, one by one, towards the hall where the corpses continued to burn. As he approached the door, a searing wave of intense heat washed over him, signaling the inferno raging within the hall. Undeterred, he pushed the door open, bracing himself against the scorching air that greeted him.
With precise aim, Michael hurled the body he had been dragging into the raging fire. It was a ruthless act, symbolizing hisplete disregard for the fallen soldier''s fate. The mes greedily consumed the body, adding it to the macabre pyre of burning corpses.
In that moment, Michael''s determination remained resolute, his purpose unwavering. He was willing to go to any lengths to achieve his mission and bring justice to the Skyhall, even if it meant killing everyone in his way.
As Michael continued to toss the unconscious soldiers into the engulfing mes, a scene of horror unfolded. The intense heat and searing pain jolted the soldiers awake, their screams piercing the air. Desperate to escape the merciless inferno, they stumbled and tried to crawl away, their bodies engulfed in panic and agony. Yet, the ck armored soldiers remained unmoved, their indifference echoing in the face of such suffering.
With a flick of their hands, the ck armored soldiers unleashed powerful spells upon the struggling soldiers. Arch energy crackled through the air, striking the victims with brutal force. Thunderous sts sent shockwaves through the hall, further fueling the already raging mes. Each spell intensified the heat, making the fire burn hotter, as if the very air had turned into a scorching furnace.
The soldiers'' attempts to escape were swiftly thwarted by the merciless spells, rendering them unconscious once again. They fell to the ground, their bodies singed and battered, their futile struggle against the merciless fate extinguished.
Amidst the chaos, Michael observed with a mixture of curiosity and grim determination. He noticed the runes that adorned his own armor and that of the other ck armored soldiers. The runes shimmered and glowed with an otherworldly light, serving as a shield against the deadly mes. It became clear to him that these enchantments protected them from the fire''s wrath, leaving them untouched while the rest suffered the merciless fate of the inferno.
As the ck-armored soldier returned to Michael''s side, unaware of his true identity as the Dark Lord, he suggested that they should inform Elder Gravesinger about the events that had transpired. "We should go to Elder Gravesinger and report what happened here," the soldier said, his voice muffled by the helmet.
Michael nodded silently, falling into step behind the soldier without uttering a word. They made their way through thebyrinthine corridors of the Skyhall, their footsteps echoing in the deste halls. The soldier mentioned that the elders would be furious, particrly because Noah had managed to escape the Skyhall.
Finally, they arrived at a rtively small hall, its atmosphere heavy with anticipation. In the center of the hall, a glowing array resembling aplex chakra pattern adorned the floor. Without hesitation, the soldier and Michael stepped onto the array, triggering a surge of bright light that enveloped them.
In the blink of an eye, Michael and the soldier found themselves transported to the top side of the Skyhall. They emerged into a familiar corridor, the aftermath of Noah''s fierce battle evident in the chaos that surrounded them. The wallsy in ruins, crumbled and scorched, while soldiers hurriedly worked to clean and repair the devastated area.
Amidst the scene of destruction, the soldier continued to speak. "It''s going to take a while to restore order here. Noah wreaked havoc on the Skyhall. The elders won''t be pleased." His voice carried a mixture of exhaustion and frustration.
Michael remained silent, taking in the sight before him. He knew that his true intentions were far from aligning with the Skyhall''s interests.
As Michael and the ck-armored soldier made their way through the chaotic corridor, the silver-armored soldiers stationed along the path saluted them, acknowledging their authority within the Skyhall''s hierarchy. It became apparent to Michael that the ck-armored soldiers held a position of high esteem among their ranks.
Among the soldiers in the corridor, he witnessed many of them nursing wounds and injuries sustained during the confrontation with Noah. Some soldiers were seen drinking healing potions to expedite their recovery. Mixed in with their attempts to heal, Michael overheard a few injured soldiers cursing Noah with venomous words, expressing their frustration and anger.
"Damn that bastard! He tore us apart! I hope he rots in the deepest pits of hell!"
"What a bastard! He caught me off guard!"
"Mark my words. God or not, I am going to get that son of a bitch!"
Michael listened to their bitter words and couldn''t help but feel disappointed in Noah''s actions. While he didn''t share their sentiments, he understood their pain. However, he knew that their lives were not worth preserving, for they served the Skyhall, an institution rife with darkness and malevolence.
"How could he be my brother?" Michael muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Does he truly believe these soldiers deserve to live? They''re just pawns in the hands of monsters."
The thought of elders like Deathhead and Gravesinger being the farthest thing from heroes amused him in a dark way. Their very names oozed with malevolence and evil.
"Deathhead and Gravesinger... Truly fitting names for these viins," Michael murmured with a sardonic smirk, recognizing the irony in their chosen titles.
As Michael and the ck-armored soldier maneuvered through thebyrinthine corridors and halls, a thought lingered in Michael''s mind. Despite his personal disdain for Noah, he couldn''t deny the effectiveness of Noah''s assault on the Skyhall. It made him wonder about the extent of power that the Grace bestowed upon Noah, allowing him to wreak such havoc.
Finally, they emerged from the dpidated structure, stepping out into a sprawling graveyard. The scene before them was haunting, as countless headstones adorned thendscape, their names worn away by time and neglect. The graveyard seemed to stretch endlessly, shrouded in an eerie stillness.
The air felt heavy with a somber atmosphere, and Michael wrinkled his brow as a sense of death permeated the surroundings. The trees that lined the graveyard stood tall, their leaves gray and lifeless, contrasting with their ck, gnarled bark. It was as if even nature mourned within this deste ce.
Michael took a moment to absorb the sight before him, his senses heightened by the lingering scent of death that seemed to cling to the air. A mix of emotions filled him ¨C a tinge of unease but also a resolute determination to see his mission through.
As they approached the front of the graveyard, the ck-armored soldier led the way, guiding Michael through the eerie silence. Suddenly, their attention was drawn to a figure standing near a grand tombstone adorned in flowing crimson red robes. Intricate skull designs embellished the fabric, hinting at a sinister presence.
The figure turned slowly, revealing a towering Orc with amanding presence. Elder Gravesinger, his gaze piercing and his countenance calm, surveyed the surroundings with a stoic demeanor. His massive physique exuded strength and power, muscles rippling beneath the fabric of his robes.
Elder Gravesinger''s green skin carried the scars of battles fought and won, a testament to his formidable nature. His eyes, deep and intense, held a keen intelligence within them. The weight of his authority and the dark energy that radiated from him were palpable.
As Michael stood before Elder Gravesinger, memories of his subordinate Dr surfaced in his mind. It was during one of their conversations that Dr had mentioned a book called the "Book of Death," which he had studied meticulously to be proficient in the dark arts of raising the dead.
In their discussions, Dr had revealed that the knowledge within the ancient book had been passed down through generations of their family. It was said that an ancestor of theirs, a powerful necromancer, hadpiled the book, recording forbidden rituals and incantations that delved into the realm of life and death.
As Michael contemted the connection between Dr, the Book of Death, and Elder Gravesinger, a chilling thought crossed his mind. Could it be possible that Elder Gravesinger, as an Orc elder of great influence, had ess to this same knowledge? Did he have some connection to the book of death and Dr?
The idea sent a shiver down Michael''s spine, for if Elder Gravesinger indeed had a link to the Book of Death, it meant that he wielded dark and ancient powers that could potentially pose a significant threat. Michael vowed to remain cautious, aware that his encounter with the elder would require a careful approach, as he could be facing an opponent with knowledge and abilities far beyond his own expectations.
Chapter 1005 Necromancer Of Skyhall
Elder Gravesinger''s crimson eyes widened in shock and his grip tightened around his staff as he thundered, "What news do you bring?"
The ck-armored soldier''s voice trembled as he mustered the courage to respond, "Elder Gravesinger, I deeply regret to inform you that the mortal corpses we had collected and stored in your hall have been ravaged by an unforeseen fire. The squadron entrusted with guarding them abandoned their posts in pursuit of Noah, leaving the corpses vulnerable to this catastrophic event."
The orc''s normallyposed visage contorted with rage, veins bulging on his forehead as he roared, "You imbeciles! Those corpses were the linchpin of my intricate ritual! The flow of power necessary for our operation has been irrevocably disrupted!"
The soldier''s voice quivered as he continued, "Elder Gravesinger. Know that swift retribution has been exacted upon the squadron. Elder Deathhead himself took charge, condemning the squadron leader to death and ordering the remaining members to be thrown alive into the fire as a chilling punishment."
A sinister smile curled at the corners of Elder Gravesinger''s lips, his voice dripping with venomous satisfaction, "A quick death? Such mercy bestowed upon them! I would have relished in the opportunity to strip their flesh piece by piece, subjecting them to unimaginable torment for their grievous negligence!"
Meanwhile, Michael, disguised as a ck-armored soldier, observed the furious orc with amusement concealed behind his mask. It was he who had orchestrated the fire that consumed the corpses, reveling in the chaos and destruction it brought upon the Skyhall. The sight of Elder Gravesinger seething with anger only served to reinforce his belief that the elders of the Skyhall were anything but righteous figures.
Suddenly, Elder Gravesinger''s hand shot up into the air, causing the very ground beneath him to tremble with an ominous resonance. Michael and the ck-armored soldier instinctively took several steps back, their eyes widening with a mixture of awe and trepidation. As if responding to the orc''smand, the earth began to split open, revealing deep, gaping cracks that snaked their way across the deste graveyard.
Elder Gravesinger''s voice carried an arcane resonance as he chanted under his breath, his words barely audible butced with dark power. With each syble uttered, the cracks in the ground deepened and widened, releasing tendrils of malevolent energy that danced and writhed like ethereal serpents.
Out of nowhere, from one of the cracks, a bony hand emerged, reaching upwards with a haunting determination. Its skeletal fingers, weathered and ancient, grasped the edges of the crevice, followed by the emergence of countless other skeletal figures. They wed their way out of the depths, their decayed remains caked in dirt and clinging to the remnants of tattered burial garments.
The graveyard became a chilling spectacle as the skeletal beings, once dormant in their eternal rest, rose from their slumber. Their hollow eye sockets glowed with an eerie, ethereal light, casting a ghastly illumination upon their bony frames. With jerky, unnatural movements, they shuffled forward, a legion of undead abominations called forth by the necromantic power of Elder Gravesinger.
The air grew heavy with a palpable sense of horror as the skeletal horde assembled before their orc master. The chilling tter of their bones reverberated through the night, a haunting cacophony that sent shivers down the spines of all who bore witness. The sight was both mesmerizing and horrifying, a macabre dance of death and undeath.
As Elder Gravesinger surveyed his skeletal minions, a sinister smile yed upon his lips, his eyes glowing with unholy delight. In that moment, Michael realized that the connection between Dr, the Book of Death, and Elder Gravesinger ran deeper than he had ever imagined. The orc elder was a master of necromancy, wielding forces that defied the natural order and threatened to unleash a reign of terror upon the world.
Elder Gravesinger''s piercing gaze fell upon the ck-armored soldier and Michael, his eyes burning with an intense malevolence. With amanding tone, he spoke, his voiceced with dark authority.
"You," he pointed his finger at the soldier, "gather the skeleton soldiers. They shall retrieve the coffins from Hall Twelve A and transport them to my pocket dimension. Ensure that they reach their destination intact."
The ck-armored soldier, his voiceced with a mix of obedience and fear, responded, "Yes, Elder Gravesinger. The skeleton soldiers will carry out yourmand."
Elder Gravesinger turned his attention to Michael, his eyes narrowing as he studied the disguised figure. "And you, ensure that no one interferes with the skeleton soldiers'' task. Protect their path and eliminate any who dare to stand in their way."
Michael, hidden beneath the ck armor, nodded in acknowledgment. "Consider it done, Elder Gravesinger. No one will impede the progress of your soldiers."
With a final, chilling smile, Elder Gravesinger''s gaze shifted back to the skeletal horde assembled before him. "Go now, my minions. Retrieve the coffins and deliver them to the teleportation hall. Let nothing deter you. The power within those coffins is vital to our cause."
The skeleton soldiers, animated by force beyond mortalprehension, heeded their master''smand. They moved with a surreal unity, their bony limbs propelling them forward in a macabre march. As they began their relentless journey toward Hall Twelve A, a chilling aura of death clung to their forms.
Michael and the ck-armored soldier, their mission clear, positioned themselves at the forefront of the procession. They became the guardians of the skeletal entourage, their senses heightened and ready to unleash whatever force necessary to maintain the unhindered progress of the undead legion.
The corridors of the Skyhall echoed with the hollow footsteps of the skeleton soldiers, their presence evoking a sense of dread and foreboding. They passed through crumbling chambers and devastated halls, their goal unwavering. As the skeleton soldiers marched through the debris-strewn corridor, their hollow eye sockets ignored the wary nces of the Skyhall soldiers who had gathered there. Though the onlookers were not surprised by the presence of the skeletal army, an unease flickered across their faces, betraying their underlying fears.
Leading the way, Michael and the ck-armored soldiers guided the relentless procession toward Hall Twelve-A. It dawned on Michael that this very hall housed the coffins containing the demon skeletons. These coffins were once exhumed from the depths of demon graves and brought to the Skyhall for inspection before being sent to the Rising Hall.
Drawing connections, Michael''s mind raced as he pieced together the intentions of Elder Gravesinger. It became evident that the orc elder spearheaded the endeavor to unearth these demon coffins, presumably with the aim of raising an undead army to oppose him, the Dark Lord. The fortunate turn of events, with the fire ignited by Michael and Noah''s escape, hadpelled Elder Gravesinger to relocate the coffins to his pocket dimension outside the confines of the Skyhall.
A daring idea began to form in Michael''s mind, fraught with risk yet pregnant with possibilities. The shifting tides of fate had granted him an opportunity to exploit this situation to his advantage.
As they reached Hall Twelve-A, Michael was greeted by the familiar sight of a vast warehouse, where ancient coffins stood in neat rows, their weathered surfaces whispering of the secrets held within. He observed how the path between Hall Twelve-A and the teleportation hall had been swiftly repaired by the diligent Skyhall soldiers, allowing for easy ess and swift transportation.
With the skeleton soldiers now in position, Michael and the ck-armored soldier watched in awe as the skeletal beings moved with surprising coordination and speed, effortlessly carrying the coffins upon their bony shoulders.
"I''ll go ahead and wait in the teleportation hall," the ck-armored soldier announced, stepping aside to make way for the procession of skeletons.
"Very well," Michael nodded, his gaze fixed upon the skeletal soldiers as they lifted and bore the coffins away.
The ck-armored soldier let out a weary sigh, remarking, "Say what you want, but these damn things can certainly get the job done," before making his way towards the teleportation hall.
Once the ck-armored soldier disappeared from sight, Michael remained at the doorway, patiently biding his time. He knew that his n hinged upon the precise moment, the perfect opportunity to execute his daring move. As he observed the movements of the skeleton soldiers, he discerned a pattern¡ªa brief window of twelve seconds every three minutes when the hall would be devoid of their presence.
"One... two... three..." Michael counted silently, closing in on the crucial moment when the skeletons would momentarily vacate the hall in unison.
When the awaited moment arrived, Michael sprung into action. He darted into the hall with swift agility, sliding open the lid of a nearby coffin, and leapt inside, closing the lid behind him in a hushed rush. He had managed to take advantage of those precious twelve seconds, slipping into the coffin undetected before the skeletal soldiers returned to the hall.
Now concealed within the confines of the coffin, Michael''s heart raced with anticipation. He knew that this risky maneuver would propel him deeper into the heart of the enemy''s operations, bringing him one step closer to the truth and the ultimate confrontation with Elder Gravesinger. As darkness enveloped him, he braced himself for whaty ahead, ready to face whatever challenges awaited him on this perilous journey.
Within the confines of the coffin, Michael experienced a mixture of sensations. The skeletal soldier''s cold, bony hands securely grasped the edges of the coffin, lifting him effortlessly into the air. He felt a slight tremor coursing through the skeleton''s form as it moved with an eerie grace, stepping forward and making its way through the corridor toward the teleportation hall.
Every jostle and movement of the skeleton resonated within the coffin, causing Michael to feel a sense of confinement and anticipation. The rhythmic footsteps of the skeleton soldiers echoed in his ears as they carried him along, their hollow bones clicking and cking with each step.
As the procession neared the teleportation hall, Michael sensed a subtle shift in the air, as if it were charged with otherworldly energy. The low, resonant hum grew louder, seeping through the confines of the coffin, and he knew that the teleportation process was imminent.
Finally, the skeleton soldier gently lowered the coffin to the ground, its movements calcted and precise. Michael could hear the muffled sounds of other coffins being set down beside him, forming a macabre symphony of eerie thuds.
Then, a surge of power rippled through the air. The atmosphere distorted and shimmered, like a mirage bending reality. The room seemed to pulsate with energy, and Michael felt a surge of anticipation and trepidation.
Amidst the eerie glow, ancient runes etched onto the ground began to radiate with vibrant light. The glyphs shimmered and danced with an otherworldly power harnessing the power of celestial energy in the air. They pulsed and throbbed, their luminescent glow growing in intensity until finally, they erupted in a blinding burst of light.
In an instant, the coffin, along with the others, vanished from the teleportation hall, leaving no trace behind. The runes'' power had worked its mysterious magic, transporting the coffins to Elder Gravesinger''s pocket dimension, where they would await hismand.
As the teleportation process concluded, the sensations that had enveloped Michael within the coffin dissipated into a still darkness. He felt a momentary disorientation, suspended in a void of uncertainty. His heightened senses strained to perceive any clues about the enigmatic pocket dimension he now found himself in.
With anticipation pulsating through his veins, Michael awaited the moment when he would emerge from the coffin, revealing himself as the Dark Lord. The element of surprise hung in the air, an invisible cloak he would soon shed to confront Elder Gravesinger face to face. Little did the Elder know that fate had conspired to bring the one he sought to destroy directly to his doorstep.
Chapter 1006 Getting The Demon Coffins
With the skull medallion clutched tightly in his hand, Elder Gravesinger made his way through the teleportation hall. As he pressed the medallion, the array beneath his feet glimmered, casting an ethereal light that engulfed the elder. In an instant, he vanished from the hall, transported to his very own pocket dimension.
This pocket dimension, curated specifically for his sinister necromantic rituals, exuded an eerie ambiance. Its dark and foreboding atmosphere was tailor-made to amodate Elder Gravesinger''s macabre experiments and the awakening of the deceased. Three thousand years ago, when the Skyhall and the Guardian Guild relentlessly hunted down the Order of Death and all those suspected of supporting or worshiping the Dark Lord, the bodies of their victims were amassed in this very dimension. It became a burial ground on a massive scale, entrusted to Elder Gravesinger for his unholy undertakings.
The pocket dimension itself seemed to exist in perpetual twilight, with an oppressive gray sky overhead. A thick mist shrouded the entire dimension, lending an otherworldly quality to the surroundings. Towering trees, devoid of leaves, stretched out like skeletal giants, their branches reaching out with an air of malevolence. These darkened sentinels were scattered throughout the dimension, standing alongside countless coffins thaty in solemn repose.
As Elder Gravesinger approached the coffins, the army of skeleton soldiers parted to make way for their master. The sounds of their rattling bones echoed in the stillness as he made his way through their ranks. With measured steps, the Elder walked among the coffins, his gaze scanning the rows with a mix of anticipation and authority.
A faint rustling sound reached Elder Gravesinger''s ears, drawing his attention to one particr coffin. Frowning, he closed the distance, his eyes fixed on the source of the disturbance. Step by step, he closed in, his presence exuding amanding aura. Finally, he stood before the coffin, the weight of his power hanging heavy in the air.
Before opening the coffin, Elder Gravesinger paused, closing his eyes and attuning himself to the array''s energies that permeated the pocket dimension. This ce, devoid of any energy, was under hisplete control. Anyone other than him who dared to step foot in this realm would be stripped of their powers, reduced to mere mortals. With abination of carefully crafted arrays and the influence of his god-given abilities, Elder Gravesinger reigned supreme as the deity of this sinister dimension.
"What do we have here?" Elder Gravesinger''s brow furrowed as he reached out to push open the lid of the coffin. However, before his fingers could make contact, a sudden explosion shattered the coffin into fragments. The force of the st rippled outward, knocking several of the skeleton soldiers off their feet. Yet, to the surprise of all, Elder Gravesinger remained rooted in ce, defying the expected impact.
In the blink of an eye, a hand emerged from the chaos, seizing hold of the skull-shaped medallion that adorned Gravesinger''s neck. Before the stunned elder could react, the hand swiftly plucked the medallion from his possession. A potent gust of wind surged forth, catching Gravesinger off guard and propelling him through the air. The entire sequence of events unfolded in a mere heartbeat, leaving those who witnessed it bewildered and astounded.
The explosion of the coffin sent a cloud of dust and smoke billowing through the air, obscuring the scene from view. As the particles settled, revealing the aftermath, Elder Gravesinger was found sprawled on the ground, his body covered in ayer of dirt and mud. He swiftly rose to his feet, brushing off the soil that clung to his robes with a frustrated swipe of his hand.
In a state of urgency, Elder Gravesinger''s hand instinctively reached for his neck, his fingers searching for the familiar weight of his precious skull medallion. However, a growing sense of dread engulfed him as his touch met nothing but empty space. His eyes widened in realization as he understood that his treasured talisman had been snatched away, leaving him vulnerable and unable to teleport out of this ce without activating the special arrays, which would take time.
As the dust and smoke settled, revealing the aftermath of the explosion, a figure emerged from the haze, donned in a suit of ck armor. The armor bore an intricate skull emblem, its eyes radiating a haunting crimson glow. Elder Gravesinger''s gaze locked onto the figure, and his heart skipped a beat. He knew this face all too well; it was the visage of the Dark Lord himself.
Time seemed to stand still as Elder Gravesinger''s eyes widened in shock and disbelief. He stumbled backward, his jaw ck, unable toprehend the sight before him. The calmness etched upon the Dark Lord''s face only deepened the sense of unease that gripped the elder''s heart. The intensity of the crimson light in the skull''s eyes contrasted sharply with the darkness of the armor, giving the Dark Lord an aura of both power and mystery.
Elder Gravesinger''s mind raced, attempting to process the magnitude of this unexpected encounter. Fear and uncertainty mingled within him, his hands trembling involuntarily. The Dark Lord''s presence alone sent chills down his spine, and it became clear to the elder that he was facing an opponent far more formidable than he had ever imagined.
"Diddle¡diddle¡you are so little¡"
A serene calmness resonated in Michael''s voice as his words reverberated throughout the eerie pocket dimension. Elder Gravesinger struggled to collect his thoughts, his mind still reeling from the realization that the Dark Lord had infiltrated his domain undetected, slipping through their defenses like a phantom.
"Get him!"
With a sudden surge of determination, Elder Gravesinger''s shock transformed into a fierce resolve. He bellowed hismand, his voice filled with equal parts anger and desperation, urging his skeleton soldiers to attack the intruder. The skeletal army, loyal to their master''s call, charged at Michael from all directions, their bony limbs ttering in a macabre symphony.
But Michael stood firm, an embodiment of unwavering confidence amidst the chaos. The billowing ck cape that adorned his armored form danced gracefully in the ethereal wind, adding an air of mystique to his presence. His eyes, once filled with crimson radiance, transformed into pools of pure darkness, exuding an otherworldly aura.
In an instant, Michael unleashed his power, a torrent of dark energy surging forth from his eyes. The beams of inky ckness sliced through the air with deadly precision, cleaving the skulls off the charging skeletons. The pocket dimension became a whirlwind of dislodged bone, as countless skulls were sent spiraling through the air in a grotesque ballet.
The sh between the Dark Lord''s dark energy and the skeletal army created a scene that was both captivating and horrifying.
"How¡how do you use¡cultivation power¡"
Elder Gravesinger''s words stumbled out in a mix of shock and disbelief, barely forming coherent sentences. The realization that the Dark Lord possessed the power of cultivation struck him with profound astonishment. Michael, too, was taken aback by this revtion. He had assumed that the elders of Skyhall held extensive knowledge about him, but it seemed that Gravesinger was oblivious to his capabilities.
"How can you hope to defeat your enemy," Michael calmly questioned, his voice tinged with a hint of incredulity, "when you remain ignorant about who they truly are?"
As Michael spoke, the relentless tide of skeleton soldiers surged forward, their mindless existence fueled solely by Elder Gravesinger''s necromantic powers. With no strategy or fear, they mindlessly charged at their intended target. Unfazed by the oing horde, Michael continued his deliberate approach, his every step purposeful.
Growing darkness enveloped the area surrounding Michael, casting an ominous shadow over the confrontation. Within this shroud, Elder Gravesinger''s gaze fixated on a sight that sent chills down his spine. He witnessed the emergence of a swirling ck me, burning within the depths of the dark shroud that epassed the Dark Lord.
The intensity of these ck mes emanated searing heat, causing beads of sweat to form on Gravesinger''s forehead. As the me zed forth, it consumed the approaching skeleton soldiers with ruthless efficiency. Before the mindless soldiers could draw near to the Dark Lord, their bones turned to ash, carried away by the whispering winds of the pocket dimension.
The scene unfolded like a macabre dance as the relentless advance of the skeletons was met with the all-consuming power of the ck mes. The air grew heavy with the scent of burning bone, mingling with the acrid tang of charred remains.
With a mixture of frustration and desperation, Elder Gravesinger let out an enraged roar, his voice reverberating through the eerie pocket dimension. He realized that extracting any valuable information from the Dark Lord seemed futile.
"Enough!" Gravesinger bellowed, his voiceced with fury. "You won''t get anything out of me with your pathetic attempts at conversation!"
In an act of grotesque defiance, his expression contorted into a deranged grin. With a swift, unnerving motion, he thrust his hand towards his own mouth, clutching his tongue tightly. The veins on his forehead bulged as the elder''s face contorted in agony. Blood gushed from between his fingers, spraying in every direction, creating a macabre crimson mist in the dimly lit atmosphere.
The torment etched across Gravesinger''s face was juxtaposed with the manic glint in his eyes. He plucked his own tongue out, ripping it from his mouth with a sickening squelch. Blood cascaded from the severed tongue, sttering onto the ground in a grotesque disy.
The elder''s twisted act of self-muttion sent shockwaves through the air, mingling with the scent of blood and the stifled gasps of disbelief from those witnessing the scene. The sound of dripping blood and Gravesinger''s pained gurgles filled the void, underscoring the depravity that unfolded before them.
In this twisted moment, the dark forces at y revealed the depths to which Elder Gravesinger was willing to go, his madness and desperationid bare for all to witness. The silence that followed was punctuated only by the faint whispers of the wind, carrying the weight of an unsettling realization: the battle between the Dark Lord and the elder had descended into a realm far beyond the boundaries of sanity.
As the macabre scene unfolded, a chillingughter erupted from the lips of the Dark Lord. The sound reverberated through the twisted pocket dimension, mingling with the echoes of Gravesinger''s pained gurgles and the lingering scent of blood.
Amidst hisughter, the Dark Lord''s voice rang out, cold and menacing. "Oh, Gravesinger, you misunderstand. I have no interest in torturing you for information. You possess nothing I need." Hisughter subsided, reced by an unsettling calmness that sent shivers down the spines of those present.
Leaning closer, the Dark Lord''s crimson eyes pierced through the shadows, fixed upon Gravesinger''s bloodied form. "No, my dear Elder, I am here for a much simpler purpose. I havee to kill you and im all these coffins that you have amassed."
The casualness in the Dark Lord''s tone was unnerving, his wordsced with a dangerous certainty. There was no room for negotiation orpromise. His intentions were clear, and the weight of his words hung heavy in the air.
Chapter 1007 Meeting The God Of Necromancy
Surrounded by the engulfing dark mes, Michael strode forward with an air of calm determination. The skeleton soldiers, drawn to Elder Gravesinger''s agonizing roar, found themselves consumed by the intense heat before they could even reach their intended target. One by one, they crumbled into ashes, their lifeless forms scattering into the wind.
Approaching the fallen Elder, Michael raised his finger, summoning a bolt of ck lightning that crackled with potent energy. With precision and power, he directed the lightning at the orc''s knees, shattering them in an instant. A gut-wrenching cry of pain escaped Gravesinger''s lips, and his skeletal minions, sensing their master''s anguish, froze in their tracks and copsed to the ground.
Crouching down, Michael locked eyes with the wounded Elder, his voice dripping with a calm authority. "I do not need you, orc. I am a god and ites with the power to make anyone be anyone, including the best necromancer. But I have to thank you for collecting all these demon coffins. Ill make sure they were put into good use," he said, a sinister smile ying upon his lips.
"You are meddling with forces you don''tprehend, bastard,"
In a feeble attempt to defy his impending demise, Elder Gravesinger waved his fingers in the air, forming words made of his own blood. But Michael''sughter echoed in response, void of any trace of fear or concern.
"Fourcrux, the god of all that is dead will avenge me,"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. I have already incurred the wrath of two gods, and one more shall make no difference," Michael rebuked, shaking his head in mock disappointment. Rising to his full height, he resolved to bring an end to Gravesinger''s life once and for all.
Rising to his feet, Michael prepared to deliver the final blow, ending the orc''s life once and for all. "If you see your so-called god after you die, do convey my message: ''Stay the fuck away from my path''," he dered, his voiceced with both conviction and a chilling disregard for any divine entity. Dark beams erupted from his eyes, slicing through the feeble body of Elder Gravesinger, spattering the surroundings with a crimson spray of blood. With his demise, the skeletal soldiers, now bereft of their master, copsed into a cloud of fine white dust, their existence fading into nothingness.
However, as Michael turned around, his attention momentarily shifted to the skull medallion clutched within his hand. He needed to talk to Elidyr about the medallion and this pocket dimension.
But before he could utter a single word, a faint tremor reverberated through the ground beneath him. At first, it was subtle, like the distant rumbling of an approaching storm. However, the tremors grew in intensity, causing the very earth to crack and fissure beneath his feet.
Curiosity tinged with a hint of caution, Michael slowly turned his gaze toward the source of this seismic disturbance. What he beheld left him spellbound and awestruck. Emerging from the fragmented ground, a colossal shadow began to take form, stretching and elongating with every passing moment.
As the tremors intensified, the skeletal frame of an enormous dragon materialized before Michael''s eyes. Each bone glimmered with an eerie phosphorescence as if infused with the remnants of countless fallen creatures. Sinewy wings unfolded, casting a haunting silhouette against the bleak sky, and bony spines protruded from its formidable back.
The dragon''s hollow eye sockets flickered with a malevolent crimson glow, fixating its gaze upon Michael. The ground beneath him continued to quake as the monstrous creature flexed its immense skeletal muscles, ready to unleash its wrath upon the intruder within its domain.
In this moment, Michael stood in the presence of a fearsome entity¡ªan embodiment of death and decay.
"What the fuck?" Michael eximed, his voiceden with disbelief, as he watched the skeletal dragon steadily grow in size before him. Its bone structure expanded and elongated, stretching further into the sky with an eerie grace. The ground quaked violently beneath Michael''s feet, threatening to knock him off bnce.
As the dragon reached a colossal magnitude, its presence seemed to transcend the physical realm. Suddenly, a chilling voice echoed through the dimension, reverberating in Michael''s ears. "You have in one of my devoted worshippers, Dark Lord," the voice intoned with an otherworldly resonance. "Now, you shall pay the price for your audacity."
A sense of foreboding washed over Michael as he recognized the voice as that of Fourcrux, the self-proimed god of all that is death. His calm facade faltered for a moment, reced by a flicker of uncertainty. Gathering hisposure, he muttered under his breath, "Is this the work of Fourcrux?"
The monstrous skeletal dragon continued to grow, its colossal form dwarfing Michael inparison. Its bones creaked and groaned, an unsettling symphony apanying its expansion. The dark voids of its eye sockets bore into Michael''s very essence, and an aura of malevolence permeated the air.
In the face of this menacing monstrosity, Michael''s expression remained remarkablyposed. His mind raced, assessing the situation and formting a n to confront this embodiment of death and destruction.
As the skeletal dragon unleashed a torrent of cold crimson mes from its gaping maw, Michael''s instincts kicked in. He swiftly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the searing heat that threatened to engulf him. The mes licked at the air, scorching the ground where he had stood just moments before.
The dragon, undeterred by its missed attack, lunged forward, its immense jaws snapping hungrily in Michael''s direction. With lightning reflexes, he evaded the razor-sharp teeth that aimed to tear him apart. The force of the dragon''s jaws mped shut, sending a shockwave through the air that rattled the nearby coffins.
In that moment, Michael''s mind raced, analyzing the situation. He realized that engaging in a direct confrontation with the dragon amidst the coffins would risk damaging the very resources he sought to im. He swiftly deduced that his best course of action was to lure the beast away from the vulnerable coffins, where coteral damage could be minimized.
With determination in his eyes, Michael swiftly formted a n. He leaped back, putting some distance between himself and the dragon, and then turned to face his colossal foe. His gaze met the crimson re emanating from the dragon''s eye sockets, and he smirked.
"I''ll take this dance elsewhere," he murmured under his breath, his voiceced with a calcted resolve.
Taking advantage of his agility, Michael sprinted toward the outskirts of the pocket dimension, deftly maneuvering between the towering skeletal trees. The ground trembled beneath him as the dragon pursued, its bony wings stretching wide in an attempt to gain speed.
Michael knew that in order to defeat this formidable opponent, he needed to strategize and exploit any weaknesses.
As the thunderous footsteps of the skeletal dragon echoed behind him, Michael pushed himself to the limits of his speed. His heart pounded in his chest as he weaved through the destendscape, the dragon''s hot breath lingering on his heels.
Feeling the dragon''s fiery breath growing closer, Michael knew he had to change the rules of engagement. With a swift motion, he activated the hidden mechanisms within his armor. Metallic wings unfurled from his back, glimmering with an otherworldly light. With a single powerful p, Michael soared into the sky, leaving the ground beneath him and the pursuing dragon behind.
The skeletal dragon unleashed its wrath, sending forth a barrage of cold crimson mes that streaked through the air toward Michael. With keen reflexes, he maneuvered through the fiery onught, twisting and turning mid-air with acrobatic grace. He weaved between the mes, his movements resembling a dance, his body seemingly defying thews of physics.I think you should take a look at
Using his agile wings to their fullest advantage, Michael executed swift dives and sudden ascents, evading the lethal breath of the dragon. He could feel the searing heat as the mes grazed his armored form, but he refused to let it hinder his focus. His mind raced, calcting the dragon''s patterns and anticipating its every move.
At times, he executed daring barrel rolls, spinning in mid-air to narrowly avoid the encroaching mes. Other moments saw him executing sharp turns and spirals, exploiting the dragon''s sheer size andck of agility. With each evasive maneuver, Michael demonstrated his mastery over the skies, staying one step ahead of the skeletal menace.
The chase continued, the dragon''s relentless pursuit matched only by Michael''s unwavering determination. With every passing moment, he grew more adept at evading the dragon''s destructive mes, his movements bing increasingly fluid and precise. He danced with the danger, embracing the thrill of the chase while staying ever vignt.
Through his agile aerial acrobatics, Michael skillfully defied the dragon''s attempts to corner him. He utilized every advantage his metallic wings granted him, soaring higher and swooping lower, taunting the beast with his elusiveness. The dragon''s enraged roars filled the air as its frustration mounted, unable to catch hold of its elusive prey.
In this exhrating game of cat and mouse, Michael''s skill and quick thinking kept him one step ahead.
With a burst of determination, Michael pped his wings with all his might, propelling himself higher and higher into the sky. As he ascended, the force of gravity became an enemy to the skeletal dragon. The higher they flew, the harder it became for the dragon to maintain its grip on the physical realm.
Bones began to dislodge from the dragon''s skeletal form, cascading down like macabre rain. The dragon''s once-mighty frame showed signs of strain, its movements bing sluggish and erratic. It struggled to keep pace with Michael, who now circled above it, observing the dragon''s plight with a mix of amusement and triumph.
Michael''s voice echoed through the air,ced with a mocking tone. "Is this the extent of your power?"
The skeletal dragon emitted a low, guttural growl, a mix of frustration and rage. But its attempts to retaliate were feeble, its once-powerful mes reduced to weak flickers. It thrashed and pped its remaining bony wings, desperately trying to maintain its altitude, but to no avail.
Michael continued to taunt the dragon, reveling in his advantage. "Come on, just a little further,"
The dragon''s weakened form trembled under the strain, bones cracking and splintering as it struggled to stay afloat. Michael''s eyes glinted with a mixture of satisfaction and confidence as he watched the dragon''s futile struggle.
"Now, witness the true power of a god," Michael dered, his voice carrying an air of superiority.
****************************
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5 chap Priv = 450 coins
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20 chap Priv = 2000 coins
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Chapter 1008 Fourcrux鈥檚 Schemes
As the dragon and Michael ascended higher into the sky, the world below appeared minuscule, mere dots in the vast expanse. Michael''s mind raced, contemting his options forbating the formidable skeletal beast. He realized that his dark swords would be insufficient against such a massive opponent, as the dragon''s skeletal frame seemed impervious to their piercing strikes.
In a moment of rity, Michael''s hand instinctively reached for his ultimate weapon, the Doomsbringer. With a fierce determination, he summoned the ancient ck warhammer, engraved with intricate runes that glowed with a sinister aura. Its formidable head, infused with an ancient ice core, promised the power to summon intense frost and unleash the wrath of doom upon his enemies.
The Doomsbringer materialized in Michael''s grip, its weight reassuring andmanding respect. He tightened his grasp around the handle, feeling the surge of power resonating within him. The runes on the warhammer pulsed with an icy blue light, responding to Michael''s unwavering resolve.
With the Doomsbringer in hand, Michael''s gaze locked onto the skeletal dragon, now struggling to maintain its altitude amidst the thinning air. He knew that this was the moment to unleash the full might of the warhammer and bring forth its icy wrath against the formidable foe.
Resolve burning in his eyes, Michael made a daring move, closing his wings mid-air and allowing gravity to take hold. He began descending rapidly, utilizing the force of his fall to gather momentum and unleash an even more devastating attack.
As Michael plummeted towards the skeletal dragon, the monstrosity sensed his descent and eagerly opened its jaw wider, preparing to devour him whole. But Michael was not so easily consumed by the beast''s insatiable hunger.
With a mighty swing of the Doomsbringer, Michael unleashed a cataclysmic blow upon the dragon''s gaping maw. The sh between the warhammer and the skeletal jaws reverberated through the air, a thunderous sound that echoed across the expanse of the sky.
The impact was tremendous. Bones shattered and splintered under the force of Michael''s attack, the dragon recoiling from the sheer power of the blow. The skeletal beast was pushed back, its immense form staggered by the sheer might of the Doomsbringer.
The resounding collision sent shockwaves rippling through the air, apanied by an otherworldly howl that pierced the sky. Fragments of shattered bone were scattered like fallen stars, creating a macabre spectacle against the backdrop of the darkened heavens.
Michael, his grip unwavering on the Doomsbringer, stood defiant amidst the chaos. The warhammer''s icy aura intensified, surrounding him in an ethereal mist, as if the very essence of frost was drawn to his presence. He surveyed the aftermath of his powerful strike, a glimmer of satisfaction dancing in his eyes.
But the battle was far from over. The skeletal dragon, though wounded, still possessed an unyielding determination. Its hollow sockets glowed with an ominous light, and its fragmented form began to slowly reassemble, drawing upon the dark energies that sustained its existence.
Summoning the frigid powers imbued within the Doomsbringer, Michael focused his energy and channeled it into a concentrated st of icy frost. From the warhammer''s enchanted head, a torrent of intense cold erupted, streaking towards the skeletal dragon with blinding speed.
The freezing st engulfed the dragon, coating its bones in ayer of frost that crackled with an ethereal glow. The dragon''s movements became sluggish as the biting cold sapped its vitality, hindering its ability to retaliate effectively.
With lightning-fast agility, Michael maneuvered around the aerial battlefield, his movements a blur as he swung the Doomsbringer with calcted precision. Each strike connected with bone-shattering force, causing the dragon''s skeletal structure to splinter and crumble under the onught.
Fragmented bones scattered through the air like a ghastly rain, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. The skeletal dragon, once an imposing behemoth, now trembled under the relentless assault, its form gradually disintegrating.
In a disy of unwavering control, Michael gracefully leaped atop the dragon''s crumbling skull, a calm and determined expression etched upon his face. His eyes met the fading glimmer within the dragon''s hollow sockets, and with aposed voice, he uttered, "Let''s finish this."
The battle seemed to hang in suspended animation for a moment as Michael''s words resounded through the air. The skeletal dragon, its essence fading, responded with a feeble attempt at defiance, its shattered jaw twitching in a futile snarl.
Knowing that victory was within reach, Michael raised the Doomsbringer high above his head, channeling thest reserves of his power into a final devastating strike. The warhammer crackled with unleashed energy, resonating with Michael''s unwavering determination.
With a resounding impact, the Doomsbringer struck the dragon''s fractured skull, causing the remaining bones to crack and shatter. As the skeletal structure splintered under the force of the blow, Michael swiftly followed up with another strike, this time driving the pointed head of the warhammer deep into the dragon''s skull.
The Doomsbringer''s sharp tip hooked into the fractured bone, securing Michael''s grip and ensuring that he remained firmly attached to the dragon''s fading form. Sensing the dragon''s imminent demise, Michael summoned forth the power of the dark mes.
ck mes danced and flickered around his clenched fist as he pressed the infernal fire against the skeletal dragon''s head. The dark mes eagerly consumed the skeletal remains, their scorching heat intensifying with each passing moment.
The dragon, now engulfed in the swirling vortex of ck mes, began its descent through the air. It resembled a burning meteor hurtling toward the ground, leaving behind a trail of smoke and ash in its wake.
The once-mighty skeletal dragon, now reduced to a charred husk, continued its descent, propelled by the relentless force of gravity. The ck mes danced and twisted around its skeletal frame, devouring every trace of its existence with an insatiable hunger.
As the dragon descended, the air crackled with the sound of its fiery demise. The dark mes, fueled by the dragon''s bones, illuminated the surrounding sky with an eerie crimson glow, casting an otherworldly ambiance upon the scene.I think you should take a look at
The burning dragon left a trail of destruction in its wake, scorching the air and leaving a smoldering path across the horizon. It was a sight both awe-inspiring and terrifying¡ªa testament to the power wielded by Michael and the cataclysmic force of the Doomsbringer.
As the dragon''s descent reached its climax, its form disintegrated into embers and ashes, dissipating into the winds. The once-formidable skeletal beast had been reduced to nothing but fading echoes of its former glory.
As the remnants of the skeletal dragon descended, smoldering and reduced to ashes, they made contact with the ground with a resounding thud. The impact sent tremors rippling through the earth, a testament to the immense power that had been unleashed upon the once-mighty beast.
Seizing the moment, Michael wasted no time in venting his fury upon the dragon''s shattered head. With a series of thunderous stomps, he brought his boot crashing down upon the charred remains, obliterating any trace of the skeletal creature that had dared to challenge him.
Each stomp reverberated through the air, a deration of his dominance and a symbol of his triumph. The remnants of bone crunched and crumbled beneath his relentless assault, further reducing the dragon''s remains to mere dust and fragments.
As the echoes of his final stomp faded into the distance, Michael stood amidst the aftermath of his victory, his chest heaving with exertion and his eyes aze with an unyielding resolve. It was then that he called out to the heavens, his voice carrying the weight of his defiance.
"Fourcrux!" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the void. "I told you to stay away from my way!"
His words hung in the air, a challenge issued to the deity who had sought to interfere with his ambitions. The wind carried his voice across the destendscape, a promation that reverberated with unyielding determination.
Michael''s gaze swept across the battleground, his eyes locking onto the scattered remains of the dragon. With a mixture of satisfaction and warning, he muttered under his breath, "Consider this a warning,"
As the dust settled and the echoes of the battle faded, an unsettling stillness engulfed the pocket dimension. The remnants of the skeletal dragon had vanished, leaving no trace behind, as if it had never existed. The air itself seemed to hold its breath, suspended in an eerie silence that sent shivers down Michael''s spine.
In the midst of this surreal calm, a sudden manifestation shattered the tranquility. An ethereal ck crow materialized in the air before Michael, its presence ominous and foreboding. Its feathers glistened with an otherworldly darkness, and its eyes gleamed with an intelligence beyond that of a mere bird.
With a gruff, devilish voice that seemed to carry echoes from the deepest recesses of the underworld, the crow spoke, its words cutting through the silence like a sharp de. "You haven''t disappointed me, God of Darkness."
With a calm demeanor, Michael gazed at the crow before him, addressing it by name. "Fourcrux, I presume," he stated, his voice steady as he awaited the crow''s response. Amusement danced in the crow''s eyes, a glimmer of intrigue at witnessing the God of Darkness in action. It reminisced about its previous discussion with Andohr, the God of Time and Space, when Andohr sought Fourcrux''s assistance in reanimating the corpse of Vedora, the three-headed hydra and formerpanion of the previous Dark Lord.
The ethereal crow, embodying the essence of Fourcrux, acknowledged Michael''s actions. "You have in two of my creations today," it uttered, its words carrying a sense of authority and understanding. Fourcrux, as the creator of this pocket dimension, possessed the ability to manifest within it, drawing upon the concentrated death energy that permeated the realm. Despite the barrier imposed by the previous Dark Lord, Fourcrux could manifest itself in its crow form within ces where the threads of death were tightly woven.
Michael maintained hisposure, unyielding in the face of the god before him. He met Fourcrux''s gaze with unwavering resolve, unburdened by fear, for if Fourcrux had intended harm, it could have enacted it already. The absence of such aggression suggested that either Fourcruxcked the means to harm him or harbored ulterior motives.
The God of Darkness spoke, his voice measured and calm. "That orc tried to steal something that belonged to me," he exined, his eyes momentarily ncing at the minuscule remnants of bone dust scattered on the ground. He returned his focus to the crow, unmoved by the god''s presence.
"And as for this dragon, it was merely an obstacle in my path," Michael continued, his tone unwavering. Despite standing before a god, he remained resolute. The Dark Lord''s confidence stemmed from the knowledge that if Fourcrux truly desired his downfall, it would have already transpired. Thus, the god''s motives remained cloaked in uncertainty.
However, Fourcrux''s next words hinted at a greater threat, one that surpassed the demon corpses sealed within the coveted coffins. Michael''s curiosity was piqued as he sought to unravel the enigma before him. "And what, pray tell, might that be?" he inquired, his voice betraying a glimmer of intrigue.
Fourcrux posed a thought-provoking question to Michael, his voiceced with a touch of intrigue. "Have you ever pondered the fate of yourpanion, Vedora, in your previous timeline?" The God of Darkness furrowed his brow, taken aback by the sudden revtion that Fourcrux delivered so calmly.
Michael''s silence betrayed hisck of awareness, prompting Fourcrux to enlighten him further. "It seems you are in the dark, and rightly so. Allow me to expand your understanding, God of Darkness. In this present timeline, your former pet hydra, has been unearthed by Andohr. The God of Time and Space intends to resurrect the creature, harnessing its power to wage war against you."
The weight of Fourcrux''s words settled upon Michael, his mind racing to grasp the implications of such a revtion. Tension filled the air as Michael contemted the magnitude of this newfound threat.
Unbeknownst to Michael, Fourcrux, the god of necromancy, had been covertly aiding in the resurrection of Vedora''s corpse. However, Fourcrux harbored no allegiance toward Andohr or the God of Darkness. As a deity who had been shunned by the pantheon and the majority of gods in the realm, Fourcrux''s loyalty rested solely with himself. In the impending conflict between the God of Time and Space and the God of Darkness, Fourcrux saw an opportunity to align himself with both sides, utilizing their bitter rivalry to further his own agenda.
Chapter 1009 Harry And Lailah
Perched atop a serene mountaintop, a young boy with golden locks sat amidst a sprawling meadow, his gaze fixed upon the breathtaking canvas of colors painted across the sky as the sun gracefully descended. The hues of orange, pink, and purple melded together, casting a warm glow that bathed the world in a tranquil embrace.
Deep in thought, Harry, disyed a pensive expression beyond his tender age. Lost in contemtion, he seemed oblivious to the approach of a graceful woman carrying a bowl. This woman, none other than La Alden quietly settled beside him on the grass, her presence a gentle interruption to his musings.
"Harry, you haven''t had a proper meal today," La gently reminded him, her voice carrying a blend of concern and affection.
Startled by his mother''s voice, Harry blinked and turned his attention to her. His young mind wrestled with a pressing question that weighed heavily upon him. With a mixture of curiosity and innocence, he ventured to ask, "Mom, why does everyone say that Dad is evil? Is he truly a bad person?"
Rather than disying shock or surprise, La sighed, weariness etched upon her face. She had grown ustomed to hearing such disparaging remarks aimed at Ghost, the Dark Lord who had captured the attention and scrutiny of all of Mazeroth. What La considered a stroke of luck was the fact that nobody knew Harry''s true lineage, that he was the son of the feared Dark Lord himself.
"Harry, I''ve told you before, you''re still too young toprehend theplexities of the world fully," La replied, her tone gentle yet tinged with caution. She reached out and tenderly turned his face toward her own, knowing that, inadvertently, Harry had inherited the same piercing gaze that had defined his father, Ghost.
Desperation tugged at Harry''s voice as he pleaded with his mother, "Please, Mom, I really need to know."
La observed her son''s earnestness and couldn''t help but feel a pang of sympathy. The weight of the world seemed to rest upon his young shoulders, burdened by the judgment and fear surrounding his father''s reputation.
"Why this sudden urgency, Harry?" La inquired, her concern etched in her voice.
Harry''s voice quivered with a mix of apprehension and vulnerability as he revealed his innermost fears, "I can''t bear it anymore, Mom. Everywhere I go, the childrenbel him as the big, bad evil. Knowing that he is my father, I''m terrified that I might inherit his darkness."
The raw emotion in Harry''s words struck La deeply, melting away the coldness that had enveloped her heart. Moved by her son''s distress, she instinctively drew closer, enfolding him in aforting embrace that exuded motherly warmth.
Gently, La reached for a morsel of honey-zed rice from the bowl beside them, her hand moving with tenderness and care. She lifted the morsel to Harry''s lips, offering sustenance and affection in a single gesture.
"Harry, my love, your father is not the monster that others perceive him to be," La assured him, her voiceced with sincerity and love.
Harry''s voice trembled with uncertainty as he raised another question, "But Mom, I witnessed him... I saw him take Aunt Edith''s life. People say he has caused harm to countless others. What if I be like him?"
La tenderly brushed away a few lingering grains of rice from the corner of Harry''s lips before continuing to feed him, a gesture filled with love and reassurance.
"Aunt Edith''s actions were clouded by her grief and anger, Harry," La exined gently. "Her choices led to someone trying to harm you. Your father is the kind of man who will go to any lengths to protect those he cares about and ensure justice is served."
Harry pondered his mother''s words, chewing his food thoughtfully before swallowing. Despite hisck of appetite, the warmth and affection emanating from his mother''s smile made the nourishment go down easier.
"But Mom, if he truly cares about us, why isn''t he here?" Harry''s voice quivered with longing and confusion.
La''s eyes brimmed with understanding as she caressed her son''s cheek, her voice filled with tenderness, "It''s not that he''s not with us, Harry. It''s that we are not with him. You must know, my son, he didn''t leave us. I made the choice to separate from him when he asked me toe with him."
As Harry''s shock began to subside, La set aside the empty bowl, realizing that she couldn''t withhold the truth any longer. Her son was growing rapidly, both physically and mentally, and she understood the importance of providing him with answers. She refused to let the world''s perceptions shape Harry''s thoughts, determined not to let him be swayed by external influences.
"He truly wanted us to be with him," La confirmed, her voice filled with sincerity, causing Harry''s eyes to well up with tears of relief. In that moment, he realized that his father hadn''t abandoned him, contrary to what he had believed. Harry''s trust and love for his mother were unwavering, and when she assured him that his father wasn''t the embodiment of evil as the world imed, he wholeheartedly believed her.
Curiosity still tugged at Harry''s heart, and he couldn''t help but ask, "But why didn''t you agree to go with him?" La let out a sigh, her gaze drifting toward the distant horizon.
"I made that choice because I didn''t want us to be entangled in the war between the world and your father," La exined, her voice tinged with a touch of sadness. "Sometimes, leaving your loved ones is a way of loving them, Harry."
Harry''s brow furrowed with contemtion, and he continued to seek rity. "Professor Rake once said that if everyone calls a man evil, then he must be evil. So why is everyone fighting against Dad if he is a good man? And if he were to harm everyone, even his own family, wouldn''t that only prove the world right? You''ve always told me that we cannot fight darkness with more darkness, Mom."
La''s heart swelled with pride as she realized just how much Harry had grown. The image of him as a spirit child, ethereal and delicate, shed in her mind. Now, standing before her, he was no longer a child or a baby she used to carry in her arms. He was a young man seeking truth and grappling withplex questions, and it was her duty to guide him through thisbyrinth of uncertainty.I think you should take a look at
La took a deep breath, her eyes fixed on Harry''s searching gaze. It was time to shed light on the truth, to reveal theplexities of their circumstances.
"Your father, Harry, once fought tirelessly to change the world''s perception of him. But as time went on, he realized the futility of that battle. Instead, he chose to embrace thebel ced upon him and set out to change the world itself. It''s a fight he''s winning, my dear. He''d rather be feared by everyone than allow them to pose a threat to him. But that doesn''t make him evil. Your father has endured unimaginable suffering, more than anyone I''ve ever known. No one has the right to pass judgment on him. If they call him evil, then the world itself must bear that burden."
La understood Ghost''s plight intimately, for she too had been caught in the web of difficult choices, trying to do what was best for their loved ones.
She couldn''t forget the words of Wulfric, which had weighed heavily on her decision to leave Ghost. "The safest ce for you and Harry is within the enemy lines, Lah. If the Skyhall knew they had you both within their grasp, they wouldn''t harm you. But if you chose to go with Ghost, they would hunt you down to hurt him." Those words echoed in her mind, reminding her of the risks they faced.
The weight of her decision to leave Ghost behind had been a heavy burden on La''s heart. But in her mind, it was the choice that would ensure their safety, even if it meant being apart from the man they loved.
"Mom, is it true that Dad used to be a student in Mazeroth?" Harry''s curiosity peaked as he leaned in closer, eager to learn more about his father. The rumors and whispers from other children had intrigued him, and he wanted to hear the truth from his mother''s perspective.
"Yes, it''s true, Harry," Lah confirmed, a fond smile ying on her lips as she reminisced. "Your father was not only a student, but he was also considered one of the brightest. Professor Lane, who was known for his alchemy expertise, took a special interest in Ghost''s abilities. They had a unique bond, like mentor and prot¨¦g¨¦. Your father''s talent as an alchemist surpassed all expectations. He was a true master of his craft."
Harry''s eyes widened in awe. He had always heard stories of his father''s notorious deeds, but this new revtion sparked a sense of pride within him. He wanted to know more about the man behind the reputation.
"But, Mom," Harry continued, "why does everyone only focus on the bad things? Are there no good deeds that Dad has done?"
Lah''s smile grew warmer as she gently brushed a strand of hair away from Harry''s face. "Oh, my dear boy, the world often forgets about the goodness in people when darkness overshadows them. Your father''s true nature goes beyond the rumors and fear surrounding him. There is a side to him that many have not seen."
She paused for a moment, her eyes glimmering with fond memories. "Did you know that there is a small town called Bradford? Your father single-handedly transformed it from a struggling fishing vige into a thrivingmunity. The people there look up to him as their savior. He used his alchemical knowledge and resources to bring prosperity and happiness to their lives. Does that sound like something an evil man would do?"
Harry''s eyes widened with amazement. He never imagined his father as a hero or a bringer of happiness. This newfound knowledge shattered the image the world had painted of Ghost.
"Dad walks the line between good and bad, my love," Lah continued, her voice filled with affection. "He is aplex individual, driven by his own sense of justice and determination. Most people in this world can be easily categorized as either good or bad, but your father defies such simplisticbels. He seeks to protect those he cares about and fights for a cause he believes in, even if it means facing the world''s judgment."
Harry pondered his mother''s words, trying to reconcile the conflicting images of his father in his mind. He realized that he had only scratched the surface of understanding who Ghost truly was. The stories of his kindness and brilliance began to overshadow the tales of darkness and fear.
Curiosity still burning in his eyes, Harry couldn''t help but ask another question. "Mom, Sister Johana and Nerita said something about you trying to kill Dad once. Is that true?"
"Ah, those two can''t seem to keep a secret," Lah sighed, her voice filled with both amusement and exasperation. After a moment, sheposed herself and met Harry''s gaze.
"Women can sometimes get really angry, Harry. It''s like a storm inside them, and it''s best for a man to agree with them even if they haven''t done anything wrong, just to keep the peace. But your dad was different. He didn''t back down easily. When we had an argument, he stood his ground and actually made a lot of sense," Lah exined with a warm smile.
Harry''s young mind struggled toprehend his mother''s words. He furrowed his brow and tilted his head in confusion. "So, you tried to hurt him when he made sense?" he asked, seeking rification.
Lah chuckled softly, realizing the need to simplify her exnation. "Well, when a man makes sense in an argument, sometimes a woman might react by crying or even wanting to hurt him. It''s like a strange rule," she said, trying to find a lighthearted tone.
Harry''s eyes widened in surprise. He couldn''t quite grasp the idea that someone could respond with violence when faced with sense and reason. It seemed illogical to him. "But that doesn''t make sense, Mom. Why would someone want to hurt another person when they''re making sense?" he asked innocently.
Lah''sughter filled the air as she saw the genuine confusion on Harry''s face. She realized that trying to simplify the exnation further was necessary. "You''re right, my dear. It doesn''t make much sense, does it? Sometimes, people can react in unpredictable ways, even to things that seem logical. It''s a quirk of human nature, I suppose," she replied, her tone gentle and understanding.
Harry nodded, epting his mother''s exnation. He may not fullyprehend the intricacies of adult interactions, but he trusted his mother''s words. After all, she had always been his guiding light, the one who offered love and reassurance in even the most confusing times.
The conversation faded into afortable silence as mother and son sat together, the fading light of the day casting a warm glow around them. Harry felt a sense of peace settling within him, knowing that even in the midst ofplexity, his mother would always be there to offer guidance and love.
Chapter 1010 The Fallen Gods Arc Begins
Meanwhile, Salesi stood in her grand hall, a space that reflected her strategic mind and housed her vast collection of knowledge. The round table at the center was adorned with maps, scrolls, and intricate models of battle formations, serving as a constant reminder of the war they waged in the shadows. The walls were lined with shelves holding countless books, each one meticulously chosen to hone her tactical prowess. A grand sofa set provided afortable spot for contemtion, while a board disyed a mosaic of news clippings and portraits, a visual representation of the Dark Lord''s deeds and their resistance against him.
As Salesi studied the detailed map of the Sea Realm, plotting their next move against the Dark Lord, Evan gracefully entered the room, surrounded by a faint ethereal glow. Ever since Evan''s body was infused with divine grace, he had be akin to a god himself. His powers had skyrocketed, enabling him tobat the Dark Lord''s minions. However, their adversaries had retreated into hiding after the Dark Lord mysteriously vanished from his own wedding.
"Lady Salesi, I bring news regarding Noah," Evan approached the round table and joined Salesi''s side.
Salesi''s eyes lit up with anticipation. "Did you manage to convince Noah to join our cause against the Dark Lord?" she inquired, her voice filled with hope.
Evan''s head drooped slightly, and a trace of sadness flickered in his eyes. He felt deep sympathy for Noah, who had tragically lost his beloved wife at the hands of the Dark Lord, who happened to be his own twin brother. As if that wasn''t enough, Noah''s father had been imprisoned by the Skyhall, and his sister, Rowena Winston, remained missing. Rumors circted about Rowena''s fate, some suggesting she had perished, while others imed she had disappeared after learning the shocking truth of her rtion to the Dark Lord.
Salesi had informed Evan that even if Rowena were to resurface, the Skyhall would undoubtedly punish her for her actions during the Nagnd war. Despite learning of the Dark Lord''s identity as her younger brother, Rowena had fearlessly ced herself in harm''s way, shielding him from a lethal energy beam during the conflict. However, in the eyes of the Skyhall, her courageous act was deemed treasonous. If she were still alive, the Skyhall would surely seek retribution, regardless of her esteemed position as the Holy Maiden.
The weight of these revtions weighed heavily on Evan''s heart as he ryed the news to Salesi. He understood the immense burden Noah carried, the anguish of losing a loved one and the relentless search for answers and justice. The Shadow n''s mission to overthrow the Dark Lord had be even more crucial, not only for their cause but for the sake of Noah, Rowena, and countless others affected by the Dark Lord''s reign of terror.
"We should allow Noah some time to process everything. How did he appear? Was he filled with rage or did he manage to maintain hisposure?" Salesi''s inquiry, though seemingly unusual, held a purposeful significance. Evan understood that Salesi''s questions always held deeper meaning.
"Surprisingly, he seemed remarkably calm. It was as if the weight of losing his wife and family hadn''t taken its toll on him," Evan replied. Noah''s demeanor and how he conducted himself left Evan taken aback. He had anticipated a furious outburst from Noah upon discovering the fate of his beloved Alicia. Yet, instead of sumbing to anger, Noah had chosen seclusion atop a solitary mountain, appearingposed and serene.
Salesi couldn''t help but feel a sense of satisfaction upon hearing Evan''s response. However, she remained outwardly expressionless, maintaining her enigmatic demeanor.
"A man who remains calm even in the face of anger is far more dangerous than one who outwardly disys his rage," Salesi stated, her words carrying a weight of wisdom.
Evan nodded, acknowledging the truth in Salesi''s statement. There was an unsettling power in someone who could contain their anger and channel it with purpose and precision. Noah''s tranquility in the midst of such profound loss hinted at a depth of resolve and determination that could prove formidable in their fight against the Dark Lord.
"Regardless of whether Noah chooses to join our cause or not, I am certain he will stand against the Dark Lord. As a man, he will seek vengeance for his wife," Evan expressed, his conviction unwavering. Salesi nodded in agreement, knowing the deep well of anger that must be brewing within Noah, especially considering the Dark Lord was his own twin brother.
Returning her focus to the map of the Sea Realm, Salesi contemted their next course of action.
"Evan, I need you to venture into the Sea Realm and investigate the recent energy radiation that Hammond''s contraption detected," Salesi instructed, her voice steady and determined.
Evan was well aware that since the fallen gods had regained their graces, one of Hammond''s inventions had detected a powerful surge of energy emanating from the Sea Realm. Reports from Salesi''s spies revealed that the Watergod Hall had also discovered this anomaly and dispatched a team deep into the depths of the ocean to investigate.
"Keep in mind that the Watergod Hall''s team may pose some resistance. Try to handle the situation peacefully, but if necessary, dispose of them," Salesi added, emphasizing the importance of securing the energy source before the Dark Lord couldy im to it.
Leaning against the table, Evan studied the map, absorbing the details. Salesi continued her exnation, her voice tinged with a sense of urgency.
"I have a strong feeling that this energy radiation is somehow connected to the Dark Lord. We cannot allow him to obtain it. As long as the Dark Lord remains below the Heavenly stage of power, we can hold our ground with the aid of the fallen gods."
Evan''s brows furrowed in concern as he posed a crucial question.
"What if the Dark Lord surpasses the Heavenly stage? What will happen then?" he inquired, fully aware of the formidable might possessed by the Dark Lord, the God of Darkness.I think you should take a look at
Salesi''s gaze turned solemn, her voice tinged with a hint of worry.
"If that happens, the fallen gods will stand no chance against the Dark Lord. Only Noah, with his unique abilities and determination, will have a fighting chance. However, even then, Noah will require something truly extraordinary to defeat the Dark Lord."
The weight of their mission hung heavily in the air, as Salesi and Evan exchanged a knowing nce. The stakes were higher than ever, and the impending confrontation with the Dark Lord loomed ominously on the horizon.
Salesi''s mind raced with strategic ns and contingencies, recognizing the crucial role they yed in preventing the Dark Lord from obtaining the mysterious energy source. The fate of their world rested in their hands, and they would stop at nothing to ensure that darkness would not prevail.
"We must also consider the possibility that the Dark Lord has spies within the Sea Realm. Time is of the essence, Evan. You need to depart today," Salesi stated with a sense of urgency, emphasizing the need for swift action.
Before Evan embarked on his mission, he feltpelled to address a pressing concern regarding Princess Xanali and the situation in Nagnd. Evan couldn''t help but question whether leaving Xanali in Nagnd was the best course of action, given the perilous circumstances. Furthermore, he wondered if there was any way to heal Xanali''s broken meridians, a consequence of the Dark Queen''s treacherous actions.
"Lady Salesi, is it truly wise to leave Princess Xanali in Nagnd? And is there any possibility of restoring her meridians?" Evan inquired, his voice tinged with genuine concern. While he respected Salesi''s unwavering dedication to their cause, he couldn''t shake the feeling that Xanali was being sacrificed in the process. Having already lost her husband at the hands of Gaya, who happened to be both the Dark Lord''s wife and Salesi''s stepdaughter, Evan couldn''t help but worry for Xanali''s well-being. The revtion that Gaya, the Dark Queen, had in her own father and shattered Xanali''s meridians had shocked many, leaving a sense of disbelief in its wake.
Salesi took a moment to gather her thoughts, her expressionposed yet carrying a subtle hint of sadness. She understood the underlying concerns and the weight of her decision regarding Xanali''s fate.
"The kingdom is in capable hands, Evan. As for the Dark Lord, he has no reason to harm Xanali," Salesi reassured, her words intended to provide sce. However, deep down, even Xanali, her own daughter, was but a pawn in her intricate game against the Dark Lord. Salesi harbored a hidden agenda, using Xanali''s rtionship with Noah to stoke his mes of anger and vengeance further.
Salesi desired for Noah to be consumed by his fury before facing the Dark Lord, ensuring that no remnants of brotherly affection would sway him. She knew all too well that the Dark Lord would show no mercy towards Noah, and Salesi wanted him to be prepared for the ruthless battle ahead.
Unbeknownst to Evan, Salesi''s motives remained shrouded in the depths of herplex strategy. The sacrifices she made for the greater good weighed heavily on her conscience, but she remained resolute in her pursuit to dismantle the Dark Lord''s reign. For now, Xanali''s safety rested on the delicate edge of their ns, an unavoidable casualty in the battle against darkness.
"I have faith in your judgment, Lady Salesi," Evan conveyed before departing from the grand hall, leaving Salesi to contemte the intricate web of her ns. As Evan made his way out, the ethereal form of Andreas materialized before Salesi, their ndestine alliance continuing to take shape.
"Andreas, it''s time to make our move with Noah. Let us ignite the long-awaited sh between the two brothers," Salesi dered with a mischievous grin. Andreas''s face mirrored her cunning expression, fully aware of the maniptive path they were about to tread.
"Remember, Andreas, you must conceal your true identity from Noah. You cannot reveal that you are allied with me or that you are not his mentor," Salesi cautioned, emphasizing the need for secrecy. Andreas, the second soul piece of the enigmatic mentor, simply shrugged in response.
"Trust me, Salesi. I know exactly what I''m doing. Noah teeters on the precipice of losing himself to his seething rage. I understand his emotions all too well. All we need to do is fan the mes," the second soul piece of Andreas assured, exuding a sense of confidence in their calcted maneuvers.
Salesi''s grin widened as she contemted the uing chess match of maniption and hidden agendas. The stakes were high, but she was willing to gamble everything in her quest to dismantle the Dark Lord''s dominion. Andreas, her steadfast ally, shared her determination, both of them fullymitted to pushing Noah toward his ultimate destiny.
"Before you depart, ensure that ra remains in Hammond''spany at all times. You understand the vital role Hammond and his intelligence y in our mission to bring down the Dark Lord," Salesi instructed Andreas, emphasizing the importance of protecting their valuable asset.
Andreas nodded in agreement, his ethereal form fading away, leaving Salesi alone in the grand hall. As she contemted her next strategic moves against the Dark Lord, unbeknownst to her, a treacherous twist was already in motion. The energy radiation she had dispatched Evan to investigate was not what it seemed¡ªit was a seed of Darkness, and the Dark Lord himself was swiftly closing in to im it.
Little did Salesi know that her ns were about to be upended by a malevolent force, setting in motion a chain of events that would challenge her every strategy. The Dark Lord''s relentless pursuit of power and domination threatened to unravel everything she had meticulously built. With the seed of Darkness at the center of this unfolding cmity, Salesi''s intricate web of alliances and calctions hung in the bnce. In other words, the Dark Lord was on his way to get the seed of darkness.
Chapter 1011 Lord Information鈥檚 True Identity
Lord Information, the wise and serene elf with flowing blonde hair, sat in his study behind a magnificent mahogany table adorned with flickering candles in delicate holders. The room was a sanctuary of knowledge, with book racks lining the walls, filled to the brim with ancient tomes, weathered scrolls, and carefully preserved parchments. The shelves overflowed with the umted wisdom of countless generations.
In this sanctuary of knowledge, Lord Information was engrossed in his studies, surrounded by a sea of scrolls that he meticulously perused. His sharp eyes danced across the ancient text, absorbing the profound knowledge and insights contained within. As his fingertips delicately unfurled each scroll, the room suddenly quivered, a faint tremor that only he could perceive.
Lord Information, attuned to the subtle vibrations of the world, sensed the disturbance and paused. With aposed demeanor, he tapped his slender fingers upon the smooth mahogany table in a rhythm known only to him¡ªa codednguage between him and the enchantments that surrounded him. The table responded, and two intricate runes, resembling eyes, glimmered with ethereal light.
As the runes sparked to life, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Hidden mechanisms whirred into action, revealing a small potion nestled within the heart of the table. The vial glinted with a silvery radiance, catching the flickering candlelight. Lord Information''s calm gaze fixed upon the glistening orb as its secrets were unveiled.
With a gentle yet purposeful touch, Lord Information reached out, his fingertips hovering above the gleaming orb. His aura of wisdom and calmness remained unshaken, even as anticipation coursed through his veins. The room was hushed, the only sound the soft rustling of parchment and the beating of his own heart.
The room reverberated with a subtle hum as the silver orb emitted a soft, melodic tone. Lord Information, his heart brimming with reverence, rose from his chair and gracefully sank to one knee upon the floor.
"Humble servant of the Divine Goddess Seraphine, I offer my greetings," Lord Information spoke, his head respectfully bowed. Unbeknownst to the world, Lord Information was among the hidden devotees of Seraphine, the Goddess of Information. Seraphine''s power derived from the vast umtion of knowledge provided by her followers.
Within an intricatework of information, Seraphine acted as the central hub. Whenever her devotees sought knowledge, she would gather information shared by others and provide it to those in need. This unique connection allowed Lord Information to possess exclusive and invaluable insights that eluded the grasp of ordinary mortals.
"Arise, Thelian," Seraphine''s voice resonated from the luminous orb, addressing Lord Information by his true name, Thelian Whisperwind. Only Seraphine and Thelian himself knew this deeply personal connection.
"Andohr, the High God, has granted me permission to aid Noah Winston, Thelian. It is time for the long-awaited meeting of the two brothers upon the battlefield," Seraphine dered.
Thelian, upon hearing these words from his goddess, felt a shiver cascade down his spine. He had witnessed the immense power wielded by the Dark Lord, and the devastating aftermath that unfolded whenever he shed with the mortal realm. The thought of the Dark Lord, a god in his own right, engaging in a cataclysmic battle with his twin brother Noah, also a god, sent chills through Thelian''s soul.
"The Dark Lord has acquired two god-killing arrows forged by Qin Jiu, and Noah possesses two as well. Unfortunately, the Dark Lord has obtained the upper hand in this regard. To vanquish the Dark Lord, Noah must wield all eight arrows at his disposal. Since acquiring the Dark Lord''s arrows is not within our grasp, we must assist Noah in locating the rest while the Dark Lord is absent from the mortal realm," Seraphine urgently conveyed, her voice tinged with a sense of urgency.
Thelian listened intently, understanding the critical importance of their mission. The fate of the world hung in the bnce, and it was his divine duty to guide Noah on this perilous path. With Seraphine''s guidance and the wisdom he had amassed, Thelian would ensure that Noah possessed the tools necessary to confront the Dark Lord, their fateful encounter drawing ever closer.
"Now, Thelian, I shall entrust you with the vital information regarding the possible locations of the remaining god-killing arrows. It is imperative that you personally deliver this map into Noah''s hands. I am well aware that the Dark Lord''s minions are keeping a watchful eye on you, but you must not falter in this crucial task," Seraphine dered.
As she spoke, a golden map adorned with glowing points materialized on the table beside the shimmering orb, illuminating the room with its radiant presence.
"Divine Goddess, please forgive your humble devotee for daring to question your wisdom, but as far as my understanding goes, Noah will be unable to defeat the Dark Lord without all eight god-killing arrows. With the Dark Lord already in possession of two arrows, Noah''s chances of victory seem slim," Thelian voiced his concerns.
Seraphine responded with unwavering serenity, addressing Thelian''s query.
"The same holds true for the Dark Lord. Without all eight arrows, he too will be unable to vanquish Noah. Thus, the oue of their battle will depend on Noah''s skill and resourcefulness in somehow wresting the Dark Lord''s two arrows from his grasp, thereby harnessing thebined power of all eight to deliver the final blow," Seraphine exined.
"In which realm will this ultimate confrontation take ce, divine goddess?" Thelian inquired, his curiosity piqued.
"If everything transpires ording to Andohr''s n, the final battle shall unfold in the realm of Akn," Seraphine revealed, her words resonating with a sense of destiny and inevitability.
"Thus far, you have disyed remarkable skill in maintaining your guise as an information merchant. Neither the Dark Lord nor Noah suspects your true allegiance to me. I implore you to continue concealing this fact for as long as possible, even after delivering the map to Noah. Should the Dark Lord emerge triumphant in his battle against Noah, only the divine pantheon would possess the power to vanquish him. However, given the current circumstances, the pantheon is unable to intervene directly in the mortal realm. Therefore, it is crucial that all our devoted followers remain vignt and keep a watchful eye on the Dark Lord for as long as we can," Seraphine advised, her voice resonating with a sense of urgency and caution.I think you should take a look at
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Ne and Alvaro soared through the vast expanse of the evening sky, their wings carrying them gracefully over the world below. The sun began its descent, casting a warm golden glow across the horizon, painting the sky in hues of pink and orange. Wispy clouds scattered across the canvas, creating a breathtaking tapestry against the fading light.
As they flew, Ne and Alvaro looked down upon the sprawling forest that stretched out beneath them. The dense canopy of trees, adorned in shades of emerald and jade, appeared like a lush carpet nketing the earth. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the leaves, creating dappled patterns on the forest floor.
As Ne and Alvaro soared through the vast sky, a heavy silence hung between them. Alvaro, who worked as a double agent for the Dark Lord, felt a growing unease in the absence of conversation. The risks he took by serving both sides weighed heavily on his mind. Among the members of Noah''s elite unit, Ne''s unwavering loyalty to their leader made Alvaro particrly cautious. In recent weeks, he had sensed that Ne might have noticed something amiss, suspecting his true allegiance.
Attempting to gauge her suspicions, Alvaro cautiously broke the silence. "Is something bothering you, Ne?" he inquired, his voiceced with uncertainty.
Ne''s response was initially curt. "Nothing," she replied. Alvaro, positioned behind her in flight, couldn''t discern her expression. However, after a brief pause, Ne spoke again, suggesting they take a break to conserve their energy. She guided them towards a tranquil mountaintop, its peaceful ambiance contrasting with the turmoil in Alvaro''s heart.
Serving the Dark Lord had brought Alvaro considerable wealth, but it also entailed grave risks. The presence of the fallen gods and the increasing influence of the Skyhall in the mortal realm meant that enemies of the Dark Lord were multiplying by the day. Alvaro understood that severing ties with the Dark Lord would result in dire consequences, possibly costing him his life. He found himself caught in a perilous web, entangled too deeply to extricate himself easily.
Ne''s gaze lingered upon the expanse of the crystal ocean, stretching far into the distance under the shimmering moonlight and starry night sky. The beauty of the tranquil scene was momentarily overshadowed by the weight of her thoughts. With a deep breath, she mustered the courage to address the growing doubts that gued her.
"You''ve changed, Alvaro," Ne spoke softly, her words hanging in the air. The impact of her statement sent a jolt through Alvaro''s heart, making it skip a beat.
Trying to mask his unease with a yful tone, Alvaro responded, "What do you mean? Are you just messing with me?" He forced a chuckle, hoping to deflect the seriousness of the situation.
Ne remained still, her back turned towards him, as she grappled with her inner turmoil. Thoughcking concrete evidence of Alvaro''s betrayal, her instincts screamed that something was amiss. Three weeks prior, a death squad loyal to the Dark Lord had ruthlessly attacked a supposed safehouse that Ne herself had fabricated, leading her fellow elite unit members to believe Noah was hiding there. The safehouse''s existence had been shared only among the elite soldiers, making the targeted attack all the more suspicious.
Furthermore, Ne had uncovered a startling revtion during her investigations into the wealth and backgrounds of herrades prior to the Dark Lord''s assault on their guardian guild. It hade to her attention that Alvaro had recently acquired opulent manors and vineyards across the Awor continent. The timing and nature of his newfound affluence raised her suspicions further.
In addition, whenever ra Valren dispatched a group of elite soldiers to apprehend nobles suspected of colluding with the Dark Lord, they were met with unexpected resistance. Despite the Dark Lord''s obliteration of their guardian guild and the massacre of their fellow guardians, Ne remained steadfast in her loyalty to Noah, the Supreme Guardian.
Yearning for her instincts to be proven wrong, Ne turned to face Alvaro, her expression a mix of concern and urgency. "Alvaro, please, you have to be honest with me. We''re friends. If there''s something you need to tell me, please do so before we meet with Noah." Her words hung in the air, the weight of their significance palpable in the silence that followed.
Ne''s eyes welled up with tears as her fists clenched in frustration and anxiety. She could see Alvaro''s lips trembling and a peculiar glint in his eyes. The signs were clear: Alvaro was undoubtedly concealing something, and it weighed heavily on Ne''s heart. But before he could speak, a sudden surge of fear shot through her body, causing the hair on her neck to stand on end.
"Look out!" Alvaro''s voice rang out urgently, his instincts kicking into action. Without a moment''s hesitation, he lunged forward, propelling Ne out of harm''s way. Time seemed to slow as Ne''s senses sharpened, registering the imminent danger. In the blink of an eye, an arrow materialized from the shadows, hurtling through the air with deadly precision.
Alvaro''s selfless act of protection came at a terrible cost. The arrow found its mark, piercing through his chest with a sickening thud.
Ne''s gaze shifted upward, her tear-filled eyes widening in terror as she witnessed a haunting sight unfold before her. Emerging from the shadows of the evening sky were figures cloaked in ominous dark robes, their presence emanating an aura of malevolence. The air crackled with an unsettling energy, sending shivers down Ne''s spine.
As the figures drew nearer, a chilling realization washed over her. From beneath the depths of their ck hoods, gleaming white fangs glistened with a predatory hunger. These were none other than the minions of the Dark Lord, the dreaded vampires who served as his relentless enforcers. Ne''s heart sank as sheprehended the dire truth¡ªthey had been ambushed.
The vampire minions descended with an eerie grace, their dark forms gliding through the air like phantoms. Their eyes burned with an unholy crimson glow, fixated on their wounded prey. Ne''s instincts screamed at her to flee, to escape this deadly trap, but her determination to protect her fallenrade and unravel the mysteries surrounding Alvaro''s true allegiance anchored her in ce.
Chapter 1012 Noah鈥檚 Return
Ne''s gaze swept over the vampire minions that encircled her, assessing their formidable presence. Amongst the group, she noticed the distinctive features of the Soul Refining stage vampires, their gaunt faces contorted into wicked grins. Their elongated tongues flicked out, hissing with anticipation as they floated effortlessly in the air, their dark eyes fixated on their prey.
But her attention was abruptly drawn to the two towering figures amidst the throng. These Fusion stage vampires stood head and shoulders above the rest, their bulging muscles and intimidating stature showcasing their enhanced power. Ne''s heart quickened as she recognized the palpable threat they posed.
With resolve etched across her face, Ne gripped her silver sword tightly, feeling its reassuring weight in her hand. She channeled her magic, preparing to cast a defensive spell to shield herself against the impending assault. The words of incantation formed on her lips, ready to be unleashed at a moment''s notice.
Yet, amidst the chaos, a groan escaped Alvaro''s lips. Against all odds, he struggled to his feet, his face etched with pain and determination. It was a testament to his resilience and an unwavering spirit.
As the tension reached its peak, one of the Fusion stage vampires stepped forward, his voice dripping with cruel amusement. "The Dark Queen sends her regards," he taunted, his wordsced with a sinister undertone. A wicked smile curled upon his lips, baring his elongated fangs, and his crimson eyes bore into Ne''s.
As Alvaro gritted his teeth, he summoned every ounce of strength to pull out the arrow lodged in his chest. A sharp wave of pain rippled through his body, and blood gushed from the wound, staining his clothes and the ground beneath him. With a trembling hand, he reached for a healing potion tucked within his cloak, intending to mend his grievous injury.
But before he could bring the vial to his lips, a blur of movement descended upon them. One of the vampires, propelled by unnatural speed, dashed from the sky, his ws poised to strike. With a fierce growl, Ne reacted swiftly, her hand sweeping through the air with swift precision.
In an instant, a burning golden chakra materialized before her, swirling with an intense radiant energy. It formed a formidable shield, blocking the vampire''s frenzied assault. The impact reverberated through the chakra, sparks of golden light scattering in all directions.
With her other hand, Ne tightened her grip on the silver sword and unleashed a swift counterattack. The de sliced through the air with an almost ethereal grace, its shimmering edge meeting the vampire''s resistance. The sh of metal and fangs filled the night air, a symphony of danger and determination.
With a fierce roar, Ne''s voice thundered through the chaos. "I will dispatch you unholy creatures! Your reign of terror ends here!" Her words echoed with unwavering resolve, her eyes aze with righteous fury.
The vampires, undeterred by Ne''s defiance, taunted her with mockingughter. "Your futile attempts won''t save you, guardian! The Dark Lord and the Dark Queen will revel in the sight of your severed heads!"
A deadly dance ensued, as Ne fought against the onught of the vampires, her movements infused with a deadly grace. She parried their attacks with the burning chakra shield, its golden light pulsating with each impact.
As the Fusion stage vampires hovered in the air, their imposing figures exuding an aura of dark power, mes sparked and danced along the edges of the golden chakra swirling before Ne. The intense heat radiating from the shield formed a protective barrier, its radiant energy crackling with every movement.
The remaining vampires, moving with blinding speed,unched themselves at Ne and Alvaro with a ferocity that matched their bloodlust. Their attacks were swift and relentless, ws shing through the air in a deadly frenzy. Ne''s senses sharpened, her focus honed to a razor''s edge as she parried their strikes, her silver sword a blur of steel.
Yet, amidst the chaos, Ne''s eyes widened in realization. The vampires were not merely engaging her inbat; they were deliberately targeting Alvaro with lethal intent. Their frenzied attacks held no trace of restraint or mercy. Doubt began to creep into Ne''s mind as she questioned her suspicions about Alvaro''s loyalty.
With each passing moment, her doubts grew stronger. The vampires wed at Alvaro, tearing at his robes, leaving deep gashes across his flesh. He winced in pain, his body a canvas of injuries. But despite the agony, Alvaro summoned a fierce determination.
In a desperate bid for survival, Alvaro retaliated. With a guttural cry, heunched himself at one of the vampires, delivering a powerful headbutt that stunned his assant. In one fluid motion, he followed up with a swift swing of his sword, severing the vampire''s hand from its shoulder.
Time seemed to slow as the severed hand flew through the air, crimson droplets spraying in its wake. The vampire let out a howl of pain, dark ichor spilling from the wound, as the severed appendagended with a sickening thud on the ground.
Ne''s mind raced as she witnessed Alvaro''s unwavering resolve and the visceral battle ying out before her. A nagging voice inside her wondered if she had been wrong all along, suspecting Alvaro without concrete evidence. She couldn''t deny the sight before her eyes¡ªthe brutal assault on Alvaro and his valiant defense against the vampires.
With a sudden burst of determination, Ne leaped back from the vampires,nding gracefully on the ground. As she plunged her sword into the earth, a wave of golden mes erupted around her, engulfing the area in a zing inferno. The intense heat licked at the vampires'' bodies, searing their flesh with its divine fury.
However, before the mes could consume thempletely, the vampires swiftly retrieved a silver vial from their space rings, pouring its contents over their burning forms. The liquid extinguished the fire in an instant, leaving Ne shocked at the effectiveness of the silver potion.
Her mind raced, connecting the dots. She knew the Dark Lord possessed formidable alchemical talents, and it seemed he had bestowed his vampiric minions with a means to counteract her fiery onught. The vampires'' wounds healed before her eyes, their burned flesh regenerating with visible speed. Even the vampire who had lost his arm witnessed the appendage regrowing, seamlessly reattaching itself to his shoulder.
The Fusion stage vampires, their dark eyes gleaming with malice, taunted Ne and Alvaro amidst their renewed strength. One of them sneered, "Is that all you have? You''ll need to do better than that to stand a chance against us!" The other vampires joined in, their mockingughter echoing through the night. "You should have perished when the Dark Lord destroyed your guild! Pathetic guardians, powerless against the might of our master!"
Ne gritted her teeth, the weight of their words fueling her determination. She refused to let their taunts break her spirit. Rising to her feet, she met their gazes with unwavering resolve. "We may have been wounded, but our will remains unyielding. We fight for justice, for the Supreme Guardian Noah Winston! You vampires may have the Dark Lord''s aid, but we will find a way to ovee!"
They erupted intoughter, their taunting voices echoing through the night. "Oh, look! The Guardians think they''re actors in some grand y! Do they rehearse these silly dialogues in their spare time? How amusing!"
The vampires, their voices dripping with mockery, repeated Ne''s words in exaggerated tones. "Oh, look at us, we fight for justice and loyalty! How noble and righteous!" They chuckled among themselves, unable to contain their amusement. "Do you guardians have any brain at all? Or are you just created to spout these clich¨¦ dialogues?"
One of the vampires sneered, "Resolve? Loyalty? That won''t save you from overwhelming power, my dear guardians. Your words mean nothing in the face of our might." The others joined in, theirughter filling the air. "Oh, look at them, thinking their resolve will magically make us tremble. How adorable!"
The vampires continued their mocking spree, targeting Ne directly. "Did you really think your words would scare us? We''ve seen guardians like you before. Full of empty promises and weak attempts at heroics. You''re nothing but a bunch of fools."
Ne''s eyes narrowed, her determination unyielding. She shot back, "You underestimate the strength of our unity and our determination to protect the innocent. Our resolve will prevail!"I think you should take a look at
But the vampires onlyughed harder, finding her words even more amusing. "Oh, listen to her! The guardians still believe in hope and justice. How precious!" One of them yfully clutched their chest and pretended to be wounded by Ne''s words, elicitingughter from the rest. "Oh, we''ve missed these cringy, clich¨¦ dialogues from the guardians. It''s been too long!"
Ne''s grip tightened on her sword, frustration and anger burning within her. "You may mock our words, but we will prove you wrong. Our actions speak louder than your empty taunts."
The vampires exchanged knowing nces before one of them leaned in closer, their voiceced with derision. "How touching. Do you hope to kill us with your noble speeches? Save it for your bedtime stories, guardian. The Dark Lord defeated your entire guild without breaking a sweat. What makes you think you stand a chance?"
Ne''s resolve flickered, but she quickly regained herposure. "We will find a way to defeat the Dark Lord and his minions. We will protect the innocent, no matter the cost!"
The vampires erupted intoughter once more, their jeering tones echoing through the night. "Oh, listen to her! The brave guardian, thinking her words will save the day. How pathetic!" They continued to mock her, their words like venomous daggers aimed at her spirit.
Undeterred, Ne stood tall, her voice firm. "Mock us all you want, but we will never surrender to the darkness. We will fight until ourst breath, for justice and for our Supreme Guardian!"
The vampires responded to Ne''s defiance with sneers and taunts. "Maybe we should kill you now, before you bore us to death with your stupid dialogues," one of them snarled, his fangs glistening in the moonlight.
Ne''s fists clenched, her determination unwavering despite the mocking gazes fixed upon her. She refused to let their words break her spirit. These vampires would not see her falter. Not today, not ever.
Theughter died down abruptly as the vampires, sensing the seriousness in Ne''s stance, dashed at her and Alvaro from all directions. Their movements were swift, their attacks aimed to end the fight swiftly and mercilessly.
As the battle intensified, Ne channeled her energy into casting spells, her hands weaving intricate patterns in the air. Golden sparks erupted from her fingertips, forming ethereal symbols that glowed with a radiant light. With each incantation, the spells took shape, their manifestations reflecting the pure power coursing through her veins.
One spell created a swirling vortex of wind, gusting and howling around the mountain top. It uprooted trees and sent debris flying, creating a barrier of chaos that hindered the vampires'' movements. Another spell summoned cascading waves of water, crashing upon the ground and dousing the immediate vicinity, making the terrain treacherous for their foes.
Meanwhile, Alvaro wielded his sword with skilled precision, parrying and countering the vampires'' relentless attacks. His movements were swift and calcted, each swing of his de a testament to his prowess as a warrior. He fought with unwavering determination, his eyes locked on his adversaries, seeking any opportunity to strike back.
The vampires, however, were not to be underestimated. With blood coursing through their veins, they tapped into their unholy powers, casting spells of their own. Dark crimson energy crackled around their fingertips, twisting and coiling like serpents. They chanted ancient incantations, invoking blood-rted magic that seemed to draw power from their very essence.
Their spells took on a gruesome appearance. Shadows infused with crimson hues slithered across the ground, leaving trails of dark residue in their wake. The air thickened with a metallic scent, a testament to the potent blood magic that fueled their attacks. The vampires unleashed bolts of crimson energy, leaving trails of devastation in their path.
The sh of spells was a sight to behold. Golden light shed with dark crimson energy, the opposing forces intertwining and battling for dominance. But gradually, the vampires gained the upper hand. Their blood magic surged with malevolent power, overpowering Ne''s defensive spells with its sheer intensity.
As the vampires closed in, their attacks grew more ferocious. They unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks, each blow infused with their unholy strength. Blood sprayed from Ne and Alvaro''s wounds, staining the ground beneath them. The vampires seemed to revel in their cruelty, their sadistic pleasure evident as they toyed with their weakened adversaries.
In a brutal disy, one vampirended a powerful blow on Alvaro, breaking his legs with a sickening snap. Pain seared through his body, but his resolve remained unyielding. Ne, too, endured the onught, her body battered and bruised but her spirit unbroken.
With their limbs broken and bloodied, Ne and Alvaro fought on, their determination undimmed. Though battered and on the brink of defeat, they refused to surrender.
"Cut off their heads and end this pathetic fight,"
As the fusion stage vampires issued their cruelmand, a chilling silence enveloped the battlefield. The other vampires, obedient to their superiors, slowly advanced toward Ne and Alvaro, their eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger.
The atmosphere grew heavy with impending doom as the vampires closed in, their steps deliberate and unhurried. Ne''s heart pounded in her chest, her instincts screaming at her to fight, to resist until the very end. But as she tried to grip her sword, her trembling fingers betrayed her, refusing to respond to her desperatemand.
Alvaro''s eyes welled up with tears as he locked gazes with Ne, his voice choked with sorrow. "I''m sorry, Ne," he whispered, a mixture of regret and resignationcing his words. He understood the gravity of their situation, the overwhelming odds stacked against them.
Ne fought against the overwhelming despair threatening to consume her. With sheer determination, she attempted to find strength in her battered body, to summon the willpower to defy their imminent demise. But her body, battered and exhausted, betrayed her resolve. Her limbs trembled, her movements sluggish and unresponsive.
And then, just as all hope seemed lost, a blinding light erupted from the sky. It bathed the battlefield in a radiant brilliance, its intensity searing the eyes of all who beheld it. The vampires recoiled in agony, their flesh sizzling and burning as the divine light consumed them.
The fusion stage vampires let out bloodcurdling screams, their voices filled with anguish and despair. "No! This cannot be!" they howled, their arrogant demeanor crumbling in the face of the unstoppable force that sought to obliterate them. Their bodies began to disintegrate, turning to ash that scattered on the wind.
Ne and Alvaro, their eyes squeezed shut against the blinding radiance, felt a profound sense of relief wash over them. The intense light acted as a shield, sparing them from the vampires'' cruel fate. They huddled close together, finding sce in each other''s presence as the world around them was consumed by the divine ze.
As Ne slowly peeked through her hands, she saw a familiar figure standing amidst the bright light.
"Noah," mumbled Ne.
Chapter 1013 Noah Will Fight The Dark Lord
As the radiant light began to fade, revealing the figure of Noah hovering in the air, a hushed stillness settled over the battlefield. His long, ck hair fluttered in the ethereal breeze, contrasting against his once immacte white robes. What caught the attention of Ne and Alvaro the most was the beard that adorned Noah''s usually clean-shaven face, a testament to the hardships he had endured.
Noah''s piercing eyes, usually filled with warmth and wisdom, now burned with a fiery mixture of rage and pain. The weight of his responsibilities and the losses suffered weighed heavily upon him, fueling the power that radiated from his very being. The vampires, sensitive to the aura of authority and strength emanating from Noah, shuddered involuntarily, their instincts recognizing a force greater than their own.
Noah''s gaze swept over the fallen vampires and the broken bodies of Ne and Alvaro. It was a gaze that carried a multitude of emotions¡ªgrief for the fallen, determination to protect those he cared for, and a simmering anger directed at the forces that sought to extinguish hope and justice.
The vampire minions, once full of arrogance and malice, now quivered under the weight of Noah''s presence. They realized the grave mistake they had made in crossing paths with the Supreme Guardian. The bnce of power had shifted, and their newfound bravado wilted in the face of Noah''s righteous fury.
As the vampiresid eyes upon Noah, their hearts skipped a beat. The sheer power emanating from him sent tremors through their undead bodies. However, a glimmer of confidence flickered within them as they remembered Noah''s unwaveringmitment to his no-kill rule.
"Impressive disy of light, Noah. But fear not, for we are not afraid of you," one vampire sneered, attempting to mask their unease with bravado.
"What can you possibly do? Bore us to death? It''s unfortunate for you, Noah, that vampires possess regenerative abilities. And even if you were to suppress our powers, the Dark Lord would simply restore them," another vampire taunted, reveling in their perceived invincibility.
Little did they know, they had gravely underestimated the magnitude of the situation. Ne, standing beside Noah, couldn''t help but mumble under her breath, "You fools have no idea whom you''re trifling with."
Noah, consumed by a righteous rage, remained silent. He closed his eyes, allowing his fury to intensify. The air around him crackled with anticipation as his body began to glow, an ethereal light radiating from within. The humming sound of his power filled the air, a testament to the immense energy brewing within him.
Unfazed by Noah''s impending surge, the vampires jeered and lunged forward, intent on attacking him. Oblivious to the imminent danger, they dismissed the radiant aura enveloping Noah. However, their arrogance proved to be their undoing.
In a breathtaking disy, the intensity of Noah''s light reached a crescendo, surpassing the vampires'' supposed immunity granted by the Dark Lord''s protections. The zing radiance disregarded their defenses and unleashed a scorching heat upon them.
Anguished screams erupted from the vampires as they writhed in excruciating pain. Their once formidable forms crumbled into ash, reduced to mere remnants of their former selves. Even the two powerful Fusion stage vampires met their demise, unable to withstand the searing brilliance emanating from Noah.
Ne and Alvaro, witnessing the cataclysmic event unfold before them, felt the heat wash over them even with their eyes tightly shut. A mixture of awe and trepidation coursed through their beings as they realized the sheer magnitude of Noah''s power
With Noah''s mortal body merging with his divine essence, he had ascended to the realm of gods. Furthermore, during his unconscious state in the Skyhall, the elders exposed him to pure celestial energy, propelling him to the Half-Celestial stage. Now both Noah and Michael stood at the Half-Celestial stage, their first step towards godhood, known as the fledgling god rank.
Upon attaining godhood, each subsequent advancement within the divine ranks granted a god exponentially greater strength and power. However, despite Noah and Michael''s newfound might as fledgling gods, they paled inparison to the fallen gods, who had already reached the second stage of their godhood¡ªthe Demi-God stage. The disparity of just one rank meant that Noah and Michael stood little chance against the overwhelming might of the fallen gods.
Fortunately for Noah, as the God of Light, most of the fallen gods were in pursuit of his twin brother, Michael, who bore the mantle of the God of Darkness.
As the vampires turned to ashes, the radiant light emanating from Noah gradually faded. Noah turned his gaze towards Ne and Alvaro, a flicker of relief washing over him at the sight of his loyalpanions. Amidst the overwhelming sadness and burning rage stemming from the loss of his wife Alicia and his family, he found sce in the presence of familiar faces. However, before Noah could descend to the ground, Alvaro copsed, his body giving way.
"Alvaro!" Ne''s voice rang out, filled with concern as she hurried to his side. As Ne turned her attention to the arrow''s entry point in Alvaro''s chest, she noticed the eerie purple veins spreading across his wounded flesh. Alvaro began to cough up purple-tinged blood, a clear sign of poisoning.
"Supreme Guardian!" Ne called out, her plea reaching Noah''s ears as he descended to the ground. Kneeling beside Alvaro, Noah gently ced his hand upon the injured man''s chest. A shiver ran down Ne''s spine as she observed Noah''s palm radiating a warm andforting light. She tightly grasped Alvaro''s hand, her heart heavy with worry and hope, silently praying for his recovery. In this dire moment, Ne realized the folly of her suspicions towards Alvaro. If he were truly a spy, driven solely by greed andcking loyalty to the Guardian Guild and their friendship, he would never have risked his life by intercepting the arrow meant for her.
"He has been struck by a poisoned arrow," Noah spoke calmly, his voice carrying a tinge of concern.
Ne''s desperation trembled in her voice as she asked, "Can you save him, Supreme Guardian?"
Without uttering a single word, Noah firmly grasped Ne''s hand with his other hand and closed his eyes. In an instant, a brilliant sh of light illuminated the mountaintop, and the trio vanished from sight, carried away by the mysterious radiance.
The trio found themselves instantly transported into a cozy cabin, its inviting atmosphere providing a stark contrast to the chaotic battleground they had just left behind. Ne''s eyes took in the surroundings, and she couldn''t help but feel a sense of relief wash over her. The cabin exuded warmth andfort, with wooden walls adorned by paintings of serenendscapes and a crackling firece casting a gentle glow.
Noah swiftly ced Alvaro onto a nearby table, his expression focused and determined. He turned to Ne and instructed her to retrieve a crimson red flower from one of the nearby racks. Ne''s eyes scanned the room until they settled upon a small vase containing the vibrant blossom. She carefully plucked a single petal, its deep red hue reminding her of life''s resilience.
Handing the petal to Noah, he crushed it delicately between his fingers, releasing the crimson juices. With a precise motion, Noah allowed the red liquid to trickle into Alvaro''s wounded chest, the essence of the flower''s healing properties mingling with the poison coursing through his veins.
Noah then ced his hand upon Alvaro''s chest, his palm emanating a gentle heat and a radiant, luminous glow. The power of the God of Light surged through him as he tapped into his divine abilities. The room seemed to be filled with a soft, ethereal light as Noah directed the healing energy toward Alvaro''s body, targeting the poison that threatened his life.I think you should take a look at
The gentle heat from Noah''s palm seeped into Alvaro''s chest, and a brilliant radiance began to envelop the injured man. The light grew in intensity, illuminating the room as it prated deep into Alvaro''s being, dispelling the toxic effects of the poison. With each passing moment, Noah''s healing powers worked tirelessly, burning away the malevolent substance with the purifying force of light.
Ne watched with bated breath, her heart filled with hope. She could sense the immense power flowing through Noah, the determination etched on his face as he fought to save theirpanion''s life. The room was suffused with a gentle warmth, a testament to Noah''s unwaveringmitment to healing and protection.
After burning away the poison in Alvaro''s body, Noah left the cabin, his heart heavy with memories and emotions. As he stepped outside, his gaze fixated on the vast expanse of the distant sky, reminiscent of the nights he had spent stargazing with his beloved wife Alicia, their bodies entwined in a tender embrace. Tears welled up in Noah''s eyes, silently tracing the contours of his anguished face. The image of the Dark Lord ruthlessly snuffing out Alicia''s life yed over and over in his mind, igniting a surge of fury that coursed through his veins, turning his eyes a fiery red.
Trembling with a myriad of emotions, Noah found sce in the open air, hoping to find answers within the vastness of the heavens. As he stood there, a figure emerged from the cabin. It was Ne, her presence a gentle reminder of the loyalty and strength that still resided within their shattered world.
Addressing Noah with reverence, Ne''s voice trembled slightly as she spoke, "Supreme Guardian..."
Cutting her off, Noah''s voice quivered with a mix of pain, anger, and regret, "I am not the Supreme Guardian anymore. The Guardian Guild no longer exists."
In that moment, the weight of his words hung heavy in the air, underscoring the magnitude of their loss. The shattered remnants of the once-great Guardian Guild loomed before them, a painful reminder of the bond that had been severed by treachery and betrayal.
Seeking sce in Ne''s presence, Noah shared his inner turmoil, his voice filled with a potent blend of anguish and desperation, "Tell me, Ne. How does one fight against their own flesh and blood? Ghost, the one who took Alicia''s life, is my brother. How can I avenge her when the one responsible happens to share my blood?"
In his voice, Ne sensed the torment that consumed Noah''s every thought, his conflicting loyalties tearing at the very fabric of his being. The weight of his question hung heavy in the air, as they both grappled with the painful reality that their fight against the darkness was not just an external battle but an internal struggle against their own kin.
Ne understood that in that moment, Noah needed more than a subordinate; he needed a friend. Summoning her strength, she took a deep breath and approached him.
"Noah," Ne began, her voice gentle yet resolute. She realized the weight of his struggle, torn between the bonds of blood and the loss of his beloved Alicia.
"The Dark Lord is not your brother. Blood does not define family. Lady Alicia was your family, and it was his hands that took her from you," Ne stepped closer, standing beside Noah, offering her unwavering support.
Noah stood there, caught in the turmoil of his emotions. The desire for vengeance burned within him, seeking retribution for the life stolen from him. But at the same time, he couldn''t help but feel the weight of conflicting emotions tugging at his heart. Ne, sensing his inner struggle, stepped closer, her eyes filled withpassion and determination.
"Noah," she said, her voice steady yet filled with empathy. "I understand the pain and guilt that consumes you. But defeating the Dark Lord is not just about avenging Alicia''s death. It is about ensuring that no one else suffers the way you have."
Noah''s gaze met Ne''s, his eyes reflecting the battle raging within his soul. "I me myself, Ne," he confessed, his voice heavy with regret. "I should have seen the signs. Ghost... my own brother. If only I had realized it sooner, two years ago, perhaps I could have turned him away from this path of darkness. I failed him, and I failed my family."
Ne ced aforting hand on Noah''s shoulder. "Noah, you cannot shoulder the me for the choices Ghost has made. He had countless opportunities to choose a different path, to turn away from causing harm. Yet, he embraced the darkness willingly."
Tears welled up in Noah''s eyes, his voice trembling with emotion. "But he''s my brother, Ne. Flesh and blood. I should have protected him, guided him away from this fate."
Ne''s grip tightened, her voice unwavering. "Noah, listen to me. Ghost made his own choices. He chose to be the Dark Lord, to sow chaos and destruction. It is your destiny, whether he is your brother or not, to stand against him. To protect the innocent, just as Alicia would have wanted."
Noah''s heart ached, torn between his love for his lost wife and his sense of responsibility towards his family, both past and present. He closed his eyes, allowing Ne''s words to sink in, the weight of his decision pressing upon him. His mind reyed memories of Alicia''sughter, her warmth, and the dreams they once shared. The pain of her loss intensified, intertwining with his guilt and self-me.
"I should have been there for her, Ne," Noah''s voice quivered with sorrow. "I should have protected Alicia, my family. It should have been me who was abandoned, not Ghost. If only I had been stronger, wiser, maybe things would have turned out differently."
Ne''s presence offered him sce, her unwavering support providing a guiding light in the darkness. She understood theplexity of his emotions, the struggle between seeking justice and grappling with the bonds of blood.
"Noah," Ne''s voice resonated with empathy. "It is natural to feel torn, trapped between loyalty, guilt, and the need for retribution. But you must remember, Ghost had his own choices to make. You cannot me yourself for the path he chose. You did not abandon Alicia or your family. You loved them, protected them. It was Ghost who strayed."
Noah''s fists clenched, his conflicting emotions warring within him. "I never wanted to fight my own brother," he admitted, his voice heavy with anguish. "But I cannot let his darkness go unchallenged. I must avenge Alicia, ensure that her death was not in vain. It tears me apart, Ne, to stand against my own blood. But I cannot allow the Dark Lord''s tyranny to continue."
Ne''s gaze remained steady, filled with unwavering resolve. "Noah, you carry the burden of your guild, your family, and Alicia''s memory. It is a heavy weight to bear, but you are not alone. We will face this together, united against the darkness. Ghost made his choices, and now it is your destiny to confront him."
Chapter 1014 Returning To Sea Realm
After sessfully vanquishing Elder Gravesinger and dealing with Fourcrux, Michael stumbled upon a remarkable discovery. He found a skull-shaped medallion among the elder''s belongings, and to his surprise, he learned that it was forged in the realm of gods. With Elidyr''s assistance and some careful rune adjustments, Michael managed to harness the medallion''s power to create a portal back to Itonys.
Rubbing the smooth surface of the skull medallion, Michael witnessed a mysterious purple vortex materialize before him. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he mustered the courage to step into the swirling abyss, vanishing from Elder Gravesinger''s pocket dimension in an instant.
Meanwhile, in the wood elves'' vige, the curious and enthusiastic children had gathered around Elidyr. Eager for tales of adventure and heroism, they huddled closely, their eyes wide with anticipation. Thilve and Tazkin, on the other hand, stood slightly apart, leaning against a sturdy tree trunk, listening attentively to Elidyr''s captivating narrative about their god, the Dark Lord.
Elidyr spun a vivid yarn, recounting the courageous exploits of Michael as he confronted a fearsome vampire death squad, battling to assert his dominance and earn their loyalty. The children gasped in awe, their young minds captivated by the tale unfolding before them.
Suddenly, a sharp gust of wind swept through the vige, causing everyone to startle and turn their attention towards the disturbance. Before their astonished gazes, a magnificent purple vortex materialized near Michael''s throne. With an air of confidence, their god emerged from the swirling portal, returning to them from realms unknown.
"My Lord," Thilve, Tazkin, and Elidyr swiftly bowed before Michael, their faces filled with reverence. After being regaled by Elidyr''s tales of Michael''s heroism, the young wood elves regarded him with admiration and wonder, their eyes shining with excitement. Each child longed to emte their god, aspiring to be just as brave and formidable.
"We must speak," Michael dered, his toneden with importance. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Thilve and Tazkin exchanged a knowing nce. Sensing the urgency in Michael''s voice, Thilve turned her attention towards the children, her expression mirroring concern.
"Alright, children, it''s time to explore the wonders of the forest," Thilve gently instructed, suppressing a smile at their yful sighs of mild protest. With a collective nod, the children dispersed, theirughter and chatter fading into the distance. Left alone with his loyal followers, Michael took his rightful ce upon his grand throne, radiating an air ofmand.
"My lord, what transpired in the Skyhall?" Elidyr''s voice quivered with both curiosity and trepidation. He could scarcely fathom the audacity of the Dark Lord infiltrating the heart of their enemy''s stronghold and returning unscathed. The mere thought sent shivers down Elidyr''s spine.
A sly grin crept across Michael''s face as he nonchntly crossed one leg over the other, reclining upon his imposing throne.
"Exceedingly well, my friend," he began, his voice tinged with a mix of satisfaction and mischief. "We now possess the pocket dimension housing the demon coffins. With enough time and resources, we can resurrect this ancient race,"
Tazkin and Thilve couldn''t help but shudder at the mention of resurrecting such formidable forces. They had been fortunate to live in the world of Itonys, where their greatest perils had been the natural predators of the forest, until recently encountering the relentless Skyhall soldiers. Yet,pared to their rtively peaceful existence, Michael''s challenges seemed insurmountable. His list of adversaries grew with each passing day, and a restful night''s sleep had be a luxury of the past.
Eager to witness the downfall of the Skyhall, Elidyr''s emotions were torn between terror and tion. Having endured three millennia of imprisonment at the hands of the Skyhall, his hatred for the institution knew no bounds. He would dly sacrifice anything to witness the Skyhall razed to the ground.
"But to breathe life into these dormant bodies, I must journey into the sea realm," Michael revealed, his gaze fixed on a distant horizon. Retrieving a peculiar artifact from his possession, he casually tossed the skull-shaped medallion towards Elidyr, who caught it with reverent hands. The medallion glimmered brilliantly against the wood elf''s palm, its intricate and powerful runes leaving him in awe and disbelief.
"Such a finely crafted artifact," Elidyr murmured, his voice filled with a mixture of admiration and astonishment. "To think they managed to imbue suchplexity and power within such apact medallion."
As the ethereal light danced across the medallion''s surface, Elidyr couldn''t help but marvel at the craftsmanship.
Michael decided to embark on a perilous journey to the sea realm, determined to obtain another seed of darkness that would permanently activate the system. With the system operational, he would be able to resurrect the dormant demon bodies and confront the gods themselves. Despite Nithroel''s warning about not returning to the mortal realm until reaching the Celestial stage, Michael had to take the risk. The sea realm held the key to bringing the system online, as it was the only way he could earn the crucial experience points necessary to ascend to the Celestial stage.
"Elidyr, stay here with the wood elves," Michaelmanded, his voice firm and resolute. "Assist them in dismantling the outpost of the Skyhall soldiers. I will provide you with explosives and poisons to make the task easier."
Tazkin and Thilve, realizing their god was once again departing their world, knelt before him, a mixture of concern and anticipation etched on their faces.
"My lord, when will you return?" Tazkin inquired, his voice tinged with a hint of longing.
"If all goes ording to n, I''ll be back soon," Michael reassured them, his gaze filled with determination.
With a nod of gratitude, Elidyr returned the skull medallion to Michael. As the medallion rested in his palm, Michael focused his thoughts on the House of Elidyr, the ce where he hadst parted ways with Mutrad. Infusing the medallion with a sliver of arch energy, he felt its power surge and shimmer with anticipation. Before him, a portal materialized, a swirling gateway to the unknown. Taking a deep breath, Michael steeled himself and stepped into the portal, leaving behind his loyal followers and the familiar realm of Itonys.
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Inside the House of Halrid, Valen sat regally upon his throne, while his fellow elders upied a row of seats before him. The hall itself was a marvel of underwater construction, nestled in the depths of the ocean. With no sunlight to prate its depths, the hall relied on the ethereal glow of the Arctic barrier surrounding the city as its primary light source.
The hall''s architecture was nothing short of majestic, reflecting the grandeur and power of the Halrids. Intricate designs adorned the walls, showcasing the craftsmanship of the ancient builders. The ceiling soared high above, adorned with a magnificent chandelier that shimmered with a soft, blue luminescence. Each crystal sparkled like stars in the vast oceanic night sky, casting gentle rays of light that danced and yed upon the water below.
Behind Valen, a wall made of transparent ss revealed the mesmerizing expanse of the deep blue sea. Schools of vibrant fish swam gracefully, their colorful scales reflecting the scattered light. Their presence added a sense of tranquility to the hall, as if the creatures of the ocean were drawn to witness the council of the Halrid elders.
The gentle currents outside the ss wall swayed the seaweed and coral, creating a mesmerizing disy of movement and life. The vibrant hues of the underwater flora and fauna painted a vivid tapestry against the backdrop of the endless blue sea. It was a sight that reminded the elders of their connection to the vast oceanic realm they called home.
Unlike the calm sea behind them, Valen and the elders bore a frown on their faces, indicating the turmoil in their hearts. Among the elders, Mutrad was one of them. In fact, after Michael, the Dark Lord ughtered the elders of House Arctic and majority of the House dwrath, Mutrad had been assisting Valen in regaining the stability in Arctic hall. Without the Arctic hall elders and House dwrath, some of the Serpent Hall elders were making their moves against Arctic hall. This was a delicate era for the sea realm as their peace was overridden by peoples'' greed for power, especially the people of Sea Serpent Hall.
Contrary to the serene sea beyond, the faces of Valen and the elders bore a collective frown, betraying the internal turmoil they experienced. Among them, Mutrad stood as one of the key figures. After the Dark Lord, Michael, had mercilessly in the elders of House Arctic and decimated House dwrath, Mutrad had tirelessly assisted Valen in restoring stability to the Arctic hall. However, with the absence of the Arctic hall elders and the weakened House dwrath, the Serpent Hall elders had begun to make their moves, driven by their thirst for power. This delicate era tested the peace of the sea realm, as the ambition of the Serpent Hall threatened to overshadow their harmonious existence.
"We must heed the information provided by our spies in Watergod Hall, Lord Valen," voiced one of the gray-haired elders.
"Elder Kylen speaks the truth. Our schrs suspect that the recent tremors in Widow''s Down are a result of some form of energy radiation. If our spies are correct, Watergod Hall has already dispatched a team to investigate the matter," added another elder.
Mutrad, with a somber tone, interjected, "With all due respect to Elder Kylen and Elder Myrian, investigating unknown energy radiation in Widow''s Down should be our least pressing concern. We have received multiple reports indicating that the Sea Serpent Hall is preparing for an invasion, and numerous elders in House Gormak are conspiring with them. If we do not address the threat posed by the Sea Serpent Hall promptly, the House of Halrid itself will be at risk."
Mutrad''s words were met with a tumultuous response from the gathered elders, filled with curses and shouts of disagreement.
"Do not create a scene, boy. Thest time we followed your advice and sought the Dark Lord''s aid, it resulted in the deaths of our esteemed elders and the ruin of House dwrath. If anyone is to me for the instability within the Arctic hall, it is you," rebuked Elder Kylen.
As soon as the name "Dark Lord" escaped Elder Kylen''s lips, an uneasy silence enveloped the hall. The air grew heavy with a mix of fear and trepidation. Elder Kylen himself realized the weight of his words, having uttered the name of the man who instilled terror in their hearts.
"With all due respect, Elder Kylen, let us not forget that it was a unanimous decision to seek the Dark Lord''s assistance," calmly interjected Elder Markey, a wise elder with silver hair and serene eyes.
"The Dark Lord agreed to retrieve our artifact, and he fulfilled his promise. Though we cannot disregard the fact that he brought about the demise of the elders and House dwrath, it is unfair toy the me solely on Mutrad''s shoulders. I implore you to consider Mutrad''s counsel. Our immediate threat lies with the Sea Serpent Hall. Reflect upon this: even if we were to investigate the origin of the tremors, the Watergod Hall has already dispatched a team to Widow''s Down. If our schrs are correct and the cause is indeed something within Widow''s Down, it will fall under the jurisdiction of the Watergod Hall. Whether it is a gift or a curse, they will im it. Regrettably, we are not in a position to oppose the Watergod Hall," Elder Markey reasoned with wisdom and insight.
Mutrad, who had pledged his loyalty to the Dark Lord in order to save his world and the House of Halrid, felt a sense of helplessness wash over him. It had been a year since hest heard from the Dark Lord, and news of his recent return and the shocking destruction of the Guardian Guild had spread throughout the sea realm like wildfire. Yet, the Dark Lord had not contacted Mutrad, leaving him in a state of uncertainty and concern.
"In the event that circumstances be dire, we must consider the possibility of aligning ourselves with the Sea Serpent Hall. We are in no position to engage in a conflict with them, especially since many of the elders from House Gormak have already struck deals with the Sea Serpent Hall," Elder Markey''s words echoed through the hall, eliciting gasps of disbelief. However, Mutrad was among the few who found merit in Markey''s suggestion.
"That option is not viable. I have consulted with the ancestors in the Immortal Council, and they do not wish for us to join the Sea Serpent Hall and forsake the legacy they have worked tirelessly to establish. They want us to resist and fight," finally spoke Valen, the esteemed leader of the House of Halrid. Unfortunately, his words confirmed Mutrad''s apprehensions, leaving him with a heavy heart and a sense of foreboding.
As the elders and Valen continued their discussion, an inexplicable change seemed to permeate the air within the hall. A sudden chill settled in, causing the atmosphere to grow still. The elders and Valen exchanged perplexed nces, sensing an unusual shift in the airflow that intensified with each passing moment. The once gentle breeze transformed into a fierce gust, swirling with an unsettling force.
Caught off guard by this anomaly, the elders and Valen furrowed their brows, their expressions etched with concern. Their attention became fixated on a peculiar sight unfolding before them¡ªa vortex materializing right in the heart of the hall.
"Guards!" Mutrad''s urgent cry reverberated through the chamber, prompting the armored soldiers stationed nearby to respond swiftly. Drawing their weapons, the elders and guards prepared to defend themselves against this unexpected intrusion. The soldiers, in a disy of agility and discipline, rushed into the hall, encircling the swirling portal with unwavering determination. Their eyes remained fixed upon the mysterious phenomenon as anticipation and tension filled the air.
Then, in a slow and deliberate manner, a figure emerged from within the depths of the portal. The collective gasp that escaped the lips of the elders resonated through the hall, leaving them utterly astonished. The man who stepped forth, to their disbelief, was none other than the Dark Lord himself.
Chapter 1015 Fighting A Fallen God I
As Michael surveyed the soldiers, their weapons held tightly in their grasp, a faint smile curved his lips. The tension in the air was palpable, but he knew there was no need for conflict. They were merely pawns in a game they did not fullyprehend.
"Soldiers," Michael spoke with calm authority, his voice carrying across the room. "There is no point in engaging inbat. I have no quarrel with you."
The soldiers exchanged uncertain nces, their eyes flickering with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. They had been trained to follow orders without question, to defend their realm from any perceived threat. Yet, standing before them was the enigmatic Dark Lord himself, the very embodiment of the danger they were taught to fear.
Before the situation escted further, Valen, seated regally upon his throne, leaped to his feet. His eyes widened with both surprise and concern as he hurriedly made his way towards Michael, leaving behind the council of elders who watched the unfolding scene with bated breath.
"What is the meaning of this intrusion, Dark Lord?" Valen''s voice resonated with authority, demanding an exnation for the sudden appearance of the formidable figure before him.
Michael turned his gaze towards Valen, meeting his piercing stare. "Valen, I mean you no harm," he replied, his voiceced with a cool confidence. "I havee here seeking information, not conflict."
Valen''s expression softened slightly, curiosity mingling with caution. "Information? About what?"
From within the depths of his ck, flowing coat, Michael retrieved a weathered map, causing the soldiers to tense up at the mere movement of his hands. Their fingers tightened around their weapons, ready to strike if necessary. Ignoring their reaction, Michael unfolded the map andid it upon the nearest surface, revealing a parchment hidden within his pocket.
Valen felt reluctant but eventually took the map from the Dark Lord''s outstretched hand. As he unfurled it, his eyes widened in shock and disbelief. The map disyed their vast sea realm, with intricate markings indicating various locations of significance. But what caught Valen''s attention was a particr spot marked with a bold X¡ªthe treacherous and uncharted region known as Widow''s Down.
"You''re pointing at Widow''s Down," Valen stated, his voice betraying a mix of astonishment and caution. "It is a dangerous ce, shrouded in mystery and peril. Why would you be interested in that forsaken area?"
"You don''t have to worry about that, Valen. I just want to know if there is a way to reach this Widow''s down you speak of quickly," said Micheal calmly and cryptically.
Elder Markey, standing among the council of elders, a spark of realization lit up in his eyes. His mind raced with possibilities as he swiftly formted a n. This was an opportunity they couldn''t afford to miss, an opportunity to potentially rid themselves of the Sea Serpent Hall''s menace once and for all.
"Dark Lord," Elder Markey interjected, his voice soft but carrying a sense of purpose. "If you are truly interested in Widow''s Down, there might be a way to expedite your journey."
All eyes turned towards Elder Markey, including Mutrad''s, who felt a sense of apprehension at the old man''s sudden n. Mutrad understood the potential benefits of utilizing the Dark Lord''s power against their enemies, but he also knew the dangers of underestimating Michael''s capabilities.
"What do you mean, Elder Markey?" Valen inquired, his gaze shifting between the elderly council member and the Dark Lord himself.
Elder Markey''s wrinkled face bore a knowing smile. "Legends speak of a secret wind tunnel known only to the Sea Serpent Hall. It is said to be hidden away, leading to an area closest to Widow''s Down. If you were to make use of this tunnel, you could potentially reach your destination swiftly and unnoticed."
Mutrad''s eyes widened in surprise, realizing the extent of Elder Markey''s n. The old man was attempting to manipte the Dark Lord, to utilize his power to eliminate their enemies. While part of him recognized the practicality of such a strategy, another part warned against underestimating the Dark Lord''s motives and capabilities.
Michael, observing the exchange, maintained hisposed demeanor. His eyes narrowed slightly as he assessed the elderly council member before him. He sensed the undercurrents of maniption, the hidden intentions within Elder Markey''s words.
After hearing Elder Markey''s words, a small, enigmatic smile yed upon Michael''s lips, his thoughts concealed behind his calm exterior. Mutrad, who had pledged his loyalty to the Dark Lord in secret, knew him better than anyone else in the hall. He gazed at the Dark Lord with unwavering eyes, understanding theplex nature of the situation. Meanwhile, the soldiers in the room jerked with unease at the Dark Lord''s movement, fully aware that if he wished to attack, there would be no stopping him. They were acutely aware of the power he possessed¡ªa power that could easily turn their encounter into a massacre. However, the Dark Lord''s purpose in being there was not to unleash destruction upon them but to seek a swift path to Widow''s Down.
With his hands casually sped behind his back, Michael began to pace around Valen and his entourage, his footsteps measured and deliberate. As he circled them, his voice resonated with a calm confidence.
"Please forgive my skepticism, but I have lived long enough in this world to know that nothinges without a price. Furthermore, the Sea Serpent Hall holds a significant position among the great eight ns, does it not? I understand that your sea realm prides itself on maintaining peaceful rtions among the three ns. However, it is difficult for me to believe that the secret wind tunnel you propose, known only to the Sea Serpent Hall, is a mere coincidence," Michael calmly stated, his eyes keenly observing the reactions of the elders and Valen. As he expected, a flicker of unease passed across their faces, revealing the hidden agenda of the House of Halrid.
"I may not know all the ins and outs of your sea realm, but I do know one thing: peace doesn''tst. It''s just a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of things. People, my friends, always hunger for power. It''s in their very nature. Now, considering what happened thest time, your precious Arctic hall must be weakened. And let me tell you something, a weakened predator bes nothing but prey. And mark my words, when one predator falls, another rises. So, tell me straight, have you be nothing but helpless prey to the Sea Serpent Hall?" Michael''s voice dripped with a cool, confident aura, his piercing gaze fixed on Valen and the elders, challenging them to face the harsh reality of their situation.
He paused, allowing the weight of his words to settle upon the gathered leaders. His piercing gaze scanned their faces, seeking the truth hidden within their expressions. It was evident that the House of Halrid had its own motives and hidden fears, and Michael intended to uncover them.I think you should take a look at
"So, I ask you inly, have you be the prey of the Sea Serpent Hall, your once allies turned predators?" Michael''s voice resonated with a mix of curiosity and authority, leaving no room for evasion. He awaited their response, poised to unravel the intricate web of power and deception thaty before him.
After hearing Michael''s probing words, Valen understood that hiding their troubles with the Sea Serpent Hall was futile. However, he was reluctant to involve the Dark Lord in their affairs. If it came down to it, Valen would rather join forces with the Sea Serpent Hall than engage in a futile battle that would only result in the loss of their fellow House of Halrid members. Valen recognized that there was no point in fighting a losing battle and sacrificing lives. Bringing the Dark Lord into the conflict would undoubtedly lead to victory against the Sea Serpent Hall, but it would also bring destruction upon them. As the Dark Lord himself had pointed out, without the Sea Serpent Hall, the sea realm would be weakened. And as he had warned, when a weakened prey attracts another predator, chaos would ensue. Valen had no desire to witness such devastation.
"Forgive Elder Markey if he had any hidden intentions, Dark Lord. Elder Markey wants what''s best for our house, and yes, we do face troubles with the Sea Serpent Hall. However, we will handle this matter within our own realm. We do not require your assistance," Valen dered, his voice filled with a mixture of determination and a desire to protect his people.
Upon hearing Valen''s words, Michael simply smiled, his gaze unwavering.
"I respect your choice. Now, I shall take my leave and head towards the Sea Serpent Hall," Michael responded. Valen signaled the guards to escort the Dark Lord through a secret exit, ensuring that no one else witnessed his departure from the House of Halrid.
The soldiers, though fearful, gestured for Michael to follow them. They led him along a narrow ss pathway, offering a breathtaking view of the deep sea. Michael marveled at the beauty before him¡ªthe vibrant golden-colored fish and the mesmerizing array of unknown deep-sea creatures that gracefully swam around.
Finally, they arrived at a hall where a circr hollowy on the floor. Michael knew it would open up, granting him passage into the depths of the sea, where he would journey towards the Sea Serpent Hall.
"Travel north, following the current. It will guide you to the Sea Serpent Hall," one of the guards informed him, to which Michael nodded in understanding. Just as he was about to step into the hollow, Mutrad entered the hall.
"You two, leave us," Mutradmanded, ordering the guards to depart, leaving him alone with the Dark Lord.
"My Lord," Mutrad spoke once the two guards had left them alone.
"Is it wise for you to meet me alone, my Lord? You don''t want the elders to discover that I have secretly pledged my loyalty to you," Michael said calmly, a smile ying upon his lips.
"Some of the elders already suspect my allegiance to you, but theyck any concrete proof," Mutrad sighed, his voice tinged with resignation.
"If you are concerned about me bringing destruction upon your world, fear not. I am not a threat to your realm. Besides, there is a greater danger looming over us as we speak," Michael assured him, implying that the true enemy was none other than the Sea Serpent Hall.
"The gods have arrived, Mutrad. And I have reliable information that they seek to make every sentient being their worshipper. Those who resist them will face annihtion," Michael revealed, his tone carrying a weight of seriousness. It was evident that Mutrad was already aware of the rising threat posed by the fallen gods.
"Are you referring to the fallen gods?" Mutrad asked, his voice filled with a mixture of concern and curiosity.
"The fallen gods are mere weaker beings trapped within the mortal realm, Mutrad. There exists a realm above ours, the realm of gods itself. Those deities are the real deal. You call me the big, bad, evil Dark Lord, don''t you? Well, just wait until you witness the descent of the true gods upon your precious world," Michael chuckled softly. Truth be told, he harbored no illusions about the benevolence and kindness of the gods in the realm above. The God of Necromancy, Fourcrux, the God of War, and the God of Time and Space were anything but merciful and gentle. In Michael''s eyes, the realm of gods was a ce even more sinister than the mortal realm.
"So, you can rx. I am not the greatest threat you should fear at this moment," Michael chuckled again, turning to leave.
"Dark Lord, wait," Mutrad halted Michael in his tracks.
"I have information about the Sea Serpent Hall that you should know before you depart," Mutrad said, causing Michael to slowly turn around, his interest piqued.
"The leader of the Sea Serpent Hall has awakened. He is what you refer to as a fallen god."
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Expect intense battles and goosebumps badass scenes in this arc. It is time for the Dark Lord''s enemies to fall down one by one. The rise of the Dark Lord begins!!!!
Chapter 1016 Fighting A Fallen God II
After receiving the startling revtion about the presence of a Fallen God within the Sea Serpent Hall, Michael found himself reevaluating his approach to the impending encounter. During his journey from the House of Halrid, nestled in the depths of the Arctic hall''s underground ocean city, to the Sea Serpent Hall, he had ample time to reconsider his strategies. Equipped with his specially designed armor, Michael possessed the ability to withstand the immense pressure of the underwater depths and breathefortably. As he ventured closer to his destination, his skull-faced mask materialized over his visage, concealing his features with meticulous precision. The mask not only added to his formidable appearance but also housed a contraption that generated a steady supply of breathable air, allowing him to navigate the underwater terrain effortlessly.
As Michael drew nearer to the Sea Serpent Hall, the three concentric rings thatprised the city''s architecture glimmered under the radiant light emanating from the energy dome. Each ring held its own allure, contributing to the city''s ethereal charm.
At the center of the city, the third and innermost ring housed the pinnacle of power and authority¡ªthe royal pce. This grand structure, crafted from gleaming white coral and adorned with shimmering pearls, exuded an air of regality and prestige. Its towering walls and majestic archways spoke of the king''s dominion, while its interior boasted opulent halls and chambers adorned with exquisite artworks and ornate furnishings. It was within these hallowed walls that King Serpent and his court held court, making decisions that shaped the destiny of the Sea Serpent Hall.
As Mutrad had informed him, the elusive wind tunnel that would lead him closest to Widow''s Down was said to be hidden within the Serpent King''s castle. If Mutrad''s words were to be believed, the Serpent King himself had obtained divine grace and ascended to the status of a god, albeit a fallen one, trapped within the mortal realm due to the previous Dark Lord''s barrier.
A mixture of disbelief and curiosityced Michael''s voice as he uttered, "Is that...?" His words trailed off as he caught sight of a familiar figure in the distance, surrounded by a translucent energy dome that shielded him from the crushing pressure of the sea. To his astonishment, it was none other than Evan rk. Memories flooded back to Michael, reminding him of thest time they had crossed paths. It had been during the tumultuous period when Michael unleashed his fury upon Thusia, and Evan had joined the Guardian Guild, fighting alongside Xanali in a desperate attempt to quell the chaos.
What took Michael by surprise even more was the ethereal aura enveloping Evan, reminiscent of the Orc who had been possessed by a sliver of Rudra''s divine grace. Furthermore, Evan''s cultivation power surpassed any scale Michael had encountered before, making it difficult for him to gauge its true extent. Although momentarily taken aback by Evan''s formidable power, Michael did not perceive him as a significant threat, even with the grace. Unlike Evan, whose godhood level would remain stagnant unless he amassed millions of loyal worshippers in both the mortal realm and the realm of gods, Michael possessed the ability to level up his own godhood rapidly. He only needed to locate and absorb the seeds of darkness, as well as eliminate individuals to earn experience points and advance his power. This unique method of progression made Andohr, the ruler of Hell, consider Michael a far greater threat to the gods and the realm of gods than even Dagon himself.
Keeping himself concealed amidst the towering coral reefs and massive coral structures, Michael silently observed as Evan entered the City of Serpent and began his journey toward the castle.
"Stop right there!" The earthen guards, resembling graceful carp or catfish, called out to Evan as he approached the castle. Their shimmering scales caught the light, and their two arms, each with three fingers, enabled them to interact with their surroundings. Some of the guards had small feet that allowed them to walk onnd, while others floated above the ground with an air of fluidity.
From his hidden vantage point behind the coral structures, Michael continued to observe Evan''s encounter with the guards. One by one, more royal guards, positioned in various stages of cultivation, emerged to surround Evan. To Michael''s surprise, these guards were at either the Fusion stage level 10 or the Half Immortal stage, showcasing their formidable power. When Michael utilized his X-ray vision to scan the castle, he discovered the presence of several Immortal stage guards within its walls. The sheer strength and number of these guards astonished him. However, something seemed amiss to Michael. The energy radiation emanating from the guards appeared unstable and violent, as if they had utilized unconventional methods to elerate their cultivation at a pace that their bodies and souls could not fully endure.
Unbeknownst to Michael, the Serpent King, after attaining godhood, had used his grace to strengthen his army, resulting in the unstable energy radiation Michael now observed.
"If this fallen god has any grudges against me, imagine the experience points I could gain by ughtering his army and absorbing their souls once the system is online," Michael couldn''t help but savor the thought of the potential experience points that awaited him.
"Stand down. I am here to see your Serpent King," Evan dered with an authoritative tone, exuding immense self-confidence and authority granted by his godhood. This assertion caused Michael to chuckle, reminiscing about the time he had sent Evan flying with a single punch, rendering him unconscious.
"You have no right to be here, human. Leave now, or we will take you down," one of the earthen guards responded sternly, his voice filled with authority.
Evan, growing impatient, clenched his fist and issued a warning to the guards. "Guys, I don''t want to do this. But I am on a tight schedule here. So stand down, or I will make you."
Despite Evan''s threat, the guards remained resolute, refusing to back down. Their determination was unwavering, and they stood their ground, prepared to defend their post. Meanwhile, Michael, observing the situation from his hiding spot, devised a backup n to handle Evan.
Just as the tension filled the air, a thunderous voice reverberated throughout the entire Serpent Hall. All eyes turned toward the source of the voice, and Michael raised his head, catching sight of a figure emerging onto the balcony atop the castle. The presencemanded attention, exuding an aura of power and authority.
As the figure stepped onto the balcony, the grandeur of his presence became apparent. He was a Mermon, standing tall and regal, his upper body exuding an otherworldly beauty reminiscent of the elven kind. Adorned in kingly robes that billowed around him, hemanded attention wherever he went. The crimson red trident held firmly in his hand showcased his authority and power.
A crimson red crown adorned his head, its intricate design resembling the hood of a cobra. The crown curved gracefully, framing his face and entuating his noble features. Atop his head, a part of the crown extended upward, resembling the head of a cobra ready to strike, adding an intimidating touch to his appearance.
His muscr physique, evident even beneath the flowing robes, spoke of immense strength and power. Every movement he made seemed effortless, disying a sense of control and dominance. His eyes glimmered with anger and arrogance as he looked down upon Evan, his gaze filled with superiority.
With amanding presence, the Serpent King surveyed the scene below him, his gaze fixated on Evan. Every fiber of his being exuded authority and dominance, leaving no doubt that he was a force to be reckoned with in the Sea Serpent Hall.
"Serpent King, Ie before you with a pressing matter that requires your assistance. We must speak at once," Evan spoke with determination, hoping to convey the urgency of his request. However, his words were met with a mockingugh from the Serpent King, further fueling Evan''s surprise and curiosity.
"You think me a fool, human. I am well aware of your intentions. You seek to use my wind tunnel to reach Widow''s Down," the Serpent King responded, his voiceced with a hint of disdain.I think you should take a look at
Evanposed himself, maintaining his calmness despite the unexpected revtion. "If you know why I need to reach Widow''s Down before the Dark Lord, then you understand the gravity of the situation. Time is of the essence," Evan exined, emphasizing the urgency that hung in the air. The mention of the Dark Lord''s name stirred unease among the soldiers, their whispers betraying their fear. Yet, it was the Serpent King''s reaction that surprised both Evan and Michael. The Serpent King''s eyes zed with anger, his body trembling with pure rage at the mere mention of the Dark Lord''s name.
"The Dark Lord will not set foot in my kingdom and leave unscathed," the Serpent King spat, his words dripping with venom and hatred.
Realizing the precarious situation and the imminent danger posed by the Dark Lord, Evan tried to reason with the Serpent King. "If I have learned that the quickest way to reach Widow''s Down is through your wind tunnel, then the Dark Lord may have discovered it as well. Every moment wasted brings him closer to your castle. Let me assist you, Serpent King," Evan pleaded, hoping to find apromise.
The Serpent King''s expression twisted into a sneer, his anger unyielding. "You wish to help me? Then bring me the Dark Lord''s head, and I shall grant you ess to my wind tunnel. Until then, you can fuck off," the Serpent King coldly dered, turning away and dismissing Evan without a second thought.
A sneer crossed the Serpent King''s face as he turned away, dismissing Evan''s request.
"You leave me no choice," Evan clenched his fist, his eyes beginning to glow with a golden light. The earthen guards surrounding him became aware of the low hum emanating from Evan, a clear sign that he was about to unleash his power. Sensing danger, they braced themselves, knowing that Evan was about to strike.
True to their expectations, Evan unleashed a powerful shockwave of golden energy, propelling the guards backward and leaving a trail of chaos in his wake.
With a swift and fluid motion, Evan unleashed a barrage of spells and physical attacks upon the earthen guards. Brilliant bursts of blue and golden light illuminated the surroundings as powerful spells erupted from his fingertips. The air crackled with energy, and the ground trembled with each devastating strike.
The people in the vicinity suddenly became aware of the fierce conflict unfolding before them. Panic ensued as they scattered in all directions, seeking safety from the escting confrontation. The peaceful atmosphere shattered as the sound of crashing spells and the sh of steel reverberated through the air.
In the midst of the chaos, the Serpent King halted his steps, his curiosity piqued by themotion behind him. He turned around, his crimson eyes fixated on the spectacle before him. A twisted smile yed across his face as he observed Evan, a mere human, daring to challenge his guards.
Michael, hidden among the coral structures, watched the fight unfold with a mix of surprise and anticipation. The disy of Evan''s power intrigued him, and he studied every move, spell, and strike with keen interest.
Evan''s attacks were relentless and precise, each blownding with pinpoint uracy. Guards were thrown into the air, crashing into buildings with bone-shattering force. Spells tore through the air, leaving trails of destruction in their wake. The guards fought back valiantly, their roars of defiance echoing through the battlefield.
Citizens, shocked and confused, watched the unfolding spectacle with wide eyes. "What is happening?" one person gasped, clutching their loved ones tightly.
Amidst the chaos, the guards bellowed at each other, their voices filled with determination and anger. "Take him down!" one guard growled, swinging his weapon with all his might. "Protect the Serpent King!" another shouted, their voice filled with loyalty and unwavering dedication.
The sh between Evan and the guards intensified, with each side unleashing their most devastating techniques. The guards coughed up blood as they crashed into buildings and the unforgiving ground, their bodies battered and bruised.
As the battle between Evan and the guards raged on, the Serpent King''s eyes narrowed with a mix of irritation and amusement. With a sudden movement, he raised his crimson red trident, channeling his power into a concentrated beam of energy. The beam shot forth, colliding with Evan and sending him hurtling through the air, crashing into a nearby structure with a resounding impact.
Hovering effortlessly in the air, the Serpent King slowly descended from the balcony, his presence exuding an overwhelming aura of authority and power. His eyes glowed with a malevolent gleam as he approached Evan, a wicked smile curling upon his lips.
"So, you dare to challenge me, human?" the Serpent King taunted, his voice dripping with arrogance. "I suppose I should thank you for providing me with some entertainment. It has been far too long since I''ve had a good battle to stretch my muscles."
In a disy of unfathomable power, the Serpent King''s form began to transform. His body elongated and contorted, his once regal appearance taking on the shape of a giant crimson red cobra. Majestic wings sprouted from his back, and his fangs grew longer and sharper. A red mist emanated from his serpentine form, swirling around him with an ominous presence.
The Serpent King, now a colossal serpent with immense wings, towered over the battlefield, his crimson scales glistening under the ambient light. His piercing eyes locked onto Evan, radiating a hunger for victory and dominance.
With a voice that echoed through the air, the Serpent King hissed, "Prepare yourself, human. You shall witness the might of a true god!"
Chapter 1017 Serpent Kings Love Is Michaels Subordinate?
The Serpent King lunged forward with incredible speed, his massive form surging through the air towards Evan. In a swift motion, he coiled his serpentine tail around Evan''s body, constricting him tightly. Evan struggled against the powerful grip, his muscles straining as he attempted to break free.
With his cobra head hovering mere inches away from Evan''s face, the Serpent King hissed with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. "There''s something peculiar about your grace, human. It feels... different, tainted somehow."
Evan gritted his teeth, his determination evident despite his predicament. "You know nothing! My grace is my own, and I will not be stopped by the likes of you!"
The Serpent King chuckled, his voice echoing with a hint of amusement. "We shall see, human. We shall see."
As Evan continued to struggle against the constricting coils of the Serpent King''s tail, Michael observed the scene in silence from his hidden vantage point. He could sense the immense power emanating from the Serpent King and understood the danger that Evan was facing. However, he saw an opportunity amidst the chaos.
While the Serpent King was focused on his confrontation with Evan, Michael formted a n to infiltrate the castle. He knew he had to seize this moment to make his move, utilizing the distraction to navigate through the Serpent King''s domain undetected.
As the Serpent King poised his fangs to strike, Evan''s eyes zed with golden energy. With a mighty roar, he summoned forth his own power, surging with a raw force that shattered the coils of the Serpent King''s tail. Freed from the constricting grip, Evanunched himself forward, delivering a powerful punch that connected with the Serpent King''s scaled jaw.
However, the Serpent King was not so easily defeated. With a swift swing of his powerful tail, he sent Evan hurtling through the air, crashing into the nearby structures. The impact shook the ground beneath them, causing debris to scatter in all directions.
Unfurling his majestic wings, the Serpent King soared higher into the sky, his snake-like body morphing to amodate a humanoid hand. The crimson-red trident flew into his hand, gleaming with malevolent intent. With a swift motion, he thrust the trident towards Evan, aiming to impale him upon its deadly prongs.
But Evan was prepared. As the trident descended, he channeled his energy, creating a shimmering golden chakra that formed a defensive barrier around him. The sh between the trident and the golden shield sent shockwaves rippling through the air, causing the barrier to flicker and shimmer.
Their fierce battle took them beyond the confines of the balcony and into the open ocean outside the city. Breaking through the energy dome that protected the city, they continued their airborne struggle amidst the vast expanse of water. The barrier of the dome crackled and shimmered as they passed through, the protective magic being tested to its limits.
Surrounded by the shimmering waters, Evan and the Serpent King engaged in a high-stakes confrontation. Their powerful forms shed, creating ripples and waves that cascaded through the ocean.
"Thank you, Evan," Michael whispered under his breath, his voice carried away by the turbulent waters. With a determined resolve, he set his sights on the castle and began making his way towards it, navigating through the swirling currents caused by the ongoing battle between Evan and the Serpent King.
The ripples in the water distorted Michael''s vision, making it challenging to move in a straight line. But he relied on his instincts and honed reflexes, darting through the chaotic underwater environment with lightning speed. He deftly avoided the guards who were caught up in the spectacle of the battle, their attentionpletely focused on the epic struggle unfolding before them.
As Michael neared the castle, he observed the soldiers exchanging awe-filled remarks about the Serpent King''s formidable moves and devastating attacks. Their voices were muffled by the water, but their words carried a mix of admiration and fear.
"Did you see how he coiled around Evan like a true serpent?" one soldier eximed.
"That strike with his fangs was quick as lightning," another soldier added.
"He''s relentless! The Serpent King''s power is unmatched!"
While the soldiers were engrossed in discussing the Serpent King''s prowess, Michael seized the opportunity to slip past them unnoticed. He swiftly made his way to the same balcony where the Serpent King had made his first appearance.
Without hesitation, Michael stepped onto the balcony, his figure shrouded in shadows. The soldiers, still caught up in their conversation about the ongoing battle, failed to notice his presence. In the midst of their discussions, they were oblivious to the infiltrator moving with purpose towards the heart of the castle.
As Michaelnded inside the castle through the balcony, he swiftly scanned his surroundings. The dimly lit hallway stretched before him, adorned with elegant tapestries and intricate carvings. But his attention was quickly drawn to the sound of approaching footsteps.
A group of soldiers rounded the corner, their armor clinking with each step. They caught sight of Michael standing in the hallway, and their eyes widened in rm.
"Intruder!" one soldier shouted, his voice echoing through the corridor. The others reacted with instinctive aggression, drawing their weapons and lunging towards Michael.
d in his full Dark Lord armor, Michael remained calm andposed. He covered his face with his skull mask, its intimidating presence instilling fear in the hearts of his enemies. The soldiers, however, were little toote to realize the true extent of Michael''s power.I think you should take a look at
With a burst of speed, Michael utilized his Lightning Dash spell, which allowed him to move with blinding swiftness. He closed the distance between himself and the group of soldiers in an instant.
His dark sword gleamed ominously as it sliced through the air. One by one, the soldiers fell before him, their bodies unable to withstand the devastating power of his strikes. Blood sttered on the walls, and their screams were muffled by the dark aura that enveloped Michael''s sword.
The sh was over in mere moments, leaving only one soldier standing. He trembled in fear, witnessing the merciless efficiency with which Michael dispatched hisrades.
Michael stared at the lone soldier, his voice carrying a chilling undertone. "Tell me where I can find the Wind tunnel."
The remaining soldier trembled under Michael''s intense gaze, sweat trickling down his forehead. He stuttered, struggling to form coherent words. "I... I don''t know... please..."
Without warning, Michael tightened his grip on the soldier''s shoulder, his fingers digging into the flesh. The soldier winced in pain as the pressure began to break his shoulder, his cries filling the corridor.
"Tell me," Michael growled, his voice dripping with menace. "Where can I find the wind tunnel?"
Tears streamed down the soldier''s face as he whimpered in agony. "It... it might be in the Serpent King''s chamber. He... he keeps many secrets there."
Satisfied with the answer, Michael released his hold on the soldier, who copsed to the ground, clutching his injured shoulder. The soldier looked up at Michael with pleading eyes, silently begging for mercy. But Michael was not the one to grant mercy to his foes. Instead of granting mercy, Michael fired the dark beams out of his eyes, turning the soldier''s head into a bloody pulp.
As Michael moved swiftly through the castle, his X-ray eyes granted him the ability to see through the walls, revealing the secrets hidden within. His gaze pierced through the stone, revealing a hidden chamber beyond. Inside, he observed four imposing figures d in armor, radiating a powerful aura. These were no ordinary guards¡ªthey were Immortal stage warriors, guardians of great strength and skill.
Michael''s instincts told him that whatevery behind the guarded door must hold significant importance for the Serpent King. This could very well be the entrance to the Serpent King''s chamber, the heart of his power and secrets.
"What''s happening out there?" one of the guards at the Immortal stage asked. They were dressed in crimson red scales, resembling the scales of the Serpent King himself.
"Shouldn''t we go and investigate?" another guard questioned, concern evident in his voice.
"No," replied a third guard firmly. "His majesty has given us strict orders to remain at our posts. Whatever is happening outside, we can trust that our fellow guards can handle it."
The conversation turned to the whereabouts of the Serpent King, who had gone to the balcony and had yet to return. Spection arose among the guards as to whether their king was engaged in battle.
"Perhaps his majesty is fighting," one guard pondered aloud.
"If that''s the case, I pity whoever he''s facing," another guard chuckled, their confidence in their own strength apparent. To the guards, reaching the Immortal stage was seen as the ultimate achievement of power. They believed that once they had attained this level, no one could pose a threat to them. And in truth, there were only a select few beings in the world who had achieved immortality.
However, what they failed to realize was that there was one being who had surpassed the Immortal stage and ascended to an even higher realm of power. The Dark Lord, having transcended immortality and reached the elusive realm of Half Celestial, was preparing to unleash his wrath upon them. Soon, they woulde face to face with the undeniable truth that their perceived invincibility was nothing more than a fragile illusion in the presence of such formidable might.
The guards'' ears perked up as they caught the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. Their eyes widened in fear as they turned their gazes toward the left. Emerging from around the corner was a figure shrouded inplete ck armor, donning a menacing skull mask and a billowing ck cape. Their hearts pounded with dread, and an overwhelming sense of fear gripped their beings. Unbeknownst to them, Michael had released a potent fear toxin into the air from his suit of armor, further intensifying their terror and rendering them weak.
Before the guards could react, Michael raised his hand, unleashing a wave of dark mes that surged forth. Initially, their armor resisted the dark mes, but the second and third waves proved too powerful, melting the soldiers'' armor and consuming them within its fiery embrace.
The agonizing screams of the soldiers echoed through the hallway, sending shivers down Michael''s spine. As he heard more footsteps approaching, he swiftly kicked open the door that the guards had been protecting, entering the chamber where the Serpent King awaited. However, upon stepping into the chamber, he was taken aback by a portrait hanging on the wall above a magnificent bed. It depicted a young woman with flowing ck hair, and without a shadow of a doubt, Michael recognized her despite only knowing her face from a younger age.
"Cindy?" Michael whispered, his voice filled with surprise and confusion.
Chapter 1018 Serpent Kings Return
Michael stood in stunned silence, his gaze fixed upon Cindy''s portrait hanging prominently in the Serpent King''s room. It depicted her in her older age, perhaps in herte twenties, a young woman filled with beauty and grace. The sight perplexed Michael, leaving him to wonder why the Serpent King would possess such a portrait.
"What the fuck?!"
"Who are you?!"
"Half Celestial!"
Lost in his thoughts, Michael momentarily forgot about the soldiers rushing into the room, their voices filled with rm and confusion. However, their cries were abruptly silenced as Michael effortlessly raised his hand and unleashed lightning bolts from his fingertips, striking down the guards without even turning to face them.
The sight of Cindy''s portrait stirred a deep well of emotions within Michael. Though not consumed by anger, he felt an overwhelming surge of killing intent coursing through his veins. In that moment, anyone else might have sumbed to their rage and engaged the Serpent King in battle. However, Michael''s rationality prevailed, and his focus shifted to finding the wind tunnel.
Activating his X-ray eyes, Michael''s irises glowed with an ethereal light as he scanned the entire room. His gaze swept across the chamber, taking in its details. Fallen soldiersy motionless on the ground, their heads pierced by lightning bolts, a testament to Michael''s lethal precision. Beyond them, his eyes caught sight of a concealed glowing rune hidden behind the Serpent King''s room, beckoning him forward.
Michael approached the rune, situated on the headboard of the bed, its invisible presence palpable beneath his fingertips. As he made contact with the rune, a surge of energy coursed through his body, causing a subtle trembling sensation. Without hesitation, Michael clenched his fist and struck the rune with a powerful blow, shattering the bed''s head in the process.
The moment the rune was shattered, a distinct clicking sound resonated from beneath the bed. Reacting swiftly, Michael delivered a forceful kick, sending the bed hurtling towards the wall. The impact caused the bed to splinter and break apart, unveiling a concealed floor hidden beneath it.
The door on the hidden floorcked a traditional knob or handle, instead featuring a singr rune as its means of activation. Unfazed by the absence of conventional mechanisms, Michael relied on his strength. He stomped forcefully on the ground, shattering the door into countless pieces. As the fragments scattered, a powerful gust of wind erupted from the newly revealed opening, engulfing the room and sending objects flying. In an instant, the swirling vortex began to pull everything within its reach, creating a powerful suction force.
As the soldiers rushed into the room, their faces contorted with anger and determination, their shouts filled the air.
"There he is! Take him down!"
"Don''t let him escape!"
But their cries were abruptly cut short as the powerful suction force of the wind tunnel took hold. The soldiers, caught off guard by the sudden gust, struggled to maintain their bnce. Helplessly, they were pulled towards the gaping hole, their screams echoing throughout the chamber.
Amidst the chaos, Michael stood steadfast on the ground, rooted in ce by his immense strength. The wind whipped around him, tugging at his cloak and armor, but he remained unmoved, unaffected by the pull of the wind tunnel. His eyes focused on the soldiers, his face expressionless as he witnessed their futile attempts to resist the relentless force.
One by one, the soldiers were dragged closer to the edge of the hole, their outstretched hands desperately grasping for something to hold onto. Their screams grew more frantic as they were sucked into the wind tunnel, disappearing into the depths below.
Michael watched in silence, his gaze unwavering, as thest soldier was swallowed by the wind tunnel. The room fell into an eerie stillness, the only sound remaining the faint howling of the wind.
Michael peered down into the abyss, his gaze fixed on the swirling red mist that filled the wind tunnel. The mist, a macabre mixture of blood and shattered bodies, bore witness to the devastating power of the suction force. The soldiers who had been unfortunate enough to be pulled into the depths had met a gruesome fate, their bodies bursting from the sheer intensity of the wind''s pull.
Undeterred by the horrifying sight, Michael unfurled the metal wings concealed within his armor. The wings gleamed in the dim light of the chamber, their intricate design hinting at their hidden strength. With a leap of faith, he propelled himself into the wind tunnel, soaring through the crimson mist.
As Michael descended further into the depths, the force of the wind intensified, threatening to tear him apart. Yet, he gritted his teeth and pressed onward, his wings beating against the powerful currents. The red mist engulfed him, obscuring his vision, but he remained resolute, guided by his unwavering determination.
The wind tunnel seemed to stretch into an infinite abyss, with no end in sight. Michael braced himself against the unyielding forces, his eyes fixed on the unknown destination that awaited him. The roar of the wind echoed in his ears, urging him to forge ahead, deeper into the mysteries thaty beneath the Serpent King''s castle.
As Michael delved deeper into the depths of the ocean, the surroundings grew increasingly dim and foreboding. The once vibrant blue hue transformed into an abyssal darkness, enveloping everything in its grasp. The only sources of illumination were the ethereal glow emitted by a school of bioluminescent fish, their soft radiance casting an eerie light on the murky waters. Yet, it was the ominous red beam emanating from the skull on Michael''s chest armor that provided him with a clearer view of his surroundings.
Amidst the inky depths, a peculiar structure emerged, floating mysteriously in the depths of the ocean. The distant hum that reached Michael''s ears heightened his anticipation. He knew that within this enigmatic structurey the potential for acquiring another seed of darkness, a crucial step towards permanently restoring the dormant system.
Drawing closer to the structure, Michael''s senses sharpened, and he became aware of multiple presences lurking in its vicinity. Realizing the need for stealth, he swiftly deactivated the light beams emanating from his chest, merging seamlessly with the epassing darkness. His form became indistinguishable, blending into the shadows as he observed the unfolding scene.
His attention was drawn to a colossal eel-like creature, a behemoth that dwarfed the surrounding underwaterndscape. Its immense size,parable to a three-story building, was emphasized by the crackling electric bolts that danced along its serpentine body. The monstrous creature approached the structure with a sense of purpose, its presence both awe-inspiring and unnerving.
As Michael observed the colossal eel with chains and hooks embedded in its skin, blood trickling from its wounds, his curiosity intensified. However, his attention was quickly drawn to several Mermons d in emerald green armor who seemed to be in control of the chains. They were shoutingmands at the eel, urging it to move swiftly, and forcefully yanking the chains to guide its movements.
"We need to break this structure before the other houses have a chance to reach it!" one of the Mermons eximed, their voice filled with urgency.I think you should take a look at
"Pull harder, we cannot afford any dys!" another Mermon barked, their eyes filled with determination.
The Mermons worked in unison, their movements graceful and fluid, as they coordinated their efforts to manipte the eel and break free from the structure. Their emerald armor shimmered under the dim light, reflecting their otherworldly beauty.
"Do not falter! We must seed!" a third Mermon shouted, their voice resonating with unwavering resolve.
Their voices echoed through the water, mixing with the sounds of the eel''s thunderous movements. Michael watched silently, blending into the darkness, as the Mermons struggled against the resistance of the structure and the relentless pressure of the deep ocean.
As the Mermons yanked on the chains, the eel let out a deep, guttural growl of pain. The sound reverberated through the water, sending ripples of unease through Michael. The Mermons, undeterred by the eel''s distress, shouted at it with fierce determination.
"Move, Giant! Break through this structure!" one Mermonmanded, their voice filled with urgency.
"Use your strength! Tear it apart!" another Mermon called out, their tone resolute.
The eel responded to their cries, its massive body writhing and thrashing against the restraints. The chains strained under the immense force, creaking and groaning as the eel fought to break free. With each pull, the eel''s growls intensified, a symphony of pain and determination echoing through the water.
"Push harder, Giant! We must not let the other houses im this power!" a third Mermon urged, their voice filled with a mix of desperation and determination.
As the Mermons and the eel continued their struggle, a momentary connection passed between Michael and the giant eel. In that fleeting instant, it seemed as if the eel locked its eyes with Michael, as though silently pleading for assistance. Michael was taken aback by this unexpected connection, feeling a pang of empathy for the creature''s pain.
However, the eel''s gaze quickly shifted away as the Mermons forcefully pulled on the chains, urging it forward in agony. The eel''s attention was solely focused on obeying its captors, its primal instincts overriding any potential alliance that could have formed with Michael.
With a tremendous impact, the eel crashed into the structure, causing shockwaves to ripple through the surrounding waters. Michael felt the power of the impact reverberate through his body, witnessing the cracks forming on the surface of the strange cube-shaped structure. It was evident that thebined efforts of the eel and the Mermons were having an effect, gradually weakening the integrity of the structure.
Amidst the chaos, Michael''s keen observation skills allowed him to identify five Half Immortals among the soldiers of the Watergod Hall. These Half Immortals possessed a stable energy radiation, signifying their cultivation to the Half Immortal stage had been achieved through natural means, without the use of shortcuts or artificial enhancements.
As Michael saw the cracks widening, he sprang into action. True to his nature, he preferred to let his enemies do the heavy lifting while he reaped the rewards at the opportune moment. Swiftly navigating through the dark depths of the ocean, Michael raised his hand and took aim at the eel''s chains. A bolt of lightning surged forth from his fingertips, speeding towards its target, intending to sever the bonds that held the eel captive.
With pinpoint uracy, the lightning bolt unleashed by Michael struck the hook attached to the chain, shattering it into pieces. The Mermons who were controlling the eel stood in stunned silence, their eyes widening with disbelief.
"The giant is breaking free!" one Mermon shouted, paning his voice. "Hold on tight! We can''t let it escape!"
Enraged by its newfound freedom, the eel let out a thunderous roar, its massive body violently squirming as it struggled to break another chain. The Mermons, realizing the imminent danger, swiftly reacted by thrusting a jade spear into the eel''s side, attempting to subdue its rebellion.
Unfazed by the Mermons'' desperate efforts, Michael, undeterred, fired two more lightning bolts. The bolts crackled through the water, obliterating the remaining chains that restrained the giant eel. As the chains shattered, releasing the eelpletely, the Mermons let out horrified screams, their faces contorted with fear and shock.
"The fucking giant is free!" one Mermon cried out, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and disbelief. "IT IS FREE!"
Another Mermon, his voice filled with desperation, added, "We must retreat! We cannot fight against this unleashed power!"
As the eel swam freely, its rage echoed through the ocean depths, causing the water to churn and swirl. The Mermons, overwhelmed by fear, quickly turned away, their thoughts consumed by the need to escape the wrath of the unleashed giant.
As Michael silently observed the chaotic scene, a small smirk formed beneath his skull mask. With the giant eel now free, a burst of electricity shot from its body, electrifying everything within a one-mile radius. Even Michael felt a chilling jolt of pain, but his armor protected him from the full force of the shock. The water god soldiers, d in their jade armor, were shielded from the electrical surge, but they soon discovered that their armor provided no defense against the eel''s vicious bites. Fueled by anger, the giant eel hunted down the soldiers one by one, overpowering them with its immense strength.
Amidst the carnage, Michael watched with a twisted satisfaction, pleased with the chaos he had unleashed. However, his attention quickly shifted back to the cube-shaped structure. Determined to break it and im the seed of darkness within, he propelled himself toward it with unwavering resolve.
But just as he was about to shatter the structure, a crimson-red trident shot through the water, impaling his hand and pinning it against the structure. Michael''s eyes widened behind his skull mask as he saw the Serpent King, now in his serpentine form, emerging through the wind tunnel and swiftly approaching him.
"You are not getting it, Dark Lord," the Serpent King hissed, his voiceced with venomous intent.
( Read Chapters 915 and 916 to refresh your memories)
Chapter 1019 Serpent King Love Cindy
Michael forcefully pulled out the crimson-red trident that was embedded in his hand, grimacing at the pain it caused. As he struggled to free himself, the Serpent King swiftly approached, his transformed cobra head locking eyes with Michael''s gaze.
"I have waited countless years for this moment," hissed the Serpent King, his voice dripping with venom. However, faced with a fallen god and a threatening giant cobra, Michael remained unfazed.
With a hint of mockery in his voice, Michael retorted, "Ever heard of breath mints?" He knew that as a god, he couldn''t be killed, and he sensed that the Serpent King was about to embark on a peculiar tale.
"You destroyed my love. Because of you, she never loved me back," hissed the Serpent King, his voice filled with bitterness and resentment.
"Are you talking about Cindy?" Michael asked, his eyes cold and unyielding. As he uttered those words, the Serpent King''s tail slowly coiled around Michael, tightening its grip.
"My eternal love, the love you shattered," hissed the Serpent King, his eyes revealing the pain of lost love and the bitterness of failure.
With a cold tone, Michael replied, "You do realize that Cindy is just eleven years old, and I have no idea what you''re talking about."
A sinister smile crept across the Serpent King''s face as his tail tightened its grip around Michael, exerting pressure that would shatter ordinary bones.
"Allow me to refresh your memories, Dark Lord," hissed the Serpent King, his voice filled with a twisted determination.
"When you stripped me of my grace, I hid my memories along with it. But now, I will make you open the barrier you ced around the mortal realm. Once I reim my true form, I will be unstoppable, and I will im Cindy, the most exquisite mortal in all realms," the Serpent King revealed his true intentions, fueled by a burning desire for power and possession.
Amidst the escting tension, Michael''sughter erupted, echoing through the water. The Serpent King''s tail exerted immense pressure, but Michael remained unaffected, his strength surpassing mortal limits, bolstered by his imprable armor.
"What''s so amusing? I may not be able to kill you, but I can break your mortal vessel and condemn your soul to wander this world for eternity," threatened the Serpent King, his voiceced with malice.
Yet, Michael''sughter ceased abruptly, reced by a sly smirk on his face.
"So, you''ve regained your memories, and yet you chose to cross my path," Michael snickered, his voice dripping with amusement.
"Listen carefully, you foolish snake. I am married to a serpent far more fearsome than you could everprehend. Believe me when I say that the version of me you encountered five thousand years ago pales inparison to the cruelty I am capable of. I possess a twisted creativity when ites to dealing with my enemies. Trust me, you do not want to be my enemy. Step aside while you still have the chance," Michael warned, his toneced with a hint of menace.
However, the Serpent King paid no heed to Michael''s warning. Arrogance consumed him, convinced that his elevated status as a level 2 god surpassed Michael''s level 1 godhood. Little did he realize the depths of darkness and power that Michael truly held.
"As much I hate you, I love the words you said to me before you stripped me of my grace. When you have your enemy at your mercy, don''t talk, just end them," the Serpent King echoed the words of the Previous Dark Lord.
Despite the tightening grip of the Serpent King''s tail and the venomous fangs poised to strike, Michael remained resolute. He prepared to unleash his dark mes upon his adversary, but before he could, a golden ball of light materialized above the Serpent King.
In a sh, the golden ball struck the Serpent King, sending him stumbling backward through the depths of the water. As the radiant light subsided, Evan emerged, his presencemanding and powerful.
Evan turned his gaze towards Michael, their eyes meeting once again. Thest time they crossed paths, Evan had feared the overwhelming power of Ghost, but now he stood stronger, filled with the conviction that he could vanquish the Dark Lord he had be. However, the situation becameplicated for Evan as he found himself facing the Dark Lord, standing before the very object Salesi had ordered him to protect.
Evan could sense the arrogance emanating from behind the skull mask worn by Ghost. At first, Evan had been reluctant to believe the rumors about Ghost, the stories of his insatiable hunger for power, his maniptive nature, and his cruel actions. But witnessing the devastation brought upon Thusia and the Guardian Guild, Evan couldn''t deny the truth. Thousands of lives had been lost, and the world continued to bear the consequences of Ghost''s actions.
Seeing the Dark Lord before him, Evan''s grip tightened on the trident lodged in Michael''s hand, driving it deeper into the unforgiving marble.
"You cannot face him alone," Michael calmly stated, his voiceced with an underlying understanding.
"Even if I cannot defeat him, I won''t strike a deal with the devil," Evan sneered, his determination unwavering.
"Better the known devil than the unknown angel," Michael retorted, his words hinting at theplexities of their predicament.
The Serpent King roared in frustration, his voice echoing through the depths of the ocean. "I''ve had enough of your annoying interference, you stupid fool god!" he snarled, his serpentine form surging forward to attack Evan.
Evan, undeterred by the Serpent King''s insults, stood his ground, determination gleaming in his eyes. "You are wasting my time, Serpent King!" he retorted with unwavering confidence.
As the two shed, the water around them became turbulent, swirling and churning with their powerful spells. The Serpent King conjured swirling currents that twisted and thrashed, while Evan called upon beams of radiant energy that pierced through the dark waters.
The spells took on magnificent forms¡ªserpents of lightning slithered through the water, crackling with electric energy, while bursts of golden light erupted like celestial explosions. The surrounding ocean itself seemed to respond, with currents shifting and waves crashing against unseen barriers.
Thebatants exchanged lightning-fast blows, their movements a blur of speed and precision. The Serpent King''s massive jaws snapped, aiming to ensnare Evan, while Evan''s agile maneuvers evaded the deadly bite. Evan retaliated with divine strikes, his punches empowered by his celestial grace, while the Serpent King thrashed his massive tail, seeking to batter Evan into submission.
The sh of their powers and physical blows reverberated through the underwater realm, creating shockwaves that rippled across the ocean floor. Each strike echoed with a disy of immense strength and skill, as they fought for dominance in the depths.
Amidst the fierce battle, their exchanges were punctuated by snarls and roars, their voices echoing through the watery expanse. The Serpent King taunted Evan, his voice dripping with venom. "You can''t defeat me, little god! I am the true ruler of the sea!"
The Serpent King''s hands, awkwardly protruding from his serpentine form, rose into the air. In a mesmerizing disy, the crimson red trident, held firmly in Michael''s hand moments ago, was pulled back by an invisible force, leaving Michael free. The trident flew back to the Serpent King, nestling into his grasp.
As the trident reunited with its master, a surge of power radiated from the Serpent King, causing the ocean itself to respond to hismand. The waters around him stirred and swirled as if acknowledging his authority. With the trident firmly in his hand, he aimed its sharp points directly at Evan.
A powerful gust of current, unleashed by the Serpent King''smand, surged forward with incredible force. It struck Evan square in the chest before he could even react, the impact sending him reeling backward. The sheer power of the current''s impact was overwhelming, leaving Evan momentarily stunned.I think you should take a look at
As the battle unfolded deep within the ocean, the Serpent King exerted his control over the watery realm with immense power. He unleashed a barrage of ferocious attacks against Evan, each one more devastating than thest.
With a flick of his tail, the Serpent King conjured a massive whirlpool that spiraled toward Evan. The swirling currents threatened to engulf him, pulling him deeper into the depths of the ocean. The Serpent King taunted Evan, his voice dripping with superiority.
"Pathetic fool! You should have left when you still had the chance!"
As Evan struggled to break free from the powerful currents, the Serpent King summoned pirs of water, shooting them upward with incredible force. The water pirs crashed down upon Evan, their impact sending shockwaves through his body. The Serpent King reveled in his dominance, hisughter echoing through the water.
"Is this the extent of your power, little god?"
Undeterred by the onught, Evan mustered his own powers, retaliating with bursts of golden energy. However, the Serpent King''s mastery over the ocean allowed him to dodge and deflect Evan''s attacks effortlessly. With a flick of his trident, he created a massive wave that surged toward Evan, threatening to engulf him in its crashing force.
"Imand this very ocean. You, an anomaly, cannot defeat me!"
The Serpent King continued his assault, conjuring storms of swirling currents, lightning bolts that crackled with electrical energy, and massive tidal waves that threatened to consume Evan. With every attack, he taunted Evan, mocking his feeble attempts to challenge his authority.
"You are nothing but an insect before my power! Kneel before me and beg for mercy, for I am a god unmatched in strength and dominion!"
As the battle raged on, the Serpent King''s taunts and relentless attacks aimed to crush Evan''s spirit and prove his own superiority as a god who controlled the very forces of the ocean.
As the relentless assault from the Serpent King took its toll on Evan, he began to weaken. Blood trickled from his wounds, staining the water around him. Sensing his advantage, the Serpent King moved with lightning speed, his attacks bing even more rapid and vicious.
In a swift motion, the Serpent King closed in on Evan, his scaled grip tightening around him. With a malicious grin, he prepared to deliver a devastating finishing blow, one that would shatter Evan''s spirit and seal his defeat. The anticipation hung heavy in the air as the Serpent King readied himself to strike.
But before the Serpent King couldnd the final blow, a forceful impact resonated through the water. Michael, wielding his mighty Doombringer war hammer, had intervened, intercepting the Serpent King''s attack. The force of Michael''s strike sent the Serpent King hurtling backward, disoriented and momentarily stunned.
With a calm andmanding presence, Michael turned his attention to Evan, his voice carrying a sense of purpose. "Evan, listen to me. We have a choice. We can either join forces and bring down the Serpent King together, or we can continue to fight each other while he remains a threat to both of us."
Evan, weakened and battered, looked at Michael with a mixture of determination and trust. He understood the gravity of the situation and the importance of unity against theirmon enemy. Slowly, Evan nodded, his resolve firm.
"Let''s end this together," Evan said, his voice filled with newfound strength. United in their purpose, Michael and Evan set their sights on the recovering Serpent King, ready to unleash theirbined might and forge a path to victory.
Evan and Michael moved with synchronized precision, their attacks and spells intertwining seamlessly. Michael swung his Doombringer, summoning icy gusts that formed into swirling frost storms, chilling the water around them. He followed it up with ck lightning bolts crackling from his hands, striking the Serpent King with electrifying force. Meanwhile, Evan utilized his celestial powers, channeling beams of radiant light that pierced through the depths, illuminating their battleground.
Thebination of frost storms and lightning bolts created a powerful synergy. As the Serpent King attempted to dodge the onught, he found himself caught in the crossfire, unable to evade every strike. But he proved to be a formidable opponent, retaliating with spells and attacks of his own. He conjured powerful currents, manipting the ocean to disrupt Evan and Michael''s movements. Waves crashed against them, threatening to engulf their efforts.
Taunts escaped the Serpent King''s lips as heshed out. "You fools! This is my domain! No one can ovee the might of the ocean and its rightful ruler!" His voice echoed through the water, his confidence unyielding. He deftly evaded Michael''s dark mes, using his serpentine agility to slither away from the consuming fire.
Undeterred, Evan and Michael continued their onught. Evan channeled his celestial energy into radiant beams, guiding them with precision to strike the Serpent King''s vulnerable spots. Michael, with eyes gleaming with darkness, unleashed dark beams from his gaze, seeking to pierce through the Serpent King''s defenses.
However, the Serpent King''s control over the ocean remained a formidable challenge. He summoned colossal tidal waves, threatening to engulf Evan and Michael. Their movements were hindered, their attacks disrupted by the sheer force of the water. Yet, even in the face of adversity, they refused to yield.
As the fierce battle raged on, a sudden shock and surprise coursed through Michael''s veins as he witnessed the eel he had freed earlier join the fight against the Serpent King. His eyes widened with astonishment, realizing the unexpected ally that hade to his aid.
The eel crackled with electric energy, its body emanating lightning bolts that surrounded the Serpent King, forming a cage of electricity. The Serpent King roared in frustration as the crackling bolts prevented him from maneuvering freely.
With the Serpent King momentarily trapped, Evan seized the opportunity, unleashing beams of golden energy upon the weakened Serpent King. Each beam struck with precision,shing out with a radiant force. At the same time, Michael released a relentless stream of dark mes, their infernal heat engulfing the Serpent King''s form.
With each strike, Evan and Michael roared in unison, their determination fueling their attacks. The battle reached its climax as the Serpent King found himself on the brink of defeat.
A devilish grin crossed Michael''s face as he observed the Serpent King''s weakening state. In his mind, a sinister n took shape, a way to secure his own victory. Though the Serpent King was dying, Michael knew he had an opportunity to exploit the situation, to gain an advantage that would secure their triumph.
The Serpent King, wracked with pain and seething with rage, cursed the eel that had betrayed him. "Traitor! I will ensure your suffering knows no bounds for this treachery!" he spat, his voice filled with venomous hatred.
Evan, a tinge of regret in his voice, responded to the Serpent King''s curses. "I never wanted to hurt you, but you''ve left me with no choice,"
As the intense heat from Evan''s attack and Michael''s dark mes consumed the Serpent King''s physical form, it melted away, dissolving into nothingness. The air grew still, the weight of the battle settling upon their weary shoulders. Evan and Michael both breathed heavily, their chests rising and falling as they took in the aftermath of their victorious struggle.
Evan''s gaze shifted between Michael and the cube-shaped structure thaty before them, its secrets beckoning. A devious grin yed across his face as he reached into his belongings and pulled out a set of golden ropes. With a swift motion, he threw the ropes around Michael, expertly coiling him within their shimmering embrace.
A smirk etched upon Evan''s lips as he dered, "Our temporary alliance against the Serpent King is terminated, my dear Dark Lord." His tone carried a subtle hint of amusement, a snicker betraying his mischievous intentions.
Evan''s eyes gleamed with a mix of amusement and cunning as he tightened the golden ropes around Michael, ensuring his immobilization. The Dark Lord, though bound, maintained aposed demeanor, his eyes fixed upon Evan.
With a slight chuckle, Evan continued, his voice dripping with slyness, "You know, it''s not necessarily a bad thing to stab the Dark Lord in the back. In fact, I''m quite sure you would have done the same to me if I hadn''t beaten you to it." He tilted his head, a glimmer of mischief dancing in his gaze.
Chapter 1020 New Skill And New Spell
As Evan moved closer to the submerged structure, Michael floated helplessly in the ocean, bound by the golden ropes that encircled him. He locked eyes with the eel, their silent connection speaking volumes. Understanding Michael''s unspokenmand, the eel swam away, disappearing into the depths of the ocean, seeking safety.
Meanwhile, Evan''s clenched fist radiated with a golden glow as he summoned his power. With unwavering determination, he unleashed a powerful punch, striking the cubic structure. The cracks that already marred its surface widened and multiplied with each forceful blow. Evan''s relentless assault continued until the structure shatteredpletely, revealing its hidden contents.
To their astonishment, an ancient-looking scroll awaited them within the shattered remains of the structure. It was encased in an ethereal air bubble, surrounded by a mysterious dark mist. The mere sight of it signaled to Michael that it was indeed a seed of darkness, a powerful artifact of untold potential.
However, before Evan could reach out to touch the spell scroll, Michael''s voice cut through the air, stopping him in his tracks. Evan turned to face Michael, his curiosity piqued by his unexpected interruption.
"Not so fast, Evan," Michael''s voice carried a mischievous undertone as a beam of light emanated from the skull on his chest. The beam formed an image of Victoria, Evan''s fianc¨¦e. The sight struck Evan like a bolt of lightning, freezing him in ce.
His eyes widened with shock as he beheld the distressing scene before him. Victoria, bound to a chair, bore the marks of a fierce struggle. Her golden hair was disheveled, and her once pristine white armor was stained with blood. Bruises marred her delicate features, a testament to the battle she had endured. Behind hery the lifeless bodies of several guards, their broken forms strewn across the marble floor.
Evan''s heart raced with a mix of fear, anger, and concern for his beloved. The image etched into his mind, driving him to a moment of agonizing indecision. His desire to obtain the seed of darkness shed with his overwhelming need to protect Victoria.
As the gravity of the situation sank in, a tense silence enveloped the ocean depths, the weight of their choices hanging heavy in the water.
Evan''s anguished cry reverberated through the water as he locked eyes with his gagged and restrained fianc¨¦e, Victoria. The sight of her, bound and helpless, fueled his rage, causing him tosh out impulsively at Michael, seeking vengeance.
"What have you done?!" Evan''s voice echoed with a mix of desperation and fury, the ripples in the water mirroring his tumultuous emotions.
But just as Evan lunged towards Michael, a woman''s voice cut through the tense atmosphere, halting his advance. Gaya, the Dark Queen, emerged into view, her presencemanding and sinister. With a dagger dripping with blood, she stood behind Victoria, issuing a chilling ultimatum.
"I wouldn''t do that if I were you, Evan," Gaya''s words carried a deadly warning, her gaze fixed on Evan. She demanded the release of Michael, threatening to slit Victoria''s throat if her demands were not met.
Reluctantly, Evan shifted his attention from Michael to the dire situation unfolding before him. The weight of the decision bore heavily upon him as he reached out to remove the golden ropes binding Michael. As his hand grasped the ropes, they loosened, freeing the Dark Lord.
"I''ll take this,"
In a twist of fate, Michael took hold of the golden ropes, his sly grin betraying his amusement at the turn of events.
"Just because you''re stronger than me doesn''t mean you can defeat me, Evan. They call me the Dark Lord for a reason," Michael taunted, his wordsced with a hint of arrogance as he lightly tapped Evan''s cheek, a taunting gesture of superiority.
Unbeknownst to Evan, in the moment of their encounter, Michael had secretlymunicated with Gaya. He had instructed her to infiltrate Evan''s house in Bredia and take his family hostage, using them as leverage to manipte Evan. However, Michael had not anticipated that Victoria would be present at the house. While Evan''s parents made for suitable hostages, Victoria, his beloved fianc¨¦e, proved to be an even more enticing pawn in his sinister game.
As Michael approached the spell scroll, his curiosity piqued, he turned his attention back to Evan, his voiceced with a hint of suspicion.
"Who do you work for, Evan?" Michael''s inquiry hung in the air, his gaze prating as he studied Evan''s reaction.
Evan''s heart raced, his mind torn between protecting Victoria and confronting Michael. He met Michael''s gaze with a resolute expression, firm in his response.
"No one," Evan replied, his voice strained with emotion.
But Gaya, reveling in her sadistic control, interjected with a chilling snicker, her grip on Victoria tightening. The dagger pressed against Victoria''s throat, drawing a thin trickle of blood, a cruel reminder of the imminent danger.
"Don''t y games with the life of your beloved, Evan," Gaya taunted, her voice dripping with amusement. Evan''s heart skipped a beat as he witnessed the crimson trail staining Victoria''s skin.
"Let her go. She had done nothing to you!"
Fury surged within Evan as he pleaded for Victoria''s release, his voice trembling with desperation and rage. But Gaya, disying her deranged nature, merely snickered and yfully pouted, disying her utter disregard for Victoria''s life.
"Evan, my dear, I have killed my own father and crippled my own sister. Do you think I give a flying fuck about this bitch?" Gaya''s words struck Evan like a dagger to the heart, leaving him paralyzed with anguish and helplessness.
Evan''s gaze darted between Gaya, Victoria, and Michael, his mind racing for a solution. He longed to stop Michael''s actions, but Gaya yanked Victoria''s hair back, exposing her vulnerable neck, and reminded Evan of the knife poised against her throat. This terrifying threat silenced his desperate intentions.
With determination in his eyes, Michael unleashed a powerful punch, striking the air bubble that surrounded the spell scroll. The bubble shattered, dissipating into thin air, as Michael swiftly grabbed hold of the ancient scroll. A dark mist, tinged with an otherworldly aura, emanated from the scroll and slowly coiled around Michael''s hand, its tendrils intertwining with his very being.
As the dark mist seeped into Michael''s body, a surge of energy coursed through his veins. Veins protruded from his skin beneath the armor, pulsating with an ethereal glow. The power within him intensified, radiating with an intensity that Evan couldn''t ignore.
Evan''s gaze fixated on Michael, his senses heightened as he observed the sudden rise in Michael''s energy radiation. The aura surrounding Michael became more ominous, shrouding him in an aura of darkness and power.
[Congrattions to the host for acquiring another seed of darkness]
[The host now acquired three seeds of darkness]
[The experience points harvester function is online]
[The host will receive experience points for killing from now on]
[Once the host reaches the Celestial stage, the system wille online permanently]
[The host can now absorb powerful artifacts and turn their energy into experience points]
[Rare and more powerful artifacts will give the host more experience points]
Michael''s vision became hazy as the system notifications flooded his awareness. A surge of joy swept over him as he realized he was getting closer to permanently awakening the system. Amidst the flurry of notifications, he couldn''t contain his excitement upon discovering that he could absorb artifacts and gain experience points once again. Lost in the sea of notifications, a particr message caught his attention.
[Congrattions for acquiring the seed of darkness - shadow teleportation]
Michael''s astonishment echoed in his mind. He was well aware that each seed of darkness possessed unique properties, granting him distinct powers and advantages. His armor, for instance, was a seed of darkness that provided him with formidable protection. Now, the spell scroll had bestowed upon him a new ability - the wondrous gift of shadow teleportation.
[The Shadow Teleportation is a powerful spell that grants the user the ability to instantaneously transport himself to any location within his line of sight where a shadow is present. By harnessing the connection between shadows and travel, the host can seamlessly navigate through space, utilizing shadows as gateways to move from one point to another effortlessly]
Curious about his newfound ability to absorb energy from artifacts, Michael reached out for the golden ropes that had bound him moments ago. Closing his eyes, he focused his concentration on the ropes, feeling the surge of energy coursing through them. A soft hum resonated in his senses as he experienced a slight resistance from the ropes. Slowly but steadily, the golden strands transformed into tiny specks of dust, drifting into Michael''s being, converting into valuable experience points.
[Absorbing Legendary level Ropes of Harving]
[Absorbing energy¡]
[Converting the grace energy into experience points¡]
[Experience points converted 300,000]
[Experience points converted 700,000]
¡.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Half Celestial stage level 4]
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Half Celestial level 4
Godhood: Fledgling God ( Have three seeds of darkness. Need two seeds for the upgrade to level 2 godhood- DemiGod)
Experience Points: 1,000,000/12,000,000
Badass Points: 75,000,000
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 5 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 8
Environment Scanning - LVL 8I think you should take a look at
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 1
Meteor - LVL 1
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 5
Soul Eater - LVL 5
Soul Stare - LVL 4
Death Range - LVL 3
Shadow Teleportation
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender. Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 96% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation: The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
The Dark Lord
The God of Darkness
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the world
Grow the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 25,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 6-Star Alchemist
5-Star cksmith
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Queen of Shadows- Assassin (loyalty level 92%)
Adelia Wraith - (loyalty level 94%)
Maxine - Queen of Power. - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - King of War- Warrior (loyalty level 85%)
Sadie - Queen of Whispers- (loyalty level 70%)
Ricky (loyalty level 95%)
Titus and Optimus - Kings of Supplies (loyalty level 80%)
Gibson - King of the Skies (loyalty level 90%)
Corey - Queen of the Seas (loyalty level 90%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 93%)
Saber - King of the Nightwalkers ( loyalty 82%)
Trista
Lenora
Base of Operation: The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Dark Ocean
Familiars: Nightmare (Royal Dragon) ( Dead )
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (40% Mastery), Fire (40% Mastery), Lightning (50% Mastery), Darkness (50% Mastery)
Michael surveyed his updated system status with a sense of satisfaction. With the restoration of his ability to gain experience points through taking lives and absorbing artifacts, he knew there was much work ahead of him. Taking a deep breath, he exited the system and directed his attention back to Evan, who had witnessed the disappearance of the spell scroll, unaware of its true power.
"Let me ask you one more time, Evan. Who do you work for? You are a follower, not a leader. So who do you follow?"
In a cold andmanding tone, Michael addressed Evan, demanding to know the truth behind his allegiances.
"Lie to us one more time, and I will end her life,"
The threat of ending Victoria''s life loomed in the air, voiced by Gaya with deadly authority.
Evan, torn between his loyalty to Salesi and his love for Victoria, made a difficult choice. Realizing that lying would jeopardize Victoria''s safety, he confessed the truth to Michael.
"It''s Salesi, the former Queen of Nagnd," Evan revealed. Finally, the veil of secrecy surrounding Michael''s shadowy adversary began to lift.
Chapter 1021 Turning Sea Realm Against Salesi
Upon learning that Salesi was working against him in the shadows, Michael''s suspicions were confirmed. He had always suspected that Salesi held more secrets than she let on. Even when he had attacked Nagnd, her kingdom, and Gaya had inflicted harm upon her family, Salesi had remained elusive.
This absence hinted at a deeper purpose behind Salesi''s actions. Now that Michael knew for certain that Salesi was plotting against him and that Evan was working for her, he saw an opportunity to manipte Evan to his advantage. Killing Evan would be futile, as he was a god who could only be truly in with a specialized weapon. Instead, Michael decided to use Evan as his spy, a valuable asset in his quest for dominance.
With his n forming in his mind, Michael turned his gaze towards Gaya, issuing amand.
"Deliver my gift to Victoria," he instructed Gaya, sending a shiver through Evan''s heart.
"STOP!" Evan''s desperate shout echoed through the space as he lunged at Michael. With a sneer, Michael swiftly evaded Evan''s attack using his lightning-dash spell.
Following Michael''s order, Gaya retrieved a vial of blood tonic from her storage ring. She removed the gag from Victoria''s mouth and forced the potion down her throat. Evan''s anguish filled the air as he witnessed Victoria coughing, unable to speak a word before Gaya silenced her once more.
Eyes gleaming with a devilish grin, Michael delivered a cold ultimatum to Evan.
Evan seethed with anger as he approached Michael, his movements slow and deliberate. Michael remained floating in the water, showing no intention of evading Evan''s wrath. As Evan drew nearer, he grasped the cor of Michael''s armor and shook him forcefully.
"Your ckened soul knows no mercy, Ghost. You will suffer in the depths of hell," Evan cursed,pelled to help Victoria despite his anger.
Michael''s response was a calm and sinister snicker.
"I have already been to hell, Evan. Now, tell me everything you know about Salesi and her little n to defeat me," Michael spoke, his voice steady. He gently removed Evan''s hand from his cor, asserting his dominance.
As Evan massaged his hand and reluctantly swallowed his saliva, Michael ced a hand on Evan''s shoulder.
"Don''t make me threaten you again and again every time I ask you a question, Evan. My beautiful wife," Michael gestured towards Gaya, continuing his words.
"Isn''t very good at being patient. She will kill Victoria, and it''ll be your fault," Michael calmly stated, his voice carrying a sense of warning.
Just as Evan was about to reveal Salesi''s ns, a sudden burst of golden light enveloped him, teleporting him away from Michael in an instant. Gaya, witnessing the unexpected turn of events, turned to Michael with surprise, seeking an exnation. Michael, however, had anticipated this move, knowing that Salesi would have contingency ns in ce to protect her subordinates from divulging sensitive information. Unbeknownst to him, Salesi had intended to teleport Evan earlier, but the rune ced upon him had failed to activate. Otherwise, Evan would have been teleported away even before confessing his allegiance to Salesi.
"Now that Salesi has made her move, it is time for me to make mine," Michael calmly stated, his mind already racing with ns.
"What should we do about her?"
Concerning Victoria''s fate, Gaya inquired, her dagger tracing along Victoria''s face with a twisted sense of sadistic delight.
"Leave her alone but clean out their treasury," Michael ordered, confident that Gaya had already taken care of this task. With Victoria under the influence of the blood tonic, Michael held the power to end her life with a mere snap of his finger. Evan was well aware of this, and he would obey Michael''s everymand. Michael anticipated that Salesi, being the mastermind he believed her to be, would try to intervene and prevent Evan from falling into his grasp. However, Michael had prepared for every possible scenario, devising cunning ns to outmaneuver Salesi at every turn. As he had stated, it was now his turn to take action, and Salesi would soon discover the extent of his strategic prowess.
"I did that already," Gaya yfully chuckled, revealing her sinister nature that aligned perfectly with Michael''s own.
"And human, meet me at our designated meeting spot soon. We need to locate our missing subordinates," Gaya instructed, receiving a nod of agreement from Michael. Upon his return from Itonys, Michael had contacted Gaya, only to discover that one of the three portals set up at the wedding had been tampered with. Those who had used this specific portal were teleported elsewhere, away from the dark castle. In other words, someone had kidnapped some of Michael''s subordinates. Fortunately, Raylene and little Cindy remained safe in the dark forest.
As much as Michael desired to reunite with Gaya and locate his subordinates, he knew that reaching the Celestial stage was crucial. Only then would he ascend to the next level of godhood and be able to bring back the system online permanently.
With Gaya and Victoria vanishing from his sight, Michael''s gaze turned determined. He knew exactly where to go next¡ªthe Sea Serpent Hall. It was time to unleash his wrath and im their powerful artifacts. Every artifact he consumed would grant him experience points, bringing him closer to achieving his ultimate power.
As he swam through the depths of the ocean, Michael''s mind was consumed by thoughts of domination. He envisioned himself confronting the soldiers of the Sea Serpent Hall, each one standing in his way. His dark grin revealed his thirst for power as he plotted their demise.
One by one, he would strike them down, absorbing their souls and turning them into experience points. He would relish in the surge of energy that would flow through him with each kill, fueling his ascent to godhood. No one would be spared, for in Michael''s path, there was only destruction and a relentless pursuit of power.I think you should take a look at
Despite his ruthless determination, Michael was not driven by mindless bloodlust. He possessed a sense of pragmatism and offered an alternative to the soldiers of the Sea Serpent Hall. He would give them a chance to escape, sparing their lives, but only if they chose not to stand in his way.
As he made his way through the city toward the Serpent King''s castle, the streets were filled with chaos. The city was being evacuated, and the presence of armed soldiers patrolling the area added to the tension. Confused citizens approached the soldiers, seeking answers amidst the growing uncertainty.
"Why are we being forced to leave the city? What is happening?" a concerned citizen inquired.
"Where is the Serpent King? Is this rted to the battle with the human earlier?" another citizen questioned, unaware of Evan''s true identity.
The soldiers focused on their mission, responded with sternmands, ordering the citizens to keep quiet and follow their orders.
"Stay silent and obey! It''s for your own safety," a soldier barked in response.
The citizens, though perplexed and anxious, had no choice but toply. They continued to be escorted out of the city, their questions left unanswered.
As Michael calmly flew towards the castle, the soldiers of the Sea Serpent Hall quickly took notice of his presence. They formed a defensive circle around him, their faces contorted with a mix of shock and disbelief. The aura of power radiating from Michael, reaching the Half Celestial stage, left them stunned and awestruck.
With a mere thought, Michael willed his armor to remove the skull mask that concealed his face. The mask effortlessly moved into the armor, disappearing from sight, revealing Michael''s face¡ªa face that sent shivers down the spines of those who recognized him.
Some of the soldiers gasped, their eyes widening as they realized they were in the presence of the infamous Dark Lord. Memories of his past power and brutality resurfaced, causing a ripple of fear to spread among the ranks. The soldiers hesitated, their instincts urging them to reconsider their confrontation with this formidable adversary.
Surrounded by the soldiers, both in the air and on the ground, Michael maintained his floating position with an air of dominance. Among the sea of guards, a tall and bulky mermon soldier d in crimson red armor and fiery red hair stepped forward, his voice tinged with a hint of fear and shivering.
"Why has the Dark Lorde here?" the mermon soldier questioned, struggling to maintainposure in the face of Michael''s imposing presence.
"Take me to your elders," Michael''s voice resonated with an air of calm authority. "Your Serpent King has been killed by one of Queen Salesi''s subordinates. I have no desire to cause further harm, unless you stand in my way and attempt to impede my meeting with your elders."
The soldiers and their red-haired general exchanged wary nces. Despite their own power and numerical advantage, they understood that they were no match for the might of the Dark Lord.
The soldiers huddled together, their voices hushed yet filled with fervent discussion. Whispers echoed among them as they debated the Dark Lord''s offer.
"Are you brain dead? Who in their right mind would willingly fight the Dark Lord?" one soldier scoffed, rolling his eyes. "We''re not the main characters or viins in some epic novel. No need to die for the elders."
"Exactly!" another soldier chimed in. "We have a duty to protect the castle, but that doesn''t mean we have a death wish. Let''s be practical here."
A sly grin spread across another soldier''s face. "You know, I heard about those fools from the Guardian Guild who thought they could stand in the Dark Lord''s way. Ended up dead for no good reason. Not the brightest bunch, huh?"
Amidst the murmurs, the soldiers came to a unanimous decision. They would follow the Dark Lord''s offer, opting for survival rather than a futile battle.
In the end, their practicality won over. With a collective nod, they turned to their red-haired general and ryed their decision. It was clear that fighting the Dark Lord would only lead to their demise. They would follow his lead, ensuring their own survival while leaving the fate of the elders to the whims of the powerful being before them.
"The elders will meet you in the throne hall," the red-haired general informed Michael. Taking a moment to assess the situation, Michael surveyed the city, his eyes meeting the gaze of the general.
"There is no need for panic among the citizens. I am not here to bring destruction. Since you all have chosen to stand down, I see no reason to take any lives," Michael assured, his decision surprising even himself. Despite Michael''s inclination to kill and convert soldiers into experience points, he refrained from doing so with the Sea Serpent Hall soldiers, who chose not to fight. Their unexpected disy of rationality surprised him. Typically, soldiers and cultivators acted on impulse rather than making practical decisions. However, the Sea Serpent Hall soldiers demonstrated a level of intelligence and discernment that Michael hadn''t anticipated. It intrigued him to see individuals capable of assessing the situation and making a wise choice.
Fortunately, Michael had a new way to gain experience points by absorbing artifacts. With this in mind, he nned to strike a deal with the elders and acquire some of their most powerful artifacts. Additionally, he saw an opportunity to pit Salesi against the Sea Realm, shifting the me for the Serpent King''s demise onto Evan. Michael knew that the Serpent King''s soul would seek another vessel and return, but he intended to forge a god-killing weapon in the meantime. His ultimate goal was to eliminate the Serpent King before the truth was revealed permanently.
The pieces were falling into ce, and Michael''s schemes were taking shape. As he prepared to meet the elders, he couldn''t help but feel a surge of anticipation. The city of Sea Serpent Hall would soon witness the extent of his power and cunning.
Chapter 1022 Reaching Half Celestial Stage Level 7 I
Led by the crimson-haired merman general, Michael entered the castle through its grand entrance. Inside, chaos reigned as maids and soldiers scurried about in a state of panic, their movements resembling headless chickens. As their eyes fell upon their general apanying the infamous Dark Lord, some froze in their tracks. Whispers spread among the maids, servants, and soldiers, as those who did not recognize Michael sought answers from those who did.
"Who is that man?" one maid asked with wide eyes, her voice quivering.
"That''s the Dark Lord!" another maid stuttered, fear evident in her voice. "I-I''ve seen him before!"
Some people in the vicinity sensed the immense power emanating from Michael, his Half-Celestial stage cultivation leaving them in awe and shock. The hushed conversations continued, filled with curiosity and uncertainty.
"What is the general doing, escorting the Dark Lord into the castle?" a soldier wondered aloud, his voice tinged with confusion.
"I don''t know, but it can''t be good," another soldier replied, his voice filled with trepidation. "We should stay out of their way and let the elders handle this."
Amidst themotion, the presence of the Dark Lord within the castle walls had sent shivers down their spines, leaving the maids, servants, and soldiers questioning the implications of his presence and the intentions behind their general''s actions.
The grand throne hall stretched before Michael, its vastness emphasized by the high ceilings and borate decorations adorning the walls. The throne, positioned on an elevated tform essed by a grand staircase, stood as the focal point of the room. It was an imposing sight, intricately carved and adorned with symbols that represented the power and authority of the Serpent King.
As Michael entered the hall, he observed the elders gathered on the marble floor, engaged in a heated discussion. They were aged men and women, their faces marked with the wisdom and experience of many years. Some had long white beards, while others had deep lines etched on their foreheads. They wore ceremonial robes, signifying their esteemed positions within the Sea Serpent Hall.
"Have any of you seen the Serpent King? Where could he have gone?" one elder inquired, his brow furrowed with worry.
One elder, with a voice filled with concern, addressed the rest of the group. "We have found the bodies of several soldiers within the Serpent King''s chambers. They were in, and their deaths remain a mystery. This is a grave matter that requires our immediate attention."
Another elder, their voice tinged with confusion, responded, "But how could this happen? The Serpent King''s room is heavily guarded, and the security is tight. Who could have breached our defenses and carried out such an act?"
The elders exchanged worried nces, searching for answers to the puzzling situation. Little did they know that it was Michael who had infiltrated the Serpent King''s chambers and eliminated the soldiers as part of his own ns.
"We must investigate this matter thoroughly," another elder suggested, their voice tinged with determination. "We cannot afford any breaches in our security, especially during these uncertain times."
As the conversation carried on, the elders suddenly fell silent, their eyes widening and their actions freezing in ce. Michael had entered the throne hall, apanied by the red-haired general. Fear and shock rippled through the elders'' expressions as theyid their eyes upon the infamous Dark Lord.
A hushed whisper escaped one elder''s lips as he trembled, "It''s the Dark Lord..."
Another elder, a woman with a stern gaze and silver hair, sped her hands tightly together, unable to hide her unease. The elders exchanged nervous nces, unsure of what this unexpected visit from the Dark Lord would bring.
Their initial discussion forgotten, the elders now found themselves face to face with the embodiment of their deepest fears. The grandeur of the throne hall paled inparison to the aura of power and darkness that emanated from Michael.
"Cillian, what the hall have you done? You betrayed us?!" Elder Mercia, the silver-haired elder stammered with a mix of shock and usation, mistakenly believing that Cillian had betrayed them and led the Dark Lord to their presence.
"Elder Mercia, please understand that I did not betray us," Cillian defended himself, his voice filled with urgency. He knew the seriousness of the situation and the elder''s mistrust was a blow to his loyalty.I think you should take a look at
Cillian continued, his eyes searching for understanding among the elders. "The Dark Lord requested a meeting with all of you. In exchange, he promised that no more blood would be spilled in our city."
Elder Mercia, with her silver hair shimmering under the light, stuttered in disbelief, her voice filled with shock. "Cillian, how could you trust the Dark Lord? Have you forgotten the atrocities he hasmitted?"
Cillian held his ground, his voice firm and determined. "Elders, I bring grave news, conveyed to me by the Dark Lord himself." He clenched his fist, preparing to deliver the news of the Serpent King''s demise.
Standing beside Cillian, Michael remained silent, allowing Cillian to be the messenger of the Dark Lord''s words. Michael intentionally withheld the information that merely destroying the vessel would not be enough to kill a god like the Serpent King truly. The truth was that specific god-killing weapons were required, weapons that even Michael did not possess.
"The Dark Lord ims that Serpent King was in by Evan, a subordinate of Queen Salesi of Nagnd," Cillian announced, causing the elders to gasp in disbelief. While some found it difficult to fathom, given the recent ims of the Serpent King attaining godhood, others began to question the invincibility of their king.
"It cannot be true," one elder murmured, their voice tinged with doubt. "Our Serpent King said he had be a god, invincible and evesting."
"It is true. I witnessed their battle in Window''s Down. Evan, a fallen god himself, fought your king and emerged victorious," Michael affirmed, his words shocking the elders even further. He intentionally withheld the fact that merely destroying the physical vessel of a fallen god would not truly vanquish them. It required specialized weapons, like the god killing arrows forged by Qin Jiu and her friends, to sever the soul of a god and prevent their return.
The atmosphere in the throne hall grew tense as the elders tried to process this unsettling information. The implications of their king''s demise at the hands of another god created a sense of uncertainty and vulnerability. They had relied on the Serpent King''s power and authority for so long, believing him to be unstoppable. Now, faced with the truth, they had to confront the harsh reality that their kingdom stood exposed to new threats.
"I cannot fathom this. Our mighty Serpent King, defeated by someone named Evan? We have never even heard of this Evan before. Our Serpent King is not this fallen god but a true god," spoke a white-bearded elder, his knowledge of gods limited. In truth, none of the elders possessed a deep understanding of the gods and their ssifications.
The elder believed that the term "fallen" denoted weakness, unaware of its true meaning in the realm of gods. In the realm of gods, fallen gods referred to those who had their graces stripped away by the previous Dark Lord or rebelled against the pantheon, or were trapped in the mortal realm. In essence, they were gods who could no longer ess the realm of gods.
However, the elders mistakenly interpreted the term as a sign of weakness.
Evan, who had been infused with grace through a contraption by Salesi, fell into this category as a fallen god. Stuck in the mortal realm, he was unable to return to the realm of gods. Simrly, Dagen, the ruler of Hell, was also a fallen god for rebelling against the pantheon and being banished. However, Michael and Noah were not fallen gods. They were born as gods in the mortal realm. However, in a previous timeline, Noah had his divine grace stripped away by the previous Dark Lord and locked away, only to have itter when Dagon released the graces.
It was essential to rify these distinctions, as the term "fallen god" carried different implications depending on one''s understanding. The elders'' limited knowledge made it difficult for them to grasp theplexities of godhood and the significance of Evan''s actions.
"Believe it or don''t believe it. I don''t care. The Serpent King made a deal with me to give you all hisst words in exchange for half of the powerful artifacts and a quarter of your wealth," calmly stated Michael, leaving the elders in a state of profound shock.
Despite having the power to seize the treasury and eliminate the elders, Michael refrained from doing so. He desired a realm where order and stability reigned. If he were to dismantle major powers like the Serpent Hall, it would create a void that numerous factions would scramble to fill. This would inevitably lead to widespread chaos and instability.
Michael understood the importance of maintaining a bnce of power. By sparing the elders and preserving their authority, he aimed to prevent the rise of countless smaller factions vying for control. This strategic approach would help maintain order and prevent the realm from descending into anarchy.
While he could have easily taken what he desired by force, Michael recognized the long-term consequences of such actions. He sought a realm where power was distributed more evenly, ensuring a more stable and controlled environment.
Besides, Michael had a grander n in mind, envisioning a peaceful retirement on a private ind alongside Gaya, their children, and their closest friends and family. He aimed for a world where Nithroel would govern, allowing Michael to enjoy a life of tranquility. He understood that chaos and wars raging beyond his private ind would disrupt his desired peace. Furthermore, as he ventured into the realm of gods, he anticipated his subordinates fighting against Salesi''s forces in the mortal realm. He realized that he may not be able to travel freely between realms, as he would be embroiled in a greater war with the gods. Therefore, he deemed it crucial to retain powerful allies, such as the Sea Serpent Hall. It was this rationale that led Michael to abstain frompletely depleting their treasury or exterminating them all.
Chapter 1023 Reaching Half Celestial Stage Level 7 II
"What do you mean, half of our artifacts and a quarter of our wealth? Dark Lord, we may be weakpared to you, but we are no fools," voiced one of the elders, expressing their skepticism towards Michael''s proposition.
Remainingposed, Michael calmly advanced towards them, his hand tucked behind his back. The elders couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease, their tension escting in the presence of the Dark Lord''s disconcerting smile.
In response to the elder''s question, Michael paused and then spoke, his wordsced with calcted deceit. "Thest words of your Serpent King were he wanted all of you to wait for the right moment to avenge him. His exact words were, tell those idiots to use their brains and wait for the right moment to strike, like I would have done, say these words to my elders and receive your rewards. If they don''t believe you, you can always kill them all and clean out my treasury, there won''t be anyone to stop you. So it''s up to my elders to preserve my legacy by honoring my words and avenging me," Michael boldly lied, reaching the steps leading to the Serpent King''s throne.
With an air of nonchnce, Michael leisurely sat on the stairs, his gaze fixed upon the contemting elders. They were left pondering the validity of the Dark Lord''s im regarding their deceased king''s final wishes.
"Now, consider this carefully. You can either uphold your king''s legacy and grant me the rewards he agreed upon, or you can choose not to believe me, leading me to clean out your treasury without any opposition. It''s clear to all that you are powerless against me," Michael calmly dered, directing his attention to the elder who had previously proimed their intelligence.
"You im to be no fools, so I urge you to make the wise choice. Keep half of the artifacts and the remaining wealth to seek revenge against Salesi and Evan, who work for her, and avenge your fallen king," he concluded, leaving the elders to contemte the difficult decision before them.
The elders huddled together, their voices hushed as they engaged in a heated discussion regarding the matter at hand. Some expressed reluctance to believe that their mighty Serpent King had truly met his demise, doubting the authenticity of the words attributed to him by the Dark Lord.
"I find it hard to believe that our revered Serpent King is no more," murmured one elder, his brows furrowed with skepticism. "Are we to trust the words of this Dark Lord?"
"Even if the Dark Lord''s words are false, we have no means to oppose him. It may be in our best interest to ept his terms, for losing only half of our artifacts and a quarter of our wealth is a lesser sacrificepared to losing everything," an elder reasoned, revealing a sense of pragmatism.
Another elder chimed in, his voice tinged with wisdom. "We must consider the broader picture. Salesi and Evan, who serve her, pose a threat to our realm. Honoring the Serpent King''s allegedst words by preserving half of our artifacts and retaining a portion of our wealth may indeed provide us with the means to seek revenge against them."
In the midst of their deliberation, emotions ranging from skepticism to resignation and a desire for self-preservation were evident on the faces of the elders. They weighed the risks and benefits, acknowledging the overwhelming power of the Dark Lord and the futility of resistance.
Ultimately, a collective decision began to take shape as they reluctantly epted the reality of their situation and the necessity of making a deal with the Dark Lord. With heavy hearts and a hint of resignation, the elders prepared to honor their fallen king''s supposedst words and fulfill the Dark Lord''s demands, albeit with a sense of caution and a lingering doubt in their minds.
The elders reached a consensus, their voices uniting as they presented their conditions to the Dark Lord. The air was heavy with a mixture of apprehension and determination.
"We agree to your terms, Dark Lord," one of the elders spoke with a resolute tone. "But in return, you must promise to aid us in seeking revenge against Salesi and Evan when the timees."
A smug smile yed across Michael''s lips as he heard their request. His n was unfolding just as he had envisioned, manipting the elders to serve his ultimate agenda.
"I agree," Michael responded, his voiceced with feigned sincerity. "Rest assured, when the timees, I will help you exact your vengeance."
The elders, feeling a glimmer of hope in their hearts, thanked the Dark Lord for his willingness to support their cause.
"Very well," one of the elders said, bowing respectfully. "Please wait here while we gather the artifacts and wealth you require."
Michael''s eyes gleamed with a hint of caution as he issued a warning to the departing elders. "Remember, if you attempt to deceive me or withhold what is rightfully owed, the consequences will be dire. I trust you understand the gravity of your words."
The elders, now filled with a mixture of fear and determination, assured Michael of their sincerity. With a final nod, they disappeared from his sight, leaving him to await their return.
As Michael stood in the grand throne hall, a sense of satisfaction washed over him. His n was progressing wlessly, and he relished the control he had exerted over the elders. With patience and cunning, he knew he could exploit this alliance to further his own ambitions.
As Michael sat leisurely on the steps, swinging his legs back and forth, the sound of approaching footsteps caught his attention. The elders returned, led by Elder Mercia, who approached Michael with a sense of trepidation. In her outstretched hand, she held a silver space ring.
"Dark Lord, here is the ring containing what you have requested," Elder Mercia said, her voiceced with a mixture of awe and apprehension.
Michael epted the silver ring, his fingers delicately encircling it. With a simple touch, the ring responded, revealing its hidden contents. A smile spread across Michael''s face as he essed the space ring''s contents, his eyes lighting up with delight.
Within the ring, he discovered a vast collection of almost a billion gold coins, gleaming brightly in the mental image. Alongside the coins were an array of thirty powerful artifacts, their energy radiating palpably within the confines of the space ring.I think you should take a look at
"Thank you, Elder Mercia," Michael said, his voice oozing with a veneer of gratitude. "You have fulfilled your end of the bargain."
Elder Mercia nodded her expression a mix of relief and uncertainty. "We have kept our word, Dark Lord. May we trust that you will honor our agreement?"
Michael''s smile widened, a gleam of mischief glinting in his eyes. "Fear not, Elder Mercia. I always keep my promises,"
With that, Michael''s figure began to fade, slowly vanishing into thin air. They watched in awe and disbelief as the Dark Lord disappeared, their minds filled with a mix of uncertainty and resignation. They had made their pact with the devil, but now they were left to face the consequences of their choices.
Elder Mercia exhaled deeply, her voice barely a whisper. "May the gods be with us, for we have made a deal with the devil,"
In the depths of the ocean, far removed from the bustling city of Sea Serpent Hall, Michael materialized amidst the epassing darkness. The water around him seemed lifeless, devoid of any signs of marine existence. Undeterred by the immense pressure of the deep sea, he settled himself on the ocean floor.
With a simple gesture, Michael essed the space ring once again. A faint, golden glow emanated from within as he retrieved an artifact¡ªa glistening, intricately crafted crystal. He held it in his hand, its true nature and purpose unknown to him. However, such details mattered little to Michael. What truly captivated his attention was the pulsating energy it radiated.
In a deliberate and measured manner, Michael began to connect with the energy contained within the golden crystal. Like a conduit, he absorbed the energy, allowing it to flow through him. The power surged within his being, its essence transforming into experience points.
[Absorbing energy¡]
[Converting the energy into experience points¡]
[Experience points converted 400,000]
[Experience points converted 500,000]
As the energy dissipated into Michael''s being, he felt the familiar sensation of growth and progression. Experience points umted, fueling his ascent to even greater heights. The absorbed energy became a stepping stone on his path toward the Celestial stage. In this dark and lifeless abyss of the ocean floor, Michael continued to absorb the energy, converting it into the currency of his advancement.
With each artifact that passed through his hands, Michael converted its power into valuable experience points. The tranquil depths of the ocean provided him with the solitude he needed to focus on absorbing the artifacts. As the energy of the artifacts flowed into him, Michael felt his cultivation stage advancing, pushing him closer to the next levels of his Half Celestial power.
Surrounded by the serene and shadowy expanse of the ocean, Michael embraced the transformative energy of the artifacts.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Half Celestial stage level 5]
[Absorbing energy¡]
[Converting the energy into experience points¡]
[Experience points converted 500,000]
[Experience points converted 800,000]
¡
With the absorption of thest artifact, Michael''s cultivation journey reached a halt. He had ascended to the seventh level of the Half Celestial stage. Only four more levels remained between him and the Celestial stage, where the true power of a godly being awaited him.
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Half Celestial stage level 7]
This achievement brought him one step closer to his ultimate goal. Once he attained the Celestial stage, the System woulde online, triggering the tribtion that would propel him towards the next level of godhood- DemiGod.
Chapter 1024 The Battle Between The Gods is nearing
Chapter 1024 The Battle Between The Gods is nearing
The evening sky was adorned with dark rain clouds, casting a gloomy hue over the horizon. Thunder rumbled in the distance, apanied by intermittent shes of lightning that illuminated the vast canyon below. The air was charged with anticipation as if nature itself sensed the impending storm.
Amidst this atmospheric disy, Evan soared through the turbulent skies toward the Kingdom of Bredia. His mind was consumed with worry for Victoria, his beloved, who had been taken hostage by the treacherous Dark Queen. Determined to ensure her safety, Evan focused all his energy on reaching her side.
As he flew, a thought crossed Evan''s mind ¡ª seeking help from Salesi, the former Queen of Nagnd. He knew that Salesi possessed great knowledge and powers that could potentially dispel the poison coursing through Victoria''s veins. However, the fear of endangering Victoria''s life prevented him from reaching out to Salesi. He believed that if he exposed the situation to Salesi, the Dark Lord might activate the poison and bring harm to Victoria.
In his heart, Evan harbored conflicting emotions. On one hand, he desired to save Victoria at any cost. On the other hand, he feltpelled to keep the truth hidden to protect her from further harm.
Salesi observed Evan using a ss orb while floating above Victoria''s mansion as Evan made his way toward this mansion in Kingdom Bredia. She blended seamlessly with the dark clouds hovering high wealth and opulence of its inhabitants. But the tranquility of the mansion grounds had been shattered, reced by the remnants of in the sky while keeping a close eye on the scene below.
The mansion stood proudly, a grand structure amidst the chaos. Its walls were adorned with intricate designs, a testament to the wealth and opulence of its inhabitants. But the tranquility of the mansion grounds had been shattered, reced by the remnants of a fierce battle.
Lifeless bodies of soldiersy scattered across the ground, their armors cracked open, and bodies riddled with multiple wounds. Arrows, sharp and deadly, had found their mark, leaving visible holes in the fallen soldiers'' forms. The once pristine mansion ground was now stained with the vivid red of spilled blood, a chilling testament to the violence that had unfolded.
The grandeur of the estate had been marred by destruction. Fountains stood broken, their gentle streams reced by a solemn silence. Statues, once graceful and elegant, now bore the scars ofbat, their delicate features chipped and broken.
Hovering behind Salesi was a peculiar figure¡ªa humanoid body with the majestic head of an eagle. This unique creature, known as Stormwing, was one of Salesi''s secretive henchmen, adept at carrying out her ndestine tasks.
"Stormwing, Evan has beenpromised," Salesi''s voice rang out with an icy tone, her gaze piercing. The evidence pointed clearly to the Dark Queen''s involvement, considering the soldiers in the mansion had been mercilessly in. The Dark Queen''s signature aerial assault left no chance for the soldiers to fight back. Yet, she had spared Victoria''s life, leaving strategic leverage against Evan, Victoria''s betrothed.
Stormwing, being no stranger to intelligence, understood the situation without requiring further exnation. It was evident that the Dark Queen intended to strike a bargain with Evan, exploiting his emotional ties to Victoria.
"Mydy, how would you like me to handle Evan? It poses a challenge since you have elevated him to the status of a god," Stormwing voiced, its rough voice reflecting its beastly nature.
Salesi shook her head in response to Stormwing''s suggestion. "You are mistaken, Stormwing. The god-killing arrows, even if retrieved by Noah, can only y either him or the Dark Lord. They are single-use weapons, unable to be replicated or merged into a new form. Once the Dark Lord perishes, the arrows themselves will cease to exist," Salesi revealed. Through the information shared by the evil version of Andreas, now merged with Noah, Salesi had gained insights into the true nature of the god killing arrows.
However, unknown to Noah and the majority of beings in the realm of gods, there was no universal weapon capable of ying all gods. Each god possessed unique characteristics and vulnerabilities, making it impossible for a single weapon to be effective against all of them. The details surrounding the forging of the god-killing arrows by Qin Jiu and herpanions remained a mystery to most gods. In fact, the pantheon deliberately kept the existence of such powerful weapons concealed from many gods to prevent widespread panic within the realm.
Salesi had her suspicions regarding Qin Jiu''s methods. She believed that Qin Jiu had utilized her time travel abilities to uncover ancient texts, delving into forgotten knowledge on how to craft the arrows capable of vanquishing the Dark Lord. Given that the Dark Lord and Noah, the God of Light, were born as twins in the mortal realm, the god-killing arrows held the potential to eliminate either of them. If Salesi''s understanding of the pantheon proved urate, she surmised that the pantheon must possess a means to subdue each individual god within their realm, should any god rebel against their rule. However, the details of such methods remained closely guarded secrets, even to Salesi herself.
"Then how do you propose we handle Evan, mydy? The longer we allow Evan to roam freely, the greater the potential damage he can inflict upon our entire operation," stated Stormwing, observing the calcting smile that crept across Salesi''s face.
"If Evan has indeed struck a deal with the Dark Lord, his actions will undoubtedly revolve around the life of Victoria. The Dark Lord will undoubtedly use Victoria as a pawn to manipte Evan into carrying out his bidding. However, if we eliminate this pawn, Victoria, the Dark Lord''s hold over Evan will crumble. Evan is a valuable asset that we cannot afford to let slip away," exined Salesi. Stormwing, who had served under Salesi for many years, recognized the shrewd and cunning aura emanating from her words. He understood that Salesi''s every action held deeper meaning and intricate ns.
Many believed that it was Salesi''s leadership that brought about the decline of Nagnd, even her stepdaughter Gaya. However, only a select few, such as Stormwing, knew that the decline of Nagnd was actually part of Salesi''s grand design. For years, Stormwing and his team had carried out covert operations, targeting key figures within Nagnd and its allies, effectively weakening the kingdom from within. By destabilizing Nagnd, Salesi removed it from the equation and eliminated a formidable ally that the Dark Lord could have exploited. Salesi''s strategic moves ensured that the Dark Lord had no interest in iming Nagnd for himself.
Presently, Salesi was utilizing Nagnd''s hidden reserves of poisonous veins to produce potent poison weapons, which would prove crucial in the impending war against the Dark Lord.
"Eliminate Victoria, Stormwing. Make it appear as though her death is idental. If the Dark Lord truly struck a deal with Evan, we cannot orchestrate her demise to make it seem like the Dark Lord was responsible. It would raise suspicions and Evan might grow wary. However, if her death appears to be an unfortunate ident, the Dark Lord will lose his hold over Evan. This will enable Evan to focus his energies on defeating the Dark Lord''s army, without the distraction of his fiancee. I can channel his grief and anger towards our advantage," Salesi coldlymanded Stormwing, instructing him to kill Victoria.
While Salesi was aiding Noah in collecting the god-killing arrows, she was well aware that two of the arrows were already in possession of the Dark Lord. Hence, Noah would require all the support he could muster to retrieve those arrows during their eventual confrontation. Salesi was also confident that the Dark Lord would spare no effort in his fight against Noah, amassing his formidable army. Therefore, she nned to allocate a portion of her own army, which she was currently amassing, to aid Noah in his battle. As Noah shed with the Dark Lord, her forces would engage the Dark Lord''s army, ensuring their destruction.
"When should this be carried out, mydy?" confidently inquired Stormwing. To him, staging a murder to appear as an ident was a simple task.
"Give Evan a few more days with Victoria, then carry out her demise next week," Salesi replied, disying no remorse for her decision. In Salesi''s mind, anyone could be sacrificed in the fight against the Dark Lord.
"Shall I take my leave, mydy?" inquired Stormwing, bowing his head slightly.
"Hmm," Salesi responded as Stormwing unfurled his majestic gray wings and took flight. With a single powerful p, he soared through the dark clouds, swiftly disappearing from sight.
Once Stormwing had departed, Salesi retrieved a glowing silver orb from her pocket. The orb emanated a pulsating golden light from its core.
"What is it, Andreas?" Salesi questioned, addressing the glowing orb.
"We have a problem. Noah''s bitchy little sister, Sabrina, is on her way to dissuade him from engaging in battle with the Dark Lord. Something must be done," Andreas informed.
"Noah will not heed her words. We don''t need to intervene but rather redirect Sabrina to see the Dark Lord. If we''re fortunate, Sabrina''s presence may dampen the Dark Lord''s eagerness to fight Noah, serving as an advantage for us. When Sabrina arrives to meet Noah, instruct her to visit the dark castle," Salesi instructed.
"I don''t believe it''s a wise decision. What if the Dark Lord attempts to manipte Sabrina for his own purposes? Have you forgotten who we are dealing with¡ªthe Dark Lord himself?" Andreas growled, expressing his concerns. However, Salesi remainedposed.
"Do as I say, Andreas. The battle between Noah and the Dark Lord is inevitable. We simply need to ensure Noah emerges victorious," Salesi dered firmly, clenching the orb in her hand and shattering it into pieces.
As the impending battle between the Dark Lord and Noah drew near, Salesi had important matters to attend to, one of which was the mass production of various pills and potions for her army. To aplish this, Salesi sought out the current renowned alchemist in the world, Olivia Palmer, who coincidentally happened to be the Dark Lord''s former disciple.
Salesi had been closely monitoring Olivia''s activities ever since Ghost revealed himself as the Dark Lord, which led to Olivia severing her ties with him. Based on Salesi''s information and intelligencework, Olivia was no longer affiliated with the Dark Lord. However, she still possessed the knowledge and teachings he had imparted to her in the field of alchemy. Salesi nned to leverage Olivia''s expertise and enlist her aid in supporting Noah''s battle against the Dark Lord and his formidable army.
Chapter 1025 Diana Winston and the Light Flames
Chapter 1025 Diana Winston and the Light mes
Aftermanding Stormwing to carry out the task of eliminating Victoria, Salesi departed from the Elon continent and arrived in her secluded pocket dimension. As she materialized within her castle, she made her way directly to her personal quarters.
Salesi''s room exuded an aura of warmth andfort. Adorned with rich red curtains, a cozy bed, and an array of furnishings, it emanated a sense of luxury. Countless books, maps, and scrolls adorned the room, reflecting Salesi''s thirst for knowledge and strategy. The soft glow of candlelight illuminated the space, casting a gentle, flickering ambiance. Portraits of Salesi adorned one of the walls, capturing hermanding presence and enigmatic nature.
Upon entering the room, Salesi securely closed the door behind her. Retrieving a dagger from her space ring, she made a small cut on her palm, allowing droplets of blood to fall. With her bleeding hand, she pressed her palm against the door. In response, intricate crimson runes illuminated on the surface, apanied by a distinct clicking sound. Satisfied with the enhanced security, Salesi directed her attention toward one of the portraits hanging on the wall.
Studying the portrait intently, Salesi shook her palm, causing droplets of blood to stter upon it. As the crimson stains connected with the portrait, a gentle hum resonated from within. Suddenly, bright beams of light shot forth from the portrait''s eyes, enveloping Salesi in their radiant glow. Within a blink of an eye, she vanished from the room, leaving behind only the illuminated portrait.
Using the teleported in Salesi''s room, she appeared in one of the special prisons of the Skyhall. Stepping into this prison which was an empty hall, Salesi''s gaze fell upon a solitary ss cage upying the center. Within the confines of the cage, a woman with flowing ck hair sat in deep meditation. Her hair gracefully fluttered behind her, and a palpable aura of power radiated from her very being.
Approaching the ss cage with measured steps, Salesi extended her hand to touch the cool surface. A mischievous smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she whispered, "Wake up, Harriet,"
After Diana revealed the shocking truth that the Dark Lord was her own son, the Skyhall deemed her dangerous and locked her away in a specially designed cage.
For an entire year, Diana had been confined within the cold, restrictive confines of the cage. Its purpose was twofold: to prevent her from essing her powers and to iste her from any human contact. Only Salesi, who harbored a deep-rooted hatred for the Dark Lord, would visit Diana, ensuring her captivity remained absolute.
As Salesi stood before the ss cage, she observed Diana''s weary expression. The once fierce and proud woman now appeared diminished, her spirit dampened by the prolonged imprisonment. Diana''s powers, once formidable, were nullified by the cage''s enchantments, leaving her defenseless and vulnerable.
A mixture of pity and satisfaction flickered in Salesi''s eyes as she regarded Diana. The woman who had given birth to the Dark Lord, the one who had caused so much chaos and destruction, was now reduced to a mere captive. For Salesi, this was both a form of justice and a means to further her own ambitions.
As Salesi taunted Diana, she slowly opened her eyes, her gaze steady and resolute. Unfazed by Salesi''s provocations, Diana refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing her beg for information about her family. She knew Salesi reveled in the power she held over her, but Diana was determined to maintain herposure.
Salesi smirked, relishing in her role as the bearer of ominous news. "It is happening, Diana, or should I say Harriet Hunt," she taunted, emphasizing Diana''s past identity.
With a calm demeanor, Diana responded, "Your two sons are preparing to fight each other. There is nothing to stop them from killing each other. Especially Noah, he is pretty pissed off because of what the Dark Lord, his own brother did,"
Salesi snickered at Diana''s words, reveling in the chaos that was about to unfold. "Dean might have swung his sword, but it was you and the Skyhall who orchestrated Alicia''s death. You could have stopped it, but you didn''t," Diana used.
Salesi''sughter filled the air, a twisted symphony of malice. "Look at you, still ming the Skyhall, even after I''ve told you that your two sons are destined to sh."
Diana remained steadfast, refusing to be swayed by Salesi''s maniptions. "I know my sons, Salesi. They will not kill each other. But perhaps you should be more concerned for your own well-being. Noah may be forgiving, but my other son, the Dark Lord, is not known for his mercy."
Enraged by Diana''s calmposure, Salesi retrieved a crystal adorned with intricate runes. This crystal, a rare possession held only by a select few within the Skyhall, granted Salesi control over Diana. Establishing a mental connection with the crystal, Salesi tightly clenched her fist, causing a specific rune to illuminate on the ss cage.
The effect was immediate and agonizing. Diana growled in pain as the rune activated, triggering her pain receptors to overload. Waves of excruciating sensation coursed through her body, causing blood to trickle from her nose and eyes.
Salesi, driven by her sadistic tendencies, intensified her grip on the crystal, prolonging Diana''s torment. With each surge of energy she directed into the crystal, Diana''s suffering escted. The pain became unbearable, pushing Diana to her limits.
However, realizing her time was limited, Salesi relented, willing the crystal to release its hold on Diana. The agony subsided, leaving Diana panting and weakened from the ordeal.
"As much as I love these little torture sessions," Salesi sneered, "I am pressed for time. With Noah poised to fight the Dark Lord, it falls upon me to ensure Noah''s victory and put an end to the Dark Lord''s reign before it even begins."
Salesi''s gaze bore into Diana''s, a chilling intensity emanating from her eyes. "To ensure Noah''s sess, I need the power of your Light mes. We both know they rightfully belong to Noah, the God of Light."
Upon hearing Salesi''s request, Diana emitted a pained chuckle, spitting blood from her mouth. Salesi''s demand did not catch Diana off guard, for she knew that one day the Skyhall or Salesi herself woulde seeking her primordial me - the Light mes. However, Diana had no intention of surrendering her primordial mes to Salesi.
With a resolute tone, Diana retorted, "I have a better idea. Why don''t you go fuck yourself?"
Salesi''s lips curled into a sinister smirk, seemingly unfazed by Diana''s defiance. "Is that how a properdy speaks, Diana? It seems the Dark Lord has inherited his mother''s traits. He truly is his mother''s son. But, as I mentioned before, I find myself pressed for time. Hence, I have brought forth a little trump card that might persuade you to relinquish your Light mes."
With a swift flick of her wrist, Salesi conjured a mirror crafted from shimmering light. Within the mirror''s surface, an unsettling scene unfolded. A battered and bruised man with a long beard, unkempt hair, and countless wounds appeared before Diana''s eyes. Pools of blood formed beneath him as hey unconscious in a dungeon adorned with various implements of torture, such as chains, barbed wire, and a collection of menacing daggers. The man, chained to a wall, seemed to be in a state of profound suffering.
As Diana''s gaze met the man''s visage, her heart skipped a beat, a surge of anger and anguish piercing through her. The man was none other than Ethan, her beloved husband.
As Diana''s gaze shifted to the orc beside Ethan, her heart sank further. The orc stood tall and imposing, his hulking form exuding an aura of brutality. His muscr physique was covered in coarse, greenish skin, adorned with scars and markings earned from countless battles. His beady eyes glinted with a sadistic gleam, and his crooked tusks protruded menacingly from his lower jaw.
"Release the Light mes," Salesi uttered with a chilling tone. "Each time you refuse, mypanion here," she pointed towards the orc, to carry out Salesi''s ruthlessmands.
"will delight in dismembering your husband, limb by agonizing limb."
Salesi''s words hung in the air, their weight suffocating. The orc, known for his expertise in inflicting unimaginable pain, stood ready to carry out Salesi''s ruthlessmands.
Diana was stuck between tough dire choices once again. But while she was stuck in her thoughts, Salesi gave themand to the orc.
"Take his right arm," coldly said Salesi.
Diana''s heart sank as Salesi''smand was swiftly executed by the orc. The sound of Ethan''s agonized screams pierced the air, reverberating through the deste hall. Horror consumed Diana as she watched in despair as her husband''s right arm was violently torn from his shoulder. Blood gushed from the wound, staining the surroundings with its crimson hue.
"Now if you don''t want your husband to lose the other arm, I''ll rmend you to give me the Light mes,"
The orc presented the severed arm to Salesi, a grim reminder of the barbarity Diana had witnessed. Salesi''s cold words cut through the air, leaving Diana with a harrowing ultimatum - surrender the Light mes or risk her husband suffering further torment.
"No!" Diana''s voice cracked with anguish, her plea desperate and filled with anguish. The sight of Ethan''s suffering fueled her determination, yet she remained torn between protecting her precious power and saving her beloved spouse.
Salesi nodded at the orc, worldly telling him to rip Ethan''s other arm. However, before the orc could touch Ethan, Diana roared.
"Stop it!" Diana screamed.
Salesi observed Diana''s agony and her reluctant submission with a twisted satisfaction. The orc halted, its hand frozen in midair, as Diana''s desperate plea echoed through the prison''s cold walls.
"Stop hurting him. Ill give you the Light mes,"
Reluctantly, Diana made a painful decision, her voiceden with a mixture of anger and despair. She agreed to surrender the Light mes, knowing that it was the only way to spare Ethan from further suffering. With a heavy heart, she closed her eyes, allowing the deep connection to the Light mes within her soul to surface. A radiant glow enveloped her body as the powerful essence of the Light mes materialized in a dazzling disy. Taking the form of a luminous star, the mes exuded a brilliant energy.
Salesi, seizing the opportunity, clenched the crystal in her hand, triggering a rune that swiftly extracted the Primordial Light mes from Diana''s being. In an instant, the mes were whisked away to the mortal realm, where they would seek their destined host, Noah Winston.
"That wasn''t so hard, was it?"
Satisfied with her aplishment, Salesi turned her back to leave the prison, her dark intentions evident. As she prepared to take her first step, Diana''s words pierced the air with chilling determination.
"Kill me now Salesi. If you don''t, I will get out of this cage, i will find you and i will kill you. That is a promise," Diana''s voice dripped with a cold resolve, her eyes radiating an intense and unyielding determination.
Chapter 1026 Sabrina鈥檚 Plea To Her Brothers I
Noah stood in awe as he gazed at the meticulously crafted armor before him. Its surface gleamed with a pristine white hue, reflecting the light in a mesmerizing manner. Intricate golden linings adorned every edge, entuating the armor''s regal appearance. Runes, delicately engraved, formed a pattern that seemed to dance across the surface, imbuing the armor with a mystical aura.
Beside the armor, a pair of swords rested with lion heads adorning their hilts. The swords emanated a sense of power and elegance, their des polished to a mirror-like sheen. The lion heads bore a fierce expression, a symbol of strength and courage.
Andreas, Noah''s trusted advisor, stepped forward, his eyes fixed on the magnificent armor. He began to unravel its origins and significance. "This armor," he began, his voice filled with reverence, "was crafted by the Han Torum dwarves. We both know that they were master artisans known for their exceptional craftsmanship."
Andreas continued, "It is a pity they disbanded their n due to the Dark Lord''s impending threat. This armor, Noah, is one of their greatest creations. It is said to provide unparalleled protection and enhance the wearer''s abilities."
Noah''s eyes widened with anticipation. He understood the gravity of the uing battle against the Dark Lord and the need for every advantage. "Teacher, this armor... It is beautiful,"
Andreas nodded, a solemn expression crossing his face. "Yes Noah, it is beautiful. But the armor is imbued with ancient enchantments, enhancing not only your defense but also your agility and strength. It will be a formidable asset in your quest to defeat the Dark Lord."
Noah reached out, running his fingers over the intricate engravings on the armor. He could feel the power resonating within it. "Thank you, Teacher. We need every advantage we can get," Noah dered, his voice filled with a newfound resolve.
Andreas ced a hand on Noah''s shoulder, his gaze reflecting unwavering loyalty. "Remember, Noah, you are the hope of this realm. The fate of countless lives rests on your shoulders. This armor is but a tool to aid you in your noble cause."
As Noah admired the intricate details of the Han Torum armor, little did he know that the man standing beside him was not the trustworthy mentor he hade to rely upon. This version of Andreas was merely an evil fragment of his soul, pretending to be his guide, subtly manipting him to fulfill Salesi''s sinister agenda.
Andreas, or rather the imposter, maintained a facade of unwavering loyalty, his voice filled with a deceptive warmth. "Noah, this armor will undoubtedly be the key to your victory against the Dark Lord. Trust in its power and let it guide you in the uing battle."
Noah, consumed by his determination to defeat his twin brother and bring an end to the Dark Lord''s reign, eagerly epted his words without suspicion. He believed in the bond he had forged with Andreas, unaware that it had been tainted by deceit.
Together, they made ns, discussing strategies and tactics to confront the Dark Lord. Noah shared his deepest fears and vulnerabilities, trusting his mentor with his innermost thoughts. Little did he know that every word spoken in confidence was being ryed back to Salesi, the puppeteer pulling the strings.
As the days passed, Noah continued to train relentlessly, honing his skills and donning the Han Torum armor, unaware that his every move was being scrutinized by the imposter beside him. The evil version of Andreas reveled in his role, gathering information and plotting his next move.
In Noah''s eyes, he saw only the reflection of the mentor he had grown to trust, but behind that fa?ade lurked a darker intent. The imposter understood that as Noah''s powers grew, so too did the threat he posed to the Dark Lord''s reign.
At the moment, Noah stood atop the serene mountain peak, surrounded by the breathtaking beauty of nature. The rising sun painted the sky with vibrant hues, while the distant ocean expanded endlessly, its waves crashing against the shoreline. The tranquil atmosphere provided a sense of peace and rity, a much-needed respite from the impending battle that loomed ahead.
Lost in his training, Noah suddenly noticed a figure gracefully soaring through the sky towards him. A smile spread across his face as he recognized the familiar form of his beloved younger sister, Sabrina. With a softnding, she approached him, her eyes sparkling with joy and her heart filled with anticipation.
Without hesitation, Sabrina lunged forward, embracing her big brother with all her might. Noah reciprocated the embrace, holding her tightly against his chest. Tears streamed down Sabrina''s cheeks as she whispered, "I missed you so much, Noah."
Noah''s voice trembled with emotion as he replied, "I missed you too, Sabrina. You have no idea how much." They stood locked in a heartfelt embrace, the weight of their separation lifting with each passing moment.
Finally releasing each other, Noah wiped away Sabrina''s tears and gazed into her eyes.
Sabrina''s eyes filled with concern as she asked Noah about their parents and their elder sister, Rowena. Her voice quivered with worry as she hoped for positive news. Noah took a deep breath, his gaze filled with a mixture of sadness and determination.
"Father and Mother are imprisoned by the Skyhall," Noah revealed, his voice tinged with a hint of frustration. Sabrina''s eyes widened in understanding, for she too was aware of the Skyhall''s cruel actions.I think you should take a look at
"They will only be released after I defeat... Ghost," Noah continued, using the name by which he referred to the Dark Lord. Sabrina''s brows furrowed, and her voice trembled as she pleaded with him.
"Noah, there must be another way. We shouldn''t have to fight our own brother," Sabrina implored, her voice filled with a mix of desperation and sadness. She clutched Noah''s arm, her eyes searching his for any sign of hesitation.
Noah shook his head gently, his expression resolute. "Sabrina, you must understand. The Dark Lord is not our family anymore. He has embraced darkness and poses a threat to the world. If I don''t stop him, countless lives will be lost."
Sabrina''s eyes welled up with tears as she struggled to ept Noah''s words. The reality of the situation weighed heavily on her, the thought of her own brother transformed into a malevolent force difficult toprehend.
As Noah''s words sank in, Sabrina''s mind raced with memories of her encounters with Ghost. Even before learning his true identity as her brother, she had always felt an unexinable connection to him. When Sabrina was captured by vampires, she had secretly prayed for her brother toe and save her, and to her surprise, it was Ghost who appeared to rescue her.
Despite the worldbeling Ghost as the embodiment of evil, Sabrina refused to ept that her brother was truly wicked. She held onto the belief that there was still goodness within him, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
"If we can find Rowena, she will be able to release Mother and Father. She wouldn''t allow her own brothers to fight to the death," Sabrina asserted, clenching her fist with determination, yearning for their elder sister to be by their side.
Noah sighed, knowing that Rowena''s whereabouts remained a mystery. Many believed she had perished, but Noah knew deep down that it would take more than a celestial beam to extinguish her indomitable spirit.
"This battle between Ghost and me must happen, Sabrina. He took Alicia''s life... She was my wife. I must avenge her," Noah confessed, his voice tinged with a hint of vulnerability.
"Noah, you must understand that Alicia had the opportunity to walk away," Sabrina exined, her voice filled with empathy. "But her heart was consumed by the intense hatred she felt towards Ghost for what he had done to her brother. It was that overwhelming hatred that fueled her determination to confront him."
As Sabrina spoke, Noah raised his hand, signifying his desire to interject and share his own perspective.
"If I were to kill Gaya, Ghost''s wife, would that be enough for him to forgive me?" Noah posed the question, his voice heavy with the weight of theirplicated family dynamics.
"The feud between Ghost and the Skyhall has endured for far too long, Sabrina. I must bring an end to it, regardless of the fact that he is my brother," Noah concluded, his heart burdened by the difficult choices he had to make.
"You should return to the Akn realm and stay there until the battle is over, Sabi," Noah''s voice trembled with emotion, his eyes welling up with tears. His love and concern for his sister were palpable in his words. "If something happens to me in the battle, I need you to be safe and find a way to save our family."
Sabrina''s heart skipped a beat upon hearing Noah''s plea. Her mind and emotions were thrown into turmoil. On one hand, there was Noah, her brother whom she had known and grown up with since childhood. On the other hand, there was Ghost, her recently discovered brother who had been abandoned by their mother. Sabrina couldn''t bear the thought of either of her brothers falling in a battle, regardless of how long she had known them.
"I refuse to stand by and watch my brothers fight each other. I will find a way to stop both of you," Sabrina dered, her voice filled with newfound determination.
Noah looked slightly surprised at her resolve, but deep inside, he sighed, understanding Sabrina''s naivety. As he looked into her eyes, Sabrina embraced him once again, holding him tightly.
"I will not let our family be torn apart," she whispered, her voice filled with conviction. Noah returned her embrace, a gentle smile forming on his lips. However, unbeknownst to Noah, as Sabrina hugged him, Sabrina retrieved a teleportation scroll from her belongings. Activating it swiftly, she spoke resolutely, "I am doing this for the sake of our family."
In an instant, a radiant white light enveloped Sabrina, whisking her away before Noah could react. She disappeared from his sight, leaving him with a mix of emotions.
Before Noah could react, Sabrina vanished from his sight, transported to another location. With unwavering determination, Sabrina set her sights on the Dark Castle, where she intended to confront Ghost, her other brother.
Chapter 1027 Sabrina鈥檚 Plea To Her Brothers II
After using the teleportation scroll, Sabrina found herself at the edge of the dark ocean. It was the first time she hadid her eyes upon this foreboding body of water, as her previous knowledge had onlye from books and newspapers. As she stood on the beach with its ck sand, Sabrina understood why it was called the dark ocean. Stretching out before her was an endless expanse of ck water, while the sky above was filled with menacing storm clouds and lightning bolts illuminating the darkened sky. The wind howled with an eerie sound, and in the distance, she could spot several tornadoes swirling between the sky and the ocean, forming an otherworldly bridge.
In the far horizon, she caught a glimpse of her brother''s floating mountain, the Dark Lord''s stronghold, hovering above the dark ocean. Sabrina knew that once she crossed the boundary line, known as the void line, she would no longer be able to rely on arch energy to fly. So, reaching the floating mountain by air was not an option.
With a flick of her wrist, Sabrina summoned a golden cube, one of the many artifacts she had acquired during her time at Mazeroth Academy. As she lightly tapped the cube with her toe, it transformed into a magnificent golden boat. This boat was a gift from Wulfric, the headmaster of Mazeroth, awarded to Sabrina for her victory in a duel. It had wings attached to its sides, resembling a fantastical creature. Sabrina climbed aboard the boat, grasping the paddle firmly. The wings on the boat began to p, harnessing the power of the wind through intricate gears and mechanisms, propelling the boat forward with remarkable speed.
As Sabrina''s boat forged ahead, battling against the tumultuous waves and the raging storm, it shuddered under the relentless assault. Nevertheless, Sabrina remained resolute, maintaining her steady grip on the paddle. Though she knew that her brother, the Dark Lord, would not be awaiting her in the dark castle atop the floating mountain, she held onto the hope that he would be watching from a distance, ready to meet her.
The closer she drew to the towering floating mountain, the more ferocious the weather became. Dark clouds loomed overhead, unleashing their fury in the form of thunderous roars and shes of lightning. Amidst the tempest, Sabrina caught sight of figures d in gleaming silver and sky-blue armor, their wings of feathers shimmering in the stormy sky. With a single nce, she recognized them as the Skyhall angels, the very beings who had brought their wrath upon the world since her mother, Diana, revealed the truth about the Dark Lord being her son. Their presence had ushered in a wave of change, and they had captured the dark castle.
Sabrina couldn''t help but ponder why the Dark Lord''s army had retreated rather than putting up a fight. The whereabouts of his vampires and undead forces remained a mystery, leaving her with lingering questions and doubts. Yet, for now, she set aside those concerns, pushing them to the recesses of her mind. All she could do was cling to the hope that her brother, the Dark Lord, woulde to her. In her heart, she believed that making her way toward the Dark Castle and relying on the chance that he might be watching over his stronghold was her only avenue to meet him.
As the boat battled the fierce waves, a group of Skyhall angels descended from the dark clouds, their graceful forms hovering in the sky. Their ethereal presence enveloped the air around them, their wings outstretched as they encircled Sabrina''s boat. Among them, one angel stood out, adorned in silver armor with intricate gold and crimson red linings that shimmered in the dim light. With a determined expression, he removed his helmet, revealing fiery red hair and a dark-skinned face marked by a prominent scar running across his left eye.
His voice resonated with a mixture of curiosity and disdain as he asked, "What business do you have, venturing towards the dark castle?"
Sabrina''s eyes met his, and without hesitation, she replied, "I am hoping to meet the Dark Lord."
The angel''s snicker carried a hint of bitter resentment as he clenched his fist, his rage simmering beneath the surface. The memories of the Nagnd war flooded his mind, where he believed his brother had been in by the Dark Lord. The pain of that loss burned within him, fueling his determination.
"You hope to meet the Dark Lord?" he scoffed. "Do you not know the atrocities he hasmitted? The lives he has destroyed?"
Sabrina maintained herposure, refusing to engage in a futile argument with the enraged angel. She understood the prejudice held by some of the Skyhall angels towards her and her family, but she also knew the truth was far moreplex than their narrow perspectives allowed.
The angel''s voice dripped with venom as he continued his tirade, his anger palpable. "Your brother, that evil scumbag, has brought darkness upon this world. Your mother''s decision to give birth to such a devil has caused nothing but pain and suffering."
Silently, Sabrina bore the weight of his words. She was well aware of the judgments and usations that had been cast upon her family. Despite her inner turmoil, she knew it was futile to argue or reason with the angel. The prejudice against her and her family was deeply ingrained, and she understood that attempting to change their minds in this moment would be an exercise in futility.
The angel''s voice grew colder as he delivered his final words. "The Dark Lord is not in his castle; it is under the control of the Skyhall. Consider yourself fortunate to have been admitted to Mazeroth and granted protection. But know this: in my eyes, you and your entire family can rot in hell."
"If I were you, I would fly away and disappear from my sight," Sabrina finally spoke, her voice carrying a warning that resonated through the dark ocean.I think you should take a look at
"Do you think I am foolish for venturing into the depths of the dark ocean, knowing that the Dark Lord is not in the castle? Have you ever stopped to consider that I am here because I know he will be watching, observing everything within his domain? Do you truly believe he would allow you to retain control of the castle for long?" Sabrina''s questions hung in the air, causing the Skyhall angels to pause and contemte the true meaning behind her words.
"I am here to talk to the Dark Lord and if you get out of my way, I will take him somewhere else and talk. Otherwise, he will ughter you all," Sabrina''s words carried a sense of determination and an underlying warning, causing a flicker of uncertainty to pass through the angels'' eyes.
As the angel leader snickered, his twisted grin revealing his dark intentions, he confidently asserted, "Although I cannot kill you, little girl, I can certainly ensure you leave this ce with a few broken bones. Consider it a lesson in humility."
With those words, the angel began his descent, his wings gracefully guiding him downward toward Sabrina''s boat. The intricate contraptions embedded in their armor, powered by arch energy crystals from the Akn realm, granted the angels the ability to fly and enhanced theirbat prowess.
However, Sabrina remainedposed and steadfast, her gaze unwavering as the angelnded on her boat with a resounding thud. Ignoring the threatening presence before her, she refused to flinch or disy any sign of fear.
Raising his hand, the angel prepared to deliver a forceful p to Sabrina, confident in his ability to intimidate her.
As the angel leader''s hand descended towards Sabrina, a sudden eruption of hot blood sttered across her face. The angel leader''s expression twisted in agony and confusion as he stared at his arm, which now ended abruptly at the missing wrist. Blood sprayed from the severed limb, painting the air in crimson hues.
A moment of shock and disbelief held the other angels captive as their eyes followed the dark trajectory of a floating sword. The ck de glistened with a macabre sheen, dripping with the evidence of its lethal strike. With a steady and deliberate motion, the sword soared through the air, homing in on its intended target¡ªthe Dark Lord himself.
Sabrina turned her head and beheld the awe-inspiring sight of her brother, the Dark Lord, suspended in the air. Hismanding presence radiated power, entuated by the spread of his ck metallic wings. The wind tousled his dark hair, framing his stoic countenance as his cold gaze fixated upon the angels, their impending doom evident in his piercing eyes.
As the Dark Lord, returned to his domain, the angels of the Skyhall quivered in fear, witnessing his formidable presence firsthand. Their eyes met his for a fleeting moment, before he shifted his gaze towards them. A sinister darkness enveloped the area, as his eyes flickered with an eerie hue, ignited by the ominous mes that danced within.
Though the Skyhall angels boasted their arch energy crystal-infused armor, the Dark Lord held absolute dominion over the dark ocean. Crackling bolts of dark lightning emanated from his outstretched hand, an awe-inspiring disy of his power.
"Dark Lord," the angels muttered, their voices tinged with apprehension. However, before they could mount any defense, the Dark Lord unleashed a barrage of lightning bolts, each one piercing through their heads with deadly precision. In an instant, the angels plummeted from the sky, lifeless forms descending like fallen flies. The Dark Lord''s might was unrivaled, and the Skyhall angels were but feeble adversaries before him.
Once the fallen angelsy still upon the ocean''s surface, the Dark Lord approached Sabrina, his intense gaze locking with hers. In her desperation, Sabrina mustered the courage to plead with him, hoping he would grant her a moment to speak.
"Please, Ghost, give me the opportunity to talk to you," Sabrina beseeched, her voice filled with a mixture of hope and uncertainty, her heart yearning for a chance to reach her brother''s troubled soul.
"If you are here to stop the fight between your brother Noah and me, you are going to be disappointed. Soon, only one of us will stand and the other will fall," the Dark Lord dered with an air of finality.
Chapter 1028 Sabrina鈥檚 Plea To Her Brothers III
After dispatching the Skyhall angels, Michael carried Sabrina in his arms and swiftly flew away from the dark ocean. Within minutes, theynded on the worn-out premises of an abandoned castle in Kingdom Gisel. Michael, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon, spoke with a solemn tone.
"Sabrina, why have youe here?" he inquired, his eyes scanning the vast expanse before him.
"You know why I am here. I want to stop my brothers from killing each other," Sabrina replied, her hands fidgeting nervously as she stood a few meters away from him on the rooftop.
"Though we share the same mother, Sabrina, I am not your brother. I have never been and never will be. So, I will fight Noah not as a sibling, but as the Dark Lord, as the world hasbeled me," Michael firmly asserted, unwavering in his determination to face Noah in battle.
As Michael continued to gaze into the distance, Sabrina mustered her courage and closed the distance between them, taking hold of Michael''s hand.
"You are my brother. No matter what you think or what the world says, I don''t care. You are my brother," Sabrina proimed, her eyes welling up with tears.
Caught off guard by Sabrina''s words, Michael slowly turned his head, his gaze meeting hers.
"We both understand that the Skyhall seeks to manipte the situation, forcing you and Noah into this conflict. But you two possess the strength to face any challenge. Stand against the Skyhall and destroy them," Sabrina pleaded, her words tinged with a hint of uncertainty.
"I am fighting the Skyhall, Sabrina. I will destroy them but your brother is standing in my way. Let me ask you this Sabrina, will Noah back down from this fight?" Michael asked, his voice tinged with a mix of certainty and curiosity.
As anticipated, Sabrina remained silent, unable to provide a definitive response to Michael''s query.
"There was a time I tried to change the world''s view of me. But not anymore. I am tired of exining my state to the world," Michael sighed, his weariness evident in his voice.
""You killed his wife, Ghost. I understand she was always a bitch to you for what you did to her brother but you could have knocked her out easily but you killed her. Would you back off of this fight if something happened to Gaya?" Sabrina challenged Michael, her words filled with a mixture of understanding and concern.
"The battle between Noah and me is inevitable," Michael replied resolutely, though Sabrina shook her head in disagreement.
"I refuse to stand idly by and watch my brothers kill each other," Sabrina asserted, her determination shining through.
"Regardless of the oue, Sabrina, you will always have a brother," Michael said, his voice softening as he gently caressed her head.
""You know, your mother abandoned me when I was a baby. Noah is hell-bent on fighting me. Rowena could have put an end to the Skyhall long ago and your father Ethan is a man who failed to protect his family.. However, you, Sabrina, are innocent in all of this," Michael expressed a hint of sorrow in his eyes.
"In another life, I would have cherished you as my little sister. I apologize for being unable to be the big brother you long for. To this world and your family, I am the Dark Lord who must die," Michael concluded, his gaze turning cold, and the warmth of his smile fading away.
"But I don''t die. I am the one who kills. They tossed me into a void when I was just a baby, hoping I won''te back. But here I am," Michael''s voice grew rough, and Sabrina felt the darkness around them intensify, a tangible disy of his power as the God of Darkness.
"Ghost, I don''t believe our mother willingly abandoned you. Something must have happened, I can see it in your eyes. Deep down, you know that there is more to the story. The Skyhall has manipted everyone, including you. Please, consider this and don''t let them control you," Sabrina pleaded, her voice filled with genuine concern.
"The ones who were truly manipted are your brother Noah and your sister Rowena. But regardless of the oue, whether I win or Noah does, the Skyhall will be destroyed. You will be reunited with your family and can lead a happy life," Michael remarked, brushing Sabrina''s eyes. Although he didn''t openly express his love as a brother, his simple gesture conveyed his inherent kindness and care.
"I understand your intentions, Sabrina. You don''t want this fight. However, the decision is not mine to make. Salesi is currently manipting your brother, Noah, and I don''t me him. Killing me seems to be the only choice he believes will save his family. Tell him that I will meet him on the battlefield," Michael stated, retrieving a simple silver chain from his storage and handing it to Sabrina.
"ept this as a gift from me. I despise your Winston family, but not you. You have always held a special ce in my heart," Michael smiled and gently pinched Sabrina''s cheek.
"After this battle concludes, your family will find their way back to you," Michael assured Sabrina. They then sat together on the rooftop, quietly contemting the horizon. Sabrina understood that persuading her brothers to change their minds was an impossible task. Despite her desperate desire to prevent their sh, she had no means to intervene. So, she chose to sit beside Michael and spend some precious moments with him as his little sister.
Eventually, Michael bid farewell to Sabrina and made his way to the mountain peak where he had first encountered Nithroel. As night fell, the mountaintop was engulfed in darkness, with only the half-moon casting a faint glow. Emerging from the shadows of the trees, Nithroel joined Michael atop the mountain.I think you should take a look at
"I told you never to return to the mortal realm until you reach the Celestial stage," Nithroel admonished.
"I intended to follow that instruction, but I received an anonymous note," Michael replied, handing a piece of parchment to Nithroel.
Taking the parchment, Nithroel read its contents aloud.
"I was nning to, but I received an anonymous note," Nithroel recited the chilling words written on the note.
"Do you have any idea who might have sent this note?" Nithroel inquired.
"Salesi, who else?" Michael shrugged.
"The Queen of Nagnd. So she has been working against you," Nithroel mused, to which Michael nodded in agreement.
"While you were in Itonys, Evan approached me with a proposition. He wanted me and my army to join forces with him in the battle against you. I always suspected that Evan wasn''t acting alone. Could he be working for Salesi?" Nithroel questioned.
"Hmm," Michael acknowledged.
"And how did you respond to his offer?" Michael asked.
"What do you think? I said no. As far as the mortals concerned, i don''t align with you or Noah. I may be the goddess of hunt but I like to be the empress more. So the lives and livelihood of my citizens is far more important than anything," Nithroel exined.
As she spoke, Michael retrieved a parchment and handed it to Nithroel.
"Keep this with you and read it after my battle with Noah," Michael instructed.
cing the scroll safely in her space ring, Nithroel shifted her gaze from the distant horizon to Michael.
"You should be aware that your former disciple, Olivia, is assisting Noah in creating pills and potions for his army. The Skyhall has provided Noah with a formidable force, and every kingdom in Elon and Ozer continents has been mobilized. While many kings and queens may not have wished to fight against you, they had no choice. I hope you have an army capable of standing against them," Nithroel informed Michael.
"Olivia, huh?" Michael mumbled, his mind filled with memories of the time he spent teaching her alchemy.
"I suspect that Noah has gathered the god-killing arrows and distributed them among his trusted allies. Olivia might be one of them. Shouldn''t you try to obtain the arrows for yourself?" Nithroel questioned, but Michael shook his head.
"I already possess two arrows, and Noah is helping me by gathering all the arrows and bringing them to me," Michael revealed.
"Whatever your n may be, you should execute it swiftly. If I were in Salesi''s position, I would engage you in River Town. It holds sentimental value for you, and your warships would be rendered ineffective there," Nithroel advised, sharing her insights about the uing battle.
"I don''t care where the battle takes ce. I just want it to be over," Michael sighed, feeling weary from the nning and preparation.
"You do realize that I won''t be aiding you in the battle, right?" Nithroel asked, and Michael nodded in acknowledgment.
"Don''t die, Ghost. If Noah can defeat you, you stand no chance against the Pantheon. So, if you fall, better stay dead," Nithroel warned before disappearing from the mountaintop, utilizing her teleportation scroll, leaving Michael alone with his thoughts.
In the solitude and silence, Michael took a deep breath and strategized his next moves. With the battle looming near, he knew his priority was to gather his undead army and the vampires who retreated to the Undead Ind.
Chapter 1029 Preparing For The Battle Against Noah
With just twelve hours remaining until the battle between Michael and Noah, tension hung in the air. The urgent note Michael received stated that he had two days to fight Noah, or his captured subordinates would meet their demise. Among his subordinates, Adelia Wraith, Maxine, Tiberius, Titus, Optimus, and Trista were held captive by the Skyhall.
As for the remaining subordinates, Raylene, Sadie, Gibson, Corey, The Silent Reaper Crew, and Lenora, they were currently away from the undead ind and unable to join the impending battle. Michael was left with only a handful of trusted allies: Gaya, his wife; Aria, the Queen of Shadows; Ricky; and Saber, the King of the Nightwalkers. Additionally, Dr stood among them, loyal and ready to fight.
The undead ind stood as an isted sanctuary amidst the vast ocean, bridging the Southern continent and Awor continent. As night fell, darkness engulfed the ind, shrouding it in an eerie atmosphere. Thick lush forests and towering trees dominated thendscape, concealing the secrets within. At the heart of the ind stood the crypt, a magnificent golden pyramid constructed by the ancient Order of the Death three millennia ago. Hidden among the trees, it remained a well-guarded secret.
But it was not just the crypt thaty hidden within the forest. Countless undead creatures roamed the outskirts, their decaying forms blending seamlessly with the surroundings. Above the forest floor, concealed among the trees, thousands of vampires silently waited, ready to lend their support when the time came.
Inside the crypt, Michael stood at the very center, Gaya faithfully by his side, while he surveyed the faces of Aria, Ricky, Saber, and Dr. Positioned behind them were the alpha undead, possessing the remarkable ability to control the vast army of undead soldiers strategically. Visually, these alpha undeads appeared indistinguishable from the rest of the zombie-like creatures that roamed outside the crypt. Michael deliberately disguised them as ordinary undead, a clever ploy to prevent any suspicion or targeted attacks from their adversaries. By seamlessly blending in with the countless undead, these alpha beings became virtually undetectable amidst the chaos of battle.
The tension was palpable on everyone''s faces, except for the stoic and emotionless alpha undead. As Michael stood at the center of the crypt, the top of the crypt opened, revealing Eve as she descended, bearing important news.
"Just as Empress Nithroel predicted, Ghost, the Skyhall has chosen the river town as the battleground," Eve informed. She approached Michael, leaning closer to whisper into his ear.
"Our spy has revealed that Noah and the Skyhall angels had a disagreement. The angels wanted to use the townspeople as leverage to force your surrender, but Noah went against it and evacuated the town with the help of his allies in the Beast Kingdom," Eve whispered.
"Fucking assholes," Gaya cursed the Skyhall for their attempt to exploit innocent lives in their battle against Michael.
"Lady Eve, do you have any information about the size of the Skyhall and Noah''s armies?" Saber inquired.
"They have eight thousand soldiers in total, including two thousand beast men and three thousand Skyhall angels. However, I suspect the Skyhall may have more soldiers and hidden strategies up their sleeves," Eve disclosed. Gaya''s brows furrowed at the news, her role as a generaling to the forefront. Not only was she Michael''s wife, but also a skilledmander with the ability to lead a formidable army. In contrast, Michael, the Dark Lord himself, had been trained as an assassin,cking the experience inmanding such vast forces.
"Thanks to what you did, they won''t have demons," Gaya stated, scanning the crypt as if searching for someone.
"Speaking of demons, where is Azazel?" Gaya asked, curious about Azazel''s whereabouts.
"Doing something important with Elidyr," Michael replied.
Hearing the number of soldiers that Noah and the Skyhall had unsettled Michael''s subordinates. With six thousand soldiers in their dark army, including undead and vampires, they wanted to ensure they had the advantage in numbers despite the strength of their undead and vampire forces.
"This is it, everyone. Our grand battle against the Skyhall and Noah. I''m not one for big speeches, but I''ll tell you this: we will win this war. The Skyhall believes Noah can defeat me, and he''s their only hope. So when Noah falls, the Skyhall will crumble like a house of cards," Michael''s voice echoed through the crypt.
Gaya stepped forward, her presencemanding attention. As she looked at each of herrades, her eyes filled with unwavering determination.
"My fellow warriors, we stand on the eve of an epic battle against the Skyhall and Noah. I know the odds may seem stacked against us, but remember who we are. We are the forces of darkness, united under the leadership of the Dark Lord. We have faced countless challenges, ovee insurmountable odds, and emerged victorious time and time again. Today will be no different," Gaya''s voice rang out with strength and conviction.
She continued, "Do not be swayed by their numbers or their deceitful tactics. We possess something they will never understand¡ªtrue unity, loyalty, and a bond forged through blood, sweat, and sacrifice. We have faced adversity together, and together we will triumph."
Gaya''s words resonated deeply within the hearts of Michael''s subordinates, reigniting the fire that burned within them. Their spirits were lifted, and a newfound determination sparked in their eyes.
Michael, too, felt the impact of Gaya''s powerful speech. It stirred a renewed sense of purpose within him, reminding him of his true potential and the ns he had carefully devised to outsmart the Skyhall.
Unbeknownst to their enemies, Michael had devised secret strategies, strategies that would catch the Skyhall off guard. They had expected a straightforward battle, but Michael had something else in mind. He knew that their overconfidence would be their downfall.
As the morale-boosting speech concluded, the atmosphere within the crypt crackled with a newfound determination. Michael''s subordinates stood tall, ready to face their enemies head-on. They were united, prepared to unleash their full power and fulfill their duty to protect their leader, their Dark Lord.I think you should take a look at
"Prepare our forces and await my signal. When you receive it, use the teleportation portal located here and gather at River Town," Michael instructed his subordinates. As he spoke, he led Eve and Gaya outside, emerging through the top of the crypt. Once outside, they ascended to a mountaintop on the undead ind, granting them a vantage point overlooking the entire ind and the vast expanse of the ocean that surrounded it. The moon''s gentle glow cast shimmering reflections upon the ocean''s surface, while a gentle breeze brushed against Michael atop the mountaintop.
"So, it''s finally happening," Eve remarked, standing alongside Michael and Gaya.
"Eve, it is of utmost importance that we protect Dr at all costs. Your duty is to ensure his safety and escort him out if the situation bes dire," Michael stated with a seriousness that caught Eve and Gaya off guard.
"We are going to win this. Nothing will go south," Gaya affirmed with determination.
"I know. But we still need to have backups. Since our army consists mostly of vampires and undeads, Noah won''t hesitate to take their lives. Plus, he has Norvin. I will take care of Norvin and Noah," Michael dered.
Eve sighed, expressing her wish for Empress Nithroel to join their forces.
"No, it is crucial that she remains unaligned with me," Michael shook his head.
"I put Vedora in charge of nning a rescue operation for our captured subordinates. It will be a difficult mission but it''s upto them now," Michael stated, his gaze shifting to Eve.
"Ensure that your sister Jasmine stays far away from the battlefield. She is in love with Noah, and you cannot risk her getting close to him in the battlefield," Michael cautioned Eve.
Unbeknownst to Michael and Eve, Jasmine Voldiguard was actually a clone engineered by the Skyhall elders, along with Yasmine Winston. They were part of the Skyhall''s borate n to manipte Noah, the God of Light.
"It would be best to eliminate Noah as soon as possible. The Skyhall''s entire army relies on him. Once Noah falls, the rest will crumble," Gaya suggested.
However, they both understood that killing Noah would not be an easy task. Michael possessed two god-killing arrows, while Noah had managed to acquire five with the assistance of Lord Information. Both brothers needed to possess all seven arrows and use them to eliminate the other.
Michael had taken all necessary precautions, tying up any loose ends and making thorough preparations for the battle against his twin brother, Noah.
"What about Evan?" Eve inquired, concerned about the threat Evan posed since bing a god and aligning with Salesi.
"Salesi won''t send Evan into battle prematurely. He will only intervene if Noah appears to be losing," Michael replied, before Gaya interjected.
"But he will lose, right?" Gaya questioned with a furrowed brow.
"Yes," Michael quickly affirmed before continuing.
"However, Evan won''t pose a significant threat, as he is aware that I can eliminate Victoria with a snap. What we need to be wary of are Salesi''s other hidden cards. I suspect she is amassing a soul army, an entity about which we know very little, if it indeed exists," Michael exined, his voiceced with caution.
"I don''t like this. There are too many unknown variables at y," Gaya expressed with a sigh, her unease evident in her voice.
"They can have all the intricate ns and trump cards they want, Gaya. But I have a simple n: kill Noah," Michael responded with a sinister smirk, his eyes gleaming with a chilling determination.
With his words hanging in the air, Michael spread his majestic wings, their metallic sheen catching the moonlight. With a swift motion, he scooped up Eve and took to the skies, soaring above the world below. The wind rushed past them as they ascended higher, aiming for their destination¡ªthe River town where Noah was waiting for him.
Chapter 1030 Noah And Michael Meets
As Michael soared beyond the void line, he activated the runic teleportation, transporting himself and Eve to the outskirts of the River town. The towny under the vast expanse of the night sky, illuminated by the gentle glow of the moon and the stars that adorned the sky.
The enchanting river flowed alongside the town, its crystal-clear waters reflecting the shimmering moonlight as it traced a winding path through the heart of thendscape. The tranquil murmur of the river echoed softly, adding a serene melody to the ambiance.
In the near distance, majestic mountain chains rose proudly, their lush peaks reaching toward the heavens. Among these natural wonders, the remnants of the Sun Rise sect''s abandoned buildings stood as silent witnesses to what Skyhall did to all the sects.
The River town itself was encased in a glistening pale blue dome, shielding it from the outside world. The ethereal barrier enveloped the entire town, casting an otherworldly glow upon the streets and buildings within. It stood as a testament to the powerful enchantments woven by the Skyhall, trying to control the damage that would fall upon the outside world when two gods fight.
As Michael appeared out of the protective dome, his gaze was drawn to the expansive hillside that stretched beyond the town buildings, once used by the river town people for farming. It was upon these fertilends that Noah and the formidable Skyhall army now stood, patiently awaiting Michael''s arrival.
The sight of Michael''s presence in the sky immediately caught the attention of the opposing forces. Noah''s eyes locked onto his twin brother, the Dark Lord, as he hovered above, apanied by his wife Gaya and their loyal ally, Eve Voldiguard. A tense silence settled over the battlefield, the air pregnant with anticipation.
Standing strong behind Noah, an army of eight thousand soldiers stood at attention, their resolve evident in their unwavering stance. Among them, Norvin, transformed into his true form, a towering gori with lustrous golden fur,manded their attention with his booming voice.
"Activate the lights!" Norvin''smand reverberated through the air, resounding across the expanse of River town like a resolute thunderp.
As Norvin''smanding voice echoed, the darkness within the energy dome was swiftly extinguished by the radiant glow of strategically ced orbs. These luminous spheres, carefully positioned throughout the town, emitted a brilliant light that served to weaken Michael, the God of Darkness, while bolstering Noah, the God of Light. Standing resolutely beside Noah was Maisy, a determined young girl who had once sought to im Nightmare when he was but a mere baby. Her fists clenched in anger, she stood as a staunch ally of Noah.
Among Noah''s formidable army stood the Beleforts, Alicia''s family, united in their quest for vengeance to avenge their fallen heirs, Alicia and Peter. Their determined gazes were fixed upon Michael, the Dark Lord, as they prepared to face him head-on. Apanying them were the proud Skyhall angels, adorned in shimmering silver and sky blue armor, their feathery wings gracefully adorning their backs.
Adding strength to Noah''s forces were the beastmen, an assortment of humanoid beings with the characteristics of tigers, lions, wolves, and eagles. These majestic creatures exuded a fearless presence, standing tall without a trace of trepidation. However, their eyes scanned the battlefield in search of the Dark Lord''s army, only to find that Michael had arrived in River town with only his wife, the Dark Queen Gaya, and his loyal friend Eve Voldiguard.
Among the various races inhabiting this world, only the dwarves and the beastmen had chosen to ally themselves with Noah in his battle against Michael. The dwarves, known for their resilience and craftsmanship, stood side by side with Noah''s forces, lending their strength and expertise. Meanwhile, the beastmen, remarkable beings possessing both human and animal traits, also joined Noah''s cause, their fierce and untamed nature adding a formidable edge to the alliance.
On the other hand, the elves, under the wisemand of Nithroel, had opted to remain neutral, abstaining from taking sides in the conflict between Noah and Michael. Surprisingly, the majority of the orcs, often perceived as ferocious and warlike due to their intimidating appearance, were actually a peaceful race. They found sce in schrly pursuits, their intellectual pursuits far outweighing any inclination towardsbat. It was their love for knowledge and tranquility that kept them away from the war against the Dark Lord, as they preferred a life of peaceful contemtion over engaging in violent conflicts.
As the battle drew near, Noah''s army swiftly organized themselves into formations, each group positioning themselves strategically across the river town. From a bird''s-eye view, the scene resembled an intricate mosaic of soldiers, with the different races and factions standing in distinct patterns.
The Skyhall angels, resplendent in their silver and sky blue armor, formed a tight-knit formation near Noah, their wings spread wide, ready to take flight at a moment''s notice. The beastmen, with their bestial features, assumed a ferocious formation, their ranks resembling a pack of predatory creatures preparing to strike. The dwarves, renowned for their craftsmanship and resilience, assembled in apact yet sturdy formation, their stout figures forming a resilient bulwark in the midst of the army.
Amidst the organized chaos, murmurs and whispers filled the air among Noah''s forces. Some wondered aloud where the Dark Lord''s army was, expressing eagerness to put an end to his reign once and for all. Their anticipation was palpable as they eagerly awaited the sh that would decide the fate of their world.
"I hope the Dark Lord''s army shows up soon. I''ve been waiting to take him down for ages!" one soldier eximed with a determined glint in his eyes.
"Patience, my friend. The Dark Lord will soon face the wrath of our united forces," another soldier reassured, his voice filled with confidence.
Meanwhile, the dwarves, known for their practicality and asional humor, chimed in with their own distinctive remarks.
"Hey,ds! Make sure you lot protect us and our magnificent weapons. We''re the heart of this battle, after all!" a dwarf bellowed with a heartyugh, earning chuckles and nods from his fellow dwarves.
"Oi,ds! Remember, we''ve got the finest weapons in all the realms!" eximed one dwarf with a thick ent.
"Aye, that''s true! They should be protectin'' us, not the other way around!" another dwarf chimed in, his voice filled with jest.
Laughter erupted among the dwarves, their camaraderie shining through even in the face of battle. With their distinctive beards and sturdy frames, they exuded a sense of indomitable spirit.
"Don''t worry. We''ll shield you with our lives and make sure those weapons of yours shine brighter than the sun!" another soldier responded, yfully flexing his muscles.
"I haven''t seen so many people wanting to die at once," remarked the Dark Queen Gaya, her voice resonating across the battlefield,ced with a hint of scorn.I think you should take a look at
"Don''t be too quick to judge us. We''ll see who do the dying," retorted one of the angels defiantly, their wings fluttering with a mix of confidence and determination.
"Hey, Ghost, you shouldn''t have tamed that dragon. Look what happened¡ªnow it''s dead," taunted Maisy, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she attempted to provoke Michael.
"Shouldn''t you be at school or something little girl?" Eve questioned with a seriousness that contrasted with Maisy''s yful demeanor. Her remark elicited chuckles from some of the dwarves, who found the situation amusing.
"Don''t you lotugh! She''s poking fun at one of our own!" growled a fellow soldier, his voice filled with a touch of irritation.
"But it''s still rather amusing," the dwarves chuckled, finding humor in the banter exchanged between Eve and Maisy.
Contrary to previous conflicts involving the Dark Lord, the Skyhall had prohibited news reporters and any other individuals from entering Kingdom Bradford to witness the battle between Michael and Noah. As a result, the sky above the river town remained devoid of any onlookers.
Amidst the tension-filled atmosphere, Michael finally broke the silence, his voiceced with amusement. "I must say, I had higher expectations of the dwarves'' intelligence. Yet here you are, foolishly attempting to fight against me. Doesn''t seem too intelligent, does it?"
With a chilling tone, Michael directed his question at the dwarves, his words dripping with a menacing threat. "Have you ever stopped to consider what I can and will do to your entire race once I emerge victorious in this war?"
As the weight of Michael''s words settled upon them, the dwarves couldn''t help but notice a gradual transformation in the night sky. The once twinkling stars and radiant moon now became shrouded in a veil of dark and foreboding clouds. The celestial beauty was marred by an eerie darkness that sent shivers down their spines.
The dwarves felt an unease settling within them after hearing the Dark Lord''s question. Their voices rose in response, shouting defiantly, "We fight for revenge against the damn elves! The Skyhall promised us that!"
To their surprise, Michael''s response was filled withughter, his amusement reverberating across the battlefield. "You stupid fools," he taunted, his tone dripping with contempt. "Didn''t you know that Empress Nithroel has ascended to be a goddess? The Skyhall holds no power over her. If anything, she will unleash her wrath upon the race that harbors such deep hatred against her own people. The Skyhall has deceived you all." said Michael before pausing.
"The dwarven race will face further decline in power, whether you win or lose this war," Michael dered, his voice filled with an air of superiority. The dwarves, known for their craftsmanship and engineering skills, felt a twinge of unease at his words. They were a hot-blooded people, driven by their passions, butcked the finesse and political acumen of the elves.
The Dark Lord continued, exposing the deceit of the Skyhall and revealing the true power dynamics at y. "Meanwhile, Empress Nithroel and the elves will remain in power. She is a master strategist, capable of outmaneuvering anyone in the realm. When your dwarven race weakens, she can wipe you out whenever she wants."
As Michaelid bare their predicament, doubts began to seep into the minds of the dwarves. They started to question their fervent involvement in the war, realizing the maniptions and risks thaty ahead. The allure of revenge against the elves began to waver in the face of the Dark Lord''s revtion.
"Did you hear what the Dark Lord said? It makes sense," one dwarf whispered to another. "No matter if we win or lose, our race will suffer. Is revenge worth sacrificing our future?"
"I mean, think about it. The Dark Lord makes a valid point," the other dwarf responded, scratching his beard thoughtfully. "If the Empress and the elves stay in power, what''s our fate? We''ll be left vulnerable."
"Yeah, I mean, I''m all for revenge and all, but being wiped out by the empress doesn''t sound too appealing," another dwarf chimed in, scratching his head.
"Maybe the Skyhall did lie to us," another dwarf pondered. "We shouldn''t have blindly followed their promises without questioning their motives."
The questioning dwarves exchanged serious nces, contemting the weight of their decision. However, their contemtion didn''t go unnoticed by their leaders, who quickly intervened.
"Enough with the doubt! We made our choice, and we must stand by it," one of the leader dwarves bellowed, attempting to silence the dissenting voices.
Upon witnessing the dwarves'' wavering resolve, Norvin raised his voice to counter Michael''s words.
"Don''t let him mess with your minds! Stay strong!" Norvin''s voice boomed across the battlefield, attempting to reignite the dwarves'' determination.
Meanwhile, Noah locked his gaze with Michael, his twin brother. A mix of conflicting emotions surged within him. On one hand, he had recently discovered that the Dark Lord was none other than his own flesh and blood. On the other hand, the Dark Lord, his twin brother, had taken the life of his beloved wife, Alicia.
Noah''s expression remained stoic as he grappled with the weight of these emotions. The battlefield stood as a backdrop to their personal vendetta, an intricate sh of kinship and vengeance.
Chapter 1031 Michael Vs Noah- Battle Begins
"We should attack him,"
Norvin turned to Noah, suggesting that they shouldunch an attack on the Dark Lord. However, Noah shook his head, opting to wait for the Dark Lord''s army to reveal itself. As anticipated, Noah sensed a disturbance in the space around him. Momentster, ck vortexes materialized in the air and on the ground outside the energy dome.
From these teleportation vortexes, hordes of undead creatures emerged, their haunting moans filling the air. The sight of the undead sent a shiver down the spines of the dwarves and the beastmen in the army, evoking both disgust and fear.
Norvin and Noah were taken aback by the sight of flying undead. While they were ustomed to using flying swords as a means of aerial mobility, witnessing the undead take to the skies was a chilling revtion. These flying undead were another sessful creation of Dr, the mastermind behind Michael''s undead army. The previous war in Nagnd had seen Michael employ bloaters, a different type of undead that exploded amidst enemy ranks, causing widespread destruction.
In the face of the emerging undead army, the dwarves and the beastmen exchanged anxious nces. They engaged in a conversation, their voicesced with both concern and disbelief.
"What in the name of the mountain is that? Flying undead? This can''t be happening!" one dwarf eximed, his voice trembling with fear.
"They... they''re defying the naturalws! How can undead creatures fly?" another dwarf muttered, his voiceced with disbelief.
Meanwhile, the beastmen growled with a mixture of aggression and fear.
"Those creatures... They are an abomination! We''ve never seen anything like this before," a beastman snarled, his ws digging into the ground.
"I''ve seen my fair share of battles, but this is something else. How are we supposed to fight against flying undead?"
"Noah, what kind of undead are these?" Norvin turned to Noah, seeking answers, but Noah remained silent, his eyes fixed on the approaching horde.
"These undeads... They''re an unexpected threat. We need to be prepared," Noah finally spoke, his voice filled with determination.
As the undead army continued to pour out of the vortexes, a putrid stench filled the air, carrying the unmistakable odor of decaying flesh and death. The atmosphere became heavy with the foul scent, causing some of the soldiers to gag and cover their noses.
The shuffling footsteps of the undead resonated throughout the battlefield, apanied by the eerie moans and groans that escaped their rotting mouths. It was a haunting chorus that echoed in the hearts of those who stood witness to the macabre sight.
The sounds of bones cracking and joints creaking reverberated through the air as the undead moved with an unnatural agility. Some emitted ghastly wails, while others emitted guttural growls, creating a dissonant symphony of terror that sent chills down the spines of all who heard it.
"Do not be too shocked now. We have more surprises in store for you," Gaya taunted the opposing army with a smirk. With a resounding p of her hands, the sound echoed through the river town like thunder, capturing everyone''s attention.
As if summoned by hermand, additional vortexes materialized in the air and on the ground. From these swirling portals emerged vampires, draped in sleek ck armor and robes. The airborne vampires gracefully hovered behind Michael, forming the silhouette of enormous, ominous wings.
Meanwhile, the dark clouds above Michael grew thicker and more menacing, giving rise to an intense lightning storm. The gathering storm reflected his power as the God of Darkness, a stark contrast to the radiant light emanating from the energy dome.
As the lightning bolts crackled across the sky, Eve flicked her wrist, conjuring her war hammer. The weapon pulsed with electric energy, drawing power from the storm above. It crackled with raw power, a manifestation of the unleashed forces of nature.
In a captivating disy, an ethereal form of a ck king cobra materialized behind Gaya, revealing her true nature as a Naga. As lightning streaks illuminated the sky, the cobra''s looming shadow cast a terrifying presence. However, what truly astonished and unnerved the opposing army was the formation of the clouds. They gathered together, coalescing into a colossal skull, serving as the ominous symbol of the Dark Lord.
Thebined disy of power and elemental forces left the enemy forces awestruck, their confidence waning in the face of such formidable might.
The dwarves, beastmen, and Skyhall angels observed the spectacle before them, their expressions filled with a mix of awe, fear, and curiosity. They couldn''t help butment on the dark army''s impressive disy.
"By the hammers of our ancestors, have you ever seen anything like this?" one of the dwarves whispered to hispanion, his eyes wide with amazement.
"Nay, never in all my years," replied the other dwarf, his voice tinged with both excitement and trepidation. "These undead and vampires, they''re a force to be reckoned with."
The beastmen, renowned for their primal instincts, exchanged puzzled nces and murmured amongst themselves.
"Those flying undead... I''ve never witnessed anything so eerie," remarked a beastman with a lion-like face. "They move like shadows in the night."I think you should take a look at
mong the Skyhall angels, whispers of disbelief and concern spread.
"Such darkness and lightning... It''s almost unnatural," remarked one angel, his voice barely audible above the storm.
Inside Michael''s mind, the constant notifications of his badass points became overwhelming. He quickly muted the sounds, realizing the need to focus solely on the battle at hand. Both Noah and Norvin were taken aback by the staggering number of vampires and undead standing before them. Despite their numerical superiority, they recognized that thebined power of the vampires and undead posed a formidable challenge to their own forces. They were well aware that the Dark Lord had more tricks up his sleeve, yet he chose to keep them hidden for the time being.
"What are we waiting for?"
Impatiently, Noah''s voice echoed through the battlefield, demanding action. His eyes ignited with radiant mes of Light, and beams of light shot forth from his gaze. Two swords materialized in his hands, engulfed in the majestic coils of the light mes. Adorned in specially crafted armor forged by the skilled dwarves, Noah truly looked the part of the God of Light. As he ascended into the sky, angelic wings made of pure light sprouted from his back, radiating a divine aura.
Michael, not one to be outdone, also underwent a transformation of his own. Dark mes erupted from his eyes, and his metallic wings, which were part of his dark armor, became enveloped in swirling dark mes. In each of his hands, dark swords materialized, their des enshrouded in the coiling embrace of ck mes. The air crackled with the intensity of their powers, a stark contrast of light and darkness preparing to sh.
"Let us settle this once and for all," dered Michael, his voice resolute and filled with determination.
"ATTACK!" Norvin''s roar resounded through the battlefield, igniting a surge of energy as the two armies charged at each other, leaving chaos in their wake. Michael and Noah, locked in their intense aerial duel, swung their swords simultaneously, their weapons shing in mid-air. The sh of dark and light unleashed a colossal shockwave that reverberated through the very ground, causing the sky to crack as the two gods shed.
"So, Light mes... Who handed them over to you, Noah?" Michael questioned, their swords grinding against each other in a fierce deadlock.
"When you do good, people lend their support. It''s something you fail to understand, Ghost," Noah retorted. Within the thinyer of the energy dome, Noah remained suspended mid-air, bathed in luminous radiance, while Michael hovered on the opposite side where darkness held sway.
"It''s easy to talk when everything is handed to you on a silver tter," Michael snickered, abruptly headbutting Noah and sending him hurtling backward.
Noah adjusted his neck with a crack and swiftly dashed towards Michael, his movements infused with lightning speed. As he closed in on his adversary, Noah unleashed a beam of light from his swords. Reacting instinctively, Michael raised his arm, summoning a retractable ck shield from his wrist. The shield absorbed the searing light beams, its color shifting to a fiery orange due to the intense heat.
Michael''s hand tingled from the impact, but undeterred, Noah propelled himself forward with lightning speed, aiming a powerful kick at Michael. In response, Michael reciprocated the attack, their legs colliding in mid-air. With a resounding sh, they struck each other''s heads with their legs, their fierce cries filling the air as their determination and power collided in an epic showdown.
Spitting the blood in his mouth, Michael surged forward, propelling himself through the air with unstoppable determination. Once again, he and Noah shed in a breathtaking aerial confrontation, their swords locked in a furious battle of light and darkness.
Noah''s pair of swords, engulfed in radiant light mes, danced through the air with grace and precision. He unleashed a series of swift, calcted strikes, weaving his des with remarkable agility and finesse. Each swing of his swords emitted dazzling arcs of light, illuminating the battlefield as he sought to exploit any opening in Michael''s defenses.
In response, Michael wielded his two dark swords, wreathed in swirling dark mes that exuded an aura of malevolence. With calcted brutality, he matched Noah''s every move with unwavering focus and unwieldy strength. His strikes carried an undeniable weight, channeling the darkness within him into each devastating blow.
Their sh created a spectacle of opposing forces, a symphony of light and dark intertwining in a dance of raw power. Michael''s dark des shed against Noah''s radiant swords, sparks flying as their immense strength met with equal intensity. The sh of their swords reverberated through the air, echoing their unyielding determination to emerge victorious.
Noah''s swift and agile footwork allowed him to evade Michael''s relentless assault, his nimble movements showcasing his mastery of the light. He skillfully parried and countered Michael''s strikes, utilizing his speed and precision to exploit any opening he could find. With each counterattack, he unleashed bursts of searing light, forcing Michael to adjust his defensive stance continuously.
In turn, Michael utilized his inherent darkness tounch powerful and unpredictable attacks. Hebined brute force with deceptive speed, delivering bone-crushing blows that tested Noah''s resilience. The dark mes that enveloped Michael''s swords enhanced their destructive potential, leaving trails of shadowy residue in their wake.
Noah''s voice trembled with anger as he shouted at Michael, his words filled with anguish and resentment.
"I wish our mother had never given birth to you. Because of you, I lost everything!" The pain in his voice was palpable as he confronted the Dark Lord.
Michael''s response cut through the air like a sharp de, his words carrying the weight of his own painful past.
"And how does it feel to have nothing? You had everything while I had nothing!" His voice thundered, resonating with a mix of anger and sorrow.
In a moment of strategic agility, Michael swiftly discarded his dark sword and delivered a powerful punch straight to Noah''s jaw. Caught off guard, Noah was unable to defend himself, and the force of the blow sent him hurtling towards the ground, causing a cascade of destruction as he crashed into several buildings. The impact reverberated through the air, leaving a trail of shattered debris in its wake. The sheer force of Michael''s punch showcased his formidable strength, catching Noah off bnce and exposing his vulnerability. The sh between the two gods took an unexpected turn as Michael seized the opportunity to unleash a devastating blow, momentarily gaining the upper hand in their fierce confrontation.
Chapter 1032 Michael Vs Noah - The Battle Continues
As Noah crashed through the debris, the nearby undead army hurriedly rushed toward the fallen god. Meanwhile, Michael, unfazed by the chaos, pped his metallic wings and soared toward Noah''s location. However, just as he approached, a colossal fist materialized out of nowhere and struck Michael squarely in the face. It was none other than Norvin, propelling himself from the ground to deliver the unexpected blow in mid-air.
Yet, Norvin had underestimated the immense power gap between him and Michael. While Norvin stood at the Half Immortal stage of cultivation, Michael possessed the cultivation of a Half Celestial, a vast difference in strength. Norvin''s punch, despite generating a powerful shockwave that demolished nearby buildings, failed even to rattle Michael. The Dark Lord stood resolute in the sky, his unwavering presence emanating a terrifying aura.
In a silent exchange, Michael met Norvin''s gaze, their eyes locked in a moment of intense confrontation. With a mere nce, Michael unleashed two dark beams from his eyes, striking Norvin''s shoulder with precision.
"ARRGHHH!"
Simultaneously, Gaya''s mighty roar reverberated through the battlefield, signaling her entrance into the fray. Descending from above, Gaya underwent a transformation, assuming her true form as a ten-foot king cobra with sleek ck scales. With lightning speed, her serpentine body coiled around Norvin, ensnaring him within her powerful grasp. In one swift motion, Gaya swung Norvin towards a nearby building, crashing him into its sturdy structure. The impact echoed through the surroundings, further escting the chaos of the battle.
On the opposing side, Eve Voldiguard took charge at the forefront of the dark army. With a mighty leap, she soared into the air, her war hammer held high as crackling lightning bolts danced around her. Her attire, consisting of ck armor and a billowing cape, fluttered in the wind, adding to hermanding presence. Bringing her hammer down forcefully, Eve struck the ground, unleashing a powerful shockwave that rippled through Noah''s army.
As the sh intensified, several Skyhall angels, adorned in their feathery wings and silver armor, closed in on Eve from various directions. Despite being surrounded by thousands of beastmen and soldiers from Noah''s army, Eve disyed no trace of fear in her resolute gaze. With unwavering determination, she raised her hammer skyward, preparing for the impending confrontation.
Suddenly, a violent vortex of pure lightning energy descended from above, engulfing Eve in its powerful embrace. Her eyes and body radiated with a crimson red glow, fueled by the immense power coursing through her. Locked in her crimson gaze were three Skyhall angels hurtling towards her. The first angel, equipped with formidable armor, relied on its protective armor to face Eve, who surpassed him in cultivation. However, Eve''s spellcasting abilities and sheer power proved overwhelming for the angel''s armor. As the angel drew closer, Eve swiftly sidestepped, tossing her war hammer into the air while gripping the angel''s feathery wings.
In a brutal disy, Eve tore away the feathery armor from the angel''s body, eliciting agonized roars of pain. Without granting the soldier a moment''s respite, she delivered a forceful punch to his face, sending him crashing to the ground. Seizing the opportune moment, Eve allowed her war hammer to descend upon the angel''s head, pulverizing it into a gruesome mass of blood and bone.
As Noah crashed into the building, a blinding explosion of light erupted from the impact point. The radiant burst propelled the surrounding undead into the air, reducing some of them to mere piles of ash. Emerging from the wreckage, Noah rose with determination, his gaze fixed on Michael. Seizing arge boulder nearby, he hurled it towards the Dark Lord who loomed in the sky.
Michael swiftly reacted, unleashing dark beams from his eyes that sliced through the boulder, splitting it in two. However, Noah skillfully maneuvered himself through the resulting gap, catching his opponent off guard. With swift precision, Noahnded a powerful punch to Michael''s face followed by a forceful kick to his gut.
In retaliation, Michael seized Noah by the neck, his grip firm and unyielding. Descending with great speed, he plowed through the ground, causing debris and asphalt to shatter beneath theirbined weight. Finally, reaching the end of the pathway, Michael forcefully hurled Noah into a distant building, the impact resonating with destructive force.
It was at this moment that Michael realized he found himself amidst Noah''s army, surrounded by his enemies. Despite being in the heart of the opposing forces, the skyhall angels and beastmen halted their advance, refraining from drawing any closer to Michael. Fear was evident in their eyes, for they understood that Noah alone possessed the strength and chance to confront the Dark Lord.
At that moment, Evended gracefully right behind Michael, standing shoulder to shoulder with her friend. A brief exchange of nces passed between them, a silent understanding of their shared purpose.
"Destroy those light orbs," Michaelmanded Eve, his voice carrying the weight of urgency. The intense bright lights emanating from the orbs needed to be extinguished. Although the light didn''t pose a significant threat to Michael, he knew that eliminating it would ensure he stood at his absolute strongest.
"Stop her!"
The skyhall angels, witnessing Eve''s actions, desperately cried out,manding their forces to stop her. In a swift and calcted motion, Eve propelled herself towards the sky, her war hammer firmly grasped in her hand. The skyhall angels, attempting to impede her progress, found themselves swiftly dealt with by Michael''s dark beams. The sight was gruesome and unsettling, as bodies were torn asunder, drenching the battlefield in pools of blood and filling the air with its pungent scent.
Amidst the chaos, the battlefield erupted into a whirlwind of violence and bloodshed. The undead shed mercilessly with Noah''s army, tearing through the ranks of beastmen and soldiers alike. In retaliation, Noah''s forces unleashed powerful spells upon the relentless undead horde. The sh of spells and the sh of steel created a cacophony of chaotic warfare, with neither side showing any sign of relenting.
In a desperate attempt to turn the tide of battle, hundreds of Noah''s soldiers raised their hands simultaneously, channeling their collective energy into a powerful spell. The air crackled with electricity as theirbined magic swirled and intertwined, forming a swirling vortex of energy above them.I think you should take a look at
The spell began to take shape, manifesting as a colossal beam of pure elemental force. It surged downward from the vortex, tearing through the battlefield with unstoppable force. The beam glowed with intense light, tinged with shades of blue and white, as it sliced through the ranks of the undead army. Wherever it touched, the undead disintegrated into dust, vanishing from existence. The ground beneath them trembled as the spell carved a path of destruction, obliterating everything in its wake.
The soldiers watched in awe as their spell wrought havoc upon the undead forces. The sheer magnitude of their collective power filled them with hope, their shouts of triumph echoing through the chaos. But their celebration was abruptly cut short as the dark lord''s army retaliated with a sinister countermove.
From the depths of the undead ranks emerged a grotesque sight - bloated figures, their bodies swollen with foul gases. These abominations, known as Bloaters, emitted a pungent stench that permeated the air, causing many of Noah''s soldiers to gag and cover their noses.
"No! Not the Bloaters!" one soldier cried out, his voiceced with fear. But before he could finish his warning, the Bloaters reached the spellcasters, their grotesque bodies pulsating with lethal intent. With a sickening explosion, the Bloaters detonated, unleashing a wave of destruction that engulfed the spellcasters. The force of the explosion tore through the ranks of Noah''s soldiers, leaving devastation and carnage in its wake.
Noah rose from the rubble of the shattered building, his eyes burning with determination. He raised his hands towards Michael, his palms radiating with intense light. Concentrated beams of pure luminosity shot forth from his outstretched hands, zing through the air with blinding speed.
The beams of light sliced through anything in their path, disintegrating the undead soldiers unfortunate enough to be caught in their trajectory. Buildings crumbled into dust, and the ground beneath them cracked and shattered, unable to withstand the sheer force of Noah''s unleashed power. The light beams illuminated the battlefield, casting an ethereal glow upon the chaos below.
Not to be outdone, Michael responded by raising his own hand, his palm emanating a swirling darkness. Dark beams erupted from his fingertips, coiling like serpents as they raced towards Noah. The sh between the light beams and the dark beams created an explosive collision, unleashing a cataclysmic shockwave that reverberated through the air.
The resulting explosion engulfed the surrounding area, decimating everything within its vicinity. The force of the impact sent shockwaves rippling through the battlefield, shaking the ground and tossing debris into the air like confetti. The intense light and dark energies collided, creating a maelstrom of destruction that tore through the undead army and Noah''s soldiers alike.
The destructive power of the collision was awe-inspiring. Buildings crumbled, reduced to rubble in an instant. Trees were uprooted, their branches splintered and scattered across the battlefield. The shockwave sted away soldiers, both undead and living, like rag dolls, flinging them through the air with merciless force.
The explosion left behind a scene of destion and ruin. Smoke and dust filled the air, obscuring the battlefield in a haze. The sound of crumbling structures and anguished cries echoed amidst the devastation. The once bustlingndscape nowy in ruins, a testament to the unrelenting power of the sh between light and darkness.
As they soared through the sky, Noah and Michael collided, engaging in a fierce battle without the aid of their swords. Their clenched fists shed with thunderous impacts, each strike resonating through the air.
"Tell me, Noah, how did you manage to reach the Half Celestial stage? Let me guess, someone lent you a helping hand, as always."
Michael sneered at Noah, taunting him about his progress to the Half Celestial stage. He mocked Noah, suggesting that someone had assisted him, as if Noah''s aplishments were not his own.
"This would have been a one-sided massacre if it weren''t for the constant plot armor you seem to acquire," Michael jeered, attempting to undermine Noah''s abilities.
Their bodies twisted and turned in the air as they exchanged blows, their movements fluid and precise. Noah''s determination fueled his every strike, while Michael''s dark aura enveloped him, lending an air of menacing power to his attacks.
With each sh, the sound of fists meeting flesh echoed through the sky, their intense rivalry escting to new heights. The air crackled with their energy, their movements leaving trails of energy in their wake.
Despite their physicalbat, their conflict ran deeper than mere punches and taunts. It was a battle of brothers, of contrasting powers and ideologies. Each blow carried the weight of their shared history and personal vendettas.
Chapter 1033 Michael Overpowers Noah
As the battle raged on, Michael''s serpent maga fighting style proved to be an advantage, allowing him to gain the upper hand over Noah. His dark armor, with several runes, provided additional protection that surpassed even the sturdy dwarven-made armor worn by Noah.
With a swift and devastating strike, Michaelnded a powerful blow to Noah''s jaw, stunning him. Seizing the opportunity, Michael firmly gripped Noah''s face and forcefully drove his knee into Noah''s already injured visage. The impact was jarring, causing Noah to stagger backward.
Raising his hands, Michael conjured bolts of ck lightning, crackling with raw power. The ominous energy surged from his fingertips, resembling twisted serpents as they streaked through the air with deadly uracy. With a resounding impact, the bolts struck Noah, sending him hurtling downwards through the sky.
When Noah descended, his body spiraling toward the ground, Michael unleashed his devastating meteor spell. Summoning the fiery might of the cosmos, he willed a zing meteor to manifest, hurtling towards Noah with unstoppable force. The ming celestial object zed across the sky, leaving a trail of fiery residue in its wake as if the heavens themselves were igniting in anticipation.
As the fiery meteor hurtled towards Noah, it left a scorching trail of orange hues across the darkened sky. Its sheer magnitude and radiance cast an eerie glow upon the battlefield below, capturing the attention of all who witnessed its descent.
Soldiers locked inbat below paused, their expressions shifting from determination to awe as they looked up, their eyes widening in disbelief. The sight of the impending cataclysm was both mesmerizing and horrifying, as the fiery orb grewrger with each passing second, consuming the sky with its zing brilliance.
With an earth-shattering impact, the meteor crashed down upon Noah, engulfing him in a tempest of mes and debris. The force of the collision unleashed a shockwave that rippled through the air, sending tremors across the battlefield.
The town below bore witness to the destructive power of the meteor, its impact decimating the structures in its path. Countless buildings crumbled and copsed, reduced to nothing more than smoldering ruins. The intense heat melted metal and reduced stone to ash, leaving behind a scarredndscape of devastation.
Noah''s army, already engaged in a fierce battle with the undead forces, was caught off guard by the meteor''s sudden arrival. The relentless onught of fire and destruction obliterated vast sections of the undead army, their bodies disintegrating under the overwhelming heat and force. The ground shook beneath their feet as the remnants of the meteor continued its destructive path, leaving a trail of destion in its wake.
"Noah!" Norvin''s anguished cry echoed across the battlefield as he witnessed the catastrophic impact of the meteor on hisrade. Filled with desperation, he attempted to take to the skies, seeking to reach Noah''s side. However, his path was abruptly halted by Gaya, who had assumed her fearsome naga form.
"Leaving so soon?" Gaya hissed, her serpentine tails coiling around Norvin, binding him tightly. Norvin struggled fiercely, desperately trying to break free from her grasp. But Gaya''s strength was overwhelming, and her hold on him was unyielding.
With a swift and forceful motion, Gaya propelled Norvin into the air, his body hurtling through the sky. In a seamless transition, Gaya transformed into her human form, her golden bow materializing in her hands. Without hesitation, she drew an arrow, her aim locked onto Norvin''s vulnerable form. As the arrow found its mark, a devastating explosion engulfed Norvin, amplifying the impact of the attack.
Despite the excruciating pain and the devastation surrounding him, Noah mustered the strength to rise from the wreckage caused by the meteor''s impact. His eyes surveyed the destruction and loss of life, fueling a fit of deep-seated anger within him. Blood trickled down his wounds, staining his tattered armor, yet his resolve remained unyielding.
With a firm grip and gritted teeth, Noah balled his hand into a tight fist, his anger coursing through his veins. Fueled by his newfound determination, heunched himself upward, soaring toward the darkened sky to confront his brother once more.
In the mid-sky, the two brothers engaged in a fierce battle, their contrasting powers colliding with explosive force. Michael unleashed torrents of ck lightning, crackling with malevolent energy, while dark beams erupted from his eyes, seeking to engulf Noah in darkness. With each strike, Michael disyed both his mastery of darkness and his raw physical strength.
Noah, agile and determined, dodged and weaved through the onught, his movements guided by a mixture of instinct and years ofbat experience. However, he couldn''t evade every attack, as Michael''s power overwhelmed him at times. Devastating blowsnded upon Noah, pushing him to the brink of exhaustion and testing his resilience.
But Noah wasn''t defenseless. As Michael aimed his most powerful strikes, Noah summoned a shield of pure light, emanating from within him. The shield formed a radiant barrier, shimmering with divine energy, protecting him from the Dark Lord''s onught. It absorbed the impact of Michael''s attacks, providing Noah with crucial moments to counter and regain his footing.
Amidst the intense battle, Michael taunted Noah with biting words. "You''ve always had everything handed to you, Noah. The privileged life, the support of others. It must be nice," he sneered, his voiceced with bitter resentment. "Meanwhile, I''ve had to fight tooth and nail for every ounce of power I possess. But no matter how much you try to stand against me, you''ll always be in my shadow."
Noah gritted his teeth, his determination burning even brighter. Ignoring Michael''s taunts, he focused on his own inner strength and the memories of loved ones lost. With a surge of resolve, Noah summoned his light-infused fists and retaliated with a barrage of powerful strikes, each carrying the weight of his love and desire to protect.I think you should take a look at
As the battle escted, Michael''s attacks grew increasingly ferocious, each strike fueled by his deep-rooted anger and resentment. His ck lightning crackled with a more ominous intensity, arcing through the air with deadly precision. Dark beams shot from his eyes like piercing daggers, seeking to devour Noah''s light.
Noah fought valiantly, but the sheer force of Michael''s onught took its toll. With each bone-crushing blow, Noah coughed up blood, his body pushed to its limits. He could feel his ribs cracking under the relentless assault, pain radiating through his entire being. Yet, he refused to yield, drawing strength from his unyielding determination.
Through gritted teeth, Michael continued his taunts, his words dripping with scorn. "You think you''re better than me, Noah? With yourvish life, your supporters? Let me tell you something. No one handed me anything. I was an orphan, fighting every second just to survive. I wed my way up, surpassing every obstacle that stood in my path. I earned every ounce of power I possess."
As Michael''s words hung in the air, Noah''s vision blurred, his body battered and bruised. But within him, a fire burned brighter than ever. Ignoring the searing pain, Noah summoned his remaining strength andunched a counterattack, his light-infused fists radiating with a renewed determination.
The sh between the brothers intensified, a dance of light and darkness. Noah dodged and weaved, evading some of Michael''s attacks with sheer reflexes, while others struck true, sending him hurtling through the air, his body crashing into debris with bone-crushing impacts.
As Michael''s attacks reached their apex, he abruptly halted, seizing Noah by the neck with a cruel grip. The air grew heavy with tension as Michael''s dark eyes bore into Noah''s, an expression of triumphant malice etched upon his face.
"Darkness always triumphs over light, Noah. Hardships always prevail over avish life," Michael sneered, his voiceced with a bitter satisfaction. With a sadistic grin, he unleashed a barrage of punches upon Noah''s defenseless face, each blow resounding with bone-crunching impact. The force behind the strikes sent Noah spiraling through the air, his body tossed like a ragdoll.
Noah''s descent was swift and brutal, his body crashing into the ground with an earth-shattering thud. The impact was so intense that it created a sizable crater, the earth quivering beneath the force of hisnding. Blood trickled from Noah''s broken and battered form, mingling with the dirt and debris that surrounded him.
Witnessing their leader being overpowered by the Dark Lord sent a chill racing through the ranks of Noah''s army. The soldiers looked on in stunned disbelief, their resolve shaken by the sight of their champion being mercilessly beaten. A collective wave of unease swept through their ranks, their confidence waning as they struggled toprehend the possibility of defeat.
In contrast, the vampires of the Dark Lord''s army reveled in their leader''s dominance. Their cheers echoed through the battlefield, a chilling chorus of adtion for their malevolent master. Their eyes gleamed with fervor and anticipation, their loyalty unwavering as they relished in the impending triumph of darkness over light.
As Norvin witnessed the brutal assault on Noah at the hands of the Dark Lord, a surge of primal rage coursed through his veins. His body underwent a remarkable transformation, growing in size and strength as he assumed his formidable ape form. With a thunderous roar that reverberated through the battlefield, he pounded his chest, a disy of his indomitable spirit.
Suddenly, a golden shield materialized around Norvin, shimmering with a protective aura. It deflected the barrage of arrows unleashed by Gaya, their deadly trajectory rendered futile against the imprable barrier. Norvin''s defiant stance grew stronger as he stood undeterred, shielding himself from Gaya''s relentless assault.
Summoning his primal power, Norvin cast his gaze toward the sky, his eyes zing with determination. An ethereal fist materialized, crackling with raw energy and divine might. With a resounding impact, he unleashed the devastating punch upon Gaya, an unstoppable force that connected with unrelenting power.
The speed and strength of Norvin''s punch were unparalleled, catching Gaya off guard. She was sent hurtling through the air, her body twisting and contorting in a violent arc. The impact resonated with an explosive shockwave, leaving a trail of shattered debris in its wake.
But when Norvin soared towards Noah, ready to provide his much-needed aid, his path was suddenly intercepted by Eve, who unleashed her electrifying presence. With a mighty swing of her war hammer, lightning crackling and dancing around its formidable form, she struck Norvin square in the face. The impact reverberated through the air, unleashing shockwaves that rippled across the battlefield.
Staggered by the forceful blow, Norvin struggled to maintain his bnce. Before he could fully recover, Eve swiftly closed the distance between them, relentlessly pursuing him through the sky. In a calcted move, she hurled her hammer with pinpoint uracy, aiming straight at Norvin''s chest. The hammer collided with his torso, delivering a bone-crushing blow that further weakened his resolve.
As the battle raged on, the tides began to shift in favor of the Dark Lord. Thebined might of Michael, Gaya, and Eve proved to be a formidable force that threatened to overwhelm Noah''s army. The dark powers at their disposal grew more potent with each passing moment, casting an ominous shadow over the battlefield.
Noah''s forces, once filled with determination and hope, now faced the grim reality of an impending defeat. The Dark Lord''s influence permeated the air, sending chills down the spines of Noah''s soldiers.
Chapter 1034 Norvins Death
Michael hovered in the air, his gaze fixed upon Noah, waiting for the opportune moment when he would unleash the devastating power of the god-killing arrows. Deep within his system storage, Michael held two of these lethal weapons, while Noah possessed the remaining five. The Dark Lord yearned for the day when he could im all seven arrows, an oue that would seal Noah''s fate once and for all.
Yet, Noah refrained from reaching for the arrows. He recognized that he struggled to gain the upper hand in his relentless battle against Michael. The skies above were dominated by their fierce sh, while on the ground below, a grim spectacle unfolded.
The once vibrant river town now resembled a deste battlefield, scarred by the ravages of war. Broken buildingsy in ruins, their skeletal structures testament to the power of Michael''s meteor spell that had crashed upon the earth. Lava oozed through the cracks, intertwining with smoldering rocks, casting an eerie glow upon the surroundings. The air was thick with the acrid scent of smoke and the haunting stench of death.
Amidst the chaos, the undead army shed with Noah''s valiant beastmen and angels. Limbs of the undead littered the scorchedndscape, while the fallen bodies of brave soldiers bore witness to the brutality of the conflict. Blood stained the once pristine streets, painting a grim tableau of sacrifice and suffering.
As the intensity of the battle escted, a glimmer of hope emerged amidst the chaos. Norvin, with his towering ape-like form, began to turn the tide in his skirmish against Eve and Gaya.
With each swing of his powerful limbs, Norvin unleashed a barrage of blows upon his adversaries. His sheer size and strength granted him an advantage, allowing him to withstand the onught of the two formidable opponents. The ground trembled beneath Norvin''s weight as he matched their every move.
Eve, with her lightning-infused hammer, shed against Norvin''s unyielding defense. Bolts of electricity crackled in the air, illuminating the fierce exchange. However, Norvin''s resilience proved to be a formidable shield, deflecting the onught of attacks with a golden barrier that enveloped him, repelling the lightning strikes.
Gaya on the other hand unleashed a flurry of arrows, aiming to pierce Norvin''s defenses and weaken his resolve. But to her surprise, her projectiles met an imprable barrier, shimmering with a radiant golden glow.
As Norvin''s fist collided with Gaya, the sh drew Michael''s attention. With a swift determination, he closed the distance between himself and Norvin, disregarding Noah''s presence.
Norvin, standing tall at fifteen feet, taunted Michael, "Fight me head-on instead of sending your women to do a man''s job."
Ignoring the taunts, Michaelnded before Norvin, summoning his bone-chilling war hammer, the Doomsbringer. The frigid aura radiating from the hammer caused the temperature to drop significantly. Michael dered with cold determination, "I should finish what Nightmare started," Michael said coldly, his voice carrying an air of determination. With synchronized movements, both Michael and Norvin leaped into the air, their bodies poised for battle. Norvin swung his massive ape-like fist towards Michael, meeting the cold, unyielding metal head of the Doomsbringer.
Norvin''s hand instantly went numb upon impact, but he didn''t falter. In response, Michael''s eyes ignited with dark mes, and he unleashed a barrage of dark beams from his gaze. A golden shield appeared around Norvin, attempting to defend against the relentless assault. However, the shield began to crack under the overwhelming power of the dark beams, and within moments, it shatteredpletely.
Undeterred, Norvin mustered his strength and seized the war hammer as Michael attempted another strike. In a desperate effort, Norvin delivered a powerful headbutt towards Michael. But to his astonishment, the Dark Lord remained unyielding, disying his formidable resilience. Michael retaliated with a forceful jump, headbutting Norvin with equal intensity, causing the ground to tremble beneath them.
The impact sent Norvin hurtling through the ground, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.
Noahy unconscious, buried beneath the rubble of shattered buildings. Meanwhile, Michael remainedpletely focused on Norvin, his anger burning within him. The death of his pet dragon, Nightmare, had ignited a fiery rage within Michael. The news of Nightmare''s demise had stirred the emotions of those around him¡ªGaya wreaked havoc upon her own kingdom, Vedora nearly destroyed the dark castle in a fit of anger, and ire and others wept openly.
But Michael, devoid of tears, channeled his anger into a fierce determination. It fueled his every move as he dashed towards Norvin. With intense purpose, Michaelnded before Norvin, gripping him tightly by his fur before hurling him towards Noah''s army, locked in battle against the relentless undead. Above them, one of the intense light orbs shattered, causing the brightness to diminish. Michael nced upwards, recognizing that Eve had sessfully disabled one of the light orbs hidden beneath the dome.
As Norvin crashed into a building, reducing it to rubble, Gaya unleashed a relentless barrage of explosive arrows from the sky, further injuring him. Undeterred, Michael, wielding the Doomsbringer, swiftly closed the distance and nted himself firmly upon Norvin''s chest.
"Now, look into my eyes and taunt me," Michael coldly demanded of Norvin.
Rather than responding with words, Norvin emitted a thunderous roar, the sheer force of it causing Michael''s hair to be blown back. Yet, Michael stood resolute upon Norvin''s chest.I think you should take a look at
Raising his Doomsbringer with intent to strike a final blow, Michael''s actions were suddenly interrupted by the distant firing of a powerful cannonball. The resounding boom of the cannon drowned out even the fiercest thunderp, as the fiery projectile soared through the air.
The dwarves stood together, their eyes fixed on the unfolding battle between the Dark Lord and theirrades. Their hands trembled slightly as they prepared the powerful cannonball once again, their minds filled with a mix of determination and uncertainty.
"Fire the cannon! Let''s st that Dark Lord to oblivion!" one dwarf eximed, his voice filled with both hope and anxiety.
Another dwarf, however, expressed doubts, "Are we making a terrible mistake? The Dark Lord is no ordinary foe. We may have just drawn his attention towards us."
A third dwarf chimed in, "It''s true. What can we possibly do against a being at the Half Celestial stage? Our cannon is mighty, but it may not be enough to stop him."
Yet, amidst their wavering thoughts, one dwarf raised his voice, his eyes fixed on Noah, still lying motionless amidst the chaos. "Noah, wake up! This is your chance to fight back against the Dark Lord! Rise and show him the strength of your resolve!"
The dwarves exchanged concerned nces, their hearts heavy with worry. They understood the immense challenge thaty before them, but they refused to give in to despair.
To their utter disbelief, Michael effortlessly caught the fiery cannonball, reducing it to a mere pile of ash with a tight grip. The dwarves watched in stunned silence as their mighty weapon was rendered useless. The weight of their defeat settled upon their shoulders.
Michael''s gaze shifted upwards, locking onto Gaya, and with a chilling nonchnce, hemanded, "Kill them all." His voice reverberated through the battlefield, sending shivers down the spines of the dwarves. They turned their gaze towards the distant sky, where lightning shed behind the Dark Queen, revealing the ominous shadow of a colossal cobra, a testament to her true Naga form.
Meanwhile, Norvin, with all his might, tried to dislodge Michael from his chest. However, his efforts were in vain as Michael remained steadfast and immovable. Norvin clenched his fists, summoning ethereal manifestations that pummeled Michael relentlessly from both sides. Yet, Michael showed no sign of yielding, his unwavering stance challenging Norvin''s futile attempts.
With the Doomsbringer raised high, Michael taunted Norvin, "I will bring Nightmare back from the depths of hell, but Noah won''t be able to bring you back" Norvin''s roars filled the air as his ethereal fists continued to assault Michael without effect. But Michael remained unperturbed.
As the realization of his impending defeat dawned upon him, Norvin slowly turned his gaze towards the rubble where Noahy buried. Tears welled in his eyes as he faced Michael once more, his voice filled with sorrow. "You were able to defeat Noah because, deep down, he still sees you as his brother," Norvin revealed. Gaya, relentless in her ughter of the dwarves, prevented any futile resistance while Eve continued her destructive mission to dismantle the remaining light orbs. As a result, darkness encroached upon the battlefield, slowly consuming all in its path.
"My death will break that bone and bring back the Noah who went around killing his enemies left and right," Norvin snickered, embracing his impending demise without a trace of fear.
Michael parted his lips as if poised to utter something but then closed them again. In the next moment, a shocking and heart-wrenching event unfolded before their eyes. Without hesitation, Michael brought down the Doomsbringer upon Norvin''s head, caving in his mighty ape skull. Blood and fragments of bone sprayed across the battlefield, painting a gruesome scene. Norvin''s body convulsed while Michael stood amidst the carnage, drenched in Norvin''s crimson lifeblood. The sight of Norvin''s cruel demise struck Noah''s army with a paralyzing shock, freezing them in disbelief and despair.
As if the shocking events weren''t enough, Michael activated his Soul Eating skill, his eyes glowing with a sinister light. A wispy, white smoke began to emanate from Norvin''s lifeless body, slowly snaking its way toward Michael''s open mouth. This ethereal smoke carried Norvin''s soul and life energy, a macabre feast for the Dark Lord.
With each passing moment, Norvin''s once mighty form began to shrink and wither, like a wilting flower drained of its essence. In a matter of mere moments, Norvin''s body transformed into a desated mummy, a hollow shell devoid of life.
The sight sent a chill through the hearts of Noah''s army as they witnessed the terrifying disy of Michael''s power, his ability to consume the very essence of a fallen warrior. It was a chilling reminder of the depths of darkness that Michael was capable of descending into.
"Now this is a feast befitting the Dark Lord," Michael''s voice resonated, his once-human tone now twisted and steeped in darkness. His words echoed through the battlefield, spreading an ominous aura that chilled the very air. The sinister quality of his voice alone was enough to send shivers down the spines of the remaining beastmen and dwarves. Gripped by a paralyzing fear, some dropped their weapons and fled from the scene in a state of sheer panic. Their desperate cries filled the air as they ran, their only thought to escape the encroaching darkness that surrounded them.
Chapter 1035 Noahs Ultimate Form
Unconscious and buried beneath a pile of debris, Noah''s body began to heal itself, unaware of the tragic fate that had befallen his beloved pet Norvin at the hands of the Dark Lord. Memories of happier times flooded Noah''s mind, vivid shes of moments spent with his wife Alicia and cherished family memories. One memory, in particr, yed over and over in his thoughts: an idyllic scene where Alicia and Norvin sat on either side of Noah, their faces filled with joy as they watched the sunset in the serene Ozer continent. Alicia''s gentle embrace enveloped Noah, her head resting upon his shoulder, while the young Norvin, a baby golden babaroo at the time, curled up on Noah''sp, peacefully asleep. These precious moments were etched in Noah''s heart.
However, the serenity of the memory abruptly shifted, turning dark and foreboding. Alicia''s tear-filled eyes stared up at Noah, blood streaming from them. In a cruel twist, Alicia slowly faded away from his recollection, leaving Noah powerless to halt the mortifying transformation. Norvin, too, awoke from his slumber in the memory, only to vanish before Noah''s eyes.
Noah gazed up at the sky, witnessing the vibrant orange hues of the once-painted light gradually darkening. His eyes traced the ominous formation of clouds taking shape, morphing into the distinct skull symbol associated with the Dark Lord. The reality of his situation tore through Noah''s being, wrenching him from the pleasant memories he had cherished, transforming them into a haunting nightmare brought forth by the Dark Lord''s malevolence.
As Noah gradually regained consciousness, the tides of war shifted in favor of the Dark Lord, Michael. Without the presence of Noah and Norvin, the two strongest warriors, Noah''s army found themselves on the losing end. Despite the valiant efforts of the Skyhall angels, the relentless undead forces and their lethal allies, the bloaters, began to overwhelm and decimate their ranks.
Meanwhile, Eve relentlessly continued her mission of destroying the light orbs. Each orb shattered under the weight of her mighty blows, plunging the battlefield into ever-deepening darkness. Gaya, in her Naga form, soared through the sky, emitting a poisonous green mist that tainted the air. With a fiery arrow in hand, she unleashed a devastating explosion that reduced buildings to ashes and reverberated with a deafening roar throughout the river town. The destruction caused by theirbined efforts cast a grim shadow over the once-vibrant river town..
"Wake up, Noah," Noah heard his mentor Andreas''s voice in his head.
"The Dark Lord killed Norvin, Noah. You must wake up and avenge him,"
As Noah''s consciousness began to stir, he heard the familiar voice of his mentor, Andreas, resonating in his mind, urging him to wake up and seek vengeance for Norvin''s death at the hands of the Dark Lord.
Meanwhile, Eve, determined to disrupt the Noah''s ns, hurled her hammer towards what appeared to be an empty patch of ground. However, upon impact, the illusion surrounding the area shattered, revealing a group of dwarves and Skyhall angels fervently guarding a pulsating energy orb. The orb emitted a radiant and intense light, serving as a beacon of hope amidst the encroaching darkness.
In a state of panic and shock, the dwarves eximed, their voices filled with urgency and disbelief. "The illusions...they''ve been shattered! Protect the orb at all costs!"
In a disy of unity, the Half Immortal Skyhall angels swiftly took flight, soaring through the sky with grace and purpose. Their ethereal forms glistened with celestial light as they positioned themselves between Eve and the pulsating energy of the orb.
Three Skyhall angels, their power amplified by their Half Immortal status, unleashed spells upon Eve. The first angel channeled their energy into a swirling vortex of ice shards that streaked through the air, aiming to freeze Eve''s movements. The second angel summoned bolts of lightning that crackled and danced, electrifying the atmosphere and threatening to engulf Eve in a storm of electricity. The third angel, their voice resonating with divine authority, invoked a radiant beam of pure light, searing through the darkness and seeking to cleanse the malevolent forces that surrounded them.
The spells collided with a dazzling spectacle, creating a symphony of elemental power that illuminated the sky. Each spell carried its own unique appearance and effect, showcasing the immense strength and determination of the Skyhall angels.
Despite Eve''s formidable strength at the Half Immortal stage level 3, facing three Skyhall angels and theirbined spells proved to be a formidable challenge. The spells surged through the sky, aiming directly at Eve. She swiftly swung her hammer in a circr motion, creating a protective shield that deflected the icy shardsunched by the first angel. However, her quick reflexes weren''t enough to evade the lightning bolts cast by the second angel, which struck her back.
"Ah!" Eve cried out in pain, blood staining her lips as she coughed uncontrobly.
Before the third angel''s radiant beam could reach her, Gaya intervened, assuming her naga form and coiling protectively around Eve. The beam collided with Gaya''s sturdy scales, shielding Eve from its full impact.
As the spells dissipated, Gaya released Eve from her embrace and transformed back into her human form. Her sudden appearance shifted the tide of the battle, instilling a newfound confidence.
"Didn''t your angel mama teach you that it''s wrong to bully a girl?" Gaya taunted, her voiceced with amusement.I think you should take a look at
"She''s just a bitch, just like you¡ªa whore and an abomination for marrying the Dark Lord," one of the angels retorted, attempting to provoke Gaya.
Instead of bing angered, Gayaughed. To her, these angels were nothing but pitiful fools, destined for their imminent demise.
"How embarrassing it must be for you three to meet your end at the hands of a so-called bitch and whore," Gaya sneered, reveling in her superiority. With a sudden burst of speed, she lunged at the two Half Immortal angels, leaving one for Eve to face. Gaya''s incredible swiftness caught the angels off guard.
During Michael''s absence in Itonys, Gaya had discovered and absorbed an energy deposit, fueling her powers to unprecedented heights. The surge of energy unleashed her hidden potential, enhancing her strength, speed, and raw power to extraordinary levels.
As Gaya faced off against the two Half Immortal Skyhall angels, she tapped into her newly amplified powers. Poisonous energy surged through her veins, empowering her spells with a venomous touch. With a graceful flick of her hand, she unleashed a cloud of toxic mist, enveloping her opponents. The mist coiled around the angels, corroding their strength and sapping their vitality.
Undeterred, the first angel retaliated with a spell of his own. He summoned ethereal chains, forged from divine light, which shot towards Gaya with blinding speed. But Gaya''s agility allowed her to dodge and weave through the intricatework of chains, avoiding their restrictive grip.
Meanwhile, the second angel unleashed a barrage of radiant arrows, each one imbued with holy energy. Gaya swiftly evaded the arrows, her nimble movements akin to a dance in the sky. She retaliated by drawing her golden bow and firing back with arrows infused with her own potent magic. Each arrow found its mark, causing explosive bursts of energy upon impact.
The sh between Gaya and the Skyhall angels shook the battlefield. Buildings crumbled beneath their powerful spells, reducing Noah''s army and the undead horde to mere coteral damage in their fierce confrontation. The ground quaked as shockwaves rippled through the once serene town, leaving trails of destruction in their wake.
Amidst this chaos, Eve engaged in her own aerial duel with the remaining Skyhall angel. Bolts of lightning crackled from her hammer, surging through the sky with dazzling brilliance. She summoned storms of electricity, their raw power threatening to tear the heavens asunder. The angel countered with shields of divine energy, attempting to deflect the electrifying onught. Thunderous shes echoed through the air as their spells collided, illuminating the darkened sky.
The battle between Gaya, Eve, and the Skyhall angels transcended mere physicalbat. It became a sh of elemental forces, their powers intertwining and creating an awe-inspiring spectacle. Their ferocity and determination knew no bounds as they fought with all their might, unleashing devastation upon the once peaceful river town.
In the midst of the chaos, the battlefield became a chaotic maelstrom of destruction. Thebined forces of Noah''s army and the undead horde were caught in the crossfire, their ranks scattered and decimated by the overwhelming power unleashed by thebatants. The ground was scarred with the remnants of their spells, and the air was heavy with the scent of burning debris and swirling energy.
Amidst the raging battle, a sudden explosion shattered the debris above Noah with a resounding boom. A blinding light erupted from the very spot where Noah had been buried, forcing everyone to shield their eyes. The radiant glow that emanated from Noah''s being enveloped the entire battlefield, casting an ethereal brilliance upon the chaos.
Unbeknownst to Michael, who observed from the sky, the near-death experience and the profound loss of his loved ones had awakened a dormant power within Noah. The fury and anguish coursing through his veins fueled his transformation, granting him unimaginable strength and a newfound determination to confront the Dark Lord.
Little did Michael know, in that very moment, that the brink of death had unleashed a wellspring of power within Noah, as it did for all gods and beings above the mortal realm. The revtion that near-death experiences could grant unimaginable strength remained a secret to Michael, and Noah was about to prove that he was no exception to this extraordinary phenomenon. As Noah ascended, radiant and empowered, Michael braced himself for the ultimate sh between the two brothers, unaware of the true magnitude of Noah''s newfound abilities.
Noah slowly ascended from the ground, his entire form radiating with the intensity of the blinding light. Michael recognized the change unfolding before his eyes, realizing that Noah had tapped into his ultimate potential. Floating in the sky, Michael prepared himself to confront Noah in this newfound, ultimate form.
"GHOST!" Noah''s voice reverberated through the battlefield, resonating with a force that surpassed mere sound. His powerful shout unleashed a shockwave, obliterating everything in its path. The once-ruined buildings crumbled to dust, and both Noah''s army and the undead were thrown into disarray by the sheer force of the shout. Even Gaya, Eve, and the Skyhall angels were forcefully brought down from the sky, crashing onto the ground below.
Somewhere beyond the chaos of the battlefield, Ne, one of Noah''s loyal and trusted friends, guided Olivia toward the epicenter of the battle. Olivia, an alchemist and Michael''s former student, carried the weight of two god-killing arrows entrusted to her by Noah himself. Their arrival could potentially tip the scales in this cataclysmic conflict.
Chapter 1036 Using The God Killing Arrows
Noah emerged from the debris, his radiant form shining like a miniature sun. The darkness that Eve had cast upon the battlefield with the destruction of the light orbs was instantly dispelled by Noah''s presence. He exuded an undeniable aura of the God of Light, absorbing the arch and celestial energy that surrounded him. With this surge of power, the energy dome encasing Rivertown cracked and shattered, unable to contain Noah''s divine might.
Meanwhile, Michael activated the death range, causing the surrounding area to plunge into darkness. Storm clouds roiled above him, unleashing thunderous ps and torrential rain. The opposing forces of intense light and pitch-ck darkness shed, setting the stage for the ultimate battle between the God of Light and the God of Darkness.
Noah''s gaze fell upon the mummified remains of Norvin, lying lifeless on the ground below Michael. A profound anger welled up within Noah, resonating with a powerful hum that reverberated throughout the battlefield. The sound was so intense that it caused everyone, including Eve and Gaya, to cover their ears in agony. The impact was immense, knocking the beastmen, vampires, and all airborne fighters to the ground, their bodies trembling in response.
The humming sound triggered a chaotic response from the undead. The alpha undead lost control over their minions, unleashing a bloodthirsty frenzy. The undead charged recklessly, attacking the Skyhall angels, beastmen, dwarves, and anyone unfortunate enough to be in their path.
However, just as the undead were about to descend upon Noah''s army, a shockwave emanated from Noah''s body, altering the very fabric of gravity in the battlefield. Suddenly, the undead and otherbatants were rendered weightless, suspended in mid-air, their movements suspended by this extraordinary force.
"That is a surprising power,"
Michael remained calm andposed, unfazed by the gravity-altering power unleashed by Noah. As a god himself, the fluctuating forces had no effect on him. Hovering in the sky, their eyes locked, the contrast between Noah''s boiling anger and Michael''s unwaveringposure was stark. The radiance surrounding Noah concealed the turmoil brewing within him, leaving Michael unaware of the changes beneath the surface.
With a taunting tone, Michael goaded Noah, "What are you waiting for, Noah?" However, before his words could dissipate, Noah vanished from his position, reappearing behind Michael in a blink. An instinctual jolt surged through Michael as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Reacting swiftly, he activated his lightning dash, swiftly evading Noah''s iing punch by mere inches. Noah''s fist struck the empty air, releasing a shockwave of incredible force that dispersed the storm clouds, revealing the resplendent moon and stars once more.
Michael had little time to react as Noah immediately lunged at him once again. The sh between their powers created an extraordinary phenomenon in the sky, where light and darkness wrestled for dominance, casting an eerie gray hue over the battlefield. The opposing forces struggled to overpower each other, but their equilibrium remained unbroken. Amidst the sh, Noah''s sole focus was on his consuming rage, his determination to kill his brother, the Dark Lord, unwavering.
A fleeting foxy smile graced Michael''s face before swiftly vanishing in the heat of battle.
"I''m going to end your life!" Noah''s enraged scream echoed through the air as he relentlessly unleashed a barrage of punches. Some strikes found their mark on Michael''s body, causing bones to crack under the force. However, thanks to the advanced healing properties of his APD-integrated armor, restorative potions coursed through Michael''s bloodstream, mending his injuries in real-time.
A wicked smirk formed on Michael''s lips as he taunted, "What happened to your no-kill rule?"
With lightning-fast reflexes, he caught Noah''s iing fist mid-air, countering with a rapid series of punches to Noah''s gut. Raising his hand, Michael unleashed a deadlybination of lightning and dark mes, propelling Noah through the air. Blood trickled from Noah''s mouth as he was engulfed by the luminous aura surrounding him, yet he remained undeterred, dashing towards Michael once more.
Noah charged with a thunderous roar, his mouth aglow with radiant light. As he bellowed, the light erupted from his gaping maw, materializing into a colossal ethereal dragon crafted from pure luminosity. The sight of the magnificent dragon stunned all onlookers, their attention drawn skyward. The beast''s ferocious roar resounded through the battlefield as it soared towards Michael, jaws poised to snap shut.
Undeterred by the imminent threat, Michael, the God of Darkness, demonstrated his unwavering prowess. In the face of such battles, he pushed his limits, honing his skills to perfection. Seizing the moment, Michael activated Silenes, causing time to slow down within his vicinity. Swiftly ascending into the sky, he soared above the luminous dragon before diving with the Doomsbringer gripped tightly in his hand. With a resounding impact, the Doombringer collided forcefully with the dragon''s head, unleashing a deafening p of thunder that reverberated across the battlefield. The shockwave annihted countless trees in a half-mile radius, leaving destruction in its wake.
With the cracking of the dragon''s head, Noah seized the opportunity and sprang into action. Summoning swords forged from pure light and radiant mes, he prepared to face Michael head-on. Sensing the impending danger, Michael swiftly hurled his Doomsbringer towards Noah, who deftly evaded the iing attack.
Simultaneously, Michael extended his hands towards the ground, causing the dark swords to tremble beforeunching them skyward. The sh between the two godly forces intensified as Noah unleashed lightning-fast sword strikes, pushing himself to the limits of his speed and agility. Undeterred, Michael tapped into the full potential of Silenes, slowing down time within his bubble of influence. Yet even in this slowed-down state, Noah''s movements remained lightning-quick, making it a formidable challenge for Michael to evade his onught.I think you should take a look at
Amidst the flurry of sword shes, Noah managed tond a cut on Michael''s shoulder. Although the armor absorbed most of the blow, the searing light mes managed to breach the defenses, leaving a burning wound that elicited a grimace from Michael.
Recognizing the need for a decisive move, Michael made a calcted risk. He intentionally allowed Noah''s sword to slice across his chest, using the opportunity to grab hold of Noah''s wrists. Locked in a fierce face-off, the two brothers exerted their godly strength against one another, their eyes locked in a battle of wills.
Regret seeping through his voice, Noah gritted his teeth as he spoke to Michael. The realization of his mistake lingered in his words, "I made a mistake by letting you live. I regret that."
With a snicker, Michael taunted Noah, reveling in his change of heart. "Atta boy, now you realize you shouldn''t let your enemies live. I am d you are finally seeing things."
Determined to make his point, Noah retorted, "You are not my enemy. You are a curse to the whole world." Unleashing his frustration, Noahunched a powerful headbutt towards Michael, who in turn cracked his neck and reciprocated with a headbutt of his own.
As the two brothers shed, each headbutt sent shockwaves rippling through the sky, cracking the ground beneath them. In the midst of their confrontation, Ne and Olivia soared through the sky, witnessing the cataclysmic battle between two godly beings. Olivia carried the two god-killing arrows entrusted to her by Noah, a strategic move to prevent the Dark Lord from gainingplete control.
In a split second, the dark swords defied the gravity distortion caused by Noah''s power. Sensing the opening, Michael released Noah''s wrists, swiftly grasping one of the dark swords and driving it into Noah''s gut. Simultaneously, a sharp pain surged through Michael''s own abdomen, realizing that Noah had retaliated by plunging a sword into his own gut. The momentary stillness was shattered by the intensity of their shared pain.
A searing pain tore through their stomachs, causing blood to trickle down the darkened sky. Ominous thunders rumbled and lightning streaks illuminated the battlefield. From his castle, Andohr sensed the weakening of the barrier and erupted into maniacalughter, hoping that the God of Darkness and God of Light would destroy each other, shattering the barrier that kept him from reaching the realm of gods.
With a firm grip on their swords, Michael and Noah drove the des deeper into each other''s bodies. In a desperate move, Michael raised his other hand, releasing a dense cloud of poison from a contraption built into his palm. The noxious fumes engulfed Noah''s face, momentarily disorienting him and giving Michael an opportunity to grasp the second dark sword suspended in the air.
However, before the second de could find its mark, Olivia appeared unexpectedly, seizing Michael''s hand. With tear-filled eyes and a voice filled with regret, Olivia addressed her teacher, "I am sorry, teacher." Ne, who had brought Olivia to the battlefield, witnessed the anguish in Olivia''s expression. It was clear that betraying her teacher pained Olivia to the core.
Taking advantage of the distraction caused by Olivia''s intervention, Noah swiftly flicked his wrist, producing a god-killing arrow. With a resolute determination, he plunged the arrow through Michael''s heart, dealing a decisive blow.
As the god-killing arrow pierced through Michael''s heart, a deafening thunderp reverberated through the air, causing the entire world to tremble in response. The oceans, once restless with crashing waves, stilled in an eerie silence, as if paying homage to the monumental moment taking ce above.
In the midst of the charged atmosphere, lightning bolts erupted across the darkened sky, illuminating the heavens with their brilliant shes. The bolts crackled with raw energy, as if mirroring the intense sh between light and darkness unfolding before the eyes of gods and mortals alike. It was a sight that struck awe and fear into the hearts of those who witnessed it.
With the god of darkness struck by the god-killing arrow, a profound stillness settled over the battlefield. In a surge of determination, Noah seized another god-killing arrow and swiftly plunged it through Michael''s gut, deepening the wound. As the arrow tore through flesh and sinew, a visceral spray of blood erupted from Michael''s gut, sshing across the sky in a macabre disy. The crimson liquid tainted his lips, trickling down his mouth in a chilling stream.
Michael''s eyes widened, a mix of agony and disbelief flickering within them. The pain coursed through his body, intensifying with each passing moment. Yet, despite the torment, a sinister smile twisted across his face, a cruel testament to his indomitable spirit.
( Note, Continue reading and I promise you what you feel will turn into goosebumps)
Chapter 1037 What Really Happened? Part One
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Despite the torment inflicted upon him by the two god-killing arrows, Michael''s indomitable will and resilience shone through. With a surge of strength, he gripped Noah by the neck, his fingers tightening around the vulnerable flesh. In an act of defiance, he headbutted Noah with a resounding thud, followed by a swift kick to the chest that propelled Noah through the sky, his body hurtling away from the battlefield.
"I am sorry, teacher,"
With Olivia trembling in fear before him, Michael''s gaze bore into her, a mixture of anger and disappointment etched across his blood-streaked face. Olivia stammered an apology, her voice trembling as she struggled to find the right words. The weight of her betrayal weighed heavily upon her, overshadowed by the impending threat to her life.
In the midst of the chaos, Gaya, the relentless Naga warrior, fought against the enhanced gravity, her fierce determination allowing her to defy its oppressive force. Though her attempts to ascend into the sky were met with resistance, she refused to yield, her determination unyielding.
Meanwhile, the two god-killing arrows embedded within Michael''s body began to emit a radiant glow, their power sapping away his strength. The intensity of their radiance mirrored the diminishing might of the Dark Lord, causing Noah tounch himself at Michael once more. Yet, this time, Michael''s agility proved superior as he deftly evaded Noah''s punch, delivering a stinging p across Noah''s face that left him disoriented.
"I don''t want your sorry. I want your life," Michael growled menacingly at Olivia, his grip on her neck tightening, cutting off her air supply. Desperation flooded her eyes as her legs thrashed in a futile attempt to free herself from his grasp.
As Olivia''s life hung in the bnce, Noah unleashed a brilliant beam of light, infused with his waning strength, directly at Michael''s chest. The unexpected attack struck true, apanied by the piercing pain of a third god-killing arrow that pierced Michael''s back. Michael''s gaze shifted, his eyes slowly taking in the sight of Sabrina, tears streaming down her face as she stood before him.
"I had no choice," Sabrina murmured through her sorrow, her voiceced with regret and sadness. The collective forces of the Skyhall angels and Noah''s army, witnessing the fading power of the Dark Lord, were filled with renewed hope and anticipation. With the third god-killing arrow embedded within his form, Michael plummeted from the sky, crashing into the ground below, leaving behind a gaping crater as testament to the immense power unleashed in their final confrontation.
Upon Michael''s impact with the ground, the chaotic forces that had distorted gravity returned to normal. Gaya and Eve wasted no time, swiftly closing in on Michael''s fallen form. However, their advance was met with opposition as a group of Skyhall angels encircled them, their determination evident. Just as the situation seemed dire, a monstrous being materialized behind the Skyhall angels, a grotesque creatureposed of pulsating blood. With a vicious lunge, the beast attacked, attempting to overpower the encircling angels.
In that crucial moment, Sabernded between Eve and the encircling angels, taking a defensive stance.
"Go to the Dark Lord!" Sabermanded Eve, his voice filled with determination as he prepared to fend off the advancing Skyhall angels.
Sabrina and Olivia, their eyes filled with tears, witnessed the descent of the Dark Lord with heavy hearts. For Olivia, the Dark Lord had been a mentor who had nurtured her talents in alchemy, shaping her into the aplished five-star alchemist she had be.
For Sabrina, he was not only a brother to Noah but also a brother to her. Yet, she had beenpelled to betray him, wielding the god-killing arrow to protect her family.
The Skyhall angels, observing the rapid decline of the Dark Lord''s power from the Half Celestial stage to the Immortal stage, recognized the opportunity to strike. With the god-killing arrows still embedded within his body, the Dark Lord''s strength waned with each passing moment. Seizing the moment, a several Skyhall angels and beastmen surged forward, their fervor undeterred. The undead army and the vampires, loyal to their lord, rallied to defend him, creating a chaotic sh of forces.
Even as the undead army and vampires moved to defend their lord, a fraction of the Skyhall angels and beastmen managed to breach the defenses.
Together, they unleashed a barrage of powerful spells, theirbined forces converging upon Michael with lethal intent. The air crackled with unleashed energy as the spells surged towards their target, seeking to overwhelm the weakened Dark Lord.
As the Skyhall angels and beastmen closed in on the fallen Dark Lord, they unleashed their devastating spells with a fierce determination. zing orbs of fire streaked through the air, exploding upon impact and engulfing the surroundings in searing mes. Arcs of lightning crackled and danced, striking the ground with electrifying force. Spears of ice materialized in mid-air, hurtling towards their target with deadly precision.
Yet, as the onught of spells descended upon the Dark Lord, a pale blue shield manifested around him. This shield shimmered with a protective aura, absorbing the majority of the spells'' destructive power. It flickered with resilience, deflecting the onught and mitigating the damage inflicted upon the wounded Dark Lord.
Simultaneously, the Skyhall angels and beastmen who managed to reach the Dark Lord engaged in close-quartersbat. Their des shed with his armor, creating sparks that illuminated the darkened battlefield. The Skyhall angels, with their celestial wings, swooped down, delivering swift strikes with their celestial des. The beastmen, with their fierce strength and agility, lunged and pounced, attempting to overwhelm the weakened Dark Lord.
Amidst the chaotic sh, the Dark Lord evaded some of the attacks with fluid grace, swiftly parrying and countering their advances. His movements, though impaired by the god-killing arrows lodged within him, carried a lingering threat. With each strike, he fought back, retaliating with abination of brute force and calcted precision. His strikes were swift and urate, as if driven by a primal instinct to survive.
However, some attacks managed to breach the Dark Lord''s defenses, finding their mark upon his vulnerable form. His armor, stained with his own blood, offered diminishing protection as his strength waned. Each blow intensified the pain coursing through his body, threatening to sap his remaining vitality.
Amidst the chaotic sh, the voices of the Skyhall angels and beastmen echoed through the battlefield.
"Press the attack! He''s weakening!"
"Strike harder! Don''t let him recover!"
"He cannot withstand ourbined might!"
As the battle reached its climax, Noah, consumed by pure rage, unleashed a barrage of catastrophic spells. Chains of radiant light materialized beside him, shooting forth with incredible speed to ensnare the Dark Lord. Simultaneously, a majestic winged lion, forged from pure light, materialized and lunged at Michael with fierce determination. The third spell Noah conjured resembled Michael''s devastating meteor spell, but instead of fiery projectiles, Noah summoned three spheres of scorching light enveloped in radiant mes. Thebined force of these spells struck Michael simultaneously, causing a tremendous explosion that sent shockwaves rippling through the battlefield. The resulting dust storm engulfed the area, obscuring the view and disorienting both armies.
Seizing the opportunity, Noah summoned the remaining god-killing arrows, a manifestation of his determination to end the Dark Lord''s life. Hands made of brilliant light materialized around Noah, each grasping a god-killing arrow. With the arrows in his possession, Noah descended from the sky, his intent clear¡ªto deliver the final blow to the Dark Lord.
Amidst the chaos, a sudden explosion of lightning illuminated the battlefield where Eve was locked inbat. Witnessing the overwhelming assault on her best friend, the Dark Lord, Eve''s fury ignited within her. Her anger transformed into an intense surge of power as she leaped into the air, descending upon the ground with her hammer poised to strike. The resulting shockwave sent her adversaries hurtling through the air, their bodies flung aside with great force. Meanwhile, Saber, leading his vampire forces, charged at the surrounding Skyhall angels and beastmen, proving himself to be an exceptionally formidable opponent. With every drop of blood he consumed, Saber''s strength and speed increased exponentially, turning him into an unstoppable force on the battlefield.
On the other hand, Gaya surged forward like an unstoppable force, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake. Her ferocity knew no bounds as she tore through the ranks of the Skyhall angels and beastmen, their bodies no match for her ruthless onught. Limbs were ripped apart, and the ground became drenched in a macabre disy of blood and shattered wings. The piercing cries of Gaya''s victims reverberated across the battlefield, a haunting testament to her unrestrained power.
However, as Gaya neared the area where Noah''s spells had struck, Noah clenched his hands together, conjuring a luminous orb of light. The pulsating sphere radiated with escting energy, growing more potent with each passing moment. With a swift motion, Noah hurled the orb toward Gaya, and upon impact with the ground, it erupted in a cataclysmic explosion.
Witnessing the devastating attack on her dear friend, Eve''s heartache transformed into an eruption of anger. She sprinted toward Gaya, her voice roaring with defiance. But the Skyhall angels capitalized on the distraction, converging upon Eve from all directions. Despite her valiant struggles, the numbers overwhelmed her as twenty to thirty Skyhall angels and beastmen closed in, forcibly subduing her. Their grip tightened, rendering her powerless against theirbined strength.
In a calcted move, the Skyhall angels conjured a swirling vortex of chakra, positioning it directly above Eve''s head. The chakra spun rapidly, releasing wisps of smoke that entered Eve''s consciousness, rendering her unconscious and silencing her defiance.
As the smoke dissipated, the battered figure of the Dark Lord stood before them. His armor was in tatters, sttered with his own blood. His weary eyes struggled to stay open, his wavering stance indicating his impending copse. It was a sight that conveyed the toll of the battle upon him. However, Noah seized the opportunity,nding behind Michael with astonishing speed and thrusting another god killing arrow into his already wounded form. The hands of pure light created by Noah moved in a blur, delivering swift and precise strikes as the god killing arrows pierced Michael''s body. Each strike resounded with a thunderous p, the apanying sh of lightning illuminating the sky.
In a final desperate attempt, Gaya lunged at Michael, her own body battered and bloodied. Despite her injuries, she sought to deliver a decisive blow. Her hand appeared twisted, and crimson streams trickled from her wounds. Michael, despite being pierced by the god killing arrows, intercepted Gaya, his grip tight as he locked eyes with her. Gaya copsed onto Michael, their bodies entwined, as Noah unleashed thest and ultimate god killing arrow, piercing through both their hearts.
At that moment, the darkness that had shrouded the battlefield began to recede, allowing the gentle rays of the rising sun to illuminate the horizon. Michael plummeted to the ground, cradling Gaya in his embrace, while Sabrina and Olivia stood nearby, witnessing the fall of the Dark Lord. As Michael''s body made contact with the earth, the god killing arrows pulsated with an intense surge of energy.
Then, in a climactic finale, the god killing arrows erupted in a magnificent explosion, engulfing the Dark Lord''s form in a mist of crimson. Noah gazed up at the emerging sun, a symbol of a brighter future now that the Dark Lord had been vanquished.
Noah, having finally exacted his revenge upon the Dark Lord for the deaths of Alicia and Norvin, sank to his knees. As the radiant light surrounding him subsided, the true extent of the damage inflicted upon Noah became evident. His body was covered in bruises, blood seeping from numerous wounds. His once majestic armor nowy in tatters, a testament to the fierce battle he had endured.
With the defeat of the Dark Lord, Saber took to the skies, his vampire followers vanishing alongside him. ra, fueled by a desire for justice, attempted to pursue the fleeing vampires, but Noahmanded her to stand down.
"Let them go," Noah said, his voice weary but resolute.
"It''s over,"
As the dust settled and the chaos of battle subsided, Noah let out a sigh of relief. The long and arduous struggle had finallye to an end.
(Get ready for some goosebump moments!!!)
Chapter 1038 What Really Happened? Part Two
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Three days after the defeat of the Dark Lord, a festive atmosphere filled the air as the world celebrated this momentous asion. However, in River Town, where the final battle had taken ce, and among the people of Gondolin who had remained indifferent to the war, there was no such revelry.
In the midst of this, Pen Town was adorned with golden threads, vibrantnterns, and an array of dazzling fireworks that illuminated the daytime sky. The townsfolk didn''t mind the unusual timing and enthusiastically set off thousands of firecrackers and fireworks, rejoicing in the triumph of their beloved Lord Noah over the Dark Lord.
Distinguished figures and leaders from all corners of the realm arrived at Pen Town to partake in the grand celebration hosted by Noah at his opulent residence, Winston Manor. The manor itself was a sight to behold, bedecked with colorful lights, shimmeringnterns, and intricately woven golden decorations. The entrance to the manor was lined with a red carpet, where people eagerly gathered, their cheers resounding like thunderps.
Amidst the jubnt atmosphere, Olivia Palmer, hailed as one of the heroes for her courageous efforts to thwart the Dark Lord, arrived in her carriage. The carriage gracefully made its way through the sea of people, who stood on either side of the red carpet, offering their cheers and adoration.
Outside the walls of Winston Manor, the townsfolk of Pen Town had congregated, eagerly awaiting glimpses of the illustrious guests and the festivities unfolding within. Their excitement was palpable as they cheered and apuded, their joy reverberating through the air.
As Olivia gracefully alighted from her carriage, the enthusiastic crowd erupted into a chorus of cheers. d in a resplendent red gown befitting the grand asion, she waved graciously at the adoring onlookers before making her way into the magnificent Winston Manor.
Inside the manor, the atmosphere was nothing short of captivating. The grand hall, adorned with opulent decorations, exuded an aura of regality. Crystal chandeliers bathed the space in a warm and inviting glow, casting shimmering reflections upon the gilded walls. borate tapestries depicting scenes of valor and triumph adorned the halls, adding an air of historical significance to the surroundings.
Olivia followed the elegantly adorned corridors, guided by the gentle melodies of live music that floated through the air. The sound of joyful conversations filled the spaces as she navigated her way towards the grand hall, where the esteemed guests had gathered.
As she entered the grand hall, her presencemanded attention. World leaders, including King Bredia, Noah''s cousin Andrews, Yasmine Winston, Noah''s sister Sabrina Winston, and Andrews'' wife, Princess Katherine, daughter of King Bredia, were in attendance. Princess Katherine''s two children added a touch of youthful exuberance to the gathering.
The grand hall itself was a spectacle to behold. Lavish draperies adorned the walls,plementing the majestic artwork disyed throughout. The long dining tables were adorned with exquisite floral arrangements and fine silverware, promising a feast fit for kings. The air was filled with an intoxicating blend of tantalizing aromas from the meticulously prepared dishes, teasing the senses and whetting the appetite.
Amidst the mingling guests, Olivia greeted familiar faces with warmth and grace, exchanging pleasantries and sharing in the collective joy of this momentous asion.
As Olivia entered the manor, she was greeted by Ne, one of Noah''s trusted allies and an esteemed member of his elite guard. Ne approached Olivia with a respectful nod.
"Lady Olivia, Lord Noah is waiting for you," Ne informed her.
Understanding the purpose of their meeting, Olivia nodded in acknowledgement. She and Ne both knew that their destinationy deep within thebyrinthine corridors of Winston Manor.
"Lead the way," Olivia gestured, following Ne as they discreetly slipped away from the bustling crowd. They ventured through hidden passages and descended a gloomy staircase, their footsteps echoing in the somber silence. The path to the dungeon prison felt ominous, with dimly lit torches casting flickering shadows along the cold stone walls.
Reaching the entrance of the dungeon, Ne revealed a nondescript brown door concealed behind an illusion. With a simple motion, the door swung open, revealing the bleak confines that awaited them. The air grew heavy as they entered, the atmosphere thick with a sense of captivity.
Within the dungeon, Olivia''s eyes fell upon Noah, who stood before a row of ss tubes, each containing a captive individual. Among them was Ricky, her former lover, confined within a special cage designed specifically to hold the Dark Lord''s surviving subordinates. A sigh escaped Olivia''s lips as she observed his unconscious form.
The ss tubes contained other prominent subordinates of the Dark Lord, including Adelia Wraith, Maxine, Tiberius, Titus, Optimus, and Trista. They remained motionless, unaware of their impending fate at the hands of Noah.
"Noah," Olivia greeted him as he turned to face her.
Noah''s face bore the evidence of the intense battle he had endured. Bruises marred his features, and a walking cane supported his weakened body. The strain of wielding the god killing arrows and the wounds inflicted by the Dark Lord''s dark mes had taken their toll.
"I thought you should have a final opportunity to see Ricky before we carry out their sentence," Noah exined, his voice tinged with a mix of determination and weariness.
Ne observed Olivia''s shocked expression, sensing the turmoil within her.
"Sentence? Noah, I believed we were nning to imprison them," Olivia responded, her voice betraying her deep-seated astonishment.
Noah''s gaze held a resolute conviction as he spoke.
"I do not wish to subject them to the cruelty of the Skyhall. Handing them over would only result in prolonged suffering. What I offer is a swift and painless end, sparing them from a lifetime of torment for the crimesmitted by the Dark Lord," Noah exined, his words filled with a somber gravity.
Olivia''s lips parted to voice her objections, but her words faltered before they could escape. She realized that Noah''s perspective held a painful truth she couldn''t deny. Though her heart ached for Ricky and she longed for Noah to spare him, she understood the difficult choices he had to make. In the grand scheme of things, a swift death was a merciful alternativepared to the cruelties the Skyhall would inflict upon them.
With a heavy heart, Olivia approached the ss cage containing Ricky, her hand tenderly pressed against the cold surface.
"Ricky, you should have left Ghost when you had the chance. We could have built a future together," she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Concerned for the fate of the remaining Dark Lord''s subordinates, Olivia turned her attention to Noah, seeking answers.
"What about the others, Noah?" she inquired, her voice filled with genuine curiosity.
Noah''s response was resolute yet tinged with a sense of understanding.
"The undead and vampires have been confined within a separate pocket dimension, under the care of the Skyhall. As for the remaining subordinates, they are scattered and without leadership. We will track them down in due time," Ne interjected, offering a response to Olivia''s question.
Eager to uncover the fate of her dear friend, Olivia voiced her concerns regarding Eve Voldiguard, the Dark Lord''s closest ally.
"And what of Eve?" Olivia''s voice trembled with a mix of curiosity and sadness. She had noticed Eve''s absence from the ss cages, and her heart yearned to know her friend''s fate.
Ne''s response held no trace of sympathy, disying her unwavering resolve.
"Eve chose to take her own life. It seems the Dark Lord had entrusted her with a potent poison, to be used as ast resort in case of capture," Ne revealed, her tone betraying no mercy for Eve. In Ne''s eyes, the Dark Lord''s subordinates held no value, and their actions warranted nopassion.
"We have managed to extract a sample of the poison from Eve''s body, Olivia. I need you to replicate it in order to ensure a painless death for them," Noah''s voice echoed with a hint of urgency.
Olivia, still engrossed in her sorrowful gaze upon Ricky, responded without turning around.
"Why can''t you do it yourself? You''re just as skilled an alchemist as I am," Olivia questioned, her voice filled with a mix of curiosity and concern.
Noah''s response wasced with a tinge of helplessness.
"I cannot. This poison was created using Ghost''s unique recipe. Only you possess the knowledge to replicate it," Noah exined, his words resonating with the weight of necessity.
"If you are unable, I can use my Light mes to end their lives, but I cannot guarantee a painless death," Noah stated, his voice revealing the absence of choice.
Olivia, absorbing Noah''s words, took a deep breath, steeling herself for the task at hand.
"I will do it. Just provide me with a secluded space to work," Olivia requested, her voice determined.
Noah nodded in agreement, acknowledging her request.
"I will grant you the solitude you need. Ne will ensure you have everything necessary," Noah replied before limping away from the dungeon.
Two hours swiftly passed as Olivia meticulously brewed the replicated poison, her focus unwavering. With the taskpleted, she made her way back to the main hall.
Emerging onto the front yard, where the guests were gathered, Olivia joined the crowd. A stage, adorned with the ss cages containing the Dark Lord''s subordinates, had risen from the ground. As she awaited her cue, Noah finally appeared on the stage, greeted by thunderous cheers from the assembled crowd.
The crowd erupted in cheers and apuse, their voices reverberating through the air.
"Hail Lord Noah, the vanquisher of darkness!"
"Praise be to the one who defeated the Dark Lord!"
"Lord Noah, you have saved us all!"
The resounding cheers echoed around Pen town, an outpouring of gratitude and admiration for their savior. The people hailed Noah as a hero, their voices filled with hope and reverence.
In the distance, Salesi soared through the sky, her face radiating with joy. She had achieved her goal of eliminating the Dark Lord, eagerly anticipating her master''s journey into the realm of gods, where she was destined to apany him.
Meanwhile, Noah stood before the gathered crowd, acknowledging their cheers and apuse. With a humble smile, he raised his hand, signaling for silence. As his hand ascended, a hush fell over the crowd, their attention solely focused on Noah.
Taking a deep breath, Noah began his speech, his voice resonating with sincerity.
"My friends, today we celebrate a great victory over the Dark Lord, but let us not forget that darkness does not reside solely within one individual," Noah addressed the crowd, his words capturing their attention.
"We all possess a shadow within us, capable of darkness and evil. It is a part of our nature. But it is through our choices, our actions, and our kindness that we can ovee this darkness," Noah continued, his voice filled with conviction.
He urged the crowd to reflect on their own ws and the importance of self-improvement.
"We must strive to be better, to do better, if we are to prevent the rise of another Dark Lord. Each and every one of us has the power to make a difference, to bring light to the world," Noah emphasized, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the people before him.
His words resonated with the listeners as they contemted the significance of their individual contributions in creating a brighter future.
The crowd listened attentively, their hearts stirred by Noah''s call for self-reflection and personal growth. They understood that it was not only the defeat of the Dark Lord that mattered but also their ownmitment to kindness andpassion in their daily lives.
Noah gazed upon the ss cages, his expression filled with a mix of regret and resolve. He spoke to the gathered crowd, his voice carrying a tone ofpassion and understanding.
"I regret having to impose this death sentence upon them. But I do so out of mercy," Noah confessed, his words punctuated by a heavy sigh. "I have prepared a poison that will dissolve within the ss cages, ending their lives swiftly and painlessly. Once their souls have departed, I will use my light mes to burn their bodies."
The crowd listened in somber silence as Noah continued, his voice filled with determination. "This is not an act of vengeance or cruelty. It is an act of kindness. These individuals, once loyal to the Dark Lord, are now condemned to suffer a fate worse than death if they were to fall into the hands of higher authorities. I offer them release from that fate."
Olivia watched as Noah nodded, signaling to Ne, who stood beside a lever on the side. With a determined expression, Ne pulled down the lever, and a mechanism was set in motion. A soft hissing sound filled the air as the ss cages were permeated by a swirling purple mist.
The sound of Noah''s voice broke the silence. "May their spirits find peace in the realm beyond," he whispered, his voice carrying a solemn reverence. Olivia could see the anguish in Noah''s eyes, a testament to the heavy toll that such decisions took on his soul.
As the purple mist diffused within the ss cages, Olivia''s eyes were fixed on Ricky and the others held captive. She noticed a subtle shift in their bodies, a slight twitch, as if their unconscious forms were responding to the presence of the mist. Gradually, their movements ceased, and Olivia realized with a heavy heart that their breathing had stilled.
Just as Olivia''s gaze lingered on Ricky''s motionless figure, a gray-haired elder, adorned in ceremonial robes, approached his ss cage. His weathered hand gently pressed against the transparent barrier, causing a rune etched onto the surface to glow softly. The elder closed his eyes briefly, as if connecting with a realm beyond the physical, before turning around to face the expectant crowd.
With a voice that carried the weight of both sorrow and reverence, the elder announced solemnly, "Their souls have departed from this world." His words hung in the air, embraced by a brief moment of hushed silence.
A surge of relief and gratitude swept through the onlookers. The crowd erupted into a cacophony of cheers and apuse, their jubnt voices resonating through the air like a wave of joyous energy. The cheers were a testament to the collective understanding that the Dark Lord''s reign of darkness had finallye to an end and that Noah''s decisive actions had paved the way for a brighter future.
Then as he said, Noah''s hand ascended into the air, his palm open as if harnessing the power of the sun itself. In response to hismand, bright mes materialized, their brilliance illuminating the surroundings. The intense light flickered with vibrant energy, casting dancing shadows across the faces of those gathered.
As the mes drew closer to the ss cages, they seemed to defy thews of physics, seeping effortlessly through the barriers. The mes engulfed the lifeless bodies within, wrapping them in a shroud of radiant heat. In an instant, the bodies began to disintegrate, transforming into fine particles that swirled in the fiery vortex.
The brilliance of the mes intensified, emanating an overwhelming light that enveloped the entire hall. It was as if the room had been consumed by a blinding celestial aura, rendering everyone temporarily blind to their surroundings. They shielded their eyes, squinting against the radiance, as the all-epassing brilliance filled their senses.
When the light finally subsided and the onlookers dared to open their eyes, they found themselves gazing upon a scene of ash and remnants. The once-prisoned bodies of the Dark Lord''s subordinates had been reduced to nothing more than a fine powder scattered across the floor. The air carried a faint trace of their existence, a bittersweet reminder of lives extinguished.
Chapter 1039 What Really Happened? Final
Amidst the lively festivities, Olivia spotted Lord Information amidst the crowd. She approached the elf with a warm smile, extending her greetings.
"Lord Information, it''s a pleasant surprise to see you here. I didn''t think you woulde," Olivia said, her voice filled with genuine warmth. Lord Information turned to face her, a bright expression on his face. He knew the significance of his role in the recent events, having aided Noah with crucial information that ultimately led to the Dark Lord''s defeat.
"Why wouldn''t I be here? This is a momentous asion, a celebration of the Dark Lord''s downfall," Lord Information replied, a ss of wine in hand. He began strolling through Lady Diana Winston''s magnificent garden, inviting Olivia to join him.
They walked side by side, engaging in a pleasant conversation.
"I am sorry for your loss, Lady Olivia," Lord Information expressed his condolences for Olivia''s loss, understanding the pain she must be feeling after losing Ricky, her former lover. Olivia sighed, acknowledging his words with a sense of regret.
"I hope he finds peace," Olivia responded, her voice carrying a tinge of mncholy.
Lord Information shifted the topic, curious about Olivia''s future ns now that the Dark Lord had been vanquished. He acknowledged Olivia''s exceptional talent as an alchemist, recognizing that her skills rivaled even those of the Dark Lord himself.
"What are your future ns now, Lady Olivia? With the Dark Lord no longer a threat, you stand as one of the most esteemed alchemists in the world. Say what you want about the Dark Lord, but his knowledge in alchemy was unparalleled, except perhaps by one man who is not present," Lord Information remarked, alluding to Noah''s own prowess in the field.
Olivia pondered the question, her footsteps gently guiding her along the dazzling flower beds that flourished beneath the shimmering night sky. She considered a future filled with tranquility, a life of peaceful solitude.
"To be honest, I have no idea. Perhaps I will find a ce to settle down and spend the remainder of my days in peace and quiet," Olivia replied, her voice filled with a hint of longing for a life away from the chaos and turmoil of the past.
After pondering for a moment, Olivia shared her intentions with Lord Information.
"I have ns to assist Noah in rebuilding River Town. The people of River town deserve to have their homes restored after the devastating final battle between Noah and the Dark Lord," Olivia revealed, her voice filled with determination to aid those in need.
However, her hopeful aspirations were soon met with unfortunate news as Lord Information interjected, delivering a somber revtion.
"Unfortunately, Lady Olivia, the Skyhall has made the decision to close off River Town. The aftermath of the battle, including the radiation emitted by the god-killing arrows and the residue left behind, has rendered the area highly hazardous," Lord Information disclosed, shedding light on the grim aftermath of the sh between the two powerful entities.
Shaken by this revtion, Olivia''s concern for the disced residents of River Town grew stronger.
"But where will the people go? What will happen to them?" Olivia questioned, genuine worry etched on her face.
"They will be relocated to Bredia. However, we both know the history between the Dark Lord and King Bredia. Considering the Dark Lord''s affection for the people of River Town and their devotion to him, it is unlikely that King Bredia will treat them fairly. They may find themselves living as almost ves, with homes and no cors around their necks," Lord Information exined, his words painting a grim picture of the fate awaiting the River town residents.
Olivia''s mind raced, recalling the incident when her teacher, the Dark Lord, had nearly beaten King Bredia to a pulp in his very throne for attempting to harm the people of River Town. Now, with the Dark Lord defeated, King Bredia''s vindictive nature seemed to have resurfaced, seeking revenge on those whom the Dark Lord held dear.
Curiosity piqued, Olivia inquired about Noah''s awareness of the situation.
"Does Noah know about this?" she asked, hoping for a glimmer of hope.
Lord Information nodded solemnly, his expression mirroring Olivia''s concern.
"Yes, he is well aware. Unfortunately, he is left with no viable alternatives. No kingdom would readily ept the people who once worshipped the Dark Lord as immigrants. Noah may have emerged victorious in defeating the Dark Lord and earned the title of hero, but hecks the resources and political power to amodate the disced residents. It is King Bredia who has agreed to take them into his kingdom," Lord Information exined, the weight of the situation evident in his voice.
As they continued their discussion, one of Lord Information''s assistants, a golden-haired elf, emerged from the garden to deliver an important message.
"My lord, King Bredia has requested your presence in his chambers," the elf reported.
Olivia was taken aback by the unexpected turn of events, as it seemed that King Bredia and Lord Information were about to meet. Sensing an opportunity, Lord Information turned to Olivia and proposed an idea.
"Speaking of the devil, Lady Olivia, why don''t you apany me to this meeting? Your presence might bring some positive influence to the plight of the River town people," he suggested, his eyes filled with hope.
After a moment of contemtion, Olivia nodded in agreement.
"If it won''t pose any inconvenience, I will join you in this meeting," Olivia expressed, her determination shining through. Lord Information''s face lit up with a smile, appreciating Olivia''s willingness to help.
"Fantastic," he replied, handing his empty wine ss to a servant nearby.
With their decision made, Olivia and Lord Information soared through the sky, their destination set for the Kingdom of Bredia. The castle of King Bredia loomed majestically, a symbol of his wealth and authority. Under the clear night sky, the castle radiated an air of festivity, with decorations and lights illuminating the surroundings in celebration of the Dark Lord''s defeat.
As Lord Information and Olivia were escorted by the royal guards, they entered a grand and opulent chamber, befitting a king. The room was adorned with intricate tapestries depicting scenes of valor and triumph, while golden chandeliers bathed the space in a warm and inviting glow. The air was filled with the scent ofvender and sandalwood, creating an atmosphere of regality.
In the center of the chamber, arge wooden table stood, polished to a lustrous sheen. On the other side of the table, King Bredia sat upon a magnificent chair, his back turned towards the entrance. His gaze was fixed upon the kingdom outside the window, where the festivities honoring the defeat of the Dark Lord were in full swing.
"My lord," Lord Information respectfully bowed, awaiting the king''s response. Olivia stood beside him, her eyes scanning the chamber as the royal guards exited, closing the door behind them.
"Your majesty, I brought Lady Olivia to this meeting about the river town people. I hope you don''t mind,"
Lord Information''s words hung in the air, unanswered by King Bredia.
As the seconds ticked by, an eerie silence hung in the air. Lord Information''s anticipation turned to confusion, for there was no acknowledgment from King Bredia. Suddenly, a searing pain coursed through his side, causing him to gasp in shock. He looked down, disbelief etched across his face, as he saw Olivia driving a dagger into his gut. The betrayal cut deep, both literally and figuratively, as Lord Information grappled with the overwhelming realization that he had been deceived.
A mixture of shock and terror consumed Lord Information as his mind raced toprehend Olivia''s treachery. There had been no sign, no inkling that she would turn against him. His thoughts swirled in a whirlwind of questions, desperately searching for a reason for her betrayal. Yet, no answer emerged from the depths of his bewildered mind.
In a stunning turn of events, the king''s chair slowly rotated, revealing a figure that sent shivers down Lord Information''s spine. It was not King Bredia who sat upon the regal seat but the Dark Lord himself. The chamber seemed to darken, the air heavy with an ominous presence as the true mastermind behind the deceitful facade was unveiled.
A sinister smile crept across the Dark Lord''s face as he reclined in the chair, exuding an air of nonchnce. With a subtle flick of his wrist, he effortlessly summoned an empty chair behind Lord Information. Overwhelmed by blood loss and wracked with pain, Lord Information crumpled into the chair, his gaze locked with the Dark Lord''s piercing eyes.
"The greatest betrayales not from enemies but from those we once called friends. Did you think only you can y that game?" asked the Dark Lord with a sly smile.
Unbeknownst to Lord Information, he believed he had remained hidden in the shadows, ying a crucial role in providing the map that led to the Dark Lord''s defeat. It was an illusion he held onto, thinking that Noah had vanquished the Dark Lord using the god killing arrows. Yet there he was, face-to-face with the Dark Lord himself, his wicked smile illuminating the truth.
With a swift and calcted gesture, the Dark Lord flicked his wrist, conjuring seven exquisite silver arrows adorned with intricate runes. These were no ordinary arrows; they were the very same god killing arrows that Lord Information had aided Noah in finding.
As the shock of the Dark Lord''s presence settled in, Lord Information sensed a flicker of the Dark Lord''s immense power. It shattered the illusion that he was merely at the Half Celestial stage, the stage he had disyed during his battle with Noah. Instead, Lord Information now beheld the unmistakable aura of the Celestial stage radiating from the Dark Lord. The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning, dispelling any lingering doubts about the true extent of the Dark Lord''s strength.
Struggling against the pain coursing through his body, Lord Information managed to turn his head toward Olivia, who stood motionless nearby. The world believed that Olivia had abandoned her allegiance to the Dark Lord when his true identity was exposed. However, Lord Information''s mind pieced together the puzzle, connecting her betrayal to the return of the Dark Lord. It became painfully clear that every action, every deception, was orchestrated as part of the Dark Lord''s borate n.
"All this time..." Lord Information''s voice faltered, weighed down by the enormity of the truth.
The Dark Lord leaned forward, his eyes glinting with a mischievous glimmer. He began to narrate a story to Lord Information, his voiceced with an eerie charm.
"Once upon a time, there was a mighty lion who ruled over the animal kingdom. The lion possessed immense strength and power, causing fear to ripple through the hearts of the creatures in his domain. Yet, a cunning pack of foxes believed themselves to be far cleverer than the lion. They plotted and schemed, thinking they could outwit the powerful king of the jungle."
"But you see," the Dark Lord continued, his voice dripping with intrigue, "the foxes were blinded by their own perception of strength. They failed to recognize the lion''s intelligence, for they only saw his might. They assumed that the lion''s seemingziness was a sign of weakness, a vulnerability they could exploit."
"The truth, however, was far from their limited understanding. The lion was notzy; he simply did not view the foxes as his true adversaries. He saw no need to waste his energy on mere distractions. The foxes, in their arrogance, mistook his disregard as ack of intelligence, a sign of their imminent victory."
"But you, dear Lord Information," the Dark Lord''s voice grew softer, a sinister undertone beneath his words, "are akin to those misguided foxes. You failed to see the depths of my cunning, toprehend the extent of my ns. You believed yourself to be the orchestrator of events, but in truth, you were merely a pawn in my grand design."
Lord Information listened in stunned silence, his mind racing with a mixture of fear and realization. The Dark Lord''s narrative had painted a vivid picture of his own ignorance and underestimation.
Chapter 1040 The Dark Lord Planned Everything
?
As Lord Information struggled to stay conscious, Michael''s words filled the air with a chilling truth that sent shivers down his spine. His bloodied hands trembled as he tried toprehend the depth of the Dark Lord''s maniption.
"You see, Lord Information, I have a voice inside my head. It''s never wrong. Every time I saw you, the voice warned me not to trust this elf," Michael calmly exined, his eyes fixed on Lord Information''s pained expression.
"That''s why I left some of my friends inside your office to keep an eye on you. So, I wasn''t surprised when you decided to bring the map containing the location of the god killing arrows to Noah. If you had given me the map, you wouldn''t be here, and I wouldn''t be here," Michael continued, his voice unwavering despite the gravity of the situation.
Lord Information coughed up blood, his gaze shifting towards Olivia, who now stood beside the Dark Lord, a cold expression on her face. Michael noticed Lord Information''s re and feltpelled to rify.
"You and the whole world think I revealed myself as the Dark Lord during the war against Thusia. But that''s not true. I told Olivia long before that. She was a diligent student who understood that the Skyhall was manipting everyone with their narratives about me being evil. Besides, I needed someone behind enemy lines, and Olivia graciously epted that task. Even my wife Gaya didn''t know about this," Michael revealed, a satisfied smile crossing his lips as he saw his meticulous n unfold perfectly.
Lord Information''s mind reeled with shock and betrayal, realizing that he had unknowingly yed into the Dark Lord''s hands. He struggled to find the strength to respond as darkness slowly encroached on his vision, the pain from the dagger wound bing unbearable.
"She pretended to hate me, and the whole world, including Noah, bought that," Michael chuckled, reveling in his masterful deception.
"But Ricky..." Lord Information mumbled, his voice weak.
Lord Information had seen with his own eyes the poison enter the ss cage, the confirmation of the Dark Lord''s subordinates'' deaths by the elder of the Skyhall, and Noah using his light mes to destroy their bodies.
"Ricky," Michael slowly pped his hands together, leaning back on his chair. Lord Information heard a footstep and turned his head, gazing at a dark corner of the king''s chamber.
To his pure shock, Ricky, the young man who was supposed to have died in Noah''s light mes, emerged from the darkness. Even more surprising, Ricky was dragging King Bredia with him, the king struggling and muffled by a cloth in his mouth. King Bredia''s regal red attire was now torn and tattered, a testament to the beating he had received. His neatlybed hair was now ruffled and disheveled, and his hands and legs were bound as Ricky dragged him towards the Dark Lord.
Ricky forced King Bredia''s head down onto the table where Michael was seated. The king''s head hit the table with a thud, and Ricky firmly held him in ce. Michael then slowly ran his fingers through King Bredia''s hair, like a predator savoring its prey before the final strike.
"My dear king. What did I tell youst time?" asked Michael. He ignored Lord Information for a moment and turned his gaze to King Bredia.
"Hrrrmmm," King Bredia managed to mutter through the cloth.
"Take out the cloth," Michael smiled at Ricky. Ricky, in his ck shiny armor, nodded and removed the cloth from King Bredia''s mouth.
"HELP! GUARDS!" King Bredia screamed for help, but to his terror, no guards came to his rescue.
"We soundproofed the room, you old fuck," another voice snickered from the corner. Lord Information turned his head and saw the Dark Queen emerge from the darkness. He was terrified, as he had witnessed both the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen supposedly die in a bloody mist at the hands of Noah. But it was all a facade. The entire war was orchestrated by the Dark Lord from start to finish. The world had been deceived, and the Dark Lord had won.
Gaya, the Dark Queen, came to Michael''s side and ced her hand on Olivia''s shoulder.
"Sorry I doubted you, Olivia. You did really great," said Gaya, genuinely surprised and shocked to learn that Olivia had never abandoned the Dark Lord and had remained loyal to him all along.
"GUARDS! HELP! THE DARK LORD IS HERE! NOAH!" King Bredia continued to scream fiercely, even though Gaya had already informed him that the room was soundproofed. The guards and citizens outside were celebrating the Dark Lord''s death,pletely unaware that he was inside the king''s chamber, holding the king''s life in his hands.
"I told you I''d kill you if you tried to harm the people I care about, King Bredia. Did you forget that?" asked Michael. Ricky forced King Bredia to stand straight and look the Dark Lord in the eyes.
Just when Lord Information thought the surprises were enough, Michael reached his hand out to another dark corner. This time, it was Eve, the very same person Noah had imed killed herself after being captured by the Skyhall angels in the battlefield. She walked out of the corner and handed Michael arge ss bottle containing a glistening red liquor ¨C the highly addictive and potent red bliss that Michael had created and distributed as a part of his business empire to generate a stable ie for his dark army.
"Tomorrow the big headlines," Eve began her words yfully.
"King Bredia fell to his death from his castle chamber while celebrating the Dark Lord''s demise. He slipped from his chamber windows and fell to his death after drinking too much red bliss."
King Bredia saw Michael pop open the wooden cork with a flick. He violently squirmed and screamed, but Ricky''s hold was too strong, and no one came to his aid. Michael then grabbed King Bredia''s jaw and pressed it, forcing his mouth open. He forcefully poured all the red bliss down the king''s throat, without spilling a single drop. Then, Michael poured some liquid onto his palm and sprayed it onto the king.
"Hope you can fly, King Bredia," Eve chuckled as she opened the windows. Ricky then moved the intoxicated king, who had stopped shouting and screaming, towards the open windows. Lord Information watched in horror as Ricky pushed the king closer to the edge.
As Ricky stood with the king facing the opened windows, Michael turned his gaze back to Lord Information.
"You have... no idea... about the forces... you are... meddling with..." Lord Information managed to utter these words in a weak and pained voice.
"You mean Seraphine," Michael calmly said, revealing his knowledge of the goddess Lord Information served.
"Where do you think I am going next? Why fight the minions when you can kill their lords?" Michael calmly asked Lord Information, hinting at his grand n. He seemed to know something about the goddess Seraphine, which troubled Lord Information deeply.
"As far as the world is concerned, you disappeared from the face of this world. Poof," Michael gestured, exining how he intended to make it seem like Lord Information had vanished without a trace.
"We can harvest his organs and use them in Project Phoenix," a yful young child''s voice came from behind. Lord Information turned to see the Dark Lord''s pet, the three-headed Hydra,nding on the Dark Queen''s shoulder. The three heads of the Hydra looked at him with a mix of pity, mockery, and anger.
The scene was filled with dread and tension as Michael''s sinister ns and the true extent of his power unfolded.
"We can''t use his kidney, that''s for sure. Olivia stuck the dagger right through it," Ayag remarked, and Olivia simply shrugged, showing no remorse for her actions.
Project Phoenix yed a significant role in deceiving everyone. During the climactic battle, when Noah used his meteor spell, creating a blinding explosion of light, Michael took advantage of the chaos. He swiftly teleported himself to the Dark Castle and sent another body, an exact replica of himself, to the battlefield. The Skyhall angels and Noah were fooled by the fake aura, thinking that the god-killing arrow had weakened Michael''s cultivation level.
In reality, Michael had been at the Celestial stage the whole time, but he cunningly created the illusion of a lower cultivation level. Prior to the war, he absorbed the energy sources that Gaya had found and cultivated, which temporarily brought the system online. Using the system''s capabilities, Michael teleported himself to a separate pocket dimension, triggered his heavenly tribtion, and sessfully advanced to the Celestial stage.
Once he reached the Celestial stage, the system remained permanently online, giving him a strategic advantage during the battle. Michael hade fully prepared, and his meticulous nning allowed him to deceive everyone around him, ultimately achieving his grand design.
[I hope the host''s n to let Noah live is a good n. You had the probability of 100% chance to win against Noah but you chose not to] The system sounded in Michael''s mind
The system''s voice echoed in Michael''s mind, reminding him that he could have easily defeated Noah with a 100% chance of sess. However, Michael had deliberately held back during the battle, using only ten percent of his true power. He had allowed Noah to believe he had won the war, leading everyone to think that the Dark Lord was no more. This deception served as a crucial advantage for Michael''s grand scheme.
With Noah believed to be defeated, Michael could now slip into the realm of gods unnoticed and form an alliance with Dagon to bring destruction upon the pantheon and the realm of gods. As Lord Information learned about the Dark Lord''s intricate n, Ricky held King Bredia firmly by his cor at the edge of the window.
"Let him fly," Michael snickered, and Ricky released his grip. High on the potent red bliss, King Bredia didn''t even realize he was falling until he hit the ground face-first, turning into a gruesome spectacle of blood and gore.
After King Bredia''s demise, Michael''s gaze fixed on Lord Information, expressing gratitude for the god-killing arrows he had provided. His sinister smile sent shivers down Lord Information''s spine. As Ricky approached, Lord Information''s heart pounded with fear, realizing the horrifying truth. The Dark Lord''s n was far from over.
"Thank you for the god killing arrows Lord Information. It was a pleasure doing business with you," Michael said with a chilling tone, acknowledging the coboration between them. Ricky held a thick needle in his hand, and before Lord Information could react, it pierced his skin. The world around him blurred as the venomous liquid from the needle entered his bloodstream.
The Dark Lord''s wicked grin was thest sight that Lord Information beheld before darkness consumed himpletely.
Chapter 1041 Next stop, the Realm of Gods
Chapter 1041 Next stop, the Realm of Gods
Two days after King Bredia''s death, the soldiers and the king''s family concluded that it was a tragic ident. The citizens believed that the king had celebrated too much after the Dark Lord''s supposed demise and tragically fell from his chamber. Given the history of animosity between King Bredia and the Dark Lord, many found it usible that the king had indulged excessively in alcohol.
Meanwhile, Michael gathered all his loyal subordinates at a magnificent manor owned by Nithroel, the Empress of Awor. The manor was situated in a secluded canyon overlooking a sereneke, surrounded by lush greenery and majestic mountains.
Thevish manor exuded an aura of grandeur, with its elegant architecture and marble halls adorned with exquisite artworks. Portraits of Nithroel, with her golden hair and elven grace, adorned the walls, showcasing her regal beauty.
Using specially crafted teleportation scrolls designed by Elidyr, Michael''s subordinates and closest allies arrived at the main hall one by one. The hall resonated with a sense of anticipation as they gathered to hear the Dark Lord''s ns and further their allegiance to him.
Among the gathering of subordinates, Lenora, the elder vampire who had her head severed by the blood prince, stood tall, her body restored through Project Phoenix as Michael had promised to Trista, who was also present in the hall.
"Where is the Dark Lord?" Saber inquired, standing next to Adelia. Adelia was anxiously awaiting to see her daughter Gaya. It had felt like an eternity since she hadstid eyes on her daughter.
"How did you manage to escape?" Saber asked Adelia, curiosity evident in his voice. Thest time Saber had seen Adelia, she was trapped inside a ss cage, breathing in deadly poison fumes, and sumbing to death, her body subsequently incinerated by Noah''s Light mes.
"I have no idea. The Dark Lord said he had a n to save us all. And true to his word, he saved us. But I don''t know how," Adelia exined. Despite being the Dark Lord''s mother-inw, she hadn''t been privy to the secret n he used to rescue her.
As they anxiously awaited the Dark Lord''s arrival, the lights and chandeliers that illuminated the hall suddenly flickered and went out, shrouding the room in darkness. After a few seconds, the lights returned, and before them stood the Dark Lord, the Dark Queen, and their three-headed hydra, Vedora, perched atop the Dark Queen''s shoulder.
As the Dark Lord arrived before them, the sheer power emanating from him caused the lights to flicker and go out. It was evident that he was reaching a level where his energy, godly in nature, began to interact with mortal energies, resulting in such anomalies. Michael knew that to harness this energy radiation and unlock more of his true power, he had to journey to the realm of the gods.
Upon his arrival, the subordinates erupted in cheers and apuse, overwhelmed by the realization of the Dark Lord''s astounding feat. They were fully aware of the difficulty involved in making the world believe he was dead. Although they didn''t quite grasp the extent of his intricate maniptions, they were certain that the Dark Lord had sessfully fooled everyone.
"Did I disappoint you?" Michael asked, fully aware of the answer.
Soon, another figure appeared behind the Dark Lord. It was Azazel, who walked forward and handed him a roll of parchment. Michael "No, my lord," came the resounding response from everyone.
Soon, another figure appeared behind the Dark Lord. It was Azazel, who walked forward and handed him a roll of parchment. Michael unrolled it to find a list of vampires, undead, and soldiers of the dark army who had lost their lives.
Michael sighed inwardly, knowing that such sacrifices were necessary in the pursuit of victory. He understood that winning a war often came with the heavy price of lives lost.
"The Skyhall has captured many of the nightwalkers and undead. We are trying to figure out where they are being held," Azazel informed Michael.
"What about the rest?" asked Michael.
"We sent them to the Gravesinger''s pocket dimension. They are safe and sound," Azazel confirmed.
"My Lord," suddenly Saber raised his hand, drawing Michael''s attention.
"What is it, Saber?" asked Michael.
"Now that you have entered the Celestial stage, why can''t we get rid of the Skyhall once and for all?" Saber asked Michael. As an elder vampire, Saber was displeased that his brethren and fellow nightwalkers were being held captive by the Skyhall.
"You cannot underestimate the mortals, Saber. I was once a mortal and believed to be one. Look at me now. We cannot overestimate ourselves and underestimate our enemies just because we won one battle," Michael said in a serious tone. Despite achieving the impossible, he never underestimated his enemies or Noah, who may have few braincells but have whole heap of luck.
"Besides, we have bigger enemies now, the gods," Gaya continued. When the subordinates heard Gaya''s words, they murmured in shock and surprise.
"At this moment, only the Dark Lord as the God of Darkness can stand a chance against the gods. But we all witnessed what happened at the wedding; even he wasn''t strong enough to fight someone possessed by just a sliver of a god''s power. So just imagine how powerful higher-level gods will be," said Gaya.
Gaya allowed her words to sink in for a moment, and a heavy silence filled the hall before she spoke again.
"That''s why we must be gods ourselves," Gaya''s words sent a chill down their spines, but excitement also stirred within the subordinates. Even ire, who had recently learned about her mother''s imprisonment in another world like Itonys, felt a mix of emotions. Adelia had previously discovered that the dark elves had imprisoned ire''s mother, sha Mortero, in a separate world. However, with Michael''s n in motion, he couldn''t spare the resources to rescue sha at the time. Since Michael''s n to fake his death and so many moving parts, Michael did not risk deviating from his n.
Everyone who heard Gaya was shocked and left speechless, including Adelia.
"But to achieve that, I have to go somewhere else, leaving you all here. That''s why I called everyone here," Michael calmly exined.
He didn''t mention that to build the contraption capable of turning his subordinates into gods, he needed materials that could only be found in the realm of gods and beyond. Michael''s machine was far superior to Hammond''s, as it would transform his subordinates into true gods with stable and real power.
Despite his vast resources and wealth, buying the necessary materials from the system store would lead Michael to bankruptcy. His only option was to venture into the realm of gods, as he had nned. But before he could embark on that journey, Michael needed to ensure that his subordinates carried out some secret tasks.
"Although we lost our castle and made the entire world believe we failed, we cannot allow our enemies to gain more power. From now on, each one of you will remain hidden and operate in the shadows. You will continue with your assigned tasks, just as you always have, but this time, you will not reveal yourselves to the world. Staying in the darkness is crucial for our future sess," Michael instructed.
His subordinates listened carefully, fully aware of the importance of secrecy and the strategic value it would bring to their cause.
"To sustain our position, we need a steady flow of ie. The red bliss distribution will continue as usual, now that Alicia is no longer there to oppose it. However, we must not rely solely on red bliss for our finances. We need to diversify. With Olivia on our side, we can expand our production and distribution of other alcoholic beverages. Our allies at Phoenix Manor will establish chains of restaurants and taverns, providing us with an additional source of ie," Gaya borated on their future ns.
Since Michael couldn''t bring Gaya into the realm of gods until he found a way, she would stay behind to lead their subordinates. Although Michael usually allowed his subordinates to work independently, the stakes were too high this time, and any misstep could unravel his carefully crafted n. Thus, he needed Gaya to stay and build up their shadow empire.
"While I''m away, you will follow Gaya''s lead and continue to grow. The war we fought against Noah was just a prelude to the battles we will face in the future. But winning that war will make us the masters of this universe. I promised you all immortality, and soon, you will all be Immortals. Gaya has discovered energy deposits that will help you advance to the Immortal stage. However, you will have to cultivate in the Cold Mountains, one by one. When your heavenly tribtions draw near, our allies in the sea realm will escort you deeper into the ocean, ensuring you emerge safely from the tribtion without falling into Noah''s grasp," Michael exined.
The subordinates attentively absorbed Michael''s words, nodding in agreement with their determined gazes, ready to take on the challenges thaty ahead.
"But remember, the empress is taking a significant risk by aiding us. If any one of you dares to reveal her involvement, I will know, and I won''t show any mercy," Michael''s voice turned colder as the lights flickered in response to his intense energy.
With his future ns exined, Michael prepared to depart for the realm of gods. Each subordinate received their specific tasks from Gaya and Michael. After the instructions were given, Michael allowed Gaya some time with Adelia and made his way outside. While the subordinates gathered in the hall, Michael walked to the distantke.
As he gazed at the tranquil waters, the space around him began to distort. Suddenly, a figure materialized behind Michael. Without a second thought, the figure lunged at him, embracing him from behind.
"I almost thought I lost you," said the figure.
"I promised you I''m not going anywhere, Sabrina," said Michael, his smile gentle and reassuring.
Just like everything else, Sabrina''s betrayal at the end of the war was also part of Michael''s n. He had instructed her to pretend to betray him so that she could have her family back. With the Dark Lord seemingly gone, the Skyhall would no longer keep the Winstons imprisoned. Michael had a soft spot for Sabrina, and he genuinely wanted her to reunite with her family.
Chapter 1042 Kill your father in law for me
Chapter 1042 Kill your father inw for me
"So, what''s your next move, brother?" asked Sabrina, holding Michael''s hand tightly.
"It''s better if you don''t know the details. You have your family back now. I promised you that, and I delivered. It''s time for you to return to your normal life. The Skyhall won''t bother your family anymore," Michael replied.
"You are family too, and I don''t even know your real name. Don''t tell me you were always called Ghost," Sabrina chuckled, trying to hide the pain of parting from her brother. Even though she had only known that the Dark Lord was her brother for a short time, it felt like they had been siblings for eternity. The thought of never seeing him again was heart-wrenching.
"Michael," he whispered, finally revealing his true name to Sabrina.
"Michael¡" Sabrina repeated softly.
"Mom used to call you Dean, but I prefer Michael better," she said.
"Don''t tell your mom the truth about what really happened, Sabrina. As long as the world and your family believe that I am dead, they will be safe," Michael exined, as tears welled up in Sabrina''s eyes.
"Mom really misses you, Michael. If you juste and talk to her, I promise we won''t tell anyone that you''re alive. Mom stopped talking to Noah and all of uspletely. I''ve never seen her like this before. She mes herself for what happened to you," Sabrina pleaded.
"There''s no point in ming, Sabrina. Although I was born to your mother, I was never truly her son. When I think about it, I only brought pain and suffering to her and her family. It''s better if I stay dead to your family. She will eventually find a way to cope with my loss," Michael turned around and gently wiped the tears from Sabrina''s eyes.
With the Skyhall believing that the Dark Lord had died, they brought Diana back to their home with Ethan and all the others they had captured when Diana revealed that the Dark Lord was her son. Michael was quietly happy with how everything had turned out. In this n, everyone got their happy ending.
"No mother can truly get over the loss of her child, Michael. Don''t you understand? The Skyhall did something to mother. I will prove to you that she never abandoned you," Sabrina said with determination.
But Michael shook his head.
"No, do not go against the Skyhall. There are powers at y beyond yourprehension. You''ve got your happy ending. Just live the rest of your life happily and stay out of trouble. I will watch over you as always from the shadows. Every time you see your shadow, just know that your brother, the God of Darkness, is with you," Michael smiled and gently kissed Sabrina on her forehead.
"What about your happiness, Michael? You''re still fighting for your life. Take me with you, I promise I''ll get stronger and fight by your side," Sabrina grabbed Michael''s hand and squeezed it tight, showing no intention of letting him go.
"I don''t want you to fight, Sabrina. You deserve a life that I never had. What kind of big brother would I be if I put you in harm''s way?" Michael''s voice showed the deep love he had for his little sister. Back on Earth, Michael grew up as an orphan, dreaming of having a family. But when he learned the truth that he was abandoned in this world and thrown into Earth like trash, abandoned by his own mother, his heart was shattered. However, despite his anger towards Diana for abandoning him, he never felt anything but love for Sabrina, who had been nothing but a good sister to him. Even though Michael only discovered that Sabrina was his little sister for a short amount of time, he couldn''t help but love her with all his heart. Michael rarely showed his vulnerable side and loved someone like he loved Gaya, his wife. To Michael, Sabrina was his little sister, and he felt the strong urge to protect her from all harm.
"If you want to do something for me, keep Harry and Lah safe. Love them like you love me. Harry will be branded as the Dark Lord''s son for all his life. Keep him safe from being manipted and turned into a weapon like your brother Noah. Don''t shield him from the reality of this world, but don''t let the world hurt him either," said Michael.
"I will, I promise. I will look after him and love him with all my heart," Sabrina said.
"Good girl," Michael yfully ruffled her hair.
"What about Rowena? Have you heard anything about her?" asked Sabrina. She had never seen her elder sister since the Nagnd war. Although the world believed the Holy Maiden Rowena Winston made an unholy sacrifice by saving the Dark Lord, no one had found her body.
"If she is alive, my minions will find her," said Michael.
Deep inside her heart, Sabrina sighed in relief. In her heart, her elder sister Rowena could fix any situation. She was the perfect embodiment of the word elder sister. If she was here, Sabrina had no doubt that she would reunite Michael with the rest of the family. Although Sabrina decided to pretend to agree to Michael''s terms, she would never stop trying to bring him back into her family.
"Now you be a good girl and stay away from trouble. Don''t make mee down there in the darkness and kick your ass," Michael yfully said once again, emphasizing for her to stay out of trouble.
"I''ll find trouble if it means I can see you again," Sabrina chuckled and cried at the same time, showing her emotions as she didn''t want to be separated from her beloved brother.
"I bet you would," Michael smiled as Sabrina embraced him once again. He sighed heavily, feeling the weight of their parting, and gently patted her on the back. As much as he loved Sabrina, he knew that staying with her would put her in mortal danger. Sometimes, leaving the ones we love is a way of showing love and care for them.
"Now you have to go," Michael said, putting some effort into pushing her away from him. Sabrina clung to him, not wanting to let go.
"Promise me you wille back to me once you''ve dealt with everyone who stands in our way of being a family. Or I won''t let you go. I would even tell everyone that you''re still alive," Sabrina ckmailed him out of pure love.
Michael couldn''t help butugh at her tactics. "Don''tugh. I''m serious. I am your sister. I can be evil too," she said yfully.
"I promise you I wille back to you. But you need to achieve immortality and reach beyond the Half Celestial stage. I don''t know how long it will take for me to dismantle and destroy my enemies," said Michael, his voice turning serious, reflecting the magnitude of the mission he was about to undertake.
"I will wait for you and challenge death itself if I have to," Sabrina said with unwavering determination.
"I know you will. Now go," Michael said, once again cupping her head and kissing her on the top of her head lovingly. The emotions between them were palpable as they reluctantly prepared to part ways, each carrying their own burdens and promises.
After Sabrina disappeared from his sight, a spatial portal suddenly opened up nearby, and Nithroel, the Empress of Awor, stepped through the teleportation portal. She walked calmly and gracefully to Michael''s side, her golden hair shimmering in the dim light.
Her presence didn''t startle Michael; he knew she wasing. Nithroel was an ally, someone he trusted. She had yed a crucial role in their ns, providing resources and assistance when they needed it the most.
"Ghost," Nithroel greeted him with a nod, her elegant demeanor still carrying an air of authority.
"Nithroel," Michael responded, his expressionposed yet relieved to see her.
"You''re really leaving, aren''t you?" she asked, her eyes searching his.
"I have to. There''s something I must do, something that only I can aplish," Michael replied, his tone serious.
"Good. But before you go, my dear Dark Lord, I require a favor from your assassins," Nithroel dered, her voice firm and unwavering.
"My assassins? You want someone eliminated?" Michael inquired with a hint of amusement. As he expected, Nithroel nodded and produced a parchment from her space ring.
Handing over the parchment, she looked at Michael with a determined gaze. Michael slowly unrolled the parchment, and as heid eyes on the portrait of a middle-aged man with wavy gray hair and the name ''Ingram'' written below, the smile on his face faded into a deep frown.
"Ingram?" Michael asked again, his tone serious and conflicted.
"Yes," Nithroel confirmed with a nod, not wavering in her request.
"But Ingram is Gaya''s father," Michael''s voice tightened with concern and disapproval.
"That fact doesn''t change anything. That slippery bastard has been evading my assassins and war gods for far too long. I want your assassins to eliminate him. This is my price for continuing my unwavering support for you. We both know that once you wage your war against the gods, you''ll need all the help you can get," Nithroel exined, her eyes locking with Michael''s.
The weight of the situation hung heavy in the air. Michael knew that Ingram had caused his fair share of trouble, but he also understood theplexity of the situation. Gaya''s father, a man who had caused them pain, was also someone important to his wife.
Emotions swirled within Michael as he deliberated Nithroel''s request. He understood the stakes and the need to maintain Nithroel''s support, but he couldn''t ignore the personal conflict he felt.
"Think carefully, Dark Lord. This is a decision you must make with a clear mind," Nithroel urged, recognizing the turmoil in his expression.
Chapter 1043 Next step is to become a Demi God
Chapter 1043 Next step is to be a Demi God
After Nithroel disappeared from the manor grounds, Gaya approached Michael, noticing the parchment he held on his head.
"Did you say your goodbyes to your sister?" Gaya asked yfully, smiling with curiosity. She had always found Michael''s affection for Sabrina intriguing, considering his animosity towards the rest of the Winston family. However, Michael remained silent, and his serious demeanor caught Gaya''s attention. She couldn''t help bute closer, kissing him on the cheek in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"Somebody seems serious," she teased, but Michael still didn''t respond. Concerned, Gaya took the parchment from his hand and nced at the image and the name written on it. Her smile vanished, reced with shock and anger.
"Why the hell do you have this asshole''s picture?" Gaya''s voice trembled with emotion. She had learned from Adelia about her true parentage¡ªhow Ingram, the elder vampire, was her real father. Known as the oldest among the elder vampires, his age remained a mystery, possibly over a thousand years. Gaya inherited his vampire genes, which,bined with Adelia''s naga genes, made her an extraordinarily powerful being.
"Nithroel wants Aria and her team to find him and kill him," Michael exined calmly. His words sent shockwaves through Gaya, leaving her stunned and overwhelmed by the revtion.
Conflicting emotions surged within Gaya. She knew Ingram had caused her mother Adelia immense pain, but she couldn''t help feeling a strange connection to him as her biological father. The realization that someone wanted him dead stirred a turmoil of thoughts and feelings in her heart.
Gaya took a deep breath, trying to steady her emotions. Her gaze met Michael''s, and she saw the understanding andpassion in his eyes. He knew howplicated this situation was for her.
Gaya was struggling with a mix of emotions. The revtion of Ingram being her father hadplicated her feelings towards him. On one hand, she despised him for abandoning her mother, Adelia. Having never known him and only recently discovering their biological connection, there was no love in her heart for Ingram. Yet, he was still her father, and the idea of killing him felt wrong.
"What did you say?" Gaya asked, seeking rity from Michael. She was unsure of what answer she expected from her husband, but she needed to understand his decision.
"I said it''ll be done," Michael replied calmly. As the Dark Lord, he was ustomed to making tough decisions daily, and this was no exception.
"What? Why the fuck?" Gaya''s shock and confusion were evident in her voice.
"He''s Nithroel''s target, and she wants him dead if we are to remain allies," Michael exined.
Gaya''s mind raced with questions. She wondered what Ingram had done to provoke such a reaction from Nithroel. Did Michael inquire about the reason behind her desire for Ingram''s death?
"She didn''t say why, only that it''s a condition for her continued support," Michael responded to Gaya''s unspoken question.
Michael realized that the task of killing Ingram was far moreplicated than he initially thought. His n to ally with Dagon, the ruler of hell, against the Pantheon added anotheryer ofplexity. Unbeknownst to him, Ingram was a loyal servant of Dagon, and killing him might not be well-received by the powerful ruler. On the other hand, refusing to kill Ingram could cost him Nithroel''s support, which was crucial for his future endeavors. Additionally, Adelia, Gaya''s mother, would be devastated if Michael killed her husband, furtherplicating the situation.
As the weight of the situation bore down on him, Michael felt the immense burden of his choices. He knew he needed to find a solution that protected his allies and kept his n intact. However, the path ahead was filled with uncertainty, and Michael was well aware that each decision he made would have far-reaching consequences.
"Why the fuck did you agree?" Gaya punched Michael in the shoulder and demanded an exnation.
"I had no choice," Michael replied, feeling the weight of his decision bearing down on him.
"For fuck''s sake, Michael," Gaya moved closer to him and whispered, her frustration evident in her voice.
"Even if I agree to kill Ingram, I don''t think mother would approve. Despite trying to kill him a couple of times, she still loves him. That''s just how women are," Gaya whispered. Her words brought a chuckle to Michael''s face, providing a brief moment of relief amidst the seriousness of their conversation.
"That''s how women are? So when do you n to try to kill me?" Michael joked.
"Don''t joke around, idiot. I''m serious," Gaya rolled her eyes, her emotions still running high. "Besides, you kinda sealed your fate when you chose to marry me."
Realizing the gravity of their situation, Gaya proposed a solution. "Then we must fake his death. Let Nithroel believe we killed him, but only tell Mother we didn''t. That way, we can satisfy both ends."
While it seemed like a great idea, Michael knew it wouldn''t be easy to deceive Nithroel, a fallen god and the goddess of hunting. Faking Ingram''s death might not be enough to fool her.
"I don''t think we can fool Nithroel. We have to kill him and make it look like an ident," Michael said, his voice serious and resolute.
The prospect of killing her own father weighed heavily on Gaya''s heart, but she understood the necessity of the situation. As the Dark Lord and his wife, they were faced with difficult decisions that required sacrifice and strategic thinking.
"I have a feeling Nithroel might not be what she seems, Michael. We need to be careful around her. If we could find Ingram, we might be able to figure out why Nithroel wants him dead," Gaya expressed her concern.
"Whatever her reason might be, we cannot afford to lose Nithroel as our ally," Michael asserted. Despite Gaya''s desire to find a better solution, she knew that Nithroel''s aid was crucial for their future ns.
While they were contemting Nithroel''s request, Michael called Azazel to him. "Azazel, bring Saber and Aria to me," hemanded.
Soon, Saber and Aria appeared before the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen, bowing respectfully. Azazel stood behind Michael, ready to assist as needed.
"Saber, Aria, I want the two of you to work together and find this man," Michael handed the parchment to Saber. When Saber opened it and saw the portrait of Ingram, he was taken aback, just like Gaya had been.
"My Lord, this is Ingram," Saber acknowledged. Only Gaya, Azazel, and a select few knew that Ingram was Gaya''s father.
"I want you to find him and inform me as soon as you locate him. Do not approach him, and if he finds you, immediately back off. You are not to engage him under any circumstances," Michael instructed firmly.
Saber and Aria nodded, understanding the seriousness of their task. Once they received their orders and disappeared to carry them out, Lenora and Trista approached Michael and Gaya. Both of them knelt before the Dark Lord, showing their respect and gratitude.
Lenora couldn''t believe that the Dark Lord had brought her back from the brink of death, constructing her a new body. Being an elder vampire, she knew the odds were against her, but Michael''s power and determination had defied those odds. Trista, too, was filled with gratitude towards Michael, knowing that he had fulfilled his promise to her by rebuilding Lenora''s body.
"I have eternal gratitude for you, my lord," Lenora expressed her heartfelt thanks. Her new body, skillfully crafted by the Phoenix project, had strengthened her vampiric abilities to new heights, making her a formidable force.
Michael turned his attention to the next task at hand. "I have a new mission for both of you. Since the Skyhall execution team has eliminated our allies, we have lost control of the southern continent, including Tiberius''s freedomnd. It''s time we reim our authority over the region. Your job is to work with Sadie, recruit new members, and discreetly reestablish our control. If necessary, you may employ the death squad to eliminate the Skyhall execution team but ensure their deaths appear to be idents. We don''t want the Skyhall suspecting our involvement behind the scenes," Michael instructed, entrusting Trista and Lenora with the responsibility of regaining control over the Southern continent.
"Consider it done, my lord. When you next venture into the Southern continent, our subordinates will be the ones ruling and governing thend," Lenora vowed, determination evident in her words.
"So, what''s the n now?" Gaya asked, looking at Michael after everyone had left.
"I have one more thing I must do before heading to the realm of gods," Michael replied, cracking his knuckles. Inside his mind, memories of his intense battle with Evan resurfaced.
"It''s time for me to be a demigod and deal with Evan once and for all. Salesi has shown her power, but now she''ll experience what it means to be on the world''s number one hitman''s list," Michael dered with a mix of snickering and confidence, knowing that he was renowned as the most skilled and deadly assassin.
"Let me kill that bitch," Gaya growled with anger, her eyes zing.
"When you find her, you''re free to take her out. But finding her won''t be easy," Michael replied, acknowledging the challenge of tracking down Salesi, who had managed to evade them until now.
After gathering the Dark Seeds, Michael had everything he needed to step into the second level of Godhood¡ªthe Demigod level. He had already chosen a secluded and powerful location where he would trigger the Heavenly Tribtion to ascend to the next stage of his divine power.
Once he became a Demigod, Michael knew he would possess enough power to confront Evan without any fear. Even though Evan had been turned into a god by Salesi''s contraption, he would no longer be a threat to Michael, the God of Darkness. Michael''s newfound power would ensure that Evan''s abilities were nothingpared to his own.
However, Michael was not interested in a direct confrontation with Evan. Instead, he wanted to take him out in an old-school style assassination, leaving no trace of his involvement. Michael was a master of stealth and deception, and he relished the idea of taking down Evan from the shadows.
Unaware that the Dark Lord had survived and orchestrated his own death as a ruse, Evan spent his days in bliss with his fianc¨¦e, Victoria,pletely oblivious to the impending danger that loomed over him. Little did he suspect that Michael had singled him out as the next target before embarking on his journey into the realm of gods.
(This is the end of the Battle Between the Gods Arc. From the next chapter, the Realm of Gods arc will begin)
Chapter 1044 Reaching the next Godhood level I
Chapter 1044 Reaching the next Godhood level I
After departing from Nithroel''s safe house, Michael used a teleportation scroll gifted to him by Elidyr to arrive at the ominous Demon''s Grave. The skies above the grave were a crimson red, creating an eerie atmosphere that matched the terrifyingndscape. Michael''s first objective was to locate the Queen''s energy crystal and fulfill his promise to her. However, before he could do that, he had to ascend to the level 2 of Godhood, the demi-god level.
In the distance, Mount Hades belched volcanic fumes into the crimson sky. The forge beneath the mountain awaited Michael''s return, but for now, he had a different destination in mind. To trigger a heavenly tribtion and attain demi-god level power, he needed to face extreme heat. Mount Hades, with its bubblingva and scorching temperatures, offered the perfect opportunity.
d in his dark suit, Michael activated the powerful metal wings integrated into his armor. With a mighty p, he defied the oppressive force of gravity and gracefully ascended into the crimson sky. As he soared higher, memories of his earlier arrival at the Demon''s Grave resurfaced, when he struggled against the unyielding pull of gravity. Now, thanks to the enhancements of his armor, he effortlessly cut through the air, ascending towards the scorching summit of Mount Hades.
With each powerful p of his metal wings, Michael soared higher into the air, getting closer to the scorching summit of Mount Hades. As he approached, waves of intense heat washed over him from the bubbling,va-filled depths of the mountain. Despite his godly-powered body, he couldn''t help but sweat profusely, feeling the intensity of the fiery environment.
Finally, Michaelnded on the mountain''s peak, his gaze fixed on the boiling, oozingva below. He hesitated for a moment, contemting the system''s instructions to immerse himself in theva. With a hint of sarcasm, he addressed the system, questioning its peculiar n.
"Do you really want me to go into theva? Did I do something to you?" Michael asked, a mix of humor and concern evident in his voice.
The system replied, [Your body needs to be tempered with each element in its most powerful form. First, the fire. Thisva isn''t the purest form, but it''ll have to do for now. Now imagine theva as a cool swimming pool and jump down.]
Rolling his eyes at the rather simplistic suggestion, Michael couldn''t help but feel a mix of annoyance and amusement. "Imagine it as a swimming pool and jump down? That''s your n?" he scoffed, feeling the challenge ahead of him.
With the system''s insistence, Michael braced himself for what was toe. He knew he had to trust the system, even if the idea of jumping into scorchingva seemed absurd. With a firm resolve, he reminded the system, "If I die, make sure to bring me back through the Project Phoenix."
The system responded in its usual nonchnt manner, [You are not going to die. Maybe get some burns. Nothing a healing potion can''t fix.]
Though skeptical, Michael understood he had little choice. He removed his armor, setting it aside, and focused his power to store it safely within the system. Standing atop the building, naked under the ominous glow of theva''s fiery light, Michael''s body bore the marks of his many battles, illuminated by the deep orange hues.
"Here goes nothing,"
Summoning his courage, he took a deep breath, his heart pounding in his chest. With determination, he ran to the edge and, shouting, closed his eyes and leaped straight into the molten pit.
"FUCK!"
As his body made contact with theva, an agonizing surge of pain coursed through him. It felt as if every nerve ending was aze, but before his mind could fully register the torment, he was enveloped by the searing liquid. The world around him became a hazy blur of intense heat and burning sensations.
**********************************
Inside the dpidated castle, Andohr stood in disarray. His once noble andposed appearance was now reced by torn clothes, disheveled hair, and bloodshot eyes, reflecting his inner turmoil.
Suddenly, a radiant light illuminated the castle, revealing the presence of Seraphine, the Goddess of Information. Her form, as always, was pure light, and she observed the state of the castle with surprise. Andohr, who was known for his calm demeanor, seemed agitated and distressed.
"I thought you would be celebrating, Andohr," Seraphine spoke gently, trying to understand the reason behind his turmoil.
"That motherfucker fooled me!" Andohr''s voice thundered through the castle, causing the walls to tremble under the force of his anger.
"What do you mean? Your arch-enemy, the God of Darkness, is dead," Seraphine inquired.
"Then why can''t I return to the realm of gods? The barrier is still intact!" Andohr''s frustration was evident. For five thousand years, he had believed that the death of either the Dark Lord or Noah, the God of Light, would shatter the barrier separating the mortal realm from the realm of the gods, a barrier created by the previous Dark Lord.
In his current state of distress, Andohr was grappling with the shocking revtion that the barrier remained untouched, despite the Dark Lord''s supposed demise. The uncertainty of the situation weighed heavily on him, and his emotions ran high, causing him to vent his frustration with a powerful shout that shook the very foundation of his crumbling castle.
However, to Andohr''s disbelief, nothing happened as he had believed. The Dark Lord had supposedly been killed by his own brother, Noah, using the god-killing arrows, yet the barrier remained steadfast and unchanged.
"Maybe we don''t fully understand the nature of the barrier," Seraphine tried to reason with Andohr, her voice calm and reassuring. "The Dark Lord was in by the God of Light, Andohr. I witnessed the energy fluctuation and saw his body blown into pieces."
But Andohr''s agitation was evident as he manically shook his head. "He couldn''t have died. He must have faked his damn death. How else am I still here?" he questioned, his emotions in turmoil.
The idea that the Dark Lord had somehow orchestrated his own death to deceive everyone, including Andohr, gnawed at him.
"Don''t freak out, Andohr. With the god of darkness gone, the pantheon can now investigate the barrier further," Seraphine said in an attempt to console him.
But Andohr''s anger was overwhelming, and he roared with sheer might, shaking the castle to its core. "Enough!" he thundered, his frustration evident in every fiber of his being. "You promised that if I helped you fight Dagon to keep him at bay from reaching the realm of gods, you would seek help from the pantheon and free me from this wretched ce. I have had enough of this. I want to get out of here right now!" Andohr shouted, his voice echoing through the crumbling walls.
As he roared, the time and space around him distorted, a testament to his power as the god of time and space. His anger was so immense that it caused the very fabric of reality to tremble. Time in the entire mortal realm seemed to freeze momentarily, feeling the strain of Andohr''s overwhelming rage.
"Calm down, Andohr. You have waited all these years to see the Dark Lord''s demise, and now your wish hase true. It''s only a matter of time before we break the barrier," Seraphine urged, attempting to soothe him. She had anticipated that Andohr would be celebrating his long-awaited freedom, but instead, his frustration and restlessness were palpable. He had believed that the barrier keeping him trapped would shatter once either the Dark Lord or Noah met their end, yet the situation had not unfolded as he expected.
"Without the Dark Lord to anchor the barrier, it was only a matter of time before we find the rest of the seal bearers and kill them. I''m certain that once the seal bearers are dead, the barrier will crumble. Without the Dark Lord, it''d be as easy as plucking flowers to kill the seal bearers," Seraphine''s words seemed to soothe Andohr''s anger.
"Can you do me a favor, Seraphine?" Andohr turned around to face Seraphine''s radiant light form.
"Anything for you, Andohr," she replied.
"Go to the goddess of wisdom and inquire about what would happen when a god dies," Andohr said with a grave tone.
"I don''t want that slippery bastard to fool me once again," he added, his mind filled with killing intent towards his arch-enemy, the Dark Lord, also known as the God of Darkness.
"What are you thinking, Andohr?" Seraphine asked curiously.
"If we were to figure out what would happen when a god dies, we can truly know if the Dark Lord died or if that son of a bitch faked his death. But the only person who might possess such knowledge outside the pantheon would be your sister, the goddess of wisdom," Andohr exined with determination in his voice.
When Andohr mentioned seeking help from the goddess of wisdom, Seraphine fell silent. She and her sister weren''t on great terms, and dealing with the goddess of wisdom''s cryptic messages was always a challenge.
"You know how she is. I''m the goddess of information and her sister, but even I have a hard time decoding her cryptic messages," Seraphine said, her annoyance evident in her voice.
"We have no choice, Seraphine. If that bastard survived, he would never reveal himself. I know how he thinks. He will be striving to be even stronger as we speak. Once he reaches the DemiGod level, no one can keep surveince on him. He will operate alone in the shadows. You have no idea what he is capable of when he''s hidden. You and the entire pantheon would be walking with a target on your backs," Andohr warned, his voice filled with concern and urgency.
"Very well, Andohr. I will go talk to her. But if I were you, I wouldn''t hold my breath. She can be quite elusive," Seraphine sighed, acknowledging the difficulty of dealing with the goddess of wisdom.
"Honey, if the God of Darkness is alive, his next move would be to meet Dagon. We must prevent them from allying. Otherwise, you and the pantheon are as good as lost in the war," Andohr said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
The light surrounding Seraphine gradually faded away as she left the castle, returning it to its previous eerie look. Now alone, Andohr stood in the middle of the castle, his mind consumed with thoughts of how to confront and defeat the Dark Lord. However, for the first time in a long time, Andohr felt a sense of unease. He feared that he might be losing his edge in the ongoing battle against the elusive and cunning God of Darkness.
Chapter 1045 Reaching the next Godhood level II
Chapter1045 Reaching the next Godhood level II
Deep within the fiery pits of Mount Hades, Michael endured the excruciating pain of theva melting his flesh. The intense heat pushed his limits to the maximum. ording to the system, to trigger a heavenly tribtion and ascend to the Demi-God level, he had to undergo a trial by a specific element. In this case, it was the trial by fire. His mind, soul, and body were being tested to their utmost capacity as he braved the scorching heat of the molten pit.
Inside theva where no one could see, Michael surrounded himself with the dark mes to endure the volcanicva. As he was cultivating, his mind wandered into another realm. Soon, Michael found himself in a deste, nightmarishndscape, the skies above a pitch-ck void. Strange, shadowy creatures lurked in the darkness, their glowing eyes fixated on him. These monstrous beings were the illusions he had to face to ascend to the demi-god level.
The creatures appeared as dark, ethereal beings with elongated limbs and sharp ws. Their bodies seemed to be made of an ever-shifting, inky substance, and their eyes emitted an eerie, glowing light. Each creature had unique features, some resembling twisted amalgamations of multiple animals, while others seemed to embody the embodiment of fear itself.
These creatures were purposefully created by the universe to challenge and temper Michael as the God of Darkness. Every god had to undergo different trials to ascend to the next level of their godhood. While some trials were easier, others, like Michael''s or Rudra, the god of war, faced much harder tests to reach the next stage of their divine power.
As Michael confronted the illusions, the whispers of the creatures echoed through the nightmarishndscape. Their voices were haunting, weaving through the darkness like sinister melodies.
"Look at him, stumbling in the shadows," one creature hissed, its eyes glowing with malice. "The Dark Lord, they call him. But does he truly understand the power he wields?"
Another creature chimed in, its voice sly and taunting, "Oh, he may think he''s embraced the darkness, but he''s yet toprehend its true essence. Darkness is not just the absence of light; it''s the embodiment of all that lies within the hearts of living beings."
Michael, battered and determined, could hear the whispers surrounding him. Despite the pain, he questioned the creatures, "What are you? Illusions born from my fears, or something more?"
A third creature slithered closer, its form shifting and contorting in the shadows. "We are the manifestation of your doubts, your insecurities, and your deepest fears," it rasped. "But we are more than just illusions. We are the echoes of the power you seek."
Michael''s curiosity piqued, and he asked, "What do you mean, the power I seek? I am the Dark Lord, the God of Darkness. I have embraced the shadows within me."
"Oh, but darkness is not just about destruction and chaos," the first creature replied, its voice echoing with ancient wisdom. "A true God of Darkness has the power to harness and control the darkness within others. It is the power to influence minds, to manipte emotions, and to bend the will of both mortals and immortals alike."
The second creature continued, its tone eerie and mesmerizing, "With darknesses the ability to cloak oneself in secrecy, to move unseen through the world, and to strike fear into the hearts of those who oppose you. It is not just brute strength, but a subtle, insidious power that can control the very fabric of existence."
Michael listened intently, beginning to grasp the deeper significance of the darkness he wielded. "So, a God of Darkness can control the darkness within people," he pondered, "making them instruments of their will?"
"Indeed," the third creature hissed, "but it is not without consequences. The darkness can consume both the wielder and the wielded. A God of Darkness must master the bnce between wielding this power and sumbing to its allure."
The first creature added, "And that is where true strength lies. The power to control the darkness without letting it control you."
As Michael absorbed their words, he realized that embracing darkness was not merely about brute strength or ruling through fear. It was about understanding the intricacies of the shadows and their influence on both the world and oneself.
The second creature whispered seductively, "Join us, Dark Lord. Embrace the true power of darkness and be an unstoppable force."
As Michael stood firm, empowered by his newfound understanding of darkness, he was taken aback as more and more creatures emerged from the shadows. They swirled around him, their forms shifting and twisting with malevolence. Their sudden attack left him confused and shocked, as just moments ago, they were whispering and conversing with him.
Before he could react, the creatures lunged at him, their movements swift and relentless. Michael tried to fight back, but his attacks seemed futile against these spectral entities. Their dark tendrils coiled around him, restricting his movements and draining his strength.
In the midst of the chaos, the creatures revealed their true intentions. With ghastly precision, they reached into Michael''s very being, pulling out wisps of darkness that took the shape of his deepest fears. One by one, the shapes materialized into haunting figures.
Among them was Spectre, the mentor who had once turned him into a ruthless hitman on Earth. The specter wore the same dark, hooded cloak, his cold eyes locking onto Michael''s. The memories of his past life as an assassin flooded back, stirring feelings of guilt and remorse.
Beside Spectre stood a tall, menacing orc, the very same one who had been possessed by the God of War Rudra''s sliver of grace and attacked him on his wedding day. The orc''s eyes glowed with malevolence as he wielded a wicked, blood-stained de. The fear of losing his loved ones all over again gripped Michael''s heart.
These manifestations of his fears and past experiences were overwhelming, and for a moment, Michael felt helpless against the onught. The creatures seemed to feed on his vulnerability, their sinisterughter echoing in the dark abyss.
However, as he struggled to regain control, he remembered the whispers of the creatures before their betrayal. The true power of darkness was not just about destruction but also about harnessing and controlling the shadows within. Drawing upon his new understanding, he steadied his mind and focused on the darkness within himself.
As Michael confronted the illusions, each attack from Spectre, the orc, and the creatures felt terrifyingly real. He was thrown, shed, and pummeled by these spectral foes, causing immense pain and challenging his determination. With every blow he endured, the system instantly rebuilt his body, allowing him to persevere.
While Michael was confronting the darkness inside his mind, theva, and dark mes slowly melted down his skin. At that moment, Michael''s flesh slowly melted down, revealing his skeleton. But soon, the dark mes slowly coiled around every bone in his body and started to rebuild his flesh. The seed of darkness Michael acquired afterpleting a speed trial in the form of golden energy slowly infused with the dark mes to enhance his speed.
On the other hand, the system started to upgrade all his spells.
[The system has upgraded the Silenes spell to level 2]
[The system has upgraded the Meteor spell to level 2]
[The system has upgraded the Energy Devouver to level 6]
[The system has upgraded the Soul Eater to level 6]
[The system has upgraded the Soul Stare to level 5]
[The system has upgraded the Responsive Shield to level 9]
[The system has upgraded the Environment Scanning to level 9]
Inside Michael''s mind, the battle against the darkness raged on. The creatures of darkness, led by Spectre and the menacing orc, relentlessly attacked him. Each blow felt agonizingly real, and the pain was intense. Michael struggled to hold his ground, feeling overwhelmed by the relentless assault.
But something inside him snapped. With a fierce roar, he unleashed a powerful shockwave that sent the dark creatures flying backward. The whispers of the creatures echoed in his mind, urging him to embrace the darkness, to feel the connection that bound them all.
His eyes closed, and he embraced the connection to the darkness, sensing the pulsating energy within the creatures. The whispers grew louder, goading him to tap into his true self, to embrace the darkness that was part of him as the God of Darkness.
Amidst the pummeling from Spectre and the orc, Michael opened his eyes, unflinching, as if weing the pain. He allowed the attacks to hit him without yielding an inch, drawing strength from the growing connection to the darkness.
With newfound rity, he reached out with his hand, his touch suffused with power. He felt the beating heart of darkness within the creatures and understood that this was an integral part of his own power as the God of Darkness. With conviction, he crushed the darkness within them, absorbing it into himself.
As the dark creatures were stilled by Michael''s actions, their whispered encouragements intensified. They urged him to embrace their essence, to be one with the darkness. Michael, now embracing his role as the God of Darkness, stood tall and unyielding.
With each dark creature he absorbed, he felt a surge of strength and confidence coursing through him. His form grewrger within his own mind, towering over the defeated creatures.
"Yes, embrace it! Be one with the darkness!" the creatures urged, their voices resonating with excitement.
Michael''s determination was unwavering, and he continued absorbing the darkness within them. As he did, a new sensation washed over him - a power that felt innate, beyond the system''s limitations. It was his own power as the God of Darkness, and it surged through him, making him feel more potent than ever before.
At that moment, he realized that he had always possessed this power within himself, waiting to be acknowledged and harnessed. It wasn''t just a title given to him; it was who he truly was.
[Congrattions to the host for reaching Level 2 of the Godhood- Demi God Level!]
[An Innate power has unlocked!]
[Body reconstruction has 65%pleted¡]
As Michael battled the darkness within his mind, a sudden echo reverberated through the dark realm. It was the voice of the system, breaking through the haunting whispers of the creatures. As the system''s voice reached him, the darkness began to gradually fade away, leaving a sense of rity in its wake.
In the realm of volcanicva, Michael''s body was encased by the dark mes and the system''s power. Slowly, he emerged from the molten pit, floating effortlessly in the air. The dark armor of the God of Darkness gently covered his once-naked body, bestowing him with an imposing and powerful appearance.
His hair, as ck as the night, cascaded down to his shoulders, adding to his formidable aura. The transformation wasplete, and Michael now exuded an air of confidence and strength as the God of Darkness.
Chapter 1046 On the way to Council of Immortals
Chapter 1046 On the way to Council of Immortals
After ascending to level 2 of Godhood, Michael stood proudly atop Mount Hades, his fist clenched in determination. The power within him surged, and dark mes flickered and danced around his body. However, before he could take a step forward, amanding voice echoed through the realm.
"Where is my promised soul piece?" demanded the unmistakable voice of the Queen, radiating immense power.
Recognizing the urgency in her tone, Michael replied without hesitation, "I am on my way to retrieve it right now. No excuses."
"Idiot!" The Queen''s anger erupted, and Michael was pushed backward by the force of her shout.
She continued, her voice seething, "The mortals have found my crystal and are attempting to extract my soul piece. I want it back immediately!"
"Do you have any clues about its location?" Michael inquired, mindful to remain respectful in his tone. He knew better than to provoke an ancient, powerful entity like the Queen, especially since he intended to use her in the impending war against the gods.
"The ce they call the Council of Immortals," the Queen revealed.
"It''s as good as done. I will retrieve it within four days," Michael assured her, confident in his abilities to fulfill the task.
"You have two days!" The Queen''s roar echoed through Michael''s mind before her presence faded away.
With a heavy sigh, Michael activated his metal wings and gracefully soared away from Mount Hades. As he flew, the colossal bull still grazed in the distance, and the monsters roamed freely, but none dared to challenge the God of Darkness.
Soon, Michael left the eerie Demon''s Grave behind and appeared high above the sea surrounding the Awor continent. From this vantage point, he could see the vast expanse of Awor, with its cold mountains in the north covered in snow. The tallest peak reached into the clouds, standing majestically beyond their reach.
To conceal his true identity, Michael suppressed his powerful cultivation level to appear as a mere Core Strengthening stage cultivator. He donned silver robes over his dark armor and wrapped himself in a cloak, carefully hiding his face with the hood. Thest thing he needed was for anyone to recognize him and spread the news that the feared Dark Lord was still alive.
Concealing his face and cultivation level, Michael flew swiftly toward the cold mountains. For ordinary cultivators, the journey would have taken months, but thanks to his newly attained Demi-God level powers, he reached the vicinity of the cold mountains in just ten hours. The region was thick with arch and celestial energy, making it a coveted destination for those seeking breakthroughs beyond the Soul Refining stage. However, the extreme cold rendered the ce uninhabitable and perilous for most. Many cultivators who attempted the journey either seeded in their breakthroughs or met their end in the freezing temperatures.
The top of the tallest mountain in the cold range, Mount Gallion, served as the headquarters of the Council of Immortals. The energies there were abundant and potent, attracting cultivators from all over who hoped to attain higher stages of cultivation. The mountain''s sheer size made even Mount Everest pale inparison.
As Michael approached the mountain, he noticed several groups of cultivators heading towards the cold range. Among them was a group of young cultivators adorned in bright ruby red robes adorned with intricate golden engravings. Their youthful appearance, arrogant demeanor, and the expensive jewelry they wore hinted at their belonging to a prominent sect in Awor.
The remaining groups consisted mostly of elderly men, clearly stuck in cultivation bottlenecks and seeking seclusion within the cold mountains to progress further. Michael quickly activated the APD to inject a hair growth pill into his bloodstream. Soon, a thick ck beard sprouted on his face, adding to his disguise. His long hairpleted the transformation, making it nearly impossible for anyone to recognize him as the feared Dark Lord.
With the upgraded Environmental Scanning ability, Michael sensed several powerful beings in the vicinity of the mountain. Though strong, none of them came close to his level. These figures stood at the Fusion stage, Half Immortal stage, and Immortal stage of cultivation. Michael knew that the Immortals would be stationed at their headquarters atop the peak of Mount Gallion.
As he approached the mountain, Michael felt the presence of an energy dome surrounding it. True to his senses, a translucent white barrier enveloped the cold mountains. By the time he slowed his flight, the sun had set, and the mountains were bathed in the soft glow of four dazzling moons and the shimmering light of stars. The snow under the moonlight seemed to sparkle with its own radiance.
Once Michael and the other groups reached the outskirts of the cold mountain and noticed the barrier, a beastman floated through it and ordered everyone to stop. This beastman had the upper body of a hyena and the lower body of a human. d in handwoven brown robes, he looked formidable, and his Half Immortal stage cultivation shocked and surprised everyone present.
"The cold mountains are closed for flying. To reach the summit, please continue on foot," the beast man stated firmly.
An old man with a hunchback and dressed in ck robes questioned the beast man''s decision. "What is the meaning of this? I traveled all the way from Ozer continent, and I haven''t heard that the mountains are closed for cultivators," he said, his annoyance evident, though he still maintained respect for the guardian of the cold mountains and the servant of the Council of Immortals.
Another youngster from the group, dressedvishly in fine clothes, voiced his frustration. "How are we supposed to reach the summit without flying? Do you expect us to trudge through this freezing cold all the way to the top?" he demanded.
The guardian of the cold mountains simply replied, "Yes."
"If you enter the mountain range and start walking, you can reach the summit in two months," the guardian added matter-of-factly.
Inside, Michael couldn''t help but snicker at the thought of taking two months to reach the summit. The Queen had given him only two days to retrieve the crystal containing a piece of her soul. His mission wasplex, as he had to retrieve the crystal without revealing his true identity as the Dark Lord. If news of his survival got out, the world would know that the Dark Lord had not perished but instead faked his death.
"You can try to fly, but we have arrays and runes in ce to prevent it. Now, if you don''t agree with the new rules, you''re free to turn around and leave. Have a good day," the guardian replied calmly before turning around and disappearing above the clouds, flying away.
With no other choice, the cultivators sighed in resignation and reluctantly epted the new restrictions. They knew they had to leave behind thefort of flying and make their way to the summit on foot.
"What an arrogant jerk," one of thevishly dressed youngsters muttered, disdain evident in his voice as he descended to the ground.
Following the group''s lead, Michael also descended to the ground. As hended in knee-high snow, he was greeted by a scene of pure white, with mist swirling and the wind howling around him. The snowstorm raged fiercely, making it challenging for many cultivators to see even their own hands in front of them.
However, Michael activated his X-ray vision, allowing him to see through the blizzard with ease. He observed every cultivator using thermal vision to navigate through the snowyndscape. ying along, Michael joined the group, walking through the snow with determination. He knew that, for now, he had to blend in with the other cultivators to aplish his mission without drawing attention to himself.
"Michael... Michael, where the hell are you?" Suddenly, Gaya''s voice echoed in Michael''s mind.
"What''s wrong?" Michael asked.
"I''ve been trying to reach you for four days. Where have you been?" Gaya''s voice held a tinge of worry.
"I came to the cold mountains to retrieve the Queen''s soul crystal," Michael exined.
"The soul crystal in the cold mountains? How did it end up there?" Gaya asked, clearly shocked.
"The Immortals somehow got hold of it and took it to their headquarters on Gallion mountain. I have only two days to get it back for the Queen," Michael replied.
"Those idiots have no idea what they''re messing with, do they? Alright, do you need my help?" Gaya offered.
"No, take care of things on your end. I''ll handle the Immortals," Michael assured her.
"But how do you n to deal with them? If you kill them, news of their deaths will spread like wildfire, and I''ll need to control the newspapers and craft a different narrative," Gaya exined, well aware that any deaths linked to the Immortals would lead people to suspect the involvement of the Dark Lord, even if he had faked his demise.
"They won''t die. They''ll simply disappear," Michael replied, a cold snicker escaping him.
As the group of cultivators made their way through the relentless snowstorm toward the summit of the cold mountains, the youngsters who were previously dressed invish red robes grew increasingly agitated. Theirints and frustration echoed through the freezing air.
"I can''t believe they expect us to walk through this freezing wastnd! This is absurd!" one of the youngsters eximed, his face red from both anger and the biting cold.
"Who do they think they are? Treating us like this is uneptable!" discontent and annoyance. The icy wind seemed to carry their grievances as if the mountains themselves were bearing witness to another young cultivator yelled, his breath visible in the frosty air as he spoke.
"This is aplete waste of our time! We should be soaring through the skies, not trudging through the snow likemoners!" a third youngster chimed in, stomping his feet to keep warm.
Each step through the knee-deep snow seemed like an arduous task, and theirints grew louder with every passing moment. Their voices mixed with the howling wind, creating a chorus of discontent and annoyance. The icy wind seemed to carry their grievances as if the mountains themselves were bearing witness to their displeasure.
Despite their protests, the group had no choice but to continue on foot, leaving their ability to fly behind as they followed the guardian''s orders. With each passing minute, theirints grew more fervent, and they questioned the Immortal Council''s reasoning for enforcing such a demanding rule.
"Why are they even doing this? It''s like they want to make our lives miserable!" one of them shouted in frustration.
As the young cultivators trudged on, their footsteps leaving deep imprints in the snow, their discontentment showed no signs of waning. Their voices echoed through the cold mountains, expressing their dissatisfaction with the Immortal Council''s decision to ban flying in the region. It was clear that this new rule was not sitting well with them, and they were determined to make their displeasure known as they ventured towards the distant summit.
Michael couldn''t help but feel a connection between the sudden ban on flying and the Immortals retrieving the Queen''s crystal containing a piece of her soul. He knew there had to be some significance behind it, but the question remained: what were the Immortals nning to do with the crystal? The memory of the dwarves'' disastrous attempt to use a crystal containing the Queen''s soul piece shed in his mind, a grim reminder of the potential dangers involved.
As Michael continued forward, he suddenly felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. The other cultivators also sensed the disturbance and came to a halt, their eyes scanning the surroundings for any signs of danger.
"I think it''s an avnche!" one of them cried out, fear evident in his voice.
"Find a cave or something, quick!" another cultivator urged, the panic spreading among the group.
The cultivators, despite their magical abilities, knew better than to underestimate the treacherous power of the cold mountains. Even the strongest fusion stage cultivator could meet their demise in these icy peaks. The urgency in their movements increased as they searched for shelter, hoping to avoid the wrath of the impending avnche and survive the harsh conditions of the cold mountains.
In the midst of the chaos, Michael calmly activated his environmental scanning ability to locate a suitable cave. With a quick scan, he identified a sheltered cave nearby. Using the shadows as cover, he swiftly employed his shadow teleportation technique, disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye. In just a few blinks, he had effortlessly reached the safety of the cave, leaving the other cultivators unaware of his movements.
Chapter 1047 A mighty dragon called the Snow Stalker
Chapter 1047 A mighty dragon called the Snow Stalker
As chaos and destruction reigned in the cold mountains, Michael found sce and safety inside a cave, biding his time for the opportune moment to continue his journey towards the summit where the Council of Immortals'' headquartersy.
Amidst the howling winds and the relentless snowstorm, Michael''s acute senses picked up a distinct roar, cutting through the cacophony. Reacting swiftly, he activated his environmental scanning map to locate the source of the disturbance. Outside the cave, a Half Immortal being moved in a frenzied and disoriented manner, adding to the chaos of the storm.
With heightened senses, Michael closed his eyes and focused on the sounds emanating from outside. He could hear distant shouts and a chilling scream, signaling the perilous situation of the cultivators caught in the avnche.
Curiosity getting the better of him, Michael ventured outside the safety of the cave. The moment he activated his X-ray eyes, his vision was enhanced, allowing him to see through the blizzard with ease. He noticed the thermal signatures of the cultivators desperately trying to flee the avnche, their bodies emitting distinct heat patterns.
But among them, something caught Michael''s attention¡ªan enormous thermal signature moving at a speed too fast for a normal cultivator and toorge to be a human. The colossal presence amidst the storm sparked Michael''s curiosity and alerted him to the possibility of something powerful and dangerous lurking in the cold mountains.
"Interesting," Michael mumbled to himself as he quickly changed his robes to pure white, seamlessly blending in with the snowstorm.
While everyone else was fleeing from the shaking avnche, Michael walked confidently towards it. He had no fear of the puny avnche since, in the eyes of onlookers, he appeared to be at the Core Strengthening stage. Little did they know that in reality, he possessed the power of a Celestial stage level 6 cultivator, as well as being a level 2 God.
Floating above the knee-high snow, Michael effortlessly moved forward. But suddenly, as if someone had intervened, the storm ceased. The ground stopped trembling, and everything returned to a state of eerie calm, leaving everyone bewildered. The cultivators who had been desperately trying to save themselves now stood in shock, covered in snow. Meanwhile, the group of youngsters that Michael had noticed earlier stood their ground, armed with swords, bows, and spears, as though prepared to face an imminent threat.
"Stop gawking at us!"
"We have a snow stalker among us!"
The youngsters stood together, raising their voices and using someone of being a "snow stalker." Michael furrowed his brows, as he had never heard of such a term before. However, he had sensed the presence of a Half Immortal being and a powerful thermal signature just moments ago. Coupled with what the disciples were saying, Michael realized that there was something among them, something powerful and potentially dangerous.
"Quickly, make fire!" One of the youngsters, a blonde-haired young man, urgently shouted at his friend. Without hesitation, hispanion conjured a ball of golden-orange mes in his hand. However, before they could defend themselves, something massive, a colossal creature, swooped down from the snowden clouds above and snatched the young man with its giant ws.
The cultivators and disciples were frozen in shock at the sight, but Michael quickly realized the gravity of the situation.
"A dragon?" Michael was astonished to see a dragon among them.
"Create fires if you want to survive!" the disciples urged, impressing Michael with their knowledge of dealing with the dangerous creature.
"What the heck was that thing?"
"We can''t possibly fight that beast!"
Panicked cries echoed from all directions as the cultivators, both young and old, were gripped by fear. Even the experienced cultivators looked pale and trembling in the presence of such a formidable opponent. But the group of youngsters, the ones who had earlier exhibited arrogance, remained resolute, showing no signs of backing down in the face of danger.
"The snow stalker hunts its prey by detecting the heat around your body. So if you don''t make fire and divert its attention, we are all in trouble," the youngsters exined urgently. Their words snapped the cultivators out of their fear, and they quickly conjured fireballs, throwing them far away to create fiery distractions.
Amidst the chaos, Michael heard a deafening roar, apanied by a powerful gust of wind. Looking up, he saw a disturbance in the snow clouds, confirming his suspicion that the dragon, known as the snow stalker, was on the move. The creature swooped down and snatched the burning snow where the fireballs had exploded, following the targets the cultivators had created.
"Keep doing it until we reach a safe ce," the youngsters instructed as they began to move forward. Michael''s eyes locked with theirs, and he noticed a sly smile on the face of their leader¡ªa golden-haired young man in histe twenties.
"Sly bastards," Michael chuckled, amused by their clever trickery. The youngsters had effectively used the older cultivators'' fear to their advantage, creating diversions for the dragon while they made their escape.
"What are you up to?" Michael asked himself, puzzled by their presence in the cold mountains. Unlike the older cultivators who were often stuck at a bottleneck, these young cultivators showed no signs of restriction. All of them were at the Core Strengthening stage, a decent cultivation level for their age.
Yet, they had chosen to venture into the cold mountains, a ce where older cultivators seclude themselves in hopes of breaking through to the next stage or meeting their end. Michael couldn''t help but wonder what their true intentions were, and why they hade to a ce typically reserved for those seeking cultivation breakthroughs.
If only Michael had the luxury of time, he would have followed the group of youngsters to uncover the reason behind their presence in the cold mountains. However, urgency fueled his actions, and he had a different n in mind.
Stepping away from the cultivators, Michael carefully observed the situation. As all eyes remained fixated on the skies, Michael swiftly lowered his hands, conjuring two lightning bolts that shot him upwards with incredible force. He defied the arrays and runes ced around the cold mountains, meant to hinder cultivators from flying. These restrictions were effective against those below the Immortal stage, but Michael''s power far surpassed that level, rendering the barriers ineffective against him.
In a sh, he soared through the thick snow clouds and freezing air. Above the clouds, Michael finally beheld the imposing figure of the snow stalker. The dragon''s massive form cut through the swirling storm, a creature both fearsome and majestic.
The colossal dragon, with its white scales gleaming like fresh snow, seemed to blend seamlessly with the wintry surroundings. Its majestic wings, spanning wide like a mountain range, pped slowly, sending gusts of icy wind through the air. The creature''s piercing blue eyes glowed with an otherworldly intensity, radiating an aura of chilling power.
As the dragon moved, the very air around it seemed to freeze, leaving a trail of frost in its wake. The cold emanating from its body was palpable, causing the surrounding temperature to drop significantly. The ground beneath the dragon''s massive ws was covered in ayer of frost, and its breath appeared as misty plumes, giving a glimpse of the cial power within.
The dragon''s presence was both awe-inspiring and intimidating, a living embodiment of the harsh and unforgiving nature of the cold mountains. Despite its imposing stature, the creature moved with an eerie grace, effortlessly navigating the treacherous terrain.
Its appearance was a true reflection of the might and majesty of a creature revered in myths and legends, a being whose very existence demanded reverence and respect.
With a sly smile on his face, Michael conjured a small ball of dark mes above his hands, the intense heat catching the attention of the colossal dragon. The creature''s blue eyes locked onto Michael as it roared and swiftly changed its course, abandoning its pursuit of the cultivators on the ground to confront this new challenger.
"Come closer, darling," Michael taunted, luring the dragon toward him.
As the dragon closed in, jaws wide to devour him, Michael struck with lightning speed, delivering a powerful punch right to the dragon''s face. The force of his blow sent the massive creature hurtling through the sky despite its immense size.
In a daring move, Michael leaped into the air andnded squarely on the dragon''s back, taking advantage of its momentary disorientation. Brandishing his dark sword, he drove the weapon deep into the dragon''s scaly hide, causing the creature to roar in pain and unleash a frigid stream of ice breath from its mouth. Yet, Michael remained undeterred, tightly holding onto the hilt of the sword as he guided the dragon upwards.
"We''re going for a ride, baby," Michael dered with grim determination. Utilizing his godly strength and control over darkness, he steered the dragon upward, directing it straight toward the summit of Mount Gallion, where the Council of Immortals awaited.
As Michael clung tightly to the dragon''s back, the creature attempted to shake him off with frantic barrel rolls and vigorous body movements. But Michael''s grip remained steadfast, and with his godly strength, he thwarted the dragon''s efforts to dislodge him.
As they ascended higher into the sky, the wind whipped against Michael''s face, its cold sting contrasting with the heat of the dark mes surrounding him. The scene around him transformed as they climbed to greater heights. The storm clouds enveloped them, and the snow and hail battered against Michael''s body. Despite the harsh conditions, he pressed on, his determination unwavering.
Through the haze of the storm, he caught a glimpse of the peak of Mount Gallion in the distance, its snow-covered majesty rising above the clouds. The dragon''s wings beat powerfully, carrying them closer to the summit, where the Council of Immortals resided.
As they soared higher, the storm clouds gradually gave way to a serene, etherealndscape. Michael found himself flying above the clouds, the world below obscured by a sea of white mist. The air became thinner, and the cold more biting, but he persisted, driven by his mission to retrieve the Queen''s crystal.
Amidst the clouds, he spotted a sight that stood out amidst the snowy expanse¡ªa humble manor made of glistening marble stones. It seemed out of ce in this secluded and frigid environment, yet its simplicity and elegance caught Michael''s attention. The manor stood proudly, surrounded by an air of mystique and secrecy, like a hidden sanctuary atop the world.
As the dragon let out a pained scream and stopped flying, Michael sensed that something within the manor was causing distress to the creature. He decided to release the dragon, knowing it had fulfilled its purpose in carrying him closer to the summit. Gently, he retrieved his dark sword from the dragon''s back.
Curiosity gnawed at Michael as he observed the dragon''s behavior. It was as if the manor held some mysterious power that deterred the creature from getting any closer. Determined to find out whaty within, Michael chose not to press the dragon any further.
"Something intriguing must be happening in there," he mused to himself, deciding to let the dragon go. With apassionate gesture, Michael retrieved a healing potion from his space ring and tossed it onto the dragon''s wounded back. The potion shattered upon impact, its magic swiftly mending the dragon''s injury.
"Happy hunting," Michael patted the dragon, acknowledging its assistance. With a tap on his chest, his dark armor materialized and encased him from head to toe. His metallic wings unfurled, and with powerful ps, he soared towards the mysterious marble manor, where he believed the Council of Immortals resided.
"System, disable the security measures surrounding the manor and make me invisible to their detection," Michael requested with a calm demeanor as he hovered in the sky.
With his impressive eighty million badass points, Michael exuded confidence in his ability to infiltrate any location.
[It will cost the host one million badass points. The security measures won''t be permanently disabled, but a rune will be ced upon the host, rendering you undetectable by the manor''s security measures.]
"That works too," Michael replied calmly, epting the system''s terms without hesitation.
Chapter 1048 Gods are about to fight
Chapter 1048 Gods are about to fight
Inside the elegant manor atop Mount Gallion, a group of five Immortals stood around a polished round table, deep in serious discussion. The meeting hall exuded an aura of wisdom and power, with ancient tapestries adorning the walls, depicting the history of the Immortals. The room was illuminated by mystical orbs of light, casting an ethereal glow over the ce.
Little did the Immortals know that they were being closely observed by the Dark Lord''s tiny Spyders, magical creatures created by Michael to gather information discreetly.
The first Immortal was an elderly man with a long white beard that reached his chest. He wore an intricately embroidered robe with silver patterns, and his eyes shimmered with ancient knowledge.
Next to him stood a stern-looking woman, her face etched with the wisdom of centuries. Her silver hair cascaded down her back, and she exuded an aura of power and authority.
The third Immortal was a man of regal bearing, adorned in royal purple robes with golden ents. His long gray hair was neatly tied back, and his sharp eyes were focused and calcting.
Opposite him was another woman, her face lined with age and experience. Her dark eyes were sharp and observant, and she wore simple yet elegant robes of deep green, signifying her deep connection to nature.
The fifth Immortal was a man of quiet intensity, his eyes deep and soulful. His ash-gray hair fell to his shoulders, and he wore robes of deep blue, representing his affinity with the heavens.
All five Immortals looked serious and engrossed in their discussion, unaware of the tiny Spyders discreetly observing their every move. Little did they know that the Dark Lord himself, disguised and undetectable, was about to make his move.
As the Immortals continued their discussion, their voices filled the meeting hall with a sense of urgency and concern. The first Immortal, named Elder Arion, spoke with a deep frown, "I have never seen such an anomaly before. These Immortals are unconscious, and their life forces are slowly withering away."
The stern-looking woman, High Priestess Era, nodded in agreement, "Indeed, the crystal seems to be corrupting their souls more than we initially calcted. We must act swiftly to save them."
The regal Immortal, Lord Roderick, chimed in, "Perhaps we should inform the Skyhall and seek help from our elders. This is beyond our expertise."
The female Immortal with a connection to nature, Lady Sylvana, added, "Yes, their condition is deteriorating rapidly, and our efforts to purify the crystal are not enough."
While the Immortals debated their next course of action, Michael watched the scene unfold in the mirror held in his hand, floating above the manor. He sighed, realizing that the Queen''s crystal containing her piece of soul had indeed started to corrupt the Immortals. He knew they were clueless about the true nature of the crystal.
The tiny Spyders continued to record the conversation, allowing Michael to gather valuable information. He knew that he had to act carefully and secretly to retrieve the crystal without arousing suspicion.
As the Immortals continued their heated discussion, Lady Sylvana stood her ground, her emerald eyes filled with determination. "We cannot afford to keep the crystal any longer. Its corrupting influence will bring disaster upon us," she urged.
However, Lord Roderick, with a gleam of ambition in his eyes, countered, "You fail to see its potential! The crystal contains the power to elevate us all to the Half Celestial stage. With such power, we could reshape the world!"
High Priestess Era added, "We have spent centuries searching for a way to reach the Half Celestial stage, and now it lies before us. We cannot let this opportunity slip away."
Sylvana remained resolute, "There are other paths to the Half Celestial stage that do not involve such a tainted crystal. The Dark Lord himself managed to achieve that stage without the use of this corrupted artifact. If he could do it, so can we!"
Lord Roderick shook his head, "You forget, we are not the Dark Lord. He is the God of Darkness, and his powers are far beyond ourprehension."
Undeterred, Sylvana pressed on, "If we do not abandon the crystal, we will suffer the same fate as the Dark Lord in the end, regardless of whether we reach the Half Celestial stage or not. Its corrupting influence will consume us all."
The other Immortals fell silent, considering Sylvana''s words. The weight of their decision hung heavily in the air as they pondered the consequences of their actions. The allure of immense power was tempting, but the risk of sumbing to darkness loomed ominously.
Unbeknownst to the Immortals, the Dark Lord, Michael, remained concealed and observed their every move. The Immortals discussed their n to seek the Skyhall''s help, unaware that Michael''s tiny Spyders were capturing their conversation.
"I believe it''s wise to inform the Skyhall and seek their counsel," suggested Lord Roderick. The other Immortals nodded in agreement, convinced that involving the elders of the Skyhall was the best course of action.
Yet, as they reached their decision, an unsettling shift filled the air. The light orbs in the hall flickered and sputtered, casting eerie shadows across the room. The Immortals exchanged puzzled nces, unsure of the cause of this strange phenomenon. A peculiar scent lingered in the air, making them uneasy.
Sensing something amiss, Immortal Sylvana reached out with her instincts and detected an unusual presence in their blood. A surge of fear washed over the Immortals as they realized that they had been tainted by an unknown substance.
Before they could react, the Fear Toxin that Michael had unleashed into the hall took hold of their bodies. Panic and dread surged through their veins, leaving them paralyzed with terror.
In the midst of the chaos, the lights in the hall suddenly extinguished, enveloping them inplete darkness. The Immortals'' hearts pounded loudly in their chests as they struggled to see in the pitch-ck surroundings.
In the shrouded darkness, the Immortals huddled together, their whispers filled with confusion and fear. One of them murmured, "This darkness... it''s not ordinary. It feels malevolent."
Another Immortal, still trying to process the situation, hesitantly questioned, "Could this be the Dark Lord''s doing?"
Dismissing the doubt, one of the more seasoned Immortals scoffed, "Nonsense! The Dark Lord met his end at the hands of Noah. This Their attempts to conjure light by casting spells proved futile, as an inexplicable gust of wind continuously extinguished their feeble can''t be him."
Their attempts to conjure light by casting spells proved futile, as an inexplicable gust of wind continuously extinguished their feeble mes.
Suddenly, a haunting rhyme echoed in the hall, the words sending a chill down their spines. "Diddle... Diddle... your lives... are so... little."
The Immortals exchanged rmed nces, their hearts pounding with dread. They felt a sinister presence lurking in the darkness, taunting and toying with them. It was as though an invisible force was mocking their power and control.
Fear gripped their souls as they struggled to maintain theirposure. Each of them tried to suppress their growing panic, but the relentless darkness and the haunting rhyme yed tricks on their minds.
In their desperation, one of the Immortals attempted to summon divine light, but the darkness seemed to devour even the brightest illumination. The more they tried to dispel it, the thicker it seemed to grow, as if the very shadows hade alive and encircled them.
In the suffocating thickness of the darkness, the Immortals were blinded, unable to see anything around them. They shouted out into the void, their voices trembling with fear, demanding to know who was behind this sinister manifestation. To their horror, a menacing, devilish voice echoed back, chilling them to the bone. "You know the answer to your question," it hissed, sending shivers down their spines.
One of the Immortals, his voice quivering, mumbled, "Dark Lord."
As the fear toxin continued to grip their hearts, the Immortals became more and more petrified. The toxin amplified their fears, making the darkness even more terrifying, and the haunting voice that answered them felt like an embodiment of their deepest nightmares.
In the midst of their terror, the Dark Lord''s voice returned, cutting through the ckness with an eerie calmness. "Tell me," he demanded, "Where did you put the crystal?"
Their minds reeling, the Immortals felt shocked beyond belief. They had witnessed the Dark Lord''s supposed death at the hands of Noah, and now he stood before them, alive and with them, in the very hall where they had convened to discuss their concerns. The immensity of the revtion was too much for them toprehend.
Their immortalposure shattered, and they were reduced to mere mortals, shaken to their cores by the return of the Dark Lord. They could hardly believe their eyes and ears, and the fear toxin made them question the very fabric of reality. Was this an illusion, or had the Dark Lord trulye back from the dead?
In the pitch-ck darkness, the Immortals stood paralyzed, not knowing how to respond to the unexpected and chilling presence of the Dark Lord.
As Michael interrogated the immortals, a powerful aura suddenly appeared on his Environmental scanning. Reacting swiftly to the change in the situation, Michael tapped into his innate power, connecting with the darkness within each immortal. In response, the immortals felt an intense pain in their chests, coughing and copsing to the ground.
With his dark swords unsheathed, Michael sprang into action, moving with deadly precision. In the pitch-ck darkness of the hall, the only sounds that echoed were the chilling growls of the immortals. Michael swiftly ended their lives, cleaving their heads in a few blinks of an eye. Originally, he had nned to extract information about the crystal before eliminating them, but the unexpected appearance of another powerful being left him with no choice but to swiftly kill the immortals. Leaving no witnesses who had realized the Dark Lord was still alive became an imperative for Michael, even at the cost of ending their lives without mercy.
After swiftly dispatching the immortals, Michael dispelled the darkness in the hall and moved to a corner where shadows lingered. Embracing his role as the God of Darkness, he melded with the darkness, bing one with it. With perfect harmony, he blended into the shadows, waiting for the powerful being detected in his environmental scanning to reveal itself before him.
Chapter 1049 The Overwhelming power of the Dark Lord
Chapter 1049 The Overwhelming power of the Dark Lord
As Michael concealed himself in the darkness, a figure descended from the rooftop andnded beside the round table where the immortals once sat. It was none other than Evan. Shock was evident in his eyes as he saw the beheaded bodies of the immortals, and fear crept into his expression.
"What... What happened here?" Evan''s voice trembled as he took in the horrifying scene. Michael couldn''t help but smirk at Evan''s reaction, noting the unstable energy radiating around him like a ticking time bomb.
Thest time they shed, Michael had been at godhood level 1 and had to resort to using Victoria, Evan''s fianc¨¦e, as a hostage to gain the upper hand. However, this time, Michael was at the Celestial stage with godhood level 2, making him more powerful than Evan. Despite them both being at godhood level 2, Michael''s strength surpassed Evan''s several times over.
As Evan carefully inspected the lifeless bodies, he couldn''t find any signs of struggle or evidence of the perpetrator. Unbeknownst to him, Michael remained hidden in the dark corner, a calcting smile ying on his lips.
Meanwhile, Michael retrieved several powerful runic parchments from his storage, each designed by Elidyr and acquired through the system store at the cost of five million badass points. With precision, he ced the parchments on the nearby wall, watching as the runes came to life, vibrating before melding into the stone.
As the room remained shrouded in an eerie silence, Michael''s neck cracked audibly as he prepared for his encounter with Evan once more. The sound echoed through the chamber, catching Evan''s attention. His heart pounded in his chest, and his eyes widened in shock and fear when he saw the figure emerge from the darkness.
The air around them felt charged with tension as Michael and Evan locked eyes. Evan couldn''t believe what he was seeing ¨C the Dark Lord, who he thought was dead, now stood before him, alive and more powerful than ever. Fear and disbelief washed over Evan as he faced the formidable enemy who he thought died.
Terror gripped Evan''s heart as he stammered, "Ghost¡"
"I go by the name Dark Lord now," Michael replied calmly, his voice sending chills down Evan''s spine.
With each step Michael took forward, Evan stumbled back, his fear intensifying. Thebination of the fear toxin in the air and the shock of seeing the Dark Lord alive made Evan tremble uncontrobly.
"You¡ are¡ dead¡ No¡" Evan mumbled in disbelief. He vividly remembered witnessing Noah strike the Dark Lord with the god-killing arrows, leading to a fiery explosion. Unbeknownst to Evan, the two god-killing arrows Olivia gave to Noah during the final moments of the war were actually fakes. In a clever twist, Olivia had entrusted the real god-killing arrows to Michael. So when Noah struck Michael with the five original god-killing arrows and the two fakes, the genuine arrows remained inert. It was all part of Michael''s borate n to fake his death with a spectacr explosion and secure all the authentic god-killing arrows for himself.
"I am indeed dead. I am just your deepest fear," Michael taunted, toying with Evan''s emotions. For a moment, Evan felt convinced that the Dark Lord standing before him was a manifestation of his worst nightmares.
"No!" Suddenly, Evan shook his head vigorously, as if trying to break free from the grip of fear. Summoning his courage, he lunged at Michael, aiming a desperate punch at his face. But just as his fist approached Michael, it was caught mid-air by the Dark Lord, who wore an unsettling smile.
"I am indeed dead. I am just your deepest fear," Michael taunted, ying with Evan''s emotions. For a brief moment, Evan''s mind sumbed to the idea that the Dark Lord was nothing more than a manifestation of his worst nightmares.
"No!" Suddenly, Evan shook his head vigorously, as if trying to shake off the fear that had consumed him. Summoning every ounce of his courage, he lunged at Michael and threw a furious punch towards his face. But before the blow couldnd, Michael effortlessly caught Evan''s fist, shing a twisted smile.
"Evan, did you miss me?" Michael''s chilling words echoed in Evan''s mind, reminding him of the horrific scene where the Dark Queen had forced Victoria to drink the blood tonic against her will.
Although Michael had no intention of fighting Evan seriously, he couldn''t resist testing his newfound powers, using Evan as a mere practice dummy to disy his strength.
"You cannot be alive. I saw you explode into bloody mist," Evan growled, still struggling to ept that the Dark Lord stood before him, very much alive.
"Don''t believe everything you see and hear, Evan," Michael retorted. With a swift and powerful punch, he struck Evan right in the chest, sending him hurtling through the air until he collided with the wall.
The fear toxin coursing through Evan''s veins slowly began to lose its grip as anger and the pain of losing Victoria overwhelmed him. Two weeks after the Dark Lord''s supposed defeat, Victoria had traveled to meet her family on the Awor continent after her encounter with Salesi. Tragedy had struck as she was ambushed and in by a Bone Dragon. Since then, Evan had been relentlessly tracking down the Bone Dragon''s origins, leading him to the immortal council''s headquarters atop Mount Gallion. The connection between Victoria''s death and the council heightened Evan''s fury and determination.
"What do you think?" Michael sneered, his taunting words further provoking Evan''s anger. Unbeknownst to Evan, the tragic death of Victoria was not the doing of the Dark Queen or the Dark Lord, but rather a maniptive scheme orchestrated by Salesi''s death squad.
(Read Chapter 1024)
When Salesi saw the devastation in Victoria''s house following the Dark Queen''s visit, she cunningly devised a n to exploit Evan''s emotions. Believing that the Dark Queen had harmed Victoria and would use her life as leverage, Salesi ordered her death squad member, Stormwing, to stage Victoria''s death as an ident.
As per Salesi''s orders, Stormwing led the Bone Dragon, which had previously escaped from the immortal council, to Victoria''s location, orchestrating the fatal encounter. When Evan arrived, all he found was a pool of blood and the heartbreaking sight of Victoria''s severed wrist, spared by the jaws of the vicious creature.
Consumed by overwhelming grief and seething with fury, Evan''s heart was now consumed by the pursuit of vengeance. In his anguish, he became a relentless hunter, relentlessly tracking the Bone Dragon with a determination bordering on madness.
As Michael snickered arrogantly, Evan''s grief and anger reached its breaking point, firmly convinced that the Dark Lord was responsible for Victoria''s tragic death. Blinded by his emotions, he didn''t even consider the possibility that someone else might be behind the horrifying act. Fate, it seemed, had brought Evan face to face with the one he believed had taken everything from him.
"BASTARD!" Evan''s anguished scream tore through the air as he lunged at Michael once more. His fists flew like a wild storm, driven by the madness of loss and despair. But Michael was no ordinary opponent; he deftly evaded every punch and kick with ease, his movements fluid and precise.
With the help of the powerful runes, the mountain concealed their battle from prying eyes, forming an illusion that shielded them from the outside world. But even within the illusion, Evan''s fury and desperation were palpable.
As Evan''s relentless assault continued, Michael sensed that his opponent had yet to unleash his true power. Tauntingly, Michael questioned Evan''s choice of fists over spells and godly abilities.
"Is this how you fight a man who killed your love?" Michael sneered, blocking Evan''s punch effortlessly and retaliating with a deadly ck bolt of lightning. The powerful surge of energy sent Evan hurtling through the air once again, a painful reminder of the one-sided nature of their battle.
As Evan''s desperation escted, he channeled all his power into a grand disy of spells. The air crackled with energy as he unleashed overwhelming forces, causing the hall to tremble and the very ground beneath them to quake.
First, Evan conjured a tempest of swirling winds that tore through the hall, shattering the marble walls and tossing debris into the air like deadly projectiles. The winds howled with fury, threatening to consume everything in their path.
Next, he summoned celestial mes that burned with an intensity beyond imagination. The mes danced and twirled, creating a fiery inferno that threatened to consume the entire space.
But as Evan''s onught continued, Michael calmly raised his hand and an energy shield dome formed around him. The responsive shield, a testament to his newfound power as a level 2 god, grew in size and strength. The shield expanded, epassing the entire hall, and its luminescent glow intensified, emanating an aura of invincibility.
The sh of their powers was a spectacle to behold. Evan''s spells collided with the resilient energy dome, but they failed to prate its formidable defense. The swirling winds and raging mes struck the dome, only to be dispersed harmlessly around Michael.
With each failed attempt, Evan''s frustration grew, and he unleashed even more potent spells. He tried to bring down the energy dome with bolts of celestial lightning and torrents of freezing ice, but nothing could breach the shield''s imprable barrier.
Meanwhile, Michael remainedposed, his eyes cold and calcting as he analyzed Evan''s every move. His dark armor glimmered, absorbing the impact of Evan''s attacks effortlessly.
As the battle raged on, it became apparent that Evan''s rage had clouded his judgment. Michael''s mastery of darkness and his strategic use of the responsive shield gave him an undeniable advantage. With each futile attempt, Evan''s confidence waned, and the reality of facing a truly living Dark Lord began to sink in.
The power of Michael''s responsive shield astonished even him. As Evan''s relentless spells crashed against the shield, it absorbed nearly 90% of their destructive force, leaving Michael unharmed behind his dark armor. The hall became coated in ayer of frost from Evan''s icy spells, but it seemed to have little effect on the Dark Lord.
The runes Michael had ced earlier concealed the battle from outside detection, ensuring that no one would interfere or sense the immense sh between the two gods. Evan, infused with powers beyond his own, tried desperately to match Michael''s might, but it was clear that he was nowhere close to being a true god like Michael.
In this confrontation, Michael realized that only the true gods from the realm of gods could stand a chance against him and pose a real challenge, especially those who were at or above the level 3 godhood. Evan''s power, gained by grace that was not his own, proved inadequate against the might of the Dark Lord.
As the battle continued, Michael''s calm demeanor contrasted sharply with Evan''s growing frustration and desperation. Each strike from Evan''s spells was effortlessly countered by the responsive shield, leaving Evan feeling powerless in the face of such overwhelming darkness.
"My turn,"
With a sinister smirk, Michael''s hands crackled with power as he raised them, preparing to unleash his own devastating spells. From his palms, sharp wind des surged forth, slicing through the air with deadly precision. Apanying the wind des, bolts of dark lightning erupted, crackling and searing through the atmosphere. But that was not all ¨C the very air above Evan seemed to obey Michael''smand, as more lightning bolts materialized from thin air, raining down with electrifying force.
As if the spectacle wasn''t enough, a ring of dark mes erupted from Michael''s body, encircling him in a zing inferno. The mes were no ordinary fire; they were infused with dark mes, consuming everything in their path with unrelenting fury. The force of the spells was overwhelming, creating an awe-inspiring disy the deadly onught of wind des, lightning bolts, and infernal mes. Desperation and fear etched across his face, but there was of raw power that left the entire hall trembling.
Evan''s eyes widened in horror as he found himself surrounded by the deadly onught of wind des, lightning bolts, and infernal mes. Desperation and fear etched across his face, but there was nowhere to run ¨C he was trapped within the swirling tempest of Michael''s wrath.
The wind des tore through anything they touched, leaving behind a trail of destruction. The dark lightning bolts crackled with energy, striking Evan from all directions, filling the air with blinding shes of light. Meanwhile, the ring of dark mes incinerated everything in its path, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake.
The hall that was once a symbol of power and authority nowy in ruins, torn asunder by the force of Michael''s spells. The walls crumbled, and the elegant decorations were reduced to mere debris. The once grand and dignified space was now a scene of chaos and devastation, a testament to the unmatched power of the Dark Lord.
As the dust settled and the echoes of the spells faded away, Evany defeated amidst the ruins of the hall. His body was battered and broken, and his spirit was crushed by the overwhelming might of the Dark Lord. Michael stood tall amidst the destruction, his dark armor glistening with power, a silent but formidable force that had left Evan utterly powerless.
Chapter 1050 Outsmarting Salesi in every way
Chapter 1050 Outsmarting Salesi in every way
(Several days before the battle between Evan and Michael)
The journey from Awor continent to Elon was incredibly vast, spanning a great distance that took many cultivators several days to traverse. Most preferred to use teleportation portals to shorten the trip, but Victoria, instead, decided to embark on a long flightsting several days. She wanted to enjoy the breathtaking sights along the way before eventually arriving at Salesi''s safe house in the Cassidion forest. From there, she nned to use a teleportation portal to reach her final destination.
As evening descended, the sky transformed into a magnificent canvas adorned with twinkling stars, shining brightly like precious jewels. Threerge, luminous blue moons hung gracefully in the sky, casting a gentle glow over the world below.
Victoria soared through the air as she flew above a vast and majestic canyon. The walls of the canyon were towering and rugged, disying a breathtaking blend of red and orange hues as the setting sun painted them with its warm rays.
Moving swiftly, Victoria left the canyon behind and approached the emerald green Cassidion forest. The forest weed her with open arms, its giant trees stretching high into the sky. The canopy above was a kaleidoscope of lush foliage, forming a natural roof that filtered the soft sunlight and created a soothing, dappled effect on the forest floor.
The spacious ground between the trees was a haven of vibrant life. Soft, green grass carpeted the forest floor, adorned with colorful wildflowers that added a touch of beauty to thendscape. The air was filled with the sweet scent of nature, and the forest seemed to sing with the harmony of chirping birds and gentle rustling leaves. It was a ce of peace and serenity where Victoria could find sce andfort amidst the wonders of nature.
Unbeknownst to Victoria, she was being closely trailed by two individuals. One of them was a mysterious figure shrouded in ck robes, with the upper body of an eagle, revealing him to be a beastman. This enigmatic figure was none other than Stormwing, a deadly member of Salesi''s death squad.
Stormwing had been tasked by Salesi with a sinister mission - to assassinate Victoria and make it appear as if her death was a mere ident. To aplish his dark purpose, Stormwing carried a pouch filled with a potent alchemical substance, a gray powder specifically used to lure a bone dragon. The very same bone dragon that had seemingly escaped the Immortal Council''s control.
Meanwhile, unknown to both Stormwing and Victoria, a silent and watchful presence trailed them from the shadows. It was Michael, who had been tracking their movements with great caution. Michael was well aware of Salesi''s intentions, and he had anticipated her every move. When he had asked Gaya to leave Victoria''s home, he knew it would lead Salesi to make a dangerous assumption - that the Dark Lord would use Victoria''s life to manipte Evan.
Michael''s keen insights and meticulous nning had sessfully lured Salesi into his trap. Now, as he followed Victoria and Stormwing, he waited for the perfect moment to intervene and thwart Salesi''s wicked plot.
From the vantage point of a massive tree, Michael observed Victoria setting up her camp for the night. He remained silent and concealed, hidden within the dense foliage of the tree. As he watched her, Victoria''s words drifted up to him. She expressed relief that the Dark Lord''s reign of terror was finally over.
"I never felt like this in months. d everything is over with the Dark Lord," Victoria murmured softly to herself. She swiftly prepared her camp, changing into morefortable clothes. Respectful of her privacy, Michael looked away, refusing to invade her personal space.
With her camp arranged, Victoria conjured a gentle spell to ignite a warm campfire. Seating herself before the crackling mes, she ced her long sword by her side and closed her eyes, entering a state of peaceful cultivation. Unbeknownst to her, Stormwing was silently descending from the skies,nding on a distant branch, unaware that every movement he made was being meticulously observed by the Dark Lord.
As Stormwing approached, he carried a handful of Bone Dragon bait, a potent substance used to attract the deadly creature. With a subtle movement, Stormwing released the gray powder into the air, allowing it to disperse around Victoria''s camp. The bait had no discernible scent, ensuring that Victoria remained unaware of the impending danger that lurked in the air.
"My job here is done," With a sly grin concealed beneath his hood, Stormwing believed his task wasplete. He swiftly departed from the forest, cautious not to be caught between the Bone Dragon and Victoria. Fully aware of Victoria''s limited cultivation at the Core Strengthening stage, Stormwing knew she would be defenseless against a formidable Fusion stage Bone Dragon.
From his hidden perch, Michael kept a keen eye on Stormwing''s every move, his mind racing with calctions and strategies.
Moments after Stormwing''s departure, a distant rumble echoed through the forest, catching Michael''s attention. He knew that such a sound was impossible, for the sky above was clear and devoid of any storm clouds. Recognizing the peculiar noise as the Bone Dragon''s thunderous wings, Michael understood that the powerful and deranged creature was heading straight for Victoria''s location.
Unaware of the imminent danger, Victoria continued her peaceful cultivation on the ground. The tranquility around her soon gave way to an eerie darkness as the colossal creature approached, its monstrous form casting an ominous shadow on the forest floor. The trees quivered violently in response to the Bone Dragon''s immense power.
Suddenly, Victoria''s eyes snapped open, a surge of instinctive alertness coursing through her. She sensed a formidable presence nearby, a feeling of danger that sent shivers down her spine. However, she was unable to detect Michael, the Dark Lord, as he skillfully concealed himself within the darkness, a master of blending in and remaining hidden.
As the Bone Dragon drew nearer, the ground trembled under its immense weight, and the air seemed to grow colder, carrying the scent of danger that Victoria couldn''t ignore. Little did she know that this creature had been driven to madness after being imprisoned for decades, and it was now on a destructive path, seeking to unleash its fury upon any living being it encountered.
Michael silently observed the scene as the Bone Dragon descended through the thick canopy, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, much like a raging storm. Its skeletal form, devoid of flesh, gave it an eerie and sinister appearance. With its crimson red eyes emanating a palpable killing intent, the dragon''s immense size instilled fear in Victoria''s heart.
The Bone Dragon''s eyes locked onto Victoria, a live and breathing human, and its roars echoed through the forest, shaking the very ground beneath them. The dragon''s hatred for humans, stemming from its long captivity, fueled its aggression upon seeing Victoria. It lunged at her with a ferocious snap, aiming to devour her in a single gulp.
Victoria''s instincts kicked in, and she swiftly evaded the Bone Dragon''s massive jaw, narrowly escaping its deadly bite. Panic surged within her as she realized her sword was left behind at the now extinguished campfire. With each step the dragon took, the forest around them crumbled, uprooting trees like mere twigs.
Desperate to defend herself, Victoria tried to cast spells, but before she could muster enough energy, the Bone Dragon''s bone ws struck her with devastating force. She was sent hurtling through the shattered trees, leaving her body battered and bleeding. In agony, Victoria coughed up blood, her dress torn and covered in mud.
Her leg and arms broken from a single strike, Victoria reached for her space ring that had fallen off her finger during the fall. Crawling backward, she sought her only hope of survival ¨C a teleportation scroll within the space ring. However, the Bone Dragon was relentless, closing in with each thunderous step. Fighting back tears, Victoria clutched a broken branch with her good hand, trying to stand despite her injuries.
"I am sorry Evan," In the midst of pain and despair, she whispered an apology to Evan, reflecting on the cruel twists of fate that had led her to this dire moment.
"Come on, you ugly son of a bitch!" Victoria roared in defiance, refusing to yield without a fight. Though facing a seemingly insurmountable foe, she refused to give up her will to survive.
The Bone Dragon sensed Victoria''s fear and reveled in her suffering, enjoying the taste of vengeance against humans. As it advanced towards her, she clenched her fists, ready to face her doom with courage, despite knowing she stood no chance against the colossal beast.
Just as the dragon''s jaws were about to close around her, a sudden figure appeared,nding boldly between Victoria and the monstrous creature. It was Michael, the Dark Lord himself. His calm demeanor contrasted sharply with the chaotic situation.
"Ever heard of mouthwash?" Michael taunted the dragon before delivering a powerful punch that sent the creature tumbling to the ground. Victoria''s eyes widened in shock and terror, unable toprehend the sight before her. She had believed the Dark Lord to be dead, but here he stood, very much alive and powerful as ever.
"Let me take care of this bug," Michael dered with a confident smile, assuring Victoria that he had everything under control. Before she could react, he raised his hand, releasing a knockout potion that quickly overwhelmed her senses. Victoria copsed to the ground, her fears and worries momentarily subdued by the potion''s effects.
After gently knocking out Victoria to ensure she remained safe, Michael turned his attention to the suffering Bone Dragon. He could sense the deep scars of torture etched into its very being, which ignited a spark of empathy within him. Determined to end the dragon''s torment, Michael chose to end its life swiftly and mercifully.
With a solemn expression, Michael leaped onto the dragon''s bone head, looking into its crimson eyes filled with hatred and pain. He understood the dragon''s history of suffering at the hands of each side of the dragon''s face. In an instant, a connection formed between them, and they locked eyes. Michael''s immense power humans, and he didn''t wish to cause it any more pain than it had already endured.
Summoning the Soul Eater skill, Michael ced his hands gently on each side of the dragon''s face. In an instant, a connection formed between them, and they locked eyes. Michael''s immense power overwhelmed the dragon''s feeble resistance, allowing him to absorb its soul without inflicting further harm.
As the process unfolded, a faint white wisp of smoke emerged from the depths of the dragon''s eyes, gracefully coiling into Michael. It was a poignant moment, witnessing the dragon''s pain slowly dissipate, and its soul finding peace in the embrace of the Dark Lord''s power. Michael''s expression softened, as he knew he had granted the creature a final release from its suffering.
"Now it''s time to turn Evan against Salesi," Michael said with a sinister smile, his mind already plotting the perfect revenge. Little did Salesi know that Michael had outsmarted her, recording the conversation she had with Stormwing about assassinating Victoria. Despite Salesi''s protective artifact, Michael ingeniously devised a long-range camera using arch energy crystals and Elidyr''s runes to bypass her defenses.
The camera captured every damning word, and Michael stored the evidence in a recording crystal, amonce item in this world. With Victoria now safe from the assassination attempt, Michael held the key to exposing Salesi''s deceitful scheme. He felt a sense of triumph, knowing that with this recording, he could easily turn Evan against Salesi and make her pay for her crossing paths with him. The thought of watching Salesi''s downfall brought a wicked glint to Michael''s eyes as he reveled in his cleverness.
Chapter 1051 Turning Evan against Salesi
Chapter 1051 Turning Evan against Salesi
Inside the cozy wooden cabin nestled deep within the forest, Michael stood before Evan and Victoria. They were seated in chairs facing arge mirror that Michael had conjured for this moment. He wanted to reveal Salesi''s treachery to the couple and make them understand the truth. With a determined look in his eyes, Michael took a step forward and raised his hand, gently spraying a potion onto their faces. As the potion touched their skin, Evan and Victoria''s eyelids fluttered, and they slowly regained consciousness.
When they opened their eyes, they found themselves in a dimly lit cabin, the sound of heavy rain echoing outside. Their memories of the events before losing consciousness flooded back, but they didn''t focus on each other just yet. Their attention was fixed on the enigmatic figure before them¡ªthe Dark Lord himself. A mix of fear and curiosity washed over them, but Michael''s soothing words and a calming potion diffused their initial anxiety.
"Turn your heads to the side," Michael calmly instructed.
Evanplied first, turning his head to the side, and what he saw sent shivers down his spine. There, gazing at him with tears streaming down her cheeks, was Victoria. It had been several long days since they had seen each other, but for Victoria, it felt like only a few moments had passed since her encounter with the bone dragon. Unbeknownst to her, Michael had kept her unconscious while Evan sought his revenge on the dragon that had taken her life. The emotions in that moment were overwhelming¡ªa mix of relief, love, and sorrow.
To Evan''s utter shock, Victoria was alive and well. Overwhelmed with joy and disbelief, he lunged at her, identally tripping over the chair she was sitting on. Ignoring their surroundings, the couple embraced tightly, tears of relief and happiness streaming down their cheeks.
Michael watched the emotional reunion from the sidelines, allowing them the moment they deserved.
"I thought you were dead," Evan said, holding Victoria as if he would never let her go.
"Evan," Victoria choked out through her tears, her heart overflowing with emotions.
"The dragon... how did you... I saw your wrist," Evan''s words trembled with the memory of the horrifying scene he had witnessed. He vividly recalled finding a wrist with the engagement ring covered in blood in the forest. Unbeknownst to him, Michael had orchestrated the ruse by cing the ring on a severed undead wrist and leaving it at the scene.
Suddenly, Evan released Victoria from his embrace and examined her arms, only to find no engagement ring on her finger. Victoria, too, was baffled by its absence, as she had no memory of losing the ring. Unbeknownst to them, it was Michael who had removed the ring after knocking her out.
It was only then that they both turned their attention to the Dark Lord, who had been silently observing them.
"Are you finished reuniting and ready to learn who sent a dragon after Victoria?" Michael asked Evan and Victoria, his calm demeanor contrasting with the whirlwind of emotions surrounding them.
"How are you still alive?" Evan asked inplete shock, unable to fathom how the Dark Lord stood before them unscathed. Victoria was equally speechless, her mind struggling to process the impossible reality. Although Michael had concealed his true power, both Evan and Victoria could sense that he had reached a realm beyond any mortal''s capabilities.
"You must have called the dragon and pretended to save me," Victoria finally spoke, her voice tinged with suspicion and disbelief.
"Can you, for once, use your brain?" Michael rolled his eyes, a hint of annoyance in his tone. With a wave of his hand, Evan and Victoria''s bodies jerked involuntarily, their fear growing.
As Michael waved his hand, the mirror behind him flickered to life, revealing a scene. Evan and Victoria saw Salesi, apanied by a figure dressed in ck robes, hovering in the wind. The scene slowly moved to a grand manor with soldiers lying unconscious on the surrounding grounds. To Victoria''s surprise, she immediately recognized the manor as her own and furrowed her brow in confusion and concern.
"Evan has beenpromised," Salesi''s voice echoed through the scene in the mirror, and Evan listened intently, his heart racing.
"Mydy, how would you like me to handle Evan? It poses a challenge since you have elevated him to the status of a god," responded the cloaked figure floating beside Salesi, who Evan now recognized as Stormwing.
"You are mistaken, Stormwing. The god-killing arrows, even if retrieved by Noah, can only y either him or the Dark Lord. They are single-use weapons, unable to be replicated or merged into a new form. Once the Dark Lord perishes, the arrows themselves will cease to exist," Salesi exined, her voice calcted andposed.
"Then how do you propose we handle Evan, mydy? The longer we allow Evan to roam freely, the greater the potential damage he can inflict upon our entire operation," Stormwing inquired, concerncing his voice.
"If Evan has indeed struck a deal with the Dark Lord, his actions will undoubtedly revolve around the life of Victoria. The Dark Lord will undoubtedly use Victoria as a pawn to manipte Evan into carrying out his bidding. However, if we eliminate this pawn, Victoria, the Dark Lord''s hold over Evan will crumble. Evan is a valuable asset that we cannot afford to let slip away," Salesi exined, her tone firm and resolute.
Evan''s and Victoria''s minds went nk with shock and confusion as they listened to Salesi''s ruthless n. Michael couldn''t help but grin, seeing the emotions y across their faces. Salesi intended to turn Evan into a weapon against the Dark Lord, but little did she know that Michael was now turning Evan against her.
"Eliminate Victoria, Stormwing. Make it appear as though her death is idental. If the Dark Lord truly struck a deal with Evan, we cannot orchestrate her demise to make it seem like the Dark Lord was responsible. It would raise suspicions, and Evan might grow wary. However, if her death appears to be an unfortunate ident, the Dark Lord will lose his hold over Evan. This will enable Evan to focus his energies on defeating the Dark Lord''s army, without the distraction of his fiancee. I can channel his grief and anger towards our advantage," Salesi''s cold and calcting voice echoed through the cabin.
The pain of betrayal slowly dug deeper into Evan''s heart as he clenched his fist. He had served and believed in Salesi, thinking she was a strong and benevolent leader, only to be proven wrong. The revtion showed Evan that Salesi was not the leader he thought she was but a vengeful snake.
"Is that so?" Michael snickered, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the image of Stormwing. For a brief moment, Stormwing''s cloak "No, this must be trickery!" Victoria shouted in disbelief, unable to ept the shocking truth.
"Is that so?" Michael snickered, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the image of Stormwing. For a brief moment, Stormwing''s cloak moved, revealing a glimpse of his upper body, and Michael''s instincts picked up on a crucial detail.
With another wave of his hand, Michael changed the scene in the mirror once again. This time, he showed Stormwing standing atop a tree branch, pouring a gray powder into the air. As the scene unfolded, Victoria''s memories came rushing back. She recalled the events of the campsite, the peaceful cultivation, and the sudden ambush by the bone dragon.
"What he scattered in the wind is a powerful substance that lured the bone dragon to your ce," Michael exined calmly.
"Lady Salesi... she cannot..." Victoria''s voice trailed off, unable toprehend the depth of Salesi''s betrayal. Michael understood her confusion, knowing how skilled Salesi was at maniption. ming the Dark Lord and painting him as the viin was a tactic that easily deceived people, even those like Victoria who believed in her cause.
As silence enveloped them, Michael allowed Victoria and Evan to process the shocking revtion.
"I have seen him," Evan finally broke the silence.
"I saw him once," he continued, recalling a day when he entered Salesi''s meeting hall and saw a figure leaving through a window. Although Salesi dismissed it as one of her spies, Evan had caught a glimpse of an eagle-faced man, just like the one the Dark Lord had shown them.
"You and the whole world believed I was evil. You said I am evil when I destroyed Thusia. You said I''m evil when I fought Nagnd. But you never bothered to ask why," Michael''s voice was cold and powerful, sending shivers down Evan and Victoria''s spines.
They were left speechless, unable to trust anyone anymore, as the truth of Salesi''s betrayal sank in. Evan''s mind reyed Salesi''s words about fighting the Dark Lord''s minions and making Victoria proud, only now realizing it was all a maniptive ploy.
"Think about this, she could have called off the assassination because the whole world saw me dying, including Salesi. Yet, she proceeded with a hit, just to manipte and use you," Michael revealed, exposing Salesi''s deceit.
But there was more shocking news toe. Michael revealed that the powers Salesi had given Evan were killing him. Evan wasn''t born as a god, yet Salesi had somehow infused his body with a grace that was now rejecting him.
"The grave is rejecting you. It''s only a matter of time before your soul explodes into nothingness," Michael stated, leaving Victoria in panic and her heart aching for Evan''s fate.
Evan was stunned, unable to dismiss the acute pain and energy radiation surrounding him. The reality of his body rejecting the grace Salesi had given him was hard to ignore. He knew the Dark Lord wasn''t lying to him; his words resonated with Evan''s own experiences.
"If you don''t believe me, you are wee to leave this ce. But when you explode, you will take out everyone around you," Michael warned Evan.
Victoria, on the other hand, was hesitant to trust Michaelpletely. She questioned his intentions, fearing that he might be manipting them for his own gains.
"So how do we know we can trust anything you say? What if you are just manipting us?" Victoria questioned.
"He is not," Evan answered Victoria.
"I feel something wrong with me. I asked Salesi, but she said it was nothing. But I can feel the grace is rejecting my body," When Evan exined, Victoria instinctively grabbed Evan''s hand and shivered at the thought of losing him.
"Whether you choose to believe me or not, I am the only one who can save you and reveal the truth of what''s really happening. I am not your enemy, Evan. In fact, neither you nor the world truly understands the impending terror that awaits us," Michael asserted.
His voice was filled with conviction, and he looked directly into Evan''s eyes, trying to convey the urgency of the situation.
Chapter 1052 Evan is now Michaels ally
Chapter 1052 Evan is now Michael''s ally
As the life-changing truths sank in, Evan and Victoria''s expressions shifted from disbelief to contemtion. Victoria''s animosity towards the Dark Lord began to wane after learning about Salesi''s betrayal, and she found herself torn between trust and skepticism. Feeling lost and uncertain, they both turned to Michael for more answers.
"Before blindly trusting anyone, always seek the full truth and know both sides of the story," Michael advised them, his tone earnest.
Intrigued, Evan finally mustered the courage to ask the Dark Lord about his own story. He wanted to understand the motivations behind the infamous figure known as the Dark Lord.
"The whole perception of the Dark Lord being evil began with a prophecy by Qin Jiu, one of the Mazeroth founders. That prophecy set off a chain of events that led us to this moment. However, Qin Jiu or the Skyhall never revealed the true intentions of the realm of gods," Michael exined.
"And what are their intentions?" Victoria inquired.
"To make mortals their unquestioning worshippers. They seek absolute control and will eliminate any resistance to achieve that goal. Essentially, they desire to enve humanity," Michael replied.
"very?" Evan muttered, trying to process the shocking revtion.
"Yes, exactly. Five thousand years ago, I erected a barrier between the mortal realm and the realm of gods to prevent the entire world from falling under their control," Michael revealed, leaving Evan and Victoria stunned.
Victoria''s astonishment was evident as she processed the information. "Five thousand years old? That''s impossible!"
Michael chuckled. "Not exactly. The one who created the barrier was me, but that was before I reset the entire universe. I know it''s hard to believe, but it''s the truth."
Evan and Victoria exchanged bewildered nces, struggling to wrap their minds around the revtion. Michael''s frustration was palpable as he expressed his irritation with their tendency to blindly follow Salesi''s narrative without questioning her motives.
"Don''t mistake this as an attempt to recruit you. Evan, your condition makes you a ticking time bomb, and I already have stronger subordinates than you, Victoria. I have no use for either of you," Michael rified, wanting to set their expectations straight.
"But I''m doing this because, whether you like it or not, I''ve known both of you since I arrived in River Town. I hate seeing you manipted by that bitch," he added, genuine concern underlying his words.
Evan''s curiosity got the better of him, and he couldn''t help but ask, "What do you want from us?"
To his surprise, Michael''s response was cold and calcted. "Nothing. As I said, you are free to leave, but I''d advise the two of you against revealing that I''m alive. If you do, I won''t simply fake my death; I''ll unleash every bit of my power. You can only imagine the consequences that would follow. I may be on the side of good, but I am not a saint. If someone threatens my life, I will go all out, prioritizing my well-being."
Michael knew that Evan and Victoria wouldn''t easily leave the cabin without falling into his n. He wanted to give them the truth and offer them a choice, rather than manipting thempletely. Though he had his own battles to fight, he hoped that they would stay out of his way and keep the world in peace until he was ready to settle down with Nithroel ruling the world. But if Noah and his allies stood against him at that time, he would not hesitate to face them head-on, even if it meant taking their lives for real.
"I want to have a long talk with Salesi," Evan clenched his fist, his sadness and pain reced by a fiery fury.
"Killing her won''t solve anything, Evan. If we take out one Salesi, another will rise to take her ce. We need to figure out who is truly behind all of this because there''s always a bigger threat lurking in the shadows," Michael exined.
"So, I should just let her go and pretend nothing happened?" Evan growled.
"Yes," Michael nodded.
"Let the world believe Victoria died, just like they believe I''m dead. It''ll keep her safe while you stay close to Salesi. But remember, don''t pick sides until you know the truth. When you''re with her, observe how she maniptes everyone around her. Use your brain, Evan. Deep down, you know it''s the right choice," said Michael.
For a few moments, Evan and Victoria contemted Michael''s words. Finally, Victoria broke the silence in the room.
"I want him safe. If what you said about his grave rejecting his body is true, I demand a cure for him," Victoria asserted firmly, showing her determination.
"I''m heading somewhere next, where I might find a cure for him. You have my word that I will do everything in my power to fix him," Michael responded, his tone filled with confidence, which strangely brought a sense of reassurance to Victoria.
Then, with a swift motion of his hand, Michael produced a golden parchment and tossed it towards Evan and Victoria.
"Keep these scrolls safe. They are teleportation scrolls. They will sense if you are in mortal danger and transport you to a safe location," Michael exined, making sure they understood the importance of the scrolls.
Both Evan and Victoria nodded, grateful for the aid Michael offered, despite theirplicated feelings towards him.
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After Evan and Victoria left the cabin, Vedora appeared through a teleportation portal.
"Everything is ready. I''ve been monitoring the council of immortals, and they are heading towards the mountains. We need to go now if we want to secure the crystal," Ayag informed Michael. Before leaving Mount Gallion, Michael had asked Vedora to keep a close eye on the immortals. The destruction and loss of their fellow immortals had sent them into a panic, and they decided to protect the crystal that held a piece of the queen''s soul.
"Do you believe Evan will work with us now?" Sarba inquired as Michael prepared to head back to the immortal council.
"He will," Michael replied with confidence.
"We''ll have a spy deep within the heart of our enemy''s ranks," Ayag chuckled in delight.
"Salesi is not my enemy. I could kill her anytime I want. But I want to learn more about Andohr and see if he truly controls Salesi. Someone is pulling her strings, and I need to know who it is before taking action. With Salesi believing I''m dead, she will soon make a mistake, and Evan will be there to exploit it and give us the information we need," Michael exined.
Cain nodded in agreement with Michael''s n.
Then, Vedroa leaped onto Michael''s shoulder as he teleported himself near Mount Gallion using his runic teleportation. Once he appeared at the freezing cold mountaintop, Michael flew above the manor, scanning the area for any sign of the Immortals. Soon, he spotted them, carefully making their way down the mountain using a narrow pathway.
"There they are," Ayag whispered into Michael''s ear.
Hovering above the sky, Michael observed the Immortals as they arrived at a wall of snow on the mountain. To his surprise, they ced their hands on the wall, causing the mountain to tremble slightly. The ice wall opened, revealing a hidden cave entrance.
Before Michael could follow them, the wall closed, trapping the Immortals inside. Unaffected by the strange energy barrier around the mountain, Michael calmly floated towards the ice wall, bypassing the narrow pathway.
When he arrived at the wall, Michael ced his hand on it and called upon the system.
"System, open this wall for me," Michael calmly requested.
With three hundred thousand badass coins from Michael, the system surpassed the runes on the wall, allowing Michael to enter the cave. The inside of the cave was illuminated by a soft blue glow, eliminating the need for a light source. Following the footprints left by the Immortals, Michael reached the end of the cave where he saw several old men and women dressed in pure white robes standing around a mysterious ck crystal.
Michael noticed a dark wisp of smoke emanating from the ck crystal and entering the heads of the Immortals. They stood around in a trance-like state, their gazes fixed on the ice ceiling.
"Kill those fools and bring back the crystal to the demon''s grave," Michael suddenly heard the voice of the queen in his head, causing a jolt in his body.
"How does she keep invading my thoughts?" Michael wondered, feeling perplexed and ready to take action against the Immortals.
Soon, Michael quietly approached the group of Immortals as he saw them forming a circle around the ck crystal. One by one, they joined the circle and their eyes zed over, indicating they were under some form of mind control. The dark wisp of smoke from the crystal seemed to be manipting their minds, rendering them obedient to its will.
Taking advantage of their trance-like state, Michael stealthily moved closer to the Immortals, his dark swords unsheathed and ready to strike. Each step was calcted and silent as he closed the distance, his heart racing with the anticipation of the impending confrontation.
( I am writing this chapter with a fever, so sorry for any mistakes¡)
Chapter 1053 Finishing the Queen鈥檚 Quest
Chapter 1053 Finishing the Queen¡¯s Quest
As Michael stealthily approached the immortals, he decided to take a different route, dropping down from an elevated ce rather than using the stairs. He closed his eyes, expanding his senses throughout the cave, and confirmed that there was no other way out for the immortals but through him. With them trapped, his sole task was to eliminate them all.
Walking towards the immortals, he felt the heavy energy radiating from the dark crystal. Surprisingly, the crystal tried to ensnare him in a trance, but being the god of darkness, Michael was able to resist its influence and break the connection.
"I wonder what they were thinking," Ayag mused from atop Michael''s shoulder. The immortals were all looking up, their eyes rolled back behind their eye sockets.
"Kill them all and sever the connection with my crystal," the queen''s voice echoed in Michael''s head again.
"Stop doing that," Michael whispered through gritted teeth, frustrated with the intrusion.
"What did we do?" asked Ayag, confused by Michael''s reaction.
"I can hear the queen''s voice inside my head," Michael whispered, circling around the entranced immortals.
"Why aren''t we hearing her?" Sarba inquired.
"Why would you want that, you moron?" Ayag scolded her brother, lowering her voice. Meanwhile, Michael moved his hands in front of the immortals to see if they reacted to his presence. As expected, they remainedpletely entranced by the crystal in the middle.
"Kill them," the queen''s voice echoed once more, and Michael couldn''t help but let out a slightly annoyed response, "Okay, okay."
With his two dark swords in hand, Michael moved with lightning speed, a blur of motion as he swiftly decapitated each of the immortals. Their heads rolled off their bodies, blood spattering on the ground, creating a gruesome scene. Despite the brutal attack, their bodies remained firmly rooted to the ground, unaffected by their severed heads. Ignoring this oddity, Michael continued his path towards the dark crystal.
As he approached the crystal, he noticed a dark smoke shrouding it. Upon ying the immortals, Michael witnessed wisps of white smoke being absorbed from their lifeless bodies into the crystal. The system''s notifications continued to ring inside his head, rewarding him for his lethal actions with experience points and badass points.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing an Immortal. The reward is 2,000,000 Experience points and 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 8000 Badass points]
The crystal seemed to pulsate with energy, and Michael could feel a surge of power emanating from it. He knew that this crystal contained a piece of the queen''s soul, and it was crucial to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The queen''s voice in his head had made it clear that she wanted him to retrieve the crystal, and Michael had no intention of disobeying her.
Despite their decapitated state, the bodies of the immortals remained rooted to the ground. Michael paid no mind to this strange phenomenon and proceeded toward the dark crystal. The crystal was enveloped in a cloud of dark smoke, and as Michael took the lives of the immortals, he noticed wisps of white smoke being absorbed into the crystal.
"The crystal is devouring their souls," Sarba observed, noting the eerie white smoke floating into the dark artifact.
"This crystal contains a piece of the queen''s soul. What did you expect?" Michael chuckled as he reached out to grasp the crystal. A sudden electric sensation ran down his spine, and he found himself in a disorienting vision. In the vision, he stood alone before a massive army, with the surroundings plunged into darkness, and a volcanic mountain spewingva streams on the horizon. It took a moment for Michael to shake off the vision and return to reality.
"Bring it to the demon''s grave," Yet again, Michael heard the queen''s voice in his head.
"The demon''s grave, got it," Michael replied to the queen''s voice in his head.
As he turned to leave, Sarba raised a valid question, "What about these bodies? Shouldn''t we destroy them?"
"Nah, it will give the immortals something to worry about," Michael said with a devilish grin. With the world believing the Dark Lord to be dead, the council of immortals would be baffled and terrified, decided to let them specte and stew in fear over the mysterious deaths.
trying to figure out who had in their brethren. Destroying the bodies with dark mes might raise suspicion, as the use of such powerful primordial me could leave traces behind. Michael decided to let them specte and stew in fear over the mysterious deaths.
After acquiring the crystal, Michael swiftly utilized his runic teleportation to reach the safe house provided by Nithroel. In an instant, he found himself in a spacious hall, illuminated by a magnificent chandelier. At the center of the hall, Elidyr was engrossed in engraving glowing runes on a teleportation portal. Thanks to Elidyr''s ingenuity, Michael had been able to transport the teleporter from his dark castle to Nithroel''s safe house when the Skyhall army captured his stronghold.
"How''s the tasking along, Elidyr?" Michael inquired, approaching the runemaster.
"It''s challenging, to be honest. These rune words require the expertise of another six-star runemaster. Are you certain about teleporting yourself into the realm of gods? We have no idea how far that realm is," Elidyr expressed his concern, his brows furrowing.
Michael stood before the colossal teleporter, observing the dark vortex swirling in its center, surrounded by glowing runes adorning its frame.
"And what about the barrier that separates our realm from the realm of gods? How do you know it will allow you to pass through?" Elidyr added, genuinely worried about the well-being of the Dark Lord. To him, Michael was not just a lord but also a cherished student and son-figure.
"Because I ced the barrier," Michael calmly replied. He was aware that the previous Dark Lord had created the barrier with the intention of entering the realm of gods after defeating Noah. However, Michael had different ns. Instead of killing Noah and creating a hole in the barrier, he staged his own death and devised a n to use the powerful system to breach the realm of gods.
The cost demanded by the system to teleport him through the barrier was staggering¡ªfifty million badass points. Such an expense would leave him with only ten million badass points, but it was a risk Michael had to take.
"Don''t try to stop him, Elidyr," Sarba sighed from her perch on Michael''s shoulder.
"Activate the teleporter to the forge," Michael instructed.
"You managed to obtain the queen''s crystal from the immortals?" Elidyr inquired.
"Hmm," Michael nodded, and as Elidyr closed his eyes and sketched a few runes in the air, the vortex started swirling. Michael confidently stepped into the vortex, disappearing from the hall.
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Michael materialized at his forge but found no ongoing work there. Deciding to leave the forge for the time being, he activated his metal wings and soared to the peak of Mount Hades. From this vantage point, he could witness the vast expanse of the Demon''s Grave¡ªa destendscape where a colossal bull grazed in the distance, and a myriad of eerie and diverse monsters roamed freely. The red sky and ck lightning contributed to the eerie ambiance of the ce.
"Hey queen, do you have a specific location in mind for this crystal?" Michael inquired, producing the dark crystal from his space ring with a casual gesture.
A heavy silence greeted Michael as the queen remained unresponsive. However, a faint glow appeared in the distance, illuminating a barren ground.
"I suppose that''s where you want me to ce the crystal," Michael surmised, his voice unwavering as he addressed the unseen queen. With a graceful p of his wings, he took flight and headed toward the glowing area.
"Where?" Sarba asked.
"You can''t see it," Michael replied simply, his wings propelling him through the sky with ease.
Within a matter of minutes, Michael touched down on the ground, where the earth emanated a soft glow. To Vedroa, the ground appeared crimson and sandy, seemingly unremarkable inparison to the rest of the Demon''s Grave.
"Here you go. One soul crystal delivered to you," Michael carefully ced the crystal on the ground, his anticipation evident in his posture. However, no immediate response came.
"Can I leave?" Michael asked, looking around for any sign of acknowledgment from the queen. But before he received a reply, the ground beneath him trembled violently. The earth cracked open, and the crystal plunged into the depths of the fissure. In a blink, the cracks sealed shut as if swallowing the crystal whole.
"Guess my work is done," Michael muttered, intending to depart. Yet, a sudden chill ran down his spine,pelling him to turn back. Above the very spot where he had ced the crystal, a haunting silhouette of a woman emerged, formed from dark, ethereal smoke. Vedora, the three-headed Hydra perched on Michael''s shoulder, trembled in fear¡ªan umon urrence for such a formidable creature.
"My next piece of soul is in the realm of gods, the same ce where you are going next. Retrieve it from the god who holds my soul crystal, and I will grant you a favor," the figure spoke, and Michael immediately recognized it as some manifestation of the queen. While fear didn''t grip him, her offer did surprise him¡ªespecially her willingness to offer a favor.
"Since I''m already heading to the realm of gods, it won''t hurt to retrieve your crystal. But this time, there''s no time limit," Michael dered.
"Very well. Just remember not to keep me waiting for too long. Otherwise, my pet over there can turn your beloved forge to dust," the queen warned, pointing a smoky finger toward the colossal bull in the distance. Michael was taken aback, finally uncovering the truth behind the enigmatic creature. Ever since he set foot in the demon''s grave, the colossal bull, towering enough to touch the clouds, had puzzled him.
Now he understood that the bull was a pet of the queen.
"Deal," Michael sighed, agreeing to the queen''s terms.
Chapter 1054 Introduction to the realm of gods
Chapter 1054 Introduction to the realm of gods
With the Queen''s taskpleted, Michael returned to Nithroel''s manor, where Gaya eagerly awaited him. She knew Michael was about to embark on his journey to the realm of gods and wanted to bid her husband farewell. The hall was empty, with only a cozy sofa set in the middle and windows overlooking the serene canyon and the shimmeringke.
"Everything went well?" Gaya asked Michael, her eyes filled with concern and love.
Michael nodded and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a warm hug. They shared a passionate kiss, cherishing each other''s presence before parting.
"Nithroel will be here in a few moments," Gaya informed him.
Michael settled on the sofa, and Gaya joined him, their eyes locked in a loving gaze.
"I am only going there next week," Michael calmly revealed, surprising Gaya.
"Why? What''s the reason?" she asked in shock.
"Because I promised you I would take you on a honeymoon when everything is over, and I intend to keep my promise," said Michael, holding Gaya close. He kissed her on the side of her head, showing his affection for her.
"When did you be so romantic?" Gaya asked, her voice filled with joy. It had been months since they spent quality time together without any worries. She thought Michael had forgotten about their promise, but she understood the immense responsibilities he carried. As his wife, she wanted to support him rather than add to his burdens.
"When I married the most beautiful snake in the entire world," Michael chuckled, nting another sweet kiss on her lips.
"Where do we go?" Gaya asked, her excitement bubbling over.
"Anywhere you want," Michael replied, his heart brimming with love for his wife.
Gaya''s eyes sparkled with excitement as she reached into her space ring and pulled out a parchment filled with her neatly written notes. "Oh, Michael, you won''t believe the ces I''ve been dreaming of! First, there''s the Celestial Gardens, a realm of floating inds adorned with vibrant flowers that glow in the moonlight,"
Michael couldn''t help but tease her lovingly, "Taking notes on honeymoon destinations, are we? You really are something else,"
Gaya yfully swatted his arm. "Of course! I want this to be a honeymoon we''ll cherish forever. And there''s more!" She continued, "Next, we have the Starfall Meadows, where stars descend every night, dancing across the sky in a breathtaking spectacle. It''s as if the heavens themselves are celebrating love!"
Michael raised an amused eyebrow. "Starfall Meadows, huh? You sure know how to find the most magical ces,"
But Gaya''s excitement was infectious, and she couldn''t contain herself. "And then, there''s the Enchanted Forest, where the trees are said to sing melodies and the flowers change colors with every step you take! It''s like walking in a living painting."
Michael chuckled, "You really have put a lot of thought into this, haven''t you? It sounds like you''ve nned our honeymoon better than any war strategy!"
Gaya giggled and leaned closer to him. "Well, my dear Dark Lord, I just want this to be perfect for us. After all, we deserve a moment of magic and joy amidst all the chaos."
"You''re right," Michael said, his tone softening. "I couldn''t think of anyone better to share this with than you."
As they bantered andughed, Michael and Gaya nned their dream honeymoon, choosing one enchanting location after another.
As Michael and Gaya continued nning their dream honeymoon, the door to the hall swung open, and Eve hurriedly entered, her face flushed with exertion from training.
"Hey, the empress is here," Eve announced, catching her breath. It was evident that she had been pushing herself to prepare for the battles ahead, determined to fight alongside Gaya when the Dark Lord departed for the realm of gods.
Before Michael could reply, Nithroel gracefully entered the hall, unapanied by any bodyguards. Her decision to forego protection was a wise one, given the need to keep her association with the Dark Lord a secret from the world that believed him to be deceased.
Nithroel gracefully entered the hall, her presence exuding the regal aura of an empressbined with the power of a goddess of hunt. Michael and Gaya warmly greeted her with smiles as she took her seat before them.
"I''ll take my leave," Eve nodded at Michael and departed from the hall.
wanted to ensure that everything was settled between them since she had ordered Michael''s assassins to find and kill Gaya''s biological "Are you ready to depart?" Nithroel inquired, her gaze briefly turning to Gaya. However, Gaya remained silent, giving no indication of any resentment towards Nithroel. The empress wanted to ensure that everything was settled between them since she had ordered Michael''s assassins to find and kill Gaya''s biological father, Ingram. But as Gaya stayed quiet, Nithroel decided not to delve further into the matter.
"Elidyr is still working on the teleporter. It should be ready by the end of next week," Michael replied.
"Hmm," Nithroel leaned back, crossing her legs gracefully.
"What are your ns in the meantime?" the empress inquired.
"Just some personal matters to attend to, nothing major. But I''ll be out of reach," Michael responded.
"Me neither. Tomorrow, I n to venture into the treacherous ocean. But before I depart, I thought to give you a brief introduction to the realm of gods," Nithroel surprised both Michael and Gaya with her announcement. The treacherous ocean was a perilous ce, and they couldn''t help but wonder what a goddess and empress like Nithroel intended to do there.
"Are you nning to go alone? Don''t you have your war gods for such matters?" Michael inquired.
"The times are changing, Dark Lord. Now that the world believes you are dead, every kingdom seeks a new viin to target. I understand mortals well. They need someone to hate, fight, and fear to survive, just like they need food, air, and water," Nithroel calmly exined.
"And what''s your point?" Michael asked, his brows furrowing.
"The dwarves and the beast kingdom are amassing arge number of soldiers, preparing for war. I''ve been hearing about the ns of almost every king and queen to expand their kingdoms. The beast king is even plotting to send his forces to the southern continent and invade them," Nithroel revealed.
Gaya chuckled devilishly at the revtion. "Let''s see how he invades the southern continent," she snickered. Gaya and Michael had dispatched Lenora and Trista, two of the most powerful elder vampires, to regain control of the southern continent.
"Don''t underestimate the beast king, Dark Queen. He may not be a god like me and your husband, but he is just as capable as any god," Nithroel warned Gaya.
Curious, Michael inquired, "So, what''s the connection between expanding and your venture into the treacherous ocean?"
"Power, what else? Whoever controls the untapped potential in the treacherous ocean controls the oue of any war. And I want that power for the Gondolin empire," Nithroel dered with cold determination.
Gaya couldn''t hold back her anger and frustration any longer and decided to confront Nithroel about her ambitions. "Since I am not refusing your request to have my father killed by my husband''s assassins, let me ask you, Empress, why are you so keen on ruling the Awor continent and expanding Gondolin? You are a goddess, why not n on returning to your own world?" Gaya questioned.
Nithroel understood Gaya''s inner turmoil and realized that Michael had informed her about the request to find and kill Ingram. However, Nithroel didn''t harbor any ill intentions toward Gaya. If anything, she empathized with her.
"When your husband returns from the realm of gods, he will tell you why. The short answer I can give you at this point is that the realm of gods is far worse than this world. Which brings me to why I am here," Nithroel paused for a moment and leaned forward.
"If everything goes ording to your n, you willnd in the Forest of Elrian, the domain of the goddess Marli. Seek her help, but be careful not to get too close to her," Nithroel warned.
"Why?" asked Michael, intrigued.
"Because she is a lustful predator," Nithroel revealed.
Gaya was taken aback by the unexpected revtion as Nithroel continued, "Once you find the divine portals, I''d rmend starting your journey in the realm of gods from Kingdom Nimbosia, ruled by the god of rain, Rainar. It will be a good starting point for you to learn the dynamics of the realm and witness firsthand how cruel a god can be."
As Nithroel spoke, she gracefully flicked her wrist, summoning a silver chain with a golden arrow attached to it. With a confident gesture, she tossed the chain to Michael.
"This is my medallion. It will conceal your godly aura and keep you hidden from the pantheon. Remember to wear it at all times while in the realm of gods, unless you want the entire pantheon''s army at your doorstep. Dark Lord, you are venturing deep into the den of countless hungry lions," Nithroel warned Michael.
Her concern for his sess was evident, as she knew that if he failed, the pantheon would break the barrier between the mortal realm and the realm of gods. This would lead to a chaotic invasion, with each god seeking to im a piece of the mortal realm for worshippers and power. Such a catastrophe would shatter her dream of ruling the entire mortal realm, leaving behind the mysterious reason for her ambitious desire.
"Is there any chance Rainar would want to make a deal or ally with me?" Michael inquired, his curiosity piqued. Nithroel couldn''t help but chuckle at the question.
"Oh, my Dark Lord, you have much to learn about the gods. High gods like Rainar, who hold titles such as ''God of Rain,'' are devoted solely to the pantheon. They wield immense power and influence over the mortal realm, even with the barrier in ce. For instance, if Rainar were to be killed, the mortal realm would not receive any rainfall until another god of rain was born in the realm of gods," Nithroel exined.
Michael found himself increasingly intrigued by the realm of gods and the intricate dynamics at y. However, getting more information was a challenge, especially since meeting Nithroel in person was nearly impossible due to their need to maintain the facade of his death.
"Perhaps gods without titles or kingdoms to rule might consider allying with you. But to make that happen, you must be truly formidable. Otherwise, no sane god would dare go against the pantheon. I suggest two potential approaches: either find a way to join the pantheon and work with them until you can seize an opportunity to double-cross them, or quietly grow your worshippers within the realm of gods," Nithroel advised.
"How do I do that?" Michael inquired.
"Select a messenger and send them to spread word about your power. As desperate people begin to pray to you, use your abilities to fulfill their wishes. They will see it as miracles, and your worshippers will grow. However, this approach is dangerous, as no god likes their worshippers being poached. As I said, once you enter the realm of gods, you''ll find that things are simr to the mortal realm, only much worse and more cruel," Nithroel cautioned.
Chapter 1055 Honeymoon
Chapter 1055 Honeymoon
Despite Nithroel''s suggestions, Michael had another risky n in mind - to ally himself with Dagon, the ruler of hell. Why? Because Dagon held a deep-seated hatred for the pantheon, making him a potential ally against theirmon enemy.
"Do you have any worshippers in the realm of gods?" Gaya inquired.
Nithroel let out a heavy sigh in response. "It has been thousands of years since I set foot in the realm of gods. I doubt I still have any worshippers there. Even if they remained, it would be futile since I cannot hear their prayers. Other gods may have already poached them. Nevertheless, they might find some sce in serving my name," she exined.
The idea of amassing worshippers seemed to weigh heavily on Michael''s mind after hearing Nithroel''s words. While he had the assistance of the system to grow stronger, he recognized the importance of building his own worshippers for the future.
"Is there anything else you can tell me about the pantheon?" Michael inquired.
As Michael inquired about the pantheon, Nithroel warned him, "They are like the Skyhall of the realm of gods, overseeing and controlling everything. Any god who dares to defy them will face severe consequences. Trust me when I say this, you don''t want to be on the bad side of the pantheon."
"But whatever you do, stay away from gods like Rudra. They don''te out of their kingdoms often, but when they do, only death and destruction will follow them," Nithroel''s warning about Rudra, the God of War, echoed in Michael''s mind.
He knew firsthand the destructive power of Rudra, as a mere orc possessed by a fragment of his strength had overwhelmed him in battle. The memory of that defeat fueled a deep desire for vengeance against the War God. However, Michael chose to remain silent for now, knowing that facing Rudra would require careful nning and immense power. He understood the gravity of Nithroel''s words and the need to tread cautiously in the realm of gods, especially when dealing with beings of such immense strength and ruthlessness.
Throughout their conversation, Nithroel shared valuable insights about the realm of gods and offered suggestions on how to navigate it once Michael arrived there. After bidding farewell to the couple, Nithroel left them alone.
With their preparationsplete, Michael and Gaya set off for the Celestial Gardens, a hidden pocket dimension essible only to those with knowledge of its existence. Nestled above Nagnd, the gardens remained invisible to the people, serving as a perfect getaway for the couple.
"Let''s go," Michael said, surprising Gaya with his sudden decision.
"What now?" she asked.
"Let''s leave now. I fear something mighte up if we stay here any longer. So I am taking my lovely wife with me," Michael said with a mischievous smile as he swooped Gaya into his arms.
"To the honeymoon you truly deserve," he added, his eyes reflecting affection and passion for his beloved wife.
Without wasting a second in the safehouse, Michael and Gaya teleported themselves to the nearest runic teleportation spot near Nagnd. As they ascended through the clouds, they swiftly changed their armor to disguise themselves from any prying eyes.
Gaya, her heart brimming with excitement and anticipation, couldn''t help but share her carefully crafted ns for their honeymoon. "Michael, you won''t believe the ces I''ve researched for our honeymoon! The Celestial Gardens will be the perfect starting point for our journey. It''s said to be a realm of unimaginable beauty, filled with enchanting flora and fauna, and captivatingndscapes that will leave us in awe."
As they flew closer to the opening of the pocket dimension leading to the Celestial Gardens, Gaya''s voice turned slightly mncholic. "I can''t believe we only have a week together before you must venture to the realm of gods. I wish you could stay with me longer."
Michael gently squeezed her hand and spoke tenderly, "I wish I could too. But dealing with the pantheon and growing stronger is crucial for our future together. I promise, once I return, we''ll have all the time in the world to be together."
While Michael and Gaya soared through the sky, a breathtaking panorama unfolded before them. Fluffy, cotton-like clouds floated gently beneath their feet, casting shadows on thend below. The warm rays of the sun bathed them in a golden glow, while the vast expanse of the blue sky stretched endlessly above, dotted with wisps of white. The wind embraced them like a gentle caress, carrying theirughter and whispers through the open air.
As Michael and Gaya approached the distortion in space, Gaya''s excitement grew. She gestured for him to stop, and as they hovered in the empty sky, she produced a peculiar snake-shaped key from her space ring. To Michael''s surprise, the key floated in mid-air before them.
"A key to the celestial gardens? I didn''t know you had it," Michael said, his eyes filled with curiosity.
"I didn''t. Mom gave it to mest week," Gaya beamed with joy.
"So you and your mom nned this all along. Sneaky," Michael chuckled, feeling grateful for their thoughtful gesture.
"Be grateful Mom didn''t kick your butt for not taking me on a honeymoon sooner. Even now, we only have one week together. You''re lucky to have such a caring and lovely wife," Gaya teased, a yful glint in her eyes as she restrained herughter.
With the key hovering before them, they both reached out and touched it simultaneously. As they did, the distortion in space began to grow, revealing a hidden portal to the celestial gardens. Hand in hand, they stepped through the shimmering portal, leaving behind the mortal realm.
As Michael stepped through the shimmering portal, he found himself in a breathtaking world unlike anything he had ever seen before. The Celestial Gardens stretched out before him, a realm of floating inds adorned with vibrant flowers that glowed in the soft moonlight. Each ind seemed to emanate a gentle aura, creating a mesmerizing sight that captured his heart.
The air was filled with the sweet fragrance of the blossoms, and a gentle breeze caressed his face, carrying a sense of tranquility and peace. The sky above was a mesmerizing tapestry of stars, twinkling like precious gems against a backdrop of deep indigo. It felt as if time had stopped in this ethereal ce, and Michael couldn''t help but be in awe of its beauty.
Looking around, he noticed the inds were interconnected by delicate, luminescent bridges that seemed to weave through the air like delicate spiderwebs. Crystal-clear waterfalls cascaded down from some of the inds, creating small streams that meandered through the floatingndscape.
Hovering in the sky, Michael spread his senses throughout the celestial gardens and found no life signs. With a devilish grin, he ordered the system to lock down the entrance to the gardens.
"How much will it cost to lock the pce down?" he asked.
[Free. Consider this my wedding gift to you, host.] the system replied, surprising Michael.
"Wow, that''s a first time," he chuckled.
As the system closed down the celestial gardens, Michael turned to Gaya with a loving smile. "After you, snakey," he gestured for her to move forward and enjoy the sight before her as much as she wanted.
Gaya shook her head yfully. "Not without you," she said, pulling him close and kissing him passionately. Finally, after being with her for almost three years, Michael felt their love reach new heights. The following hours in the celestial gardens were filled with their deep affection and intimacy, their bond growing even stronger amidst the magical beauty of the floating inds and glowing flowers.
As the hours passed, Michael and Gaya found themselves lying on a floating mountain above the soft grasnd, wrapped in a soft fluffy bedsheet, and gazing at the sky above.
Gaya rested her head on Michael''s chest, her eyes filled with love and contentment. "I don''t want to sound silly like most girls do, but I''m so in love with you, you bastard," she yfully pinched Michael''s cheek. He couldn''t help but smile, cherishing these peaceful moments with his wife.
"You don''t sound silly at all, Gaya. You sound like the beautiful woman I married. I promise you, we will spend the rest of our godly lives like this," Michael reassured her.
"With little Michaels and Gayas," Gaya added, her voice hopeful, as she looked at him, silently asking if he shared the same desire.
Michael held her gaze, his eyes reflecting a mix of emotions. "Why not?" he finally said with a yful smile. Although he had reservations about having kids, he loved Gaya so deeply that he couldn''t bear to deny her the joy of having a family. He wanted to make her happy and see her dreamse true.
Gaya was stunned and overjoyed by Michael''s response. A wide grin spread across her face, and she couldn''t contain her excitement. She showered him with kisses, expressing her happiness in each loving touch.
"Really? You mean it?" she asked, her eyes shimmering with joy.
"Of course. I may not have considered it before, but seeing how much you want it, I can''t resist," Michael replied, brushing her hair affectionately.
Gaya chuckled yfully, "So, how many kids are we going to have then?"
Michael pretended to think for a moment. "Hmm, let''s see. We have eternity ahead of us, right? So why not enough to popte a kingdom?" he teased, his eyes filled with affection.
Gaya''sughter filled the air, and she hugged him tightly. "I love you so much," she whispered.
"And I love you more," Michael replied, kissing her forehead. Theyy there, wrapped in each other''s arms, cherishing the moment and the promise of a future together, filled with love,ughter, and the pitter-patter of little feet.
( a calm before the storm chapter)
Chapter 1056 Reaching the realm of the gods
Chapter 1056 Reaching the realm of the gods
As the week with Gaya flew by in the blink of an eye, Michael found himself back at the safehouse, ready to embark on his journey to the realm of the gods. He bid farewell to his loving wife and friends, expressing his gratitude and promising to return. In the hall, he found Elidyr waiting with the teleporter, the key to his next destination. Vedora perched on Michael''s shoulder, the loyalpanion apanying him on this perilous journey. With a sense of determination and anticipation, Michael took a deep breath, knowing that the realm of the gods held both challenges and opportunities that he was prepared to face.
"Everything''s ready," Elidyr said, though his concern for the perilous journey ahead was evident in his expression. Despite his worries, he knew that the Dark Lord''s decision was final, and he couldn''t dissuade him from venturing into the realm of gods.
"There''s no point in dying this any longer. Activate the portal, Elidyr," urged Michael, his determination unwavering.
Without hesitation, Elidyr ascended the stairs leading to the swirling vortex. His fingers traced the intricate runes engraved on the portal''s frame, each glowing with power. As the runes activated, a distortion rippled through the air, signaling the gateway to the realm of gods was opening.
Ayag, perched on Michael''s shoulder, showed no signs of fear, only excitement for the legendary adventure thaty ahead.
"As you wish," Elidyr replied solemnly, fully aware of the risks involved. He carefully ensured that no one else entered the hall during the activation to avoid any possibleplications.
Reluctantly, Michael had agreed to take Vedora with him, mainly because the system had rmended it. Though Vedora hadn''t been growing in size, Michael hoped that the realm of gods might hold the key to unlocking Vedora''s true potential.
As Elidyr activated the runes one by one, the ck vortex began to form within the teleporter, pulling him towards it. Reacting quickly, Michael rushed up the stairs and pulled Elidyr back with a single strong motion, keeping him safe from the vortex''s grasp.
"Time doesn''t flow differently in the realm of gods, so you''ll see me soon, hopefully," Michael raised his voice over the howling sound of the vortex.
Elidyr''s concern was evident as he shouted back, "Don''t take too long, my lord."
With a warm smile, Michael reassured him, "Look after Gaya and the others."
As he stepped into the swirling portal, Michael turned back to Elidyr and nodded, "I''ll see you soon."
"See yah around, old man," Ayag chimed in excitedly before Michael disappeared into the portal.
As Michael traveled through the swirling portal of colors, he couldn''t help but feel the weight of recent events weighing on him. The glimpses of his battle with Noah and all the challenges he had faced in the past weeks yed before his eyes like vivid memories.
Amidst the journey, Ayag and Sarba expressed their excitement while witnessing the vibrant images surrounding them.
"What is this?" Ayag questioned curiously.
"A ripple in time and space is causing this," Cain exined.
Lost in his thoughts, Michael remained silent, contemting everything he had experienced. The revtion of Noah being his the whole way? We have no idea how long it''ll take us to reach the realm of gods. So we should talk more."
twin brother still left him in disbelief.
Breaking the silence, Sarba spoke up, "Are you going to be this silent the whole way? We have no idea how long it''ll take us to reach the realm of gods. So we should talk more."
Acknowledging the need for conversation, Michael asked, "What do you wanna talk about?"
Sarba hesitated for a moment before bringing up a name, "Actually, I wanted to say something. You know Yasmine Winston?"
The mention of the name jogged Michael''s memory. He recalled meeting her during the baby shower of Princess Katherine, when he confronted King Bredia.
"Noah''s cousin?" Michael inquired.
"Yes," Sarba nodded.
"What about her?" Michael asked.
"I don''t know. Aria said she''s been meeting with some important people in Awor. Also, she didn''t partake in the war. I wonder what''s more important than fighting the Dark Lord," Ayag pondered.
"Whatever she is nning, Gaya can take care of it," Michael said.
"Why do I feel like you want her to face everything by herself?" Ayag frowned, surprised that Michael''s intentions were evident.
"She needs to. I can''t always be around her. She used to face everything alone, but now she''s starting to depend on me slightly. She is a queen born to lead, so she must lead. This will be a good opportunity for her to lead from the shadows and take care of things while I''m away," Michael exined.
"But isn''t that the opposite of what the previous Dark Lord said? He was with her, and still, the previous Gaya died. So why are you letting her do this alone?" asked Ayag.
"Maybe the reason she died is that the previous Dark Lord tried to protect her too much. Sometimes you gotta take risks," Michael responded.
As they continued discussing Yasmine and even Eve''s sister, Michael remained oblivious to the fact that they were clones sent by the Skyhall. Regardless of the Skyhall''s ns, Michael had no intention of dealing with them, as he had bigger worries on his mind. Several weeks had passed since Michael entered the portal, and both he and Vedora had grown quite bored.
In an attempt to alleviate their boredom, Michael bought a special chess board and taught Vedora how to y. As the days turned into a month, the once-vibrant rainbow tunnel through which they traveled began losing its color, and a whistling wind surrounded them.
"I think we''re finally here," Michael remarked, but before Vedora could respond, a powerful force sucked them forward, causing Michael to feel as though his body was being torn apart. Closing his eyes, he held onto Vedora tightly to keep them both safe. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and Michael found himself shot out of the portal.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that they hadnded on a breathtaking grasnd outside a lush and beautiful forest. Michael instantly recalled Nithroel''s words, realizing that they must be in the forest of Elrian, ruled by the goddess Marli. As per Nithroel''s advice, Michael knew he had to seek Marli''s help before venturing into Nimbosia, the kingdom of the god of rain.
The forest of Elrian was unlike any other that Michael had ever seen. Towering ancient trees stretched towards the heavens, their branches intertwining to form a majestic canopy that filtered rays of sunlight, creating a dance of light and shadow on the forest floor. The air was filled with the fragrance of blooming flowers, and the sound of birds singing and leaves rustling added to the enchanting atmosphere.
As Michael and Vedora stepped deeper into the forest, they heard faint whispers carried on the gentle breeze. At first, Michael couldn''t decipher the words, but soon they became clearer. Ady''s voice called out to him, addressing him as the "Dark Lord" and the "God of Darkness."
"Dark Lord," the voice whispered seductively, "venture deeper into the heart of the forest. Embrace your true power and darkness. Let the shadows guide you to unimaginable strength."
Michael felt a pull towards the source of the voice, a mix of intrigue and caution swirling within him. He knew he had to be careful, for this could be a trap or a test from Marli, the goddess of the forest. But he couldn''t resist the temptation to explore further.
"Marli, I presume?" Michael asked as he ventured further into the forest, undeterred by the haunting whispers around him. He recalled Nithroel''s warning about keeping his distance from the lustful goddess, but he remained steadfast.
"You know me, how lovely," the whispers took on a seductive tone, making Ayag ufortable on Michael''s shoulder.
"Dude, this is creeping me out," Ayag chimed in.
"Now, I want to see you fight, handsome. But on my terms," the whispers grew louder, and the forest began to shift and change. The fauna cleared, creating an empty space in the middle of the forest. Michael felt his power being drained, as if Marli had absolute control over him in her domain.
Unsheathing his dark swords, Michael cracked his neck and stood ready. Seven men d in armor made of bark and leaves emerged from the surroundings. Their faces hidden behind masks made of tree barks, and each wielded a silver sword with four arms.
"Is this how you wee another god into your domain?" Michael challenged, wondering how Marli could sense his presence despite wearing Nithroel''s medallion, which was supposed to mask his godly aura from others.
Seemingly reading his mind, Marli responded with a mysterious air, "I forged that medallion for Nithroel, my dear Dark Lord. But don''t worry, your secret is safe with me. Now, show me how you survive in battle."
As Marli''s whispers echoed through the forest, veins shot out from the ground, wrapping tightly around Michael''s legs and torso. They felt like living tendrils, strong and unyielding. Above him, more veins descended from the branches of the trees,tching onto his arms and restricting his movements.
The masked figures, each disying uncanny speed and coordination, dashed at Michael from all directions. Their silver swords glinted in the dappled sunlight filtering through the dense canopy. Michael struggled to free himself from the grip of the magical veins, but they seemed to tighten with every move he made.
"Don''t think I''ll let you off easy, my dear," Marli whispered, her voice tinged with amusement and intrigue.
But Michael surprised her by remaining calm andposed. As the first masked figure dashed at him, his eyes turned ck, and two dark beams shot out from them. Simultaneously, Vedora sprang into action, using their three hydra heads to chew through the veins that bound Michael''s arms.
"This is your domain, but you forgot one thing, Marli," Michael said with a sly smile as he broke free from the remaining veins with Vedora''s assistance. The attackers hesitated, intrigued by Michael''s words.
"What is that, deary?" asked Marli, genuinely curious.
"Forget it," Michael chuckled, knowing he had to y his cards right. "I''ll just kill them."
With a swift motion of his hand, Michael unleashed the dark mes, enveloping the attackers in shadows. The forest erupted with chaos as the masked figures struggled to defend themselves against Michael''s overwhelming power.
Marli watched with a mix of fascination and satisfaction as Michael effortlessly dispatched the attackers. He moved with the grace of a dancer, his dark swords slicing through the air, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
Despite the intensity of the battle, Michael held back from using his full strength. He knew Marli wasn''t trying to kill him; she wanted to witness his prowess. And so, he gave her a captivating performance, using his power and skills to put on a show.
As thest masked figure sumbed to Michael''s dark swords, the forest fell silent. But suddenly, a rustle broke the stillness, drawing his attention. Emerging from the shadows, a woman adorned in little more than a few strategically ced leaves approached him with a seductive grace.
"Hello, my dear Dark Lord," purred Marli, her voice a sultry melody that sent shivers down Michael''s spine.
Chapter 1057 Founders of Mazeroth is in the realm of gods
Chapter 1057 Founders of Mazeroth is in the realm of gods
Before him stood the most mesmerizing woman he had ever seen, surpassing even the beauty of Gaya and Lah Alden. Yet, despite her alluring appearance, Michael remainedposed and unaffected, surprising Marli. As she moved closer, he simply conjured robes to cover her and addressed her calmly.
"Pleasure to meet you, Goddess Marli, I presume," Michael said, his demeanor unwavering. Marli''s attempts at seduction seemed to have no effect on him, which only seemed to fuel her desire for him. She couldn''t resist moving closer, her breath hot on his skin, and her intoxicating fragrance filling the air.
However, Michael gently stepped back, holding up his hand to reveal a wedding ring.
"You''re a bitte for the seduction game, Marli. I am already married," he said, showing no hint of temptation. Marli felt a tinge of disappointment, but her desire for him remained unyielding.
"Let''s not waste our time and discuss how you can help me reach the divine portals," Michael straightforwardly asked Marli.
In a seductive tone, Marli countered, "What do I get in return?"
"The rarest jewel of all, my friendship," Michael confidently replied.
Unfazed, Marli pushed further, "What if I said I want all of you or none of you?"
Michael couldn''t help but snicker at her proposition. He exuded an air of arrogance backed by formidable power, which only seemed to draw her closer to him. There was an undeniable maism about him that piqued her interest like no other god she had encountered.
Unperturbed, Michael replied, "Then I will leave this forest and find my own way. Trust me, I''m no stranger to surviving in a new world all on my own. I''ve done it before, and I can do it again. But do you really want to be on my bad side?"
As a god, fear was an alien emotion to Michael, and he certainly felt none towards Marli. Though he sensed that she was a god of higher power, he remainedposed and unafraid.
Unexpectedly, Michael reached out and pulled her closer, his hand wrapped around her waist.
"We both know there''s something that draws you to me as much as I''m drawn to you. So let''s cut the pretense and discuss how we can help each other," he said coldly before releasing her.
Marli moaned with delight, taking pleasure in asserting her dominance over him. Michael now understood why Nithroel had warned him not to get too close to Marli.
"So you seek my help in finding the divine portals. Let me guess, she also told you to go to Nimbosia first and witness the atrocities of Rainar, the god of rain," Marli said, amusementcing her voice.
Curious, Michael pointed to the tree-shaped medallion hanging around his neck. "She gave me this medallion to suppress my god aura and hide my presence from the other gods. But you im you forged it. What''s your connection with Nithroel?"
"Let''s take a walk through my domain and talk," Marli gestured, leading Michael beside her. The forest came alive as the fauna and vegetation gracefully moved aside to make way for them.
"In this part of the world, the divine portals are rare. There is one in the desert of Vikan, but you''ll have to fight through monsters and ugly creatures roaming the desert. If they don''t get you, the desert dwellers will," Marli warned.
"As a god, I believe I can handle a few monsters and whatever these dwellers are," Michael confidently asserted. Marli chuckled, amused by his naive bravado.
"Honey, this world is not very different from the one you came from. The people here are unaware of the existence of the world below them. The fortunate mortals who manage to break through the Celestial stage end up here, but their memories and powers are stripped away. They either be worshippers to the first god they encounter or go mad. A handful retain their memories, but they always strike some kind of deal with a god," Marli exined the intricacies of the realm of gods.
"My point is, dear, only a god will recognize another god. However, since you''re wearing my medallion, they will see you as nothing more than amoner in this world. But don''t let being a god get to your head. There are creatures here that can take down even a god and consume their soul. Some of these creatures have lived here longer than any god," she warned as Michael calmly walked beside her, attentively listening to her words.
"Besides, if you use your god powers too much, the pantheon will sense you and find you, regardless of whether you wear my medallion or not. The medallion is for you to keep safe while you learn about this world and build your worshippers. The more devotees you have, the more power you will gain," said Marli. But with the system and the dark seeds, he kinda didn''t need worshippers to level up his godhood. Yet, he had a feeling things might not be as simple as he thought.
"But won''t building too many worshippers draw the pantheon''s attention?" Michael asked.
"It certainly will. Did you expect your life to be easier here? That''s why Nithroel prefers the mortal realm over the realm she was born in," Marli chuckled.
"Things are simple in the mortal realm, but here, everything isplex and messy, thanks to the pantheon. Now, let me tell you something that willplicate things even further for you. Since I assume you won''t join a pantheon, you won''t get your own kingdom. So, you have to poach worshippers from other gods. Trust me when I say this, gods do not like it when their worshippers are taken away. Piss them off too much, and they will send their angels to smite you," Marli warned Michael, relishing in the challenge she presented to him.
"But luckily for you, there is an opportunity you can exploit. The thunder god and rain god are not on friendly terms. If one of them were to die, you could potentially im their kingdom if you n your moves right. However, it will draw the attention of the pantheon. So whatever you do, it''s impossible for you to survive here without crossing paths with the pantheon. My suggestion to you is to draw their attention and strike some kind of deal. They are all too focused on Dagon, so they might be willing to bring you to their side. Desperate times call for desperate measures, honey," Marli advised, enjoying the thrill of revealing theplexities of the realm of gods to Michael.
Marli suggested that Michael work with the pantheon rather than against them. However, she had no idea about his true ns to ally himself with Dagon and fight against the pantheon. As he listened to her exin theplexities of the world, Michael began to consider the idea of working with the pantheon, at least for the time being.
"I don''t think the pantheon will wee me with open arms, Marli. Apparently, the god of time and space has a bone to pick with me. And your God of War crashed my wedding," Michael said, watching Marli''s reaction closely. As soon as she heard the name ''God of War,'' her face drained of color, and she trembled in fear.
"You seem to have pissed off two of the most powerful gods in the pantheon. How did you do that?" asked Marli, clearly taken aback by the revtion.
Michael chose not to reveal too much and pretended to have no idea about the reasons behind the gods'' enmity towards him. He didn''t want to give away too many details to Marli, as he was still uncertain about her true intentions and allegiances.
"I don''t know," Michael shrugged in response to Marli''s question about Rudra''s actions.
"But it''s weird. Rudra doesn''t just attack other gods on a whim. He''s usually a pretty chill guy. If he decided to do what you said, he must have had a pretty good reason. Damn, I hate thinking too much. This is why I stay as far as possible from the pantheon and their bloody politics," Marli pouted, clearly frustrated with theplexities of the godly world.
As they continued walking through the forest, the silence between them lingered for a few moments before Marli finally spoke up.
"You can spend the night in my forest and we can talk more about this world," she offered.
"Thank you for your hospitality. But I need to ask you something, why are you helping me?" Michael inquired.
"Because I need your help, obviously. I told you about the war between the rain god and the thunder god. Many of my worshippers are getting caught in the middle, and they both don''t care about the worshippers of another god. Since I cannot leave my domain, I want you to find a way to bring my worshippers here," Marli exined her reasons.
"And why can''t you leave your domain?" Michael asked curiously.
"Not just me, honey. No god who has a kingdom can leave their domain. You''ll have to ask the pantheon why," Marli responded with a hint of mystery in her voice.
The sudden revtion that no god could leave their domains opened up a world of possibilities for Michael to exploit. If he could somehow kill a god, there wouldn''t be interference from another god. But to achieve such a feat, he needed to learn more about the god-killing arrows.
"Have you ever heard of the people who discovered Mazeroth, if you know Mazeroth in the mortal realm, that is?" Michael asked Marli.
But when Marli heard his question, she burst intoughter.
"I know them very well. They are no longer just people, darling. They are gods here and serve the pantheon," Marli said, surprising Michael with this unexpected twist.
"When did everyone be a god? I have the worst luck in the entire universe," Michael sighed inside.
Chapter 1058 The Worshippers of the God of Darkness
Chapter 1058 The Worshippers of the God of Darkness
"Honey, they''ve been serving the pantheon for thousands of years. No wonder they were made into gods," Marli remarked as she licked her wrist, conjuring a camp. With a flick of her wrist, several logs flew toward the campfire andnded neatly.
Michael settled onto a log, facing Marli.
"I thought you cannot turn someone into gods," Michael said.
"We all thought so. Life is full of surprises, especially when ites to the pantheon. Speaking of making gods, that''s one of the reasons why Dagon rebelled against the pantheon," Marlia\ exined.
At the mention of Dagon''s name, Michael''s curiosity was piqued. He wanted to learn more about why a god-like Dagon was banished from the realm of gods and relegated to ruling over hell.
"What do you mean?" Michael inquired. Surpsingly, Vedora curled into his inner pocket and fell asleep.
"Dagon was always curious and an old god. Many gods don''t know the truth. What I do know is that he started asking the pantheon too many questions about their origins, their powers, and their creator," Marli borated.
"I believe it triggered the conflict between the Pantheon and Dagon. To know more, you''d have to ask either the pantheon or Dagon himself," Marli chuckled as if making a jest. But seeing the chilling expression on Michael''s face, her smile faltered.
"I was joking. Never try to involve yourself with Dagon," Marli cautioned Michael, her fear palpable in her eyes and words. This only fueled Michael''s curiosity further. If he was to align himself with Dagon against the pantheon, he needed to learn more about him.
"From what I''ve heard from you, Dagon didn''t seem like a viin. There must be more to the story," Michael remarked.
"Dagon is not the good guy in the story, darling. He ughtered millions of devotees of other gods, mainly those in the pantheon and their angels. He razed ces where the pantheon held dominion, causing countless deaths. His thirst for knowledge and hatred for the pantheon turned rivers of this world into streams of blood," Marli exined.
Michael absorbed her words silently, then pressed further with another question.
"You mentioned that if one of the rain god or thunder god were to die, I could potentially take over their kingdoms. How does a god die? Specifically, how can a god be killed?"
Marli responded with a chuckle to his inquiry.
"Honey, that''s a question nobody can truly answer. No one has witnessed a god''s death or how one can be killed. Legends and tales speak of ancient monsters capable of devouring a god''s soul, but we''ve never seen a god die. Not since I''ve been around, and believe me, that''s quite a long time. But I do believe that anyone can be killed if the assant is skilled enough," Marli said, her smile containing a hint of intrigue as if she had sensed a killer within Michael.
"The reason I mentioned Rainar or Kranar potentially dying is that I have a sense you''re exploring ways to y a god. Your devotees, even though they are few and hunted by many, believe that only you, the God of Darkness, possess the ability to bring down a god. Fortunately, the pantheon doesn''t seem to be putting too much stock in that belief. Otherwise, you''d be at the top of their hit list alongside Dagon," Marli exined.
"I have worshippers?" Michael was taken aback by the revtion.
"Yes. Somehow, some of your temples have managed to stand despite the pantheon''s influence," Marli said. Her limited knowledge of the previous Dark Lord and her confined ess to the outer world of the realm of gods meant she wasn''t familiar with the history of the previous god of darkness.
"Now that you''re here, you''ll likely start hearing prayers directed your way," Marli added.
As Michael processed everything Marli had shared about the gods and the realm of gods, a thoughtful silence settled between them.
"But before you embark on your godly pursuits, I need your assistance to save my worshippers. Do we have a deal?" Marli inquired.
With a resigned sigh, Michael nodded.
"It''s a deal. But to reach Nimbosia, I still require your guidance to locate a divine portal," Michael stated.
"As I mentioned earlier, the nearest portal is in the Vikan desert, within the temple of Haiyathi. Yet, reaching the portal won''t be straightforward. But I have full faith in your abilities to locate it," Marli assured, causing a faint smile to grace Michael''s lips.
"I can fight my way to the portal, but how am I supposed to ensure the safe passage of your worshippers through the same portal?" Michael voiced his concern. Battling monsters and opponents was one thing, but safeguarding innocent lives was another matter entirely.
"That''s something you don''t need to worry about. Among my followers, there''s an individual who possesses an artifact granted by me. This artifact enables her to utilize the portal within Nimbosia to travel here. Locate her, and your task will be much simpler," Marli exined. Beneath her initial facade of a lustful deity, Michael was beginning to glimpse apassionate and considerate goddess.
Nithroel''s counsel to seek Marli''s assistance had proven wise. However, Michael sensed there might be a history shared between Nithroel and Marli, a story he felt wasn''t appropriate to delve into at the moment.
"Rest now. You can set off for the Vikan desert as soon as tomorrow," Marli suggested, her demeanor shifting. The warm and benevolent goddess he had seen earlier was reced by her previous allure and desire towards him. Yet, Michael merely smiled and settled down on the ground.
"Would you like a view?" Marli inquired yfully. With a wave of her hand, the canopy above them shifted, revealing a night sky adorned with countless stars.
As Michaely beneath the starry sky, his eyes closed, and he began drifting into slumber. Within his dreams, faint whispers grew louder, chanting "May the God of Darkness''s darkness embrace us." He found himself in a shadowy realm, surrounded by figures cloaked in absorbing darkness. They encircled a powerful stone statue resembling him, in a room adorned with pulsating symbols.
The chant intensified, summoning his godhood with reverence and longing. Michael felt a connection to these worshippers, united by an unseen thread. Gradually, the dream''s edges blurred, figures fading, and the room contracting until only the chant remained. Then, like a fading whisper, the dream dissolved, leaving him in tranquil slumber.
Amidst his dreams, Michael heard a persistent call, "Wake up," from Ayag. The soft nudging of Vedora''s heads against his face apanied the summons. Gradually, the dream world gave way to the gentle embrace of reality. The morning greeted him with the melodic chirping of birds and the soothing caress of a calm breeze.
As his eyelids fluttered open, he was met with the gentle warmth of the rising sun on his face. The world slowly came into focus, and his gaze met Vedora''s watchful eyes fixed upon him.
"You''re awake," Michael heard Marli''s voice and rose from the ground. Vedora swiftly hopped back onto Michael''s shoulder, readying themselves for the journey to the Vikan desert.
"If you set out now, you should reach the Vikan desert by nightfall. But wait at the desert''s edge until sunrise before venturing further. In other words, avoid traveling through the desert during the night," Marli cautioned with a serious tone.
"Why?" Ayag inquired.
"You''ll understand once you witness the monsters that roam the desert at night," Marli replied sinctly.
"But remember what I told you. Don''t use your godly powers excessively; it''ll alert the pantheon. Rely on your swords in battle," Marli advised.
"You mentioned these monsters can even devour a god. So how are we supposed to fight them with just swords?" Ayag retorted, his toneden with skepticism.
"Figure it out, genius. Unless you want the pantheon breathing down your neck, follow my advice," Marli retorted with a sly smirk.
"I''ll handle it," Michael interjected before an argument could ignite between Ayag and Marli.
"Good. Now go," Marli gestured for them to depart.
As Michael took a step forward, Marli lightly tapped her forehead and conjured a golden parchment with a flick of her wrist.
"This parchment contains a map detailing the journey from here to the Vikan desert. Use it wisely," Marli tossed the map to Michael, then moved forward to kiss him on the cheek.
"Back off!" Michael was taken aback as all three heads of Vedora¡ª
Cain, Sarba, and Ayag¡ªhissed at Marli in unison when she kissed him.
"You''re not getting close to Gaya''s man," Ayag hissed, their fierce loyalty to Gaya, Michael''s wife, evident in their protective stance.
"I''ll catch up with youter," Michael brushed aside the confrontation and began ascending into the sky.
As Michael ascended higher into the sky, Marli''s figure gradually grew smaller and smaller, eventually blending into thendscape below. With a determined focus, Michael propelled himself forward, slicing through the air with newfound speed. The wind rushed past him, carrying the distant echoes of Marli''s words and the memories of their conversation.
Following the guidance of the map Marli had given him, Michael dashed forward through the vast expanse of the sky. His destinationy in the distant horizon¡ªthe treacherous Vikan desert. The golden parchment in his hand provided a roadmap for his journey, outlining the twists and turns that would lead him to his destination.
Beneath him, the forest he had spent the night in began to shrink, gradually fading from view as he soared higher. The once-lush canopy gave way to the open sky, and the vibrant greenery vanished, leaving behind only the endless stretch of blue above and the earth below.
After two days of continuous flight, the expanse of the Vikan desert finally came into view beneath the darkened night sky. Michael''s eyes fixed on the seemingly tranquil desertndscape on the horizon. The vast stretch of sand and dunes appeared deceptively calm from a distance, but a sense of unease began to creep in.
"Does anyone else have a foreboding feeling about this desert?" Sarba''s cautious question broke the silence as they approached the desert. Michael gradually reduced his speed, gliding closer to the desert''s edge.
The sand seemed to shift like a constantly moving canvas, with ripples and waves forming intricate patterns under the night sky. The air was cool and carried a hint of sand, a testament to the desert''s harsh environment.
The starlit sky stretched above, providing a stark contrast to the arid desert below. Despite its serene appearance, Michael couldn''t shake the feeling that there was more to this desert than met the eye. As he drew nearer, the sense of unease only deepened, reminding him that appearances could be deceiving.
Approaching the desert''s edge, Michael was suddenly confronted by an unimaginable sight. Emerging from the sands with a thunderous roar, a colossal creature reared its head¡ªa nightmarish embodiment of terror. This behemoth resembled an immense centipede, its segmented body extending far into the desert. The moonlight illuminated its scales, casting an eerie glow across its hide. The creature''s roar resonated through the silent desert, sending shivers down Michael''s spine. Its sheer enormity left him feeling insignificant in its shadow.
The centipede-like monster''s scales shimmered like burnished metal under the starry sky, reflecting glimmers of moonlight. Each segment of its body was adorned with sharp, glistening spines that seemed capable of tearing through anything that dared to challenge it. Its many legs undted with a disturbing fluidity as it moved, kicking up swirls of sand in its wake. The creature''s eyes glowed with an otherworldly intensity, fixated on Michael and hispanions as they hovered above the desert floor.
The realization struck Michael with a jolt. This was undoubtedly the reason Marli had cautioned against traversing the desert at night. The monstrous centipede before them was a testament to the dangers within the seemingly tranquilndscape.
"What in the holy hell is that?" Sarba''s voice trembled with shock.
Chapter 1059 The Goddess of All Monsters
Chapter 1059 The Goddess of All Monsters
Standing beside a withered tree at the desert''s edge, Michael swiftly retrieved a handful of drones from his space ring. With amand, the drones whirred to life, taking flight and venturing into the depths of the desert. Their tiny forms buzzed against the strong desert winds, disappearing into the vast expanse to gather information. The recent encounter with the colossal centipede monster left Michael still reeling, his thoughts momentarily dazed by the sheer magnitude of the creature. It was the second time he had encountered such an immense monster, the first being the colossal bull within the demon''s grave.
Sarba''s voice crackled over themunication channel as he reported, "I can''t detect any discernible energy radiation from that creature."
Ayag echoed the sentiment, adding, "Same here, there''s nothing registering on my radar."
Turning to the source of his guidance, Michael queried the system for assistance, his use of the system''s abilities now more judicious considering his dwindling amount of badass points. He had spent a significant portion to arrive in the realm of gods.
"Is there a way to gauge the power level of that monster?" he asked.
The system''s reply was immediate. [The system can provide a device for power level estimation for a cost of four hundred thousand badass points.]
Michael weighed his options. "You can, but I want to assess if the creature is stronger than me or not."
The system interjected with caution, [While the system''s main priority is your safety, engaging with a monster of that magnitude could trigger the use of your powers. It''s advisable to avoid using them, as the pantheon could detect you once they''re activated. It''s rmended to hold off on using your powers until you''re more capable.]
"Speaking of growing stronger, I need two more dark seeds to advance to level 3 godhood, correct?" Michael inquired.
[That is correct,] the system confirmed.
The system outlined that to reach godhood level 3, Michael required three seeds of darkness, and four to attain level 4. Beyond level 5, his progression would involve specific tasks and locating potent artifacts¡ªa rtively straightforward pathpared to other gods, who often remained stagnant in their godhood level due to unattainable challenges.
While Michael engaged in this internal conversation with the system, his attention was drawn to a curious sight. Within the destendscape, he spotted several cloaked figures stealthily taking cover amidst the ruins of a structure, concealed within the heart of the desert.
Michael quickly zoomed in on the figures using the tablet he held in his hand. Vedora''s multiple heads leaned in closer, examining the feed from the drones.
"Desert dwellers?" Ayag questioned, his toneced with curiosity.
"It appears so," Michael replied, his eyes fixed on the images.
"Why would they be in a ce like this?" Sarba pondered aloud.
Cain, another of Vedora''s heads, chimed in with a more pressing concern. "Perhaps the question should be how they''re surviving the desert''s monsters during the night."
One of the figures within the drone feed broke away from the group, seemingly to relieve himself. Cloaked in robes that concealed their identities and goggles to shield their eyes from the abrasive sand, they moved with cautious familiarity. The man ventured outside the shelter of the ruin, his gaze inadvertently falling upon the colossal centipede monster¡ªthe sand emperor¡ªseemingly drilling into the sand without much concern.
"Are you sure this is the right ce for the deal, Gadan? We''ve been waiting here for days, and I''m getting tired of this endless sand," the man muttered as he attended to his business.
Listening intently to the conversation, Michael''s curiosity deepened. The dialogue hinted at some kind of transaction, a deal in progress, and a mysterious artifact involved. The mention of angels, angels that served gods, added ayer ofplexity to the situation.
"That''s what Rainar''s angel informed us. Once we secure the artifact, we''re supposed to hand it over to the angel for payment," another man replied.
"Whates next after that?" the man outside the ruin inquired.
"I can''t say for certain. Maybe Rainar''s angels n to use the artifact to eliminate Kranar''s angels and put an end to their ongoing conflict," the speaker responded, his annoyance at the situation evident.
"Ease up on the war, Gadan. Wars are profitable, especially when they''re gods fighting each other," the man outside the ruin chuckled.
Gadan''s voice held a mixture of frustration and fear as he added, "I know, but I despise dealing with those angels. They give me the creeps. Besides, they always choose death traps like this to conduct their business."
The conversation among the figures left Michael with even more questions. The enigmatic artifact, the angels serving gods, and the intricate dynamics of their dealings intrigued him.
"I''m heading to Oceania after this mission, hoping Lord Ethos blesses me with a safe voyage to my homnd," Gadan mentioned, revealing his future ns.
Michael''s attention was riveted to the group as he continued to observe them through the drone''s camera feed. A small, glimmering object caught his eye, hanging around their necks like a pendant.
"Hey, what''s that glow?" Cain inquired, his sharp sight picking up on the unusual radiance.
Michael swiftly took control of the drone, guiding its mechanical arms to extend from its body. With focused intent, he directed the drone in a lightning-fast descent, deftly snatching the glowing object from around the man''s neck.
A shout of surprise erupted from the man who felt the sudden tug, his panic fueled by the sand-filled gusts of wind obscuring his vision. Unaware of the drone''s presence, he scrambled in confusion.
"GADAN, I LOST THE PROTECTION!" the man cried out, his voice a mix of panic and shock.
The group sprang into action, spurred by the urgency in theirrade''s voice.
"WHAT?!" Gadan''s exmation was a mix of disbelief and concern.
"HEL¡ª" the man''s plea was abruptly silenced, a chilling scene unfolding before Michael''s eyes. Through the drone''s lens, he witnessed the colossal sand emperor surge from the desert floor, obliterating the ruin in its path. The unfortunate man who had lost his protection charm was consumed by the sand emperor''s gaping maw, and the structure crumbled as the beast emerged.
The sand emperor''s roars reverberated through the air as it plunged back into the sand, only to erupt forth once more in a relentless sequence. The ruin''s remnants were devoured, and the beast''s tumultuous movements created a swirling vortex of sand, a testament to its wrath.
rmed by the unfolding chaos, Michael skillfully maneuvered the drone away from the sand emperor''s fury, ensuring its safety.
"Unbelievable," Ayag gasped, his astonishment evident.
"They were relying on that charm for protection from the monster," Sarba deduced, understanding the significance of the glowing pendant.
A touch of empathy welled up within Michael as he mused, "I can''t help but feel a bit sorry for them."
Ayag''s response was more callous, reflecting his perspective. "Nah. Seems like these guys were bandits of this world. In my opinion, we just did this realm a favor."
With the drone safely back in his control, Michael inspected the retrieved item closely. Suspended from the silver chain was a pendant fashioned in the shape of an eagle, its intricacies catching the light.
"I''m sensing strong energy radiation from this pendant," Sarba remarked.
"System, scan this pendant," Michael instructed the system.
[The system is unable toplete the task without the purchase of a skill for artifact analysis, costing five hundred thousand badass points] the system replied.
"Buy it," Michael decided promptly. In this new world without Gaya or Lord Information, he needed the skill for artifact analysis.
A pang of difort surged through his brain as the new skill, Analyzer utility function, was etched into his consciousness.
[Congrattions to the host for acquiring Analyzer utility function]
[Scanning initiated...]
A peculiar dark mist enveloped the pendant''s chain, visible only to Michael''s eyes.
[The item is a custom-made pendant containing a trace amount of grace. It possesses the capability to generate a protective barrier around the wearer, specifically effective against monsters and certain creatures in specific biomes] the system conveyed after analyzing the item.
With this information, Michael tapped his armor twice, revealing a smallpartment. Carefully, he ced the chain within thepartment, securing it around his neck. He wanted to avoid the risk of losing the pendant to an unexpected encounter, which could trigger the sand emperor''s attention.
"What on earth are you up to?" Ayag questioned.
"This pendant seems to have the power to ward off the sand emperor," Michael answered. Stepping forward, he prepared to ascend into the sky, but his intentions were promptly thwarted by Ayag and Sarba.
"Wait, wait, wait. First, are you sure? Second, don''t we need it?" Ayag interjected, expressing his concerns.
"Let''s put it to the test," Michael responded with a chuckle, though his antics prompted Vedora''s protests.
"Bastard, don''t toy with our lives!" Ayag chastised, quickly lowering her voice to a whisper, fearful that their words might carry to the sand emperor''s ears.
With the reassurance of the protective barrier from the pendant, Michael confidently pressed forward, his armor now concealed beneath a long brown coat and jacket. Vedora nestled safely within his inner robe pocket.
"Whoever crafted this chain must possess considerable power. Even Marli wasn''t aware of its capabilities," Michael whispered to Vedora.
"Shh, keep your voice down," Sarba cautioned.
Michael''s teasing continued, aimed at Vedora''s caution. "Look at you three, a mighty hydra cowering in fear of a centipede."
"We''re not at full power yet, you jerk. We''re not foolish enough to take on such a colossal monster," Ayag retorted with a growl.
"Enoughining, Ayag. This item envelops me in a barrier, protecting us from the sand emperor''s senses," Michael exined.
As he soared through the sky, Michael observed the sand emperor repeatedly emerging from the desert''s depths and retreating back into the sand. Its presence remained oblivious to Michael, just as the system''s scan had predicted. During his flight, he noticed a marble temple rising from the desert.
"What''s that?" Ayag peered out, spotting the temple.
"Could that be where the divine portal is?" Sarba questioned.
"Unless the map''s wrong, this isn''t where the divine portal should be," Michael replied.
"We should investigate inside," Ayag suggested to Michael.
"Why not?" Michael shrugged, redirecting his course toward the temple.
Within minutes, Michael reached the temple''s entrance and stepped inside cautiously. As he ventured further, his attention was captivated by a statue portraying a figure with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a serpent. Gazing at the statue''s face, Michael found himself stunned.
"Gaya?" he uttered in disbelief, having no idea that he had stumbled upon the temple of Gaya, the goddess of all monsters.
Chapter 1060 Someone from earth?
Chapter 1060 Someone from earth?
"Alright, that statue does resemble Gaya, but what kind of temple is this?" Ayag asked, his curiosity piqued by the statue''s likeness to the goddess.
With cautious steps, Michael entered the temple, taking in the flickering candlelight that cast an eerie glow over the space. Despite the darkness, the temple appeared immactely maintained.
"Who leaves flowers here?" Michael mused aloud, plucking a lotus blossom from where ity at the statue''s feet.
"Search the area, see if we can find any information about this temple," Cain suggested, Vedora''s three heads swiveling to scan the surroundings.
"Over there," Sarba suddenly pointed out, his gaze fixed on a wooden nk affixed to the temple wall.
Curious, Michael approached the nk and read its inscription aloud, his surprise evident in his tone. "This is the temple of the goddess of all monsters. Pray to her for great goddess Gaya''s protection from all monsters."
"It seems the previous Gaya had her temples scattered across this realm," Michael spected.
As he spoke, Michael activated his X-ray vision, scanning the temple for concealed doors or mechanisms. During his search, he noticed a small recess at the base of the statue. Returning to where he had plucked the flower, he squatted down.
Michael pressed his hand onto the statue''s base, seeking some hidden mechanism or reaction. Ayag, Sarba, and Cain observed with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism.
"What''s your n?" Ayag inquired.
"I sense something inside," Michael replied, his tone indicating his focus.
"Then, break it open," Ayag suggested matter-of-factly.
"When has that ever worked?" Sarba chimed in, his tone slightly exasperated.
Taking a closer look, Michael discovered a small hole in the statue''s base. The hole was almost concealed beneath umted sand and dust. After blowing away the debris, he carefully inserted his finger into the opening.
"Sticking your finger into an unknown hole ¨C great idea," Ayag quipped sarcastically.
Amid the banter, Michael suddenly let out a shout.
"Ouch!"
Ayag''s eyes widened in surprise, almost jumping at the sudden exmation. But her shock turned into annoyance as she realized Michael wasughing at her reaction.
"Why are you being such a jerk?" she growled, angrily nipping at Michael''s ear.
However, Michael''sughter subsided as he felt a sharp sting on his finger, akin to a needle prick. A drop of his blood fell into the opening, prompting a slight tremor beneath the statue. A portion of the ground slid aside, revealing a worn parchment.
"What''s this?" Michael wondered, brushing away the dust before carefully unfolding the parchment.
"If you''re reading this letter, you''ve stumbled upon one of the hidden letters we ced in the temples of Gaya. We must confess, this is just an borate prank. We were dreadfully bored while constructing this temple, so we decided to amuse ourselves by creating a secret chamber and leaving this note. There are more of our letters scattered throughout the realm. Collect them all, and you''ll have quite the tale to tell. Cheers!" Michael read aloud, his voice a mix of disbelief and amusement.
As Michael finished reading the letter, Ayag''s frustration was palpable in her words.
"Seriously, everyone in this world seems like an asshole or a jerk. What a waste of time. I actually thought we''d find something meaningful here," Ayag grumbled in annoyance.
Meanwhile, Vedora noticed Michael''s unwavering gaze on the letter, his brows furrowed in thought.
"He seems to have found something we didn''t," observed Sarba, waiting for Michael to exin.
Michael''s attention was fixed on the letter as he spoke up, revealing his findings.
"This letter, it''s made to look ancient, but it isn''t. It was ced here about three years ago, give or take," Michael revealed after analyzing the letter with his newly acquired skill.
"What''s even more intriguing is that this letter contains Morse code," Michael continued.
"What''s Morse code?" Ayag inquired.
"It''s a method ofmunication that usesbinations of dots and dashes to represent letters, numbers, and symbols. Dots are short signals, while dashes are longer ones. Each character is encoded using a uniquebination of these dots and dashes, forming a message," Cain exined the concept, his knowledge surprising both Ayag and Sarba.
"Where did you learn this?" Sarba asked Cain.
"During the time you two were asleep, arguing about who would win in a fight between Trista and Lenora," Cain shared with a hint of amusement.
"You''re such a nerd," Ayag couldn''t help but chuckle.
"Okay, so you''re saying there might be a hidden message in this? If so, what does it say?" Sarba redirected the conversation before it could turn into another Ayag-Cain banter.
"It decodes to ''Get to the God of Darkness''s temple in Misty Swamp,''" Michael unveiled the true message hidden within the code.
"Unless someone suddenly became a Morse code expert in this world, the person who left this message is likely from Earth," Michael''s tone turned serious. While he had met Hunter from Earth, he was in a different universe entirely, and he wasn''t one to leave cryptic messages.
"Let''s focus on rescuing Marli''s worshippers first, and then we can head to the Misty Swamp," Michael concluded, rising to his feet, ready to leave the temple.
Just as Michael was about to step outside the temple, a sudden rush of five men entered, catching his attention. These neers were dwarves, characterized by their stocky builds, long beards, and battle axes slung across their backs.
"Look who we''ve got here!" announced the leading dwarf, his face adorned with a scar that ran across his cheek. He pointed a grubby finger in Michael''s direction.
Michael surveyed them, his gaze lingering on the protective chains around their necks. He couldn''t help but notice the familiarity of those chains.
"Have we crossed paths before?" Michael inquired, though his eyes betrayed a hint of wariness.
"Never met, but you sure managed to make someone real mad. They put quite the bounty on your head," growled the dwarf leader, his tone oozing hostility.
Michael was taken aback; after all, he had only arrived in this world a day ago.
"Trust me, I''d know if I''d made someone that mad. I think you''ve got the wrong guy," Michael calmly responded, seeking to defuse the situation.
"Nah, we''re pretty sure. You''re a human, not exactly easy on the eyes, and you''ve got a hydra as your buddy," the leader dwarf chuckled.
"Hey, there you go, admitting I''m not ugly," Michael quipped.
"Wait, are you guys not surprised to see a hydra?" Ayag interjected, her voice tinged with confusion.
"Not really. We''ve seen those schr types bring back all sorts of endangered species," another dwarf, who wore sses, chimed in matter-of-factly.
"Bring back?" Ayag''s astonishment was palpable, yet the thought of someone attempting to artificially create her noble race stirred both hope and anger within her.
"Listen, dwarves, I''m not really in the mood for games right now. Normally, I might just give you a good beating because you all look kinda cute. But today, I''m in the mood for some bloodshed. So tell me who put that bounty on my head and get out of my sight," Michael issued his ultimatum, granting the dwarves an opportunity to retreat, even though he suspected they wouldn''t take it. In their eyes, Michael didn''t exude the aura of a god, thanks to Nithroel''s medallion he wore.
Seeing Michael as an easy target, the dwarves believed they could overpower and eliminate him without much effort.
"Did you just call us cute?!" another dwarf bellowed, fueled by anger.
"My apologies for my friend''s rudeness. Instead of cute, he should have used the term ''mother-fucking ugly''," Ayag retorted, her words striking a nerve and igniting the dwarves'' fury.
"You''re going to regret this, creature. We''ll cut you down and feed your remains to the monsters out there," the leader dwarf threatened, his voice dripping with malice.
"Wow, that''s your best retort? You might want to work on yourebacks. Learning is growing up" Sarba mocked, clearly unimpressed.
"That''s ice-cold. ''Growing up,'' he says, hahaha!" Ayag erupted inughter, taunting the dwarves for their stature.
"KILL THEM!" The dwarves, unable to contain their rage any longer, charged at Michael with their battle axes raised high.
Yet, as the leader dwarf closed in, Michael remainedposed. With a deliberate motion, he activated the potion-spraying mechanism on his palm, releasing a paralyzing mist into the air. The leader dwarf unwittingly inhaled the mist and promptly froze in ce, copsing to the ground like a lifeless statue.
air, rendering the dwarves immobile one by one.
With the dwarves now paralyzed, Michael approached Dogu, the "DOGU!" the other dwarves cried out, but their cries fell on deaf ears. Michael continued to disperse the paralyzing potion into the air, rendering the dwarves immobile one by one.
With the dwarves now paralyzed, Michael approached Dogu, the leader of the group, and effortlessly lifted him by the neck. The dwarf was powerless to move, save for his eyes.
Securing Dogu in one hand, Michael''s other hand extended, a needle emerging from his palm. The needle found its mark in the dwarf''s mouth, injecting an antidote that would restore his ability to speak, albeit temporarily.
"What the heck did you do?" the dwarf''s voice was a mixture of rage and astonishment.
"I''ll be the one asking questions here. If you don''t answer, I''ll remove this," Michael''s fingers yed with the silver chain, his tone resolute.
"No, no, no, please..." The dwarf''s panic was palpable. He understood that removing the chain would expose them to the sand emperor''s danger.
"Who ced the bounty on my head?" Michael''s inquiry was sharp.
"How would we know? We just came across a poster with your description and whereabouts," the dwarf responded.
"Where did youe across this poster?" Michael probed further.
"Bermian city," came the dwarf''s answer.
"Where''s that?" Ayag''s voice chimed in.
The dwarf appeared somewhat bewildered by the question; after all, Bermian city was the sole settlement in the Vikan desert. It stood at the desert''s edge, safeguarded from the monster-infested regions.
"North from here," the dwarf replied.
While Michael continued his questioning, his sharp eyes caught a glimmer on one of the buttons adorning the dwarf''s leather armor. Picking up the button, he discerned tiny, nearly invisible runes etched onto it.
"A hidden camera?" Michael''s surprise was evident. Once again, he was caught off guard by the presence of concealed surveince.
Lifting the button to his face, he addressed the camera directly. "To whoever''s watching, know this: I''ming for you." With that, he crushed the camera, his analyzer confirming that the feed''s source couldn''t be traced.
Chapter 1061 Angels of the gods
Chapter 1061 Angels of the gods
"What are you gonna do?" Dogu, the dwarf leader, questioned Michael, his tone a mix of defiance and curiosity.
Michael offered no response to Dogu''s inquiry. Instead, he unceremoniously tossed the dwarf outside, treating the others with simr disdain, kicking them out of the temple as if they were inanimate objects.
Theynded in the sand outside the temple with a dull thud, their immobilized bodies barely able to react. As Michael emerged from the temple, he stretched his neck audibly, preparing for what came next.
"You bastard! Give us the antidote!" Dogu''s shout resonated, but Michael continued his course of action, tying the paralyzed dwarves together with swift and precise movements.
"Do you like flying?" Michael inquired of Dogu, his words dripping with irony as the other dwarves struggled helplessly. All they could do was move their eyes, a stark contrast to the fluidity of Michael''s movements.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" the dwarf leader snapped, but before he could process it, he found himself lifted into the sky, tethered to the others.
"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" The scream escaped Dogu''s lips in a high-pitched frenzy. The moment Michael nearly brushed the clouds, he released the rope that held the dwarves, leaving them to plummet.
As they fell, the wind rushed against their faces. Dogu''s cries filled the air, while the others could only experience the impending dread. Theirck of the protective chain became evident, and the inevitable oue was clear. Michael, having distanced himself, witnessed the sand emperor emerge from the desert, its massive jaws devouring the diminutive figures.
"Let''s move," Michael dered calmly after the sand emperor had burrowed back into the dunes.
"Is Bermian city marked on the map?" Ayag inquired.
"No, but it''s on our route to the divine portals," Michael replied, his gaze fixed on the map as he spoke.
Eventually, Bermian city came into view on the horizon. The city was an extraordinary sight, nestled amidst the desertndscape. Its buildings were constructed from sand itself, an awe-inspiring example of melding architecture with the environment. Sand walls encircled the city, blending with the natural terrain, offering protection against the harsh desert winds. Torches flickered, casting a warm glow that danced across the sandy streets, illuminating the night as Michael approached.
"We should touch down and proceed on foot," Vedora advised before curling into Michael''s coat pocket.
"We really need to find a solution for your appearance. I''ll have to remember to brew a transformation potion for you," Michael remarked as he gentlynded on the sandy ground.
"I''m curious about what those dwarves said. Creating our species artificially? How is that even possible?" Ayag inquired, seeking Michael''s thoughts.
"Given the right resources, knowledge, and time, almost anything can be achieved. We''ll look into itter. For now, let''s spend the night in the city, gather information about this realm, and then head towards the divine portals," Michael decided as he set off towards the city.
Walking the path to the city, Michael was taken aback by the absence of guards¡ªa surprise in itself. As he stepped inside, he noticed the bustling activity that unfolded before him, yet oddly, not a single guard crossed his path.
The city of Bermian sprawled before Michael, an intricate tapestry woven with sand and stone. Its buildings rose from the desert, constructed not from conventional materials but from the very sand beneath his feet. The structures blended with the environment, a testament to the resilience of the city''s inhabitants. As Michael walked through the bustling streets, conversations reached his ears, snippets of discussions that painted a clearer picture of this realm.
"Did you hear thetest news about the war between Rainar and Kranar?" one person in the crowd asked another, their voices filled with a mix of curiosity and concern.
"Yeah, it''s been escting. Some say Rainar''s forces managed to secure another territory," the second person replied, shaking their head.
"And what about the worshippers of Agra?" a third voice chimed in, worry etched in their tone. "I heard they''re preying on those fleeing the war. People trying to escape are being killed or robbed."
"True. It''s bing a nightmare. Those Agra worshippers believe that the chaos from the war feeds their god''s power," the first person said, their voice tinged with fear.
In the bustling streets, Michael''s ears caught fragments of conversations drifting through the air. Seeking guidance, he approached a local resident and inquired, "Excuse me, could you point me to a ce where I could stay for the night, perhaps a tavern?"
"Sure thing," the man replied, gesturing ahead. "Just head straight and take the first left. You can''t miss the ''Sand Castle'' tavern."
Following the given directions, Michael found himself walking alongside a small group of people who were headed in the same direction. As he turned at the indicated corner, a distinctive cone-shaped structure loomed into view, crafted from sand and crowned with a wooden sign that read ''Sand Castle.''
Entering the tavern, Michael was enveloped by its warm atmosphere. The interior was adorned with an array of candle holders and torches that cast a gentle glow across the room. The air was thick with the scent of ale and the sound of animated chatter filled the space. Amidst the lively crowd, Michael was drawn to an empty seat next to a hooded man.
Michael settled into the vacant seat and promptly caught the attention of a red-haired young waiter despite the bustling surroundings.
"What can I get you? Our special tonight is roastedmb chops with freshly brewed ale," the waiter offered.
"I''ll take the special," Michael replied, prompting a nod from the young man before he disappeared into the crowd.
Amidst the hubbub of conversation, Michael overheard snippets discussing the ongoing war and its toll on the realm. A particrly vocal drunkardined about the esction, while another cautioned against speaking ill of the pantheon. Others joined in, expressing their collective desire for the conflict to end, ming the agra worshippers for profiting from the chaos.
As the topic turned to agra worshippers, Michael mentally noted their apparent role in the realm''s strife. While listening, he received his mug of ale from the young man, who informed him that his food would follow shortly.
"Thank you," Michael acknowledged, his gaze remaining on the scene. Suddenly, his expression shifted to a frown as he sensed a formidable presence coalescing around the tavern through his environmental awareness. These powerful entities were closing in from all directions with astonishing speed.
Suddenly, before anyone could react, the wooden door exploded into splinters as a group of men d in gleaming white armor burst into the tavern. Their entrance was apanied by the cacophony of gunshots, as they ordered everyone to freeze.
"Nobody move! Stay where you are!" one of the armored men shouted, his voice sharp andmanding.
The patrons inside the tavern were shocked by the abrupt intrusion, their initial chatter giving way to startled shouts. "Angels!" someone yelled in disbelief.
The group of intruders, unmistakably angels by their appearance, acted with swift authority. They pointed their weapons at the bewildered crowd, forcing them to drop to their knees in submission. Fear and panic were palpable in the air as peopleplied, their faces etched with terror.
Michael''s gaze locked onto the angels, taking in the feathery wings on their backs and the gleam of silver swords hanging at their waists. Their imposing presence and the gleaming armor marked them as formidable beings, and he remained still in his seat, carefully observing the unfolding scene while keeping his own abilities concealed.
As the tense minutes passed, one of the angels approached Michael''s table. With a stern expression, the angel forcefully pushed him and the man seated beside him to the ground, their bodies ending up on their knees. The pressure of the angel''s hand on his shoulder was firm, leaving no room for resistance.
Gradually, the scene repeated throughout the tavern, with the patrons being forced to kneel under the watchful eyes of the angels. Michael observed as the once lively atmosphere turned into one ofplete submission. Fear was evident in the eyes of the people, who avoided making direct eye contact with the celestial beings that had invaded their space. Whispers of prayers and muted sobs filled the air as the angels established their dominance over the establishment.
Michael remained vignt, his instincts telling him that this encounter might have something to do with the events in the realm, possibly connected to the war between Rainar and Kranar.
After a tense silence, a figure d in resplendent white armor entered the tavern, his heavy footfalls resounding like ominous drumbeats. The angel''s golden wings marked him as distinct, and upon his arrival, the other angels snapped to attention, standing rigidly in his presence.
"It hase to my attention that an agra worshipper dwells among you," the angel with the glistening wings addressed the terrified patrons. His voice was measured, but an underlying current of deadly intentced his words.
The tavern''s upants exchanged fearful nces and hushed whispers at the angel''s pronouncement.
"Reveal the offender now, or all shall suffer the consequences. A hundred innocent lives may be sacrificed, but not a single agra worshipper shall escape retribution," the angel dered without anypassion.
"If this world seems harsh, brace yourself for the realm of gods. There, things are far worse," echoed Nithroel''s warning in Michael''s thoughts.
He kept his head lowered, concealing his godly identity. As his eyes flicked upward, he noticed the angel''s gaze fixated on him. To Michael''s dismay, the angel steadily advanced toward him.
"There''s a scent of impending death here," the golden-winged angel remarked, inhaling deeply as if savoring the air around Michael.
A chuckle escaped the angel''s lips, and he leaned in closer to Michael.
"Ah, what do we have here? Word has it that you''re bound for the divine portal. But do you think you can slip away unnoticed?" The angel''s question dripped with taunting amusement as he unsheathed his sword with deliberate slowness.
Internally sighing, Michael was utterly perplexed, unable to fathom how the angel had deduced his intentions. Suspicion even brushed against Marli, but he found it difficult to believe that she could have betrayed him.
Chapter 1062 Smiting the angels
Chapter 1062 Smiting the angels
The leader angel''s demand hung heavily in the tense air, causing the tavern''s patrons to shrink back in fear and silence. None dared to utter a word. With measured precision, the angel positioned his sword menacingly between Michael and the customer seated next to him.
Michael''s thoughts raced as he grappled with the angel''s words. "What is he talking about?" he muttered to himself, bewildered by the situation.
"Reveal the portals'' location and I shall grant you swift death," the leading angelmanded. Michael''s heavy sigh underscored his mounting frustration. He had hoped to find the divine portals, but this encounter revealed that the situation was far moreplex. Someone had indeed concealed the portals, likely the very agra worshipper this angel sought. Michael''s mind raced to understand the how and why of it.
The angel''s voice grew sterner. "No answer, then?" He looked piercingly at Michael.
A golden light began to envelop the angel''s sword, and Michael braced himself for the confrontation. He intended to defend himself and counterattack, though he knew it wouldplicate his n to gather more knowledge before engaging in battles.
Unexpectedly, the hooded figure at Michael''s side sprang into action, his voice an exasperated growl. A crimson red beam shot forth, striking the angel''s chest and sending him hurtling through the crowd. The turn of events surprised Michael, as the other angels scrambled to respond.
"Kill the agra worshipper!" they cried in unison,unching themselves toward the hooded figure.
"Come with me if you want to live," the hooded figure''s voice resonated in Michael''s mind.
As the other angels closed in from all sides, the hooded figure deftly retrieved an object from his pocket, tossing it to the ground. The resulting explosion enveloped them in a thick red smoke. Within the swirling haze, a handnded on Michael''s shoulder, and the world around him seemed to warp and twist.
In the span of an instant, the tavern scene and its cacophony vanished, reced by the barren desert as Michael found himself alongside the hooded figure. A puzzled furrow settled on Michael''s brow.
"Did he just pull us into his mess?" Ayag''s voice, emanating from Michael''s pocket, was tinged with concern.
Michael wasted no time. "Who are you?" he inquired.
The hooded figure gradually revealed himself, fiery red hair cascading from beneath the hood, and crimson eyes locking onto Michael''s gaze. A small me mark adorned his forehead, marking his allegiance to the god Agra.
But the figure wasn''t done. "The real question is, who are you?" he retorted.
Michael maintained hisposure as the hooded individual pressed on.
"Your reaction to the angel''s sword was intriguing. Or rather, yourck of reaction. Only a seasoned killer would face that sword without fear. It''s a rarity in this world. You didn''t even flinch. So, who are you?" The figure''s keen observation skills took Michael aback.
"I might just be someone who didn''t want to be caught in your troubles," Michael shot back, folding his arms.
The figure shook his head. "No, you''re someone in search of the divine portals. Your curiosity was evident when the angel mentioned them. The glimmer in your eyes gave you away."
The depth of the figure''s insight left Michael genuinely surprised.
"We can be allies," the agra worshipper suggested.
Michael''s skepticism was palpable. "And why should I believe you can be of any assistance, let alone that I''d willingly step into your mess with the angels?" he countered.
"Because there''s something different about you," the agra worshipper replied.
Before Michael could reply, he sensed a distortion in the air around him. "They''reing," Sarba whispered through their mental link, detecting an impending teleportation.
True to Sarba''s premonition, a portal materialized next to Michael and the agra worshipper. The cerulean whirlpool shimmered as the angels who had stormed the tavern emerged from its depths.
"An agra worshipper and his follower," the lead angel sneered, the mask and helmet still obscuring his face, though his contempt for the worshipper was evident.
"You didn''t strike me as the devotee of such a vile god," the lead angel remarked, his gaze shifting to Michael.
"Because I''m not," Michael replied calmly.
"Intriguing," the angel mused, stroking his chin. He then redirected his attention back to the red-haired agra worshipper.
The angels behind the leader sprang into motion, materializing behind Michael and the agra worshipper. Swift kicks to their knees forced both of them down onto the sand, rendering them defenseless.
"Your feeble attempt to evade us isughable. A mere teleportation portal won''t shield you from our grasp. It wounds me that you believed you could elude us," the lead angel sneered as he approached the agra worshipper, delivering a resounding p across his face.
"Theo, we shall escort these two to His Grace Rainar''s temple and purify their souls," another angel, firmly gripping the agra worshipper''s shoulder, suggested.
"Agreed. However, we must first extract the whereabouts of the divine portals from him. His Grace desires their location," Theo, the lead angel, concurred.
"I won''t utter a word," the agra worshipper retorted defiantly.
"Yes, I am aware. Followers of Agra can withstand any torment inflicted upon them¡ªa unique trait of serving that vile god. But what about yourpanion here?" Theo''s gaze shifted to Michael, his tone calcted.
"I''ve never seen him before in my life," Michael maintained, irritation simmering beneath his surface due to the angels and the agra worshipper.
"Stay strong, buddy. We''ll get through this. Don''t let these jerks intimidate you," the agra worshipper reassured Michael, employing a cunning ploy to mislead the angels into believing they were allies.
"Unbelievable," Ayag hissed, her vexation evident. Michael caught onto the agra worshipper''s ruse and his sly grin, but when Theo turned his attention back to Michael, the grin faded, reced by a counterfeit rage.
"Don''t you darey a finger on him!" the agra worshipper erupted.
Theo''s fa?ade shifted from anger to amusement with a devilish chuckle. "Which part of your ''friend'' do you cherish most? Personally, I''m quite fond of cutting what lies between his legs. But let''s begin with his fingers," he remarked, exuding a sinister demeanor.
"Take a look at him. Does he really seem like my friend?" Michael interjected, realizing the crafty maneuver the agra worshipper was attempting. As Theo turned to scrutinize Michael, the smile melted away, quickly reced by a veneer of faux anger.
"Don''t think for a second you can manipte us," Theo hissed under his breath.
"Fucking idiots," Ayag whispered, her frustration palpable.
Theo advanced slowly toward Michael, while the angel behind him seized Michael''s hand and elevated it.
"Agra is watching all of this, you bastard. He wille to my aid. Remember the might of the god Agra!" the agra worshipper eximed defiantly.
"No, he won''t," the angel retorted, producing a golden orb with a deft motion. With a toss, the orb settled onto the sandy ground, forming a shimmering golden dome around them.
"You''re now severed from teleportation and barred from utilizing any powers granted by your loathsome god. Agra can offer you nothing," Theo taunted.
"In truth, no deity can provide refuge," Theo added with a mockingugh. Meanwhile, Michael hastily instructed his analyzer to evaluate the golden orb.
[This item is an energy disruptor. It will obstruct all surveince and halt energy flow through its barrier. It can also conceal your divine aura if you choose to employ your powers. However, this item has a one-time use limit], the system analyzer conveyed to Michael.
Unbeknownst to the angels and Theo, they had unwittingly encased themselves with a god. Their intention was to iste the agra worshipper and thwart any intervention from the deity Agra.
"We shallmence with his pinky, savoring the process," Theo remarked, positioning a dagger over Michael''s pinky finger.
"I always seem to find myself in trouble when I attempt to avoid it," Michael sighed. Theo was taken aback, expecting Michael to scream and plead for help. Instead, Michael appearedposed and sighed.
"Just so you know, I was being truthful. I had never met him before," Michael stated calmly.
"Stay strong, brother!" the agra worshipper shouted, maintaining the pretense of camaraderie between himself and Michael.
"You don''t need to pretend any longer," Michael remarked.
"I''ve had enough of this," Theo snickered, thrusting his dagger at Michael''s pinky. However, the dagger chipped upon failing to pierce Michael''s skin.
The angels and Theo were stunned. But before they could react, the golden dome began to darken.
"What in the hell?" the angel restraining Michael grumbled as Michael defied the force on his shoulder, rising to his feet despite the angel''s efforts.
In an instant, Michael seized Theo by the neck, crushing it and shattering Theo''s metal mask. But before Michael could finish Theo, the two angels behind him attempted to stab him with their holy swords.
Swiftly, Michael hurled Theo aside and evaded the attacking angels. With fluid motion, he drew two dark swords from behind and severed the angels'' hands in a matter of seconds, causing them to scream in agony.
Without hesitation, Michael lunged forward, beheading the angels. Disregarding the system notifications, he dispatched the two celestial beings in the blink of an eye.
As Michael turned, blood sttered across his face, leaving an ominous stain. The agra worshipper and Theo finallyprehended that Michael was neither a mere killer nor a mortal, but a god.
"You... you''re... a god..." Theo mumbled in absolute shock.
The remaining four angels promptly materialized behind Theo, positioning themselves against Michael. They released the agra worshipper from their grip, recognizing the greater threat at hand.
"I thought angels were supposed to embody goodness and kindness," Michael snickered, using his wrist to wipe the blood off his face.
"Guess I was mistaken," Michaelmented.
"How can a god be present here? What god are you?!" Theo''s voice rang out.
"That''s a question whose answer you won''t discover in this lifetime," Michael responded calmly. Simultaneously, within the golden dome, darkness engulfed the space, rendering it pitch ck. The agra worshipper inched away, horrified by the angels'' screams and the cacophony of des slicing through both metal and flesh. The sickening sounds of blood spraying and the metallic tang of the scent filled the air, overwhelming his senses.
Chapter 1063 Cultivation realms in the realm of gods
Chapter 1063 Cultivation realms in the realm of gods
As the darkness within the golden dome dissipated, the agra worshipper gazed at Michael with a mixture of fear and shock in his eyes. He realized something was off about the man, but the revtion that he was a god caught him entirely off guard.
"Now that you''ve dragged me into your mess, are you going to tell me where to find the divine portals?" Michael inquired calmly, moving toward the agra worshipper, whose attention was fixed on the lifeless forms of the decapitated angels.
"We never properly introduced ourselves. Let''s start with your name," Michael proposed, extending his hand to help the agra worshipper to his feet. Despite his astonishment, Darth grabbed the god''s hand and stood up.
"I am Darth," the agra worshipper replied.
"I am Ghost, and your continued existence hinges on your discretion regarding what transpired here," Michael stated to Darth with a reassuring smile. An unsettling shiver ran down Darth''s spine in response.
"Now, shall we head to where you''ve concealed the divine portals before more angels appear?" Michael queried. Observing the fading flicker of the golden dome, he knew its effects were about to wane. ordingly, he directed his hand outward, unleashing a stream of dark mes that swiftly reduced the angels to ashes. Darth felt the temperature surge dramatically, causing him to break into a sweat. The bodies were soon reduced to ash, and the temperature normalized once the dark mes subsided.
"Hmm," Darth nodded, rendered nearly speechless by the presence of such a formidable god.
As the dome''s remnants vanished entirely, Michael began to walk away from the scene, and Darth followed by his side.
"I never anticipated that the Goddess of Luck, Fortuna, woulde to my aid by sending a god," Darth confided as they walked.
"So, you used to be a worshipper of Agra," Michael remarked, seeking to delve deeper into Darth''s knowledge of the world.
"I was, but I''m out of that game now. I''m a drifter, unbound to any god," Darth revealed.
"That sounds like quite a situation. So, what''s your n? Considering the angels won''t leave you be, and it seems Agra won''t be rushing to your aid anytime soon," Michael continued the conversation, adopting a guise of someone familiar with the world.
Darth had knowledge about the world''s workings, and Michael needed to gather more insights from him.
"I''m heading to the Infinite Ocean. The divine portals will serve as my means to get there. I can escape this wretched ce and live out the rest of my days on the ocean, fulfilling a dream of mine," Darth exined.
"But if the angels believed you''ve found and concealed the divine portals, why didn''t you use them to leave instead of returning to Bermian city?" Michael inquired.
"I needed to say my farewells to someone I hold dear. With that done, I can depart this realm in peace," sighed Darth.
"Your journey would have been a lot less peaceful if you hadn''t crossed paths with me," Michael retorted with a smirk.
"True, Fortune has shown me favor," Darth replied.
"However, luck won''t suffice to keep you safe unless you reveal the location of the hidden portals. I need them to reach Nimbosia," Michael stated firmly.
"You can use them to reach your desired destination. I wish you luck. You''ll need it once the pantheon catches wind of a rogue god wandering about," Darth said as they continued their journey across the desert.
"You managed to kill Rainar''s angels, but don''t underestimate the ones the pantheon will send. They''ll be far more formidable, each at or above the Elemental Attunement realm," Darth warned.
Michael mentally noted the cultivation realm levels of the angels and used this as an opportunity to learn more about the hierarchy of power in this world. He recognized that in this world, no matter how advanced the mortals'' cultivation, they paled inparison to the gods. Still, the cultivation realms of the angels determined their capacity to withstand a god''s power.
For example, only higher-level angels could survive merging their energy with their patron god''s trace of grace. In this case, Theo was at the Spiritual Embryo realm, where cultivators form a spiritual embryo within their dantian, a seed of potential power. This level was the third in a nine-tiered cultivation hierarchy. Therefore, Theo could only endure a level 3 god''s trace of grace.
In essence, the angel''s cultivation realm determined their ability to absorb and withstand a god''s grace.
"Could you refresh my memory on your mortals'' cultivation realms?" Michael inquired, pretending ignorance while secretly seeking more insight.
Darth, sensing something peculiar about the god beside him, no longer attempted to manipte the situation.
"We have the Initiate Realm, Qi Awakening Realm, Spiritual Embryo Realm, Elemental Attunement Realm, Celestial Resonance Realm, Soul Ignition Realm, Ethereal Fusion Realm, Void Transcendence Realm, and Divine Ascendancy Realm," Darth listed.
Michael mentally cataloged this information about the realm hierarchy for the inhabitants of this world. In truth, only a select few devout worshippers or those favored by the gods could even achieve the Initiate Realm. The majority of the poption remained powerless, and some who had reached the Celestial stage in the mortal realm, upon ascending, were stripped of their powers and memories, reborn as mere weaklings.
As Michael continued walking, he recalled the words Marli had shared with him regarding the hierarchy of godhood in the realm of gods.
"The stages are Fledgling God, Demi-God, Celestial God, Ethereal God, Astral God, Elder God, Primordial God, Transcendent God, and Ancient God. Though it''s said that the Ancient God level has be a myth, as no one, not even the gods of the pantheon, has managed to reach that pinnacle."
"As we approach the portals, we can part ways," Darth stated, breaking the silence that had enveloped them.
"Have you been to Nimbosia?" Michael inquired of Darth.
"Yeah, a couple of times. It''s a mess up there. Since you don''t seem to be in the Pantheon, I''d advise against going there. Rainar can be even crazier than Agra at times. I genuinely feel sorry for the people under the rule of the God of Rain," Darth sighed, showing his empathy for those under the dominion of Rainar.
curiosity was piqued.
"Isn''t it obvious? You just took down Rainar''s angels ¨C angels of a "Why do you assume I''m not from the pantheon?" Michael''s curiosity was piqued.
"Isn''t it obvious? You just took down Rainar''s angels ¨C angels of a pantheon god. It''s rare for anyone in the pantheon to kill another god''s angels. Angels from one god killing those of another has happened, but gods directly killing angels of another god? That''s not something I''ve heard of," Darth exined.
As Michael and Darth continued their journey towards the divine portals, Michael gained more insights into the realm of gods from Darth''s perspective. However, Darth was unaware of the peculiar phenomenon preventing gods from venturing outside their domains, a topic Michael was keen to explore.
"If you don''t mind my asking, why are you heading to Nimbosia?" inquired Darth.
"I''m taking a vacation and exploring the world," Michael responded with a wry smile.
Darth realized that Michael wouldn''t reveal his true purpose for visiting Nimbosia. He had no interest in anything beyond getting rid of Theo and his angels. Now that they were out of the picture, Darth''s focus was on reaching the infinite ocean and starting anew there.
"What if Agra sends his angels to punish you for abandoning your devotion to him?" Michael asked, probing the consequences of forsaking a god''s worship.
"I hope he won''t until I reach the infinite ocean. Once I''m there, no one can catch me," Darth exined.
"Why is that?" Michael inquired.
Darth was once again taken aback by the god''sck of knowledge. Nheless, he chose to share information until they reached the location of the hidden divine portals.
"The infinite ocean earned its name for a reason. Moreover, the gods hold no sway over the ocean; it''s a forbidden zone," Darth rified.
As they conversed, they ascended a sand dune and beheld the oasis in the distance. The lush appearance of the oasis offered a stark contrast to the surrounding desert.
"Is that where you''ve hidden the portals?" Michael asked Darth.
"Hmm," Darth nodded.
With a relieved sigh, Michael and Darth made their way towards the oasis. Despite its apparentck of inhabitants, Michael remained vignt, his senses on high alert.
"Allow me some time to dispel the illusions. Once they''re gone, I''ll activate the portals, and you can use one to reach Nimbosia," Darth instructed Michael.
"Sounds like a n," Michael responded.
As the oasis drew closer, Michael''s excitement grew. The realm of gods held both challenges and opportunities that he was eager to explore.
"How much time do you need to dispel the illusions?" Michael inquired.
"Ten minutes should suffice," replied Darth.
Approaching the oasis, Michael squatted down to ssh his face with the cool water. The refreshing sensation of the water against his skin revitalized him.
"Can we really trust this guy?" Ayag''s voice whispered from his coat pocket.
"Absolutely not, and we don''t need to. Once we have the portal, we''ll go our separate ways," Michael replied.
"I think we should eliminate him," suggested Ayag.
"No, I suspect he has some tricks up his sleeve. We shouldn''t make more enemies in this world until we understand the situation better," Michael exined.
While washing his face, Michael nced at his reflection in the clear water. But his attention was quickly drawn to something else. In the sky, a fiery and brilliant object streaked through, rapidly approaching them. Turning slowly, Michael saw what seemed like a shooting star heading straight for them.
An uneasy feeling settled over him as he frowned, sensing that something was off. The shooting star grewrger and drew nearer.
"Damn it," Michael leaped into the oasis just as the fireball struck the sand nearby, triggering a powerful explosion.
Emerging from the water, Michael observed a figure emerging from the aftermath of smoke and sand. The fiery ambiance was apanied by the heavy nk of armor, and a metallic scent of blood permeated the air.
"Agra wants to have a little chat with you, Darth," the figure''s voice cut through the lingering smoke and sand.
Michael''s gaze shifted to Darth, who was gradually rising to his feet.
"He wants his favorite angel back," the figure''s words were aimed directly at Darth.
Chapter 1064 God Agra and his angels
Chapter 1064 God Agra and his angels
"Larn," the word slipped from Darth''s lips as heboriously regained his footing. Meanwhile, Michael remained afloat in the oasis, his head above the water. Vedora''s ability to breathe underwater had proved to be a life-saving advantage.
Larn, the angel of God Agra, grabbed Darth by the neck, raising him off the ground. Unbeknownst to Michael, who could no longer discern the angels'' cultivation levels in this unfamiliar world, Larn was at the Celestial Resonance Realm, the fifth stage of cultivation. This meant he could absorb a fragment of level 5 God Agra''s grace to gain a power boost.
"You can emerge from the water now," Larn''s voice cut through, addressing Michael.
With a sigh, Michael waded out of the water, his neck making a cracking sound as he stretched it.
"Who are you? A friend of Darth?" Larn questioned, but Michael remained silent.
"I''m not going back to him, Larn. I''ve had enough of serving him," Darth growled, his voice heavy with anger and pain. Michael was taken aback by the revtion that Darth was actually an angel of Agra. Listening to Darth''s words, Michael sensed aplex history between Agra and Darth.
"You sort out your matters. I just need the divine portals to reach Nimbosia," Michael interjected, his intentions clear. He wanted no involvement with Agra or the two angels before him.
"Silence, mortal!" Larn''s shout sent a powerful shockwave at Michael. Michael willed his protective shield not to react, allowing the shockwave to hurl him into the air. He needed to avoid using his powers to avoid alerting the pantheon of his presence. Unlike Theo and his angels, Larn didn''t rely on artifacts to prevent godly intervention.
Darth''s gaze shifted between Michael and Larn, a glimmer of hope in his eyes for Michael to unleash his divine powers. However, Michael managed to restrain himself.
"Don''t resist, Darth. Simply return to his grace and offer your apology. I''m sure he will find it in his heart to forgive his favored angel," Larn''s words held an ironic edge, evident even to Michael.
Darth''s voice cracked through the air, carrying a determined "No!" He unleashed his power, a surge of energy enveloping him. With a fierce expression, he lunged forward, his fist connecting with Larn''s chest. The impact sent Larn hurtling through the sand, creating a deep furrow in his wake.
Larn rose from the sand, his excitement palpable. "Ah, so you''ve found your spine, Darth. Let''s see what you can truly do," he taunted, his voice dripping with anticipation.
Darth''s eyes zed with a fiery determination. He summoned his power and readied himself for a confrontation. "Prepare yourself, Larn. I won''t be controlled by Agra any longer," he dered.
Waving his hand, Darth summoned an ethereal eagle formed of crimson-red energy. The magnificent creature materialized with grandeur, its wings outstretched as it let out a piercing cry that echoed through the desert.
Larn''s lips curled into a cruel smile. "Impressive, but let''s see if your pet can match mine," he retorted, his own power surging. He summoned a crimson-red wolf with wings, a creature equally imposing and fierce.
Both summoned creatures dashed at each other, a collision of ethereal forms. The crimson-red eagle''s wings beat with power as it soared through the air, its talons poised to strike. The crimson-red wolf leaped with grace, its wings propelling it forward, teeth bared for battle.
The eagle''s feathers shimmered in the desert star light, and its eyes glowed with an otherworldly intensity. With a flurry of movement, it shed with the wolf. The sand beneath them trembled as their energies collided, creating ripples in the air.
Darth''s gaze remained unwavering as he controlled the movements of his summoned eagle. "Show him your strength," he whispered to his creation.
Larn''sughter echoed as he guided his crimson-red wolf. "Come on, Darth. Is this the best you can do?" he taunted, his voice mocking.
The fight raged on, each summon unleashing its own arsenal of attacks. The desert around them shook with their power, sand swirling in chaotic eddies. The sh of energies created bursts of light and sound that reverberated through the oasis.
Darth''s determination fueled the crimson-red eagle, each movement precise and calcted. The wolf matched its adversary with equal ferocity, teeth snapping and wings shing through the air. The battle was a spectacle of raw power and intensity.
Amidst the sh of summoned creatures, Darth''s voice cut through the tumultuous air. "Agra is not a god! He''s an evil entity that seeks nothing but death and destruction!" His words reverberated with conviction, carried by the winds of the battle.
Larn''s retort was swift, his crimson-red wolf lunging at the eagle with renewed vigor. "And yet, you served that same entity without batting an eye. What''s changed, Darth? Suddenly questioning the very being you once worshipped?" His voice held a mixture of scorn and amusement.
ndscape.
Larn''s taunts continued, his voice dripping with mockery. "Is this and amusement.
As the ethereal battle raged on, Michael watched from a distance with growing annoyance. The divine portals were within reach, yet the interruption by these angels continued to thwart his ns. He clenched his fists, his patience wearing thin. He wanted to end this conflict and secure the means to reach Nimbosia.
Darth''s anger and determination seemed to fuel his summoned eagle further. Its movements became more intricate, its attacks more strategic. The crimson-red wolf countered with equal fervor, each sh of energy sending shockwaves through the desertndscape.
Larn''s taunts continued, his voice dripping with mockery. "Is this the extent of your newfound defiance, Darth? Facing me, a loyal servant of Agra?"
Darth''s response wasced with unwavering determination. "You''re blind to the truth, Larn. You''re a puppet, blindly following a malevolent force. I won''t be part of it any longer."
The battle reached a crescendo, the sh of summoned creatures bing a spectacle of power and will. Each creature''s movements painted streaks of crimson energy across the desert sky, their shes creating bursts of light that illuminated thendscape.
Michael''s annoyance grew with every passing moment. He couldn''t afford any more dys, not when his presence in this realm was bing more apparent to the pantheon. He needed those divine portals, and he needed them now.
Darth''s voice broke through the chaos again, his words carrying a fierce determination. "Agra may have deceived me once, but I won''t be his pawn any longer!"
Larn''sughter resonated, cutting through the battle''s cacophony. "And what do you hope to achieve, Darth? Defeating me won''t change your fate. You''re marked by Agra."
"This Agra god seems like a big deal, Ghost," Ayag''s voice sounded from within Michael''s pocket.
"Yeah, I have a feeling we might cross his path in the future," Sarba added.
"I don''t care. I need the divine portals, and this Larn guy is messing up my ns," Michael replied with a hint of frustration.
"Well, you can''t kill him without using your powers," Ayag pointed out.
"True, but I can at least distract him. Maybe that''ll give Darth an advantage," Michael nned, hoping a distraction would help Darth gain the upper hand in the battle.
"Anytime now," Michael was about to make his move when Darth''s voice echoed through the chaos, causing him to pause. The ethereal eagle summoned by Darth appeared to be weakening, while the crimson-red wolf grewrger and more menacing due to Larn''s connection to Agra.
"Do you think your mortal friend can help you? How the mighty have fallen," Larn sneered.
"You have no idea¡ª" Darth began, but before he could reveal Michael''s true identity as a god, Michael intervened.
"You two can continue this fightter. I''m just interested in the divine portals. Show them to me, and I''ll be on my way," Michael interjected, momentarily halting the battle.
"Who''s this guy? We''re in the middle of a fight, and he looks like he''s on vacation," Larn chuckled, his surprise evident.
"Darth, you can''t win against him. He''s more powerful than you. So, activate the portals," Michael suggested to Darth, prompting a spark of pride in Larn''s eyes, and he smirked arrogantly.
"Well, your mortal friend is correct. But it''s a shame I won''t be letting either of you go anywhere. You''re bothing to meet his grace, and you," Larn shifted his gaze from Darth to Michael.
"You are going to die," Larn dered with a smug smile.
"Activate the portals," Michael instructed Darth, and the battle between the eagle and the wolf continued. As the sh intensified, Michael used the distraction to kick sand towards Larn. However, the sand disintegrated upon reaching Larn, his power obliterating it.
"Pathetic trick," Larn sneered, his hand emanating a crimson-red energy beam that he aimed at Michael.
Yet, Michael swiftly raised his hand, revealing the ck shield, which surprisingly absorbed the energy beams instead of shattering.
"A powerful artifact," Larn''s eyes gleamed with greed, desiring the shield for himself.
Simultaneously, Darth evaded Larn''s attacks and seized hold of a solitary coconut tree on the oasis''s edge. His touch caused a golden light to flicker, manifesting beside the tree ¨C the portal.
Larn''s taunting voice broke the momentary stillness. "You''re going nowhere," he jeered, his hand raised to strike.
In response, the wolf lunged at the eagle, mping its jaws around the eagle''s neck. The golden eagle shattered into radiant fragments. The force of this shattered connection made Darth cough up blood and copse to the ground.
Larn prepared to target Darth with his energy beam, but before he could, Michael lunged forward and delivered a powerful punch to the angel''s face. The impact sent Larn hurtling away with a resounding explosion.
As Larn soared through the air, the wolf redirected its hostile attention to Michael, its eyes gleaming with aggression.
"Get up and activate the portals!" Michael shouted to Darth, preparing to confront the wolf. He unsheathed his dark swords with a deliberate, tense motion and cracked his neck.
"You''re thest obstacle before I reach Nimbosia," Michael dered, his frustration evident.
"Just give me a moment," Darth uttered weakly, pulling himself together.
Suddenly, the wolf emitted a fierce howl and lunged at Michael from above.
"You won''t defeat that creature without using your powers," Sarba''s voice was tinged with anxiety as the wolf closed in.
Just as the wolf was about to pounce on Michael, Vedora sprang out of Michael''s pocket and perched on his head.
In response, Ayag surged forward and opened her mouth wide.
The wolf bared its teeth, leaping at Michael with aggression. Simultaneously, Ayag unleashed a powerful sonic wave with a resounding shout. Visible as a tangible force, the sonic wave streaked toward the wolf. The collision between the wave and the wolf created a burst of energy, throwing the creature backward and causing it to emit a pained growl.
Observing the wolf''s momentary setback, Michael noticed Larn beginning to rise, preparing to reengage in the battle.
"Come on, Darth, hurry!" Michael urged, his voiceced with urgency. While the wolf growled and Larn approached, Michael''s attention was drawn to a sudden appearance of a golden ring on the sandy ground. A palpable distortion in space emanated from it.
"Oh no," Larn''s voice carried a mocking tone as he swiftly moved toward Michael and Darth, intent on preventing them from using the portal.
"I can''t hold them both off, Ghost," Ayag''s voice conveyed a sense of unease.
As Larn closed in on them, he raised his hands, unleashing a rapid barrage of crimson-red energy beams aimed at Michael and Darth. Michael deflected the beams using his ck shield, but he realized that he couldn''t keep up this defense for long. If he truly aimed to halt Larn''s advance, he would have to resort to his godly powers.
"Just a few more seconds," Darth''s voice resonated behind Michael.
"Finish him off," Darth''s words were driven by urgency, not knowing the reason behind Michael''s hesitance to use his full powers.
Atst, Larn closed the distance to Michael, summoning a crimson-red spear from a space ring at his side.
"He''s about to strike us down," Darth warned, the energy levels around them surging to dangerous heights. Michael knew that his ck shield might not withstand the force of Larn''s spear.
Larn''s shout echoed in the air as he thrust the spear toward Michael, aiming for a fatal blow.
Summoning his resolve, Michael lifted his dark sword and channeled his power, sending forth a powerful bolt of dark lightning from the de''s tip. Larn''s eyes widened in shock, but before he could react, the lightning pierced through his chest, sending him hurtling backward. He flew a considerable distance before crashing onto the sandy ground, at least fifty meters away. As Larn''s body hit the ground, an eerie silence settled over the oasis.
The use of Michael''s power was apanied by a resounding thunderp and the sudden appearance of a crimson lightning streak in the otherwise clear night sky.
"We need to leave," Michael stated, his gaze fixed on the ominous lightning streak above.
Chapter 1065 A Quest from the System
Chapter 1065 A Quest from the System
As Michael and Darth plunged into the portal''s embrace, he felt a powerful tug, like being torn through a vortex. Unlike the instant teleportation he was ustomed to in the mortal realm, this journey was more like traversing a bridge of light, a luminous passage that carried him alongside Darth.
"So, you were one of Agra''s angels?" Michael inquired during their journey.
"That''s a part of my life I''d rather leave behind," Darth responded, his voice carrying the fatigue from his battle with Larn. The bacsh of Larn''s attack had affected Darth due to the connection he shared with his summoned creature, the golden eagle.
"I won''t pry into the details, but you did drag me into your mess. If Agra''s angelse hunting for me, you''ll have to pay the consequences," Michael stated, his tone frigid. His purpose in the realm of gods was to strengthen himself and locate his seeds of darkness, not to make new enemies.
"I apologize. But facing Agra was inevitable for you. Unless you have a penchant for death and destruction, you''ll find yourself at odds with him sooner orter," Darth responded, his voice tinged with resentment towards Agra.
"If you ever find yourself at the infinite ocean, perhaps we''ll cross paths again. Don''t worry, your secret of being a god is safe with me," Darth vowed, assuring Michael of his discretion. Michael could sense the honesty in Darth''s gaze.
A strong feeling stirred within Michael, hinting that their paths might converge again in the future. It seemed wise to spare Darth''s life, as he could potentially be a valuable ally if they indeed shed with Agra.
"That''s good. Now, how much longer until we reach the end of this bridge?" Michael inquired.
"Just a few more minutes. I''ll create a branching exit for you that leads to the outskirts of Nimbosia. Direct teleportation into the city is prohibited, so you''ll need to make your way from the outskirts," Darth exined.
"Understood," Michael acknowledged. As Darth inscribed glowing runes along the light bridge, Michael sensed the fabric of space shifting. Before long, a bright light emerged at the tunnel''s end.
"Your exit awaits," Darth shouted, pointing towards the light.
"Good luck to you, and may you find what you''re seeking in the infinite ocean," Michael conveyed before redirecting his trajectory towards the beckoning light.
"May Fortuna''s favor be with you," Darth bid him farewell as Michael vanished into the light. The brilliance swallowed Michael, whisking him away from the bridge and depositing him onto a muddy path.
He collided face-first with the path''s wet ground, the sounds of torrential rain overwhelming his senses. Abruptly, a resounding neigh filled the air, followed by a shout that pierced through the downpour.
"Where the hell did youe from?!" a voice eximed.
"Do you have a death wish, you asshole?"
"If you want to die, fall in front of another carriage!" another voice yelled at Michael.
Amidst the heavy rain, Michael slowly pulled himself up from the muddy ground, silently cursing the teleportation portal that had deposited him here. As he rose, he noticed a carriage hitched to four sturdy brown horses, with three drenched figures atop it.
The man in the center, gripping the reins, seemed to be in his early forties and had amanding presence. nking him were two younger brown-haired men, all dressed in wet, broad robes.
"Get off the path!" the man with the bald head ordered.
"Can you direct me to Nimbosia?" Michael wiped mud from his face and asked the trio. They appeared momentarily surprised, then realization dawned on them.
"You''re a refugee?" the bald man inquired.
"Yeah," Michael decided to go along with the man''s assumption.
"The carriage is full. If you''re okay with it, you can sit on top of the carriage," one of the brown-haired men suggested.
"That works for me," Michael quickly agreed. Surveying the area, he saw nothing but a long path cutting through grasnds and forests in the distance. Traveling with these three on the carriage seemed like a reasonable choice.
"Hop on," one of the brown-haired men reached out and assisted Michael onto the carriage''s roof.
With a shake of the reins, the bald man urged the horses into a gallop along the muddy path.
"So, where did youe from?" the bald man inquired.
"Out of nowhere," the younger man beside him chimed in.
"I bet he''s from Thorndale," another man added before Michael could even speak. Michael''s feigned surprise at their deduction seemed to amuse them.
"How did you know?" Michael asked, pretending to be amazed by their keen observation. His tone ttered the three, eliciting proud smiles from them.
"We''ve been shuttling refugees to and from Nimbosia for months. So it''s either you''re from Nimbosia or Thorndale. Your question about the direction gave it away," exined Billy, the bald man.
"I''m Billy," he introduced himself.
"Here''s Leon and Micah," Billy gestured to hispanions.
"How are things in Nimbosia?" Michael inquired.
"How are things in Thorndale?" Micah responded with a question.
"Not good," Michael guessed, given the ongoing war between the two kingdoms.
"Well, in Nimbosia, things are worse. This rain is nothingpared to what falls within the kingdom. It''s as if Rainar is punishing his domain forck of devotion. Justst week, a group of orphan children drowned," Billy''s voice carried a mix of anger and sadness.
The news of orphan children''s deaths struck a chord with Michael. Having been an orphan himself and having cared for children like that, he felt a surge of emotion. ming Rainar for their deaths, he silentlybeled him as a viin.
"Gods," Micah sighed.
"Shut up, you fool. Don''t mock the gods. May Fortuna shield your words from the pantheon and other deities," Billy admonished sternly, touching the medallion hanging from his neck.
"What''s your name?" Leon asked.
"John," Michael offered a simple,mon name.
"Who do you pray for?" Billy inquired, showing his religious side.
"Fortuna," Michael promptly replied, invoking the name of the Goddess of Luck. She seemed well-known in this world, so Michael decided to use her name. Unbeknownst to them, they were traveling with a god.
"Fellow Fortuna worshipper. Makes sense, as you met us instead of Agra''s followers," Leon chuckled.
"Shut up, Leon. Don''t even mention that vile god''s name. You''ll bring bad luck upon us," Billy quickly silenced him and touched his medallion again.
The mention of Agra''s name instilled fear in their eyes, deepening Michael''s curiosity about this deity.
"Do you have any gold with you, John?" Micah suddenly inquired.
"I do," Michael responded, pulling out a few gold coins from his pocket, assuming they were asking for payment.
However, their surprise was evident as they saw the in gold coins in Michael''s hand.
"What kind of gold coins are these? There''s no crest or symbol on them," Billy observed.
"It''s raw gold," Leon added.
Putting the gold coins back in his pocket, he realized that the realm used different currencies, prompting him to convert his gold coins "John, you won''t be able to use these anywhere. If I were you, I''d try one of the dwarven banks and exchange them for Nimbosia currency," Micah advised.
"I''ll do that. Thanks for the heads-up," Michael nodded.
Putting the gold coins back in his pocket, he realized that the realm used different currencies, prompting him to convert his gold coins into something usable. Soon, the carriage entered a dense forest where the canopy offered some respite from the heavy rain.
"Hey John, do you happen to have a sword or something to defend yourself?" Billy''s sudden question took Michael by surprise.
"Yes," Michael nodded.
"Why do you ask?" Michael inquired.
"Nothing. Just curious," Billy evaded, though his tone held a trace of fear.
An eerie silence fell over the three of them as the sound of galloping horses grew louder. Michael remained quiet, his senses heightened. The forest appeared ordinary on the surface, like any he had seen in the mortal realm.
Yet, Michael''s heightened awareness alerted him to hidden hostiles. His keen sight allowed him to spot figures concealed behind trees and bushes, despite their attempts at hiding.
"I have a bad feeling, Micah," Billy''s voice quivered. Though he hadn''t revealed to Michael, whom he knew as John, that rumors had circted about Agra worshippers in this forest, he hoped they were mere rumors. These worshippers, known as vile bandits, wandered this realm without allegiance to any kingdom, driven solely by death and destruction to appease their god.
In silence, Michael observed these hidden figures in the forest, anticipating their move. As expected, trees on either side of the path suddenly crashed down, startling the horses. Michael gripped the carriage tightly, holding his position. But Billy, Micah, and Leon were thrown off.
Amidst themotion, cries of babies and the panicked voices of refugees echoed from inside the carriage. Figures d in pitch-ck robes emerged from the forest, surrounding the carriage from all sides.
"Stay still!"
"Don''t move!"
Their orders were apanied by the glint of crimson-red des.
Suddenly, a robed figure leaped onto the carriage and kicked Michael off. Pretending to stumble and fall, Michael yielded control of the carriage to the Agra worshippers. From his vantage point, he saw refugees, d in tattered clothes and clutching belongings in small pouches, emerging from the carriage. Babies were held tightly in their arms, trembling with fear and shock.
"Agra has favored us. We''re about to spill a lot of blood," one of the robed figures said with a sinister grin.
With cautious movements, Michael lifted himself up from the ground as the Agra worshippers directed the refugees out of the carriage. The refugees were lined up and forced to kneel down alongside Michael.
The refugees, their faces etched with shock and fear, cried out in a mixture of despair and desperation, pleading to the Agra worshippers to spare them.
"Please, we''re just innocent families!"
"I have a baby, please don''t hurt her!"
"Have mercy! We''ve lost everything!"
Tears streamed down their faces as they clung to one another, their voices trembling in terror. Their cries echoed in the forest, a heartbreaking chorus of anguish and vulnerability.
The Agra worshippers, however, showed no sign ofpassion. They reveled in the refugees'' suffering, theirughter ringing with a cruel edge.
"You think your pleas matter to us?"
"Pathetic mortals, your god won''t save you now!"
The worshippers taunted and jeered, their eyes glinting with sadistic delight. One of them raised his de high, the crimson-red steel reflecting the despair in the refugees'' eyes.
Billy, Micah, and Leon were dealt swift blows, their faces struck with punches and then thrown into the crowd. The Agra worshippers quickly snatched their weapons, disarming them. Michael managed to evade their attention since his weapons were concealed within his armor, and his simple brown robes masked his true identity.
The worshippers forced the refugees to sit in a row on their knees, their faces etched with terror and confusion.
"Let us go, you monsters! These are innocent people!" Billy''s voice rose in defiance.
The worshippers only responded with mockingughter, their faces twisted with sadistic amusement.
"Expecting mercy from us, are you? Insolent fools," sneered one of the worshippers, a heavily built man with a brutish demeanor.
[The host should start earning badass points by saving these refugees. You will need worshippers in the future, and this seems like a good ce to start your god hood]
Michael was taken aback when he suddenly heard a voice in his head¡ªthe system that urged him to earn "badass points" by saving the refugees, seeing it as a way to gather worshippers for his own future godhood.
The burly man leading the worshippers paused, his attention drawn to a red-haired woman clutching her baby and a little girl close. His gaze lingered on her, his intentions disturbingly evident.
He spoke with a perverse grin, "Agra would delight in me ughtering you three."
The man''s gaze lingered on the red-haired woman, his intentions evident. Michael sat beside her, waiting for the right moment to unleash his power upon the Agra worshippers.
Chapter 1066 God of Rains Kingdom
Chapter 1066 God of Rain''s Kingdom
The Agra worshipper raised his sword, causing the woman to close her eyes and clutch her baby tightly. Beside her, the little girl''s eyes squeezed shut in fear.
"NO!" Billy''s voice cracked with desperation as he tried to intervene.
But just as the sword seemed poised to strike, it froze mid-air. The Agra worshipper''s wrist was held firmly by a young man seated beside the intended victim. Another Agra worshipper approached with a mocking snicker, ready to attack the young man. However, his kicknded on the young man''s back, with no effect.
Under the young man''s grip, the first worshipper''s sword dropped, and the mother cautiously opened her eyes, observing the scene. She turned her gaze toward the young man, finding an unspoken reassurance in his eyes.
Amidst the refugees, shock was palpable as the young man dared to confront the Agra worshippers.
"Arghh!" the worshipper in the young man''s grip growled in pain.
Simultaneously, the one who had kicked the young man cried out in agony, clutching his injured leg. The mother, now facing the other Agra worshipper, witnessed the gruesome sight of the man''s twisted and bloodied leg.
"I am not ying hero," the young man finally spoke as he rose to his feet.
"I am ying god," he dered with a chilling snicker. With swift precision, he twisted the worshipper''s wrist, eliciting a scream of pain.
"Close your eyes, honey," the young man addressed the little girl, who obediently shut her eyes. In an instant, he unsheathed his dark sword and swiftly cleaved the worshipper in half. The grotesque halves thudded to the ground, showering the refugees in a gruesome spray of blood.
Screams of horror echoed from the horrified refugees, the image too much for them to bear.
The young man turned to face the Agra worshipper who had been relentlessly kicking him. This worshipper was now on the ground, his leg broken and painful.
Meanwhile, the remaining Agra worshippers surrounded the young man.
"Cut him into pieces!" they cried out, their sinister intentions clear.
Despite his reluctance to reveal his true power, Michael recognized that this situation called for immediate action. The system''s urging to save the refugees and potentially gain followers aligned with his own determination to rid the world of these Agra worshippers. Unbeknownst to him, this choice would set in motion a series of events that would lead him into a conflict with the cruel god Agra.
"John¡" Billy''s voice held a mix of surprise and respect as he observed the young man in a new light.
Michael exchanged a meaningful smile with the three who had aided the refugees. But his attention swiftly returned to the Agra worshippers, his expression hardening.
"Luck hasn''t favored you today. It''s death," Michael dered as two of the Agra worshippers lunged at him. Yet, in the blink of an eye, their heads were severed from their bodies. The refugees were unable toprehend the swift, otherworldly speed of Michael''s movements.
The remaining four Agra worshippers stood frozen in terror, sensing a power beyond their understanding but unaware of his true identity due to Marli''s medallion suppressing his godly aura.
"Bandits seem to be a constant problem, no matter which world I''m in," Michael mused, wiping the blood from his dark sword onto his arm.
"You¡ we¡" the Agra worshippers stammered, their fear rendering them speechless.
But before they could react, Michael lunged at them. In an instant, he cut down the remaining bandits as if they were mere obstacles. However, the leader of the Agra worshippers managed to take Billy hostage, using his sword to press against Billy''s neck and issuing a threat to Michael.
"If you dare take a step forward, I will cut open his throat!" thest Agra worshipper shouted, holding Billy hostage.
"What makes you think I''d give a damn about him?" Michael''s unexpected response not only stunned the Agra worshipper but also left Billy, Micah, and Leon in disbelief.
"John¡ please¡" Billy''s voice trembled, a desperate plea for his life.
"I''ll take him with me!" The Agra worshipper''s desperation pushed him to the brink of killing Billy. Yet, as he made a move, dark beams shot forth from Michael''s eyes, prating the Agra worshipper''s skull.
The worshipper''s body froze momentarily before copsing to the ground with a heavy thud. The refugees looked on, suddenly realizing that Michael was more than he appeared to be. While many in this worldcked cultivation or power, those blessed by the gods possessed the potential for such abilities. However, among them, only a fortunate few could attain higher levels of cultivation, let alone be an angel. Wealth, much like in the mortal realm, also yed a pivotal role in cultivation.
But it had never urred to them that they might encounter a god in the flesh.
As the lifeless bodies of the Agra worshippersy in pools of their own blood, a new light shone upon Michael in the eyes of the refugees. Billy, Micah, and Leon approached him, their expressions a mix of fear and gratitude. The refugees, though slowly rising to their feet, still trembled from the shock of their near-death experience at the hands of the Agra worshippers.
"Who are you?" Billy''s voice wavered with a blend of apprehension and thankfulness.
"For now, that''s not important. Just remember this day," Michael replied calmly. He had no intention of unveiling his true identity just yet, even though the system was encouraging him to gather worshippers.
Aware of his own current weaknesspared to the higher-level gods and their angels, Michael chose to focus on learning about this world and growing stronger before facing them.
"We should go before more of them show up," he suggested.
"Thank you¡" The woman who had been on the brink of death at the hands of the Agra worshippers approached Michael, her voiceced with gratitude.
To Michael''s surprise, he felt an unfamiliar surge of power within himself. Although it didn''t trigger any notifications from the system, he sensed its potency.
"What is this feeling?" Michael questioned himself.
[That is the power of reverence. The more worshippers you gather, the more your power will grow. Unlike you, who possess the system to gain strength, typical gods in this world tap into the power of worship to be stronger.] The system revealed this new aspect to Michael.
Unbeknownst to him, the realm of gods operated on a diverse scale of power and cultivation methods, a far cry from the straightforward dynamics of the mortal realm. Each god, and even mortals, followed distinct cultivation rules. Michael, being a god, had the ability to harness the power of worshippers.
This power, however, could be derived not only from devoted worship but also from the grip of fear. The god Agra, in particr, drew strength from the terror of death and destruction, setting him apart from many other deities.
Michael''s introspective moment was abruptly interrupted by a resonating p of thunder. His gaze shot upwards, where a streak of crimson red lightning shed across the sky. A familiar sight, akin to the lightning he had witnessed while with Darth, signaled to Michael that the more he employed his powers, the closer he drew the attention of the pantheon.
"Stay calm. Your focus should be on reaching Nimbosia and starting a new life," Michael reassured the shaken woman, motioning for the rest of the refugees to return to the safety of the carriage.
"Let''s go," he directed, leaping back onto the carriage''s roof, mirroring his earlier stance.
As the three drivers resettled themselves, the journey to Nimbosia, the realm of Rainar, the God of Rain, resumed.
[Prepare yourself, God of Darkness. Your life is about to be significantly moreplicated and challenging] Michael was caught off guard by the system''s voice echoing in his mind.
He peered into his pockets and found Vedora''s eyes fixed on him, yet the hydra remained silent. Something seemed to be troubling Vedora, but the creature refrained from voicing its concerns.
The journey continued in quietude until the carriage finally emerged from the forest''s embrace. Before Michael stretched a kingdom unlike any he had everid eyes upon. Towering stone walls shielded the cityscape beyond, masking its inner structures from view. Amidst this, a remarkable sight caught his attention: a grand edifice constructed from ss and adorned with gold ents. What struck Michael even more profoundly was the spectacle above the kingdom.
Clusters of clouds had congregated, forming a colossal hand-like shape that generously showered rain upon the entire expanse. A river flowed around the city, its waters swelled by the constant downpour. However, what puzzled Michael was the conspicuous absence of thunderps or lightning streaks amidst the rainfall.
"Nimbosia," Michael muttered softly, his eyes fixed on the distant cityscape on the horizon.
"I hope they manage to find a better life behind those walls," Micah sighed, his eyes reflecting the skepticism born from witnessing the struggles of refugees. Often, their pursuit of a more promising life in a different kingdom ended up leading to even harsher circumstances. Such neers were frequently regarded as burdens, and their existence came with hardships.
"I believe they will," Michael replied. Though he had no intention of taking on the role of their savior or ying the virtuous hero, he had a strong intuition that the refugees might indeed find better lives within the confines of Nimbosia''s walls. Moreover, he was determined to uncover a way to challenge or vanquish a god; when that moment arrived, Rainar and the rest of the gods would have no choice but to bow before his might.
As the carriage progressed toward the city gates, Michael''s attention remained fixed on the sky. He pondered the extent of Rainar''s power, marveling at the massive hand conjuring torrents of rain upon the kingdom. A deeper curiosity gnawed at him ¨C why Rainar would subject his own citizens to such relentless punishment.
"Think we''ll cross paths again?" Billy''s inquiry interrupted Michael''s thoughts.
"You better hope not," Michael quipped, a hint of humor in his tone.
Before Billy could respond, a deafening p of thunder roared through the air. The sound was so intense, so terrifying, that it reverberated through the carriage, rattling its very frame. Michael instinctively looked skyward, his gaze tracing the trail of a lightning bolt slicing through the heavens. From that brilliant streak, a group of figures adorned in shimmering blue armor and boasting resplendent blue wings emerged, suspended in the sky.
"Kranar''s angels," Billy muttered, his voiceced with unmistakable fear.
In the wake of their appearance, Michael spotted yet another cluster of angels ascending from within the city''s walls. Their wings were gray, their armor a somber shade of the same hue. With his keen eyes, Michael observed both groups of angels hovering in mid-air, poised for an imminent sh.
"Damn it. We''ve got to get inside before they go all oute," Billy eximed urgently, snapping the reins to hasten the horses'' pace toward the safety of the city''s embrace.
Chapter 1067 Angels of Goddess Ava
Chapter 1067 Angels of Goddess Ava
Observing the celestial skirmish above, Billy snapped the reins in a bid to propel the carriage forward. Meanwhile, high in the heavens, the azure-d angels of Kranar shed with their gray-armored counterparts serving Rainar. Kranar''s angels wielded weapons hewn from frozen lightning, while Rainar''s emissaries brandished des forged of ice.
"Damn it!" Billy''s exmation resounded as the tempestuous winds intensified due to the celestial battle unfolding overhead.
Within the carriage, Michael felt the mounting strength of the gale slow the horses'' progress. Soon, the carriage swayed precariously, tilting to one side under the onught of the storm''s fury.
"The wind is too strong!" Micah shouted as they struggled to maintain their bnce.
Reacting swiftly, Michael leapt to the ground and, with a determined effort, managed to steady the listing carriage. As he grappled with the vehicle, a bolt of lightning conjured by Kranar''s angels struck perilously close, mere meters away.
"Fucking morons. They are going to kill everyone in this carriage," Ayag''s frustrated voice emanated from Michael''s coat.
"You should use your powers and carry the carriage to the city gates," Sarba''s counsel urged Michael to draw upon his abilities.
Yet, Michael resisted, wary of unveiling his godly powers and potentially alerting the pantheon. While he exerted himself to keep the carriage upright, a curious jade radiance caught his attention in the sky above. Raising his gaze, Michael discerned an elven figure with undting green tresses, porcinplexion, and robes the hue of jade. Adorned with verdant wings, the ethereal being gracefully descended beside him.
"Who are you?" Michael inquired, feigning his struggle to stabilize the swaying carriage.
Unperturbed by his query, the green-haired elf favored him with a serene smile. Gently waving her hands, she conjured an emerald bubble that enveloped the carriage. Without dy, she seized Michael''s hand, initiating an ascent towards the sky. As the horses neighed in distress, the elf directed a calming breeze their way, pacifying the agitated animals.
Soon, the carriage, shielded by the elven enchantment, began to rise into the sky. Michael and the elf shared a prolonged gaze, yet neither uttered a single word. Safeguarded by the elf''s intervention, they ascended toward the city through the azure expanse.
Within the city''s protective walls, the scene that met Michael''s gaze was one of destion. Except for the imposing structure crafted from ss and adorned with gilded embellishments, the remainder of the kingdom appeared haphazardly constructed, resembling a sprawling slum. Buildings stood crammed together without any semnce of a n, devoid of side alleys or spacing. These houses appeared weathered, ancient, and poised to crumble at any given moment.
The narrow streetsy deserted, and a putrid odor permeated the air, further intensified by the incessant downpour. Amid this grim setting, the celestial battle raged on in the heavens, where lightning streaks and frosty des shed. The impact of their skirmish toppled a few buildings, their copse apanied by heart-rending cries from within.
Inquiring about the chaos below, Michael turned to the green-haired woman. "Aren''t you going to intervene?"
Her response was calm. "They will tend to them."
Michael''s gaze descended, observing the emergence of green-robed figures rushing to the scene. These elves, emanating a dim green radiance, initiated rescue operations, pulling people from the debris. However, some among them shook their heads, signaling that not all had been fortunate enough to survive.
As Michael lifted his eyes, the celestial conflict continued unabated, the battling angels seemingly heedless of the city''s inhabitants. Michael reflected on his own experiences in Nagnd, where he too had fought without considering the well-being of the citizens. Yet, the Guardian Guild had been there to evacuate people. Here, however, these citizenscked such protection.
Gradually, the elven woman guided the carriage''s descent, and they alighted before a structure fashioned from verdant stones.
"Escort the refugees into the temple," the elven woman instructed Micah, Billy, and Leon. To Michael''s surprise, theyplied without question, immediately springing into action.
"Rest within the temple. You must be exhausted," the elven woman suggested, her hand moving towards Michael''s forehead. However, before she could touch him, Michael intercepted her wrist.
"I''m fine," Michael reassured her.
The elf smiled, recognizing the apprehension in Michael''s eyes regarding her true identity.
"Come with me into the temple," the elven woman invited, leading the way as Michael followed. The refugees conveyed their gratitude with nods, silently acknowledging Michael''s presence as he apanied the elf into the temple.
Inside, soft candlelight illuminated the space, permeated by a delicate, soothing fragrance. Yet, what truly astonished Michael was the temple''s interior spaciousness. It was as though some enchantment, possibly runes, had been employed to manipte the very fabric of space, rendering the temple considerably more expansive within than its exterior dimensions suggested.
Within this temple sanctuary, injured refugees rested on the floor, tended to by green-robed elves who skillfully attended to their wounds.
"You don''t appear to be a typical refugee or someone in need of assistance. What is your story?" the elf inquired, her tone gentle.
"You haven''t introduced yourself either," Michael responded, his curiosity piqued.
"I am Fayeth, an angel of Ava, the goddess of healing," the elf revealed.
Michael pondered for a few moments, his thoughts turning over. After some contemtion, he made up his mind to enlist Fayeth''s assistance in locating Marli''s worshippers. Ensuring the safe passage of Marli''s followers back to her was paramount, as it required finding the individual among them who possessed an artifact from Marli, capable of opening a portal to her forest.
"I''m John. I''vee here to find the worshippers of Goddess Marli," Michael revealed, his decision finally made after careful consideration.
"Worshippers of Goddess Marli?" Fayeth appeared surprised, yet a swift assessment of Michael seemed to provide her with some insight.
"You don''t strike me as Marli''s typical angel," Fayethmented, a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Marli''s angel," Michael thought wryly to himself.
"I''m not. I just need to locate them and ensure they escape Nimbosia before they''re caught in the crossfire of the angelic battle," Michael exined, gesturing towards the temple''s shuddering walls, a consequence of the ongoing celestial conflict.
"Do you happen to know where I can find Marli''s worshippers?" Michael inquired.
In response, Fayeth let out a sigh, her eyes briefly revealing a glint of sorrow that Michael couldn''t ignore.
"Unfortunately, I do know. However, it won''t be a straightforward task to locate them," Fayeth replied.
Michael sighed in acknowledgment.
"Believe me, nothing in my lifees easy," Michael''s sigh carried the weight of his experiences.
"If you don''t mind my asking, why are you extending aid to Goddess Marli?" Fayeth''s curiosity prompted her to question Michael''s motives.
"Just repaying a debt," Michael offered, opting to keep his motivations guarded. The truth was, his intention behind helping Marli was to secure her alliance. In the impending struggles against Dagon and the pantheon, Michael knew he required allies, given that most gods wouldn''t readily side with the God of Darkness. Gaining allies was crucial for his cause.
Fayeth''s nod was slow and contemtive, but her eyes betrayed a sense of skepticism about Michael. As a non-god, she couldn''t naturally discern his true nature; at most, she might assume he was an angel or a formidable higher-level cultivator. To consider him a god would require witnessing the full extent of his powers, something he wasn''t eager to reveal.
"Where can I find them?" Michael inquired, directing the conversation back to the matter at hand.
"They''re being held in Rainar''s temple," Fayeth replied with a hint of sadness in her voice.
Michael''s intuition wasn''t wrong; there was an undercurrent of trouble in the situation.
"It doesn''t sound promising," he prodded further.
"It''s not. God Rainar is losing ground to Kranar in their celestial conflict. He''s desperate for continuous worship, hence the city''s emptiness," Fayeth exined, her tone carrying a mix of sympathy and disdain.
"Under the king''s orders, Rainar''s loyal follower, theckey, hasmanded the citizens to remain indoors and worship Rainar fervently. Meanwhile, Marli''s worshippers have been forcibly taken to Rainar''s temple and are being coerced into bing his followers," Fayeth revealed, a touch of disgust in her words. In the realm of gods, converting one god''s worshippers into another''s was considered a malevolent act. However, if the targeted god wasn''t part of the pantheon, their actions against each other''s followers often went unnoticed by the higher powers. As Marli wasn''t part of the pantheon and Rainar was, thetter could impose his authority over Marli''s worshippers without much consequence.
"How does that process work? Are they subjected to mind control or some other maniption?" Michael''s curiosity prompted him to inquire.
"That''s certainly possible, but I don''t believe they''ve reached that stage yet. It''s more likely they are undergoing physical torment," Fayeth responded.
For a brief moment, Michael fell into contemtion, mentally recording the information he''d received. Yet, abruptly, Fayeth''s words trailed off, and her gaze fixed on him.
"But you don''t need to delve into those specifics. Rescuing them from Rainar''s temple is a nearly impossible feat. Even the king would have little sway in this matter. My advice is to turn around and leave the kingdom," Fayeth suggested.
Caught between his curiosity and hismitment to saving Marli''s worshippers, Michael hesitated momentarily. Ultimately, he decided to embrace the risk and venture into the temple himself.
The driving force behind Michael''s decision was his pursuit of badass points. He recognized that ying it overly safe and timid wouldn''t earn him the kind of recognition he desired.
"At the very least, I can assess the situation. If it proves too risky, I''ll ry the message to Marli," Michael affirmed. His casual reference to Goddess Marli sparked a flicker of uncertainty within Fayeth.
"Well, I can''t prevent you from aiding those in need. It''s not in Goddess Ava''s nature to inhibit such actions," Fayeth acknowledged.
As another tremor rumbled through the air, Michael couldn''t help but ask, "Any idea when this war might stop?" The intensity of the angels'' battle was palpable, escting with each passing second.
"I truly don''t know. The timeline depends on the pantheon''s intervention. It''s umon for them to stand aloof during a confrontation between two of their own," Fayeth replied, her tone tinged with doubt and hesitation.
The more Michael learned about the pantheon, the deeper his confusion grew. Something seemed to be diverting the pantheon''s attention from their responsibilities. While the pantheon was undoubtedly engaged in handling Dagon, the fact remained that Dagon couldn''t yet breach the realm of gods. This led Michael to question what force could be holding the pantheon back from fulfilling their duties and what might be preventing the gods from abandoning their domains.
Chapter 1068 Being the stealthy assassin once again
Chapter 1068 Being the stealthy assassin once again
When night descended upon Nimbosia, Michael emerged from Goddess Ava''s temple, bidding farewell to Fayeth. The sh between the angels still raged above, filling the sky with streaks of lightning and bursts of thunder. The shes of Kranar''s angels'' lightning illuminated Michael''s path as he walked.
"Thankfully, the streets are clear of citizens," Ayag quipped from within Michael''s coat pocket. To blend into the darkness, Michael had swapped his earlier brown robes for a ck coat over his armor.
"These gods and angels seem like real troublemakers," Sarba grumbled.
"Nithroel did mention that the realm of gods is far worse than the mortal realm," Michael recalled as he moved along the rooftops, carefully avoiding the gaze of the battling angels.
After several tense minutes, Michael reached the imposing temple. Close up, it appeared even grander and more imposing than from a distance. The entire structure was constructed from ss, adorned with opulent gold ents. The ss bore a deep ck tint that prevented Michael from peering inside with his naked eyes.
Utilizing his X-ray vision, Michael spotted Rainar''s angels patrolling around the temple''s exterior.
"There''s someone inside, tied to a chair and being subjected to torture," Michael murmured, his X-ray vision revealing a figure bound in the center of the temple. However, the features of the figure remained obscured.
"It''s likely one of Marli''s worshippers," Ayag surmised.
Agreeing, Michael inched closer to the temple. His inherent ability as the god of darkness rendered him nearly invisible in shadowy ces¡ªthis wasn''t considered the use of his powers, just a natural attribute.
Blending into the darkness, Michael stealthily approached the temple. However, the main entrance was nked by two gray-armored guards, their level of cultivation hidden from Michael''s view. To discern such details, he would require a specific skill from the system or a rare artifact native to this realm.
"We obviously can''t barge through the main door," Ayag suggested, ncing upwards and spotting an opening.
"Perhaps we could fly in through that window," Ayag suggested, but Sarba quickly dismissed the idea.
"No, I sense the presence of runes around us," Sarba interjected.
Activating his X-ray eyes, Michael spotted shimmering runes in their vicinity. Thanks to his time spent with Elidyr, the aplished six-star runemaster, he could faintly recognize the symbols.
"These runes have been ced here to prevent anyone from flying around the temple," Michael exined.
"You saw the runes? Are they simr to the runes in the mortal realm?" Ayag inquired with curiosity.
"Not exactly, but there are some simrities," Michael replied.
"Then how do you n to ascend?" Ayag pressed, to which Michael grinned and rolled up his sleeves, revealing the Mark 3 grappling hook on his forearm.
With a swift motion, he aimed at the edge above and fired the grappling hook. The hook firmly caught onto the edge, propelling Michael upwards.
Inside the temple, Michael crouched on the edge of a beam, peering down at the scene below. Carefully navigating along the beams that stretched across the ceiling, he observed the activity below.
"That doesn''t look like Marli''s worshippers, unless her followers dress like kings," Ayag noted with a frown. Michael concurred and focused on the man being tortured. d in red robes embellished with precious gems and adorned with a gold crown, the man was a stark contrast to what Marli''s worshippers would appear to be.
"You failed your master..." the hulking brute, an orc with pale green skin, taunted the man tied to the chair. Towering at seven feet, the orc exuded an imposing and fearsome aura.
"Please... I have nothing but loyalty towards His Grace! Please..." the man pleaded desperately.
"How is it then, that His Grace''s carriage was attacked by Kranar''s angels? Don''t you know what it carried?" the orc questioned, running his fingers across the man''s face.
"His Grace made you the king of Nimbosia, entrusting you with the protection of his possessions. Now that you''ve failed, why should His Grace spare you?" the orc jeered. Michael''s suspicions were confirmed, but he was taken aback by the revtion.
"The king?" Michael murmured in shock.
"Please... His Grace mustmand his angels to find the culprits..." the king implored, but the orc''sughter resounded.
"Hahaha, what did you think His Grace was? An investigator? No, His Grace doesn''t stoop to that. It''s your fault the carriage went missing, and you will pay the price," the orc dered, apuding mockingly. With a wave of his hand, a leather bag materialized over the king''s head.
"No... no... no..." the king''s panic grew, and he struggled against the ropes that bound his arms and legs. The orc grinned and kicked the chair, sending the king crashing to the ground, his face shrouded by the leather bag.
"Let me enlighten you on what''s about to unfold¡ªjust to pass the time," the orc chuckled with sadistic glee.
Unbeknownst to both the orc and the temple''s guards, Michael silently bore witness to the brutal scene from his hidden vantage point above.
The orc leaned closer to the king, his voice dripping with cruelty. "You see, Your Majesty, there''s a method by which each drop of water can feel like a de, a relentless torment that chips away at your sanity. A drip here, a drip there, it doesn''t seem like much, does it?"
The king''s muffled protests and frantic breathing were barely audible beneath the leather bag that covered his head. He squirmed against the ropes binding him to the chair, his body trembling with a mixture of fear and desperation.
"Drip...drip...drip," the orc continued with a sadistic rhythm. "The anticipation bes unbearable as you wait for that next drop to fall. The cold sensation slices through your thoughts, shattering your mind bit by bit."
The king''s pleas for mercy became more frantic, his voice strained and cracking with desperation. He tugged at his restraints, his struggles growing more violent as he tried to free himself from the torment that awaited him.
"Please, I beg you! Mercy!" the king''s voice wavered, his words punctuated by the erratic rhythm of the orc''s description.
"Drip...drip...drip," the orc repeated, his tone unyielding. "And as time stretches on, the drops be a constant reminder of your helplessness. Your mind races, seeking respite that neveres."
The king''s struggles intensified, his body wracked with the anguish of his impending torture. He twisted and contorted in a desperate attempt to escape, his fear palpable even through the leather bag.
"Make it stop! I''ll do anything, anything you ask!" the king pleaded, his voice breaking under the weight of his terror.
The orc''s malicious grin widened as he relished the king''s torment. "Ah, but you see, Your majesty, this is the fate you''ve chosen for yourself. The choice to fail, to disappoint His Grace, led you to this moment."
The king''s cries of desperation grew louder, his pleas echoing off the walls of the temple. His body convulsed as if each drop of imaginary water struck him with searing intensity.
"Drip...drip...drip," the orc''s voice continued, a chilling refrain that underscored the king''s agony.
Tears mixed with sweat as the king''s struggles weakened, his strength fading under the weight of the mental torture he was subjected to. The anticipation of each nonexistent drop had fractured his resolve, driving him to the brink of madness.
And in the shadows above, Michael watched in grim silence, his heart heavy with a mixture of pity and shock at the cruel scene unfolding below.
The orc meticulously created a small hole beneath the leather bag, a hole so tiny that it allowed only a solitary droplet to escape at irregr intervals. Michael''s keen eyes picked up on a rune etched onto the leather, a rune responsible for randomizing the timing of each water droplet''s descent.
As the first droplet touched the king''s forehead, his agonized scream reverberated throughout the temple. The sound was visceral, as if he had been struck by a hammer. The orc, his face twisted into a sadistic grin, delighted in the torment he was inflicting.
He shifted his gaze toward the soldiers standing nearby, their grim expressions betraying no emotion.
"Once this old fool''s sufferinges to an end, take care of Marli''s worshippers," the orcmanded before vanishing from the temple in an instant.
The soldiers, with silent obedience, acknowledged his orders without a word. They continued their patrols, moving stealthily through the temple''s halls. Amidst the tense atmosphere, the only sounds that punctuated the air were the haunting echoes of water droplets and the king''s anguished screams. Michael recognized the method well ¨C it was the dreaded "dripping machine" used for torture on Earth.
The realization that such a method was being employed in this world left Michael taken aback.
"Are we going to save him?" Ayag''s voice trembled with uncertainty.
"It depends on how much he could help us. But truthfully, there''s little point in rescuing him," Michael''s tone turned cold and calcting.
As he considered the idea of saving the king, Michael knew it was a futile endeavor. Even if he were to intervene, Rainar would simply rece the king with another pawn. Moreover, leaving the king alive could risk betrayal and expose his intentions.
"So, how do you n to rescue Marli''s worshippers?" Ayag inquired.
"With good old-fashioned methods: eliminate everyone except one, and then extract information from him," Michael''s smile was chilling in its intent.
With that, he unsheathed his dark swords. Positioning himself on the beams, he watched the soldiers below with the aura of a deadly assassin. His dark armor and hair, fluttering in the air, added an air of lethal charm to his presence.
Michael''s de swiftly dispatched the unfortunate soldier who happened to be directly beneath the beam where he crouched. After ensuring no prying eyes were upon him, he descended from the beam, striking the soldier through the head from behind. With the lifeless body in tow, he returned to his concealed vantage point above.
"Quite swift," Ayag couldn''t help but be impressed by Michael''s efficiency.
"Ever since I started relying on spells and powers, I forgot how satisfying it is to take someone down with old-fashioned stealth," Michael remarked, a touch of nostalgia in his voice.
"One down, eight to go," Michael said, cracking his neck. The cacophony of the king''s screams and the ongoing battle among the angels provided the necessary cover for Michael''s actions. Oblivious to their impending fate, the gray-armored soldiers continued their patrol within the temple premises.
Chapter 1069 God of Death
Chapter 1069 God of Death
With practiced precision, Michael began his silent takedown of the remaining soldiers. He observed their patrol routes carefully, noting the patterns they followed. Each soldier had a specific path to walk, and Michael exploited this predictability to his advantage.
As the king''s agonized screams echoed through the temple, Michael moved swiftly and silently along the beams, using the shadows to his advantage. His dark armor seemed to merge with the darkness, making him nearly invisible. His movements were fluid, like a ghost gliding through the air.
The second soldier walked beneath him, and Michael seized the opportunity. He dropped down, his de finding its mark before the soldier could react. The body was quickly hauled up onto the beam, out of sight.
Michael approached the third soldier''s path, timing his movements to coincide with the soldier''s turn. Just as the soldier passed beneath him, Michael executed a swift and precise strike. A paralyzing poison coated his de, ensuring the soldier wouldn''t raise an rm. He repeated this tactic with the next two soldiers, eliminating them swiftly and silently.
With four soldiers down, Michael continued his deadly dance with the remaining four. He watched them closely, studying their patrol routes and waiting for the right moment. His movements were calcted, his strikes precise. He utilized abination of poisons, stealth, and the element of surprise to neutralize each threat.
As Michael''s swift de dispatched the sixth soldier, he noticed a shift in the king''s screams. Amidst the pained cries, the king''s voice took on a note of desperation.
"Help... please... anyone..."
The pleas for assistance were a grim reminder of the man''s suffering. But Michael''s focus remained on his task. He moved with practiced ease, utilizing the ceiling beams to both hide the bodies and ascend higher within the temple.
For the seventh soldier, Michael employed another paralyzing poison. The soldier''s movements became sluggish, his eyes widening in realization before he fell to the ground, lifeless. Michael quickly disposed of the body and continued his ascent.
The eighth soldier''s patrol route brought him close to the king. The king''s muffled cries grew more desperate as Michael approached. Michael''s de struck true, and the soldier fell silently. Michael''s movements were swift, precise, and calcted, avoiding any unnecessary noise or spilling of blood.
Finally, only one soldier remained. Michael watched the soldier''s route, biding his time. He needed information, and this soldier would provide it. As the soldier approached, Michael opted for a different approach. He used a dart coated in a sleeping agent, rendering the soldier unconscious without killing him.
With the temple now devoid of threats, Michael turned his attention to the unconscious soldier remaining. The king''s desperate pleas for help fell on deaf ears as Michael moved swiftly and efficiently. He needed answers, and this soldier held the key.
gruesome scene. He needed a secure location for the impending interrogation.
Ignoring the king''s cries, Michael hoisted the unconscious soldier over his shoulder, his steps silent as he moved away from the gruesome scene. He needed a secure location for the impending interrogation.
In a secluded chamber, Michaelid the soldier down. The man stirred groggily, his eyes widening in shock as he took in his surroundings and the dark figure before him.
"Who... who are you?" the soldier stammered, fear evident in his voice.
Michael''s helmeted gaze remained steady. "That''s not important right now. What I need to know is the whereabouts of Marli''s worshippers."
The soldier''s confusion deepened. "Marli? I don''t know what you''re talking about."
Michael''s patience was wearing thin. He knew how to break even the most stubborn individuals. From his equipment, he produced a small syringe containing a pain-enhancing substance. Injecting it into the soldier''s arm, he watched as difort twisted the man''s features.
The soldier''s eyes shot open, and he tried to cry out, but Michael swiftly ced his gloved hand over the man''s mouth. "Listen carefully. I''m only going to ask once. Where are Marli''s worshippers being held?"
The soldier squirmed and wriggled his legs, a mixture of fear and pain evident on his face. He nced at Michael with wide, terrified eyes, and finally, he gave a reluctant nod.
"In the secret room beneath the temple," the soldier admitted, his voice trembling.
"How do I ess it?" Michael''s tone was icy, his patience hanging by a thread.
The soldier pointed a trembling finger at a seemingly ordinarymp fixed to the wall. "Rotate themp clockwise, and a passage will open."
Michael''s dark eyes narrowed as he processed the information. He could tell the soldier was telling the truth, but he had one more card to y. "Remember, I can easily end your life if you''re lying to me."
The soldier''s lips quivered, his gaze locking onto Michael''s helmet. "You have no idea what you''ve done. You''ll regret this."
A mirthless smile tugged at the corner of Michael''s lips. "I''ve done many regrettable things. Your fate is just another one."
With a swift, decisive motion, Michael silenced the soldier forever, ending his life. He didn''t have time for further hesitation or sentimentality. The soldier''s usefulness hade to an end, and Marli''s worshippers awaited his rescue.
"Ghost, I sense someone approaching us¡someone powerful," Sarba''s warning reached Michael''s ears, though his own scans had failed to detect any presence.
Suddenly, all the lights within the temple were extinguished by an unseen force. The temple''s heavy doors sealed shut with a muffled thud. In the darkness, Michael witnessed the guards stationed at the entrance copse. His attention then turned back to the king, whose agonized cries continued to pierce the air.
Just as he was about to move, a cold sensation brushed against his armor. A voice, dripping with a deadly aura, slithered from behind him.
"Well, well, well¡ What do we have here?" The voice was sneaky yetced with danger. Michael felt a de pressing against his armor, testing its strength. He tightened his grip on his dark swords, ready for any sudden moves. He knew he was dealing with a formidable opponent, one who had managed to approach undetected.
"Thank you for adding a touch of excitement to this dreary temple," the man''s tone was oddly amused. He continued to exert pressure on the de, but Michael''s armor held firm.
"Nice armor," the manmented, acknowledging the challenge Michael''s defenses presented.
"Who are you?" Michael''s voice was firm, his gaze locked on the figure behind him. He made no sudden movements, recognizing the threat this stranger posed.
"An assassin of your caliber should know that the one holding the de tends to be the one asking questions. You''ve orchestrated quite the spectacle here, a masterful disy of assassination without alerting the guards. But I must admit, I''m more intrigued by you," the man''s words dripped with intrigue and a twisted sense of admiration.
Pushing Michael slightly forward, the unseen assassin allowed him to pivot around, facing his enigmatic adversary. As he turned, the veil of invisibility was lifted, revealing the assassin in all his sinister glory. Cloaked in dark crimson robes, the figure emanated an aura of malevolence. In his hand gleamed a blood-red dagger, its edges glinting ominously.
Michael''s gaze was drawn to a strand of raven-ck hair that cascaded from under the hood, framing a face that remained enshrouded in shadow. Yet, what caught Michael''s attention were the eyes¡ªglistening with a crimson hue that seemed to pierce through the darkness.
"Well, this is an unexpected twist," the assassin''s voice was silk and steelbined, a blend of amusement and intrigue. "I hadn''t anticipated stumbling upon a fellow practitioner of the art."
A wry smile tugged at Michael''s lips. "So, what gave it away? The dark attire, the des, or the fact that I''m sneaking around a guarded temple?"
The assassin''s smile grew devilish, a gleam in his red-tinted eyes. "Oh, it''s more than just appearances. There''s a certain energy about those who walk in the shadows. A familiarity, a kinship. It takes one to know one, you see."
Michael cracked his neck and regarded the assassin. "So, what''s the next act in this little performance?"
The assassin''s smile remained, a mixture of amusement and something else that was hard to decipher. "Don''t worry, I''m not here to kill you," he replied, his voice dripping with a sense of detached amusement. "You''re not my target."
Michael''s eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. "Then who¡ª"
The assassin''s gaze shifted to the king, who was still bound and writhing in agony. "He called for my god, and my god sent me to answer his prayers."
With a sudden blur of motion, the assassin moved around the temple, his figure bing a fluid dance of shadows. Michael''s eyes struggled to track his every movement. The assassin''s voice echoed through the temple,ced with a mocking tone. "You''re good, but you need to work on your speed and efficiency."
As the assassin continued to dart around, his voice reached Michael, amused yet oddly sincere. "I''ll have my eyes on you, friend. And if there''s an opening in my house, I might give you a heads-up."
Confusion filled Michael''s expression. "What house?"
The assassin''s smile deepened. "You''ll know when the timees."
A question burned in Michael''s mind. "The king Rainar''s worshipper. Did Rainar send you?"
The assassin''sughter filled the air, a chilling sound that seemed to reverberate through the darkness. "Oh, the king now wants nothing but death. He calls for death, and my god sent me to answer his prayers."
A frown creased Michael''s forehead. "Your god?"
The assassin''s amusement was evident as he replied, "I am an angel of death."
Chapter 1070 New System Functionality
Chapter 1070 New System Functionality
Michael''s frown deepened as he processed the revtion that the assassin before him was indeed an angel of death. The shock was palpable on his face, and the assassin seemed to take amusement in it.
"Normally, encountering an angel of death would be your final moment," the assassin taunted, a smugness underlying his words. "But for you, I''ll make an exception."
"Why?" Michael''s curiosity pushed him to question, seeking understanding. However, before an answer came, the assassin''s movement caught him off guard. In a blur of blue, the assassin appeared behind Michael. Reacting swiftly, Michael spun around, only to see the assassin swiftly retreat a few feet away.
"He''s showing off," Ayag muttered, clearly unimpressed.
The assassin then took a moment to showcase his eerie fascination with his dagger. Licking its surface with an almost sickening relish, he charged at Michael with the dagger held high. Michael''s instincts took over, and he raised his dark sword to block the iing strike.
"Slow," the assassin remarked casually, as he attempted a swift sh toward Michael''s throat. Reacting with lightning reflexes, Michael bent backward, his body forming a near-perfect arc to evade the dagger''s edge. He countered with a powerful swing of his leg, aiming a kick at the assassin.
"Nice flexibility," the assassinmented, sounding like he was critiquing a performance.
In the blink of an eye, the assassin leaped into the air, disappearing from Michael''s direct line of sight.
"Where is he, can you sense him Sarba?" Ayag asked, remaining in Michael''s ck coat,
"No," Sarba said.
Sarba''s inability to sense the assassin''s location added to the challenge. Michael activated his x-ray vision, scanning his surroundings for any trace of the elusive opponent. Yet, the assassin managed to surprise him once again, materializing above his head.
Reacting on pure instinct, Michael lunged backward, narrowly evading the assassin''s aerial attack. The assassin adjusted his trajectory with uncanny agility, delivering a powerful kick to Michael''s chest that sent him hurtling through the air.
Gritting his teeth, Michael quickly regained his bearings, using his momentum to stabilize himself. He charged forward, channeling every ounce of his physical speed into his movements. His dark swords sliced through the air with deadly precision, a testament to hisbat prowess.
"You''re quite the swordsman, but your skill with other weapons could use work," the assassin casually critiqued Michael''s swordsmanship.
With an effortless grace, the assassin deftly dodged and parried Michael''s attacks. Abruptly, he halted his movements, his gaze locking onto Michael as a smile graced his lips.
"I''ll be keeping an eye on you," the assassin''s words hung in the air, a promise of future encounters before he vanished from sight. The next moment, he materialized beside the king, who was still lost in his agonized screams.
The king''s frantic cries for help seemed to take no notice of the angel of death at his side. Michael watched, a silent observer, as the assassin''s de traced chilling lines across the king''s face. The sensation of the cold de seemed to snap the king back from the brink of madness.
"Who¡ who are you¡" the king''s trembling voice quivered with fear, but his question was cut short by the swift, brutal motion of the assassin''s de. Blood sprayed, the king''s gurgled attempt at speech silenced as his throat was ruthlessly cut. The pool of red expanded beneath the lifeless form.
As the angel of death rose from the king''s body, his gaze locked onto Michael''s. The temple seemed to hang heavy with the stench of death. The assassin''s words were a chilling warning as he spoke directly to Michael.
"This temple reeks of death. Don''t disappoint me by dying," his voice carried a hint of amusement and finality. A dark crimson-red smoke enveloped the assassin, obscuring him from view. And then, as quickly as he had appeared, the smoke dissipated into nothingness, taking the angel of death with it.
After the angel of death''s departure, Michael''s brow furrowed, and he pivoted toward themp as the assassin had instructed. The prospect of the temple "reeking of death" weighed heavily on his thoughts, a mystery he intended to unravel. For now, his purpose was clear ¨C to investigate the hidden path that might lead him to Marli''s worshippers.
Sarba''s voice carried a heavy undertone as he questioned, "What did he mean by ''reeking of death''?"
The query echoed in the air, joined by Ayag''s curiosity. "And why did he say you''re quite the swordsman, but your skill with other weapons could use work? How can he know you suck at other weapons?" Ayag''s curiosity danced with a touch of mischief, almost prompting Michael to swat her yfully on the head, were it not for their grim circumstances.
"We will find out," Michael responded with a steady calmness. He approached themp and, following the soldier''s instructions, turned it. A low, ominous creak echoed as a hidden door opened before him.
The revealed passage led downward into darkness, and as Michael descended, the air seemed to grow heavier with the scent of blood. It stirred a growing unease within him. Despite his internal tension, he pushed forward, the need to locate Marli''s worshippers driving him.
"We should be on high alert," Sarba''s cautionary words were apt, serving as a reminder of the potential dangers lurking in the shadows.
Amidst the hush, the scent of blood invaded Michael''s senses, heightening his alertness. The echoes of their footfalls reverberated off the walls, while his environmental scanning revealed no signs of life nearby. An unsettling sensation crept over him, a gnawing doubt that the soldier''s information might have been fabricated.
"Something''s not right here," Michael murmured, his instincts on high alert as he moved around a corner, further descending into the dark underbelly of the temple.
The next turn revealed a scene that froze him in his tracks. Looking at the horrifying scene, even the usually calm and quiet Cain widened his eyes.
"What the fuck happened here?" Ayag''s voice trembled with shock and horror. The dimly illuminated room before Michael was a chilling tableau of gore. Blood seemed to coat every surface, and the air was heavy with the stench of death. His eyes scanned the gruesome scene, revealing bodies nailed to walls and strewn across the floor, their tortured forms bearing the marks of unimaginable cruelty.
Amidst the grisly tableau, Michael''s gaze settled on a lifeless woman, a faint glow emanating from the medallion around her neck. As he cautiously approached, his steps mingling with the blood underfoot, he reached out to pick up the tree-shaped medallion. A pulse of energy coursed through him as he held it in his hand.
"They must be Marli''s worshippers," Sarba''s voice trembled, the weight of the tragedy evident in his tone. Even his normally sharp demeanor was softened by the heartrending scene before them.
"The damn orc was talking about their corpses," Ayag''s voice quivered with anger, her frustration at the senseless violence palpable.
Michael wasn''t prone to sentimentality or shedding tears, having taken lives when necessary, but even he felt a pang of empathy for Marli''s followers. The fate they met was a gruesome one, and as far as he was concerned, no innocent beings deserved such a horrifying end.
"Rainar clearly meant business," Michael muttered, his gaze sweeping over the carnage and devastation.
"I now understand why the angel of death mentioned the reek of death," Sarba observed somberly.
The weight of the situation pressed down on them, leaving Ayag seeking answers. "So, what''s our next move?"
"There is nothing we can do. We should report this to Marli and let her decide how to handle it," Michael''s response was a mixture of resignation and practicality.
Ayag, however, held a different perspective. "I think we should do something, Ghost."
"Like what? Challenge the entire pantheon of corrupt gods and try to purge this world of evil?" Michael chuckled darkly.
"Listen, I feel bad for them, I do. But we''re not strong enough to take on the gods. Hell, we have no idea about the full extent of their powers. Any wrong move and we will have gods and angels chasing us," Michael countered, his voiceced with a touch of frustration at Ayag''s impulsive suggestion.
However, as Michael uttered those words, a sudden headache throbbed in his mind, apanied by the system''s voice echoing in his consciousness.
[The host should seek justice for the innocent.]
[The host has unlocked quest functionality...]
[The quest "God Killer" hasmenced... Seek retribution against Rainar and avenge Marli''s worshippers...]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive the location of a hidden base of operation in the realm of gods.]
Michael stood in a mix of surprise and shock as the words from the system reverberated in his mind. While it wasn''t the first time the system had provided suggestions or guidance, this instance felt different. It was as if the system waspelling him to undertake the quest and see it through.
[You won''t be able to umte badass points in the realm of gods as you did in the mortal realm. Embrace your destiny as the assassin you were meant to be and establish your legacy within the realm of gods,] the system''s voice resonated with a sense of finality.
Michael refrained from discussing his decision with Vedora and silently resolved to undertake the quest. After a brief pause, he exited the system interface and cast onest gaze upon the grim scene of lifeless bodies. His attention then shifted to the tree-shaped medallion he held in his hand.
Focusing his intent on the medallion, he activated his analyzer skill.
[The medallion of Marli possesses the ability to conjure a vortex leading directly to Marli''s forest. This medallion can only be used once,] ryed the analyzer skill''s information to Michael.
Taking a steadying breath, he injected a thread of arch energy into the medallion and triggered its power. Soon, a swirling vortex materialized before him.
"Let''s go," Michael uttered resolutely and stepped into the vortex, his form vanishing from the confines of Rainar''s temple.
In an instant, the world transformed as he emerged within the embrace of Marli''s forest. Sunlight filtered through the lush canopy above, a stark contrast to the nighttime he had left behind in Nimbosia.
"Marli," Michael''s voice reverberated, carrying across the expanse of the divine forest. He pivoted, his eyes falling upon the portal which promptly dissipated, severing his connection to Nimbosia.
As he turned back, several figures emerged from the shadows of the forest, their forms gradually bing clear. To his astonishment, their attire mirrored that of the gray-armored angels he had encountered in Nimbosia,plete with wings reminiscent of Rainar''s servants.
A voice cut through the air,den with lethal intent. "The God of Darkness..." The words dripped with a chilling wee. The speaker removed his helmet, unveiling an elven countenance adorned with silver hair and pointed ears.
"I heard no one extended a wee to you in the realm of gods. Let''s rectify that," the elven angel announced, his hand moving to draw his sword.
Chapter 1071 Shocking turn of events
Chapter 1071 Shocking turn of events
Eight angels encircled Michael, their weapons drawn in a synchronized disy of deadly intent. The glint of swords, spears, and maces punctuated the charged atmosphere. In the face of this formidable assembly, Michael kept hisposure, his posture poised for whatever would unfold.
"What happened to Marli?" Michael''s voice was resolute, his eyes locked onto the elf who had revealed his identity. He needed answers, and the presence of these angels boded ill for the goddess he sought.
The elven angel''s lips curled into a taunting smile. "You needn''t worry about Marli," he said, his tone edged with malice. The reply was cryptic, unsettling Michael further.
As the tension escted, the angels tightened their formation, readying for conflict. Their elemental weapons gleamed ominously, exuding a premonition of the impending battle. Michael''s instincts surged, a testament to his honed skills as an assassin, and his fingers flexed around the hilts of his dark swords.
It was then that the elven angel spoke again, his voice dripping with mockery. "You really thought you can waltz into our world and go undetected?." He chuckled, the sound a mixture of amusement and condescension. "We know what you are, the God of Darkness, the harbinger of chaos."
Michael''s eyes flickered with a blend of surprise and unease. How did they know about him?
"We aren''t as ignorant as you might believe," the elven angel continued, his voice low and measured. "We''ve observed your actions, seen your defiance. But do you trulyprehend the powers that reside within this realm?"
The eight angels shifted, their stance shifting to one of readiness. Michael could sense an aura around them, a resonance with their weapons. A growing energy that mirrored Rainar''s essence.
"We are at the Elemental Attunement Realm," the elven angel exined, his voice tinged with satisfaction. "Rainar, the level 4 god of this realm, granted us a sliver of his power. It allows us to temporarily tap into his strength, to channel his dominion over nature and elements."
Michael''s mind raced, piecing together the implications of their revtion. These angels weren''t merely powerful on their own; they were empowered by Rainar himself. The fight ahead had just be infinitely more challenging.
"This is our world," the elven angel dered, hispanions radiating an intense energy. "And you, stand alone."
Suddenly, as if in perfect synchronization, the eight angels surged forward, a deadly whirlwind of motion converging upon Michael from every angle. Their movements were a blur, their wings propelling them at astonishing speed, leaving streaks of light in their wake. The elven angel''s voice taunted him, the words carrying on the wind like a venomous melody.
"Rogue god, did you think you could stand against us? You dare challenge the might of Rainar?"
Michael''s instincts surged, his senses honed by years of training and countless battles. He reacted swiftly, his dark swords dancing in his hands as he deflected the first onught of attacks. But the angels were relentless, their strikes precise and coordinated.
A blow from a mace was intercepted by Michael''s crossed des, the impact reverberating through his arms. Before he could recover, a gust of wind signaled the elven angel''s approach. The elf''s fist met Michael''s side, and the force sent him hurtling through the air, crashing into a tree that splintered upon impact.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Michael pushed off from the wreckage of the tree and met the next wave of assaults head-on. His movements were a dance of darkness, his swords weaving intricate patterns as he countered their attacks. But the angels'' speed and power were undeniable, their elemental weaponsshing out with a potency that threatened to overwhelm him.
The sh of metal against metal echoed through the forest, a symphony of violence and determination. Michael''s strikes were precise, his movements fluid as he parried and struck, seeking vulnerabilities amidst the storm of attacks. Yet, the angels'' synchronized assault proved a formidable challenge, their seamless coordination closing off any openings.
With each exchange, Michael''s body absorbed the impact of blows, bruises and cuts umting like badges of honor. The elven angel''sughter seemed to hang in the air, a constant reminder of the odds stacked against him.
The elven angel lunged again, his speed leaving trails of ethereal light. Michael anticipated the attack, sidestepping just in time. But the elf''s feint masked his true intention. A gust of wind buffeted Michael from the side, followed by a powerful kick that sent him sprawling across the forest floor.
"Why are they so powerful?" Ayag''s voice whispered from the depths of Michael''s coat pocket, voicing the question that echoed in Michael''s mind.
The strength of the angels wasn''t solely derived from their own might. They shared an intricate connection with Rainar, their god, which bestowed upon them a portion of his power. If they were to fully harness Rainar''s grace, it would allow them to temporarily emte the prowess of a level 4 god.
As Michael rose from another brutal blow, his lips curled into an unexpected smile, hisughter ringing out amidst the fierce battle.
"It''s been a while since I faced a challenge like this. Feels good to finally have formidable opponents," he admitted, his excitement palpable.
The elven angel''s taunting words only fueled the fire within Michael.
"Why hesitate, God of Darkness? Unleash your divine powers and draw the pantheon to us," the elf sneered, his words carrying both mockery and a hint of curiosity.
The skirmish briefly halted as both sides exchanged words, a tense pause in the midst of chaos.
"Surprised, rogue god? We know your reluctance to unleash your full might. The pantheon would sense you the moment you do. Wouldn''t it be simpler to surrender yourself?" The elf''s smirk seemed to pierce through Michael''s defenses.
But Michael''s response wasced with defiance.
"Why offer surrender over death? Let me guess, you''re incapable of killing a god," he retorted, hoping to glean any information from the angel about the intricacies of god-killing.
A pause hung in the air as Michael prodded the elven angel further.
"Perhaps you''re unaware of how to kill a god?" Michael asked with a skeptical tone.
"There are far worse fates than death," the angel responded cryptically, leaving Michael to ponder the mysterious words.
"Like what?" Michael pressed, his curiosity evident.
The angel''s response was a wicked grin, a clear indication that their intention wasn''t to provide answers like Marli often did.
"We''re not Marli, the goddess, here to answer to your inquiries, rogue god," the angel mocked, their words carrying a mix of amusement and taunt.
Anticipating another attack, Michael braced himself. However, the elven angel surprised him by pausing, appearing lost in thought as they stroked their chin.
"Speaking of Marli, wouldn''t it be fitting to let her herself offer you a response onest time?"
In the midst of the tense standoff, a rustling sound caught Michael''s attention. Suddenly, two armored angels emerged, dragging Marli between them. With a cold thud, they threw her to the ground at Michael''s feet, causing her to emit a pained growl. Michael''s heart clenched at the sight before him.
Marli''s once-vibrant green hair was now disheveled and matted with dirt, her normally elegant robes reduced to tatters and shreds. Blood trickled from her mouth and nostrils, evidence of the brutal beating she had endured at the hands of the angels.
Without hesitation, Michael squatted down to check on Marli, his expression a mix of concern and anger. Her emerald eyes met his, and despite the pain she was clearly in, a fierce determination burned within them.
"Kill these bastards," Marli uttered, her voice ragged but filled with a steely resolve. Her words resonate with the very forest around them.
As if responding to her call, the atmosphere shifted. The once-sunlit forest began to darken, shadows lengthening and twisting as if alive. It was as though the forest itself shared Marli''s anger and desire for retribution.
The angels, while momentarily taken aback, quickly regained theirposure. The elf angel, now grinning wider, taunted Michael with a mocking tone, "Come on, rogue god. Use your powers and make this fight interesting. Show us the darkness that resides within you."
Michael''s eyes, usually a vibrant blue, transformed before their very eyes. They turned pitch ck, devoid of any light or emotion.
As Michael prepared to unleash his powers upon the angels, a sharp pain suddenly seared through his neck. He nced downward, only to find Marli grinning at him, her hand firmly gripping a dagger that was embedded in his exposed neck. Shocked and betrayed, Michael clutched his neck as blood sprayed from the wound.
Marli''s unexpected act left him vulnerable, and she swiftly withdrew the dagger, striking him again. In his dire situation, Ayag couldn''t remain hidden any longer. The three-headed Hydra burst out of Michael''s pocket, perching on his shoulder. Ayag''s mouth opened, unleashing a powerful sonic wave that sent Marli hurtling through the air.
Amidst the chaos, the elven angel sneered, "A hydra." Meanwhile, despite the life-threatening wound that was bleeding from his neck, Michael fixed his gaze on Marli.
"Take him down assholes!"
Marli''smand echoed through the air, and the ten angels lunged "You shouldn''t... have done... this," he managed to utter, his voice strained.
"Take him down assholes!"
Marli''smand echoed through the air, and the ten angels lunged toward Michael. Yet, at that critical moment, Cain shut his eyes tightly before snapping them open, emitting a resounding roar. His roar seemed to tear open a transient portal of teleportation around Michael, and the portal enveloped him.
Before the charging angels could reach him, Michael vanishedpletely from sight.
"What the fuck just happened?" Marli eximed in sheer astonishment as the hydra unleashed its unexpected power.
"You moron! Why did you lead me to him? That wasn''t part of our agreement. Now we''ve lost him, and he''s going to target me as well," Marli''s voice roared at the elf, her frustration evident.
"The dagger you used bears a unique poison¨C a ''gift'' from Rainar. We may not be able to outright kill a god, but it doesn''t mean we can''t harm them," the angel exined with an ominous tone.
Chapter 1072 The realm of Hades
Chapter 1072 The realm of Hades
Both Sarba and Ayag were unaware of Cain''s teleportation ability, but in that moment, more immediate concerns took precedence over questioning him.
To their astonishment, they found themselves inside a familiar location ¨C the temple of the Goddess of Healing, Ava.
As Michael abruptly materialized within the temple, Fayeth was taken aback. She rushed to his side, her worry evident in her expression.
"What happened?" Fayeth''s concern was palpable as Michael clutched his throat and copsed, blood continuing to spurt from the wound.
Fayeth''s attention was also drawn to the three-headed hydra perched on Michael''s shoulder. Ayag wasted no time in exining the urgency of the situation.
"We can''t waste time on exnations. Heal him," Ayag urged urgently. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Fayeth swiftly waved her hand, and a soothing green wave emanated from her, gently enveloping the hall. As the wave passed over the patients in the temple, they all slipped into a peaceful slumber.
"We need to take him to my chamber," Fayeth dered decisively. With another wave of her hand, an invisible force lifted Michael off the ground and guided him through the doorway. Through the threshold, he was carried into Fayeth''s private chamber. Vedora settled on Michael''s chest, their concern evident in their gaze.
Fayeth''s chamber exuded a sense of coziness, with a carved wooden statue of a woman positioned at its forefront. Flowers were carefully arranged at the feet of the statue. Throughout the room, several herbs grew in pots, emitting a soothing aroma. Glowing emerald green runes were scattered around the room, adding an enchanting touch. The space was imbued with an atmosphere of healing.
"His healing potion is failing to heal him," Sarba said pointing his gaze at Michael''s arm where the APD ( Automatic potion and pill Dispenser) was built in. Fayeth touched Michael blood and sense dthe healing potion in his blood.
"His healing potion is ineffective," Sarba remarked, his gaze fixed on the built-in APD (Automatic Potion and Pill Dispenser) on Michael''s arm. Fayeth reached out and touched Michael''s blood, sensing the presence of the healing potion within it.
"No, it''s what keeping him-" Fayeth''s words were cut short abruptly. Ayag noticed the sudden pause and followed Fayeth''s gaze to the statue in the room, its eyes emitting a radiant emerald green glow.
"Is he a god?" Fayeth directed the question at Vedora, the three-headed hydra on Michael''s chest.
Caught off guard by the intensity in Fayeth''s eyes, all three heads of the hydra hesitated. Fayeth''s unwavering determination, however, prompted a response.
"The longer you dy, the more you risk losing him," Fayeth''s voice turned cold and resolute.
Once again, Fayeth pressed for an answer. "Is he a god or not?" This time, her voice held an even deeper chill.
"Yes," Sarba finally admitted, despite Ayag''s exasperated reaction to his revtion.
"Idiot," Ayag grumbled, but Fayeth paid her no mind.
"He is a god, yes. So he cannot die," Cain confirmed, but Fayeth was already busy collecting herbs around the room.
"My duty as a healer extends to all, regardless of their status or nature," Fayeth dered. Despite the potential risks to her temple and colleagues, her oath to the Goddess of Healingpelled her to aid anyone in need.
Though aiding a rogue god might jeopardize her temple and its upants, Fayeth chose to prioritize her healing duty towards Michael.
"While a god may not die, there exist fates worse than death for them," Fayeth exined. Ayag was taken aback by her words.
"That angel said something simr," Ayag murmured, though Fayeth didn''t delve into further investigation. Her focus was healing the rogue god, not unraveling mysteries.
"What do you mean?" Cain inquired. Fayeth gently removed Michael''s hand from his throat and ced a cloth on the wound before closing her eyes. Her hands emitted a dim green glow, transferring the energy to Michael. The glow then formed a protectiveyer over his wound.
"If a god sustains severe injuries, their soul can be temporarily trapped in Hades. The longer their body remains unhealed, the longer their soul remains in this state," Fayeth exined solemnly as she applied more herbs to the wound.
"That doesn''t make sense. How is that possible?" Ayag voiced her confusion.
Undeterred, Fayeth focused intently on the wound. Her devotion to Goddess Ava had bestowed her with special sight, enabling her to perceive what was hidden from normal vision.
"He was stabbed with a de dipped in Emperor Nagin''s poison¡ it''s incredibly rare¡ who could have done this?" Fayeth couldn''t contain her question, wondering who could have inflicted such a wound. Emperor Nagins were exceedingly umon and potent serpents, existing alongside the realm''s monsters. It was said they could devour a god''s soul, a theory the gods didn''t dare to test. These ancient creatures were elusive, and even the gods wouldn''t seek them out for experimentation.
One thing was certain: Emperor Nagin''s poison had the power to corrode a god''s physical body and blood to the point where their soul became trapped within Hades.
"That Marli¡ she did this," Ayag hissed with a venomous tone.
Once again, Fayeth found herself taken aback, but before she could respond, Cain interjected.
"If a god''s soul is trapped in Hades, does that mean they''re considered dead?" Cain''s curiosity emerged.
"Shut up, you fool. He''s not dead, and now''s not the time for a history lesson," Ayag snapped.
"No. The soul will eventually return to its body. However, what emerges from Hades might not be the same soul that entered. And such a poison is beyond the reach of anyone outside the pantheon," Fayeth conveyed her shock and disbelief.
"As far as I''m aware, Goddess Marli isn''t part of the pantheon," Fayeth added. Fayeth exined, her disbelief evident.
"As far as I know, Goddess Marli isn''t part of the pantheon," she added.
"She might have betrayed him to change that. Before the betrayal, we were attacked by Rainar''s angels. My guess is that Marli and Rainar struck a deal that required her to betray him," Cain theorized.
"Or maybe she was plotting against us all along," Ayag retorted.
"Tell me more about Hades," Cain inquired, a question that almost prompted Ayag to snap at him.
"Is this your top concern right now?" Ayag''s voice was filled with exasperation.
"Both of you need to calm down. He''s been through worse and always managed to prevail. This is merely a minor setback for us," Cain assured them, his words surprising even Fayeth.
"But what we need most at the moment is information. Fayeth, please enlighten us about Hades," Cain requested.
Hearing the term "Hades," Ayag and Sarba''s minds briefly wandered to their restaurant, coincidentally named Hades.
"Let me focus on healing him. This poison is corroding his body, and Ick an antidote," Fayeth replied.
"What if the poison consumes his entire body? Would that permanently trap his soul in Hades? In a way, it could be seen as killing a god," Cain''s chilling words further rattled Fayeth.
"It appears you''re more interested in learning how to kill a god than in finding a way to save your friend," Fayeth''s tone turned icy.
For a brief moment, silence hung in the air, until Cain broke it.
"No, his body will eventually mend. Yet, it might take decades or even centuries. If his soul lingers in Hades for that long, it could twist and descend into madness. When his soul finally returns to his body, he would not be the same. However, this scenario has never urred," Fayeth rified.
Cain sensed an inconsistency in Fayeth''s exnation. He had a hunch that there was more to the story than she was letting on, so he persisted.
"Imagine a pantheon god injured and temporarily trapped in Hades. What steps would the pantheon take to rescue the soul?" Cain probed.
Temporarily dismissing Cain''s question, Fayeth concentrated on healing Michael''s body. The poison had turned his throat a ghastly purple, with countless veins pulsating beneath his skin.
"Only rare substances like Emperor Nagin''s poison can ensnare a god''s soul in Hades. This is one approach the pantheon employs to deal with rogue gods, such as your friend here. However, if a pantheon god were to meet the same fate, they''d summon a soul walker and send them into Hades. The soul walker guides the soul to a specific sanctuary within Hades. What follows isrgely spection," Fayeth exined.
"What''s your spection then?" Cain inquired.
"The most likely oue is that this sanctuary keeps the soul intact and rational until the god''s physical body is fully restored. But Ick concrete knowledge about the intricacies of Hades, aside from what''s known within the pantheon," Fayeth sighed.
"If you can''t fully heal his body to reunite his soul, we might need to locate one of these soul walkers you mentioned. Do you have any idea where we can find one?" Sarba''s words held both urgency and concern.
the antidote," Fayeth replied.
"Please tell me you know where we can find this antidote?" Ayag''s "That''s a question best posed to the pantheon. I can halt the poison''s corrosive effects, but I can''tpletely heal him without the antidote," Fayeth replied.
"Please tell me you know where we can find this antidote?" Ayag''s tone wasced with desperation.
Before Fayeth could respond to Ayag, a forceful knock echoed at the door.
"Lady Fayeth," a voiceden with fear called from outside.
"I''m busy at the moment," Fayeth replied.
"God Rainar''s angels have arrived," the voice urgently conveyed.
Upon hearing this, Ayag''s heart seemed to stop momentarily.
"Damn it. How could they have found us?" Sarba growled anxiously.
"Perhaps it''s just a coincidence," Cain spected.
Seeing the urgency in the situation, Fayeth swiftly directed them in a hushed tone. "Quick, get under here," she whispered, waving her hand as the wooden floor beneath them creaked open.
With practiced movements, she carefully ced Michael''s wounded form and Vedora under the hiddenpartment. She closed the door over them, her eyes locking onto Vedora''s as she held a finger to her lips.
"Stay quiet and still," Fayeth whispered to Vedora, who nodded in response.
Chapter 1073 A rogue god and a hydra
Chapter 1073 A rogue god and a hydra
After Fayeth exited her chamber, leaving the Hydra in the care of the rogue god, she arrived at the healing hall, a sanctuary where she crossed paths with Rainar''s angels. These celestial beings were an imposing sight, d in gray armor that matched their feathery, closed wings. Their presence exuded a formidable aura, their heavy footfalls even causing the ancient walls of the temple of Ava to tremble slightly.
"Can I assist you?" Fayeth inquired, her gaze directed at the angels. Her question prompted the lead angel to remove his helmet, revealing a cascade of silver hair.
The trio of angels following him moved through the hall, their helmets still on as they surveyed the unconscious patients whoy before them.
"How goes the healing of these people, Fayeth?" inquired the angel of Rainar, a trace of familiarity detectable in his voice as he addressed her.
"Regrettably, the numbers keep growing as more casualties arrive, a consequence of your conflict against Kranar''s angels," Fayeth responded, her words masking her disdain for wars that inflicted suffering upon ordinary people.
"People should turn to God Rainar in prayer more fervently. The greater their devotion, the swifter we can bring this war to an end," the angel stated, his tone devoid of concern for the popce. To him, the people were but sources of energy for God Rainar, their well-being secondary. Many gods shared this perspective, treating their subjects as mere tools to generate faith energy. Rarely did they extend a helping hand to those in need or actively work to improve their lives and foster genuine devotion. Instead, they appointed representatives to govern and expected the popce to pray relentlessly.
"It''s needless to remind you that most of these individuals now lie here due to shockwaves from your battles, their homes copsing upon them. Granting them entry to the temple would be a humanitarian gesture, Rodney," Fayeth spoke, a hint of emotion seeping into her voice as she addressed Rodney with familiarity.
"We have indeed permitted entry to the temple, though not to themoners. The temple is not a ce for such riffraff to wander into; it is a sacred space," Rodney retorted with a smug chuckle.
"Both you and I know that nobles don''t devote themselves to the gods as fervently asmoners do. Allowing only the nobility ess while barring themoners goes against the principles we stand for," Fayeth voiced her disapproval.
"Divide and conquer, Fayeth. God Rainar is not like your Goddess Ava. Your goddess advocated unity above all else, and what did that lead to? Her own realm turned against her, banishing her," Rodney''s voice dripped with arrogance and mockery, directed at Goddess Ava.
Fayeth''s blood simmered at Rodney''s words, her temper ring. But she maintained herposure, understanding that her anger could provoke Rainar into destroying the temple. Its destruction would leave the people without refuge, countless lives lost.
"However, my purpose here does not involve delving into theplexities of ruling a realm," Rodney drawled as he walked past Fayeth, his gaze sweeping across the hall as if searching for something.
"Why have youe, Rodney?" Fayeth queried.
"We''ve detected an unusual teleportation energy within the kingdom, Fayeth. You know well that teleportation portals are forbidden within the kingdom. Even in times of war, we cannot allow breaches of ourws. Otherwise, what would be of our realm? Awlessnd overrun by chaos,," Rodney articted slowly, encircling Fayeth as he spoke.
"Rules, as God Rainar would often say, are what set us apart from beasts," Rodney remarked.
"If anyone were to use a teleportation portal within my temple, I would undoubtedly be aware, Rodney. Furthermore, your search is misced. If portals were activated, it''s more likely the doing of nobles," Fayeth eximed as a chuckle escaped Rodney''s lips.
"Why the agitation, Fayeth? After all these decades, you appear unusually displeased with the nobles," Rodney noted.
"Times change, Rodney, and so do individuals, even angels like us," Fayeth replied.
Rodney''s smile in response to her words spoke volumes as he proceeded toward the door leading to her chamber.
"Well, I''m certain you have nothing to hide. Merely open the door, and if no secrets lurk within, we will leave. I have a score to settle with Kranar''s angels," Rodney chuckled. Yet, as Rodney drew closer to the door, a surge of unease coursed through Fayeth.
Unbeknownst to Rodney, a rogue god lurked within that very room, apanied by a natural-born hydra, not one bred within the confines of schrlyboratories. A natural-born hydra in thepany of a rogue god would not only astonish Rodney but potentially lead him to eliminate Fayeth and her entire sanctuary for harboring a rogue god.
their encounter to Rodney and hisrades. Otherwise, Rodney would have arrived prepared to confront a rogue god.
Thankfully, fate favored Michael and Fayeth; the angels who had attacked Michael in Marli''s forestcked the means tomunicate their encounter to Rodney and hisrades. Otherwise, Rodney would have arrived prepared to confront a rogue god.
"That room is my private sanctum, and you possess no authority to enter," Fayeth responded icily, though Rodney simplyughed off her retort.
"Fayeth, I like when you get all feisty. I''ve seen glimpses of Goddess Ava''s angels disying such fire. Cute, I must admit. But remember, you''re within Rainar''s domain now. Your personal chamber is under Rainar''s domain. Unless, of course, you''re hiding something in there. I hate to destroy this fine craftmanship," Rodney trailed his fingers along the door''s surface, a chuckle apanying his words.
"Go ahead," Fayeth relented, her voice carrying a hint of resignation as Rodney turned the doorknob, granting ess to her personal chamber.
Within the confines of the room, Vedora maintained a vignt stance, perched atop Michael''s unconscious body. Through the gaps in the weathered wooden floor, she caught sight of Rodney''s entrance, his figure slowly making its way inside. The thudding of his boots reverberated against the floor, magnifying the creaking sounds beneath his weight.
"Goddess Ava," Rodney''s voice reverberated, his gaze locking onto the statue of the goddess. He moved forward, his footsteps echoing within the confined space.
"A tragic fate she suffered," Rodney remarked, eyes sweeping across the room as he absorbed the somber atmosphere.
With two of Rodney''s angels stationed as sentinels by the door, Fayeth trailed after Rodney as he entered her chamber, followed closely by the remaining angel. As the scene unfolded, her heart''s rhythm quickened, her gaze directed downward towards the floor concealing the rogue god and his apanying hydra.
"A truly enchanting room. I always imagined your personal space to bear such an ambiance," Rodneymented, his hands folded behind his back as he strolled around the room with a measured air.
The wooden nks beneath his feet emitted soft creaks under his weight, drawing his attention as he stood over the precise spot above Vedora and Michael. A wry smile graced his lips, and he rapped the floor with his fingers before turning his gaze towards Fayeth.
"Allow me to ask once more, Fayeth. Are you hiding something?" Rodney inquired, his presence looming directly above Michael and Vedora.
Internal panic gripped Ayag as she whispered in a hushed tone to Cain, her voiceced with urgency. "Fuck it, Cain, use your teleportation again, take us out of here."
Cain''s response was a disheartening shake of his head. "I can only use my ability once in a day,"
Realization of their dire situation weighed heavily upon Ayag. "Then we are fucked. We''re about to be discovered and killed," she growled, her wordsced with a mix of dread and resignation, fearing that any louder would betray their presence to the angel above.
Meanwhile, in the midst of this tense standoff, Fayeth''s thoughts raced. She couldn''t ignore the potential repercussions of sheltering a rogue god. Yet, her oath to Goddess Ava, the goddess of Healing, resonated deeply within her. It was her duty to tend to those in need, regardless of their origin. And even though her acquaintance with the rogue god was short, Fayeth couldn''t bring herself to betray him.
"Silence speaks volumes," Rodney''s voice sliced through the air as he unsheathed a silver sword, his intentions evident.
With deliberate intent, Rodney crouched down, his fingers curling around the floorboard. He pressed his hand into the wood, the floor splintering as he exerted force. Rather than fumbling for a concealedtch, he tore open the floor itself. As the hiddenpartment was unveiled, his eyes widened in astonishment at the sight before him¡ªan unconscious young man shrouded in ck robes, apanied by a three-headed hydra.
"Well, what have we stumbled upon?" Rodney''s tone dripped with malevolence, his surprise palpable.
His angels nked Fayeth, their collective stance poised and ready. Fayeth found her voice amid the tense atmosphere, a mixture of desperation and conviction. "He''s a refugee, wounded and seeking shelter, Rodney. I am merely tending to his injuries."
Fayeth''s voice resonated, a feeble defense though she knew her words held little sway in this dire moment.
"A refugee with an exquisite breed such as this," Rodney''s grip enveloped Vedora''s small form, and to his astonishment, their absence of a breed mark caught his attention.
"Where is your breed mark, creature?" Rodney''s inquiry was directed at each individual head of the hydra, his curiosity piqued.
"Release us, you moron," the hydra''s white head retorted, their wordsced with disdain.
"A rather foul-mouthed head," Rodney chuckled, his fingers guiding the hydra through a slow rotation. Simultaneously, one of Rodney''s angels approached Michael''s unconscious body, hoisting it from the ground and unceremoniously dropping it onto the floor.
"Captain, take a look at this," a hushed voice reached Fayeth''s ears, prompting her attention towards the angel who had flung the rogue god to the ground.
Rodney advanced a few steps toward the incapacitated rogue god, his footing to rest atop Michael''s chest, his eyes diligently scanning Vedora''s form for any trace of a breed mark. Unbeknownst to Rodney, his foot pressed against the chest of a rogue god whose true identity remained concealed.
"Fayeth, could this be the secret you''re safeguarding¡ªa naturally born hydra?" Rodney inquired, under the impression that it was the three-headed hydra Fayeth had striven to keep hidden.
Before Fayeth could utter a response, Rodney''s subordinate pointed urgently at Michael''s neck, diverting Rodney''s attention.
"What is it?" Rodney queried.
"leave him alone, you winged fuck," Ayag''s struggles resounded futilely against Rodney''s grip. However, Rodney disregarded her protests, zeroing in on Michael''s neck.
"It appears to be Emperor Nagin''s venom," the angel''s observation rippled through the room.
Rodney''s eyes glimmered with disbelief. The previously carefree, aloof smile that graced his features now dissolved as realization gradually dawned upon him.
"yet he''s alive, and that can only mean¡" Rodney''s words lingered. A spark of realization ignited within Rodney''s eyes, recing the nonchnt smile that had once graced his features. Slowly, he turned away, his gaze fixing on Fayeth.
"Fayeth, you are hiding a rogue god in your room," Rodney dered, the angels at his side drawing their swords in readiness.
Even an angel as typically casual as Rodney wouldn''t underestimate the danger posed by a rogue god, regardless of their state. As Michaely unconscious, the angels recognized the potential danger of anyone aiding such a being, and they prepared to address it with utmost seriousness.
Chapter 1074 An Angel from the Pantheon
Chapter 1074 An Angel from the Pantheon
"I''ve always suspected you of engaging in covert activities, Fayeth, but this... this is on a whole other level," Rodney''s voice conveyed shock and disbelief.
"A rogue god paired with a naturally born hydra. It seems Fortuna herself has graced me with her favor," Rodney eximed, a chuckle of disbelief escaping him.
"Unfortunately, Fortuna seems to have turned a blind eye to you. Not even your goddess Ava, were she to reveal herself, could shield you from the consequences now. Once Rainar finishes with all of you, the pantheon will learn of your betrayal," Rodney''s words dripped with cold intent, his focus on Fayeth unwavering.
"Leave her out of this," Sarba''s voice growled, only to be met with Rodney''s tightening grip on Vedora, eliciting pained growls from each of the hydra''s heads.
"Seize her," Rodney ordered the angel positioned behind Fayeth. With swift efficiency, the angel grasped Fayeth''s wrists, her struggles proving futile against their superior strength. In matters of battle andbat, Fayeth and the angels of Goddess Ava were no match for the formidable might of Rainar''s trained warriors. While Fayeth''s kind was dedicated to healing, Rainar''s angels were honed into formidable warriors.
"You, my dear, are about to be a prized exhibit in Rainar''s collection," Rodney mused, his gaze fixed upon Vedora.
"You can inflict whatever punishment you wish upon me, but spare this temple," Fayeth pleaded, her voiceced with desperation as the angel behind her twisted her arm, securing golden shackles around her wrists.
"Don''t be silly, Fayeth. This temple is beyond salvation now. Its fate was sealed when the moment you chose to shelter a rogue god," Rodney chuckled coldly.
"But you are indeed a blessed one. Once I inform Rainar of this, he will personallye to flood this temple to the ground," Rodney''sughter echoed through the room, his satisfaction palpable.
Yet, a sudden disturbance interrupted the scene as the room''s illumination began to flicker. The angels paid little heed to the wavering torchlight until the door abruptly swung shut, sealing them within the chamber.
"Captain," the angel beside Rodney eximed, his gaze fixed on Michael''s face, the purple veins that marked the effects of Emperor Nagin''s poison fading from his skin.
Observing the lights'' erratic behavior and the vanishing poison signs, Ayag''s grin widened. She understood that, against all odds, Ghost was awakening.
"What''s happening?" Rodney''s confusion was evident.
"You mentioned Fortuna''s favor, didn''t you? Forget that. It''s death that''s casting its smile upon you," Ayag taunted, realizing that, by some miracle, Ghost was waking up from his slumber.
Out of nowhere, unfamiliar ck mes consumed the rogue god, creating a nket of darkness that Rodney had never encountered before. The angels felt an intense surge in temperature, forcing Rodney to hastily retreat from the searing heat that engulfed the rogue god.
Fayeth''s eyes widened as she sensed the emperor nagin''s poison being consumed by the ck mes, a realization that dawned on her in astonishment. Without warning, the room''s lights were extinguished by an invisible force, shrouding everything in deep darkness. Yet, this darkness held an unsettling quality that Fayeth couldn''t quite ce.
"Now even your god''s father can''t save you," Sarba''s voice dripped with icy certainty.
Rodney responded swiftly, snapping his fingers to conjure a ball of light at his fingertips. The luminous sphere emitted an eerie blue radiance, dispersing the shadows within the room. However, the ball of light created by Rodney hovered above, casting an eerie blue glow that contended against the inky ckness. Yet, the orb''s efforts to dispel the darkness were met with resistance, preventing it from fully illuminating the room.
Ayag''s anticipation and excitement were palpable in her words. "No matter how many times I''ve witnessed this scenario, the thrill never goes away,"
Meanwhile, Fayeth''s gaze remained fixed on the unfolding spectacle, her eyes reflecting shock and disbelief.
What startled Rodney even more was the sudden disappearance of the rogue god from the spot where he hadin moments ago on the floor.
All at once, Rodney''s eyes widened as he witnessed the rogue god materialize behind the angel stationed a couple of meters in front of him. The rogue god''s smile, far from friendly, bore the predatory menace of a seasoned hunter.
"He''s finished," Ayag''sment carried a tone of finality. As Rodney watched, the rogue god seized the angel''s head, and in a sh of lightning, the angel''s skull was obliterated. Blood and fragments of the helmet sprayed in a gruesome disy.
Before Rodney could even react, a searing pain erupted in his hand. ncing at his hand, which clutched the hydra, he was met with a gruesome spray of blood gushing from his severed wrist. The shock of the moment gripped him only as the realization dawned.
Fayeth''s horror-stricken gaze was fixed on the unfolding brutality as the rogue god systematically dispatched each angel. Beyond the temple walls, deafening thunderps reverberated through the kingdom, while crimson lightning streaks illuminated the sky.
Within the chamber, Michael unleashed his godly powers without restraint.
"Ah!" Rodney''s scream pierced the air, his surroundings crackling with lightning. The darkness obscured the nature of the bolts, leaving Rodney vulnerable to their onught.
Amidst the chaos, Fayeth felt a weightnd upon her shoulder. She turned to see the hydra perched there, a silent yet significant presence.
"It won''t take long now," Ayag''s voice held a note of finality.
Gradually, the darkness yielded to reveal the grim tableau. The angels that had apanied Rodneyy strewn about the room, their bodies bearing smoking craters where lightning had struck.
In the midst of this carnage, Rodney remained the sole survivor.
"Rainar will hunt you down..." Rodney''s words trembled through the air. His smile sent shivers down Fayeth''s spine, a chilling expression even amidst his bleeding wounds and the remnants of lightning strikes. It was the grin of an entity cloaked in malevolence.
"You have it the other way around," Michael''s voice rang out coldly, his finger pointing at Rodney''s head. From his fingertip, a ck lightning bolt shot forth, piercing Rodney''s skull and swiftly ending his life.
"I''ve got many questions, but first, won''t unleashing your powers alert the pantheon to your presence?" Ayag''s voice broke through the stunned silence as she directed her query to the rogue god before her. Amidst the aftermath of the chaos, Michael began to gather the fallen bodies together.
"Yes, you''re right. That''s why we need to leave Nimbosia as soon as we''re done here," Michael replied calmly, arranging the bodies and hoisting them onto his shoulder.
"Sorry for this mess, Fayeth. Here," Michael tossed arge vial filled with colorless liquid.
"Spray this around the room. It''ll clean up the blood," he instructed before ncing upward.
However, Fayeth wasn''t ready to let him go without answers. "Wait," she interjected, halting Michael as he was about to depart.
"Who are you?" she inquired, her voiceced with curiosity and confusion.
"You''ll find out soon. For now, thank you for your help and sorry for the damage to your roof," Michael''s cryptic response left Fayeth baffled. In the blink of an eye, he shot through the roof, breaking it in the process.
As Michael soared through the air, Ayag raised her voice to be heard. "What actually happened back there? We thought you''d entered a ce called Hades."
"I was there. It''s a long story," Michael''s response carried over the wind as he continued his ascent.
"I''ll fill you in once I''ve sorted out these bodies," Michael''s voice reached them from the distance as he strategically ced the bodies far apart. Given that he had used lightning bolts to end their lives, Michael arranged the scene to appear as if Kranar''s angels were responsible for the deaths. While not foolproof, it would serve as a diversion, upying the pantheon''s attention while Michael devised his next move.
"So, you were in Hades. What is that ce exactly? Fayeth mentioned it''s where a god''s soul goes temporarily when their physical body is harmed," Sarba inquired, observing as Michael meticulously set up the fabricated scene of the murders.
"Sort of. I had some assistance while I was there," Michael responded, offering a glimpse into his otherworldly experience.
"And who or what provided this assistance within Hades?" Ayag inquired as she observed Michael''s efficient movements, each body being meticulously arranged through his almost instantaneous teleportations.
"Dagon," Michael uttered the name with a weight that seemed to resonate through the air. The mention of the ruler of Hell''s name sent a shiver through the air, unsettling Vedora as they had never anticipated such an unexpected alliance with hell''s ruler.
***************************
Meanwhile, a striking figure descended from the heavens somewhere else in a different part of the realm. With crimson red wings stretched wide, the angel glided gracefully through the air, guided by streaks of red lightning that illuminated his path. His descent was a spectacle of power and beauty, a crims against the night sky.
As he neared the ground, the wind tousled his ck hair, causing it to flutter like the wings of a raven. d in dark red armor adorned with intricate golden lines, he shone like a beacon in the dim light. The earth trembled beneath his feet as hisnding sent ripples through the ground. His crimson wings folded neatly behind him, exuding a sense of quiet power.
In a voice as cold as the wind that brushed against his armor, he uttered a single question that reverberated through the air, carrying with it a chilling edge, "Where are you, rogue god?"
A sense of dread would grip many at the mere sight of this angel, for he was the chosen executor dispatched by the pantheon to eliminate rogue gods. He hailed from one of the deadliest units under the pantheon''smand, a force renowned for its lethality. Now, heunched on a relentless pursuit, his mission clear: to track down and neutralize the rogue god.
Chapter 1075 Mystery of misty swamps
Chapter 1075 Mystery of misty swamps
Unaware that an executor of the pantheon was relentlessly on his trail, Michael and Vedora departed Nimbosia, their flight continuing for an hour until they touched down in a secluded forest. Once there, Michael wasted no time and procured various alchemical ingredients from the system.
"Why are we stopping?" Ayag''s curiosity prompted her question.
"Before we proceed to the secret teleportation array, there''s a matter we must address regarding your form. Rodney managed to uncover your true nature as a natural-born hydra. We can''t afford to have others make the same discovery," Michael exined.
Finding a spot beneath a towering oak tree, Michael settled onto the dry forest floor. Vedora gracefully leaped from his shoulder and positioned themselves before him.
"Speaking of us, do you think we can gather more information about the hydras birthed from experiments? I''m weary of merely specting," Ayag vented her frustration, her resentment stemming from the unnatural means through which her kind was created. However, the news of the existence of more hydras kindled a glimmer of hope within her.
Theirst interaction with Mugahsuku had conveyed that they were the final living hydras in the universe. Now, with the revtion of the existence of others like them, Vedora felt a surge of tion.
"Sure. And don''t worry too much about the origins of your species. The universe is expansive and shrouded in mystery. I''m confident we''ll encounter other hydras that weren''t born withinboratories," Michael assured Vedora with aforting tone.
With a deft flick of his wrist, Michael summoned various ingredients onto the ground before him. Studying theponents, he ignited the dark mes with a purpose.
"What potion are you brewing?" Sarba inquired.
"A pill," Michael stated simply, casting the crimson red flower into the engulfing darkness.
"This pill will transform you into a three-headed serpent, amon form in this realm¡ªat least, that''s ording to Nithroel," Michael elucidated as the alchemical process began.
Michael continued to toss the ingredients into the me, and Ayag watched as the essences of theponents floated above the mes, coalescing into vibrant, colorful beads. Gradually, these beads melded together, shaping themselves into three distinct crimson red pills.
"Take these," Michael instructed, tossing the pills toward the open mouths of the three heads. In unison, the heads epted the pills, their expressions contorting as they swallowed the sour concoction.
"Ugh, it''s so¡ eww," Ayag grimaced, battling the urge to gag at the taste of the pill.
Soon, the three-headed hydra''s body began to convulse, its heads transforming into identical white forms. The tiny horns on each head receded, assuming the shape of a snake. Scales disappeared from their bodies, and the small wings morphed into a snake''s sleek form.
In a matter of moments, the three-headed hydra had undergone aplete metamorphosis into a three-headed snake,plete with a slender tail.
"How do we appear now?" Sarba inquired as Michael produced a mirror and held it before the snake-like creature.
"Not as impressive as our original form, but not bad at all," Ayag assessed, scrutinizing her new appearance.
"Shall we proceed?" Michael asked, getting to his feet.
With their wings gone, Vedora couldn''t leap onto Michael''s shoulder as before. Instead, he crouched down, carefully lifting the transformed hydra and cing it onto his shoulder.
"Are you certain there''s a teleportation array in this forest?" Ayag sought confirmation once more.
"Well, when I encountered Dagon''s soul form within Hades, he mentioned hiding a teleportation portal in this forest. I have no reason to doubt his word," Michael responded, resuming his journey while relying on the waypoint marker Dagon had imprinted into his mind.
"I''m still confused by Dagon''s willingness to help us. What does he expect in return?" Sarba pondered.
"Isn''t it clear? He wants out help in his fight against the pantheon," Cain suggested.
"I believe there''s more to it. Something about Dagon raises suspicion," Michael shared as he guided them through the arid woond.
"Whatever his true motives, we''ll soon find out," Michael asserted.
Eventually, Michael and Vedora arrived at a colossal banyan tree that stood as a regal sentinel among its arboreal kin. Its expansive branches formed a grand canopy overhead. cing his hand upon the tree as Dagon had instructed, Michael''s palm began to emit a soft glow. Ayag noticed a glowing rune, shaped like an eye, materialize on the top of Michael''s hand. Responding to this energy, a rune resembling the one on Michael''s hand illuminated on the tree, triggering the emergence of a portal. A vortex materialized within the heart of the tree.
"Unknown portal. What could possibly go wrong?" Ayag rolled her eyes with a wry grin as Michael stepped into the portal, disappearing from the forest.
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As Michael emerged from the portal''s embrace, he found himself enveloped by a breathtaking panorama. Lush beauty stretched as far as his eyes could behold. Everywhere he turned, he was met with a tapestry of vibrant flowers, their colors painting thendscape with ethereal hues.
The very air seemed to carry a delicate fragrance, each inhtion a sensory delight. Trees stood proudly, teeming with life as leaves rustled in a harmonious dance, and a symphony of bird songs filled the air with a melodious chorus. With its warm embrace, the sun cast a golden hue upon the scenery, weaving an enchanting tapestry that seemed lifted from the pages of a fantastical tale.
"This doesn''t look like a swamp at all." Ayag remarked, her voice tinged with awe as she surveyed the etherealndscape that had reced the expected marsnd.
The scene unfolding before Michael left him visibly taken aback, his expression mirroring his astonishment.
"I''m pretty sure Dagon said the portal will lead me to the misty swamp," Michael murmured, his voice a mixture of confusion and surprise. With measured steps, he advanced along the dirt path that stretched out before him, his brow furrowed as he tried to reconcile the lush paradise around him with the swamp he had been led to anticipate.
As Michael followed the path, the distant sound of voices began to grow louder. Curiosity piqued, he embarked on a slight uphill climb, ascending the terrain until he reached a vantage point. From there, he could glimpse the unfolding scene below.
Descending the slope, he found himself in the presence of a peculiar trio. Two young men stood facing an elderly woman, their expressions marked by agitation. One of the youths possessed a shock of blonde hair, his demeanor brimming with impatience. The other, with a shaved head, radiated a simmering frustration. The elderly woman, draped in weathered garments, met their irate stares with a calm countenance.
"Why won''t you tell us, huh? Where''s our cousin Carme?" the blonde-haired young man''s voice was edged with exasperation, his fingers jabbing usingly in the air.
"Yeah, old woman, don''t y games with us. We know she''s beening to your house!" the bald man chimed in, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
The elderly woman, a weathered face marked with lines of experience and wisdom, met their usations with an air of calm defiance. "I''ve told you both, I have nothing to do with your cousin''s disappearance. She''s not been here, and I''ve had no part in it."
A tense silence hung in the air, the three figures locked in a standoff, their emotions palpable. Michael watched as the two young men exchanged incredulous nces, clearly unsatisfied with the old woman''s response.
"Quit lying! We''ve heard enough of your stories," the blonde-haired man retorted, his voice growing louder and more desperate.
With an air of finality, the elderly woman folded her arms across her chest. "Believe what you will, young ones. I have no reason to deceive you."
As the old woman''s gaze shifted toward Michael, she beckoned to him, her finger extending like a gnarled branch.
"Young man,e here," her voice carried a note of authority. With a mix of surprise and curiosity, Michael approached the trio, drawn into their midst.
Michael stood before her, taking in her appearance. Despite her aged features, there was a certain vitality about her that caught his attention. She wore a collection of vibrant green garments and had tied her white hair into a neat bun. In her hands, she cradled a basket brimming with an array of colorful flowers.
"You look like a fine young man. Please tell them I have nothing to do with their cousin''s disappearance," she implored, her voice carrying a note of sincerity.
Michael regarded the old woman, her words resonating with him. Meanwhile, the blonde-haired youth among the two brothers addressed him as if he were a familiar presence.
"Brother, just don''t put your nose into this matter," the blonde-haired one cautioned Michael, a protective tone in his voice.
"He''s right, ma''am. I''m not familiar with the situation here," Michael responded, his voice tinged with a sense of detachment.
For a brief moment, the old woman''s gaze shifted to Vedora, who was perched on Michael''s shoulder in their three-headed snake form.
"Young man, sometimes you don''t need to know someone to discern the truth. These brothers use me of abducting their cousin. But how could a frail old woman like me overpower a young woman like Carme?" Her words were delivered with a mix of frustration and defiance, her green eyes locking onto Michael''s.
Michael turned to the two brothers, their expressions a mixture of concern and worry. The blonde-haired one spoke up again, a hint of usation in his voice.
"Don''t be deceived by her appearance. There have been rumors in the vige about her. People go missing or change after seeking her healing."
"Carme mentioned meeting you before she vanished," the bald-headed brother added, his tone fraught with desperation.
"But I assure you, she never came to my tent. I neverid eyes on her. And as for those rumors, they are nothing but baseless usations. Is this how I''m repaid for offering my healing to your ailing vigers?" The old woman''s voice wavered between anger and sadness, her emotions raw.
The blonde brother''s tone softened, but his doubt remained. "Then allow us to search your tent. If there''s nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about."
"It''s Carme''s fault, really. Ever since her brother''s death, she hasn''t been the same. You took advantage of her vulnerability, manipted her," the bald-headed brother''s words were filled with usation and resentment.
"I provide healing not only for physical ailments but for the mind as well. I offered counsel to help Carme cope with her grief," the old woman exined, her voiceced with a mixture of patience and understanding.
"If your hands are clean, you''ve nothing to fear, right? Let them search your house and settle the matter," Michael suggested, a tinge of impatience coloring his words. He wished to unravel the now veered towards Michael. Her gaze held a weighty challenge, a promise of consequences toe.
mysteries of the misty swamp, not involve himself in a local dispute.
"Hmph," the old woman''s anger, previously directed at the brothers, now veered towards Michael. Her gaze held a weighty challenge, a promise of consequences toe.
"Would you let anyone into your house and allow them to invade your privacy?" The old woman''s voice held a note of challenge, catching Michael off guard. Her gaze bore into him, as if assessing his response.
"I didn''t anticipate a well-mannered young man like you to take their side. But mark my words, you''ll owe me a hearty apology when you step into my tent. And believe me, that day wille sooner than you think. This ce is not what it appears," she dered with an unsettling hint of amusement, sending a shiver down Michael''s spine.
In the blink of an eye, the old woman lifted her hand and vanished from his field of view, leaving an air of mystery and bewilderment lingering in the space she once upied.
Chapter 1076 Temple of God of Darkness
Chapter 1076 Temple of God of Darkness
When the old woman teleported herself, Michael was taken aback in surprise. He had never anticipated a frail and seemingly weak old woman to execute teleportation so effortlessly. What caught him off guard even more were her parting words.
"What could she have meant by ''this ce is not what it appears''?" Michael mumbled under his breath, his curiosity piqued.
"What a freaky bitch. That olddy must know what happened to Carme," the blonde brother remarked.
"Who is she?" Michael inquired. Just a few moments earlier, he had little interest in the ongoing dispute. However, the old woman''s cryptic words and the undeniable fact that he was not standing in a swamp hadpelled him to take an active role in the situation.
"Someone not to be trusted, that''s for sure," replied the bald-headed brother.
Then, the blonde-haired man scrutinized Michael closely. It became evident that they had never seen him in the vicinity before.
"You''re new around here. Where are you from?" the blonde young man queried.
"Ie from a distantnd," Michael responded truthfully.
"Don''t tell me you''vee seeking her ''healing,'' just like all those other ounders," the bald-headed one snickered, providing Michael with an opening to engage further in the conversation without resorting to falsehood. Thus, Michael yed along, feigning interest in seeking healing.
"You''re absolutely right," agreed Michael.
"In that case, you''ve just sealed your fate. That old woman is touted as the miraculous healer, and everyone''s hanging on to her every word," the bald-headed young man added with a hint of sarcasm. It was evident that both brothers were deeply skeptical of the old woman''s supposed healing prowess and held a strong aversion towards her.
"Well, it''s been an interesting encounter. Thanks for not siding with her back there, even though she''ll likelyin about it when you visit her ''healing'' abode. If you need a ce to rest, our vige is located directly to the north from here," the blonde young man offered, gesturing in the direction of the north.
"We need to find our cousin. I preferred this ce when it was just an ugly damn swamp," the bald-headed man grumbled, turning away and taking a few steps.
Michael was taken aback upon hearing his words.
"Wait," Michael called out, hastening his steps to catch up with the two brothers. They turned around as he approached.
"Did you say this ce was a swamp?" Michael inquired, his curiosity piqued.
"Yeah, it used to be the Misty Swamps. Now look at it, turned into this vibrant valley by that damn old woman," the bald-headed young man replied with a trace of bitterness.
"She must have employed some seriously powerful magic to transform a swamp like that," Ayag whispered, her words barely audible.
"By any chance, do you know of any nearby temples?" Michael inquired. He refrained from mentioning the Temple of the God of Darkness, unsure of how the young men might react or whether they were even aware of such a temple''s existence.
To Michael''s astonishment, the brothers were indeed familiar with the temple.
"There was one. A temple dedicated to the God of Darkness. But that old woman razed it to the ground and built her dwelling in its ce," the blond young man exined.
His brother chimed in with a snicker, "She branded the God of Darkness as ''evil,'' iming it kept this ce a swamp and attracted monsters. Yet, in my opinion, people weren''t vanishing when that so-called ''evil'' temple stood there," he muttered the word ''evil'' in a hushed tone, punctuated by a derisive chuckle.
"But ever since she took over and transformed this ce, everything has gone horribly awry. Sadly, no one believes us. The entire vige stands by her," the bald-headed one grumbled.
The blond-haired brother sighed softly in response.
"You can''t really me them. She did convert this ce into a vibrant valley. Merchants flock to our vige now, filling our coffers with gold," the blond-haired one reasoned.
"Is there any chance that the disappearances of the vigers and your cousin aren''t linked to the old woman?" Michael inquired.
"I don''t know. We just want our cousin back..." the blonde young man replied with a heavy sigh, his voice wavering as his eyes welled up.
The bald-headed manforted his brother and then turned to address Michael.
"Whatever you''re dealing with, we hope you find the help you need. We understand the feeling of helplessness all too well," the bald-headed man added, his voice tinged with empathy.
[The quest "Mystery of the Misty Swamp" hasmenced... Find badass points.]
the mystery behind the disappearances in the Misty Swamp...]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive one million badass points.]
Unexpectedly, Michael heard the system''s voice resonating in his head. To his surprise, the system had initiated another quest, a new functionality of the system.
"Let me give you a hand in your search. Three heads are better than two," Michael offered, extending his assistance to the brothers.
Michael had several reasons to offer his help to the brothers. First and foremost, he had decoded a morse code message instructing him to go to the God of Darkness temple in the Misty Swamps. He was determined to uncover the identity of the individual who had left that coded message. Second, his curiosity about the ongoing disappearances motivated him. Thirdly, the promise of one million badass points was undeniably appealing. Lastly, the brothers themselves appeared to be genuine and kind-hearted souls, and assisting them in achieving their goal aligned well with his intentions.
The two brothers seemed surprised by his offer but wore skeptical expressions.
"Why would you want to help us? Assisting us could jeopardize any chance you have of receiving healing from that old woman. We were driven out of our vige for opposing her," the young blonde one voiced his concerns.
"We were exiled, and if you help us, you might face the same fate of being banned from our vige," added the bald one.
"That''s not an issue. I have a knack for finding people, and you''ll need my help. Besides, I don''t give a damn if your vige exiled me. I''m an outsider," Michael replied nonchntly.
After sharing a nce, the two brothers let out resigned sighs, realizing that their desperation to locate their cousin overrode their concerns, and they reluctantly epted Michael''s offer of help.
Vedora remained perched silently on Michael''s shoulder, observing as he followed the brothers through the rugged path.
"I''m Veer, and this is my brother, Hal," introduced the blonde young man.
"Nice to meet you both. I''m John," Michael responded, using a fabricated name. Revealing his true identity as the God of Darkness to the brothers would undoubtedly leave them crap their pants.
"What about the three-headed snake on your shoulder? We''ve never seen its kind in this part of ournd," Hal inquired as he guided Michael along the dirt path.
"Don''t take this the wrong way, but are you by any chance a worshipper of the God of Darkness? I mean, you''re dressed all in ck and you asked us about a temple nearby," Veera, the blonde-haired young man, inquired of Michael.
"Yeah, he does give off that vibe, like one of the God of Darkness''s followers. He even has a three-headed pet on his shoulder, just like the statue in that temple," Hal chimed in, catching Michael off guard.
"You''ve seen the temple?" Michael asked.
"Yeah, when we were kids. Carme, some of our friends, and I used to sneak into the temple. There was a statue of the God of Darkness and his pet hydra inside," Veer recalled with a nostalgic smile.
"It''s rare toe across worshippers of the God of Darkness. Are you one, John?" Hal inquired.
"Not really. I just like to wear ck clothes," Michael responded casually, deciding there was no need to reveal his true identity as the God of Darkness himself.
As their conversation continued, Michael led the way to a small stream, crossing it over a quaint bridge. Once they were on the other side, a picturesque garden and a cozy cabin with a creaking windmill came into view.
"That''s where the old woman lives," Michael pointed out, indicating the cabin.
As they approached the cabin, a suddenmotion caught their attention. A small figure with vibrant red hair and a rather prominent nose came bounding towards them. The halfling''s expression was a mix of annoyance and concern as he addressed the two brothers with a shrill voice.
"You two! What are you doing here again?" the halfling yelled, his voice high-pitched and agitated. "Lady Griffy explicitly said she doesn''t want to see you both, and she''s extremely upset with your constant presence!"
Michael observed the scene with intrigue, both surprised and amused to encounter a halfling in thisnd. He watched as the halfling continued to admonish the brothers, his gestures animated and his demeanor remarkably authoritative for someone of his stature. Despite the halfling''s tirade, Michael remainedposed, his expression neutral as he silently assessed the situation.
The halfling''s tirade continued unabated, his words flowing with a mixture of frustration and anger. The two brothers, however, seemed determined to get their point across, and their voices rose in protest.
"We need to speak with Griffy! It''s important," the bald-headed brother demanded, his face etched with a mixture of concern and desperation.
His blonde-haired counterpart chimed in, "We''re not leaving until we talk to her. Carme''s life might be in danger."
Just as the tension was escting, chaos erupted in an unexpected fashion. Vedora suddenly lunged forward, her serpentine form striking with remarkable speed. Her three heads darted towards the halfling, and Ayag''s sharp teeth found purchase on the halfling''s neck. A shriek of pain echoed through the air as the halfling''s screams reverberated, mixing with his frantic curses.
Michael, the two brothers, and even the old woman''s cabin seemed frozen in shock. The scene unfolded so abruptly that they could hardly believe their eyes.
"What in the¡ª?" the blonde brother began, his voice a mixture of astonishment and confusion.
The halfling''s face turned an rming shade of red as Ayag''s bite took its toll. His arm iled, swatting at Vedora in a desperate attempt to free himself from her grip. In the midst of the chaos, his hand rose menacingly, poised to strike Vedora across her scaled head.
But before the halfling''s hand could make contact, Michael moved. A swift kicknded solidly on the halfling''s side, and the impact sent the small figure flying. He crashed into a nearby tree, the force of the blow leaving him momentarily stunned.
"Enough," Michael''s voice cut through the air, firm andmanding. His dark eyes bore into the halfling, his expression unwavering.
The halfling groaned, writhing on the ground in pain, his anger momentarily overtaken by shock at the unexpected turn of events.
"We''re leaving," Michael stated firmly, his tone conveying a mix of authority and urgency. He quickly assessed the situation, realizing there was more to Vedora''s actions than met the eye.
Turning his attention to the two brothers, Michael''s voice wasposed yetpelling. "Come with me," he instructed, his words carrying an air of leadership. The brothers, still taken aback by the unexpected turn of events, hesitated only for a moment before falling in line behind Michael.
As they hurried away from the scene, the halfling''s fury erupted anew. Shouts and rocks were hurled their way, some of the rocks finding their mark and striking Michael in the back.
As they moved away from the scene, the halfling''s shouts faded into the background like distant echoes.
As they distanced themselves from the cabin, Hal''s emotions swung between astonishment and anger, his frustration finally boiling over.
"What the fuck was that John?" he bellowed, his voice dripping with rage.
Michael''sposure remained unshaken, even in the face of Hal''s outburst. The two brothers watched in surprise as the three-headed snake on Michael''s shoulder nuzzled against his ear, a peculiar interaction that almost seemed like a form ofmunication.
Amid the intensity of the moment, Michael''s voice cut through the air, his words carrying an unexpected revtion that left the brothers stunned.
"That halfling we encountered back there¡ he might not be a halfling at all," Michael''s statement hung in the air, hanging heavy with implications that neither of the brothers could have foreseen.
Chapter 1077 Deepening Mystery of Misty Swamps
Chapter 1077 Deepening Mystery of Misty Swamps
The two brothers found themselves utterly bewildered and perplexed by Michael''s cryptic words. Meanwhile, Michael led them away from Lady Griffy''s cabin, stopping behind a tree strategically positioned to grant them a view of the house while also shielding them from the halfling''s outbursts.
"You''ve lost your mind, he''s definitely a halfling," protested Hal, his impatience making his voice tense.
Veer, however, furrowed his brow, looking at Michael with a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty.
"We know him. His name is Poppy, the assistant of that old woman," Veer exined.
"If I''m wrong, which rarely happens, I''ll apologize to the halfling. But if I''m right, knocking on the old woman''s door might not be a great idea," Michael warned, his voiceced with a sense of caution.
"I have no idea what you''re talking about," Hal retorted, but his words ceased abruptly when Michael conjured emerald green mes.
The sight of the dancing green mes above Michael''s hands left Veer and Hal wide-eyed in astonishment.
"You''re an alchemist," Veer eximed as realization dawned on him.
However, instead of borating, Michael swiftly summoned a collection of ingredients into his other hand and cast them into the mes. With another gesture, he produced a vial containing crimson red blood.
"This is pure halfling blood," Michael revealed, eliciting shock from the two brothers. Their gazes remained fixed on Michael, their expressions unflinching.
"What I''m creating is a potion that will confirm whether we encountered a real halfling or not," Michael exined as the essence of the alchemicalponents he''d added formed into floating beads above the mes. Gradually, these beads merged, resulting in a light green potion.
"A drop of this potion will turn pure halfling blood blue," Michael informed them, his focus on the liquid suspended above the mes. Upon hismand, a single drop descended into the vial of halfling blood in his other hand.
True to Michael''s assertion, the blood instantaneously changed to blue. Thanks to his subordinates, he possessed blood samples from every race, from humans to orcs. He had never anticipated that having halfling blood would be useful, but he trusted Vedora''s instincts and Sarba''s sense of an ancient evil presence around the halfling they had encountered.
"Now, let''s test Poppy''s blood," Michael announced, his gaze shifting to Vedora perched on his shoulder.
The two brothers couldn''t help but notice the three-headed snake. One of the snake''s heads, the one that had bitten Poppy, opened its mouth to reveal its fangs. To the astonishment of Hal and Veer, blood dripped down, falling into an empty vial suspended in the air.
"It''s time for the truth," Michael dered, his tone resolute as he ced a drop of the green liquid into Poppy''s blood. Veer and Hal stared at the vial, their attention unwavering.
Their astonishment reached new heights when the blood transformed into a putrid ck liquid.
"What does this mean?" Veer murmured, the overwhelming mix of shock, confusion, and disbelief clouding his thoughts.
halfling," Michael stated matter-of-factly.
"This is all¡" Veer began to say, only to be cut off by Michael''s "Well, it seems that whatever Poppy is, he most certainly isn''t a halfling," Michael stated matter-of-factly.
"This is all¡" Veer began to say, only to be cut off by Michael''s intervention.
"Deep down, both of you suspected something was off about the old woman, didn''t you? This might be your only chance to uncover her true nature and save your cousin," Michael stated, his voice adopting a serious undertone.
Caught in the grip of shock, Hal finally managed to find his words, his disbelief evident. "Who are you really?" he asked, struggling to reconcile the image of the seemingly ordinary young man they''d encountered moments ago with the alchemist standing before them.
"Not going to lie but I''m the one who can help you find your cousin," Michael replied candidly.
Still reeling from the revtion, the two brothers attempted to absorb the information. Veer took a deep breath and ventured to ask, "So what do you think Poppy is?"
Michael''s response carried a hint of uncertainty. "Something we haven''t encountered before."
Just as Veer observed the three-headed snake nuzzling at John''s ear again, Hal interjected with skepticism, "Tell me that three-headed snake didn''t just talk to you."
Michael''sughter broke through the tension, easing the atmosphere around them. "They''re special, yes. But let me ask you something¡ªhow long did it take to transform the misty swamps into this beautiful valley?"
"About four months," Veer confirmed, recalling the timeline.
"Do you really think that such a dramatic transformation could ur in such a short span of time without the use of magic?" Michael inquired. Surprising even themselves, the two brothers had posed the same question to their vige elder. However, their inquiries were met with stern warnings from the vigers, who fervently supported Griffy, the woman responsible for the valley''s enchanting change.
"We asked that same question. But the vigers yelled at us, and even Carme, she started to act oddly after being around the old woman," Hal exined.
"How strangely?" Michael inquired, hismanding aura and demeanor causing the brothers to find sce and trust in him, leading them to open up more freely.
"Sneaking out in the middle of the night, speaking about her deceased brother during her sleep. Even sleepwalking, though she imed not to remember any of it," Veer shared, the weight of concern evident in his voice.
"Have either of you attempted to follow her during the night?" Michael inquired, his curiosity piqued by the unfolding mystery.
"We tried, but she always managed to slip away from us. But there''s one thing we''re certain of¡ªshe frequently visits Griffy during daylight hours," Hal exined.
"So, all leads point to Griffy, and she has a helper posing as a halfling," Michael mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"Let''s take a closer look at her residence," Michael suggested.
"But you just led us away from there," Hal protested, but his objection was swiftly met with the sight of Michael summoning drones with a mere flick of his wrist.
"What are these?" Veer and Hal gazed upward, marveling at the hovering drones that appeared before them.
Michaelmanded the drones to approach Griffy''s house, holding a ss mirror that seemed to y a role in the process.
"Whoa, is this¡" Hal''s voice trailed off in astonishment as he saw the surrounding area, but through the drone''s aerial perspective disyed in the mirror.
However, the feed from the drones suddenly flickered, and Michael observed the obstruction through the trees, realizing that the drones were unable to proceed.
"What''s happening?" Veer inquired, the confusion evident in his tone.
"It''s a force field," Michael exined, his voice tinged with a mixture of amusement and surprise.
"A force field? How powerful is that old woman?" Hal''s raised eyebrows conveyed a blend of shock and trepidation as the realization dawned on the brothers.
Acting swiftly, Michael willed the drones to return to him and, with another gesture, caused them to vanish into his system''s storage.
"I believe Griffy is far from being an ordinary vige healer. You two are right about her. She is definitely hiding something,," Michael dered, confirming the brothers'' instincts.
"What should we do now?" Veer inquired, uncertainty creeping into his voice.
Rather than offering an immediate response, Michael regarded the two brothers with a peculiar smile forming on his lips.
"Do you really want to find your cousin Carme and be willing to do whatever it takes?" Michael asked.
"Yes," the brothers replied in unison, their determination to rescue their cousin unwavering.
"Good. Because this might get bloody," Michael chuckled.
"Wait here for me," Michael instructed. Before the brothers could voice any objections, he walked around the tree and headed straight back toward Griffy''s residence, his intent resolute.
As Michael walked back towards the tree, the halfling noticed his approach and erupted into a tirade of shouting, apanied by a string of foulnguage.
"You! You bastard! You think you can juste back here after sucker-kicking me? I''ll take you down, you son of a bitch! Get any closer, and I''ll tear you apart!" the halfling yelled, his face contorted in anger.
"And you, you damn snake! Bit me like a coward!" He directed his fury not only at Michael but also at the three-headed snake on Michael''s shoulder, hurling curses at it for the bite it had inflicted earlier.
Despite the onught of profanity and aggression, Michael remained remarkablyposed. He raised his index finger to his lips, signaling the halfling to quiet down.
But the halfling was beyond reason. He continued to shout and throw rocks at Michael in a futile attempt to drive him away.
However, in a swift and unexpected move, Michael lunged forward, seizing the halfling by the neck. The halfling''s shouting was cut off abruptly, reced by a choked gasp of surprise and fear.
With deft precision, Michael extracted a syringe from his pocket. The halfling struggled against Michael''s grip, his face reddening as he fought for breath.
"You think... You can just... shut me up... you bastard?" the halfling wheezed, his voice strained.
Michael''s gaze bore into the halfling''s eyes, his expression calm. Without a word, he plunged the syringe into the halfling''s neck, injecting him with a paralyzing poison.
The halfling''s body went limp, his eyes widening in shock as the poison took effect. His voice faded into silence, and his struggles ceased as his muscles grew ck. He stared at Michael with a mix of anger and fear, his ability to curse now robbed from him.
"Looks like you won''t be causing any more trouble," Michael said calmly, his voice devoid of emotion.
Michael hauled Poppy''s paralyzed body over to where Veer and Hal stood, shock etched across their faces as they stared at the motionless form of the halfling.
"What... what did you do?" Hal''s voice trembled with disbelief as he struggled toprehend the situation. Michael''s response was swift and forceful ¨C he mmed Poppy''s limp body against a nearby tree, making a dull thud.
"Is he alive?" Veer''s voice quivered with a mix of concern and fear as he examined Poppy''s unmoving figure. Veer''s sharp gaze caught a subtle movement in Poppy''s eyes, indicating that he was still conscious and aware.
"He''s just paralyzed," Michael replied calmly, his tone revealing little emotion.
"Where is Carme?" Hal''s voice dripped with anger and desperation. He demanded answers, his emotions bubbling to the surface.
"He can''t talk," Veer noted, his eyes darting between Poppy and Michael. In response, Michael retrieved another syringe and positioned it near Poppy''s mouth.
"I need some answers, Poppy. I know you''re not what you appear to be, and if you want to keep your heart intact, you better answer my questions truthfully," Michael''s words cut through the air, dripping with a chilling calmness. Poppy''s widened eyes reflected a mix of shock, surprise, and growing fear at the gravity of the situation.
Chapter 1078 New Race and New Threat
Chapter 1078 New Race and New Threat
Poppy''s body was immobilized by the effects of the paralyzing poison, rendering him unable to struggle or even shout. His mouth barely moved, and his attempts to resist were futile against the potent poison coursing through his veins. Michael proceeded to inject a colorless liquid into Poppy''s mouth, giving him the ability to speak by giving the antidote to the paralyzing poison around his mouth.
"What are you?" Michael''s tone was cold and calcting as he posed his question, leaving Hal and Veer trembling with a mixture of fear and excitement.
The two brothers, unustomed to such perilous situations, were captivated by the unfolding drama of seeing Michael hold Poppy captive, a figure who had once been arrogant and disdainful towards them. Their desperation for answers and help overshadowed any reservations they might have had.
"I''ve never felt like this before," Hal admitted, his anticipation barely contained. The prospect of breaking away from their ordinary lives and facing the unknown intrigued them both.
Poppy''s voice wavered as he managed to speak through his paralyzing condition, struggling toprehend the dire situation he found himself in.
"What kind of twisted sick person are you? I''m Poppy, Griffy''s helper," he managed to stammer, only to witness Michael retrieve yet another injection, this time filled with a red liquid.
Poppy''s panic escted as Michael exined the effects of the new potion, the uncertainty of his fate looming before him.
"This will activate all the pain receptors in your body simultaneously. In simple terms, you''ll experience excruciating pain in every inch of your being," Michael exined, his voice devoid of empathy.
"No... please... no," Poppy pleaded in desperation.
"I warned you not to lie to me," Michael retorted coldly. As he moved to inject the potion into Poppy''s neck, Veer intervened, grasping Michael''s hand.
"John, do we really need to go this far? I hate this guy as much as the next guy, but this seems excessive," Veer implored with a hint ofpassion in his voice.
"Whose life do you value the most? A fakeling like his or your cousin''s?" Michael posed a chilling question, forcing Veer to confront the gravity of their situation. The choice between Poppy''s well-being and the life of their missing cousin weighed heavily on his mind. Reluctantly, Veer released Michael''s hand, allowing him to administer the painful potion.
"Keep his mouth shut," Michael ordered Hal, whoplied willingly due to his deep-seated resentment for Griffy and Poppy. Hal''s determination to find Carme was fueled by an intense hatred that knew no bounds.
As the potion entered Poppy''s bloodstream, his screams of agony were stifled by Hal''s hand over his mouth.
"Piece of shit," Hal cursed through gritted teeth as Poppy''s pain-fueled bite struck his hand.
"Stop biting if you''re ready to tell the truth," Michaelmanded, his icy gaze fixed on Poppy.
Although Poppy attempted to maintain his resolve, the excruciating pain chipped away at his defenses. He eventually ceased biting Hal''s hand as Hal slowly withdrew it.
"You... you three have... no idea... what you''re... getting into," Poppy rasped, his words punctuated bybored breaths.
"I''ve heard that line countless times," Michael remarked, his toneced with cynicism.
"Now, unless you want me to administer another potion¡ªone far worse than this¡ªtell me who you truly are and what your intentions are," Michael demanded, his voice turned colder.
Poppy''s fear was palpable, his eyes darting around in a frantic search for an escape from his dire predicament. The fear and uncertainty that flickered in his eyes were unmistakable to Michael.
"I''ll ask you one final time," Michael reiterated, his tone unyielding as he retrieved yet another syringe. This time, the syringe contained a crimson red liquid.
"What''s this one for?" Hal inquired, his curiosity piqued by the new concoction.
"He doesn''t want to find out, trust me," Michael replied with a sardonic grin, directing his gaze towards Poppy.
In the face of the impending threat, Poppy''s resolve began to crumble. Michael''s actions spoke louder than words, prompting him to yield to the pressure.
"I am a bloodling!" Poppy''s voice wavered slightly as he responded, sending a shock through Veer and Hal.
"A bloodling? What is that?" Veer questioned, his confusion mirroring the unfamiliarity of the term.
"Is this your true form?" Michael inquired, his gaze piercing through Poppy.
"No," Poppy admitted, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and resignation.
"Reveal your true form, and I promise you, I''ll release you," Michael offered, his words carrying a genuine undertone. The proposition held a glimmer of hope that resonated with Poppy.
However, Veer and Hal were equally taken aback by Michael''s actions, particrly as he proceeded to inject Poppy with the new crimson-red liquid. The paralysis already coursing through Poppy''s body rendered him oblivious to the needle''s puncture.
"Give me the antidote for my paralysis," Poppy growled, his frustration evident. Michael acknowledged his demand and retrieved a syringe filled with colorless liquid.
As the liquid flowed into his bloodstream, Poppy experienced the gradual return of motor control. He clenched his hands and flexed his legs, testing his newfound mobility.
"Try anything funny, and I''ll crush you like a bug," Michael''s cold words resonated as he released his grip, allowing Poppy to fall to the ground.
Poppy scanned the trio of men before him, feeling particrly unnerved by the figure in dark robes.
"Go ahead, reveal your true form," Michael urged.
he lunged at Michael in a desperate attack. However, he had severely underestimated Michael''s reflexes.
Yet, Poppy had his own ns. Swiftly conjuring a blood-red sword, he lunged at Michael in a desperate attack. However, he had severely underestimated Michael''s reflexes.
In a single, fluid motion, Michael delivered a powerful kick to Poppy''s chest, propelling him into the tree. Michael''s boot pressed onto Poppy''s neck, immobilizing him once again.
"I told you," Michael''s voice remained chillinglyposed. Despite Poppy''s attempts to retaliate, even managing to swing his dagger, Michael deftly disarmed him with a swift kick.
Veer''s hesitation lingered as he watched Michael''s ruthlessness unfold. Although harboring no sympathy for Poppy, he struggled to witness a living being subjected to such merciless treatment.
"John¡" Veer''s voice wavered with concern, his eyes locked on the struggling bloodling.
"Don''t worry. He will show his true self soon,," Michael replied calmly, tightening his grip and applying more pressure to Poppy''s throat.
Poppy''s struggles intensified under Michael''s unyielding boot on his neck. His curses grew more fervent as his face paled, and he gasped for precious air.
"He''s dying," Hal''s voice trembled as he observed Poppy''s dire state.
"You don''t have much time," Michael coldly remarked, his grip remaining firm.
Suddenly, a primal roar erupted from Poppy''s lips, resonating through the forest. His body contorted as a transformation gripped him. His fair skin took on a sickly, dark green hue, while his nails elongated into sharp, w-like appendages. His eyes turned a menacing blood red, and his teeth morphed into vicious, shark-like fangs.
As Poppy''s monstrous form stood before them, the truth of his identity wasid bare. The confrontation had led to an unsettling unveiling, increasing the tension and mystery surrounding their quest.
"Well, well, well, look at this ugliness," Michaelmented with a touch of amusement. As Poppy''s true form was unveiled, Michael lifted his boot off Poppy''s neck.
"You''ve stirred up a ho''s nest that will burn you to the ground. You three are fucked!" Poppy shouted, his anger palpable. With his newfound appearance, he dashed away from Michael, his path leading straight toward Griffy''s home.
"He''s escaping!" Hal''s panic was evident in his voice.
However, Michael let out a chuckle. "Let him go. It''s time we pay another visit to Griffy."
Cracking his neck nonchntly, Michael began to move toward Griffy''s home with measured steps, his demeanorposed and unwavering despite the escting mysteries and dangers that surrounded them.
Michael led the way, nked by Hal and Veer as they approached Griffy''s home. Meanwhile, Poppy sprinted toward Griffy''s home, casting nces over his shoulder at Michael and the brothers. His bloodshot eyes were filled with fury, and he couldn''t resist hurling curses at the tree as he passed by.
"Stupid motherfucker thinks he''s clever, huh?" Poppy muttered through gritted teeth, his voice a venomous snarl. "I''ll show him... and that fucking snake too."
His breath was ragged, a mixture of pain, rage, and fear fueling his desperate flight toward the one ce he thought could offer refuge. Yet, his curses and insults remained constant, each step echoing with his seething hatred for the group behind him.
As he neared the entrance of Griffy''s home, Poppy''s heart raced faster.
"Fucking assholes! I''ll rip you apart, you motherfucking son of a bitch!" Poppy''s voice was a mixture of rage and desperation as he continued to curse and swear at the group.
Ignoring the torrent of curses from Poppy, Michael strode forward and entered Griffy''s home. After a few moments, they arrived at Griffy''s doorsteps.
"It''s locked," Hal reported after trying the knobs with no sess.
"Its not," Michael couldn''t help but snicker at the situation. With a confident grin, he raised his foot and delivered a powerful kick, sending the door swinging open.
The forceful entry earned Michael a surge of satisfaction, triggering a sense of nostalgia from his mortal experiences. A fleeting memory of his time in the mortal realm flitted across his mind.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
Stepping inside, Michael found himself in a cozily decorated house, exuding an air of magic and charm. Everything was crafted from wood and neatly arranged, and a warm firece added an extra touch of enchantment to the surroundings. The atmosphere reminded Michael of a ce straight out of a fairy tale, filling him with a sense of wonder and curiosity.
Upon entering the house, Michael''s gaze fell upon Griffy positioned by the window, her back turned to him as she peered outside. Leaning against a sofa, she exuded an air of nonchnce, with Poppy standing at her side.
"Look, it''s them. Kill them!" Poppy''s voice brimmed with unchecked anger, a surge of fury in the face of their presence.
"Poppy, calm down," Griffy''s voice, contrasting Poppy''s agitation, resonated with aposed tone as she turned the sofa to face the room. Yet, her attempt at serenity was short-lived when she found herself face-to-face with Michael.
"It''s you again," she remarked, an air of annoyance tinging her words. "Young man, you''d better have a damn good reason forying a hand on and tormenting my humble servant."
"Quit the theatrics, old woman," he retorted sharply. "He''s a bloodling posing as a halfling. So, what exactly are you?"
Instead of addressing Michael''s question, the old woman simply waved her hand, and with an almost eerie precision, the door sealed shut behind them. Hal, driven by a sense of urgency, hurriedly rushed to the door, attempting to pry it open, but its obstinance defied his efforts.
"Forget what happened here and leave my realm," the old woman''s voice dripped with a malevolent undertone, hermandced with dark intent.
Michael calmly shrugged. "Sure thing. Just tell us where Carme is, and we''ll be on our way."
"We know you are hiding her. What have you done to Carme?" Hal''s voice surged with a potent mix of concern and anger, his emotionsid bare.
The old woman''s response was a chillingughter, an echo of her amusement in the face of their outrage.
"I haven''t done anything to Carme," her voice remained calm, and with a single p of her hands, the room shifted. Soon, the presence of more bloodlings emerged from the shadows. They escorted a young woman with golden hair, garbed in fancy robes that befitted a princess.
"Hal, Veer!" Carme''s voice rang out in a mixture of shock and tion, her astonishment at seeing them evident in her eyes. However, her delight was swiftly overshadowed by fear as her gaze settled on Griffy.
"Go away! I don''t need you two!" Carme''s joyful cry transformed into a desperate plea, her eyes wide with a terror that seemed directed not at her cousins, but at the enigmatic figure before her.
"Carme!" Veer and Hal''s excitement surged as they began to move towards her, driven by the relief of finding her. Yet, their urgency halted abruptly when they approached Griffy. In a swift and uncanny motion, the old woman raised her hand, conjuring a fierce st of wind that tore through the air with violent intent. Hal and Veer were swept off their feet, their forms sent hurtling through the air before being forcefully pinned against the wall.
"Now you are going to pay for everything you have done, young man," Griffy''s voice, once calm and collected, took on an otherworldly resonance, transforming into a gruff and thunderous growl that seemed entirely incongruent with her fragile frame. The voice was ancient, bearing a malevolent power that sent shivers down the spines of all who heard it.
Chapter 1079 Facing an Ancient Monster
Chapter 1079 Facing an Ancient Monster
The old woman''s lips curled into a sinister snicker as she addressed Michael, her tone dripping with a chilling mix of mockery and threat. "You shouldn''t have poked your nose into matters that don''t concern you, young man."
An uneasy silence gripped the room as her words lingered, heavy with threat. Suddenly, the atmosphere twisted with shock as the old woman underwent a grotesque transformation. Her frame contorted, skin turning ashen and leathery like decay. Unnaturally hunched, she surged to eight feet, her limbs stretching into razor ws.
"Finally showing yourself huh?" Michael sneered inside.
A putrid stench pervaded, maggots wriggling from her skin. Once benign eyes turned into seething hollows, while jagged rotted teeth jutted from her twisted mouth. The monstrous form defied nature''s bounds, a maelstrom of horror that submerged the room in fear.
"By the gods!" Veer''s voice cracked with shock, his face a mask of horror.
"Holy... what is that?" Hal''s voice trembled, his disbelief bordering on terror.
Carme''s cry mixed with their astonishment, her voice a desperate pleaced with fear. "No, please! Spare them!"
The monstrous being, her form contorted and twisted beyond recognition, shot Carme a malevolent re. "You will pay for what your cousins have done," her voice, a guttural growl, foretold of unfathomable cruelty. With a swift, ominous wave of her wed hand, a vicious gust of wind surged forth, shrouding Carme in a maelstrom of energy.
In the blink of an eye, Carme vanished, as if swallowed by the wind itself, leaving her cousins in shocked silence. Their cries were stifled, reced by an eerie emptiness that settled over the room.
The monstrous form turned its gaze back to Michael, its hollow sockets seething with a malevolence that transcended the boundaries of the natural world.
Its voice, a disturbing amalgamation of the old woman''s and something more sinister, dripped with mockery and taunt.
"You meddle in affairs you cannotprehend, young man. Your presence here will be your undoing."
"Let her go!" Veer''s voice quivered with rage and desperation, his eyes burning with a fierce determination.
"Release her now!" Hal''s cry echoed his brother''s sentiment, his voice marked by a fierce urgency.
But the monstrous entity, her form radiating malevolence, merely responded with a dismissive wave of her hand. In that moment, veins of darkness erupted from the very walls, snaking forward like serpents of shadow. With eerie precision, they wrapped themselves around the brothers'' mouths, silencing their pleas and cries in an instant.
Veer and Hal''s voices were muffled, their eyes wide with shock and rm.
However, Michael remained calm as Griffy, now showed her true self as a monster looked at her bloodling minions, including Poppy.
"Does this sight fill you with fear, young man?" Griffy''s voice dripped with a sinister curiosity, her lips curling back to reveal a long, slithering tongue. A yearning hunger tainted her tone, a thirst for the anticipation of a fresh victim.
"If anything, this makes me feel disgusted," Michael retorted, his response cutting through the air with a touch of defiance. He met her unsettling gaze head-on, unflinching in the face of her malevolence.
The old woman who turned into a monstrous being seemed taken aback by his retort, a momentary flicker of surprise crossing her grotesque features.
"I''m not one to indulge in body-shaming," Michael continued with a sigh, his voice carrying an exasperated edge. "But my god, you''ve really outdone yourself in the ''ugly'' department."
The unexpected jab seemed to strike a nerve, a mixture of disbelief and anger shing across the creature''s hollow eyes.
"Let''s see if your actions can back your words. My minions, go bring him to my feet," Griffymanded, her voiceced with a twisted blend of authority and anticipation. The bloodlings, each standing around three feet tall, swiftly responded to her orders.
Without a trace of fear, they surged forward toward Michael, their movements determined and predatory. Hisses and curses dripped from their lips as they closed in on him, an eerie chorus of malice that echoed through the air.
The bloodlings surged forward, their voices dripping with disdain as they spat out derogatory terms. "Human scum," one sneered, while another hissed, "Mortal fool."
With no hestitation, they rushed toward him, their movements quick and purposeful.
Yet, Michael remained eerily calm in the face of their onught. He calmly cracked his fingers, a casual gesture that belied the tension of the moment.
In the midst of their aggression, Poppy''s voice suddenly pierced the air, cutting through the tension.
"Avoid his needles, you fools!" he bellowed at his fellow bloodlings, his words echoing with a mix of caution and urgency. The sudden outburst confused some of the bloodlings, a flicker of hesitation crossing their eyes.
Michael seized this moment of uncertainty to his advantage. His hand moved with deliberate slowness, revealing the hilt of a dark sword hidden at his side. The glint of malevolent steel caught the dim light, casting an eerie shimmer that danced across the room.
With a taunting grin, Michael addressed the advancing bloodlings. "Well, let me see what you bloodlings are made of," His voice carried a mocking challenge, each word an unspoken dare that hung in the air.
As the bloodlings lunged, their distorted features contorted with a mix of fury and desperation, Michael''s response was a symphony of controlled aggression. His fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dark sword, and with a fluid motion, he unsheathed it, revealing the de that glimmered with a malevolent aura.
The sh erupted with a deafening intensity. Michael moved with an uncanny precision, his strikesnding true and merciless. The sword cleaved through the air with a lethal grace, the de connecting with the bloodlings'' frail forms. Blood sttered in grotesque arcs, painting the scene with a morbid red as the bloodlings'' once-vicious hisses transformed into anguished cries of pain and shock.
"You''ll pay for this!" one of the bloodlings spat, his voice carrying a note of desperation as he writhed in agony.
Michael''s reply was a grim smile, his movements a chilling disy of mastery. With each swing, heads and bodies were severed as if they were naught but fragile twigs. The room echoed with the sickening sound of flesh meeting steel, punctuated by the wet thuds of severed limbs hitting the ground.
In a matter of minutes, the battle had turned into a massacre. The once-threatening bloodlings nowy in lifeless heaps, their torment at an end.
Amidst the aftermath, the old woman''s voice carried a tinge of amusement. "Impressive. Your skills are quite the spectacle, young man."
Poppy''s response, however, held a tinge of fear. "This isn''t good. He''s more lethal than I thought."
"Poppy,e here," the old woman''s sudden call reached out for her sole remaining minion. While Michael had indeed ignited fear within Poppy, it was clear that the terror inspired by Griffy was far greater. With his tiny legs carrying him swiftly, Poppy rushed to Griffy''s side, his posture stiff and obedient like a soldier answering a superior''smand.
"Yes, Griffy!" Poppy''s voice rang out, his tone an eager mix ofpliance and loyalty as he stood at attention.
Yet, the unfolding scene took an unexpected and horrific turn, jolting Michael''s senses. The old woman''s hands darted forward to snatch Poppy without warning. Michael watched in shock as Griffy''s mouth stretched wide open, a chilling grin that seemed to defy the limits of human anatomy.
"What the..." Ayag''s exmation echoed the shared astonishment, her widened eyes mirroring Michael''s disbelief. As Griffy''s jaws unhinged like that of a python, a wave of horrified realization crashed over them.
"What are you doing? No!"
"Don''t!"
Poppy''s desperate screams tore through the air, but their frantic pleas proved futile. In a nightmarish tableau, the old woman''s rotten teeth mped down with a sickening crunch, obliterating bones and resistance alike. Michael winced at the grisly sounds that followed, the repulsive symphony of bones being shattered and devoured. The sight, even in the dim light of the room, was undeniably grotesque, a grotesque disy that seared itself into Michael''s memory.
Michael''s revulsion was palpable as he witnessed the gruesome spectacle unfold before him. He couldn''t help but voice his thoughts, his tone a mix of horror and disgust. "That''s beyond disgusting..."
The old woman''sughter erupted, a macabre sound that seemed to dance on the edge of madness. "Oh, my dear boy, you''ve only just glimpsed the beginning of horror," she retorted, her tone a chilling melody of mirth and malice. Her eyes bore into his, their depths swirling with a sadistic amusement.
"And as for your dear Carme," she continued, a sinister grin twisting her already grotesque features, "she too shall meet the same fate. A fate she cannot escape." Her words dripped with a wicked satisfaction, each sybleden with a cruel certainty.
"Her essence will blend into a savory soup, an offering to my insatiable hunger," the old woman dered.
"Ah, the taste of innocent flesh," she mused, a morbid nostalgia tainting her tone. "The most potent drug in all realms, young man. It surpasses any sustenance, offering a feast for both body and soul."
Chapter 1080 Deaths of Michaels worshippers
Chapter 1080 Deaths of Michael''s worshippers
The old woman''s twisted amusement seemed to fuel her power. With a wave of her wed hand, she conjured a spell that crackled with dark energy. The air itself seemed to twist and writhe as the spell materialized, a sinister vortex of shadows that swirled around her fingers before being unleashed.
As the spell surged forth, it morphed into an ethereal entity, its form an amalgamation of writhing tendrils that dripped with malevolence. The room trembled as the spell wove its tendrils into the very fabric of reality, its ominous aura casting the surroundings into an eerie gloom.
Amidst this chaos, the old woman''s voice cut through the room. "I wonder, young man, how three promising young men such as yourselves would taste," she taunted, her words dripping with a blend of sadistic curiosity and hunger.
With a wicked grin, she unleashed the spell''s concentrated malevolence, a searing torrent of energy hurtling towards Michael. But Michael was prepared. In a swift motion, he raised his arm as the ck shield retracted from his forearm. The shield absorbed the oing spell with a sickening sizzle, the dark tendrils intertwining and dissipating into nothingness upon impact.
The old woman''sughter echoed, amusement dancing in her hollow eyes. "Impressive," she purred, her voice tinged with an unsettling admiration. "Seems you''re not as defenseless as your friends. A pity, though. I do so enjoy the spectacle of watching my prey squirm."
As the remnants of the dissipating spell faded away, Michael''sughter echoed through the room. Griffy, taken aback by his reaction, posed a question that dripped with malicious curiosity. "My preys normally go insane, but not this soon. What''s so funny, young prey?"
Michael''s grin remained unwavering as he met her gaze. "Have you not heard that you shouldn''t eat everything you pick from the ground?" he retorted.
A puzzled frown creased Griffy''s forehead, and a soft chuckle emerged from Ayag, who perched atop Michael''s shoulder. Michael continued, his voice a casual, dark amusement. "You never know what it would do to your stomach."
With a snap of his fingers, the room was engulfed in a burst of dark green mist. Griffy''s form disintegrated, her once menacing presence vanishing in an instant. Veer and Hal, no longer pinned by the tendrils, dropped to the ground, their expressions a mix of disbelief and shock.
"What just happened?" Veer''s voice quivered as he spoke, his fear still palpable.
The silence was broken by Michael''s nonchnt reply. "Simple chemistry."
His calcted move became clear: Poppy''s final injection had contained the Blood Tonic. As Griffy devoured him, the unsuspecting monster ingested a ticking time bomb, a bomb that Michael had detonated with a mere snap of his fingers.
As Griffy''s demise settled, Hal and Veer turned their focus to their cousin''s whereabouts. Their frantic search led them to overturn furniture and rummage through the house in their desperate quest to find Carme.
"She''s not hiding under a sofa, Hal," Veer remarked, his gaze shifting towards Michael. He recognized that Michael''s unique skills might hold the key to locating Carme.
"She was teleported. I have a few ways to find-," Michael began to exin before he was interrupted by an unsettling realization. The system, which had always given him notifications for sessful eliminations, had remained silent. His brows furrowed as he processed this unusual urrence.
"What?" Hal and Veer exchanged expectant nces, eager for Michael''s exnation.
"The two of you should leave this ce as soon as you can," Michael''s tone was grave, carrying a weight of urgency.
Confusion and frustration mingled in Hal''s voice as he protested. "But you killed her... somehow."
"I don''t know how, but you did," Veer added.
"Leave this ce!" Michael''s voice, now somber, broke through the chaos, halting their frantic efforts.
"Why would we leave? We can''t go without Carme!" Hal''s retort was fueled by his concern for his cousin.
Veer echoed the sentiment, his determination unyielding. "We won''t leave without her."
However, Michael was not in the mood to argue. Without further exnation, he marched to the door and with a powerful kick, splintered the wooden barrier. His gaze fell upon the once-vibrant valley, now reced by a mist-shrouded, foul-smelling swamp.
The foul swamp stretched in every direction, an expanse of murky waters and twisted trees that seemed to writhe in the mist. The air hung heavy with the stench of decay, and a damp chill settled into their bones. The atmosphere was oppressive, thick with an eerie silence broken only by the asional croak of unseen creatures.
Veer''s voice quivered with a mix of dread and disbelief as he nced around. "This... this is the Misty Swamps," he murmured, his words tinged with a sense of recognition that mirrored the shock in his eyes.
Michael''s voice cut through the tension, his toneced with an undercurrent of authority. "The illusion that Griffy cast over this realm has dissipated. We''re truly in the Misty Swamps now."
As if on cue, the veil of deception that had obscured their surroundings was lifted, revealing the grim reality that now enveloped them. The twisted trees and stagnant waters stretched out before them, a testament to the treacherous nature of this realm.
"Take them outside the swamp," Michael''smand rang out as he turned to Vedora, a decisive tone coloring his words.
Veer and Hal exchanged stunned nces, their surprise evident as Michael continued to issue instructions.
"If you find yourselves in danger, use your teleportation," Michael added, his gaze shifting to Cain. In a swift motion, he seized Vedora and handed her over to Veer.
"I''ll return with your cousin. Now go, time is running short," Michael urged, giving them a firm push towards the swamp''s edge. Without further dy, he turned away and re-entered the house, his determination unyielding.
Before Veer and Hal could formte a response, the world around them shifted. Michael''s decisive actions triggered a series of events: a stomp on the floor, a resonant crash, and the ceiling above the entrance copsing in on itself. Their path back was sealed off, and they were now separated from the mysterious protector who had plunged into the depths of the house.
Inside the house once more, Michael''s attention refocused on the task at hand. He made his way to the spot where Griffy exploded, his senses attuned to the lingering remnants of her presence.
"Where are you hiding?" Michael''s question carried a mixture of determination and curiosity, the voice of a predator seeking out its prey. As the god of darkness, his heightened senses allowed him to perceive the faint traces of Griffy''s energy still lingering in the air.
With a swift motion, Michael activated the Xray eyes, granting himself enhanced vision. His gaze swept over the surroundings, revealing hidden details. To his surprise, his sight revealed a concealed cave that led deeper into the house.
"No time to search for hidden mechanisms," Michael muttered to himself, his toneced with a mix of wry amusement. He wasted no time, channeling his immense strength into a single kick that shattered the sturdy wall as if it were mere eggshell. The opening of the cave was exposed, and a gust of air rushed forth, carrying with it the putrid scent of death and decay.
Pressing his chest, Michael activated his dark armor. The ck armor unfurled, a living metal that encased him from head to toe, his figure now concealed within its inky embrace. The skull on his chest erupted in eerie brilliance, twin beams of light emanating from the hollow eye sockets. These luminous guides cast an ethereal glow, cutting through the cavern''s darkness as they illuminated his path.
The cave''s interior embraced Michael with an all-epassing darkness, broken only by the faint illumination of eerie green moths that fluttered like ethereal spirits. Luminous mushrooms sprouted from the damp earth, casting an otherworldly glow that added to the surreal ambiance.
As he ventured deeper, the cave seemed to carry the weight of its own history. Faint echoes reverberated in the air ¨C haunting whispers, the ghostly remnants of voices long silenced.
"Please I am begging you for mercy...!"
"Why... why are you doing this?"
"Please, no more... I can''t take it..."
The cave''s depths were a repository of anguish, a chilling tapestry of suffering woven by the hands of a sinister entity.
The haunting cries that reverberated within the cave fell on deaf ears as Michael remained resolute. Unperturbed by the eerie echoes, he swiftly took action, activating the Antidote Protection Device (APD) to inocte himself against the hallucinogenic influences that might linger in the air. His swift injection fortified his mind against the insidious effects that the cave''s atmosphere might have wrought.
As he ventured further into the depths of the cavern, its confines began to expand, revealing a grim tableau. A mound of bones, skulls, and skeletonsy exposed, a macabre testament to the lives that had met their end within this cursed domain.
Then, a voice sliced through the silence, chilling in its sinister tone. "You are the first human to step into my domain willingly," the voice echoed, resonating through the chamber.
Laughter, dripping with malice, followed the voice''s initial promation. "An ancient being like me possesses a multitude of forms and powers, young prey," Griffy''s voice continued, its presence casting an ominous pall over the exchange.
"Why not reveal yourself and face me directly, like a true monster?" Michael inquired, his tone steady as he ventured deeper into the heart of the cave.
"Why would I hasten this exhrating dance between us? It has been centuries since I''ve experienced something quite like this," Griffy''s chuckle echoed, carrying the undertones of wicked delight.
Michael, however, was not content to merely y the role of the hunted. "I heard you constructed your home over the temple of the God of Darkness. Care to share your motivations for that, bad girl?" he taunted, his words dripping with a sinister edge.
"The God of Darkness? The false god... surely, you don''t count yourself among his devotees?" Griffy''s response wasced with a sardonic sneer.
"False god, you say? I beg to differ," Michael retorted with an air of quiet confidence, his voice taking on a low, drawling quality that mirrored Griffy''s own. Settling himself upon the bone-strewn mound, he adopted a regal posture, his intent to draw out the secrets that Griffy guarded so closely.
However, he wasn''t ready to unveil his identity as the God of Darkness to Griffy just yet. Instead, he chose to y the role he had set for himself, engaging in this intricate dance of deception and intrigue.
"I have enjoyed killing his worshippers. As a matter of fact, you are sitting on top of some," Griffy coldlyughed enjoying her exchange with Michael.
Chapter 1081 Meeting the Executioner of the Pantheon
Chapter 1081 Meeting the Executioner of the Pantheon
??readtest ch??pters at n/??v(e)lbi??(.)co/m
Amidst the shadows, Griffy''s voice took on a haunting cadence, weaving a bone-chilling tale that resonated with the darkness of her very being. "There was an incident," she began, her tone dripping with a cruel reminiscence that sent shivers down the spine. "A young man, curious and enamored by the whispers of the temple of the God of Darkness. The vigers, fearing he might embrace the worship of that forbidden god, turned to me."
A chuckle,den with wicked satisfaction, escaped her lips. "They believed I held the power to save him from that fate. So, they brought him to my dwelling, pleading for his life."
Her words held an eerie calmness as she continued her tale. "I granted his request, you see. I kept him alive, savoring his flesh bit by bit. His screams, oh, they became my symphony, each note more satisfying than thest."
A sense of morbid fascination danced within her voice as she recalled the grim event. "He cried out to every god imaginable, including the one he was warned against ¨C the God of Darkness. His pleas fell on deaf ears, as I feasted upon his agony."
Griffy''s words dripped with a twisted amusement as she revealed the culmination of her malevolence. "When I had consumed every bit of his being, only his bones remained. I spat them out and cast them aside. Then, I spun my tale, one of his departure from the vige in search of greater knowledge."
Her voice was mocking as she recounted the deception she had woven. "The vigers believed my lies, so willing to overlook their own fears and suspicions. Fools, each and every one of them, for they chose to be deceived."
Seated amidst the chilling mound of bones, Michael listened to Griffy''s tale with aposed demeanor, his dark armor enveloping him like a shroud of enigma. As her sinister narrative reached its conclusion, he allowed a moment of silence to linger before his own voice cut through the darkness.
"Your story reminds me of an ancient tale," he began, his tone measured and deliberate. "There was once an arrogant hunter, confident in his prowess. He had hunted and imed victory over countless weak prey, fueling his arrogance. Yet, his arrogance led him to believe he could conquer the ultimate prey ¨C a predator shrouded in darkness and myth."
A subtle pause carried a weight of anticipation before he continued. "Little did the hunter know that he had walked into the predator''s domain. This cunning predator, appearing as a seemingly weak prey, allowed the hunter to close in. Just as the hunter believed he was in control, the predator''s true nature revealed itself."
Michael''s words held a quiet intensity, mirroring the ominous atmosphere of the cave. "The predator, masquerading as the very prey the hunter sought, cunningly reversed the roles. With each calcted move, the predator turned the tables, transforming the hunter into the hunted."
He let the implications of his story hang in the air, a mirror to the tale Griffy had spun. "In the end, the hunter''s arrogance was his downfall, his belief in his own invincibility shattered by the reality of his vulnerability. The predator relished in this twist of fate, for the true powery not in sheer strength but in the art of deception and maniption."
Griffy''sughter echoed through the cavern, a macabre symphony of darkness. "Ah, a tale of shifting roles and hidden intentions," she mused in response to Michael''s story. "But who, I wonder, is the true predator, and who is the unsuspecting prey in this dance between us?"
Michael''s response was delivered with unwavering calmness. "The roles will be clear in due time," he stated, his words carrying a hint of enigmatic assurance.
As the air trembled with an undercurrent of anticipation, the shadows of the cave seemed to deepen, yielding to the emergence of a figure from the darkness. Michael frowned as a familiar silhouette stepped into view. It was Carme yet her presence was different, tinged with an unsettling aura.
Carme''sughter held an eerie edge. It was a haunting sound as a stark realization dawned upon him. Griffy had seized control of Carme''s body.
As the truth settled in, Carme''s features contorted, the very embodiment of innocence distorted by malevolent possession. He locked eyes with the twisted gaze of Griffy, now housed within the vessel of Carme.
"Surprised to see me, young prey?" Carme''s voice dripped with dark amusement, a sinister mockery of Griffy.
A sardonic smile danced upon her lips as the tension in the cavern escted. "You see, I''ve taken quite a liking to this young woman''s body. Such potential, such vulnerability ¨C the perfect canvas for my art."
Griffy
Chapter 1082 Elemental Attunement Realm
Chapter 1082 Elemental Attunement Realm
Michael''s growl reverberated through the swamp as he rose to his feet, seething with frustration at the abrupt escape of Griffy. His anger, however, was swiftly redirected as he faced the arrival of the angel. The confidence radiating from the angel told Michael that he was facing an opponent of great power ¨C an opponent who showed no fear even in the face of a god.
"Resist all you want, rogue god," the angel''s voice resonated across the swamp. Its tone alone conveyed the angel''s immense power.
"You won''t escape through teleportation," the angel dered, producing a glowing red rune-engraved metal te. The te split into fragments that dispersed in every direction around Michael.
Gradually, the space around him thickened, stifling his ability to employ shadow teleportation.
"How did you find me?" Michael inquired, despite being aware that his use of power had alerted the pantheon to his presence. An executioner from their ranks had tracked him down.
"You''re neither the first nor thest rogue god I''ll hunt," the angel proimed with amanding air.
With little hesitation, Michael lunged at the angel, unleashing a barrage of rapid punches. The angel, however, didn''t raise a hand to deflect the blows. Instead, he absorbed the onught, his body almost inviting Michael''s assault. A final kick propelled the angel back, sending him crashing into the swamp''s watery embrace.
Yet, the angel swiftly rose to his feet.
"A mere Level 2 god, how disappointing," the angel sneered, astonishing Michael with his assessment.
Enduring Michael''s blows had allowed the angel to gauge his divine level.
In an instant, the angel''s wrist moved, revealing a small ss container containing a radiant sliver of energy. The energy emanating from the container was palpable.
Michael surged toward the angel, recognizing the angel''s intention to absorb the sliver of grace and amplify his abilities. However, as he charged forward, two massive hands emerged from the watery depths, seizing his legs.
Michael nced down to see imposing metallic hands locking onto his limbs. He strained to free himself, beating his metal wings to ascend into the air. Yet, he felt as though he were being drawn by mountains, their strength far surpassing even a god''s immense might.
"You will apany me to the pantheon, whether you like it or not," the angel dered before ingesting the grace sliver.
The moment the energy entered the angel''s mouth, a radiant glow enveloped him, catching Michael''s attention.
[Warning!]
[The angel has reached God Level 5¡]
[The system rmends the host to escape¡]
"Use a teleportation scroll!" Michael shouted within his head.
[Teleportation is unavable¡]
[The hostcks the required points to break the teleportation lock¡]
The system''s response offered no aid to Michael. Reacting quickly, he unsheathed his dark swords and invoked the power of death. The surroundings plunged into absolute darkness.
Nheless, the angel''s radiance outshone the darkness, the disparity between a Level 2 god and a Level 5 god unbridgeable.
"God of Darkness, I''ve been anticipating your arrival in this realm," the angel spoke, his voice devoid of emotion.
The two metal hands that had ensnared Michael''s legs gradually emerged from the swamp, unveiling themselves as towering metal golems. These constructs stood nearly ten feet tall, their bodies constructed from a dark, ancient metal that seemed impervious to wear. Their eyes glowed with a malevolent red light, and their massive fists clenched, ready forbat.
"These golems have brought down so many rogue gods. And you will not be an exception," the angel said.
Without hesitation, Michael engaged the golems,unching his attacks in a desperate bid to break free. ck lightning erupted from his hands, streaking toward the golems, but the bolts seemed to be absorbed by their metallic bodies. He then unleashed dark beams, hoping to pierce through their defenses, but the golems held firm. Even when he summoned dark mes that should have consumed everything in their path, the mes merely danced upon the golems'' surfaces without inflicting damage.
The angel, his power amplified by the grace, exerted control over the golems. With calcted precision, they advanced on Michael from both sides, their heavy footsteps sending tremors through the swamp. Each blow they struck was like the collision of mountains, and Michael''s attempts to fend them off were growing increasingly futile.
[The quest ''The Mystery of the Misty Swamps'' ispleted¡]
[The host has received one million badass points¡]
As Michael continued to battle the relentless golems and the empowered angel, the sudden notification from the system brought a glimmer of hope amidst the chaos. The prospect of earning a significant number of badass points through apleted quest was a wee surprise.
Amid the intense shes and exchanges of power, Michael managed to steal a quick nce at the spot where he had left Carme. To his relief, she was nowhere to be seen, and he deduced that she had likely found safety with their cousin outside the treacherous swamp. With no physical body, Griffy seemed to have momentarily halted her attacks and disappeared.
With his focus back on the battle, Michael exerted his strength, causing the golems'' hands to crack and buckle under his power.
"If you surrender ande with me to the pantheon, I will not hurt you," the angel coldly said.
His grip on the golems tightened as he listened to the angel''s cold offer. Surrender was not an option for Michael. His determination to survive and find a way out burned within him.
In the midst of this life-or-death struggle, Michael turned to the system for aid, seeking a solution to escape the dire predicament.
"System, take a loan and get me out of here," he growled silently within his mind, urgency coating his thoughts.
[The system can take a loan of ten million points and add it to the existing eleven million badass points to find a solution¡]
[However, the host must survive at least five more minutes in this battle for the system to break the teleportation barrier¡]
[Warning!]
[The host has no way of earning twenty-five million points in this realm in a short amount of time¡]
The system''s notifications came rapidly, outlining the options and challenges before him.
"Do it!" Michael''s voice boomed in his thoughts, his determination unwavering as he gave themand to the system.
"Being a god doesn''t mean you''re at the top of the food chain in this world," the angel taunted as the golems tightened their grip on Michael''s hands, rendering him immobile.
"Youck worshippers, angels, and any real im in this realm," the angel continued to approach Michael, his hand producing glimmering golden shackles.
Struggling against the unyielding hold of the golems, Michael conjured his dark mes in an attempt to burn through the metallic restraints. However, even the intense heat of the primordial mes failed to weaken the resilience of the metal used in the construction of the golems and shackles.
"And you fail to grasp the extent of an angel''s power," the angel asserted, raising his hands to emphasize his words. His cultivation in the Soul Ignition Realm not only heightened his soul energy, but it also granted him mastery over a specific element. By the time a practitioner reached level 4, the Elemental Attunement Realm, they had to choose an elemental affinity to specialize in.
This angel had chosen metal, granting him absolute control over his metallic constructs, including the wings attached to Michael''s armor.
"No one stands above or beyond the pantheon," the angel dered, his fist clenching. With a swift motion, Michael felt his armor constricting, the once-sturdy metal wings torn away from his back under the angel''s unseen maniption.
Enduring the agony of his armor adapting to the changes, Michael utilized his remaining strength to levitate above the ground. The golems responded with defiant roars, yet the angel''s punch struck with devastating force, causing Michael''s armor to shatter. Exposed and vulnerable, he gritted his teeth against the pain while confronting the undeniable power of the angel.
"Level 2 gods cannot prevail against level 5 gods," the angel asserted. With the temporary boost from absorbing the level 5 god''s sliver of grace, he effortlessly overpowered Michael within a matter of seconds.
In the midst of seemingly insurmountable odds, a peculiar whistling sound pierced the air. The angel abruptly halted, his attention drawn to the source of the noise.
Out of nowhere, a volley of fireballs struck the angel squarely in the chest, propelling him backwards through the air. The impact of the powerful energy st shattered the grip of the two golems holding Michael captive, causing them to crumble.
As the golems struggled to regain their footing with indignant roars, a handnded on Michael''s shoulder. Looking up, he saw a tall, dark-haired female orc standing beside him. Her eyes held a mixture of shock, surprise, and even a glimmer of joy as she assisted him to his feet.
"Quick, we haven''t got much time!" she urgently urged Michael, her voice betraying a sense of urgency. He found himself amazed by the sight of a long cannon in her hands, its design almost reminiscent of a firearm. Without hesitation, she aimed it at the golems and pulled the trigger, sending another formidable burst of energy toward them. While the golems endured the onught, the sheer force of the impact submerged them into the swamp''s murky waters.
"Follow me," the orc instructed, prompting Michael to move swiftly. He had little choice but to trail after her, leaving the chaotic scene behind as they raced away from danger.
"Who are you?" Michael panted as he sprinted alongside the orc.
"No time for exnations. NOW!" The orc''s voice resounded urgently. Abruptly, Michael''s gaze caught sight of Vedora sprawled on the ground, just inches away from the luminous metal te that the angel had hurled at the beginning of their confrontation.
Reacting swiftly, Cain opened his mouth and a swirling vortex materialized before Michael and the orc. Without hesitation, Michael seized Vedora from the ground and leapt into the portal''s embrace. Yet, just before he vanished into the portal, he nced back and caught sight of the angel.
"I''ll track you down," the angel''s deration reverberated through the swamp. Ignoring the warning, Michael and the orc vanished into the portal''s depths, leaving the angel behind.
Chapter 1083 Reuniting with an old buddy
Chapter 1083 Reuniting with an old buddy
The abrupt transition plunged Michael into a dimly lit room, a stark contrast to the swamp. The chamber was illuminated by an eerie red glow, its walls adorned with mirrors and screens of various sizes. It took a few moments for Michael to regain hisposure, his heart still racing from the chaotic events in the swamp.
Turning towards the orc beside him, Michael asked, "Who are you?"
The orc slowly turned around, her body trembling slightly. She met Michael''s gaze, her eyes a mixture of fear, relief, and uncertainty. "Did you... decode the message in Gaya''s temple?" Her voice quivered as she spoke.
Michael nodded. "Yes, it was Morse code. But how did you know about Morse code?"
The orc stumbled over her own feet, her nervousness palpable. Gathering her courage, she asked, "Do you know about Earth?"
The question caught Michael off guard, his surprise evident in his widened eyes. "Earth? How do you know about Earth?"
A mix of anxiety and curiosity danced in the orc''s eyes. "You really do know about it..."
Michael''s expression turned serious, his guard rising. "Who are you?" he demanded once more, his voice firm.
Nervously, the orc hesitated before finally blurting out, "Are you Ghost? The world''s number one hitman, Ghost?"
Michael was taken aback by the unexpected question. His surprise was evident as he stared at the orc before him, struggling toprehend the words he had just heard.
"Are you from Earth too?" Ayag''s voice broke the tension in the room, as Vedora''s curiosity found a voice. The sudden appearance of the orc had raised numerous questions, but understanding how she knew about Earth was their current priority. Among those in Skyhall, only Michael, Gaya, and now Vedora were privy to his Earthly origins and his history as a hitman.
"You''re Ghost. I can''t believe it," the orc eximed, copsing into a nearby chair. Her breathing became frantic, resembling an asthma attack.
"I think she''s in trouble," Sarba noted, watching the orc''sbored breathing. The orc gestured toward a small dish containing gray powder.
"Take... that..." Michael carefully picked up the dish and handed it to the orc. She inhaled the powder deeply, her breathing slowly stabilizing.
"Ghost, it''s really you... damn..." the orc muttered, her eyes a mixture of shock, fear, and tion.
"Are you¡ª" Michael began to piece things together, but before he could utter his guess, the orc revealed her true identity.
"Ghost... it''s me, Pink," the orc confessed, causing Michael''s heart to skip a beat. He struggled to believe the revtion.
"Pink?" Michael whispered, his shock palpable. Pink had been his partner in countless assassinations on Earth, providing technical support and navigation while he operated in the field. The notion that Pink had also transmigrated to this new world was beyondprehension.
"I can''t believe it... I''m actually seeing Ghost..." Pink stammered nervously, her behavior at odds with what would be expected of an orc.
"37 operations, you and I together... all sessful. We were the best pair in the whole world," Pink continued her expression a mix of delight and astonishment.
Michael couldn''t doubt Pink''s words¡ªher mention of the exact number of operations was undeniable proof.
"It''s like a mixture of both a good and bad dream... Jesus Christ," Pink muttered, her nervousness evident as she still trembled from the shock of their unexpected reunion.
Overwhelmed by emotion, the orc, now revealed as Pink, rushed towards Michael and enveloped him in a tight hug. Michael, taken aback for a moment, hesitated before awkwardly patting Pink''s back a few times, not entirely sure how to respond.
"Hey, hey, calm down," he finally managed to say, gently trying to loosen her grip. "Let''s sit down and catch up. There''s a lot I need to know."
Reluctantly, Pink released Michael and took a seat, her eyes still wide with disbelief and excitement. As they settled, Michael prompted her to recount what had happened since theirst mission together.
"Well, you remember that target, right? The one you took down with that incredible sniper shot?" Pink began, her voice carrying a mixture of nostalgia and awe. "As soon as you made that kill, this bright light surrounded me. Next thing I know, I''m waking up in this body."
Michael leaned in, intrigued. "What happened to the original upant of the body?"
Pink''s expression turned somber. "She died, apparently some flu or something. Then, I just... I was there. In this orc''s body." She paused, as if gathering her thoughts before continuing.
"I didn''t realize what was happening at first, but after a while, I started to lose control. My thoughts were a mess, and I was basically going mad." She let out a bitterugh. "The orcs didn''t take too kindly to that. They locked me away in istion for six months."
"I''m sorry to hear that," Michael interjected sympathetically.
Pink nodded and continued, "Well, after that crazy phase, I guess you could say I became a bit of a nerd. I started reading everything I could get my hands on. Eventually, I spent a whole year in the Great Library of Durran."
"That sounds like quite the transformation," Michael remarked, impressed by her dedication.
"It was in that library that I came across texts mentioning the God of Darkness, referred to as Ghost among the mortals," Pink exined. "Something about that name struck a chord with me, and I realized it was you. So, I delved into every piece of information I could find about you, trying to figure out if you really were the same Ghost I used to work with."
Michael''s face carried a mix of surprise and curiosity. The idea that his Earthly alias had lingered on in this world was astonishing to him. He leaned forward, encouraging her to continue with his intense interest. The twists and turns of their conversation were leaving him both amazed and bewildered.
Pink leaned forward, her eyes shining with a mix of enthusiasm and urgency. "The Great Library of Durran has a secret, forbidden section. I knew there was something more to discover, so I managed to sneak into that restricted area. Anything that mentioned gods, I read. And that''s when I found something fascinating."
Michael''s curiosity grew as Pink''s story unfolded. "What did you find?"
Her voice held a sense of triumph as she continued, "I discovered that the Goddess of Monsters, Gaya, is actually the wife of the God of Darkness. But that wasn''t all. Digging deeper, I found records suggesting that the God of Darkness had actually lived in this world around five thousand years ago."
Pink nodded, her eyes shining with determination. "And that''s where things get tricky. Some of the elder orcs im the God of Darkness was banished from this realm, while others say he just disappeared. But I couldn''t believe that. So, I started searching for his worshippers, and through one of them, I got this." Pink reached into a pocket and pulled out a small, spider-like device.
God of Darkness himself."
Michael couldn''t help but be surprised by Pink''s intellect and "Spyder," Vedora eximed, recognizing the device.
Pink nodded and then pointed at the device. "This thing definitely has circuits and wiring from Earth, on top of these strange runes. The worshipper who gave me this imed that it was built by the God of Darkness himself."
Michael couldn''t help but be surprised by Pink''s intellect and resourcefulness. Her ability to piece together information from ancient texts and her use of technology from Earth to connect the dots impressed him.
Pink''s voice held a mixture of confusion and curiosity as she asked, "But here''s my question: if this device was built five thousand years ago and the God of Darkness, which is you, lived in the realm of gods five thousand years ago, are you five thousand years old? How does that work?"
Michael leaned back in his chair, considering theplexity of the situation. "Well, just like you, I woke up in this body three years ago. The concept of time is a bit convoluted when ites to the realm of gods. The short version is that we''re in a time reset. Five thousand years ago, I lived and ended up triggering a reset of the entire universe, except for the realm of gods. So, by resetting, I started my life on Earth and ended up in the mortal realm three years ago, essentially reliving the journey that had already happened."
Pink nodded, her brow furrowed as she tried to grasp the concept. "I think I get it, kind of."
"Don''t worry, it''s a lot to wrap your head around," Michael reassured her. "Just focus on the present and what''s toe."
Ayag chimed in, her curiosity evident. "Still, I can''t believe how you transformed from a nerdy little orc to a cannon-wielding bad-ass."
Pink chuckled, her cheeks slightly flushed. "These schematics." She rifled through the papers strewn across the table and handed a few over to Michael. As he looked at the blueprints, he recognized his own handwriting and knew they were his designs from his time as the Dark Lord.
"These are the schematics I got from one of your temples. I did my best to build them based on the information I had. Books and schematics can only teach you so much," Pink exined, her tone a mixture of pride and humility.
Curious about her foreknowledge of the recent events, Michael asked, "So, how did you know I would be in the Misty Swamps? How did you know about Griffy?"
Pink shrugged. "Griffy? No idea. I asked you toe to the Misty Swamps because that''s where your temple is."
Michael frowned, still puzzled. "That doesn''t exin how you came prepared to deal with the angel."
Pink''s eyes twinkled mischievously as she motioned to the blueprints. "The answer is in these schematics." Michael''s gaze fell on a peculiar device that seemed to have the ability to sense the energy of a god.
"I managed to acquire a sliver of grace left by your previous self, although ''acquire'' might be a generous term¡ªI kind of stole it from someone powerful," Pink admitted with a sheepish grin. "I used that grace to calibrate the device, making it alert me if it sensed a simr energy. So, imagine my surprise when it finally went off, screaming."
She chuckled in relief and pointed to a copper-ted circr device in the corner of the room. "But living in this world for three years taught me how the pantheon would react if they sensed your presence. So, I prepared for this mission just like when we were on Earth. I built this cannon using your schematics and left a note in Gaya''s temple. So, when the rune I left in the Misty Swamps alerted me, I came as fast as I could. I hoped for a peaceful meeting, but you were fighting an executioner. You should be d I didn''t freeze on the spot when I saw him."
"I''m d you came," Michael said, a relieved smile crossing his lips. Reuniting with his old partner felt like a dreame true.
He then decided to lighten the mood with a seemingly normal question, asking, "So, back on Earth, you were a girl?"
Pinkughed and nodded. "Yep. But you''re exactly as I imagined, minus a three-headed snake on your back," she teased.
"Sorry to interrupt the reunion, but what happened back there, Ghost? Who was that angel who gave you a beating? We''ve been facing a lot of lossestely," Ayag''s frustration and concern were evident in her tone.
Pink''s excitement bubbled over as she spoke, "An executioner of the pantheon. He''s one of the elite angels sent to deal with rogue gods. But don''t worry, Ghost, we''re back in action, just like the old times. Damn, I missed this work so much¡ªthe thrill, the preparation for the assassination, the anticipation... I missed it all."
Ayag rolled her eyes at Pink''s enthusiasm. "Slow down, orc. Our targets aren''t your typical run-of-the-mill humans anymore. We''re dealing with god problems now."
Pink''s expression shifted as she revealed a mischievous, proud smile. "I might have a way to kill the gods."
Chapter 1084 A solution for Michaels problem
Chapter 1084 A solution for Michael''s problem
When Pink mentioned the possibility of having a way to kill the gods, Michael was taken aback. On Earth, Pink had been an exceptionally skilled helper, handling research and aiding him in nning assassinations to perfection. The prospect of reuniting with her and strategizing on this grand scale filled Michael with thrilling excitement.
"What do you mean?" Michael inquired eagerly.
Pink began to exin, "The Library of Durran is one of the oldest libraries in this world. The orcs cherish it even more than their own lives. Before I left the kingdom, I heard that the orcs were dead-set on acquiring a new book for their collection. They were taking it incredibly seriously, even delving into their coffers."
Cain voiced his skepticism, asking, "Do you truly believe this book might hold knowledge about killing a god? How can you be so certain?"
Pink remained focused on the matter at hand, not allowing the surreal sight of a talking three-headed serpent to distract her. "This particr book was authored by an angel of the Goddess of Wisdom, Seshat. I managed to gather that it contains information that Dagon, the fallen god and ruler of hell, is actively seeking. One of the reasons Dagon was banished from the realm of gods was his relentless quest to discover a way to kill the gods. At least, that''s what I''ve gathered from the books and what the orcs shared."
Sarba interjected, her tone light-hearted, "You seem to have acquired quite a bit of confidential information. How did you than they should."
manage that unless you''re a high-ranking orc within the kingdom?"
With a chuckle, Pink replied, "Between you and me, I''m considered quite the looker among the orcs. They tend to share more with me than they should."
Michael sought rification, "Thest I heard, Dagon couldn''t enter this world, right?"
Pink nodded and continued, "That''s correct, but his followers are still here, hiding in the shadows, forming cults, and carrying on their usual practices. If there''s anything in that book rted to what their god, Dagon, is searching for, you can bet they''ll be on the hunt for it. I was fortunate to learn about the reappearance of this book."
"Securing that book is indeed a priority, but first, I must find a way to evade the Pantheon''s executioner," Michael sighed, a sense of urgency in his voice.
Pink shared her astonishment, saying, "It''s truly mind-boggling, isn''t it? We were humans one moment on Earth, and the next, we''ve be something entirely different. I''ve transformed into an orc, and you''ve be a literal god. It still feels like a dream to me."
Michael reflected, "Life is full of mysteries. As much as I cherish our reunion, my immediate concern is finding a way to outsmart the angels and figuring out how to win against them. Even if I manage to defeat the angel I encountered, the Pantheon can and will dispatch someone even stronger. This won''t end until I be powerful enough."
Curious, Pink inquired, "What level of god are you right now?"
"Level two, a demi-god," Michael replied, prompting Pink to thoughtfully stroke her chin.
"So, any angel serving a god above level two and beyond the second cultivation stage can absorb their god''s sliver of grace and overpower you," Pink exined.
Michael nodded, acknowledging the challenge. "I''m aware of that. But raising my godhood level isn''t easy or quick. I need alternative ways to take down the angels."
Pink offered a suggestion, "You could cultivate in this world and be a cultivator. This would enable you to face other cultivators and angels without exposing your godly powers, which is how the Pantheon can track you."
Ayag interjected, voicing a concern, "Yet, if an angel consumes a sliver of grace, they temporarily gain godly powers. In such cases, cultivation won''t do shit,."
"This won''t be a cakewalk. But that''s precisely what makes this challenge so intriguing," Pink stated with excitement.
"Right now, your focus should be on cultivation, keeping a low profile, and only employing your godly powers when absolutely necessary. While we lie low, we''ll search for the book and any information on how to kill a god. Then, we''ll assassinate them, much like our old days on Earth. Once a god is eliminated, I assume the angels will lose their power source. Moreover, nobody has a clear understanding of what happens when a god dies. Some gods disappeared in ancient times, and others took their ce. But I''ve read nothing about the actual act of killing a god. That''s what makes the book authored by Seshat''s angel so invaluable," Pink concluded with a grave tone.
"System, how much badass points i have?" Michale asked the system.
[Fifteen million points. This is not suffeicent amount of points to survie in this world. So the system rmends the host finding new ways to earn more points]
"Don''t worry about the executioner finding you here. This is an abandoned safehouse of Agra worshippers. It''s equipped with all sorts of runes to prevent other angels and the Pantheon from sensing the Agra worshippers who used to reside here, or at least who lived here," Pink reassured Michael. Finally, he heard some reassuring news.
Curious, Ayag inquired, "What happened to them?"
Pink exined, "ording to the texts I used to locate this ce, the Agra worshippers here tangled with some rogue cultivators who proved to be too powerful. They wiped out the Agra worshippers living here. Over time, everyone forgot about this ce. But it serves as a rather shabby base of operations. It''s better than nothing."
Michael had an idea, saying, "If the runes in this ce can mask our energies, I might be able to modify this medallion." He retrieved the tree-shaped medallion given to him by Marli.
Ayag''s tone turned deadly as he added, "And let''s not forget about that traitor, Marli. She betrayed us and will pay with her life."
"Betrayed you? That sounds like a death wish," Pink remarked, fully aware of Ghost''s reputation as the world''s deadliest hitman. She knew better than to cross paths with him. When she heard someone had betrayed him, she assumed that person was as good as dead. If anyone could kill a god, it would undoubtedly be Ghost.
Michael contemted, "She will pay for what she did. I pity Marli''s worshippers who died in Rainar''s temple. I want to know if she truly understood what transpired." Completing this quest from the system, to kill Rainar and avenge Marli''s worshippers, had gained paramount importance. Once hepleted the quest, the system would reveal the location of a base of operations.
Pink inquired, "Are you a runemaster by any chance?"
Michael shook his head, regret evident on his face. "I have a subordinate in the mortal realm, but I have no means of contacting him," he sighed, missing Elidyr''s assistance. With Elidyr by his side, Michael couldbine his cksmith skills with Elidyr''s runemastery and utilize the system''s help to create something capable of concealing him from the Pantheon. Unfortunately, the system provided no aid in this matter, as hecked the required badass points.
"So, we need to find a talented runemaster who''s willing to help us. Fortunately, orcs are generally skilled in runes, and I still have a few contacts in Durran who can assist us," Pink suggested, but her voice wavered, hinting that something was troubling her.
"Is something wrong?" Michael inquired.
Ayag interjected sarcastically, "Well, you see, she just mentioned casually that she sneaked into a restricted area and spent time there. I''m sure the orcs just threw her a big ''thank you'' party for that."
However, Michael sensed that there must be more to the story.
"And I identally killed an orc, an orc who served as an advisor to the King of Durran," Pink admitted, her voice tinged with regret. Michael could tell that even though she had spent only three years with the orcs, she had grown attached to them.
Pink sighed, her gaze distant as she recounted her past. "You see, that orc advisor, Gal, was a notorious womanizer. He used his close ties to the King to harass women throughout the kingdom." She shook her head in disgust.
"When I first woke up in this new body, Lani was the only one who befriended me. She taught me everything about this world, how to survive, and even how to adapt to this new form. Of course, I didn''t reveal that I was originally a human from Earth. That would have been hard to exin."
Ayag leaned in, a knowing look on her serpent''s face. "Let me guess, this Gal harassed your friend Lani, and you sought justice by killing him."
Pink''s eyes turned steely. "No, he did something much worse. He killed Lani and treated her body like trash," she said with simmering anger. "In this world, just like Earth, the poor rarely get justice when the rich are involved. I had the privilege of working with the world''s best hitman, and I picked up a few traits." She hesitated for a moment before continuing.
"I killed Gal by pretending to ept his advances, lured him into his own bedroom, and then I stabbed him in the neck."
Sarba raised an eyebrow. "So, you got your revenge, but what happened afterward?"
"The King''s guards found me with Gal''s body, and my actions led to my banishment. The orcs in my tribe managed to make the King believe I was insane," Pink exined bitterly. "In the end, justice remained elusive, just like in any world."
Pink sighed, her voice trembling as she recalled her past. "That''s another reason why I searched for you in this world, and to be honest, I prayed for a chance to reunite with you. Despite our... darker professions, we made a real impact on Earth. We eliminated some truly vsick people and made the world a bit safer. Plus, we got paid handsomely. This world needs someone like us even more than Earth," Pink said with a resolute determination and a glint of satisfaction at the sight of Ghost.
Sarba chimed in with innocent curiosity, "But you won''t get paid here, will you?"
Pink gave a sly grin. "Money isn''t the only form of payment, my friend. Now, we need information, and men like Gal hold the key to everything we require. We may not receive payment from a client like we did on Earth, but if we loot his body after taking him down, we''ll be rich as fuck,"
Sarba nodded in agreement as Pink went on, her tone firm.
"Taking down killers, assholes, and dictators does give you a satisfying feeling," Pink dered.
Michael chuckled slightly and added, "Speaking of dictators, I did cross paths with Hunter de. He''s in a different universe, just like us, experiencing a transmigration."
Pink''s reaction was immediate. She trembled, nearly toppling from her chair.
"Hunter? Please, tell me he''s not in our universe... Oh, you did say he''s not... Damn it, that guy... I genuinely pity the universe he''s in right now. I hope we never cross paths with that murderous psycho, not now or ever," Pink concluded with a shiver of dread.
***************************
Hunter will return in DBS (ing out of Hiatus) on 12.09.2023
Chapter 1085 Journey to become the deadliest assassin
Chapter 1085 Journey to be the deadliest assassin
"System, do you have any way for me to start cultivating in this world?" Michael inquired.
The system responded, [The host has to rebuild your body from the molecr level to amodate mortal cultivation on top of your god-being]
Just the sound of it made Michael realize it was going to cost him significantly.
[The system requires 5 million badass points to reconstruct the body and 2 million points for the required ingredients needed to brew the special potion that would enable the host to cultivate, totaling seven million points.]
"So, once I''ve done this, I can cultivate in this world and level up by gaining experience points?" Michael sought rification.
"Yes. The experience points gained by the host after killing the angels and cultivators here will be used to break through to the next stages," the system confirmed.
Michael felt relieved. If he could cultivate, he wouldn''t need to use his godly powers in every fight, which would help him avoid detection by the pantheon.
"How long will it take for you to reconstruct my body?" Michael asked the system.
"Just a day," came the response.
"Great," Michael said and exited the system.
He then turned to Pink, realizing he had more questions for her.
"It''s clear we need to find the book written by Seshat''s angel. But first, let''s figure out what to do with you," Michael said, and Pink understood his meaning.
"Unlike on Earth, this world has no technology, noputers or systems for you to hack. So we need to figure out a way to utilize your talents. I had a setup in the mortal realm, but even that had no need for hacking. It just required someone to watch the camera feeds," Michael exined.
"I''m no runemaster, but I have a way to digitize the information if you provide me with the items I need and assist me with certain things," Pink exined, making it clear she already had some ideas.
"Go on," Michael encouraged.
"First of all, I need your Spyder devices. They can mimic the security cameras on Earth and give us eyes in this world. And I need ess to Seraphine''s crystals," Pink stated.
Ayag, puzzled, questioned, "Seraphine''s crystal? What is that?"
"Seraphine is the goddess of information. Think of her as the ultimate spymaster. Nothing happens in this world without her knowing. She has spies and eyes everywhere. This world might not haveputers and technology, but arge amount of information like this still requires some form of storage and containment. That''s where Seraphine''s crystalse into the picture. These special crystals, imbued with powerful runes, store information and allow Seraphine''s angels to ess the information they need," Pink exined, pleasantly surprising Michael and Vedora.
Then, Pink unveiled another set of schematics. This time, it wasn''t just a schematic for a single device; it was a blueprint for an entire setup that far surpassed Michael''s surveince room in his dark castle.
"These devices... Wow," Michael was genuinely astonished. As an inventor, Michaelprehended the devices and regarded Pink with awe.
"Where did you get them?" Michael inquired.
"I designed them. Of course, it took me countless hours of reading hundreds of books about runes and the energy flow in this world. But I believe this will work," Pink stated confidently.
"You designed these devices just by reading books?" Michael asked, amazed. He was shocked to learn that Pink had managed to design suchplex devices without any special innate talents, solely through her studies.
"System, we need to grant Pink the inventor trait and give her runemastery," Michael suggested.
[It would require the host to spend at least fifty million badass points or more. For now, the system rmends using your inventor trait to build the devices and explore alternative means to understand the runes,] the system responded.
"So, just to rify, we need to create another medallion to conceal your presence, which means we have to journey to Durran and meet your runemaster contact. Afterward, we need to obtain the book that might contain information on how to kill a god. On top of that, we have to set up a surveince room for you, requiring Spyders and Seraphine''s crystals, which I imagine will be guarded like treasures," Ayag summarized, her tone tinged with frustration.
"And don''t forget, we also need more money, so add a robbery or heist to that ever-expanding list," Michael added with a chuckle.
"Why are youughing?" Ayag asked, yfully head-butting Michael.
"Because it''s exciting," Michael replied. To Ayag''s surprise, Pink wore the same eager smile. She was rubbing her hands together in anticipation of Michael''s orders.
"Here''s our n: we''ll start by building a device to conceal my presence, which means we have to go to Durran. Once we''ve done that, we''ll acquire the book. Since we''re running low on funds, purchasing the book isn''t an option; we''ll have to steal it," Michael dered.
"The auction is next month, so we have plenty of time," Pink informed him.
"While we''re in Durran, we''ll also find a runemaster to help us set up the surveince room and procure Seraphine''s crystals. I can build the devices based on these schematics," Michael exined.
"I still can''t believe you can construct these devices. A power you gained in this world, I presume?" Pink inquired, and Michael nodded.
"So, when I return from Durran, we''ll have a medallion and everything we need to set up our surveince room. However, we need the setup to be transportable. Once I kill Rainar, I''ll secure a new base of operations. We can incorporate the same runes into that location," Michael concluded.
"A new base of operation? From who?" Pink asked with curiosity.
"I have my sources, Pink. I am a god, after all," Michael chuckled, keeping any mention of the system to himself.
After confirming that the medallion could conceal his presence as long as he didn''t frequently use his godly powers, Michael decided to make his way to the Kingdom of Durran, ruled by an orc god named Norebo.
"We''ll tackle our problems one by one," Michael said as he retrieved an earpiece from his system storage. While it required some calibration tomunicate with the mortal realm, it functioned seamlessly within the realm of gods.
In truth, Michael needed his subordinates and Gaya to thrive independently in his absence. If any dire situation arose, he had contingency ns in ce known only to him and Azazel. Not even Gaya was aware of these backup ns if things went awry in the mortal realm.
"Do you have any means of getting me to Durran?" Michael inquired. Since many kingdoms in the realm of gods were not "Take this," Michael handed the earpiece to Pink.
"Wow, an earpiece. You have no idea how much I missed this thing," Pink eximed, giving the device a quick kiss before cing it in her ear.
"Do you have any means of getting me to Durran?" Michael inquired. Since many kingdoms in the realm of gods were not connected by conventional roads or oceans, portals were required for travel between them.
"This underground workce is conveniently located just an hour away from Norebo''s temple. The temple has a portal you can use to travel to Durran. However, you might want to employ your stealth skills, as the orcs typically only permit orcs to use the portal," Pink exined, implying that she had used the same portal to reach their current location.
"They don''t allow humans? Does Kingdom Durran also have a rule against humans in their territory? If so, you should take a closer look at him. He''s not an orc," the little snake head protested with an indignant tone.
Pink chuckled at the fiery response from the serpent. "Don''t worry. Most of the orcs are not racists, and they tend to be weing to others, especially if you show eagerness to learn instead of disying violent tendencies. So, I''d rmend not being confrontational in front of the orcs and instead mingle with them as a fellow schr," Pink suggested.
She then nced at Michael from head to toe. "And you should change your attire to green. Orcs don''t have a liking for ck and red," Pink advised, causing Michael to let out a sigh.
"Good thing I have spare clothes in my space ring," Michael responded.
"You opened a portal here, right? Can''t you do it again?" Michael turned to Cain, but noticed him shaking his head.
"Sorry, I gave him the rune to teleport here. Honestly, I had no idea your little snake could do that in the first ce. But I have no teleportation rune to Durran. Even if I did, I doubt external teleportation would work within Durran," Pink exined.
"Speaking of which, where did you leave Carme and her two cousins?" Michael inquired, looking at Vedora.
"At the outskirts of the misty swamps. I think we should go there and finish the job. The vigers are never safe from Griffy," Sarba expressed his concern for the people in the vige.
"Don''t worry about that. Now that the Pantheon executioner has set foot in the swamps, his angels will soon follow. They''ll interrogate every viger, stay with them, and put them under surveince. It works in your favor, as these angels typically function as unpaid guards," Pink reassured them.
"A silver lining," Michael sighed.
"Shall we begin? All these preparations will lead to our ultimate goal: killing Rainar. Once we do that, we''ll be on the Pantheon''s top list. Are you ready for this, Pink?" Michael asked.
"Come on, Ghost. I was born ready, and I''ve been waiting for this moment. We''re really back, aren''t we? Ghost and Pink, back in the assassination business," Pink couldn''t contain her excitement and began tough.
"Assassinating gods... it does have a nice ring to it," Michael also smiled devilishly.
With their ns set and their motivations reignited, Michael exchanged a few more words with Pink before preparing to leave the underground safehouse.
"Take care of yourself, Pink. We''ll meet again soon," Michael said.
"You too, Ghost. Don''t get yourself killed before we can wreak some havoc together," Pink replied with a grin.
After their brief farewell, Michael made his way towards the exit. He followed Pink''s directions and soon found a sturdydder leading upwards. Climbing up, he emerged from the underground hideout and into a dried woods. Brown leaves covered the forest floor, creating a soft, earthy carpet under his feet.
The forest was eerily quiet, and a sense of anticipation hung in the air. Michael knew he had to stay alert, even in these seemingly peaceful surroundings. He followed Pink''s instructions, making his way through the woods until he reached a muddy path that led towards Norebo''s temple.
"I don''t have to tell you, but you can wait until nightfall and make your move on the orcs under the cover of darkness. You can change your clothes afterward," Pink''s voice came through the earpiece, guiding Michael on his path.
Michael continued walking as he listened to her advice. "Any idea how strong these orcs are?" he inquired.
"Elemental Attunement Realm or Celestial Resonance Realm. You can''t take them down without using your godly powers or alerting them. These are orcs, so they''ll have runes everywhere to detect an intruder''s presence in the temple. If I were you, I wouldn''t kill them but look for another way," Pink suggested.
"Roger that. We''re back in business," Michael replied with a determined smile and excitement in his voice. He was ready to embark on this new journey, one that would cement his status as the deadliest assassin in the entire universe.
Chapter 1086 Kingdom of Durran I
Chapter 1086 Kingdom of Durran I
As Michael emerged from the forest, he caught sight of a grand temple in the distance. The temple stood proudly on a small ind, surrounded by a serene, reflectiveke. The water glistened in the soft daylight, enhancing the temple''s ethereal beauty.
The temple itself was a majestic structure, its architecture reflecting the power and strength of the orcs. It was adorned with intricate carvings, and metal-armored orcs patrolled its perimeter. These sentries kept a vignt eye on anyone who approached.
"We should wait until nightfall to make our move," Ayag suggested in a low voice, watching the orcs'' vignt patrols.
Pink, still connected via the earpiece, chimed in with a suggestion. "Why not use the Spyders? They can give us an advantage."
But Michael had something even more surprising in store. He reached into his inventory and retrieved a small, sleek drone. With a swift movement, he activated it, and the drone''s propellers whirred to life.
Pink, hearing the distinct sound of the drone hovering, couldn''t contain her shock. "Is that a drone?"
Michael smiled and replied, "Yes, it is."
Pink was awestruck. "That''s OP in this world."
Michael smiled as he reached the edge of the forest. He settled himself on the ground and patiently awaited the setting sun. Closing his eyes, he began to meditate, seeking to maintain his focus and rity of mind during this crucial wait.
As Michael meditated in the quiet of the approaching night, a strange sensation overcame him. It was as though whispers had taken form inside his mind, faint and ethereal. These whispers began to coalesce into voices, echoing like distant chants.
"God of Darkness," one voice called out, its tone reverent, "Dark Lord, bless us with your darkness."
"Protector of Shadows," another voice joined in, fervently imploring, "Hear our prayers. We beseech you."
Soon, the voices multiplied, ovepping with one another, creating a harmonious chorus that resonated in his consciousness.
"Lord of Eternal Night," a chorus of worshippers pleaded, "Guide us through the shadows. Protect us from the hunters who stalk our every step."
"God of Shadows," yet another voice entreated, "Bestow upon us your mercy and blessing. Let your darkness shield us from harm."
In this meditative state, Michael could feel the collective devotion of his worshippers, their cries for protection and guidance. They worshipped him, the God of Darkness, with unwavering faith, seeking his aid in their darkest hours.
Their voices filled his mind, a symphony of devotion, and Michael couldn''t help but feel the weight of their prayers.
[The host should start responding to their prayers and build your worshipper base]
Michael, deep in his meditation, heard the system''s suggestion. It made sense, but he knew he had more immediate concerns at hand.
"I have too much on my te right now. I won''t ignore them forever, but they''ve survived here without me this long. I''m certain they can survive a bit longer," Michael replied to the system, his focus unwavering.
As the sun vanished beyond the horizon, the world was bathed in darkness, and the temple ahead became a radiant beacon. Its marble structure gleamed brilliantly, crowned by a powerful orb that emitted a shimmering golden light, casting a warm aura around the sacred grounds.
The orcs, adorned in their formidable metal armor, were illuminated by this brilliant light.
From the safety of the forest''s edge, Michael retrieved a tablet and a fleet of drones from his system storage. With a calcted precision, the drones soared toward the temple, transmitting their live feed to Michael''s tablet.
Michael scrutinized the drone feeds disyed on his tablet, absorbing every detail of the temple''s surroundings. His eyes were fixed on the golden orb at the pinnacle, which illuminated the orcs patrolling the temple grounds below. Ayag and Sarba, perched on his shoulder, keenly observed the feeds with him, acting as his extra set of eyes and ears.
As Michael continued to watch, he noticed the orcs engaging in casual conversations while making their rounds. Their voices andughter cut through the still night, providing valuable insights into their day-to-day lives.
One orc, leaning against a pir, boasted about his strength. "I swear, I lifted a boulder that must''ve weighed a hundred stonest week!"
Another orc, sitting on a nearby bench, chimed in with a smirk. "You always exaggerate, Grunk. It was more like fifty stones, and you had help!"
Laughter erupted among the orcs, their camaraderie evident.
Meanwhile, Michael patiently charted the patrol routes in his mind. He noted the positions of the guards, the entrances and exits, and potential hiding spots. The tension in the air was palpable as he nned his entry into the temple undetected.
With the orcs engrossed in their conversations, Michael seized the opportune moment. Silently, he maneuvered the drones to a specific location, capturing a blind spot near the temple''s entrance. Ensuring that his movements went unnoticed, he used his godly agility to leap from the forest''s concealment into the shadows cast by the temple itself.
As Michael crouched low and concealed his presence, he whispered to Ayag and Sarba, "Keep an eye on the patrols for me. Let me know if they change their routines or if anyone''s approaching."
The two snake heads nodded silently, their focus unwavering on the drone feeds. Michael, with his heart racing and his senses heightened, began his stealthy infiltration of the temple.
Amidst the orc''s banter, one of them suddenly eximed, "Oh, Spirits! I forgot something back in the barracks. Be right back!"
The orc promptly altered his patrol route, striding in a direction that would take him perilously close to Michael''s hiding spot. It sent a jolt of tension through Michael, who quickly signaled Ayag and Sarba for information.
Ayag''s voice hissed urgently in Michael''s ear, "Someone''s heading your way, Ghost. Swift and quiet."
Without wasting a second, Michael pointed his arm above the temple, and with a mechanical whirr, his Mark 3 grappling hook shot into action. Itunched him into the air, and he ascended swiftly, aided by his godly strength and agility. He soared above the temple, feeling the cool night air rush past him as he hung hidden in the shadows, his presence masked by the inky darkness.
As Michael dangled above the temple grounds, he watched the approaching orc with bated breath, praying that his concealed position would go unnoticed.
While Michael clung to the shadowed eaves of the temple, he heard Pink''s voice whispering in his head, "Ghost, how''s everything going?"
With extreme caution, Michael replied in his mind, "Going good."
Pink continued her telepathic guidance, "Once you''re inside the temple, make your way to the west side. You''ll find the portal there. Just ce your hand on the pedestal, and it''ll activate the portal straight to Durran. The other side won''t be monitored like this at this hour."
Beneath the shadowed eaves of the temple, the orc who had lingered below called out to another passing orc. They exchanged words about returning to Durran soon to meet their families.
The orc under Michael remarked, "I can''t wait to return to Durran. It''s been too long."
The other orc nodded in agreement, "Just wait until the harvest festival. We''ll get to go to our homes with a nice bonus. It''ll be worth the wait."
As they chatted, Michael stayed hidden, taking mental notes of their conversation and biding his time for the perfect opportunity to continue his infiltration.
Ayag whispered, "These orcs don''t seem like they''re going to move anytime soon, and if we linger here for too long, we''ll be spotted."
Michael nodded, his eyes still on the two orcs beneath him. He mentallymanded one of the drones to hover away silently. Then, using another drone, he toppled down a stack of books from a nearby bench, creating a sudden, loud distraction.
The two orcs, startled by the abrupt noise, exchanged surprised nces. One of them said, "What was that? Did you hear something?"
The other orc replied, "Yeah, it came from over there. Let''s go check it out."
With cautious steps, the orcs moved away from their previous spot, heading towards the source of the disturbance, leaving Michael free to continue his mission inside the temple.
Michaelnded silently on the ground and continued to sneak his way into the temple. The interior was vast and empty, dominated by a massive statue of a burly orc in the center.
Michael couldn''t help but ask Pink, "Is that statue the god Norebo?"
Pink''s voice echoed in his head, confirming, "Yes, that''s Norebo. Now, you need to head toward the portal."
With a quick nod, Michael proceeded to the western side of the temple. There, he found a shadowed room, slightly shielded from the main area. He reached for the doorknob, but it refused to turn. Frustrated, he reported to Pink, "It''s locked."
Pink''s reply came with surprise, "It''s not supposed to be locked,"
Simultaneously, Michael heard approaching footsteps. Ayag urged him, "Do something before they catch us."
Feeling the pressure, Michael summoned his strength and, with a determined effort, broke the doorknob, allowing him to slip into the room just in time to avoid being detected by the approaching orcs.
As Michael hurriedly entered the room, he could hear the muffled conversation of approaching orcs.
One orc grumbled, "We need to check the portal room."
Another replied, "Yeah, I heard some strange noises from that direction."
Michael''s heart raced as he spotted the portal. It was a shimmering, circr opening surrounded by intricate runes. In the center of the room stood a pedestal.
Without wasting a moment, Michael extended his hand and firmly ced it on the pedestal. Instantly, the portal lit up with radiant energy, and the runes etched into it began to glow brightly.
As the orcs drew closer to the room, Michael didn''t hesitate. He grabbed Vedora and, with one final nce at the temple behind him, leaped into the portal, disappearing just in the nick of time before the orcs reached his location.
Chapter 1087 Kingdom of Durran II
Chapter 1087 Kingdom of Durran II
Exiting the portal felt like a whirlwind of colors and sensations, and when Michaelnded on the other side, he found himself in a spacious, dimly lit room. The room was eerily empty, with stone walls and an imposing iron door at one end. It wasn''t quite what Ayag had expected.
"I''ve exited the portal," Michael whispered to Pink, who was still in his earpiece.
Pink''s voice came through, calm andposed. "Good. Now, head out through that iron door, and remember to change your robes to green."
With a thought, Michael''s ck robes transformed into green ones. He then opened the imposing iron door and stepped into a massive, marble-floored hall. Several orcs roamed around, some engaged in conversation, while others appeared busy with various tasks.
Amidst the bustling scene, a female orc with vibrant green skin and a weing smile on her face rushed toward him. She extended her hand in a friendly gesture and said, "Wee to Durran, honored guest. I''m Glirna. Are you here for the uing harvest festival?"
Michael was taken aback by the warm wee but quickly regained hisposure. "Yes, I am," he replied with a friendly smile. "I''ve heard it''s a grand celebration. Could you tell me more about it?"
Glirna''s eyes sparkled with excitement as she began to exin the festivities and handed him a map of the kingdom of Durran. "It''s going to be wonderful. Here''s a map to help you navigate the festivities and explore our beautiful kingdom."
Michael graciously epted the map, thanking Glirna for her assistance. With the map in hand, he exited the building, now ready to navigate the orc kingdom of Durran and continue his mission.
Stepping out of the building, Michael was greeted by a breathtaking sight. Before him stretched the elegant kingdom of the orcs, adorned with vibrant decorations for the uing harvest festival. Colorful banners fluttered in the gentle breeze, and strings ofnterns cast a warm and inviting glow.
The architecture of Durran was a captivating blend of grandeur and nature. Towering stone structures were entwined with lush greenery, creating a harmonious atmosphere. Orcs bustled about, theirughter and chatter filling the air as they prepared for the festival.
Pink''s voice chimed in his earpiece. "Wee to Durran, Ghost. Enjoy the festivities, but remember, we have a mission toplete."
As Michael strolled through the lively streets of Durran, Pink''s voice guided him with precision.
"Alright, Ghost, head west from your current location. You should see arge oak tree. Take a right there, and you''ll be on Amber Street," Pink directed.
Following her instructions, Michael navigated through the bustling orc city, the map in his hand and his earpiece securely in ce. The streets were alive with festivities, and the orc inhabitants seemed to be in high spirits.
Pink continued to provide directions. "Good, now make a left onto Amber Street, and keep going straight. You''lle to a crossroads, and that''s where you''ll find Gilrut''s rune workshop."
Michael appreciated the rity of Pink''s guidance, and as he reached the indicated crossroads, he paused. "I''m curious, how exactly did you manage to get this orc, Gilrut, to owe you a favor?"
Ayag, perched on Michael''s shoulder, seemed equally curious. "Yeah, Pink, what did you do?"
There was a brief pause, and Pink''s voice carried a hint of somberness. "It''s not something I like to talk about, but I''ll tell you. Gal, the orc we were talking about earlier, he didn''t just harass Lani. He hurt someone close to Gilrut. When I took care of Gal, Gilrut felt a sense of gratitude. You know, for delivering some well-deserved justice."
Michael nodded, understanding the unspoken meaning behind Pink''s words. Sometimes, the bonds of friendship and gratitude could be stronger than any written contract.
As Michael followed Pink''s guidance through the vibrant streets of Durran, his ears caught the sounds of amotion up ahead. He saw a gathering of orcs, elves, and dwarves, all standing before a building with a glowing sign that read "Rideon Funds." The crowd was agitated, and a tall orc in jade-green armor was shouting at the building.
"Come out before the innocents inside the building get hurt!" the orc bellowed.
Curiosity got the better of Michael, and he decided to investigate the situation. He ryed the events to Pink, his voice low. "Pink, something''s happening here. It looks like there''s some kind ofmotion outside the Rideon Funds building."
Pink''s voice crackled in his earpiece, concern evident. "This could be the work of the Vilnius gang, causing trouble as usual."
Michael frowned. "Vilnius gang? Who are they?"
Pink exined, "They''re a local gang made up of rowdy orcs who live outside the kingdom. They''ve been a thorn in the kingdom''s side for a while."
Ayag, perched on Michael''s shoulder, chimed in, "This isn''t our business, Ghost. Let''s keep moving."
Michael considered Ayag''s words but continued to walk toward themotion, curiosity gnawing at him. However, he didn''t have to go far before he overheard a hushed conversation among some orcs in the crowd.
"Did you hear? Even Runemaster Gilrut is stuck inside the building, held hostage!"
Those words stopped Michael in his tracks. His eyes widened, and he exchanged a quick nce with Ayag. Gilrut, the runemaster who was supposed to help them, was in danger.
Michael turned back to themotion with a newfound resolve. "Pink, it seems like Runemaster Gilrut is in trouble inside that building. I can''t just walk away from this."
Pink''s voice crackled with frustration and concern in Michael''s earpiece as she urgently whispered, "Ghost, you don''t understand. The Vilnius gang is ruthless. They don''t care about killing innocents."
Michael could feel the weight of the situation intensifying. Pink continued, "The orcs here, they follow rules and procedures. They''ll take their time to strategize. If they lead this rescue mission, it might end in disaster. You have to do something to get Gilrut out."
Michael understood the gravity of the situation. He had to act fast and decisively. Pink''s voice grew even more urgent as she advised, "You''ll have to improvise, Ghost. Find a way to rescue the hostages and Gilrut. But be cautious, and don''t underestimate the Vilnius gang."
As Michael merged into the growing crowd, the tension in the air was palpable. Shouts emanated from inside the building, capturing everyone''s attention. A gang member within, his voice seething with menace, addressed an orc outside, referring to him as Officer Barug.
The gang member''s threats sliced through the air like a de, chilling the crowd to silence. He dered, "Officer Barug, you listen up! We''ve got twenty-five hostages in here, including your renowned Runemaster, and we won''t hesitate to slit their throats."
Barug, struggling to maintain hisposure, inquired with a trembling voice, "What are your demands?"
The gang member''s reply was resolute, "We need a flying ship, and it better be loaded with enough rune energy to take us straight to the next divine portal outside this kingdom."
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. The gang member''s ultimatum hung heavily in the air. He didn''t stop there; his threat intensified as he added, "If our demands aren''t met within the next three hours, we will start killing the hostages one by one, starting with your precious Gilrut."
Officer Barug, attempting to buy some time, negotiated with the gang member. He exined, "Listen, it''s the Harvest Festival, and most of the flying ships are currently in use. It''ll take time to arrange one for you."
The gang member, however, responded with a cynicalugh. "Time, huh? We''re not very patient folks, you see," he sneered.
With an ominous tone, he issued a chilling threat, "To help you pick up the pace, how about I cut off one of these hostages'' hands and send it out to you? That should remind you of the ticking clock."
Barug''s face paled, and he hastily pleaded, "No, no, don''t do anything like that. I promise I''ll do my best to get you what you want."
The gang member''s lips curled into a malicious grin as he gave his final order, "Alright then, Officer Barug. Close off the street, and I don''t want to see any of your stupid soldiers anywhere near this building."
Officer Barug, trying to ensure the safety of the hostages and buy more time, proposed, "ording to ourws, we need to send someone inside the building to verify the condition of the hostages."
The gang member, clearly uninterested in following any rules, scoffed, "I''m not letting any stupid orc soldier inside."
Barug, determined to uphold thew, argued, "It''s thew, and we must abide by it."
With a mocking grin, the gang member retorted, "Law-abiding citizens? Do we look like we care aboutws? Tell you what, I might consider letting a civilian inside too, someone who''s not from your military."
Barug was taken aback by the suggestion. He knew civilians without military training wouldn''t willingly step into such a perilous situation. Anxious, he replied, "No civilian without military training would agree to this."
The gang member chuckled wickedly, replying, "Well, then, Officer Barug, looks like you''re out of luck."
The situation grew tenser by the moment, and the fate of the hostages hung in the bnce.
Officer Barug, his fists clenched and frustration evident on his face, muttered curses under his breath as he tried to navigate this precarious situation.
Suddenly, a voice broke through the tension. It was Michael who stepped forward and offered a surprising solution. "I can go inside if you don''t have anyone else," he calmly stated.
Barug, as well as the crowd, was startled by this unexpected offer. He questioned, "Who are you, human?"
Michael maintained a reassuring smile as he responded, "Just a concerned citizen who is willing to help. From the looks of it, you desperately need assistance."
Barug hesitated, torn between the urgency of the situation and his duty to follow protocol. "I can''t let a civilian without proper training inside," he argued.
Michael, stillposed, calmly countered, "The longer we waste time, the more dangerous the situation will be for the hostages. I''m volunteering for this. I''ll do my best to talk some sense into the gang members."
Barug let out a heavy sigh, realizing the urgency of the situation. He turned to Michael and said, "You''ll need to be very careful when you go inside." He retrieved a parchment from his pocket and handed it to Michael, saying, "This is a consent form. It states that you''ve agreed to volunteer for this mission."
Michael chuckled slightly, deciding to use a different name for this particr endeavor. He quickly jotted down "John" on the parchment and handed it back to Barug.
Barug, now holding the parchment with "John''s" agreement, raised his voice and shouted at the building, "I''m sending a civilian inside. Do not harm the hostages!"
From within the building, the gang member''s voice echoed back, "Who is that fool?"
Unbeknownst to the gang members, they were about to unwittingly allow a wolf in sheep''s clothing into their midst.
Chapter 1088 Bank Robber With A System
?
When Michael reached the entrance of the Rideon Funds building, he paused outside, waiting for someone from the Vilnius gang to unlock the door.
"Open the door for that scapegoat," one of the Vilnius gang membersughed from inside.
As the people of Durran watched the unfolding scene with a mixture of curiosity and concern for the human''s safety, the door to Rideon Funds creaked open. Stepping into the doorway, Michael found himself face to face with a green-skinned orc adorned with numerous tattoos and piercings, clearly aiming to intimidate him.
"I''m here to ensure the hostages are alright," Michael stated calmly, his voice unwavering.
"Try not to be another hostage," the orc replied with a cold, humorless chuckle. With hisrge hands, he thoroughly frisked Michael from head to toe, searching for any concealed weapons.
Having stashed his armor and dark swords within the system storage, Michael remained unperturbed by the search.
"He''s clean," the orc who had conducted the search announced to hisrades.
"Let that goat inside," came the voice of the same gang member who had negotiated with Barug earlier.
As Michael cautiously stepped inside, he found himself in an elegant hall adorned with counters disying various golden artifacts. The marble floor gleamed beneath his feet, reflecting the soft light that emanated from ornate crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
Inside, the same orc who had frisked him earlier looked at Vedora with mild amusement.
"Well, ain''t that a fancy three-headed snake you got there," he remarked, oblivious to Vedora''s true identity as a natural born hydra.
Michael maintained his calm facade, recognizing that he needed to y the part of a concerned civilian to navigate this dangerous situation and rescue the hostages and Gilrut, the renowned runemaster.
"Where are the hostages?" Michael inquired, expecting to find the captives in the hall, but it was strangely empty except for a few rough-looking orcs. There were no hostages to be seen.
In response, the orc trailing behind him let out a menacing growl. "Wee to the party, human," the orc sneered, indicating that things were not as they seemed.
As Michael proceeded cautiously, he was met by an elf in brown robes with vibrant blue hair. The elf greeted him with a devilish grin. "So, our hero is a human," the elf chuckled, taking Michael aback. Michael had assumed that the negotiator he''d spoken to earlier was an orc, but to his surprise, it was an elf.
"Don''t be a racist, human. An elf can lead a group of orcs. The Vilnius gang has no ce for racism," the elf remarked as if he''d read Michael''s thoughts.
"He''s the biggest racist jerk we''ve ever encountered," an orc chimed in,ughing at the elf''s expense.
"Now, now, our precious human isn''t here to judge who''s the most racist among us but to see the hostages," the elf replied, addressing Michael''s feigned fear.
Then, the elf turned his gaze toward the orc following Michael and shed an evil smile. "Close the door and activate the runes," he ordered.
"What are you doing?" Michael asked, pretending to be frightened.
"Don''t be afraid, human. We know how crafty the orcs outside can be. We don''t want them listening or seeing what''s happening inside," the elf exined with a smirk. Michael observed several runes glowing with crimson light on the walls and ceiling.
"What are those?" Michael inquired, maintaining his fearful act. The elfughed and rified, "These are anti-surveince runes, one of Runemaster Gilrut''s creations. Isn''t it ironic that we''re using the runes he designed to keep him locked in?"
The elf''s eyes shifted toward Vedora, who rested atop Michael''s shoulder. Intrigued, he reached out a hand as if to caress the creature. However, Vedora reacted defensively, hissing and snapping at the elf''s hand, causing him to withdraw hastily.
The elf chuckled at Vedora''s reaction. "A feisty three-headed serpent you have there," he remarked to Michael with a smirk, clearly amused by the creature''s aggression.
"Show him the hostages and bring him back to me," the elf ordered the orc positioned behind Michael. With a firm grip on Michael''s shoulder, the orc guided him in another direction under the elf''smand.
Amused chuckles emanated from the orc gang as Michael was ushered closer to the room where the hostages were held captive. After a brief walk, he found himself before a ss wall, peering through it to see the hostages. Theyy on the ground, bound and gagged, their expressions a mix of fear and desperation.
The elf, who had been leading this gang of rogues, joined Michael at the ss wall. He pointed toward the enormous vault door situated behind the hostages, his tone dripping with impatience.
"That''s the vault of Rideon funds," the elf exined, a sinister grin ying on his lips. Michael''s frown deepened as he watched an orc, adorned in emerald green robes, diligently engraving runes onto the massive door.
"You have one more hour to break the runes, Gilrut. Otherwise, we are going to kill your friends in there," the elf, named Elmer, dered to the orc working on the vault door.
With a low growl, Gilrut responded, "I am working as fast as I can, Elmer."
"I don''t care. I just need the vault opened in one hour," Elmer retorted callously. He turned his attention toward one of his orcrades positioned among the hostages. The orc seized a young man by the neck, lifting him into the air. Panic filled the young man''s eyes as he struggled to breathe within the orc''s vice-like grip.
"Or my orc friend there will snap his neck like a twig," Elmer taunted, hisughter echoing with cruelty. "Then, he''ll continue to do so until you open the vault or run out of hostages to kill."
Elmer''s gaze shifted back to Michael, his expression cold and calcting.
"Now that you''ve seen the hostages are in great shape," Elmer said, "run back to Barug and tell him he better have what we asked for in two hours."
With a firm tug, the orc behind Michael propelled him back toward the bustling main hall of the building.
As they moved through the corridors, Michael couldn''t help but ponder the dire situation he found himself in. His thoughts raced, and a question gnawed at him, one he couldn''t resist asking his ever-presentpanion.
"System, I want to know if I can take out these orcs," Michael inquired quietly, not wanting to draw any attention to himself as he walked.
In response, the system''s voice echoed in his mind, providing a potential solution to his query.
[The host should spend two million points to unlock the "Eyes of Darkness" ability, allowing you to perceive the cultivation stages of beings in the realm of gods.]
Without hesitation, Michael made his decision. "Upgrade the skill," hemanded, fully aware that it was a crucial investment.
Almost immediately, a sharp, searing pain seared through his eyes, a signal of the skill enhancement process.
[The Eyes of Darkness have been upgraded. The host can now discern the energy radiation emitted by cultivators in the realm of gods. Weaker foes will disy green energy radiation, while those on par with the host will radiate yellow energy. Any adversaries stronger than the host will emit red energy radiation]
With this newfound ability, Michael was armed with a unique advantage that could greatly influence the course of events toe.
[Why did you choose to upgrade the skill without considering the points?] the system queried, puzzled by Michael''s seemingly impulsive decision.
Michael''s response was lighthearted but cryptic. "You''ll see," he chuckled to himself, not divulging his full n to the system.
As they reached the hall where he had first encountered the elf, Michael activated his newly enhanced Eyes of Darkness. Immediately, he noticed a distinct green aura enveloping the orcs around him.
[The Eyes of Darkness gauge the energy radiation of adversaries byparing it to the host''s energy levels when not using godly powers. Should the host opt to employ his godly abilities, the Eyes of Darkness will recalibrate ordingly.]
With this ability active, Michael felt more confident than ever in assessing the potential threats that surrounded him.
If Michael had possessed any other weapons, the orcs would have exhibited yellow energy radiation. However, due to his godly raw strength and the dark swords in his possession, Michael had the upper hand, despitecking a cultivation stage in this world. Moreover, these orcs were merely at the Qi Awakening Realm, the second stage of cultivation.
As they neared the exit, the orc escorting Michael forcefully pushed him.
"Get out human,"
Reacting swiftly, Michael seized a nearby chair and wedged it under the door handle, effectively barring the exit.
The orc, baffled by this sudden turn of events, growled at Michael, demanding an exnation.
"It''s game time," Then, Vedora, the three-headed serpent perched on Michael''s shoulder, spoke, surprising the orc and catching him off guard.
Michael remained remarkablyposed, despite the circumstances. He inquired calmly, "Shall we start again?"
The orc, growing increasingly agitated, reached out to grasp Michael''s throat. In a rapid and well-coordinated move, Michael retaliated by delivering a powerful kick to the orc''s groin while simultaneously striking the orc in the throat, preventing him from making any noise.
Other orcs, witnessing this unexpected turn of events, were startled. Before they could react and rush towards Michael, he had already seized the orc he had incapacitated, addressing the others in aposed tone.
"Let''s avoid a fight. It''s better if we worked together," he suggested calmly while dragging the incapacitated orc toward the group.
Michael dragged the subdued orc toward the center of the hall. Halfway there, he seized a chair, bncing it in his other hand, and positioned it in the middle of the room. The orcs, their expressions growing increasingly hostile, emitted low growls and uttered menacing threats.
As Michael calmly settled into the chair, crossing one leg over the other, he maintained hisposure in the face of their aggression. The orcs encircled him, their demeanor increasingly hostile.
"Who do you think you are, human?" one of the orcs sneered, baring his sharp teeth.
"Yeah, you''ve got some nerve walking in here like you own the ce," another orc chimed in, cracking his knuckles ominously.
Michael met their hostile gazes with an air of confidence, exuding an aura that suggested he was not to be underestimated.
"You guys said I''m a hero, didn''t you? Well, you''ve got it all wrong. I''m the viin in this tale, and I''m about to clean this ce out," Michael dered with a sinister chuckle, leaving the orcs utterly stunned.
"You can rx and get your cut, or you can piss me off. If you do, I''ll rob this ce clean, and you''ll take the fall," Michaelughed with a sinister tone, reveling in his newfound viiny.
Chapter 1089 Becoming a bank robber
Chapter 1089 Bing a bank robber
When the orcs observed how Michael sat there so nonchntly, their rage began to bubble. Unlike the schrly orcs who cherished learning and avoided violence, the Vilnius orcs reveled in brutality. Michael''s audacious act of sitting calmly before them ignited their desire to tear him apart.
"You must be out of your mind, human," grumbled another orc. But Michael gently set down the orc he had subdued and propped his leg on top of him.
The orcs seethed with anger, ready to pounce on Michael.
"Stop!" Just as the orcs were about to unleash their fury upon him, Elmer''s voice resonated through the hall, freezing them in their tracks.
Elmer, too, couldn''t hide his surprise at the sight of the human sitting so casually, his leg resting atop the orc.
"Well, well, well, this is quite unexpected," Elmer chuckled. Yet, a dangerous glint lurked within his eyes, filled with a silent intent to kill.
Michael noticed a yellow aura enveloping Elmer, a clear sign that Elmer possessed strength equal to his own. Of course, Michael was aware that if he unleashed his godly powers, Elmer wouldn''t stand a chance in a battle.
"If you''re thisposed and collected, I''m sure you''ve got some kind of n. I doubt you volunteered to see the hostages out of sheer heroism. You must have other intentions," Elmer remarked, then pulled up a chair and seated himself across from Michael.
"Of course," Michael replied with a chuckle. "As you said, I''d be a fool to simply volunteer to check on the hostages."
Elmer nced at the orcs, silently gesturing for them to step back. The orcs despised seeing their fellow orc under a human''s foot, but they dared not cross Elmer.
"Surprise me with your n, human. But let''s start with your name," Elmer requested.
"John," Michael calmly stated.
"So, John, what''s your n here? My orcs have the ce surrounded, and the fate of the hostages rests in my hands," Elmer said as he reclined in his chair. Michael listened to Elmer silently.
"You''re certainly no angel, that''s clear. Even if you''re stronger than us in terms of cultivation, you can''t simply kill us and rescue the hostages. In fact, if you did, you''d be sentenced to death by the Durran orcs. I must say, those orcs are sticklers for rules andws," Elmer exined, his tone almost tinged with enjoyment, as if relishing the game.
"Only if they find your bodies," Michael replied, his voiceced with both coldness and amusement.
"A clever one, aren''t you? You must have guessed that I wouldn''t havee in here and locked myself in with you if I didn''t have an escape n," Michael continued, nodding toward Vedora''s heads.
"So, why don''t we stop wasting each other''s time and split the loot inside the vault? Fighting amongst ourselves will only give Barug and his men more time to break through the door. You and I both know we can''t remain locked in here forever," Michael suggested.
Upon hearing this, Elmer burst intoughter. "John, you must have nerves of steel. What makes you think we''d share anything with you?" he asked.
In response, Michael didn''t answer but summoned the dark mes. Pitch-ck mes materialized above Michael''s hand and danced ominously.
Elmer''s smile instantly froze as he felt the intense heat emanating from the dark mes. He had never witnessed such all-consuming ck mes in his life. Under the shocked gazes of Elmer and the orcs, Michael pressed the dark mes onto the orc beneath his foot.
"ARGGHHHHHH!" The orc let out a blood-curdling scream, but the runes in the room prevented any sound from escaping. The dark mes devoured the orc like a ravenous beast, and within moments, the orc was reduced to nothing. Elmer was startled to see that not even ashes remained.
In a matter of seconds, the fully grown seven-foot orc had been reduced to mere nothingness by the mes.
"Now tell me, Elmer, do you think the Durran orcs wouldn''t believe me if I told them you and your gang looted the vault and disappeared?" Michael asked, his smile chilling.
The dark mes had left both the orcs and Elmer visibly sweating. As the dark mes dissipated, the room''s temperature gradually returned to normal.
"That dark me... that''s something," Elmer remarked, his surprise evident. However, there was no sign of fear in his expression.
"You seem to have forgotten about the hostages, John. I can recognize a cold-blooded killer when I see one. You might be a killer, but you won''t harm the hostages," Elmer dered.
"What''s happening in there?" Pink''s voice echoed in Michael''s ear, but he ignored her, keeping his focus on Elmer.
Instead of responding to Elmer''sment, Michael leaned forward, pointing his fingers at his eyes.
"Look into my eyes and tell me I don''t have a n to deal with the hostages," Michael challenged.
When Elmer locked eyes with Michael, he could clearly discern that John had some sort of n. His confidence and demeanor spoke volumes, making Elmer second-guess any thoughts of eliminating John. Slowly, Elmer began to realize that John might have a strategy to prevent them from harming the hostages.
"Why are you negotiating with that human scum, Elmer?" one of the orcs, losing patience, growled.
"Yeah, just kill him and toss his body out. It''ll send a message," another orc roared.
Michael knew he could dispatch the orcs and Elmer and incinerate their bodies with the dark mes if necessary. However, he considered that option ast resort. Instead, Michael wanted to coborate with Elmer and the Vilnius gang. He saw an opportunity to work with them to start a side business that would amass a fortune in gold coins.
Michael felt no guilt or remorse about contemting robbing ces like Rideon Funds. ording to Pink, Durran was a wealthy kingdom, and umting wealth was necessary for his survival in this world. Inparison to his own survival, the prospect of robbery didn''t weigh heavily on Michael''s conscience.
"We both won''t get anything we want until thatzy orc Gilrut breaks the vault. I have to say, John, I spent weeks nning this heist, and you areplicating things. I don''t likeplications," Elmer coldly remarked, but Michael couldn''t help but burst intoughter.
"Weeks? Are you kidding me?" Michael chuckled.
"I could have robbed this ce clean in a day or two," he added, with a confident grin.
"A smart man like you knows that giving me my share will be fruitful in the long run. Think about it," Michael urged.
Hearing Michael''s proposal, Elmer couldn''t help but snicker. "You said you could rob this ce in a day or two, so I don''t see why you need us," he said, ying along to gather more information.
It was a high-stakes game of mental chess between Michael and Elmer.
"Because I have too many things to do. If you agree to work with me, I''ll let you choose the ce and time of the robbery and do the legwork. I will give you a foolproof n to hit the ces and clean out the loot with zeroplications and a hundred percent sess rate," Michael calmly offered.
Hearing Michael''s intention to rob more ces, Vedora felt a mix of shock and excitement.
"I''ve had enough of this!" Suddenly, an impatient orc charged at Michael from behind.
Michael didn''t even flinch as he assessed the approaching orc through Elmer''s eyes. Swiftly, he moved to the side, grabbed the orc''s axe, and pulled the orc off bnce.
The orc had severely underestimated Michael''s raw strength. In their eyes, he was just a human, but they had no inkling of his godly power. As far as they were concerned, he made the orc feel weightless. When the orc fell under the force of Michael''s pull, he snatched the axe from the orc''s hand and cleanly severed the orc''s head from his shoulders with a single, powerful swing.
Blood sttered across the floor and onto Elmer''s face. The orc''s lifeless body twitched as its head rolled on the ground.
Michael stood there, his face speckled with blood, and shed a confident smile at Elmer.
"If you want to work with me, you need to get rid of these idiots," Michael said.
The orcs who had witnessed Michael''s incredible speed and raw strength took a step back, their hearts gripped by fear and shock.
"What if you rat us out when you get outside?" Elmer asked, considering the possibility of working with Michael instead of opposing him.
"Honor among thieves," Michael simply replied.
When the other orcs grew agitated and started to inch forward, Elmer swiftly rose to his feet, raising his hands in a calming gesture.
"Stop," Elmer firmly ordered his men.
"I love thrills like this. So, I will agree to give you a share. But I can''t give you half. As you can see, I have more mouths to feed," Elmer reasoned.
"Since we will be working together in the future, I can let you take sixty-five percent of the loot," Michael proposed.
"Hahaha," Elmerughed heartily before wiping the blood from his face.
He then extended his hand toward Michael, sealing their agreement with a handshake.
"You have to clean this blood," Elmer pointed out, and Michael nodded in agreement.
With a flick of his wrist, Michael produced a colorless liquid vial and poured it onto the ground. To Elmer''s surprise, the liquid flowed across the floor,pletely erasing any traces of blood.
"Now, let''s go break the vault," Michael suggested. Unbeknownst to Elmer, a spyder had discreetly crawled onto his robes, concealing itself in his pockets. Soon, this inconspicuous spyder would transmit everything Elmer saw and heard back to Pink''s hideout.
Unintentionally, Elmer had just be Michael''s subordinate in the pursuit of robbing wealthy ces.
As they walked toward the vault, Michael summoned the system to change his attire. His emerald green robes were swiftly reced with dark robes, his face concealed by a hood and a skull mask.
"I assume you have a n to break the vault," Elmer inquired, growing more intrigued as he witnessed John''s transformation.
"I thought you would never ask," Michael snickered.
Upon reaching the vault room, Michael observed Gilrut still diligently working on the runes to breach the vault. The hostagesy trembling on the ground, their fear palpable. Without hesitation, Michael tossed a ss vial containing his own concoction into the vault room through the open door.
The vial shattered upon impact, startling the hostages.
"What the hell is this?" Gilrut muttered in confusion as he examined the shattered vial. However, before he could react, Gilrut copsed, unconscious. Everyone inside the vault room, including the orc guards, followed suit, falling to the ground.
Michael then calmly stepped through the door and stood before the imposing metal vault door.
"I am waiting," Elmer stated, his hand subtly gripping the dagger at his waist, prepared for any unexpected actions from John.
To Elmer''s astonishment, Michael merely clenched the vault door with his godly strength. Elmer watched in awe as the solid metal door trembled, with cracks beginning to form in the surrounding wall.
The massive vault door continued to crack and tremble under Michael''s relentless grip until, with a thunderous crash, it fell to the ground. A dazzling sight met their eyes as the vault''s contents were revealed. Shimmering piles of gold coins, sparkling rubies and diamonds, and gleaming gold bars and biscuitsy before them, bathed in a brilliant, radiant light that danced across their faces.
Michael couldn''t help but be amused at the sight before him. He turned to Elmer and the other orcs, a wry grin ying on his lips.
"Now that''s what I call a damn good score," Michael remarked with a chuckle, his eyes fixed on the glittering treasure trove.
Chapter 1090 Becoming filthy rich again
Chapter 1090 Bing filthy rich again
"Brute strength beats rune strength," Elmer admitted, clearly surprised by Michael''s raw power. He couldn''t hide his astonishment at witnessing Michael''s physical prowess.
"Get to work," Elmermanded his orcrades, and they eagerly obeyed, pulling outrge sacks from their space rings and rushing to fill them with the precious loot from the vault.
Michael, however, furrowed his brow as he noticed the orcs packing their sacks instead of using their space rings to store the wealth. The treasure within the vault was protected by intricate runes, preventing it from being stored in a space ring.
"Leave thirty-five percent for our friend John here," Elmer stated with a hint of amusement.
"I wonder how you n to carry all this wealth on you," Elmer mused, his snicker echoing in the room.
Michael remained silent, well aware that traditional means like space rings wouldn''t work for this enchanted treasure. However, Michael had a trick up his sleeve - his system storage.
As the orcs filled their sacks and hurriedly dragged them outside of the vault, Michael calmly stepped inside. Elmer observed him closely, curious about what he might do next. To Elmer''s astonishment, Michael simply waved his hand, causing a strange white light to envelop all the remaining gold coins, rubies, diamonds, and every valuable item in the vault. Within moments, the bright light vanished, taking the entire contents of the vault with it.
"What kind of space ring are you wearing?" Elmer asked, his voice revealing his shock at the incredible disy of power.
"Working with you might not be a bad idea after all," Elmer admitted, recognizing the potential benefits of coborating with John. In Elmer''s eyes, Michael seemed resourceful, someone who could be used to gain advantages within the Vilnius gang. He contemted using John as a contact to climb the ranks.
However, Elmer waspletely unaware that Michael had his own motives and ns for exploiting the Vilnius gang to his advantage.
Once all the wealth within the vault had vanished, Michael turned to Elmer with a smile.
"Now, ce the dagger against my throat and tell Barug to send the flying ships within half an hour," Michael instructed. He snatched a dagger from one of the orcs, causing them and Elmer to react with agitation, stepping back cautiously.
Michael smiled as he changed his robes back to the emerald green attire. With deliberate slowness, he ran the dagger across his chest, cutting his own flesh. Blood trickled down, staining his green robes crimson.
"This will give Barug the motivation he needs," Michael remarked confidently.
An orc stood firmly behind Michael, holding the dagger against his throat as they proceeded. Michael maintained hisposure, not showing any signs of fear or difort.
Elmer led the way, and soon they reached the building''s entrance. He pushed open the heavy doors, revealing the bustling scene outside. Barug and a contingent of soldiers were on the scene, trying to keep the curious citizens at bay, creating a perimeter around the Rideon Funds building.
Barug''s expression turned grim as he noticed the blood staining Michael''s body. His fists clenched in anger, and he approached Michael, his voice low and stern.
"What did you do?" Barug demanded, his eyes locked onto Michael''s.
Elmer, however, remained calm andposed. He let out a chuckle before asking, "Where is the flying ship I asked for?"
"It''s on its way," Barug replied, his gaze never leaving Michael.
Elmer''s tone shifted as impatience crept in. "I don''t like the ship beingte," he said, then signaled to the orc standing behind Michael.
Without hesitation, the orc drew the dagger across Michael''s shoulder. However, to his astonishment, it felt as if he was cutting into a solid stone wall.
"What in the world..." the orc muttered to himself, staring at Michael''s seemingly invulnerable flesh in disbelief.
"Stop hurting the hostages, Elmer. You didn''t want this robbery case to be murder," Barug growled, frustration evident in his voice. However, Elmer merelyughed, an eerie sound that hung in the air.
"Officer Barug, we are the Vilnius gang. Wemit murders for breakfast and more murders for dinner. So, no, we don''t give a damn. Unless you want this hero to die before your very eyes, I want the airship to arrive within ten seconds," Elmer responded with a cold grin.
The orc behind Michael pressed the dagger against his throat, keeping him in check. Barug and his soldiers seethed with anger, but they felt helpless in the face of the criminals.
Just in the nick of time, arge shadow loomed over them, casting darkness on the ground. All eyes turned upward, and they beheld a massive flying ship with green sails and a dark brown hull gracefully sailing through the sky.
"Damn good timing," Elmer pped his hands in appreciation.
"Drop the ropes!" Barugh shouted, his voiceced with anger and impatience. The ship''s crew swiftly obliged, lowering several ropes to the ground. They began descending using these ropes, aiming to assist with their escape.
"We will leave the ship and your precious hero far away from Durran with an emergency light. You can pick him upter," Elmer dered as he confidently made his way up the ropes to the ship.
The orcs followed, grasping the ropes tightly as Elmer activated a mechanism that hoisted them up to the ship. As they reached the ship''s upper deck, Elmer took hold of the helm and expertly rotated the rudder. The massive airship began to turn slowly, its sails billowing as it adjusted course.
Michael observed the ship''s sails filling with wind, propelling it forward as they escaped from DurranWhile they soared away from Durran, Michael couldn''t help but notice the intricate runes etched into the sails and the glowing symbols that adorned the ship''s hull. At the stern of the airship, there was a conspicuousrge box, covered in an array of mysterious runes. With a sense of curiosity, he activated his X-ray vision, revealing a potent energy signature emanating from within the box.
"You can take the dagger away, my man," Michael spoke to the orc. The orc, under Elmer''s watchful eye, reluctantly sheathed the dagger that had been pressed against Michael''s throat moments earlier.
With the de no longer a threat, Michael stretched his muscles, the tension slowly dissipating.
"Are you going to tell us your next move?" Elmer inquired, his hands steady on the rudder.
"I have a few matters to attend to in Durran," Michael began, his tone casual. "In the meantime, if you happen to identify a lucrative target, feel free to let me know. But I must emphasize I''m not interested in small-time scores. If I''m going to help you, it needs to be a big heist."
"Don''t concern yourself with the targets. Durran''s got plenty of fat fish to plunder," Elmer assured. "However, the real question is, how do we get in touch with you?"
"Meeting the rest of your Vilnius gang isn''t on the table, I presume," Michael retorted, his skepticism clear.
"Let''s be realistic here, John. Trust isn''t something that flows easily between us at this point. So, it''s a tad premature to disclose our hideout to you," Elmer exined. However, he tossed a blue crystal, intricately engraved with a rune, toward Michael, who deftly caught it in mid-air.
"It''s a one-waymunication crystal. When I''ve selected our next target, I''ll get in touch," Elmer elucidated.
As the airship soared further away from the Durran Kingdom, they eventually arrived at a breathtaking sight: a vast white flower field that stretched endlessly across thend under a tumultuous, stormy sky. The field was a mesmerizing sight, the white blossoms contrasting starkly against the dark, brooding clouds above.
Elmer, still at the helm, turned to Michael, addressing him by the alias John, "This is where we part ways, John."
Michael gazed out at the expanse of white flowers, his curiosity piqued. "What are you nning to do with the airship?" he inquired.
Elmer couldn''t help but chuckle at the question. "The Durran orcs believe they can track us using the runes embedded in this ship, but they''re in for a surprise." He gestured to the orcs surrounding him, who were stiflingughter. "We''ll strip this ship down and salvage the parts, then sell them for a handsome sum of gold coins."
The orcs apanying Elmer burst into raucousughter, their rough voices mocking the supposed ineptitude of the Durran orcs.
"Track us, my foot!" one of them guffawed.
"The Durran orcs always were a bit slow," another orc chimed in with a grin.
Elmer, still amused, added, "Exactly. They underestimate the Vilnius gang. Now, John, our paths diverge here. Keep thatmunication crystal close. When the time is right, I''ll be in touch."
Michael nodded, and with a final nce at Elmer and his boisterous orcrades, he stepped off the airship and onto the pristine, flower-coverednd, ready for his next move.
Standing amidst the sprawling field of white flowers, Michael watched as the airship receded into the distant horizon, a mere speck in the expansive sky. With a deep breath, he activated the earpiece.
"Hello, Pink," he spoke softly.
Pink''s voice crackled to life on the other end. "Ghost, what happened? Did you meet Gilrut?"
With a hint of amusement in his tone, Michael recounted every detail of the events that unfolded within Rideon Funds, painting a vivid picture of his encounter with Elmer and the Vilnius gang.
Pink''s voice radiated excitement and disbelief. "So, we''re robbing banks now? I never thought I''d see the day."
Michael replied in a matter-of-fact tone, "We need funds, Pink. This is the quickest way to amass the wealth we require."
Pink acknowledged the necessity of their actions. "True, we do need the funds. But are you sure about this? It sounds dangerous."
Michael reassured her, "Elmer has a Spyder on him. We''ll have our eyes on him at all times."
Pink''s response was filled with satisfaction. "That''s wonderful."
Determined to assist Pink further, Michael proposed, "I''ll help you connect Elmer''s Spyder to one of the mirrors in your room so you can keep a close watch on him."
Curiosity piqued, Pink inquired, "What''s your next move, Ghost?"
Michael''s voice held a hint of anticipation as he revealed his n. "Now, it''s time to befriend Gilrut and forge a new medallion."
Chapter 1091 Runemaster Gilrut
Chapter 1091 Runemaster Gilrut
As Michael contemted his next steps, a soft voice resounded in his mind, reminding him of an important task. It was Ayag, his loyal and ever-watchful hydra.
"Ghost," Ayag''s voice whispered, "it might be wise to use the emergency beacon now."
Understanding the urgency, Michael reached into his pocket and retrieved a small, unassuming cube. Gripping it tightly in his hand, he crushed it with a swift motion. In an instant, a brilliant beam of red light shot skyward, cutting through the stormy clouds above.
With the emergency signal sent, Michael sat down amidst the sea of white flowers, feeling their delicate petals beneath him. He turned his attention to Ayag, who seemed curious about his next move.
"I''ll wait here until Baruges to pick me up," Michael exined, his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of the approaching airship.
Ayag nodded in understanding. "Whates next, Ghost?"
Michael''s gaze turned resolute as he replied, "Next, I need to befriend Gilrut and begin cultivating in this world. There''s much to learn and aplish,"
While he waited for Barug or any of the orcs toe and pick him up, Michael essed the system to review his umted wealth from the heist at Rideon Funds. The system provided him with a detailed summary.
[The host has 20 million in gold coins. The rubies, diamonds, and other valuables should be traded to evaluate their value in gold coins] the system informed Michael.
From the pile of gleaming gold coins, Michael plucked one and exited the system momentarily.
"Take a look at this coin," Michael said, presenting the divine gold coin to the three hydra heads. It sparkled brilliantly under his grasp. Then, he retrieved a regr gold coin from the mortal realm.
"No wonder this world doesn''t use these gold coins," Sarba remarked, eyeing theparatively dull coin from the mortal realm.
In contrast to the divine gold coin, the mortal realm''s currency seemed like a cheap metal. The divine gold coins were forged from pure gold, transcending the quality of any gold in the mortal realm.
"Twenty million gold coins, huh? It wouldn''t be worth exchanging them for a mere eight hundred thousand badass points," Michael pondered to himself.
The system then offered another piece of information.
[The system haspiled a list of alchemy ingredients needed to reconstruct the host''s body to enable cultivation in this realm. The host can spend two million badass points to buy the ingredients or choose to acquire them from the realm of gods to save the points] the system stated.
"I should start by looking for the ingredients in Durran. I''ll purchase as many as I can here, and the rest I can buy from you system," Michael informed the AI system.
Exiting the system, Michael turned his attention to the approaching carriages in the distance.
"I hear the carriages approaching, Ghost," Sarba noted.
"Finally," Michael replied, waiting patiently for the carriages to reach his location.
The carriages finally came to a halt near the emergency light, their wooden wheels creaking as they stopped. Barug, a burly orc, emerged from one of the carriages and made his way over to where Michael was seated on the flower-covered ground.
With a feigned air of weakness, Michael allowed the other orcs to assist him back to his feet. He looked at Barug with concern in his eyes.
"Are the hostages all right?" Michael inquired, his voice filled with worry.
Barug was taken aback by the human''s genuine concern for the hostages, especially when he himself was bleeding from his wound. It was a rare sight to see suchpassion in the criminal underworld.
"They''re fine," Barug replied gruffly, "We''ll take you to the healer and patch you up."
Michael nodded appreciatively and, with Barug''s assistance, made his way into one of the waiting carriages.
Barug settled into the carriage across from Michael, concern still etched on his rugged features. After a moment, he couldn''t help but ask, "What about Elmer and his gang? Did they say anything that might help us locate their hideout?"
Michael, still maintaining his fa?ade of vulnerability, furrowed his brows as if deep in thought. He leaned in closer to Barug and lowered his voice conspiratorially, "They were talking about... killing someone." He paused for dramatic effect, watching Barug''s eyes widen with surprise.
Inside, Michael couldn''t help but snicker at his own maniption. Barug had no idea that he and Elmer had nned to work together.
"Killing someone?" Barug echoed, clearly taken aback.
Michael nodded solemnly. "Yes, they mentioned it quite a few times,"
Barug nodded in understanding, his expression growing graver. "We need to bolster our defenses then. If they''re nning something like that, we can''t afford to be caught off guard."
Michael decided to y his final card. He looked Barug directly in the eyes, a note of earnestness in his voice.
"I would be forever in your debt if you could arrange a meeting with Gilrut," Michael said. "I risked my life to get into that building for a reason."
A small smile spread across Barug''s face. "That can be arranged quite easily. In fact, Gilrut has been asking to see the human who risked his life to get into the building."
Michael was genuinely surprised by this news. "Really?" he asked, his curiosity piqued.
Barug nodded with a hint of admiration in his eyes. "Yes," he replied, "Gilrut has expressed a keen interest in meeting the human who risked his life to save the hostages. It''s not every day we encounter someone with such bravery in these dark times."
Barug''s curiosity seemed to grow as he leaned forward slightly. "By the way, what''s your name?" he asked.
Michael didn''t hesitate. He''d been using the name John with Elmer, so he decided to stick with it. "John," he replied.
"John, you''ve got balls, I''ll give you that," Barug said. "Risking yourself like that, it''s not something many would do."
Michael feigned embarrassment, lowering his gaze.
"I did nothing special, really," he said modestly. "Just ended up being another hostage."
Eventually, the carriage returned to the Kingdom of Durran, and Michael observed the Rideon Funds building passing by. The building was now surrounded by even more orcs. After a few more minutes, the carriage came to a halt.
"Once we patch you up, I''ll take you to meet Lord Gilrut," Barug said.
Barug led Michael into an emerald-green building where they encountered a kindly, silver-haired woman. She inquired about what had transpired and listened attentively to Barug''s ount. Her face registered surprise as she processed the details.
After a brief discussion, the woman provided Michael with a few potions and carefully applied a bandage to his chest. Once he was feeling a bit better, Barug led him to a grand establishment known as the Orc Tree Inn.
The inn was an imposing structure, adorned with intricate wooden carvings and lush greenery. It exuded an air of rustic charm and grandeur.
"Lord Gilrut will be waiting for you in room 46," Barug informed Michael. "You can go directly to meet him; our staff has been informed."
"Thank you," Michael replied sincerely, appreciating Barug''s assistance.
As Barug patted him on the back, he added, "And John, don''t leave the kingdom without informing me. I might need to take your witness statement again for more information. After all, you were one of the witnesses."
"Of course, Lord Barug," Michael said, showing his willingness to cooperate.
With that, Barug bid him farewell. As he left, he couldn''t help but sigh and say, "Once the Rideon Funds guys finish sweeping the empty vault, they''re going toe bringing their whole wrath down on my head."
Michael entered the Orc Tree Inn, crossing the threshold into an elegant establishment. The interior exuded an air of refinement, with wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling, casting intricate patterns of shadows on the polished wooden floor. Soft, ambient lighting emanated from ornatenterns hanging from the walls, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere.
As he stepped further into the inn, a young orc woman, dressed in flowing green robes, approached him with a weing smile. Her demeanor was courteous and professional.
"Lord Gilrut has been expecting you in room 46," Michael informed the orc woman.
She quickly realized his intent and nodded. "Follow me," she said to Michael, gesturing for him to apany her.
Together, they ascended a grand staircase that led to the upper levels of the inn. Arriving at the top floor, they reached a grand and imposing door. The number "46" was finely engraved on a polished brass te, marking the room.
With a polite nod, the young orc woman said, "You can go inside and meet Lord Gilrut."
Michael acknowledged her guidance with a nod of his own and gently pushed open the door to room 46.
When Michael pushed the door open, he stepped into an elegant and spacious penthouse. Lord Gilrut was engrossed in conversation with several armored orcs. As Michael entered, Gilrut gracefully concluded his meeting, dismissing the orcs to give his full attention to their guest.
Approaching Michael with a slight, courteous smile, Gilrut greeted him, "You must be the one Office Barug was talking about. I wish we had met under different circumstances."
Michael nodded in agreement, replying, "Me too, Lord Gilrut. But I am d no one got hurt."
Gilrut''s gaze fell on the bandage adorning Michael''s chest, and his expression shifted to one of sympathy. "The same can''t be said for you. I heard what those vile beasts did. I am very sorry."
Michael shook his head modestly. "You don''t have to, Lord Gilrut. We should be d they didn''t take any lives."
Lord Gilrut invited Michael to take a seat on a plush green sofa. As Michael settled onto thefortable upholstery, Vedora rested beside him. Gilrut chose to sit opposite him.
"Lord Gilrut, I must confess something. I was sent by someone to meet you," Michael began, catching Gilrut off guard.
"Who sent you?" Gilrut inquired, his curiosity piqued.
"Veena... Veena sent me," Michael replied, using Pink''s name within this world.
Gilrut''s eyes widened at the mention of her name. A range of emotions flickered across his features. For a few moments, he was rendered speechless.
"Veena? How... how is she?" Gilrut asked, disbeliefcing his words.
"She told me everything about you and what happened. She told me you owe her one. So, it''s time for her to cash in that favor," Michael exined.
"Hahahaha, she still remembers, huh? What do you need?" Gilrut inquired, his demeanor more rxed.
In response, Michael retrieved the tree-shaped medallion hanging from his neck and pointed to it.
"I want your help in forging a medallion just like this one," Michael stated.
Gilrut leaned in closer and donned a pair of half-moon sses. As he examined the intricate, glowing runes etched into the medallion, his body trembled.
"It''s... are you... a god..." Gilrut muttered inplete shock.
Chapter 1092 New Medallion
Chapter 1092 New Medallion
While the medallion had indeed been forged by a goddess, Gilrut astutely discerned the purpose of the runes etched upon it with a single nce. Michael couldn''t help but be impressed by the orc''s talent; he had a hunch that Gilrut''s abilities rivaled those of Elidyr himself. However, the question Gilrut posed caught Michael off guard.
"What are you talking about?" Michael responded, feigning ignorance and avoiding any revtion of his divine nature. It wasn''t time to disclose his godly status to Gilrut.
Yet, Gilrut appeared unwavering in his certainty.
"This medallion... it''s for suppressing a god''s aura. And you are wearing it..."
"What''s happening there? What''s Gilrut saying?" Pink''s voice crackled through the earpiece.
Observing the unyielding confidence in Gilrut''s eyes, Michael realized there was no fooling the orc.
"He''s asking me if I''m a god or not," Michael responded to Pink, further astonishing Gilrut. The orc hadn''t detected the conversation taking ce through the earpiece.
"Shit. How did he find out? But then again, that man is a prodigy. I guess he really is that talented," Pink sighed.
"How do you n to handle him?" Pink inquired.
"How do you think I should handle him? He''s looking at me right now," Michael replied, surprising Pink.
"What? Is she there?" Pink was taken aback. Michael promptly removed the earpiece from his ear and tossed it into the air, where it hovered between them.
"Veena, you might want to speak to Gilrut. You''re in speaker mode," Michael advised.
"Veena?" Gilrut was bewildered. He inspected the device suspended in the air, trying to discern its nature, yet found no runes or energy emanating from it. Instead, he heard Veena''s unmistakable voice.
"Hey, Gilrut," Pink greeted.
Gilrut was taken aback, his surprise evident. He scrutinized the mysterious device, baffled by its unknown capabilities.
"What kind of device is this?" Gilrut asked.
"It''s me, Gilrut. I wish I could meet you in person, but, you know, I can''t step into Durran," Pink admitted, herughter tinged with nervousness.
"Yeah, you should be in a mental asylum. But I can tell you''re not there," Gilrut responded, sharing a chuckle.
"I never expected you to have a god friend," Gilrut remarked, his tone turning serious.
"We''ve known each other for years. Trust me when I say this, Gilrut, you should help him out. Don''t worry about the Pantheon. Just assist him, and no one will know you helped us," Pink implored.
"This is a big favor, Veena. But I''m indebted to you, so I''ll do it," Gilrut conceded with a sigh. He was an orc who loathed owing anyone anything. Therefore, even though aiding a rogue god would imperil his own safety, Gilrut chose to take the risk. Besides, Gilrut had no loved ones left to care about him; Gal had taken the life of the one woman who had loved him. As a result, Gilrut had adopted a reckless attitude towards death.
"Follow me," Gilrut dered, rising to his feet and taking a deep breath.
Following behind Gilrut, Michael observed as the orc reached a set of bookshelves. With a practiced hand, Gilrut selected a particr book from the shelf. As he did so, Michael heard a soft click, and the bookshelf slid open, revealing a concealed door.
"Secret room in a tavern?" Michael quipped with an amused smile.
Gilrut turned towards him, a grin on his face. "I own this penthouse, and nobody in the tavern knows about this room."
With curiosity piqued, Michael watched as Gilrut ced his hand on the metallic door. Runes etched into the surface began to glow softly. With a faint hiss, the metal door swung open, revealing a well-lit secret chamber. The room was adorned with various tables, intricate runes adorning the walls, a grand chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and more bookshelves.
"The man who designed and built this building was a friend of mine," Gilrut exined. "He didn''t include this room in the official ns as a favor to me."
Once inside the room, the door sealed shut behind Michael. Vedora remained perched on his shoulder as he leaned against the wall.
"You can now remove that medallion. This room is guarded against the pantheon''s sensors," Gilrut exined. Michael obliged, removing the medallion and handing it to Gilrut. The orc ced it carefully on the table before him and began examining the runes using a magnifying ss.
"So tell me, Veena. What have you been doing since you escaped Durran?" Gilrut inquired, trying to maintain conversation with Pink to avoid direct interaction with a god.
"Just searching for my god friend there," Pink chuckled, not revealing much.
"Speaking of which, what god is he?" Gilrut directed his question at Pink, rather than addressing Michael directly.
"Why don''t you ask him?" Pink retorted, as Gilrut''s curiosity got the better of him. It wasn''t every day he could witness a god in his true physical form within his own room.
"You sure this room will keep my presence hidden from the pantheon," Michael inquired, seeking reassurance.
"Yes," Gilrut affirmed.
"Why do you have a secret room with runes to prevent the pantheon''s sensors from picking up?" Pink probed further.
"Not everyone is very fond of worshipping Norebo, Veena," Gilrut replied firmly, indicating that this was a matter between him and the orc god Norebo. As far as Michael was concerned, any disputes between them were not his concern.
"Scare him," Ayag whispered to Michael. Since Vedora was disguised as a three-headed serpent, none of the serpent''s heads spoke.
"You really want to know what god I am?" Michael inquired, catching Gilrut''s attention.
Seeing Gilrut''s expectant expression, Michael activated the power of darkness. The entire room was plunged into pitch-ck darkness. The chandeliers and runes lost their glow, and the room felt suffocated by an oppressive shadow. Gilrut couldn''t see a thing; this darkness was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
"You¡you are the god of darkness," Gilrut finally realized the nature of the god before him.
As the darkness slowly faded away, returning the room to its previous state, Gilrut was visibly shocked. He stuttered, "You are the god of darkness."
Pink chimed in with a yful tone, "Don''t go having a heart attack on me now."
However, Michael cut their banter short and got straight to the point. "I need a medallion that can hide my presence from the pantheon."
Gilrut, now somewhat recovered from his shock, took the medallion in his hands and began examining it closely. His fingers traced the intricate runes etched onto its surface as he thought deeply.
"This medallion has runes to conceal a god''s aura. However, since it wasn''t crafted with a specific god in mind, attempting to use a god''s power with it would render the medallion ineffective and making it detectable by the pantheon''s sensors," Gilrut exined.
Michael inquired, "Can you craft a new medallion specifically for me, one that won''t be detected by the pantheon?"
Gilrut nodded, "I can create the rune design, mimicking the ones inscribed in this room, but it will take some time, at least three days. However, I''ll need a skilled cksmith to forge the actual medallion. Once it''s made, I can engrave the runes onto it."
He continued, "These runes require a constant energy supply to remain effective, so you will also need celestial energy crystals."
Michael inquired, "You don''t have to worry about a cksmith. I can forge the medallion. But do you know any ce I can obtain the Celestial crystals?"
He knew that back in the mortal realm, he could mine Arch energy crystals from the Stormville Mountain, where Mugashuku slumbered. However, he was new to the realm of gods and uncertain where to find Celestial crystals. He was aware that such a precious resource would likely be well-guarded.
Gilrut responded, "There is a mine here in Durran, but it''s heavily protected by Norebo''s angels. If you wish to avoid attracting the pantheon''s attention, which I assume is your goal, you''ll have to purchase the crystals. Low-grade crystals can power the runes for a day, mid-grade for a week, and high-grade for at least three weeks."
Michael nodded, "I see. Are these crystals expensive?"
Gilrut confirmed, "Very."
"But you can purchase them if you have the coins from the Celestial Pce. Its branch is located here in Durran, just a couple of blocks away," Gilrut informed him.
Gilrut continued, "Since you won''t have a medallion for three days, you can wait in this room. Afterward, I can provide you with a low-grade crystal. With that, you can leave and purchase more crystals."
Three days swiftly passed by. During that time, Michael had purchased the necessary metals from the system to forge the medallion he desired.
In the room, they both worked diligently towards their goals. Gilrut meticulously inscribed tiny, intricate runes onto a glowing, strange metal he had. His expertise in rune-craft was undeniable, and he worked with both precision and care.
On the other side of the room, Michael silently forged the medallion. Using his dark mes, he melded and shaped the metal into a skull-shaped form, with every detail painstakingly perfected. It was a fusion of craftsmanship and divine power.
As the three days passed, the room was filled with an air of concentration and determination. Michael and Gilrut, two very different beings, shared the same goal.
"Done," Gilrut dered, his voiceden with fatigue. Vedora, curled up in the corner of the room, slept peacefully.
After an intensive three-day effort, Gilrut had sessfully engraved the intricate runes into the skull-shaped medallion that Michael had forged. In the process, he had repurposed some of the runes from Marli''s medallion, effectively destroying it.
"It''s beautiful," Michael marveled as he held the small skull medallion in his hand.
"Show me how to power this medallion," Michael requested.
Gilrut agreed with a nod and retrieved a dim blue crystal from his pocket. He clenched his fist around the crystal, shattering it. As he opened his hand, a radiant energy appeared, hovering above his palm. Simultaneously, the medallion in Michael''s hand quivered. It absorbed the celestial energy, warming up, and the eyes in the skull design glowed dimly in a shade of red.
"It''s ready. This will keep you hidden from the Pantheon even if you employ your godly powers. However, remember that it''s not a foolproof solution. The Pantheon''s detection array for rogue gods is extremely powerful. So, although the medallion will conceal your presence, use your godly powers sparingly, only when absolutely necessary," Gilrut advised Michael.
With a firm nod ofprehension and a renewed sense of purpose, Michael hung the medallion around his neck. Taking a deep breath, he prepared to leave the room.
"It''s time to start cultivating in this world," Michael said before leaving the room.
Chapter 1093 Time for a grand heist
Chapter 1093 Time for a grand heist
With the newly acquired medallion securely hanging from his neck, Michael navigated the bustling streets of Durran. Vedora remained asleep in his room as he blended into the festival crowd.
"This harvest festival seems like a big deal," Michael remarked, his gaze wandering over the vibrant celebrations.
"Yeah. Every year, the orcs invite people from all kingdoms and worshippers of all gods to celebrate their harvest. Say what you want, the food they serve in the festival is damn delicious," Pink chimed in through the earpiece.
The mention of delicious food brought thoughts of his wife, Gaya, to Michael''s mind. She was quite the food enthusiast.
"I wonder what she''s doing," Michael mused to himself as he weaved through the festivities.
"Now that you have the medallion, what''s our next move?" Pink inquired.
"I need to gather some alchemy ingredients to start cultivating in this world," Michael exined.
"Then you should head to Eden''s Garden. It''s right next to the Celestial Pce," Pink suggested.
"Right, I''ll remember that," Michael mentally noted.
"I also need to sell everything I stole from Rideon Funds. I assume selling them in the Celestial Pce is out of the question," Michael asked Pink.
"Okay, I''ve heard rumors about some ck market operations in Durran, but I don''t know their locations or how to contact them. I doubt Gilrut does either," Pink admitted.
"Officer Barug might be able to help," Michael pondered. Given Barug''s position as aw enforcement officer in Durran, he would likely have knowledge of the ck market in the kingdom. Obtaining information from him could facilitate the sale of the stolen Rideon Funds valuables for gold coins.
After all, Michael had no personal use for items such as rubies, diamonds, or artifacts. Although artifacts infused with celestial energy could be absorbed, the artifacts in Rideon Funds were merely decorative, favored by the wealthy for their aesthetic appeal.
"Aren''t you excited about us being together again?" Pink asked, seeking Michael''s thoughts on their reunion.
"I am," Michael affirmed, his smile evident in his voice.
"However, we both know the rules of this world are different. If we mess up on Earth, we''ll end up in jail. But if we mess up here, we''ll be killed or worse," Michael cautioned Pink, tempering her enthusiasm.
"I know, I know. But still, killing gods has a nice ring to it. I just miss being paid, though," Pinkmented, a tinge of disappointment audible in her voice.
"I''m working on that," Michael assured her, raising Pink''s curiosity.
"I assume you''re not going to tell me," Pink guessed, ustomed to Ghost''s penchant for secrecy.
"Yep," Michael replied simply.
Amidst the lively celebration of the orc harvest festival, with stalls offering delectable treats and vibrant performances taking ce on the streets, Michael skillfully navigated through the cheerful crowd. The revelry was infectious, and the rich scents of exotic foods filled the air.
As he continued his journey, he soon arrived at an awe-inspiring sight. A colossal white marble building, the Celestial Pce, rose before him, its grandeur and opulence drawing the gaze of all who passed by. Its majestic architecture, adorned with intricate carvings of gods and celestial beings, towered over the surrounding structures, exuding an air of divine authority.
Beside the Celestial Pce stood another imposing building, one shaped like a giant leaf, Eden''s Garden. The structure appeared to be an architectural wonder, a testament to the orc''s craftsmanship and their reverence for the natural world.
With determination in his step, Michael approached the entrance of the Celestial Pce. The massive doors, ornately decorated with symbols of gods and celestial energies, swung open to wee him. As he entered the pce''s interior, he was greeted by an air of solemnity and reverence. Orcs and devotees of various gods moved about with hushed voices, their eyes cast downward in respect.
Making his way to the central hall, Michael inquired about the purchase of celestial crystals. He was directed to a counter where an elderly orc, adorned in robes of deep blue, awaited. The orc regarded him with wise eyes, recognizing the seriousness in Michael''s request.
"Wee to the Celestial Pce. How may I assist you today?" the elderly orc inquired, his voice carrying an air of dignity.
"I''m in need of celestial crystals," Michael replied, keeping his tone respectful.
The orc nodded, understanding the significance of the request. "Celestial crystals are indeed precious. May I know your purpose for requiring them?"
"It''s a secret, but I am researching new types of runes. So these new runes of mine require a substantial amount of energy," Michael replied. Pink had mentioned that the orcs held schrs in high regard, particrly those driven by a thirst for knowledge and a desire to create new things.
As Pink had predicted, the old orc''s eyes lit up with interest upon hearing Michael''s exnation. It was not umon for schrs and runemasters to embark on endeavors involving novel runes. Thus, the orc didn''t press Michael further on the matter.
"I understand, my lord. Please, take a seat," the orc gestured for Michael to sit at the counter. He retrieved an emerald box, opening it to reveal several glowing crystals.
"We have mid and high-grade Celestial crystals, directly from the Morina mine. As we all know, crystals from Morina mines are the purest and contain the most energy," the orc exined as he ced the crystals on the table.
"Depending on your runes, you can choose either these mid-grade crystals," the orc pointed to the deep-sea blue crystals, "or high-grade crystals," he added, indicating the dark purple ones.
"What is the price difference between the mid-grade and high-grade crystals?" Michael inquired.
"Well, the mid-grade crystals are priced at one hundred thousand gold coins each, while the high-grade ones are three hundred thousand," the orc answered. Michael was taken aback by the cost but maintained hisposure.
"Unfortunately, the prices are fixed," the orc added before Michael could attempt to negotiate.
"I''ll take ten high-grade crystals," Michael said, surprising the orc.
"That will cost you three million gold coins," the orc replied. His astonishment stemmed from the fact that he hadn''t seen this young man before, and his attire didn''t suggest affiliation with any prominent families in Durran. He couldn''t help but wonder who this young man was.
"What can I say? The pursuit of knowledge oftenes at a high price. But one cannot halt their quest for greatness due to mary concerns," Michael responded, adopting the tone of a true schr.
"That is true¡" The old orc agreed, his respect for the young human schr soaring to new heights.
After subtly manipting the orc''s feelings toward knowledge seekers, Michael made the purchase, which included aplimentary space ring.
"Is there anything else I can assist you with, my young lord?" asked the orc.
"I also require some alchemical ingredients for a friend of mine, and I''ve heard that Eden''s Garden is the best ce to make such a purchase. Do you also rmend this ce?" asked Michael.
"That is indeed the ce for purchasing alchemical ingredients," the old orc affirmed. "Although they offer the finest quality, it''s worth noting that their prices are rather steep. I must admit, I hold no love for the money-hungry establishment that is Eden''s Garden."
With a contemptuous nce towards the mention of Eden''s Garden, the orc continued, "They hold a near monopoly on all the alchemical ingredients in Durran, so whatever price they present, it''s non-negotiable."
The orc leaned in slightly, as if sharing a secret. "If you''re in no rush, I''d rmend looking for alchemical ingredients outside of Durran. You might find more reasonable prices elsewhere."
Michael let out a sigh of resignation. "I''m afraid I''m in quite a hurry, so I have little choice but to purchase from Eden''s Garden."
The old orc nodded sympathetically. "True, they do offer the finest quality, so that''s a silver lining."
As Michael turned to leave, the old orc gave him onest piece of advice. "One more thing, my young lord. Don''t be disheartened by their poor customer service at Eden''s Garden. Focus on the quality of their goods and try not to mind theirck of courtesy."
Exiting the grandiose Celestial Pce, Michael found himself in the equally imposing Eden''s Garden, where alchemy ingredients were sold. The interior of the shop was extravagant, with polished marble floors, intricate wooden shelves, and rows upon rows of ss cabs disying various rare and exotic ingredients.
Approaching a counter where an old woman stood, Michael tried to purchase a list of alchemical ingredients. The old woman, however, greeted his request with indifference, her eyes barely leaving the ancient tome she was reading.
"I need these ingredients," Michael said politely, sliding the list towards her.
She nced at it, sighed audibly, and then begrudgingly started gathering the items. "Hm, mandrake root, powdered phoenix feather, moonlit dew... What are you even making with this stuff?"
Michael hesitated for a moment, then replied, "It''s a secret recipe."
The old woman rolled her eyes. "Of course, it''s a secret. Always is, isn''t it?"
As she retrieved each item, she muttered under her breath about the inconvenience of her job. Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of frustration growing within him at theck of courtesy.
While Michael waited for his alchemical ingredients, another customer at a nearby counter reached his boiling point. He mmed his fist onto the counter and yelled, "This is ridiculous! The prices are astronomical, and your attitude stinks!"
The staff member on the other side of the counter shrugged dismissively. "Take it or leave it. We don''t care."
Overhearing this exchange, Michael couldn''t help but feel some camaraderie with the frustrated customer. However, his attention was quickly drawn back to the old woman who had been assisting him.
After finally gathering all the items, the old woman ced them on the counter and looked at Michael with a grin that seemed to say she had him cornered. "That''ll be two million gold coins."
Michael was visibly startled by the price and asked incredulously, "Two million? Isn''t that a bit much?"
The old woman scoffed, "Poor people like you always think that way. If you can''t afford it, don''t waste my time. Either buy it or get the hell out."
Michael frowned, feeling a mix of frustration and anger. "You know, if you were a bit more polite, maybe customers would want to return here."
The old woman let out a harshugh. "Return? They always return. Because they have no choice."
Michael''s expression turned dark, and he growled, "You know, it''s funny how people who think they''re untouchable are usually the ones who are most vulnerable."
With that, he retrieved a space ring filled with coins and transferred the required amount. The old woman snickered as she took the ring, counting the coins before tossing the ingredients carelessly into an emerald-green box.
As Michael left the counter, he muttered to himself with a devilish grin, "I wonder how they''ll feel when I clean out this ce."
As Michael stepped out of the Eden''s Garden, he cast onest look at the imposing building before speaking to Pink.
"Hey Pink, I think it''s about time we contact Elmer. I''ve got a new target in mind for our next heist," Michael said.
Pink''s voice buzzed with excitement, "Finally, some action! But please tell me it''s not the Celestial Pce."
Michael grinned, "No, we''re not going for the Celestial Pce. Our target is the Eden''s Garden."
With that, Michael left the building, his thoughts already formting a n for their next daring escapade.
Chapter 1094 Eden鈥檚 Garden Heist Planning I
Chapter 1094 Eden''s Garden Heist nning I
After deciding to target the Eden''s Garden, Michael returned to Gilrut''s penthouse. His decision wasn''t solely due to the establishment''s poor customer service; he had multiple reasons. He needed more alchemy ingredients for creating new potions and pills, he wanted to assess Elmer and his crew''s efficiency in another robbery, and, of course, he required additional funds. nning Rainar''s assassination wasn''t going to be cheap, and he believed it was time to teach Eden''s Garden a lesson ¨C no one was untouchable.
"Did you manage to acquire the crystals?" Gilrut inquired as Michael entered the penthouse. He nced at Vedora, who was still peacefully asleep in the corner. Michael carefully picked them up and ced Vedora on the sofa.
Michael''s attention to his familiar didn''t go unnoticed by Gilrut, who appreciated the god''s care for hispanion.
"Yes, I got them," Michael replied.
Gilrut visibly rxed at the confirmation. Michael continued, expressing his gratitude.
"Thank you for your assistance. I might need your expertise in runes again in the future, but that''ll be thest time," Michael exined.
Curious, Gilrut questioned, "For what purpose?"
"What else? I''ll require your help with runes. Here, take this," Michael handed Gilrut an earpiece.
"I''ll reach out when I need you," Michael added.
"Now, if you''ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to," Michael said, heading towards Gilrut''s hidden chamber.
With the alchemy ingredients secured and the necessary prerequisites in ce, Michael decided to initiate the body transformation process.
Gilrut nodded in understanding as he watched Michael enter the concealed room. Once inside, Michael selected a dark corner and settled down.
"System, provide me with the recipe for the potion you want me to brew," Michael requested, and a golden parchment materialized in his hand.
With the recipe in hand, Michael summoned his dark mes. One by one, he fed the ingredients into the flickering abyss.
*******************************
A single day passed by in the blink of an eye, apanied by an unusual radiance that enshrouded Michael''s body. His skin shimmered beneath the ethereal glow, while his shoulder-length ck hair danced in the gentle breeze.
Amid this spectacle, Celestial energy from the surrounding atmosphere gradually flowed towards Michael, converging at his forehead.
[The system is absorbing the experience points¡] Michael heard the system''s voice echoing in his mind.
The experience points he had umted, mainly from defeating the angels, began to transform into energy, slowly seeping into Michael''s newly formed meridians.
[Congrattions to the Host for reaching the Initiate Realm.]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Initiate Realm.]
[Experience points converted: 20,000.]
[Experience points converted: 30,000.]
[Experience points converted: 40,000.]
¡
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Qi Awakening Realm.]
As Michael entered the Qi Awakening Realm, the lights in the room, including the runes, flickered with intensity. Celestial energy within the room surged towards Michael, forming a miniature whirlwind of power around him. This surging energy was promptly assimted into his body.
Michael felt the newfound energy coursing within him, invigorating both his spells and physical capabilities. Simultaneously, the medallion adorning his neck began to quiver.
Sensing the medallion''s warmth on his neck, Michael flicked his wrist, summoning a purple Celestial crystal into his palm. With a clenched fist, he reduced the crystal to a fine powder, which was promptly absorbed by the medallion.
[The Qi Awakening stage has enhanced the energy absorption rate from the Energy Devourer.] The system''s voice notified Michael.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, finding Vedora perched on a nearby table, gazing at him with curious eyes.
"You''re finally awake," Sarba remarked.
"And this better be thest time you leave us hanging with nothing to do," Ayag added, slightly irritated, addressing Michael.
*********************
Deep within a bamboo forest, an unconventional vige had taken root, constructed entirely from bamboo stalks. Upon first nce, one might have expected to find rustic vigers or humble farmers inhabiting the quaint vige. However, the reality was quite different. Burly orcs d in formidable armor and wielding an array of weapons prowled through the vige''s pathways.
This secluded settlement was the secretir of the Vilnius gang. Inside the central house, situated at the heart of the bamboo vige, a small and cozy room served as the stage for the current drama. Elmer, the elven gang leader whom Michael had encountered during their heist at the Rideon funds, stood before an imposing orc with a long, ck beard adorned with gleaming gold chains. The orc was seated across a finely crafted mahogany table.
Elmer maintained hisposure while addressing the orc.
"You''ve seen my judgment at work, Vilnius. When''s thest time I steered us wrong? You''re well aware of my value; it''s the reason you keep me, an elf, as a gang leader, and grant me my own crew," Elmer reasoned.
Vilnius, the notorious leader of the Vilnius gang, reclined in his throne-like chair, scrutinizing Elmer with a measured gaze.
"Yes, your value is undeniable," Vilnius admitted. "But even your worth has its boundaries, my friend. The fact that you unterallymitted us to hand over thirty-five percent of our loot without consulting me is a misstep I cannot simply overlook."
Elmer defended his actions earnestly, exining the circumstances.
"The runes proved to be far more powerful than we initially anticipated, Vilnius. Moreover, Gilrut was taking an agonizingly long time to do his part. Had it not been for the human''s intervention, Officer Barug would have caught us. Trust me, Vilnius, he''s no ordinary man. He single-handedly breached the vault using sheer brute force, and there''s something about him that unsettles me."
"I am obviously docking your share in the score. Be grateful i dont fuck you up for what you did. But since you are telling me that working with this John is more profitable to us than killing him, i want to meet him," Vilnius said to Elmer.
"Fencing the artifacts and valuables you took from the Rideon funds is going to be a pain in the ass, and you know it. This is precisely why I advised against targeting the Rideon funds," Vilnius grumbled.
"I still managed to pull it off with the dumbest crew," Elmer quipped, rolling his eyes.
"Share the news with your dumb crew that they won''t be receiving their cut due to their leader''s generosity," Vilnius retorted coldly. Elmer harbored a glimmer of hope that his decision to partner with John would yield significant dividends in the future, as he had just relinquished a substantial portion of their haul.
"Now, set up a meeting with this John. I want to meet him face-to-face," Vilnius demanded, ending the discussion.
However, an abrupt interruption urred when a panicked orc hastily entered the room.
"You''d better have an excellent reason for barging into my chamber," Vilnius growled at the intruding orc.
"Boss, there''s a human here. He says he wants to speak with Elmer," the orc stammered, his face etched with shock.
Upon hearing the news, both Elmer and Vilnius were astounded.
"What?!" Elmer eximed in disbelief.
Vilnius was equally taken aback and growled his displeasure. Their secret hideout had been kept under wraps, known only to the core members of their gang. To discover that a human had somehow found their location and was requesting to see Elmer was unfathomable.
Wasting no time, Vilnius and Elmer swiftly exited the room. As they emerged, they were greeted by a group of orcs surrounding a human figure cloaked in ck robes. The dark, stormy atmosphere added an ominous aura to the situation.
Despite being encircled by armed orcs and elves, the human remainedposed.
"John?" Elmer inquired, recognizing him.
"That''s John?" Vilnius asked with a furrowed brow.
"I swear, Vilnius, I have no idea how he found this ce," Elmer hastily exined.
However, Vilnius seized Elmer by the throat, hoisting him off the ground.
"Damn it, Vilnius! I''m not foolish enough to reveal our hideout''s location to him. I swear," Elmer stammered, his voice strained as Vilnius continued to exert pressure on his throat.
"Release him, Vilnius. Your hideout isn''t as covert as you think," John calmly stated.
"How did you locate this ce?" Vilnius demanded, all while not loosening his grip on Elmer.
"Sigh," Michael sighed audibly.
"I''m here to discuss a business proposition, not to fight. Release him," Michael requested, as small bolts of lightning began to crackle around his wrists.
In an instant, Michae unleashed an incredible burst of speed. His body blurred as he employed his Lightning Dash spell, moving so swiftly that it seemed like a mere illusion. As he approached Vilnius, he activated the Silent Spell, slowing down the passage of time within its vicinity.
The world around him seemed to lose its fric pace, as if time itself had been gently put on hold. Michael reached Vilnius and deftly released Elmer from the gang leader''s grip. With a fluid movement, he returned to his original position, leaving Vilnius stupefied.
Vilnius, who had been holding Elmer firmly, was suddenly startled as he realized he no longer had a captive in his grasp. His gaze darted around, searching for Elmer. What had just transpired defied thews of physics as he understood them.
To his astonishment, he found Elmer standing beside John, blinking in confusion. Elmer himself was baffled, unable toprehend how he had gone from being captured by Vilnius to standing freely beside their unexpected guest.
"What... What just happened?" Elmer muttered, his voice tinged with bewilderment.
Vilnius, equally perplexed, could only stammer, "Shit¡"
The members of the Vilnius gang remained stunned, unable to fully grasp the mysterious events that had just unfolded. With Elmer now free, Michael turned his attention back to Vilnius, his tone firm and unyielding.
"Now, if you stop wasting my time, I have a ce to rob. Are you interested or not?" Michael''s words left no room for further discussion.
Having witnessed the astonishing disy of Michael''s power, Vilnius had little choice but to heed the enigmatic John''s request.
"I am listening. But first, tell me, how did you find this ce?" Vilnius inquired cautiously, his gang members still on high alert.
"I''m not a spy, in case you''re wondering," Michael replied, dispelling any doubts.
"Very well,e inside, and we''ll talk. But should you attempt anything funny, rest assured, I have my own methods for dealing with individuals like you," Vilnius warned, his eyes fixed on Michael.
With a nod, Michael followed Vilnius into the house, Elmer trailing behind. Once inside, Vilnius settled into his chair, leaning forward.
"Now, tell me, what do you hope to gain from meeting the Vilnius gang?" Vilnius inquired.
"As I mentioned to Elmer, I''m nning my next heist," Michael replied inly.
Vilnius leaned back, intrigued but cautious. "So, you''re seeking a crew, then? Very well. What''s the target?" he asked.
Michael''s response was delivered with a cold smile that sent shockwaves through the room. "The Eden''s Garden."
Chapter 1095 Eden Gardens Heist Planning II
?
Vilnius couldn''t help butugh heartily at Michael''s audacious n. "Robbing the Eden''s Garden? You must be truly mad if you think that''s possible," he chuckled, shaking his head.
He leaned back in his chair, his expression turning more serious. "Even if, by some miracle, we managed to rob the ce, there''s no way we could sell the alchemical items we steal in the ck market without alerting the higher-ups at Eden''s Garden. That kind of heat would destroy our gang," Vilnius warned, his tone filled with a hint of concern for his crew''s well-being.
Elmer, nodding in agreement, chimed in, "Vilnius is right. There''s a reason why nobody has ever tried to rob the Eden''s Garden. Those who attempted it simply disappeared."
Michael leaned back in his chair, a smug expression on his face as he gazed at Vilnius and Elmer. He could see the skepticism in their eyes, but he was ready toy out his n.
"You really think I don''t know that?" Michael replied with a chuckle, enjoying the suspense he was building. Elmer raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued.
"Selling raw alchemical goods in the ck market would indeed alert the higher-ups and bring down the heat on us," Michael continued. "But what if I told you we wouldn''t be selling raw goods?"
Elmer leaned in, intrigued. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Michael grinned, his ning together in his mind. "We''ll refine those raw alchemical goods into pills and potions," he exined. "Selling those won''t raise any eyebrows in the ck market. People buy potions and pills all the time."
Vilnius couldn''t help but snicker. "You think it''s that easy? To refine those goods, you''d need an alchemist who can handle such precious materials."
Elmer added, "Even if we had an alchemist, it would take them ages to turn those goods into pills and potions. Meanwhile, the Eden Garden security would locate us."
Vilnius couldn''t resist a heartyugh at the audacity of Michael''s proposal. "John, you really have a wild imagination if you think we can pull off something like that without getting ourselves killed."
He then turned his mocking gaze towards Elmer. "And Elmer, you spoke so highly of John here, but I didn''t think he would be crazy as fuck,"
Michael remained calm, fully expecting this response from someone as formidable as Vilnius. He knew that Elmer was the strategist in the operation, so he shifted his gaze to the elf.
"Don''t look at me. This n is utterly insane. I have to say, John, I''m disappointed," Elmer sighed.
"Is that so?" Michael chuckled softly, seemingly undisturbed by their skepticism.
With a swift, practiced motion, he produced several alchemy ingredients, cing them on Vilnius''s table. As their eyes widened, Michael summoned his dark mes.
"What the hell are you trying to pull?" Vilnius growled, reaching for his weapon, suspecting an attack.
But Michael ignored Vilnius''s aggression. With one hand, he controlled the mes and, with the other, tossed the alchemy ingredients into the burning vortex. Elmer watched in awe as theponents transformed into essence, merging together to create dazzling pills.
"You''re an alchemist?" Elmer and Vilnius eximed in surprise.
With a flick of his wrist, Michael presented the green pills to Vilnius. Despite his rough exterior, Vilnius recognized the exceptional purity of the pills.
"If you can''t sell pills and potions like these in the ck market, then you''re not the person I was hoping to do business with," Michael dered coolly as he rose from his seat.
He was about to make his exit when Elmer hastily halted him.
"John, wait," Elmer urged. Michael paused, and Elmer turned to Vilnius.
"Boss, at least let him exin. He must have some sort of n," Elmer reasoned with hope in his eyes. After a moment of contemtion, Vilnius reluctantly agreed.
"Very well. You can entertain me with your scheme to rob Eden''s Garden," Vilnius conceded, his curiosity piqued.
Michael leaned in, his eyes locked onto Vilnius as he began to unveil the initial phase of his audacious n.
"The first thing we need is the blueprint of Eden''s Garden," he stated firmly.
Vilnius couldn''t help but snicker, mocking Michael''s request. "You don''t even have the blueprint, and you''re nning to rob the ce?"
Michael smiled wryly. "That''s precisely why I need your help. I need your minions to do the legwork for me."
Elmer, intrigued but cautious, chimed in. "Alright, so what''s the actual n?"
Michael leaned back, folding his arms, and began to exin. "I''ve noticed the intricate runes scattered throughout Eden''s Garden. The key is that the garden closes every night at eleven. There are no guards because they rely on various protective runes."
Elmer''s curiosity grew. "So, how do we break the runes? Are you a runemaster too?"
Michael shook his head. "No, I''m not a runemaster, but I have a method."
Michael continued with his exnation, his tone confident and calcted. "Once I disable the runes, I''ll signal your minions to enter the building next door. I''ll provide precise locations when I have the blueprint. They''ll create a hole through the wall into Eden''s Garden."
Elmer couldn''t help but voice his skepticism. "John, I''ve seen you put all those gold coins and valuables into your space ring despite the runes on the valuables back in Rideon Funds. Why do we need the minions to go into Eden''s Garden?"
Michael grinned at Elmer''s question. "Because once I disable the runes, we''ll have just five minutes to clean out the entire ce. That''s where my special space ringse into y."
Vilnius, aware of the immense value of such rings, couldn''t contain his curiosity. "Where did you get these space rings?"
Michael chuckled, his eyes glinting with amusement. "That, my friend, is a secret I won''t be sharing."
Elmer frowned but motioned for Michael to continue with the n.
Michael nodded. "Each of your crew members will use the space rings to clean out the ce within five minutes. Then, they''ll escape through the same hole they entered."
He turned his attention to Vilnius. "Your role will be arranging a safe ce for me to refine the pills and potions. Once that''s done, you''ll focus on selling them in the ck market."
Vilnius, still not entirely convinced, continued to voice his concerns. "There are variables in this n. How can you be sure you can break the runes? And five minutes to clean out the entire ce is a tall order."
Michael remainedposed. "I''ll handle the heavy lifting when ites to the runes. Your focus should be on selling the pills and potions."
Vilnius stroked his beard, his mind calcting the risks and rewards. "Alright, but how much of a cut are you expecting from this heist?"
Michael smiled, revealing a hint of his true intentions. "Consider this heist a test of how your gang operates under my leadership. I''ll take a modest thirty percent cut this time. But from the next heist onwards, it could be fifty percent or more."
Vilnius was taken aback by the steep increase in Michael''s demand. He tried to y his own cards. "What if I were to tell the authorities about your n to rob Eden''s Garden?"
Michael''s response was chillingly simple. "Then you will die."
Suddenly, Vilnius felt a sharp sting in his neck. He gasped, feeling weak, and fell from his chair. Elmer, startled by the sudden turn of events, rushed forward. "What happened?"
Vilnius, gasping for air, continued to cough up white foam from his mouth. Elmer, his eyes wide with shock, was frozen in ce, his hand reaching for the guards.
"I wouldn''t do that if I were you," Michael said calmly, producing a colorless liquid from his robe.
"I poisoned your boss because I don''t appreciate his excessive questioning and attempts at ckmail. I don''t react well to ckmail," Michael exined with an eerieposure as he walked over to Vilnius''s chair and settled into it.
Elmer, still in a state of disbelief, could only stare in stunned silence.
Vilnius continued to cough up white foam, his face turning pale as Michael spoke with an unsettling calmness.
"If Vilnius doesn''t take the antidote," Michael began, "he will die."
Elmer, his voice trembling, finally managed to speak. "What kind of poison is this?"
Michael leaned forward, his eyes locked on Elmer''s. "A unique kind," he replied, pointing at the colorless liquid on the table. "This is the antidote, but it will only suppress the poison for a week. After that, the poison will act up again, and Vilnius will need to take the antidote once more."
A wicked chuckle escaped Michael''s lips as he continued, "And only I can brew this antidote, which means I own Vilnius now."
He leaned back in his chair, his tone casual but menacing. "Of course, Elmer, you can doubt me and refuse to give Vilnius the antidote, thinking I''m lying. You can let him die."
Elmer realized the dangerous game they were now ying. He hesitated for a moment before saying, "You''re ying a dangerous game, John."
Michael shrugged carelessly, a devilish grin tugging at his lips. "You can be my knights in this game or just mere pawns I''ll crush under my feet."
Elmer hesitated, torn between the precarious choices before him. Vilnius mumbled something unintelligible as he began to close his eyes, the poison taking its toll on him.
Michael chuckled coldly, his patience waning. "Time is running out," he reminded them.
With a steely resolve, he continued, "From the moment I stepped into your territory, you became my gang."
Elmer clenched his fists, torn by the weight of the decision he was about to make. Finally, he grabbed the antidote and poured it into Vilnius''s mouth. Slowly, Vilnius stopped coughing up white foam and began to breathe normally again.
As Vilnius rose back to his feet, he cursed Michael vehemently, his hand instinctively reaching for his sword. Before he could draw it, Michael snapped his fingers, and Vilnius roared in agony as he fell to the ground.
Michael ced his foot on Vilnius''s chest and leaned down, his voice dripping with cold determination. "I own you now, bitch."
Chapter 1096 The underworld of realm of gods
Chapter 1096 The underworld of realm of gods
Michael cracked his neck as he reclined on Vilnius''s throne, propping his legs casually on the table. His eyes remained fixed on Vilnius, who was slowly regaining hisposure.
"What did you do?" Vilnius inquired, his voice tinged with suspicion.
Michael chose not to reveal the exact nature of his actions, maintaining an air of enigmatic authority. He held the power of the blood tonic over Vilnius, a secret he intended to safeguard.
In the aftermath of the pain Vilnius had just experienced, Michael could effortlessly incapacitate or even kill him with a mere snap, thanks to the nanites coursing through his victim''s veins. Given Vilnius''s current Qi Awakening realm, he was no match for Michael''s power, even without resorting to his godly abilities.
Surprisingly, Michael''s Eyes of Darkness still revealed a yellow aura around Elmer, signifying that Elmer possessed greater strength than Vilnius himself.
"Now, unless you''d like to meet your demise prematurely, I''d advise you to remain silent and do as I say," Michaelmanded coldly, exerting his newfound control.
Vilnius hesitated, his muscles tensing as he considered taking a step forward. But the memory of the excruciating pain he had just endured held him back.
"In the eyes of the world beyond this room, you are still the leader of the Vilnius gang. However, both of you will answer to me," Michael asserted, reinforcing his dominance.
"Now, sit," he growled, his voice carrying a menacing authority that sent shivers down the spines of Elmer and Vilnius. They reluctantlyplied, settling into the chairs before him.
Vilnius''s clenched fists and bulging veins betrayed his frustration as he witnessed Michael sitting arrogantly in his throne, feet propped up on the table.
"Elmer, from this moment forward, you will be executing my orders in the field. And Vilnius," Michael turned his gaze to the fuming orc.
"You will be responsible for fencing and handling the sale of our ill-gotten gains in the ck market," Michael dered, punctuating hismand by cing his gleaming dark sword on the table, its ominous de pointing directly at Vilnius.
"But should either of you entertain any thoughts about betray me, rest assured, I can be exceedingly violent," Michael warned, causing the room''s lights to flicker ominously.
"Now, Elmer, are you ready to ept your first order from your new boss?" Michael inquired, his voice unwavering and firm.
Elmer remained in a state of shock after the abrupt turn of events. One minute, Vilnius had been giving him orders with authority, and the next, John had nearly killed Vilnius. Elmer had initially seen John as an asset to further his position within the Vilnius gang, but he never anticipated that John would ascend to the role of boss.
"I don''t appreciate yourck of enthusiasm," Michael remarked, a veiled threatcing his words. As the room''s atmosphere seemed to chill, Elmer hastily responded.
"Yes, boss," Elmer affirmed, his voice tinged withpliance.
"I need you to procure the blueprint of the Eden''s Garden, along with any and all information you can gather about the ce," Michael ordered Elmer, his tone unwavering. The elf nodded and departed the room, leaving Michael alone with Vilnius.
Once they were alone, Vilnius couldn''t contain his frustration any longer. His voice carried a growl of warning, "When those above me catch wind of this, you''ll find yourself neck-deep in shit, human."
Michael raised an eyebrow, curiosity piqued. "Who''s above you?" he asked calmly.
Vilnius couldn''t help but let out a mocking chuckle. "Did you think I was the top dog in the Vilnius gang?" he sneered. "We''re just a cog in the giant machine that controls the entire underworld."
Intrigued, Michael leaned forward. "Tell me more," he urged.
Vilnius, however, wasn''t inclined to cooperate. "Why would I?" he retorted defiantly.
With a sinister smile, Michael slowly raised his fingers and ominously added, "With a snap of my fingers, I can make you feel like you''re in hell."
Vilnius vividly remembered the excruciating pain he had just experienced, but before he could respond, Michael snapped his fingers once again, subjecting Vilnius to intense agony. Vilnius could only mumble, "No more," as the pain overwhelmed him.
As Vilnius gasped for air, the intensity of the pain gradually waned. Michael, his curiosity unabated, leaned in closer. "Tell me more about what you meant," he demanded.
Vilnius, still shaken by the excruciating ordeal, began to speak in a hoarse whisper, revealing secrets he had guarded closely. "The Vilnius gang... it''s just a small piece in the grand design of the underworld that worships God Agra."
Michael''s mind raced as he recalled the vicious bandits who had met their demise at his hands, all of them fervent Agra worshippers. He also remembered the intense battle against the angel of God Agra. This revtion hinted at something far more expansive and sinister.
"The underworld," Vilnius continued, "it''s under the dominion of God Agra and his malevolent influence. My gang, we''re merely a minuscule cog in the intricate machinery of darkness."
Intrigued, Michael pressed on, "Can you tell me how many such gangs exist in the underworld, under the influence of God Agra?"
Vilnius winced, the memory of recent agony still fresh. "I don''t know the exact number," he admitted, "but I know there exist countless factions, all devoted to Agra,"
Michael pondered the ramifications of this revtion. The underworld, controlled by a god and countless factions each with its own dark agenda, presented an intricate and dangerousndscape. It was a chilling reminder of the scope of the forces Michael was entangled with and the daunting challenges he would face in the days toe.
"So, you didn''t mess with me; you messed with the most ruthless and evil god in the entire realm of gods. Agra is someone even the pantheon doesn''t dare cross paths with. So, enjoy whatever days you have left, human," Vilnius growled, his voice dripping with a mix of menace and warning.
But Michael, still seated casually on Vilnius''s throne, merely chuckled in response. "My dear boy, trust me when I say this. I''ve heard about stronger enemies countless times. It''s like a cycle in my life¡ªI go somewhere, end up facing a stronger foe, and eventually defeat them. Then I move on, and the cycle repeats," he said coldly, his demeanor unflinching. Vilnius was taken aback by the absence of fear in John''s eyes.
"But you don''t have to worry about Agra or his angels. As your boss, I will take care of my minions. Just do what I say, and you will be fine," Michael said dismissively, waving his hand as if brushing off Vilnius''s threats.
"You don''t understand," Vilnius retorted. "The moment we finish a heist, we need to offer arge chunk of our spoils to the underworld. If we fail, they will send the executioners. Once they arrive here, you are done for," he added with a cold grin.
Michael leaned back further in the throne and regarded Vilnius coolly. "What do you think will happen when theye here?" he asked.
Vilnius didn''t hesitate in his response. "What else? They will kill you," he stated matter-of-factly.
"What do you think they would do to you?" Michael''s voice remained cold and calcting. "Put you back in the throne you lost to me? I know how the underworld works far better than you," he continued, emphasizing his vast experience. His reputation as the number one hitman on Earth had led him to deal with the underworld and gangsters extensively, granting him unique insights.
"When they see you''ve lost your position, they''ll consider you weak and unfit to lead this gang," Michael stated bluntly, his eyes locked onto Vilnius''s. "We both know that weakness doesn''t survive in this line of business. So, can you at leastprehend that they will either kill you or force you to work under a new boss¡ªprobably Elmer?" A sly grin crept across his face as he spoke.
Michael couldn''t help but notice the flicker of insecurity in Vilnius''s eyes, and he knew he had found the key to controlling the orc''s stubborn ego.
"You see, Vilnius," Michael began with a hint of amusement, "imagine a scenario where you''re no longer the big boss. Picture yourself taking orders from someone who was once your subordinate¡ªa mere minion." He paused, allowing the idea to sink in.
Vilnius''s face twisted with disdain at the mere thought of working under Elmer, someone he had been ustomed to bossing around. His ego, as Michael had anticipated, red with resistance.
"And not just any minion," Michael continued, his voice dripping with calcted cunning, "but one who has proven himself capable of leading this gang to heights you couldn''t reach." He leaned in, locking eyes with Vilnius, pressing the advantage. "Can you imagine the humiliation, Vilnius? The shame of bowing your head to someone who once bowed to you?"
Michael''s words hung in the air, expertly exploiting Vilnius''s ego and feelings, knowing that the orc would loathe the very idea of being subordinate to Elmer. It was a testament to Michael''s strategic mind, his ability to manipte those around him to achieve his goals.
Michael maintained his cunning smile as he continued to y on Vilnius''s ego and fear of humiliation.
"Think about it, Vilnius," he said in a low, persuasive tone, "working under a new boss allows you to maintain the illusion of power. You can still boss around your minions, making them think you''re in control. But more importantly," Michael leaned in closer, his voice almost a whisper, "under my leadership, you''ll still be Elmer''s boss outside this room."
Vilnius''s brow furrowed as he considered the proposition. Michael''s words made sense, and the idea of retaining some semnce of authority appealed to his ego.
"I don''t want to expose myself to the light," Michael continued, his tone conspiratorial. "I prefer to work from the shadows. But, Vilnius, if the executionerse and you spill the truth, they won''t just demote you. They''ll strip you of everything and make you work under a minion."
Vilnius''s growl revealed his inner turmoil. Michael had painted a vivid picture of the potential consequences of defiance.
Vilnius growled, clearly torn between his ego and the practicality of the situation. "It''s not certain they would do that," he muttered, his stubbornness showing.
Michael chuckled softly, a hint of menace in his smile. "Are you willing to take that chance, Vilnius? Because I assure you, I won''t hesitate to expose your little secret to the world if you don''t y by my rules."
Michael''s cunning maniption had ced the orc in an impossible predicament, and it was clear that he had little choice but toply with his new boss''s wishes.
"But don''t worry about the executioners or Agra himself. I will take care of them. As my minion, you do what I say," Michael leaned back on the throne, emphasizing his newfound authority.
"It seems like you got me by the balls, John," said Vilnius.
"Boss," Michael corrected Vilnius, his tone unyielding.
"Inside this room, you address me as Boss," Michael reiterated, his voice carrying a cold authority.
"It seems like you got me by the balls, Boss," Vilnius reluctantly repeated, recognizing the shift in power.
"That''s good. Now go tell your minions to rest and eat well. We will hit the Eden''s Garden day after tomorrow," Michael said calmly, startling Vilnius.
"Are you crazy?...Boss," Vilnius corrected himself quickly, trying to adapt to Michael''s audacious n.
"You want us to hit one of the most protected ces in the whole of Durran, yet you''re only giving us one day to prepare," Vilnius growled.
"It''s me who does the nning, Vilnius. I don''t do failing," Michael stated firmly, emphasizing his confidence in the scheme.
(The next chapter will start with heist nning. Stick with me because the uing chapters will be a thrilling ride!!!!)
Chapter 1097 The Spy Game Has Started
Chapter 1097 The Spy Game Has Started
After departing from the secret hideout of the Vilnius gang, Elmer mounted his white-maned horse and made his way straight toward Durran. To conceal his identity, he shrouded his face beneath a hood and added a fake beard on top for good measure.
Durran was currently engrossed in its harvest festivals, and the orc guards stationed at the city gates were not overly diligent in scrutinizing every iing visitor. With this advantage, Elmer passed through the gates unobstructed.
Once inside the city, he steered his horse in the direction of a peaceful park situated on the eastern side of Durran.
As Elmer dismounted his horse and made his way into the park, he couldn''t help but overhear the hushed conversations of the city''s citizens. It seemed the recent Rideon funds heist and the exploits of the Vilnius gang were the hot topics of discussion.
"Did you hear about that heist at Rideon funds? They say the Vilnius gang pulled it off!"
"Unbelievable! How did they manage to break into such a well-guarded ce? The security there must be ipetent."
"You''d think the guards would be better trained. This is an embarrassment to the city!"
Elmer continued to listen to the disgruntled chatter as he strolled deeper into the park, keeping his true identity and purpose well hidden.
Elmer eventually reached the park, finding it to be a serene and tranquil ce, a stark contrast to the turmoil of the city. The park was adorned with a picturesque pond at its center, where ducks glided gracefully on its ssy surface. A majestic tree with pink leaves stood tall nearby, casting a gentle shade over the area.
Several benches, weathered by time but still sturdy, were scattered around the pond. It was under one of these benches that Elmer had tied his steed, making sure it was secure before he walked towards another bench, nestledfortably in the shade of the pink-leaved tree.
Seating himself, he took a moment to observe the park''s beauty, the serene ambiance allowing him to clear his thoughts and prepare for the task at hand.
As Elmer sat by the pond, watching the ducks glide gracefully, another cloaked figure quietly settled on a bench behind him. Like Elmer, this figure concealed their identity with a hood, but their attire was a striking pink, blending harmoniously with the hues of the leaves and the tree.
Amanding yet feminine voice broke the silence. "How is everything, Aranel?" the figure inquired.
"Elders want to know more about the Rideon funds heist. It was supposed to be a failed operation," replied Elmer, his eyes still fixed on the tranquil pond.
"Things went way south," he added, both of them looking in opposite directions, maintaining the facade of two ordinary park-goers enjoying the peaceful ambiance.
The park was bustling with people, and the constant murmur of voices made it an ideal location for their ndestine conversation. No one could eavesdrop unless they ventured ufortably close.
"By the gods, Aranel. The underworld is going to grow stronger with the treasure you seized. What in the world happened?" inquired the woman, her toneced with concern.
"Someone else interfered with my ns. I had to adapt and improvise; otherwise, my cover would''ve been exposed," Elmer replied somberly.
"Who?" questioned the woman, clearly rmed.
Elmer paused, building tension in the air before delivering his revtion. "The one who entered Rideon funds to check on the hostages and proceeded to beat our agent," he disclosed.
The woman leaned in, her curiosity piqued. "Do you have any information for me to work with, Aranel? The elders are bing increasingly anxious, and they are on the verge of aborting this operation."
"His name is John, but I don''t believe it''s his real name. And you wouldn''t believe what happened," Elmer remarked cryptically, leaving hispanion eager for more.
"What happened?" the woman demanded, her curiosity piqued.
"He ventured into Vilnius gang territory, and that''s just the tip of the iceberg. He poisoned Vilnius and made him his subordinate. Tell the elders, from now on, Vilnius will maintain the appearance of leadership to the outside world, but, in reality, he''ll report to John," Elmer disclosed.
The woman fell silent, digesting the unbelievable turn of events.
"We need to gather more information about this John. What''s his next move?" inquired the woman.
Elmer dropped another bombshell. "He''s nning to rob the Eden''s Garden," he revealed.
Hidden beneath her hood, the woman''s eyes widened in astonishment.
"What?" she eximed, her voice betraying the shock that coursed through her.
"I''ve been tasked with getting the blueprint for the Eden''s Garden," Elmer confirmed.
"Eden''s Garden... That''s madness. No one has ever lived to tell the tale after attempting to rob that ce. No one has ever seeded. He''s either a madman or someone we should approach with extreme caution," Thalindra contemted.
"It''s thetter. He''s anything but a madman. I''m telling you, Thalindra, he''s far more dangerous than Vilnius. Vilnius is just a puppet, but John is a mastermind. If I hadn''t witnessed the things he''s capable of, I would have said that robbing the Eden''s Garden is impossible," Elmer emphasized.
As Thalindra listened to the words of Elmer, one of Vndor''s top agents, she came to a sobering realization of the grave threat that John posed.
"So, do you believe he can actually pull off this heist? When is it scheduled to take ce?" Thalindra inquired, her voice tinged with curiosity. She was Elmer''s handler and the intermediary between him and the higher-ups.
"I''m not sure, but I suspect it''s going to happen very soon. What are your orders?" Elmer inquired.
Thalindra fell silent for a moment, contemting their next move.
"Perhaps John is our key to capturing the Night Warden. If he sessfully executes heists of this magnitude, the Night Warden is likely to take notice and might approach him. This could be our best opportunity in a long while," Thalindra proposed.
"So, you want me to assist John in robbing the Eden''s Garden?" Elmer asked, even though he was fairly certain of the answer.
"Yes. I''ll use my contacts in the town hall to secure the blueprint for you. But you must stick close to John and gather every piece of information you can about him," Thalindra instructed.
"This is excellent, Aranel. With the information you''ve provided, I can convince the elders to continue our mission. Keep up the exceptional work you''ve been doing," Thalindra praised him, her excitement thinly veiled.
"If John sessfully carries out this heist, notify me immediately using the emergency rune. Speaking of the heist, do you know how John ns to sell the alchemical goods in the ck market?" Thalindra inquired further.
"John is an alchemist, a proficient one at that. I witnessed him refine an energy-boosting pill in a matter of seconds. He''s at least a five-star alchemist," Elmer informed Thalindra.
"A five-star alchemist? That certainly narrows down the possibilities. So, he ns to refine the alchemical goods into pills and potions for sale in the ck market? That''s quite clever. It would make it much harder for the Eden''s Garden to trace the sellers," Thalindramented.
Even in Durran, there were countless transactions that took ce within the dark underworld. Many of these transactions involved potions and pills. By selling refined products, rather than the raw ingredients, the risk of being traced back to Eden''s Garden was significantly reduced. Despite Eden''s Garden boasting some of the finest alchemists in the world, they wouldn''t easily discern whether the ingredients used came from their own supply.
"If you could procure us a few samples of the pills and potions he refines, our alchemists might be able to discern his unique signatures and refinement skills. Additionally, we should alert our agents in the dark underworld to purchase these potions and pills. Thest thing we need is those nefarious criminals in the dark world getting their hands on high-grade substances," said Thalindra.
Elmer nodded, acknowledging the importance of this task.
"Any information on the Night Warden from your end?" Elmer asked.
The Night Warden was an infamous yet mysterious figure among the Agra worshippers, a prominent yer in the underworld. No one had everid eyes on him, which made him nearly impossible to track down. ording to Vndor elves, the Night Warden was the thirdrgest smuggler and celestial weapons dealer, responsible for countless deaths. Yet, even in the ndestine world, there were many who doubted his existence.
"I have some agents who im the Night Warden might be selling weapons and scrolls to both Rainar and Kranar in their ongoing wars," said Thalindra.
Elmer let out a heavy sigh. "Makes sense. Two gods locked in battle, and every arms dealer in the world would vie for a contract to supply them with everything they need. War is, unfortunately, good for business."
Thalindra nodded somberly. "And terrible for the people," she added, expressing a hint of pity for the refugees caught in the conflicts of Rainar and Kranar.
"We can''t halt their wars. Only the Pantheon has the power to do that. But the least we can do is eliminate scum like the Night Warden," Thalindra remarked.
Elmer agreed, "As you said, John might be our means of reaching him."
"Alright, Elmer. Keep me informed. Stay here for an hour, and then proceed to the town hall. I''ll have my people procure the blueprint you require. Be cautious, Elmer," Thalindra advised, her concern evident in her voice.
Elmer let out a soft chuckle. "My dear handler, you know I''ve been at this for decades. I know how to keep myself from meeting an untimely end."
Thalindra smiled faintly, acknowledging his experience. "You''re a skilled spy, Elmer, but never forget that in our line of work, there''s always someone better."
With that, Thalindra rose from the bench and said, "Keep a close watch on John," before walking away.
At that moment, Elmer had embarked on a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with Michael, unaware of the formidable adversary he was facing. However, Elmer had thrived in the shadowy world for decades, always at the peak of his craft. Hence, only time would determine who would emerge victorious in this high-stakes contest.
"Night Warden, I will catch you," Elmer muttered under his breath.
Chapter 1098 Party Crashers
Chapter 1098 Party Crashers
With twenty hours remaining until themencement of Michael''s next heist, he found himself reclining in Vilnius''s imposing throne.
"Everything''s in ce on your end, Pink?" Michael inquired through his earpiece.
"Yes, I can ess the feeds from Eden''s Garden. It''s frustrating not being able to manipte them. Back on Earth, I could hack into those security cameras and mess with the guards," Pinkmented.
"It''s fortunate that technological advancement iscking in this world. Imagine these cultivators and gods wielding the power of technology," Michael chuckled.
"Don''t underestimate those security cameras, though. Seraphine has runes and spies that rival the abilities of security cameras. Nothing happens there without her knowledge," Pink reminded Michael of the Goddess of Information''s influence.
"Sounds like she''d make a valuable ally," Michael contemted the idea of having Seraphine as a subordinate.
"I doubt it. She''s one of the Pantheon''s most loyal deities," Pink replied.
"How''s Vedora doing out there?" Pink inquired.
"I''ve left them at the Durran library with Gilrut. I want them to absorb as much knowledge about this world and the book we''re nning to steal as possible," Michael informed Pink.
As he conversed with Pink, approaching footsteps caught Michael''s attention.
"I have to go. Keep a watchful eye on ourpanion," Michael instructed Pink.
"I will," Pink replied with a chuckle.
Anticipating that Vilnius and Elmer would be apanied by additional orcs, Michael rose from the imposing throne. It was crucial that no one in the Vilnius gang discovered his true identity as their leader.
"You''re back," Michael greeted the group as they entered the room.
Before him stood Vilnius and Elmer, apanied by four orcs and two dwarves.
"We''vepleted all the tasks you assigned," Elmer announced, handing the blueprint over to Michael.
The orcs and dwarves stared in amazement at the human neer who had recently be part of their gang. These orcs were the typical hulking, green-skinned brutes, while the dwarves were short, had long bushy beards, and emanated the distinct aroma of ale.
"Tell us your n, John," Vilnius instructed.
"Of course, Boss," Michael responded, maintaining the facade of working under Vilnius. The orcs and dwarves didn''t seem to suspect anything, assuming Michael was just another member of Vilnius''s gang.
Michael spread the blueprint on the table, revealing a yellowish parchment with a hand-drawnyout of the building''s interior and exterior. He meticulously scanned the blueprint before turning his attention back to Elmer and Vilnius.
"Can we trust them?" Michael inquired, referring to the orcs and dwarves.
The orcs and the two dwarves expressed their frustration with growls, but Elmer vouched for their reliability.
"Very well, Elmer," Michael shifted his gaze from the orcs and dwarves to Elmer.
"Tell us what you''ve learned from your surveince of Eden''s Garden," Michael requested. He had already gathered extensive information about the ce using the Spyders, but Michael was keen to assess the team''s capabilities when it came to executing heists.
Unbeknownst to the crew, Michael considered this operation a test, with the real heists yet toe.
"As I mentioned earlier, the ce is guarded by five guards outside, all heavily armored. Inside, there are twelve guards. Eden''s Garden opens at six in the morning and closes at eleven, with customers being asked to leave an hour before closing time," Elmer reported.
"While they''re open for business, I observed runes in ce that prevent customers from taking products outside without proper payment. Only the staff possesses the special runes required to remove the enchantments from the products. Furthermore, you can''t store anything in your space rings due to runes that prevent items from being stored within them," Elmer exined as Michael pondered the information.
Vilnius couldn''t help but snicker inwardly, convinced that John was setting himself up for a miserable failure. However, Michael''s finger traced a path on the blueprint, leading to a room located behind the main hall where products were sold.
"This room," Michael pointed out, "it''sbeled as the power room. Tell me, what do they have in there?" He directed the question at Elmer and Vilnius, though he already knew the answer.
Vilnius mumbled, "Celestial crystals to power the runes."
"But you can''t ess the power room without the manager''s palm print," Elmer added. As he spoke, he recalled Michael''s request to find the manager''s whereabouts. The realization began to dawn on Elmer that John had meticulously nned every aspect of this heist.
"The manager lives in the Park District, but his manor is heavily guarded. Approaching him won''t be easy. And even if you manage to get close, how do you n to make him cooperate?" Vilnius inquired.
"Who said anything about making him cooperate? We just need his palm print," Michael replied coolly, leaving Elmer and Vilnius to grasp the implications of his words.
"I''ll take care of obtaining the palm print," he added.
Michael then pointed to the eastern wall of Eden''s Garden. "This is our entry point. There''s an adjacent building, a clothing store. They won''t have the same level of security as the Eden''s Garden. It should be a straightforward breaking and entering. I assume your crew can handle that," Michael asked, to which Elmer nodded.
"When you''re inside, use the tools you''ve acquired to drill a hole and gain ess to Eden''s Garden. Once you''re inside, proceed to the power room. Use the manager''s palm print to gain entry, and then disable the crystals. That should deactivate the runes," Michael instructed.
"Even if we destroy the crystal and power down the runes, it won''t deactivate all of them," Elmer pointed out.
Hearing Elmer''s concern, Michael casually tossed a few silver space rings onto the table.
"You can store the alchemical goods in these space rings. I''ve calibrated them for you. Just point and take what you need. I know that reaching the backup crystals in the town hall is a hassle. So, once these crystals are gone, you''ll have six minutes to clean out the ce before the backup crystals reactivate the runes," Michael informed them. Elmer couldn''t help but be amazed by how well-prepared John was.
Michael then handed out several earpieces to the crew. "Put these in your ears," he instructed. "I''ll be monitoring and guiding you through the n if necessary. But if everything goes ording to n, you''ll exit through the hole you drilled."
As Michael concluded his briefing, he folded his arms and fixed his gaze on the crew. "And if any of you minions get any funny ideas about disappearing with what you''ve stolen..." He didn''t need to finish the threat; the implication hung heavily in the air.
"Now, go prepare yourselves. But no drinking tonight. If I catch any of you drunk, I''ll make sure you won''t have a tongue to taste anything ever again," Michael coldly threatened, leaving the crew visibly shaken. The orcs, in particr, didn''t appreciate being threatened by a human they believed they could overpower.
However, the orcs held their tongues, as their boss, Vilnius, remained silent. After the crew had left, leaving only Vilnius and Elmer behind, Michael took a seat on the throne.
"So, Vilnius, how are things on your end? I don''t want any problems when ites to selling the potions and pills in the ck market," Michael inquired.
"My contacts are as ready as they''ll ever be. Once you give me the pills and potions, I can fence them, provided you manage to get them, that is," Vilnius replied, his voice filled with a hint of resentment.
"What did I tell you about doubting me?" Michael coldly asked, raising his fingers. Vilnius''s heart skipped a beat at the thought that if John snapped his fingers, he would experience excruciating pain.
"No, not that again, Boss," Vilnius growled.
Elmer, still in awe of how John had managed to subdue a brute like Vilnius, observed silently.
"You can take the day off, Vilnius. Go out, enjoy your day. You cane back here once everything''s done," Michael said.
After leaving the Vilnius gang territory, Michael made his way towards the Park district of Durran. As he ventured out into the city, he found himself amidst the lively celebrations of the uing harvest festival. The night sky was illuminated with colorful fireworks that painted intricate patterns against the darkness.
Amidst the festive atmosphere, Michael overheard the excited chatter of tourists and native orcs of Durran.
"Look at those fireworks! They''re even more spectacr thanst year," a tourist eximed with awe in their voice.
"It''s always a treat to be in Durran during the harvest festival," a local orc remarked with a grin.
Michael continued through the bustling streets, following the signboards that led him to the Park district. The city was alive with energy and merriment, a stark contrast to the ndestine world he had recently delved into. Yet, he knew he couldn''t let his guard down, not with the risky heist on the horizon.
As Michael followed the signboards and continued through the Park district, he soon found himself standing before a quaint and cozy manor nestled amidst a grove of pink maple trees. He nced around to ensure he wasn''t drawing any unwanted attention before speaking into his earpiece.
"What''s the n, Ghost?" Pink''s voice crackled through the earpiece, filled with curiosity and anticipation.
Michael replied, his voice calm and collected, "The n is simple, Pink. I need to infiltrate this manor and obtain the manager''s palm print."
Pink''s curiosity got the better of him, and he asked, "What''s the security like around that ce?"
Michael assessed the situation carefully before describing, "The manor is guarded, of course. There are a couple of guards at the front gate, and I''ve noticed some defense arrays around the premises. But I''ve got a few tricks up my sleeve to bypass those."
With Pink serving as his eyes and ears, Michael was ready to execute his n and secure the vital palm print for their uing heist.
As Michael observed the manor from the shadows, he suddenly witnessed the lights inside the building extinguish one by one. He couldn''t help but mutter in surprise, "Well, that''s unexpected."
Just as he was processing this strange turn of events, his instincts kicked in. He sensed movement in the darkness surrounding the manor. Several figures, shrouded in dark robes, were stealthily advancing toward the manor, using the cover of the night to conceal their approach.
Quickly, Michael whispered into his earpiece, "Pink, we havepany. Multiple figures, dressed in dark robes, heading for the manor. Looks like we''ve got ourselves a party crasher situation."
Chapter 1099 Assassin鈥檚 Guild Invitation I
Chapter 1099 Assassin''s Guild Invitation I
Utilizing shadow teleportation, Michael swiftly closed the distance between himself and the approaching mercenaries.
As the lights in the manor suddenly went out, the orc guards patrolling the area were startled. Their surprise quickly turned into shock, and one guard eximed, "What the hell just happened?"
Another guard, looking frustrated, cursed the runes, muttering, "Damn these runes! Always causing trouble at the worst times."
In an attempt to regain control of the situation, one of the guards ordered the others, "Check on the power room and the Celestial crystals. We need to get those lights back on!"
"How helpful, they disable the runes," Michael mused as he watched the mercenaries approach the manor.
Using his shadow teleportation, Michael quietly entered the manor through an open balcony. Inside, he activated his X-ray vision to locate the guards and get a sense of theyout.
"Who are these guys?" asked Pink through the earpiece.
"Do you think she sent them?" Pink inquired, concerncing her voice.
"Probably," Michael replied calmly, blending into the darkness of the room he had entered. It appeared to be some sort of storeroom, filled with cupboards, racks, and a table.
As the mercenaries effortlessly leaped into the manor, Pink suggested, "Don''t kill them. We might need to work with them in the future."
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle. "Aww. I''m hurt. You really thought I was going to kill them?"
"I missed this," Pink said with a mix of relief and delight in her voice. Being out in the field with Pink''s voice guiding him brought back a wave of nostalgia for Michael.
As he was blending with the darkness and plotting a way to incapacitate them all, Pink continued.
"Elmer must have alerted Thalindra about your n to deal with the manager," Pink spected.
Michael had overheard everything Elmer had discussed with Thalindra through the Spyder he had ced on Elmer. It was a bit surprising to Michael to discover that Elmer was actually an undercover agent for the elven kingdom, Vndor. Michael regretted not using two Spyders on Elmer, which would have allowed him to also ce one on Thalindra when Elmer met with her.
But Michael had a n to address his regret soon.
"Ah, she hired humans, how cute," Michaelmented from the shadows. With his X-ray vision, he could see the face of one of the mercenaries when their hood shifted slightly, revealing ack of pointy ears and an average body size. It was a clear indication that these weren''t Thalindra''s own operatives. After all, a sensible handler like her wouldn''t want her own agents to potentially point fingers at her.
Eventually, one of the mercenaries, sent by Thalindra, entered the room through the same balcony that Michael had used.
"They are talented enough to avoid the guards," Michael observed quietly. He waited for the mercenary to turn around, knowing that his innate ability allowed him to remain invisible and blend seamlessly with the darkness, rendering him undetectable to the intruder.
"Target is in the right wing of the manor. I am moving in," the mercenary whispered into a crystal device in his hand. These crystals functioned like earpieces, allowing them tomunicate with each other, although their range wasn''t as extensive as modern earpieces.
As the mercenary took a step forward, Michael gently tapped his chest, activating his concealed armor. Upon tapping the skull medallion on his chest, the armor swiftly spread out from the medallion, enveloping his body. Michael raised the hood, and the armorpleted its transformation by fitting a skull-shaped mask onto his face.
Michael''s eyes, now shining with an eerie darkness, analyzed the mercenary''s aura and revealed that the intruder was significantly weaker than him, marked by the green aura surrounding him.
In the blink of an eye, Michael dashed toward the mercenary. Before the mercenary could even sense Michael''s presence, Michael struck him from behind with a powerful punch, rendering him unconscious.
Swiftly, Michael caught the crystal the mercenary had dropped, preventing it from hitting the ground and shattering. The gray crystal pulsated slightly in his hand. cing the crystal into a smallpartment built into his waist armor, Michael retrieved several Spyders and miniature drones from his inventory.
"Drones and Spyders are active. Be my eyes and ears," Michael instructed Pink.
With the knowledge he had imparted to her and the runes embedded in the system, Pink could now connect to the mirrors in her safehouse to receive feeds from Michael''s Spyders and drones. Michael directed the spyders and drones to explore every nook and cranny of the manor.
"I''ve spotted two mercenaries approaching the room next to your location. It appears to be empty. You have the green light to incapacitate them," Pink ryed to Michael.
Having Pink as his remote observer made dispatching the mercenaries much more efficient. Utilizing his agility and the cover of darkness, Michael moved stealthily toward the room''s doorway, positioning himself to intercept the mercenaries.
"The orcs are attempting to activate the backup crystals to illuminate the orbs. Time is of the essence," Pink updated him.
One of the mercenaries conversed with the other, questioning their presence in this section of the manor. "Why are we even in this part of the manor? The target isn''t here."
The other mercenary replied confidently, "I know. The rest of our crew will handle the target. We should grab whatever valuables we can find in the meantime. We''ll fence themter for some extra coin."
Michael couldn''t help but snicker at the mercenaries'' avarice. After all, he was nning a heist for coins himself, so he couldn''t judge them too harshly.
With a sly grin, he plucked a gold coin from his pocket and flicked it across the room, creating a small but attention-grabbing noise.
The mercenaries immediately perked up, their greed getting the best of them. "What was that?" they eximed, their heads turning toward the source of the sound.
In a sh, Michael moved in closer, his swift actions leaving the mercenaries bewildered. He deftly knocked their heads together, rendering them unconscious. Afterward, he opened the nearest door and unceremoniously deposited their unconscious forms inside.
As Michael moved stealthily toward the east wing, he continued to rely on Pink''s assistance in tracking and neutralizing the mercenaries. Theirmunication remained discreet but efficient.
Pink''s voice whispered in Michael''s earpiece, "There are two more mercenaries ahead, lurking near the grand staircase. I''ll guide you through."
With Pink''s guidance, Michael seamlessly blended with the darkness, his movements a shadowy dance. He approached the mercenaries from behind, his senses heightened in the darkness. He could hear their hushed conversation and smell the faint scent of their armor.
Michael struck swiftly and silently. With a well-timed elbow to the back of one mercenary''s head and a swift knee to the stomach of the other, he incapacitated them. They crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
Meanwhile, the orcs guarding the manor patrolled the area with torches and conjured light orbs, their movements casting eerie, flickering shadows on the walls. The mercenaries, as well as Michael, remained hidden in the shadows, keeping a close eye on the orc guards'' movements.
Pink''s voice remained hushed as she informed Michael of the orcs'' positions. "Two guardsing from the west corridor, one from the south. Stay low and keep to the shadows."
Michael followed Pink''s guidance, expertly navigating the dark corridors. He utilized every nook and cranny, using the environment to his advantage. With calcted precision, he dispatched the guards one by one, ensuring they didn''t raise the rm.
The mercenaries, too, followed Michael''s lead, silently and cautiously avoiding the orc patrols. It was a delicate dance of shadows and silence as they continued their stealthy advance toward their target.
In a tense turn of events, Michael and the mercenaries found themselves converging in the same dimly lit hall with the orc guards. The hall''s shadows provided some cover, but the flickering light orbs conjured by the orc guards made the situation precarious.
Hidden in the darkest corners of the room, Michael and the mercenaries remained undetected by the orc guards. The mercenaries, unaware of Michael''s presence, discussed their n.
"We need to be quick," one of the mercenaries whispered. "The manager''s room is just down the hall."
Meanwhile, Pink''s voice came through Michael''s earpiece, a thread of anxiety in her tone. "You''re surrounded by guards, and the mercenaries are closing in on you. Be careful."
Michael knew he had to act swiftly to take down the mercenaries without alerting the orc guards. As the mercenaries moved closer, he bided his time, waiting for the perfect moment.
The situation was bing increasingly precarious. The orc guards, growing frustrated with the sporadic darkness, muttered curses and threats. One guard grumbled, "By the gods, these orbs are useless. How are we supposed to guard anything in this darkness?"
Pink chimed in, her voice tinged with concern, "Ghost, they''re almost on you. You need to move now."
With precision born of years of experience, Michael struck. He lunged from the shadows, taking advantage of a flickering light orb to mask his approach. In a blur of motion, he incapacitated the mercenaries one by one, rendering them unconscious without a sound.
As the mercenaries crumpled to the floor, Michael swiftly dragged their bodies into the deepest recesses of the hall, hiding them in the shadows. It was a delicate dance, avoiding the orc guards and their feeble light sources while concealing the fallen mercenaries.
Pink breathed a sigh of relief through the earpiece. "Nicely done, Ghost. Now, continue toward the manager''s room. We''re running out of time."
With the mercenaries dealt with and the orc guards none the wiser, Michael resumed his stealthy advance, leaving no trace of the confrontation behind.
With the mercenaries out of the picture, Michael proceeded stealthily through the manor''s east wing, nearing the manager''s room. However, just as he was a mere few doors away from his target, the orc guards, in a desperate move, activated the backup crystals. The result was an abrupt illumination of the manor as the runes and light orbs sprang to life, bathing the manor in light.
As the light flooded the hallway, the distant orc guards noticed the unconscious mercenaries sprawled on the floor and shouted in rm.
"Hey,ds, we got trouble here! Some folks tried to intrude!" yelled one orc guard.
"What? Who the hell got past us? Sound the rm! Call for backup!" another orc barked.
"Be quick! They might be after the manager!" a third orc eximed.
Ignoring the chaos, Michael activated his X-ray vision. Simultaneously, Pink''s voice sounded in his ear with a mix of shock and surprise.
"Ghost, you need to make your move now. Someone else has entered the manager''s room, and he doesn''t look like a mercenary," urged Pink, pushing Michael to storm the room without wasting a second.
Chapter 1100 Assassins Guild Invitation II
Chapter 1100 Assassins Guild Invitation II
Michael pushed open the door and was met with a gruesome sight. A figure, draped in crimson red robes, stood beside a pale-skinned man, who was tightly bound to a chair. The man''s throat had been cruelly slit, and blood gushed out, pooling around the chair''s legs.
As Michael entered, he immediately recognized the figure in crimson¡ªthe Angel of Death, the same enigmatic being he had encountered at Rainar''s temple. There was an eerie familiarity in those crimson eyes.
The Angel of Death greeted Michael with a sinister grin and waved his hand casually, shutting the door behind Michael.
"Wee, dear John," the angel purred, his voice chilling as death itself.
"What did you do?" Michael demanded, his voice quivering with a mixture of anger and dread.
The Angel of Death chuckled, his crimson eyes glinting with an unsettling amusement. "The manager, you see, has called forth for death. It is only my duty to grant him the sweet release he desires."
Michael was taken aback. "Why?" he asked, his voice still firm despite the shock.
The angel merely shook his head, his smile never fading. "Asking why is not my duty, dear John. My duty is to grant death."
The Angel of Death chuckled softly, his eerie crimson eyes locked onto Michael''s. "Ah, John," he mused, using the name Michael had given to everyone in this world. "Such a simple name, one that everyone forgets easily. Obviously, it''s a fake name, but I don''t ponder the real names of those I meet. My duty is singr, after all."
The Angel of Death surprised Michael with his swiftness, slicing through the manager''s wrist with a single, graceful swing of his crimson dagger. Blood sprayed from the severed limb, and the Angel nonchntly tossed the severed arm toward Michael.
"Is this what you were looking for, John?" he asked in a cool, detached tone.
Michael was stunned and surprised by the sudden turn of events. He hadn''t expected the Angel of Death to be involved in this macabre scene.
"I know all about your little robbing n," the Angel of Death continued. "But you don''t have to fear me. I have no interest in your game."
Michael carefully ced the bloody wrist in his system''s storage, his mind racing with questions. He couldn''t shake the feeling that the Angel of Death''s presence here was about something more than just the manager''s death.
"Why are you here?" Michael asked, his voice steady butced with curiosity. "I know you didn''te just to kill this man."
The Angel of Death chuckled softly, his crimson robes swaying as he did. "You''re correct," he admitted, his pale face devoid of emotion. "I''m here because what better ce is there for an Angel of Death to invite someone than in a ce where he''s just imed a soul? Irony, wouldn''t you say?"
Michael furrowed his brow, sensing that this encounter was far from ordinary. He couldn''t help but ask, "Invitation to what?"
The Angel of Death''s gaze bore into Michael''s, and he said in a tone that sent shivers down his spine, "An invitation to join the Death Merchants."
"I told you I''d be watching you," the Angel of Death remarked calmly, his crimson dagger still gleaming with the manager''s blood.
Michael was in shock. He hadn''t sensed the presence of the Angel of Death, but it was now obvious that the enigmatic assassin had been following his every move.
In response, Michael activated his Eyes of Darkness and saw a pulsating red aura around the Angel of Death. It was a clear indication that this angelic assassin was far stronger than he was.
"It''s time we initiate a fellow assassin into our secret guild," the Angel of Death said, his voice like a whispering shadow.
Michael, realizing the urgency of the situation, spoke quickly. "We should relocate to a safer ce. The orcs will soon storm this room."
The Angel of Death snickered softly and calmly replied, "My little friends will take care of everyone in the manor. We can speak freely here."
Inside his head, Pink''s voice echoed with a note of urgency, "Ghost, something strange is happening. The orcs and mercenaries have all fallen unconscious."
Michael, however, remained focused on the Angel of Death, ignoring Pink''s warning for the moment.
The Angel of Death continued to speak, his words carrying an air of finality, "Finish whatever you have on your te within two months, ande to join our guild."
His crimson eyes bore into Michael''s, and a dangerous edge crept into his tone, "Don''t think about rejecting this invitation."
The threat hung in the air, leaving no room for negotiation or refusal.
The Angel of Death turned away from Michael, his crimson robe billowing as he gracefully approached the window. He cast a final nce over his shoulder and said, "Dealing in death oftenes with rewards worth more than gold coins."
With that cryptic statement, he leaped out of the window, disappearing into the night with an eerie grace that defied exnation.
Michael rushed to the window, his eyes scanning the dark expanse outside. To his astonishment, the angel had vanishedpletely from his sight, leaving no trace behind.
As Michael gazed out of the window, he witnessed a startling sight. Carriages and armored orcs were converging on the manor from all directions. It was clear that reinforcements were on their way, and the situation was about to escte further.
Pink''s voice echoed urgently in his earpiece, "Ghost, reinforcements areing. You need to leave, now!"
Without hesitation, Michael leaped out of the window, activating his shadow teleportation to distance himself from the manor swiftly. As he ascended into the night sky, he couldn''t help but nce down once more.
What he saw was astounding. Countless orcs and soldiers in gleaming armor had surrounded the manor, their torches and light orbs creating an eerie, surreal glow in the darkness. The situation had turned into a full-blown crisis, and Michael had narrowly escaped it.
Returning to the Vilnius gang hideout, Michael called Elmer and the heist crew together. Elmer, in his role as a gang member, asked with a mix of curiosity and concern, "How did everything go, John?"
Inside, Michael couldn''t help but be amused by Elmer''s convincing act. He decided to y along and allow Elmer to believe he was just another member of the gang. With a flick of his wrist, a severed hand materialized in his grasp.
He tossed the gruesome offering onto the table, and Elmer''s eyes widened in shock at the sight. Michael calmly stated, "Now we have the rune, and it''s time to take our heist to the next stage."
Elmer, still clearly affected by the severed hand, asked hesitantly, "Did you... did you kill the manager?"
Michael tilted his head slightly and asked in return, "Why do you care?"
Elmer quickly responded, "Killing the manager would bring unnecessary heat on the gang. We don''t want the authorities sniffing around."
Michael chuckled coldly, his eyes gleaming with a calcting edge. "I''m not an amateur, Elmer. I don''t leave behind evidence. The authorities will be scratching their heads, trying to figure out what happened at that manor."
Michael''s gaze shifted to the orcs and dwarves who stood behind Elmer. His eyes bore into each of them with an intensity that sent shivers down their spines.
In a voice that dripped with chilling coldness, Michael warned, "If any of you even think about double-crossing me, I will cut you to pieces and scatter your remains so far and wide that not even your mothers or wives will be able to identify you."
The threat hung heavily in the air, and the two dwarves, their voices stuttering, quickly assured, "W-we wouldn''t dare, John. We''re loyal to the gang."
Michael turned to Elmer and said, "Prepare everything for the heist tomorrow."
Elmer, caught off guard by the sudden change in ns, stammered, "I... I thought the heist was scheduled for today."
Michael, his tone casual, replied, "ns change, Elmer. Just do as I tell you, and everything will go smoothly."
Elmer didn''t say anything, but inwardly, he was shocked. He had informed Thalindra that the heist would happen today, and now John had suddenly altered everything. He knew better than to disy his emotions on his face; John was far more cunning than he appeared.
As Michael dismissed the orcs and dwarves with a wave of his hand, they quickly exited the room. However, just as he reached the door, Michael called Elmer back.
"Elmer," Michael said, "keep an eye on Vilnius."
Elmer nodded in acknowledgment and then left the room to carry out his new orders.
Michael settled into the ornate throne after Elmer''s departure. As he made himselffortable, Pink''s voice chimed in through his earpiece.
"Why did you tell Elmer to keep an eye on Vilnius?" she inquired.
Michael chuckled softly and replied, "Just to throw Elmer off the scent for a bit, keep him guessing."
Pink, ever efficient, immediately responded, "Elmer is heading back to the city, probably to establish contact with Thalindra, his handler."
Michael''s tone remained cold andposed as he instructed, "Find out how Elmer establishes contact with Thalindra. We need to know everything."
With their n now set in motion, Michael leaned back on the throne, ready to dive into the next phase of their ambitious heist.
In the stillness of the dimly lit room, Michael retrieved a red metal te adorned with an intricate golden emblem. The emblem depicted a skeletal figure, one hand gripping a scythe, the other clutching a pouch.
As he held the te in his hand, Michael found himself pondering the cryptic intentions of the God of Death and his angels. "What are they ying at with this guild?" he muttered under his breath.
With a flick of his wrist, he turned the metal te, revealing a nk, featureless back. He continued to contemte the uncertain path thaty ahead, asking himself, "What awaits me in this guild of shadows?"
Chapter 1101 Harvest Day Heist I - Flawless Plan
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As the sun descended beneath the horizon in Durran, Elmer and his crew smoothly infiltrated the bustling city, their presence blending seamlessly with the celebratory crowd. The uing harvest festival, ted for the day after tomorrow, had momentarily rxed the vignce of the city guards. Their focus had shifted towards identifying potential threats, primarily anyone carrying weapons or vtile alchemical substances, which Elmer and his crew cleverly circumvented by storing their tools in specially designed space rings.
Elmer''s voice resonated softly through his earpiece as he reported their sessful entry into the city. "We''re inside the city."
"Good," Michael''s voice replied in his head, a technological marvel that still left Elmer in awe. The power of these tiny devices allowed them tomunicate effortlessly across vast distances.
"The clothing store owner is closing up shop and preparing to immerse himself in the festivities. It''s your cue," Michael informed John, who was diligently monitoring the unfolding situation from his remote location, with the Spyder feeds granting him aprehensive view of their surroundings.
"We''re en route," Elmer replied, as he navigated the lively crowd, making his way toward Eden''s Garden, the coveted target, with the adjacent clothing store offering a discreet entry point for their impending heist.
As Elmer and his crew approached their destination, they found themselves immersed in the heart of the festive crowd. Laughter, music, and the enticing aroma of street foods filled the air, while colorful stalls adorned with trinkets and delicacies lined the bustling streets. The night sky was illuminated with breathtaking fireworks, exploding in a mesmerizing disy of vibrant colors, drawing exmations of wonder and joy from the revelers.
"Look at those fireworks, they''re incredible!" one spectator eximed, craning their neck to catch a better view.
"Did you try those candied apples? They''re amazing!" chimed in another, holding up a sticky, glistening treat.
Elmer momentarily allowed himself to be captivated by the festive atmosphere. He couldn''t help but steal a nce at the bursting fireworks overhead. But Michael''s voice crackled in his earpiece, snapping him back to the task at hand.
"Elmer, stop gawking at the fireworks and get to the clothing store," Michael''s voice urged, a reminder that their mission required unwavering focus amid the distractions of the celebration. With a nod, Elmer directed his crew towards the adjacent clothing store, determined to stay on course and execute their n with precision.
As Elmer and his crew reached their destination, they found themselves standing before Eden''s Garden, a grand and alluring establishment. The adjacent clothing store, a two-story building made of colorful marble stones, disyed a fashionable mannequin behind a ss window, its garments catching the dim light of the evening.
"Enter the building through the backdoor," Michael''s voice instructed, guiding Elmer''s crew towards their next move. The task of bypassing the entrance fell upon Elmer, who received a yful challenge from Michael.
"Impress me with your lockpicking skills," Michael''s voice, tinged with amusement, came through the earpiece.
Elmer couldn''t help but chuckle at the friendly banter between himself and Michael. "Get ready to be amazed," he quipped before making his way to the rear of the building.
Meanwhile, the two dwarves in the crew, ever resourceful, set to work with a clever distraction. They approached the glowing orbs adorning the surroundings, deftly draping dark cloths over them to obscure the area, casting shadows that concealed their actions.
Elmer focused on the task at hand, using his lockpick tools with practiced finesse. In a matter of moments, the lock yielded to his skill, and the door silently swung open.
"Good," Michael''s voice echoed in approval through the earpiece, signaling the crew to proceed with their mission.
Inside the clothing store, the dimly lit interior revealed a myriad of elegant garments and shelves neatly disying various essories. The soft, ambient light cast a warm glow over the mannequins and racks of clothing, giving the space an inviting ambiance.
As the dwarves efficiently removed the dark cloths from the glowing orbs outside, they moved with silent grace towards the entrance of the clothing store. Once inside, they carefully closed the door behind them, ensuring their entry remained unnoticed in the bustling festival crowd outside.
Michael''s voice, calm andposed, directed their next steps. "Your target wall is on the east side, second story," he informed them. "Reach there and get to work."
The crew acknowledged Michael''s instructions with a series of nods and quiet affirmations.
The crew proceeded cautiously up the creaky wooden stairs, their movements deliberate to avoid any undue noise. The stairs seemed to protest every step they took, groaning with age.
As they ascended, the dwarves couldn''t resist a jibe at the orcs, their deep voices carrying a hint of mockery. "A bit heavy on those feet, aren''t ya?" one dwarf remarked, earning a few grumbles from the orcs.
The orcs, not to be outdone, responded with a taunt of their own. "Well, some of us are built for more than just tunneling, you know."
Before the exchange could escte further, Michael''s cold voice intervened, instantly silencing the banter. "Stop squabbling, unless you want your tongues cut out."
The threat hung in the air, and both orcs and dwarves swiftly shut their mouths, refocusing their efforts on the task at hand.
They reached the second floor and swiftly made their way to the east side wall. Elmer, with a flick of his wrist, produced the wall cutter, a circr de adorned with intricate runes. The orcs, under Elmer''s guidance, plunged the de into the wall and started to move it in a circr motion, the enchanted de making quick work of the thick wall.
Michael''s voice came over the earpiece, directing them. "We need to finish cutting the wall in five minutes. The staff and guards have all left the Eden''s Garden."
One of the dwarves, addressing Michael respectfully as ''boss,'' couldn''t help but voice a concern. "What if the Eden''s Garden changes the rune to enter the power room, now that the manager''s been... taken care of?"
Michael''s tone was coldly confident as he responded, "They''re keeping his death under wraps, and we''re lucky. The Eden''s Garden is arrogant and overly confident. They believe no one can or will rob them."
The dwarves and orcs exchanged nces, reassured by Michael''s conviction.
The orcs and dwarves handled the wall cutter with surprising finesse, the circr de moving through the stone as silently as a whisper. They soon had a holerge enough to slip through.
Elmer, who was the first to peer through the hole, whispered back, "We can see the Eden''s Garden hall."
Michael''s voice came through the earpiece, precise andmanding, "Alright, everyone, get to your positions."
With a collective "Yes, boss," they climbed through the cut wall, entering the dimly lit Eden''s Garden. The hall was a breathtaking sight, with alchemy goods, herbs, and bubbling cauldrons that glowed in various hues.
Michael''s voice guided them further, "The Eden Garden''s most valuable goods are on the second floor. Orcs, dwarves, take each room on the second floor."
The crew swiftly dispersed to their designated rooms, blending into the shadows. Michael continued, "Everyone, wait until Elmer destroys the celestial crystals powering up the runes. He''ll let you know when it''s time to steal the goods."
Elmer silently slinked toward a door with a wooden board that read "Staff Only." He skillfully wielded his lockpicks, their delicate metalponents glinting slightly in the dim light, and with precision, he opened the door.
Michael''s voice crackled in his ear, "Nervous, Elmer?"
Elmer, now inside a dimly lit corridor, replied confidently, "No."
In the privacy of his thoughts, Michael couldn''t help but feel a hint of amusement at how smoothly he had managed to involve a spy in this illegal endeavor. He watched the Spyder feed as Elmer reached a copper door at the end of the corridor, sensing the pulsating energy around it. Elmer inspected the intricate runes engraved on the door, which had no visible knobs or handles.
Taking a deep breath, Elmer retrieved the bloody wrist of the manager from his pouch and ced it against the door. The runes etched into the surface of the door lit up in various colors, shimmering like ethereal veins, and with a soft click, the door swung open.
The door swung open, revealing a palm-sized, high-grade celestial crystal, its radiant purple hues catching the dim light. It rested on a pedestal, encircled by a shimmering blue energy shield. Glowing lines extended in all directions from the pedestal, forming aplex pattern.
Elmer''s voice trembled with uncertainty, "John, there''s an energy shield surrounding the crystal."
Michael''s response was calm,ced with amusement, "Put your hand into the shield and take out the crystal."
Elmer frowned, his apprehension evident. He knew arguing would be pointless. With a resigned nod, he slowly approached the crystal, his palm outstretched. As he reached out, electric bolts shot from the shield, causing him to hiss in pain. The sensation was excruciating, his hand feeling like it was melting while searing agony radiated to his brain.
Michael''s voice pierced through the torment, firm and unwavering, "Pull out the crystal."
Elmer took a deep breath, fighting against the searing pain. With determination etched on his face, he pressed his hand further into the shield, clenching his fist despite the torment.
"Fucking¡sweet¡mother¡of¡"
His curses were hushed but vivid as he continued to struggle, his hand inching closer to the coveted celestial crystal.
Michael''s voice carried a tone of amusement as Elmer, through sheer determination, managed to pull the celestial crystal out of the shield. Michael cheered him on, saying, "Atta boy!"
In the immediate aftermath, Elmer couldn''t contain his cry of pain. "Aaargh!" he eximed as the agony surged through his burnt hand when he yanked the crystal free from the shield.
Elmer''s hand was a mess, charred and trembling from the pain. Michael quickly instructed, "Pour the healing potion on your hand and drink another one."
Elmer, his breaths stilling in ragged gasps, nodded and took out two shimmering blue healing potions from his pouch. As he reached for the potions, he couldn''t help but notice a sudden, eerie silence in the room. The intricate glowing lines that had previously covered the walls and floor faded away.
Michael''s voice broke the silence as he gave the order to the orcs and dwarves, "The runes are down. Steal everything you see."
With a hint of humor in his voice, Michael quipped,
"Well, looks like it''s our harvest day, my friends." The dwarves and orcs raised their space rings, which promptly emitted a brilliant light. It was as though a miniature portal had opened, and every alchemical good in the room was drawn into the radiant beam and vanished into the depths of their space rings.
Chapter 1102 Harvest Day Heist II - Rats In The Midst
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As the stolen alchemical treasures vanished into their space rings, one of the dwarves couldn''t help but mutter, "There''s so much more we could grab!" The allure of wealth and rare alchemical ingredients was hard to resist, especially when they wereid out in such abundance.
However, Michael knew better than to let greed cloud their judgment. He responded with a stern warning, his voice tinged with urgency, "Greediness willnd us in prison." His years of experience had taught him the value of discretion and timing.
"Backup crystals will power up in two minutes," he continued, emphasizing the need for haste. "We leave through that door in one minute."
The dwarves and orcs understood the importance of Michael''s words. With reluctance, they began to make their way towards the exit, their space rings filled with their ill-gotten gains.
As the dwarves and orcs hurriedly made their way toward the exit, Michael contacted Elmer through the earpiece. "Watch the dwarves and orcs closely," he instructed, his voice filled with caution. "Make your way out of the building."
Elmer acknowledged with a quick "Roger that," and started his own exit from the power room. His eyes fell on the high-grade celestial crystal, now in his possession. Uncertain of what to do with it, he asked Michael, "What should I do with this celestial crystal?"
Michael''s response carried a touch of humor, even in the midst of their risky heist. "We''re here to rob, aren''t we? Take the crystal with you." It was a reminder that their primary objective was to secure valuable goods, and this crystal certainly fit the bill.
Elmer carefully ced the celestial crystal into his space ring, making sure it was secure. With their stolen treasures in tow, he continued to make his way out of the power room,
In the dimly lit main hall of the Eden''s Garden, the two dwarves, four orcs, and Elmer came together, their stolen treasures secure in their space rings. An orc spoke up, his voice filled with admiration, "John really outdid himself this time. Everything went so smoothly."
Another orc chimed in, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, credit where it''s due. John really impressed me."
The two dwarves, however, were less enthusiastic about their exit. Greedily eyeing the remaining valuables in the hall, one of them grumbled, "We''re leaving so much behind. We should clean this ce out."
To this, Michael responded with a sly sense of humor. "I can still hear you," he remarked, causing the dwarves to lower their voices and share a nervous chuckle.
Elmer, ever the cautious one, intervened. "As much as we''d all love to stay and plunder further, we need to get out of here. The backup crystals will activate soon, and we don''t want to be around when that happens."
As Elmer and the crew were on the verge of leaving the hall through the same entrance they had sneaked in, a sudden and ominous turn of events unfolded. The runes etched into the walls of the hall came to life, casting an eerie glow that illuminated the entire space. Simultaneously, all the glowing orbs suspended in the air burst into radiant light.
Elmer and his crew froze in their tracks, their hearts pounding in their chests as they exchanged fearful nces. Something was definitely amiss.
Elmer, always alert, muttered in a tense voice, "Something''s happening."
Michael''s voice crackled urgently in their ears, "Get out of there, now!"
Panic set in as the crew scrambled towards the hole they had cut into the wall. But before the dwarf could make it to safety, a sudden, powerful kick struck him square in the chest. With a painful cry, he was sent hurtling across the hall, crashing into counter. The rest of the crew gasped in shock, realizing they were found out.
As the runes red to life and the orbs lit up, Office Barug stepped through the hole with an imposing presence. His armor nked with each step, and his sharp eyes scanned the intruders with a mix of surprise and anger. At the same time, the distant sound of heavy boots echoed as several armored orcs rushed into the building through the front door.
Elmer, trying to maintain hisposure, called out frantically, "John! We''ve got trouble!"
Michael''s voice came through the earpiece, steady and reassuring, "Keep calm. I''ll get you out of there."
But panic gripped one of the dwarves, and he rushed at Barug, brandishing a battlecry and a string of curses.
The defiant dwarf shouted, "I won''t go down without a fight!"
With a cold, calcted precision, Barug responded by delivering a swift and powerful kick, connecting with the dwarf''s chest. The dwarf let out a gasp as the impact sent him sprawling backward, unconscious.
Office Barug, undeterred, calmly greeted the remaining thieves with a chilling tone, "Well, well, what do we have here?"
Office Barug''s soldiers quickly closed in, forming a tight circle around Elmer and his remaining crew members.
Michael''s voice echoed in Elmer''s earpiece, a calm and measured tone, "Stay calm, Elmer."
Elmer mumbled under his breath, a sense of resignation in his words, "Whatever you''re nning to do, just do it quickly."
Barug, keenly observant, noticed Elmer''s quiet muttering and approached him with a mix of surprise and curiosity. He remarked with a hint of astonishment, "An elf with Vilnius gang? You must be Elmer, the infamous thief among the Vilnius gang. I''ve been searching for you for a long time."
Barug''s imposing figure stood before Elmer, his eyes locked onto the elf with a sense of determination. He dered, "I''ve been waiting for this day."
Suddenly, Barug plucked the earpiece from Elmer''s ear with a quizzical expression, muttering to himself, "What do we have here?" Hisrge orcish fingers deftly held the small device, and he examined it in wonder.
His surprise was evident as he marveled at its capabilities, addressing his soldiers with the earpiece in hand, "There are no runes in this, yet it allowed them tomunicate across vast distances. The runemasters and schrs will have a field day with this."
Turning his attention back to Elmer, Barug''s tone became more stern. He demanded, "Who were you talking to, elf?"
Elmer, now defiant and uncooperative, replied, "I''m not telling you shit,"
Barug couldn''t help but let out a deep, gutturalugh at Elmer''s defiance. Hisughter was cruel and mocking as he observed the elf. Without warning, he unleashed a powerful punch to Elmer''s gut. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of him, causing him to cough and gasp for breath.
Through his pained breaths, Elmer managed to mutter a few choice curses at Barug. "You damn orc... you won''t get anything out of me..."
Barug, now holding the earpiece, smirked down at Elmer. He slowly ced it in his own ear, a sinister glint in his eyes, as he remarked, "Well, then, we''ll just ask them directly."
"I wonder who might be the genius behind this device," Barug muttered, still skeptical about its functionality.
To his astonishment, a voice responded through the device, infiltrating his ear like the growl of a predatory beast. "Office Barug. What a pleasant surprise," the voice hissed, carrying an almost animalistic quality.
Barug couldn''t help but express his doubts aloud, saying, "Either this thing works strangely, or you''re quite skilled at mimicking beasts."
The voice on the other end responded with a sinister chuckle that sent shivers down Barug''s spine.
Michael continued to speak to Barug through the altered voice, a sinister edge to his words. "A good officer should do his boring work, end his shift, go home, and enjoy life as he''s supposed to. Not meddle in matters above his paygrade."
Barug snickered in response. "You should say those words to my face."
The voice on the other end chuckled malevolently, "Oh, I fully intend to meet you eye to eye. But when that timees, you can''t to do anything,"
Officer Barug, undeterred by Michael''s words, countered confidently, "Every criminal I''ve caught talked arrogantly and acted tough, but they all cried in their cells once I was done with them. I''ve caught your crew, and I''ll catch you, the leader."
"Oh, is that so?" Michael replied with a hint of amusement in his altered voice.
Barug didn''t mince words. "I know you''re not Vilnius."
"Enlighten me," Michael prompted.
Barug exined, "Vilnius is too stupid to pull off something like this."
Michael pped his hands slowly, his voice dripping with amusement. "Ah, life was bing so dull, Barug. This might just bring back some excitement."
Barug countered, "It''ll get a lot more exciting when I put you in prison."
Michael couldn''t help but taunt him further. "You didn''t catch them because of your brains, Officer Barug. You caught them because of a rat in the gang or maybe in your own crew."
Barug was met with a chilling response. "Expect to find more bodies in the uing days."
Michael added with a touch of amusement, "Cleaning out the rats is a necessary task, after all."
Barug cautioned, "You don''t want to raise the robbery charges to murder charges."
Michael chuckled darkly, "It''s cute to hear those words again."
"Laugh all you want. Under thew, you are nothing but criminal scumbags," Barug retorted.
Michael responded confidently, "Law doesn''t apply to me or my crew, officer,"
Barug countered, "Your crew will sing a different song when I put them in prison."
But then, to Barug''s astonishment, the words Michael was speaking started to emanate openly outside the earpiece. Michael''s voice reverberated as he dered, "I''m not doing this for fun. I''m a professional. How can a professional like me leave his crew behind?"
The room''s lights flickered ominously as Michael continued speaking, sending shivers down the spines of Elmer and the crew. Barug, too, heard the voice, and it warned, "I wish to see you, Officer Barug, and you''ll get that chance sooner than you expect."
Suddenly, everything plunged into pitch-ck darkness.
Chapter 1103 Plans Of The Guardian Guild
Amidst the bustling crowd, a young man with a full beard and long, flowing ck hair carefully cradled a steaming mug. The scent wafting from it was a fragrant symphony that caused heads to turn and noses to twitch.
One passerby eximed, "What is that heavenly smell?"
A woman next to him inquired, "Is it from that guy''s mug?"
As the young man weaved through the crowd, people couldn''t help but murmur their curiosity.
"It smells like fresh-baked bread."
"Or maybe cinnamon and apples?"
He finally reached the library, where a hush fell over the readers as they caught a whiff of the delightful aroma. One elderly schr remarked, "It''s been ages since I smelled something so inviting."
The young man threaded his way through the readers until he reached a secluded corner. His lips moved soundlessly as he muttered, "Poor bastards."
Then, with a deft touch, he pulled a particr book from the shelf. A soft click echoed in the silence as the bookshelf swung open, revealing a concealed passage.
The young man stepped into the dimly lit corridor, gently closing the door behind him.
The secret passage led the young man down a winding staircase into the heart of the underground. As he reached the bottom, the passage opened into a grand, spacious hall. The vast chamber was alive with the diligent work of dwarves mining glistening golden orbs.
One of the dwarves, his pickaxe striking true, looked up and caught a whiff of the aromatic brew from the young man''s mug. "Is that coffee from ''The Grand''?" he asked, momentarily distracted from his task.
The young man chuckled, setting the mug aside on a nearby stone. "Focus on your work before she catches you cking off," he advised.
Another dwarf, with a mischievous glint in his eye, chimed in, "If we get caught, we can always use your name to escape, right?"
Amidst theughter that followed, the young man grinned and replied, "She''d kick my ass first and then probably bury you all."
As he continued to make his way towards the center of the hall, a dwarf on his way to mine another golden orb muttered to hispanion, "She seems really in the mood today."
The young man, overhearing the remark, grinned wryly. "Mood is an understatement."
Then, as he walked away, one of the dwarves couldn''t resist calling out to him, "Don''t let them live, Ricky!"
In the center of the grand hall, Ricky beheld a grim tableau. Three young men hung by their bound hands, their bodies bruised and battered, blood dripping from fresh wounds. Their faces bore the marks of a merciless beating, and their eyes held a mixture of pain and despair.
Nearby, a young woman with raven-ck hair, dressed in dark, imposing armor, leaned casually back in her chair. She was none other than the Dark Queen Gaya herself. At this moment, she was asleep, her chest rising and falling with each slow breath.
Ricky approached cautiously, the mug of coffee in hand, and whispered, "Dark Queen."
Gaya''s nose twitched, and her eyes fluttered open as the delightful aroma of the coffee reached her senses. She sat up, blinking away drowsiness, and regarded Ricky with an air of calcted indifference.
Ricky''s gaze drifted to the three men hanging nearby, their pain evident. He saw the stains of their blood on the ground and fresh wounds on their bodies. Gaya''s fists were smeared with crimson, a testament to her interrogation methods.
Quietly, Ricky stepped closer, standing behind her. Gaya turned her gaze toward him, her eyes piercing. With a sip of the coffee, she finally asked, "What took you so long?"
Gaya, with a no expression,manded Ricky, "Get them some healing potions."
The three men, still hanging and weakly muttering, shook their heads and whispered, "No, no, no," in a feeble attempt to refuse.
Ricky walked over to the dwarf stationed on the other side of the hall. With a simple nod, he signaled the dwarf, who promptly pulled down a lever. The mechanism activated, lowering the three injured men to the ground.
Now, on the floor, they looked up at Ricky with desperation in their eyes and muttered weakly for help, "Please... help... us..."
Ignoring their pleas, Ricky swiftly reached for the gleaming blue potions and, with gentle but firm hands, forced the liquid down their throats. Almost instantly, the magical elixir began its work. Their wounds closed, the bruising faded, and a renewed light of vigor returned to their eyes.
The moment the three men were healed and regained enough strength to shout, they began pleading with Gaya, their voices trembling with desperation.
"We don''t know anything!" one of them cried out.
Ricky, having returned to Gaya''s side and now standing behind her, felt no pity for the men. They held the secret to something that could turn the Guardian Guild into a super power once again.
Gaya, her expression unchanging, ced her coffee aside and leaned forward, her dark armor creaking softly. She addressed the men with a tone of authority, "Tell me where the ns are, and I''ll spare your families."
The three men, now shouting and screaming, continued to beg for mercy, their voices trembling with fear and desperation. "Please, Dark Queen, have mercy! We don''t know anything about those ns!"
Gaya chuckled darkly at their pleas. "I am a merciful Dark Queen," she mused, "which is why I''ve been generous enough to provide you with valuable healing potions." Her tone turned colder as she continued, "It seems it''s you who are heartless, chugging down these healing elixirs and yet refusing to give me what I want."
The men''s pleas fell on deaf ears as Gaya leaned back in her chair, waiting for them to reveal the information she sought.
Gaya sighed, her patience waning, and stood up from her chair. Ricky swiftly handed her a club, knowing what was about to happen. With the club in hand, Gaya approached the three men who were still hanging, their faces etched with fear.
In a cold andmanding tone, Gaya asked once more, "I will ask again, where are those ns?"
As she clenched the club tightly, Gaya advanced toward them. The tension in the room was thick, and the three men could feel the impending punishment.
Gaya''s voice grew even colder as she continued, "You have no idea how much effort and work it took my husband, the Dark Lord, and me to dismantle the Guardian Guild. Months of meticulous nning and secrecy¡ªall of it threatened by one asshole with giant brain,"
She stopped in front of them, her eyes narrowing with intensity, and demanded, "Now, where are those ns?"
Gaya swung the club with swift, brutal force, striking one of the men square on the skull. He cried out in agony as the blow sent searing pain through his head. She then turned her attention to the man in the middle, whose brown hair was now matted with blood, and his face had turned an eerie shade of pale.
As Gaya was interrogating, another figure materialized within the hall. It was none other than Azazel himself, asposed and impably dressed in his butler uniform as ever.
"Mydy, it''s done. Their families are secured," Azazel reported.
"NO!"
"Leave my family alone!"
"Please, I beg you, don''t hurt my family!"
The three men began to shout for mercy, but Gaya paid them no heed. Instead, she took a mirror offered by Azazel and showed it to them. In the mirror, the three men saw their own families, tied to chairs in their own homes, their faces etched with fear and desperation.
"Did you encounter any trouble?" Gaya inquired of Azazel.
"Nothing I couldn''t handle, Dark Queen. Though I did face some challenges locating their families, it cost a few guardians their lives," Azazel responded, an amused tone in his voice.
"You know what they say: a good guardian is a dead guardian," Gaya chuckled.
"Azazel, would you like to give it a try? These assholes handpicked by Noah are pissing me off. I fear I might just kill them if I continue," Gaya sighed in exasperation. The three men hanging before her belonged to the Guardian Guild. Despite Michael''s dismantling of the original Guardian Guild, Noah had seen it as an opportunity to establish his own version of the guild.
As anticipated, Noah had meticulously reconstructed the Guardian Guild from the ground up, subjecting every guardian to rigorous physical and mental training. Even Gaya found it challenging to break them.
"I truly miss him in situations like this. That bastard would simply flick his wrist, produce some potent potion, and poof! They''d spill the truth like drunken pirates," Gayamented, her longing for Michael evident in her voice.
"Now that we have their families, why not let them witness their loved ones'' demise, Dark Queen?" Azazel calmly proposed.
At the mention of this, the three men panicked, their hearts skipping a beat.
"I didn''t want to resort to that, but these assholes," Gaya seethed and impulsively hurled a club at one of them in a fit of anger, "are leaving me no choice."
"No, no, no, no... spare our families!"
"You''ll pay for this, you evil bitch!" one of the guardians shouted, but the smile on Azazel''s face slowly faded, reced by an icy coldness. Ricky knew all too well what was about to happen.
Azazel materialized before the guardian in a blur, striking with deadly precision. He punched through the guardian''s chest, grasping his still-beating heart.
"Now, witness your family''s demise as your own heartbeat falters," Azazel dered in a chilling tone. With a flick of his wrist, a mirror floated in the air before the guardian. Inside the mirror, the guardian''s family was bound to their chairs. Suddenly, figures cloaked in ck robes appeared in the feed, forcing a green misty potion down the family members'' throats.
"No..." the guardian uttered, while the other two watched in helpless despair as the family met their end, foam oozing from their mouths. Although the potion brought swift, painless death, their bodies writhed and twitched, as if undergoing agonizing torment.
Under normal circumstances, Ricky might have felt sympathy for the families. However, the ns Hammond had devised posed a dire threat to all of them. Moreover, the Guardians were ruthlessly hunting down anyone who supported the Dark Army or even mentioned the Dark Lord.
Even Noah, when it came to the Dark Lord, had be a tyrant.
"We can extract the truth about the ns through other means, Azazel. Just finish their families and be done with it," Gaya ordered Azazel, her eyes harboring a hidden agenda.
"No, I''ll tell you. Please, spare my family," the guardian finally broke, his resolve crumbling after witnessing his fellow guardian''s demise and the death of his own family.
"Speak," Gaya demanded.
"The ns... they are enroute to the dwarves in the Windgate Mountains... please, release my family," the guardian pleaded.
"Windgate Dwarves, the rising guild of the proud dwarves," Gaya mused.
"Azazel, inform Aria to take care of it. I want those ns on my desk by tomorrow," Gaya instructed as she turned her attention to the dwarves who were diligently mining.
"If anyone breathes a word about what transpired here, you know the consequences, right?" Gaya questioned the dwarves, who froze in their tracks. These twenty dwarves were fiercely loyal to the Dark Lord, yet Gaya maintained a tight leash on them.
"Yes, Dark Queen," they chorused in unison.
However, just as Gaya was preparing to depart, a portal materialized before her, and Daniel rushed out with bloodstained hands.
"Dark Queen!" Daniel eximed in a panic, causing Gaya to furrow her brows.
"What happened?" she inquired.
"It''s Cindy... she... She..." Daniel stuttered, clearly in shock.
Gaya''s heart skipped a beat upon hearing his words. She swiftly moved to grab Daniel by his cor.
"What happened to her?!" Gaya''s voice reverberated throughout the mine.
"An undead bit her... she''s not healing..." Daniel replied, shocking everyone present.
Chapter 1104 Zariel, The Reaper Of Fourcrux
Gaya wasted no time, immediately darting through the portal with Daniel, Ricky, and Azazel trailing behind. Emerging on the other side, they found themselves in the underground training ground of the Awor continent. Despite being underground, the area was brilliantly lit with glowing orbs and runes, making it difficult to discern its subterranean location.
Within the hall, several undead warriors in ck armor and alpha vampires were stationed. In the center, Dr was tending to Cindy, whoy on a table, her young form writhing in pain.
"CINDY!" Gaya rushed to the girl''s side.
Dr couldn''t help but shudder as Gaya approached.
"Sister... Gaya..." Cindy managed to say amidst the pain.
Despite her tender age, Cindy disyed remarkable resilience, refraining from shedding tears as she bravely confronted the agony.
Numerous empty vialsy scattered around Cindy, a testament to Dr''s efforts to administer healing potions. Gaya''s gaze focused on the blood seeping from Cindy''s neck. She gently moved Cindy''s small hands away, revealing the telltale bite mark on her neck.
"What happened?!" Gaya''s voice thundered as she turned her fury towards Dr.
"The undead... it lost control... and bit her..." Dr mumbled, his voice barely audible.
Gaya didn''t pause for a moment''s consideration. Instead, she swiftly pivoted and delivered a devastating punch to Dr''s chest. The impact was so forceful that it sent him hurtling through the air for a distance of at least ten meters. He crashed against the wall, coughing up blood before slipping into unconsciousness.
"It''s not his fault..." Cindy tried to interject, but Gaya was consumed by her fury. She cast her gaze upon the surrounding undead. With a simple raise of her hand, she conjured fiery arrows that streaked through the air, immting every undead and alpha vampire in their vicinity.
The scorching heat and the smell of burning flesh left everyone feeling queasy. Against Gaya''s overwhelming power at the level 10 Immortal stage, the undead had no chance.
"Bring Olivia to me now!" Gaya bellowed as Ricky and Daniel produced a golden scroll and tore it open, generating a radiant portal.
Without hesitation, they plunged into the portal, their mission clear: to retrieve Olivia. Just as Ricky and Daniel departed, another portal materialized, and Elidyr stepped through.
"I heard what happened. Let me see her," Elidyr urgently requested. His voice conveyed deep concern and worry. Even Azazel appeared anxious, for in the Dark Army, regardless of how cold or distant its members might be, they all adored Cindy.
No one could bear to witness harm befall the young girl.
"You are not a healer," Gaya growled skeptically as she watched Elidyr examining Cindy.
"No, but I understand energy. If the healing potion isn''t working, it suggests that something is obstructing it. Some form of energy," Elidyr exined. His words carried a weight that hinted at a deeper suspicion.
"Tell me she can be cured," Gaya demanded. Meanwhile, Azazel paid no attention to the conversation and gently applied a cloth to Cindy''s neck to staunch the bleeding.
"Take her to my workshop," Elidyr instructed after closely examining the bite mark.
"You''re going to be alright..." Gaya whispered softly as she cradled Cindy in her arms. The young girl, despite her pain, tried to muster a smile, showing her resilience and trust in Gaya. It tugged at Gaya''s heart, burdened with the weight of responsibility.
"Stay here," Gaya instructed Azazel, leaving Cindy in his care as she followed Elidyr through the portal.
In the blink of an eye, the scenery shifted once again. Gaya found herself in a cluttered hall, strewn with countless books, scrolls, and scattered metal pieces engraved with glowing runes. It was Elidyr''s workshop, part of their safe house provided by Nithroel.
"ce her on that table," Elidyr directed, indicating a sturdy mahogany table near a massive portal.
As Gaya gentlyid Cindy on the table, Elidyr conjured symbols in the air, enveloping Cindy in a protective golden energy shield.
"What is this?" Gaya inquired from outside the shield.
"Just a precaution," Elidyr replied cryptically. His words hinted at a deeper significance - the shield was designed to contain Cindy''s soul in case their efforts to heal her failed. It would not prevent her death but would preserve her soul within the shield for a limited time, serving as ast resort and safety measure.I think you should take a look at
"Please, don''t tell Mom. She''d panic and never let me train again," Cindy pleaded. Her words weighed heavily on Gaya''s conscience; it was her influence that had inspired Cindy to be a fighter like herself.
"I should''ve never let her train with those abominations," Gaya muttered, self-me creeping into her thoughts.
"He never liked self-loathing," Elidyr remarked as he continued to search through scrolls and books.
"Well, he''s not here, is he? He dumped everything on my shoulders and went off to do who knows what," Gaya vented her frustration and helplessness, scolding Michael in his absence.
"He left because he trusts us to handle things. And if I''m correct about this, we might find a way to contact him again," Elidyr responded calmly, surprising Gaya.
"What are you hiding, Elidyr?" Gaya inquired with a stern tone.
"The God of Necromancy," Elidyr replied as he approached Gaya, holding a ss orb engraved with several runes.
"What on earth are you talking about?" Gaya asked, her curiosity piqued.
"Look, this is the orb Aria stole from the Kethen temple. It was a temple where the Guardians set up their camps, a temple of Fourcrux," Elidyr exined, his tone deadly serious.
Gaya recalled Elidyr''s involvement with Aria and Sadie in stealing an artifact from Kethen. She trusted Elidyr''s judgment and didn''t usually micromanage such operations, but she had never expected this artifact to be linked to the God of Necromancy.
"Ever since the Angels started appearing everywhere, I''ve been sensing strange anomalies all around us. One of those anomalies, I detected within the undead," Elidyr continued, revealing his growing interest in ancient artifacts since Michael''s departure.
"You''re not making any sense. What anomalies are you talking about?" Gaya pressed for rification.
Elidyr borated, "This urred when Dr requested my help in opening a portal to the Nether Realm without alerting the Skyhall. Initially, it should have been a straightforward task with our portal here, but when I engraved the runes for the Nether Realm, the runes in this vicinity started behaving erratically. These teleportation runes have the capability to pick up on unusual energies. What I sensed that day was a profoundly potent energy, much like the energy emanating from the Dark Lord."
He continued, "It was the energy of a god, entering the Nether Realm like a surge. Since then, I''ve received reports of space distortions from all over the Elon continent."
Gaya''s expression darkened as she listened intently. "You still haven''t exined how any of this connects to an undead biting my Cindy," she growled, her patience wearing thin.
"I took measures to safeguard our training ground from these distortions and believed my runes would protect the undead from being influenced by the energy of the Nether Realm. However, just before I witnessed an undead biting Cindy, I saw the runes around the training ground light up. At that very moment, this orb also began to emit a faint glow," Elidyr exined, gradually approaching Cindy while holding the orb.
As he moved closer to Cindy, Gaya noticed a subtle jade-green radiance emanating from within the orb.
"Take a look. How could an orb that we found in an ancient temple of Fourcrux react to these anomalies if it weren''t somehow connected to the God of Necromancy?" Elidyr continued.
"I even consulted Nithroel about this, and she confirmed that the Nether Realm does indeed contain Fourcrux''s energy. Before the previous Dark Lord sealed the gods off from entering the mortal realm, Fourcrux had performed his rituals there. That''s why the Nether Realm is inhabited by undead and serves as the source of all undead."
Elidyr''s exnation left Gaya in deep contemtion, her mind racing to piece together the implications of this revtion.
"Look at this orb," Elidyr said as he kept the orb above Cindy. To Gaya''s surprise, the bite mark on Cincyd''s neck slowly radiated a dim green light.
Bathed in the golden light of the protective shield with the mysterious orb nearby, Gaya and Elidyr could discern peculiar green lines coursing through Cindy''s body. Their attention was fixated on the little girl as she suddenly tilted her head and gazed at them from within the shield.
"You foolish mortals," an evil and chilling voice emanated from Cindy. Her once-blue eyes now glowed an eerie shade of green, and her voice bore an entirely different tone. It was evident that someone or something else had taken control of Cindy''s body.
"You''ve been tapping into my powers without my permission. This has gone on long enough," Cindy slowly rose, her hand resting against the golden shield. She tilted her head, regarding Gaya and Elidyr with an unsettling coldness.
"Who are you?" Elidyr inquired, while Gaya clenched her fists in readiness to unsheathe her sword.
"You can call me Zariel, the Reaper of Fourcrux."
Chapter 1105 Cindy Is Not Cindy Anymore
The sudden emergence of Zariel, one of the Reapers in the service of the god Fourcrux, left them all deeply unsettled. There was a purpose behind certain gods employing Reapers rather than angels, and the God of Necromancy was one of those deities, making Zariel the ideal entity to seize control of Cindy''s body.
"What are you?" Gaya''s voice wavered with a blend of anger and panic as she sought answers.
"Must I repeat myself, bitch? I am Zariel, a Reaper in the service of the God of Necromancy, Fourcrux," Zariel''s chilling words resonated through Cindy''s mouth.
Cindy''s once-innocent blue eyes had morphed into a menacing shade of yellow, and an ominous green mist emanated from her skin.
"Please, spare her. Release her body," Elidyr implored, his voiceced with desperation.
"You''ve been harnessing my power to create undead, yet you protest when I use this insignificant vessel. What hypocrisy," Zariel sneered.
"Let her go. You have no idea who you''re dealing with," Gaya growled, but her demands only incited Zariel''s sinisterughter.
"I know precisely who you are. I possess knowledge of your every secret, including how the God of Darkness staged his death and ascended to the realm of gods," Zariel remarked, his words dripping with malevolence. Cindy, once a sweet child, was transformed into a vessel of darkness by Zariel''s presence, which manifested in her unsettling appearance: yellowed eyes, a green aura, and a noxious odor.
"I''ve been observing you through the undead. They are forged with my power, making each one of them my spy," Zariel gloated malevolently.
"What is it that you want?" Elidyr inquired, recognizing that Gaya''s fury had the potential to override her reason. He was relieved that the Dark Queen had thus far restrained herself, allowing her intellect to prevail.
"What everyone desires in this world, and what I crave, is freedom," Zariel replied.
"I''ll be unequivocal: I want to break free from my prison in the Nether realm, and you are going to facilitate that. If you fail, bid farewell to this child," Zariel dered. Before Gaya and Elidyr could react, Zariel seized control of Cindy''s arms, forcing her to scratch her own face.
"STOP!" Gaya shouted in horror as blood trickled from the scratches. Zariel, inhabiting Cindy''s body, merely chuckled.
"If this child''s life isn''t valuable to you, consider that I know every detail of your deeds. It would take me mere moments to report the God of Darkness to Fourcrux. If he didn''t personally deal with your Dark Lord, he''d unleash the entire pantheon upon him. We wouldn''t want that, now, would we?" Zariel asked, leaving Gaya and Elidyr with no room for defiance.
"Now, utilize the artifact you unearthed to locate my prison in the Nether realm. Hurry, time is running out, especially for this child," Zarielmanded, chasing them away.
But Gaya and Elidyr remained rooted in shock and helplessness.
"I said GO!" Zariel roared, causing cracks to appear in the golden shield enveloping Cindy. He then raised her arm and twisted it, breaking it with a sickening snap.
"NO!" Elidyr cried out.
"Please, don''t hurt her!" Gaya pleaded, but Zariel merelyughed, leaving Cindy''s arm grotesquely contorted.
"We''re going..." Elidyr grabbed Gaya by the hand and led her out of the hall.
Once they were outside the hall, Gaya vented her fury by punching the wall, causing it to crumble.
"I''m going to kill him...tear him apart...ARGH!" Gaya roared, her eyes welling up with tears.
"We must do as he says, Dark Queen," Elidyr advised.
"This orb," Elidyr examined the ss orb in his hands.
"Did this wake him up?" Elidyr inquired cautiously. Gaya directed her fierce gaze at Elidyr. She couldn''t help but wonder if Elidyr''s excavation of the orb had indirectly led to Cindy''s possession by Zariel.
Feeling the intensity of Gaya''s re, Elidyr instinctively took a step back. However, a teleportation vortex materialized nearby, sparing Elidyr from Gaya''s wrath.
"Gaya, what happened to Cindy? Let me see her," Olivia emerged from the portal, her face etched with panic and concern.
"Don''t go inside," Elidyr halted Olivia, with Ricky and Daniel following closely behind her as they stepped out of the vortex.
"Why? Azazel said she''s here. Where is she?" Olivia inquired anxiously.
"What happened?" Olivia''s gaze shifted from the cracked walls to the murderous intent in Gaya''s eyes and the worry in Elidyr''s voice. Dread washed over her as she considered the worst.
"Cindy is possessed by a Reaper of Fourcrux, the God of Necromancy," Elidyr revealed, sending shivers down their spines.
Daniel and Ricky trembled at Elidyr''s words, while Olivia stood there in disbelief.
"Possessed? By a Reaper?" Olivia''s frown deepened as she sought rification.
"The bite from the undead was a method used by Zariel to possess Cindy. He''s been monitoring us through the undead in the Nether realm," Elidyr exined, recognizing that Gaya was in no mood to exin.
"Zariel? Is that the name of this Reaper?" Olivia questioned.
"Hmm. He''s also the origin of all the creatures in the Nether realm. He ims we need to free him from his prison there, or he''ll kill Cindy," Elidyr rified.
"Let me see her," Olivia insisted in shock. Although she found it hard to believe Elidyr''s words, she felt a strong need to see Cindy for herself. However, Elidyr quickly intervened to stop her.I think you should take a look at
"No, if you go in there, he will harm Cindy," Elidyr cautioned.
"Then we should view her through the Spyders in there," Ricky, snapping out of his initial shock, suggested a solution.
"Gaya..." Olivia turned to her, silently imploring her assistance. Gaya, in response, flicked her wrist, summoning a mirror into her hand.
"Azazel, transmit the feed from my workspace to the Dark Queen''s mirror," Elidyr instructed Azazel via an earpiece.
"No, I can''t, Lord Elidyr," Azazel''s voice carried a heavy gravity.
"What do you mean, you can''t?" Elidyr inquired with a perplexed frown.
"He says spying is wrong and threatened to inflict more harm on Cindy," Elidyr conveyed Azazel''s grim message. It was evident that Azazel had witnessed the events transpiring within the workspace through the Spyders. However, Zariel was well aware of the Spyders and had issued a threat to harm Cindy upon detecting their surveince attempts.
"What''s going on?" Olivia inquired, growing increasingly anxious.
"He''s aware. Zariel knows about the Spyders and has threatened to harm Cindy if we attempt to spy on him," Elidyr exined, leaving everyone even more rmed and astonished.
"What are we waiting for, then? We must find a way to contact the Dark Lord," Olivia panicked, but Gaya vehemently shook her head.
"If we do that, he''ll inform his god of the Dark Lord''s survival, leading the entire pantheon to hunt him down in the realm of gods. We can''t endanger him in the realm of gods. He doesn''t need to deal with this as well," Gaya reasoned, her concern for her husband''s safety palpable.
"Then what are we going to do? We cannot allow someone or something to possess our Cindy. What are we going to tell Raiylene?" Olivia inquired with a worried tone.
"We''ll do what he asks and keep it all from Raiylene until we''ve reimed our Cindy," Gaya responded sternly, her tone leaving no room for debate.
"You two stay here in case he contacts us," she instructed Ricky and Daniel. Though they were fearful, they nodded in agreement and positioned themselves as vignt guards just outside the door.
Gaya then contacted Azazel, who responded with an undertone of restrained bloodlust.
"Dark Queen, is there anything I can do to assist?" Azazel inquired.
"Yes, arrange an emergency meeting with Nithroel. We need to gather information about who we''re dealing with. She might be the only one who can provide insights about Zariel," Gaya directed before making her way to the meeting hall.
During her journey to the hall, Gaya remained silent, not exchanging a word with Elidyr. Upon their arrival, they were greeted by an ornate golden door with intricate designs. Upon opening it, they found themselves in a room with a circr marble table and arge mirror adorning one wall.
"I told you this isn''t the right time for us to meet, Gaya," Nithroel''s visage appeared in the mirror. The Goddess of Hunt and Empress of Gondolin appeared as regal as ever, her golden hair flowing and her royal blue robes adding to her majesty.
"It''s important, Nithroel," Gaya asserted. Given her position as the Dark Lord''s wife, Nithroel allowed Gaya to address her by name rather than using honorifics.
"It had better be. I''m in the midst of a war with the dwarves," Nithroel responded, a trace of annoyance detectable in her voice.
"What do you know about Zariel?" Gaya inquired, her voiceced with concern.
Upon hearing the name Zariel, Nithroel''s countenance shifted immediately. Her brow furrowed deeply, and her eyes exhibited an unmistakable difort, as though she had heard a name she wished never to encounter.
"Whatever you''re contemting, abandon it. Keep as far away as possible from that reaper," Nithroel admonished sternly. Even as a goddess of the hunt, she appeared visibly disturbed by Zariel''s name. This reaction deepened Gaya and Elidyr''s unease regarding Cindy''s fate.
"He has taken possession of Cindy, Nithroel," Gaya exined, her voice faltering with emotion.
"Idiots!" Nithroel eximed, her powerful voice causing the mirror on the wall to crack, forming several fissures that did not shatter.
"I don''t even want to know how you allowed that to happen. You have noprehension of the horrors he''s capable of. Without the Dark Lord, you stand no chance against him. Please, tell me you''ve at least contained him somewhere," Nithroel implored, her voice carrying the weight of urgency.
"He wants us to release him from his cage in the Nether Realm," Elidyr disclosed.
"Don''t!" Nithroel''s roar resounded once more.
"Some things are better left buried, hidden in the darkest recesses of existence," Nithroel said with a tone of gravitas. Her gaze was resolute, emphasizing the magnitude of their dilemma. It was clear she had a deep and unsettling familiarity with Zariel.
Gaya and Elidyr exchanged worried nces, realizing that their situation was more dire than they had imagined.
"If you break him out of his cage, hundreds of innocent children and people will suffer and die," Nithroel continued, her voice tinged with anguish. "You can''t save Cindy by releasing that monstrosity. Sometimes, it''s better to let one child die than to allow hundreds more to suffer such a fate."
"Fuck that. I won''t let Cindy die, not in a million years. I will find a way to save her, and if that means breaking him out, I will do it with or without your help," Gaya dered resolutely.
Nithroel understood that Gaya was unyielding in her determination, and trying to persuade her otherwise would be futile.
"We must discuss this in person. I hope to make you see reason when I share more about Zariel and the god he once served," Nithroel stated, emphasizing Zariel''s past allegiance to Fourcrux. There was an underlying mystery surrounding Zariel''s imprisonment, and Gaya was about to uncover it through Nithroel''s revtions.
Chapter 1106 Onto The Next Kingdom
In the realm of gods, fifteen days had slipped by since the daring heist in Eden''s garden. After thoroughly thrashing Barug and his henchmen, Michael had ensured the safe exit of his crew and then expertly refined the stolen alchemical goods into valuable pills and potions. At that moment, he found himself seated in an opulent restaurant renowned for its delectable orc cuisine.
As Michael savored a bite of the sumptuous honey-zed chicken, a female orc maid approached his table with a warm smile. She couldn''t help but admire the confident aura that surrounded him.
"How is the honey chicken, sir?" she inquired politely.
Michael, his charming smile captivating the orc maiden, nodded approvingly. "It''s fantastic, absolutely delightful," he replied with genuine appreciation.
The restaurant itself was a masterpiece of elegance, with intricate wooden carvings adorning the walls, soft, dim lighting casting a warm ambiance, and lush greenery providing a natural touch. The maids and waiters glided gracefully among the tables, ensuring that every guest received impable service in this refined establishment.
The orc maid, her attention undivided, asked with a courteous tone, "Is there anything else you''d like, sir?"
Before Michael could respond, his sharp eyes caught sight of two figures approaching his table, both wearing hoods that concealed their faces. It was none other than Elmer and Vilnius.
Michael maintained his calmposure, nodding to the orc maid. "Yes, please. I''d like two more tes of this exquisite honey chicken and a ss of your famous cold apple juice for me," he ordered.
The orc maid acknowledged his request with a nod, her green-skinned features reflecting a polite demeanor as she said, "Of course, sir. I''ll bring that right away."
As she turned to leave, Michael gestured at Elmer and Vilnius to take the seats opposite him.
"Join me," Michael invited them, a secretive smile dancing on his lips.
"Vilnius," Michael began, his voice tinged with anticipation, "I hope you''ve brought me my cut from the heist."
Vilnius nodded, a sly grin ying on his face as he slid a silver space ring across the table toward Michael. With a satisfied gleam in his eyes, Vilnius exined, "I''ve fenced all those pills and potions in the ck market. We made a whopping three million gold coins from the entire haul."
Michael raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Good work. And the underworld?"
Twenty percent cut to Vilnius''s bosses, whom he never met, irked Michael in the wrong way. However, it was a necessary payment to avoid an unnecessary battle. If Michael was stronger, he could have refused to pay them. But since it wasn''t the case, Michael had to swallow the loss.
"Ah, you know the drill," Vilnius replied. "Twenty percent off the top, as always. That''s six hundred thousand gold coins gone right there."
Michael calcted quickly. "So, we''re left with two million four hundred thousand gold coins. What about our crew and the rest of the gang?"
Vilnius leaned in and whispered, "Thirty percent of the total, which is nine hundred thousand gold coins, is tucked away in that silver ring for you. The rest, shared between Elmer, our crew, and the rest of the gang."
Michael smiled, his fingers tracing the edge of the ring. "Excellent work, Vilnius. You''ve earned your keep,"
Michael leaned back in his chair, a look of mild irritation crossing his face. "I don''t like that twenty percent going to the underworld and those secret bosses of yours, Vilnius. But we''ll let that slide for now."
Vilnius nodded in agreement. "Sometimes, it''s better to keep the peace, boss."
Michael shifted his attention to Elmer, "What about Barug? Did he give you any trouble?"
Elmer leaned in, his voice hushed. "The entire Eden''s Garden army is out searching for you, boss. It''s dangerous to be out in the open like this, right under their noses."
"Don''t worry, Elmer. Eden''s Garden will be looking everywhere except their own territory. They''ll assume we''ve fled the kingdom. It''s better to hide in in sight, my friend." Michael chuckled softly, a glint of amusement in his eyes.
Michael leaned in, his voice lowered to a hushed tone. "Now listen carefully. I have to leave Durran for a few weeks. Don''t do anything while I''m away. Lay low and keep your heads down. Since the harvest festival ising to an end, don''te into the city unless you want to get caught. Soon, I will contact you both for another heist."
Elmer raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to case the ce?"
A sly smile yed on Michael''s lips. "Good guess."
"What''s our target this time?" Vilnius inquired, his voice tinged with both enthusiasm and caution. Michael''s recent sessful heist had left Vilnius in awe, making him regard Michael as a golden goose.
Michael''s response was cryptic. "Curiosity killed the cat, Vilnius."
Turning his attention back to Elmer, Michael continued, "Elmer, I need you to find everything you can about Seraphine crystals. I heard there is a temple of Seraphine in the kingdom, so I would start looking there."
Elmer''s brows furrowed upon hearing Michael''s request regarding Seraphine. The goddess of Information held significant importance within the pantheon, known for her vastwork of worshippers and her rare practice of visiting them once or twice a year.
"Seraphine crystals? You''re not nning to rob them, are you?" Vilnius whispered in shock, his voice barely above a murmur.
"Stealing from Eden''s Garden is one thing, but swiping a goddess''s property? That''s asking for suicide," Vilnius growled, suppressing his fear. Michael could see the intense terror in Vilnius''s eyes. Even a brute like Vilnius wasn''t foolish enough to attempt a theft involving a goddess''s belongings. Judging by Vilnius''s expression, if Michael pushed him further, Vilnius might either fight to the death or outright refuse to participate.I think you should take a look at
"You''re fortunate we''re in public. Otherwise, I''d have kicked your stupid ass," Michael threatened, a sinister smile on his lips. But before Vilnius could retort, the orcish waitress approached them, bearing two tes of golden honey chicken.
"Here you go, my lords," she said.
"Is there anything else you''d like to try?" she inquired. However, Michael shook his head.
"No, just bring us the bill, please," he requested.
"Just give me a moment," the waitress replied before departing to prepare their bill.
"I only said to gather information about those crystals, not to steal them," Michael rified. Upon hearing his words, Elmer and Vilnius couldn''t help but sigh in relief.
"Elmer, you''re to learn everything about those crystals and the temple. Just gather information, no stealing," Michael instructed before the waitress returned with the bill.
She gently ced it on the table and looked at Michael. "Here''s your bill, my lord."
Michael reached for the bill but then gestured toward Elmer and Vilnius. "Actually, could you give it to them?"
Vilnius frowned at Michael''s request, clearly not pleased with the idea.
"No worries," Michael said with a smile. "This one''s on them," he told the waitress.
Vilnius sighed and reluctantly handed over a pouch of gold coins to the orcish waitress. She took the pouch with a polite nod and headed to the counter to settle their bill.
Vilnius couldn''t hide his irritation as he watched the waitress leave with their gold coins. His gaze shot daggers at Michael. He felt a burning anger within him. They had justpleted a sessful heist, and even though John had earned a substantial amount, he hadn''t bothered to cover the restaurant bill, not even for what he had consumed himself.
In Vilnius''s mind, it was a matter of principle. They had worked hard for their share of the earnings, and it was expected, at the very least, that Michael would treat them to a meal after all that.
Yet, here they were, not only paying for their own meals but also covering the cost of food they hadn''t even ordered. Vilnius hated the feeling of being taken advantage of, especially after the risk they had taken in the heist.
As she walked away, Michael leaned in, his voice low. "Don''t forget what I said, both of you. I''ll contact you soon."
Michael casually patted Vilnius on the head as he stood up, a smug grin ying on his lips. With a slow, deliberate sip of his cold apple juice, he strolled out of the restaurant without a care in the world, leaving hisrades to settle the bill.
As Michael disappeared from view, Vilnius couldn''t contain his frustration any longer. "What an asshole," he muttered under his breath, his voiceden with annoyance.
Elmer, who had been observing the scene with amusement, couldn''t help but chuckle at Vilnius''s remark. It was a chuckle that further fueled Vilnius''s anger.
As Michael stepped out of the restaurant into the bustling crowd, Pink''s voice buzzed in his earpiece.
"Gilrut is waiting for you at the Runemasters Guild," Pink informed him.
"Fifteen more days until the auction, Ghost. Once we get our hands on that book, we can officially start nning Rainar''s assassination," she added with determination.
Michael continued to walk through the lively streets, taking casual sips from his apple juice as he listened to Pink''s insights.
"Don''t get too confident, Pink. We still don''t know for sure if that book holds the information we need," Michael cautioned. If he had the immense fortune of three billion badass points, he could simply obtain the necessary information from the system. However, hecked both the points and a quick method to acquire them. Therefore, the n was to steal the book written by an angel of Seshat, the goddess of Wisdom.
"Dagon and the orcs in Durran seem to think it''s valuable. I''m willing to bet it contains information on how to y a god. Otherwise, Dagon''s minions wouldn''t be so eager to get their hands on it," Pink exined, her voice oozing confidence.
"But it won''t be as straightforward as robbing Eden''s Garden. The Divine Towers, the auctioneers of the book, are one of the most formidable guilds in this world. They have state-of-the-art defense arrays and several cultivators in the Soul Ignition Realm. If we''re going to do this, we need to be at our best. Otherwise, you''re as good as dead," Pink warned Michael.
"Ah, auctions... they bring back memories," Michael mused, reminiscing about the auctions he attended in the mortal realm with Gaya. These events were always rife with intrigue and offered the chance to acquire immensely powerful items. Michael was both curious about the uing auction and excited about the challenge of stealing the book.
As Michael continued his conversation with Pink, he arrived at a magnificent tower made entirely of gleaming white marble. The building was adorned with intricate glowing runes. Above a grand entrance, a wooden sign hung proudly, reading "Runemasters Guild" in elegant script.
Michael couldn''t help but admire the grandeur of the guild building. He chuckled softly and remarked to Pink, "This Runemasters Guild looks quite beautiful, doesn''t it?"
Pink''s voice responded promptly in his earpiece, "It certainly is, Ghost. It''s one of the few structures in this world that brought together the skills and craftsmanship of elves, orcs, and dwarves. A testament to the power of cooperation and a shared goal."
Michael nodded in agreement, appreciating the significance of the guild''s construction.
"Let''s go meet Gilrut and Vedora," Michael said as he walked the stairs to meet Gilrut.
Chapter 1107 Kingdom of Sagespire I
Chapter 1107 Kingdom of Sagespire I
With a sense of purpose, Michael entered the Runemasters Guild. The interior was a spacious hall with high ceilings, adorned with enchanting runes etched into the marble walls, which pulsed with a soft, ethereal glow. In the center of the hall, groups of orcs huddled around thick books, engrossed in deep discussions about runic magic.
As he made his way further inside, Michael noticed a series of portraits hanging on the walls. They depicted great orc runemasters from different eras, as well as a few distinguished elves who had contributed to the guild''s history. Each portrait was a testament to the rich legacy of the guild and the powerful knowledge it held.
Not wanting to waste any time, Michael approached a counter where a young female orc with sharp, intelligent eyes stood. He politely inquired, "I''m here to meet Runemaster Gilrut."
The young orc, whose namete read "Eshka," looked at Michael curiously. "May I have your name, please?"
Michael replied smoothly, "John."
Eshka nodded and gave him a warm smile. "Very well, Young Master John. Runemaster Gilrut is expecting you on the second floor. Take the stairs to your right, and you''ll find his chamber at the end of the hallway."
Michael expressed his gratitude with a nod and followed Eshka''s directions, ascending the stairs to meet Gilrut and Vedora.
Upon reaching the second floor, Michael found himself standing in front of a wooden door adorned with intricate runes and designs.
"Come in," He knocked, and a deep, resonant voice from within instructed him to enter.
Pushing the door open, Michael stepped into the chamber. It was a room filled scrolls and books with a firece in the corner. In the center of the chamber, Vedora, coiled itself gracefully atop a jade table.
Behind the table sat Runemaster Gilrut. His piercing gaze locked onto Michael as he entered.
Gilrut frowned deeply and began, "Do you know anything about the robbery that urred in Eden''s Garden?"
Michael, wearing an expression of polite curiosity, shrugged casually. "Robbery in Eden''s Garden? I had no idea,"
His response seemed genuinely puzzled, as though he had no prior knowledge of the heist that had taken ce in the realm''s renowned alchemical sanctuary.
"Took you long enough," Ayag quipped as they pped their tiny wings and perched on Michael''s shoulder.
"We learned so much about our kind and the artificially bred hydras," Sarba added, their tone full of hope and excitement.
Michael gently nudged Sarba''s tiny head before turning his attention back to Gilrut.
"Is everything ready?" Michael inquired.
"Yeah, I know you apparently have no idea what happened in Eden''s Garden, but you still need to be careful. Just in case," Gilrut replied skeptically, his gaze suggesting that he didn''t entirely believe Michael had no involvement in the recent heist.
Gilrut continued, "The portal gate is downstairs. I''ve set it up to open a gateway to the Runemasters Guild in Sagespire." Sagespire was the domain of Seshat, the Goddess of Wisdom.
"You''re attending the Divine Towers auction, I assume?" Gilrut asked. Michael nodded in confirmation.
"It seems like several of my colleagues will also attend the event," Gilrut added with a hearty chuckle.
"Any idea what they''re trying to buy?" Michael inquired.
Gilrut''sughter continued as he replied, "Everyone thinks we share everything, but the reality is, we only share after we finish a new rune or a project. Until then, we safeguard our research and everything rted to it with our lives."
Michael knew that what the orcs were attempting to purchase was a secret. However, thanks to Pink''s interactions with the runemasters while they were inebriated, they had learned that the orcs were seeking a particr book written by Seshat''s angel, believed to contain deeper knowledge about the gods.
"I''ll see for myself," Michael responded.
"I wish I could give you a token to enter the auction. But I don''t have any. It seems like you need to get one. If I were you, I''d try buying one in the ck market," Gilrut advised.
Michael nodded thoughtfully. He could have easily acquired a token from Vilnius, but he preferred to keep his whereabouts as secret as possible. Besides, he was confident in his ability to purchase a token in Sagespire.
As Michael followed Gilrut downstairs, they encountered a young female orc who wore round sses perched on her nose. She had shoulder-length ck hair, and her schrly attire gave her an intellectual air.
"Ah, Gilrut, there you are," she said with close familiarity, a warm smile on her face. "Don''t forget toe to the Temple of Noreboter this evening. We''ll be discussing those runic enhancements."
Gilrut nodded in acknowledgment of their ns. The female orc then turned her attention to Michael and raised an eyebrow. "And who''s this? A human friend, Gilrut? That''s rather unusual."
Gilrut chuckled and patted Michael on the back. "This is John, the one who assisted me at the Rideon Funds."
Recognition shed in the young orc''s eyes. "You''re the one who risked your life to save the hostages, aren''t you?" Her voice held a tone of genuine gratitude. "Thank you for what you did."
Michael offered a polite smile. "It was the right thing to do. Nice to meet you."
Meeka pouted yfully, looking up at Gilrut. "You didn''t introduce me to your friend, Gilrut. Don''t be so stingy."
Gilrut sighed with an amused shake of his head. "My apologies, John. This is Meeka, a fellow runemaster. Meeka, meet John."
Meeka turned her attention back to Michael and gave him a sultry look. "Pleasure to meet you, John. Maybe I''ll see youter." She added a suggestive wink before turning away, her departure filled with allure.
Gilrut bid farewell to Meeka and excused himself. As they continued their journey to the portal gate, Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at the encounter. "Seems like you have some interesting friends, Gilrut."
The orc rune expert chuckled as well. "Meeka''s one of a kind. She''s a genius when ites to runic enhancements, though. You''ll see."
Ayag chuckled mischievously, pping her tiny wings. "She practically threw you a ''do me'' look,"
Sarba joined in, adding to the teasing. "Yeah, how would that even work? How does a human and an orc have... you know...?" Sarba trailed off, looking at Michael with a mischievous grin.
Cain chimed in, "If Gaya were here, she''d turn her into mincemeat for looking at you like that."
Gilrut overheard their conversation and asked, "Gaya? Do you mean the Goddess of Monsters?"
Michael sighed with a hint of nostalgia in his smile. "Yes, that''s her."
Gilrut couldn''t help but inquire further, "Do you miss her?"
Michael''s smile remained, but there was a touch of sadness in his eyes as he replied simply, "Every day."
Finally, they arrived before a thick copper door adorned with intricate runes. Gilrut ced his hands on the door, causing the runes to light up with a soft, mystical glow. The copper door slowly creaked open, revealing a massive silver teleportation portal beyond it.
The silver frame of the portal was adorned with countless more runes, and a couple of orcs were busy working in the room, meticulously adjusting the magical machinery that powered the portal.
Michael''s eyes were drawn to the centerpiece of the portal room: a giant purple Celestial crystal. It sat at the center of a glowing magical chakra, radiating an otherworldly energy that hummed with power.
Gilrut turned to Michael and said, "This portal will take you directly to Sagespire, the domain of Seshat. Remember, the Divine Towers Auction is a grand event, so stay vignt."
As Michael stood there, a couple of young orcs approached Gilrut, greeting him with respect. One of them said, "Master Gilrut, everything is prepared as per your instructions."
Gilrut nodded and instructed the young orcs, "Activate the portal."
The young orcs turned their attention to Michael, looking slightly surprised but not daring to ask any questions. They hurried toward the portal and began drawing intricate runes in the air with their hands.
Michael sensed the energy fluctuations in the room intensify, and the giant Celestial crystal at the center of the portal channeled more power, glowing brighter and brighter. The runes on the silver frame surrounding the portal lit up one by one as a spatial vortex started forming within it.
Gilrut turned to Michael and said, "You can step into the vortex whenever you''re ready. It will take you directly to the Sagespire Runemasters Guild. When you arrive, hand over this jade coin to whomever meets you on the other side. They will know you came from here."
Michael took the jade coin, his fingers brushing its cool surface.
"When you finish everything in Sagespire, you can use this coin to return here. But remember, if you lose this coin, they won''t let you use the portal," Gilrut warned Michael.
Michael nodded, his steps deliberate as he approached the swirling portal. There was an unmistakable mix of excitement and trepidation in his gut, as if he were stepping into something of profound significance.
"Whatever you''re going to do, I wish you the best of luck," Gilrut said with a warm smile.
Michael responded with a pat on Gilrut''s shoulder, a gesture that left the young apprentices nearby curious about the identity of the man who seemed so familiar with the renowned runemaster.
"Take care, Gilrut. Don''t get yourself killed," Michael quipped as they neared the portal.
He felt the portal''s irresistible tug as he drew a deep breath, preparing to step through. Gilrut leaned closer, his voice softening.
"Take care, God of Darkness," Gilrut whispered. Michael offered a nod before disappearing into the swirling vortex, leaving the onlookers in awe and anticipation.
As Michael vanished into the swirling portal, he remained blissfully unaware that this would be the final time he''d set eyes on Gilrut. The future held an unforeseen, cruel twist for the runemaster, yet neither of them had any idea of the impending fate that would alter Gilrut''s life forever.
With the uncertainty of whaty ahead, Michael embarked on this journey, determined to acquire something that could potentially shift the bnce in his ongoing war against the pantheon.
Chapter 1108 Kingdom of Sagespire II
Chapter 1108 Kingdom of Sagespire II
Upon stepping through the portal, Michael experienced a rapid change of scenery. In the blink of an eye, he found himself standing in the midst of a magnificent marble hall, where rows of tables wereden with books and scrolls, resembling a vast library. As he observed his new surroundings, a young orc, d in gleaming metal armor, approached him.
"Do you feel that?" Sarba whispered, her voice tinged with concern. Michael sensed a peculiar sensation in the air, as if something had departed from him.
"There''s no energy in the air," Sarba added in a hushed tone.
"Show me the token," the young orc demanded, his voice cold and distant. Michael extended his hand, revealing the coin he held.
The orc scrutinized the coin, examining it closely before nodding. "Seems legit. Wee to Goldspire, capital of the Kingdom of Sagespire," he recited in a manner that suggested he''d uttered those words countless times.
"Thank you," Michael replied politely.
"You can proceed to the lobby through that door," the orc pointed towards a door in the corner of the hall. "One of the assistants will assist you with any questions you may have."
"Well, I was hoping for a warmer wee, but we''ll have to make do with that grumpy orc, I suppose," Ayag grumbled.
Ignoring Ayag''sints, Michael focused on the strange atmosphere around him. He could sense no energy, yet his own powers remained intact. He realized he could cast spells if he wished, but there was an undeniable sense of peculiarity in the air.
"Let''s move on from here," Michael suggested before making his way toward the indicated door.
Upon opening the door, Michael stepped into a brilliantly lit hall, bathed in the warm embrace of morning sun rays. The vast space was abuzz with activity as people from diverse races bustled about, deeply engrossed in discussions, examining the numerous portraits adorning the walls - depictions of renowned runes and runemasters.
Amidst the lively scene, emerald-green robed orcs and young female elves went about their duties, assisting visitors with their inquiries and offering guidance. Michael''s eyes were drawn to a particrly beautiful young elf, gracefully approaching him.
With a friendly smile, she introduced herself, "Greetings, traveler. I am Lyria, a steward of the Guild. How may I assist you today?" Her voice carried a gentle and weing tone, making Michael feel at ease in this unfamiliar ce.
Michael promptly activated his Eyes of Darkness, surveying the surroundings, only to perceive the same green aura enveloping everyone in the hall.
"I''m new to Sagespire," Michael began, "and I can''t help but notice this peculiar sensation as if I''ve lost my connection to the energy around me."
Lyria maintained her kind smile, her demeanor patient and weing. "Ah, that would be the divine array at work, my dear friend. Within the sacred domain of her holiness Seshat, all are considered equal. Here, the only distinction lies in one''s knowledge, not their cultivation stages," she exined, shedding light on the reason behind the unusual feeling Michael experienced.
Lyria borated, "In Sagespire, there are no cultivators. Those who arrive here from other domains find their cultivation temporarily suppressed, leveling the ying field. This ensures that unnecessary conflicts and disputes are greatly reduced."
Michael, intrigued by this unique approach, inquired further, "But if there are no battles of strength, how do people here resolve their disagreements? In even the most peaceful of kingdoms, conflicts tend to arise one way or another."
Lyria continued to exin, "Well most conflicts find resolution through debates and intellectual battles. Her Holiness Seshat values wisdom and knowledge greatly. However, she is not blind to the fact that some disagreements cannot be settled through words alone, and at times, battles must be fought with strength and steel."
Intrigued by this revtion, Michael probed further, "What does that mean, exactly?"
Lyria rified, "It means there is an arena, for those who prefer to settle their disputes through physicalbat. However, it''s considered ast resort, and such confrontations are closely monitored and controlled. Seshat encourages peaceful resolutions whenever possible."
Michael couldn''t help but find the whole arrangement intriguing. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said, "Interesting."
Lyria, with a relieved expression, chimed in, "I hope you stay away from the arena and find whatever you''re seeking here in Sagespire peacefully."
Michael smiled, teasingly adding, "I''m not here to pick fights, if that''s what you''re afraid of. I''vee to attend the Divine Towers auction."
Lyria let out a sigh of relief and said, "Ah, then you must be a runemaster?"
Michael shook his head, grinning, and replied, "More of a cksmith, actually."
Lyria looked at him with surprise, her gaze traveling across his muscr and imposing figure. "Well, that certainly makes sense."
Michael chuckled at her response, and Lyria continued, "In that case, you should visit the cksmith guild. It''s just a couple of blocks from here."
"Thank you," Michael said, offering a friendly smile. "I''ll do that. Goodbye for now."
With their brief conversation concluded, Michael headed out of the guild hall, ready to explore Sagespire and make the most of his time in this new realm.
As Michael stepped out of the runemasters guild, he was greeted by a sight of sheer elegance. The street before him was a symphony of grandeur and intellect. Ornate fountains adorned with intricate sculptures sprayed crystal-clear water into the air, creating a refreshing ambiance. Paved pavements, lined with trees, stretched gracefully in both directions, providing a serene pathway for pedestrians.
Most of the people strolling along this charming street held books, scrolls, or various forms of written knowledge. It was evident that in Sagespire, learning and wisdom were highly prized.
Carriages moved through the streets with a peaceful rhythm, their horses clip-clopping on the well-maintained cobblestone roads.
Each building that lined the street possessed its own unique style of architecture, showcasing the diversity of cultures and races that had contributed to the city''s rich tapestry.
"Go check out the cksmith guild. We have fifteen days to the auction and no token to enter the auction. The cksmith guild might be worth checking out," Sarba rmended.
Ayag, perched on his other shoulder, added her own perspective. "And the arena. I''m more interested in the battle arena."
Taking their advice to heart, Michael embarked on his exploration of Sagespire, his thoughts now focused on seeking out the cksmith guild.
As Michael walked along the bustling streets of Sagespire, he couldn''t help but overhear the animated conversations of the city''s diverse popce. The air was filled with palpable excitement and anticipation for the uing Divine Tower auction.
A group of young men, their faces glowing with enthusiasm, chatted amongst themselves. "I heard they have some ancient elven tomes up for bidding this time. I''m saving every coin for that!"
A trio of women, each holding a collection of scrolls, discussed their potential purchases. "The runemaster guild rumored to have crafted some powerful runes. We mustn''t miss them."
Michael observed with surprise the rich tapestry of races represented in the city. Elves, orcs, dwarves, halflings, and humans mingled in the streets, each group fervently engaged in discussions about the auction.
A halfling, standing on a crate to be heard, chimed in excitedly. "And the dwarven artifacts! Can you imagine having one in your possession?"
Michael couldn''t help but smile at the excitement of the crowd. The diversity in Sagespire was not just in its people but also in the shared passion for knowledge and rare treasures, all converging towards the impending auction.
As Michael strolled further down the elegant street, he soon noticed a distinct change in the atmosphere. The soft rustling of leaves and the murmur of conversation were gradually reced by the resounding ng of metal upon metal. The air grew warmer, tinged with the distinct scent of heated iron.
Turning a corner, the source of the cacophony became clear. Before him stretched a long, narrow street nked on both sides by bustling forges. Muscr orcs and stout dwarves toiled amidst roaring mes, their hammers striking hot metal with rhythmic precision.
From the forges came a symphony of shouts andmands. "Pass me the quenching bucket, Hrothgar!" one orc yelled, while a dwarf barked orders at his apprentice, "Steady now, Glimmer! The de''s edge must be true."
At the end of this fiery avenue stood the cksmith Guild, an imposing building with walls of deep, earthy brown. Itsrge, rectangr windows allowed the golden glow of firelight to dance across the cobblestone street. The guild''s entrance was adorned with a massive oak door, expertly carved with intricate designs that hinted at the artistry within.
As Michael wandered the streets, he couldn''t help but be drawn to the warmth of the forges and the harmonious symphony of nging metal. The rhythmic pounding of hammers and the rhythmic dance of cksmiths at their craft stirred something within him.
"I miss my forge," Michael sighed wistfully, his eyes fixed on the diligent cksmiths.
The cksmiths and their apprentices were engrossed in their work, their attention solely on the creation of their weapons and armor, too absorbed to notice the neer.
"For a kingdom that prides itself on peace and intellect," Ayag observed, "this level of weapon production does seem rather contradictory."
Sarba chimed in with agreement, "Indeed. Lyria''s words about the kingdom''s values don''t quite match the reality we see here."
"So what''s the y here?" asked Ayag.
"I don''t know yet," Michael confessed, his gaze fixed on the towering cksmith Guild at the street''s end. "Let''s check out this cksmith Guild. Perhaps they have something to offer us."
As Michael approached the imposing cksmith Guild, his path was intercepted by two armored guards stationed at the guild''s entrance. One was a sturdy dwarf, and the other a stocky human, both d in formidable armor.
Their expressions were stern as they blocked his way, and the dwarf, with his gruff demeanor, spoke first. "If you''re here to buy something, you''d best look for one of the smiths down the street."
"Can''t I just look around?" He politely inquired.
The guards exchanged a nce, and the human guard replied, "Sorry, friend. The master cksmiths are currently upied with recruiting new talent. If you''re interested in exploring the guild, you''ll have to return at ater time."
Michael had another idea in mind. "What if I want to join this recruitment?" he asked, his tone suggesting genuine interest.
The human guard, disying a hint of skepticism, questioned, "Are you a cksmith?"
Without hesitation, Michael confidently affirmed, "Yes, I am."
The dwarf guard, more experienced in discerning the truth from a person''s hand, spoke up. "Show us your palm, then. Let''s see if it bears the marks of one who''s wielded swords and hammers."
Michael offered a warm smile and extended his palm for inspection. The dwarf scrutinized the lines and calluses etched into Michael''s hand, a testament to years spent mastering the craft.
After a moment''s examination, the dwarf nodded approvingly. "You''re free to enter the guild, friend. May your time here be fruitful."
Once Michael had entered the cksmith Guild, the human guard let out a bemused sigh, clearly perplexed by the dwarf''s ability to discern a person''s profession from their palm.
"I still don''t understand how you can tell if someone''s a cksmith just by looking at their palm," the human guard admitted with a hint of frustration.
The dwarf, on the other hand, couldn''t help but chuckle at his colleague''s skepticism. "Ah,d, a palm tells a story, it does. The lines, the calluses, the scars¡ªall of ''em speak of a person''s trade."
The human guard shook his head, maintaining his doubts. "Well, that young man didn''t strike me as a cksmith."
The dwarf continued to wear a knowing smile as he replied, "That youngd''s palm told the tale of someone who''s spent far too much time wielding swords and hammers,"
Chapter 1109 Blacksmiths Guild
Chapter 1109 cksmiths Guild
Inside the cksmith Guild, the atmosphere was a striking contrast to the bustling forges on the streets. The interior was well-organized and disyed a variety of weapons, artifacts, and throwable items, all forged by the skilled hands of the guild''s members. These items were carefully encased in ss boxes, showcasing their craftsmanship and quality.
Adorning the walls of the guild were numerous portraits, each depicting a renowned cksmith. Among them were dwarves, their rugged features and strong builds reflecting their expertise in metallurgy. There were also orcs, known for their raw strength and dedication to the forge, and elves, whose elegance and precision in crafting made them equally celebrated in the world of cksmithing.
Despite the impressive disys and the historical reverence shown through these portraits, the guild appeared unusually quiet. There was only a single counter, but no one was present behind it. The absence of guild members or apprentices made the ce feel strangely empty, and Ayag couldn''t help butment on the unusual hush that pervaded the guild hall.
"Strange, isn''t it?" Ayag mused, ncing around at the deserted guild. "With all this impressive gear on disy, you''d think the ce would be bustling with cksmiths and apprentices."
As Michael explored the guild, his affinity with darkness allowed him to blend seamlessly with the shadows, granting him an uncanny ability to observe without being noticed. He wandered deeper into a dark corner, his presence shrouded in an inky veil.
Suddenly, the quiet atmosphere was shattered by the mor of someone entering the guild with urgency. Michael''s concealed presence allowed him to observe without drawing attention to himself.
The neer was an elf of regal bearing, draped in pale blue robes that flowed like water, and their silver hair cascaded like a waterfall. Apanied by three armored guards, the elf''smanding presence filled the hall.
With a voice that dripped with anger, the elf shouted, "cksmiths of this guild,e forth immediately!"
The guards nked their employer, their armor clinking ominously as they stood at the ready. The elf''s expression was one of impatience and frustration, demanding answers.
Sarba leaned in, whispering to Michael, "What''s all thismotion about?"
Ayag, always curious, chimed in, "Let''s wait and see what unfolds. Something seems interesting,"
From the shadows, Michael watched as a stout dwarf emerged from the depths of the guild. d in sturdy leather armor and bearing a hefty hammer, the dwarf bore the unmistakable marks of a day spentboring at the forge. His face was smeared with ck charcoal stains, and an aura of smoky warmth enveloped him.
The dwarf, his demeanor weathered by years of craftsmanship, addressed the elf by name with a gruff tone, "Arlen, what''s all this fuss about?"
The elf, revealed to be named Arlen, did not hide his exasperation as he retorted, "Where is the item the guild agreed to forge, Rurik?"
It was clear to Michael that Rurik and Arlen were not strangers, their interactions colored with familiarity and tension. Arlen''s impatience was palpable as he continued, "My elders have yet to receive the item theymissioned, and I''ve grown weary of hearing nothing but excuses from the cksmith Guild."
Rurik''s voice held a hint of frustration as he responded, "Arlen, I''ve told you the reason behind the dy. We simply need more time."
Arlen''s anger appeared to momentarily receding away as he sighed in irritation. "I''ve requested extensions from my elders before, but they are now breathing down my neck for the artifact. They''ve given us their trust, and I can''t keep stalling them."
Rurik''s eyes bore a touch of regret as he grumbled, "This wouldn''t have taken this long if the Guildmaster were here."
Arlen''s expression turned grave as he admitted, "I''ve exhausted all my contacts in search of the Guildmaster, but with no sess. We''re running out of time. It''s time that the cksmith Guild either sends representatives to meet with my elders orpletes the artifact before the Divine Towers Auctionmences."
"So the Guild master of the cksmith guild is missing?"
Michael''s keen ears caught the whispered conversation between Arlen and Rurik. He learned that the Guild Master of the cksmith Guild was missing, a secret carefully kept from the kingdom''s knowledge.
Arlen, exasperated, suggested, "Perhaps it''s time we let the cat out of the bag and inform the kingdom that the Guild Master has gone missing."
"I''ve told you already," Rurik protested, "if we admit the Guildmaster is missing, it will shake the Guild''s reputation, and clients will start withdrawing their orders."
Arlen frowned, countering, "They''ll also withdraw their orders if we keep dying the forging and provide nothing but excuses."
Rurik sighed and conceded, "We''ll find a way to finish forging the artifact you''ve requested. That''s why we''ve been recruiting new cksmiths - to bring in fresh perspectives."
Arlen couldn''t help but snicker. "And how do you expect these new recruits to seed in forging something that seasoned cksmiths like you have failed?"
Rurik confidently replied, "Experience is important, but sometimes, fresh eyes and innovative thinking can triumph over years of practice."
Arlen nodded and said, "For both our sakes, I hope these new recruits and the Guild can finish forging the artifact they''ve requested. Otherwise, the House of Silverbrook will be very displeased with the cksmith Guild."
Rurik chuckled and replied, "Just keep those elven elders off our backs. We work better when we''re not being constantly scrutinized."
Arlen let out a tiredugh. "You short bastards need to know how it feels to have elven elders breathing down your necks."
Rurik joined in theughter, saying, "I know what you are doing Arlen, and we''re grateful for your understanding."
Arlen sighed and said, "Just finish the artifact before the elders decide to grant mining rights to someone else."
Rurik''s expression turned serious. "That can''t happen."
Arlen nodded and replied, "I''ll do my best, but it all depends on the timelypletion of that artifact."
After Arlen left the guild hall, Rurik sighed and walked toward a portrait of a gray haired dwarf with arge hammer in his Rurik stood before the portrait of the dwarf guildmaster, a worried expression etched on his face.
"Where the hell have you gone to, Guildmaster? We need you. If those silver-haired elves take away the mining rights, we are doomed," sighed Rurik.
Ayag whispered in Michael''s ear, "This artifact the elf wanted must be important."
Michael nodded and said, "Let''s see what that dwarf will tell us about it." With that, he stepped out of the dark corner, revealing himself.
"Hello," Michael called out. Rurik was startled, and he turned around, clutching his hammer, poised for action.
"Whoa, I''m here to apply to be a cksmith," Michael said calmly, trying to ease Rurik''s tension. The dwarf seemed to be wondering how much of his conversation with Arlen Michael had overheard.
"I didn''t see you. Where were you?" asked Rurik cautiously.
"I was just standing here. You seemed pretty focused on your talk with Lord Arlen," Michael replied with a sly smile.
"So, you''ve heard it. How much did you hear?" Rurik inquired.
"Just enough to know you''re in deep trouble and your guildmaster is missing," said Michael inly.
Rurik growled, his eyes narrowing as he said, "If you ever tell others what you heard, I''ll have the entire cksmith guild hunting you down."
Michael chuckled and replied, "From where I stand, if the guild doesn''t finish that artifact, they''ll have the House of Silverbrook to worry about."
Rurik sighed, realizing the truth in Michael''s words. "If you want to be a cksmith, you should learn to respect the guild."
"Why don''t we just go and join the others?" Michael suggested, trying to diffuse the tension.
Rurik didn''t like the smugness he saw on Michael''s face. With a reluctant nod, he said, "Fine,e with me. I can''t wait to see what a smug kid like you can do under the heat of a forge."
Rurik gave a stern look at Ayag, the three-headed snake. "You should leave your... pet here," he said, emphasizing the word ''pet,'' "unless you want them to be barbecued."
Ayag hissed in response, "We are not his pet, shorty."
Rurik raised an eyebrow at Ayag''s hissingment and growled, "You should put a leash on that creature''s foul mouth."
Michael quickly interjected, "I apologize for Ayag''s words. Let''s not get off on the wrong foot. Please, lead the way."
With a grunt, Rurik nodded and turned, leading Michael towards the heart of the cksmith guild, where the roaring forges and the ng of hammers promised a fiery initiation into the world of the cksmiths.
As they continued down the corridor, Michael asked, "Who are the House of Silverbrook?"
Rurik snickered, clearly amused by Michael''s unfamiliarity with Sagespire. "You must be new to Sagespire," he remarked.
Michael nodded, confirming his status as a neer.
"They''re one of the big names in the mining business in Sagespire," Rurik exined.
As they were talking about the Silverbrook noble house and some of the mines in Sagespire, they reached arge, spacious hall filled with the mor of shing hammers and the roar of roaring fires. Several master cksmiths, both dwarves and elves, stood before a group of new recruits, consisting of humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves, offering guidance and instruction.
Rurik turned to Michael, a stern look on his face. "Remember what I told you earlier about keeping secrets," he cautioned.
Michael nodded confidently. "You don''t need to worry about that."
Rurik eyed him for a moment before grunting in acknowledgment. "You''d better not," he warned. "Now, go on and join the others."
Rurik joined the three master cksmiths at the front of the group and offered an apologetic nod before addressing the new recruits.
"Apologies for the interruption," he began. "Now, let us begin."
One of the muscr human recruits, a brown-haired fellow, raised his hand and asked, "What''s our first test about?"
The elven master cksmith, with a poised demeanor, responded, "This will be a different test than what you''re ustomed to. Watch closely."
With a flick of his wrist, he conjured several parchments containing intricate drawings and showed them to the recruits. Rurik continued, his tone serious and instructive.
"The test is for you new recruits to study the blueprints of this artifact," he exined. "You need to identify the challenges involved in forging such an artifact and propose ways to ovee these hurdles."
The recruits leaned in, examining the blueprints with varying degrees of interest and curiosity.
Michael, while studying the blueprints, found himself intrigued by the artifact''s intricate design. It was evident that this was no ordinary piece of craftsmanship. What particrly piqued his interest were the modrponents designed for energy absorption.
Rurik, the experienced dwarf cksmith, spoke again, his voice filled with authority and a hint of challenge. "A blind one can forge something out of metal, but only a skilled cksmith can craft fine artifacts. You new recruits must prove that you have what it takes to be a cksmith in our guild."
Michael suppressed a chuckle, recognizing this tactic from his experiences in the corporate world. It was a clear attempt by seasoned cksmiths like Rurik to harness the talents of the young recruits, pushing them to find solutions for a problem they had yet toprehend fully.
Michael, being a five-star cksmith, quickly discerned the true purpose of the artifact after studying it for some time.
"What does it do?" Ayag inquired.
Michael replied with a deepened thought, "It harnesses the energy of lightning." His mind couldn''t help but drift to thoughts of the ongoing war between the God of Rain and the God of Lightning.
Chapter 1110 Lightning Harnesser
Chapter 1110 Lightning Harnesser
The three master cksmiths instructed each new recruit to approach the blueprints.
"Alright, everyone, step up and study these blueprints carefully," Rurikmanded.
The recruitsplied, and one by one, they took their turns examining the intricate designs.
First was a young man, a human with brown hair, who scrutinized the blueprints with intense concentration. He seemed eager to prove himself.
Next was an orc, burly and strong, who examined the blueprints with a furrowed brow. His muscr arms suggested he was no stranger to hardbor.
Then came an elf, tall and elegant, with sharp features and graceful movements. He studied the blueprints with an air of sophistication.
Beside the elf was a half-elf, who disyed a blend of human and elven characteristics. He had a thoughtful expression as he analyzed the designs.
Michael, too, stepped forward, his eyes focused on the blueprints. Unbeknownst to the others, he activated his spyder, using its capabilities to record the intricate details of the artifact''s design.
Rurik, the seasoned dwarf master cksmith, stood before the recruits, his arms crossed and his gaze stern.
"Now, tell me," he began, addressing the recruits, "what is the purpose of this artifact?"
"If you answer us wrongly, you''ll be considered to have failed the test. Then, you will have to leave the guild and try again next year," the elven master cksmith exined, his voice gentle yetmanding.
Rurik turned his gaze to the brown-haired young man.
"So,d, you first," Rurik prompted.
The brown-haired young man furrowed his brow and looked at the blueprint once again. He scratched his head, clearly struggling to decipher the intricate design. Michael empathized with the recruit, recognizing that the artifact''splexity was challenging even for experienced cksmiths. Besides, Michael didn''t think anyone below Four star level couldprehend the artifact''s nature.
"It must be some kind of weapon," the young man ventured. "An energy weapon perhaps. It might use Celestial crystals to shoot beams of energy."
Rurik shook his head. "Wrong," he dered. "Try again next year. Now, please see yourself out."
The elven master cksmith gestured toward the exit, and with a resigned sigh, the young man left the hall, voicing a mild protest.
"Take your loss gracefully,d," Rurik growled as the door closed behind the departing recruit.
Following this, Rurik turned his attention to the half-elf. Judging by the half-elf''s uncertain expression, it was evident that he, too, had no better understanding of the blueprint than the previous recruit.
"I was thinking the same as him," the half-elf admitted honestly instead of making a wild guess. The elven cksmith sighed in response, not bothering to speak, and gestured for the half-elf to leave.
"Next year, then," the half-elf sighed in resignation before departing, leaving only three recruits remaining in the hall.
Rurik turned his attention to the two remaining recruits, a determined orc and a contemtive elf.
"Your turn,d," Rurik said, nodding at the orc.
The orc nced at the blueprint, his brow furrowing with concentration. After a moment of silence, he spoke, his voice carrying a hint of uncertainty.
"It could be a device for enhancing armor, like a protective field generator," the orc suggested.
Rurik shook his head. "Incorrect."
The orc let out a grunt of frustration, but he exited the hall without further protest, clearly disappointed.
Next, Rurik focused on the elf, who appeared deep in thought as he examined the blueprint.
"I believe it might be a tool for refining magic crystals," the elf ventured, choosing his words carefully.
Rurik sighed softly and shook his head once more. "Incorrect."
The elf, maintaining hisposure, nodded gracefully. He turned and left the hall, his expression one of graceful eptance.
With only Michael left in the hall, Rurik turned his gaze to thest recruit, his eyes locking onto Michael''s.
"Your turn," Rurik said, his voice gruff but curious.
Although Rurik was aware that Michael had overheard his conversation with Arlen, he remained impartial during the selection process. Michael''s prior knowledge of the situation wouldn''t grant him any special treatment; he had to provide the correct answer like the rest of the recruits. The elven master cksmith and the orc exchanged nces, skeptical that thest remaining recruit would offer a viable solution.
"This artifact can be a weapon or an energy harnesser," Michael began, his voice steady and self-assured.
"As per these blueprints, it''s designed to harness the power of lightning strikes and store that energy," Michael exined, surprising the three master cksmiths. Michael''s response shattered their initial assumptions about him.
"Please, continue," Rurik encouraged, his interest piqued.
"However, a critical issue with these blueprints is the potential instability of the final artifact. Some essential modules appear to be missing. If those aren''t incorporated, the artifact could explode during its creation, following these schematics," Michael concluded, offering his assessment.
The three master cksmiths exchanged astonished nces before nodding in agreement.
"You are absolutely correct," acknowledged the elven master cksmith.
"It appears we''ve found our new recruit," added the orc, though Michael shook his head.
"With all due respect, I am not a new recruit. My experience far surpasses that," Michael rified.
The elven cksmith raised an eyebrow and remarked, "Talent can sometimes be overshadowed by arrogance."
The orc beside him nodded sagely, uttering an old proverb, "A roaring river may drown its own banks."
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at theirments. With a confident grin, he responded, "Gentlemen, my talent is not arrogance. It''s simply the truth. But I understand skepticism; it''s human nature. Now, what''s the next challenge, if you don''t mind?"
The three master cksmiths exchanged nces, now curious about this confident neer who had shattered their preconceived notions.
"Welld, if you can indeed find what''s wrong with the artifact, you can''t be considered a new recruit. I think my fellow master cksmiths will agree..." Rurik nced at the orc and the elf.
To Michael''s surprise, the orc and the elf genuinely nodded in agreement. If this were the mortal realm, he was certain that these master cksmiths would have clung to their arrogance, but their willingness to ept his insights astounded him.
"Aranion, Nazrag," Rurik called his fellow master cksmiths by their names, the elf and the orc, respectfully.
"Please bring out what we''ve forged. This newd might shed some light on things we haven''t seen," Rurik said.
Aranion, the elf, and Nazrag, the orc, nodded before leaving the hall to retrieve the artifact they had forged following the blueprint.
"So tell me,d, what level of cksmith are you?" Rurik inquired.
"From where I came from, I was a five-star cksmith," Michael replied, his tone calm and confident.
Hearing Michael''s response, Rurik was utterly stunned, his dwarven eyes widening in surprise.
"Really? Lad, don''t pull my leg. Almost all the master cksmiths in the guild are five-star cksmiths," Rurik said skeptically, to which Michael just shrugged.
"That''s why I said I''m not a new recruit. I am far from it," Michael asserted.
"Well, if you aren''t lying, you won''t have a problem showing us your talent by forging several weapons, will you?" Rurik challenged, still somewhat skeptical about Michael''s abilities.
"Bring it on," Michael replied with a confident smirk.
Aranion and Nazrag carefully carried arge ss box into the hall, and Rurik advised them to be cautious. They gingerly ced the ss box on a table, revealing a cubical artifact made of what appeared to be abination of gold and silver metals. Lightning bolts crackled around it, and Michael could hear the ominous buzzing of the contained electricity.
Rurik exined, "This is the most stable form of the artifact we''ve managed to forge so far."
Aranion added, "The earlier iterations we attempted all exploded when exposed to lightning."
"Wow," Ayag gasped, her eyes fixed on the cubical artifact within the ss box.
Michael bent down to examine the artifact more closely. As he studied it, he realized why Rurik had mentioned that the guild would have forged the artifact sooner if their guild master were present. Michael suspected the guild master must be at a six-star cksmith level, a significant step above him.
"As I mentioned earlier, these blueprints are iplete, and several modules are missing," Michael exined.
Rurik inquired, "Do you have any ideas on how to remedy the situation?"
Michael paused for a moment, considering his options. Studying the blueprint and the iplete artifact wouldn''t yield a solution, given his current skill level. He was tempted to consult his internal system, even though it meant spending some of his precious badass points.
The only viable solution to fix the artifact was to consult the system. Although Michael was hesitant to spend his remaining nine million badass points, he understood the importance of resolving this situation andpleting the artifact.
While he wanted to impress the cksmith guild, his main motivation was toplete the artifact, recognizing its potential value in his battles ahead. He had a hunch that this artifact might prove to be a valuable asset when facing the God of Thunder, Kranar.
"System, how much will it cost to scan the artifact and the blueprints to identify the missing modules? I can see that this artifact is designed to harness lightning and store its energy forter discharge," Michael inquired.
[The system requires two million badass points to scan the artifact and locate the missing modules. However, if the host wants the system to design the modules, it will cost additional points,] the system responded.
"No need for design. Just provide me with the information about the missing modules and their purposes. I can forge them myself," Michael confidently stated. His proficiency as an Inventorplemented his cksmithing skills, enabling him to create these modules. If he were at the six-star cksmith level, he wouldn''t have needed to consult the system.
As Michael consulted the system and prepared toplete the artifact, unbeknownst to him and the cksmiths, several shadowy figures infiltrated the guild. They readied themselves to strike down their targets when the opportune moment arrived. The looming cmity remained concealed from the guild members, who were wholly focused in their efforts to finish the artifact.
"Welld, give us a new perspective," said Rurik.
"I can design and forge the modules, but I''ll need your resources and assistance to expedite the process," Michael confidently replied, much to the surprise and relief of the cksmiths.
Chapter 1111 Bloodbath inside the Guild I
Chapter 1111 Bloodbath inside the Guild I
"You can?" Nazrag was stunned to hear Michael''s confident assertion.
As the system deducted the two million points and ryed the information about the missing modules and their purposes, Michael endured the familiar pain in his mind. Ignoring Nazrag''s astonishment, Michael stepped forward, locking eyes with Rurik.
"Can you take the artifact out of the casing?" Michael asked. Rurik and Aranion exchanged nces, then Aranion carefully removed the lid of the ss casing and gently lifted out the artifact.
"Careful," Rurik cautioned as the elven master cksmith ced the artifact beside the empty ss casing.
Michael began to exin, "There are three missing modules. First, itcks a proper conductor. Second, there''s no medium to store the lightning energy. Third, it needs something strong yet lightweight to discharge the stored energy."
The elven cksmiths'' eyes widened as Michael''s words started to make sense.
"Give me a few parchments and something to draw with. I''ll design the modules. But what do I get in return?" Michael inquired, looking at the three master cksmiths.
"If it''s up to us, we''ll make you one of our fellow master cksmiths," Aranion dered. Unlike many elves, Aranion appeared open and weing to new talent.
"You fix the artifact, and you deserve to be our equal. So I agree with Aranion," said Nazrag, the orc.
"Well,d, I''m not going to sugarcoat it. We have no authority to make you a master cksmith; only the guildmaster can do that. But I can give you my word that when the guildmaster arrives, we will make you a master cksmith. Since he isn''t here, we''ll have to settle for gold coins or something of equal value," Rurik exined.
"We also need a token to attend the divine tower auction. I assume your guild has one," Ayag chimed in from her perch on Michael''s shoulder.
"Yes, we do have one. You can attend the auction with us," Aranion offered, noticing Michael''s interest.
"I agree. As for my payment, you need to buy me one thing I would ask for in the Divine Towers auction," Michael proposed.
Michael''s initial n had been to steal the book written by Seshat''s angel. However, if he could convince the cksmith guild to buy it at the auction, it would make his life much easier.
"I think I can agree to that, given you seed in making these modules in time," said Rurik.
For a prestigious and wealthy guild like the cksmith guild, buying one item at the auction was a small matter. If Michael could sessfully forge the artifact and save the guild''s rtionship with the the Silverbrook family, it would save them millions of gold coins. Hence, the three master cksmiths immediately agreed.
"Great," Michael said.
Aranion promptly brought over several parchments and a quill,ying them out before Michael. The young cksmith began sketching the missing modules with a focus that reflected his considerable skill.
The modules Michael designed were intricate pieces of artistry. They resembled delicate, elongated spirals of metal, reminiscent of coiled springs, with fine etchings and runes inscribed on their surfaces.
Each module had a small, hollow chamber in the center, almost like a minuscule thundercloud. Michael''s design incorporated delicate wirework, which, in thepleted artifact, would catch the energy from lightning strikes.
As Michael worked, Rurik couldn''t contain his curiosity. "Lad, how did youe up with this design? It''s unlike anything I''ve seen before," he inquired.
Michael continued his precise work but answered Rurik''s question without looking up.
"These designs are based on my knowledge and experience. I''ve encountered simr principles in my previous works, but I''ve adapted them to suit the needs of this artifact. The intricate etchings will help channel and control the lightning''s energy. The hollow chambers will store it, and the coiled springs will provide a controlled release."
As he finished exining, Michael''s hand moved confidently, putting the finishing touches on the module designs. Each line and rune seemed to be ced with precision, a testament to his exceptional craftsmanship.
Once thest module design wasplete, Michael carefully rolled up the parchments and handed them to Rurik. "Here you go. These are the designs for the missing modules. Now, let''s get to work. We have an artifact toplete."
The three master cksmiths studied Michael''s designs closely. They traced the intricate lines with their fingers, discussing the functions and potential challenges of each module. After a thorough examination, they nodded in agreement.
Aranion spoke first, his elven wisdom evident in his tone. "These designs appear to be quite ingenious. It''s unconventional, but I believe they might just work."
Nazrag, the orc, grunted in approval. "I''ve seen many blueprints, but thisd''s ideas show promise."
Rurik, the dwarf, gave a heartyugh. "Alright then,d, let''s fire up the forge and put these designs to the test."
With determination in their eyes, they gathered around the forge. Michael took the lead, instructing them on the forging process in detail. He had them fetch various metals, including gold, silver, and some lightweight yet sturdy alloys. Michael also required specialized tools and a specific type of hammer.
As the bellows pumped air into the forge, the mes roared to life, casting an intense, radiant heat. Michael divided the metals into batches, exining the importance of each one for different parts of the modules. With practiced hands, he demonstrated the precise techniques required for shaping and working the metals.
Soon, they were all actively involved in the forging process, forging differentponents of the modules. Aranion expertly etched the intricate runes onto the metal surfaces, while Nazrag skillfully assembled the coiled springs. Rurik specialized in the delicate wirework, ensuring the modules would capture and control the lightning''s energy.
As they worked together, the boundaries between master and apprentice blurred. The three master cksmiths had be Michael''s willing and skilled helpers. The forge echoed with the rhythmic sounds of hammers striking metal, and the room filled with the intense heat of creation.
"It''s finished," Michael dered proudly, holding up threepleted modules. These modules, intricate in design and precise in craftsmanship, were the culmination of their coborative effort. He ced them carefully next to each other on a worktable, and the three master cksmiths inspected them with keen eyes.
Aranion nodded in approval. "Impressive work,d."
Nazrag grunted his agreement, a rare sign of satisfaction from the stoic orc.
Rurik''s eyes gleamed with anticipation. "Now, the true test is integrating these into the artifact."
Michael nodded, fully aware of the stakes. "I''ll handle the instation. It''s better if I do it."
As he carefully picked up the cubical artifact, Ayag and Sarba, perched on his shoulders, couldn''t help but express their concerns.
"Be careful. We don''t want to explode into bits," Ayag warned, her tone anxious.
Sarba chimed in, "Yeah, please take your time, and make sure it''s secure."
Michael reassured them with a confident smile. "Don''t worry, I''ve got this."
With precision and unwavering focus, he began to install the modules into the cubical artifact. The delicate work required a steady hand and an understanding of the artifact''s inner workings. Michael moved with grace, securing each module in its designated ce, connecting the conductors, and ensuring the storage mediums were properly aligned.
The room was filled with tense anticipation as the cksmiths watched, holding their breath. But Michael remained calm andposed, his every movement deliberate and measured. As the final module was secured, a sense of aplishment filled the air. The artifact, nowplete, seemed to pulse with newfound potential.
With a satisfied nod, Michael stepped back from his work. "There we go. The artifact is now ready."
The cubical artifact, now fully assembled and brimming with potential, came to life with a mesmerizing disy of light. It pulsated with energy, casting an ethereal glow in the workshop. Aranion couldn''t help but smile at the sight.
"Now, all we need to do is provide some lightning to the artifact to see if it''s truly absorbing and storing the energy," Aranion exined, his eyes fixed on the artifact''s mesmerizing disy.
He turned to Nazrag, the orc master cksmith, and instructed him, "Nazrag, fetch Kranar''s crystal."
As Nazrag left to retrieve the crystal, Michael waited with a mix of curiosity and anticipation. Kranar, the god of thunder, held immense power over lightning, and the idea of testing the artifact with his crystal added an exciting element of challenge. Michael was eager to see their creation in work.
"What''s taking him so long?" Ayag perched on Michael''s shoulder asked after waiting for Nazrag''s return.
"It shouldn''t take this long," Aranion agreed with Ayag.
"There he is," Rurik said as the door suddenly opened, revealing Nazrag holding a deep blue crystal crackling with lightning bolts. Michael noticed the artifact reacting, emitting a low humming sound. However, their attention shifted abruptly as they saw a dark figure, robed in ck, holding Nazrag hostage. The figure had a cold, curved dagger pressed against the orc''s throat.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?!" Rurik roared, brandishing his hammer in preparation to attack.
Aranion swiftly flicked his wrist, conjuring a fine-edged sword into his hand. The two master cksmiths were startled by the intruders.
"Don''t try anything unless you want me to spill this orc''s blood all over the floor," the figure behind Nazrag threatened.
Michael remainedposed, but he sensed a growing number of hostiles surrounding them.
"Guards!" Rurik shouted, but no reinforcements arrived.
"Don''t bother. They are dead," the figure behind Nazrag snarled.
"Give us the artifact, and we can avoid further bloodshed," the second figure demanded coldly.
"You fools have no idea what you''ve done. You''re dead!" Rurik retorted, eliciting a mockingugh from the intruders.
"As much as I''d like to see a puny dwarf threaten me, I want the artifact more," said the figure, whose height and build indicated an orc.
"Don''t... don''t give them the artifact," Nazrag added defiantly, refusing to be intimidated by the de at his throat.
"My associate wille for the artifact. Be good doggies and stand down," the figure said confidently. Another dark-robed figure emerged from the shadows, their forms illuminated by the eerie orange glow of the forge''s fires.
"I won''t allow you to take the artifact!" Nazrag shouted, attempting tounch an attack against the figure holding the dagger.
The dark-robed figure merely snickered, disying a twisted smile, and with a swift, brutal motion, he slit Nazrag''s throat. The orc fell to the ground, blood pouring from the grievous wound, his life slipping away.
"BASTARD!" Rurik''s response was an enraged roar that echoed through the hall, his fury at this senseless act of violence boiling over.
The dark-robed figure callously wiped the blood from his dagger as Nazrag''s lifeless bodyy motionless on the floor.
Without a hint of remorse, the figure coldly ordered hisrades, "Kill them all and take the artifact."
Chapter 1112 Bloodbath inside the Guild II
Chapter 1112 Bloodbath inside the Guild II
Since Sagespire had an array that prevented anyone from using energy, none of them could cast a spell or use Celestial energy to enhance their abilities. Aranion and Rurik dashed forward, fully prepared to take on the intruders.
"Who are these clowns, and what do they want with the artifact?" Ayag asked. Michael remained close to the artifact as several dark-robed figures approached him from all directions.
Michael cracked his neck as an intruder lunged at him. Without wasting a moment, he kicked over a nearby barrel of hot oil they had been using for forging. The scalding oil sizzled as it sshed onto the ground.
"Argh... son of a bitch!" the intruder roared in pain as the hot oil burned his legs up to his thighs.
The others quickly changed their paths to avoid the searing oil, while two intruders slipped on the slick surface, tumbling to the ground.
"It burns!" screamed one intruder whonded buttocks-first in the hot oil.
Michael didn''t stop there. He noticed two intruders nking him from both sides and immediately shielded the artifact with his body.
"DIE!" one intruder roared as he swung a unique weapon at Michael. It was a long, flexible sword made of steel, sharp enough to cut flesh but pliable enough to coil. Michael swiftly bent down, narrowly avoiding the de, which missed his face by mere inches.
He then evaded a second attack byunching a counterattack of his own. Grabbing a nearby hammer from a table beside the artifact, he hurled it at the second attacker, who wielded a long spear. The hammer struck the intruder square in the face, making him howl in agony. The satisfying crunch of a broken nose rang through the hall.
Meanwhile, the attacker with the flexible sword swung the weapon again. It produced a sharp whistling noise as Michael deftly sidestepped. This time, however, the de managed to nick Michael''s face, leaving a small, bleeding cut. Undeterred, Michael grabbed the sword with his bare hand.
His hand bled despite his sturdy flesh due to the de''s sharpness. But ignoring the blood, Michael twisted the de before pulling the attacker closer to him. Then, Michael mmed the intruder''s head against the table, just inches from the artifact.
"Who sent you?" Michael demanded, but the attacker refused to answer. Instead, three more assants swarmed Michael.
"I will send you all to hell!"
"You will pay for what you did."
Meanwhile, Aranion and Rurik each grappled with two intruders. They had their hands full, while Michael was surrounded by five attackers. The leader of the assants watched the fight from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike. However, Michael sensed him and could feel his gaze upon them.
"Get that!" one of the attackers shouted as he lunged forward while Michael was dealing with another by banging the intruder''s head against the table.
Seeing the neer attempting to grab the artifact, Michael kicked the table with enough force to knock down the approaching attacker. Then, he lunged toward the artifact, grabbed it, and hurled it into the air. With incredible swiftness, he cast a silence spell, creating a slowed-time bubble around him.
Within the time-altered bubble, everything seemed frozen in ce. In the next moment, Michael employed shadow teleportation, instantly appearing behind each attacker within the time bubble. Without hesitation, he snatched a dagger from a nearby assant and repeatedly stabbed the intruder in the neck.
"ughter them all!" Ayag eximed with a sinister satisfaction.
Michael teleported behind each and every attacker inside the time bubble, delivering a series of fatal blows. Then, he positioned himself directly below the artifact just as the silence spell expired, causing time to resume.
"ARGH!"
As time resumed, the five attackers crumpled to the ground, blood gushing from their necks, and the artifactnded safely in Michael''s hand.
Rurik, who had observed how effortlessly the neer had dispatched the five intruders, was utterly stunned. However, Michael''s frown remained, as he could tell that these were trained killers. When Michael locked eyes with the leader of the assants, the figure darted toward him with unnatural speed.
"Protect the artifact!" Rurik shouted. Simultaneously, two attackers nking Aranion hurled a pouch of red mist at him.
"ARGH!" Aranion screamed as the red mist engulfed his face. The elf instinctively wed at his eyes in agony as the attackers closed in, swiftly shing the elf''s neck.
In mere moments, the attackers had imed the lives of two master cksmiths. Araniony on the ground, blood gushing from his neck, while Michael focused on safeguarding the artifact.
Since the leader appeared to be an orc, he towered over Michael with his immense size. Despite his massive build, the leader moved with remarkable speed. Michael clutched the artifact in one hand and cast the Silence spell once again. However, something around the leader''s neck emitted a soft glow as Michael watched the leader continue to move at his previous speed, entirely unaffected by the time bubble.
"How did you-" the leader began, clearly startled when he felt his amulet tremble.
Rurik, caught up in a fierce battle with two intruders, struggled to focus on the artifact. His short stature, typical of dwarves, allowed him to dart quickly beneath their strikes.
"You want the artifact," Michael snickered before swiftly retreating.
"Take it," Michael dered, cing his hand on the artifact. Then, he summoned his dark lightning bolts and directed them into the artifact.
The artifact trembled as it absorbed the energy of the lightning. The more it absorbed, the brighter it glowed. Soon, the pale blue cubical artifact transformed into a fiery red. A smile crept across Michael''s face as he watched his modules work perfectly. He adjusted the opening that would discharge the stored lightning energy toward the leader.
"Boom," Michael casually sneered as the artifact unleashed a powerful bolt of energy that shot out, striking the leader. To everyone''s astonishment, the leader disintegrated into a bloody red mist.
Yet, another shock awaited Michael. The moment the leader of the intruders perished, the two assants locked inbat with Rurik exploded. The dwarf let out a pained shout as he was propelled into the air, mming into the wall.
"Shit, what the hell just happened?" Ayag began to say, but her words were cut short as the rest of the bodies also detonated into bloody mist.
The air became suffused with the stench of blood as Michael remained the sole survivor amidst the gruesome aftermath. He clutched the artifact and made his way over to Rurik. The two master cksmiths had long since perished, and Ruriky on the ground, coughing up blood.
"Here, drink this," Michael offered the dwarf a healing potion. Rurik, seeing the glistening liquid, slowly brought it to his lips and ingested it. The potion worked swiftly, healing his woundspletely. Aside from tattered clothing, Rurik was restored to full health.
He stood up and rushed over to Aranion, but the elfy lifeless, his vacant eyes gazing into the distance.
"Rest in peace, my friend. I will find whoever is responsible for this," Rurik solemnly dered as he tenderly closed Aranion''s eyes.
Michael walked over to the gruesome aftermath where the leader had exploded into a bloody pulp. Only blood and gore remained on the ground, with no trace of the leader''s body.
Vedroa leaped down from Michael''s shoulder to conduct her own investigation.
"I knew that cursed artifact was trouble!" Rurik roared as he approached Michael without questioning the neer''sbat prowess.
"Stay here and keep the artifact safe. I''ll go check the rest of the guild," Rurik ordered, not hesitating to entrust the artifact''s protection to Michael. Michael nodded as the dwarf left the hall.
"Hey, check this out," Ayag''s voice called out after Rurik''s departure.
Michael followed the sound and discovered a piece of metal amidst the bloody mess. It bore an engraving resembling a serpent, although the fragment was too small to discern the full design.
"And there''s something else," Sarba added, sniffing the air with two of his heads. "Something in the blood... something musky, metallic." Sarba''s attempt to discern the scent was hampered by the other two heads, causing Ayag to react with disdain.
"What are you trying to do, Sarba? That''s gross," Ayag remarked.
Michael collected samples from the ground using a vial, all while holding the still-warm artifact in his hand. After discharging the stored lightning energy, the artifact had heated up.
Meanwhile, Vedroa continued to investigate the bloody mess, and Michael discreetly retrieved a tiny Spyder and a tracker from the system storage. He carefully concealed them within the artifact.
"What are you doing?" Ayag inquired.
"Safety measure," Michael replied.
"Should we take the artifact with us or not?" Ayag asked.
"Why?" Michael questioned, leaning against the forge with the artifact resting on the table before him.
"Because it''s incredibly powerful, and we should make use of it," Ayag argued, but Michael shook his head.
"We don''t need it. What we need to know is whomissioned the forging of this artifact and what they n to do with it. Keeping it with us will only paint a target on our backs. The artifact isn''t worth the risk. However, if we give it to the Silverbrook family and monitor its location, we might gather valuable intel," Michael exined his intention with the artifact.
"Besides, I already have the blueprints recorded. If we want, we can forge itter," he added.
The door swung open once more, and Rurik entered the hall. His eyes were red, a testament to the tears he had shed. He approached Michael, grief weighing heavily on his features.
"What happened?" Michael inquired.
"They''re all dead. All the master cksmiths, the guards, they''re all dead," Rurik revealed, his voice heavy with sorrow.
Chapter 1113 The noble house of Silverbrook
Chapter 1113 The noble house of Silverbrook
"They''re all dead?" Michael inquired, a hint of surprise in his voice.
"It''s just you and me now,d. I never even asked your name," Rurik remarked, sighing.
"John," Michael offered a fabricated name.
"Alright, John. Do you still want to join the guild?" Rurik asked, and Michael casually shrugged.
"Yeah, unless you go back on your word," Michael reminded him. Thankfully, Rurik shook his head.
"We did suffer a significant loss. But fortunately, most of the master cksmiths aren''t here in this guild. We can rece the guards. It''s a pity we lost Aranion and Nazrag," Rurikmented as he gazed at the lifeless bodies of his fellow master cksmiths.
"The sooner we hand this cursed artifact to the Silverbrooks, the better," Rurik continued. Michael nodded in agreement. With the tracker and spyder discreetly embedded within the artifact, he couldn''t wait to uncover the secrets behind the Silverbrook family''s request for the cksmith guild to forge it.
"You mentioned that most of the master cksmiths aren''t here. Where are they?" Michael inquired.
"They''re all in Ironhold," Rurik replied, assuming Michael was familiar with the term. However, Michael''s furrowed brow indicated hisck of knowledge about Ironhold.
"It''s Titan''s domain, the god of all metals," Rurik exined, broadening Michael''s understanding of the realm of gods.
"Most of the Sagespire members had gone to represent our guild in Ironhold. Thank Fortuna for their visit. Otherwise, our whole guild would have been doomed," Rurik expressed his gratitude to the Goddess of Luck.
Michael, however, didn''t believe in luck, despite the existence of a goddess of luck. Instead, he believed that everything happened for a reason.
"We need to keep everything under wraps until the guild master returns," Rurik suggested, leaning against the table beside Michael. The dwarf retrieved arge pipe and began to smoke nervously.
"Want a whiff?" Rurik offered, but Michael declined with a shake of his head.
"You aren''t just a cksmith, are you? I saw how you fought; you''re a killing machine," Rurik remarked.
"I''ve picked up a few things along the way. The question you should be asking is, who are these guys?" Michael responded.
"I don''t know. We can''t ask anyone. If word gets out, we''ll look weak, and every troublemaker in the kingdom will try to get their hands on our valuables. The first thing we have to do is hire new bodyguards," Rurik dered.
"I thought Sagespire was free of fighting and criminals," Michael remarked, only to hear Rurik chuckle.
"Lad, every kingdom has criminal scum. Sagespire is not an exception. Seshat might take pride in saying her domain has the least crime rate, but it doesn''t mean it''s zero," Rurik exined.
As they conversed, Vedora slithered over to Michael, who gently picked them up and ced themfortably on his shoulder. Michael then turned his attention back to Rurik.
"Why don''t we go and hand over this artifact to the Silverbrooks?" Michael suggested, watching Rurik release a steady stream of smoke before responding.
"Hmm. Arlen might be able to give us some idea about who these murderers were and why they are after the artifact. I''m sure it''s aplicated artifact, but I didn''t see anything that makes it worth going against a whole guild," Rurik pondered.
"It depends on how you look at it," Michael replied.
"What do you mean?" Rurik inquired.
"This artifact absorbs lightning, right? Who stands to lose more and gain more if this artifact gets out?" Michael asked.
Rurik mulled it over for a moment, connecting the dots in his mind. After a while, something clicked.
"The war between Rainar and Kranar... Do you think this is the work of a god?" Rurik asked, a shiver running down his spine at the mere thought of a god''s involvement.
"We can''t be certain. But it makes sense. No small-time criminal would go against a goddess''s rules. They not only fought us but also murdered the cksmiths, including the master cksmiths, without giving a damn about the consequences. They were desperate and probably monitoring the guild for some time," Michael exined.
Then, Michael cradled the artifact in his hand, studying the cubical object.
"Whatever it is, we need to get this to the Silverbrooks and let them handle the rest," he decided.
"Why don''t you take this artifact to the Silverbrooks while I get rid of the bodies and hire us some muscle? Unless you want to fill out mountains of paperwork to hire muscle," Rurik suggested.
"We hate paperwork. Screw that, we''re taking it to the Silverbrooks," Ayag immediately chimed in, her childlike voice eliciting a chuckle from Rurik.
"Just follow the street signs and ask others on the street if you get lost. Everyone here knows the way to the Silverbrook family. Once you get there, ask for Arlen and show him this, and tell him I sent you," Rurik instructed, tossing a metal badge with a hammer engraving to Michael.
"You''re trying to escape fighting, aren''t you?" Ayag rolled her eyes, but Michael quicklyughed and yfully knocked her on the head.
"He''s not a fighter. He''s a cksmith. I''ll do this," Michael rified. Rurik sighed in resignation.
"Meet me back here when you finish everything," Rurik said, then picked up the empty ss case.
"Put the artifact in the box," he instructed.
Michael gently ced the artifact into the ss casing. The unique nature of the artifact prevented it from being stored in a normal space ring, but Rurik was unaware that Michael had his own system storage, capable of holding almost anything. For the time being, Michael settled the artifact into the ss casing and covered it with a cloth.
"See youter then," Michael bid farewell, and Rurik nodded. They went their separate ways, with Michael leaving the hall and eventually stepping out into the bustling street. The people in the street were oblivious to the massacre that had just urred within the guild hall. The crowd consisted mostly of schrs going about their daily activities. Michael walked along the street, clutching the artifact carefully.
"It says to go north," Sarba remarked after reading a road sign that indicated the direction to the Silverbrookpound. Michael followed the road signs, blending in with the crowd as they engaged in various conversations, most of which revolved around the Divine Tower auction.
As he navigated through the streets, Michael couldn''t help but notice that someone was following him from behind.
"Don''t turn around. Someone''s trailing us," Michael quietly informed Vedora. He managed to catch a glimpse of the blue-robed figure, hooded to conceal their face, following him in a shop''s window reflection.
With a sly grin on his face, Michael turned into the next alley and deftly stowed the artifact away in his space ring.
"He''s taking the shortcut," Ayagmented. But Michael had anticipated this move; any professional tailing someone wouldn''t follow their target into a secluded alley.
As Michael emerged from the alley back onto the bustling street, the individual who had been tailing him abruptly stopped in their tracks.
"Now, they''re probably wondering where the artifact went," Sarba chuckled.
"He''ll most likely head into the alley we came from and thoroughly search those dumpsters," Michael said with a sly grin.
Having sessfully shaken off the pursuer, Michael continued his journey towards the Silverbrookpound.
Michael finally reached thepound of the Silverbrook noble house. He marveled at the sight before him. Thepound was surrounded by protective walls, elegantly adorned with intricate designs. Pink maple trees lined the path leading to the main gate, their leaves shimmering like rose petals in the gentle breeze.
The pce of the elves stood at the heart of thepound, a breathtaking sight to behold. It was an architectural masterpiece, with graceful spires and delicate carvings that seemed to dance in the dappled sunlight.
As Michael approached the main gate, two elven guards, d in ornate armor, stopped him. They raised their eyebrows inquisitively, their sharp eyes assessing him.
"Halt," one of the guards said, his voice musical yetmanding. "State your name and your purpose foring to the Silverbrook house."
Michael met their gaze with a respectful nod. "I am John," he replied, using the fake name he had given earlier. "I''ve been sent to deliver an important artifact to Lord Arlen Silverbrook. Rurik, the master cksmith of the cksmith guild, sent me."
The two guards exchanged a brief nce before one of them nodded. "Very well, John. Wait here for a moment while we verify your information."
Michael watched as the guard disappeared into thepound, his footsteps almost soundless on the paved street.
Eventually, the elven guard returned to Michael, his demeanor slightly more rxed. He nodded at Michael.
"Lord Arlen has agreed to see you. Follow me," the guard said, and with that, the massive metal gate swung open, granting them ess to the enchantingpound.
Michael followed closely behind the elven guard, his steps echoing softly on the paved pathway. The surroundings of the Silverbrookpound were nothing short of breathtaking. Lush gardens with vibrant flowers, a serene courtyard adorned with intricate sculptures, and elegant water fountains¡ªall added to the enchanting charm of the noble house.
The enchanting gardens, with the elves carefully tending to the colorful nts and flowers. Following the lead of the elven guard, Michael made his way to the grand front door of the pce. Two more elven guards stood sentinel at the entrance, their presence an imposing reminder of the importance of the ce.
As he approached, the elven woman in shining metal armor addressed him. "If you have any weapons, please leave them with us," she requested.
Michael nodded. "No weapons." Since he had stashed his dark swords in the system storage and had refrained from wearing his armor, he easilyplied with their request.
The male elven guard stepped forward and began a thorough search of Michael''s person. After patting him down, he gestured towards the cloth-covered artifact. "What''s inside this?" he inquired with curiosity.
"You don''t need to know that, soldier," came a stern voice from within the pce. Michael turned his gaze over the guards'' shoulders to see Arlen, the lord of the Silverbrook family, approaching with a retinue of guards d in full metal te armor.
"Who are you? This had better not be one of Rurik''s borate pranks. I''m not in the mood for such games right now," Arlen said with a hint of frustration.
"Is that it? He told me it''s not ready," Arlen added, his expression turning thoughtful.
"That was until I joined the guild. I helped themplete it," Michael responded confidently, which visibly surprised Arlen.
"Follow me," Arlen instructed. Although he had numerous questions, he decided it was best to save them for a more suitable time, not at the doorway to the pce.
Chapter 1114 Relaxing Day at Hot Springs
Chapter 1114 Rxing Day at Hot Springs
Following Arlen, Michael arrived at a spacious open ground that seemed to serve as a training area. Rows of training dummies stood at attention, and racks held an impressive array of weapons, including bows and swords. In one corner, apple trees were ripe, their fruit ready for picking.
Arlen gestured towards a table, indicating that Michael should ce the artifact there. Michael nodded and carefully removed the cloth covering the artifact, revealing the gleaming cubical object enclosed within a ss case. Arlen''s eyes widened, and he looked both amazed and skeptical.
"You''re certain it''s working?" Arlen inquired, his initial doubts still lingering.
"I''ve checked it myself. It''s working," Michael replied confidently.
"Very well. I need to see it for myself before presenting it to the elders," Arlen stated, his curiosity piqued.
He then called out to a young elf maiden with golden hair who was d in pale blue robes. She rushed over, bowing respectfully to Arlen.
"My Lord," she greeted him.
"Retrieve item forty-one from my room," Arlen instructed. The young elf promptly nodded and hurried away to carry out his request.
Arlen took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with Michael. "So, you assisted Rurik and the others in forging this artifact? You''re new to Sagespire, aren''t you?" Arlen inquired, his curiosity evident.
"Yes, I''m new here," Michael confirmed. Meanwhile, Vedora remained perched silently on his shoulder, observing their surroundings.
"Where''s Rurik? It''s unlike him to send a neer," Arlen furrowed his brow, sensing that something was amiss. However, Michael chose not to divulge the events that had transpired in the guild.
"He''s upied with another task," Michael replied vaguely.
"Hmm. For the sake of both him and the guild, I hope this artifact performs as expected," Arlen said, his expression a mixture of concern and hope.
"Speaking of which, do you understand how it works, Lord Arlen?" Michael asked, curious about the elf''s knowledge of the artifact.
"Of course, John," Arlen chuckled. Michael sensed a hint of pride in the elf''s demeanor, which made him reluctant to press further.
"So, John, to what extent did you assist in forging this artifact?" Arlen inquired, adopting a somewhat interrogative tone.
Michael responded confidently, "Without my contribution, this artifact wouldn''t have functioned. While Rurik and the others yed their part, my involvement was crucial."
"Very well. If what you say is true, we may have some special projects for you," Arlen remarked, to which Michael responded with a sly smile.
"As long as thepensation is generous, I''m more than capable of forging whatever you require," Michael stated, making no effort to hide his desire for wealth.
"Hmm," Arlen nodded in acknowledgment as the young elven girl returned to him, bearing a crystal that crackled with vivid lightning bolts.
"Kranar''s crystal," Michael murmured under his breath. He couldn''t help but draw the connection between this crystal and the one Nazrag had held before his untimely demise. The crystal before him was filled with tiny bolts of lightning that danced and crackled, emitting a distinct humming and buzzing sound.
"You do the honors," Arlen instructed, gesturing for the young elf to pass the crystal to Michael.
"Okay," Michael replied as he epted the crystal from her. It felt cool to the touch, and the miniature lightning bolts sent tingles across his skin.
Gently, Michael removed the artifact from its ss casing and turned it so that the firing hole faced the training dummies.
"You might want to take a step back," Michael advised Arlen. With a mixture of curiosity and anticipation, Arlen obliged, shifting a few paces away. His eyes remained fixed on the artifact, brimming with fascination.
Michael carefully ced the crystal upon the artifact. The moment the two items made contact, the artifact burst to life, emitting a continuous and resonant hum as it greedily absorbed the lightning energy stored in the crystal.
As the energy flowed from the crystal to the artifact, its glow began to diminish. It went from a brilliant and vibrant blue to a dim red, signifying that all the energy had been sessfully transferred.
"To discharge the stored lightning energy, all you need to do is press here," Michael instructed, indicating a small button on the artifact.
Michael aimed the artifact at one of the dummies and pressed the button. The moment he did, a surge of energy erupted from the artifact, causing Arlen''s hair to stand on end. He heard a crackling sound as a thick bolt of lightning shot towards the dummy. In an instant, the dummy was obliterated into countless fragments.
"Wow," Arlen breathed in amazement, his eyes glued to the remarkable disy. Yet the artifact''s demonstration was far from over. It had absorbed enough energy to unleash three more bursts.
Michael proceeded to fire three additional shots at the remaining dummies, each lightning bolt obliterating a dummy with explosive force.
"Wonderful," Arlen apuded with genuine admiration. He appeared both relieved and excited by the artifact''s wless performance.
"John, I should never have underestimated the cksmith Guild. Your guild has my sincere apologies," Arlen admitted, recognizing his earlier skepticism.
"It''s perfectly fine. Rurik mentioned that the guild regretted the dy inpleting this project," Michael replied smoothly. While Rurik hadn''t uttered such words, Michael saw this as an opportunity to further foster goodwill with Arlen.
Once the artifact had discharged its stored energy and returned to its original bluish hue, Arlen dered, "Now, I can meet with the elders." With a deft flick of his wrist, he summoned a space ring into his hand.
"This contains the agreed-upon payment. Please ensure it reaches Rurik," Arlen instructed, handing the space ring to Michael.
Michael nodded in acknowledgment, carefully epting the space ring.
"Kiera, show Master John our Silverbrook hospitality," Arlen directed, turning his attention to the young elf.
Kiera nodded in response, her striking blue eyes attentive and courteous. "Please follow me, Master John," she said politely.
"Wait for me here until I return," Arlen added before taking the artifact and exiting the training ground. Left alone with Kiera, Michael readied himself to follow her into the world of the Silverbrook noble house.
"Please follow me, Master John," Kiera said with a graceful nod, leading the way.
Michael followed her through a series of enchanting corridors under a pink maple tree canopy, was a mesmerizing hot spring.
The hot spring was a crystal-clear pool, naturally heated, adorned with intricate elven artwork and lush potted nts. They eventually arrived at a pair of grand double doors that opened into an exquisite garden. There, in the heart of the garden, nestled under a pink maple tree canopy, was a mesmerizing hot spring.
The hot spring was a crystal-clear pool, naturally heated, surrounded by smooth, polished stones. The warm, steamy waters created an otherworldly atmosphere, and the sweet scent of blooming flowers filled the air. At the hot spring, elven beauties, wearing revealing white cloth that left little to the imagination, tended to the needs of the elves and guests lounging in the water.
Kiera turned to Michael with a polite smile. "Master John, if you would like, please remove your clothes and enjoy one of our hot springs. It will rx both your body and mind."
Michael nced around, unsure of where to change. "Where should I change my clothes?" he asked.
Kiera gestured toward a nearby room, its door slightly ajar. "You can change in there. Fresh towels are provided if you wish," she informed him.
With a nod of appreciation, Michael stepped towards the indicated room, ready to enjoy the luxurious elven hot spring and experience the Silverbrook hospitality.
The changing room, constructed from polished bamboo and adorned with delicate, colorful silks, had an inviting warmth to it. A soft, pleasant aroma wafted through the air, apanied by the asional plume of hot steam escaping from the cracks in the bamboo.
As Michael entered the room, Ayag couldn''t help but express her enthusiasm. "By the gods, we really need a rxing hot bath after that ordeal."
Michael grinned, understanding the sentiment well. "As they say, ''A soak in a hot spring can wash away the troubles of the world.''"
He quickly shed his clothes and reced them with a pristine white towel, tying it around his waist. Feeling the calming aura of the hot spring and the promise of respite, he was more than ready to unwind in the soothing waters.
As Michael stepped out of the changing room, the glistening drops of water rolled down his chiseled muscles, tracing the scars that adorned his body like stories of battles long past. The perfectly sculpted abs and muscr physique he disyed garnered more than a few lustful and yearning nces from the elven women tending to the hot spring.
Ayag, always one to speak her mind, leaned in and whispered to him, "Well, it seems our elven friends here have quite an appreciation for your... looks."
Michael merely chuckled in response as he walked past the admiring gazes. He approached the hot spring and carefully descended into the soothing waters. The warmth enveloped him like aforting embrace, and as he leaned back, a sense of profound rxation washed over him. The cares of the day melted away with every passing moment.
As Michael savored the rejuvenating waters of the hot spring, he initiated contact with Pink through his earpiece.
"I''m here, Ghost," Pink''s voice echoed in his mind. She seemed to be awakening from a nap, evident in the yawn she let out.
"There is something we need to see," Michael conveyed to Pink. He closed his eyes, focusing on the mental connection with the system. In his mind, he sent themand to disy the feed from the Spyder he had discreetly installed within the artifact.
Unbeknownst to him, this connection was about to lead him to an encounter with a fellow god in the moments toe...
Chapter 1115 God of Rains Appearance
Chapter 1115 God of Rain''s Appearance
While Michael enjoyed the soothing embrace of the hot spring, Arlen proceeded to present the artifact to the elders in avishly adorned grand hall. The hall was an architectural masterpiece, with graceful arches and columns adorned with intricate elven patterns. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting a gentle, enchanting glow over the room. The floor was made of polished marble that reflected the light like a mirror.
Seated around a round table at the center of the hall were several elders, distinguished by their age and attire. They wore robes adorned with gems and diamonds, symbols of their high status within House Silverbrook. At the head of the table sat Gthor Silverbrook, the golden-haired elf who led the family. His chair was taller than the others, signifying his elevated position.
When Arlen entered the grand hall, his voice carried a tone of surprise, still not entirely believing that the cksmith Guild had managed toplete the artifact so quickly.
"My Lord, the artifact is ready," Arlen announced, his voice tinged with amazement at the guild''s unexpected efficiency.
Upon hearing this, the elders disyed various degrees of surprise. However, Gthor Silverbrook remainedposed and unruffled.
"Have you witnessed its functionality?" he inquired calmly, his eyes fixed on Arlen. His authority in the family was unmistakable.
"Yes, my lord," Arlen confirmed.
"About time," a silver-haired elf among the elders muttered, her patience evidently worn thin.
"Does it function ording to the descriptions in the parchments? The cksmith Guild has provided us with numerous excuses," another elder questioned, skepticism in his voice.
"I have personally witnessed its capabilities, Elder Elowen," Arlen another elder questioned, skepticism in his voice.
"I have personally witnessed its capabilities, Elder Elowen," Arlen replied firmly.
"Then it is high time we present it to him," Lord Gthor dered, his voicemanding. He had little patience for details and sought results rather than being bogged down in details.
"Arlen,e with me," Gthor instructed, rising from his ornate throne. He then turned his gaze to the gathered elders.
"Strengthen the security. They will stop at nothing to reim the artifact," Gthor cautioned, and the elders nodded in unanimous agreement.
With that, Gthor signaled Arlen to follow him, and they departed the grand hall together.
Unknown to both Arlen and Gthor, Michael was meticulously observing their every move through the Spyder''s feed. As he watched, the two elves progressed through the elegantly decorated corridors, finallying to a stop before a striking portrait of a silver-haired man.
Gthor reverently ced his hand on the portrait.
"Vivinias." softly uttered the word. In response, the man in the portrait''s eyes gleamed with life. The portrait then shifted open, revealing a hidden passageway. With the secret revealed, Arlen and Gthor proceeded down the passage, and the portrait seamlessly closed behind them.
The pathway they walked through was brightly lit, creating an ethereal ambiance. Arlen marveled at the secret hall, despite having seen it several times before. The hall''s ceiling was enchanted to disy dark rain clouds, and the walls appeared perpetually wet as if enduring a heavy downpour. Even the air in the hall felt damp and cool.
"Stay back," Gthor instructed calmly once they reached the center of the hall. He then took an elegant dagger and cut his palm, letting droplets of blood fall onto the ground. Upon contact, the blood sizzled like hot oil, and the clouds above rumbled ominously.
Arlen stood silently, clutching the artifact in his hand, as the room seemed to close in on them. The mounting pressure made it almost suffocating, but he maintained hisposure. Suddenly, one of the clouds floated closer to Arlen and Gthor, gradually expanding until it appeared gigantic. The two elves seemed puny in its presence.
As Michael observed this breathtaking disy, a face began to form within the cloud.
"Lord Rainar," both Gthor and Arlen immediately knelt in a show of profound respect before the imposing visage, revealing that they were in the presence of none other than the God of Rain, Rainar.
As Rainar manifested in the form of a face within the cloud, heavy rain cascaded down upon them, rejuvenating Arlen and Gthor. The downpour infused them with a surge of revitalizing energy, making Arlen feel stronger and more powerful. His worries seemed to wash away with the cleansing rain.
"Lord Rainar, I havepleted the task you assigned to me. The artifact is ready," Gthor reported with utmost respect.
"Good news. My patience was wearing thin," Rainar responded, his voice resonating like thunderclouds¡ªpowerful andmanding.
"Show me how it works," Rainar ordered, prompting Arlen and Gthor to rise to their feet. Gthor retrieved Kranar''s crystal from his space ring and handed it over to Arlen.
Arlen, having observed Michael''s actions closely, duplicated them. He ced the crackling blue crystal atop the artifact, which promptly began to absorb the lightning energy. Rainar''s ethereal face watched with unwavering patience as the artifact devoured the energy.
Once the deep blue crystal hadpletely lost its glow, Arlen pressed the button, and a formidable, thick bolt of lightning surged from the artifact. The hall''s atmospheric clouds seamlessly absorbed the lightning bolt, leaving no trace of its existence.
"I am impressed, Gthor," Rainarmended, his face showing no emotion but a subtle undercurrent of delight in his voice.
"This artifact will render Kranar''s angels and his power obsolete. The downfall of his domain is imminent," Rainar dered with a chilling tone.
"We are honored to serve you, Lord Rainar," Gthor replied with unwavering loyalty.
"Kranar''s worshippers are in Goldspire, searching for this artifact. What of the cksmiths who forged it?" Rainar inquired, his prating gaze focused on the two elves.
"Lord Rainar, the cksmith who brought us the artifact didn''t mention anything about Kranar''s worshippers. In fact, he''s currently rxing in our hot spring," Arlen responded, exining the situation to Rainar.
"You are wise to keep him within yourpound. Order him to forge more of these artifacts, hundreds of them. Provide them with anything they require," Rainarmanded Gthor and Arlen.
"That will be done, Lord Rainar," Gthor assured.
"Send your men to protect them from Kranar''s assassins. Once they''vepleted the artifacts, eliminate all the cksmiths who possess knowledge of this endeavor," Rainar issued a chilling and ruthless directive, revealing his darker side.
"Consider it done, Lord Rainar," Gthor responded resolutely, while Arlen, though unwilling, dared not show any emotion or question a god''smand. He felt conflicted about having to eliminate the cksmiths, especially Rurik, whom he considered a friend. Yet, he knew he had no power to defy a god''s will.
"Do not fail me, Gthor," Rainar''s firm voice resonated through the hall before his face in the cloud vanished. The rain ceased, and the hall''s atmosphere returned to normal.
Gthor and Arlen returned to the grand hall, only to find it empty. The elders had apparently dispersed after their meeting with Rainar.
"See to Lord Rainar''s order," Gthor instructed Arlen as they stood in the empty hall.
Arlen hesitated for a moment before voicing his concern. "Is it wise to kill all the cksmiths?"
In response, Gthor swiftly pped Arlen across the face and spoke in a cold, unwavering tone. "Do not question our god''s will."
Arlen''s face reddened, and he bowed apologetically. "Forgive me, my lord."
Gthor continued, "You will see to it that the cksmiths forge hundreds of artifacts. Keep them safe until theyplete their work, and be vignt for Kranar''s assassins. You should personally ensure the cksmiths stay alive andplete the artifacts."
"Yes, my lord," Arlen nodded in acknowledgment, understanding the gravity of their duty and the consequences of failure.
As Arlen entered the hot springs area, he spotted the cksmith, John, and his peculiar pet, the three-headed serpent, luxuriating in the soothing waters. Michael was reclined, eyes closed, seemingly lost in rxation. Arlen wondered if he had dozed off.
With a subtle p, Arlen summoned one of the elven girls who tended to the hotspring. She approached him with an air of grace and respect, her attire revealing her shoulders and arms.
"My lord, how may I be of service?" the elven girl inquired, her voice soft and respectful.
Arlen nodded at Michael. "Bring the cksmith to my room," he instructed, his tone carrying a sense of urgency.
The elven girl acknowledged themand with a curtsey and made her way toward Michael, her bare feet making no sound on the polished stone tiles. Arlen, satisfied with the instructions given, exited the hot springs area and headed toward his room. Meanwhile, the elven girl approached Michael, ready to ry Arlen''s request.
Eventually, Michael arrived at Arlen''s room, a spacious and elegant chamber adorned with elven craftsmanship. The walls were adorned with intricate carvings, and soft, ambient lighting gave the room a warm and inviting atmosphere. Arge, ornate wooden table sat at the center, behind which Arlen was seated.
"Sit," Arlen gestured to a chair on the other side of the table, inviting Michael to take a seat before him. Michaelplied, sitting down and maintaining an air of respectfulness.
Without dy, Michael settled into the plush chair opposite Arlen. He regarded the elf with a mixture of curiosity and feigned surprise as Arlen began to speak.
"I''ve decided to order the cksmith Guild to forge a hundred more of those artifacts," Arlen dered, his eyes locked onto Michael''s.
Michael widened his eyes, pretending to be taken aback. "A hundred more? That''s a substantial order," he replied, trying to sound incredulous.
Arlen nodded firmly. "Indeed, it is. House Silverbrook will provide everything your guild needs and pay whatever price you ask. We need these artifacts urgently, and your guild has proven its expertise."
Michael kept up the act and decided to utilize the opportunity.
Michael continued to push his point while maintaining his facade of respectfulness. "Other than the required metals and resources, the guild would need to invest an extensive amount of time to fulfill your order. Rurik allowed me to speak on his behalf, but we both understand that taking on this task would hinder us frompleting othermitments to our clients. Furthermore, the Divine Tower auction is swiftly approaching, and we''re already dealing with a significant backlog of orders," he emphasized.
"How much you need?" Arlen, aware that whatever amount they paid the cksmiths, it would ultimately be recoverable over the cksmiths'' lifeless bodies, didn''t bother to negotiate. Michael, fully aware of this, seized the opportunity.
"Five million," Michael stated with unwavering confidence.
Arlen, despite everything, was stunned to hear such an outrageous price. He couldn''t help but growl, "Five million? Brat, are you pulling my legs?"
To this, Michael simply smiled and replied calmly, "Like I said, Lord Arlen, I''ll forge anything you want as long as the pay is good. This is my price, and thus the guild''s price. This is the best offer I could give you."
Inside his mind, Arlen fumed at the audacity of the demand. "Maybe you deserve to die, you greedy bastard," he thought.
"Deal, but I want to personally see you and the cksmiths solely working on our project. That means I''ll be watching over you every damn second," Arlen growled.
Chapter 1116 Not one but Hundred More
Chapter 1116 Not one but Hundred More
"We are heading to the guild right now," Arlen dered.
"Now?" Michael asked with surprise, but Arlen seemed determined.
"Yes, now. Too bad if you have anything else to do," Arlen replied coldly, leaving no room for negotiation. Since Michael really didn''t have anything else to do, he agreed with Arlen.
"Very well. Let''s head over to the guild," Michael acquiesced. Then, Arlen and Michael walked out of the room. As Arlen exited the room, three armored guards approached him.
"My Lord, our men are heading to the guild and will be waiting for us," the leading guard informed. All three guards were armed to the teeth and stood almost seven feet tall. Their helmets concealed their facespletely.
"Good," Arlen nodded.
With the armored escort, Arlen and Michael left the castle, where avish carriage awaited them. The carriage exuded opulence with its deep blue paint and was pulled by four shiny brown horses. The gray-haired human driver opened the carriage door for them.
Arlen entered the carriage first and gestured for Michael to follow. The interior of the carriage was just as splendid as the exterior. It featured red cushions, wine for Arlen, and fruits arranged on a golden te. Michael sat across from Arlen and ced Vedora next to him.
"Head to the cksmith guild," Arlen ordered the driver. The three guards mounted their horses and followed the carriage.
"How long do you estimate to finish the artifacts?" Arlen inquired.
Now that Michael had studied the blueprints and understood the required materials, he couldplete the forging of a hundred artifacts in approximately two weeks. With Rurik''s assistance, the process could be expedited. However, Michael had ns to keep Arlen and the guards at the cksmith guild even after the Divine Tower auction.
"Twenty days, if we have everything we need," Michael replied.
"You will have what you need and more," Arlen reassured Michael. He then stroked his chin as if contemting something.
"Twenty days, you say? Hmm, the Divine Tower auction is in fifteen days. So, tell me, John, what does your guild hope to acquire at the auction?" Arlen inquired.
"No idea, probably some rare metal ore or rune-engraved hammers," Michael replied.
"Are you certain you want to stay with us and watch us forge the artifacts, Lord Arlen?" Michael inquired.
"The pointy-eared bastard has no idea what''s waiting for him, hehehe," Ayag chuckled inside. Inside, even Michael was amused. Now that Michael had learned that it was Kranar''s worshippers who killed the cksmiths, he was certain they would certainly try again. But Arlen was underestimating Kranar''s worshippers and had no idea about the ughter that took ce within the cksmith guild.
So, in other words, Arlen was voluntarily walking into a warzone. But Michael had already started using Arlen and House of Silverbrook as his pawns in a grand n.
"It will get pretty boring, and you might not have the luxuries you enjoyed, Lord Arlen," Michael said, only to see Arlen snicker.
"I am not a greenhouse flower, human. My history is tainted with more blood than you can ever imagine," Arlen coldly said.
"Oh," Michael pretended to be surprised. But it was Arlen who had no idea he was traveling with a God and had no idea about the bloody history behind Michael.
Eventually, the carriage reached the cksmith Guild. Arlen''s guards opened the door for them and stood there like sentinels. With their escort, Michael followed behind Arlen. They climbed the stairs leading to the guild and found no guards at the front door.
"Where are the guards?" Arlen asked, furrowing his brows.
"Let''s talk inside, Lord Arlen," Michael said before opening the door.
The guards stood closer to Arlen as they followed Michael into the empty hall. But after taking a few steps into the hall, the guards immediately unsheathed their longswords and shielded Arlen with their bodies. One soldier immediately pointed his sword at Michael.
"What''s going on?" Arlen asked, surprised by the actions of his guards.
"We smell blood in the air, my lord. Please stay back," one of the guards said coldly.
"You speak. Is this a trap?!" the one pointing his longsword at Michael asked. Yet, Michael remained calm.
"Lower the weapon, elves," suddenly Rurik''s voice echoed through the hall as Arlen saw the dwarf strolling forward.
But when Arlen saw Rurik, he frowned. Rurik''s face and hands were drenched with blood, and his robes had stains of blood.
"What are you doing back there? Skinning an elk?" asked Arlen.
"You haven''t told him," Rurik asked Michael instead of answering Arlen''s sarcastic question.
"What didn''t he tell me?" asked Arlen.
"Answer my question first, Arlen. Why the hell are you here for? Didn''t we give you that damned artifact?" Rurik growled before turning his gaze back to Michael.
"You have some exining to do,d," Rurik growled at Michael.
"I think you two have something to talk about," Michael calmly said as Rurik and Arlen looked at each other.
"Let''s talk somewhere private," said Rurik, but Arlen''s guards refused to budge.
"We aren''t going anywhere until you tell us what''s going on here. Why does the air here smell like blood, and why do you have blood on your hands?" the elven guard asked.
Rurik, already dealing with grief over losing his fellow master cksmiths and many of the guards in the guild, couldn''t hold back his anger.
"Because, you pointy-eared fart, someone sought after that fucking artifact and killed most of us in the guild," Rurik burst out in anger, shocking everyone. Arlen was taken aback.
"What?" Arlen asked in shock.
"After we finished your damn artifact, we were ambushed in our own guild. Assassins, good ones at that. They killed Nazrag and Aranion. They would have finished the job if it wasn''t for him," Rurik pointed his finger at Michael.
Arlen was visibly shocked, his usuallyposed demeanor shattered. He turned to Rurik with urgency in his voice. "Tell me everything, Rurik. What happened?"
Rurik took a deep breath and recounted the horrifying events. "Long story short, they surprised us in the forging hall, my lord. They had Nazrag hostage. Before we could react, they slit his throat. Blood was everywhere. They wanted the artifact, and they fought fiercely for it." Rurik paused for a moment, his voice trembling slightly. "But it was John who fought them off, my lord. He killed them, and it''s their blood you smell."
Rurik continued, his tone grave. "Before ambushing us in the forging hall, they went on a rampage. They killed all the guards and cksmiths in the guild."
Arlen listened in grim silence, his jaw clenched. He knew all too well whose work this was. It was the handiwork of Kranar''s worshippers, fanatical and ruthless. Yet, he didn''t utter a word, his thoughts racing as he tried to process the gravity of the situation.
"He killed them?" Arlen frowned, looking at Michael with a mix of surprise and uncertainty.
"Yes," Rurik confirmed, his voice gruff and filled with resentment as he nced at Michael.
Arlen''s frown deepened. "Show us the bodies."
"Follow me then," Rurik turned and walked toward the door leading to the forging hall. Arlen''s guards, still on edge, lowered their weapons but remained vignt.
As they followed Rurik, Michael sensed the unease in Arlen''s expression. The elven lord seemed genuinely surprised by the extent of the violence that had taken ce in the cksmith Guild. Rainar had warned Gthor and Arlen about Kranar''s worshippers infiltrating Goldspire, but even Arlen hadn''t anticipated such a brazen and brutal attack.
"Have you informed the city guard of this?" Arlen inquired as they walked.
Rurik let out a bitterugh. "Are you kidding me? No one must know what happened here. If word got out that we''re vulnerable, every damn thief in the city would descend upon us. I don''t believe in this ''safe city'' nonsense. Just look at what happened here¡ª''safe city,'' my ass."
Arlen nodded in understanding, recognizing the potential chaos such a revtion could unleash. He then asked, "Do you have any idea who attacked you?"
Rurik sighed heavily. "No, and you''ll soon see why."
Finally, they arrived at the door leading to the forging hall. The scent of blood grew stronger, hitting Arlen and his guards like an oppressive wave. They instinctively moved closer to Arlen, their senses on high alert.
Rurik, with a sense of resignation, opened the door, revealing the gruesome scene inside. Arlen wrinkled his nose at the overwhelming stench of blood as he followed Rurik into the hall. Bloodstains marred the floor, and Arlen frowned upon seeing several reddish-brown blotches.
"Where are the bodies?" Arlen inquired.
Rurik pointed grimly at the pulpy, bloody mess on the ground. "You''re looking at them."
The guards, like Arlen, were visibly stunned by the gruesome sight of the bodies. There was little left that could be recognized as actual bodies; all that remained were grotesque pools of bloody paste on the stone floor.
"What happened?" Arlen asked, his voice filled with a mix of disbelief and concern.
"Thed used the artifact to kill their leader. That damn thing shredded him to pieces. After that, everyone he brought with him exploded like watermelons. All this death and destruction for one cursed artifact. You''ve brought us nothing but trouble, Arlen," Rurik snarled, his anger seething.
"Now that you''ve seen what your artifact can do, I expect full support from your family, Arlen. We need to find out who these bastards were and who sent them before the guild master returns." Rurik flicked his wrist, causing the blueprints of the artifact Arlen had provided to appear in his hand. He forcefully handed the documents to Arlen.
"I want nothing more to do with that damned artifact," Rurik growled, not knowing that Arlen hade with a surprising request.
"You''ll have the full support of House Silverbrook, Rurik. But," Arlen paused, carefully choosing his words.
"What? Spit it out," Rurik demanded, his patience wearing thin.
"Rurik, I''m deeply sorry for your loss. But, in truth, I''m here tomission the forging of not just one, but a hundred more of these artifacts," Arlen confessed, shocking Rurik to his core.
Chapter 1117 Dragons in Goldspire
Chapter 1117 Dragons in Goldspire
Rurik stood there, absolutely dumbfounded by Arlen''s request. He blinked, as if expecting the words to change or for someone to tell him it was all a cruel joke. When he realized that Arlen was dead serious, a red flush crept up from his neck to his face, and his eyes narrowed in anger.
"A hundred more, you say?" Rurik bellowed, his voice echoing in the cavernous forging hall. "Do you have any idea what just happened here, Arlen? I lost friends,rades, because of this one cursed artifact, and now you''re asking for a hundred more of these death-bringers?"
Rurik''s face contorted with rage, and he seemed ready to erupt like a volcano at any moment. The guards, Arlen, and even Michael, who had been observing the scene, took a step back, giving Rurik space to vent his fury.
Arlen, however, remained remarkably calm despite the storm of anger raging before him. He knew that this was a difficult request to make, and the circumstances were far from ideal, but he had a purpose in mind.
"I understand your anger, Rurik," Arlen began in a measured tone. "And I sympathize with your losses. But I have my reasons for needing these artifacts. Trust me, it''s for a cause of utmost importance to House Silverbrook and the safety of our people."
Rurik''s anger showed no signs of abating. "Tell me, Arlen, why do you need a hundred of these death-dealers? What could possibly justify such a request?"
Arlen hesitated, his gaze fixed on Rurik''s furious eyes. He couldn''t reveal the truth behind his motives, not now. Instead, he offered a vague response, trying to find a bnce between exining his need and respecting the secrecy of his mission.
"I wish I could provide you with all the details, Rurik, but I''m bound by certain...plexities. All I can say is that these artifacts are crucial to a n that could protect not only Silverbrook but the entire realm. I understand this is a lot to ask, but your craftsmanship and the guild''s expertise are essential."
Rurik''s face remained twisted with anger and confusion. He clearly despised the idea of forging more of these artifacts, given the horrors he had witnessed. However, Arlen''s words seemed to give him a moment''s pause, and a flicker of doubt crossed his features.
"Think about it, Rurik," Arlen urged, his voice softer but no less determined. "Consider the safety of our people and what we might achieve with these artifacts. I promise, I''ll do everything in my power to support you and your guild during this challenging task."
Arlen decided to reveal another piece of information that might help sway Rurik''s opinion.
"Rurik, John here," Arlen gestured to Michael, "agreed to forge these artifacts. He even asked for five million."
Rurik''s eyes widened, and his jaw dropped in sheer disbelief. He looked at Michael with a mixture of shock and anger. "Who the hell gave you the right to agree to something like that?" he roared.
Michael remained remarkably calm in the face of Rurik''s fury. "Doing nothing solves nothing," he replied coolly. "Besides, that sum will go a long way in taking care of the families of those we lost today."
Rurik''s anger still simmered, but he seemed to be reluctantly considering the practical side of Michael''s argument. He grumbled under his breath but didn''t immediately object.
Michael continued, "And, Rurik, Lord Arlen has pledged to stay with us throughout the entire process. He''ll ensure nothing happens to us during this endeavor. You won''t be alone in this."
Rurik''s shoulders sagged as he weighed the pros and cons of the situation. He clearly despised the idea of creating more of these artifacts, but Arlen''s persistence and Michael''s rational arguments were slowly chipping away at his resistance.
Michael, seeing that Rurik had reluctantly agreed to the task at hand, spoke in a soothing tone. "Rurik, take a breath, my friend. Head outside, calm yourself, and attend to the bodies of our fallenrades. Keeping busy will help you deal with the loss."
Rurik sighed deeply, the weight of his responsibilities and the recent tragedy bearing down on him. "You''re right," he mumbled, his voice heavy with grief and frustration. "I''ll see to it."
Before leaving, he turned to Arlen, who had been listening to their conversation intently. "I need to hire new bodyguards and muscle for the guild. We''re vulnerable right now."
Arlen, always quick on his feet, nodded understandingly. "Don''t worry, Rurik. My guards will assist you with that, and I''ve dispatched more Silverbrook soldiers to your aid. You won''t have to worry about another attack."
Rurik, grateful for the support, nodded back, though his expression remained somber. "Thank you, Arlen. Let''s hope these new artifacts are worth all this trouble."
With that, Rurik headed outside, leaving Arlen and Michael alone in the hall.
Michael, recognizing that Rurik needed some time to recover, made his way back to the forge.
"So, Lord Arlen, we require several materials to forge these artifacts. How about you point me in the direction of where to purchase these?" Michael asked, grabbing a nearby parchment and quill to begin listing the necessary items.
Arlen, however, had a different idea. He replied, "No need. Give me the list, and one of my guards will procure everything you require."
Michael couldn''t help but notice Arlen''s determination to keep him within the guild''s confines until the task wasplete. It was evident that Arlen was willing to go to great lengths to ensure the forging of all one hundred artifacts.
"Very well," Michael conceded with a wry smile. "But I do hope I''ll have a chance to catch my breath between now and then."
Arlen remained silent, clearly unwavering in his resolve. Michael then tossed the parchment to one of Arlen''s guards with clear instructions, "We need everything on that list. No alternatives, no scrimping on quality."
The guard nodded, taking the parchment and promptly making his way out of the hall to gather the necessary materials for the ambitious forging project ahead.
***************************
As night fell in Goldspire, Michael left the guild after sessfully forging a couple of artifacts.
"I hate that elf already," Ayag voiced herints while perched on Michael''s shoulder.
"Hey, we have no reason to hate him. We''re using him," Sarba chimed in. Michael skillfully navigated through the bustling streets of Goldspire. The city''s beauty was entuated by the nighttime glow, with golden light orbs illuminating every corner.
The streets began to fill with food stalls, and the tantalizing aroma of various dishes wafted through the air, making Michael''s stomach growl in hunger.
Spotting a food vendor offering something akin to a hot dog from Earth, Michael made his way over.
"Would you like some of my signature chicken baked bun, sir?" the elderly vendor asked.
"How much?" Michael inquired.
"Two gold coins," the vendor replied.
Michael handed over the coins and patiently waited for his hot bun, freshly baked in the vendor''s stall. In the midst of his meal, he heard amotion in the street and noticed a group of young men carrying makeshift boards depicting dragons, headed in a particr direction.
"Where are they going?" Ayag wondered.
"To the arena," the old man answered, handing Michael the piping hot bun from his oven.
"I''ve heard of it. Isn''t that where people in Sagespire settle their disputes with their fists?" Michael asked.
"Usually, yes. But this month, the arena is hosting dragon fights. They do that every year leading up to the Divine Tower auctions," the old man informed him.
"Dragon fights? We have to check that out," Ayag said, her curiosity piqued.
"You must be new to Goldspire. These events are some of the highlights leading up to the Divine Tower auctions. They draw arge crowd, and most of them end up attending the auction as well. It''s one of the biggest events in Sagespire," a fellow customer behind Michael shared.
"Then I should definitely go have a look," Michael replied, leaving the vendor''s stall. He took a bite of the bun.
"The old man makes a mean bun," hemented, savoring the vors.
"Oh,e on, give us a bite," Ayag yfully growled, and the three serpent heads each took a nibble.
"Good, but not as good as Raylene''s cooking," Ayag mumbled as she chewed on the bun.
As Michael continued on his journey, a grand arena, shielded by a gleaming golden dome, emerged in the distance. The sight of the arena was nothing short of breathtaking. It stood as a magnificent centerpiece, surrounded by a meticulously pruned grassfield that stretched out like a lush carpet.
The arena''s facade was adorned with intricate designs, and its golden surface shimmered under the illumination of the countless lights that lined its perimeter.
Even from this distance, Michael could hear the unmistakable sound of a roaring crowd emanating from within the arena. The cheers and shouts of spectators filled the air, creating an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation. It was clear that something truly remarkable was about to take ce under the golden dome of the grand arena.
Suddenly, Michael heard a thunderous roaring from the arena, and he looked up to see a massive shadow cast upon the sky. It was a dragon, its wingspan stretching wide.
Vedora was stunned by the sight, their three serpent heads locking onto the colossal shadow above. Ayag quickly urged Michael to hurry, her voice filled with excitement. "Come on, we can''t miss this!"
Without wasting a moment, Michael quickened his pace, following the enthusiastic crowd toward the grand arena, where the spectacle of dragon fights was about to unfold.
Chapter 1118 Ironhands Beast Tamers
Chapter 1118 Ironhands Beast Tamers
Michael followed the stream of excited onlookers and eventually arrived at a bustling checkpoint where a guard was issuing tickets for entry. The guard, clearly in a rush, was barking at anyone who seemed to waste his time or had difficulty counting their gold coins.
"Come on, people, it''s not rune mastery! One ticket per person, three gold coin each! Move it!" the guard shouted impatiently.
Michael joined the line, patiently waiting for his turn. Vedora, perched on his shoulder, drew the guard''s attention with their three heads. The guard pointed at her and said, "You, with the snake, that''s two tickets."
Michael didn''t argue. He simply handed the guard six gold coins, receiving the two tickets in return. With the tickets in hand, he entered the arena, ready to witness the thrilling spectacle of dragon fights.
Inside the arena, the seating was meticulously arranged in tiers, providing each viewer an unobstructed view of the central battleground. Rows of seats resembled grand steps, rising upward, while a colossal golden dome enveloped the arena''s ground, protecting spectators from any unexpected consequences of the intense dragon battle.
The crowd was electrified with excitement, their voices blending into an exhrating symphony of cheers and gasps. Vendors weaved through the throngs of people, hawking an array of delectable snacks and refreshing beverages.
Michael''s gaze was immediately drawn to the spectacle in the arena''s center. Two majestic dragons were locked in a fierce confrontation. One, a colossal creature with scales the deep blue of a stormy sea, crackled with dancing lightning around its formidable form. The other, a graceful jade green dragon, moved with serpentine elegance, its eyes locked onto its formidable opponent.
In the midst of the tumultuous crowd, conversations buzzed around him.
"Look at that lightning dragon. It''s incredible!"
"Who''s your bet on, the blue one or the green one?"
"Did you see thatst maneuver? It''s anyone''s game!"
With the dragons locked inbat, Michael quickly located an empty seat and settled down, his eyes fixed on the breathtaking spectacle unfolding before him.
Michael quickly activated his Eyes of Darkness to see whether the dragons were stronger or weaker than him and found out both the dragons had red aura around him. In other words, both these dragons were stronger than him, even if he fought using his God powers. This made Michael perplexed, but he had a feeling he would find out about the dragons'' power soon.
Meanwhile, the grand battle raged on between the two magnificent dragons. The blue dragon, its massive body crackling with fierce, arcing lightning, unleashed a powerful breath attack that sent bolts of electricity shooting toward its green adversary. The sky inside the arena seemed to split open as the lightning collided with the emerald scales of the green dragon.
A thunderous explosion of sparks and sound rocked the arena, sending shockwaves through the crowd.
"By the gods, did you see that lightning strike? What a disy!"
"Green''s got the poison, but blue''s got that shocking power!"
The green dragon retaliated swiftly, exhaling a noxious cloud of poisonous gas that enveloped the blue dragon. Its adversary writhed in agony, the venom seeping through the cracks in its scales, but it fought back valiantly, determined not to be defeated so easily.
The battle was an intricate dance of destruction. The green dragon darted and weaved, striking with precision as it sank its venomous fangs into the blue''s shimmering hide. The blue dragon retaliated with explosive bursts of lightning, searing its opponent''s scales and sending it recoiling.
As the epic confrontation unfolded, the crowd roared with excitement.
"Look at those fangs, the green one''s deadly!"
"The blue dragon''s lighting strikes are awe-inspiring!"
The cheers and exmations of the spectators intermingled with the roars and growls of the battling dragons.
"Did you notice that? The dragons have no cor or anything. They seemed to be fighting in their own free will," Ayag whispered into Michael''s ears.
"Hmm," nodded Michael as he noticed too.
The crowd''s enthusiasm reached a fever pitch as they passionately cheered for their chosen dragon. The entire arena seemed to vibrate with the intensity of their support.
"Come on, Blue! Zap that green pest!"
"Green, show ''em your venomous might!"
The battle between the two dragons intensified. The green dragon, despite its poisoning and injuries,unched a barrage of deadly poison breath attacks, attempting to weaken its opponent. The blue dragon, now enraged and determined to end the fight, countered with a relentless storm of lightning strikes that seared through the air.
The pivotal moment came when the blue dragon, gathering all its might, unleashed a colossal attack. It drew upon its inner reservoir of electrical energy, creating an awe-inspiring spectacle. Lightning crackled around its form, coalescing into a massive, swirling tempest of energy that enveloped the green dragon.
With a deafening thunderp, the blue dragon released its pent-up energy in a cataclysmic explosion of power. The blinding, electric storm engulfed the green dragon, its scales glowing with an ethereal blue light as the tremendous energy coursed through its body.
The people in the arena gasped in shock and awe.
"By the gods, look at that! It''s a maelstrom of lightning!"
"Green doesn''t stand a chance! It''s over!"
As the tempest of lightning faded away, the green dragon''s once-vibrant scales nowy charred and ckened. It let out a final, mournful roar before copsing onto the arena floor, defeated.
The victorious blue dragon, its electrified form still crackling with residual energy, gazed upward at the darkened sky. It let out a triumphant roar, a thunderous bellow that echoed throughout the arena. The sheer intensity of its cry sent shivers down the spines of everyone in attendance.
Electricity danced in the air, making the hair on the back of necks stand on end. The dragon, clearly reveling in its victory, spread its colossal wings and beat them with incredible force. The shockwaves of its mighty ps rippled through the stadium, causing banners to flutter wildly and spectators to clutch their seats in awe.
Amid the electrifying aftermath of the battle, a burly, bald-headed man with bulging muscles approached the center of the arena.
He raised his arms, and his deep voice boomed, amplified by magical runes that carried his words to every corner of the arena.
"Ladies and gentlemen! After a fierce and awe-inspiring battle, the victor is none other than the Thunder King!" The man''s announcement was met with an explosion of cheers and apuse from the crowd.
The name "Thunder King" resounded through the arena as spectators celebrated the dragon''s triumph.
As the bald-headed man continued to stand proudly at the center of the arena, the victorious blue dragon obediently settled beside him, its crackling form now a bit calmer but still retaining an air of electric might.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the man dered, his voice still resonating through the arena, "I present to you the Thunder King!" The crowd erupted in apuse once more.
"Now, my fine spectators," the man continued, "imagine having this magnificent creature at yourmand. The power of lightning and thunder coursing through your veins. The awe and fear you would inspire in your rivals. The Thunder King is a symbol of might and authority!"
He emphasized each word, his enthusiasm infectious, as he painted a picture of grandeur and dominance.
"Owning the Thunder King could make you the most powerful force in Sagespire and beyond. At the Divine Tower auction, this majestic beast will be offered to the highest bidder. You won''t want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"
The people in the audience gasped in amazement and surprise. Whispers and excited chatter filled the air as they discussed the prospect of acquiring such a formidable creature.
"I can''t believe it!" one spectator eximed.
"The Thunder King at the Divine Tower auction? This changes everything!" another person marveled.
"To witness more thrilling dragon fights and to explore the possibility of acquiring other rare and formidable beasts," the man proimed with a theatrical ir, "simply contact the Ironhand Beast Tamers! We are here to make your wildest dreamse true!"
With a final flourish, the man tipped his hat to the audience and bid his farewell. He turned and walked regally toward a giant door at the edge of the arena. The crowd watched in awe as he disappeared into the shadows beyond.
The arena buzzed with excitement as the spectators continued to discuss the astonishing events they had just witnessed.
"Ironhand Beast Tamers, huh? We need to check them out before we leave," Michael mused, his curiosity piqued by the mention of this new faction. Goldspire seemed to be full of surprises.
"This auction seems more exciting than we gave it credit for," Ayag observed, her serpentine heads swaying with interest.
"The next fight will be between Gaddorock, the Ape, versus Larni, the Spider Monkey!" another voice echoed through the hall, reigniting the crowd''s excitement.
Michael, however, had other ns. He stood up, his gaze fixed on the exit.
"Where are you going?" Ayag inquired, puzzled.
"Aren''t you a bit curious about the Divine Towers?" Michael replied, already making his way through the bustling crowd. Eventually, he stepped outside the arena, where the crowd was still pouring in.
"I guess we''re going to the Divine Towers before the auction, then?" Sarba remarked, summarizing their new direction as Michael nodded.
Once back on the main street, Michael scanned the area, his gaze falling upon the various food stalls. He approached one of the vendors, who was busy flipping skewers of sizzling meat.
"Excuse me," Michael began, "could you tell me the way to the Divine Towers?"
The vendor, a plump man with a chef''s hat, wiped his hands on a stained apron and pointed in a specific direction. "Head down this street, keep going until you see the grand tower with golden engraving. You can''t miss it."
Following the directions, he navigated the winding streets of Goldspire until he arrived before a grand and elegant tower. It was a towering structure adorned with intricate golden engravings and surrounded by a meticulously pruned frontwn.
The tower itself gleamed under the night sky, its golden fa?ade glistening with an ethereal light that seemed to radiate from within. The entrance was guarded by stern-looking sentinels dressed in borate uniforms, and arge, ornate board disyed information about the uing Divine Tower auction.
Chapter 1119 Finding Dark Ore
Chapter 1119 Finding Dark Ore
Without further ado, Michael, apanied by Vedora, ascended the towering marble stairs and reached the entrance of the grand Divine Towers. Two sentinel guards, standing as tall as eight feet and d in imposing metal armor, greeted them.
The guards maintained their silence as Michael confidently pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the Divine Towers. The moment he entered, he found himself in anothervish hall, bathed in the warm glow of golden light orbs. The marble floor beneath his feet gleamed with a pristine shine, and various artifacts were showcased within ss casings, adding to the overall opulence.
"Wee, my lord. How may I help you today?" a young elf approached Michael. She was elegantly robed in resplendent golden attire, her long, flowing hair matching the color of her robes.
The sheer beauty and grace of the elf serving as an attendant in the Divine Towers spoke volumes about the wealth and prestige associated with this ce. In the mortal realm, she would have undoubtedly turned countless heads.
"If you are looking for a token to enter the Divine Towers auction, I am very displeased to say we don''t offer any, my lord," the young elf informed Michael.
Michael smiled politely, shaking his head. "I have one. You see, I am with the cksmith Guild, so the token is not a problem for me. What I need is to browse some items here and perhaps make some purchases for my forging endeavors," he exined.
"Then you''vee to the right ce, my lord. Please follow me to the third floor, where we have an immense collection of ores and everything you need for forging exquisite creations," the young elf said with a bright smile.
With a courteous nod, Michael followed the elf as she led him to the third floor. As they ascended the towering structure, the ornate architecture of the Divine Towers left Michael in awe.
Upon reaching the spacious third floor, Michael''s eyes widened in amazement. The area was a veritable treasure trove for any cksmith. Disyed before him were an array of colorful ores, intricately crafted armors, and a vast assortment of tools and equipment. Each item was showcased with meticulous care, their craftsmanship evident even from a distance.
The floor exuded an atmosphere of enchantment and grandeur. The polished marble gleamed under the ambient light, and the shelves and disys were adorned with rare and valuable items, all neatly organized for the discerning customers.
The young elf apanying Michael smiled warmly. "Here, my lord, you can find everything you desire for your forging endeavors. If there is anything specific you are looking for, please do not hesitate to ask. I will be more than happy to assist you in finding it."
"I need an ore to forge an armor. It should be sturdy yet light and should be able to be forged into thin sheets," Michael exined. Since the executioner from the pantheon had destroyed the wings of his armor, Michael needed to forge new wings.
"Then I''d suggest Arcaneit. It''s light, strong, and you can forge it into thin sheets, just as you asked," the elf suggested. She walked over to a purple block of ore disyed behind a ss box, opened the ss, picked up the ore with ease, and handed it to Michael.
Michael examined the ore in his hands. "Yes, it is lightweight," he noted.
"It''s costly, my lord. With this block, you can forge either a chest te or one longsword," the elf informed him.
"How much for this ore?" Michael inquired.
"Three hundred thousand gold coins," the elf replied.
"Three hundred thousand for this small block? Do youe with this ore?" Ayag interjected, shocking the elf. She hadn''t expected the tiny serpent head to speak so harshly. However, her expression remained calm and weing, as any salesperson''s should.
"It''s a rare metal, my lord. You won''t find it anywhere else other than the Divine Towers, as we hold exclusive rights to Arcaneit in Sagespire," she exined.
"Hmm," Michael nodded and handed the ore back to the elf. Then, he explored the hall, perusing several more items, including a finely crafted golden armor, scimitars, a longbow, and a couple of ores. But when his gazended on a ck ore inside a ss case in the corner, Michael felt a chill run down his spine.
"Dark ore," Michael mumbled under his breath. The moment his eyes locked onto the pitch-ck ore, which resembled a chunk of charcoal, he sensed a strange connection to it. It was unmistakably a piece of dark ore.
He walked slowly toward the pir that held the dark ore and stood before it.
"This is¡" Michael trailed off, expecting the elf to provide more information. Thest time he had checked in the system store, he could only obtain dark ore there. It was incredibly expensive, yet here he was, standing before a chunk of it. While it wasn''trge enough to forge an entire armor, it could certainly be used for crafting a small sword or an axe.
"It''s ck ore, my lord. However, you won''t be able to forge anything with it. This ore cannot be melted or molded by any means," the young elf exined. Her words made sense because only the dark mes could melt dark ore.
"Then why is it here?" Ayag questioned.
"It''s a one-of-a-kind ore. Our adventurer team discovered it in a ruin outside the city. Beyond that ruin, this ore has never been found anywhere else in Goldspire or even within the domains of the gods, as far as I know," the young elf replied, surprising Michael.
"Where is this ruin located, exactly?" Michael inquired. It was evident that this ruin was connected to his previous existence as the Dark Lord, five thousand years ago. If he could somehow locate and explore it, Michael believed he might uncover more about his life from that time.
"I''m sorry, my lord, but I can''t reveal the location to you. It goes against our Divine Towers policy. Additionally, the guards of Goddess Seshat restrict anyone from entering the ruin," the young elf stated.
"Oh, I see. Can I at least speak with the adventurers who explored the ruin? I''m quite curious about this ce," Michael requested.
"I assume there are no Divine Towers policies preventing you from simply telling me where I can meet these adventurers?" Michael added, a subtle note of persuasion in his tone. He could discern the clever mind of the young elf.
"Well, it''s against our Divine Towers policy not to assist paying customers," the young woman emphasized the word "paying," and a sly grin crossed her face.
"How much is this ore?" Michael inquired. Even if the young elf couldn''t provide the information he sought, Michael would acquire the ore. It was clear that the people and cksmiths in this kingdom had no idea how valuable dark ore was. Michael didn''t me them; the dark ore was entirely useless to them, as theycked the dark mes necessary to melt it.
reaction or a retort from Michael''s pet snake. To her surprise, both of them remained silent.
"Deal," Michael immediately agreed to the price.
"Wow," the young elf was both shocked and delighted. She quickly cleared her throat, concealing her joy.
"What about the Arcaneit, my lord? If you purchase both, I can offer you a generous twenty-thousand-coin discount," the young elf suggested, trying to persuade Michael to buy both items.
Ayag was speechless, merely rolling her eyes at the ongoing negotiation. Michael, in need of repairing his armor, decided to purchase both the Arcaneit and the dark ore.
Ayag couldn''t resist a slyment, muttering under her breath, "This elf could sell ice to a snowman."
The young elf chuckled at Ayag''s remark, then proceeded to heft the heavy dark ore from the disy.
"However, I must inform you, my lord," she said with a sly grin, "this ore cannot be stored inside a space ring. So I''ll have to put it in a special box for you."
Michael nodded in agreement.
The elf continued, "But the Arcaneit can be stored in a space ring. Would you like me to ce them together, or would you prefer to keep them separate?"
Michael thought for a moment before responding, "Keep them separate."
With a graceful motion, the young elf set the dark ore on a table before her. Michael retrieved a small silver ring containing the eight hundred and fifty thousand coins and handed it to her.
"Wait here, please," the elf requested, taking the payment. She then disappeared into a room within the hall, leaving Michael to await her return patiently.
"Dark ore huh? This must have been found in one of our hideouts five thousand years ago," Sarbamented.
"I am pretty sure we''ll find something interesting there," Ayag chimed in.
"I have a feeling there is a reason why Seshat has her guards restricting entry into the ruin," Cain added. It was rare to hear him speak, so his words carried a sense of importance.
Michael shared the same suspicion but had already made up his mind to explore the ruin despite Seshat''s guards.
A few momentster, the elf returned, carrying an elegantly crafted wooden box and a silver ring.
"The Arcaneit ore is inside this space ring along with your change, my lord. Let me put this Dark ore into the box," she said, opening the box. Michael assisted her, carefully cing the dark ore inside.
"Now, where can I find these adventurers?" Michael inquired.
"Adventurer, my lord," the young elf corrected him.
"Among the adventurers who explored the ruin, only one came back alive with that ore. Thest time I heard, he was in the Screaming Booklet Tavern, drinking himself to death ever since," she replied, her voice carrying a hint of pity.
The information only fueled Michael''s curiosity about the ruin.
"Thank you for your information, miss," Michael said with a nod, concluding his business.
"Screaming Booklet, here we go," Ayag said with excitement as Michael exited the Divine Tower, his mind now set on another destination.
Chapter 1120 Do not touch me
Chapter 1120 Do not touch me
As Michael stepped outside the Divine Towers, he found the streets still vibrant with festivities. The crowds moved like a river, the food stalls emitted delicious aromas, and the golden orbs illuminated the city under the night sky. It was a lively scene, one he hadn''t experienced in a long time.
He decided to stow the wooden box containing the dark ore into his system storage, ensuring its safety. Then, he navigated through the bustling streets, his destination clear in his mind. He approached a food vendor who was selling dolls to children. The vendor, a portly man with a scruffy beard, looked up as Michael approached.
"Excuse me," Michael began politely, "I''m looking for the Screaming Booklet Tavern. Could you please give me directions?"
The vendor''s expression shifted from pleasant surprise to a frown, and he hesitated for a moment. Michael, noticing his reaction, furrowed his brow and asked, "Is something wrong?"
A nearby customer, an elderly woman with a kind smile, overheard the conversation and chimed in, "Well, dear, the Screaming Booklet Tavern isn''t known for being a very friendly ce. Are you sure you want to go there? I can direct you to a more reputable establishment nearby."
Michael nodded and said, "Thank you for the concern, but I''m just meeting a friend outside the Screaming Booklet. I won''t be going in."
Understanding his intentions, the vendor and the customer exchanged knowing nces.
"Oh, I see. Well then, you''ll want to head down this street," the vendor said, pointing in a specific direction. "It''s just a short walk from here. You can''t miss it."
"Thank you. I appreciate your help," Michael replied with a nod of gratitude before heading in the indicated direction, leaving the vendor and the elderly customer to their dolls and their thoughts.
Following the directions given by the vendor, Michael walked down the street with Ayag nestled on his shoulder. Her little head nudged his ear gently, and she whispered, "We''re being followed, Ghost."
Michael didn''t break his stride, acknowledging Ayag with a subtle nod. He knew they were being trailed; the sensation of being watched had been nagging at him since they left the Divine Towers.
Sarba, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, finally spoke up. "Any idea who might be following us?"
Michael''s expression remainedposed as he replied, "It could be one of two groups, I think. Either Kranar''s worshippers or Rainar''s."
Ayag, still whispering, asked, "Are you going to lose them?"
Michael chuckled softly, his eyes scanning the street ahead. "Why bother? Let them follow. It might keep them upied."
They continued down the street, with Michael unfazed by the invisible eyes tracking their every move.
Eventually, Michael reached the tavern known as the Screaming Booklet. Its exterior was far from inviting, as Ayag aptlymented, "This ce looks about as cheerful as a crypt."
He couldn''t help but agree with her sentiment. The tavern had a gloomy and unweing exterior. It was made of rough-hewn stone, and the entrance was narrow, barely allowing more than one person to enter at a time. The tavern''s sign, a battered wooden board with fading letters, swung creakily in the evening breeze.
With a resigned sigh, Michael pushed open the door and stepped inside. The interior was as dull and dreary as its exterior. Dimly lit by a few flickering candles, the room was filled with patrons, most of whom were robed, their hoods pulled low to cover their heads. Conversations were hushed, and a sense of secrecy hung in the air.
Ayag muttered, "Well, this is certainly cozy."
Michael scanned the room, looking for any sign of the adventurer who had ventured into the mysterious ruin. He couldn''t help but feel a tinge of unease in this atmosphere.
In the dim and secretive atmosphere of the Screaming Booklet, Michael decided to cut through the tension by raising his voice firmly, "Who among you is the adventurer that explored the ruin outside the city and came out as the sole survivor?"
His question had the desired effect. Heads turned sharply in his direction, hooded figures eyeing him with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. The ce fell silent as all eyes focused on the neer.
The bald-headed, bulky bartender, a man who looked like he''d seen his fair share of brawls, approached Michael cautiously. "We don''t want any trouble here," he warned, his tone heavy with warning.
Ayag couldn''t resist adding her ownmentary, growling, "Trouble? In Sagespire? They''ve probably got a rule against having fun in here."
Despite Ayag''s sarcasm, Michael maintained his calmposure, waiting for an answer regarding the adventurer he sought.
In the dimly lit corner of the tavern, a lone figure raised his hand. Michael''s attention was drawn to the elf who leaned casually against the wall, arge cup of ale in his hand. He had a sardonic smile as he looked at the three-headed serpent perched on Michael''s shoulder.
"Well, ain''t you a peculiar sight," the elf said, a mocking tone in his voice. "What''s with the serpent, mate? Lost your way to the circus, have you? Must be my lucky day. What can I do for you, my scaly friend?"
Michael approached the elf with measured steps, and as he did, the patrons in the tavern began to gather around, curious about themotion.
Ignoring the growing crowd, Michael pulled out a chair before the elf, sat down calmly, and replied, "I heard you''re the one who explored the ruin outside the city and came out with a unique ore. I''m interested in hearing your story,"
The elf let out a snicker, taking a long swig from his ale before responding, "Why would I ever want to recollect something I''ve been trying to forget about with this ale? Memories of that ce are best left buried in a haze."
Michael leaned in slightly, his voice steady as he said, "I can give you gold coins, adventurer. Enough to drown your sorrows for a lifetime."
The elf continued to snicker, a bitter edge in his voice as he replied, "Gold coins, you say? Unless your precious coins can bring my friends back from the dead, you can kindly fuck off."
Ayag, growing impatient and perhaps a bit frustrated, coiled herself tighter around Michael''s neck and hissed, "Listen here, you drunken, pointy-eared fool. If you don''t start talking right now, we''ll make sure you remember this encounter for the rest of your miserable life."
The tension in the tavern escted as the patrons watched with growing curiosity..
The bartender squeezed his way through the crowd. He leaned in close to Michael and spoke in a low voice, "You should leave, friend. This isn''t a ce to stir up trouble. Goddess Seshat''s guards don''t take kindly to that, and you''ll find yourself in the prison faster than you can say ''sorry.''"
Michael held up his hands in a cating gesture. "I don''t want any trouble. I''m just looking for some information."
Just as tensions were escting, a voice cut through the murmurings of the tavern''s patrons. A figure stepped forward from the crowd, addressing the elf by name. "Hey, Thaldir, is this guy bothering you?"
Thaldir, the elf leaning against the wall, shot Michael a withering look and spat out, "Just fuck off before you regret setting foot in here."
It seemed that Thaldir had no intention of sharing his story or cooperating.
The man who had stepped forward ced his hand firmly on Michael''s shoulder, his intentions clear. He leaned in closer, a sly grin on his face, and said, "My friend here isn''t in the mood for chatting, so I suggest you take your leave."
Michael remained calm but resolute. He spoke in a measured tone, "I''ll give you three seconds to take your hand off my shoulder."
The man''s grin widened as he taunted, "Or else what?"
Without a change in expression, Michael began counting slowly. "One."
"Two," Michael continued counting, his gaze locked on the man''s eyes.
Suddenly, the man''s confident expression twisted into one of excruciating pain. He let out a piercing scream and ripped his hand away from Michael''s shoulder, copsing to his knees and writhing on the ground.
The other patrons were baffled, unsure of what had just transpired. They watched in shock as the man rolled on the floor, clutching his hand, and screamed, "Make it stop! Please, make it stop!"
The bartender, snapping out of his initial shock, red at Michael and demanded, "What did you do to him?"
Michael remainedposed, replying, "I simply warned him."
The patrons who had surrounded Michael took a collective step back, their faces etched with fear and confusion. The tavern had fallen into an eerie silence, disrupted only by the agonized moans of the man still writhing on the floor.
The elf, who had initially been so confident, now stared at Michael with a mixture of fear and shock. He understood that he was dealing with someone who possessed powers beyond hisprehension.
Michael leaned in closer, his voice cold and unwavering as he warned, "I hope you don''t want another friend to meet his demise prematurely. Tell me what I want to know."
The tavern''s patrons remained frozen in ce, their eyes darting between Michael and the man on the floor, still struggling with the inexplicable pain coursing through his body.
"You¡you are going to get us all thrown into prison!" The bartender shouted. Since there was a rule against fighting, the bartender had to restrain himself from raising his hand at Michael.
"Why? I didn''ty a finger on him," Michael snickered. The patrons and Thaldir were still in confusion and shock, trying to grasp what had just happened. Little did they know Michael had willed his tiny Spyder to inject a minuscule amount of potion that triggered the pain receptors in the man''s body.
Michael turned his gaze towards Thaldir, and his eyes bore into the elf''s soul with a murderous intent that sent shivers down his spine.
"I am going to ask you onest time, tell me everything you know about the ruin," Michael asked in an icy tone.
"Alright, alright¡just stop whatever you are doing to him," Thaldir finally gave in, his voice trembling.
"Now that wasn''t hard, was it?" Ayag growled as the man slowly stopped squirming and screaming in pain.
Chapter 1121 Battling Goddess Seshats Guards
Chapter 1121 Battling Goddess Seshat''s Guards
Michael walked past the city gates and soon found himself in a lush mountainside, a vividndscape of rolling hills and vibrant maple trees. Their leaves disyed a stunning array of reds, yellows, and greens, creating a breathtaking tapestry of colors.
Sarba couldn''t help butment on the beauty of the scene. "Ah, these maple trees, Ghost. They truly make everything look so enchanting."
As he strolled through the captivating natural scenery, Michael encountered two guards stationed at the city gates. Both were d in imposing golden te armor, symbols of the kingdom''s wealth and power. They eyed him suspiciously and one of them asked, "Where are you off to on a night like this?"
Michael replied nonchntly, "Just going to enjoy nature."
Not giving the guards an opportunity to inquire further, he continued on his way, disappearing into the beauty of the colorful maple trees, their leaves rustling gently in the night breeze.
Sarba''s keen memory served them well as he recalled the directions to reach the location of the ruin. He pointed out thendmarks the elf had mentioned, guiding Michael through the mountainous terrain.
Sarba spoke with enthusiasm, helping Michael navigate the unfamiliarndscape. "Alright, Ghost, we need to head east from here. You see thatrge moss-covered boulder over there? That''s our marker. From there, it''s a bit of a climb up the hill, and then we''ll find a small clearing. That''s where the entrance to the ruin should be."
Michael swiftly moved through the mountainside, trusting Sarba''s guidance.
Although Michael remembered the directions, it was nice to see Sarba take the initiative. As Michael followed the directions with Sarba''s guidance, he received a valuable update from Pink about the mysterious assant who had been following him.
"Hey Ghost, the man who was following you, he''s definitely an angel," Pink''s voice echoed in his mind. "I watched him using the Spyder feed and found a secret portal room within Goldspire. But the Spyder exploded when he entered the portal. They must be using that portal to travel back and forth."
Michael knew the importance of this information. His tiny Spyder had tracked the man discreetly until he left the city gates. Pink had been monitoring the situation closely.
"We''ll check out the portalter," Michael replied as he climbed the hill with determination.
Curious, Pink inquired further, "How do you n to deal with Seshat''s soldiers guarding the ruins?"
Michael''s response was concise and to the point, reflecting his practical approach. "Knock them out." He understood that talking his way into the ruins was unlikely, leaving him with the only viable option of subduing the guards.
As Michael approached, he couldn''t help but notice the formidable defenses surrounding the ruined tower. What was once a towering structure had been reduced to a mere six-foot wall, with a dark door guarded by two knights d in gleaming gold-ted armor. The presence of these guards was further bolstered by archers positioned on the nearby mountain hills, regr patrols circling the ruin, and additional guards stationed in watchtowers.
"That''s some serious protection," Pink remarked, her toneced with seriousness.
Michael nodded in agreement with Pink''s observation. The level of security around the ruin intrigued him, leaving him curious about what secrets it might hold. From his vantage point, he carefully scanned the area, noting the strategically ced bells that could be used to sound an rm in case of intrusion.
What truly surprised him, however, was the presence of bright, glowing orbs illuminating the area around the entrance to the ruin. These magical light sources effectively thwarted any ns he might have had to use Shadow teleportation to reach the ruin undetected.
With a calm look on his face, Michael tapped the skull-shaped medallion hanging from a chain around his chest. The moment his fingers made contact with the medallion, a series of intricate magical runes engraved upon it began to shimmer with an eerie blue light.
The armor, a dark and formidable creation, responded to his touch. It started as a subtle, ethereal presence, wrapping itself around him like a shroud. Within moments, the transformation wasplete, and Michael stood encased in a suit of menacing obsidian armor that covered him from head to toe.
Vedora swiftly moved behind the protective cover of Michael''s flowing cape, their serpentine form hidden from view as they coiled around the inner lining of the cape.
"I am not you, but I can tell there is no way of getting into the ruin without some fighting and raising some hell. Take out those bells first," Pink said, almost amused, realizing she was giving ideas to the number one hitman.
"Wow, thank you for your wisdom," Michael said sarcastically. He didn''t open his metallic wings because they were broken by the Pantheon''s executioner and required fixing.
Michael''s targets were the bells. To disable these rms, Michael needed to destroy them.
Wasting no time, Michael activated the shadow teleportation to transport himself near a bell.
"What was that?" a soldier who felt something strange in the air stopped patrolling.
"LOOK!" The soldier shouted when he saw Michael standing behind the rm bell near him. But before the soldiers could react, Michael raised his hand, sending a stream of dark mes that melted the bell in a few seconds.
"INTRUDER!" The soldiers shouted, alerting the others. Meanwhile, Michael fired bolts of lightning from his hands at the bells while firing dark beams from his eyes at the same time. The lightning bolts and the dark beams snaked through the scene, destroying the rm bells. Thanks to Seshat''s array that restricted using celestial energy, the soldiers couldn''t cast a spell or use their cultivation power.
"The rms are gone!"
"He is targeting the rms!"
"Strike him down!"
The soldiers immediately roared. Although they were startled, they didn''t show any fear in their voices. Although Michael had destroyed the rms, the archers in the hills and the crossbow-wielding soldiers in the watchtowers turned their gazes at Michael. They immediately fired bolts and arrows at Michael.
"Too slow," Michael snickered as he moved between the soldiers in a blur. Every time he moved past a soldier, they fell to the ground unconscious with a dent in their helmets.
Michael knocked the soldiers out with a single punch while firing dark beams at the glowing orbs lighting the area.
The soldiers, recognizing the need for coordination, began shouting orders to each other, attempting to form a more organized defense. However, their efforts were in vain as Michael moved like a blur among them.
"He''s too fast!"
"Watch his movements!"
Soldiers with swords tried to anticipate his path, but he darted around them effortlessly. Meanwhile, the elven archers on the hill continued to fire arrows with deadly uracy at Michael, even though he moved at a blistering speed. Their precision surprised Michael, but he didn''t let that deter him. Instead, he simply caught the arrows in mid-air, his movements so precise and agile that it seemed like a choreographed dance.
As Michael came to a stop in the middle of the soldiers, he couldn''t help but praise the archers for their impressive uracy.
"Nice shooting, I have to admit," hemented, a hint of respect in his voice.
The soldiers, however, were growing frustrated and desperate.
"Stay together! Surround him!"
"Don''t let him get away!"
Their shouts filled the air as they attempted to regroup and confront the mysterious intruder.
The soldiers, undeterred by Michael''s agility and confident demeanor, raised their voices in unison, shouting their orders.
"We order you to stand down and surrender in the name of Goddess Seshat!"
Their voices echoed across the ruined entrance to the tower. However, instead of showing any signs of surrender, Michael snickered at theirmand.
"You know," he replied calmly, his tone dripping with sarcasm, "you''re already in the presence of a god."
His words left the soldiers baffled for a moment, their expressions a mix of confusion and disbelief. They had not expected such a response, and it momentarily silenced their attempts to subdue the intruder.
Suddenly, Michael raised both his hands into the air, unleashing several bolts of lightning from his palms. Each bolt was precisely aimed at the glowing light orbs surrounding the area. While the arrows and crossbow bolts continued to hurtle towards him, Michael remained perfectly still.
As the lightning bolts struck the light orbs, the once brilliantly lit ce was plunged into darkness. Arrows and crossbow bolts whizzed through the air, finding their target in the spot where Michael had stood just moments before.
"Use the emergency light," one of the soldiers calmly instructed despite the sudden darkness. Another soldier swiftly produced antern, igniting its me to light up their surroundings.
However, their relief was short-lived. Thentern''s feeble light did not dispel the darkness that enveloped them; it was as if the shadows clung to every source of illumination.
"As much as I enjoy this little game, I''m in a hurry," the voice of the intruder echoed from the obscurity, causing the soldiers to tense. His words seemed to emanate from all directions, further unsettling them.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar scent filled the air, a strange and unsettling odor that sent rm bells ringing in the soldiers'' minds.
"He''s poisoning the air!" they cried out in panic, hurriedly covering their noses. Vague growls could be heard from the archers, their voices filled with fear and uncertainty.
As the darkness faded away, the once-alert soldiers, archers on the hill, and those in the watchtowers nowy unconscious on the ground. Michael, with a self-satisfied grin, appeared before the imposing door to the ruin. He couldn''t contain his excitement at the prospect of finally getting inside.
"Now, what secrets does this ruin holds?" Michael asked himself.
Chapter 1122 Dungeon designed to kill
Chapter 1122 Dungeon designed to kill
As Michael pushed open the massive, creaking door and stepped inside the ancient ruin, an eerie and oppressive atmosphere immediately enveloped him. The air was thick with the scent of age-old secrets and the mustiness of centuries past. Flickering torches on the walls cast eerie, dancing shadows that seemed to whisper dark secrets.
The dungeon appeared as abyrinth of dark stone corridors, winding deeper into the earth. The walls were adorned with ominous, ancient symbols that glowed faintly in an eerie, unnatural light, providing just enough illumination to reveal the haunting, grotesque carvings etched into the stone. These carvings depicted scenes of suffering, torment, and grotesque creatures that seemed to writhe and move in the dim light.
Sarba and Ayag, who had been quite vocal thus far, were now struck silent by the oppressive aura of the ce. They pointed at various parts of the dungeon, their eyes wide with a mixture of shock and surprise.
"Look at these carvings, Ghost," Sarba whispered, his voice trembling. "They''re like something out of a nightmare."
Ayag hissed softly, her serpentine form coiled tightly around Michael''s shoulder. "This ce reeks of ancient air. Be careful,"
As they ventured deeper into the dungeon, the shadows seemed to grow thicker and the air heavier. The corridors branched out in every direction, creating a bewildering maze of passages. Sinister whispers seemed to echo through the stone walls, though the source remained hidden.
As Michael ventured deeper into the gloomybyrinth of the dungeon, he couldn''t help but notice the grim tableau that surrounded him. Skeletal remainsy scattered on the ground, their bony fingers reaching out as if trying to w their way out of the darkness. Bloodstains adorned the stone walls, frozen in time, a testament to the horrors that had unfolded here centuries ago.
The torches on the walls seemed toe to life with an eerie, flickering light as he moved forward. Their mes danced in response to his presence, casting unsettling, shifting shadows that seemed to mock his every step.
"This ce..." Michael muttered, his voice echoing softly through the ancient corridors. "It feels familiar,"
Sarba shuddered, his eyes darting around the sinister surroundings. "Familiar or not, it''s clear that this dungeon has seen unspeakable horrors. We should tread carefully. Who knows what kind of threats we''ll face here?"
As the path before them narrowed and grew even darker, Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of foreboding. He spoke softly to hispanions, "It looks like my previous self must have built some traps in this ce. We need to be cautious."
Ayag, the small serpent coiled on his shoulder, hissed disapprovingly. "Damn it. Don''t jinx our journey. This is not the time for such thoughts."
Michael smirked at the little creature''s concern but continued to advance cautiously, his eyes scanning for any signs of danger as they navigated the treacherous depths of the dungeon.
As Michael and hispanions entered the open space, their senses were on high alert. The eerie stillness of the chamber set their nerves on edge. Suddenly, with a resounding nk, the floor beneath them shifted, revealing aplex trap.
The trap consisted of a series of interlocking stone bs, each carved with intricate symbols that glowed with a malevolent crimson light. These symbols formed a deadly puzzle on the chamber floor, and their purpose was far from benevolent.
"You fucked it up. What in the gods'' names is this?" Ayag eximed, her voice tinged with concern.
Sarba hissed softly, recognizing the danger. "It appears to be a trap, designed to confound and ensnare intruders."
Michael studied the trap, his sharp eyes tracing the intricate patterns. "I need to find a way to disable this before it activates," he said, his voice determined.
The opening through which they had entered abruptly closed, sealing them within the chamber. Panic flickered briefly across their faces as they realized they were trapped.
The runes etched into the floor began to glow brighter, casting an ominous crimson light across the room. The air grew dense and stifling, making it difficult to breathe.
With a sense of urgency, Michael began to search the chamber for any signs of a mechanism or a way to disable the trap. Every passing moment felt like an eternity as the menacing glow of the runes intensified, and the air grew even thinner.
"We need to hurry," Michael urged, his fingers deftly examining the stone bs. "There has to be a way to disarm this."
As they desperately sought a solution, the chamber itself seemed to conspire against them, the ancient runes sucking the air from the room, making their task all the more perilous. The trap''s true nature remained shrouded in mystery, and Michael''s race against time had only just begun.
Michael''s eyes glowed with an otherworldly light as he activated his X-ray vision, scanning the room with precision. His gaze passed through solid stone and ancient glyphs until it settled on a seemingly random section of the wall.
Without hesitation, he lunged forward, his fist connecting with the stone surface. Dust and debris filled the air as the wall cracked open, revealing a concealed switch. Michael wasted no time; he grasped the lever and pulled it down with a satisfying click.
As the trap deactivated, the malevolent crimson light from the runes began to fade, and the oppressive atmosphere in the chamber lifted. The room returned to an eerie stillness, the echoes of their harrowing experience still lingering.
Ayag, now visibly relieved, slithered closer to Michael. "Phew. Well done, Ghost. I hate traps,"
Sarba, too, seemed impressed. "It''s as if this trap was designed to allow only you to pass safely. There''s more to this ce than meets the eye."
Michael nodded, his expression grave. "It certainly seems that way. We need to proceed with caution. The past me, the one who originally built this ce, may have left behind more surprises."
After disarming the trap, a stone door opened on the other side. Using shadow teleportation, Michael appeared before the door in the blink of an eye.
"I have a feeling these traps are noting to an end," said Sarba, her voiceced with fear.
"Fuck you two for keep jinxing our way," Ayagined, her words dripping with sarcasm as she berated Sarba. Ignoring the banter between the siblings, Michael entered through the stone door and found himself in another narrow hall.
"What now?" Michael mused aloud, looking over his shoulder just in time to see the door closing behind him.
Suddenly, the dim room was bathed in the bright glow of runes, dispelling every trace of darkness. In the next moment, a pir appeared at the far end of the hall. But before Michael could make a move, the floor between him and the pir opened up, revealing a deep pit filled with menacing spikes.
"Another trap, who would have guessed?" Ayag quipped, rolling her eyes with sarcasm.
As if the pit filled with spikes wasn''t enough, rotating des emerged from both sides of the walls and descended from the ceiling. These des effectively blocked Michael from flying above the pit.
Then, he heard a distinct click as the air in the room began to be sucked away, making every breath a struggle.
"Do what you did before," Ayag urged Michael, prompting him to activate his X-ray vision. To his surprise, he found no hidden mechanism near him.
"That pir," Michael dered as he focused his gaze on the distant pir through the maze of spinning des. His godly eyes provided a clearer picture, revealing the pir''s intricate carvings. Although it appeared empty, Michael noticed a small hole on the pir''s surface.
"Quick, we''re going to suffocate," Sarba urgently prodded Michael.
Michael was profoundly surprised and shocked by the intricacy and lethality of these traps. Even though he was a god, disarming them had proven to be far from easy. No wonder the elf had been so terrified of this ce. Michael had his doubts that the elf had ever ventured this far.
While Michael was focused on the pir, Sarba noticed the skeletons strewn about the pit before them.
"Poor bastards must have tried to jump their way out," Sarba remarked with pity for those who met a gruesome end.
"Here it goes," Michael murmured, slowly raising his hand and aiming his finger at the pir.
"Ignitia," Michael cast the spell telepathically, and a lightning bolt shot out from his hand, threading its way through thebyrinth of spinning des. The shot was incredibly challenging, but Michael managed to hit the pir through the hazardous obstacle course. The lightning bolt struck the hole in the pir with a jarring noise. To their surprise, the moment the lightning bolt hit the pir, a dark cloth emerged from within and cast a long shadow across the floor.
"Use the shadow teleportation now!" Ayag shouted, her voiceced with urgency. Michael locked onto the shadow as he was instructed and disappeared from his original spot, reappearing beside the pir using the shadow teleportation.
As soon as he teleported near the pir, he heard a click beneath his feet. The pressure tes on the floor, triggered by Michael''s weight, deactivated the traps.
"AHHHH," Ayag gasped for air as the airflow slowly returned to the room. The traps dissolved, revealing another door before Michael.
Taking a long, deep breath, Michael ced his hand on the door, hoping there wouldn''t be any more traps to face.
"This ce better have something worth all this trouble," Ayag With the threat of suffocation looming, he knew he had to act fast and make the right move.
growled as Michael pushed open the door.
"Wee back, God of Darkness," came the voice of Azazel when Michael entered the hall, surprising him.
Chapter 1123 Portable Divine Portal
Chapter 1123 Portable Divine Portal
As Michael stepped into the dark hall, his eyes scanned the dimly lit surroundings, trying to locate the source of the voice. The room was shrouded in darkness, with only a faint, eerie blue light emanating from an unknown source. There were no portraits adorning the walls, no furnishings, just an unsettling emptiness.
In the center of the room, he noticed a solitary table. Upon the table sat a secure-looking safe, adorned with intricate runes that glowed softly in the dim light.
Before he could react, the heavy door behind him abruptly closed, the sound echoing ominously through the empty chamber. Ayag''s growling voice pierced the silence, "This had better not be another trap."
To Michael''s surprise, an ethereal figure began to materialize from swirling smoke, gradually taking on the familiar form of none other than his demon butler, Azazel himself. However, the Azazel before him appeared different, bearing an air of power and wisdon.
He was adorned in his customary butler uniform, the ck coat and pants neatly pressed, a crisp white shirt, and a neatly tied scarf. His hair was neatlybed to the side, and his imposing red wings added an extrayer of grandeur to his presence.
"Azazel?" Michael and Vedora eximed in astonishment. A smile tugged at the corner of Michael''s lips upon seeing his loyal demon butler, even if it was an ethereal version of the Azazel who served the previous Dark Lord.
Before he could utter a word, Azazel spoke, his voice carrying a tone of regret, "Before you ask anything, my lord, understand that this is a recording. As much as I wish to see you again, I must settle for this spectral projection."
"It goes without saying, my lord, that if you are listening to this, you have entered the realm of the gods and are likely acquainting yourself with the intricacies of this world. To my knowledge, none of your subordinates have ascended to the realm of gods, including myself," Azazel''s ethereal figure continued to speak, and Michael attentively absorbed his words.
"My Lord, by now, you would have a basic understanding of how perilous this realm can be. To sessfully navigate this realm and avoid repeating the mistakes we made, it is crucial that you harness your skills and further enhance your existing spells. I am aware that your choices must have altered the timeline. However, the one constant across all timelines is your war against the Pantheon," Azazel''s recording conveyed, prompting a growl from Sarba.
"War with the Pantheon. Damn it," Sarba muttered under his breath.
"My Lord, if you have yet to cultivate, I implore you to do so without dy. While it is true that the gods possess immense power, even a level one god can kill a Divine Ascendancy Realm cultivator. Nevertheless, this should not deter you from pursuing cultivation. Reaching higher cultivation stages will allow you to confront angels and fanatics without relying solely on your godly abilities. I trust you are already aware of this," Azazel advised, his voice carrying the weight of the grave matters at hand.
"But that isn''t the primary reason I left this recording for you, despite the Dark Lord''s wishes. I wanted to inform you that all my subordinates were sent to the mortal realm before the timeline reset. So, please refrain from wasting your valuable time searching for your angels. Speaking of angels, your angels were known as the Reapers in my timeline," Azazel dered proudly.
The name ''Reapers'' alone hinted at the incredible power his subordinates possessed.
"During my time with the Dark Lord, I seldom witnessed him making mistakes, except for one," Azazel paused, and the difficulty of what he was about to reveal was evident in his demeanor.
"What is it?" Ayag couldn''t contain her curiosity.
"He failed to amass worshippers. Despite his formidable power, he had only a handful of temples and true worshippers. Most people feared him, but they did not genuinely worship him. This vulnerability will be exploited by the Pantheon if you failed to amass worshippers," Azazel cautioned Michael, underlining the importance of gathering worshippers.
Listening to Azazel''s counsel, Michael had to admit that expanding his base of worshippers hadn''t been a priority for him. In fact, if he were to make a list of his ns, amassing followers would likely have been at the bottom.
"Dark Queen Gaya had numerous temples and more worshippers than the Dark Lord, but the Pantheon ensured her followers were hunted down, one way or another," Azazel stated, and Michael could sense the anger and thirst for vengeance in his voice.
"You must cultivate your worshippers and elevate your subordinates to the status of angels. However, do not bring them into the realm of gods until you have attained at least Level 4 Godhood," Azazel advised.
Michael attentively absorbed Azazel''s wisdom, although he refrained from posing any questions. After all, Azazel was merely a recording. Yet, he couldn''t deny that the demon butler''s advice would be invaluable to him in the future.
"And now, for the most crucial piece of information: you must discover how to kill a god," Azazel continued, prompting Ayag to roll her eyes in annoyance.
"Why can''t you just tell us, you jerk? You lived here five thousand years ago, and you must know the way," Ayag growled.
"I can almost hear your question, but the Dark Lord strictly ordered me not to provide any information that could disrupt your timeline beyond his predictions. However, we have taken measures to ensure you will discover a way," Azazel exined cryptically.
Michael had a hunch that Azazel was alluding to the book written by Seshat''s angel.
"Find the way no matter the cost," Azazel urged Michael. The recording fell silent for a few moments, allowing Michael to absorb the gravity of his words.
However, Azazel''s ethereal gaze seemed to settle on the safe resting on the table before Michael.
"As my final act of assistance, my lord, I have left something for you. Inside this safe, you will find a portable portal device. It will enable you to travel between the domains within the realm of gods without the need for divine gateways," Azazel''s revtion surprised Michael and brought a wave of relief.
"I hope this aids you, and please, save everyone, my lord. My dark lord has sacrificed much to grant you this chance. Only you can set things right," Azazel took a deep breath and concluded with a sense of finality.
"Goodbye, my lord," Azazel''s ethereal form flickered and transformed into a wisp of smoke. It floated directly into the safe, disappearing into its depths with a soft click.
"Portable portal? I guess the previous Dark Lord didn''t have someone who coulde up with better names," Ayag chuckled, breaking the tension.
Finally, the safe clicked open, revealing a hexagonal device forged from gleaming silver metal. At its center was a luminous diamond, and its surface was adorned with countless intricate runes. Michael gently picked up the device, feeling its warmth radiating through his hand.
"How does it work? Is there a manual inside?" Sarba inquired, leaping onto the table and inspecting the safe''s contents. He searched for a manual but found none.
Michael carefully examined the portal device, searching for any clues on how to activate it. His gaze fell upon a tiny button, and he pressed it. Apartment opened within the device, revealing an inscription inside that read ''Celestial Crystal.''
"It seems to operate using Celestial crystal," Michael exined.
With a flick of his wrist, he retrieved a low-grade celestial crystal and broke off a small piece, cing it into thepartment. As soon as the crystal piece was inserted, the device vibrated in Michael''s grasp, and he felt a connection forming with his mind.
Suddenly, a list of domain names appeared before him, floating in mid-air.
"What is it?" Ayag asked, unable to see the disy. The device had linked with Michael''s system and was presenting a list of domains and cities he had previously visited.
In the list, he saw the names of Godspire, Marli''s Forest, and Nimbosia.
While Michael studied the floating list of domains, the system''s voice echoed in his head, providing additional information.
[More domains can be unlocked by obtaining travel runes]
Upon hearing this, Michael recalled a conversation with Gilrut, who had mentioned that the divine portals utilized travel runes to connect various domains within the realm of gods. These runes were essential for traversing the divinendscape.
Michael also remembered Gilrut''s warning about the costliness of these runes. They were precious and could only be obtained from the runemasters'' guild, typically found within a god''s domain. This revtion emphasized the value of the portable portal device Azazel had provided and the convenience it offered in terms of inter-domain travel.
As Michael continued to explore the device''s functions, the system provided more information.
[To travel to domains over longer distances, the host must use higher-grade Celestial crystals]
Michael nodded, recognizing the significance of having ess to different domains and the varying demands it might impose on his resources. "This is a great help," he mused, appreciating the versatility of the device.
With his mind focused on Goldspire, the portable portal device began to vibrate in his hand. A dark vortex materialized before him, swirling with energy. Michael was impressed by the device''s efficiency.
"This is going to make life so much easier," Michael remarked with a grin as he reached out and picked up Vedora.
Taking ast look at the room around him, Michael picked up the device, put it inside his armor, and walked into the portal.
To Michael''s surprise, when he emerged from the portal, he found himself in a dimly lit, narrow alley. The dark, cobbled stones beneath his feet were slightly damp, and the air was filled with a musty odor.
He nced around and quickly realized where he was¡ªthe same dark alley next to the Screaming Booklet Tavern. This was the very ce where he had met the young elf who had ventured into the ruin with his friends and returned as the sole survivor.
(Next chapter will have time skip and begin the Divine Tower auctions)
Chapter 1124 Divine Towers Auction Begins
Chapter 1124 Divine Towers Auction Begins
The day of the Divine Tower auction had arrived in the blink of an eye. Since Michael had acquired the divine portal and returned to the cksmith guild, he had been diligently forging Arlen''s artifacts, which were more aptly called weapons, alongside Rurik. The two cksmiths worked tirelessly and learned much from each other.
Despite being a five-star cksmith, Michael discovered many things he hadn''t even learned from system. The lessons he learned from Rurik as a cksmith and from Lane as an alchemist taught Michael that real-life experience yed a significant role in bing better at his specializations.
At that moment, Michael was getting ready to leave for the Divine Tower auction. Rurik had just emerged after taking a shower, wearing a fancy silver robe and carrying a cane. In contrast, Michael opted for a casual ck shirt and pants, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows.
"The carriage is ready," one of Arlen''s bodyguards entered the forging hall and informed Michael and Rurik.
"Come on, let''s go," Ayag chimed in excitedly, perched atop Michael''s shoulder.
The grand hall of the cksmith guild was bustling with activity. Guards and numerous cksmiths moved about, their clinking tools and discussions filling the air. Rurik had not taken the attack by Kranar''s worshippers lightly. After the ughter, he hired additional guards to bolster the guild''s security and many cksmiths to revitalize the guild.
"Master cksmith,"
"Greetings Master cksmith,"
"Good morning John,"
As Rurik and Michael made their way through the hall, they were met with nods of respect from the guild members and polite greetings from the other cksmiths. Rurik was well-respected within the guild, and Michael had earned the genuine friendship of many of its members.
Leaving the guild behind, they stepped outside into the bustling city streets. As they stepped outside the cksmith guild, Ayag couldn''t help but gasp in awe as she saw the impressive line of fancy carriages adorning the street. The city was alive with festive energy, and the streets were bustling with activity due to the start of the Divine Tower auction.
The atmosphere was vibrant, with citizens and visitors alike joining in the excitement of the event. Several youngsters could be heard chanting,
"The Divine Tower auction is this way!" as they proudly carried banners emzoned with the Divine Tower emblem.
The street was alive with music, the rhythmic beat of drums filling the air. Fireworks erupted in brilliant disys, casting colorful lights and patterns across the sky, adding to the festive mood.
However, amidst the revelry, Rurik couldn''t help but express his dislike of therge crowds and the extravagant celebrations.
"All this noise andmotion, it''s enough to make one''s head spin. I prefer the quiet of the forge." Rurik muttered to Michael.
"Cheer up, Rurik," Michael patted the stout dwarf on the shoulder before following Arlen''s armored guard. As they descended the stairs, they were greeted by two awaiting carriages. One belonged to the Silverbrook family, and the other was the official carriage of the cksmith Guild.
The Silverbrook carriage was drawn by four majestic chestnut horses adorned with silver-trimmed harnesses. In contrast, the cksmith Guild''s carriage was hitched to sleek ck steeds, its exterior painted in deep ck with intricate golden lines that added an air of elegance.
"Good day, my lords," the carriage driver, a middle-aged man with a well-groomed beard, respectfully opened the door of the cksmith Guild''s carriage for Michael and Rurik.
Meanwhile, Arlen had already settledfortably inside the luxurious Silverbrook carriage. As Michael and Rurik took their seats on the plush gray cushions, Michael slid a window open to observe the bustling street.
"Shall we depart, my lords?" inquired the driver, awaiting their signal.
"Indeed, please proceed," Rurik affirmed, and the carriage began to move forward.
Michael gazed out ahead, noting the line of carriages ahead of them. They all moved at a snail''s pace, their progress hindered by the jammed traffic.
"I never thought I''d be stuck in a traffic jam in this world," Michael mused quietly, finding a touch of amusement in this familiar inconvenience that reminded him of Earth.
"Damn these carriages. This is why I hate the Divine Tower auctions. Every year, I have to deal with this shit," Rurik grumbled, his frustration clear.
As the carriage continued its slow progress, Rurik turned his gaze towards Michael.
"So, John, what are you hoping to buy in the auction? I know we don''t know the items they''re going to auction, but do you have something particr in mind?" Rurik inquired. Over the course of their work in the forge, the two of them had developed a close friendship, and Rurik was privileged to count himself as one of Michael''s friends.
"A weapon, a spell, or something more exotic?" Rurik pressed, curious about Michael''s intentions.
Michael leaned back thoughtfully in his seat. "A book, to be honest. I have it on good authority that they''re going to auction a book, and I want it," he admitted. There was no need to conceal his intentions from Rurik since he had agreed to purchase one item in the auction for Michael.
However, Michael chose not to reveal that this book might contain information on how to kill a god. After Azazel''s message, Michael was certain that this book would prove crucial in his future endeavors.
"A book? What''s it about? You don''t strike me as the book-reading type," Rurikmented with a chuckle.
Michael responded with a yful smile instead of directly addressing Rurik''s inquiry about the book. "Well then, what do I look like?"
Rurikughed heartily. "I''m pretty sure not the book-reading kind," he teased.
Changing the subject, Michael asked, "So, what are you hoping to buy?"
Rurik''s grin widened. "The Thunder King would be a great acquisition," he said, surprising Michael.
"Don''t look so surprised. I have my ears all over the city, and I know what''s going on. You''d be amazed at how many noble houses and guilds are trying to acquire a mighty dragon like the Thunder King," Rurik exined, his voice tinged with envy and greed.
Michael nodded in agreement. "Not a bad choice at all."
"So, Jon, what do you think of the artifacts we''ve been forging? Something feels fishy to me. That elf Arlen looks agitated," Rurik pondered as they rode in the carriage towards the Divine Tower auction.
Michael leaned back, contemting his response. "I''m not sure, but if we don''t forge them, eventually someone else will," he replied without revealing anything regarding God Rainar or Kranar.
Rurik frowned, deep in thought. "Hmm. I was thinking that the Silverbrooks worship Rainar, the God of Rain, and he is currently at war against Kranar, the God of Thunder, who wields the power of lightning. These artifacts harness the power of lightning. I couldn''t shake the feeling that we''re meddling with forces beyond what we can handle," Rurik admitted.
Michael was actually surprised it took this long for Rurik toe to this conclusion. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence could guess the connection between the artifacts and the gods. However, Michael chose not to confirm Rurik''s suspicions.
"You look exhausted, Rurik. Why don''t you take a break like I suggested? We only have twenty more artifacts to forge, and I can handle it. You deserve some rest; you could go somewhere else, maybe visit another domain," Michael proposed, attempting to send Rurik away before they finished forging the remaining hundred artifacts.
Michael knew that once theypleted forging the hundred artifacts, Gthor, the head of the Silverbrook family, would likely send assassins to eliminate anyone who knew about the artifacts, to tie up loose ends. In this case, those loose ends were Michael and Rurik. Although Michael could handle the assassins, and had nned to do so, he didn''t want Rurik to be a casualty or to learn his true identity as a god.
"Are you trying to take over the guild or something? This is the third time you''ve suggested I take a vacation and go somewhere else," Rurik chuckled, amused by the idea of Michael assuming leadership.
"It''s better than you thinking we''re dealing with gods," Ayag interjected.
Rurik''s voice turned serious as he shared his concerns. "I can''t forget what happened, John. Someone ughtered our cksmiths and guards. Who am I to say they won''t return?" he questioned.
"They haven''t. Like I said, you deserve a break. We both know that sometimes we need to refresh our minds," Michael insisted as Rurik let out a heavy sigh.
"Maybe you''re right. Maybe I should go somewhere. I heard Ladon is great this time of the year," Rurik mused, considering the idea of taking a vacation.
As the carriage continued its journey, it finally arrived at the location of the Divine Towers. The towers loomed tall and magnificent, adorned with colorful banners and brilliant decorations to mark the asion of the Divine Tower auction. The entire area was bustling with excitement, as people from all corners of the domain had gathered for the event.
The streets leading to the Divine Towers were lined with extra guards, their armor gleaming in the festive lights. They maintained order among the throngs of people who wished to enter and witness the grand event.
Several lines of carriages, much like Michael and Rurik''s, awaited their turn to proceed towards the Divine Towers. These carriages were filled with nobles, merchants, and dignitaries, all eager to participate in the auction and potentially acquire rare and powerful items.
"Where did I put it?" Rurik muttered to himself as he rummaged through his pockets. Eventually, he retrieved a golden card, bearing the emblem of the cksmith Guild, carefully engraved.
Just as Rurik found the card, two guards dressed in silver armor approached their carriage. The carriage driver promptly opened the carriage door, and Rurik, card in hand, greeted the guards with a mix of familiarity and annoyance.
"Couldn''t you people get your shit together and do something about these carriage lines?" Rurik grumbled to the guards as he handed over the card for inspection.
The brown-haired guard responded with a polite smile as he checked the card''s authenticity. After a brief inspection, he returned the card to Rurik, dering, "You are clear to proceed, my lord."
"Come on, John. Let''s stretch our legs and walk there." Rurik then turned to Michael and suggested.
"Park the carriage and wait for us." Then, he directed the driver.
With that, Rurik stepped out of the carriage, eager to take a break from the slow-moving procession of carriages and the bustling crowds.
Taking a deep breath, Michael stepped out of the carriage and into the midst of a neat line of carriages. Many nobles were simrly exiting their carriages and opting to walk to the Divine Tower building instead of waiting for the slow-moving procession to inch forward.
"Look at this turnout," Ayag remarked, her eyes wide as she took in the thousands of people bustling around them.
Thanks to their VIP status, they were able to advance through a special line. As Michael and Rurik made their way forward, the imposing Divine Towers drew nearer. Just as they were about to enter the building through a ss door nked by two guards, a voice cut through the hubbub of the crowd.
"I''ve been waiting for you," the voice dered. Michael felt as if those words were aimed squarely at him. He halted his steps, turning to see a figure that left him stunned.
The person standing before him, the one who had uttered those ominous words, was none other than the executioner sh angel who had been dispatched by the Pantheon to track him down.
Chapter 1125 Michael meets Raphael
Chapter 1125 Michael meets Raphael
Michael stood there, stunned and surprised by the executioner''s appearance. Unlike their initial encounter, where the angel had been d in crimson red armor, this time he wore simple white robes adorned with golden lines. His ck hair was neatly tied into a ponytail, and his face was clean-shaven. He exuded an air of a ssic Chinese main character.
"It''s a pleasure to meet you, John," the angel said with a gentle smile. Rurik gawked between Michael and the neer.
"Who''s thisd?" Rurik asked Michael, his curiosity piqued as the angel turned his gaze toward him. Deep within the angel''s eyes, Michael detected an intense, murderous look. It was the look of an ultimate predator, a born killer. In other words, it was the same look Michael saw in his own eyes every time he gazed into a mirror.
"I''m Raphael, John''s best friend," the angel quickly introduced himself as Raphael and shook Rurik''s hand.
"Huh," Rurik muttered after Raphael shook his hand, looking a bit surprised.
"What''s on your mind, Lord Rurik?" Raphael inquired.
"Your hands,d. You must hold a sword even in your sleep. The hands of a warrior," Rurik observed, amusing Raphael.
"I do practice with weapons now and then," Raphael calmly replied, dismissing Rurik''s urate assumption.
"So, Raphael, what brings you here?" Michael asked, feigning friendship with Raphael.
"Can''t a guy visit his best friend and have a drink?" Raphael responded with a smile.
"Why not?" Michael snickered, while Rurik''s gaze drifted toward the ss door through which VIPs were entering the Divine Towers. He noticed Arlen waving and entering the building.
"Sorry to break up the reunion, but we need to get inside. Lad, do you have VIP ess?" Rurik asked Raphael, thinking he was John''s best friend. The dwarven cksmith had no idea that Raphael was, in fact, an angel sent by the Pantheon to hunt down the God of Darkness, whom Rurik believed to be John.
"I''m afraid not," Raphael replied.
"Pity. Tell you what, why don''t youe with us? The cksmith Guild pavilion is rather empty, and I hate to see you two separated," Rurik said, delighted at the idea of helping the two friends.
"That''s very kind of you to offer, Lord Rurik. I dly ept. What do you say, John?" Raphael asked.
"Let''s continue our conversation inside, Raphael," Michael calmly suggested, all the while concealing the coldness hidden beneath his gaze.
Rurik led the way as the three of them entered the Divine Towers, leaving behind the bustling crowds outside. The grand hall for the VIPs was nothing short of majestic, adorned with towering crystal chandeliers and opulent marble statues. The walls were decorated with intricate golden patterns, and a red carpet stretched across the hall.
As they entered, a beautiful young elf with long, flowing silver hair approached them. She introduced herself with a graceful bow.
"Greetings, esteemed guests. My name is Kera, and I''ve been assigned to escort you to your VIP pavilion."
Rurik couldn''t help butment on her beauty. "Well, ain''t you a sight for sore eyes! Where''s Fredar? He''s been escorting us for years."
Kera smiled politely. "I''m afraid Fredar has been transferred to our Thunderdale branch recently. I''m here to ensure yourfort during your stay."
"Transferred? What in the seven realms did he do to get transferred?" Rurik was taken aback by this unexpected news.
"I do not have that information, Lord Rurik. But if you would kindly follow me, I''ll show you to your pavilion." Kera simply shrugged.
With a hint of confusion lingering on his face, Rurik nodded, and the group followed Kera deeper into the Divine Towers.
They followed Kera as she led them through the hall, beginning their ascent up the majestic staircase that would take them to their VIP pavilion. The steps were made of polished marble, and the intricate carvings on the railings depicted scenes from the history of the Divine Towers.
Raphael, walking calmly between Michael and Rurik, decided to strike up a conversation. "I''ve heard that the war between God Rainar and God Kranar is worsening by the day."
Rurik sighed, his mind still partly preupied with Fredar''s unexpected transfer. "Poor Fredar. Thunderdale is in the middle of that mess."
Kera, who was leading the way, overheard their conversation. She turned and reassured them, "The Divine Towers take great care to protect its employees during these times of conflict. We have been informed that the Pantheon is working diligently to bring an end to the war soon."
Michael couldn''t help but snicker slightly at her words, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Oh, I''m sure they will." His cynicism regarding the Pantheon''s intentions was evident in his voice, though Kera seemed oblivious to it as they continued their climb.
After their climb up the grand staircase, they reached a long corridor adorned with intricate tapestries depicting legendary battles of gods and heroes. At the end of the corridor, two majestic doors stood, each adorned with the emblem of a different prestigious organization.
Kera led them to the door marked with the cksmith Guild''s emblem. She turned to face them with a warm smile and said,
"If you require anything during the auction, simply ring the bell inside." With a polite nod, she opened the door, revealing a spacious and opulent room.
The room had mirrored ss along one wall, providing a clear view overlooking the expansive auction theater below. Plush,fortable sofas and armchairs were arranged elegantly around the room. On a table before them, various beverages wereid out, from fine wines to exotic elixirs.
An expensive rug adorned the floor beneath their feet, its intricate patterns adding to the room''s luxurious ambiance. A cozy firece crackled with magical mes, providing warmth and aforting glow. Runes embedded in the walls regted the room''s temperature, ensuring it was always pleasant, regardless of the weather outside.
The trio entered the room and instinctively made their way to the ss wall overlooking the crescent shaped Hall, where rows upon rows of seats were neatly arranged for themoners. Other VIP pavilions nked theirs, all offering a simr breathtaking view of the expansive theater. The grand stage was hidden beneath a massive red cloth, building anticipation for the grand unveiling.
Rurik leaned against the ss, gazing out at the sea of people. "There seem to be even more folks here than thest auction," he remarked, his tone a mix of surprise and curiosity.
Rurik sighed and shook his head. "If I''m going to make it through this, I need a drink." He left his friends at the ss wall and headed toward the table with beverages, leaving Michael and Raphael momentarily alone.
"Aren''t you going to ask me how I found you, John?" Raphael''s friendly smile disappeared from his face as he questioned Michael.
Until now, Vedora remained silent atop Michael''s shoulder, uttering no word. They were afraid that the angel would see through their disguise. However, Raphael paid no mind to Vedora as his focus solely remained on Michael.
"If I asked, would you tell me?" Michael snickered.
"Probably not. You see, John, I''ve been hunting down rogue gods longer than you can imagine. After doing this for thousands of years, you grow tired, and the hunt bes boring. So, I hoped the infamous God of Darkness would give me some challenge. But I have to tell you, John, I am profoundly unimpressed by you," Raphael said, with a hint of pride and arrogance in his voice. However, Raphael had the ability and power to back his arrogance.
"Now that you''ve found me, what are you nning to do?" Michael asked.
"I can tell you are depending on Goddess Seshat''s array to save yourself. But, John, you cannot stay here forever. Once you step outside her domain, I''ll be waiting," Raphael calmly said.
"I''m disappointed, Raphael. I thought the Pantheon would send more angels after me once they know I am here in their own realm," Michael stated, using the angel''s obvious fake name.
In response, Raphael justughed.
"Oh, John. The Pantheon has more important matters. I can assure you, even five thousand years ago, you weren''t at the top of their priority list." said Raphael.
"So it''s just me and you, huh?" Michael snickered.
"Yes, and I hope you up your game. Because the more bored I get, the faster I end this hunt," Raphael said coldly.
"You know, Raphael, the reason why I wasn''t at the top of your priority list five thousand years ago, and now, is because I am the god of darkness. It''s my nature to work in the shadows. If you know what''s good for you, you should really abandon this so-called hunt and run for your life," Michael warned. As he spoke, Michael released a bit of his godly aura, causing the lights in the room to flicker.
"Damn it. What''s happening?" Rurik, who was pouring a drink for himself and drinking, asked, looking at the orbs flickering.
"Nothing, my friends. Seems like the runes are malfunctioning," Raphael said, clearly undeterred by Michael''s godly powers.
Suddenly, a loud bell rang through the hall, echoing its chimes, and a voice announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, the auction will begin in ten minutes. Please make your way to your seats."
"Why don''t we enjoy the auction together?" Raphael suggested, seemingly nonchnt.
Michael knew that Raphael was trying to keep a close eye on him, eager to discern what he might be nning to buy. He had a gut feeling that Raphael''s intention for being here at this auction went beyond merely tracking him down. There was more to this angel''s presence than met the eye.
Chapter 1126 Crane of Agram and God of Murder
Chapter 1126 Crane of Agram and God of Murder
As the bell chimed, Rurik gestured to the seats. "Let''s take our seats, my friends."
The curtains on the center stage slowly rose, revealing an exceptionally beautiful half-elf girl with silver hair that cascaded gracefully down her back. Her fair skin seemed to glow under the soft, ambient light, and her eyes, a striking shade of azure, sparkled with an enchanting allure. Her slender, well-proportioned figure was elegantly entuated by a form-fitting, revealing dress that left the crowd in awe.
"Oh my, look at her beauty!" someone in the crowd whispered.
"Unbelievable!" another person eximed.
Rurik leaned over to Michael and Raphael, a proud smile on his face. "Allow me to introduce you to the best in the auctioning business. This, my friends, is Meenal Dahl."
Meenal Dahl extended her hand gracefully. "I am honored to be the host of yet another Divine Towers auction, and I simply adore the crowd."
The crowd erupted in cheers and gasps of admiration.
"Meenal, Meenal, Meenal!" they chanted enthusiastically, captivated not only by her beauty but also by her charismatic presence.
Even Rurik, who usually detestedrge crowds and auctions, found himself captivated by the half-elf''s beauty. Michael couldn''t me him or anyone else for that matter; Meenal was indeed the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Even the likes of Gaya and Lah, who were known for their celestial beauty, couldn''t hold a candle to Meenal''s enchanting allure. There was something about her that exuded an immediate angelic charm.
"By the name of Goddess Celestia, I will begin this year''s auction," Meenal''s voice flowed like a gentle river, soothing the ears of those in attendance.
"Goddess Celestia''s worshipper, huh? No wonder she''s so beautiful," Raphael remarked, his tone suggesting familiarity with the Goddess.
However, Michael remained silent, refraining from asking any questions. As Meenalmenced the auction, a swirling blue portal materialized behind her. From this portal emerged a colossal, blue-scaled dragon, its massive form towering over Meenal. Lightning crackled around its body, creating an awe-inspiring yet menacing spectacle.
"Good things alwayse first. Just like that, the first item we are going to auction today is the Mighty Thunder King. He is at the Elemental Attunement stage and has chosen lightning as his element. You can tell by the looks of these lightning cracks," Meenal announced, her voice unwavering in the dragon''s imposing presence. The dragon exuded a majestic aura, appearing as though it regarded the onlookers with regal disdain.
"But before I initiate the initial bid, let me go through the rules. You may bid using only gold coins. Celestial crystals are not epted. If you win a bid, your item will be stored on the first floor with your token number. You can then pay the price and retrieve your item. Please refrain from cing bids you cannot afford. Vitions or failure to pay the price will result in several decades of prison time," Meenal''s tone turned stern and serious, her words holding the attention of every spectator. As a devout worshipper of Goddess Celestia, it was second nature for Meenal to attract and captivate those around her.
"And if you''re concerned about how to control such a majestic and powerful creature, fear not. The Mighty Thunder King has been trained by the Ironhands beast tamers. We all know their reputation as the best in the beast-taming business. So, have no doubts about Thunder King''s obedience. But to further reassure you, one of the Ironhands beast tamers will be provided to you, free of cost, to be with you and the dragon, and help initiate a bond between you and the dragon," Meenal exined, her words causing murmurs of discussion among the audience.
"Now, without further ado, let''s begin. The starting bid for the Thunder King is five hundred thousand gold coins," Meenal announced, her angelic voice carrying throughout the hall.
Upon hearing the starting bid amount, themoners in the general area of the auction hall gasped in shock.
"Five hundred thousand?! Oh my goodness!"
"There goes my dream of owning a dragon."
"Quit your nonsense; you could never afford a dragon. You can barely afford the ticket to get inside."
Themoners voiced their astonishment, revealing their disbelief at the high starting bid.
"Six hundred thousand!" Rurik suddenly roared, surprising Michael.
Michael couldn''t help but smile as Rurik sported a mischievous grin, typical of dwarves.
"Seven hundred thousand!" Another voice from a different VIP pavilion entered the bidding war against Rurik.
"Eight hundred!" Rurik countered,ughing heartily.
"Are you raising the bid on purpose?" Michael asked Rurik.
"Of course I am. Can''t a dwarf have some fun at an auction?" Rurik chuckled, thoroughly enjoying the escting bidding war. Even Arlen had entered the fray,peting to win the Thunder King.
As the bidding war for the dragon continued, someone swiftly raised the bid from one billion gold coins to a staggering one point three billion coins in the blink of an eye. The crowd was left in awe at the sudden and massive bid increase, and many of the other nobles began to back off, deeming the price too steep for a single dragon.
"The Mighty Thunder King is sold to the representatives of Predonia!" Meenal announced with an ear-to-ear grin, her face radiating delight. She knew that for every item she sold, she would receive a generous cut based on the final bid, so her happiness was quite understandable.
"The representatives of Predonia certainly know how to choose their beasts. Who am I kidding? We all know that when ites to beasts, no one excels quite like the people of Predonia. You practically stole the dragon from us for that price. Congrattions," Meenal continued, her beautiful smile and sweet demeanor melting the hearts of the nobles who had just acquired the dragon.
It wasn''t just the buyers of the Thunder King who were taken with her charm; the other young nobles in the VIP pavilions were now even more determined to win bids on the next items and impress her.
After the representatives of Predonia won the Thunder King, a portal appeared once more, and the dragon obediently stepped through, vanishing into it. Then, a smaller blue portal materialized, and this time, a golden cane floated gracefully out of it, hovering beside Meenal.
"What in the hell is that thing?" Rurik asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.
Many in the crowd shared Rurik''s bewilderment, as they had no idea what this peculiar item could be. However, Michael could sense an immense power radiating from the cane. When he activated his X-ray vision, he observed the space around the cane distorting, a clear indication of its extraordinary capabilities.
"This,dies and gentlemen, is the Crane of Agram¡ªa primordial artifact that has existed for longer than many gods in the pantheon. This rare artifact has the ability to create portals to anywhere within the user''s domain. Imagine you want to travel from the warm city of Goldspire to the chilling mountains of Nilfnore in Sagespire. Normally, you would have to spend months traversing forests and treacherous terrain. Even the mostfortable carriages can feel cumbersome during such long journeys, trust me, I know," Meenal said with a sweet chuckle, her charm captivating the audience.
"But with the Crane of Agram, you''ll just have to open a portal and step into it. In the blink of an eye, you''ll find yourself in Nilfnore. However, please remember that you cannot travel from one god''s domain to another, and opening portals into secured areas is against the rules. So, we advise you not to open portals into Radeon''s funds vault or a treasury," Meenal continued, chuckling again. It was clear that while such actions were against the rules, some individuals might still be tempted to try them.
This crane was indeed a dreame true for thieves, and the idea of acquiring it enticed even Michael for a moment. Fortunately, he had his portable portal and the System at his disposal.
"But wait, there''s more to the Crane of Agram," Meenal continued in her enchanting voice. "You can use it to transport goods, seek hidden treasures, and explore the uncharted corners of your own domain. Just imagine the possibilities."
Meenal paused for a moment, letting the anticipation in the room build, and then she dropped the bombshell.
"We''ll start the bidding for this remarkable artifact at one billion gold coins."
As soon as those words left her lips, a collective gasp swept through themoners in the auction hall.
"One billion?! Can you believe this?"
"That''s more than most of the nobles'' entire estates!"
"They''re all mad! Who in their right mind would spend that much on a cane?"
However, in the VIP pavilions, the atmosphere was entirely different. The nobles went into a frenzy, bidding against each other at a rapid pace.
"One point five billion!"
"Two billion!"
"Two point five billion!"
It seemed like the price was skyrocketing with every passing second as the noblespeted fiercely for ownership of the Crane of Agram.
"Rurik, aren''t you going to bid for the crane?" Michael asked, looking at the bidding frenzy.
"Oh,d, the Crane of Agram is a magnificent treasure, no doubt about that. But you see, even if I bid every piece of gold I own, there''s no chance in the seven realms that I''ll get it." Rurik chuckled heartily.
Michael raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious. "And why''s that?"
Rurik leaned in closer and spoke in a hushed tone. "Because this pavilions aren''t just for the noble houses. It''s also for some of the shadiest, richest figures in the underworld. The Crane of Agram, my friend, isn''t going to be won by a mere noble. I''d bet that every legendary thief and criminal in the city is here, itching to get their hands on it. Even if a noble manages to buy it, they''ll have a target on their back, and not the good kind of target."
Michael nodded in understanding, realizing the dangerous game that was unfolding before them. The auction was far more than just a disy of wealth; it was a high-stakes contest with consequences that extended beyond the auction hall.
"Don''t forget the worshippers of the God of Murder, Xyloth," Raphael calmly mentioned. Michael noticed an immediate change in Rurik''s expression. The dwarf''s face turned pale, and his wooden cup trembled in his hands.
"Don''t even say his name," Rurik stuttered, his fear of Xyloth, the God of Murder, clearly evident.
Unbeknownst to Michael, Xyloth belonged to the Dead Trinity, a trio of gods feared by the mortals in the realm of gods. One of the other gods in this terrifying trio was none other than the God of Death himself. Michael had already encountered an angel of Death, and soon, he woulde face to face with an angel of Murder.
(This arc with God of Murder which will begin after the next arc- The God Killing Arc will be the most tense, thrilling and gore filled Arc you have read)
Chapter 1127 Bid War for the book
Chapter 1127 Bid War for the book
As Meenal continued with the auction, she presented several other items, each with its own unique appeal and purpose.
First up was a sentient sword, a beautifully crafted de with an ornate hilt and a gemstone-encrusted scabbard. Meenal held it up with reverence, her voice dripping with melodious allure.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this sword is not just an ordinary weapon," she purred. "It''s a sentient de with a soul of its own. Imagine having a loyalpanion in your battles, a sword that can anticipate your every move. Bid now, and you''ll gain a partner who will never let you down."
Bids started rolling in, and the sword eventually went to a noble who saw its potential as a family heirloom, paying a hefty 300 million gold coins.
Next was a beautifully drawn treasure map, detailing a remote ind said to be filled with riches beyond imagination. Meenal unfurled it slowly, revealing intricate illustrations of uncharted territories and hidden caves.
"Seeking adventure? This map could lead you to untold wealth," Meenal enthused. "And for just one million gold coins, it''s a small price to pay for a lifetime of thrilling exploration."
The map garnered several interested buyers, with a well-known explorer ultimately winning the bid, grinning from ear to ear as he dreamt of the fortunes he would unearth.
Finally, Meenal revealed a spell scroll that promised to create a miniature sun, radiating warmth and light. The crowd marveled at the concept, picturing thefort of an eternal summer garden.
"The bid starts from two million gold coins. Imagine having a mini sun at yourmand," Meenal coaxed. "Perfect for those long, dark winters or for any asion when you simply need a touch of brilliance in your life. Or to torch your enemies into ashes,"
The bidding for the spell scroll was fierce, but in the end, it was an old man sitting in themoner area who triumphed. He bought the spell scroll for five million gold coins. With each item sold, Meenal''s poprity as the auction host continued to soar. Her melodious voice and maic charm had a way of making every purchase feel like a fantastic opportunity, and the crowd couldn''t help but be swept away by her charisma.
Finally, as anticipation swelled in the hall, a blue portal shimmered open behind Meenal. A hushed murmur swept through the crowd as a dark, ancient-looking book floated gracefully through the portal andnded gently in her delicate hands.
"Ladies and gentlemen, what you see before you is no ordinary tome," Meenal dered, her eyes shining with reverence. "This book was penned by the very hand of Goddess Seshat''s angel. It contains powerful runes as locks, waiting for a talented runemaster to unlock its secrets."
The crowd exchanged intrigued nces, their curiosity piqued by the enigmatic book.
"Imagine the possibilities," Meenal continued, her voice a silky temptation. "This book holds knowledge, untapped knowledge that could change the course of history. As the saying goes, knowledge is wealth, and you simply cannot put a price on the treasures of wisdom that lie within."
A hush fell over the audience as Meenal revealed the starting bid, "The starting bid for this ancient book is two million gold coins."
Nobles from the VIP pavilions leaned forward eagerly, their eyes fixed on the book, and a fierce bidding war erupted. Fingers snapped to raise paddles, and numbers flew into the air as the price skyrocketed.
"Three million!"
"Three point five million,!"
"Four million!"
The atmosphere crackled with tension as fortunes were wagered for the mysterious book. It was a testament to the allure of knowledge, and the belief that whatevery hidden within those ancient pages held the potential to unlock unimaginable power and insight.
Meenal watched the bidding war with a sly smile, her allure weaving a web of desire around the nobles. This book, the creation of a divine angel, had captivated their hearts and minds, and they were willing to pay any price to possess it.
"Something feels fishy," Rurik stroked his beard, his brows furrowing.
As Rurik voiced his concerns, he turned his gaze toward Michael. To the dwarf''s surprise, Michael gave him a discreet, worldly signal to bid for the book. At first, Rurik frowned, trying to decode Michael''s signals. Vedora, ever helpful, utilized their three heads to make the signal unmistakable. First, Sarba looked at Raphael briefly, and then Ayag turned her head toward Rurik, clearly signaling him to bid for the book without Raphael catching on.
"Okay¡" Rurik dragged out his words as he began to bid for the book.
"Four point five million," Rurik raised the bid, though he harbored doubts about the book and the knowledge it might contain.
Raphael, on the other hand, turned his gaze toward Michael, noticing the unconcerned look on his face. He believed that the dwarf was truly coveting the book, so he chose to remain silent. If Raphael had known that Michael wanted the book for different reasons, he might have started bidding just to make things more challenging for Michael.
As the bidding continued, a murmur of doubt rippled through themoners. They exchanged cautious nces and began to voice their reservations about the book and its supposed value.
"What''s all this fuss about a book that doesn''t seem all that valuable?" onemoner questioned aloud.
A nearby noble, caught off guard by thement, replied defensively, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Think about it," themoner continued. "If that book truly held knowledge that could change history, the Divine Towers wouldn''t be auctioning it off. Something just doesn''t add up."
The conversation spread among themoners and even some of the nobles, who found themselves reevaluating their enthusiasm for the book and the knowledge it purportedly contained.
Meanwhile, Michael shared their skepticism. He knew that information on how to kill a god wouldn''t be so readily avable. There had to be more to the book than met the eye, and Michael suspected that it might be enchanted, hiding its true purpose behindyers of mystery.
Just as the bidding war seemed to being to a head, a rough and authoritative voice echoed from one of the VIP pavilions. "We need that book," the voice dered, an undercurrent of urgency evident. "It would be in your best interest to cease your bidding."
Rurik couldn''t help but chuckle at the audacity of the statement. "This is an auction," he retorted with a sly grin. "Anyone with enough gold coins can bid as they please."
However, it seemed that someone else shared the sentiment. From a different VIP pavilion, another voice rang out, confident and unwavering. "Let''s talk using coins, shall we?" the voice challenged, raising the bid to fifteen million gold coins.
The auction hall fell silent for a moment, the tension palpable. Rurik, Michael, and Raphael exchanged nces, realizing that thepetition for the book was far from over.
As the mysterious voice demanding a halt to the bidding only fueled thepetition, suspicions and tensions continued to mount in the auction hall. The nobles, now more convinced that the book held valuable secrets, were determined to secure it for themselves.
"Fourteen million coins!" Arlen''s voice cut through the mounting tension, indicating that the Silverbrook family had thrown their hat into the ring.
"Shit," Rurik cursed under his breath, realizing that he might have to part with a considerable sum of coins to fulfill his promise to Michael. Though he had his doubts about the book''s true value, a promise was a promise.
Just as Rurik was preparing himself for the inevitable, another faction entered the fray. "That book belongs to the Runemasters of Goldpsire. We wont give up!" The Runemasters of Goldspire, known for their expertise in runic magic, vehemently dered their interest in the book.
With each new bid, the stakes grew higher and the auction hall buzzed with excitement. Just when they thought the situation couldn''t get more intense, a voice from themon area, wheremoners and less affluent attendees sat, boomed, "Twenty-five million!"
The shock that rippled through the hall was palpable. Even the nobles, who had been engaged in fierce bidding, were taken aback. It was inconceivable that amoner would offer such a staggering sum.
"Interesting¡" Raphael mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. Michael, however, felt a growing sense of unease. If this angel decided to im the book, it would undoubtedlyplicate matters significantly.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have never seen such enthusiasm for an item like this before! The Runemasters of Goldspire, the esteemed Silverbrook family, themoner from the crowd, and many nobles, all vying for the secrets hidden within this ancient tome. Who can resist the allure of untapped knowledge, locked behind intricate runes?"
Her words worked like magic, spurring even more frenzied bidding. The noble families were determined to outdo each other, while themoner from the crowd disyed unwavering resolve, not yielding to the elite.
"Thirty million!" Rurik, caught up in the whirlwind of excitement andpetitiveness, raised his voice, pushing the bid higher.
The auction hall was alive with the rapid exchange of bids, growing more heated by the second. As the price continued to skyrocket, it became clear that the book had ignited a fierce battle of prestige, knowledge, and, above all, pride.
"I need to get that book no matter what," Michael said, staring at the dark tome. That book held the answers to how to kill a god and killing a god would make him the deadliest assassin in the whole universe.
Chapter 1128 Astral Tower
Chapter 1128 Astral Tower
The final bid for the book finally reached thirty-five million gold coins, with Rurik emerging victorious in the bidding war, defeating all other contenders.
"Congrattions, Master cksmith," Ayag teased the dwarf.
"The untapped knowledge, the Book of Seshat''s Angel, has been sold for thirty-five million to the cksmith Guild," Meenal announced, and the crowd gasped. They had never imagined that a mere book would fetch such an astronomical sum. Even Michael was surprised, considering that the wealth in the realm of the gods was on apletely different level. The nobles here could easily spend hundreds of millions, making them seem vastly wealthier than the nobles in the mortal realm.
After Meenal sold the book, Michael felt many eyes turning their way. However, he chose to ignore their gazes and patted Rurik on the shoulder.
"What does a cksmith like you hope to learn from that book?" Raphael asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"I just like books," Rurik replied simply, without revealing that John had asked him to purchase the book.
With the book sold, Meenal shifted her attention to the crowd as the portal behind her opened once again. To Michael and Vedora''s shock, what floated through the portal was none other than a four-headed hydra. It was a baby hydra, roughly the size of a puppy. The hydra stared at the crowd with confusion and shock as each head moved in various directions, looking around.
"Since we''ve had some intense bidding wars, let''s bid on something fun," Meenal proposed. "As you can see, this four-headed hydra was artificially bred by the schrs of Runia."
Vedora trembled with anger. As a naturally born majestic creature, Vedora held pride and felt disrespected by the idea of their kind being bred in tubes. When they had learned that they were thest of their kind, they had felt helpless and desperate to find their kin. But in the realm of the gods, they had discovered that their kind was being bred through experiments and unnatural means. Various spells, runes, and potions were used for breeding instead of allowing them to reproduce naturally.
Since the inbred hydras were infertile, breeding them inside special tubes was the only option. But despite everything, Vedora hated the idea of breeding her kind in this manner.
Seeing the small cors around each of the hydra''s tiny necks made Vedora tremble with anger.
"A child who doesn''t love a cute hydra is no child at all. I remember when I was six years old, my father gave me my first pet¡ªa milky white, three-headed hydra. We used to do everything together and go everywhere together. I don''t remember a single second when I was away from my hydra. But twenty years ago, hydras had a lifespan of only three years. Now, thanks to the schrs and alchemists, these inbred hydras can live up to twelve years," Meenal informed the crowd, sharing a bit of her life story to engage the audience.
"As you may or may not know, these hydras cannot absorb celestial energy, so you don''t have to spend your precious Celestial crystals or worry about them cultivating faster than you. Hahaha, I''m just joking," Meenal teased the crowd, andughter echoed throughout.
"Now, what makes this cute little hydra special?" Meenal asked the crowd as she slowly moved her hand toward the hydra. The hydra hissed and cowered in fear, obviously terrified of her. Yet she smiled and grabbed the hydra by the neck where all the heads connected. Although she was smiling gently, Michael could see her tight grip around the hydra''s neck. She held the hydra without any gentleness.
"This particr cutie is a feisty one, and it makes sense since the schrs of Runia have informed us that this hydra was bred using a small piece of flesh from the legendary Vedora," the crowd gasped in shock as Meenal uttered the word.
"We all know that many believe that the battle between the God of Darkness and his pet Vedora is just a myth created by the pantheon to scare us five thousand years ago. But we can all agree that this world is full of surprises. Bred from the legendary hydra Vedora, this hydra is a special, rare breed. You can be the star of any g with this baby in your arms. Ladies, it''s time to open your space rings and bid for this cutie."
Michael noticed the anger within Vedora''s eyes. Each of their three heads brimmed with anger. Michael used a portion to disguise the hydra as a three-headed serpent, altering their appearance but not their eyes, which still glowed with fury.
Meenal raised her hand, and her voice rang out over the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, let us begin the bidding for this legendary creature, born from the flesh of the mighty Vedora! We shall start the bidding at a modest three hundred thousand gold coins."
The announcement sparked an immediate reaction in the audience. The nobles in their opulent seats and some of themoners seated nearby eyed the tiny hydra with avaricious glints in their eyes. The bid war had begun.
A nobleman in the front row, resplendent in his fine robes, confidently raised his hand. "Three hundred fifty thousand gold coins," he dered, his voice carrying authority.
Ady from a noble family nearby, adorned with jewels and draped in silk, did not hesitate. "Four hundred thousand gold coins," she countered, her eyes never leaving the adorable but fierce-looking hydra.
The bid war escted as each participant tried to outdo the others:
"Five hundred thousand gold coins!" shouted a wealthy merchant from themon seating area.
"Six hundred thousand!" another nobleman chimed in.
Themoners were not to be outdone. A craftsman who had saved diligently and dreamt of owning such a creature raised his voice, "Seven hundred thousand gold coins!"
The atmosphere grew tense as the bidding continued:
"One million gold coins!" a noblewoman with a regal air about her proimed.
Thepetition for this unique hydra showed no signs of slowing down. Both nobles andmoners were determined to possess the rare creature born from Vedora''s flesh. Each bid was met with gasps, exmations, and hushed discussions among the spectators.
As the fierce bidding war reached a fever pitch, it was a noble seated in the VIP pavilion who made the decisive move. With a confident smile, he raised his hand high and dered, "Eight million gold coins!"
The announcement rippled through the crowd, and all eyes turned to the nobleman in the VIP section. Meenal nodded approvingly. "Eight million gold coins going once, going twice..."
Before she could finish her countdown, the crowd fell silent. It was evident that the noble from the VIP pavilion had outbid everyone else. Meenal''s voice rang out with finality, "Sold, the mighty creature is sold to the Alistair family for eight million gold coins!"
Rurik, seated in the VIP pavilion, couldn''t help but roll his eyes and let out a snicker. "Well, that makes sense," he muttered under his breath.
Michael, who sat beside Rurik in the VIP pavilion, leaned closer and asked, "What makes sense?"
Rurik chuckled and replied, "The Alistair family, they meddle in all kinds of rare creatures. Serpents and hydras are their favorites."
"Fun fact about that family, John," Raphael said with an amused tone, "They worship the Great Serpent, an arch-nemesis of Goddess Gaya." He knew that Gaya was Michael''s wife, and the fact that the Alistair family worshippes her arch-nemesis, the Great Serpent, implied that they were essentially enemies of Michael, Goddess Gaya''s husband.
"Now, before we begin the auction for our next item, I am obliged to tell you that the Astral Tower keys can be purchased in the Divine Towers after the auction. For those who are unfamiliar with the Astral Towers, they are ancient towers found within realm tears that randomly appear throughout the realm. Every five years, a realm tear will manifest, and many cultivators, including some angels, venture into the tower to secure its treasures," Meenal said, pausing for a moment.
Michael listened attentively as she continued.
"ess to this tower is only possible with the Astral Tower keys. If you wish toy your hands on the priceless treasures within the Astral Towers, you''ll need one of these keys. We are delighted to provide you with the opportunity to acquire these keys, which will be avable for purchase after the auction, as I mentioned before," Meenal announced.
The mere mention of the Astral Towers sparked excited murmurs among the crowd.
"Now that we''ve covered that, it''s time for a short break. The auction will resume in an hour. Those who have won bids can collect their items in the lobby downstairs. See you wonderful people in an hour," Meenal winked as she waved her hand, creating a portal before her. She then stepped into the portal and disappeared.
Upon Meenal''s departure and the announcement of the break, Michael stood up from thefortable sofa in the VIP pavilion. He turned to Rurik and said with determination, "Let''s go and get that book."
Rurik nodded, and the two of them made their way out of the VIP pavilion into the corridor, where they intended to collect the book they had won in the auction. Vedora, still simmering with suppressed anger from earlier remained silent on Michael''s shoulder.
As they stepped into the corridor, they were immediately surrounded by several nobles, each apanied by their guards. The nobles wore expressions ranging from curiosity to thinly veiled hostility. It was clear that their interest had been piqued by the unexpected presence of Michael and Vedora, particrly their sessful bid for the book.
One of the nobles, a tall man with a regal air, stepped forward and addressed Michael with a polite but guarded tone. "Excuse me, sir. We couldn''t help but notice your interest in the Book of Seshat''s Angel. It''s a rare and valuable item, and we were wondering if you might consider parting with it."
"No," Michael simply said, realizing these nobles wouldnt take no for an answer.
Chapter 1129 Rin, The Princess of Murder
Chapter 1129 Rin, The Princess of Murder
The nobleman before Michael couldn''t hide his surprise at Michael''s outright rejection to sell him the book.
"I can pay you double what you paid for the book in the bidding," the man said, attempting to convince Michael to part with it. Rurik frowned, as he had never seen the red-haired man or anyone standing behind him before.
Soon, a couple of orcs arrived on the scene.
"Heree the runemasters," Rurik muttered, surprised by how many nobles and even runemasters were approaching them, eager to negotiate for the book. Rurik began to reconsider his thoughts about the book.
"Rurik, where is your guild master? You bought the book, didn''t you? Let us talk to the guild master. The book is of utmost importance to the Runemasters Guild," a tall, bulky orc wearing emerald green robes said. He didn''t even notice Michael as he spoke with Rurik.
"Young man, you don''t want us as your enemies. Just give us the book, and we can all leave here peacefully," the red-haired man said, his voice turning cold and threatening.
Raphael stood in the corner, observing the unfolding scene, and wondered why John, the God of Darkness, was so adamant about obtaining the book.
"What are you going to do?" Michael asked with a sly grin.
"You can''t fight me. We are in Goddess Seshat''s domain, remember?" Michael added, knowing for certain that the nobles wouldn''t dare to draw their des as there was a strict rule against fighting within Godspire.
"You cannot stay here in Godspire forever, young man," the red-haired man said, his voice growing even colder.
"I can. Watch me," Michael replied calmly before walking away from the crowd.
"I''ll send you a letter," Rurik said to the orc before following Michael. Once they had distanced themselves from the crowd, Rurik joined Michael and questioned him.
"Lad, what''s in that book? Why is everyone hounding us to give it to them?" Rurik inquired. But before Michael could answer, a gray-haired old man with a gray beard approached them. He wore crimson red robes with gold trim. Michael immediately recognized the man as the one who had been bidding for the book from themoner area.
"The book is not for sale, old man," Michael said when the old man approached him. To his slight surprise, the old man shook his head.
"I''m not going to ask for that book. By buying it, you''ve just put a target on yourself. I will collect that book from your corpse," said the old man, unaware that he was addressing a god. Michael felt something amiss about the old man.
"Are you threatening us, you old coot?" Rurik growled, growing angry at a stranger threatening his fellow cksmith.
"No, I''m just decent enough to tell you what I''m going to do," said the old man. The gentle smile on the old man''s face was not kind but rather the smile of a killer, and Michael knew it.
"What''s up with everyone? Has everyone suddenly forgotten that Goddess Seshat prohibits fighting?" Rurik grumbled, only to see the old man chuckle coldly.
"There are some people who don''t fear the rules, even if they were set by the gods themselves," said the old man before walking away.
"Who is that?" Ayag asked Michael, perched atop his shoulder. But Michael didn''t respond to her. Instead, he quickened his pace toward the lobby.
As Michael and Rurik entered the lobby, they found themselves in a well-lit and opulent space. The lobby was adorned with shimmering chandeliers, marble floors, and gilded columns that reflected the wealth and grandeur of the divine auction house.
Richly dressed nobles stood at various counters, each engaged in conversations with auction house attendants. These nobles were in the process of paying for and collecting the items they had won in the auction. "There''s an empty counter. Come on. Lets get this over with,''
Rurik said, pointing at an empty counter and leading Michael toward it. There, a young man in a formal attire greeted them with a polite smile.
"Good day, my lords. How may I assist you?" the young attendant asked, his tone courteous and weing.
"We are here to pick up the item we won. Here''s my VIP token and the coins," Rurik handed over his golden card and a silver space ring.
"I''ll be back in a minute, my lords," said the young man before heading through arge metal door adorned with various runes. As they waited for the young man to return with the book, Michael nced over his shoulder and noticed Raphael watching them from afar.
"He isn''t letting us out of his sight," Sarba whispered into Michael''s ear.
"Put this thing in the cage," Michael heard a cold, emotionless voice. He turned his head to the side and saw a group of noblemen, all dressed in dark purple robes with serpents engraved on their garments. The man at the front of the group was middle-aged, with a stubble beard and long ck hair.
"Son of a bitch," Ayah growled in anger, watching as the man grabbed the four-headed hydra and tossed it to another man.
Michael remained silent, sensing that he would encounter the Alistair family soon but not at this moment. He focused on his current situation. As they continued waiting, the young man finally returned to them, holding the thick, ancient book with a ck cover.
The pages looked yellow and ancient, while the cover appeared in ck with no designs or engravings.
"Here you go, my lord," Michael''s hand trembled as he received the book. He wanted to open it, but he was afraid the pages would crumble. The book looked incredibly old.
"I paid thirty million for the book, so is it too much to expect a space ring to store it?" Rurik grumbled, rolling his eyes.
However, the young man smiled politely. "This book cannot be put inside a space ring, my lord. It has certain runes that prevent it from being stored inside one," he informed them.
"That''s weird," Rurik remarked. But Michael didn''t waste any time. He grabbed the book and decided to return to the VIP pavilion.
He could have ced the book in his system storage, but it would have drawn attention if the book disappeared from his hands right away. Therefore, Michael took the book and headed back to the VIP pavilions.
"What''s in the book, John?" asked Raphael, who was waiting for Michael at the stairs.
"Locations of ruins and many other pieces of information," Michael replied seriously. Rurik was surprised and believed Michael, but Raphael frowned. He couldn''t bring himself to believe that Michael was telling the truth because the God of Darkness had no reason to be truthful. After all, Raphael was here to shadow the God of Darkness and capture him when he left Goldspire.
As Michael ascended the stairs, clutching the book tightly in his hand, he noticed the red-haired man waiting for him.
"Who are these people?" Rurik asked, puzzled. There were no emblems or crests on their chests to identify them.
"There it is..." the red-haired man''s eyes lusted for the book. As Michael approached his room, the man stood between him and the door, reaching for the book.
But Michael quickly moved the book out of his reach and frowned.
"If you wanted this book so badly, you should have bid more," Michael said coldly. However, the man seemed oblivious to Michael''s words, his gaze still locked onto the book.
"Give it to me," the man demanded once more.
"This is yourst warning, whoever you are. Get out of my sight before I call the guards," Rurik growled in anger, having had enough of the strange red-haired man.
Sarba then noticed that the old man was watching them from a distance behind Michael.
To her surprise, the red-haired man disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Michael ignored Sarba and continued to gaze at the red-haired man with a cold, murderous intent. His unwavering gaze broke the man''s eye contact with the book.
"Very well, you''ve just signed your death warrant," the man said coldly before walking away from Michael.
As he walked away, Raphael approached Michael with a knowing smile.
"You''re making quite a few enemies, John," Raphael remarked as Michael headed toward the cksmith Guild pavilion.
"Bad luck for them," Michael chuckled as he opened the door.
"You wouldn''t have made them your enemies if you knew who that man was," Raphael cryptically spoke, leaving Rurik and Vedora perplexed.
"Do you know him? Who was that guy?" Rurik inquired.
"Wrong question. You should ask who that man serves and worships," Raphael replied, avoiding a direct answer.
"You''re not going to answer us, are you?" Ayag rolled her eyes in annoyance.
"Where''s the fun if I tell you everything?" Raphaelughed, leaving them with a sense of mystery and intrigue.
*********************************
The red-haired man returned to his VIP pavilion, a space adorned with luxurious sofas neatly arranged around a central area where a grand firece burned brightly.
Inside, several others were present, each kneeling before a bowl ced at the center of the room. They were deeply absorbed in their ritual, their faces a mix of reverence and anticipation. "She is here." As the red-haired man entered, one of the kneeling figures whispered, At these words, the red-haired man took a deep breath, his eyes reflecting a strange mixture of fear and devotion. He approached the bowl, retrieving a dagger thaty beside it. With deliberate and practiced precision, he cut open his wrist, blood welling up and spilling into the bowl. The crimson fluid mixed with whatever dark substancey within, creating a sinister concoction.
The man''s face remained stoic as he carried out this unsettling ritual, and the room was enveloped in an eerie silence, broken only by the crackling of the firece and the soft murmurs of those who kneeled in worship. Suddenly, the blood within the bowl coalesced and took on a humanoid form. This blood-made figure was small, barely three feet tall, and entirelyprised of crimson liquid.
"Have you located it?" the man felt a shiver run down his spine when he heard her voice. If death and blood had a child, its voice would sound like hers.
"Yes, Lady Rin," the man replied, his voice quivering with fear.
"Do you have it?" inquired Rin. The man remained silent, too afraid to respond.
"You had better possess that book by the end of this week. Otherwise, I will extract every drop of your blood and offer you as a sacrifice to Xyloth," the mysterious entity known as Rin warned the man, causing the worshippers to tremble in fear.
(Read Chapter 1126 to refresh your memories about Xyloth)
Chapter 1130 Bidding War for Liquid Armor
Chapter 1130 Bidding War for Liquid Armor
The auction resumed as Meenal returned to the main stage, her presencemanding the attention of the gathered audience. Commoners and VIPs alike in their exclusive pavilion took their seats, eager for the proceedings to continue.
Meenal addressed the crowd with a cheerful smile. "Wee back, everyone! I hope you had a pleasant break. Are you ready to continue with the auction?"
In unison, the people responded with enthusiasm, their voices blending into a harmonious chorus. "We''re ready!"
Meenal chuckled at the collective response, the energy in the room palpable. With a nod, she signaled for the auction to proceed, setting the stage for the next round of bidding and excitement.
Then, Meenal gracefully waved her hands, and a familiar portal opened behind her. A ss cage containing a swirling, silvery liquid began to float out of the portal, hovering beside her in a mesmerizing disy of otherworldly craftsmanship.
The audience collectively wondered about the nature of the liquid as they watched in fascination.
"This, my friends," Meenal began with a mischievous grin, "is an extremely rare liquid armor, straight from the Metal God''s kingdom."
A gasp rippled through the audience at her revtion.
"The domain of the Metal God boasts the rarest metals and the highest-quality metalworks," Meenal continued, her tone brimming with enthusiasm. She couldn''t help but chuckle. "Well, it makes sense, doesn''t it? It is the Metal God''s domain, after all!"
The crowd listened attentively, intrigued by the promise of such a rare and coveted treasure.
Meenal couldn''t resist teasing the curious crowd. "Now, I can hear you wondering, ''How can a liquid be an armor?''"
Laughter rippled through the audience, caught in her yful banter.
"Well, my friends, let me show you," Meenal dered with a hint of excitement. She carefully opened the ss cage, revealing the mysterious, shimmering liquid.
As everyone watched in fascination, the liquid began to slowly creep onto Meenal''s hands, flowing gracefully like quicksilver. It spread through her entire body, covering her in a seamless, shining embrace.
The silver liquid continued to transform, taking on the appearance of a perfect armor that adorned her body. The armor glinted with a lustrous sheen, its surface smooth and wless. Intricate patterns and elegant engravings adorned the surface, giving it an otherworldly, celestial beauty. It encased her entirely, leaving only her face uncovered, as if sculpted by the hands of a divine craftsman.
The audience was left in awe, marveling at the stunning sight before them.
Rurik was awestruck by the liquid armor, his eyes fixed on it with wonder. "I''ve seen countless pieces of metalwork in my life, but this... How does it even work?" he mused aloud.
Even a master cksmith like Rurik couldn''t fathom the secrets of this extraordinary creation.
Ayag, perched on Rurik''s shoulder, chimed in. "Let''s not think about it too much. Instead, let''s make it ours!"
As if on cue, Ayag encouraged them to bid for the mesmerizing armor, igniting excitement among the spectators. The bidding was about to begin when someone from the crowd shouted, "How strong is that armor? We need a demonstration!"
Meenal chuckled in response, her tone yful. "Why can''t you take my word for it?" she yfully remarked before conceding to the demand.
"Very well, I''ll give you a demonstration."
With a p of her hands, a portal opened once again. This time, a towering knight d in crimson-red armor stepped out, holding a gleaming longsword in his hand. His imposing presencemanded attention, and the crowd fell into a hushed anticipation of the impending demonstration.
"Let''s put this armor to the test, shall we?" Meenal raised her hand and dered,
The crowd watched the knight with bated breath, their anticipation palpable.
Gasps rippled through the onlookers when the knight raised his longsword high, then struck Meenal with what seemed like incredible force.
"Meenal!"
"NO!"
But to their astonishment, the longsword did not even put a dent in the liquid armor that enveloped her. It remained unscathed, reflecting the shimmering light in defiance.
A stunned silence followed as the realization sunk in. The liquid armor was as formidable as it was beautiful, leaving the crowd in awe of its protective capabilities.
"Strike me again, with more force. Use this." Meenal, undeterred by the previous strike, ordered the knight.
With a flick of her wrist, she took out a war hammer and gestured the knight to take it. Obeying her order, the knight exchanged his longsword for a massive warhammer. The audience, her admirers in particr, couldn''t help but shout in concern.
"Lady Meenal, please be careful!" One of Meenal''s ardent supporters cried out.
The knight, now wielding the formidable warhammer, swung it with tremendous force at the liquid armor. As the weapon made contact, a resounding ng echoed through the room, and sparks flew when the armor absorbed the blow. The crowd gasped collectively, stunned once more by the armor''s incredible durability.
"As you can see, this liquid armor can withstand even the most powerful of strikes!" Meenal''s voice rang out confidently as she stood unharmed,
"What makes this armor even more remarkable is that it can be worn by individuals of any cultivation stage, providing the same sturdy protection across the board." Meenal continued her exnation, her voice filled with enthusiasm.
She could sense the audience''s temptation, their desire to possess such a unique treasure.
"Imagine wearing this armor in an instant, ready to face any threat. And the best part? It can be conveniently carried in a special space ring, which, I must add, you can acquire from the Divine Towers at a separate cost." Meenal further tempted them, describing the armor''s practicality.
"Are you all ready to bid for this exceptionally rare armor?" With a gleam in her eye, she asked the eager crowd,.
"We are ready!"
The crowd responded with an excited roar, their enthusiasm shaking the very foundations of the auction hall as they eagerly answered her call.
"And for the lucky winner of the bid, the Divine Tower will provide the winning bidder with the spell to remove the armor at will."Meenal''s voice echoed through the hall.
Then, she muttered the incantation under her breath, and the liquid armor began a mesmerizing transformation. It slowly dissolved into liquid form and gracefully flowed back into the ss cage. The crowd watched in shock and awe as the seemingly indestructible armor returned to its previous state.
"With no further dy, let''s begin the bidding." Finally, Meenal announced.
"The starting bid for this priceless armor is four hundred million." She paused for a moment, building anticipation, before dering,
In themon area, gasps of shock and amazement filled the air as peoplemented on the staggering starting price.
"Four hundred million? Is she serious?" One person eximed,
"That''s more than I could ever dream of!" Another murmured,
Meanwhile, in the noble section, bids began to rise almost immediately, with increments ranging from ten to fifty million as the nobles eagerly vied for the coveted treasure.
In the noble section, bidding for the liquid armor escted at a rapid pace. The nobles were not holding back, and the prices were soaring as theypeted fiercely to secure the coveted prize. They shouted out their bids and red at one another, determined to outdo their rivals.
"Five hundred million!" one noble dered boldly.
"Five hundred and fifty million!" countered another, a hint of arrogance in their voice.
Thepetition became increasingly intense, with each bid raising the stakes higher. Nobles exchanged heated words, urging others to back down and let them im the prized armor.
"You there, yield! This is a matter of House Alistair!" one noble demanded.
"House Kael demands this armor! Six hundred and fifty million!" another shouted.
The atmosphere among the nobles was charged with excitement, rivalry, and a hint of desperation as they continued to raise the bids at a breakneck pace.
As the bidding war among the nobles raged on, Rurik and House Silverbrook decided to join the fray, determined to seize the opportunity to acquire the liquid armor.
"Seven hundred million!" Rurik raised his hand confidently and dered,
House Silverbrook, known for their wealth and influence, added their weight to thepetition.An, the representative from House Silverbrook called out, "Seven hundred and fifty million!"
The sudden entry of House Silverbrook into the bidding sent a clear message to the other nobles that they were serious contenders. The auction hall buzzed with anticipation as the bidding war intensified.
Meanwhile, Ayag couldn''t help but mutter in Michael''s ear,
"It seems like we''re piss poor in this world."
She observed the outrageous bids being made and the fiercepetition among the nobles, making it clear that they were operating in a realm of wealth and extravagance far beyond what they were ustomed to in the mortal realm.
Amidst the escting bids and intense rivalry among the nobles, Raphael, who had been silent and observant throughout the auction, finally spoke up with a calm tone.
"One billion."
Michael frowned, his curiosity piqued. He couldn''t help but wonder why this angel in disguise was so keen on acquiring the liquid armor, especially at such a staggering price.
He leaned towards Raphael and asked, "Why are you bidding for the armor?"
"Why did you bid for the book?" Raphael asked as a response to Michael''s question.
Michael was well aware of Raphael''s mastery over metals, a talent that could potentially make him even more formidable if he possessed the liquid armor. As the bidding war continued, Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of unease. He knew that if Raphael obtained the armor, it would onlyplicate matters for him in the future.
Despite Michael''s reservations, the nobles continued to bid fervently, raising the stakes higher with each bid. They seemed determined to outdo one another, theirpetitiveness driving the price of the armor to unprecedented levels.
"One point one billion!" dered a noble.
"One point two billion!" countered another.
Raphael, however, remained remarkablyposed, calmly raising the bid each time without disying any signs of strain.
"One point three billion," he said coolly.
The tension reached a boiling point as noble families targeted one another, each passionately arguing their im to the liquid armor. usations were hurled, voices grew louder, and heated disputes red up.
"You have no business interfering in noble matters!"
"This armor is too valuable to be entrusted to outsiders!"
"House Alistair deserves this treasure!"
"No, House Kael should be the rightful owners!"
The arguments escted into a chaotic exchange of words, with the noble families engaged in a bitter sh over who had the right to possess the priceless liquid armor. The atmosphere in the auction hall became increasingly charged, and it seemed that the oue of this bidding war would carry significant consequences.
As the tension between House Alistair and House Kael escted, their heated argument devolved into a barrage of offensivenguage and curses.
"You bloody scoundrels, House Alistair has the right to this armor!"
"The only right you have is the right to be a bunch of arrogant fools!"
Raphael, seemingly unperturbed by the foulnguage and escting hostility, calmly raised the bid once again.
"One point four billion," he stated with aposed demeanor.
Michael couldn''t help but notice the intense rivalry between House Alistair and House Kael. It was clear that this bidding war was not just about acquiring the liquid armor but also about one-upping their rivals, with personal vendettas fueling the fiery exchange of words.
Chapter 1131 Travel Rune for Nimbosia and Thunderdale
Chapter 1131 Travel Rune for Nimbosia and Thunderdale
The Alistair family, frustrated and determined to im the liquid armor, shouted across the auction hall at the cksmith Guild pavilion. They directed their words at Rurik, mistakenly assuming that the one bidding from within was a cksmith.
"You there, cksmith! Do the right thing and let go of the armor! It belongs in noble hands!"
Little did they know that it was Raphael, not Rurik, who had been relentlessly raising the bid.
Other noble families, not wanting to be outdone or bullied by House Alistair, chimed in, rebuking their audacity.
"Who do they think they are, trying to dictate who gets the armor?"
"They''re just scared that they won''t be the ones to im it!"
Amidst the tense exchange, Rurik responded with a jovial remark, attempting to diffuse the tension with humor. "Well, if you''re offering to buy me a drink after I let go of the armor, maybe we can talk!"
His lightheartedment drew a few chuckles from the crowd, momentarily breaking the tension in the hall. However, the bidding war continued unabated as noble families persisted in their pursuit of the liquid armor.
Meenal, ever the adept auctioneer, skillfully diffused the heated argument among the nobles and redirected their focus back to the bidding. With a mischievous glint in her eye, she teased the crowd, "Come now, my dear nobles, let''s not bicker like children. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"
Her words had an electrifying effect on the crowd. The idea of securing the rare liquid armor drove them to raise their bids even more enthusiastically, creating a stir of excitement in the auction hall.
Following Raphael''s bid of one point four billion, the nobles wasted no time in pushing the price higher:
"One point five billion!"
"One point six billion!"
"One point seven billion!"
The rapid session of bids showcased the fierce determination of the noble families to possess this unique treasure, and the auction hall buzzed with energy and anticipation.
Raphael continued to raise the bids with a calm and unwavering demeanor, outbidding each noble family in turn. His persistence and deep pockets left the noble families astonished, and their frustration grew with each bid they lost.
As Raphael consistently outbid them, a sense of animosity began to brew among the nobles. They turned their collective ire towards the cksmith Guild pavilion, resenting the cksmiths who had disrupted their ns to acquire the liquid armor.
Commoners who were watching the spectacle gasped in shock, unable to believe the sheer audacity of the bidding war. The tension in the auction hall was palpable, and the conflict between the nobles and the cksmith Guild intensified.
Despite the hostility directed at him, Raphael remainedposed and continued to calmly raise the bid:
"One point eight billion."
The noble families, determined not to be outdone, fired back with their own bids:
"Two billion!"
"Two point two billion!"
Soon, the Alistair family, the Kael family, and the Silverbrook family were now locked in a fierce bidding war, each determined to outdo the others in acquiring the liquid armor. Their bids were flying fast and furiously.
"Three billion!"
"Three point five billion!"
"Four billion!"
As the rivalry between these powerful noble families escted, Raphael, who had been calmly observing, finally spoke up in a nonchnt tone. He seemed to grow weary of the drawn-outpetition.
"You know, I''m getting a bit tired of this," Raphael mused casually.
Suddenly, he raised the bid to an astounding ten billion, stunning everyone in the auction hall. Gasps of shock and amazement filled the air as all eyes turned to the cksmith Guild pavilion. Even Meenal herself couldn''t hide her astonishment at the audacity of the bid.
The abrupt jump from a few billion to ten billion left the noble families reeling, theirpetitive spirits momentarily crushed by the sheer scale of the bid. The auction hall fell into a hushed silence as they tried toprehend the magnitude of the offer made by the mysterious bidder from the cksmith Guild.
Suddenly, a member of the Kael family attempted to speak, his voice trembling with frustration and disbelief. "cksmith Guild you-"
But before he could finish, Raphael once again intervened, his tone nonchnt as ever, as he raised the bid even further.
"Fifteen billion."
The auction hall erupted into a collective gasp of astonishment. The sudden increase in the bid left everyone, including the noble families engaged in the fierce bidding war, utterly stunned.
Michael and Rurik, sitting in the cksmith Guild pavilion, exchanged bewildered nces. They couldn''t help but be amazed by Raphael''s seemingly limitless wealth and his effortless ability to casually raise the bid to astronomical amounts. After hearing thest bid, Meenal, her voice tinged with surprise, echoed, "Fifteen billion going once,"
"Sixteen billion." However, the Alistair family was determined to seize the opportunity and swiftly countered with their own bid.
Rurik, seated beside Michael, couldn''t help but voice his thoughts. "Lad, that armor is undoubtedly remarkable, but it''s not worth fifteen billion," he muttered, his disbelief evident in his tone.
Raphael, who had been quietly observing the proceedings, snickered almost as if he found the situation amusing. "Twenty billion." With a deliberate motion, he calmly outbid the Alistair family once more
The collective gasp of shock that reverberated through the auction hall was palpable. It was a bid that defied all expectations, leaving bothmoners and nobles alike astounded by the unprecedented scale of wealth on disy.
The nobles, including members of the Alistair and Kael families, exchanged smirks and suppressed chuckles as they heard Raphael''s audacious bid of twenty billion.
"Good luck buying an armor for twenty billion," one noble sneered.
"Seems like someone has more money than sense," another chimed in.
The Alistair family and the Kael family decided to put an end to the escting bidding war, their pride intact. , "We''re out." One of them said.
"I can do this all day. So It''s wise to save your coins and face," Raphael, unfazed by their withdrawal, responded with a hint of amusement,
As the noble families ceased bidding, many in the auction hall began to wonder who this arrogant bidder was. They whispered amongst themselves, trying to deduce the identity of the enigmatic figure who had just shattered all previous records for an auction bid.
"It doesn''t sound like Rurik," one noble remarked.
"No, it definitely doesn''t," another agreed.
Meenal, still in a state of shock over the twenty-billion bid, couldn''t help butment on the extraordinary turn of events with a touch of humor. "Well,dies and gentlemen, I assume no one is going to outbid that," she said with a wry smile.
With no further bids forting, Meenal carried on with the auctioneer''s tradition. She began to announce,
"Twenty billion going once..."
As she continued, "Twenty billion going twice..."
The auctioneer''s gavel was poised to strike, and the anticipation in the hall was palpable as Meenal reached the climax of the auction. "Sold to the gentleman in the cksmith Guild." She concluded with a smile,
Meenal couldn''t help but express her curiosity about the bidder. "I''ll be quite intrigued to meet this person," she mused, a yful tone in her voice. "I really hate that the VIP pavilions have those tinted sses. It prevents me from seeing our mysterious benefactor." She added with a chuckle.
Among themoners, there were mixed reactions to Raphael''s sessful bid. Some cursed him for having wealth and seemingly getting everything he desired, while othersmented on the power of coins in this world.
"He''s got coins, so he gets the beauties," onemoner grumbled.
"If you have coins, it seems you can have anyone you want." Another remarked,
It took everyone a few moments toe out of the intense bidding war they just expereinced. Meenal, still riding the excitement of the intense bidding war, couldn''t resist making ament. "Well, that was quite the thrilling bid, wasn''t it?" she chuckled. "I think I''d like a cooler, less heart-pounding one after this."
With a flick of her wrist, Meenal opened the portal once again. Through it floated a small, glowing metal te, about the size of a palm. On the surface of the te, an intricate rune was engraved, emitting a soothing blue light.
"Now,dies and gentlemen, take a look at this. What you''re seeing here is a travel rune, specifically used in the Divine Portals." Meenal gestured to the glowing rune on the metal te.
"I''m sure many of you are aware of the ongoing war between God Rainar and God Kranar. It''s a conflict that has unfortunate repercussions for those living in the affected areas." She adopted a more serious tone.
Then, pausing for a moment, Meenal let the gravity of the situation sink in before she went on. "Now, some of you might be wondering what this has to do with our lovely rune here." She asked before answering her own question.
"This travel rune is unique because it can be used in portals that do not have ess to Nimbosia, the kingdom of God Rain, Rainar, or Thunderdale, the kingdom of God Lightning, Kranar."
Michael couldn''t believe his luck. It just so happened that he was in need of travel runes for the portable portal he had acquired when he explored the rune and met Azazel''s recording. The realization made him lean forward in his seat, his eyes fixed on the glowing rune.
"If we can get our hands on that travel rune, we won''t need to rely on a divine portal to go back to Nimbosia," Ayag, who always had a knack for seeing opportunities, whispered into his ear.
Michael nodded in agreement. Acquiring such a rune could be a significant asset, giving them more independence in their travels between realms. He was determined not to let this opportunity slip through his fingers.
Suddenly, Raphael, who had been observing the proceedings calmly, let out an ominous chuckle.
He turned his gaze towards Michael and said in a low voice.
"You should bid on that travel rune to make a swift exit from Goldspire. It will allow me to finish my job without any further dy,"
Chapter 1132 Beat them with Brains
Chapter 1132 Beat them with Brains
"Nimbosia is truly one of the most beautiful domains, with its endless rain and vibrant city. Many would give anything to experience the soothing rain and explore its wonders. And when this war finallyes to an end, Nimbosia will once again be an attractive destination. At that time, everyone will flock back to Nimbosia to witness its revival." Meenal''s voice carried a note of nostalgia as she continued, However, a noble from the Kael family raised a question, "Why would we need another travel rune to Nimbosia and Thunderdale when all the divine portals in the Runemasters Guild already have them?"
Meenal chuckled in response.
"Not everyone can ess the divine portals," she said, her eyes shifting toward themoners. She knew that the underworld and the Thieves Guild had a vested interest in travel runes because they didn''t have the luxury of using the divine portals in the Runemasters Guild to move between realms. "Once the war is over, you get to travel between Thunderdale and Nimbosia if you don''t like the divine portals,"
With a mischievous glint in her eyes, Meenal continued to tease the crowd a bit longer before finally starting the bid.
"Now,dies and gentlemen, for these exquisite travel runes, I shall start the bidding at a mere two hundred thousand gold coins. A small price to pay for the convenience of traveling between domains without the need for divine portals," she announced, her voice filled with excitement as she awaited the bids to roll in.
Meenal and the nobles were well aware that for individuals of their stature, ess to the divine portals within the Runemaster Guilds made traveling between domains a trivial matter. However, they also understood that the situation was vastly different for those in the criminal underworld and the Thieves Guild.
In the seedy underbelly of the realms, crude methods of inter-domain travel weremon, and they paled inparison to the efficient, safe, and reliable divine portals crafted by the skilled runemasters. The potential buyers for these travel runes were not among the nobility but rather hidden in the shadows, eagerly waiting for a chance to buy such a valuable tool for their illicit activities.
"Three hundred thousand," a voice called from themon area, confirming Meenal''s expectations. Michael nced out of the window and saw several individuals in disguise, concealing their identities with hoods and masks. The one who had just bid also wore a dark hood that obscured his face.
"Three hundred and fifty," Michael spoke up, participating in the auction for the first time.
Rurik, somewhat inebriated, couldn''t help butugh. He questioned Michael''s motives, wondering if he had criminal intentions.
"Oh, he''s much more," Raphael replied with a smile.
"Four hundred thousand," another hooded figure from themon area countered Michael''s bid.
Raphael enjoyed hunting and was eager for the God of Darkness to buy the travel runes. He longed for a challenge and didn''t like being stuck in his mountain with nothing to do. Nowadays, there were very few rogue gods left because most had joined the pantheon when they were offered a ce there. This made Raphael''s role as a hunter almost obsolete. So, he was looking forward to the excitement of hunting, especially when it involved chasing the God of Darkness.
"Four hundred and fifty," Michael calmly raised the bid once more.
Meenal was genuinely surprised to see someone from the VIP pavilion participating in the bidding for the travel runes.
The hooded figures in themon area continued to raise their bids, and Michael calmly countered each one.
"Five hundred thousand," one of the hooded figures called out.
"Five hundred and fifty," Michael replied without a hint of urgency.
"Six hundred thousand," another figure bid.
"Six hundred and fifty," Michael countered confidently.
The bidding war went on, with the hooded figures trying to outbid each other, but Michael remainedposed and determined to secure the travel runes. Each time they raised the bid, he responded with a higher offer.
"Seven hundred thousand," a bidder dered.
"Seven hundred and fifty," Michael stated firmly.
The atmosphere in the auction hall grew tense as the bids escted, but Michael was unshaken, ready to keep countering their offers.
As Michael continued to raise the bid by fifty thousand gold coins, themoners and nobles in the hall began to enjoy the spectacle. They watched with amusement as the bidding war between the hooded figures and Michael unfolded.
Some of the nobles couldn''t help butment, their voices filled with a mix of amusement and slight irritation. "Who is this fellow in the cksmith guild pavilion?" one noble whispered. "He''s acting like a noble, but he''s embarrassing us. Doesn''t he know when to give a bid that others can''t outbid?"
Others nodded in agreement, their attention divided between the ongoing bids and their murmured discussions about the mysterious bidder from the cksmith guild pavilion.
"Lad, why are you even bidding for those runes? You can travel to Nimbosia using the divine portals in the Runemasters guild for way fewer coins," Rurikmented, sipping his ale.
"Let''s just say I like how they are glowing," Michael replied with a mischievous smile, though Rurik could see through his obvious lie.
"One million," suddenly, someone in the Alistair family pavilion raised the bid.
"Two million," another person in the Kael family countered the bid.
"It seems like they want to seek revenge for that book you outbid them for," Raphael said with an amused tone. It had been a long time since he had witnessed the quarrels and pettiness of mortals.
"Fuck, why are they even bidding?" Ayag growled in frustration.
Even Michael frowned as the nobles entered the bidding war. But he wasn''t going to let go of the travel runes.
"So they want to y dirty, huh..." Michael thought with a devilish gleam in his eye as he casually put one leg over the other and leaned back on the sofa.
"Two million and fifty thousand," Michael dered. Meenal was nearly taken aback; no one had ever consistently raised the bid by fifty thousand in this manner. Even as the bid reached millions, which was quite a hefty sum for travel runes, she was astonished to see the young man persistently raising the bid by just fifty thousand each time.
"Three million," a noble from the Alistair VIP pavilion raised the bid, apanied byughter.
"For those of you who are listening," Michael announced with a sly grin, "let me have that travel rune, and I''ll offer you the book we acquired in the cksmith Guild."
"What are you doing?" Sarba looked thoroughly puzzled, and even Raphael shared the same confusion.
"Lad," Rurik growled, fully aware of Michael''s intentions.
When Michael offered the book that had caused such a frenzy in bidding, the nobles fell silent.
"That''s a deal the Alistair family can ept in exchange for backing off from this bidding," one noble dered.
"Kael family agrees too," another chimed in.
It was a rare urrence for these two prominent rival families to agree on anything. However, they both chose to back down this time, bewildered by the seemingly stupid decision of the young man. After all, the book had fetched more than twenty million in bids, yet he was willing to trade it for a set of travel runes.
"Let this young man have that rune, people. Alistair family will appreciate that," a noble from the Alistair family dered, though Michael couldn''t see his face under the hood.
With the Alistair family backing him, Michael felt a sense of satisfaction. The hooded figures, who were likely criminals, thieves, or figures from the underworld, decided to back off from further bidding. While the travel runes would have been useful to them, it simply wasn''t worth making enemies out of the prominent noble families.
Moreover, anything more than one point five million was far too much for those runes.
"Three million and one coin," Michael calmly announced, causing the crowd to fall into a stunned silence. Meenal''s eyes widened in disbelief, and she felt the urge to curse that young man under her breath.
"Did he just...?" one of the nobles began, trailing off in disbelief.
The auction hall buzzed with a mixture ofughter, gasps, and shocked murmurs as Michael raised the bid by just one coin. Some in the audience couldn''t help but chuckle at the audacity of his bid, while others were simply baffled by his actions.
"Did he just bid one coin more?" amoner whispered to their neighbor.
"He did! Is he serious?" the neighbor replied with disbelief.
"Lad, you''ve got some nerve!" Rurik burst into a heartyugh, unable to contain his amusement. "I can''t believe he just did that." Sarba chuckled softly, shaking her head in disbelief.
Even Raphael cracked a rare smile, clearly entertained by Michael''s audacity.
Meenal, on the other hand, was torn between frustration and amusement. She couldn''t help but shake her head, her lips curving into an exasperated smile. "Well, I''ve seen it all now."
"Well, that''s certainly a unique bid! But let''s keep it going. Do I hear anything higher than... one extra coin?" Meenal couldn''t help but chuckle nervously. The room erupted into a mix ofughter, chatter, and a few frustrated grumbles. Michael had managed to inject a sense of levity into the otherwise tense bidding war, leaving everyone wondering what he would do next.
Three million and one coin once..." Maria''s voice held a hint of amusement as she continued the chant.
"Three million and one coin twice..." She couldn''t help but smile as she repeated the phrase.
The crowd erupted inughter, appreciating the humorous turn of events. It was an auction they would remember. "Sold!" Finally, Maria dered, and the auction hammer came down. The travel runes had found their new owner, thanks to Michael''s unconventional bidding strategy.
"So where do you want to exchange the book?" A noble from the Alistair family inquired through the tinted ss, his curiosity piqued by Michael''s unexpected offer.
Michael''s face broke into a devilish grin as he contemted the situation. Inside the VIP pavilion, Meenal paused the auction, her interest now focused on the unfolding events outside.
"Why should I choose the Alistair family over the others?" Michael replied with an amused tone. "Wouldn''t that make the other noble families upset? It wouldn''t be fair to them, now would it?"
As Michael''s words hung in the air, the nobles from different families inside the VIP pavilions began to bicker among themselves. The Alistair and Kael families found themselves in a heated argument over who rightfully deserved the book Michael was offering in exchange for the travel runes.
"It''s only fair that we should get the book," a member of the Alistair family dered, their tone filled with indignation.
The Kael family responded immediately, their voices dripping with sarcasm, "Oh, of course, you think you''re entitled to everything, don''t you?"
The other noble families joined in, each advocating for their own im to the book. It quickly became a chaotic debate, with usations and arguments flying back and forth.
Meanwhile, Michael sat back, wearing a sly smile. His n had worked perfectly. The nobles were too busy squabbling among themselves to realize that they had fallen into his trap, leaving the book in his possession without having to give up the travel runes.
Chapter 1133 Primordial Water
Chapter 1133 Primordial Water
Amidst the luxurious VIP pavilions, the nobles continued their heated argument, each family convinced that they deserved the book more than the others.
"We have the strongest influence in Goldspire! It should be ours!" shouted a member of House Alistair.
"No, House Kael has a richer history in literature and knowledge. The book belongs with us!" retorted a Kael family noble.
"We''ve been supporters of the arts for generations. Our family should be the rightful owner!" House Silverbrook chimed in,
The cacophony of voices grew louder and more intense as they vied for ownership. usations of arrogance and ims of superiority filled the air. Meenal watched the spectacle with an amused grin, enjoying the chaos she had inadvertently caused.
As the nobles argued, Michael leaned back in his seat, quietly sipping his drink, thoroughly entertained by their infighting. He couldn''t help but chuckle softly to himself, realizing that he had sessfully diverted their attention and secured the travel runes without giving up the valuable book.
With an innocent smile, Michael interjected into the bickering nobles'' argument, "Well, I can''t make this decision for you, but why don''t you all figure out who among you truly wants the book and thene meet me at the cksmith Guildter? We can discuss it there."
His suggestion hung in the air, causing a momentary pause in the heated debate as the nobles contemted his proposal. It seemed like a reasonablepromise, and it gave them a chance to prove their dedication to literature and knowledge. The nobles nodded in agreement and began to calm down, realizing that a more civilized approach would be more beneficial in securing the prized book.
Meenal, observing the turn of events, couldn''t help but chuckle once again at how Michael had managed to manipte the situation to his advantage without ever losing his cool.
Raphael couldn''t help but chuckle at how easily Michael had manipted and fooled the nobles into resolving their conflict.
Rurik, taking a sip of his ale, added with a grin, "As long as they keep arguing among themselves,d, you should be safe. They won''t have the energy to focus on anything else." He clearly found the entire situation rather amusing.
Meenal resumed the auction, satisfied that the bidding for the travel runes had concluded. With a sly smile, she continued to showcase more items, leaving the nobles to their squabbling and Michael to his newly acquired travel runes and uing negotiations.
Eventually, the time to auction thest and final item arrived. "We have one final item to bid on tonight, and I must say, it''s the most valuable item I have ever had the privilege to auction," Meenal dered. The hall fell into an expectant silence, and all eyes were fixed on her.
"This artifact is believed to be far older than any god, older than the very existence of the pantheon itself," Meenal continued, her voice filled with reverence. "Some even specte that it was created by the beings who gave rise to the first gods and shaped our entire world."
A sense of awe washed over the audience as they contemted the significance of what Meenal was describing. The atmosphere in the hall was charged with a mixture of curiosity and excitement, and everyone was eager to see this extraordinary item.
As the blue portal gradually opened, all eyes remained fixed upon it, unblinking and filled with anticipation. Out of the portal floated a ss cube, suspended in mid-air. It sparkled in the ambient light of the auction hall, reflecting the curiosity and wonder of those who beheld it.
Inside the ss cube, a mysterious object was visible¡ªa frozen crystal of extraordinary beauty andplexity. Its intricate facets refracted the light in mesmerizing patterns, and the crystal seemed to emanate an otherworldly glow.
Whispers of amazement and spection rippled through the crowd as people tried to fathom the nature and significance of this enigmatic artifact.
"Can it be..." Raphael''s usually calm andposed face took on a serious expression as he mumbled to himself, Michael, sensing something extraordinary, wasted no time. He immediately employed his appraisal skill to examine the crystal within the ss cube. As the analysis progressed, the system provided him with a remarkable revtion,
[The Crystal contains a drop of Primordial Water]
[The host can achieve a huge boost in water mastery if the host is to absorb the Primoridal water droplet]
While Michael was in awe and coveting for the Primoridal water droplet, Meenal continued to address the mesmerized crowd, her voice carrying a sense of gravitas and excitement. "Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is not just a relic; it''s a glimpse into the very essence of creation itself. This crystal contains a drop of what many believe to be Primordial Water."
She went on to exin further, "In ancient lore, it is widely epted that each element had a primordial state, the very first form of that element to exist in the universe. For millennia, it was thought that only Primordial mes existed, but this crystal proves otherwise. It contains a drop of Primordial Water, affirming that all elements, including water, have their own primordial origins."
The audience was spellbound by her words, absorbing the significance of this revtion. The notion that they were witnessing something so ancient and profound left them in awe and wonderment.
Meenal''s voice echoed through the hall as she revealed even more astonishing information. "ording to the schrs who have closely examined this water droplet, its absorption can result in a dramatic increase in one''s cultivation level. In fact, there''s even a chance that a cultivator could leap from the Initiate Realm all the way to the Soul Ignition Realm, effectively jumping from the first stage of cultivation to the sixth stage!"
Gasps of amazement rippled through the crowd as they tried toprehend the magnitude of this revtion. The prospect of such a profound advancement in their abilities left them in a state of both excitement and disbelief.
Meenal continued, "Furthermore, for those at the Elemental Attunement level who choose water as their primary element, absorbing this Primordial Water droplet will significantly enhance the power of all water-based spells they currently know and any they may learn in the future."
Whispers of excitement and awe filled the hall as the attendees contemted the immense possibilities this crystal held for their cultivation and abilities.
"I must inform the Pantheon about this." Raphael, still absorbed in his thoughts about the potential implications of the Primordial Water, mumbled to himself.
"Are you trying to buy it?" Michael leaned closer to him and whispered,
"I can''t." Raphael''s response was cold and matter-of-fact.
Themoners in the crowd, now fully aware of the incredible value of the item on disy, began to murmur excitedly. Their hushed conversations were filled with spection about the starting bid for such a rare and precious treasure.
"Can you imagine what this could do for our cultivation?"
"She said it can take you from Initiate Realm to Soul Ignition Realm in one leap!"
"I wonder if anyone can even afford it..."
"I''d give anything to get my hands on that Primordial Water."
As anticipation grew, all eyes remained fixed on Meenal, awaiting the announcement of the starting bid for the extraordinary item.
Meenal, taking in the astonishment of the crowd, decided to end the suspense. She raised her hand gracefully and dered, "I will not keep you waiting any longer. The starting bid for this crystal containing a Primordial Water droplet is ten billion."
The effect of her announcement was instantaneous. Themoners were utterly stunned, and a collective gasp swept through the audience. Voices from the crowd erupted in astonishment, with some even shouting in disbelief at the staggering starting price.
"Ten billion? Are they out of their minds?"
"Is there even anyone here who can bid for something like this?"
Meenal observed the reactions with aposed demeanor, well aware of the magnitude of what she was presenting. The bid for this incredible treasure was about to begin, and it promised to be a momentous event.
Rurik, his eyes wide with surprise and disbelief, couldn''t help but mutter a colorful expletive under his breath as he reacted to the shockingly high starting bid. His voice carried a tone of both amazement and frustration as he said, "Well, I''ll be damned. Ten billion? This auction is getting crazier by the minute!"
Themoners and nobles around him shared simr sentiments, with many still unable to recover from the initial shock of the astronomical starting price. It was a rare urrence in any auction, even in the grandest of events, to witness an opening bid of such colossal proportions. The Alistair family wasted no time in making their move, clearly intent on acquiring this extraordinary item. One of their representatives raised a bid card and confidently dered, "Ten billion and fifty million!"
This bold move spurred the other noble families into action, and the bidding war escted rapidly.
"Ten billion one hundred million!" shouted a member of the Kael family.
"Ten billion two hundred million!" countered another Alistair noble.
The back-and-forth continued, with each bid surpassing the previous one by substantial increments.
"Ten billion three hundred million!"
"Ten billion four hundred million!"
"Ten billion five hundred million!"
The shouting and mor filled the auction hall as the nobles vied for the crystal. Tempers red, andpetitive spirits soared as they desperately tried to outdo each other.
Rurik, sitting with Michael and Raphael in the cksmith Guild pavilion, couldn''t help but shake his head in disbelief.
"These nobles have lost their minds," he muttered to Michael, his tone a mix of amusement and astonishment.
Michael, watching the bidding war unfold, replied with a wry grin, "Seems like they''re determined to get that drop of Primordial Water, no matter the cost."
Chapter 1134 Raphaels weakness
Chapter 1134 Raphael''s weakness
As the auction continued, the nobles from prominent families persisted in their fierce bidding war, each trying to outdo the other to im the precious crystal containing the primordial water droplet.
However, to the astonishment of all, a few bravemoners decided to enter the bidding fray. Their presence in this high-stakespetition surprised both the nobles and themoners alike.
"Eleven billion five hundred million!" one of the courageousmoners shouted, prompting whispers and gasps from the crowd.
"Are they out of their minds?" a noble muttered to hispanion.
The auction hall had be a battleground, not just between rival noble families but also between the social sses.
The sudden participation ofmoners in the bidding didn''t sit well with Rurik and the other nobles. They were initially stunned, but their surprise quickly turned into irritation. Rurik, in particr, couldn''t believe what he was witnessing.
"Are they mocking us?" one noble muttered.
Another noble chimed in, "This is no ce formoners. They can''t even tell how many zeroes in a billion,"
Some nobles started taunting and threatening themoners who dared to bid, warning them not to disrupt the auction any further.
Meenal, who had been enjoying the excitement of the auction, frowned at the turn of events. She stepped forward and addressed themoners who had bid.
"Participating in the bidding without the means to back your bids is a serious offense," she warned, her tone firm. "I won''t tolerate any disruptions."
"Is there a rule againstmoners bidding in this auction?" The robed figure among themoners calmly raised his hand and asked.
"There certainly isn''t." Meenal hesitated for a moment before responding.
"Then there''s no reason to question our presence here." The mysteriousmoner nodded and replied.
As themoners boldly continued to participate in the bidding, curiosity and suspicion ran rampant in the auction hall. Many couldn''t fathom how someone sitting among themoners could afford to bid more than eleven billion gold coins for such a rare and valuable item.
Rurik, who was among those puzzled by the situation, couldn''t help but voice his thoughts, albeit in a hushed tone. "How can someone from themon area have ess to that much wealth? It''s ridiculous,"
Raphael, sitting calmly in the cksmith Guild pavilion, responded to Rurik''s question with a sly smile. "Not all wealthy people choose to unt their riches in the VIP pavilions. There are many mysterious figures who prefer to hide in the crowd, watching and waiting for the right moment to make their moves."
As the auction war for the primordial water droplet intensified, the bidding continued to climb to staggering heights, reaching more than fifty billion gold coins.
"Fifty billion? This is madness!" One noble from the Alistair family, feeling the pressure of the escting bids, muttered.
. "We can''t afford to go any higher. It''s time to back off." Another noble from the Kael family, looking worried, said
Gradually, one by one, the nobles began to back off, realizing that the price had exceeded their limits. The tension in the hall was palpable as the bidding seemed to be reaching its climax.
However, just when it seemed that the auction was about to conclude, the mysteriousmoner in the robed attire calmly raised his hand and countered the bid with unwavering determination. In aposed tone, themoner said, "Fifty-one billion."
The crowd fell silent, stunned by the unexpected turn of events. The bid had now reached an astronomical sum, and the mysterious figure showed no signs of backing down. It was clear that this bidder had deep pockets and was determined to obtain the primordial water droplet.
"Is there anyone else bidding?" Meenal surveyed the room, her eyes scanning the crowd as she inquired.
The silence that followed was deafening, and it was evident that no one else dared to challenge the mysterious bidder.
With a deliberate pace, Meenal continued, "Fifty-one billion going once..." She paused for effect, allowing the gravity of the moment to sink in. "Twice..." The tension in the hall was palpable as the seconds ticked away. "Sold to the bidder number six-six-six." Finally, she concluded.
The crowd erupted into a mixture of astonishment, awe, and curiosity. All eyes were on the mysterious bidder who had just secured the primordial water droplet, an item of incredible rarity and power. The atmosphere in the auction hall crackled with intrigue as whispers and discussions about the identity of bidder six-six-six filled the air.
"That man should have a better escape strategy. Otherwise, many might just take that crystal from his dead body for free." Ayag''s practicality shone through as shemented,
Rurik, ever the astute observer, added, "He''s nomoner, that''s for sure. If he could throw that kind of cash like pocket money, he wouldn''t be so weak,"
The debate over the mysterious bidder''s identity and the implications of his acquisition continued to swirl among the onlookers, sparking intense curiosity and spection throughout the auction hall. Even Michael was surprised and curious about the bidder. He was more curious and amused by the token number, six-six-six. That was the number of devil and Michael couldn''t help thinking of Dragon.
However, what would the ruler of hell be nning with the primordial water droplet?
Finally, with her captivating presence, Meenal began her closing speech,
"Ladies and gentlemen, what an exhrating auction it has been! I can''t express how much I''ve enjoyed this thrilling experience with all of you."
She continued, her words captivating the crowd, "Your enthusiasm and spirit have made this event unforgettable. I want to thank each and every one of you for your participation."
With a seductive flourish, she finished her speech, "Now, my dear friends, I bid you farewell. Until we meet again next year at the Divine Tower Auction! You can collect your winning items in the lobby. And, as a token of my gratitude, here''s a flying kiss to you all!"
"Now that the auction is over, what''s next, Raphael?" Michael inquired, his face a mask of neutrality. He was fully aware of Raphael''s intentions, knowing that the rogue god hunter was here to track him down and eventually capture him for the Pantheon.
"You can enjoy your stay in Goldspire for now. I know it won''t be for too long. When you step out of this domain, we can do a little dance, and perhaps we''ll reach the final act, if you manage to bore me." Raphael, with an air of arrogance and coldness, responded.
He then added with a hint of urgency, "Now, if you''ll excuse me, I have an item to collect." There was something in his eyes that rubbed Michael in the wrong way.
"Fuck," Rurik muttered after Raphael left to collect the liquid armor he won in the auction.
"I can''t wait to get back home and take a long nap after all this drama. And you,d, better pray the nobles don''te to their senses ande knocking at our doors for that damn book."
"I don''t think they''re the only ones who will be knocking on our door." Michael said with a wry smile.
Afterwards, Michael followed the stream of departing nobles, his curiosity piqued, and soon spotted Raphael in the distance. To his surprise and amusement, Raphael was engaged in conversation with Meenal. The two seemed to be exchanging flirty conversation, with Meenal taking the initiative.
"May I know your name, young lord, and to which illustrious family you belong?" Her words wereced with flirtatious charm.
"Raphael, at your service, but as for my family, well, let''s keep that a delightful mystery." Raphael, maintaining his mysterios demeanor, responded with a hint of flirt.
Meenalughed melodically, her eyes sparkling with mischief. She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small, ornate golden ring, handing it to Raphael with a sly grin. "I''ve had the pleasure of bringing the liquid armor for the lucky individual who purchased it in person, but I must admit, I never expected to encounter such a handsome young lord like yourself."
Meenal maintained her flirtatious demeanor, her voice dripping with intrigue as she teased, "You know, I would really love to see if that liquid armor is the right fit for someone as handsome and mysterious as you. Perhaps,ter, we can find out together?"
"I''d be more than willing to show you just what I can do with that armor." Raphael met her flirtatiousness with his own, a smirk dancing on his lips. Their yful exchange continued, each word teased with seductive undertones. Meenal then pulled out a small piece of paper, writing something down on it. Then, with a sultry smile, she pressed her lips to the paper, leaving a crimson lipstick imprint.
As she handed the paper to Raphael, she leaned in close, her breath warm against his ear. "Don''t keep me waiting," she whispered, her voice a tantalizing invitation. With that, she sashayed away, leaving Raphael with the intriguing note and a lingering sense of desire.
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle under his breath as he observed Raphael checking out Meenal''s butt with a hint of unmistakable lust in his eyes. "Damn," Raphael muttered, shaking his head in amusement.
Then, to Michael''s surprise, Raphael unfolded the piece of paper Meenal had given him. His eyes scanned the note, and without a care for the curious and envious onlookers, Raphael pressed his lips against the crimson lipstick imprint left by Meenal. It was a bold and lusty move that made Michael raise an intrigued eyebrow.
"Seems like we have found the weakness of our god hunter," Michael amused having found all mighty Raphael''s weakness.
"I expected more from you, my friend," Michael snickered.
Chapter 1135 Goddess of Wisdom, Seshat
Chapter 1135 Goddess of Wisdom, Seshat
(Somewhere else in Goldspire)
Amidst the tranquil embrace of nature, a vision of ethereal beauty sat serenely by a cascading waterfall. Her silvery hair flowed like liquid moonlight, framing angelic features. d in pure white robes, she radiated an aura of purity and wisdom.
The serene surroundings mirrored her grace. Lust trees swayed gently, their leaves whispering secrets to the breeze. Crystal-clear water danced and sparkled as it tumbled down the rocks. Ancient booksy scattered around her, their pages fluttering in the wind. As she was meditating, another young woman, d in silver armor with white linings walked toward the mediating woman. Then, the young woman knelt on her one knee. Sensing, the young woman''s arrival, the angelic woman slowly opened her eyes with a gentle smile.
"You seem troubled, Malina," spoke the angelic woman, as though she had already known of the young woman''s intention ining there.
"My goddess, I bring you troubling news. Our domain has been infiltrated by God Kranar''s angels and God Rainar''s angels. Moreover, I have heard that the worshippers of the fallen god Dagon have also entered the kingdom," said the young woman in a serious tone, her helmet covering her hair and revealing only the troubled look on her face.
"Is that all?" The angelic woman asked once more, as though already aware of the information.
"No, my goddess. The book written by your disciple has been auctioned, and the cksmith guild has purchased it. While I am relieved that the fallen god did not acquire the book, I am troubled by the fact that we are leaving such knowledge in the hands of mortals," said Melina with a worried tone.
"Are you certain that the book was bought by the cksmith guild? And are you even more certain that the one who bought it is a mortal?" The angelic woman''s question caught Melina off guard. She did not dare to doubt her goddess''s wisdom, for she was the Goddess of Wisdom, Seshat.
Hence, upon hearing Seshat''s words, Melina realized that her goddess knew more than she did.
"My goddess, please enlighten me. Please tell me why you allowed the book to surface among mortals," Melina pleaded.
In response, Seshat simply smiled.
"Bnce, my dear. For millennia and since the pantheon was created, they have ruled over the realm, losing their way as gods. They have be tyrants with power. Every time the power of a realm tilts, the universe sends someone to restore bnce to it. What you are witnessing and living through is such a time. We are merely observing the universe restoring bnce to our realm," Melina could only sigh inwardly and hope that she would eventually understand the true meaning of Seshat''s words.
"But, my goddess, I have received information that the angels of both gods are nning to attack the cksmith guild. It seems they are not after the book they purchased, but rather the recent weapon forged for the House of Silverbrook. Therefore, my goddess, once you grant me permission, I can apprehend them before they cause havoc," Melina said with a cold determination to protect her goddess''s domain.
"No need. Just make sure to send our angels to collect the bodies and return them to their respective gods afterward," Goddess Seshat calmly replied, leaving Melina shocked.
"My Goddess? Bodies? Who will take care of this? My goddess, please tell me what''s happening. I cannot protect our domain if I do not know what is going on," Melina panicked.
However, seeing Melina''s determination to protect the kingdom and maintain peace, Seshat gently smiled.
"Like I said, this is a time when the universe brings bnce to our realm. And the one who will bring that bnce is already here," Seshat''s words surprisingly began to make some sense to Melina.
"Are you referring to the one who bought the book, my goddess?" Melina inquired, but in response, Seshat just smiled.
Realizing that she wouldn''t receive any more answers from her goddess, Melina sighed.
"Very well, my goddess. I will ensure that the bodies are taken care of. But, my goddess, forgive me for being blunt, this is not like you. You detest violence," Melina expressed her shock and disbelief.
However, in response, Seshat smiled most beautifully, a smile befitting a goddess.
"I detest pointless violence that causes nothing but pain. But some conflicts require violence, and there is no other way. Some conflicts can only be resolved through violence," Seshat calmly exined to Melina, one of her angels.
As they conversed, a portal opened in the area, and another silvery woman, bearing a few features of Seshat, stepped out. Unlike Seshat, this woman was dressed in dark green robes and had brown hair.
Upon seeing the woman, Melina respectfully bowed her head.
"Goddess Seraphine," Melina greeted the Goddess of Information, who was also Seshat''s sister, Seraphine.
When Seraphine arrived, a hint of concern and unease flickered in Melina''s eyes. As Seshat''s angel, Melina was aware of the strained rtionship between Seraphine and Seshat, despite being sisters. Seshat was kind and caring but often cryptic in her messages. Seraphine, as the Goddess of Information, despised her sister''s crypticmunication style, leading to frequent arguments.
"I will excuse myself, my goddesses," Melina attempted to leave, hoping to avoid getting caught between the two goddesses'' arguments.
"Stay here, Melina," Seraphine ordered her.
"What brings you to me again, my dear sister? Is it about the sought-after book?" Seshat inquired calmly.
"Don''t y dumb with me, sister. As the Goddess of Information, I am aware that someone from the cksmith guild has purchased it. I assume you will not reveal the book''s contents, will you?" Seraphine frowned.
"Are you using me of the very thing you are doing now, my dear sister? You''ve read the book yourself," Seshat replied calmly, causing Seraphine to frown.
"I did, and there was nothing in it that I didn''t already know. But the fallen god Dagon is searching for it. That''s what I want to uncover," Seraphine exined.
"Perhaps the fallen god is attempting to divert your attention," Seshat responded calmly, without disying any emotional fluctuations in her voice.
"Perhaps... but the book is not the primary reason for my visit. Something tells me you already know why I''m here," Seraphine continued to frown.
"Please, sister, enlighten me. Why have youe?" Seshat inquired without revealing any amusement in her heart.
"The God of Darkness, my sister. He is here," Seraphine stated coldly.
After learning from the pantheon that the God of Darkness had somehow entered the realm of gods, Seraphine realized that all his actions in the mortal realm were part of an borate scheme to make mortals believe that the Dark Lord had perished. In reality, he had found his way into the realm of gods.
She despised when Andohr was right, especially his suspicions regarding the death of his arch-nemesis, the God of Darkness.
"The God of Darkness?" Melina frowned. She had heard rumors and stories about a god who had been born in the mortal realm and had ascended to the realm of gods to sow chaos. However, records about this particr god were shrouded in mystery, with only the highest-ranking gods in the pantheon possessing information about him.
"Andohr is losing his mind stuck between realms, Seshat. You know I hate it when he''s right. We need to find a way to deal with this God of Darkness. Everything Andhor predicted hase to pass. Now he''s saying the God of Darkness will ally with the Fallen God to bring down the Pantheon," Seraphine voiced her concerns.
"Then you should intervene," Seshat responded, but Melina detected a touch of yfulness in her goddess''s eyes.
"Very amusing, sister. Such sarcasm befits the Goddess of Wisdom," Seraphine rolled her eyes.
"You should loosen up a bit, my dear sister. The universe has its ways of restoring bnce. We should not meddle in its affairs," Seshat advised.
"We are gods, Seshat. We maintain our own bnce, and Dagon is attempting to dismantle everything we''ve built. Thest thing we need is the God of Darkness, the anomaly, joining forces with the Fallen God," Seraphine''s tone grew more serious as she awaited her goddess''s response.
Melina watched her goddess intently, anticipating her decision.
"I will not interfere in this matter, Seraphine. If the universe decrees that the Pantheon must face the Fallen God and the God of Darkness, who am I to object?" Seshat replied, a hint of disappointment in Seraphine''s eyes.
"Listen to yourself, sister. What kind of god are you? I hope every day that you will change your ways, but it seems you are beyond hope," Seraphine expressed her discontent.
"You and the Pantheon have lost your way, Seraphine," Seshat calmly responded, despite Seraphine''s usations. The disappointment in Seraphine''s heart towards her sister was palpable.
"I did note here to hear your cryptic words, Seshat. I know that the God of Darkness, who goes by the name John, is in Goldspire. I need you to incapacitate him while he is still weak and within your kingdom," Seraphine demanded sternly, but Seshat shook her head.
"As I''ve told you, sister, I will not interfere. However, if you wish to capture him yourself before the Pantheon''s executioner does, you have my full permission to do so," Seshat calmly replied, understanding that Seraphine was more of a schemer than a fighter.
"That angel is a wild card, Seshat. He''s skilled, but unpredictable," Seraphine expressed her frustration. She despised being the bearer of this news for Andohr.
"Then your best course of action is to keep your distance and employ your spies, as you always do, my dear sister," Seshat advised calmly.
"You never cease to disappoint me, sister," Seraphine said, her frustration and anger apparent. With that, she turned to face Melina.
"You will soon witness what he is capable of. Good luck dealing with the bodies that will soon pile up," Seraphine warned grimly. With a wave of her hand, she created a portal and stepped through it, leaving Melina with a dire forewarning.
Chapter 1136 A Bloody Welcome I
Chapter 1136 A Bloody Wee I
Meanwhile, Michael and Rurik returned to the forge, diligently continuing their work on crafting weapons for the Silverbrook family. The days seemed to pass swiftly, with Michael tirelessly working at the forge. Amid his physicalbor, the system was hard at work decoding the mysterious book. To Michael''s surprise, he noted that the system had consumed a staggering two million points just to decipher a couple of pages from the enigmatic tome.
This only heightened his curiosity about the book''s contents. Simultaneously, while the book was being decoded, Pink, the AI assistant, was tirelessly gathering information about Raphael. Given Michael''s unique position within the Goddess of Wisdom''s domain, he found it rtively easy to purchase a few ancient books and send them to Pink for further research.
As Rurik pounded away at the metal sheets with his hammer, he spoke to Michael, "Lad, this is thest artifact we need to forge. Once it''spleted, we can put all of this behind us."
With a nod of agreement, Michael carefully picked up the finished pieces, cing them on his shoulder. Just then, Vedora, the sentient sword, seemed to shift uneasily.
"It''s on, Ghost. They''re here, watching us," Sarba alerted, her voice tinged with concern.
"So, Rurik, you can leave. I can handle this," Michael urged Rurik, sensing the impending arrival of assassins.
Rurik, however, was determined to stay and assist. "I can help," he insisted. But Michael set his hammer down, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"It''s better for you to leave, my friend. You might not like what you''re about to see," Michael cautioned, testing the dwarf''s loyalty.
"Are you drunk,d? What are you talking about?" Rurik chuckled, initially thinking that Michael was making fun of his fear of the gods.
But as he observed the seriousness in Michael''s expression, Rurik''s smile faded. "You serious?" he asked, his mouth agape.
"Very, my dwarf friend," Michael replied gently.
"How do you..." Rurik began to ask, but Michael raised his hand, silencing him.
"An, their family was ordered by God Rainar to forge these weapons. They''re meant to be used against Kranar''s angels in the war. Now that we''ve forged them, Rainar has ordered the Silverbrooks to kill us. An and his guards were sent here to keep an eye on us, ensure that we forged the weapons, and then eliminate us," Michael exined, revealing the true reason behind An''s involvement and assistance.
"That pointy-eared bastard! But how do you know all of this?" Rurik inquired, seeing no signs of deception in Michael''s words.
"You''ll find out soon enough if you stay here. I strongly advise you to run away, because it''s going to get ugly," Michael advised.
However, Rurik''s anger red up at the thought. As a dwarf, he was not one to shy away from a battle; instead, he would run towards trouble. Additionally, Rurik suspected that the initial bloodshed at the cksmith Guild might be linked to the assassins of one of the two gods.
"Lad, the first time we forged these weapons, were the assassins who killed my friends and others from Kranar or Rainar?" Rurik asked.
"Kranar''s assassins," Michael replied simply.
"But even if those assassinse here, Goddess Seshat''s angels... they''ll intervene and stop this," Rurik argued.
"Go to the window and see the figures lurking in the shadows. Observe how the streets are empty," Sarba instructed Rurik. Hearing Sarba''s words, Rurik walked to the window and peered outside. The streets were indeed eerily empty, and even the forges of the other cksmiths were not lit.
As Rurik gazed out of the window, he noticed several shadowy figures lurking behind the buildings, slowly and stealthily approaching their guild. His eyes widened in rm.
"What happened to the guards you hired, Michael?" Rurik asked urgently, turning to face him.
Michael''s expression remained calm as he replied, "An sent them home, Rurik. They''re no longer here to protect us."
Rurik''s anger red even more at this revtion. He clenched his fists, ready to defend the guild against the impending threat.
Rurik''s anger boiled over as he cursed An, feeling deeply betrayed by someone he had considered a friend. He muttered, "I trusted that pointy-eared bastard, thought of him as a friend, and he betrayed us like this. I should''ve known better than to trust an elf."
Michael, though equally angered, tried to temper Rurik''s rage. "It''s not entirely An''s fault," he exined. "He was following orders from his house lord and the God of Rain, Rainar. They are the ones who set this treacherous n in motion."
Rurik''s fists clenched even tighter, his anger now directed at the gods themselves. "Gods or not, they won''t find it easy to take us down," he growled, his determination to protect their guild unwavering.
His voice quivered with indignation as he continued, "If a god came to me and ordered me to kill my friends, I''d tell them to fuck off, god or not."
He let out a deep sigh, his anger simmering into a bitter resignation. "These so-called gods, they''re no better than murderers with power," he muttered, his disdain for the divine authority evident in his words.
"Do you at least have a n?" Rurik, with a hint of desperation in his eyes, approached Michael and asked.
Before Michael could answer, Rurik''s curiosity got the better of him. He leaned in and asked, "Who are you really?"
"What if I told you I''m a god? How would you react then?" Michael, with a yful glint in his eye, responded.
Rurik was utterly stunned by Michael''s response,
"Are you pulling my leg?" asked in frustration. He couldn''t believe what he was hearing and thought that Michael was simply ying around. Growing frustrated, Rurik growled, "This is not the time for jokes,d!"
"Well, my dear Rurik, I''m not a god, just a mortal like you." Michael chuckled and asked again.
"I don''t give a rat''s behind if you''re a god or not. All I know is that you''re a friend, and that means something to me. It''s just hard to believe that An, someone I considered a friend, would betray us like this." Rurik sighed in resignation and replied, "We''ll have plenty of time for questionster, my friend. For now, let''s deal with these assassins."
He looked around the forge, then flicked his wrists, summoning several parchments into his hands. Michael handed them to Rurik and exined, "Here are some ns I''ve devised to give these assassins a proper cksmith''s wee."
"We''ll save that question forter, my friend. Right now, we have more pressing matters to deal with." Michael nodded and said,
"I have a n to deal with these assassins, but we need to do it in a way that befits us as cksmiths." He then gestured around the forge.
With a flick of his wrists, several parchments appeared in his hands, which he handed to Rurik. Michael grinned and said, "Let''s give these assassins a cksmith''s wee they won''t forget."
Rurik carefully examined the traps outlined on the parchments and then nced at Michael, a hint of concern in his eyes. "These are clever traps, Michael, but shouldn''t we have forged them earlier and fixed them in ce? We don''t have time to create all of this now, and the assassins are almost at our doorstep."
Michael knelt down on one knee to meet Rurik at eye level, wearing a mischievous grin. "Normal cksmiths cannot, but master cksmiths like us can do something extraordinary." He patted Rurik on the shoulder and said.
As he did, a fire lit up in Rurik''s eyes, and he clenched his fists. "I''m not going down without taking as many of them as I can with me," he growled, his determination shining through.
"Why aren''t we using your god powers to deal with the assassins?" Ayag asked as Michael prepared to forge the traps.
"A little birdie in the pantheon is keeping their mouths shut about my arrival. So, Kranar and Rainar have no idea they are sending their assassins to a god, me. Let''s keep it that way. Like I always say, never reveal your trump card too soon to your enemies," Michael whispered to Ayag with a sly grin.
"And who is this little birdie? Was that the old man you were talking to earlier?" Ayag inquired.
"Maybe," Michael replied with amusement.
"What the hell? Are you keeping secrets from us?" Sarba growled at Michael.
Soon, Michael and Rurik worked tirelessly at the forge, their hammers striking metal with precision. The heat of the forge was almost unbearable, but there was no time to waste. Michael carefully crafted various traps, each designed to incapacitate or eliminate anyone who entered the guild uninvited.
Rurik grumbled as he worked alongside Michael, sweat pouring down his brow. "Damn traitorous gods and their meddling," he muttered under his breath. "These traps will make them pay for what they''ve done."
They strategically ced the traps around the hall, ensuring that anyone who triggered them would be met with a swift and deadly response. Some traps released concealed des, while others shot out arrows from hiddenpartments in the walls. There were even traps that would release a barrage of molten metal if activated.
As they worked, Rurik couldn''t help but voice his frustrations. "May these traps fuck up those assassins! They''ll regret the day they set foot in my guild," he dered with killing intent.
"Let''sgive them a wee they''ll never forget." Michael nodded in agreement, his eyes focused on their work.
The traps were carefully hidden, blending seamlessly with the surroundings. They were designed to react to any suspicious movement, ensuring that anyone who entered the guild uninvited would face a deadly oue.
Chapter 1137 A Bloody Welcome II
Chapter 1137 A Bloody Wee II
After the traps were ready, Michael waited in the spacious hall with several forges for the assassins. Rurik walked back and forth with a battle axe, tension evident on his face.
"Ghost, there is an update to this situation," Michael heard Pink''s voice in his ear.
"What is it?" asked Michael. Since Pink was here, Michael didn''t have to multitask by watching the feed from the Spiders and fighting at the same time. Instead, he could focus solely on what he does best, killing.
"I can see three distinct groups of assassins moving toward you. All of them are wearing ck robes, but they are heading into the guild in three directions. One group is talking about winning the war for Kranar, while the other talks about their worship of Rainar while sneaking toward you," Pink informed Michael.
"What about the third?" Michael asked as he sharpened his dark sword with a sharpening stone, creating sparks of fire. In Rurik''s tension, he didn''t notice the dark sword gleaming under the eerie light in Michael''s hand.
"That''s the weird thing. They are not talking," said Pink. Strangely, Michael could sense disgust and shock in Pink''s voice.
"Then what are they doing?" Michael asked.
"They are¡ drinking blood¡ or it seems. They are drinking a red liquid. I doubt it''s watermelon juice."
"Drinking blood? Eww," Sarba, sitting atop Michael''s shoulder and listening to the conversation, growled in disgust.
"Keep an eye on them," said Michael calmly.
Then, finally, Rurik turned his gaze to Michael but failed to notice the sword in Michael''s hand.
"So,d, do you have a n? Or do you expect them all to die in your traps?" asked Rurik.
"First of all, just rx and sit down. You are going to get exhausted before the battle even begins," Michael amused.
"As for the n, the traps will take care of as many as they can. But we will still have to fight them here. Don''t worry, you won''t die here," Michael calmly said.
"Why? Because you im you are-" Rurik''s words choked midway when he saw the sword in Michael''s hand.
Despite everything and the tension, the sword''s craftsmanship made him forget about everything. He instinctively walked toward the sword, its de as dark as night.
Rurik''s eyes widened as he examined the dark de in awe. "What kind of sword is this, and where did you get it?" he asked in astonishment.
"I forged it myself," Michael calmly replied and unsheathed a second dark sword, the pair gleaming ominously in the dim light.
Rurik was taken aback. "I''ve never seen such metal before," he admitted, his curiosity piqued. "What kind of ore did you use to forge these des?"
"Now is not the time, Rurik. We have assassins to deal with," Michael calmly replied as he stood up. He was still wearing his ordinary ck robes and had not activated his armor. The skull containing his dark armor dangled around his neck.
Every passing second felt like an eternity as they waited for the approaching assassins.
"They''re heading towards your first trap, Ghost," Pink informed Michael.
As the dark-robed figures continued to sneak into the building, their movements were swift and silent. Theymunicated in hushed whispers, reminding themselves of their mission: to eliminate the two cksmiths at any cost.
The narrow hallway seemed to stretch endlessly before them. The darkness only added to their unease as they approached their targets.
"Remember," one of the figures whispered, "the two cksmiths are just across the hallway. Stay quiet, and we''ll finish this quickly."
Suddenly, a faint but ominous click echoed through the hallway. The figures froze, their hearts pounding in their chests.
"What was that?" one of them asked in a hushed voice, anxiety creeping into their tone.
Before they could react, the traps sprang to life. Some released concealed des, swinging out from hiddenpartments in the walls, while others shot out arrows with deadly precision. There were even traps that released a scorching barrage of molten metal if triggered.
The hallway became a scene of gruesome chaos. The concealed des shed through the dark robes, slicing flesh and bone with terrifying efficiency.
"Ahh! What''s happening?!" one figure screamed in terror as des cut through their cloaks and into their bodies. The metallic ng of the traps filled the air.
Arrows found their marks, piercing hearts and lungs, leaving behind a trail of death and agony.
"No! Get back!" another figure shouted as they desperately tried to shield themselves from the relentless barrage. Arrows pierced limbs and torsos, sending agonizing cries echoing through the hallway.
The molten metal spewed forth, scalding any unfortunate soul in its path.
"Aaargh! It burns!" a figure cried out as searing liquid sshed across their legs and torso, causing flesh to sizzle and burn.
The dark-robed figures had no time to react, and their attempts to evade the traps only led to more brutal injuries. Blood sprayed across the walls and floor as the traps continued their relentless assault.
In mere moments, the hallway was transformed into a nightmarish tableau of death, with lifeless bodies strewn about, and those who survived left writhing in pain.
*************************
In another dimly lit hallway, a new group of ck-robed figures cautiously entered the guild. Their mission was clear: they had to either destroy the weapons that had been forged or deliver them to God Kranar, regardless of any obstacles they might encounter.
As they moved deeper into the guild, the figures exchanged hushed whispers. One of them voiced their growing unease, "Something feels off about this ce."
"Yeah, it''s too quiet. I don''t like it." Another figure nodded in agreement, their eyes darting around nervously.
Their leader, a tall and imposing figure, growled impatiently, "Quit your whining! We have a mission toplete, and if we fail, Kranar will roast us alive with his lightning!"
The tension in the group grew as they pressed forward, each step filled with uncertainty. They remained on high alert, determined to aplish their mission, but the eerie silence of the guild sent shivers down their spines, hinting at the horrors that might await them.
Suddenly, as they cautiously advanced, the silence was broken by an ominous click beneath one of the dark-robed figures'' feet. The figure froze, his eyes widening as he realized he had triggered something.
"I stepped onto something," he whispered to hisrades, his voice trembling with fear.
Before they could react, the trap sprang to life with a brutal and deadly efficiency. Hidden mechanisms unleashed a series of terrifying events that turned the narrow hallway into a nightmarish deathtrap.
Bear traps snapped shut with bone-crushing force, capturing the legs of two of the figures. They screamed in agony as their limbs were mangled, blood gushing from their wounds.
Oil cascaded from concealed containers on the ceiling, dousing the figures in a mmable liquid. Panic swept through the group as they realized their impending doom.
With a deafening whoosh, fire erupted from the sides of the walls, igniting the oil-soaked figures in a fiery inferno. Their screams of agony filled the air as they thrashed about, their ck robes ame.
As the traps sprang to life, the dark-robed figures were seized by shock and terror, their voices erupting into a chorus of panicked shouts and screams.
"By the gods, what''s happening?"
The bear traps mped down on their victims'' legs with a sickening crunch, causing excruciating pain that elicited horrifying cries of agony.
Oil poured from the ceiling, drenching the figures in a mmable liquid, making them realize their desperate situation.
"We''re covered in oil! Get it off!"
Then, the fiery eruption from the walls engulfed them in searing mes. Their robes ignited in an instant, and the air filled with the acrid stench of burning flesh as they thrashed about in a futile attempt to extinguish the fire.
"Put it out! Put it out!"
Hidden des impaled some of the figures, their piercing screams joining the cacophony of suffering.
"Help me! I''m stuck!"
Amidst the chaos, small explosives detonated, unleashing a deadly hail of shrapnel that tore through flesh and bone.
The corridor descended into horrific pandemonium as the figures met their gruesome end, their voices and pleas drowned out by the merciless traps. Blood spattered the walls, and the once-quiet hallway bore witness to a nightmarish scene of violence and death.
*********************
Somewhere else in the guild, another group of ck-robed figures gathered in a dimly lit chamber. In the center of their circle sat a goblet filled with a mysterious red liquid, its surface shimmering in the dim light.
They murmured among themselves, their voices hushed yet tinged with anxiety. They were well aware of the gravity of their mission.
"Our orders are clear," one of them spoke, his voice trembling. "We are to retrieve the Book that Rin desires from the cksmiths."
A shiver ran through the assembled figures, a testament to the fear that Rin instilled in them. She was not known for her love of books or literature, and her unusual request had sparked suspicion.
"But what in the hells does Rin want with a book? She''s not exactly the reading type," one figure mumbled, his voice trembling with uncertainty.
"She''s more the murdering type. If we fail her, she''ll find creative ways to slowly kill us, revive us, and then kill us again." A third figure scoffed, though the unease in their voice was palpable.
The ominous silence that followed hung heavy in the chamber as they contemted the consequences of failure. The red liquid in the goblet seemed to pulse with an eerie energy...something far sinister than Michael had ever faced,
Chapter 1138 Cannot Fail Rin
Chapter 1138 Cannot Fail Rin
While Michael''s traps were proving effective, he remained prepared for the possibility of facing assassins who managed to survive the deadly contraptions and make their way to the door.
"You''re eerily calm and rxed,d," Rurikmented, his toneced with tension.
"I told you I''m a god," Michael replied with an amused tone, but his attempt at humor earned him a punch in the shoulder from Rurik, who was clearly not in the mood for jokes.
"This is no time for jests,d," Rurik grumbled in frustration.
Michael simply smiled, understanding Rurik''s skepticism. He had revealed his true nature to Rurik, not as a jest but as a calcted decision. Rurik was a valuable ally to have, not just for his cksmithing skills, but for his unwavering loyalty and trustworthiness.
It wasn''t every day that Michael could recruit a four-star-level cksmith, and he valued Rurik''s presence and camaraderie. As the moments passed and the tension in the air grew, Michael remained ready for whatever challengesy ahead.
As Rurik continued to pace back and forth, he suddenly froze in his steps, his eyes widening in response to the blood-curdling screams that pierced the air. The agonizing cries reached their ears, causing a shiver to run down Rurik''s spine.
Ayag, perched nearby, observed the unfolding chaos with a hint of amusement in his eyes. The traps seemed to be living up to their deadly reputation.
Rurik turned to Michael, his face a mixture of hope and uncertainty. "Could it be over?" he asked, his voice tinged with a glimmer of optimism.
Michael, however, shook his head calmly. "The traps can only do so much, my friend," he exined. "There may be survivors, and that''s when our final cleanup begins."
They both understood that while the traps had done their part, there might still be assassins lurking, wounded but not defeated. Soon, the anguished screams soon transformed into guttural roars of anger and vows of vengeance. The surviving assassins, fueled by fury and pain, began shouting threats and curses as they regrouped.
"You''ll pay for this, you bastards!" one of them bellowed.
"Prepare to meet your doom, cksmiths!" another shouted with venom.
Amidst the cacophony of enraged voices, Michael calmly rose to his feet, his expression calm and unreadable. He turned to Rurik and uttered in aposed tone, "Get ready, Rurik. The real battle is about to begin."
The screams and footsteps of the assassins gradually faded away, leaving behind an eerie silence that enveloped Michael and Rurik. Rurik couldn''t help but voice his difort.
"I don''t like this silence,d. It''s making me uneasy."
Michael, maintaining hisposure, whispered amand to Vedora, instructing them to go to their position and prepare for the assassins, "Go near the weing gift,"
As Vedroa got to their position, concealed in a shadowy corner, Michael couldn''t help but smirk. He had a weing gift of his own for the assassins who would soon make their way to the heart of the forge.
"Aye," Rurik nodded in agreement. "They''re likely toe charging through that door," he muttered, cold amusement dancing in his eyes. "And they have no bloody idea what''s waiting for them on the other side."
Suddenly, a loud bang echoed through the hall as someone outside forcefully banged on the door, followed by a series of mysterious blue circles appearing.
"Well, at least they''ve got some brains among them," Michael couldn''t help but chuckle softly. Rurik, on the other hand, was less amused and more panicked. "What are they doing,d?" he whispered urgently, his grip on his battle-axe tightening.
Suddenly, several smoke bombs shot through the holes in the door and began to explode, releasing thick gray smoke that quickly filled the room. Rurik, in the midst of the smoke, panicked and shouted, "I can''t see anything,d! What''s happening?"
Michael remained calm with an amused smile. He activated his Xray eyes, allowing him to see through the smoke. With his dark swords ready, he whispered to Rurik, "Stay close, and follow my lead."
In the smoke-filled room, Michael could sense the presence of the assassins as they cautiously entered. They might have had a clever n, but Michael and Rurik had their own surprises waiting for them.
"Now," Michael''s order cut through the thick smoke like a de. In response, Sarba opened his mouth and created a few sparks that ignited a fuse hidden in the corner of the room.
As the fuse ignited, a circle of fire erupted in the center of the room, catching the assassins by surprise. Some were rushing toward Michael and Rurik, while others were already caught in the fiery trap.
The assassins screamed and shouted in panic as the mes danced around them, their dark robes catching fire. "ARGHHH!" one of them cried out.
"Put out the fire!" another yelled, but the smoke made it hard to see, and chaos ensued as they scrambled to escape the encroaching mes.
Meanwhile, Michael moved forward, his dark swords gleaming in the smoke-filled room. As he advanced, assassins emerged from the haze, their forms partially obscured by the gray curtain. The battle that unfolded in the thick smoke was a chaotic dance of death.
With a grace and agility that defied the encumbering smoke, Michael evaded their strikes with fluid movements. He parried their attacks with his dark swords, their ebony des shing against the weapons of the assassins. The battle was fierce, and the assassins were skilled fighters, their strikes precise and deadly.
The assassins wore sses that allowed them to see through the smoke, giving them an advantage. They moved in and out of the haze, attacking Michael with a coordinated precision that spoke of their training. But Michael was no slouch either; he relied on his godly instincts and senses to anticipate their moves.
As the smoke-filled room became even more chaotic, another set of assassins joined the fray. Their soft murmurs and muttered curses were heard amid the turmoil, confirming their allegiance to Kranar.
"Kranar''sckeys are already here," one of the assassins whispered to hisrade.
Despite the dire circumstances, Michael couldn''t help but feel a thrill of excitement. His X-ray vision allowed him to see through the smoke clearly, giving him an advantage over his opponents.
He was in his element, facing off against highly skilled opponents, and his godly abilities gave him an edge. With his dark swords in hand, he moved with a deadly grace, parrying strikes, andunching precise counterattacks.
As the battle raged on, Michael''s skills and godly abilities allowed him to dispatch some of the assassins with brutal efficiency. His movements were so precise and his strikes so deadly that the assassins found themselves bewildered by the unexpected prowess of a seemingly ordinary cksmith.
One assassin, caught off guard by Michael''s lightning-fast strike, gasped for breath as he clutched his bleeding throat. With wide, disbelieving eyes, he uttered, "Who... who are you?"
Another, knocked to the ground with a powerful kick from Michael, groaned in pain. "A cksmith shouldn''t move like this," he muttered before losing consciousness.
"We... we underestimated them. These cksmiths are... monsters." Amid the chaos, one of the assassins managed to stammer.
Michael''s dark swords gleamed in the dim light of the smoke-filled room as he continued to move with deadly precision, taking down his adversaries one by one. The assassins were bewildered by the relentless and skillful attacks from the unassuming cksmith, their confusion evident in their muttered exmations and desperate attempts to defend themselves.
Amidst the chaotic battle, a desperate assassin shouted at hisrades, "Get the short one! He''s the weak link!" With a collective nod, several assassins lunged at Rurik, determined to overwhelm him.
Michael, not wasting a moment, threw one of his dark swords with deadly precision. The sword sailed through the smoke-filled air and impaled one of the assassins to the wall, leaving him gasping for breath before falling lifelessly to the ground.
Another assassin, closing in on Rurik with lethal intent, was suddenly sent flying by a powerful kick from Michael. The unfortunate assassin crashed into the wall and was skewered by the very swords they had intended to use against the cksmiths.
As Rin''s assassins cautiously made their way toward the hall, they watched the unfolding scene from the doorways, hidden amidst the thick gray smoke. Their trained eyes carefully observed the chaos within the room.
Whispers and murmurs filled the air among Rin''s assassins. "It shouldn''t have taken this long for those assassins to deal with two cksmiths." One of them spoke softly.
Another assassin nodded in agreement, replying, "You''re right. Something''s off about this. The traps, the way that cksmith move... it''s not natural. We need to proceed with caution."
The leader of Rin''s assassins, though cautious, still held some confidence. "No matter how good that cksmith is, he can''t possibly survive against all of us," the leader stated with determination.
One of the other assassins chimed in, "If he''s lucky, he''ll die here instead of falling into Rin''s hands."
Another one added, "But if we fail, Rin won''t simply kill him. She''ll y with us first, and then she''ll finish him off. We can''t afford to let that happen."
Amidst the thickening smoke, Rin''s assassins knew they couldn''t afford to fail this mission.
"Rin''s been looking for sacrifices to offer to Xylothtely. It better not be us. We have to seed in this mission, or we might as well be dead." One of them, with a nervous tone, whispered.
They understood the gravity of their situation, feeling the pressure of not only confronting the mysterious cksmith but also avoiding the grim fate that awaited those who failed Rin.
Chapter 1139 A Godly Intervention I
Chapter 1139 A Godly Intervention I
As Michael continued his relentless assault on Kranar and Rainar''s assassins, their numbers dwindled one by one. Each strike he delivered was swift and precise, leaving his enemies no room to react.
"Is he even human?"
"Someone stop him!"
The assassins desperately shouted, but Michael seemed unstoppable. His des danced through the smoke-filled air, severing heads and limbs, as blood sprayed across the hall.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Kranar''s Assassin. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
Michael paid no heed to the continuous notifications from the system; his focus was solely on the battle at hand.
Suddenly, one of Kranar''s assassins produced a glowing crystal, a pulsating source of lightning energy. His shout echoed through the hall as he pointed the crystal at Michael.
"You pushed me to it, you bastard!"
Michael momentarily halted his steps, his gaze locked on the crystal. It looked strikingly simr to the artifact he had used while testing the weapon he was forging. Rurik, witnessing the danger, hurled thest artifact they had crafted toward Michael through the smoke.
With quick reflexes, Michael caught the artifact and activated it. He braced himself as the assassin unleashed a torrent of blue lightning towards him.
"DIE!"
The lightning bolt struck the artifact in Michael''s hand, propelling him several steps backward. The assassin had expected to witness Michael''s gruesome demise, but to his shock, the cksmith stood firm, holding the pulsating artifact that crackled with absorbed lightning energy.
"Let''s see how this works in a real situation," Michael mused, his eyes fixed on the artifact''s glow. Rainar''s assassins, who had been ordered to eliminate the cksmiths to prevent the use of the artifact, were equally stunned and captivated. This was a significant victory for their god, Rainar, as Kranar''s angels would no longer be able to wield their potent lightning bolts against their fellow worshippers.
Conversely, Kranar''s assassins, who had been tasked with killing the cksmiths and stealing the artifacts, stood in horror. They had just witnessed the true reason behind their mission, and it was something they had not anticipated.
"It can''t be..."
"Did it just absorb the lightning bolt..."
Under their masks, the assassins whispered in disbelief as they grappled with the shocking revtion of their gods'' secret ns.
Across the hall, Rin''s assassins who had been silently observing the unfolding chaos couldn''t believe their eyes. They exchanged bewildered nces, their hidden faces reflecting shock and surprise.
"Did you see that?"
"Is that even possible?"
Their whispers were barely audible amidst the lingering smoke and the distant sounds of battle. The unexpected turn of events had caught them off guard. These cksmiths weren''t just ordinary craftsmen; there was something extraordinary about them, and the artifacts they had created.
Rin''s assassins had expected a straightforward mission to retrieve the Book, but now they found themselves entangled in a web of intrigue and supernatural power that far exceeded their expectations.
"Payback''s a bitch," said Michael. Then, with a determined glint in his eyes, Michael pressed the button on the surface of the cubic artifact he held. As he did, the artifact emitted a low, ominous hum, and its surface crackled with energy. It was payback time.
In an instant, several bolts of crackling lightning shot forth from the artifact,ncing through the air with deadly precision. Michael aimed the artifact with skillful precision, directing the lightning bolts towards the stunned assassins.
The bolts struck their targets with a blinding intensity, sending shockwaves through the room. The assassins who had once been poised to strike now found themselves at the mercy of the unleashed power. Bright arcs of electricity enveloped them, searing through their ck robes and sending them convulsing and writhing in agony.
With a raise of his hand, Michael conjured a powerful gust of wind that swept through the hall, dispersing the lingering smoke and revealing the aftermath of the devastating attack. The scene was gruesome and chaotic.
Several assassinsy lifeless on the ground, their heads severed from their bodies. Others had gaping holes in their chests, and their life force had been extinguished. A few of them writhed in agonizing pain, their charred and smoldering bodies testament to the lightning''s unforgiving wrath.
In the midst of the carnage, a few of the surviving assassins mustered what strength they had left and shouted defiantly at Michael, their voices filled with anger and desperation.
"You''ll pay for this, cksmith!"
"Rainar will have his revenge!"
Michael''s expression remained stoic, unmoved by their threats. He knew that the tide of battle had turned in his favor, and these assassins were now at his mercy.
"Are you sure about that?" Michael asked with an amused tone as he ended the life of a squirming assassin with a stomp.
"Lad¡you did all of this¡how did you¡" Rurik came to Michael''s side, his face filled with stunned disbelief.
The dwarven cksmith was taken aback, witnessing how the young human had ughtered the assassins without breaking a sweat or a sword.
Michael calmly wiped the blood from his dark swords onto his elbows and then turned his gaze to the three remaining assassins who were still standing.
"Kranar will make you pay for this, human scum!" one of Kranar''s assassins threatened. The assassins all wore identical ck robes, making it impossible to distinguish between those loyal to Kranar and those to Rainar until they spoke.
"Tell Kranar to stay away from the cksmith Guild," Michael calmly warned.
"On second thoughts¡"
But then, he changed his mind in an instant. With lightning speed, he dashed at the three remaining assassins and cleaved their heads clean off their shoulders, ending their threats once and for all.
The hall was a gruesome sight, marred with bloodstains, lifeless bodies scattered around, and an unsettling odor of burning flesh and blood that hung heavily in the air. The walls bore the marks ofbat, with scorch marks from lightning bolts and the remnants of molten metal from the earlier traps. It was a scene of carnage, a stark reminder of the violence that had unfolded within those walls.
Rin''s assassins, hidden in the shadows, watched in astonishment as Michael disyed hisbat skills, cutting down their fellow assassins with ease. Murmurs of disbelief and uncertainty spread among them.
"He doesn''t look like any cksmith I''ve ever seen."
"Yeah, he''s a killer, just like us."
"But something about him... it feels off."
They couldn''t quite put their fingers on it, but there was an undeniable sense that Michael was not what he appeared to be. As they observed the aftermath of the brutal battle, doubts and questions filled their minds about the mysterious cksmith in their midst.
As Rin''s assassins whispered among themselves, it became clear that their original n to let the other group of assassins deal with the cksmiths had failed miserably.
"Our n to rely on the others was a disaster. We have to take care of these two ourselves," one of the assassins dered.
"Yeah, Kranar and Rainar are the most useless gods. Their assassins couldn''t even handle two humans," another chimed in.
"And can we all agree that the human was not a normal human?" someone added, voicing the growing suspicion that Michael was far more than he appeared to be.
Rurik''s anxiety was palpable as he paced around the blood-stained hall, his wordsden with fear and regret.
"We''re in deep trouble this time,d... We''re going to have to answer to Sheshat''s guards," he gasped, the weight of the situation sinking in.
As he continued to mutter about the dangers of meddling with the gods and the impending consequences, Rurik couldn''t bring himself to make direct eye contact with Michael. He was deeply troubled by the implications of their actions.
"You''re in trouble,d. They''re going to question you about how you could have killed these assassins unless you''re a killer too," Rurik stated, his voice trembling with worry.
However, Michael remained eerily calm. He slowly turned his attention towards the door on the other side of the hall, sending shivers down Rurik''s spine.
"When are you going toe out?" Michael''s question hung in the air, and Rurik, feeling the tension, rushed to Michael''s side to examine the locked door with him.
Rurik''s grip on his battle axe tightened as he asked Michael,
"Who is there,d?" His voice was filled with apprehension, his senses on high alert.
"We have a third group of guests." With a mix of coldness and amusement, Michael responded.
As the door creaked open, a new group of assassins entered the hall. Unlike the entirely ck-robed assassins they had faced before, this group donned ck robes with crimson red lines, giving them an ominous presence.
"You have some good perception and skills, human," the leader of the group remarked with a chilling tone.
Curiosity mixed with fear, Rurik demanded, "Who are you?" But beneath his question, there was a palpable sense of dread. There was something about this group that sent a shiver down his spine.
In contrast, Michael remained eerily calm as he observed the neers.
"We are Rin, the Murder Princess''s assassins," the leader dered. The name sent a shiver down Rurik''s spine, causing his battle axe to slip from his grip, crashing loudly to the ground.
Michael could sense the fear coursing through Rurik''s veins.
"Your dwarf friend seems to know who we are," the leader remarked, addressing Michael with an air of cold authority. "Hand over the book, and we might grant you a painless death."
Just as Michael was preparing to take action, he sensed another presence, a powerful one ¨C akin to that of a god.
Chapter 1140 A Godly Intervention II
Chapter 1140 A Godly Intervention II
Michael found himself in a tense standoff with Rin''s assassins. He had observed Rurik''s reaction to the mention of Rin''s name, which surprised him. The dwarf''s visible fear made Michael realize the sheer terror associated with Rin''s reputation.
As this tension hung in the air, Michael sensed a powerful presence, an entity with an aura that seemed to manipte the very environment around them.
"She is here," the assassins quivered. Even with Michael''s heightened senses, the overwhelming smell of blood in the air was unsettling. He had witnessed his share of bloodshed, but this scent was different, more potent.
The room''s lighting began to fluctuate, transforming the golden mes of the forges into a haunting crimson hue. The room took on an eerie, red ambiance.
"She is here..."
"Oh, my god..."
Even Rin''s assassins trembled uncontrobly, their fear palpable. Suddenly, an eerie, crimson smoke materialized before Michael.
The swirling crimson smoke gradually coalesced into the form of a woman. Her silver hair cascaded down her back, and her eyes were an unsettling shade of white. She wore an eerie armor, forged from what appeared to be solidified blood, and her lips bore a dark crimson hue that formed a wicked smile. In her hand, she held a dagger stained with the same ominous color.
Around her neck, she wore a gruesome ne crafted from severed fingers, and atop her head rested a crown fashioned from an assortment of skulls. Her very presence exuded an aura of malevolence.
The assassins, overwhelmed by fear, muttered among themselves, their bodies trembling uncontrobly in the presence of this menacing figure.
"You¡a handsome specimen," the woman spoke, her words dripping with a macabre fascination. Yet, Michael sensed that she was not physically present but rather a manifestation.
Remainingposed, Michael watched as the woman, who must be Rin, circled him. Herughter, filled with malevolence, sent shivers down Rurik''s spine.
"Do you know who I am?" she inquired, halting her unnerving stroll and standing before him.
"You must be Rin," Michael responded calmly, unfazed by her overwhelming presence. His Eyes of Darkness revealed a vivid red aura surrounding her, signifying her immense strength. Despite her power, Michael remained steadfast, confident in his own potential for growth.
Rin burst into a fit of bloodthirstyughter, her menacing mirth reverberating through the hall.
"You are not a mortal, are you?" Rin''s question startled not only the assassins but also Rurik.
Rin continued to circle Michael, scrutinizing him closely from head to toe.
"A god¡a rogue god¡how interesting," she mused, her tone fraught with insatiable bloodlust and amusement.
Rurik''s eyes widened, realizing that Michael had not been joking about his divine status.
"But that doesn''t excuse my minions for failing to acquire what I want," Rin dered, redirecting her gaze to her assassins.
"Mydy¡Rin¡we were going to¡ª"
"No¡please¡Rin¡Listen¡ª"
"I will deal with youter," Rin interrupted, her voice filled with ominous delight. Suddenly, one of the assassins swiftly drew his dagger. Michael thought he might attempt to strike Rin to save himself, but to his astonishment, the assassin slit his own throat and crumpled to the ground, blood pooling around him.
Rin, upon witnessing this, let out a sigh.
"What a pity. I could have had so much fun with him," shemented, her murderous giggles persisting.
Rin expressed disappointment at the lost opportunity to torment the assassin further. Her chillingughter filled the room, sending a wave of fear through those who witnessed it. Michael, usuallyposed, could not help but feel a tinge of shock and fear. Rin was an agent chosen by Xyloth, the God of Murder, making her one of the most ruthless and sadistic beings in existence.
Michael realized that he paled inparison to the level of brutality Rin could inflict. While he killed swiftly and efficiently, Rin reveled in torment, ensuring her victims experienced every moment of their suffering. Her reputation as a Murder Princess was well-deserved.
"Now, my dear rogue god," Rin began, her demeanor shifting as she addressed Michael,
"As much as I''d love to explore the depths of your brain with my dagger, I find myself in a hurry. So, hand over the book you possess."
Michael''s response, filled with calm resolve, seemed to amuse Rin even more. Herughter, tainted with a cruel edge, echoed through the room.
"Oh, my dear rogue god," Rin taunted, her voice dripping with sadistic glee.
"I don''t like killing outright. It will be you who begs for death while I savor every moment of your torment."
The stench of blood in the air grew stronger, causing Rurik to retch uncontrobly. Even Michael couldn''t entirely escape the nauseating odor that Rin exuded.
"Who the fuck is she?"
Hidden in a corner, Ayag and Sarba whispered among themselves, trying toprehend the terrifying presence of Rin.
"Shh, we mustn''t draw her attention," Sarba urged in hushed tones, her fear evident.
Despite the overwhelming threat posed by Rin, Michael remained calm. He had already initiated a contingency n, alerting the system to activate a portable portal that would whisk him away should Rin make any aggressive moves.
On the other hand, Rurik continued to vomit until there was nothing left in his stomach, his body weakened by both fear and disgust.
Rin couldn''t resist indulging in her sadistic tendencies as she taunted Rurik for his uncontroble vomiting. Herughter rang through the hall, an unsettling and cruel sound that seemed to feed off Rurik''s distress.
"Aww, look at the little dwarf," Rin jeered, her voice dripping with malicious glee. "Is our brave warrior feeling a bit queasy? Maybe I should have given you more time to prepare for my grand entrance."
Rurik, already overwhelmed by fear and nausea, could do little more than re weakly at the menacing figure before him. He had never encountered anything as horrifying as this murderous entity, and he struggled to maintain even a semnce ofposure.
Ayag and Sarba, watching from their hiding spot, exchanged worried nces. They knew they had to remain unnoticed, but the fear of Rin''s presence was palpable, and it took all their discipline to stifle their emotions and stay silent.
Meanwhile, Michael remained focused and alert, ready to react if Rin''s sadistic whims turned toward him. His calm facade concealed his true feelings, for he understood that facing Rin was unlike anything he had encountered before.
Rin continued her sadistic game, her crimson lips curled into a malevolent smile as she addressed Michael with chilling threats.
"My dear rogue god," she purred, "I can be quite creative in my torments. You see, it''s not just about the book anymore. If you don''t hand it over and beg for your pitiful existence, I''ll take great pleasure in tracking down every person you''ve ever known, spoken to, or cared for."
As she spoke, her eyes glinted with unholy delight, and her voice took on a sickeningly sweet tone.
"I''ll find your friends, your family, and anyone who ever crossed your path. I''ll make them scream, beg, and plead for mercy. And I''ll be there, reveling in their suffering, every step of the way."
Rurik, unable to bear the thought of the torment Rin described, pleaded with Michael, his voice filled with desperation.
"Give her the book,d. We can''t challenge this... monster."
But Michael, though a chill ran down his spine, remained remarkably calm. He knew he couldn''t let Rin get her hands on the book, not after all he''d been through to get it.
Rin''s eyes glinted with sadistic glee as she continued her cruel descriptions.
"Ah, the dwarf first," she hissed with delight.
"I''ll start by breaking every bone in his body, one by one, while he begs for death. Then, I''ll move on to more creative tortures. Perhaps I''ll introduce him to the pleasures of slow, agonizing dismemberment."
The gruesome details of her sadistic ns hung in the air like a poisonous cloud, causing Rurik''s face to pale even further, his eyes filled with terror.
Suddenly, a blinding, ethereal light erupted in the hall, washing away the eerie redness and the oppressive stench of blood. It was as if a serene garden of jasmines had reced the gruesome scene.
Rin''s sadisticughter faltered as she squinted against the brilliance of the light. Her expression contorted into a mixture of annoyance and curiosity.
"So, the bitch decided to show up," Rin snickered, her mocking tone revealing her disdain for the entity behind the radiant light.
The blinding light gradually took on the ethereal form of a silvery-haired woman, draped in pristine white robes that billowed gracefully around her. Her expression was one of serene calmness, in stark contrast to the malevolent presence of Rin and her assassins.
"Seshat." Rin sneered and mocked,
Rurik, no longer able to bear the terror of Rin''s threats, stumbled to his feet and rushed behind the ethereal figure of Seshat, the Goddess of Wisdom, seeking refuge and protection from the malevolence that had filled the hall.
"You will do no such thing, Rin, the chosen angel of Xyloth," Seshat''s voice had a soothing effect. Even Michael felt calm and serene hearing Seshat''s voice.
"Well, I might not be able to kill that dwarf¡but can you be certain I won''t leave a trail of bodies in your precious domain, Seshat?" Rin chuckled and licked her dagger.
Michael noticed nothing but calmness on Seshat''s face despite the threat of Rin. On the other hand, Michael was stunned by how beautiful and angelic this goddess looked.
"Give her the book, my friend," Seshat calmly said, looking at Michael.
"Do what she tells you, my dear rogue god. Listen to the Goddess of Wisdom," Rurik chuckled maniacally.
For a moment, Michael and Seshat looked at each other, a silent understanding passing between them.
With a heavy sigh, Michael flicked his wrist, and the thick ancient tome appeared in his hand.
"Get that," Rin ordered one of her assassins. The assassin slowly took the Book from Michael.
"That wasn''t so hard, was it? We will meet again, rogue god," Rin evilly giggled before fading away.
Once Rin left, Rurik was able to breathe normally. Even Michael felt like a pressure had been lifted from his shoulders.
"Copying a book within a few days, an impressive feat, Ghost," Seshat calmly spoke, surprising Michael. He was surprised to see Seshat had seen through his actions.
Chapter 1141 Way to kill a god unlocked
Chapter 1141 Way to kill a god unlocked
Michael was not surprised by Seshat''s familiarity with him. However, he was surprised that Seshat was able to guess Michael had made a copy of the book. Of course, even Seshat had no idea Michael used the system to make a copy of the book and store it in the system''s store. The system was decoding this particr copy and was only a couple of days away from finding a way to kill a god.
"Sorry for the mess, Goddess," Michael calmly said with a gentle smile.
In response, the ethereal figure of Seshat jumped with a smile.
"We will talk somewhere else, my friend," Seshat said as she flicked her wrist. Then, Michael felt the space around him distort. The next moment, the scenery around Michael changed. From the eerie halls of the ck Guild Hall to a serene waterfall and verdant trees.
This time, Michael saw not an ethereal figure but a physical goddess, Seshat. She was in a lotus position, meditating. When Michael appeared, she slowly opened her eyes and smiled.
"Wee to my domain, God of Darkness," Seshat said with such gentleness and serenity.
Michael looked around, trying to sense if there was someone else. But as far as his Environmental scanning could tell, he was alone with Seshat.
"I assume you have a reason for bringing me here, Goddess," Michael asked as Seshat nodded, smiling.
"Don''t we all have a reason to do anything?
"I have no idea what that means. Yet, I assume being a Goddess of Wisdomes with the territory of speaking cryptically," Michael said with an amused smile.
"Words can be deceiving, my friend. But actions do not. By embracing your destiny, you have entered into a great path that is set to bring bnce to this realm. That book is just the beginning of your new journey," Seshat calmly spoke.
"So you know what''s in the book?" Michael asked, even though he knew the answer to that question.
"Answers, bnce, vengeance, retribution, destiny, and many more. It''s all about perspectives and your intention," Seshat spoke.
"I''ll take that as a yes. So tell me Goddess, aren''t you afraid I''m going to kill the gods? I can see you are stronger than me, yet you didn''t bring me here to stop me. If anything, you look like you want me to kill your fellow gods," Michael said. Unlike Seshat, Michael was direct.
"I am a goddess, yet you have no intention to kill me," Seshat said with no fear or anything but calmness in her voice.
"You could say I only kill those who deserve it, even the gods," Michael answered.
"That is why you have been chosen by the universe to bring bnce to our realm," Seshat said, only to make Michael roll his eyes.
"Not this prophecy destiny crap again,"
"Destiny and prophecies are nothing but mere illusions, my friend. There is only one thing that decides your life, your choices," Seshat said with a smile.
"At least you and I agree on that. So Goddess, you still haven''t told me why you brought me here," Michael exhaled heavily.
"I have yed my part in your path, my friend. But I brought you here to give you a warning, one friend to another¡" Seshat paused, letting the cool wind breeze pass Michael.
"Brace yourself for the journey you are about to start. Your calmness despite the odds has always been your strength; do not let that be taken away," For the first time, Michael heard a gravity in her tone instead of calmness.
Michael didn''t take the ominous warning that came from Seshat lightly, especially after facing Rin.
"She will test you, hurt those who you care for, and push you to your limit," Seshat said as though she had read Michael''s mind.
"I have faced worse, Goddess," Michael calmly answered, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. Deep down, Michael''s gut feeling told him Rin felt far more dangerous than anyone. Maybe only the soul piece of the Queen felt as powerful as Rin.
However, the Queen seemed at least sane, while Rin was apletely sadistic, insane monster.
"You have given the book, but you have made contact with her. That will result in many deaths, my friend. Please be ready for the storm you are about to face," Seshat said, with genuine concern for him.
"Is that all Goddess? Is that you brought me here to warn me about Rin?" Michael asked.
"Yes. A friendly warning. Make your choices wise, my friend. We shall meet again," said Seshat. Then, she just waved her hand before Michael could utter a word.
Once again, Michael found himself in the cksmith Guildhall. But the bodies and the bloodstains were nowhere to be found. The ce looked pristine and clean.
"John¡d¡my-" Rurik came running and mumbled, trying to figure out the right way to address Michael.
"You can call med or John, Rurik," Michael smiled, lightening up the mood.
As Michael was standing before Rurik, Vedora came sliding toward him. Michael picked up Vedora and ced them on his shoulder.
"What happened here?" Michael asked Vedora.
"Seshat''s angels. They came here led by a woman and cleaned up the bodies and blood without uttering a word. Quite rude too. Theypletely ignored us," Sarbained.
"At least they are efficient. One would barely believe a ughter took ce here," Ayagmented.
"What now, John?" Rurik asked. The dwarf''s voice was filled with uncertainty as he looked to the god before him for guidance.
"Now we disappear," Michael calmly said. His words made sense to Rurik since they had juste into contact with Rin, the Princess of Murder.
Anyone with a drop of intelligence would opt for hiding aftering into contact with Rin. However, Rurik thought Michael was afraid of Rin and hiding from her. But in reality, Michael was going to prepare for his assassination, the assassination of Rainar.
"Do you have a safe house where you cany low?" Michael asked Rurik. He wouldn''t be able to take Rurik with him because the safest ce for Rurik was in Seshat''s domain.
"There are a few safe houses in Goldspire, some of which are only known to me," Rurik said.
"Then go there and wait for me," Michael said before giving Rurik a ne with a spider pendant attached to it.
"Wear this. I will reach out to you when the timees," Michael said as Rurik nodded. Then, the two of them looked at the forges.
"What about the artifacts we forged? What would happen to them now? We cannot let that traitorous bastard An take them," Rurik growled with anger. However, Michael just smiled. He already had a n in mind.
"Let An take them. That way, Rainar will use them to keep Kranar busy while I''ll work from the shadows to end them both," Michael coldly snickered, shocking Rurik.
"What did you mean by ''end them''?" Rurik asked in shock.
"You will see in time, my friend," Michael patted Rurik on the shoulder.
"We will meet again soon."
As Michael said this, he slowly walked out of the hall. Then, when he stepped outside the corridor, he noticed the traps were removed, as well as the bodies. With a smile on Michael''s face, he activated his Runic teleportation, transporting himself to an abandoned building on the outskirts of Goldspire.
"Well, we are back," Ayag said as Michael appeared inside the abandoned building.
The hall inside the abandoned building was dark and gloomy, with a musky, damp air that hung heavily. In one corner, there was a wooden table with a few scattered ns, dimly illuminated by a shaft of pale light streaming in through a cracked window.
"Hey Ghost. Are you alright?" When Michael appeared in the hall, he heard Pink''s voice in his head.
"Yeah,"
"I saw everything that happened. Rin huh, I heard about her. The orcs in Durran hadn''t talked much about her or Xyloth. People rarely do. But I will do some digging and find everything about them," Pink said, her voice betraying the slight fear deep in her heart.
"Do that. We need information. I''ll see what I can do about it," Michael said.
Then, he sat down on the chair and entered into a meditative state to pass the time.
*************************
Three days passed in the blink of an eye as Michael was still in a state of mediation. Then, finally, it happened. The system had finished decoding a part of the book.
[The system has sessfully decoded Seshat''s tome]
[Congrattions for unlocking the way to assassinate God Rainar¡]
[The host can now kill God Rainar bypleteing the needed requirments]
The system continuously rang inside Michael''s head. After what felt like an ternity, Michael slowly opened his eyes. When he opened his eyes, he had a cold smile on his face.
[To kill God Rainar, the host must full fill the following requirements¡]
Soon, several lets appeared before Michael''s eyes, forming the requirements to kill a god.
[The target God Rainar must be away from his domain¡]
[The target must be in a ce where his godly powers are useless]
[Finaly, the target must be yn with a weapon made of the cor bone of an ancient beast¡]
[Full filling the three requirements will enable the host to kill God Rainar and abosb his gracepletely]
Michael noticed the requirements and felt excitement of getting into the assassination game once again. However, it also looked challenging.
[No one said killing a god is easy, host] The system said almost sounding ike it was amused.
With this, Michael started his path to y his first God¡GOd Rainar¡and change the fate of the realm forever.
Chapter 1142 Vengeance of Rainar
Chapter 1142 Vengeance of Rainar
Thunderdale loomed majestically, its towers piercing the sky. Dark, swirling storm clouds perpetually hovered above, casting an ominous yet awe-inspiring ambiance. Bolts of lightning sporadically danced within the clouds, illuminating the city in brief, intense shes.
The architecture was grand, with high, tapering buildings adorned with intricate carvings that seemed to tell ancient tales. The streets, paved with smooth cobblestones, snaked through the city, leading to the center where the Temple of Kranar stood.
This temple, shaped like a massive lightning bolt, was crafted from shimmering blue stone that reflected the tempestuous sky. It radiated a powerful energy, palpable even from a distance, and its spires reached towards the heavens, as if inmunion with the god it was dedicated to.
Outside the temple, a fierce battle raged. Silver-armored soldiers, angels of Kranar, shed with warriors in emerald green armor, angels of Rainar, God of Rain. The silver warriors bore the insignia of a lightning bolt on their chests and were equipped with metallic wings that glinted in the sporadic lightning.
The air crackled with energy as the silver warriors unleashed streams of lightning from their hands, their attacks as swift and unpredictable as the storm above. Their movements were agile, their faces set in determination under the divinemand of Kranar.
In response, the emerald green-armored angels, with wings resembling sheets of cascading water, conjured shields made of smoke and water. These shields absorbed and diffused the lightning strikes, creating sizzling clouds of steam wherever they were hit.
In the midst of this celestial battle, two warriors, one from each side, faced each other. The silver warrior''s voice boomed, clear andmanding amidst the chaos.
"You cannot withstand the might of Kranar''s storm, Rainar''s follower! Surrender now and be spared!"
The green-armored warrior responded, his voice resonant and unwavering, "Rainar''s mercy is vast, but our resolve is unyielding. We will not falter under your lightning!"
As they spoke, theirrades shed around them, the battle a maelstrom of divine power. Lightning scorched the earth and water doused the mes, creating an otherworldly spectacle. Buildings crumbled under the sheer force of their confrontation, and the skies above roared with thunder, as if the gods themselves were witnessing and partaking in the conflict.
The city of Thunderdale stood as a testament to the godly struggle, a ce where the forces of lightning and rain collided in a disy of power and majesty.
As the battle raged above, the people of Thunderdale were caught in a storm of terror and destruction. The once bustling streets were now chaotic, filled with the sounds of panic and fear. Residents ran frantically, trying to find shelter from the celestial war that unfolded above them.
Buildings that had stood for centuries were now crumbling under the relentless assault. Ancient stones cracked and fell, crushing anything in their path. Homes that once echoed withughter and life were now reduced to rubble, their memories buried under debris.
A woman clutching her child cried out as she navigated the wreckage,
"This way, quickly! We need to find safety!" Her voice trembled with fear, but she pushed forward, determined to protect her young.
An old man, leaning heavily on a makeshift crutch, gazed up at the sky with despair in his eyes.
"Never have I seen such destruction... The gods have forsaken us," he murmured to a group huddled around him.
The air was thick with dust and the sharp scent of burning. Screams echoed through the streets as people stumbled upon the wounded and the fallen. A young man, kneeling beside a motionless figure, called out in anguish,
"Help! Please, someone help! My brother... he''s not moving!"
Amidst the pandemonium, a group of local healers worked tirelessly, their faces etched with exhaustion and sorrow. "Bring the injured this way!" one healer shouted, directing a group carrying a wounded child.
"We need more bandages here!" cried another, attending to a bleeding woman.
Everywhere, the ground was littered with remnants of what once was ¨C fragments of homes, personal belongings, and the shattered dreams of the city''s inhabitants. The once mighty city of Thunderdale was now a scene of despair, a testament to the devastating consequences of a battle between gods.
As the lightning cracked and the water surged, the people of Thunderdale faced a night of fear and loss, their cries a poignant reminder of the human cost in a war of divine powers.
In the tumultuous skies above Thunderdale, a colossal face formed amidst the storm clouds on Rainar''s side. It was massive, stretching across the horizon, with eyes that seemed to pierce through the chaos directly to the battlefield below. Its features were stern and majestic, crafted from swirling clouds and mist.
The people of Thunderdale, already reeling from the chaos, froze at the sight. Their eyes, wide with a mix of awe and fear, were fixated on the immense visage above. Whispers rippled through the crowd, many uttering a single name in hushed tones: "Rainar... It''s Rainar..."
The presence of a god, the enemy of their patron deity Kranar, instilled a deep-rooted fear in their hearts. They looked up, helpless and terrified, as the divine face loomed over them, a symbol of the immense power they faced.
Meanwhile, Rainar''s angels, bolstered by the appearance of their god, erupted in cheers. "Rainar watches over us! Victory is ours!" shouted one, his voice filled with fervor. "The mighty Rainar hase to lead us to triumph!" eximed another, her eyes shining with unshakable faith.
The colossal face of Rainar then spoke, its voice thundering across the battlefield and resonating in the hearts of all who heard it.
"Warriors of Kranar,y down your arms. Surrender now, or face utter destruction under the might of Rainar."
Despite their shivers of fear, Kranar''s angels remained resolute. Their leader, a tall figure d in radiant silver armor that reflected the stormy sky, his wings like arcs of lightning, stepped forward. His face, though marked by the trials of battle, was set in a defiant expression.
"We will never bow to the invading god!" he proimed, his voice steady and unwavering. "We stand with Kranar, and we will fight till ourst breath!"
His words reverberated through the ranks of Kranar''s angels, reigniting their determination. They prepared themselves for the next phase of the battle, ready to defend their allegiance to their god, even in the face of the overwhelming presence of Rainar.
As the leader of Kranar''s angels defied Rainar''smand, the colossal face in the clouds twisted into an expression of utter anger. The already tumultuous sky above Thunderdale darkened further, the storm clouds condensing into an ominous mass.
Suddenly, a deluge of rain, like none ever witnessed before, poured down upon the city. It was as if the heavens themselves had opened, unleashing the full wrath of the God of Rain. The raindrops were heavy and relentless, pounding against the already damaged structures with an unforgiving force.
People screamed and shouted, their voices almost drowned out by the roaring downpour. "The gods have abandoned us!" cried a man, struggling to keep his footing against the surging waters.
"Find higher ground!" a mother yelled, clutching her children tightly as the water level rapidly rose, turning streets into rivers and sweeping away anything not anchored down.
The flood was merciless, swamping homes, engulfing the lower levels of buildings, and turning the once-proud city into a scene of watery chaos. People clung to whatever they could, desperation etched on their faces.
"We''ve lost everything... our home, our belongings!" a woman sobbed, holding onto a floating piece of wood, her voice barely audible over the relentless rain.
"Help us, someone! Please!" a group of people stranded on a rooftop shouted, waving frantically towards any potential rescuers.
The destruction was catastrophic, the once-vibrant Thunderdale now a testament to the terrifying power of the gods. The wrath of Rainar was not just a spectacle in the sky but a cmity that brought untold suffering and loss to the people below.
Rainar''s immense face looked down upon his emerald-armored angels with amanding presence.
"Use the artifacts," his voice boomed across the battlefield, resonant and authoritative.
Kranar''s angels, witnessing the destruction wrought upon their kingdom, stood with blood-red eyes, a testament to their rage and despair. They watched helplessly as the angels of Rainar flicked their wrists, and cubical silver artifacts materialized in their hands, shimmering with a power unknown.
Rainar''s voice, ominous and foreboding, echoed through the storm, "The destruction of Thunderdale is just the beginning. Soon, I will defeat and imprison Kranar himself."
As his visage slowly faded from the clouds, the leader of Kranar''s angels let out a defiant battle cry, "For Kranar and Thunderdale, we shall never yield!" His voice was a rallying call, full of determination and courage.
With a clenching of fists, the Kranar''s angels summoned balls of lightning in their hands, the energy crackling and dancing with raw power. They unleashed a furious barrage of lightning bolts towards the angels of Rainar, turning the sky into a spectacle of electric fury.
Below, the people of Thunderdale reacted with a mix of awe and horror. "The gods battle for our souls!" yelled a man, his face illuminated by the shes of lightning.
"Look at the sky! It''s like the end of the world!" screamed a woman, holding her child close, their faces lit intermittently by the bright shes.
Buildings, already weakened by the rain, were further assaulted by the power of the lightning. Some structures, hit directly, were lit up as if ame, their outlines eerily glowing in the storm-tossed night.
The lightning bolts hurled by Kranar''s angels streaked across the stormy sky towards the angels of Rainar. However, the scene that unfolded next shocked Kranar''s warriors to their core. As the lightning approached, it was effortlessly absorbed by the silver cubic artifacts held by Rainar''s angels. Instead of wreaking havoc, the powerful lightning seemed to simply vanish into the artifacts, leaving no impact.
Rainar''s angels burst into mockingughter, taunting their foes.
"Is this the best the mighty lightning warriors can do?" one of them jeered, his voiceced with contempt.
"Your feeble lightning is nothing but energy for us!" another angel of Rainar shouted, a cruel smirk on his face.
The angels of Kranar, witnessing this unexpected turn of events, muttered in disbelief and shock.
"Our lightning... it''s useless," one of them whispered, his voice a mix of fear and confusion.
Rainar''s angels sneered, a deadly threat in their voices. "Now witness the true power of Rainar!" one dered. With that, they activated the artifacts, the cubes pulsing with a sinister energy.
Suddenly, the stored lightning energy was unleashed, redirected back at Kranar''s angels with overwhelming force. Bolts of lightning, magnified and twisted by the artifacts'' power, struck Kranar''s warriors with merciless precision.
Many of Kranar''s angels screamed in agony as the redirected lightning ravaged them. One by one, they began to fall from the sky, their wings scorched and their armor charred by the intense energy.
Below, the scene of destruction waspounded by the despair and terror of Thunderdale''s people. As Kranar''s angels fell, Rainar''s warriors turned their attention to the city below, shouting threateningly.
"Behold, people of Thunderdale! Your defenders fall from the sky!" one of Rainar''s angels bellowed, his voice booming across the city. "The end is near for you and your city. The reign of the God of Lightning is over!"
Chapter 1143 Rainars Cruelty
Chapter 1143 Rainar''s Cruelty
As Michael stepped out of the swirling vortex of the portal, the alley around him was steeped in darkness. The dim light from the few functioning streetmps cast eerie shadows across the ravaged streets. He surveyed the scene before him: buildings crumbled like fallen dominos, their once sturdy structures now mere heaps of debris. The relentless downpour had turned the streets into turbulent rivers, water swirling around the remnants of what once was a bustling city.
"What the fuck happened here?" Perched on Michael''s shoulder, Ayag hissed in disbelief. Michael''s eyes trailed upwards, witnessing a chaotic aerial battle. Angels d in emerald green armor, representing Rainar, shed fiercely with their silver-armored counterparts of Kranar. Their skirmish painted a surreal picture against the stormy sky, a dance of divine warriors amidst thunder and lightning.
The rain was unrelenting, pouring down in sheets, adding to the floodwaters that had already engulfed the kingdom. The streets were now fast-flowing streams, carrying away anything not anchored. A child''s toy floated by, a poignant reminder of the life that once thrived here.
Amidst the chaos, on the roofs of the few buildings still standing, people huddled, their faces etched with fear and despair. A woman cradled a small child, her voice cracking as sheforted the whimpering toddler, "Shh, it''s going to be alright, we''ll be safe here." Nearby, an elderly man sat alone, staring nkly into the distance, murmuring, "Everything''s gone... everything."
Realizing the rising water posed an immediate threat, Michael swiftly unhooked a grappling hook from his belt. With a skillful throw, the hooktched onto a nearby rooftop. He tugged it to ensure it was secure, then began his ascent, pulling himself up away from the encroaching flood.
"Why is Rainar flooding his own kingdom?" Once safely atop the building, Sarba spoke with a tone of confusion. The rain hammered down around them, the sound nearly drowning out Sarba''s question. Cain, the third head of the serpent, spoke up, his voice cutting through the din of the storm. "We should meet Fayeth and ask her what''s going on here."
Michael nodded, recalling Fayeth, an angel of Ava, the Goddess of Healing. He remembered her serene demeanor and the sense of calm she radiated, a stark contrast to the chaos unfolding around him. He could still remember how he met the Fayeth when he first arrived at Nimbosia. She was helping the refugees. Thinking of her, Michael couldn''t help wonder what''s happening in the kingdom.
With determined agility, Michael leaped from building to building, making his way toward Ava''s temple. Each jump was a calcted risk, a dance over the watery abyss below. The people stranded on rooftops watched in surprise and awe. "Look at him go!" one man eximed, his voice tinged with a mix of disbelief and hope.
"Who is that?" a woman wondered aloud, her brow furrowed in confusion. They hadn''t seen anyone move with such purpose and skill amidst the cmity.
As Michael continued his journey, the sounds of celestialbat filled the air. Rainar''s angels, in their emerald green armor, shed fiercely with Kranar''s silver-armored warriors above. Their shouts and the shing of their weapons resonated through the stormy sky.
"We fight for Rainar! For the glory of our god!" one of Rainar''s angels bellowed triumphantly, swinging a massive sword that gleamed in the lightning shes.
"The storm will not deter us! Kranar''s will shall prevail!" countered an angel of Kranar, as they swooped down with a silver de shing in a deadly arc.
The battle was intense, with neither side showing any signs of yielding. The shouts of triumph and battle cries mingled with the sounds of the storm, creating a symphony of war and chaos.
Michael, focused on his destination, leaped onto another rooftop, getting ever closer to Ava''s temple. His movements were swift, yet he couldn''t help but feel the weight of the situation. The cries of the people, the sh of the angels, and the relentless rain all bore down on him, but his resolve remained unshaken.
Michael''s journey finally led him to Ava''s temple, but what he saw was disheartening. The once majestic structure was almost entirely submerged, its intricate architecture barely visible above the surging floodwaters. It was a somber sight, the temple''s sanctity drowned in the relentless deluge.
Nearby, atop a partially submerged building''s rooftop, Michael spotted Fayeth. She was a beacon of calm amidst the chaos, her presence soothing the scared and stranded. She moved among the people with grace, offering words offort to trembling children and anxious adults alike.
Her gentle voice could be heard above the rain, "Don''t worry, we are safe here for now. Ava protects us." Her words seemed to bring some relief to the distressed faces around her.
Just then, a woman in green robes, one of Ava''s acolytes, approached Fayeth with a heavy heart. "Three more have been lost to the flood," she reported, her voice quivering with grief.
Fayeth''s face fell at the news, a deep sigh escaping her lips as she absorbed the weight of the losses. She turned to offer furtherfort to those around her, and that''s when her eyes met Michael''s. In that moment, a glimmer of hope and surprise flickered in her eyes, as if his very presence brought a ray of light into the grim situation.
"John!" she eximed, her voice carrying a mixture of relief and astonishment. The people around her turned to look at him, their expressions mirroring Fayeth''s surprise.
Michael, standing before Fayeth, didn''t waste any time. "Why is Rainar flooding his own kingdom?" he asked, his voice carrying a mix of confusion and concern.
Fayeth''s expression hardened, her hand involuntarily clenching into a fist. "Rainar wants his people to pray to him more," she said, her voice tinged with anger. "He believes that the more they pray, the more power he will gain."
Michael frowned, puzzled by this logic. "But why? Why would he resort to such extremes?"
"The more people pray, the more power he gets," she growled. "It''s a desperate attempt to strengthen himself in this war." Fayeth''s frustration was palpable.
"But with the artifacts, Rainar could end this war. Why continue with such destruction?" Sarba chimed in,
Fayeth shook her head, a look of despair crossing her face. "I don''t know about the artifacts you speak of, but Rainar is desperate to win. He''s using every dirty trick in the book."
Michael looked around at the devastated surroundings, the people huddled in fear, the city in ruins. "So, the people are paying the price," he said, his voice heavy with the realization of the situation''s gravity.
The reality of the situation was stark and cruel. Rainar''s actions, driven by a desire for power, had brought untold suffering to his own people, turning his kingdom into a battleground and its citizens into victims of his ambition.
Fayeth turned to Michael, her eyes conveying a mix of determination and desperation.
"John, I need your help," she implored, recalling his identity as the rogue god in her mind.
Michael''s gaze swept over the scene around them. His attention was drawn to a woman clutching her baby boy, tears streaming down her face.
"Please, someone save us," she sobbed, her voice filled with despair and fear.
Nearby, he noticed a group of people huddled together, their voices murmuring prayers.
"Rainar, the ever mighty god," they chanted, not in devotion but in sheer terror. Their prayers were pleas for mercy, ast resort in the face of their overwhelming plight.
A surge of anger welled up in Michael. He frowned deeply, his disgust at Rainar''s actions growing. The god''s selfishness and cruelty were now more evident than ever, fueling Michael''s resolve to confront him.
Fayeth watched Michael, her expression one of reluctant hope.
"What is it?" Michael asked, noticing her hesitation.
Fayeth took a deep breath. "I need your help to rescue the citizens taken to Rainar''s temple. They''re being forced to pray to him, and they will die if not rescued soon," she exined, her voiceced with urgency.
Fayeth''s eyes met Michael''s, filled with a mix of hope and uncertainty. "I don''t knowyour true intentions or powers or why you even here, but I have a feeling you might be able to help. I''m desperate," she confessed.
Michael ced a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I''ll rescue them. And I promise, Rainar''s reign will end soon," he dered, his voice firm with conviction.
In that moment, Michael''smitment was more than just a response to Fayeth''s plea; it was a vow, a determination to right the wrongs inflicted by a god consumed by his own power.
As Michael turned to leave, he suddenly leaped forward with inhuman speed, a blur against the backdrop of the stormy sky. Fayeth, witnessing this extraordinary disy, stood in shock, her eyes wide with amazement. His actions reminded her of what he did to Rodney, the angel of Rainar a month ago. This rogue god was her only hope.
He moved with a grace and agility that seemed to defy thews of nature, swiftly leaping from one rooftop to another. His figure, a fleeting shadow in the relentless downpour, was headed straight towards Rainar''s temple.
Fayeth watched him go, a mix of awe and curiosity in her gaze. As he disappeared into the distance, she murmured to herself, "Please save them,"
As he left, she stood there, looking out into the storm, contemting the enigmatic rogue god might be the flicker of hope in the midst of chaos and despair.
Chapter 1144 God Rainar鈥檚 Physical Manifestation
Chapter 1144 God Rainar¡¯s Physical Manifestation
As Michael stealthily approached Rainar''s temple, the majestic structure loomed before him, a tower of grandeur, its golden iys glistening even in the storm''s fury. It stood untouched by the flood, a testament to the god''s vanity and power. Its opulence was a harsh contrast to the despair that gripped the city.
Lines of people, huddled and drenched, made their way towards the temple. Desperation etched on their faces, they walked as if in a trance, driven by fear rather than devotion. Their steps were slow, heavy with the weight of their impending doom.
"We can''t go through the front door," Sarba whispered, his voice barely audible over the storm. The front was heavily guarded, a fortress unto itself, teeming with Rainar''s loyalists.
Michael snickered softly, a glint of mischief in his eyes. "If there''s a shadow, I can shadow teleport," he murmured confidently. His ability to move through shadows was more than just a skill; it was an art form, honed through centuries.
He quickly moved away from the guards and the line of the crowd, blending into the shadows like a ghost. His movements were fluid and silent, a dance in the dark.
In the line, a mother clutched her child tightly, whispering, "It''s going to be alright." Her voice trembled with fear, a stark contrast to the false reassurance she tried to offer. The child, wide-eyed and scared, clung to her, seeking sce in her embrace.
All around, the people seemed terrified. Their faces were canvases of despair, each telling a story of a life turned upside down. Their prayers were not of faith but of fear, uttered not in worship but in a desperate plea for mercy.
Rainar, in his unquenchable thirst for power, was forcing the citizens of his domain to pray to him more and more. He believed that the more they prayed, the more ''worship energy'' he would umte. It was a twisted game of control and fear, with the people as unwilling pawns in his quest for supremacy.
The scene was a grim reflection of the depths a god would sink to, driven by greed and a hunger for power. The storm continued to rage, the rain pouring down like tears from the heavens, as if mourning the plight of the people below.
Michael''s gaze shifted upwards, focusing on the temple''s upper levels. He remembered the window he had usedst time to infiltrate the temple, a potential point of entry away from the watchful eyes of the guards. His eyes narrowed as he spotted the window, still ajar, an oversight that could be his key to entry.
Ayag, perched on his shoulder, rolled her eyes. "How stupid are Rainar''s guards?" she hissed, disbelief in her tone.
"Not stupid, but overconfident," Michael corrected softly, his eyes still on the window. His voice carried a hint of experience, an understanding of the fine line between confidence and carelessness.
"Often times, it''s the same thing." Sarba chimed in, his voiceced with sarcasm, Without another word, Michael swiftly moved, his form blending into the shadows. He used his shadow teleportation, a skill that made him almost ethereal, moving through darkness as if it were a part of him. To an onlooker, it would seem as if he disappeared and reappeared out of thin air, a ghost moving through the night.
He emerged from the shadows near the base of the temple, his eyes fixed on the open window above. With a swift movement, he raised his hand, and a grappling hook shot out, the line whirring as it sailed through the rain-soaked air.
The hook found its mark,tching onto the window''s edge securely. Michael didn''t hesitate; he activated the mechanism, and it reeled him in with a smooth, rapid motion. He flew straight through the open window, his body agile and controlled.
Hended deftly on the cross beams inside the temple, hisnding silent despite the speed of his entrance. Michael crouched there for a moment, surveying the interior from his elevated vantage point. He was now inside Rainar''s temple, a ce fraught with danger but also filled with potential to undermine the god''s tyrannical rule.
Perched high on the ceiling beam, Michael observed the scene below with a heavy heart. The temple''s grand hall was filled with countless people on their knees, their eyes closed in forced reverence. They chanted monotonously, "Power to Rainar, the benevolent god," their voices devoid of genuine faith, echoing hollowly off the temple walls.
Ayag, witnessing the scene, couldn''t help butment disdainfully, "Benevolent, my ass."
Michael''s keen eyes scanned the area, noting the guards patrolling the ground. They moved with a sense of purpose, their eyes scanning the crowd for any sign of disobedience. Their presence served as a constant reminder of the oppression these people were under.
In the midst of this enforced worship, a little boy, no more than ten years old, opened his eyes. He stopped chanting and turned his head, looking outside, perhaps longing for the freedom beyond the temple walls. His innocent act of defiance seemed like a small, silent protest against the tyranny they were all subjected to.
However, this moment of respite was short-lived. A guard of Rainar, d in armor and wielding a whip, noticed the boy''spse. With a swift and cruel motion, he struck the child mercilessly. The sound of the whip echoed through the hall, a stark reminder of the regime''s brutality.
"Pray, you little wretch! Pray or feel the wrath of Rainar!" the guard shouted, his voiceced with cruelty and fervor. He raised his whip again, ready to strike, his eyes alight with a fanatic''s zeal.
The boy, terrified and in pain, quickly closed his eyes and resumed his chanting, tears streaming down his cheeks. The other worshippers dared not look up or react, their fear of Rainar''s retribution keeping them silent and submissive.
Michael, usually the embodiment of calm and control, felt a rare surge of anger as he observed the whip marks on the little children in the crowd below. The tant disy of cruelty was a stark reminder of the oppressive regime under which these people suffered. It was a scene that would unsettle even the most stoic observer.
Ayag, sensing the tension, asked, "What''s the n?"
"We can''t just all be taken and escape the kingdom without a fight," she pointed out, aware of the logistical nightmare such an endeavor would pose.
Michael thought for a moment before responding. "There''s a divine portal in this temple. We can use it to transport the people to Goldspire," he proposed, his mind already working through the intricacies of the n.
"Seems like a good n," Sarba, listening intently, nodded in agreement. "Goddess Seshat seems trustworthy and kind. She might help us in Goldspire," he said, considering the potential ally they could rely on.
Michael, however, remained skeptical. "I don''t trust any god, even if she seems kind and trustworthy," he stated tly. His experiences had taught him to be cautious, especially when dealing with deities. Trust was not something he gave freely, particrly in a world where gods often yed their ownplex and deceptive games.
"For now, let''s take care of these guards,"
Just as Michael was poised to leap down and confront the guards, something in the atmosphere shifted, halting him in his tracks. He felt a thick, palpable energy suffusing the air, a sensation that heralded the arrival of something, or someone, powerful.
In the center of the temple, a bright light began to materialize, drawing the attention of everyone in the hall. The light grew in intensity, gradually coalescing into gray rain clouds that swirled and churned with a life of their own. These clouds then began to take a more distinct form, shaping into the figure of a man.
"Rainar."Michael muttered a single word under his breath.
The figure that emerged from the clouds was imposing: eight feet tall, with a muscr build that exuded raw power. His long beard and hair, gray as the rain clouds from which he formed, cascaded down his shoulders, giving him an appearance that was both majestic and formidable. He was clothed in elegant gray robes that flowed around him like mist, adorned with golden essories that glinted even in the dim light of the temple. Rainar''s eyes, sharp and prating, swept across his followers, their gaze alone enough to reinforce his authority. The atmosphere in the temple grew even heavier with his arrival, a tangible reminder of his control over the elements and his subjects.
Michael, from his vantage point, watched Rainar''s arrival with a mix of caution and resolve. The appearance of the god himself changed the dynamics of the situation drastically.
Sarba, gazing at the towering form of Rainar, couldn''t help but ask in a mix of awe and confusion, "Why is he so big? Are all the gods like this?"
"Have you not been paying attention? Seshat, Marli, and even Ghost aren''t giants like him. How can you even think all gods are big? Use your eyes, Sarba!" Ayag, overhearing Sarba''sment, quickly retorted in a hushed yet exasperated yell, "But he''s so... big," Sarba protested weakly, still unable to take his eyes off Rainar.
Ayag rolled her eyes, her tone dripping with sibling-like annoyance, "No shit. Yes, and you''re so... observant. Congrattions on stating the obvious."
Their bickering, a mix of humor and rivalry, was a brief respite in the tense atmosphere of the temple. However, it was abruptly cut short by the booming voice of Rainar that filled the hall.
"Open your eyes and face your god," Rainarmanded, his voice resonating with power and authority.
The worshippers, who had been kneeling with their eyes shut, slowly raised their heads, their expressions a mixture of reverence and fear. The presence of their god in physical form was both a moment of awe and intimidation. Rainar''smand was not just an order; it was an assertion of his dominance, a reminder to his followers of his supremacy.
Chapter 1145 God of Darkness to the Rescue I
Chapter 1145 God of Darkness to the Rescue I
As the people slowly opened their eyes in the grand hall of the temple, they were met with the sight of Rainar floating before them. Hismanding presence filled the room, a mix of divine majesty and intimidating power. The reactions among the worshippers varied, each person reflecting their own mix of emotions towards the god.
Some gasped in shock, unable to hide their surprise at the physical manifestation of their deity. "He''s... he''s really here," a woman whispered to her neighbor, her voice trembling with a mix of awe and fear.
Others, despite being forced to pray, couldn''t help but express reverence in Rainar''s presence. A man bowed his head even lower, murmuring, "Rainar, our great god, blesses us with his presence," his voice filled with a devoutness that seemed to transcend his earlier fear.
Yet, there were many who looked terrified, their faces pale as if they had seen a tyrant rather than a deity. A young girl clutched her mother''s hand tightly, her voice barely audible as she said, "Mama, I''m scared. He looks so... scarry."
"This is no benevolent god. This is a ruler who demands fear and obedience." An elderly man, his eyes wide with fear, muttered under his breath.
The hall was a tapestry of emotions ¨C shock, reverence, terror ¨C all directed towards the imposing figure of Rainar. His appearance had brought to the surface the true feelings of the people, revealing theplex rtionship between a deity and his worshippers.
Rainar, seemingly indifferent to the varied reactions of his subjects, gazed down at them with a sense of detached superiority.
Rainar''s cold, imperious voice echoed through the hall, cutting through the mix of emotions like a knife. "Why are you not praying to me with more fervor?" he demanded, his tone devoid of warmth.
He continued, his voice growing colder with each word, "I have given you a ce in my domain, food, evesting rain, and now power to expand this domain. Yet, you do not pray to me as you should. Why?"
The energy in the hall thickened, bing almost suffocating. It was as if Rainar''s displeasure was a tangible force, pressing down on everyone present.
Frightened and terrified, the people began to knock their heads on the ground, begging for his mercy and forgiveness. Their voices were a chorus of desperation and fear.
"Forgive us, great Rainar," a man cried out, his forehead touching the floor. "We are but humble servants, unworthy of your grace."
"Please, have mercy on us," a woman pleaded, her voice breaking. "We will pray harder, more fervently. Please, spare us your wrath."
"Your greatness knows no bounds, we will dedicate our lives to your worship," another added, the fear in his voice palpable.
Children whimpered, clinging to their parents, their young minds unable to fullyprehend the situation but instinctively understanding the need to show subservience.
The scene was one of absolute submission, a demonstration of Rainar''s power to instill fear and obedience in his subjects. As the atmosphere in the temple remained heavy with fear and submission, the same imposing orc who Michael had seen earlier, the one responsible for torturing the king of Nimbosia, entered the hall. His presence was as menacing as before, and his arrival caught the attention of everyone present.
(Read Chapter 1068 - Being the stealthy assassin once again to refresh your memories)
Ayag, peeking out from Michael''s coat pocket, whispered, "Isn''t that the same orc who tortured the king using water droplets?"
Michael, observing from his hidden vantage point, confirmed quietly, "Yes, that''s him."
Rainar, noticing the orc''s entrance, turned around with the grace and authority befitting a tyrant. His voice,manding and deep, filled the hall. "What brings you here?" he asked the orc.
The orc, with a posture that spoke of both respect and fear, responded, "My lord Rainar, I have received news from the front. Kranar''s angels are retreating and falling behind in the battle."
Rainar chuckled, a sound that seemed to carry a dark undertone. "That is only the beginning," he dered confidently. "Soon, with no angels to support him, the people will lose faith in Kranar. And with not enough faith energy from his own kingdom, Kranar will be forced out of his kingdom by the pantheon. Then, I will take over Thunderdale."
The orc nodded in agreement, his expression one of admiration and reverence for Rainar''s strategic acumen. Rainar''s ambition was to not only maintain control over his subjects but to expand his power to other realms, capitalizing on the weakening of his adversaries.
As Michael listened to Rainar''s derations and observed the dynamics in the temple, he began to draw parallels between the politics of the Pantheon and the political parties of Earth. It was a game of power and influence, where faith and worship were the currencies of control. "They are just like the dirty politicians," Michael muttered under his breath.
The realization dawned on him that in this realm of gods, a god''s power was directly tied to the faith energy they received from their domain in addition to the level of their Godhood. If a god failed to garner enough faith from their worshippers, they risked being ousted from their domain by the Pantheon.
This revtion shed light on the underlying mechanics of godly politics. It was intriguing yet unsettling to realize that the Pantheon, a body presumably of immense power and wisdom, had allowed two of their gods, Rainar and Kranar, to engage in such a fierce and destructive battle without intervening. This could either be a sign of negligence or an indication of deeper, moreplex schemes at y.
Michael pondered over the situation, weighing the possibilities. He concluded that it was unlikely to be mere ipetence on the part of the Pantheon. Such powerful entities were not prone to overlooking conflicts that could potentially destabilize the bnce of power among them. Therefore, it seemed more usible that there wererger schemes at y, hidden agendas that were yet to be revealed.
(Sorry for the filler but I felt like it must be shared to fresh out the Pantheon and how they operate and how gods'' domains worked)
The orc, after discussing the current situation, shifted the topic to another matter of importance. "My lord Rainar, the g hosted by Goddess Fortuna is approaching. How would you like me to prepare for the journey?" he inquired, his tone indicating the significance of the event.
Rainar pondered for a moment, then began issuing instructions regarding the preparations. The g, it seemed, was a notable event in the divine calendar, one that attracted the attention of various gods and goddesses.
As Michael listened to this exchange from his hidden perch, a realization struck him. The g presented a unique opportunity, one that aligned with the specific requirements he recognized for killing a god. He recalled the conditions:
[The target God Rainar must be away from his domain¡]
[The target must be in a ce where his godly powers are useless]
[Finally, the target must be in with a weapon made of the cor bone of an ancient beast¡]
As Michael listened to the conversation below, he turned to Cain, the smartest among the three hydra heads, and began discussing the potential opportunity that presented itself.
"Rainar attending Fortuna''s g... This could be our chance," Michael mused, his voice low.
"Yes, but there are specific conditions to meet if you''re thinking of... dealing with Rainar." Cain, with a hiss of interest, replied.
"First, Rainar must be away from his domain for our n to work. The g at Fortuna''s provides just that opportunity." Michael nodded.
Cain flicked his tongue thoughtfully, "And secondly, the target must be in a ce where his godly powers are limited or useless. These high-profile gatherings often enforce such neutral grounds."
"Exactly," Michael agreed. "And finally, the most challenging part. The target must be in with a weapon made from the cor bone of an ancient beast. Finding such a weapon will be a task in itself."
The two of them pondered the situation, weighing the feasibility of each requirement. The g, an event of neutrality and diplomacy, could be the perfect setting where Rainar''s defenses and powers were diminished, meeting the first two conditions. However, the third condition, acquiring a weapon of such specific and rare make, remained a significant hurdle.
Rainar, with the air of one used tomanding and being obeyed, addressed the orc, "I will prepare to attend the G in three days. Meanwhile, continue to decimate Kranar''s angels."
The orc nodded in agreement, his response firm and resolute, "As youmand, my lord. The downfall of Kranar''s angels will continue."
Rainar''s expression then shifted to one of cunning.
"During the g, I will also work to sway some fellow gods in the Pantheon to support our cause. It''s time to expand our influence and power." Michael, listening from above, couldn''t help but draw parallels between Rainar''s tactics and those of a corrupt politician on Earth. He whispered to Cain, his voiceced with disdain, "Rainar is no different than a corrupted politician, currying favor and manipting others for more power. He ys the game of gods like a political chessboard."
Cain responded, reflecting his agreement. "Hmm, in realms high or low, the thirst for power shapes actions and breeds deceit."
As Rainar vanished into thin air, Michael knew it was time to act. He cracked his neck, preparing himself for the confrontation ahead. Focused and determined, he readied to face the orc and execute his n to save the people. His intention was clear; it was time to take down Rainar and save these poor people.
Chapter 1146 God of Darkness to the Rescue II
Chapter 1146 God of Darkness to the Rescue II
Michael tapped the skull medallion on his chest, and his armor began to cover him, spreading seamlessly across his body in a fluid motion. Fully armored, he used his shadow teleportation ability to appear before the temple door. With a swift movement, he closed the door, sealing the room.
The orc, caught off guard by Michael''s sudden appearance, started in surprise. His eyes widened as he tried toprehend the unexpected intrusion.
Without hesitation, Michael raised his hand, activating the potion dispenser integrated into his armor. A thick cloud of dark smoke sprayed forth, quickly filling the hall and engulfing the space in an imprable veil of darkness.
The orc, now surrounded by the smoke, coughed and stumbled, losing his bearings in the sudden obscurity. The hall, once clear, was now a domain of shadows and confusion, perfectly suiting Michael''s strategy.
The orc, engulfed in the dark smoke, let out a furious roar. "Guards! To me! We have an intruder!" he bellowed, his voice reverberating through the hall.
Michael, calm amidst the chaos, activated his Eyes of Darkness. Through the smoke, he saw the guards as green auras, indicating they were mortals he could dispatch without resorting to his godly powers. The orc, too, had a green aura, but Michael noticed something peculiar: a glowing vial dangling from the orc''s neck.
Cain, concealed behind Michael''s cape, whispered, "That looks like the Grace of Rainar. It''s a powerful artifact."
"Kill him before he fucking consumes the grace and gains the power of a level 3 god. We can''t afford that kind of esction." Ayag chimed in urgently, Michael nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. The Grace of Rainar could tip the scales drastically in the orc''s favor. It was imperative to neutralize him before he had a chance to use it. Michael, with swift precision, lunged at the orc using his Lightning Dash technique, hovering a meter above the ground. This maneuver allowed him to avoid the people scattered on the hall floor, who were now panicking amidst the chaos.
Strategically, Michael used the crowd to his advantage. The throngs of praying and now terrified worshippers restricted the movements of the orc and his guards. Aware that these people were vital worship energy generators for Rainar, neither the orc nor the guards dared to harm them, furtherplicating their ability to navigate through the crowd.
To Michael''s surprise, however, the orc and his guards adapted quickly to the situation. They began hovering above the crowd, moving upward to counteract their disadvantage. This unexpected move momentarily leveled the ying field, as they sought to escape the constraints of the panicked worshippers below.
Michael, observing their adaptation, couldn''t help but be amused. "Adaptable, aren''t they?" he remarked to Vedora, a hint of respect in his voice. "But not adaptable enough."
Panic ensued among the people in the temple as they found themselves enveloped in dark smoke. Their cries and shouts filled the air, echoing their confusion and fear.
"Help! I can''t see anything!" a woman cried out, her voice trembling with panic.
"What''s happening?!" shouted a man, his voice rising above the din of the crowd.
Amidst the chaos, the orc barked orders to his guards, "Use wind spells to clear this smoke! Now!"
The guards, quick to obey, began casting spells. "Ventus Purge!" one guard chanted, while another followed with, "Gale Sweep!"
The spells materialized as powerful gusts of wind, swirling through the hall. The Ventus Purge created a vortex that momentarily dispersed the smoke, revealing glimpses of the terrified crowd. Gale Sweep sent a sweeping rush of air, pushing the smoke back and providing temporary relief.
However, Michael was quick to counter their efforts. He continuously released clouds of smoke through the potion dispenser on his armor, replenishing the smokescreen faster than their spells could clear it. The hall quickly filled with smoke again, maintaining the advantage of obscurity.
The orc, realizing the futility of their attempts, turned his attention to Michael with a killing intent. "Intruder, your tricks won''t save you! I''ll tear you apart myself!" he growled, his voiceced with menace.
Michael, seizing the opportunity, swung his dark sword in a swift arc, aiming to decapitate the orc. However, the orc, despite his bulky frame, performed an unexpected acrobatic maneuver in mid-air. He twisted his body with surprising agility, dodging the lethal strike with a backward somersault that defied his size.
Observing the orc''s nimbleness, Michael couldn''t suppress a chuckle. "Impressive," he remarked. "Didn''t take you for a gymnast."
Not missing a beat, Michael shifted his tactics. His eyes glowed ominously as he fired dark beams directly at the orc. The beams sliced through the air, cutting into the orc''s skin. The orc roared in pain as the beams made contact, the chain holding the Grace of Rainar snapping and sending the vial flying.
Enraged and in pain, the orc bellowed, "You''ll pay for that, intruder! I''ll crush you!"
Michael''s eyes quickly located the glowing Grace of Rainar as itnded among the panicked crowd. He noted the orc''s sudden shift from aggression to panic, aware that one wrong step in the crowded hall could lead to the Grace being crushed underfoot.
The orc, realizing the precarious situation, roared at the people, "Don''t move! Stay where you are!" His voice boomed across the hall,manding and fierce.
His shout had the desired effect. The people, already paralyzed by fear and confusion, frozepletely, too terrified to move a muscle. The hall, once filled with chaos, became eerily still, the tension palpable.
Michael, seizing the moment, taunted the orc, "Nothing will save you from me today."
The orc, his eyes narrowed in anger and confusion, shot back, "Who are you to challenge me?"
Michael''s response was cool and confident, "Ask Rainar when I send him to join you in hell. After I send you to hell first,"
The orc, infuriated by Michael''s disrespect towards Rainar, entered into a berserking frenzy. His rage was palpable as he roared, "You dare insult Lord Rainar? I''ll rip you apart!"
He then shouted to his guards, "Attack! Cast every spell you know at this intruder!"
The orc himself prepared for a direct assault. He chanted, "Golden Fist of Fury!" and his massive fist began to glow with a golden radiance. The air around his hand crackled with energy, hinting at the immense power he was about to unleash.
With a battle cry, the orcunched a series of rapid punches towards Michael. Each fist, glowing with golden light, moved with surprising speed for his size, creating a blur of strikes.
Michael, however, matched the orc''s ferocity with his own agility and precision. He deftly avoided each punch, moving with fluidity and grace. As he dodged, he taunted the orc, "Is that all you''ve got? I expected more from Rainar''s champion."
Meanwhile, the guards began casting their spells. "Aqua Vortex!" one yelled, creating a swirling torrent of water aimed at Michael. "Rain of Arrows!" another shouted, as sharp, water-formed arrows rained down from above.
As the spells converged on Michael, the Responsive Shield activated around him. The pale blue, translucent shield sprang to life, absorbing the water-based attacks with ease. The shield pulsed with each impact, its energy dissipating the force of the spells.
Michael, seizing a momentary opening, aimed his dark sword at the orc''s glowing golden fists, intending to cut them off. However, to his surprise, the dark sword bounced off the golden radiance with a ng, failing to make even a scratch.
The system''s voice sounded in his head, [Upgrade required: Dark Swordcks sufficient rune enhancements for effectivebat against certain spells]
Ignoring the system''s suggestion for the moment, Michael quickly reacted as the orc''s golden fist bore down on him again. He lifted his wrist, and the ck Shield retracted from it, springing up just in time to block the punch. The impact of the golden fist against the shield sent Michael reeling into the air, the force behind the punch far greater than he had anticipated.
As he stabilized himself mid-air, Michael felt a numbing sensation in his hand from the impact. "That''s quite a punch. Didn''t see thating." Hemented wryly.
The orc, emboldened by his sessful strike, taunted Michael with a menacing growl. "There''s more where that came from, intruder! I''ll rip you to shreds and offer your blood to Lord Rainar as a tribute!"
Michael, unfazed, responded with a smile and a sigh, then casually cracked his neck, signaling a shift in his demeanor. "ytime is over," he dered coolly.
As he spoke, the hall began to darken ominously. Michael cast Death Range, enveloping the area in an eerie darkness that seemed to swallow light itself. This sudden shift in the environment was disorienting and unsettling for everyone in the room.
Simultaneously, Michael activated the potion dispenser on his armor, releasing a potent fear toxin into the already darkened hall. Thebination of the darkness and the toxin began to take effect on the guards. They started to tremble, their resolve faltering under the influence of the overwhelming fear now gripping them. The once-confident soldiers, who had been casting spells with determination, were now visibly shaken, struggling to maintain theirposure in the face of this new, terrifying threat.
The orc, sensing the unnatural quality of the darkness enveloping the hall, growled uneasily, "This darkness... it''s not normal. What have you done?"
Meanwhile, the guards, having inhaled the fear toxin, were visibly affected. Their bodies began to shiver uncontrobly, and they ceased casting their spells. One guard, his voice shaking with fear, stammered, "What... what is this? I... I can''t think straight."
"It''s like my worst nightmares areing to life! I can''t fight this!" Another guard, sumbing to the effects of the toxin, cried out in a panic.
Their resolve crumbling under thebined assault of darkness and fear, the guards were rendered effectively helpless, unable to continue their offensive against Michael. The scene had turnedpletely, with the tables now turned in Michael''s favor.
Chapter 1147 Worship Energy
Chapter 1147 Worship Energy
In a swift, almost imperceptible motion, Michael swooped down through the darkened hall and retrieved the vial containing the Grace. He quickly secured it in his system storage, ensuring its safety.
The orc, his anger surging through the effects of the fear toxin, roared in fury, "No! You won''t get away with this!"
Enraged, the orc entered a battle frenzy, dashing towards Michael with reckless abandon. His punches flew wildly, each strike fueled by sheer rage.
Michael, calcting andposed, cast the spell "Silenes," effectively slowing down time around himself and the orc. The world around them seemed to crawl as he maneuvered himself with precision. In a calcted move, Michael thrust his sword, aiming directly at the orc''s eyes.
The de pierced through, blinding the orc in an instant. The orc''s roar of agony echoed through the hall, a sound filled with excruciating pain and shock.
"Arghhh! My eyes!" he cried out, his voice a mix of pain and disbelief.
With precision and finality, Michael thrust his sword deeper into the orc''s head through the eye socket, ending his life decisively. To his surprise, the orc''s body crumbled into dust, leaving behind a system notification:
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the orc''s clone. The reward is 4000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points] Michael paused, processing this information. He realized then why the orc had a green aura ¨C it was a clone, not the original, which exined the rtive ease in oveing him. "So, the real orc was never here," Michael murmured to himself, understanding that he had been facing a decoy all along.
Putting this revtion aside for the moment, Michael turned his attention to the remaining guards. With the same efficiency and ruthlessness, he lunged at them, his dark swords slicing through the air. The guards, still reeling from the fear toxin and the shock of their leader''s demise, stood little chance. Michael cut them down one by one, his movements a blur of deadly precision.
Michael, realizing the need to clear the hall of the lingering fear toxin and dark smoke, cast "Windst." A powerful gust of wind swept through the temple, dispersing the clouds and revealing the grim aftermath of the battle. The wind carried away the remnants of his tactics, leaving the hall in a state of eerie calm.
As the bodies of the fallen guards began to fall around them, the people screamed in horror. The sight of the dead, coupled with the recent chaos, sent them into a state of shock and fear. They huddled together, trembling, their eyes wide with terror.
Their fear escted to a new level when they saw Michael, d in ck armor with his face obscured by a skull mask,nd solidly before them. His daunting appearance, marked by the remnants of the battle and the ominous mask, made him look like a harbinger of death.
The people, unaware of who he was or his intentions, were paralyzed by his presence. Whispers and murmurs spread through the crowd, "Who is that? What does he want with us?"
Michaelnded gently before the crowd and raised his hands in a calming gesture. "Everyone, please calm down," he said softly. "I was sent here by Fayeth, the angel of Goddess Ava."
At the mention of Fayeth''s name, a noticeable change swept over the crowd. Their panic subsided, reced by a sense of hope. "Fayeth? She sent him?" one person whispered to another, their voice tinged with relief.
Just then, Fayeth herself appeared inside the temple. The crowd''s reaction was instantaneous, with expressions of relief and joy spreading across their faces.
Michael, slightly amused, turned to Fayeth.
"Were you able to teleport inside the temple all this time?" he asked, a hint of curiosity in his voice.
The people''s voices filled the hall, expressing their gratitude and relief at seeing Fayeth. "Fayeth, you''re here!" eximed a woman, her voice full of joy. "We''re saved," another person sighed, their relief palpable.
Fayeth''s presence was like a beacon of hope to the people of Nimbosia. As an angel of Goddess Ava, the Goddess of Healing, she was deeply trusted and cherished by them. Her kind and soothing words further calmed the crowd.
"Don''t worry, everyone. I''m here now," Fayeth reassured them, her voice gentle yet confident. "I will make sure you all are taken to a safe ce, away from the dangers of Nimbosia."
Her words were like a balm to the scared and weary people, providing them with thefort and assurance they desperately needed in that moment. Michael, his tone serious, addressed Fayeth, "You do realize that if we evacuate these people, Rainar will likely bring others to rece them."
Fayeth exhaled deeply, a hint of worry in her eyes. "I know, but we have no choice. We have to evacuate them through the divine portals to Goddess Seshat''s kingdom. It''s the safest option we have right now."
"Why not take them to Ava''s kingdom?" Michael, curious, asked.
Fayeth''s expression turned grave. "Ava does not have a domain anymore," she reminded him gently, a note of sadness in her voice.
Michael''s mind raced back to a conversation with Sarba and Ayag, where they had mentioned Angel Rodney, sent by Rainar, revealing how Ava''s own domain had turned against her and banished her. He recalled how it was portrayed as a great tragedy. Given Fayeth''s kind nature, it seemed likely that Ava, too, was a benevolent goddess, making her downfall all the more tragic.
The revtion about Ava''s domain painted a picture of the vtile and often harsh realities of the divine realms. It was a world where even the kindest souls could face great adversities. Michael''s understanding of theplexities of celestial politics deepened, realizing that even deities could be victims of betrayal and loss.
As Michael and Fayeth were speaking, a loud banging suddenly echoed from the door. The people, already on edge, reacted with immediate panic.
"They''re here! More guards!" a woman cried out, her voiceced with fear.
"We''re trapped!" another person shouted, the dread in their voice rising.
Michael, sensing the urgency, turned to Fayeth decisively. "Take them to the portal. I''ll handle the guards," he said, readying himself for another confrontation.
Fayeth, without hesitation, sprang into action and began leading the people toward the portal room, herding them with a sense of urgency but also calm reassurance.
As they moved, a little boy, seemingly unafraid of Michael''s terrifying appearance, approached him. His eyes full of curiosity, the boy asked, "Who are you?"
Before Michael could respond, Fayeth interjected, "This is the God of Darkness."
The boy looked up at Michael with a mixture of awe and gratitude. "Thank you," he said softly, reaching out to touch Michael''s hand.
As the boy''s hand made contact, Michael felt a surprising sensation - a sliver of warm energy seeped into his body. It was an unfamiliar butforting energy, and he quickly realized that this might be the worship energy Rainar had been so fervently cultivating.
In that moment, the system chimed in, reminding him, [Unlocking worship energy enables the casting of massive god-level spells that cannot usually be cast using celestial energy]
The revtion was significant. The energy from worship opened up new possibilities for Michael, potentially allowing him ess to powers he had not been able to wield before.
The system''s voice echoed again in Michael''s mind, tempting him with the possibilities of the worship energy. [With enough worship energy, you could cast Death''s Range on the sun itself, bringing darkness to the entire world for a period of time]
Michael''s eyes widened behind his skull mask at the enormity of such power. He began to understand the potential thaty in having a base of worshippers. The realization dawned on him why gods were so obsessed with umting worshippers ¨C it wasn''t just about ego or reverence; it was a source of immense power.
However, Michael momentarily pushed these thoughts aside. There was an immediate task at hand ¨C dealing with Rainar''s guards. He cracked his neck, readying himself for the impending confrontation.
Fayeth, noticing his preparation, said with a mix of admiration and concern, "Be careful, although I know you don''t need it." She then turned and continued leading the people towards the portal room, her figure exuding confidence and hope.
"This is like putting a bandage on a cut arm. It''s a temporary fix." Ayag, perched closely to Michael,mented in a pragmatic tone.
Cain, resonating with Ayag''s sentiment, added, "As long as Rainar is alive, this domain and its people will never be the same. They will always live under his tyranny."
Michael, acknowledging their insights, replied with a determined edge in his voice, "Then we have our next course of action. We will find an ancient beast and craft a weapon from its cor bone. It''s time to end Rainar''s reign."
His statement marked a significant decision, amitment to a course of action that would change the bnce of power in the domain. Michael''s resolve was clear - to bring an end to Rainar''s tyranny and be the God yer.
Chapter 1148 The Ancient Beast
Chapter 1148 The Ancient Beast
As Michael prepared himself, several guards rushed into the temple, their weapons drawn and ready for battle. Their confident strides quickly turned to shock as they took in the scene before them.
"By the gods! He''s killed them all!" one soldier eximed, his voice filled with disbelief.
"Look at the bodies... What kind of monster is this?" another shouted, his voice tinged with fear.
In a swift, fluid motion, Michael teleported to the door. With the blink of an eye, he closed the giant doors of the temple and secured them by cing a giant beam across the entryway. He then bent the beam with his strength, ensuring that the doors would not easily be opened.
The soldiers on the other side shouted in shock and frustration as they realized they were effectively locked in with this formidable adversary. "He''s sealed us in!" one yelled, the panic clear in his voice.
Not wasting any time, the soldiers began to cast rain-based spells in an attempt to subdue Michael. "Aqua Torrent!" one chanted, while another cast, "Rain of des!"
Simultaneously, some soldiers, fueled by adrenaline and desperation, dashed towards Michael, shouting battle cries as they charged. "For Rainar!" they yelled, determined to take down the formidable foe who stood before them.
As the soldiersunched their assault, the Responsive Shield activated around Michael, creating a barrier that absorbed their magical attacks. The shield, a pale blue translucent barrier, shimmered as it neutralized each spell cast against him.
Unfazed, Michael utilized his powers effectively. He shot dark beams from his eyes, slicing through the soldiers with lethal precision. Blood sttered across the temple floor, painting a grim picture of the battle''s brutality.
Amidst the chaos, the medallion on Michael''s chest began to tremble, a warning that using more of his powers would attract the attention of the Pantheon. However, Michael chose to ignore the warning. He was determined to make a statement, to show that he was a force to be reckoned with, even if it meant drawing the eyes of the celestial beings.
Within a few seconds, the oue of the confrontation was clear. All the soldiersy on the ground, bleeding and lifeless. Michael''s disy of power had effectively neutralized the threat, but at the cost of alerting higher powers to his actions.
An hourter, Fayeth returned to the temple and was met with a startling scene. Michael was sitting leisurely on the steps, a calm contrast to the scene of chaos around him, where the bodies of the fallen guardsy strewn across the hall.
Fayeth let out a deep sigh as she took in the sight. "This... this does not bode well with Rainar," she said, a hint of concern in her voice.
Michael, unfazed, responded confidently, "Rainar will not be alive for long to react to this."
Fayeth''s eyes widened in shock and disbelief at his statement. "You do know you cannot just kill a god, right?" she asked, the gravity of his implication hitting her.
Michael, with a snicker, replied nonchntly, "I can." His tone carried a mixture of confidence and determination, hinting at a n already forming in his mind.
Fayeth raised her eyebrows, a mix of skepticism and intrigue in her expression. "Why do I feel like you''re actually telling the truth?" she asked, her tone indicating that she was beginning to believe in Michael''s audacious n.
Michael simply smiled calmly and affirmed, "Because I am."
Taking a deep breath, Fayeth looked around at the bodies littering the hall, the aftermath of Michael''s confrontation with the guards. She then turned her gaze back to him and said earnestly, "Whatever you n to do, I hope it brings change for the better for these people."
"Don''t worry," Michael assured her. "I will make sure the people are treated right."
Fayeth, sensing the direction of their conversation, remarked, "I have a feeling you''re about to ask me something."
Michael chuckled at her perceptiveness and gently patted her on the shoulder. "You''re quite perceptive, Fayeth," he said. Then, getting straight to the point, he added, "I need the cor bone of an ancient beast to kill Rainar. I''m hoping you might have an idea about where to find such a beast."
Fayeth''s expression turned serious as she delved into the subject of ancient beasts. "The ancient beasts are extremely powerful, and even the gods don''t dare to mess with them," she began. "It''s believed that these beasts possess the ability to suck a god''s soul, but this has never been proven, as no god has dared to confront one in thousands of years."
Michael processed this information, understanding now why the system had decoded the book and specified a weapon made from an ancient beast''s cor bone as a requirement. "So, this cor bone must have the ability to suck a god''s soul. That''s how I can kill Rainar," he deduced.
"Where can I find such a beast?" Michael asked, his tone indicating the urgency of his quest.
Fayeth thought for a moment before responding, "There are many ancient beasts in the Vn Desert, but attacking one might attract many others, which would be highly problematic."
"That would be problematic indeed," Michael agreed.
After a few minutes, Fayeth added, "I have heard rumors of an ancient beast roaming the Celestial Valley, a barren domain inhabited by beasts and other dangerous creatures. I haven''t heard of any other ancient beasts in the Celestial Valley, so it might be your best bet."
Michael nodded, taking in this new information.
Fayeth continued, "Luckily for you, the divine portal in Rainar''s temple can open up a portal to the Celestial Valley."
Ayag, poking her head out of Michael''s pocket, remarked with a hint of dark humor, "It seems like the universe wants us to kill Rainar."
Sarba, joining in, added, "Everything does indeed seem to be lining up quite nicely for the assassination."
Fayeth chuckled at theirments. "Are your pet serpents always this... murdery?" she asked Michael, amusement in her voice.
Michael responded with a chuckle of his own. "Yes, they are."
Fayeth then offered, with a hint of jest in her tone, "I would be honored to walk you to the portal."
As they walked, Michael noticed ayer of worry and concern beneath Fayeth''s chuckle. He reassured her, "Just bear with Rainar''s angels a bit longer. I''ll end his reign soon."
"I hope for nothing else," Fayeth replied, her voice carrying a mix of hope and earnestness.
Together, they slowly made their way to the portal room. The room housed arge, circr beam, its surface covered in glowing runes. Fayeth approached the portal''s control pedestal and tapped her fingers on it thoughtfully.
With her touch, an emerald green vortex swirled to life within the portal, its colors vibrant and otherworldly.
Michael took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for whaty ahead. "I''ll meet you soon," he said to Fayeth, a promise of his return.
Fayeth waved her hand in farewell, her voice warm with sincerity. "May Goddess Ava bless you on your way," she said, wishing him well on his perilous journey.
Michael stepped into the portal, immediately feeling the powerful pull of its magic. The sensation was intense and disorienting, a vortex of colors and energies swirling around him.
Suddenly, he was ejected from the portal, finding himself in free fall above a vast canyon. The ground rushed up to meet him, the wind howling in his ears.
Ayag, exhrated by the experience, shouted from his pocket, "This is awesome!"
Reacting quickly, Michael tapped into his celestial energy and stabilized his descent. He soared upwards, redirecting his flight towards a nearby mountaintop. Landing gracefully, he took a moment to survey the breathtaking beauty of the Celestial Valley spread out before him.
The valley was a tapestry of vibrant colors and diversendscapes. Magical creatures flew and roamed freely, each more wondrous than thest. There were creatures with iridescent scales that shimmered in the sunlight, winged beasts that glided gracefully through the air, and others that roamed the lush forests with an aura of mystique.
Sarba, taken aback by the beauty, remarked, "It''s beautiful."
Michael, gazing at the scene, replied contemtively, "Beautiful ces often tend to hide the most dangerous things."
Just as they were taking in the sights of the Celestial Valley, a sudden movement caught their attention. A massive creature, resembling a centipede, burst through the ground with a deafening screech. Its enormous size and fearsome appearance were like nothing they had ever seen.
Sarba, taken aback by the sudden appearance of the creature, eximed in shock, "What the...?"
Michael, eyeing the beast closely, said, "I have a feeling that might be the ancient beast we''re looking for."
Cain, with a hint of skepticism in his voice, asked, "Do centipedes even have cor bones?"
"We''ll find out soon enough," Michael responded, his voice steady.
The centipede-like ancient monster was a sight to behold. It was enormous, easily spanning several meters in length, with a thick, segmented body that glistened with a dark, chitinous armor. Each segment of its body was lined with sharp spines, and its many legs were like powerful spears, capable of tearing through the toughest materials. Its head was adorned with mandibles that clicked and snapped menacingly, and a pair of beady, glowing eyes that seemed to pierce through the soul. The creature exuded an aura of ancient power, a living relic from a bygone era.
"Let the hunt begin," Michael said with a crack of his neck.
Chapter 1149 Invisible Pack of Panthers
Chapter 1149 Invisible Pack of Panthers
Michael observed the centipede-like ancient beast, noticing a yellow aura surrounding it. The aura indicated that he had a fifty percent chance of defeating it, but only if he approached the battle strategically. The beast''s sheer size and primal ferocity were formidable, even though itcked any apparent cultivation.
"We should observe it from a safe distance to learn more about its movements. There might be something we can exploit." Cain suggested.
As they watched, Ayag couldn''t help butment on the creature''s appearance. "Look at the size of that ugly thing!" she eximed, using colorfulnguage to express her disgust and awe at the centipede''s monstrous form.
Their n was to study the beast, looking for weaknesses or patterns in its behavior that could give them an advantage. The ancient monster, unaware of their presence for now, continued to move through the valley, its every step causing the ground to tremble.
As Michael flew towards the ancient centipede beast, his focus was entirely on his target. However, his concentration was abruptly interrupted when he sensed something rapidly approaching him. Before he could react, an invisible force struck him mid-air, sending him crashing down to the ground with a heavy thud.
Michael growled in frustration and quickly scanned the surroundings to identify his attacker. To his surprise, he saw arge ck panther-like beast with a shimmering cloak. The beast''s eyes glowed menacingly before it turned invisible, vanishing from sight within seconds.
Sarba, witnessing the encounter, gasped in shock, "Was that a panther with wings?"
Ayag, always ready with a quip, teased her brother, "So, weren''t you surprised by its ability to turn invisible?"
Michael, picking himself up,mented, "This ce is full of surprises." He dusted himself off, his mind already calcting the potential dangers that lurked in the valley. The encounter with the winged, invisible panther had served as a stark reminder of the unpredictable and perilous nature of the Celestial Valley.
As Michael continued to engage with the swift and elusive panthers, Ayag''s voice rang out, her tone a mix of annoyance and bravado. "These sneaky furballs are fast, but they''ve clearly never dealt with someone as awesome as us," she dered, her wordsced with her characteristic haughty and ill-tempered demeanor.
"Watch out! Another one on your left!" Ayag shouted, hermentary punctuating the tense atmosphere. "And stop dancing around like a headless chicken! Take them down already!"
Michael, despite the challenging situation, couldn''t help but admire the panthers'' skill and coordination. As he parried another swipe from a panther, he responded with a tone of respect, "These creatures are impressive. Their speed and teamwork are remarkable."
"Sure, they''re fast, but they''re not unbeatable," Ayag retorted, her voice a mix of confidence and impatience. "Just slice them already!"
Michael, acknowledging Ayag''s urgency, replied, "I''m working on it. Their tactics are more sophisticated than I anticipated."
Sarba, observing the battle, chimed in with a hint of worry, "Be careful, Michael. They''re not ordinary beasts."
Michael nodded, fully aware of the challenge at hand. He continued to maneuver and strike, his movements a blend of defense and attack. The panthers, undeterred, kept up their relentless assault, their invisibility and speed making them formidable opponents.
Amidst the flurry of attacks, Ayag''s voice cut through the chaos, "Use the Ring of Fire to burn them down!"
Michael, responding to Ayag''s suggestion, executed a spectacr move to evade another panther attack. He leaped high into the sky, flipping backward in a show of acrobatic prowess, his cloak billowing around him. As hended, he said, "There are other threats in this valley. Using mes might attract unwanted attention."
He then shed a sly grin, "I need to take this battle somewhere more secluded to finish it off."
As Michael engaged with the panthers, he couldn''t help butment on their mistake in choosing him as their target. "You''ve messed with the wrong god," he taunted.
With that, Michael began to strategically retreat from the area, deliberately leading the panthers towards a more secluded location. His movements were calcted, ensuring that the panthers followed him, away from potential threats or interferences.
As Michael led the panthers away, his environmental scanning picked up several powerful beings hidden within the valley. The glow of their eyes in the distance and the faint outlines of their formidable presences indicated that the Celestial Valley was teeming with creatures just as dangerous, if not more so, than the panthers themselves.
The panthers continued their relentless assault with attack and retreat tactics, their coordination and agility unyielding. Ayag, growing increasingly frustrated with their elusive attacks, growled, "Can''t these things just stand still for a moment?"
Michael, however, remained focused, skillfully navigating through the valley to avoid the other powerful beings detected in his scan. He moved with purpose, drawing the panthers further away from potential dangers or interruptions.
Finally, finding himself in a more isted area, Michael sensed that the panthers were the only immediate threats nearby. He stopped, turned to face his pursuers, and dered confidently, "It''s showtime."
At that moment, Michael stood in a deste area, the strong wind whipping around him and sand beneath his feet. The environment was harsh, an unforgivingndscape that seemed to stretch endlessly.
He noticed that the invisible panthers had halted their assault, no longer attacking him with their previous ferocity. They seemed to be reassessing their strategy.
Ayag, puzzled by the sudden change in the panthers'' behavior, asked, "What''s happening?"
"They''re restrategizing," Michael surmised. "They''re adapting to the new environment."
Ayag scoffed, "Even the beasts in the realm of gods are cunning, smarter than many in the mortal realm."
As if to prove her point, one of the invisible panthers suddenly dashed towards Michael, a blur of motion. However, as itnded on the ground, its feet sank into the sand, impeding its swift movement.
Michael''s grin widened as he realized the advantage the terrain provided him. "Now it''s my turn," he dered.
He unsheathed both of his dark swords from his back, the des glinting ominously in the dim light. His stance was confident, ready to seize the offensive now that the panthers'' agility was hindered by the sandy terrain.
Michael, seizing the initiative, dashed towards the trapped panther, fully expecting the others to converge on him in an attempt to protect theirrade. As he moved, a smile yed on his lips, knowing his n was about toe to fruition.
Without hesitation, Michael cast the "Ring of mes." ck mes erupted around him, forming a searing circle. Waves of dark mes shot out from him, creating a spectacle of fiery destruction.
The panthers in the air, caught off guard by the sudden inferno, reacted instinctively and attempted to fly away. However, the dark mes licked at their skin, burning them despite their attempts to escape. The intense heat and light from the mes disrupted their invisibility, revealing their true forms.
The panthers now appeared with scorched yellow fur, their expressions twisted in anger and pain. The elegance and stealth they had previously exhibited were reced by a visible rage and desperation.
Seizing the moment, Michael swung his sword with lethal precision at the panther on the ground. The de sliced cleanly through its neck, decapitating it in one fluid motion. The panther''s head flew through the air, as pale blue blood sttered across the sandy terrain.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Spiritual Embryo Realm Invisible Panther. The reward is 5000 Experience points and 2000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points] Michael, capitalizing on his advantage, leaped into the air,unching another wave of dark mes towards the injured panthers. The mes, ck and intense, swept across the battlefield, further scorching the terrain and the creatures within it.
The panthers, their fur singed by the mes, appeared to have lost some of their initial speed. The burns inflicted by the dark mes hampered their agility, a crucial element of their fighting prowess.
Undeterred, they roared defiantly and charged at Michael. They tried to utilize what remained of their speed to outmaneuver and kill him. Their movements, though impaired, were still swift, a testament to their inherent strength and agility.
Michael''s medallion, a subtle but powerful artifact, masked his true godly powers from the panthers. To them, he appeared as a mere Qi Awakening stage cultivator, significantly underestimating his actual strength. The panthers, believing themselves to be at an advantage with their Spiritual Embryo stage cultivation - one stage above Qi Awakening - were confident in their ability to take him down.
This miscalction worked in Michael''s favor, as the panthers engaged him without the wariness they might have shown had they known his true power. They attacked with abination of raw power and injured desperation, each trying tond a decisive blow on what they perceived to be a weaker opponent.
Michael, fully engaged in the battle, wielded his dual dark swords with lethal precision. Each movement was a calcted dance of death, his des cutting through the air with deadly grace. He channeled dark mes along the edges of his swords, enhancing their destructive capability.
With every strike, Michael utilized his "Lightning Dash" speed spell, a blur of motion that allowed him to outmaneuver the panthers'' attacks. He darted from one panther to the next, his movements so swift they were almost imperceptible.
As he engaged one of the panthers, he sidestepped its pounce and spun around, his sword slicing through its hide. The panther yowled in pain as it fell to the ground, its life extinguished in a single, precise move.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Spiritual [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
Ayag, watching the battle unfold, couldn''t hide her excitement. "Ha! Take that, you oversized fucking furball!" she yelled, her voice filled with glee.
Michael continued his onught, seamlessly transitioning between targets. Another panther lunged at him, but he anticipated its trajectory. In a swift motion, he ducked and thrust his sword upward, impaling the creature through its jaw.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Spiritual Embryo Realm Invisible Panther]
Finally, Michael stood amidst the defeated panthers, his swords dripping with pale blue blood. The system''s notifications chimed repeatedly, acknowledging each victory in the intense battle. Then, Michael crouched down beside one of the fallen panthers. With a practiced hand, he carefully cut a piece of the creature''s fur and skin. The material still contained traces of the panther''s ability to turn invisible, making it a valuable find.
Ayag, watching Michael''s actions, rolled her eyes and expressed her disgust. "What the fuck are you doing?" she asked, her toneced with distaste.
Michael looked up, holding the piece of fur and skin in his hand. "Their ability to turn invisible is intriguing," he exined. "This skin and fur might be useful. I''m thinking of experimenting with it to see if I can integrate it into armor."
His words hinted at the potential for innovation and the creation of new, powerful equipment. The idea of using the unique properties of the panthers'' hide could prove to be a significant advantage in future battles.
Chapter 1150 The Ancient Beasts Weakness
Chapter 1150 The Ancient Beast''s Weakness
Michael, with the fur and skin of the invisible panthers securely stored, turned his attention back to the original objective ¨C the colossal centipede-like ancient beast. With a sense of purpose, he took to the skies, flying closer to where the creature wasst seen.
As he approached, he maintained a safe distance, keenly aware of the beast''s immense power and unpredictability. The ancient beast was a sight to behold, its enormous body stretching far across thendscape. Its movements were a blend of elegance and raw power, drilling into the ground and shooting out with astonishing speed and agility, defying its colossal size.
The centipede''s segmented body was covered in a thick, chitinous armor, each segment adorned with sharp, spine-like protrusions. Its many legs, each the size of tall trees, dug into the ground with ease, propelling the beast with a force that shook the earth.
As Michael observed from his vantage point, he noted the centipede''s head, which was as terrifying as the rest of its body. Its mouth,rge enough to swallow a small house, was filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth, each one capable of shredding metal. He had briefly considered a n to fly directly into the creature''s mouth in a surprise attack, but the sight of those menacing teeth quickly dissuaded him from such a risky approach.
Ayag, peeking out from Michael''s pocket,mented with a mixture of awe and fear, "Look at the size of that thing! It''s like something out of a nightmare."
Sarba, equally impressed and apprehensive, added, "Its movements are so unpredictable. It disappears and reappears without warning."
Michael nodded, his eyes never leaving the beast. "Its burrowing ability makes it a difficult target. We need to be cautious."
He watched as the centipede drilled into the ground once again, only to burst out a few momentster in a different location. The sheer power and speed of its movements sent debris and dust flying into the air, creating a cloud around its emergence point.
Michael, analyzing the situation, said, "We need to find a pattern in its movements. There must be a way to predict where it will surface next."
As he strategized, the centipede continued its disy of power. It seemed to be searching for something, its massive body moving with purpose across the valley.
Ayag, observing the creature, remarked, "If we can get close enough, maybe you can use those dark swords of yours. But getting past those teeth..."
Michael acknowledged the challenge with a nod. "The teeth are a problem. A direct assault seems unwise. We need another approach."
He continued to watch the beast, looking for any sign of weakness or pattern in its movements. The centipede''s size and power were daunting, but Michael was determined to find a way to ovee it.
Cain, weighing in on their options, remarked, "Jumping into its mouth and killing it from the inside is a clich¨¦ way of dealing with such creatures."
Ayag immediatelyined, "It''s not clich¨¦, it''s ssic and badass."
Cain retorted, "It''s not badass if he gets melted and burnt by the acid inside its mouth."
Sarba, curious, interjected, "What acid?"
"Look closer into its mouth next time ites out of the ground," Cain instructed.
The group focused intently on the centipede''s mouth as it resurfaced. As the creature opened its massive jaws, they could see a pale greenish substance lining its teeth and dripping from its maw. The acidic nature of the substance was evident, even from a distance, as it sizzled and steamed upon contact with the ground.
The revtion of the acidic nature of the creature''s saliva added anotheryer of danger to any approach that involved close contact with its mouth. Michael knew that a direct assault, especially one that involved entering the beast''s mouth, would be extremely risky, potentially even fatal.
Michael, considering his options, suggested, "Let''s try a hit-and-run tactic to gauge the sturdiness of the centipede''s armor."
"Given its size, it might not be able to react quickly enough. That should work in our favor." Cain agreed.
Gripping his dark swords tightly, Michael activated his Lightning Dash, propelling himself towards the creature at incredible speed. A trail of ck lightning bolted behind him, marking his path through the sand.
Reaching the centipede, Michael swung his dark swords, now coated with dark mes, aiming for the creature''s tail. However, when his des made contact, they merely bounced off the armor without leaving so much as a scratch. The centipede''s chitinous armor was far more formidable than they had anticipated.
Reacting swiftly, Michael used his speed to retreat back to his vantage point before the centipede could counterattack. He had managed to test the creature''s defenses without putting himself in immediate danger.
Ayag, witnessing the failed attack, gasped in disbelief, "It didn''t even notice us!"
The centipede, seemingly unfazed by their attempts, continued its movements, unaware or indifferent to their presence. Michael, assessing the situation, dered, "We need a new n." He scanned the barrenndscape, noting the countless giant holes created by the centipede''s relentless drilling. The creature''s methodical burrowing hinted at a potential vulnerability they hadn''t yet considered.
"There must be some weakness we can exploit," he mused aloud, his eyes tracing the patterns of destruction left by the creature.
Ayag, still reeling from the ineffectiveness of their previous attack, chimed in, "That weakness better be a big one because it didn''t even notice us!"
Michael continued to observe the centipede, his mind working through various strategies. The creature''s behavior, the environment, and the physical characteristics they had observed so far were all pieces of a puzzle that needed solving.
He watched as the centipede burrowed into the ground once again, its massive body disappearing beneath the surface, leaving behind another gaping hole. A thought struck him; the creature, for all its size and power, followed a somewhat predictable pattern in its burrowing and surfacing.
"Perhaps we can use its burrowing pattern against it," Michael suggested, a new n beginning to take shape in his mind. "If we can anticipate where it will surface next, we might be able to set a trap or strike at a more vulnerable spot."
The idea of turning the creature''s strength into its weakness appealed to Michael. He knew they needed to be innovative and daring if they were to have any chance of defeating the ancient beast.
Cain, contemting the situation, pointed out a crucial aspect. "Even if we find a weakness, which I believe every beast has, we still need a way to actually hurt it."
Ayag, her toneced with concern, added, "Since the dark swords coated with dark mes aren''t cutting it, we''re really in trouble."
Sarba, offering a suggestion, said, "Maybe we should try getting a piece of the centipede''s armor. If we can''t pierce it, perhaps we could make armor out of it."
Michael considered this idea but maintained his focus on the immediate challenge. "First, we need to find its weakness and the pattern of its burrowing," he said.
He observed the centipede''s movements, noting the rhythm of its emergence and disappearance into the ground. The creature seemed to have preferred spots for burrowing, and its timing appeared consistent.
"If we can predict where it''ll surface next, we might be able to prepare an ambush," Michael reasoned. "And as for harming it, we need to be creative. Our conventional methods aren''t working, so we need to think outside the box."
The group acknowledged the need for a new approach. The centipede, with its nearly imprable armor and massive size, was a formidable opponent, and oveing it would require strategy, patience, and a bit of ingenuity.
Michael stood silently, his eyes fixed on the centipede as it continued its pattern of randomly burrowing in and out of the holes it had created in the ground. He observed each movement with keen interest, looking for any pattern or sign that could be exploited.
As the sun began to set and the light diminished, Michael noticed a change in the centipede''s behavior. Its movements became slower, less frequent. The setting sun cast long shadows across the valley, signaling the transition from day to night.
When the sun finally disappeared below the horizon, the valley was enveloped in the tranquility of the night sky. A nket of stars illuminated the heavens, casting a serene glow over the once chaotdscape. The beauty of the starry sky and the silent valley stood in stark contrast to the day''s earlier events.
To Michael''s surprise, the centipede did not emerge once the sun had set. The creature that had been so active and relentless during the day seemed to have vanished with the night.
Reflecting on this new development, Michael spected, "It''s either sleeping, or it''s afraid toe out at night."
The realization that the centipede might have a nocturnal vulnerability or preference was a crucial piece of information. Nighttime in the valley brought a different set of dynamics, and understanding these could be key to nning their next move.
"If it''s sleeping, we could throw an explosive into one of those holes. That should bring it out. But if it''s not sleeping and still noting out, then maybe night time is its weakness." Ayag, always ready with a bold idea, suggested.
Cain pondered this, adding anotheryer to their spection. "Or it could be afraid of something else that roams the valley at night. Something that even scares an ancient beast like itself."
Michael considered both possibilities. The idea that the centipede might have a fear of the dark or nocturnal predators opened up new strategic possibilities. "Both are usible theories," he said. "If it''s avoiding night predators, we need to be cautious of what else might be lurking in this valley after dark."
Chapter 1151 The Swarm vs The Ancient Beast I
Chapter 1151 The Swarm vs The Ancient Beast I
As night fully enveloped the Celestial Valley, Michael stood watch over the ground, observing the holes where the centipede had burrowed. The darkness of the valley was profound, the only light provided by the stars above. The atmosphere was tense, with every member of the group on high alert.
Sarba, with his heightened senses, suddenly tensed. He whispered to Michael, "Ghost, I hear something. A hissing sound, somewhere in the distance."
Ayag, overhearing this, asked, "Could whatever''s causing that hiss be keeping the centipede underground? Or maybe the centipede is just resting during the night?"
"Let''s wait and see," Michael responded, his eyes scanning the darkndscape for any signs of movement.
Before he could finish his sentence, a gigantic beast appeared in the sky. It was almost asrge as the centipede, resembling a giant bat with expansive wings that blotted out the stars.
Ayag, taken aback by the sudden appearance of the creature, couldn''t help but curse loudly. "What the hell is that thing?" she eximed, her voiceced with shock and disbelief.
Michael, studying the creature, made a startling realization. "It''s not one beast. It''s millions of them," he said, his tone a mix of awe and caution.
Ayag, confused, asked, "Millions? What do you mean?"
Michael rified, "Millions of tiny creatures make up one giant beast. It''s a swarm, but they move so in sync that they appear as one."
As the creature moved closer, they could see that it was indeedposed of countless tiny creatures. Each one had gray fur, sharp fangs, bat-like wings, and glowing red eyes. The swarm moved as a single entity, a massive, undting mass that created an eerie, almost hypnotic sight in the night sky.
The power and terror of the swarm became chillingly apparent when a giant buffalo, the size of a two-story building, emerged from the forest''s edge. The massive creature mooed loudly, its deep, resonant sounds expressing panic and fear. Itsrge eyes were wide, and it turned to run, its hooves thundering against the ground as it attempted to flee the impending danger.
"That buffalo is in big trouble," Ayag said, her voiceced with apprehension as she watched the scene unfold.
The buffalo, sensing the imminent threat, mooed furiously, its cries echoing through the valley. It charged across the open space, trying desperately to escape the swarm that loomed overhead.
Michael, observing the scene,mented grimly, "This is not going to end well for it."
The swarm, moving as a single, fluid entity, descended upon the buffalo with terrifying precision. As it engulfed the animal, the scene turned horrific. The tiny creatures within the swarmtched onto the buffalo, their sharp fangs tearing into its flesh. The sound of rending and tearing filled the air, a gruesome symphony apanying the buffalo''s cries of agony.
Sarba, watching in horror, muttered, "I''ve never seen anything like it..."
With ruthless efficiency, the swarm consumed the buffalo''s flesh and blood. It was a gory spectacle, each member of the swarm working in unison to strip the animal down to its bones. Within mere seconds, what was once a majestic, living creature was reduced to a bare skeleton, picked clean by the ravenous swarm.
"The efficiency and brutality of it..." Sarba murmured, both appalled and amazed. "It''s like a living nightmare."
The skeletal remains of the buffalo fell to the ground, a stark and grim reminder of the swarm''s lethal capability. The swarm then moved on, leaving behind the remnants of their feast, a chilling testament to their power and savagery.
Michael, observing the swarm''s horrific efficiency, pieced together the reality of the situation. "This swarm... it must be why the centipede hides at night. It''s not just resting; it''s avoiding these creatures."
Ayag, her voice tinged with urgency, pointed out the immediate danger. "We better find a hole or some shelter, or we''re next on the menu!"
Michael nodded and quickly activated his Eye of Darkness, a mystical ability that allowed him to gauge the true nature of beings. As he focused on the individual creatures within the swarm, he noticed a green aura surrounding each of them, indicating that, individually, they were vulnerable to his powers. But when he looked at the swarm as a whole, it pulsated with a menacing crimson red aura, signaling an overwhelming strength and danger far beyond his current level.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Michael activated his Lightning Dash, propelling himself across thendscape with a trail of ck lightning. The swarm, sensing his movement, hissed and turned its attention towards him, a unified, malevolent force.
As the swarm pursued him, Michael''s quick reflexes and sharp instincts led him to a small cave, just big enough to amodate him. He darted inside, narrowly avoiding the swarm''s reach. The cave provided a temporary haven, its rocky cover shielding him from the swarm''s relentless pursuit.
As the swarm flew over the cave, its hissing and the pping of countless wings created a cacophony that echoed through the night. Michael crouched in the cave, catching his breath, while Ayag peered out cautiously.
"That was close," Ayag sighed with a mixture of relief and lingering fear. The danger was far from over, but for the moment, they were safe.
Michael, deep in thought, suddenly had a moment of realization. "We can''t prate the centipede''s armor with our current weapons, but the swarm... they could be our key to defeating it."
"It''s a sound strategy. The swarm can consume the flesh and blood of the centipede. If it possesses a cor bone, which is likely given its structure, we can retrieve it during the daytime when the swarm is inactive." Cain nodded in agreement.
Michael''s eyes narrowed as he considered the next step. "The challenge now is to draw the centipede out of its burrows."
Ayag, with a hint of sarcasm, chimed in, "Yeah, because we can just ask it toe out and y, right?"
Michael smirked at herment and then said, "When the problem is too big, always go for explosives."
His statement hung in the air, signaling a n that was as daring as it was dangerous.
When the morning arrived, the first rays of the sun pierced the darkness of the cave where Michael and hispanions had taken refuge. As Michael stepped out, stretching his muscles stiff from the night''s tension, his eyes immediately caught sight of the centipede soaring out of its burrowed holes. The colossal creature, with its chitinous armor gleaming in the morning light, presented an intimidating sight.
"We need an explosive," Michael stated, his gaze fixed on the ancient beast as it moved across thendscape.
"Do you have something ready, or do we need to craft it?" asked Ayag.
Michael, his eyes still on the centipede, replied, "We''ll need to make it. I have a powerful recipe that can be concocted using my alchemy skills, along with my inventor and cksmith traits."
As he spoke, a notification from the mysterious system he was connected to shed before his eyes, invisible to others. It indicated that three hundred badass points were deducted for the recipe ¨C a cost for buying the recipe.
He kept the details of this to himself, choosing not to reveal the existence of the system to Vedora. Instead, he focused on the immediate task. "Now, we need to collect some ingredients found in the valley." Michael eximed.
With Vedora securely on his shoulder, Michael set out into the valley. The terrain was rugged, interspersed with dense forests and remnants of ancient structures, offering both resources and potential dangers.
As they moved, Michael listed the necessaryponents for the explosive. "We need sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal, among other things. Some of these I can synthesize using my abilities."
Vedora, ever curious and vignt in their three headed snake form, looked around thendscape. Sarba, one of the heads, inquired, "Where might we find these elements in such a deste ce?"
"Volcanic areas are good sources of sulfur. Those mountains could have what we need. And for saltpeter, we can explore the caves and ruins," Michael said, pointing towards a distant range of mountains. Their peaks, shrouded in a light mist, stood imposing against the skyline, with the dormant volcano distinguishable by its scorched earth and barren slopes.
The group ventured towards the mountains. The terrain gradually transformed from lush valley to rocky foothills, with sparse vegetation clinging to life in the harsh volcanic soil. The air grew warmer and carried a faint sulfuric scent as they approached the dormant volcano. "I can semll the sulfur in the air," said Michael.
With his expertise, he carefully navigated the ruggedndscape, his eyes scanning the ground for telltale yellowish deposits of sulfur. He found them near the base of the volcano, where the ground was stained with various hues of yellow and orange, remnants of past eruptions.
After collecting the sulfur he needed, they explored the ancient ruins scattered across the valley. In the shadow of crumbled walls and under the cover of overgrown vegetation, they found what they were looking for. Saltpeter deposits clung to the damp walls of the ruins, and charcoal fragmentsy among the ashes of long-extinguished fires.
Eventually, they had gathered all the necessary ingredients. Michael surveyed the materials with a nod of approval. "This should be enough. Now, let''s find a secure spot to craft the explosive." He chose a secluded area, sheltered by a copse of stunted trees that had somehow survived the harsh volcanic conditions. There, he set up a makeshift forge, its mes flickering in the gentle breeze.
His movements were a mesmerizing dance of precision and skill, a testament to his mastery over alchemy and cksmithing. He carefully measured and mixed the sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal, his hands steady even as the ingredients hissed and reacted with each other. The crafting process was a delicate bnce, transforming vtile elements into a potent and stable explosive.
As Michael sealed the final product into a sturdy, ss container, Vedora, sitting on his shoulder, watched with a mix of awe and anticipation.
"This will bring the centipede out of its hole tonight," he said with a confident, almost mischievous tone. "Then we''ll sit back and watch as the swarm does the job for us." His eyes sparkled with the thrill of the n.
Chapter 1152 The Swarm vs The Ancient Beast II
Chapter 1152 The Swarm vs The Ancient Beast II
Back in the safety of the small cave, Michael watched the day slowly transition into evening. "It''s a waiting game now," he said, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
Ayag, one of Vedora''s heads, yawned. "I''m going to take a nap," she dered and curled herselffortably inside Michael''s coat pocket. Her breathing soon settled into the steady rhythm of sleep.
The other two heads of Vedora, Cain and Sarba, also found their own spots to rest, their serpentine bodies coiling in sync with Ayag''s. Michael watched over them, a silent guardian, as they slept.
Outside, the centipede continued its relentless activity. Michael observed it drilling into the ground and shooting out with astonishing speed. Its massive mouth created a powerful suction force, engulfing several giant beasts and birds in a disy of raw power and hunger.
As the centipede''s activity continued, Michael remained vignt, waiting for the night to fall, the moment when their n would be set into motion.
In the cave, Michael''s earpiece crackled to life, breaking the silence. Pink''s voice came through, clear and familiar. "What are you up to, Michael?"
He replied, his eyes still on the ancient beast in the distance, "Watching the ancient beast. It''s quite a sight."
Pinkughed lightly. "Surveince, huh? Sounds like old times."
Michael''s voice held a hint of excitement. "It is. There''s something thrilling about plotting an assassination, executing a n. I''ve missed this kind of adrenaline."
In his ear, Pink chuckled. "This is an assassination alright, except your target is practically a god."
Michael nodded, even though she couldn''t see him. "Once I deal with this beast, I''ll get its cor bone, forge a weapon, and then find a way into Fortuna''s g to assassinate Rainar."
Pink''s voice turned serious. "I''ve been gathering info through books. My help is limited, though. Stuck in a safehouse with no tech¡ªthis world has none."
"If we could ess Seraphine''s crystals, we''d have a game changer. They must hold a wealth of information." Michael mused.
Pink''sughter echoed in his ear. "Seraphine, the goddess of information? I bet those crystals are a goldmine."
"Yeah," Michael agreed, his tone light. "I''ll see what I can do about that. In the meantime, keep looking into Fortuna''s g. We need a way in."
"Will do," Pink assured him. "Good luck with your giant bug problem."
Themunication ended, leaving Michael once again in the quiet cave, his gaze fixed on the centipede, waiting for night to fall.
As night enveloped thendscape, Ayag, Cain, and Sarba awoke from their restful slumber and jumped onto Michael''s shoulder, perching therefortably. The atmosphere was charged with anticipation.
"It''s showtime," Michael announced, his eyes scanning the darkening sky.
Cain, thoughtful, chimed in. "We need to ce the explosive in one of the centipede''s holes. The timing has to be perfect to coincide with the swarm''s appearance, to make them fight each other."
"But we can''t risk going out there," Ayag pointed out, her voiceced with concern. "The swarm could strip us of our flesh and blood." said Ayag.
Michael smirked, a n already forming in his mind. "Did you forget? I have drones."
With a flick of his wrist, he summoned a drone from his system storage. The device hovered in front of him, sleek and ready. Carefully, Michael attached the ss container holding the explosive to the drone.
As he guided the drone towards the centipede''s burrowed ground, the ancient beast, true to its nightly routine, retreated into the earth to avoid the swarm.
The drone moved silently, skillfully maneuvered by Michael. It was a dance of technology and stealth, a crucial step in their intricate n.
As the centipede vanished underground, the drone hovered above, waiting for the right moment to deploy its deadly cargo.
Michael, focusing intently, willed the drone to fly forward, controlling it effortlessly with his mind. Ayag, Sarba, and Cain watched with a mix of excitement and anticipation as the drone glided smoothly toward the barren ground, riddled withrge holes left by the centipede''s burrowing.
"This centipede is going to be more than just a little pissed off." Watching the drone''s progress, Michael couldn''t help butment with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"I want it pissed enough to shoot out of the ground in a rage." Ayag chuckled, her voice tinged with devilish glee.
"That''s exactly the n," Michael replied with a smirk. He guided the drone precisely, sending it into one of therger holes created by the centipede.
As they watched the drone disappear into the darkness of the hole, a moment of silence followed, nothing happening. Ayag''s impatience surfaced quickly.
"Did you mess up the explosives?" she growled, her eyes fixed on the now still ground.
Michael, unfazed, responded with a sly grin, "Just wait for it." And with that, he triggered the explosive, making the drone detonate deep within the burrow.
Suddenly, the ground trembled violently. A massive explosion erupted, a colossal st of fire shooting out from all the holes in the ground simultaneously. The sound was deafening, a thunderous roar that echoed across the valley. Bright mes illuminated the night sky, casting an eerie glow over thendscape. The explosion was a spectacle of destruction and raw power, the force of it shaking the very air.
The centipede''s burrows became awork of fiery geysers, spewing mes and debris, a testament to the potency of Michael''s explosive concoction.
The centipede''s roar, a sound of agony and fury, echoed through the valley, reverberating against the mountains. It shot out of its burrows, parts of its massive body aze, a terrifying spectacle against the night sky.
But the fiery explosions were soon overshadowed by the arrival of the swarm. Like a dark cloud materializing out of nowhere, the swarm descended upon the scene with rming speed and precision.
The swarm immediately enveloped the centipede, a frenzied mass of tiny, ferocious creatures attacking the giant beast. The centipede, though wounded and partially ame, fought back with equal ferocity. Its massive body thrashed wildly, trying to shake off the swarm.
A brutal battle ensued. The swarm, relentless and numerous, ripped off chunks of the centipede''s skeletal armor, exposing its flesh beneath. The centipede, in turn, used its massive size and power to tear through the swarm, crushing and flinging the tiny creatures in all directions.
Despite the centipede''s efforts, the swarm was overwhelming. They swarmed over every inch of its body, their tiny but lethal bodies inflicting damage at an astonishing rate.
Ayag, watching from Michael''s shoulder, couldn''t hide her amusement at the unfolding chaos. "Look at that," she said with a mixture of awe and satisfaction. "Our n''s working perfectly."
The centipede, despite its colossal strength and resilience, was slowly losing ground to the relentless assault of the swarm. The bnce of the battle was tipping, and the oue was bing increasingly clear.
The centipede, in a desperate bid to survive, used its enormous, tree-sized legs to rip through the tiny creatures of the swarm. Each leg moved with brutal force, crushing and sweeping away hundreds of the swarm''s members in each motion.
"This beast isn''t going down without a fight." Michael, observing the struggle, noted.
True to his words, the centipede fought with a ferocity that was both awe-inspiring and terrifying. But the swarm was relentless, beginning to eat through the centipede''s flesh, their numbers too great and their assault too coordinated.
Sarba, another head of Vedora on Michael''s shoulder, twitched his nose and remarked, "The smell is so bad."
Michael, too, noticed the putrid, acidic scent filling the air, a result of the centipede''s green blood mixing with the swarm''s venomous attacks. The smell was a pungent reminder of the violent, primal battle unfolding before them.
The swarm continued its assault, gradually tearing through the centipede''s formidable armor. The centipede writhed and roared in pain and anger, its efforts to fend off the swarm bing increasingly futile.
Michael watched as the tiny creatures that made up the swarm began to fall from the sky, their numbers dwindling under the centipede''s relentless counterattacks. Despite their decreasing size, the swarm''s ferocity did not wane.
"They''re taking a beating but stilling out on top." Ayag, observing the battle, remarked.
The swarm''s perseverance paid off. Eventually, they seeded in removing the centipede''s thick, chitinous armor. Once exposed, they began to eat through the centipede''s flesh and blood voraciously. The centipede, now vulnerable and weakened, struggled to fend off the relentless assault.
The battle reached a grisly climax. The centipede, overwhelmed and drained of its strength, finally fell to the ground with a thunderous impact. The swarm, undeterred, continued their gruesome feast, rapidly chewing through the centipede''s flesh and blood.
In a matter of minutes, what was once a terrifying and ancient beast was reduced to a giant, massive skeleton. The swarm, having fulfilled their relentless hunger, began to disperse, leaving behind the stark and eerie remains of the centipede.
The valley, once filled with the sounds of a brutal struggle, fell into an eerie silence, with only the centipede''s skeletal remains as a testament to the night''s savage events.
In the aftermath of the battle, Michael surveyed the scene with a calcted gaze. "Now, we wait until morning," he stated, his voice steady and resolute. "We''ll pick up the corbone we need and forge a weapon capable of killing a god... Rainar."
A smirk, sly and confident, yed across his face, reflecting the anticipation of the challenge ahead. He turned to look at the skeletal remains of the centipede, his eyes gleaming with determination and a hint of excitement.
"Let the hunt begin," Michael dered, his words echoing in the silent valley, marking the beginning of a new and daring phase of their mission.
Chapter 1153 Gala of the gods
Chapter 1153 G of the gods
As the sun slowly rose over the Celestial Valley, the first rays of light bathed thendscape in a warm, golden hue. The valley, a hidden gem of nature and magic, awakened to the new day. Birds, their songs a melodious chorus, flitted between the trees, and magical creatures, unique to this enchantednd, stirred from their slumber, adding to the valley''s otherworldly beauty. The air was filled with the fresh, rejuvenating scent of morning dew and the lingering traces of the night''s dramatic events.
Michael, standing at the mouth of the cave, turned his gaze towards the colossal skeleton of the centipede. "Let''s go collect our prize," he said, a tone of determination in his voice.
With Vedora perched securely on his shoulder, Michael took to the skies, flying towards the giant skeleton. As he approached the remains of the centipede, his figure seemed tiny inparison to the vastness of the beast''s skeletal structure.
The skeleton itself was a remarkable sight. Towering and sprawling, it spanned a significant portion of thendscape. Its massive ribcage arched towards the sky, and the long, segmented spine trailed across the ground like the remnants of an ancient beast. Each bone was enormous, a testament to the size and power the centipede once possessed.
Ayag, looking at the skeleton, couldn''t help butment, "This thing was truly a monster. It''s hard to believe something this big ever walked this realm."
Their awe at the sight of the skeleton was mixed with a sense of aplishment. They had ovee a formidable challenge, and now the next phase of their mission awaited.
In his mind, Michael queried the system, asking which specific bone was needed to forge a weapon potent enough to kill Rainar. Almost immediately, a part of the skeleton, near where the centipede''s neck once was, began to glow with a subtle, otherworldly light.
Michael, recognizing the sign, swiftly flew towards the glowing bone andnded gracefully upon the giant structure. The bone, even up close, was immense, dwarfing him in size.
"So, what''s the n now?" As they settled on the bone, Ayag looked around curiously. Michael looked at the bone with a focused gaze. "Now, we cut a piece of this bone and forge a weapon from it," he dered.
He unsheathed his dark sword, the de glinting ominously in the morning light. With a fluid motion, he coated the de with dark mes, imbuing it with a power that seemed to hum through the air.
Carefully, he positioned the sword against the bone and began to carve out arge chunk. The process was slow and methodical, each cut precise and calcted. The dark mes on his sword seemed to ease the task, slicing through the tough, ancient bone with a surprising efficiency.
As Michael worked, the bone yielded under thebination of his strength and the sword''s enhanced capabilities. Slowly, a sizeable piece of bone began to separate from the main structure, the first step in creating a weapon of immense power.
Once he had sessfully carved out a substantial chunk of the centipede''s bone, Michael held it up for a moment, inspecting his handiwork. Satisfied, he then stored it in his system storage. The bone chunk vanished from his hand, safely secured within his virtual arsenal.
Ayag''s attention was drawn to severalrge pieces of chitin-like armor scattered on the ground. These remnants of the centipede''s armor were fortuitously left behind by the swarm, which had devoured everything but the bones of the creature.
Noticing the potential of these materials, Michael jumped down from the skeleton andnded beside the armor pieces. He approached one of the smaller fragments, yet even this piece was almost as tall as he was. With considerable effort, he lifted it, feeling its weight and studying its structure.
Cain, observing the scene, remarked, "With the panther''s invisibility fur and these pieces of the centipede''s armor, we could forge some impressive armor in the future."
Michael nodded in agreement, already envisioning the possibilities. Thebination of the mystical properties of the panther''s fur and the resilience of the centipede''s armor held great potential for creating armor that was both protective and imbued with unique abilities.
As he contemted the future uses of these materials, the early morning light continued to illuminate the Celestial Valley, casting long shadows and highlighting the aftermath of the night''s epic battle.
*********************************
In a serene valley nestled between lush, rolling mountain hills, the grand ss dome of Goddess Fortuna''s g stood majestically. The dome, a marvel of architectural beauty, overlooked a tranquilke, its surface mirroring the clear blue sky above. Around the dome, angels with delicate, feathery wings fluttered gracefully, adding to the ethereal atmosphere of the setting.
A red-haired youngster, his eyes bright with a mix of excitement and nervousness, approached the dome. As he drew closer, he was greeted by the sight of an exceptionally beautiful woman with striking blue hair that cascaded down her shoulders like a waterfall of sapphires. This was Goddess Fortuna, the Goddess of Luck. She possessed an angelic appearance, her body emanating a graceful and divine aura. Her skin glowed with a soft radiance, and her presence seemed to fill the air with a sense of serendipity and enchantment.
The youngster, slightly awestruck by her presence, mustered his confidence and addressed her. "Goddess Fortuna, the preparations for the g areing along nicely. However, we''re a bit behind schedule with the beverages and food."
Fortuna, with a gentle and understanding smile, nodded at the young man''s report. Her celestial beauty and the calm authority in her demeanor spoke volumes of her divine status, as the caretaker of chance and fortune.
"Thank you for the update," she replied in a voice that was melodious and soothing. "I trust we''ll manage to catch up. This g is important, not just as a celebration, but as a gathering of influential beings from across realms."
As the preparations for the g continued, a new figure made his way towards the grand ss dome. He was neither too tall nor too short, his posture exuding a casual confidence. His hair was jet ck, crowning his head with a uniquely fox-shaped crown, a symbol of cunning and wit. His eyes, one green and one blue, sparkled with a mischievous glint, giving away his penchant for trickery and yful deceit.
Fortuna greeted him with a knowing grin, fully aware of his notorious reputation. "Wee, Lathander, God of Mischief. I trust your journey here was as eventful as always."
Lathander''s lips curled into a sly smile, his eyes dancing with amusement. "Oh, you know me, Fortuna. I can''t resist a bit of fun along the way. I may have convinced a couple of minor deities that they were heading in the wrong direction. Harmless fun!"
His voice was light, yet there was a sharpness to his words, a reminder of his cleverness and unpredictability. As he spoke, he casually flicked his wrist, and a small fireworks disy erupted in the air above them, bursting into shapes of mischievous foxes and grinning faces.
Fortuna, ustomed to Lathander''s antics,ughed softly. "Always the prankster. Just remember, this g is a gathering of the entire pantheon. Let''s keep the mischief within... manageable limits."
"As you wish, Goddess of Luck. But where''s the fun in a gathering of gods without a little unpredictability?" Lathander bowed theatrically. His presence, a blend of charm and roguishness, added an extrayer of excitement to the g preparations. Even among gods, the God of Mischief stood out, his antics a source of both amusement and mild consternation.
As the preparations for the g continued under the watchful eyes of Fortuna and Lathander, the clear sky above the grand ss dome unexpectedly began to darken. Storm clouds gathered rapidly, swirling in a dramatic disy of nature''s power. Deep blue lightning streaks illuminated the sky, casting a spectral glow over the valley.
Lathander watched with a mix of awe and amusement. "Seems like Kranar is making an entrance," he said, his voiceced with mischievous delight.
Without warning, a bolt of lightning struck down from the sky, aimed directly at the ss dome. However, instead of shattering the ss, the lightning seemed to merge with it, creating a dazzling light show. From the heart of the lightning bolt, a tall, muscr man with various tattoos emerged. A distinctive lightning bolt tattoo adorned his forehead, marking him unmistakably as Kranar, the God of Lightning.
His blue-gray hair fluttered back as he stepped out of the lightning, his presencemanding and powerful. Despite the dramatic entrance, there was a calmness about him, a controlled mastery of the storm he wielded.
Fortuna greeted him with a warm smile, unfazed by his thunderous arrival. "Wee, Kranar. Your entrances never cease to amaze."
The storm clouds began to dissipate as Kranar made his presence known, the sky clearing as if in deference to his power.
Lathander, ever the embodiment of mischief, greeted Kranar in his own unique style. With a sly grin, he bowed slightly and said, "Kranar, your entrance is as electrifying as ever. It''s shocking, really."
Kranar, however, seemed less amused. His expression was stern, and a hint of anger flickered in his eyes. "Where is Rainar?" he growled, his voice resonating with barely contained power.
Fortuna, maintaining herposure and her ever-present smile, responded gracefully. "Kranar, this g is a celebration, not a battleground. I expect all gods to set aside their differences for the duration of their stay here."
Lathander, unable to resist adding his own twist, chimed in yfully. "And soon, my dear gods, we''ll all be restricted from using our powers. So, enjoy these moments of omnipotence while theyst."
His words hinted at a magical aspect of the g, one that would level the ying field among the gods, ensuring a peaceful and enjoyable event for all attendees.
Fortuna''s and Lathander''sments served as a gentle reminder of the purpose of the g ¨C a rare opportunity for deities from various realms to gather, interact, and celebrate in a harmonious setting, free from conflicts and power struggles.
Chapter 1154 Fortunas Feelings
Chapter 1154 Fortuna''s Feelings
As the guests at the g mingled and conversed, the clear sky once again underwent a dramatic transformation. This time, unlike Kranar''s electrically charged storm clouds, the sky filled with ominous gray clouds, heavy and foreboding. Within moments, a torrential downpour began, the raindrops falling heavy and unrelenting, pattering against the grand ss dome.
Lathander, ever the observer of chaos and amusement, chuckled as he watched the sudden change in weather. "Ah, Rainar''s grand entrance," hemented with a mischievous glint in his eye. "He never disappoints with his theatrics."
He turned to the others, his amusement evident in his voice. "Isn''t it funny and rather amusing? Two gods at war, Kranar and Rainar, meeting under the same roof. And here we are, wondering if they can resist tearing each other''s throats out." Hisughter was light, finding humor in the tension that such a scenario presented.
The situation was indeed ironic ¨C the g, still three days away from its grandmencement, was already setting the stage for an intriguing gathering. As the guests at the g watched, the rainclouds began to swirl and coalesce before them, taking on a more distinct form. The clouds slowly shaped themselves into the figure of Rainar, right before Kranar''s eyes. Rainar''s imposing form, as he materialized from the rainclouds, was a stark contrast to the electrifying entrance of Kranar.
Rainar stood tall and majestic, his long gray hair and beard giving him a regal and formidable appearance. His robes, the color of storm clouds, flowed around him like a mist, while his sharp gaze swept over the gathering with an air of undeniable authority.
Kranar''s reaction was immediate and visceral. His anger was palpable, his body tensing as he faced Rainar. With a low growl, Kranar voiced his disdain. "Resorting to using mortal creations to win against me, Rainar?"
Rainar, unfazed by Kranar''s anger, let out a devilish chuckle. "You should be ashamed, Kranar, getting defeated by what you call ''mortal creations''." His voice dripped with mockery, clearly enjoying the provocation.
The tension between the two gods was like a charged atmosphere, filled with rivalry and contempt.
Lathander, finding amusement in the escting tension between Kranar and Rainar, leaned towards Fortuna and whispered in her ear, a yful grin on his face. "Look at them, like two storm clouds about to sh. I wonder if we should sell tickets to this show."
Fortuna, however, understood the gravity of the situation and the potential chaos it could bring to her event. Stepping in between the two feuding gods with a grace thatmanded attention, she addressed them with a firm yet serene tone. "Gentlemen, this is my domain, and I will not permit any conflicts here."
Her eyes, reflecting a calm but unyielding resolve, met each of theirs in turn. Then, with a smile that was both charming and slightly threatening, she added, "And I''m sure neither of you would like to be stripped of your luck, especially not in my presence."
The underlying threat in Fortuna''s words was clear ¨C in the domain of the Goddess of Luck, it was unwise to provoke the hostess or disregard her rules. Fortuna''s presence and authority momentarily diffused the tension, imposing a semnce of peace between the two gods. Her ability to maintain control andmand respect was evident, a testament to her power and influence.
Understanding the severity of Fortuna''s warning, both Rainar and Kranar recognized the precarious position they would be in if the Goddess of Luck turned her favor away from them. Their lives, heavily influenced by fortune and chance, could indeed be turned upside down without her blessing.
Rainar, his expression still stern but now tempered with a hint of caution, nodded slowly. "Very well, Fortuna," Rainar growled. "In your domain, I shall abide by your rules."
Kranar, his anger subsiding under the weight of Fortuna''s threat, followed suit. With a deep, resonating growl that seemed to echo his reluctance, he said, "I agree to your terms, Fortuna. No conflict shall arise from me while I am here."
Their agreement, albeit grudgingly given, was a testament to the respect and perhaps even a hint of fear they held for Fortuna. Her influence over luck, a force that even gods could not ignore, was a powerful deterrent against any rash actions they might have considered.
"Wonderful," Fortuna, satisfied with theirpliance, nodded gracefully. As the tension between Kranar and Rainar simmered under the watchful gaze of Fortuna, a new presence entered the scene. Seshat, the Goddess of Wisdom, arrived with no theatrics, a stark contrast to the grand entrances of the other deities. Her calm demeanor and graceful stride conveyed a sense of serenity as she approached Fortuna.
Fortuna, recognizing her fellow goddess, greeted Seshat with a warm embrace and a weing grin. "Seshat, it''s always a delight to have your wisdom grace our gathering," she said, her voice reflecting genuine affection.
Fortuna''s eyes held a spark of curiosity as she inquired, "And what of Seraphine? Will she be joining us as well?"
Seshat''s response was measured and thoughtful, reflecting her contemtive nature. "Seraphine has her own matters to attend to. She may join uster, but for now, she sends her regards."
The conversation drew the attention of Lathander, Kranar, and Rainar. Despite their own tensions and the dramatic nature of their arrivals, each of them approached Seshat with a mixture of respect and curiosity.
Lathander, with his characteristic yful demeanor, was the first to greet her. "Ah, Seshat, your arrival is like a breath of fresh air amidst our stormypany," he quipped with a light-hearted grin.
Kranar, still emanating a sense of underlying fury, offered a more subdued greeting. "Seshat," he nodded, his voice holding a tone of respect for the Goddess of Wisdom.
Rainar, his presence as formidable as ever, also acknowledged Seshat. "Your wisdom is always a wee addition, Seshat," he said, his deep voice resonating with sincerity.
The g, still days away, was already shaping up to be a monumental event. Fortuna, sensing the need for a more private conversation, excused herself and Seshat from the group of male gods. She turned to Seshat with a gentle smile and said, "Let''s walk in the garden, shall we? I believe we have much to discuss away from prying ears."
Seshat, alwaysposed and serene, nodded in agreement. "A stroll sounds delightful, Fortuna."
As they walked under the grand ss dome, they entered a magnificent garden. It was a marvel of natural beauty and magical design. Lush greenery, exotic flowers blooming in vibrant colors, and serene water features created an oasis of tranquility. The air was fragrant with the scent of blossoms, and the sound of gently trickling water added to the peaceful ambiance.
As they meandered along the garden paths, Fortuna broached a topic of concern. "I''ve been hearing rumors that the God of Darkness has returned to the realm of gods. What do you make of this, Seshat?"
Seshat''s eyes reflected a deep understanding as she responded, "It appears to be true. His return is not an insignificant event."
"The Pantheon is already on edge dealing with Dagon. The arrival of the God of Darkness will only exacerbate the situation, pushing them to act against their better judgment." Fortuna''s expression grew serious. Seshat, gazing thoughtfully at the garden around them, replied, "The Pantheon has indeed lost its way. Perhaps it''s time for the universe to reset its bnce. We''ve be too entangled in our own power struggles, forgetting our true purpose."
Fortuna, sensing the weight of their conversation, lightened the mood with a giggle and a yful inquiry. "I''ve heard rumors, Seshat, that the God of Darkness is quite a handsome specimen. Is there any truth to that?"
Seshat, maintaining her calm demeanor, replied with a hint of caution in her voice. "Handsome or not, it would be wise for you, or anyone for that matter, not to entertain such thoughts. His wife, the Goddess of Monsters, is not known for her mercy. Her devotion and love for the God of Darkness are as fierce as her wrath."
Fortuna''s smile broadened at Seshat''s response, acknowledging the sagacity of her words. The thought of the Goddess of Monsters'' formidable reputation was enough to make anyone think twice about crossing paths with her, especially in matters of the heart.
Fortuna, her curiosity piqued, inquired further, "Gaya was it? The name of the Goddess of Monsters?"
Seshat let out a gentle giggle, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "One doesn''t need to be a goddess of wisdom or information to know the name of the Goddess of Monsters, Gaya," she said with a light-hearted tone.
"It has been five thousand years since Ist saw Gaya. I still find it hard to believe that the God of Darkness reset the entire universe just to save her, even at the cost of his godhood." Fortuna chuckled, her gaze distant as she reminisced. Seshat nodded, her expression thoughtful. "It was a calcted move, one that defeated the entire Pantheon''s schemes. The God of Darkness, by being reborn in the mortal realm, not only saved his wife but also prevented the gods from entering the mortal realm. This act effectively shielded the mortals from our thirst for worshippers and worship energy." said Seshat.
The revtion of such a profound act by the God of Darkness added depth to his character and motives. His actions, though drastic, had far-reaching consequences that altered the dynamics between the realms of gods and mortals.
As they continued their walk, Fortuna''s expression gradually shifted from yfulness to a more serious demeanor. The conversation''s gravity seemed to weigh on her, and she eventually stopped walking, turning to face Seshat directly.
"I have this feeling," Fortuna began, her voice tinged with a rare seriousness, "that this g... it''s going to change the fate of the realm of gods. I can''t exin why, but the feeling is there, deep within me."
Seshat observed Fortuna with a contemtive gaze. Her response was cryptic yet profound, reflective of her wisdom and understanding of the universe''s mysterious ways. "Fortuna, in the grand tapestry of the universe, each thread has its purpose. Anything that happens, happens for a reason, though the reason may not always be clear to us."
Her words, while not providing a direct answer, hinted at the idea that the unfolding events were part of arger, unseen n.
Chapter 1155 God Killing Weapon
Chapter 1155 God Killing Weapon
Michael stood at the edge of the Celestial Valley, his gaze sweeping over the lushndscape onest time. He held the portable portal device in his hand, ready to activate it. The device waspact, yet intricate ¨C a marvel of magical engineering that would transport him directly to Goldspire.
Ayag, perched on his shoulder, looked around with a hint of longing. "Shouldn''t we explore the valley a bit more before leaving?" she asked, her voice tinged with curiosity.
Michael shook his head, his expression resolute. "Time is of the essence, Ayag. We need to forge a weapon with the centipede''s corbone, and we have to get into the g before it starts in three days. Every moment counts now."
He pressed a button on the portal device, and it hummed to life, emitting a soft glow. A swirling vortex of light began to form in front of him, the gateway to Goldspire materializing out of thin air.
Michael took a deep breath, his mind focused on the tasks ahead. With the centipede''s corbone in his possession and the goal of infiltrating Fortuna''s g looming over him, there was no time to spare for further exploration.
As the portal stabilized, Michael stepped forward, entering the vortex with determination. Vedora clung to his shoulder, ready for the next phase of their mission.
***************************
Meanwhile, Rurik, the dwarf cksmith and master of the Goldspire cksmith Guild, sat hunched over a pile of documents in his room. The papers, filled with names and figures, represented the logistics of hiring new cksmiths and master craftsmen to replenish the guild''s depleted ranks. His brow was furrowed in concentration, a frown etched deeply into his rugged face.
Suddenly, his patience snapped. mming his fist down on the table, he bellowed, "Where in the hell did the Guild Leader disappear to?!" His voice echoed through the room, a mixture of frustration and concern.
Rurik leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples as he mumbled to himself. "First, Kranar''s assassinse and kill half of our guild, including some of my closest master cksmith friends. Then, in theI encounter assassins of Kranar, Rainar, and Rin."
His mumble turned into a grumble as he pondered over the recent bewildering events. "And where is John? The man I thought was just a human cksmith turns out to be the God of Darkness himself."
The revtion still seemed to baffle him, the idea that someone he had viewed as a mere colleague was in fact a god in disguise. It added anotheryer ofplexity to the already chaotic situation the guild found itself in.
Rurik''s gaze drifted back to the papers in front of him, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere ¨C tangled in the web of recent events and the mysterious disappearance of key figures, including John, the God of Darkness.
As Rurik sat in his room, lost in his thoughts, a sudden and unexpected vortex appeared in the middle of the room. The force of its emergence was so strong that it knocked his sturdy dwarven body, along with the chair, to the ground. Papers flew around chaotically, creating a storm of parchment.
"Fucking holy fuck," Rurik cursed, his voiceced with a string of colorful dwarven swear words. Scrambling to his feet, he reached for his trusty battle axe, his eyes fixed on the swirling vortex. His stance was defensive, prepared for whatever or whoever might emerge from the portal.
His grip on the axe tightened, but his expression shifted from one of readiness to shock when he saw Michael, known to him as John, step out of the portal. Perched on Michael''s shoulder was a three-headed serpent, its heads swiveling to take in the surroundings.
Rurik, still holding his axe, rxed slightly but remained visibly shaken by the sudden intrusion. The appearance of Michael, especially after learning of his true identity as the God of Darkness, added ayer of disbelief and awe to the already tense situation.
"John... or should I say, God of Darkness?" Rurik managed to say, his voice a mix of wariness and respect. The realization that beings of such power were directly involved with his guild was both unsettling and fascinating.
Michael couldn''t help but crack a joke when he noticed the overturned chair and realized Rurik had been knocked to the ground by the portal''s emergence. "I hope I didn''t interrupt anything too important," he said with a light-hearted chuckle, looking at the disarray in the room.
Rurik, still clutching his battle axe but now with a less tense posture, felt a bit eased by Michael''s casual demeanor. "Oh, no, not at all. It''s just another day with gods popping out of portals in my room." He responded with a hint of sarcasm, Michaelughed at Rurik''s response, the sound warm and genuine. "You can rx, Rurik. I''m not like those power-hungry gods like Rainar or Kranar. Just here on some guild business."
His words, spoken with a friendly ease, helped to dispel the tension in the room further. Michael''s presence, though initially startling, now seemed more like that of an old acquaintance rather than a formidable god.
Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, Michael caused the corbone of the centipede to materialize on the table between them. The bone appeared with a faint shimmer, instantly drawing Rurik''s attention.
Rurik''s eyes widened in astonishment as he beheld the unusual object. "What kind of metal is this?" he asked, leaning in for a closer look.
He reached out tentatively, his experienced fingers brushing against the surface of the bone. His expression changed from curiosity to shock. "This isn''t metal... it feels like bone," he said, his voiceced with disbelief.
Michael nodded, a slight smile ying on his lips. "Correct. It''s not just any bone, though. This is the bone of an ancient beast, a centipede, from the Celestial Valley."
Rurik''s shock deepened as he processed Michael''s words. The idea of forging a weapon from the bone of a mythical creature was beyond anything he had encountered in his years of cksmithing. The revtion that such a creature existed, let alone that its bones could be used for crafting, was enough to leave the seasoned dwarf cksmith in awe.
Rurik, still trying to grasp the concept of a weapon forged from the bone of a mythical creature, asked Michael, "What kind of weapon are you nning to forge with this?"
Michael''s response was straightforward yet chilling. "Something that can kill a god," he said, his tone serious.
The words hit Rurik like a physical blow, shocking him to the core. His heart skipped a beat as the gravity of Michael''s statement sank in. Killing a god was unheard of, a concept so far beyond the realm of possibility in Rurik''s mind.
"Anyone can be killed if the killer is skilled enough."Michael observed Rurik''s reaction and added calmly.
Rurik stuttered in response, his voice barely above a whisper. "I... I can''t believe it. Killing a god..."
Michael nodded, understanding the disbelief and shock that Rurik was experiencing. "You will believe it when Rainar falls. That''s the n." said Michael.
Rurik, torn between his principles and the unfolding reality, admitted, "I cannot be a part of something so evil... but somehow, I feel that you are not evil, despite being the God of Darkness."
Michael''s response was calm and measured. "Darkness doesn''t equate to evil, just as light doesn''t equate to good. Remember that."
Michael''s expression turned somber as he spoke of the current situation in Nimbosia, Rainar''s kingdom. "In Nimbosia, people are being forced to pray and provide worship energy. They''re treated like ves, bound to Rainar''s will."
He looked directly at Rurik, his eyes conveying a deep resolve. "That, Rurik, is true evil. What I''m nning to do is to put an end to that,"
Rurik listened intently, his usual tough demeanor softening as he absorbed the gravity of the situation. The thought of people being exploited and oppressed in such a way stirred a sense of pity and empathy within him.
After a moment of contemtion, Rurik sighed heavily, a look of determination settling on his face. "How can I help?" he asked, his voice carrying a newfound sense of purpose. The realization that his skills as a cksmith could contribute to a cause greater than himself seemed to give him a sense of rity and resolve.
Michael''s n, though daunting and fraught with danger, had touched a chord with Rurik. It was clear that the dwarf cksmith was ready to y his part in this unfolding n of Michael, driven by a desire to help those suffering under Rainar''s rule.
Michael''s voice was steady andposed as he outlined his needs to Rurik. "I need to forge a weapon capable of killing Rainar from a distance. This bone," he gestured towards the centipede''s corbone on the table, "is a keyponent, but I need your expertise and experience in cksmithing to make it happen."
He continued, acknowledging his own skills but also the value of experience. "I may be a five-star cksmith, but sometimes, knowledge can be overshadowed by experience. And you, Rurik, have a wealth of experience that we should take advantage of."
Rurik, listening intently, seemed to ponder Michael''s words. The idea of crafting a weapon with such a significant purpose was daunting, yet the challenge appeared to invigorate him. After a moment of thought, a look of realization dawned on his face.
"I might know just the thing," Rurik said, a spark of inspiration in his eyes. His response indicated that he was not only ready to assist Michael but also had an idea that could potentially be the key to crafting the weapon they needed.
Chapter 1156 The God Killing Weapon is Ready
Chapter 1156 The God Killing Weapon is Ready
Rurik quickly stood up, a determined look on his face. "Give me a minute," he said to Michael before briskly exiting the room, leaving Michael alone with his thoughts.
Heading straight to the forge hall, Rurik entered a space where the air was thick with heat and the smell of molten metal. Several forges were burning hot, with mes dancing under the skilled hands of the cksmiths working diligently at their anvils.
Upon his arrival, Rurik''s presencemanded immediate attention. He raised his hands, signaling for everyone''s attention. "Alright, everyone, I need you to take a break. Clear out the hall and don''te back until I call for you," he announced authoritatively.
The cksmiths and guards, used to following Rurik''s orders without question, quicklyplied. They gathered their tools and left the hall, exchanging curious nces but not daring to question the master cksmith''s instructions.
Soon, the forge hall was empty except for Rurik, the fires in the forges casting a warm glow over the now-silent room. Michael, carrying the centipede bone, calmly walked into the now-empty forge hall where Rurik awaited him. The glow of the forges cast a flickering light across the room, highlighting the seriousness of the task at hand.
"What weapon do you have in mind, Rurik?" Michael asked, his tone indicating both curiosity and a test of Rurik''s expertise.
Rurik, his eyes fixed on the bone, seemed deep in thought. Finally, he looked up at Michael. "Considering your requirements, I believe a crossbow would be ideal," Rurik said confidently. "The arrows for it can be carved from this bone. Given its properties, they should be able to prate any armor or shield."
Michael''s face lit up with a smile, pleased with Rurik''s suggestion. It was clear that Rurik''s experience as a master cksmith had led him to the same conclusion Michael had in mind. The idea of a crossbow, a weapon that could strike from a distance with deadly precision, perfectly aligned with Michael''s needs.
"That''s exactly what I was thinking," Michael admitted, his smile broadening. "A crossbow is indeed the perfect weapon for what I need to aplish," said Michael.
Rurik, recognizing the approval in Michael''s response, nodded with a sense of satisfaction. His years of experience in the art of cksmithing had once again proven invaluable, and he was ready to take on the challenge of crafting a weapon of such significance and power.
As the two master cksmiths prepared to begin their work, Vedora hopped down from Michael''s shoulder. The creature settledfortably at a safe distance, its three heads watching the unfolding scene with keen interest.
Michael, gearing up for the task ahead, removed his ck long coat and ck turtleneck, revealing his godly, chiseled physique. His muscles rippled under his skin, each movement highlighting the strength and power he possessed.
Ayag, one of Vedora''s heads, couldn''t help butment on the sight. "Wow, look at him. He''s not just powerful, he''s hot," she remarked, her tone a mix of admiration and yfulness. "Gaya is one lucky woman."
The atmosphere in the forge was filled with the heat from the fires and the anticipation of creating a weapon of great significance.
Rurik, taking the lead as the master cksmith, began to exin their n of action for the centipede bone. "First, we need to purify and treat this bone. It''s not like working with ordinary metal. We''ll have to use a special process to maintain its unique properties while making it suitable for forging into arrows."
Michael listened intently, nodding in agreement. With a clear understanding of the task ahead, he began to divide the work between them, ying to each of their strengths.
"Alright, Rurik, you handle the purification and treatment process. You have the expertise to ensure that the bone retains its strength and magical properties," Michael said, assigning the first critical task to Rurik.
"As for me," he paused for a moment before continuing, "I''ll prepare the forge and get the necessary tools and materials ready. Once the bone is prepared, we''ll work together on shaping and crafting the arrows and the crossbow."
Their roles defined, Rurik and Michael set about their tasks with a sense of purpose. Rurik moved towards a section of the forge where he had specialized equipment for treating unique materials. At the same time, Michael began to gather various forging tools and inspect the forges, ensuring everything was in optimal condition for their demanding work ahead.
As Rurik and Michael delved into the forging process, their conversation flowed seamlessly between the technical aspects of their work and the broader implications of the weapon they were creating.
Rurik, focused on treating the bone, spoke up first. "We''ll start by slowly heating the bone to remove any impurities. It needs to retain its inherent strength."
Michael, heating the forge and preparing the anvil, replied, "Once that''s done, we''ll shape the arrows. They need to be perfectly bnced for uracy."
"And don''t forget deadly. Those arrows need to pack a punch," Ayag chimed in from her spot near the forge, her tone filled with excitement.
"Precision and power. The key elements of a weapon worthy of a god." Sarba added thoughtfully.
The forge was alive with activity. Rurik handled the bone with expert care, gradually heating it in the forge''s glowing embers. Michael, meanwhile, selected the finest tools for the job, his movements precise and deliberate.
As Rurik removed the now purified bone from the heat, he handed it over to Michael.
"Here, it''s ready for shaping," said Rurik.
Michael took the bone, examining it closely before beginning the meticulous process of carving it into arrow shafts. "These will be no ordinary arrows," he said, his focus unwavering as he worked.
"I''ve forged many weapons in my time, but this... this is something else." Rurik watched with admiration.
"You know, for a God of Darkness, you sure bring a lot of light to your work," Sarba, observing the process, couldn''t help but remark.
Michael, without breaking his concentration, responded with a hint of a smile, "No one said forging a weapon powerful enough to kill Rainar should be gloomy."
After some time, Michael, with a practiced ease, wielded his dark swords, their des coated in dark mes, to meticulously carve out arrows from the purified bone. The dark mes enhanced the precision of his work, allowing him to shape the arrows with supernatural finesse.
Rurik, observing the process, couldn''t help butment on the eerie mes. "Those dark mes of yours... they''re something else. Can''t say I''ve seen anything like them before. They freak me out a bit, to be honest."
Michael let out a chuckle at Rurik''s remark, but he chose not to borate on the nature of his mes, focusing instead on his task. The sound of his swords carving through the bone was rhythmic, almost hypnotic.
Once he finished shaping the arrows, Michael handed them over to Rurik. "Here, take these five arrows and work on them. Add the fletching and ensure they''re perfectly bnced. I''ll start preparing the rest of the bone to forge the crossbow." said Michael.
Rurik took the arrows, examining them with an expert eye. "These are crafted with incredible precision," he noted, appreciating the craftsmanship. He then turned to his own workbench to continue the process, adding the necessaryponents to turn the bone shafts into functional arrows.
Michael, meanwhile, began the intricate task of shaping the remaining bone into the various parts needed for the crossbow. His movements were deliberate and skilled, a testament to his expertise as a cksmith and as an Inventor.
As Michael continued his work on the centipede bone, he began to carve out intricate pieces to construct the crossbow. The bone, resilient yet malleable under his skilled hands, was gradually shaped into the variousponents of the weapon.
Turning to Vedora, Michael gave specific instructions to Ayag, Sarba, and Cain. "I need you three to gather some additional materials. We''ll need iron for strength, silver for its energy conductivity, and dragon heartstring for the bowstring."
The three heads of Vedora swiftly set about their task, moving through the forge with purpose. They collected the required materials, each element chosen for its unique properties that would enhance the crossbow''s effectiveness.
Meanwhile, Michael meticulously worked on assembling the crossbow. The process was intricate, requiring both precision and a deep understanding of how eachponent interacted with the others. He fused the bone with the iron and silver, creating a framework that was both sturdy and enchanted. The dragon heartstring, known for its incredible tensile strength and magical properties, was carefully integrated as the bowstring.
The forging process was a marathon, taking a total of eight hours. Michael''s focus never wavered, his every move deliberate and exact. The heat of the forge, the sound of metal on bone, and the faint glow of enchantments being woven together filled the space.
As the crossbow slowly took shape, its appearance was both elegant and formidable. The bone gave it an organic, almost primal look, while the metalponents added a sense of refined craftsmanship. The intricate designs etched into the bone and metal glimmered in the forge''s light, and the dragon heartstring bowstring sat taut and ready, promising immense power.
Even in its half-finished state, the crossbow was a masterpiece of cksmithing and magical engineering.
After almost twelve hours of relentless work in the forge, the final piece of the crossbow was put into ce. "That''s one fucking beautiful crossbow," Ayag''s eyes widened in awe as she beheld the finished weapon. Rurik, who had witnessed countless creations in his lifetime, couldn''t help but express his admiration. "It''s beautiful," he said, his voice tinged with genuine respect.
The crossbow in Michael''s hands was a sight to behold. It had a sleek, modern look, thanks to the ck spray paint that coated its surface, giving it a matte finish that absorbed light rather than reflecting it. This finish not only added to its aesthetic but also served a practical purpose, making the weapon less conspicuous in the shadows.
Atop the crossbow was a meticulously forged scope, crafted using materials Michael had acquired from the system store. The scope was advanced, with a design that blended both mystical and technological elements. It waspact, yet its lenses gleamed with an inner light, hinting at enhanced capabilities beyond a standard scope.
The body of the crossbow, primarily made from the centipede''s bone, retained the organic curves and grooves of its origin, creating a contrast with the smooth metal parts. Overall, the crossbow was a perfect amalgamation of ancient craftsmanship and modern innovation, a weapon that was as deadly as it was beautiful. "Now, let''s go kill a god," Michael snickered with a grin.
Chapter 1157 Saving Fayeth I
Chapter 1157 Saving Fayeth I
Rurik, with a sense of pride and aplishment, presented the five arrows to Michael. "These arrows are ready for rune engravings," he announced, holding them out for Michael to see.
The arrows, carved from the centipede''s bone, were sleek and perfectly bnced. Each shaft was smooth, with a natural luster that made them appear almost ethereal. The arrowheads, sharp and menacing, promised a deadly impact.
"That won''t be necessary." Michael, examining the arrows, replied. With a simple flick of his wrist, he ced the arrows into his system storage, where they vanished from sight, safely tucked away for future use.
Rurik''s curiosity and shock were evident on his face. "How exactly are you nning to kill Rainar? And what happens if you actually seed in killing a god?" Asked Rurik.
Michael chuckled lightly, a twinkle in his eye. "We''ll have to wait and see, Rurik. Some things are better left as surprises."
"I hope Rainar''s death will put an end to the war between him and Kranar. Nimbosia has suffered enough under the rule of a tyrant god. Its people deserve freedom and peace." The dwarven cksmith sighed as his expression turned somber.
Michael''s smile faded as he considered Rurik''s words. The weight of their actions and the potential consequences were not lost on him. The path ahead was unknown and filled with dangers, but the goal was clear ¨C to kill a god.
Feeling the need for solitude to reflect on their next steps, Michael turned to Rurik. "I need some time alone. Please, take care of your business and leave me for a while," he requested gently.
Rurik sighed, a deep understanding in his eyes as he looked up at Michael. "You''re not like the other gods, John," he said earnestly. "I hope you''ll be one who truly gives a damn about the people." With those parting words, filled with hope and a bit of concern, Rurik left the hall, his heavy footsteps echoing slightly as he departed.
Once alone, Michael felt Vedora crawl up his arm and perch on his shoulder. The three-headed hydra seemed to sense the gravity of their mission and the burdens it carried.
"Now all we need to do is get into the g and kill the god," Ayag said, breaking the silence. Her tone a mixture of determination and a hint of apprehension about the daunting task ahead.
The words hung in the air, a stark reminder of the challenge they faced. Michael stood there, his thoughts focused on the uing g, the weapon they had created, and the monumental task of assassinating a god.
As Michael stood in contemtion, the earpiece crackled to life, and Pink''s voice came through. "I''ve got good and bad news about the g invitation," she said. "Which do you want to hear first?"
Michael, always preferring to confront challenges head-on, replied, "Give me the bad news first."
"Great, let''s start with the doom and gloom." Ayag, ever the sarcastic one, rolled her eyes and quipped. "The bad news is that the invitation is in Nimbosia, Rainar''s kingdom. After your little escapade with the orc''s clone and the temple guards, security is bound to be tighter than ever, " Pink said in a serious voice.
Michael''s expression hardened at the mention of Nimbosia. He knew infiltrating Rainar''s heavily guarded kingdom would be no small feat.
"And the good news?" he asked, bracing himself.
"The good news," Pink continued, "is that every year, Fortuna sends an invitation to Goddess Ava, despite her being a rogue goddess who removed herself from the pantheon. The invitation is received by Fayeth, Goddess Ava''s angel, who''s currently in Nimbosia."
Michael''s mind raced, considering the implications of this information. "So, our way into the g might be through Fayeth and Goddess Ava''s invitation," he mused aloud, a n beginning to form in his mind.
"Looks like we have a lead, a risky one, but it''s something." Sarba nodded, his tone now more serious. Michael felt a sense of resolve settle over him. The path forward was risky, but it was the best chance they had to infiltrate the g andplete their mission.
"I really miss my high-tech setup back on Earth. This world''s limitations are really messing with my ability to help you, " Pink said, letting out a frustrated sigh through the earpiece.
"I have a feeling you''ll get something much better once I take care of Rainar," Michael responded calmly. He kept to himself the knowledge that the system''s quest to kill Rainar included a reward of a base of operations in the realm of gods. He suspected this base would be a game-changer, especially considering the quest''s extraordinary requirement to kill a god.
"I hope so," Pink replied, her voice tinged with hope and concern. "Just be careful, Ghost," she said before cutting themunication.
Michael cracked his neck, gearing up for the next phase of his mission. He turned to Ayag and said, "Let''s head to Nimbosia."
He ced the crossbow into his system storage and took out the portable portal device. With a few adjustments, he activated it, creating a swirling vortex in the middle of the forge.
"Time to set things in motion," he muttered to himself. With a determined step, he entered the vortex, his figure enveloped by the spiraling light. In an instant, he disappeared from the forge, embarking on the risky journey to infiltrate Nimbosia and execute his daring n to infiltrate the g of the gods.
**********************
Michael''s portal opened up in a dark, narrow alley within the kingdom of Nimbosia. As he stepped out, he was immediately enveloped in the heavy rain that was flooding the kingdom. Looking around, he noticed more and more people perched on rooftops, seeking refuge from the relentless downpour.
The sky, unlike during hisst visit, was free of the chaotic battle between Kranar and Rainar''s angels. Instead, the angels were now methodically patrolling the sky, their vignt eyes scanning the streets and alleys below.
Quickly assessing the situation, Michael blended into the darkness, activating his ability to turn invisible. He moved stealthily, keenly aware of the patrolling angels above.
One of the angels, d in metal armor and sporting feathery wings, paused and looked directly in Michael''s direction. For a moment, there was a sense of tension as the angel seemed to sense something amiss.
Another angel flew down, joining the first. "What is it?" he asked, following hispanion''s gaze.
The first angel hesitated, then shook his head slightly. "I thought I saw someone," he murmured, still uncertain.
The second angel nced around the dimly lit alley and shrugged. "It''s just a dark alley. You''re seeing shadows," he said dismissively, and with a p of their wings, the two resumed their patrol.
Michael remained motionless until they were out of sight. His ability to remain undetected in the heart of the enemy''s territory was crucial. With the angels moving on, he continued his journey through the rain-soaked kingdom, his mission clear in his mind.
Ayag, perched on Michael''s shoulder, advised him with a sense of urgency, "Unlikest time, we''ll get caught if we try to use the rooftops to travel to Fayeth. The angels'' patrols are too thorough."
Michael nodded in agreement, his eyes scanning the drenchedndscape. "I see that," he said, tapping the skull head medallion on his chest. Instantly, armor began to emerge from the medallion, seamlessly covering his body from head to toe. The armor was sleek and dark, blending perfectly with the shadows of the night.
With his armor now fully deployed, Michael submerged himself into the flooded streets. His skull mask, an integral part of his suit, enabled him to breathe underwater. The mask was connected to his APD built into the suit, which pumped oxygen-rich potions directly into his bloodstream, allowing him to navigate the submerged streets without the need for air.
Moving swiftly and silently beneath the water''s surface, Michael made his way towards Ava''s temple, where Fayeth was known to be. His approach was undetectable, the flooded streets providing the perfect cover for his stealthy advance.
The journey to the temple was a silent one, with only the muffled sounds of the city above and the asional shadow of an angel patrolling the skies.
After a while, Michael slowly emerged from the water, his movements cautious and measured. Peeking his head just above the surface, he witnessed a scene of destruction and chaos. Several angels, their wings beating furiously in the rain, were demolishing Ava''s temple. Amidst the rubble and debris, another orc''s clone stood, whip in hand,shing out at the people who had gathered there.
The cries of the people filled the air, their pleas for mercy heart-wrenching. "Please, no more! We''ve done nothing wrong!" one of them cried out, trying to shield themselves from the relentless whipping.
Another, tears streaming down their face, begged, "Spare us! We are but simple followers, we have no quarrel with Rainar!"
The orc, his face twisted in a cruel sneer, shouted over the cries, "Soon, I will whip Fayeth to death inside Rainar''s temple and make her pay for her treacherous acts against Rainar!"
Inside Michael''s armor, Sarba cooped away from the water, heard the orc''s threats and felt a surge of urgency. "Ghost, we need to save Fayeth before those evil scumbags hurt her," he said, his voice filled with determination.
Michael''s eyes narrowed as he observed the orc clone''s brutality. A cold killing intent settled over him. "Time to end this show," he muttered to himself, his voice low and dangerous. "I''ll save Fayeth, and anyone who stands in my way will punch their ticket straight to hell. Mercy will not be an option here,"
Chapter 1158 Saving Fayeth II
Chapter 1158 Saving Fayeth II
Michael submerged himself back into the murky waters, swiftly swimming towards the temple. His movements were precise and calcted, designed to avoid detection.
As he neared the temple, he cautiously peeked over the water''s surface. The sight that greeted him was daunting ¨C the temple was heavily guarded, surrounded by defense arrays and spells that glowed ominously in the dim light. The guards patrolled with vignce, their eyes scanning for any sign of intrusion.
Using his Eyes of Darkness, Michael studied each spell and defense array, his gaze prating the magical defenses to understand their mechanisms and potential effects. He quietly ryed his observations to Ayag, Sarba, and Cain, who were intently listening from within the armor.
"These arrays areplex," Michael exined in a hushed tone. "The glow on the walls suggests they''re not just for detection but could also be offensive. The energy radiation I''m seeing indicates they might trigger rms orunch attacks if breached."
Ayag, Sarba, and Cain absorbed the information, understanding the gravity of the situation. Michael''s ability to discern the workings of the defense systems was crucial in nning their next move.
"We''ll need to be careful and precise in our approach," Michael concluded. "One wrong move, and we could be facing a barrage of magical defenses."
The trio nodded in agreement, ready to follow Michael''s lead as they prepared to navigate the heavily fortified temple to rescue Fayeth.
Michael assessed the situation with a tactical eye, his mind working through the various possibilities. "I can survive the arrays and spells, but if I trigger them, they might kill Fayeth or worse inside," he said, his voice low and urgent.
He continued,ying out the strategy. "We need to be stealthy and quick. It''s crucial that we avoid triggering any of these arrays and spells. A direct assault is out of the question."
Michael scanned the surrounding area, his eyes analyzing every detail of the temple''s defenses. After a moment, he began to formte a n, speaking in a hushed tone to Ayag, Sarba, and Cain.
"I''ll use the shadows to move around the perimeter. We''ll find a less guarded entry point, ideally one where I can use my abilities to bypass the magical barriers without setting them off."
His n was meticulous, considering every potential obstacle and the need to protect Fayeth''s safety. "Once inside, we move quickly to locate Fayeth, free her, and get out before anyone realizes what''s happened." said Michael.
Michael''s confidence and clear-headedness in devising the n instilled a sense of assurance in the trio. They understood the risks involved but trusted in Michael''s judgment and abilities.
With the n set, Michael prepared to make his move, ready to navigate the treacherous terrain thaty ahead in their mission to rescue Fayeth.
Michael tapped into his ability to utilize the shadows, harnessing his shadow teleportation skill to move undetected around the temple''s perimeter. He slipped from one shadow to another, his movements almost imperceptible in the dim light.
Despite his stealth, a couple of guards felt a disturbance. "Did you see that?" one guard whispered to hisrade, his eyes scanning the area.
"No, what did you see?" the other guard responded, looking around nervously.
"I thought I saw something move over there, in the shadows," the first guard said, pointing to a dark corner.
But Michael had already moved on, his ability to blendpletely with the darkness saving him from detection. He continued to navigate the area, staying in the dark corners and out of sight.
Soon, the orc clone that had been whipping the people arrived at the temple. Michael watched him from a hidden dark corner, remaining perfectly still. The orc roared out orders, his voice echoing through the temple grounds. "Be on guard, everyone! The rogue god wille for the bitch inside. And when he does, trap him in the cage!"
Michael''s frown deepened as he listened.
"They have a cage for gods?"He muttered to himself with a hint of amusement.
The situation was growing moreplex by the moment, but Michael was already formting a n to deal with this new development.
Ayag, perched on Michael''s shoulder, suggested a tactical move. "Why don''t you send a drone inside through an open hall or a Spyder to scout the situation?" she asked, her tone indicating the urgency of getting a clearer picture of what was happening inside.
Michael, however, exined the limitations they faced. "While the drones and Spyders are made of junk metal and emit zero energy radiation, making them undetectable in the mortal realm, it''s a different story here in the realm of gods. The arrays and spells here are far more advanced. Sending them in might trigger an alert, putting Fayeth in immediate danger."
He continued, his voice firm with resolve. "We need to improvise and work with what we have. Our primary goal is to keep these arrays from being triggered. Any wrong move and Fayeth''s life could be at stake."
His decision reflected his understanding of the heightened risks in this realm and the importance of maintaining stealth.
Michael, determined to get a better understanding of the situation inside, activated his X-ray vision. Through the walls of the temple, he could see the silhouettes of several figures. One, a woman, appeared to be chained to poles, her posture indicating captivity. Around her stood other figures, likely guards, positioned in a defensive stance.
As he focused his vision, Michael noticed the orc''s silhouette entering the temple. The orc''srge, imposing figure was unmistakable, even through the X-ray vision. Michael watched as the orc approached the woman chained to the poles, whom he surmised to be Fayeth.
The orc''s voice, though muffled by the temple walls, carried a crude and taunting tone. Michael could vaguely hear him roaring at the woman. "Call for your rogue god you''re in bed with, why don''t you?" the orc sneered vulgarly.
The orc''s behavior and the guards'' presence confirmed that they were on high alert, likely anticipating an attempt to rescue her.
Inside the temple, the orc''s brutality escted. He pped Fayeth across the face, his actions apanied by a malicious taunt. "I''ve razed Ava''s temple to the ground," he gloated, taking pleasure in her pain and the destruction he had caused.
Fayeth, despite the physical assault, remainedposed. Her voice was calm but carried a weight of certainty. "The retribution for your actions will be dire," she warned, her eyes locking with the orc''s.
The orcughed mockingly, dismissing her warning. He raised his hand and pped her again, his cruelty evident. "Your rogue god lover will be caught and yed alive by Rainar," he sneered, enjoying the torment he was inflicting.
Fayeth, undeterred by his threats, slowly curved her lips into a smirk. With a look of defiance, she said, "You have no idea who ising for you."
Her statement, filled with confidence and a hint of knowledge unknown to her captor, suggested that she was aware of Michael''s presence or at least confident in the arrival of a powerful ally. Her demeanor, even in the face of such cruelty, hinted at an underlying belief in the inevitable downfall of her tormentors.
As Michael watched through his X-ray vision, the orc''s actions grew more despicable. He slowly ran his hand over Fayeth''s sleeve, then with a sudden, violent motion, ripped the fabric, exposing her arm and corbone. The brutality of the act was evident, even through the obscured view.
Michael, observing from a distance, felt a growl escape his throat. "He''s escting," he muttered, killing intent boiling within him at the sight of the orc''s cruelty.
Inside the temple, a shock of anger red in Fayeth''s eyes, a reaction to the orc''s vile behavior. Despite the fear and vulnerability of her situation, there was a burning defiance in her gaze.
The orc, oblivious or indifferent to her inner strength, smirked sadistically. "Every female I''vee across keeps their demeanorposed until I start tearing their dress," he said, his voice dripping with malice. He reveled in the torture and humiliation of others, finding pleasure in their pain and fear.
His taunting continued, each word designed to break her spirit. "What will it take to shatter thatposure of yours, I wonder?" he jeered, his smirk widening.
Fayeth remained silent, but her eyes spoke volumes of the hatred and disgust she felt towards her captor.
Despite the orc''s escting brutality, she maintained her defiant stance. She hyped up the impending arrival of her rescuer, her voice steady and confident. "The god who is about toe through that door is anything but merciful. He''s here to kill Rainar and show the world that even gods can be killed."
The orc, unfazed by her words, snickered cruelly and struck her across the face again. Hisughter was scornful, a clear sign he underestimated the threat Fayeth described.
Unbroken by his assault, Fayeth continued, her gaze piercing through the orc''s arrogance.
"You''ll soon be begging me to heal you when the God of Darkness snuffs the light out of your eyes," she retorted.
Her mention of the God of Darkness seemed to carry a weight of certainty and fearlessness. Fayeth''s belief in Michael''s mission and his capabilities was evident in her words, a stark contrast to the orc''s mocking disbelief.
Chapter 1159 New System Stat - The Worship energy
Chapter 1159 New System Stat - The Worship energy
Fayeth, amidst her dire situation, closed her eyes and began to silently pray. Her lips moved in a soft whisper, her words directed to Michael, the God of Darkness.
At that moment, Michael, watching from a distance, felt an unexpected warmth spread throughout his body. It was a familiar sensation, reminiscent of the time when a young boy he had rescued touched his hand and expressed his gratitude. It was simr to the feeling he experienced when some of his worshippers prayed to him, but this time, the surge of energy was significantly stronger, and more potent.
Caught off guard by the intensity of the sensation, Michael realized that Fayeth''s prayers were channeling an extraordinary amount of energy towards him. It was as if her faith and desperation were amplifying the power of her prayers.
Suddenly, the system he was connected to chimed in, announcing a significant development. [Host has unlocked a new stat in his status: Worship Energy] This notification confirmed that the prayers directed at him were more than just expressions of hope; they were a source of tangible power, a new element to his already formidable abilities.
As Michael processed the new development, the system continued to feed him notifications, each one revealing more about the newfound power he was harnessing. The messages shed before his eyes:
[The host has gained 1000 Worship Energy from Fayeth]
[Congrattions to the host for receiving Worship Energy from an angel of another god]
The realization that he was receiving such a significant amount of energy from Fayeth, an angel of another goddess, no less, was astounding. It indicated a deep level of faith and connection, one that transcended the usual boundaries of divine influence.
Then came another crucial piece of information from the system. [With the Worship Energy, the host can diffuse the arrays and spells for a short amount of time]
Michael''s smirk widened upon reading this. The ability to diffuse the temple''s magical defenses, even if only temporarily, was exactly the advantage he needed. "That''s what I want," he said to himself, a n forming in his mind.
Armed with this new ability and bolstered by the faith bestowed upon him, Michael felt a renewed sense of confidence. Michael stood in the shadows, a new understanding dawning upon him. He once again realized why Rainar and other gods were so fixated on Worship Energy ¨C it was more potent and powerful than the Celestial Energy theymonly used. The raw power he felt coursing through him was a testament to its strength.
As he focused, Michael felt an unusual connection to the arrays and spells surrounding the temple. It was as if he could sense their energy, their purpose, and their weaknesses. A sly smirk formed on his lips. "Showtime," he whispered, ready to make his move.
With a clench of his fist, dark tendrils, invisible to the temple guards, shot out from the ground, targeting the locations of the spells and arrays. They moved with precision, silently disrupting and shattering each magical defense without leaving any trace.
Feeling the barriers weakening, Michael quickly utilized his shadow teleportation ability. He scanned the temple''s interior, looking for a suitable shadow to emerge from. Spotting a shadow cast by the orc behind him, he saw his opportunity.
In a blink of an eye, Michael teleported, using the orc''s shadow as his gateway. He materialized behind the orc, his appearance sudden and silent. The dramatic entrance was like something out of a nightmare, with Michael emerging from the shadows, his figure cloaked in darkness, ready to confront the brutal tormentor.
The orc, sensing an unexpected presence, stiffened. His instincts warned him that someone was now standing ominously behind him.
Fayeth, her eyes opening at the sensation of a new presence, caught sight of Michael standing right behind the orc. Her expression shifted from despair to a flicker of hope upon seeing her rescuer.
Inside the temple, the guards were taken aback as the doors suddenly mmed shut. The force of Michael''s wind st had sealed them inside, creating a barrier between them and the outside world. The temple was thrown into a brief moment of chaos as the guards tried toprehend what was happening.
"Someone''s behind the Captain!" one of the guards shouted, pointing towards the orc and Michael. Their voices rose in rm, a mix of confusion and fear permeating the air.
The orc, meanwhile, remained eerily calm. A slow, malicious grin spread across his face. Without turning around, he addressed Fayeth, his voiceced with a twisted sense of amusement. "Is he standing behind me?" he asked, almost as if taunting both Fayeth and his unseen adversary.
"NOW!" Suddenly, the orc shouted.
At the orc''s sudden shout of "Now!", the ground beneath Michael abruptly lit up, revealing a massive chakra inscribed with various runes. In an instant, a golden energy cage materialized around him, trapping him within its confines.
The orc, turning around with a triumphantugh, sneered at the captured figure. "Got you, sucker!" he gloated, reveling in what he believed was a sessful ambush.
Fayeth''s heart skipped a beat as she witnessed Michael seemingly getting captured. The hope that had sparked in her eyes moments earlier flickered with uncertainty and fear.
The orc, basking in his perceived victory, taunted Michael. "Thought you could just sneak up on me, huh? You''re not as smart as they say," he jeered, his voice echoing mockingly in the temple.
The scene was tense, with the orc savoring his moment of triumph, believing he had captured the formidable God of Darkness. Fayeth, still chained, watched on helplessly, the situation appearing grim as the orc continued his taunts.
The orc, brimming with confidence, strutted around the energy cage, taking his time to taunt his perceived captive. "So, the rogue god falls into my trap," he mocked, his voice dripping with derision.
He continued his mockery, "Last time, I wasn''t ready to take on a god, so you defeated a mere clone of mine. But look at you now, trapped by another clone." Hisughter was loud and contemptuous.
"I''m just a clone, controlled by the real me somewhere safe. But how disappointing it must be for a god to fall victim to a mere replica," the orc taunted, his eyes gleaming with malicious pleasure.
The temple guards, emboldened by their leader''s apparent victory, approached the cage, each eager to have their turn at mocking Michael. "Looks like the mighty have fallen," one guard sneered.
"Not so dark and scary now, are you?" Another guard chimed in.
Their voices, filled with scorn and mockery, added to the chorus of taunts directed at the figure inside the golden cage.
The orc, reveling in what he thought was his victory, leaned closer to the cage, his taunts growing more vicious. "When Rainar returns from the g, he will be most pleased to find a rogue god as his new toy to y with," he sneered.
He paced around the cage, his voiceced with mockery. "I always knew the stories and legends about the God of Darkness were exaggerated. Just myths and tales to scare children."
The orc stopped and faced the cage, a smirk stered on his face. "I didn''t believe you existed five thousand years ago, and now you reappear out of nowhere?" heughed scornfully. "Seems like the mighty God of Darkness is just another myth caught in a trap."
His words echoed in the temple, filled with a sense of false triumph. The orc''s conviction that he had subdued a legendary figure was apparent in his demeanor, a mix of pride and derision in his belief that he had debunked a myth.
An excited temple guard, caught up in the fervor of the moment, hurried over to the door of the temple and locked it with a loud ng. The sound of the lock echoed through the chamber, adding to the ominous atmosphere.
"What are you doing?" The orc, momentarily taken aback by the guard''s actions, asked sharply. The guard, turning towards Fayeth, licked his lips with a devilish grin. His intentions were clear and malevolent, his gaze fixed on her with a predatory look.
Realizing what the guard was implying, the orc''s cruel nature surfaced even more. "I''ve never had an angel of Ava before," he said, his voice low and menacing as he moved towards Fayeth. His expression was one of twisted anticipation, seeing an opportunity to indulge his depravity.
As he approached her, the orc turned to point at the cage containing what he believed was the captured God of Darkness. "Looks like your protector is a bit tied up at the moment," he taunted Fayeth, his words dripping with malice.
Fayeth, her eyes zing with defiance, growled at the orc, "Don''t you dare touch me again." Her voice was firm, filled with a strength that defied her current vulnerable situation.
The orc, undeterred by her warning, snickered maliciously and raised his hand to p her once more. But suddenly, the lights in the room flickered, and a thick, oppressive darkness began to spread around the room, engulfing everything in its shadow.
The orc, his hand still in the air, frowned and barked, "What''s happening?" He quickly turned to see if the God of Darkness, whom he believed to be securely trapped in the cage, was responsible for this sudden change.
Panic set in among the guards as the darkness intensified, casting eerie shadows across the walls. They looked around frantically, unsure of how to react to this unexpected turn of events.
Meanwhile, Fayeth''s gaze was fixed on the cage where ''Michael'' was supposedly held. As she peered through the thickening darkness, she focused on the mask where his eyes should have been. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized there were no eyes behind the mask ¨C it was just a hollow suit of armor inside the cage.
The realization dawned on her that the real Michael was still atrge, his n unfolding even now in the heart of the enemy''sir.
Chapter 1160 Leveling Up - Golden Age of Michael Returns
Chapter 1160 Leveling Up - Golden Age of Michael Returns
Suddenly, the guard who had locked the door felt a sharp, piercing pain in his chest. His eyes widened in shock as he looked down to see a sword protruding from his chest. Blood began to bubble up from his mouth, and he felt the warm trickle of blood sliding down the de.
The guards who witnessed Michael appear behind theirrade were stunned, their reactions a mix of horror and disbelief. "He''s behind you!" one guard shouted, his voice tinged with terror.
"Impossible! How did he...?" another guard stammered, unable toprehend the situation.
"He wasn''t in the cage? It was a trick!" a third guard eximed, realization dawning on his face.
The room erupted into chaos as the guards gasped in shock and panic, seeing that Michael was not inside the cage. Some of them were still grappling with the fact that the figure they thought they had captured was nothing but a hollow armor.
Confusion and fear spread among the guards as they shouted to each other, trying to make sense of the situation and regroup. "What''s going on? How did he escape?" they yelled, their voices ovepping in the ensuing pandemonium.
Michael''s calcted and stealthy maneuver had thrown the temple into disarray, his presence outside the cage revealing the clever ruse he had employed.
As the guard copsed to the ground, lifeless, the system notifications chimed in Michael''s ear, acknowledging his kill and rewarding him with experience points.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Spiritual Embryo Realm Cultivator. The reward is 5000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points] Michael, unfazed by the notifications and focused on the task at hand, casually and stylishly wiped the blood off his sword onto his sleeve. His movements were smooth and unruffled, a testament to his confidence and experience in such situations.
He remained calm and collected amidst the chaos he had caused, ready for the next phase of his n to unfold.
Fayeth''s tense expression softened into a sigh of relief as she realized that Michael was not actually trapped in the cage. Observing him, she felt a sense of awe and gratitude. Despite standing in the presence of a god, she didn''t feel intimidated; instead, she felt a sense of justice and responsiveness to her prayers.
The orc, on the other hand, growled in frustration and anger, realizing that he had been outsmarted by the God of Darkness. His sense of triumph had turned into embarrassment and fury.
The guards, now in a state of rm, turned to the orc, their captain, for guidance. "Captain, what should we do?" one of them shouted, his voice tinged with panic.
"We can''t take on a god, not even if we were at the highest cultivation stage!" Another guard chimed in.
The orc, his face contorted with rage, barked orders at his men. "Throw everything you have at him! Spells, attacks, everything!" hemanded, desperate to regain control of the situation.
Despite their fear and the knowledge of their own limitations, they readied themselves to follow their captain''s orders in a desperate attempt to subdue the God of Darkness.
The temple guards, motivated by their captain''smand, began to cast their spells. As worshippers of Rainar, the god of rain, their spells were predominantly based on water and rain elements. The air in the temple became charged with magical energy as they chanted and gestured, summoning their powers.
Some guards'' bodies shimmered with a bluish glow as they cast enhancement spells on themselves, their muscles bulging and eyes glowing with a fierce, watery light. Others conjured streams of water that swirled around them, forming whips and tendrils thatshed out with a life of their own.
The spells materialized into various forms ¨C torrents of water spiraling towards Michael, sharp icicles formed from condensed moisture, and waves of pressurized water sts. Meanwhile, the orc, a clone controlled by the real orc somewhere else, had a moment of recollection. He vaguely remembered a translucent shield that would appear around the God of Darkness, absorbing spells. The real orc, receiving only partial memories from his clone upon its demise, struggled to recall the full details of their previous encounter. His memory was fragmented, leaving him with only vague impressions of theirst battle.
The orc, his eyes filled with killing intent, shouted at Fayeth, "Once I''m done with you, there won''t be anyone left to pray for!"
With a burst of speed, he dashed towards Fayeth, intending to harm her while his men were preupied with casting spells and attacking Michael. The temple filled with the sounds of battle, the guards'' focus entirely on trying to subdue the God of Darkness.
However, Michael, utilizing his shadow teleportation, suddenly vanished into the shadows and reappeared behind the orc. Without hesitation, he delivered a powerful kick, sending the orc flying across the room.
The guards, witnessing Michael''s sudden teleportation, were stunned and momentarily distracted from their attacks. "He vanished!" one guard eximed in disbelief.
"Where did he go?" another guard shouted, looking around frantically.
Before they could react further, the orc, recovering from the blow, shouted a warning to his men, "He''s using shadows to teleport! Watch the shadows!"
Realizing the tactic that Michael was employing, the guards shifted their focus, warily eyeing the dark corners and shadows around the temple. The battle escted, with Michael''s ability to manipte shadows adding a newyer ofplexity to the confrontation.
"Target Fayeth! Now!" The orc, realizing his disadvantage, shouted a desperatemand to his guards.
Immediately, several guards began to redirect their spells towards Fayeth, unleashing torrents of water and sharp icicles in her direction. At the same time, those enhanced by spells dashed towards Michael, their movements swift and aggressive.
Michael, poised and ready, sprang into action. His sword shed in his hand, a deadly extension of his will. As the first guard lunged at him, he deftly sidestepped and sliced through the guard''s defense, his de cutting deeply. Blood sprayed, painting a stark contrast against the cold, stone floor of the temple.
With fluid grace, Michael engaged another guard. He parried a strike with his sword and then, with a flick of his wrist, a retractable ck shield emerged, blocking a vicious blow. He countered with a swift thrust of his sword, finding the guard''s weak spot, and the guard crumpled to the ground.
"Be careful, John!" Fayeth, watching the battle, cried out instinctively.
Ayag added, her voice filled with excitement, "That''s it! Show them who''s the boss!"
"Strike them down! They can''t match your speed!" As Michael fought, Sarba shouted encouragement.
The orc, seeing his men fall one by one, roared in frustration, "Kill him! Kill him now!"
Michael, amidst the chaos, remained a whirlwind of deadly efficiency. He ducked under a swing, his movements a blur, and delivered a brutal kick that sent another guard flying. "Is this the best you can do?" he taunted, his voice cold and filled with killing intent.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Spiritual badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points] Each move was calcted, and each strike was precise. Michael danced between the guards, his sword and shield a symphony of destruction. He moved like a shadow, untouchable and lethal. As each guard fell, his dominance in the fight became more apparent, his skill unmatched by any present.
"We are ending the show today," Michael dered, his voice a quiet promise of retribution as he continued to cut down the guards, one after another, in a disy of unmatched martial prowess.
As the battle raged on, Michael''s prowess was undeniable. With each guard he dispatched, his experience points steadily umted. He was close to reaching the next cultivation stage, the Spiritual Embryo Realm, from his current Qi Awakening Stage, with 60,000 out of the required 100,000 experience points already in his tally.
When he dispatched the eighth guard with a swift, lethal strike, a surge of energy coursed through him, signaling a significant breakthrough. The system notification rang clearly in his head.
[Ding! Congrattions to Host for reaching the Spiritual Embryo Realm].
Michael, now even more empowered, continued his assault on the remaining guards. He moved with a confidence and skill that was awe-inspiring, dispatching his foes with ease, yet he hadn''t even tapped into his full godly abilities. His swordsmanship alone was enough to dominate the battle.
Turning his attention to the orc, Michael taunted him, "Didn''t Rainar give you more of his grace to absorb?" He reminded the orc of their previous encounter, where Michael had snatched a sliver of Rainar''s grace from him. "Seems like you''re still as weak as thest clone I fought." Michael snickered.
"You''ll pay for this, God of Darkness! Rainar will have your head!" The orc, enraged by Michael''s words and the loss of his men, roared back in fury.
The orc''s anger was palpable, his voice filled with hatred and the promise of revenge. Yet, in the face of Michael''s newfound power and skill, his threats seemed more like thest desperate cries of a defeated foe.
Despite the dire situation, the orc let out a snickering roar. "Kill me and I''ll juste back as another clone. You can''t stop me that easily," he boasted, his voice dripping with malice.
His gaze then shifted past Michael to Fayeth, who stood resolute behind him. The orc''s expression twisted into one of spite as he threatened, "I might not be able to kill a god, but I won''t stop until I kill Fayeth and everyone else you remotely care about."
Michael, unfazed by the orc''s threats, chuckled lightly. His confidence was unwavering, his demeanor calm yet menacing. "You''re noting after me," he said, his voice low and steady. "Because I''ming after you and Rainar."
Chapter 1161 Onto the gala of the gods
Chapter 1161 Onto the g of the gods
With swift and decisive action, Michael dashed towards the orc, his sword a blur of motion. In one fluid movement, he swung his de, cleanly severing the orc''s head from his body. The orc''s clone fell to the ground, lifeless, as Michael stood, his expression unyielding.
The system chimed in with notifications, acknowledging his victory.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the orc''s clone. The reward is 4000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
After dealing with the threat, Michael''s attention turned to the golden energy cage that still held his hollow armor. He regarded it for a moment before shifting his gaze to Fayeth, who stood next to the cage, her face a mixture of relief and weariness.
Walking towards her, Michael gently took off his long ck coat and draped it over Fayeth''s shoulders, covering her torn dress. The gesture was one of care and protection, a stark contrast to the violence and chaos that had just transpired.
Feeling the warmth of the coat around her, Fayeth looked up at Michael with gratitude in her eyes. Clutching the fabric close to her, she offered her gratitude. "Thank you." She whispered a heartfelt thank you to Michael.
Michael, examining the golden energy cage, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Now, how do I disable this thing?" he murmured, his gaze fixed on the glowing chakra beneath the cage.
Still trying to recover from the recent ordeal, Fayeth stuttered out a suggestion. "You can... destroy the ground around it and pull the armor out from underneath," she proposed, her voice still shaky.
As they spoke, Vedora crawled back onto Michael''s shoulder, settling infortably. "So, could we have destroyed the ground if we were trapped inside to escape?" Ayag chimed in curiously. Michael shook his head after hearing Ayag. "I don''t think that would work. The runes and arrays are likely designed to make any rogue god inside weak, preventing them from destroying the ground below," he exined.
Overhearing their conversation, Fayeth added a crucial piece of information. "These cages can only trap gods below level 4," she mumbled, revealing a limitation in the cage''s design.
Her input provided a new perspective on the cage''s capabilities and limitations, suggesting that while it was a formidable tool for containment, it was not infallible or all-powerful.
Then, Michael turned to Fayeth. "Stand back," said Michael calmly. He then positioned himself beside the cage and began to stomp on the ground with all his might. Each stomp was delivered with immense strength, causing the ground to crack and rumble under the force.
Ayag, watching the scene unfold with excitement, cheered him on. "Yeah! Smash it!" she eximed enthusiastically.
Sarba, however, was more cautious. "Careful. We don''t want to cause more chaos than necessary," he advised, aware of the potential repercussions of their actions.
Meanwhile, Fayeth, understanding the urgency of the situation, quickly sprang into action. She cast a spell that materialized arge, translucent green hand. The hand pressed against the temple''s door, exerting a force that effectively barred it shut. This magical barrier prevented the guards outside from entering the temple, giving Michael the time and space he needed to break open the cage.
Thebined efforts of Michael''s physical strength and Fayeth''s magical intervention created a powerful defense, ensuring they had control over the situation inside the temple.
As Michael continued to stomp, the ground beneath the cage began to break apart, each stomp sending cracks spider-webbing through the stone floor. Amid the crumbling ground, Michael turned to Fayeth, his focus shifting. "The invitation from your goddess Ava to Fortuna''s g, where is it?" he inquired, understanding its importance in their next move.
"I have it with me, in my space ring." Fayeth, still maintaining herposed demeanor despite the recent events, responded.
Then, surprisingly, her expression hardened with cold determination. "Go to the g, and kill Rainar. End his tyranny," she said, her voice firm and resolute.
Ayag, overhearing this, couldn''t help but chuckle. "Isn''t it a bit ironic? An angel of the Goddess of Healing talking about killing," she jabbed yfully.
Fayeth, unfazed by thement, exined with a sage-like wisdom. "Sometimes, amputating an arm is necessary to save a life. In the same way, taking one life can save many others." Her analogy highlighted the harsh realities they faced and the difficult decisions that sometimes had to be made for the greater good.
Her words reflected a deeper understanding of the situation, acknowledging that even healing could require painful choices, and that sometimes the mostpassionate act could involve a difficult sacrifice.
The hollow armor inside the cage finally gave way under Michael''s relentless stomping, tumbling into the crater he had created. He reached down into the cracks, carefully pulling out the armor from the rubble.
Fayeth watched, a slight hint of embarrassment in her tone as she admitted, "I thought for a moment you were actually trapped inside that cage."
Michael let out a light chuckle, tapping the skull emblem at the center of the armor. As he did so, the armor began to shrink, folding in on itself until it was small enough to fit inside the skull medallion. He then ced the medallion around his neck, a symbol of his ingenuity and preparedness.
"I''m not stupid enough to rush into a fight without a n," Michael said with a smirk, highlighting his strategic approach to battles.
Ayag, perched on his shoulder, beamed with pride. "We use our brains just as much as our brawns," she proimed, emphasizing the importance of intelligence and strategy in their endeavors.
"You can''t stay in Nimbosia any longer. It''s too dangerous. Go to Goldspire, seek refuge in Goddess Seshat''s kingdom," he advised, his tone indicating the seriousness of her situation.
Fayeth sighed deeply, her sadness palpable as she thought about the temple reduced to rubble by the orc and Rainar''s men. "The temple... and the people of Nimbosia," she murmured, her heart heavy with the thought of those she was leaving behind.
Ayag, always straightforward, interjected, "You''re no good to anyone dead. And we''re not the textbook heroes who will save the damsel in distress every time." Her words, though blunt, carried an undeniable truth.
Fayeth let out a small chuckle, appreciating Ayag''s directness. "I suppose you''re right," she conceded. Her gaze lingered on the temple ruins for a moment longer before she nodded in agreement, epting the necessity of her departure.
"I''ll go to Goldspire," Fayeth finally agreed, recognizing that her safety was paramount, and her presence in Nimbosia would only bring more danger to herself and potentially to others.
With a sense of resolve, Fayeth prepared to leave the ce she had known, understanding the sacrifices she had to make for the greater good.
As the conversation reached a resolution, Michael shifted the focus back to their immediate objective. "The invitation to the g, I''ll need it," he said, extending his hand towards Fayeth.
Fayeth looked into Michael''s eyes, her expression serious. "If you truly intend to kill Rainar, which is unheard of, be prepared for the repercussions," she warned. "The death of a god will create ripples across realms that no one can fathom."
For a moment, Michael''s typicallyposed face turned serious, a rare urrence that underscored the gravity of Fayeth''s words. He nodded solemnly, acknowledging the weight of whaty ahead.
"I''ve always done the impossible," Michael responded with a steely resolve. "I''ve risen above everything thrown my way, and this time will be no different." he finished calmly.
Fayeth, sensing his determination, offered a gesture of support. "May Goddess Ava''s blessing be with you," she said softly. With a flick of her wrist, a golden invitation materialized in her hand. It shimmered with an ethereal light ¨C the invitation to Goddess Fortuna''s g.
She handed the invitation to Michael, who epted it with a nod, understanding the significance of the artifact he now held. It was more than just a piece of paper; it was the key to their next move, a step closer to confronting Rainar and altering the course of this realm.
Sarba, perched attentively on Michael''s shoulder, eyed the invitation curiously. "This feels like a teleportation scroll infused within the invitation," he observed, sensing the unique energy radiating from it.
"Yes. Anyone in possession of this invitation can teleport directly to Goddess Fortuna''s g," she confirmed, highlighting the invitation''s magical properties.
Then, she looked at Michael with a serious expression. "Be warned, the g will be swarming with gods. Do not underestimate any of them," she cautioned.
As usual, Michael responded with his calm demeanor. "I''m not nning to attend the g in the usual sense. My aim is to observe and eliminate Rainar from a distance," he exined, outlining his strategy.
Fayeth sighed, her concern for Michael evident. She reached out, grasping his hand gently. "Even though you''re a god, please be careful," she urged him, her eyes reflecting her sincerity.
Hearing Fayeth''s genuine concern, Michael offered her a reassuring smile. "You don''t need to worry about me. To me, Rainar is just another target. Nothing more," he said confidently, his words imbued with the assurance of a seasoned warrior.
His response seemed to bring a measure offort to Fayeth, even as the weight of the task ahead loomed over them.
Leading the way, Michael guided Fayeth to the divine portal room, a ce where space and time seemed to converge. The air thrummed withtent energy, the walls adorned with ancient symbols that whispered of old magic. He adjusted the portal''s settings, tuning it to Goldspire, and with a deft motion of his hand, a swirling vortex materialized, its colors shifting and blending like a living kaleidoscope.
Turning to Fayeth, Michael offered a light-hearted farewell. "I''ll see you soon. And try not to get into any more trouble," he joked, a hint of a smile ying on his lips.
Fayeth, stepping towards the portal, nced back at Michael and offered a small smile in return. "I''ll do my best," she said, her voice tinged with gratitude. With a final wave, she stepped into the portal, her figure vanishing into the swirling vortex.
As the portal closed behind her, leaving the room in a momentary silence, Michael looked down at the invitation in his hand. "Now, let''s go to the g of the gods," he murmured to himself, his voice low but determined. The invitation, glowing faintly in his grasp, was his key to the next stage of his mission, a mission that held the fate of gods and mortals alike.
Chapter 1162 Michael is at the gala
Chapter 1162 Michael is at the g
Injecting a sliver of his energy into the invitation, Michael activated its teleportation function. A golden light rapidly enveloped him, signaling the beginning of his journey to Fortuna''s g. As the light intensified, he found himself whisked away, leaving the physical realm behind.
In mid-transit, Michael instructed the system to manipte the portal''s destination, intending tond at a discreet location away from the g''s epicenter. Momentster, he emerged on a hilltop, offering amanding view of the grand dome where the g was set to take ce. The sight was breathtaking, with the dome shimmering under the starlit sky, surrounded by the serene beauty of thendscape.
Sarba, observing the scene, couldn''t help butment on its beauty.
"This ce is incredible," Sarba noted, his voice filled with awe.
Just then, Michael heard Pink''s voice through his earpiece.
"Have you reached the g yet?" she inquired, her toneced with anticipation.
Michael, his eyes fixed on the dome and the figures of gods milling within responded.
"I''m here." The sight of the gods, powerful beings in their own right, did not deter him; rather, it reinforced his resolve.
Pink''s voice came through again, tinged with excitement, "This is it, huh?"
Michael nodded, even though she couldn''t see him.
"Now, we just wait for the g to start, and then it''s time to take down Rainar," he said, his voice calm yet resolute, outlining the final stage of his n.
Pink''s voice came through the earpiece with a note of strategy.
"Should we do our usual drill, or try something different this time? Our target is a god, after all." asked Pink.
Michael, surveying the g dome with a critical eye, replied,
"We''ll stick to the usual for now. But first, I need to assess the dome''s sturdiness and monitor the gods'' movements."
"I can''t see Rainar among the gods gathered there," said Sarba, utilizing his enhanced senses.
Pink''s voice came through again, tinged with disbelief and nostalgia.
"It feels like just yesterday we were taking down Earth''s scum, and now here we are, surveying gods," Pink eximed.
Michael let out a chuckle.
"My life has been quite a ride," he mused, reflecting on the extraordinary path his journey had taken.
"Quite a ride is an understatement," Pink retorted yfully.
Michael nodded, his gaze still fixed on the dome.
"I''ll contact you once I find Rainar and finalize my ns," he assured her.
"What''s your escape n?" Pink''s voice turned serious again.
Michael nced at the invitation in his hand.
"This invitation doesn''t have any energy left for teleportation, but I can use my portable divine portal to make a quick exit if needed," he exined, already thinking ahead to ensure a safe retreat afterpleting his mission.
Michael''s eyes lingered on the dome, which glistened magnificently under the sunlight. The surrounding vegetation added to the ethereal beauty of the location, making it seem like a scene from a fantasy.
Sarba, taking in the view, couldn''t help but describe it.
"Look at those crystal-clear streams winding around the dome, and the flowers... they''re like nothing I''ve ever seen," he said, his voice filled with wonder.
As Michael scanned the area, he spotted several herbs and ingredients that could be useful in his potion-making. He walked towards a particrly striking flower. It had petals that shimmered with a spectrum of colors, each movement reflecting light like tiny prisms. The flower seemed to pulse with a magical energy, an aura of enchantment surrounding it.
He plucked the flower carefully, then turned to Sarba and Ayag.
"We''ll wait until darkness falls," he exined.
"That''s when I can make the best use of my shadow teleportation and blend with the darkness. It''ll be easier to find weak spots, points of interest, and a suitable sniper nest under the cover of night."
His n was clear ¨C to utilize the advantages provided by the night to navigate the g with stealth and precision, positioning himself for the critical moment of his mission.
Vedora, agile and curious, climbed atop Michael''s head, positioning themselves for a better view of the g. Sarba, with his enhanced vision, focused intently on the dome, scanning the gathering of deities.
"There''s a god with mismatched eyes, one green and one blue," Sarba began, describing Lathander.
"He has ck hair and a crown shaped like a fox," said Sarba.
"Over there is Kranar," he continued, pointing to a god with blue-gray hair and lightning bolt tattoos on his forehead.
"He looks powerful, and there''s a stormy aura around him."
"Seshat is there too," Sarba noted. "She''s got that calm, knowledgeable look, and she looks calm as a sereneke,"
He then described three more gods.
"See that one with golden wings? He must be a god of light or sun. And there''s a dark figure, cloaked in shadows ¨C could be a god of the night or something like that but its unlikely since you are the god of darkness. Lastly, there''s a goddess with flowers in her hair, radiating life and nature."
Michael nodded, absorbing the information.
"Since Kranar and Rainar are at war, they''ll be keeping their distance from each other," he deduced. His statement indicated a careful strategy to use the enmity between the gods to his advantage.
Michael activated his Eyes of Darkness, enhancing his vision to get a better look at the gods gathered at the g. His gaze settled on the god draped in dark robes, exuding an aura of mystery and shadows.
"Who is that one, wearing dark robes and looking so... dark?" Michael mused aloud, intrigued by the figure that seemed to mirror aspects of his own nature.
Ayag, ever ready with a quip, chuckled lightly.
"Isn''t it funny? You, the God of Darkness, and there''s someone else looking like they could be the god of darkness too, all draped in dark robes," she joked, her tone light and yful.
Michael nodded, a slight smile ying on his lips.
"Seems like we might meet some interesting gods here," he said, his interest piqued by the diverse array of deities present.
Ayag then turned to Sarba and Michael, curiosity in her voice.
"Can either of you see Rainar?" she asked, aware of their primary target.
Michael scanned the area once more, his eyes piercing through the crowd of divine beings, but shook his head.
"No, I don''t see him yet," he replied, his expression turning thoughtful. Rainar''s absence was a puzzle, one that Michael knew he needed to solve quickly.
Michael casually sat on the edge of the mountain hill, his legs swinging over the edge as he surveyed the scene below. His attention was suddenly caught by an unexpected interaction. Seshat, the goddess among the gathered deities, turned her gaze in his direction and smiled, as if sensing his presence from afar.
The surprise was evident on his face.
"Did Seshat just look this way and smile?" he wondered aloud, slightly taken aback by her perceptiveness.
Sarba''s eyes widened in disbelief.
"Did she just look at us?" he asked, astonished at the notion that a god could detect them from such a distance.
"It''s got to be a coincidence, right? Or does she have some crazy kind of eyesight?" Ayag, ever the skeptic, chimed in.
Sarba, quick with a retort, jabbed at his sister.
"She''s a god, Ayag. They''re not exactly known for being ordinary," he said, his tone yfully mocking.
Inside the grand dome of Fortuna''s g, the atmosphere was alive with divine energies and the chatter of gods. Lathander, the God of Mischief, known for his yful nature, was at his element, charming and flirting with various goddesses.
He approached a tall goddess with flowing silver hair, her aura radiating moonlight.
"Ah, Lady Selene, your beauty tonight rivals the very moon you govern," he said with a roguish grin.
Selene, the Goddess of the Moon,ughed softly, her eyes twinkling.
"ttery will get you nowhere, Lathander. But it''s always amusing to hear," she replied, ying along with his flirtatious demeanor.
Next, Lathander moved to another goddess, one surrounded by a soft breeze and the scent of fresh flowers.
"Goddess Zephyra, I must confess, your presence is like a refreshing wind on a warm summer day," he flirted.
Zephyra, the Goddess of the Wind, rolled her eyes yfully.
"Lathander, always the charmer. But remember, winds can change quickly," she warned, her voice light but carrying a hint of her capricious nature.
As the day progressed, Lathander continued his light-hearted interactions. However, his attention soon shifted to Seshat, who was observing the festivities with a serene expression.
Approaching her, Lathander leaned in slightly.
"Seshat, do you ever get the feeling that we''re being watched? Because I certainly do," he said, half-joking, half-serious.
Seshat looked at Lathander, her smile enigmatic.
"Perhaps you''ve had a bit too much wine, Lathander," she suggested yfully, a rare joke from the usually stoic goddess.
Lathanderughed, genuinely surprised by her humor. "Seshat, making a joke? Now, that''s a rare sight!" he eximed, hisughter echoing around them.
After Lathander departed with a chuckle, leaving Seshat to her contemtive solitude, she turned her gaze subtly towards the direction where Michael was observing from afar. Her eyes, sharp and perceptive, seemed to pierce through the distance and the enchantments surrounding the g.
In a quiet, almost inaudible murmur, Seshat spoke into the air, her words carrying a weight of awareness and insight.
"Wee to the g, God of Darkness," she said, her voice a soft whisper, barely louder than a breath.
There was a knowing quality to her words, as if she was fully aware of Michael''s presence, despite the physical distance and his efforts at remaining concealed. It was a testament to her prowess as a goddess of wisdom and knowledge, hinting at her ability to perceive more than what meets the eye.
Chapter 1163 Picking Up The Sniper Nest
Chapter 1163 Picking Up The Sniper Nest
As the evening wore on, the night finally descended, cloaking thendscape in a serene darkness. The dome, a centerpiece of the g, began to glisten enchantingly under the night sky, lit by myriad lights that sparkled like stars. The ethereal glow of the dome stood out in the darkness, a beacon of divine presence.
Michael, observing the transition from day to night, noted,
"Tomorrow morning, the g will officially begin." His voice carried a hint of anticipation for the events that were to unfold.
Above the dome, unique and mind-blowing fireworks began to burst in the sky, painting the night with vibrant colors and patterns. Each explosion was a masterpiece of light and sound, a celebration of celestial powers.
"I sure hope there isn''t a god specifically for fireworks. They''d be having a st tonight, " Ayag joked, watching the spectacle with amusement.
Michael, his eyes still fixed on the dome, responded,
"Let''s use this darkness to our advantage. It''s time to survey the dome closer." His n was to utilize the cover of night to gather more information and strategically position himself for the next phase of his mission.
Under the cover of night, Michael began his detailed reconnaissance of the area surrounding the grand dome. Utilizing his shadow teleportation and blending seamlessly with the darkness, he moved like a ghost, undetectable to the casual observer. The dome, a magnificent structure, stood bathed in celestial light, surrounded by lush greenery and ornate sculptures that spoke of divine craftsmanship.
As he surveyed the area, Michael noticed Fortuna''s angels patrolling the vicinity. They were d in pink armor, their wings a soft shade of pink with feathers that shimmered under the moonlight. Their presence added an element of grace and beauty to the already surreal surroundings.
"Those angels in pink are quite a sight. They look... lucky." Ayag whispered, watching from Michael''s shoulder.
Sarba, with his enhanced senses, focused on the movements of the angels.
"They seem to be everywhere, keeping a vignt watch," he observed.
Michael nodded, recording every detail, every possible entry and exit point around the dome. His eyes were sharp, missing nothing.
As Michael watched, a guard patrolling near a cliff''s edge stumbled, his foot slipping. Just as he was about to fall, one of Fortuna''s angels swooped in, catching him at thest moment.
"Lady Fortuna''s luck shines on me tonight." The guard let out a relieved sigh.
In another area, another guard, attempting to light a torch in a particrly dark area, found his flint failing. As frustration set in, a sudden gust of wind blew, miraculously igniting the torch.
"Fortuna''s luck indeed." The guard looked up, chuckling.
Observing these events, Michael remarked to Pink over the earpiece,
"Fortuna''s influence is evident. Her guards seem to be walking charm bracelets."
"Seems like they don''t just guard the ce; they bring their own luck with them." Pink''s voice came through with a hint of amusement.
While Michael continued his recon, he identified several potential sniper nests and points of interest for his assassination n. High vantage points, secluded areas, and spots with clear lines of sight to the dome were all marked in his Environmental map.
"There," Michael pointed out to a secluded area with a clear view of the dome''s entrance.
"That spot offers a perfect vantage point. If Rainar shows up, I''ll have a clear shot." said Michael.
Ayag looked at the spot. "Good choice. Hidden, yet with a clear line of sight. ssic sniper''s nest."
As they moved on, Michael also noted areas where the shadows were deepest, perfect for his shadow teleportation.
"These spots will be crucial for quick movement and escape if things go south," he exined.
"The shadows are your allies. Use them well." Sarba said, nodding in agreement.
The night''s survey provided Michael with crucial information. He had mapped out the terrain, identified key locations, and understood the movements of the guards and angels. Every piece of information brought him closer to his goal ¨C the assassination of Rainar.
As the reconnaissance mission concluded, Michael looked once more at the dome, its beauty belying the danger and intrigue within.
"Tomorrow, everything changes," he murmured, a sense of resolve in his voice.
Shifting his focus, Michael initiated contact with Pink, updating her on thetest developments.
"Three potential sniper nests have been identified," he ryed, his tone methodical as he outlined the details.
"Behind a waterfall is the first location. It''s advantageous due to the natural screen provided by the water, masking noise and movement. However, the view is somewhat restricted. Timing the shot without visual obstruction will be key," he detailed, analyzing the spot in his mind.
"That sounds like a solid position, but you''ll need a clear moment to make your move," Pink responded thoughtfully over the earpiece.
Continuing, Michael described the second option.
"There''s a rocky outcrop overlooking the dome. It''s closer than the others, which means a better shot, but the risk of exposure is higher. Stealth is crucial there."
He then moved on to the final spot.
"The third is a tall tree with dense foliage, offering excellent cover and a clear line of sight. The major downside is its distance from the dome, making precision more challenging."
"Each spot has its own set of challenges. You''ll have to choose based on Rainar''s position and other factors at y." Pink said, mulling over the information.
"The decision will be made on-site, depending on how the situation unfolds. Patience is key for now." Michael said.
With themunication ended, Michael felt a sense of readiness. He had a clear understanding of his options and was prepared to adapt to the dynamic environment of the g.
Under the cover of night, Michael and hispanions, Sarba, Ayag, and Cain, gathered to discuss their strategy for the uing g. The air was filled with anticipation as they deliberated on the best course of action for sniping Rainar using the crossbow crafted from the ancient centipede''s corbone.
Sarba, ever the observer, weighed in first. "We need to locate Rainar as soon as the g starts. His position will determine our next move."
"Yeah, we gotta find that bastard quickly. We can''t waste any damn time once the show starts," Ayag interjected with her usual ir.
Hearing them, Cain, the smartest head among the three hydra heads, nodded in agreement.
"Identifying Rainar early is crucial. We should also decide on the sniper nest. Each has its pros and cons."
Michael listened intently before sharing his preference.
"I''m opting for the tree with the dense foliage. It provides the bestbination of cover and a clear line of sight. The distance is a challenge, but I trust in our weapon''s capability and my marksmanship."
He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in. "It''s secluded enough to reduce the risk of being spotted and gives us a broad view of the g. We''ll have the advantage of height and concealment."
The group nodded, understanding Michael''s reasoning. The tree offered a strategic position, bncing the need for stealth with the requirement for an unobstructed view. As the night deepened, they fine-tuned their n, each member contributing their thoughts and expertise.
As the night wore on, the conversation among Michael and hispanions took a spective turn. The notion of killing a god, something unheard of before, hung heavily in the air.
"Killing a god... It''s uncharted territory. There might be consequences we can''t even imagine. Could it disrupt the bnce of the divine realms?" Sarba voiced his thoughts first.
"Hell, who knows what''ll happen? Maybe there''ll be some crazy explosion of power, or it could create a void. Killing a god''s gotta fuck things up." said Ayag with a dark chuckle.
Cain, the intellectual head, chimed in with a more analytical approach.
"The death of a god could have ramifications on their followers and the domains they control. It could lead to a power vacuum, or even worse, a war among the remaining gods for dominance."
"We''re stepping into the unknown," Michael acknowledged.
"But whatever happens, we''ll be ready to face it. Our focus now is on the task at hand."
After a few moments, they all became silent, watching the night sky. Then,Michael''s voice broke the silence as he pondered the broader implications of their mission.
"I wonder what will be of Nimbosia, Rainar''s kingdom, if he falls. What happens when the God of Rain dies? Will another deity take his ce, or will a new god of rain be born?"
His questions hung in the air, reflecting the depth andplexity of the consequences their actions might have on the divine and mortal realms.
But on the other hand, Ayag, ever imaginative and unfiltered,unched into a series of spections about the immediate aftermath of a god''s death.
"Imagine if there''s a huge explosion, or maybe a shockwave of divine energy," she mused aloud. "Or what if killing a god tears a hole in the fabric of reality? Or releases some ancient, locked-away power?"
She continued, her ideas growing more oundish. "Maybe it''ll cause a cascade of events, like dominoes falling. Gods losing their powers, chaos in the realms, who knows?"
Michael listened to Ayag''s theories, a faint smile on his lips at her wild imaginings. While her spections were fanciful, they underscored the uncertainty and potential gravity of their undertaking.
As Michael gazed at the dome, illuminated under the starry sky with figures of gods moving within, he contemted the profound implications of their n. The weight of their actions, the potential upheaval in the realm of gods, and the unknown consequences of killing a god were all factors ying in his mind.
"We will find out tomorrow," he said quietly, his voice a mix of resolve and a bit of excitement.
Chapter 1164 Zorian, The God Of the Sun.
Chapter 1164 Zorian, The God Of the Sun.
The next morning, as the first rays of sunlight touched the sky, Michael reached his chosen sniper nest. Nestled high in the dense foliage of a tall tree, he settled into position, taking out his crossbow crafted from the ancient centipede''s corbone. With the crossbow in hand, he kept a vignt watch on the g entrance.
Below, the area outside the dome had been transformed. A red carpet rolled out, nked by vibrant flowers and borate decorations, all set to wee the gods to the g. The scene was a spectacr disy of celestial grandeur.
From his vantage point, Michael noticed a blue-haired goddess leading a procession of angels d in pink armor.
"She might be Fortuna," Michael surmised, observing her demeanor and the respect shemanded.
Through the scope of his crossbow, Michael scanned the arriving gods. Each god presented a unique aura, their divine presence unmistakable. He ryed his observations to Ayag, Sarba, and Pink, who werefortably perched on his shoulder.
"Fortuna has just arrived, leading her angels. The gods are beginning to gather," he reported quietly, his eyes never leaving the scope.
"This is it, then. The stage is set," Ayag said, her tone a mix of anticipation and tension.
"Keep a sharp eye out for Rainar. He won''t be far behind." Sarba added.
Through the crossbow''s scope, Michael''s attention was drawn to several notable figures. He spotted a charismatic god with mismatched eyes, one green and one blue, whom he had seen the night before but didn''t know by name. Nearby, the god d in dark robes caught his eye again, along with Seshat, who stood out with her calm, schrly demeanor.
"Why are all these gods getting weed again? Weren''t they already inside the dome, having their fun? What''s with this whole wee parade?" Ayag voiced her confusion.
Michael let out a light chuckle, finding humor in Ayag''s observation.
"This is the official start of the g. It seems like gods are no different than rich nobles when ites to such events. They enjoy the grandeur and ceremony just as much," he remarked, amused by the simrities between gods and mortal customs.
As he watched, Pink''s voice crackled through themunication device, her excitement palpable.
"I''ve just found a book with details of the gods. Describe them to me, and I''ll try to identify who they are," she said, the sound of rustling pages apanying her words.
Hearing her, Michael adjusted his scope, focusing on each god.
"There''s one here with a crown resembling a fox and eyes of different colors," he reported, observing the god''s yful demeanor.
"That''s Lathander, the God of Mischief, known for his whimsy and trickery," Pink quickly responded, her fingers skimming through the pages of the book.
Shifting his attention, Michael described another figure. "And there''s a god in dark robes, emanating a sense of decay."
"That would be Morbus, the God of gues. He''s often depicted in dark attire," Pink rified, her tone taking on a slight edge.
Michael then spotted a majestic figure. "Here''s one wearing golden armor, with a golden halo radiating around him."
"That must be Valorius, the God of Valor," Pink identified. "His presence is often associated with heroism and bravery."
Michael continued, "I also see a goddess with flowers in her hair, radiating life."
"Ah, that must be Flora, the Goddess of Nature and Growth," Pink deduced, flipping through the pages.
As Michael ryed the appearances of each god, Pink matched them with their names and domains from the book.
Ayag, unable to contain her curiosity, nudged her way into Michael''s line of sight and peered through the scope of his crossbow.
"Still no sign of Rainar," she observed, scanning the gathering of deities below.
"Is there a chance Rainar heard about what happened in Nimbosia and decided to skip the g?" Sarba asked with his voice filled with concern.
"It''s unlikely. Rainar wouldn''t miss an event of this magnitude. He''s too invested in his image among the other gods," said Michael.
Suddenly, Ayag''s attention was drawn to a new arrival.
"Kranar is here!" she eximed excitedly, spotting the familiar figure of the God of Lightning.
Gently moving Ayag aside, Michael took his turn to look through the scope. His eyes focused on Kranar, who was making his way towards the g, his presence unmistakable andmanding.
As the g continued, the sky above began to grow brighter, illuminated by a golden light that intensified with each passing moment. Sarba, sensitive to energy fluctuations, alerted Michael.
"I''m sensing energy levels off the charts," he said, his tone tinged with awe.
Michael, too, could feel the thick, almost palpable energy enveloping the area, apanied by a gentle warmth in the air. He looked up, and through the scope, he saw a figure descending towards the g. It was a muscr old man with flowing white hair and a thick beard, his physique radiating strength and ageless power.
Pink''s voice came through the earpiece, curious and expectant. "What are you seeing, Ghost?"
Michael described the scene. "There''s an old man, well-built, descending from the sky. He''s... incredibly powerful." He noticed an overwhelming, pulsating red aura surrounding the old man, signaling a level of power that even surpassed his own.
"Hold on, give me a moment," Pink responded, her voice trailing off as she presumably flipped through her book.
After a prolonged silence, Pink''s voice returned, nowced with a grave tone.
"That''s Zorian, the God of the Sun. One of the strongest and oldest gods in the pantheon. This changes things..." Her words hung heavy in the air, underscoring the significance of Zorian''s presence at the g.
"Since I know you''re not going to back down, you must make a quick escape after killing Rainar, before Zorian even catches a glimpse of you," Pink''s voice, now edged with urgency, came through the earpiece.
Ayag, her curiosity piqued, wondered about Zorian''s level of godhood.
"What level god is he? How powerful are we talking about here?" asked Ayag.
Pink responded, her tone suggesting she was scanning the book for information.
"The book doesn''t specify his exact level, but he''s likely either a Level 5 Celestial God or a Level 6 Elden God."
There was a brief pause before Pink continued, her voiceced with a stark realism.
"Either way, we are not even remotely close to taking down either of them, no matter which level Zorian is in. This makes our mission even more precarious."
Despite the revtion about Zorian''s presence, Michael remained his usual calm self. Through themunication device, he conveyed his unwavering resolve.
"This doesn''t change anything. Today, Rainar will die, and no god, not even Zorian, will be able to stop that." he stated firmly.
Pink, on the other end, let out a chuckle, though it was clear she was masking her worry.
"So, you n to continue your hundred percent assassination sess rate here too, huh?" she said, her voice carrying a mix of admiration and concern.
Michael, with a slight smile in his voice, responded confidently,
"Exactly. My reputation is on the line, after all." His statement was more than just bravado but it was a testament to his skill and determination.
At the g, amidst the gathering of gods, a respectful hush fell over the crowd as Fortuna, the Goddess of Luck, stepped forward to wee Zorian. She greeted him with a reverence that reflected his stature among the pantheon.
"Wee, Zorian, the God of the Sun. Your presence honors us," she said, her voice carrying a blend of respect and admiration.
Zorian, towering and authoritative, greeted Fortuna in return, his tone calm yetmanding.
"Thank you, Fortuna. It is a gathering worthy of the gods," he replied, his words echoing through the silent assembly.
All eyes were on Zorian as he scanned the crowd, his gaze finally resting on Kranar.
"I have been watching your war with Rainar. The pantheon is not pleased with this disruption. It reflects poorly on us all," he said, his voice resonant and firm.
Even Kranar, known for his defiance, remained silent, offering no retort to Zorian''s remark. The usual air of confidence around him seemed subdued in Zorian''s presence.
Zorian''s gaze then shifted as he inquired about Rainar.
"Where is Rainar?" he asked, his question directed at Fortuna.
"He should be here in a few minutes," Fortuna replied, her tone neutral yet respectful.
Zorian snickered at her response, his voiceced with a hint of contempt.
"So, the lesser gods now think arrivingte is the new trend," he remarked, hisment highlighting the subtle hierarchies and dynamics at y among the gods.
At that moment, the atmosphere within the g shifted palpably as Rainar made his entrance. His tall and muscr stature immediately drew the attention of everyone present, dwarfing the other gods inparison. He exuded an aura of power and authority, his presence alonemanding the space.
Upon noticing Rainar''s arrival, Zorian slowly turned around to face him. His gaze was cold and piercing, cutting through the air like a sharp de. There was a palpable tension between the two gods, felt by everyone in their vicinity.
In a voice that resonated with power and reprimand, Zorian addressed Rainar,
"Gods should be benevolent, not tyrants." As he spoke, Zorian''s form began to transform. He grew taller and more muscr, his figure expanding to dwarf even Rainar himself. This physical change was not just a show of might but a symbolic assertion of his authority and disapproval of Rainar''s actions.
From his sniper nest, Michael watched the scene unfold through his scope. As Rainar settled into the gathering, Michael murmured to himself with a focused intensity.
"The target is in sight," said Michael.
Chapter 1165 Firing the killing shot
Chapter 1165 Firing the killing shot
Michael carefully extracted a crossbow bolt, meticulously crafted from the centipede''s corbone, and locked it into the crossbow. He steadied his breathing, focusing on the task at hand.
"Diddle...Diddle...We are so little..." he murmured a mantra to calm his nerves under his breath.
With precision, he then adjusted the crossbow slightly to the side, a seemingly odd angle away from Rainar. This adjustment caught Ayag''s attention, prompting her to question his actions.
"Why are you moving the crossbow like that? It looks like you''re aiming away from Rainar," she asked, puzzled by his strategy.
Michael, maintaining his focus, exined his reasoning.
"It''s aboutpensating for external factors. The wind direction, the distance, even the slightest atmospheric changes can affect the trajectory of the bolt," he said, his eyes still on the target.
"At this distance, even a small miscalction can result in a miss. I need to ount for wind speed and direction, as well as the bolt''s drop over this range. It''s all about finding the perfect angle for the shot." He said with a steady voice.
Ayag listened, gaining a deeper appreciation for theplexity and skill involved in long-range sniping. Michael''s meticulous preparation and attention to detail were evident in his every move.
Adjusting his stance, Rainar stepped forward to address Zorian, his expression one of justification. Kranar followed suit, his demeanor equally resolute. The tension between them was palpable as they began to exin the root of their conflict.
"Zorian, the war started when Kranar encroached on my domain, Nimbosia. He began building a base of worshippers there," Rainar said, his voice firm, portraying himself as the aggrieved party.
"And in retaliation, you sent your angels and zealots to convert my followers, expanding your influence unrighteously." Kranar countered.
Their words painted a picture of escting tensions, a battle for power and followers between two gods.
Valorius, the God of Valor, known for his heroism and bravery, interjected with a tone of reason.
"But such actions bring more strife than resolution. Is this war truly in the best interest of your domains?"
Before Rainar could respond, Lathander chimed in, his voice light yet carrying a note of seriousness.
"And let''s not forget the artifact Rainarmissioned. It is designed to absorb Kranar''s angels'' lightning bolts and fire them back. It turned the tide of the war in Rainar''s favor." said Lathander.
His statement revealed a deeperyer of strategy and betrayal in the ongoing conflict. The gods present absorbed this information, their expressions ranging from concern to intrigue.
Zorian, his voice tinged with rebuke, addressed the gods gathered before him.
"This war reflects poorly on the entire pantheon. It''s true, as some believe," he nced momentarily at Seshat, "that we are slowly losing our way."
His gaze then shifted back to Rainar and Kranar, his expression stern and authoritative.
"Disputes like this serve only to weaken us, to distract us from greater threats," he continued, his words resonating with a sense of impending danger.
"Dagon, the Fallen God, ruler of Hell, is amassing his forces. He waits for opportunities just like this," Zorian warned, his tone grave.
"While we squabble over worshippers and domains, he plots to harm the realm of gods, to exploit our divisions," said Zorian.
The solemnity of Zorian''s words hung in the air, casting a shadow over the g.
Sarba, utilizing his enhanced hearing, ryed the conversation among the gods to Michael and his siblings.
"Zorian is chastising Rainar and Kranar. He''s warning them about Dagon''s growing power in Hell and how their conflict is weakening the pantheon," he informed them, his voice low but clear.
Ayag, upon hearing Sarba''s update, couldn''t help but snicker.
"They have no idea, do they? Dagon can''t even hold a torch against the threat we pose," she said, her chuckle carrying a dark undertone.
Herment underscored the confidence and potential danger their group represented, especially considering their current mission. While the gods were preupied with their internal squabbles and external threats like Dagon, they remained oblivious to the imminent threat posed by Michael and his team.
Michael, focused on his objective, listened intently to Sarba''s ount. The information was vital, offering insight into the state of mind and preupations of the gods, particrly their target, Rainar.
Suddenly, Lathander, ever the showman, strolled up to Rainar with his usual ir. As he positioned himself before Rainar, he inadvertently blocked Michael''s line of sight. From his vantage point, Michael watched through the scope, his target now obscured by the God of Mischief.
"Lathander is blocking my line of sight," Michael growled coldly, his frustration evident in his voice. The timing couldn''t have been more inconvenient, and the interruption was clearly unwee.
"That son of a bitch¡" Ayag, never one to mince words, let out a string of curses directed at Lathander. Her annoyance at the god''s untimely intervention was palpable, echoing Michael''s sentiment.
Just then, Pink''s voice came through the earpiece, her tone calm and rational.
"Be patient. Wait for Lathander to move. You''ll get your chance," she advised.
Michael took a deep breath, steadying his emotions and refocusing on the task at hand. The importance of patience in such a high-stakes situation was not lost on him. Despite the setback, he remained ready, knowing that the opportunity to take his shot could present itself at any moment.
As Lathander continued to obstruct his view, Michael adjusted the scope, taking the opportunity to scan the other gods present at the g. While surveying the scene, he was surprised to see Seshat nce in his direction once again, as if she somehow sensed his distant gaze. With aposed demeanor, she gracefully made her way toward Lathander.
Upon reaching Lathander, Seshat addressed him with a cryptic yet wise quote, her voice calm and poised.
"True wisdom often lies in knowing when to step aside," she said softly. Then, with a gentle touch, she subtly pulled Lathander aside, clearing Michael''s line of sight.
From his sniper nest, Michael watched this unexpected development with a mix of surprise and curiosity. It seemed as if Seshat was indirectly aiding him, although her motives remained unclear.
Sarba, witnessing Michael''s reaction, quickly ryed the incident to Ayag and Cain, who couldn''t see what was happening through the scope.
"Seshat just moved Lathander out of Michael''s line of sight," he exined, his tone one of disbelief.
Ayag, surprised by this turn of events, couldn''t help but express her appreciation for Seshat''s intervention.
"Well, that''s some divine intervention I can get behind," she remarked, a hint of admiration in her voice.
Delving deeper into the conflict, Zorian turned the conversation towards a more sensitive topic, addressing Kranar and Rainar directly.
"I am aware of the assassins you both sent to the cksmith Guild," he said, his voice steady but carrying an undertone of disapproval. The revtion visibly shocked both Kranar and Rainar, neither expecting their covert actions to be so transparent to one of the elder gods.
Rainar had sent assassins to eliminate the cksmiths who forged the artifact, aiming to prevent replication and tie up loose ends. Kranar, on the other hand, had dispatched his own assassins to recover the artifacts and eliminate those who had crafted a tool that could weaken his power.
Valorius, listening intently, joined the conversation with ament that reflected his role as the God of Valor.
"This war between you two has crossed lines. Rainar, forcing your people to worship through fear, flooding them as punishment for producing less worship energy. It is unbing of a god," he said, his voice firm and filled with a sense of justice and morality.
The exchangeid bare the extent of the strife between Kranar and Rainar, revealing the desperate measures they had taken in their battle for supremacy. Zorian''s knowledge and Valorius''s remarks highlighted the deteriorating situation within the pantheon and the need for a resolution.
On the other hand, amidst the tension unfolding at the g, Pink''s voice came through themunication device, breaking into Michael''s focus.
"Is your line of sight clear now?" she inquired, her toneced with urgency.
"Yes," Michael responded, his voice steady as he took a deep breath, steadying his nerves for the critical moment.
"Take the shot, Michael," Pink urged, her words echoing the gravity of the situation.
Ayag, who had been silently observing, took a deep breath and whispered,
"This is it." The air was thick with anticipation, the significance of their action hanging heavily over them.
Michael, with practiced precision, adjusted his aim, ounting for all the variables he had meticulously calcted. His finger gently rested on the trigger, the crossbow bolt poised and ready.
The world seemed to slow down as he exhaled and gently squeezed the trigger. The crossbow bolt, a deadly projectile crafted from the ancient centipede''s corbone,unched from the crossbow with a quiet whoosh, cutting through the air towards its target.
The bolt flew with lethal precision, the distance closing rapidly between it and Rainar. The moment was a culmination of nning, skill, and determination ¨C the first assassination attempt of a god in known history.
As the bolt neared its target, the oue of Michael''s shot hung in the bnce, reaching a heart-stopping moment of suspense.
Chapter 1166 Death of a god
Chapter 1166 Death of a god
As the crossbow bolt embedded itself into Rainar''s head, his body began to tremble uncontrobly, a sight that was both shocking and unprecedented. A shimmering, almost ethereal blood oozed from the wound, trailing down the bolt in a macabre disy.
The gods, who had never witnessed such a sudden and violent attack on one of their own, were thrown into a state of panic and disbelief. Their expressions mirrored the chaos unfolding before them. Even Zorian, the powerful andposed God of the Sun, was visibly shaken.
Seshat''s eyes widened in shock, her voice filled with rm as she asked,
"What is happening to him?" Her question hung unanswered in the air, adding to the growing sense of dread.
Zorian, in a rare disy of fury, roared out orders.
"Find the attacker!" he bellowed to Seshat''s angels, his voice echoing with authority and urgency. The angels, though equally startled, quickly sprung into action, their wings beating furiously as they scanned the area.
Meanwhile, Rainar''s body continued to tremble, releasing a powerful surge of energy that heated the air around them. The wind began to pick up speed, swirling into a glowing storm that seemed to reflect the turmoil and confusion of the moment.
The gods and angels, usually the epitome of divine calm and control, were now gripped by fear and uncertainty. Lathander, known for his yful demeanor, lost his usual ir.
"Is he dying?" His voice was tinged with disbelief as he asked.
In a desperate attempt to help, Zorian reached out to remove the bolt from Rainar''s head. However, when he finally pulled it out, blood gushed forth in a violent stream, leaving Rainar looking lifeless, his eyes void of any spark. The scene was one of utter despair and helplessness - a god, who was once thought to be invincible, nowy dying before them.
From his vantage point, Michael, realizing the gravity of the situation and sensing the impending storm, knew it was time to retreat.
"It''s time to get the hell out of here," he said urgently. He left a spyder on the tree to monitor the aftermath and quickly activated his portable portal.
As the portal whirled into existence, Zorian, sensing the teleportation, shouted.
"The attacker is escaping!"
But it was toote. Michael stepped into the portal and vanished from the scene, leaving behind a g thrown into turmoil.
The gods, still reeling from the shock, slowly began to grasp the reality of what had transpired. The unimaginable had happened - a god had been assassinated. The impact of this unprecedented event sent ripples of fear and disbelief through the divine gathering. They stood in stunned silence, their faces etched with a mix of horror, confusion, and the dawning realization that their world had irrevocably changed. The idea that a god could be killed, once unthinkable, was now a harrowing reality.
As the reality of Rainar''s impending death sank in, a hushed murmur spread among the gods. They exchanged looks of disbelief and horror, their divineposure shattered by the unprecedented event.
Whispers and exmations broke the stunned silence.
"Is this even possible?" murmured a lesser god, his voice barely a whisper, disbelief etched on his face.
"We are not invincible...," another god uttered, the realization dawning with fear and uncertainty.
"Who could have done this?" a goddess asked, her voice shaking as she looked around at her fellow gods, suspicion and fear mingling in her eyes.
"Is this truly happening?" whispered Flora, the Goddess of Nature, her voice barely audible over the growing storm.
Valorius, the God of Valor, stood rigid, his usual stoic demeanor reced by a look of grave concern.
"A god falls... This is a dark day for us all," he said solemnly.
Meanwhile, Fortuna, the Goddess of Luck, trembled visibly, her eyes wide with shock as she witnessed Rainar''s life ebbing away.
"This... this cannot be," she stammered, her voiceced with fear.
On the other hand, the environment around them began to react to the demise of the God of Rain. The once-clear skies started to roil with dark clouds, as if mourning the loss of their master. A cold wind whipped through the gathering, sending a shiver down the gods'' spines.
The air crackled with energy, the atmosphere bing increasingly vtile. nts nearby began to wither, as if the life force sustaining them was being drained away. Animals in the vicinity grew restless, sensing the disturbance in the natural world.
Zorian, usually somanding, appeared unsettled by the chaotic changes unfolding around them.
"This... This is the consequence of a god''s death. We are witnessing history... but at what cost?" he murmured, his voice a mix of awe and dread.
The scene was a terrifying testament to the power and influence of a god, even in death. The gods, for all their might, stood helplessly as they witnessed the catastrophic effects of Rainar''s demise, a stark reminder of their own mortality.
Suddenly, a blinding light burst forth from Rainar''s eyes and mouth, his body beginning to hover above the ground. The sight was both mesmerizing and terrifying, a clear sign that thews of nature were being defied in the wake of his demise.
Zorian, reacting quickly, waved his hand, and a stream of golden light from the sun enveloped Rainar''s body. The light seemed to be an attempt to contain the chaos, a desperate measure by the God of the Sun to manage the unfolding catastrophe.
Even Kranar, Rainar''s sworn enemy, could not hide his unease. The sight of Rainar''s death, the realization that a god could indeed be killed, sent a tremor of fear through him. His usual confident demeanor gave way to a hint of dread, acknowledging the gravity of what had just urred.
"Move away!" Zorian bellowed to the other gods, his voice booming with urgency. The area around Rainar was bing increasingly unstable, and the risk to those nearby was growing by the second.
Seshat, however, remainedposed amidst the chaos. She was one of the few who knew a god could be killed as well as who fired the crossbow bolt. But at that moment, she approached Fortuna, her friend, and spoke calmly.
"His soul is going to explode." Then, she gently pulled the Goddess of Luck away to a safer distance.
On the other hand, Valorius, embodying his role as the God of Valor, took charge of escorting the lesser and lower-level gods away from the danger zone. His actions were those of a leader, ensuring the safety of those who were more vulnerable.
Lathander, usually so full of ir and mischief, was visibly shaken. He mumbled to himself, stuttering as he tried to make sense of the situation.
"Who... who fired that crossbow bolt? Who has the power to kill a god?" His voice trailed off, reflecting the shock and disbelief shared by many.
As the situation grew increasingly vtile, the gods swiftly moved away from the g and the grand dome, leaving Zorian to contend with Rainar''s unstable body. Morbus, the God of gues, had already vanished into a dark mist, his departure marked by an enigmatic grin that left many questions unanswered.
Fortuna, her usuallyposed self now reced by a visage of fear and disbelief, stuttered, visibly shaken, stuttered as she struggled toprehend the situation.
"How... how is this possible? How could a god be killed?" she asked, her voiceced with disbelief and fear.
Hearing Fortuna''s question, Seshat responded calmly.
"Even gods, in their might and glory, are not beyond the reach of mortality," she said, her tone reflecting a deep understanding of the divine order.
"This day marks a turning point, a reminder that even the gods can be killed,"
Meanwhile, the storm outside grew more violent, the air heating up, creating an oppressive atmosphere. Despite the dark, roiling clouds overhead, not a single drop of rain descended despite the rain clouds and the storm.
"The world has lost rain," she said, looking at the sky. Her words carrying a mix of sadness and eptance.
"With Rainar''s dead, his domain lies dormant,"
Fortuna, trembling, turned to Seshat, seeking understanding in the midst of chaos.
"What''s happening?" she asked, her voice quivering with emotion.
"No more rain will fall until a new God of Rain is born or chosen," she exined, her statement highlighting the profound impact of Rainar''s death on the world and the gods.
Chapter 1167 God Killer Quest Completed
Chapter 1167 God Killer Quest Completed
The tension around Rainar''s trembling body reached a crescendo, and without warning, his form exploded in a burst of blinding light. The gods, having retreated a safe distance, looked on in horror and disbelief. But before the shockwaves of the explosion could reach them, an even more astonishing event unfolded.
A ck hole, an abyss of darkness, appeared out of nowhere, hovering above the spot where Rainar had been. It began to suck in the explosion''s energy and the very essence of Rainar''s soul, leaving the gods stunned and speechless.
"What in the realms...?" Lathander murmured, his usual mischievous tone reced by one of awe and confusion. His eyes were fixed on the ck hole, trying toprehend this unforeseen phenomenon.
Flora, the Goddess of Nature, clutched at her heart, her face a mask of fear.
"Where is all this energy going? Into that... that void?" she asked, her voice trembling.
Even Zorian, the God of the Sun, usually soposed and authoritative, could not hide his shock.
"This is beyond the bounds of our understanding," he said, his voice betraying a hint of uncertainty.
"Such a phenomenon... I have never witnessed anything like it."
As the ck hole absorbed thest remnants of the explosion and Rainar''s essence, it began to shrink, eventually disappearing as mysteriously as it had appeared. The area was left eerily calm, the only evidence of the recent events being the stunned expressions on the faces of the gods.
Valorius, the God of Valor, broke the silence, his voice filled with disbelief.
"Did we just witness... a god being killed? And his essence... absorbed by that ck hole?"
Fortuna, still trembling from the shock, could barely articte her thoughts.
"This is... a god... assassinated... and his soul..." She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.
On the other hand, Morbus, the God of gue, reappeared from the mist, his grin now reced by a look of contemtion.
"The rules have changed," he said quietly.
"The untouchable have been touched. The eternal have been ended."
"This will send ripples through all the realms. The bnce of power... it has been altered." Kranar, who had been silent throughout the ordeal, finally spoke in a low, serious voice.
After a while, Zorian gathered hisposure and addressed the assembly of gods.
"We must find this assassin. And we must understand the nature of this ck hole. Our very existence may depend on it."
The gods, still grappling with the reality of what had just transpired, exchanged looks of fear, confusion, and dawning realization. A deity had been killed, and the very fabric of their divine existence had been challenged. The event had shaken their beliefs to the core, leaving them to ponder the fragility of their immortality.
*******************
Emerging from the portal, Michael found himself in a secluded forest just outside of Goldspire. The tranquility of the area contrasted sharply with the chaos he had just left behind at the g. As he took in his surroundings, his vision was suddenly obstructed by the appearance of his updated system status.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Spiritual Embryo Realm
Godhood: Level 2 - Demi God
Experience Points: 0/200,000
Badass Points: 7,000,000
Worship Energy: 0
Skills & Spells:
Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 5 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 9
Environment Scanning - LVL 9
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 2
Meteor - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 6
Soul Eater - LVL 6
Soul Stare - LVL 5
Death Range - LVL 3
Shadow Teleportation
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted two levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 96% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation:?The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
The God of Darkness
The Dark Lord
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the realm of Gods and Mortal Realm
Grow the Order of Death
Utility Function:
Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 6,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 6-Star Alchemist
5-Star cksmith
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -?5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Queen of Shadows- Assassin (loyalty level 92%)
Adelia Wraith - (loyalty level 94%)
Maxine - Queen of Power. - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - King of War- Warrior (loyalty level 85%)
Sadie - Queen of Whispers- (loyalty level 70%)
Ricky (loyalty level 95%)
Titus and Optimus - Kings of Supplies (loyalty level 80%)
Gibson - King of the Skies (loyalty level 90%)
Corey - Queen of the Seas (loyalty level 90%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 93%)
Saber - King of the Undead.
Trista (loyalty level 83%)
Lenora (loyalty level 82%)
Base of Operation: The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Dark Ocean
Familiars: Nightmare (Currently in Soul Form) (Royal Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (45% Mastery), Fire (45% Mastery), Lightning (50% Mastery), Darkness (Mastery 45%)
Scanning through the new information, he noted a few key changes.
"Looks like my badass points have increased," he muttered to himself, observing the jump from 6,000,000 to 7,000,000. His gaze then moved to the ''Wordless Spell Caster'' skill, which was now absent, and the reduction in the Cloud of Darkness''s level boost.
"Seems like the system is adapting, changing as I evolve. Interesting and make sense," he pondered aloud, intrigued by the dynamic nature of the system.
While he was staring at his status window, his eyes narrowed as he considered the absence of experience points and questpletion notification for assassinating Rainar.
"Where the hell is the experience points for killing Rainar?" he questioned, his voice tinged with curiosity and a hint of impatience.
The forest remained undisturbed, its peacefulness contrasting sharply with the whirlwind of thoughts in Michael''s mind.
Michael''s gaze drifted to his system status once again, lost in thought.
"What''s the system ying at? No experience points, no questpletion... What does it mean?" he wondered, his voice echoing slightly in the stillness of the forest.
He let out a sigh, his breath misting in the cool air.
"I guess the assassination of a god isn''t just another task for the system. There must be more to it, something bigger at y," he concluded, his voice carrying a sense of realization and anticipation.
Suddenly, as Michael was mulling over the system''s apparentck of response, he was forcefully ejected from the system interface. The abruptness of the action caught him off guard, his thoughts interrupted by the unexpected turn of events. Before he could process what was happening, a ck hole materialized in front of him, its dark maw swirling ominously.
Ayag and Sarba, equally startled by this sudden development, voiced their shock.
"What''s happening now?" Ayag eximed, her toneced with rm.
As they watched, a crystalized energy, glowing with an intense light, shot out from the ck hole towards Michael. Reacting swiftly, he reached out and caught the energy crystal, his hand closing around it firmly.
At that very moment, the familiar chime of the system rang in his mind, delivering a long-awaited notification.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the God of Rain, Rainar. The reward is 120,000 Experience points and 40,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 60,000 Badass points]
The energy crystal in his hand pulsated, and as the Energy Devourer skill activated, Michael felt a surge of power coursing through him. The energy crystal was rapidly converted into experience points, fueling his rise in power.
Amidst this surge of energy, another system notification chimed in, marking thepletion of a significant quest:
[The quest ''God Killer'' ispleted¡]
[The host has received one million badass points¡]
Michael''s mind raced as he processed the significance of the quest''spletion. The quest, titled "God Killer - Seek retribution against Rainar and avenge Marli''s worshippers," had been a pivotal part of his journey. And now, the reward was finally revealed.
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive the location of a hidden base of operation in the realm of gods.]
As he stood there, still absorbing the influx of power and information, a map materialized in his hand. Unfolding it, he saw a new base of operation marked clearly on it, a location hidden within the realm of gods.
Upon looking at the map, Ayag leaned in, her eyes wide with curiosity as she peered at the map in Michael''s hand.
"What''s this?" she asked, her tone a mix of intrigue and excitement.
Michael held the map up, studying it closely. A grin slowly spread across his face, reflecting a sense of aplishment and anticipation for whaty ahead. The map represented more than just a location; it symbolized a new phase in their journey, a new base if operation.
"It''s our next big thing," Michael finally said, his voice carrying a hint of mystery and determination. The map in his hand wasn''t just a piece of paper; it was a gateway to new opportunities, a chance to expand their influence and power within the realm of gods.
Chapter 1168 Death of someone important (New Arc Begins)
Chapter 1168 Death of someone important (New Arc Begins)
Curiosity glinted in Ayag''s eyes as she leaned closer.
"So, what''s next for us?" she inquired, her voice echoing the excitement of their newfound venture.
Michael''s gaze shifted from the map to the horizon, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"First, we need to pick up Pink from the safehouse," he outlined their immediate n.
"Then, we''ll head straight to this new base of operation," said Michael.
Unfolding the map further, he examined it more closely, his finger tracing the lines and contours until it rested on a specific point. The name ''Kingdom Verdant Forest, '' the domain of the Goddess of Nature, Flora, caught his eye. A new realm, a new adventure.
With a chuckle, Michael looked up from the map, amusement evident in his tone. "Seems like we''re going to meet another goddess," he said, the prospect of encountering the Goddess of Nature adding anotheryer of intrigue to their journey.
Ayag''s smirk mirrored Michael''s amusement. The idea of venturing into the domain of a goddess, especially one as significant as Flora, was thrilling.
Then, Michael activated his portable divine portal, stepping through the swirling vortex that opened up in the dimly lit room of Pink''s safehouse. The sudden appearance of the portal startled Pink, who let out a surprised squeal.
"Ghost!" Pink eximed, her voice a mix of surprise and annoyance.
"A little warning next time, please?" she yfullyined.
Her reaction drew augh from Ayag, who couldn''t resist poking fun.
"Scared you, didn''t he?" she teased, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
Pink, not one to be easily flustered, responded with a yful smirk.
"Maybe just a bit," she admitted, her tone light and yful.
Her attention quickly shifted to the map in Michael''s hand.
"What''s that?" she asked, her curiosity piqued.
"It''s our new base of operation," Michael replied, a hint of pride in his voice. With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed the map to her.
Catching the map deftly, Pink unfurled it, her eyes scanning the details.
"Where did you get this? And how?" she inquired, looking up at Michael with genuine curiosity.
"Yes, where did you get it?" Hearing Pink''s question, even Sarba chimed in, echoing Pink''s question.
Michael responded with his usual calm demeanor.
"Let''s just say I have my ways," he said, a mysterious smile ying on his lips. The answer, while vague, hinted at the depth and breadth of Michael''s resources and connections. In other words, the system.
After a while, Pink''s practicality shone through as she inquired about their ability to travel to Verdant Forest without the necessary travel runes.
"Can we even get to Verdant Forest without the right runes?" she asked, her voice tinged with concern.
Michael nodded thoughtfully. "We can pick up a travel rune in Durran," he suggested, already formting a n.
With a hint of pride, Pink revealed, "Actually, I found a travel rune to Durran while I was cleaning up this ce."
"I had a feeling we''d be moving out soon after dealing with Rainar, so I decided to take everything we might need from here," she said. Her eyes gleamed with a sense of preparedness.
"Did you find anything else that could be useful?" Ayag, always looking for useful items, quickly asked.
Shaking her head, Pink replied, "No, that was pretty much it." Her response was straightforward, indicating she had been thorough in her search.
"That travel rune is going to be a great help," Michael acknowledged, appreciating the foresight Pink had shown.
Holding the portable divine portal in one palm and the metal card engraved with a glowing green rune in the other, Michael carefully ced the rune on the cube-sized device. The portal vibrated slightly as it absorbed the rune, a soft hum filling the room.
"Now, we can leave for Durran," Michael announced, his voice steady and confident.
With a deep sigh, Pink slung her bag over her shoulder, her half-orc physique making the action seem effortless. She took a moment to look around the room, a hint of nostalgia in her eyes.
"I''m going to miss this ce," she said softly, her gaze lingering on the familiar surroundings.
Michael, sensing the moment of departure had arrived, dered, "Let''s go," and stepped towards the swirling vortex of the portal.
Without hesitation, Pink followed, stepping into the portal right behind Michael. As they disappeared from the room, the portal closed behind them, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
**************************
Soon, Michael and Pink, with Vedora perchedfortably on Michael''s shoulder, materialized in a dark alley upon their return to Durran. The familiar sights and sounds of the bustling city greeted them, a stark contrast to the quiet seclusion of the safehouse they had just left.
Pink nced around the dimly lit alley, a sense of nostalgia washing over her. "It''s been so long since I was here," she remarked, her voice tinged with a mix of fondness and wistfulness.
Before Michael could respond, Sarba, with his keen senses, pointed towards a group of orcs moving along the street. They were all dressed in gray, their expressions somber and reflective. The unusual attire and demeanor of the orcs caught Michael''s attention immediately.
Pink''s eyes followed the direction of Sarba''s gesture, and her expression turned into a frown. "Orcs don''t wear gray unless it''s a sign of mourning, for someone important and dear to their kingdom," she exined, her voice low and serious.
Intrigued and concerned, Michael and Pink stepped out of the alley, blending seamlessly into the crowd. As they walked, they were struck by an unexpected sight. Portraits of Gilrut, the runemaster who had been instrumental in their journey, were disyed on various walls and carried by numerous orcs. Each portrait bore the words "Rest in Peace," a tribute to the fallen master.
The realization of Gilrut''s passing hit them both like a wave. The runemaster had been more than just an ally; he had been a crucial part of their story in Durran.
As Michael and Pink followed the crowd, they were enveloped in a sea of mixed emotions and hushed conversations. The orcs, humans, and a few elves within the crowd were engaged in solemn discussions about the tragic fate that had befallen Gilrut.
"He was brutally murdered, they say," whispered an orc to hispanion, his voice heavy with grief.
"Still no suspect... How could someone do this to Gilrut?" a human added, her tone reflecting a mix of anger and disbelief.
Elves in the crowd shook their heads in dismay. "Such a senseless loss. He was a friend to all races," one of themmented.
Pink, overhearing the conversations, muttered "Murdered?" in a state of shock. The reality of Gilrut''s untimely death was hard to grasp, especially under such violent circumstances.
Michael''s expression turned into a frown as he listened to the whispers around him. The crowd spoke of hidden details and conspiracy theories, fueling a sense of unease and suspicion.
"I heard the Durran guards are hiding the truth about the murder," an orc said quietly to his neighbor.
"Ritualistic style, they said. It''s frightening to think about," added another voice from the crowd.
"And they haven''t shown Gilrut''s body to anyone. Why the secrecy?" questioned a skeptical elf, her voice tinged with suspicion.
These conversations painted a picture of mystery and intrigue surrounding Gilrut''s death, suggesting that there was more to the story than met the eye. The hidden details and theck of transparency from the Durran guards only added to the growing sense of unease.
Pink''s determination was evident in her voice as she spoke to Michael, known to her as Ghost.
"I want to get to the bottom of this murder, and I want you to kill the murderer," she said firmly, her eyes reflecting a rare intensity.
"This is the first time I''m asking you for a favor," Pink continued, her voice earnest.
"I haven''t asked you for anything before, and I don''t have anything to give you in return-"
Before she could finish, Michael stopped her, his expression serious yet understanding.
"You don''t need to give me anything," he assured her. "Gilrut was a part of a greater n of mine. Whoever killed him, they didn''t just take his life; they interfered with my ns."
Michael''s tone hardened as he concluded, "And anyone who messes with my ns will face the consequences. They will die."
His words carried a weight of finality and a promise of retribution for the wrongs done to Gilrut and the disruption of hisrger strategy.
Pink nodded, her resolve strengthened by Michael''smitment. They both understood the gravity of the situation and the need for justice in the wake of such a heinous act.
(Read Chapter 1087 to refresh your memories)
After listening to the conversations, Michael and Pink discreetly slipped away from the crowd, blending into the shadows of Durran''s bustling streets. They had a new purpose now: to infiltrate the Runemasters'' Guild and speak with Officer Barug to gather more information about Gilrut''s murder.
Sarba, ever observant, suggested, "We should also talk to our heist buddies and the Vilnius gang. They might have heard something about this murder."
"You''re right," Michael agreed, his mind already strategizing their next moves.
"And I bet Elmer has some knowledge about this. He always has his ears to the ground."
As they moved through the city, Michael''s expression was one of determination and killing intent.
"It looks like we''ll need to extend our stay here in Durran," he stated, the implications of their extended mission clear in his voice.
Unbeknownst to Michael, this investigation would lead him down a path far moreplex than just solving a murder.
Chapter 1169 Ritualistic Murder
Chapter 1169 Ritualistic Murder
Michael swiftly made his way to the bamboo forest, leaving Pink to meet with Officer Barug. As he approached the dark alley, he took to the sky, flying towards the hidden location of the Vilnius gang''s hideout nestled deep within the dense bamboo forest. The forest canopy swayed gently in the breeze, the dark clouds overhead, setting a somber mood.
Landing quietly in the quaint camp, surrounded by small houses and shelters crafted amidst the thick bamboo, Michael''s presence immediately drew attention. Vilnius, in the midst of beating the hell out of two of his gang members, froze mid-action, his fists still raised. For a brief moment, shock registered on his face before recognition set in.
A look of unease and surprise shed in Vilnius''s eyes as he straightened up, his gaze fixed on Michael.
"You''ve returned," he said, his voice tinged with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.
Michael, without a word, gestured towards one of the more secluded buildings, indicating his desire to speak in private. Vilnius nodded, understanding the need for discretion, and signaled the others to continue without him.
As they walked toward the secluded building, Vilnius couldn''t help but recall vividly the day when John had overpowered him. The memory of being subdued with a potent poison and subjected to a private, intense torture still lingered in his mind. That encounter had been a pivotal moment, reshaping the dynamics of the Vilnius gang and his role within it.
But after Michael''s departure, Vilnius regained his position as the unchallenged leader of the gang. Freed from answering to him, Vilnius had steered the gang ording to his own vision, enjoying the autonomy and power that came with his role as he did before Michael came into the picture. However, with Michael''s unexpected return, that sense of unchallenged leadership seemed to be on the brink of change.
As they entered the building, a sense of inevitability hung in the air. Vilnius knew that whatever the reason for Michael''s return, it signified a shift, a potential end to his time as the gang''s uncontested leader.
Once Michael entered Vilnius''s room, he confidently took the gang leader''s chair and leaned backfortably. Vedora, the three-headed serpent, leaped down onto the table, fixing its gaze on Vilnius. The gang leader felt a hint of unease under the serpent''s scrutiny but managed to maintain hisposure.
"So, what were you up to while I was away?" Michael inquired casually, his eyes on Vilnius.
Vilnius, trying to mask his difort, responded, "Just the usual heists and some recon work. I assume you won''t disclose what you''ve been doing during your absence," his tone was cool, almost challenging.
Michael, however, momentarily ignored Vilnius''s question. His attention was drawn to the window, where he observed the dark rain clouds. "Has it been raining?" he asked, seemingly out of curiosity.
Vilnius, puzzled by the abrupt change in topic, frowned before replying, "Hmm, no." He couldn''t fathom why Michael would ask such a question. For Michael, this observation confirmed a suspicion. The world might indeed have lost rain since he had eliminated the god of rain, Rainar.
Despite this startling realization, Michael''s focus remained on uncovering Gilrut''s murderer. The absence of rain was significant, but he knew the Pantheon would address it, or perhaps a new God of Rain would emerge.
Returning to the matter at hand, Michaelmented, "I expect you''ve stored my share of the heists separately." Vilnius, slightly irritated, pointed towards a drawer. Michael, with a smile, opened the drawer and found a space ring filled with stacks of gold coins.
"Good," Michael noted, pocketing the space ring.
Vilnius then cautiously broached a topic of concern. "Did youe back to start a new heist? After what happened in Eden''s Garden, we''ve been under a lot of scrutiny. So, try not to target anything as high-profile as Eden''s Garden again, at least for now," he warned.
Michael, however, was not there to initiate another heist, much to Vilnius''s relief. His return to Durran had a different purpose, one that was yet to unfold.
Michael, shifting the focus of their conversation, brought up the topic that had been weighing heavily on his mind. "I need to know more about Gilrut''s death," he stated, his voice carrying a sense of urgency.
Contemting Michael''s words, Vilnius leaned back.
"I''ve heard rumors too," he began.
"There are whispers in the underworld that his death is more than just a murder. It''s being talked about as if it''s a message of some sort."
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
"Even the big yers in the underworld seem to be steering clear of this one. It''s like they know something we don''t. It might be wise for us to avoid getting involved," Vilnius advised, a hint of caution in his tone.
However, Michael was resolute. "Ask about it discreetly. I need information on this murder," he insisted.
"Why? What''s so important about this murder to you?" Vilnius asked, raising an eyebrow. Curiosity was evident in his expression.
Michael''s response was straightforward, tinged with a personal sentiment.
"Gilrut was important to me. I need to get to the bottom of this, find out who''s responsible," he dered, his determination clear.
Vilnius, sensing an opportunity, probed further into Michael''s interest in Gilrut''s murder. He was always on the lookout for any leverage that could give him an upper hand, even against someone as formidable as Michael.
Before Vilnius could delve deeper, Ayag interrupted with a chuckle. She began to tell a short story, one that seemed to be a warning wrapped in a fable.
"Once in a dense jungle," she began, "there was a curious little fox. This fox had a habit of poking its nose into every affair, every mystery it came across. One day, it heard a loud roar deep within the forest. Driven by its curiosity, the fox followed the sound, hoping to discover something exciting." Ayag paused for a moment before continuing.
"The deeper it went, the louder the roar became, until it found itself at the mouth of a cave. Inside, there was a sleeping lion, the king of the jungle. The fox, unable to control its curiosity, crept closer. But in its eagerness, it stepped on a twig, snapping it. The sound woke the lion, who, in his anger, caught the fox and ended its life."
Ayag''s voice was steady as she concluded her story.
"The moral of the story? Sometimes, curiosity can lead you to danger, especially when it involves matters that are best left alone. It would be wise, Vilnius, not to be too cunning against us."
Vilnius, taking in the story and its implicit warning, nodded slowly, a newfound caution in his demeanor. He realized delving too deep into Michael''s reasons might not be in his best interest. In the world they inhabited, some curiosities were better left unsatisfied.
"Find out whatever you can about Gilrut''s murder. And send Elmer to meet me." Michael gave Vilnius his final instructions, a firm tone in his voice.
As the orc walked away, Ayag pondered aloud, "Who would have killed Gilrut to make even the underworld shy away?"
"I have a bad feeling about this. It''s like we''re groping in the dark here." Cain, usually the more reserved one, voiced his unease.
Michael shared Cain''s sentiment, feeling the weight of the unknown variables in this situation. Yet, he chose to remain silent, his thoughts kept to himself.
Suddenly, Pink''s voice, filled with horror and fear, broke through the silence in his head via the earpiece.
"Ghost..." she began, her voice trembling.
Hearing her voice, Michael''s expression turned serious.
"Are you in trouble?" he asked, concern evident in his tone.
Through the earpiece, he heard Pink''s response, choked with emotion.
"It''s Gilrut''s body..." Her words were abruptly cut off by the sound of her vomiting, a clear sign of distress.
Michael''s frown deepened at this turn of events. Without a word, he stood up decisively, ready to leave the room and meet Pink. Whatever she had discovered about Gilrut''s body was serious enough to shake her usuallyposed demeanor.
Listening intently, Michael stood still as Pink''s voice,ced with horror, came through the earpiece.
"I''ve seen many bodies, many deaths, but this... this is different," she confessed, her voice quivering with emotion.
Michael remained silent, giving her space to continue.
"This wasn''t just a murder," Pink stammered, struggling to articte the gruesome details.
"It''s something else, something far more sinister. Gilrut''s eyes... they were gouged out while he was still alive." Her voice was a mix of shock and revulsion.
She took a deep, shaky breath before continuing. "The killer didn''t just kill him. He tortured him. There''s a smell of healing potion on his body, which suggests the killer was healing him... to keep him alive for more torture." Her words painted a picture of a chilling, calcted brutality.
"Gilrut''s limbs were methodically cut, and he was gutted..." Pink''s voice trailed off, and Michael could hear her vomiting once again, the gruesome details overwhelming even her seasonedposure.
Michael''s expression hardened as he processed the information.
"Sit tight, Pink. I''ming there," he said, his voice steady but filled with a grim determination. The nature of Gilrut''s death was not just a murder; it was a message, a cruel and barbaric one, and he was intent on uncovering the truth behind it.
After ending themunication with Pink, Michael stood in contemtive silence for a moment. He finally broke the quiet, speaking more to himself than anyone else.
"The rumors in the crowd were right. This wasn''t just a murder, it was a ritualistic killing," he said, his voice reflecting a mix of realization and concern.
The air around them seemed to grow heavier with the gravity of his words. A ritualistic murder suggested motives far moreplex and sinister than a simple act of violence. It hinted at darker forces at y, ones that they were only beginning to understand.
Cain, who had been quietly observing the exchange, spoke up again, his voice tinged with a sense of foreboding.
"I have a bad feeling about this," he repeated, his warning more urgent this time.
Chapter 1170 Identity of the killer
Chapter 1170 Identity of the killer
After exiting Vilnius''s room, Michael propelled himself skyward, swiftly cutting through the air as he headed straight for Durran. Eventually, he descended gracefully onto the roof of the three-story building that housed the barracks of Officer Barug, the captain of the city guard. "Let''s use our little friends," Michael said, taking out the drones, Deploying drones, he sent them flying around the building to survey the area and provide him with additional eyes.
Meanwhile, the dark clouds above loomed ominously, yet no rain fell. It was a stark reminder of the consequences of Rainar''s death. "There it is, our way inside,"Michael peered through the drone feed and spotted an open window on one of the building''s upper floors. Without hesitation, he jumped off the ledge and, focusing on a shadow through the open window, used his shadow teleportation ability to transport himself inside.
He found himself in a room lined with book racks filled with parchments. A quick nce around confirmed it was some sort of archive or storeroom. Michael immediately contacted Pink through his earpiece. "I''m inside the building. Where are you?" he asked.
"Come to the underground dungeon," Pink''s voice responded, her tone urgent. "But watch out for the guards."
"Can''t she just tell Barug to let us in?" Perched atop Michael''s shoulder, Ayag interjected.
"Barug is only helping us off the books. He''s been ordered not to let anyone near the body, so he''s already taking a big risk by letting me and you see it." Pink''s response came swiftly,ced with a hint of tension.
Hearing Pink''s words, Michael could tell that the situation was delicate, and he knew they needed to tread carefully.
Stealthily, Michael began his descent from the third story to the underground dungeon. He blended seamlessly with the shadows, moving with the silence and precision of a predator. His shadow teleportation ability allowed him to bypass obstacles and guards undetected, while his X-ray vision revealed the movements and positions of soldiers even through the walls.
The soldiers patrolled the corridors, unaware of the unseen observer among them. Their conversations, a mix of rumors and suspicions, filled the dimly lit hallways.
"Have you heard the whispers about Gilrut''s murder?" one soldier asked another in a hushed tone.
"Yeah, why all the secrecy? It''s not like we haven''t seen dead bodies before," replied the other, his brow furrowed in confusion.
In another corner, a group of soldiers discussed recent heists. "Those small heists must be Vilnius''s gang, but that grand heist in Eden''s Garden... it was too well-nned. Vilnius isn''t capable of something that sophisticated."
"I''ve heard rumors that someone else might be calling the shots in the gang now. The Eden''s Garden heist was too meticulous for Vilnius''s usual style." One of them chimed in.
The soldiers'' conversations shifted to Officer Barug and his special team. "They''re definitely hiding something. I heard Barug saw something strange during the heist. Something that shook him up."
Another added, "And now they''re keeping Gilrut''s body under wraps. It''s like they''re afraid of something, or someone."
As Michael reached the first floor, the tension in the air was palpable. The soldiers'' discussions painted a picture of unease and suspicion within the ranks. Their spections about the heists, the strange secrecy surrounding Gilrut''s death, and Officer Barug''s unusual behavior hinted at deeper mysteries yet to be unraveled.
As Michael stealthily made his way through the building, he couldn''t suppress a smirk, thinking back to hisst encounter with Officer Barug. He vividly remembered how he had thoroughly outmatched Barug and his team during theirst confrontation.
Ayag, whispering from his shoulder, noted, "Seems like Barug and his team have been keeping what happened inside Eden''s Garden from the rest of the guards."
"Yeah," Michael replied quietly, "To them, I''m just the human who volunteered to go into Ridon Funds during the hostage situation orchestrated by Elmer. They have no idea about the real story."
Ayag chuckled mischievously. "Imagine Barug''s face if he ever finds out it was us who pulled off the Eden''s Garden heist and that we''ve been calling the shots in the Vilnius gang."
Michael''s smile widened in amusement at the thought. Moving closer to the staircase leading to the dungeon, he found two orc guards nking the entrance, their attention focused on their duty. Blending into a nearby shadow, he became virtually invisible, observing the guards carefully.
"We need a distraction," Michael murmured, already formting a n in his mind to bypass the guards without raising any rms. His mind raced with possibilities, each scenario running through his head as he prepared to make his move.
After a while of quick nning, Michael noticed an ale barrel in the corner. Then, Michael carefully ced a small drone on the ground. The floor was a bustling scene of activity, with soldiers in armor walking between tables and cubicles, their attention focused on the parchments and documents scattered everywhere.
The drone, a subtle blend of stealth and technology, began to inch its way under the tables, moving unnoticed among the legs of chairs and desks. Michael controlled it with his mind, guiding it skillfully through the maze of office furniture.
His target was therge ale barrel stored in a corner of the room. Using the drone''s mechanical des, he expertly cut a hole in the barrel. The sound of ale spilling onto the floor was not loud, but it was enough to catch the attention of the two orc guards by the staircase.
Alerted by the unusual noise, the guards left their post, joining others to investigate the source of the disturbance. This was the moment Michael had been waiting for.
Seizing the opportunity, he used shadow teleportation to move swiftly and silently into the staircase. He descended rapidly, navigating the stairs with practiced ease, his presence undetected.
Michael arrived in the dungeon to find Pink and Officer Barug.
The dungeon was a stark contrast to the activity-filled floors above. It was dimly lit, with the light casting long, eerie shadows across the cold stone walls. The air was musty, heavy with the scent of damp earth and old stone. In the center of the room, a table draped in white cloth stood solemnly, drawing immediate attention.
Pink was standing by the table, her expression somber as she observed the covered shape on it. Officer Barug, meanwhile, was engrossed in examining some items sealed within a transparent bag, his brows furrowed in concentration.
As Michael approached them, Barug looked up, his eyes widening in recognition. "Wait a minute... I know you," he eximed, a look of realization dawning on his face. "You''re John!" he said, recalling their previous encounter.
Then, his expression shifted to one of suspicion. "You''re not just some regr runemaster, are you?" Barug asked, his toneced with skepticism.
Michael offered a small, knowing smile. "Let''s just say I''m a friend, Officer Barug. I would have approached you directly if not for the secrecy surrounding Gilrut''s death," he replied smoothly, his words carefully chosen to blend truth with deception.
Barug scrutinized Michael from head to toe, searching for any signs of deceit. But Michael was skilled at masking his true intentions, and his words carried enough veracity to convince Barug.
Interrupting the moment of tension, Pink spoke up urgently. "Let''s focus on the matter at hand," she said, her voice firm.
Barug let out a heavy sigh, his gaze shifting back to the items in the bag. "Normally, I wouldn''t involve outsiders who I don''t fully trust, especially in a case as sensitive as this," he admitted. "But this murder is anything but normal. I need fresh eyes on this."
With that acknowledgment, the trio turned their attention to the task at hand, ready to delve into the mystery of Gilrut''s unsettling demise.
Vedora, sensing the gravity of the situation, decided to y the part of a silent pet. With an almost intuitive understanding, the hydra crawled into Michael''s pocket, remaining quiet and unobtrusive.
As they approached the table, Michael turned to Pink with a hint of concern. "You don''t have to look," he offered gently, aware of the disturbing sight that awaited them.
Pink, however, was resolute. Shaking her head firmly, she insisted, "I need to see this. Your observations are important, but I need to understand what we''re dealing with."
Standing nearby, Barug sighed heavily, the weight of the situation evident in his demeanor. "This had better be worth the risk," he muttered, his voice tinged with a mix of worry and anticipation.
Hearing Barug, Pink''s response was immediate and firm, a strong note of conviction in her voice as she defended Michael. "He''s the best. You''ll see," said Pink.
With everyone''s attention now focused on the table, Michael reached out and carefully removed the cloth covering it. Whaty beneath was a macabre sight: the remains of Gilrut''s body, or rather, the parts of it. The gruesome scene was a stark testament to the brutality of the murder, a chilling disy of calcted cruelty.
As Michael was studying the body, Barug, with a grim expression, began detailing the injuries to Michael. He pointed to various parts of Gilrut''s remains as he spoke, his voice steady despite the gruesome subject matter.
"The killer didn''t just want him dead; he wanted to inflict pain," Barug exined, indicating the areas where the injuries were most severe. "See here and here," he said, pointing to specific wounds. "These cuts... they''re methodical, precise. It''s like the killer had all the time in the world."
He paused for a moment, his gaze lingering on the horrific sight before continuing. "There''s a strong smell of healing potion mixed with the blood," he added, his voice tinged with disgust. "It seems the killer used it to prolong Gilrut''s suffering, healing him just enough to keep him alive through the torture." said Barug.
Barug then gestured towards the disembodied limbs. "His limbs were systematically severed," he said, his tone clinical but strained. "And look at the abdomen - he was gutted, almost as if the killer was searching for something, or perhaps it was just to add to the cruelty of the act."
Michael leaned closer, examining the serrated skin marks with a practiced eye. Recognizing the distinctive pattern left by the de, a realization dawned on him. "I know this work... this de. It''s her," He murmured, speaking softly to himself.
Chapter 1171 Rins Threat
Chapter 1171 Rin''s Threat
Pink noticed an uncharacteristic seriousness etching Michael''s face as he studied Gilrut''s remains. Without a word, Michael activated the spyder attached to the skull medallion around his neck, recording the state of the body for further analysis.
Leaning in, he used his Eyes of Darkness to examine the skin around the cuts more closely. To the naked eye, the marks seemed random and chaotic, but through his enhanced vision, Michael discerned faint letters etched into the skin ¡ª details too subtle for others to see.
Barug, observing Michael''s intense scrutiny, broke the silence. "Do you see something we missed?" he inquired, hope and unease mingling in his voice.
Michael straightened up, his expression unreadable. "This level of violence is troubling," he began, his tone measured. "There''s a possibility the killer might strike again."
In his mind, Michael had a strong suspicion of who the killer was, but he chose not to disclose his thoughts to Barug. Instead, he offered a piece of advice. "Increase security around the Rune Masters'' Guild and other important figures in the kingdom." said Michael.
In return for Michael''s words, Barug could only let out a frustrated sigh. "It''s easier said than done," he admitted. "King Grathok has ordered us not to rm the citizens. Ramping up security will only raise questions among the nobles. They''ll demand answers, and that will lead to more chaos than Gilrut''s death has already caused."
Michael reassured Barug, "We''ll look for some answers on our own and keep you updated."
Barug''s frown deepened as he asked, "Are you nning to break thew?"
Michael''s response was smooth, a perfect blend of sincerity and deception. "Of course not, Officer Barug," he assured him. "I just have some contacts who might pick up whispers in the underworld."
Relief washed over Barug''s features. "That would be helpful," he admitted, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.
Before leaving, Michael paused to look at Gilrut''s covered body. In a soft, respectful tone, he said, "Rest in peace, my friend." It was a small gesture, but one filled with genuine sentiment.
Pink then approached Michael and whispered, "There''s a hidden pathway in the dungeon that leads outside. I''ll show you."
"Lead the way," Michael replied, following her as she moved towards a section of the dungeon wall.
Before stepping through the hidden door, Michael turned to Barug onest time. "Be careful, Officer," he said, a hint of concern in his voice.
"You too," Barug responded, watching as Michael and Pink disappeared through the doorway, leaving the somber confines of the dungeon behind.
*****************
Once they stepped onto the bustling streets of Durran, the murmur of the crowd filled their ears. People were muttering about the strange weather, the dark rain clouds overhead that refused to release a single drop of rain, despite the asional rumble of thunder.
"Looks like the gods are teasing us with rain," one passerby said with a hint of frustration in his voice.
"Yeah, all thunder and no rain. What''s going on?" another chimed in, their conversation a clear indication that the citizens were unaware of the assassination of Rainar, the God of Rain.
Michael and Pink, blending into the crowd, made their way to a quieter part of the street, finding sce under an apple tree, sitting on a bench. Around them, the street vendors continued their day, stalls bustling with activity and stores inviting customers in with their array of goods.
Under the tree''s shade, Pink turned to Michael, her voice low. "What did you learn from Gilrut''s body?"
Michael took a deep breath, his mind reying the grim details he had observed. "The serrated marks on Gilrut''s body... they match a dagger I''ve seen before," he began, his voice steady. "The precision, the brutality, and the apparent enjoyment of the killer... it all points to one suspect, Rin."
At the mention of Rin''s name, Pink felt a chill run down her spine, her heart skipping a beat. The thought of Rin, known infamously as the Princess of Murder and the chosen one of the God of Murder, being behind such a heinous crime was almost too much toprehend.
She looked at Michael, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Rin? The Princess of Murder?" she whispered, the words barely escaping her lips. The very idea seemed surreal, yeting from Michael, it was hard to discount.
A shiver ran through her body, not just from fear, but from the realization of the gravity of the situation they were now embroiled in. If Rin was indeed the perpetrator, they were dealing with someone who was not only deadly but also favored by the God of Murder himself.
Michael''s expression grew solemn as he considered Pink''s words about Rin''s unpredictability. "Rin''s promise to torment everyone we know... it seems she''s begun to make good on that threat," he said gravely.
"We need to ensure everyone''s safety, especially Fayeth and Rurik. They''re in immediate danger because of our connections." Pink said, anxiety etching her features.
Michael agreed as his thoughts turning to Seshat. "We should reach out to Seshat for help. Her protection might be our best bet."
"But that could put Seshat in a difficult position, especially now that we''ve assassinated Rainar," Pink pointed out. "The pantheon will be in an uproar, searching for the killer. Associating with us might draw unwanted attention to her."
As they discussed their options, Vedora emerged from Michael''s pocket, adding anotheryer of concern to their conversation. "We also can''t forget about Raphael," the hydra noted. "He''s still out there, hunting us."
"Our first move should be to secure our new base of operations. Once we''re settled, we can n our next steps and reach out to Fayeth and Rurik."
Pink sighed, understanding the weight of their decisions. "Let''s hope we can stay a step ahead of both the pantheon and Raphael."
With their course of action decided, Michael and Pink prepared to leave for their new base. The urgency of their situation was clear: they had to act swiftly and cautiously to protect those they cared about and navigate the dangerous aftermath of Rainar''s assassination.
Finally, Michael looked at Pink, his voice steady. "We need a travel rune to Verdant Forest. That''s our next step." said Michael.
"The Celestial Pce should have what we need. It''s our best chance to find a travel rune." Pink said, nodding in agreement. With a n in ce, they made their way towards the Celestial Pce, navigating through the bustling streets of Durran. As they walked, a small figure collided gently with Michael.
"Oh, sorry," the little girl said timidly, looking up at him with innocent eyes.
Michael smiled kindly, ruffling her hair. "No harm done, kid," he assured her before continuing on his way. Suddenly, the girl''s voice shifted, losing its childlike innocence. "Should I call you John, Ghost, or the God of Darkness?" she asked, her tone chillingly familiar.
Michael froze, slowly turning to face the girl. Her eyes had transformed, now a stark white, mirroring Rin''s haunting gaze. The sudden change sent a shiver down his spine.
A sense of foreboding filled the air as he realized the extent of Rin''s reach and influence. The Princess of Murder had her eyes and ears everywhere, even in the form of an innocent child.
As the child, now a vessel for Rin''s menacing presence, advanced towards Michael, the bustling crowd around them remained oblivious.Michael quickly realized that Rin had cast a spell, rendering them invisible to the passersby.
Pink''s grip tightened on Michael''s hand, her fear palpable as she instinctively sought his protection. Ayag, perched on Michael''s shoulder, bared her teeth in defiance. "We''re not afraid of you," she snarled.
"I wouldn''t expect the mighty Vedora to cower," she taunted through the child''s voice. Rin''sughter echoed around them, a chilling sound that seemed to seep into the very air.
Leaning in, Rin''s puppet asked with mock curiosity, "Did you enjoy the gift I left for you?"
Michael''s gaze remained icy as he faced the possessed child. "Why did you kill Gilrut?" he asked coldly, his voice steady yetced with underlying anger.
Rin''sughter, now more menacing than ever, reverberated through the air. "Oh, it was simply for fun," she replied with chilling nonchnce. "And consider it payback for the little game you yed with the book of Seshat at the cksmith guild."
Her words hung heavily in the air, a cruel reminder of her unpredictable and sadistic nature. Michael''s expression hardened, realizing the depth of Rin''s vengeance and the extent of her cruelty. Rin''s voice, still emanating from the child, took on a darker, more ominous tone as she issued her foreboding threat. "You may have given me the book, but you disrupted my ns, and I detest such interference," she dered, her words dripping with malice. "Whether you''re the God of Darkness or not, nobody crosses me without consequence."
Michael faced her with aposed yet icy demeanor, unfazed by her threats. "You might feel powerful now, but it''s unwise to make an enemy of me," he warned, his voice calm butced with a barely concealed threat.
Rin''s response was a malevolent chuckle, filled with an unsettling glee. "Oh, I have grand ns for you and your little group in the mortal realm," she sneered, delighting in the unease her words caused.
At her revtion, a flicker of concern crossed Michael''s face, though he quickly masked it. Rin''sughter grew louder, reveling in his apparent difort.
"I know all about your subordinates and those you care about in the mortal realm," she taunted, her tone sinister. The implication of her words hung heavily in the air, a clear indication of the danger she posed not only to Michael but to everyone connected to him.
Michael''s expression darkened at the realization of the breadth of Rin''s knowledge and the threat she posed.
Chapter 1172 New Base Of Operation I
Chapter 1172 New Base Of Operation I
With devilish amusement dancing in her eyes, Rin snickered. "I''m well aware of the array your previous self installed between the realms of gods and mortals." She leaned in closer, her grin widening. "And I''ve found a way to bypass it, to let others do the dirty work of killing the seal bearers."
Her words hung heavy in the air, filled with ominous intent. "As we speak, someone is eliminating a few of those bearers," Rin revealed, her toneced with malevolence.
Michael''sposure wavered momentarily, a mix of shock and surprise evident on his face. The implications of Rin''s words were far-reaching and deeply troubling.
The child''s demeanor shifted as Rin''s presence began to fade. Her smile vanished, reced by a hiss of arrogance. "Never forget, I am the Princess of Murder," she dered, her voice seething with a deadly promise.
As her presence dissipated, the child''s body slumped slightly, the spell lifting, and she scampered away, seemingly oblivious to the ominous exchange that had just taken ce. Michael stood there, processing the dire news, aware that the stakes had just been raised significantly. "What exactly did she mean by that?" Pink''s voice trembled with concern, breaking the tense silence. Her eyes were wide with fear, understanding the gravity of Rin''s words.
"If the barrier falls, the gods could invade the mortal realm," she continued, her voiceced with dread. "The mortals could be turned into mere generators of worship energy, fueling the gods'' insatiable thirst for power."
Michael''s expression hardened, a fierce determination evident in his eyes. "I won''t let that happen," he dered resolutely. His tone left no room for doubt, showcasing his unwavering resolve to stop the gods from growing stronger.
Ayag, perched on Michael''s shoulder, chimed in with a note of realism. "I hate to admit it, but Rin doesn''t seem like she was bluffing," she said, her usual yful tone nowced with seriousness.
"We need to leave Durran," Michael concluded, his mind racing with strategies and ns. "Away from Rin''s grasp, where we can carefully plot our next move."
The urgency in his voice spurred Pink into action. They both understood that time was of the essence, and every moment spent under Rin''s watchful eye was a moment too dangerous to risk. Wasting no time, Michael and Pink strode towards the Celestial Pce, their steps synchronized in purpose. The grandeur of the pce loomed before them, its towering spires reaching towards the heavens, a testament to the architectural marvels of the realm. The massive doors swung open, revealing the grand hall, resplendent with its high ceilings, intricate carvings, and shimmering chandeliers casting a soft glow over the polished marble floors.
Their presence attracted curious nces from the pce attendants, but they continued undeterred, their focus unwavering.
Upon reaching the hall, an elf salesgirl approached them with a polite smile. Her slender form was adorned in the traditional attire of pce staff, a blend of elegance and functionality.
"How may I assist you today?" she inquired, her voice melodic and weing.
Michael, maintaining hisposure, replied, "We''re looking for a travel rune to Verdant Forest."
"But the Runemasters Guild possesses a divine portal for such travels. Why spend a considerable amount on a separate travel rune?" She asked, her eyebrows arching in surprise.
Michael crafted a response that masked his true intentions. "We need it for research purposes," he exined, not revealing his possession of a portable portal.
The girl nodded in understanding, ustomed to the varied and sometimes peculiar requests of runemasters. Assuming Michael to be one, especially apanied by a half-orc like Pink, she found his request within the realm of normalcy.
"Please follow me to the second floor, young master,"
She gestured for them to follow her to the second floor, where they were weed by an array of ss racks filled with an assortment of runes, tools for rune engraving, and various enchanting items. The variety was staggering, each item pulsating with its unique energy signature.
Leading them to a corner of the room, she sifted through various travel runes engraved on card-sized rocks. Each rune glowed with a different hue, signifying the specific destination it was linked to.
Michael''s gaze settled on a rune with a tree-shaped engraving, its soft green glow beckoning. "How much for this one?" he asked, pointing towards the Verdant Forest rune.
The salesgirl checked the price tag attached to the rune and replied, "This rune costs a hundred thousand gold coins."
Without hesitation, Michael reached into his pocket, pulling out a space ring containing the required amount in gold coins. He handed the ring to the girl, who carefully counted and verified the amount.
"Thank you for your purchase," she said, handing the rune to Michael. "May your research yield fruitful results."
With the rune securely in his possession, Michael nodded his appreciation. Pink, who had been silently observing the transaction, gave Michael a subtle nod, acknowledging the sess of their mission.
As Michael, Vedora, and Pink stepped off the bustling streets, they sought the quiet anonymity of a dark alley. The contrast between the lively streets and the secluded darkness of the alleyway was stark, providing them a moment of respite from the watchful eyes of the city.
In the shadowy confines of the alley, Michael''s hand moved with practiced ease, flicking his wrist to take out the portable portal from his system storage. The small, cube-sized device materialized in his palm, its surface shimmering with an ethereal glow.
Carefully, he ced the newly acquired rune atop the portal. The rune, glowing with a soft green light, seemed to pulsate with life as it made contact with the portal''s surface. The portal hummed softly, vibrating as it absorbed the rune''s energy, integrating it into its mechanism.
Perchedfortably atop Michael''s shoulder, Ayag peered down at the portal with an eager gleam in her eyes. "Let''s go!" she eximed, her excitement palpable in the stillness of the alley.
With a nod from Michael, he and Pink stepped forward, entering the portal. The world around them blurred into a whirl of colors and lights as the portal''s magic enveloped them.
In mere moments, the bustling city, the grandeur of the Celestial Pce, and the dark alleyway were left behind as they journeyed towards the lushndscapes of Verdant Forest, ready to uncover what awaited them in their new base of operation.
****************************
As the vortex of the portal subsided, Michael, with Vedora perched on his shoulder, and Pink stepped into the breathtaking domain of the Goddess of Nature, Flora. They found themselves surrounded by an enchanting forest, a symphony of vivid colors and diverse life forms.
Michael''s gaze wandered across the forest, taking in the sight of the trees that ranged from towering giants to delicate miniatures. Each tree was unique, with leaves of various hues ¨C emerald, sapphire, ruby, and gold ¨C creating a kaleidoscopic canopy above them.
"Look at those creatures!" Pink eximed in awe, pointing towards a group of animals that resembled deer, but with crystalline antlers that shimmered like diamonds in the sunlight. Nearby, a flock of birds with iridescent feathers flitted through the air, their wings casting rainbow glimmers as they flew.
"The flora here is unlike anything I''ve seen," Pink murmured, her eyes wide with wonder. She marveled at the vibrantly colored flowers, some as big as her head, and others that glowed softly, illuminating the forest floor.
But Michael remained focused, his mind on the task ahead. He pulled out the map and activated his Environmental Scanning skill, oveying the map''s details onto his visual field. The map''s marked location synced seamlessly with his skill, revealing a clear path through the forest.
"We need to keep moving," Michael said, his voice cutting through the enchantment of the forest. "Our new base of operation is this way."
With purpose in his stride, Michael led the way, with Pink following close behind. Eventually, after traversing the verdant expanse of the forest, Michael, Pink, and Vedora, perched atop Michael''s shoulder, arrived at a clearing dominated by a colossal mushroom. It towered above them, nked by tall, thick trees that seemed to stand guard around it.
"The map points to this location." Michael, studying the map, said, His gaze swept over the enormous fungus and the surrounding area, searching for any indication of their hidden base.
Pink approached the mushroom''s stem and inspected it closely, but to her, it appeared just like any other part of the forest. She nced back at Michael, her expression a mix of curiosity and confusion.
Activating his X-ray vision, Michael peered beneath the surface. His eyebrows shot up in surprise at what he saw. Hidden beneath the ground, a second mushroom, an exact replica of the one above ground, was nestled deep within the earth.
"What is it?" Ayag inquired, noticing the change in Michael''s demeanor.
Michael turned to hispanions, a hint of excitement in his voice. "Our new base of operation is underground," he revealed. "There''s another mushroom beneath us, hidden deep below."
Chapter 1173 New Base Of Operation II
Chapter 1173 New Base Of Operation II
Pink''s eyes widened in disbelief as she processed Michael''s revtion. "Underground?" she echoed, her voice tinged with a mix of surprise and apprehension.
Ayag, ever the skeptic, rolled her eyes and remarked dryly, "Great, so we can be buried alive easily." Despite her sarcastic tone, there was a hint of genuine concern in her voice.
Michael, however, seemed undeterred by their concerns. He continued to scrutinize the structure of the underground mushroom with his X-ray vision. "The mushroom''s cap is actually the roof of the structure," he exined, pointing out the unique architectural feature. "And there''s noyer of earth directly above it, so the chances of being buried alive are minimal. We''re safe."
Pink, still looking slightly dubious, posed another practical question. "That''s great and all, but how do we actually get in there?"
Michael shifted his focus from the underground structure to their immediate surroundings. He scanned the area, looking for an entrance. His thermal vision revealed a faint heat signature on the stem of the towering mushroom above ground. Intrigued, he noticed it was shaped like a skull.
Pointing at the peculiar heat signature, Michael dered confidently,
"Got it." The discovery of the entrance, cleverly concealed and integrated into the natural environment.
Michael approached the heat signature, the skull shape invisible to hispanions. He extended his hand towards the seemingly solid mushroom stem, and to everyone''s surprise, his hand passed through it as if it were air. The stem''s surface rippled like water, revealing its illusory nature.
"Come closer," Michael beckoned to Pink, sensing her hesitation. With a reassuring grip, he took her hand and together, they stepped through the now intangible mushroom stem.
On the other side, they found themselves in a long, white tube, its walls smooth and featureless. The environment felt surreal, almost otherworldly.
Suddenly, the floor beneath them shifted, causing both of them to steady themselves. The tube began to move downward, functioning like an elevator. The mechanism was silent and smooth, adding to the mystique of the ce.
As they descended, the ripple effect returned, and the entrance to the tube solidified once again, sealing them inside. The reality of their descent into the underground sanctuary became even more apparent.
Pink, looking around in amazement, remarked, "It''s like a lift, and we''re going down." Her voice echoed slightly in the confined space, reflecting her sense of wonder.
As they continued their descent into the heart of the underground mushroom, anticipation and curiosity filled the air.
As the door before them slid open, Michael, Pink, and Vedora were greeted by the sight of their new base of operation. The interior, bathed in the dim blue light of luminescent mushrooms, exuded a serene yet sophisticated ambiance. The space was perfectly sized ¨C spacious enough to feel open but cozy enough to retain a sense of privacy and security.
Pink''s eyes sparkled with excitement as she stepped into the room, her gaze darting from one feature to another. "Wow, look at all this!" she eximed, rushing over to therge ck screen set before afortable, expansive worktable. Her fingers danced across the dashboard filled with buttons, marveling at the technology.
The walls were adorned with more screens, each connected to glowing crystals that hummed softly with energy. The screens flickered to life as Pink approached them, disying various data and images in vibrant colors.
"Check out these armor stands," Ayag called out, perched on Michael''s shoulder, pointing towards the neatly arranged rows of stands that held various pieces of armor and weaponry.
Sarba, inquisitive as ever, slithered towards the other worktable, which was littered with various tools and gadgets. "This ce is a treasure trove!" he hissed excitedly, inspecting each item with keen interest.
The book racks, filled with volumes and scrolls that promised a wealth of knowledge, caught Michael''s attention. He made a mental note to explore themter.
"This ce is amazing!" Pink continued, her voice filled with awe as she experimented with the keyboards, watching the screens respond to her inputs. "It''s like amand center and a workshop all in one."
Meanwhile, Vedora explored the nooks and crannies of the room, seemingly approving of their new sanctuary.
"It''s more than we could have asked for," Michael said, a hint of satisfaction in his voice as he surveyed the room. The base was a perfect blend of technology andfort, a fitting headquarters for their endeavors.
As Michael approached the worktable with its intricate dashboard, his attention was immediately drawn to therge ck screen and its apanying smaller screens, all connected through gold wires to glowing crystals. The meticulous arrangement of the technology was nothing short of impressive.
Pink, her curiosity piqued, squatted down and gently ran her fingers over the surfaces of the crystal. "These... these look like data crystals, also known in this world as Seraphine crystals," she said, her voiceced with shock and surprise.
"Is that what I think it means?" Ayag asked, the tone of his voice reflecting the growing excitement in the air.
Pink slowly nodded, her eyes wide with the realization of the implications. "Whoever built this base of operation managed to get their hands on data crystals and blended the technology with this world''s magic, creating the perfect amalgamation," she exined, her gaze shifting between the screens and the crystals.
As the reality of their discovery sank in, Pink made a connection, her voice tinged with awe. "I think it''s your previous self who built this ce," she said, turning to Michael with a look of realization.
The revtion hung in the air, suggesting a deeper connection and a more intricate history than they had initially thought. The base wasn''t just a sanctuary; it was a legacy of Michael''s past self, crafted with foresight and ingenuity, bridging the gap between worlds and technologies.
Michael absorbed this information, the pieces of the puzzle beginning to fit together in his mind. His previous self had not only left him a sanctuary but a fortress of knowledge and power.
The atmosphere in the base was electric as Pink cautiously approached the table and gently pressed a button. A slight rumble filled the room, and they watched in awe as a section of the floor slid open, revealing a chair that smoothly rose from the ground.
Pink''s eyes widened in sheer excitement and disbelief. She let out a delighted squeal, her voice filled with wonder.
"I can''t believe it... it looks exactly like the chair I had back on Earth!" she eximed, her voice tinged with nostalgia and joy.
Michael watched her with an amused smile.
"It seems the previous Dark Lord had a knack for surprises," he remarked, his voiceced with intrigue at the thought of his past self''s foresight.
Pink, unable to contain her excitement, hurried to the chair. As she sat down, a single tear of joy escaped her eye, a testament to the overwhelming emotions swirling within her. She was home, in a way she hadn''t felt since leaving Earth.
With a newfound eagerness, Pink leaned forward in her chair, her fingers dancing across the keys with practiced ease. The screens remained dark for a moment before suddenly springing to life, the words ''Initiating Data Crystals'' illuminating the room in a soft, ambient glow.
As the screens flickered to life, an intricate map of the realm of gods emerged on the disy, its details intricate and extensive. Pink''s eyes widened in amazement, her voice filled with awe as she eximed, "This is incredible!"
However, the marvel was short-lived as the screen suddenly turned a warning red, and a persistent beeping filled the room.
"Warning, some of the data crystals have been corrupted," the screen shed ominously.
Michael turned to Pink, concern etched on his face.
"Can you fix it?" he asked, his tone hinting at the urgency of the situation.
Pink let out a confident chuckle, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
"This is my yground," she dered proudly. Her fingers moved swiftly over the keyboard, a dance of precision and skill. In moments, she had silenced the warning and stabilized the system.
She then turned to Michael with a more serious expression.
"It seems these crystals have been sitting here, collecting dust for more than five thousand years. They''ll need some fixing," she informed him, her tone now more focused and determined.
Michael nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. The data crystals held untold knowledge and secrets, and restoring them was crucial to their ns. Pink''s expertise in this field was invaluable, and he trusted her abilities implicitly.
Michael gazed intently at the screen, which now disyed a myriad of images and data records about various gods. The depth of information avable at their fingertips was staggering, offering insights into the realm of gods that were previously unknown to them.
Pink, with her eyes fixed on the screen, noted, "These data crystals contain an immense amount of knowledge about the realm of gods. And considering the gods don''t change much over time, the data from five thousand years ago should still bergely relevant."
She paused for a moment, then added, "Still, I''d like to update the data in these crystals and fix the corrupted ones. There''s so much potential here."
Her fingers moved deftly across the keyboard as she navigated through the data. Suddenly, her face lit up with a triumphant smile.
"Looks like I''ve managed to hack into one of Seraphen''s data crystals in Sagespire," she announced proudly. The feat was no small aplishment, given Seraphen''s status as the goddess of information.
As Pink continued to explore the capabilities of the system, an idea struck her.
"It seems I can hack into some crystals and use their reflectiveness as a spy camera," she mused, her mind already racing with the possibilities this new discovery presented.
The idea of using the data crystals not just for gathering information but also for surveince opened up a whole new realm of strategic opportunities. It meant they could keep an eye on key locations and figures within the realm of gods, giving them an unprecedented advantage in their endeavors.
Chapter 1174 Return of someone awesome
Chapter 1174 Return of someone awesome
Ayag''s eyes widened in amazement as he processed Pink''s revtion.
"Can you really turn these data crystals into spy cams?" he asked, still trying to grasp the extent of their newfound capabilities.
"Already done," she replied with a smirk. She swiftly keyed in a fewmands, and the screen changed to disy a live feed. The image revealed a room bustling with activity, where elves, humans, and halflings were busily working. They were deeply engaged in imbuing parchments into data crystals, surrounded by glowing runes and spells.
"This must be one of Seraphene''s spy hubs," Michael observed, analyzing the feed. The room was a hive of information gathering, likely a crucial node in the goddess of information''swork.
Pink couldn''t help but chuckle at the irony of their situation.
"For now, it seems we can keep an eye on the goddess of information herself," she said, her voiceced with amusement. The thought of turning the tables on the goddess renowned for her surveince capabilities was both thrilling and empowering.
However, Sarba interjected with a note of caution.
"Be careful, Pink. We''re treading on dangerous ground here," she warned. Her reminder was a sobering one, highlighting the risks involved in their endeavor.
Pink''s eyes narrowed in concentration as she observed the transformation of the parchments into golden specks that seamlessly integrated into the crystals.
"This is fascinating," she mused aloud.
"It looks like these spells are converting information on parchments into a format that these data crystals can store. It''s like a magical yet technologically advanced form of data storage and retrieval."
"Can you hack into more of these crystals from here?" he asked, his mind racing with the possibilities such ess could open up.
Hearing his question, Pink''s fingers danced across the keyboard as she attempted to breach thework of crystals. After a moment, her expression turned into a frown.
"It looks like remote ess to some of these crystals is blocked. They appear to be isted from the rest of thework," she exined, her tone tinged with disappointment.
"Whatwork are we talking about? And what connects us to the crystal you''ve already hacked into?" Michael, curious about the nature of thiswork, pressed on.
"If I had to guess, I''d say it''s celestial energy," Pink replied thoughtfully.
"The previous Dark Lord must have figured out a way to convert the celestial energy present in the atmosphere into something simr to inte waves."
Michael nodded, understanding the depth of the previous Dark Lord''s ingenuity. The idea that celestial energy could be harnessed and transformed into a medium for data transmission was nothing short of revolutionary. It was obvious to Michael that his previous self used the system to achieve this marvel.
As Pink and Michael continued to observe the feed, the serene atmosphere of Seraphene''s spy hub was abruptly interrupted. rms red, and the room was bathed in a pulsating red light, signaling an urgent situation. The workers, previously engrossed in their tasks, were now in a state of heightened alert.
"Captain, you need to see this!" called out an elf, her voiceced with urgency.
A dwarf, garbed in immacte white robes, entered the frame with a stoic expression.
"What''s themotion about?" he inquired, his deep voice resonating with authority.
"Captain, our spells monitoring the Celestial Valley are picking up strange energy fluctuations." The elf quickly responded.
The dwarf''s brow furrowed in concern.
"Be more specific," he demanded, his tone growing more serious.
A halfling, visibly shaken, stuttered as he delivered the rming news.
"It... it seems like someone is breaking through the barrier from the mortal realm."
The revtion sent a wave of shock through the room. The notion of someone from the mortal realm piercing the barrier that separated the two worlds was unheard of. The dwarf captain''s face hardened as he processed the information. The consequences of such an event could be far-reaching and potentially catastrophic.
In their remote base, Pink and Michael exchanged a nce. The news was as unexpected to them as it was rming.
Michael''s expression hardened as he witnessed the elves and halflings in the spy hub casting their spell. A golden, ethereal screen materialized before the dwarf, disying a live view of the Celestial Valley. The valley, usually serene and undisturbed, was now the epicenter of an unprecedented event.
"I need a better angle," Michael said, his voiceced with urgency. Pink, understanding the gravity of the situation, swiftly began hacking into other data crystals to enhance their view.
"Got it," Pink announced as the screen before Michael flickered and shifted, now showing the perspective directly behind the dwarf, offering a clearer view of the unfolding chaos.
"I knew Rin wasn''t bluffing," Ayag muttered, a hint of concern in his voice.
On the screen, a powerful ck vortex had formed in the sky of the Celestial Valley. It was a sight that defied belief, a tear in the very fabric of their world. The workers in the spy hub were visibly shaken, their voices filled with panic and disbelief.
"Someone ising through the portal from the mortal realm!" shouted one of the workers, his voice echoing the collective shock of everyone present.
As the scene unfolded on the screen, the dwarf captain of Seraphene''s spy hub voiced his observations with a hint of awe and apprehension.
"The portal is drawing all sorts of creatures and horrors from the Celestial Valley towards it," he said, his eyes never leaving the golden ethereal screen.
"This son of a bitch who dares toe through that portal, must be incredibly brave or foolishly unaware. They''re walking straight into a death trap," the dwarf added, his tone tinged with a mix of respect and concern.
Michael''s thoughts drifted to the terrifying creatures he had encountered in the Celestial Valley. The memory of the swarm, the colossal centipede, and the invisible panthers lingered vividly in his mind. Each beast was a formidable entity in its own right, capable of striking terror into the hearts of even the bravest souls.
"Look at that," Pink eximed, pointing at the screen. The golden screen showed a terrifying array of monstrosities and beasts, each more fearsome than thest, rushing towards the swirling ck vortex in the sky. There were creatures with razor-sharp talons, others with multiple heads and eyes glowing in the dark, and some that defied any natural description, their forms a chaotic blend of nightmare and reality.
Ayag, watching intently from Michael''s shoulder, couldn''t help but voice the question that hung in the air,
"Who ising through that portal?"
As the tension in Seraphene''s spy hub increased, an elf, visibly anxious, turned to the dwarf captain.
"What should we do, Captain?" he asked, his voice quivering slightly with uncertainty.
The dwarf, a figure of stoic resolve amidst the growing anxiety, replied with a calm but firm tone.
"We need to alert Goddess Seraphene immediately and await her directive. Only she can decide our course of action in such unprecedented circumstances."
His eyes were fixed on the golden screen, which continued to disy the chaotic scene unfolding in the Celestial Valley. The number of beasts converging towards the portal was increasing, each one more menacing than thest. The dwarf watched intently, aware that this was no ordinary event but a potential turning point that could have far-reaching consequences.
"For now, our best course is to wait and see who emerges from that portal," he continued, his voice steady yet tinged with a hint of curiosity.
"Whoever or whatever dares to face these things must be either incredibly powerful or stupid or both. We will soon find out." said the dwarf.
In the spy hub, everyone held their breath, their eyes glued to the screen.
As they all gazed at the screen, Pink turned to Michael, her curiosity piqued.
"Who do you think ising out of that portal?" she asked, her voiceced with apprehension.
Maintaining his usualposure, Michael replied, "No idea."
Yet, despite his nonchnt demeanor, a sense of unease gnawed at him. He had always been adept at controlling his emotions, but this situation was different, unpredictable and potentially disastrous.
"Looks like Rin might be able to force someone to break those seals. If she seeds, it could spell doom for everyone." Ayag asked.
Cain, joining the conversation, added his perspective. "That''s strange, though. If Rin had the capability to do this all along, why hasn''t she? It seems like we''re witnessing an unusual loophole or event."
Meanwhile, Michael''s eyes remained fixed on the screen, watching the scene unfold in the Celestial Valley.
"We''ll get our answers soon enough," he said, his gaze never leaving the screen.
"Whoever or whatever emerges from that portal will likely hold the key to understanding what''s really happening here."
As Ayag''s growl of frustration echoed in the room, the tension was palpable. Without warning, a brilliant golden arrow pierced through the portal, igniting a fiery explosion that sent several eagle-like monsters plummeting to the ground, engulfed in mes.
In the midst of this chaos, a figure emerged from the portal ¨C a ck-haired woman d in dark armor, wielding a golden bow. Her entrance was nothing short of spectacr, a fiery testament to her prowess.
Michael''s heart involuntarily skipped a beat at the sight, while Ayag and Sarba could only stare in wide-eyed recognition. There was no mistaking the identity of this woman.
"Is that... Gaya?" Michael uttered, his voiceced with disbelief. The realization hit him like a bolt of lightning, stirring a mix of emotions within him.
Chapter 1175 Showing no restraint
Chapter 1175 Showing no restraint
Michael stood frozen for a moment, his gaze fixed on the screen disying Gaya''s entrance. His wife, the Goddess of Monsters, emerged from the portal like a tempest, her presencemanding and powerful. It was a sight that stirred a whirlwind of emotions within him.
Ayag''s voice pierced the stunned silence, a mix of joy and concern evident in his tone.
"What the fuck is she doing here?" he eximed, unable to hide his astonishment. Sarba, equally baffled, echoed the sentiment, "How in the hell is sheing in?"
Observing the scene unfold, Pink turned to Michael with a mix of curiosity and awe.
"That''s Gaya? Your wife and the Goddess of Monsters?" she asked, her voice reflecting the surprise shared by everyone in the room.
Michael, still absorbing the shock of Gaya''s unexpected arrival, simply nodded in confirmation. A sense of urgency took over as he realized the gravity of the situation.
"I need to go to the Celestial Valley," he dered firmly, his resolve clear.
Looking at the screen, Michael struggled to believe his eyes. Gaya, his wife, the Goddess of Monsters, was right there in the thick of battle. It had been clear in theirst meeting that she shouldn''t seek him until he found her. Yet, here she was, fighting beasts much stronger than her, disying her characteristic fearlessness. But these beasts were strong, and Gaya was clearly at a disadvantage.
"Could she be killing seal bearers for Rin?" Ayag wondered, trying to piece together the situation.
"We can''t waste time on guesses right now. The longer she fights, the more beasts will be drawn to her. I have to go to the valley," Michael responded urgently. He swiftly drew his dark swords and tapped the medallion on his chest, his armor materializing to cover him fully.
"You all stay here. Pink, work on disrupting Seraphene''s surveince while I go help Gaya," Michael instructed, sounding resigned but determined as he activated his portable portal.
"Wait, how will you get to the Celestial Valley? You''re not thinking of going through Rainar''s temple, right?" Ayag asked, her toneced with concern.
Michael had previously caused quite a stir at Rainar''s temple, and with Rainar''s recent demise, the area would likely be swarming with the pantheon''s forces and Rainar''s remaining angels. The uncertainty of Rainar''s angels being informed of his death hung heavily in the air.
Despite the risks and uncertainty, Michael couldn''t stand by while Gaya faced overwhelming odds. His decision was firm; he had to act.
Then, Michael swiftly activated the portal, his figure blurring as he dashed through it. Pink''s voice followed him, reassuring yet firm, "I got your back."
As the portal closed, Sarba turned to Pink and his siblings, a trace of concern in his voice, "Will he be alright?"
"Every angel and soldier loyal to Rainar will be guarding that temple, ready to attack anyone who dares to enter. Their numbers might reach into the hundreds." Pink pondered for a moment before responding.
She paused, considering the gravity of the situation. Then, with a tone of confidence, she added,
"But in all honesty, the odds are somewhat against them, not against Ghost. I have no doubt about his skills and his ability to handle even the deadliest of enemies," Her words carried a sense of unwavering trust in Michael''s capabilities, reflecting her belief in his extraordinary prowess.
Soon, the portal opened in a secluded dark alley, a strategic choice considering Rainar''s temple was shielded against direct teleportations from external sources. Stepping out, Michael observed the immediate surroundings. The once-flooded kingdom was now drained, exposing the full stature of its buildings. The streets were abuzz with activity, with people moving about, some carrying broken items, others busy repairing the damage inflicted by the floods Rainar had used to force them into prayer for more worship energy.
With urgency driving his actions, Michael activated his Lightning Dash spell. In an instant, he transformed into a blur, a trail of ck lightning marking his path as he raced toward the temple.
The temple loomed ahead, encircled by Rainar''s soldiers and angels, a powerful defense force. They were d in a diverse array of armors, ranging from sturdy metal to flexible leather. Forming the first circle of defense around the temple were the angels, their metal armor gleaming under the sun, their feathery wings creating an imposing backdrop.
At the forefront,manding their attention, stood the leading angel, an Orc whose clones Michael had previously killed. He was fully armored, his presence exuding authority. Addressing the gathered crowd of soldiers and angels, the Orc spoke with a firm, unwavering voice.
"Listen well, warriors of Rainar," he began, his tone confident.
"Rumors have spread like wildfire, rumors of our God Rainar''s demise. Let me assure you, these are nothing but vile lies, deceitful tactics deployed by Kranar to shake our resolve." His eyes swept across the crowd, meeting the gaze of his soldiers and angels.
"Do not be swayed by such baseless ims. A god cannot be killed. Our Lord Rainar is invincible, and these rumors are a feeble attempt to undermine our strength and morale."
The Orc''s words seemed to resonate with the crowd, instilling a renewed sense of purpose and loyalty among Rainar''s forces. His voice echoed across the temple grounds, a rallying cry to dismiss the growing doubts and fears.
"Stand strong, stand united," he concluded. "We are the unbreakable shield of Rainar, and we shall not falter in the face of falsehoods. Our faith is our fortress."
As the Orc''s speech reached its end, the soldiers and angels around the temple responded with a unified shout, their voices merging into a powerful chorus of allegiance.
Meanwhile, Michael soared into the air as he unleashed his fury without restraint. Invoking the ultimate form of his Ignitia and Meteor spells simultaneously, he transformed the sky into an arena of apocalyptic fury.
Thunderps resounded with deafening intensity as the clouds, heavy yet dry, collided violently. The atmosphere grew electric, charged with an ominous energy that heralded destruction. Below, the angels and soldiers, momentarily stunned by the sudden esction, were ill-prepared for what followed.
From the heavens, hundreds of searing lightning bolts, each a conduit of Michael''s wrath, rained down mercilessly upon the army. The soldiers, caught off-guard, were struck down, their figures illuminated briefly by the blinding shes before copsing lifelessly.
Simultaneously, three colossal meteors, glowing fiercely with an intense heat, tore through the darkened sky. Their descent was a spectacle of fiery doom, leaving trails of zing light in their wake. As they impacted the earth around the temple, massive explosions erupted, sending shockwaves that tore through the ranks of Rainar''s forces.
The ground shook violently under the force of the impacts, and the air was filled with the roar of mes and the cries of the fallen. The temple grounds, once a bastion of defense, now resembled a battlefield scarred by celestial fury.
In the midst of this chaos, Michael''s senses were bombarded with the continuous chime of system notifications, acknowledging his kill.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Spiritual Embryo Realm Soldier. The reward is 5000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Qi Awakening Realm Soldier. The reward is 1000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 6000 Badass points]
¡
The people of Nimbosia, having suffered under Rainar''s tyranny, watched from a distance as Michael wrought destruction upon the temple. Mixed emotions rippled through the crowd ¨C shock at the sheer force of the onught and a sense of cathartic relief.
"Finally, someone is putting an end to Rainar''s reign," eximed an elderly man, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and satisfaction.
A young woman, clutching her child close, whispered in awe, "Look at the power of that warrior. Rainar''s soldiers stand no chance."
Groups of citizens murmured among themselves, some cheering quietly, others simply staring in disbelief. The temple, once a symbol of oppression, was now crumbling under the might of an avenging force.
Meanwhile, Michael, his figure a blur of motion and power,nded deftly in front of the orcmander. With a swift, powerful kick, he sent the stunned orc reeling, shattering the temple''s closed door in the process. Debris flew in all directions as he made his way into the heart of what had been Rainar''s stronghold.
As he moved, Michael was acutely aware of the potential consequences of his actions. Raphael and the Pantheon would surely sense the surge of power and the chaos unfolding in Nimbosia. But he gave no damn. His focus was singr ¨C to reach Gaya in the Celestial Valley. He knew he had only a few minutes before his powers could pinpoint his location. But he also knew he would be in Celestial valley before they could reach him, even if they managed to pin point him.
Chapter 1176 All out battle in Celestial Valley
Chapter 1176 All out battle in Celestial Valley
Pink, watching Gaya valiantly battle the monstrous creatures, couldn''t help but be impressed. She understood why had chosen such a powerful partner. Gaya, despite possessing only mortal realm cultivation, was holding her ground admirably.
"She''s doing well on her own. The beasts seem hesitant to fully engage. They''re testing her, unsure of her actual strength due to her mortal realm cultivation," Cain observed. His siblings nodded in agreement, understanding that the intelligent creatures were cautious, likely suspecting Gaya of concealing her true power and hesitant to fully engage, unsure of Gaya''s true power.
"Come on, Pink, you need to hurry and jam their spell. They''re watching Gaya too closely," Ayag urged, his voiceced with impatience.
"Be patient, Ayag. It''s aplex spell, not just a simple crystal to hack into," Sarba defended Pink, trying to ease the tension.
"I''m almost there. If I can overload these crystals, they might blow up, disrupting their spellcasting," Pink said, her fingers flying over the keyboard.
"That could buy Ghost some time to get Gaya out of the Celestial Valley," Sarba added, assessing the situation.
"Keep at it, Pink. Once you''re done, we''ll wait for Ghost''s cue," Ayag said, her voice firm with resolve. They all knew the stakes were high, and every second counted in ensuring Gaya''s safe extraction.
As the chaotic scene unfolded in the Celestial Valley, Gaya unleashed a flurry of poison-based spells, her arrows flying swiftly toward the encroaching beasts. Laced with lethal toxins, her attacks created bursts of greenish smoke upon impact, dissolving some of the smaller creatures that dared toe close.
"Damn you, ugly fucks!" Gaya shouted, her voice filled with frustration and fury as she let loose another volley of arrows. Each spell she cast shimmered with a deadly, emerald glow, weaving through the air like serpents hunting their prey.
Cain, watching intently, pointed out a group of porcupine-like beasts with metallic wings, roughly the size of tigers. They soared around Gaya,unching needle-like projectiles from their bodies.
"She''s in a tight spot!" Cain eximed as Gaya narrowly dodged the onught. Despite her agility, a few needles grazed her skin, eliciting a string of curses from her.
"Fuck! That''s gonna leave a mark!" Gaya yelled, wincing in pain but continuing her fierce battle.
"She''s struggling to keep up. She won''tst much longer at this rate." Ayag said, observing the situation.
As the brutal battle raged on, Gaya was suddenly blindsided by an unseen force that sent her sprawling across the ground. She skidded harshly, leaving a trail in her wake, before forcefully pushing herself back onto her feet.
"What the fuck just hit me?" Confusion and anger shed in her eyes as she spat out.
Pink, observing from afar, echoed Gaya''s confusion with a worried mutter, "What''s going on?"
"It''s the invisible panthers! Remember those winged creatures we killed? They''re here!" Ayag eximed, realization dawning on her face.
Seeing the fight, Sarba''s expression turned grave as he acknowledged the direness of the situation.
"She''s in deep trouble now. Those panthers are bad news,"
"She can''t match up to them without Ghost''s dark mes or his agility. She''s at a serious disadvantage." Cain nodded in agreement
Impatience and concern were evident in Ayag''s voice as he grumbled about Michael''s dyed arrival,
"Damn it, Ghost, where the fuck are you? She needs you now!"
As Gaya valiantly fended off the relentless assault from the beasts, her frustration and fury were palpable. Between powerful swings and skillful dodges, she shouted into the chaos, "Where the hell are you, human?" Her voice carried a mix of anger and desperation, echoing through the valley.
The invisible panthers relentlessly attacked her from all sides, their strikes leaving her reeling and coughing up blood. Meanwhile, the metallic-winged porcupines added to her woes, bombarding her with a barrage of needle-like projectiles. Despite her formidable fighting skills, the onught was proving too much.
In a moment of fierce defiance, Gaya roared with indomitable spirit, "Human, you better be sick or dead for leaving your wife to get her ass kicked like this!" Her words were a testament to her unyielding nature, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
Ayag, despite his worry, couldn''t help but chuckle at Gaya''s fiery remark. "She''s still got that spark in her, even now," hemented, admirationced in his tone.
Sarba nodded in agreement, her eyes fixed on the ongoing battle. "She''s fighting hard. But she needs Ghost now more than ever," she said, her voice tinged with concern.
The Celestial Valley, usually a serene realm, had transformed into a chaotic battlefield as Gaya, the fierce Goddess of Monsters, shed with an array of formidable beasts. Herbat skills were put to the ultimate test as she faced enemies that were not only powerful but also cunning in their tactics.
Gaya unleashed a barrage of poison-based spells, each one a deadly concoction of her own making. However, the intelligent beasts of the valley were adept at evading her attacks, using the natural terrain to their advantage. The winged porcupines, with their metallic wings, soared high, releasing volleys of needles that rained down like deadly hail. Gaya twisted and turned, narrowly dodging the onught, her armor clinking with each evasive maneuver.
"Come on, you cowardly creatures! Is that all you''ve got?" Gaya taunted, her voiceced with both fury and defiance.
From her hidden vantage point, Pink watched anxiously, murmuring, "She''s brave, but those beasts are relentless. Ghost needs to hurry."
Ayag, perched atop Michael''s shoulder, growled in frustration, "She''s tough, but even she has limits. Those damn invisible panthers are ying dirty!"
Sarba chimed in, her voice filled with worry, "Those panthers are striking from the shadows. She can''t see theming!"
The valley echoed with the sounds of battle as Gaya continued to fight. The ground shook under her feet as sheunched a series of explosive poison spells, creating clouds of toxic fumes that momentarily slowed the beasts'' advance. But the intelligent creatures quickly adapted, using the dense foliage and rocky outcrops to shield themselves.
Suddenly, a massive beast, resembling a cross between a lion and a rhinoceros, charged at Gaya. She rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding its horned charge. As she regained her footing, the invisible panthers struck again, their ws leaving deep gashes on her arms. Blood trickled down her wounds, but Gaya''s spirit remained unbroken.
"You''ll have to do better than that to take me down!" Gaya shouted, firing another volley of arrows, each tipped with her deadliest poison. The arrows found their marks, bringing down several of the smaller beasts.
In the midst of the chaos, a massive eagle-like creature swooped down from the sky, its talons aimed at Gaya. With a swift movement, she drew her sword and sliced through its talons, sending the creature reeling back into the air with a screech of pain.
"This is insane! She''s fighting an entire army!" Pink eximed, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Gaya''s breaths became heavier as the battle wore on, her movements slightly slower, but her determination never waned. She knew she couldn''t keep this up indefinitely. She needed backup, and she needed it fast.
As another wave of beasts converged on her, Gaya braced herself for their attack, ready to fight until herst breath.
In the midst of the tumultuous battle within the Celestial Valley, Gaya found herself growling in frustration at the overwhelming strength of the monstrous creatures surrounding her. Each beast, more formidable than thest, pressed in on her with increasing ferocity. The valley, once a haven of natural beauty, had turned into a nightmarish arena.
"These damned beasts are stronger than I anticipated," Gaya grumbled, her breaths heavy with exertion. "Rin, Zariel... you''ll regret sending me into this hellish trap."
The creatures, sensing her weakening state, intensified their onught. They had begun to realize that the goddess before them, despite her formidable reputation, was not invincible. Their attacks grew more coordinated and savage, exploiting every gap in her defense.
Gaya''s dark armor, which had thus far shielded her from the worst attacks, started showing signs of wear. Chips and cracks appeared across its surface, a visual testament to the relentless beating it had endured. Inside, Gaya could feel the strain of battle taking its toll, her movements growing slower, her reactions less sharp. The APD attached to her suit worked overtime, injecting healing potions into her bloodstream, but it was barely enough to keep pace with the injuries she sustained.
As she parried a blow from one of the metallic-winged porcupines, a shadow loomed overhead. An enormous eagle, its talons bared and eyes filled with murderous intent, dived towards her. Gaya braced herself for the impact, knowing that she might not be able to withstand another direct hit.
In that split second, as the eagle''s screech pierced the air, a ck sword streaked across the sky with incredible speed. It impaled the eagle mid-flight, its sharp de piercing through the creature''s body and pinning it to the ground. Gaya, who had been mere inches from being struck, looked up in shock and relief.
The arrival of the ck sword, hurled with such precision and force, turned the tide in an instant. Gaya knew that there was only one person who could have sent such timely aid ¨C her husband, Michael.
Chapter 1177 Time for reaction
Chapter 1177 Time for reaction
As the shadows around the Celestial Valley parted, Michael stepped forward, emerging like a specter of vengeance. His appearance instantly ignited a spark of joy in Gaya''s heart, her voice echoing across the battlefield with a triumphant shout at the sight of her husband after a long, harrowing year apart.
"Now, Pink," Michaelmanded through the link, signaling her to initiate the overload of the crystals, effectively disrupting Seraphene''s spy hub''s monitoring spell.
Without a moment''s hesitation, Michael ascended skyward, his presencemanding the attention of every beast in the vicinity. With a swift, powerful motion, he unleashed the Ring of mes. Waves of dark fire erupted from him in a scorching circle, roaring across the battlefield. The mes seared the porcupines and revealed the previously invisible panthers, their fur singed and smoking, stripping them of their stealth advantage.
In the midst of this fiery onught, Michael effortlessly cast his dark swords into the air. He then withdrew the formidable Doomsbringer, a war hammer with an icy cold head, from his arsenal. Gripping it tightly, he activated the ancient ice core embedded within it, summoning a wave of deep freeze that swept across the battlefield.
"Kick their asses!"Gaya, witnessing the raw power of her husband, couldn''t help but shout in exhration.
With a ground-shaking impact, Michael brought the Doomsbringer down upon the ground. A st of intense cold radiated outward, instantly freezing everything in its vicinity except for Gaya. The beasts, caught in the frigid explosion, were immobilized, their movements halted by the sudden, extreme cold.
Michael''s dark swords, having fulfilled their aerial dance of death, descended with precision, slotting effortlessly into the sheathes on his back. In a fluid motion, he reached out and pulled Gaya closer, her slender waist fitting perfectly into the curve of his armored hand.
For a brief moment, Gaya found herself speechless, her eyes locking with Michael''s beneath his dark helm. Without a word, Michael activated his portable portal, creating a swirling vortex of energy that promised escape and safety. He gave Gaya a reassuring nod, the unspoken promise of safety evident in his gesture.
Together, they dashed into the portal, leaving the frozen battlefield and the stunned beasts of the Celestial Valley behind. As they disappeared into the vortex, the portal closed behind them, erasing their presence from the realm and leaving behind a battlefield.
As Michael and Gaya materialized in the lush expanse of Flora''s domain, the Verdant Forest, Michael released his hold on Gaya''s waist. He reached for the skull-shaped medallion at his chest, tapping it lightly. In response, his formidable armor retracted into the medallion, unveiling his true face beneath the helm.
The air of the Verdant Forest seemed to hum with life, its vibrant energy a stark contrast to the battleground they had just left. Birds chirped melodiously in the background, and the scent of the forest was fresh and invigorating.
Gaya, her face alight with a mixture of relief and joy, looked up at Michael. The corners of her lips curled into a yful yet affectionate smile. "Took you long enough, human." She said, with her typical spirited demeanor.
"You''ve got some exining to do¡ª" Michael started, but before he could finish, Gaya rushed towards him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sealed his lips with a deep kiss, leaving them both breathless.
"Damn, I''ve missed this... and us," Gaya expressed, her eyes shining with love and affection. It was clear that the danger and istion had made her acutely aware of how much she valued Michael''s presence and protection. The realization that he had always faced overwhelming odds with such ease had struck her only when she faced formidable foes herself.
"I''ve missed you too, Snakey," Michael replied, a nickname that brought a tear of joy to Gaya''s eyes. It had been almost a year since hest called her that.
"Now, where are we? And what was that ce with all those beasts?" Gaya inquired after regaining herposure.
"We''re in Verdant Forest, the domain of Goddess Flora," Michael exined, casually draping an arm around her as they started walking toward his base of operation. "As for where you were, that was Celestial Valley. The creatures you encountered were its inhabitants. You were fortunate not toe across the ancient beasts or the swarm." said Michael.
"But tell me, why and how did you get here? I had told you not to do anything rash, hadn''t I?" Michael asked, concern evident in his voice as Gaya let out a sigh.
Gaya let out a heavy sigh, her eyes reflecting the weight of the events she was about to recount. "After you left, things went south in the mortal realm," she began, her voice tinged with regret. "Cindy was bitten by an undead, and it wasn''t just any bite. It had something to do with dark energy." She paused, gathering her thoughts before continuing. "We took her to Elidyr''s workshop. He used some kind of magical orb linked to Fourcrux, the God of Necromancy. That''s when everything turned upside down. Cindy... she got possessed by Zariel, a Reaper of Fourcrux."
Michael''s expression hardened as he listened intently.
"Zariel demanded his release from the Nether Realm in exchange for Cindy''s life," Gaya added, her frustration evident.
"Olivia, Nithroel, and others were there too. We debated what to do. Nithroel was against freeing Zariel because of the disastrous consequences it could bring. But I was desperate to save Cindy, no matter the cost."
Gaya''s hands clenched into fists. "Then, out of nowhere, Rin appeared. I didn''t know her then. She gave me a chilling ultimatum ¨C to kill specific people she named, or she''d let Zariel devour Cindy''s soul and ughter everyone in your army."
"So you¡ and Cindy¡" Michael''s jaw tightened. "I had no choice," Gaya interjected, her voiceced with pain. "I did what she asked. But those people... they were the Seal Bearers. Killing them tore open a rift, and Zariel escaped through it. I followed him, and that''s how I ended up here, in the realm of gods."
Michael remained silent for a moment, processing the gravity of her words. "You''ve been through a lot," he finally said, his tone softening. "But now, we need to be careful. Rin''s involvementplicates things further."
Gaya nodded in agreement. "I know. But first, we must ensure Cindy''s safety and the others back in the mortal realm."
Looking into Gaya''s eyes, his expression was calm yet filled with coldness. "Now that Zariel is no longer possessing Cindy, she should be fine," he reassured her, masking the turmoil of worry and anger brewing within him. He understood the importance of keeping Gaya calm in this chaotic situation.
Gaya, still trying to piece everything together, furrowed her brow. "But who exactly is Rin?" she asked, her curiosity piqued.
Michael took a moment to gather his thoughts before exining. "Rin is known as the Princess of Murder, chosen by Xyloth, the God of Murder. She''s dangerous, unpredictable," he began, his tone somber. As they walked, he recounted Rin''s involvement in Gilrut''s death, though he simplified the connection for Gaya, referring to Gilrut as a friend of a friend and a potential ally they had lost.
Gaya listened intently, her eyes reflecting a mix of shock and anger. The gravity of Rin''s actions and the threat she posed became increasingly clear to her. Michael''s revtions only added to theplexity of their situation, intertwining their fates with those of powerful and ruthless beings.
Then, sensing the turmoil swirling within Gaya, he gently pulled her into an embrace, his hands tenderly brushing through her hair. "I''ll find a way to contact Elidyr in the mortal realm and get an update," he reassured her, his voice a soothing balm to her frayed nerves.
As they stood there, locked in the embrace, Michael could feel the weight of worry and desperation that Gaya had been carrying in his absence. "I''ll take care of everything. I''m so grateful for you holding everything together back home." He whispered, holding her a little tighter.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Gaya managed a sarcastic remark in her characteristically haughty tone. "Yeah, right. I just fucked it all up," she said.
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle softly at herment. "No, you didn''t," he responded warmly, his chuckle conveying both affection and assurance. "You did what you had to do. And you did it well." But as Michael held Gaya, his expression subtly shifted. While his embrace remained warm andforting, a coldness crept into his features, unseen by Gaya. His eyes turned pitch ck as a surge of killing intent skyrocketed within him.
In his mind, thoughts of Rin and Zariel tormented him, their actions against Cindy and Gaya igniting a fierce rage. Clenching his jaw, he silently vowed retribution. "You have shown the action," he thought to himself, his inner voiceced with a promise of vengeance, "now I will show you the reaction."
In that moment, Michael was not just the loving husbandforting his wife but also the God of Darkness, ready to unleash his wrath upon Rin and Zariel.
Chapter 1178 Goddess of Monsters
Chapter 1178 Goddess of Monsters
Michael gently led Gaya towards the giant mushroom that concealed the entrance to their new base of operation. As they approached, Gaya, with a mix of curiosity and confusion, eyed the unusual structure. "What''s this?" she asked, her toneced with intrigue.
With a yful chuckle, Michael demonstrated how to enter their secret haven. He pressed his hand against the seemingly solid stem, revealing the hidden passage within. Gaya''s eyes widened in amazement, a smile spreading across her face as she followed him inside.
Upon stepping into the base, they were greeted by Vedora. Each head, Cain, Sarba, and Ayag, eagerly leaped towards Gaya, showering her with affectionate, wet kisses. Their tongues yfully licked at her, causing her to burst intoughter.
Gaya, ovee with joy, wrapped her arms around Vedora, embracing the familiar warmth andfort of herpanions. Herughter echoed through the base, filled with the happiness of reunion.
"I''ve missed you all so much," she said, hugging them tight.
As Vedora contentedly settled atop Gaya''s shoulder, a sense ofpleteness filled the air. Pink, with a hint of awkwardness, stepped forward, scratching her head as she mulled over the appropriate way to address Gaya. "Uh,dy, goddess, Mrs. Ghost?" she muttered, trying to mulled over the appropriate way to address Gaya. "Uh,dy, goddess, Mrs. Ghost?" she muttered, trying to find the right title.
Noticing Pink''s hesitation, Michael introduced her. "Gaya, this is Pink,"
Gaya''s eyes widened in a mix of surprise and recognition. "The Pink? The one from Earth?" she asked, her voice tinged with astonishment.
"Yes, she was also transmigrated to this world, just like us." Michael nodded affirmatively.
Pink, seizing the moment, joked about her current half-orc form. "Yeah, quite the upgrade, isn''t it? Or downgrade, depending on how you look at it," Pink said with a light-hearted chuckle. Gaya, amused by Pink''s humor, responded with a warm nod. "Just call me Gaya," she said, her tone friendly and inviting.
As they walked through the base, Michael and Pink proudly showcased their new operation center to Gaya. The state-of-the-art equipment,bined with magical elements, gave the ce an aura of both technological advancement and mystical wonder.
Exining his journey, Michael delved into the tale of his betrayal by Goddess Marli and his following struggles and victories. He recounted the intense battle with the ancient centipede and how he forged a weapon from its corbone. His narrative led to the climactic moment of assassinating Rainar, the God of Rain.
Listening intently, Gaya''s expression shifted to one of realization. "So that''s why the rain suddenly stopped in the Dark Ocean and everywhere else," she remarked, piecing the events together.
"Yes, and it''s likely a new God of Rain will be chosen soon," Michael added, his voice tinged with a hint of concern about the implications of his actions.
The tour concluded, Gaya, now fully updated on their situation, turned to them with a look of determination. "What''s our n now?" she asked.
While Michael was contemting his next n, Pink settled into her chair, immediately immersing herself in her task of hacking into Seraphene''s spy hub. The screens in the room flickered to life, revealing the live feed from the spy hub, where the dwarf captain could be seen peering intently at the Celestial Valley.
"Is that woman gone?" the dwarf captain was heard muttering, referring to the recent chaos in the valley.
"Were they spying on me?" she growled, her eyes narrowing.
"That''s Goddess Seraphene''s domain. She''s the Goddess of Information, known for her extensivework of spies and informants." Michael exined.
"You''re a goddess too, you know." Ayag perched on Gaya''s shoulder quipped.
Hearing Ayag, Gaya just rolled her eyes and shot back sarcastically. "Yeah, right. As if I''m a goddess." Sheughed off the remark, believing it to be a joke. But Michael''s calm response stopped her in her tracks. "Actually, Ayag''s right," he said seriously. When Gaya heard Michael, herughter faded, reced by a look of utter shock. "Me, a goddess?" she echoed, hardly able to believe what she was hearing.
"Yes, you are the Goddess of Monsters."
Suddenly, Gaya was overwhelmed by a cacophony of whispers and prayers directed at her from monsters and beasts across the realm of gods. The voices bombarded her mind, each one pleading and praying in various tones and dialects.
"Great Goddess, guide my fangs..."
"Protect us, Mighty One, in our hunt..."
"Grant me strength, Divine Gaya..."
The sudden influx of voices caused Gaya to stagger, her hands flying up to clutch her head as she struggled to process the overwhelming barrage of thoughts and prayers.
Michael quickly wrapped an arm around her, steadying her as he recognized the signs of someone experiencing the flood of worship for the first time. "It''s intense at first, hearing their prayers," he said gently, offering her a reassuring presence.
"How do I make it stop?" Gaya growled, her voice strained under the weight of the countless voices in her head.
"Take a deep breath," Michael instructed, "and look into my eyes. Focus on me. Let my presence anchor you."
Michael stood by herside, calming her nerves. He could vidily remember the first time his head was filled with the prayers from his worshippers so he knew how overwhelming it could be. As Gaya gazed into Michael''s eyes, she felt the chaotic whispers in her mind begin to recede. Gradually, the voices faded into the background, allowing her to focus her thoughts solely on Michael. His steady gaze and calm demeanor acted as a balm, helping her regain herposure and silence the once-deafening chorus of prayers.
Gaya, still grappling with the revtion of her newfound godhood, shook her head in disbelief. "So, I really am a goddess," she mused, a hint of pride in her voice. With a haughty smile, she added, "I always knew I was special."
Michael chuckled softly and affectionately pinched her nose. "You''ve always been special, goddess or not," he said, his words filled with warmth.
Herughter echoed through the room, lightening the atmosphere that had been heavy with revtions and concerns.
Interrupting the moment, Ayag chimed in. "Happy as we are for this reunion, Ghost, you promised us you''d visit the Hydra breeders in this realm.
Sarba nodded in agreement. "Now that we''ve dealt with Rainar, it''s time to focus on learning more about our kind. We should meet with the hydra breeders and understand more about Vedora''s lineage."
Michael turned his attention to Pink, who was already busy hacking into more of Seraphene''s data crystals. "Find out everything you can about the Ironhands Beast Tamers," he instructed, his voice steady andmanding.
With swift and skilled keystrokes, Pink essed the information, her eyes scanning the data that flickered across the screens. "The Ironhands are led by Borgin Ironfist," she ryed, her tone reflecting her focus. "Seems like he is famous for his feats, including defeating a wild ice dragon in the Frosted Peaks and taming an Eagle Bear, a rare and formidable creature known for its strength and ferocity."
She continued, providing an overview of the Ironhands'' hierarchy and specialties. "They mainly focus on dragons and other rare breeds. The n''s reputation is built on their ability to handle and train some of the most dangerous beasts in this realm."
As Pink shared the information, Michael absorbed every detail, formting a n in his mind.Amidst their nning, Pink chimed in, her voice filled with a hint of excitement. "The Ironhands have a branch in Goldspire, within Seshat''s kingdom of Sagespire. It''s the perfect ce to start."
She nced at Michael, then added, "You can open up a portal directly to Goldspire. While we''re there, we could also check on Fayeth and Rurik."
Michael considered her suggestion, nodding in agreement. "That sounds like a solid n."
"We''re back in action, just like the old times!" Gaya''s eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. "While we''re at it, maybe we can also seek out Seshat. She might have some insights on how to elevate Gaya''s cultivation to the standards of the realm of gods," said Ayag.
For a few moments, Michael''s gaze lingered on Gaya before he spoke. "Let''s take it one step at a time," he said, his voice resonating with the confidence of a leader ready to embark on their next adventure.
Michael turned his attention to Pink, his tone serious yet appreciative. "Keep an eye on Seraphene''s spy hub. We need to ess more of those crystals."
"Hmm," Pink nodded, her fingers poised over the keyboard. " And maybe you can find a way to tap into those secluded crystals while you''re meeting with Seshat. She''s Seraphene''s sister, after all."
"I''ll see what I can do," Michael replied, his mind already strategizing their next moves.
Shifting his focus, Michael looked at Gaya and asked, "Ready to head to Goldspire?"
Gaya''s response was immediate and enthusiastic. "Hell yeah."
With a swift motion, Michael summoned the portable portal, and a swirling vortex materialized before them. "Let''s go then."
One by one, Michael, Gaya, and Vedora,fortably perched on Gaya''s shoulder, stepped into the vortex, vanishing into the portal as it whisked them away to their next destination in Goldspire.
Chapter 1179 New Quest for Vedoras Powers
Chapter 1179 New Quest for Vedora''s Powers
As Michael stepped into the vibrant realm of Goldspire, a new quest notification from the System abruptly appeared before his eyes, capturing his attention.
[The quest "Unlocking Vedora''s Powers" hasmenced... Explore the Ironhand Beast Tamers'' knowledge and techniques to enhance Vedora''s capabilities and unlocktent abilities within each head - Ayag, Cain, and Sarba...]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive 5 million badass points]
Michael gazed at the quest details, understanding that this was no ordinary task. The reward alone indicated theplexity and significance of the quest. Yet, he couldn''t help but feel a surge of excitement at the prospect of uncovering Vedora''s full potential.
He already knew that Ayag possessed a powerful sonic shout, Cain had the unique ability to open portals, and Sarba had exceptionally keen senses. The thought of enhancing these abilities or discovering new ones thrilled him. It was an opportunity to elevate Vedora''s powers to unprecedented heights, something he was eager to undertake.
As Michael, Gaya, and Vedora stepped out of the dark alley into the bustling streets of Goldspire, Ayag, perchedfortably on Gaya''s shoulder, remarked.
"There''s a silver lining with your cultivation, Gaya. The pantheon might not detect you since you haven''t unlocked your godhood or adapted to the cultivation stages of the realm of gods."
Michael nodded in agreement, his mind already considering their next move. "True, but we need to figure out how to unlock your godhood sooner rather thanter." He recalled consulting the system about this very issue, only to be informed that its current level was insufficient to provide the necessary guidance.
Meanwhile, the streets of Goldspire were a vibrant tapestry of schrly pursuit and intellectual exchange. Schrs of various races, such as elves, orcs, and humans, carrying heavy books, wandered the streets and engaged in deep discussions. The city''s architecture, a blend of grandeur and functionality, reflected the domain''s dedication to knowledge and wisdom.
Taking in the sights and sounds around her, Gaya remarked with a hint of awe in her voice.
"So this is the domain of the Goddess of Wisdom, huh?"Gaya asked as she walked by Michael''s side. They continued to stroll side by side through the schrly streets of Goldspire. The city''s ambiance, rich with the pursuit of knowledge, seemed almost tranquilpared to the realms they were ustomed to.
As they walked, a single white petal, delicate and ethereal, floated through the air, eventuallynding gently on Michael''s face. He reached up, his fingers brushing against the soft petal, and in that instant, the scenery around them shifted dramatically.
They found themselves teleported to a serene location, in front of a beautiful waterfall cascading into a tranquil pond. The setting was peaceful, with the gentle sound of water providing a soothing backdrop. Standing there, in the midst of this picturesquendscape, was Seshat, the Goddess of Wisdom.
Seshat, with a warm and weing smile, greeted Gaya, addressing her with the respect due to a fellow goddess. "Goddess Gaya," she said, her voice as calm and melodious as the waters behind her.
In the midst of the serene environment created by the waterfall and the pond, Michael took the opportunity to introduce Seshat to Gaya formally. "Gaya, this is Seshat, the Goddess of Wisdom," he said with a hint of respect in his voice.
Seshat greeted Gaya with a weing demeanor, acknowledging her as a neer to the realm of gods. "Wee to our realm, Goddess of Monsters," she said, her voice imbued with a wisdom that seemed as old as time itself.
In response, Gaya couldn''t help but express her frustration about the recent attack she endured in the Celestial Valley. With her typical brashness, she cursed the creatures and beasts that had dared to assault her. "Goddess of Monsters my ass. Those fucking beasts had the balls to attack their own goddess!" she eximed, her tone a mix of haughtiness and disbelief. Seshat, ever the embodiment of calmness, gently reminded Gaya of her unique position. "As the Goddess of Monsters, those creatures are, in a sense, your worshippers," she exined, her wordsced with a subtle hint of amusement.
Not missing a beat, Gaya retorted with a mixture of haughtiness and humor, questioning the logic of worshippers attacking their own goddess. "What kind of lunatics attack their goddess? Seems like they need to learn some manners," she quipped, herment reflecting her fiery spirit.
Hearing Gaya, Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at the exchange while Seshat let out a rare giggle. "You are everything I expected you to be, Gaya," Seshat remarked, clearly amused and perhaps slightly charmed by Gaya''s haughty nature.
As they stood in the tranquil setting, Michael inquired about the reason for their sudden teleportation to Seshat''s resting ce. "Why did you bring us here?" he asked, his curiosity evident in his tone. Seshat responded with a calm smile, her eyes reflecting wisdom and knowledge. "For someone who has in a god, you seem remarkably calm and nonchnt," she observed, her voice carrying a hint of admiration.
Michael responded with a wry smile. "Being calmes with the territory when you''re a hitman and assassin," he said, his words tinged with a blend of seriousness and jest.
Gaya, never one to hold back her thoughts, interjected with her own opinion on the matter. "From what I''ve heard, Rainar had iting. It''s pathetic that the so-called pantheon hasn''t done shit about it," she stated bluntly, her disdain for Rainar and the pantheon''s inaction clear in her voice.
Seshat sighed softly, acknowledging Gaya''s sentiment. "Indeed, the pantheon has lost its way amidst a web of schemes and politics," she conceded, her tone reflecting a mix of disappointment and resignation. However, Seshat rified that wasn''t the reason for summoning them. "I didn''t call you here to discuss the pantheon''s shorings," she said, shifting the conversation''s focus. "I brought you here because I wanted to inform you that Fayeth and Rurik are safe from Rin''s reach," she revealed, bringing a sense of relief to the conversation.
Upon hearing Rin''s name, Gaya''s expression hardened, and she clenched her fist in anger. "One day, I''ll send that Princess of Murder bitch straight to hell myself," she dered with fierce determination.
"It''s wise to avoid Rin as much as possible until you''re strong enough to face Xyloth, the God of Murder. Even the seasoned gods in the pantheon fear him," she warned, emphasizing the gravity of the situation. Then, she added a crucial piece of information about Rin''s capabilities. "Rin is unpredictable, and now that you''ve killed several seal bearers, she has found a way to manifest in the mortal realm. While she can''t be there physically, she can still wreak havoc and spread chaos," Seshat exined, highlighting the danger Rin posed.
In the midst of their conversation, Michael remembered an important query from Pink. He asked Seshat about essing Seraphene''s isted or protected data crystals. "Is there a way to ess Seraphene''s more secure crystals?" he inquired, hoping for insight into thisplex issue.
Seshat responded with a serene smile, her eyes twinkling with wisdom. "Some things are better discovered through one''s own journey than simply being told," she replied cryptically, her words echoing the mystique often associated with deities.
Ayag, always quick to voice her opinions, let out a sigh and growled in slight frustration. "Typical cryptic goddess talk," she muttered, expressing amon sentiment when dealing with divine beings'' elusive answers.
Unperturbed by their reactions, Seshat continued to smile gently. "You are always wee in my domain. Feel free to stay as long as you wish," she offered graciously, extending hospitality to Michael and Gaya.
Realizing that Seshat wouldn''t divulge any more information about hacking into the heavily guarded crystals, Michael decided not to press further.
As their meeting drew to a close, Seshat mentioned she had obligations at the pantheon. "I must attend to matters at the pantheon now, but I hope fate allows us to meet again," she said warmly. With a wave of her hand, Michael and Gaya found themselves instantly teleported back to the bustling street of Goldspire, the serene environment of Seshat''s resting ce reced by the lively energy of the city in the blink of an eye.
Then, Michael and Gaya strolled through the bustling streets of Goldspire and soon found themselves in front of a three-story building that stood majestically amidst the city''s architecture. The building was imposing, with its sturdy stone walls adorned with intricate carvings of various mythical creatures. The entrance was framed by tworge, ornate wooden doors, each bearing the emblem of a clenched iron fist, symbolizing strength and mastery over beasts.
Above the doors, a signboard hung proudly, dering the name ''Ironhand Beast Tamers'' in bold, elegant script, just below the striking emblem of the fist crest. The building''s windows wererge, allowing ample light to illuminate the interior, and the roof was adorned with statues of dragons and other mythical beasts, hinting at the expertise and prowess of the tamers within.
As they approached, the sounds of animals and asional roars could be heard from inside. "Let''s see what the beast tamers have to offer," he said confidently, stepping into the Ironhand Beast Tamers'' domain, with Gaya following closely behind.
Chapter 1180 Borgin Ironfist
Chapter 1180 Borgin Ironfist
When they entered the Ironhand Beast Tamers, they were immediately enveloped in a rustic ambiance, filled with the earthy scents of fur and untamed wilderness. The interior was spacious, with high ceilings supported by thick wooden beams, and the walls were adorned with various hunting trophies and tools of the beast taming trade.
Around them, muscr beast tamers moved about their business, their bodies adorned with tattoos that told stories of bravery and skill. These tamers,prising various races from towering orcs to agile elves, each carried an air of rugged experience and a deep understanding of the creatures they worked with. Their attire ranged from leather vests to full armor, each piece uniquely designed and decorated with essories symbolizing their achievements and status within the guild.
In one corner of the room, arge cage drew their attention. Inside, an imposing eagle bear paced restlessly. This magnificent creature was a sight to behold, with the sturdy body of a bear and the wings and head of an eagle. Its feathers and fur seamlessly merged, creating an aura of wild beauty and power. Its screeches echoed through the hall, causing some patrons to nce nervously in its direction.
Patrons of the guild, a mix of adventurers and curious onlookers, whispered amongst themselves, their voices a blend of fear and fascination. "That thing is massive!" one patron eximed, while another added, "I wouldn''t want to be on the wrong side of those ws."
Meanwhile, the beast tamers around the cage taunted the eagle bear, seemingly unafraid of its strength and ferocity. "Calm down, big fe," one tamerughed, banging on the cage with a gauntleted hand. "You''re not so tough behind those bars!"
"That must be an eagle bear. I''ve never seen such a creature before." Gaya watched the eagle bear with awe and surprise. Her eyes shone with a mix of excitement and curiosity as she observed the majestic animal.
Suddenly, the atmosphere in the Ironhand Beast Tamers shifted from one of controlled excitement to chaotic panic as the eagle bear, with a deafening roar, broke free from its cage. The massive beast''s strength was on full disy as it tore through the metal bars like they were made of paper. Patrons screamed in terror, scrambling to find cover. "Run, it''s loose!" someone yelled, their voice trembling with fear. The room erupted into chaos, with people tripping over each other in their haste to escape. Meanwhile, the beast tamers, although taken by surprise, quickly sprang into action. "Get thes!" shouted one tamer, as he darted towards the equipment room. Another tamer, a burly orc with scars across his face, threw a smoke bomb towards the eagle bear, hoping to disorient it. The bomb exploded in a cloud of thick, choking smoke, but the beast seemed unfazed, its powerful wings pping to clear the air.
From a safe distance, Michael and Gaya observed the scene unfold. "This is going to be messy," Michaelmented, his eyes tracking the beast''s movements.
The eagle bear, now enraged,shed out at anyone within reach. Its sharp beak snapped shut on a tamer''s arm, the sound of bone crunching echoing through the hall. The tamer screamed in agony as he was flung aside like a rag doll.
In a swift motion, the beast took flight, itsrge wings causing gusts of wind that knocked over tables and chairs. As it soared above the patrons, itunched a volley of metallic, dagger-like feathers towards the crowd. The feathers whistled through the air, embedding themselves in walls and, unfortunately, in some of the tamers and patrons.
"Watch out for the feathers!" warned a tamer, as he narrowly dodged a lethal projectile.
The room was now a battlefield, with beast tamers using all their skills and tools to subdue the creature. One tamer, a quick-footed elf, leaped through the air, attempting to throw asso around the beast''s neck. However, the eagle bear was too fast, evading thesso with a swift turn.
Another tamer hurled a potion at the beast, which exploded upon impact, releasing a cloud of freezing mist. The mist seemed to slow the beast momentarily, but its immense strength allowed it to break free, shaking off the icy residue with a fierce roar.
Blood, feathers, and debris littered the floor as the battle raged on. The sounds ofbat were intense ¨C the nging of weapons, the shouts of the tamers, the screeches of the eagle bear, and the cries of the injured.
Gaya clenched her fists, itching to join the fray, but Michael ced a reassuring hand on her shoulder, signaling her to stay put. They both knew that intervening might escte the situation further.
As the struggle between the tamers and the eagle bear intensified, the doors of the Ironhand Beast Tamers building burst open with a thunderous sound. In strode a figure ofmanding presence, his eyes sharp and focused. The room seemed to grow quieter as he entered, his heavy boots thudding against the wooden floor.
"That''s Borgin Ironfist!" a patron whispered in awe to hispanion, his eyes wide with admiration. "The leader of the Ironhand Beast Tamers, they say he once single-handedly subdued a wild ice dragon!"
Borgin Ironfist, a mountain of a man with arms as thick as tree trunks, surveyed the chaos before him. His hair was a wild mane of white, and his face bore the scars of countless battles. He wore a leather vest adorned with various furs and teeth of beasts he had conquered. At his side hung a massive, rune-etched warhammer, its head gleaming with a faint magical aura.
Without a word, Borgin reached for his hammer, his grip firm and assured. The eagle bear, sensing a new and formidable opponent, let out a defiant screech and charged towards him.
Borgin moved with surprising agility for his size. He rolled to the side, dodging the beast''s initial charge. As the eagle bear turned to strike again, Borgin swung his hammer with incredible force, striking the ground and creating a shockwave that stunned the beast momentarily.
Seizing the opportunity, Borgin activated a series of traps he had set around the room. Nets shot out from hiddenpartments in the walls, entangling the beast''s wings. At the same time, a series of chains sprung from the floor, wrapping around the eagle bear''s legs and hindering its movement.
The eagle bear struggled against its bindings, but Borgin was relentless. He approached the beast, his hammer raised for a final strike. But instead of delivering a killing blow, Borgin ced the t end of the hammer''s head against the beast''s forehead and whispered an ancient taming incantation.
The room fell silent as the eagle bear''s struggling ceased. Its eyes, once filled with wild fury, now glowed with a calm light. Borgin''s voice, deep and resonant, seemed to reach into the very soul of the creature, calming its raging spirit.
With a final gesture, Borgin released the beast from its bindings. The eagle bear, now subdued, bowed its head in respect to its new master.
The patrons and beast tamers erupted in cheers and apuse. Borgin Ironfist stood triumphant, his feet firmly nted on the ground, a true master of beasts. As Gaya''s gaze lingered on the subdued eagle bear lying at Borgin Ironfist''s feet, a sudden, inexplicable connection surged through her. It was as if the boundaries between her mind and the creature''s blurred for a brief moment. , "Save me." Amidst the mor and movement of the hall, she heard a clear, distinct plea in her mind.
The realization struck Gaya like a bolt of lightning. This unexpected telepathicmunication was something new, something profound. It dawned on her that this might be a manifestation of her newfound status as the Goddess of Monsters. Her ability to connect with these creatures on a deeper level was both startling and exhrating.
Still reeling from the experience, Gaya watched as the beast tamers, following Borgin''smand, began to lead the eagle bear away. She could sense the creature''s resignation, its spirit subdued under the firm grip of the tamers. Meanwhile, Borgin was issuing orders with amanding presence. "Get this mess sorted,ds!" he bellowed across the hall. "And see to it that those injured are taken to the healers immediately. We''ll need to reinforce these cages; can''t have our beasts breaking free like this!"
His voice, authoritative yet not devoid of concern, echoed through the hall as his men scrambled to follow his directives. The chaos slowly subsided under his leadership, the hall returning to a state of order.
Still processing her encounter with the eagle bear, Gaya felt a mix of emotions. The beast''s plea echoed in her mind, leaving her with a sense of responsibility towards these creatures. She knew then that her role as a goddess was not just a title, but a calling with profound implications.
After themotion had settled and the hall was restored to a semnce of normality, Gaya turned to Michael, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. "I felt something, a connection with that beast," she confessed, her brow furrowed in contemtion. "It spoke to me, Michael, in my mind. What should I do?"
Considering the gravity of her newfound powers, Michael paused for a moment.
"For now, let''s not rush into anything," he advised calmly. "We need to understand your abilities better and focus on the task at hand."
Gaya nodded in agreement, the resolve returning to her eyes. "You''re right," she said, steeling herself. "I''ll learn more about what I can do. But first things first."
Michael offered a supportive smile, appreciating her sensible approach. "Let''s go have a word with Borgin," he suggested, gesturing towards the formidable figure of the Ironhand beast tamers'' leader. "We need to find out about Hydras and their breeders."
Chapter 1181 Andohrs Warning.
Chapter 1181 Andohr''s Warning.
In the realm of gods, under a starry sky illuminated by a bright blue moon, Seshat approached a colossal marble building. Its grandeur was unmistakable, standing tall amidst a beautifully manicured garden. The serene atmosphere contrasted starkly with the gravity of the meeting she was about to attend.
Gracefully, Seshat navigated through the lush garden, her steps silent yet purposeful. As she entered the building, she found herself in a vast hall, at the center of which stood a giant round table. Gathered around it were some of the most powerful deities of the pantheon: Rudra, the God of War; Zorian, the God of the Sun; Flora, the Goddess of Nature; Valorian, the God of Valor; and Kranar, the God of Lightning.
Each god sat in their majestic chairs, which reflected their respective domains. However, thergest throne-like chair at the table''s head remained conspicuously empty, along with several other seats. Upon Seshat''s arrival, Flora, with a touch of solemnity in her voice, greeted her. "Wee back to the Pantheon, Seshat," she said, adhering to the formalities reserved for weing a goddess back into their midst.
Seshat acknowledged Flora with a nod, her expressionposed yet filled with an unspoken understanding of the significant matters at hand.
As the gods exchanged brief greetings, Zorian, the God of the Sun, took the lead in steering the conversation. He stood up, his presencemanding attention, and began. "Now that we are all here," his voice resonated throughout the hall. "We must address the unprecedented event that has urred."
All eyes were on Zorian as he continued, his tone grave. "Rainar, the God of Rain, has fallen. This is an eventuality that none of us foresaw and marks a turning point in our history. The rules of our existence have been challenged, and we muste together to understand the implications and decide our course of action."
Zorian''s voice echoed with a mixture of authority and concern in the grand hall of the pantheon.
"The assassination of Rainar has revealed a truth we never considered possible," he began, his tone grave. "It has been proven that even we, the gods, can be killed. This revtion shakes the very foundation of our existence."
The gathered deities absorbed his words, their faces reflecting a range of emotions from disbelief to worry. The room was heavy with the implications of what Zorian was saying.
"We have always considered ourselves invulnerable, eternal," Zorian continued, his gaze sweeping across the faces of his fellow gods. "But this event has shattered that belief. An unknown assassin has not only taken the life of one of our own but has also challenged the perceived order of our realms." The intensity in Zorian''s eyes grew as he underscored the seriousness of the situation. "This is not just about the loss of Rainar. This is about the potential threat that this assassin poses to all of us. If one of us can be killed, then none of us are safe. We must acknowledge this new reality and prepare ourselves for possibilities we never thought we''d have to consider."
As Zorian''s grave words continued to reverberate throughout the hall, the atmosphere shifted abruptly with the unexpected arrival of Seraphene. She strode into the room, her presence calm yetmanding, carrying an orb that pulsed with an ethereal glow.
"Seraphene, what brings you here amidst this crucial discussion? I thought I had tasked you with something else." Zorian, slightly taken aback, addressed her. Without missing a beat, Seraphene held up the orb, her voice steady and assured. "Andohr wished to convey something of importance. I believe it''s in our best interest to listen."
Rudra, the God of War, couldn''t help but interject with a snicker, his toneced with mockery. "Ah, so the God of Time and Space speaks through an orb now. How''s your luxurious prison treating you, Andohr?"
From within the orb, Andohr''s voice emerged, tinged with mockery of its own. "Quite the sight, watching you all scramble in confusion and fear, especially after disregarding my warnings about underestimating unknown threats."
Zorian, refocusing the conversation, turned to Seraphene. "How is Andohrmunicating through this device? This isn''t amon urrence."
With a knowing smile, Seraphene responded, "As the Goddess of Information, it''s within my capabilities to facilitate suchmunication, Zorian." Her words were deliberate, and she offered no further exnation, leaving a sense of enigmatic authority hanging in the air.
As Andohr''s voice resonated from the orb, his tone wasced with biting sarcasm. "How can you be so stupid?" he began, his words echoing in the grand hall. "No mere assassin could kill a god. It requires a god to kill a god."
A chuckle escaped from the orb, Andohr''s amusement at the situation palpable. "It''s the God of Darkness who ended Rainar''s existence. And here you are, scurrying around in circles, fucking clueless as ever."
Zorian''s brow furrowed at this revtion. "The God of Darkness is not our primary concern at the moment, Andohr," he retorted firmly. "He was not a significant threat to the Pantheon five thousand years ago, and he remains so today."
Undeterred, Andohr''s voice from the orb carried a mocking edge. "Oh, is that so? Perhaps you should say that to Rainar. Oh, wait¡ªyou can''t. He''s been killed by the very god you dismiss as insignificant."
Andohr''s words hung heavy in the air, a stark reminder of the underestimation and oversight that had led to Rainar''s demise. In response, Rudra''sughter echoed through the hall,ced with a hint of derision. "I almost killed the God of Darkness with just a fraction of my power at his own wedding. Do you really expect us to believe he''s suddenly be this formidable threat?" he asked, his tone dripping with skepticism.
Andohr''s voice from the orb grew louder, his impatience evident. "Open your eyes, you fool! The God of Darkness excels in exactly that¡ªdarkness and stealth. He strikes from the shadows, and you''re all too blind to see it."
A palpable sense of disdain tinged Andohr''s words as he continued, his voice seething with contempt. "You all fear Dagon, but you have no idea the true threat posed by the God of Darkness. Ghost is a far more dangerous enemy than you fucking realize."
The hatred in Andohr''s voice was unmistakable, especially when he spoke of his arch-nemesis, the God of Darkness. Turning his attention to Zorian, Andohr''s tone took on a more demanding edge. "Zorian, as long as I''m stuck in my castle, there''s little I can do. If you do not break me out, you are all fucked,"
"The spells and barriers around you areplex and powerful, Andohr. They weren''t designed to be easily broken, and that''s why you remain caged, not because we abandoned you," Zorian responded calmly.
However, Andohr''s response was a cold snicker. "If you don''t want to see more gods die, find a way to release me. Otherwise, prepare to collect more bodies of gods left and right,"
"You won''t find him without my powers, and your ignorance may cost you more gods," Andohr''s voice took on a final, ominous tone. As he spoke, the orb''s glow began to diminish, signaling the end of themunication. "If you still fail to recognize the danger at hand, perhaps you all deserve to be killed, you stupid dumb fucks," Andohr''s voice echoed, fading into silence.
Once Andohr''s presence had vanished, Serephene stepped forward, her expression solemn. "Harsh as his words may be, Andohr speaks a truth we cannot ignore. We must take his warnings seriously."
"Andohr''s insights, though abrasive, cannot be dismissed. We cannot afford to overlook any potential threats, no matter how unlikely they may seem." Zorian nodded in agreement.
He paused for a moment before continuing, "I''ll speak with Raphael. We need to update our efforts to track the God of Darkness. It''s crucial we stay ahead of any moves he might make."
Eventually, Zorian brought up the pressing matter of Nimbosia''s future. "We must decide what to do with Rainar''s kingdom, Nimbosia," he stated gravely.
"The war between Kranar and Rainar,bined with Rainar''s tyrannical methods, has severely eroded the mortals'' faith in the pantheon, and particrly in their own god. We need to mend this breach and consider appointing a new, benevolent ruler for Nimbosia." Flora said with a concerned tone.
For a few moments, silence enveloped the hall as the gods lost in their own thoughts.
"If I may suggest, I believe I have the perfect candidate to lead Nimbosia. Someone who has served its people for decades with dedication andpassion." Seshat, calm as ever, offered her insight, breaking the silence.
"Your wisdom is always valued, Seshat. Please, tell us more." Zorian encouraged her to continue.
Rudra, with his characteristic nonchnce, chimed in. "If the Goddess of Wisdom herself is rmending someone, I have no objections. Frankly, I couldn''t care less about Rainar''s people," he said with a chuckle.
Seshat nodded in acknowledgment of Rudra''s remarks and then announced her rmendation. "Fayeth, the angel of Goddess Ava, is the ideal choice to govern Nimbosia. Her years of service and dedication to the people make her the perfect ruler to restore peace and faith in the kingdom."
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Chapter 1182 A quest from the Beast Tamers
Chapter 1182 A quest from the Beast Tamers
Back in the Ironfist Beast Tamers branch, the scene was one of recovery and repair. Amid the bustling activity, Michael and Gaya approached a tall, tattooed elven young man at the counter.
"Good day," the young man greeted with a polite nod. "How may I assist you?"
Michael nced around at the remnants of chaos caused by the eagle bear, then back at the elf. "Pretty rough day you''ve had, huh?" hemented casually.
"Yes, indeed," the young man replied with a sigh. "An incident like today''s is extremely rare. We''re already taking steps to ensure it never happens again."
His eyes then shifted to Vedora perched on Gaya''s shoulder. "That''s a beautiful creature you have there," he remarked with genuine interest.
Gaya chuckled lightly, "They are as beautiful as they are troublesome."
Ayag hissed softly at Gaya''sment but remained quiet.
Michael offered a warm smile, "Thank you. We''re actually here to meet Borgin Ironfist. Could you arrange that for us?"
The young elf''s demeanor shifted slightly, betraying his surprise. "I''m afraid Borgin doesn''t meet anyone without a prior appointment," he responded, maintaining his politeness.
"Is there any way to secure such an appointment with your guild leader?" Michael inquired about the process to secure an appointment with Borgin.
"Borgin Ironfist values strength and prowess. To gain his attention, you''ll need to demonstrate these qualities."The young elf exined.
Then, he reached for a yellow parchment on the counter and unfolded it before them.
"Here''s a request from Goddess Seshat''s army," he began, pointing at the document. "They need help catching a rogue griffin terrorizing the forest outskirts. Completing this could certainly catch Borgin''s interest."
As the elf spoke, his gaze lingered on Michael and Gaya, sensing there was more to them than meets the eye.
Gaya leaned in towards Michael, whispering, "This is a waste of time. Let''s wait for nightfall, break into Borgin''s chambers, and convince him our way if he refuses to cooperate."
Michael subtly shook his head, dismissing her suggestion, while the young elf, oblivious to their whispered strategy, waited expectantly for their response. "We''ll take it," Michael nodded at the elf before taking the parchment from the elf''s hand.
Walking away from the young elf, Michael voiced his decision to ept the quest. "Why are we ying these games? We could just confront Borgin directly." Gaya asked, clutching his hand.
Michael, with a light chuckle, appreciated her usual direct approach. "It''s not just about meeting Borgin," he exined. "I noticed something earlier with the eagle bear. Your presence seemed to affect it. I want to explore this further, see if your influence extends to other creatures."
He continued, "This task gives us a chance to understand your powers as a goddess better. Plus, Borgin could be a valuable ally. Let''s try diplomacy first."
Gaya let out a sigh, her features rxing into a yful smirk. "Alright, your way first. But if it doesn''t pan out, we''re doing it my way," she said, cracking her knuckles with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Stepping out into the bustling street, Gaya suggested, "We can''t fly there, so let''s find some horses or something." They strolled down the busy avenue, their eyes scanning for a suitable mode of transport.
Suddenly, Michael spotted a carriage and a young boy calling out, "Travelers to Gorgon vige, gather ''round!" Michael noted to Gaya, "The forest with the griffin is on the way to Gorgon."
They approached the carriage, a quaint vehicle loaded with hay and various goods, and paid the required fare to the boy. Climbing aboard, they settled atop the hay, surrounded by an assortment of items ranging from woven baskets to sealed crates, creating a rustic and snug atmosphere inside the carriage.
Eventually, the carriage creaked into motion, trundling out of the city walls. Thendscape outside transformed into rolling grasnds, dotted with wildflowers and the asional tree, the serenity a stark contrast to the city''s hustle.
The carriage''s driver, an old man with a weathered face, turned to them and asked curiously, "Where might you two be headed?" Beside him, his young helper listened intently.
"We''re off to handle the griffin troubling the forest near your vige." Michael replied casually.
The old man raised an eyebrow, a mix of surprise and respect in his eyes, while the boy''s eyes widened in awe. "Brave souls," the driver mused, turning his attention back to the road ahead as the carriage continued its steady journey through the peaceful countryside.
The young boy, wide-eyed with fascination, asked, "Aren''t you guys afraid?"
Gayaughed heartily, "Trust me, kid, we''ve handled worse."
"You two are so cool," the boy remarked with genuine admiration.
Michael, joining in theughter, advised, "Don''t try to fight something just because it seems cool, kid."
The driver, an older man with a voice seasoned by experience, nodded in agreement. "That''s right Franki. Folks like us shouldn''t be resorting to violence."he said to the boy.
The boy, not easily dissuaded, retorted, "Tell that to the vigers killed by that griffin."
"Can you tell us more about the beast and its attacks?" Michael asked, seizing the opportunity to gather information. The driver and the boy exchanged a nce before the driver began recounting a particrly chilling encounter. "Well, there was this one time," he started, "a group of Seshat''s soldiers were patrolling the forest at night..."
The boy chimed in, his voice tinged with both fear and excitement. "Yeah, they thought they were safe, but the griffin... it just swooped down from the darkness. It was so stealthy, they didn''t even hear iting."
The driver continued, "The beast was cunning, alright. It attacked from the shadows, picking off the soldiers one by one. It''s not just strong; it''s brutal and smart."
Michael listened intently, piecing together the griffin''s capabilities from their story. Intrigued, Michael inquired, "Do you know anything about the griffin''s cultivation stage?"
The boy''s face lit up with excitement as he shared what he had heard. "Rumors from the beast tamers say it''s in the Elemental Attunement Realm, and it can unleash icy breaths."
"So, it has chosen the water element," Michael deduced, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
Gaya, always quick to contribute, added, "Then we can counter it with fire."
The driver, wise from years of experience, offered a cautionary note. "Don''t underestimate this creature. The only reason it''s quiet today is because it attackedst night. It won''t hunt again with a full belly."
The boy gave a nervous chuckle, "It''s a bit sick, but it''s the truth."
Gaya smirked, "Smart beast, but that''s not foolproof." Her confidence was evident in her tone, hinting at the battle-readiness she felt.
As the carriage trundled along, the dense forest under the starlit sky enveloped them in its quiet embrace. Gaya, peering out at the darkening surroundings, turned to Michael, "Shouldn''t we rest or camp for the night?"
The driver shook his head firmly, his eyes fixed on the path ahead. "We don''t camp out here. Lighting a fire might draw the griffin''s attention," he exined in a low voice.
"We need to reach the vige while the griffin is still digesting itsst meal. It''s safer that way." Franki said..
Just then, Sarba tugged gently at Gaya''s ear. "I''m hearing something," he whispered, his toneced with urgency.
Gaya, understanding the seriousness of Sarba''s enhanced senses, exchanged a quick, knowing nce with Michael, signaling him without rming the driver and the boy.
Suddenly, a loud, echoing peal cut through the silence of the night. The driver''s hands tightened on the reins, and the boy''s face drained of color as he stuttered, "It can''t be..."
Without hesitation, Michael instructed the driver to stop. Stepping out of the carriage, he approached the front and addressed the visibly shaken pair. "Go on without stopping," he said firmly. "We''ll handle whateveres our way."
As Michael and Gaya prepared to confront the unseen danger, the boy and driver hesitated, torn between fear and a sense of obligation. "Can''t we help in some way?" the boy asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Gaya, with a mischievous glint in her eye, chuckled. "Yeah, we could use you as bait," she said, her tone darkly yful.
The boy''s eyes widened in rm. "What?" he eximed, taken aback.
"Just kidding," Gaya replied with a smirk, herughter echoing in the quiet forest. Taking control of the situation, Michael turned to the driver. "Go as fast as you can," he instructed firmly. He then gave the horses a reassuring pat, sending them galloping down the path, away from the impending danger.
In his hand, Michael conjured a small orb of fire and used it to ignite a torch he had grabbed from the carriage. He held it aloft, its flickering light piercing the darkness around them, serving as a beacon to draw the griffin''s attention.
The pealing sound grew louder and closer, resonating through the forest, signaling the imminent arrival of the griffin. Michael and Gaya stood ready, the torch''s me casting long, dancing shadows as they awaited the beast''s approach.
Gaya, with a hint of annoyance in her voice, muttered about the inconvenience of hunting unprepared. "I hate going into a fight without knowing what I''m up against," she grumbled.
Ayag, always cautious, chimed in from her perch. "Remember, you need to stay safe and hidden since you haven''t adapted to this world''s cultivation or unlocked your godhood yet."
"I''ve faced off against worse in the Celestial Valley," she retorted, her voiceced with confidence.
Sarba, ever the voice of reason, interjected softly. "Those creatures held back, trying to figure out your power. This griffin might not be so considerate."
Acknowledging Sarba''s wisdom, Gaya let out a resigned sigh. "Fine," she conceded, moving toward a nearby tree. "I''ll provide some air support then," she dered, positioning herself strategically.
Meanwhile, Michael, ever ready for a challenge, stretched his neck from side to side, releasing the tension. A determined glint appeared in his eyes as he eyed the approaching shadow in the distance. "Come to papa," he murmured, a mixture of anticipation and readiness evident in his tone.
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Chapter 1183 Incompetent Goddess of Monsters
Chapter 1183 Ipetent Goddess of Monsters
As the griffin swooped in, a majestic and formidable creature, Michael readied himself. His n was clear: to observe and analyze the beast''s reactions to Gaya''s presence, rather than killing it outright.
Each of Michael''s movements was a calcted dance of agility. He ducked and weaved through the forest, the griffin''s sharp talons shing through the air where he had been moments before. His evasion was almost an art form, predicting and sidestepping the griffin''s powerful dives and lunges with an acrobat''s grace.
From her vantage point, Gaya watched intently, understanding Michael''s strategy. "He''s testing my effect on the beast," she whispered to herself, her eyes tracking every movement below.
"Look at him go, dodging like it''s a game!" Ayag eximed with a mixture of admiration and impatience.
"Yeah, but notice how the griffin''s getting stronger every time it swoops near Gaya," Sarba observed, her voice tinged with curiosity.
Indeed, as the griffin made another pass near the tree where Gaya was concealed, Michael noted a subtle surge in its strength. Its wings beat harder, its screeches grew louder, and its attacks became more vigorous. It was as if Gaya''s proximity was fueling its ferocity.
Michael continued his ballet of evasion, carefully noting these changes. "It''s getting stronger," he muttered under his breath, confirming his suspicion. "Gaya''s presence is affecting it."
The griffin, sensing its prey''s reluctance to attack, grew bolder. Itunched itself with increased vigor, its icy breath creating a chilling mist in the night air. In the thick of the night, the darkness cloaked the griffin''s form, rendering it nearly invisible. Ayag, perched high, strained her eyes to catch a glimpse. "I can''t see a fucking thing in this darkness," she hissed, frustration evident in her voice.
As the battle ensued, Michael''s torch tumbled to the ground. For a brief moment, the griffin descended,nding heavily on the forest floor. The dim light of the fallen torch flickered across its formidable body, casting eerie shadows and revealing its terrifying form.
The griffin was a nightmarish fusion of a lion and an eagle. Its body, legs, and tail were those of a mighty lion, covered in dark, matted fur that seemed to absorb the faint light. The head was that of a colossal eagle, with a bloody beak that dripped with the remnants of its recent prey. Its vast and powerful wings were spread wide, casting an ominous shadow over the forest floor. The sharp and deadly talons dug into the earth with each movement.
The most disturbing detail was the smell it emitted ¡ª a reek of blood and death that permeated the air. The scent spoke of countless hunts and kills, a testament to the beast''s brutal nature.
In a swift, almost deliberate motion, the griffin swung its massive head towards the torch. With a single puff of its icy breath, it extinguished the light, plunging the area back into darkness. The sudden return to darkness was apanied by a bone-chilling peal, a sound that echoed through the forest, sending shivers down the spines of those present.
The extinguished torch left them in nearplete darkness, with only the faintest moonlight filtering through the dense canopy. As the griffin''s screeching echoed in the darkness, Michael prepared himself, his senses heightened. "Just keep dodging its attacks," Gaya''s voice rang out from her hidden perch in the trees.
She continued, her voice tinged with intrigue, "I''m feeling a strange connection with this griffin."
The battle unfolded with Michael skillfully avoiding the griffin''s relentless assaults. The griffin, a massive creature with a lion''s body and an eagle''s head, swooped down repeatedly, its talons aiming for Michael. But each time, he deftly sidestepped or rolled away, his movements fluid and precise.
Despite theck of light, Michael''s training as an assassin allowed him to predict the griffin''s moves. His instincts, honed from countless battles, guided him through the perilous dance.
At one point, the griffin lunged with unexpected speed, its beak snapping close to Michael''s head. Reacting with astonishing quickness, Michael pushed off the ground with incredible force, propelling himself backward. His strength was evident in the way the earth seemed topress beneath his feet as heunched away.
Frustrated by its inability tond a blow, the griffin let out a furious screech and increased its ferocity. It began to attack more wildly, its wings creating gusts of wind that rustled the leaves and branches around them.
Michael continued to evade, each move a testament to his brute strength and agility. He was a blur in the darkness, a shadow dancing just out of reach of the deadly creature.
Gaya watched intently, noticing the subtle changes in the griffin''s behavior whenever it flew near her. The connection she felt seemed to be influencing the beast, though she couldn''t fully understand how.
As the battle between Michael and the griffin intensified, Gaya''s focus shifted inward, tuning into the brutish voice echoing in her head. With each peel of the griffin''s screech, words like "Kill," "Blood," "Hungry," and "Revenge" reverberated through her mind, each spoken as if by the griffin itself.
Each utterance was distinct, its intent clear, and Gaya felt an odd connection to the beast. It was as if the griffin''s thoughts and desires were being transmitted directly to her, a goddess of monsters.
Observing her frown and distant look, Ayag perched on her shoulder and asked with concern, "What is it?"
"I think... I might be hearing the griffin," Gaya responded, her voice tinged with uncertainty and awe.
Ayag, somewhat skeptical, rolled her eyes. "No shit, we''re all hearing it."
Gaya shook her head, her expression serious. "No, you don''t understand. I can hear the griffin speak. It''s not just screeches. It''s words, feelings. It''s like it''s talking to me."
Gaya''s voice cut through the night, urgent and clear. "Don''t hurt it, Ghost," she pleaded, her connection with the griffin growing stronger.
Ayag snickered from her perch, "Tell that to the griffin!"
Ignoring Ayag, Sarba asked gently, "Can you talk to it, Gaya?"
"I''m trying," Gaya replied, her concentration evident.
Michael, understanding the situation, nodded at Gaya. He quickly formted a n to subdue the griffin, intending to use the environment and his tools rather than his godly powers. His mind raced, mapping out the forest and pinpointing the best areas to execute his n.
He moved with purpose, luring the griffin towards a dense thicket. With each step, he calcted the creature''s movements, predicting its next attack. The griffin, powerful and fierce, followed, its eyes fixed on Michael.
Michael reached into his palm, activating the potion dispenser. He released a cloud of thick, blinding smoke, obscuring the griffin''s vision. The creature screeched in confusion, its senses overwhelmed.
Seizing the moment, Michael darted behind arge tree. He quickly concocted a potion, mixing ingredients with precision. The result was a sticky,-like substance that he flung towards the griffin. The creature, still disoriented, became entangled in the, its movements hindered.
Michael didn''t stop there. He used the forest to his advantage, leading the griffin into areas where low-hanging branches and thick underbrush further impeded its movement. Each step was calcted, each action designed to exhaust and confuse the beast without causing it harm.
As the griffin struggled, Michael observed its behavior, looking for signs of Gaya''s influence. The creature''s aggression seemed to wane slightly, its eyes less fierce, as if Gaya''s attempts atmunication were having an effect.
With the griffin now significantly slowed down, Michael approached cautiously. He extended a hand, exuding a calming energy, a skill he''d honed over countless battles. The griffin, its wildness tempered, hesitated, its breaths heavy andbored.
Michael spoke softly, his voice steady and reassuring. "We''re not here to hurt you. Calm down. We can help."
The griffin''s eyes locked with Michael''s, a silent understanding passing between them. Slowly, the majestic creature''s muscles rxed, and its wings folded back. The transformation was remarkable ¨C from a fierce, uncontroble beast to a subdued, almost gentle creature.
In the background, Gaya watched in awe, her connection with the griffin strengthening. She whispered words offort, her voice carrying through the night, reaching the griffin''s ears. The beast responded, its peals turning into soft, almost melodic sounds.
Michael stepped back, giving Gaya space to approach. She walked towards the griffin, her presence radiating a soothing aura. The griffin, recognizing her as the Goddess of Monsters, lowered its head in a sign of respect and acknowledgment.
The griffin''s demeanor shifted abruptly, its earlier respect reced by a surge of anger and frustration. It red at Gaya, its words scathing. "You must be the most ipetent goddess I have ever seen," it sneered, its voice filled with contempt. "How have you failed so miserably as the Goddess of Monsters?"
Gaya, taken aback by the griffin''s harsh words, stumbled over her response. "I didn''t..." she began, her voice trailing off in uncertainty.
Michael, observing the change in Gaya, felt a pang of concern. Never had he seen her so disoriented, her usually unshakeable confidence shattered by the griffin''s usations.
"You let us be enved!" the griffin continued, its voice rising with each word. "You were supposed to protect us, yet here we are, captives and ythings for these tamers!"
Gaya struggled to formte a response, her usual bravado nowhere in sight. The usations struck her deeply, the weight of her newfound responsibilities as a goddess pressing down on her.
Michael watched helplessly, unable to hear the griffin''s words but clearly seeing their impact on Gaya. Her eyes, usually so bright and fierce, now held a glimmer of self-doubt and hurt.
The griffin''s anger didn''t wane. "You are a failure as a goddess," it growled, its eyes locked onto Gaya''s. "How could you ever hope to be a mother to his child?" it added, nodding towards Michael with a mixture of disdain and challenge.
Gaya''s face fell, the griffin''s words cutting through her like a knife. The usation of failing not only as a goddess but also as a potential mother left her speechless, her usual quick retorts silenced by the gravity of the griffin''s words.
Chapter 1184 Another Quest from the system
Chapter 1184 Another Quest from the system
Gaya, usually a whirlwind of fiery words and quickebacks, stood silently, the weight of the griffin''s words heavy upon her. Michael, sensing her distress, gently pressed her shoulder. "What did it say to you?" he asked, his voice filled with concern.
With a small, hesitant voice unlike her usual bold tone, Gaya ryed the griffin''s harsh usations. "It called me a failure... as a goddess... as a potential mother," she murmured, her usual confidence faltering.
In response, Michael just looked into her eyes.
"Listen to me, Gaya," he began, his voice steady and reassuring. "Before you are a goddess, you are Gaya. The fierce, foul-mouthed, bratty snakey we all know and love. This isn''t you. You always have aeback. No one, not even a griffin, can render you speechless."
Hearing Michael''s words, a spark reignited in Gaya''s eyes. She took a deep breath, the worry and concern that had clouded her gaze slowly dissipating. His affirmation of her true self, independent of her newfound godhood, brought back the familiar fire she was known for.
Gaya, her fiery spirit reignited by Michael''s words, suddenly unleashed a powerful p across the griffin''s face. "Listen up, you fuck face," she spat, her voice seething with anger. She red at the griffin, her eyes burning with intensity. "I didn''t even know I was a goddess until a day ago, so how the hell was I supposed to know about the monsters?" she retorted sharply.
Stunned by the sudden p and her outburst, the griffin could only muster a bewildered"What the hell?" response.
"And who asked you to cause trouble and attract the attention of the beast tamers, huh?" she demanded. "Don''t you dare pull the victim card on me, you ugly mutt."
Her words, sharp and unyielding, echoed through the forest. The griffin, taken aback by her fierce demeanor, seemed to realize the futility of arguing with her.
Fueled by her newfound assertiveness, Gaya delivered a powerful knock to the griffin''s head, causing it to cry out in pain. "Mommy!" the griffin cried.
Her darkughter echoed through the forest as she berated the creature. "You stupid, ugly mutt! You dared to attack your own goddess, let alone others!" she eximed, her voice dripping with scorn.
The griffin, clearly in pain, whimpered, "It''s not fair."
Ignoring the griffin, Gaya pped it again. "You attacked vigers, travelers, and then have the fucking audacity to call it unfair when they fight back?" Her hand met the griffin''s face with a sharp crack. "What exactly did you expect to happen?" she demanded.
The griffin could only whine in response, clearly overpowered by Gaya''s fierce demeanor.
Now sitting on Michael''s shoulder, Ayag chuckled, observing the one-sided argument. "I can''t hear what the griffin is saying, but it sure looks like it''s getting a piece of Gaya''s mind," she remarked with amusement, thoroughly entertained by the spectacle unfolding before them. The griffin, with a hint of sorrow in its voice, revealed to Gaya. "They killed my mate... destroyed our eggs." Its tone was a mixture of pain and resentment.
Gaya''s hand, poised for another p, halted in mid-air as she processed the griffin''s words. Her expression softened slightly, but her eyes still held a steely resolve.
"Was this before you started killing, or after?" she inquired, her voice tinged with a newfound seriousness.
"I started killing after," the griffin admitted. "Before that, I only hunted cattle and forest creatures."
"What''s it saying?" Michael, who had been following the exchange, asked Gaya for an update. "This dumb griffin says it started attacking because the beast tamers killed it''s mate and destroyed their eggs," She ryed the griffin''s tragic story to him.
"That''s a tragedy indeed," Sarba who heard this couldnt help sighing. His voice reflected the sadness of the situation.
In response to the griffin''s tragic tale, Gaya''s expression grew cold, her eyes shing with a flicker of killing intent. "I can''t change what''s already happened," she stated firmly, "but I will seek some form of justice for you." She continued, her voice growing stern. "If you monsters make trouble and hunt people, getting hunted in return, I won''t interfere. Actions have consequences. But if those beast tamers or anyone else hunts you for sport or fun," her tone grew icy. "Then they will learn that the monsters and beasts of this world are not to be trifled with for mere amusement."
"What are you going to do now?" The griffin, clearly taken aback, eximed.
"I''m going to cut off one of your ears and present it to the beast tamers as proof that I''ve dealt with you." Gaya replied coolly.
The griffin''s voice rose in rm, "What?!"
Before the griffin could react, Gaya pped it without hesitation.
"Listen up, you ugly fuck. After we leave, you''re going to fly away, find somewhere else to live, and continue hunting cattle and other creatures to survive. Start anew."
As she moved closer to the griffin, her eyes transformed into vertical slits, indicative of her Naga heritage. Her canines elongated into menacing fangs as she issued a final warning, "If you ever cause more trouble, the next time, you''ll have to deal with me as the Dark Queen."
Her words resonated with a mix of threat and authority, leaving no room for doubt. The griffin seemed to understand the gravity of her warning, its earlier defiance reced by a wary respect.
Then with one swift and precise swing, Gaya sliced off the griffin''s ear, causing blood to spatter. The griffin screeched in pain, its cry echoing through the forest.
Without any further hesitation, Gaya quickly cut through thes that trapped the griffin. She then turned to it with a fierce re andmanded.
"Get the fuck out of here before I decide to cut more."
The griffin, now free, pped its wings vigorously, hovering above them. It looked down at Gaya, its eyes reflecting a mix of fear and awe. "You are the craziest goddess I have ever met," it dered.
"This world is not ready for you two crazy gods." It said with a hint of grudging respect in its tone.
With those final words, the griffin soared into the sky, disappearing into the night. Gaya watched it leave, a satisfied smirk on her face. She turned to Michael, holding up the griffin''s ear triumphantly, ready to present it to the beast tamers as proof of their deed.
After a while, Michael and Gaya walked in silence, afortable and familiar ease between them. They enjoyed each other''spany, the forest around them alive with nocturnal sounds. A few hourster, they decided it was time to return to the city. Michael activated his portable portal, and they stepped through it, emerging into the bustling streets of the city.
Upon their return to the Ironfist Beast Tamers, Michael presented the griffin''s ear as proof of their deed. "The griffin is dead." Michael dered with a straight face. The young elf behind the counter, his eyes wide in disbelief, asked, "How did you manage to kill such a beast?"
Michael, with a hint of nonchnce, fabricated a tale of their encounter. "It was a tough battle, but we managed to outsmart it. It''s all about strategy and understanding the beast''s movements."
The young elf disappeared for a moment to verify the authenticity of the ear. When he returned, his expression was one of awe. "It''s indeed a griffin''s ear. Borgin will be thrilled to meet you. He will see you tomorrow morning. He''s always eager to meet hunters who can take down such unruly and vile creatures."
"Good," Gaya smirked, enjoying the moment of recognition. "Can''t wait to meet him," she said with a hint of excitement in her voice.
"I''ll arrange everything. You''ve done a great service." The young elf nodded as his admiration for the duo was evident.
As they left the Ironfist Beast Tamers, Michael and Gaya shared a look of aplishment.
Eventually, Michael and Gaya found themselves at a tavern that catered to nobles. The room they rented was spacious and well-furnished, with arge,fortable bed, elegant tapestries on the walls, and a small balcony overlooking the bustling streets below. A sense of luxury and tranquility filled the space, providing a much-needed respite from their recent adventures.
Sitting on the bed, Gaya''s expression turned thoughtful. "I can''t help but think about my conversation with the griffin," she said, her gaze distant.
Michael, sitting beside her, asked gently, "What''s on your mind?"
"I feel like I should do something about the beast tamers and the monsters. As a goddess of monsters, it seems like my responsibility," Gaya confessed, her voiceced with uncertainty.
Michael nodded, understanding her dilemma. "Don''t act just because it''s expected of you. Do what''s necessary, what feels right to you," he advised.
Gaya sighed, her eyes reflecting her inner conflict. "But I feel like my godhood depends on doing something..."
Suddenly, the familiar chime of the system notification interrupted their conversation. Michael''s eyes widened as he received a new quest.
[The quest "Unlock the Godhood of the Goddess of Monsters" hasmenced. Help Gaya understand and embrace her role as the Goddess of Monsters. Assist her in resolving the conflict between the beast tamers and the creatures of the realm]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive a way to convert Gaya''s cultivation to the realm of gods cultivation and unlock her godhood.]
Chapter 1185 The Two Major Hydra Breeders
Chapter 1185 The Two Major Hydra Breeders
Morning arrived with a gentle warmth, casting a soft golden glow over thendscape. Michael, Gaya, and Vedora, perched atop Gaya''s shoulder, made their way to the Ironfist Beast Tamers. The guild, known for its expertise in handling formidable creatures, stood imposingly against the backdrop of Sagespire''s lush environment.
As they approached the guild''s grand entrance, a young elf with bright, curious eyes weed them. His gaze lingered on Gaya, sensing something extraordinary about her presence. "Good morning," he greeted them, his voice tinged with reverence.
"Can we meet Borgin now?" Michael inquired, his tone direct yet respectful. The quest from the system weighed on his mind, a secret known only to him.
"Of course, follow me," he said, leading them through the intricate corridors of the guild. Their steps echoed on the wooden floors, hinting at the history and countless stories that had unfolded within these walls.
They climbed the wooden stairs, each step creaking under their weight, reaching arge, ornately carved door at the top. The young elf paused, turning to face them. "Borgin is waiting for you inside," he informed them.
"Thank you," Michael said as the elf nodded and left.
Pushing the door open, Michael stepped into the room, with Gaya and Vedora following closely. Inside, Borgin Ironfist awaited them, his presencemanding yet weing. His wide grin revealed a sense of anticipation and respect for the trio.
"Ah, the griffin yers," Borgin eximed, his voice booming with enthusiasm. "Please, sit down." He gestured towards the seats around arge wooden table, intricately carved with images of mythical beasts.
Borgin leaned back in his chair, the creak of the wood echoing softly in the spacious chamber. "That griffin has been a menace for too long," he said, his voice tinged with relief. "Thank you for taking care of it."
Michael, maintaining hisposed demeanor, led the conversation. "It''s fine. We''re happy to help," he replied, his words reflecting a sense of purpose and determination.
With a hearty p of his hands, Borgin eximed, "Wonderful!" His eyes sparkled with curiosity as he leaned forward. "Now, tell me, why did you want to meet me?"
Michael took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. "We believe you''re the best person to tell us about hydras and hydra breeding," he said, watching Borgin closely.
Borgin''s eyebrows shot up in surprise, his face a canvas of intrigue and confusion. "Hydras, you say?" he mused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he processed the unusual request.
"Yes," Michael continued, "we have a keen interest in them."
"Why are you interested in hydras?" Borgin asked,pletely unaware of the three-headed serpent sitting on Gaya''s shoulder, disguised as an ordinary creature. He had no idea this was not just any hydra, but Vedora itself.
Michael exchanged a quick nce with Gaya, a silentmunication passing between them. Sensing an opportunity to weave their narrative into something believable, Michael spoke up. "We have a friend who is doing research on hydras. We owe her a great deal, so we''re looking to help her out."
Borgin, his face brightening with understanding, pped his hands together. "Helping a friend, now that''s a noble gesture!" he eximed, a hint of admiration in his voice.
"Very well," Borgin said, nodding. He leaned back in his chair, ready to share his knowledge. "There are not many hydra breeders out there. It''s an expensive and risky line of work, but there are two giants spearheading the breeding business."
As Borgin reached for a bottle of ale, he offered, "Do you want some?"
Michael and Gaya shook their heads politely, declining the offer. Borgin poured himself a cup, took a sip, and continued with a more rxed tone. "One is the White Lotus n, based right here in Goldspire. They''re rtively new but have made quite a name for themselves."
He paused, savoring another sip of his ale. "And the other," Borgin continued, "is the Kraken n. They are the oldest in the business, based in the kingdom of Aurumvale." He looked at them intently. "Aurumvale, as you might know, is under the domain of Luxor, the God of Wealth. His blessings have made the kingdom a hub for many such rare and lucrative ventures."
Michael nodded, absorbing the information. Borgin''s insight was proving invaluable, and the mention of Aurumvale and the Kraken n sparked a new line of inquiry in their quest.
Borgin leaned forward, his expression turning serious as he delved into the details. "Now, the White Lotus n focuses on creating hydras through spells, modifying other beasts, like several-headed serpents." His gaze drifted to Vedora, perched atop Gaya''s shoulder in disguise. "Just like the one you have there," he noted with a hint of curiosity.
Continuing, Borgin exined the n''s methods. "In just a few decades, the White Lotus n has flooded the market with artificially created hydras, what they call ''bred hydras.'' These creatures are primarily sold to nobles who want them as pets or for sport."
As Borgin spoke, a low growl resonated softly, almost imperceptibly. It came from Ayag reacting to the notion of her kind being bred for fun and sport. The growl was a mix of disdain and anger, feelings stirred by the thought of such noble creatures being reduced to mere ythings for the wealthy.
Borgin, seemingly unaware of Ayag''s reaction, took another sip of his ale, waiting to see if Michael and Gaya had any more questions orments about the information he had just shared.
Gaya, her curiosity piqued, leaned in and asked, "What about the Kraken n? What is their approach to hydra breeding?"
Borgin nodded appreciatively at her question. "Ah, the Kraken n, they are the old school," he began. "They might breed fewer hydraspared to the White Lotus n, but they focus on more naturally bred hydras, the kind that are revered for their purity and strength."
Michael, intrigued by this distinction, asked, "Are there any hydras that aren''t created by breeding in this world?"
"Good question," Borgin replied, his eyes reflecting a depth of knowledge. "Indeed, there are sightings and ounts of hydras that aren''t bred inbs. These are especially reported in the Infinite Sea region and some pocket dimensions. But no one has managed to catch such a creature."
At this revtion, Ayag and Sarba''s eyes lit up, a mixture of shock and realization dawning upon them. The thought that they might not be thest of their kind brought a flicker of hope to their ancient eyes.
Borgin continued, unaware of the internal stirrings of Vedora''s heads.
"Even I haven''t seen a natural hydra. Those who might have, didn''t live to tell the tale." He paused, taking a moment before adding, "As for the Kraken n, their specialty lies in breeding hydras using the skeletal remains of the legendary Vedora." He let the words sink in. "This is what makes the hydras created by the Kraken n extremely rare, powerful, and expensive."
The room grew quiet as the gravity of Borgin''s words settled in. The mention of Vedora''s skeletal remains stirred something deep within the disguised hydra, a sense of history and legacy intertwined with their current form and identity.
Remembering a piece of hidden knowledge shared by someone special, Michael''s thoughts momentarily drifted. He recalled learning that Andohr had unearthed the body of Vedora, a legendary creature that lived five thousand years ago and met its end at the hands of his previous self. This knowledge, shrouded in mystery and time, added ayer ofplexity to his current quest. (remember the special someone mentioned)
Borgin''s words snapped Michael back to the present. "The Kraken n," he said, "has specialized in taking even the smallest bone fragments of Vedora''s skeleton and using them to create hydras."
"How are they doing it?" Gaya inquired, her curiosity piqued by the mystical process.
Borgin chuckled, a sound rich with both amusement and wisdom. "Isn''t that the golden question?" he mused. "No one really knows how they do it, but the hydras they create can cultivate like us and grow as strong as dragons."
"You see, no one asks such questions because the Kraken n pays well. In fact, the Beast Tamers have been tasked several times with retrieving skeletal remains of Vedora." He leaned forward, lowering his voice slightly.
"And here I thought Beast Tamers would only tame beasts." Michael, his tone light and slightly amused, remarked.
"Hahaha," Borginughed heartily at this. "True, true. But it''s also true that these bone fragments radiate immense power, even after five thousand years since Vedora''s death. They attract all kinds of beasts and monsters, making them a valuable and dangerousmodity." His eyes glinted with a mix of respect and caution for the power these ancient remains held.
Borgin leaned back in his chair, a sense of pride evident in his voice. "Since all kinds of monstrositiese to absorb the energy from the bones, we go there to ensure these monsters don''t damage the goods," he imed. His tone suggested a blend of duty and challenge in dealing with these creatures.
In response to Borgin''s words, Gaya smiled. But her smile masked the undercurrent of displeasure.
"What do you do with the monsters and beasts thate for the bones?" Her position as the Goddess of Monsters made her particrly sensitive to the fate of these creatures, and Borgin''s casual tone about handling them stirred a hidden anger within her. Oblivious to her true identity, Borginughed heartily. "We cage some of them," he said, "and kill those that are too unruly to be caged and sold." His words were matter-of-fact, reflecting a business-like approach to dealing with these powerful beings.
Gaya''s smile didn''t waver, but her eyes betrayed a flicker of disapproval. Borgin''s straightforward admission, while typical of a beast tamer''s life, shed with her innate connection to these creatures. As the Goddess of Monsters, the thought of them being caged or killed for mere convenience was a hard pill to swallow.
Chapter 1186 New Armor for Gaya
Chapter 1186 New Armor for Gaya
"There''s even a summons from the Kraken n to hunt for some Vedora remains in a dungeon recently discovered on the outskirts of Aurumvale," Borgin revealed, his voiceced with a mix of excitement and anticipation.
Michael and Gaya exchanged a nce, their interest visibly piqued. "Can you tell us more about this dungeon?" Michael asked, leaning forward.
Enjoying the intrigue he had sparked, Bogin borated on the mysterious dungeon. "This dungeon is said to be one of the angels of Vrix, the God of Thieves," he began. "Vrix''s angel, ording to legends, hoarded all his treasures in this dungeon. And now, the summons say that this dungeon will open in four days from now."
The information sent a ripple of curiosity through the room. The prospect of exploring a dungeon linked to a deity, especially one as enigmatic as the God of Thieves, was an opportunity that was hard to ignore.
Excitement sparked in Michael and Gaya''s eyes at the prospect of venturing into a dungeon filled with not just Vedora''s remains but also untold treasures that could aid in their quest for strength. The allure of adventure and the potential to grow stronger was an irresistible call.
Borgin, noticing the glimmer of anticipation in their eyes, leaned in with a proposition. "Since you did me a favor by taking care of that griffin, I''m willing to let you tag along to Aurumvale," he offered generously. "I can introduce you to one of the elders of the Kraken n."
Michael immediately seized the opportunity, recognizing it as a chance to gain more experience points, earn badass points, and potentially unlock more of Vedora''s powers. The unfolding quest seemed to align perfectly with his objectives.
"This is perfect," Michael thought to himself, a sense of resolve building within him. "Not only can we explore the dungeon and seek Vedora''s remains, but this might also be the key topleting the quest," Michael said to himself.
Suddenly, the system''s notification shed in his mind, reminding him of the quest he received when he came to Goldspire looking for the beast tamers. [The quest "Unlocking Vedora''s Powers" hasmenced... Explore the Ironhand Beast Tamers'' knowledge and techniques to enhance Vedora''s capabilities and unlocktent abilities within each head - Ayag, Cain, and Sarba...]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive 5 million badass points]
With the stakes set and their course clear, Michael and Gaya prepared themselves for the journey to Aurumvale, ready to face whatever challengesy ahead in the dungeon and beyond. Borgin''s eyes twinkled with a sense of adventure as he leaned forward. "We will depart tonight," he announced. "Take your time to think about it. If you''re interested in learning more about hydras and getting your hands on some treasures, this is your chance."
He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight. "Since you took care of that griffin, I can tell you can handle yourselves," he added with a nod of approval. "Brave souls always find damn good treasures in these dungeons."
Michael stood up, his decision already made. Extending his hand to shake Borgin''s, he responded confidently, "We''ll definitely think about it and meet you here tonight." The prospect of delving into a dungeon, uncovering secrets about hydras, and acquiring treasures was too enticing to pass up. It was an opportunity to grow stronger and unravel more mysteries of this realm.
After talking to Borgin, Gaya and Michael exited the Beast Tamers'' building, stepping out into the bustling streets of the schrly city. The streets were alive with activity; schrs in deep discussion walked alongside traders calling out their wares, and the air was filled with the scent of parchment and ink, mixed with the tantalizing aromas of street food.
As they navigated through the crowd, Michael turned to Gaya. "Before we head to the dungeon, we need to get you equipped with some weapons and arrows," he said, his tone pragmatic. "Since you haven''t reached the realm of gods'' cultivation or unlocked your godhood, it''s crucial to be prepared."
Michael had decided not to purchase anything from the system store. He wanted to conserve his points, confident that whatever they needed could be bought with gold coins in the Celestial Pce. The marketce there was known for its variety of high-quality goods, catering to adventurers and warriors of all ranks.
Navigating through the bustling streets, Michael and Gaya reached a secluded, dark alley where they could proceed without attracting attention. With a swift movement, Michael activated his portable portal, a shimmering gateway materializing before them. It was their passage to the Kingdom of Durran, home to the Celestial Pce.
Gaya, casting a curious nce around, stepped beside Michael and peered through the portal. The other side revealed a contrasting scene, where orcs and beings of various other races roamed the streets, their vibrant cultures melding into a unique tapestry.
"So, this is the kingdom of orcs, huh?" Gaya remarked, her voice tinged with intrigue as she observed the lively atmosphere.
"Yes, but it''s also a ce where Rin cane and go as she pleases," Michael nodded, his expression turning grave.
"We need to get what we need and get out of here as soon as possible."he said. With a sense of purpose and urgency, Michael led Gaya through the vibrant streets towards the Celestial Pce. His grip on her hand was firm, a silent message of the gravity of the situation and the threat Rin posed. Gaya, sensing the tension, nodded slightly in understanding.
"Alert us immediately if you sense Rin."Ayag whispered to Sarba.
Then, turning her gaze to Cain, she instructed, "Be ready to open a portal around us at a moment''s notice if Rin shows up." The three heads were on high alert, understanding the danger that Rin represented.
After navigating through the crowded streets, they eventually reached the Celestial Pce. The pce was a magnificent structure, exuding an aura of power and elegance. A young elven woman dressed in golden robes greeted them at the entrance with a warm, professional smile.
"How may I serve you today?" she inquired, her voice as melodious as the chimes that echoed softly in the background.
"We''re venturing into a dungeon and need to equip ourselves. We''re looking for armor, weapons, arrows, and all kinds of survival gear." Michael responded without hesitation.
The elven woman nodded, understanding the seriousness of their request. "Of course, follow me," she said, leading them deeper into the pce, where they would find all the equipment necessary for their task.
The young elf led Michael and Gaya up to the third floor of the Celestial Pce, where the hall dedicated tobat gear and provisions unfolded before them. The expansive room was filled with an impressive array of swords, arrows, potions, and armors, each item gleaming under the soft, magical lighting. The walls were adorned with weapons of various shapes and sizes, and shelves were lined with potions and artifacts, each bearing a tag exining its properties. The air was thick with the scent of leather and metal, mixed with the subtle hint of enchanting elixirs.
"Show us the armor first," Michael requested, his eyes scanning the room. He was aware that the dark armor he had forged for Gaya had suffered damage and cracks from the relentless attacks in the Celestial Valley. It was crucial to find a recement that would offer her better protection.
"Is the armor for you or the youngdy?" the elf inquired, turning towards them with a polite smile.
Gaya stepped forward, her voice confident. "It''s for me. Show us your best armor," she requested.
The elf nodded and guided them to a section where the most exquisite armors were disyed. She presented four different armors, each with its unique features and craftsmanship.
The first armor was a lightweight suit, shimmering with a silvery sheen. "This is made from the scales of a moon dragon," the elf exined. "It offers excellent mobility and is enchanted to provide resistance against magical attacks."
The second armor was bulkier, forged from a dark, almost imprable metal.
"This one is designed for maximum protection. It''s made from the ore found in the deepest mines of the Underrealm, known for its durability against physical blows."
The third armor was a striking piece, adorned with intricate runes and glowing softly with an inner light. "This is a rune-enchanted armor, offering not only physical protection but also amplifying the wearer''s magical abilities," the elf said, her eyes glowing with pride.
Lastly, the fourth armor was a blend of leather and metal, designed for stealth and agility. "Ideal for quick movements and not getting noticed. It''s been treated with a shadow enchantment, making the wearer harder to detect," she concluded.
Each armor had its advantages, and Gaya carefully considered her options, weighing the need for protection against her ownbat style and the challenges they would face in the dungeon.
Gaya''s eyes settled on thest armor, the one designed for stealth and agility. She understood her current limitations; not yet strong enough to participate directly in openbat, she decided a more covert approach, striking from the shadows, would be best.
"How much for this one?" Gaya asked, her fingers tracing the intricate blend of leather and metal.
The young elf replied with a professional tone, "This armor costs three hundred thousand gold coins."
Gaya''s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and a low growl escaped her lips. "Do youe with the armor too at that price?" she half-joked, her eyes still fixed on the armor.
The elf chuckled slightly at Gaya''s remark. "It''s high quality," she responded, her voice gentle but firm, indicating the price was justified by the armor''s craftsmanship and enchantments.
Assessing the situation and the necessity of the armor for their quest, Michael interjected decisively.
"We''ll take it." He understood the importance of equipping Gaya adequately for their impending challenges and was prepared to invest in her safety and effectiveness.
Chapter 1187 Crafting a cloaking armor
Chapter 1187 Crafting a cloaking armor
Several hourster, in the heart of Goldspire, Michael and Gaya found themselves in the bustling cksmith Guild. Rurik, the acting guild master, had graciously sent every cksmith on a break, giving Michael the privacy to work in the forge hall. The hall was a symphony of anvils, hammers, and furnaces, now silent and waiting.
Gaya sat on a sturdy table, watching intently as Michael made a few adjustments to the armor they had purchased earlier. Around himy the scales from the centipede ancient beast and the fur from the invisible panthers, both rare and powerful materials.
With skilled hands, Michael was carefully infusing these elements into Gaya''s new armor. The meticulous process required precision and a deep understanding of the materials'' properties.
"What exactly are you doing?" Gaya, her curiosity piqued, asked.
Michael paused, looking up from his work. "I''m enhancing the armor," he exined. "These scales will add an extrayer of protection against physical attacks. The centipede beast''s scales are incredibly tough, yet flexible," he said. Then, he picked up a tuft of the invisible panther''s fur. "And this," he continued, "is going to give the armor an added element of stealth. The fur has properties that can distort light, making the wearer harder to detect."
As Michael worked, his movements were precise and confident. Each scale and strand of fur was integrated into the armor with care, ensuring that the enhancementsplemented the existing enchantments.
Gaya watched, fascinated by the transformation of her armor. Michael''s work at the forge was a disy of intricate skill and deep knowledge of his craft. The process of infusing the scales into Gaya''s armor was bothplex and physically demanding. He started by heating the scales with dark mes, an intense heat that brought out their inherent qualities. Then, he carefully poured a special acid, brewed by himself, over the heated scales. This acid was crucial in breaking down the scales'' tough exterior.
Even with the acid''s help, the scales were incredibly resilient. Michael had to use his Doombringer to activate the ancient ice core. The ice core emitted a burst of extreme cold, freezing the scales and making them more brittle. With precise, controlled strikes, he then broke down the scales into smaller, manageable pieces.
Gaya, watching the process, couldn''t help but express her amazement. "Those are damn fucking strong," she remarked, impressed by the durability of the scales.
"You should have seen the swarm that ate through this stuff like butter," Ayag chimed in with a hint of pride, recalling how the defeated the centipede.
"I''m d that swarm didn''te at me when I was in the Celestial Valley," Gaya responded, imagining the ferocity of such a creature.
Meanwhile, Michael remainedpletely focused on his task, moving on to the next phase. He took each strand of the invisible panther''s fur, meticulously infusing them into the armor. This process required a different kind of precision. Each strand had to be carefully aligned and woven into the fabric of the armor, enhancing its stealth properties withoutpromising its flexibility or strength.
Finally, Michael forged the scale pieces onto the armor. The sound of the hammer striking the anvil rang out rhythmically in the forge hall. Each hit was measured and deliberate, ensuring the scales melded seamlessly with the armor, enhancing its protective capabilities while maintaining its lightweight and stealthy design.
After almost an hour of meticulous work, Michael finally set aside his tools, the major part of the forging processplete. He then took out a special spray, an item he had purchased from the system store, specifically designed for finishing armor. He applied the spray with careful, even strokes, coating the armor in a sleek, matte ck finish that seemed to absorb light, enhancing its stealth capabilities.
Once the paint had dried, Michael began the process of fitting the armor onto Gaya. He methodically assembled it piece by piece, each segment clicking seamlessly into ce. The armor hugged her form perfectly, a testament to Michael''s attention to detail and understanding of Gaya''s physique andbat style.
The armor was a masterpiece of craftsmanship. The scales were subtly integrated, providing a reinforced structure without bulking the armor. The light-reflecting strands of fur weaved into the fabric gave the armor an almost ethereal quality, shimmering faintly when caught by the light. It was lightweight yet formidable, bncing the need for protection with the necessity of mobility and stealth.
As Gaya looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn''t help but be impressed. "It''s beautiful," she said, her voice tinged with a mix of awe and satisfaction. Michael gestured towards Gaya, "Reach out your palm," he instructed with a knowing look in his eyes. Gaya extended her hand, curious about his next move.
From his pouch, Michael retrieved a small piece of high-grade celestial energy crystal. Its inner light pulsed gently, indicating its potent power. He carefully ced the crystal into apartment on the wrist of Gaya''s armor. The mechanism within the armor whirred softly as it opened, epted the crystal, and then closed with a subtle click.
Instantly, the armor shimmered in a gentle red hue, and Gaya felt a warm surge of energy spreading through it. The crystal was activating sometent feature of the armor.
"Now, press the button on your palm tightly," Michael said, taking a step back to give her space.
Perched atop Michael''s shoulder, Ayag watched with excitement. "Do it," she encouraged Gaya, her voice tinged with anticipation.
Gaya clenched her fist, pressing the button as instructed. The armor responded immediately. It began to flicker slowly, the surface starting to ripple and warp the light around her. Within moments, Gaya was almost invisible, cloaked by the armor''s advanced light-distorting technology. The effect was mesmerizing, rendering her nearly undetectable to the naked eye.
Blending with the shadows and darkness, Gaya moved around the hall, her form nearly invisible in the newly enchanted armor. The hall, once familiar, now served as a testing ground for her newfound stealth capabilities.
Emerging from the shadows after a short while, she pressed the button on her armor, reappearing as the cloak of invisibility faded away. The transformation from unseen to visible was smooth, a testament to the armor''s advanced design.
Curious, Ayag turned its attention to Michael. "Why not integrate this feature into your dark armor?" she asked, intrigued by the feat.
"The energy radiation from me seems to weaken the cloaking effect," Michael exined. "And I can already blend with darkness perfectly. Gaya needs this more than me," he said. His words reflected a strategic mindset, prioritizing their collective strengths and weaknesses in battle.
In response to his selfless craftsmanship, Gaya stepped closer to Michael, her smile warm. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, herughter light and genuine. "You''re the best husband one could ask for," she dered, her eyes alight with appreciation and love.
After a while, Michael turned his attention to forging new arrows for Gaya. With precision and expertise, he crafted a variety of specialized arrows: explosive arrows that could detonate on impact, poison arrows coated with lethal toxins, and sh arrows designed to disorient and blind opponents temporarily. Skillfully, he adapted each of these into crossbow bolts.
Gaya, observing his work, furrowed her brow. "But I use a bow, not a crossbow," she reminded him, a hint of confusion in her voice.
In response, Michael surprised her by flicking his wrist and revealing a sleek, ck crossbow. The weapon, named the God yer, was an impressive piece of craftsmanship, forged using the corbone of the centipede and the very crossbow Michael had used to kill the God of Rain, Rainar.
Gaya''s eyes widened in awe and disbelief. "Is this the Crossbow? The one you used to kill Rainar?" she asked, her voice a mix of excitement and reverence.
Michael nodded, a subtle pride in his gesture. "Yes, and I want you to have it," he said, extending the weapon towards her.
Hesitantly at first, Gaya reached out and took the crossbow from his hands. She turned it over, studying the intricate details, the bnce of weight, and the feel of it in her hands
Holding the God yer, Gaya felt a surge of confidence and responsibility. "Are you really going to give her the crossbow?" Cain asked, his voice tinged with a mix of surprise and curiosity.
Michael responded with a tone of respect and practicality. "I''m proficient with long-range weapons, but Gaya is a master," he acknowledged. His ability to recognize and admit his own weaknesses was one of the many reasons for his rise in power. He understood the importance of leveraging each member''s strengths in their collective endeavors.
Acknowledging Gaya''s superior skill in long-rangebat was not just a strategic decision for Michael; it was a testament to his character. He was secure enough in his abilities to praise and rely on Gaya''s skills.
"Let''s see what this baby can do," Gaya dered with a spark of excitement in her eyes.
She took a standard crossbow bolt and loaded it into the God yer. With a swift, fluid motion, she fired the bolt, its flight true and fast.
Without missing a beat, she quickly loaded another bolt and released it. This second bolt, with impable precision, split the first bolt in half, continuing its flight straight through the split remains of the first. The demonstration was not just a showcase of the crossbow''s capabilities but also of Gaya''s extraordinary skill in archery.
With Gaya now equipped with her new armor and the God yer crossbow, along with the specially crafted bolts, they were more than ready to take on the challenges of the dungeon. The enhancements to her gear provided not just increased protection and stealth, but also a significant boost in herbat capabilities.
Meanwhile, Michael prepared himself for the journey ahead. He donned his signature ck long coat and turtle neck, an ensemble that had be synonymous with his love for darkness and power. Strapping his dark swords onto his back, he exuded an air of quiet confidence and readiness.
The final step was to open a portal back to Goldspire. With a focused gesture, Michael activated the portal that would lead them to Borgin, with whom they would venture into the Kingdom of Aurumvale, the domain of God of Wealth, Luxor.
Standing at the threshold of the portal, Michael turned to Gaya. "Let''s go," he said. With those words, they stepped through the portal, heading for their adventure, ready to face whatever the dungeon of Aurumvale held in store for them.
Chapter 1188 The Golden City of Aurumvale
Chapter 1188 The Golden City of Aurumvale
Michael and Gaya, with the God yer now securely stored in her space ring, stepped out of the portal. They headed towards their meeting with Borgin, leaving Vedora behind with Pink in their base of operations within the Verdant Forest. Michael had made the decision not to risk bringing Vedora into an environment where hydras were bred and researched, especially considering their quest was tied to a n known for utilizing previous Vedora''s remains.
The city of Goldspire under the night sky was a breathtaking sight. The buildings, illuminated by a mix of magical and natural light, cast a warm glow against the dark backdrop. The streets, though quieter than during the day, still buzzed with the activities of night-time traders andte strollers. Upon their return to the Ironfist Beast Tamers, they found Borgin standing with a group of his fellow Beast Tamers. The group was a rugged, diverse collection of individuals, each exuding a sense of strength and experience. They were checking their weapons and gear, makingst-minute adjustments. The variety of weapons and armor disyed their preparedness for any encounter, with everything from enchanted swords to reinforced bows and protective gear.
When Borgin saw Michael and Gaya, he weed them with a nod. "I assume you''reing with us," he said, his voice carrying a blend of expectation and respect.
When Borgin saw Michael and Gaya, he weed them with a nod. "I assume you''reing with us," he said, his voice carrying a blend of expectation and respect.
Michael responded with a light chuckle, the corners of his mouth turning up in amusement. "Of course, we wouldn''t miss this for anything," he replied, eyes scanning the group.
Among the group, a dwarf caught their attention. He was stocky, as dwarves typically are, with a thick beard braided in intricate patterns, signifying his n and status. His armor was heavy and robust, adorned with runes and gems that glimmered even in the dim light. His eyes, sharp and keen, quickly fixed on Michael''s swords.
"Cool swords," the dwarf remarked, his voice a deep rumble. "How much for them?" His gaze was appreciative, that of a connoisseur assessing a fine piece of weaponry.
Gaya chuckled lightly, her amusement clear in her voice. "They''re not for sale, shorty," she responded yfully, a twinkle in her eye.
Herment elicitedughter from the others in the group, a moment of light-hearted camaraderie in the midst of their preparations. "You''ve got quite the mouth, girl." The dwarf shot back with a grin.
"Follow me," Ignoring the dwarf, Borgin gestured at them to follow him.
He then led the group through the sprawling hall of the Ironfist Beast Tamers'' guild, their footsteps echoing off the stone walls. They soon arrived at arge, imposing vault door. Standing before the door, Borgin produced a series of keys from his cloak, each unique in shape and size. He inserted them into several keyholes on the door, following a specific pattern. A low hum resonated in the air with each key turn, a sign of the mechanisms at work. Finally, with a definitive click, the door unlocked, slowly swinging open to reveal whaty beyond.
Inside, they were greeted by the sight of a divine portal. It was arge, round metal ring, standing upright and adorned with glowing runes that danced across its surface.
Soon, the dwarf approached the portal and began to work on a console attached to it. With a few expert taps, he activated the portal, which immediately lit up in a brilliant gold hue. A swirling vortex formed within the ring, a gateway to their destination.
Turning to Michael and Gaya, Borgin asked, "Have you ever visited Aurumvale before?"
"No," Michael shook his head in response, his expression a mix of anticipation and curiosity.
"Then you''re in for a treat," he grinned with a twinkle in his eye. The dwarf, overhearing the conversation, chimed in as he walked towards the portal. "They call it the golden city. Wait till you see it with your own eyes," he said, a note of pride in his voice. He then stepped confidently into the portal, followed by the rest of the group.
One by one, they entered the swirling vortex, each disappearing into the golden light as they embarked on their journey to the renowned city of Aurumvale. When they stepped out of the portal, they found themselves on what appeared to be a rooftop. The first sight that greeted them was breathtaking - a city where the buildings themselves were made of gold. The structures shimmered brilliantly in the morning light, their golden facades reflecting a warm, radiant glow. The pavements below were lined with golden maple trees, their leaves glinting as if kissed by the sun, and asional fountains and ponds added to the city''s luxurious ambiance.
Gaya couldn''t contain her astonishment. She raised her eyes, taking in the view, and eximed, "It''s literally a golden city!"
Borgin chuckled at her reaction, a sound that carried both amusement and a hint of pride. "The first time seeing the city has this effect, hasn''t it, Thoric?" he said, addressing the dwarf by his name.
Thoric, the dwarf,ughed heartily, his eyes twinkling with a mix of mirth and pride. "It''s the domain of the God of Wealth, after all," he replied, gesturing broadly at the opulent cityscape.
The sight of Aurumvale was indeed a spectacle to behold, a testament to the wealth and power under the domain of the God of Wealth. Every corner of the city spoke of opulence and grandeur, a visual representation of the Luxor''s influence and blessings. Among the various golden structures, Michael''s gaze was drawn to a particrly imposing building. It towered over its neighbors, with its top crafted to resemble a hydra''s head, a stunning piece of architectural artistry.
Noticing where Michael''s attention hadnded, Borgin provided some context. "That''s the Kraken n headquarters," he pointed out. "And that''s exactly where we''re heading."
"Let''s get down there and go to it, then." Thoric interjected. His voice carried a sense of urgency, a reminder of their purpose in this opulent city.
They turned to follow Borgin, who led them to a shimmering golden circle etched into the rooftop floor. The group cautiously positioned themselves within the circle, standing side by side.
Michael, observing the intricate design and the energy emanating from the circle, muttered to himself, "A teleporter."
No sooner had he spoken than a golden light enveloped them, a warm, tingling sensation apanying the activation of the teleportation magic. In a blink, they were transported from the rooftop to ground level, arriving smoothly in the bustling town center.
They were immediately greeted by the sight of the majority of the townsfolk, predominantly elves, dressed in golden robes. The elegance and grace of their attire perfectlyplemented the city''s grandeur. The elves moved about their business with serene dignity, their robes flowing gently as they walked through the streets lined with gold.
As the group strolled toward the Kraken n headquarters, they moved under the shade of the golden maple trees, their path lined with the glistening foliage. The city was alive with activity, and the elves, in their golden robes, cast curious nces at the neers. Their remarks, while subtle, carried undertones of racial and status observations.
One elf, peering over his spectacles, remarked to another, "More outsiders. The city''s charm attracts all sorts, doesn''t it?"
Another, her voiceced with a hint of condescension, said, Seems like the barbaric beast tamers, humph,"
Overhearing thesements, Borgin advised the group. "Best to ignore the elves. They can be... particr about their status and heritage."
Thoric, bristling at the remarks, muttered under his breath, a low growl escaping his lips. "Pompous pointy-eared fucks," he grumbled, keeping his voice quiet but his displeasure evident.
After observing the interaction, Michael turned to Borgin and asked. "Is it safe to assume that Luxor is an elven god?"
"Hmm," Borgin nodded in response. "Luxor is indeed an elf. That''s why the elves here carry themselves with such... entitlement. They believe their status is elevated by their god''s domain," he exined as they walked toward their destination.
They soon arrived in front of the Kraken n building, an imposing structure that stood out even in the opulent city of Aurumvale. Guarding the entrance were giant, ten-foot-tall mechanical soldiers, their presence both awe-inspiring and intimidating. The soldiers, constructed of some golden alloy, were adorned with runes that glowed with a soft light, signifying the enchantments that powered them.
Standing before these mechanical giants was a silver-haired elven soldier, his posture rigid and authoritative. He wielded a long sword that seemed as much a symbol of his rank as it was a weapon.
"What business do you have here?" the elf asked, his gaze sharp as he scrutinized the group.
Borgin stepped forward, his tone respectful yet firm. "We are here in response to the summoning of beast tamers to explore the dungeon," he exined, gesturing to hispanions.
In response to Borgi n, the elf soldier''s expression remained unchanged as he replied. "Typical." His tone carried a hint of disdain. "Don''t try anything funny." He then gestured towards the building, signaling them to enter.
A grand staircase nked the entrance to the Kraken n headquarters, each step made of polished gold that reflected the light in dazzling patterns. The stairs led up to a massive golden door, intricately carved with images of hydras and other mythical beasts, a testament to the n''s legacy and prowess in beast taming.
"These mechanical soldiers¡they are powered up by celestial crystals¡hmm," Michael thought to himself, wondering if Pink could hack them.
Chapter 1189 The Famous Four
Chapter 1189 The Famous Four
Upon entering the Kraken n building, the group was immediately struck by the grandeur of the interior. Dominating the center of the main hall was an awe-inspiring centerpiece: a colossal statue of a kraken, expertly crafted from gold. Its tentacles seemed to reach out into the space around it, creating an imposing yet majestic presence thatmanded attention.
The hall was abuzz with various groups and individuals from a multitude of races, each engaged in their own conversations or preparations. The atmosphere was charged with anticipation and a hint of underlyingpetition. Elves in their elegant robes mingled with dwarves d in sturdy armor. At the same time, humans and other races such as halflings and demihumans, conversed in hushed tones, adding to the diverse tapestry of the gathering.
As Michael and Gaya moved through the hall, snippets of conversations reached their ears, providing insights into the collective mindset of those present. Many were specting about the dungeon they were set to explore, discussing strategies and potential dangers.
One conversation, in particr, caught their attention. A group nearby was discussing Silvaris, the angel of Vrix, the god of thieves. "They say Silvaris created the dungeon," one person whispered, "and stored everything he stole in there. Who knows what treasures and traps he''s left behind."
Meanwhile, Borgin, with a sharp eye, scanned the crowd and issued a cautionary warning to his group. "Secure your items," he advised in a low tone. "There are members of the thieves'' guild around,"
Michael''s gaze followed Borgin''s, and he soon noticed a few individuals who were skillfully navigating through the crowd. They were scanning their surroundings, asionally brushing past unsuspecting people. With deft movements, they pickpocketed valuables, their actions almost invisible to the untrained eye.
Gaya watched with a hint of amusement as a group of halflings executed their craft with remarkable finesse. These halflings, barely reaching the elbows of some of the taller races, moved with agility and stealth that made them almost ghostlike. Their appearance was typical of their race, with bright eyes and mischievous expressions. Each move was calcted as they deftly dipped their hands into the pockets of unsuspecting elves, who were too engrossed in their conversations to notice. The halflings'' nimble fingers relieved the elves of their purses and jewelry before putting them into the small satchels the halflings carried.
Noting the distinctck of orcspared to other races, Gaya realized that, much like the orcs in the mortal realm, those in the realm of gods seemed to prefer a more pacifist lifestyle, favoring schrly pursuits overbat.
Then, turning to Michael, Gaya whispered a question, her eyes ncing towards the mechanical soldiers that patrolled the hall. Their heavy steps resonated with a metallic thud, echoing through the space. "Can you see the cultivation level of these mechanical soldiers?" she inquired quietly. Michael observed the soldiers closely, noting the glowing runes and the seamless way they moved. "They seem to be powered by celestial crystals," he responded in a low voice. "And the runes, along with how they are built... it looks like they''re designed to manipte their cultivation levels."
His assessment spoke of the high level of technological and magical advancement in Aurumvale, where even the guardians of a building could be sophisticated enough to adjust their power levels as needed. Suddenly, a subtle but noticeable tremor rippled through the ground, causing the bustling hall to fall silent. Heads turned in unison towards the source of the disturbance, a sense of anticipation filling the air.
Another mechanical soldier, distinct from the others, made its entrance. It was taller and more robust, its body adorned with an intricate array of runes. The golden body of the soldier was decorated with red linings, and its eyes glowed a deep, ominous red, giving it an imposing presence. This soldier was clearly of a higher rank or specialization, its design suggesting advanced capabilities and strength.
Following this formidable guardian was a gray-haired elder, a human dressed in golden robes that flowed elegantly behind him. His long beard and wise, weathered face conveyed a sense of authority and experience. The crowd watched in silence as the elder made his way towards an elevated tform in the room.
As he climbed the stairs to the tform, the mechanical soldier took a position nearby. The elder, standing with a dignified poise on the tform, introduced himself in a clear, strong voice. "I am Derelius Kraken, one of the elders of the Kraken n," he announced, his gaze sweeping across the audience.
"I wee you all and thank you for heeding our summon," Derelius continued, his tone warm yet authoritative. "I''ll get straight to the point. The dungeon will open in three days, and you have this time to prepare yourselves."
An elf d in elegant armor raised a question, his voice echoing slightly in therge hall. "Do you know what we can expect inside the dungeon?" he asked, his posture straight, reflecting his keen interest in the answer.In response, Derelius nodded, his expression serious. "Since the dungeon belongs to an angel of the god of thieves, Vrix, and this angel is rumored to be Silvaris, the legendary thief, you should expect more dangerous traps than you can imagine." He paused for a moment, ensuring he had everyone''s attention. "Our team of runemasters and schrs suspect that the dungeon might have special arrays. These could either suppress your cultivation or, in some parts of the dungeon,pletely cut off your connection to celestial energy. This means you could lose ess to your cultivation powers altogether while inside."
Derelius Kraken, his voice resonating with authority, continued his address. "Expect the unexpected," he cautioned, his eyes scanning the crowd, ensuring the gravity of his words was understood.
"We believe Silvaris has stored some bone fragments of Vedora in the center of the dungeon, along with other treasures. The Kraken n needs these remains. Whoever brings these remains to us, untouched, will receive a favor from our n." He added, emphasizing each word. His statement, while offering a significant reward, also carried an undertone of an order and a veiled threat.
"We will also send our own team of n members into the dungeon, apanied by some renowned figures in Aurumvale, on our behalf."
A hush fell over the hall as his words sank in. The attendees began to murmur among themselves, wondering who these renowned figures could be. The air was thick with spection and curiosity.
In the midst of the crowd, Michael and Gaya overheard snippets of whispered conversations from those around them. While the whispers did not reveal the names of the renowned figures, the tone and expressions of shock and awe on the faces of the speakers made it clear that these individuals were of significant stature and influence in Aurumvale.
"Can you believe they''re sending them?" one person whispered, their eyes wide.
"This is going to be more challenging than we thought," another murmured, a hint of concern in their voice.
As the crowd eagerly anticipated what was toe next, the elder''s voice boomed across the hall, "Shall we receive them?" With a p of his hands, the golden roof above them began to slowly open, revealing the sky above.
When the golden roof parted, the first to descend from the sky was a young woman with flowing red hair. She rode a majestic dragon with crimson red scales, its blue eyes shining like sapphires. The dragon''s wings unfurled gracefully, casting arge shadow over the crowd. Whispers immediately filled the hall.
"Is that Lysandra?" someone gasped, their voice tinged with disbelief. "Riding a dragon of the Elemental Attunement Realm!"
"Look at the size of that thing" another added, their eyes wide with awe. "They say she tamed it herself, a feat only few could dream of."
Following Lysandra''s impressive entrance, another figure drew the crowd''s attention. A young elf man with golden hair descended from the sky, wearing shimmering silver armor and metallic wings that reflected the light beautifully. Hended gently, his long sword sheathed at his side, radiating an aura of valor.
"Elrion!" an elf in the crowd eximed, recognition lighting up their face. "A warrior who worships Valorious, the God of Valor and Bravery."
"His skills in battle are legendary," someone else chimed in. "It''s said he''s never known defeat."
The murmurs and discussions among the crowd grew louder, a mix of admiration, envy, and excitement. After Lysandra and Elrion arrived, two more figures descended, further captivating the audience.
An old woman, her back hunched, floated down on a swirling chakra. She was draped in dark robes, clutching a staff that seemed to pulse with a mysterious energy. This was Shar, known for her devotion to Morbus, the God of gues. Her arrival sent a ripple of fear through the crowd.
"Shar," someone whispered, their voiceced with a hint of dread. "Remember the famine she unleashed?"
"Yeah," another voice joined in, barely above a breath. "A whole vige refused to worship a god, and she brought down a poisoning gue upon them. Wiped them all out." The fear in their tone was palpable, a testament to Shar''s formidable powers and her god''s ruthless will.
The final figure to make an entrance was a young man with silver hair and piercing green eyes. He was a dark elf, dressed in dark robes, equipped with two short daggers, and a bow and quiver strapped to his back. "Who is he?" asked a dwarf, clueless about the dark elf''s identity.
"That''s Jin," someone muttered, their eyes fixed on the dark elf. "He''s said to be one of Death''s chosen."
"I heard he can move like a shadow," another added, their voice a mix of admiration and unease. "They say he''s never failed an assassination."
"This reminds me of the time of the Heavenly Gatespetition," Michael chuckled, feeling the nostalgia. "I have a feeling this is going to end up with some pretty bad face pping," Gaya whispered to Michael.
Chapter 1190 Gaya鈥檚 Godhood level
Chapter 1190 Gaya¡¯s Godhood level
As the four illustrious figures descended onto the stage, Lysandra''s dragon, with a powerful beat of its wings, soared away into the clouds, leaving her standing gracefully on the tform. The sight of the majestic creature retreating into the sky added an extrayer of drama and spectacle to the scene.
The elder, Derelius Kraken, stood on the stage, his eyes reflecting a deep respect for the individuals before him.
"The Kraken n is in your debt for answering our summons, esteemed heroes," Derelius said respectfully.
Despite Jin and Shar''s reputation, the elder did not dare show any discourtesy. Instead, he afforded them the same respect he showed Lysandra and Elrion.
However, Elrion, a worshipper of Valorius, openly disyed his discontent toward Shar.
"How is causing chaos and spreading gues treating you, Shar?" asked Elrion, not bothering to hide his disgust for her and the god she served.
"Better than being apdog of a god who thinks the world circles around him, Elrion," Shar retorted with a snicker.
Meanwhile, Lysandra and Jin remained silent. On the other hand, the others, including Michael and Gaya, watched the interaction between these four, uttering no words, just like the rest.
"It still beats worshipping a god with no domain or loyal worshippers. Valorius doesn''t need to force people into worshipping him. And he certainly doesn''t order his evil minions to spread gues and kill innocent people," Elrion said, hinting at Shar''s recent atrocity.
"This is not the ce for our debate, Elrion, Shar," Lysandra finally spoke calmly.
The way she talked and conducted herself reminded Michael of Seshat. The more he looked at her, the more it felt like Lysandra worshipped Seshat. But it was surprising for Michael to see a worshipper of Seshat riding a dragon, which symbolizesbat and violence.
"You are right. There is no point in talking to an evil bag of bones," Elrion snickered before turning his cold gaze away from Shar.
In response to Elrion''sment, Shar just remained silent. This showed everyone the stark contrast between Elrion''s youthful thirst for justice and Shar''s wisdom of being silent that came with old age.
On the other hand, Jin just stood there in the corner where the shadows were, and he almost became unnoticeable.
"Please tell us and the others more about this dungeon, Elder Derelius," said Lysandra.
"We also have reasons to believe that the dungeon contains separate entrances, each leading to paths akin to mazes," the elder paused, allowing the information to sink in among the crowd. "Our runemasters believe that navigating these mazes will require as much intellect as strength. So, it''s wise to use your brains just as much as your brawn," he advised.
Derelius took a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing. "Once inside, I''d rmend either following these esteemed heroes or at least working with them. Let them lead you to the treasures within. It''s prudent to align with those who have proven themselves in battle and in navigating dungeons of this nature," he suggested, gesturing towards the four figures on the stage. His advice highlighted the importance of strategy and alliance in the challenges they were about to face.
Around Michael and Gaya, various voices from the crowd began to express their thoughts on the elder''s advice.
One seasoned warrior, his armor battle-scarred, nodded in agreement. "Following them seems like a solid n. They''ve got the experience we could use," he said, his voice carrying a tone of pragmatism.
A younger adventurer, her eyes filled with ambition, disagreed. "I don''t need to tail behind anyone. I can find my own way, and I won''t have to share the treasures," she retorted, her confidence evident in her stance.
A group of mercenaries huddled together, discussing among themselves. "Teaming up might not be such a bad idea. There''s strength in numbers," one suggested, trying to weigh the options.
However, an arrogant nobleman, adorned with ornate, decorative armor, scoffed at the idea. "Follow them? I think not. My skills are more than enough. I don''t intend to share the glory or the loot with anyone," he dered, his voice dripping with disdain.
Another voice, older and more experienced, chimed in with a tone of caution. "Don''t underestimate this dungeon. It''s not just about fighting; it''s about surviving. Arrogance could be your downfall."
"What''s our n?" Gaya asked Michael, turning to him for guidance.
Before Michael could respond, Borgin interjected, "If it''s up to me, I''d say you follow them." His tone suggested a strategy, but his next words hinted at a preference for independence. "But we beast tamers look after our own and do not mingle well with others on a mission," he added, subtly suggesting that Michael and Gaya should not follow them.
"We''ll decide when we get inside," Michael replied calmly. In truth, he preferred not to be entangled with the beast tamers.
However, he was aware of Gaya''s feelings. She feltpelled to act as the Goddess of Monsters, especially since Borgin had admitted to killing beasts and monsters. This ignited a determination in her to protect her worshippers and avenge those who had fallen at the hands of the beast tamers.
"Now, use the three days you have wisely and prepare yourselves," Elder Derelius said, concluding his speech. "We shall meet again on the fourth day, outside the city in the Emerald Mountains. Our n guards will show you the way to the dungeon entrance. May the Great Luxor grace you with his blessings." With a final gesture, he signaled for the gathered crowd to disperse.
After the crowd began to disperse, Michael and Gaya quietly walked away from the hall, finding a secluded corner where they could talk privately. Gaya''s gaze lingered on Borgin and the other beast tamers, who were still in the hall. She also observed the four esteemed figures on the stage, who were now engaged in a discussion with Elder Derelius.
Gaya turned to Michael, a hint of concern in her voice. "Are they stronger than us?" she asked, seeking his assessment of their potential adversaries.
Michael activated his Eyes of Darkness, a unique ability that allowed him to gauge the strength of others. Through his darkened vision, he saw green auras surrounding the four figures on the stage. This indicated that, if he tapped into his god powers, they could be easily defeated. However, when he adjusted his Eyes of Darkness to assess their strength based on his cultivation power alone, without relying on his godly abilities, the auras turned red. This signified that their cultivation stages were higher than his own.
"If I use my full powers, they''re no match for me. But on cultivation alone, they''re stronger," he admitted. The information gleaned from his Eyes of Darkness was crucial. It gave them an understanding of where they stood in rtion to the others and what they might be up against in the dungeon. "Let''s go explore the city and learn more about these four, as well as the dungeon," Michael suggested, his voice reflecting a strategic mindset. He understood that knowledge would be as valuable as physical strength in the challenges ahead.
"I want to learn more about my godhood and about Vedora and their kind," she said, expressing her desire to delve deeper into her powers and the nature of the creatures she felt a connection to.
Michael and Gaya stepped out of the Kraken n building, immersing themselves in the bustling streets of Aurumvale, the wealthiest golden city. As they roamed, they passed extravagant taverns, restaurants, cksmith stores, and jewelry shops. Each establishment was morevish than thest, showcasing the immense wealth and prosperity of the city.
Eventually, their exploration brought them to the center of the city, where they came upon a magnificent structure that immediately captured their attention. It was a temple, grander and more opulent than any other building they had seen.
"This must be the temple of Luxor," Gaya remarked, her eyes wide with awe.
The temple was a marvel of architecture, built with walls of pure gold that gleamed under the sun. Precious gems and diamonds were embedded into the intricate designs that adorned its surface, each sparkling brilliantly. The temple''s majestic spires reached towards the sky, and statues of divine figures, meticulously carved and gilded, stood guard at its entrance.
Every detail of the temple''s design spoke of the reverence and devotion of its builders to Luxor, the God of Wealth.
As Michael and Gaya admired the temple, a sudden shadow fell over the ground, momentarily dimming the brilliant golden light. Instinctively, they, along with the other onlookers, looked up to the sky.
The shadow belonged to Lysandra''s dragon, its crimson red scales a stark contrast against the bright blue sky. The dragon''s powerful wings pped gracefully, casting an awe-inspiring silhouette above them.
"Look up there! It''s the dragon from earlier!" eximed one of the onlookers, their voice filled with excitement and surprise.
"Such a magnificent creature! I''ve never seen anything like it," another person remarked, their eyes fixed on the dragon as it soared overhead.
Unexpectedly, the dragon turned its head in the sky, its piercing blue eyes locking onto Gaya below. The crowd''s murmurs grew louder, a mix of awe and curiosity rising among them.
Then, in a swift and elegant motion, the dragon began to dive down, its wings cutting through the air as it flew directly toward Gaya. The onlookers stepped back, giving space as the dragon descended with controlled precision,nding gracefully before her.
Chapter 1191 Morbus, The God of Plagues
Chapter 1191 Morbus, The God of gues
The sudden appearance of the dragon, now mere feet away from them, left the onlookers in a state of stunned silence, their shock and confusion palpable in the air.
"Is that... a real dragon?" one person whispered, disbelief coloring their voice.
"Never thought I''d see one this close... it''s terrifying," another muttered, their eyes wide as they took a cautious step back.
As the dragon moved closer to Gaya, gentle plumes of smoke escaped its nostrils, adding to the dramatic scene. Despite the fear and apprehension in the crowd, Gaya remained calm. "It''s okay," she said softly, slowly raising her hand towards the dragon in a gesture of peace.
At that moment, guards d in golden armor, the guards of Luxor, rushed to the scene. Their movements were swift and coordinated, a clear indication of their readiness to intervene if necessary.
Michael, noticing the soldiers bing increasingly agitated and inching forward, called out in a steady, calming voice, "Don''t make any sudden moves now." His words were directed at the soldiers, intended to prevent any esction of the situation.
Still reeling from the shock of the dragon''s sudden descent, the onlookers began to murmur among themselves, curiosity piqued by the interaction unfolding before them.
"Who is that woman? Why is the dragon so close to her?" one of them whispered, trying to make sense of the scene.
Undeterred by the dragon''s intimidating size and the apprehensive crowd around her, Gaya reached out and gently touched the dragon''s face. She could feel the warmth of its scales under her fingers, the texture both smooth and powerful.
For a brief moment, the dragon''s vertically slit pupils dted, bing round, as if expressing surprise or recognition. It then let out a low growl, a sound that seemed like an attempt atmunication with Gaya.
Gaya focused intently, trying to understand, but she couldn''t hear any words from the dragon, unlike her experience with the griffin. It was as if their connection was different, less direct, but still meaningful in its own way.
However, after a few moments, the dragon''s pupils shifted back to vertical slits, and it suddenly pushed Gaya away with a headbutt, almost throwing her off bnce. Michael immediately sprang into action, faster than the guards, and struck the dragon''s face, retracting his ck shield. Meanwhile, the dragon opened its mouth, its throat beginning to glow, signaling an impending dragon''s breath.
The onlookers and citizens of the city panicked and began to run away, expecting a battle. But when the dragon recovered from Michael''s blow, a calm yet dominant voice echoed through the streets.
"Stand down, Emry," said the voice.
Upon hearing the voice, the dragon immediately closed its mouth and bowed its head. Michael turned to see Lysandra walking toward them.
"I apologize for my dragon''s behavior, despite how curious it''s actions may seem," Lysandra said to Michael and Gaya.
Soon, the city guard, a tall elf with smooth skin, removed his helmet and greeted Lysandra. Despite their racial differences, the elf remained respectful toward Lysandra, unlike the elves in the streets.
"You don''t have to apologize for this creature''s behavior, Young Miss. No harm''s done," the elf said to Lysandra, as if the dragon had tried to attack her and not Gaya. Michael remained calm and did not intervene. The dragon''s actions had already drawn unwanted attention to them, and thest thing Michael and Gaya needed was more attention.
"Thank you for being so lenient, Captain. I will make sure this doesn''t happen again. You have my word," Lysandra calmly said.
Then, the elf turned his gaze to Gaya and Michael.
"Next time, don''t try to talk to or attack a dragon," he said, his smile fading, reced by a cold look.
Before Michael could respond, the elf walked away.
"Stupid humans," the elf''s parting words reached Gaya''s ears, almost provoking her to leap at him and retaliate. However, she restrained herself, knowing that this was not the time to make enemies.
Once the elf led the guards away, Lysandra turned her attention to the dragon, Emry, which lowered its head, allowing her to climb atop it. Then, she directed her gaze towards Michael and Gaya.
"There must be something about you two that made Emry act in such a way¡ I have a feeling we might meet again," Lysandra remarked before patting the dragon.
As Michael and Gaya stood there, the dragon pped its wings and took off into the sky, carrying Lysandra with it.
"Great. Now we have her attention. Just what we needed," Michael said sarcastically, followed by a sigh.
Meanwhile, Gaya seemed lost in her thoughts.
"Hey," Michael said, shaking her shoulder gently.
His action snapped Gaya back to reality.
"Let''s walk and talk," Michael suggested, taking her hand and leading her away from the temple grounds.
After they had put a safe distance between themselves and the temple, Michael turned to look at her.
"What were you thinking about?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.
Gaya, deep in thought, finally spoke up. "I couldn''t hear the dragon''s thoughts, not like I did with the griffin," she confessed, her voice tinged with confusion.
"But there was something... a feeling," Gaya continued, her expression thoughtful. She furrowed her brow, trying to put her emotions into words.
"It felt like the dragon was trying tomunicate something to me," she said, her gaze distant. "And its gaze... it felt disappointed in me, almost angry." The realization seemed to weigh heavily on her. With a sigh, Gaya let out an exhausted chuckle. "Seems like the Goddess of Monsters has a long way to go before regaining the trust and faith of her worshippers," she admitted, acknowledging theplexities of her newfound role as the Goddess of Monsters.
Michael pondered for a moment before offering his perspective. "The reason you couldn''t hear the dragon might be because you haven''t fully entered your godhood," he suggested thoughtfully.
"There''s a chance you might only be able tomunicate with beasts like dragons once you climb higher in the ranks of godhood," Michael continued, trying to piece together the puzzle of Gaya''s abilities and limitations.
Hearing him, Gaya frowned at the realization. "So, I have to fly blind until then?" she asked, the frustration evident in her voice.
Michael responded with aforting pat on her back. "We''ll figure this out together like we always do," he reassured her, his tone full of conviction and support. **************************
In a dimly lit room, away from the prying eyes of Aurumvale, Shar stood alone, her figure shrouded in darkness. The room was austere and somber, with stone walls that seemed to absorb the light from the few flickering torches mounted on them. An air of solemnity and secrecy pervaded the space, a fitting setting for the dark rituals Shar was known to perform.
With a small, sharp de, Shar sliced the palm of her hand, letting drops of her blood fall into an ancient bowl ced before her. The room''s air was heavy with the scent of burning incense, adding to the ritual''s mystique.
As her blood touched the surface of the liquid in the bowl, it began to ripple, and the mes of the torches slowly changed, casting a sickly green light over the room. The atmosphere grew heavier, charged with an unseen power.
Suddenly, an ethereal form manifested before her. It was Morbus, the God of gues, clothed in dark robes that covered his head and obscured his features, leaving only a sense of ominous power visible.
Shar immediately knelt before the spectral manifestation of Morbus, her head bowed in reverence and submission. Her devotion to the god was unwavering, her actions reflecting the depth of her faith.
"Is everything ready?" Morbus''s voice echoed through the room, a sound that seemed toe from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Shar, her expression grave, informed Morbus of a potentialplication. "Our n might be hindered by Elrion," she said, concern evident in her voice.
"It is to be expected from a worshipper and apdog of Valorius," Morbus responded with a dark chuckle.
"But now, once you''re inside the dungeon, you can deal with Elrion. The Pantheon and Valorius will be too busy chasing the God of Darkness to notice our n."
Shar''s eyes widened in shock upon hearing the name ''God of Darkness''. "God of Darkness?" she repeated, seeking rification.
"Apparently, Andohr, the caged god of space and time, believes the God of Darkness killed Rainar. He''s given the Pantheon his piece of mind, so now their focus is on finding this God of Darkness." Morbus continued, his voiceced with a cunning edge.
"The Pantheon is fighting two battles at the same time, spread thin. On one hand, they''re battling Dagon, and now they''re after the elusive God of Darkness. This is the perfect time for our n," Morbus borated, his ethereal form almost shimmering with malice.
"Do you think it''s the God of Darkness who killed Rainar?" Shar asked, her voice tinged with curiosity.
Morbus let out a dark, knowing chuckle. "I believe the God of Darkness now is far more dangerous than he was five thousand years ago," he stated confidently, suggesting his encounter with the previous Dark Lord.
Then, Morbus''s presence in the room seemed to grow moremanding as heid out the next step of their n. "Reach the center of the dungeon and retrieve the artifact that Silvaris has stolen and hidden within the remains of Vedora," he instructed Shar, his voice echoing with authority.
"I will not fail you, my god," Shar said with cold determination. The task was clear, and she understood the importance of the artifact to theirrger scheme. As the meeting neared its end, Morbus''s form began to fade, but not before he issued a final, chilling warning. "Do not fail me, Shar," he said coldly, his words hanging in the air even as his ethereal presence dissolved into nothingness.
Chapter 1192 The Legendary Thief Silvaris
Chapter 1192 The Legendary Thief Silvaris
After three days of preparation and gathering information, Michael and Gaya arrived at the Emerald Mountains, the designated meeting point set by Elder Derelius. The mountains lived up to their name, with the stones scattered across thendscape possessing a unique green hue, giving the entire area an ethereal, verdant glow. Gaya''s sharp eyes caught sight of figures in the distance. "Those must be the Kraken n guards," she noted, pointing towards a group of individuals who were d in armor that bore the distinctive insignia of the Kraken n. As they approached, the guards stood in formation, their postures rigid and professional. It was clear that they were well-trained and prepared to escort the various adventurers and explorers who had gathered for the expedition into the dungeon.
Standing tall and authoritative, the guards gestured towards a trail that led deeper into the mountains. "Follow the trail," one of them instructed, pointing them toward the mud trail, marked by the footprints of those who had passed before. The trail snaked its way through the emerald-hued stones and dense foliage of the mountains.
"Thank you," Michael acknowledged the guards with a nod, and they began to follow the trail. As they progressed, the presence of more adventurers, thrill-seekers, and noble soldiers became apparent. The trail seemed like a converging point for all those drawn by the lure of the dungeon and its mysteries.
Gaya observed the increasing number of people on the trail, her eyes scanning the diverse array of individuals. "Seems like we''ll have somepetition inside the dungeon," she remarked, her voice carrying a mix of excitement and wariness.
Eventually, Michael and Gaya, along with the growing crowd of adventurers, reached a point where the trail ended at what appeared to be a normal mountain wall. The area was bustling with people from various races, all d in an assortment of armors and equipped with a variety of weapons. The air was thick with anticipation and the murmur of voices discussing strategies and expectations. N?v(el)B\\jnn
To get a better view, Michael and Gaya, like many others, leaped onto a nearby tree branch. From their elevated vantage point, they could see several armed guards surrounding Elder Derelius. The elder was engaged in a ritual, his hands moving in precise, calcted gestures as he cast several spells.
As Elder Derelius continued his incantations, the mountain wall began to transform. The stone surface started to shift and change, revealing a hidden door. Intricate runes, etched deep into the stone, began to glow with an otherworldly light, illuminating the area with their eerie luminescence.
Gaya''s keen eyes quickly spotted Lysandra and Elrion, who were standing at the front of the crowd. Their presence wasmanding, drawing the attention of many around them.
Michael scanned the area, his curiosity piqued. "Where''s that old woman, Shar, and Jin?" he wondered aloud, trying to locate the other two notable figures they had encountered earlier.
It didn''t take long for him to spot Shar amidst the crowd, her dark robes making her stand out among the sea of adventurers. Jin, however, was more elusive. It was only after a moment that Michael noticed him blending with the shadows, quietly observing the door from a distance. His ability to remain almost invisible to the casual observer was a testament to his skills as an assassin.
As they watched, more guards armed withrge hammers joined Elder Derelius at the stone wall. They struck the wall rhythmically, their hammers resonating with the chants of the elder. With each strike, the mountain trembled slightly, and the shape of the door became more pronounced, its runes glowing brighter.
Suddenly, the mountain quaked more violently, culminating in a st of wind that burst forth from the door. The powerful gust knocked down many of the onlookers, sending a wave of surprise and rm through the crowd.
In the midst of the chaos, Lysandra and Elrion stood firm and unmoved, their poise unshaken by the sudden eruption. Elder Derelius, too, remained steadfast, his eyes fixed on the door as it began to yield to his efforts.
"The door is opening," Derelius announced, his voice cutting through the tumult. The door in the mountain slowly creaked open, groaning as if awakening from a long slumber. As it opened, it released a rush of ancient air, filled with the scent of old air and mustiness. Sensing the imminent exploration, Michael cracked his neck in anticipation and prepared to jump down from their vantage point. Gaya, standing beside him, watched the scene unfold with a mixture of excitement and skepticism. "This dungeon better be worth all the hype. Else, I''ll be really pissed off," she remarked, her voice carrying a hint of challenge and eagerness for the adventure that awaited them.
On the other hand, Elder Derelius, with an air of authority, began to levitate, hovering above the gathered crowd. His gaze swept over the adventurers, mercenaries, and thrill-seekers who hade to explore the dungeon.
"I won''t take much of your time with long speeches," Derelius announced, his voice resonating with a sense of seriousness and purpose. "I only hope that the Great Luxor graces you all with his blessing and keeps you safe within these ancient walls."
At his words, Lysandra and Elrion stepped forward, positioning themselves confidently before the dungeon entrance. Their readiness to lead was evident in their stance and demeanor. Shortly after, Shar and Jin joined them, thetter seamlessly emerging from the shadows to take his ce.
"After you," Elder Derelius said, gesturing towards the entrance with a sweeping motion of his hand. His words served as a formal invitation for them tomence the expedition.
Lysandra, Elrion, Shar, and Jin walked into the dungeon, leading the way. Their entrance was a signal for the rest of the crowd to follow. The adventurers began to move, a mix of excitement and caution in their steps as they ventured into the dungeon.
Blending in with the crowd, Michael and Gaya followed suit. They were just another pair of explorers among the many, but none of the others knew there were gods among them.
As the diverse group of adventurers delved deeper into the dungeon, the massive door behind them closed with a resounding thud, plunging the passageway into darkness. The sudden absence of light sent a ripple of unease through the crowd.
In the pitch-ck corridor, whispered conversations tinged with fear began to surface. "What now? We can''t see anything," one voice quivered in the darkness.
"Are we trapped here?" another asked, panic evident in their tone.
"I didn''t sign up for this," a third voice muttered, the sound of nervous shuffling apanying their words.
Before the tension could escte further, Elrion''s voice resonated through the crowd, steady and reassuring. "Don''t be afraid," he called out, his tone confident and calm.
In response to his words, a golden light suddenly swept across the group. All eyes turned to Elrion, who had raised his long sword into the air. The de radiated a bright, golden light, illuminating the dungeon around them. The light from his sword cut through the darkness, revealing the ancient passageway and the faces of the adventurers, now visibly relieved.
As the group advanced through the dungeon, illuminated by the golden light from Elrion''s sword, one of the elves in the crowd reached out to touch the walls. "Look at this," he eximed, drawing attention to the surface he had just touched.
The dungeon''s walls were dark gray, in and unadorned, giving off an ancient and foreboding feel. The ground beneath their feet was rough and uneven, adding to the sense of age and neglect. A musty, almost earthy smell filled the air, a testament to the centuries that had passed since the dungeon''s creation.
As the elf''s hand traced along the wall, the light revealed disturbing signs ¡ª trails of dried blood, some old and faded, others seemingly fresher.
The sight of the blood trails sent a shiver through the crowd. Whispers and murmurs began to circte, with adventurers specting about what had happened to those who had ventured into the dungeon before them.
Michael subtly gestured to Gaya and whispered, "Look there," nodding discreetly towards Borgin and the other beast tamers who were navigating the dungeon''s treacherous terrain ahead of them.
Upon noticing them, Gaya cracked her knuckles and shed a cold smile, a clear indication of her unresolved feelings towards the beast tamers. Under the guiding light of Elrion''s sword, the group continued their journey through the dark, musty corridors of the dungeon. The ancient air around them seemed to thicken with every step they took, heightening the sense of unease and anticipation.
Eventually, the narrow passageway opened up into arge, spacious, and seemingly empty hall. The sudden change in environment made everyone pause, their senses heightened for any sign of danger.
"Be careful, things may not be as they seem." Her voice echoed in the vastness of the hall, a reminder of the deceptive nature of their surroundings.
But before her words could fully sink in, the ground beneath them suddenly gave way. A hidden trapdoor opened, and one by one, they all began to fall into the dark abyss below. Shouts and cries filled the air as the adventurers plummeted downwards, caughtpletely off guard by the dungeon''s cunning trap.
As they tumbled through the darkness, the adventurersnded one by one on a hard, unseen floor below. The impact was jarring, and for a moment, there was nothing but the sound of heavy breaths and groans of difort echoing through the pitch-ck space.
Suddenly, the reassuring light emanating from Elrion''s sword was snuffed out, as if an invisible force had extinguished it. The abrupt plunge into darkness intensified the sense of vulnerability and disorientation among the group.
Just as the tension seemed unbearable, a faint silver light began to emerge from the ground itself. It gradually intensified, coalescing into the form of a cloaked man with flowing silver hair.
Lysandra, her eyes widening in recognition, broke the stunned silence. "Silvaris," she uttered, her voice a mix of awe and recognition.
The name resonated with the adventurers, many of whom had heard tales of the legendary thief and the angel of Vrix, the God of Thieves.
Chapter 1193 Dangers of the dungeon
Chapter 1193 Dangers of the dungeon
Silvaris, his form almost spectral, floated above the group, moving effortlessly through the air as he hovered around them. His movements were graceful yet unnerving, adding to the surreal atmosphere of the situation.
With a chuckle that echoed through the chamber, Silvaris addressed the gathered adventurers. "Well, well, looks like a bunch of chickens heading toward the ughterhouse," he said, his tone mocking yet yful.
He continued, his voice taking on a more serious note. "Only a true thief cany hands on my treasures," he proimed. "One who knows the art of stealth, cunning, and finesse." Silvaris paused for effect, his eyes scanning the group. "But if you''re just a brute who depends on cultivation and spells likemon fighters, you''re not going tost long in here," he warned, his words carrying a hint of threat and challenge.
Silvaris, with an air of superiority, gestured towards his ethereal form. "Even though this is just a sliver of my soul," he said, emphasizing his ghostly appearance. "I can still see that you''re all a bunch of mindless brutes." Hisughter echoed around the chamber, mocking and derisive. Unable to contain his resentment, Elrion stepped forward to confront Silvaris. "A thief like you has no right tough at anyone," he retorted, his voice firm and challenging. But Silvaris justughed again, his amusement clear. "You must be a worshipper of Valorius, judging by your clich¨¦ words," he said, his tone teasing and provocative.
Hearing Silvaris''s words, Elrion''s expression hardened, and he growled in response. "Good thing you''re in your ethereal form, or I would show you the price of mocking my god," he threatened, his allegiance to Valorius making him quick to defend his god''s honor.
Stillughing, Silvaris replied with a taunt. "In this scenario, you''re the thieves coveting my treasures." His words were a reminder to the group that, in the context of the dungeon, they were the intruders seeking what belonged to him, reversing the usual dynamics of thief and victim.
Suddenly, Silvaris, who had been floating above the group with an air of arrogance, paused midughter. His expression changed from amusement to something more thoughtful, even slightly nervous. The once mockingughter faded into a tense silence as he scanned the group below him.
For a moment, his frown deepened, and there was a hint of fear in his eyes as if he had sensed something unexpected among the adventurers. Then, just as quickly, his amusement returned, masking any previous concern. "Seems like some of you are more than just brutes," he said, his voiceced with a newfound intrigue.
Michael and Gaya, standing among the crowd, felt a prickle of awareness at his words. It was as if Silvaris''s statement was directed specifically at them. Given their status as gods, they understood they stood out, even among the group. His ability to detect something beyond their mortal facades hinted at the depth of his power, even in his ethereal state.
Growing impatient with Silvaris''s cryptic manner, Elrion confronted him directly. "What''s your purpose here?" he demanded, his tone firm. "I assume it''s for more than just to gloat and mock us."
In response, Silvaris let out anotherugh, seemingly unfazed by Elrion''s directness. "As much as I know there''s no one quite like me," he said, his voice dripping with self-assurance, "I am curious to see if anyone here is worthy."
"I didn''t even think you''d find the door to this dungeon, but someone did. So, I''m a bit curious to see what else you all can do," Silvaris continued, revealing a hint of respect for their abilities.
"Once you walk forward, you will be greeted with four paths. Each path is filled with its own traps, challenges, and rewards," said Silvaris. Then, his demeanor became even more yful as he disclosed further details. "Those who survive the paths can then enter the room to meet a dungeon boss," he said with a mischievous grin. "What''s a dungeon without a dungeon boss?" he chuckled, clearly enjoying the moment. "I''ve stolen not only valuables but also monsters and beasts, all kinds of viins, and put them here as dungeon bosses."
As the crowd was absorbing Silvaris''s words, his yful demeanor shifted as he touched his chin with his finger, snapping his fingers as though he had just remembered something important. "Oh, and there are also some arrays I''ve ced throughout the dungeon," he said, his tone still light but with a hint of mischief. "These arrays will stop you from using your spells and fancy magic."
The revtion sent a murmur through the crowd, as the adventurers recalled Elder Derelius''s earlier warning about such magical restrictions. The confirmation of this detail added a newyer ofplexity to the challenge ahead.
Among the onlookers, various reactions began to surface. Some expressed fear and concern through their whispered dialogues.
"How are we supposed to survive without our magic?" one person fretted, their voice tinged with anxiety.
"I didn''t spend a fortune in spells to have it taken away in a ce like this," anotherined, the frustration clear in their tone.
However, others saw this as an equalizing factor. "This will level the ying field with those rich noble brats," one adventurer said with a hint of satisfaction, pleased at the thought of a challenge that relied more on wit and physical skill than on magical prowess.
"Yeah, let''s see how they fare without their fancy spells to hide behind," another chimed in, echoing the sentiment.
"Oh, and expect more surprises along the way," he said with a sly grin. "What''s the thrill if I tell you everything?"
Hisughter lingered in the air, a reminder of the cunning and unpredictable nature of the dungeon''s creator. As he spoke, Silvaris''s figure began to fade, bing more and more transparent until it was barely visible.
Just as his form disappearedpletely, several torches around the hall flickered to life. The sudden illumination revealed the spacious hall in its entirety, casting light on the rough stone walls and the hard floor. Most importantly, it revealed the existence of four doors at the far end of the hall, each one distinct and foreboding, beckoning the adventurers to choose their path.
Taking on the role of informal leaders due to their stature and confidence, Elrion and Lysandra walked in front of the crowd towards the four doors. The adventurers followed closely behind, their steps echoing in the now well-lit hall.
As they all stood before the four identical stone doors, each adorned with glowing runes, a sense of uncertainty filled the air. The doors were indistinguishable from one another, each one promising a unique but unknown challenge.
Elrion, Lysandra, Shar, and Jin huddled together, discussing their options. "Which door do we choose?" Elrion asked, his eyes scanning the runes.
Lysandra responded thoughtfully, "Each door is likely to lead to a drastically different path. We can''t know for sure what lies beyond any of them."
Shar, her voice calm and measured, added, "It''s a gamble, no matter which we choose. But we must make a decision."
Jin, who had been silent until then, spoke up, "Perhaps splitting up might give us a better chance. Cover more ground."
Meanwhile, Gaya leaned in and whispered to Michael, "Which door should we choose?"
"There''s no right answer. It''s obvious that each path these doors lead to is filled with dangers and traps. We''ll need to rely on our instincts and adapt as we go." Michael replied softly.
After a moment of contemtion, Shar proposed a bold strategy. "We should each take one door," she suggested, her tone indicating that she believed dividing their forces might increase their chances of sess.
Elrion, usually at odds with Shar, couldn''t help but agree this time. "This might be the only time I agree with this old woman," he scoffed, albeit with a begrudging respect for the n''s logic.
"So be it," she said, after assessing the situation. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Subsequently, each of the four leaders ¨C Elrion, Lysandra, Shar, and Jin ¨C pushed open one of the doors and stepped through, each choosing their own path into the unknown.
As they departed, Gaya turned to Michael and asked, "Which door should we take?"
Michael scanned the four doors, contemting their decision. His gaze settled on the door Jin had walked through. Remembering the invitation he had received from the Assassin''s Guild, Michael decided that following Jin could be advantageous. It might give him an opportunity to forge an alliance within the guild or at least learn more about the God of Death and the guild''s inner workings.
"We''ll take the door Jin went through," Michael decided, believing that aligning with Jin could offer them strategic insights and potential allies in the challenges ahead.
Michael and Gaya, along with a group of adventurers who had chosen to follow Jin, entered the doorway, stepping into the unknown. As thest of them crossed the threshold, the sound of the stone doors grinding shut echoed behind them, sealing them inside.
They found themselves enveloped in darkness, the only sound being the soft footsteps of their group on the ancient stone floor. After a moment, torches along the walls flickered to life, one by one, casting a dim, eerie light on the narrow path thaty before them.
The group proceeded cautiously, their eyes adjusting to the limited light. The torches revealed a corridor that seemed to stretch endlessly ahead, its walls lined with shadows that danced with the flickering mes.
As they followed Jin deeper into the dungeon, a dark chuckle suddenly echoed through the hall, sending a shiver down everyone''s spine. Then, a childish voice, both eerie and yful, reverberated around them. "Time for me to eat," it said, its tone gleefully sinister.
Chapter 1194 Being a badass again
Chapter 1194 Being a badass again
The adventurers reacted with visible fear to the chilling, childish voice echoing through the corridor. They looked around frantically, their eyes wide as they tried to locate the source of the voice. Whispers and exmations of shock and fear filled the air, adding to the tension.
"What was that?" one adventurer asked, his voice trembling.
"Are we being hunted?" another whispered, her eyes darting around the shadowy corridor.
Amidst the growing panic, Michael remainedposed. He quickly activated his X-ray vision, scanning the environment for any hidden threats. As he looked through the darkness, his thermal vision picked up the heat signatures of the people around him. However, amidst the normal readings, he detected an anomalous purple energy signature lurking in the darkness ahead. It was something different, something otherworldly.
As they all strained to make sense of their surroundings, the voice began to sing a creepy, taunting song that resonated through the corridor.
"Oh, little morsels wandering in the night. So lost, so scared, such a delightful sight¡" The childish voice sang before pausing for a moment.
"I''ll nibble on your fears, a feast so grand. In the dark, in the silence, here I stand."
As the song''s haunting melody tapered off, an eerie silence enveloped the corridor, intensifying the group''s apprehension. Theck of sound seemed almost more unsettling than the voice itself, leaving the adventurers in a state of heightened alertness.
Some of the dwarves in the group, known for their bluntness, couldn''t contain their frustration. "Either attack us or leave us be!" one of them grumbled loudly, his voice echoing in the corridor.
Another adventurer whispered to theirpanion, a hint of worry in their tone. "We haven''t even ventured deep into the dungeon yet, and we''re already facing a monster," the adventurer said, the reality of their situation sinking in.
"Seems like Silvaris wasn''t ying around," Gaya whispered.
Meanwhile, Jin discreetly unsheathed one of his daggers. The assassin''s movements were fluid and precise, a clear indication of his readiness for a potential fight. He ran his tongue along the cold de, a gesture that was both unnerving and indicative of hisfort in such dangerous situations.
As they all cautiously advanced, the silence was gradually reced by a series of soft, eerie, chittering sounds echoing through the corridor. The noise seemed toe from all directions, disorienting and unnerving the group.
The adventurers, sensing the impending threat, began to prepare themselves. Some drew their weapons, gripping swords and bows tightly, while others whispered incantations, their hands glowing with the beginnings of magical spells.
Standing beside Michael, Gaya was ready to activate her cloak''s invisibility feature and use the God yer. Then, slowly, a figure began to emerge from the darkness ahead. The silhouette was indistinct at first, but as it moved closer, the details of its form began to take shape.
As the figure emerged from the darkness, everyone in the corridor froze, their eyes widening in shock and horror at the sight before them.
The creature, though resembling a little girl in form, moved in a grotesque and unnatural manner. It crawled using its arms and legs, each movement apanied by a skittering noise that sent shivers down the spines of the adventurers. Its eyes were abnormallyrge and round, shining an eerie white in the dim light of the corridor.
Most disturbing was its mouth, which had no lips, revealing a set of long, yellow, sharp teeth. Its body appeared almost transparent, as if it were not entirely solid, adding a ghostly quality to its already terrifying appearance. The creature''s hair was a mix of white and gray, long and unkempt, hanging loosely around its haunting visage.
"You are one ugly son of a bitch," Gaya said, looking at the creature. In a swift, unexpected movement, the ghostly creature lunged at a tall, muscr, noble soldier d in full metal armor. "Get off¡of me!"
The soldier, taken by surprise, growled in response and attempted to grab the creature, but his hands passed right through it, as if it were made of air.
A dwarf standing next to the soldier reacted quickly, swinging his battle axe in a wide arc towards the creature. Simultaneously, other adventurers began to unleash a barrage of spells, their incantations filling the air.
"Fulminis Strike!" One mage cast a bolt of lightning as the electric arc crackled through the air. "Pyro Orb! Another conjured a ball of fire as the me hurtled towards the creature. "Verdant Vines," An elf, drawing upon nature''s power, cast a spell, attempting to entangle the creature in a mass of growing greenery.
However, all their efforts proved futile. The spells and physical attacks simply passed through the creature as if it were a mirage. To their horror, some of the spells missed their target and struck the noble soldier instead, causing him to cry out in pain and copse to the ground.
Chaos ensued as the adventurers scrambled to adjust their tactics. The creature, unaffected by their assaults, continued its attack on the fallen soldier.
Amidst themotion, Michael, with his keen perception, noticed something rming. The creature was extracting the air from the gap in the soldier''s helmet, its body expanding slightly with each inhtion. The sheer force of the suction was causing the soldier''s lungs and internal organs to hemorrhage, a sight that was as terrifying as it was bewildering.
As the noble soldier copsed with blood seeping through his metal helmet, the adventurers around him reacted with shock and fear.
"No way... It just... How did it do that?" one of them stammered, unable toprehend the horrific scene.
"Watch out!" another yelled, but it was toote. The creature, undeterred, lunged at the dwarf next. The attack was quick and brutal. The creature sucked the air out of the dwarf with even greater ferocity, causing his skin to turn pale. In a matter of seconds, his chest cavity exploded, killing him instantly.
An elf in the crowd, his eyes wide with realization, shouted, "It must be at an Elemental Attunement stage!"
"It''s using the wind element," Another adventurer, a mage, agreed while preparing another spell.His voice wasced with urgency. "If we don''t find a way to kill it, it will kill us all!"
The group''s initial shock turned into panic as they frantically tried to devise a way to fight the seemingly invincible creature. As the adventurers grappled with the dire situation, Michael''s sharp eyes caught Jin subtly slipping away from the fray, silently advancing deeper into the dungeon. In the chaos, Jin''s silent departure went mostly unnoticed by the others, who were focused on the immediate threat.
"Follow Jin," Michael said quickly to Gaya, realizing that Jin''s decision to retreat might be the smarter move in the current circumstances.
Initially surprised by Jin''s stealthy exit, Gaya couldn''t help but snicker at his cunning. "That sneaky son of a bitch," she muttered with a mix of amusement and admiration.
Without wasting a moment, Gaya pressed the button on her palm, activating the cloak''s invisibility feature. With a swift, agile leap, she used the confusion to her advantage, bouncing off the heads of the adventurers in front of her to make her way out of the crowd.
Her sudden, unseen movements caused shock and confusion among the adventurers. "What the¡ª?" one of them shouted, feeling an unseen force pushing down on his head. "Who''s there?" another eximed, bewildered by the invisible pressure and the fleeting shadow that had just passed over them.
Now cloaked and almost invisible, Gaya moved swiftly to catch up with Jin. After Gaya followed Jin deeper into the dungeon, Michae cracked his neck, readying himself for the confrontation. He unsheathed his dark swords, the des glinting ominously in the dim light of the dungeon. He decided to confront and kill the creature, not just for the experience points but also to earn ''badass points'' by taking control of the situation.
Then, Michael summoned dark mes with focused intensity. The dark mes flickered to life, writhing and twisting around his swords, coating the des with a sinister, fiery aura. The dark mes added a lethal edge to his weapons, enhancing their ability to inflict damage on even the most elusive of foes.
With a swift and calcted motion, Michael hurled one of his dark swords directly at the creature, which was in the midst of attacking an elf, drawing the air from his lungs. The sword, enveloped in dark, primordial mes, swiftly cut through the air.
The effect was immediate and dramatic when the dark sword struck the creature. Despite its ghostly form, the dark mes, being of a primordial nature,tched onto the creature. The impact of the sword and the searing mes sent the creature hurtling back into the darkness, its form momentarily illuminated by the flickering fire before disappearing into the shadows.
A stunned silence fell over the group as they witnessed the effectiveness of Michael''s attack. All heads turned to see him confidently walking forward, the other dark sword still in his hand, its mes casting a menacing glow in the dim corridor.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15,000 Badass points] ¡
Then, from the darkness, the creature''s childish voice emerged, tinged with pain and surprise. "You hurt me!" it wailed, its tone a mix of shock and anger.
As Michael stood poised for the creature''s next move, the system inside his head continued to chime, rewarding him and showering him with Badass points. The notifications rang continuously, but he tuned out the system''s alerts. instead, his eyes fixed on the darkness from where the creature was rapidly approaching.
The creature, now visible again, lunged out of the shadows, its ghostly form hurtling through the air towards Michael. To the onlookers, time seemed to slow down as they witnessed the impending sh between the mysterious youngster dressed in ck and the terrifying entity.
Just as the creature closed in, mere inches from Michael, he swung his other dark sword in a fluid, precise arc. The de, still enveloped in the dark, primordial mes, sliced through the creature''s head, severing it cleanly. The creature let out a final, ear-piercing screech as its form disintegrated into dust. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The speed and efficiency of Michael''s strike were so swift that many of the adventurers barely registered what had happened. One moment, the creature was a looming threat, and the next, it was gone, killed by Michael''s skilled hand.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing an Elemental Attunement Stage huntress. The reward is 20,000 Experience points and 18,000 Badass points]
Chapter 1195 Mirroring Pond
Chapter 1195 Mirroring Pond
Michael stood there, his sword still raised in the aftermath of his swift and decisive victory over the huntress. The ease with which he had dispatched the creature that had killed several adventurers and seemed almost invincible caused quite amotion among the onlookers.
"Did you see that? He just... cut it down like it was nothing!" one adventurer eximed in disbelief.
"Who is this guy? That was incredible!" another voice chimed in, the shock evident in their tone.
A third adventurer muttered, "I''ve never seen anything like that. We''re lucky he''s on our side."
Finally, Michael lowered his sword and casually threw his dark swords into the air. They spun gracefully beforending perfectly into the sheathes on his back, forming an ''X''. The action was both cool and efficient, further cementing his status as a formidable presence.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15,000 Badass points]
With the dark swords sheathed, Michael scanned the area for any other lurking enemies. Finding none, he ignored the shocked gazes of the onlookers and began to walk forward into the darkness.
Since Michael had killed the huntress, the adventurers and others present began to decide to follow him inwardly. It made sense, as Michael had established himself as the strongest among them.
Now that the creature was killed and they were following an unknown youngster, some of the group began to wonder about Jin''s whereabouts.
"Where did Jin go?" one of them asked, looking around.
"That sneaky assassin slipped away when we needed him," another cursed under their breath.
"Can''t me him, really. He''s rumored to be in the Assassin''s Guild. Not exactly a poster boy for leadership," a third person reasoned, understanding the nature of Jin''s profession and allegiance.
As Michael continued forward, his keen eyes noticed something amidst the dusty floor: a series of subtle footsteps. He recognized them instantly as Gaya''s, a sign that she had passed this way.
More intriguingly, Michael observed several markings on the walls and ground. These marks were distinguished by green droplets, visible only to him. "Gaya''s poison," he murmured to himself, recognizing her unique method of leaving behind a trail.
Michael understood that these marks were Gaya''s way of indicating traps. With this knowledge, he navigated the corridor with ease, skillfully avoiding the tiles marked with her poison. His movements formed a seemingly erratic pattern, but each step was calcted and deliberate.
The crowd following him began to notice his peculiar way of moving. "Why is he walking like that?" one adventurer whispered to another, puzzled by Michael''s seemingly random steps.
"Is he following some kind of pattern?" another questioned, trying to make sense of his actions.
Among the group of adventurers, a small, unruly faction stood out. They were a motley crew, one was a burly man with a scarred face and a mismatched set of armor, another a lean rogue with sly eyes and a smirking expression, and there was also a tall, wiry woman with tattoos covering her arms.
"Why are we even following this guy''s path, walking around like a bunch of clowns?" the burly man grumbled, his voice tinged with defiance.
"Yeah, I''m not ying this silly game," the rogue chimed in, his tone dismissive.
Ignoring Michael''s carefully chosen path, they boldly stepped onto a tile that Michael had deliberately avoided. In an instant, the ground beneath them gave way, opening into a dark, deep abyss.
As they fell, sharp, pointy metal spikes emerged from all directions in the abyss, skewering them mercilessly. Their screams echoed through the corridor, abruptly cut off as they met their grisly end.
The remaining adventurers reacted with horror and shock. "By the gods, did you see that?" one of them eximed, his voice shaking.
"They didn''t listen, and now... they''re gone," another whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
"We need to follow his path. He knows what he''s doing!" a third adventurer said, pointing at Michael, a newfound respect and urgency in his voice.
Michael continued forward, his thoughts preupied with how Gaya had managed to identify the traps. He could sense them using his X-ray vision, but Gaya''s method was a mystery to him. He spected that she might have followed Jin, mirroring his pattern to avoid the traps. If that were the case, it suggested that Jin was as cunning as he was sneaky.
Meanwhile, the recent demise of the adventurers who had disregarded Michael''s path had a profound effect on the rest of the group. They now followed him with intense focus, fully aware of the consequences of deviating from his lead.
Eventually, the narrow path they were traversing opened up into arge, spacious hall. As they entered, torches along the walls flickered to life one by one, illuminating the space. The hall was vast, the walls and floor covered in a thickyer of dust, untouched for what seemed like ages. In the center of the hall, there was a small pond, its water still and clear, reflecting the flickering torchlight. The pond stood out in stark contrast to the dusty surroundings, adding an element of mystery to the otherwise deste hall.
"What is that?" one of the adventurers asked, curiosity piqued by the sight of the glistening pond in the middle of the hall.
A dwarf stepped forward from the group. He was short in stature, as dwarves usually are, but his build was solid, with broad shoulders and arms that spoke of years working in forges or wielding heavy axes. His beard was thick and peppered with grey, braided in the traditional style of his people.
"What''s now?" he asked Michael, looking for guidance in the face of uncertainty.
Michael nced down at the dwarf and simply shrugged. "I don''t have all the answers," he admitted candidly. "And I''m not here to lead anyone."
As they pondered their next move, Jin suddenlynded before them, his arrival almost as stealthy as his disappearance had been. The way out of this hall, and forward, is rted to the pond in the middle," Jin stated, his voice carrying a hint of certainty.
Upon seeing Jin, Michael quickly scanned the area with his thermal vision. He noticed Gaya still invisible, blending into a corner of the hall. It was a subtle reminder of her presence and her ongoing efforts to support their journey.
"In the pond? What does that mean?" the dwarf asked, his confusion evident.
The adventurers, intrigued by Jin''s statement, began to slowly scatter across the hall, surrounding the pond while maintaining a safe distance from it. They observed the still water cautiously, each trying to decipher what Jin''s cryptic clue meant and how it rted to their path forward.
Michael discreetly slipped away from the crowd and joined Gaya. He leaned against the wall, engaging in a quiet conversation with her, careful not to draw the attention of the others.
"So, what did you learn?" Michael asked Gaya, his voice low. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Seems like our friend Jin is either extremely perceptive of traps, or he knew theyout of this dungeon pretty well," Gaya replied, her observation sharp.
"When I was tailing Jin, I noticed how effortlessly he avoided the traps. It was almost as if he knew the dungeon and its traps like the back of his hand. He navigated through them with such ease that it''s hard to believe he was just being cautious. It seemed more like he was familiar with them." She described her experience while following Jin.
Michael listened intently, processing Gaya''s insights. Jin''s behavior suggested that he might have had prior knowledge of the dungeon''syout, which raised new questions about his connections to the dungeon.
"That pond seems more dangerous than it looks," she said cautiously. "Even Jin hasn''t dared to step into the water."
As they discussed, the dwarf who had spoken to Michael earlier, growing impatient with theck of action, threw his hands up in exasperation. "I''m tired of waiting around!" he dered loudly, walking determinedly toward the pond.
He bent down at the water''s edge and scooped up a handful of water and turned around to address his group.
"See, nothing is ha¡ª" His words were cut short when, suddenly, a figure emerged from the water behind him. The water shifted and morphed, transforming into a duplicate that looked exactly like the dwarf, right down to his armor and battle axe.
The other adventurers, witnessing the bizarre urrence, shouted warnings. "Look out!" one of them yelled.
"Behind you, you fool!" another cried.
The dwarf, hearing themotion, turned around and saw his watery doppelg?nger. His eyes widened in shock, and he stammered, But before he could react further, the duplicate swung its battle axe with a swift, deadly precision, cleaving the dwarf''s head in a single, brutal stroke. The real dwarf fell to the ground lifelessly as his watery duplicate stood over him, its expression an eerie mimicry of the dwarf''s own.
After the brutal execution of the original dwarf, the doppelganger''s figure began to change. It lost its solid form, turning back into water, and cascaded down into the pond. The water rippled momentarily before bing still once more, as if nothing had happened.
At that exact moment, the way they hade through was suddenly sealed off. A heavy stone wall slid into ce, blocking the corridor with a resounding thud. The path they had followed into the hall was nowpletely cut off, leaving them with no apparent way back.
An elf and his group, desperate to find an escape, lunged at the newly formed stone door. They punched and shook it, trying to force it open, but their efforts were in vain. The door remained steadfast, immovable against their attempts.
Realizing the futility of their actions, the elf turned around to face the rest of the group, his expression one of despair and resignation. "We''re trapped," he announced
Chapter 1196 Michael鈥檚 Genius Plan
Chapter 1196 Michael¡¯s Genius n
Panic began to set in among the adventurers and warriors trapped inside the hall. The realization that they were enclosed in an unknown, dangerous space with no clear way out sparked fear and tension, which quickly escted into heated exchanges.
"We need to find another way out, now!" one of the adventurers said, his voiceced with urgency.
"Maybe we can break through the walls or find a hidden passage," suggested another, looking around frantically.
A warrior with a grim expression countered, "And what if we set off more fucking traps? We need to think this through!"
Voices began to rise as the group''s fear morphed into frustration and anger. "We wouldn''t be in this mess if it weren''t for that damn pond!" one person shouted, pointing usingly at the still water.
"Enough with the pond! We need to work together, not turn on each other!" an elven girl yelled, trying to bring some reason to the escting situation.
A brave yet arrogant noble warrior stepped forward, his confidence unshaken by the recent events. "Now that we know what the pond does, I can take on and win against that puny doppelganger," he dered, his voice filled with overconfidence.
The others watched as the warrior, d in shining silver armor, strode toward the pond. He held his sword in one hand and a crackling golden energy ball in the other, an air of arrogance surrounding him. Upon reaching the edge of the pond, he casually touched the water with his boot, standing in a ready stance to engage inbat.
The water in the pond rippled in response, and slowly, it began to rise. In front of everyone''s eyes, the water took the shape of the warrior, mirroring his spell and weapon with uncanny precision.
"I''ll teach this damn pond it can''t mimic me," The soldier snickered arrogantly, facing his watery duplicate. "Let''s see how you handle this," he taunted before swinging his sword and hurling the energy ball at the doppelganger.
To everyone''s surprise, the doppelganger mirrored his movements exactly, blocking his sword strike and conjuring an identical energy ball. The two energy balls collided mid-air, resulting in a forceful explosion that pushed the soldier back.
But the most shocking moment came when the doppelganger stepped outside the pond, its form stable and menacing. This revtion that it could leave the confines of the pond sent a wave of shock and fear through the group.
"It can leave the water?" one of the adventurers gasped, disbelief evident in his voice.
"We''re in more trouble than we thought," another whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
"This changes everything," a third murmured, the realization dawning that the doppelganger created by the pond was more powerful than they initially thought.
With a blend of arrogance and skill, the warrior engaged in a fierce battle with his doppelganger. He lunged forward, sword aimed at the doppelganger''s chest, but the watery duplicate mirrored his move perfectly, parrying the blow with an identical sword.
"Ha, is that the best you can do?" the warrior taunted, trying to maintain hisposure and confidence. He then executed a series of rapid shes, each one aimed to outmaneuver and strike the doppelganger.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
However, with eerie precision, the doppelganger copied each of the warrior''s moves, its movements fluid and in perfect sync. The shes were met with equal force and speed, creating a dance of shing swords and sparks. The warrior, growing frustrated, attempted a feint followed by a swift thrust. "You can''t keep up with this!" he shouted. Yet, the doppelganger anticipated the feint and countered the thrust effortlessly, their des meeting with a loud ng.
As the battle progressed, the warrior''s initial arrogance began to wane, reced by a growing sense of desperation. Though skillful and swift, his attacks were matched blow for blow by the doppelganger. "Why won''t you fall?" he yelled, his voice tinged with anger and disbelief.
The warrior unleashed a powerful overhead strike in a final attempt to overpower the doppelganger, pouring all his strength into the blow. "Take this!" he roared. But once again, the doppelganger mirrored the attack, their swords locking together in a deadlock. Gaya watched the ongoing battle with a critical eye. "That arrogant prick can''t keep this up for long," she remarked, her voiceced with a mix of disdain and concern.
"This is a perfect trap. One cannot defeat themselves," he observed, understanding the intricacies of the doppelganger''s strategy. As the fight progressed, the warrior''s attacks began to slow down, his stamina waning under the relentless pace of the battle. His once swift and precise strikes became sluggish and less coordinated.
Some of the onlookers spected about the doppelganger''s response. "If it''s mimicking everything, its attacks might also slow down," one adventurer suggested hopefully. However, Gaya was skeptical. "I don''t think that''s how it works," she said, her eyes fixed on the unfolding scene.
To everyone''s shock, Gaya''s suspicion proved correct. The doppelganger maintained the peak of the warrior''s initial speed and ferocity, and instead of continuing to mimic his movements, it began to attack on its own. The creature had learned the warrior''s fighting style during their exchange and was now using his own techniques against him.
The battle turned brutal and bloody. The doppelganger''s sword found its mark time and again, each strike leaving a new cut or wound on the warrior. "No... How is this possible?" the warrior gasped, his arrogance reced by shock and pain. He tried to parry and counterattack, but the doppelganger seemed to anticipate his every move.
"Stop copying me!" the warrior shouted in frustration, swinging his sword in a desperate attempt to regain control. But it was in vain. Unyielding and relentless, the doppelganger continued its assault, exploiting every weakness and opening in the warrior''s defense.
Havingpletely overpowered the warrior, the doppelganger prepared for the final, decisive blow. It feinted to the left with a swift and precise movement, causing the warrior to block in that direction instinctively. But in a fluid motion, the doppelganger reversed its attack, bringing its sword in a deadly arc to the right, targeting the warrior''s neck. "Shit," the warrior said, knowing his fate.
Yet, before the warrior could react, the de made contact, severing his head cleanly from his shoulders. His head rolled. away with a macabre thud, as blood sttered across the hall, painting a stark and gruesome scene.
The doppelganger, its taskpleted, dissolved into water, its form losing coherence and trickling back into the pond. The once imposing duplicate faded away, leaving behind a stunned and horrified audience.
"By the gods... Did you see that?" one of the onlookers gasped, his voice a mixture of fear and disbelief.
"We''re not safe here... We need to get out!" another eximed, panic setting in as the reality of their scary situation became increasingly clear.
"This dungeon is a death trap!" a third adventurer shouted, the desire to escape the dungeon now overwhelming their initial curiosity and ambition.
Amidst the rising fear and chaos, Michael remainedposed. He cracked his neck, a gesture that indicated he was formting a n. Leaning in, he whispered his strategy to Gaya, ensuring that only she could hear his intentions.
With a calm look on his face, Michael began to walk towards the pond.
The adventurers watched in anticipation as Michael approached the pond. Whispers and spections rippled through the crowd.
"Is he going to try fighting the doppelganger?" one of them asked, eyes fixed on Michael''s advancing figure.
"He looks like he has a n," another observed, noting the purposeful way Michael moved.
In a surprising move, Michael did not unsheathe his dark swords. Instead, he tossed them aside to the ground and cautiously touched the water with his bare hands. The onlookers watched in realization.
"Of course! If he doesn''t have a weapon, the doppelganger won''t replicate it," one of them eximed, pping his forehead. "Why didn''t we think of that?"
On the other side of the pond, Gaya uncloaked her armor, positioning herself strategically.
As the water rippled, a doppelganger of Michael emerged, mirroring his unarmed stance. Michael quickly threw a fist towards the doppelganger, who replicated the action. Their fists collided, creating a shockwave that rippled through the air.
Some of the archers in the group raised their bows in surprise. "What''s he nning?" one whispered, intrigued by the tactic.
Watching with a knowing smile, Gayaplimented Michael''s strategy. "You are a genius, my handsome husband," she said, firing an exploding bolt from the God yer crossbow at the doppelganger''s back.
The bolt struck true, exploding on impact. The doppelganger''s figure rippled violently, its movements visibly slowing.
Seizing the moment, Michael raised his hand, and his dark swords flew back into his grasp in the blink of an eye.
At that exact moment, Gaya fired another bolt, causing the doppelganger to ripple and slow down further. Michael then closed in and, with a swift and precise strike, cut the head of the doppelganger clean off. The doppelganger disintegrated, just like the previous ones.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 20,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Spiritual Embryo Realm doppelganger. The reward is 5000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
Chapter 1197 Farming Experience and Badass Points
Chapter 1197 Farming Experience and Badass Points
The adventurers watched in amazement as Michael sessfully defeated the doppelganger. Murmurs and exmations filled the hall as they processed what had just happened.
"Did you see that? He just took it down!" one adventurer said, his voice tinged with excitement and disbelief.
"Wait, who fired that bolt?" another asked, turning to see Gaya on the other side of the pond.
"Where did shee from?" someone else wondered aloud, surprised by her sudden appearance.
As they observed, they noticed the water level in the pond slightly decreased following the doppelganger''s defeat. Speaking quietly, Michael noted, "We need to kill more doppelgangers to make the pondpletely vapor away."
The group''s demeanor shifted from fear to determination, bolstered by Michael''s sessful strategy. They began to discuss amongst themselves, their voices filled with newfound confidence.
"We can do this," one of them said, nodding towards Michael. "We just need to replicate what he did."
"Without weapons, the doppelgangers are just reflections. We can outsmart them," another added, understanding the tactic.
"Let''s team up. We''ve seen it can be done," a third suggested, rallying the group.
The adventurers began organizing themselves and discussing strategies to take on the doppelgangers.
Jin observed from a distance as the adventurers began to group up, preparing to face the pond''s challenge. "He made it look easy," Jin muttered to himself, "but these guys have no idea what they''re up against."
Meanwhile, a prominent group from Aurumvale, identifiable by their golden armor, approached the pond. The leader, an elf with long silver hair, exuded confidence as he directed two of hispanions. "Position yourselves so that the doppelganger''s back is to you," he instructed. The elf was poised, his demeanor suggesting he was ustomed tomand.
"I''ll show you how it''s done," the elf dered, echoing a simr sentiment of confidence. Emting Michael''s approach, he tossed his battle axe to the ground near him. Hispanions, armed with bows, took aim, their arrows glowing with runes, ready to be loosed.
The elf then stepped forward and lightly touched the water with his boot. A doppelganger began to form, mirroring the elf''s stance. As the elf threw his fist towards the doppelganger, their fists collided with a thud, just as Michael''s had.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Now!" the elf shouted, signaling hispanions.
The two elves released their arrows at the doppelganger. The projectiles, imbued with magic, exploded upon impact. Seizing the moment, the elf bent down to retrieve his battle axe. But to everyone''s shock, as soon as the elf''s hand touched the axe, an identical weapon materialized in the doppelganger''s hand.
Before the elf could fully grasp his axe, the doppelganger swung its newly formed weapon with lethal precision, decapitating the elf in one swift motion.
"Lord Vilriyan!" one of hispanions cried out in horror, their voice filled with disbelief and shock.
The hall erupted in reactions of shock and confusion. The group''s confidence, bolstered by Michael''s earlier sess, was shattered.
"We thought... it was foolproof," one of the adventurers stammered, his voice reflecting the group''s disbelief.
"How did it... How could it?" another murmured, struggling toprehend the abrupt and brutal turn of events.
The group''s attention turned to Michael as Vilriyan''s minions, ovee with emotion from their lord''s death, demanded answers.
"Why did our lord fall, and you seeded?" one of them asked, his voice filled with a mixture of grief and anger.
"Exin yourself!" another demanded, seeking some form of justification or understanding.
Hearing their questions, Michael responded calmly, yet his words did little to soothe their emotions. "Your lord was too slow," he said inly. The elves bristled at hisment, already raw with emotion. "How dare you speak of him like that!" one of them retorted, their voice rising with offense. Gaya, who watched the scene, couldn''t stand back. Instead, she stepped in to stand beside Michael and responded to the elves.
"No one forced you assholes to copy us," she said, defending Michael''s earlier strategy. She gripped the cross bow tighter and looked prepared to use it if the elves raised their weapons against Michael and her.
But before the situation could escte further, another silver-haired elvendy intervened. "Calm down, everyone," she urged, trying to diffuse the tension. "She''s right. We need to think this through," A dwarf said, attempting to bring reason back to the group.
After pondering for a moment, Michael sighed and decided to rify the situation. "If we don''t kill enough doppelgangers, the pond won''t evaporate," he exined. "And if that doesn''t happen, we can''t leave this ce."
"Also, he''s too fast. You can''t expect to copy us and expect to beat the doppelganger like we did," she said.
"And it seems like the pond, or whatever this thing is, can remember certain movements." She gestured towards the headless corpse of the dwarf. "The way it swung the battle axe to kill the elf looked exactly like the way the first dwarf who died swung his."
The group took a moment to process her words, ncing between the dwarf''s body and the pond. Realization dawned on their faces.
"You mean it''s learning from us and remembering some of our attacks?" one of the adventurers asked, a note of fear in his voice.
"She''s right," one adventurer said, a note of understanding in his voice.
"That means we can''t totally expect the doppelganger to mimic uspletely," another added, piecing together the implications of Gaya''s observation.
Michael knew that he potentially had the means to vaporize the pond with his dark mes, a solution that might have worked effectively. However, he refrained from doing so, recognizing an opportunity to farm both experience and badass points from the situation.
"I can help you take down the doppelgangers," Michael offered, seeing a way to aid the group while also benefiting himself.
From a corner of the room, Jin spoke up for the first time, addressing Michael directly. "Nothing in this worldes free," he said, his tone implying a transactional nature to any assistance.
The elvendy, taking charge of the situation, responded, "Name your price."
Murmurs spread through the group, somebeling Michael as a mercenary. "He''s just a mercenary, not a hero," one whispered. "He''s using this situation to his advantage. I would do the same." Another noted.
Michael, unfazed by thements, calmly responded to Jin. "Let''s just say you don''t pay in gold," he said, hinting at a different kind ofpensation.
He thenid out his n. "Just use your bare hands, touch the pond and stand still. I will kill it from behind," he instructed, his voice carrying a tone of confidence. The origin of this chapter''s debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
Gaya chimed in, supporting Michael''s strategy. "The doppelganger might make some moves, so you need to be fast and adaptive, and survive until we kill it from behind," she said, emphasizing the need for agility and endurance.
A dwarf, concerned about the adaptability of the doppelgangers, raised a valid point. "What if the doppelganger learns this strategy?"
Michael''s response was straightforward. "Then we need toe up with a new strategy," he said simply, ready to evolve his tactics as needed.
After a while, a dwarf with a thick bushy beard and the friend of the first fallen dwarf, stepped forward with a mix of determination and resignation. "I''ll go next. If I die, I''ll have a hearty drink with my friend in the afterlife," he dered, a somber tone in his voice.
In response to the dwarf, Michael gave a simple nod of acknowledgment and took his position near the pond, ready for the next moment. The other adventurers stepped back, forming a loose circle around the pond as the dwarf bravely approached, throwing his battle axe aside.
"Come out, you fucker," the dwarf called out defiantly, ready to face the doppelganger.
Michael unsheathed his dark sword, and Gaya took aim with her crossbow, ready to fire an explosive bolt.
As the dwarf touched the water, it rippled, and the doppelganger of the dwarf emerged, mirroring his stance.
"Let''s dance, you handsome prick," the dwarf growled.
Without hesitation, the dwarf and the doppelganger lunged forward, their heads colliding with a resounding thud that echoed through the hall.
At that moment, Gaya released her bolt. The explosive bolt soared through the air and struck the doppelganger, causing it to ripple and momentarily slow its movements.
Seizing the opportunity, Michael leaped into the air. With an acrobatic flip, he positioned himself above the doppelganger, his dark sword poised for a decisive strike. As he descended, he swung his sword with lethal precision, severing the head of the doppelganger dwarf in a clean, fluid motion while he was still upside down in mid-air.
Michaelnded gracefully on the other side of the pond, hisnding soft and controlled. The doppelganger disintegrated into water, its threat neutralized.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 25,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 30,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Qi Awakening Realm doppelganger. The reward is 1000 Experience points and 12,000 Badass points]
Michael couldn''t help but smile as the system notifications rang in his head. Although the experience points were minimal, the amount of badass points he was getting made this worthwhile. He realized he could effectively farm these points in the current situation.
As the doppelganger of the dwarf dissipated into the pond, the water level decreased slightly again, signaling their progress.
Seeing Michael''s sess in dealing with the doppelgangers, the adventurers grew eager to take their turn. A mor erupted as they jostled for position, each wanting to be next.
"I should go next! I followed him first!" one adventurer imed.
"No, let me! I''ve seen how it''s done now," another countered, trying to push to the front.
Amidst the growing chaos, Gaya saw an opportunity. She stepped forward, raising her voice to be heard over the racket. "Form a line, and whoever has the most gold coins gets to go first," she announced, her tone firm yet cunning.
The adventurers paused, considering her words.
"And remember," Gaya added with a hint of menace, "if he gets tired and you end up at the back of the line, your survival might not be guaranteed."
Her statement resonated with the adventurers, and a sense of urgency took over. They quickly began to dig into their pouches and bags, counting their coins, eager to secure their turn with the assurance of Michael and Gaya''s support.
Chapter 1198 A sudden twist in the battle
Chapter 1198 A sudden twist in the battle
The golden-armored elves from Aurumvale, not to be outdone, acted swiftly and decisively. One of them reached into their space ring, and with an air of nonchnce, they transferred a staggering one million gold coins as if it were a trivial amount and tossed the ring to Gaya. "Take this and help us first," one of the elves said, his voiceced with both urgency and entitlement.
Gaya caught the ring deftly, ncing into the shimmering silver space ring. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the substantial amount, and a sly grin formed on her lips. "Of course," she replied with a smile, her tone smooth and agreeable.
Turning to face the rest of the adventurers, Gaya''s smile faded into a more stern expression. She scoffed at them, her gaze challenging. "Back off and step forward if you have gold coins for us," she dered, her voice ringing with authority. "Or stand back in line and hope he doesn''t get tired." n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The onlookers exchanged nces, their expressions a mix of frustration, envy, and resignation.
"This isn''t fair! They''re buying their way to safety!" one adventurer protested, his voice tinged with bitterness.
"Gold speaks louder than bravery in this dungeon, it seems," another murmured, shaking their head in dismay.
Yet another, realizing the reality of the situation, sighed and said, "We don''t stand a chance against that kind of wealth. We''ll just have to wait our turn."
Once filled with chaos and disarray, the hall had now transformed into a more organized queue dictated by wealth rather than need or skill. The golden-armored elves from Aurumvale moved to the front, their confidence bolstered by their financial advantage. Meanwhile, the other adventurers,cking such resources, lined up behind them, each silently calcting their odds of survival and hoping that Michael would not tire before their turn came.
The elf from Aurumvale, having observed the previous encounters, prepared himself to face the pond''s challenge. He followed the established protocol, confidently throwing his curved de to the ground. Gaya took her position with the crossbow, her eyes focused on the pond, while Michael positioned himself strategically, his dark sword at the ready.
"I am ready," the elf dered, his voice steady. He touched the water with the tip of his boot, causing ripples to spread across the surface. The water began to stir, and soon, a doppelganger formed, mirroring the elf''s appearance and stance.
As soon as the doppelganger fully materialized, Gaya acted. "Now!" she shouted, releasing an explosive bolt from her crossbow. The bolt whistled through the air, striking the doppelganger squarely in the back. The explosion caused the doppelganger to stagger momentarily, its movements disrupted by the force of the impact.
Seizing the moment, Michael lunged forward with incredible speed. "Watch this," he said, a hint of determination in his voice. He deftly maneuvered around the doppelganger, avoiding its attempts to mimic his moves. With a swift and precise strike, he aimed for the doppelganger''s neck.
The doppelganger, still reeling from Gaya''s attack, struggled to keep up with Michael''s agility. It tried to counter, but Michael''s speed and skill were overwhelming.
With a fluid motion, Michael''s sword found its mark, slicing through the doppelganger''s neck. The creature''s head fell to the ground, and its body dissolved into water, returning to the pond.
The elf, who had remained still during the encounter, let out a breath he didn''t realize he had been holding. "Incredible," he muttered, genuinely impressed.
The onlookers erupted into murmurs of admiration and relief. "They did it again," one adventurer eximed.
"Those two are unstoppable," another added, watching Michael and Gaya with newfound respect.
Michael and Gaya''s sessful strategy against the doppelgangers not only showcased their formidablebat skills but also reinforced their role as key yers in the group''s survival. [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 35,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 40,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Qi Awakening Realm doppelganger. The reward is 1000 Experience points and 15,000 Badass points]
As Michael stood by the pond, the familiar chime of the system notifications echoed in his head, acknowledging his achievements. The pond''s water level continued to decrease with each doppelganger they defeated, a sign of their progressing sess.
A queue of adventurers, organized by Gaya based on the gold they could offer, formed a line. Each was eager for their turn, hoping to replicate the sess Michael and Gaya had demonstrated.
Standing a distance away, Jin observed the scene with an almost amused smile hidden under his cloak. His eyes followed the young man and woman as they stylishly and efficiently killed each doppelganger that emerged from the pond.
Despite the doppelgangers adapting and learning from the way they fought, Michael and Gaya proved too quick and skilled. They rapidly dispatched each one, their coordination and tactics wless.
As the battles continued, Michael''s umtion of rewards surged. The badass points rapidly added up, and he soon reached nearly two million. His experience points also grew, reaching one hundred thousand. He was now only one hundred thousand badass points away from breaking through to the next cultivation stage.
The atmosphere in the hall had shifted to one of confidence and nonchnce, due to the continuous sess of Michael and Gaya against the doppelgangers. Having paid his share of gold coins to Gaya, a halfling eagerly stepped toward the pond, ready for his turn.
"Let''s see how this goes," the halfling said with a hint of excitement, his small stature in stark contrast to the looming pond.
The other adventurers watched, now more rxed and confident in Michael and Gaya''s abilities. "This should be quick," one of them remarked casually.
As the halfling touched the water, it rippled, and a doppelganger began to emerge. As usual, Gaya readied her crossbow and fired an explosive bolt towards the forming figure. However, this time, the situation took an unexpected turn.
To the group''s shock and horror, not one, but three doppelgangers appeared from the pond. Among them were the doppelgangers of Michael and Gaya themselves. Gaya''s doppelganger swiftly caught the exploding arrow in mid-air, while Michael''s doppelgangerunched a powerful roundhouse kick, sending the real Michael flying across the hall.
The adventurers gasped in disbelief. "No way, it copied them too!" one shouted.
"What the fuck is that? We''re doomed!" another eximed in panic.
In a devastating move, Gaya''s doppelganger then hurled the explosive arrow at the unsuspecting halfling. The arrow struck with lethal precision, sting him off the ground. The force of the explosion was so intense that the halfling''s arms and legs were torn off, blood sttering across the hall in a gruesome spectacle. Immediately, the crowd erupted in shock and fear. "They''re too strong!" someone screamed.
"What are we going to do now?" another cried out, the earlier confidence now reced by terror.
The doppelgangers of Michael and Gaya stepped out of the pond, their movements eerily mirroring those of their real counterparts. They cracked their necks in unison, a menacing gesture that sent a chill down the spines of the onlookers.
After regaining hisposure from the unexpected attack, Michael leaped up from the ground and stood ready. "This has gotten interesting," he said, a determined glint in his eye.
From his vantage point, Jin watched the unfolding scene with a keen interest. "Let''s see how they fight themselves," he remarked, his voiceced with curiosity.
The situation took a somber turn as the halfling''s doppelganger transformed back into water and merged back into the pond. This urred simultaneously with the real halfling''s death, a tragic result of the explosive arrow''s impact. The halfling''s friends, witnessing the horrific scene, cried out in despair. "He''s gone," they shouted, their voices filled with grief and disbelief.
In the midst of this chaos, Michael and Gaya''s doppelgangers locked their gazes with their real-life counterparts. There was a moment of eerie silence as they stood facing each other, a mirror image in appearance and stance. Then, simultaneously, both doppelgangers smiled, a chilling mimicry hinting at the imminent battle ahead.
In a swift and unexpected move, Gaya''s doppelganger conjured a crossbow, eerily simr to the God yer, and took aim at a group of unsuspecting elves. Before anyone could react, the doppelganger released an exploding arrow, which hurtled toward the group with deadly precision.
The explosion that followed was massive and instantaneous. The force of the st sent shockwaves through the hall, and the elves caught in its path were obliterated. Screams of pain and fear echoed as the explosion tore through their ranks, leaving behind a scene of chaos and destruction.
Panic ensued among the adventurers as they witnessed the devastating power of Gaya''s doppelganger. Weapons were drawn in haste, and the air filled with the sound of steel and magic being readied for battle.
"We need to fight back!" one adventurer shouted, rallying the others.
"Use everything we have!" another cried out, determination in their voice.
"Thudner strike!"
"Inferno Burst!"
"Frost Spear!"
Spells of various kinds were cast towards the doppelgangers. Many of them chanted incantations, releasing bolts of lightning, balls of fire , and shards of ice . However, Michael''s doppelganger moved with a speed and agility that matched Michael''s own. The doppelganger wielded swords identical to the dark swords, using them to slice through the iing spells with ease. The des cut through the magical attacks as if they were mere air, rendering the assaults ineffective.
Simultaneously, Gaya''s doppelganger exhibited simr grace and speed, dodging and weaving through the spells with a dancer''s finesse. The doppelgangers moved in sync, their movements a harmonious blend of evasion and attack, demonstrating a level of skill and coordination that was almost beautiful to witness, yet terrifying in its implications.
As the battle progressed, Michael and his doppelganger shed, their swords meeting with a loud, resonant ng. The sound of metal on metal echoed through the hall, drawing the attention of all the adventurers. In the heat of the battle, a notable change urred in Michael''s doppelganger. Its eyes began to glow with an intense white light, a stark contrast to the dimly lit hall. Then, a sly, knowing smile crept across its face ¨C a smile that was chillingly familiar to everyone who had seen Silvaris.
The resemnce to Silvaris'' smile was uncanny, and it did not go unnoticed by Michael. "Silvaris?" Michael asked aloud, his voice tinged with suspicion and realization.
Chapter 1199 Even the doppelganger is a badass
Chapter 1199 Even the doppelganger is a badass
As the glow quickly faded from the eyes of Michael''s doppelganger, the intensity of the battle escted. Michael and his doppelganger engaged in a ferocious duel, their dual swords shing in a deadly dance of steel and skill. Simultaneously, Gaya and her doppelganger squared off in their own battle, each wielding crossbows with lethal precision.
Michael moved with incredible agility, his swords slicing through the air as he matched his doppelganger''s every move. The sound of their swords shing rang out, a testament to their equal prowess. "You may look like me, but you''ll never be me!" Michael calmly said, driving his swords forward in a series of swift, calcted strikes.
His doppelganger mirrored his actions perfectly, countering each attack with an identical move. The two figures moved in perfect synchronization, their swords a blur of motion.
Meanwhile, Gaya and her doppelganger engaged in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, firing and dodging bolts. Gaya''s fingers worked quickly to reload her crossbow, each shot aimed with deadly uracy. "I fucking hate this," Gaya shouted, releasing a bolt that narrowly missed her doppelganger.
The doppelganger, not to be outdone, returned fire with equal speed and precision. The two women moved gracefully, their movements a blend of agility and finesse.
On the other hand, the onlookers watched in awe, their earlier panic reced by fascination. "I''ve never seen anything like this," one adventurer whispered, his eyes wide with amazement.
"It''s like they''re fighting their shadows," another remarked, captivated by the spectacle.
As the battles raged on, Michael and Gaya skillfully kept the doppelgangers from advancing towards the other adventurers, effectively protecting them from further harm.
"They''re not just fighting for themselves, they''re keeping us safe too," an elf observed, his voice filled with gratitude and respect.
In the midst of the intense battle, Gaya and her doppelganger exchanged rapid-fire crossbow bolts. With each pull of the trigger, bolts whizzed through the air, their paths intertwining and colliding mid-flight, shattering into splinters.
Gaya executed a series of rolls and flips, evading iing bolts. Each time shended, she fired back instantly, her bolts aimed with precision. Her doppelganger matched her agility, mirroring her acrobatics with fluid, ghostly grace.
Meanwhile, Michael engaged his doppelganger in a high-speed melee. He spun, his swords extended, aiming to catch the doppelganger off-guard. The doppelganger copied Michael''s move as their des created arcs of ckness in the air. Michael feinted to the left, then lunged right, but his doppelganger anticipated every move, their swords shing with a metallic ring.
"Fuck, they''re too in sync!" Gaya cursed as she reloaded, ducking under a bolt from her doppelganger. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
In the midst of the chaos, it was evident that Michael and Gaya''s actions, while protective, were not intentionally so. They were tactically maneuvering, biding their time, trying to formte a n to outwit their doppelgangers.
Every time Michael made a strategic move to advance on Gaya''s doppelganger, his own doppelganger intensified its assault, preventing him from getting too close. The doppelganger''s relentless attacks forced Michael to focus on defense, hindering his ability to aid Gaya.
Meanwhile, the onlookers watched in a mix of awe and tension. "These doppelgangers are like unstoppable forces," one adventurer muttered, his eyes glued to the battle.
"Can''t believe these two holding their own against their doppelgangers!" another eximed, shaking his head in disbelief.
As the fight continued, Michael and Gaya''s frustration grew. "We need a new n, this isn''t working!" Gaya shouted, narrowly dodging a bolt and firing back in one fluid motion.
"We have to break their rhythm," Michael yelled back, parrying a swift strike from his doppelganger and counterattacking with a series of quick jabs.
The battle was a mesmerizing disy of skill, but it was clear that Michael and Gaya needed to outsmart their doppelgangers with more than just physical prowess. As the battle continued, Michael was acutely aware that using his Dark mes might turn the tide in their favor. He knew that the doppelganger likely couldn''t replicate a primordial me. However, he intentionally held back, choosing not to reveal this trump card. He knew maintaining some secrets could be crucial in a battle where every move was mirrored.
Aware that time was of the essence and Gaya might soon be overwhelmed by her doppelganger, Michael knew he needed to act fast and create an opportunity. He quickly devised a n, one that required a momentary sacrifice.
In a split-second decision, Michael deliberately slowed his movements, allowing his doppelganger to seize the advantage. The doppelganger lunged forward, its sword piercing through Michael''s shoulder. A sharp pain shot through him, but he suppressed any reaction, focusing on his n.
As his doppelganger was momentarily upied with the thrust, Michael seized the opportunity. "Ignitia," Ignoring the pain, he quickly fired a bolt of ck lightning. The spell was cast so suddenly that his doppelganger had no time to react.
Crackling with intense energy, the ck lightning bolt shot toward Gaya''s doppelganger. It struck her mid-air, the sheer force of the impact turning her form back into water. She disintegrated with a hiss and a ssh, her watery essence cascading back into the pond.
"He killed her!" one eximed, his voice filled with a mix of horror and admiration.
"Did you see that lightning? What kind of spell was that?" another whispered, intrigued by the unfamiliar powerful spell.
Realizing what Michael had done, Gaya turned to her wounded husband. "Are you okay?" she called out, ready to provide support.
Michael, pulling the sword from his shoulder with a grimace, nodded. "I''ll be fine. We needed to break the pattern," he replied, his voice strained but determined.
Fueled by a mix of concern for Michael and anger towards his doppelganger, Gayaunched a rapid assault. She fired bolt after bolt from her crossbow, each tipped with a freezing agent, aiming to immobilize the doppelganger.
Meanwhile, Michael felt the healing effects of the healing potion injected into his bloodstream by the APD. However, he noticed something unsettling ¨C his doppelganger seemed unfazed by Gaya''s freezing bolts, a stark contrast to their earlier effectiveness.
"This one''s tougher than the one I first killed," Michael realized, his mind racing to formte a new strategy.
Seeing her attacks having no effect, Gaya grew increasingly frustrated. "Damn it, why won''t you fucking freeze!" she shouted, cursing at the doppelganger as her bolts continued to prove ineffective.
Quickly seizing the moment, Michael''s doppelganger resumed its attack, closing the distance between them with a sudden burst of speed. The two engaged once again in a fierce melee, their swords shing with renewed intensity.
The doppelganger''s movements were swift and precise, mirroring Michael''sbat style but with an addedyer of aggression and resilience. Michael parried and dodged, his mind working overtime to find an opening, a weakness in this seemingly stronger version of himself.
The adventurers watched the renewed battle with a mix of awe and anxiety. "He''s still fighting, but that doppelganger... it''s like fighting a shadow," one remarked.
"Can they really beat it?" another whispered, doubt creeping into his voice.
When Gaya noticed the crowd of adventurers had ceased their attacks and were now merely spectators to the intense battle, felt a surge of anger. "You assholes need to jump in!" she shouted at them, her voiceced with frustration and urgency. "Or when we die, you''re next!"
Her words seemed to snap some of the adventurers out of their trance. "Damn, she is right,"
"We need to gang up on him!"
A couple of them quickly nodded in agreement, realizing the gravity of the situation. They readied their weapons and spells, joining the fray to gang up on Michael''s doppelganger.
. "Luminous Arcanum!" An elf mage stepped forward and cast a spell, releasing a beam of bright light that shot towards the doppelganger. The light illuminated the hall, but the doppelganger nimbly dodged the beam, moving with a speed that matched Michael''s.
A burly warrior, wielding arge hammer, charged at the doppelganger. "DIE!" he roared, swinging his hammer with a mighty force. The doppelganger parried the blow with its sword, the sh sending sparks flying.
Seizing the moment, Gaya fired another bolt, this time aiming for the doppelganger''s leg. The bolt struck, but the doppelganger''s reflexes were too quick, and it managed to sidestep the attack, barely missing the projectile.
"Keep pressing!" Michael shouted, engaging the doppelganger with a flurry of sword strikes. His des moved in a blur, each strike precise and calcted. The doppelganger matched his every move, their swords ringing out in the hall.
On the other hand, a dwarf, seeing an opening, attempted a sneak attack. "Take this!" he yelled, lunging forward with his dagger. The doppelganger, however, seemed to anticipate the move, turning just in time to block the attack with its arm.
The battle became a chaotic melee, with spells and blows being exchanged rapidly. "Damn, it''s like fighting a mirror!" one of the warriors eximed, panting from the exertion.
"We can''t let up!" Gaya yelled, reloading her crossbow. "It''s learning from every move we make!"
As the battle intensified, it became obvious that even a doppelganger armed solely with Michael''s rawbat prowess was insanely powerful. Despite giving their all, the adventurers and Gaya, found themselves struggling tond even a single effective blow against it. The doppelganger''s ability to mirror Michael''s fighting style made it nearly invincible in hand-to-handbat, causing the group to sweat and strain under the effort.
Witnessing this, Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of pride. The clear gap in power between him and the adventurers highlighted the stark difference between a god like him and mere mortals.
Chapter 1200 End of the Doppelganger
Chapter 1200 End of the Doppelganger
Michael''s strategy of concealing his full power proved to be a wise decision. By limiting the doppelganger''s exposure to his true capabilities, he prevented it from bing more of a headache than it had already been. This tactical approach was now doing wonders in the battle.
Under the relentless assault from the group, with Michael leading the charge, the doppelganger began to show signs of strain. Michael''s persistent attacks drew the doppelganger''s focus, allowing the others to strike with increased effectiveness.
Michael engaged the doppelganger with a barrage of swift sword strikes. "You can copy my moves, but not my mind," he said calmly. His des moved in a blur as he executed a series ofplex maneuvers designed to confuse and outpace his opponent.
Mirroring Michael''s actions, the doppelganger found itself gradually overwhelmed. The group seized the opportunity, theirbined attacks bing more coordinated.
An elf archer shot a series of arrows, each one narrowly missing Michael but hitting the doppelganger. "Now!" the archer called out, signaling the others to intensify their assault.
"Arcane Torrent!" A mageunched a spell, shouting. Soon, a stream of magical energy surged toward the doppelganger, causing its figure to ripple and distort. It tried to evade, but its reaction was a fraction slower, a sign that the constant pressure was taking its toll.
As the doppelganger staggered under the onught, its movements became less fluid, its responses less immediate. The adventurers, sensing the shift in momentum, pushed harder.
On the other hand, Gaya reloaded her crossbow and aimed for the doppelganger''s joints. "Let''s see you dance now," she muttered, firing an armor-prating bolt. The bolt struck, and the doppelganger jerked awkwardly, unable to fully avoid the trajectory of the projectile.
Seeing an opening, Michael lunged forward with a powerful thrust. "This ends now," he stated with his sword aimed at the doppelganger''s heart.
The group''sbined might, along with Michael''s strategic nning and execution, had finally tipped the scales in their favor. Amidst the fierce battle, Jin moved stealthily towards the pond. He touched the water''s surface, and a doppelganger that took his form emerged. However, this new doppelganger appeared weaker,cking the strong energy and vitality of Michael''s doppelganger. It seemed the pond had expended more energy on creating the stronger doppelganger of Michael, resulting in a less powerful version of Jin.
In the intense fight, Michael noticed Jin''s actions out of the corner of his eye. He saw Jin use an amulet, a palm-sized marble. Upon breaking it, another clone of Jin materialized behind the doppelganger. This clone swiftly and silently stabbed Jin''s doppelganger in the back, killing it instantly. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
While most of the adventurers were too engrossed in the ongoing battle to notice Jin''s cunning move, Gaya saw it and cursed under her breath. "That sneaky son of a bitch," she muttered, a mix of annoyance and admiration in her tone. "Saving his energy and ying it smart."
Having aplished his goal, Jin quickly retreated back into the shadows, avoiding further involvement in the battle. Though unnoticed by many, his action was a clever use of resources, allowing him to conserve his energy while effectively dealing with his doppelganger.
As the battle continued, Michael made a tactical decision to enhance his abilities using the tools at his disposal. He mentallymanded his APD to inject a speed potion into his bloodstream, a concoction designed to increase his speed exponentially.
Under normal circumstances, Michael preferred to rely on his innate abilities and spells, harnessing celestial energy to achieve remarkable speed. However, in this critical moment, he recognized the necessity of using the potion, given that the doppelgangercked ess to such enhancements.
When the potion took effect, Michael''s movements became a blur to the onlookers. He darted around the doppelganger with incredible swiftness, his body moving with fluid, acrobatic grace. Each movement was calcted and precise, a deadly dance of speed and agility.
"You can''t keep up now, can you?" Michael taunted, his voiceced with confidence as he circled the doppelganger.
He lunged forward, delivering a series of rapid shes with his swords. The doppelganger tried to mirror his movements, but Michael''s enhanced speed gave him the upper hand. He spun, his des slicing through the air, creating arcs of light with each movement.
Now struggling to keep pace, the doppelganger found itself on the defensive. Michael exploited every opening, his attacks bing more aggressive and relentless.
With a final acrobatic leap, Michael flew over the doppelganger, flipping mid-air. As he descended, he brought his swords down in a powerful, cross-cutting motion. The des met their mark, cleaving through the doppelganger with brutal force.
The doppelganger''s form shuddered violently before dissolving into water and sshing back into the pond. Michaelnded smoothly on the ground, his breathing steady despite the exertion.
"He did it! He actually did it!" one of the adventurers eximed, their voice filled with a mix of shock and awe.
"That was incredible!" another added, their eyes wide as they processed the disy of sheer power and skill.
As Michael''s doppelganger dissolved into the pond, the water level noticeably lowered. The adventurers, energized by this victory, were reinvigorated with a sense of drive and teamwork. They quickly organized themselves, each taking turns to face their doppelgangers with the support of the group.
One by one, the doppelgangers emerged and were defeated in a series of battles. The adventurers employed abination of brute force, cunning tactics, and cooperative strategies. Each victory brought them closer to their goal, and slowly, the pond''s water continued to recede.
Finally, after thest doppelganger was killed, the pondpletely dried up, revealing a hidden door at its base. The group gathered around the newly uncovered entrance, their eyes fixed on the mysterious door.
As they watched, runes etched above the door started to glow with a faint light, casting eerie shadows on the walls of the hall. The door creaked ominously, a sound that resonated through the silence of the room.
"Looks like we''ve found our way forward," one of the adventurers said, his voice echoing slightly in the now quiet hall.
"Whatever lies beyond that door, we''re ready for it," another added, gripping their weapon a little tighter.
Gaya stepped closer to the door, peering at the glowing runes. "Let''s hope it''s worth all this trouble," she remarked, a hint of fatigue in her voice.
"Stay sharp. This dungeon has more tricks up its sleeve," Michael cautioned, his eyes scanning the area.
As they stood before the newly revealed door, some of the adventurers and the rich nobles who had joined them began to express their concerns and fears about what might lie ahead.
"I didn''t sign up for this kind of danger," grumbled one of the noble brats, his previous bravado diminished.
"Who knows what sort of fucked up things await us through there?" another adventurer muttered, cursing under his breath.
Despite the growing nervousness among the group, Michael knew that hesitation would not serve them in this dungeon of uncertainties. Taking the lead, he stepped confidently towards the pond and leaped into it, disappearing through the door. Gaya followed him, demonstrating the same calm demeanor as Michael.
The others watched as their two strongest allies vanished through the door, leaving behind a sense of uncertainty mixed with a need to follow.
Unknown to the rest, Michael harbored a deep concern. He had not told anyone about his observation of the bright glow and the smile resembling Silvaris''s on his doppelganger''s face. The thought that Silvaris might have controlled his doppelganger irked him.
This possibility suggested that Silvaris was more deeply involved in the workings of the dungeon than they had initially thought. It meant that the doppelgangers might have been more than mere reflections of their physical forms. Instead, they could have been puppets manipted by the master of the dungeon.
*********************
"Where in the fuck are we?" Gaya eximed, her voice echoing slightly as she looked around in bewilderment.
Michael and Gaya found themselves standing in the midst of an expansive forest. The ground beneath them was covered with dried leaves, crunching softly under their feet. Tall trees, with a mix of green and brown leaves, towered above them, creating a canopy that filtered the light in a soft, dappled pattern.
Michael surveyed the expansive forest before them, his eyes scanning the surroundings for any signs of danger or clues. "Seems like this is a pocket dimension attached to the dungeon," he said thoughtfully.
Gaya looked around, her eyes wide with curiosity and caution. "A pocket dimension? So, we''re still inside Silvaris''s game?" she asked, trying to make sense of their new environment.
"Looks like it," Michael replied, his gaze still fixed on the trees. "But this ce feels different... more natural, less constructed."
The forest seemed tranquil, a stark contrast to the treacherous and unpredictable nature of the dungeon they had just left behind. However, Michael knew better than to let his guard down. In a ce created by Silvaris, appearances could be deceiving.
"Let''s keep our eyes open," Michael advised, as he began to cautiously lead the way through the forest. "If this is part of the dungeon, there''s no telling what we might encounter here."
As they made their way through the dense forest, Gaya couldn''t help but voice her concerns about their current situation. "What kind of sick traps or games does that fucking thief have nned for us here?" she asked with her voice full of anger and frustration.
Although Michael shared her sentiments, he remained calm with his eyes scanning the forest for any signs of danger. It wasn''t long before he spotted something unusual in the distance, among the dried leaves. "There''s something over there," he said before quickening his pace towards the object.
As they approached, the grim reality of whaty before became apparent. It was a body, a dwarf''s, lying motionless on the forest floor. His throat had been slit, the blood pooling around him, staining the dried leaves a dark crimson.
Upon seeing the body, Gaya gasped in recognition. "I know him," she said, her voice low and filled with shock. "He fought the doppelgangers with us... he was one of the adventurers¡"
Chapter 1201 Cultivation Realms Explained
Chapter 1201 Cultivation Realms Exined
?Michael squatted beside the body of the dwarf, carefully studying it for any clues or indications of what might have happened. The cut across the dwarf''s throat was clean and precise, suggesting the work of a skilled assant.
Meanwhile, feeling a sense of weakness enveloping her, Gaya closed her eyes to focus on the celestial energy around her. Despite not having fully adapted to the cultivation of this realm or ascended to godhood, she still retained the ability to use celestial energy, thanks to her Celestial stage status in the mortal realm before ascending.
However, to her shock, she could no longer feel the energy around her.
"I can''t sense anything," she said, a hint of concern in her voice.
"It might be because this is one of those ces Silvaris mentioned where we can''t ess energies or use spells," Michael responded to Gaya''s concern while still examining the body.
Curious about Michael''s abilities in this constrained environment, Gaya asked, "Can you use spells here?"
Michael looked up from the body for a moment before answering her.
"Seems like it hasn''t affected me," he noted. His Godhood prevented the arrays from affecting him. But unfortunately, the same could not be said for the others in the pocket dimension.
"Being a god has its perks, I guess," Gaya rolled her eyes slightly at his response, half in jest, half in genuine frustration.
Examining the clean cut across the dwarf''s throat, Michael furrowed his brow in thought.
"Whoever did this has done it before... many times," he said, his voice low and serious. The precision of the wound indicated a skilled, experienced killer.
After hearing Michael, Gaya squatted down next to him. Her fingers lightly touched the blood pooled on the ground.
"The blood''s still warm," she said and paused for a moment.
"He was killed just moments ago." She looked up at Michael, her frown deepening.
"We''ve only been in this pocket dimension for about an hour, right? So, he must have been killed within that time."
When he looked up from the body, he nced around the area.
"But look around," he urged Gaya. "There are no footsteps, no broken twigs, nothing. It''s like the killer just vanished."
He stood up, his gaze sweeping the forest. "Seems like we are dealing with a pro," he said.
Gaya, following Michael''s lead, stood up and scanned the surroundings. The silence of the forest seemed more ominous now, knowing there was a seasoned killer hunting in the woods.
"We need to be extra careful," Gaya said, her voice tinged with caution.
But before they could take a step forward, Gaya looked down to examine the clean cut on the dwarf''s throat. Then, she folded her arms as a look of realization crossed her face.
"Isn''t it fucking obvious? It must be the work of that sneaky bastard Jin," she dered, her toneced with certainty and a hint of disdain.
Michael looked at the wound again, considering Gaya''s usation. As an assassin himself, he recognized the telltale signs of an assassin''s work. The precision, the efficiency ¨C it all pointed towards someone skilled in the deadly art.
"You might be right," he admitted, unable to argue against her logic.
"Let''s just stick close to me," Michael said calmly.
In response to Michael''s words, Gaya grinned like a little devil.
"So, if I can''t use energy here, that means whoever killed the dwarf can''t either, right?" she mused.
"And if it is Jin, well, I might just get a chance to kick his ass if he tries anything funny with us."
Michael chuckled at her fiery spirit. "Remember, we''re not here to pick a fight with Jin. I''ve got that invitation to join the Assassin''s Guild, and killing a worshipper of the God of Death doesn''t seem like a smart move," he reminded her, trying to keep their focus on the bigger picture.
Not entirely convinced, Gaya countered, "What if he''s trying to kill us to eliminatepetition for the dungeon''s treasures? Looks like that''s exactly what he''s doing."
Acknowledging the possibility, Michael cracked his neck and replied.
"If pushes to shove, we''ll deal with him. But let''s try to avoid unnecessary conflict. We need to stay focused on figuring out this ce,"
As they continued their trek through the dense forest, Gaya couldn''t help but express her frustration. "What''s the point of this ce?" she asked, her gaze sweeping across the surrounding trees. "We can''t just walk around like headless chickens all day. There must be something to do or a way out."
Michael, who knew that dungeons like this were anything but straightforward, urged patience. "Let''s just keep our eyes open and stay alert," he suggested, believing that rushing into action without understanding their surroundings could lead to trouble.
Their journey was interrupted when they stumbled upon another body. This time, it was an elf d in golden armor. Unlike the dwarf, the elf had multiple stab wounds across his chest and throat, suggesting a struggle had taken ce.
Gaya crouched beside the body and began to inspect the area. "Look at this," she said, pointing to the broken twigs and footprints around them. "And there''s blood sttered on that tree." Her observations painted a picture of a violent confrontation, one that was vastly different from the clean, precise kill they had seen earlier.
"This doesn''t fit the pattern of the first kill," Michael noted, his voice thoughtful. "The first was quick and clean, but this... this looks like a fight."
Gaya, who initially suspected Jin as the killer, leaned in closer to study the body and the surrounding scene. She noticed more evidence of struggle. The earth around the body was disturbed, branches were broken, and leaves were scattered in a pattern, suggesting a violent brawl. She also observed uneven blood stters on the nearby trees and underbrush.
"This doesn''t look like the work of an assassin," Gayamented, her voice reflecting her analysis.
"Assassins kill quickly and cleanly. This... this is messy, full of rage or fear."
She stood up, brushed dirt off her hands, and continued, "Whoever did this, they weren''t trying to be stealthy. This is a fucked up kill,"
Michael nodded in agreement as his eyes followed the trail of bloody footprints leading away from the body.
"Let''s follow these footsteps," he suggested, pointing at the crimson trail on the ground.
"They might lead us to some answers."
"Alright, but we need to be on guard. This forest is turning out to be a death trap." Gaya said with a hint of determination to find the killer.
As they continued their cautious walk through the forest, with Gaya seizing the opportunity to delve into a topic that had been on her mind.
"I forgot to ask, but does everyone who ascends to the realm of gods from the mortal realm retain their cultivation, or how does it work?" she inquired, her curiosity evident in her tone.
"Before five thousand years ago, when the barrier wasn''t around, those who ascended either were reborn with no memories of the mortal realm and with no powers, starting as mortals in this realm. A few chosen ones regained their memories and bodies but lost their cultivation from the mortal realm."
Gaya chuckled at the thought. "If the big wigs in the mortal realm knew this, they''d be pretty pissed off. Probably choose not to cultivate higher than the Half Celestial realm," she mused, imagining the reactions of powerful cultivators to this revtion.
She then added with a slightly sarcastic tone, "The ''chosen few'' sounds like a fancy way of being a god''sp dog."
Michael gave a small smile, acknowledging the truth in her words. "It does seem that way. Being chosenes with its own set of strings and conditions. It''s not as pretty as it sounds,"
As they walked through the forest, Gaya couldn''t help but feel a sense of calm, despite the potential dangers that lurked around them.
"You know, despite the killer or killers in this forest, I feel quite calm taking a stroll with you," she said to Michael, her tone reflecting a mix of contentment and irony.
Soon, the conversation then shifted to theplexities of cultivation in this world.
"You know, I find the cultivation here damn confusing, especially after hearing how Raphael managed to beat you, a god, when he''s just an angel," Gaya remarked, her brows furrowing in puzzlement.
"It''s actually simpler when you think about it," he began to exin.
"In the realm of gods, there are nine stages of cultivation." He listed them casually.
"Initiate Realm, Qi Awakening Realm, and so on, up to the Divine Ascendancy Realm." He paused for a moment before continuing.
"The higher one''s cultivation, like if someone is at the fifth stage, they can absorb the grace of a level 5 god and temporarily reach the power of that level god. That''s how Raphael managed to beat me. Without using the grace, even at the highest cultivation stage, he wouldn''t have stood a chance."
Gaya listened intently, processing the information.
"So, even a level 1 fledgling god can kill a Divine Ascendancy realm cultivator?" she asked, seeking rification.
"Yes," Michael confirmed. "Even a level one, fledgling god possesses power that transcends the highest mortal cultivation stage,"
Gaya, intrigued by the conversation about cultivation and the power of gods, turned her attention to Michael''s own abilities.
"When are you nning to upgrade those dark mes of yours and reach godhood level 3, the Greater God level?" she asked, a curious edge to her voice.
Michael nced at her, considering his next steps. "I need three more Seeds of Darkness to reach level 3 godhood," he exined.
"I''m nning to upgrade the mes before I go to the Assassin''s Guild, but that depends on whether the situation allows it."
The quest for the Seeds of Darkness was not just a matter of increasing his power but also a strategic move. Reaching the Greater God level would significantly enhance his abilities and power, potentially giving him more breathing space to deal with the pantheon.
"Well, let''s hope we find those seeds soon," she said while walking beside him.
Chapter 1202 The True Killer Part One
Chapter 1202 The True Killer Part One
?As night fell over the forest, Gaya''s frustration reached its peak. She kicked a nearby tree in annoyance. "What are we supposed to do in this damn forest?" she eximed, her voice echoing through the trees.
Michael observed silently, considering Silvaris''s likely ns for this part of the dungeon. He was about to respond when he heard Gaya let out a loud curse. Holding her foot, she grimaced in pain.
"Why the fuck are these trees so damn strong?" she groaned, hopping on one foot.
Michael knew that even without her full cultivation, Gaya was remarkably strong, thanks to her intense training regime and her innate Naga strength. Curious, he approached the tree she had kicked and punched it himself. The solidity of the tree surprised him; it felt like punching a concrete wall.
"These trees weren''t this strong during the day," he mumbled to himself, piecing together his observations.
He then leaped up and grabbed a branch, attempting to break it. With considerable effort, he managed to snap the branch, but it was far from easy. Still nursing her sore foot, Gaya tried to break another branch and failed, leading to another round of cursing.
"Damn it! What''s up with these freakin'' trees? They''re like iron at night!" she eximed, her voiceced with irritation and bewilderment.
"It seems like the night affects these trees, making them tougher," he concluded. "Silvaris must have designed this ce to change with the time of day."
"But why?" Gaya asked, puzzled by the sudden change in the trees'' strength at night.
Michael pondered for a moment, his gaze shifting upward. Without responding immediately, he began to scale the tree, taking advantage of the sturdiness of the branches that now felt strong and rigid, unlike their more fragile state during the day.
Watching Michael climb the tree, Gaya had a smirk forming on her lips.
"Look at you, climbing like a monkey," she joked, herughter ringing through the quiet of the forest.
From his higher vantage point among the branches, Michael shot back with a yful retort.
"Better a monkey than a foot-sore snake who can''t kick a tree without hurting herself," he called down, his tone light and teasing.
Despite the sting of his words, Gaya couldn''t help butugh, shaking her head in amusement. Michael''sughter joined hers as he continued his climb, the moment of levity bringing a brief respite from the tension and uncertainty of their situation.
From the top of the tree, Michael had an unobstructed view of the vast forest that stretched out around them. Under the starry sky, the forest was a sea of darkness interspersed with the silhouettes of countless trees. But as he scanned thendscape, one particr tree caught his attention. It had a subtle glisten, barely noticeable but distinct enough in the moonlit night.
"What do you see up there?" Gaya called out from below.
"Looks like our thief has hidden a tree in the forest, literally." Michael yelled back. He then marked the direction fo the tree in his Environmental Map.
Once back on the ground, Gaya looked at him expectantly.
"What did you mean by that?"
"There''s one tree up there, different from the rest. It''s slightly glistening under the night sky." Michael exined what he had observed from his vantage point.
Hearing his exnation, Gaya''s eyes widened in realization, and she let out a curse.
"That sneaky bastard," she muttered.
"It makes sense, though. Silvaris is a thief, and he did say we need to think like a thief. A good thief hides his possessions in in sight."
"Exactly. That tree might be our key to finding a way out of this part of the dungeon or discovering what Silvaris has hidden here."
"Let''s not waste any time," and began to head in the direction of the glistening tree.
Following close behind, Gayamented, "Typically, a night like this in a forest spells trouble."
"Sometimes, things are simpler than they seem, and the answer is staring at us the whole time," Michael replied. His voice carried a hint of optimism, suggesting that they might be closer to unraveling the mystery.
As they made their way through the forest, they stumbled upon another body. This grim discovery marked the fifteenth body they had found so far, adding to the somber atmosphere. This time, it was a human body hanging from a tree.
Gaya looked at the body hanging by his neck and felt pity for the golden haired human.
"Suicide?" she asked, although she knew the odds of it were minimal.
Michael gave the scene a quick look. He didn''t spend much time contemting it.
"Looks like it." He then continued to walk past the body, maintaining their course towards the glistening tree.
Leading the way with a calm demeanor, Michael soon found himself on the edge of a swamp. The swamp emitted a foul smell, a mix of decaying vegetation and stagnant water. In the murky waters, crocodiles could be seen swarming, their eyes glinting menacingly in the dim light.
Upon seeing the crocodiles, Gaya couldn''t help but roll her eyes. She looked up at the sky, addressing Silvaris with a tone of mockery.
"Crocodiles? Really, Silvaris? That''s weak," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
As Michael scanned the swamp, he noticed several human limbs and blood stters scattered around the edges, a clear indication of a violent encounter. He realized that some adventurers must have either stumbled upon the swamp identally or, like them, were drawn here by the glistening tree, only to meet a grisly end at the jaws of the crocodiles.
"Without spells and celestial energy, dealing with these crocodiles is no joke," Michael remarked, his voice serious. While seemingly mundanepared to other threats they had faced, the crocodiles posed a significant danger in their current state.
Each crocodile in the swamp was massive, their scales a dark, muddy green that allowed them to blend seamlessly with the swamp waters. Their eyes, cold and unblinking, watched Michael and Gaya intently, ready to snap their powerful jaws at the slightest provocation. Thergest of them, easily over twelve feet long, had numerous scars across its body, suggesting it was the dominant creature in this swampy domain.
Assessing the situation, Gaya stepped back cautiously and suggested.
"Just roast them with your dark mes and get this over with,"
Michael responded with a chuckle, finding amusement in her straightforward approach. He then raised his hand, focusing his energy, and cast the Ring of mes. A wave of dark, menacing mes shot forth from his hands. The ck mes engulfed the swamp, instantly vaporizing the crocodiles and scorching the swampy grounds.
As the mes subsided, Michael''s head rang with the familiar notification of his achievement.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]. The system''s acknowledgment brought a slight smirk to his face.
After Gaya watched the disy of power, she couldn''t help but express her envy.
"I wish I had my own primordial mes," shemented, her tone half-joking, half-wistful.
In response, Michael yfully knocked her on the head.
"Don''t be too greedy, snake," he teased, his eyes twinkling with humor.
Continuing their venture through the enigmatic forest, Michael and Gaya finally reached their destination. The glowing tree stood before them, pulsating with a strange golden glisten that set it apart from its surroundings. It was an ethereal sight, the tree''s glow providing a stark contrast against the dark backdrop of the night.
As they approached the tree, they noticed several adventurers gathered around it. It was clear that, like them, these adventurers had either stumbled upon the tree identally or had managed to locate it through various means such as spells and artifacts. Some were examining the tree closely, while others seemed to be discussing their findings in hushed tones.
When Michael and Gaya moved closer to the glistening tree, they overheard the conversations among the various groups of adventurers. The discussions were a mix of caution, curiosity, and spection.
One group was debating whether it was safe to touch the tree.
"It could be a trap," one adventurer argued, his eyes warily scanning the golden glow of the tree.
"Every time we''ve touched something in this damn forest, it''s led to trouble."
Another adventurer, brimming with curiosity, countered, "But what if it''s the key to getting out of here? We can''t just ignore it."
Nearby, another group was discussing the bodies they had found throughout the forest.
"Someone, or something, is picking off adventurers one by one," a grim-faced woman said.
"We need to figure out who or what is behind these killings before we end up the same way."
Herpanion, a tall man with a scar across his cheek, nodded in agreement.
"And let''s not forget that some of these deaths are bizarre. It''s not just about being killed. There''s a pattern or a message in these murders."
Michael and Gaya listened quietly, absorbing the information and weighing their options. The tree, with its alluring glow, seemed like a significant element in the forest, but the risk of traps or unknown consequences made them cautious.
After a moment of contemtion, Gaya whispered to Michael.
"We need to be smart about this. Let''s observe for now and see if we can learn anything from these groups."
Meanwhile, from a distance, hidden within the shadows of the forest, Jin observed the scene unfolding around the glistening tree. His eyes narrowed as he watched Michael and Gaya join the other adventurers who were gathered there, all drawn to the mysterious glowing the tree.
"The rats are in ce. It''s time to trigger the trap." His voice was low but carried a tone of cold anticipation.
It was clear that Jin had been nning something, and the gathering of adventurers around the tree provided the perfect opportunity for him to set his n in motion.
Chapter 1203 The True Killer Part Two
Chapter 1203 The True Killer Part Two
Michael remained calm amidst the tense atmosphere, observing as a brash dwarf from one of the groups stepped forward and boldly touched the glistening tree. The other adventurers watched in apprehensive silence, each one specting on the possible oue.
"What do you think is gonna happen? Another trap?" whispered one of the adventurers nervously.
"Maybe it''s a portal or something," another adventurer suggested, his eyes fixed on the dwarf''s hand against the tree.
To their collective surprise, nothing happened. The tree remained still, its golden glow unchanged, and the dwarf looked back at the group with a confused shrug.
"Well, that''s a bit anticlimactic," Gaya remarked dryly, her voice tinged with both relief and disappointment.
Michael, who had been closely observing the scene, slowly stepped back to stand beside Gaya. The tension in the air was palpable as the adventurers began to rx, some even chuckling at their unfounded fears.
Suddenly, the brief moment of relief was shattered. A ck shuriken whizzed through the air, narrowly missing Michael and Gaya, and struck an elf standing in front of them. The razor-sharp weapon sliced through the elf''s throat, spraying blood that spattered across Gaya''s face.
"Fuck!" Gaya cursed, wiping the blood off her face in disgust.
Panic ensued as the adventurers immediately tensed up. Weapons were drawn in an instant, and shouts filled the air.
"Attack! We''re under attack!"
"Who threw that? Show yourself!"
"Protect the tree! It might be the key out of here!"
The forest air was soon filled with the whistling sound of more shurikens, thrown from what seemed to be every direction. The deadly projectiles sliced through the air, creating a sense of chaos and fear among the adventurers.
Frustrated and alert, Gaya quickly drew her bow, readying her arrows. She scanned the surrounding trees and bushes, trying to locate the source of the shurikens, but the attacker remained hidden, their precise and deadly strikesing seemingly out of nowhere.
Maintaining hisposure amidst the turmoil, Michael caught one of the shurikens in mid-air just inches from Gaya''s face. He snickered, a blend of confidence and challenge in his action, as if daring the unseen assant to try harder.
Meanwhile, the remaining adventurers were falling victim to the relentless assault. "We''re sitting ducks here!" yelled one adventurer, moments before a shuriken found its mark, piercing his neck.
"Spread out!" another cried out in panic, trying to dodge the deadly des, only to be struck down from behind.
"Who''s doing this? Show yourself, coward!" screamed a woman, her voice tinged with fear and anger, as she desperately parried the shurikens with her sword, but to no avail. Another shuriken hit her squarely in the chest, silencing her cries.
On the other hand, Gaya, her bow still in hand, grimaced as she surveyed the chaos. "This must be that fucker Jin''s work," she hissed, her eyes scanning the darkened forest for any sign of the elusive attacker.
"Don''t think¡ it is him," he replied calmly, his eyes focused on the patterns of the attack.
Meanwhile, Jin, moving with inhuman speed from tree to tree, continued his assault with a barrage of shurikens. With a hint of surprise, he noticed how the ck-dressed youngster was effortlessly tracking his movements amidst the darkness. Jin''s curiosity about Michael''s identity grew; he wondered who this adept fighter could be.
"Let''s thin the herd a bit," Jin murmured to himself, a cold determination in his voice. He relentlessly continued throwing shurikens, methodically picking off the adventurers struggling to survive his deadly onught.
The forest, already a scene of chaos and death, took a sinister turn as the adventurers in by the shurikens began to reanimate. Their eyes glowed an eerie green, and their movements were jerky and unnatural. The fallen bodies rose, transforming into grotesque, zombie-like creatures.
Looking at the scene, Jin ceased his shuriken assault as he witnessed the horrifying transformation. "So she finally makes her move," he muttered under his breath, a mix of annoyance and recognition in his voice.
The reanimated corpses, now driven by some unholy force, turned their attention to the living adventurers. With inhuman strength and a relentless hunger, they lunged at their formerrades, biting and tearing at flesh in a gruesome disy. The screams of the living filled the air as the undead horde descended upon them.
"Get them off me!" screamed an adventurer as a reanimated corpse mped its teeth into his arm, ripping flesh from bone.
"Stay back!" yelled another, swinging a sword in a futile attempt to fend off the relentless attackers.
In the midst of the gory chaos, Michael and Gaya stood without panicking like the others. Their experience fighting the undead in the Dark Castle had prepared them for such encounters. Gaya, with precise aim, fired exploding arrows into the heads of the advancing undead, each shot resulting in a head bursting in a shower of gore.
Meanwhile, Michael wielded his dark sword with deadly efficiency. He moved swiftly through the horde, his de slicing through the necks of the undead, severing their heads with clean, decisive strokes.
The two of them fought back-to-back, a well-coordinated duo amidst the chaos. Their calm and methodical approach contrasted sharply with the frenzied panic of the remaining adventurers, who were quickly being overwhelmed by the relentless undead.
Observing the unfolding horror, Jin decided to change his strategy. "I''m not going to create more bodies for that old witch," he muttered to himself, ceasing his shuriken assault. He retreated further into the shadows, watching Michael and Gaya with the keen focus of a hawk from a distance.
Amidst the chaos, Gaya voiced her thoughts while expertly firing her bow. "This... I don''t think this is Jin''s doing. He''s an assassin, not a fucking necromancer."
While engaged in a fierce battle with the undead, Michael responded without losing focus. His movements were a blend of agility and precision, each swing of his sword an acrobatic feat, severing undead heads with lethal grace. "Remember the bodies we found? There were two killers. One of them has been shadowing us."
Gaya, momentarily distracted by his revtion, growled in frustration. "You knew someone was following us?" she asked, her tone a mix of irritation and disbelief.
"Of course, I knew," he chuckled amidst a fluid motion of slicing through another undead. The undead horde relentlessly continued its gruesome onught, each fallen adventurer rising again as part of the growing army of the undead. The once-living now turned against their former allies, swelling the ranks of the horde with every kill. The forest floor was soon littered with the bodies of adventurers, only for them to rise momentster with glowing green eyes, joining the horrific fray. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Amidst the chaos, Gaya, her bowstring taut with another arrow, called out to Michael, "What are you waiting for?"
Michael, while methodically dispatching the undead with precise cuts of his sword, replied. "Let''s wait for the creator of these bodies to make her appearance." His voice was calm, betraying no hint of the tension that gripped the forest.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 8000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 7000 Badass points] ¡
As Michael fought, his system notifications kept ringing with the umtion of more badass points and experience points. Despite the rewards, his focus remained on the battle at hand. He moved through the horde with a dancer''s grace, his dark sword an extension of his will, severing heads of the undead with an efficiency that was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.
His prowess was evident even without tapping into his godly powers or casting spells. His movements were fluid and precise, each stroke of his de executed with lethal uracy.
For her part, Gaya continued to unleash her fury with her bow, each arrow finding its mark with deadly precision. "I''m going to kill the son of a bitch who''s still creating these undead." Gaya roared.
However, Michael remained calm and looked at the glowing tree. "Why don''t you reveal yourself, Shar?"
The remaining adventurers, struggling to survive against the relentless undead, paused at Michael''s words. "Shar?" they echoed in unison, their voices a mix of shock and confusion. The name resonated with a sense of dread among them.
The air grew heavy with anticipation as a menacing dark chuckle echoed through the forest. All eyes turned towards the tree, which began to undergo a startling transformation. The glowing bark writhed and shifted, reshaping into the form of the old woman, Shar, her presence as ominous as theughter that had preceded her appearance.
Shar, draped in dark robes, stood where the tree once was with a malevolent grin. Her appearance sent a wave of realization and fear through the adventurers. The transformation from the tree to her true form was a disy of dark, powerful magic that left no doubt about her capabilities.
Chapter 1204 Jin vs Michael I
Chapter 1204 Jin vs Michael I
When Shar arrived, everyone, including Gaya, was shocked, but Michael remained calm, almost amused. Unlike the others, he had known Shar was following them ever since they arrived here. He had pretended ignorance to give Shar the illusion of an upper hand and the element of surprise.
As Shar materialized, she raised her staff, and a green mist shot from its tip.
"How is she using magic here?" Gaya growled, perplexed.
"That is not Celestial energy," Michael exined calmly. His eyes of darkness had already revealed the nature of the energy she wielded. It wasn''t the Celestial energy, which was nullified in the pocket dimension. Instead, the staff emitted worship energy.
"Let Morbus''s energy decimate you all," Shar dered, continuing to release the worship energy of Morbus stored in her staff.
"Who in the hell is worshipping the god of gues?" Gaya continued to fire her bolts, her frustration growing.
"You have no idea how many worshippers Morbus has, dear," Shar chuckled darkly. The green mist began to affect everyone: the undead, the headless corpses, and the living adventurers.
Michael swiftly tapped his chest, and half of a skull mask covered his mouth and nose. Flicking his wrist, he produced a mask and tossed it to Gaya, who caught and donned it quickly.
With their masks on, Michael and Gaya were protected from the green mist, but the other adventurers weren''t so fortunate. Those who stumbled into the area slowly turned into undead with glowing green eyes. Meanwhile, the corpses that Michael and Gaya had beheaded rose up, headless.
"Nice trick with the masks," Jin mused to himself, watching from afar. He was curious to see how Michael and Gaya would fare against Shar, Morbus''s worshipper.
Jin had already noticed how the two of them had performed in the pond earlier and how they had managed to make money while defeating the doppelgangers. So now Jin wanted to see how they would face and survive Shar, the worshipper of Morbus.
"Don''t resist, young ones. Embrace the essence of Morbus," Shar intoned as the undead she created encircled Michael and Gaya.
"What''s your end game, Shar?" Michael asked, his tone probing.
"Power, my dear. Power is always the end game for all beings in this world. We all disguise our desires, but in the end, we all crave power," Shar responded.
"Can''t argue with that," Gaya shrugged, epting the harsh reality of their world.
"That mask won''t save you for long, dear. If I don''t kill you, Jin will," Shar hinted, ncing in the direction where Jin was hidden.
"You seem confident about killing us. I know you and Jin were eliminating adventurers, thinning out thepetition for the dungeon''s treasures¡" Michael began, pausing thoughtfully.
"But you¡ your kills had a different motive, didn''t they? They were ritualistic," Michael observed. Among the many bodies he and Gaya had found, some were in with precision and efficiency, while others were messily and cruelly dispatched.
Gaya, though shocked that Michael hadn''t shared his observations with her earlier, found amusement in his ability to dismantle Shar''s element of surprise.
"You were an observant one, weren''t you? If you join me and swear your faith to the great Morbus, we will have a ce for you in our grand n," Shar offered, hinting at more borate, grander schemes in the making.
"And what is that?" Michael inquired, his curiosity piqued.
In response, Shar simply chuckled. "Let''s just say Morbus isn''t the only god in our great n."
This revtion slightly took Michael aback but confirmed his suspicions. "I need to have a word with him," he murmured to himself, contemting a conversation with an unusual ally.
At that moment, nearly forty undead encircled Michael and Gaya. From afar, Jin watched the scene unfold, and Shar controlled the undead with her staff, channeling Morbus''s worship energy. To Jin, it seemed like Michael and Gaya were at their wits'' end, outmatched by the power of a god''s worship energy.
However, Jin was unaware that he was observing not just any adventurers, but two gods, one of whom was the God of Darkness himself.
"Use that fancy me of yours¡" Jin mused quietly, recalling Michael''s use of the dark mes. Although he recognized the mes'' potency, Jin didn''t realize they were Primordial mes. He assumed Michael and Gaya were merely resourceful adventurers who found a way to ovee the energy-nullifying arrays. The possibility of them being gods didn''t cross his mind. Instead, in his mind, the sighting of a god was an extraordinary rarity, almost an impossibility, so the idea of Michael being a god was far from his thoughts.
Michael, aware that Jin was observing him from a distance, couldn''t help but feel amused. By letting Jin witness his prowess, he was effortlessly umting more badass points.
"Joining gods like Morbus alwayses with a hefty price, old woman. Besides, I don''t serve anyone," Michael stated calmly. He was mindful that any act of submission in this realm of gods would likely irk the system enough to deduct his hard-earned badass points. Unlike in the mortal realm, where he had some leeway, the system here was far more stringent.
"You will serve the great one, one way or another," Shar retorted, swinging her staff. As she did so, all fifty undead charged towards Michael with a speed that defied the sluggishness typically associated with the undead.
Gaya watched in surprise as some of the undead began conjuring spells they had used in life. Jin, still observing from his hidden vantage point, saw the undead swarm around the two, enveloped in the green mist that could transform anyone into an undead with just a whiff.
Michael, however, remained unphased. He cracked his neck, waiting for the undead to draw nearer. Gaya stood confidently beside him, showing no fear or concern in her eyes.
"You have no idea who you''re messing with, old dusty fucking bones," Gaya taunted with a snicker.
"My my, what a foul mouth you have. I''ll have to sew it shut after this, deary," Shar responded darkly.
But just as the undead closed in, only a few meters away from Michael, he calmly raised his hand. Instantly, a ring of mes erupted around him in a circle, creating a fiery barrier that separated them from the onught of the undead.
As the ring of mes crackled to life around Michael, the undead hoard created through Morbus''s essence was swiftly disintegrated. The mes hissed and popped, their intense heat turning the undead into vapor in mere seconds. The sight was both awe-inspiring and terrifying, a testament to the immense power Michael wielded.
Shar watched in disbelief as her confidence shattered like fragile ss. In that moment, it dawned on her that she wasn''t facing mere prodigies or resourceful adventurers. She was dealing with entities far beyond herprehension. Jin, observing from his hidden location, shared her realization.
"No one can destroy puppets created by worship energy like that... unless they are... angels... of a powerful god," Jin muttered to himself. Even with this extraordinary disy of power, his mind couldn''t fathom the idea that he might be witnessing a god in action. To him, the most powerful beings he had ever encountered were angels, and he hastily concluded that Michael and Gaya must be angels in mortal guise.
"What the hell are you¡" Shar stammered, her voice faltering for the first time since their encounter began. The usually calm Shar was visibly unnerved, herposure cracked by the disy of power she had just witnessed. Meanwhile, Jin, still concealed in his vantage point, was caught off guard when a voice echoed in his head, chilling and unmistakable. "Kill those two and earn the right to be my angel." The voice was deep,manding, and resonated with a power that Jin recognized all too well. It sounded exactly like Death, the God he worshipped.
Jin stood frozen for a moment, the weight of themand sinking in. The voice of his god, a rare urrence, was not something he could easily dismiss or ignore. The proposition of bing an angel, a being of immense power and status, was both a coveted honor and a daunting challenge.
The shock of hearing Death''s voice directly, coupled with the gravity of the task set before him, left Jin wrestling with a mix of emotions. On the one hand, the opportunity to ascend to angelhood was the pinnacle of achievement for any worshipper. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
On the other, the task of killing Michael and Gaya, who had just demonstrated power beyond hisprehension, seemed almost impossible.
The voice in Jin''s head continued, its tone carrying the weight of authority and finality. "Morbus is my brother, just like Xyloth. As such, my protection extends to their worshippers, including Shar."
Jin''s mind raced as he processed the information. The connections between the gods and their worshippers were intricate and often beyond the understanding of mortals. But the direct involvement of Death himself in this affair made it all the more significant and dangerous.
"Kill those two who threaten her life, and you shall earn the right to be my reaper," the voice of Deathmanded. The title of ''reaper'' held great significance in Jin''s world - it was a title bestowed upon the most elite and powerful servants of Death, a position of honor and immense power.
"I will do as you wish, my lord," Jin said with a newfound determination and leaped down from the tree. Then, he began to dash toward Shar to save her and assassinate the two angels as he was ordered by Death¡
Chapter 1205 Jin vs Michael II
Chapter 1205 Jin vs Michael II
?Michael and Gaya quickly noticed Jin''s sudden approach, his figure dashing towards them with an rming speed. A flurry of shurikens whistled through the air, aimed directly at them. Their deadly metallic gleam was a clear indication of Jin''s lethal intent.
Meanwhile, Shar watched the unfolding scene with a sly, triumphant grin. Her maniption, perfectly executed by mimicking Death''s voice and ying mind games with Jin, had worked precisely as she intended.
Michael reacted swiftly, raising his hand as the ck Shield extended from his wrist, forming a barrier against the iing shurikens. Taking cover behind Michael, Gaya used him as a shield while uttering curses under her breath.
"That sneaky fucker is making a big mistake," Gaya growled, her eyes narrowed in anger.
What Michael and Gaya didn''t realize was the depth of Shar''s deception. Unaware of the mental maniption she had inflicted upon Jin, they could only specte about his sudden aggression.
As Shar swung her staff, a barrier of thick green mes, fueled by worship energy, sprang up around her. The barrier crackled with ominous energy, serving as a formidable defense.
Michael, with his shield adeptly blocking the iing shurikens, moved agilely.
"We need to break that staff!" Close behind him, Gaya shouted. Her voice was filled with urgency, understanding the source of Shar''s power.
"Stay behind Shar!" Jin shouted as he continued his assault. He began to target the areas not covered by Michael''s shield, showcasing his skill and precision as an assassin.
Darting from tree to tree for cover, Michael wore an amused smile. He was curious to prod Shar further, to coax more information about her ns before dealing with Jin. His movements were calcted and deliberate, a dance of strategy and evasion.
Then, Michael gave Gaya a knowing nod from behind the cover of a tree, signaling her next move. Despite the pocket dimension''s arrays that nullified celestial energy in the atmosphere, they were unable to affect the energy stored within celestial crystals. Gaya tapped into this stored energy, activating the cloaking mechanism of her armor.
As she vanished from sight, her form blending seamlessly into the surroundings, Michael remained behind the tree, drawing Jin''s attention.
"Why are you doing this, Jin?" Michael called out, his voice calm yet inquisitive.
"Shut up and die," Jin responded tersely, his focus unwavering as he prepared another flurry of shurikens.
Michael chuckled lightly, not intimidated by Jin''s hostility. "We both know you can''t do that," he said, a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Don''t listen to him, Jin. He''s just trying to y mind games with you." Sensing the atmosphere shift, Shar warned Jin. Meanwhile, Jin''s frustration started to mount up.
"I have my orders," Jin growled. With agile prowess, he leaped onto a tree, using the branches to propel himself forward. Heunched a shuriken at Michael, who appeared directly in front of him.
In a swift motion, Michael caught the shuriken mid-air and, without hesitation, flung it back at Jin. The shuriken grazed Jin''s face as he was still airborne, leaving a thin cut. Michael then quickly moved to another tree, continuing his elusive maneuvers.
"Why are you supporting Shar? I don''t think you''re a fan of her," Michael called out, trying to unravel the motivations behind Jin''s actions.
Shar, feeling the pressure but maintaining herposure, replied coolly, "It''s always good to team up with the devil you know, my dear."
While taking cover behind a tree, Michael''s mind raced back to the information Pink had shared with him before his descent into the dungeon. He remembered the intricate details Pink had uncovered while hacking into Seraphene''s crystals, revealing secrets about the gods. Gaining more knowledge had been Pink''s focus and it exined her silence since Michael entered the dungeon.
"Is it because Morbus is Death''s little brother?" His voice echoed through the forest, reaching Jin''s ears.
Jin, in response to Michael''s probing question, intensified his attack. He skillfully attached several shurikens together, forming arger, more lethal projectile. With a swift motion, he hurled thebined shuriken at the tree Michael was using for cover. The force of the throw was such that it sliced the tree in half, revealing Michael''s hiding spot.
Anticipating the attack, Michael leaped out of the way just in time, narrowly avoiding the deadly shuriken. Hended nimbly on his feet, ready to continue the confrontation.
Dodging another flurry of shurikens with agile movements, Michael couldn''t help but tease Shar and Jin further. His smile was tinged with amusement as he called out.
"So, you two worship Death and Morbus, huh? I heard those two are brothers. Does that make you two siblings in some twisted way?" Hisughter echoed through the forest, adding to the surreal nature of the confrontation.
"Shut up!" Jin''s frustration was palpable as he shouted back.
Still evading Jin''s attacks with ease, Michael retorted yfully.
"You know, Jin, you really need to step up your game as an assassin if you want to kill me." His tone was light, almost mocking, as he effortlessly avoided each shuriken.
Unable to contain her anger any longer, Shar growled at Jin. "Kill him, Jin!"
In a strategic shift, Jin decided to bridge the distance between himself and Michael, opting for closebat to test his mettle against his adversary. With swift agility, he threw several smoke bombs toward Michael''s position, aiming to obscure his approach and gain the upper hand.
As the thick smoke enveloped Michael, creating a dense veil around him, Jin seized the moment. He propelled himself through the smoke, his legs raised in a powerful kick aimed directly at Michael.
However, with his X-ray eyes, Michael saw through the smoke with ease. Anticipating Jin''s move, he fluidly sidestepped the attack, causing Jin''s kick tond on a nearby tree with such force that it shattered the trunk.
The two engaged in a high-octane closebat battle. Jin''s movements were a blur of speed and precision, his attacks abination of lethal martial arts techniques and cunning agility. He lunged, spun, and struck with a series of rapid kicks and punches, each move a testament to his skill as an assassin.
On the other hand, Michael evaded each attack with an almost casual grace. His movements were smooth and calcted, always one step ahead of Jin''s strikes. He ducked under a high kick, sidestepped a spinning elbow strike, and smoothly backflipped over a low sweep, all the while maintaining aposed demeanor.
"You''re an assassin," Michael said, dodging a swift strike from Jin.
"You don''t fight someone you''re not sure of killing," he added, gracefully parrying another blow.
As Jinunched a series of rapid jabs, Michael continued, "And yet, here you are," he ducked under a sweeping kick, "desperately trying to kill me."
Jin''s response was a silent, focused aggression, his attacks intensifying with each word Michael spoke. He spun in a fluid motion, aiming a powerful elbow strike towards Michael''s head.
"But you know very little about me," Michael said, easily avoiding the strike with a quick lean back.
"And my skills," he added, swiftly countering with a low kick, forcing Jin to leap back.
"Why the desperation, Jin?" Michael''s question hung in the air as he expertly blocked a series of rapid punches from Jin.
While observing the intense battle, Shar decided to intervene. With a swift motion, she swung her staff, and a sliver of green mist emerged, snaking its way toward Jin. The mist coiled around his legs and fists, enhancing his physical capabilities.
"I don''t need your help," Jin growled, his pride as an assassin making him resent the assistance.
"It doesn''t look like you can do without my help." Shar rebuked sharply.
Michael chuckled amidst dodging a now faster and more powerful punch from Jin. He was sure that Shar had something to do with Jin''s sudden increase in aggression.
"Why is she helping you, Jin? Think about it," Michael prodded, trying to nt seeds of doubt in Jin''s mind.
With the worship energy enhancing him, Jin''s movements became quicker, his strikes more forceful. Yet, Michael''s evasion was effortless. He read Jin''s movements like an open book, each step, each punch, and each kick anticipated and avoided with precision.
"Something happened, didn''t it?" Michael probed, skillfully ducking under a high kick from Jin.
Jin, his patience wearing thin, growled in response, "Shut up and die!" He was clearly not in the mood for conversation, his attacks growing more ferocious.
Michael couldn''t help but relish the continuous stream of badass points he was racking up, and the fact that he was slowly cracking Jin''s cold exterior added to his enjoyment.
"Why the desperation to kill me, Jin?" he asked, dodging another punch.
"You''ve been watching me.You had better chances than now. Yet you didn''t take those chances because you didn''t want to kill me then. So why now?"
In a strategic move to extract information, Michael let his guard down momentarily, allowing Jin''s fist to connect squarely with his face. The impact forced Michael to take a step back, and he calmly wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. The slight taste of blood only fueled his determination.
The sudden sess of his attack, the adrenaline rushing through his veins, made Jin blurt out.
"After killing you, I will be a reaper, as my god has promised!"
"Idiot," Overhearing Jin''s outburst, Shar muttered under her breath.
Hearing the revtion, Michael connected the dots and came up with a guess. Then, he cracked his neck and re-engaged Jin inbat.
"Death promised you, huh?" Michael mused aloud, piecing together the puzzle. Amidst the intensebat, he maneuvered with a strategic mind.
"Is there a chance Shar is manipting you into killing me using your god''s name?"
As they exchanged blows, Michael deftly twisted his hands behind his back, away from Shar and Jin''s line of sight. He quickly retrieved the crimson red invitation he had received from the reaper of Death who he met at Rainar''s temple. In a swift movement, he brandished the invitation in front of Jin during a brief pause in their fight.
"Why would Death want me dead when he''s already invited me to join the assassin''s guild?" Michael questioned, his toneced with skepticism.
The revtion hit Jin like a thunderbolt. He stopped his attacks abruptly, his eyes widening in shock as he stared at the invitation.
"It can''t be," he uttered.
Chapter 1206 Reaching the Elemental Attunement Stage
Chapter 1206 Reaching the Elemental Attunement Stage
??Michael expertly dangled the invitation before Jin, allowing him to scrutinize it closely.
"Do you think Death would y games like people?" he asked, his voice carrying an edge of reason that pierced through the chaos of the moment.
Jin''s eyes darted between the invitation and Michael, his mind a whirlwind of confusion and conflict. The legitimacy of the invitation was undeniable, casting a shadow of doubt over the orders he believed to have received from his god. The realization that he might have been manipted was dawning on him, yet the gravity of his devotion to Death made him hesitate, torn between allegiance and truth.
"Damn it," Observing the unfolding scene, Shar growled under her breath.
Suddenly, as if snapping out of his internal struggle, Jin shook his head, his decision made.
"I can''t take any chances with this," he dered before lunging forward with his dagger aimed at Michael.
In a disy of exceptional agility, Michael bent backward, narrowly avoiding the de by mere inches. In a fluid motion, he counterattacked, delivering a powerful kick to Jin''s head. The force of the impact sent Jin crashing through several trees, shattering them in his wake. This single move showcased Michael''s immense physical strength, a testament to his prowess as abatant.
Looking at the scene, Shar''s eyes widened as she witnessed the immense strength disyed by the young man before her. At that moment, she knew he was far from ordinary. But suddenly, a chilling realization struck her ¨C the young woman who had been with him was nowhere to be seen.
Yet, before Shar could even begin to process this, the young man lunged at her with astonishing speed. His fists, engulfed in dark mes, cut through the green mes of her protective barrier like it was made of mere paper. His punchnded squarely on Shar''s chin, sending her flying back with incredible force.
In the blink of an eye, as Shar was hurled through the air, Gaya descended upon her with the grace and silence of a shadow. Invisible in her armor, Gaya swiftly snatched Shar''s staff right from her grasp. Then, with a powerful leap, she retreated and tossed the staff into Michael''s hand.
The entire sequence of events unfolded with such speed and precision that by the time Shar managed to pull herself up from where she had plowed into the ground, she was met with the sight of her own staff, now in the hands of her adversary.
Shar stood there, disheveled and disoriented, staring at Michael holding her staff ¨C the source of her power and connection to Morbus.
Meanwhile, Michael looked at the staff with a mischievous chuckle, clearly amused by the turn of events. Shar, on the other hand, was fuming with anger.
"Give me back my staff, you insolent child!" she yelled, her voiceced with venomous fury.
"I will y you alive!" She threatened him with dire consequences, but Michael was unfazed.
Firmly grasping the staff, Michael activated his Energy Devourer ability, intending to absorb the artifact. The system notifications began to chime in his head, announcing the conversion of experience points.
[Experience points converted 10,000]
[Experience points converted 15,000]
¡
The small orb of green crystallized worship energy within the staff started to vaporize, its essence flowing into Michael through his hands.
Shar''s eyes widened in horror as she watched her source of power being drained away.
"Stop! You don''t know what you''re doing!" she screamed, her voice echoing through the forest.
As Shar lunged towards Michael in a desperate attempt to retrieve her staff, Gaya intervened with remarkable precision. She fired a volley of explosive arrows around Shar, creating a series of sts that knocked the old woman off her feet and halted her advance.
After several seconds of absorbing the energy, Michael nonchntly tossed the now depleted staff aside. The system notifications continued to ring triumphantly in his head, acknowledging his aplishment and leveling up.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 25,000 Badass points]
[Congrattions to the Host for reaching the Elemental Attunement Realm]
Michael stood there, a new level of power coursing through him, while Shary disoriented and weakened from the explosions.
On the other side,Jin wiped the blood from his mouth and regained hisposure. He retrieved an emerald green potion from his belt, quickly downing it. The liquid worked its magic, mending his wounds.
"That was one hell of a kick," he muttered, acknowledging Michael''s strength.
Without further dy, Jin charged toward Michael, determined to rescue Shar. His movements were swift, a blend of agility and purpose, fueled by the potion he had just consumed.
Simultaneously, Shar, disheveled with her hair in disarray and robes torn from Gaya''s explosive arrows, made a beeline for Michael as well. Her face was a mask of rage and desperation, knowing that her staff, her source of power, was now in enemy hands.
Meanwhile, Gaya skillfully retreated into the shadows. She used the cloak of darkness and invisibility armor to vanish from sight, bing an unseen guardian ready to strike if necessary.
In a whirl of motion, Michael deftly kicked the energy-depleted staff towards Shar. The old woman, her eyes wide with disbelief, caught it, only to realize that the worship energy she had painstakingly gathered over decades had been siphoned away in mere seconds. Her face twisted with rage and frustration, Shar screamed obscenities, her voice echoing through the forest.
Shar, now consumed by fury, swung her staff wildly at Michael. Her movements were erratic and desperate, a stark contrast to her earlierposure. Michael, with a smirk on his face, effortlessly dodged each of her attacks. His agility and reflexes were a sight to behold, making it clear that he was toying with her.
Meanwhile, Jin re-entered the fray. He lunged at Michael with renewed vigor, his every move calcted and precise. But Michael was always a step ahead, sidestepping Jin''s strikes with ease. The contrast between Jin''s focused aggression and Michael''s rxed demeanor only highlighted Michael''s superiority inbat.
As Shar continued her relentless but futile assault, Michael taunted her.
"Is that all you''ve got, olddy?" he chuckled, effortlessly evading her blows.
"I thought worshippers of Morbus were tougher than this."
Jin, his frustration mounting, attempted to nk Michael, but to no avail. Michael''s keen awareness of his surroundings allowed him to counter Jin''s every move. He parried, ducked, and weaved, making the skilled assassin look like an amateur.
Shar, now panting from exertion, red at Michael with hatred.
"You''ll pay for this, you insolent brat!" she screeched, swinging her staff with all her might.
"I''m sorry, I don''t carry change for small transactions." Michael, with a grin, replied. Hisment only served to infuriate Shar further.
As the battle raged on, Michael''s approach shifted. He began to meet Shar''s wild attacks with a brutal force of his own. Each of his strikes was precise and powerful, designed to push her to her limits. Despite her age and experience, Shar was no match for Michael''s raw strength and skill.
Michael''s attacks on Shar were merciless. He delivered a series of bone-crushing blows that left her staggering.
"Come on, Shar. Move that old boney ass," he taunted, his voiceced with mockery. Shar, her face twisted in pain and anger, tried to retaliate, but her efforts were clumsy inparison.
Meanwhile, Jin, who had been watching for an opening, saw his chance and charged at Michael with renewed determination. But Michael was ready for him. With a swift movement, he countered Jin''s attack, sending a shockwave of force that threw Jin off bnce.
Jin, now airborne, tried to regain hisposure, but Michael was relentless. Heunched into the air, meeting Jin with a flurry of punches and kicks that resonated through the forest. The sound of their collision was thunderous, echoing off the trees.
"Is that all, Jin? I was expecting more from an assassin like yourself," Michael sneered,nding a particrly heavy blow that sent Jin crashing to the ground. Jiny there, gasping for air, his body aching from the impact.
Seeing Jin''s defeat, Shar attempted to use the opportunity to attack Michael from behind. But Michael was already one step ahead. He spun around, delivering a powerful backhand that sent Shar reeling.
"You two really need to coordinate better," he chided, almost yfully.
The brutality of Michael''s attacks left no doubt about his prowess. He was not just fighting; he was dominating the battle. Shar and Jin, both formidable in their own right, were reduced to mere ythings in his hands.
As the fight continued, Michael''s strikes grew more savage. Every punch and kick was a demonstration of his superior strength and skill. Shar and Jin were on the defensive, barely able to keep up with his relentless assault.
Michael''sbat style shifted as he was careful not to kill her even though he could have easily. If he killed her, it would draw Morbus''s wrath and the God of gues wasn''t known for his kindness. So Michael engaged Shar with a series of calcted and devastating strikes. Each move was a careful bnce between aggression and restraint.
Trying to match Michael''s ferocity, Shar swung her staff with all her might, but Michael was always a step ahead. He dodged her attacks with an almost casual grace.
As Shar lunged forward with a wild swing, but Michael effortlessly sidestepped, grabbed her wrist, and twisted it sharply, forcing her to drop the staff.
"You really should consider retiring," he teased, pushing her away with a flick of his wrist.
Once Shar stumbled back, Michael turned his attention to Jin, who had recovered and was ready to rejoin the fight. Jin charged, daggers in hand, aiming for a lethal strike. Michael, however, anticipated his move and caught Jin''s wrist mid-air. With a fluid motion, he twisted Jin''s arm and delivered a stylish spinning kick that sent Jin crashing into a nearby tree.
"You''re going to have to do better than that," Michael chided, his voice dripping with mockery. Jin, wincing in pain, struggled to get back on his feet.
In the midst of the chaos, Michael subtly allowed the Spyder to crawl up his sleeve. With a swift movement, he flicked the Spyder onto Shar, who was too preupied with regaining her bnce to notice the tiny creature. The Spyder quickly found its way to a concealed spot on Shar''s robe.
Michael resumed his assault on Shar, driving her back with a barrage of punches. Shar, now desperate, tried to fend him off with crude, uncoordinated strikes.
"Be better," Michael taunted, his words sharp as his blows.
As the fight drew close, Michael delivered a final, crushing blow to Shar, knocking her to the ground. Shey there, defeated and gasping for air. Michael stepped back, a satisfied grin on his face.
"Both of you, stay down," he said, turning to leave.
"Enjoy the little time you have old bitch¡You are going to die soon," Michael grinned devilishly as he walked away.
Chapter 1207 The Beast King Edros鈥檚 Return
Chapter 1207 The Beast King Edros¡¯s Return
Emerging from the shadows with her cloak now disabled, Gaya approached Shar and Jin with a mix of triumph and mockery in her stride. "Remember this as a lesson," she snickered, looking down at them with a smirk. "Next time, we won''t just kick your ass. We will kill your ass,"
With a yful yet forceful kick to Shar''s butt, Gaya emphasized her point, eliciting a pained groan and a string of curses from the old woman. Shar''s anger was palpable, but her defeated state rendered her retorts weak and futile.
Meanwhile, Jin, lying bruised and battered, watched Gaya join Michael, a deep frown etched on his face. "Who are they?" he muttered under his breath, his voice a mixture of pain, confusion, and a hint of respect. He had never encountered foes like them, ones who could handle his and Shar''sbined assault with such ease.
As Michael and Gaya walked away, their backs to the defeated duo, Gaya couldn''t help but chuckle lightly. "That should teach them not to mess with us," she said, catching up to Michael. Their steps were light, almost carefree, as if the intense battle had been nothing more than a yful scuffle.
Still lying on the ground, Shar watched them leave, her mind racing with questions and fear. Her n had backfired spectacrly, and now she was left to ponder the true nature of these mysterious and powerful adversaries. Meanwhile, Jin slowly picked himself up, his eyes fixed on the retreating figures of Michael and Gaya, his mind swirling with thoughts of revenge and intrigue.
After walking through the forest for several minutes, Gaya''s frustration was evident as she questioned the purpose of their current predicament in the pocket dimension. "We still have no clue what to do in here. And what''s the point with these trees getting harder at night?" sheined, her voiceced with annoyance.
However, Michael seemed unfazed by the uncertainty. "Remember what Silvaris said," he reminded her calmly. "We have to think like a thief. And patience is a thief''s greatest weapon. They wait for the right moment, observe, and act only when sure of sess."
"I have all the fucking patience in the world, but that''s not going to show us the way forward magically." Gaya scoffed, her impatience getting the better of her.
Just then, Michael''s drones, previously unseen, flew in, hovering above them. Gaya''s eyes widened in surprise. "When did you send them out?" she asked, her tone a mix of curiosity and admiration.
"A thief may rely on patience, but my greatest weapon has always been my brain," he stated confidently. He had sent the drones out earlier to recon the area, a strategic move that went unnoticed by Gaya amidst the chaos.
The drones circled above them, beaming down images and data Michael had been collecting silently. Gaya watched, her earlier frustration melting into a mix of admiration and love.
"That''s why I love you so much," she said with a chuckle, ruffling his hair affectionately before nting a soft kiss on his cheek. Michael''s eyes twinkled with satisfaction. The drones had been his secret ace, gathering intel while they navigated the dangers of the pocket dimension. He had learned long ago that brute strength wasn''t always the solution; sometimes, the key to oveing an obstacley in gathering information and strategizing ordingly.
As they examined the data collected by the drones, a clearer picture of their environment and potential paths forward began to emerge.
Eventually, the two of them saw arge rock statue of a monkey, surrounded by a group of adventurers, which immediately piqued their interest. It was eerily reminiscent of the scene they had encountered earlier with the glistening tree that turned out to be Shar, leading to a brutal ughter.
Standing beside Michael, Gaya watched the feed with a mix of suspicion and concern. "This had better not be another fucking trap," she growled, her voice tinged with wariness from their previous encounters.
"I have a feeling this might be the end game in this pocket dimension," he mused, his gaze fixed on the screen. The statue and the group around it seemed to be a significant clue in the puzzle they were trying to solve.
Among the adventurers gathered around the statue, Michael recognized Elrion and Lysandra, who stood at the forefront, closely examining the statue. It was clear that they, like many others, were trying to decipher the significance of this peculiar structure.
"Do you think Elrion and Lysandra have figured something out about it?" she asked, looking at the statue from a distance.
"It''s hard to say," Michael replied thoughtfully. "But we should head over there and see for ourselves. This statue could be key to unlocking the next part of Silvaris''s dungeon."
As Michael and Gaya approached the crowd, they blended in seamlessly, their eyes fixed on the imposing rock statue of the monkey. Standing at an impressive fifteen feet tall, the statue wielded a club, adding to its already formidable appearance. Its bulky form cast a looming presence over the adventurers gathered around it.
The adventurers, a mix of experienced fighters and curious explorers, were engaged in animated discussions about the statue. "What do you think this thing is for?" one adventurer asked, his voice echoing the general sense of curiosity.
"Could be a guardian of something, or maybe a puzzle piece," another replied, eyeing the statue warily.
A third adventurer chimed in, "Look at the way it''s holding that club. It might be more than just a statue. Maybe it''s a trigger for something."
"This thing gives me the creeps. It''s too... lifelike." Gaya leaned towards Michael and whispered.
Michael nodded in agreement, his gaze never leaving the statue. "Let''s keep our eyes open. Silvaris wouldn''t ce something like this here without a reason."
As Michael and Gaya stood there, Lysandra and Elrion were engaged in a deep conversation. "This has to be more than a mere statue. I wouldn''t be surprised if it springs to life and attacks us," Elrion remarked, his voiceced with caution.
"We should be prepared for anything. Silvaris''s tricks are never straightforward." Lysandra nodded in agreement. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Hearing them, Gaya leaned closer to Michael and whispered sarcastically, "No shit,"
Suddenly, Silvaris''s ethereal form materialized from within the statue, his presence causing an immediate stir among the adventurers. He pped his hands mockingly, hisughter echoing through the forest.
"How does it feel, running around like headless chickens, trying to find a way out?" Silvaris taunted, amusement evident in his tone. "I''d love to teach you a lesson in patience, but s, there are so many traps awaiting you in the other levels. Time to move you along to the next stage."
Unfazed by Silvaris''s theatrics, Elrion stepped forward boldly. "Where''s the exit, Silvaris? We''ve yed your games long enough," he demanded. Silvaris''sughter subsided as he floated in the air, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "You''re looking at it," he said, gesturing towards the giant monkey statue, leaving the adventurers to ponder the meaning behind his cryptic words.
Silvaris''s gaze swept across the crowd, lingering momentarily on Michael and Gaya. "This statue," he continued with a chuckle, "is not just any ordinary rock. It contains a piece of the soul of Edros, the great king of the beastmen."
Whispers and murmurs of confusion rippled through the group of adventurers. "
Edros? Never heard of him," one adventurer muttered to another.
"Neither have I. What''s a beastman king got to do with us?" another adventurer chimed in, his voiceced with skepticism.
After causing the confusion, Silvaris just smirked. "Some of you are aware of who Edros was," he said, his eyes briefly meeting Michael and Gaya''s, who exchanged surprised nces. "For those who don''t, let''s just say he was a figure of immense strength and ferocity. And now, his soul will be the key to your progression or... your downfall."
For a few moments, Silvaris'' gaze swept across the group, his smirk growing wider. "You brutes might think that brute force is the answer to everything. But if you continue thinking like that here, you''ll surely fall," he said with a sardonicugh.
His next words came out slowly, emphasizing their importance, "The only way out of this pocket dimension is to think like a thief. It''s not about what you see, but about what you don''t see."
The adventurers exchanged puzzled looks, their confusion evident. "What does he mean by thinking like a thief?" one of them whispered, while another nervously said, "There''s got to be a trick to this. It can''t be as simple as fighting the statue."
"As for the reward of this level, it''s the soul piece of Edros. Whoever is cunning and strong enough to defeat the statue will gain a key. This key unlocks Edros'' treasure chest in the next level," he revealed as his expression shifted to one of seriousness.
"And believe me, the treasures within that chest are worth all the trouble you''re going through. It''s a prize fit for the cleverest among you." He clicked his tongue and added.
As Silvaris'' ethereal form began to fade away, the air was thick with anticipation. Once Silvaris''s ethereal formpletely vanished, the rock statue of Edros sprang to life with a terrifying vigor. Its eyes glowed ominously as it rose to its full, imposing height, towering over the adventurers. In one swift, crushing motion, the statue swung its massive club, mming it down with such force that several unfortunate adventurers were instantly crushed, their bodies turning into a gruesome, bloody paste on the forest floor.
Elrion and Lysandra, with their quick reflexes, leaped to the side just in time, narrowly escaping the deadly blow. The rest of the adventurers recoiled in shock and horror, scrambling to find cover or to prepare for a counterattack against the seemingly invincible behemoth.
Amidst the chaos and terror, Michael stood his ground, his gaze fixed intently on the animated statue of Edros. With a confident, almost predatory smirk on his face. "Your soul is mine," his voiceced with excitement and a hint of killing intent.
Chapter 1208 Michael and Gaya鈥檚 problem
Chapter 1208 Michael and Gaya¡¯s problem
The colossal rock statue of Edros, now animated and wrathful, towered over the adventurers with a menacing aura of raw power. It swung its enormous club with devastating force, each blow causing the earth to tremble and sending shards of rock flying in all directions. The adventurers, though initially taken aback by the sheer might of the statue, quickly rallied andunched a counterattack.
Elrion and Lysandra, both agile and quick-thinking, utilized the dense forest to their advantage. They leaped from tree to tree, dodging the statue''s crushing blows with grace. Facing the rock statue, Lysandra fired a volley of arrows, each one striking the statue with precision. Elrion, with his metallic wings in his armor glinting in the starlight, dove in and out, shing at the statue with his long sword, each strike apanied by a burst of golden energy.
The other adventurers, fueled by fear and adrenaline, attacked with whatever weapons they had at hand. Some used the discarded weapons of their fallenrades,unching a barrage of attacks at the statue. The sounds of metal nging against stone, the shouts and curses of the fighters, and the groans of the wounded filled the air.
"Damn it, this thing''s tough as nails!" shouted one of the adventurers as he swung his axe at the statue''s leg, only to have it bounce off harmlessly.
"We need to find its weak spot!" yelled another, narrowly dodging a swing of the statue''s club.
Meanwhile, having retreated to a safer distance, Michael and Gaya used their Mark 3 grappling hooks to ascend to a higher vantage point in the trees. From there, they observed the battle unfolding below.
"This is insane," Gaya muttered, watching as another adventurer was swatted away like a fly by the statue.
"Yeah, but look at them go," Michael replied, his eyes scanning the battlefield. "They''re not giving up. There''s gotta be a way to bring that thing down."
As the battle raged on, Elrion and Lysandra continued to showcase their exceptionalbat prowess. Elrion, with his sword glowing a bright gold, managed to slice off a chunk of the statue''s rock arm, causing it to momentarily stagger. Lysandra, synchronizing her movements with Elrion, aimed her arrows at the newly exposed crevices in the statue''s rocky exterior, her shots finding their mark with deadly uracy.
Below them, the adventurers were coordinating their efforts more effectively now, inspired by Elrion and Lysandra''s bravery. "C''mon, you big pile of rocks, fall already!" shouted a burly warrior as he and hispanions charged in, swinging their weapons with all their might.
Watching the scene unfold, Gaya couldn''t help but feel a surge of adrenaline. "We should be down there, helping them," she said, her hand gripping her bow tightly.
Michael, however, remained focused, analyzing the situation. "They''re doing better than expected," he noted. "But this thing is not just a mindless statue. It''s fighting with a purpose, almost like it''s... testing them."
The rock statue of Edros, with its immense size and brute strength, proved to be an unstoppable force. Its movements, though seemingly sluggish, were deliberate and devastating. Every stomp of its gigantic feet caused the ground to quake, throwing adventurers off bnce and into the path of danger.
One particrly gruesome moment saw a group of adventurers attempting to nk the statue, only for it to suddenly swing its massive arm, sweeping them off their feet. Their bodies were flung against the trees with sickening thuds, bones snapping on impact.
"Damn, look out!" yelled an adventurer as the statue raised its club high above its head. The warning came toote for some as the club descended with earth-shattering force, crushing those beneath it into a bloody pulp. The sound of crunching bones and sttering blood filled the air, apanied by the desperate cries of the wounded and the dying.
"Shit, this thing''s a damn monster!" cursed another adventurer, narrowly avoiding a swipe of the statue''s hand. The relentless attacks from the statue left the adventurers in disarray, their initial coordination now reced with sheer panic and survival instincts.
The statue seemed to possess a cruel intelligence, targeting groups of adventurers with calcted ferocity. It moved with a purpose, its every strike iming more lives, painting the forest floor red with blood.
Watching from her vantage point, Gaya couldn''t help but feel a tinge of disgust mixed with admiration for the statue''s effectiveness. "These poor bastards stand no chance against this thing," she muttered, her gaze fixed on the chaos below.
"It''s like watching a predator toy with its prey. But there''s a method to this madness. This isn''t just mindless ughter; it''s a test, a brutal and bloody one."
The statue continued its rampage, its club swinging wildly, sending adventurers flying with each hit. The mages, unable to use their magic due to the dungeon''s arrays, were left defenseless, their staffs and wands useless against the solid rock form of the statue.
As the death toll rose, the remaining adventurers began to lose hope, their attacks bing more desperate and less coordinated. Suddenly, the massive ape statue began a new, terrifying assault. It started to pound its chest, a rhythmic, thunderous sound echoing through the forest. With each beat, the rock pieces on its chest shifted apart, revealing a heart that glowed with a bright, almost blinding white light. The adventurers, already reeling from the statue''s brutal physical attacks, watched in horror as the statue''s heart aimed directly at them.
Each pulse of the heart sent forth bone-chilling frost balls, hurtling toward the ground and the adventurers with deadly precision. The frost was so intense that the moment it touched the adventurers, it instantly froze them. The frozen figures shattered into grotesque chunks of red-tinted ice upon impact with anything solid, scattering across the forest floor.
"Damn it, what now?!" one adventurer cried out, trying to dodge the deadly frost balls.
However, Lysandra and Elrion showcased theirbat readiness. They swiftly deployed retractable shields from their wrists, effectively blocking the frost balls. The sleek and metallic shields glistened under the forest''s dim light, their surfaces absorbing the impact of the frost with a hiss.
"Looks like we''re not the only ones with fancy armor," Gayamented from her vantage point, observing the pair''s defensive maneuvers. "Those shields... they''re not ordinary," said Gaya.
After unleashing a barrage of frost attacks, the statue''s chest closed up, resuming its earlier pattern of physical onughts. The adventurers, already diminished in number and spirit, faced this renewed aggression with a mix of fear and desperation.
"Shit, shit, shit! This thing''s relentless!" an adventurer shouted, dodging another deadly swing of the statue''s club. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Still using their shields, Lysandra and Elrion tried to coordinate the remaining adventurers into a more effective defensive formation. "Stay close and watch each other''s backs!" Lysandra yelled, her voice cutting through the chaos.
Gaya, perched high in the tree beside Michael, watched the ape statue''s ferocious attacks with keen interest. After observing the heart''s chilling effect on the adventurers below, she turned to Michael, her eyes reflecting a mixture of curiosity and determination.
"Did you see that heart? That''s gotta be what''s powering this whole thing," Gaya remarked, pointing towards the statue''s chest. "If we could just get that heart, like Silvaris suggested, you know, ''think like a thief''. Then we''ll have the key to his treasure."
Yet, Michael didn''t share her idea. Instead, he frowned, deep in thought, as he observed the ongoing chaos below them. "It''s too obvious," he finally said, his gaze still fixed on the ape statue and its glowing heart. "Silvaris wouldn''t make it that straightforward. There''s got to be a catch somewhere."
Gaya nodded in agreement, understanding theplexity of the situation. "You''re probably right," she admitted, "Silvaris loves his tricks and traps. We need to be smarter about this."
After watching the battle for a few more minutes, Michael decided to use one of his drones for a better perspective. He willed a drone to hover above the adventurers and the ape statue, careful to remain unnoticed. Through the drone''s feed projected in his mind, Michael surveyed the chaotic scene, his attention shifting between the brutal attacks and the environment.
When the ape statue paused to open its chest again, unleashing another round of freezing frost balls, Michael froze the feed and zoomed in on the creature''s back. The ape''s gigantic form, with itsrge muscr back and exaggerated buttocks, dominated the screen. He scrutinized every detail, searching for anything unusual.
Then, as the statue stood still, firing its frost balls, Michael noticed a faint glimmer in the most unlikely of ces ¡ª embedded within the crack of the ape''s buttocks. Zooming in further, his suspicions were confirmed. There it was, a dimly shining metal key, cleverly hidden and only visible when the ape ceased its movements to attack.
Looking at the key, he couldn''t guess whether tough or cry. "Of all the ces to hide a key," he muttered to himself. He shook his head in disbelief, amused and slightly disgusted by Silvaris''s bizarre sense of humor.
Suppressing his urge tough at the absurdity of the situation, Michael turned to Gaya, trying to keep a straight face. "So, I have good news and bad news," he began.
Curious and unaware of the peculiar location of the key, Gaya responded, "Alright, hit me with the good news first."
"The good news," Michael paused for dramatic effect, "is that I found the key to the treasure chest."
"Great, so what''s the bad news?" Gaya shrugged.
"Well," Michael hesitated, "the bad news is that the key is..." He paused again, searching for the right words. "The key is in the ape''s butt."
Gaya''s initial reaction was one of confusion. "Oh... wait, what?!" she eximed, her face a mix of shock and disbelief.
Struggling to maintain hisposure, Michael pulled out a mirror and transferred the drone''s image of the key''s location onto it. "See for yourself," he said, handing her the mirror. On the other hand, Gaya stared at the image with her eyes widening. "Fucking hell, how are we supposed to take the key from the ape''s ass?" she blurted out, her voice rising in frustration.
Michael''s face turned a shade redder as he tried not to burst intoughter. "We''re not taking it... Remember how your armor can make you invisible? So, it''s your job."
Gaya''s face contorted in disgust as she struggled to form aplete sentence. "I... you... invisible or not, that''s just... disgusting!" she stammered, clearly appalled by the task ahead.
Chapter 1209 Next level of the dungeon
Chapter 1209 Next level of the dungeon
As the rock statue containing the soul of the beast king Edros battled the adventurers, Gaya found herself in a difficult and unsavory position. The thought of sliding her hand inside the statue''s butt to retrieve the key was disgusting to her.
"What in the world was Silvaris thinking?" Gaya grumbled about Silvaris, and upon seeing Michael trying to hold back hisughter, her irritation quickly turned towards him.
"If you weren''t my husband and I didn''t love you so much, I would''ve kicked your ass to hell," Gaya said sternly.
"It''s the only way to get the key to the treasure chest. The longer we dy, the higher the chance someone else will discover where the key is hidden and take it," Michael exined calmly.
Meanwhile, the massive rock statue relentlessly attacked the adventurers. Although Lysandra and Elrion disyed impressive agility and struck the statue with precision, they could not inflict any real damage. Elrion managed to chip off a piece of the statue''s arm with his long sword, but this only enraged the stone beast further. Driven by thebat experience and knowledge of Edros''s soul, the statue seemed invincible.
"Fuck," Gaya eximed in frustration, stomping on the tree branch she was perched on.
"Fine, I''ll do it. But you owe me big time," Gaya finally conceded, preparing herself for the distasteful task of retrieving the key.
"That''s the spirit," Michael said with a chuckle, yfully pinching her cheek.
Despite her annoyance, Gaya couldn''t help but crack a small smile at his gesture.
"You''re going to pay for this," she teased, before activating her armor''s cloaking ability and leaping down to the ground. Michael watched from above, using thermal vision to track Gaya''s movements.
As she approached the battleground, the statue paused its assault, pounded its chest, and unleashed a volley of chilling frost projectiles at the adventurers.
The adventurers scrambled for cover. Some hid behind trees in the woods, while others desperately used dead bodies as shields.
"Quick, behind that tree!" yelled Lysandra, dashing towards arge oak. The frost balls whizzed past, turning the air icy cold as they flew.
"Is everyone okay?" called out Elrion, ducking behind another tree, its bark beginning to frost over from the cold emanating from the statue''s attacks.
"We''re good, but this is crazy!" shouted another adventurer, hugging the frozen ground. "How do we stop that thing?"
The area around them had grown noticeably colder, their breaths visible as puffs of mist in the air. The frost balls had turned the once green leaves into a crystalline white, the trees looking like sculptures of ice.
"I can''t feel my fingers anymore,"ined a younger adventurer, trying to rub warmth back into his hands.
"We need to think fast, or we''ll be ice statues ourselves!" Elrion said, peering cautiously around the tree. The statue was relentless, its chest continuously opening to fire more frost balls.
"Any ideas?" an elf asked.
"Just one," replied Elrion. "But it''s going to need all of us to work together."
"We use a tree as a catapult. Launch me into the heart when it''s open," Elrion proposed, his eyes fixed on the towering statue.
"That''s suicide!" eximed an adventurer, his face pale with fear.
"Do you have a better n?" Elrion retorted, ncing around at the anxious faces of hispanions.
"It might actually work. The heart seems to be powering the statue, and if anyone can pull this off, it''s Elrion." Lysandra interjected.
At that moment, the statue closed its chest and began to swing its massive club, smashing the frost-covered trees into icy shards. The adventurers scattered, dodging the deadly swings.
"Keep it distracted!" Elrion shouted as he ran towards arge, sturdy tree.
Lysandra and a couple of dwarves moved quickly to another tree, bending it down to create a makeshift catapult. They positioned the tree behind Elrion, waiting for their moment.
Meanwhile, the ape statue, unfazed by the adventurers'' scrambling, stomped down on several of them with its massive feet, crushing them instantly. Blood sttered across the frozen ground, and the gruesome sound of bones crunching echoed through the woods.
"Hold your ground!" Lysandra shouted, her voice cutting through the chaos.
Elrion, eyeing the beast, yelled defiantly, "Open your chest, you bastard!"
Eventually, the statue paused its onught, pounding its chest in a disy of raw power, then opening its chest once again.
"In the name of the God of Valor!" Elrion cried out. "Release!"
With thatmand, Lysandra and the dwarves let go of the tree they had been bending. The pent-up tension in the tree unleashed, catapulting Elrion towards the ape statue. As he soared through the icy air, he retracted his golden metal shield from his wrist, protecting himself from the barrage of frost ice balls.
The adventurers, sheltered behind trees, watched Elrion with a mix of hope and expectation. d in golden armor with metallic wings, and armed with a golden sword, he resembled an angel in flight. As he soared through the air, it felt like time itself had halted. Then, in a startling turn of events, just as Elrion''s sword was about to pierce the ape''s glowing heart, the rock statue unexpectedly froze in ce.
At first, everyone assumed it was Elrion''s sword that halted the frost ice balls, but Elrion himself realized the statue had ceased its attack seconds before his de could make contact.
But the peace was short-lived as suddenly, the statue crumbled and exploded with immense force, sending Elrion flying backward. The explosion was so intense it disrupted the Celestial energy flow from the celestial crystal in Gaya''s armor, disabling her cloak.
Gaya, thrown against a tree by the st,nded on the ground with the golden key in her hand. She spat out the blood in her mouth and grimaced in disgust.
"I wish I could fucking forget that ever happened," Gaya muttered, looking at the key with disdain. The memory of reaching into the statue''s butt, even though it was just a rock, filled her with disgust.
"You did it!" eximed one of the elven adventurers, looking at Elrion, relief and excitement in their voice.
Some others rushed to help Elrion to his feet, mistakenly crediting him with the statue''s defeat. However, Lysandra, from her vantage point, noticed Gaya standing behind a pile of rocks, holding the golden key.
The adventurers, still reeling from the statue''s copse, were struck with confusion and shock upon seeing Gaya holding the key. Murmurs and puzzled expressions spread among them as they tried to piece together the situation.
"Where did shee from?" one of the adventurers whispered to another, unable to hide his bewilderment.
"How did she get the key? Wasn''t it Elrion who defeated the ape?" another voiced out loud, trying to make sense of the unfolding scene.
A few, caught up in the heat of the moment, began to shout usations. "She stole the key!" one eximed, pointing towards Gaya. The tension in the air was palpable, as the group struggled to understand how Gaya ended up with the key while Elrion was being credited with the statue''s defeat.
Even Elrion was shocked unlike Lysandra who remained calm. While the adventures were throwing usations, Silvaris''s etheral figure emerged from the ground and floated between gaya, the adventures and the pile of rocks that used to be the ape rock statue. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Well done," Silvaris pped as the soul piece of Edros that powered up the statue floated above from the pile of rocks, crystalized andnded into Gaya''s hand. Gaya aken aback by surprise stared at the cglowing crystal in her hand and the golden key in the other. "You have the key, dear. Enjoy the contents of my treasure chest in the next level of this dungeon," Silvaris said with a hint of mischief and admiration in his eyes.
Suspecting that he might not have been the one to truly defeat the ape, Elrion stepped forward and demanded an exnation from Silvaris. "Silvaris, what''s going on here? How did she end up with the key?" he asked, his voice firm.
With a sly grin, Silvarisughed heartily before responding mockingly. "While you brutes were busy trying to defeat my minion, thinking with your muscles, that clever youngdy and her partner used their brains. They thought like a thief, as I had advised. She pickpocketed the key from its... ass,"
The moment some adventurers heard Silvaris, they exchanged confused nces. "Did he just say ''ass''?" one of them asked bewildered.
Silvaris continued, unabashed and amused, "Yes, you heard right. She literally put her hand inside the ape''s ass and pulled out the key. In my opinion, that takes more guts and cleverness than swinging your swords and spears around like a bunch of kids." Hisughter echoed through the forest, highlighting the absurdity of the situation.
Gaya, though in possession of the key and the crystallized soul piece of Edros, was visibly annoyed. As all eyes turned to her, Silvaris decided to throw another curveball into the mix.
"But because I''m such a generous soul and put a lot of effort into designing this dungeon, I''ll give you all another shot at my treasure chest," Silvaris announced, causing Gaya to frown, sensing another irritating twist wasing.
Silvaris then revealed the details of the next dungeon level. "In the next stage, each of you will be a mini boss of the dungeon. Your task is to hunt for this key that Gaya now holds. Whoever manages to take it from her, it''s theirs. There''s going to be a timer, and whoever has the key when time runs out gets the treasure chest," he exined, pausing to gauge their reactions.
"To spice things up a bit, I''ve scattered a few power-ups across the level. Boosts, spells, special weapons, you name it. Get your hands on these, and you''ll have a serious edge," Silvaris said, his grin growing wider and more malevolent.
"A true thief knows how to guard his loot. So, let the best thief win," Silvaris concluded before snapping his fingers, transporting them to the next level of the dungeon.
Chapter 1210 Shar鈥檚 Death I
Chapter 1210 Shar¡¯s Death I
Once Silvaris snapped his fingers, they were enveloped in a bright light that forced everyone to close their eyes. When they reopened them, they found themselves on a vast barrennd dotted with abandoned structures like houses, watchtowers, and crumbling buildings. Far off, a house painted gold shimmered in the distance.
Above them floated an ethereal clock,rge enough to be visible from any point.
"Where are we?" one of the adventurers asked, scanning the strangendscape.
"Look up there," a silver-haired elvendy pointed skyward. The clock, initially showing zeroes, slowly ticked over to twelve.
While many surveyed their new surroundings, others immediately began searching for Gaya, who held the key. She was spotted standing on a pavement between two ruined buildings.
"There she is!" a dwarf eximed, brandishing his axe. Gaya still clutched the golden key, though the crystallized soul piece of Edros was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, a loud boom echoed across the area. Numerous small golden tornadoes, about three feet high, appeared in various locations ¨C inside buildings, on the watchtowers, and scattered across the battlefield.
"These must be the power-ups Silvaris mentioned," Elrion observed, standing before the group.
Beside him, Lysandra remained silent, her calm demeanor contrasting with the growing tension.
"Let the hunt begin," Silvaris''s voice resounded, and the clock began its countdown.
"Come on, you assholes. Try and take it if you dare," Gaya taunted, slipping the key into her armor pocket and drawing her bow.
Expecting Elrion to lead the charge, the adventurers were surprised when he sheathed his long sword.
"She earned that key fair and square against the rock statue. I refuse to stoop so low as to steal it from her," Elrion dered, his voice reflecting his unwavering principles. The adventurers were taken aback by his stance, but Lysandra nodded, understanding his adherence to the values of Valorius, the God of Valor and Bravery.
"But if one of you manages to take the key from her, then it''s fair game, and I won''t hesitate to fight for it," Elrion added.
"Don''t worry, I''m not letting it go that easily," Gaya snickered confidently.
Facing the group of adventurers alone, Gaya stood her ground. Dwarves, elves, humans, and halflings, all d in various armors, slowly spread out, forming a circle around her. A nimble halfling in leather armor swiftly scaled a broken building and reached one of the swirling tornadoes.
"He''s got a power-up!" a dwarf yelled, noticing the halfling atop the building. But it was toote; the halfling was engulfed in a golden light, which formed a protectiveyer around him.
"I can tap into the Celestial energy again!" the halfling eximed joyfully, conjuring a ball of me in his hand.
His smile turned sinister as he aimed at Gaya. "Ma pull!" he cast the spell, and Gaya felt an invisible force tugging her towards him. The key in her armor pocket vibrated and began to move, but Gaya caught it firmly.
"Not so fast," she dered, gripping the key tightly.
"Take him out!"
"The key is mine!"
Chaos erupted as the adventurers sprung into action, driven by their desire for the key. The halfling casting the spell frowned, feeling Gaya''s resistance. His spell, often used by halflings for pickpocketing, was unexpectedly strong against Gaya, whocked cultivation. Being in the Qi Awakening Realm, even as a beginner stage in the realm of gods, gave the halfling a significant advantage over Gaya.
As Gaya struggled, it seemed she might lose the key. But suddenly, another halfling climbed the building and stabbed the spell-casting halfling in the back. Blood sttered, and the halfling''s hand dropped, his spell interrupted.
As the halfling hit the ground, Gaya sensed the force pulling her dissipate instantly. Seizing the opportunity, she swiftlyunched an explosive arrow at the advancing adventurers, sending them scattering with a loud st.
"Get her!" yelled some of the dwarves, rallying to continue the chase.
"Where''s my damn powerup?!" the halfling who had just betrayed hisrade eximed in disbelief, realizing he hadn''t received any power boost from his act.
"So, killing doesn''t transfer the powerup, does it?" Lysandra observed thoughtfully before leaping into the fray herself. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
As the dwarves and elves in armor charged at Gaya, all focused on snatching the key, Gaya retreated, rapidly firing arrow after arrow. However, the adventurers used shields to protect themselves and skillfully dodged, taking cover to avoid her explosive arrows.
"Keep pushing forward!"
"She can''t have unlimited arrows!"
"nk her!"
These shouts filled the air as the adventurers maneuvered around the buildings, seeking advantageous positions. Meanwhile, the more cunning halflings and humans scoured the area for additional power-ups.
More adventurers, having faced various challenges in the initial stages of the dungeon, began to emerge onto the battlefield, all briefed about the current level. This made Gaya the prime target for everyone.
Just as a group of twelve adventurers, including dwarves, elves, and humans, cleverly nked Gaya and charged towards her, a sudden, unexpected event turned the tide. A ck shield whirled through the air, striking with lethal precision. It decapitated the dwarves and sliced the others at the waist. Blood sprayed, and body parts scattered as the corpses hit the ground with a sickening thud. The remaining adventurers, stunned and horrified, froze in their tracks.
At that moment, Michael appeared, having leaped from nowhere,nding protectively in front of Gaya.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 12,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 10,000 Badass points] ¡
The system notifications kept ringing in Michael''s head, congratting him on his badassery and rewarding him with points, as he stood facing the adventurers. Elrion and many others, seeing Michael in action for the first time, were taken aback. They didn''t recognize him, but his nonchnt demeanor and the way his ck robes entuated his muscr build gave them an uneasy feeling.
Lysandra, having witnessed Michael''s capabilities before, especially when he had boldly punched her dragon Emry, knew better. "He''s different... they''re different..." she mused quietly to herself.
The adventurers, jolted from their shock by the brutal disy, let their greed for the treasure chest override their fear. Ignoring the danger, they charged at both Gaya and Michael.
"Idiots," Michael scoffed, quickly grabbing Gaya. He raised his hand,unching a grappling hook from his wrist towards a nearby building, swiftly propelling them upwards.
"They''re getting away!"
"He''s using some gadget!"
The adventurers, watching Michael and Gayand safely on a rooftop, shouted in frustration.
"Chase them!"
"Suck it, losers!" Gaya taunted, flipping her middle finger at the adventurers below before dashing towards the golden house in the distance.
"The game just got interesting," Lysandra noted, observing Jin and Shar moving toward other power-ups with a keen eye.
An elf, noticing a power-up inside a watchtower, swiftly climbed up to im it. His agility and grace were evident as he ascended the structure with ease.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Gaya and Michael were being pursued by a group of relentless adventurers. Unafraid and unruly, Gaya taunted them with a string of colorful cuss words.
"Come on, you slowpokes! Can''t catch me, can you?" Gaya jeered, her words dripping with mockery.
Some of the more determined adventurers, not to be outdone, started climbing up the rooftops, doggedly chasing after the elusive duo.
Back at the watchtower, the elf reached the power-up and touched it. Instantly, arge crossbow, armed with ming bolts, materialized in his hands. The high vantage point of the watchtower provided a significant advantage, and a sly grin spread across his face.
"Hehe, let''s see how they like this," the elf snickered, taking aim with his newfound weapon. He began firing the ming bolts, each shot aimed with deadly precision, turning the chase into a dangerous dance of dodging and weaving.
On the other side of the battlefield, Shar deftly maneuvered into an abandoned house, her eyes fixed on a power-up within. "I''ll make you pay for what you''ve done," she muttered with a vengeful tone, reaching out to touch the glowing object.
The moment her fingers made contact, a colossal dragon materialized, its emergence shattering the house into rubble. The dragon, with scales shimmering in hues of deep blue and silver, radiated an aura of ancient power. Its eyes, a piercing shade of sapphire, surveyed the surroundings with intelligence and majesty.
"Jackpot," Shar eximed, her eyes gleaming at the sight of the magnificent Blue scaled dragon. Despite her age, she climbed atop the dragon with surprising agility, positioning herself confidently on its back.
The appearance of the dragon caused a stir among the adventurers, eliciting a variety of reactions.
"By the gods, a dragon!"
"Everyone, be careful! That thing is huge!"
The sight of Shar riding the mighty Blue scaled dragon shifted the dynamics of the battlefield, adding a newyer of challenge and awe to the ongoing hunt.
Michael, upon seeing the dragon, couldn''t hide his surprise. "Silvaris really wasn''t kidding about not just stealing objects, huh?" he remarked, skillfully navigating the rooftops alongside Gaya.
"Why aren''t we killing their asses yet?" Gaya queried, keeping pace with Michael.
"Not yet," Michael responded, his mind already devising a strategy to kill Shar without having to intervene personally.
Chapter 1211 Shar鈥檚 Death II
1211 Shar¡¯s Death II
Amidst the shing of swords and the cries of warriors, Shar, mounted on a colossal dragon, soared into the sky.
"Behold, the might of my dragon!" Shar roared triumphantly, her voice echoing across the field. The dragon reared its head, opening its jaws wide, and unleashed a torrent of blue fire onto the ground below.
The adventurers below gazed up in horror. The blue fire cascaded down like a waterfall of mes, engulfing buildings and warriors alike. The intense heat was overwhelming, turning anything in its path to ash within moments.
"Fuck! Take cover!" yelled an adventurer, diving behind a crumbling wall as the firestorm raged around them.
"Spread out! Don''t give it an easy target!" Elrion shouted orders to her troops.
Meanwhile, Lysandra with her bow in hand, fired arrow after arrow, but they were nothing against the dragon''s scales. "Our weapons are useless against that beast!"
The dragon''s fire was relentless, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Buildings that had stood for centuries crumbled and burned, their ancient stones no match for the dragon''s fury.
In the midst of this fiery onught, Michael and Gaya were leaping from building to building, trying to avoid the dragon''s wrath. The heat was intense, singeing their hair and clothes as they narrowly escaped the mes.
" This way human!" Gaya shouted, leading him towards a narrower alley, hoping it would provide some respite.
"We need to get higher, out of its direct path!" Michael replied, his voice tense with urgency.
They climbed up a series of ledges, the heat of the dragon''s fire hot on their heels. Sensing their movement, the dragon turned its attention towards them, its eyes glowing with a malevolent light.
"Here ites again!" Gaya yelled, as the dragon opened its mouth to unleash another fiery onught.
With a swift move, Michael grabbed Gaya and dove into a partially destroyed building, just as the blue mes swept over them. The building''s remains provided temporary shelter, but they knew it wouldn''t hold for long.
"Shit, that was close," Michael gasped, his heart pounding in his chest.
"We need to find a way to take that dragon down," Gaya said, determination in her eyes. "Or at least drive it off."
As Gaya and Michael sprinted through the chaos, dodging debris and mes, Gaya shouted over the roar of the dragon, "Why are we still doing this?!"
Michael, with a mischievous smirk, replied, "Let''s let the others do our dirty work." In a casual gesture, he kicked a stone on the ground like a football, sending it soaring through the air. It struck the dragon squarely in the head, enraging the mighty beast even further.
"It''s time for the others to get their power-ups," he said, a glint of strategy in his eyes.
Gaya, catching on to Michael''s n, yelled at the top of her lungs to their allies, "Get the power-ups and fuck this dragon, you morons!"
Some nearby dwarves, overhearing her exmation, nodded in agreement. "She''s right!" one of them shouted, as they began to desperately scramble toward the power-ups scattered across the battlefield.
From her vantage point atop a broken building, Lysandra watched the scene unfold. "What are you two nning?" she muttered to herself, her eyes narrowing in thought.
Meanwhile, the dragon, furious at being hit by the stone, roared and chased after Michael and Gaya with renewed vigor. It swooped down repeatedly, its massive ws reaching out to grab them.
Each time the dragon descended, Michael and Gaya split up, moving in unpredictable patterns to evade the dragon''s grasp. Gaya rolled under a fallen beam, narrowly avoiding the swipe of a w. Michael, in turn, used a burst of speed to dart behind a crumbling wall just as the dragon''s talons crashed into the stone, sending rubble flying.
The dragon, growing increasingly frustrated, let out a deafening roar, its blue fire zing in its throat, ready to unleash another torrent of mes.
Michael and Gaya continued their evasive maneuvers by utilizing every bit of their agility and surroundings. They leaped over gaping holes in the ground, slid under half-copsed archways, and used the uneven terrain to their advantage, always staying one step ahead of the dragon''s deadly ws.
As the dwarves and other allies began to reach the power-ups, energized by Gaya''s rallying cry, the tide of the battle began to shift.
Finally understanding their tactic, a small smile crept onto Lysandra''s face as she prepared to join the fray.
On the other hand, Elrion leaped through the buildings with a determination etched on his face, his long sword in hand. As debris rained down from the dragon''s onught, he cleaved through it, clearing his path toward a power-up. Each swing of his sword was precise and powerful, slicing through stone and timber as if they were mere paper.
Meanwhile, Lysandra moved with an elegance that belied the chaos around her. She nimbly avoided the debris, her movements fluid and graceful as she made her way toward another power-up. Her focus was unwavering, her eyes fixed on the prize that could turn the tide of the battle.
Watching the scene unfold from a safe distance, Michael couldn''t help but smirk. "Our n is working," he said with a hint of satisfaction. The chaos they had created was serving its purpose, drawing the dragon''s attention and allowing their allies to arm themselves.
High above on the dragon, Shar, furious at the turn of events, pped the dragon''s head in a fit of rage. "Kill those two, you overgrown lizard!" she cursed, her voiceced with venom.
On the ground, the adventurers, energized by the prospect of gaining power-ups, shouted to each other amidst the chaos. "We need those damn power-ups to kill that dragon before it kills us!" one yelled over the din of battle.
Another, eyeing Gaya with a calcting gaze, suggested, "Let the dragon kill that bitch and we''ll take the key from her body!"
"Do you really think you can take the key from that old woman with a fucking dragon on our backs?" A third adventurer cursed in response.
Amidst the exchange of heated words, Elrion stood tall, rallying the adventurers with amanding presence. "We need to y that dragon!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the noise. Reaching his power-up, he grasped it, a surge of energy coursing through him, emboldening his resolve.
As Michael and Gaya navigated the chaotic battlefield, they suddenly found themselves in an open area. Above them, the dragon, directed by Shar, was rapidly approaching from the sky, its massive wings creating gusts of wind that whipped around them.
"Burn, you freaks!" Shar screamed from her lofty perch, a sadistic glee in her voice as she urged her dragon onward.
Gaya, gripping Michael''s hand firmly while they ran, nced at him with a mix of urgency and trust. "Whatever you''re nning, we need it now," she urged, emphasizing the immediacy of their situation.
In a nearby watchtower, Lysandra, now enveloped in a golden aura indicative of her recent power-up, was manning arge cannon. She carefully adjusted the cannon''s aim towards the approaching dragon, her expression one of intense concentration.
Meanwhile, Elrion, feeling the surge of celestial energy in his body, couldn''t help but smirk. His Spiritual Embryo cultivation stage was responding to the power-up, filling him with a newfound strength and vitality.
The battlefield was alive with other adventurers, each empowered by different power-ups. Some cast specific spells, their hands glowing with celestial energy. Others donned armor that rendered them temporarily invisible, moving like ghosts among the chaos. And there were those whose strength and speed were significantly enhanced, turning them into whirlwinds of destruction.
In the midst of this, Michael, with a calcted nce at Gaya, intentionally tripped, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. As they fell, the golden key Gaya had been holding flew up into the air, glinting in the sunlight.
Spotting the key from her vantage point, Shar directed the dragon to swoop down with incredible speed. She reached out and caught the key in her hand, a triumphant smirk on her face.
Seeing this, several adventurers who had previously been fearful of Shar were suddenly ovee with greed. "She''s got the key!" one shouted, his eyes fixed on the golden object in Shar''s grasp.
"Get her!" yelled another, emboldened by the power-up and the sight of the key.
"We can''t let her have it!" a third adventurer cried, charging forward with renewed vigor.
In that split second, as Shar triumphantly clutched the key, the adventurers'' fear toward Shar was momentarily shadowed by a surge of greed and adrenaline. Those who had received power-ups for casting spells unleashed their abilities with ferocity. Arcane energy crackled through the air, spells of various elements and effects hurtling towards the dragon.
A stout dwarf, his strength remarkably enhanced, heaved a massive boulder effortlessly and hurled it at the dragon. The boulder flew with incredible force, striking the beast and eliciting a pained roar.
At the same time, Lysandra, her eyes focused with deadly intent, fired the cannon. The projectile sted from the barrel, a streak of destructive energy aimed straight at the dragon.
Not holding back in the slightest, Elrion channeled his most powerful spell. "Gate of Valha!"
The moment he cast the spell, a golden cage,posed of ethereal swords, materialized around the dragon. The cage began to shrink, its sharp edges cutting into the dragon''s scales, causing the creature to thrash violently in an attempt to escape.
As the cage tightened its grip, Elrion leaped into the air from his elevated position, his long sword raised high, aimed directly at Shar in a bid to end her reign of terror.
At that moment, the battlefield was a frenzy of activity as other elves, dwarves, and humans, empowered by their respective power-ups,unched their attack. Elves, nimble and swift, fired a volley of arrows, each one glowing with enchanted light. Dwarves, their strength multiplied, wielded hammers and axes, striking the dragon with bone-crushing force. Humans, some cloaked in invisibility, others moving with enhanced speed, darted around the battlefield, striking at the dragon from all sides.
"Take down that fucking dragon!" one adventurer yelled, his voice filled with a mix of fear and excitement.
"We need that key! It''s our ticket to riches!" another shouted, charging forward with reckless abandon.
The greed for the key in Shar''s hand was palpable, driving the adventurers to push beyond their limits. They fought not just for survival, but for the promise of power and wealth the key represented.
In this frenzied melee, Shar and her dragon found themselves overwhelmed. The dragon, trying to fend off the attacks, roared and thrashed, but the golden cage of swords was slowly constricting, its sharp edges causing it to bleed. Shar, atop her mount, realized the tide of the battle was turning against her.
As Shar gazed upwards, her eyes widened in terror at the sight of Elrion descending from the sky. His metal wings unfurled behind him, glinting in the sunlight, and the golden sword in his hand promised a swift, decisive end. A chill ran down her spine, a premonition of her impending doom.
In a fleeting moment of distraction, Shar''s gaze fell to the key in her hand as she noticed something peculiar on the key.
"Got you, old bones,"she read.
At that moment, a sinking realization hit her; the key she had so easily seized was a fake, a decoy nted to lure her into a trap.
"Bastard!" Shar roared, her voiceced with fury and shock. The battlefield seemed to pause for a moment at the raw emotion in her cry. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
But it was toote. Shar understood she had been duped, and in her heart, she knew her end was near. Surrounded by enemies and with Elrion bearing down on her, escape was impossible.
As Elrion came down from the sky, his sword raised for the final blow, Shar did not flinch or cower. She stood defiantly, epting her fate with a twisted sense of honor. The dragon beneath her roared and thrashed, but it too was bound by the golden cage of swords, its movements restricted and pained.
Elrion''s descent was like a meteor streaking through the sky, his metal wings reflecting the light of the sun. The golden sword, imbued with celestial energy, cleaved the air with a whistle.
In a final, powerful stroke, Elrion''s sword came down upon Shar, cleaving her in half. The force of the blow was so great that it seemed to momentarily silence the chaos of the battlefield. Shar''s body fell in two separate pieces, her reign of terror ending in a single, decisive moment.
Greetings, beloved readers,
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
Chapter 1212 Mark of death
1212 Mark of death
As Shar died, her power-up, the blue scaled dragon, dissipated into thin air, leaving a stunned silence on the battlefield. The adventurers, some still caught in the grip of greed and adrenaline, began to process the gravity of what had just happened.
"Holy shit, we just killed Shar!" one adventurer eximed, his voice trembling with a mix of shock and realization.
"Damn, she was a follower of Morbus, the god of gues. Are we screwed now?" another voiced out, fear creeping into his tone.
Yet another, trying to regain focus, said, "What''s done is done. We need that key now. Move!"
Cautiously, many adventurers moved towards Elrion, who stood solemnly near Shar''s body. The goldenyer signifying his power-up slowly faded from his body as he bent down and picked up the key.
"Shit, Elrion''s got the key!" one of the adventurers panicked, realizing the implications.
"But it''s Elrion, the hero of Aurumvale, and a legend in the realm of gods. Do we really want to cross him?" another hesitated, voicing the dilemma they all faced.
Finally, Elrion examined the golden key in his palm, his eyes narrowing as he read the same words Shar had seen before her death. "Got you, old bones." He read and frowned, noticing that the key was hastily made,cking the elegance of the real key he had seen in the possession of the young woman who had defeated the ape statue. He didn''t know her name, but the image of her was clear in his mind.
"This... this is a fake," Elrion realized aloud, his voice tinged with both surprise and understanding. "We''ve been duped into killing Shar... not that I regret her demise."
It dawned on him that the orchestration of Shar''s death was likely the work of the ck-robed young man and the woman. He turned his head towards the direction where he hadst seen them, only to find they had vanished.
"We''ve been yed," Elrion said with a heavy sigh. Then, he casually tossed the fake key to the approaching dwarves.
On the other hand, Lysandra gracefullynded beside the dwarves before gazing at the key.
"It''s a fake." she calmly stated,
"What do you mean it''s a fake?" one of the dwarves asked incredulously.
"They''re just trying to fuck with us!" another chimed in angrily.
Ignoring the growingmotion, Lysandra continued, "We''ve all been manipted into taking out Shar while those two escaped with the real key."
As the reality of their situation sank in, panic spread among the adventurers. The fact that they had been manipted into killing Shar for a fake key caused a wave of anger and confusion.
"Damn it, we''ve been tricked!" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"We killed Shar for nothing but a fake? This is bullshit!"
"Those cunning bastards, they yed us like fools!"
The adventurers'' frustration was palpable, their voices rising in a cacophony of anger and disbelief. They cursed Michael and Gaya, using a variety of swear words to refer to them.
"That ck-robed son of a bitch and his partner got us good!"
"I swear, if I get my hands on those two..."
"They''re going to pay for making us their pawns!"
Amidst the chaos, Elrion couldn''t suppress a chuckle amidst the chaos, realizing the depth of the trickery they had all fallen for. "Trickery at its finest," hemented, a mix of admiration and annoyance in his tone.
On the other hand, the adventurers, fueled by their anger and sense of betrayal, rallied against Gaya and Michael. "They can''t have gotten far! Let''s catch those sneaky bastards!" they shouted, ready to pursue.
However, their ns were abruptly halted as Shar''s body began to dpose rapidly before their eyes. Green specks of light emerged from her corpse, swirling ominously in the air.
The moment Lysandra saw the scene, she recognized the danger they were in. "Everyone, step back now!" Lysandra quickly ordered.
Looking at the green fumes, Elrion knew the god of gues had infused Shar''s body with his essence to spread chaos, and gue upon his worshipper was killed. Although he felt disgusted at Morbus, he knew the time was of the essence. Hence, he quickly looked at Lysandra and a power-up atop a nearby building. Exchanging quick nods of understanding each other, Elrion grabbed Lysandra''s hand and threw her toward the power-up on a broken building. The force of his throw sent her gracefully flying, and shended neatly atop the structure.
"Don''t breathe in the fumes!" Elrion shouted frantically, gesturing for everyone to retreat.
The dwarf who was holding the fake key inhaled the air and immediately grimaced. "What the fuck is this stench?" he cursed. Momentster, his eyes turned a sickly green, and he began coughing up green blood.
"Shit, what''s happening to him?" hispanions eximed in horror.
Finally, Lysandra, now empowered with the ability to use Celestial energy, raised her hand skyward. "Cleansing Gale!" she dered, casting her spell. Arge swirling wind formed above Shar''s body, beginning to suck in the toxic green fumes.
Meanwhile, several unfortunate adventurers who had inhaled the fumes started showing symptoms simr to the dwarf''s. Their skin blistered and bled as they coughed up green blood, their bodies convulsing in agony before they copsed to the ground.
Elrion, who had held his breath, quickly ushered others away from the area, his expression one of urgency and concern. All the while, Lysandra''s spell worked tirelessly, cleansing the air of the deadly fumes, and preventing further contamination.
As Lysandra''s spell worked its magic, the green fumes began to dissipate, filtered out of the air. The adventurers who had managed to avoid breathing the toxic air heaved sighs of relief, though their expressions were marred by the grim sight of those who had died in agony.
"Thank god that''s over," one of the adventurers said, relief evident in his voice.
However, the moment of respite was short-lived. An elven woman, looking at her friend, noticed something rming. "Your forehead... there''s a green glow on it," she said, her voice tinged with fear.
Soon, more adventurers began to notice simr green glows on the people next to them. The atmosphere quickly turned from relief to dread.
Suspecting something, Elrion raised his long sword before his face, using its reflective surface to look at his own forehead. The green glow was there, unmistakable. "We''ve been marked by Morbus," He sighed deeply.
A wave of shock and fear rippled through the group as the reality of their situation set in.
"Holy shit, we''re marked for death!"
"Morbus, the god of gues? Are we all going to die like this?"
"This can''t be happening... Damn, those two for leading us into this!"
The adventurers, overwhelmed by their dire circumstances, instinctively began to pray to their respective deities.
"Zorian, God of the Sun, shine your damn light on us in this dark hour!" one adventurer called out, gazing upwards.
Another dropped to her knees, pleading, "Seshat, I need your guidance more than ever. Don''t leave us in this mess."
"Sitting around won''t help. We need to keep moving forward." Elrion asserted firmly.
As the adventurers prayed, a tangible mix of hope and desperation filled the air, each clinging to the belief that their gods would save them from the curse of Morbus. However, not everyone shared this sentiment.
A group of dwarves, who didn''t align with any gods, expressed their skepticism. "When''s thest time a damn god gave a crap about us, eh?" one of them grumbled, his voice tinged with bitterness.
"Yeah, right," another dwarf chimed in, "like the gods have ever lifted a finger to help us before. Bloody useless, the lot of them!"
His friends nodded in agreement, joining in with their own curses. "Those high and mighty gods are probablyughing at us right now!"
Amidst the growing discontent, others began to join the dwarves'' sentiments. "If we''re going down, we''re taking those two conniving bastards with us," a hardened adventurer dered.
"Yeah, to hell with praying! Let''s hunt down those two and make them pay!" another added, his words fueling a new resolve among the group.
This shift in mood marked a turn from helpless despair to a vengeful determination. United in their anger, the adventurers began to rally, ready to take matters into their own hands.
Meanwhile, Gaya and Michael were observing the unfolding drama from afar, using a mirror in Michael''s hand which ryed live feed from drones hovering above the scene.
"They are pissed as fuck," Gaya chuckled, watching the adventurers'' growing agitation.
"Do you see now why I didn''t kill Shar myself?" Michael said, his eyes not leaving the mirror.
"Yeah, thest thing we need is the god of gues as our enemy," Gaya agreed, understanding the bigger picture of their strategy.
"Let''s head over there and see what''s going to happen next," he suggested as he looked towards the golden house in the distance.
After a few moments, Michael and Gaya walked towards the golden house. In Gaya''s hand was the real key, its presence a constant reminder of the chaos they had left behind.
As they passed the nearby buildings, Gaya couldn''t help but find them creepy, their shadows casting eerie shapes in the fading light. She nced back, wondering about the fate of the adventurers they had outmaneuvered. "What do you think will happen to those adventurers?" she asked, a hint of concern in her voice.
"If their gods don''t save them, they''re as good as dead. Gods like Morbus don''t take kindly to losing worshippers," Michael replied with a certain grimness,
Greetings, beloved readers,
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
Chapter 1213 Dark Flames Upgrade Quest
1213 Dark mes Upgrade Quest
Eventually, Michael and Gaya reached the golden house, its grandeur standing in stark contrast to the chaos they had left behind. With a sense of finality, Michael pushed open therge door. The timer in the sky continued to trickle down, but it seemed irrelevant now; they had outsmarted everyone, orchestrating Shar''s death using the adventurers, Lysandra, and Elrion.
Upon entering, they were greeted by an empty hall. The door shut ominously behind them, sealing them inside. The hall was stark, with gray walls and intermittent golden lights casting an eerie glow over the space.
Michael''s gaze was drawn to the center of the room where a treasure chest sat. The chest was ornate, its surface intricately decorated with carvings and jewels that sparkled under the golden light. It seemed almost too regal, too perfect.
"Bloody hell, be careful," Gaya warned, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "This reeks of a trap. That bastard Silvaris is probablyughing his ass off somewhere."
Michael, cautious yet curious, scanned the room with his X-ray vision. To his surprise, he found no traps. "Stay back," he instructed Gaya as he cautiously approached the chest.
With a hint of excitement in her voice, Gaya tossed him the golden key. "Don''t forget this," she said, a smirk ying on her lips.
Michael caught the key effortlessly and crouched down on one knee, inserting the key into the keyhole. With a satisfying click, the chest slowly creaked open.
"I''ll be damned," Gaya eximed in awe as her eyes fell upon the treasure inside. The chest was filled with gold coins, diamonds, rubies, and glowing high-grade celestial crystals.
"I take back everything bad I said about Silvaris," she admitted, her eyes twinkling with greed and fascination. Her mind was already calcting the total worth of their loot, envisioning the fortune they would amass by selling everything, excluding the gold coins.
Meanwhile, Michael''s gaze was fixed on a ss orb sitting at the center of the treasure. His appraisal function kicked in, and a message appeared in his mind. [The Wishing Orb, an ancient artifact, locates what the holder needs most in the future once].
Michael nonchntly waved his hand, and the contents of the treasure chest vanished, absorbed into his system store. Gaya stepped closer, curiosity piqued as she noticed the orb in his hand.
"What''s that?" she asked, eyeing the orb.
"It locates what I need the most in the future," Michael exined. "But it''s a one-time use only."
"Shit," Gaya muttered, disappointed by the orb''s limitation.
Focusing on the orb, Michael saw a vision unfold before him: a grand pce made of intertwining trees, green vines, and blooming flowers.
"Why isn''t it showing anything?" Gaya asked, trying to peek into the orb.
"I can see it. Seems like only the holder can," Michael replied, his gaze fixed on the vision. "I''m looking at a pce... it''s like it''s alive, made entirely of nature."
As he described the scene, the vision inside the orb shifted, moving deeper into the pce. It revealed a frozen ice crystal, and within it, dark mes burned with a mysterious glow.
"Dark mes..." Michael murmured, intrigued by the sight.
Suddenly, a quest notification from his system popped up.
[The quest "Upgrade the Dark mes" hasmenced. Retrieve the essence of dark mes and upgrade the dark mes to the next level]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive a 15% boost to Fire Maniption and a one-level upgrade to all fire-rted spells]
Michael looked at the orb with newfound interest, realizing the journey ahead just became even more intriguing. "Looks like we''ve got our next adventure lined up," he said to Gaya, a determined glint in his eyes.
But the moment of discovery was abruptly interrupted as the door to the hall was kicked open. Gaya quickly turned around to see Elrion leading the rest of the adventurers into the hall. Their faces were marked with anger, a clear reflection of their feelings about being manipted by Michael and Gaya with the fake key, leading to Shar''s death and the subsequent curse of Morbus.
"You conniving bastards!" one of the adventurers shouted, his face red with fury.
"You tricked us into killing Shar, and now we''re marked for death because of you assholes!" another yelled, his voiceced with bitterness and resentment.
"We should make you pay for leading us into this damn mess!" a third adventurer added, the group''s collective anger boiling over.
Unfazed by their hostility, Gayaughed at their outburst. "Look at you all, worked up over being outsmarted. It''s almost sad how you fell for such a simple trick," she taunted, her words dripping with mockery.
Herughter and words only fueled the adventurers'' anger, but she stood her ground, clearly amused by their reaction to the situation they found themselves in.
Soon, Gaya''s gaze shifted to Elrion and Lysandra, who stood beside him, and she asked provocatively, "So, what''s it going to be? You two nning to fight us?"
"I have no intention of fighting you. We fell for your trick; we did the deeds, not you. It''s on us." Elrion replied calmly yet firmly.
Finally, Michael turned around and nodded at Elrion in appreciation of his decision. It made sense, considering Elrion was a devout follower of the God of Valor and Bravery. His stance was one of acknowledging their own mistakes rather than ming others.
As Michael stepped aside, the rest of the adventurers caught sight of the empty chest. Their anger and greed erupted like a volcano.
"They cleaned out the chest!" one of them shouted, disbelief and rage in his voice. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Let''s kill them and take whatever they stole!" another suggested, his eyes glinting with greed.
"What the hell was in there?" a third adventurer wondered aloud, the mystery adding to their frustration.
Some elves, d in golden armor, tried to use their family''s reputation and power to intimidate Michael and Gaya. "Hand over what you took, or you''ll answer to the power of our house!" they threatened, their postures brimming with entitlement and authority.
Despite the mounting tension and aggression in the room, Michael and Gaya remainedposed, aware that the situation could escte into a conflict at any moment.
Meanwhile, Michael''s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of Jin hiding in the shadows of the hall, but he chose to pretend not to notice, keeping his focus on the situation at hand.
Although the adventures''appearances varied, they all shared the same green glow on their foreheads ¨C a mark of Morbus.
"You''ve damned us all, you bastards!" a burly human shouted, his face contorted in anger.
"This is all your fault! We''re marked for death because of you!" an elf yelled, her elegant features twisted in fury.
"We should make you pay for every damn thing you''ve put us through!" a dwarf added, his voice gruff and filled with bitterness.
Attempting to defuse the situation, Lysandra spoke up with a calm authority. "Fighting won''t solve anything. We need to think this through."
However, her words fell on deaf ears. The adventurers, too consumed by their anger and desire for retribution, refused to heed the counsel of someone who, like Elrion, was revered as a hero in both Aurumvale and the realm of gods.
"Think this through? Bullshit! They''ve screwed us over!" one adventurer spat out, dismissing her advice.
"We''re past talking, thanks to these two," another added scornfully.
Their refusals were peppered with curses and swear words, a clear indication that they were not in a mood to listen or negotiate. The tension escted as they drew their weapons, slowly advancing towards Michael and Gaya, ready for confrontation.
The elves of Aurumvale, with their air of arrogance and entitlement, issued another warning. "Hand over what you''ve taken, or face the consequences. You don''t want to mess with us," one of them threatened, his voice dripping with superiority.
Their demeanor was confrontational, and their intent was clear: they were not going to let Michael and Gaya leave without a fight or without relinquishing the treasures they believed were rightfully theirs. 23:03
Their demeanor was confrontational, and their intent was clear: they were not going to let Michael and Gaya leave without a fight or without relinquishing the treasures they believed were rightfully theirs. As the adventurers closed in, their eyes caught sight of the ss orb in Michael''s hand. Realizing it must have been part of the treasure chest and likely a valuable artifact, their focus shifted.
"That orb, hand it over now, you thieving bastards!" one of the adventurers demanded, his voiceced with greed and aggression.
"You really think we''re going to let you walk out with that? Give it here, or we''ll take it by force!" another yelled, brandishing his weapon.
Amidst the threats, Gaya nonchntly cracked her neck and pulled out her bow, quickly nocking an arrow. Her eyes gleamed with a ruthless intent as she faced the crowd.
"Try me, you idiots. I dare you to take one more step," she taunted, her voice cold and menacing. "I''m not afraid to turn this ce into a bloodbath. So, who wants to be the first to get an arrow through their skull?"
Just as the standoff reached reached its peak, an unexpected twist urred. Silvaris''s ethereal figure emerged from the ground, his presence instantly grabbing everyone''s attention.
"Well, well, well, look at this delightful mess!" Silvaris mocked, a wicked grin on his spectral face. "You all fell right into their trap, and now you''re marked for death. Bravo!"
The adventurers, caught off guard, reacted with a mix of shock and anger.
"You son of a bitch, this is your doing!" one of the adventurers shouted, his voice seething with rage.
Silvarisughed, reveling in the fear and turmoil he was creating. "Oh, it gets better! Imagine what Morbus, the god of gues, will do to you. Maybe he''ll turn you into walking corpses, or perhaps you''ll just wither away in agony."
The adventurers'' fear was palpable, their faces turning pale as they contemted their grim fate.
"You''re enjoying this, aren''t you, you sick fuck?" another adventurer spat out, his voice trembling.
"Of course, I am! It''s not every day you see such a splendid disy of desperation and stupidity," Silvaris replied, his amusement clear.
"But," Silvaris began, drawing out the word with a sly tone, "I do have a cure for your little ''mark of death'' problem. To get it, though, you''ll need the blood of those who haven''t been marked."
His gaze then shifted devilishly towards Michael and Gaya, the only two in the room without the ominous green glow on their foreheads.
Gaya immediately realized the implications of Silvaris''s words and snapped, "I hate this asshole,"
But Silvaris just ignored herments and continued.
"Oh, not just a drop or two. I''m afraid I''ll need a lot of blood. Quite a lot, indeed." Silvaris''s grin widened as he replied nonchntly.
Greetings, beloved readers,
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
Chapter 1214 Traitor Goddess Marli Is Back
1214 Traitor Goddess Marli Is Back
With a flick of his wrist, Silvaris conjured arge bowl from the ground while simultaneously opening a swirling portal on the other side of the room.
"Fill this bowl with enough of their blood, and the cure will appear," Silvaris instructed, gesturing towards Michael and Gaya. "For those who wish to bypass this delightful challenge and proceed to the next level, that portal is your way forward. But where''s the fun in that?"
He then let out augh, adding, "In this level, you two," pointing at Michael and Gaya, "are the dungeon bosses."
The adventurers'' anger boiled over at Silvaris''s announcement, their frustrations vocalized in a flurry of heated dialogue.
"This is some messed up shit!"
"We''re being yed like pawns in this damn game!"
"That bastard Silvaris is enjoying every bit of this!"
"We either bleed them or get stuck with this death mark... What kind of sick choice is that?"
As the adventurers voiced their anger and desperation, Silvaris continued tough, thoroughly entertained by the turmoil he had created. "Good luck," he said with a wicked grin before disappearing, leaving the adventurers to grapple with their grim choices.
"What''s stopping us from just walking into that portal, huh?" Gaya justughed, unfazed by the situation.
Herment was met with fear and shock from some of the weaker adventurers. "You can''t just do that!" one of them eximed.
Speaking calmly amidst the chaos, Michael pointed out, "How could Silvaris have a cure when he couldn''t have predicted Shar''s death? This smells like another one of his traps."
Despite his logical reasoning, the adventurers were too desperate to consider his words. They were convinced he was trying to deceive them again.
"He''s lying! They just want to escape!"
"They''re tricking us again, don''t listen to them!"
At that moment, the room was a filled with usations and paranoia. Amidst this, Elrion stepped forward, his demeanor firm and resolute. "Enough," he said, addressing Michael and Gaya. "Bleed into the bowl and let''s end this. We get the cure, there is no need for a fight. It''s the honorable thing to do, and we''ll hold up our end."
In response to Elrion''s words, Gaya''s response was as defiant as it was chilling. "If any of youy a finger on us, this bowl will be filled, but not with our blood," she threatened, her voiceced with menace. She cracked her neck, her posture and tone exuding her ruthless nature. "Try me, you stupid assholes. I''m not going down without painting this hall red with your blood."
While Michael could easily dash into the portal, he saw an opportunity to earn more badass points. Beating the hell out of the adventurers seemed like a good way to do it, so he let Gaya antagonize them further.
The adventurers, including the entitled elves of Aurumvale, reacted with a mix of anger and fear to Gaya''s words.
"She''s threatening us? After all they''ve done?"
"We can''t let them bully us like this!"
"Those two are dead!"
Amidst the rising tension, Elrion unsheathed his golden long sword, preparing himself for what seemed like an inevitable confrontation. He looked around at the adventurers and. "If it''s a fight they want, it''s a fight they''ll get. We stand our ground here, for honor and for justice." He dered, looking around at the adventures.
Finally, Elrion tookmand, coordinating the diverse group of adventurers. Among them were burly dwarves d in heavy armor, lithe elves with sharp eyes, and rugged humans, each wielding their weapons with grim determination.
"Elves, cover the left nk. Dwarves, strengthen the front line," Elrion instructed, his voice clear and authoritative. He then turned to a group of humans.
"You three, keep an eye on the rear. We can''t let them slip past us."
Then, he specifically addressed Lysandra, "Guard the portal to the next stage. We can''t afford to let them escape."
Turning back to Michael and Gaya, Elrion repeated his earlier statement, "Bleed into the bowl, and we can end this without a fight. The cure is our only hope. You can choose to be heroes in this, not viins."
"Heroes? We''re the farthest thing from heroes. You really think we''d just roll over for you lot?" Gayaughed at his words, her tone mocking.
The adventurers, their patience wearing thin, reacted with their own blend of anger and impatience.
"We''re done talking! Let''s just take what we need from them!"
"Yeah, screw this hero talk. They''ve screwed us over enough!"
"This ends now, one way or another!"
Despite the rising hostility, Elrion maintained hisposure, keeping his sword at the ready. "Stay alert," he advised his makeshift alliance. "We need to do this right."
As Elrion slowly approached Michael and Gaya, the tension in the room escted to a breaking point. Calm andposed, Michael turned to Gaya and said.
"Take care of the others; I''ll deal with him," nodding towards Elrion.
"With pleasure," Gaya responded with a grin. She cracked her neck, readying herself for the impending battle.
The fight erupted into chaos. Gaya faced off against the adventurers, utilizing her agility andbat skills. The elves, swift and precise,unched a barrage of arrows, while the dwarves charged in with their axes, creating a formidable front line as per Elrion''s strategy. The humans, versatile and determined, nked Gaya, trying to catch her off guard.
"Surround her!" one of the elves shouted, loosing an arrow.
"Keep her busy. Don''t let her breathe!" a dwarf bellowed, swinging his axe.
However, Gaya danced between their attacks with lethal grace, her bowstring singing as arrows flew from her bow. "Is that all you''ve got?" she taunted, her voice filled with contempt and amusement.
While Gaya was engaging the adventurers with her swift and deadly moves, Elrion stood facing Michael, embodying the essence of bravery and valor he so devoutly followed. "Your selfish decision is causing all this chaos," Elrion stated, his voice steady and determined.
"Nice speech," Michael snickered at Elrion''s words, a taunting smile on his face. The duel between Michael and Elrion was a disy of skill and agility. Elrion, with his golden long sword,unched a series of powerful and well-calcted strikes. Each swing was deliberate, aimed with precision and force.
However, Michael was a blur of motion, his movements abination of agility and acrobatics. He effortlessly evaded Elrion''s attacks, ducking under sweeping shes and leaping over thrusts. His style was fluid and unpredictable, making it difficult for Elrion tond a blow.
"Arggh," Elrion growled in frustration and aimed a fierce downward strike, but Michael sidestepped at thest moment, spinning away from the de''s path. He then executed a swift backflip, narrowly avoiding another rapid session of shes from Elrion.
Michael''s evasion was not just about escaping harm but it was almost like a dance, each move flowing seamlessly into the next.
On the other side of the hall, Gaya took the fight to a new level. Leaping into the air with the agility of a cat, she fired a series of explosive arrows towards the adventurers attacking her. The arrowsnded amidst the group with devastating effect, the resulting sts throwing the attackers off their feet.
The adventurers were sent sprawling across the floor, coughing up blood from the sheer force of the explosions. Some clutched broken limbs, others groaned in pain from the concussive impact, their armor dented and charred from the sts.
Meanwhile, Jin remained a silent observer, watching the chaos unfold from a dark corner. His presence went unnoticed by most, but Michael, in the midst of his duel with Elrion, caught a glimpse of Jin. Despite this, he kept his focus on Elrion, who was proving to be a formidable opponent.
Growing increasingly frustrated by his inability tond a hit, Elrion couldn''t help but acknowledge Michael''s skills. "You''re quite the fighter," he growled, admiration mixed with irritation in his voice.
In response, Michael simply grinned and continued his evasive maneuvers. He ducked under a powerful swing, pivoted on his heel to avoid a stabbing thrust, and used his agility to create openings in Elrion''s defenses, though he refrained from exploiting them fully. [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 25,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 15,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 14,000 Badass points] ¡
"Let''s take this to the next level," Michael dered, a determined look in his eyes. In a swift and unexpected move, he caught Elrion''s sword by the de, his hand positioned just right to avoid being cut.
With Elrion momentarily stunned by the bold maneuver, Michael unleashed a rapid session of furious punches. Each blownded with precision and force, culminating in a powerful kick that sent Elrion flying across the room.
The adventurers, who had been fervently attacking Gaya, stopped in their tracks, shocked by what they had just witnessed.
"Holy shit, did he just...?"
"He caught the sword with his bare hands!"
"That kick sent Elrion flying like a ragdoll!"
Even Lysandra, who had been guarding the portal and watching the fight unfold, raised her eyebrows in surprise at the disy of Michael''s prowess.
Above the battlefield, away from the chaos within the golden house, Raphael hovered, d in his distinctive crimson red battle armor. His gaze was fixed on the scene below, analyzing the unfolding events with a strategic eye.
Suddenly, a green-haired woman appeared behind him. She wore a revealing dress that contrasted sharply with the seriousness of Raphael''s armor. Her expression was one of amusement as she observed the battle below.
Sensing her presence, Raphael turned to her with a slightly quizzical look. "Are you sure about this, Goddess Marli?" he asked, knowing the history between the goddess and the God of Darkness.
n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Chapter 1215 A way to reach level 3 Godhood instantly
Chapter 1215 A way to reach level 3 Godhood instantly
The battle within the golden house raged on. Gaya, with her bow drawn, was a whirlwind of lethal grace. She maneuvered through the adventurers, her arrows finding their marks with deadly uracy.
"Come on, you slowpokes! Is that all you''ve got?" she taunted, dodging an axe swing from a burly dwarf. "I thought you lot were supposed to be tough!"
Her opponents, fueled by rage and desperation, responded with a barrage of attacks and a stream of curses.
"We''re gonna tear you apart, you arrogant bitch!" shouted a human warrior, swinging his sword with fury.
"Get her! She can''t take us all!" an elf yelled, firing arrows in rapid session.
Meanwhile, Michael and Elrion''s duel had escted. Michael, disying exceptionalbat skills, parried and countered Elrion''s strikes with a fluidity that seemed almost supernatural.
"Nice try, but you''re going to have to do better than that!" Michael taunted as he sidestepped a powerful thrust and retaliated with a series of fast punches.
Elrion, undeterred by Michael''s prowess, responded with a blend of disciplined swordy and tactical strikes. "I will not falter in the face of arrogance," he dered, his de moving in swift, calcted arcs.
Despite Elrion''s skill and determination, Michael''s agility andbat expertise gave him the upper hand. Each exchange between them was a testament to their abilities, a dance of des and fists that left the onlookers in awe.
Observing the chaos, Lysandra remained stoic, her eyes tracking every movement. She was ready to intervene if necessary but for now, she chose to watch, her expression unreadable amidst the battle.
The longer Michael fought and yed with Elrion, the more badass points he received. On the other hand, the adventures who failed to even make Gaya and Michael shed even a drop of blood began to shout in frustration.
A tall, muscr human with a scarred face and heavy armor swung his sword in a wide arc, missing Gaya by inches. "Damn it! Stand still, you slippery bitch!" he bellowed, frustration clear in his voice.
An elf with sleek, dark hair and light leather armor loosed arrow after arrow, each missing its target. "Son of a... How can she dodge everything?" he cursed, his fingers moving swiftly to nock another arrow.
"By the stones, I''ll chop you into pieces! Just let mend one good hit!" growled a stout dwarf, his beard braided and his face red with anger, swung his axe furiously.
But suddenly, Michael''s casual smile on his face froze. Then, before Michael could even react, the rooftop of the golden house crashed down with a massive explosion that sent everyone flying away. The force of the explosion was big enough for even Michael to go flying like a kite without the anchor in the storm. At that moment, the smoke and debris shrouded the house, blocking the view of everything. Through the smoke, gaya growled and tried to stand up. However, arge chunk of debrief pinned her down. Despite her raw strength, she couldn''t lift it up to escape. "Argh... get off..." she growled, exerting all her might to move the debris, but it wouldn''t budge.
Around her, the aftermath of the explosion was grim and devastating. Gaya''s eyes scanned the area, revealing a harrowing scene. Several adventurersy motionless, their bodies twisted in unnatural angles, a testament to the explosion''s brutal force. Some were barely recognizable, covered in dust and blood, their armor shattered and torn.
One adventurer, a young elf who had been swift and agile, nowy still, his limbs syed at odd angles, a look of surprise forever etched on his face. Nearby, a dwarf, previously robust and fierce, was crushed under a fallen beam, his once vibrant eyes now lifeless and dull.
"Human, where are you?" Gaya asked through the earpiece, but then realized it had been thrown away due to the explosion.
Desperately, she searched for Michael as she vaguely saw two figures descending from the exploded roof. To Gaya''s surprise, vines and flora began to cover the ground, and the vines constricted around everyone, including the dead bodies.
"Shit," Gaya growled, watching a thick vine coil around her.
Meanwhile, Michael got back to his feet and spat the blood in his mouth. Before he could move, the vines coiled around his legs, arms, and neck, constricting him.
"Game over, God of Darkness," came the familiar voice of Raphael. Then, several golden swords, powered by Celestial energy and possessing the power of a level 6 Elden God, flew out of nowhere and struck Michael in several ces.
The swords glowed as if forged from the essence of the sun itself, preventing Michael from tapping into his powers.
As Raphael emerged from the smoke, his armor radiating with golden energy, Michael realized Raphael had absorbed the grace of a high-level god, significantly enhancing his power. It was clear Raphael was not ying around anymore.
What surprised Michael even more was the person walking beside Raphael, Marli.
"Marli," Michael growled, blood trickling from his lips. He vividly remembered how she betrayed him, cutting his neck and sending him to Hades as well as his encounter with Dagon.
"How are you, God of Darkness?" Marli asked with an amused smile.
"Remove these, and I''ll show you," Michael calmly answered, only to see Marli chuckle.
"Oh, honey, you don''t have to rush this. Thanks to the deal I made with Andohr, I am now a Greater God, not a Demi-God anymore," Marli said with triumphantughter. Her ascension from level 2 Godhood as a Demi-God to level 3 Godhood as a Greater God had significantly boosted her power. Since Michael was still at the Demi-God level, Marli now outranked him in terms of Godhood level. This put Michael at a temporary disadvantage.
Despite his current situation, bound by the constricting vines and impaled by celestial swords, Michael''s demeanor remainedposed. But a cold, calcted killing intent briefly flickered in his eyes, betraying his thoughts.
"You areing with us to the pantheon to answer for your crimes, rogue god," Raphael stated, his tone icy and unforgiving.
"What crimes?" Michael asked, a hint of mockery in his voice, even as blood continued to trickle down from his wounds.
"The crime of killing a god, honey," Marli interjected, her smile both sweet and sinister.
Just the mention of killing a god from Marli showed Michael the extent of the panic in the pantheon.. To his surprise, this earned Michael the whooping fifty thousand badass points at once. However, he was not in the situation to enjoy the rain of badass points. Instead, Michael wanted to find a way out of this quickly.
"You can''t kill a god, Marli. Don''t try to y games with me," Michael lied, trying to sow a seed of doubt in Raphael''s heart. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Is that so?" Marli replied, her smile turning seductive as she ran her hands down his chest provocatively.
"Then you have nothing to fear, darling. You could even strike a deal with the pantheon. It might be your only way out of Andohr''s wrath," she suggested.
"We are not here to waste time, Goddess Marli," Raphael interjected, his patience wearing thin. However, Marli seemed more interested in toying with Michael.
"We both know there''s no deal that can bring peace between me and Andohr," Michael replied calmly, his gaze locked with Marli''s.
Marli sighed, a hint of disappointment in her demeanor. "Well, it was worth a try. You''re as clever as always," she conceded.
"But the same can''t be said for you, Marli. You yed a dangerous game crossing me," Michael countered, his voice steady.
"A game I won, God of Darkness. Despite being trapped in your clever prison, Andohr still has some tricks up his sleeve. Siding with him allowed me to ascend to Level 3 Godhood, a feat many gods dream of achieving," Marli boasted, once again emphasizing her newfound power.
Raphael, meanwhile, remained silent, his expression unreadable.
[The quest "God Killer II" hasmenced... Seek vengeance against Marli and avenge Marli''s worshippers...]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will be able to instantly reach level 3 Godhood level - The Greater God.]
The sudden notifications and the quest from the system caught Michael offguard. At the same time, it also showed him the significance of killing Marli. Even the system seemed to hate Marli more than anything. However, to kill Marli, he needed to escape Raphael and Marli.
Fortunately for Michael, Marli and Raphael were unaware of Gaya''s presence in the hall. While Marli enjoyed teasing Michael, Gaya was trying to find a way out and found the portal was still glowing in the corner.
"Cut the shit, Marli. Why are you really here? Something tells me you are here for more than gloating," Michael snickered.
"Perceptive as always. I am here for the remains of Vedora, honey. You see, Andohr has taken a special interest in your hydra," Marli eximed as she was confident that Raphael wouldn''t let Michael escape. This confidence of her made her blurt out some crucial information to Michael.
Of course, Michael''s special friend informed him about Andohr''s little project of reanimating Vedora, who lived and died five thousand years ago. But Michael was d to know Marli was here to reach the dungeon''s center to retrieve the remains. "Believe me when I say this, honey, Andohr has ns that will make you shudder¡ He has ns for you, your family, and everything you care and love,"
"Enough of this," Finally, Raphael lost his patience and raised his voice. "It is time I finish my duty and bring him to the pantheon. You can have your little chat over there," Raphael said, preparing to teleport Michael to the pantheon.
Chapter 1216 Spell Upgrades I
Chapter 1216 Spell Upgrades I
As Raphael prepared to cast the teleportation spell, Gaya, seizing the moment of distraction, transformed into her formidable naga form. Her appearance as a massive, purple-scaled king cobra, towering ten feet tall, momentarily stunned both Raphael and Marli.
Without hesitation, Gaya swung a massive chunk of the rooftop debris at them. Raphael, reacting swiftly, snapped his fingers, conjuring a flurry of golden swords that shattered the boulder into dust. But this brief distraction was all Gaya needed.
In that critical moment, Michael capitalized on the opportunity. He delivered a forceful kick to Marli''s chest, propelling himself backward. Simultaneously, Gaya''s tail swiftly coiled around him,unching him into the shimmering portal. She then followed suit, diving into the portal after him, ensuring their escape.
"What just happened?" Marli asked, her tone amused but concealing her surprise at the sudden turn of events.
Raphael, on the other hand, was visibly frustrated. His usualposed demeanor had vanished, reced by a sense of urgency and annoyance. Under pressure from Zorian to capture the God of Darkness, Raphael could not afford any dys or failures.
"They escaped. That''s what happened. Your theatrics have jeopardized my mission, Goddess Marli," Raphael growled, his voiceced with irritation and disappointment.
Despite being tasked with apprehending the God of Darkness, Raphael harbored a grudging respect for Michael. However, his feelings towards Marli were far from respectful. He viewed her betrayal as a grievous sin, far worse than any other transgression.
"They can''t run forever, Raphael. They''ll head to the dungeon''s center for Vedora''s remains. That''s where we''ll trap them," Marli strategized, her chuckle hinting at her confidence.
"And keep an eye on that Naga. There''s something unusual about her power," she added, recalling the force behind Gaya''s attack.
***********************
In the dark, abyrinthine maze where Michael and Gaya found themselves, an eerie silence enveloped them. The only sounds were their own breaths and the distant, indiscernible echoes of the maze. With concern etched on her face, Gaya hurried to Michael''s side, her eyes widening at the sight of his injury.
"Michael!" she eximed, her voice shaking as she saw the golden swords embedded in his body. As Michael grimly pulled a sword from his chest, blood spurted from the wound, staining his clothes and dripping onto the ground.
"I''m going to tear those bastards apart!" Gaya growled fiercely, her anger palpable. She quickly shifted back to her human form, her hands moving deftly to assist Michael in removing the remaining swords.
"He''s not ying around anymore," Michael grunted through clenched teeth, his expression a mix of pain and determination.
"We underestimated him," Gaya admitted, her eyes aze with a desire for vengeance.
Michael attempted to absorb the energy of the golden swords using his Energy Devourer ability, but to his frustration, the swords vanished as soon as they were removed from his body. The pain of extraction was intense, and the inability to absorb their energy only added to his irritation.
Sensing Michael''s difort, Gaya looked at him with a mix of worry and resolve. "Please tell me we''re going to make them pay for this," she said, her voice thick with vengeance.
"Marli, definitely. But Raphael... there''s something about him that''s not quite clear," Michael replied, his voice trailing off as he pondered the enigmatic nature of Raphael.
"Shut up, Michael. We''re going to kill him. He almost killed you," Gaya shot back, her toneced with concern and frustration. However, Michael managed a small, pained smile in response. His APD had already kicked in, releasing a healing potion into his bloodstream to treat his wounds.
To their astonishment, while the wounds closed, the scars remained, looking like burns from intense mes. This was a stark reminder of the formidable power wielded by Zorian, whose grace Raphael had absorbed. Unknown to Michael, Raphael had been forced to consume a special potion to temporarily ascend to the Soul Ignition Realm, a necessary step to absorb the grace of a level 6 god like Zorian. Without this boost, Raphael wouldn''t have been able to handle such a powerful sliver of grace.
(Initiate Realm, Qi Awakening Realm, Spiritual Embryo Realm, Elemental Attunement Realm, Celestial Resonance Realm, Soul Ignition Realm, Ethereal Fusion Realm, Void Transcendence Realm, Divine Ascendancy Realm)
"Are you going to be alright?" Gaya asked, her eyes reflecting a hint of worry as she watched Michael methodically remove the short swords from his body.
"When was I ever not?" Michael replied calmly, his smile unwavering even in the face of pain.
As he extracted thest short sword, Gaya''s attention shifted to their surroundings. The maze''s walls loomed around them, dark and imposing, with a ceiling thirty feet high, just as shadowy and daunting. The lone path before them stretched into the darkness, its end hidden from view.
"Where are we?" Gaya queried, her gaze sweeping across the unfamiliar surroundings.
To her surprise and relief, she felt a connection to the Celestial energy around her. Despite not having ascended to the realm of gods through the traditional means ¨C a path that had been inessible for the past five thousand years ¨C Gaya still retained her Celestial stage cultivation from the mortal realm. In the mortal realm, the Celestial stage represented the pinnacle of power and cultivation. However, in the realm of gods, it paled inparison, even to the lowest cultivation stages of that realm.
Gaya''s situation was somewhat unique. In the realm of gods, the majority of beingscked any cultivation, as achieving it required an immense amount of resources, the favor of a god, and considerable wealth, privileges that few possessed. Therefore, even Gaya''s rtively modest power from Celestial stage cultivation was formidable enough to hold her own against many adventurers. This disparity had allowed her to fight effectively against numerous challengers, despite her technically lower standing in the hierarchy of power. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Once the APD had fully healed Michael''s wounds, he started down the wide path stretching out before him. The ancient, untouched appearance of the path suggested it hadn''t been walked by any soul for millennia.
"How are we going to kill that bitch?" Gaya asked, her voiceced with a mix of curiosity and killing intent, as she walked alongside Michael.
"I''m working on it," Michael replied, his focus turning to the system interface.
"System, decode the Grimoire of Gods and find a way to kill Marli," hemanded. The Grimoire of Gods, a book penned by an angel of Seshat, contained information on how to eliminate nearly all gods. Its only drawback was the hefty cost of badass points required by the system to decode the necessary information each time.
As Michael issued themand, the system promptly requested a payment of three million badass points for the decoding process.
[The system will finish decoding in two days¡]
The system''s notification appeared, setting a clear timeline for their next steps.
As Michael and Gaya cautiously traversed the deste path, the ground beneath them suddenly trembled, followed by a distant, thunderous mooing sound that echoed through the maze.
"What was that?" Gaya asked, her hand instinctively reaching for the short sword at her waist, her senses heightened by the unexpected noise.
Before they could specte further, Silvaris''s ethereal figure emerged from the ground. "tsk, tsk, tsk" He clicked his tongue sarcastically.
"You are not supposed to be here alone," he said, his voice dripping with faux concern.
Silvaris then let out augh, adding, "Oh, I forgot how we had party crashers."
His amusement was evident as he continued, "I didn''t expect a goddess and thepdog of the pantheon toe crashing my party. This is bing more entertaining than I anticipated."
Silvaris''s tone turned mocking as he expressed his ''pity'' for their situation. "Good luck navigating this maze and defeating the surprise I have in store for you," he said, hisughter echoing ominously as his figure faded away, leaving Michael and Gaya alone once again in the eerie silence of the maze.
Gaya''s frustration was palpable as she watched Silvaris vanish. "Did I tell you how much I hate that son of a bitch?" she growled, her annoyance evident.
However, Michael paid no heed to herment or Silvaris''s taunting departure. His mind was preupied with the vision he had seen in the orb taken from Silvaris''s treasure chest. The image of the dark mes, frozen within a house crafted from nature, lingered in his thoughts. The connection to Marli seemed usible, given the simrity between the house''s naturalposition and Marli''s affinity with the forest.
With the quest to kill Marli now added to his list, Michael found himself juggling four major quests. The first involved unlocking Vedora''s powers, a task shrouded in mystery and potential danger. The second quest, and arguably the most challenging, was to help Gaya embrace her destiny as the Goddess of Monsters, aiding her in navigating theplex rtionship between beast tamers and the creatures of the realm. The third quest, to upgrade the dark mes, promised to enhance his own powers significantly. And finally, there was the God Killer II quest ¨C the mission to eliminate Marli.
Michael''s resolve hardened as he considered their next move. "Let''s reach the dungeon''s center and throw a wrench in Marli''s ns. She''s probably setting a trap for us, but this time, I''ll be the one with the surprises," he said, a determined chuckle in his voice.
Despite Raphael''s earlier advantage, Michael was confident that in their next encounter, it would be he who held the upper hand. The element of surprise, which Raphael had used effectively before, would now be Michael''s to wield.
Chapter 1217 Spell Upgrades II
Chapter 1217 Spell Upgrades II
Michael and Gaya delved deeper into the convoluted maze, its paths twisting and turning in a seemingly endless tangle. The walls of the maze were high and imposing, crafted from dark stone that absorbed the faint light, casting long, ominous shadows.
"Are you sure we''re not just going in circles?" Gaya asked, her frustration growing with every turn that led them seemingly nowhere. "This ce is a damnbyrinth!"
"Patience, Gaya. Mazes are meant to be confusing," Michael replied, trying to keep his bearings amidst the ever-changing paths.
They encountered dead ends and deceptive turns, each pathway leading to moreplexity rather than providing any rity. The air was stale, and the silence was only broken by their footsteps and the asional distant, eerie sound that seemed toe from nowhere.
"Damn it, this is pointless!" Gaya cursed, kicking a loose stone in annoyance. "We could be here forever at this rate."
Michael paused, examining the patterns of the walls, looking for any signs or markers. "We need to find a system to navigate this. Let''s mark our path. Maybe we can find a pattern or a clue."
They began marking the walls with scratches, trying to map out their journey. Despite their efforts, the maze seemed to defy logic, itsyout aplex puzzle that tested their patience and resolve.
"I swear, if I find Silvaris, I''m going to make him eat these walls," Gaya muttered under her breath, her voice echoing slightly in the vast expanse of the maze.
"Focus on the task at hand. We''ll deal with Silvarister," Michael advised, though he shared her sentiment.
Hours passed as they ventured through thebyrinth, their progress slow and arduous. The maze was a formidable obstacle, designed to disorient and frustrate its travelers. But Michael and Gaya were not ones to give up easily. After pausing amidst the seemingly endless twists and turns of the maze, Michael mused aloud, "Silvaris always says we need to think like a thief, right? So, what would a thief do in this situation?"
Gaya, leaning against the cold wall, looked thoughtful for a moment. "A thief would look for the path of most resistance, not the easiest one. Traps mean we''re heading somewhere important," she suggested, her eyes scanning their surroundings.
"Exactly. Let''s keep an eye out for anything unusual or dangerous. It could lead us to the right path," Michael agreed, his gaze sharp and focused.
They proceeded with renewed purpose, carefully observing the maze for any signs of traps or hidden mechanisms. After a while, they stumbled upon a pathway lined with ancient skeletons, their bones scattered haphazardly across the ground.
"Look at this," Gaya pointed out, crouching beside one of the skeletons. "These poor bastards look like they were taken out by traps. We must be on the right track."
"Finally, some good news," Michael sighed, though he remained vignt. "But let''s not end up like them. Watch your step."
As they advanced, Gaya''s eyes darted around, looking for any hidden dangers. "Damn, this is like walking through a minefield. Silvaris really went all out with this death trap."
"Yeah, he''s a real piece of work," Michael muttered, carefully avoiding a loose tile that looked suspiciously like a pressure te.
The further they ventured, the more frequent the traps became ¨C from hidden spikes that shot from the walls to copsing floors and swinging des. It was a perilous journey, but the presence of traps confirmed they were heading in the right direction.
"Got to hand it to Silvaris, the bastard knows how to make a memorable maze," Gaya quipped with a wry smile, skillfully dodging a hidden dart.
"Let''s just hope the ''memorable'' part doesn''t include us joining these skeletons," Michael replied, leading the way with cautious steps. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
As Michael and Gaya continued their cautious trek through the maze, the skeletons littering the ground began to stir. Their bones rattled and clicked as they reanimated, their eye sockets glowing with an eerie green light.
"Great, now we''ve got walking bones to deal with," Gaya cursed, drawing her sword.
Michael activated his Eyes of Darkness to assess their new adversaries and was taken aback by what he saw. Each skeleton was surrounded by a yellow aura, indicating they possessed a power levelparable to his own. Defeating them wouldn''t be a matter of brute force; it would require strategy and cunning.
"Looks like we''ve got a real fight on our hands. These aren''t your average pile of bones," Michael noted, his expression turning serious.
As they prepared to confront the skeletal horde, the system chimed in Michael''s head.
[The host should consider upgrading his spells. Hoarding badass points is not a retirement n. Dragging on spell upgrades might turn you into a fancy skeleton decoration here.]
"Damn system, always with the perfect timing," Michael muttered under his breath, his focus divided between the reanimated skeletons and the system''s advice.
Oblivious to the system''smunication with Michael, Gaya readied herself for battle. "Whatever these things are, they''re not stopping us," she dered, her voice determined.
Michael, acknowledging the system''s suggestion, knew this was not the time for hesitation. "Let''s do this. Remember, don''t let them surround you," he advised Gaya.
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Elemental Attunement Realm Godhood: Demi God
Experience Points: 0/400,000
Badass Points: 7,000,000 Worship Energy: 0
Skills & Spells: Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 5 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 9
Environment Scanning - LVL 9
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 2
Meteor - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 6
Soul Eater - LVL 6
Soul Stare - LVL 5
Death Range - LVL 3
Shadow Teleportation
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 2 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 96% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation:The Guardian of Sunrise Sect
Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal
The Dark Lord
The God of Darkness
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the realm of Gods and Mortal Realm
Grow the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 6,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 6-Star Alchemist
5-Star cksmith
5-Star Inventor
As Michael faced the reanimated skeletons, he quickly essed the system, willing his status window to appear before him. The system promptly disyed his current status, along with a notification highlighting a recent enhancement.
[Due to your status as the God of Darkness, your Elemental Attunement Realm advancement has resulted in a 20% boost in your mastery of darkness.]
Despite this promising news, Michael questioned the system''s logic. "If I''m facing gods, what''s the point of these percentage boosts?" he asked, his focus still on the skeletal horde around them.
[The more potent your spells are and the greater your mastery over the elements, the more powerful you be against higher-level gods. Increased spell mastery allows you to withstand their attacks rather than getting your ass kicked. With higher-level spells and strategicbinations, you could defeat gods one or two levels above you] The system quickly responded, outlining the significance of his enhanced abilities as well as taking a jab at him.
[This would be impossible with unupgraded spells.] Michael absorbed this information, understanding the importance of continually strengthening his powers, especially in the face of formidable divine opponents. With this realization, he began to mentally strategize,bining his enhanced dark magic with tactical maneuvers to gain an advantage over the skeletal warriors.
"System, how much to upgrade Silenes and Eyes of Doom?" he inquired, his voice steady despite the chaos around him.
As he awaited the system''s response, Michael contemted the tactical advantages of upgrading these particr spells. "Silence could be crucial here. Slowing down time around me would give us a significant edge, and it''s still only at level 2," he mused to himself. The potential of enhancing his control over the flow of time could turn the tides in even the most desperate situations. Then, he also considered the benefits of upgrading Eyes of Doom. "Upgrading Eyes of Doom would strengthen my ranged attacks. Being able to shoot more powerful dark beams from my eyes could be a game-changer against higher-level gods," he thought, visualizing the destructive potential of the enhanced spell.
[To upgrade both Silence and Eyes of Doom by one level, it will cost 90,000 badass points.]
Michael pondered for a moment before inquiring further. "Hmm, how much to upgrade Silence by two levels?"
[Upgrading Silence by two levels will cost 1,500,000 badass points.]
"And what about Eyes of Doom?" Michael continued, considering the potential impact of the upgrades.
[Upgrading Eyes of Doom by two levels will require an additional 3,000,000 badass points.]
Michael quickly did the math in his head and made his decision. "Then take 4.5 million and upgrade them both," he instructed, his voice resolute amidst the ongoing battle.
[Upgrading the spells now¡] The system responded promptly.
A few moments passed as Michael waited for the system to finish upgrading his spells. Then, the system chimed in with reassurance.
[Upgrading the spells will be worth it, host.] With the upgradesplete, Michael experienced a palpable surge of power. At that crucial moment, he had only a vague notion of how significantly the two-level upgrades would enhance his abilities. This newfound strength was exactly what he needed for the uing battle against Marli and Raphael, which would undoubtedly test his capabilities'' limits.
Chapter 1218 Legendary Minotaur I
Chapter 1218 Legendary Minotaur I
Once his upgrades wereplete, Michael exited the system interface and turned his attention back to the hoard of skeleton soldiers. Despite the power boost from his upgraded spells, the skeletons, each surrounded by a yellow aura, remained formidable adversaries. Michael was eager to put his new abilities to the test.
"Stay back and hit them from a distance," he instructed Gaya, who swiftly switched her crossbow bolts from the limited explosive ones to normal steel bolts.
"Use your dark mes," Gaya suggested, noticing the rapidly increasing number of skeletons.
Despite her suggestion, Michael had a hunch that simply burning the skeletons might not be as straightforward as it seemed. To validate his theory, he raised his hand and unleashed a ring of fire spell, directing waves of mes at the skeleton soldiers. As he anticipated, the skeletons turned into smoke and disappeared the moment they were engulfed in mes.
"Did you kill them, or did they just vanish?" Gaya asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.
"Did you really think it would be that simple to deal with my skeletons, guys?" Silvaris''s taunting voice echoed through the maze. "I put a lot of effort into making this dungeon more than just your typical one with clich¨¦ weak skeleton soldiers. You''ll need more than brute force to defeat them."
When Michael recalled his dark mes again, the skeleton soldiers reappeared, seemingly unaffected.
"What about using the dark mes to make them disappear, then walking straight through with the mes zing ahead?" Gaya proposed.
Interested in testing Gaya''s idea, Michael conjured the dark mes once more, watching as the skeletons vanished like smoke before them. "Let''s go," he said, moving forward cautiously. However, as soon as he crossed the line where the skeleton soldiers had been, he felt a chilling sensation and instinctively raised his dark swords, blocking an unseen attack.
Leaping back, Michael activated his X-ray vision, using thermal imaging to see the silhouettes of the soldiers through their heat signatures. "The mes only make them incorporeal. A clever trick, and I bet there areplex runes and arrays involved in this," he mused, impressed yet baffled by the intricacy of the trap.
"Alright, now I''m officially out of ideas," Gaya admitted, her voice tinged with frustration.
With the dark mes extinguished, the skeletons returned to their physical forms, forcing Michael to step back and defend against their relentless attacks. The maze''s challenge was proving to be as intellectually demanding as it was physically taxing, a puzzle wrapped in a battle that required more than just raw power to ovee.
As the skeleton lunged at Michael with its long sword, Gaya called out a warning, "Watch out!" She fired bolt after bolt from her crossbow, desperately trying to keep the growing horde at bay. Despite her efforts, the path ahead was quickly bing overrun with skeletons, and they were beginning to encircle Michael and Gaya.
Reacting swiftly to the immediate threat, Michael cast the upgraded Silenes spell, slowing down time within a five-meter radius around him, an improvement from the previous two-meter radius. This temporal maniption gave him the crucial advantage he needed.
In the slowed time, Michael deftly caught the long sword of the attacking skeleton with one hand and unleashed the Eyes of Doom, firingser-like ck beams from his eyes straight into the skull of the skeleton. The dark beams effortlessly pierced through, and Michael tilted his head down, continuing to emit the beams, effectively slicing the skeleton in half.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
¡
The system notifications chimed in his head, acknowledging his skillfulbat. However, Michael quickly realized that despite the destructive power of his dark beams, the magical arrays in the maze resurrected the skeleton soldiers faster than he could destroy them.
"Fuck," Gaya cursed as she witnessed the crumbled skeleton rise up again, reanimated by the unseen forces of the maze.
Amidst the relentless onught, Michael reminded himself of Silvaris''s advice.
"Think like a thief." He knew that brute force alone wouldn''t suffice; they needed a clever, strategic approach to ovee this seemingly endless wave of skeletal adversaries. As Michael and Gaya continued to battle the relentless horde of skeleton soldiers, the fight grew increasingly intense. The skeletons, their movements precise and unyielding, swarmed around them, their numbers seeming to multiply by the second.
"Human, we need to think of something, and fast!" Gaya shouted, firing her crossbow with rapid precision. "These boneheads just keeping!"
Dodging and weaving through the skeletons'' attacks, Michael was a blur of motion. He parried thrusts with his dark swords, the des moving in a deadly dance as he fended off the attackers. Yet, for every skeleton he cut down, two more seemed to take its ce.
Meanwhile, Gaya was a whirlwind of activity. She moved swiftly, her short sword shing through bone and her crossbow bolts finding their marks with deadly uracy. Despite her efforts, the skeletons pressed on, their glowing green eyes fixated on their targets.
"We''re getting swamped here!" Gaya cursed, kicking a skeleton back as it got too close. "You got any bright ideas, or are we just going to be part of this undead freak show?"
Amidst the chaos, Michael tried to formte a n. He cast Windst, knocking back several skeletons, but they quickly regained their footing and continued their assault.
"Keep them off me for a second!" Michael yelled over the din of battle, his mind racing to find a solution that could turn the tide in their favor. As Gaya redoubled her efforts, covering Michael from the advancing skeletons, he focused on finding the weakness in Silvaris''s trap.
Suddenly, a realization dawned on Michael, and a sly grin spread across his face. "Speaking of traps," he said, a glint of cunning in his eyes.
"We need to think like a thief," Michael continued. "Let''s backtrack to where we''ve been and use the traps against these skeletons."
Understanding the n, Gaya nodded and followed Michael''s lead. They fought their way back through the maze, retracing their steps while fending off the relentless skeletal horde.
As they maneuvered back through thebyrinth, they approached one of the traps they had previously encountered ¨C a floor section rigged to copse. Michael and Gaya moved with precision, narrowly avoiding the trap themselves while leading a group of skeletons onto the precarious floor.
"Now!" Michael shouted, and Gaya fired a bolt at a trigger mechanism they had identified earlier.
With a loud creak and a crash, the floor gave way beneath the skeletons, sending them plummeting into the dark abyss below. Bones ttered and shattered as the trap imed its unintended victims.
"Take that, you boneheaded fucks!" Gaya yelled triumphantly, a satisfied smirk on her face.
They continued this strategy, luring skeletons into other traps they had previously disarmed or avoided. Another trap involved swinging des that they activated just in time to slice through a group of pursuing skeletons.
"Looks like the dungeon is more useful than we thought," Gaya remarked, slicing through a skeleton that had gotten too close.
"Silvaris''s traps are turning out to be a blessing in disguise," Michael replied, his focus unwavering as they methodically used the maze''s own defenses against their enemies.
One by one, the skeletons fell victim to the various trapsid throughout the maze. Michael and Gaya''s n was working; they were turning the tide in their favor by outsmarting the skeletal army with cunning and strategy, proving once again that brute force wasn''t always the answer.
"Hell yes! Take that, you bony bastards!" she eximed, her voice echoing with triumph through the maze''s corridors.
Together, Michael and Gaya methodically cleared out the skeletons, using the maze''s traps to their advantage. With each step, they felt a growing sense of achievement, turning the perilous maze into an ally in their fight. Eventually, they found themselves back at the spot where the skeletons had first risen from the ground.
With the immediate threat neutralized, they continued down the path, wary of any further surprises. Gaya, keeping pace with Michael, couldn''t help but wonder about their final destination. "So, what do you think awaits us at the end of this godforsaken maze?" she asked, curiosity in her tone.
Before Michael could respond, another loud, thunderous moo resonated through the maze, its source still a mystery. The sound reverberated off the walls, filling the space with a sense of ominous foreboding. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
As they progressed further into the maze, Gaya''s sharp eyes caught sight of something unusual on the walls. There were drawings of bulls, crudely rendered in what appeared to be dried blood, giving the illustrations an eerie and ancient feel.
"Hey, check this out," Gaya pointed out, her voice tinged with curiosity and unease. She traced her fingers lightly over the drawings, careful not to disturb the aged markings.
Michael stepped closer, examining the drawings and the overall setting. He noticed more skeletal remains scattered on the ground, each positioned as though they had met their end while fleeing something. Putting the pieces together ¨C the thunderous mooing, the drawings on the walls, and the skeletons ¨C a realization dawned on him.
"Minotaur," he said, almost in a whisper.
"Great, as if skeleton soldiers weren''t enough. Now we have a bloody Minotaur to deal with?"
Chapter 1219 Legendary Minotaur II
1219 Legendary Minotaur II
As Michael and Gaya cautiously navigated the maze, Silvaris''s voice once again filled the space around them, echoing off the walls with a mocking tone.
"You know, the Minotaur is not just any beast. It''s an ancient one, feared even by the gods. It can crush gods and suck their souls, just like the other ancient beasts," Silvaris''s voice taunted them from the unseen speakers.
"Even the mighty gods have those they fear, those stronger than themselves. The gods don''t dare cross paths with the ancient beasts. It''s always amusing to see that everyone, even the so-called omnipotent gods, has someone they''re afraid of." He continued, his tone dripping with disdain for the gods.
Hearing him, Gaya just rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath. "Great, a soul-sucking, god-crushing monster. Just what we needed." Her voice carried a mix of sarcasm and frustration.
Silvarisughed, a sound that seemed to reverberate throughout the entire maze. "You should consider yourselves lucky. Not many get the chance to meet a creature as magnificent and terrifying as a Minotaur. Enjoy your encounter, if you survive, that is."
"Shut up, Silvaris! Your mind games aren''t going to work on us," Gaya shouted back, her voiceced with irritation. "We''ll deal with your Minotaur and thene for you."
Despite her anger outburst, Silvaris''s voice continued to ring out, filled with arrogance and self-admiration. "Do you ever wonder how I managed to trap a Minotaur in this maze?" Silvaris boasted, his tone oozing arrogance. "After all, I am the greatest thief there ever was."
Growing increasingly annoyed with Silvaris''s persistent taunting, Gaya couldn''t help but respond. "I hate this fucking clown constantly in our ears," she grumbled, her voice tinged with vexation.
"Think again," Silvaris prodded, enjoying the game of wits.
Gaya sighed, her patience wearing thin. "I don''t know, you must have built this damn maze around itsir or something," she guessed, trying to piece together the puzzle Silvaris wasying out.
Her response seemed to amuse Silvaris, who let out a chuckle that reverberated ominously around them. Meanwhile, Michael stayed focused on navigating the maze, his senses alert for any signs of the Minotaur or further traps. He knew that getting caught up in Silvaris''s mind games could be distracting, and they needed to remain vignt and ready for whatever challengesy ahead.
"Good guess, but wrong," Silvaris''sughter echoed through the maze once again. He then revealed the true origin of the Minotaur in his maze. As the Goddess of Monsters, Gaya reacted with immediate anger and disgust. Her voice was filled with a mix of outrage and disdain for Silvaris''s cruel actions. The idea of someone stealing and manipting a creature in such a way was abhorrent to her.
"You sick fucking bastard. If you were still alive, I''d hunt you down to the ends of the world for this." She spat out, clenching her fist tightly.
However, Silvaris''s response was only another round ofughter, showing no remorse for his actions. "Fun fact about Minotaurs, they fiercely protect the ce they grow up in and kill anyone who dares to intervene. And that''s exactly what you are doing right now."
The revtions from Silvaris, though infuriating, provided valuable insights into what they were up against. The Minotaur was more than a mere ancient beast. Rather, it was a creature with a deep connection to its surroundings, making it an even more formidable opponent.
"Please tell me you have a n to kill it when ites barging through the walls any second now," Gaya whispered to Michael after Silvaris''s voice faded away.
Michael''s expression grew contemtive as Gaya''s whisper reached him, asking about a n for when the Minotaur would inevitably confront them.
"It''s an ancient beast. Thatplicates things," he admitted, his brow furrowing. His mind shed back to his encounter with an ancient centipede in the Celestial Valley. There, he had used a swarm to overpower and kill the creature, obtaining its corbone to craft the God yer. But here, in the depths of Silvaris''s maze, there were no swarms to exploit, no environmental advantages to leverage against the Minotaur.
"There''s a reason why gods don''t mess with ancient beasts," Michael added, his tone indicating the gravity of their situation.
"If I had entered my godhood, I could have done something."Gaya, reflecting on her own potential, said with a tinge of regret.
Michael sensed the truth in her words. As the Goddess of Monsters, Gaya would likely have some influence over such creatures, yet her powers were still dormant, locked away until she ascended to her rightful status.
Deep down, Michael knew that even if Gaya had achieved godhood, controlling an ancient beast like the Minotaur would require her to reach higher levels of Godhood, something she was yet to attain.
Faced with these realities, Michael realized they had to rely on his strategic thinking and the system''s capabilities to ovee the Minotaur. As Michael and Gaya continued their cautious advance through the maze, the tremors under their feet grew stronger, and the sound of the Minotaur''s mooing intensified. "I think we''re getting closer to it," Gaya noted, her voice tinged with a mix of apprehension and readiness.
Just then, Silvaris''s voice echoed once more through the maze, carrying a tone of amusement mixed with disdain. "There''s little chance you could even harm the Minotaur without the rest of the adventurers and their idiocy," he taunted.
His voice paused for a brief moment before adding, "Unless, of course, there are gods in this maze. And those gods might be you two."
"How the fuck did he guess that?"
"Darling, you underestimate me and my knowledge of gods," Gaya, taken aback by his deduction, couldn''t help but retort. He then began to exin, his voice dripping with contempt for the divine beings.
"Gods are the greediest creatures of all. They wouldn''t stand aside, knowing the vault of the greatest thief has been opened. They steal worship energy, and just like that, they''d steal valuables too. Their greed knows no bounds."
As Silvaris continued, his hatred for the gods became evident. "They parade around, iming to be benevolent and just, but at their core, they''re nothing but thieves, hoarding power and treasures for themselves." he said before going silent for a few moments.
"As for how I knew you are gods, it was a simple guess after noticing those ck mes of yours. Even as a mere sliver of a soul, a great thief like me recognized them as the Dark mes, a primordial me."
Michael, who had remained silent and unresponsive to Silvaris''s provocations, finally spoke up. "Then you must know who I am and what god I am," he said, his voice calm yet carrying an underlying sharpness.
Finally, Silvaris''sughter, which had been echoing through the maze with an air of mockery, shifted to a more serious tone. "Yes, I know who you are, God of Darkness. And if you are the God of Darkness, then the lovelydy beside you must be the Goddess of Monsters, Gaya."
The revtion that Silvaris had deduced their identities didn''t seem to surprise Michael or Gaya, but it did affirm the level of insight and cunning the thief possessed. It was clear that Silvaris, even in his diminished form, was a formidable figure, one who had managed to gather significant knowledge about the gods and their powers.
"Looks like our cover is blown," she remarked with annoyance.
"But there are things that even the primordial mes like your Dark mes cannot hurt, especially when your mes are still at their weakest form," he exined with a tone that mixed information with taunting.
"Minotaurs, along with many other ancient beasts, are resistant to even primordial mes. So if you think you can just burn it down, you''re out of luck." Silvaris continued.
"I''d love to see you try, though. It''s always entertaining to watch gods struggle against something they can''t just incinerate." His words carried a mocking edge.
As they were listening to his taunts and moving forward, the ground beneath them suddenly trembled more violently, and cracks began to spiderweb across a nearby wall. The growing intensity of the tremors signaled that the Minotaur was drawing nearer.
Silvaris''s voice echoed one final time, the anticipation in his tone palpable. "Now, it''s time for you to meet my beauty."
Michael and Gaya braced themselves, aware that they were about toe face to face with the Minotaur. As the walls around them began to tremble violently, Michael quickly moved before Gaya. "Stay back," Michael said and prepared to enter the system interface to search for a strategy to defeat the Minotaur. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The walls before them shook with such intensity that it seemed as if something colossal was banging against them from the other side, creating an expandingwork of cracks. Dust and small debris began to fall from the ceiling, adding to the growing sense of impending danger.
"Holy shit, this thing''s gonna bring the whole ce down!" Gaya eximed, her eyes fixed on the increasingly unstable wall.
Then, as abruptly as it had started, the tremor and the shaking stopped, leaving an eerie silence in their wake. "Any second now, that wall''s going to explode, and that beast is going toe charging through." Gaya predicted.
Then, they waited with their muscles coiled in anticipation. After a few seemingly interminable moments, Gaya began to doubt her prediction. "Am I wrong?" she started to say, but before she could finish, the wall before them erupted in a shower of stone and dust.
Through the gaping hole in the wall stepped the Minotaur, a towering and terrifying sight. It stood massively tall, its muscr body covered in coarse, dark fur. Its eyes glowed with a menacing red light, and its horns,rge and sharp, seemed capable of impaling even the sturdiest of foes. The Minotaur snorted, its breath visible in the air, and its every move radiated primal power and ferocity.
"Fuck, it''s huge." Gaya couldn''t help but raise her voice upon seeing the beast in all its terrifying glory.
Chapter 1220 God vs God I
1220 God vs God I
The Minotaur stood towering on its two legs, its body below the head resembling that of a muscr human, but on a scale that dwarfed both Gaya and Michael. Its long, barbed tail swayed menacingly behind it. Its eyes, locked onto Gaya and Michael, seemed to bore into their very souls, while smoke billowed out of its nostrils, adding to its fearsome presence.
Gaya, upon locking eyes with the Minotaur, felt an acute pain in her chest, as though the mere sight of the beast was overwhelming her senses. At that moment, the system chimed in Michael''s head with a crucial warning.
[The Host must ensure Gaya''s safety. The Minotaur can suck the soul out of weaker beings merely by staring at them.]
Realizing the immediate danger, Michael quickly turned toward Gaya.
"Activate your cloak and run." He said and tossed her a spyder.
"I''ll be able to locate you after I lose this thing," Understanding the severity of the situation, Gaya did not argue with him. Instead, she knew if she stayed with him, she would only be a hurdle for him. Thus, she decided to help him without getting in his way.
"You better not get your ass killed, you hear me?" Her voice wasced with concern, despite the harshness of her words.
Without wasting another moment, Gaya activated her cloak, rendering herself invisible, and darted away from the scene, leaving Michael to face the Minotaur.
As the Minotaur took its first thunderous step toward Michael, the ground shook under its immense weight. Michael quickly activated his Eyes of Darkness, hoping to gauge the creature''s power. The sight that met his eyes was daunting ¨C a pulsating red aura enveloped the Minotaur, signaling that it possessed strength that was overwhelmingly superior to his own.
"Shit," Michael muttered under his breath, realizing the enormity of the challenge before him. He braced himself, preparing to make a strategic retreat.
The Minotaur then opened its massive mouth and let out a deafening roar. The power of its roar was so intense that the walls around Michael began to crack and crumble, sending shards of stone flying through the air.
Just as the Minotaur prepared to strike, Michael cast the Lightning Dash spell, propelling himself out of the beast''s path at an incredible speed, leaving a trail of ck lightning bolts in his wake. His quick reflexes saved him from a direct hit, but the Minotaur was not so easily outmaneuvered.
With a powerful stomp, the Minotaur mmed its foot onto the ground, creating a shockwave that rippled through the maze. Despite his speed, Michael couldn''t entirely evade the force of the impact. The ground beneath him trembled violently, and he was thrown against a nearby wall with brutal force. The collision knocked the breath out of him, and he coughed up blood, feeling the acute pain from the impact.
09:51
Before Michael could even attempt to get back on his feet, the Minotaur, with calcted brutality, kicked a stone from the ground. The stone, propelled by the beast''s immense strength, flew through the air with such velocity that it would have been invisible to the naked eye of a normal person.
Despite being a god and possessing enhanced reflexes, Michael couldn''t react in time to dodge the projectile. The stone struck him squarely in the head, the impact sending a sharp pain radiating through his skull.
"Damn it," Michael growled, his hand instinctively going to the site of the impact. He felt the warm trickle of blood where the stone had hit, the pain a stark reminder of the Minotaur''s formidable power.
Without affording Michael a moment''s respite, the Minotaur charged forward, its every step causing the ground to quake. Michael realized he was in a dire situation, with little room for error and even less time to think.
Just then, Silvaris''s voice echoed through the maze once more, his toneced with amusement and mockery. "Run, little god... run," he taunted.
Reacting with swift determination, Michael immediately cast the Silenes spell, harnessing its power to slow down time around him. This crucial maniption of time granted him the precious few seconds he desperately needed to respond to the imminent threat. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
With the world moving in slow motion around him, Michael seized the moment to cast Lightning Dash. The spell propelled him out of the Minotaur''s direct path with electrifying speed, allowing him to dodge the beast''s charge at thest possible second.
Unaffected by the time-slowing spell, the Minotaur continued its charge with unabated momentum. It collided with the wall that had been behind Michael moments before he executed his dash. The impact was monumental; the wall shattered like an eggshell under the force, sending debris flying in all directions.
As Michael found momentary safety, Silvaris''s voice filled the maze once again, his tone carrying a mix of amusement and warning. "You can''t do this forever, God of Darkness," he taunted once again.
"He''s right. I can''t do this forever. I need a way, quick," Michael muttered to himself, acknowledging the grim reality of his situation.
Without hesitation, he once again cast Lightning Dash, propelling himself forward through the maze at an incredible speed, leaving a trail of ck lightning bolts in his wake. The spell''s energy crackled in the air, a visual testament to Michael''s desperation and determination to escape the Minotaur''s relentless pursuit.
However, the Minotaur demonstrated a surprising level of intelligence and familiarity with the maze''syout. It didn''t blindly follow Michael through the winding paths. Instead, it used its sheer strength to break through the walls, creating its own direct route to cut him short. The beast''s actions revealed not just brute force but a cunning strategy, leveraging its intimate knowledge of the maze to gain the upper hand.
"You see, the Minotaur is not just a mindless beast. It knows this maze like the back of its hand. It grew up here, after all,"Silvaris''s voice echoed through the maze once more.
"Its intelligence is part of what makes it so dangerous. It''s not just the strength or the ancient power it wields; it''s the cunning to use its environment to its advantage." he exined, his tone suggesting a mix of pride and mockery. As Michael darted through the demolished sections of the maze, his mind racing for solutions, he reached out to the system in desperation. "System, do you have an idea? Because I''m running out of options here," he asked, hoping for a miraculous strategy from the system.
Yet, the system''s response was dishearteningly straightforward. [Running is the only option you have.]
"Damn it," Michael cursed under his breath, frustration mounting. Despite his incredible powers and strategic mind, he found himself in a situation where flight was his only recourse.
Behind him, the Minotaur''s presence was a constant, thunderous force. Its roars shook the very foundations of the maze, and with each roar, it broke through walls with rming ease.
Finally, in the midst of his desperate flight, Michael was struck by a sudden realization, a n so risky it might just work. "Fuck this," he said and abruptly stopped running. He then turned to face the direction from which the Minotaur was charging.
As the Minotaur broke through thest wall separating them, it found Michael standing defiantly in its path. The beast roared, a sound that seemed to shake the very air, and charged towards him with unstoppable force.
But instead of moving, Michael stood his ground, his eyes locked on the approaching Minotaur. At the veryst second, he cast the Silenes spell, slowing down time around him. This maniption of time allowed him to leap aside with precision, narrowly avoiding the Minotaur''s deadly charge. The beast''s momentum carried it forward, and its collision with the wall sent shockwaves through the maze, causing Michael to be thrown back by the force.
When he picked himself up from the ground, Michael heard Silvaris''s voice taunting him. "What''s the big n here, Dark Lord?"
"I''m done thinking like a thief," Michael replied, his voice carrying a new edge of determination. "Now, I''m thinking like a hitman, creating ways when there aren''t any." He wiped off the blood trickling down from his lips, his gaze fixed on the Minotaur as it turned to face him once more.
As the beast charged at him again, Michael took a deep breath and leaped into the air, using the momentum to propel himself into the path the Minotaur had shattered earlier. His maneuver was not just an evasion but a strategic move, using the Minotaur''s own destructive force to carve a direct route through the maze.
From a distance, Gaya witnessed Michael''s bold strategy and couldn''t help but question herself.
"Seems like he''s using the beast to create a way straight to the heart of this maze. But how did he know which way is to the center of the maze?"
Unknown to Gaya, Michael had used environmental scanning and X-ray vision to detect life signs within the maze in the direction he was heading. This strategic use of his abilities allowed him to make an educated guess that whoever or whatever was emitting those life signs must be located at the center of the maze or at least near something of significant interest.
************************
In the heart of thebyrinth, Marli and Raphael stood, a formidable duo against the backdrop of ancient stone and mystic energies. Surrounding them were Lysandra, Elrion, and the handful of adventurers who had survived the st, now bound by invisible chains of celestial energy, rendering them powerless.
Standing beside her, Raphael surveyed the surroundings with a critical eye, ensuring that no detail was overlooked in their preparation for Michael and Gaya''s arrival. His demeanor was calm, yet there was an undeniable undercurrent of readiness for the confrontation that was to unfold.
On the other hand, Marli was a picture of calcted malice. In her hands, she held a dark, ominous box that seemed to pulsate with a malevolent energy. This was no ordinary artifact; it was something that crafted with the sole purpose of trapping a god below level 4 for a short amount of time.
As the silence of the maze hung heavily around them, Marli broke the stillness, speaking to the shadows as if they were her confidants. "This Pandora''s box will be the key to trapping the God of Darkness. Just imagine the acim that will be mine when I present him at the pantheon''s feet. They will have no choice but to recognize my superiority, to acknowledge that I have done what none of them could."
Her voice carried a mix of arrogance and ambition, a deration of her intent not just to capture a god but to ascend to unprecedented heights of power within the celestial hierarchy. "This will be my crowning achievement," Marli continued, her gaze fixed on the dark box as if envisioning the moment of her triumph. "Not only will I have captured the infamous God of Darkness, but I will also have proven myself as the most cunning and powerful among the gods."
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Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated.
Chapter 1221 God vs God II
1221 God vs God II
"You better be sure about controlling the Minotaur, Goddess Marli," Raphael voiced his concern amidst the tense atmosphere. In response, Marli snickered at Raphael''s caution. "And where, pray tell, do you think Silvaris stole the Minotaur pup from?" she asked rhetorically, her smirk widening. "It was from my forest," she revealed, her eyes gleaming with a mix of pride and cunning.
The revtion took Raphael by surprise, as he pieced together the implications of Marli''s im. The Minotaur, which had grown up within the confines of the maze, was indeed born in Marli''s forest. This detail added ayer ofplexity to the beast''s allegiance and potential control.
"Although the Minotaur was born before my ascent to godhood, it can still remember the forest of its birth. It remembers its essence, and that same essence flows through me, as I am now the goddess of that very forest." Marli borated, her voiceced with an air of superiority. Unable to contain his disdain for Marli''s actions, Elrion taunted and cursed her for holding them as hostages. "This is why you have no title and only a handful of worshippers!" he spat, his words dripping with contempt.
After hearing him, Marli''s reaction was swift and severe. She struck Elrion across the face, her hand moving with the speed of a striking serpent. "Shut up, mortal," she hissed, herughter following the p. "Once I apprehend the God of Darkness, I can choose any title I want and have as many worshippers as I desire."
The adventurers around Elrion were taken aback, their expressions a mix of shock and disbelief at Marli''s revtion. The name "God of Darkness" sent a ripple of astonishment through the group.
"Did she just say the God of Darkness?" one of the adventurers eximed, his voiceced with surprise and a hint of fear.
"No fucking way, I thought he was just a myth!" another blurted out, unable to hide the shock in their voice.
"A god? Here? And we''re stuck in the middle of this shitshow?" a third adventurer muttered, the reality of their predicament sinking in.
The notion that the God of Darkness, a being many of them had heard of only in tales and legends, was not only real but also the target of Marli''s ambitions, sent a wave of realization through the group.
A look of calm realization crossed Lysandra''s face amid the unfolding chaos. She whispered to herself, "That''s why I had that feeling," as if piecing together a puzzle that had long eluded her grasp.
"It''s just a myth. There''s no such thing as the God of Darkness," Elrion countered, his voice a mixture of disbelief and insistence.
Marli''s response was swift andden with mockery. "And who, pray tell, do you think the temples of the God of Darkness were built for if he''s just a myth?" she snickered, her amusement evident.
Observing the exchange, Raphael couldn''t help but shake his head slightly, a soft snicker escaping his lips. "Mortals," he muttered, his single word conveying a mix of amusement and pity for their ignorance.
On the other hand, Marli seized the moment andughed openly before addressing Elrion directly. "The God of Darkness is very real, and he''s been with you the whole time," she revealed, delighting in the shock and disbelief her words provoked.
A moment of realization swept through Elrion and the other adventurers as they recalled the ck-robed figure they had encountered. The memories clicked into ce, each detail sharpening their understanding of the situation they were in.
"Wait, the ck-robed guy... that was him?" one of the adventurers muttered, his eyes widening as he connected the dots.
"Shit, you mean we''ve been ying into a god''s hands this whole time?" another eximed, the revtion dawning on him with a mix of awe and dread.
"And we still have this damn mark of Morbus on us because of them," a third adventurer added, touching the glowing green mark on his forehead.
Piecing together the encounters and the implications of their current predicament, Elrion couldn''t help but voice his realization. "So, the God of Darkness... he''s been with us and ying us this whole time,"
As the group grappled with their newfound understanding, the maze itself seemed to react, trembling violently as the ground beneath them shook. The walls rattled, and dust fell from the ceiling, a foreboding sign of what was toe.
"What the hell is happening?" one of the adventurers cried out, his voiceced with fear and confusion.
"Is this ce falling apart?" another asked, looking around in panic, seeking stability where there was none. In contrast to the growing chaos, Raphael remained the picture ofposure. "The Minotaur ising," he stated simply, his voice cutting through the noise with an unsettling calmness.
Amidst the rising tension, Lysandra''s voice emerged clear and authoritative. "Let the others go," she insisted, her demeanor unshaken by the imminent threat. "The Minotaur will kill them if they don''t escape now."
However, Marli was unmoved by Lysandra''s plea. With a snicker, she dismissed the notion with cold indifference. "You are the bait I didn''t want," she said.
As the walls of the maze continued to crack and tremble under the unseen force of the Minotaur''s approach, the adventurers were caught in a maelstrom of fear and disbelief.
"Shit, are you telling me that thing''s real?" one of the adventurers eximed, eyeing the deteriorating structure around them with wide eyes.
"I thought Minotaurs were just old tales to scare kids," another muttered, his voice barely concealing the panic that was starting to set in. "Fucking great, from myths to our executioner!" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Among the group, there were a few who had heard of the Minotaur, understanding its significance but never truly believing they would face one. "I knew they were real, but damn, I never thought I''d actually have to face one," a seasoned adventurer said, his usual bravado reced by a grim realization of their precarious situation.
In the midst of their frantic discussions and growing dread, a sudden movement caught everyone''s attention. Something¡ªor someone¡ªshot through the already cracked wall with incredible force, breaking it further and sending a cloud of dust into the air.
As the dust settled, the figure of Michael emerged, his appearance immediately drawing the focus of everyone present. "That''s him," someone whispered, recognition dawning on their faces.
Upon seeing Michael, Elrion and Lysandra simultaneously acknowledged his true identity, their voices carrying a mix of awe and resignation. "God of Darkness," they said, their statement echoing in the tense air.
Unfazed by the dramatic entrance he had just made, Michael cracked his neck and stood up, brushing off the dust from his shoulder with a nonchnt gesture. Surveying the scene before him, his eyes locked on Marli and Raphael, he addressed them with a calm demeanor that belied the tension of the moment. "Marli, Raphael, what a pleasant surprise," he said, his voice steady andposed.
"Running away, were we? Didn''t think you''d show your face around here again," Marli, unable to resist the opportunity to mock him, snickered at his greeting. In a dramatic gesture, she raised the Pandora''s box she held in her hands, a dark aura emanating from the artifact. "Enjoy your freedom while itsts," Marli dered, her eyes gleaming with anticipation and malice. As the reality of their situation settled in, the adventurers found themselves grappling with the shocking revtion that they had been embroiled in a plot to kill a god, and not just any god, but the God of Darkness himself. Their reactions were a mix of fear, disbelief, and desperation.
"Holy shit, we''re in deep now. Trying to off a god? Are we fucked or what?" one of the adventurers eximed, his voiceced with panic.
Another, realization dawning, fell to his knees, his voice trembling. "Please, God of Darkness, forgive us. We had no idea¡ªwe''re just pawns in their game!"
Amid the chaos, a few adventurers, still gripped by the fear of the green mark of Morbus on their foreheads, dared to demand. "You have to help us! That mark¡ªgive us a cure for Morbus''s curse. You owe us that much!"
Raphael, observing the unfolding drama with a stoic expression, understood the urgency of the situation. His voice cut through themotion, firm and authoritative. "Finish this before the Minotaures in."
As tensions reached their peak, the shadow of the Minotaur suddenly loomedrge on the ground, a foreboding sign of its imminent arrival. The sight of it sent a ripple of fear through the gathered adventurers, but Marli remained undeterred, her confidence unwavering.
"Let ite," she said, her voice steady and filled with a chilling resolve.
With those words, Marli opened the Pandora''s box she held, unleashing a torrent of dark smoke and tendrils that surged towards Michael. The tendrils, like living entities, coiled around him with a malevolent intent, binding him with an inescapable grip.
Michael struggled against the dark embrace, his efforts to break free proving futile against the box''s ancient power. Marli''sughter filled the air, a sound of triumph as she watched her n unfold. "Your game is over," she taunted, reveling in the moment.
The tendrils tightened their hold, pulling Michael closer to the box, and as the darkness enveloped him, the scene turned eerily silent. In a final, decisive movement, the box pulled him into its depths and snapped shut, sealing Michael within its dark confines.
Greetings, beloved readers,
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
Chapter 1222 God vs God III
1222 God vs God III
As the reality of what had just transpired sank in, the adventurers were left in utter shock, their expressions a mix of disbelief and horror.
"Holy fuck, did she just...?" one of them managed to stammer, unable to fully process the scene before them.
"God damn it, she''s trapped a fucking god," another eximed, his voice a blend of awe and fear.
The air was thick with tension and disbelief as they realized Marli had sessfully captured the God of Darkness, a feat that seemed impossible moments ago.
Basking in the glory of her victory, marli couldn''t contain her glee. Herughter filled the space, a sound that was both triumphant and chilling. She turned her attention to Raphael, her eyes sparkling with mockery. "Looks like you''ve been chasing the God of Darkness for so long, only for me to catch him first," she taunted, reveling in the moment of her triumph.
"It''s two for zero for the God of Darkness," Marli boasted, her arrogance and sense of superiority over the situation evident in her tone. "Poor guy, always ending up defeated by me. Seems like I''m just too much for him to handle," she continued, her words dripping with disdain and smug satisfaction.
As Marli was boasting about her victory, her voice echoing with arrogance and disdain, the maze itself seemed to rebel against the premature celebration. Without warning, the Minotaur, the beast of legend and Marli''s supposed pawn, shattered the illusion of control by breaking through a maze wall, standing imposingly before them. The sudden appearance of the Minotaur sent a wave of panic through the adventurers. "Holy shit!" one of them eximed, their voice cracking under the strain of fear. "That''s the Minotaur?"
Meanwhile, Elrion and Lysandra, despite their prior resolve, could not hide their shock at the beast''s arrival. "By the gods," Elrion muttered, his usualposure slipping. Lysandra''s eyes widened, understanding the gravity of the situation as she took a deep breath, her mind racing for solutions.
"Now would be a good time to control the Minotaur," Raphael said, his tone carrying an urgency that underscored the immediate threat they all faced.
Acknowledging Raphael''s prompt, Marli ceased her gloating and focused on the task at hand. She secured the Pandora''s box at her waist and took a deep breath, bracing herself for the challenge of asserting her dominance over the Minotaur. As she exhaled, she released her aura, which manifested as smoke filled with green specks of light, swirling around her in a disy of power and intent.
As Marli summoned her aura, the unintended consequences of her power began to manifest among the adventurers. Some started coughing violently, swearing through gritted teeth as a sharp pain pierced their chests. "Damn it, what the hell is this?" one gasped, clutching at his heart.
To their horror, white smoke began to seep out of their bodies, swirling and whisking away toward the Minotaur. Panic and confusion spread as some managed to choke out, "What''s happening to us?"
Observing the scene with a grim understanding, Lysandra exined the dire situation. "The Minotaur is consuming their souls. This is what will happen to all of us if it doesn''t go away," she said, her voice tinged with urgency and concern.
However, Raphael remained focused on their objective, his demeanor cold and detached. "We got what we came for. Let''s take Vedora''s remains and go," he stated, indicating that the mission''s sess outweighed any coteral damage.
Meanwhile, Marli concentrated on the Minotaur, which had begun to inhale the green specks of light emanating from her aura. As the creature absorbed the essence Marli projected, its demeanor visibly shifted; the beast started to calm down, the aggressive tension in its posture easing under the influence of her power.
Witnessing the adventurers'' souls being consumed and their lives fading away, Elrion, as a devout worshipper of the God of Valor and Bravery, found himself unable to remain passive in the face of such injustice. Bound by his convictions and the chains that held him, a surge of righteous anger welled up within him.
"I cannot stand by and watch this!" he roared, his voice echoing with the power of his belief. His body began to glow with a radiant golden aura, symbolizing the divine favor of his God Valorius, as he strained against the emerald green chains that coiled around him.
With a Herculean effort fueled by his faith and valor, Elrion broke free from his bindings, the chains shattering under the force of his resolve. He shot to his feet, unsheathing his long sword, its de gleaming with the same golden light that enveloped him.
"Release them, or feel my wrath, god or not!" Elrion bellowed, directing his ultimatum at Marli and Raphael, prepared to defend the innocent and uphold the principles of his god, regardless of the opposition''s divine status.
Observing Elrion''s defiance with a mixture of amusement and indifference, Raphael merely snickered at the disy of valor. With a casual flick of his fingers, he summoned a swirling vortex above them. The vortex expanded rapidly, its gravitational pull irresistible as it began to suck in everything around it.
In an instant, all the adventurers, along with Elrion and Lysandra, were caught in the powerful suction of the vortex. Their figures blurred as they were whisked away, disappearing into the unknown depths of the portal Raphael had conjured.
As the tension in the air began to dissipate, the Minotaur, the ancient beast that had instilled fear and chaos moments before, started to show signs of tranquility. It slowly knelt down, curling itself into a giant ball, much like a child seekingfort in sleep. The massive form of the creature rxed, its breaths bing deep and even as it drifted into slumber right there in the center of the maze.
Approaching the now peaceful Minotaur, Marli extended her hand to gently brush its head, a gesture of affection and control. "Good boy," she murmured, her voice soft butced with the pride of conquest.
It was then that Silvaris''s voice, ethereal and resonant, echoed through the maze once again, breaking the momentary calm. "So, the goddess Marli has found a loophole to control my boy, huh?" he mused, his tone carrying a hint of amusement mixed with surprise.
"You''re just a mortal to us, Silvaris," Marli retorted, her voice firm, dismissing the significance of his observation.
Silvaris''sughter filled the maze, undeterred by her dismissal. "That is true, but the one inside your Pandora''s box isn''t. He is a god," he pointed out, reminding her of the gravity of her actions.
Marli snickered in response, her confidence unwavering. "We know, thief," she said, acknowledging the power she believed she had sessfully contained.
Yet, Silvaris''sughter only grew, a sound that seemed to hint at knowledge Marlicked. "You know he is a god and the God of Darkness, but you don''t know what he''s capable of," Silvaris taunted, leaving his words hanging in the air like a veiled warning.
"You don''t know what I am capable of," Marli retorted sharply, unwilling to let Silvaris have thest word in their exchange. Her voice carried a hint of menace, a challenge to the spectral thief who dared to question her authority.
Silvaris''s response was augh, rich with amusement and provocation. "Let''s see, then," he said, his tone teasing, suggesting a game of cat and mouse where the stakes were far from trivial.
But he continued, eager to share more about Minotaurs that he sensed Marli might not fully appreciate. "Fun fact about Minotaurs, they''re angry sleepers. Wake one up abruptly, and it''ll kill whoever is before it in a blind rage, even someone who carries the aura of the ce it grew up in," Silvaris exined, his voice carrying a note of warning mixed with delight at the potential chaos this knowledge could unleash.
Hisughter echoed through the maze once more, a sound that seemed to revel in the implications of his words. "And that, my dear, is why Minotaurs don''t have parents. A spawn always eats the souls of its mother when it wakes up one day," he said, his exnation taking a dark turn.
He let out anotherugh, this one darker, filled with the grim humor of the knowledge he was about to impart. "Imagine that, the first thing you do is devour the very being that brought you into this world. Fucking poetic, isn''t it?"
"Now, the God of Darkness knows this little tidbit because I''ve just told him," Silvaris dered, his voice carrying an undercurrent of mischief that seemed to stretch across the ethereal divide between them. "So him getting trapped inside your little Pandora''s box might just be a trick of his. Ever think of that?"
He paused for effect, letting the implication of his words sink in. "The God of Darkness is known to be mysterious, elusive, and fucking cunning. You think you''ve got him cornered, but maybe, just maybe, he''s leading you right into his own trap."
Silvaris''s tone grew more scornful as he continued.
"After all, he''s the one who stopped all you godly greedy fuckers from reaching the mortal realm. He''s been a thorn in your side, a shadow thwarting your grand ns, and you didn''t even realize it."
At that moment, the tense atmosphere was shattered by an unexpected event. Out of nowhere, an explosive bolt shot through the air and struck the Minotaur right on its head, detonating upon impact. The explosion echoed through the maze, a sudden and violent interruption to the standoff.
Silvaris''sughter, undiminished by the chaos, resonated once more. "Did you forget in your boasting session that the God of Darkness wasn''t alone?" he taunted, his amusement clear even as the situation took a dangerous turn.
"Now he''s waking up, and you are in front of it," Silvaris continued, his voiceced with glee at the impending disaster Marli and Raphael were about to face.
True to Silvaris''s prediction, the Minotaur''s eyes snapped open, rage and confusion evident in its gaze as it was rudely awakened from its slumber. With a swift movement, fueled by instinctual anger, it swatted Raphael with its long tail. The force of the blow was so sudden and powerful that Raphael, caught off guard, was unable to open a portal or defend himself in time.
Greetings, beloved readers,n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
Chapter 1223 Reaching Level 3 Godhood - Greater God
1223 Reaching Level 3 Godhood - Greater God
When the Minotaur''s eyes snapped open, they glowed with a vicious, blood-red hue, signaling a primal rage that left no room for reason or sanity. The sight alone was enough to chill the blood of those present, a clear indication of the danger they now faced. Without hesitation, the Minotaur acted on its instinctual rage, swatting Marli away with a powerful sweep of its front leg. Despite her divine status, the sheer force exerted by the ancient monster overwhelmed Marli, a testament to the Minotaur''s formidable strength and the deep-rooted power of ancient beasts.
"Open the fucking portal!" Marli shouted desperately at Raphael, realizing the immediate need for an escape. However, their means of escape, a pyramid-shaped golden artifact capable of opening portals, was beyond Raphael''s reach, having been knocked away in the chaos.
As Raphael stretched out his hand, attempting to retrieve the artifact, it inexplicably flew further away from his grasp, as if pulled by an unseen force. "Intruders must be punished, don''t you think?" Silvaris''s voice echoed ominously through the maze, his toneced with vindication. The greatest thief of all time was making his stance clear; he would not tolerate the goddess and the executioner of the pantheon disrupting his meticulously crafted dungeon games.
Silvaris''s disdain for the gods was well-known, his hatred for them unmatched. Now, with the Minotaur fully awakened and standing tall, its imposing figure dwarfed both Marli and Raphael, casting a shadow of impending doom over them.
"Shit," Marli cursed under her breath, quickly gathering herposure to release her aura once more in an attempt to subdue the ancient beast. The green light and mist that emanated from her spread throughout the vicinity, enveloping her in a cloak of divine power. Yet, this time, her efforts were futile; the aura that once held sway over the Minotaur had no effect, leaving them vulnerable to the wrath of a creature whose power and anger knew no bounds.
"Itsing at me," Marli said as the ancient beast lunged at her. Driven by desperation and the looming threat of defeat, Marli channeled her Celestial energy into a series of spells, her hands weaving through the air as she summoned bolts of emerald light aimed at the Minotaur.The bolts, infused with her godly essence, sizzled through the air, crackling with potent magical energy. "Take this, you monstrous fuck," she hissed, her frustration evident as the spells struck the Minotaur, only to dissipate against its imprable aura, as if it were swatting away mere annoyances.
Raphael, not to be outdone, drew upon his own arsenal of spells, his fingers tracing intricate symbols in the air as he invoked a barrier of shimmering golden light around them. "Hold, beast!" hemanded, the barrier pulsing with the strength of his conviction. Yet, the Minotaur, with a roar that shook the very foundations of the maze, charged through the barrier, shattering it like ss, a testament to its indomitable will and strength.
In a moment of dire necessity, Raphael reached into the folds of his garment and produced a small vial, the golden liquid within glowing with an otherworldly light. "This is thest bit of Zorian''s grace I have," he revealed, his voice grave.
"It''s now or never," she agreed, steeling herself for the culmination of their desperate stand against the Minotaur.
Without hesitation, he brought the vial of Zorian''s grace to his lips and consumed thest remnants of the golden liquid he had reserved for subduing the God of Darkness in dire situations. As the liquid vanished down his throat, a transformation began to manifest around him¡ªan ethereal sun materialized behind Raphael, casting an otherworldly glow that bathed the maze in its radiance. His eyes ignited with a golden light, a testament to the divine power of Zorian, the god of the sun, now coursing through his veins.
However, Silvaris''sughter, mocking and filled with derision, echoed through thebyrinth. "You just wasted thest bit of grace you had for nothing," he taunted, reveling in the perceived futility of Raphael''s sacrifice.
Undeterred by Silvaris''s mockery, Raphael summoned forth arge sword, its de shimmering with the power of the sun''s grace. This godly weapon, conjured from the depths of his newfound strength, enabled him to temporarily ascend to the might of a level 6 godhood. The sword gleamed with a light so intense it seemed capable of cleaving through the very fabric of reality.
As the Minotaur charged with unparalleled fury, Marli intervened, her hands weaving through the air as she called upon her own divine essence. From the ground, emerald veins surged forth, wrapping around the beast in an attempt to hold it in ce. Her spells strained against the Minotaur''s raw power, seeking to bind it long enough for Raphael''s strike tond.
The critical moment arrived when Raphael, empowered by the grace of a god, raised his sword for a decisive blow. But fate had other ns. From the shadows Gaya fired another perfect shot. The bolt exploded upon impact, unleashing a blinding light that enveloped the battlefield. Raphael, caught off guard by the sudden assault, missed his swing, the sword cutting through nothing but air.
The Minotaur seized the moment, its immense strength snapping the vines that held it. With a roar that shook the very foundations of the maze, it lunged forward, its charge unstoppable. Marli, caught directly in its path, bore the brunt of its wrath. The beast''s onught was merciless, crushing her beneath its might, causing her to cough up blood as the force of the impact sent her reeling.
Attempting to recover from his failed strike, Raphael found himself caught by the Minotaur''s tail. The beast''s tail, powerful and swift, struck him with such force that he was sent flying, his body mming against the maze''s walls.
"That''s for what you did, bitch," Gaya snarled from a distance, her voice filled with satisfaction as she witnessed the immediate retribution for their actions.
The Minotaur, unrelenting in its fury, lunged at Raphael with a ferocious intensity. Its massive leg came crashing down, aiming to crush Raphael beneath its weight. The sound of bones breaking echoed through the maze, a gruesome testament to the Minotaur''s strength.
"Argh!" Raphael growled, paincing his voice as he struggled beneath the beast''s oppressive force, his body bearing the brutal consequences of the Minotaur''s wrath.
Before Marli could muster any form of defense, the Minotaur turned its attention towards her. With ruthless efficiency, it stomped her repeatedly, each blow delivered with a vengeance that seemed personal. Marli''s screams filled the air, mingled with the sound of her coughing up blood, a vivid portrayal of her suffering.
Silvaris''sughter, cold and mocking, resonated throughout thebyrinth. "You shouldn''t havee here," he taunted, taking perverse pleasure in Marli''s plight. His voice, dripping with scorn, underscored the folly of her ambition.
"Maybe this is all the God of Darkness''s n," he mused, his amusement evident. "He''s safe within the Pandora''s box while you''re getting stomped to death."
As the Minotaur continued its assault, relentlessly stomping on Marli, Silvaris''sughter grew louder. "In the fight of god versus god, the God of Darkness just outwitted both of you." His words carried a weight of truth that was hard to ignore, especially as Marli, in a dire state, continued to puke blood, her body gruesomely mangled by the relentless stomps of the Minotaur.
As if sensing a shift in the tide, the Minotaur paused, its head tilting upwards before letting out a thunderous roar. A suction force, powerful and unseen, began to extract the golden aura surrounding Raphael. The grace of Zorian wisped into the Minotaur''s open maw, fueling its growth. With each gulp, the beast grewrger, its power amplifying before their very eyes.
Silvaris''sughter mocked Raphael''s plight, "This is why the gods avoid the ancient beasts." Amidst her agony, Marli spat out a defiant deration. "If I''m going to die, then he should die too." With great effort, she reached for the Pandora''s box, intending to unleash the God of Darkness as her final act of vengeance. Her hands trembled as she tried to m the box down, to open it and release its captive.
But Gaya who was invisible had other ns.
"Not today, bitch," she snarled, and with precise aim, fired another bolt. The projectile hit the Pandora''s box with such force that it sent the artifact flying away from Marli''s desperate grasp, thwarting herst-ditch effort to turn the tables.
Then, in a moment of eerie silence that followed the chaos, the Minotaur shifted its gaze downwards, locking eyes with Marli. The air around them seemed to thin as the beast began to suck Marli''s soul, marking the end of Marli.
As the Minotaur sucked her soul, Marli''s body began to age rapidly, her once youthful and powerful form withering away before their eyes. Green smoke, the essence of her being, wisped into the Minotaur''s mouth, a visual representation of her life force being drained.
The atmosphere around them intensified, with the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance and the air bing heavier, as if nature itself sensed the fall of a goddess.
Watching this scene from a distance, Gaya stopped in her tracks and observed the grim spectacle. "Fuck, it''s creepy," she muttered, her voice a mix of awe and horror at the sight of a goddess''s demise.
Meanwhile, Silvaris''s voice, filled with a sense of macabre satisfaction, echoed once more. "Never thought I''d see a goddess die in the hands of my boy, but it''s worth the wait," he said, his tone indicating a twisted sense of pride in the Minotaur''s actions. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Once the mintourpletely sucked away Marli''s soul, her body turned into a mummified mess. After havingpletely absorbed the soul of a goddess, the mintour''s gaze becam shifty as it gaited around before falling down. Its belly glowed in green light before it fell to its sleep. Although it was an ancient beast, absorbing the soul of a goddess still had its effects. In the mintour''s case, it became exhausted and went into deep slumber.
But at that moment, the pandora''s box trembled and suddenly exploded into bits and pieces. From within a dark smoke appeared.
"Thats one way to make an entrance," Gaya said as she saw Michael stepping out of the ck smoke with his eyes glowing in pitch ckness. At that moment, Michael stood there not as the level 2 Demi God but as level 3 Greater God since hepleted the quest of God yer II.
Greetings, beloved readers,
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
Chapter 1224 The level before the final level
1224 The level before the final level
"It''s so good to be back." Michael calmly cracked his neck and said. His voice carried the weight of his newly acquired power, resonating with the authority of a level 3 Greater God. As he took in his surroundings, his gaze fell upon the Minotaur, now sleeping deeply from the exhaustion of absorbing a goddess''s soul. He then turned his attention to the mummified remains of Marli''s body and chuckled, a dark amusement in his tone. "I regret not killing her with my own hands," he mused, his regretced with a hint of satisfaction at her demise.
His focus shifted to Raphael, who was recovering from the Minotaur''s assault. With a deliberate pace, Michael began to walk toward him, his presence imposing and his intent clear. "What should I do with you?" he pondered aloud, the question hanging in the air as a threat. As Michael was walking toward Raphael, Gaya joined Michael''s side. She nced at the sleeping Minotaur and sarcastically remarked. "Let''s not wake the baby, huh? Wouldn''t want to deal with that shitstorm again." Thoughced with humor, her words carried an underlying sense of relief at having survived the ordeal.
Sharing in the momentary levity, Michael smiled at Gaya''sment. His attention then shifted back to Raphael, who was still on the ground, visibly weakened from the ordeal of having the grace he absorbed forcefully taken by the Minotaur. Michael''s approach was measured, his presence dominating the space as he neared the fallen enforcer of the pantheon.
Raphael, recognizing the gravity of his situation, prepared himself for what came next. Despite his weakened state, there was a resolve in his eyes¡ªa determination to face his end with dignity. "I was prepared to do my duty, even if it meant my end. I''ll face death honorably," he stated, his voice firm, epting the fate he believed was imminent at the hands of the now more powerful God of Darkness.
Michael squatted down near Raphael, his movements deliberate and poised. He unsheathed his dark sword, the de emanating an ominous glow, and ced it gently against Raphael''s throat. The cold metal barely touching the skin served as a stark reminder of the precarious situation Raphael found himself in.
"Normally," Michael began, his voice steady and contemtive. "I''d kill anyone who dares to cross my path without a second thought." He paused, his gaze fixed on Raphael, searching for something within the enforcer that might justify a different oue. "But for some reason, I''m having second thoughts about killing you."
"Just kill him, human. He''s been chasing you, trying to capture or kill you. Why hesitate?" Her words,ced with conviction, underscored the danger Raphael represented as an enforcer of the pantheon.
Hearing Gaya''s insistence and observing her earlier transformation into her Naga form, Raphael''s realization dawned upon him. This young woman, so fiercely protective and powerful, was none other than the Goddess of Monsters, the wife of the God of Darkness. "So, the Goddess of Monsters has joined the God of Darkness, huh? It''s a real party," A snicker escaped Raphael''s lips. His tone wasced with a mix of respect and resignation, recognizing the significance of their union and the potential shift in power dynamics it represented.
After having the dark sword pressed against his throat for a while, Raphael''s patience wore thin.
"Don''t waste my time. Just kill me already." His voice carried a mix of defiance and eptance, fully prepared to meet his end under the sword of the God of Darkness. Yet, Michael shook his head. "I''m going to let you live," he dered, his voice firm. "But not without leaving a mark." With a swift, deliberate motion, Michael''s dark sword lightly cut across Raphael''s cheek. A thin line of blood drizzled down his face, a physical reminder of this encounter and a warning.
Taken aback by the sudden pain, Raphael couldn''t help but curse under his breath at Michael. The sting of the cut was a minor wound, but the implication of being marked was far more significant.
"Go tell the pantheon," Michael continued, sheathing his sword as he stood up. "The more they try to chase me down, the more gods will die." His words were a clear threat, a deration of his readiness to defend himself and Gaya against any threats that dared to pursue them.
"You''re ying a dangerous game," Raphael retorted, wiping the blood from his cheek. "a game you lost five thousand years ago." His words hinted at ancient conflicts and theplex history between the God of Darkness and the pantheon.
"If I lost, I wouldn''t be here," he stated with a slight chuckle.
On the other hand, Gaya sighed with a mix of admiration and concern in her eyes as she looked at Michael. "You were never wrong," she admitted, "and let''s hope this doesn''t change that." In response, Michael just extended his hand, and the golden pyramid-shaped artifact, which had eluded Raphael''s grasp earlier, flew back into his hand as if summoned by an unseen force. He then activated the artifact with a flick of his wrist, sending a sliver of celestial energy into it. With the celestial energy coursing through the artifact,its ancient markings glowing with power.
Turning his gaze to Raphael, Michael offered a parting remark filled with an ominous promise. "We will meet again, Raphael," he said, his voice carrying the weight of inevitability. The statement was not a threat but a certainty, acknowledging the unfinished business between them.
As Michael spoke, a vortex began to form behind him, swirling with golden light and celestial energy. He and Gaya turned to leave, stepping towards the portal that would whisk them away from the maze and the ancient beast that guarded it.
Still recovering from his ordeal, Raphael called out to them with a mix of resignation and a warning of his own. "Let''s not have ancient beasts involved when we meet again," he said, a hint of begrudging respect in his tone for the formidable pair.
Without looking back, Michael and Gaya walked into the vortex, their figures disappearing into the swirling gateway as it closed behind them, leaving Raphael alone in the aftermath of their encounter. Once they stepped through the vortex, Michael and Gaya found themselves not in their expected destination but in apletely different pocket dimension attached to the dungeon. Their surroundings had drastically changed to that of a snow-capped mountain, the ground nketed in white, the air filled with the flurry of a snowstorm.
"Fuck, now we''re in a snowstorm," Gaya sighed, her breath visible in the chilly air. The scene before them was a stark contrast to the maze they had just left.
"Let''s take a walk," Michael suggested, unfazed by the sudden change in environment. As they began to tread carefully through the thick snow, their footsteps leaving deep impressions behind, Gaya couldn''t help but ponder the events that had just unfolded.
"Why did you really leave Raphael alive?" she asked, curiositycing her voice.
, "I''ve put a spyder on Raphael." Michael simply replied. "We can hear and see everything the pantheon does now," he exined further, revealing the strategic advantage they had gained by sparing Raphael''s life.
The revtion was a glimpse into the depth of Michael''s nning and foresight. By allowing Raphael to live, they had secured a means to stay one step ahead of the pantheon''s movements and intentions. While seemingly merciful, this decision was a calcted move in the intricate game of gods.
As Michael and Gaya trudged through the snow, their attention was abruptly drawn to the appearance of several vortexes materializing around them. "So, the other adventurers are also here," Gaya observed, her voiceced with a mix of curiosity and annoyance as she watched figures step out from the swirling gateways.
Among those who emerged were elves from Aurumvale, d in their distinctive golden armor that shimmered against the stark white backdrop of the snow. Dwarves and other adventurers followed, their expressions tense, weapons at the ready, as if expecting to be thrust back into battle the moment they set foot in this new environment.
Just then, Silvaris''s voice, ever-present and filled with his characteristic mischief, echoed through the dimension. "For those who have met some unwanted godly attention, please be rest assured this level is unwanted gods free," he announced.
After hearing Silvaris, confusion spread among some of the adventurers, particrly those who hadn''t encountered Raphael and Marli in the maze. They exchanged puzzled nces, muttering among themselves. "What''s he talking about?" Theirck of awareness of the recent events involving the gods highlighted each group''s diverse experiences within Silvaris''s dungeon.
"Let''s talk about Uncle Silvaris''s n for you all in this level," Silvaris''s voice rang out, capturing the attention of everyone present amidst the snowy expanse. "This level is the simplest and easiest of them all," he imed, a statement that immediately drew skeptical murmurs from the crowd.
"Yeah right, he''s screwing with us," one of the Aurumvale elves muttered, his distrust evident. The sentiment was shared by many, their experiences in the dungeon thus far having taught them to take Silvaris''s words with a grain of salt.
Undeterred by their skepticism, Silvaris continued. "Youzy idiots only have to climb or fly to the top of this ice mountain and take the map for the next level." His words, though straightforward, did little to alleviate the adventurers'' suspicion.
They all frowned, puzzled by the new objective. "What map is that?" someone shouted, seeking rification amidst the growing confusion.
"The next and final level of mine contains countless treasure chests and, of course, traps. This map provides a detailed view of where the traps and treasures are located," he exined, painting a picture of the potential rewards thaty ahead. "So, the one who gets their hands on the map will leave the dungeon not only very rich but also powerful. Those who don''t will have to gamble on their luck and hope they don''t mistake a trap for treasure."
Greetings, beloved readers,
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
Chapter 1225 Yet another ancient beast
Chapter 1225 Yet another ancient beast
However, Gaya, ever skeptical of Silvaris''s intentions, couldn''t help but voice her suspicion. "That fucker must have a catch," she muttered under her breath, her instincts telling her that the task couldn''t be as straightforward as it seemed.
"Those who standst when a lucky winner gets to the top and secures the map will be teleported to the next level," he revealed, adding anotheryer ofplexity to the challenge.
"What does he mean by ''standst''?" one of the adventurers asked, confusion evident in their voice. The phrase was ambiguous, hinting at a potential twist in what had seemed like a simple race to the top.
"I know you greedy fuckers will kill each other while trying to get to the top, just like you''ve been doing," Silvaris said, his voiceced with amusement at the anticipated chaos. Several of the adventurers, confident in their abilities, boasted about their flying and speed spells. "I''ll just fly to the top," bragged one of the elves, his arrogance palpable. "My speed spell will get me there first," imed a dwarf, ready to prove his worth.
"It can''t and won''t be this simple," Gaya remarked, voicing the skepticism that many felt but few had articted. Her intuition warned her of the hidden dangers thaty in wait for them.
"As you idiots might have noticed, you still have ess to your celestial energy, so you are allowed to use spells, but¡" Silvaris''sughter filled the air once more as he paused, drawing out the moment.
"Here ites," Gaya said with a roll of her eyes, anticipating the catch that Silvaris was about to reveal.
Pausing for effect, Silvaris finally disclosed the twist. "I have an ancient beast here that will sense the use of celestial energy. So, use your spells wisely, or you''ll be hunted down by my baby girl," he warned, his tone taking on a sinister edge. This revtion changed the dynamics of the race drastically. While the use of spells could give adventurers an edge in reaching the summit, it also made them targets for the ancient beast that thrived on the very energy they would need to rely on.
"This level''s gonna teach you idiots another aspect of the fine art of thievery. Knowing when to unleash your arsenal of spells and when to just fucking roll with luck," he dered.
"You''ll get the bloody point soon enough," he promised, a hint of ominous foreboding in his tone.
"See you on the other side," Silvaris concluded, his voice fading away, leaving the adventurers to ponder the implications of his parting words.
Once Silvaris''s voice had faded into the cold, snowy air, the adventurers, now wary of the hidden dangers and the ancient beast lurking in wait, moved cautiously instead of charging forward with the haste they might have shown before. The crude advice resonated with them, instilling a sense of caution that had perhaps beencking in earlier levels.
"Rushing in like a headless chicken''s gonna get us fucking killed," muttered one of the dwarves, his eyes scanning the snowy horizon for any signs of the beast. "Silvaris is a fucking sadist, enjoying this shit from wherever he''s hiding," an elf cursed, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword, ready yet hesitant to advance.
"Every damn level, it''s been one mindfuck after another. This bastard''s ying with us, and I''m not keen on being some beast''s dinner," another adventurer said.
As the adventurers, including Michael and Gaya, ventured cautiously through the blizzard that engulfed the mountain, the ferocity of the ice storm became apparent. Snow whipped through the air, driven by howling winds that bit into any exposed skin with unrelenting cold.
"Fucking great, just what we needed, a bloody blizzard to make things even more miserable," cursed one of the dwarves, his voice barely audible over the storm.
"Can''t see a damn thing in this white hell," another adventurerined, pulling his cloak tighter around him in a futile attempt to ward off the cold.
"Silvaris really knows how to pick his fucking locations," Gaya added, her words barely audible against the storm''s fury.
Amidst the grumbling and cursing, one elf, driven by impatience and a touch of arrogance, voiced his frustration. "I''ve had enough of this creeping around," he dered, a hint of recklessness in his tone. Without waiting for a response, he began casting a spell, his figure illuminated by the incantation''s glow against the storm''s backdrop. "I''ll just fly to the top and be done with it," he dered confidently beforeunching himself into the air and soaring towards the mountain''s peak.
The others watched in mixed awe and apprehension. "He''s either brave or aplete idiot," one dwarf muttered, shaking his head. "Well, nothing''s happening to him... yet," another adventurer observed, tracking the elf''s ascent with a mix of curiosity and concern.
But then, a piercing screech tore through the storm''s cacophony, followed by the unsettling sight ofrge shadows moving with unnatural speed within the swirling snow. The sudden appearance of these ominous forms sent a ripple of fear through the group. "What the hell was that?" an elf gasped, her voice edged with panic.
Just a few momentster, the elf''s confident flight turned into a nightmare as a scream tore through the storm''s cacophony. "Get this off of me!" he cried out, desperation evident. His plea was cut short in a few seconds, leaving an eerie quiet in its wake.
At that exact moment, Michael and Gaya caught a glimpse of several glowing eyes and the silhouettes of massive, hairy legs disappearing into the heart of the storm, a chilling indication of the ancient beast that lurked within. The sudden and terrifying end of the elf''s ambitious flight sent shockwaves through the group of adventurers. "Holy shit, did you just see that?" one of the dwarves eximed, his voice barely above the howl of the wind but dripping with disbelief. "That fucker got taken out by... What the hell was that thing?" another adventurer shouted, trying to peer through the blinding snowstorm for any sign of the creature.
"Damn, this is not good. This is really not good," a particrly nervous adventurer muttered, his previous bravado evaporating into the frigid air.
Turning to Michael with a mix of fear and awe, Gaya asked. "Did you see that?" Her question was rhetorical, needing no answer but seeking confirmation of the horror they had just witnessed.
"Yeah," Michael replied calmly, his eyes scanning the storm for any more signs of the lurking predator. His voice was calm, but the tension in his posture betrayed his concern for the danger they faced.
The adventurers, now thoroughly spooked, proceeded with even greater caution. The atmosphere was charged with a tangible sense of fear, each step forward made with the utmost care to avoid attracting the attention of whatever had just imed the life of their fellow adventurer.
Among the whispers of the wind, whispered conversations began to emerge among some of the adventurers. "If we can''t use spells to get to the top first, maybe we should start thinking about thinning the herd," one suggested in a hushed tone, casting furtive nces at the others. "Yeah, fewerpetitors, better odds for us," another agreed, the moral implications of their strategy overshadowed by the desperate drive to survive and seed. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
As Michael and Gaya navigated through the treacherous ice storm, their senses were on high alert. Suddenly, Michael''s reflexes kicked in as he leaned to the side, snatching a me arrow out of the air that had been shot through the swirling snow with deadly precision. The arrow, intended for them, glowed ominously in his grasp.
"So, the fuckers want to thin the herd, huh?" Gaya remarked with a cold edge to her voice, pulling out her crossbow in preparation for retaliation. Her readiness to defend them both was palpable in her swift response.
Michael, holding the ming arrow, simply crushed it in his hand, extinguishing the me with a snicker. "Looks like it," he remarked dryly, his amusement at the attempt on their lives tinged with a cold edge.
Amidst the tension, a dwarf, perhaps out of habit or a desperate need for warmth, cast a spell to envelop himself in a brief cloak of warmth. In the midst of the tension, a dwarf, perhaps out of habit or a desperate need for warmth, cast a spell to envelop himself in a magical aura that staved off the biting cold. "Ah, that''s better," he sighed in relief, oblivious to the danger his action had just invited.
It took a few moments for the realization to dawn on the dwarves around him. "You bloody idiot!" one of them eximed, horror striking as they understood the implications of using celestial energy in this environment. "What have you done?" another shouted, panic setting in as they grasped the severity of the situation.
The group of dwarves around him began to panic, understanding the grave error that had been made.
It didn''t take long for their fears to materialize. The ancient beast, drawn by the sudden use of celestial energy, emerged from the storm like a predator homing in on its prey. The dwarves, caught in the midst of their realization, had no time to react as the beast began taking them out one by one.
"By the gods, run!" one dwarf managed to scream before being silenced by the beast''s ferocious attack.
"It''s got Dagr! Oh, fuck, it''s got Dagr!" another cried out in horror, witnessing the brutal efficiency with which the beast dispatched his friend.
As the chaos unfolded and the dwarves met their grim fate, Gaya''s sharp eyes once again caught sight of something that sent a chill down her spine even in the midst of the icy storm. Countless glowing eyes pierced through the blizzard, a horrifying spectacle that was both mesmerizing and terrifying. Apanying the eyes were the silhouettes of massive, hairy legs moving with a grace that belied their monstrous size. As the creature emerged further from the veil of snow, its form became clearer, revealing the unmistakable outline of a giant spider.
Watching the spider retreat back into the storm after its attack, Gaya felt a revulsion she couldn''t shake. Spiders, with their many eyes and legs, had always been a source of unease for her, but this creature was something far beyond the ordinary. "I hate spiders," Gaya muttered under her breath.
Chapter 1226 Ice Skater Invented
Chapter 1226 Ice Skater Invented
As the realization of their predicament sank in, with the ancient spider beast lurking somewhere in the blizzard, Gaya turned to Michael, her face etched with concern. "What the hell are we going to do?" she asked, the urgency in her voice cutting through the howling wind.
But without waiting for Michael''s response, Gayaunched into a story from her past, a rare glimpse into her vulnerabilities. "You know why I fucking hate spiders?" she began, her voice tinged with a mix of fear and disgust. "When I was little, I stumbled into a nest of them. Felt them crawling all over me before I even knew what was happening. It''s a feeling you don''t forget," she confessed, shivering at the memory. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
In the midst of deflecting arrows being fired at them with a casual flick of his hands, Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at the irony. "You, the Goddess of Monsters, and you''re afraid of spiders," he said, amusement clear in his voice despite the ongoing assault.
"Everyone has something they fear, human," Gaya''s response was a low growl, her annoyance evident. Meanwhile, the archers hidden from sight, continued their assault on Michael and Gaya. Unfortunately fo them, they were not thinning the herd as they were thinking but messing with two gods. "Quit ying with them and finish those fuckers up," Gayamanded, her tone shifting from irritation to determination. Then, she loaded crossbow bolts into the God yer, preparing to take matters into her own hands and eliminate the threat of the unseen archers targeting them.
The air around them crackled with tension as Gaya took aim, her focus narrowing on the hidden assants. Sensing her shift in mood, Michael ceased his yful deflection of the arrows and cracked his neck.
"You are right. Let''s quit ying," As the barrage of arrows continued to slice through the misty air towards them, Michael, with a determined re, dashed forward, his two swords ready in his hands. His figure blurred into motion, a shadow racing towards the unseen threat.
Hidden among the snow and fog were the archers, d in the golden armor that bore the crest of Aurumvale. They stood in formation, their bows drawn, aiming into the mist with uncertainty clouding their vision.
"I can''t see shit through this storm," one of them cursed, releasing another arrow into the white abyss. "Just keep firing," the leader of the groupmanded, an elf wielding a halberd with authority. "Fire at every shadow, every movement. We need to thin the herd," he ordered, his voice cutting through the wind with a cold determination.
In the midst of their assault, one keen-eyed elf squinted into the distance, noticing something moving towards them at an rming speed. "Is that the ancient beast?" he asked, a trace of fear tainting his words, the possibility of facing the monster they''d been warned about looming in his mind.
"No," another archer responded, catching a brief glimpse of ck long robes through the swirling snow. "But I think it''s an adventurer in ck, probably the one we''ve been firing arrows at."
The elf who had spotted the figure snickered, his fear reced with a rush of adrenaline. "Then kill that idiot," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, underestimating the threat racing towards them.
As Michael surged forward through the icy mist, he leaped with a ferocity that matched the howling storm around them. With a swift, precise sh, he silenced one of the elves instantly, the unfortunate soul''s head cleanly severed from his body in a chilling disy of efficiency.
The elves, momentarily frozen in horror at the sight of theirrade falling so abruptly, quickly descended into panic. "Fuck, what the hell was that?" one of them cried out, barely able toprehend the speed and brutality of their assant.
"Attack, you fools!" another shouted, trying to rally hispanions into action, but hismand was cut short as a crossbow bolt whistled through the mist, striking him squarely in the head. The bolt''s impact was lethal and immediate, sending another elf to the ground in a lifeless heap.
The remaining elves, now shouting in a mix of horror and anger, realized the true danger they faced toote. "KILL THEM!" one managed to yell, his voice tinged with desperation and fear.
"You picked the wrong targets." Michael snickered. He moved among them like a shadow, his movements a blur of deadly grace. Despite their training and armor, the elves stood no chance against the God of Darkness. One by one, they fell to Michael''s des, their cries and shouts quickly silenced in a matter of seconds.
As Michael stood amidst the fallen bodies of the Aurumvale elves, his victory was abruptly interrupted by an unexpected assault. A medallion, hurled from the mist, flew at him with precision. In the fraction of a second before it could reach him, emerald green chains burst forth from the jade medallion, rapidly coiling around him in an attempt to bind him.
"Fuck," Gaya eximed as she witnessed the sudden attack. But Michael, with his newfound power as a Greater God, easily shattered the chains. The emerald links shattered upon contact, their fragments scattering across the snow.
However, the energy released by the medallion drew the attention of the ancient beast, the giant spider lurking within the mist. Reacting instantly, Michael leaped out of the way as a white form, the spider, shot through the mist and struck the ground where he had just stood. The impact left behind an empty cocoon, a silent testament to what might have been had Michael been slower.
Gaya, observing the spider''s ability to rapidly create cocoons, couldn''t hide her astonishment. "Look at that...it shoots cocoons faster than I shoot arrows," shemented, her tone a mix of admiration and concern for the danger they now faced.
"Some smart assholes are using medallions to kill others!" Gaya shouted, her voiceced with frustration and anger at the cowardice of their unseen assants. She quickly began to move, signaling Michael to follow as they attempted to put distance between themselves and the ancient spider.
The spider, undeterred, screamed into the mist, a chilling sound that echoed through the mountain. It continued to fire white foam at them, its aim guided by the disturbances in the air.
As some of the remaining adventurers caught a clear glimpse of the spider, their reactions were a mixture of shock and horror. "Holy shit, that''s the beast!" one of them yelled, his voice cracking with fear.
"Are we supposed to fight that thing?" another cried out, the prospect of facing the spider directly a daunting one they hadn''t considered.
"We''re fucked. We''re so fucked," a third adventurer muttered, the reality of their situation sinking in as they witnessed the monstrous spider in action.
Unlike the others who were panicking, Michael formted a n on the fly while darting through the icy mist with Gaya.
"If this thing tracks its prey by sensing celestial energy, then I''m about to give it a real wild goose chase," he dered as his mind raced with strategies to outsmart the ancient spider.
Without missing a beat, Michael retrieved a medium-grade celestial crystal from the system storage. With a firm grip, he crushed the crystal, its shards glowing a vibrant emerald as they scattered in multiple directions when he flung them away. The release of celestial energy from the shattered pieces was immediate and potent, creating a beacon for the spider.
Attracted by the sudden surge of celestial energy, the spider veered off its course, its attention captivated by the glowing emerald shards. It began to viciously attack the scattered pieces, each strike a testament to its relentless nature.
"Holy hell, it''s going after someone else!" one of them eximed, relief mixed with terror in his voice.
"Looks like it''s thinning the herd without us lifting a finger," another shouted, a grim sense of satisfaction in recognizing an unintended ally in their hunt for the map.
Meanwhile, Michael took advantage of the distraction to focus on his next move. He observed the ice beneath his feet and the distant mountain peak, an idea forming in his mind. After quickly buying a metal board and a few otherponents from the system store, he began to assemble them with purposeful haste.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Gaya asked, her curiosity piqued by Michael''s sudden shift in focus.
"Improvising," Michael responded simply, his hands moving deftly to fit theponents together. He was constructing a makeshift skateboard,plete with a small engine designed to melt the ice below and vaporize it using the dark mes to propel them forward. "This board will use the ice as fuel. The engine will melt it, and then I''ll superheat the water with dark mes to create steam for propulsion," he exined to Gaya, detailing the innovative design that would leverage his Inventor trait to escape the spider''s pursuit.
"This should give us the speed we need to outrun that spider and make it to the mountain top before anyone else," Michael concluded.
The skateboard, now fully assembled, was a sleek piece of improvisation, its ck metallic surface gleaming against the backdrop of the icy mountain. "Hop on it," Michael said with a confident grin and hopped onto the board. Althoguh slughtly hesitant, Gaya took a deep breath and stepped on behind him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
"This better not make me fall," Gaya warned.
"Hold tight," Michael chuckled before channeling his dark mes, which cascaded from his hands down to his feet, feeding into the small engine attached to the skateboard. The moment the dark mes made contact with the ice, it melted instantaneously, only to be vaporized by the intense heat. This sudden transformation of ice to steam propelled them forward with an impressive burst of speed.
As they soared through the ice storm, the sensation was exhrating. They moved with such velocity that the snow and wind seemed to blur around them, creating a tunnel of white.
Their sudden burst of speed didn''t go unnoticed by the other adventurers struggling through the storm. "What the hell? Did you see that?" one eximed as Michael and Gaya zoomed past them, a blur against the snowy backdrop.
"Is he using celestial energy? How is he not getting killed by that damn spider?" another shouted, confusion and envy coloring his voice as he watched the pair disappear into the distance.
"They''re fucking flying on a board!" another shouted, pointing in the direction Michael and Gaya had disappeared.
Greetings, beloved readers,
If you''re enjoying the story thus far, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping me achieve higher ratings and be a better writer.
Check out my new stories connected to the HBS universe; Anti Hero With a Legendary System and Dictator with a Badass System. The links are in the synopsis.
Your Gifts and Golden Tickets will put my book up in the ranking and motivate me to do more mass releases.
Moreover, if you''re truly captivated by the story, you can show your support by gifting me power stones or other gifts. Your generosity would be a tremendous motivation for me to release more chapters and create even morepelling content.
Don''t hesitate to share your thoughts on each chapter in thements below. I always love hearing your opinions!
Additionally, if you''re interested in supporting me through donations, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page at the link provided. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. /donoffl
Finally, I would like to invite you to join my Discordmunity, where you can gain exclusive ess to character artwork, theme music, and engage in Q&A sessions with me at any time. Click the link below to join.
https://discord.gg/xWacJDwazf
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Chapter 1227 The Real Dungeon Boss
Chapter 1227 The Real Dungeon Boss
As they soared through the icyndscape on Michael''s makeshift skateboard, Gaya couldn''t resist the opportunity to taunt and mock the other adventurers struggling behind them. "Hey, you slowpokes, try to keep up!" she yelled back, her voiceced with mockery and amusement. "Maybe if you weren''t such clowns, you''d have thought of this first!"
Herughter rang clear through the cold air, the thrill of their unconventional method of travel making her spirits soar as high as they were. The other adventurers, witnessing their rapid ascent, couldn''t hide their frustration and envy. Lacking the means to use spells without attracting the ancient beast, some resorted to hurling small ice balls in a futile attempt to hit Michael and Gaya. "Take this, you show-offs!" one of them shouted, his ice ball falling pathetically short of its intended targets.
The ice balls, thrown in desperation and without any real hope of hitting their fast-moving targets, were a pitiful response that only served to amuse Gaya further.
"You think you''re so clever, don''t you?" another yelled, his voice tinged with irritation and defeat as his own attempt to disrupt their journey failed miserably.
"Look at these clowns trying to hit us with ice balls!" Gayaughed, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. "At this rate, we''ll reach the top in no time!" N?v(el)B\\jnn
Michael merely smiled at Gaya''s taunts, focusing on maintaining their speed and direction. The innovative use of his dark mes and the skateboard had given them a significant advantage, which he was determined to capitalize on.
"Damn it! That''s not fair!" one of them yelled, his voice lost in the storm. The other adventurers, left in the wake of Michael and Gaya''s innovative escape, could only watch in disbelief and annoyance. "Who even thinks of making a fucking skateboard in the middle of a snowstorm?" another wondered aloud, the absurdity of the situation not lost on him.
As Michael and Gaya continued their ascent, their unconventional method of travel caught the attention of an Aurumvale elf, who couldn''t hide his irritation. "Somebody stop them!" he shouted, his voiceced with desperation and envy. The sight of the pair effortlessly moving towards the summit was too much for him to bear, especially as he trudged through the snow at a snail''s pace.
Those who had previously encountered Michael and Gaya and bore the glowing green mark of Morbus on their foreheads were quick to recognize them. "That''s them! Those are the bastards responsible for this curse!" one of them yelled, pointing aggressively in their direction. The mark was a constant reminder of their previous encounter, fueling their anger and frustration.
"Yeah, thanks to them, we''re marked for death by a goddamn god of gues!" another added bitterly, the cold doing nothing to dampen the heat of his anger.
Among the mixed reactions, a group of adventurers who had narrowly escaped Marli''s wrath and the Minotaur''s rampage expressed their disbelief at seeing Michael. "Isn''t that the God of Darkness Marli bragged about trapping?" one whispered to another, their voice a mixture of fear and astonishment.
"Fuck, it is him! He''s supposed to be trapped in that Pandora''s box thing," another adventurer responded, his eyes wide with shock. The realization that Goddess Marli had imed to have subdued was now sliding past them on a makeshift skateboard was difficult toprehend.
"Marli caught him, and now he''s here? How the hell did he escape?" another questioned aloud, trying to piece together the startling events. Their
"Does this mean Marli failed? Are we screwed because of her?" a third adventurer questioned.
As Michael and Gaya zipped through the blizzard atop their ingenious contraption, among the crowd of adventurers witnessing their ascent were Lysandra and Elrion, who had narrowly escaped the clutches of Marli and the Minotaur. Catching sight of the pair, Elrion turned to Lysandra, confusion and disbelief etched across his face. "How the hell did he get out of the Pandora''s box?" Elrion murmured to Lysandra, his tone a mix of bewilderment and awe. The escape from such a trap seemed beyond the realm of possibility, especially after seeing Marli traps the God of Darkness infront of them.
Both Lysandra and Elrion were still reeling from their close encounter with the goddess Marli and the monstrous Minotaur, and now, the sight of the mythical God of Darkness effortlessly navigating the icy terrain added anotheryer of shock to their already tumultuous day.
Hearing Elrion''s question, Lysandra let out a weary sigh, her breath forming clouds in the cold air. "He doesn''t seem to y by the rules we''re ustomed to with gods," she observed, trying to make sense of Michael''s actions and their implications. Herment reflected a growing realization that the God of Darkness, operated on a different level from what they had been taught to expect.
"In this twisted game the gods y, it''s always us mortals who end up as pawns, risking our lives," she added, her voice tinged with bitterness. The truth of her words hung heavy in the air, a stark reminder of the power imbnce between gods and those who worshipped them.
"I just hope they get to that map first and find a way to lead us out of this nightmare,"Elrion nodded as his gaze was fixed on the distance where Michael and Gaya had disappeared.
"Before that damn spider decides we''re its next meal." he said with concern. As Michael and Gaya were cutting through the icy winds, Michael''s earpiece suddenly buzzed to life. "This is not a good time, Pink," Michael said as he tried to maintain their precarious speed.
However, Pink''s voice came through the earpiece with an unusual seriousness. "It''s important," she insisted, prompting Michael to slow their breakneck pace slightly, a sign that he was willing to listen despite the timing.
Tuning into themunication with her own earpiece, Gaya urged.
"Speak, Pink. What''s going on?"
"I''ve been digging through some of Seraphene''s crystals after I hacked into them, and I found out that Silvaris isn''t quite the character he ims to be," she began to reveal more information about the infamous thief and the creator of this dungeon.
Michael, now fully attentive, prompted, "What do you mean?"
"While he boasts of being an angel of Valorix, the god of thievery, and prides himself on stealing valuables, beasts, and artifacts... I found records suggesting that Silvaris has a darker hobby. He doesn''t just steal physical treasures; he steals souls." Pink revealed, catching both Michael and Gaya off guard.
The revtion sent a shiver down their spines, the gravity of Pink''s findings dawning on them. "Did she just say he steals souls?" Gaya asked with a mix of shock and disbelief.
It took Gaya a few moments to react after what Pink revealed. Since she already hated Silvaris to the core, the fact he steals souls only fanned the mes of anger in her heart.
"That fucking Silvaris! Are you telling me that sneaky bastard steals souls too? I knew he was fucked up in the head," she eximed, showing her shock and revulsion at the thought of someone, especially someone they were indirectly working against, possessing such a dark and dangerous ability.
Meanwhile, Michael processed the information while maintaining control of the skateboard.
"Is there any mention of why he steals souls?" he asked.
"Unfortunately, the records I hacked into don''t specify his reasons. But let''s be real, stealing souls isn''t exactly a hobby you take up for shits and giggles. It''s not like he''s collecting stamps," Pink replied.
After hearing Pink, Michael slowed the skateboard almost to a stop as he reached the summit of the mountain. Then, he gazed towards the mountain top, where their goaly obscured by swirling snow and ice. "Keep digging, Pink. Anything you find could be crucial. Keep me updated," he instructed, knowing full well that understanding Silvaris''s motives could be key to navigating the dangers ahead and possibly confronting the thief himself.
After ending themunication with Pink, Gaya''s expression was one of concern mixed with a dose of her usual defiance. "We need to be fucking careful, human," she warned while looking ahead, where the snowstorm continued to rage. Her intuition told her that they were far from understanding the full extent of Silvaris''s machinations.
"Fucked up guys like him don''t just hand over their treasures like they''re hosting a damn charity g," Gaya added, her voice dripping with skepticism. The idea that Silvaris, a being capable of soul theft, would simply allow them to walk away with valuable treasures seemed increasingly ludicrous.
Even after all this, Michael remained calm as usual, and he even had a smile on his face.
"Let''s see what game he''s ying," he said with a flicker of excitement in his eyes. His curiosity about Silvaris''s true intentions was piqued, not just by the threat he posed but also by the potential knowledge and power at stake.
Then, with a slight nudge, Michael resumed their movement on the skateboard, picking up speed as they made their way toward the summit. "After all, a game''s only as interesting as its yers,"he mused aloud.
******************
Somewhere else in the dungeon was avish throne hall adorned with opulence t with an old man sitting upon a golden throne. His wrinkly skin stretched over brittle bones, yellowish teeth barely clinging on, and white, lifeless eyes staring into the void. An array of tubes, more fitting of a hospital ward than a throne room, were attached to him, with a shiny white liquid flowing into his veins.
Before him, arge mirror disyed various scenes from around the world, including the treacherous snowy mountain the adventurers were currently ascending. The mirror flickered with images of lush forests, dark mazes, and serenekes with giant monsters. Each of the scene was alive with the struggles of the adventurers.
Looking at the mirror before him, the old man justughed with a sound both eerie and mocking. "Look at these fucking fools, blindly scurrying around, their eyes gleaming with the promise of treasure," he sneered, his voice thick with disdain. "Little do they know, they''re just rats in my maze, driven by their own greed, walking straight into my trap." He said, leaning forward.
"They think they''re fighting for gold, for artifacts, for glory... but in the end, it''s their souls that will fill my coffers," he continued, a cruel smile ying on his lips. "Their greed, their desperation, it makes them so... deliciously vulnerable."
With a dismissive wave of his hand, the scenes in the mirror shifted, but his focus remained on the snowy mountain. "Let theme. Let them climb. In their blind pursuit, they''ll deliver themselves right into my grasp," he dered as the promise of countless souls fueling his dark amusement.
Chapter 1228 Michael鈥檚 Promise To Jin
Chapter 1228 Michael¡¯s Promise To Jin
As Michael and Gaya continued their innovative ascent on the makeshift skateboard, soaring through the blizzard with a speed that left many of their fellow adventurers behind, the desperation among some of them reached a fever pitch. "We''ve got to beat them to the top!" one shouted, determinationcing his voice as he prepared to cast a spell.
"Fuck waiting, I''m flying up there!" another dered, throwing caution to the wind. The air around them crackled with celestial energy as several adventurers began tounch themselves into the sky, their spells illuminating the icy mist with bursts of light.
From the sidelines, Lysandra and Elrion watched the reckless gambit unfold. "Look at them, so desperate for treasure they''re willing to risk bing spider food," Elrionmented, shaking his head at the sight.
"They''re just making it easier for that ancient beast to pick them off. Haven''t they been paying attention?" Lysandra sighed, her breath forming a cloud in the frigid air. As if on cue, the giant spider, lurking within the storm, sensed the surge of celestial energy and sprang into action. With terrifying precision, it shot webs into the sky, snagging the flying adventurers and pulling them down into the blizzard, where they disappeared from sight.
"Shit, did you see that?!" one of the onlookers eximed, horror evident in his voice as he witnessed the spider''s swift attack.
"Those idiots... they''re gone, just like that," another muttered, a mix of fear and disbelief coloring his words.
From within the blizzard, the muffled screams of the captured adventurers echoed, a chilling reminder of the danger that the ancient spider posed. "Help me, for fuck''s sake!" one of the victims managed to shout before being silenced, his plea lost in the howling wind.
Meanwhile, as they maneuvered through the storm, Gaya couldn''t help but watch the spider''s hunts with a mixture of shock, amusement, and relief. "Holy shit, did you see that?!" she eximed, witnessing another adventurer caught by the spider''s web. "d we''re not part of that buffet."
However, Michael kept his gaze fixed ahead, where the silhouette of a red g began to materialize through the icy mist. "We''re getting close to the top," he stated, his voice steady, betraying none of the excitement or worry that such a moment might warrant.
Pulling her attention away from the chaos behind them, Gaya couldn''t shake off the unease that clung to her. "I''ve still got a fucking bad feeling about this," she admitted, turning to face the path ahead once more.
"In this realm of gods, everything''s meant to give us a bad feeling," Michael nced at her briefly before focusing back on their destination. Finally reaching the summit, Michael deftly kicked the base of the skateboard, catching it with a practiced ease as it bounced back into his hand. The icy peak was deste, save for the red g that fluttered weakly in the cold wind. Michael and Gaya approached the g, their breaths visible in the frigid air.
Gaya, ever vignt, paced casually around the area, her grip on the God yer tight and ready. "Better not let our guard down. Who knows what kind of fucked-up surprise Silvaris has left for us here," she said, her eyes scanning the snowy expanse for any signs of trouble.
Michael squatted down by the g, his hands carefully pulling it from the snow to reveal a map attached to its base. As he unfolded the map, his eyes quickly scanned the intricate details and the teleportation runes that were engraved on the parchment.
"I thought we''d be zapped away the moment we touched this thing," Gayamented, peering over Michael''s shoulder at the map.
"It looks like I need to feed a bit of celestial energy into the map to kickstart these teleportation runes," Michael exined, his fingers tracing the lines of runes thoughtfully.
Hearing Michael, Gaya frowned, her previous amusement fading into concern. "Using celestial energy up here is like ringing the dinner bell for that spider. How long is this teleportation shit going to take? Knowing that sneaky bastard Silvaris, this is just another one of his sick games," she said, her toneced with suspicion and frustration.
"It''s a risk, but staying here isn''t an option either. We''ll have to be quick and hope the teleportation kicks in faster than our eight-legged friend can make its move," he said, preparing to channel a small amount of celestial energy into the map, fully aware of the danger but also of the necessity of their gamble.
Suddenly, the quiet tension of the summit was shattered as Jin materialized out of thin air behind Gaya, pressing a crimson red dagger firmly against her throat. Gaya''s immediate reaction was a mix of surprise and anger, "You sneaky motherfucker!" she spat out, her voiceced with venom.
"I know who you are, but I need that map," he stated, the edge of the dagger glinting ominously in the cold light. Jin''s voice was calm but firm as he didn''t take his eyes off Michael. Michael slowly stood up, his eyes beginning to turn a deeper shade of ck, a clear sign of his growing anger and power. The sight of the dagger against Gaya''s throat was enough to push him toward the brink.
Despite the de at her throat, Gaya managed to remain rebellious as always. "You have no fucking clue what kind of trouble you''re stepping into," she warned, trying to convey the gravity of his mistake.
Maintaining hisposure but with a dark intensity in his voice, Michael addressed Jin directly. "If you really know who and what I am, then you''d be wise to stop what you''re doing right now," he said, his gaze locked on Jin, a clear threat underlying his words.
In response, Jin shifted slightly, allowing one hand to pull up his hood, revealing the glowing green crescent mark on his forehead¡ªthe unmistakable mark of Morbus. "I''m not going to die by Morbus''s hand for the shit you two pulled," he said, referencing the events that led to Shar''s death and the subsequent curse they all bore as a result.
But Michael''s response was chillingly calm,ced with an undercurrent of menace. "Looks like it''s time for you to meet your maker a bit earlier than nned," he said, his gaze cold and unforgiving.
"You might take me down, but I won''t go quietly. I''ll make sure she goes first." Jin retorted. The threat against Gaya was clear, his grip on the dagger unwavering. Unfazed, Gaya shot back with her own sharp retort. "I''ve dealt with bigger assholes than you in my time, and I''m still here, aren''t I, you little shit?" Her confidence was palpable, even with the de at her throat.
However, Jin''s next words took them by surprise. "That might have been true when you were in the mortal realm, Goddess of Monsters," he said, a knowing look in his eyes. The fact that he recognized Gaya''s true identity revealed that he was far more informed than they had initially thought.
Caught off guard for a moment, Gaya quickly surmised that Jin must have witnessed the encounter with Marli and Raphael. "You sneaky fuck," she muttered as she couldn''t respect his cunning nature despite having his de against her throat.
Shifting his focus back to Jin, Michael asked, "What''s your grand n here, Jin?" as he casually cracked his knuckles, a sign of his readiness to end this standoff one way or another.
In response to Michael''s question, Jin revealed his trump card with a hint of desperation in his voice. "This dagger, it''s not ordinary. It was given to me by someone... special. If I cut her throat with it, her body will wither away. And you," he said, locking eyes with Michael. "You''ll have a hell of a time trying to snatch her soul and put it in a new body that won''t even look like her."
Michael''s attention was now fully on the dagger. He focused intently on it, prompting the system to analyze the weapon. [The Dagger of Death: A one-time-use-only item, capable of inflicting mortal wounds on divine beings] the system detailed within Michael''s mind.
Then, attempting to diffuse the tension with a hint of bravado, Michael cracked his neck and suggested. "How about we settle this the old-fashioned way?" His posture rxed, yet his eyes remained sharp, ready for any oue.
However, Jin was not fooled or swayed by Michael''s suggestion. He let out a cold chuckle, shaking his head dismissively. "Oh no, I''m not delusional enough to think I can take on a god inbat, especially not the God of Darkness," he retorted, his grip on the dagger not wavering.
"Yeah, ''cause he''d wipe the floor with your ass," Gaya said, her voice dripping with scorn.
"Enough with the games, God of Darkness. Give me the map, or be prepared to watch her bleed out," he demanded as his patience wore thin.
"Why the hell are you even entertaining this asshole? Just get rid of him already. I''m tired of his sneaky bullshit," she urged Michael, clearly unafraid of the threat Jin posed.
Michael, inwardly conflicted, knew that outright killing Jin couldplicate his future ns. As someone who intended to infiltrate and eventually align with the assassins'' guild, making an enemy of one of its members was not a wise move. Thus, he opted for a different approach, one that would allow him to maintain his strategic advantage.
With a resigned sigh, Michael feigned defeat and tossed the map towards Jin. "Fine, take it," he said, his voice devoid of any real surrender.
Gaya''s frown deepened at the exchange, but as she caught Michael''s nce, she understood his y. Michael had likely memorized the map''s details, and by handing it over to Jin, they weren''t losing much. Furthermore, Jin''s reliance on the map and its activation through celestial energy would only draw the ancient beast''s attention to him, further endangering himself without them having to lift a finger.
On the other hand, Jin''s reflexes were quick as he caught the map with one hand, and in a swift, unexpected move, he pushed Gaya towards Michael and acrobatically leaped off the mountain top, disappearing into the icy mist below. The suddenness of his escape left a momentary silence in its wake. N?v(el)B\\jnn
Michael caught Gaya with ease, steadying her before she could stumble. Watching Jin''s disappearing figure, Michael called out into the void with a promise. "We will meet again, Jin. Sooner than you think."
Chapter 1229 A Body For Nightmare
Chapter 1229 A Body For Nightmare
As Jin hastily channeled his celestial energy into the parchment mid air while free falling, the intricate runes inscribed upon it began to glow. Momentster, a blinding illumination enveloped everyone who wasn''t already imed by the ancient spider''s wrath. In an instant, those fortunate¡ªor unfortunate¡ªenough to have survived found themselves whisked away to an entirely different location.
The new environment was starkly deste, a vast expanse of tnd punctuated only by several imposing golden pirs. Each pir bore the inscription "Traps or Treasure?" in bold, mocking letters.
Among the disoriented adventurers, a dwarf with a bloodstained beard and tattered robes surveyed the surroundings with a mix of awe and apprehension. "Where the fuck are we now?" he grumbled, his voice echoing slightly in the open space.
A group of elves, their elegant armor now dulled and scratched from their previous encounters, exchanged wary nces. "This must be another one of Silvaris''s sick fucking games," one of them cursed, her green eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of danger or deceit.
Regret was palpable among some, including a young human with the blood of hispanion staining his once pristine robes. "Coming to this damned dungeon was a mistake," he muttered, his voice heavy with sorrow and the weight of his lostrades.
As Michael and Gaya materialized in the deste area, Gaya immediately expressed her frustration.
"I''m gonna find that Jin fuck and kill him for this," her determination clear despite the uncertain surroundings.
Meanwhile, Michael scanned the crowd and quickly spotted Lysandra and Elrion at a distance, a brief nod of acknowledgment shared between them. Then, his attention shifted, catching the fleeting, shadow-like movements of Jin among the pirs. Michael''s memory of the map shed in his mind; he knew that most of the treasure chests hidden beneath these glistening pirs were nothing but traps, and he observed Jin skillfully avoiding them, which showed he had read the map to know which was treasure and which was a trap.
Around them, some adventurers began to cautiously approach the pirs, their movements hesitant but driven by the lure of potential riches. "Silvaris said we need that damn map, or we''re just gambling with our lives here," one adventurer muttered to hispanion, his voiceced with both hope and fear. "Let''s just hope we pick right," he added, eyeing the inscriptions on the pirs with a mix of greed and apprehension.
As the elf cautiously reached out and touched the pir, it began to move upward with a grinding sound, revealing a glistening treasure chest beneath. The surrounding adventurers held their breath, stepping back to maintain a safe distance, their eyes fixed on the unfolding scene.
A group of dwarves, watching from a short distance, began to make light of the tense situation. "I bet ten gold he''s gonna die horribly," one dwarf joked, eliciting nervous chuckles from hispanions.
The elf, ignoring thements, whispered under his breath as he gently lifted the lid of the chest.
"Please don''t be a trap." His hands trembled slightly, a mix of anticipation and fear evident in his cautious movements.
But the hope for treasure turned to horror in an instant. Suddenly, a dark w, swift and merciless, shot out of the chest. Before the elf could react, it grabbed him, pulling him inside. The sounds of bones breaking echoed briefly before the chest snapped shut, silencing the elf''s cries and returning to its inanimate state as if nothing had happened.
The dwarves, who had been making bets just moments before, were suddenly silenced by the grim turn of events. "Fuck, did you see that?" one dwarf eximed, his earlier bravado evaporating into the air. Another simply shook his head, muttering curses under his breath about the treacherous dungeon.
Amidst the shock, some young adventurers, overwhelmed by fear and despair, broke into tears. "Mom, Dad, pleasee save me," a young woman cried out, her voice breaking as the reality of their situation sunk in.
Observing the scene with a grim expression, Elrion couldn''t help shaking his head. "This dungeon haspletely broken their spirits,"
After the adventures'' saw what happened, the crowd was divided, with many proiming they wouldn''t dare touch another chest while others still wanted to get their hands on some treasures.
"I''m not opening anything. It''s not worth it," one adventurer dered. "If we don''t open them, what was the point of all this shit we''ve been through?"
Amid the turmoil, someone spotted Jin in the distance, touching a pir to reveal another treasure chest. "Is that Jin over there?" someone asked, squinting through the crowd. The group''s attention shifted, some wondering aloud if he would meet the same fate as the elf or if he''d actually find treasure. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Standing rtively apart from the main group of adventurers, Michael and Gaya remained unnoticed for the moment. Their distance allowed them to observe without drawing attention to themselves, especially from those still bearing the mark of Morbus due to their actions.
"Where are those skateboarding assholes who got us this Morbus mark?" a dwarf grumbled, scanning the crowd for Michael and Gaya. Hispanions nodded in agreement, their frustration palpable.
Unbeknownst to them, some of the other adventurers heard the dwarves''ints and shuddered, realizing the gravity of whom they were cursing. "They have no idea they''re calling a god an asshole," one whispered to another, their voice trembling with a mixture of fear and awe.
Ignoring their curses andints, Michael kept his eyes on Jin and noticed Jin cautiously opening the treasure chest. A hushed silence fell over the nearby adventurers as they watched, expecting the worst. But to their surprise, Jin didn''t meet a gruesome fate. "He didn''t die!" someone eximed, a mix of surprise and relief in their voice.
To everyone''s astonishment, Jin didn''t seem interested in the contents of the chest. Instead, he quickly rummaged through it, then ran towards another pir, leaving the treasure chest untouched and taking nothing with him.
The onlookers were baffled to see Jin leaving the treasure untouched. "What the hell? Why isn''t he taking anything?" one of the adventurers muttered, unable toprehend Jin''s actions. Another adventurer spected.
"Maybe he''s looking for something specific? Or maybe it''s another trick?"
Watching Jin''s odd behavior closely, Gaya turned to Michael, her intuition kicking in. "I''ve got a feeling he''s desperate... but for what?"
Meanwhile, the sight of an opened treasure chest without any immediate danger triggered a frenzy among the other adventurers. Their caution was quickly overtaken by greed, sparking chaos across the destendscape.
"Fuck it, I''m going in!" one of the adventurers yelled, throwing caution to the wind as he sprinted towards the chest, his deration acting as a catalyst for the others.
"Move your ass, or I''ll move it for you!" another shouted, pushing through the crowd in a mad dash towards the treasure, their eyes glinting with the prospect of riches.
The scene quickly devolved into a free-for-all, with adventurers shing against each other, their alliances forgotten in the face of potential wealth. "That gold''s mine, you greedy fucks!" someone screamed, swinging their weapon to fend offpetitors.
"Out of my way, you piece of shit!" another adventurer retorted, shoving others aside with brute force, determined to reach the chest first.
Gaya and Michael watched from a distance as the adventurers descended into chaos, their previous caution abandoned in favor of greed and the lure of treasure.
But suddenly, Gaya''s eyes sparkled with mischief as she turned to Michael with a grin. "Let''s loot that ourselves," she suggested, the excitement clear in her voice.
"You read my mind," hMichael responded with a matching grin and with a swift motion, he grabbed Gaya. Activating his spell, he cast Lightning Dash, propelling them forward with trails of ck lightning zipping behind them. His spell''s power far surpassed that of the other adventurers'', allowing them to reach the opened chest in just a few blinks of an eye.
Without even pausing to inspect the contents, Michael waved his hand over the chest, and in an instant, its contents vanished, securely stored within his system storage.
The sudden act didn''t go unnoticed. The adventurers who had been rushing towards the chest halted as they witnessed the swift looting. "Those fucking skateboarding assholes did it again!" one of them roared, his voice echoing with anger and disbelief.
"Damn it, we should''ve known they''d pull something like this," another cursed, kicking at the ground in frustration, recalling how Michael and Gaya had outyed them earlier.
However, a murmur went through the crowd as some adventurers, who hade to recognize Michael as the God of Darkness, stopped in their tracks. "Wait... that''s him, the God of Darkness," one whispered to another, a mix of awe and fear in their voice.
"Are we really going to mess with a god? Especially him?" another questioned, the aggression fading from his tone as he reconsidered the wisdom of confronting someone of Michael''s stature.
While the tension simmered among the crowd of adventurers, Jin carried on with his peculiar quest, methodically opening treasure chests and leaving them behind without taking a single item. His actions remained a mystery, further adding to the chaotic atmosphere of the final level.
Looking at the adventures, Gaya couldn''t resist the opportunity to further irk the already agitated adventurers. "You must really like looking at our backs," she taunted with augh that carried through the air, echoing off the destendscape. With a smirk, she and Michael vanished in a blur, darting towards another treasure chest amidst the murmurs and curses of the crowd.
As they approached the next chest, Michael prepared to swiftly loot its contents as before. But this time, his movements came to an abrupt halt. There, amidst the treasure,y an intriguing globe, and within its transparent confines was a miniature dragon. Its ck skales were intricately detailed, glistening under the dim light, perfectly still as if frozen in time.
Peering over Michael''s shoulder, Gaya caught sight of the curious artifact. "Is that a dragon inside?" she asked with a mix of wonder and curiosity. As Michael stared at the miniature dragon encased within the globe, his thoughts inevitably drifted to Nightmare, his pet dragon whose soul was still trapped in the realm of hell. The absence of a physical body for Nightmare had been a lingering concern. Thus, the sight of the dragon''s body sparked a flicker of hope in Michael''s heart; perhaps this could be the solution he had been searching for.
He couldn''t shake the thought that this miniature dragon, so delicately preserved and disyed, might hold the key to providing Nightmare with a new form. The prospect of reuniting with hispanion, of bringing him back fully to the realm of the living, was tantalizing.
"Could this be what we need for Nightmare?" Gaya asked softly, understanding the weight of the moment.
Michael nodded, his mind racing with possibilities. "It might be," he replied. "If we can find a way to transfer Nightmare''s soul into this body, it could give him the second chance he deserves,"
Chapter 1230 Plan to make a fortune
Chapter 1230 n to make a fortune
"Looks like we hit the jackpot, huh?" she said, her voiceced with excitement. Then, they quickly looted the second treasure chest, including the precious globe with the dragon skeleton inside.
Their actions, however, did not go unnoticed. "Those goddamn thieves did it again!" one adventurer shouted, his voice echoing with frustration across the destendscape.
"Fuck this, I''m not letting them get away with everything!" another yelled, casting a speed spell in a desperate attempt to outrun Michael and Gaya. The air filled with the sounds of various spells being cast as the adventurers each tried to im their share of the treasures, their anger and determination fueling their actions.
Meanwhile, Jin moved with a purpose through the level, his eyes scanning each treasure chest he encountered. Despite finding treasures, he left them untouched, continuing his search for something specific. His actions puzzled the other adventurers, who couldn''t understand his motives.
But Michael who was aware of theyout of the level from the map, knew the truth. "There are only four real treasure chests," he exined to Gaya as they moved towards their next target. "The rest are nothing but traps meant to ensnare the greedy and dumb,"
Eventually, having sessfully looted the previous treasures, Michael and Gaya quickly dashed towards the location of thest and final treasure chest remained untouched just like the others before it. Their actions were swift, their movements almost a blur to the onlookers who could only curse in frustration at their efficiency.
In the distance, Jin, having left the treasures behind, began to make his way towards a castle looming ominously on the horizon. "Should we go after him?" Gaya, eyeing his departing figure, questioned.
However, Michael was already shaking his head with a smirk ying on his lips. "No need," he said confidently, "let him clear the way for us." He understood the value in letting Jin take the lead, potentially triggering any unseen dangers thaty ahead.
Turning his attention back to the task at hand, Michael approached the fourth chest with a sense of anticipation. It was at this moment that several dwarves and elves, oblivious to his true nature,unched a barrage of spells towards them. "Those assholes are at it again!"
"I will kill you if you touch that, bastards!"
The adventures'' adorned in the vibrant armors of their respective ns, shouted and cursed, their voices filled with desperation and anger. "Leave that treasure for us, you greedy bastards!" one of the elves yelled, his spell a brilliant arc of lightning aimed directly at them.
But Michael was unfazed as the responsive shield, a light blue translucent barrier, sprung to life around him, effortlessly absorbing the iing spells. The magic dissipated upon contact, leaving thempletely unharmed and further infuriating the attackers.
As the casters continued to hurl insults and curses, Gaya''s attention was drawn to a peculiar item within the treasure chest¡ªa green potion bearing the ominous mark of Morbus. The sight of it amidst the other treasures sparked a mixture of curiosity and concern.
"Hey human, take a look at this," she called out to Michael, her voice tinged with a mix of intrigue and wariness. Examining the the potion closely, Michael prompted the system for a quick analysis. [This potion has the capability to erase the mark of Morbus, effectively nullifying the threat of death associated with the curse] the system informed him.
"This potion clears the Morbus mark," Michael stated, turning the potion over in his hand.
The moment Gaya heard his words, her eyebrows raised in surprise and intrigue. She couldn''t help but respond with a mix of excitement and disbelief. "Really?" she eximed. "Then we really hit the jackpot here!"
Meanwhile, the adventures in the distance continued their barrage of shouts and curses, demanding the treasures be left to them. Yet, Michael remained unfazed. "If I could replicate this potion, we could make a fortune," he mused aloud, already calcting the potential profits in his head.
You sneaky bastard," Gaya couldn''t help butugh at his cunning n, shaking her head in amusement. "Always thinking a step ahead," she said with admiration and agreement
The surrounding adventurers, still hurling insults and casting spells in vain, failed to deter the pair. "Leave some for us, you greedy fucks!" one dwarf shouted, his voice barely audible over the howling wind. Another elf, his spell fizzling out against Michael''s shield, cursed under his breath. "This isn''t fair!"
Yet, Michael and Gaya paid them no heed, their focus solely on the green potion and the potential it held. Then, Michael and Gaya quickly gathered all the treasures before raising the green potion high for all to see. "This potion here is the cure for those who''ve got the Morbus mark," Michael announced, his voice cutting through the tense atmosphere like a knife.
The adventures, previously intent on their assault, suddenly paused, their movements ceasing as all eyes focused on the potion in Michael''s hand. Whispers of shock, disbelief, and hope began to spread among those marked by Morbus. "Is that for real?" one of the marked adventurers asked, a hint of hope in his voice. "Can we really be cured?" another echoed, the desperation clear.
Meanwhile, those unmarked by the curse voiced their indifference, their demands for the treasures unabated. "We don''t give a damn about your potion! Hand over the loot!" one of them shouted, only to be silenced by Gaya''s snicker. "Do you really think you can take us on?" she retorted, her threat hanging heavily in the air. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
To deal with those who didn''t have the mark, Michael just cast Windst. The powerful gust knocked the aggressive adventurers off their feet, showcasing his power without the need for further confrontation. "Those who bear the mark now have a chance at a cure," he stated firmly after showing a glimpse of his power. "We''re not unreasonable. We''re willing to sell the potions."
Despite standing before a god, Elrion stepped forward with the mark of Morbus still glowing on his forehead. "You''ve got only one potion, but there are many of us with the mark," he pointed out, choosing not to expose Michael''s true identity to preserve the uneasy peace among them.
"Let me fix that." Michael nodded at Elrion''s observation and said. Then he quickly entered the system interface, his alchemist skills proving invaluable as he determined exactly what was needed to replicate the potion. In a few moments, he spent five hundred thousand badass points in the system store and brought all the necessary ingredients.
As he waved his hand, a table appeared before him,den with various ingredients. Some of the adventurers, puzzled by the sudden appearance of the alchemy setup, questioned. "What are you doing?" "He''s going to brew more cures."Lysandra who was observing the scene calmly said.
Standing beside Michael, Gaya snickered at the adventurers who didn''t bear Morbus''s mark but were previously intent on attacking them for the loot. "You have onest chance to back off before I sick them," she gestured towards those marked by Morbus, "On you." Her words carried a veiled threat, hinting at the consequences of further aggression.
"Can you really do that?" The adventurers bearing Morbus''s mark shouted in disbelief. However, some who were aware of Michael''s true identity as the God of Darkness, remained skeptical. "How can we trust the word of a god, especially the God of Darkness?" one of them muttered under their breath.
"Yeah, isn''t he the god of darkness? Trusting someone who is connected to darkness is not something I''m willing to do"
Michael ignored the murmurs and conjured his dark mes, not bothering to disguise them with green mes as he usually did. He began tossing the ingredients onto the me hovering above his hands. Witnessing the dark mes up close, Elrion couldn''t help but mutter, "Beautiful."
Under the heat provided by the dark mes, the ingredients slowly refined into colorful beads that floated above the mes, eventually merging into blobs of green liquid. As Gaya was looking at the process, she knew the cure was nearly ready.
"Those with the mark, line up and prepare to empty your space rings!" Sheughed, sensing the eagerness and desperation among the marked adventurers.
Yet, some adventurers without the mark, still coveting the treasures Michael and Gaya had looted, made a dash forward, thinking they could overpower them. Gaya, seeing their advance, turned to the marked adventurers.
"Take them down if you want the cure." Her words incited immediate action, as those desperate for the cure prepared to defend their chance at salvation.
The marked adventurers, fueled by the promise of a cure, rallied together as their desperation turned into determination. "You''re not taking what''s ours!" one of the adventurers without the mark roared,unching a spell towards the marked group. "Back off, or you''ll regret it!" a marked adventurer retorted, his voiceced with determination and fear of losing his chance at the cure.
Amidst the shing spells and swinging weapons, battle cries filled the air, mixing with the sound of curses. "For the cure!" a woman screamed as she charged forward, her determination clear in her eyes. "You''ll have to go through me first!" another shouted, standing his ground against the onught.
"STOP!" Just as the battle was about to reach its peak, Elrion''s powerful roar manifested into a golden gust of wind, knocking all thebatants to the ground with a force that left them dazed and disoriented. The sudden intervention silenced the battlefield, leaving only the howling wind and the adventurers'' heavy breaths.
"No one is dying here now," Elrion dered coldly, his voice carrying the weight of authority and conviction. His words echoed across the silent field, making it clear that further conflict would not be tolerated.
Gaya, watching the scene unfold, sighed, "We just missed a good showdown, damn." Having anticipated the spectacle of a full-blown battle, she was disappointed when the battle was suddenly stopped.
After stopping the battle, Elrion turned his gaze toward Gaya.
"It''ll be better if we don''t fight among ourselves before we face whatever is lying in that ce," pointing at the distant castle looming ominously over the destendscape where the final dungeon boss was waiting for them.
Chapter 1231 Getting so many goodies
1231 Getting so many goodies
As Michael skillfully manipted the potion, it flew into several vials and lined up neatly on the table before him. "Wonderful!" Gaya eximed with an air of satisfaction and pped her hands together.
She then turned to the gathered crowd of adventurers, her voice firm yet yful. "Alright, line up in an orderly manner to buy your potion. We''re here to save lives, after all." Some adventurers, still harboring resentment for being marked due to the actions of Michael and Gaya, couldn''t hide their anger and shock, muttering about the irony of their saviors being the ones who cursed them in the first ce. "What the fuck? These heartless monsters are talking like they had nothing to do with this,"
"Here to save lives my ass,"
On the other hand, some who were aware of Michael''s identity, cursed under their breath.
"All gods are the same," convinced that the motives of deities were always self-serving.
Ignoring the mutters around him, Elrion stepped forward with a mix of skepticism and desperation. Although the potion looked legit, Elrion wanted to test the authenticity of the cure.
"How do we know it''s the real deal?" asked Elrion.
"Why don''t you be the first to try it out?" Michael invited him with a slight smirk, gesturing towards the table of potions.
However, Gaya interjected with a sharp caveat, "Hold your horses. If you want this cure, we need something valuable from you. And I''m not talking about your pocket change."
Elrion, slightly taken aback, attempted to negotiate, "Name your price then, in gold coins."
"We''ve got enough gold tost us a lifetime. What we want is something of real value to you. We''re making it fair for everyone. If we went by gold, only the richest would get cured. This way, everyone''s got a shot, as long as they''re willing to part with something truly valuable."Gaya countered, shaking her head.
Elrion, understanding the futility of arguing with deities, reached into his space ring. With a subtle flick of his wrist, a golden bell materialized in his palm. Its appearance sparked curiosity and confusion among the other adventurers, who whispered among themselves, trying to decipher its significance.
"What is that?" one adventurer whispered to another, their curiosity piqued by the mysterious artifact now on disy.
"Whatever it is, I bet it can do some cool shit,"
"What the fuck is this supposed to be?" Gaya asked, eyeing the small object with a mix of interest and skepticism.
Elrion took a few moments before exining about the item which had be the center piece of all attention.
"This is a summoning bell, gifted to me by Valorius''s angel, Zephyriel. It holds the power to call forth an avatar of Valorius himself to aid in battle."
After hearing Elrion, Gaya''s eyebrows shot up in surprise as her interest evidently piqued. "Sounds juicy. But just how strong is this avatar supposed to be?" she pressed with a newfound respect for the item in question.
Taking a moment to convey the gravity of the bell''s capabilities, Elrion replied.
"When summoned, the avatar will possess the strength equivalent to a Demi God." His voice carried a weight of solemnity, underscoring the bell''s significant power and the importance it held for him.
The weight of Elrion''s next words hung heavy in the air as he confessed, "When summoned, the avatar possesses the strengthparable to a Demi God."
Gasps and exmations echoed through the crowd, the revtion sending ripples of astonishment. "Did he just say Demi God level?" one adventurer whispered loudly, their voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.
Another chimed in, half-joking, half-serious, "Shit, I''ve been keeping my grandma''s lucky coin thinking it was my most valuable thing!"
As someone who was having a hard time fighting the creatures and threats in the realm of gods, Gaya knew the significance of an item that could summon an avatar of a god. This was not just a normal summon by any means but a god. Practically, it could turn the tide of any battle in their favor. In other words, the summoning bell was truly invaluable.
Gaya, now fully understanding the bell''s worth, nodded in approval, recognizing the profound sacrifice Elrion was willing to make. "Alright then, you''ve got yourself a deal," she dered, signaling the exchange was eptable. Deep down, she couldn''t believe Elrion chose to depart with this item. She would have chosen another item if she were in Elrion''s shoes.
Elrion hesitated for a moment before asserting, "But first, I need to verify this potion actually works."
"Be my guest," Gaya responded with a nonchnt wave of her hand.
Internally, Elrion harbored a strong intuition that the potion before him was legitimate. He couldn''t imagine the God of Darkness, with all his mysterious aura, stooping to deceit over something as critical as this.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Elrion raised the vial to his lips and downed the potion in a single, determined gulp. A hushed silence fell over the crowd of adventurers, their eyes fixed on him with a blend of hope and skepticism. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Momentster, the green mark of Morbus on Elrion''s forehead began to glow intensely, casting a bright light around his face before suddenly dimming and vanishingpletely.
Gasps and murmurs broke out among the adventurers witnessing the mark''s disappearance. "Holy shit, it actually works!" one eximed, barely containing his excitement.
"Is that mark gone for good?" another voiced out loud, a mix of relief and disbelief coloring their words.
"This is our chance!" cheered a third, their voiceced with newfound optimism.
The collective mood shifted from despair to eager anticipation as they watched the proof of the potion''s efficacy with their own eyes. Elrion''s sessful cure served as a beacon of hope, igniting a frenzy among those marked by Morbus to obtain a cure.
Once Elrion ced the bell on the table, Michael took it calmly and examined it for a moment.
"Pleasure doing business with you," he said as Elrion nodded in acknowledgment before stepping aside for the next in line.
Just as the orderly transaction seemed to be proceeding smoothly, an elf, shrouded in the subtlety of a teleportation spell, materialized behind Michael with a dagger aimed for his back, intending to seize the potions and their umted loot by force.
However, with his heightened senses and reflexes, Michael sidestepped effortlessly, avoiding the attack with a calmness that belied the danger. Without missing a beat, his eyes darkened ominously as he unleashed a pair of dark beams from them, striking the elf squarely in the head. The body crumpled to the ground, lifeless, in a matter of seconds.
Watching the scene unfold with a stern expression, Gaya issued a chilling warning with menace. "If anyone else tries anything stupid, I''ll make you wish you were dead."
After witnessing the swift end of the would-be assassin, Elrion couldn''t help but sigh, shaking his head at the reckless ambition that drove the elf to his doom. "Fools will always find a way to get themselves killed," he remarked, a hint of weariness in his tone.
Unperturbed by the recent attempt at his life, Michael nonchntly kicked the elf''s body aside, his demeanor as calm as if he had merely swatted away a bothersome insect. "Let''s continue this, shall we?" With a calm smile ying on his lips, he turned back to the waiting adventurers and cheerfully proposed. His disy of power had evidently sunk in, as the adventurers promptly shelved any thoughts of messing him further.
The next in line, an elf d in the distinctive golden armor of Aurumvale, stepped forward with a certain dignity. The armor shimmered under the dim light, its intricate design speaking volumes of the elf''s high status. Clutched in his hand was a medallion, its surface intricately carved with the depiction of a majestic tree, the craftsmanship so precise that it seemed almost alive.
"This medallion," the elf began, holding it up for inspection.
"Will teleport its wearer to safety immediately before a fatal blow is struck, up to three times before its magic is exhausted." His voice carried a mix of pride and reluctance, for parting with such an item was no small sacrifice.
A murmur of awe rippled through the crowd at the elf''s exnation, with many adventurers gasping in disbelief. "It''s like having three extra lives," whispered one, the envy clear in their voice as others nodded in agreement.
"We''ll take it," Gaya, after scrutinizing the medallion for a moment, nodded in approval. Her agreement sealed the deal, and the elf, though somewhat hesitant to part with his precious medallion, knew the value of the potion far outweighed his attachment to the artifact.
Meanwhile, the adventurers watching this scene couldn''t contain their whispers of jealousy and amazement at the turn of events. "Can you believe this shit?" one grumbled under their breath, eyes locked on the duo who had turned their dire predicament into a lucrative opportunity. "They''ve turned this godforsaken dungeon into their personal marketce!"
"Yeah, and that damn mark of Morbus? It''s just a marketing ploy for them," another added bitterly, shaking his head in disbelief. "Those cunning bastards," a dwarf spat, his eyes narrowed as he watched the transactions. Using our misfortune to fill their pockets. If I didn''t need that potion so badly..."
"Well, at least they''re offering a cure. Better than being left to die with this glowing curse on our foreheads. But damn, they''re making a killing off our desperation." An elf, leaning on her staff, chimed in with a sarcasticugh.
(In the next chapter, we will see the dungeon boss and get ready to read the battle between Michael and a God. Real badass fight to show OG Michael)
Chapter 1232 One Shotting Silvaris
1232 One Shotting Silvaris
As Michael and Gaya concluded their transactions, their collection of rare artifacts had grown impressively. The adventurers who parted with their treasures did so with a mix of relief and envy, the sting of their loss softened by the cure but sharpened by the sight of their now richer, more powerful benefactors.
"Damn, to think my family''s heirloom just bought me a tiny vial of hope," one adventurer muttered, casting a longing look back at the duo who were preparing to leave.
"Should''ve been us making that killing," another grumbled, eyeing the treasures now in Michael and Gaya''s possession with barely concealed envy.
Yet, those without the mark, who had watched the spectacle unfold, couldn''t hide their jealousy. "Lucky bastards, turning a curse into a fortune," one said bitterly, his words echoing the sentiment of many around him.
Unfazed by the mixed reactions, Michael and Gaya turned to leave, with their focus now on the distant castle. As they dashed forward, they left a trail of ck lightning bolts, which still stunned the adventures.
Witnessing their departure, Elrion stepped forward, rallying the remaining adventurers with a resolute voice. "Let''s not dawdle here. There''s more to this dungeon, and we will soon leave this ce," he dered, his leadership pulling the fragmented groups together.
In addition to the adventures, Lysandra also nodded in agreement before following them behind. Her calm demeanor and presence instilled confidence and calmness in the adventures.
As Michael and Gaya approached the massive gray castle shrouded in mist, they both paused to take in its ominous presence. "Creepy ce, huh?" Gaya remarked, her voice echoing slightly in the open expanse before the castle. "Looks like something straight out of a nightmare."
The castle itself loomed over them, its towering spires piercing the fog like fingers stretching towards the bleak sky. Ancient, withered vines crept up its stone walls, and the heavy iron gate creaked ominously as Michael pushed it open with a confident stride. Inside, the atmosphere was thick with a foreboding silence, only broken by their footsteps as they ascended the worn stone stairs to the massive throne hall''s doors.
Sensing only one life sign within who Michael undoubtedly knew belonged to Jin, pushed the heavy gate open with a determined push. The gate creaked loudly, breaking the eerie silence that surrounded the castle. They made their way up the winding stairs, the sound of their footsteps the only thing apanying them until they reached arge door at the end of the hallway.
Without hesitation, Michael opened the door, revealing a vast throne hall. As they took several steps forward, the door shut with a resounding thud behind them. Then suddenly, an array of bright lights lit the hall, revealing the vastness of the room and the borate throne sitting ominously at the far end.
The grandeur of the hall, with its high ceilings and intricate designs, was momentarily breathtaking, but what caught their attention was the sight of Jin, hanging unconscious from his hands tied to the ceiling.
"Is he dead?" Gaya asked, squinting at Jin''s motionless form.
"Not yet," Michael replied, a slight grin forming as he cracked his neck, ready for what was toe. "But it looks like Silvaris has left us quite the weing party."
As the two of them eyeing Jin, the assassin slowly opened his eyes.
"Someone... help," he gasped as his voice was filled with pain and barely audible over the silence of the grand hall.
Hearing Jin''s call for aid, Gaya couldn''t help but let out a snicker. "Look who''s begging for help now! Thought you could steal our map and beat us to the punch, huh?" she taunted, her words sharp as knives.
"Hang in there, buddy," Michael said with a slight smirk ying on his lips at the situation Jin found himself in.
"Pun intended, asshole," Gaya retorted with augh, not missing a beat to poke fun at Jin''s predicament.
Their exchange was cut short as an old man rounded the corner, his presence almost ghostly. The man''s wrinkly skin, yellowish teeth hinting at years of decay, and milk-white eyes immediately put Gaya on high alert.
Without hesitation, Gaya whipped out her God yer crossbow and aimed it squarely at the old man. "And who might you be?" she demanded, her voiceced with suspicion and readiness for any sudden moves.
The old man let out an ominous chuckle, a sound that seemed too vigorous for his frail appearance. "Merely a frail old man," he imed, carrying a weight that suggested otherwise.
"Yeah, right," Gaya scoffed, not buying it for a second. "Since when do frail old men hang assassins from the ceiling like some sort of twisted decoration?" Her finger tightened slightly on the trigger.
"Don''t you see who this is, Gaya? It''s the mastermind behind all this mess, Silvaris," Michael revealed, his tone steady but the implications of his words striking Gaya like a bolt.
The shock stemmed from her previous encounters with Silvaris''s ethereal projections scattered throughout the dungeon. Those versions of Silvaris were of a young, charismatic man, worlds apart from the decrepit figure standing before them now.
"So, this is what you''ve be? Hoarding souls has really done a number on you, hasn''t it?" Gaya quipped, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she eyed the old man standing under Jin. The information Pink gave to Gaya and Michael regarding how Silvaris not only steals valuables but also souls by hacking Seraphene''s crystals.
For a brief moment, a flicker of surprise passed through Silvaris''s ancient eyes. It seemed the renowned thief hadn''t anticipated his secrets to be out in the open.
"Shit, and here I was, thinking my grand reveal would be a jaw-dropper. You''ve gone and spoiled the fun, God of Darkness," Silvaris grumbled, a tinge of annoyance in his voice.
"But I''ve still got a trick or two that''ll fuck with your heads," Silvaris cackled with a dark glee.
"Enough with your damn games, Silvaris. Spill whatever twisted n you''ve got cooking or I''ll put an arrow right between those beady eyes of yours," Gaya snapped, her threat cutting through the tense air, only to be met with uproariousughter from Silvaris.
"Oh, my fierce Goddess of Monsters, you do have a sharp tongue, don''t you?" Silvaris taunted back.
"Help¡" Jin''s weak plea cut through the standoff, momentarily halting Gaya''s retort.
"Just let him down, Silvaris," Michael demanded, his voice steady yet tinged with an underlying threat, fully aware that freeing Jin wouldn''t be as straightforward as issuing amand.
If Jin weren''t tied to the Assassin''s Guild, Michael might not have cared less about his fate. Hell, he would''ve been the first to finish Jin off for daring to threaten Gaya. But Jin had be an integral piece in his future ns with the guild. With Rin already having taken out Gilrut, a key figure in Michael''s strategy for harnessing runemaster skills, losing Jin wasn''t an option.
"It''s not that fucking simple, God of Darkness. You and I, we''ve got history, stretching back five thousand years, to your previous life," Silvaris revealed, a smirk ying on his lips as he reminisced about their ancient encounter.
"Back then, you nicked a treasure trove of souls from me. Quite the irony, isn''t it? Robbing the grandest thief of them all," Silvaris mused,ughter veiling a thinly veiled threat.
The moment Gaya heard Silvaris, Gaya burst into heartyughter, pping her hands in delight. "Well done, previous Dark Lord! Robbing the master thief himself, that''s just fucking brilliant," she mocked Silvaris, her voice dripping with sarcasm and amusement.
In response to herughter, Silvaris chuckled yet it wasced with a chilling killing intent that briefly silenced the room. "Oh, the previous Dark Lord did pull a fast one on me, but let''s not dwell on past glories," he said, his tone turning icy. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
On the other hand, Michael remained calm as usual and tilted his head slightly. "So, how about we settle our old debts here and now, Silvaris? Name your terms," he suggested with an edge of challenge in his voice.
"You''ve always preached about thinking like a thief, right? So, what''s your grand n for outsmarting him, the God of Darkness? Steal his shadow?" Gaya smirked.
But to Michael and Gaya''s surprise, Silvaris removed the thick brown robes covering his body, revealing his bony upper body with wrinkled skin and various holes which were the result of tubes stuck into him.
"Now I am really creeped out," Gaya rolled her eyes, looking at his body.
"Why don''t we do this the old way, God of Darkness? A man-to-man fight with no tricks or godly powers," Silvaris said, preparing to settle the score by fighting Michael hand to hand.
Hearing Silvaris, Michael and Gaya both looked at each other as Gaya could barely hold herughter.
"He is literally a god, and why would he ever ept your fucking stupid challenge?" Gaya asked, her face reddening with holding herughter.
"That is exactly why I want him to face me man to man, Goddess. Or is he too afraid to face a frail old mortal like me," Silvaris snickered.
But before Silvaris could take a step forward, Michael raised his hand, firing a bolt of lightning that prated through Silvaris''s skull. The old man''s body stood there with a hole in his head for a moment before hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
"Okay, that was really an anticlimactic fight," Gaya frowned, looking at the dead body of Silvaris.
"Let me check if he''s really as dead as he looks," Gaya said, taking a step forward when Michael stopped her.
"What?" Gaya asked, only to hear Pink''s voice in her ears.
"Ghost, Gaya, I did some digging, and you won''t believe what I found. Silvaris isn''t who he ims to be. He''s not the fucking angel of the God of Thieves, Valorix. He is Valorix," Pink revealed, causing both Gaya and Michael to pause in shock.
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Chapter 1233 God Of Darkness vs God Of Thieves I
Chapter 1233 God Of Darkness vs God Of Thieves I
As Silvaris, now revealed to be Valorix, the god of thieves, slowly rose to his feet, his body mended itself before their very eyes. Then, he chuckled devilishly as the sound echoed through the brightly lit throne hall. The hole in his head, a wound that would have been fatal to any mortal, closed up seamlessly as he tilted his head, eyeing Michael with a mix of amusement and challenge.
"Well, that was a cheap shot, wasn''t it?" Valorix taunted, wiping away thest trace of blood as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience. "Why can''t you, the god of darkness, have a good old fight like mortals? No one appreciates the ssics anymore."
Standing firm before Gaya, Michael remained the epitome of calm amidst the chaos. His expression was unreadable, betraying no hint of concern over Valorix''s recovery. With three billion badass points refunded due to Marli''s death at the hands of the minotaur before the system could decode the grimoire on how to kill her, Michael was more than prepared for this confrontation.
"ssics, you say?" Michael''s voice was cool, almost detached.
"I find it amusing that you, of all gods, would go for the simplicity of mortalbat. But then again, underestimating your foes seems to be a ssic mistake."
Meanwhile, Gaya stood slightly behind Michael and watched the exchange with a wary eye. Valorix straightened, his smile fading into a smirk. "Underestimating? No, I merely enjoy the game. And what''s a game without a little... unpredictability?"
Hearing Valorix, Gaya couldn''t help but snicker as her voice wasced with amusement and a hint of mockery. "Oh, Silvaris¡ªor should I say, Valorix?¡ªhiding behind another name and now preaching about the ssics? You''ve spent this entire time urging us to think like thieves, and suddenly you want a head-on fight? How... thief-like of you." n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Unfazed by the jab, Valorix just merely chuckled in response. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, a suit of golden armor materialized out of thin air, wrapping around him in a disy of godly power. Momentster, a long halberd appeared,nding smoothly in his grasp. "This," he dered, the smirk evident in his tone, "is the armor I pilfered from Luxor, the God of Wealth. Fitting, don''t you think?"
As Valorix swung his halberd with practiced ease, Pink''s voice suddenly crackled through Michael and Gaya''s earpieces. "Heads up, you two. Just dug up something interesting. Valorix used to be a Level 4 Prime God but got knocked down a peg to Level 3 Greater God after tripping into one of Dagon''s nasty traps about five millennia ago."
Michael and Gaya listened calmly to Pink''s revtion, processing the strategic advantage it presented. "With the summoning bell we snagged from Elrion, we can call forth Valorix''s avatar to fight alongside us." Gaya''s voice vibrated with excitement.
She was aware that even though the avatar would manifest as a Level 2 Demigod whenbined with Michael''s prowess as a Greater God, they could beat the hell out of Valorix any day. However, Gaya did not dare to underestimate the God of Thieves.
"But let''s not kid ourselves," she cautioned, her tone serious despite the adrenaline. "This asshole will likely has more tricks up his sleeve than there are grains in a sack of rice."
On the other hand, Silvaris, now fully embracing his identity as Valorix, held the halberd in one hand and with a swift flick of his other wrist, a bell eerily simr to the one Michael and Gaya had acquired from Elrion appeared in his grasp. With a taunting smile, he boasted, "This little beauty? Liberated it from Morbus, the God of gues. It can summon gue maidens, creatures you''d rather not have as adversaries."
Gaya, puzzled and wary, couldn''t help but ask, "gue maidens? What the hell are those?"
Valorix chuckled, the sound ominous in the growing darkness. "Ah, something you definitely don''t want to find yourselves up against," he corrected, his toneced with foreboding.
Without another word, he rang the bell. The brightly lit throne hall dimmed, the lights flickering erratically, as if the very essence of the ce was being consumed by shadow. From the ground, ethereal figures emerged, veiled in dark cloaks, each holding antern emitting a sickly green glow, attached to long staves. Michael and Gaya could just make out their wrinkled skin and yellowish teeth beneath the hoods of their cloaks.
Then, in unison, the gue maidens let out a roar, a sound so horrifying that the walls of the hall seemed to tremble in response. "God I hate these fucking things already," Gaya, her nerves frayed by the sudden cacophony, eximed.
As the echoes of their roar faded, Valorix looked on with a twisted sense of satisfaction. "Quite unpleasant, wouldn''t you agree?" he remarked, clearly pleased with the difort and chaos his summoned allies had caused.
After the gue maidens appeared, Michael wasted no time. He quickly activated his Eyes of Darkness to see a yellow aura surrounding Valorix. This made sense given that both he and Valorix were at the Greater God level. But what surprised Michael wasn''t just the aura around Valorix; it was the simr yellow aura he spotted around the gue maidens. They weren''t gods, merely beings summoned by Valorix, yet their aura suggested they possessed the power to fight a Level 3 God toe-to-toe. This revtion hinted at the dangerous potential these entities held, even if they were not gods themselves.
Observing the unfolding scenario with a mix of curiosity and defiance, Gaya couldn''t help but snicker.
"Is that your best shot, Valorix, or you got more party tricks up your sleeve?"
Valorix, unfazed, let out a chuckle, the sound echoing ominously through the hall. "One should nevery all their cards on the table at the outset," he replied, his toneced with amusement and a hint of menace. "Especially not when the game has just begun."
As Valorix was unting his stolen goods, Gaya frowned, her thoughts drifting to the adventurers who should have already arrived at the castle by now. The dy was unsettling, hinting at a sinister turn of events she hadn''t anticipated.
Sensing her unease, Michael turned his gaze to Valorix, his voice calm butden with an underlying threat. "What are you nning for the others, Valorix?" he asked.
Before Valorix could respond, Gaya, with a snicker, chimed in, "Something fucked up, no doubt." Her eyes darted to Jin, who was still suspended from his wrists above Valorix, a living testament to the god of thieves'' cruelty.
Valorixughed, the sound chilling. "Let''s just say they''re not here for a tea party. More likembs in a ughterhouse," he quipped, reveling in the difort his words caused.
Michael nced over his shoulder at Gaya as he decided to let Gaya go and check the whereabouts of the others.
"Go look for them," he instructed. If Valorix''s machinations with the adventurers went unchecked, it could spell disaster. Not only would it potentially strengthen Valorix, making him even more powerful, but it could also result in untold carnage.
Gaya understood the gravity of her task. Nodding, she began to back away towards the castle door, her resolve firm. They needed to thwart Valorix''s ns, not just to save the adventurers but to prevent the god of thieves from gaining more power.
As she moved to leave, Valorix''s snicker filled the air, mocking. "Always sending your wife to clean up your messes, eh,?" he taunted, his words dripping with scorn.
After Gaya left the throne hall, Valorix cracked his neck and smirked at Michael. "Since you''re not up for a fair fight, I guess it''s only right if I make it a bit more... crowded for you," he quipped, the menace in his voice thinly veiled.
"Come at me then. Let''s see what you''ve got." Michael taunted back.
In response, Valorix raised his halberd, pointing it directly at Michael. The gue maidens reacted to hismand with a piercing scream, teleporting instantly around Michael, ready to strike.
With no time to waste, Michael cast the Ring of mes. Dark mes erupted from the ground, encircling him in a protective barrier that shot outwards, burning the gue maidens into gray dust. However, the victory was short-lived.
As the dust settled, the gue maidens reformed from the ashes, their figures reconstituting as if untouched by the mes. Valorix chuckled, the sound echoing mockingly around the hall. "You can kill them, but you can''t keep them dead," he taunted, his amusement clear at Michael''s temporary confusion.
If the gue maidens weren''t enough of a challenge, Valorix, with a smirk, rang the bell in his hand once more, summoning an additional wave of gue maidens to surround Michael. The air thickened with a sense of impending doom as the numbers swelled against the god of darkness.
"I can do this all day," Michael retorted as dark mes raged around him.
"I know," Valorix replied with amusement. Then, he rang the bell a third time, and as the sound echoed through the hall, the bell itself faded away after fulfilling its purpose.
Michael''s dark mes continued to burn through the gue maidens, reducing them to dust only for them to rise again. With each cycle, the air around him darkened further, taking on a foul stench that seemed to sap the very life from the room.
"Ever wonder why they''re called ''gue maidens''? Even the weakest of gods fear them," he taunted, his eyes gleaming with malice. "It''s not just about killing. it''s about corrupting, decaying, everything they touch." he said before taking a step toward Michael.
"I might not be able to kill you permanently, but I can damn well trap your soul. Consider this castle your eternal tomb," ************************
Hi my wonderful readers,
For the first time, I decided to join WSA because the two writing themes this time happened to be my favorite - Kingdom Building with System and Viin Story with a System.
Your Power Stones, reviews,ments are precious and will help me win this thing.
So Please check out War Lord''s Apocalyptic System and Demon King''s Viin System. Please spare your Power Stones, gifts, reviews andments to the stories to make it shine brightly!!!!
Chapter 1234 God Of Darkness vs God Of Thieves II
Chapter 1234 God Of Darkness vs God Of Thieves II
Despite the ominous threat from Valorix, Michael couldn''t help butugh. "You''ve got no fucking clue, do you? Do you know how many have threatened to kill or trap me? And yet, here I am," he shot back, hisughter tinged with defiance.
"Let''s see how you fare against this."Unamused by Michael''s retort, Valorix sneered.
With those words, he lunged at Michael, the halberd in his hand glowing with a potent energy. Mid-air, Valorix unleashed a beam of golden energy towards Michael.
Reacting instantly, Michael raised one hand, a ck shield materializing from his wrist, absorbing the blow. The force of the energy pushed him several steps back, but he held his ground. "I always hated that damn shield." Valorixnded on his feet, a scowl on his face as he spat out. Then, as the gue maidens lunged at Michael, he cast the Ring of mes once again, dark mes erupting to incinerate them. Amidst the chaos, Michael prompted the system to scan the gue maidens, seeking a way to annihte them permanently.
[The system requires two hundred thousand badass points to discover a method to permanently eliminate the gue maidens. Do you wish to proceed?] the system asked him. N?v(el)B\\jnn
"Yes," Without a moment''s hesitation, Michael agreed internally, ready to pay whatever cost necessary to get rid of these gue maidens.
After the system drained the two hundred thousand badass points, an unsettling silence followed. Michael felt a momentary surge of surprise but didn''t lose his faith in the system. He knew it woulde through for him; it always did.
Meanwhile, the battle with the gue maidens and Valorix intensified. The maidens, learning from their previous encounters, began to adapt to Michael''s tactics. They leaped and teleported above his Ring of mes, trying to outmaneuver the deadly barrier.
"Crafty little shits, aren''t you?" Michael grunted, his focus split between the evasive maidens and the ever-aggressive Valorix. With a swift motion, he sent streams of dark mes from one hand towards the maidens, controlling the fire with precise maniption to track their unpredictable movements.
Seizing the opportunity, Valorix charged at Michael, his halberd aimed with lethal precision. "You''re spread too thin, Ghost! Can''t keep this up forever!" he taunted, his weapon shing against Michael''s dark sword.
"Watch me, you arrogant prick," Michael retorted, parrying Valorix''s attacks with his sword while his other hand continued to unleash havoc with dark mes. The ng of metal against metal rang out as Michael managed to hold his ground against Valorix''s relentless assault.
Amidst the chaos, Valorixughed, seemingly enjoying the challenge. "You''re full of surprises. But how long before you burn out?"
"Just shut the fuck up and fight," Michael snapped back as he was a whirlwind of darkness. Suddenly, as Michael deftly navigated the treacherous ballet ofbat, the system''s voice cut through the din of battle, offering him the solution he much needed.
[To permanently eliminate the gue maidens, the host must destroy the sources fueling their resurrection] the system informed.
[The system requires one million badass points to reveal the location of the source] it continued, presenting a solution wrapped in a hefty price.
Under normal circumstances, Michael might have readily agreed, despite the staggering cost. However, a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he considered the situation. "An arrogant prick like Valorix would keep the source close to him, wouldn''t he?" Michael mused inside. He knew Valorix too well by now¡ªhis ego wouldn''t allow for any other arrangement.
Choosing to conserve his resources, Michael ignored the system''s offer and refocused on Valorix, who was proving to be a relentless adversary. But Michael, fueled by insight and adrenaline, started to gain the upper hand.
"Hope you''re enjoying the view from down there, Valorix, ''cause it''s about to get a lot fucking worse," Michael taunted, his dark sword gleaming with an ominous light as he pressed his advantage.
With a series of calcted strikes, Michael unleashed a flurry of attacks. Each swing of his sword was aimed with precision, designed to exploit the smallest openings in Valorix''s defense. He used his mastery over dark mes to augment his assaults, sending waves of fire cascading toward Valorix with every opening he found.
Valorix, caught off guard by Michael''s sudden surge in aggression, found himself on the defensive. "You think you''ve won?" he snarled, parrying Michael''s blows with increasing difficulty. "I''ve still got tricks up my sleeve."
Michael''sughter echoed through the hall, a sound filled with contempt and confidence. "Then stop fucking around and show me," he challenged, driving Valorix back with a powerful thrust that forced the god of thieves to retreat a few precarious steps.
As the battle raged on, Michael''s prowess as the god of darkness became unmistakably clear. His fighting style was a masterful blend of agility and raw power, showcasing not just his superiorbat skills but also his arrogance and confidence in his own abilities.
"You really thought you could keep up, Valorix? Please, you''re like a damn child ying at war," Michael taunted, his voice dripping with disdain. With a fluid motion, he cast Silenes, the air around him shimmering as time seemed to bend to his will, slowing down everything but himself. This temporal distortion gave him a clear advantage, allowing him tond hits on Valorix with precision and speed that seemed impossible.
Struggling to keep pace,Valorix grunted in frustration as Michael''s attacksnded with increased ferocity. "You''re a fucking monster," he spat, trying to counterattack, but finding it difficult tond a hit through the slowed time.
Michael''sughter filled the throne hall, a dark, menacing sound. "Monster? You ain''t seen nothing yet," he boasted, unleashing Windst, a powerful gust of wind that knocked Valorix off his feet and sent him skidding across the floor.
As Valorix tried to regain his footing, Michael activated Eyes of Doom, his gaze turning deadly as dark beams shot out, targeting Valorix with unerring uracy. The god of thieves barely managed to dodge, the beams scorching the stone where he had just stood.
Amidst the chaos, Michael continued to taunt Valorix, "I know there''s something fuelling those gue maidens. What''s the matter? Scared I''ll find it?" His movements were deliberate, each step and leap designed not just to attack but to observe, reading the slightest twitch or flicker of Valorix''s eyes for any sign of where the source might be hidden.
"Are you hiding it here, Valorix? Or maybe here?" Michael prodded, his attacks a cover for his true intent¡ªto pinpoint the location of the power source. His acrobatic skills were on full disy as he moved around the hall, a blur of dark energy and lethal intent.
Valorix was forced into a defensive posture and tried to mask his reactions, but Michael was relentless. "You can''t hide it from me. Every hit, every move you make, just tells me more," Michael dered, his confidence unshakable.
"Think you''ve seen all my tricks, do you?" Valorix suddenly snickered, his voiceced with amusement and a hint of challenge. Without warning, he leaped away, giving the gue maidens free rein to swarm Michael from every conceivable angle, including from above.
Michael snickered in response, undaunted by the sudden onught. "Bring it on, " he muttered under his breath, swinging wildly, his every move calcted to fend off the relentless attackers. His dark sword sliced through the air, cutting down gue maidens with each pass, their ethereal bodies dissipating into dust only to reform and attack again.
In the midst of the chaos, Michael''s sword suddenly vanished from his grasp. Before he could react, the weapon reappeared in Valorix''s hand. "Did you really think the title ''god of thieves'' was just for show?" Valorix taunted, a snicker apanying his words as he swung Michael''s dark sword with a skilled flourish.
Caught off guard by the theft of his weapon, Michael was vulnerable. The gue maidens seized the opportunity,nding a series of hits. One of them, stronger than the others, grabbed Michael by his arms and legs, lifting him high before hurling him against the wall with tremendous force.
Michael hit the wall hard, the impact forcing the air from his lungs and drawing blood. He spat the blood out and slowly rose to his feet, cracking his neck as he reassessed the situation. "Alright, you wanna y rough? Let''s y rough," he growled as his eyes turned darker.
With his sword now in Valorix''s possession, Michael resorted to his spells. He extended his hands, celestial energy gathering at his fingertips before he unleashed a barrage of dark lightning bolts, each one aimed with precision at the gue maidens. The bolts tore through them, causing them to dissipate faster than they could reform, but they were relentless.
Amused by Michael''s resilience, Valorix continued to wield the stolen dark sword, taunting Michael with every move. "Not so easy without your favorite toy, is it?" he mocked.
But Michael wasser focused, summoning the dark mes and sending a wave of mes surging towards the gue maidens.
"Come on, Valorix! Is that all you''ve got? Stealing swords and hiding behind your minions?" Michael taunted back, his voice booming through the hall as he prepared for another assault. "Once I find what''s keeping these damn maidensing back, it''s game over for you."Michael dered once more.
With renewed vigor, Michael began to move with incredible speed, darting around the castle, his movements a blur. "Where are you hiding it, huh, Valorix?" he taunted, his voiceced with amusement as he watched Valorix closely, searching for any sign of the source''s location.
"You think I''d just tell you? Dream on." Valorix, stubbornly refusing to give anything away, retorted. But as Michael moved to the far east corner of the throne hall, there was a noticeable pause and a flicker of unease in Valorix''s eyes¡ªa tell Michael was quick to pick up on.
"Is this where you''re hiding your precious source?" Michael snickered, his fist enveloped in dark mes as he struck the wall. When he cast the Ring of mes spell, the area around him flickered, revealing the presence of an illusion.
"So you found it. But good luck getting through that illusion," he sneered. "It was crafted by Lathander, the god of mischief himself. You''re not getting through it that easily."
Despite Michael finding the source, Valorix was confident that he wouldn''t be able to break the illusion. The reason for that being it was created by Lathander who was known for his illusions among the gods. However, Valorix had no idea about the system which could break any illusions regardless of who created them
"You have no fucking idea what I''m capable of."Michael shot back with confidence, "
Without missing a beat, he inwardlymanded the system, "Destroy the illusion."
*****************
Chapter 1235 God Of Darkness vs God Of Thieves III
Chapter 1235 God Of Darkness vs God Of Thieves III
Once Michael ordered the system to destroy the illusion, the required badass points were swiftly drained. A strange dark smoke then enveloped the area around the illusion before him, creating an eerie sight as it seemed to wrap around empty air.
Realizing his protective veil was about to be breached, Valorix cursed loudly. In a desperate attempt to stop Michael, he threw his halberd with all the force he could muster. "Damn it!" he yelled, the weapon cutting through the air toward Michael.
With surprising ease, Michael caught the halberd mid-flight, a smirk ying on his lips. "Nice try," he quipped before hurling it back at Valorix. The weapon grazed Valorix''s face, leaving a scratch that was a testament to Michael''s skill and the god of thieves'' momentarypse in concentration.
Soon, a sound akin to ss shattering echoed through the castle, drawing Valorix''s attention back to the source of their contention. He watched in horror as the illusion, a masterpiece created by Lathander himself, shattered into pieces, revealing an emerald green orb engraved with various glowing runes.
Michael''s eyes narrowed as he spotted the Mark of Morbus among the runes. With a snicker, he couldn''t resistmenting, "Looks like you''re in bed with Morbus. Not a good look for you, Valorix."
Clenching his fist, Michael prepared to smash the orb with the dark mes swirling around his hand. It was at this moment that Valorix recognized the imminent destruction of his advantage. "Stop!" Valorix shouted.
Hearing Valorix''s shout, Michael halted his fist just inches from the orb, curiosity briefly overshadowing his intent to destroy. The god of darkness watched as Valorix, far from disying anger or shock, actuallyughed. With a casual flick of his wrist, a bright light appeared in mid-air between them, transforming into a scene showing adventurers inside a treasure vault, their excitement palpable as they looted the treasure.
"Aye, look at this gem! Worth more than the ale I could drink in a lifetime," boasted a burly dwarf, his beard glittering with the dust of gold.
An elegant elf, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of discovery, held up a scroll. "This spell scroll... It''s ancient. The power it could hold!"
A human, d in armor that gleamed even in the dim light of the vault,ughed heartily. "And finally some treasures for surviving this damn death trap!"
"And to think, we almost missed all this!" A halfling, barely visible over a mound of gold coins, piped up.
Watching the scene unfold beside the orb, Michael turned to Valorix with a slight frown. "What the fuck are you ying at?" As though Valorix was waiting for Michael''s question, he pped his hands, and the gue maidens momentarily halted their attacks. Then a cunning sly smile appeared on his withered face.
"Oh, God of Darkness, this orb doesn''t just power the gue maidens. It''s also the trigger for all the lovely little surprises I''ve ced around the treasure vault. If you shatter this orb, it''ll trigger the bombs and... well, you get the picture."
Meanwhile, Gaya, who had been searching for the adventurers outside, heard Valorix''s words through the earpiece Michael had on. "Did he just say ''bombs''?" she asked, rm tinging her voice.
Michael remained silent, a rare moment of indecision crossing his face as Gaya quickly assessed the danger. "Handle that asshole, Michael. I''m not about to let some bomb take me out," she said sharply, her voice a mix of urgency and irritation.
Oblivious to the exchange between Michael and Gaya, Valorix boasted about his n. "Genius, isn''t it? I dare you, shatter the orb. But we both know you won''t. You''re not that reckless," he taunted, sure of his victory.
With Michael turned silent, Valorix had his arrogance and narcissism re up to new heights. Enjoying his n was working perfectly, he began to exin his twisted logic and n with a gleam of cunning in his eyes. "You know, I always figured you and Gaya would waltz in here first. And those stupid adventurers, blinded by their own greed, were just too easy to fool with the promise of another castle filled with gold and a trail of rare potions. It''s like leading pigs to the ughterhouse, and they''re just gobbling it up, oblivious to the de hanging over their heads," heughed, his voice dark with malice.
Meanwhile, within the illusion, the adventurers were in a frenzy of excitement, their hands grabbing anything that sparkled or held the promise of power.
"Would you look at this potion? I bet it could make me do some awesome shit!" eximed a human girl, holding up a vial filled with a swirling, luminescent liquid.
"Found a scroll of firestorm. This will fetch a pretty penny, or better yet, st our enemies to ashes," an elf dered, her eyes alight with the possibilities.
In the midst of their looting, a grizzled warrior paused, looking around with a suspicious re. "Where''s that ck-robed asshole and his bitch? They''re missing out, or maybe they nned this all along," he mused, voicing the question that was on a few minds.
Valorix, overhearing the adventurers'' banter through the magical scene, couldn''t help but chuckle at their ignorance. "See? Likembs. And I knew you''d find the illusion¡ªactually breaking it surprised me, I''ll admit. But, of course, I had my backup n. I knew you wouldn''t let these innocents die. Such a predictable god," he said, dripping with sarcasm as he slowly approached Michael.
With a smug smile, Valorix continued, "So, your only choice is to back off, leave the orb untouched, and deal with the gue maidens. They''ll keeping back, again and again, until you''re worn down. And then?" He circled Michael, his chuckle resonating with dark amusement. "Once your physical strength gives in, your soul is mine. Trapped here forever, just like you did to Andohr, remember? Ah, but I''m being generous, giving you a taste of your own medicine." he said before pausing for a moment. Then, he had the courage to lean closer to Michael.
"You know, Ghost, it''s funny how history loves to repeat itself. Five thousand years ago, you stood where you are now, faced with a simr shit choice. Kill me and lose innocent lives, or let me go to save them. You chose thetter, and look where it got us."
Michael noticed the unquenchable anger and killing intent in those cold old eyes. But still, Michael remained silent, listening to Valorix''s shback and the history between him and the previous Dark Lord.
"You made me look like this," Valorix gestured to his weathered, aged appearance, a far cry from the handsome youth he once was. "Drained my vitality, turned me into a mockery of my former self. And for what? A moment of mercy?"
As Valorix''s words dripped with venom, the air between them crackled with tension. "And now, you''re faced with the same choice. But here''s the kicker¡ªI won''t be letting you walk away this time. No, no, no. This time, I''m taking something from you. Your freedom, your soul, it will be trapped here, a fitting revenge for the humiliation you''ve forced upon me."
Enjoying Michael''s silent, Valorix couldn''t help but burst intoughter.
"So, what''s it going to be, Ghost? Will history repeat itself, or will you surprise me? Either way, I win. Either you''re trapped here with me, or you live knowing you''ve unleashed destruction by trying to stop it. Quite the dilemma, isn''t it?" He asked as he took a few steps back to relish the silence and the look on Michael''s face.
"So, go ahead, make your choice. Save them, save yourself, it doesn''t matter. Either way, I win. Because this time, Ghost, this time, I''m ensuring your heroics cost you everything." asked Valorix with his gaze never leaving Michael. But to Valorix''splete shock, Michael burst into uproariousughter. "Hero, me?" he scoffed, hisughter echoing around the cavernous room. "You''ve got me all wrong, Valorix. I''m the farthest thing from a hero. The idea itself is fucking hrious. You really think I''d y the sacrificialmb for a bunch of adventurers?"
Still chuckling, Michael shook his head, an amused smirk ying on his lips. "I don''t give a damn about those adventurers. They''re greedy, stumbling into traps left and right. They can pray to their own gods if they want saving. Sacrifice myself for them? Not a chance. They''d die sooner orter, one way or another."
Watching Michael''s reaction, Valorix''s smile froze, his heart skipping a beat as the realization of his miscalction set in. Before he could recover or attempt another maniptive taunt, Michael''s fist, glowing with dark energy, mmed into the orb. The sound of shattering ss filled the room as the orb disintegrated into countless pieces, its destruction signifying Michael''s refusal to y by Valorix''s rules.
Valorix, stunned and momentarily speechless, could only watch as his carefullyid ns crumbled before his eyes.
The moment Michael shattered the orb, the gue maidens let out ear-piercing screeches and crumbled into gray dust. Almost immediately, the sound of explosions in the distance echoed through the castle, its ancient walls trembling from the force. Amidst the chaos, Michael turned to Valorix, a smirk evident on his face.
"Do you hear that, Valorix? That''s the sound of me not giving a shit about those greedy adventurers, AKA your so-called trump cards," Michael said, his voice dripping with disdain.
Valorix, visibly stunned by Michael''s cruel ruthlessness, struggled to find words. The god of thieves, known for his cunning and maniption, found himself at a loss. "You... You''re not the same," he finally managed to say, his voice a mix of shock and realization. "The Ghost I knew five thousand years ago... he wouldn''t have done this. You''ve changed. You''re far more ruthless, more... cruel."
Michael''s actions had not only subverted Valorix''s expectations but also forced him to acknowledge a harsh truth: the Michael standing before him now was not bound by the moral codes or heroics of his past incarnation.
"Now what do we do with you?" Michael asked as the entire throne hall turned dark. At that moment, Valorix knew he was about to get the wrath of the new, more ruthless God of Darkness.
***************** n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Hi my wonderful readers,
For the first time, I decided to join WSA because the two writing themes this time happened to be my favorite - Kingdom Building with System and Viin Story with a System.
Your Power Stones, reviews,ments are precious and will help me win this thing.
So Please check out War Lord''s Apocalyptic System and Demon King''s Viin System. Please spare your Power Stones, gifts, reviews andments to the stories to make it shine brightly!!!!
Chapter 1236 Complete Domination
Chapter 1236 Complete Domination
The moment everything turned dark, an oppressive, thick darkness enveloped the hall, swallowing every trace of light and making it impossible to see anything. In this realm of shadows, Michael''s strength surged, the darkness amplifying his power as the God of Darkness. Valorix, aware of this advantage, felt a surge of apprehension.
Despite his growing fear, Valorix couldn''t help but vent his anger and disbelief at Michael''s actions. "You fucking monster," he spat out into the darkness, his voice tinged with a mix of anger and incredulity. "You killed all those innocents just to ruin my n? You''ve truly lost it. The Dark Lord I knew... he had limits. But you? You''re something else."
Valorix''s words wereced with a bitter realization of the drastic change in Michael''s character. The new ruthlessness, the willingness to sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve his goals, was something Valorix had not anticipated. It wasn''t just the loss of his n that stung. it was the understanding that he was now dealing with a God of Darkness who had embraced his darkest aspects without reservation or remorse.
"Enjoying the turn of tables?" Michael''s voice cut through the darkness, a moment before his fist connected with Valorix, sending him flying through the air. The sound of Valorix''s body hitting the wall echoed through the castle''s throne hall.
"It''s my turn to brag," Michael dered, his voice filled with a cold satisfaction as he moved unseen in the darkness. "You know, I''ve been keeping an eye on Jin. I watched him opening treasure chests, always looking for something more."
Valorix, struggling to regain hisposure, spat out a curse. "How the fuck did you¡ª"
Michael cut him off, "Goddess Marli was bbering about getting Vedora''s remains, along with the elder of the Kraken n, before we entered this godforsaken dungeon. So, when Jin came searching through your castle, it wasn''t hard to guess he was after the bones too,"
Valorix, now reeling not just from the physical blow but from the revtion, gasped, "But how¡ª"
"Surprised? Yeah, you turning out to be Valorix, the God of Thieves, that caught me off guard. I''ll give you that. But then, I heard you bragging to Jin about keeping some adventurers like the Ironfist beast tamers, Elrion, and Lysandra captured. nning to absorb their souls, were you?" Michael''s voice was tinged with disdain as he paced the darkness, his steps silent.
The sounds of punchesnding were punctuated by Michael''s revtions, each hit emphasizing his words. "Your hatred for me, your ns, they all unraveled today, Valorix. Did you really think you could outy the God of Darkness?"
Valorix, cornered and beaten, could only groan in response, realizing that Michael had outmaneuvered him at every turn, using his own hatred and ns against him in the ultimate game of shadows.
"And let''s not forget about those adventurers. If any of them who knew I''m the God of Darkness made it outside, they''d b to everyone. That would''ve fucked up my ns. So, in a way, Valorix, you''ve helped me eliminate potential witnesses. How''s that for irony?"
Amidst the beating, Valorix reached for an item that could bring light to the overwhelming darkness in a desperate bid to turn the tides. But before he could activate it, Michael''s foot connected with him, sending him flying once more. The item ttered away, useless.
With a coldugh, Michael then crushed the orb beneath his feet, the sound of it breaking as satisfying as the silence that followed his exnation. "Leaving Lysandra and Elrion chained a bit longer will just make them desperate enough to call for their gods. But we both know no god will answer them... except me. Their prayers, their worship energy, it''ll just make me stronger."
Valorix, battered and bruised both physically and mentally, was struck by the depth of Michael''s strategy. The realization that Michael was ying the game of gods with such ruthlessness and merciless efficiency was a bitter pill to swallow. "You... you''re a fucking monster," Valorix gasped, the shock evident in his voice. "I never... I never expected you to be so... so calcting, so cold."
Michael''sughter echoed once more through the darkness, a sound devoid of any warmth or humanity. "You should''ve known, Valorix. In the game of gods, it''s not about being kind or merciful. It''s about being thest one standing. And I intend to win, no matter the cost."
In the enveloping darkness, Valorix made a desperate attempt to regain some ground, lunging at Michael with the halberd. But Michael, ever the superiorbatant, easily caught the weapon and, with a flick of his wrist, absorbed it into his system storage. "I''ll be taking that," Michael quipped, his voice dripping with mockery.
"What about the Ironhand beast tamers, huh? What sick n do you have for them?" Valorix shouted, his frustration and confusion boiling over.
Michael couldn''t help butugh at the irony. "You''re one to talk about sick games, Valorix. nning to steal souls and you''re worried about my ns?" Shaking his head, Michael delivered a stinging p to Valorix''s cheek. "As for the Ironhand beast tamers, let''s just say Gaya and they have a score to settle. You see, they''ve been hurting and caging monsters and creatures. And Gaya, being the Goddess of Monsters, feels it''s her duty to look after her own. It''s kind of her thing."
Then Michael simply chuckled as the sound resonanted in the darkness. "Gaya just came into her godhood, and yeah, some of those monsters they cage are responsible for killing and havoc. But it''s only right for me, as her husband, to support her in her endeavors. You know, couple goals and all that."
Valorix, still reeling from the p and the revtions, was left speechless. The realization that Michael was not only unbothered by his usations but openly mocking them, all while nning to support Gaya''s vendetta against the Ironhand beast tamers, was a clear indicator of how far Michael was willing to go. The God of Darkness''s cruelty and calction were unlike anything Valorix had anticipated, and it dawned on him just how outmatched he truly was.
Meanwhile, Michael''sughter filled the darkened hall once more, a sound of genuine amusement at the turn of events. "You know, Valorix, I really should be thanking you. You''ve handed me so many goodies and helped me tie up all the loose ends so neatly. It''s been quite the productive day, thanks to you."
The gratitude, dripping with sarcasm, only served to fuel Valorix''s growing anger. "You''re fucking mocking me," he seethed, his voice a mix of rage and disbelief.
"Mocking? No, I''m genuinely thankful," Michael continued, his tone still light, almost jovial. "Normally, I''d just kill you and be done with it. But you see, I can''t kill youpletely yet. I''ve decided to toy with you instead. You annoyed me, thinking you could pull one over me. So, consider this a lesson in humility, Valorix. One you''re not likely to forget anytime soon." n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The threat, veiled in the guise of gratitude, made it clear. Michael was in control, not just of the situation at hand, but of Valorix''s fate. His decision to let Valorix live was not born of mercy, but rather a desire to prolong Valorix''s suffering, a punishment for underestimating the God of Darkness.
Amidst the tension and dark threats, Valorix managed tonded a punch on Michael with a burst of unexpected agility. The blow was solid enough to draw blood.
Michael wiped the blood away and chuckled, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, huh?" His amusement was evident, not at all diminished by the strike.
"There''s no minotaur here to do your dirty work, to absorb my soul like it did Marli''s. No matter what you do, I''ll always be here, scheming, nning. And eventually, I''ll be the one to end you." Seizing the moment to boast, Valorix sneered.
Michael''sughter echoed through the hall once more, a sound that held both amusement and a hint of pity. "Out of the loop? Oh, Valorix, you really are behind the times," he said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "I killed Rainar, the God of Rain. There was no minotaur involved. Just me."
The revtion hit Valorix like a physical blow, his previous confidence evaporating into disbelief and shock. "You... what? You killed Rainar? No, that''s... that can''t be. You''re lying!" His words were a mix of denial and realization, struggling to ept the truth Michaelid bare.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 25,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 35,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 55,000 Badass points] ¡
As Michael was delighting in giving Valorix metaphorical heart attacks, the continuous rings of the system notifications caught his attention. He couldn''t help but feel a surge of delight at the rain of badass points flooding in, a testament to his strategic prowess and ruthless actions. Even the system seemed impressed, noting the quick and decisive manner in which he turned the tables on Valorix with nothing more than a Spyder and a demonstration of his merciless nature.
Ignoring the system''s pings for the moment, Michael focused on Valorix, who was still reeling from the revtions. "No one can kill a god except the ancient beasts," Valorix mumbled, clinging to this belief as if it were a lifeline.
Michael''sughter cut through the tension, "You''re so fucking wrong," he taunted, enjoying the visible shock on Valorix''s face. "Can you guess what my next n is?"
Valorix, desperation creeping into his voice, asked, "What? What are you nning?"
"I have multiple ways to kill you," Michael admitted with a predatory grin. "But it would be particrly poetic to use one of your ancient monsters in the dungeon against you. The very ones you put there."
"How?" Valorix roared, disbelief and anger mingling in his voice.
With another effortless p, Michael sent Valorix flying. As Valorix struggled to regain his bearings, Michael''s voice followed, dripping with condescension. "Did you forget already? My wife is the Goddess of Monsters. And soon, she''ll be boss around the ancient beasts as if they were mere pups. So, guess who''ll really be in trouble then?
Chapter 1237 End Of Valorix I
Chapter 1237 End Of Valorix I
After Valorix absorbed Michael''s words, a desperate resolve took hold of him. He realized this might be hisst chance to save his physical form from the inevitable wrath of the newly ruthless God of Darkness. With a defiant shout that echoed through the darkened hall, "You think you''ve won? Watch this!"
Summoning every ounce of his divine power, Valorix called forth every bit of treasure he had pilfered over the eons. In a dazzling disy of light and magic, various items began to equip themselves over his already gleaming golden armor. A spear materialized in his other hand, gleaming with an ominous energy, while a mechanical hand attached itself to his back, its fingertips sparking with the promise of fiery destruction. Around his neck, several talismans appeared, each engraved with runes pulsating with ancient power.
Valorix, now fully armed with the artifacts of his thievery, stood taller, his form radiating a formidable aura. "Now, you will face the true God of Thieves in his full glory!" he boasted, the various magical items augmenting his voice with a resonance that filled the throne hall.
Valorix, now a walking arsenal of divine theft, wasted no time in demonstrating the might of his newly adorned treasures. "Let''s see you dodge this, you fucker!" he bellowed, as he thrust the spear forward, unleashing a powerful gale force of wind aimed directly at Michael.
The wind tore through the throne hall with ferocious speed, but Michael, ever the embodiment of darkness, twisted and turned, his form melding with the shadows as he narrowly evaded the attack. "Is that all? You''re going to have to do better than that," Michael taunted, his voice echoing from the darkness.
Not missing a beat, Valorix activated the mechanical arms on his back, which whirred to life before firing a barrage of energy beams in rapid session. The beams sliced through the air, each one more precise and deadly than thest. Michael, however, anticipated each shot, moving with supernatural agility as he avoided the beams by mere inches.
"Fuck! Stand still and fight like a god!" Valorix cursed, frustration mounting as his attacks failed tond.
Each of Valorix''s talismans pulsed with energy, one after the other activating their unique powers. One talisman unleashed a blizzard of ice shards, another summoned bolts of lightning, and yet another created a barrier of fire around Valorix, making him a moving inferno.
Michael, unfazed by the variety and intensity of the attacks, continued to dodge and weave, hisughter ringing out amidst the chaos. "You think these parlor tricks will stop me? I''ve seen better magic from a wee baby!"
As the fight escted, Michael found openings between Valorix''s attacks, exploiting them with quick, precise strikes aimed at the talismans and the mechanical arms. Each hit weakened the items'' hold on their magical abilities, gradually diminishing Valorix''s offensive capabilities.
Valorix, now visibly tiring from the effort of controlling so many powerful artifacts at once, growled in anger. "I will not be defeated so easily! I am the God of Thieves, and I will have your head!" N?v(el)B\\jnn
Michael, seizing an opportune moment as Valorix''s concentration faltered, lunged forward, his own powers amplified by the darkness. "Your thievery ends here, Valorix. This is where you pay for your crimes."
During the fierce battle, Michael shifted his strategy, allowing himself to take a few hits from Valorix''s relentless assault. Each blownded with the force of centuries of theft and cunning behind them, but Michael bore them with a purpose in mind.
"Ha! Finally got you, didn''t I, you slippery bastard?" Valorix taunted, believing he had gained the upper hand as he saw his attacks make contact.
Absorbing each hit''s impact, Michael grunted in response but kept his focus. "You think you''re winning? This is just the warm-up, Valorix. Don''t get too cocky."
Meanwhile, Gaya was on her mission, searching for Lysandra and Elrion, ready to act on Michael''s signal. Michael''s n was to keep Valorix engaged, buying time for Gaya to locate and prepare for the rescue. The moment Lysandra and Elrion began to pray to him, seeking divine intervention, he would receive a significant boost from their worship energy.
Valorix, unaware of the underlying strategy, continued his barrage, each attack filled with a mix of fury and desperation.
"I''ll grind you into dust, bastard. I swear it on the void!"
Enduring the onught, Michael smirked amidst the chaos. "Keep dreaming, Valorix. You''re just a stepping stone. Soon, you''ll see what real power looks like when those prayers hit."
Valorix, puzzled by Michael''s confidence, hesitated for a moment. "What the fuck are you babbling about? Prayers? You think some desperate pleas will save you?"
After seizing the brief pause, Michael retaliated with a swift counter-attack, pushing Valorix back. "It''s not about saving me. It''s about amplifying my strength. And when Gaya frees those two, and their prayerse pouring in, you''ll wish you had never crossed paths with me."
Laughing in the face of danger, Valorix taunted Michael, "You think the worship energy from two measly souls will make any difference? You''re grasping at straws!"
"You''d be surprised. Elrion might be just another adventurer, but Lysandra... there''s something off about her. Seems like not everyone is as they appear in this damned dungeon, eh, Valorix? Missed that in your grand ns, did you?" Michael shot back with a sly grin. As the verbal sparring continued, Gaya, ever the cunning goddess, had located a cabin in the distance. Peering through a window, she spotted Elrion and Lysandra, bound and suspended much like Jin had been. Without hesitation, she contacted Michael via the earpiece. "Found them. They''re strung up like decorations. This ce reeks of traps, though."
"Don''t go near it. Try to wake them up from a distance. Tell them their only shot out of this is to pray to the God of Darkness. Tell them Valorix has lost his mind and cut all ties to the pantheon." His instructions wereced with a deception designed to ensnare their faith and desperation.
Gaya couldn''t help butugh at the audacity of the lie. "Sure, let''s add ''savior of adventurers'' to your list of titles," she quipped, ying along with the ruse.
Valorix, overhearing the exchange, was visibly annoyed and angered by Michael''s ease at spinning lies. "You''re a fucking piece of work, Michael. Using lies and deceit without even batting an eye," he spat out, his disdain for Michael''s tactics clear. Yet, beneath his anger, there was a hint of fear, a realization that Michael''s ns were always several steps ahead, weaving a web that Valorix was now caught in.
Chuckling at Valorix''s outrage, Michael couldn''t resist jabbing at the god''s hypocrisy. "You''re bitching about me lying? That''s rich,ing from the God of Thieves. Lying and stealing are in your job description, aren''t they, Valorix? Or did you forget that part while you were busy ying dungeon master?"
He danced around Valorix, each dodge and weave as much a part of his taunt as his words. "I could rip your soul out any time I want, but why rush? This battle''s giving me a decent workout, not to mention a goodugh. And, well, let''s just say there''s another perk to dragging this out."
Michael''s had a sly smile spreading across his face as he thought about the additional benefit he hadn''t mentioned¡ª the steady stream of badass points flowing into his ount, courtesy of the system rewarding him for effectively "talking shit" about Valorix and engaging in this drawn-out battle.
On the other hand, Valorix was seething, his anger amplified by Michael''s mockery and apparent nonchnce. "You smug bastard," he growled, "You think you''re so clever, ying these games."
Michael''s only response was a chuckle, "Games? I thought you''d appreciate a good scheme, Valorix. Or is it only fun when you''re the one pulling the strings?"
While they were locked inbat, Gaya took matters into her own hands. Raising her voice to cut through the silence of the cabin, she shouted at Elrion and Lysandra, urgently trying to rouse them from their enforced slumber. "Wake up! Valorix has lost his mind, severing all connections to the pantheon around this dungeon. The only way to defeat him is by praying to the God of Darkness!"
Slowly, Elrion and Lysandra began to stir, confusion and weariness evident in their movements. Elrion, ever the devout follower of Valorius, was initially resistant. "I will not forsake my god. Valorius has always guided my path," he dered, stubbornnesscing his voice.
"Listen to me! Valorix''s madness has plunged this ce into chaos. Valorius cannot hear you here; Valorix made sure of it. Your only hope is the God of Darkness." Gaya intensified her efforts, painting a dire picture of their situation. Elrion shook his head, trying to summon Valorius, but as Michael had predicted, there was no response. Silence met his prayers, a silence that spoke volumes of their dire situation.
Seeing Elrion''s faith waver, Gaya turned her attention to Lysandra, hoping her calm demeanor would make her more receptive. "Lysandra, I know you understand the gravity of our situation. We need the God of Darkness. He''s our only shot at getting out of this alive."
Lysandra, her voice steady andposed, weighed the options. "I see no other choice. If praying to the God of Darkness will save us, then so be it,"
Gaya, hiding her triumph with a snicker, watched as the n unfolded just as Michael had anticipated. The desperation, the switch of faith, it was all ying into their hands perfectly.
Finally conceding to their grim reality, Elrion joined Lysandra in prayer. "God of Darkness, if you can hear us, we seek your aid."
"Now, Michael will end this battle once and for all," Observing the scene, Gaya couldn''t help but chuckle softly to herself, marveling at the ease with which they had manipted the situation to their advantage. The desperation had worked, the lies had taken root, and now, the God of Darkness would grow stronger from their unwitting worship.
Chapter 1238 End Of Valorix II
Chapter 1238 End Of Valorix II
As the battle between Michael and Valorix raged on, a sudden surge of power coursed through Michael, bolstering his strength. This newfound energy, while not as potent as the surge he experienced when Fayeth prayed to him, was still significant. The system''s notifications confirmed his suspicion:
[The host has gained 700 Worship Energy]
[The host has gained 200 Worship Energy]
¡
These alerts validated the boost in power Michael felt. The influx of worship energy from Elrion and Lysandra totaled 900, a substantial amount, though it fell short of the thousand worship energy he had received from Fayeth''s prayers. Intriguingly, Michael sensed that therger portion of this energy, seven hundred to be exact, emanated from Lysandra, marking only a three hundred shortfall from Fayeth''s contribution.
"This is why you never build your entire n on how someone might act, Valorix. People change, that belongs to the gods too," Michael dered, halting his movements amidst the ongoing battle.
Shrouded in pitch darkness, Valorix was unable to visually locate Michael. Nheless, Michael''s voice enveloped him, seeming to emerge directly from the surrounding shadows.
"This battle would have been gone in your way if you had put more thoughts to your ns," Michael continued, his words echoing in the dark.
"Don''t lecture me, you fucking bastard!" Valorix retorted, his voice tinged with disbelief and shock, particrly after realizing Michael''s willingness to sacrifice the adventurers.
"System, lock down the area and prevent him from using any teleportation," Michael silentlymanded the system.
[The System would require two million badass points to create a barrier around the castle. Do you wish to proceed host?] queried the system, to which Michael readily consented.
As soon as Michael initiated themand, Valorix, who had secretly counted on a teleportation scroll for his escape, felt a sudden, unnerving chill.
"What did you do?!" Valorix eximed in desperation.
"I am not going to let you escape, Valorix. After all, it''s obvious you have some sort of stolen goods that will let you teleport away," Michael responded with a chuckle, his words sending a wave of shock through Valorix.
The immense amount of badass points required to erect the barrier underscored the gravity of the situation, highlighting how Valorix would have undoubtedly fled if Michael hadn''t intervened.
!
"Now that I have my worship energy, let''s end this, shall we?" Michael proposed, his tone suggesting finality.
Despite the total being only 900 worship energy, Michael deemed it valuable, given the rarity of such energy. It was time to conclude the confrontation with Valorix. Stealthily, Michael positioned himself behind Valorix amidst the darkness. Valorix, reacting on instinct, swung his spear and halberd backward in defense. Nevertheless, Michael effortlessly caught both weapons, wrenching them from Valorix''s grip.
"You can''t destroy my body. This armor is indestructible!" Valorix proimed defiantly.
"But not your eyes," Michael retorted with a snicker. The golden armor that Valorix boasted about protected his entire body except for his eyes. Seizing the opportunity, Michael summoned the dark sword into his hand and drove it into Valorix''s eye.
Valorix''s grunt of pain filled the hall as dark mes emanated from the sword, snaking their way into his skull. Under normal circumstances, such an attack wouldn''t fatally damage a god. However, Valorix''s weakened state, a consequence of his excessive soul absorption, left him vulnerable to such a devastating blow.
This grim oue served as a stark reminder of the dangers associated with consuming souls, a practice frowned upon by the system. Gods like Morbus, Fourcrux, and Xyloth had sumbed to malevolence through excessive soul consumption, veering down a path of evil despite the avability of alternative choices.
"You should have stuck to stealing and lying," Michael remarked, forcing Valorix to kneel with a well-ced kick to the knee. He then pressed the sword deeper into Valorix''s skull, the dark mes voraciously consuming his insides. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"I will¡be¡back!" Valorix managed to scream, his defiance evident even in his final moments. As Michael observed, a wisp of light emerged from Valorix''s head, signifying his impending doom. This urrence triggered a reaction from the castle itself, which seemed to awaken. Suddenly, countless glowing runes illuminated the surroundings, their brilliance intensifying to the point where even the darkness wrought by the death range began to diminish.
The intricate runes that Valorix had meticulously ced around the castle, intended to ensnare Michael''s soul, sprang to life with a purpose of their own. Michael had spected that these runes were designed to trap the soul of any god, not just his specifically. This spection proved urate as the runes began to coalesce into an invisible cage aimed at Valorix''s soul.
However, before Michael could act on this development, the luminous runes vanished, taking Valorix''s soul with them. As the runes dissipated into nothingness, the castle itself started to quake, signaling a significant change. The once formidable hollowed armor, previously enveloped in a golden glow, faded from existence, alongside numerous other items scattered throughout the hall.
"What the hell is happening?" Michael uttered, trying to maintain his bnce amidst the sudden upheaval. Unbeknownst to him, the demise of Valorix''s physical form significantly weakened his dominion over the stolen artifacts, prompting them to revert to their original owners. This unique remation feature wasn''tmon among ordinary items but was characteristic of special items like the golden armor, stolen from Luxor, the God of Wealth. Valorix had amassed an assortment of such exceptional items throughout his thievery, each embedded with a safeguarding mechanism by their rightful owners. With Valorix''s presence extinguished, the magical bond that anchored these items to the castle was severed, resulting in their disappearance.
"Ghost!" Gaya''s voice pierced through the chaos, drawing Michael''s attention. Turning, he saw her struggling with the unconscious forms of Lysandra and Elrion.
"We need to get the hell out of here. The whole ce ising down!" she eximed, urgencycing her voice as pieces of the ceiling began to crumble around them.
Michael''s gaze shot upwards, and with a swift leap, he reached Jin, who was still suspended. A single slice from his dark sword severed the ropes, freeing him from his precarious hang.
"Where is Vedora''s remains?" Gaya''s concern shifted to their initial quest, her eyes scanning the copsing environment. They had been led to believe that the heart of the dungeon held the remains of Vedora, a keyponent of their mission.
After handing the unconscious Jin to Gaya, Michael looked around for an exit. The expenditure of two million badass points to seal the castle, trapping Valorix, had significantly depleted his resources. With only four million badass points left, he was uncertain if it would suffice for their teleportation.
"Looking for these?" A chilling voice stopped Michael in his tracks. Rin appeared, materializing seemingly from nowhere, standing before the colossal skeletal remains of Vedora. The sight of Rin, d in armor made from blood and flesh, sent shivers down Gaya''s spine and unsettled even Michael.
Despite her being a goddess, the sight of Rin unnerved Gaya. Meanwhile, Michael assessed the skeletal remains, identifying the shape of a skull and spinal core. With Andohr possessing another head of Vedora and now Rin revealing one, it became clear that only one more head of the three-headed Vedora''s body remained unounted for.
"Nice work with Valorix," Rin remarked, her voice causing an eerie stillness as the crumbling around them inexplicably halted. It was as if her presence alone could manipte time, freezing everything in ce.
"Look at our godly couples¡how cute," she taunted, her tongue tracing her ckened lips in a macabre gesture of amusement.
Michael, sensing the potential danger, wasted no time. "System, teleport us if she makes any move. Take a loan if I don''t have enough badass points," hemanded internally, always thinking one step ahead.
[The system rmends the host not to run away with his tails tucked between his legs. But yes, your request is noted] came the system''s response, its toneced with its characteristic sass.
In this moment of tension, Michael had no energy to spar with the system''s attitude. His attention was solely on Rin, assessing her every move and intent.
"It''s nice to meet you, Goddess of Monsters, in person¡" Rin''s words were directed at Gaya, her smile broadening with apparent delight. Meanwhile, Gaya, repulsed by the palpable scent of blood Rin carried with her, couldn''t hide her distaste.
"Can''t say the same¡" Gaya began retorting, only for Michael to nce over his shoulder, a silent plea to avoid provoking Rin further.
For Michael, the priority was clear: to exit the dungeon without further incident. With Rin now in possession of Vedora''s remains, confronting her directly wasn''t an option¡ªat least, not without a strategic advantage.
"Thank you for killing some of those seal bearers and making a way into the realm of gods for my good friend, Zariel," Rin continued, her grin taking on a sinister quality. At the mention of Zariel, Gaya''s fists tightened reflexively. The memories of Zariel''s atrocities, particrly the possession and subsequent death of Cindy, were painful reminders of her own losses and the strife it caused with Nithroel, the Goddess of the Hunt.
"And before I forget, I need to thank you for freeing all those souls Valorix has kept over the years¡Xyloth will have a great time consuming them," Rin added, her chuckle resonating with malevolence.
As the realization dawned on Michael why Rin was present, frustration swelled within him. Over the decades, Valorix had managed to prevent hisplete degradation by consuming souls he had pilfered. Now, however, his extensive collection of souls had fallen into Rin''s hands.
"Damn it," Michael silently cursed, the situation growing increasingly dire.
"What do you want, Rin?" he inquired, opting for a direct approach.
"Direct to the point, huh? I like that about you¡as much as I''d like to skin you all alive and see what''s behind those fair skins of yours, I''m ordered not to," Rin responded, her disappointment evident as she pouted.
"So I''d settle for a finger¡finger of Lysandra here¡" she continued, her lips curling into a sinister smile.
"Why?" Michael pressed, hoping to glean more from her, but Rin''s only reply was a punch to his gut, forceful enough to make him cough out blood.
"Fucking-" Gaya reacted instinctively, her protective instincts kicking in. Sheunched her fist towards Rin, momentarily forgetting about Lysandra, Elrion, and Jin in her arms.
However, Rin''s speed outmatched Gaya''s, and with a swift movement, she sent Gaya flying with a powerful punch.
"Oh¡how I''d love to murder you two¡" Rin mused, her desire for violence barely contained.
In the meantime, Michael, feigning greater injury to buy time, watched as Rin savored the moment before cutting off Lysandra''s finger. The anticipation of the system''s teleportation was his only sce in the face of Rin''s cruelty.
"Do not y around¡bring it to me now!" Amanding voice suddenly filled the hall, causing Rin to halt in her tracks. Her body tensed, and the malicious joy vanished from her face.
"Yes, father," sheplied, then swiftly disappeared with Vedora''s remains, leaving the group in the crumbling castle.
Once Rin was gone, Michael let out a deep breath, relief mingling with concern. The voice that hadmanded Rin, and her immediate obedience, lingered ominously in his thoughts.
"Xyloth¡what are you up to?" he pondered aloud as the castle''s continued copse, adding urgency to their predicament.
Chapter 1239 Andohr鈥檚 Daughter And His Weapon
Chapter 1239 Andohr¡¯s Daughter And His Weapon
While Michael was entangled with Rin, the Pantheon, and myriad other problems, Salesi, alongside the evil Andreas, found themselves deep in conspiracy with Andohr. The actions of Gaya, particrly her elimination of some of the seal bearers, inadvertently weakened the barrier Michael had erected between Andohr and the mortal realm. As for how Gaya was able to kill the seal bearers, it was rted to the previous Dark Lord''s n.
In that moment, Salesi was positioned before a mirror. However, this was no ordinary mirror; instead of reflecting her own visage, it disyed Andohr, who sat regally upon a grand throne. The intense animosity he harbored for Michael was evident in his disheveled golden hair and the blood-red hue of his eyes.
"Your Grace," Salesi intoned, dropping to a knee in a gesture of reverence before Andohr''s image. Yet, Andohr, consumed by his fury, scarcely acknowledged the respect Salesi offered.
"Is everything ready? Or you fucked it up as usual?" he inquired, his voice tinged with impatience. Meanwhile, the evil Andreas lingered in the background, deliberately keeping his face hidden from Andohr.
"Yes, your grace. I won''t fail you this time," Salesi assured him, her voice saturated with respect.
"Good, because if you did, when Ie out of this cage, I will rip you to shreds, daughter¡" Andohr''s deration was devoid of any paternal warmth. In his eyes, Salesi was merely another chess piece in his vendetta against Michael, not his offspring.
"Once I create this real tear to send it through the tear, it will use all my energy, and I will enter into a deep slumber until¡" Andohr''s voice trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished as Salesi nodded, her resolve unshaken by the daunting task ahead.
"I won''t let your sacrifice be in vain, father," Salesi affirmed, her voice betraying a hint of emotion as she uttered the word ''father.''
"Do not forget I had to strike a deal with that disgusting Fourcrux to reanimate the body. Once ites through the realm tear, let it destroy everything that bastard held dearly¡the world he craved to rule, the river town he loved and adored, and the dark ocean he ns to build his castle upon," Andohr dered, hisughter carrying a sinister edge.
"Father, will hee here as you have nned?" Salesi inquired, her voice meek, only to witness Andohr''s frustration manifest physically as he punched his throne.
"You imbecile, do not question my ns. He wille, he wille and find his world that he loves in ruins, and he will fight his brother one more time. And this time, one of their souls will be mine," Andohr bellowed, his promation reverberating throughout the castle, his certainty and malice clear in every word.
Salesi, curiosity piqued, ventured to ask, "But will Ghost truly be so powerful? And does Noah stand a chance against him this time?"
Andohr''s patience wore thin, his frustration evident, yet he took a moment to exin. "When Ghost," he spat the name like a curse, "enters the fray, his power will be suppressed due to the hydra''s radiation, simr to how Mugashuko''s radiation renders the Southern continent devoid of energy."
He conceded that Noah would have to exert every ounce of his strength to best Ghost. "Noah will have to fight tooth and nail to defeat Ghost. But with the hydra and our soul army at our disposal, The God of Darkness will find the going tough."
Despiteying out this strategy, Andohr kept his cards close to his chest. The full extent of his scheme remained a secret, shared only with a select few. Salesi, eager to support her father''s cause, remained in the dark about the intricacies of Andohr''s master n, a testament to his distrust and the depth of his plotting.
"Father¡"
After hearing Andohr''s n, Salesi hesitated, the word "father" leaving her lips with a reluctance that betrayed her inner turmoil. She seemed torn, wrestling with a question she feared to ask.
Andohr''s patience was already threadbare, and her hesitation only served to stoke the mes of his annoyance. "What is it now?" he snapped, his toneced with barely concealed irritation.
Taking a deep breath to muster her courage, Salesi finally voiced her concern, "What if Noah doesn''t defeat Ghost?"
Under his breath, Andohr muttered with a sinister smile, "That is the n." However, realizing his slip, he quickly masked his evil grin with a veneer of seriousness and turned his attention back to Salesi. "You better make sure Noahes out on top of their battle," hemanded, redirecting the conversation to ensure his daughter remained focused on the task at hand, oblivious to the deeper, darkeryers of his strategy. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Before Salesi could voice another concern, Andohr preempted her, "Before you ask how Noah is going to kill him, you better make sure all those god-killing arrows now in Ghost''s grasp are taken by Noah. It all depends on Noah''s skills."
Salesi expressed her doubts, "It''s not going to be easy."
Andohr''s response was immediate and forceful as he struck the throne, "It is not supposed to be easy!" His frustration boiled over into a tirade. "Are you thinking killing a god is easy, especially the God of Darkness? Do you?"
He continued, his voice echoing with intensity, "That bastard, as much as I hate him, is a damn good cunning fox and a damn good fighter. Underestimate him at your peril. We''ve seen it time and again. He''s slippery, resourceful, and has a knack for turning the tables when you least expect it. If Noah''s to seed, he needs more than just arrows; he needs to outsmart Ghost, and that, my dear, is a tall order."
Andohr''s rantid bare the grudging respect he held for Michael''s capabilities, underscoring the enormity of the task at hand. Despite his hatred for the God of Darkness, Andohr was acutely aware of Michael''s prowess in battle and his cunning intellect.
Suddenly, the evil Andreas chimed in, his toneced with a hint of mockery, "It almost sounds like you hold a certain respect for your adversary, Your Grace."
Andohr''s reaction was swift, his face contorting with a mixture of intense hatred and begrudging respect for Michael. "Respect? No, it''s recognition of the threat he poses. The Pantheon, in their arrogance, underestimated him. But not I. To underestimate the God of Darkness is to invite disaster upon oneself," Andohr dered, his voice seething with fervor.
He continued, his frustration evident, "He''s not just the God of Darkness; he''s the God of Schemes. Always plotting, always a step ahead. That''s the real danger he represents. Anyone who thinks they''re merely dealing with a shadowy deity is a fool. He''s a strategist, a maniptor... and that''s what makes him a powerful enemy."
Andohr''s words revealed the depth of his strategic thinking and the acknowledgment of Michael''s capabilities not just in physicalbat but in the broader chess game of veangence and power struggles.
Andohr, his demeanor as stern as ever,id out the stark reality of their situation. "To defeat the God of Darkness, everything and everyone involved needs to be fucking perfect. This isn''t some half-assed brawl...It''s the ultimate gambit. Hard work, precision, and wless execution are non-negotiable."
Then, he leaned forward, the intensity in his bloody red eyes unmissable. "If everything goes ording to my n, I''ll soon break out of this goddamn cage. And then, the Pantheon itself will grovel at my feet. Mark my words."
The depth of Andohr''s hatred for Michael was palpable as he spoke further.
"That bastard, keeping me, the God of Time and Space, locked away like somemon shit! He''s going to pay, dearly. I''ll make sure of it. For every moment I''ve been imprisoned, he''ll suffer tenfold. I''ll strip away everything he holds dear, piece by bloody piece."
Finally, with a tone of finality and impatience, Andohr dismissed Salesi, hismand echoing with authority. "Don''t mess this up again. I won''t tolerate any more failures," he warned her, the threat in his voice unmistakable. As Salesi''s image vanished from his view, Andohr rose from his grand throne, his movements deliberate and filled with purpose.
Descending the stairs, he approached an object of considerable size shrouded in ck cloth, its formrge and imposing even beneath its cover. "You lostst time because of the emotions you harbored. But this time, you will fight devoid of any emotions, as an undead..." Andohr mused aloud, his voice a mix of contemtion and dark anticipation.
With a swift motion, he yanked the cloth away, unveiling whaty beneath¡ªa monstrous undead hydra, confined within a metal cage. The creature, though formidable in size, had only one head, hinting at its iplete statepared to the mythic three-headed hydra. The lone head, however, was no less terrifying, its scales gray and lifeless, eyes closed in deathly slumber.
Then, as if sensing the presence of its master, the hydra''s eyes snapped open. They glowed with an unnatural light, a stark contrast to its decaying form. This undead beast, stripped of its emotions and reborn into servitude, awaited Andohr''smands, a powerful weapon in his arsenal against Michael and the world he sought to protect.
Chapter 1240 Noah鈥檚 Preparation For The Second Round
Chapter 1240 Noah¡¯s Preparation For The Second Round
Noah d in his usual white robes, walked through a silent hallway, a stark contrast to the man he was a year before. His face now bore a stubble beard, and his eyes, once full of youthful determination, looked weary from the relentless battles against the Dark Lord''s forces and the gods born from the awakening of fallen graces. His once vibrant demeanor seemed overshadowed by exhaustion and the weight of his responsibilities.
As he reached the end of the hallway, he stood before a grand door. With a steady push, he opened it and stepped into an empty room, the most notable feature being a mirror ced directly in the center. The door shut behind him with a soft click, sealing him inside. Taking a deep breath topose himself, Noah approached the mirror. As he stood before it, the surface rippled, transforming to reveal Salesi''s figure.
"Lady Salesi," Noah greeted her, his voice steady despite the tumultuous thoughts swirling in his mind.
Salesi, masking her involvement in Andohr''s dark scheming, returned the greeting with a veneer of respect and feigned affection for her son-inw. "Noah," she said, her tone warm yet deceptive.
"How is Xanali doing?" Noah inquired, concern evident in his voice for his wife.
"She''s coping as well as one whose meridians have been broken can," Salesi replied, her words carefully chosen to convey a sense of hopelessness without revealing her true intentions.
Noah sighed, the weight of his wife''s condition heavy on his heart. "I will find a way to heal her, soon," he promised. His resolve was unwavering despite the challenges he faced.
"You''re already dealing with so much, Noah. The battles, the gods... it''s a lot for one person." Salesi shook her head, feigning concern. "But she''s my wife. It''s my duty to look after her, no matter the distance between us," Noah countered.
As Noah stood before the mirror, Salesi, cloaked in duplicity, began to weave her tale. "I''ve been in touch with my contacts at the Mazeroth Academy, and it''s confirmed. The Dark Lord, your brother Ghost, is behind the realm tear in the Akn Realm," she revealed with a calcted hint of urgency in her voice.
Upon hearing the name ''Ghost,'' Noah''s hand instinctively clenched into a fist, his knuckles whitening. The anger that simmered within him at the mention of Ghost was palpable, a testament to the deep rift between the brothers. In Noah''s heart, Ghost was not his sibling but the Dark Lord, an entity of darkness and destruction that he was sworn to eradicate.
The schemes Ghost had plotted during theirst confrontation, culminating in his feigned death to ascend to the realm of gods in pursuit of greater power, still haunted Noah. Ghost''s unquenchable thirst for power had not only caused personal anguish but had left the mortal realm vulnerable to emerging threats. Under the leadership of Eve Voldiguard, Ghost''s closest ally, the dark forces of his brother had grown into a significant threat than they were ever before.
Meanwhile, Salesi''s voice carried on, "Headmaster Wulfric suspects that something far more sinister, potentially a world-ending cmity, could emerge from the realm tear."
Noah''s fist tightened further, his frustration boiling over. "Ghost," he cursed under his breath, his disdain for his brother''s actions evident. "His thirst for power knows no bounds. He cares for nothing but himself and his ambitions."
As Salesi wove her tale of deception, she sensed the need to offer Noah something more personal to fight for beyond the mere concept of the greater good. "I have also received news of Rowena," she mentioned, her voice carefully neutral, yetced with an undercurrent designed to hook Noah''s attention.
At the mention of his big sister''s name, Noah''s demeanor changed instantly. His eyes softened, and his heart felt as though it skipped a beat. Rowena Winston, the former Holy Maiden, had always held a special ce in Noah''s heart. Despite the world''s harsh judgment, branding her a traitor for her actions during the war against the Dark Lord¡ªusing her body as a shield against a celestial beam aimed at the Dark Lord and vanishing in the aftermath¡ªNoah had never ceased his search for her. Where most had resigned themselves to the belief of her demise, Noah and his family clung to the hope of her survival.
"Rowena?" Noah''s voice cracked slightly with a mix of shock, joy, and relief, his usualposure fraying at the edges. "You have information about her? Is she...?"
Salesi, recognizing the emotional turmoil swirling within Noah, nodded slowly. "Yes, I have news of Rowena. It appears she may still be alive."
The mere possibility, the faintest hint of Rowena''s survival, sent a wave of emotions crashing over Noah. His heart, which had been weighed down by the burdens of war and the loss of loved ones, suddenly felt lighter. "Alive..." Noah repeated, the word barely a whisper as he allowed himself to grasp the sliver of hope Salesi had offered. The thought of reuniting with Rowena, of bringing her back into the fold of their family, reignited a fire within him¡ªa fire that had dimmed amidst the endless battles and betrayals.
In that moment, Noah''s resolve solidified. Whatever challengesy ahead, whatever maniptions and dangers he would have to navigate, the chance to find Rowena, to save her, gave him a new purpose. With a deep breath, Noah steadied himself, the softness in his eyes giving way to a renewed determination. "Tell me everything," he said, ready to face whatever came next for the chance to bring his sister home.
Seeing the flicker of determination in Noah''s eyes, Salesi decided to fan the mes of his resolve further. "Rowena has been taken by Zariel whom Gaya released," she divulged, her words carefully chosen to ensnare Noah''s attention further.
Noah''s reaction was immediate; his fist clenched tighter, a visceral symbol of his growing fury. "Damn Gaya!" he spat out, the name leaving his lips like a curse. The revtion that Zariel was behind his sister''s captivity, coupled with the chaos he had unleashed since escaping the Nether Realm, fueled Noah''s anger. After Gaya killed the seal bearers, as Rin had orchestrated, Zariel''s escape led to untold destruction. His freedom had resulted in the ughter of countless innocents and theplete overtaking of the Nether Realm, including a ruthless purge of the Skyhall angels stationed there. Noah had also learned from Nithroel that Zariel had ambitions to possess the bodies of demons unearthed by the Skyhall in their explorations of the Nether Realm.
"Zariel has proposed a deal," Salesi revealed, her tone taking on a hint of seriousness. "He will return Rowena to us if you manage to kill the God of Darkness." n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Why? Why is he doing this, and how did youe to know of it?" Noah''s response was a low growl. The questions tumbled out, a mix of confusion and a desperate need for answers.
Masking her inner triumph at sessfully manipting Noah, Salesi maintained herposure. "I have my sources," she stated simply, then added, "People like Zariel don''t usually offer deals. We should take this opportunity. Rowena''s life hangs in the bnce, and that''s far more important than trying to unravel Zariel''s motives or his issues with Ghost." she reasoned, her voice smooth and convincing. Then, with a slight chuckle, she added. "Besides, who doesn''t have a bone to pick with your brother?"
"Let me handle the task of bringing Rowena back. Your focus must remain on defeating Ghost," Salesi instructed, her tone firm yetden with a hint of caution. "And it''s probably best if your mother remains in the dark about all of this."
Harriet Hunt, who had adopted the alias Diana Winston, now lived a life under the vignt gaze of the Skyhall. Noah''s ascension to Celestial Stage cultivation and his esteemed position as the Supreme Guardian of the Guardian Guild had so far shielded the Hunt family from pursuing vengeance against Harriet. However, unbeknownst to many, the true deterrent keeping the Hunt family at bay was Azazel, the Dark Lord''s butler, who maintained a strict control over the family''s actions.
Noah nodded in agreement with Salesi''s advice, "I''ll keep this a secret from everyone," he promised, his mind already racing with ns and contingencies.
Curiosity piqued, Noah then inquired, "How powerful is this cmity that Headmaster Wulfric spoke of?"
Sensing Noah''s concern, Salesi offered a sliver of hope amidst the grim outlook. "Fortunately, I have some good news. Wulfric has sensed a connection between Ghost and the force emerging from the tear. Alone, it cannot be defeated, but if Ghost is taken out first, the entity will weaken. Then, with ourbined strength, we can confront and vanquish whatever dares toe through."
Noah''s frown deepened at theplexity of the situation. "How can we fight a battle on two fronts?" he asked, the weight of the impending challenges evident in his voice.
"It''s not going to be easy," she admitted, acknowledging the daunting path thaty ahead. The conversation left Noah with more questions than answers, but it also solidified his resolve to protect his world from the looming threats, no matter the personal cost.
"I never said fighting him will be easy," Noah confessed, his toneced with a grim eptance of the challenges he faced. He then shifted the focus to a critical gap in their strategy. "But we''re missing one crucial piece here¡A way to lure Ghost back to our world. Without him here, I can''t touch him, and if I can''t take him down, Rowena remains in danger. And if what you''re saying holds any water, whatever''sing through that tear will be a hell of a lot harder to beat if we don''t deal with Ghost first."
Salesi, cleverly concealing the satisfaction brewing within her as her maniption took root, adopted a thoughtful expression. "The only way to bring Ghost back to this realm," she began, her voice steady, betraying none of her inner triumph, "is through his son, Harry, and Eve Voldiguard."
Chapter 1241 Headmaster Wulfric鈥檚 concern about Harry
Chapter 1241 Headmaster Wulfric¡¯s concern about Harry
In a room cluttered with parchments, tablesden with various cauldrons, and the soft glow ofnterns casting shadows on the walls, La found herself seatedfortably. Her gaze was fixed on a white dragon, small in form, perched atop one of thenterns, its scales shimmering in the dim light.
As the door creaked open, she turned to greet the neer, a kind old man with a white beard and hair, his eyes peering through sses. "Headmaster Wulfric," she greeted him with a warm smile.
"Ah, La," Wulfric responded with equal warmth, closing the door gently behind him. "How is Harry doing at your home?"
"He''s a good boy, growing up faster than I''d ever expected," La replied, a hint of pride in her voice.
Wulfric''s smile broadened, a soft sigh escaping him. "He''s a tough kid. His experiences... they''ll shape him into a great man." Yet, as he spoke, La noticed a shadow of something else flicker in his eyes¡ªsomething like turmoil.
"Why did you really ask me toe, Headmaster?" La inquired, her intuition sensing the undercurrent of concern beneath hisposed exterior.
Wulfric, admiring her perceptiveness, took a moment before he spoke. "It''s about something... grave. A realm tear has appeared," he revealed, the weight of his words hanging in the air.
La''s expression shifted from curiosity to shock, her previous concerns momentarily forgotten. "A realm tear? Here?" The concept was rming, and the implications even more so.
"Yes," Wulfric continued, his voice steady despite the seriousness of the topic. "It''s not just any tear. It''s one that could change the fabric of our world as we know it. I fear what mighte through it... and what it means for us all, especially for Harry."
The news hit La like a cold wave, her mind racing with the potential dangers such a tear could unleash upon their world. The revtion, delivered by Wulfric with a calmness that belied the severity of the situation, only served to heighten her concern.
As they sat amidst the clutter of schrly endeavors, Wulfric delved deeper into the matter at hand, his voice tinged with a gravity thatmanded attention. "The energy radiation leaking from the realm tear is... intense, unlike anything our world has ever encountered," he exined, his brow furrowed in concern.
La, her mind already racing with possibilities, ventured, "What might have caused such a thing?" Despite the question, a gnawing feeling in her gut suggested it might be tied to Harry''s father, the Dark Lord whose name still sent shivers down the spine of the world, even after many believed him to be dead.
Wulfric, perceptive as always, caught the undercurrent of her thoughts. "I cannot say for certain what caused it," he admitted with a calm that seemed to anchor the room. "But at this moment, our focus must be on what wille through, not what caused the tear."
A heavy sigh escaped La as she braced herself for the answer to the question that loomed over them like a dark cloud. "What is it that wille through?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Adjusting his sses as if to prepare himself for the impact of his words, Wulfric responded, "Something otherworldly. If my calctions hold true, we are to expect a hydra."
The shock on La''s face was palpable, her eyes widening as she processed the revtion. "A hydra?" she echoed, disbelief mingling with a growing sense of dread.
"How can you be sure?" she pressed, seeking rity amidst the swirling fears.
Wulfric, ever the schr, answered with a meticulousness that betrayed his deep concern. "The energy radiation emanating from the realm tear shares remarkable simrities with the energy disturbances we''ve monitored around the Southern Continent. And we both know what resides within Stormville Mountain, causing such depletion."
"Mugashuku," La confirmed, the name falling from her lips like a stone into still water, its implications sending ripples through her already troubled mind.
The prospect of a hydra, a creature of myth and nightmare, tearing through the fabric of their reality was daunting enough. But the connection to Mugashuku, the source of the Southern Continent''s energy void, added ayer ofplexity and urgency to the unfolding crisis.
"Another hydra," La muttered under her breath, the words heavy with a sense of foreboding.
Wulfric nodded solemnly before adding, "We also know who elsemands a hydra." The room fell into an uneasy silence, the implication of his words hanging in the air like a dark cloud.
Breaking the silence, La voiced the name that had been on both their minds. "Ghost... the Dark Lord..." Her voice was a whisper,den with apprehension and uncertainty.
"The God of Darkness," Wulfric corrected gently, his tone devoid of fear or malice. Unlike the rest of the world, he did not regard the title with dread. His calm demeanor suggested a perspective not swayed bymon belief, almost as if he never truly considered Ghost to be the embodiment of evil as others did.
"Are the rumors true, is he still alive?" La asked, her curiosity piqued. She had never fully believed the narrative that Noah had vanquished the Dark Lord, as widely epted by the public. If the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen had truly met their end, La reasoned, the dark forces would have disintegrated, leaderless and aimless. Yet, she was no ordinary observer. Her connections in high ces provided her with insights otherscked. Through them, she learned of the dark forces'' growing strength and their ever-expanding influence across the world¡ªa feat that seemed impossible without formidable leadership.
Furthermore, whispers among the new gods hinted at the God of Darkness''s presence in the realm of gods. La understood that in any vast army or organization,plete secrecy was a myth. Some within the dark forces themselves had imed that the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen were indeed alive.
I believe he''s still out there, alive, and fighting against the true forces of evil," Wulfric leaned forward and, his voice firm in the belief that the Dark Lord was not the viin many painted him to be.
La sighed softly, nodding in agreement. Deep down, she too had never seen Ghost as the malevolent figure the world made him out to be. She understood that Ghost, unlike Noah, might not embody the archetype of a hero, but he was far from the embodiment of evil many imed. Ghost was a figure ofplexity, driven by his own moral code and principles, a realist navigating the shades of grey that defined their world.
As La pondered on Ghost''s true nature, Wulfric continued.
"The whole world, including the Skyhall, branded him as evil. Yet, when he was here, there was no war, nor were there new gods rampaging across thends forcing people into worship or sowing terror wherever they went. And despite having the power to cause immense destruction, he chose creation. The River Town stands as a testament to his efforts to build, not destroy." He paused for a moment, letting the significance of his words sink in. "They call him evil, but to the people of River Town, he is still their god. He transformed a humble fishing vige into a thriving city. Their loyalty to him, despite the world''s opinion, is unwavering."
La knew well that after the Skyhall had abolished the sects and attempted to suppress River Town for its loyalty to the Dark Lord, Noah, upon rebuilding the Guardian Guild and rising to power, chose not to suppress them. Thus, River Town thrived independently, a beacon of what Ghost had once envisioned.
Breaking the flow of their conversation, La interjected, "As much as I love talking about River Town, why am I really here? I doubt I can be of much help against a hydra."
Wulfric took a deep breath, his expression turning grave. "There are forces working against us all, La. And I''m worried that these forces might use Harry to bring the Dark Lord back into this world to finish what they started."
The room fell into a heavy silence, both La and Wulfric grappling with the enormity of the situation. The knowledge that Harry''s lineage was nowmon knowledge among their enemies filled La with a sense of dread. But after a while, La''s resolve hardened as she processed Wulfric''s words, her protective instincts for Harry surging to the forefront. "Whatever they are nning with Harry, I won''t let them seed," she dered with a fierce determination that brooked no argument. The thought of anyone using Harry, especially because of his lineage, ignited a fire within her that she had not felt before.
Wulfric nodded, appreciating her resolve but also recognizing theplexity of the situation. "The professors at Mazeroth Academy and I will do everything within our power to protect Harry," he assured her, his voice steady and sincere. "But what he needs most from you, La, is protection from himself."
La furrowed her brow, puzzled by Wulfric''s words, prompting him to borate. "Being the Dark Lord''s son will inevitably ce Harry under a different light in the eyes of others. Some may treat him with fear, others with undue reverence, and some might seek to manipte him for their own ends," Wulfric exined, his concern for Harry''s well-being evident in his tone.
"He must learn to navigate these perceptions without losing sight of who he is. The weight of his heritage could easily sway him, shape him in ways we cannot predict. Your role, La, is to ensure that Harry remains grounded, that he understands his value does not lie in his lineage but in his actions and his heart."
La listened intently, absorbing the gravity of Wulfric''s words. She understood now that protecting Harry would involve more than just shielding him from external threats. It would require guiding him through the turbulent waters of identity and self-perception, helping him to understand that he is not defined by the deeds of his father but by his own choices and character.
Understanding the depth of Wulfric''s advice, La felt a solemn vow forming within her. With a determined look in her eyes, La stood up. "I don''t care about the gods'' wars, their schemes, or the hydra that wille through the realm tear," she stated firmly, her voice echoing with unwavering conviction in the now silent room.
Her eyes met Wulfric''s, leaving no room for doubt about the depth of her resolve. "What matters to me is my son. I will do anything to protect him from others and from himself, even if it costs me my life."n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Chapter 1242 Fallout of Gaya and Nithroel
Chapter 1242 Fallout of Gaya and Nithroel
In the depths of a darkened hall, where the only light came from the flickering mes ensconced along the ancient walls, a circr stone table stood as the centerpiece. Around this table, several figures d in dark robes and armor were seated upon thrones that seemed as ancient as time itself. These were the loyal subordinates of the Dark Lord Michael: Adelia Ashton, mother to Gaya; Ricky; Eve Voldiguard; Azazel; Aria; and Tista and Lenoa, the elder vampires whose ages spanned centuries.
Then, Eve Voldiguard rose from her seat, her presencemanding the attention of all those gathered. "I''ve received word from my contact within the Mazeroth," she began, her voice echoing slightly in the vast hall. "Headmaster Wulfric has sensed something concerning about the realm tear. He seems to believe a hydra is soon toe through the realm tear in the Akn Realm,"
Murmurs of shock and disbelief rippled through the assembly, the mention of a hydra causing a visible stir among the Dark Lord''s loyal followers.
"A hydra?" Tista echoed, her toneced with incredulity. "How the hell are we supposed to deal with that without the Dark Lord here?"
But Eve was unfazed by Trista''s outburst as she continued.
"Ever since the Dark Lord ventured into the Realm of gods, we''ve had no word from him. But knowing him as we do, he''s likely kicking ass and taking names," she said, a slight smirk ying on her lips, inspiring nods and murmurs of agreement from around the table.
Her words immediately brought a smile to the demon butler''s face. Ever since Michael left, Azazel had been yearning to serve his lord once again, but as a good butler should, he had been helping the dark army in the Dark Lord''s absence, which everyone on the dark army greatly appreciated.
"The Dark Lord''s strength and cunning are unmatched. He''s faced worse and emerged victorious. We must trust in his abilities, even in his absence," said Azazel.
Nods of agreement followed Azazel''s words, a shared sentiment of admiration for Michael''s prowess evident among those present. Just like everyone else, Eve smiled when she heard Azazel''s words about her best friend, Ghost. But she would be lying if she said she didn''t miss him. Suppressing her true emotions deep within, Eve shifted the focus back to the immediate threat. "But now, we also don''t have the Dark Queen, Gaya, with us. We''re on our own in dealing with this situation."
Ricky, the youngest among the Dark Lord''s subordinates and often the quickest to voice his concerns, felt a surge of panic at the mention of a hydra. "Look, having one damn hydra sleeping in Stormville Mountain has been draining the Southern Continent of energy for centuries. Can you even imagine what a pissed-off hydra, fresh from a realm tear, could do to us?" he blurted out, his voice tinged with anxiety.
It was well-known among them that Maxine had been carefully monitoring Stormville Mountain, overseeing the arch energy crystal mining while maintaining an uneasy peace with Mugashuko. They were all acutely aware that even the Dark Lord himself exercised caution regarding the slumbering hydra, with strict orders not to disturb its rest during their mining operations. The prospect of confronting another hydra, especially in the absence of both the Dark Lord and the Dark Queen, sent a wave of apprehension through the room.
Leaning forward and cutting through the growing tension, Lenora offered her perspective. "It doesn''t bloody matter if another hydraes through the realm tear. What matters is whether ites with a purpose."
"A hydra with a mission, huh? What''s it gonna do, apply for a job?" Ricky quipped.
On the other hand, Eve chose to ignore Ricky due to the severity of the matter at hand. "I don''t believe the appearance of this realm tear and the imminent arrival of a hydra are coincidences," said Eve. Since Azazel was old enough to know there was no coincidence when it came to trouble and the Dark Lord, he knew there was something or someone behind this. "Indeed, if Harry is somehow involved and a hydra is on its way, it could very well mean that the Skyhall or Salesi is orchestrating this." Azazel nodded in agreement.
At the mention of Salesi, Adelia''s expression darkened, her voice low and menacing. "If that bitch is involved, it definitely spells trouble for us." After hearing Adelia, Lenora also showed her hatred for Salesi, her voiceced with frustration. "That damn bitch is like a shadow. Just when you think you''ve got her, she''s nowhere to be found. If only I could get my hands on her," she muttered, the growl in her voice echoing off the stone walls.
With a simr sentiment, Adelia''s frustration was palpable, her fists clenched as if ready to strike. "Tracking her down is like chasing the wind. She''s elusive, always a step ahead of us," Adelia remarked.
In the midst of this brewing storm of frustration, Eve took a moment to collect her thoughts before addressing the group. "Azazel," she said, her voice cutting through the tension, "make sure our contacts in Mazeroth are on high alert and keep a constant watch on Harry. We can''t let our guard down for a second." N?v(el)B\\jnn
"I''ve had our eyes on him, but I''ll make sure we double down on our efforts. He won''t notice a thing," Azazel assured, hismitment to their cause unwavering, ready to bolster their defenses without rming Harry.
The notion of Harry potentially turning against them was a concern they all shared. And Lenora who knew theplicated history between Harry and the Dark Lord had her own thoughts.
"Thest thing we need is Harry turning against his father out of some misguided vengeance. That could unravel everything we''ve worked towards." Lenora voiced this concern, Quick to reinforce the gravity of their situation, Trista added her thoughts. "If Harry ever turns against the Dark Lord, imagine Gaya''s wrath. We''ve seen her fury. She''s as ruthless as she is merciless when ites to protecting those she loves."
But noticing Aria had been silent the whole time, Eve turned her gaze toward her. "Aria, you''ve been awfully quiet. Anything to add?" she inquired, her gaze piercing through the dim light to the Queen of Shadows.
Aria, known for her leadership of the Dark Forces'' assassin force, had been quietly absorbing the conversation. Finally, she spoke, her voice cutting through the tension.
"What''s Noah''s next move if, or when, this hydra emerges from the realm tear?"
Her question redirected the focus of the discussion. "If we''re aware of this threat, it''s safe to assume Noah is too. And if Harry, the hydra, and Salesi are entwined in this, perhaps it''s time we considered finding a way to inform the Dark Lord," Aria suggested, her strategic mind analyzing the situation.
Ricky quickly chimed in, supporting Aria''s proposal. "She''s right. This is shaping up to be a mess we can''t clean up on our own."
Hearing Ricky, Eve let out a sigh, the weight of leadership heavy on her shoulders. "Elidyr is already on it, trying to find a way to reach the Dark Lord. It seems it''s time he''s brought up to speed," she acknowledged, the necessity of their situation clear.
Trista nodded in agreement, her usual demeanor lightening for a moment. "Good. And, honestly, I kind of miss having Nithroel on our side," she half-joked, a hint of nostalgia in her voice for times when alliances were lessplicated.
Following her friend, Lenora couldn''t help but add her own quip, lightening the mood further. "After the spat Gaya had with Nithroel, it''s a bloody miracle the Goddess of the Hunt hasn''t decided to hunt us down instead," she remarked.
Obviously, the rift between Gaya and Nithroel could be traced back to a singr, pivotal event. Gaya''s defiance of Nithroel''s strictmands had led to the release of Zariel from his imprisonment in the Nether Realm. This action, while controversial, was driven by a desperate need to save Cindy, who had been possessed by Zariel. Faced with an impossible choice, Gaya opted to free Zariel, believing it was the only way to spare Cindy''s life. Her decision, though made with the best of intentions, had grave repercussions, unleashing a cascade of events that led to the loss of countless innocent lives, including hundreds of elves within Nithroel''s domain.
This tragedy deepened the chasm between Gaya and Nithroel, transforming a once-strong alliance into a fragile truce marred by betrayal and loss. The release of Zariel not only endangered the lives of many but also destabilized the precarious bnce of power, casting a long shadow over their former camaraderie.
Yet, the reason Nithroel refrained from direct retaliation against them was the presence of the Dark Lord. His influence and power were the deterrents that stayed Nithroel''s hand, preventing an outright conflict that could have led to even more bloodshed. In the midst of strategizing, Eve let out a weary sigh, signaling a shift in the conversation''s direction. "In the meantime, I''ll go speak with Mugashuko," she announced, a determined glint in her eye. "He might at least shed some light on something that could give us an edge if we can''t reach the Dark Lord."
The room fell into a stunned silence, every pair of eyes turning to Eve with varying degrees of disbelief and concern. The idea of confronting Mugashuko, the hydra residing within Stormville Mountain, was audacious, to say the least.
"You''re nning to what now?" Ricky spluttered, his usualposure slipping. "Walk into the hydra''s den and ask for a bloody favor?"
Lenora''s voice, usually calm and measured, carried a note of incredulity. "Are you out of your damn mind, Eve? That''s a hydra we''re talking about, not some tavern keeper you can chat up for information."
On the other hand, Azazel simply raised an eyebrow in silent question, his expression speaking volumes about his skepticism towards Eve''s n.
"He hasn''t killed us yet, has he? So, I believe he might be willing to listen. It''s a risk, yes, but one I''m prepared to take if it means gaining any advantage over whatever''sing our way." Eve said, unwilling to back off from her risky backup n.
Chapter 1243 Professor Lane鈥檚 Concern
Chapter 1243 Professor Lane¡¯s Concern
As the debate continued, Eve''s resolve crystallized into action. With a casual flick of her wrist, her hammer, intricately engraved with various runes, materialized in her grasp. The room watched in silent awe as she swung the hammer above her head and propelled herself through the roof, leaving a trail of lightning bolts in her wake. The boldness of her departure left herpanions in a momentary state of stunned silence.
Once the echoes of her departure faded, Azazel broke the silence, his voice carrying a weight of responsibility. "I''ll talk with my contact in Mazeroth. We''ll have extra eyes on Harry at all times," he dered, his tone leaving no room for doubt about hismitment to their safety.
Trista, ever cautious, voiced the concern that lingered unspoken among them. "And how sure are we that this contact of yours won''t betray us?" she asked, her skepticism evident.
Lenora, leaning forward with interest, added to the inquiry. "Yeah, you and Eve never even told us who this mysterious contact of yours is," she pointed out, her curiosity piqued.
Hearing the two elder vampires'' question, Azazel allowed a rare chuckle to escape before replying with a hint of mischief in his tone. "Let''s just say he''s someone very bloody important in Mazeroth," he teased, his assurance doing little to quell the curiosity but enough to instill a sense of confidence in his judgment. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
*************************
Meanwhile, inside Headmaster Wulfric''s office at the Mazeroth Academy, Wulfric and Professor Lane stood side by side at the window, their gazes fixed on the dark rain clouds that shrouded their academy. The ominous rumble of thunder filled the air, a stark contrast to the absence of rain. Since Michael''s defeat of Rainar, the god of rain, the mortal realm had been left puzzled by the persistent storm clouds that yielded no rain. Yet, Lane and Wulfric were far from ordinary; they knew all too well the truth behind the phenomenon. The god responsible for rain had been in, a fact the Empress of the Awor continent, Nithroel, was certain of.
Gazing out at the brewing storm, Lane''s voice, cool and measured, broke the silence. "There is a storm approaching us, Wulfric," he observed, his tone betraying no emotion.
"And Harry finds himself in the center of it once again," Wulfric, his eyes still fixed on the darkening sky, nodded in agreement. A note of concern in his voice for the boy who seemed perpetually caught in the eye of tempests not of his own making.
Lane, his expression unchanged, responded with a cold rity. "It seems Harry is the only chip in the Dark Lord''s armor," he remarked, his words heavy with the implication that Harry''s unique position could be both a vulnerability and a strength in the present and future. As the storm clouds gathered ominously outside, Lane''s thoughts drifted to the past. "I can still remember him in my ssroom, meticulously learning the art of potion making. Despite being naturally adept, he always sought to refine his skills further," Lane reflected, his voice betraying a hint of nostalgia.
Wulfric, intrigued by this glimpse into the past, queried with a half-smile, "Had you known then that he was to be the Dark Lord, would you have ceased teaching him?"
Lane''s response was measured, his tone even. "All I saw was a student who, albeit better than most, strived for excellence. Yet, beneath the surface, there was always a shadow, something... darker," he admitted. "His thirst for power and knowledge was evident even then. That very pursuit has now entangled innocents like Harry and La in the web of dangers that pervade our world."
The conversation took a turn as Lane considered Harry''s current predicament. "As for Harry," he began. "I''ve always been wary. He could sway towards darkness or light, depending on the choices he makes. It''s a damn tightrope walk, and the winds are picking up."
Lane''s insights offered a sobering reminder of the fine line between good and evil, a line that Harry, much like his father before him, was forced to navigate. "That''s precisely why we must stand by Harry, to guide him towards the light, to ensure he bes a force for good, surpassing even his father," Wulfric asserted, his voice bearing the weight of their duty.
Lane, his gaze still fixed on the turbulent skies outside, countered thoughtfully, "We can''ty all the me at the Dark Lord''s feet. His destiny was shaped not just by his own choices but by those made for him¡ªby the elders, by the prophecy of Qin Jiu, by the very fabric of our world manipted by those in the Skyhall who believed they could outsmart fate,"
Hearing Lane, Wulfric could only sigh. Fortunately, the Skyhall''s grasp upon the world has been significantly weaken after Noah rose to power as well as the growing number of dark forces led by Eve Voldiguard. While Noah upheld honor, bravery and kindness, the dark forces strengthened themselves by weaving a web of connections and manipting those in power in various organizations. This had ultimately led to the weakening of Skyhall.
"Indeed, some paths, once embarked upon, cannot be altered. The die is cast, and we must y the hand we''re dealt."
Wulfric''s words instantly turned Lane''s thoughts toward his own family.
"Choices define us, whether they''re ours to make or forced upon us. They''re the crucible in which our true selves are forged," Lane said.
Catching the underlying current of Lane''s words, Wulfric inquired softly, "Are you referring to your niece, Eve Voldiguard?"
Lane let out a slight sigh, acknowledging the painful truth of his situation.
"Eve made her choice clear¡ªstanding by the Dark Lord''s side, rather than with her family."
In response, Wulfric offered a gentle smile. "Sometimes, protecting your family means keeping your distance, Lane. You''ve been doing just that all these years."
Reflecting on his tangled history with the Voldiguard family, Lane chose not to dive deeper into his past. It had been so long since Lane gave any thoughts about his family. But the news of Eve Voldiguard and her actions had been a constant reminder for Lane about his family. As much as he liked to distance himself from the Voldiguard family and the quarrels of the outside world, his niece leading the Dark Lord''s forces in the shadows and fighting to take over the world was too much to ignore. As though Wulfric had sensed Lane''s thoughts, Wulfric chuckled a bit. "You needn''t worry about Eve. Perhaps, in aligning herself with the Dark Lord and covertly leading his forces in his absence, she''s made the wisest choice of all." Despite Wulfric''s words, Lane knew Eve''s life had been changed to worse the moment she chose to be with the Dark Lord. She could have been more but now, until she could rise atop the odds ced against her, she would be always viewed as evil.
"Eve''s too deep into the shadows now, beyond our reach. But Harry... he''s still teetering on the edge, wrestling with the darkness within him," he mused, his toneced with concern.
"What do you mean?" Wulfric probed further. "I see in Harry the same darkness that lurked in Ghost''s eyes. His mother''s kindness and our guidance keep him anchored, but the essence of his father lingers within him. And his cement in the Warrior House hasn''t exactly been tempering those impulses," Lane observed, his analysis sharp.
Considering Lane''s words, Wulfric pondered the implications. "You think he should have been sorted into the Runemasters or Alchemists House, then?" he asked, seeking rification.
"Yes, it might have steered him towards a different path." Lane nodded.
However, Wulfric gently disagreed. "A person''s nature isn''t dictated by their house, Lane. It''s our responsibility, as his mentors, to ensure Harry views the world through a lens distinct from his father''s,"
Since Lane had been keeping an eye on Harry, he knew about him better than the other professors. In addition, Lane had used the Dark Lord''s name in front of Harry intentionally to test him, a way of Lane to discern where Harry''s heart lies. "I''ve noticed how Harry doesn''t react with anger at the mention of the Dark Lord. No resentment for the turmoil in his life or for leaving his mother. Instead, there''s an unmistakable look of admiration... perhaps even love."
Wulfric absorbed Lane''s observation, thoughtful. "Family bonds areplex, not easily severed, nor should they be."
"Such sentiments won''t shield him from the world''s judgment, Wulfric. If Harry chooses his father''s legacy above all else, we could very well be nurturing a second Dark Lord." Lane frowned, showing his skepticism.
"Like his parents, Harry''s talents are formidable, potentially rivaling his father''s. Any misstep on our part, and the Dark Lord gains a powerful ally in his son." He leaned in, emphasizing his next point.
"And also, do I need to remind you what Harry did to Mirianst week?" Lane''s voice carried a mix of seriousness and a hint of frustration, knowing well that Wulfric was already aware of the incident.
Wulfric, leaning back slightly, acknowledged the point. "Yes, I''ve heard about the duel. But go on,"
Lane continued, the memory clear in his mind. "During a supposedly friendly sparring session, Mirian decided it was a brilliant idea to provoke Harry by calling the Dark Lord a coward who was killed by his own brother."
"And how did Harry react?" Wulfric prompted, even though the answer was obvious.
"With a ferocity that went far beyond the bounds of a friendly duel. It was as if Mirian''s words had flipped a switch within him, unleashing something primal. Harry''s counter wasn''t just a rebuttal; it was a statement," Lane recounted, his tone betraying a hint of concern for the young boy''s vtile emotions.
"Thed''s got a temper, then. But it''s more than that, isn''t it? It''s about loyalty... and identity," Wulfric mused, piecing together the implications of Harry''s outburst.
"Exactly," Lane affirmed. "His reaction wasn''t just about defending his honor or responding to a provocation. It was a visceral defense of his father''s legacy, regardless of the Dark Lord''s deeds. That speaks volumes about Harry''s feelings towards his father, tangled as they may be."
After reminding Wulfric about Harry''s actions, Lane took a few moments to carefully choose his next words.
"Whatever happens with the realm tear, Wulfric, we cannot afford to see Harry join his father. If that happened, they will make facing a hydra look like a walk in the park,"
Chapter 1244 Out of the dungeon
Chapter 1244 Out of the dungeon
Having no idea what was happening in the mortal realm, Michael and Gaya, along with Lysandra, Jin, and Elrion, found themselves standing at the entrance of the dungeon. Their predicament had taken a fortunate turn when the God of Wealth, Luxor, intervened, teleporting them out of the dungeon as a gesture of gratitude for the return of his favored armor.
"Phew¡that was unexpected," Gaya remarked, a mix of relief and surprise evident in her voice.
Elrion, ever faithful, attributed their escape to divine intervention. "Praise Valorius, he must have sensed my prayers," he eximed, only to be met with Lysandra''s gentle but firm disagreement.
"It wasn''t Valorius," Lysandra corrected. She sensed that the golden energy that had enveloped them bore no resemnce to the aura typically associated with Valorius, suggesting another force at y.
Surveying their surroundings, Michael''s attention was drawn to a fancy hut that had appeared in the near distance, marked by the Kraken n crest. It was clear they had been expected, but the adventurers who had entered the dungeon had not been so fortunate¡ªall had been ughtered except....
"The beast tamers," Gaya noted quietly, observing Borgin Ironfist and hispanions emerging from the dungeon. Borgin''s reaction upon spotting Michael and the group was aplex mix of fear, respect, and shock, revealing his awareness of Michael''s true identity as the God of Darkness.
"Shit, how did they escape?" Gaya muttered as her voice was barely audible, reflecting her concern and disbelief.
"Keep it as a secret," Michael advised softly, his gaze following Borgin and his group as they made their way towards the Kraken n tent, signaling a silent acknowledgment of the delicate situation they found themselves in.
Borgin''s subtle nod did nothing to ease Gaya''s mistrust of the beast tamers, with whom she harbored unresolved grievances. Yet, before any scores could be settled, a discussion with Elrion and Lysandra was paramount.
"So, how about we all keep who we are and what we did inside the dungeon a secret? No point babbling about it to everyone, is there?" Gaya proposed, her stance firm yet open to consensus.
Elrion''s response was a mixture of reluctance and gratitude. "Most of the things you did went against everything I stand for, but I am grateful for saving my life," he conceded, acknowledging theplexity of their actions.
Michael''s attention then shifted to Jin, only for thetter to react promptly by deploying a smoke bomb, effectively obscuring their vision and facilitating his escape. As the smoke dissipated, Gaya''s frustration was palpable.
"That sneaky son of a bitch," she growled, her annoyance clear.
"Let him go," Michael suggested calmly, recognizing the futility in pursuing Jin further and perhaps acknowledging the broader challenges thaty ahead.
Despite Jin''s abrupt departure via a smoke bomb, Michael wasn''t concerned. His intuition told him Jin would likely head to the Assassin''s Guild¡ªa destination Michael had already marked as his next stop. Thus, Jin''s flight did little more than confirm their paths would cross again soon.
Turning their attention to Lysandra, Michael and Gaya noticed the resolve mixed with a hint of distress in her demeanor. "I must return home and research about this," she dered, showing them her left hand, now missing a finger. Her voice was steady, but the turmoil swirling in her eyes was unmistakable to Michael.
Elrion, still grappling with his own encounter, couldn''t hide his unease. "I could still remember her voice even though I was lucky enough to noty my sight on that monstrosity," he confessed, his attempt to mask his shock and fear only partially sessful.
"She is dangerous," Michael warned, his advice directed towards Lysandra but carrying weight for all present. "It''d be a good idea to tell whatever god you pray to about Rin," he suggested, understanding the gravity of the threat they all faced.
Lysandra''s acknowledgment was solemn. "You have my thanks," she offered, her gratitude genuine before she began to float, her form dissolving into the clouds above, leaving Michael and Gaya to ponder the implications of her departure.
"I must bid farewell to you both too. Fortuna was smiling at the two of you, as you two are the only winners in this whole dungeon thing," he remarked. Then, without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away, leaving Michael and Gaya alone with their thoughts Once Elrion had departed, Gaya turned to Michael with a look of determination. "Let''s head to the tent and see what the beast tamers are up to. It might also be a good opportunity for us to learn more about the hydras and their ns," she suggested, her instincts telling her that understanding the enemy could provide them with an advantage.
Michael, in agreement, silentlymanded the system to reveal his current quest objectives.
[The quest "Unlocking Vedora''s Powers" hasmenced... Explore the Ironhand Beast Tamers'' knowledge and techniques to enhance Vedora''s capabilities and unlocktent abilities within each head - Ayag, Cain, and Sarba...]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive 5 million badass points.]
Evaluating the quest rewards, Michael checked his current stash of badass points, noting he had precisely five million. The prospect of doubling his points was enticing; more points equated to greater power and options in their endeavors.
"Hmm, let''s go," he voiced, leading the way toward the Kraken n tent with Gaya at his side.
Approaching the tent, they were met by an increasing number of Kraken n guards, a testament to the importance of their meeting.
"Elder Derelius is expecting you," one guard informed them, Michael acknowledging the message with a nod. The path to the tent was lined with armored figures, a clear sign of the tent''s significance.
Upon their arrival, the guards respectfully opened the tent''s entrance, gesturing for them to enter. "I was waiting for you," came Derelius''s greeting as they stepped inside. His expression was grave, devoid of any weing smile, setting the tone for the conversation ahead.
Across the room, Borgin and his fellow beast tamers stood, their presence confirming that they had indeed shared their encounter in the dungeon with Derelius. However, Michael sensed that Borgin might have omitted certain truths, particrly concerning Michael''s identity as the God of Darkness.
"Is it true none of them except you survived the dungeon?" Derelius posed the question directly to Michael and Gaya, his tone indicating he was oblivious to their divine nature.
"Yes," Michael responded sinctly, opting not to delve into specifics given the uncertainty of what Borgin might have disclosed to Derelius.
Derelius''s next question was more pointed. "So, did you manage to take Vedora''s remains?" His gaze swept over them, searching for any hint of dishonesty.
Gaya was quick to answer, "We barely escaped, so no, we didn''t take them. In fact, we hadn''t even seen them," aiming to dispel any suspicions Derelius might harbor.
Without warning, Derelius retrieved a metal te from a drawer, piquing their curiosity. "Then I hope you won''t mind me using this," he announced, holding up the object.
"What is that?" Michael inquired, his interest piqued. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Nothing. Just something that will sense Vedora''s energy and point out if you have the bones," Derelius exined nonchntly. Before either could object, he activated the te, sending a wave of warm air sweeping past them.
Gaya''s irritation was immediate, her annoyance at theck of consent evident. Yet, Michael''s discreet gesture urged caution; their innocence regarding the bones negated any need for confrontation with a powerful ally.
Following the brief and uneventful test, Derelius exhaled a sigh of relief. "Forgive me for that, but I needed to be sure. Now that we know you don''t have the bones, I''m eager to hear your ount of what transpired inside. Borgin here has imed he and hispanions chose not to enter the final level''s castle, wary of any traps Silvaris might have set," he exined, casting asional nces towards Borgin and his group of beast tamers.
After hearing Derelius, it became clear to Michael that Borgin had indeed shared a portion of the truth with Derelius. However, Borgin''s ount was missing critical details, such as the true identity of Silvaris as Valorix, the God of Thieves, and the events that unfolded within the castle''s walls. This omission confirmed that Borgin and his beast tamers had refrained from engaging in the final level''s challenges, sparing them the fate that befell the other adventurers who had ventured into the second castle, only to be caught in a lethal trap rigged with bombs.
Armed with this knowledge, Michael recognized an opportunity to shape the narrative in a way that would keep his and Gaya''s god identities concealed, along with the details of their encounter with Rin and the truth about their confrontation with Valorix. This strategic omission would allow him to craft a version of events that served their interests without exposing the full extent of their powers or theplexities of their journey through the dungeon.
In the tense atmosphere of the Kraken n tent, Michael began to weave his version of the events. "As we entered the final level''s castle, we were met not with treasure, but with Silvaris himself," Michael started, his voice steady, crafting a narrative that skirted around the truths he wished to keep hidden.
"He was there, boasting about his grand n to kill us all from the start. imed he was the greatest thief in existence and wouldn''t stand for anyone stealing from him," Michael continued, painting a picture of a nefarious Silvaris whose greed and ego drove him to deadly ends.
Gaya chimed in, adding depth to the story. "He bragged about rigging the ce with bombs, intending to take out anyone daring enough to challenge him. Said no one could outsmart him in his own game," Michael nodded, driving the point home. "Luckily, the bombs in the castle we entered didn''t go off. It seems even the greatest thief can slip up," he concluded, a wry smile touching his lips as he insinuated that their survival was more due to luck than Silvaris''s intended design.
"Well, seems like Fortuna was smiling at all of you. This has been a disaster but the Kraken n will investigate this with Luxor''s soldiers. Meanwhile, I hope you all will stay in Aurumvale for sometime to rify some details. After all, more than eighty adventures has been killed and I doubt the adventures'' guild will let this matter go to rest," Derelius sighed and said hinting the future conflicts that mau arise with the adventures guild.
Chapter 1245 Idea to start another business empire
Chapter 1245 Idea to start another business empire
After leaving the Kraken n hut, Michael and Gaya set their sights back on Aurumvale, leaving behind the beast tamers who stayed for a meeting with Derelius. Curious about the content of their discussion, Gaya voiced her wonderment to Michael as they walked toward the golden city.
"I wonder what they are talking about," she pondered aloud, her gaze fixed ahead.
"Nothing interesting, just discussing what happened in the dungeon," Michael replied, his attention split between their path and the information he was gleaning through the Spyder he had strategically left in the hut.
Their journey back to Aurumvale took them through familiarndscapes, and after an hour of walking, the golden spires of the city came into view. The city was alive with its usual bustle, the arrogant elves going about their business with only brief pauses to take note of Michael and Gaya''s return before resuming their activities.
Finding themselves in the heart of Aurumvale, Michael and Gaya contemted their next steps amidst the city''s relentless energy.
"Let''s find a room to n our next move," Gaya proposed, looking around the city''s center for a suitable ce.
Michael, in agreement, followed Gaya''s lead. Their recent exploits in the dungeon had left them with a wealth of gold, more than enough to afford the most luxurious amodations Aurumvale had to offer. They made their way to a distinctive building, its architecture reminiscent of a corn cob, with a sign reading ''Corn Bread'' swinging gently above the ornate golden doorway.
Upon entering the ''Corn Bread'' tavern, Michael and Gaya were immediately enveloped by its luxurious interior. The ce shimmered with golden hues, the light reflecting off polished surfaces and intricate decorations that spoke of Aurumvale''s opulence. The air was scented with exotic spices and the murmur of conversations filled the space, creating an atmosphere of discreet elegance.
Approaching the counter, they were greeted by an elvendy, her demeanor the epitome of grace. "Good evening. How may I assist you?" she inquired, her voice smooth as silk, betraying a professionalism honed by rigorous training.
"We''re looking for a room," Gaya stated, her eyes scanning thevish lobby.
"At the moment, all our standard rooms are fully booked. However, we do have our Diamond Room avable, which is ten thousand gold coins per night. Would that be eptable to you?" The elf''s polite smile never wavered as she responded.
"That will be fine."Without hesitation, Michael agreed.
Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, a silver ring materialized on the counter, spilling out the exact amount. The elvendy examined the coins with a practiced eye before nodding in approval.
She then presented them with a golden key, its design as borate as the tavern itself. Turning to a halfling who had been waiting nearby, she instructed. "Please take our guests to the Diamond Room."
As they followed the halfling through the tavern, Michael and Gaya couldn''t help but appreciate the level of service. The ''Corn Bread'' was a testament to Aurumvale''smitment to luxury andfort, and they were about to experience it firsthand in the Diamond Room.
Guided by the halfling, Michael and Gaya ascended the golden staircase of the ''Corn Bread,'' each step reflecting the soft glow of the chandeliers above. The air was filled with a subtle fragrance, enhancing the aura of exclusivity that wrapped around them like a warm, inviting cloak. Upon reaching the top, they were led down avishly decorated hallway, its walls adorned with fine tapestries and paintings that spoke of history and opulence.
"This way," the halfling said with a respectful bow, indicating the path forward with a small, practiced gesture. They stopped before a door that seemed to shimmer and sparkle as if it were indeed crafted from diamonds, capturing the light in a mesmerizing dance.
With a flourish, the halfling opened the door, revealing the interior of the Diamond Room. Inside, the room lived up to its name, with furnishings that gleamed with a rity and brilliance akin to the gemstone itself. The bed wasrge and inviting, draped in silken sheets that promised a night of unparalleledfort. Arge window offered a breathtaking view of Aurumvale, the city''s lights twinkling like stars against the night sky.
As a token of their appreciation, Michael handed the halfling a small pouch of gold coins, the clink of metal soft but satisfying. "Thank you," the halfling expressed, his gratitude evident. "Should you require anything during your stay, simply press the rune near the bed, and one of our staff will attend to you," he informed them before making his exit, leaving Michael and Gaya to the privacy and luxury of their temporary sanctuary.
Gaya, ever observant, couldn''t help butment on their surroundings. "Look at this ce," she said, her voice a mixture of admiration and a hint of amusement. "For all their arrogance, these elves sure know how to make afortable room." Her eyes roamed the space, taking in every detail, from the artful arrangement of the furniture to the subtle enchantments that ensured theirfort.
As they settled into the Diamond Room, Gaya couldn''t resist the allure of the luxurious bed, jumping onto it and reveling in itsfort. "You know, I still miss running our own restaurants. Hades and the Majestic were more than just businesses to us," she mused, bouncing slightly, her words filled with a mix of nostalgia and longing.
Looking out at the city''s lights from the window, Michael turned to her, his thoughts drifting to the past. "When I started those ces, I never imagined I''d end up as the God of Darkness or be the Dark Lord. Made a fair share of blunders back then, which led to their downfalls," he admitted, his voice tinged with regret.
Hearing this, Gaya''s mind raced with possibilities. "What if we took another shot at it? Now that we''re sitting on a mountain of gold, why not rebuild our business empire? We''ve learned from our past mistakes. This time, we''ll make no errors," she proposed, her excitement palpable.
Michael paused, considering her suggestion. Stroking his chin thoughtfully, he finally responded. "A steady ie stream does sound appealing. With all the chaos of dealing with the Pantheon and Raphael, I hadn''t really thought about it. But you''re right." n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Let''s do it then! It''ll be a nice distraction, and let''s face it, gold coins have a way of making problems seem less... shitty," she dered with a mix of humor and excitement.
As they delved deeper into their ns for a new business empire, Michael contemted a strategic approach. "If we''re going to do this again, we should stay behind the scenes. Put someone else as the face of the business, so no one knows it''s ours," he suggested, his mind already racing with the logistics of anonymity.
"That''s exactly what I was thinking!" Gaya eximed, her excitement evident. "But to really hit the big leagues, we need Raylene back in the kitchen. Her cooking is to die for. Just thinking about it makes me hungry," she added, her enthusiasm undimmed by the challenges ahead.
Michael exhaled deeply, contemting the challenge of involving their former subordinates in their new realm. He had previously inquired with the system about bringing them into the realm of gods, but the response was that the system required an upgrade to facilitate such a move. Thus, Michael knew he had to find another solution.
"Even if we bring Raylene here, we''d need to give her a whole new makeover and identity. Can''t have people recognizing her, can we?" Gaya pointed out another hurdle.
"I''ll find a way. But first, let''s deal with this dragon body we found," he said, summoning a small globe into his hand. Within it rested a ck dragon body, a reminder that Nightmare could be brought back to life once again.
As they pondered their next move, Gaya approached Michael, her curiosity piqued by the globe and its draconic contents. She peered closely at it, then looked up at Michael.
"Do you think this thing''s been shrunk down with some spell, or are we just staring at a fancy snow globe?"
"It''s rune work. Elidyr mentioned something about this. A clever mix of runes, a pocket dimension, and spells. Pretty ingenious, really." Michael, studying the globe alongside her, responded.
"Well, I''m no runemaster to crack this open. Damn, this stuff always getsplicated." Gaya let out a sigh. "We don''t need to figure out how they stuffed a dragon body in here. What we need is to extract it back to its natural form and transfer Nightmare''s soul into this body," Michael pointed out, focused on the task at hand.
Once again, Gaya pointed out the significant hurdle on their step to Michael even though she knew he was already thinking of a way to solve it.
"Right, but first, we need to fetch Nightmare''s soul from hell. Andst time I checked, we don''t have a handy portal to the underworld lying around," Gaya said as her thoughts drifted toward her time with Nightmare.
"It had been so long since we saw that over grown lizard," Gaya''s voice was yful yet there was clearly a sadness in it. Hearing her tone, it was obvious to Michael she missed Nightmare ever since he died. Luckily, his soul was still in the realm of hell and if they could find a way to return there and bring his soul back here, they could bring Nightmare back to life wholly.
"We can always ask Pink to do some digging about Dagon and hell. Or we could ask Seshat for a way in and out," Gaya suggested.
"Hmm," Michael nodded before contacting Pink through the earpiece.
"Hit me up, Ghost. What do you need? And give me all the juicy update on what happened with Valorix¡" Pink asked with excitement.
"I''ll exin everythingter. But first, try to get some information on how to go to hell," Michael said as Pink became silent for a few seconds.
"How to go to hell? There''s something I never thought someone would ask me," Pink chuckled.
Chapter 1246 Someone else wants Gaya
Chapter 1246 Someone else wants Gaya
Tapping into the practical side of their predicament, Gaya suggested. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Given we''re in what''s supposedly the wealthiest kingdom in all the realms of gods, there''s gotta be some runemaster around here who could help us out with this dragon globe."
Michael, though keen on the idea, expressed a more immediate need. "Sounds like a n, but damn, I really want to catch some sleep first."
With that, Michael made his way to the bed, not bothering to undress, and promptly closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep. Gaya, following suit, nestled beside him, and soon, both were lost to the world in a deep, restorative slumber.
After what felt like an age, the vibrant life of the golden city of Aurumvale beckoned again as night fell over the realm. The city, bathed in the glow of the night sky, sparkled with an ethereal light. Michael, waking from their long rest, walked over to the window, drawn by the mesmerizing view outside.
The golden buildings shimmered, their architecture entuated by the moonlight and the myriad of colorful lights that adorned them. These lights, akin to neon in their vibrancy, lit up the entire kingdom, casting a magical glow that made the citye alive in ways it didn''t during the daylight hours. From his vantage point, Michael could see the streets bustling with activity, the atmosphere charged with energy and the promise of endless possibilities.
"Let''s go find ourselves a runemaster," Michael ran his fingers through his hair, straightening it out with a half-hearted attempt to look presentable.
Leaving thefort of their Diamond Room behind, Michael led the way back to the counter, where the elvendy greeted them with the same level of respect and courtesy as before. "I hope your stay has been pleasant so far. Is there anything else you require?" she inquired, her professionalism unfaltering.
Taking the initiative, Gaya didn''t bother with pleasantries. "We''re looking for a runemaster. Someone skilled enough to help us with a... particrly tricky situation," she said, her directness cutting through any potential small talk.
The elvendy, unfazed by Gaya''s blunt request, responded promptly. "Runemaster Abran is who you seek. His expertise is unmatched, but I must warn you, his services don''te cheap, and he has a penchant for the challenging. Nothing else piques his interest."
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at that. "Challenging is our middle name, and we''re willing to pay whatever it takes. Where can we find him?"
Pleased to provide assistance, the elvendy gave them detailed directions. "You''ll find Runemaster Abran in the northern district of Aurumvale, just past the Crystal Fountain. His workshop is the one with the emerald ivy growing over the entrance. You can''t miss it."
As Michael and Gaya made their way through the bustling streets of Aurumvale, snippets of conversation floated around them, painting a grim picture of the fate that befell the adventurers from the dungeon.
"I heard the adventures who entered the dungeon were killed inside by the traps¡Everyst one of them, dead as a doornail," one elf remarked, a tone of somberness in his voice.
"Yeah, well, serves them right for being so damn greedy. Always looking for a quick coin," another snickered, her disdain barely concealed.
Gaya, overhearing these exchanges, leaned in towards Michael and chuckled softly. "Seems like they think we''re all dead."
Michael, with a calmness that seemed to effortlessly counter the bustling energy around them, responded, "What we''re hearing isn''t the whole truth, but news does have a way of spreading fast."
Their journey continued, guided by the directions given, until they arrived at a structure that could only be described as opulent. The building before them boasted grand arches and walls adorned with intricate emerald ivy, just as they had been told. Its doors, wide and weing, led them into an interior that was equallyvish, with high ceilings and walls lined with shelves filled with ancient tomes and glittering artifacts.
Inside, the atmosphere was one of understated elegance, with groups of affluent noble elves engaging in hushed conversations. Each group was attended by an elf who seemed well-versed in the dealings of runes and magic.
Nearby, Michael and Gaya overheard a group discussing their needs with an elf representative of Abran. "We''re in need of protective runes to be engraved around our castle," one noble elf exined, his requestced with urgency.
The representative, a young elven girl with an air of professionalism, rubbed her chin thoughtfully before responding. "That task, while important, is fairlymon. Any runemaster could assist you with that. I wouldn''t hold out much hope for Runemaster Abran taking on such a... routine job."
Her response, though polite, carried an underlying message that Abran''s talents were reserved for challenges far beyond the ordinary, reinforcing the notion that only the mostplex and intriguing tasks captured his interest. As Michael and Gaya absorbed the scene before them, a youthful elf quickly made his way over, his approach markedly less refined than what they had encountered at the ''Corn Bread''. "What do you want?" he asked, his bluntness cutting through any pretense of courtesy.
Michael, well-versed in the ways of elves, especially those with specialized skills like runemasters, wasn''t taken aback by theck of warmth. Elves were known for their arrogance, a trait that seemed amplified within the circles of those skilled in specializations. He was here with a purpose, not to critique their social graces.
In response, Michael was direct. "We''vee across something that might pique Runemaster Abran''s interest," he said, pulling the small globe from his pocket and presenting it to the elf.
The elf''s demeanor shifted upon seeing the globe, his eyebrows knitting together in a frown, then widening in realization at theplexity of the rune work and engravings adorning the globe. Taking the item from Michael, he donned a pair of golden sses and began to inspect the globe closely, his fascination evident. "Fascinating," he murmured, lost in the intricacies of the object.
Gaya, impatient with the young elf''s absorbed examination, cut to the chase. "So, when can we meet Runemaster Abran?" she demanded, her bluntness mirroring that of their initial greeting.
The elf, pausing his examination, looked up at them, his gaze lingering on Gaya a moment longer than necessary, a sly smile flickering across his face. "I''ll inform Runemaster Abran immediately," he said, though his attention seemed divided.
As he turned to walk away, globe in hand, Gaya couldn''t help but issue a warning, her tone sharp. "You better not fuck with that globe," she called after him, her protective instinct over their mission clear.
After a brief wait that seemed to stretch out under the weight of anticipation, the young elf returned, his expression adorned with a smile that seemed to barely mask his true feelings. "Runemaster Abran has taken an interest in your globe," he announced, his voice carrying a tone that attempted to convey excitement. "He will see you now."
At his words, a ripple of murmurs spread through the nearby elven group. "Can you believe it? Giving humans priority over us," one elf whispered loudly enough for Michael and Gaya to hear, his tone a mix of disbelief and indignation.
Choosing to overlook the slight, Michael and Gaya followed the elf, their focus undeterred by the petty grievances of those around them. They were led to a golden door, its surface a masterpiece of runes and emerald stones that seemed to pulsate with magic.
With a press of a glowing rune near the doorway, the door swung open, revealing an interior that was the epitome of opulence. The room was adorned with roses, an assortment of wine bottles, and at the center, a golden-haired elf reclined on a luxurious mattress. This figure was draped in robes that spoke of wealth and status, surrounded by a diverse group of elven, human, and half-elf attendants. Two elf twins, each possessing a stunning beauty, were gently feeding him grapes, contributing to the decadent scene before them.
As the door shut behind them, the young elf pped his hands for attention and announced. "You stand in the presence of Abran, the Six-Star Runemaster, descendant of the God Luxor himself." The grandeur of Abran''s appearance matched the grandiosity of his introduction. His hair shimmered like spun gold, and his robes, intricately designed and richly colored, enveloped him in an aura of nobility and power.
Upon learning that Abran was a descendant of the God Luxor, Michael and Gaya could immediately understand the roots of his almost tangible arrogance. It was a detail that painted his demeanor in a new light, but one they chose to overlook in favor of focusing on their goal.
Michael, ever direct, wasted no time. "Can you extract the dragon body from this globe?" he inquired, holding the item up for Abran''s inspection.
Abran reclined among hisvish surroundings, let out a snicker, his gaze flitting between Gaya and the globe with a discerning eye. After leisurely enjoying a grape offered by one of the twins, he finally addressed Michael. "The craftsmanship of this globe is no amateur''s work. Had you taken it to any lesser runemaster, you''d have been shit out of luck. But for me? Child''s y. It''s a task only I can aplish," he dered with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.
Gaya, catching the way Abran''s eyes lingered on her, felt a mix of irritation and difort, but she managed to keep her tone even. "Okay, then," she said, not wanting to provoke a confrontation.
Michael, maintaining hisposure, cut to the chase. "What''s your price?" he asked, knowing that a runemaster of Abran''s caliber wouldn''t offer his services without significantpensation.
Abran''s response was apanied by a chuckle, one that hinted at the weight of his demands. "My price is quite simple," he began, "I want you," he stated,his gaze locking onto Gaya with an intensity that made her skin crawl.
Chapter 1247 The Angel Of Death Again
Chapter 1247 The Angel Of Death Again
Gaya''s hands clenched into tight fists, her body tensing with barely contained rage. The audacity of Abran''s demand had ignited a fiery anger within her, and she was moments away from leaping across the room to teach the elf a lesson he would never forget.
Although outwardly calm, Michael had a storm brewing in his eyes¡ªa lethal intent that flickered dangerously. Despite his inclination to maintainposure in such situations, the protective instinct of a husband was forcefully surfacing. "No deal," he stated icily, his voice cutting through the tension-filled room. He made it clear that any further provocation from Abran would result in severe consequences.
Perhaps sensing the imminent threat or simply dismissing them in disdain, Abran tossed the globe back at Michael. "Then get out of my sight," he sneered, his arrogance undiminished.
Gaya, her anger not yet abated, started to retort, "You pompous little¡ª" but Michael swiftly cut her off, his hand gently resting on her arm as a silent plea for restraint.
As they turned to leave, the room erupted into chaos. The half-elf who had been massaging Abran suddenly produced a glowing crimson dagger and, with a swift motion, plunged it into Abran''s neck. The serene atmosphere shattered as the other attendants screamed in horror, their cries echoing through the opulent chamber. Abran grabbed his throat, but no words came in except blood sprayed out of his throat.
The young elf who had led Michael and Gaya inside stood frozen in shock for a mere second before attempting to call for help. His efforts were futile; the half-elf assassin, with chilling precision, hurled the dagger, its de slicing through the air to embed itself in the young elf''s head, silencing him forever.
In the midst of chaos, the half-elf assassin moved with such speed and precision that Gaya could scarcely track their movements. The air quickly became thick with the scent of blood, a grim testament to the assassin''s deadly efficiency. Michael and Gaya could only watch, immobilized by the suddenness of the attack.
To Michael''s utter astonishment, the half-elf reached up and peeled away the skin from her face, revealing underneath not the visage of a woman, but that of a man with eyes that glowed an ominous red. Michael''s heart skipped a beat as recognition dawned upon him. This was no ordinary assassin; this was the very same figure who killed the king of Nimbosia, the one who had extended the invitation to join the ranks of the Death Merchants: the Angel of Death. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
As if to conceal his identity once more, a dark cloak materialized around him, shrouding his features in shadow. His voice, cold yet oddly calm, broke the silence. "What a coincidence to see you here, John, and with your better half, nheless," he remarked, his toneced with a chilling amusement.
Gaya, her brow furrowing in confusion and tension, demanded, "Who the hell are you?"
The assassin''s chuckle was low and devoid of warmth. "I am an angel of death," he replied cryptically. "And it seems, John, the time we allotted for you to decide on joining our Death Merchants is fast approaching its end. If I''m not mistaken, you have merely a week left before that offer expires."
"Dude, you made a mess."
Amidst the gruesome aftermath, Gaya, her voiceced with both disbelief and a hint of dark humor, couldn''t help but remark. The assassin''sughter filled the room, a sound devoid of any true joy. "A good assassin knows how to kill," he mused, his tone eerily calm. "A great one knows how to make someone else clean up their mess."
"Whats that supposed to-"
Gaya, about to demand rification, suddenly caught herself, the realization of his implication dawning on her. She didn''t finish her sentence, the weight of their situation bing painfully clear.
The assassin''s amusement seemed to grow at theirprehension. "I''ll be waiting for you on the outskirts of the city today. If you wish to join us, meet me there," he said, his voice smooth yet carrying an undeniablemand.
"I''ll be there," Michael simply nodded. His voice steady, betraying no emotion.
"Good," the assassin replied, a semnce of approval in his tone. "I trust you''ll take care of this little... situation and make your escape." With that, he tossed a handful of sparkling powder at his feet, crushing something beneath his boot. In an instant, he vanished, teleported away, leaving Michael and Gaya alone in the midst of chaos.
Despite the grim scene, Gaya couldn''t help but express her feelings towards the assassin''s departure. "He seems like a jerk, but at least he took care of that asshole," she said, gesturing dismissively towards Abran''s lifeless form.
However, Michael was already focusing on their next move, his mind racing through the implications of their situation. He noted the room''s silence, a result of the rune-covered walls designed to keep its contents a secret from the outside world. "Lucky for us, Abran liked his privacy," Michael muttered, more to himself than to Gaya, acknowledging the runes'' effectiveness at soundproofing.
Yet, Michael understood the precariousness of their position. Leaving the scene would only temporarily solve their problem; eventually, the discovery of the massacre would lead others straight to them. They needed a n that would ensure their escape without casting suspicion their way.
Pulling a vial from his pocket, Michael presented it to Gaya. "Drink this," he instructed, his voice carrying the weight of urgency.
Recognizing the potion, Gaya did as asked without hesitation, copsing almost immediately. Michael then dipped his hand into a nearby pool of blood, grimacing at the cold touch before carefully smearing it across Gaya''s throat, artfully arranging her among the other victims. The potion rendered her heartbeat and breathing slowed to a halt, making her indistinguishable from those truly dead.
With Gaya positioned convincingly as another casualty, Michael took a moment to look over their grim tableau, ensuring everything appeared as natural as possible. Then, taking another potion, he smeared blood over himself, mimicking the injuries of the others, and drank it. Within moments, he too copsed, lying motionless among the victims.
After what felt like an eternity, the heavy silence of the room was shattered as the main door swung open, revealing two elves ¨C a young man and an elven girl. The tranquility of the scene before them belied the carnage that awaited their eyes. As they stepped in, their initial confusion quickly morphed into horror.
"Oh, by the stars..." the girl gasped, her voice barely a whisper before escting into a scream. "ARGH!"
Herpanion, too shocked to speak, could only echo her screams with his own. Their cries, sharp and piercing, cut through the stillness, signaling the gravity of the massacre to anyone within earshot.
In moments, the room was swarmed with armored guards, drawn by the cacophony of terror. Michael and Gaya remained motionless, their disguise as victims holding up under the scrutiny of the sudden influx of onlookers.
Nobles and other well-to-do elves, attracted by themotion, gathered at the scene, their expressions morphing from curiosity to shock and terror as they took in the bloodbath.
"This is a nightmare..." one noble murmured, his voice shaking. "Abran...and all these people..."
"Secure the area!" barked the captain of the guard, his authoritative voice cutting through the murmurs of the crowd. "I want a perimeter set up now. Check every corner, every shadow. We lock down this ce immediately!"
The guards sprang into action, their movements swift and coordinated, a dance of efficiency amidst chaos. They cordoned off the area, pushing back the gathering crowd of onlookers, their faces grim and focused.
"Search the area! We may still find who did this," another guardmanded, leading a contingent tob through the adjoining rooms and corridors.
The atmosphere was thick with panic and fear, the elves'' usual stoicism shattered by the violence of the act. Rumors and whispers spread like wildfire, a mix of grief for the loss and fear of what such an act indicated about their safety within the walls of Aurumvale.
The captain of the guard, adorned in the golden armor that marked the elite protectors of Aurumvale, approached Abran''s body with a solemn grace. Dropping to one knee, he inspected the runemaster''s lifeless form with a practiced eye, the weight of the moment etched across his face. "Clear the area," hemanded, his voice steady despite the turmoil around them.
As his men moved to obey, another guard approached, his expression tense with anticipation. "Is he...?" he began, unable to finish the question.
"Dead," the captain confirmed curtly. Without missing a beat, he issued another order: "Inspect all the bodies. I want to know everything about everyone."
Meanwhile, Michael and Gaya, concealed among the victims, remained perfectly still, their ruse unchallenged. The guards meticulously checked each body for signs of life. After a tense, seemingly endless moment, one of the guards reported back to the captain. "All of them dead, sir. Not a single survivor."
"Damn it," the captain cursed under his breath, the frustration evident in his voice. "This is a disaster."
Another guard, seeking some understanding in the chaos, ventured a question. "Who could have done this, sir?"
The captain''s gaze lingered on Abran''s body, a mix of contemtion and resignation in his eyes. "Abran made many enemies with his ways. Could be anyone he wronged, or perhaps the husband of any woman he coveted," he spected, the list of potential suspects as vast as Abran''s notoriety.
"He did have an insatiable desire for beautiful women," the soldier remarked, a note of disdain in his voice for the runemaster''s well-known proclivities.
Nodding in agreement, the captain finally gave the order to move forward. "Send all the bodies to the infirmary. We''re in for a long night," he said, bracing himself for the investigation and fallout that would surely follow this tragic event.
Chapter 1248 Joining the assassins guild
Chapter 1248 Joining the assassin''s guild
The infirmary into which Michael and Gaya, along with the other victims, were brought, had an air of sterile solemnity. Its walls were lined with shelves filled with neatlybeled potions and herbs. Beds, equally spaced, filled therge room, their linens crisp and white under the soft glow of enchanted lights. The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of antiseptics and the undercurrent of magic used for healing. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
As the bodies wereid out, a guard turned to his colleague, his voice low. "Leave these here for now, until the captain gives further instructions," he instructed, casting a final nce at the somber array of fallen individuals before exiting the room to attend to other duties.
The room fell into a heavy silence, the kind that speaks of finality and loss. It was in this silence that Michael stirred, his eyes snapping open with a practiced caution. Swiftly, but with care, he stood, his movements deliberate. He then moved to Gaya, gently patting her shoulder to rouse her from the potion-induced state.
Gaya''s eyes flickered open, meeting Michael''s with a silent question. "What''s the n now?" she whispered, her voice barely carrying in the still air of the infirmary.
"If we just leave, they''ll notice the missing bodies. We need to cover our tracks... thoroughly," said Michael. "Hmm," Gaya nodded in agreement, understanding the necessity of their next actions.
Without another word, Michael summoned the dark mes as the dark mes cast an eerie darkness around them. He flicked his wrist, and the mes leaped from his hand to a nearby body. The fire spread quickly, the dark mes consuming everything with an unnatural hunger, leaving no trace behind but ash.
Amidst the burgeoning smoke and the crackling of the fire, Michael and Gaya made their move. They approached a window, nced back onest time at the inferno they''d set to erase their presence, and then, with a swift motion, they jumped through,nding softly on the outside. Without looking back, they swiftly made their escape, blending into the shadows of Aurumvale. Outside the infirmary, the city of Aurumvale basked under the glow of the moon, its golden structures shimmering against the dark sky, creating andscape of ethereal beauty. The tranquility of the night was abruptly shattered when the dark mes, initiated by Michael within the infirmary, began to lick at the windows, casting an ominous glow that could not be ignored.
"Fire! Fire!" The cry rang out into the night, quickly escting into a cacophony of shouts and calls for help. Elves spilled into the streets, their expressions morphing from serene to panic-stricken as they took in the sight of the burgeoning inferno.
"Call the guards! We need to put out the fire!" yelled an elf, taking charge of the growing crowd. In no time, the sound of armored footsteps approached, the city''s guards moving swiftly towards the source of the chaos.
In the midst of this sudden uproar, Michael and Gaya slipped through the gathered crowd unnoticed, their figures blending seamlessly with the distressed citizens. They moved with purpose, navigating the streets with an urgency that matched the city''s rm, all the while making their way toward the city gates.
Upon reaching the gates, they stepped outside the confines of Aurumvale''s protective walls and were greeted by the expansive grasnds thaty beyond. Looking out into the expanse, Gaya voiced the question between them. "Where are we supposed to look for him?"
His gaze scanning the horizon, Michael noticed arge tree near the city wall, its silhouette distinct against the night sky. Something about its lone presence sparked an intuition within him. "Let''s head towards that tree," he suggested, a certainty in his voice that left no room for doubt. "I have a feeling that''s where he''ll be waiting for us."
Without further discussion, the two of them began their walk toward the tree, their steps quickening with anticipation and a shared understanding of the gravity of their next encounter. As Michael and Gaya approached the designated tree, they found the assassin exactly where they expected him to be¡ªleaning casually against the trunk, as if he had all the time in the world. The sight of him, soposed and assured, set an eerie tone for their meeting under the cover of night.
"I had a feeling you''de through unscathed," the assassin remarked, his voice calm, betraying none of the tension that the situation warranted.
He turned his gaze to Michael, a glint of respect flickering in his eyes. "Good thinking with the mes," he added, acknowledging Michael''s quick wit and resourcefulness.
Michael merely shrugged, downying thepliment. "No big deal," he replied, his nonchnce masking the gravity of their daring escape.
"So, where are we going?" Gaya, ever direct, cut to the chase. The assassin''s response came with a slight, unexpected twist. "Normally, we don''t take in the romantic partners of our assassins, but we''ve observed that you two work better together." His eyes shifted to Gaya as he spoke, an inscrutable smile ying on his lips. "So, we''ve decided to extend the invitation to you as well."
Gaya''s reply was swift, her gratitudeced with sarcasm as she rolled her eyes. "Thank you," she said, the words heavy with irony.
Unperturbed, the assassin continued, "Let''s head to the guild and initiate you two."
Without another word, he produced a small gem from his cloak, its surface gleaming even in the dim light. With a deliberate motion, he crushed it between his fingers. Immediately, a dark smoke billowed from the fragmented pieces, swirling around them with an intensity that seemed to defy the calm of the night.
As the smoky veil enveloped them, Michael and Gaya sensed an eerie distortion in the space around them, an unsettling sensation of being pulled through the very fabric of reality. When the smoke finally dissipated, they found themselves in a dark hall, dimly lit by sporadic torches that cast long shadows across the stone walls. It was quiet, too quiet, with not a soul in sight besides themselves and the assassin.
Gaya, her curiosity piqued by the absence of others, broke the silence. "Where are the others?" she inquired, scanning the shadowy expanse for any sign of life.
The assassin''s chuckle echoed through the hall, a sound that seemed to blend with the darkness.
"We don''t operate like other guilds, dear," he responded with a mysterious air. With a slight gesture, he beckoned them to follow him deeper into the hall.
As they walked, the assassin began to unveil the workings of the guild. "Every assassin here has a handler," he exined, his voice steady as he led them through the winding corridors. "The person who initiates you into the guild. Until you''vepleted a certain number of assignments and proven your worth, most of what the guild offers will remain beyond your reach."
Michael, recalling the assassin''s earlier promise of rewards beyond gold, seized the moment to inquire further. "You mentioned joining the guild would bring more than just gold. What kind of rewards are we talking about?"
The assassin, amused by Michael''s impatience, let out a soft chuckle. "Impatient, are we?" he teased before continuing. "The gem I used to teleport us here is one such reward. It can get you out of anywhere... well, most ces. Imagine how useful that could be for an assassin."
His exnation shed light on the unique benefits of guild membership, highlighting the invaluable tools at their disposal¡ªtools that could very well save their lives in the direst of circumstances.
As they continued their journey deeper into the shadowy confines of the guild''s hallways, the assassin imparted more of the guild''s rules and expectations. "Until you''ve earned your ce among us, you won''t meet the others," he stated matter-of-factly, guiding them past walls adorned with a macabre collection of heads and des, each telling its own silent story of death and skill.
Gaya, intrigued by the earlier mention of an initiation, couldn''t help but inquire, "What''s this initiation you talked about?"
The assassin''s response came with a light-hearted chuckle, tinged with a hint of darkness. "Don''t worry, I''m not going to ask what Abran did," he assured them, a sly reference to their earlier encounter.
At the mention of Abran, Gaya couldn''t suppress a growl, though she managed to say, "Thank you for getting rid of him."
"Don''t mention it," the assassin replied coolly, his chuckle growing colder. "He made many powerful enemies. And powerful enemies often have a horde of gold coins at their disposal. Make enough ripples, and you''ll eventually draw our attention."
Michael, keen to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand, pressed further. "Back to the topic, what''s this initiation?"
The assassin''s exnation was straightforward and devoid of any mystique. "Nothing freaky. We''ll just give you a name, and you have to kill the target on our terms," he outlined simply, setting the stage for what was toe.
As they followed the assassin through thebyrinthine corridors, the air around them seemed to grow heavier, charged with an unspoken anticipation. Finally, he stopped in front of a door shrouded in darkness. With a swift motion, he pushed it open, and they stepped into a room that contrasted starkly with the dimly lit hallways they had navigated.
The center of the room was dominated by a small pir, atop which sat a ss box. Within the box, Michael and Gaya could see several wooden strips, each presumably carrying the weight of a name, a life soon to be targeted. The assassin beckoned them closer with a gesture that held an eerie formality.
"I will pick a name from this list of targets," the assassin announced, his voice carrying a hint of excitement, "and you will get to do the fun part, killing."
With deliberate slowness, he lifted the lid of the ss box and reached inside. His hand moved amongst the wooden strips, teasing out the fate of one unlucky soul. Finally, he grasped one and pulled it out, his movements sure and practiced.
As he read the name silently, a smile crept across his face, the kind of smile that spoke of dark coincidences and fate''s twisted sense of humor. "Seems like I picked someone you know," he chuckled, the sound echoing slightly in the sparse room.
Chapter 1249 Assassination Requirements
Chapter 1249 Assassination Requirements
Gaya, unable to contain her curiosity, leaned forward eagerly. "Who is it?" she pressed, her voiceced with anticipation.
The assassin, enjoying the suspense, let out a low chuckle before revealing, "Borgin Ironfist, the leader of the Ironfist Beast Tamers."
The name struck both Michael and Gaya with a mix of shock and intrigue. However, it was Gaya who couldn''t hide the grin that quickly spread across her face. As the Goddess of Monsters, she had a bone to pick with the Beast Tamers, who had inflicted unnecessary pain and suffering upon innocent beasts and monsters. To her, Borgin Ironfist represented the epitome of cruelty towards those creatures she vowed to protect.
Recalling the system''s quest to assist Gaya in settling her scores with the Beast Tamers to unlock her godhood in this realm, Michael couldn''t help but smile inwardly. The assassination mission seemed to align perfectly with their personal vendettas, serving as a means to achieve multiple goals with a single action.
Intrigued by Gaya''s evident excitement, the assassin raised an eyebrow. "You seem thrilled," he observed, a hint of amusement in his tone.
Without missing a beat, Gaya snatched the wooden strip from his hand, her eyes scanning the name to confirm its truth. "Hell yeah, I am," she retorted with a fiery zeal. "Borgin is an asshole. It''s about time he got what''sing to him."
The assassin, unaware of their divine status and the depth of their grudge against the Beast Tamers, found himself caught between surprise and fascination at Gaya''s reaction.
Catching the assassin''s chuckle, Gaya sensed that the path to Borgin Ironfist wouldn''t be as straightforward as she had hoped. The assassin''s earlier mention of the initiation needing to be carried out on the guild''s terms lingered in her mind. She understood that the method of execution would likely be dictated by the very Angel of Death standing before them.
Then, it was Michael who broke the silence, his voice steady with an underlyingyer of excitement barely perceptible to those who didn''t know him well. "How do you want him killed?" he inquired.
Internally, Michael was buzzing with a mix of nostalgia and anticipation. Having been Earth''s deadliest hitman, the idea of delving back into the world of assassination, albeit in a realm far different from his own, invigorated him. His moralpass, once rigid in its refusal to harm the innocent, found itself in a world where innocence was a raremodity. Moreover, Michael harbored no delusions about Borgin Ironfist''s guilt; the man and his Beast Tamers had ensnared countless creatures, both harmful and peaceful, all in the name of profit.
Unfazed by Michael''s question, the assassin delivered his requirement with a cold precision that belied the cruelty of the request. "I want Borgin to be killed in public, by the very beasts he''s caged. Wouldn''t that be an ironic and fitting end?" he proposed, a sinister smile ying on his lips.
The twisted irony of the assassination method wasn''t lost on Michael and Gaya. To have Borgin meet his end at the hands of the creatures he''d wronged was not just poetic justice; it was a stark reminder of the guild''s merciless humor and the cruel fates they engineered for those marked by their hand.
After hearing him, Gaya couldn''t help but express her twisted appreciation for the n. "That''s a sick n, and yeah, I get the irony," she admitted with a hint of excitement in her voice. Michael, however, remained the picture ofposure, his mind already weaving together the threads of a strategy.
The assassin wasn''t finished, though. "That''s not all, my dear newbies," he added, causing Gaya''s anticipation to spike. "I knew there had to be more," she said, her eyes gleaming with the challenge.
With a knowing chuckle, the assassin tapped his temple. "An assassin''s deadliest weapon is his brain, not spells nor the weapons he carries. So, for this assassination, I want you to go old school¡ªno spells allowed."
Gaya''s excitement was promptly reced with concern. "No spells? Do you know how difficult that''s going to make things?" she protested. "We''re talking about getting past his guards, dealing with the beasts, and then there''s the crowd to consider."
The assassin''s chuckle deepened at her list of difficulties. "I''m sure you''ll figure it out and get the job done," he said confidently. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Then, the assassin took a moment toy out the specifics of their mission, his voice never losing its calm edge. "For this assignment, the guild will not provide any assistance. This is your initiation, after all. However, you''ll have a deadline of four days toplete your task. The only aid we''ll extend is a thousand gold coins for amodation in the city where your target resides." Handing them a silver space ring filled with the promised gold, he watched their reactions closely.
"Big help," Gaya couldn''t help but let out a sarcastic remark while rolling her eyes.
"We''ll manage," Michael assured, taking the ring from the assassin.
The assassin''sughter filled the room once more. "I knew you''d say that. Seed, and I''ll wee you into the Death Merchants officially. But remember, our guild is structured by ranks. Each assassination brings the opportunity to ascend these ranks."
"And climbing the ranks means better rewards, right?" Gaya, intrigued, leaned in.
"Indeed," the assassin confirmed with a nod. "But it''s not just about the rewards. The higher you climb, the closer you get to meeting the God of Death himself. Impress him, and you might even earn the title of an Angel of Death. For now, let''s not get ahead of ourselves. You''re just starting out, and there''s a long road ahead before you reach those heights."
Afterying out the requirements for their task, the assassin simply gestured at them to follow him. Trailing behind, Michael and Gaya exited the hall, stepping back into the dimly lit hallway. The assassin broke the silence with new information. "Borgin is on his way back to Goldspire to deal with some griffins," he stated matter-of-factly.
While Michael had ess to travel runes and a portable dive portal, he kept this detail to himself and probed.
"Any thoughts on how we might get to Goldspire?"
"That''s exactly where I''m leading you," the assassin replied with a chuckle, hinting at his preparedness for such inquiries.
Guiding them to a different room, he pushed the door open, revealing the interior where a divine portal stood, its eerie crimson red glow dominating the dark ambiance. "This is where we part ways," he announced, his voice carrying a mix of solemnity and anticipation. "I''ll be watching. Don''t let the guild down."
Michael and Gaya nodded in understanding, their determination reflected in their steady gaze. As they approached the portal, the assassin tapped on a nearby console, activating the vortex within.
"Just step through, and you''ll find yourselves in Goldspire," he instructed, his eyes tracking their movement.
With a final nod to the assassin, Michael and Gaya stepped into the swirling vortex, their figures dissolving into the crimson glow as they were whisked away to Goldspire, leaving the shadowy confines of the guild behind.
Emerging into a dimly lit alley, Michael and Gaya found themselves momentarily disoriented by the sudden shift in location. Michael nced around, realizing theck of a physical portal entry or exit point, but shrugged off the anomaly with a focused mindset. "Time to kick this off," he dered, turning to Gaya with a grin.
Gaya, bubbling with anticipation, couldn''t help but share in the excitement. "Never thought Borgin would be facing his fucking karma this quickly," she said, her voiceced with a mix of glee and surprise.
"First things first, we need a base of operations. Let''s find a room with a good view of the beast tamers'' headquarters. It''ll give us the upper hand in nning our move."said Michael.
He understood all too well the importance of meticulous preparation in the world of covert operations. Even the tiniest snippet of information gleaned from surveince could prove invaluable during an assassination.
Nodding in agreement, Gaya and Michael stepped out from the shadows of the alley, their eyes scanning the bustling streets of Goldspire for a suitable inn or tavern. As Michael and Gaya weaved through the bustling streets of Goldspire, their search for a suitable base led them to a tavern that caught Gaya''s attention. "This ce looks promising," she pointed out, her gaze fixed on the establishment across the street from the beast tamers'' location.
Michael nodded in agreement, taking note of the tavern''s strategic positioning. "It''s perfect. The upper rooms should give us a clear line of sight to the beast tamers," he articted, his eyes evaluating the tavern''s exterior. The building was older, with a worn facade that spoke of years standing witness to theings and goings of countless patrons. Its sign, creaking gently in the breeze, bore the name "The Griffon''s Rest."
Upon entering, they were greeted by the warmth of the tavern''s interior, a stark contrast to the alley they had materialized in moments before. The air was thick with the aroma of roasted meats and ale, the chatter of its patrons creating a lively atmosphere.
Approaching the counter, they were met by the proprietor, a burly man with a weing grin. "How can I help you folks today?" he asked, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the worn wooden surface.
"We''re in need of a room. Preferably one with a nice view," Michael stated, straightforward in his request.
Gaya, seizing the opportunity to negotiate, jumped into the conversation. "And at a decent price, mind you. We''re not looking to buy the ce, just sleep in it," she said, her tone edgy, a hint of her less-than-patient nature peeking through.
The tavern owner, taken aback by Gaya''s forthrightness, chuckled nervously. "Well, our corner rooms have the best view, but they''re a bit pricier due to the demand."
"Pricier? For that old thing?" Gaya shot back, her voice rising. "You should be paying us to stay there, considering we''ll have to endure the noise from those beast tamers!"
After a few moments of spirited haggling, where Gaya''s colorfulnguage and fiery temperament were on full disy, Michael intervened, smoothing over the conversation. "We''ll take the corner room. Just ensure it''s quiet, and we''re not disturbed," he said, finalizing their arrangement with a nod.
The proprietor, relieved to conclude the negotiation, handed over the key, a small price adjustment made in their favor thanks to Gaya''s persistence.
Ascending the stairs to their room, they found it modest,cking the opulence of the "Corn Bread''s" diamond room. "Well, it''s no diamond room, that''s for sure," Gaya remarked, scanning the simple furnishings and the less-than-luxurious bed.
Undistracted by the room''sckluster appearance, Michael moved straight to the window, pulling back the curtains. The view it afforded of the beast tamers'' building was unobstructed and clear, just as they needed. The building itself was a stark structure, functional with minimal embellishments, a hub of activity even at this hour.
"This will work," Michael stated, his gaze fixed on their target, the gears of strategy already turning in his mind. The room, while notvish, was their strategic advantage¡ªa ce from which they could watch, n, and execute their mission with precision.
Chapter 1250 Assassination Plan
Chapter 1250 Assassination n
As Michael''s gaze remained fixed on the bustling activity around the beast tamers''pound, Gaya''s intuition prickled with unease. "Keep an eye out for that assassin," she warned, her voice tinged with caution. "He''s a slippery one, could be anyone, even the tavern keeper we just dealt with."
Michael, however, was undeterred, his focus razor-sharp on the task ahead. "Let''s not get distracted by shadows. The mission''s what matters," he replied, a smirk ying at the corners of his mouth.
Gaya couldn''t help but notice Michael''s exhration. "You''re getting a kick out of this, aren''t you?" she teased, shaking her head.
Admitting to his excitement, Michael responded with a genuine smile. "Yeah, I am." His attention then shifted as he retrieved a handful of spyders from his system storage. "With these nted inside theirir, we''ll have the intel we need to strategize effectively."
Gaya nodded, her mind already racing with the intricacies of their assignment. "Remember, the assassin wants Borgin dead in the most public way possible¡ªkilled by his own captured beasts. It means we''ve got to lure him out somehow and release those creatures right in the open."
"Remember, the assassin wants Borgin dead in the most public way possible¡ªkilled by his own captured beasts. It means we''ve got to lure him out somehow and release those creatures right in the open."
She paused, her respect for their target''s abilities clear despite her animosity towards him. "As much as I can''t stand the guy, Borgin''s no slouch in a scrap. Taking him down''s not gonna be a walk in the park." said Gaya. "Getting these spyders inside will be a piece of cake," Michael mused, his mind already racing with possibilities. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"But the real kicker is dragging Borgin out into the open within four days. That''s where the real challenge lies."
Reflecting on his extensive experience as Earth''s premier hitman, Michael understood all too well theplexities involved in orchestrating a target''s demise indirectly. "Direct hits, like pulling the trigger or setting off an explosive, those I can do in my sleep. But this," he gestured vaguely, epassing the enormity of their n, "this is a whole different ballgame. Too many variables."
Despite the obstacles, there was a spark in his eyes, a clear indication of his resolve. "But hey, I didn''t earn my reputation by shying away from a challenge. We''ll make this work."
Hearing Michael''s words filled with confidence, Gaya tapped into the depths of her monstrous knowledge. "Even if we manage to pull him out, we gotta have a beast that packs enough punch to take him down. Borgin''s not going down easy," she mused.
Michael nodded, acknowledging the weight of their task. His experience as the top hitman on Earth had taught him the intricacies of indirect assassinations. nning, timing, and execution had to be wless, especially when the objective was to let others¡ªor in this case, creatures¡ªdo the dirty work.
"That''s the tricky part," Michael admitted. "But, what if we level the ying field a bit?" Gaya''s suggestion sparked interest in his eyes.
"The assassin didn''t say shit about not using potions. If we could weaken Borgin somehow, make him less of a threat, those beasts might just have a fighting chance against him." Gaya leaned forward, a wicked gleam in her eyes. Michael''s smile broadened at the idea. "I like that idea. We don''t directly attack him, but we tilt the odds in our favor. Slip him something that''ll slow him down, make him less aware. He''ll be easy prey for whatever we unleash."
"Exactly. Let''s make sure that asshole gets what he deserves, but let''s do it our way. Sneaky, underhanded, and absolutely foolproof." Gaya''s smirk matched Michael''s enthusiasm. Soon, the gears in Michael''s head began to turn as new ns and ideas took shape.
"So, Borgin''s dealing with griffins, huh? First thing''s first, we''ll need to intercept those creatures and strike a deal with them," he mused aloud, a calcting glint in his eyes.
Gaya, caught off-guard by the mention of griffins, couldn''t help but recall a rather contentious encounter she had with one of the majestic creatures not too long ago. Her expression soured at the memory, her previous irritation bubbling to the surface. "Deal with those pompous fucking featherballs? You''ve got to be kidding me," she snapped, her temper ring. "Last time we chatted, one of them had the nerve to call me the worst goddamn mother to any hypothetical kids I might have. Like hell, I''m dealing with their snarky beaks again."
Despite Gaya''s clear disdain, Michael couldn''t suppress augh, amused by her fiery response. "Come on, Gaya. You''re the Goddess of Monsters, remember? Plus, you''ve got a way with words like no one I''ve ever met. Convincing a few griffins to y along with our n should be a walk in the park for you," he encouraged, his confidence in her abilities unwavering.
But despite Michael''s confident in her abilities, her anger toward the griffin she talked to made her reluctant to agree to Michael''s n. So she ced across the room left and right with her brows knitted.
"First off, convincing those snooty griffins is gonna be a hell of a task. And second, even if by some miracle they agree, how the hell are we supposed to ensure they bust out at the right moment and go straight for Borgin?"
Ever the strategist, Michael was already several steps ahead, his mind racing through possible solutions. "The potion''s the easy part. We concoct something to sap his strength without him noticing. As for the griffins and the cages," he paused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "We''ll need to rig the locks, make ''em easy to break from the inside. And timing... that''s where our little spyderse into y. We can control the cages remotely, pop them open when the moment''s just right."
Although still irked by the memory, Gaya knew deep down that Michael had a point. "Fine," she grumbled, crossing her arms. "But if one of those feathered jerks makes even one snidement, I''m not holding back. They''ll see just how ''ipetent'' of a goddess I can be. And if this goes sideways, I''m ming you."
Michael grinned, unfazed by her threats. "Deal. But when this works, and Borgin gets his ass killed from his own captives, you owe me a drink."
As much as Gaya hated griffins, Gaya knew Michael''s ns would never fail. Thus, despite her history with the griffins, she decided to be the Goddess of Monsters and talk to those furrballs again. "Alright, while I''m out sweet-talking those feisty griffins, you better get those cages tampered with and whip up that potion for Borgin. I don''t want any screw-ups; he needs to be weak enough that he won''t stand a chance." Gaya said with hands on her hips, giving Michael a challenging look.
Michael, ever so confident, leaned against the window sill, a sly grin spreading across his face. "Don''t worry about Borgin. He''s not exactly a giant in the cultivation world. A little concoction from me, and he''ll be as vulnerable as a newborn. He will be nice and tender for the griffins," he said, hisughter filling the room.
Just then, Gaya''s stomach growled, betraying her. She grimaced, "Speaking of nice and tender, I''m starving here."
"Seal the deal with the griffins, and I''ll cook us something. How''s that for motivation?" Michael''sughter doubled at herint. Gaya scoffed, rolling her eyes but with a smirk ying at her lips. "Your cooking? God help me. I might as well start praying to the griffins for a decent meal."
"Hey my cooking isn''t that bad," Michaelined. Although Michael did not possess the best culinary skills, he did manage to cook pretty good food. But it was hard to impress someone who had been used to eating Raylene, a five star chef''s cooking. That was the reason why Michael was thinking of upgrading Raylene to six star level before opening new restaurant chains in the realm of gods.
Hearing Michael''s defense of his culinary skills, Gaya couldn''t help but burst intoughter. "Oh, please! Remember that time you tried to make that ''simple'' elven bread? It ended up harder than a damn rock. I could''ve thrown it at an enemy and done more damage than with my sword!"
Michael shrugged, a sheepish grin on his face. "Hey, that wasn''t entirely my fault. Who knew you needed to actually measure the water and not just eyeball it?"
Despite her teasing, Gaya''s eyes softened, and she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "Ah, I love you, you know, even if your cooking could be ssified as a lethal weapon. Let''s make that dinner you''re promising something special, alright? Something that doesn''t require a healing potion afterward,"
After they joked and had a little light hearted moment, Michael turned his focus back to the beast tamer''s building. On the other hand, Gaya prepared herself mentally to confront the griffins.
"Are youing with me or do I have to find the griffins by myself?" asked Gaya.
"This one, you have to do it alone. Pink will have your back if you need anything," Michael said as Gaya nodded and exited the room toplete her part of the n.
Meanwhile, Michael entered the system to buy the necessary ingredients needed to brew the potion to weaken Borgin.
Chapter 1251 Three Trouble Makers
1251 Three Trouble Makers
As Gaya disembarked from the ox cart, thanking the driver with a nod and a wry smile, she couldn''t help but feel a thrill at the prospect of facing the griffins again. The lush, vibrantndscape of Goldspire''s outskirts was both inviting and foreboding, with the asional golden and red maple trees adding a ssh of color to the neatly stone-paved roads and the serene rivers flowing alongside.
"The griffins have be more aggressive recently," the ox cart driver mumbled, casting a wary nce at the skies. "They didn''t attack for two months, but now, it''s like they''re making up for lost time."
Gaya pondered the driver''s words, her mind drifting to the griffin that had insulted her. She wondered if its absence was the reason for the peaceful period and if its return was responsible for the renewed attacks. Her interaction with the creature had been intense, a sh of wills and power, but she hadn''t considered the possibility of it rallying others to its cause.
"Is there a reason for their attacks? Maybe some stupid soldiers or adventurers stirred up trouble with their nests?" Gaya inquired, her voice casual, hiding her personal interest in the matter.
"Nah," the driver replied, ncing back at her through the rearview. "No griffin nests around those parts. Even with Goddess Seshat''s knights patrolling, those beasts are cunning. Attacking at night, hit and run. Clever, those griffins."
Gaya couldn''t help but admire the griffins'' strategic tactics, despite the trouble they caused. "Smart creatures," she muttered under her breath, respectcing her words.
The driver eyed her curiously. "And what brings a youngss like yourself out here? It''s no time for sightseeing, not with the skies full of terror."
With a heartyugh, Gaya brushed off his concern. "I''m an adventurer, looking to see the world. Besides, a few griffins won''t scare me off." Her voice carried a mix of jest and bravado, a stark contrast to the somber mood brought on by the griffin attacks.
The driver sighed, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening. "Bad timing for adventures, if you ask me. But stay safe, girl. These roads are unforgiving at night."
As the ox cart continued on its path, leaving her at the edge of the wilderness, Gaya felt a surge of excitement. The challenges ahead were daunting, but the goddess within her relished the opportunity to prove her might and perhaps, in doing so, mend her rtionship with the griffins.
Eventually, The ox cart creaked to a halt on the outskirts of a quaint vige, nestled amidst rolling hills. The vige was a patchwork of modest thatched cottages, with smokezily curling up from chimneys into the clear sky. The vigers, dressed in simple clothes, went about their daily chores, casting curious nces at the neer. The vibrant hues of market stalls dotted the central square, and the chatter of locals filled the air, creating a lively yet peaceful atmosphere.
The ox cart driver, turning to Gaya with a look of concern, advised, "This is as far as I go. You''d be safer staying here for the night." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Gaya, her gaze fixed on the horizon, replied with a dismissive wave, "I appreciate the concern, but I have ces to be. Where did you say those griffin attacks were happening?"
With a resigned chuckle, the driver said, "Stubborn as an old mule, aren''t you? The attacks are about half a day''s journey from here, towards the east where the forests meet the foothills."
"Thanks," Gaya said, handing him a few coins for the ride. "Wish me luck," she added with a grin, her adventurous spirit undimmed by the warnings.
The driver shook his head, a mixture of admiration and worry in his eyes. "Luck be with you, young one. And be careful out there."
After bidding farewell to the ox cart driver, Gaya ventured deeper into the terrain that bore the scars of recent griffin attacks. The setting sun cast a golden hue over the lushndscape, now marred by the chaos of beastly encounters. "If that damned griffin has anything to do with this," she muttered under her breath, her gaze sweeping over the treetops. "it''s going to wish it never crossed paths with me again."
As darkness enveloped the sky, Gaya found a secluded spot near a copse of trees, where signs of struggle and deep w marks etched into the earth painted a vivid picture of the griffins'' might. She set up a makeshift camp, ensuring she remained hidden under the cover of foliage. "Let''s see if those winged beasts dare to show up tonight," she whispered to herself, her eyes scanning the darkening horizon for any sign of movement.
Throughout the night, Gaya remained alert, her senses tuned to the slightest rustle or unusual sound. The moon, now a sliver in the sky, provided little illumination, casting eerie shadows across thendscape. Despite the tension, Gaya couldn''t help but admire the cunning of these creatures. "Attack and retreat, huh? Not just mindless beasts after all," she conceded with a grudging respect. Yet, her resolve remained unshaken. "But intelligence won''t save you from the wrath of the Goddess of Monsters."
As hours passed, the quietude of the night was suddenly shattered by the distant sound of beating wings, growing closer with each passing moment. Gaya tensed, her hand instinctively reaching for her weapon. "Showtime," she whispered, As Gaya concealed herself among the dense foliage, her anticipation grew with the sound of fluttering wings descending upon the clearing. To her surprise, the figures that emerged from the night sky weren''t the formidable predators she expected, but three significantly smaller griffins, each bearing distinct features and temperaments.
The first, a cautious griffin with tawny feathers edged in bronze, surveyed the surroundings with wary eyes. The second, a bold creature with darker plumage and a fierce glint in its eye, exuded confidence and impatience. The third, its feathers a mix of grey and white, seemed to shrink in on itself, exuding an air of nervousness.
"They''re just kids," Gaya whispered to herself, a hint of amusement breaking through her initial disappointment.
"Where are those guards? I''m starving," the bold griffin growled, his gaze fixed hungrily on the vige not far from theirnding spot.
"Easy, Tarnis," the cautious one chided, "we shouldn''t attack. The guards might be lying in wait."
"Oh, shut it, Orin. Since when did you be such a chicken?" Tarnis snapped back, ruffling his feathers in defiance.
"Calm down, both of you," the timid one, which Gaya guessed to be Fleece, piped up. "What if we get caught? Or worse, hurt?"
Listening to their bickering, Gaya couldn''t help but mutter under her breath, "Damn, kids these days... No respect for their elders ormon sense."
Tarnis, seemingly deciding for the group, let out a defiant snort. "I''m the strongest here. I''ll show those vigers and the damned Goddess of Monsters that I''m not to be trifled with."
Orin sighed, a sound that carried a world of patience. "You''ll get us all killed, you idiot."
Fleece whimpered, "I don''t want to be monster chow. Can''t we just find some rabbits or something?"
Gaya''s ears perked up at the mention of her title. "Did that little punk just say Goddess of Monsters?" she muttered incredulously, her eyes narrowing in the direction of the young griffins.
She pondered for a moment, "How the hell do they know about me? And still have the guts to wreak havoc under my watch?" The questions tumbled through her mind, mixing with a blend of frustration and curiosity.
As she continued eavesdropping, the ferocious griffin named Tarnis ranted about their eggs being stolen and their kind being hunted, painting a grim picture of their plight. "It''s those damned beast tamers... they''re after our eggs, terrorizing our kin across the domains," Tarnis growled, his voice a mixture of anger and desperation.
Orin, the cautious one, chimed in with a sigh, "And let''s not forget, Seshat''s knights protect everyone but us. And our so-called goddess of monsters? She''s nowhere to be found, too busy gallivanting with the god of darkness or something."
At Orin''s words, Gaya couldn''t contain her outrage any longer. "Useless? Running around? That little shit..." she hissed under her breath, barely keeping her voice down. The usation stung more than she cared to admit, igniting a fire within her.
Fleece, the timid one, added quietly, "Yeah, it''s like we''re forgotten. Left to fend for ourselves against those who would do us harm."
The conversationid bare the griffins'' grievances and their perception of Gaya''s absence in their time of need. It was a harsh reminder of the expectations ced on her shoulders, and the reality of her actions as seen through the eyes of those she was sworn to protect.
Gaya shook her head, dispelling the rising tide of guilt and indignation. "Well, looks like it''s time to set the record straight," she whispered to herself, determination taking hold. The griffins'' words had unwittingly stoked the mes of her resolve, pushing her to take action not just for the sake of her quest, but to prove hermitment to the creatures under her care.
Chapter 1252 Meeting the big griffin again I
1252 Meeting the big griffin again I
Gaya couldn''t help but smirk, muttering to herself, "Looks like Tarnis here is just the jester we need for our circus."
Without further hesitation, she stepped out from her cover, fully aware of the surprise her sudden appearance would invoke among the trio of griffins. As expected, their initial reaction was a blend of shock and aggression, with Tarnis leading the charge, mistaking her for an easy target. "Back off, human! You won''t like it when we''re angry!" he squawked, fully expecting his words to sound like mere screeches to her.
Unphased and with her characteristic sass, Gaya shot back, "Oh, please. The only thing scary about you is how much you overestimate yourself, featherball,"
The cautious one, Orin, and the timid one, Fleece, exchanged bewildered looks. "Wait, did she just... talk back?" Fleece whispered, disbelief coloring his tone.
"And she understands us? What kind of human is she?" Orin, equally astonished, added.
Meanwhile, Tarnis, refusing to believe a mere human could understand them, puffed up his chest and readied his ws. "Enough of this nonsense. You''ll make a fine snack for us," he dered boldly, mistaking Gaya''s confidence for ignorance.
Gaya''s amusement quickly turned to irritation at being referred to as a snack. "Listen here, you overgrown pigeon, I''m nobody''s fucking snack. You''re about to bite off way more than you can chew," she snapped back, her temper ring at the insult.
The griffins, taken aback by her ability to understand and respond to them, hesitated for a moment. This pause gave Gaya the opening she needed tounch into her persuasion, aiming to turn these young, misguided creatures into unwitting participants in her grand scheme.
Tarnis''s growl rumbled through the night air, his stance aggressive and unyielding. "If you understand us, then prepare yourself to be our next meal," he dered, his eyes fixed on Gaya with a predator''s focus.
Orin, the cautious one, stepped forward, a note of hesitation in her voice. "Tarnis, wait. She''s not like the others. No normal human speaks our tongue," she cautioned, trying to inject some sense into his brother''s hot-headed ns.
"Yeah, Tarnis, maybe she''s under some powerful protection. Attacking her might not be wise." Fleece added his own worries.
But Tarnis dismissed their concerns with a flick of his tail, confident in his own assumptions. "Her understanding is probably just a trick, a potion or spell. Nothing to worry about," he scoffed, underestimating Gaya''s true capabilities.
Gaya couldn''t help butugh at Tarnis''s naivety, finding amusement in his arrogant dismissal. "Oh, Tarnis, your head is as thick as your hide. Thinking a simple potion gives me the ability to talk down to a trio of griffin bullies," she teased, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Yet, she chose not to reveal her divine nature, keeping her true identity a mystery.
But herughter quickly turned into a scolding, as Gaya couldn''t hold back her frustration any longer. She shouted at them, berating their actions. "And you! Attacking innocent travelers and vigers? What honor is there in terrorizing those weaker than you? You stupid assholes!" she yelled, her voice echoing around them, her anger directed at their reckless behavior. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The griffins, taken aback by Gaya''s outburst, shared a look of confusion and surprise. Her words, while harsh, struck a chord, especially with Orin and Fleece, who had always followed Tarnis''s lead without much thought. "Your attacks on travelers and viges have not gone unnoticed," she began, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "You''ve painted a target on your backs. That''s the reason I''m here."
Bristling with anger at the perceived threat, Tarnis lunged forward, his talons outstretched toward Gaya. The rowdy griffin thought she was here to capture them since she did tell them she was here for a reason. But Gaya was quicker, sidestepping with a grace that belied her sturdy frame. In one fluid motion, she retrieved the God yer crossbow from her back, pressing its cold, dark muzzle against the griffin''s neck. "One pull of this trigger, and it''s over for you," she said, her voice icy.
"Ha! You think that puny crossbow can hurt me?" Tarnis growled, his voice a mix of defiance and amusement. "My skin is too thick for your toys."
Orin and Fleece, however, were not so dismissive. They had noticed the dim runes etched along the weapon''s shaft and the unnatural sleekness of its make. The crossbow, forged from the corbone of an ancient beast, exuded a power that sent a primal fear through their feathers. Though they knew nothing of the crossbow''s origins or the beast from which it was made, the energy it radiated was enough to make them intervene.
"Stand down, Tarnis!" Orin hissed, his eyes locked on the ominous weapon.
"Yeah, don''t be a fool," Fleece added, her voice tinged with fear. "There''s something about that crossbow."
Gaya seized the moment of hesitation. "See? Not so invincible now, are we?" she said, keeping the crossbow trained on Tarnis but her gaze sweeping over all three griffins. "I''m not here to kill you or take you down. I''m here to offer you a way out. A deal that''s your only shot at escaping what''sing for you."
Tarnis, though still bristling, hesitated at Gaya''s words. His pride wounded, he snarled, "Why should we trust a human?"
Gaya let out a cold, mirthless chuckle. "Because, my impatient and impulsive friend, if you don''t, the next humans whoe after you won''t be offering deals." Her eyes darkened with the seriousness of her warning. "They''ll be beast tamers, and they won''t bother talking. They''ll just take you down."
Orin, her eyes flickering with a mix of suspicion and curiosity under the dim light of the cave, finally broke the tense silence. "Alright, what exactly are you proposing?"
In the corner, Fleece shifted ufortably, her voice barely above a whisper, "Maybe... maybe we should just fly away from all this."
Tarnis rounded on her, his voice booming in the confined space. "Fly away? And be cowards? Don''t you dare be afraid of a puny human," He snorted in disdain, ring at Fleece. Gaya, still holding the crossbow at ease but with a readiness that spoke of her confidence. "This ''puny human'' might just be your best chance at survival." Her tone was calm, yet carried an undercurrent of steely resolve.
The griffins fell silent, the tension palpable. Orin, with a skeptical tilt of her head, pressed further, "Okay, but what are you proposing? What''s this grand n of yours?"
Before Gaya could respond, Tarnis interjected, his voiceced with sarcasm. "How can you possibly negotiate with a human?" His snarl carried a mix of incredulity and challenge, setting the stage for Gaya to unveil her proposal.
Gaya''s patience frayed at Tarnis''s interruption. Pressing the bolt of her crossbow just a hair''s breadth further into the griffin''s thick skin
"Shut up," Gaya said. Themand was simple, sharp, brooking no argument. Tarnis, for all his bluster, fell silent, a growl rumbling deep within his throat but no further words escaping.
Turning her gaze to Orin, who watched the exchange with a wary intensity, Gaya continued. "The beast tamers aren''t justing to put you down. Given your... let''s say ''cute and cuddly'' appearance to some twisted buyers out there, there''s a real chance they''ll opt for caging you. Selling you to the highest bidder." Her voice took on a grim tone. "And then? You''ll spend the rest of your days as someone''s ything, a toy for their amusement."
The cave seemed to grow colder with her words, the flickering shadows casting grotesque shapes that mimicked bars of a cage.
Orin''s feathers bristled at the thought, a look of horror crossing her features. The reality of their situation,id bare by Gaya''s stark warning, settled heavily on the group.
Tarnis, still subdued by the crossbow''s threatening presence, now looked more thoughtful than defiant. The mention of cages and being sold seemed to strike a chord, his earlier bravado reced with a dawning realization of the gravity of their predicament.
Fleece, visibly shaken by Gaya''s dire portrayal of their potential future, wrapped his wings around himself as if to ward off the cold reality of her words. "We get it," fleece managed to speak with his voice trembling. "Just tell us the bloody solution, will you?"
Gaya couldn''t help but feel a flicker of amusement at the sight, though she hid it well behind a mask of solemnity. She had intended to frighten them, true, but not to the point of driving them away. They were crucial to her and Michael''s n, after all. She let out a heavy sigh, allowing the weight of her next words to gather before releasing them into the tense air of the cave.
"You can run," she began, her gaze sweeping over the trio, "but those beast tamers will catch you eventually. You''ll live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, always wondering when they''ll finally snag you. There''s a pretty handsome bounty on your heads, you know."
The griffins exchanged nervous nces, the reality of their situation sinking in deeper with every word Gaya spoke.
"But," Gaya continued, leaning in slightly as if to share a secret. "If you listen to me and agree to be a part of our n, yes, you''ll be captured. But here''s the twist¡ªI''ll break you out. Together, we can take down the leader of the beast tamers. It''s your chance to get revenge against those bastards once and for all."
Chapter 1253 Meeting the big griffin again II
Chapter 1253 Meeting the big griffin again II
The proposal hung heavy in the air, a dangerous gamble that demanded everything from the griffins. Shock and disbelief washed over their faces as they processed Gaya''s words. Tarnis was the first to regain hisposure, his voice thick with usation. "You expect us to just surrender? To those bastards? You''re out of your damn mind if you think we''d fall for such a maniptive ploy!"
Orin and Fleece, too, shook their heads vehemently, their earlier fear now mingled with a deep-seated distrust. "Captured on purpose? You''re asking us to leap into the maw of the beast!" Orin eximed, her toneced with incredulity and anger.
Fleece, always the most timid, added his own quiet yet firm rejection. "It''s madness," he whispered, "utter madness."
Standing firm before the trio''s burgeoning revolt, Gaya tried to weave her words into a tapestry of persuasion, exining the strategic advantage, the element of surprise, the chance for a real blow against their shared enemies. Yet, her efforts met with a wall of skepticism and fear, the griffins unmoved by her plea.
As the stalemate stretched thin, a sudden disruption shattered the tension. Arge griffin, with a majestic bearing and a gaze sharp enough to cut through the dimness of the cave,nded with a grace that belied his size. His arrival was heralded by a unique squeak, drawing all eyes to him.
The three griffins, a mix of reverence and relief washing over their features, murmured almost in unison, "Father..."
The elder griffin''s gaze locked onto Gaya, and recognition flickered in his eyes¡ªan emotion swiftly chased by a cocktail of snicker, anger, shock, and fear. He stared at her, the silence stretching between them like a chasm, before he finally spoke, his voice carrying a weight that stilled the air.
"Goddess Gaya..." The title, spoken with a mix of disbelief and reverence, shocked the younger griffins into silence. Their eyes swung from the elder griffin back to Gaya, the implications of his words slowly dawning on them. Here, in their midst, stood not just a human, but a goddess they had heard of in legends, a figure of immense power and mystery.
The younger griffins, still reeling from the elder''s revtion, could hardly process the shift in reality. "Is she... the Goddess of Monsters?" Orin asked, her voice a blend of awe and disbelief, barely above a whisper.
The elder griffin spared them no nce, his focus solely on Gaya, who now stood with her arms crossed, a sh of irritation crossing her divine features. "Didn''t I tell you to stay out of trouble?" she asked, her tone sharp, betraying a history that went beyond this cave, this moment.
Memories surged within Gaya, unbidden and sharp as knives. This was the same griffin who had once dared to call her an ipetent goddess, who had mocked the very idea of her potential motherhood with Michael, the God of Darkness, as doomed to failure. Such words, once spoken, were not easily forgotten or forgiven.
The griffin sighed, a deep, rumbling sound that filled the cave. "I was staying out of trouble," he began, his voice carrying a hint of defense. "After your warning, I left Sagespire. Been living my life peacefully, until..." He trailed off, ncing at the three younger griffins with something akin to fondness. "Until I found these three in an abandoned nest."
The revtion hung in the air, a bombshell thatnded squarely among the younger griffins. Tarnis, ever the hothead, couldn''t contain himself. "Are we adopted?" he shouted, his voice echoing off the cave walls.
"Yes," the elder griffin replied simply, his affirmation dropping like a stone into the pool of their newfound family history.
Gaya couldn''t hold back any longer. Laughter bubbled up from within her, a genuine amusement at the scene unfolding before her. "Adopted!" she eximed between chuckles. "Oh, this is rich. You three, so proud and fierce, were just a bunch of lost chicks until this old bird found you."
Tarnis, his feathers ruffled in more ways than one, red at the elder griffin. "Why''d you have to say we''re adopted like it''s no big deal?" heined, his voice a mix of hurt and indignation.
The grown griffin scoffed, his beak curling in amusement. "And what did you expect, Tarnis? A grand adoption reveal party with banners and fireworks?" His tone was dripping with sarcasm, clearly finding the notion absurd.
Fleece, ever the quieter one among them, sighed, his voice shaky as he chimed in.
"You''re messed up in the head, old man." Despite her timid nature, the absurdity of the situation drew out her blunt assessment.
Gaya, seizing the opportunity for further jest, couldn''t resist adding fuel to the fire. "Oh, look at this¡ªa family reunion and aedy show all in one. You guys are a riot!" Herughter echoed once more, the cave momentarily forgetting the gravity of their situation in favor of the light-hearted banter.
"Seriously though," she continued, wiping away a tear of mirth, "being adopted by this grizzled old feather duster here is probably the best thing that''s happened to you lot. At least someone was looking out for you, even if he is as subtle as andslide."
The grown griffin''s demeanor shifted from bemused to stern in an instant. He growled at the three younger griffins, his voice booming within the confines of the cave. "And you three! Sneaking out and attacking people, drawing her here? This is the trouble I warned you about!"
Gaya feigned offense at his words, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Who''s the bad parent now, hm?" she shot back, a yful smirk dancing on her lips despite the seriousness of their conversation.
The elder griffin responded with a low, frustrated growl, his patience thinning. "What are you nning to do now?" he asked, his gaze fixed intently on Gaya, as if trying to discern her next move.
Gaya met his gaze, the smirk fading into a look of determination. "Since you''re so curious," she began, her voice taking on a tone of solemnity. "I n to turn their mistake into an opportunity. The beast tamers areing, and we''re going to use that to our advantage. These three," she gestured to the younger griffins, "will be our bait. We let them get captured on purpose."
The elder griffin''s eyes widened in shock, mirroring the reaction of the younger ones from earlier. "On purpose? You''re going to let them be captured?" he echoed, disbelief coloring his tone.
"Yes," Gaya confirmed, nodding. "But with a twist. I''ll break them out before they can be sold or worse. And in the chaos, we take down the leader of the beast tamers. It''s a chance to strike back, to send a message that not all prey is helpless."
The revtion left the elder griffin speechless for a moment, the audacity of the n sinking in. It was a dangerous gamble, one that ced his newfound charges in harm''s way, yet offered a path to reiming their dignity and agency. The n was bold, reckless, and... perhaps just crazy enough to work.
The younger griffins, still grappling with the unfolding n, turned to the elder with a mixture of confusion and apprehension. "Father, tell her she''s crazy," Tarnis implored, the term ''father'' now a testament to their forged bond rather than a mere acknowledgment of adoption.
The elder griffin sighed deeply, his gaze shifting between Gaya and the trio before him. "As much as she and I don''t see eye to eye¡ª" he began, only for Gaya to cut in.
"Hate each other, more like," she interjected with a wry grin, emphasizing the depth of their mutual disdain. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
The griffin shot her a re but continued, his voice firm. "She is a goddess. She doesn''t have to lie about her intentions or capabilities. And," he raised his voice, making sure the younger griffins heard him over their murmurs of dissent. "Your actions have indeed led us here. I''m aware of the beast tamers, and frankly, her n might be our only shot at ensuring your safety."
The elder griffin, practical and cautious, was not one to leap without looking. "And if things go south?" he pressed, his tone demanding a fallback n, a safety beneath the tightrope of Gaya''s scheme.
Gaya, understanding the necessity of his concern, reached into her satchel, pulling out a handful of small, intricately carved amulets. These shimmered with a subtle, otherworldly light¡ªgifts from Michael, imbued with teleportation magic. "Ghost and I anticipated that," she said, offering the amulets to the griffin. "These will serve as your emergency exit."
She exined, "Swallow them, and when the moment calls for it, activate their magic to teleport away from danger. It''s a single-use escape, so make it count."
The elder griffin examined the amulets with a critical eye, then nodded, epting the lifeline she provided. He turned to the younger griffins, rying Gaya''s advice with a seriousness that underscored the gravity of their situation. "Swallow these and use them if necessary. It''s ourst resort."
Gaya continued, outlining the final steps of her n with rity and precision. "When the timees, you''ll break out of your cages and strike at Borgin Ironfist. Take him down and use the amulets to teleport to safety. I''ll handle everything from there."
Chapter 1254 Art of assassination
Chapter 1254 Art of assassination
After leaving the griffins to digest the gravity of their uing roles in her daring n, Gaya made her way back to the City of Goldspire. Upon reaching their shared quarters, she found Michael engrossed in his alchemy, a series of ingredients levitating and swirling into the dark mes that danced above his open palms.
"What''s cooking?" Gaya quipped as she leaned against the doorframe, watching the sparks fly from the concoction.
Without missing a beat, Michael nced up, a wry smile ying on his lips. "Just a little something to tip the scales in our favor against Borgin Ironfist. If this works, he''ll be as weak as a newborn kitten."
Gaya chuckled and made her way to sit on the edge of their bed, her mind still reying the day''s events. "The griffins are on board, though it took some convincing¡ªand a bit of divine intervention," she began, her toneced with a mix of amusement and relief. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Michael''s interest piqued, he paused his potion brewing for a moment. "Divine intervention, huh? That sounds serious. Everything go ording to n?"
She sighed, shaking her head slightly. "Well, it''s more like I had to pull rank on them. And you wouldn''t believe who showed up out of the blue¡ªMr. ''I''m too noble to get my feathers dirty'' decided to grace us with his presence."
"Ah, the elder griffin? How''s that old bird still pping around?" Michael asked, his curiosity evident.
Gaya snorted, "Still as stubborn and judgmental as ever. Called me out on my ''crazy'' n. But I gave them those teleportation amulets you made. Just in case things go sideways."
Michael nodded, turning back to his potion. "Good thinking. We need all the insurance we can get with this lot."
"Yeah," Gaya agreed,ying back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. "It''s all set now. Just hope these griffins can stick to the n without causing a bigger mess."
Michael, his hands once again busy with the potion, nced back over his shoulder. "With you leading them? They''d be more scared to screw up and face your wrath than anything Borgin Ironfist could throw at them."
A smirk curled at the corners of Gaya''s mouth. "Damn right. Let''s just hope it''s enough to take that bastard down a peg or two."
As the essence coalesced into a green glob above the flickering mes, Gaya wrinkled her nose, peering curiously at Michael''s work. "How do you n to get Borgin to swallow this? It reeks. He''ll sniff it out miles away."
Michael remained unfazed, a calm smile ying on his lips. "That''s exactly why we need to draw him into an environment that stinks more than this potion. There, we can vaporize it, and he won''t have a choice but to inhale it."
Gaya mulled over the idea, her expression a mix of admiration and skepticism. "Clever. But this assassination n seems to be getting more bloated by the minute."
Michael''s chuckle resonated in the room, rich and amused. "That''s because it''s an assassination, not a straightforward murder. There''s an art to it, a finesse." He paused, his gaze meeting hers as he exined further. "It''s about the thrill of the hunt, the challenge of weaving throughyers of protection to strike at the heart of the target. And doing it in such a way that it leaves no trace back to you, only rumors and fear in its wake."
Gaya leaned back, absorbing his words, a newfound appreciation for the intricacies of their n dawning on her. "When you put it that way, it does sound rather... exhrating."
Michael''s smile widened, his eyes sparkling with the thrill of the challenge. "It''s the ultimate game of cat and mouse. And in this game, we''re not just any cats. We''re the shadow that moves unseen, the whisper of doubt in the dark."
The air between them charged with the excitement of their shared conspiracy, Gaya couldn''t help but be drawn into Michael''s vision. The dangers they faced, theplexity of their scheme, all seemed to melt away, leaving only the pulse-quickening thrill of the chase.
"Alright," she said, a determined glint in her eye. "Let''s make sure our mouse walks right into our trap, stench and all."
Michael nodded, his focus returning to the potion. "With our cunning and these griffins on our side, Borgin Ironfist won''t know what hit him."
With the potion ready, Michael and Gaya knew the real challengey ahead: crafting a n that would not only draw Borgin Ironfist out but also ensure he was in the right ce at the right time for their trap to spring. The leader of the beast tamers was no fool, and enticing him away from his original quarry¡ªthe griffins¡ªwould require both subtlety and ingenuity.
Recognizing the need for precise information, Michael reached for his earpiece, connecting with Pink, their tech-savvy ally, whose skills in hacking and information gathering were unparalleled. "Pink, we need your expertise," Michael began, his voice low and urgent. "Find us a location within Sagespire that reeks enough to mask the scent of this potion. Then, we need bait, something that''ll draw Borgin''s attention more than the griffins. Think rare beast, something irresistible."
On the other end, Pink''s fingers danced over her console, her mind already racing through potential targets and locations. "On it," she replied, her voice crackling with focus. "Sagespire''s no small ce, but I''llb through every dirty secret it hides. Give me a moment."
As Michael and Gaya awaited her response, they contemted theplexity of their n. Drawing Borgin away from his initial target would require something truly exceptional¡ªa creature of such rarity and value that even the seasoned hunter couldn''t resist.
Minutes ticked by, filled with anticipation and the low hum of Michael''s potion still shimmering with potential. Finally, Pink''s voice returned, triumphant. "Got something. The old distillery district in Sagespire. ce has been abandoned for ages, smells like a giant left his socks out in the rain. As for the bait," she paused, a note of excitement creeping into her voice, "I found records of a recent capture, a Phoenix. Last of its kind, rumored to be in the area. If anything can draw Borgin out, it''s the chance to im such a prize."
Michael and Gaya exchanged a look, understanding the stakes. A Phoenix, a creature of legend and fire, would undoubtedly lure Borgin Ironfist from his pursuit of the griffins. The distillery district, with its pungent aroma and maze of abandoned buildings, would serve as the perfect stage for their ambush.
"Excellent work, Pink," Michael said, his voice edged with satisfaction. "We''ve got our location and our lure. Now, we just need to set the trap and wait for Borgin to take the bait."
Gaya nodded, her mind already racing through the logistics of their n. "Let''s get everything in ce. Borgin won''t know what hit him."
Gaya''s thoughts lingered on the Phoenix, the gravity of its situation settling heavily upon her shoulders. The idea that such a majestic creature could be thest of its kind tugged at her conscience, a stark reminder of her role and responsibilities as the Goddess of Monsters.
Michael, ever the pragmatist, shrugged off her concerns with a casual. "Shit happens." He gestured broadly, epassing the mysteries and unexined events of their world. "Whole dragon ns have vanished without a trace in the mortal realm, and we''re still in the dark about it. These things happen, Gaya. You know that."
But Gaya wasn''t so easily dissuaded. Shaking her head, she countered, "That was before I understood my role. Before I realized I''m the Goddess of Monsters. Doesn''t that make their well-being my responsibility?"
In response, Michael moved to sit beside her, an arm wrappingfortingly around her shoulders. "You''re taking this goddess thing a bit too seriously," he said gently. His tone was soothing, but his words were chosen to challenge her perspective gently.
Gaya rolled her eyes, a mix of frustration and affection coloring her response. "Easy for you to say. You''re the God of Darkness. Darkness doesn''t have life forms counting on it for survival." Her words carried the weight of her newfound duty, the pressure of expectations¡ªboth her own and those of the creatures she feltpelled to protect. "I''m the one getting called ipetent by freaking griffins."
Michael offered her a small, understanding smile, his gaze softening. "Being a goddess doesn''t mean you can do anything you want or feel responsible for every monster and beast out there. It''s about bnce, Gaya. Not every battle is yours to fight, and not every creature can be saved by your hand alone."
His words, though difficult to ept, held a truth that Gaya knew she needed to hear. The role of a deity was fraught with limitations and challenges, and part of her journey was learning where those boundariesy. Michael''s reminder served as a gentle nudge back to reality, a reality where their immediate concern was Borgin Ironfist and the safety of the griffins¡ªa task already monumental in its scope andplexity.
With a heavy sigh, Gaya leaned into Michael''s embrace, allowing herself a moment of vulnerability. "I suppose you''re right," she admitted, the fight draining from her voice. "Let''s focus on the task at hand. We can worry about the fate of the Phoenix and the restter."
After solidifying their n, Michael and Gaya knew that securing the Phoenix was crucial to luring Borgin Ironfist into their trap. Michael turned to Gaya, determination etched on his face. "Let''s go find that Phoenix. We need to make sure it leads Borgin right to the old distillery district."
With a shared sense of purpose, they exited their room and made their way through the bustling streets of the City of Goldspire. The city was alive with the myriad activities of its inhabitants, the air filled with the sounds ofmerce, conversation, and the distant ng of metal from the smithies.
As they navigated the crowded thoroughfares, heading towards the distillery district, their path crossed with a group of knights from the Order of Seshat. The knights, recognizable by their distinctive armor and the symbols of knowledge and wisdom emzoned on their shields, moved with a purposeful stride through the city.
Chapter 1255 Meeting Phoenix
Chapter 1255 Meeting Phoenix
As Michael and Gaya entered the boundaries of the distillery district, they were met with a scene that starkly contrasted the vibrancy and meticulous care evident in the rest of Seshat''s kingdom. The buildings around them stood neglected, their once proud structures now sumbing to the ravages of time and abandonment. Vines crept up the sides of stone walls, and the streets were littered with debris, a silent testament to years of disuse. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Michael, taking in the surroundings with a frown, couldn''t hide his surprise. "It''s odd," he mused aloud, "Seshat''s realm is known for its beauty and tranquility. To see a part of it in such disrepair... It''s unexpected."
Gaya, walking beside him, shared his sentiment. "It doesn''t seem like Seshat, the goddess of wisdom, to neglect any part of her domain. There''s always a purpose behind her actions, a reason for everything."
As they ventured deeper into the district, the foul stench mentioned by Pink became unmistakable, a pungent odor that seemed to permeate the air and cling to the decaying buildings. Michael paused, taking a moment to discern the source of the smell, his expression contemtive.
"There must be a reason why Seshat allows this ce to remain as it is," he finally said, his voice carrying a note of realization. "Perhaps it''s meant to serve as a reminder, or maybe it''s part of arger n we''re not privy to."
Gaya nodded in agreement, her eyes scanning the surroundings for any sign of the Phoenix. "Either way, it works in our favor today. This ce, with its stench and istion, is the perfect setting for our trap."
As they ventured further into the heart of the distillery district, Michael''s acute senses picked up on the presence of a subtle magical barrier enveloping the area. "There''s a barrier here," he murmured, more to himself than to Gaya. "But if we were able to enter without issue, it''s possible this barrier is designed to keep something¡ªor someone¡ªcontained within."
Hearing this, Gaya didn''t hesitate. She swiftly pulled the God yer crossbow from her back, loading it with a bolt. Her movements were precise, practiced¡ªthe actions of someone who had faced countless dangers before.
Michael turned to her, eyebrows raised in silent question. "What are you doing?"
Gaya met his gaze, her expression serious. "When did we ever get what we want without having to fight for it?" she asked rhetorically, her grip on the crossbow tightening. "There''s always something standing in our way."
Michael let out a resigned sigh, acknowledging the truth in her words. "I just wonder what the Phoenix is doing here," he pondered aloud, his gaze scanning the derelict surroundings. "If it''s trapped by the barrier, like us..."
Gaya''s eyes narrowed as she considered the possibilities. "Maybe the Phoenix wandered into the district, just like we did, but couldn''t find a way out." She paused, a new thought dawning on her. "Speaking of which, can we leave at our will?" Her question hung in the air, a sudden realization of their potential predicament, As Michael and Gaya progressed deeper into the distillery district, the evidence of devastation became impossible to ignore. Buildings that once might have stood proud and tall were now nothing but burnt husks, their charred remains a stark contrast against the backdrop of the city they had left behind. Charred trees stood like silent sentinels, their branches reaching towards the sky in a final, futile gesture of defiance against the destruction that had swept through the area.
Standing amidst the ruins, Michael''s senses were on high alert. His ability to scan the environment for life signs twitched with the indication of a presence, yet his eyes met with nothing but the destion that surrounded them.
"What is it?" Gaya asked, sensing his tension.
"There''s someone here," Michael replied, his voice low, a mixture of caution and curiosity coloring his words.
"Is he invisible? Or maybe a ghost?" Gaya''s hand tightened around the God yer, ready for whatever mighte.
Michael shook his head slightly, uncertainty clouding his features. "Be prepared," he advised, as he took a cautious step forward.
In that moment, the ashes scattered across the ground near them began to stir. What at first appeared to be a mere shift caused by the wind soon took on a deliberate motion, coalescing into a form. From the ashes, a figure slowly rose, the movement seemingly conjuring life from destruction itself.
As the ashes fell away, they revealed a red-haired youngster, standing amidst the ruins. As they observed the youngster with eyes aze, akin to the heart of a fire, Gaya couldn''t help but whisper to Michael. "Is he... the Phoenix?" She had grown up on stories of Phoenixes rising from their own ashes, a symbol of renewal and immortality, but witnessing such a phenomenon firsthand was something entirely different.
In response to their presence, what seemed like red feathery robes unfurled around the youngster''s form, enveloping him in a disy of majesty and power. His calm demeanor remained unshaken as he turned his fiery gaze towards them. Upon noticing Gaya, a small, knowing smile crept across his face. "Goddess Gaya," he greeted, his voice resonating with a warmth that seemed to echo the mes that marked his existence.
Taken aback by the recognition, Gaya stepped forward, her curiosity piqued. "So, who are you?" she asked, her voice a blend of awe and confusion.
The youngster''s reply came with a serene calmness, "I have no name, but my species are called Phoenix." His deration was simple, yet it carried the weight of centuries, a testament to his kind''s legendary status.
Gaya''s expression turned into a frown, her expectations momentarily disoriented. "I was expecting a bird, not a youngster," she admitted, the surprise clear in her voice. Michael, maintaining a casual demeanor, addressed the Phoenix as if their meeting was purely coincidental. "So, Phoenix, what brings you here?" His tone suggested a casual encounter, masking their true intention of seeking him out. Yet, beneath his rxed exterior, Michael harbored suspicions. The ease with which they had found the Phoenix seemed too convenient, stirring a sense of foreboding within him.
The Phoenix, unfazed by the question, shared his reason with a tranquil air. "I chose this path to shed my former old body and rise anew," he exined, his voice embodying the cyclic nature of his existence.
Just as Michael was about to delve deeper, his earpiece buzzed with an iing call from Pink. Her voice, tinged with urgency and shock, broke through. "You need to be prepared before finding the Phoenix."
With a nce at the Phoenix, Michael responded tersely, "It''s toote for that warning, Pink. We''ve already found him."
Pink''s next words came in a rushed whisper, "Shit. I was digging through the server crystals and found out that Phoenixes, when they rebirth, attract something called the wraiths. They''re drawn to the ashes of the Phoenix."
The Phoenix, oblivious to the conversation, remained a picture of serenity, while Gaya, overhearing Pink''s warning, couldn''t contain her frustration. "Why does she always tell us the important stuff toote?" she growled, her annoyance palpable.
From the other end, Pink''s voice carried a mix of apology and worry. "I''m sorry," she said meekly, her usual confidence shaken by the oversight.
Michael turned his gaze back to the Phoenix, his voice tinged with concern. "Do you know anything about wraiths?" he inquired, hoping for some insight into their next potential challenge.
The Phoenix merely shook his head, his expression one of serene cluelessness. It was clear that the prospect of wraiths, or any threat, for that matter, did little to perturb him. His nonchnce only served to deepen Gaya''s frustration.
"I knew this was too easy," Gaya growled under her breath, her instincts having predicted that their quest wouldn''t be without itsplications.
In a moment that seemed out of ce with the urgency of their situation, the Phoenix closed his eyes, prompting a silent, tense wait from Michael and Gaya. After a few long minutes that stretched into an ufortable silence, Gaya''s patience wore thin. "Is something supposed to happen?" she asked, unable to hide her skepticism.
Michael shared her doubt, his eyes locked on the Phoenix, searching for any sign of what mighte next.
Eventually, the Phoenix opened his eyes and delivered a revtion that caught them off guard. "Something is preventing me from transforming back to my original form," he stated, a hint of surprise in his voice for the first time.
Gaya, quick to connect the dots, rolled her eyes in realization. The Phoenix was oblivious to the magical barrier surrounding them, which likely interfered with his ability toplete his rebirth process. Her response dripped with sarcasm. "Oh, you noticed? Maybe it''s the giant magical barrier we''re all stuck in," she replied, her tone leaving no room for doubt about her feelings on the matter.
Chapter 1256 Experience Points Farming
Chapter 1256 Experience Points Farming
The mention of wraiths sent a shiver down Michael''s spine, memories of battling gue maidens within the dark confines of Valorix''s dungeon flooding back. Yet, an instinctual feeling suggested these spectral adversaries would prove even more troublesome. Spectral enemies, unlike their tangible counterparts, required more than brute force to vanquish. Michael''s recent encounters had shown him that some foes possessed resistances to dark mes, a worrying sign if these wraiths shared simr immunities. This predicament also jogged his memory about a wooden house he had glimpsed when seizing the orb¡ªa vision showing him what he needed most. It was a reminder that upgrading his dark mes should be a priority.
Lost in these thoughts, Michael was jolted back to reality by a piercing screech. Lost in his strategizing, Michael''s musings were violently interrupted by a piercing, screeching cry that tore through the silence. Gaya, momentarily startled, almost let her crossbow slip from her grasp, but managed to maintain her hold.
As they turned their attention toward the source of the disturbance, several smoky figures began to materialize from behind the charred remains of the buildings. These dark, smoky apparitions, with glowing red eyes that burned like coals, bore rotten heads with skulls partially exposed, giving them a visage that was both terrifying and grotesque.
"Great, those ugly fucks must be the wraiths," Gaya remarked with a snap, her hands working quickly to load an explosive bolt into her crossbow.
"They don''t look like they''ll get hurt by your bolts," the Phoenix observed, his tone calm yet carrying a hint of naive innocence, as if the concept of danger was foreign to him.
"Shut up," Gaya growled, positioning herself behind Michael for a better strategic advantage.
"Got any bright ideas on how to deal with those?" she asked, her eyes locked on the advancing shadows. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Before Michael could formte a response, Pink''s voice buzzed in their ears, providing a much-needed insight into their foes. "I found out something crucial. Wraiths are spawned from a sh between the aura of death and a life force. This collision births creatures that are neither fully dead nor alive, driven to extinguish all that lives," Pink exined, her voice a mix of urgency and excitement from her discovery.
Gaya''s patience, however, was thinning. "Thanks for the lecture, really, but we''re kinda busy here. Skip to the end, will ya?" she shot back, her sarcasm thinly veiling her stress.
"Right, sorry," Pink quickly adjusted. "So, about the wraiths, normal weapons are useless against them. But, they''re vulnerable to fairy light, can be trapped using wraith trapping runes, or destroyed by annihting the death root, whatever that means."
Hearing this, Michael felt a glimmer of hope. Thest option Pink mentioned seemed the most actionable under the circumstances. As he began to consider their options, the wraiths started their advance.
In a sh, a red beam of light burst forth from one of the advancing wraiths, slicing through the air towards them. Michael and Gaya, driven by instinct, dove to the sides, narrowly escaping the attack. Phoenix, however, remained in ce, his expression one of intrigue rather than fear, as if the deadly specters before him were nothing more than a curiosity.
"Watch out!" Gaya''s warning tore through the air, her voice sharp with the urgency of her protective instincts, born from her role as the Goddess of Monsters. Despite her alert, she was toote to prevent the beam from striking Phoenix directly in the chest.
To their astonishment, Phoenix stood unharmed, the beam leaving not a trace of damage upon him. "Fascinating," he uttered, his voice tinged with wonder rather than concern.
"Idiot!" Gaya couldn''t help but exim as she rushed to Phoenix''s side, yanking him back to safety just as the wraiths prepared for another assault.
Meanwhile, Michael, with swift agility, created a barrier of ck lightning bolts around them as he deployed his ck Shield. The shield absorbed the iing energy beam, but the intensity of the attack caused the shield to heat up rmingly, searing his wrist. Thankfully, his Adaptive Pain Deterrent (APD) mechanism kicked in, healing the burn almost as quickly as it had formed.
In a disconcerting disy of their spectral abilities, the wraiths vanished from view only to reappear momentster, encircling the trio with malevolent intent.
"What were you thinking, you idiot?" Gaya scolded Phoenix, her frustration evident.
"Why did they attack me?" Phoenix inquired, his tone one of genuine confusion and surprise. There was no trace of anger in his voice, only a childlike bewilderment.
Phoenix''s naive question struck a chord in Gaya, briefly reminding her of Nightmare. She quickly stifled the emotional surge, focusing instead on the immediate threat.
As the wraithsunched another volley of red beams, Michael acted swiftly, invoking Silenes to slow down time within their immediate vicinity. The world seemed to pause, the deadly beams hanging ominously in the air, as he quickly grabbed Phoenix and Gaya, pulling them to safety with remarkable speed.
Having put some distance between them and the encircling wraiths, Pink''s voice chimed in once more, breaking the tense silence. "Hey, you two. Got some good news. Digging a bit deeper, I stumbled upon something awesome. The records mention that a simultaneous strike to their glowing eyes with weapons coated in primordial mes or fairy light can take them down instantly," she exined, a touch of pridecing her voice for uncovering such a crucial piece of information.
A sly grin spread across Michael''s face, not solely due to Pink''s timely intel but also because he noticed something else. The wraiths were enveloped in a yellow aura, a telltale sign they were vulnerable to the correct approach. Moreover, his senses picked up on a pulsating presence underground, a few meters away from their current location.
"That must be the death root," Michael murmured to Gaya, nodding towards a patch of soil that bore a distinctly darker hue than its surroundings.
Before Gaya could fully process the situation, one of the wraiths materialized dangerously close to Michael, its shadowy arms poised for an attack. Michael, however, was not about to let itnd a hit. With agile movements, he ducked, avoiding the strike, and in a swift motion, he unsheathed the dark swords resting on his back. Tapping the medallion he wore, armor enveloped him seamlessly, preparing him for the confrontation.
With a determination fueled by the heat of battle, Michael''s swords were soon wreathed in dark mes. He leaped into the air, his target clear. The swords plunged through the wraith''s glowing eyes, and for a brief moment, its form solidified, bing vulnerable to his attack. Within seconds, the wraith''s form shattered, dissolving into nothingness.
In the heat of the battle, Michael''s system chimed with notifications, a testament to his prowess inbat.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the cursed shadow monster. The reward is 4000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points]
The satisfaction of the kill was short-lived, however, as another wraith took the ce of the first, emerging directly above the area where Michael had sensed the death root. His initial sess and the subsequent appearance of another wraith only served to broaden the sly grin on his face, recognizing the unique opportunity this battleground presented for gathering experience points.
"Don''t touch that death root," he called out to Gaya, his excitement barely contained. Over their time together, Gaya hade to understand Michael''s non-verbal cues as clearly as if he had spoken at length. His slight gestures and the tone of his voice conveyed his intentions perfectly, signaling to her that he had a strategy in mind.
Trusting in Michael''s n, Gaya held back, ready to support him but allowing him the space to execute his strategy.
As the battle against the wraiths unfolded, Michael''s determination and skill became the focal point of their struggle for survival. With each wraith that appeared, Michael adopted Pink''s suggested method, his movements a blur of precision and power. He coated his dark swords with mes that seemed to draw from the very essence of darkness itself, moving through the wraiths with an agility that belied his imposing form.
The wraiths, for their part, moved with a haunting grace, their forms shifting and swirling like smoke on the wind. They attacked in unison, their red beams slicing through the air, aiming to overwhelm Michael and hispanions. But Michael, fueled by the thrill of the fight and the promise of experience points, met them head-on. He danced between their attacks, his swords striking true, targeting the glowing eyes that Pink had identified as their weakness.
With each sessful strike, the wraiths shattered, their forms copsing into ash that was quickly swept away by the breeze. The system notifications kepting, a constant reminder of the rewards reaped from this dangerous harvest.
Meanwhile, Phoenix''s curiosity got the better of him. Drawn by the chaos and the mysterious nature of their adversaries, he edged closer to the fray, only to be sharply rebuked by Gaya.
"Stay back, let him handle this!" she snapped, her protective instincts kicking in. Her eyes never left Michael, but her awareness of Phoenix''s movements remained sharp.
Phoenix, undeterred by the danger, pointed towards the ground where the death root pulsed with a malevolent energy. "What''s that?" he asked, his voice filled with a childlike wonder that seemed out of ce amidst the battle.
"Do not touch that," Gaya replied tersely, her attention divided between keeping Phoenix safe and watching Michael''s back as he continued his assault on the wraiths.
Aware but focused on the task at hand, Michael moved with a purpose. He understood the importance of the death root in maintaining the barrier and the continuous spawn of wraiths. Each wraith he dispatched not only cleared the immediate threat but also increased his strength, a necessary preparation for whatever challengesy ahead.
"I am so close to breaking through to the next cultivation stage," Michael excitedly said to himself.
But he didn''t know that his perfect experience farming was about to be abruptly cut short.
Chapter 1257 Phoenixs Unique Quirk
Chapter 1257 Phoenix''s Unique Quirk
As Michael reveled in the continuous downpour of experience points, the thrill of nearing his next cultivation stage energized him further. He was now just a mere 100,000 points away from reaching a significant milestone in his journey. Lost in the fervor of battle, he didn''t notice Gaya and Phoenix observing him from a safe distance.
With each wraith that fell, their focus shifted entirely onto Michael, their attacks bing more relentless, yet Michael met them with unwavering resilience. This left Gaya and Phoenix momentarily out of harm''s way, granting Phoenix the opportunity to explore his surroundings with wide-eyed wonder.
"Whatever you''re thinking, just don''t," Gaya preemptively scolded, sensing Phoenix''s growing curiosity.
"Why are they all attacking him, and why aren''t you helping?" Phoenix''s voice carried a note of innocence, unmarred by the chaos unfolding around them.
Gaya sighed, her gaze fixed on Michael''s relentless fight. "This ce was already saturated with death aura. Seshat probably erected a barrier around the distillery district to prevent that aura from spreading. But then you decided it was the ideal spot for your rebirth, releasing pure celestial energy into the mix. The sh of life and death energies birthed these wraiths. So, yeah, I''m pinning this one on you," she exined, frustrationcing her voice as she crossed her arms in disapproval.
Phoenix, his head tilted in confusion, mirrored the innocence of a bewildered puppy. "So, it''s my fault?" he queried.
"Yeah, pretty much, genius," Gaya replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she rolled her eyes at the absurdity of their situation.
However, Phoenix, taking her words more seriously than intended, felt a sudden urge to make amends. Driven by his pure-hearted desire to aid the Goddess of Monsters, he stepped away from the boulder that had been their shield and moved towards the death root.
"Hey, stop!" Gaya''s attempt to halt his progress was immediate, but it also inadvertently redirected some of the wraiths'' attention towards them.
"Do not touch that!" she cried out, diving to evade a red beam aimed in their direction, her warning echoing across the battlefield as she sought to protect both Phoenix from his naive bravery and Michael from any distraction that could jeopardize his progress.
In a sh that caught Gayapletely off guard, Phoenix surged forward with a speed that belied his earlier calm demeanor. His sudden dash towards the death root was so swift and unexpected that Gaya barely had time to process his movement before reacting.
"Don''t touch that!" she shouted again, her voice a mix of desperation andmand, trying to stop him from making what she perceived as a grave mistake.
However, Phoenix, in his innocence, misinterpreted Gaya''s warning. He believed her concern was for his safety, that the death root might harm him.But Gaya''s actual reason behind the warning was to adhere to Michael''s directive, not out of any belief that the death root would harm Phoenix.
With a determined grace, Phoenix extended his hand towards the ground, his fingers enveloped in pure red mes that seemed to draw from the very essence of his being. The mes scorched the earth around him, revealing the death root¡ªa dark, gnarled mass that pulsed with a malevolent energy, its tendrils writhing like the fingers of a desperate creature clinging to life. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"It cannot hurt me," Phoenix dered, his voice carrying a tone of confidence and a hint of innocence. Without waiting for any response, he plunged his me-wrapped hand into the ground, grasping the sinister root.
Before Gaya or Michael could react, Phoenix pulled the death root from its earthen hold, the dark tendrils wriggling in his grip as if seeking escape. With a calm that contrasted sharply with the violence of his actions, Phoenix crushed the root in his hand, the phoenix mes enveloping and consuming it until nothing remained but ash drifting away on the wind.
As Phoenix dismantled the death root, an ear-splitting scream emanated from the wraiths, a sound so piercing it nearly shattered Gaya''s eardrums. She mped her hands over her ears in a futile attempt to block out the agonizing noise, while Phoenix seemed utterly unaffected, standing amidst the chaos with an air of tranquility. Meanwhile, Michael, witnessing the abrupt end to his source of experience points, couldn''t hide his irritation. He was tantalizingly close to his next stage of cultivation, a mere fifty thousand points short, and Phoenix''s well-intentioned interference had just evaporated his chances.
"Fuck," Gaya muttered under her breath, her frustration palpable as she watched the wraiths vanish, their forms dissolving into nothingness. The distillery district was once again plunged into silence, the immediate threat gone but leaving behind a tangle of emotions.
Michael and Gaya converged on Phoenix from opposite directions, their expressions aplex mix of relief and annoyance. Phoenix, for his part, wore a smile brimming with pride and satisfaction, blissfully unaware of the impact of his actions on Michael''s ns.
Gaya, seeing Phoenix''s genuine happiness at believing he had aided them, felt her anger soften somewhat, despite the situation. Michael, however, remained visibly annoyed, his patience worn thin by the turn of events.
"What part of ''do not touch it'' did you not understand?" Michael questioned, his arms crossed in an unmistakable sign of his displeasure.
"You don''t have to worry. The death root did not hurt me at all. But thank you for the concern you''ve shown me," Phoenix replied, his smile unwavering, his innocence shining through,pletely oblivious to the real reason behind their warnings.
Realizing the extent of Phoenix''s misunderstanding, Gaya couldn''t help but rify.
"Wait, so you thought when I said ''don''t touch that,'' I meant because it would hurt you?" She watched as Phoenix nodded vigorously, confirming hisplete misinterpretation of her caution.
"Yes," Phoenix said.
The realization brought a mix of emotions, frustration tinged with an unwilling amusement at Phoenix''s innocent mistake. Despite the situation, the genuine concern Phoenix felt and his desire to help, albeit misguided, couldn''t be entirely faulted.
"Dammit, you fucking oaf," Gaya couldn''t help but blurt out, frustration boiling over as she castigated Phoenix for his well-intended but ill-advised actions. Internally, she cursed herself too, for not taking the time to exin the full implications of touching the death root to Phoenix. His desire to help, after being med, had onlyplicated matters further.
Despite recognizing Phoenix''s innocence and naivety, which bordered on theck ofmon sense, Michael exhaled a heavy sigh of resignation. Anger wouldn''t rewrite the past, nor would it reim the lost opportunity for experience points.
"At least we have what we need to draw Borgin out," he sighed, trying to find a silver lining in the situation.
"But I don''t think he can leave this ce with us. Hell, we haven''t even checked if we can leave," Gaya pointed out, her mind on the barrier that enveloped the distillery district.
"We can leave. So, we''ll leave Phoenix here and make sure Borgin hears about him. When he decides toe here, we''ll be here and mix the weakening potion in the air," Michael detailed their n, even as Phoenix looked on with a blend of curiosity and confusion, oblivious to the deeper strategy beingid out before him.
Gaya, however, wasn''t entirely convinced. "What about him? He''s like a grown baby. If we leave him here, Borgin will just have to say ''get into the carriage,'' and this idiot will do that," she pointed out, her worry for Phoenix''s well-being evident in her voice.
"Don''t worry about him. We''ll take him out of here before Borgin can reach Phoenix. Besides, something tells me you''re not going to let him out of your sight," Michael reassured her, well aware of Gaya''s protective nature over those she considered under her care. He also recognized the power that Phoenix harbored, his yellow aura a testament to a strength they had yet to fully understand. Despite Phoenix''s naivety, his innocence was matched by an innate power that, if harnessed correctly, could turn the tide in their favor.
"Now, Phoenix, let me be perfectly clear," Gaya began, fixing him with a stern gaze that left no room for misunderstanding. "You are to remain here until wee back and take you with us. Until then, just stay put and don''t do anything stupid," she instructed, her tone brooking no argument.
Phoenix, ever the obedient if not overly literal being, nodded in agreement, his expression earnest.
"Good, now let''s leave this ce," Michael concluded, giving Phoenix an encouraging pat on the hand before turning to walk away.
As they made their way out, a minute''s walk had Gaya casting a nce back at Phoenix. True to form, he hadn''t budged an inch, standing as if rooted to the spot. It was then that the realization hit her.
"Fuck, he''s really staying put," Gaya growled, her voice a mix of amazement and exasperation at Phoenix''s literal interpretation of her words.
Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at the scene, finding humor in Phoenix''s unwaveringpliance and Gaya''s growing frustration. "Wow, seems like Phoenix takes everything literally, doing exactly as he''s told without givingmon sense a damn thought," he mused, shaking his head in amusement.
Shaking her head in disbelief, Gaya marched back to where Phoenix stood, an immovable figure in the midst of destion. "What the fuck are you doing?" she demanded, her frustration bubbling to the surface.
"I am staying put," Phoenix replied simply, his voice carrying the weight of his literal interpretation of her earliermand.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Gaya exploded, her patience frayed at the edges. In a rare disy of vexation, she reached out and gave Phoenix a slight smack on the back of his head.
"Not like this, you damn oaf! I meant don''t wander off looking for trouble, not turn yourself into a bloody statue!"
Phoenix looked at her, slightly puzzled by her reaction but unharmed by the light hit. It was clear he was trying to do exactly as instructed, yet his understanding of the instruction was hriously off-mark.
"Look, just go and hide in one of those buildings, alright?" Gaya said, pointing to the dpidated structures nearby. "And for the love of god, use your head a little. ''Stay put'' doesn''t mean you have to stand in the open like an idiot waiting to be snatched or worse. Find a good spot where you can''t be seen easily."
Phoenix''s eyes lit up with understanding, a hint of an "ah-ha" moment crossing his features. "Oh, hide! Why didn''t you say so?"
"Because I didn''t think I had to be that specific!" Gaya shot back, throwing her hands up in a mix of frustration and resignation. "Now, go on. And be quiet about it."
As Phoenix nodded, finally grasping the concept and moving towards one of the buildings, Gaya couldn''t help but mutter under her breath about theplexities of dealing with someone so literal. "Next time, I''ll draw him a picture," she mumbled, shaking her head as she turned to catch up with Michael, her mood lightened despite herself by the absurdity of the situation.
Chapter 1258 Michaels Closest Ally Is The Incarnation of Death?
Chapter 1258 Michael''s Closest Ally Is The Incarnation of Death?
In a vast, dark hall, eerily illuminated by the otherworldly glow of red, green, and yellow moons shining through the grand ss ceiling, stood two figures of daunting presence. Rin, the Princess of Murder, d in armor crafted from blood and flesh, exuded an aura of power and malice. Beside her, Morbus, the God of gues, was draped in dark robes, his face obscured by a hood, his short, thin frame almost deceptive of the immense danger he represented. His smile revealed yellowed teeth, adding to his sinister appearance.
"Is everything ready?" Morbus inquired, his voice echoing slightly in therge, ominous space.
Rin''s response was a chuckle filled with dark amusement. "Yes, I have one head," she affirmed, her tone dripping with malice. Her eyes, alight with the anticipation of the chaos toe, turned towards Morbus. "Do you have the second?"
Matching Rin''s malevolence with his own, Morbus let out a chuckle and clicked his tongue in affirmation. "I have it," he said, his voice a mixture of pride and secrecy. "Been holding onto this for more than four thousand years."
Amused by his confession, Rin couldn''t help but probe further. "And you never thought to make use of it?" she asked, her curiosity piqued by Morbus''s long game.
With a smile that held centuries of cunning and patience, Morbus replied, "I am not one to kill a golden eggying goose for its meat. I''ve been waiting for the right moment." His eyes, though mostly hidden in the shadow of his hood, gleamed with a calcted glint. "And the right moment is now."
"Then, tet''s not fuck around. It''s time for the big reveal," Rin dered, her voice echoing with authority and anticipation in the shadowed hall. With a fluid motion, she stepped forward, drawing a crimson-red dagger from her waist. Without a moment''s hesitation, she sliced across her palm, allowing her blood to spill onto the ground below. The moment her blood touched the earth, it ignited with an otherworldly glow, the air around them shivering, distorting as if reality itself was bending. From this surreal disturbance emerged a sight both magnificent and macabre¡ªa gigantic, silver-colored hydra head, decayed and ancient. Its massive teeth, jagged and uneven, spoke of a predatory nature even in death. The head''s sheer size was awe-inspiring, its skeletal form a testament to a once-mighty creature, now reduced to a relic of its former glory.
"Sarba, the Nullifier," Rin announced with a chuckle, her stature minuscule before the enormous decayed head. She then turned towards Morbus, expectation clear in her gaze. "Your turn."
"My pleasure.", Morbus replied with a grin that only hinted at the depravity within as he stepped forward, joining Rin. Instead of a de, he used one of his decayed, filthy nails to slice open his palm. However, what flowed from his wound was not blood but a viscous, green substance that slithered to the ground like some unholy offering. The moment it made contact, the air once again rippled with unnatural energy, and beside Sarba''s head, another hydra head appeared. This one was as dark as the void itself, its decay evident in the peeling, ckened flesh and the sinister aura that enveloped it.
"This head belonged to Cain, the hydra head known for its cunning. Rivaled only by the God of Darkness himself, or perhaps, even surpassing it," Morbus proimed, his voiceced with a mix of reverence and pride.
Rin gazed upon the gargantuan head before her, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "His ability to tear through space really pissed off Andohr, the God of Time and Space," she said,ughing as she reveled in the thought of the discord Cain had sown.
"Cain is the reason the God of Darkness remained so elusive five thousand years ago." Morbus joined in herughter. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"But now, what served the God of Darkness will serve our purpose," Rin replied to Morbus, her voice cold and determined. "And by the time he and his Vedorae to see this, our n will have long seeded." She then brushed the skin of Sarba''s head with a sense of reverence mixed with a tinge of disappointment. "Still, I''m a bit pissed at Father for not letting me kill them both."
Morbus couldn''t help but chuckle at the Princess of Murder''s palpable lust for killing. "If your father, the God of Murder himself, warns against murdering someone, then you know it''s damn important. Better listen to him. After all, he can always choose another Princess of Murder," he teased, his amusement clear.
Rin snarled in response, baring her teeth in a dangerous grin. "Careful, Morbus. I can''t kill a god yet, but you''ll want to be off my list when I can," she warned, her threatced with deadly seriousness.
"Your impulse is amusing, Princess," Morbus chuckled, unaffected by her warning. "But let''s be grown-ups here andplete this little project of ours."
Rin growled, albeit agreeing with a nod. Her impatience bubbling to the surface, she then questioned, "What''s taking that bastard so long? I have blood to collect," she hissed, licking her dagger with a sense of anticipation.
"He''ll be here, Princess," Morbus replied with eerie calmness. "Unlike us, he''s trapped in his golden cage, and what he''s about to do will drain all his energy."
"That''s what he gets for being weak." Rin snickered in response, mocking the anticipated participant of their dark gathering.
Morbus chuckled once more, but his tone carried a warning. "Be warned, Princess. Andohr is not someone you want to piss off. He might be trapped in his castle, but he''s the kind that has a backup n for his backup ns."
As they were waiting, the atmosphere shifted dramatically. The air seemed to freeze, time itself appeared suspended, and the space around them distorted, heralding the arrival of another yer in their dark gathering.
Rin''s impatience manifested as a growl. "Seems like he''s here," she stated, her voice thick with anticipation and irritation.
"Or at least his representative, and my dear brother," Morbus added quickly, his tone betraying a hint of respect mixed with a familial bond.
Suddenly, the space around them violently tore open, a pure blue light sparking as the realm tear expanded before them. The air screeched in protest as the tear widened, heralding the arrival of a figure draped in gray robes, his eyes glowing an eerie green. Beneath the hood, his face appeared decayed, the skin barely clinging to his skull.
Morbus greeted the neer with a calm familiarity. "Fourcrux, the God of Necromancy and everything that is neither dead nor alive."
As Fourcrux stepped through the tear, which then closed behind him, he chuckled, "Good to see you, little brother." His gaze fell upon the two gigantic hydra heads in the hall. "Bringing a hydra head from Andohr''s castle is no joke," hemented, his voiceced with amusement. Touching the heads, he darkly chuckled.
"So much death energy... I can almost taste it."
Rin''s patience snapped at his actions. "Don''t lick it, Fourcrux," she growled, her voice echoing through the hall.
Pausing his examination of the skulls, Fourcrux turned to Rin, his smile malicious. "Rin, I thought only gods were supposed to be here," he teased, his amusement apparent.
Rin snarled in response, her pride as the Princess of Murder pushing back against the necromancer''s jibe. "Unlike you, my father Xyloth can send representatives since he has no underlings who betrayed him." Her words were a pointed reminder of Fourcrux''s own history of betrayal by his Reaper, Zariel.
Fourcrux, unfazed by the barb, let out a cold chuckle. "For my brother Xyloth, you''re no more than a toy he can y with until he gets bored."
Sensing the growing tension between Rin and Fourcrux, Morbus interjected, his voice firm. "We''re not here to mock each other or fight. We''re here to take out our brother, so let''s stop fucking around and get this done." His words cut through the air, a reminder of the grave purpose that had brought them together in this eerie hall.
Fourcrux, acknowledging the need to focus on their sinister goals, responded with a tone that mingled resignation with anticipation. "Indeed, it''s wiser to be the bigger entity in this gathering." Demonstrating hismitment, he nonchntly crushed one of his own fingers, allowing the bone dust to scatter to the floor, a grim precursor to his next act. The air behind him then stirred, signaling the arrival of another entity. From the disturbed air materialized another hydra head, this one marked by its haunting whiteness. Yellow bolts of lightning crackled around its form, adding a ferocious energy that seemed to set it apart from the others. Despite its decay, this head bore an aura of destructive power far surpassing that of its counterparts.
"Ayag, the Destroyer," Morbus announced, his voiceden with a mix of awe and dread as he beheld the formidable sight. With the three heads side by side, the energy in the room intensified, the air thick with power and malice. Rin''s grin widened, a reflection of her delight in the chaos they were about to unleash. Fourcrux, standing before the towering heads, reveled in the magnitude of their n. "I''ve already imbued my energy into Ayag''s head. Once I''m done with the rest, we''ll unleash it upon the mortal realm," he stated, his tone serious despite the macabre excitement of their endeavor.
Though his skull-like face betrayed no emotions, Fourcrux''s demeanor grew somber as he contemted their ultimate goal. "Andohr will take care of pitting the God of Darkness and the God of Light against each other. We just need to ensure this hydra of ours kills the incarnation of our dear elder brother, Death, in the mortal realm. Only then can we ascend to be Death itself."
Rin and Morbus exchanged nces, understanding the weight of Fourcrux''s words, acknowledging the perilous path they had chosen. "It''s a fucking shame I can''t witness the death of Death''s incarnation myself, but the rewards Father promises will be worth it," Rin mused, her dagger glinting as she licked its de in anticipation.
However, Morbus tempered their enthusiasm with a note of caution. "It won''t be easy. The God of Darkness will protect the incarnation at all costs. He sees her as his closest ally."
Fourcrux''s reply carried a cold determination. "That''s precisely why he can never know our target until our little beast has struck. Eve Voldiguard must die." His final statement hung in the air, a chilling decree that set the stage for their dark ambitions, underscoring the lengths to which they were willing to go to achieve their twisted version of ascendancy.
Chapter 1259 Phoenixs Real Powers I
Chapter 1259 Phoenix''s Real Powers I
Two dayster, in the bustling heart of the city of Goldspire, Borgin stood by the window of his spacious room, his gaze fixed on the lively streets below. Behind him, his team of beast tamers busied themselves with meticulous preparations for their next venture. The sound of oiling crossbows mingled with the rhythmic knitting ofs, while others checked the inscriptions on hand-sized rocks, ensuring the potency of their runes.
In the midst of this focused activity, Thoric, a stout dwarf with a penchant for straightforwardness, broke the silence. "So, are we just going to pretend like nothing extraordinary happened in that dungeon?" he asked, his brow furrowed in disbelief.
Borgin, ever the pragmatic leader, turned from the window to face his team. "And what would you have us discuss about that, Thoric?" he inquired, his tone suggesting that the topic was of little consequence.
With a sigh that spoke volumes of his incredulity, Thoric downed the remaining ale in his mug and mmed it onto the table. "We were in thepany of a god, the God of Darkness himself, and here we are, going about our business as if it''s just another day!" he eximed, unable to mask his astonishment at their nonchnce after witnessing the divine in such close quarters. N?v(el)B\\jnn
Borgin merely shook his head, a gesture of resignation to theplexities that came with deities. "Dabbling in the affairs of gods only brings trouble to our doorstep. As mortals, it''s best we steer clear," he advised, his experience as a leader shaping his perspective on such matters.
A seasoned beast tamer, his gray hair a testament to his years and his face lined with the scars of countless encounters, chimed in with his own wisdom. "I''ve been on this earth for seventy years, faced death more times than I care to count. Not once did any god, not even Nithroel, the Goddess of Hunt whom I''ve prayed to every single day,e to my aid," he shared, his voiceden with a mixture of resignation and bitterness.
Unbeknownst to the old beast tamer, Nithroel, the Goddess of Hunt, whom he had devotedly prayed to throughout his life, had been trapped in the mortal realm for thousands of years. This imprisonment rendered her incapable of hearing the prayers of her followers or intervening on their behalf. The beast tamers and hunters revered Nithroel, seeking her blessings for sess in their pursuits, while the beasts and prey turned their prayers towards Gaya, the Goddess of Monsters, hoping for protection and survival.
This division in divine allegiance set the stage for an inevitable fallout between Nithroel and Gaya. Their worshippers, embodying the very essence of hunter and hunted, naturally found themselves in opposition. The recent conflict between the two goddesses was not just a sh of divine beings but a manifestation of the longstanding rift between their respective followers. Still marveling at the surreal experience of having been in thepany of the God of Darkness, Thoric couldn''t help but reminisce,. "I mean, hanging out with the myth, the legend himself... And to think he looked so handsome and chill for a god. Didn''t feel like we were with a god, you know? He didn''t have that high and mighty air most gods who don''t even bother showing up in our world seem to carry," he joked, a light-hearted attempt to make sense of the encounter.
However, Borgin was quick to temper the lighthearted mood with a note of caution. "Looks can be deceiving," he said, his expression serious. "We should stay as far away from the gods as possible. That''s exactly why I never breathed a word of this to the Kraken n elder. We can''t afford to meddle in the affairs of gods."
The old man nodded in agreement. "Smart move," he affirmed, understanding all too well the wisdom in Borgin''s words.
Their discussion was abruptly interrupted as a young beast tamer in leather armor burst into the room, panting heavily. Thoric immediately scolded the youngster for hisck of decorum, but the urgency in the young man''s demeanor demanded their attention.
After a moment to catch his breath, the young tamer revealed his startling discovery. "Phoenix has been spotted in the distillery district, stuck there," he blurted out, his news shifting the atmosphere dramatically.
The moment Thoric heard the young man, he sprang to his feet, his eyes wide with astonishment. "Holy shit," he eximed, unable to hide his excitement at the prospect.
"Are you certain?" The old man, spurred by the gravity of the im, pressed the young tamer for confirmation. The youngster borated on his earlier hesitation, exining his initial skepticism of the rumors. "I heard the rumors yesterday but wanted to make sure before saying anything. Rumors can be just lies, after all. But I went there just in case, and I saw him... a young man with red fiery eyes and hair, as if he was trying to walk through air, blocked by something invisible. I watched from the shadows as he turned and left, his body igniting in mes for a moment. And that fire... it looked different," he recounted, still visibly shaken by the sight.
Piecing together the information, Borgin concluded with a mix of disbelief and realization. "I''ll be damned, a Phoenix stuck inside the energy barrier, unable to transform." The revtion of such a legendary creature, trapped and powerless within their city''s confines, presented a scenario none of them had ever anticipated.
Quickly seizing the moment, Borgin with a decisiveness born of years leading the beast tamers, decided to capture Phoenix. "Prepare everything. We''ll capture the Phoenix in his human form, which is both more valuable and vulnerable without the ability to transform and fly."
Thoric, caught up in the potential windfall, couldn''t contain his excitement. "Imagine the gold we''ll rake in by auctioning off the Phoenix," he said, envisioning their fortunes turning overnight.
However, Borgin, ever the strategist, quickly dismissed the idea. "That''s like ughtering the goose thatys golden eggs for a single meal," he countered, his vision far-reaching. "No, we''ll keep him caged. People will go mad just for a glimpse of him. He''ll be our tree that sprouts gold coins."
"Finally, Fortuna has smiled upon us," The old man, with a gleam in his eye, nodded in agreement.
"It''s time we moved on from this taming life and settled down like kings."
"What about those pesky griffins, are we still going after them or not?" Thoric, shifting the focus back to their original quest, inquired. His question underscored the lingering responsibilities they had yet to fulfill.
"Yeah, we have a time limit on that contract." The old man chimed in, emphasizing the urgency,
Borgin, well aware of theplexity of capturing a legendary creature like the Phoenix, weighed their options. He understood that the venture into the distillery district wouldn''t be straightforward. Yet, he also recognized that the energy barrier surrounding the area was designed to trap, allowing creatures and monsters to enter but not to leave. This gave them an opportunity to observe the Phoenix''s capabilities firsthand and devise a strategy ordingly. "We''ll head to the distillery district first and test the Phoenix''s powers. If he proves difficult to capture, we''ll then shift our focus back to the griffins, catch them, and hit the Phoneix with all we got," Borgin decided, setting their course of action.
Unbeknownst to Borgin and his team, Michael and Gaya had anticipated their move. They had already infused the air within the distillery district with a stinking potion, cleverly masking its scent amidst the overwhelming foulness of the area. This strategic move ensured that Borgin and his beast tamers, upon entering the district, would unknowingly inhale the potion, weakening them significantly. This weakening would provide the griffins, once freed from their cages, with the perfect opportunity to kill the beast tamers.
In other words, Borgin''s n to prioritize the capture of the Phoenix, while pragmatic, unwittingly yed into the hands of Michael and Gaya.
Meanwhile, a couple of buildings away, Gaya was perched with binocrs in hand, her eyes trained on Borgin''s movements. A satisfied smile yed on her lips as she observed their unwitting quarry making his way toward the distillery district. "Borgin took the bait. He''s on his way," she remarked to Michael, her voice tinged with anticipation.
Michael, who had already invested a substantial amount of his badass points into acquiring a rune capable of teleporting the Phoenix out of the distillery district despite the barrier, responded with a smile of his own. "Keep watching him," he instructed Gaya, his confidence evident in his tone. "The assassination isn''t over until the target dies."
As Borgin and his team of beast tamers neared the distillery district, they halted just outside its borders, their gazes fixed on the shimmering translucent barrier that enveloped the abandoned area. "By the gods, what is that stench?" Thoric wrinkled his nose in distaste. The foul smell emanating from within the district overwhelming his senses. The odor, a potent mix of decay and the unknown, seemed to seep into everything, promising an unpleasant venture ahead.
Borgin, however, remained focused, understanding the gravity of their mission. He turned to his team, his expression stern.
"Our primary objective is to assess the Phoenix''s capabilities," he warned, his voice carrying the weight of their daunting task. "If the Phoenix proves too powerful, we retreat immediately and devise a new strategy. This isn''t about bravado. It''s about being smart."
With that, Borgin took the lead, stepping cautiously towards the barrier. One by one, the team followed, bracing themselves against the stench that Thoric had so eloquentlymented. As they crossed the threshold, the barrier enveloping them momentarily before letting them pass, they found themselves within the eerie silence of the distillery district, the air thick with the potion that Michael and Gaya had prepared.
(I was trying not to write this chapter but without this chapter, the uing chapters feels cut off. So I decided to release this. Also, three things happening in this arc, The assassination, Andohr''s n and The State of mortal realm. So bear with me jumping POVs because at the end of this arc, something huge will happen and this is me setting up the stage)
Chapter 1260 Phoenixs Real Powers II
Chapter 1260 Phoenix''s Real Powers II
As Borgin and his team delved deeper into the distillery district, Thoric, ever the pragmatist, muttered a begrudging word of thanks towards the barrier. "Thank the gods for this barrier, keeping the stench contained," he said, relieved that the foul smell was at least somewhat held at bay within the district''s confines.
"Keep your eyes peeled. We need to find a suitable spot to set up the cage," Borgin urged his team to stay alert as his gaze swept across the destendscape of the district.
The cage they nned to construct was no ordinary trap. It was a masterpiece of design and enchantment, specifically engineered to contain powerful creatures. Engraved with runes capable of nullifying energy barriers, this cage was a testament to the skill of Abran, the renowned runemaster who met his untimely demise at the hands of the assassin in Aurumvale. Despite his lust for women, Abran''s expertise in rune mastery was unparalleled. His work on the cage designed for environments as challenging as the distillery district was a clear indication of his extraordinary abilities.
As they scouted for an ideal location to set up their trap, Thoric spotted a shadow cast on the ground near a building a few buildings away. "Over there," he pointed out, alerting the group to the potential presence of their quarry.
Reacting swiftly, the team unsheathed their weapons, swords, spears, and bows at the ready and advanced cautiously toward the shadow, prepared for any sign of the Phoenix. Borgin issued a strategicmand, instructing the old man and Linan, the young man who had brought news of the Phoenix, to hang back. "Get ready to build the cage as soon as we give the word," Borgin ordered.
The old man, understanding the gravity of their task, rubbed the space ring on his finger that contained theponents necessary to construct the cage. "Be careful," he said as Borgin and the rest of the team edged closer to the shadow. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
As they cautiously navigated their way to the source of the shadow, the team rounded the corner of the building andid eyes on a red-haired youngster engrossed in poking at a broken distilling apparatus. The sight of the hair, each strand appearing as though woven from pure fire, sent a collective shiver down their spines, a silent rm that they had indeed found their quarry: the Phoenix, in its human form.
Thoric, barely containing his astonishment, whispered to the team in a disjointed manner that reflected his disbelief. "Can it be?" he murmured, his eyes wide as saucers. A beat passed before he added. "No way... it''s the Phoenix," his voice barely above a whisper, betraying his shock at the sight before them.
"What''s he doing with that broken apparatus?" Borgin scrutinized the young Phoenix''s actions with a keen eye. In a ce like the distillery district, where apparatuses for potion making were amon sight, the interest of the Phoenix in such mundane objects piqued Borgin''s curiosity. There was something about the way the Phoenix interacted with the broken pieces¡ªa strange curiosity, almost childlike in its intensity¡ªthat caught Borgin''s attention, hinting at a depth to the Phoenix that went beyond their initial understanding of the creature.
With a strategic nod to the old man and Linan, Borgin gave the go-ahead to start constructing the cage. The significance of this moment wasn''t lost on anyone; capturing a being as rare as the Phoenix could change their fortunes forever. He then turned his attention back to his team, signaling them to fan out and prepare for an ambush. "Spread out and be ready," he whispered, his voice low but filled withmand.
As the others quietly dispersed, finding the perfect hiding spots from which to spring their trap, Thoric and Borgin crept closer to the Phoenix, who remained absorbed in his examination of the broken distilling apparatus. "What a curious little contraption," Phoenix remarked, a feigned casualness in his tone as they closed the distance.
"Every time I meet a creature or beast that can talk, it freaks me out," Thoric muttered under his breath, a mix of awe and apprehension coloring his words.
Their approach didn''t go unnoticed. Phoenix, hearing Thoric''sment, stood up and turned to face them. The sight of his fiery eyes, glowing with an otherworldly intensity, left no room for doubt. Borgin and Thoric stood frozen for a moment, their gaze locked on those burning eyes, the realization sinking in. They were indeed standing before the mythical Phoenix, thest of its kind¡ªa creature of legend and power, now just a few paces away.
Observing the Phoenix closely, Thoric couldn''t resist making a quip. "He doesn''t look like much, just a golden eggying goose." Phoenix, taking Thoric''s words quite literally and with an innocence characteristic of his nature, appeared slightly confused by theparison. "There must be something wrong with your eyesight, dwarf. I am not a goose. I am in my human form, which is quite different from that of a goose," he responded earnestly, not grasping the metaphorical nature of Thoric''s remark.
Thoric, taken aback by the Phoenix''s literal interpretation and his calm, childlike innocence, frowned.
"There''s nothing wrong with my eyesight, bird."
But Phoenix, unfazed by the dwarf''s growing irritation, simply reiterated his confusion. "But you said I look like a goose thatys golden eggs," he pointed out, genuinely perplexed.
"To us, you are." Thoric''s frustration only deepened as he growled back. It was clear that Thoric saw the Phoenix as a valuable prize, much like a mythical goose that could bring them untold wealth.
Once again, the Phoenix shook his head, his response highlighting his inability to understand the nuances of human expressions. "I am a Phoenix, not a goose," he stated inly, his tone reflecting his straightforward understanding of the world around him.
Thoric''s patience finally reached its breaking point, his characteristic dwarven temper ignited by the Phoenix''s literal interpretations. "I''m going to enjoy caging you, bird," he dered, his voice thick with the promise of impending conflict. Without another word, he surged forward toward the Phoenix, his war hammer ready in his hands.
In the kingdom of Sagespire, the barriers suppressed one''s cultivation, a fact that worked in Thoric''s favor as he didn''t need to concern himself with the Phoenix''s potentially superior cultivation stage. Moreover, the kingdom''s rules prohibiting conflict within its borders did not extend to creatures, allowing Thoric and his team tounch their attack on the Phoenix without fear of reprisal.
As Thoric charged, the rest of Borgin''s team sprang into action. Crossbow bolts tied tos and arrows zipped through the air, aiming to ensnare the Phoenix and immobilize him. Borgin, meanwhile, remained a step back, his gaze fixed on the unfolding scene, eager to discern any hint of the Phoenix''s abilities that they could exploit.
However, before Thoric, thes, or the arrows could make contact, the Phoenix''s body erupted in pure red mes. The fire, intense and otherworldly, consumed the iing projectiles, reducing them to ash in mere moments. The sight of the mes prompted Thoric to instinctively leap back, putting distance between himself and the sudden inferno.
The intense heat emanating from the Phoenix''s protective mes left Thoric and Borgin momentarily stunned, the scorching aura so fierce it singed Thoric''s beard, prompting an involuntary curse from the dwarf. Borgin, realizing the immediate danger, quickly stepped back to reassess the situation, his mind racing for a new approach.
"It''s in your best interest to cease this and return to wherever you came from," Phoenix advised, his voice steady and serene, betraying no hint of distress despite the aggressive attempts to capture him.
Thoric, however, was not one to back down easily, especially not after havinge so close to their target. "Not a chance," he dered defiantly, unwilling to abandon their mission. In a desperate bid to turn the tide, Thoric resorted to using smoke bombs and disorienting st runes. With a flick of his wrist, he deployed these tools, hoping to cloud Phoenix''s senses and catch him off guard.
The smoke bombs exploded in a dense cloud, enveloping the area in a thick haze, while the runes released disorienting pulses aimed at disrupting Phoenix''s focus. Thoric''s n was to use this momentary confusion to his advantage, hoping to close the distance and secure the capture of the legendary creature.
Just as Thoric nned, the smoke bomb and the sh from the disorienting rune indeed achieved their intended effect, momentarily stunning the Phoenix. Thoric seized this opportunity, swinging his axe with precision, careful not to inflict a fatal wound on the Phoenix. However, the Phoenix''s agility and awareness, even amidst disorientation, allowed him to narrowly evade the de''s edge.
In the heat of the moment, a peculiar scene unfolded. The Phoenix, rather than retaliating with his fiery powers, resorted to a surprisingly mundane form of defense. He delivered a swift kick to Thoric''s rear, knocking the dwarf to the ground. But he didn''t stop there; he continued to kick Thoric in the buttocks, each strike deliberate yet devoid of any apparent anger or aggression.
Thoric, taken aback by this unexpected turn of events, found himself on the receiving end of a series of humiliating kicks. "What the fuck? Stop that, you sted bird!" he cursed, trying to scramble away from the Phoenix''s unrelenting assault.
On the other hand, Gaya, who had been watching the unfolding scene from a distance alongside Michael, was both shocked and amused by what she saw. "He''s literally kicking his butt," she eximed to Michael, barely able to contain her disbelief andughter. Her intention had been to use "kick his butt" as a figure of speech, amon idiom to encourage Phoenix to defend himself aggressively. However, Phoenix, with his characteristic literal interpretation of her words, had taken her advice to heart in the most direct manner possible.
"I just said ''kick his butt'' as a way to cheer him on, not...not this," Gaya sighed. The sight of the Phoenix, a being of mythic power and legend, actually kicking Thoric''s butt in a literal interpretation of her encouragement was something she hadn''t anticipated.
While witnessing the scene, Michael couldn''t help but chuckle at the unexpected strategy employed by the Phoenix. "Well, he''s certainly taking your words to heart," he remarked, finding humor in the situation. "Looks like we have to be a bit more specific with our instructions to him in the future. For now, let''s get him out of here," Michael said before standing up from the log he was sitting on.
Chapter 1261 A Threat To Michaels 100% Track Record?
Chapter 1261 A Threat To Michael''s 100% Track Record?
Gaya, assessing the situation with a strategist''s eye, queried Michael about the timing of their escape. "Have they breathed in the potion long enough? It''s time to get Phoenix out of there," she said, her concern for Phoenix''s safety paramount.
Michael nodded in agreement but couldn''t help being drawn to the intricately designed purple cage adorned with glowing golden runes that Borgin''s team had constructed. "That cage might be worth taking," he suggested, eyeing the potential in the artifact before them.
Gaya hesitated, her gaze following Michael''s. "I don''t know... It seems like it''s only useful for caging beasts. And once I advance further in my godhood, we won''t need to cage beasts anymore, which kind of defeats the point of being the fucking Goddess of Monsters," she reasoned, pondering the long-term utility of the cage.
However, Michael offered a different perspective, gently shaking his head. "You have a long way to go before reaching the higher levels of your godhood, and we''re still figuring out how to elevate it. Besides, artifacts like this cage can be modified to suit our needs," he argued, his mind already envisioning how the cage''s runes could be altered to confine more powerful enemies as part of their contingency ns.
Realizing she couldn''t sway Michael and acknowledging the strategic merit in acquiring the cage, especially from the beast tamers she despised, Gaya found herself amused by the notion of stealing their prized possession. "Alright, let''s take it," she conceded, signaling to Phoenix through the earpiece. "Run to the designated spot we discussed."
Phoenix, upon hearing Gaya''s instruction, ceased his fiery assault on the traps and swiftly turned to make his escape. Thoric and the others, realizing their quarry was slipping through their fingers, cried out in frustration. "Don''t let that bastard get away!"
Borgin, however, sensed the sudden shift in the Phoenix''s behavior as more than mere coincidence. It felt orchestrated, as if Phoenix were acting on a cue. This realization sparked a wary intuition in him, suggesting they might be walking into a trap. "Retreat! Don''t chase after him," hemanded urgently, his voice carrying the weight of hismand. "We cane backter. I''ve got a bad feeling about this."
Borgin''s team, their adrenaline still running high from the pursuit, found themselves questioning his sudden order to retreat. "What the fuck? Why are we retreating?!"
"We can do this!" "Are you kidding me?"
They shouted back, their voices tinged with a mix of frustration and disbelief. They were not ustomed to backing down, especially not when their target seemed within reach.
However, Borgin, already retreating with deliberate steps, wasn''t swayed by their protests. "This feels like a trap," he shouted over his shoulder, his voice firm, cutting through the heated murmurs of dissent. "The Phoenix... he could have easily turned us to ashes if he wanted, but he didn''t. He''s acting differently, and that gives me a bad feeling," he exined, his instincts as a seasoned hunter telling him that something was amiss. As he continued to back away, Borgin''smand was clear. "Back off!" he insisted, his authority as the leader of the group asserting itself. Despite their initial reluctance, the gravity of Borgin''s words and the genuine concern evident in his tone began to take hold. The realization that they might indeed be walking into a carefullyid trap,bined with the acknowledgment that the Phoenix''s behavior was uncharacteristically passive, prompted them to reconsider their stance.
Reluctantly, Borgin''s team began to fall back, their heavy breathing a testament to the intensity of the moment. The sense of unease that had settled over Borgin was contagious, and as they retreated from the distillery district, the team couldn''t help but feel that they had narrowly avoided a situation that could have ended disastrously. As Linan and the old man observed their team''s unexpected retreat, Linan couldn''t hide his confusion. "What are they doing?" he questioned, watching in disbelief as Borgin led their retreat.
The old man, whose experience had granted him a more nuanced understanding of their predicament, spected on the Phoenix''s power, especially given the scorched appearance of Thoric and the others. "That Phoenix might be more powerful than we anticipated," he mused, recalling the intense heat that had washed over them minutes earlier. "We need to get out of here. Let''s take this cage down," he decided, signaling the need for a swift departure.
"Why?" Linan, still puzzled, asked. "Just do it," The old man said firmly, leaving no room for further questions. Together, they tapped specific runes on the cage, initiating its disassembly. Piece by piece, the cage began to copse, each part vanishing into the silver space ring in the old man''s hand.
It was at that moment that the Phoenix reappeared, his body enshrouded in burning mes. From a distance, Borgin witnessed the Phoenix soaring through the air, diving down toward the old man and Linan with meteoric speed. "Watch out!" the old man yelled, but it was toote to evade the Phoenix''s dive. The collision was monumental, akin to a meteor strike. The impact generated a powerful shockwave, sending debris flying and causing nearby ruined buildings to shudder, further destabilizing their already fragile structures.
Amidst the ensuing chaos and thick smoke that enveloped the area, Michael seized the opportunity. Using shadow teleportation, he materialized near the old man just as the collision rendered him unconscious. With swift precision, Michael snatched the space ring from the old man''s hand.
Thoric, driven by anger and refusing to retreat without action, hurled his war axe at the Phoenix. But the Phoenix, sensing the imminent danger, quickly retreated from the attack.
"Move out! Thoric, get Linan and Davan out of here!" Borgin ordered. Hismand cut through the chaos, emphasizing the urgency of their withdrawal.
As the team scrambled to obey Borgin''s orders, Michael, having secured the space ring, teleported away from the scene with a discreetness that allowed him to go unnoticed in the confusion.
Eventually, Borgin and his team, weary and battered from their ordeal, reached the outskirts of Goldspire. The sight of the city walls ahead offered a momentary sense of relief. Borgin understood that, should their recent encounter have been a trap, they would find safety within the kingdom''s boundaries. Attacking them there would mean defying the will of Goddess Seshat, a transgression few would daremit.
However, just a few meters from the city gates, where guards in fully ted armor stood vignt, an unmistakable screech tore through the silence. It was a sound Borgin and his team had hoped not to hear again so soon, the piercing cry of a griffin.
They looked upwards, squinting against the darkening sky that loomed overhead, heavy with clouds yet stingy with rain. Arge shadow moved above, ominous and swift. "Not a fucking griffin!" Thoric, recognizing the threat, eximed in frustration.
As if on cue, the griffin broke through the cloud cover, diving towards them with a lethal focus. The city guards, recognizing the imminent danger of a monster attack, immediately rang the rm bell and began the procedure to close the gates.
Borgin and his team, realizing their precarious position and still carrying Linan and the old man, broke into a desperate run towards the city, their energy reserves nearly depleted from their encounter with the Phoenix and the arduous journey back. They had hoped the city''s walls would offer them sanctuary, but the griffin''s roar, powerful enough to stagger the guards attempting to seal the gate, dashed those hopes.
The griffin, undeterred by the city''s defenses, soared through the open gate, its massive form casting a shadow over the town square as itnded with a thud that echoed through the streets.
The sudden appearance of the griffin in the heart of Goldspire sent shockwaves of fear and disbelief through the gathered crowd. "A griffin, in the city!" one person shouted, their voiceced with panic. "Goddess Seshat, protect us!" another cried out, as people scrambled in all directions, seeking cover from the imposing beast that had so brazenly breached their sanctuary.
Michael and Gaya, having utilized Michael''s portable portal, had arrived in the city well ahead of the beast tamers. They wove through the buildings and the crowd, drawn by themotion, only to witness the griffin''s unexpected assault. Immediately, they recognized the creature ¨C it was the elder griffin. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"What the fuck is he doing?" Gaya eximed in shock, her n unraveling before her eyes. Their strategy had hinged on a calcted pretense: the elder griffin and the younglings were to be caught and subsequently break free at an opportune moment to eliminate Borgin, then vanish. An outright storm through the city was never part of the equation; such action risked cing the me squarely on the griffin''s shoulders.
Cursing under her breath, Gaya moved to intervene, but Michael''s firm grasp on her arm halted her. He shook his head, his gaze fixed on the guards converging on the griffin. "The elder griffin''s gone rogue," Michael assessed, noting the drastic deviation from their n. "He''s trying to take Borgin down himself. Had he stuck to the n, they could''ve caught Borgin unawares. Now, look at this mess, the whole city''s on alert."
"So, we''re just going to stand here and do nothing?" Gaya''s frustration boiled over as she growled with the urge to act burning within her.
"That griffin fucked up our n. Now, all we can do is make sure he can take out Borgin without dragging us directly into the fray. If we step in now, it''llplicate things for us. Not only would we botch the assassination contract, but we''d also end up making enemies across Sagespire. We can''t afford to alienate Seshat ¨C she''s a potential ally we might need."
The elder griffin''s unexpected gambit had indeed thrown their carefullyid ns into disarray, leaving them no choice but to adapt and hope for a resolution that wouldn''t jeopardize theirrger objectives.
Chapter 1262 One assassination, Two Deaths
Chapter 1262 One assassination, Two Deaths
As the griffin descended upon the town square with ferocity, the air became charged with tension. Borgin and his beast tamers, already exhausted from their prior encounter, readied themselves forbat, their resolve hardened by the sight of the imposing creature. Soldiers, alerted by the ringing rms, swarmed into the area, their armor nking with each hurried step.
"Brace yourselves," Borgin ordered, his voice cutting through the charged air as his team scrambled into position.
The ringing rms alerted soldiers, who swarmed into the area, their armor nking with each hurried step. "Form up! Protect the city!" the captain shouted, rallying his men into a defensive line against the iing threat.
On the other hand, the beast tamers, relying on their array of specialized gadgets,unched a barrage of attacks. Nets embedded with weighted edges were hurled towards the griffin, designed to entangle its massive wings and bring it to the ground. Crossbow bolts, tipped with tranquilizers potent enough to subdue lesser beasts, whistled through the air, aiming for the griffin''s vital spots.
"Aim for the eyes!" a beast tamer yelled, hoping to incapacitate the mighty creature.
However, the griffin, with its keen senses and agility, evaded thes, slicing through them with sharp talons that shimmered like steel. The tranquilizer bolts found their mark, but the griffin''s formidable constitution rendered them less effective than hoped. However, the griffin, with its keen senses and agility, evaded thes, slicing through them with sharp talons that shimmered like steel. The tranquilizer bolts found their mark, but the griffin''s formidable constitution rendered them less effective than hoped. "Hold the line!" the captain bellowed, but the griffin''s powerful beak and ws rended armor as though it were paper.
The soldiers fought valiantly, their swords and spears dancing in the air, aiming to wound the griffin and protect their city. Shields were raised in a futile attempt to fend off the griffin''s attacks, but the creature''s strength was overwhelming. One soldier, braver than the rest, managed a sessful strike, his spear finding a gap in the griffin''s feathers and drawing blood. "Got you, you beast!" he eximed triumphantly, only to be met with the griffin''s swift retaliation.
Yet, the griffin''s retaliation was swift and brutal. With a powerful sweep of its wings, it unleashed a gust that knocked several soldiers off their feet, their bodies crashing into the surrounding structures with bone-jarring force. It then focused its attention on Borgin and his team, its eyes burning with a mix of pain and rage.
Despite their preparation, Borgin''s team found themselves outmatched. "Use the sonic disruptor, now!" Borgin ordered, hoping to gain an edge. Yet, as the griffin shook off the disorientation, itunched into a frenzied assault. "Fall back!" Borgin cried, realizing the grim reality of their situation.
Observing the unfolding chaos from a distance, Michael analyzed the situation with a cool detachment. The griffin''s plight was apparent; it was struggling against the overwhelming force of Borgin''s team and the city guards. Yet, Michael''s decision to refrain from intervening was calcted. The primary objective remained Borgin''s elimination within the contract''s time limit, and Michael''s reputation for maintaining a 100% assassination sess rate was at stake. In his eyes, if the griffin''s reckless gambit jeopardized this mission, so be it. The beast''s sacrifice would be a necessary cost.
Gaya''s emotional response to the griffin''s predicament was understandable, given her godly connection to monsters. However, Michael knew that sentiment could not dictate their actions in this critical moment. As the rational counterbnce to Gaya''s protective instincts, he focused on manipting the battlefield to the griffin''s advantage, albeit subtly.
"Let''s make things harder for them," Michael murmured to himself, seizing the opportunity to turn the tide. He skillfully utilized the debris and dust clouds kicked up by the conflict, adding his own smoke bombs to the fray. These bombs, mixed with those already deployed by the beast tamers, thickened the smoke, disorienting Borgin''s team and the soldiers further.
Using his shadow teleportation abilities, Michael then targeted the reinforcements. Buildings along the path of the approaching backup soldiers were made to crumble with precision, blocking their way and cutting them off from joining the battle. This strategic sabotage not only created chaos among Borgin''s ranks but also prevented them from overwhelming the griffin with sheer numbers.
Through these calcted interventions, Michael aimed to create a window of opportunity for the griffin. While he remained hidden in the shadows, his actions subtly shifted the odds, allowing the griffin a fighting chance to focus on Borgin without the immediate threat of being outnumbered. On the other hand, Gaya was watching the fierce battle unfold and couldn''t help but shout in frustration at the griffin''s reckless strategy. "Don''t get yourself killed, you dumb fuck," Gaya muttered under her breath, her frustration with the griffin''s brazen tactics evident. Yet, as she watched the battle unfold, she couldn''t help but notice the griffin''s strategy¡ªor, more urately, itsck thereof. The creature wasn''t employing any defensive maneuvers; instead, it wasunching itself into the heart of the fray with reckless abandon, focused solely on the offensive.
The soldiers, emboldened by their numbers and the perceived upper hand,nded more and more attacks on the griffin. Their swords and spears found flesh, drawing blood that stained the cobblestones beneath their feet. Yet, for every wound they inflicted, the griffin retaliated with ferocious intensity, its talons and beak a blur of motion that tore through the soldiers'' ranks with devastating efficiency.
In the midst of this chaos, Thoric, driven by a mix of courage and rage, saw an opening. With a battle cry that echoed through the town square, he leapt towards the griffin, his weapon raised for a decisive blow. "DIE YOU UGLY FUCK!"
But the griffin, quick to react, snapped its giant beak open, engulfing Thoric in one swift, fatal motion. The sight of the dwarf disappearing into the depths of the griffin''s maw sent a shockwave through the onlookers, a grim reminder of the creature''s lethal prowess.
Gaya, witnessing the scene, felt a pang of sadness for the griffin''s seemingly suicidal determination. It became clear to her that the creature had no intention of retreating or sparing itself. The griffin was willing to die to ensure Borgin''s death.
Weakened by the potion they had unknowingly inhaled, Borgin and his team struggled to maintain their usual pace and strength. The effects of the potion,bined with Michael''s strategic sabotage from the shadows that effectively cut off any reinforcements, left the beast tamers in a perilous situation.
In the heat of the battle, the old man Davan saw an opportunity. He rushed to where the griffin was preupied with Borgin and the others, intending to construct the cage designed for ensnaring rare and powerful creatures¡ªa desperate measure in their life-or-death struggle. However, as he reached for the space ring that contained the cageponents, panic set in. "Where... where is it?!" he eximed, frantically searching his arm. The realization that the ring was missing sent shock waves through him. "No, no, NO! This can''t be happening!" he shouted, his voiceced with disbelief and terror.
Unbeknownst to him, Michael had stealthily removed the ring, leaving Davan powerless to summon the cage. As Davan stood there, reeling from the loss, the griffin''s attention shifted. With a swift movement of its tail, the griffin swatted the old man, sending him flying through the air. Hended with a thud, coughing up blood, a clear sign of the severe injury inflicted by the griffin''s powerful strike.
Linan, in an attempt to aid, found himself beneath the griffin''s crushing weight. The creature''s legs, already bleeding from cuts inflicted by the soldiers, bore down on him, crushing him under immense pressure to a pulpy paste. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Borgin, witnessing the dwindling numbers of his team and feeling the weight of his own exhaustion, pushed himself to continue the fight despite not being at his peak. The griffin, seizing the moment, snapped its giant beak towards him. Borgin managed a narrow evasion, but not without cost¡ªthe beak caught his shoulder, shattering the bone with a sickening crunch. "Aaargh!" he growled, pain and frustration boiling over as he realized the tide of battle was turning against them.
In a desperate bid to end the battle, Borgin made a bold decision. He retrieved an explosive bomb from his space ring, nning to leap at the griffin in a moment of sacrifice. His strategy was clear: when the griffin opened its beak to consume him, as it had Thoric, he would toss the bomb into its mouth and use a mini crossbow bolt with a grappling hook attached to make his escape. Beast tamers typically resorted to killing beasts only as ast resort, either when the creatures proved too dangerous to capture or when their contract explicitly required it.
"EAT THIS!" As Borgin charged, shouting to draw the griffin''s attention, he executed his n. He tossed the bomb towards the griffin''s gaping mouth and fired the grappling hook to reel away. However, Michael, ever watchful from the shadows, intervened. With a precise throw, he cut the line of the grappling hook with a dagger, sabotaging Borgin''s escape route.
The bomb met its target, and the resulting explosion was devastating. The force of the st engulfed the area, catching Borgin in its fiery wrath. The contract may have forbidden Michael and Gaya from using spells directly against their targets, but it said nothing about tampering with the target''s equipment, a loophole Michael exploited to deadly effect.
When the smoke and dust began to settle, the aftermath was heart-wrenching. The griffiny on the ground, its majestic head mangled by the explosion, barely clinging to life, its body bleeding and scorched, with bones gruesomely exposed. The soldiers, though better protected by their armor, were knocked unconscious by the st''s shockwave.
Amidst the chaos, the griffin, with itsst breath, seemed to lock its gaze in Gaya''s direction. "Look after my kids...protect our kind," it pleaded through a mental connection, entrusting her with the future of its kin. The gravity of the moment, the passing of a guardian, brought a tear to Gaya''s eye, a silent vow to honor the griffin''s dying wish.
Realizing his danger, Borgin struggled to move away from the copsing beast. But Michael, from a distance, sealed his fate with a paralyzing dart, ensuring Borgin couldn''t escape. With a final, graceless thud, the griffin fell upon the leader of the beast tamer guild, crushing him beneath its weight. The man who had made a career out of taming and hunting beasts met his end under one, an ironic twist that fulfilled the assassin''s contract to the letter.
Chapter 1263 Becoming a death merchant guild member
Chapter 1263 Bing a death merchant guild member
After the chaos had subsided and the remnants of the battle were cleared away, Michael and Gaya found themselves back in their room, joined by the assassin who had overseen their initiation. "Congrattions on pulling off the assassination andpleting your initiation," he said, nodding in approval. "Though, let''s be honest, it could''ve been cleaner. Using monsters... well, it tends toplicate things."
Still seething with anger and clouded by loss, Gaya barely listened to his critique. Her emotions were a turbulent mix of rage and sorrow, the criticism of her beloved monsters only fueling her anger. Unbeknownst to the assassin, he was treading dangerous ground, voicing disdain for monsters in the presence of their very goddess.
On the other hand, Michael found some merit in the assassin''s words. "Yeah, it could''ve been smoother," he admitted, his tone reflective. Despite the sess, he wasn''t entirely pleased with how events had unfolded. The griffin''s kamikaze strategy had strayed far from their initial n. This was why, Michael preferred the direct approach, where he was in control, where he pulled the trigger. Orchestrating a death through a third party, especially involving creatures like the griffin, introduced too many variables. "Too many damn variables," he grumbled inside, recognizing that in the business of assassination, even the smallest detail could derail the most carefullyid ns.
"But you know," Michael continued, his voice tinged with a hint of frustration. "This is why I hate setting up these kinds of scenarios. There''s always something or someone that goes off-script. When you try to make it look like an ident or get someone else to do your dirty work, there''s just too much that can fuck it all up."
The assassin acknowledged Michael''s sentiment, adding ayer of wisdom to their debrief. "It''s supposed to be hard," he pointed out. "That''s the difference between just killing someone and assassinating them. Anyone can kill, but it takes an assassin to n, execute, and get away with murder."
Michael absorbed the lesson and nodded in agreement. Despite being the top assassin on Earth, he never let arrogance cloud his judgment. Instead, he embraced the opportunity to learn, keenly aware of the wealth of experience the Death Merchants Guild and the assassin before him had to offer.
With the initiation now sessfully behind them, the assassin shifted gears. "Now that you''vepleted your initiation, it''s time for you to officially be part of the Death Merchants," he dered. Then, he produced a medallion, unremarkable at first nce, resembling a simple pebble. With a deliberate motion, he crushed it, releasing a sudden burst of ck smoke.
The smoke swirled around Michael and Gaya, thickening into a veil that obscured their surroundings. Momentster, they found themselves transported back to the dark, torch-lit halls of the Death Merchants Guild, the ce where their journey with the guild had started.
Once inside the hall, the assassin picked up on Gaya''s unusual quietness. "You''ve been awfully quiet," he observed, eyeing her closely. "Just relieved it''s over." Gaya, her emotions a mixture of relief and contemtion, simply responded.
The assassin''s chuckle broke the brief tension. "The fun''s just getting started," he said, hinting at the challenges and thrills thaty ahead. Michael sensed that more demanding and exciting tasks were on the horizon, each one potentially moreplex than thest.
As they were led to the center of the hall, they approached a pir topped with a ceramic basin and a knife resting beside it. The assassin gestured towards them. "Show me your palms and give a little cut," he instructed, indicating the need for their blood in the basin. Reluctantly, Michael and Gayaplied, slicing their palms and watching as their blood dripped into the ceramic, which seemed to absorb the crimson fluid eagerly.
"This is how we keep tabs on you," the assassin exined, his tone casual yet carrying an underlying threat. "If you even whisper about the Death Merchants to anyone outside, we''ll know." He then rified the guild''s hierarchy. "Until you climb the ranks, forget about bringing in new blood like I did with you. And remember," he continued. "The higher you go in the guild, the sweeter the rewards."
"Are you ready for your next jobs?" the assassin asked, his gaze sharp and assessing.
"Better pay well, though." Michael, with a half-smile, nodded and quipped. Hearing Michael, the assassinughed, appreciating the mix of humor and seriousness. "Someone who''s driven by rewards, huh? You''ll fit right in here," he said approvingly. Then, shifting to business, he tossed a space ring to Michael. "Inside, you''ve got half a million gold coins, plus a little trinket that might save your ass one day. Though, if you''re as good as you im, you probably won''t need it." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Thanks," Michael responded, catching the ring and feeling its weight and potential.
"There''s one more stop we need to make, and then I''m done with you two. You''ll be on your own, running your own show," the assassin concluded, indicating that their time under his direct guidance wasing to an end.
The assassin, with a familiar motion, crushed another pebble, and in an instant, they were teleported to a new location. They found themselves in what appeared to be a tavern, a ce that hummed with a unique blend of secrecy and casual revelry.
The bartender, a man with a cyclical bar mustache interwoven with strands of gray, surveyed his domain with experienced eyes. The patrons varied widely in attire and demeanor, from those cloaked in dark hoods lurking in the shadows to others in colorful noble dresses, exuding a sense of mboyant mystery.
Most of the patrons seemed to prefer their ownpany, sipping their drinks contemtively, while a few were engaged in quiet, intense conversations in pairs. Beautiful elves glided between the tables, their grace unmatched as they attended to the guests. One elf, leaning over to serve a patron, her voice dripping with a seductive lilt, inquired. "Another round, or perhaps something... stronger?" Her smile was inviting, a promise of secrets shared in the dim light.
A patron, captivated by her charm, flirted back with a grin, "Stronger sounds tempting, but it''s yourpany that truly intoxicates." At another table, a conversation took a darker turn,ced with gallows humor. "You know," one hooded figure mused to another, "I once told my target I''d let him go if he made meugh. Poor soul couldn''t even muster a giggle before the end."
"Ah, but it''s thestugh that counts, doesn''t it?" Hispanion chuckled, the sound low and sinister. As they navigated through the tavern, Michael and Gaya noted the curious nces from some assassins. These nces were brief, as most quickly returned to their drinks and whispered conversations. However, a few eyes lingered on Damien, their expressions mixing fear and respect.
Reaching the bar, the bartender greeted the assassin familiarly. "Seems like you''ve brought in some new blood, Damien," he remarked, eyeing Michael and Gaya with a mix of curiosity and appraisal.
"Yeah, they did pretty well in their initiation," Damien responded with a nod.
The bartender, Clint, let out a knowing chuckle. "Let me guess, Borgin Ironfist?" This caught Michael and Gaya off guard. They were in a ce that was clearly not Sagespire, yet Clint was well informed about their recent exploits.
"Name''s Clint," the bartender continued, "I''m your bartender, guide, and contract giver." Heid out his roles with a casual ease that belied the importance of his position within the guild.
"Clint''s the guy who bridges the gap between you low-rankers and the higher-ups." Damien looked at them and exined. "The more jobs youplete, the less you have to see his old face." He then added with a hint of humor, Clintughed at that, the lines in his face deepening with amusement. "Don''t forget where you came from, Damien. You were once a newbie just like them. And this ''old man'' here taught you the ropes... maybe a bit too well." His tone was light but carried an undercurrent of pride.
Damien smiled at the friendly jibe and turned back to Michael and Gaya. "Clint will answer any questions you have and give you your guild cards. Those are your keys to get in and out of here, so keep them safe."
Finally, Damien turned around to leave as he looked at them both.
"Adios. Do better next time, and we''ll meet again soon," he said before turning away and leaving the tavern.
After Damien''s departure, Clint''s attention turned back to Michael and Gaya. "If that guy recruited you, you must be quite the pair," he mused, sizing them up. "Makes sense, though. Not many could take out Borgin, especially with a griffin involved."
"It didn''t go exactly as nned." Michael gave a half-smile, admitted.
"But you did it, right? Any assassination is a good one if you walk away alive and leave no trace behind." He then leaned over and picked up a pink card adorned with delicately embossed flowers. "Here, take this. These runes will let you in and out of here. Just don''t sh it around if you''re in hot water; that''s not how we assassins roll."
"A pink card with flowers? Really?" Gaya took one look at the card and couldn''t help butment. "What''s next, glitter and unicorns on our assassination contracts?"
"What did you expect? ck and dark with a skull? Come on, that''s too damn obvious. We''re assassins, not clich¨¦ merchants. Subtlety, remember?" Clint chuckled at her reaction. Clint then produced a stack of parchments, each one detailing a different contract, and spread them out before Michael and Gaya. "Pick something that suits your style," he advised, his voice serious now, underscoring the gravity of their choices. "But remember, the tougher the job and the higher the priority of the target, the quicker you''ll move up the ranks. Aim to be a Reaper of Death, like Damien."
As they leaned in to peruse the contracts, contemting which path to choose in their burgeoning careers as assassins, Michael''s attention was momentarily diverted. In the reflective surface of a ss on the shelf behind Clint, he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure. His eyes narrowed in recognition. It was none other than Jin himself.
Chapter 1264 Contract On Torug, Rainars Clone Creating Orc
1264 Contract On Torug, Rainar''s Clone Creating Orc
When Jin entered the tavern designated for Death Merchant newbies, he was visibly taken aback. The sight of Michael, known as the god of darkness, sitting there reignited memories of their harrowing encounter in the dungeon, where Jin had narrowly escaped having his soul absorbed by Valorix.
Quick to regain hisposure, Jin masked his initial shock, keenly aware of the unspoken rule in the guild: never reveal too much. In this den of assassins, secrets were currency, and trust was a raremodity.
"Hey kiddo, meet our new newbies," Clint said, introducing Michael and Gaya as Jin made his way over and took a seat next to Michael.
"Hello, Jin," Michael greeted him with a calm nod, recognizing the assassin from their shared past ordeal.
"You two know each other?" Clint inquired, picking up on the undercurrent of familiarity.
"Yeah, we had a run-in in the dungeon back in Aurumvale," Gaya added, her voice steady despite the internal conflict she felt about the griffin and its dying wish.
"Great. But in here, remember, there are no friends. Just fellow assassins." Clint, with a knowing smile, reminded them. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Michael acknowledged Clint''s advice with a nod, his attention then returning to the parchmentsid out before him. Scanning through the contracts, one in particr caught his eye.
"I''ll be damned," he murmured, examining a portrait of an orc in his grasp. This orc was a servant of Rainar, someone Michael had encountered before, during a frantic battle to reach Celestial Valley and save Gaya. He remembered that thest time they met, he had dealt with Rainar''s soldiers and what he thought was the orc, but it had been only clones; the real one was still out there.
"Torug¡ Angel of Rainar," Michael said, recognizing the name and the potential for closure that this contract offered.
"Torug, huh? He''s been causing chaos in Nimbosia with his crew since Rainar''s fall. They''re a nasty bunch, especially now that they''ve lost their god. Makes them unpredictable and dangerous." Clint added.
Curious about the broader implications, Gaya asked, "Speaking of Rainar, what''s thetest in Nimbosia?" It was clear that Clint, ever informed, had his finger on the pulse of the wider world''s events.
"Care for a round?" Clint, while cleaning a ss cup, casually offered. Then he poured wine for Jin, ncing at Michael and Gaya for their preference. "I don''t drink." Michael gestured.
"Good for you," Clint responded, a hint of surprise in his voice, adding with a chuckle, "Don''t expect me to have juices, though."
Michael smiled as Clint got back to their earlier conversation. "About Torug," Clint began, filling them in, "After Rainar''s death, he''s been on a rampage. Rumor has it he''s searching for the god of darkness." Jin shifted ufortably at the mention, aware of Michael''s true identity sitting beside him.
"Why''s that?" Gaya, feigning ignorance, asked.
Clint leaned in, lowering his voice a bit, "There''s talk in the pantheon that the god of darkness might have killed Rainar. Hard to believe, right? Everyone thought a god couldn''t be killed, but with no rain in Nimbosia or anywhere else, it''s pretty clear Rainar is gone."
He then leaned back, a wry smile crossing his face. "If the god of darkness really did off Rainar, he''s the greatest assassin ever. People here can''t even figure out how he pulled it off."
While ncing at the contract, Michael''s eyes were drawn to the contract''s reward section, noting the payout of 100,000 gold coins and 1,000 Guild points. As Gaya browsed through the stack of parchments, she remarked on the disparity in the bounties offered. "Look at these. Some are paying a million coins!" she pointed out, her surprise evident.
Michael nced over, his attention caught by the discrepancy in rewards. "That''s because those contracts offer fewer guild points. The tougher the job, the more guild points you get, but the gold is less. Here, guild points are worth more than gold." Clint noticed their interest and exined.
"So, hitting the big leagues means stacking up on these guild points, huh?" Michael nodded, understanding the currency of prestige within the guild''s economy.
"Exactly. You need 10,000 guild points to get to the second floor. Up there, the contracts are juicier, the rewards bigger, and the guild gives you better goodies the higher you climb." Clint affirmed.
The conversation illuminated the guild''s inner workings, showing Michael and Gaya the path to ascend within its ranks and the importance of prioritizing guild points over gold to advance their status and ess more lucrative opportunities.
"How many floors are in this guild?" Michael inquired, his curiosity piqued.
"Six," Clint replied, polishing a ss. "Damien''s on the fifth. No one''s hit the sixth level in quite some time."
Taking this in, Michael mentally noted the need to climb higher in the ranks, seeing it as a challenge to his skills and ambitions.
"What kind of perkse with reaching higher levels?" Gaya, intrigued by the conversation, asked.
He set down the ss, leaning in slightly. "Well, it varies. Perks range from mundane stuff like free houses and custom-made armors to rare cultivation resources. At level five, there''s even a perk that can bring you back from the dead if you die on a job."
"Bring someone back from death, is that even possible?" Gaya asked, her shock evident.
Clint chuckled at her astonishment, then leaned in to exin, "The Death Merchants was founded by Death himself. He controls Death, and for him, bringing someone back is as simple as lifting his finger."
"Has anyone actually seen him?" Michael, intrigued and as a god himself curious about the aspects of death, queried.
Clintughed, shaking his head. "You don''t just ''see'' Death and live to talk about it. Meeting Death means exactly that¡ªyou die. That''s the end of the story." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Death is unique. He''s part of the pantheon, but not many gods have seen him, let alone mortals."
Clint reminisced about his own experiences with deities. "In my lifetime, I''ve only seen a few gods ¨C Seshat, Fortuna, and Luxor. These three are considered to be kinder, showing themselves to their worshippers now and then. But the other gods," he snorted. "They''re just jerks, hardly ever showing their faces or caring about us mortals."
Hearing Clint''s musings, Jin couldn''t resist interjecting. "Don''t be too sure, Clint. Some gods walk among us." His eyes flickered briefly towards Michael, a subtle hint at the hidden truth.
Clint, oblivious to the deeper meaning of Jin''s words, just chuckled and responded with a light-hearted jest. "The day I learn I''ve had a drink with a god, I''ll go bald and shave off this magnificent beard."
"You must really like that beard, huh?" Gaya grinned and teased.
"Since you''ve chosen Torug''s contract," Clint began, his tone shifting to business, "this card will take you straight to Nimbosia." He then produced a cube and a seal, pressing the seal onto the contract, leaving a skull imprint, symbolizing the deadly nature of their task. He asked for their cards, cing them on the cube. For a moment, the cards shimmered, pulsating with an unseen energy, signifying their activation for the journey ahead.
Clint leaned back, offering a bit of insight into their destination. "Nimbosia''s a mess right now," he said, pouring another drink. "After Rainar''s tyrannical rule, some nobles are trying to rebuild, but there''s division everywhere. Some still worship Rainar, hoping for his return or a sessor, while others believe he''s not really gone. You''ve got different factions vying for power."
He paused, locking eyes with Michael and Gaya. "If I were you, I''d start with getting they of thend, find out where Torug fits into this chaos. Take him out quietly, if you can."
Michael and Gaya stood up, acknowledging the advice. "We''ll touch base after we deal with the orc," Gaya dered confidently.
Michael, tapping into his celestial power, infused a sliver of energy into the card. The guild''s bustling atmosphere faded as an invisible bubble formed around them, whisking them away to their next mission in the troublednds of Nimbosia, leaving the shadowy haven of the Death Merchants behind.
Arriving in an alleyway of Nimbosia, Michael and Gaya were struck by the transformation of the kingdom. Gone were the days of relentless rain and flooding that once defined the city''sndscape. Now, the streets were parched, with only the oppressive weight of dark clouds and the asional lightning strike to break the monotony of the dry spell.
"This is Nimbosia, huh? Kinda looks gloomy and fucked up," Gaya surveyed the scene, her expression one of disdain. At that moment, Michael felt a buzz in his ear, signaling a call from Pink. However, it was Ayag who spoke, her toneced with impatience. "Ghost, what the fuck are you still doing? We''re getting bored out of our three heads here."
"I''m in Nimbosia. Hang tight, we''ll swing by and pick you up after we deal with Rainar''s orc buddy." Michael, suppressing a chuckle, responded.
Ayag''s surprise was evident in her voice. "You mean the clone creating asshole who''s dodged death every damn time?" she asked, seeking rification.
"Yeah, the very same. His name is Torug, by the way," Michael replied.
Ayag''s response was dismissive. "I don''t give a fuck about his name. Just hurry up and get us. I wanna see that orc bite the dust."
"Alright, I''lle and get you," Michael assured Ayag. Unbeknownst to him, in just two days, he would be required to return to the mortal realm, marking the beginning of a pivotal shift in his journey. From that moment on, the consequences of his past actions would start to unravel,ing back to haunt him in ways he couldn''t yet anticipate.
Chapter 1265 Agra, The God Of Chaos
1265 Agra, The God Of Chaos
Michael hadn''t forgotten Vedora''s quest to unlock their full powers, but the pressing demands of the dungeon escapades had sidetracked him. The upgrade for his dark mes, a significant boost he needed, remained unimed, a task pending on his long to-do list.
Determined to set things right, Michael resolved to tackle this quest immediately after dealing with Torug. He knew that eliminating the orc would be just the beginning of fulfilling the broader responsibilities he had undertaken. While significant, the victory over Borgin Ironfist had opened his eyes to theplexities of Gaya''s quest. It wasn''t just about defeating a high-profile beast tamer; he needed to dismantle the entirework, freeing all the creatures held by the Beast Tamers Guild toplete her quest truly.
With so much at stake and tasks piling up, Michael felt the weight of hismitments. His n was clear: first, he would eliminate Torug, a crucial step in disrupting the remnants of Rainar''s forces. Following that, he intended to focus on freeing the captured beasts, an action that would not only fulfill Gaya''s quest but also enable her to begin her cultivation and reach the first Godhood level - Fledgling God.
As Michael and Gaya surveyed their surroundings, Michael retrieved his portable divine portal, activating it with a practiced motion. A vortex shimmered into existence before them, a gateway back to their base of operations. Stepping through it, they found themselves in the familiar space within seconds.
Their base buzzed with activity. Pink was busy enhancing her workstation, surrounded by an ever-growing array of screens and wires, creating a tech haven in the midst of their mystical world. Vedora, the three-headed hydra, was perched on the table, their presencemanding yet serene.
Upon their arrival, Ayag could not contain her excitement "Finally!" she eximed, her voice tinged with relief and joy.
"We missed you two," Sarba chimed in with a warm tone while Cain, more reserved, simply nodded in acknowledgment.
As Michael and Gaya approached, Gaya gently picked up the little hydra, embracing them softly. "What happened?" Sarba, observant as ever, detected a shadow in Gaya''s demeanor and probed.
Gaya''s response was a mix of anger and sorrow. "Everything was fucked up," she growled, her frustration evident. With a heavy sigh, she began recounting the events.
"The n was for the griffin to y along, get caught, and then break out to kill Borgin..."
Ayag listened intently, interjecting, "But that dumbass griffin went rogue, huh?"
"Yeah," Gaya continued, "it charged into the city, attacked outright. It wasn''t supposed to go down like that. The griffin... it died, and with itsst breath, it asked me to look after its kids, to protect our kind."
Catching bits of the conversation, Pink nced over at Michael, her expression a blend of sympathy and concern, but she remained silent, respecting the gravity of the moment.
After Gaya finished recounting the events, Ayag couldn''t hold back her frustration and blurted out, cursing the situation. "Dammit, Gaya, you shouldn''t be beating yourself up over this! If anyone''s to me, it''s that damn griffin for going rogue," she eximed, her voice tinged with anger and concern.
In the midst of the heated discussion, Pink chimed in, redirecting their focus. "So, what''s next?" she inquired, her gaze shifting to Michael.
"Get me everything you can on Torug, one of Rainar''s old cronies," Michael instructed, his mind already shifting to their next target.
Pink nodded, her attention returning to her screens and wires. "Yeah, but listen to this," she began, her tone indicating she had stumbled upon something intriguing. "While setting this up, I managed to eavesdrop on some chatter from Serephine''sworks and her spies."
Michael leaned in, his interest piqued by the potential intelligence Pink had uncovered.
"I picked up some chatter about a new god of rain," Pink revealed, her eyes scanning her screens. "And it seems the pantheon is already buzzing about it, trying to figure out how this new deity fits into their ranks."
At this revtion, Ayag interjected, "We''ve been digging deeper into the gods and the pantheon, and it''s weird, you know? No one really understands how a god is born or chosen. It''s like a big secret, with only a few in the pantheon actually in the know. This whole mystery around the existence and birth of gods... Dagon was obsessed with it before the pantheon gave him the boot."
Michael mulled over the information, then nodded at Pink. "Keep upgrading the system and try to hack into more server crystals. We need all we can get on Torug and his connections."
"I''m already on it," Pink, eager and focused, responded. "Let''s see what I can dig up about Torug." She settled into her chair, her fingers dancing over the glistening runes that served as her keyboard. Momentster, the screens flickered to life, disying Torug''s menacing visage and a cascade of information sourced from Serephine''swork.
As Pink scanned the data, she ryed her findings. "Seems like Torug and his band are in cahoots with God Agra," she reported. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
At the mention of Agra, Sarba interjected with curiosity, "The rogue god Agra?"
"Yes," Pink confirmed. She borated on the snippets she had gathered. "Agra''s a level 5 god, pretty much a lone wolf. He doesn''t mingle with the pantheon, and they''ve even sent angels after him, but catching him is another story." She expressed a grudging admiration for Agra''s slipperiness. "He''s elusive, alright, thriving on chaos and destruction. Doesn''t have a title like ''god of rain'' or ''god of lightning.'' More like he sees himself as the god of chaos."
"I''ve dealt with Agra''s followers before," Michael remarked, his tone hinting at past troubles. "They spread like a gue in this realm. But I''m curious what Torug''s doing with Agra."
Gaya chimed in, her voiceced with concern, "After everything we''ve heard about that orc, I bet it''s nothing good."
Michael nodded in agreement, his thoughts already on the task ahead.
"So, Torug is our next mark, huh?" Pink said, her fingers poised over her keyboard, ready to dive deeper into the digital realm. "Let''s tackle this the way we always do. You hit the ground, and I''ll uncover everything I can from here."
"We need to take him out and then shift our focus," Michael stated, his mind mapping out their strategy. "We''ve got to get Gaya powered up so she can start tackling her side of things. It''s about dividing and conquering."
Gaya, determined not to be seen as a burden or to remain passive, expressed her resolve. "I can and will take care of rescuing the beasts caged by the beast tamers," she dered confidently. She was unaware of the system or the specifics of the quest, but she knew from Michael that liberating these creatures was essential for her ascent to godhood.
"I want to do this part myself," she continued, her voice firm with conviction. "It''s personal. After what happened to the griffin, I need to make this right and start my journey to bing a god on my own terms."
"Are you sure about that?" Michael asked, his concern evident in his tone.
"Yes," Gaya responded with unwavering confidence. However, Ayag interjected, "We will go with her." This suggestion provided an extrayer of assurance for Gaya''s safety.
After considering it for a moment, Michael decided to equip Gaya with a portable divine portal, a precautionary measure to ensure her safety. "Alright, but if anything goes south, you call me immediately," he instructed, emphasizing the need for caution.
Gaya, still brimming with confidence, reassured him, "Nothing will go south. You''re forgetting I''m Gaya Wraith."
Michael gave her a supportive pat on the shoulder, signifying his trust in her abilities. "Then you go to Sagespire, and I''ll head to Nimbosia to take out Torug," he concluded, setting their ns in motion and dividing their efforts to tackle the tasks at hand more efficiently.
Michael turned to Pink, giving her specific instructions, "You work with Gaya and focus on helping her. I''ll manage on my own." Pink, familiar with Michael''s skills and independence, nodded in understanding. "I''ll take care of her, Ghost," she assured him.
Michael then retrieved the portable divine portal, initiating the sequence to transport them to Sagespire. As he and Gaya stepped into the swirling vortex, they were soon deposited in a shadowed alley of the city.
"Good luck," Michael said to Gaya in an earnest tone. He then looked at Ayag and added, "Take care of her."
Before stepping back into the portal to Nimbosia, Michael handed a device to Gaya. "Then how will you get back to us?" asked Gaya.
"I''ll manage," Michael responded with a slight smile of confidence.
With that, he stepped into the portal, leaving Gaya with the device and a silent promise of his return, as he vanished to take out Torug.
Back in Nimbosia, Michael''s strategy took shape, tailored to exploit Torug''s obsession with finding the god of darkness. Given the orc''s dangerous alliances, particrly with Agra, Michael knew a direct assault wouldn''t suffice. The situation demanded cunning and misdirection.
Slipping into a disguise, Michael donned a wig and switched his attire to blend in with the locals. His aim was to stir the pot, to seed rumors among the popce about the god of darkness. This would serve a dual purpose: it would draw out Torug, who was desperate for any lead on his quarry, and it would also muddy the waters, making it harder for Torug and his allies to discern the truth.
"Now it''s time to wait for the orc to hit the trap,"
After spreading the rumors through Nimbosia''s bustling streets, Michael made his way outside the city walls. His destination was a set of ancient ruins nestled deep within the forest, a ce shrouded in mystery and old tales, now chosen as the stage for his trap.
The ruins, remnants of a once-magnificent structure, stood solemnly amidst the wild embrace of nature. Overgrown with creeping vines and moss, the stone walls bore the scars of time, with weathered arches and copsed pirs hinting at past grandeur. Tall trees, their branches weaving a canopy above, cast dappled shadows on the ground, while the asional break in the foliage allowed shafts of sunlight to illuminate the ruines in the forest.
Chapter 1266 Face to face with the real orc, not a clone
1266 Face to face with the real orc, not a clone
Nostalgia washed over Michael as he perched in a tree branch, reminiscent of his first deadly encounter in this world with the nagas. Now, three yearster, he was back in a simr position, lying in wait, but this time his quarry was Torug and his band of followers, not the serpentine nagas.
Listening intently, he caught the sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs, signaling the approach of his targets. "Word really travels fast," Michael murmured to himself, acknowledging how swiftly the rumors he''d seeded had lured Torug into his trap.
Touching the medallion on his chest, he activated his armor. Dark tes materialized and encased himpletely, the skull emblem on his chest gleaming ominously with red eyes. Under the shadow of his hooded skull mask, Michael''s gaze was fixed and intense as he observed the group entering the ruins.
Leading the band was a bulky orc, unmistakably Torug, or at least one of his clones, Michael had previously encountered. But something told him that discerning the real Torug from his decoys would be crucial. To ensure he targeted the true enemy, Michael contemted seeking assistance from the system that had aided him so often in the past, hoping it would provide the insight needed to unmask the real Torug amidst the deceptive clones.
Torug and his cronies, a ragtag band of orc warriors and miscreants, entered the ruins, their eyes scanning the shadows. Torug, massive and menacing, his muscles bulging under his battle-scarred armor, led the group with a palpable aura of anger and vengeance.
"This is the ce," grunted Torug, his voice gravelly with hatred, "where that damn god of darkness is said to roam."
His cronies, a mix of burly orcs and sly-looking smaller creatures, murmured among themselves, their unease evident in their furtive nces. "Can we really take on a god?" one of the bolder orcs dared to ask, skepticismcing his tone.
Torug''s reaction was swift and brutal. In a disy of raw power and fury, he grabbed the questioning orc and, with a single, powerful squeeze, crushed him, his body going limp in Torug''s iron grasp. Dropping the lifeless form, Torug red at the rest of his band, his eyes burning with an unhinged resolve.
"If Rainar can be killed," Torug growled, addressing his stunned followers, "then so can the god of darkness." His statement was a chilling deration of intent, silencing any further doubts among his group.
While perched stealthily in the shadows, blending seamlessly with the darkness, Michael focused on Torug below. "Is there a way to pinpoint the real Torug? I don''t want to waste time on another clone." He whispered to the system.
[Locating the real orc using his energy signature will require 100,000 badass points]. The system responded promptly. "Yes, proceed." Michael quickly affirmed, slightly taken aback by the cost, which was surprisingly affordable given the track record of system requirments. Then, he watched his pool of badass points decrease, a small price to pay if it meant unmasking the true enemy. After the transaction, the system began its analysis, processing the energy patterns emanating from Torug and his cronies.
Soon, the system provided its insights. [The real Torug must maintain proximity to his clone to sustain its stability. Tracking this clone should lead you directly to the original.]
Michael, now armed with this crucial information, readied himself to follow the clone.
"Tear this ce apart. Look for any trace of the god of darkness. He''s been lurking around here, I can feel it." Torug, with amanding growl, ordered his henchmen, As the cronies scrambled to obey, overturning rocks and sifting through the debris of the ancient ruins, one of them, a nervy orc with a less imposing stature than Torug, approached him cautiously. "Boss, we''ve been wreaking havoc like bandits for ages now, but there''s been no word from God Agra," he said, his voice trembling with unease. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Instead ofshing out, Torug paused, reflecting on the question. "Merely attacking merchant carriages and offing nobles trying to reshape Nimbosia in their vision isn''t enough," he finally responded, his tone serious and contemtive. "Catching Agra''s eye requires more significant acts of chaos and destruction."
In the dim light of the ruins, Torug''s simmering hatred for the god of darkness was palpable. His eyes, full of loathing and grief, scanned the sky, where dark clouds roiled, yet devoid of the rain that once signified Rainar''s presence.
"We lost everything when Rainar fell," Torug muttered to his followers, his voice a mix of fury and sorrow. "The god of darkness will pay for what he''s done."
The cronies around him nodded, their own expressions a mirror of their leader''s turmoil. The sight of the dry, stormy sky seemed to twist the knife of their collective loss, fueling their desire for vengeance.
"This endless drought... it mocks us," Torug growled, his gaze fixed on the heavens that remained cruelly barren. Hidden in the shadows, Michael suppressed a chuckle as he observed the growing frustration among Torug''s cronies. Their futile search through the ruins yielded nothing but irritation and unexpected encounters with the local wildlife.
"Damn these snakes!" cursed one of the cronies, jumping back as a serpent slithered out from under a nearby rock. "Everywhere you turn in these cursed ruins, something''s waiting to bite you!"
After surveying the area for a few more hours, Torug saw that their efforts were in vain. There was no sign of the god of darkness, no clue to his whereabouts. With a final, sweeping nce at the deste scene, he issued the order to pull back. As Torug''s followers dispersed, heading back towards their stronghold, Michael knew this was the moment he had been waiting for. It was time to tail Torug, to track him discreetly to hisir, where the real confrontation would take ce.
Employing his mastery of shadow teleportation, Michael trailed Torug with ease, maintaining a discreet distance as the orc navigated through the terrain. His journey ended at an unassuming patch of dirt ground at the forest''s edge, where Torug retrieved a rock adorned with glowing runes from his satchel.
With a practiced motion, Torug ced the rock on the ground, activating its hidden mechanisms. To Michael''s observant eyes, the mundane turned miraculous as a doorway appeared, seamlessly integrated into the earth. Torug, with a final nce around, descended into the revealed underground passage.
Michael waited patiently, ensuring Torug was well out of sight before approaching the spot himself. "Override these runes, unlock the door." Turning to the system for a more technical breach, hemanded.
[The system requires 10,000 badass points to override the runes] The system promptly responded, "Do it," Michael confirmed without hesitation.
After the system had overridden the runes, a wry smile appeared on Michael''s face. "Open sesame," he said as the ground door obeyed, creaking open to grant him ess. Descending the dark, narrow staircase, Michael entered a spacious hall that exuded an eerie silence. At the center, he saw the imposing figure of Torug, seated in a meditative pose, his back to the entrance, seemingly waiting.
Surveying the room, Michael''s gaze fell upon a series of tubr tanks, each containing what appeared to be identical clones of Torug, submerged in a mysterious fluid. The sight provided a chilling insight into the orc''s capabilities and the extent of his machinations.
As Michael adjusted to the dim light and the hall''s foreboding atmosphere, he calmly cracked his neck, readying himself for the confrontation. It was then that Torug spoke, his voice resonant and eerilyposed. "Wee to myir, god of darkness."
The calmness in Torug''s voice caught Michael slightly off guard. It was not the tone of a creature caught unaware or in distress but that of someone who had been anticipating this meeting, perhaps as much as Michael had. Still facing away from Michael, Torug began to speak, his voiceced with a mix of disdain and anger.
"You think I''m just some run-of-the-mill crony you can lure with dumbass traps?" he asked, a rhetorical question hanging in the air. "Hearing about the god of darkness hanging out in these ruins seemed too damn convenient, especially when I''ve been hunting for you."
He paused, letting his words sink in before continuing. "You offed God Rainar, and a god who can kill another god ain''t gonna leave a trail that easy to follow. So, yeah, I figured it was a trap... for me,"
Despite Torug''s confident revtions, Michael remained unfazed, his smile hinting at both respect and readiness for the ensuing conflict. "Well, I''m surprised," he conceded, acknowledging Torug''s acumen. "Thought a big ugly shit like you would be dumb, but guess you shouldn''t judge a book by its cover."
Michael stretched, cracking his neck again, his bodynguage rxed yet poised for action. "But figuring out my trap or not, you''re going down. I know you''re the real deal, not some clone," he stated firmly, locking eyes with the orc.
Torug responded with a devilish chuckle, rising to his full imposing height. As he turned to face Michael, he flicked his wrist, summoning a long trident to his grasp. The ancient hall suddenly came alive with the glow of intricate runes, and a palpable pressure filled the air, a testament to the orc''s preparedness and power.
"I may not be able to kill you," Torug dered, his voice echoing in the rune-lit chamber, "but I don''t have to. My goal is to draw Agra''s attention."
His threat was cut abruptly short as a crimson whipshed out, slicing him in half, his body disintegrating into a cloud of blood mist. Michael watched, taken aback by the sudden turn of events.
Out of the dissipating mist, a figure with four muscr, crimson arms materialized, its presence both ominous and familiar. As the figure emerged, Michael, taken by surprise yet recognizing the entity before him. "Dagon?" Michael uttered in disbelief.
Chapter 1267 Subordinates Death and Dark Flames Upgrade
Chapter 1267 Subordinate''s Death and Dark mes Upgrade
Looking at Michael, Dagon greeted Michael with a smile that was both charming and devilish.
"Michael," he said, acknowledging him by name. Hearing his real name spoken aloud made Michael feel weird. Besides Gaya and now Dagon, he was ustomed to being known as Ghost or The Dark Lord.
Though his intended target, Torug, had been effortlessly eliminated by Dagon, Michael kept hisposure. "What brings you here?" he inquired, curiosityced in his tone. "Is this your physical form, or some sort of manifestation?" Aware of Dagon''s banishment and the restrictions it imposed, the sight of him in this realm underscored the depth of his power.
Dagon''s chuckle broke the silence. "It''s a manifestation," he admitted, "but pulling this off is harder than it looks. It took a lot of worship energy." Michael, while not vocalizing it, recognized the significance of Dagon''s presence, sensing an underlying motive.
As if on cue, Dagon addressed the unspoken thought. "I''m here because I have some bad news for you, Michael. Since we''re kind of allies, I thought you should be the first to know. Andohr is nning something big for the mortal realm, and it''s going to be quite the spectacle."
"What''s he nning now?" Michael couldn''t help but feel a sense of dread curling in his stomach.
Dagon replied with unsettling calmness, "Remember how I mentioned Fourcrux is dabbling in bringing back your old favorite pet hydra? Well, Andohr''s taken it a step further. He''s managed to rebuild its body and is nning to unleash it in the mortal realm to lure you out."
Michael''s frown deepened. Vedora''s power and the havoc it could wreak were no secrets to him. Trying to mask his concern, he pressed. "How? Last I checked, Andohr was still trapped, unable to directly influence events." n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"That''s where you''re wrong, Mikey," Dagon countered, a hint of exasperation in his voice. "The god of space and time is like a cockroach that survives anything. He''s got more backup ns than a bear has hairs. But, I''ve heard that this stunt with the hydra will drain his soul energy and force him into a slumber. So, there''s that at least."
"If you''re right," Michael said, cutting to the chase, "then I need to stop Andohr." He didn''t bother questioning how Dagon came by his information, knowing well that Dagon had his secrets, just as he had his own.
"Whatever you''re thinking, drop it. If Andohr''s going to such lengths to draw you out by sending Vedora to the mortal realm, he''s definitely plotting something massive. Don''t y into his hands," Dagon warned him.
Yet, Michael couldn''t detach himself from the mortal realm. It wasn''t just a battleground for him; it was where he first arrived from Earth, where he had made connections and friendships. The thought of Andohr bringing destruction to his adopted home was uneptable. Regardless of the risks, Michael couldn''t stand idly by while his realm faced peril.
"Not happening, Dagon. I''ve got too much at stake in the mortal realm, and I''m not about to sit back and watch it burn to the ground." Michael was resolute, his voice firm with determination.
"I''ll go to the mortal realm, kick Andohr''s ass, and deal with Vedora again if I have to." He confidently added.
Hearing Michael, Dagin sighed as his sigh slowly morphed into a chuckle.
"You''re one stubborn bastard, you know that? But don''te crying to me when you realize you''ve yed right into Andohr''s hands. I''ve got my own shit to deal with, and thanks to your little stunt killing Rainar, the whole pantheon is on high alert. They''re gearing up to throw everything they''ve got to find you. So, whether you''re in the realm of the gods or the mortal realm, you''re pretty much fucked either way." said Dagon.
As Michael observed Dagon''s actions, he sensed an unfamiliar surge of anger within himself, an emotion that seemed misced given his usual indifference toward Dagon. It wasn''t personal resentment he was feeling, but rather a profound, instinctual response emanating from deep within him, connected to his primordial dark mes.
While contemting this newfound rage, Dagon produced a crystal from his search, holding within it dark tendrils that were eerily motionless. Upon closer inspection, Michael realized they weren''t just any tendrils but frozen dark mes. Unknown to Michael, Dagon possessed the hell mes which held a deep-rooted animosity toward these dark mes, a sentiment stemming from an ancient rivalry between these sentient primordial forces.
Dagon, seemingly oblivious to Michael''s internal revtions, presented the crystal to him. "Before I forget, I grabbed this from one of Marli''s outposts. You dealing with her saved me from her annoying antics, though I had to take care of her pets," he exined. "Take this; it should help in the mortal realm, but remember, you owe me a big one."
Catching the crystal thrown at him, Michael nodded in acknowledgment as he felt grateful that he could upgrade the dark mes sooner than he anticipated.
"And don''t lose track of your pet dragon in all this chaos, Mikey. Hell changes a soul, more than you can fathom." Dagon, with a parting reminder, added. With these cryptic words, he vanished as swiftly as he had appeared, leaving Michael alone with the frozen dark mes and the lingering thought of Nightmare, the pet dragon he could not forget.
After Dagon vanished into the ether, Michael, left in the silent ruins, turned his attention to the crystal containing the frozen dark mes. With a decisive motion, he crushed the icy exterior, releasing the entrapped essence. As the dark mes melded with his own, the air around him sparked with energy.
The dark mes, now free, red violently around Michael, tendrils of pure dark energy shooting from his body, writhing and twisting in the air. The fusion of these primordial forces was not just a visual spectacle but a deeply visceral experience. Michael''s entire being seemed to ignite, the dark mes searing through his soul, testing his endurance.
Copsing to the ground, he gritted his teeth against the overwhelming pain, hissing through clenched jaws. "Fuck, this burns through to the damn core!"
In the midst of his agony, he heard the system sound ring in his head.
[Congrattions, you have sessfully upgraded the dark mes and collected 2 out of 5 dark me essence.]
The pain was excruciating, but the achievement was clear. Michael, amid the torment, had taken a significant step in harnessing the full potential of his dark mes, enduring the soul-deep fire to emerge stronger and more powerful.
Suddenly, a growl, both deep and ancient, echoed within Michael''s mind, vibrating with a primal urge. "Need to kill him," it intoned, sending shivers down Michael''s spine. "System, was that you?" He quickly asked, taken aback by this unexpected intrusion.
[No¡] The system''s reply was prompt and to the point: Confused and on edge, Michael pressed further, "Then who the fuck was that?" Although deep down, he harbored a strong suspicion about the source of the voice.
[It was the dark mes. It has regained a piece of its sentience]." As expected, the system rified.
This revtion sent Michael a wave of realization. The dark mes, a core aspect of his power, were not just a tool at his disposal but a living entity with its own consciousness and desires.
Michael, puzzled by the silence that followed his question, turned his attention back to the system, seeking rity. "Do you know anything about this?" he asked, hoping for some insight into the cryptic message.
[No¡] the system replied, leaving Michael feeling somewhat adrift in the situation.
Rolling his eyes, Michael couldn''t help but remark sarcastically. "You''re being very helpful, system." Despite theck of answers, he knew he couldn''t dwell on the mystery for too long.
Standing up, Michael recognized the urgency of preparing for his journey back to the mortal realm. And what better way to chart a course than seeking the counsel of Seshat, the goddess of wisdom? Her vast knowledge and insight would undoubtedly provide him with the way to return to the mortal realm.
But before he could head out, he had one more thing to do. With a sly smile, Michael surveyed the clones suspended in their tubr prisons, his gaze calcting. Raising his hand, he summoned the power of his newly upgraded dark mes, now more potent and menacing than before. The the ring of mes, erupted from his palm in waves of dark energy, thicker, more intense, and radiating a searing heat that filled the hall.
The effect was immediate and devastating. The clones, mere seconds before suspended in stasis, were engulfed by the ferocious inferno. In an instant, they were reduced to nothing, their existence erased by the overwhelming power of the dark mes.
But before the destructive wavepleted its task, Michael, with precise control, severed an ear from one of the clones. This grisly trophy was quickly stowed in the system''s storage, serving as concrete proof of his assassination of Torug''s clone.
"Now this will do nicely,"
With the evidence secured and the immediate threat neutralized, Michael turned his attention to therger issues at hand, preparing to seek out Seshat for wisdom on his impending return to the mortal realm.
As Michael prepared to exit the ruins, a sudden, intense pain gripped his head, causing him to curse out loud. "Fuck!" His vision blurred, then shifted to a deep red, as his mind was bombarded with system warnings.
The system''s voice, urgent and invasive, rang through his head. [One of the host''s subordinates is in mortal danger¡] The alerts escted, pressing him to act swiftly, [The system rmends the host to take immediate action, or the subordinate will die]
Caught off guard and with Dagon''s forewarning echoing in his thoughts, Michael felt a surge of rm. Just as he was about to spring into action, to possibly prevent the impending catastrophe, the flood of warnings ceased abruptly, reced by a stark, final message. [The host''s subordinate, Eve Voldiguard, has died]
Chapter 1268 The Great War Of Mortal Realm Begins
Chapter 1268 The Great War Of Mortal Realm Begins
Eve Voldiguard stood in a vige transformed into a grim battlefield on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Kethan. Clutching her battle hammer, from which lightning crackled around both the weapon and her form, she presented an imposing figure. Her dark armor clung to her curves, adorned with a skull engraving on the chest that symbolized her rank in the dark army, while her dark cape billowed menacingly in the wind.
"Take down that evil bitch!"
"Kill her!"
"We need to avenge ourrades!"
These shouts from the opposing army,prised of hundreds of soldiers in varied armor colors and races, reverberated across the battlefield. Despite their diversity, a unified conviction to kill Eve Voldiguard bound them together.
Most of the army was Noah''s Guardians, bolstered by forces from various kingdoms. Noah''s diligent efforts to rebuild the Guardian Guild, contrasted with the Dark Lord''s preference for shadowy power consolidation, had boosted his ranks significantly. Moreover, the undead army of the dark lord had been notably diminished by attacks from Skyhall''s angels and a recent assault by Zariel.
Yet, facing the overwhelming numbers, Eve Voldiguard exhibited neither fear nor hesitation. It was the soldiers'' eyes that betrayed fear, intimidated by the prospect of confronting an Immortal-stage cultivator.
"Lady Eve, we''ve encountered a significant setback on the southern continent. It appears Noah has sabotaged many of our ships, hindering the transport of undead and soldiers. As a result, reinforcements may be dyed or not arrive at all," Azazel''s voicemunicated through her earpiece. Eve''s frown deepened at the news of their diminished support, but her expression remained stoic, undaunted by the looming challenge.
"Seems like I have to deal with them myself," Eve remarked, cracking her neck, mimicking a habit she''d observed in the Dark Lord.
"Be careful, Lady Eve. I will confront Noah, but you must leave as soon as they''re dealt with. Lord Elidyr is detecting violent energy fluctuations in the atmosphere, signaling the imminent threat of the hydra entering our realm," Azazel advised, his voice tense as the army before Eve braced to charge. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Make sure ire and Saber reach Mazeroth and keep Harry safe. There''s more going on here than we understand. Something''s off," Eve instructed, dismissing the impending assault with a wave of her hand.
"I share your concerns, Lady Eve. However, without a way to contact the Dark Lord, our only option is to hold the line until he can intervene. Without him, we have no means of killing Noah," Azazel responded with a note of urgency.
But Eve''s attention was abruptly drawn to the skies as Skyhall''s portals opened, unleashing angels d in white and gold armor, their metallic and feathery wings beating powerfully behind them.
"Shit, gotta go, Azazel. The angels are here," Eve dered, tightening her grip on her hammer, ready to face the descending celestial forces.
As the leading angel, his face obscured by a helmet adorned with winged feathers, descended upon the battlefield.
"Stand down," He issued a sternmand to Eve. Eve couldn''t help but snicker at the demand, her confidence unshaken. "Everyone who''s asked me that is now lying six feet under," she retorted.
The leading angel let out a chuckle, not surprised by her response. "I was afraid you''d say otherwise," he admitted, acknowledging her fighting spirit.
Without further ado, the angel and his cohorts began to chant, calling forth their powerful spells. "Heaven''s Wrath!" the leading angel bellowed, summoning a storm of celestial energy that crackled in the sky above, bolts of divine lightning ready to strike with precision and ferocity.
"Angelic Fury!" another angel called out, causing ethereal des to materialize from thin air. Each de gleamed with a holy light and was sharp enough to cut through the very fabric of reality.
The spells unleashed by the angels were catastrophically powerful, each showcasing their prowess as immortal stage cultivators. The battlefield became a spectacle of their powers, with every spell conjured bringing forth an element of chaos and destruction designed to overwhelm Eve.
Yet, despite the cmitous force arrayed against her, Eve stood her ground, her own power ring in response to the challenge. "Your evil path ends here, bitch!" the leading angel dered, unleashing the tumultuous storm brewing above onto Eve.
"Funny, I wanted to say the same," Eve snickered before propelling herself into the air, her hammer crackling with lightning energy.
Meanwhile, the spell "Angelic Fury"unched des made of pure celestial energy toward Eve. The spectacle made Noah''s army shudder in fear. The Immortal Council''s prohibition against battles between immortal beings stemmed from the cataclysmic power such fights could unleash, capable of decimating kingdoms.
The overwhelming pressure of the spells alone suffocated many soldiers, causing them to cough up blood as the very earth beneath them cracked open. Despite this, neither Eve nor the angels showed signs of ceasing their battle.
"You''re doing my job for me," Eve roared, witnessing many in Noah''s army copse. She continued to swirl her hammer, creating a powerful wind barrier that deflected the celestial energy des.
The storm descended upon Eve, her hair wildly fluttering in the tempestuous winds. She felt the crushing pressure of the storm, a force so mighty that anyone below the immortal stage would be obliterated. However, Eve''s armor and unwavering resolve protected her, though blood trickled from her nose and mouth, signaling the immense strain of the battle.
"ENOUGH!" Eve roared above the storm, diving down with her hammer crackling with lightning bolts. She unleashed her fury upon the ground, striking with enough force to form a crater, causing the angels to lose their footing. However, the leading angel swiftly fluttered his wings to regain bnce, while many in Noah''s army were not as fortunate. The shockwave from her impact sent them flying, resulting in numerous casualties.
The angels, mostly caught off guard except for a few like the leading angel, struggled to regroup. Before they could mount a counterattack, Eve hurled her hammer at one of them, interrupting her spellcasting.
"ATTACK HER! GIVE THE ANGELS ALL YOUR SUPPORT!" bellowed one of the guardian generals of Noah''s army, rallying the troops to focus their efforts on aiding the celestial beings in their battle against Eve.
Under the generals'' orders, Noah''s army unleashed their spells and charged at Eve, undaunted by her being an Immortal stage being. The ranks included Fusion Stage warriors and Half Immortals, and though they might not be enough to overwhelm Eve alone, the army supplemented their assault with cannons and trebuchets, all rune-powered, aiming their destructive might at her.
Eve stood resolute, facing the angels and the entire army single-handedly. However, the dark army wouldn''t let one of their generals fight alone.
"Lady Eve, Lenora and Trista are on their way. Just hold them off a bit longer," Azazel''s voice reassured her through the earpiece.
The promise of support from the two Elder vampires brought a glimmer of reassurance to Eve. Known for their overwhelming power and immunity to magical attacks, Trista and Lenora were not just deadly but also damn overpowered.
"Looking for reinforcements, dear? Don''t bother; they''re noting. Your so-called death squad is dead. Noah Winston is going to personally deal with them," taunted the leading angel, causing Eve to frown deeply.
The Death Squad, highly regarded by her friend the Dark Lord, wasprised of vampires each a formidable force. Yet, despite their strength, the reality that Noah was tasked with confronting them dimmed the hope of their victory. Noah''s drive for vengeance, fueled by the loss of his wife Alicia and his pet Norvin at the Dark Lord''s hands, made him a dangerous adversary.
Besides, Noah was being manipted by Salesi, who, in turn, was a puppet under Andohr''s influence.
"I don''t need them to kick your asses," Eve dered, charging at one of the angels to strike with her hammer. As the angel reeled from the blow, she seized him, using his body as a shield against the iing celestial de and lightning bolt. The dual attacks struck the angel instead, causing him to cough up blood, while Eve, with brutal efficiency, tore off the metallic wings from his armor and delivered a hammer blow with enough force to crack his skull open.
The sight of an immortal dying, his soul departing, sent shivers down the spines of many onlookers.
"YOU EVIL BITCH!"
"YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!"
These were the cries of the angels, enraged by the sight of their fallenrade. Seizing the moment, Eve capitalized on their fury,unching a ferocious counterattack. She swooped down, discharging lightning bolts from her hammer, then seized one of the rune-engraved cannons and ascended back into the sky.
"Eat this!" Eve roared, unleashing the cannon''s devastating payload directly at the angels.
The cannon balls erupted from the cannon with rapid session, the recoil pushing Eve back slightly, causing her aim to waver. Yet, she steadfastly directed the cannon''s onught toward the angels and the army below. The air was filled with the panicked shouts of the soldiers as they realized the impending doom.
"Fuck! What the hell is that?!"
"We''re gonna get sted to bits!"
"Take cover, you idiots!"
Despite their cries and frantic attempts to find safety, the cannon''s barrage was relentless. Soldiers who moments before had been poised to fight were now obliterated, their ranks decimated in a storm of rune-powered artillery fire.
The angels, though not mortal and thus not as easily dispatched by such weapons, were not immune to the cannon''s force. Each hit sent them reeling, tumbling through the air by the sheer kic force of the explosive impacts. While they couldn''t be killed outright by the cannon fire, the impact was enough to throw them off bnce and disrupt their aerial formation, giving Eve a tactical advantage in the chaotic battlefield.
Just as Eve regained control after the recoil, an angel exploited the momentary chaos, using a teleportation spell to appear behind her, his weapon raised to deliver a fatal blow. However, before his strike couldnd, a chakra, seemingly forged from blood, whirled through the air and decapitated him. Blood sprayed in a grim arc as the angel''s body plummeted from the sky.
From the dark clouds above, Trista and Lenora descended, their forms radiating deadly beauty. They savored the scent of blood that now permeated the battlefield, their eyes alight with a predatory gleam. With a sardonic twist to her lips, Trista regarded the remaining angels who had momentarily paused in their assault.
"Ganging up on a girl, that''s not very angelic of you, angels," Trista remarked. The sudden entrance of the Elder vampires, known for their immense power and immunity to magic, shifted the dynamics of the battle, adding a newyer of threat to the angels'' strategy.
Chapter 1269 Battle Prowess Of The Elder Vampires
Chapter 1269 Battle Prowess Of The Elder Vampires
Trista and Lenoranded beside Eve, their sudden appearance causing a momentary cessation in the hostilities. The army, witnessing the arrival of these Elder vampires, erupted in a cacophony of reactions.
"Holy shit, are those the Elder vampires from the rumors?" one soldier eximed, his voiceced with fear.
"Fuck me, I thought they were just scary bedtime stories!" another whispered, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Damn, the Dark Lord really has these monsters on his side?" a third grumbled, realization dawning.
On the other hand, the angels seethed in anger and disgust when they looked at the two beautiful elder vampires. Despite their beauty, the angels felt nothing but disgust. "Colluding with vampires, Eve? You and the Dark Lord are despicable!" one angel shouted, his voice seething with disgust.
However, Trista responded to the angel''s remark with a smirk. Just as the angels felt disgusted at them, the two elder vampires, who were prouder than the angels, felt more disgusted at the winged guardians of the Skyjall.
"I prefer the term nightwalkers, but thanks to the Dark Lord, we can enjoy the daylight too," Trista responded with a smirk. Meanwhile, the generals of Noah''s army regainedposure and began to bark orders at their men.
"Attack! Don''t let these night creatures intimidate you!"
As they barked orders, the battlefield reignited with fervor, and the angels divided into three groups: one targeted Eve, another engaged Trista, and the third confronted Lenora. Amidst the chaos, Trista and Lenora,ughing menacingly, vanished in a blur of motion, descending upon the Guardian''s ranks.
Trista and Lenora tore through the soldiers effortlessly, their hands ripping through armor as if it were paper, their fangs sinking into necks and drawing blood with a gruesome efficiency that sent waves of terror through the ranks.
In the sky, the angels began to chant, casting formidable spells. "Heaven''s Fury!" one angel bellowed, summoning a barrage of golden fire that scorched the earth. "Divine Storm!" another called, creating a swirling vortex of wind that tore through the battlefield, uprooting anything in its path.
These powerful spells reshaped the environment, turning the battlefield into a scene of apocalyptic destruction. "Celestial Judgement," One angel in the group that targeted Eve managed to finish casting the spell. It was a pure radiant beam that struck Eve directly, causing her to lose her grip on the cannon, which ttered to the ground, its threat momentarily neutralized.
The battle intensified, with the Elder vampires showcasing their terrifying prowess against the mortal soldiers. At the same time, the angels demonstrated their might against Eve, and each group was determined to ovee their opponents.
Meanwhile, the angels targeting Lenora and Trista flew above them with their hands weaving intricate patterns in the air as they cast their spells. "Sacred Light Barrage!" one cried, unleashing a cascade of luminous, searing orbs that rained down like meteors. "Divine Wind des!" another called, generating slicing gusts of hallowed air that whirled violently toward the earth.
However, in the heat of the battle, the angels ignored something important, the elder vampires werepletely immune to spells. Thus, Trista and Lenora merelyughed in the face of these assaults, their voices echoing across the battlefield. "Is that the best you''ve got?" Trista taunted, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "Your spells tricks can''t touch us, idiots!" Lenora added, smirking.
Their boasts were not without merit as the spells, designed to annihte and kill them, harmlessly passed through the Elder vampires. Their immunity to magical attacks rendering the angelic offensive futile. Instead, the spells descended upon Noah''s army, obliterating the ranks. Sacred Light Barrage incinerated soldiers in blinding explosions, while Divine Wind des sliced through formations, leaving nothing but chaos and destruction in their wake.
Looking at the deaths and destruction the angels'' spells brought to their ranks, many among Noah''s army roared in anger, confusion, and shock. "What the fuck, angels? You''re killing us!" a soldier screamed, horror-stricken as he witnessed the spell onught decimating hisrades.
In the midst of this carnage, Trista and Lenora reveled in the havoc, theirughter ringing out sinisterly. "Look at them, Lenora, falling like flies!" Trista eximed gleefully, her hands soaked in the blood of her enemies. L
"And each drop makes us stronger!" Lenora responded.
Empowered by the absorbed life force, they continued their gruesome feast, plunging their fangs into victim after victim. With each life drained, they grew more powerful as their chins were painted with the blood of Noah''s soldiers.
Giving no damn about the coteral damage inflicted on Noah''s army, the angels, recalibrated their strategy with a singr objective, eliminating the two Elder vampires. Disregarding the mounting casualties among the mortal troops, they swooped down to engage Trista and Lenora directly, weapons primed forbat.
"Damn these bloodsuckers, let''s take them down!" one of the soldiers roared as he charged alongside the angels.
"Fuck, watch where you aim those holy lightshows!" another cursed, narrowly avoiding a stray spell.
On the battlefield, chaos reigned as thebined forces of the angels and Noah''s army converged on Trista and Lenora. Their desperation was palpable in every strike and shout.
Meanwhile, Eve, deprived of her cannon, swiftly conjured a protective spell. A shield materialized around her, shimmering with a spectral glow that pulsated in rhythm with her heartbeat, deflecting iing attacks with its ethereal strength.
In the sky, the angels divided their attention. Two of them barreled toward Eve with gleaming swords and halberds, while the other two, including their leader, prepared to unleash their powerful magic. "Heaven''s Decree!" the leader shouted, calling forth a beam of concentrated celestial energy that sliced through the air towards Eve.
Despite Eve''s prowess in battle, the relentless assault from four battle-hardened angels began to wear her down. The strain ofbating such formidable opponents manifested in visible wounds and fatigue, and her body bore the brunt of this celestial onught.
Understanding the direness of their situation, Trista and Lenora decided to amalgamate their formidable powers. Trista extended her hands, her fingers dancing in intricate patterns as she whispered ancient vampire incantations. Lenora mirrored her actions, harmonizing her chant with Trista''s.
Together, they summoned a maelstrom of blood and shadows, a vortex that swirled menacingly around them, obliterating any soldier foolhardy enough to venture too close. Theirbined might showcased a terrifying disy of Elder vampire synergy, decimating ranks with ruthless efficiency.
However, even as they ughtered their adversaries, an angel managed to sh Lenora''s back, drawing blood in a spectacr spray. Lenora hissed in pain, but the gash healed rapidly, her vampiric regeneration on full disy.
"How the fuck do we kill these monsters?" a soldier yelled, his voiceced with panic and frustration.
"They don''t fucking die!" another eximed in despair, witnessing Lenora''s swift recovery.
The four angels focused on Lenora and Trista recognized the futility of their current tactics and shifted their approach. "Aim for their heads!" one of the angelsmanded, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Decapitate them!"
As they battled, they noticed Eve was having a difficult time. So Trista and Lenora exchanged a knowing nod before swiftly pulling out smoke bombs crafted from the Dark Lord''s special recipe. They mmed them into the ground, creating a thick veil of smoke that obscured even the angels'' divine sight.
"Damn it," one soldier cursed, spinning around in the smoke-filled chaos.
"Fuck, can''t see shit in this!" another yelled, his voice tinged with panic.
The angels, however, merely snickered at the temporary setback, their wings beginning to beat powerfully, generating gusts of wind aimed at dispersing the smoke. "This won''t save you for long," one mocked, confident in their celestial prowess.
Within seconds, their vigorous pping cleared the smoke, but to their shock, Trista and Lenora were nowhere to be seen. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Where the fuck did they go?" the bewildered soldiers and angels eximed, scanning the clearing for any sign of the Elder vampires.
"There! Above!"
Then, a soldier pointed skyward as Lenora and Trista materialized behind the two angels who had been casting spells on Eve. In an instant, Lenora''s nails transformed into lethal ck ws, and Trista''s beautiful visage twisted into a grotesque, fanged horror.
Lenora descended upon her target, brutally tearing away the wings and armor, her ws raking across the angel''s back, sending blood spraying into the air. "Damn vampire bitch!" The angel cursed, howling in pain.
Targeting the leader, Trista lunged with deadly precision and went for the kill. Though the angel''s instincts allowed him to avoid a fatal blow narrowly, Trista''s fangs sank into his arm and neck, tearing away flesh and drawing a blood-curdling scream from the leader of the angels.
Using the opportunity provided by Trista and Lenora, Eve swung her hammer at the two angels who were engaged with her in closebat. The angels managed to evade the deadly strike, but the lightning bolts emitted from her hammer struck them, sending them reeling backward. Then, Eve charged at the angel leader.
"DIE!" Eve roared, leaping higher into the air, her hands gripping the hammer tightly. Trista, perceiving Eve''s intent, once again attacked the leader of the angels. However, just as Eve''s hammer was about to crash down on the angel''s head, a powerful beam of pure light shot out of nowhere, hitting Eve squarely in the chest and sending her flying away.
Trista and Lenora felt a cold chill running down their spines when they sensed the power emanating from the beam. Turning towards the source of the attack, they saw a young man with fluttering ck hair, wearing a long white coat over his white robes, descending slowly.
"Noah," Trista muttered.
Chapter 1270 Vedora, The King of Monsters vs The World I
Chapter 1270 Vedora, The King of Monsters vs The World I
When Noah entered the battlefield, the atmosphere palpably shifted. The energy radiating from him stirred the winds into a violent frenzy, akin to a storm''s sudden onset. His Celestial Stage cultivation prowess made even the Immortal stage angels struggle to breathe.
Despite Noah''s imposing presence, Eve stood her ground, while Trista and Lenora betrayed a flicker of fear and concern in their eyes.
For a brief interlude, the battle halted, with no side engaging the other.
"It''s high time you joined us, Supreme Guardian," the leader of the angels greeted Noah, his voice resonant with newfound confidence and arrogance. With Noah''s arrival, he seemed convinced of their ability to defeat Eve and the two Elder Vampires.
"Stand down, Eve. It''s time you pay for your actions," Noahmanded with a cold, calm authority.
"What you call my actions, I call my choices. You are too blinded by vengeance and Salesi''s maniptions," Eve retorted with equal frostiness. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Catching someone who serves the Dark Lord is what I would do whether Salesi told me to or not," Noah asserted.
"The Dark Lord is your brother, did you forget that, Supreme Guardian?" Lenora taunted, inciting Noah''s ire. At her provocation, Noah raised his hand, unleashing a beam of pure light that struck Lenora, sending her tumbling through the air.
"LENORA!" Trista eximed, rushing to catch her fallenrade. Lenora''s fortune held, for Noah''s strike, though forceful, was not lethal. Had it been charged with his Light mes fully, it would have reduced her to ashes.
"You areing with me, Eve Voldiguard," Noah dered, descending to the ground.
"There is no apprehending her, Supreme Guardian. Our orders are clear; we are to kill her," the angel leader asserted,nding beside Noah to emphasize the point.
However, Noah turned to look at the angel with cold eyes, devoid of the innocence or mercy that once might have been there. Instead, his gaze conveyed exhaustion, conflict, and anger.
"You are not killing her," Noah stated coldly.
Hearing Noah''s words, Eve couldn''t help but snicker. She knew her little sister Jasmine was in love with Noah and surmised Jasmine must have implored Noah not to kill her. Unbeknownst to both Noah and Eve, the real Jasmine Voldiguard had long perished, reced by a clone created by the Skyhall elders, manipting both the Voldiguard family and Noah from the shadows.
"I am sorry, Supreme Guardian. Our orders are clear. We are no longer taking prisoners from the Dark Lord''s army," the leader of the angels dered firmly.
While Noah had somewhat rxed his non-lethal approach, he still preferred capture over killing when possible. In this moment, Noah believed apprehending Eve would be more strategic than executing her.
Thus, Noah and the angels found themselves at an impasse.
"You are not taking me alive, Noah," Eve dered, clutching her hammer tightly. She recalled the fate of Diana, also known as Harriet Hunt, the Dark Lord and Noah''s mother, at the hands of their enemies. Determined not to suffer a simr fate of being brainwashed or worse by Skyhall, Eve resolved to fight back with all her might.
Seeing Noah''s firm stand in not killing Eve, the leader of the angel frowned. But he did not fear Noah as he had the backing of the entire Skyhall behind him.
"Then you can back the fuck off, Supreme Guardian, ''cause we''re killing her today!"the leader of the angel stepped forward and brazenly dered. "Focus all your goddamn attacks on her!" He then barked orders to his angels.
In response, Noah''s cold demeanor shattered into decisive action. He lunged forward andnded a solid punch on the angel leader, sending him hurtling through the air.
When Noah''s punch sent their leader flying, the other angels were stunned beyond words. It took them a few seconds to snap out of their shocked state.
"You''remitting a fucking crime against Skyhall itself, Noah!" The angel second inmand eximed.
But Noah didn''t even flinch at her words. Instead, he calmly turned his gaze at the angels.
"She''sing with me alive."
"Then you''ll have to kill us all to take her, Noah!" retorted the second inmand, signaling the angels to unleash their fury.
The moment the second inmand barked her orders, the angels immediately took off to the sky and began tounch a barrage of spells at Noah.
"Celestial Barrage!" "Divine Wrath!" As beams of searing light and explosive celestial orbs cascaded towards him, the battlefield illuminated with the intense radiance of their holy attacks.
However, these terrifying spells did not affect Noah''s state of mind. Instead, he countered the spells with his defense spells, creating shields of radiant light that deflected the iing onught. Once he deflected the spells, he quickly retaliated with his own potent light-based spells. "Radiant Burst!" "Holy Spear," Each cast brilliant spears of light that pierced through the angels'' defenses, showcasing his mastery over celestial energies.
Meanwhile, Noah''s army, caught in a storm of confusion and disbelief, muttered amongst themselves, "What the fuck is going on? Why''s Noah fighting the angels? Aren''t they on the same side?"
"Who the hell are we supposed to fight now?" one soldier shouted, encapsting the chaos as they struggled to decide whether to support Noah or follow the Skyhall''s orders.
Noah''s disy of power was both awe-inspiring and terrifying. He moved with deliberate grace, his actions a testament to his immense strength and his intent to subdue rather than kill. His blows were precise, calcted to incapacitate rather than end lives, yet they carried a brutality that left both angels and his own army in awe.
"Noah''s lost it, fighting his own allies!" one of Noah''s soldiers eximed, watching as their leader dismantled the angels'' offense with ruthless efficiency.
"Stand down, or I will make you," Noahmanded, his voice resonant with a cold authority that echoed across the battlefield. His hands glowed with a radiant light, not lethal but overwhelming, as heunched a series of non-lethal spells to immobilize the angels, wrapping them in bands of glowing energy that pinned their wings and arms, rendering them helpless.
"By the heavens, Noah! You betray your own kind for her?" an angel cried out, struggling against the luminescent bonds that held him.
"This isn''t betrayal. This is justice," Noah retorted, his eyes scanning the battlefield for any angels still willing to challenge his resolve.
Amid the chaos, some of Noah''s army began to rally to his cause, their initial shock giving way to a growing understanding of their leader''s intentions. "The Supreme Guardian knows what he''s doing. Aid him!" a seasoned general among Noah''s ranks ordered, shifting the army''s focus from Eve to assisting Noah in subduing the rebellious angels.
Seizing the moment of chaos,Evelunged into the battle, her eyes set on the angel leader and hisrade, both of whom were still reeling from Noah''s powerful assault. Her hammer swung with lethal precision, each strike infused with dark lightning, aiming to end the lives of the angels.
"You''re mine!" Eve growled as shended a crushing blow on the recovering angel, who barely managed to raise his hand in time. The impact sent shockwaves through the ground, cracking the earth beneath their feet.
"Hold her off!" The leader of the angels, trying to rally his defenses, shouted.
But hismands were cut short as Eve''s hammer tore through their magical barriers like paper, her strength too immense for their weakened state.
As she prepared to deliver the killing strike, a sudden intense beam of light from Noah struck her, sending her crashing into a nearby rubble. "Stand down, Eve!" Noahmanded, his voice booming across the battlefield.
"Damn you, Noah!" Eve cursed under her breath, struggling to regain her footing, her anger ring at being thwarted by Noah like a bug.
Noah, now facing the dual task of subduing both the vengeful angels and the furious Eve, showcased his remarkable prowess. With swift movements, he deflected Eve''s relentless attacks while simultaneously countering the angels'' offensive.
"Betraying the Skyhall for her, Noah?" one angel spat, his sword shing against Noah''s light-infused barrier, the sound echoing metallically through the air.
"This is not about betrayal. It''s about doing what''s right!" Noah, undeterred, replied.
With a swift motion, he unleashed a barrage of light spells targeting both Eve and the angels. The spells manifested as radiant chains and bolts of purifying light, designed to subdue rather than kill, capturing his targets in a disy of overwhelming power.
Eve, battling both the physical chains and her simmering rage, was a whirlwind of fury, her attacks a blur of motion and energy. But Noah, with his superior control and strategic mind, managed to anticipate and neutralize her every move.
As they fought, a sudden shift permeated the air. Eve ceased her assault when Azazel''s voice reached her.
"Lady Eve, you need to leave the battlefield now. Elidyr has sensed the tear in the realm. The hydra ising," Azazelmunicated, his voice tinged with a rare hint of fear.
The transformation in Eve''s demeanor, from seething anger to a grave frown, did not go unnoticed by Noah, who surmised the imminent arrival of the hydra.
"I hope you keep your word, Mugashuku," Eve murmured under her breath, her gaze lifting to the sky, anticipating the emerging threat.
Chapter 1271 Vedora, The King of Monsters vs Mugashuku II
Chapter 1271 Vedora, The King of Monsters vs Mugashuku II
The battle froze as the clouds above darkened, the once heavy rain absent in the wake of Rainar''s demise. The air grew tense, heavy with an ominous charge that even the most battle-hardened soldiers felt unsettling.
"What the hell is going on?" murmured a soldier from Noah''s army, his voiceced with confusion and fear.
"I have a bad feeling about this. I don''t know why but something''s happening," another eximed, pointing upwards as a sense of unease spread through the ranks.
The sky then lit with a thick streak of lightning, not fleeting like nature''s sh, but persisting, cleaving the sky in two. Eyes widened in shock as the reality of the phenomenon sank in.
"Shit, is that supposed to happen? That ain''t natural!" a soldier yelled, stepping back as the air vibrated with the power of the tear.
Then, through the electrified fissure, a gigantic w emerged, its massive size and fearsome strength visible to all as it began to pry open the tear wider, tearing through the fabric of the realm itself.
"Fuck, what is that thing?" screamed another soldier, terror evident in his voice as the w''s owner started to reveal itself.
"Gods above, save us!" one cried out, dropping his weapon, his bravado dissolving into pure fear.
As the monstrous w pierced through the sky, even the angels felt an chill running down their spines. The w was colossal, each talonrger than the tallest trees, its scales a dark, abyssal hue that seemed to absorb the light around it. This sight of a massive w, like a hand of doom, tearing through the very fabric of the sky was nothing short of apocalyptic.
"Holy... what in the heavens is that?" one angel gasped, his usualposure shattered by the looming dread.
"This is bad, really bad," another muttered, his eyes wide with the raw realization of their impending doom.
On the ground, Eve, known for her indomitable spirit, clenched her hammer tightly, her gaze locked on the sky. For the first time, a flicker of genuine fear shone in her eyes as she gazed the scale of the hydra''s w. The sight was so unnervingly alien and powerful, it transcended the chaos of their current battle, uniting friend and foe in a shared moment of horror.
The sight of the w tearing through the sky was enough to halt the violent battle to stillness. Every soldeir in Noah''s army to the Immortal stage angels to Noah himself stood frozen with their gazes glued to the sky. The silence was thick, punctuated only by the sound of the realm itself tearing.
"Fuck, are we even prepared for this?" whispered a soldier, his voice barely audible, echoing the collective dread of those assembled.
The mere ppearance of just a w was enough to signal the new phase of terror and awe. At that moment, all their previous conflicts and battles seemed insignificant, dwarfed by the scale of the threat approaching.
As the tear widened, a ck giant head of the hydra emerged, its eyes like burning coals in the night, sending waves of terror across the battlefield. The sight was so daunting that many soldiers, hardened by countless battles, couldn''t hold theirposure and wet themselves.
"Shit, that''s not just a myth?!" one soldier eximed, his voice cracking with fear as he stared at the monstrous head, its scales shimmering with an ominous luster.
"Holy fuck, we''re dead, we''re so dead," another whispered, trembling as he gazed upon the hydra, its size and ferocity beyond anything they had ever imagined.
Then, a second head, carrying a ghastly grayish tone, broke through the realm tear, its roar thunderous, resonating like the call of doom itself. This roar unleashed shockwaves and powerful gusts, strong enough to send soldiers tumbling through the air and scatter war machines as if they were mere toys.
"Gods above, what is that thing?!" a panicked cry rang out, the voice lost in the cacophony of fear and chaos that followed the hydra''s entrance. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"We''re fighting against this? Are you fucking kidding me?!" another soldier yelled, his usual battle hardened demeanor giving way to stark, unfiltered terror.
As the third head, marked by its whitish tone, emerged through the tear, Noah couldn''t help but address the absent Dark Lord in his mind. "What have you unleashed upon the world, Ghost?" He believed the appearance of the hydra was a consequence of the Dark Lord''s actions in the realm of gods, unaware that the true architect of this disaster was Andohr, the God of Time and Space, whose animosity towards the Dark Lord ran deeper than the ocean itself.
When the soldiers saw the third head, they all lost it as their cries and shouts intensified with each expressing their disbelief and terror.
"Oh gods, there''s another one? How many fucking heads does this thing have?" one soldier cried out in despair, echoing the terror that gripped everyone''s heart.
The battlefield erupted in cries and shouts, the soldiers'' shock palpable as they realized the hydra''s immense size and the number of its heads. Its colossal body emerged, casting an ominous shadow over the ground, a dark foreboding that chilled the very air.
"Ghost, you are needed here; I need you,"
Amidst this chaos, Eve found herself whispering a plea into the air. Her voice was a mix of determination and desperation, acknowledging that only the Dark Lord''s power could stand against this cataclysmic force.
As Vedora fully emerged from the realm tear, the scale of its being became overwhelmingly clear. Towering at nearly a thousand feet tall, its three heads each bore distinct features: one ck as the darkest night, another with a ghastly gray hue, and the third a menacing whitish tone. Each head was connected to a muscr neck, covered in scales that shimmered like metallic armor, capable of reflecting the scant light in the darkened sky.
The creature''s body, vast and serpentine, coiled and twisted with an agility that belied its colossal size. Its wings, each spanning several hundred feet, unfurled with a thunderous mor, stirring whirlwinds and sending shockwaves throughout the already devastatedndscape. As the lifeless gaze of Vedora''s eyes sent a chill down the spine of everyone present, Noah, understood the gravity of the situation. Thus, he decided to put aside their differences and turned to face Eve and the angels.
"We need to fight this together if we are to survive."
However, the soldiers under Noah''smand, could not mask their reluctance and sheer terror at the prospect of facing such a monstrous adversary. "Fuck, are we really going to fight that thing? It''s massive!" one soldier whispered, his voice trembling with dread.
"Shit, I didn''t sign up to battle monsters out of legends!" another eximed, his face pale as he stared at the monstrous form of Vedora in the sky.
The sheer size and the otherworldly presence of Vedora filled everyone with a deep, unsettling fear, casting doubts on their chances of survival, let alone victory. As the middle head, Sarba, drew in a deep breath, the air itself seemed to still in anticipation. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, it unleashed a roar so potent that it sent shockwaves across the battlefield. The force of the sound alone was cataclysmic, crushing hundreds of Noah''s soldiers into a bloody, pulpy paste, their armor offering no protection against the monstrous power of the hydra''s voice.
The ground cracked and heaved under the immense pressure of the roar, creating fissures that swallowed soldiers and equipment alike. Eve and the angels, despite their immense power, were sent scattering, tossed about like leaves in a storm.
Blood spurted from the mouths of many as they tried to withstand the overwhelming force, their bodies wracked with pain from the internal injuries inflicted by the sonic assault.
"Fucking run!" one of the soldiers screamed, terror overriding any sense of duty orbat readiness. His shout became the catalyst for panic as others took up the cry.
"We can''t fight this! It''s a monster from the sky!" another yelled, his voice hoarse with fear as he scrambled to retreat.
Withstanding the roar, Noah shot toward the sky, his body enveloped in burning light mes, resembling a shooting star soaring toward Vedora. Butpared to Vedora''s colossal size, Noah appeared puny and insignificant. The immense radiation from Vedora''s realm-of-gods cultivation level profoundly affected the world in unimaginable ways.
The soil beneath them scorched as the dark clouds overhead gradually shifted to a darker, greener hue. These clouds grew in number and density, cloaking Vedora so that only its shadow was visible with each sh of lightning.
Mid-air, Noah unleashed a powerful beam of light towards Vedora. However, Vedora remained unfazed; Sarba''s head advanced and swatted Noah like an insect, sending him plummeting through the ground.
Without dy, Vedoraunched another assault, this time from Ayag''s white head. Opening its jaws slowly, it released thick golden lightning strikes mingled with sonic waves.
This devastatingbination obliterated another portion of the army, and the angels'' leader, caught in the onught, was struck by the lightning. He turned into nothing but ashes within seconds, showcasing the terrifying might of Vedora.
As Vedora readied itself for another devastating attack, with red lightning bolts crackling menacingly around its massive form, a roar rivaling Vedora''s thunderous bellow echoed in the distance. Eve, gradually regaining her footing, directed her gaze toward the horizon, where another immense shadow loomed behind the dark clouds. This shadow seemed just asrge, if notrger than Vedora, imposing a sense of impending doom.
Eve squinted, trying to discern the details of this new colossal figure through the thickening veil of storm clouds. Her heart pounded with a mix of fear and anticipation as the shape became clearer, revealing the outline of another hydra-like creature, its presencemanding and terrifying.
"Mugashuku," Eve muttered under her breath, recognition dawning in her eyes.
Chapter 1272 Vedora, The King of Monsters vs Mugashuku III
Chapter 1272 Vedora, The King of Monsters vs Mugashuku III
The emergence of the second Mugashuku brought a visible concern to Noah''s face. At the same time, he noticed Eve''s demeanor rxing slightly as he picked himself up from the ground. Despite Vedoracking a soul or any intelligence beyond the pure instinct engraved into its being to destroy everything, it sensed the arrival of another formidable threat.
Consequently, Vedora halted its assault, with Ayag''s head closing its gaping mouth to gaze toward the horizon in the direction of Mugashuku''s approach.
Although the dark clouds obscured the full majestic sight of Mugashuku, glimpses of its colossal body were visible to some. Eve, who had only spoken to Mugashuku amidst utter darkness on Stormvile Mountain, stared up at the sky, her eyes seemingly fixed to the celestial spectacle.
Faint outlines of Mugashuku began to emerge through the gloomy veil, revealing not three heads like Vedora, but four. Each head was adorned with a pair of glowing red eyes, emanating an ominous light that pierced through the darkness. The sheer size of Mugashuku appeared even more imposing than Vedora, casting an evenrger shadow over the battlefield. Its four heads moved independently, surveying the scene below with an air of authority and power that sent ripples of awe and fear through the hearts of those who beheld it.
As the terrifying outline of Mugashuku became somewhat discernible through the swirling dark clouds, a wave of sheer terror and confusion swept over Noah''s soldiers and the angels. Their eyes widened in fear, mouths agape as they stared up at the vague, monstrous form dominating the sky.
"Holy shit! What the hell is that?" one soldier eximed, his voice trembling as he clutched his weapon tightly, staring at the four-headed shadow looming above.
"Are we fucked? That''s another one, isn''t it?" another yelled, panic-stricken, as he realized the enormity of the situation.
The angels, normallyposed and authoritative, were visibly shaken, their celestial poise crumbling under the oppressive presence of the colossal creature. "This can''t be! Two hydras? Are the gods angry with us?" one angel cried out, struggling to maintain hisposure. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"We''re in deep shit now," muttered another, his wings fluttering nervously. "One was bad enough, but two... how do we even fight this?"
The battlefield descended further into chaos as the soldiers and angels grappled with the reality of facing not one, but two god-like beings of destruction.
As the battlefield was enveloped in shock, a peculiar sensation began to overtake everyone present. A wave of dizziness washed over them, followed by a sudden and rming disconnection from the arch and celestial energy that fueled their powers.
"What the fuck is happening?" one of Noah''s soldiers eximed, staggering as he felt his cultivation strength slipping away.
"Shit, shit, shit! My powers... they''re gone!" another panicked, frantically trying to harness the energy that had always been at hismand.
The angels, too, were struck with confusion and fear, their divineposure shattered by the unexpected weakening. "By the heavens, it''s the void effect...Fuck, we''re defenseless!" one angel uttered, his voiceced with disbelief and terror.
Meanwhile, unaffected by Mugashuku''s void effect, Vedora''s roar became louder and more dominant, resonating with unchecked power. Its wings unfurled with tremendous force, dispelling the oppressive dark clouds in the sky.
As the sky cleared slightly, the monstrous form of Mugashuku came into clearer view, its menacing presence now fully visible to the shocked and powerless beings below.
When the two colossal hydras collided in mid-air, the impact sent a catastrophic shockwave tearing through the battlefield. The sh of these titanic beings created a storm of energy so intense that it felt like the very sky was being torn apart.
"Fuck me, we''re all going to die!" a soldier screamed, watching in horror as Mugashuku''s four heads entwined with Vedora''s three.
"Mother of god, look at those monsters!" another eximed, the ground beneath them quaking from the force of their aerial battle.
Mugashuku roared deafeningly, its four heads fiercely coiling around Vedora, attempting to constrict and overpower the other hydra. However, Vedora fought back with equal ferocity, its heads snapping and biting at Mugashuku, their massive teeth shing with the sound of thunder.
"Is this the end of the fucking world?" a terrified onlooker shouted, as buildings and structures around them began to crumble under the sheer force of the hydras'' battle.
As the ground cracked and trembled under the immense shockwaves generated by the battle of the hydras, Icefair city, visible in the distance, began to suffer catastrophic destruction. Its once-sturdy city walls started to crumble like sandcastles washed away by the tide.
"Evacuate! Evacuate now!" shouted the soldiers perched atop the city walls, panic-stricken as they witnessed the colossal beings shing on the horizon. Their voices were filled with urgent terror, desperately trying to marshal the city''s inhabitants to safety.
But their cries were tragically cut short. The very earth beneath Icefair city groaned and split, its buildings copsing in a domino effect of destruction. Towering structures that had stood for centuries were now tumbling to the ground, dust and debris clouding the air as the city fell victim to the distant titans'' fury.
In just moments, the once bustling and lively Icefair turned into andscape of ruin and despair. Looking at the destruction of Icefair, Alicia, his wife''s homecity, Noah, with a mixture of desperation and resolve, wobbled toward his retreating army. He navigated through a storm of debris flung across the battlefield by the titanic sh. The very ground beneath his feet shook, making every step a struggle, but the urgency of the situation lent him strength.
"Move! Retreat!" hemanded, his voice somehow carrying over the cacophony of destruction. His soldiers, disoriented and frightened by their sudden powerlessness, nced back at their Supreme Guardian, finding in his resolve a beacon of hope amidst chaos.
The angels, stripped of their celestial might, were no less desperate in their attempt to flee. Their once graceful andmanding presence now reduced to frantic scrambling for safety.
"Dammit! We can''t even fly!" one angel cursed, his words filled with disbelief and panic as they attempted to run on foot, an indignity they had not known for eons.
"Out of the way!" another shouted, pushing through the disarrayed ranks of Noah''s army, their divine visage marred by fear and the dust of the battlefield.
But Eve, on the other hand, was not retreating. Instead, she seized the opportunity to target the angels, especially their leaders. As Noah tried to shepherd his army to safety, Eve quickly closed in on the leader of the angels.
"WATCH OUT!" The second inmand shouted, but Eve''s swiftness prevailed. With Mugashuku''s void effect neutralizing everyone''s cultivation, the battlefield was leveled, making the fight fair for all.
Eve''s hammer, unaided by cultivation but still potent with physical strength, connected with the leader of the angels'' head. The helmet did little to prevent the sound of his skull splitting from echoing through the storm''s rage and the hydras'' roars.
"Damn it, Eve!" Noah eximed, witnessing Eve''s lethal blow. However, his priorityy with leading his army to safety, and Eve''s strike was too swift for him to intervene. Moreover, without his Celestial Stage powers, Noah found himself without his usual advantage, unable to prevent the angel''s demise at Eve''s hands.
Wrath.
As the leader of the angels met his gruesome end, the remaining angels roared in shock and anger. "You fucking monster!" one screamed.
"She''ll pay for this!" another bellowed.
Their outrage filled the air as they struggled toprehend the swift downfall of their leader.
Meanwhile, amidst the chaos of the battle and the raging storm above, Noah found himself torn. He had been about to intervene and prevent Eve from further carnage among the angels. However, his attention was abruptly drawn away by cries from his own army. "Supreme Guardian, we need you!" one of his generals called out, his voiceced with urgency and fear. "Noah, help us! We''re dying here!" another shouted, the panic evident even amidst the tumult of the battlefield.
Torn between stopping Eve and attending to his soldiers'' desperate pleas, Noah hesitated. The situation was rapidly spiraling out of control, with every second bringing more destruction and loss.
On the other hand, the battle between the two hydras in the sky reached a cataclysmic intensity, their primal roars shaking the very foundation of the realm. Ayag''s head unleashed torrents of powerful lightning bolts, each arc crackling with devastating energy, illuminating the darkened skies and striking with precision that carved deep scars into thendscape below.
Mugashuku countered with its own terrifying disy of power. From its four massive heads, it breathed out crimson red mes that seemed to set the very air aze. The heat emanating from the mes was so intense that it significantly raised the temperature around them, causing the ground to smolder and the remnants of nearby structures to ignite spontaneously.
Soldiers and angels alike could only watch in horror and awe as these behemoths of legend shed above them. The sky was torn asunder by their energies. Mugashuku''s crimson mes met Ayag''s electric fury in midair, causing explosions that sent shockwaves rippling through the atmosphere and down to the trembling earth.
As the hydras tangled, thendscape below was ravaged, turned into a nightmarish ce of fire and storm which was a testament to the terrifying power of these ancient monsters.
In the tumultuous mid-sky, one of Mugashuku''s heads let out a roar that echoed ancient authority, reverberating through the realm. "You have no ce in this realm, my child." These words, imbued with a strange and powerful resonance, shocked Eve and Noah. They stood bewildered, not understanding why Mugashuku referred to Vedora as its child.
Then, another of Mugashuku''s heads growled deeply, its voice thick with disappointment and anger. "You were supposed to be our sessor and a general of the queen." This revtion addedyers of mystery and history to the battle, hinting at aplex rtionship between these colossal beings and Vedora''s connection to the Queen.
Chapter 1273 Noah鈥檚 Great Plan
Chapter 1273 Noah¡¯s Great n
Unknown to both Noah and even Michael, Vedora wasn''t just any hydra but one of royal lineage. His ancestors served the queen on their home for generations, safeguarding their legacy. The egg from which Vedora hatched was meant to be protected within the Crypt, destined to be guided by Mugashuku. However, circumstances and a rift between Mugashuku and the Queen meant Vedora was kept hidden from his intended mentor.
Had the younger Vedora, who apanied Michael, been aware of this revtion, they would have disyed a tumult of emotions. But the Vedora engaged inbat with Mugashukucked a soul or any semnce of intelligence, driven solely by a killing instinct. Mugashuku''s heartfelt words, therefore, went unheard by Vedora.
"One who betrays my kind doesn''t deserve life," growled one of Mugashuku''s heads, unable to ept the sight of his kin being used as weapons even in death.
In response, Vedora, devoid of any understanding of Mugashuku''s words, propelled itself forward with a mighty p of its wings. Ayag''s head unleashed a barrage of lightning bolts, while Sarba emitted a devastating sonic wave. The force of the attack caused the ground to crack open further, swallowing many of Noah''s soldiers.
"HELP!"
"Save me!"
Cries for help echoed as soldiers fell into the dark abyss below. Noah, amidst his efforts to salvage what remained of his army, felt a pang of despair at their loss.
Meanwhile, Eve, fueled by her disdain for Skyhall, did not relent in pursuing the angels. Her determination only intensified as she leveraged the chaotic battlefield to her advantage, showing no intention of slowing down, even after killing the leader of the angels.
"Lady Eve, you''ve got to bail. This is spiraling out of control," Azazel''s voice came through to Eve as she sent another angel spinning through the air with a forceful blow from her hammer.
"I''m not leaving till these bastards pay for their sins," Eve thundered back, her resolve unshaken. Thisnd, now marred by conflict, was once a flourishing vige, owing its prosperity to a ndestine pact with Eve. The vige elder pledged allegiance to her in secrecy, bringing under its fold the Dark Lord''s blessings. In return, Eve and her allies showered the vige with guidance and resources neglected by the Kethen monarchy, turning the vige into a beacon of prosperity.
Yet, the vige''s fortune turned to ashes when a Skyhall spy unveiled the elder''s allegiance. With loyalty to the Dark Lord deemed treachery across allnds but Awor, Skyhall dispatched its angels to obliterate the vige in a so-called ''purification'' raid. By the time Eve arrived, all that remained were the charred remains of once lively homes and the elder''s pyre. Innocents, oblivious to the elder''s dealings, faced the angels'' wrath, chased away from their incinerated homes.
"They don''t deserve to live!" Eve bellowed once more, throwing herself at the angels with unrestrained fury. Stripped of their powers by Mugashuku''s void effect, the angels were left defenseless, their ability to cast spells nullified, facing the wrath of a vengeance-fueled Eve Voldiguard. Her hammer struck with devastating force, crushing the chest of another angel, his ribs shattering under the impact as he copsed, coughing up blood.
"Fucking bitch," the fallen angel growled through gritted teeth.
"SUPREME GUARDIAN!" Just as Noah was about to sprint towards Eve to halt her rampage¡ªrealizing he was perhaps the only one who could¡ªhis attention was abruptly seized by a cry for help. Whirling around, he witnessed several of his soldiers desperately clinging to the edges of an ever-expanding crevice in the ground. The choice was immediate and harrowing: save his men or stop Eve.
Noah''s sense of duty to his men overshadowed his desire to save the angels, particrly in light of their recent actions in the vige. He was aware of the elder''s allegiance to the Dark Lord, yet he had turned a blind eye, valuing the prosperity it brought to the vige over his personal vendetta against the Dark Lord.
"HELP US, SUPREME GUARDIAN!" another voice screamed across the battlefield,den with terror.
Without hesitation, Noah surged towards the crack, his movements swift and decisive. He grasped a young soldier''s hand, anchoring himself firmly at the edge of the fissure. With a mighty roar, Noah exerted his strength, his muscles straining visibly as he fought to close the menacing gap.
"ARGGHH!" His roar, filled with exertion and desperation, cut through the chaos of the storm and the hydra''s battle cries, as Noah''s biceps bulged and veins throbbed in his neck, holding the earth together against the forces tearing it apart.
"Holy shit!"
"How fucking strong is he!"
A couple of soldiers were stupefied as they watched, frozen in awe. Meanwhile, some of the generals barked orders at their men, reigniting their courage amidst the chaos.
"Help the Supreme Guardian and our men!" one general bellowed.
Promptly, many soldiers who had been standing on the safer side of the crack dashed towards their strugglingrades. Together, they began to haul the endangered soldiers up, pulling them away from the gaping maw of the earth.
Meanwhile, the colossal battle between Vedora and Mugashuku raged on, turning the sky into an arena of ancient titans. Their massive heads coiled and struck with ferocious speed, each blow resonating like thunderps. Lightning crackled from Ayag''s mouth, illuminating their titanic forms in the darkened sky, while Mugashuku''s heads spewed crimson mes, painting the clouds with fiery streaks.
On the ground, the earth shuddered with each of their collisions, sending shockwaves that tore through thendscape, creating fissures and upturning the terrain. Soldiers screamed and cursed as they scrambled to maintain their footing amidst the chaos.
"Damn it, watch out!" shouted a soldier as a nearby tree was uprooted by the force of the hydras'' battle, crashing down near their formation.
Eve, fully drowned in her own fiercebat, swung her hammer with lethal precision, each hitnding with the weight of her fury. Her eyes zed with vengeance as she faced the angels, her hammer crackling with lightning energy.
"Come on, you winged fuckers, is that all you''ve got?" Eve taunted, her voice echoing over the mor of battle.
The angels, stripped of their cultivation, relied on theirbat training and the razor-sharp metallic wings attached to their armor. One of them swooped down, aiming to sh at Eve with his winged edges.
Eve dodged the strike, her movements fluid and deadly. She countered with a swing of her hammer, connecting with the angel''s side and sending him crashing into a pile of debris.
"You''re going to need more than wings to take me down, asshole!" Eve growled, her gaze scanning for her next target.
Another angel charged at her, his weapon raised high. Eve met his charge head-on, blocking his strike with the shaft of her hammer and then delivering a brutal knee to his abdomen. As the angel doubled over, Eve grabbed his head and brought it down onto her rising knee, a sickening crunch sounding upon impact.
Blood and cries of pain filled the air as Eve continued her relentless assault. Each of her attacks was a disy of raw brutality, her strength andbat skills honed from fighting and training under the Dark Lord.
Despite their numerical advantage, the angels were outmatched by Eve''s ferocity. Their strategic formations crumbled under her onught, and their attempts to wound her often met with her ruthless counterattacks.
Suddenly, a massive lightning bolt from Ayag''s head struck the ground near Eve and the angels, the explosive impact sending them hurtling through the air. Eve crashed near Noah, teetering on the edge of a massive crack that had opened in the ground. Just in time, Noah reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her back from the precipice.
"We need to work together, or we won''t have a world to fight for," Noah said urgently, locking eyes with Eve.
"I''m not about to team up with you, Noah," Eve snickered, wiping blood from her mouth. "It doesn''t matter who you serve right now, Eve! If we don''t stop those hydras, we''re all dead, and your Dark Lord will have no world to rule!" Noah, frustration and urgency mixing in his voice, growled. Eve hesitated, her eyes flickering between the hydras wreaking havoc in the sky and Noah''s strained face. The gravity of the situation sunk in, and with a reluctant nod, she grabbed the opposite edge of the crevice. Together, they roared, pulling with all their might, as the gap slowly began to close.
As the ground beneath them started to stabilize, more and more soldiers, fueled by the sight of their Supreme Guardian and the notorious Eve working together, found the strength to scramble up and escape from the widening chasm.
After narrowly avoiding disaster, Noah and Eve stood together amidst the wreckage of the battlefield. Eve, with a growl, eyed the angels making their escape into the storm but then took in the extensive destruction around them, realizing there were more pressing matters than chasing the fleeing angel and killing them. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"We can''t kill them, but maybe we can drive them away," Noah proposed, eyeing the battling behemoths in the sky.
"Good luck trying to reason with those pissed off titans. You''re out of your mind if you think that''ll work." Eve snorted dismissively,
"Got any better ideas, Eve? Because right now, I''m willing to try anything," Noah met her skepticism with a wry smile.
Eve remained silent for a moment, her gaze shifting between the battling hydras in the sky. "If you''re dead set on negotiating, aim for Mugashuku. That abomination," she pointed towards Vedora, cks both soul and sense."
At that moment, a general, bleeding and caked with mud, staggered towards Noah, voicing his disbelief. "Supreme Guardian, you can''t seriously be considering negotiation. How do you even n to reach them? We''ve lost our ability to fly or cast spells."
Noah responded with a shake of his head, producing a shard of glowing arch energy crystal from his robes. Eve, recognizing the crystal as originating from Stormville Mountain ¨C a ce under their domain,
"You son of a bitch,"Eve''s eyes red with anger and disbelief as she said.
Chapter 1274 Eve vs Salesi I
Chapter 1274 Eve vs Salesi I
Using the arch energy crystal, Noah activated the flying runes engraved in his boots, allowing him to soar through the sky toward the colossal hydras shing above. As he ascended, he was struck by how insignificant he appeared against their immense forms. He even doubted if the hydras would notice him.
"Subdue the middle head, the weak link," one of Mugashuku''s heads growled, targeting Sarba.
"No, we need to take out the white head¡ It''s the most powerful," another head of Mugashuku countered.
Each of Mugashuku''s heads had a distinct personality and their own opinions. Thisck of sync could be a weakness, but unlike Mugashuku, Vedora''s three heads operated in perfect unison, devoid of individual personalities or intelligence and driven solely by instinctual destruction.
"The ck head, what''s its power?" another head of Mugashuku inquired.
But Noah, undeterred by the debate among the heads, navigated through the maze of crackling lightning bolts firing through the sky. Thanks to Mugashuku''s ability to absorb energy, the radiation emanating from Vedora was neutralized, sparing the army and nearby cities from potential poisoning.
After what felt like an eternity, Noah finally drew close enough for one of Mugashuku''s heads to notice the tiny figure flying towards them.
"Seems like the one called the Supreme Guardian is heading our way¡" one head noted.
"Ignore him. We have a hydra to y," another head retorted dismissively.
As the heads of Mugashuku bickered, the middle head, fueled by frustration, cursed at the others.
"Focus, you damned fools!" Then, itunched powerful red beams from its eyes. In response, Vedora let out a primal roar, showcasing its sheer lust for destruction, devoid of any intelligence or emotion. The white head, Ayag, roared back, unleashing powerful golden lightning bolts. Meanwhile, Sarba, the middle head of Vedora, fired intense sonic waves that transformed the golden lightning into a web of crackling energy.
As the attacks collided, a blinding spectacle of red and yellow consumed the sky.Soldiers below scattered, their cries swallowed by the thunderous sh. Noah felt his robes singe, his skin scorching from the radiating heat. Pain shot through him, but he gritted his teeth and held his position, determined to reach Mugashuku.
Amidst this chaos, Noah felt his white robes singe and his skin sear from the radiating heat of the battle. He hissed in pain but managed to maintain his position in the air, determined to reach Mugashuku no matter what.
"Damn it, this is insane!" one soldier shouted as he dodged debris and energy sts.
"What in the hell are those monsters doing up there?!" Another eximed in awe and terror.
Despite the searing pain and the overwhelming power disy in the sky, Noah pushed forward, driven by a need to intervene before the battle between the hydras resulted in irreversible damage to the world below.
The fusion of attacks ignited a blinding explosion that sent shockwaves rippling through the air. In the aftermath, the skies were painted in swirling red and gold as the smoke enveloped the two hydras like ominous dark clouds.
Suddenly, Mugashuku erupted from the smoke. One of its ck heads, which had been quiet until now, unleashed a guttural roar and charged. Blindsided, Vedora had little time to react as Mugashuku lunged past its defenses. Teeth like jagged spears sank into the white head, Ayag, eliciting a shriek that cut through the noise of battle.
"That did it!" a soldier bellowed on the battlefield below. "The ck head bit the white one!"
"They''ll bring the whole sky down on us!"someone yelled.
Vedora thrashed, golden lightning crackling across its scales as Ayag wrenched its head free. But Mugashuku was relentless. Another one of his heads snapped forward, mping down on Sarba, the middle head. Sarba let out a strangled screech as its sonic st faltered.
Mugashuku pressed its advantage. Using its colossal size, it mmed its full weight into Vedora, sending them tumbling. The world seemed to tilt for a heart stopping moment as the hydras spiraled towards the ground. Then, with a mighty surge, Mugashuku twisted mid air, its powerful legs now positioned above Vedora.
"The big one got the upper hand!" someone shouted.
In a brutal disy of power, Mugashuku brought its legs down, pinning Vedora''s thrashing forms. The two titans grappled in the sky, a nightmarish tangle of scales and ws. Vedora, caught off guard, struggled to dislodge itself, its roars devoid of any pain, reced with a primal fury born from desperation.
But Mugashuku held firm. Each of its four heads mped down on Vedora. Two of its heads pinning Ayag and Sarba while the other two held Cain firmly. Vedora''s struggles grew weaker, and its movements became less frantic.
For a breathless moment, it seemed Mugashuku would crush the other hydra under its sheer might. Yet, Vedora, an undead horror birthed through forbidden magic, was not so easily subdued.
Seeing the battle momentarily paused, Noah seized the chance. He darted forward, knowing such an opportunity might nevere again.
"Mugashuku!" Noah cried out. The hydra''s four heads swiveled towards him, eyes gleaming as it pinned Vedora beneath its colossal legs.
"So... the God of Light and I meet atst," mused Mugashuku''s middle head, a hint of amusement in its voice despite the dire circumstances.
"The honor is mine, Lord Mugashuku. But we must act quickly," Noah replied, fear and determination warring within him. His gaze flickered to the struggling Vedora. "This hydra threatens to destroy our world."
"This abomination was born of powers beyond yourprehension, human," the middle head replied, its feminine voice echoing eerily. "Yet, only through the realm tear can you banish it back to the darkness from whence it came."
A wave of both relief and terror washed over Noah. A solution existed, but the shimmering green tear in the sky was shrinking by the second. He had to act fast.
"How do I help?" Noah demanded, desperation edging into his voice. For a tense moment, Mugashuku scrutinized him with its chilling gaze.
Vedora writhed and thrashed beneath Mugashuku''s relentless grip.Though undead, it was far from defeated.However, itsck of true intelligence had allowed Mugashuku the upper hand, an advantage it wouldn''t hold forever. N?v(el)B\\jnn
"Very well, God of Light. You must reopen the realm tear," Mugashuku dered.
"Tell me how!" Noah insisted.
"Immense energy is required. Pure, concentrated energy must be focused upon the tear." Before Noah could reply, a thunderous explosion ripped through the air. Swiveling in unison, Noah and Mugashuku''s heads snapped toward the battlefield.A massive portal shimmered into existence, its swirling vortex dominating thendscape.
It pulsed with an otherworldly energy, swirling with a kaleidoscope of colors. Then, a figure emerged from the swirling vortex.
Tall and regal, d in gleaming white armor adorned with the emblem of Nagnd¡ªa serpent coiled and ready to strike¡ªSalesi stepped out of the portal. Her fiery red hair cascaded down her back, contrasting starkly with the polished white. Behind her, an army of warriors, simrly d in immacte white armor, streamed through the portal. Their movements were precise and disciplined.
Relief washed over Noah for a fleeting moment. Seeing his mother-inw leading such a well-equipped army calmed some of the frantic beating of his heart. But a sliver of suspicion lingered. He knew Nagnd''s forces, though skilled, were no match for the raw power of an undead hydra.
As thest soldier marched through the portal, the shimmering gateway sealed shut with another resounding crack. Salesi raised her hand, silencing the murmurs that rippled through her ranks. Her gaze swept across the battlefield, finally settling on the monstrous spectacle above.
For a moment, her eyes flickered with something simr to morbid satisfaction. There, locked in a deadly embrace, were the two hydras ¨C Mugashuku, its multiple heads snarling in dominance over the thrashing Vedora. A secret smile yed on Salesi''s lips, a flicker of cunning hidden beneath her determined expression.
Andohr''s audacious and risky n was working. Her arrival, leading this elite force, would undoubtedly convince Noah she was here to tip the scales in their favor. But her true objective was far more intricate. She needed to manipte Noah, the God of Light, into confronting the Dark Lord.
Salesi needed to lure the God of Darkness into the mortal world to create a battleground where Noah, the God of Light, would be forced to take a stand. Only then would her revenge against the Dark Lord beplete ¨C a n fueled by years of simmering hatred and a thirst for justice for her father.
Meanwhile, Noah, oblivious to Salesi''s true motive, watched his mother-inw with a mixture of hope and unease.
On the other hand, when Eve saw Salesi and her army, she knew it was time to end Salesi, despite the hydras battling above and the risk their fight could destroy the world.
"Azazel... are you seeing this? She''s here," Eve said into her earpiece, standing firmly on the ground.
"I see it, mydy. But do not engage her. A snake like her wouldn''t have shown up without a cunning n. Since there''s no chance of making Noah see that this might all be her doing, you need to retreat and hope the Dark Lord will soon arrive," Azazel advised. However, Eve shook her head, knowing this was her best shot to permanently eliminate Salesi.
"No, I''m going after that snake, Azazel. I''m going to cut the head off that bitch and end this scheming once and for all," Eve dered.
Far from the battlefield, the sinister Andreas floated in the air, watching the scene unfold. He maintained a telepathic connection with Salesi, keeping her updated on the ns.
"Our forces are moving against Harry, Salesi. We will have our backup in case Noah once again fails to kill the Dark Lord," Andreas said with a sinister chuckle.
"It looks like the Dark Lord''spdog is heading my way. Seems like we can give the Dark Lord a reason to be pissed off," Salesimunicated back telepathically.
"What do you mean?" Andreas asked, though he suspected where Salesi was heading with this.
"I''m going to kill her..." Salesi responded with a cold snicker.
Chapter 1275 Eve vs Salesi II
Chapter 1275 Eve vs Salesi II
Salesi noticed Eve approaching and ordered her soul army to attack her. Since she was Andohr''s daughter and Andohr was in cahoots with Fourcrux, the God of Necromancy, Salesi had received a more powerful version of the Book of the Dead¡ªfar superior to the one Dr used to summon undead from the Nether realm. This book allowed Salesi to reanimate the bodies of those who had died in the previous battles between Noah and Michael, infusing harvested souls into these bodies, thus creating her army.
However, the true nature of these undead soldiers¡ª their pale faces and peeling skin¡ªwas concealed beneath the armor they wore. To the outside world, this army appeared to be from Nagnd, with all soldiers assumed to be Nagas.
With Mugashuku''s ability to absorb the arch and celestial energy in the atmosphere, no one could use spells or harness energy. Thus, they all dashed at Eve without the aid of magic. These undead soldiers, infused with souls, possessed slightly more intelligence than typical undead, strategically nking Eve from all directions instead of mindlessly lunging at her.
"This ends today, bitch!" Eve roared as she swirled her hammer rapidly before throwing it with enough force to send the advancing soldiers flying.
Meanwhile, in the sky, Noah frantically searched for an energy source that could be used to widen the realm crack and send the three-headed hydra back to where it came from.
"Unless you want your world to turn to ashes, I suggest you find the energy source quickly. I can''t hold this for long," one of Mugashuku''s heads told Noah.
But when Noah saw Eve ughtering her way toward Salesi, shes of his wife''s death and Xanali''s broken state crossed his mind. He didn''t want the same fate to befall his mother-inw. So, he immediately tried to fly to her aid. However, just as Noah turned around, Vedora roared, breaking free from Mugashuku''s grasp. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Meanwhile, the undead soldiers descended upon Eve at an unnatural speed.Driven by a mix of hunger and Salesi''s will, they swung swords and axes, aiming for the vulnerable spots between her ted armor. Eve twisted and spun, her hammer a whirlwind of death.One skull shattered under its force, another undead warrior was hurled backward, bones snapping on impact.
Yet, they kepting. ws raked Eve''s armor, teeth tearing at exposed flesh. Blood spattered, mingling with the sickly sweet stench of decay. A cry of pain tore from Eve''s throat as a de pierced her side, drawing a crimson river.
"Impressive," Salesi remarked coldly, calcting each of Eve''s movements. "But even the legendary Eve Voldiguard has her limits."
Eve gritted her teeth, adrenaline masking the spreading ache of her wounds. She was fueled by rage, by the desperate need to end Salesi''s reign of terror. Yet, each fallen foe seemed to be reced by another, their numbers seemingly endless.
A heavy blow mmed into her ribs, sending her staggering.Another undead soldier lunged, its rotting teeth bared in a hideous grin. Eve surged forward, meeting it head-on.Her hammer crushed its ribcage with a sickening crack, but not before its rusty de sliced across her forearm.
"You underestimate me, Salesi!"Eve snarled through bloodied lips. "Your precious army is but meat for my grinder!"
In the sky, Vedora''s roar,ced with raw fury after being subdued, ripped through the sky. It twisted and thrashed, its three heads snapping in all directions as it unleashed a torrent of attacks.Golden lightning arced from the white head, searing Mugashuku''s scales and sending up plumes of acrid smoke. Sonic sts from the middle head shattered the air, disorienting its foe with waves of thunderous force.
Momentarily stunned, Mugashuku bellowed in rage. It counter attacked with brutal efficiency. Red beams zed from its eyes, carving deep furrows where they struck Vedora''s scales. ck teeth ripped into the white neck, drawing a pained shriek from the undead hydra.
The sheer force of their collision reverberated through the air, sending Noah hurtling to the ground like a discarded ragdoll.He mmed hard into the battlefield, the air whooshing from his lungs as he gasped for breath.
"Let''s end this," Eve snarled, her voice raspy with pain and exertion. Blood dripped freely from her wounds, mingling with the gore of her fallen foes, but her eyes burned with an unwavering determination.
With a final surge of power, she smashed her hammer into the ground, sending a tremor through the battlefield. The undead ranks parted before her, their rotting flesh and hollow eyes no match for her destructive power. Each swing of her hammer was a death sentence, a symphony of shattered bone and anguished cries.
In the middle of the battlefield, Salesi stood unmoving.The carnage surrounding her seemed not to touch the pristine whiteness of her armor.A frown creased her brow as she witnessed Eve''s unstoppable advance.
Finally, the bloodied warrior stood before her nemesis.Salesi unsheathed her halberd, its de gleaming with cold malice. The air crackled with tension as the remaining soul army instinctively drew back, leaving a chilling arena for the two women.
"You have exceeded my expectations,"Salesi admitted, a grudging respectcing her voice. "But your rampage ends here."
"This ends only when one of us lies dead, Salesi." Eve spat the blood in her mouth onto the ground.
A dark smile twisted Salesi''s lips."Then I shall enjoy this," she purred, raising her halberd in a graceful salute.
Once they all stepped back, Eve and Salesi ignored the apocalyptic battle raging in the sky above. Their world narrowed, focusing solely on the opponent before them. Then, as if triggered by a single thought, they charged. Eve raised her hammer high, a guttural roar tearing from her throat. Salesi spun her halberd, the de catching the fading sunlight in a sh of menace.
Noah, torn between stopping the bloodshed, hesitated. Before he could decide, disaster struck. Vedora''s golden lightning bolt arced down, striking the ground mere feet from his position.The force of the impact flung him backward, knocking the air from his lungs.Once-powerful celestial cultivator, he now mmed into the dirt with sickening force. His ears rang, vision blurring as pain shot through his body.
Meanwhile, Eve and Salesi''s sh echoed across the battlefield. Each blow was a thunderp, a desperate exchange of strikes fueled by rage and grim determination. Eve, fueled by a lifetime of fury, moved with surprising speed for her battered state.Her hammer descended in bone-jarring blows, each one intended to crush Salesi''s defenses.
Salesi, graceful and precise, spun her halberd to deflect the onught. Her eyes glittered with a cold intensity, searching for an opening, a weakness to exploit.
"Your strength is impressive, Eve, but rage is a clumsy weapon," Salesi taunted, sidestepping a crushing blow that left a crater in the ground.
"You''ll regret underestimating me," Eve snarled through gritted teeth.She feinted left, then lunged with a brutal sweep of her hammer that knocked Salesi off bnce. The halberd ttered to the ground.
Eve pressed her advantage, her hammer raised for the killing blow.Salesi, eyes wide with a flicker of surprise, dodged at thest moment.Eve''s hammer crashed down, shattering stone instead of flesh.
Salesi scrambled back, her pristine armor now marred with dents and blood spatters. "Impulsive," she hissed, a sneer twisting her lips. "Now you pay for your arrogance!"
With a fluid motion, Salesi retrieved her halberd.A flicker of her hand, and the weapon ignited, mes licking along its length.Eve narrowed her eyes, the heat scorching her face even from a distance.
"Let''s see if that rage of yours can withstand the fires of hell!" Salesi dered with a maliciousugh.
The duel took a deadly turn.Salesi''s attacks were now swift and unpredictable, weaving a web of searing mes.Eve was forced onto the defensive, parried desperately, the relentless heat pushing her back.
"Damn, she is good," Salesi muttered under her breath. The rumors of the Dark Lord''s brutal training seemed truer with each passing blow. She admired Eve''s raw power, but she couldn''t allow sentiment to cloud her judgment.
Salesi''s halberd spun in a zing arc, driving Eve back. A flicker of her wrist, and a gout of me shot from the de, forcing Eve to dodge. Yet, even as she retreated, Eve''s eyes gleamed with defiant cunning.With a savage kick, she sent a spray of mud flying, momentarily obscuring Salesi''s vision.
"Dirty bitch!" Salesi snarled, leaping back to scrub the grime from her eyes. The momentarypse was all Eve needed.Closing the distance in a blur of motion, she mmed her hammer into Salesi''s side with a sickening crunch.
A cry of pain escaped Salesi''s lips as she staggered. White armor, moments ago pristine, was cracked and dented. However, the blow only seemed to fuel her fury.The mes of her halberd grew brighter, casting an infernal glow across her twisted features.
"You''ll pay for that, you wretched cunt!"Salesi shrieked. The halberd swept towards Eve''s legs, but Eve anticipated the move, leaping high.As she descended, her hammer came down in a brutal arc, aimed to split Salesi''s skull.
Salesi brought her weapon up in a desperate parry. The impact reverberated through both women, sending tremors through the ground.For a heart-stopping moment, they were locked in a vicious stalemate, muscles straining, eyes zing with unyielding determination.
Then, with a sickening crack, Salesi''s halberd shaft shattered. Eve''s hammer mmed into her shoulder, sending her tumbling backward.Salesi sprawled in the dirt, her breath ragged.
Yet, defeat didn''t dim the fire in her eyes. "Impressive," she choked through a bloody grin. "But not enough to kill me," she said, picking herself up.
"We''ll see about that. Say good night," Eve growled, a feral grin splitting her bloody face. She hurled her hammer with lethal force. It struck Salesi square in the gut before she could fully react, a sickening thud echoing across the battlefield. The impact sent Salesi sprawling, her breath knocked from her lungs.
Wasting no time, Eve lunged forward, snatching Salesi''s discarded halberd from the mud. With a triumphant cry, she raised it high, poised to drive it through her enemy''s heart.
But as the de descended, a sudden, searing pain ripped through Eve''s chest.Her hands trembled, the halberd slipping from her grasp. She looked down in horror to see a gleaming spear protruding from her body.
Chapter 1276 Michael vs Noah I
Chapter 1276 Michael vs Noah I
As blood trickled down her mouth, Eve looked over her shoulder to see Noah breathing heavily. The spear he had thrown, cutting through the raging storm created by the fighting hydras, had taken everything out of him. He was gasping for air, and a flicker of regret passed through his eyes. If he hadn''t thrown that spear, Eve might have killed Salesi, and Noah couldn''t allow that. He had already lost his wife, Alicia, and his lover, Xanali¡ªSalesi''s daughter, whose meridians had been shattered by Gaya. He couldn''t let Eve kill Xanali''s mother.
Taking advantage of Eve''s stunned state, Salesi quickly picked up a nearby dagger and plunged it into Eve''s heart, eliciting a gush of blood.
"I win, bitch," Salesi snickered with an evil grin.
However, a chill ran down Salesi''s spine when she saw a grin spread across Eve''s face.
"You have no idea what''s going to happen to you, your little kingdom, and your son-inw¡" Eve said, coughing up blood, hinting at the vengeance that would soon befall them at the hands of her friend, the Dark Lord.
"EVE!" Lenora''s shout echoed across the battlefield as Salesi watched the elder vampire charging through the armored soldiers with herpanion Trista. However, Salesi''s soul army was formidable enough to keep the elder vampires from reaching Eve in time.
As Eve reached for a healing potion, Ayag''s head unleashed a volley of golden lightning bolts at Mugashuku. One stray bolt struck the ground near Eve, sending her flying before she could grasp the healing potion within her armor. The sheer force of the lightning bolt not only sent Eve flying but also knocked back Noah and Salesi.
Eve''s breath hitched, each gasp a crimson bubble escaping her mangled lips. A final, defiant rasp escaped her throat as darkness bloomed at the edges of her vision.
"Ghost wille... for all of you..." she croaked, the words a chilling promise echoing through the battlefield.
Memories flooded her mind, a bittersweet montage of happier times.She saw how Ghost helped her break her bottleneck in cultivation, saving her and her family. Then, she saw her time with Gaya, little Cindy and the training with the dark army and the good times they all sharedughing and dining.
But at that moment, she didn''t regret her demise. Instead, she regretted dying without finishing Salesi, without ending this bloody war.
Above, the two colossal hydras continued their earth-shattering duel, oblivious to the drama unfolding below.Noah''s anguished cry reached Eve''s fading consciousness, a distant echo swallowed by the din of battle.
Tears welled up, blurring her vision further.Eve tilted her head back, the chaotic scene above dissolving into a canvas of swirling colors.The sky lost its color, morphing into an endless sea of darkness. "So close..." she muttered.
Then, with a soft sigh, Eve surrendered to the encroaching darkness. When Eve closed her eyes, a subtle change permeated the atmosphere. A thick, palpable energy radiated from her, causing the realm tear in the sky to widen unexpectedly. Mugashuku, noticing both Eve''s demise and the subsequent alteration in the tear, frowned deeply.
"Something is odd about her death¡ the energy escaping her body¡ it doesn''t belong to the mortal realm," one of Mugashuku''s headsmented to the others.
"I''ve noticed too. It''s also causing the realm tear to expand," another head added, dodging a volley of lightning bolts from Ayag and evading the sonic waves from Sarba''s head. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"FOCUS!" roared another head, urging its siblings to maintain their concentration.
Suddenly, another realm tear appeared in the sky, this one an emerald green streak, ck as if a stroke of dark lightning had sliced through the atmosphere. The thunderous boom that followed momentarily halted the soldiers in their tracks. Those who had been desperate to escape the chaos of the battlefield and the deadly hydras now looked up in dread at the new tear.
"What is happening?"
"Another realm tear!"
"No, no, no¡ not another hydra!"
Panic ensued among the soldiers, their voices filled with despair. However, no giant w or hydra emerged from this new tear. Instead, something far more ominous and dangerous appeared: the Dark Lord. Noah''s body tensed, his fists clenched tightly as he recognized his brother stepping through the realm tear.
"He is here," Salesi muttered under her breath, her voice tinged with excitement. She had thought that kidnapping Harry would lure the Dark Lord back to the mortal realm. But upon seeing the Dark Lord''s intense gaze fixed upon Eve''s lifeless form, Salesi realized that he hadn''te for his son but for his best friend. Kneeling beside Eve''s lifeless body, Michael felt a heavy sorrow weigh upon his shoulders. The battlefield''s chaos blurred into the background as he focused solely on his fallen friend.
"Eve¡" he whispered again, his voice barely audible. Gently, he ced his hand on her forehead, a futile gesture offort to the departed. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a healing potion, his hands trembling slightly as he poured the liquid over her wounds. Hope red briefly within him, but the potion merely soaked into her clothes, its magic useless against the finality of death.
[There is no healing the dead, host.] The system''s voice resonated in his head, tinged with a rare hint of empathy.
"Can you bring her back? I don''t care how many badass points it takes, or how many loans I need to take... just bring her back," Michael murmured, his voice thick with desperation.
[The system level is too low to bring her back, host. Even if the system level were adequate, it would require billions of badass points to resurrect her,] the system responded, outlining the stark reality of their limitations.
"So there is hope..." Michael''s words were a whisper to himself, a promise in the face of overwhelming despair. He knew that resurrecting Eve would be a monumental task, potentially taking years or even decades, given the sheer number of badass points needed. Yet, the determination in his eyes was clear. He would do whatever it took, no matter how many lives he had to take or how long it would take. Eve had been more than a friend; she had been a part of his chosen family, and for her, he would move heaven and earth.
"It hurts, doesn''t it?" Noah''s voice cut through the silence,ced with echoes of his own grief. "To watch someone you care about die?"
"I felt that pain too," Noah growled, "the day you murdered Alicia." Regret gnawed at him, but his hatred for the Dark Lord hardened his voice, obscuring any remorse for Eve''s death.
"You have no right to mourn," Noah hissed, "not when thousands have fallen by your hand.
"It''s going to happen... no more schemes, no more holding back... they are going to fight to the death," Salesi added, a hint of satisfaction in her voice. Her father''s n had worked. Although the reason for the Dark Lord''s return differed from her expectations, he had returned nheless.
"Look around, all this destruction, all this death, all this pain; it''s all because of you. Because of your thirst for power. The Skyhall elders were right, you bring nothing but death to this world," Noah said, unsheathing his twin white swords from his back.
Yet, Michael remained silent. For the first time, he let his anger take over his mind. Although silent, he was far from calm¡ªa dangerous storm raged in his heart, and Noah''s words only fueled it further.
"You are going to die... no one in the entire universe can stop it," Michael''s voice, when it finally came, was devoid of emotion, only a chilling promiseced with deadly intent. He then slowly rose to his feet after closing Eve''s eyes, tapping the skull medallion on his chest. His dark armor sprang from the medallion, seamlessly covering him up to his neck.
Michael stood, his twin dark swords gleaming ominously as he unsheathed them from his back. His gaze locked onto Noah, filled with unrelenting killing intent. The storm of his emotions was palpable, the air around him charged with dark energy.
"No more schemes, no moreing back, no more death," Noah dered, his voice resolute. "This ends today, with one of us dying."
"Not one of us, you," Michael''s response was a low growl, each wordced with killing intent.
In a blur of raw power, Noah surged forward. His twin white swords slicing through the air with deadly precision. Each strike was aimed with the intent to kill, cutting a path toward Michael with a ferocity that matched the storm raging above them. Sparks erupted in a shower as Michael met each attack head-on, his own dark des deflecting Noah''s strikes with chilling efficiency.
"Eve''s death is on you!" Noah roared, his voice raw with grief and fury. He hoped to break Michael''s concentration, to exploit a flicker of regret in the storm of rage.
A grim smile twisted Michael''s lips. "Don''t bother trying to make me lose my calm, you already did that," he rasped, his voiceced with a chilling emptiness. In a sudden and unexpected move, Michael allowed Noah''s sword to pierce through his shoulder, the de biting into his flesh. Ignoring the searing pain, Michael used the close proximity to deliver a brutal punch straight to Noah''s face. The force of the impact sent Noah flying backward, crashing to the ground with a thud.
Noah quickly scrambled back to his feet, wiping the blood from his mouth. He spat out a mouthful of blood and red at Michael, his eyes zing with anger. "You have to do better than that," Noah said, readying himself for the next assault.
Chapter 1277 Michael vs Noah II
Chapter 1277 Michael vs Noah II
As the storm above them roared with the fury of battling hydras, Michael and Noah resumed their fierce duel on the batteredndscape below. Noah, nimble and acrobatic, darted around Michael, his movements a blur of grace and deadly intent. He swung his twin swords in sweeping arcs, each strike a dance of steel aimed at exploiting any opening in Michael''s defense.
On the other hand, Michael countered with less finesse but with overwhelming brute force. Each block and parry from his dark swords was delivered with such power that it sent shockwaves through the air. When Michael attacked, it was with devastating strikes, each one capable of shattering stone and bone alike.
"Is that the best you can do? It requires more than just brute strength to end me!" Noah taunted as he flipped over a low sweep,nding perfectly to deliver a series of rapid thrusts.
Michael grunted, the edge of Noah''s de grazing his armor. Ignoring the sting of cuts umting on his arms and sides, Michael responded. "You dance around too much. Let''s see you dodge this!" With a thunderous roar, Michael swung his sword horizontally with such force that it tore through the air, creating a sonic boom.
Noah narrowly evaded the strike, feeling the heat of the de as it passed inches from his face. He rolled to the side,ing up with his swords crossed defensively. "Your rage blinds you! Eve wouldn''t have wanted any of this!"
The mention of Eve fueled Michael''s fury as heunched forward with renewed aggression. His strikes became a barrage, relentless and punishing. Noah was forced to retreat under the onught, and his own attacks became more desperate.
"Watch the gods battle!"Salesi said with an amused tone.
"End this, Supreme Guardian!" Noah''s soldiers responded with shouts of their own, rallying behind their leader.
Despite their encouragement, Noah was struggling to keep up with Michael''s raw power. A particrly vicious swing from Michael''s sword caught Noah off-guard, the de slicing deep into his side, drawing a pained gasp from him.
Michael didn''t pause, pressing his advantage. He closed in, his next strike aimed squarely at Noah''s head. Noah ducked under the swing at thest second, feeling the wind of the de whip through his hair. He counterattacked with a precise jab aimed at Michael''s abdomen, piercing the armor and drawing blood.
"Darkness cannot triumph the light, Ghost" Noah spat, his face set in a grimace as he twisted the de before pulling back, ready for Michael''s inevitable retaliation.
Wasting no time, the two of the dashed at each other and swung their swords with all their might.
As their swords nged with a resounding crash, the sheer force of the impact jarred their weapons from their hands, sending them skittering across the muddy battlefield. For a fleeting moment, the loss of their swords left them exposed, but neither of them hesitated. Their roars filled the air as they summoned the deepest reserves of their power, channeling the raw power of their primordial mes.
Michael''s fists ignited with dark, swirling mes that absorbed light, creating a void around them, while Noah''s hands zed with brilliant light mes, casting intense rays that sliced through the darkness. They charged toward each other, driven by the anger that had built over time.
Their fists collided mid-air, and the resulting explosion of power was cataclysmic. A blinding sh of silver light erupted, enveloping the battlefield and momentarily blinding all who were watching. The shockwave from their sh was powerful enough to knock back nearby soldiers and form cracks on the ground.
As the light subsided, both Michael and Noah were flung backward,nding heavily on the ground. They struggled to regain their bearings, feeling the residual energy crackling in the air.
High above, the realm crack in the sky responded to the unleashed energies below. It widened further, the edges tearing with increased ferocity as barrier between two realms seemed to strain under the force. Mugashuku seized this opportunity, its roars thundering across the heavens. With a renewed surge of strength, it gripped Vedora more tightly, its multiple heads coordinating a massive push.
Vedora, caught in Mugashuku''s relentless assault, was driven backward, its own roars of fury and resistance echoing as it struggled against the overwhelming force. Mugashuku''s efforts were singrly focused on propelling Vedora towards the expanding tear in reality, intent on banishing the undead hydra back through the rift from where it came.
On the ground, Michael spat the blood from his mouth and, with a defiant growl, kicked back to his feet. He wiped the blood trickling from his lips with the back of his hand, his eyes never leaving Noah. Meanwhile, Noah looked down at his hand in dismay. The sight was gruesome as his bone protruded from his skin, the hand grotesquely twisted from the impact. Despite the searing pain, Noah''s resolve did not waver. With a grunt of determination, he manually realigned his hand, the sound of bone scraping against bone echoing disturbingly in the near silence that followed the sh. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he quickly uncorked a healing potion and downed it in one swift gulp.
"No amount of healing potion will save you from me," Michael taunted, his voice a low rumble of deadly promise.
Noah clenched his teeth as the potent magic of the healing potion knitted his bones back together. His flesh healed at an elerated pace, the visible wounds closing as if being stitched by an invisible hand. Standing up straight, he clenched and unclenched his healed hand, testing its strength. The pain had subsided, reced by a burning determination.
Slowly, with a grimace that spoke of both pain and resolve, Noah approached Michael. His eyes, usually calm and collected, now burned with a fire fueled by aplex mix of duty, vengeance, and desperation.
"This ends today, Ghost," Noah dered.
"One way or another."
Michael simply nodded, the ghost of a smile ying on his lips as he readied himself. Just as the two brothers hesitated, a shield flew out of nowhere,nding squarely between them. Startled, Michael and Noah both turned toward the direction from which the shield hade. Approaching them was a figure d entirely in ck¡ªa long coat, shirt, and trousers. It was their mother, Harriet Hunt AKA Diana Winston.
"Mother..." Noah murmured, his voice a mix of surprise and confusion.
Michael remained silent, his expression unreadable, but his posture subtly rxed at the sight of Harriet. She moved toward them with determined steps, her twin swords held tightly at her side, her coat fluttering in the tumultuous winds stirred by the battle of the hydras.
"Mother, you need to leave," Noah said, ncing warily at Michael, whose eyes still held a dangerous glint.
However, Harriet''s gaze didn''t waver from her sons; it was filled with an intense mix of sadness and anger. "I am here to stop you two from killing each other. So stand down," shemanded, her voice cold and firm,cking its usual gentleness.
"He dies tonight," Michael''s voice was icy as he dered and charged at Noah with lethal intent. However, Harriet reacted with incredible speed, her movements almost a blur despite the absence of arch energy due to Mugashuku''s void effect.
As Michael''s dark swords flew into his hands and he swung furiously at Noah, Harriet intervened expertly. She parried his blows with her twin swords, her skills honed by decades ofbat. With a precise and forceful push, she managed to separate Michael from Noah, creating a brief pause in their deadly dance. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Enough, Dean!" Harriet''s voice cracked like a whip through the air, her eyes shing with maternal fury mixed with a plea. "This is not the way!"
Michael, chest heaving with exertion and anger, red at his brother, then at his mother. His expression was a turbulent mix of pain and defiance, but he held his position, the dark swords still ready in his grasp.
Harriet turned her gaze to Noah, who was clutching his newly healed arm, his face etched with conflict. "And you, Noah. Lower your weapons. This ends now."
"No," Noah shook his head, his expression resolute and tinged with sorrow. "One of us will die today, Mother," he dered, and with a powerful stomp that shook the ground, his swords flew into his hands. He charged at Michael, his movements fueled by a desperate sense of finality.
But Harriet was quicker. She stepped in with grace and precision honed over decades, her twin swords a blur as she intercepted Noah. She blocked his advance with a series of swift, controlled strikes that forced him back.
"Enough, both of you!" Harriet''s voice boomed over the roar of the battling hydras above and the chaos surrounding them.
Not to be deterred, Michael lunged forward, his dark swords aimed at Noah. Yet again, Harriet intervened, her des meeting Michael''s with a sh of steel that sent sparks flying. She twirled her swords with expert finesse, pushing Michael back with one arm and blocking Noah with the other.
"Listen to me!" Harriet eximed as she danced between her two sons, her movements both defensive and offensive. She parried a thrust from Noah and countered with a gentle but firm push against his chest, sending him staggering. Simultaneously, she ducked under a wide swing from Michael.
"This is not who you are."
The battle showcased Harriet''s formidable prowess as she managed to keep both her sons at bay. Each move she made was calcted to incapacitate without causing serious harm, her swords asionally tapping against their armor in warning rather than with intent to injure.
Her agility and skill were evident as she weaved through the onught of blows from her sons, her face set in a mask of determination. It was a dance of desperation, trying to quell the storm of violence between her children with the hope of reaching their hearts before it was toote.
Chapter 1278 Ancient Gods Blood
Chapter 1278 Ancient God''s Blood
Despite Harriet''s intervention, Michael''s anger did not simmer down. Instead, he attacked both Noah and Harriet furiously, showing no signs of familial bonds.
"Mother, you need to leave!" Noah shouted, barely evading Michael''s attack and trying to defend his mother. But Harriet was more stubborn than the two of thembined. Instead of slowing down, Harriet retaliated against Michael with even more furious attacks.
"I don''t want to hurt you, Dean, but I will if you don''t stop!" Harriet shouted, her voice filled with desperation.
"Don''t call me that!" Michael snapped back, his anger ring even more. He stomped the ground with his raw power, shaking the earth beneath them. The cracking ground made Noah and Harriet lose a bit of bnce. Seizing this moment, Michael kicked Noah squarely in the chest and pushed Harriet away with enough force to make her stumble backward.
Taking advantage of their momentary disorientation, Michael charged at Noah before he could regain his bnce. He didn''t even bother to take out the god-killing arrows from his system storage, as only those arrows could truly kill Noah, a fellow god. However, Michael was too enraged to strategize. He wanted to hurt Noah before ending his life. Thus, as he reached Noah, Michael swung his sword in an arc, but at thest minute, Harriet threw her sword, cutting Michael''s hand and making him lose his grip on his sword.
Utilizing the opportunity, Noah retaliated with a flying kick to Michael''s chest, sending him reeling backward. As Michael struggled to regain his footing, Noah roared at Harriet. "You cannot stop this, Mother!"
In a swift motion, Noah grabbed a rope from the ground, tying it around the hilt of his sword and coiling it around his wrist to ensure he wouldn''t lose his grip again.
As Michael steadied himself and prepared tounch another attack, the sky suddenly lit up with another volley of golden lightning bolts fired by Ayag''s head. Several bolts struck the ground near them, exploding with tremendous force. The shockwave from the sts caught Michael, Noah, and Harriet within its radius, hurling them apart and scattering them across the battlefield.
Dazed and disoriented by the explosion, they struggled to regain their senses. The air crackled with residual energy from the lightning, the smell of scorched earth hanging heavy around them. Despite her injuries, Harriet quickly got to her feet, her eyes scanning for her sons amid the chaos.
"Noah! Dean!" she called out, her voice hoarse with desperation. She stumbled toward Noah, who was slowly picking himself up, his armor dented and his face grim with pain and determination.
Harriet reached him, cing a steadying hand on his shoulder. "This isn''t the way," she pleaded, her eyes meeting his. "I have no choice, Mother. He needs to be stopped," Noah said, gesturing toward where Michael was also rising, his dark armor smoldering and his demeanor more menacing than ever.
As the soldiers scrambled away from the battlefield, a horrific sight caught their attention. Vedora, the undead hydra, was slowly but inexorably moving toward the city of Icefair. The city''s outskirts were already in ruins, with people desperately trying to evacuate amidst the chaos caused by the distant battle. "Look! The hydra is heading for Icefair!" one soldier cried out, pointing toward the looming threat.
Mugashuku, locked in its titanic struggle with Vedora, tried to restrain the undead hydra, but a mysterious force seemed to propel Vedora towards the city, its instincts overridden by some unknownmand.
On the battlefield, Noah saw the hydra''s movement and turned his fury toward Michael. "All these deaths are on your head!" he roared, his voice filled with me and anger.
"You have no idea who the real viin in this is." Michael responded with a growl.
Witnessing the escting conflict and the looming disaster, Harriet stood firmly between her sons. "We can talk this out," she pleaded, her voice desperate for peace. But Michael''s patience had worn thin.
"No more talking. This has gone on long enough,"Michael dered, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
As the two hydras continued their relentless battle in the sky, their colossal forms ominously floated towards Icefair city. The ground shook with their every move, the city''s already crumbling structures beginning to give way under the immense pressure of the ongoing battle above.
Ignoring Harriet''s pleas for peace, Noah, fueled by desperation and fury, pushed her aside and charged towards Michael. He had modified hisbat style, using the rope tied to his sword to extend his reach and maneuverability. This allowed him to keep a safer distance from Michael''s devastating power, which was fueled by raw anger and dark energy.
Noah swung the sword expertly, the de whistling through the air, creating arcs of silver light as it moved. Each swing was calcted and precise, aimed at exploiting Michael''s aggressive approach. The rope allowed the sword to cut through the air, shing at Michael from unexpected angles.
Michael, caught by the swift and unpredictable attacks, sustained several cuts across his arms and torso. Each strike of Noah''s sword left a mark, slicing through Michael''s dark armor and drawing blood. Despite the injuries, Michael''s response was ferocious, meeting each of Noah''s attacks with a counterstrike of his own. His movements, though less elegant than Noah''s, were powerful and direct, aiming to overpower rather than outmaneuver his brother.
The fight escted, with Michael attempting to close the distance between them, his dark swords shing against Noah''s with sparks flying every time they met. Michael''s strategy was clear, to remove the advantage Noah gained from the rope by bringing the battle into close quarters where his superior strength could be more effectively utilized.
As the fight continued, Noah expertly threw his sword, slicing a small cut across Michael''s face. Reacting swiftly, Michael seized the rope and coiled it around his wrist, yanking Noah closer. With Noah now within his reach, Michael unleashed a barrage of punches, each blownding heavily on Noah''s face, causing him to cough up blood.
Harriet, witnessing the brutal scene, dashed towards Michael, her roar of anger filling the air. "That''s enough!"
She attempted to intercept Michael''s fist, aiming to stop him, but Michael''s raw power was too much. With a forceful shove, he pushed Harriet down, momentarily stunning her.
Seeing her son, Noah, bleeding and struggling reignited a fierce protective instinct in Harriet. Closing her eyes, she summoned the ancient god''s blood that coursed through her veins. A thickyer of red energy enveloped her body, glowing intensely as she channeled her ancient heritage.
With renewed vigor and power, Harriet dashed forward, her movements blurred by the intense energy surrounding her. She delivered a powerful kick to Michael, sending him flying across the battlefield. The impact of her kick was so forceful that it created a shockwave, stirring up dust and debris around them.
Michael, caught off guard by the sudden surge of power from his mother, was thrown back several yards. He skidded across the ground, his armor scraping against the dirt, beforeing to a harsh stop. The red energy around Harriet flickered with potent force, signaling her readiness to defend her sons at all costs.
"There it is¡ The ancient god''s power," Salesi mumbled from a safe distance, her eyes wide as she observed the battle. This mysterious and potent power that coursed through only a select few in their universe was astonishing. ording to her father, these ancient god powers originated from powerful beings beyond their known universe. However, not even he fully understood how mere mortals came to inherit traces of such powerful energy.
"It is not time for admiration, Salesi. He hasn''t used the god-killing arrows yet," the voice of evil Andreas echoed in her head.
"He will¡ One god dies today¡" Salesi replied, her voice tinged with amusement.
Meanwhile, Michael picked himself up from the ground, spitting out the blood that filled his mouth. He stared at Harriet with a mix of shock and respect. He had never before experienced such overwhelming force, it was like being struck by a freight train. Even without the aid of arch and celestial energy in the atmosphere, her power had sent him reeling, a feat no small task.
"Mother," Noah murmured, his gaze fixed on the crimson red energy swirling around Harriet.
"I tried to talk you down. But if you only listen to violence, then so be it," Harriet said coldly, her eyes moving between Noah and Michael.
With a burst of speed granted by the ancient god''s power, Harrietunched herself at Michael. Her movements were a blur, each strike delivered with precision and overwhelming force. Michael, taken aback by her sudden onught, quickly activated a ck shield from his wrist to block her attacks. The shield shimmered under the impact, each hit resonating like thunder.
Harriet''s assault was relentless. She shifted her weight and threw a series of rapid punches, each one aimed to break through Michael''s defenses. The sheer power behind her strikes forced Michael to step back, struggling to keep up with her speed.
Seeing an opportunity, Noah tried to capitalize on Michael''s distraction. He dashed towards his brother, sword drawn and ready to strike. However, Harriet was quick to intercept. With the same ferocity she used against Michael, she turned her attention to Noah. Her attacks were not just powerful but also strategic, aiming to incapacitate rather than kill.
She swept Noah''s legs with a low kick, sending him tumbling to the ground. Before he could recover, she followed up with a downward strike aimed at his chest. Noah managed to roll away just in time, the ground where he had been seconds before now cracked and upheaved from the force of her strike.
Not letting up, Harriet spun and delivered a backhand strike that caught Noah across the cheek, sending him reeling. As he staggered, she grabbed his wrist, twisting it sharply. The pain forced Noah to drop his sword, his arm rendered useless as she applied pressure. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Enough!" she bellowed, her voice echoing with the authority of the ancient power within her. "This ends now!"
"You want to y, let''s y," said Michael before activating his APD to inject him with the Berseker potion.
Chapter 1279 Noah鈥檚 Accusations
Chapter 1279 Noah¡¯s usations
The moment the berserker potion mixed with his blood, Michael''s eyes took on a slight crimson glow as his muscles bulged under his armor. His pupils contracted, and he grew a few inches taller and more robust. Michael had never needed the potion while he had ess to celestial energy, but with Mugashuku''s void effect nullifying celestial energy, he resorted to the berserker potion.
Michael typically avoided using the berserker potion because, after its effects wore off, his body would be weakened for a period. However, in this dire situation, he needed the potion''s boost to contend with the mysterious energy powering Harriet.
Noah, an alchemist himself, immediately recognized the potion. Deep down, he was shocked that Michael had managed to brew this notoriously difficult concoction.
"I didn''t want to do this in front of his mother, but if you insist, then so be it," Michael growled, slowly advancing toward Noah and Harriet. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Noah tightened his grip on the ropes tied to his swords, bracing for another confrontation. Meanwhile, Mugashuku and Vedora continued their aerial battle, slowly drifting toward the city of Icefair. As the titanic creatures approached, panic spread among the soldiers.
"Go help with the evacuations!" Noah barked at his men, who quickly moved toward the city. Meanwhile, Salesi''s soul army, disguised in the heavy armor and weaponry of Nagnd''s forces, stood their ground, encircling Noah, Michael, and Harriet.
Now enhanced by the berserker potion, Michael exuded an intimidating presence, his every move more forceful and deliberate. Aware of the stakes, Noah remained vignt, his eyes darting between his mother and brother, trying to anticipate their next moves.
As Harrietunched herself towards Michael, Noah''s frustration boiled over. "I don''t need you fighting my battles, Mother!" he roared, surging forward. He swung the ropes, propelling his sword through the air towards Michael. With a swift motion, Michael dodged the iing de, severing the rope with a quick sh of his own sword, and simultaneouslynded a forceful kick on Harriet, sending her reeling backward through the air.
"You''ll pay for that!" Noah bellowed, his voice thick with rage. Light mes enveloped his fists, casting a radiant glow that flickered violently as he charged toward Michael. With a powerful swing, he struck Michael squarely in the chest. The impact resounded with a crack as Michael''s dark armor fissured under thebined force and intense heat of the light mes.
But Michael was quick to counter. Summoning the dark mes that danced menacingly around his fists, he retaliated with a devastating punch. The dark mes collided with Noah, overwhelming the light with an eerie sizzle and sending Noah stumbling backward, his footing uncertain from the sheer force of Michael''s blow.
Meanwhile, Harriet, having recovered from her unexpected flight,nded gracefully despite the chaos. She dusted herself off and stared in dismay at the ongoing conflict between her sons. Harriet knew the loss of Eve made Michael enraged, and she wouldn''t be able to talk him down from killing his brother. On the other hand, she also knew talking down Noah wasn''t an option either since Michael killed Noah''s wife Alicia. Faced with no viable options to negotiate peace between them, Harriet decided the only feasible solution, however daunting, was to physically intervene and prevent the brothers from killing each other. The void effect, which stripped them of their powers, was a small advantage she could exploit.
With a half baked n to defeat not one but two gods, Harriet dashed at them once again to stop them from killing each other. She couldnt even imagine what would happen if one of them died. The death of Rainar, the God of Rain, had already robbed the mortal realm of rain; the death of Noah, the God of Light, or Michael, the God of Darkness, could provoke even more catastrophic repercussions.
But watching from the sidelines, Salesi grew increasingly frustrated with the stalemate. She understood all too well that the longer a battle dragged on, the more unpredictable the oue could be. Eager to elerate the conflict, Salesi issued amand to her disguised soul army.
"Go attack him," she ordered, pointing at Michael. She knew that Noah, in his righteous indignation, would believe these undead, soul-infused warriors were soldiers from Nagnd. Seeing his brother ughtering what appeared to be human soldiers would likely enrage him further, escting the battle¡ªa catalyst Salesi deemed necessary.
"And keep her out of their fight," she added, directing her secondmand at Harriet. Her strategy was clear: iste Michael and Noah from Harriet''s moderating influence, deepening the chaos and pushing the brothers toward a deadly confrontation.
As the disguised soul army charged, Michael''s anger red to the next level. "Get out of my way!" he roared, cutting through the undead with ruthless efficiency. His dark mes enveloped the dark sword, scorching and dismembering the reanimated soldiers with each swing. He didn''t pause to consider the implications of his actions, focused solely on his path of vengeance.
"Stop this madness!" Noah, witnessing the carnage roared before lunging at Michael in an attempt to intervene. To him, it appeared as if Michael was ughtering helpless soldiers of Nagnd, which only fueled his rage and despair.
Meanwhile, another portion of the army engaged Harriet, attempting to restrain her without causing harm. From a distance, Salesi raised her voice, trying to manipte the chaotic scene to her advantage. "Noah, we''re only trying to prevent further bloodshed!" she called out, feigning concern. "My army will not harm Diana. We''re just keeping her from getting hurt or interfering!"
Harriet struggled against the soldiers, her frustration mounting as she realized they were not there to harm her but merely to keep her from intervening in Michael and Noah''s fight.
"Trust me, I''m doing this for a good reason!" Salesi''s voice carried a feigned tone of concern and urgency, masking her true intentions to provoke Noah and Michael into a fatal confrontation.
"Noah, you need to stop. Do not trust her!" Harriet shouted, straining against the soldiers trying to restrain her. She was cautious not to seriously harm what she believed were Nagnd soldiers merely following orders.
"You stupid idiot, you always get manipted and end up fighting the wrong fight. But this time, you messed up," Michael roared as he viciously ughtered the soldiers, his fury unabated.
Ignoring Michael''s words, Noah turned to his mother. "Mother, you don''t understand. This is the only way!"
"There is always another way, a better way," Harriet retorted, her energy surging as she knocked down several soldiers with a burst of power.
"This is the only way to save her!" Noah''s voice cracked with emotion, finally revealing his driving force. When he mentioned these words, Harriet paused her assault, her attention sharply focused on her son as Salesi, sensing an opportunity, telepathicallymanded her soul army to halt. She wanted Harriet to hear Noah''s exnation, hoping it would manipte her into standing down. Of course, the story about Zariel holding Rowena Winston, Noah''s elder sister and the Holy Maiden, hostage and demanding Michael''s death for her release was aplete fabrication by Salesi.
"What?.." Harriet''s voice faltered, her grip on her swords loosening slightly in shock.
"He needs to die if we want to see Rowena again," Noah said, desperation coloring his tone.
For a moment, the battlefield stilled, the tension palpable. Noah, Harriet, and the soul army under Salesi''smand all paused. Even Michael, upon hearing Noah''s words, frowned. His rage momentarily subsided, allowing a sliver of rational thought to prate his fury. He knew the events unfolding were orchestrated by Salesi or possibly Andohr, but what infuriated him more was Noah''s continued eptance to maniption. If Noah had been fooled once, Michael might have forgiven him, but Noah''s steadfast belief that Michael needed to die to save Rowena made him a truly dangerous enemy.
"It''s always someone else, isn''t it? Don''t you see? Salesi is manipting you, controlling you like a puppet," Michael growled, his words slicing through the tension.
Noah, however, shook his head, refusing to let Michael''s usations prate his resolve.
"It doesn''t matter who maniptes me. You are evil. You alone are responsible for so many deaths. A few good deeds don''t make you a saint. If I''m being manipted by others, you''ve been manipted by your thirst for more power," Noah shot back.
"You could have stayed in the mortal realm as the most powerful being. You could have used your powers for good. But no, you wanted more. And Skyhall just became a convenient excuse for you," Noah''s words struck Michael, causing him to frown. Despite his anger, a part of Michael''s rational mind acknowledged the sliver of truth in Noah''s usations.
Michael could have indeed wiped out the Skyhall when he reached the Celestial stage and lived like a king in the mortal realm. But his relentless desire for more power, born from a belief that only power could protect him from vulnerability, had driven his actions.
"Have you ever considered that if you hadn''t pulled Eve into your dark army and your quest for power, she might still be alive?" Noah''s question hit Michael with the force of a freight train.
"We could have been a real family, but your thirst for power destroyed the lives of others, others who cared about you. Eve is dead because of you and her decision to follow you. Rowena is in dire danger because she tried to save you. The whole city of Icefair burns and lies in ruins because of the enemies you made," Noah continued, each word heavy with usation and pain.
Chapter 1280 A God Dies, A God Rises I
Chapter 1280 A God Dies, A God Rises I
Salesi observed the unfolding confrontation with a mixture of amusement and anticipation. She admired Noah for his biting words, knowing well how deeply they would shake Michael psychologically, potentially weakening him enough for Noah to finish him off.
"Good, Noah, very good," Salesi murmured under her breath, her gaze sharp and calcting.
"That little puppy might not be as naive as we thought." Evil Andreas, watching the scene unfold,mented through their telepathic link with a hint of surprise.
"You can''t manipte someone effectively without sprinkling in some truth, Andreas," Salesi replied telepathically, her voice cool andposed. "What Noah is saying to Ghost holds truth, and that''s what makes it so potent."
After hearing Noah, Harriet''s heart started to beast faster. The truth in Noah''s words was not lost on her. "You both have made mistakes, but killing each other is not the answer!" she shouted. Her voice cut through the tension like a sharp de, her plea carrying the weight of a mother''s desperation.
However, Noah shook his head, the lines of his face hardening into a mask of resolve. His eyes, once filled with the warmth of a son, now held a cold, unyielding determination as they locked onto Michael.
"As long as you are alive, there will always be someone pulling the strings from the shadows," Noah said with a firm tone, void of any warmth. "I need to avenge Alicia and protect others from the chaos you bring. You need to die. It''s the only way to end this cycle." said Noah.
"You think I pursued power just for the sake of being more powerful?" Michael finally broke the silence, his voice heavy with a mix of resentment and resignation. "Power was not something I wanted; it was something I needed to survive in this world." Michael said pausing for a moment.
"I didn''t have the luxury of being born with a silver spoon in my mouth or a family to guide me. I was branded the Dark Lord, the harbinger of evil, before I even knew how to protest it," he growled, his wordsced with bitterness.
Michael rarely justified his actions to anyone. To do so was to show vulnerability, to open up the armored facade he had meticulously constructed over the years. But now, surrounded by the carnage of their conflict, with his brother poised as his executioner, Michael felt a desperate urge toy bare his motivations, however dark they might be.
"You can say not all orphans end up as Dark Lords, but tell me, Noah, did I ever really have a choice?" His voice softened as he challenged Noah''s convictions,
"You had everything, Noah, while I had nothing. Born on the same day but worlds apart," Michael said coldly, his eyes narrowing. "Every day for me is a battle for survival. If Skyhall didn''t want me dead, someone else would. So I defend myself, and yes, that means I kill anyone who tries to kill me."
Listening to Michael''s words, Harriet felt as if she were being pierced by multiple daggers. She med herself for not protecting him from Skyhall''s prophecy, which had set everything in motion.
"You still believe that whoever holds Rowena will just hand her over if you kill me?" Michael snickered, the sound bitter and hollow. "No, they''re just using you¡" Michael''s voice was heavy with resentment. "I took Alicia''s life because she never ceased trying to kill me, to avenge her brother who had iting. You hail her as a hero for her vendetta, yet when I defend myself from those who robbed me of my childhood, I''m branded the Dark Lord. It''s not fair." n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Harriet''s heart ached as she tried to reason with her son, restrained by the army, yet undeterred in her pleas. "You don''t have to do this, Dean. We can be a family again. You two are now powerful enough to stand against anyone." She nced toward the chaos in the sky where the hydras shed, their roars thundering across the battlefield. "Look at what''s happening around you. Only together can you two stop this."
Noah, however, remained resolute, his expression hardened by the weight of his resolve. He shook his head dismissively at his mother''s words, his eyes locked on Michael. "Take out the god-killing arrows, Ghost. We end this today."
"Thought you''d never ask," Michael''s growl resonated with determination as he essed his system storage, and seven glistening arrows materialized in his hand. "No!" Harriet''s heart sank, and her voice broke the tense silence. A desperate scream escaped her lips as she struggled against Salesi''s men.
Observing the unfolding drama, Salesi signaled her men to tighten their hold on Harriet. But before they could react further, Noah darted toward his mother with a swift, unexpected move. He held a needle, its contents poised to send her into unconsciousness. "No mother should see her son die," he whispered, his voice a mixture of resignation and resolve as he plunged the needle into Harriet''s neck. Her protests faded as her consciousness slowly drifted away, her body going limp in the soldiers'' arms.
Michael stood still, his face devoid of emotion, the god-killing arrows clutched in one hand and his dark sword in the other. The atmosphere tensed further as Michael manipted the god-killing arrows, merging them into a single, menacing spear that radiated a deadly aura. The spear gleamed ominously, its sharp tip promising a lethal fate.
Noah, not hesitating, charged forward, his sword enveloped in radiant light mes, casting eerie shadows across the battlefield. The sh was imminent, and the tension palpable.
Michael thrust the spear with precision, its tip slicing through the air towards Noah. But Noah, anticipating the move, executed a swift roll to the side, narrowly evading the deadly point. He countered immediately, swinging his me-wrapped sword in a wide arc aimed at Michael''s midsection.
Michael, however, was quick to react. He parried the sword strike with the shaft of his spear, the sh sparking a cascade of light that briefly illuminated their fierce expressions. With a deft maneuver, he aimed another jab at Noah, this time adjusting his angle to anticipate Noah''s evasion.
Meanwhile, Salesi and Andreas watched from a distance, their faces a mix of amusement and anticipation. "Look at them go! Two fools dancing to our beats," Andreas remarked with a chuckle.
"Indeed," Salesi replied, her eyes glinting with excitement. "This is the culmination of so much nning. Let''s hope Noah can finish the job this time,"
Back on the battlefield, Noah twisted his body, dodging the spear''s tip by mere inches. He countered with a quick thrust of his own, aiming for Michael''s exposed side. But Michael''s reflexes were sharp as he sidestepped and brought the spear down in a sweeping motion, trying to catch Noah off-guard.
"No more hiding, no more games, Ghost," Noah growled as he regrouped, preparing for another assault.
"Let''s end this, Noah. May the best god win," Michael replied, his voice low and steady, as he readied his spear for the next strike.
As the battle between Michael and Noah escted with ferocious intensity, Michael wielded the spear crafted from god-killing arrows and demonstrated expert control and lethal precision. Each movement was a masterss inbat, his attacks a blend of vicious swipes and calcted thrusts aimed at overwhelming Noah.
Noah, for his part, defended valiantly. His sword, wrapped in zing light, shed against the dark metal of the spear, sending sparks and bursts of energy rippling through the air. Yet, despite his skill and determination, the sharp tip of Michael''s spear managed to graze his arm. At that moment, a loud crack of thunder echoed across the sky, and the observers could see the realm tear above them widening significantly.
High above, amidst their own tumultuous battle, Mugashuku''s heads took notice. "Did you see that?" one head remarked, its eyes fixed on the spectacle below. "Whatever they are doing, it''s affecting the realm tear."
Another head nodded gravely, its gaze shifting between the battling gods and Vedora. "It seems like a god might indeed die today, and that death could save this world from the abomination we fight," it said, casting a disdainful look at Vedora, who continued to thrash and roar, seemingly oblivious to the conversations about its fate.
As Noah lunged forward, ignoring the searing pain from his earlier wound, he swung his swords with a desperate ferocity, managing to slice through Michael''s armor and into his chest. The strike was precise, aimed to incapacitate or perhaps even end the fight. Michael, however, was far from defeated. Reacting swiftly, he momentarily separated the spear into two halves, using the blunt end to strike Noah and create space between them.
With a rapid movement, Michael rbined the spear and thrust the sharpened end at Noah. Noah, anticipating the move, tried to dodge aside. He was not quick enough to avoid the attackpletely, and the tip of the spear pierced through his shoulder. As the spear embedded itself, a brief flicker of light radiated around the world, momentarily dimming the daylight. Simultaneously, the ground beneath their feet trembled, a palpable sign of the realm crack above them widening further.
(the next chapter will have a concussion of the fight and a new badass beginning)
Chapter 1281 A God Dies, A God Rises II
Chapter 1281 A God Dies, A God Rises II
As Noah faced Michael, he upheld his principle of fighting honorably. He refrained from underhanded tactics such as using smoke bombs or leveraging Salesi''s Soul army to create distractions. Instead, Noah engaged directly, relying solely on his twin swords and the power of his Light mes.
However, Michael''s approach tobat was starkly different. While he hadn''t resorted to any dishonorable tactics up to that point, he wouldn''t rule them out. For Michael, each battle was a matter of life and death, a desperate struggle where any means to secure victory were justified.
The prolonged battle allowed Michael to discern Noah''s primary weakness¡ªhis honor and the distractions caused by his concern for the civilians in Icefair. The city, once resplendent with its ice towers and buildings, nowy in ruins, devastated by the coteral damage of the battle between the two hydras above.
"His focus is splitting," observed Evil Andreas through their telepathic link.
"He needs to secure this win," Salesi responded, her voice tinged with growing concern. For her father''s scheme to seed, Michael, the God of Darkness, had to fall. Yet, as the fight dragged on, it appeared increasingly likely that Michael was gaining the upper hand by exploiting Noah''s divided attention.
"Noah, concentrate on the fight. I''ll ensure Icefair''s safety," Salesi called out amidst the chaos, trying to refocus Noah''s efforts.
But as Noah attempted to regain his focus, Michael seized the opportunity to employ a more ruthless strategy. Raising his hand, he released a cloud of smoke from a mechanism on his palm. The thick smoke swiftly enveloped Noah, stinging his eyes and obscuring his vision. Without ess to his celestial energies to dispel the smoke¡ªcourtesy of Mugashuku''s void effect¡ªNoah was effectively blinded.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Michael charged forward. Though Noah''s instincts allowed him to partially evade the attack, Michael''s spear still found its mark, piercing through Noah''s waist. At that moment, a strange phenomenon urred¡ªthe light around the world seemed to flicker, echoing the severity of Noah''s injury, as if the sun itself stuttered in shock.
"Shit, what was that?"
"Did you see that?"
"What the hell is happening?"
Panic surged among the soldiers fleeing from the devastating battle between the two hydras. They shouted and pointed as an unusual flickering of light manifested across the sky.
Salesi''s expression turned grim as she witnessed the phenomenon, understanding that Noah, the God of Light, was severely wounded, and it was affecting the very fabric of the world''s light.
"He''s losing, Salesi. You need to intervene," Evil Andreas''s voice echoed in her mind.
Despite Noah''s insistence on fighting honorably, Michael was unburdened by such scruples. Already pushing his physical limits with three doses of the berserker potion, he knew he couldn''t risk more without incapacitating himself. It was time to end this. Michael raised his hand, releasing another cloud of smoke, this time also activating the arch energy crystals embedded in his armor. The glowing lines along his dark armor remained hidden to Noah under the cover of the thick smoke.
Without a moment''s dy, Michael cast a silence spell, using the arch energy to warp time around them. The world slowed, giving him the perfect opening.
With deadly precision, Michael lunged forward and drove the god-killing spear straight through Noah''s heart. The weapon vibrated violently, nearly wrenching itself from Michael''s grasp with its power.
Blood gushed from Noah''s mouth as excruciating pain overwhelmed him. Then, suddenly, a brilliant light burst forth, enveloping himpletely. Noah''s body became a beacon of pure, radiant light, casting stark shadows across the battlefield.
As the blinding light disappeared along with Noah, the realm crack suddenly widened significantly, bingrge enough for a hydra to pass through. The sky erupted with hundreds of ck lightning strikes, creating a cataclysmic disy as if the world itself was pausing in shock. Slowly, the sky began to lose its vibrant colors, and the light from the sun no longer shone bright and dazzling; instead, it cast an eerie orange and red glow across the world, with darkness gradually oveing the light.
Feeling the potent effects of the berserker potion, Michael began to weaken significantly. His muscles cramped painfully, and his vision blurred, a clear sign of the potion''s toll on his body. He staggered slightly, trying to maintain his bnce as the world around him seemed to tilt and sway.
As Michael stood there, the god killing spear in his hand disintegrated into dust, leaving nothing but the residue of its once fearsome aura. He staggered, barely keeping himself upright, his strength draining rapidly.
"Fuck, what just happened?!" a soldier yelled out in disbelief, mirroring the shock rippling through the ranks of those still on the battlefield.
"Holy shit, did you see that? It''s like the sky just opened up!" another eximed, his voiceced with fear and awe.
"No, no, no, no..." Salesi muttered under her breath, her ns unraveling as quickly as the fabric of reality seemed to be tearing. Her face, usuallyposed and cunning, now wore an expression of sheer panic and disbelief. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The world around them darkened ominously, a shadow cast over everything as the sun''s light dimmed to an eerie orange and red glow, barely illuminating the devastatedndscape. Fires raged unchecked across the battlefield, the only light in the overwhelming darkness that was quickly engulfing the world.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the God of Light and a seal bearer, Noah. You have earned 250,000 Experience points and 1 million Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for demonstrating ultimate badassery. You have been awarded an additional 6 million Badass points.]
[Congrattions to the host for eliminating another God and a longstanding adversary. The system grants the host an additional 4 million Badass points.]
As these notifications cascaded through Michael''s consciousness, lending a bitter edge to his victory, Mugashuku seized the moment amidst the chaos enveloping the world.
"This is our chance!" one of Mugashuku''s heads roared, its voice booming across the tumultuous battlefield.
With renewed vigor, the massive hydra exerted its colossal strength, its multiple heads coordinating in a deadly ballet of power and precision. Vedora, still reeling from the fierce onught, found itself being methodically herded towards the now gaping realm crack.
Mugashuku''s body mmed into Vedora, pushing it relentlessly. Each of Mugashuku''s heads attacked strategically; one head mped down on Vedora''s struggling neck, another twisted around its opponent''s massive body, immobilizing it. The third head delivered a series of powerful sts, a mix of red beams and physical strikes that hammered Vedora backward towards the tear in reality.
Vedora roared in fury and desperation, its body crackling with residual lightning. It thrashed wildly, attempting to break free from Mugashuku''s irond grasp. Yet, for every desperate escape attempt, Mugashuku countered with overwhelming force.
"Push it through!" another head of Mugashukumanded, its voice echoing like thunder. But when Mugashuku was slowly pushing Vedora toward the realm crack, a sudden silence fell over the world as though a running generator was suddenly stopped. As the bizarre silence enveloped the battlefield, the air seemed to thicken with tension. This moment of quiet was abruptly shattered by a sound so out of ce it sent shivers down the spine of every soldier still capable of fear. It wasughter, wild and unhinged, reverberating through the air and unsettling even the battling hydras.
Michael, struggling against the debilitating effects of the berserker potion, squinted upwards. His vision, though blurred, caught the glimpse of a silhouette emerging from the realm crack. The figure seemed to float, its presence ominous and chilling as it descended into the chaotic scene below.
Theughter continued, growing in intensity as the figure became more visible against the backdrop of shing lightning. As the mysterious figure descended, his presencemanded an eerie stillness across the chaotic battlefield. Adorned in a suit of armor that shimmered with hues of silver and gold, his long, pure white hair billowed like a banner in the tempestuous air. The contrasting golden and silver eyes radiated a volcanic anger, adding a menacing edge to his otherwise striking features.
The mere raising of his hand was enough to alter the dynamics of the battle drastically. A visible bubble of energy encased Vedora, freezing the hydra in its violent thrashings against Mugashuku. This sudden pause in thebat drew all eyes to the neer, whose arrival seemed to exert an overwhelming pressure on the very fabric of the mortal realm.
Around the world, cities buckled and crumbled as if crushed by an unseen force, a testament to the immense power leaking from this being. The ancient barriers, set long ago by a previous Dark Lord to separate the realms, now groaned under the strain of containing such a formidable presence within the mortal ne.
"Father¡" Salesi finally whispered, her voice barely audible over the sudden, oppressive silence that enveloped the battlefield.
This figure was none other than Andohr himself, the God of Time and Space. And now, he hade with vengeance against the God of Darkness¡
"It is payback time¡my dear God of Darkness¡" said Andohr.
Chapter 1282 A God Dies, A God Rises III
Chapter 1282 A God Dies, A God Rises III
As Andohrnded before Michael, he effortlessly lifted him by the neck and took a deep breath, savoring the air. "Fresh air, after five thousand years of imprisonment," he remarked with a hint of malice in his voice.
"Who are you?" Michael, struggling for breath, managed to mumble, Andohrughed menacingly, his grip tightening around Michael''s throat. "Your worst nightmare," he sneered. "The God of Time and Space, Andohr."
A flicker of surprise and shock shed across Michael''s eyes as the reality of his adversary''s identity sank in.
"Thank you for killing your own brother and ending my imprisonment," Andohr continued, his voice cold and unyielding.
At that moment, Salesi quickly rushed toward Andohr and knelt down before him. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked up at her father, now free from his long confinement.
"Father, you are here," she whispered, her voice filled with a mixture of relief and reverence.But Michael, on the other hand, was shocked. He couldn''tprehend how Andohr had managed to escape the castle that served as his prison¡ªconstructed by Michael''s former self five thousand years ago. However, the pressure from the space around him suggested that Andohr''s presence in the mortal realm, which should have been impossible, was only temporary.
"I have been waiting for this moment my entire life... Every second of the past five thousand years, I imagined killing you in every possible way. You reduced the great Andohr to this pathetic state and caged me like some sort of animal," Andohr roared, beforeunching a vicious punch straight into Michael''s gut. His hand traveled through a small portal,nding the blow directly on Michael''s stomach. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Michael coughed up blood as Andohrughed, reveling in every second of his torment. He felt entirely justified in his actions. After all, Michael had imprisoned him within a castle suspended between realms, barring him from the realm of gods and the mortal realm alike¡ªa humiliating fate for the God of Time and Space, caged like a bird for five millennia.
"Kill him, Father," Salesi said, her eyes fixed on Michael as he struggled under her father''s unyielding grip.
Michael, weakened by the battle and wracked with pain from the blow to his gut, gritted his teeth, determined to endure. He knew that even if he could muster the energy to use the arch energy crystals to cast a spell, it would be futile against the God of Time and Space. He braced himself for death, hoping his consciousness would transfer to Project Phoenix, where another body awaited him.
Yet, something suggested to him that Andohr was not intent on killing him swiftly. A vengeance-fueled god like Andohr would view a quick death as mercy, and Michael could see in Andohr''s eyes that there was no mercy there for him.
"As much as I want to rip you to shreds, that would be merciful. And a sneaky bastard like you does not deserve such a quick end. But I have something else in mind, something I need to attend to before returning to the realm of gods and reiming what was once mine," Andohr said menacingly.
Then, Andohr flung Michael to the ground with such force that the earth beneath him cracked. Before Michael could even process the fall, Andohr was already towering over him, his presence chilling.
"You think you''ve seen hell?" Andohr hissed, his voice dripping with venom. "I''ll show you what real torment feels like."
With a flick of his wrist, Andohr manipted time and space around them. Suddenly, Michael was reliving the moment of impact over and over, each time feeling the pain afresh as if it were the first. The ground beneath him seemed to pulse with malevolence, each pulse amplifying the agony.
"Feel every second of pain you inflicted on me, magnified a thousand times!" Andohr roared.
He then twisted the very fabric of space, contorting it in a way that stretched Michael''s body in unnatural directions. Each stretch was apanied by the sound of tearing muscles and popping joints, the pain so intense that Michael could barely scream.
Between the maniptions, Andohr would pause, allowing Michael just enough time to catch his breath, only to start the next round of torture with a cruel smirk.
"You caged me like an animal, now feel the wrath of a god unleashed!" Andohr spat out as he kicked Michael, sending him tumbling through twisted space. Michael''s form blurred and reformed, each time appearing more broken than before.
As Michaely writhing, trying to gather his shattered senses, Andohr leaned close, his face inches from Michael''s. "I could kill you now, but death is too kind a release. I want you to live with this pain, a reminder of your defeat and my hatred."
Meanwhile, Salesi, her face wet with tears of joy mixed with the intensity of the moment, looked up at her father. "How are you here?" she asked, her eyes searching his for an answer.
Andohr paused his assault on Michael, turning slightly to address his daughter while keeping one foot firmly on Michael''s back. "When Noah, the strongest seal bearer I ever had against me, was killed, the chains that bound me shattered," he exined, his voice cold with a hint of triumph. "His death provided the breach I needed to escape my prison."
Salesi, processing this revtion, blinked away her tears, her mind racing. "I thought sending Vedora through the realm tear would deplete your energy, forcing you into a state of hibernation..." "I lied." With a menacing smile, Andohr looked down at his daughter, his eyes glinting with the cunning that had allowed him to manipte events from the shadows.
Andohr''s grip tightened around Michael''s neck, lifting him effortlessly before tossing him aside like a ragdoll. As Michael hit the ground hard, Andohr growled with disdain. "I knew there was no way Noah could kill you. I had hoped he wouldn''t, so I could have the pleasure myself." He paced slowly, his voice echoing ominously.
"The barrier your former self erected might still prevent me from lingering in this realm, but I will ensure you suffer for what you did, starting with this." With a wave of his hand, Andohr conjured a swirling portal around Vedora. In an instant, the monstrous hydra was sucked into the vortex and vanished from sight.
"What did you do?" Michael, struggling to his knees, blood dripping from his injuries, managed to gasp out.
With a sinisterugh, Andohr turned to Michael, his eyes alight with malicious pleasure. "I''ve unleashed your beast onto another part of the mortal realm so it can have its fun. Let''s see how you like being on the receiving end of uncontrolled destruction." Hisugh echoed, chillingly cold, as he relished the turn of events.
Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Royal Land on the Elon continent, the day was unfolding like any other. Marketces buzzed with the chatter of vendors and theughter of children ying in the streets. The smell of freshly baked bread wafted from bakeries, and the clink of coins exchanged for goods filled the air.
Suddenly, the sky darkened as if night had decided to visit midday. People looked up, shielding their eyes, only to see a massive portal tearing open above them. From within this swirling vortex, a colossal beast emerged, casting a vast shadow over the city.
"Look up! What in the heavens is that?!"
"By the gods, a beast from the old tales!"
rms sounded throughout the city, a deep, resonant tolling that sent waves of panic through the streets. People scrambled in all directions, seeking shelter as the ground shook under the immense weight of the undead hydra, Vedora.
With a deafening roar, Vedora descended, its massive body crushing buildings beneath its bulk. The once vibrant market square became a scene of devastation, with stalls ttened and cobblestones cracked under its massive feet.
"Run for your lives!"
"The city is under attack!"
The beast''s every move caused destruction, its tail sweeping through buildings, reducing centuries-old architecture to rubble. Vedora''s glowing eyes swept across the chaos it wrought, devoid of soul but filled with an insatiable drive to obliterate everything in its path.
Cries of horror and despair echoed through the city as people fled, tripping over debris and each other in their desperate escape. The city''s defenders rallied,unching arrows and spears that merely bounced off Vedora''s thick, scaly hide.
"It''s unstoppable! Our weapons do nothing!"
"Save the children, get them to safety!"
As Vedora continued its rampage, the once peaceful day was turned into a nightmare, with the sky now blotted by smoke and the cries of the wounded and terrified.
"Now this will happen everywhere... And you will know that your actions led to this exact moment," Andohr said menacingly, showing Michael the destruction of Royal Land. He reveled in the destruction, enjoying every bit of regret and anger within Michael''s eyes.
"I am going to kill you, Andohr... I am going to pay back several folds," Michael said, his voice barely audible.
Unknown to Andohr, he had just topped Michael''s kill list. And the fact that Andohr was going to leave Michael alive would be the biggest mistake of Andohr''s life.
"That''s the spirit... but I am taking your mother with me... so you can know I''ll be torturing her and it''s all your fault..." Andohr said and flicked his wrist, creating a portal around the unconscious Harriet. In a sh, the portal disappeared along with Harriet.
After taking Harriet, Andohr''s figure flickered, indicating that his time in the mortal realm wasing to an end and staying any longer would risk his corporeal form. Reluctantly, Andohr prepared to leave. He tossed Michael aside and turned to depart, as Salesi rushed to him like a puppy.
"Father, let mee with you," Salesi pleaded.
"Why not?" Andohr simply shrugged and flicked his wrist before disappearing from the battlefield with Salesi.
"Fuck," Michael mumbled before losing consciousness, aware that when he woke up, the world would be a very different ce.
Chapter 1283 Michael Has No Plans
Chapter 1283 Michael Has No ns
Unknown hourster, Michael slowly opened his eyes. His entire body ached in pain, and the events that transpired shed across his mind. He found himself in a dark room, lying on a bed. Looking through the window, he could see the ocean raging around him, the sky darker than usual. Without a doubt, Michael knew he was in his castle in the Dark Ocean. However, something felt different; he felt stronger than ever before, and the darkness seemed thicker, devoid of any light. The only source of light was the flickering torches in the room.
"Argh," Michael growled before slowly rising from the bed. His body was covered in bandages, and his gut still ached after being punched by Andohr.
When his feet touched the cold ground, the door opened, and Azazel walked in. The demon butler was dressed as usual in his butler outfit with neatlybed hair. However, unlike always, his face was etched with anger and concern.
"My lord, you are awake," Azazel slightly bowed.
"How long was I out?" Michael asked.
"Four days, my lord," Azazel replied calmly, though his voice hid a storm of rage within. Hearing this, Michael sighed as he stood up. For a few moments, everything that happened shed across his mind, causing his head to ache. Four days ago, he was about to return to the assassin''s guild after killing the orc when he met Dagon and received a warning that Andohr nning something huge, followed by the news of Eve''s death, which made Michael spend all his badass points to return to the mortal realm. Everything that happened afterward was engraved in Michael''s brain, including Noah''s death and Andohr''s escape.
"You look worried, Azazel. That bad, huh?" Michael asked, noticing Azazel''s unusual expression.
"Bad is an understatement, my lord," Azazel sighed. For a few moments, Michael didn''t say anything as silence enveloped them.
"Where is her body?" Michael asked about Eve''s body. Since he had the badass system, there was still a possibility of bringing Eve back to life. Of course, the amount of badass points required was staggering, but that had never stopped Michael before.
"Follow me, my lord," Azazel gestured for him to follow.
Azazel led Michael through a dimly lit corridor, their footsteps echoing softly against the stone floor. They arrived at a heavy, dark metal door, its surface etched with intricate runes. Azazel ced his palm on the door, and the runes glowed briefly before the door clicked open.
Inside the room, darkness prevailed, broken only by a singr blue spotlight that illuminated the center. Under this light, a ss tube filled with a thick, clear liquid stood. Suspended within this fluid was Eve''s body, her expression serene, almost as if she were merely sleeping. She held her hammer in her hand, positioned across her chest like a warriorid to rest.
Michael approached the tube slowly, his heart heavy with a mix of sorrow and resolve. He ced his hand against the cool ss, his eyes tracing the peaceful expression on Eve''s face. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"She looks peaceful," Michael murmured softly, his voice a whisper in the quiet room. "My lord, can you¡can you bring her back?" Azazel''s question hung heavy in the air,den with hope and concern. He had unwavering faith in his Dark Lord''s abilities, yet the notion of reversing death was daunting even for him.
"I will, Azazel... I owe her that much. As much as I hate to admit it, Noah was right. My choices, my path... they cost Eve her life. I need to make this right," Michael sighed, his voice heavy with regret.
"What about Andohr, my lord? He is the God of Time and Space, the god of the two most powerful forces in the universe¡" Azazel''s voice trailed off, his sentence unfinished, the weight of the implications hanging between them.
"He is just a god, Azazel... A God can be killed, and I am the best killer there is," Michael replied coldly, his tone devoid of doubt.
"I have absolute faith in you, my lord, even though the odds seem to be against us," Azazel dered, his loyalty unwavering. To him, the Dark Lord''s power was absolute; Michael had risen from a mere cultivator to a god, surviving countless battles against formidable foes.
"Let''s go meet the others, my lord. You need to know the state of the world," Azazel suggested, prompting Michael to nod in agreement. Together, they left the room, heading towards the meeting hall.
Upon entering the hall, Michael was greeted by the familiar sight of the round table, his throne, and the somber faces of his subordinates. Gathered around the table were Maxine, Ricky, Daniel, Lenora, Trista, Saber, and Adelia.
"My Lord," they all acknowledged Michael in unison, their voices tinged with a mix of respect and sorrow. Each one was deeply affected by Eve''s death, yet the chaos engulfing the world left little room for personal grief.
Nodding solemnly in response, Michael took his seat on the throne, his presencemanding as ever. Azazel stood loyally by his side, ready to assist in any way needed.
"Where are the others?" Michael inquired, scanning the empty chairs around the table.
"Most of them went to the Ozer continent to help, my lord. Corey and Tiberius are in the Southern continent, working with our allies on the relief efforts," Ricky exined.
"What happened to the hydras?" Michael probed, recalling thest images he had of the colossal beasts. The concerned expressions around the table and the absence of many key figures hinted at the extensive devastation brought by Vedora, as Andohr promised him.
"Mugashuku managed to push Vedora back through the realm crack and sealed it, my lord. But the damage had already been done¡" Ricky said, his voice heavy with regret. The toll of the catastrophe was evident in his demeanor.
"Bless Eve''s soul. She was the one who convinced Mugashuku to fight Vedora, even when we thought she was batshit crazy¡" Lenora interjected, trying to mask her grief with a chuckle.
"She was always the brightest one in the room," Saber added softly, his voice tinged with sorrow¡ªa rare disy of emotion from the elder vampire.
"I know we all miss her and crave vengeance. But we need to see the big picture here. Nearly all the kingdoms in Ozer continent are destroyed, millions have died, and Kingdom Kethen is in ruins, just like Royalnd. Moreover, the one responsible for all of this, Andohr, has escaped to the realm of gods with that bitch Salesi. He has shown us our vulnerabilities and what he is capable of," Adelia, Gaya''s mother, said fiercely. Her words underscored the scope of the tragedy that had unfolded.
"And not to mention the darkness outside. People can''t even tell day from night anymore. It''s all dark and gloomy out there. I never thought I''d see the day when people would fight over torches and glowing orbs," Danielmented, reflecting on the dire situation.
Michael furrowed his brow, concern etching deeper into his features. "Tell me more about this darkness."
"Noah''s death seems to be affecting the world in more ways than we anticipated, my lord. We should have anticipated something like this after the assassination of the God of Rain, Rainar, which resulted in apleteck of rain everywhere." Adelia inhaled deeply before responding.
"Did you really kill a god, my lord?" Ricky, still grappling with the gravity of their actions, interjected.
"Yes, I did." Michael nodded. "There you go," Adelia continued. "If killing Rainar, the god of rain, results in no rain, then logically, killing Noah, the god of light, would lead to diminished light."
"But we haven''t beenpletely robbed of light; we still have light from fires and spells, and the sun itself is still there¡ªit''s just that it''s dimmed, and the darkness is thicker and more persistent." Daniel chimed in.
"That must be why I feel so strong," Michael mused, a realization dawning upon him.
"I did sense that, my lord. Your energy radiation is off the charts. You''re at the Celestial stage, but your power feels much more potent than that of a typical Celestial stage being," Saber nodded.
For a few moments, the room fell into a deadly silence as they considered the implications of Michael''s increased power and the ongoing environmental anomalies.
"But the silver lining is that most of Noah''s Guardian Guild is in shambles, and the world is ripe for our taking. With no Salesi and Noah, we face no significant opposition," Trista pointed out.
"Except Nithroel," Lenora interjected, reminding them of the Empress of Awor continent and the Goddess of Hunt.
"Yeah, she''s quite upset after what Gaya did. But I don''t me either of them. Gaya did what she had to do to save little Cindy, and Nithroel has every right to be angry, especially after what Zariel pulled off. I hate to say it, but the line between good and bad is blurring by the second," Adelia sighed.
"What''s the n, my lord?" Ricky asked, as everyone''s gaze turned to Michael.
For the first time, Michael seemed distracted, his usual sharp focus dulled. His mind was at a breaking point after experiencing everything he had endured. Most significantly, the dream he had nearly two years ago¡ªa world plunged into darkness, a vision he had fought so hard to prevent from bing reality¡ªhad manifested itself by his own actions. He had yed right into Andohr''s hands by killing Noah, and now the whole world was paying the price.
"I don''t know¡" Michael admitted, closing his eyes and heaving a heavy sigh.
Chapter 1284 Beginning Of Gods Civil War
Chapter 1284 Beginning Of Gods Civil War
Meanwhile, back in the realm of gods, Andohr returned to the halls of the pantheon. As the god of space and time, Andohr could literally open portals anywhere in the world, and there were few countermeasures that could stop him. Despite being caged for five thousand years and having spent most of his energy breaking out and opening a portal for Vedora, Andohr remained powerful. To be precise, Andohr was still at Level 6 Elden God, on par with Zorian, the God of the Sun. Fortunately for everyone, Andohr had not yet recovered his peak powers.
The halls of the pantheon were breathtaking: white marble floors gleamed majestically, grand pirs and statues of various gods adorned the space, sparkling sofas embellished with gold and gems invited divine discourse, and angels with feathery wings and silver armor patrolled the area, their bodies covered in glowing armor from head to toe.
When the angels witnessed the sudden appearance of a god, they were taken aback. These angels could sense the godly aura emanating from Andohr, but they did not recognize his identity. How could they, considering Andohr hadn''t stepped into the halls of the pantheon for five thousand years? Even before that, Andohr was one of the few gods who seldom visited the pantheon or graced his worshippers with his presence.
"This ce hasn''t changed a bit..." Andohr muttered as Salesi stood beside him in awe. She never imagined she would be in the realm of gods so soon, let alone in the very halls of the pantheon itself.
"Don''t embarrass me. Act like you''re the daughter of the most powerful god," Andohr snickered, his tone overflowing with arrogance and narcissism.
"Yes, Father," Salesi quickly nodded and sealed her lips. Despite being the queen of Nagnd and the orchestrator behind the demise of a god, Salesi''s usual arrogance and pride melted away in the presence of her father, rendering her as docile as a well-trained cat. This shift wasn''t something she resented; rather, she relished the opportunity to stand by her father''s side and bask in his formidable presence.
However, Andohr did not harbor the same affection for his daughter as she craved from him. To him, Salesi was merely a subservient underling, someone who would follow hismands without question and worship him fervently¡ªexactly what he required.
As Andohr surveyed his surroundings, a group of patrolling angels led by a tall angel with golden wings approached. The lead angel, hand resting on the hilt of his sword, addressed Andohr with a tone that was neither respectful nor outright disrespectful.
"We do not recognize you. Who are you?" the angel inquired.
"How dare you speak to him like that?" Salesi snapped, her temper ring, barely restraining herself from attacking, oblivious to the vast power disparity between them. Being in the realm of gods without having ascended through cultivation or deity status, Salesi''s only protection was her proximity to Andohr.
"Silence, girl. They haven''t been in the powerful presence of Andohr in a while," Andohr chided her coldly, his head tilting with a sinister grin.
Upon hearing the name, the angels tensed. They might not have recognized him by sight, but the legacy of the so-called ''caged god'' was known to them.
"Andohr? The caged god?" blurted one angel from the group, unaware of the implications of his words.
"Did you just call me ''caged god''? Is that what you pathetic angels have been calling me?" Andohr''s anger ignited further, his ragepounded by his previous confinement. His ego, already bruised from years of captivity, could not tolerate such disrespect, especially not now that he had regained his freedom.
"Kill them for the disrespect they showed you, father," Salesi hissed, her words dripping with venom, urging Andohr to retaliate. Amused by his daughter''s lethal zeal and already seething with fury, Andohr found the insolent angel a perfect outlet for his wrath. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Wait¡ª" the lead angel attempted to interject, sensing the imminent danger of Andohr''s fury. But it was toote; with a mere gesture of his hand, Andohr disintegrated the angel''s body into cubic chunks that crumbled to the ground. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, Andohr opened a small portal, from which an intense heat burst forth, startling everyone present. They stared in horror and awe at the portal which revealed the zing sun on its other side.
"Caged god?" Andohr scoffed, and with a wave of his hand, he sent the dismembered remains hurling through the portal into the sun.
The remaining angels stood frozen, caught between their duty to confront a god who disregarded angelic life and the overwhelming power of a being who could extinguish their existence in the blink of an eye.
"Is that you, Space god?" A familiar voice filled withughter echoed through the hall, causing Andohr to furrow his brows in recognition.
"Lathander," Andohr muttered, turning to see the God of Mischief approaching with a mixture of shock, excitement, and a hint of concern.
"First of all, how in the hell did you manage to break out of that magnificent castle, and second, who is this delightful young mortal?" Lathander inquired, his tone light and yful.
"She is no mortal; she is my daughter, Salesi," Andohr responded coldly.
"Ah, a pleasure, my dear," Lathander greeted, gracefully taking Salesi''s hand and nting a courtly kiss upon it. "I am Lathander, the God of Mischief and an admirer of thedies," he introduced himself with his usual dramatic ir.
"Where is the rest of the pantheon, Lathander? I have exhausted all my patience, so I have none left for your theatrics," Andohr stated bluntly, cutting through the pleasantries with icy detachment.
"Aww, did you forget your way around, Andohr? Never mind, follow me and tell me all the juicy details about how you escaped your¡ª" But before Lathander could finish his sentence, Andohr, having had enough of Lathander''s antics, flicked his wrist, creating a portal directly beneath Lathander''s feet. Caught off guard, the God of Mischief had no time to react and fell through the portal,nding in a mountain of snow.
"Asshole!" Lathander shouted as he emerged from the snow, brushing off the chill and ring at the now-closing portal above him. "The God of Darkness did nothing wrong!" he growled defiantly, his voice echoing off the icy slopes.
Back in the pantheon, Andohr allowed himself a brief amused smile as he casually strolled forward, leaving the remaining angels dumbstruck by his disy of power.
Eventually, Andohr and Salesi arrived at a massive marble door adorned with intricate carvings of various gods, including one holding an hourss, unmistakably Andohr. He touched the carving, and it lit up, triggering the doors to slowly creak open.
Salesi''s mouth fell slightly open in awe as she gazed upon the core of the pantheon''s meeting hall¡ªnot just any meeting hall, but the council chamber of the core pantheon gods.
This magnificent hall, though small, exuded grandeur with a majestic round table at its center surrounded by thrones crafted from gold and silver. The walls were adorned with carvings depicting gods in battle with various mythical creatures, and the floor boasted a snow-white rug as soft as snowkes. Above, the ceiling hosted gently floating clouds, adding to the ethereal atmosphere.
This hall was the meeting ce of the most powerful gods, and once, Andohr had been an integral member of this elite group. Despite his prolonged absence, he was determined to reim his rightful ce among them.
Andohr strolled toward his former throne, shaped like an hourss, as Salesi followed, her gaze sweeping across the grand but deserted hall.
"Where are the others, father?" Salesi asked, her voice echoing slightly in the vast chamber.
"Probably dealing with the consequences of Noah''s death. He was the God of Light, after all; his demise would have weakened many here. It''s the perfect time to strike," Andohr replied with a cold chuckle, his eyes fixed on his throne.
He knew that among the gods who frequented the pantheon, Zorian, the God of the Sun, was one of the most powerful. With Noah''s death, a significant source of Zorian''s power¡ªlight¡ªwould have diminished. While there were rumors of other gods more powerful than Zorian, they remained aloof from pantheon affairs. Overthrowing Zorian would effectively put the pantheon under his control.
"Once the pantheon is mine, I will own this entire realm. Then, I will ensure that every god who betrayed me pays for their inaction or their treachery," Andohr mused, his voiceced with venom as he took his seat upon the throne.
With Andohr''s return, a new chapter in the divine civil war began. In the mortal realm, the God of Darkness consolidated his power, while in the realm of gods, Andohr, his arch nemesis, maneuvered to take control. Thusmenced the Age of Darkness and the onset of a great war.
Chapter 1285 The Pantheon Gods
Chapter 1285 The Pantheon Gods
As Andohr settled onto his throne, Seraphine, the Goddess of Information, entered the hall with a graceful stride. The rumors she had gathered from herwork of spies had hinted at the impossible, yet here it was confirmed¡ªAndohr had indeed escaped his long confinement.
"Seraphine," Andohr greeted, his voice tinged with amusement.
"Andohr, you''re here... How did you...?" Seraphine''s voice faltered, her usually unppable demeanor shaken. Even she, the omniscient goddess, couldn''t fathom how Andohr had managed his escape.
"I grew tired of waiting for the pantheon to care about my fate," Andohr replied with a scornfulugh. "So I took matters into my own hands and won, as I always do."
Silence fell over the hall for a moment as Seraphine processed his words, then gracefully took her seat on a throne adorned with carvings of hooded figures¡ªa symbol of her vastwork of spies.
"Are you going to tell me how you managed your escape, or will you send me to Snowheim like you did Lathander?" Seraphine asked, crossing her arms.
"Curious as ever. Very well, I''ll indulge you because, unlike the others, you actually gave a damn," Andohr remarked, a rare smile ying on his lips.
"I recently discovered that the essence of Noah, the God of Light, was a key force maintaining the bindings of my prison. Even before his birth, his destined essence contributed to my confinement. So, when the God of Darkness killed his own brother, without realizing that his previous incarnation had made Noah a pivotal seal bearer and my jailer, the bindings weakened just enough for me to break free," Andohr exined, carefully omitting certain details. Seraphine noted the gaps in his story but chose not to press further, knowing it would be futile.
"So where is his mother?" Seraphine asked, only to see Andohr chuckle.
"Where else? She is in Oblivion," Andohr stated nonchntly, causing a chill to run down Seraphine''s spine. Oblivion, a name that hadn''t been uttered in nearly two thousand years, was feared even by gods. It was a prison crafted by Andohr, existing outside the realms of physical space and time. Those who threatened Andohr or the pantheon were banished there, where they would endure an eternity in stasis. Time did not pass in Oblivion, making even a second feel endless. The rumors said that beings confined there would lose their minds within days from their perspective, unable to perceive the passage of time.
"Don''t you think that''s a bit excessive, Andohr?" Seraphine questioned, her voice tinged with pity for Harriet.
Andohr''s response was a coldugh, devoid of any warmth or sympathy. "What was excessive was what he did to me. He bruised my ego, destroyed my legacy by imprisoning the God of Time and Space. It was his sick humor to confine me thus. I am merely returning the favor. He took my reputation and my legacy; now, I will take everything from him," Andohr dered, his eyes zing with a vengeful fire that admitted no possibility of mercy.
Seraphine sensed the difort in her own tone, while Salesi seemed intrigued, her curiosity about Oblivion piqued. Before she could inquire further, another figure entered the hall. He was a towering presence, d in gold and silver armor, with a halberd slung across his back¡ªValorian, the God of Valor. His very appearance embodied the essence of warfare and honor.
"Valorian," Seraphine greeted him with a nod of respect as he made his way to his throne, adorned with symbols of a sword and shield.
Valorian approached with aposed demeanor, his presence filling the hall with a sense of authority and calm. "Wee back, Andohr," he said, his voice even and betraying no hint of the tension that underpinned the room.
Andohr, taken aback by the casual greeting as if no significant time had passed or wrongs had beenmitted. "Is that all you have to say after not seeing me for five thousand years?" he questioned, his toneced with a mix of irritation and disbelief.
"I have always known you were cunning enough to escape that castle without the pantheon''s aid. It was only a matter of time," he stated confidently. Valorian''s smile was slight but unmistakable.
Hearing this, Andohr''s irritation shifted to a smirk, his pride swelling at the acknowledgment of his capabilities. Theughter that followed was full of dark amusement, echoing through the hall as a stark reminder of his regained freedom and power. "Indeed, Valorian, it was only a matter of time," As the echoes of Andohr''sughter faded, Seshat entered the hall with her characteristic grace. Her presence was like a soothing balm in the charged atmosphere. She greeted Andohr with a genuine smile, one that seemed to acknowledge theplexities of fate and destiny without judgment.
Seshat''s demeanor was serene as she moved to her designated throne, which was adorned with intricate carvings of books and scrolls, symbols of her dominion over wisdom. As she seated herself, Andohr couldn''t help but chuckle. "You haven''t changed a bit, Seshat."
"Nor have you, Andohr," The Goddess of Wisdom returned the sentiment with a soft, knowing smile.
Then, turning her gaze towards Salesi, Seshat offered a smile that seemed to pierce through to the core, making Salesi feel as though her very soul was being read. The intensity of the moment was palpable, and just as Salesi was about to react, the hall''s atmosphere shifted with the arrival of another god.
This new arrival was impossible to ignore. Amanding presence filled the space as a god with bulging muscles and a long, red mane reminiscent of a lion''s strode in. His gray armor, which left his muscr arms exposed, bore the carving of a lion''s head on the chest te, signifying his fierce nature and power.
"Rudra," Seraphine acknowledged the god of war with a respectful nod. Rudra''s entrance was marked by a hearty chuckle of amusement as his eyesnded on Andohr. He strolled to his throne which was shaped like a majestic seat a lion''s head and casually propped his feet atop the round table, leaning back with an air of nonchnce.
"So, you escaped your little castle, huh?" Rudra''s voice boomed across the hall, filled with both amusement and a hint of respect. "Seems like you finally pulled one over the God of Darkness," he added, his tone suggesting a mix of jest and genuine intrigue at Andohr''s aplishment.
Andohr maintained hisposure in the presence of Rudra, keenly aware of the God of War''s immense power. Rudra, a god capable of matching Andohr inbat,manded a level of respect that Andohr could not afford to dismiss lightly. Unlike with Lathander, where Andohr felt free to disy his irritation, he understood that provoking Rudra could lead to dire consequences.
Rudra, for his part, seemed indifferent to Salesi''s presence. His focus was solely on the dynamics of power within the pantheon. To him, Salesi, a mortal elevated to divine proximity, did not merit his attention or regard. His eyes were reserved for the figures of true power and consequence in the room. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
The atmosphere shifted again as another significant figure entered the hall. Zorian, the God of the Sun, made his presence known with a powerful aura. His appearance was striking, with a long, flowing white beard and a muscr physique that radiated strength and vitality.
Zorian''s entrance brought a hush over the room, his bright aura casting a warm glow that contrasted sharply with the cooler tones of the hall.
As he approached his throne, Zorian threw a cold nce at Andohr, his gaze sharp and discerning, reflective of his ancient wisdom.
With a wave of his hand, Zorian closed the hall''s doors, signaling themencement of the meeting.
"Andohr, your schemes led to the God of Darkness killing his own brother, and the entire realm is paying its price," Zorian stated, his voice deep and stern.
"You mean the mortal realm? Because, let''s not forget, I am the God of Time and Space. I understand how realms work. The God of Light''s essence was in the mortal realm; he hadn''t fully ascended to our realm, hadn''t fully be a god. His death won''t impact the realm of gods like Rainar''s death impacted this realm," Andohr retorted with a snide chuckle.
"The good old Andohr, never giving a damn about the mortals. Some things never change," Rudra chuckled, amused by Andohr''s unchanged nature.
"And you lecture me about mortals, Rudra? That''s fucking rich," Andohr scoffed.
"When was thest time you gave a damn about anything other than your little paradise and yourself?" Andohr challenged, only to see Rudra burst into boisterousughter.
"That is true. As the god of war, when they start to pray to me, they''ve already fucked up," Rudra said, hisughter echoing around the hall. Although delivered with humor and nonchnce, Seshat recognized the profound truth in his words. Rudra, as the God of War, understood better than anyone that in war, no one truly wins.
Chapter 1286 Ultimate Betrayal
Chapter 1286 Ultimate Betrayal
Zorian leveled a scrutinizing gaze at Andohr, the weight of centuries contained in his voice. "Now that you''ve secured your freedom, what are your intentions, Andohr? What do you n to do with it?"
"I intend to reform this stale pantheon. It''s about time we stopped pissing about and made some actual changes around here." Andohr leaned back in his throne, a sly smile ying on his lips. "And what of Dagon? The war with him has cost us much. Do you n to continue this futile conflict?" Zorian inquired, his brow furrowed with concern.
"No, Zorian. I n to put an end to that shitshow. Continuing this war with Dagon is just bleeding us dry, achieving fuck all," Andohr dered, his disdain for the ongoing conflict evident. It was true that Andorh was first sent to deal with the fallen god and the ruler of the hell, Dagon but after spending five thousand years in his castle caged, Andohr got a new perspective that the war against Dagon was a waste of time. As far as Dagon was concerned, building the power of the pantheon and striking Dagon when they were at their strongest was the better n than sending troops and gods after Dagon to fight his hell-spawn army in the realm in between. "Dagon remains a significant threat, Andohr. His actions have destabilized not just realms but the very fabric of order we strive to uphold." Zorian shook his head, the lines on his face deepening.
"Bollocks to that!" Andohr snapped, mming his hand against the arm of his throne. "While you''ve all been jerking off over Dagon, the real threat has been building right under our noses. The God of Darkness is a ticking time bomb. We need to focus on finding a way to permanently stop him before he fucks us all."
The gods in the hall listened to him in silence, and each had his own thoughts on Andohr''s words. Finally, it was Valorius who broke the silence.
"You just activated that time bomb by making him kill his own brother, almost killing him, and taking his mother hostage, Andohr. You waged a war with his previous incarnation, and when he reset the mortal universe, you could have started afresh. You might have even allied with his current self, yet you chose to cling to old vengeance. Now, you ask the pantheon to align with your course." Valorius interjected with a calm tone.
Andohr''s response was instant as he mmed his fist onto his throne. "There is no ''almost'' killing him. Do you think I would have let him live if I knew how to kill him? Thest time I checked, we don''t know how to kill a god, only he does, thanks to the ipetence of this pantheon that didn''t stop him from obtaining the grimoire." His voice grew harsher, a growl rumbling from deep within as he continued. "Even if I throw him into Oblivion, that son of a bitch will find a way out. There''s something off about him, some strange power within him. So his mother is the shield for all of us," Andohr said before pausing for a moment so his words could sink into their heads. He needed them to think about it before he could drop another bomb upon them. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"I propose striking a deal with Death''s siblings and Xyloth, who possesses the Grimoire of the Gods. It''s said to contain knowledge on how to kill gods," Andohr, with a flick of disdain in his tone, shocked the assembly with his audacious n.
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Andohr? That knowledge could doom us all! The ways to kill a god must remain secret. Even if we don''t know it, it''s better that way. Imagine what gods like Agra would do with such power. It''s not just power, it''s an invitation to chaos!" Zorian, visibly taken aback, rose from his throne, his voice thundering through the hall.
"He''s right. It''s a Pandora''s box that, once opened, could disrupt the very bnce of power among us. Gods are inherently greedy; such knowledge would lead to endless strife." Valorius nodded in agreement, his stern features set in deep concern.
"While you sit here, fretting about possibilities, the God of Darkness is already a step ahead. He''s been using the book to hunt and kill gods he deems enemies. Do you think he''d hesitate to use it against any of us if we stand in his way?" Andohr sneered, giving no damn about their concern.
"He doesn''t have the book, Andohr. Rin got the book from him." Seraphine, the Goddess of Information, interjected.
"Do you really think someone as cunning as the God of Darkness wouldn''t have made a copy? He''s always several steps ahead, preparing for every contingency. We need that knowledge to protect ourselves and to put an end to his reign of terror finally." Andohr waved off her concern.
After a long silence, the tension in the hall palpably thick, Seraphine finally spoke, aligning with Andohr''s perspective but with a note of caution. "Andohr might be a ruthless bastard, but he''s not wrong about the threat of the God of Darkness. We need to address it. However, I also believe we should halt our conflicts with Dagon and find a way to break the barrier between us and the mortal realm. This istion isn''t serving us well anymore."
"While I understand the urgency, it''s better to leave the mortal realm alone. Our interference has already caused enough turmoil." Seshat countered softly. "She''s right. The mortal realm should govern itself. We''ve seen time and again that our interventions don''t always lead to harmony. Besides, meddling further could expose us to greater risks." Zorian nodded in agreement with Seshat, his deep voice resonating through the hall.
"Damn it, Zorian, you''re missing the fucking point! It''s not about meddling¡ªit''s about survival! If we don''t act, the God of Darkness will wipe us out one by one. You think he''s going to stop with just his brother? Hell no. We''re all on his list." Andohr, frustrated, snapped back.
"Whose fault is it that the God of Darkness is hell-bent on killing gods? It''s because of you! Like Valorian said, we could have had a fresh start. Now, thanks to your vengeance, the mortal realm is shrouded in darkness, and he''ll never trust the pantheon. If he wasn''t already nning on killing gods, he certainly will now." Zorian, his voiceden with frustration and anger, growled at Andohr,
"If you''ve fucking forgotten, he killed Rainar and Marli way before I made his life miserable. He''s a killer, and I''m the only one standing between him and your lives." Andohr rolled his eyes and snapped back.
"Aligning with Xyloth, Fourcrus, and Morbus will not yield what you desire, Andohr. They have their own agendas, and if you help them decode the grimoire, only chaos will follow." Seshat calmly interjected.
But Seraphine, Seshat''s sister, who often shed with her over her cryptic nature, snapped back after hearing Seshat''s calm response.
"You''re not one to talk, sister. If you could have stopped your angel from writing the grimoire and putting those cryptic messages about how to kill each god, we wouldn''t be in this mess. Xyloth wouldn''t have that book right now. It''s because of you and your cryptic actions that led Xyloth to get that book. It''s better we ally ourselves with Xyloth and those murderous siblings of death, and use them before they decode that damn book and take us out."
Rudra, the God of War, watched the unfolding scene with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. As the embodiment of war, he could sense the essence of war emanating from each god, except from Seshat, who maintained her aura of serene calmness. Rudra knew this argument could potentially split the pantheon apart, sparking a civil war. In such war, he would thrive and use this opportunity to ascend to a higher level of godhood. Hence, he remained silent, letting the tensions y out without his interference.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the heated exchange, Seshat spoke up, her voice was as calm as ever. "The grimoire, like any tool, depends on the hands that wield it," she began, choosing her words carefully. "In the hands of a healer, a scalpel saves lives, in the hands of a murderer, it takes them. It is not the book itself we should fear, but the intentions of those who seek to use it."
As the heated debate peaked, Andohr stood, his presence dominating the room. "It''s time you all make a fucking decision. Stand with me, or hide behind Zorian''s skirts," Andohr dered, his voice booming through the hall.
"I stand with Andohr. The challenges we face require us to rethink old alliances and forge new ones, even if it means making ufortable choices," Seraphine assessed the vtile situation and chose her side.
Observing the unfolding drama with a mix of curiosity and strategic detachment, Rudra and Sesh chose to remain neutral.
"This ends now! I call for Andohr''s arrest for his crimes against the pantheon and the realms!" Zorian called for order in amanding tone.
As Valorius moved to apprehend him and when it seemed like a fierce battle would ensue between Valorius and Andohr, the hall was suddenly shaken by a powerful, ominous energy. A portal ripped open, and through it, the colossal body of Vedora, driven by dark forces, lunged at the pantheon gods.
"Did you really think I came unprepared?" he revealed his hand with a sly grin as he summoned Vedora''s reanimated body through a massive portal, its presence sending shockwaves through the hall.
Zorian staggered back in shock, the color draining from his face as he sensed the ominous auras seeping through the portal. "You... you made a deal with Morbus, Xyloth, and Fourcrux?!"
Andohr''sughter filled the hall, a sound of triumph and malice mixed into one. "Indeed, I did. While you were busy ying guardians, I was making alliances that actually matter. The game has changed, Zorian. It''s time you realized that."
Chapter 1287 Andohrs Rise
Chapter 1287 Andohr''s Rise
Andohr quickly dashed at Zorian, his movements a blur. "Enjoy your fucking trip, Zorian!" he snarled as he ripped open a portal to the Celestial Valley, where ancient beasts roamed. Zorian, caught in shock, could only watch as the portal snapped shut before he could react, whisking him away to an unknown fate.
Weakened by the loss of Noah, Zorian''s power as the god of the sun had diminished, making him vulnerable to Andohr''s assault. With Zorian dispatched, Andohr turned his attention to Valorius. "Now, deal with him!" hemanded, directing Vedora''s monstrous, reanimated body towards Valorius.
The battle that ensued was titanic. Vedora, driven by Andohr''s will, shed with Valorius with such force that the very walls of the pantheon hall crumbled under their might. They broke through, continuing their fierce battle on a nearby mountain, the ground shaking with each impact as they traded blows amidst the thunderous echoes of war.
Turning to the remaining gods, Andohr''s gaze fixed on Seshat and Rudra. "What''s it gonna be?" he demanded, his voice booming through the hall.
Seshat responded with her characteristic calm, undisturbed by the chaos around her.
"No one can stop the flow of the fate river. I will remain neutral in this war," she stated serenely. Rudra chuckled heartily as hisughter echoing amidst the sounds of battle. "I''m the god of war; I don''t stop wars, I watch them," he dered with a broad grin. "So, I''ll be enjoying the show from the sidelines, seeing which side tips the scales."
Hearing the suddenmotion, the angels burst into the scene, their eyes wide with rm as they surveyed the gaping hole in the wall and the sounds of titanic battle echoing from outside. They looked to Seshat for guidance, their faces etched with confusion and fear.
"Leave," Seshatmanded calmly, effectively halting the angels in their tracks and sparing them from the deadly conflict. However, Valorius, consumed by rage, bellowed his orders without hesitation. "Capture that traitor Andohr and Seraphine!" His voice boomed across the chaos, spurring his angels into action.
Despite Seshat''s warning, the angels of Valorius charged into the hall, driven by their god''smand. They rushed at Andohr and Seraphine, their celestial armor gleaming under the dim light of the disrupted pantheon.
"Mere angels daring to go against gods? We definitely need a new pantheon," Seraphine snickered at their boldness as she scoffed. With a casual flick of her wrist, she summoned des of ethereal energy that sliced through the angels in a mere blink of an eye, their bodies falling before they could even react.
Seshat shook her head, a sigh escaping her lips as she witnessed the unnecessary loss of lives. "So many lives lost... You should stop this, sister," she implored quietly. But Seraphine only snickered again, her eyes cold. "It''s because of you, you cryptic idiot. If you weren''t so obsessed with your mysteries, we might have seen a clearer path," she spat, dismissing Seshat''s plea.
"We can''t afford to stay here, Andohr. Like it or not, this pantheon isn''t going to cross Zorian, and we need to leave and build alliances with other gods," Seraphine urged, her voice tense with the urgency of their situation.
"Already one step ahead of you, love," Andohr quipped with a cunning grin. Without hesitation, he waved his hand, conjuring a swirling portal around them. "Time to make some new friends," he added mockingly. In an instant, he, Salesi, and Seraphine stepped through the portal, vanishing from the pantheon as it began to close behind them.
Left in the echoing silence of the grand hall, Seshat turned her gaze outside, where the battle between Valorius and the reanimated Vedora still raged with ferocity. She cast a questioning look at Rudra, who was watching the conflict with a gleeful amusement that only a god of war could possess.
"Aren''t you going to help?" Seshat asked, her voice calm yet imbued with a subtle challenge.
"Valorius will handle it," Rudra just snickered, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. "Besides, I don''t stop wars; I watch them y out," he added with a nonchnt shrug. Then, with a sh of golden light, he disappeared, leaving Seshat alone to ponder the unfolding chaos that had gripped the realm of gods.
Meanwhile, Valorius faced the monstrous Vedora outside the Pantheon. The ground around them was already torn asunder, a testament to the beast''s devastating power. But Valorius was no ordinary opponent. He was the God of Valor, equipped with godly might and a mastery ofbat that few could match.
"Beast of oblivion, you face Valorius today!" he dered, his voice booming across the chaotic battlefield. Light shimmered around him, forming a radiant armor that sparkled even under the shadowed sky.
Undead Vedora responded with a guttural roar, its massive heads snarling as Ayag''s head fired a volley of golden lightning. Valorius raised his hand, and from the sky above descended a series of brilliant,et-like projectiles, mming into Vedora with explosive force. Each impact caused the hydra to reel back, though it seemed only momentarily stunned.
"Not enough to tame the beast, eh?" Valorius muttered under his breath. He then summoned his weapon, a colossal spear, gleaming with celestial energy. With a powerful thrust, heunched it towards Vedora. The spear pierced through one of the hydra''s necks, pinning it against a shattered mountain face. The creature howled in pain, thrashing violently.
"You shall not advance further, monster!" Valorius shouted, his voice filled with a righteous fury. He then performed a series of intricate hand signs, chanting in an ancient tongue. The sky above them darkened further, and from it descended an array of spears, each imbued with divine light, targeting the other heads of Vedora.
As the spears rained down, Vedora managed to free itself from the impaled position, only to meet a barrage of light-infused chains that Valorius conjured. The chains wrapped around the hydra, binding its movements as Valorius approached, his figure radiating an intense, golden light.
"This ends now, creature of darkness!" Valorius proimed. Gathering all his celestial energy, he unleashed a final, devastating blow. His fist glowed like a sun, and as he struck, a shockwave of pure valorous energy surged forth, tearing through the bindings and striking Vedora with such force that the ground itself shattered under the impact.
Vedora''s roars turned into whimpers as its form dissipated, the dark energy that animated it fading away under the overwhelming light. Finally, with a loud, echoing crack, the beast exploded into a cloud of dark mist, slowly fading into nothingness.
After leaving the pantheon, Seraphine, Andohr, and Salesi appeared in a dark, neglected hall. As they materialized, the hall slowly lit up, revealing portraits of Andohr covered inyers of dust, each frame a silent testament to his once-grand legacy. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"What is this ce?" Salesi asked, her voice echoing slightly in the expansive room.
"This used to be my home, " Andohr said with a touch of nostalgia.
Seraphine walked around the room, her steps measured, and her eyes scanned every detail. "What''s next, Andohr?" she asked, her tone serious. "I took a risk by leaving the Pantheon to stand with you, so you better have a solid n."
"Your decision to join me, Seraphine, will be remembered as the best decision you''ve ever made," Andohrughed heartily.
As he spoke, the hall fully lit up, revealing its true grandeur¡ªa grand throne hall that had seen better days but now stood ready to reim its glory. With a grand wave of his hand, Andohr summoned several thrones from the ground, each one ornately designed and fit for the gods who would upy them.
He gestured towards Seraphine and Salesi to take their seats. With a cautious nce, Seraphine chose a throne that resonated with her essence of knowledge and intrigue, while Salesi, filled with pride and awe, sat on a throne that seemed to embrace her newfound status.
Andohr then turned and climbed the stairs at the end of the hall and reached the highest throne¡ªa majestic seat that towered over the others. He sat down, his gaze sweeping over hispanions.
"Let''s begin forging a new destiny," Andohr dered, his voice booming. "One where gods remember why they feared the name Andohr. We start here, with alliances, strategies, and reiming the power that rightfully belongs to us."
"And what now?" Seraphine sighed as she settled into her new throne.
"Zorian won''t just let us walk away. He''ll use the entire Pantheon''s forces to hunt us down."
"Let him try," he sneered. "Zorian is weaker now, and he knows it. With yourwork of spies and my power, we''re already ten steps ahead. We''ll bring more gods to our side. They''re not all blind followers of Zorian''s outdated ideals." He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. "But first, we need to decode the grimoire. Morbus has an idea on how to do that, and it''s fucking brilliant."
Chapter 1288 The Skyhalls End Is Nearing
Chapter 1288 The Skyhall''s End Is Nearing
Standing alone on a mountain top, Michael stared out at the dark ocean, its waters even darker than usual. The realm had plunged into utter darkness, mirroring the void he felt within. Thoughts of Diana his mother, surged within him. He had grown up as an orphan, abandoned early in life. Despite their strained rtionship and his rough upbringing, he understood the harsh necessity behind her decisions. They were right, perhaps, but not easy.
Now, knowing that Andohr intended to torture her, a fierce anger took hold of him, mingling with a newfound determination. He couldn''t stand idly by; he needed to save her. The loss of Eve already weighed heavily on him, and the world''s plunge into darkness seemed to feed him, making him feel stronger than ever. This strength, born from the shadows that now enveloped the world, fortified his resolve.
Unfortunately Michael''s peace was shattered when a massive airship sliced through the dark clouds above, its engines a dull roar against the howling winds. As it hovered ominously over the mountain peak, several figures descended from it, their silhouettes sharp against the dark sky. These were the angels of the Skyhall, d in metal armor that gleamed dully in the sparse light. Attached to their armors were metallic, feathered wings that spread wide, fluttering with the sound of rustling metal sheets. Each angel radiated a formidable aura, their cultivation at the Half Celestial stage, making them powerful opponents in any encounter.
Leading this formidable group were several elders of the Skyhall, their faces stern, and their eyes cold and unyielding, fixed on Michael with clear intent. These elders, veterans of countless skirmishes against the dark army, carried themselves with an air of authority and deadly purpose.
As they formed a tight circle around Michael, the lead elder stepped forward, his voice cutting through the tension like a knife. "Dark Lord, your reign of terror ends today," he dered.
"Surrender now, and perhaps your end will be swift. Refuse, and not only you but also those you hold dear, Harry and Lah, will be hunted down."
Michael sighed deeply, his gaze piercing through the encroaching darkness around him. The bitter wind whipped at his clothes as he faced the assembly of Skyhall''s forces arrayed against him. "I''m already in a bad mood, so get the fuck out of my sight before I kill all of you and toss your bodies into the ocean below," he said coldly, his voice barely louder than a whisper yet carrying an unmistakable threat.
The lead elder, undeterred by Michael''s menacing tone, responded with equal coldness. "You are far from your strongholds in the Southern Continent, and without the powers of a god at your disposal here, we stand on even ground," he retorted sharply. "Make no mistake, Dark Lord, we will use Lah and Harry as leverage if necessary."
As the Skyhall angels and elders tightened their circle around Michael, a sudden surge of dark energy rippled through the air. From the shadows of the dark castle, figures began to emerge, led by Azazel, Lenora, and Trista. Behind them, the powerful dark army advanced, their presence menacing under the heavy, oppressive sky. The army halted just behind Michael, poised and ready to engage at hismand.
Michael raised his hand, signaling them to stop. The battlefield fell into a tense silence, punctuated only by the rustling of metallic and feathered wings of the encircling angels. "Where are Harry and Lah?" Michael demanded, cutting through the cold air with sharp authority.
Azazel stepped forward, his face grim. "They are still in Mazeroth, my lord," he reported.
As the standoff intensified, the lead elder''s voice pierced the tense air, his wordsced with menace. "You''ve already lost Eve, Dark Lord. Are you prepared to lose Harry and Lah as well?" The threat echoed ominously, causing Michael''s hands to tremble slightly.
In that moment of hesitation, a new voice resonated across the battlefield, distinct andmanding. "Dark Lord!" Michael turned sharply, his eyes widening at the sight of the figure approaching through the mist.
It was Elidyr, his presence marked by his distinct dark elven features, which had not aged a day. Michael hadn''t seen Elidyr in a long time, and the sight of him now stirred aplex mix of emotions within him. Elidyr, who had been like a mentor to Michael, had secluded himself for months, consumed by his work on runes intended to track down Zariel and exact vengeance.
Michael''s gaze hardened as Elidyr approached, the familiar sternness of his mentor''s expression unchanging. But before he could speak, Elidyr''s hand struck him sharply across the face, the sound crisp in the cool air. Michael staggered slightly, more from the shock than the force, as Elidyr''s voice cut through the silence sharply.
"Snap out of it, damn it!" Elidyr barked, his eyes zing with an intensity that demanded attention. "Stop wallowing in your self-pity and regret. It''s unbing of you, and useless."
Michael rubbed his cheek, staring at Elidyr with a mix of resentment and respect. "Everything that has happened, has happened for a reason. It''s time you snap out of this fog and fight back." Elidyr continued, gauging Michael''s reaction before he pressed on. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Andohr''s imprisonment in that castle and his escape were inevitable. By killing Noah, you''ve indeed made the realm darker, but remember, the night is always darkest before the dawn. This isn''t the end, Michael. It''s an opportunity to rise stronger and smarter than before."
Michael''s eyes narrowed, digesting Elidyr''s words. The p had jolted him, and now, Elidyr''s wisdom seeped into the cracks of his turmoil, kindling a spark of resolve within him.
"Listen to me. Only by asserting control over the mortal realm can you stand a chance against the gods once the barrier''s destruction bes a reality. It''s inevitable." He paused, ensuring his words sunk deep.
"Noah''s death and this enveloping darkness, while they seem like a curse, are actually a blessing in disguise. This darkness... I can sense it has empowered you. This newfound strength could be pivotal in seizing control of the mortal realm and preparing for the inevitable war with the gods." Elidyr stepped closer, his voice intense. "If Noah were alive, you''d be caught in a war on two fronts, against both Noah and the gods. That kind of two-sided war would bleed us dry, regardless of any victories we might im. So, in a twisted way, Noah''s death is a strategic advantage. It simplifies the battlefield." As the tension on the mountain simmered, the dark sky was suddenly cleaved by the arrival of a massive warship, dwarfing the Skyhall airship that had first brought the elders and angels. A grand staircase extended gracefully from the belly of the ship to the ground below, and Nithroel, Empress of Awor and Goddess of the Hunt descended with regal poise, causing the gathered elders and angels to instinctively back away.
Taking a deep breath, Michael greeted her with a nod. "Nithroel, what brings you into this shitstorm?"
In response, Nithroel''s scanned the gathered crowd before settling on Michael. "I heard about your recent... troubles," she began, her voice calm but carrying an undercurrent of authority. "And I wanted to address the problem between Gaya and myself directly."
"Go on," Michael nodded, gesturing for her to continue.
"I understand why Gaya did what she did. It doesn''t change the fact that Zariel is still out there, a demon who revels in taking lives and sowing chaos, abandoned even by his own god, Fourcrux." She sighed. The revtion from Nithroel struck a chord of shock through those gathered. Michael, who had long thought Azazel was thest of his kind due to some mysterious cmity that had befallen his race, found himself reassessing the situation. Azazel himself, usually calm andposed, disyed a rare crack in hisposure.
"Like Azazel, Zariel is also a demon. And you must be wary, for if Azazel does not keep his inherent bloodlust in check, he will eventually be uncontroble and may disobey you, Michael." Nithroel, noting their surprise, continued.
"This is just another reason why we-" the elders of the skyhall attempted to interject. "Enough," Nithroel raised her hand, silencing them with a firm gesture. Turning her gaze back to Azazel, Nithroel''s expression softened slightly, though her eyes remained piercing. "Azazel, have you informed your lord about the bloodlust you must be feelingtely?" she asked.
Michael, who had once overheard Gaya remarking on Azazel''s apparent enjoyment of brutality during battles, initially dismissed as mere adrenaline, suddenly felt a chill of realization. It seemed there was more to it after all.
"This bloodlust in demons is why your kind was nearly wiped out. The longer you live, the stronger the urge grows, until it overwhelms you. Eventually, you may sumb to it, turning on even those you once cared about."Nithroel continued.
"I won''t deny there are urges, but I swear I''ll never turn against the Dark Lord or those around me," Azazel firmly shook his head, his expression resolute.
After hearing Nithroel, the elders and angels directed their pleas towards Nithroel.
"You must stop him!" one elder shouted, his voice cracking with urgency. "Before he and his demon wreak havoc upon the world!"
"Damn right!" another chimed in, his toneced with anger. "If you don''t step in now, there won''t be a world left to save!"
"This turmoil began long before today," she began gracefully, her voice clear and authoritative. "When Skyhall chose to trust a dubious prophecy over the very principles it was founded upon, principles of protecting all lives, including those of two innocent babies, Noah and Ghost." She paused, letting her words sink in. "Your fear and that prophecy have shaped his life, thrusting him onto this path. The current chaos is not just a consequence of his actions but also of the decisions made by those who once sought to control his fate."
Seeing Nithroel cutting them off again and again, the leading elder was fuming with anger. He couldn''t hold back his frustration any longer and shouted.
"If you''re not here to stop him, then why the hell are you here?"
"I''m here to do something I should have done a long time ago," Nithroel met his anger with a calm demeanor but her lips curling into a sly grin that betrayed her ruthless intent.
"It''s time you returned the favor I''ve been granting you," she said, returning her gaze to Michael. "I ask you to take out Skyhall and clear the way for me to rule the mortal realm. In return, I will extend my support to you when the godse for war."
The moment they heard her, shocked murmurs erupted among the Skyhall elders as their eyes opened so wide to the point they looked like their eyes would pop out any second.
"What the fuck? You can''t seriously be considering this!" one elder eximed.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" another added, the words sharp and usatory.
"The Skyhall has been a thorn in my side for too long and its time I take it out," Nithroel said with a chilling voice.
Chapter 1289 Nithroels Treachery
Chapter 1289 Nithroel''s Treachery
Michael was taken aback by Nithroel''s sudden and ruthless request. The shock was clear on his face as he processed her words. Before he could respond, Elidyr stepped forward, nodding in agreement with Nithroel.
"She''s right, my lord," Elidyr said, his voice steady. "We need a ruler like her to govern the mortal realm and be our ally. Someone who understands theplexities of power and the necessity of tough decisions." Elidyr continued.
"You can''t stay here forever pretending to be something you''re not. You''re not a king meant to sit on a throne; you''re a warrior who battles across realms. Let Nithroel rule the mortal realm while you travel back and forth from here to the realm of the gods to gain the strength we need."
"Hmm," Michael nodded slowly, absorbing Elidyr''s words. After a moment of contemtion, he turned back to face the assembly, his decision made. "I agree. It''s the best course of action for us all."
The Skyhall elders exchanged nervous nces, their bodies tensing as they realized the implications of such an alliance. Whispers of fear and disbelief circted among them as they struggled toe to terms with the union of the Dark Lord and the Empress of Awor against Skyhall.
"Fuck, we''re doomed," one elder muttered under his breath, his voice barely a whisper yet filled with despair.
"Gods help us all," another elder said, shaking his head in disbelief, the reality of their situation sinking in.
Finally, Michael took a deep breath. His expression shifted into a cold smile as he addressed the trembling Skyhall elders. "It seems like your reign at Skyhall is finallying to an end," he said with icy calmness.
Before anyone could react, dark beams shot from Michael''s eyes, striking the leading elder directly in the forehead. The beams prated his skull with lethal precision, causing a gruesome explosion of blood that sttered onto the horrified angels nearby.
As the elder''s body crumpled to the ground, Michael''s system chimed in.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the Skyhall Elder. The reward is 5000 Experience points and 400 Badass points.] n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
The system continued with a notification that answered the doubt that appeared in Michael''s mind about the amount of experience points he received.
[Ding! Note to the host: As you have ascended to godhood, killing mortals will yield significantly fewer experience points due to the ease of such actions.]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5000 Badass points.]
Michael barely registered the system''s notifications. His focus wasn''t on the points; it was on the Skyhall, which had now be a symbol of his frustrations and the injustices he had endured. Their demise was not just an act of rebellion, it was a release for his pent-up anger, a message to all that his patience had its limits.
However, Michael knew that although the experience points gained from killing a single elder might be minimal, the cumtive effect of defeating an entire army could significantly boost his cultivation level in the realm of gods.
He turned to his assembled forces, a dark resolve etching his features. "Take them out," hemanded with a dismissive wave of his hand. The gathered army surged forward, the air thick with the promise of impending carnage.
Contrary to what some might expect, Michael did not hold Azazel back. Instead, he pped the demon butler on the back, a rare gesture from the Dark Lord. "I trust you, Azazel," he said firmly, encouraging him to join the fray.
Azazel was visibly moved by this show of confidence. His loyalty to Michael, which had always been strong, now solidifiedpletely, reaching an absolute peak. The system recognized this profound bond and rewarded Michael:
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for achieving 100% loyalty with your follower Azazel and receiving a Legendary Gift box]
Bloodlust could be a severe problem for those who harbored demons within their ranks, as their savage nature could often lead to unpredictable and uncontroble violence. However, Michael was not just any leader; he had the system. With the sophisticated tools and resources it provided, he was confident he could manage¡ªeven cure¡ªthe bloodlust that gued demons like Azazel.
As the battle raged on the ground between Michael''s dark army and the Skyhall forces, the elders and angels vociferously condemned Nithroel''s alliance with the Dark Lord. "Traitor! You''ll pay for this treachery!" one elder screamed over the sh of metal and the cries ofbat. "Bring her down!" another shouted, pointing towards Nithroel.
Above them, the Skyhall warship roared into action, its cannons thundering as they unleashed a volley of heavy fire. The projectiles streaked across the sky, their trails glowing against the dark clouds, a terrifying disy of power aimed squarely at Nithroel''s forces.
But Nithroel, standing resolute beside Michael, merely raised her hand and signaled to her own ship. "Return fire. Show them no mercy," shemanded with a cold grace. Her massive warship, manned by elves in gleaming armor, responded instantly. The elven crew worked with lethal efficiency, their own cannons booming in answer.
The sky above turned into a battlefield of its own. As Nithroel''s ship fired back, the air was filled with the sounds of cannonballs shing against the hulls and shields of the Skyhall ship. Explosions lit up the sky as the elven projectiles found their targets, tearing through the Skyhall ship''s defenses.
"Damn them! They''ve got us in their sights!" yelled a Skyhall captain, his face grim as he watched part of his ship''s wing burst into mes. Below him, the crew scrambled, returning fire while trying to maintain their ship''s stability.
Nithroel''s ship didn''t relent. Another volley tore through the sky, the cannonballs zing like meteors in the dark. They struck with devastating force, andrge sections of the Skyhall ship began to disintegrate under the relentless assault.
"We''re hit! Brace for impact!" shouted an angelic crew member, as a massive explosion rocked the Skyhall ship, sending debris scattering into the wind. The once mighty vessel groaned under the strain, its structure fatallypromised.
"Looks like the skies are no safer than the ground today," Michael watched with a dark satisfaction. Meanwhile, the battle in the skies intensified as the Skyhall airship continued to exchange volleys with Nithroel''s superior vessel. However, Nithroel''s warship, a marvel of elven engineering, showcased its superiority with an array of advanced weaponry. Its cannons,rger and more powerful, fired with a precision that tore through the defenses of the opposing vessel.
Mounted along the sides of Nithroel''s ship were crystal-based energyunchers that emitted concentrated beams of light, slicing through the metal and magical barriers of the Skyhall ship. Each hit resonated with a thunderous sh, the sound echoing across the battlefield. Despite the Skyhall crew''s desperate attempts to activate a shimmering magical shield, using an ancient artifact embedded at the ship''s core, the shield flickered under the relentless assault. "Impressive firepower. It seems the elves know how to build war machine," Michael remarked coolly, watching as another burst of cannon fire from Nithroel''s ship broke through the failing magical shield of the Skyhall vessel. The shield flickered out like a snuffed candle, leaving the enemy exposed and vulnerable.
On the ground, the chaos was mirrored by Azazel''s savagebat. His demonic form was a blur of motion, his crimson wings unfurling with menacing grace as he moved through the ranks of angel soldiers. His eyes, burning with a fiery crimson glow, focused intently on his targets as his hands tore through celestial armor with ease.
"Come on, you feathered fucks, is that all you''ve got?" Azazel taunted, his voiceced with scorn as he grabbed an angel by the wing and hurled him into a group of hisrades. The impact sent them sprawling in a tter of armor and broken wings.
Blood sttered the ground as Azazel''s ws ripped through another angel, his brutal force undeniable. Hisughter echoed over the sounds of battle, a chilling sound that was apanied by the thud of bodies hitting the earth.
"Pathetic!" Azazel roared, his form a whirlwind of destruction. Each move was calcted and deadly, leaving behind a trail of celestial carnage. His power was on full disy, a terrifying spectacle of demonic might that none could withstand.
Back in the sky, the Skyhall ship took another devastating hit, a direct strike that sent shards of metal and magical energy scattering into the wind. The ship began to lose altitude, and its demise was inevitable under the relentless assault of Nithroel''s superior firepower.
The elders shouted with rage and despair as the Skyhall ship continued its fatal descent toward the dark ocean. "Damn you, Nithroel!"
"Curse you, Dark Lord! You''ll pay for all this destruction!" But their words were lost amidst the chaos of battle and the roaring mes.
The massive vessel, now a fire-engulfed wreck, groaned under its own weight as it plummeted. mes licked its hull, and smoke billowed into the sky. When the ship hit the ocean, its impact was colossal, sending a massive plume of water and debris into the air. As the wreckage settled and the waves churned around the remains of the ship, Michael turned his gaze back to the battlefield. The ground forces of Skyhall demoralized but not yet defeated, continued their desperate struggle. "This is just the beginning," Michael said softly with cold, killing intent.
Chapter 1290 Attack Plan
Chapter 1290 Attack n
Eventually, the battlefield quieted as thest of the angels and elders fell. Methodical and unemotional, the dark army began stripping the fallen angels of their armor and weapons. Each piece of armor was carefully removed and collected while the lifeless bodies were unceremoniously tossed into the dark ocean below. The process seemed almost ritualistic from their floating mountain, a grim cycle of plunder and discard.
Meanwhile, the ground where the battle had raged was now stained with blood, painting the rocky surface a stark, deep red. Below, the dark ocean churned angrily, decorated with the remnants of the Skyhall ship as burning wood and debris floating amidst the sinking bodies.
As thest body was thrown into the watery abyss, Nithroel turned to Michael, her expression unreadable yet tinged with a hint of satisfaction. The chaos of the battle had not diminished her regal demeanor. If anything, it had reinforced the aura of authority around her.
"Now that we have taken care of this pesky problem," she began casually.
"Let''s talk about our next n," Her eyes gleamed with strategic foresight, already moving past the victory to the next phase of her big n.
Overlooking the battlefield''s remnants, Nithroel stood calmly as though she had done nothing and then turned her gaze back to Michael. "The Skyhall resides not within our realm but in a pocket dimension attached to the Akn realm," she exined. As usual, her voice carried the weight of authority yet remained clear and direct, easy for all to understand.
"To destroy thempletely, we must venture into the Akn realm and, from there gain entry to the Skyhall''s headquarters,"
When he heard the mention of the Akn Realm, Michael immediately thought about his time at Mazeroth Academy there as a student. His mind wandered through memories of lecture halls, the challenges he faced, and the stern yet wise professors who had once guided him.
He sighed deeply, a hint of nostalgia mixed with the bitter reality of his current reputation. "Those were simpler times," he murmured to himself. Now, as the Dark Lord and a god who had plunged the entire mortal realm into darkness, he knew those same mentors and peers would view him in a starkly different light as The Dark Lord rather than a promising student.
Finally, after a long moment of silence, Nithroel broke the silence with her calm voice. "We are up against formidable forces," she began, her tone even but firm. "The Skyhall possesses a massive army, including many half-immortals and immortals who are not part of the Immortal Council. They also have some half-celestial elders in seclusion who may emerge if Skyhall is threatened. Plus, they are equipped with an arsenal of magical artifacts whose powers are not fully known to us, and weapons capable of massive destruction." She continued. "Given that Skyhall was founded by Andohr, we can be certain he fortified it with robust safety measures. We should brace for a significant battle. However, this is the opportune moment to strike, while Andohr likely stirs chaos within the Pantheon. His distractions could provide us the advantage we need."
"Be prepared, though; we''re going in with limited intelligence. There will be losses." Nithroel''s eyes scanned the faces around her as she added.
"I''ve lost enough people already. I will lead the charge with only a handful of our best. We shouldn''t risk more lives unnecessarily." Michael responded firmly,
"It''s a wise choice, Michael. It will be dangerous, but perhaps less so with a smaller, more agile force." Nithroel sighed, acknowledging his decision with a nod.
For a moment, Nithroel let her words sink in as she wanted them to know the dangers before heading into the lion''s den for the final confrontation. But Nithroel could see something was flickering in Michael''s eyes, a bit of concern and she knew what it was about.
"Harry and Lah are safe," she assured. "Wulfric is protecting them. Once we''ve dealt with Skyhall, you can go and meet them."
"However, I would advise against visiting them before we attack Skyhall. They are in Akn Realm, and it''s best they don''t see the necessary actions we must take against Skyhall. They might not understand the reasons behind our drastic measures." Her eyes softened slightly, a rare glimpse of empathy in her usually stern demeanor. "Once weunch our assault on their headquarters, there''s no turning back." Nithroel cautioned, "Are you seriously telling me that after we just obliterated a Skyhall ship? Honey, we crossed the point of no return a long time ago." Michael responded with a light chuckle,
A slight smile broke through Nithroel''s usuallyposed expression. "Very well, gather your attack team and meet me by Stormville Mountain in five days," she instructed.
With a p of her hands, the steps of her airship unfurled gracefully, reaching down to the ground. Nithroel ascended the steps with regal poise and disappeared into the ship. Momentster, the engines of the massive vessel roared to life, and it began its journey toward Stormville Mountain, where the legendary Mugashuku was said to reside.
Once Nithroel''s ship had vanished into the distance, Michael turned to his followers, his voice cutting through the quiet aftermath of their earlier conflict. "Alright, let''s head back to the castle. We''ve got a war to prepare for," he announced, his tone firm andmanding.
As they made their way back, Michael halted his steps and looked over his shoulder at Azazel.
"Dismiss the army and keep the guards on high alert. We can''t afford any fucking surprises now."
"Understood, my lord." Azazel nodded sharply.
Upon returning to the castle, Michael walked towards his throne hall. The hall was vast and shrouded in shadows, with only flickering torches casting eerie lights on the walls. His throne, crafted from skulls and bones, sat atop an elevated tform, asserting a grim dominance over the space. Michael ascended the steps to his throne with a heavy, determined stride and seated himself with a sigh.
He then gestured to Trista, Lenora, and Elidyr, who took their respective thrones arrayed around him, their faces set with the gravity of their impending task. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Lenora broke the silence, her voice a mix of resolve and apprehension, "We''re finally doing it, huh?"
Trista responded with a determined nod, "It''s about time. We can''t let them keep fucking around with us or the realms."
Elidyr leaned forward from his throne, clearing his throat to capture everyone''s attention in the dimly lit hall. "We should be prepared for some tough resistance. But remember, the chaos caused by the hydra attack has thinned out Skyhall''s forces considerably. It''s a damn good time for us to strike."
Lenora and Trista exchanged nces, both still processing the recent events. "I knew Nithroel was powerful, but her ruthlessness today... it was something else." Lenora finally spoke, her voice tinged with a mix of awe and unease.
"Yeah, it''s fucking scary. Is that just how all these gods operate? All smiles and beauty on the surface but ready to stab you in the back the second it suits them?" Trista nodded in agreement.
"Ruthlessness is a trait many gods share, especially when their thrones or realms are threatened. Nithroel''s no different. She''s ying her cards, and she''s ying them hard. We just need to make sure we''re not the ones getting yed in the end." Michael calmly said.
As they were discussing, Azazel calmly entered the throne hall and bowed deeply before Michael. He was still dressed in his impable butler attire. His demeanor didn''t change despite the recent revtion about his blood lust. "My lord," Azazel began, his voice asposed as ever, "I have dismissed the assembled army. They have been divided into patrol groups to secure the floating mountain and monitor the dark ocean for any signs of trouble."
He stood straight, waiting for Michael''s acknowledgement or furthermands. The dark hall, illuminated by flickering torches, cast long shadows across the ornate skulls and bones that adorned Michael''s throne. "What are your next orders, my lord?" Azazel asked.
Leaning against her throne, Trista looked over with interest, her sharp features highlighted by the dim light.
"Yeah, who are you bringing with you to attack Skyhall?" Her voice carried a hint of challenge, eager to see how Michael would strategize their next move in the uing war.
Michael pondered for a moment, rubbing his chin thoughtfully before making a decision. "I''ll bring one of the elder vampires, but not all of them," he announced decisively. "If Skyhall has any countermeasures against elder vampires, bringing them all would end in disaster. But if they don''t, and we manage to break their defenses or countermeasures against elder vampires, if they have any, the others can be our backup force and stay in the Akn Realm."
Trista and Lenora exchanged a look, nodding in agreement with Michael''s strategy.
"I will bring Azazel," Michael added, his voice firm.
For a moment, the room was thick with tension as everyone absorbed the implications of his words. Trista''s eyes widened, and she couldn''t help but ask.
"Is it wise to bring him to a ce where it could trigger Azazel''s bloodlust?"
"We need to use that against our enemies as an advantage," Michael exined confidently.
"But in the future, I will deal with Azazel''s bloodlust permanently."
Azazel, who had stood silent during the exchange, was both grateful and surprised by Michael''s statement. After everything Nithroel said, Azazel did not expect Michael to bring him to the war against the Skyhall. It showed Azazel the depth of trust the Dark Lord ced upon him, and he was forever grateful for it.
"I won''t fail you, my lord." He bowed deeply.
Then, Elidyr cleared his throat, drawing attention to himself as he slowly raised his voice. The dark elf had a bone to pick with the Skyhall, and he wasn''t willing to stand by and watch it from the sidelines.
"You''ll need to bring me with you as well. As a runemaster, I can handle barriers and other surprises we might encounter."
Chapter 1291 Time for a new armor
Chapter 1291 Time for a new armor
Host: Michael
Cultivation Level: Elemental Attunement Realm Godhood: Greater God Experience Points: 250,000/400,000
Badass Points: 11,000,000 Worship Energy: 0
Skills & Spells: Wind st - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Eyes of Doom - LVL 7 Ultimate form level 1
Responsive Shield - LVL 9
Environment Scanning - LVL 9
Ignitia - LVL 8 Ultimate form level 1
Silenes - LVL 4
Meteor - LVL 2
Lightning Dash - LVL 6 Ultimate form level 1
Energy Devouver - LVL 6
Soul Eater - LVL 6
Soul Stare - LVL 5
Death Range - LVL 3
Shadow Teleportation
Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others
Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions
Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their couragepletely and surrender, Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host''s cultivation level will be boosted 2 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.
Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery
Ring of Fire - 96% Mastery
Serpent-Maga - 98% Mastery
upation:The Dark Lord
The God of Darkness
Status: Healthy
Goals: Control the realm of Gods and Mortal Realm
Grow the Order of Death
Utility Function: Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))
Runic Teleportation
X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)
Wealth: 6,000,000 Gold
Special Trait: 6-Star Alchemist
5-Star cksmith
5-Star Inventor
Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)
Azazek - Demon Butler (loyalty level 100%)
Raylene -5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)
Aria - Queen of Shadows- Assassin (loyalty level 92%)
Adelia Wraith - (loyalty level 94%)
Maxine - Queen of Power. - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)
Tiberius - King of War- Warrior (loyalty level 85%)
Sadie - Queen of Whispers- (loyalty level 70%)
Ricky (loyalty level 95%)
Titus and Optimus - Kings of Supplies (loyalty level 80%)
Gibson - King of the Skies (loyalty level 90%)
Corey - Queen of the Seas (loyalty level 90%)
The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 93%)
Saber Trista Lenora Base of Operation: The Abyssal
The Crypt
The Dark Ocean
Familiars: Nightmare (Currently in Soul Form) (Royal Dragon)
Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)
Elemental Maniption: Wind (45% Mastery) Fire (45% Mastery) (Lightning 50% Mastery) (Darkness 45%)
After the meeting in the throne hall, Michael stood alone in his dimly lit room, his gaze fixed on the stats glowing in front of him from his system interface. He briefly assessed his cultivation level and the hefty amount of badass points he had umted.
"Atleast I have somebadass points," he muttered under his breath, appreciating the silver lining of everything that happened. His eyes then darted to the next section of the interface, noticing his Worship Energy sat at zero. "Gotta work on that," he grumbled, already plotting ways to boost it.
Then, he exited the interface and his eyesnded on his battered armor disyed on the stand. The armor was in a rough state, with cracks and chipped edges as the testament to his recent brutal encounters with Noah and the severe ass kicking he received from Andohr.
"Shit, look at you. You''ve seen better days," Michael spoke to the armor as if it could hear him. He walked closer, his fingers tracing over the deep cracks, each one a reminder of the battles he''d survived.
Determined to not be caught off-guard again, Michael decided it was time to forge new armor, stronger and more resilient. "Gotta reinforce this bastard. No way I''m letting that happen again," he said, his voiceced with resolve.
He moved over to his desk, cluttered with various scrolls and artifacts. Pulling out a fresh sheet of parchment, he began to draw the schematics for the new armor design, his hand moving deftly with practiced ease. As he sketched, his mind raced through the possibilities of incorporating some of the advanced techniques he''d mastered, thinking about the best alloys and enchantments to use.
Midway through his sketching, Michael remembered the legendary gift box the system had rewarded him when Azazel reached 100% loyalty. "Maybe there''s something useful in that damn box," he pondered aloud, his curiosity piqued. He paused, looking back at his interface with a newfound eagerness. "Let''s see what''s inside that gift box," he dered,
When Michael willed the system to open the legendary gift box, a golden box wrapped with red ribbons materialized before his eyes. It exploded in a burst of shimmering light, revealing a card with a crimson red glowing rune in the shape of an eye and a few dark metal ingots that looked unlike the usual dark ore. It seemed as if the system had sensed his need for new armor.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for receiving the Eye of Secrecy Rune and Shadowforged Ingots.]
Picking up the card, Michael watched in awe as it transformed into the actual rune, glowing ominously in his hand. The system''s message rang clear in his mind, detailing the properties of the rune.
[The Eye of Secrecy Rune will render the host invisible to all forms of detection as long as the host continues to y gods at regr intervals.]
"Fuck, that''s handy... but killing gods isn''t exactly a walk in the park," Michael muttered to himself. The thought of hunting gods was daunting; they were not only powerful but also cunning and well-guarded. This rune, however, provided a strategic edge he desperately needed, especially if he wanted to evade the likes of Raphael and Andohr.
He considered the constant threat from other gods, the intricate dance of power ys in the realm of gods. "As long as I keep knocking them down, they can''t sneak up on me. This could really keep the heat off my back," he thought, his mind racing through potential targets.
Turning his attention to the ingots, Michael examined them closely. They were lighter than the dark ore he was ustomed to but radiated a formidable strength that surpassed many materials found in both the mortal realm and the realm of the gods.
"This... this could change everything," Michael said aloud, his voice low and intense. The weight of his recent losses and the darkness he had unleashed upon the mortal realm hung heavily on him. Eve''s loss was a sharp sting that fueled his resolve. These new materials would not only rece his damaged armor but also serve as a metaphor for his hardened resolve and renewed focus.
"Lighter, stronger... perfect for what I need right now," he continued, his hands turning over the ingots, feeling the smooth, cool metal. He knew that armor forged from this material would offer agility and protection, crucial for his confrontations ahead.
Michael ced the ingots and the rune on his worktable, his mind already plotting the armor''s design, integrating the rune''s properties into it. The thought of blending such potent artifacts filled him with a cold determination.
After deciding it was time to get to work, Michael waved his hand, and the rune along with the ingots vanished into the system storage with a faint hum of energy. He then approached his damaged armor and pressed the skull emblem at the center. The armor groaned under the stress of its cracks and damage, not shrinking back into the skull medallion as seamlessly as before. Michael sighed heavily, slipping the medallion around his neck, feeling its weight as a reminder of the battles fought and the battles ahead.
He walked out of the room, his steps echoing down the corridor, until he reached the portal room. The central gate was alive with pulsing energy, its glow casting eerie shadows on the walls. Elidyr was already there, his hands busy at the console. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Where are you going? We have a war to win in five days," Elidyr asked without turning around, sensing Michael''s presence.
"I know, but I need a new armor," Michael responded, his voice firm despite the fatigue edging its tone.
Hearing Michael, Elidyr paused and then sighed, understanding Michael''s need.
"You do need to clear your mind. Forging new armor might be a good way to do that," he conceded, tapping a few moremands into the portal''s console.
He set the destination to Hades, where Michael''s forge awaited, the ce where he felt most at home outside the battlefield. "It''s ready," Elidyr said, turning to face Michael. "Just make sure youe back with a clear head and more resolve. I won''t give you another sappy motivation speech."
Michael chuckled, a rare sound in the midst of recent events. "I will," he promised, his eyes fixed on the swirling vortex of the portal.
As the portal opened with a roar, Michael stepped forward. He paused for a moment, his silhouette framed against the swirling energies. Then, with a deep breath, he walked into the vortex, disappearing from the room as the portal closed behind him, leaving Elidyr alone with the hum of the machinery.
Finally, the portal spat Michael out into the familiar dim confines of his forge, a sprawling underground chamber carved directly beneath an active volcano. Dust motes danced in the scant light filtering down from small fissures in the rock ceiling, highlighting the ce''s long-neglected state. Toolsy scattered on workbenches, untouched for ages, and a thickyer of dust nketed everything, from the anvil to the bellows. Cobwebs draped the corners, and the air held a stagnant scent of cold metal and stone.
Despite theck of use, a wave of relief washed over Michael as he stepped further into the forge. It was a ce of power and creation, a sanctuary where he had spent countless hours lost in forging.
He walked over to arge, rusty lever mounted against the wall, encrusted with volcanic ash and soot. Grasping it firmly, Michael pulled it down with a forceful tug. There was a momentary rumble above as the mechanisms groaned to life after long disuse. Slowly, moltenva began to ooze from the volcano above, flowing through ancient pathways cut into the rock. Theva filled the channels of the forge, radiating a fierce heat that chased away the chill of neglect.
Michael felt a familiar surge of energy as the forge came alive with the roar of fire and the glow ofva illuminating the dark space. The warmth spread, lighting up the forge''s grim features, revealing rows of metal ingots, hammers, and tongs waiting to be wielded.
Standing in the center of this resurgence, Michael looked around at his once-forgotten kingdom of creation. The heat from theva bathed his face in a warm glow, casting long, dancing shadows behind him.
"Time for a new armor,"
Chapter 1292 Dark Armor 2.0 I
Chapter 1292 Dark Armor 2.0 I
With a deep breath, Michael removed the medallion containing his armor and hung it on the table. He gently touched the medallion, and as the armor began to emerge, it creaked and groaned under the strain of recent damages. As the armor slowly unfolded from itspact form, Michael grabbed a heavy sledgehammer, its head engraved with runes. Gripping the handle tightly, the recent events shed across his mind.
"I yed right into Andohr''s hands," Michael growled, his frustration palpable. He couldn''t believe everything that had happened. Michael wouldn''t have returned to the mortal realm and fallen into Andohr''s trap if Noah hadn''t killed Eve. In this situation, Noah yed a significant role in Michael''s downfall.
"Fuck," Michael muttered as he swung the hammer, bringing it down on his armor. The armor and sledgehammer collided, creating a loud bang and shockwave. The runes on the hammer glowed brightly as the armor slightly cracked. Michael had bought this rune-engraved sledgehammer from the system specifically for dismantling the armors and items he forged.
As Michael swung the hammer again, the armor cracked further under the relentless assault. The battered armor became an outlet for Michael''s pent-up anger and emotions. He struck the armor once more, and then again and again, each time with increasing force and speed.
Under the relentless attack, the armor finally shattered into pieces on the table. Michael stood there, his body drenched in sweat, looking at the destroyed pieces of armor.
"Calm down, Michael¡" he said to himself, taking a few deep breaths. He then picked up the broken pieces and went to fetch an iron bucket. He tossed the pieces into one bucket and the Shadowforged ingots into another, preparing to melt them.
This forging process strangely calmed his mind as he hung the buckets above the fire and injected dark mes into the tubes. As he stared at the melting pieces and ingots, he felt the earpiece in his ear vibrate.
He frowned as he activated the earpiece with a mere thought, only to hear Pink''s voice. Since Pink was in another realm, the connection shouldn''t have been possible, yet somehow Pink managed to contact him.
"Pink, how in the hell did you manage to call me?" Michael asked, his turmoil momentarily forgotten.
"Well, first, you underestimate me, mate. Second, I found a blueprint for an earpiece enhancement while I was cleaning up this underground base with Vedora and Gaya," Pink exined.
"Gaya?" Michael frowned as he recalled Gaya''sst task. Thest time he saw her, she had been adamant about rescuing the beasts and monsters caged by the Iron Hands in various branches throughout Sagespire. She wanted to prove to herself that she could be the Goddess of Monsters that the creatures deserved.
"What is she doing there?" Michael asked, surprised by the revtion. Gaya was supposed to be in Sagespire, but their current base of operation was in the Verdant Forest, which was under the domain of the Goddess of Nature, Flora. Although Michael knew Gaya had the portable portal he gave her before departing from her side, he now had a bad feeling that Gaya wouldn''t be at the base unless something had gone wrong.
"Human, where the fuck are you?" Suddenly, Gaya''s voice burst into his head as she snatched the modified earpiece from Pink and spoke to Michael.
"I''m in Aurumvale," Michael lied, not wanting Gaya to worry¡ªonly then realizing the huge loophole in his statement.
"Don''t lie to me, fucker. I know you''re in the mortal realm. We wouldn''t have had to modify the earpiece if you were in the realm of gods, would we?" Gaya retorted sharply.
Michael was speechless for a moment after being caught by Gaya.
"What the fuck did you do? The entire Sagespire is in chaos, and I bet the other domains must be too. The sun flickering, the Agra worshippers running havoc outside the city, and rumors of Andohr''s return to the pantheon. What the fuck happened out there?" Gaya fired her questions one after another.
"Well, it''s a long story," Michael began, hesitant to divulge the full details about Eve. Thest thing he needed was for Gaya to be enraged. While he could control his emotions and anger, she was not known for her patience. The moment she learned about Eve''s death, she would likely storm the mortal realm, wreaking havoc in her path and going berserk on the Skyhall. But Michael needed her in the realm of gods to keep him updated on the unfolding events there, which seemed increasingly chaotic.
"Tell me, I have all the time in the world because Seshat personally sent me here. She thinks I''m not safe within her own damn domain. Even she, the cryptic goddess, said it''s not safe, and that''s when I knew you really messed up," Gaya growled, her voice a mix of concern and anger.
"Long story short, I learned Harry is in danger from the Skyhall, so I came here to deal with it. One thing led to another, and I ended up killing Noah," Michael said, deliberately omitting many details. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"You killed Noah? Just like that?" Gaya couldn''t believe what she heard.
"Okay, give me some time to process this because your story has more holes than swiss cheese," Gaya said, clearly skeptical of the sparse exnation.
"I knew things would go to hell one day because of Harry and Lah, and now it finally has. I can tell you''ve been strangely evasive. When you hide things like this, it''s usually because something really fucked up has happened. Is everyone there alright? Did someone die?" Gaya''s voice was thick with frustration as she growled,
Michael hesitated, not daring to reveal the full extent of the situation. "Everyone''s alright," he lied, keeping his tone as steady as possible.
"You''re right, I''m holding back a few things, but I''ll tell you everything when the time is right."
Through the ensuing silence, he could sense Gaya''s skepticism, but he needed to keep her calm because he couldn''t afford to make another mistake.
"But tell me, what''s happening out there? Did Seshat tell you something else?" Michael quickly changed the topic before Gaya could probe further, shifting the focus to the situation in the realm of gods.
"She looked really worried. She didn''t have the usual smile on her face, and she was very direct, which gives me the creeps. She didn''t divulge many details, but she did say it''s not safe for me to stay here in Sagespire because Andohr is back and he''s lost his mind with anger. She also told me the realms are about to change forever and that you and I will be at the center of it," Gaya replied with a serious tone.
"Luckily, I managed to break out most of the monsters and beasts in Sagespire. Without Borgin, the beast tamers are running around like chickens without heads. The internal politics to see who would be the next n leader made them weak, which worked in my favor. But I think the beast tamers are the least of our worries when we have Andohr to deal with," Gaya growled.
"When are youing back? And if you''re noting back soon, what the fuck are you still nning to do?" Gaya pressed.
Michael paused for a few seconds, grappling with the weight of his secrets. He knew he couldn''t reveal what happened to Eve, but also recognized that Gaya would definitely probe for answers and might suspect something terrible had urred if he kept evading. Deciding to be forthright about his ns, he dropped the bombshell.
"I''m going to end something I should have ended a long time ago."
"What is it?" Gaya''s interest was immediately piqued, and her voice sharpened with curiosity.
Taking a deep breath, Michael broke the silence that had enveloped them, revealing his daunting n. "I''m going to wipe out the Skyhall once and for all."
The moment Gaya heard him, disbelief mingled with exhration surged through her. The Skyhall had been a persistent thorn in their side, and the mere thought of destroying thempletely sent a thrill of excitement coursing through her.
"Hell yes! Let mee and help you smash them to bits! When do we start?" Gaya responded with instant eagerness, her voice brimming with excitement.
"I need you to stay in the realm of gods and keep me updated. That''s the most important thing right now," Michael replied firmly, recognizing the strategic importance of her role over her presence in battle.
"Come on, human! I want to be in the thick of it, not just sitting back here watching! Let mee with you and kick some ass!" Gaya protested as her voice tinged with disappointment and a stubborn will to fight alongside him. But, Michael was resolute in his decision. "Listen, Gaya, I know you want to fight, but you being there to monitor things is crucial. We don''t know what Andohr or the others might pull next. Your eyes there are more valuable than you swinging on the front lines," he exined, hoping to convey the strategic necessity of her role.
"This fucking sucks, you know that, right? But fine, I''ll do this for you, but you better keep your ass safe, or I''lle there and drag you back myself," Gaya grumbled, clearly unhappy yet acquiescing to the logic of his strategy.
"That''s a promise. I''ll keep you posted every step of the way," Michael assured her, a slight smile breaking through as he appreciated her fierce loyalty and protective nature. Finally, once she cut themunication, Michael returned his focus to the melting ingots and the armor. With a deep sigh, he grabbed the silver hammer, pulled out the schematics for the new armor on the table, and prepared to forge the Dark Armor version 2.0.
Chapter 1293 Dark Armor 2.0 II
Chapter 1293 Dark Armor 2.0 II
After Gaya ended the call, Michael found himself in a state of rtive peace, or at least he savored the momentary calm. As the metal armor pieces and ingots melted, Michael took out the mold for his new armor and unsheathed his dark swords. Using the swords, he carefully carved the metal mold into the shape of his armor ording to the schematics.
As the furnace roared and the ingots dissolved into a glowing molten stream, Michael prepared the rest of his equipment, a smirk ying on his lips at the prospect of crafting something new, something deadly. He wiped the sweat from his brow and muttered under his breath.
"Let''s make this fucker unstoppable."
He lined up the detailed schematics next to the mold, each line and curve a blueprint for destruction. The mold itself was a masterpiece of engineering, designed to interlock perfectly once the metal set. Michael knew the importance of precision here as even a millimeter off could mean a chink in his armor, quite literally.
Grabbing his tools, he worked meticulously, adjusting the edges of the mold with his dark swords. The des, infused with dark mes, made smooth cuts through the metal, shaping it with more finesse than any regr tool could. "Damn, you''d think after all these years, I''d get tired of this shit. But here I am, forging another armor like I''m the fucking Iron man," he chuckled to himself, enjoying the manual part of this process as much as the battles it prepared him for.
The furnace signaled readiness, its contents now a seething pool of liquid metal that shimmered with potential. Michael donned his thick, heat-resistant gloves and face shield.
"All right, let''s pour this out," he murmured, positioning therge crucible over the mold. The air filled with the acrid scent of heated metal as he carefully tilted the container, guiding the molten metal into the mold. It filled every cavity with a satisfying sizzle, the red-hot liquid finding its new form.
As he watched the metal settle into the intricacies of the mold, Michael leaned back, wiping the sweat from his forehead again. "Let''s make something that can hold up against whatever fucked up thing the universe throws at me," he mused aloud, his eyes never leaving the bright, liquid fire that slowly turned into the nextyer of his defense.
"And if I do this right, this new set won''t just protect me, but it''ll scare the shit out of anyone who dares toe close. Just gotta make sure this metal sets right," he continued, almost in a trance, captivated by the transformation from liquid to solid, from raw to refined.
Michael reached into the system storage, pulling out the Eye of Secrecy rune that glowed ominously on a chunk of metal. He held it up, examining the eerie light that seemed to pulse with a life of its own. "Now, the real magic begins," he muttered, contemting how best to integrate the rune into his new armor.
"This little beauty will keep me off everyone''s radar, as long as I keep knocking gods off their thrones," he chuckled, turning the rune over in his hands. The liquid metal in the mold had begun to cool and refine, taking shape into what would soon be his new battle armor. "Alright, you''re going to be more than just a piece of metal. Let''s make you a real nightmare," he said, carefully cing the rune onto the partially solidified chest te, ensuring it melded perfectly into the core of the armor.
As the rune settled into its new home, Michael started musing about the properties of the Shadowforged ingots he was using. "These ingots will make the armor lighter and stronger. Sure, dark ore is tough as hell, but damn, that old armor was heavy. Slowed me down more than I''d like to admit. This new set needs to be quick, agile and light,"
Next, he turned his attention to the tactical integrations of the armor, specifically the APD. He pulled up a schematic on a screen nearby, talking through his thoughts. "Last time, the dispenser was a lifesaver, but it could be smarter, more intuitive." He sketched a quick revision that would allow the dispenser to react not just to hismands but also to environmental triggers. "If I''m taking a beating, I want it to hit me with a health boost without me having to think about it," he mused aloud.
"And for the palms, the old poison spray was slick, but let''s up the game. Maybe add a me thrower, or ooh, a corrosive mist to melt off faces?" Michael grinned at his own dark humor, enjoying the process of adding lethal functionalities to his gear. "Let''s see... for the me thrower, I''ll need a miniaturized fuel chamber, maybe here, in the forearm. The sprayer could use a dual nozzle design for quick switch between poison and fire." n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
He continued to brainstorm,ying out potential upgrades and mechanisms, each idea more ambitious than thest. "Integration''s going to be a bitch, but damn, it''ll be worth it. Nothing says ''back the fuck off'' like a bit of fire and poison in your face."
Michael nced over at the cape cloth and the armor kit thaty disassembled on another table. The metallic wings, once a proud feature of his ensemble, were now bent and torn, casualties of Raphael''s ruthless metal maniption during theirst encounter. Beside them, his hood and skull mask looked less formidable without their usual intimidating setup.
"Damn, Raphael really did a number on these," Michael muttered, picking up a piece of the mangled wings. "This time, I need something that no asshole can just twist and break." His mind raced through various alternatives, dismissing one after another as too conventional or vulnerable to the same maniption.
He rubbed his chin, thinking about materials that could offer resilience and flexibility without being susceptible to typical maniptive powers. "Maybe no metal this time... what about organic substances? Like, what if I used ancient beast scales or some shit? Those things are tough as hell." He paced around, warming to the idea. "Ancient beast armor could be the ticket. Risky as hell to get, but worth it if it means Raphael''s tricks bounce right off." Michael''s eyes narrowed as he visualized the design, the scales interlocking like a flexible, imprable shield.
"But for now, let''s stick with the cloth," he decided, setting aside the ambitious project for a future date when he could secure the exotic materials needed.
Turning his attention to the skull mask, Michael picked it up, its hollow eyes seeming to stare back at him. "Alright, you''re up for an upgrade too, buddy." He already had an air purifier and an underwater breathing kit integrated into the mask, but it was time to add more utility.
"Let''s throw in some new tricks. How about a gas ejector? Nothing fancy, just enough to surprise someone who gets too close." Michael chuckled at the thought, enjoying the idea of his enemies recoiling from an unexpected st of noxious fumes.
Then he pulled up diagrams and notes, sketching out where apact gas canister could be integrated withoutpromising the mask''s fit or function. "Gotta keep it sleek, though. No use having a gas mask if it looks like a damn bulky snorkel."
Michael''s workshop hummed with the energy of creativity and cursing as heid out the ns for his upgraded gear. The prospect of enhancing his defense with a blend of magic and high-tech gadgetry fueled his resolve for the battles toe. "This is gonna be badass," he muttered with a grin, already anticipating the shocked faces of his foes.
The metal began to settle within the mold, the glowing red-hot liquid cooling to a dull, steely gray. Michael peered into the mold, inspecting the newly formed armor. "Not too shabby for a day''s work, but this needs more before it''s battle-ready."
Picking up a file, he began to smooth out the edges and joints. "Gotta make sure every piece fits like a damn glove. Can''t have any shit snagging in the middle of a fight." Sparks flew as he worked, each stroke refining the armor''s brutal aesthetic. As he worked, his mind raced with additional enhancements. "This armor needs to be more than tough, it needs to scare the living hell out of anyone who darese close," He thought about the red linings he could add to the ck armor. "Yeah, some slick red lines might give it a nice, menacing glow... like it''s thirsty for some action."
Michael then recalled the fear toxin dispersal system from his previous armor. "That toxin was good, but it''s time to crank that shit up. More range, more potency, let''s make them piss their pants before they even get close." He jotted down notes for a more efficient delivery system, envisioning tiny, almost invisible nozzles integrated seamlessly into the armor''s design.
"This isn''t just armor, it''s psychological warfare."
He ced the schematics for the toxin system next to the armor, nning the integration points. "Gotta make sure this stuff is undetectable until it''s toote for the poor bastards facing me." Michael stepped back, admiring the raw form of the armor inside the mold. "With these upgrades, this armor won''t just protect me but it''ll be a weapon in its own right." He grinned, already anticipating his enemies'' terror as he envisioned himself cloaked in his new, menacing suit, Dark Armor 2.0.
Chapter 1294 The New Improved Dark Armor
Chapter 1294 The New Improved Dark Armor
Three dayster, Michael stood before his newly forged armor, his expression a mix of satisfaction and raw anticipation. "Now this is how you make a damn entrance," he muttered to himself, eyeing the imposing silhouette of the armor.
Crafted from Shadowforged ingots and the shattered remnants of his old dark ore armor, the suit was a masterpiece of dark, formidable metal that seemed to swallow the light around it. Every te and joint was meticulously designed to offer supreme protection without sacrificing mobility. The dark ore remnants added an extrayer of toughness.
The chest of the armor featured the pulsating rune of secrecy embedded directly into the metal beneath a menacing skull centerpiece. The rune glowed faintly, its magic creating an aura of obscurity that shielded Michael from prying magical spells and arrays. The eyes of the skull glinted red, a stark contrast against the dark metal, adding an eerie quality to the armor.
Along the edges of each te, red lines traced intricate patterns, imbued with a fear toxin that was far more potent than before. The lines were not just decorative; they served as conduits for the toxin, releasing it in a fine mist around him, subtly undermining the resolve of his enemies before the actual confrontation.
His skull mask had been refitted and enhanced, now featuring a more angr and aggressive design to match the rest of the armor. The eyes of the mask glowed a fierce red, aligning with the aesthetic of the armor,pleting the terrifying image of a warlord who was both shadow and specter.
"And this cape," Michael continued, his tone admiring as he referred to the redesigned cape that hung from his shoulders. The cape mimicked the appearance of wings, crafted from a cleveryering of the Shadowforged ingots, giving it a fluid, almost organic look. When spread, they appeared like the wings of some malevolent creature, poised to unfurl at hismand.
"This armor isn''t just for show, it''s a goddamn war machine," he dered, running a gloved hand over the smooth, cold surface of the chest te. The integration of the old and new metals not only represented his past and future battles but also made the armor uniquely powerful.
"Let''s see who''s dumb enough to fuck with me now," Michael said with a dark grin.
Michael ced his palm squarely on the chest of the armor, where the intricate runes and sensorsy embedded beneath the dark surface. As his hand made contact, the runes pulsed a deep red, recognizing his unique signature. With a mechanical hiss and a series of satisfying clicks, the armor tes seamlessly parted down the middle, opening up like the jaws of some great beast ready to devour its prey.
"About damn time," Michael muttered, stepping into the opened armor. He slid his legs in first, feeling the cold kiss of the metal against his skin as the inner linings adjusted to his form. The interior was awork of fine mesh and padding,ced with conduits that connected directly to the fear toxin systems and potion dispensers.
As he thrust his arms forward into the gauntlets, sensors activated along the joints, calibrating to his movements with precision. The chest piece and back te closed behind him, enveloping him in a near-silent embrace. The clinks and nks of the tes locking into ce resonated in the empty forge. N?v(el)B\\jnn
"Fits like a glove," he said with a grin, flexing his arms and rotating his shoulders to test the range of motion. The armor moved with him fluidly, as if it were a natural extension of his body, not missing a beat.
The skull mask awaited him on a stand nearby. He grabbed it, feeling the familiar coolness of the metal. As he lowered the mask over his head, the red glowing eyes came to life, syncing with his vision. The world took on a sharper, more defined look, every detail enhanced by the integrated vision enhancements.
"Time to show them what hell really looks like," Michael dered, his voice slightly muffled by the mask. As the cape settled on his shoulders, it caught the light, casting ominous shadows that yed along the walls of the forge.
He walked towards the mirror, each step resonating with the weight and power of the armor. Standing before his reflection, he couldn''t help but smirk at the sight. The menacing figure staring back was more than just a man¡ªit was the God of Darkness reborn with veangence.
"Let the games begin," he whispered to his reflection, Feeling the rush of his new armor, Michael decided to put it through its paces in the forge. He started with a series of acrobatic maneuvers, each movement sleeker and more confident than thest. First, a quick dash forward, a blur to any onlooker, followed by a high, twisting jump that carried him effortlessly over a workbench. Hended on the balls of his feet, knees bending to absorb the impact with a precision that felt supernatural.
"Hell yeah, this is fucking light!" he eximed, thrilled by theck of resistance he felt with each move. The armor didn''t just fit but it was enhanced, making him faster, and more agile. He couldn''t resist a smug grin as he rolled into a crouch and then sprung up into a backflip, feeling more like a deadly specter than a man in a metal suit.
The real test came when he sprinted toward the wall. Pushing off with one foot, he flipped backward, feeling the rush of air and the sheer responsive agility of the armor. "Damn, I''m practically flying in this thing!"
As hended, the cape which up until now had flowed dramatically behind him neatly pulled itself into the armor''s back. In the same fluid motion, the sword sheathes extended with a mechanical whir, readying themselves as he drew his twin dark swords with a satisfying hiss of metal against metal. The swords felt like extensions of his own arms, perfectly bnced and deadly.
"Time to light up the show," Michael muttered with a wicked grin. Turning his palm outward, he activated the built-in methrower. A spurt of intense me shot forth, controlled and directed, scorching a metal scrap target across the room. The fire danced violently before extinguishing onmand, leaving behind the charred remains of what was once a sturdy chunk of metal.
"Works like a fucking charm!" he shouted, more to himself than anyone else. The smell of burnt metal filled the air, a testament to the methrower''s potency.
Not stopping there, Michael tested the other upgrades. A quick tap at his wrist brought the automatic potion dispenser to life, emitting a soft hiss as it administered a mock dose of adrenaline boost as his senses heightened momentarily, simting the battlefield rush.
Lastly, he tested the gas ejector. With a flick of his wrist, the mask''s mouthpiece emitted a small puff of smoke, a harmless testpound that mimicked the fear-inducing toxin it was calibrated to release. The effectiveness was visible as the smoke quickly filled an area, demonstrating its capacity to disperse widely and rapidly.
"With this gear, I''m unstoppable," Michael boasted, sheathing his swords with a confident snap. Each piece of the armor had performed wlessly,bining defense and attack capabilities that would make him a true terror on any battlefield.
Michael flicked through the systems integrated into his armor, his eyes lighting up as he checked the functionality that absorbed energy from the arch crystals stored in a hiddenpartment. This system was a game-changer, dispersing energy throughout his suit, enabling him to utilize spells and arch energy, and even fly in areas devoid of ambient magical energy.
"Let''s take this beast for a spin," Michael muttered to himself, eager to test the armor in the wild, chaotic environment of the Demon''s Grave. He strode through the dark, narrow corridors of his forge, the clinking of his armor echoing ominously off the stone walls.
As he stepped out of the forge, the familiar harsh red sky of the Demon''s Grave stretched out above him, casting a bloody hue over the deste, barrenndscape. His gaze fell on the colossal bull that dominated the view, its massive form sorge it seemed to touch the sky. Around it, several giant bats fluttered, appearing minuscule inparison to the peaceful giant that graced the deste ground.
"What in the hell is up with that bull?" Michael shook his head, marveling at the creature''s enormity. "Is there some ancient tale behind you, big guy?" He wondered if it might be one of the ancient beasts of legend but quickly decided not to provoke such a potentially powerful entity. "Better not piss off the big bull," he concluded with a smirk.
Instead, Michael''s attention turned to the bats and other denizens of the Demon''s Grave. "Time to hunt some lesser beasts," he dered, feeling the adrenaline start to pump through his veins.
With a confident grin, he leaped from the volcanic mountain where his forge was nestled. The armor''s systems adjusted seamlessly to his movement, enhancing his descent into a controlled plummet. Hended heavily on the ground below, the impact sending cracks spider-webbing across the hard, dry soil.
"Alright, let''s see what kind of trouble I can stir up down here." Michael cracked his neck, rolling his shoulders as he surveyed the eeriendscape.
Chapter 1295 Testing the new armor in the Demons Grave
Chapter 1295 Testing the new armor in the Demons Grave
Michael''s gaze shifted upwards, observing how the usual blood-red sky of the Demon''s Grave mingled with unnerving darkness, which reminded him of Noah''s death. "With Noah gone, this whole damn universe feels off," he muttered, the eerie mix casting unsettling shadows across the rugged terrain.
In the distance, his attention was caught by a chaotic spectacle. A group of giant bats, emboldened perhaps by the darkness, were aggressively swooping down on a pack of enraged creatures. These beasts had the majestic heads of lions and sinister, slithering snake tails.
"Shit, everything''s gone mad since Noah kicked the bucket," Michael observed, squinting to get a better look at the violent interaction. The creatures on both sides disyed heightened aggression, their movements more frantic and desperate than the usual predatory fightsmon to the Demon''s Grave.
It seemed Noah''s death had repercussions beyond the mere vanishing of light, stirring a primal ferocity in the creatures of this realm. "Looks like the bnce is all kinds of fucked up," he said, watching the battle.
Positioning himself on a rocky outcrop, Michael watched the scene intently. The lion-headed creatures shed with the bats, their roars and hisses slicing through the air, filled with rage and fear. Each snake tailshed out with lethal precision, trying to strike the bats out of the sky, while the bats retaliated with swift dives, their talons aimed at the vulnerable eyes of their foes.
"Nature''s going haywire without the light to keep it in check," he growled. The thought of venturing into the fray crossed his mind, but Michael decided to observe a little longer, intrigued by the natural order unraveling so dramatically.
"Maybe this chaos is the new order of things," he pondered, feeling thrilled at the prospect of an unhinged world. "Let''s see how deep this rabbit hole goes," Michael decided, his fingers itching to draw his swords and join the fray, yet he restrained himself for the moment, choosing instead to learn more from the ongoing melee.
As Michael watched the chaos unfold below, his mind couldn''t help but drift back to his own turmoils, his anger simmering as he thought of Andohr''s trap and Eve''s tragic death. "Fucking Andohr," he hissed under his breath. The fact that Andohr had taken Diana, his mother, only added to the knot of frustrations. Although he had never felt any deep affection for Diana, the news of Noah''s death and Rowena''s disappearance tightened the noose of responsibility around his neck. "Poor Sabrina, just a damn kid in this fucked-up world," he muttered, clenching his fists. N?v(el)B\\jnn
The weight of his family''s plight gnawed at him, pulling at his resolve. Despite everything, he realized rushing into a confrontation with Andohr would be foolish. He knew too well that Andohr wouldn''t kill Diana outright but would likely keep her as a hostage in his cruel game.
"Can''t go head-to-head with that bastard yet," Michael acknowledged, forcing himself to take a deep, steadying breath. The reality was bitter, but rushing in without a n would only serve Andohr''s interests.
He looked back at the battling creatures, their wild ferocity a mirror to his inner turmoil. "And if that fucker tortures her, the system can wipe those memories clean," he mused aloud, the idea bringing a coldfort. It was a small reassurance but steeled him against the helplessness that threatened to overwhelm his thoughts.
"I''ll get her back, one way or another," Michael vowed quietly to himself. He knew the road ahead was fraught with danger, but his resolve hardened like the metal of his new armor. "And when I do, Andohr will pay dearly for every fucking second he''s held her," With a final nce at the wild scene before him, Michael shook off thest of his hesitation. His heart was heavy with loss and anger, but his mind was clear. "Time to n, not to mourn," he decided, turning away from the overlook.
Then, Michael cracked his neck as he looked at the armor encasing him, its sleek design more than just a shell but a weapon in its own right.
"Time to let off some steam, and what better way than to kick the shit out of these ugly fucks?" he mused, a grim smile pulling at the edges of his lips. "Let''s see what this bad boy can really do."
With a deep breath that filled the metallic confines of his mask, Michael crouched slightly, feeling the responsive armor flex along with him, as intuitive as a second skin. Without another thought, he leapt gracefully from the rock,nding with a calcted thud on the ground below. The impact sent a small cloud of dust swirling around him, the red eyes of his skull mask glowing ominously through the haze.
Straightening up, he strolled towards the chaotic fray of lion-headed beasts and giant bats, his approach calm but brimming with lethal intent. "Alright, let''s dance you miserable bastards," Michael muttered under his breath, unsheathing his swords with a fluid, practiced motion that mirrored the flickering of the fear toxin subtly emanating from his armor''s red lines. Thepound mixed with the air, its effects subtle but effective, sowing a seed of fear among the creatures as they sensed a new predator entering the fray.
As he closed the distance, one of the giant bats detected his approach, veering off from its aerial assault to swoop menacingly towards him. Michael reacted instinctively, his movements enhanced by the agility of his armor. He sidestepped the dive with ease, his left arm swinging up to let loose a burst of me from the palm-mounted methrower. The fire caught the bat mid-descent, lighting up the creature with a screech of surprise and pain as it retreated back.
"Not so tough, are you?" Michael taunted, almost cheerfully, as he advanced further into the battle. His presence now fully registered, several of the lion-headed creatures turned towards him, their snake tails hissing andshing out with venomous intent.
Michael met their charge head-on, his swords shing against the tough, scaled skin of the beasts, sparks flying with each strike.
As Michael dove deeper into the fray, the lightweight design of his armor proved its worth, enhancing his agility and speed. Each pivot and leap felt almost effortless, allowing him to dance around the deadly lunges and strikes of his monstrous opponents with a fluid grace that belied the deadly intent behind each move.
"Come on, let''s see what you''ve got!" Michael roared as he engaged the nearest lion-headed creature. The beast''s snake tail whipped forward, spraying a jet of corrosive poison in a desperate attempt to halt his advance. Michael sidestepped swiftly, feeling the hiss of the poison as it sttered against the rocky ground next to him. His armor, infused with the resilience of the Shadowforged ingots, repelled the toxic assault without a hitch, its surface remaining unmarred.
One of the giant bats, emboldened by the chaos, swooped down from above, its fanged mouth wide open aiming directly at Michael''s head. With a quick roll, he dodged the attack, and as the bat passed, he swung his sword in a tight arc. The de connected with a sickening crunch, cleaving through the bat''s wing. The creature shrieked in pain, spiraling to the ground where ity twitching.
But the fight was far from over. As one bat fell, two more took its ce, diving towards Michael in a coordinated assault. With a snarl, Michael nted his feet, twin swords ready. As the first bat reached him, he used its momentum against it, twisting aside and slicing upwards. The bat barely had time to register the deadly de before it was fatally wounded, dark blood sttering across the barren ground and Michael''s armor.
The lion-headed creatures weren''t deterred by the fall of their aerial allies. They charged, their roars filling the air, more aggressive and desperate. Michael met their charge head-on, his des shing in the dim light. He struck hard and fast, the impact of his swords against their scaled hides echoed by the crack of bone and the wet squelch of pierced flesh.
One particrly fierce lion-headed beast managed to close the distance, its snake tail iling wildly. Michael caught the tail with one hand, the scales slippery with venom. He yanked the creature closer, bringing his other sword down in a brutal arc, severing the head cleanly. The body slumped to the ground, its tail still twitching in his grasp.
The constant onught was relentless, but Michael''s armor turned aside fang and poison alike. Even as a bat''s teeth mped down on his shoulder, the metal held strong under the pressure, the sound of the creature''s teeth grinding against the imprable armor was almost satisfying. Michael used the close proximity to his advantage, bringing up his knee to smash into the creature''s underside, feeling ribs give way under the force.
"Is that all you''ve got?" Michael taunted, wiping a smear of blood from his visor. He spun around, swords extended, creating a deadly whirlwind of steel that no creature dared prate without consequence.
The more he killed the bats, the more badass points he received from the system. But Michael ignored the system notifications andpletely used this battle as an outlet for his suppressed anger.
Chapter 1296 Armor Test Completed
Chapter 1296 Armor Test Completed
Eventually, the frenziedbat slowed as the number of creatures dwindled, leaving Michael standing, breathing heavily amidst the carnage. He climbed atop the pile of bodies, a makeshift throne of the fallen, and paused to catch his breath. As he sat, the system notifications rang relentlessly in his head, tallying the minuscule badass points and experience points he had earned from the skirmish.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the weak bat. The reward is 400 Experience points and 40 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50 Badass points] "Seriously? That''s all the points these fuckers are worth?" Michael scoffed, ring at the blinking numbers that seemed almost to mock him. "Feels like the damn system is messing with me."
He swiped the notifications away with his mind. The points were a pittance, hardly worth the effort, considering he was capable of taking on much more significant threats in the realm of gods.
"Stupid fucking system, think you''re funny, huh?" he grumbled under his breath, his annoyance palpable. Michael cracked his neck, shifting his weight as he prepared to leave the mountain of bodies behind.
"Time to stop screwing around with these small fries. Got bigger fish to fry," he muttered as he stood, dusting off bits of debris and blood from his armor. The next step required a different kind of preparation, one that involved more brains than brawn.
Michael''s mind was set determinedly on Stormville Mountain, where he was to meet Nithroel. They needed to finalize their ns for the assault on Skyhall¡ªa mission that would truly test the limits of his new armor and his capabilities as a leader in war.
"Alright, Nithroel, let''s see what kind of trouble we can stir up together," he said to himself, a sly grin creeping across his face as he envisioned their uing confrontation with Skyhall. With onest look at the battlefield, Michael turned and began his journey toward Stormville Mountain.
As Michael set his sights on Stormville Mountain, he activated the arch energy crystal absorption system built into his armor. Focusing his thoughts, he connected with the armor''s runes, which seamlessly interfaced with his brain. It was a direct link, one that transformed thought into action without the need for physical triggers.
With a soft, mechanical click, the arch energy crystal nestled within the armor''s hiddenpartment began to drain. The red linings of his suit pulsed to life, glowing more intensely as the energy surged through the conduits, invigorating Michael with a palpable rush of power.
"Ah, that''s the good shit," Michael grinned, feeling the familiar thrill of arch energy flooding his system, supercharging every nerve and fiber of his being. The world seemed to slow around him, details sharpening as his senses heightened.
With no hesitation, Michael shot up into the sky, his armor propelling him upwards with astonishing speed. The ground fell away rapidly, bing a blur of colors as he ascended through the clouds.
The flight was exhrating, a stark contrast to the blood and grit of groundbat. As he soared higher, he nced down at the chaotdscape of the Demon''s Grave, now serene from his elevated perspective.
Realizing he needed to prepare further before the meeting, Michael curved back towards the volcanic mountain that housed his forge. The descent was swift, a controlled plummet that saw him slicing through the air with aerodynamic precision. Hended smoothly at the entrance of his forge, the impact sending a cloud of ash swirling around him.
"Back to the grind," he muttered as he stepped inside the dimly lit forge. The familiar smell of metal and fire weed him as he made a quick check of his systems, ensuring everything was in order, then set about gathering the items he needed for his return to the Dark Castle.
"Time to n, not just to punch," he reminded himself.
Michael tilted his head slightly, focusing on the internalmand system of his armor. With a mere thought, he willed the helmet and hood to retract, theponents seamlessly folding back into the structure of the suit until his face was fully exposed to the cool air of the forge. He took a deep breath, feeling the raw, unfiltered atmosphere rece the filtered air of his helmet.
Next, he tapped the small skull emblem centered on his chest te. The sophisticated mechanics of the armor responded instantly, initiating the retraction sequence. The tes, joints, and every piece of the formidable armor began to fold and copse inward with precision, shrinking down into thepact form of a medallion that clinked gently as it settled around his neck, now just a small skull pendant hanging from a chain.
Satisfied with the swift transformation, Michael turned his attention to the portal device that Elidyr had constructed within the forge. The portal, a swirling vortex of energy, was stabilized and ready for use, humming with a low, pulsing energy that beckoned him forward.
Without hesitation, Michael stepped briskly towards the vortex. The air around the portal crackled with arcane energy, tiny sparks of electricity dancing across the surface of his skin as he neared. He gave a quick nod, acknowledging the ingenuity of the device, and with a final nce around the familiar confines of his forge, he stepped into the swirling energy.
The transition through the vortex was smooth, a testament to Elidyr''s expertise. In mere moments, the forge and its fiery ambiance were reced by the darker, more somber tones of the Dark Castle. The familiar scent of stone and shadow greeted him, a stark contrast to the sulfurous tang of the forge.
As he emerged from the portal, Elidyr was there waiting, his expression one of calm efficiency. "You''re back earlier than expected," Elidyrmented, his voice holding a note of curiosity mingled with concern.
Michael adjusted the skull pendant around his neck, a slight smirk ying at the corners of his mouth. "Had to cut the joyride short. There''s work to do, and we''ve got a fortress to storm," he responded, his tone light but underscored with the weight of the tasks ahead.
As Michael entered the meeting hall, the atmosphere shifted noticeably, the gathered members of his council pausing to acknowledge his presence. Lenora, Trista, and Azazel were already seated on their respective thrones, arranged in a semi-circle around arge round table that dominated the room.
"Evening, folks," Michael greeted with a nod as he made his way to his seat, the weight of the uing discussion evident in his stride. The others returned his greeting with various nods and murmurs, a mix of tension and anticipation hanging in the air.
Taking his seat, Michael was followed closely by Elidyr, who quietly took his ce beside him. Without wasting a moment, Michael leaned forward, his hands sped in front of him on the table, his gaze sweeping across his trusted council. "We''reunching the attack as nned," he began, his voice firm andmanding. "Trista, Azazel, you''re with me. We''ll take a unit of the dark army. It''s time to put an end to Skyhall."
"I will apany you and handle all matters rted to the runes. Their defenses won''t know what hit them." Elidyr interjected smoothly.His tone was calm but underlined with a sharp confidence that bolstered the resolve of the room.
Michael nodded in approval at Elidyr''s readiness, feeling a sense of reassurance in the solid ns they wereying down. His eyes then shifted to Azazel, who met his gaze with a determined look.
"We will be ready to meet Empress Nithroel at Stormville Mountain in two days," Azazel confirmed, his voice echoing slightly in the high-ceilinged hall.
As they were strategizing, the room suddenly shook with an unexpected tremor, the rumble of disturbance echoing through the stone walls of the Dark Castle. Before anyone could react, the doors to the hall burst open, and Ricky rushed in, his face pale and eyes wide with urgency.
"They''re attacking us!" he shouted, breathless from his dash to the council room.
"It''s the Skyhall, they are attacking us from all directions!"
Trista and Lenora quickly stood up, their chairs scraping loudly against the stone floor. "Who dares to?" Trista began, her voice fierce and demanding, ready to leap into action.
"It''s the Skyhall," Ricky finally said, still catching his breath. Michael''s frown deepened, but as he processed the information, a slow, knowing chuckle escaped him. He stood up smoothly, his expression turning from surprise to a sardonic amusement. The council members turned their attention toward him, sensing the shift in his demeanor.
"Skyhall wouldn''t just sit around and wait for us to strike," Michael said, almost musing aloud. His voice carried a hint of admiration for the enemy''s tactics mingled with a steely resolve. "They''ve decided to bring the fight to our doorstep after what Nithroel and I stirred up. Well, it seems like someone''s eager to greet death."
His words hung in the air,den with confidence and a dark promise. The tremor had stopped, but the air remained charged with tension, every member of the council now fully alert and ready for the confrontation that had found them sooner than expected. Michael''s earlier amusement morphed into a fierce grin, his eyes gleaming with the anticipation of battle.
"Let''s show them what happens when they dare to attack the Dark Lord," Michael dered before slowly rising from his throne.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Chapter 1297 Azazel鈥檚 Transformation
Chapter 1297 Azazel¡¯s Transformation
Michael strode calmly out of the council hall, his demeanor unflustered as he exited the dark, imposing structure of the Dark Castle, which stood only halfpleted against the turbulent sky. The moment he stepped outside, his gaze was immediately drawn upward. The dark sky was ominously littered with giant warships, both in the sky and on the raging sea below, each one emzoned with the stark symbol of Skyhall. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Quite the weingmittee," Michael muttered under his breath, a hint of dark amusement in his tone. As he surveyed the overwhelming force assembled against them, he pieced together Skyhall''s strategy. They had chosen to attack while his forces were stationed in the southern continent, a strategic location known for its absence of arch energy in the atmosphere. This choice was no coincidence buta calcted move, betting that the arch energy crystals carried by his troops would eventually deplete, leaving them vulnerable and drastically weakened.
Michael''s strategic mind quickly deduced that Skyhall intended to drag out the battle, exploiting their numerical advantage once his forces were starved of their primary energy source. "They''re nning to bleed us dry of arch energy, then overwhelm us," he admitted as his voice was low but filled with a cold resolve.
A wry chuckle escaped him as he stood watching the warships prepare for their assault. His hand instinctively brushed the small skull pendant containing his armor, a reminder of the power he wielded.
"They''ve got a good n," Michael conceded with a smirk, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the formidable array of ships. "But they forgot one important thing, they forgot I''m fucking here."
As Michael steadied himself, the air above churned with activity. Like bees swarming from their hive, angels with metallic wings and weapons glowing with celestial energy leapt from the warships, descending toward the ground in a breathtaking aerial assault. Their wings caught the light, shimmering against the dark backdrop of the stormy sky, as they closed in with cold killing intent.
Above them, colossal warships floated ominously, each equipped with bulky, menacing cannons that looked ready to unleash hell. The ships were behemoths of the skies, their massive sails billowing even in the chaotic winds, each sail emzoned with the fearsome insignia of Skyhall. The decks bristled with activity as crews scrambled to man their stations, preparing for a full onught.
Below, the sea was a roiling mass of dark waves, dotted with warships ranging from nimble frigates to powerful man-o-wars. These naval behemoths, their wooden sides thick and scarred from previous battles, lined up in aggressive formations. With a thunderous roar, they began firing volleys of cannonballs, each salvo aimed with deadly intent. The cannon fire boomed across the water, sending sprays of seawater into the air as the iron balls smashed into the waves or thudded into the castle''s half-built walls, sending chunks of stone flying.
The battlefield was a scene of pure destruction, the air filled with the deafening sounds of cannon fire, the metallic whir of angelic wings, and the shes of celestial weapons striking earthly defenses. Smoke and debris filled the air, obscuring the once-clear view as the ground shook with each new impact. The dark castle, though sturdy, trembled under the relentless assault, its stones crying out as they absorbed the fury of Skyhall''s wrath.
"Fuck, they''re not holding back," Michael mumbled. Each cannon volley from the Skyhall fleet sent a shudder through the floating mountain, the vibrations coursing through the dark castle''s foundations, causing slight trembles in the stonework. Amidst the cacophony and chaos, Azazel unfurled his massive wings and took to the skies. His figure cut through the smoke and debris as he ascended. "What the fuck are you waiting for? Attack!"
Responding to his call, the dark army quickly tapped into their arch energy crystals, a burst of luminescent power ring around them as they activated their flight capabilities. Within moments, they soared into the sky, forming a dark cloud of vengeance ready to meet the Skyhall forces head-on.
Michael watched as the Skyhall angels maneuvered with simr energy, their movements suggesting a reliance on a power source akin to his own forces'' arch energy crystals. "Looks like those bastards have their own tricks up their sleeves," he noted, a strategic calction running through his mind as he assessed the enemy''s capabilities.
Turning to Ricky, who was coordinating the defense on the ground, Michael''s voice cut through the noise with amanding tone.
"Tell Corey to bring in my Big Bertha." His eyes sparkled with a mix of amusement and anticipation at the thought of his own warship entering the fray. It had been too long since he had seen his menacing yet beautiful frigate in action, and the idea of unleashing its full might against Skyhall invigorated him.
Ricky nodded sharply and ryed the order, his voice crackling through themunication device to reach Corey, who was in charge of the naval assets. As Michael waited, his gaze returned to the sky, where his dark army shed violently with the Skyhall invaders. The sounds of battle were intense, with the ng of metal on metal, the whoosh of energy-powered flight, and the cries of the wounded filling the air.
Despite the destruction unfolding around him, Michael couldn''t suppress a grin. The arrival of his warship, known among his crew as ''Big Bertha'' for its sheer size and firepower, promised to tilt the bnce of power. The thought of its cannons unleashing hell upon the Skyhall fleet brought a fierce joy to his heart.
"Let''s see how they like a taste of their own medicine," he murmured to himself, On the other hand, Trista and Lenora turned to Michael with a fire in their eyes. "Let us go take out the trash," Trista said, her toneced with the thrill of the fight. Lenora nodded in agreement, both ready to dive headlong into the chaotic aerial battle.
But Michael raised his hand, stopping them at their steps. "No, don''t go for a frontal assault," he instructed firmly. "Find a way to infiltrate one of those ships. I have a feeling they''ve got more than one ace up their sleeves."
Up in the sky, the scene was a brutal ballet of violence and prowess. Azazel, the demon butler, was a terrifying spectacle. Hisrge, demonic wings beat powerfully as he maneuvered through the air, his movements both graceful and deadly. His hands, transformed into lethal weapons, tore through the ranks of Skyhall angels with a ferocity that was both awe-inspiring and horrifying.
The angels, trained forbat and glowing with celestial energy, were formidable opponents. They wielded glowing weapons that sliced through the air, creating arcs of light that were both beautiful and deadly. Each strike was precise, aimed with divine wrath, as they tried to subdue the demon butler. However, Azazel''sbat experience and sheer brute strength gave him a distinct advantage.
With a swift movement, Azazel caught an angel by the wrist, twisting brutally until a sickening snap echoed through the air. The angel cried out, a sound cut short as Azazel delivered a devastating punch to the chest, sending the celestial being plummeting toward the ground with a broken body.
Another angel swooped in from behind, sword aimed at Azazel''s back, but the demon was too quick. He spun around, grabbing the angel by the throat and lifting him into the air, his grip iron-tight. With a malicious grin, Azazel squeezed until the glow from the angel''s eyes began to dim, then threw him aside like a rag doll.
As the battle raged above, Trista and Lenora quietly slipped into the shadows, making their way toward one of the lesser-guarded warships. Their movements were silent and deliberate, blending with the chaos to avoid drawing attention as they executed Michael''s n.
Meanwhile, Michael stood observing the ferocious ballet in the sky, his focus on Azazel. He watched intently, intrigued and somewhat apprehensive about the demon butler''s disy of bloodlust, the phenomenon Nithroel had warned him about. Azazel, typically a figure of discipline and control, was now a vortex of primal rage and destruction.
In the thick of battle, Azazel''s ferocity was unmatched. He swooped through the angels, his ws and teeth bared, tearing into flesh and armor with equal abandon. An angel charged at him with a spear glowing with holy light, aiming for his heart. Azazel caught the spear mid-thrust, snapping it with his bare hands before driving the broken shaft back into the attacker''s chest. Hisugh, a deep, guttural sound, echoed over the din ofbat, chilling to those who heard it.
"Come on, you heavenly fucks! Is that all you''ve got?" Azazel roared. Another angel descended, swords zing with divine fire. Azazel met him in mid-air, grappling with the angel before brutally mming him into a nearby warship with enough force to dent the metal hull. He didn''t even flinch as the angel''s de sliced across his arm, the blood that spurted from the wound seeming only to fuel his frenzied state.
Blood sttered and smeared on his face and wings, Azazel moved through the angels like a predator through a flock of birds, unstoppable in his bloodlust. He reveled in each kill, his usual stoic demeanor lost to the berserker rage that now drove him. The more he fought, the more he seemed to lose himself to the violence, his actions bing less about strategy and more about sheer carnage.
From his vantage point, Michael watched as Azazel continued his rampage, the demon''s enjoyment of the ughter evident in every brutal takedown. It was a stark contrast to theposed butler he knew, a transformation that was both fascinating and horrifying.
As Michael observed, he realized the depth of the challenge that Azazel''s bloodlust could pose, not just to their enemies but potentially to their own side as well.
Chapter 1298 Welcome Back Demons
Chapter 1298 Wee Back Demons
As Michael watched, the intensity of the battle escted dramatically. The warships above and on the sea fired volleys of cannons, each projectile infused with arch energy that glowed with a strange purple hue. The impact of these enhanced cannonballs was devastating, each hit causing the floating mountain to shudder more violently under their force. Michael steadied himself against the tremors while his eyes narrowed at the disy of Skyhall''s augmented firepower.
Just then, Ricky returned, his face pale and his expression tense. He quickly approached Michael, urgency evident in his steps. "I just received news from Sadie," he reported in a low voice. "One of the Skyhall elders got drunk and started talking to one of her girls."
Sadie Kan had established herself as a prominent figure across all the continents, even after Skyhall dismantled all the sects, including her own Silvermoon sect. Being Michael''s subordinate and with his support, Sadie had risen to head his spywork. Her approach was both simple and effective, mourous women who could extract secrets from men loosened by drink and thepany of beauty. This made Sadie an invaluable asset in Michael''s intelligence operations.
"The elder was mumbling something about awakening a demon army," Ricky continued.
Michael''s brow furrowed deeply as he processed this information. He remembered how the Skyhall angels had been excavating the bodies of demons in the Demon''s Grave and another realm, suggesting that they might now be utilizing these remains for some sinister purpose.
Ricky looked at Michael with a worried expression as his voice carried a hint of fear. "What''s that supposed to mean, boss?" he asked, seeking some understanding or reassurance in the face of this ominous development.
"It means," Michael said slowly, piecing together the puzzle. "That Skyhall might be nning something even bigger than this attack. They''re not just fighting, they''re preparing for war, the uing war with us on a scale we haven''t seen yet,"
His eyes drifted upward as he said, drawn to a sleek warship hovering further in the sky, its design distinct and ominous. Shaped like a sword, it sliced through the clouds with its pointed bow and streamlined body, the dark metal of its hull gleaming menacingly against the stormy backdrop. The warship''s presence loomedrge, and Michael had a bad feeling as he watched it.
Inside, the warship''smand center was a hive of activity. A bold elder with white robes and a noticeable scar running across his face stood at therge window, his gaze fixed on the floating mountain and the unfolding battle below. The tension in his eyes mirrored the storm outside.
Around him, the hall buzzed as Skyhall soldiers hurried back and forth. They checked glowing runes on consoles, barked orders, and coordinated attacks with other forces.
"Status on the southern nk!" one officer shouted, eyes darting across a rune-lit disy.
"Artillery units in position, sir. Awaiting yourmand," another responded, her voice tense as she ryed the information.
At that moment, an elf wearing shimmering silver armor approached the elder with respect and urgency. "What are your orders, Elder Tarsus?" he asked, his voice carrying over the mor of themand center.
"Zoom in on the Demon Butler and The Dark Lord," Elder Tarsus turned from the window andmanded with authority. The surrounding crew members quickly adjusted their instruments, and the window before him flickered before splitting into dual views.
On one side of the window, the calm, almost amused look of The Dark Lord appeared with hisposure in stark contrast to the chaos around him. On the other hand, the rampage of Azazel was disyed in brutal detail. The demon butler was a whirlwind of destruction, his hands and teeth bared as he tore through another wave of Skyhall''s angel units as his roars echoed even through the visual feed.
"That abomination is tearing through our units," the elf frowned, his concern evident as he watched the carnage wrought by Azazel. But Elder Tarsus watched the scene unfold with a dark amusement, then revealed an evil grin. "He is not the only one with an abomination," he murmured, his eyes glinting with malevolence. Hearing the Elder, the elf slowly grinned as a gleam of anticipation appeared in his eyes. "Is it time, Elder?" he asked, barely containing his excitement.
Elder Tarsus gave a nod, his eyes fixed on the chaotic battle unfolding before them. "There is no better time than the present," he responded in a decisive tone, his gaze never wavering from the scenes of conflict disyed on the window.
Turning away from the main hub of activity, Elder Tarsus started to walk towards the rear of the ship. The elf quickly fell into step behind him, navigating through the busy corridor filled with rushing soldiers and shing rune-lit panels. They moved purposefully past the operational chaos with the intention to bring out their ace in the sleeves. N?v(el)B\\jnn
Eventually, they arrived at the storage bay door, a massive barrier that was ck and intricately engraved with various runes. These runes pulsed rhythmically, powered by the arch energy that flowed through them, casting eerie shadows along the corridor. Elder Tarsus paused briefly, then ced his hand firmly on the door. The runes hummed louder, responding to his touch, and then, with a heavy creak, the door began to swing open slowly.
Beyond the doory a spacious hall, dimly lit by a faint, otherworldly light. Countless silhouettes of coffins were arranged neatly on the ground, each one dark and foreboding. The air was thick with the smell of death and decay, a palpable presence that made the elf wrinkle his nose in difort as he followed closely behind the elder.
On the other hand, Elder Tarsus moved confidently through the hall and every step he took echoed through the silent hall, giving the scene an ominous feeling. He knew the contents of each coffin well, they contained the bodies of demons unearthed from the Demon''s Grave. These ancient corpses, once fearsome beings in their own right, were about to be reanimated, brought back to serve in a war they had not asked to fight.
Skyhall had achieved remarkable sess in their dark experiments, managing to reanimate the demon corpses to nearly 80% of their former power from when they were alive. This achievement was one of many aces Skyhall had strategically held up its sleeve, preparing to unleash a reanimated demon army that had not seen the light of day for centuries.
With a measured pace, Elder Tarsus walked toward the center of the spacious hall filled with the silent coffins of demons. Reaching the center, he paused and tapped his foot against the cold stone floor. Instantly, a mechanism activated, and a pir slowly rose from the ground. Atop this newly emerged pir rested an orb, glowing faintly with an inner light that pulsed in sync with the lifeless hall around it.
The elder extended his hand and ced it on the orb. His face, usually impassive, now reflected the seriousness of the moment. Closing his eyes, he began to chant in a low, clear voice, each word of the activation sequence reverberating through the hall and causing the orb to glow brighter with each syble. The runes on the coffins began to respond, flickering with renewed energy as the ancient magic that bound the demons to their eternal rest was slowly reversed.
As Elder Tarsus''s chant filled the air, the elf stood nearby, watching the scene unfold with a mix of fear, awe, and anticipation. He listened intently, the atmosphere growing tenser with each passing second. Soon, the unmistakable sound of clicking echoed through the hall as the locks on the coffins began to disengage one by one. The air within the hall grew perceptibly chillier, a coldness seeping into the very bones of those present. Then, a series of low growls started to emanate from the nearby coffins, sending a shiver through the elf. The sounds were primal, filled with hunger and rage from eons of enforced slumber. The coffins started to shake more violently as whatever was inside began to stir, awakening from its deathlike sleep.
Amidst this charged atmosphere, Elder Tarsuspleted his chant, his hand still resting on the glowing orb. He opened his eyes, which now flickered with a dark triumph. Looking over at the visibly shaken elf, he said with a sinister smile.
"Let''s give the Dark Lord a taste of his own medicine."
Suddenly, the rattling and tremors emanating from the coffins ceased, and a chilling silence enveloped the hall. The abrupt stop in noise was more unnerving than the cacophony that preceded it, filling the air with a tense anticipation of what was toe next.
Feeling the oppressive quiet, the elf instinctively reached for the sword dangling at his waist. His hand gripped the hilt tightly, ready to draw it at a moment''s notice, his eyes darting nervously around the dimly lit hall. Each shadow and every slight sound seemed magnified in the heavy stillness.
Meanwhile, Elder Tarsus maintained a confident, even grin on his face as he looked around, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of pride and malice. He seemed utterly unfazed by the eerie quiet, almost as if he relished the suspense and fear that filled the room.
Just as the tension seemed unbearable, a sudden, violent movement broke the silence as the top of a nearby coffin was violently thrown off, ttering across the stone floor. Then, a dark figure slowly rose from the opened coffin except the figure''s features were obstructed under the dust cloud around it.
"Wee back, demons,"Elder Tarsus dered as his voice was filled with satisfaction, anticipation and dark amusement.
Chapter 1299 Dagon is a demon?
Chapter 1299 Dagon is a demon?
As the top of the coffin ttered to the floor, a dense cloud of smoke billowed out, obscuring the demon''s form from view. The elf stood tense, his hand still on the hilt of his sword, eyes fixed on the slowly dispersing smoke, eager yet apprehensive to catch a glimpse of the resurrected demon.
These reanimated demons were vastly different from the typical undead or the soulless army of Salesi. Whereas the undead and Salesi''s soul army operated on a singr, mindless intent to kill, these demons possessed a much moreplex array of emotions, dominated by an intense, pure bloodlust. This wasn''t just a killing instinct, it was primal, likened to that of a seasoned predator. It endowed them with the ability to strategize, take calcted risks, and strike with abination of brains and brute force.
The Skyhall had not previously unleashed these demons in a conflict of this magnitude, but their experiments on demon corpses had revealed chilling abilities. These creatures possessed extremely fast healing and regenerative capabilities, making them exceptionally tough adversaries on the battlefield. The only known ways to permanently stop them were by burning their bodies to ashes faster than they could regenerate or by submerging them in water. Drowning wouldn''t kill them but would revert them to their inert, deathlike state, thus allowing for the possibility of resurrection at ater time.
When the smoke finally cleared, the demon''s figure emerged in full, terrifying detail. They sported crimson red skin and eyes of the same intense hue, but unlike the typical undead, their bodies bore no scars or signs of dposition. Instead, their crimson skins gleamed, stretched over chiseled muscles that appeared almost sculptural in their perfection. Each demon possessed four arms, each limb as thick as a grown man''s thighs, hinting at immense physical strength.
"Aren''t they beautiful?" Elder Tarsus remarked with pride and a dark fascination.
Yet, the elf''s focus was not on the elder''s words. His gaze was locked on the demon before him, its skin a deep, pulsating red that seemed to breathe under the hall''s faint light. From its head sprouted menacing horns; some demons had two horns jutting from either side of their heads, while others featured a single, spiraling horn emerging from their foreheads. The sight was both captivating and terrifying, a stark reminder of the lethal nature of these beings.
A shiver of dread coursed down the elf''s spine as a two-horned demon leisurely twisted its neck, its movements deliberate and unsettling. The demon then parted its lips, revealing a row of yellowing, shark-like teeth,plete with two elongated fangs reminiscent of a vampire''s. Its wings were not feathery but made of a tough, skin-like membrane, stretched taut over sharp, protruding spikes that gave it a menacing silhouette
As the elder continued to admire his handiwork, the demon near them took a heavy, measured step forward, its footnding on the ground with a loud thud. One by one, the demons stepped out of their coffins, their presence dominating the vast hall. The sound of their heavy breathing filled the space, each exhale resonating with the depth of centuries spent in deathly slumber, now broken. The air seemed to thicken with their collective exhtion, adding a palpable tension to the already charged atmosphere.
Meanwhile, the orb that Elder Tarsus had used to activate the demons'' awakening underwent a transformation. It slowly morphed into a glowing rune that shimmered with potent energy. With a deliberate motion, the elder allowed the rune to merge into his hand, where it settled into his skin, pulsing softly with a deep crimson light.
The nearest demon, a towering figure of muscle and malevolent grace, slowly stepped toward Elder Tarsus. It looked down at him, its height making even the tall elder look considerably smaller. Each demon stood about seven to eight feet tall, their bodies a mass of bulging muscles, making them look like living mountains of sinister intent. Beside them, the elf appeared particrly dwarfed, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and fear.
Despite their menacing form, Elder Tarsus remained calm, his face betraying no hint of fear. He looked up at the looming demon, his voice steady andmanding as he issued his next order. "Follow me," he said, the authority in his tone clear and unwavering.
At hismand, the crimson red rune on his palm pulsated more intensely. This seemed to resonate with the demons, as if reinforcing their bond to his will. Slowly, the entire demon army began to move, each step deliberate and heavy, following the elder as he led them out of the hall. The elf, recovering from his initial shock, quickly fell into step beside Elder Tarsus, casting wary nces at the demons that now marched behind them.
Meanwhile, outside the warship, Michael stood calmly, his eyes scanning the tumultuous scene below as his dark army shed fiercely with the forces of Skyhall. He had yet to enter the fray himself, choosing instead to wait for Corey to bring in the Big Bertha. He wanted to see his army in action, to assess their performance firsthand before making his move.
Standing apart from the battle provided Michael with a rare opportunity to observe his forces without the distraction ofbat. It was an unusual moment for him; he was often away on adventures or deep in nning, rarely witnessing his army''s capabilities in person. As he watched them move with precision and coordinated aggression, he couldn''t help but appreciate the training they had received. Gaya and Eve had prepared them well, crafting them into a powerful force that could operate autonomously without the need for direct orders.
Although the loss of Eve still gnawed at him deeply, seeing the effectiveness of her training manifest in the battlefield brought aplex mix of pride and sadness. The dark army''s seamless operation was a testament to her skills and dedication, a legacy that lived on through every maneuver and every strike they executed.
Michael''s expression softened momentarily as his thoughts lingered on Eve. "You should see this, Eve." He muttered under his breath as though talking to Eve.
As he was thinking about Eve and silently mourning her death, Michael''s train of thoughts was abruptly shattered by the voice of Trista and Lenora speaking to him through the earpiece.
"My lord, we have a huge problem," Trista''s voice came through, tinged with urgency.
"Cut the shit and tell him, Trista." Lenora''s voice followed, her tone more direct, Michael''s brow furrowed as he switched fully back intomander mode, the personal reflections pushed aside for the moment. "What is it?" he asked calmly, his voice steady despite the growing unease prompted by their tones.
"We infiltrated the main warship, and they have an army... an army of demons." Trista''s response came through, heavy with concern
Suddenly, a loud boom echoed through the sky, drawing Michael''s gaze upward to the main ship floating ominously above. What he saw next was both mesmerizing and terrifying. It was as if crimsonva was pouring out of the ship, a flowing mass of vivid red that spilled into the sky. It took Michael a few seconds to discern the figures within this cascade, and when he did, his heart tightened, the figures were demons.
The ongoing battle below halted abruptly as the demons poured out of the ship. Both the angels of Skyhall and Michael''s dark army paused, their weapons momentarily still as they stared up in shock and fear. The sight of the demon army was enough to instill a deep sense of dread; their monstrous forms and the sheer number emerging were like something out of a nightmare.
As the demon army continued to spill from the warship, shockwaves of disbelief rippled through both the Skyhall angels and Michael''s dark army. The battlefield was abuzz with frantic, confused voices.
"What the hell are those?!" one of the Skyhall angels shouted, gripping his weapon tighter, his voiceced with panic.
"Demons? They''re supposed to be just myths, aren''t they?" another angel called out, scanning the ranks for any sign ofmand or reassurance.
From Michael''s dark army, the reactions were mixed with a touch of grim humor and stark fear.
"I thought demons looked like Azazel!" one soldier yelled, his voice breaking through the din, referring to the more humanoid appearance of their demon butler.
"Are you telling me those are demons too? Azazel doesn''t look anything like that freak show!" another shouted, pointing towards the monstrous forms now descending into the battle.
"And here I was, thinking Azazel was the only one of his kind," a third chimed in.
"Fuck, they''re huge! We''re screwed if they fight like Azazel," a seasoned veteran muttered, tightening his grip on his weapon, his eyes never leaving the descending swarm of demons.
As Michael observed the demons cascading from the ship, a stark realization hit him with the force of a freight train. He recalled Dagon, who had the same crimson-red skin and four muscr arms, as the pieces fell into ce with rming rity. Dagon, the notorious ruler of Hell, was indeed a demon, a being of immense power who was once considered a god before his fall and subsequent banishment to rule the realm of hell by the Pantheon.
Soon, Michael began to piece together the fragmented history and legends, realizing the extinction of the demon race, Dagon''s harsh banishment, and his longstanding grudges against the Pantheon might all be intertwined. These weren''t isted events but parts of arger, moreplex story.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Chapter 1300 Big Bertha鈥檚 Badass Entrance
Chapter 1300 Big Bertha¡¯s Badass Entrance
As the demon army descended upon the battlefield, their menacing presence immediately turned the tide of the fight. With their four muscr arms and menacing, leathery wings, they tore through the ranks of the dark army soldiers with horrifying efficiency. The demons used their superior strength and extra limbs to grasp, throw, and mercilessly crush their opponents. At the same time, their wings provided swift and agile maneuverability, allowing them to swoop and dive with predatory precision.
The dark army soldiers, trained and powerful in their own right, quickly regrouped and retaliated with a barrage of spells. Bright arcs of lightning, fiery sts, and shards of ice hurtled through the air towards the demons. Each spell hit its mark, causing explosions of light and sound that momentarily halted the demons'' advance.
"Take that, you freaks!" one soldier shouted as his fireball engulfed a demon.
"Line up the ice shards, freeze them in their tracks!" anothermanded, orchestrating a coordinated volley.
The demons, however, faced these magical onughts head-on, their grotesque grins widening as wounds inflicted by the spells rapidly closed up, their regenerative abilities on full disy. The sight of their healing flesh only fueled the growing despair among the dark army soldiers.
"Shit, they''re patching up faster than we can hit them!" a soldier cursed, frustrationcing his voice.
"What the hell are we supposed to do against that?" another yelled in dismay, ducking a swipe from a demon''s wed hand.
Meanwhile, the Skyhall angels, observing from a distance and initially cautious, began to cheer as they saw the tide turning in their favor.
"Yes! Watch them crumble!" one angel eximed, a triumphantugh echoing through the ranks.
"Keep pushing! The demons are turning the battle!" another called out, excitement surging among the angels.
Fueled by a fierce determination, Azazel dashed at one of the demons nearby. The battle unfolded mid-air, bothbatants using their wings to gain altitude and maneuverability in the sky. Azazel initiated the attack with a powerful dive, his wings slicing through the air as he aimed a series of swift punches toward the demon. With its four muscr arms, the demon parried each blow with an unsettling grace, countering with a flurry of its own strikes.
As their wings beat furiously, creating gusts of wind, the demon tilted its head slightly, a gesture that suggested recognition or a sensing of familiar senses. Despite this momentary pause, the demon fought on relentlessly, its every move calcted and brutal.
Azazel, typically the aggressor in any fight, found himself pushed to the limit. He attempted to gain the upper hand by swooping higher and then striking from above, but the demon matched every move. They spiraled in the sky, a dance of deadly intent, as Azazel growled in anger and frustration. "Damn it!" he cursed, feeling the disadvantage of being out-armed. "Four fucking arms!"
Deep down, a shock coursed through Azazel as he processed the reality of facing his own kind, creatures he thought long extinct. Anger boiled within him at the sight of his kind being puppeteered by Skyhall, used as mere tools in a celestial war. This realization momentarily distracted him, his focus wavering under the weight of his emotions.
Seizing the opportunity, the demon delivered a powerful blow with two of its arms, catching Azazel off guard. The force of the impact was tremendous, sending Azazel tumbling down from the sky. He struggled to regain control, his wings pping erratically as he descended rapidly, crashing into the ground near where Michael stood.
Michael quickly moved to help Azazel up, giving him a hand to steady himself. As Azazel rose, Michael deftly cracked his neck, signaling his readiness to escte his involvement in the battle. Without missing a beat, he tapped the medallion hanging around his neck. Instantly, the armor stored within began to unfold seamlessly, enveloping him inyers of dark, menacing protection. The tes clicked into ce with a precision that spoke of advanced craftsmanship and design, his figure bing more imposing with each second.
Observing the transformation, Azazel and Ricky couldn''t help but be impressed by the sight. "Damn, boss, that''s some serious gear," Ricky let out a low whistle. At the same time, Azazel nodded in approval, his eyes reflecting a renewed respect and a spark of reassurance seeing Michael fully armored.
"Lead the army back to the portal. Get them to the Crypt and then to the Stormville Mountain range," He ordered after suiting up. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Michael could tell that fighting the demons head-on would only lead to more casualties among his dark army soldiers. He knew he needed to find a strategy to neutralize the demon threat without sacrificing his forces unnecessarily. Ordering them to retreat to Stormville Mountain was a calcted move.
The reason for choosing Stormville Mountain was strategic. It was the location where Mugashuku, a formidable four-headed hydra, had returned after battling Vedora and was currently resting. Michael was aware that Skyhall would not risk awakening Mugashuku and inciting its wrath, especially given the hydra''s known capabilities and the destruction it could unleash. By relocating the battle to the vicinity of Mugashuku''s resting ce, he hoped to leverage the hydra''s presence as a deterrent, preventing Skyhall from pursuing them too closely or too aggressively.
After receiving Michael''s order, Azazel swiftly took to the sky to lead the dark army back to the castle and through the portal to safety. His wings beat powerfully against the air, slicing through the chaos as he coordinated the retreat.
Observing the retreat, the Skyhall angels quickly realized the tactic and responded with heightened aggression. "They''re retreating! Push forward, don''t let them escape!" shouted onemander, his voice carrying clear andmanding across the battlefield. "Cut them down! Leave no survivors!" another angel yelled, rallying the troops to intensify their assault.
Meanwhile, Michael activated the arch energy crystals embedded within his armor, which responded with a surge of power. As his mask slid into ce and his hood shrouded his head, he shot straight into the sky, propelled by the raw energy. His form became a blur of motion as he maneuvered to oversee and protect his retreating forces.
Below him, the warships on the sea and the aerial warships continued their relentless bombardment of the dark castle and the floating mountain. Each volley of cannon fire rained down destruction, the booming of cannons echoing ominously across the battlefield. The impacts were devastating as huge chunks of the castle were blown away, and the mountain trembled with each hit, sending shockwaves through the structure.
Under the volleys of cannon attacks, the dark army soldiers who were unlucky were sted apart by the cannon fire. The air filled with the screams of the wounded and dying as the ground was painted with the blood of fallenrades. The Skyhall ships were so ruthless that their intense artillery fire caused friendly fire incidents with some angels in the cross exploding into bloody mists along with some dark army soldiers.
Just as when the tide was turning in Skyhall''s favor, a sudden and ominous change swept through the battlefield. A red spotlight, intense and foreboding, suddenly fell upon a Skyhall man-o-war, highlighting it against the darkened sky left by Noah''s death.
The crew aboard the targeted ship looked up, confusion etched across their faces as they tried toprehend the source and intent of the strange illumination. "What''s that? Why are we lit up?" one of the younger crew members asked, his voice tinged with fear.
An older crew member, a grizzled veteran from the southern continent, recognized the signal immediately, and his face was drained of color.
"That''s the red light of death! We''re marked!"His voice shook with terror as he shouted.
Before the crew could fully register his words or react to the dire warning, the ck sky was pierced by what appeared to be shooting stars streaking toward them. But these were no celestial phenomena; they were deadly mortar shells fired from the most feared ship on the southern continent, Big Bertha, Michael''s warship.
The air filled with the whistling sound of the iing artillery, growing louder and more terrifying with each passing second. The crew scrambled in panic, but there was no time to maneuver away or counteract. "Brace for impact!" screamed another crew member, but his words were drowned out by the thunderous explosions that followed.
The mortar shells struck the man-o-war with devastating precision. The first shell hit the stern, ripping through the wood and metal with explosive force, igniting munitions and setting the rear of the ship aze. Secondster, another shell smashed into the center, tearing through the deck and decimating the artillery pieces lined up for battle. The final blow came swiftly as more shells pummeled the ship, each increasing the death toll.
In moments, the mighty man-o-war was nothing but a burning wreck. The once formidable warship was reduced to a disintegrating skeleton of fire and smoke, fragments of its structure scattered across the sea as it began to sink tragically into the dark waters.
The Skyhall angels and other crew members watched in horror, their earlier cheers turning to cries of despair as they witnessed the destruction of one of their key vessels. "Now that''s what I call a badass entrance," Michael chuckled.
Chapter 1301 The Red Light Of Death
Chapter 1301 The Red Light Of Death
At the helm of Big Bertha, Corey stood captaining the formidable warship with a cold grin on his face as he watched theirtest target get obliterated. Beside her on the captain''s tform, Gibson, the grizzled first mate and former pirate, roared at the crew with the authority of a seasoned sea dog. "Aim those mortars at the frigates! Sink those Skyhall bastards to the bottom of the sea!"
The mortar crew sprang into action, hustling to move the heavy mortar to the front of the ship. The red light, a precise targeting system, shifted its focus toward a frigate on the sea, marking it for destruction.
"AYE AYE!" The crew of Big Bertha roared in excitement, their voices loud and full of rough cheer. "Let''s give ''em a taste of hell, boys!" one shouted, the pirate ent thick in his call. "Make ''em dance the hempen jig!" another chimed in, as they loaded the mortars with practiced speed.
Meanwhile, Shorty, the short pirate with a shiny bald head, ran to man a swivel gun. As he took his position, he looked up and saw the demons descending from the sky. "Bloody hell, what in the seven seas are those winged devils?" he cursed, momentarily taken aback by the sight of the demonic entities.
The rest of the crew echoed his shock, shouting various expletives and names in confusion and disbelief. "Are those flying monsters? Since when do monsters fly?" another pirate wondered aloud, scratching his head in bewilderment.
Despite his shock, Shorty quickly regained hisposure, aimed the swivel gun at the sky, and locked onto a demon that was momentarily caught in the red targeting light. "Eat this, ya flying freak!" he yelled as he fired the cannon. The ball shot through the air with a deafening roar and struck the demon squarely. The impact was so forceful that the demon''s body exploded into a pulpy mist, scattering remnants across the sky.
"Ha! Got the bugger! See that? Shorty strikes again!" Shorty, stunned by his own uracy, whooped loudly.
Even Michael, who had been overseeing the retreat and managing the battlefield from a distance, couldn''t help but be impressed by the shot. He looked over at Shorty, a smile breaking across his face. "Look at that¡That little bastard can shoot," he muttered under his breath.
Meanwhile, Elder Tarsus watched with gritted teeth as the Man-o-war was destroyed and one of his demons was obliterated by a cannonball. His face twisted in anger as he shouted at the ship''s crew, who were observing the battlefield from the skies. "That is one damn ship! Tell the ground forces to destroy it!" he barked with thunderous rage.
The minions scurried back and forth on the deck, rying orders with a sense of urgency. "To the ground forces, focus attacks on the big ship!" one ryed loudly over amunication device. "Prioritize that vessel immediately!" another echoed, confirming the redirection of their assault.
Elder Tarsus continued to watch the battle unfold through the mirror, his gaze asionally flicking back to Michael, observing the Dark Lord''s movements and his new armor. The elf beside him took note of Michael''s confident posture and the sophistication of his armor. "Elder, the Dark Lord does note this openly without a n," the elf warned, his tone cautious. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"We have the demons, and that death was just a fluke," Elder Tarsus retorted dismissively. Yet, the seed of concern nted by the elf''s warning lingered in his mind.
Not willing to take any chances and determined to regain control of the situation, Elder Tarsus then issued a newmand. "Order the air forces to target that damn ship," hemanded, pointing at Big Bertha on the mirror''s disy. "Bring it down before it causes more damage."
Suddenly, chaos erupted among the Skyhall forces as one of their aerial warships began to descend rapidly, careening toward the ocean below. The ship''s sails fluttered wildly, pping uncontrobly as the crew aboard lost their bnce, scrambling to grasp onto anything stable. Taking advantage of their ability to fly, angels on board quicklyunched themselves into the air to escape the doomed vessel. From Elder Tarsus''smand ship, his crew looked on in confusion and rm.
"What''s happening to that ship?" one of the crew members shouted, pointing towards the descending warship.
"Is it hit? Did they get shot down?" another called out, trying to make sense of the sudden disaster.
After witnessing the unexpected debacle, Elder Tarsus barked an order to his minions. "Contact that ship''s captain immediately! See what''s going on!" His voice cut sharply through the din of concerned murmurs and spective guesses.
Minions rushed to theirmunication devices, trying to establish contact with the plummeting ship. After a tense few moments, one of them turned back to Elder Tarsus, his face grim. "There''s no response from the ship''s captain, sir."
Elder Tarsus''s brow furrowed deeply as he demanded, "What the hell is going on?"
Just seconds before the ship was set to crash into the raging dark ocean, it appeared on a collision course with another Skyhall ship positioned on the sea. Panic ensued among the sea crew as they realized the impending disaster.
"Brace for impact!" one of the sailors on the sea vessel screamed.
"Abandon ship! It''s going down!" another yelled, as crew members frantically leaped overboard, trying to escape the catastrophic crash.
In the midst of this frenzy, a static-filled voice finally came through themunication device from the captain of the descending ship. Hisst words were garbled but clear enough, "Vampire bitches."
Realization dawned on Elder Tarsus as he pieced together the clues from the captain''sst words. It must be the work of the two elder vampires under the Dark Lord''smand. His face contorted with rage as he grasped the extent of their infiltration and sabotage.
"How did the vampires manage to get to the captain and sabotage the ship without anyone alerting us?" Elder Tarsus shouted with anger and frustration. "They''ve breached our defenses!"
Nearby, the elf watched the unfolding chaos and then turned his gaze to Michael, who was somehow managing to evade the demons and effectively coordinate the dark army''s retreat into the castle. The continuous mortar fire from Big Bertha rained death upon the Skyhall ships and the pursuing demons, providing critical cover for the retreating forces.
"The vampires are more cunning than we anticipated," the elf muttered, observing the battlefield''s shifting dynamics. "Look at them, even in retreat, they turn the tides."
On the battlefield, the demons found themselves unable to take down Big Bertha. The ship was fitted with an energy shield that repelled their advances, and the multitude of swivel guns aboard kept firing at any demon that dared toe close. Each st from the swivel guns was met with demonic resilience, as many of the demons, despite being hit, quickly recovered due to their healing abilities. However, the relentless assault forced them to strategically back off, recognizing the futility of attacking a well-defended target.
Seeing this, Azazel capitalized on the opportunity. He rallied the dark army soldiers, shouting orders above the din of battle. "Fall back to the castle! Cover your mates!" Hismanding voice cut through the chaos, directing the soldiers with precision.
"Keep moving, you bastards, don''t let those winged freaks pin you down!" he roared, ensuring no soldiergged behind.
Amidst the retreat, Elder Tarsus watched in seething frustration as his n to overwhelm Michael''s forces with the demon army faltered. "Damn that Dark Lord and his cursed allies!" he cursed loudly, mming his fist against the rail of hismand ship.
As the dark army soldiers progressively retreated into the castle, the weight of the battle increasingly shifted onto Michael''s shoulders. Despite their strategic withdrawal under the relentless barrage from Skyhall''s forces both from the sky and sea, the dark army suffered significant casualties. The dark castle itself bore the scars of the conflict, its structure battered and barely standing after the full-blown assault it had endured.
Finally, as thest of his soldiers disappeared behind the battered gates of the castle, Michael found himself standing alone. The battlefield before him was a scene of encroaching doom. Skyhall''s angels hovered menacingly in the sky while demons prowled on the ground, closing in from all directions. The remaining light cast long shadows, making the gathering forces seem even more powerful and menacing as they surrounded him.
Michael stood resolute before the dark castle, his figure a lone bastion against the approaching horde. He slowly cracked his neck, deliberately breaking the brief silence, his armor gleaming faintly in the fading light. He remained calm, betraying no hint of fear despite the overwhelming odds.
As the angels and demons prepared to converge on him, Michael''s voice cut through the tension, echoing off the broken stones of the castle with a mocking tone, "Diddle... Diddle... You are so little...
Chapter 1302 Massive Badass Points Payday
Chapter 1302 Massive Badass Points Payday
As he readied himself for the confrontation, his cape retracted smoothly into his armor, and the sword sheathes clicked audibly as they extended, allowing him to draw his twin dark swords from his back. The des gleamed menacingly in the dim light, ready to cut through anyone who dared to stand in his way.
Surveying the scene around him, Michael saw the sky filled with warships, demons, and Skyhall angels, a swirling mass of enemies that blotted out the light. Below, the raging ocean was surrounded by naval forces, each wave crashing against the hulls of ships engaged in fierce navelbat.
Meanwhile, the Big Bertha continued its relentless assault, firing mortar shells at the Skyhall naval forces. Each explosion from its cannons sent shockwaves through the enemy lines, sinking ships and causing havoc. However, despite the powerful blows dealt by Big Bertha, the sheer number of Skyhall ships in the water prevented it from gaining the upper hand. The Skyhall forces, undeterred by the losses, fired back with equal ferocity, their own cannons roaring as they targeted Big Bertha in a desperate bid to neutralize its threat.
Observing the battlefield from his ship, Elder Tarsus grew increasingly agitated as he watched the dark lord single-handedly hold his ground.
"Coordinate with all forces, focus every attack on the Dark Lord. Bring him down!" He barked orders to the men around him, "Elder, remember, the Dark Lord is a god. We cannot simply kill a god." The elf, standing nearby, frowned at these orders. "We may not kill him, but we can destroy his physical form. His soul will then be forced to wander, searching for another vessel," Elder Tarsus snickered at the elf''s reminder.
"During this time, we can purge his influence from the mortal realm and find a way to deal with him permanently."
Despite the elder''s confident deration, the elf''s reservations lingered. He knew the history well; every time an army had thought to overpower the Dark Lord, they had been decimated. Yet, he couldn''t help but watch intently as the Dark Lord prepared for the onught, cracking his neck and quietly mumbling a rhyme, a chilling prelude to the impending blood bath.
Suddenly, a halfling came running up to Elder Tarsus, his face marked by urgency. "The Big Bertha is retreating, moving out of our firing range!" he reported breathlessly.
Elder Tarsus turned his gaze to the horizon, observing Big Bertha as it engaged in defensive maneuvers while steadily sailing away at full speed. Watching the warship make its escape, Tarsus couldn''t help butugh, a sound rich with scorn. "Look at that ship flee!" he eximed, reveling in the moment.
"Let the ship go," Elder Tarsus dered, his attention swiftly shifting back to the more pressing matter at hand. "We need to focus all our attacks on the Dark Lord now."
As he observed the battlefield, Tarsus noted how the demons, unlike mindless undead, did not immediately attack Michael. Instead, they seemed to study him, assessing his movements and tactics with a strategic intent that intrigued yet frustrated Tarsus.
Growing impatient with the cautious approach of his forces, Tarsus shoutedmands to the Skyhall angels hovering nearby. "Attack him now! What are you waiting for?" His voice boomed across the deck, urgent andmanding.
"Why are we hesitating? He''s just one, and we are many!" another voice joined in, echoing Tarsus''s impatience.
"Engage him, for the glory of Skyhall!" Tarsus roared, trying to spur his troops into action, eager to capitalize on their numerical advantage and deal with the Dark Lord once and for all.
On the ground, Michael observed as a group of Skyhall angels dashed at him from all directions, while the airships above swiveled their cannons towards him and unleashed a barrage. In response, Michael remainedposed. He cast the "Silenes" spell, which created a time bubble around him, dramatically slowing down time within its confines. Simultaneously, he released dark smoke and fear toxin from his armor, enveloping the area in a thick, obscuring cloud.
By the time the Skyhall angels reached the spot where Michael had just stood, he was gone, and only the dense cloud of dark smoke remained. Within the cloud, the angels frantically swung their weapons, disoriented and increasingly panicked as the fear toxin took hold, amplifying their dread and rendering their movements clumsy and desperate.
Suddenly, a plume of mes shot forth from the center of the dark cloud. From Elder Tarsus''s ship, the elf watched in horror as a group of Skyhall angels was engulfed in fire, burning and screaming in a slow, painful, agonizing death. The harrowing screams echoed across the battlefield, a chilling testament to the brutality of the encounter.
The elf clenched his fists, cursing under his breath as he realized the strategic cruelty of Michael''s tactics. "Damn that Dark Lord!" he spat bitterly, his voiceced with both fear and respect. "He''s turning their own fears against them!"
It was clear to the elf that Michael was using this method not just to defeat his enemies but to terrorize them, breaking the spirits of the other Skyhall angels by forcing them to witness the tormented demise of theirrades. He could have dispatched them quickly, but instead, he chose a method designed to make them scream¡ªa stark reminder to all present of just what the Dark Lord was capable of.
As the mes dissipated and the screams of their burningrades echoed through the air, the remaining Skyhall angels were left in a state of shock and horror.
"Gods, did you see that? He burned them alive!" one angel shouted, his voice cracking under the strain of fear.
"Those screams... I can''t get them out of my head!" another cried out, visibly shaken as he clutched his weapon tighter. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"This is a nightmare! We''re fighting a damn nightmare!" a third yelled, anger mixing with terror in his tone.
Amidst the turmoil, Michael activated the voice amplifier in his mask, ensuring his next words would be heard by all. As he slowly walked out from the dark cloud of smoke, he never looked more menacing or powerful.
"I am just getting started. Anyone who dares approach me will beg for a quick death." His voice echoed through the battlefield like a thunder p.
From Elder Tarsus''s ship, the crew who were notbatants but responsible for operating the ship exchanged fearful nces and muttered among themselves.
"Did you hear that? What are we even fighting against?" a slender, pale-skinned elf whispered, his eyes wide with fear.
"This is beyond anything we signed up for," a burly dwarf grumbled, gripping the railing tightly.
"We''re not equipped to fight monsters like him," a human with a nervous tremble in his voice added, looking around as if seeking an escape.
"Shut up, all of you!" Elder Tarsus, overhearing the fearful murmurs, snapped fiercely at his crew. Then, turning his attention back to the battle, he barked an order to the demons hovering nearby. "Attack him now! Immediately!"
As the battle intensified, the system notifications in Michael''s head began to re relentlessly. Despite theck of experience points from the chaos unfolding, he was racking up a substantial amount of badass points, which he found far more valuable at the moment.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 30,000 Badass points]
...
Each notification fed into his resolve, fueling his readiness for the continuing fight. Michael revealed a small grin behind his mask as he watched the demons begin their charge toward him, their forms a blur of movement and malevolent intent.
He braced himself, his grin widening slightly as he gripped his swords tighter. The thrill of the battle, the rush of facing overwhelming odds, and the game of outsmarting and overpowering his enemies yed right into his hands. "I''m going to enjoy this," Michael said, As the demons strategized, they cleverly chose not to approach Michael one by one, knowing that such tactics would lead them directly into a ughter. Instead, they coordinated and gathered around him in a group of ten,unching a simultaneous assault. Three of them took to the air, positioning themselves above Michael to block any potential escape routes.
"Smart," Michael uttered, a snicker escaping him as he acknowledged their tactic. Without hesitation, Michael cast the Ring of mes spell. Dark mes erupted from him in pulsating circles, radiating outward with intense heat. The demons on the ground were immediately affected; their legs caught in the fiery st turned into ashes, severing their mobility temporarily. Despite this, the demons growled, a sound filled with pain and anger, as their legs slowly began to regenerate, showcasing their formidable resilience.
Then, in a concerted effort, all the demons lunged at Michael simultaneously, covering him with their massive bodies. They pressed in, their weight and sheer number attempting to overpower him.
From his vantage point, Elder Tarsus watched the scene unfold with growing excitement. Seeing Michael seemingly overwhelmed by the mass of demonic bodies, he couldn''t contain his enthusiasm. "Yes, stab and skew him like a pig!" Elder Tarsus roared with vicious satisfaction, convinced that they were finally gaining the upper hand against the Dark Lord.
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Chapter 1303 Michael鈥檚 Sinister Plan
Chapter 1303 Michael¡¯s Sinister n
As more and more demons piled onto the Dark Lord, their roars filled the air, each of them thrusting their spears, swords, and axes down into the mass. From above, Elder Tarsus could only see the writhing mound of demonic bodies and the shes of their weapons striking down. The scene was obscured, leaving him and his forces unsure of what exactly was happening beneath the pile of demons.
The Skyhall angels, watching from a safer distance, reacted with a mix of emotions. Some were shocked, their faces etched with disbelief at the sight of so many demons overwhelming a single opponent. Others shouted in excitement and relief, believing that this might be the end of the formidable Dark Lord.
"Finally, they got him!" one angel yelled as his voice crackled with the thrill of the moment.
"Stick him good, tear him apart!" another screamed, bloodlust clear in his tone.
"Ha! Watch him fall beneath our might!" a third angel shouted, raising his weapon in the air as a sign of victory.
"Keep going! Make sure he doesn''t get back up!" encouraged another, eagerly anticipating the end of the Dark Lord.
Suddenly, a fierce roar erupted from beneath the pile of demons, sending a shockwave of primal energy radiating outward. Within moments, the demons that had been heaping atop Michael were violently expelled in all directions. Dark mes, intense and consuming, burst forth from the center of the pile, scorching everything in their vicinity.
The demons caught in the st were flung away; the luckier ones soared through the air, their burn wounds sizzling but beginning to heal rapidly as they regained their bearings. However, those who had been at the firstyer, directly smothering Michael, weren''t so fortunate. They were engulfed by the dark mes at such close range that their bodies were incinerated to ashes, leaving no chance for recovery or regeneration.
As thest of the mes dwindled and the air cleared, Michael stood up amidst the charred and scorched ground. He calmly cracked his neck, an almost casual gesture after the explosive disy of power. "Damn him! How does that son of a bitch keep standing?" Elder Tarsus cursed loudly as he saw the Dark Lord effortlessly regain hisposure.
From his vantage point, the elf noted that although there were cuts and marks littering Michael''s armor, none of the demons'' attacks had prated his defense. It was obvious that nothing in the demons'' arsenal could breach the sophisticated material of his armor.
On the battlefield, the demons that had fully healed from their burns exchanged looks, their gestures indicating a shift in strategy. Understanding the lethal potential of Michael''s dark mes, they adapted their tactics in a chilling new way. Suddenly, with coordinated precision, each demon lunged at the nearest Skyhall angels. Using their four powerful arms, they grabbed one or two angels each and charged towards Michael. The Skyhall angels who witnessed this turn of events voiced their horror and disbelief through curses and shouts. "What the hell are they doing with our own?!" one angel screamed, a mix of confusion and anger in his voice.
"Those damned beasts are using our brothers as shields!" another yelled, understanding dawning toote as he saw the demons rushing towards Michael with the struggling angels in their grip.
On the other hand, the more experienced angels, recognizing the brutal efficiency of the demons'' n, voiced their disgust and strategic recognition. "They''re going to burn our own to get to him! Those ruthless bastards!" one veteran angel shouted, his voice filled with revulsion.
"They''re not just beasts; they''re bloody tacticians! Watch out, they''re using the angels to shield from the mes, then they''ll swarm him!" another exined, trying to organize a response amidst the chaos.
The scene was grim as the demons approached Michael, the captured angels held in front as a barrier against the dark mes, nning to use the momentary distraction of the burning angels to overwhelm the Dark Lord.
Even Michael was taken aback by the cunning tactics disyed by the reanimated demon corpses. He hadn''t expected such strategic depth from them, and it seemed almost a waste to simply kill them off. Considering the potential they represented, Michael quickly decided on a new course of action: subdue the demons and find a way to wrest control of the demon army for himself. With Andohr causing chaos in the realm of gods and the mortal realm submerged in darkness, Michael knew he needed every ounce of power he could muster. Adding a demon army to his forces would certainly tilt the scales in his favor.
Michael nced up at Elder Tarsus''s ship, intuitively sensing that themand for the demons was likelying from there. The ship was big and menacing, exactly the type of ce a ssic viin would choose to oversee the battle. "Typical bad guy move, sticking out like a sore thumb," Michael muttered to himself, a smirk crossing his face at the clich¨¦.
Rather than unleashing his dark mes, which would undoubtedly harm the captive angels and possibly kill the demons he now sought to control, Michael opted for evasion. As the demons charged at him, using the angels as shields, Michael ducked and weaved with impressive agility. "Not today, you bastards," he growled as he dodged another demon lunging towards him.
As Michael shot toward the sky aiming for Elder Tarsus''s ship, the Ganeria, other Skyhall ships in the vicinity opened fire. Volleys of cannonballs flew across the sky, each one aimed directly at him. Michael twisted and turned through the air, his movements sharp and calcted, dodging the iing projectiles with a dancer''s grace.
"Look, he''s going for the Ganeria!" shouted an angel from one of the nearby ships, his voice carrying panic and urgency. "Stop him before he reaches Elder Tarsus!"
"He''s going after Elder Tarsus!" another angel cried out, urging hisrades to intensify their efforts.
The demons, along with a contingent of Skyhall angels, gave chase, determined not to let Michael reach his target so easily While Michael continued his upward flight, a two-horned demon with powerful wing ps calcted his trajectory and burst forward with incredible speed, colliding with Michael mid-air. The impact was sudden and forceful, causing Michael to curse in surprise.
"Damn you, demon!" Michael spat out, his surprise morphing into admiration for the demon''s capabilities.
The demon tried to seize him with its four muscr arms, but Michael was quick to react. He raised his hand and activated the methrower embedded in his palm. mes roared forth, scorching the demon''s skin, which began to melt off, revealing charred flesh that almost immediately started to heal.
Seizing the moment of disruption, Michael grabbed the demon and delivered a powerful punch, sending the demon hurtling down from the sky like a bullet. The demon crashed into the raging dark storms below, near the debris of a recently destroyed ship. As it hit the water, ropes and sail poles from the wreckage coiled around the demon, trapping it and pulling it under. The demon struggled briefly but was quickly submerged, dragged down by the tangled debris.
Activating his X-ray vision, Michael observed from above as the demon beneath the water ceased moving, trapped and effectively neutralized. A sly grin spread across his face as he realized the potential of this new strategy.
"Looks like I''ve found your Achilles'' heel, fes," Michael murmured to himself, a hint of satisfaction in his voice at discovering a non-lethal way to handle the demons.
A chill ran down his spine as the elf watched Michael cleverly subdue the demon by drowning. "He''s figured it out, hasn''t he? That the demons revert to their dead state when submerged." He quickly turned to Elder Tarsus and said. However, Elder Tarsus dismissed the elf''s concerns with a wave of his hand and focused on the chaos around him. He roared at the minions scurrying about the deck, "He''s just one damn god! Keep the pressure on him!"
"A god nheless, and a most dangerous one at that." The elf muttered under his breath, Michael nced up at the Ganeria, calcting his next move. Instead of heading directly toward Elder Tarsus''s gship, he abruptly changed his trajectory, diving sharply towards a frigate that was firing at him from the sky. With a snicker and a cunning gleam in his eye, he cloaked himself in dark mes, turning into a human missile as he shot through the structure of the frigate.
As he pierced the ship, Michael zigzagged through its interior, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. The impact of his entry caused initial explosions, which quickly spread as he tore through the ammunition stores and fuel lines. The ship began to break apart, mes engulfing it from the inside out.
"Damn it! He''s tearing the ship apart!" shouted an angel aboard, trying to maintain bnce as the ship shook violently from the internal explosions.
"What the hell! Man the cannons, shoot him down!" another panicked angel yelled, but hismands were cut short as another explosion rocked the ship, throwing him against the wall. From other Skyhall ships, the onlooking angels watched in horror and disbelief. "Holy shit, did you see that? He''s fucking unstoppable!"
"He''s just ripped through the frigate like it was nothing!" another angel shouted over the roar of the burning ship.
As Michael observed the ming debris of the destroyed frigate falling toward the ocean, his mind was already calcting the next phase of his n. It wasn''t merely the destruction of the ship that he sought, but the opportunity it presented. Amid the chaos, he noted the ropes, the anchor, and the scattered pieces of wreckage¡ªall potential tools for a greater strategy.
With precision and speed, Michael maneuvered through the battlefield, gathering the necessaryponents. He used the ship''s ropes and anchor, swiftly fashioning a makeshift. He skillfully ensnared the confused demons as he flew around, using their disorientation to his advantage. One by one, he wrapped them in the heavy ropes, their struggles futile against his relentless tactics.
With the group of demons securely bound by the wreckage, Michael dragged them towards the ocean, his strength evident as he pulled the heavy load. As they reached the water''s edge, he released the anchor, watching as it plunged into the depths, dragging the ensnared demons down with it. The water enveloped them, pulling them under.
Floating in the sky, Michael watched thest bubbles of air escape to the surface. He couldn''t help but smirk watching his ning together perfectly.
"Let''s see how well you swim," he muttered, already thinking ahead to when he would retrieve them, revive them using his system, and convert the captured demons into part of his army. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Sleep well for now, my future soldiers,"
Chapter 1304 Using The Ultimate Spells
Chapter 1304 Using The Ultimate Spells
Realizing that the Dark Lord was up to something more sinister with his army, Elder Tarsus felt a surge of rage that made the veins on his head bulge visibly. The thought of personally confronting Michael shed across his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. The power gap between them was immense as facing the Dark Lord head-on would be suicide. Tarsus knew he wouldn''tst a second against such a deadly and powerful foe. His role was to coordinate the assault on the Dark Lord, a task assigned to him by Skyhall.
Understanding that the rest of the demons would soon adapt their strategy to avoid being caught and submerged, Tarsus needed to ensure Michael stayed preupied. He barked orders at his minions as his voice carried the moment''s urgency and desperation. "Fire everything we''ve got at the Dark Lord! Keep him busy!"
The crew sprang into action, rying the orders across the ship. "All cannons, target the Dark Lord!" one of the officers shouted, his voice echoing across the deck.
"Ready the ballistae and fire at will!" anothermanded as the crew scrambled to their positions.
The air filled with the sound of gears cranking and cannons being loaded. Within moments, the ship''s artillery unleashed a relentless barrage. Cannonballs, arrows, and other projectiles flew through the air, converging on Michael''s position with lethal intent.
As the assault began, the demons adjusted their tactics, avoiding the water and staying clear of potential traps. They coordinated their attacks, aiming to overwhelm Michael with sheer numbers and ferocity, all while the artillery fire from above kept him on the defensive. The battlefield was littered with destruction, explosions and battle cries merging into a deafening roar.
Elder Tarsus watched intently, hoping thebined might of his forces would be enough to keep the Dark Lord upied and prevent him from enacting any more of his devious ns.
On the other hand, Michael shot forth into the sky faster than before, his movements a blur of speed and power. As he ascended, he began casting the Meteor spell. The already darkened sky grew even darker, an ominous shift that made the Skyhall angels halt in their tracks. They sensed something big wasing.
"Shit, he''s casting a spell!" one of the angels shouted, eyes wide with panic.
"Brace yourselves, he''s calling down fucking meteors!" another angel yelled, frantically looking for cover.
The demons, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, quickly spread out to avoid being caught in a group by the spell''s devastating effects.
Suddenly, the dark clouds parted, and three massive meteors slowly descended, their fiery tails lighting up the sky. Even the mes'' light seemed dimmer and more ominously red in the aftermath of Noah, the god of light''s death. The meteors hissed as they tore through the dark sky, their descent a harbinger of destruction.
On the airships and sea warships, the Skyhall angels and crew members reacted in panic. "Holy fuck, he''s bringing down meteors!" one of the ship captains screamed, his voice barely audible over the rising chaos. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Get off the ship! Get the hell off now!" another crew member shouted, pushing others towards the edges of the deck.
The scene was one of utter chaos as many crew members jumped into the sea, desperate to escape the impending impact. Angels took to the air, pping their wings furiously to gain altitude and avoid the deadly projectiles.
The first meteor collided with an airship, the impact tearing through its structure like paper. The explosion sent debris flying in all directions, lighting up the sky with a burst of fire and smoke. The second meteor burned through the sky, its trajectory unyielding as it smashed into a frigate below. The ship was engulfed in mes, splintering apart as the force of the meteor turned it into a zing inferno.
"Shit! Everyone off the ship, now!" a sailor screamed, diving into the ocean as the fire spread.
"Goddamn it, we''re doomed!" another yelled as the meteor hit, the ship disintegrating under the massive force.
The third meteor fell straight into the ocean, creating a colossal boiling wave. The wave surged forward, crashing into nearby warships and sweeping sailors off their decks.
"The water''s boiling! Jump, jump!" a frantic voice called out, as men leaped overboard to escape the scalding heat.
As the devastation unfolded below, Michael''s system went wild, bombarding him with notifications.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 40,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 80,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points]
Michael ignored the notifications, his focus on the demons that had spread out, protecting themselves from the meteors and evading his trap of catching them withs and drowning them in the water. "Smart bastards," he muttered, a smirk forming on his lips.
He raised his hands again, ready to unleash another spell. The Skyhall angels and the few who had barely survived the meteor strike watched in horror.
"He''s casting again! Fuck, stop him!" one angel shouted, his voice tinged with desperation.
"Take him down before he wipes us all out!" another yelled, the fear palpable in his tone.
"Come on, you useless shits, stop him now!" a third angel screamed, pushing others into action.
Desperation fueling their actions, a few angels quickly cast their own spells using raw arch energy crystals. They didn''t have the refined absorption capabilities of Michael''s armor, instead, they absorbed the energy directly through runes inscribed on their bodies, an inefficient and dangerous method, but they had no choice.
zing orbs of fire, spears of ice, and bolts of lightning shot through the air towards Michael. Each spell crackled with raw, unstable energy, the risk of misfire evident but overshadowed by the urgency of stopping the Dark Lord.
Michael snickered as his Responsive Shield activated, enveloping him in a translucent blue barrier. The iing spells collided with the shield, their power absorbed and rendered useless. Fire fizzled out, ice melted, and lightning dissipated harmlessly against the barrier.
"Nice try," Michael said, his voice carrying a mocking edge as he prepared to unleash another wave of destruction on his foes
Suddenly, thunder began to rumble, and shes of lightning streaked across the sky. The Skyhall angels, who had studied the Dark Lord extensively and his arsenal of spells, recognized the ominous signs. The storm clouds gathering in the darkened sky above could only mean one thing: Michael was about to cast his lightning spell.
"Shit, he''s calling the storm!" one angel shouted, his voice trembling with fear.
"Get ready! He''s about to rain hell on us!" another angel yelled, panic clear in his tone.
"We need to take him down now, or we''re all fucked!" screamed another, spurring those around him into action.
The Skyhall angels who had narrowly escaped the meteors, along with the crew on the floating airships and the ships on the raging dark ocean, immediately moved to fire everything they had at Michael. Cannons roared to life, ballistas were cranked back, and giant arrows were notched andunched into the sky.
"Fire everything! Take that bastard down!" a ship captain bellowed, his voice barely audible over the chaos.
"Hit him with everything we''ve got! Don''t hold back!" shouted another, the tension in his voice clear.
The air was filled with the deafening sound of cannon fire, the twang of ballistas, and the whoosh of giant arrows slicing through the air. But Michael, with his expert flying skills, evaded the barrage, weaving through the onught with precision and agility.
Then, the demons and angels alike looked up in horror as hundreds of dark lightning strikes rained down from the storm clouds. The bolts were relentless, striking with lethal precision.
The first bolts hit the angels attempting to escape in the sky, their bodies convulsing violently as the dark lightning coursed through them, tearing flesh and searing wings. Their screams of agony echoed as they plummeted from the sky, charred and lifeless.
"Holy fuck! We''re getting fried out here!" one angel screamed, moments before a bolt hit him, reducing him to a smoldering heap.
The airships were next, massive bolts ripping through their hulls, igniting the stored munitions. Explosions erupted, sending debris and bodies flying in all directions. The sky was filled with the acrid smell of burning wood and the screams of those caught in the sts.
"Brace for impact! We''re hit!" shouted a crew member just before the ship disintegrated in a fiery explosion.
On the ocean below, the ships were no safer. The dark lightning struck the frigates and man-o-wars, splintering masts and setting the decks aze. Sailors were thrown overboard, their cries drowned out by the crackling of the lightning and the roar of the sea.
"We''re doomed! Abandon ship!" a sailor yelled as the ship was struck by a lightning bolt, splitting it in half and sending it to the depths below.
The elf, witnessing the carnage below, knew this was turning into another massacre. The battlefield was littered with the charred remains of angels, demons, and ships alike. Desperation set in as he turned to Elder Tarsus, urgently pleading for retreat.
"Elder Tarsus, we need to retreat! This is turning into a fucking ughter!" the elf urged, his voice quivering with fear.
Elder Tarsus, consumed by rage and stubborn pride, pped the elf across the face. "Shut the fuck up, coward!" he snarled, his eyes zing with fury. "You think we can just run away? We fight!"
Holding his stinging cheek, the elf could only watch in dismay as Tarsus''s rage overtook reason.
"He wants to y hard, I''ll fucking y hard," Tarsus muttered through gritted teeth. His eyes then gleamed with a dangerous resolve as he decided to use another powerful weapon, determined to turn the tide of this brutal battle.
Chapter 1305 The Celestial Cannon
Chapter 1305 The Celestial Cannon
At that moment, inside Ganeria, Elder Tarsus barked orders at his minions with a mix of fury and desperation. "Bring out the Celestial Cannon, now!" he roared. The moment the words left his mouth, a chill ran down the spines of those around him. The Celestial Cannon had been used before, during the Dark Lord''s battle with Noah. When it fired, their Holy Maiden Rowena, who had discovered the Dark Lord was her brother, sacrificed herself to save him. Many believed she was evaporated in the st, others thought she might be injured somewhere, but she had not been seen since.
Elder Tarsus had been one of many who branded Rowena a traitor for saving the Dark Lord. This time, though, he knew there was no Rowena to intervene.
"Move your asses and get that fucking cannon here!" Tarsus barked louder, his patience thin and his anger palpable.
The minions, though fearful, quickly agreed and sprang into action. Some dwarves and elves rushed to themunication devices, calling the Skyhall headquarters to teleport the Celestial Cannon to their location.
"Get that damn thing ready, fast!" one dwarf muttered as he worked, his hands trembling slightly.
"Shit, we''re really doing this again?" an elf whispered to hispanion, avoiding Elder Tarsus''s gaze.
"Last time we used this, it all went to hell," another muttered under his breath, ncing nervously at the elder.
"Just fucking hurry up and don''t piss him off more," a dwarf grumbled as they coordinated the teleportation. N?v(el)B\\jnn
As they worked frantically, the tension in the air was thick. They all knew the destructive power of the Celestial Cannon and the implications of using it again.
Meanwhile, outside, the storm continued its relentless assault. Lightning bolts struck with deadly power, each one looked like a reaper of death himself. Angels and crew members were hit mid-sentence, their words abruptly cut off by the searing energy.
"Holy shit" an angel started, only to be silenced as a bolt vaporized him on the spot.
"We''re gettin'' fried ou¡ª" another screamed, before a lightning strike turned him into a charred husk.
On the ships below, the chaos was no less intense. Lightning bolts hit gunpowder barrels, causing massive explosions that ripped vessels apart. mes roared and masts splintered as ships were blown to pieces and sank into the raging sea.
"The powder''s goin¡ª" a sailor''s shout ended in a deafening st as his ship was consumed by fire and debris.
As Michael hovered in the mid air watching the destruction, he couldn''t help feeling a rush of thrill and anger. The Skyhall had brought so much pain and suffering to his life; now, he was returning the favor.
"I told you this would happen!"He snickered, amplifying his voice with a dark amusement in his tone.
"The Skyhall shouldn''t have fucked with me," Michael continued, his tone turning cold and deadly. "Now I''m going to destroy you, brick by brick."
Inside Ganeria, Elder Tarsus paced back and forth, his frustration boiling over. Themand hub was a hive of chaotic activity, filled with the frantic movements of his subordinates and the constant hum ofmunication devices.
"Where the hell is my Celestial Cannon?" His voice echoed with a mixture of desperation and rage, bouncing off the metallic walls.
"We don''t have all fucking day!" His eyes darted around, catching sight of dwarves and halflings rushing to and fro, trying to coordinate with the angels outside who were desperately attempting to rescue survivors from the ongoing battle. The angels, many of them injured and exhausted, struggled to carry their woundedrades to safety.
"Move faster, damn it! I want that cannon here now!" Tarsus''s voice cut through the din,manding immediate attention. The tension in the room was palpable, a suffocating nket of fear and urgency.
"Where the fuck is it?" Tarsus kicked a nearby halfling who had tripped over a cable in his fury, sending the poor creature sprawling across the floor. The halfling''s pained yelp added to the cacophony of distress.
"I asked for the Celestial Cannon, not excuses!" Tarsus''s face was a mask of anger. The elf, who had been watching the scene unfold with growing irritation, finally had enough. "Get it together, Tarsus! We''re falling apart here because you''re losing your shit!"
Outside, the demons regrouped, having evaded the worst of the lightning strikes. Even those struck by the dark bolts quickly healed, their wounds closing with supernatural speed. Converging on the Dark Lord, they adapted their tactics, learning from their previous failures. This time, they did not rush blindly at him. Instead, they demonstrated cunning and coordination.
A group of demons descended upon the wrecked ships in the air and on the sea, tearing apart the cannons with ease. Using their immense strength and four arms, they fashioned makeshift hand cannons from the ship''s artillery. Meanwhile, other demons swooped down to grab heavy gunpowder barrels. With their powerful wings and multiple arms, they maneuvered these massive barrels with terrifying efficiency.
One demon, a towering figure with two horns curving from its head, hefted a barrel high into the air and hurled it at Michael with all its might. The barrel arced through the sky, trailing a thin line of smoke as it fell towards him.
Simultaneously, the demons with hand cannons lit the fuses, their eyes glowing with a malevolent intent. The strength in their arms and their enhanced coordination allowed them to aim these heavy cannons with precision, as if they weighed nothing at all.
Once the demons threw the gunpowder barrels, Michael quickly raised his hand, firing dark lightning bolts at the iing barrels. The lightning connected, igniting the barrels in mid-air and causing massive explosions. The sts sent shockwaves across the sky, shaking the nearby airships violently.
"Holy shit, hold on to something!" a crew member shouted, gripping the railing as the ship lurched.
"We''re getting tossed around like a fucking toy!" another angel yelled, struggling to maintain bnce.
The airships trembled under the force of the explosions, the crews inside scrambling to secure themselves and keep the ships from being blown apart by the concussive waves.
Meanwhile, the demons seized the opportunity to fire their makeshift hand cannons at Michael with deadly uracy. As he dealt with the exploding barrels, one cannonball struck him directly in the back, sending him tumbling through the air.
"Fuck, that hurt," Michael growled, his voice tinged with pain and anger. The impact was severe, but his APD kicked in, rapidly healing his wounds. His armor, though dented and scorched, had protected him from the worst of the damage.
Michael stabilized himself mid-air, the dark energy swirling around him as he regained his bearings
The demons, relentless in their assault, kept firing at Michael while flying, their makeshift hand cannons aimed with deadly uracy. Each cannon fire lit up the sky, the loud booming echoes reverberating across the battlefield. Michael couldn''t help but feel a grudging respect for their newfound precision. "Damn, you guys are good," he muttered, dodging another cannonball that whizzed past him, just grazing his shoulder.
From below, the angels shouted encouragement to the demons. "Keep firing! Chase him down and shoot him out of the sky!" one angel yelled, his voice strained but determined.
"Get that fucker! We need to end this!" another angel cried, though deep down, many of them knew that killing the Dark Lord, a god, was near impossible. Still, the anger and desire for revenge fueled their cries, especially those who had lost friends to Michael''s wrath.
"Fuck him up! Don''t let him get away!" a third angel shouted, his voice filled with both desperation and hope.
As Michael evaded the barrage, the sky was lit up with each cannon fire, the booming sounds creating a cacophony of war. Some of the shots grazed him, sending sparks flying from his armor. But as he was deftly evading the iing fire and destroying the gunpowder barrels, a sudden, ominous humming sound pierced through the chaotic symphony of battle. He halted his flight abruptly, instantly recognizing the sound. It was the same sound he had heard before, just before the Celestial Cannon appeared during his fight with Noah. The memory of Rowena throwing herself into the beam fired from the cannon shed vividly in his mind, her sacrifice etched deeply into his consciousness. The familiar noise made him clench his fists in anticipation and anger.
Looking up, Michael saw a massive sword-like ship descending through the dark clouds, its immense size dwarfing even the Ganeria. The ship''s presence further darkened the already gloomy battlefield, casting an ominous shadow over everything below. As the colossal vessel settled into position, Michael''s eyes locked onto the Celestial Cannon, a powerful weapon shaped like a giant sword. Red lines along the cannon began to glow, indicating it was powering up, the energy charging with a sinister hum.
"Bring it on," he muttered, a fierce resolve in his voice as he prepared to face the devastating weapon once again.
Chapter 1306 The Dark Lord vs The Celestial Cannon
Chapter 1306 The Dark Lord vs The Celestial Cannon
As the Celestial Cannon powered up, the skyhall angels scattered in fear, desperate to escape the beam''s deadly path.
"Get the fuck out of the way!" one angel screamed, his wings pping frantically as he darted away.
"Shit, shit, shit! We''re all gonna die!" another angel yelled, eyes wide with panic as he tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and the cannon.
"Move your asses! That thing''s gonna obliterate everything!" a third angel shouted, shoving others aside in his haste to flee.
The crew aboard the ships floating under the cannon''s point also panicked, knowing their vessels were doomed.
"Goddamn it, we''re sitting ducks here!" a sailor bellowed, gripping the rail as he looked up in terror.
"There''s no way we can get out of the way in time! We''re fucking dead!" another crew member cried, his face pale with fear. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
The ominous hum of the cannon grew louder and louder, a harbinger of the destruction it was about to unleash. Michael snickered, confident in his ability to use shadow teleportation to escape, a skill that had be invaluable since the world plunged into darkness. However, he couldn''t simply teleport away and let the cannon fire on his floating mountain and castle. The mountain was a cherished gift from Eve''s family, an extension of Eve''s legacy, and he wasn''t about to let it be destroyed.
Michael flew away at incredible speed, drawing the cannon''s pointy end with him. The colossal weapon ominously growled as it tracked his movements, its deadly tip following him as he led it away from his precious stronghold.
Meanwhile, the Celestial Cannon continued to power up, the lines around it glowing brighter and brighter as it charged. Inside Ganeria, Elder Tarsus strategically positioned his ship next to the cannon''s side, watching intently. His patience frayed, he barked orders at the cannon operators, his frustration boiling over.
"What''s taking so fucking long? Get that thing charged now!" Tarsus yelled, his voice echoing through themand hub.
"We don''t have all day! Fire it already!" he shouted, pacing back and forth with mounting impatience.
The people in themand hub exchanged uneasy nces, aware of the immense power of the Celestial Cannon. They murmured among themselves, their faces etched with concern.
"If that thing fires, our ships might be caught in the st," one whispered, a worried frown creasing his brow.
"Yeah, and the crew on board, not to mention some of the demons, could turn to dust," another added, his voice low and tense.
"We''re too damn close," a third muttered, nervously ncing at the cannon''s glowing lines.
Amidst the murmurs, the elf, disying rare courage, stepped forward to confront Elder Tarsus. "Elder Tarsus, this is a bad idea. The cannon''s st could obliterate our own forces. We need to reconsider this n," he stated firmly only to get grabbed by Elder Tarsus by his cor.
"You useless elf! Always doubting, always whining. Your elven kind are either cowards or traitors!" The elder said, shaking him violently. "We can''t back off now! If we don''t take out the Dark Lord, there won''t be a Skyhall left to protect this world that''s gone to shit!" The elf struggled to maintain hisposure as Tarsus continued.
"Elder, the Celestial Cannon will fire in fifty seconds." A halfling in the ship meekly spoke up.
Outside, the battlefield was a chaotic mess, with lightning bolts still striking and ships burning in the ocean. Demons continued to hurl gunpowder barrels and fire cannons at Michael, who deftly evaded and countered their attacks.
"Elder, this is madness," the elf said, trying to regain hisposure. "The cannon''s st could obliterate everything in its path, including our own forces. This is a losing battle. The Dark Lord doesn''t y by our rules. Even if we overwhelm him, he''ll just teleport or retreat to the realm of gods ande back stronger. We need to be smarter about this!"
"We can''t take any fucking chances! Anyone who has a problem with my n can jump out of my ship right now!" Tarsus pushed the elf aside with a snarl. The crew members exchanged uneasy nces, the tension in themand hub thickening. Outside, the demons and angels continued their desperate battle against the Dark Lord, their efforts seemingly futile against his overwhelming power. "Twenty seconds!" the halfling announced, his voice trembling with anxiety.
Outside, the Celestial Cannon began to tremble slightly as its tip glowed a golden orange, the energy building up and radiating intense heat. The demons, ruthless in their strategies, knew they had to keep the Dark Lord in ce for the beam to hit him. Without a second thought, two two-horned demons lunged at Michael, trying to grab and hold him still in mid-air, even if it meant their own obliteration.
But catching the Dark Lord was no easy task. Michael evaded their grasp with fluid precision. Realizing their initial n wasn''t enough, the demons quickly adjusted. They flew in every direction, forming a circle around Michael. Then, in a coordinated effort, they fired their makeshift cannons inward, creating a deadly of fire that forced Michael to stay within their formation, making him a more stationary target for the Celestial Cannon.
Inside Ganeria, the crew watched in shock at the demons'' cunning strategy.
"Holy shit, they''re smart fuckers," one crew member eximed, eyes wide with disbelief.
"They''re actually trying to pin him down for the cannon," another murmured, a mix of awe and horror in his voice.
"Fucking hell, they''re sacrificing themselves to make sure we hit him," a third added, shaking his head in disbelief.
Finally, when the timer the halfling saw in the mirror hit zero, the Celestial Cannon outside trembled. A bright, intense beam of energy shot out from the cannon, lighting up the darkened sky. The air around it heated up instantly, causing a wave of scorching heat and violent tremors that shook everything in its path. The booming sound was deafening, resonating across the battlefield.
"Fire now!" Elder Tarsus roared.
The beam targeted the circle where the Dark Lord was caged by the cannonballs. The light was so blinding that no one could keep their eyes open, illuminating the entire dark ocean in a strange red hue.
"Holy fuck, what is that?" a burly dwarf with a braided beard eximed, shielding his eyes from the intense light.
"It''s gonna vaporize everything!" a pale-skinned elf with silver hair yelled.
"We''re gonna be fucking dust!" a human with scars across his face shouted.
The floating airships caught in the beam''s path turned into ashes in seconds. The unlucky angels and demons who were within the heat radius crumbled to nothing, their bodies disintegrating almost instantly. The beam continued its destructive path, obliterating everything in its way and shooting straight into the raging dark ocean below.
The water beneath the beam boiled and hissed violently, sending up massive clouds of steam. Huge waves erupted from the point of impact, crashing into the surrounding ships and causing chaos in the already tumultuous sea.
Elder Tarsus watched with a mix of anticipation and dread as the devastating power of the Celestial Cannon was unleashed, hoping against hope that this would be enough to finally bring down the Dark Lord. As the beam died down, the intense light faded, and the crew slowly opened their eyes, squinting at the sky where the Dark Lord had been. Inside Ganeria, the air was thick with tension and anticipation.
"Did we get him?" a dwarf muttered, his voice trembling with uncertainty.
"Is he finally dead?" an elf asked, barely daring to believe it.
"Could it be over?" a human with a scarred face whispered, hope flickering in his eyes.
Outside, the demons who had their skin scorched by the heat slowly began to heal, their charred flesh regenerating rapidly. The Skyhall angels, who had managed to stay outside the range of the cannon''s fire, scanned the sky, looking for any sign of the Dark Lord. But he was nowhere to be seen.
For a moment, it seemed like the battle might finally be over. The sense of relief was almost palpable among the crew and the remaining forces.
But then, a halfling looked through the window and felt a chill run down his spine. His eyes widened in terror as he saw the Dark Lord casually standing atop the Celestial Cannon, which nowy horizontal after firing.
"He''s on the cannon!" the halfling screamed, pointing his finger out the window. The crew inside Ganeria turned their gaze to the cannon, their faces draining of color as they realized the Dark Lord was still very much alive.
Elder Tarsus''s jaw dropped as he stared at the Dark Lord standing casually atop the Celestial Cannon, seemingly without a scratch. He struggled toprehend how Michael had escaped the devastating beam unscathed.
"It''s teleportation, in and simple." The elf beside him snickered. Elder Tarsus''s face twisted with rage. He stared at the Dark Lord, who defiantly raised his middle finger in the direction of Ganeria, fully aware they could see him. The gesture only fueled Tarsus''s anger further.
Suddenly, the elder realized he could still have the finalugh. His eyes shifted to the floating mountain and the dark castle.
"Order the Celestial Cannon to fire at his mountain!" Tarsus barked, his voice filled with venom. "st that fucking ce to hell!" The minions scrambled toply, the urgency of their task clear as they moved to redirect the cannon''s aim.
Chapter 1307 Twist Of Irony
Chapter 1307 Twist Of Irony
"Shit," Michael cursed under his breath as he saw the Celestial Cannon slowly turning toward the floating mountain. He wasn''t a fool. He had already examined the Celestial Cannon and knew it was indestructible by his current arsenal and dark mes. Even the system had confirmed he couldn''t destroy it in his current state.
This wasn''t some movie where the good guy always wins with a miraculous turn of events. This was real life, and he needed to find a way to save his castle and floating mountain.
Michael''s mind raced. He knew there was no point in killing whoever wasmanding the cannon; the weapon was operated remotely from Skyhall. Cutting the connection would drain all of his badass points, which he couldn''t afford, especially with the enemies he had.
Meanwhile, the Celestial Cannon began to power up once again, its lines glowing brighter as the energy built up. The angels who had survived the first beam hovered around the floating mountain, panic evident in their voices.
"Holy shit, it''s aiming at the mountain!" one angel screamed, his voice filled with terror. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"We''ve got injured down there! They''ll be wiped out!" another shouted, desperation clear in his tone.
"Fuck, what do we do? We''re sitting ducks here!" a third angel yelled, frantically looking for a way out.
The demons, demonstrating their cunning, flew higher and higher, ascending to the top of the cannon, leaving the angels, airships, and ocean behind. They knew the beam wouldn''t target them if they stayed above the cannon.
In the ocean below, the Skyhall crew were panicking and crying. Most of them were not angels and couldn''t fly away. Even if they jumped overboard, the beam''s impact would kill them when it hit the mountain.
"We''re screwed! We can''t get away!" a sailor cried, tears streaming down his face.
"Fuck this, we''re all gonna die!" another sailor screamed, his voice breaking with fear.
"There''s no way out! We''re fucking doomed!" a crew member shouted, clinging to the ship''s railing.
As the cannon continued to power up, the situation grew more dire by the second, and Michael knew he had to act fast.
"Yes! st that mountain to bits and pieces!" Elder Tarsus roared with evil glee, his voice filled with twisted delight. His eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of imminent destruction.
"Elder, stop this! You''ll kill more of our angels than the Dark Lord ever did!" The elf who had confronted him earlier stepped forward and pleaded.
But Tarsus was too ruthless to care. With a swift motion, he drew his dagger and stabbed the elf in the neck before anyone could react. Blood spurted from the wound, sttering across the floor.
"Shit, he just killed him!" a dwarf cried out, his face going pale, hands shaking as he backed away.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" an elf shouted, his eyes wide with horror, disbelief etched on his features.
"He''s lost it," another minion muttered, backing away in fear, ncing nervously at the others for support.
Themand hall went silent as the elf''s body copsed to the ground, twitching as blood pooled around him. The minions watched in shock and terror as Elder Tarsus put his foot on the elf''s still shaking body, pressing down with a cruel smirk.
"Does anyone else have any opinions?" Tarsus sneered, his eyes scanning the room, daring anyone to challenge him.
The minions, although worried about the lives of theirrades, didn''t dare to open their mouths. The sight of the elf''s lifeless body and the blood staining the floor was a stark reminder of the consequences of defying Tarsus. Their own lives were more important to them, and they knew that speaking up would mean certain death.
As the Celestial Cannon took aim at the dark castle, the tension reached a fever pitch. The glow from the cannon illuminated the sky with an ominous red hue, casting long, sinister shadows over the battlefield. Suddenly, a thundering roar echoed through the sky, so loud it seemed to shake the very air itself.
Everyone was shocked, their attention snapping to the direction from which the roar came. The sky, already lit by the descending airships and the eerie red light of the Celestial Cannon, was further illuminated by glistening orbs from the floating airships. Through the murky light, a colossal figure emerged behind the clouds. The shadowy form and the powerful roar sent chills down the spines of all who witnessed it.
Michael himself was stunned, feeling his arch energy being sucked out by an invisible force. "What the hell?" he muttered, a sense of foreboding washing over him.
The Skyhall angels, also utilizing arch energy crystals, began to fall from the sky like flies. Their armors and wings failed them, leaving them plummeting toward the ground. Screams of terror filled the air as the angels fell, their voices mingling with the chaos below.
In the midst of the confusion, Michael saw it clearly: Mugashuku, the four-headed hydra. The colossal form of the hydra was enough to make even the most battle-hardened warriors shudder. Its presence was overwhelming, dwarfing everything else in the sky.
Mugashuku descended from the sky, its massive wings blocking out the stars as it approached the Celestial Cannon. The hydra''s four heads snarled and snapped, each one exuding a terrifying aura. In a shocking disy of power, Mugashuku grabbed the colossal cannon with its ws. The Celestial Cannon groaned under the immense pressure, its metallic structure straining against the hydra''s might.
Watching from inside Ganeria, Elder Tarsus felt a wave of fear wash over him. The sheer size and power of Mugashuku were enough to make him shudder.
Elder Tarsus felt like he was having a heart attack when he saw Mugashuku, the infamous Hydra known to slumber in Stormville Mountain and drain the arch energy from the southern continent. He never expected Mugashuku to awaken, especially after its massive battle with Vedora. Yet here it was, and it was turning the Celestial Cannon away, the cannon groaning under the immense strain.
The scene was terrifyingly majestic. Mugashuku, with its four enormous heads descended from the dark clouds. Its scales shimmered in the eerie red light from the Celestial Cannon, and its eyes glowed with a primal fury. The massive creature''s wings beat slowly, causing gusts of wind that rippled through the sky and sent smaller airships veering off course.
The hydra''s ws, each one as big as a tree trunk, gripped the Celestial Cannon. The metal of the cannon creaked and groaned under the pressure, struggling to withstand the force of Mugashuku''s grip. With a mighty heave, the hydra began to turn the cannon away from the floating mountain. The cannon''s structure strained, the metal bending and protesting loudly as it was forcibly redirected.
But themand hub of Ganeria went into pure chaos when the minions noticed the hydra turning the cannon toward them.
"Holy shit, it''s aiming at us!" a panicked dwarf yelled, his voice cracking with fear.
"We''re all gonna die! Get the fuck out of here!" another minion screamed, his eyes wide with terror.
"Someone do something! It''s gonna blow us to pieces!" an elf shouted, his hands trembling as he looked around for a way to escape.
Elder Tarsus stared at the rune on his palm, feeling the weight of the situation. He barked at the demons, "Kill the hydra! Do it now, damn it!"
Deep down, he knew the demons were strong, but not strong enough to take down Mugashuku. The demons moved forward at hismand, but they halted in mid-air, trying to find a strategy. They were caught in a kind of stasis. The runes engraved on them forced them to obey the elder''s orders, yet their innate strategic minds, even after death, told them there was no way to take down the hydra.
The demons growled and screamed, flying chaotically around. Their movements were erratic, a sign of their internal conflict between obeying the elder and their logical resistance to a suicide mission.
Seeing the situation getting out of hand and the impending doom bing more and more clear, the hot-headed dwarves in themand hive tossed the robes and pads in their hands aside and bolted toward the door to escape.
"Fuck this, I''m not dying here!" one dwarf shouted, his eyes wide with fear as he sprinted towards the exit.
"To hell with the cannon, I''m getting out!" another dwarf yelled, his voice filled with panic as he followed suit.
"Stay and fight, or you''ll be painted as traitors!" Elder Tarsus roared.
But the dwarves didn''t listen, disappearing through the doorway in a frantic bid for survival. Soon, more and more minions, fearing for their lives, began to run toward the door, hoping to escape in time.
Meanwhile, Elder Tarsus roared at themand, "Stop the Celestial Cannon from charging up!"
The halfling who coordinated with the Skyhall branch controlling the Celestial Cannon turned pale. "Elder, once it starts to charge up, there''s no stopping it. If we try, the cannon will explode."
Tarsus was shocked and furious. His eyes darted between the halfling and the door, seeing his escape slipping away. Fuming with anger and panic, he shouted at the halfling.
"Tell them to stop the Celestial Cannon so I can save my life!"
"This is Ganeria! Stop the Celestial Cannon immediately! Elder Tarsus demands it for his survival!" The halfling, trembling, ryed themand into the orb.
"The Celestial Cannon is far more important than your lives. Consider yourselves lucky to die for the glory of Skyhall. We are not initiating the teleportation sequence." A gruff man''s voice came from the orb.
Moments ago, Elder Tarsus had let the Skyhall angels die in a desperate bid to stop the Dark Lord, believing their deaths were worth it if Skyhall could survive. Now, the same fate was befalling him. The very weapon he had pinned his hopes on was now a harbinger of his doom.
Themand hub was a scene of pure chaos, with dwarves, elves, and humans alike scrambling to escape. Tarsus stood in the center, his mind reeling with the bitter taste of his own medicine. The same ruthless calculus he had applied to his soldiers was now being applied to him, and there was no escape.
"Fuck this," the halfling muttered, his face pale with terror. He bolted out of the room, not looking back, as Mugashuku finally turned the Celestial Cannon fully toward themand hub.
The red light from the cannon grew brighter and brighter, illuminating the hall with an eerie, ominous glow. Elder Tarsus stood there, alone, waiting as the blinding light filled the room.
Chapter 1308 Getting A New Demon Army
Chapter 1308 Getting A New Demon Army
Once Ganeria was destroyed into bits and pieces, the blinding light of destruction made everyone close their eyes. During this light, the Skyhall remote center activated the teleportation sequence and teleported the Celestial Cannon away from the battle. But with Tarsus gone, the control he had over the demons was destroyed, causing the demons to fall from the sky like flies, reverting back to their dead state.
Michael watched the demons falling into the sea with a grin, floating in the air. When he turned his gaze to the remaining angels and the ships, he saw they had already started to flee.
"Run!" one angel shouted, his voice cracking with fear.
"Fuck this, I''m not dying here!" another angel screamed as he bolted towards a retreating ship. N?v(el)B\\jnn
"Get the hell out of here! We can''t fight him!" a third angel yelled, his wings pping frantically.
Michael didn''t chase after them to kill them as it wasn''t his style. Instead, he turned his gaze to Mugashuku, who dwarfed him in size. It was strange to see Mugashuku up close outside of Stormville''s dark cave.
"We have a lot to talk about, Dark Lord," Mugashuku grumbled. At that moment, it sounded like all four heads spoke in unison with one single voice in Michael''s head.
"I can see that," Michael calmly replied, beginning to descend toward his floating mountain.
Once theynded on the ground, Mugashuku stared down at Michael, studying him. Gone was the disdainful look Mugashuku had for Michael, reced by a look of begrudging respect.
"So, the light of Noah is vanquished by his own brother...who tried so hard to change the prophecy ultimately brought upon the prophecy. You can run away from destiny, Dark Lord, but it will always catch up to you," Mugashuku said in a grumpy voice.
"Good one about prophecies, Mugashuku, but something tells me you are not here to give me a lesson on prophecies. Why are you here? Is it about another soul piece of the Queen?" Michael asked calmly.
"You are right. Consider it a favor I did for you by saving your mountain. But we have bigger things to worry about: the one you unleashed by killing your brother, the eternal darkness in the mortal realm, and the release of Andohr, the god of time and space."
The mere mention of Andohr''s name made Michael''s blood boil in anger. This was the same feeling Andohr had toward the past Dark Lord. Whenever someone mentioned the Dark Lord''s name, Andohr seethed with rage. Michael never truly understood this until now. It was no longer just the past Dark Lord''s feud with Andohr¡ªit was personal for him too.
"This eternal darkness is affecting all living beings, Dark Lord. Light doesn''t just exist in brightness; it exists within all of us. With Noah gone, the bnce is shifted, and the darkness within people will manifest. Soon, you will see the ugliness behind the mortal race, and it''s not going to be pretty," Mugashuku said in a grave tone. Even a cold, detached being who preferred to stay out of mortal squabbles feltpelled to warn Michael, which highlighted the seriousness of the problem.
"Since you are the God of Darkness, you can control more than the darkness you see. You can also control the darkness within beings. Use that to maintain the fragile bnce until you find a more permanent solution."
"Like what?" Michael asked. He didn''t think Mugashuku meant resurrecting Noah using the system, as even Mugashuku didn''t know about the Badass System. So Michael knew Mugashuku was suggesting something else.
"Create a new God of Light¡" Mugashuku said, leaving Michael in stunned silence for a few moments.
"Create a new god? Just like that? How would I do that?" Michael asked cynically.
"Figure it out. Everyone needs to face the consequences of their actions, including a god. It''s up to you to deal with and save the mortal realm you endangered," Mugashuku coldly said before all four of his heads looked up at the dark sky. Then, Mugashuku pped his wings, taking off into the sky.
Standing alone on the floating mountain, Michael watched Mugashuku disappear into the clouds. He then took a deep breath and looked around at the destruction¡ªthe debris on the sea, the dead angels on the ground, and the demons scattered about.
"That was helpful," Michael snickered.
As much as he hated to admit it, Mugashuku was right. He had fulfilled the prophecy, and now it was up to him to fix this goddamn mortal realm. He had already witnessed how enraged the creatures in the Demon''s Grave were and knew Mugashuku was right. The death of Noah was affecting the world in more ways than just the absence of light.
He had a feeling that if he didn''t find a way to fix this world, everything would go to hell.
"Let''s focus on the task at hand," Michael sighed deeply, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. He knew he had to act quickly before Skyhallunched another attack. His first priority was to gather all the demon bodies and turn them into his own army.
Taking a deep breath, heunched himself into the air and began flying around the mountain, collecting the demons'' bodies. One by one, he lifted the heavy, lifeless forms and piled them up in a secure spot. The demons'' crimson skin glistened ominously in the dim light as their bodies began to form a small mountain of their own.
Next, Michael dived down into the ocean. His mask, equipped with a breathing system, allowed him to breathe underwater effortlessly. He swam through the dark, churning waters, locating the drowned demons. Each one was a challenge to retrieve, but Michael''s strength and determination carried him through.
As he collected the bodies, he felt a mixture of anger and anticipation. These demons, once puppets of the Skyhall, would soon be under his control. He envisioned an army that would help him restore bnce and keep his realm safe from further invasions.
After gathering as many bodies as he could find in the ocean, he flew back to the mountain, carrying the heavy, waterlogged forms with ease. He mounted them up alongside the others, forming an impressive pile of potential soldiers.
With the demons'' bodies all gathered, Michael hovered above the mountain, looking down at his future army. "Now it''s time to turn them into my army," Michael muttered before dragging the pile of bodies back into the dark castle, which was barely standing after the bombardment by the Skyhall.
Once inside, Michael reached Elidyr''s hall. The empty hall pulsated with runes, workbenches, and a massive portal gate that glistened in the center. Heid the demons one by one on the ground, arranging them carefully.
"How much is it going to cost me to turn them into my loyal army?" Michael asked the system.
[Ding! It will cost ten million badass points to engrave the controlling runes into their brains and souls and make all fifty demons loyal to you.]
Michael sighed in relief. He had received almost fifteen million points by ughtering angels and destroying their ships, so he could afford it. "Do it," he mentallymanded the system.
The moment he gave permission to the system, he saw the badass points reduce from fifteen million to five million. Then, he felt a sharp pain in his mind, a familiar sensation. As he gritted his teeth, he saw a soft glow appear on the foreheads of the demons. The glow pulsed for a moment before disappearing into their heads.
After a while, the demons groaned as their bodies flinched and twitched on the ground. Michael felt a sudden heaviness in his soul, and a sharp headache began to pound in his temples. He gritted his teeth, fighting through the pain as the APD kicked in, injecting him with potions tobat the migraine. The relief was slow but steady, and soon the excruciating sensation began to soothe.
Soon, the demons'' breathing became steady, almost as though they were alive. One by one, they started to rise, their crimson eyes glowing faintly in the dim light of the hall. Michael watched as they stood before him, an eerie yet powerful sight.
[Ding! The demons are nowpletely loyal to the host and will obey anymand. Be warned of the blood lust that is engraved in the demons'' very essence.]
Michael took a deep breath, feeling the weight lift from his soul as the demons fully awakened, their new loyalty to him solidified. He looked at his new army who were ready to follow his every order. As thest demon stood up, Michael surveyed his newly formed army. All fifty demons stood straight, their crimson eyes fixed on him, awaiting their next order. Their massive, muscr forms and fearsome four arms radiated an intimidating aura. The room was filled with a tense silence, broken only by the faint sounds of their steady breathing.
Michael could feel their raw power and blood lust, barely contained beneath the surface. They were ready for battle, eager to unleash their fury on anyone hemanded them to destroy. He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction, knowing that he had turned a potential threat into a formidable asset.
"Now, let''s put you to the test by destroying the Skyhall," he said with a cold chuckle, his voice echoing through the hall.
He turned around and began to leave for Stormville Mountain to meet Nithroel, his new army following him closely behind.
Chapter 1309 Attack on Mazeroth Academy I
Chapter 1309 Attack on Mazeroth Academy I
After using the portal to reach the Stormville Mountain range, Michael slowly marched toward the giant warship hovering in the air, Nithroel''s formidable vessel. She was standing atop a mountain peak, overlooking the stormy expanse of the range. The storm was raging, and the wind howled fiercely, yet there was no rain, a testament to Rainar''s death, another kill credited to Michael.
As he walked toward her with his demon army marching behind him, the elves who had set up a perimeter to protect their empress froze. They quickly stepped forward, trying to hide their confusion and fear.
"Don''t move!" one of the elves shouted, his voice tinged with uncertainty as he eyed the approaching demons.
"What the fuck are those things?" another elf muttered under his breath, his eyes wide with shock.
"I thought demons were just myths," whispered an older elf, trying to recall ancient texts that described beings like these.
"They look like something out of a nightmare," another one said, his voice shaking slightly.
Despite their fear, the seasoned warriors knew that Nithroel only made decisions for the betterment of their empire. They stood their ground, weapons ready but clearly hesitant.
Michael halted his steps and looked up at Nithroel. She gazed down at him, her expression calm and unreadable.
"Let theme through," Nithroel said, her voice carrying authority and confidence.
The elves stepped aside, still whispering among themselves, as Michael and his demon army moved forward. The sight of the demons, beings they had only read about in ancient texts, left them in awe and fear. But with Nithroel''smand, they knew better than to question further.
Nithroel looked at the demon army behind Michael with a hint of amusement. She had also been surprised by the sudden Skyhall attack, but she was a strategist and cunning enough to awaken Mugashuku from his slumber, make a deal with him, and send him to deal with the Celestial Cannon at the right time. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity and approval as she took in the sight of the imposing demons now under Michael''smand.
"You never fail to surprise me, Dark Lord," Nithroel said, her voice carrying a mix of admiration and intrigue. "You somehow turned the demon army of Skyhall into your army. I''m impressed."
Michael chuckled but didn''t reveal anything about how he aplished it. He would never disclose the existence of the system, a secret that gave him an unmatched edge. Instead, he just shrugged nonchntly.
"Being the Dark Lord has its perks," he replied, a sly grin spreading across his face.
Although Nithroel was curious about how he managed such a feat, she didn''t probe, knowing that everyone had their secrets. She took a deep breath, her gaze lingering on the demons for a moment before turning back to Michael.
"Let''s go to my war room and discuss our attack n," she said, her tone all business.
With a p of her hands, steps materialized from the warship hovering in the sky down to their feet. The magical stairs shimmered with an ethereal glow, solid and inviting.
"Azazel, Elidyr, and the elder vampires are waiting for you in the war room," Nithroel added.
Michael nodded and began to ascend the steps, his demon army following in disciplined silence. The demon army calmly walked behind Michael and Nithroel, climbing the stairs with an eerie, synchronized precision. They entered the warship, stepping into a hallway lit with orbs that struggled to keep the ce bright after the death of Noah, the god of light. Even in the dim light, Michael could see the pristine carpet, the clear interior adorned with portraits of elven kings and queens, and the faint fragrance of jasmine.
As he followed Nithroel, the elven guards patrolling the hallway tensed at the sight of the Dark Lord and the demon army. But with a single nce from Nithroel, they stood down, respecting her silentmand. She led him to a metal door inscribed with several runes. Standing before the door, she turned to look at Michael.
"Leave your army here," she instructed. She then ced her hand on the door. The runes trembled before the door creaked open, revealing a spacious, empty hall.
Michael knew he couldn''t parade around the ship with his demon army behind him. So he nodded and addressed his new soldiers.
"Stay here until I call you."
The demon army didn''t hesitate and entered the hall without a word. Once all fifty demons were inside, Nithroel waved her hand, and the door closed behind them.
"Now, let''s go to the war room,"She then looked at Michael and said.
After walking through the hallway, they eventually reached a silver door that glistened. Michael could hear the rustling of people talking and bustling inside. Nithroel smiled and waved her hand, and the door opened, revealing her war room.
The war room was impressive. Arge, intricately carved wooden table dominated the center of the room, with a detailed map of the continent spread out on top. The walls were lined with shelves holding scrolls, books, and various magical artifacts. A soft glow from enchantednterns bathed the room in a warm, steady light. Portraits of elven heroes andndscapes adorned the walls, giving the space an air of history and gravitas. The air was filled with the faint scent of parchment and old wood, mingling with the ever-present jasmine fragrance.
Azazel, Elidyr, and the elder vampires were already inside, standing around the table and examining the map. They looked up as Michael and Nithroel entered and immediately came forward and bowed.
"What happened after I escorted the dark army soldiers to the Crypt? Did you bring some good news, my lord?" Azazel, with concern etched on his face, asked.
"The dark castle is barely standing, but there is good news. I turned the demons into my army." Michael patted Azazel on the shoulder and exined.
Michael knew that Azazel, as a fellow demon, might feel ufortable seeing his own kind being controlled by someone else. He had already sensed Azazel''s hurt and anger when he saw the Skyhall controlling demons. Despite his loyalty, Michael knew this situation might sadden Azazel.
"I will soon give the control of your kind back to you. If there is a way to bring back your kind, we will bring them back," Michael calmly said.
As much as Nithroel liked to see the camaraderie between the Dark Lord and the demon butler Azazel, she knew they had a war to wage. "We need to talk about the n of attack first." She said, clearing her throat.
She then led them to the table and gestured at Elidyr to begin. Elidyr quickly grabbed a map and ced it on the table. It wasn''t a map of the four continents but of the Akn Realm, showing many floating mountains and the location of Mazeroth Academy.
"This is where we need to focus our efforts," Elidyr began, pointing to various strategic points on the map. "What''s the n, Elidyr?" Michael asked. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"The only way to get ess to Skyhall is through the portal in the academy." Elidyr pointed at Mazeroth Academy on the map.
Michael listened and couldn''t help but remember his time as a student there. Memories flooded back: the stoic Professor Lane who taught him alchemy, the fights he had, the times walking through the halls, the demanding yet kind Professor Ka, and Headmaster Wulfric. He knew that now, they might see him differently, not as the student he once was, but as the Dark Lord who brought darkness to the mortal realm. But there was no ce for hesitation, and he was too pissed off at the Skyhall to whine.
"We will go in as two groups. One group will keep Mazeroth and the professors busy, while the main attack team goes through the portal while they are distracted and reach Skyhall to begin our attack." Nithroel chimed in.
Michael listened to her words in silence. This was a good n, the ssic distract-and-utilize tactic. It was ssic for a reason, because it was simple and efficient. However, even a child could tell that the portal and the academy would be protected by powerful spells and arrays, so distracting the professors wouldn''t be simple.
But he was done ying it safe...he was done holding back. If the professors stood against him, they wouldn''t just face the Dark Lord¡They would face the God of Darkness.
With that, Michael cracked his neck and looked at the others. He had a n.
"We''ll send Azazel, Trista, and the demon army to distract the professors," Michael began. "Killing the demons is hard, and after they''ve caused enough chaos, Azazel can escort them to safety. Meanwhile, Elidyr will disrupt the defensive mechanisms and take over the portal. I''ll oversee the n and make sure everything goes smoothly, and then I''ll go to Skyhall and make them pay for everything they did¡"
Once they heard the cold conviction in the Dark Lord''s voice, they felt a surge of confidence and nodded. Then Trista turned her gaze to Nithroel.
"So, what are you nning to do while we attack Skyhall?" Trista asked.
"I have my own ns," Nithroel responded with a cold smile. It was clear that she had her own score to settle with the Skyhall.
Then, with a firm and resolute voice, Nithroel added, "I will apany the Dark Lord to Skyhall and end them once and for all."
Chapter 1310 Attack On Mazeroth Academy II
Chapter 1310 Attack On Mazeroth Academy II
As they were strategizing, a golden-haired elven young woman with emerald eyes sparkling, came sprinting toward them. Clutching a stack of papers in her delicate hand, she adjusted her spectacles before delivering her urgent message.
"Your Highness, we have received reports from the Akn realm that the Skyhall has dispatched its army and Half Celestial stage ancestors to safeguard the portal," the elven young woman reported. Despite the gravity of her words, her attention was drawn to the Dark Lord. The elves in the room, who had only glimpsed him on a few asions, were captivated by his new, more rugged and imposing appearance in his dark armor.
Many couldn''t believe the Dark Lord was so young and that they were in the presence of two gods. But they also noticed the way the Dark Lord''s subordinates looked at him; there was no fear in their eyes, just pure loyalty.
"So the game begins," Nithroel chuckled, her voice cutting through the palpable tension in the room.
"Alright, Ghost¡change of ns," Nithroel said, turning to Michael. "You spearhead the distraction attack and keep the Skyhall army from reaching the second squad led by Elidyr."
Michael knew this was a good n and agreed with a nod. Despite all his training, he was very angry at the ce that had ruined his life and affected him from the moment he was born. Thus, he knew the best option was to let Nithroel lead since she was not emotionally invested in this as much as he was.
"Prepare the portal to the Akn realm¡" Nithroel ordered, signaling the start of their war against the Skyhall.
The elves, hearing her order, didn''t hesitate. They began to disperse like bees, and soon a tremor could be felt beneath their feet. Michael could feel the ship moving. From the outside, the massive warship they were in slowly began to ascend. After a few minutes, the ship''s front cannon, which didn''t look like a typical iron cannon but was built with silver metal and adorned with various glowing crimson red runes, came into view.
The cannon glowed before firing a beam of energy into the air before them. If Noah hadn''t died, the beam would have been bright enough to sh across the sky. But now, it was only a dull energy beam. Yet, when the beam hit the air, it quickly tore through, opening a portal. This was a testament to the power of Nithroel, the Empress of Awor, and the resources shemanded.
The portal slowly grew wider and bigger,rge enough for their ship to fly through. On the other side, the small team of Trista, Azazel, and Elidyr prepared to sneak out of the ship once the distraction began and take over the portal to Skyhall within Mazeroth Academy.
As the warship approached the portal''s exit, Mazeroth Academy came into view. The academy, a grand structure with towering spires and vast courtyards, was surrounded by a shimmering shield. The shield pulsed with energy, a testament to the powerful spells protecting the academy. Hundreds of angels d in silver armor with their metallic wings hovered around the academy, patrolling the dark sky.
On the ground, the forces of Skyhall were organized into various battalions. Archers stood ready with their bows drawn, mages with staffs and wands chanted incantations, and warriors in gleaming armor wielded swords and shields. The sight of the academy and its powerful defenses brought a flood of memories to Michael. He remembered the lecture halls, the dueling grounds, and the library where he spent countless hours. Now, this ce was a battlefield.
As the warship drew closer, Nithroel turned to Michael. "This is it. Get ready," said Nithroel.
Inside the Alchemy ssroom, the atmosphere was tense and filled with the scent of various potions bubbling away in cauldrons. Shelves lined the walls, filled with jars of strange ingredients, their contents floating in murky liquids. Wooden desks were arranged in neat rows, each with a cauldron and a set of alchemical tools.
Professor Lane stood at the window, his ck robes billowing slightly as he observed the scene outside. His greasy ck hair framed a perpetually severe face with piercing eyes that missed nothing.
Through the window, he saw the warship of Nithroel slowly entering through the portal, its massive form cutting through the darkened sky. The once bright sky was now a dull grey, a testament to Noah''s death and the darkness that had engulfed the realm.
"He finally came," Professor Lane muttered to himself, his voice low and filled with a mixture of anticipation and resignation. He knew the Dark Lord wasing for Skyhall.
Looking at the warship, Professor Lane remembered how the Dark Lord had once been a student at Mazeroth Academy. He could recall vividly the young man sitting at one of the very tables in this ssroom. Despite Lane''s general disdain for most students, Ghost, as he was known back then, had been different. He was one of the best students Lane had ever taught, showing a natural talent for alchemy that was rare even among the most gifted.
Ghost had already possessed remarkable talents for alchemy, boasting knowledge equivalent to a five-star alchemist. Yet, under Lane''s tutge, those abilities had been amplified, refined to near perfection. Lane sighed deeply, the weight of the moment pressing down on him. He knew that soon, the world was about to change in a way that none of them could fullyprehend, and he couldn''t help but feel that he had yed a small part in the events leading to this moment.
As he continued to watch the warship approach, a sense of foreboding filled him. The academy, once a ce of learning and growth, was now a battleground. The Dark Lord, once his student, was now a formidable forceing to challenge the very institution that had helped shape him.
"He was destined for greatness," Lane muttered softly to himself.
"but not like this."
In another corner of the Mazeroth Academy, inside the Warrior Housemon room, students d in ck and red robes were gathered, their faces pressed against the windows as they watched the sky. Among them was Harry, a young boy with ruffled ck hair, blue eyes, and a kind face. Despite being born only three years ago, Harry, a Soul Born who had been given a physical body with the help of his mother, Lah, had grown rapidly and now looked like a fourteen-year-old.
As he looked at the sky, Harry felt a surge of mixed emotions, shock, anger, excitement, anticipation, and protectiveness. His father, the Dark Lord, wasing for the Skyhall. The Mazeroth Academy, a ce he hade to call home, was a branch of the Skyhall. On one hand, he wanted to see his father for the first time in person, but on the other hand, he knew his father''s arrival meant the destruction of the Skyhall, which might irreversibly affect the academy.
His heart raced as he thought about the impending battle. He had heard stories about his father''s power, the darkness that followed him, and the countless battles he had fought. But this was different. This was personal. Harry had always wondered about his father, the mysterious figure who had yed such a pivotal role in his life yet remained distant and unknown.
"What''s going to happen?" one of the students beside him muttered, her eyes wide with fear.
"Is it true? Is the Dark Lord reallying here?" another student whispered, his voice trembling.
Harry clenched his fists, trying to steady his breathing. "Yes," he said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else. "He''sing."
The students around him fell silent, their eyes fixed on the warship approaching through the portal. For Harry, it was a moment of inner conflict. He wanted to protect the ce he had grown to love, but he also wanted to understand and perhaps even connect with his father.
As he continued to watch, Harry resolved to face whatever came next with courage and determination. He would protect his friends and home, but he also needed answers. He needed to know who his father really was and what drove him to such extremes.
Finally, Harry turned away from the windows, his blue eyes glistening with resolve. As he stepped away from the crowd, his three friends joined him. There was a young dwarf named Thrain, short but now looking as tall as Harry since Harry hadn''t developed his full height yet. Thrain had a stocky build, with a bushy beard and a determined expression on his face.
Beside Thrain was an elven boy named Aric, with golden hair and a handsome face, a sword dangling on his back. His posture was graceful, and his sharp eyes held a mixture of concern and readiness.
Next to Aric was his sister, Lyria, an elven young girl who resembled her brother except for her slightly developed chest and more feminine body. She had a bow slung over her shoulder and an aura of calm confidence.
Lastly, there was a young human girl named ra, wearing sses that framed her intelligent eyes. She had a bookish appearance but carried herself with quiet strength, always ready to support her friends.
"Harry, what''s happening?" Thrain asked, his voice gruff but filled with worry.
"It''s about your father, isn''t it?" Aric looked at Harry, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "
"Yes. We need to be ready for anything." Harry nodded as Lyria ced aforting hand on Harry''s shoulder. "We''re with you, Harry. Whatever happens, we''ll face it together."
"We need a n. We can''t just sit here and wait." ra said, adjusting her sses.
Hearing his friends'' words and feeling their supportive presence gave Harry the courage he needed. He took a deep breath, feeling the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders.
"We''ll protect our friends and the academy. But I also need to find out the truth about my father. Why he''s doing all this." n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
When they finally reached the courtyard, they saw the first spell being tossed at the warship. A powerful me dragon roared in the sky, almost as big as the warship itself, and lunged towards it. For a moment, they halted their steps and looked on in awe. ra, ever the bookworm, could tell that a spell of this caliber must have been cast by an immortal or even higher stage cultivator, possibly a half celestial.
"That spell... it''s incredible," ra muttered, her eyes wide with amazement.
"Whoever cast that must be one powerful son of a bitch," Thrain whistled.
As the dragon rushed forward, several ck lightning bolts, visible even in the dark sky, shot out from the ship and struck the dragon. The group gasped, their awe turning to shock.
"Did you see that?!" Aric shouted, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his sword.
The me dragon, as though it were a living being, roared in defiance before shattering into countless specks of light and dissipating into the night sky. They stood there, stunned, unable to fullyprehend what had just happened. The sheer power of the me dragon had been expected to cause massive damage, but it was obliterated by the dark lightning bolts.
"What in the god''s name was that?" Lyria muttered, her eyes wide with disbelief.
ra could only imagine the immense power behind those lightning bolts. "Whoever cast those bolts must be extraordinarily powerful," she said with awe.
Meanwhile, Harry, still reeling from the spectacle, looked in the direction the lightning bolts hade from. There, he saw a figure draped in dark armor, a cape billowing behind him as he hovered in the sky. The figure exuded an aura of undeniable power and darkness.
"Father..." Harry whispered, a mixture of emotions swirling within him as he recognized the Dark Lord.
Chapter 1311 Attack On Mazeroth Academy III
Chapter 1311 Attack On Mazeroth Academy III
The three Half-Celestial ancestors hovered in the sky, slowly floating towards Michael. Their appearances reflected their ancient age: long white beards, deeply wrinkled faces, and eyes filled with a mix of fear and anger. Their robes were pure white, yet the witness of their robes barely showed under the darkness around them.
"Dark Lord, if you don''t abandon this path to destruction, we will move heaven and earth to stop you." One of the elders, who had long white hair and beard hovered forward before warning Michael.
But when Michael heard the elder, he threw back his head andughed as the sound echoed ominously through the air. Hisughter was mocking, filled with a dark amusement that made the ancestors'' warning seem pathetic.
"Your dialogues are cringeworthy," Michael sneered, shaking his head. "And just so you know, I''m not a cultivator of this realm anymore,"
As he spoke, the darkness around Michael thickened, his eyes turningpletely ck with no trace of whiteness. The already darkened sky grew even darker, casting an eerie shadow over everything. Harry and his friends watched from below, feeling the atmosphere grow thicker and colder. The temperature dropped considerably, a chill settling over the courtyard.
Looking at the sudden increase in the darkness, ra could sense the immense power radiating from the Dark Lord. She could tell he was not ying around, he meant business.
"They''re vastly outmatched. The Dark Lord''s power is on apletely different level." ra whispered.
However, the elven twins Aric and Lyria, unable to sense the Dark Lord''s cultivation energy, clung to a fragile hope. "Maybe the ancestors can defeat him," Aric muttered, his voice betraying his uncertainty.
"We have to believe in them. They''re our only hope," Lyria, echoing her brother''s sentiment, added. But their support for the ancestors was short-lived as they quickly remembered who the Dark Lord was. "Shit, we shouldn''t be saying this," Aric blurted out, ncing at Harry. "Sorry, Harry."
Even though he was best buddies with the elves and would die for them, he couldn''t let go of a good opportunity to roast the elves. After all, the dwarves shared an inherent hatred for the elves because the elves were everything the dwarves despised.
"You elves and your flip-flopping loyalty. Stick to a side, damn it!" Thrain growled.
Meanwhile, Michael remained focused on the ancestors. The dark energy around him swirled violently, exuding a power that dwarfed anything the Half Celestials could muster.
"You elders might have moved heaven and earth in your prime, but now, you''re just old men clinging to past glories," Michael chuckled.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points] ¡
While Michael was ignoring the system notifications, the elder woman floated forward, her long, silver hair flowing behind her like a river of moonlight. Her face was lined with age, but her eyes sparkled with a shrewd intelligence. She was draped in ornate robes adorned with celestial symbols, signifying her authority in the SKyhall.
"Do you really want to turn against the people who taught you, who believed in you?" she asked, her voice soft butced with maniption. "What would Headmaster Wulfric say? What would Professor Ka say?"
"Oh, you''re trying to appeal to my sense of nostalgia? That''s rich," Michael chuckled darkly, shaking his head. "You people made your bed when you tossed me into a prison called Earth just minutes after I was born," he continued, his tone growing colder. "You took away my childhood, my innocence, everything a child should have. And for what? A fucking prophecy. I''ve said it so many times by now, but let me tell you again, you took something from me, and now I''m going to take everything from you."
Without another word, he raised his hand and shot a thick lightning bolt at her. The elder quickly cast a defensive spell, a shimmering barrier of light that glowed with celestial energy. But the lightning bolt shattered the defense like it was made of ss, and the bolt went straight through her head, causing it to explode into a red mist.
When Harry and his friends witnessed the chilling brutality and the sheer power of the Dark Lord, they gasped in shock as their eyes widened in horror.
"He killed her in cold blood," ra closed her eyes and mumbled. Unlike ra and the elves, Thrain was a dwarf, and as a dwarf, he had witnessed the unforgiving reality of the dog-eat-dog world they inhabited. Thus, war and blood was not new to him.
"This is war, ra. It''s brutal and unforgiving. Better get used to the reality of it." Thrain sighed heavily. On the other hand, Aric and Lyria looked at each other, their faces pale as they realized the true extent of the Dark Lord''s power and utter regard for lives. Seeing their fellow ancestor''s headless body fall down, her glowing soul floating straight into the Dark Lord''s mouth, the remaining two ancestors felt a chill running down their spines. Meanwhile, Harry and his friends gasped in horror, realizing that the Dark Lord consumed her soul, permanently killing the Half Celestial stage Ancestor.
"He... he ate her soul," ra stammered, her face pale with shock.
"That''s beyond brutal," Thrain added, his voice barely above a whisper.
Before they could fullyprehend what had just happened, the two remaining ancestors roared.
"Attack!"
The two Half Celestial ancestors raised their hands, casting colossal, powerful spells. One summoned a massive whirlwind of razor-sharp wind des, each spinning with deadly precision and glowing with a faint blue hue. The other conjured a gigantic tidal wave of moltenva, roaring toward Michael with an intensity that made the very air around it shimmer with heat.
Harry and his friends watched in awe and terror as the massive spells surged forward.
"Those spells are insane," Aric said, his voice filled with a mix of fear and admiration.
"We''re screwed if they hit us with those," Lyria muttered, her eyes wide.
But Harry couldn''t take his eyes off his father. Despite the immense power of the spellsing at him, the Dark Lord had an amused smile on his face, almost as if he was enjoying the spectacle.
"He''s not even moving," Thrain observed, his voice tinged with disbelief. "That means he''s going to obliterate their spells. Just watch,"
Harry nodded, his eyes filled with a mix of fear, pride, and curiosity as he watched the Dark Lord prepare to counter the oing onught.
In addition to the two spells from the ancestors, the angels of Skyhall began casting their own spells. Though powerful, their spells were dwarfed by the massive ones cast by the Half Celestial stage ancestors. The angels surrounded Michael, hurling bolts of energy and conjuring elemental attacks.
Suddenly, Nithroel''s warship hummed to life. The elves on board moved like a whirlwind, arming the cannons. Each cannon fired with a thunderous boom, smoke trailing behind as the cannonballs streaked across the dark sky. The sheer number of cannonball volleys hit many angels, making their bodies explode into blood, bits and pieces.
"Look out!" one angel screamed but was cut off mid-sentence as a cannonball tore through him, leaving a stter of blood in the air.
"Retreat!" another angel yelled, only to be silenced by an explosion that sent shrapnel through his body.
But on the other hand, Michael remained calm amidst the chaos. He raised his head slightly, and dark beams shot out of his eyes, cutting through the spells cast by the ancestors as if they were made of paper. The beams were barely visible in the dark sky, but Harry and his friends caught glimpses of them under the light of the spells before they were obliterated.
"Unbelievable," ra whispered with a mix of awe and horror. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
As the beams sliced through the air, the two elders began to fly, trying to avoid them. Michael moved with them, his dark beams cutting through angels and the very air as they chased the ancestors.
"He''s... unstoppable," Aric said, his voice trembling.
"Watch out!" Lyria yelled, pointing as one of the beams narrowly missed an ancestor, cutting through a line of angels behind him.
Now Harry realized what his mother meant by saying his father was on a whole different levelpared to anyone in this realm. Seeing the Half Celestial stage ancestors, who were supposed to be akin to gods in the mortal realm, flying desperately to avoid his father''s dark beams, he was stunned. This was what a true god could do.
"He''s not even moving," Thrain muttered, disbelief etched on his face. "It''s like he''s toying with them."
Harry watched in awe as his father barely moved, only tilting his head slightly to adjust the trajectory of his dark beams. The ancestors, despite their god-like status in the mortal realm, were utterly outmatched. They dodged and weaved, but the dark beams seemed to anticipate their every move, cutting through the air with terrifying precision.
"Look at them, they''re supposed to be the most powerful beings we know, and they''re helpless," Lyria said.
"This is the difference between power we think we understand and true god power," ra, clutching her spellbook tightly, could only nod in agreement. "I never thought I''d see something like this. It''s... It''s beyond anything we could have imagined," Aric, usually so confident, seemed lost for words. The sky was a chaotic mess of spellfire, dark beams, and the desperate maneuvers of the Half Celestial ancestors. The angels, caught in the crossfire, continued to be decimated by the relentless cannon fire from Nithroel''s warship. Each shot sent more angels plummeting from the sky, their screams echoing through the night.
"We are doing good, Dark Lord¡Elidyr''s team will breach the shield around Mazeroth short. You just give them all a good show," ithroel''s voice sounded in his head, making him smile in amusement.
"Oh, I am nning to. Besides, I am enjoying every second of this,"
Chapter 1312 Harry and the Dark Lord is about to meet
Chapter 1312 Harry and the Dark Lord is about to meet
The sky was filled with a spectacr disy of spells, making even the grandest fireworks in Awor pale inparison. Harry and his friends watched in awe as icy spikes and lightning dragons filled the sky. However, none of these spells could touch the Dark Lord; his dark beams cut through everything in their path.
"Holy shit," Thrain gasped, unable to believe his eyes.
The spells from the angels and elders, no matter how powerful, were effortlessly neutralized by the Dark Lord''s dark beams. It was clear to them that he was toying with his enemies. The question was why. As students, they didn''t know the portal to the Skyhall realm was within the Mazeroth Academy. They assumed the Dark Lord was here to destroy the academy as part of his revenge against the Skyhall.
Meanwhile, the shield surrounding the academy glowed brighter, absorbing the impact of the spells and protecting the castle. Harry and his friends realized it was only a matter of time before the Dark Lord killed the remaining two Half Celestial stage elders. Harry felt a strange sense that something more was at y.
"I need to stop him," Harry said firmly, watching the Dark Lord''s dark beams narrowly miss the white-haired elder''s neck.
"Stop him? Stop the Dark Lord? Are you crazy?" Lyria gasped, shocked at Harry''s deration.
For a moment, they couldn''t believe what they had just heard from their friend.
"Harry, no," ra said firmly, her tone motherly and concerned. But Harry''s determined expression showed he was resolute.
"The hell you will. I''m not getting yelled at by your mom again. That woman scares the shit out of me," Thrain growled. The memory of Lah berating him for leaving Harry alone to explore the forest outside the Mazeroth was still fresh in his mind. Despite Lah''s gentle and kind nature, Thrain feared a mother''s wrath.
The dark beams continued to cut through the various spells cast by the Skyhall angels, creating chaos and fear.
"Keep firing! Don''t let up!" one elder barked desperately, his voice tinged with fear.
"We have to stop him! Hit him with everything you''ve got!" another elder shouted, trying to rally the angels.
Despite their orders, the Skyhall angels were growing increasingly frantic, their attacks bing more erratic as they realized the Dark Lord''s power was far beyond anything they had faced before.
Inside Headmaster Wulfric''s office, Professor Lane watched the scene through an orb on the table, his frown deepening with each passing moment. Headmaster Wulfric, a wise and kind old man with a long beard, stood beside him, his eyes filled with concern. Professor Ka, a stern but fair woman with a sharp gaze, was also present, her hands sped tightly together.
"The Dark Lord is toying with them," Lane said with frustration and a hint of admiration.
"His power is...unbelievable."
"Indeed. His vengeance against the Skyhall is consuming him," Wulfric replied softly, his eyes never leaving the orb. After hearing Wulfric, the two professors looked at each other. They both knew the history between the Dark Lord, the Skyhall, and the Prophecy of Qin Jiu. As much as they wanted to see the unfolding events in ck and white, they couldn''t because the Skyhall did many atrocious things in the name of the greater good. And now, they were reaping what they sow.
"This isn''t just about revenge. This is about making a statement. He wants to show the Skyhall and everyone else that he''s not to be trifled with," Ka shook her head. "He was one of my best students. I taught him so much, yet I never imagined this would be his path," Lane sighed, his usual cold demeanor slipping for a moment. Professor Lane, known for his stern and intimidating presence, was feared and often hated by the students. His ck robes and severe expression,bined with his harsh teaching methods, made him a figure of dread in the academy. Yet, Wulfric knew Lane''s side that no one else knew. Deep down, Lane cared for his students in his own way, and seeing one of his best students causing so much death and destruction despite his reasons still hurt him deeply.
"None of us did. But now we must deal with the reality of his power and his wrath." Wulfric ced aforting hand on Lane''s shoulder. As they watched, Wulfric waved his hand, and the orb shifted its view to the courtyard where Harry and his friends stood, looking up at the Dark Lord in the sky.
"It''s time they meet. This meeting will determine the fate of all the realms." Wulfric said, his voice heavy with the weight of the decision.
On the other hand, Michael smirked as he looked at the fear and desperation on the elders'' faces. He imagined them casting memory-altering spells and torturing Diana all those years ago to make her let him go. He imagined the torture they put his mother and him through. Thus, his hatred and vengeance fueled his dark side. And for the first time, Michael wanted to y with his targets before ending them.
Michael cracked his neck, signaling he was about to finish the cat-and-mouse chase. With that, he dashed toward the white-haired old man, casting the Silenes spell. The world around them slowed, and time itself seemed to bend. ra and Harry''s friends gasped, the shock evident on their faces, while ra closed her eyes, knowing what was about to happen when they saw the Dark Lord catch the old man by his neck.
Ignoring the oing spell from the other Half Celestial elder, Michael focused solely on the old man in his grasp. Lightning bolts crackled around the elder''s fingers, forming a colossal serpent made of pure energy that hissed and roared, but Michael didn''t flinch. His eyes bore into the old man''s, and with the Soul Stare, the overwhelming power coursed through the elder''s very being. Fear consumed him, causing him to squirm and shake violently until his heart couldn''t take it anymore, exploding in his chest.
As the life left the old man, Michael opened his mouth. A white wisp, the old man''s soul, drifted toward him and disappeared into his mouth. The very essence of the elder was consumed.
At that moment, the powerful serpent spell from the remaining elder collided with Michael. The impact was tremendous, causing a bright sh that made many close their eyes in instinctive reaction to the blinding light. Although the light from Noah''s death had dimmed the world, this blinding sh was still bright enough to make everyone instinctively close their eyes. People in the mortal realm were still adjusting to the eerie darkness, and it would take years for them to fully adapt to the endless night.
"Holy shit! Did you see that?" Thrain eximed while Aric and Lyria exchanged bewildered nces. "How did he do that?" Lyria whispered.
"What kind of spell was that?"
Harry, who had seen the entire scene unfold, swallowed hard. "It was something that affected the soul," he exined.
"My father just looked at him and... killed him." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Fuck, that''s terrifying," Thrain muttered.
But their words were abruptly cut off when the spell from the other elder hit Michael. The Dark Lord threw the elder''s lifeless body aside as the spell didn''t even scratch his armor. Slowly, Michael turned around in the sky, his eyes locking onto the remaining elder who froze in fear.
"That was pathetic," Michael chuckled.
. "He''s going to kill him, isn''t he?" she whispered, though she already knew the answer.
"No shit genius. That''s what he does." Thrain, still processing the horrific sight of the elder''s death, nodded grimly.
Without wasting a second, Michael raised his hand, dark lightning bolts crackling around his fingers. The energy grew more intense as he prepared to fire.
But then, ra, Aric, Lyria, and Thrain turned to their side and realized Harry was nowhere to be found. Panic surged through them.
"Where''s Harry?" Lyria gasped, looking around frantically. The next moment, Thrain''s eyes widened in shock as he looked up at the sky. "Fuck," he muttered, seeing Harry flying straight toward the Dark Lord on his sword.
Michael sensed a strange energy approaching and turned his head to see Harry flying toward him. At that moment, the elder also noticed Harry and decided to turn him into a hostage. However, Michael wasn''t about to let that happen. He fired a lightning bolt straight at the elder''s head, sttering blood across the sky.
Harry froze on his flying sword, watching the elder''s body fall. It took him a few moments to snap out of his stupor. He had never seen death so up close, and the warm droplets of blood on his face made the reality even more jarring.
"I''m going after him," ra snapped out of her shock, immediately taking her flying sword from her space ring and stepping on it. Before the elven twins or Thrain could respond, she shot toward the sky.
"Wait¡" Thrain tried to protest, but the elven twins, loyal and always mischievous and adventurous, did the same. They shot toward the sky, following ra, leaving Thrain behind.
"I need to find better friends. These assholes will be the death of me," Thrain grumbled. Despite hisints, he couldn''t abandon his friends. With a determined sigh, he dropped his axe to the ground, stepped onto it, and soared into the sky. Loyalty ran deep in his veins, and not even the Dark Lord could scare him away if his friends were in danger.
Chapter 1313 Qin Jiu, The Architect of the prophecy
Chapter 1313 Qin Jiu, The Architect of the prophecy
In the sky, Michael hovered as Harry''s friends finally reached his side. Michael''s imposing dark aura and his power dwarfed the teenagers. For a few moments, Harry didn''t say anything. Instead, he just looked at his father, the Dark Lord, without batting an eye. Seeing his son, Michael felt a bit of calm wash over him. But Harry''s innocent face,bined with the fear and determination in his eyes, made Michael sigh internally. He always wanted Harry to know the reality of the world, but even he wasn''t prepared for this reality, let alone Harry.
"Harry¡" Michael calmly uttered his name.
When Harry heard his father call him by name and recognize him without any introduction, he was both surprised and shocked. He didn''t know that Michael had been watching him every single day until Lah took him away to Mazeroth, cutting all ties with him.
"You know me?" Harry finally muttered, only to see Michael smile a bit. Instead of exining to Harry how he had been looking at him through the Spyder pendant on his mother''s neck, Michael calmly asked about Lah.
"How is your mother?" N?v(el)B\\jnn
Harry''s friends were stunned by the subtle change in the Dark Lord''s demeanor. After witnessing Michael killing the elders without a second thought, they didn''t expect him to inquire about Lah with such kindness.
"She is well¡" Harry blurted out, caught off guard by Michael''s question.
"Why aren''t you with her now? You shouldn''t be here, Harry¡ It''s not safe for you¡for now," Michael calmly said.
"Why are you doing this?" Harry asked, ignoring Michael''s question. Before Michael could answer, he noticed the angels of the Skyhall looking at Harry like wolves eyeing sheep. Without wasting any time, Michael called in reinforcements to take down the angels while he talked to Harry. He knew the importance of answers and an open conversation. If he had one with Diana, he might not have lost her. He didn''t want the same thing to happen with Harry. Whether Harry thought he was wrong or not, Michael wanted him to know the full story.
"Nithroel, release the demon army," Michael calmly spoke into his earpiece.
Nithroel''s voice echoed in his head, filled with a hint of amusement. "Thought you''d never ask."
Harry and his friends exchanged worried nces, sensing that something significant was about to happen. Their apprehension grew when they noticed the warship above them whir to life. The massive ship''s side door began to creak open, the sound reverberating through the air.
"What the hell is that?" Thrain muttered while the elves, Aric and Lyria, shared a nce of concern. "This doesn''t look good," Aric said, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of his sword.
As the door fully opened, a horde of dark, fearsome figures flew out, their wings spreading wide as they soared into the sky. The sight of the demon army was both awe-inspiring and terrifying. The dwarf and the elves sensed overwhelming power from the red-skinned beings, but they never recognized them. These beings with red skin and four arms never resembled any of the races they knew. However, the mere sigh of the demons was enough to send chill running down their spines.
"I think I know what those are¡" ra gasped. "Demons," ra whispered as her eyes widened with recognition. "I read about them in a book called Ancient Races. These are demons!"
The demons flew in a coordinated formation, their menacing presence halting the advancement of the Skyhall angels. The angels, who had been ready to attack Harry, now hesitated, clearly intimidated by the powerful and fearsome demon army.
"Oh, shit," Thrain cursed, his voice barely above a whisper. "This just got a whole lot worse."
Michael watched as the angels froze, their fear evident. With their crimson skin and formidable wings, the demons circled around, ready to defend their master and engage the angels. Harry and his friends stood there, stunned and uncertain of what to do. The sheer power and presence of the demon army were overwhelming.
Noticing their reactions, Michael allowed himself a small, grim smile. He knew the demons'' appearance would shift the bnce of power. Now, it was time to have the conversation he needed to have with Harry without the interference of the Skyhall angels.
Meanwhile, the demons wasted no time as they dashed at the angels with pure killing intent. The angels, though initially frozen with fear, quickly recovered and began to cast their spells. Fireballs, lightning bolts, and icy shards flew through the air, aimed at the approaching demons.
The spells hit their marks, engulfing the demons in elemental fury. However, the demons seemed almost indifferent to the attacks. Their wounds, no matter how grievous, closed up rapidly, healing them almost instantly. This regenerative ability made them nearly unstoppable.
With blood-curdling roars, the demons closed the distance. Their four powerful arms grabbed angels mid-flight, crushing bones with ease. One demon, with a single horn protruding from its forehead, mmed an angel into the ground with such force that the impact sent a shockwave through the air. The angel''s armor crumpled like paper, and his body was reduced to a bloody mess.
Another demon, with two curved horns and bat-like wings, used its ws to disembowel an angel, spilling entrails in a gruesome disy. The angel''s screams were cut short as the demon tore out his throat with razor-sharp teeth while one demon ripped the wings off an angel. The angel''s cries of agony were brief as the demon snapped his neck, tossing the lifeless body aside like a ragdoll.
The angels tried to retaliate, casting more spells and wielding their weapons with desperation. But the demons moved with relentless efficiency, evading and absorbing blows with minimal effect. They tore through the angelic ranks, leaving a trail of blood and broken bodies in their wake.
Harry and his friends watched in horror and awe as the battle unfolded. ra, usuallyposed and analytical, was speechless. Aric and Lyria, despite their training, could hardly process the brutality before them.
"Fuck, the angels are out of our league," Thrain said with a mix of fear and grudging respect for the demons'' prowess.
As though nothing was happening, Michael calmly turned his gaze from the demons to Harry and his friends.
"Why dont we go there and talk, Harry? It is time you get the answers you need," Michael said and gestured toward the top of Nithroel''s ship. Without waiting for their answer, Michael flew to the ship as Harry flew behind his father without batting an eye and his friends too followed him behind.
The bruaity and the ughter happening around seemed to fade away in the presence of his father to Harry. At first, Harry thought he would be angry at his father, then he thought he would feel love and then after seeing him killing the three elders, harry felt like he should feel the urge to bring the Dark Lord to justice. But at that moment, seeing his father''s calm face, Harry''s mind went nk.
"I wish we had met under different circumstances, Harry. Everty, you and I are in close proximity, and Skyhall always meddles in our affairs," Michael said as his voice turned colder.
"Can¡can I call you father?" Finally, even without fully understanding his feelings, this question escaped Harry''s mouth. Hearing Harry, his friends felt a wave of sympathy for him. Even Michael was surprised, but looking at Harry, he saw himself many years ago¡ªan orphan who craved familial bonds. Despite Michael''s desire to avoid forming a father-son rtionship with Harry, at that moment, he couldn''t deny Harry''s request.
"You can¡" Michael calmly answered.
It took Harry a few moments to collect his thoughts before speaking to his father. After all, Harry had so many questions and things he wanted to ask. He had been dreaming about this moment ever since he was little, but now that it hade, the words did not.
"Why did you leave me, Father?" Harry asked.
"I did not want to leave you, Harry. But I wasn''t always the Dark Lord or the God of Darkness you see now. I was once weak, weak enough to be bullied by so many factions and people¡If I had stayed with you, they would have hurt you to get to me, and I wouldn''t have been able to protect you and your mother¡" Michael''s voice was steady but filled with the weight of his past struggles.
Harry looked into his father''s eyes, searching for the truth. He saw the pain and regret there, which resonated with his feelings of abandonment and longing.
"Believe it or not, Harry, I am still not the strongest one here¡there are gods in the realm of gods who would do anything to control the mortal realm¡"
"But it is you who brought the darkness upon all," ra interjected, her courage surprising even herself as she spoke to the Dark Lord.
"That was regrettable but necessary¡But you kids don''t know the things Skyhall has done and is capable of¡But you all seem smart, so I won''t bullshit you by making myself look like a good guy¡I ept I''m a bad guy, but that doesn''t make Skyhall good. They are evil," Michael calmly exined.
As they were talking, Wulfric and Lane were in the office, watching the demons. But Wulfric''s eyes darted between the demons and the mirror behind him. That was not just a mirror; it was a gateway to meet the one who started all of this¡Qin Jiu.
Chapter 1314 The Prime God Level
Chapter 1314 The Prime God Level
Inside the castle, Lane stood by the window, his eyes fixated on the chaos outside. The sounds of battle echoed through the stone walls, punctuated by the screams and sh of metal.
"Shouldn''t we intervene?" Lane asked, his voice carrying a mix of concern and frustration.
"No one can stop the Dark Lord using brute force. Reaching him through his heart is hard but not impossible. Only Harry could do it." Wulfric, standing beside him, shook his head slowly.
Lane sighed, understanding the weight of Wulfric''s words. The headmaster''s eyes were filled with a deep sadness, not just for the destruction unfolding but for the lost potential of a student he had once seen so much promise in. Wulfric was one of the few who didn''t me the Dark Lord entirely for what he had be. Instead, he med Skyhall for the atrocities theymitted against Michael when he was just a few minutes old, setting him on a path of darkness and vengeance.
Outside the castle, the demons tore through the angels, who fought back with spells of ice and fire. The air was thick with the smell of blood and magic as cannon fire from Nithroel''s warship added to the chaos, creating explosions that rocked the very foundation of Mazeroth Academy.
In the midst of this turmoil, Wulfric sensed a breach in the castle''s defense shield. He turned to see a small hole being opened through the shield. With a wave of his hand, he observed Elidyr and his team slipping through the gap, their movements precise and coordinated.
"This is far from over,"Wulfric sighed deeply, feeling the weight of the situation pressing down on him.
"Lane, take the others and fend them off," Wulfric ordered, his voice steady.
Wasting no time, Lane nodded before leaving the room with the other professors. Their robes billowed as they hurried out of the room, ready to defend the academy against the intruders.
As they left, Wulfric turned to face his white dragon, Azura, whoy coiled in the corner. Her scales gleamed in the dim light, and her wise eyes locked onto his.
"Your voicecks the conviction it once held, Wulfric," Azura said softly.
"The good always triumphs over the bad, Azura. Despite what everyone thinks, the Dark Lord is the good, and Skyhall is the bad," Wulfric sighed, a weary smile ying on his lips.
"You truly believe that, don''t you?" Azura tilted her head.
"I do," Wulfric replied. "He was just a child, an innocent when Skyhall condemned him. They are the architects of their own downfall. It''s just a matter of time before the truth isid bare for all to see."
He nced out the window, watching the battle rage on. The sky was filled with dark clouds, and despite the chaos, Wulfric felt a strange sense of calm. He believed in the potential for redemption, even in the darkest of hearts.
"Let''s hope that belief is enough," Azura murmured. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"It has to be, Azura. It has to be,"
But then the mirror in the office room trembled, catching Wulfric''s attention. He turned around, his expression shifting from calm to one of resigned eptance. He sighed and walked toward the mirror, knowing who awaited him on the other side.
On the reflective surface, a woman appeared. She was fair-skinned with jet-ck hair neatly tied into a bun. She wore a traditional kimono, its intricate patterns shimmering in the dim light of the office.
This woman was none other than Qin Jiu herself.She was the one who had created the prophecy that had shaped so many lives. Known as the greatest runemaster of all time, she possessed an unparalleled knowledge of magic and time. She had traveled back and forth through time, glimpsing a future shrouded in darkness. It was this vision that had driven her to create the prophecy meant to stop the Dark Lord and to establish the Skyhall as a means to that end.
"Qin Jiu," Wulfric greeted her with a nod.
But Qin Jiu looked as though she was about to explode. Even through her astral form, she could feel the sheer destruction and death around the castle. This ce, Mazeroth, was not an academy for her, it was something she and her friend poured their hearts and minds into when creating it. Each and every brick in the castle had their passion and hard work engraved in. However, at that moment, everything else paled inparison to the Dark Lord and the threat he posed.
"What is happening out there, Wulfric?" Qin Jiu looked both angry and sad as she demanded.
Wulfric met her gaze calmly and his eyes betrayed the respect he had for her but he didn''t shy away from pointing out the role she had yed in the current events. "Qin Jiu, the Dark Lord has returned with a vengeance, and the Skyhall is facing its reckoning. Your prophecy and the creation of the Skyhall set all of this into motion,"
"This is what I foresaw, Wulfric! The darkness that now envelops our world. Even the realm of the gods feels the void left by Noah''s death." Qin Jiu''s eyes red with a mix of emotions.
"I saw this future, a world consumed by darkness, and it''s unfolding just as I predicted. The death of Noah has shifted the bnce, affecting both the mortal realm and the realm of the gods. The darkness is spreading, and it''s only a matter of time before it consumes everything." Her voice trembled with the weight of her visions. "And yet, despite all your efforts to prevent it, we are here, facing this darkness. The Dark Lord is not just an enemy; he is a consequence of actions taken by the Skyhall, actions taken to prevent this very oue. We need to find another way, Qin Jiu. This endless cycle of prophecy and violence must end." Wulfric sighed. Hearing Wulfric''s words, Qin Jiu''s eyes reddened with pure anger.
"How could you let this happen, Wulfric? You were supposed to protect the bnce, to stop the Dark Lord from ever rising again!"
But Wulfric didn''t respond immediately nor he lost his calm. He knew that somewhere along the road, Qin Jiu''s fear and her intentions to protect the mortal realm had caused her to lose her way. She had prioritized stopping the Dark Lord at all costs, rather than trying to find another path. Taking a child from his mother, imprisoning him before he even had a chance to live, these were sins no one shouldmit.
"Qin Jiu," Wulfric finally broke the silence.
"we cannot keep making the same mistakes. We can''t justify our actions by hiding behind prophecies and fear,"
Yet Qin Jiu didn''t give a damn about what Wulfric thought. Her eyes zed with fury and determination. "You have to stop the Dark Lord from reaching the Skyhall. If he destroys it and takes back the Seeds of Darkness we have gathered, he will reach the next level of godhood. Do you understand what that means?"
Wulfric''s silence spoke volumes. He understood the gravity of the situation but also recognized the wed path they had taken to get here. "We can''t let him reach that power. Thest thing the realms need is more powerful Dark Lord. We need to act now!" Qin Jiu''s anger did not subside.
Although Wulfric knew the me could not be solely ced upon the Dark Lord''s shoulders, he understood that if the Dark Lord reached the next level of godhood¡ªthe Prime God level¡ªhe would be unimaginably powerful. The Prime God level was not just a title; it was a stage where gods truly began to grasp their potential.
"If the Dark Lord reaches the Prime God level and begins to cultivate worship energy, he could darken the sun itself in the realm of gods with a mere wave of his hand. And that would just be the beginning of his new powers," Qin Jiu exined, her voice trembling with fear.
"The Pantheon is not as united as it used to be, Wulfric. Andohr''s return has fractured them. The gods are fighting among themselves, too distracted to care about the Dark Lord. Sharks like Dagon are lurking in the shadows, ready to strike when the time is right. This is not just about the mortal realm anymore; it''s about the entire universe."
"I will do what I can," Wulfric nodded slowly, understanding the dire consequences if the Dark Lord seeded. "But we need to find a way that doesn''t repeat the same mistakes. We need to find a way that doesn''t perpetuate this cycle of vengeance and destruction."
"Just stop him from getting his Seeds of Darkness. They cannot be destroyed, so try to hide them from him. I cannot do anything stuck in this godforsaken realm of gods, Wulfric. You need to be my eyes and hands out there¡" Qin Jiu''s voice softened, revealing the desperation in her heart.
But as Wulfric was about to respond, he saw Qin Jiu''s body freeze as though she had sensed a dangerous threat.
"Wulfric, I need to go now¡ It''s Agra. He is here¡ Whatever happens, do not let the Dark Lord seed." With those parting words, her form in the mirror disappeared, leaving only ripples in the ss.
Chapter 1315 The Dragon Army
Chapter 1315 The Dragon Army
As the war raged around them, Michael told Harry everything that had led him to this moment¡ªfrom how Diana, his mother, was forced to give him up, to the Skyhall imprisoning him on Earth, leaving him oblivious to his true identity as a god. The more Harry listened, the more he realized that his father hadn''t chosen to be the Dark Lord; the world had made that choice for him, and he had simply embraced it for survival. Deep down, Harry wanted Michael to leave everything behind and live with him and his mother as a family, even though he knew how unlikely that dream was.
Just as Harry was about to ask his father about the chances of walking away from this life, he saw a Skyhall angel, driven by desperation and stupidity, lunging at the Dark Lord. Harry didn''t even have the chance to shout before the Dark Lord, his father, simply raised his finger and shot a lightning bolt, killing the Half-Immortal stage angel as if he were nothing. The Dark Lord''s power had risen to the point where he no longer needed an Immortal-killing weapon; he was a god, the God of Darkness, and his power was sufficient to kill not only Half-Immortals but even Celestial stage cultivators.
"Shit," Thrain muttered.
"I hope you got all the answers you needed, Harry," Michael asked, preparing to jump back into the battle.
Despite the ughter happening around Harry, he couldn''t feel any resentment or anger toward his father. He knew he was supposed to seek justice, but after hearing the full story about the Skyhall, he couldn''t me his father. A significant reason for this was Lah. Although the entire world painted the Dark Lord as evil, Harry remembered his mother telling him that his father was a good man in a bad situation. Even when Harry confronted her about his father being the Dark Lord, Lah never med him or vilified him. Instead, she always told Harry that the world was not ck and white.
But Harry had one more question that had kept him awake more nights than he cared to admit¡
"Father¡ When all of this is over¡ will you ept me and mother?" Harry asked, his eyes brimming with tears. When Michael heard Harry''s question, his heart softened. He felt a pang of pity and sadness for the young boy before him.
Taking a deep breath, Michael walked toward Harry. As he approached, Harry''s friends didn''t back away despite their fear, but instead formed a protective circle around him. Michael smiled at Harry''s friends, appreciative that unlike him, Harry had people who stood by him. He then knelt on one knee and looked Harry in the eyes. To Harry''s surprise, his father ced a hand on his shoulder, allowing the tears that had welled up in Harry''s eyes to trickle down his cheeks.
"I promise¡ I lost my family once, but I will never lose you and your mother¡ Once this is all over, we will all be a family. We will have our own happy ending, Harry," Michael said calmly, his tone firm. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
As they heard the uncharacteristic softness in the Dark Lord''s voice, Harry''s friends rxed slightly, sensing no deceit in Michael''s words.
"Would you really do that for us?" Harry asked, his voice trembling.
"Yes," Michael assured him. Before he could say more, Harry lunged forward and hugged Michael tightly. Michael, taken aback by the gesture, returned the embrace warmly. After enduring so much loss¡ªEve''s death, the killing of his own brother, witnessing his mother taken away, and watching his world plunge into darkness¡ªHarry''s hug melted some of the hardness that had settled around his heart. As Michael hugged Harry, Nithroel''s voice sounded in his head, tinged with concern. "Dark Lord,e to me. I''ve sensed some space distortion in the Akn realm. It seems like a portal is opening."
Realizing the urgency in Nithroel''s voice, Michael gently withdrew from Harry''s embrace and looked at his friends. "Take care of him," he said simply, before turning to Harry. "You have good friends. The Mazeroth Academy will still be here even after I''m done with the Skyhall."
Before they could respond, Michael shot toward the sky, his dark aura trailing behind him as he flew straight to Nithroel''s ship.
As Michael reached inside the ship, he found Nithroel standing in the war room, pointing at several rune-engraved mirrors that lined the walls. The mirrors reflected an eerie golden flicker.
"This is a portal gateway about to be opened. We need to be ready," Nithroel grimly exined. But to their shock, another golden dot appeared on the mirrors. "Another portal is opening, Your Highness!" An elf beside her, eyes wide with rm, eximed.
Nithroel frowned deeply, and Michael realized the gravity of the situation. More golden dots began appearing rapidly. Before they could fully grasp what was happening, yet another dot appeared, then another, and another. "What the hell...," Michael muttered under his breath. Looking at the numerous blips, Nithroel frowned because she felt that the battle was one-sided and Skyhall would not let them win easily. Every fiber in her body screamed, indicating the uing danger. Even the demons seemed to sense the danger and halted their battle with the Skyhall angels.
"If they''re opening this many portals, it means they''re bringing in armies. But not just through one portal. They must be bringing something through these portals and forming an army." Nithroel said, turning toward Michael.
For a few moments, no one spoke as they all stared at the blips in the mirror while some looked at the dark sky through the windows. Then, the silence was broken by a shout.
"Look there!" An elf suddenly shouted, pointing out the window at the dark sky. When Michael turned toward the mirror, he saw a massive winged beast emerging from one of the portals. As it came into focus, he saw it was a dragon. Its scales glistened like molten gold, and its eyes burned with a fierce light. More and more dragons, varying in colors from deep crimson to icy blue and sizes ranging from colossal to gigantic, flew through each portal, their roars echoing through the skies.
"Dragons¡They''re bringing dragons," Nithroel said.
The dragons were enormous, dwarfing even the demons who, until now, had seemed like the titans of the battlefield. One colossal red dragon, its scales a deep, fiery hue that glowed against the dark backdrop of the sky, opened its massive jaws and swallowed a demon whole in a swift, fluid motion that left onlookers stunned.
Michael''s frown deepened as he witnessed the dragons'' disy of power. He had heard tales of dragons, a powerful race thought to have vanished from the mortal realm, with only a few remaining hidden in seclusion. Yet here they were, not just a solitary dragon but an entire army, their coordination and tactical prowess evident as they soared through the dark sky. They moved with terrifying precision, unleashing streams of fire that lit up the skies and synchronized their movements as if they were a single entity.
This was the first time Michael had seen such a force, and the realization that they were facing a well-organized dragon army sent a chill down his spine. "So the dragons didn''t go extinct but were living in another ne under Skyhall''s watch. Interesting," Nithroel''s voice was low but carried a note of revtion.
Despite the valiant and strategic efforts of the demons, they were outmatched. The dragon mes burned through their regenerative abilities faster than they could heal, and some of therger dragons simply swallowed them whole. Realizing the futility of their current strategy and witnessing the rapid demise of his demon forces, Michael immediately called them back to regroup and strategize further.
As he prepared to join the fray himself, Michael cracked his neck, a gesture that signaled his readiness to confront whatever challengesy ahead. Observing the unfolding chaos, Nithroel added a crucial piece of information. "These dragons don''t seem to be controlled. Else, I could have felt it. They are defending Skyhall on their own volition, so be careful,"
She then turned her attention to coordinating their forces. "I willmunicate with Elidyr and his team to adjust our tactics,"
As Michael lunged out of the ship, the demons who survived the dragons'' assault formed a formation behind him, signaling that only the Dark Lord could take on the dragons. The dragons, sensing the power emanating from Michael, hovered in the sky withoutunching an attack. These dragons were not only extremely intelligent and powerful,parable to the demons in might, but also ancient and alive, likely at the Celestial or Half Celestial stage.
However, to Michael''s shock, a colossal shadow appeared in the clouds above him. Although not easily intimidated, Michael felt a chill as he saw the size of what appeared to be a dragon, almost on par with Mugashuku¡ªor perhaps evenrger. But what truly unnerved him was not just the size but the type of power he felt emanating from the shadow. It wasn''t the cultivator power of the mortal realm; it was akin to the Celestial energy radiation he had felt from powerful beings in the realm of gods.
"Fucking hell, what the hell ising?" Michael muttered, his gaze fixed upwards, trying to determine the nature of this new enemy.
Chapter 1316 Azurith, The King Of Dragons
Chapter 1316 Azurith, The King Of Dragons
The colossal dragon''s eyes, glowing red, pierced through the darkness of the sky, each glowing orb asrge as a brigantine ship. Even the hardened warriors on Nithroel''s ship felt a deep, unsettling fear as they watched the spectacle unfold.
"Shit, what is that?" one of the elves in Nithroel''s ship eximed, staring wide-eyed at the sky.
"Are those eyes? They''re massive!" another shouted, the terror evident in his voice as he gaped at the colossal figure emerging through the clouds.
As the giant shadow became more discernible, the other dragons in the sky began to shift, gracefully gliding away to clear a vast space in the skies. It was as if they were showing reverence or perhaps fear, making way for something far more powerful than themselves.
Michael watched with a frown as the mammoth dragon descended, its sheer size and the power it radiated making it clear this was no ordinary beast. Even from a distance, the energy it exuded was overwhelming. But Michael felt a chill when he received the system notification.
[Warning!]
[The system has detected the aura of an ancient beast!]
[Caution is advised as the approaching dragon is identified as an ancient beast!]
Michael''s vision blurred with the flurry of red notifications. The simple fact that the colossal dragon, now slowly descending through the clouds, was not just any dragon but an ancient beast, sent shivers down his spine. However, the only silver lining was that none of the notifications advised Michael to flee, indicating he still had a chance of winning.
As the shadow grew darker andrger, Michael shrugged off the unease, the soft click of sword sheathes sounding from his armor. Then, the two dark swords emerged, and Michael unsheathed them.
Finally, as the clouds evaporated due to the dragon''s heat radiation and the temperature rose several degrees, they all saw the dragon with their own eyes, the ancient beast in its full glory.
The dragon that emerged from the dissipating clouds was a behemoth, its presencemanding the sky. Its scales shimmered with a deep, reddish-brown hue, each one asrge as a shield, armored and edged like jagged mountain rock. Its eyes, glowing fiercely red, pierced through the dim sky, radiating a malevolent intelligence.
As it descended, the dragon''s expansive and powerful massive wings beat with such force that the air seemed to shudder. mes danced along the edges of its mouth, casting a sinister glow that highlighted its rows of razor-sharp teeth, each as long as a sword.
"By the stars, look at the size of that beast!" gasped an elf from the deck of Nithroel''s ship,
"Those scales... they''re like iron tes. How do we even begin to fight something like that?" Another, clutching his weapon tightly, muttered in awe and fear.
As the dragon roared, a sound that echoed like thunder across the battlefield, even the bravest souls among them felt a tremor of fear. Its tail, thick and powerful as a battering ram, swept through the air with an effortless grace that belied its destructive potential.
"So, you''re the terror they''ve hidden away. Let''s see if you''re as tough as you look," he said under his breath while his hold on the swords tightened. And when the elves in the ship thought the situation could not get any worse, the dragon raised its colossal head slightly as the ominous glow building in its throat signaled an impending disaster. With a guttural roar that shook the heavens, it unleashed a stream of mes that cut through the sky like a molten river. The fiery onught sped toward Nithroel''s ship with a terrifying ferocity.
Panic ensued Inside the ship as Nithroel made the split-second decision to abandon the ship because she could tell that there was no saving from the dragon. "Evacuate immediately! Use the emergency portals, now!" Her crew scrambled, their faces etched with fear as they rushed to activate the shimmering portals that flickered into existence throughout the vessel.
Just as the dragon''s mes reached the ship, a translucent energy shield sprang up around it, glowing briefly under the intense heat. For a precious few seconds, it held the inferno at bay, a testament to its strength that had withstood attacks from Celestial and Half-Celestial cultivators in past battles. However, the dragon''s fire proved too potent, and the shield shattered spectacrly, its fragments dissipating into the air like ss under a hammer''s blow.
The ship had no chance to recover¡It was engulfed by the relentless mes and turned to ash before it could even begin to fall from the sky. The sight of such a powerful vessel disintegrating in mere momentsid bare the dragon''s fearsome power. Below, onlookers could only stare in horror as thest remnants of the ship vanished, leaving behind a trail of smoke and a stark reminder of the dragon''s power.
On the other hand, Michael, who had used shadow teleportation to escape the mes, reappeared away from the dark cloud of ashes where Nithroel''s formidable ship had just hovered. It seemed surreal to many Skyhall angels and Mazeroth students; one moment, the ship loomed in the sky like an indomitable beast, and the next, it was reduced to a cloud of ash by the dragon''s breath.
"Holy fucking shit," Thrain muttered, his voice a mix of awe and fear. They all felt a stroke of luck that they had managed to convince Harry to return to the castle instead of following his father into the battle. If not, they might have been engulfed by those devastating mes.
Silence hung heavy for a few moments, with many eyes fixed on the dragon, while others scanned the dark sky in search of the Dark Lord. Harry was the first to spot the vague outline of his father, who was hovering far from the smoldering ash and the dragon''s fiery path. However, a chill ran down his spine as the dragon turned its head, its piercing gaze locking with Michael''s in the darkened sky.
"Looks like I''ve got myself a real fucking battle on my hands," Michael cracked a grin with a devil-may-care swagger.
But unexpectedly, a pulsating energy burst forth, clearing the cloud of ash with a powerful shock wave that sent the nearby Skyhall angels scattering in disarray. As the dust settled and visibility returned, Michael''s eyes widened in surprise, not only at the clearing sky but at the figure who now dominated the scene.
It was Nithroel, but not as he hadst seen her. Gone were her elegant blue dress and flowing golden locks, reced by gleaming silver armor that hugged her perfect frame. In one hand, she wielded a long silver bow, and a quiver bristling with arrows was strapped to her back. Her hair was pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail, and her demeanor had shifted from regal empress to the ferocious Goddess of the Hunt she truly was.
"Well, seems like the empress is pissed at the dragon," Michaelmented, a smirk ying across his lips as he observed Nithroel''s fiery demeanor. He remembered the proud look in her eyes when she gave him a tour of her warship, and now that it was destroyed, her fury seemed as palpable as the heat from the dragon''s breath. Michael was relieved to sense the ship''s emergency teleportation protocols activate just in time, whisking away not only the elves but also his demons, sparing them from the devastating inferno.
The dragon, massive and imposing, regarded them both with an amused, almost arrogant look in its fiery eyes. As Nithroel flew up to his side, hovering with the grace of a seasoned warrior, Michael turned to her with a light chuckle.
"So, how do we deal with this overgrown lizard?" he asked with a hint of dry humor in his voice. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"And don''t tell me you don''t know how to hunt this, Goddess of the Hunt,"
Nithroel''s brow furrowed as she studied the colossal dragon before them. As the Goddess of the Hunt, she had faced and hunted countless creatures and beasts, including a few ancient beasts. Her prowess and the kills made her the Goddess of Hunt, but the ancient beasts were notoriously dangerous adversaries; even gods of high levels often avoided direct confrontations with them. Despite her storied past, she nowcked the peak powers and resources she once wielded in the realm of gods. ying a dragon of this magnitude was an impossible task under these constraints.
Nevertheless, Nithroel''s gaze didn''t waver with fear; instead, it sparkled with the cunning and determination that had once made her one of the most powerful gods. She knew that while outright killing the dragon might not be feasible, she still possessed enough tactical acumen and knowledge to potentially turn the tide in their favor.
"I have a n," Nithroel stated confidently.
But when Nithroel was about to share her ns, the dragon caught both off guard by speaking to them.
"God of Darkness and The Goddess of Hunt¡What a unique sight to behold¡" The dragon''s voice was so deep and ancient that made the very air tremble. For a few moments, Michael and Nithroel didn''t respond. But the gears in Michael''s head began to turn. If he could talk to the dragon, he could drag this long enough for Nithroel and him toe up with a n, and if he yed his cards right, he could even reveal a few cracks in the dragon''s armor both figuratively and literally.
"You want to talk¡Let''s talk¡" Michael calmly said.
"But it seems only fair that you tell us who you are or atleast your name, after all, we cannot address you as dragon, right?" Michael calmly asked.
"You may address me as Azurith, the King of Dragons¡" the dragon rumbled, marking the return of the dragons to the mortal realm.
Chapter 1317 The Dark Lord vs The Dragon Army I
Chapter 1317 The Dark Lord vs The Dragon Army I
As soon as the dragon spoke its name, it triggered a memory in Nithroel''s mind. She had heard the name Azurith before, long ago during a visit to the mortal realm, before the previous Dark Lord erected a barrier between the realm of gods and the mortal world. Back then, the name Azurith was whispered among the Dragon n and the beastmen. She vividly remembered how Edros, the Beast King who led the beastmen against the dragons in a great war, prayed to her, the Goddess of Hunt, for aid in hunting Azurith.
But after Edros lost the war and the dragon n vanished from the treacherous ocean, the name Azurith had not crossed her ears until now.
"Azurith¡" Nithroel murmured, her voice barely audible, filled with the weight of familiarity and a hint of a forgotten past. Seeing her reaction, Michael could tell that she was more than just familiar with the name. However, for him, Azurith''s intentions and goals, shrouded in mystery, were more pressing than his identity.
"Tell me, Azurith, are you here to protect Skyhall?" Michael asked calmly, his voice steady despite the dragon''s terrifying size and power. Being a god, Michael sensed that defeating Azurith, surrounded by a yellow aura, was not impossible. Yet, he knew the battle would not be straightforward. Something told him the dragon was as cunning as it was powerful.
"The dragon n serves no one, God of Darkness¡ We serve ourselves. Skyhall is merely our ally¡and we have a debt to settle with them," Azurith responded with cold detachment, revealing no loyalty to Skyhall, which somewhat relieved Michael.
"How do you n to settle this debt?" Michael probed further, maintaining hisposure.
Azurith paused, his silence stretching a few tense moments as Nithroel scanned the skies, calcting their chances. Defeating Azurith might be challenging, but exterminating the rest of the dragons with theirbined might seem feasible.
"We are tasked with stopping you from reaching Skyhall, Dark Lord," Azurith finally dered, his voice imbued with arrogance and draconic pride.
"Don''t be a fool, Azurith¡ You cannot kill two gods without suffering significant losses to your dragon army," Michael said, his voice echoing as he cracked his neck. The surrounding dark sky darkened even further, amplifying the sheer power emanating from Michael, which both the dragons and Azurith could feel intensifying around them.
With no light to counterbnce the God of Darkness''s power, Azurith realized that Michael''s strength had been enhanced manifold.
"Your size and power might protect you, but you can''t save your dragons¡" Michael warned, allowing his words to linger menacingly in the air. Azurith, stung by the threat to his pride, responded impulsively. As a king, he could not tolerate being threatened, even by a god.
The next moment, Azurith opened his massive jaws, but instead of a stream of mes, a powerful shock wave erupted. Instantly, Nithroel and Michael were hurled backward. The force was so sudden that Michael didn''t have time to cast his Silenes spell. They were flung back like kites in a storm, tumbling uncontrobly for almost fifty meters before regaining theirposure.
"That was just a taste of his power," Nithroel stated, gripping her bow tighter.
"My dragons, rip him apart and show that even gods are not invincible to our wrath," Azurithmanded his dragon army. As he spoke, Michael noticed a brief glow in the eyes of all the dragons. Utilizing his X-ray vision, he observed Azurith''s power being distributed to every dragon in the vicinity. Surprisingly and uniquely, although each individual dragon radiated a thicker yellow aura, whenbined, their collective aura turned red, signaling that the dragons, as a unified entity, would be more challenging to defeat. This revtion confirmed Michael''s suspicions about Azurith''s strength. Azurith was a king, and his true powery not only in his draconic abilities but in hismand over and the sharing of his strength among his subjects¡ªin this case, the dragons.
"Be careful. I''ve heard about his powers. The dragons under hismand share a telepathic connection, making them act and fight as a single powerful entity... There''s no weak link in the dragon army when their kingmands them," Nithroel said, nocking an arrow on her bow.
"The telepathic link, huh..." Michael murmured, his lips curling into a smirk.
"System, scan the dragons and find a way to sever their link. Let''s show this overgrown lizard why it''s in his best interest to back the fuck off from my path," Michaelmanded the system in his mind, ready to disrupt the dragon''s unity. [The system requires three million Badass points toplete the task]
"Do it," Michael said quickly.
On the other hand, Azurith did not give the two gods time to react and strategize; instead, he ordered his dragon army to press the attack.
"Watch closely, gods, as my dragons unleash their wrath!" Azurith''s voice boomed across the skies, echoing with draconic pride and menace.
In unison, the dragons inhaled deeply, the air around them vibrating with the gathering power. The skies darkened further as each dragon expelled a torrent of mes, their breaths a mosaic of colors¡ªcrimson, azure, and emerald, each reflecting the dragons'' unique abilities. Thebined force created a spectacle of a firestorm, weaving together into a massive inferno that surged toward Michael and Nithroel.
"Take cover!" Nithroel shouted, her voice nearly drowned out by the roar of the mes. She loosed her arrow, infused with celestial energy, into the heart of the inferno, hoping to disrupt the attack.
"Damn, that''s hot," Michael grunted, feeling the heat lick at his armor. He nced at Nithroel, who was already drawing her bow, her eyes narrowed in concentration.
"Let''s cool them down a bit, shall we?" Nithroel suggested, releasing an arrow imbued with frost energy towards the nearest dragon.
The arrow sliced through the heated air, leaving a trail of frost in its wake before striking a dragon. The impact created a burst of ice, momentarily encasing the creature''s head in a cold prison, stifling its fire.
As the dragons regrouped, Michael focused on disrupting their unity.
"System, any progress on breaking that link?" he muttered under his breath, ready for the next wave of attacks.
[They system requires five more minutes toplete scanning..,] The system informed him as Michael dodged another dragon breath.
Under the dragon attack, Michael darted through the air with shadow teleportation, each flicker of his movement just a blur to the onlookers below. He vanished and reappeared in rapid session, avoiding the relentless streams of dragon breath that painted the sky with a terrifying palette of destructive energies.
Meanwhile, Nithroel demonstrated why she was revered as the Goddess of Hunt. Her movements were a graceful disy of deadly precision. Each arrow she nocked and released was imbued with various elemental powers. It struck the dragons with such force and uracy that it briefly staggered them, disrupting their coordinated assault.
The dragons, under Azurith''s telepathicmand, adapted quickly, showcasing their intelligence and ancient powers. They unleashed more than just fiery breath as bolts of lightning, shards of ice, and gusts of wind came from their maws and wings, creating a chaotic storm of elemental fury around them. Their attacks were not just raw power but strategically aimed to counteract Nithroel''s arrows and Michael''s teleportation tactics.
Observing the battle from above, Azurith directed his dragons with a precision that spoke of centuries ofmand and leading them. "Bind them, my dragons!!" his voice thundered across the battlefield.
Finally, Michael had enough of these stupid fireworks and decided to show the dragons what he was capable of. He immediately activated "Death''s Range," which almostpletely turned the already dark surroundings into pitch ck, swallowing the dim light from the dragon mes and their lightning bolts.
In the engulfing darkness, even Nithroel lost her sight and found it impossible to see through the thick obscurity. Amidst this void, Michael moved as if he were omnipresent, traversing the darkness with unnerving ease.
Azurith, amidst hismand, suddenly felt a pain akin to a small bite, but a significant bite nheless. With a jolt of terror, he realized that one of his dragons had been in. Thanks to her eyes finally adjusting to the darkness, Nithroel vaguely saw the terrifying sight of the Dark Lord chopping off a dragon''s head with sheer brutality. His dark swords, though not slicing through smoothly due to the dragon scales, were still powerful enough to sever the dragon''s head, leaving a gruesome sight in the darkness.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a dragonr. The reward is 10,000 Experience points and 40,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points] ¡
From the thick darkness surrounding the headless dragon, Michael threw the severed head to Azurith. The sight of him casually throwing a giant dragon head impressed Nithroel. If he wasn''tmitted to Gaya, Nithroel would have definitely gone for his heart because it was so hard to resist feeling a pull toward him when he was performing such feats with such badassness.
Failing to notice Nithroel''s look on him, Michael locked his gaze with Azurith.
"You are standing in my way, dragon¡ It''s a mistake that will cost you dearly the longer you stand in my way," Michael coldly said.
"Killing one dragon in my army doesn''t change anything, God of Darkness," n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
[The system will finish scanning the telepathic link in two minutes¡] The system informed Michael as he smiled.
"I am going to make you eat your words, Azurith," Michael said with a smirk, showing Nithroel that the God of Darkness might have a n to turn the tides.
Chapter 1318 The Dark Lord vs The Dragon Army II
1318 The Dark Lord vs The Dragon Army II
Once the two-minute countdown from the system began, Michael knew he had to face the dragons. Rather than feeling fear, he felt exhrated. The darkness around him significantly boosted his power, confirming the gods'' words from the realm of gods that darkness in the mortal realm enhanced the Dark Lord''s power.
However, Azurith was no fool either. Recognizing that defeating the Dark Lord would be challenging as long as the darkness surrounded the Dark Lord, Azurith opened his mouth wide, absorbing the darkness by drawing it into his mouth. Michael and Nithroel were slightly caught off guard when they saw the darkness slowly being sucked into Azurith''s mouth.
"Intriguing," Michael muttered. He hadn''t expected the usually intangible darkness to be tangible under the ancient beast''s power and be absorbed into its vast jaws.
As the darkness was drawn away, the other dragons circled Michael, unleashing fire from above. Various colors of mes, from red to blue, erupted from their mouths, forming a giant mentern above him. Despite Noah''s death and its effects on light, the dragon mes were so intense they managed to illuminate the area around Michael.
The intensity of the heat and light momentarily faltered Michael''s power. Seizing this opportunity, several dragons lunged at him with their jaws wide open, aiming to bite and tear at his body. These dragons knew they couldn''t kill a god permanently but understood that if they destroyed his physical form, his soul would be much less powerful on its own.
Destroying a god''s body was no simple feat, yet these dragons, with theirbined might and the enhanced power from Azurith, believed they could achieve it. After all, there was a reason why gods generally avoided shing with ancient beasts.
On the other hand, seeing the dragons focusing solely on the Dark Lord, Nithroel was beyond frustrated. She was the Goddess of Hunt, damn it, and she would not be ignored by a bunch of overgrown lizards. Determined to remind them who she was, Nithroel decided it was time to show why the creatures and beasts of the realm of gods had once feared her.
"I''m the Goddess of Hunt!" Nithroel eximed fiercely, her voice echoing through the chaos of battle.
Harnessing her immense power, Nithroel drew her bow with supernatural speed. Her movements were a blur as she notched multiple arrows simultaneously, each one shimmering with silver celestial energy. She released the arrows in rapid session, each aimed with precise lethality.
The arrows whistled through the air, targeting the weak spots of the dragons¡ªspecifically their eyes, the only spots vulnerable enough for her arrows to prate. The scales were indeed tough, but Nithroel knew exactly where to strike. The first arrow struck true, burying itself deeply into the eye of one dragon. It roared in agony but did not fall; it would take more than a single shot to bring down such a beast.
"Not so tough now, are you?" Nithroel taunted as she leaped into the air with grace, closing the distance between her and the wounded dragon.
Landing on the dragon''s head, she drew another arrow, this time using it like a dagger to stab repeatedly at the same injured eye, each strike fueled by her godly wrath. The dragon thrashed wildly, trying to dislodge her, but she held firm, her grip unyielding.
After several brutal stabs, the dragon''s movements slowed, and with one final, powerful thrust, Nithroel pierced through the brain, causing the beast to go limp beneath her. She leapt off gracefully as the massive body began to fall from the sky.
With two dragons approaching her, Nithroel adapted her tactics as the creatures, learning from their fallen kin, tightly shut their eyes and relied on other senses to maneuver. Undeterred, Nithroel imbued her arrows with elemental power, each one crackling with explosive energy.
She unleashed a torrent of arrows, each infused with a different elemental force¡ªfire, ice, and lightning. The first arrow erupted in a ze upon contact, creating a massive explosion that seared the scales of the nearest dragon. It roared in pain, thrashing wildly in the air. Nithroel didn''t hesitate; she swiftly notched another arrow, this one shimmering with a frosty aura. It struck the same dragon, the cold energy bursting upon impact and freezing the damaged scales, causing them to crack and shatter.
As the dragon struggled to regain control, Nithroel delivered the final blow with a lightning-imbued arrow. The electric charge surged through the dragon, overwhelming its nervous system. With a deafening roar, the dragon plummeted from the sky, crashing into the ground with earth-shattering force.
Turning to thest dragon, Nithroel repeated her elemental onught. The creature tried to dodge, but Nithroel''s godly precision and speed were unmatched. Shended arrow after arrow, each one a deadly ballet of elemental fury. The final dragon, overwhelmed by the relentless assault, finally sumbed, its body falling heavily to the ground.
Back at the castle, Harry and his friends watched in awe and horror. ra, who had read extensively about the Empress of Awor, whispered to her friends.
"I read she was the Goddess of Hunt, but I thought those were just rumors. Seeing this... it all makes sense now. Her power is beyond anything we''ve studied."
Michael, observing from a distance, couldn''t help but feel a surge of respect for Nithroel''s power. Even in the midst of chaos and without her peak power, she proved why she held such a revered title.
"Let''s see who dares to ignore me now," Nithroel dered, wiping dragon blood from her cheek.
While Nithroel was proving why she was the Goddess of Hunt, Michael continued to maneuver through the battlefield, evading another st of dragon me with his shadow teleportation. Finally, the system finished its scanning and its voice sounded in Michael''s head.
[The system haspleted the analysis. The telepathic link connecting the dragons operates through shared energy waves originating from Azurith]
"How do I disrupt these energy waves?" Michael queried the system on how to disrupt this link.
[To disrupt the telepathic link, a special sound emitter is required. This device can interfere with the energy wave frequencies. The cost is four million Badass points.]
Despite the steep price, Michael smirked at the potential strategic advantage this device offered. The system had once again provided a crucial piece of information that could turn the tide of the battle.
"System, purchase the emitter. Let''s fuck up this dragon unity," Michaelmanded in his head as a small smirk yed on his lips. The system didn''t need to ask twice as the required badass points were reduced from the system. As soon as the system took the points, a device materialized in Michael''s hand¡ªa sleek, dark, button-like device hummed with energy. When Michael activated it, a discordant, piercing sound wave burst forth, invisible yet powerful enough to slice through the air.
The moment Michael activated the device, the effect was immediate. The dragons, previously moving in perfect harmony, began to falter. Their synchronized attacks grew erratic, and their formations broke as the frequenciesing from the device muddled their telepathicmunications.
"That''s more like it," Michael smirked.
Michael couldn''t help but feel a rush of satisfaction seeing the confusion spreading among the dragons. The sound waves emitted from the device caused Azurith to flinch in pain, his massive frame shuddering as the harsh tones assaulted his senses. Around him, the dragons, once graceful and coordinated in their aerial maneuvers, began to falter. Their movements became erratic, some veering off course while others collided mid-air with their wingmates. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
From the safety of the castle grounds, Harry and his friends watched in disbelief as the once fearsome dragon army descended into chaos. "Look at them! They can''t fly straight anymore!" ra pointed upwards. Azurith roared with frustration, realizing the continued link was only adding to the confusion, causing his dragons to fly haphazardly and crash into one another. With a heavy heart and a roar that echoed through the skies, he severed the telepathic connection, immediately silencing the chaotic noise in his dragons'' minds.
As the connection snapped, the dragons regained their individual senses. They shook their massive heads as if waking from a daze and slowly began to stabilize their flight. However, the unity and the coordination they once disyed were noticeably diminished.
"Seems like you are more resourceful than I thought," Nithroel said, giving him a nod of approval.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 60,000 Badass points] ¡
With the connection to the dragons from Azurith severed, Michael observed the dragons'' auras shift back to yellow from thebined red.
"Interesting¡" Azurith didn''t show any anger but he just looked more like he was amused. Michael didn''t respond verbally but simply flicked his palm, integrating the small device seamlessly into apartment on his glove. He then fixed his gaze calmly on Azurith, both disying a mutual recognition of each other''s cunning.
"So, do you still want this fight to continue?" Michael asked, folding his arms. His cape billowed behind him in the air, giving him a menacing look.
"Let us settle this ourselves, God of Darkness. You and me¡if you can make me bleed before I rip you to shreds, I will leave you to your vengeance," Azurith calmly said.
"He is nning something, Dark Lord¡Don''t underestimate him," Nithroel warned Michael. But before Michael could respond, he felt his earpiece vibrate.
"Dark Lord, we might need your help¡We havepany¡It''s Wulfric and I don''t think we can take him on with all the other professors with him," said Elidyr as Michael could already hear the spells cracking through the ear piece.
"Hold them for a few minutes¡I''ll be there," Michael said as he prepared to face the King of Dragons and then¡Headmaster Wulfric and his professors.
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Chapter 1319 Battle inside the Mazeroth
1319 Battle inside the Mazeroth
A few minutes before Michael disrupted the dragon army, Elidyr was leading Lenora and a group of dark army soldiers into the courtyard after breaking through the barrier around the castle.
"Where the hell is everyone? No soldiers or guards?" Lenoramented, ncing around the eerily empty courtyard. The courtyard of Mazeroth was expansive, with ancient stone archways, lush greenwns, and cobblestone paths leading to various towers and buildings. Statues of past schrs and magical creatures dotted thendscape, giving it an air of history and mystery.
"This isn''t a stronghold of an army. It''s a ce of learning, an academy that nurtures students," Elidyr exined, his voice tinged with a hint of nostalgia.
"More like a factory producing brainwashed idiots loyal to Skyhall," Lenora snickered.
Elidyr couldn''t help but see the truth in her words. He knew that this ce was founded to nurture students and foster their growth. However, Skyhall had lost sight of the original purpose along the way. Their obsession and fear over the prophecy had twisted Mazeroth from an academy into a tool for their own ends. Ironically, their actions to avoid the prophecy had brought it upon them.
As they moved through the courtyard, Elidyr''s thoughts lingered on the bitter irony. The prophecy they tried so hard to evade was now their reality, a consequence of their own actions.
They soon entered the castle through arge, wooden door. The hallway inside was wide, with high ceilings supported by stone arches. Torches lined the walls, casting flickering light on the moving portraits that adorned them. The portraits depicted past headmasters, professors, and notable alumni, their painted figures animated and conversing with each other. The corridors had an air of age and wisdom, with polished stone floors that echoed their footsteps as Lenora followed Elidyr with her eyes scanning the moving portraits. Some of the figures turned to watch them, whispering among themselves.
"Hey there, what''s your business here?" one of the portraits asked, a stern-looking wizard with a long, flowing beard.
"Look who we have here, a vampire in our hallowed halls!" one portrait sneered.
"An elder vampire, no less," another gasped, causing a ripple of shocked murmurs among the painted figures.
"Yeah, it''s me. Got a problem with that, you bunch of old farts?" Lenora snickered.
Elidyr couldn''t help but smirk at her response. They continued walking, the dark army soldiers close behind with their hands on their swords and weapons, ready to cast spells at a moment''s notice.
11:49
"Do you even know where you''re going, Elidyr, or are you just winging it?" Lenora asked, ncing sideways at him. As they were walking through the corridor, Elidyr felt a pang of nostalgia, and memories flooded back. He remembered running through these corridors as a student, causing mischief and exploring every nook and cranny.
"This ce hasn''t changed a bit¡ It''s beautiful," he mumbled with a mix of emotions like sadness, longing, and regret.
Hearing Elidyr, Lenora was taken aback by the sudden disy of sentiment. She had always known Elidyr as the grumpy, stoic runemaster, never showing much emotion. Seeing this side of him made her realize how special Mazeroth was to him.
"If even our always grumpy half-elf runemaster feels like this about this ce, it must be truly special," she thought.
As they walked forward, the dark army soldiers remained vignt, mentally preparing themselves for any trouble. Lenora couldn''t shake the feeling that this was too easy, too quiet. She nced out a nearby window and saw the Dark Lord flying around, evading dragons, with Nithroel killing dragons with surprising brutality and show of power.
"I wish I was out there fighting dragons instead of sneaking around like a fucking thief," Lenora muttered.
"Don''t worry, Lenora. You might get your fight soon enough¡"Elidyr gave her a sideways nce and a wry smile.
A portrait of a youngdy screamed, her painted eyes wide with fear and urgency. "The professors areing to deal with you! Run while you can!" she shouted, her voice echoing through the grand hallway.
Lenora''s senses tingled as she detected several beings rapidly approaching. She turned just in time to see a stern-lookingdy in a green robe, her hair pulled back into a tight bun. Beside her walked a ck-robed man with flowing hair and piercing eyes. There was something about him, those eyes¡ªthey reminded Lenora of someone. It took her only a few seconds to connect the dots.
"Lane Voldiguard," she muttered under her breath, realizing he might be Eve Voldiguard''s uncle.
Seeing the two professors leading a group of soldiers and more people who seemed like professors, Elidyr halted his steps. The tension in the air was palpable, the dark army soldiers tensing as they prepared for what wasing.
"Looks like we''ve gotpany," Elidyr said quietly as his eyes scanned the group before them. The green-robeddy, with her severe expression, and Lane, with his unsettlingly familiar eyes, stood at the forefront, ready to stop the intruders.
"This is no ce for the Dark Lord or his minions." Lane stepped forward and issued a warning even though he knew that they wouldn''t leave without a fight.
As Lane assessed the group before him, his gaze fixed on Lenora. Her pale skin, the overwhelming fragrance, and the dark lipstick immediately marked her as a vampire. The power radiating from her, the unmistakable aura of an Immortal stage cultivator, told him she was no mere vampire but an elder vampire. Lane had heard rumors about the elder vampires under the Dark Lord''smand, and now he was finally facing one.
"Leave now, or face the consequences," Professor Ka stepped forward, her hands glowing with Arch energ.
Lenora chuckled, showing no fear. She looked amused at the sight of their Half Immortal stage cultivation. When Michael was a student, they were all at Fusion stage level 10, but now, they had reached Half Immortal stage level 3, thanksrgely to the resources Skyhall provided to prepare them for this day.
"How about you all run away like little scaredy-cats and avoid the fucking bloodshed?" Lenora grinned menacingly, her canines elongating into sharp fangs. Her eyes glinted with a predatory gleam, clearly enjoying the tension and the fear she was instilling.
In response to her threat, Lane merely snickered with a cold smile ying on his lips, as he pulled out a small vial from his robes. The golden liquid inside shimmered ominously, casting an eerie glow in the dim light of the hallway.
Lenora''s eyes narrowed as she caught sight of the vial. An unsettling feeling gnawed at her. "What the hell is that?" she demanded.
On the other hand, Elidyr''s eyes widened as he recognized the potency and purity of the potion. He had spent enough time with the Dark Lord to know a poison when he saw one. Despite the golden color, he was certain this potion was nothing but poison. Before he could utter a word of warning, Lenora lunged at Lane, her speed a blur of motion.
With a calm demeanor, Lane simply threw the vial onto the ground. It shattered with a sharp crack, and a golden mist immediately erupted from it, enveloping them in a thick, swirling cloud. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Elidyr was momentarily blinded by the mist. He couldn''t see anything but heard Lenora coughing violently and cursing through the haze.
"Fuck! What is this shit?" Lenora''s voice was filled with anger and desperation. "You fucking bastard, I''ll rip you apart!"
"Goddamn it, I can''t see! Elidyr, what the hell is happening?" Her frustration and rage were palpable.
"Get ready to die, you son of a bitch!"She shouted while coughing frantically. Although the golden mist didn''t affect Eldiry and the soldiers like it did with Lenora, it still obstructed their eyesight. He could hear the soldiers and professors shuffling, preparing for an imminent sh. The golden mist seemed to cling to them, making the air heavy and difficult to breathe.
"This is not just any poison," Elidyr thought, trying to keep calm. "It''s designed to incapacitate you, Lenora. Get out of here," Elidyr warned as the dark army soldiers cast their spells.
The dark army soldiers, trained by Eve and Gaya, didn''t let fear cloud their minds. They calmly raised their hands, casting several spells that sent shock waves with force, clearing the mist. To their surprise, they saw Lenora stumbling, blood seeping from her nostrils and mouth, her face paler. She was weakened by the poison.
"Did you really think we haven''t dealt with elder vampires before?" Lane, looking at the stumbling vampire, said sternly.
"I''ll rip you apart," Lenora mumbled, but before she could say anything more, she fell unconscious.
"This is yourst warning. Leave or face the consequences," said headmistress Ka, this time in a louder and firmer voice.
Yet, Elidyr didn''t say a word but flicked his wrist, revealing several runes engraved on his body that glowed in a strange crimson red. He cast a spell, forming a lion made of pure energy and mes that shot out of his hands and lunged at the professors.
"Take cover!" Lane shouted, casting his own defense spell. A shimmering barrier formed in front of him, sparkling with blue and white energy, creating a shield that resembled a translucent dome. The lion of mes collided with the barrier, sending sparks and embers flying in all directions. Without giving the professors any time to retaliate, the dark army soldiers cast spell after spel as they conjured powerful bursts of energy. One soldier unleashed a spell that formed a whirlwind of scorching mes, spiraling through the hallway with a roar. Another created a wave of water that crashed against the professors'' defenses, sending ripples of energy through the walls.
Ka''s eyes gleamed with determination as she summoned ethereal swords, their des glowing with a brilliant blue light. She moved with grace and precision, parrying the soldiers'' attacks and striking back with swift, decisive blows.
"Hold the line!" she shouted.
"We can''t let them through!"
Meanwhile, Lane utilized his skills as a potion master to enhance his spells. He threw vials of glowing liquid onto the ground, which exploded into clouds of various effects. One vial released a mist that froze the ground, creating slick surfaces that caused the soldiers to stumble. Another emitted a blinding sh, temporarily disorienting the attackers.
"Stay sharp!" Lanemanded, tossing another vial that erupted into a wall of fire, blocking the path of the dark army soldiers.
As the battle progressed, the walls trembled as energy sts collided with defensive barriers. Chunks of stone were torn from the walls, and the air was thick with the scent of blood and the tang of magic.
"We need to end this soon. The poison will soon lose its effects on the Elder vampire. If she woke up, she will be immune to the poison for another hour. We cannot afford that," Lane said amidst the battle.
Ka, who just knocked out a dark army soldier with a blow to his face, looked at Lenora¡She could tell by the way the elder vampire was squirming that she would wake up soon.
"We need reinforcement. I hope the headmaster wille here sooner rather thanter,"
Chapter 1320 The Headmaster has arrived
1320 The Headmaster has arrived
As the battle continued, a new group rushed into the scene. They were not professors nor the ck-armored soldiers of the Dark Lord. These were young and burned with anger. They were none other than the graduated students of Mazeroth. If Michael were here, he would have immediately recognized them. The one who didn''t wear any shirt to cover his chiseled upper body, with long flowing ck hair and carrying a hammer, was Deacon Saunderus, the Four-Star cksmith. The young woman with matching ck hair and pure white robes was his fianc¨¦e, Bethany White, the Four-Star Runemaster. The young man with messy greasy purple hair, wearing a jacket that looked colorful enough to hurt eyes, was Diego Carter, the guy who had his ass kicked by Michael. Finally, the most handsome and smartest, who led them, was Elliot Watson, the former Head Prefect of Mazeroth and the decorated alumni of House Warrior.
Ignoring the youngsters, a veteran from the dark army lunged at Headmistress Ka Martin, who was fighting two Half-Immortal stage soldiers by herself. When the third one lunged at her, she knew defending alone would be difficult, let alone fighting back. Lane, on the other hand, was upied battling Elidyr. The battle between a Five-Star Alchemist and a Five-Star Runemaster was nothing short of spectacr.
Lane used various potions as bombs and drank potions that formed ayer of stone-like substance on his skin while the spells he cast received a temporary boost from the pills he took. Meanwhile, Elidyr used his proficiency in runes to fight back. He took out several metal cards, each with a rune engraved on it, and threw them. Each rune card exploded upon colliding with the floor, creating explosive spells and counteracting Lane''s potions and shielding the dark army from the attacks of the other professors.
At that moment, the dark army veteran reached Ka Martin with a curved sword in his hand. But before he could make contact, Elliot cast a spell that formed a circle in the air and soared straight through the dark army veteran.
"Get away from her!" Deacon shouted before throwing his sledgehammer at the veteran. Although the spell and sledgehammer couldn''t kill the veteran, it pushed him back, giving Ka Martin the opening. She immediately twirled her body in mid-air and fired a beam of blue light from her ethereal swords. The dark army soldiers who were engaged with her were sent flying as she leaped forward toward the veteran to knock him out.
"Secure the elder vampire," Lane ordered the graduates, sighing in relief when he saw them. He wasn''t one to show he cared for his students; in fact, he hated all of them, especially the Warrior and cksmith House students. But he was d they were here. Hearing Lane''s order, the graduates didn''t waste time. They moved toward Lenora.
"Protect her. Don''t let them take her away!" Elidyrmanded.
Hearing Elidyr''s order, the dark army soldiers switched from offense to defense. Immediately, they all cast the same shielding spell. This was no translucent shield spell, the famous and powerful shield spell most cultivators used. No, it was something much more powerful, a spell that requiredbined casting. The moment the four dark army soldiers began to cast, the ground beneath them trembled as a wall made of fire and lightning erupted before them. The moment the shield spell formed, the surrounding portraits protected by runes couldn''t remain untouched. They were scorched by the lightning and fire. Thebined might of the two elements raised the temperature around them and formed a barrier between Lenora and the graduates.
The appearance of the shield between the two sides halted the battle for a moment, giving both sides time to strategize.
"She cannot wake up. Where is the headmaster?" Ka asked the graduates.
"He sent us to help you," Bethany White said with a hint of nervousness in her voice.
Even as they spoke, the threat remained. If Lenora woke up, they would be in serious trouble. Lane knew the golden poison attack worked on her because the element of surprise was on his side, but it wouldn''t work a second time because her body would be immune to it for an hour, and she would be prepared for this attack.
"And where, pray tell, is the headmaster? If she wakes up, we''re all dead," Lane said with bitterness. They all knew he was right, but they didn''t know what to do. Prating through the shield was an option, but it was no simple matter considering four Half Immortals were casting the spell. Even if they could, it would take time, and by then, Lenora might wake up.
On the other side of the barrier, Elidyr knelt beside Lenora and checked her pulse. He had never expected Lane to knock out an elder vampire, and he finally understood why the Dark Lord considered Lane his mentor in alchemy.
"Lord Elidyr, what should we do?" one of the dark army soldiers asked, his face etched with concern and exhaustion from all the fighting and spell casting.
"We push forward. No matter what, we must take the gateway to Skyhall. The Dark Lord is counting on us," Elidyr said, ncing through a broken hole in the wall to see the Dark Lord fighting the dragons.
"I have a n," Elliot announced, looking at the professors and his friends.
"Right below us is the training hall¡ There''s a cage we used to capture beasts¡ if we could lock her in that, it might buy us some time until the headmaster arrives to deal with them," Elliot exined, looking at the others for their thoughts.
"A hail Mary," Lane muttered with a mix of skepticism and resignation, yet deep down, he knew they had no other options.
"But the stairs, they''re on the other side. We can''t just walk through this damn barrier," Diego Carter, who harbored resentment toward Elliot and Deacon, was quick to point out the ws in Elliot''s n. But Deacon understood Elliot''s n, his slow grin spreading across his face.
"The hall is right below us, and we don''t need stairs to get down there," Deacon said as he gripped his sledgehammer tightly.
Instead of giving the rest the time to react or disagree with his n, Deacon positioned himself squarely in the center of the group. "Hold tight, everyone," hemanded, his voice echoing slightly in the tension-filled hallway. He raised his sledgehammer high above his head, the runes etched into its surface beginning to glow with a fierce, bright light.
With a determined grunt, Deacon brought the hammer down with monumental force. The impact resonated through the hall, sending awork of cracks spider-webbing across the floor beneath their feet. Lane watched with a grim expression, disliking the n but acknowledging theirck of options.
On the other side of the barrier, Elidyr''s expression turned to one of concern as he felt the tremors underfoot. He barely had time to register what was happening when two more thunderous thuds vibrated through the structure.
Suddenly, the floor gave way under thebined weight and force of Deacon''s strikes. The group found themselves plummeting through the newly created gap, their descent marked by a chorus of surprised shouts and the rushing wind.
"Brace yourselves!" Deacon yelled over the sound of crumbling stone and twisting metal.
"This is insane!" Diego''s voice rang out, tinged with both rm and adrenaline. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"You''re wrong... She''s going to wake up soon, and trust me, you have no idea how furious an elder vampire can be when crossed," Elidyr retorted with a snicker, his eyes darting around the room.
11:50
As they fell, the light from the hallway above quickly dimmed, swallowed by the darkness of the space below. When they all hit the cold, hard floor of the training hall, groans and growls of pain echoed through the space. The four half-immortal soldiers of the dark army momentarily lost their focus, causing the shield spell they had maintained to dissipate into thin wisps of residual magic.
Elidyr steadied himself, pushing off the ground with a grimace before surveying his surroundings. The hall was dimly lit, casting long shadows over rows ofbat dummies and walls etched withplex runes. The floor, made of polished ck marble, reflected the little light there was, amplifying the hall''s spaciousness. He craned his neck to look up through the jagged hole they had fallen through, his gaze meeting the determined faces of the professors and students poised above.
The young warriors from Mazeroth Academy showed no hesitation; their faces were set, eyes alight with a fierce determination that spoke of readiness to continue the fight. But looking at them, Elidyr was amused deep down. Despite their weak cultivation, these young bloods showed no fear¡
"How does it feel to be young and stupid again?" Elidyr couldn''t help but smirk, his voiceced with irony.
"Give up, half-elf. You''re surrounded," Diego Carter taunted, his posture tense and ready for conflict.
"You''re wrong... She''s going to wake up soon, and trust me, you have no idea how furious an elder vampire can be when crossed," Elidyr retorted with a snicker, his eyes darting around the room.
Lane''s gaze shifted quickly,nding on a silver cage in the distance. That was their best chance to contain the elder vampire, but it wouldn''t be easy with her protected by four half-immortal soldiers and a formidable runemaster.
"For now, let''s settle this ourselves¡" Elidyr proposed, cracking his neck¡ªa gesture he had unconsciously adopted from the Dark Lord. The tension in the air thickened palpably, as the dark army soldiers braced themselves for a renewed confrontation.
Just as Elidyr prepared to advance, a figure emerged from the shadows of the room. A tall, imposing old man with white robes and pure white long hair and beard, his eyes twinkling behind half-spectacle sses, approached with an air of solemn authority.
Elidyr froze, a torrent of mixed emotions washing over him as he recognized the figure.
"Wulfric¡" he whispered, his voice barely audible over the quiet murmur of the room. The headmaster of Mazeroth had arrived, and with him, the hidden truths of the past, including the memory-wiping spell cast on Elidyr, were about to be confronted.
Chapter 1321 Elidyr vs Wulfric I
1321 Elidyr vs Wulfric I
As Elidyr''s gaze fixed on Wulfric, a wave of conflicting emotions surged through him. He had long suspected that some of his memories from his time as a prisoner at Skyhall were obscured, likely sealed away by Wulfric''s magic, but the reasons remained shrouded in mystery. Now, confronted with the man he suspected of altering his past, Elidyr''s desire for truth overcame his caution.
Stepping forward, his expression tight with resolve, Elidyr opened his mouth to demand answers. However, before he could voice his questions, Wulfric raised a hand, his movements deliberate and calm. With a simple gesture, ethereal chains materialized, swiftly encircling Lenora and forming a cage around her. The intricate runes along the chains glowed with a soft, yet imprable light, securing the elder vampire just as she began to stir, her eyelids fluttering slightly.
The sudden containment of Lenora caught everyone off guard, halting their actions as they turned to observe Wulfric''s disy of power. Relief washed over the faces of the graduates and professors as Wulfric took control of the situation, effectively neutralizing the immediate threat posed by Lenora''s impending awakening.
"Always the dramatic entrance, Headmaster. Makes you wonder what he''d do without a captive audience." Lane, unable to resist the moment, quipped with a smirk.
On the other hand, Wulfric merely sighed at thement with weariness and resolve. He then turned his wise, patient gaze towards Elidyr and the dark army soldiers, his voice carrying a calm authority that resonated in the charged atmosphere of the training hall.
"Elidyr, you and I have a long history, one that I hope still holds some sway in your decisions today," Wulfric began, his words measured. "I understand the path you''ve chosen, but I implore you to reconsider the violence. There''s no need for further bloodshed. We can resolve this matter peacefully. Retreat now, and no more lives need to be endangered."
His plea hung in the air, a clear invitation for dialogue over destruction, as he awaited Elidyr''s response. But Elidyr''s response was nothing but augh that echoed through the hall.
"Talks? The time for talks is long gone, Wulfric. And trust me, our Dark Lord isn''t exactly in a chatty mood these days,"he shook his head dismissively at Wulfric''s appeal for peace.
"You''re just dying the inevitable. When the Dark Lord gets here, he''s gonna kick your asses so hard you won''t know what hit you. He''s a god now... a seriously pissed off god," Elidyr added, his words sharp and filled with a grim certainty.
Around him, the graduates and professors exchanged uneasy nces, fully aware of the power that the Dark Lord, wielded. The thought that even theirbined might would be like mere child''s y to him hung heavily in the air, a sobering reminder of the powerful entity they were up against.
"He won''t even break a sweat wiping the floor with us," Elidyr sneered, the dark implication of his words settling like a cold weight on everyone''s shoulders.
Hearing Elidyr, Lane nced around at the uneasy faces of his colleagues and students. Turning to Wulfric, he spoke with a hint of sharpness, his voice cutting through the tension. "He''s right, you know. We need a n, Wulfric. You better have something up your sleeve for dealing with our prodigal student turned Dark Lord," he said with urgency and a slight disdain.
"I am aware of the gravity of our situation, Lane. I do have a n, but it requires precision and, most importantly, timing," Wulfric, maintaining hisposure under Lane''s pointed gaze, nodded solemnly.
"No amount of your ns and strategies will save you from the sheer power of the Dark Lord," Elidyr scoffed as Lane, arms folded, shot a skeptical look at Wulfric. Though he shared Elidyr''s doubts, now was not the time to challenge their leader''s authority¡ªespecially not in front of the enemy. But Wulfric was unfazed by the mounting skepticism and maintained his characteristic calm. "This path you''re all walking will only lead to more destruction," he advised softly, his eyes locked on Elidyr''s defiant stance. "It''s not toote to turn back."
"Funny,ing from you," Elidyr shot back. N?v(el)B\\jnn
"I know you''ve locked away some of my memories. It''s your handiwork, isn''t it? Tell me what you didn''t want me to remember, and maybe I''ll consider putting in a good word for you with the Dark Lord,"
For a moment, no one uttered a word as silence enveloped the hall. Finally, it was Wulfric who calmly took a step forward and broke the silence with his calm voice.
"Let''s settle this between us, Elidyr, like in the old days," he suggested, his voice measured and confident. The tension in the air thickened as everyone realized the gravity of his proposal. Despite Wulfric''s higher cultivation stage¡ªHalf Celestialpared to Elidyr''s Immortal stage¡ªthe headmaster wanted to ensure a fair fight.
With a wave of Wulfric''s hand, the runes embedded in the ceiling and walls of the training hall began to glow softly. These runes, intricately carved and glowing with a faint light, were part of a sophisticated array designed to adjust the cultivation stage of any trainee within the room. It was a feature used to level the ying field for students during training sessions, and now it would serve to make this duel fair.
Elidyr''s eyes widened as he recognized the purpose of the runes. He understood exactly what Wulfric was nning. The runes would temporarily suppress Wulfric''s cultivation stage, bringing him down to Elidyr''s level.
Though Elidyr was skeptical, the idea of settling their old score man to man appealed to him. He clenched his fists, feeling the surge of adrenaline. "Alright, Wulfric," he agreed, a smirk forming on his lips. "Let''s see if you still have what it takes."
The runes glowed brighter, casting a soft, almost ethereal light throughout the hall. As the array activated, Wulfric''s aura visibly diminished, leveling the ying field between the two men.
"You always did like to make things interesting," Elidyr muttered, cracking his knuckles.
"Let''s see if you can keep up, Elidyr," Wulfric''s eyes twinkled with a hint of nostalgia. But looking at the uing duel, the soldiers in the dark army exchanged weary nces. Then, the veteran from the Dark Army stepped closer to Elidyr, casting a wary nce towards Lenora as she twitched slightly within the confines of the ethereal cage Wulfric had conjured. "Is this really a good idea?" he murmured, uncertaintycing his voice. As a response to his question, Elidyr gave him a stern look.
"Some scores can only be settled this way." His tone brooked no argument, and the unyielding look in his eyes conveyed the depth of his conviction.
Observing Elidyr''s demeanor, the soldiers exchanged uneasy nces. They understood the risks involved but also recognized their resident runemaster''s need to confront his past head-on. It was obvious to all present that Wulfric was stalling, though his reasons remained unclear.
"Shit, he''s not gonna back down, is he?" whispered one soldier to another, his voice a low hiss that barely carried over the ambient noise of the hall.
"Nah, looks like he''s got something to prove or settle," replied hisrade with his eyes locked on Elidyr and Wulfric as they prepared to face off.
"Just hope this doesn''t blow up in our faces."
As Wulfric and Elidyr circled each other, the surrounding Dark Army soldiers tightened their grip on their weapons, ready to intervene at a moment''s notice, yet the underlying question that nagged at them all was why Wulfric was stalling¡ªwhat was he waiting for?
While the question nagged at everyone, Wulfric and Elidyr took the center stage as the others made way for them to fight. The shift in their aura was palpable, causing the runes to pulsate with energy. The arrays summonedyers of protective barriers around them to prevent their spells from harming others.
"Pardon me if I am rough around the edges, old friend¡ It has been some time since I fought someone," Wulfric said, a hint of nostalgia and sadness in his voice.
"Old friend, huh? Friends don''t watch the other friend suffer stuck to a tree for two thousand years, Wulfric," Elidyr growled. Though he had been rescued by the Dark Lord, the time he spent cursed and bound to a tree by the Skyhall elders was fresh in his mind. Even now, Elidyr had nightmares about those two thousand years¡ªisted, unable to move, unable to speak. It was the ultimate torture.
"What memories did you lock away, Wulfric? And why? Why didn''t youpletely erase yourself from my memory?" Elidyr asked the question that had haunted him for so long.
"Some secrets and memories are better left untouched, old friend¡" Wulfric replied, seeing Elidyr''s patience wearing thin.
"You''ve never been known for your patience, old friend," Wulfric added, only to see Elidyr finally snap. Without wasting a second, Elidyr pped the hidden medallion hanging around his neck. The moment Elidyr did, the medallion glowed, and the armor within began to seamlessly cover Elidyr from head to toe. This mechanism was simr to Michael''s Dark Lord armor. How could Michael leave his runemaster exposed without battle armor?
The armor that covered Elidyr glistened in silver, each metal te forged from various ores in the mortal realm, striking the perfect bnce between durability and strength. The armor was sleek and powerful, with metallic wings attached behind, hinting at both agility and protection. Lines of energy flowed across the armor, showing the dispersal of arch energy, making it clear this was no ordinary suit.
The silver armor shimmered under the hall''s dim light, reflecting a mixture of elegance and menace. Each te was meticulously crafted, ovepping seamlessly to allow for maximum flexibility while offering superior protection. The metallic wings, folded neatly behind him, looked both functional and imposing, capable of unfurling for flight or additional defense.
Lines of vibrant arch energy coursed through the armor, lighting up runes engraved into the metal. The energy flow was visible, creating an intricatework that pulsated with power, making the armor not just a shield but a weapon in its own right.
"What are you hiding, Wulfric?" Elidyr demanded.
Chapter 1322 Elidyr vs Wulfric II
Chapter 1322 Elidyr vs Wulfric II
As Elidyr prepared his metal cards, each intricately engraved with runes, Wulfric''s eyes sparkled with a mix of excitement and nostalgia. He admired Elidyr''s readiness, acknowledging the underestimated prowess of runemasters inbat. "You''ve always been one to prove the doubters wrong, Elidyr. Not all runemasters shy away from a fight," Wulfric remarked with a hint of pride. However, Elidyr was in no mood for reminiscences. "Enough with the small talk, Wulfric. Let''s just get on with it," he retorted with impatience.
Seeing that further words were futile, Wulfric ceased his circling and took a deep breath, signaling his preparation for a serious spell. Recognizing the cue, Elidyr acted swiftly. He grabbed a metal card from his collection, this one prominently featuring a bear w rune. With a decisive crush, he activated the rune''s power.
Instantly, an ethereal form of a massive bear emerged, its spectral presence imposing and fierce. The spirit of the bear surged towards Elidyr, melding into his body in a disy of shimmering energy. The infusion visibly bolstered Elidyr''s physical stature, his muscles seeming to swell and his stance bing more formidable. His eyes flickered with enhanced vigor, and a subtle aura of increased defense surrounded him, readying him for the imminent sh.
Observing the transformation, Wulfric knew defeating Elidyr would not be simple. Then, he just nodded, acknowledging Elidyr''s battle prowess as his own hands began to glow with the buildup of magical energy.
The room heated up significantly as Wulfric gathered his energy, manifesting it in the form of a swirling chakra. Despite the dim surroundings, the chakra glowed with an intensity that hinted at its power. Before Noah''s death, such a glow would have illuminated the entire hall with brilliant light, but now it only cast eerie shadows on the faces of those present.
Whispers of awe and admiration rippled through the ranks of the dark army soldiers as they watched the disy. "Damn, that''s some serious heat," one soldier muttered under his breath, his eyes wide. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Nice trick," Elidyr watched with a smirk before raising his own hand. In response, he summoned an icy barrier that sprang up before him. The temperature around them plummeted, the air filling with a biting cold that shed with the heat from Wulfric''s chakra.
As the two forces met, steam hissed into the air where the intense heat met the frigid cold, creating a mist that momentarily obscured their view. From within the swirling energy chakra, Wulfricunched fiery arrows that streaked through the air, glowing hot against the icy barrier. Each arrow struck with a sizzle, forming cracks across the once-solid ice.
"Shit, he''s really going for it," another soldiermented as they watched the barrier begin to fracture under the assault.
As the fiery arrows continued their assault, each hit vaporized parts of the icy barrier, sending clouds of steam swirling around Elidyr, cloaking him in a thick mist. The battlefield briefly turned into a ghostlyndscape, with visibility dropping sharply.
The onlookers strained their eyes, trying to discern shapes through the fog. The tension spiked, with murmurs and gasps filling the air as they anticipated Elidyr''s next move. Suddenly, thest remnants of the ice shattered, and the mist began to clear, revealing that Elidyr was no longer in his original position.
Out of the thinning fog, Elidyr surged forward like a bolt of lightning. His fists were encased in a radiant golden glow, channeling the power of the runes into his strike. With a grunt of effort, he delivered a powerful punch directly to Wulfric''s chest, propelling the elder wizard backward through the air.
Wulfric, caught by surprise but ever the skilledbatant, quickly regained his bnce mid-flight. He twisted gracefully andnded on his feet with a thud that echoed through the hall. Dusting off his robes, he fixed his sses, a slight smile ying on his lips as he assessed the renewed vigor in his opponent.
"Still full of surprises, aren''t you?" Wulfric called out across the distance.
As Wulfric steadied himself for a counterattack, Elidyr, seizing the moment, swiftly pulled out several small, spherical objects from his belt. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed them directly at Wulfric''s feet. The objects ttered on the ground, their ordinary appearance belied their true nature.
A blinding sh apanied by a deafening bang erupted almost immediately, engulfing the area in dense smoke. The concoction was indeed one of Michael''s side projects¡ªdesigned not to harm but to disorient even the most powerful of cultivators for a few crucial seconds.
Through the haze and the ringing in their ears, Lane couldn''t help but smirk, recognizing the sophisticated alchemy at y. "Typical of the Dark Lord, always adding an extra re to his distractions," he remarked as his voice wasced with a mix of irritation and admiration. "Clever, but not clever enough to stop what''sing,"
Shielding his eyes briefly, Wulfric quickly regained hisposure, but the momentary distraction had given Elidyr the opening he needed. Utilizing the metallic wings attached to his armor, heunched a series of rapid, slicing attacks, each apanied by a metallic whoosh as he maneuvered through the air with grace and deadly intent.
Wulfric, however, was no novice. With decades of experience, he nimbly dodged each assault, his movements fluid and calcted. "Even after two thousand years, Elidyr, you fight with the vigor of youth. It''s both admirable and tragic," Wulfric spoke as his eyes contained a hint of sorrow and something akin to loss.
"Don''t talk like we''re friends," Elidyr growled at Wulfric''s cryptic words.
"We were friends once," Wulfric replied, his toneced with an undeniable sadness. "We were, indeed."
The honesty and regret in Wulfric''s voice caused Elidyr to hesitate. Something about Wulfric''s words rubbed Elidyr the wrong way. As far as Elidyr knew, Wulfric was the headmaster of Mazeroth, and after the Dark Lord rescued him, he learned that Wulfric was monitoring him while he was cursed and stuck to a tree. The question was what Wulfric didn''t want him to find out.
Seizing the opportunity, Wulfric chanted quickly, his hands drawing intricate signs in the air. Suddenly, an ethereal dragon manifested, its translucent scales shimmering with mystical energy. With a mighty roar, the dragon unleashed a forceful st, catching Elidyr off guard and sending him hurtling backward.
The graduates, who had been watching the duel intently, gasped in astonishment. They had always known their headmaster was powerful, but seeing him suppress his true strength yet still conjure such a powerful spell under constraints was a testament to his mastery.
Instead of pressing his advantage, Wulfric stood there, letting Elidyr get back to his feet. "Seems like Wulfric has a soft spot for his enemies nowadays," Lane snickered with disdain. But they had no idea of the connection between Wulfric and Elidyr.
Although Wulfric gave Elidyr time to get back to his feet, Elidyr considered this a sign of disrespect. This only fueled his anger as he lunged at Wulfric once again. This time, he crushed a metal card engraved with a cheetah''s head. Just like before, an ethereal figure of a golden cheetah appeared behind him before fading into his body, significantly increasing Elidyr''s speed without the need for any potions.
The sudden burst of speed caught even Wulfric off guard. However, Wulfric was a veteran, and his calm mind gave him an advantage. He quickly cast a spell that replicated him into several duplicates, each possessing a Fusion stage cultivation. Before Elidyr could react, each of the duplicates moved independently, casting icy spheres at him.
Lane could count almost twenty duplicates of Wulfric, making it hard to recognize the original. Meanwhile, Elidyr, although caught off guard, leaped into the air using his metallic wings, avoiding the icy spears thrown at him. Mid-air, he used the enhanced speed from the cheetah rune and lunged at one of the Wulfrics. To everyone''s surprise, Elidyrnded a punch on Wulfric''s face, causing the other duplicates to fade away. They were astonished at how Elidyr managed to single out the original Wulfric and hit him.
As Elidyr''s punchnded, he noticed a birthmark on Wulfric''s chest when his robes slightly parted. It was a ck birthmark in the shape of a half crescent moon.
"No¡ It can''t be¡" Elidyr muttered as Wulfric regained his footing after being forced back several feet by the punch.
"That birthmark¡" Elidyr pointed at Wulfric''s chest but couldn''t form the next words. The body Elidyr upied was not originally his, as Michael had used the Soul Eater skill on a half-elf and transferred Elidyr''s soul into the new body, away from his withered one. However, Elidyr vividly remembered his original body and the birthmark, which looked the same as Wulfric''s.
"Did you know I had the same birthmark?" he demanded as rage and desperation for answers was evident in his voice
Yet, Wulfric chose to remain silent, offering no answers. The rare hesitant look in his eyes was enough to surprise and shock Lane and the other professors. Lane, in particr, could sense there was more going on, but he couldn''t put his finger on it.
"Answer me, damn it!" Elidyr shouted, his patience snapping as he lunged at Wulfric, driven by raw anger rather than spells or runes. Grabbing Wulfric by the cor, he shook him violently. "What the hell does this mean? Tell me!"
"I cannot tell you that. Some secrets must remain as it is," Wulfric shook his head.
Hearing another crypticElidyr finally snapped and began tough bitterly. In his mind, Elidyr''s first n was to attack the graduates and hold them hostage to force Wulfric to talk. However, he knew that if he tried to attack the graduates, it would end badly for him. Fighting Wulfric, the professors, and the graduates at the same time was a suicide mission. If Wulfric unleashed his full cultivation power, neither he nor the dark army soldiers would be enough. So, he decided to bring in the Dark Lord.
"You want to y it that way? Fine. You leave me no choice but to call the Dark Lord. He''ll beat the hell out of you and get the answers himself,"
As Elidyr prepared to summon Michael, the tension in the room reached a breaking point. Everyone knew that when the Dark Lord arrived, all hell would break loose.
"Prepare yourselves," Elidyr said and established a connection to the Dark Lord through the earpiece.
"Dark Lord, we might need your help¡We havepany¡It''s Wulfric and I don''t think we can take him on with all the other professors with him," The professors and the guarduats felt a chill running down their spine as they could imagine what would happen when the Dark Lord arrived. Although he was once their student, none of them could confidently say that he wouldnt attack them because they knew he was consumed by rage and vengeance and Elidyr''s encouragement would only make matters worse.
"Whatever you are holding back, Wulfric. I''d tell him if I were you. Those secrets arent worth the lives of the people in this ce," Lane reminded Wlfric because he knew Elidyr wouldn''t hesitate to kill to get the answers he needed with the Dark Lord behind him.
Chapter 1323 The Secret Is Out
Chapter 1323 The Secret Is Out
"End this duel before the Dark Lord arrives. Take this half elf hostage, and negotiate with the Dark Lord. Don''t bet on appealing to his memories of being a student here. That ship has sailed, old man." Lane urged only to see Elidyr''s lips curl in an amused smile.
Elidyr''s eyes flickered with anger at Lane''s suggestion. "You think you can take me hostage?" he sneered. "I''d love to see you try."
On the other hand, Wulfric knew that Lane''s suggestion, while desperate, might be their only chance to avoid total destruction. But he also knew that Elidyr wouldn''t go down without a fight.
"I won''t take you hostage, Elidyr," Wulfric said softly, his voice steady. "But I will end this, one way or another."
"Bold words for an old man. Let''s see if you can back them up," Elidyr shot back. Wulfric''s calm demeanor didn''t waver. He took a deep breath, preparing himself for whatever was toe. "We don''t have much time. It will be toote if the Dark Lord gets here before we settle this. You know that." Lane stepped closer to Wulfric, his voice low and urgent.
"I know. But some things can''t be rushed," Wulfric nodded, his eyes meeting Lane''s.
The professors and graduates exchanged worried nces, their fear palpable as their eyes darted around, expecting the Dark Lord to arrive any second. "Alright, Elidyr. Let''s finish this," Wulfric said, stepping forward. As Wulfric raised his hand, the air around him began to shimmer with a powerful, unseen force. A gust of wind erupted from his palm, so strong that everyone in the room had to brace themselves. The sheer power of the spell pushed them back, making it impossible for anyone to stay on their feet.
Elidyr, undeterred, lunged forward to stop him. But as he approached, he was met with an invisible force field that repelled him with brutal efficiency. It was like hitting a wall of pure energy, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t break through.
Meanwhile, the air grew thicker, almost tangible, as an ethereal white dragon began to take shape behind Wulfric. This dragon, akin to Azura in its majestic appearance, was the manifestation of Wulfric''s most powerful spell. The dragon''s presence had an almost magical effect on those in the room. The dark army soldiers, who had witnessed countless terrifying spells in their time, found themselves momentarily dazed. Their worries, concerns, and anger melted away, reced by a strange, soothing calm.
However, Elidyr resisted the spell''s mental effects. His mental fortitude was far stronger than the others, allowing him to maintain his focus. But he knew that this was just a side effect. The true power and destruction of Wulfric''s spell were yet toe. The ethereal dragon''s eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, and its presence alone was enough to hint at the catastrophic power it held.
Finally, as Wulfric raised his arms, the ethereal dragon coalesced into a physical form. It roared, its jaw opening wide as though it intended to devour Elidyr in one swift bite. The sheer power radiating from the dragon was enough to make everyone believe that Wulfric had gained the upper hand.
But just as the dragon lunged at Elidyr, the hall was suddenly engulfed in pitch ck darkness. The radiant white dragon, once a beacon of Wulfric''s power, vanished into the thick, oppressive dark that swallowed the room. The darkness was so intense that none of them could see what was in front of them; it felt almost tangible, suffocating.
The sudden shift in atmosphere, the overwhelming presence of darkness, left no doubt in anyone''s mind. They all knew the Dark Lord had arrived. The dark power was unmistakable, a chilling reminder of who they were dealing with. Elidyr, despite the situation, allowed himself a grim smile. His reinforcements were here.
Gradually, the darkness cleared, revealing the Dark Lord standing between Wulfric and Elidyr. Michael''s mere presence elicited gasps from Bethany and Professor Ka. Bethany remembered how, a year ago, she met Ghost as a first-year in the Alchemy house. Then, he barely registered on her radar, but now, he was the Dark Lord, and she felt so insignificant in front of him.
Meanwhile, Diego Carter clenched his fist, his knuckles turning white as he recalled the humiliating defeat he suffered at the hands of the Dark Lord. Although none of his friends and family talked about his defeat, he could tell they wereughing at him inside. This hatred burned brighter than his fear of the Dark Lord.
"She ended up in a cage, huh?" Michael casually smirked as he raised his hand, sending a plume of dark mes at the cage surrounding Lenora. The moment the mes licked the cage, it melted like butter.
After destroying the cage like it was nothing, Michael calmly looked around at the professors and graduates. Finally, his gazended on Wulfric. Michael willed his mask and hood to shrink back into his armor, revealing his face.
"I wish you had returned to us under different circumstances, son¡" Wulfric said with a gentle tone that belied the current situation.
"This birthmark, Wulfric''s cryptic nonsense... I want answers now," Elidyr turned to Michael as thetter could see the desperation and frustration in Elidyr''s eyes.
"I''ve had enough of secrets. It''s time for some damn answers because, frankly, I''m way past being reasonable," he said, his voice low and menacing. With a sigh, Michael cracked his neck, signaling his readiness to take action. "I''ve had enough of secrets. It''s time for answers because I''m way past the point of being reasonable."
Wulfric could see the seriousness in Michael''s eyes. The Dark Lord wasn''t bluffing; he was ready to beat the hell out of anyone who refused to give him the answers he sought.
Observing Michael''s readiness to fight, Wulfric knew this was a serious moment. But Lane was unable to hide his disdain as sneered at Michael. "Using your powers to bully answers out of an old man, huh? You''vee so far, haven''t you? From a mere student to someone who kills his own brother without a second thought." Lane''s voice dripped with disdain, his words meant to cut deep.
"You think you''re above us, Ghost? But all I see is a boy ying with fire, burning everything around him. What would your mother say if she saw you now?" Lane continued, his sneer deepening. The venom in his voice was palpable, each word designed to provoke.
But Michael just chuckled instead of giving Lane the satisfaction of losing his calm. His chuckle was far deadlier than any action they might have expected from him.
"Professor Lane, I thought you were smarter than this¡ Do you think it''s a good idea to piss off a god when you have those weaklings ripe for the taking as hostages?" Michael chuckled, pointing at the graduates. The youngsters, though weaker, didn''t appreciate being called weaklings, not even by the God of Darkness. Thus, Elliot took a step forward and met Michael''s eyes.
"You may be a god, but we are not weaklings. We will fight you with every fiber of our being. And don''t forget, good always triumphs over evil," said Elliot Watson. Seeing Elliot courageous enough to face the Dark Lord without wavering in his beliefs, Professor Ka felt a surge of pride. As the head of House Warriors, witnessing her students stand up to the Dark Lord himself made her nothing but proud.
"Seriously? Out of everything you could have done and said, you took the clich¨¦ route¡" Michaelughed.
"Buddy¡ even if hundreds of youe to fight me, I''ll still beat the hell out of you," Michael snickered before raising his hand. Elliot couldn''t even react before a powerful gust of wind shot out of the Dark Lord''s hand, sending him flying like a dummy in a storm.
"Elliot!" Bethany shouted as Elliot hit the wall with enough force to form cracks before falling to the ground.
When Deacon saw his best friend sent flying, the enmity between the houses disappeared. He lunged forward as a student of Mazeroth with no hesitation. But Michael sent him flying too with a p that knocked the air out of his lungs.
"Now, Headmaster¡ Tell me about the birthmark Elidyr asked about, or you will have to bury your favorite students¡ Regret is a bitch, Headmaster¡" Michael said, cracking his neck. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"I actually agree with the Dark Lord. Regret is worthless if you have the chance to save the lives of your students. Yet, here you are, valuing your secrets above their lives," Lane snickered but then said, Wulfric''s eyes flickered with worry, concern, and desperation, which only made Michael more curious about what he was hiding. Casually cracking his fist, ck lightning bolts began to dance around his hand as he looked at Diego with a devilish grin. The sight sent chills down Diego''s spine. He couldn''t help but think if the Dark Lord still held a grudge about their past.
"Wulfric, what are you hiding?" Michael coldly asked.
Meanwhile, Ka Martin stepped toward Wulfric, shaking him by the shoulders. "Tell him what he wants to hear, Wulfric!" she demanded, her voice tinged with frustration and urgency.
After what felt like an eternity, Wulfric took a deep breath and looked at Elidyr. He had always been a man of secrets, but he knew better than anyone that secrets had a way of making matters worse. At that moment, he had no choice but to reveal the truth if he wanted to save the lives of his students.
"Elidyr¡ he¡ he is my brother," Wulfric admitted. When these words came out of Wulfric''s mouth, they hit Elidyr like a punch to the gut, leaving him reeling.
Chapter 1324 So many shocking truth bombs
Chapter 1324 So many shocking truth bombs
The room fell into a stunned silence, the only sound being the soft echo of Wulfric''s confession. Don''s face contorted into a picture of confusion, mirroring the shocked expressions that painted everyone else''s faces.
For a moment, Elidyr stood frozen, the weight of the revtion sinking in. Then, anger red up inside him. "You think this is some kind of sick joke?" he spat out, his voice seething with betrayal. "You''re just screwing with me!"
But amidst the chaos of emotions, Michael''s gaze remained fixed on Wulfric. In the old man''s eyes, he saw something that confirmed the truth of his words. It wasn''t a trick or a desperate attempt to manipte; it was genuine.
"Shit, he''s not lying..." Michael muttered under his breath, a rare flicker of surprise crossing his features. Even Lane, who usually had the emotional range of a dead turtle, couldn''t hide his shock. His usual look of disdain was reced by one of curiosity and shock.
"No, old friend... you are indeed my brother," Wulfric said with a heavy sigh. But Elidyr stood there, frozen, unable toprehend how this could be true. He was a dark elf, and Wulfric was human. Moreover, Elidyr remembered his parents clearly¡ªthey were dark elves.
"He''s lying, Ghost... He''s just stalling to keep us from reaching the gateway to Skyhall. He wants to mess with our heads," Elidyr protested, refusing to believe Wulfric''s words. However, Michael couldn''t see any signs that Wulfric was lying.
"If what you are saying is true, give me a drop of your blood..." Michael calmly stated. It was not a request but a borderline order. Michael was done ying by their rules and being the good guy. Since Elidyr''s original body had withered away and his current body didn''t belong to him, conventional spells using blood to determine rtionships wouldn''t work. But fortunately, Michael had the system, that could determine their biological connection byparing the soul energy of Elidyr and the soul energy traces in Wulfric''s blood.
"Don''t," Lane interjected, trying to stop Wulfric from giving a drop of his blood. As a seasoned alchemist, Lane knew of several rituals and potions that could be crafted to harm the owner of the blood.
However, Wulfric just raised his hand, silently signaling Lane to keep quiet. He then cast a spell summoning a glowing dagger and slicing his palm open. Without uttering a word, he willed the drops of blood to float toward Michael. The hall fell silent as everyone watched the blood drops drift toward the Dark Lord.
Michael collected the floating drops of blood in a ss vial and stored it in his system storage with a flick of his wrist.
"System, analyze the blood and Elidyr''s soul. I want to know if they are truly brothers," Michaelmanded the system.
[The analysis will cost the host 50,000 badass points. Does the host wish to continue?] the system inquired. Compared to the amounts the system had recently requested for other functions, fifty thousand was a mere drop in the bucket. Michael readily agreed to the price, and the system began its work.
For a few tense moments, the room was filled with silence, with everyone, including Elidyr, waiting anxiously. But when Elidyr caught a glimpse of the Dark Lord''s expression, he could tell Michael was on the brink of uncovering the truth.
The tense silence in the hall stretched, every eye fixed on the Dark Lord as he awaited the system''s verdict. Finally, the system''s voice echoed in Michael''s mind, clear and devoid of emotion.
[Analysisplete. Gicpatibility confirmed. Elidyr and Wulfric are biological brothers]
Michael''s expression remained unreadable for a moment before he turned to face Wulfric and Elidyr. "Elidyr, he''s telling the truth... He is your brother," Michael confirmed, dropping a bombshell on Elidyr''s head. Although Elidyr didn''t know how the Dark Lord came to this solid conclusion, he had witnessed Michael''s powers and the uncanny way he achieved things as if by magic. Trusting in Michael''s words, Elidyr didn''t question the methods but epted the results.
"But how...I know my parents¡" Elidyr stuttered, his voiceden with confusion and disbelief.
"You have some exining to do, Headmaster. Like I said, I''m sick of secrets... It''s better youe clean and tell us everything," Michael pressed calmly.
As Michael spoke, every eye in the room turned toward Wulfric, their gazes heavy with expectation. Wulfric felt the weight of their stares, knowing he could no longer shield Elidyr from the painful truths. Michael was right; the secrets had already caused enough damage. Wulfric took a deep, steadying breath before he began his tale, his voice heavy with the weight of long-kept secrets. "Elidyr, our mother was a Dark Elf, and our father was human. They were from Itonys, a realm that exists beyond the edges of the mortal world,"
At the mention of Itonys, a visible shock passed through Michael. His eyes widened slightly, a rare sign of surprise from the usuallyposed Dark Lord. The realm of Itonys was more than just a realm that existed outside the mortal realm. It was a realm where the dark elves and wood elves worshipped the Dark Lord. The fact that Elidyr''s parents were from Itnoys was nothing but a shock to him.
"You remember your parents well, Elidyr. However, you never met them¡ªnot truly. The memories you hold of them were crafted by me. I locked away your true memories and reced them with fabrications, a necessary deception at the time to protect you from harsher truths." Wulfric continued, his gaze locked with Elidyr''s, who listened intently, trying to piece together the fragments of his shattered past. Elidyr''s anger simmered at the surface as his disbelief morphed into a palpable fury. The revtion that his entire understanding of his past¡ªthe memories of his parents¡ªwere nothing more than fabrications crafted and imnted by Wulfric, shook him to his core. In a swift, reactive burst, Elidyr lunged toward Wulfric, intent on confronting him physically for the betrayal.
However, Michael''s firm grip halted him before he could reach Wulfric. Michael''s hand mped around Elidyr''s arm, anchoring him in ce with an unyielding strength that spoke of his godly power. N?v(el)B\\jnn
"Go on, Headmaster... enlighten us. Why did you do all that?" Michael''s voice was calm but carried an edge.
"Why... why the hell would you do that? What kind of brother screws over his own kin, locking away his memories and leaving him to suffer for over two thousand years?" Elidyr growled, the pain and anger bubbling up, causing his eyes to well with tears. Even Michael couldn''t maintain his usualposure, his gaze turning icy as he awaited Wulfric''s exnation.
"Because, Elidyr, you asked me to lock away your memories and rece them with fabrications," Wulfric revealed, dropping a bombshell that stunned everyone even more than the initial revtion of their brotherhood.
"What? I... How could I... What?" Elidyr''s words stumbled out in confusion and disbelief.
"The memories you have before the curse are only fragments of the truth, Elidyr. You weren''t just at Skyhall, or involved in the ritual that banished Ghost to Earth. You did far more than that." Wulfric continued.
Each word Wulfric spoke seemed to hit Michael like a physical blow. He remembered the cruel fate Skyhall had imposed on Elidyr, pinning him to a tree, alive and awake for millennia, a punishment more severe than any torture he knew. Michael also recalled Elidyr''s own ount of his actions¡ªhow he had turned against Skyhall upon witnessing their genocides and atrocitiesmitted under the guise of a greater good, how he had fled, leaving behind his work on the ritual that would eventually ensnare Michael, believing it was for the greater good at the time.
But after hearing Wulfric''s words, it was clear to Michael that there was more to Elidyr''s story.
"You believed in Skyhall''s work and you created the ritual to send the unborn child of Harriet to Earth. But our parents, they tried to stop you. They worshipped the Dark Lord, his previous incarnation. But you believed in your work, convinced that the Dark Lord needed to be vanquished. You didn''t leave Skyhall when theymitted genocides and ughtered innocents; no, the real reason you left was to destroy them¡ to avenge our parents who died at the hands of the Skyhall elders," Wulfric dropped another truth bomb.
"They tried to stop you frompleting your work. But you were adamant. They followed you to Skyhall as you were about to finish the array, but those poor souls didn''t realize they were walking into the lion''s den... When the elders saw them trying to convince you to stop your work and their loyalty to the Dark Lord, theybeled our parents as traitors to the world¡ they¡" Wulfric''s voice choked up, unable to finish his sentence. Even after thousands of years, the pain of losing his parents was still raw.
"Tell me what happened," Elidyr growled, his voice thick with pain.
"The Skyhall burned them... burned their whole tribe alive after you kicked them out of your workshop. You didn''t learn what Skyhall had done until it was toote... You med yourself for their deaths," Wulfric said, pausing as he recalled thest words Elidyr spoke to his parents.
"I wish you two dark lord-worshipping traitors would die," those were the final words Elidyr had said to his parents, Wulfric remembered, the weight of that memory heavy in the silence that followed.
"To enact your revenge¡you created the very weapon that became the Skyhall''s most powerful weapon¡the Celestial Cannon," Wulfric said, making even Michael raise his brows.
Chapter 1325 The Fate of Edwina Wraith
Chapter 1325 The Fate of Edwina Wraith
Michael remembered vividly his confrontations with the Celestial Cannon. The first time he faced it, the weapon''s immense power and deadly radiance overwhelmed him. He recalled the harrowing moment when Rowena sacrificed herself by jumping in front of the beam to save him. Although Michael had doubts about the finality of Rowena''s fate, he couldn''t deny the cannon''s destructive capabilities.
The second time, when the Skyhall wielded the cannon again, it was Mugashuku who intervened. The ancient hydra rose from his slumber, turning the cannon against its creators in a dramatic twist. The cannon was then teleported back to Skyhall headquarters, leaving Michael certain he hadn''t seen thest of it.
"Fuck," Michael muttered under his breath, his curse echoing faintly in the tense air.
"I¡ I created the Celestial Cannon?" Elidyr''s voice broke through his shock, a clear tone of disbelief marking his words.
"Hmm," Wulfric simply nodded, allowing a moment for Elidyr to digest the heavy revtion. As Elidyr grappled with his past deeds, the battle outside between Skyhall''s angels and Nithroel reached a critical peak. Just moments before Elidyr had summoned Michael, he was on the verge of a showdown with Azurith. Unexpectedly, the ancient dragon and his army retreated, a move that baffled Michael. Initially, he had thought the dragon''s retreat was the day''s most shocking event, but that paled inparison to the revtions about Elidyr.
"Itonys, being brothers, creator of the Celestial Cannon... What a crazy day," Michael smirked, his tone mixing amusement with the weight of the day''s revtions.
"What happened next?" Elidyr pressed Wulfric for more.
Due to his anticipation for Wulfric''s next words, Michael temporarily forgot about the battle raging outside. He was confident that the Skyhall angels were no match for Nithroel, the Goddess of Hunt, allowing him to focus entirely on Wulfric''s story.
"What you created to destroy the Skyhall, along with several cksmiths, ended up being the most powerful weapon in the Skyhall''s arsenal... The Skyhall, always resorting to any means necessary to achieve their goals, used someone you held dear..."
"Edwina¡" Elidyr cut in, finishing Wulfric''s sentence. The mention of the name shifted gears in Michael''s mind. Edwina Wraith was not only a founder of the Order of Death but also the first Wraith of the bloodline that would eventually be the Ashtons¡ªthe royal bloodline of Nagnd. In other words, she was Gaya''s ancestor and Elidyr''s lover.
"They captured her¡used her as a hostage in exchange for the Celestial Cannon. You had already lost your parents and med yourself. So you couldn''t stand to watch Edwina die too. That''s why you handed over the cannon," Wulfric exined, his voice tinged with regret and pain. Michael could tell that even after all these years, these events were still raw in Wulfric''s heart. He also understood why Elidyr would have given up the cannon; his love for Edwina was evident.
Every time Elidyr looked at Gaya, Edwina''s descendant, it was clear. He regarded Gaya almost as if she were his own daughter. Despite Elidyr''s stoicism and the walls he built around his heart, Michael could still see the fatherly love he held for Gaya simply because she was the descendant of his beloved Edwina.
But something told Michael that their love story did not end with them walking into the sunset to enjoy a happily ever after.
"After handing over the cannon¡ what happened?" Michael pressed Wulfric for more.
"Skyhall... they''re not known for leniency. They saw your rebellion as treason, a chance to show what happens when someone betrays them¡ So they used the Celestial Cannon on you," Wulfric exined, his voice tinged with both anger and sadness. Meanwhile, Michael felt something was amiss and pondered where Wulfric fit into this story, but for now, he was content to listen before probing further.
"But I''m still here¡which means that damned snake," Elidyr hissed, a tear rolling down his cheek. He didn''t need Wulfric to continue; he already knew what happened next: Edwina had sacrificed herself, likely throwing herself in front of the cannon to save him. She had always been the protector, and his belief that she had died a natural death was now painfully shattered.
"But the Skyhall''s cruelty didn''t end there. They released you, not out of mercy but to let you break from within. They wielded the celestial cannon against anyone they suspected of rebellion or any affiliation with the Order of Death. They dubbed it a holy war, their ughters a cleansing," Wulfric continued with a heavy sigh.
As Wulfric''s story unfolded, a heavy silence fell over the room. Everyone present, from the graduates to the seasoned professors, began to grapple with the unsettling realization that their understanding of good versus evil might not be as ck and white as they had been taught. The Skyhall, an institution they had served and believed in as a bastion of light and goodness, was being painted in shades of dark cruelty that rivaled any tale of viiny attributed to the Dark Lord.
The weight of these revtions hung thick in the air, challenging each person''s allegiance and forcing them to confront ufortable truths about the cause they had championed. It was a mindfuck of epic proportions¡ªhad they been fighting on the wrong side all along? N?v(el)B\\jnn
Looking at their expressions, which showed him that they were questioning their entire life decisions and loyalty to Skyhall, Michael couldn''t help but chuckle internally. These self-righteous idiots were so naive to believe that Skyhall was a beacon of light. But he didn''t entirely me them. After all, it was Wulfric who had been keeping these secrets from them.
"The deaths of our parents, Edwina, and all those who died by the Celestial Cannon ate you from within¡ Your anger mixed with the helplessness you felt against Skyhall soon turned into regret and self-me. And that''s what made you hate yourself to the point of wanting to die, to punish yourself¡" Wulfric''s words hung heavy in the air as he trailed off.
"Before we continue all this, I have a question," Michael finally spoke up, drawing everyone''s gaze to him except for Elidyr, who was still trying to make sense of everything he had just heard.
"Where were you in all this? You were, and are, his brother¡ Where were you when everything was happening?" Michael asked calmly.
"That is indeed a good question¡ Enlighten us, headmaster," Lane chimed in, turning to Wulfric.
"I regret to this day that I was upied during that time¡ somewhere far, far away from the mortal realm," Wulfric admitted, his voice tinged with genuine regret and sadness.
"Convenient, isn''t it, Headmaster? You might be the luckiest or unluckiest person to have stayed away from the mess your brother and Skyhall made," Lane remarked with his trademark disdain. This time, however, his scorn was directed at the headmaster himself, not the students. Lane, who never shied away from speaking his mind and letting blind loyalty cloud his judgment, ced partial me on Wulfric. As a brother and a son, Wulfric should have protected his family¡ªat least that''s what Lane thought.
"Don''t me him¡" Elidyr interjected, startling everyone, including Michael.
Honestly, Michael had expected Elidyr to lose his cool and lunge at Wulfric again. Yet he did the opposite, even stopping Lane from showering Wulfric with disdainful remarks. At that moment, Michael sensed something had changed within Elidyr¡ªperhaps an overwhelming mix of regret, sadness, or a burning desire to set things right.
"It''s not his fault¡ Wulfric, tell me, what more did I do?" Elidyr asked.
"Are you sure about this, Elidyr? I don''t think you should hear any more. It''s going to fuck you up in the head if it hasn''t already," Michael tried to persuade Elidyr to reconsider, but thetter was as stubborn as Michael had expected.
"No, I want to hear everything. It''s time to stop running and face the consequences," Elidyr said firmly, nodding at Wulfric to continue.
"When I returned to the mortal realm, I didn''t find the brother I left behind. Instead, I saw a man shattered by his own guilt and despair, teetering on the brink of self-destruction. Despite our weakness against the Skyhall, I wanted to help you. I intended to leave Skyhall, but you wouldn''t have it. You were too afraid that they might turn their wrath on me as well. You couldn''t bear the thought of losing another person you cared about, yet you couldn''t live with the memories either. One day, I found you attempting to end your own life," Wulfric recounted, pausing to collect himself before continuing.
"You were utterly broken, haunted by relentless nightmares. Even in that desperate moment, you couldn''t follow through with ending your life, so you asked me for another way out. You asked me to lock away your memories and deliver you to Skyhall. It was your method of self-punishment, a way to preserve some semnce of sanity. You believed that retaining those memories would eventually drive you to suicide. So, you chose to have them sealed away, to spare yourself and perhaps dy a fate you felt was inevitable,"
After Wulfric''s words echoed through the hall, a profound silence settled over everyone. Even the graduates, who had been eager to confront Elidyr moments earlier, now felt a pang of empathy towards him. They began to see that perhaps the Dark Lord and his followers weren''t the true embodiments of evil. Elidyr, digesting his past anew, knew too well what followed in his life¡ªcenturies pinned to a tree, plotting vengeance against Skyhall, blind to the blood that stained his own hands.
"Unlock those memories," Elidyr demanded, stepping forward.
"Whoa, that''s not a good idea, Elidyr. Isn''t hearing about it enough?" Michael tried to interject, but Elidyr was resolute.
"I need to face my past. Those memories are part of who I am... It''s time I stopped running, stopped ming others, and faced the music," Elidyr dered firmly, cutting off any possibility of debate. He then turned to Wulfric, his voice softening, almost to the point of pleading, "Unlock those memories. Be my brother one more time."
Despite the plea, Elidyr''s tone carried the iron of his resolve, leaving Wulfric with no room to argue. Wulfric could only hope that Elidyr was truly prepared to confront his past.
"Very well. I will do as you wish," Wulfric conceded, recognizing the determination in his brother''s eyes.
Chapter 1326 Michael vs Wulfric I
Chapter 1326 Michael vs Wulfric I
As Wulfric slowly approached Elidyr, the tension in the air was palpable. Michael stepped aside, giving space for the profound moment between the brothers. Wulfric inhaled deeply, then extended his hand to rest it on Elidyr''s forehead. At the touch, Elidyr tensed momentarily before forcing himself to rx. A warmth spread from Wulfric''s hand, quickly morphing into a sharp sting that ravaged Elidyr''s senses like a swarm inside his head.
"Argh," Elidyr groaned, pain contorting his features as sweat beaded on his brow.
The onlookers, including Michael, watched as Elidyr struggled, his body buckling until he dropped to his knees. His mind was a whirlwind of reawakening memories, cascading through him with unstoppable force. Childhood images, the horrifying sight of his parents'' charred remains, and the catastrophic destruction unleashed by the Celestial Cannon shed before him. Tears streamed down his face as he recalled the heroic sacrifice of Edwina Wraith, who had thrown herself in front of the cannon''s deadly beam to save him.
But this flood of memories wasn''t purely tormenting. It also rekindled his deep-rooted mastery over runes, instantly elevating his skills. The buried knowledge of rune craft that had shaped him into the architect of the ritual imprisoning the Dark Lord, and the creator of the Celestial Cannon resurfaced powerfully, transforming him into a Six-Star Runemaster.
Every bit of suppressed knowledge about runes was now unleashed, radically enhancing Elidyr''s capabilities and restoring him to his full potential. Others might not have caught on, but Michael did. He sensed the surge in energy radiating from Elidyr. It reminded him of the time he enhanced Raylene into a five-star cook. However, the moment wasn''t one of celebration for Michael; these were the memories that had once driven Elidyr to the brink of suicide. Understanding the potential turmoil they could bring once more, he knew that only time would reveal the impact of these newly resurfaced memories on Elidyr.
As Wulfric stepped back, giving Elidyr the space he needed, the room fell into a tense silence. Elidyr''s body visibly shivered under the weight of the unlocked memories, each one surfacing with an intensity that seemed to rock him physically and emotionally. Michael stood close by, his presence both a warning and a safeguard, ready to intervene if Elidyr showed any sign of copsing under his burden or worse, attempting to end his suffering permanently.
Michael watched closely, his experience telling him that while these memories were undoubtedly a heavy curse, Elidyr might now have the strength to withstand them. The years he had spent in the Dark Army and the resilience he had built since being rescued suggested that Elidyr could now confront his past without sumbing to despair. Michael remained alert but hopeful, believing in Elidyr''s newfound fortitude to face whatever demons his past had unleashed.
Finally, Elidyr slowly rose to his feet as his movements were shaky and uncertain. The others watched him with a mix of concern and curiosity, unsure of what the resurgence of his memories might provoke. He began to mumble and sorted through the onught of recollections that bombarded him.
"I remember...the mes..." Elidyr murmured, his voice gaining a haunted edge.
"My parents, begging me to listen, their faces twisted in agony as they tried to pull me back from the path I was so determined to follow." His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles whitening with the strain of his grip.
"The workshop...I can see it all now, the runes I etched, believing I was saving the world..." His voice broke as he continued.
"And Edwina...her bravery, her sacrifice. She stood before the Celestial Cannon''s beam for me. She saved me, and I...I couldn''t save her." Tears streamed down his face, unheeded in the moment of his torment. "I cursed them, my own parents, called them traitors for worshipping the Dark Lord. They died because of me, because of my arrogance, my blindness," His words became a torrent, each memory unleashing more pain and regret. "Skyhall used me, twisted my work for their war, for their cleansings. They killed in my name, and I...I was part of it."
Michael calmly ced his hand on Elidyr''s shoulder, offering a silent reassurance that he was there for him. This small gesture made a significant difference to Elidyr, helping him feel less isted than he had two thousand years ago. Unlike back then, the Dark Lord was now by his side, and together, they could dismantle the Skyhall brick by brick.
"You''ve heard everything¡ So back off. Don''t die protecting the Skyhall," Michael said, his hand still on Elidyr''s shoulder, as he turned his gaze toward the graduates and professors.
His words served as a chilling promise of retaliation if they chose to stand in his way, rather than a simple request. The graduates and professors, now aware of the Skyhall''s cruelty as revealed by the headmaster, lowered their weapons. However, Wulfric could not stand down, bound by an order from Qin Jiu to stop the Dark Lord.
With a heavy sigh, Wulfric took a step forward. "I cannot let you pass, Ghost. I regret having to stand in your way, but I have no choice," Wulfric said, his voiceden with resignation.
"And why is that, headmaster? Why do you continue to align with the Skyhall even after they''ve killed your parents, inflicted so much pain upon your brother, and ughtered countless innocents? Enlighten me before I stop seeing you as the headmaster and start seeing you as just another minion of the Skyhall," Michael''s voice bordered on threatening, clearly showing his frustration and impatience. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Although he respected Wulfric, Michael''s patience had its limits. No matter the reasons, if Wulfric stood in his way, then the old man would experience what it was like to face the Dark Lord''s wrath.
The professors and graduates tensed at Michael''s threat. Their eyes shifted between the Dark Lord and Wulfric, torn in their loyalties. On one hand, they recognized that the Skyhall deserved punishment, but on the other, they couldn''t simply stand aside if the Headmaster attempted to thwart the Dark Lord. Their loyalty to Wulfricpelled them to stand with him, even if it meant opposing Michael.
"Wulfric¡why?" Elidyr asked, his voice a mix of confusion and disappointment.
"Wulfric, what are you doing?" Professor Ka stepped forward, her eyes pleading with Wulfric to reconsider his stance.
Meanwhile, Michael''s mind was racing. If Wulfric still aligned himself with the Skyhall and was willing to fight a losing battle despite everything the Skyhall had done to his family, it was clear that someone was either manipting or emotionally controlling him. Michael also knew that Wulfric had been absent from the mortal realm when his parents were killed and during Elidyr''s torment. This suggested that Wulfric''s refusal to back down might be connected to his whereabouts during his parents'' deaths and what he was doing there.
"Let me guess¡ you''re doing this to protect someone¡ someone you were with while Elidyr was going through all that shit the Skyhall put him through," Michael said calmly. He was guessing, wanting to gauge Wulfric''s reaction. To be honest, Michael wasn''t certain Wulfric was protecting someone, but when he noticed the subtle change in Wulfric''s expression, he was surprised to see his guess was urate.
"So you are protecting someone¡" Michael murmured to himself.
"Who are you protecting, Headmaster? Who are you prioritizing above your life and the retribution for your parents'' death?" Michael asked coldly.
But before Wulfric could answer, Michael felt a slight vibration within his ear as he epted themunication from Nithroel.
"What is taking you so long? Don''t drag this out. Every second you waste, the Skyhall gets more prepared to face us. We need that portal gateway now," Nithroel urged Michael sharply.
Hearing Nithroel''s voice, which showed her patience was wearing thin, Elidyr knew the Dark Lord would forcefully remove anyone in his path.
"Step aside, Wulfric. You don''t want this fight," Elidyr tried to convince his brother to stand down, despite still reeling from his own resurfaced memories.
"Last chance, Headmaster. I''m not known for my patience. Stand down, or I will make you," Michael said as he stepped back, prompting the graduates and the professors¡ªexcept for Ka and Lane¡ªto step back as well.
"Ghost¡ don''t do this," Professor Ka said, turning her pleading gaze toward Michael. She knew that not even theirbined might could stop the Dark Lord.
"I won''t kill him," Michael reassured Elidyr with a nod.
"But I can''t promise it won''t hurt," he added, shifting his gaze to Wulfric. At that moment, Lane realized a confrontation was inevitable.
ck lightning bolts began crackling around Michael''s wrists, and the room started to darken. Seeing the battle-ready Dark Lord, Wulfric took a deep breath in preparation to defend himself.
"We are with you, Headmaster," Elliot dered, stepping forward as the others followed suit. Their loyalty to their headmaster far outweighed their fear of the Dark Lord.
"This is going to hurt," Lane muttered under his breath, resigning himself as he too stepped toward Wulfric. At that moment, all the graduates and professors positioned themselves behind Wulfric to face the Dark Lord.
Wasting no time, Deacon Saunders dashed at Michael with his hammer raised high. The hammer glowed ominously, runes etched into its surface, illuminating it with an arcane light. Michael snickered at the approaching figure, his expression one of mild amusement rather than concern. With a simple, dismissive gesture of his hand, he unleashed a powerful gust of wind. The force caught Deacon squarely, sending him hurtling through the air like a rag doll. He crashed against the wall with a resounding crack, the impact leaving spiderweb fractures across the stone.
"Come on then, step up. But you might want to keep those healing potions handy. You''re going to need them," Michael taunted the remaining onlookers.
Chapter 1327 Michael vs Wulfric II
Chapter 1327 Michael vs Wulfric II
Witnessing Deacon''s fate, the others immediately united in their attacks. They knew there was no room for negotiation. Professor Ka, embodying her warrior heritage, summoned ethereal swords that danced around her, slicing through the air towards Michael. Each sword shimmered with a silvery glow, aimed with precision, yet Michael''s quick movements effortlessly deflected them.
Meanwhile, Lane, drawing from his knowledge of alchemy, hurled a series of concocted vials ahead. Upon impact, they erupted into blinding shes and noxious fumes, designed to disorient. But Michael, with a wave of his hand, dispersed the fumes with a burst of wind st, showcasing his own resourcefulness.
From the back, Elliot Watson cast his powerful spells and fired rapid bolts of lightning at Michael. Each bolt zipped through the air with a sizzle, aiming to catch Michael off guard. Yet, Michael''s responsive energy shield materialized around him,pletely absorbing the lightning bolts. Elliot was stunned to see his most powerful spell seem so insignificant before the Dark Lord. But his subconscious mind made sense out of this. The Dark Lord was not just a cultivator. He was a god, God of Darkness.
Elidyr and the dark army soldiers stepped back, letting their lord deal with the Mazeroth professors and students. But Elidyr''s gaze never left Wulfric, who was preparing to cast a spell while the others distracted the Dark Lord. Bethany White, not to be outdone, chanted softly as she knelt down and drew some runes on the ground, making the ground beneath Michael''s feet glow. These runes formed an etherial cage around Michael. For a brief second, it seemed to hold, but Michael''s power surged, shattering the magical restraints with a mere shrug.
"He needs time," Lane muttered under his breath. Lane, with a somber expression, drew from his extensive knowledge of potions and alchemy. He pulled several vials from his robes, throwing them into the mix. The vials shattered on impact, releasing swirling mists of various hues that created a disorienting haze. Within the haze, spectral images of fearsome creatures appeared, darting toward Michael in an attempt to confuse and distract him. He hoped it would buy precious seconds for Wulfric to finish casting his spell.
But deep down, Lane knew that no matter how powerful the spell might be, it would not damage the Dark Lord because the Dark Lord was a god, and mortal spells and cultivations could not put a dent in him.
"Really now, is this the best you''ve got?" Michael snickered, finding the spectacle before him amusing rather than threatening.
His hands moved through the air, tracingplex patterns that glowed with an ethereal light. As he chanted, the energy merged into a massive, swirling vortex of light and shadow directly above him, casting eerie shadows and brilliant shes of light across the hall.
The spell was terrifying in magnitude, radiating waves of force that made even the bravest hearts among the onlookers falter. The graduates and professors gaped in awe and fear, their faces illuminated by the spell''s radiant energy. The spell resembled a storm with bolts of lightning and thunderous roars emanating from its core, powerful enough to shake the academy''s foundations.
As Wulfric''s spell reached its peak intensity, it unleashed a torrent of energy that seemed to tear at the very air. But he knew no matter what spell he cast, it would not even scratch him. But he wanted to show them the sheer gap between them mortals and him, a God.
The hall vibrated under the immense power of the spell as the walls groaned, cracking from the force. Soon, a blinding light followed by a deafening roar enveloped Michael, sending shockwaves through the hall that hurled the onlookers back. Professors and graduates alike were tossed aside like ragdolls, their bodies mming against the walls with thuds that echoed ominously.
Dust and debris filled the air as the hall was shrouded in a cloud of smoke and fire where Michael had stood. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of coughing and the settling of dust.
"Is it¡ is it over?" Bethany gasped, pushing herself up from the rubble.
"Did we¡ did we get him?" Diego said with a shaky voice as he wiped the dust from his face. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
On the other hand, Professor Ka, steadying herself against a cracked pir, coughed out the dust and tried to peer through the haze. "Everyone, stay alert," she warned the others. But Lane did not utter a word.
As the dust began to settle, the silhouette of a figure started to emerge where the spell had struck. The figure stood unharmed, the dark energy around him dissipating the remnants of the spell as if it were mere mist. This figure was none other than Michael himself. "Impressive. But not nearly enough," Michae said with a cold smirk.
The graduates and professors were stunned beyond words. Even knowing he was a god, they harbored a faint hope that Wulfric, the most powerful cultivator they knew, and his formidable spell might at least slow down the Dark Lord. However, Michael faced the spell head-on and emerged as if nothing had happened. He calmly cracked his neck as notifications from his system rang out, rewarding him with badass points.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points]
...
Then, Michael casually flicked his wrist, and the Doombringer materialized in his hand. The moment the war hammer appeared, the temperature around them dropped slightly. Everyone could see the hammer''s head glowing with an icy blue and emitting a chilly frost. Runes engraved all over the hammer glowed menacingly, sending chills down their spines.
"I''d love to entertain you, but I''m in a rush. So let''s finish this quick, shall we?" Michael casually smirked and raised the hammer.
"Take cover!"
As Ka Martin''s warning to take cover echoed through the hall, Michael, without a word, raised the Doombringer. He activated the ancient ice core within the hammer and mmed it against the floor. The impact sent shock waves throughout the hall, the ground cracking and forming a crater under the tremendous force. Everyone, including Wulfric, was sent flying by the sheer power of the st.
But the devastation didn''t end there. From the hammer''s core, a sweeping wave of frost burst forth, rapidly spreading across the hall. The intense cold washed over everyone and everything, instantly freezing them solid. Thickyers of ice formed rapidly, encasing the fighters in crystal-clear prisons. The entire hall turned into a wintryndscape, with frost clinging to every surface and soldiers frozen in mid-action, their expressions locked in time by the chilling force of the Dark Lord''s weapon.
The temperature dropped so severely that the very air seemed to crystallize, sparkling under the dim light as silence fell over the frozen scene.
On the other hand, the Dark Army soldiers, who had only heard rumors of the Dark Lord''s second weapon, stood frozen¡ªnot by the ice, but by sheer awe and fear. They had witnessed the Doombringer''s power first-hand, a sight both terrifying and mesmerizing.
"Fuck me, did you see that?" one soldier gasped as he looked around at the frozen figures of their opponents, their faces etched in surprise and fear.
"Shit, that''s no ordinary weapon. That''s like some end-of-the-world type shit right there," another chimed in, keeping his eyes fixed on Michael, who stood calm andmanding amidst the frosty silence.
"Man, the boss wasn''t kidding when he said he was going to finish this quick. But freezing a Half Celestial like he''s nothing? That''s just insane," another added, shaking his head in disbelief.
"He is a God¡And this wasn''t even a fight to begin with," Elidyr silenced the questions, emphasizing the power gap between a god and mortals.
Michael slowly walked toward Wulfric and Lane, who were both frozen and caged inside an icy shield. Only their pupils moved.
"This will all end soon," Michael said to them calmly before turning to look at his men.
"Let''s go take over this portal gateway to Skyhall. And someone wake her up. She''s sleeping," Michael didn''t know whether tough or kick Lenora''s butt when he heard her snoring on the ground like she was on vacation.
The dark army soldiers broke into nervousughter despite the seriousness of the situation. But Elidyr was as cold as the ice around him. The revtions of the past and the memories he now had made even taking a step forward hard. His whole body was still trembling, not due to the chill but to the heaviness in his heart and mind. Seeing Elidyr''s state, Michael took a deep breath and walked toward him.
"The Skyhall will pay for everything they did. I know this won''t change the past but will give you closure. We''ll make sure the Skyhall or the gods can''t hurt anyone anymore. We will be the new order, both in the mortal realm and in the realm of the gods," Michael said, then nothing more before he walked out of the hall. The dark army soldiers, Elidyr, and Lenora, who had just woken up and looked at the scene like a child who got lost, quickly followed him.
At that moment, Michael was only one step away from settling the score with the Skyhall and starting a new era for the mortal realm.
Chapter 1328 Reaching the Gateway to the Skyhall
Chapter 1328 Reaching the Gateway to the Skyhall
As Michael made his way through the corridor, the portraits hanging on the walls whispered among themselves, their voices a low murmur filled with urgency.
"Is this the one they speak of?" one portrait hissed to another.
"Yes, the God of Darkness. The mortal realm won''t know what hit it," another old man in the portrait replied, his eyes following Michael''s every step.
Michael ignored them, his eyes fixed ahead, his mind racing with ns and possibilities.
Meanwhile, Elidyr, with his memory fully unlocked, felt an eerie familiarity with every corner of Mazeroth. It was as if the castle was an extension of himself. He remembered being young, and the countless days he spent with Wulfric running around the castle, causing mischief, theirughter echoing through the halls. They had explored every nook and cranny, masters of their own little world. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Now, those memories stung with a bittersweetness. He longed for those carefree days, the simplicity of youth when the heaviest burden was which game to y next. He sighed, feeling the weight of his regained memories and the current reality pressing down on him. The joy of those childish days seemed like a distant dream, overshadowed by the looming war.
As Michael and his party moved through the corridor, they came across students of Mazeroth who had managed to sneak out of their dormitories and dungeons. Their eyes were a mix of fear, anger, and the reckless impulse to attack the Dark Lord.
"That''s him, the Dark Lord," one student whispered with a mix of terror and hatred.
"We can''t just let him walk through here!" another hissed, clenching his fists.
Michael nced at them, feeling a wave of pity. These kids had no idea about the true face of the Skyhall they worshipped as the embodiment of good. To them, he was the viin, and they were the heroes in a story they didn''t fully understand.
A few older students, braver or perhaps more foolish, stepped forward, raising their hands to cast spells.
"Stop right there!" one of them shouted, his voice cracking with tension.
Before they couldplete their incantations, the dark army soldiers reacted swiftly. One soldier flicked his wrist, and a shimmering blue spell shot out, hitting the first student square on the forehead. The student was lifted off his feet and sent flying,nding softly on a cushion of air a few feet away.
"Nice try, kid," the soldier muttered, already turning his attention to the next.
Seeing the students'' futile bravery, Elidyr felt a pang of nostalgia for the days when he and Wulfric were carefree. But Michael, on the other hand, knew these students were just pawns, manipted by the lies of the Skyhall.
"We''re not here to hurt you. You''ll understand the truth soon enough," Michael said with a surprising gentleness that caught many students off guard. A whileter, the corridor grew silent with no students present neat them. "This way," Elidyr said, pointing towards another empty corridor.
Michael followed, noting that he hadn''te to this part of the castle when he was a student. He watched Elidyr lead confidently, his eyes asionally drifting to each portrait and decoration with a touch of longing. It was clear that Elidyr had once roamed every corner of this ce as his eyes betrayed his inner turmoil.
They walked in silence until they stood before arge, imposing oak door. Even from a few meters away, Michael could feel the energy pulsating from the invisible runes engraved on its surface. On top of that, he could also sense a distortion in the space around him, a clear indication that the portal gateway was just beyond this barrier.
"Go on," Michael prompted, his voice steady, betraying none of the tension he felt.
Elidyr took a deep breath and stepped forward, his hands moving deftly as he began to engrave several runes onto the door. As he worked, the invisible runes on the door lit up and hummed, resisting his attempts. But Elidyr was undeterred. He continued to etch his runes, each one designed to counteract the array already in ce on the door.
The humming grew louder, the resistance palpable in the air as the two sets of runes interacted. Elidyr''s brow furrowed in concentration, and sweat beads formed on his forehead. But despite the pushback, Elidyr felt from the door, he continued to engrave runes to the point he bled through his nostrils.
While Elidyr was attempting to break the runes, Lenora fiddled impatiently. Her fingers twitched at her sides as she thought about the uing confrontation with the Skyhall. Adrenaline rushed through her veins, yet her pride still smarted from the fact that she''d been knocked out cold by an alchemy professor.
"Bloody hell, if I get my hands on that sneaky bastard," she muttered under her breath.
Michael, catching snippets of her grumbling, was slightly amused by the elder vampire''s frustration. He watched her pace back and forth, radiating irritation and readiness.
"This is why you shouldn''t underestimate anyone," Michael said, drawing the attention of the group. "We don''t know what tricks they might pull, just like we can''t underestimate the Skyhall we''re about to challenge,"
Hearing Michael''s words, Lenora shot him a sharp look, her annoyance momentarily redirected towards the wisdom in his warning. Although she was pissed off, even she couldn''t ignore the truth in what Michael said. She noticed a rare flicker of seriousness in the Dark Lord''s eyes. Usually, Michael was as calm and cool as a cucumber, showing no signs of worry. So, the seriousness in his gaze was a clear signal that things were serious indeed.
"My Lord, I know you said we should go in as a small group, but are we really not gonna sick our whole army on Skyhall''s ass?" Lenora asked, her toneced with a mix of frustration and disbelief. As soon as she spoke, the five dark army soldiers turned their gazes to Michael, clearly sharing Lenora''s sentiment.
"We''ll first force Skyhall to reveal all their tricks and destroy the Celestial Cannon¡ Then we''ll bring our whole army to end them once and for all," Michael replied coldly, his killing intent intensifying. Of course, Michael would bring his army into the fray. Why wouldn''t he? After all, he had invested massive resources and Gaya had spent considerable time training them. But Michael wasn''t foolish enough to rush in while Skyhall still had the Celestial Cannon. First, he needed to locate the cannon and either destroy it or take it himself. But, now that Wulfric had revealed the cannon was built by Elidyr, Michael was aware that Elidyr might not approve of taking it and might urge him to destroy it once and for all.
Under the gazes of dark army soldiers and Michael,Elidyr worked meticulously on the runes. Instead of stepping in and using the system to disable the security arrays and runes himself, Michael chose to hold off. He had a couple of reasons for hanging back. First off, he wanted to save those badass points for when they were absolutely necessary. It wasn''t time to pull out the big guns yet.
Secondly, Michael understood that Elidyr needed something to focus on. Diving into the technicalities of disabling runes gave Elidyr a way to keep his mind off the heavy stuff from his past. It was a sort of distraction, something to keep his hands and brain busy so the memories didn''t drown him.
Besides, Michael knew that Elidyr''s efforts weren''t just busy work. Thanks to Elidyr''s expertise, they hadn''t triggered a single trap around them. He had quietly disabled many runes and arrays, clearing their path without making a big show of it. Watching Elidyr work, Michael felt a sense of appreciation for his friend''s expertise. It was clear that Elidyr was more than capable, and his actions were taking them one step closer to ending the Skyhall.
As Elidyr''s hands moved with practiced ease, the runes slowly ceased their resistance, growing dim one by one. Finally, a soft click echoed through the corridor, followed by a low humming sound. The door began to slowly creak open, revealing a spacious hall that stretched out before them. The hall was draped in dark blue banners, each one adorned with various logos ranging from swords to ravens, symbols of the myriad houses and factions within Skyhall.
In the center of the hall stood a colossal portal gate. It was a towering structure, its frame crafted from intertwining metal that shimmered with a silver sheen. The metalwork was intricate, featuring delicate patterns that seemed to pulse with a faint, ethereal glow. Enigmatic runes danced across the surface, their glow intensifying and fading in a rhythmic pattern that suggested they were alive with magical energy. "This is it," Lenora said, stepping forward. Her eyes were wide as she took in the sight of the gate. "The gateway to the Skyhall,"
Michael slowly approached the gateway and cracked his neck. This was it¡All those years of suffering, everything he ednured and went through¡He was still a few steps away from finally making the Skyhall pay. They had trapped him in earth, stripped him of his family but now, it was time for sweet payback.
"This is going to be epic," Michael mumbled.
Chapter 1329 Welcome To The Skyhall
1329 Wee To The Skyhall
Michael nodded at Elidyr, signaling him to activate the gateway. With a determined stride, Elidyr approached the rune-engraved pir that served as the controller of the portal. He began to diligently tap and engrave new runes, his hands moving with practiced precision and care.
As Elidyr worked, a low whirling sound filled the room, gradually growing louder. Michael sensed the portal gateway slowly powering up, a subtle vibration in the air that hinted at the dormant energying to life. One by one, the runes around the portal began to light up, casting a pulsating glow that painted eerie shadows on the walls. The temperature in the room slowly rose, the air growing warmer with the awakening power of the gateway.
Michael cracked his neck, loosening the muscles in preparation for what was toe. He watched as Elidyr''s final tap on the pir seemed to unleash the full potential of the portal. Suddenly, the vortex began to form, swirling with a deep blue hue.The runes zed even brighter, and the entire room was bathed in their azure light. As the vortex stabilized into a swirling blue gateway, everyone felt the pulling force and prepared to face the Skyhall.
"Wait," suddenly, a voice called out, echoing slightly in the vast chamber.
Michael didn''t need to turn around to recognize the voice¡ªit was Harry. He looked over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. Lenora and the dark army soldiers tensed as Harry and his friends slowly entered the room. The teenagers, with their youthful features, were in stark contrast to the seasoned, powerful presence and ck armor of the dark army soldiers.
Lenora squinted at Harry, noting the resemnce he bore to Michael. She wondered what the Dark Lord''s son was doing here, especially after the lengthy and serious conversation Michael had with him previously.
"Why''s the kid here now? Doesn''t he know what''s at stake?" one of the soldiers muttered under his breath to another.
"I just hope these kids don''t try to stop the Dark Lord. It won''t end well for them," another soldier whispered, confusion and annoyancecing his words.
Michael slowly turned around and locked his gaze with Harry, his expressionposed yet unreadable. "What are you doing here?" he asked calmly, his voice barely rising above the humming of the portal gateway.
Standing at the room''s threshold, Harry could feel the overwhelming power radiating from the portal.
"Whatever you need to say to the Dark Lord, make it quick,d. We might get sucked into that thing any moment now." Thrain grumbled from beside Harry. But even at this moment, Thrian couldn''t help but smirk when his elven friends, who were not as big as him, were struggling to stand still. Their thin bodies made resisting the pulling force harder, which amused the dwarf.
Harry and his friends, not as seasoned or powerful as the Dark Lord and his men, struggled to maintain their footing under the relentless pull of the portal. Despite this, Harry''s determination did not waver; he needed to speak with his father before any of them stepped through to Skyhall.
"Father, what happens after this war? Will this affect Mazeroth?" Harry managed to ask, his voice firm despite the swirling forces around them. To others, Mazeroth Academy might have been just a school to learn spells and master magic, but to Harry, it was home. He had grown up there with his mother, and he would not stand by and let anything happen to the ce he called home¡ªeven if it was a branch of Skyhall, which he knew was evil.
"Nothing will happen to Mazeroth, Harry. Now, go be with your mother," Michael''s face softened slightly, but his voice remained firm, leaving no room for debate. "What if destroying Skyhall results in the destruction of Mazeroth, considering Mazeroth is a branch of Skyhall?" Harry pressed, his voiceced with concern.
Michael understood Harry''s position and sympathized with him. He knew all too well that Mazeroth felt like home to his son, a ce imbued with special meaning. He was about to respond when Elidyr stepped forward, his gaze unexpectedly soft as he addressed Harry.
"Mazeroth isn''t just a building. It''s about friendship, love, loyalty, and a sense of belonging," Elidyr said gently. "Even if the war with Skyhall damages the physical structure, Mazeroth will still stand strong. As long as the people there, the students and professors, stay together, the spirit of Mazeroth will endure." Elidyr paused for a moment before continuing. "I was also a student at Mazeroth once. And I too called this ce home. So, you have my word, as well as that of my friends, that nothing will happen to Mazeroth,"
After hearing Elidyr, everyone noted the surprising steadiness in his voice, given the nightmarish memories that Wulfric had unlocked. Michael was d to see that Elidyr was coping with those memories better than he had imagined, his old friend''s resilience shining through despite the burdens he carried.
Just then, ra, clutching her books tightly to prevent them from being sucked into the vortex, quickly reminded Harry. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Harry, we need to go. The pulling force is getting stronger,"
Watching the kids struggling to maintain their footing, Lenora couldn''t help but chuckle.
"Look at you lot, can barely stand straight in a breeze," she quipped, teasing Harry and his friends.
On the other hand, Michael chose to ignore Lenora''sments even though it was indeed funny to see these kids struggling to stand still and turned his gaze back to Harry.
"Go on, kid. Tell your mother that I''ll see her after I destroy Skyhall," With those words, he turned around and walked toward the vortex, his figure exuding confidence and determination.
Elidyr gave Harry a gentle pat on the shoulder and offered a faint smile. Then, he followed behind Michael, Lenora, and the rest of their small party in tow. As the Dark Lord and his soldiers calmly walked into the swirling vortex and disappeared from sight, Harry and his friends stood there with dumbstruck expressions.
"Damn, I still can''t believe we were in the presence of a god twice," Thrain eximed.
"And I can''t believe we are friends with the God of Darkness''s son. Harry, do you think your father would grant us some powers," Aric asked Harry with a mischievous glint in his eyes. The pulling force slowly diminished after the Dark Lord and his men disappeared into the vortex, giving Harry and his friends much-needed relief from the pulling force.
"I have a feeling our world wouldn''t be the same again," Harry sighed.
**************************************
Finally, traveling through the vortex, Michael and his mennded in a vast expanse where dark, star-dusted skies stretched infinitely above them and floating pces dotted the horizon in every direction. These massive structures seemed suspended in the cosmos, resembling celestial bodies more than buildings. Michael felt as though he was floating in outer space, as he had seen when he was on Earth.
"Holy shit. This ce is freaky but also beautiful," Lenora''s jaw dropped at the sight.
Michael scanned the horizon, noting that although the pces appeared small from their current vantage point, each was colossal in scale, likely covering areas asrge as small kingdoms. However, Michael''s initial awe quickly turned to suspicion as he noticed theck of activity around them. There were no angels of Skyhall patrolling, no warships in sight, and no visible weapons or defenses. It was eerily quiet¡ªa stark contrast to the massive confrontation he had braced for.
"I expected a weingmittee of sorts, or at least some resistance," Michael mused aloud, his brow furrowed in concern. "Yet, there''s nothing. No guards, no angels... as far as I can see. This is not what I expected,"
Even though Elidyr was a member of Skyhall, this was not the realm of Skyhall that he remembered from three thousand years ago. Back then, Skyhall was a singr, majestic floating pce set in a vast cosmos under a beautiful morning sky, surrounded by floating mountains and surreal sceneries that seemed to defy the veryws of nature. It was a ce of awe and wonder, where the light bathed everything in a warm glow, fostering a sense of peace and majesty.
But now, despite its undeniable beauty, the ce looked dark, magical, and menacing. The skies were dusted with dark stars, and each of the numerous floating pces bore an ominous aura as if each was a fortress preparing for celestial warfare. The transformation was stark, and it was clear to Elidyr that Skyhall had umted far more power than he had anticipated over the millennia.
A flicker of doubt crossed Elidyr''s eyes as he took in the expanse of the transformed realm. The power radiating from these pces was palpable, and the air thrummed with a magical intensity that he had not felt in a long time. The sheer scale of what Skyhall had be was daunting. This was no longer the sanctuary he had known; it was a fortified empire in the cosmos, seemingly prepared for any threat. As they were looking around, a calm yet powerful voice echoed through the empty space.
"Wee to Skyhall, Dark Lord,"
Chapter 1330 The Clone of Jasmine Voldiguard
1330 The Clone of Jasmine Voldiguard
Michael scanned the area intently, his keen eyes searching for the source of the voice. Despite his enhanced senses and X-ray vision granted by his status as the God of Darkness, he found himself unable to pinpoint its origin. The voice seemed to emanate from everywhere at once, filling the vast expanse of Skyhall. A slight frown creased his brow as he realized his usually infallible abilities were being thwarted.
Beside him, Lenora spun in a circle, her eyes darting from one floating pce to another. "What the hell?" she muttered, a mix of confusion and frustration in her voice. "Where''s thating from?"
As they searched, three figures began to materialize in the distance, shimmering into existence as if stepping out of thin air. Michael''s gaze locked onto them immediately.
The first was a tall elf with flowing golden hair and piercing blue eyes. His presence exuded power, marking him clearly as a being of Celestial cultivation. Next to him materialized a short, burly figure with a prominent pot belly. His thick, bushy beard and long hair gave him a wild appearance, but there was no mistaking the power that radiated from him as well.
Finally, a white-haired woman d in sky-blue armor appeared. She stood tall and stern, her very posture speaking of a seasoned warrior. Like the others, she too was clearly at the Celestial stage of cultivation.
As Michael observed these three figures, something nagged at the back of his mind. A sense of familiarity, of importance, pricked at his consciousness. Yet, try as he might, he couldn''t ce why these individuals seemed significant.
Unbeknownst to Michael in that moment, these were the three elders who had attacked Harriet Hunt, his mother, and cast him into the void when he was just minutes old. They were responsible for his imprisonment on Earth, a fact that eluded him now but would soone to light with earth-shattering consequences.
For now, Michael stood alert, his senses on high alert as he prepared to face these powerful beings, unaware of the personal history that bound them together.
As the three figures materialized fully, Elidyr''s reaction was immediate and intense. His fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white, the veins in his forearms standing out from the strain. His jaw set in a hard line, and his eyes zed with a mixture of recognition and barely contained rage.
To Elidyr, these weren''t just powerful celestial beings - they were the very elders who had burned his parents alive and stolen the Celestial Cannon from him. He knew firsthand their power, cunning, and cruelty. The memories of his past trauma surged forward, threatening to overwhelm him.
Michael, attuned to the emotions and bodynguage of hispanions, immediately noticed the change in Elidyr. He could feel the waves of killing intent radiating from his friend, so potent it was almost tangible. The Dark Lord''s eyes narrowed as he nced between Elidyr and the three figures, quickly deducing that there was a significant history between them.
What Michael failed to realize in that moment was that he too shared a dark history with these elders - one that had shaped the entire course of his life. "It''s them," Elidyr hissed through clenched teeth, his voice trembling with barely contained emotion.
Michael turned to look at his friend, his calm demeanor a stark contrast to Elidyr''s visible distress. The half-elf was shaking, his body wracked with a potent mixture of rage and fear. The memories recently unlocked by Wulfric had left Elidyr''s psyche raw and vulnerable, and now, faced with the very beings responsible for his deepest traumas, he teetered on the edge of a breakdown.
Elidyr''s breathing came in short, rapid gasps, his eyes wide and unfocused. The panic attack gripped him fiercely, intertwining with his anger to create a maelstrom of overwhelming emotion. His hands trembled as they opened and closed, caught between the urge tosh out and the instinct to protect himself.
Recognizing the severity of Elidyr''s state, Michael ced a steadying hand on his shoulder. "We''ll take care of them," he said, his voice low and assured. The calm confidence in his tone seemed to anchor Elidyr slightly, providing a lifeline amidst the emotional tempest.
With a subtle gesture from Michael, he and his men began to rise higher to meet the approaching trio on equal footing.
The two groups finally came to a halt, hovering just meters apart in the vast expanse of Skyhall. The three celestial beings regarded Michael with aplex mix of emotions. Fear flickered in their eyes, quickly masked by anger and disgust. Their expressions betrayed a sense of superiority, as if they viewed themselves as more elevated beings, despite the fact that Michael was a god and they were, inparison, merely powerful mortals.
Thorfinn Borgersson, the stout dwarf, turned his attention to Elidyr. A cruel smirk yed on his lips as he spoke, his voice rough and mocking. "Well, well. If it isn''t our old friend. It''s been quite a while, hasn''t it?"
Before Elidyr could respond, Thorfinn let out a boisterousugh, his handing to rest on his protruding belly. He reached for therge gourd hanging at his waist, taking a long swig of ale before continuing. "I had so much fun breaking you all those years ago. Nothing quite like watching a dark elf shatter."
Michael remained outwardly calm, but his keen eyes didn''t miss the sadistic glee dancing in Thorfinn''s gaze. The dwarf''s words and demeanor spoke volumes about the long-standing enmity between dwarves and elves. This animosity ran deep, rooted in centuries of cultural differences, territorial disputes, and mutual distrust. Dwarves, with their love for the underground and craftsmanship, often shed with the nature-loving, surface-dwelling elves. Their contrasting lifestyles and values had led to numerous conflicts throughout history.
It was clear that Thorfinn was deriving immense pleasure from Elidyr''s distress, his words calcted to inflict maximum emotional damage. The dwarf''s enthusiasm seemed to go beyond mere racial antipathy, veering into personal vindictiveness. "You fucking asshole, you''re going to pay for this," Lenora growled, her body tensing as if ready to spring into action.
Michael calmly raised a hand, stopping Lenora before she could lunge at the dwarf. "Don''t," he said quietly, his tone brooking no argument.
Devdan, the tall elf standing next to Thorfinn, spoke up with an air of forced civility. "Quit your childish banter, Thorfinn," he chided, before turning his gaze back to Michael. "I apologize for mypanion''s behavior, Dark Lord," he said, though his words rang hollow, barely concealing the anger simmering beneath the surface.
In response, Michael let out a low chuckle. It was a sound that sent chills down the spines of Lenora and the dark army soldiers. They had heard their lordugh before, but this was different. This chuckle wasced with an undercurrent of deadly intent, a promise of violence barely contained. It oozed killing intent and raw power, making the air around them feel heavy and oppressive.
"It''s time you hear a little story, dwarf." Michael''s eyes locked onto the dwarf, his voice deceptively calm. The air grew thick with anticipation as Michael began to speak, his words carrying a weight that demanded attention.
"Once, there was a badger who fancied himself quite the terror. He''d spend his days bullying smaller creatures, reveling in their fear. One day, this badger came across a sleeping bear. Feeling bold, he decided to show off, poking and prodding at the massive creature. Michael''s eyes never left Thorfinn as he continued. "The badger danced around, hurling insults, thinking himself clever. But what he failed to realize was that the bear wasn''t being patient or tolerant. No, the bear was simply savoring the moment, enjoying its prey''s final, foolish dance before the inevitable." His voice took on a darker edge as he concluded. "You see, the badger mistook the bear''s stillness for weakness, never realizing he was already dead. He just didn''t know it yet."
The chilling analogy left no doubt as to who was the badger and who was the bear in this confrontation. As Thorfinn opened his mouth to rebuke, Erael, the white-haired woman in sky-blue armor, raised her hand, silencing him instantly. Unlike herpanions, her face remained impassive, betraying no emotion as she regarded Michael with a steady gaze.
"Dark Lord," she said, her voice even and measured. "Perhaps we should engage in dialogue before actions are taken that cannot be undone. There may be more to discuss than meets the eye."
Michael considered her words carefully. He knew he could easily overpower these three, despite their celestial cultivation. However, something about their presence, particrly theposed demeanor of Erael and the calcting look in Devdan''s eyes, suggested there was more at y here.
While the dwarf seemed driven by emotion and old grudges, Michael sensed that the elf and thedy before him were not so easily dismissed as fools. Their very presence here, facing a god without fleeing, spoke of either great courage or a hidden agenda - possibly both.
Intrigued by what they might reveal, and always one to gather information before acting, Michael decided to entertain their request for talks. "Alright. Talk." He nodded slightly, his voice low and controlled as he responded.
Michael''s gaze shifted expectantly to Erael, anticipating her to take the lead in this dialogue. However, it was Devdan who stepped forward, his blue eyes fixed intently on Michael. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Before we proceed, Dark Lord, there''s a matter of great importance we must discuss." Devdan paused, as if carefully considering his next words.
Michael waited, his patience masking a growing sense of unease. Something in Devdan''s tone suggested that whatever wasing would be far from trivial.
Finally, Devdan broke the tense silence with a question, "What do you know about Jasmine Voldiguard?"
The name hit Michael like a physical blow. His frown was immediate and deep, a mixture of surprise and concern etching itself across his features. Jasmine Voldiguard - the name conjured a flood of memories and associations. She was the younger sister of Eve Voldiguard, Michael''s best friend. The mere mention of her name in this context sent a chill down his spine.
As the implications of the question began to sink in, a sense of foreboding washed over Michael. The fact that these celestial beings were inquiring about Jasmine could only mean trouble. "What about her?" Michael coldly asked as his patience began to wear thin.
Revealing a cunning that had been masked by his earlierposure, Devdan''s lips curled into a devilish smile.
"We have several contingencies for this exact situation, Dark Lord," he said, his voiceced with smug satisfaction.
"We''ve been several steps ahead, forming contingencies against you, the God of Darkness. One of those contingencies involves your best friend''s younger sister. If you want to see her alive, you''d do well to listen carefully."
Michael''s frown deepened, his mind already formting a n. He was about to order Azazel, his demon butler, to locate Jasmine when Devdan interrupted, as if reading his thoughts.
"Don''t bother," the elf said, his smile widening. "The one out there in the mortal realm is nothing but a clone we created. The real Jasmine is secured and safe... for now."
Chapter 1331 The Skyhalls Demand and Offer
Chapter 1331 The Skyhall''s Demand and Offer
Michael''s mind shed with vivid images of tearing the three elders apart, his rage barely contained beneath his stoic exterior. The urge to unleash his godly powers and obliterate them on the spot was almost overwhelming. However, a deeper emotion stayed his hand.
The memory of Eve, his best friend, and the guilt he carried over her death weighed heavily on him. He couldn''t bear the thought of failing to protect Jasmine as well. Eve would have wanted him to save her little sister, and Michael was determined not to repeat past mistakes. This internal conflict kept him rooted in ce, despite his desire for immediate retribution.
As he stood there, outwardly calm but inwardly seething, Michael realized the true nature of the battle ahead. While he was a god of immense power and cunning, these elders had spent over four millennia meticulously plotting against him. Every second of their long lives had been dedicated to finding ways to counter the Dark Lord.
This wasn''t going to be a straightforward confrontation of raw power. Instead, it would be a chess match of the highest order - a battle of wits, strategy, and foresight between two formidable forces. The elders'' age and experience had given them time to weave an intricate web of ns and contingencies, matching Michael''s godly power with their own brand of cunning.
"Follow me if you please," Devdan gestured for Michael and his group to follow, leading them towards one of the colossal floating pces. As they approached, the structure''s true enormity became apparent, dwarfing even Michael''s expectations.
They passed through ornate gates that seemed to part on their own, revealing a grand interior that left even Lenora, usually quick with a quip, momentarily speechless. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight. "Holy... This ce makes our fortress look like a mud hut," she whispered with a mix of awe and unease.
Lining the vast corridors were rows of Skyhall angels, their metal armor gleaming in the ethereal light. Their wings, a blend of metallic tes and feathers, rustled softly as the group passed. Though their faces were hidden behind helmets, Michael could sense their conflicting emotions - fear and anger radiating off them in waves.
"Don''t trust them, my lord. They''re masters of deception." Elidyr leaned in close to Michael ash his eyes darted nervously around the hall, memories of past betrayals clearly haunting him.
Finally, they entered a spacious hall that seemed to stretch endlessly upward. Erael, the white-haired woman, waved her hand gracefully. In response, several ornate thrones materialized - a set for the elders and another for Michael and hispanions.
"Please, be seated," Erael said, her tone cordial butcking warmth. "We have much to discuss."
As they settled into the thrones, the air grew thick with tension. Michael''s gaze swept across the elders'' faces, searching for any hint of their true intentions. Devdan leaned forward slightly, his blue eyes locked on Michael. "Now then, Dark Lord," he began, his voice echoing in the vast chamber, "shall we begin?"
"This might be clich¨¦, but let me tell you anyway: tell me where Jasmine is, and I''ll make your deaths as painless as possible." Michael said, leaning back in his throne. "You think you can threaten us, boy? We''ve been ying this game since before you were born!" Thorfinn snickered, his arrogance palpable. But before the dwarf could close his mouth, a bolt of dark lightning materialized out of thin air, striking him square in the chest. The impact sent Thorfinn flying across the hall, his body crashing into a far wall with a sickening thud. As a result, the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. Everyone tensed, the air crackling with palpable tension. Devdan and Erael froze, their eyes widening in shock and fear.
Despite their celestial stage power, the Dark Lord''s simple spell had effortlessly overpowered Thorfinn. The disy of raw power was a stark reminder of the gap between their abilities and Michael''s godhood.
Devdan and Erael exchanged a quick, worried nce. They realized, with growing dread, that the darkness enveloping the mortal realm due to Noah, the God of Light''s death, had increased the God of Darkness''s power far beyond their calctions. The situation was rapidly spiraling out of their control.
Erael''s hand tightened on her throne''s armrest, her knuckles turning white. Devdan''sposure cracked slightly, a bead of sweat forming on his brow. They had underestimated Michael''s power, and now they were facing the consequences of their miscalction.
"Now, shall we try this conversation again?" Michael''s voice cut through the silence, cold and threatening.
"You... bastard," Thorfinn grumbled, clutching the gaping hole in his chest. Blood seeped through his fingers as he struggled to his feet. "F-fucking god... think you''re so tough," he spat, his voice now a mere whisper,ced with fear rather than conviction.
Meanwhile, Devdan cleared his throat, desperately trying to regain control of the situation. "Dark Lord, this should be a negotiation, not a disy of power. Unless, of course, you don''t wish to see Jasmine alive." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Leaning forward, Michael fixed Devdan with an icy stare. "Then you''d best make the dwarf shut up. If you think Jasmine''s life gives you free rein to toy with me, all bets are off. I''ll paint this ce with your blood."
Beneath his calm exterior, Michael''s mind raced. He knew they couldn''t risk killing Jasmine; they needed her alive to save themselves from his wrath. Yet, he had to tread carefully. Pushing them too hard might drive them to desperate, suicidal actions. Both sides were walking a razor''s edge.
"Let''s be clear, you need Jasmine alive as much as I do. So let''s cut the posturing and get to the point." Michael calmly said.
Erael''s eyes narrowed, recognizing the truth in Michael''s words. She raised a hand to silence Thorfinn, who had opened his mouth to retort. "You''re right," she admitted grudgingly. "We all have much to lose here. Perhaps it''s time weid our cards on the table,"
"Good," Michael said, his voice low and firm.
Erael leaned forward, her eyes locked on Michael. "Jasmine is but one of many contingencies we have against you. Each will have devastating effects on both you and the mortal realm. Pay close attention."
"You bastards!" Elidyr growled, his fists clenched. "You im to fight evil, yet you''re its very embodiment. Holding an innocent hostage, using a clone in her ce. You''re no better than the darkness you im to oppose!"
Thorfinn, having chugged several healing potions, limped to his throne. He climbed up, muttering curses under his breath, his earlier bravado significantly diminished. On the other hand, Devdan turned his calm gaze to Elidyr, a hint of a smirk ying on his lips. "The darkness engulfing the mortal realm is a clear sign that the prophecy has seeded, thanks to your Dark Lord. And it''s only going to get worse from here."
He paused, letting his words sink in before continuing. "This eternal darkness... it''s already wreaking havoc. Mortals are acting strange, more violent. Crime, which always thrives in darkness, is flourishing like never before. Even good people aremitting murders, their moralpasses skewed by the absence of light."
Devdan''s voice took on a chilling tone as he borated. "Diseases are spreading unchecked, immune systems weakened by theck of sunlight. Crops are failing, leading to widespread famine. Mental illness is on the rise as the constant darkness affects people''s minds. Suicides are increasing as hope dwindles."
He leaned back, a cruel satisfaction in his eyes. "And this is just the beginning. The longer the darkness persists, the worse it will get. Society will crumble, descending into chaos and anarchy. Is this the world you envisioned, Dark Lord?"
"You''re right," Michael admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. The words Devdan spoke rang true, echoing the reports Nithroel had given him. The eternal darkness had indeed boosted his power, but at a terrible cost to the mortal realm.
Yet, a flicker of anger ignited in his eyes as he remembered the root cause of this catastrophe. He leaned forward, his gaze piercing through Devdan.
"Save your guilt trip, elf," Michael growled, his voice dripping with contempt. "This hellscape wouldn''t exist if you and your precious Skyhall hadn''t yed puppeteer with Noah. You twisted his sense of justice, manipted him into fighting me. Your hands are just as bloody as mine."
He let the usation hang in the air, watching as difort rippled across the elders'' faces. After a moment of tense silence, Michael''s eyes turned cold, calctive.
"Cut the crap," he snarled. "You didn''t drag us here for a lecture on the effects of eternal darkness. What''s your endgame? What do you hope to gain from this little negotiation?"
Hearing Michael''s no nonsense tone, Erael took a deep breath, herposure wavering slightly.
"In exchange for not using our contingencies and releasing Jasmine''s soul, we propose a deal. We want half of the mortal realm and your word that you won''t seek revenge against Skyhall." said Erael.
"A nk te," Devdan interjected, his eyes gleaming with hope.
But the moment Elidyr heard them, he was beyond pissed. His unlocked memories cast a full picture of what the Skyhall did and he would rather die than letting these bastards who killed his parents, the love of his life and used his creation to ughter thousands of innocent people. It was getting really difficult for him to stay still instead of ripping them apart.
"You can''t be serious! After everything you''ve done, you expect to just wipe the te clean because of some imed contingencies?" Elidyr''s face contorted with disbelief and rage.
"Before we discuss this further, I want to see Jasmine''s soul up close." Michael raised a hand, silencing Elidyr. "Ha! So you can snatch it and damn the consequences? Not a chance, dark one!" Thorfinn''s eyes narrowed with suspicion. On the other hand, Erael''s brow furrowed, caught between suspicion and the need to show good faith. After a moment of internal debate, she spoke. "We can''t bring the true soul here, but I''ll show it through a portal spell. Elidyr can verify its authenticity."
A ghost of a smile yed on Michael''s lips. This was exactly what he needed. With just a glimpse, he could use the system to analyze Eve''s soul signature and confirm if this was truly her sister. Once verified, he could use his badass points to locate the soul and turn the tables on these elders.
"Proceed," Michaelmanded, his voice betraying nothing of his inner thoughts.
With a nod toward Michael, Erael raised her hands, intricate patterns of light dancing between her fingers. The air shimmered, and a small portal materialized, norger than a dinner te. Within its swirling depths, a faint, ethereal form took shape.
Chapter 1332 Rowena Winstons State Revealed
Chapter 1332 Rowena Winston''s State Revealed
"Behold," Erael intoned, her hands weaving intricate patterns in the air.
A shimmering portal materialized, revealing a soul floating in ethereal beauty. Golden hair flowed around delicate features, reminiscent of Eve. The sight stirred something in Michael''s chest, but his face remained impassive.
As Michael gazed at the soul, a familiar voice echoed in his mind:
[Does the host wish to scan the soul for authenticity and find the location of the soul?] [The process requires 10 million badass points. Does the host wish to continue?]
Without hesitation, Michael mentally agreed. His badass points dropped from thirty million to twenty million, a price he deemed worth paying.
Meanwhile, the Skyhall elders who were watching Michael intently, mistook his silence for emotional turmoil. But they had no idea of the unseen process unfolding within his mind.
[The Scanning and finding location will be done in five minutes¡]
Hearing the system''s notification, Michael shifted his focus from the soul to the three elders before him. A hint of amusement yed at the corners of his mouth as he broke the silence.
"Please, borate on this notion of wanting half the mortal realm," he said, his tone deceptively light.
The elders exchanged nces, momentarily taken aback by his sudden shift in demeanor. Finally, Devdan cleared his throat.
"We propose a division," he stated, his voice steady. "Awor continent and Ozer continent for us, while you retain Elon, the Southern continent, and everything in between."
Michael''s eyebrows shot up, momentarily caught off guard by the sheer audacity of their request. These bastards had some nerve, he thought, asking for the two most valuable pieces of the mortal realm pie.
Awor, the crown jewel of the continents, was Nithroel''s domain - rich in resources, blessed with diverse climates, and fertile as hell. It wasn''t even his to give away, and even if it were, he''d sooner eat his own shadow than hand it over to these conniving pricks.
Then there was Ozer, the beating heart of trade andmerce. pping those two continents together made for andmass that dwarfed Elon and the Southern continentbined. It was like asking for a mansion and throwing in a cardboard box as a ''fair trade''. Michael almost snorted at their clever little ploy with the Southern continent. Home to Mugashuku, the colossal four-headed hydra that was sucking up Arch energy like a cosmic vacuum cleaner. The Skyhall elders were clearly not keen on tangling with that particr beast. Sneaky bastards.
And Elon? That tiny sliver ofnd barely qualified as a continent. It was the participation trophy of territorial negotiations.
As Michael processed this ridiculous proposition, he struggled to keep his face neutral. These elders were either delusional or had balls of steel. Either way, he was looking forward to crushing their absurd expectations.
After hearing their proposal, Lenora''s patience snapped like a twig. She threw her hands in the air, her vampiric fangs bared in a snarl of anger and disbelief. It was rare to see her this riled up, but the sheer audacity of their request had her itching to leap forward and rip their throats out, maybe sample some celestial blood while she was at it.
On the other hand, Elidyr was so shocked he seemed to have forgotten how to form words, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
Even the dark army soldiers, their obsidian armor gleaming ominously in the ethereal light, were exchanging bewildered nces.
"Fucking hell, are these idiots for real?" one muttered under his breath.
"They''ve got some brass balls, I''ll give ''em that," another chuckled darkly.
Finally, Michael broke the silence, an amused smile ying on his lips. "Are you seriously expecting me to agree to this deal? What, did you pregame this negotiation with a barrel of Elven wine?"
Erael and Devdan exchanged uneasy nces, knowing full well they were asking for the lion''s share. They were banking on the Dark Lord''s concern for Jasmine and fear of their mysterious "contingencies" to make him consider their outrageous proposal.
But before they could respond, Thorfinn, the dwarf, jumped in, his voice gruff and challenging. "Listen here, you overgrown shadow. You don''t like our terms? Fine. We can do this the hard way. We''ll blow these continents to kingdome before you can blink. You''ve already fucked the mortal realm with your eternal darkness bullshit. So what''s a few more explosions, eh? We''re not going down without taking everything with us!" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"If Jasmine doesn''t move your heart, then perhaps she might..." Devdan''s lips curled into a foxish smile as he watched Michael''s reaction. Then, he nodded at Erael, a glint of triumph in his eyes.
With a wave of her hand, Erael transformed the portal mirror''s image. The shimmering visage of Jasmine''s soul slowly morphed, revealing a sight that made Michael and hispanions frown in confusion and shock.
There, bound by chains at her wrists and ankles, was a young woman. Her pale skin was marred with bruises, her ck hair a tangled mess. Cuts crisscrossed her face, and her tattered clothes hung loosely on her frame. It took Michael a moment to register who he was seeing - Rowena Winston, Noah''s big sister and, by extension, his own elder sister.
But before the full weight of this revtion could sink in, the image shifted again. Behind Rowena, a massive dragon materialized. Its scales shimmered a deep, menacing red, and its maw gaped wide enough to swallow Rowena whole without so much as a hup.
"Holy shit," Lenora breathed, her earlier anger giving way to stunned disbelief.
Elidyr''s face paled, his eyes darting between the image and Michael. "This... this can''t be real," he muttered.
The dark army soldiers shifted uneasily, their earlier bravado reced by a tense silence.
Michael''s face remained impassive, but inside, his mind was reeling. These bastards had managed to capture not just Jasmine, but Rowena as well? And what the fuck was that dragon? He''d known the Skyhall elders were cunning, but this... this was a whole new level of fuckery.
As the implications of this new development sank in, Michael realized the game had just gotten a hell of a lot moreplicated. He needed time - time to process, time to n, and most importantly, time for the system to finish its scan.
Looking at the shock on Michael''s face, Thorfin''s sadistic grin widened as he savored the moments. "Oh, you like our little pet? Nasty piece of work, that one. Has a real taste for ying with its food, if you catch my drift."
The dwarf''s words painted a grim picture of Rowena''s captivity. Those bruises and scars weren''t just for show - they were a testament to the dragon''s cruel nature. Every dragon had its own personality, and this red bastard circling Rowena? It was the kind that got off on inflicting pain, toying with its victims like a cat with a mouse.
As Michael absorbed this information, a cold fury settled in his gut. These three idiots had just signed their own death warrants. They thought they were being clever, but all they''d done was push him past the point of no return.
Without hesitation, Michael mentallymanded the system to locate Rowena as well. The familiar notification popped up in his mind:
[Does the host wish to locate Rowena Winston in addition to Jasmine Voldiguard?]
[This additional process requires 20 million badass points. Current bnce: 20 million. Does the host wish to proceed?]
"Do it," he thought, not giving a damn about wiping out his badass point bnce. He''d earn it back tenfold when he crushed these smug bastards.
As the system began its work, Michael kept his face impassive, not letting on that he was about to turn the tables on these self-righteous pricks. They thought they had him cornered, but little did they know, they''d just handed him the key to their destruction.
Finally Michael tore his gaze away from Rowena''s battered image, fixing the three elders with a cold stare. His mind raced through the losses he''d endured - Eve, his best friend, gone; his mother, a hostage to that bastard Andohr; Noah, his own brother, dead by his hand because of their maniptions. He''d be damned if he''d lose Rowena too.
Sure, they didn''t have the typical sibling bond, but he remembered clear as day how she''d thrown herself in front of that Celestial cannon beam to save his ass. Everyone else feared and hated him as the Dark Lord, but she''d risked it all for him. He owed her, and he felt the weight of responsibility for her current state.
With a calm that belied the fury churning inside him, Michael spoke, his voice as cold as a midwinter night. "You''re thinking I can''t find her, right? But what if you''re wrong? What if I''ve already found where she is?"
The shock on the elders'' faces was almostical. Their smug expressions crumbled, reced by disbelief and a hint of fear.
"Bullshit!" Thorfinn, the dwarf, was the first to find his voice but the tremor in his voice betrayed his uncertainty. "You''re bluffing, you have to be!"
Just as the tension in the room reached its peak, a familiar ping echoed in Michael''s mind.
[Scanplete. Soul of Jasmine Voldiguard authenticated as Eve''s younger sister. Location of Jasmine''s soul and Rowena Winston marked on environmental map.]
As the information flooded his consciousness, a cold, predatory grin spread across Michael''s face. The elders'' expressions shifted from shock to dawning horror as they realized they''d miscalcted badly.
"Deal''s off," Michael rose from his thronend menacingly he announced with dark promise. "And now... you''re going to die."
Before the elders could react, Michael unleashed his power. The vast hall plunged into an imprable darkness, his Death Range engulfing everything. The elders'' panicked curses were cut short as the oppressive ckness closed in around them.
"Fuck!" Thorfinn''s muffled voice echoed in the void, tinged with terror.
Erael''s attempt at a defensive spell fizzled out before it could form. Devdan''s usually smooth voice cracked as he shouted, "Wait, we can still--"
But it was toote. The three elders knew, with bone-deep certainty, that their games and maniptions had finally caught up with them. They''d pushed the Dark Lord too far, and now they were about to pay the ultimate price.
Chapter 1333 Rescuing Rowena I
Chapter 1333 Rescuing Rowena I
"Nithroel, alert your people in the mortal realm. Tell them to perform a clean sweep across the realm," Michael calmlymanded, reaching out to Nithroel telepathically.
In the Akn realm, Nithroel sprang into action without hesitation. She had anticipated Skyhall''s dirty tactics and had her own contingencies in ce. Her response was swift and decisive.
"You''re making a grave mistake, Dark Lord," Devdan growled, his voiceced with desperation. "We''ll destroy her soul and Rowena with a mere snap of our fingers."
But Michael was far beyond the point of negotiation. Instead of blindly attacking, he raised his hand, channeling 3,000 worship energy to immobilize the three elders. Their shadows thickened, materializing around them like dark tendrils, holding them in ce without allowing a single muscle to twitch.
The elders had ounted for many possibilities, but they''d made a crucial oversight - they had no idea about Michael''s badass system, capable of achieving the impossible with enough points.
Michael didn''t stop there. He immediately took out a loan from the system for ten million badass points, using them to open two portals simultaneously. One led to Jasmine''s soul, the other to the pocket dimension where Rowena was held hostage.
"Go rescue Jasmine. I''ll handle the dragon," Michaelmanded Elidyr and the others.
Lenora cracked her knuckles, a fierce grin spreading across her face. "Finally, some fucking action and retribution," she eximed, punching the air enthusiastically.
Elidyr needed no further encouragement, already moving towards the portal designated for Jasmine''s rescue.
Michael, on the other hand, employed his Lightning Dash, vanishing into the portal leading to Rowena in the blink of an eye. In a matter of seconds, the opulent marble hall gave way to a snow-covered, barrenndscape.
In the distance, he spotted the massive dragon that dwarfed Rowena Winston. As if sensing Michael''s sudden arrival, the beast halted its circling of Rowena and turned its gaze towards him. Michael could have sworn he saw a devilish grin spread across the dragon''s maw.
What surprised Michael even more was the realization that this dragon, like Azurith, was an ancient beast. When he activated his Eyes of Darkness, a yellow aura surrounded the dragon, indicating that strategy would be key in defeating this powerful foe.
"Looks like a new toy has arrived," the dragon chuckled, its voice awakening the unconscious Rowena. Slowly, she opened her eyes, confusion and fear evident in her gaze as she took in the scene before her.
Rowena had lost all sense of time in this frozen hell. Days, weeks, months - they all blurred together in an endless cycle of pain and torment. The sadistic dragon had made her suffering its twisted hobby, using its razor-sharp ws and cruel metal spells to inflict agony upon her flesh.
Countless times, the beast had tried to break her, to make her scream and beg for mercy. But Rowena had remained steadfast, her lips sealed against the cries that threatened to escape. Deep in her heart, a flicker of hope had persisted - a belief that one of her brothers woulde to her rescue.
Now, as she gazed upon the Dark Lord''s face in the distance, that hope zed into certainty. Her faith had not been misced. Despite everything, despite the darkness that surrounded him, Michael hade for her.
As Rowena looked at her tormentor, she felt something she''d never experienced before - a desire for vengeance. She, who had always preachedpassion and forgiveness, now wanted nothing more than to see this evil creature suffer a painful death. The dragon had inflicted thousands of cuts and bruises upon her, only to heal her when she lost consciousness, perpetuating a cruel cycle of torment. It had pushed her beyond her limits, awakening a darkness within her that she never knew existed.
"Wee to my domain, my new toy¡A godly toy¡" the dragon''s thunderous voice echoed through the barrennd.
Even from a distance, the dragon''s colossal form dominated thendscape. While not as massive as Vedora or Mugashuku, it still dwarfed Rowena to an rming degree. She stood barely tall enough to reach the tip of a single w on its enormous foot.
Michael, however, showed no fear as he approached. He had faced monsters far more terrifying than this dragon, and his steady gait betrayed no hesitation or doubt.
"Dean..." Rowena muttered, using the name Diana had given Michael. Her voice was weak but filled with a mixture of relief and trepidation.
Michael''s mind briefly flickered to the inevitable moment when Rowena would learn of Noah''s fate - of how he had fallen by Michael''s own hand. He pushed the thought aside, knowing he''d have to face her reaction eventually. Even if she med him, as he expected she would, he''d have to ept it and move forward. After all, despite their blood rtion, they had never truly grown up as siblings.
Focusing on the task at hand, Michael steeled himself for the confrontation with the dragon. Rowena''s eyes zed with a newfound fire as she turned to face her tormentor.
"He''sing for you, Malevolus," Rowena growled, the dragon''s name dripping with venom from her lips. The name, meaning ''evil'' or ''malicious'' in ancient tongues, suited the cruel and sadistic beast perfectly. Her words carried the weight of a promise - a vow of retribution for every moment of suffering the dragon had inflicted upon her. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Michael approached the dragon, unfazed by its imposing size. Malevolus chuckled, a sound like grinding boulders. "Well, well, what have we here? A godly toye to y?" Malevolus chuckled, his voice a rumbling earthquake.
Michael approached steadily, his eyes locked on Rowena. "It''s going to be alright," he assured her, his voice calm and determined.
Turning to face the dragon, Michael spoke, his tone casual yet loaded with intent.
"I met your King Azurith recently. Surprising I didn''t see you with him."
The moment Azurith''s name left Michael''s lips, a sh of intense killing intent zed in the dragon''s eyes. The reaction was unmistakable - there was bad blood between these two, a weakness Michael filed away forter use.
"Don''t you dare speak that name in front of me!" Malevolus roared, his thunderous voice shaking the very air.
The dragon''s massive foot came crashing down, sending a shockwave rippling through the ground towards Michael. With casual grace, Michael leapt into the air, effortlessly avoiding the attack beforending back on solid ground.
"Cute shockwaves," Michael smirked. "But it''s gonna take a lot more than that to take down a god."
"You know, I never bothered to ask your name or what god you are. Want to know why?" Malevolus snickered, circling Rowena with predatory intent.
His cruel smirk widened as he continued. "Because it''s fucking irrelevant to me. I''ve broken many gods in the past, and you''ll be no different."
Michael recognized this tactic - the psychological warfare before the physical assault, a ssic torture technique. But he remained unphased, waiting for the dragon''s next move.
"I don''t give a shit what kind of god you are," Malevolus growled, his hot breath washing over Rowena as he spoke. "In the end, once I''m done with you, you''ll cry like a baby and beg for death. Just like all the others."
"Let me tell you a little story," Malevolous began, his voice dripping with sadistic glee. "There was once a God of Lightning who thought he was invincible. Cocky bastard, just like you. The dragon''s eyes gleamed with cruel memories as he continued. "I started with his fingers, you know. Snapped them one by one, listening to him scream as I negated his powers. Then I moved to his limbs, tearing them off slowly, savoring every moment of his agony."
Michael''s face remained impassive, but his mind raced. He knew Kranar, the current God of Lightning, but this tale spoke of someone who came before. The revtion piqued his curiosity, even as he recognized the psychological warfare at y.
"By the time I was done with him, he was nothing but a whimpering mess, begging me to end his misery," Malevolous chuckled darkly. "Gods, mortals, it doesn''t matter. They all break in the end."
As the dragon spoke, Michael studied him intently. The ancient beast''s scales, the way he moved, the power that radiated from him - all of it provided valuable information. At the same time, Michael was acutely aware that Malevolous was doing the same to him, each sizing up their opponent in this deadly game.
"Fascinating story," Michael replied coolly. "But you should know, I''m not like the gods you''ve faced before."
Malevolous''s eyes narrowed, a hint of uncertainty creeping into his gaze. This ''toy'' wasn''t reacting as expected, and it threw the dragon off bnce.
"We''ll see about that," the dragon snarled, his massive form tensing for action. "I''m going to enjoy breaking you. And your little friend here will watch every moment of it."
Suddenly, Malevolous''s massive form shimmered and vanished from sight, as if activating some sort of cloaking ability. Michael instantly engaged his X-ray vision, followed by thermal imaging, but to his surprise, there was no trace of the dragon. Only a prickling sensation on the back of his neck warned him of danger.
Scanning the snowyndscape, realization dawned on Michael. "Clever bastard," he muttered. The dragon was using the snow to mask its body heat, rendering Michael''s enhanced senses useless.
"Watch out!" Rowena''s scream pierced the air.
Before Michael could react, he felt an enormous presence materialize behind him. What shocked him most wasn''t the dragon''s size, but its silence - he hadn''t heard a thing until searing pain exploded across his back.
The impact sent Michael flying, but he quickly regained control mid-air,nding gracefully on his feet. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the snow, an amused smile ying on his lips.
"Well, well," Michael chuckled, wiping his mouth. "It''s been a while since I''ve had a decent fight. This might actually be fun."
The pain in his back was already fading, reced by a surge of excitement. Michael''s blood sang with the thrill of facing a truly powerful opponent. It had been too long since he''d been challenged like this, and despite the dire circumstances, he couldn''t help but feel a rush of anticipation.
"Alright, you overgrown lizard," Michael called out, his eyes scanning for any sign of movement. "Let''s see what you''ve really got."
Chapter 1334 Rescuing Rowena II
Chapter 1334 Rescuing Rowena II
Malevolous, despite his massive size, moved with shocking speed and agility. He darted through the air, his massive form twisting and turning with a grace that defied logic.
"Well, I''ll be damned," Michael muttered, genuinely impressed. "For a big guy, you sure can move."
Michael unleashed a barrage of dark lightning bolts, aiming for the dragon''s eyes. But Malevolous weaved through the air, dodging each bolt with precision. The dragon''s serpentine neck twisted, allowing him to evade attacks that should have been impossible to avoid.
Suddenly, Malevolous swooped down, his enormous body casting a shadow over Michael. The dragon tucked in his wings, using his full mass as a weapon. Michael barely had time to react as tons of scales and muscle came crashing down towards him.
"Shit!" Michael eximed, rolling to the side at thest second. The ground shook with the impact of the dragon''snding, snow and debris exploding outward.
As the dust settled, Michael found himself trapped between the dragon''s massive ws. Malevolous''s hot breath washed over him as the beast''s head lowered, jaws parting to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth.
"Not bad for an overgrown lizard, huh?" Malevolous sneered, his voice rumbling with dark amusement.
Michael gritted his teeth, realizing he had underestimated the dragon''s capabilities. This wasn''t just a battle of brute strength - Malevolous was a cunning and experienced fighter, using every advantage at his disposal.
As the dragon''s jaws descended, Michael knew he needed to change his strategy, and fast. Then, when Malevolous''s massive jaws descended, Michael acted with lightning-fast reflexes. He stomped the snowy ground beneath him, his raw strengthbined with dark mes erupting from his boots to create a sudden, deep hole.
"What the¡ª" the dragon''s surprised growl was cut short as its teeth mmed into the ground, Michael having narrowly escaped into the newly formed cavity.
Malevolous, enraged, tried to snap at Michael through the hole. But the Dark Lord was ready. He thrust both hands upward, unleashing twin plumes of pure dark mes directly into the dragon''s mouth.
"Arrrgh!" Malevolous roared in pain, recoiling as the intense heat seared his tongue. "You little shit!"
Seizing the moment, Michael shot upward from the hole like a bullet, dark energy propelling him skyward. He swiftly put distance between himself and the dragon, hovering in the air while keeping a watchful eye on Rowena.
"Not so tough when you''re the one getting burned, eh?" Michael taunted, his eyes darting between the dragon and Rowena. He knew he needed to find a way to free her while keeping Malevolous at bay. On the other hand, the dragon shook its massive head, smoke curling from its nostrils as it red at Michael with renewed hatred. "I''m going to enjoy tearing you apart, piece by piece," Malevolous snarled.
Malevolous, keen-eyed despite his rage, noticed Michael''s frequent nces towards Rowena. A cruel smirk yed across his scaly features.
"Don''t worry about her," the dragon sneered. "I pride myself on breaking my victims without resorting to such cheap tactics as ckmail or torturing others. This is between you and me,"
Suddenly, Malevolous dove towards the ground, his massive wings unfurling. With powerful strokes, he began to fly in a tight circle, gradually ascending. The air around him swirled and condensed, forming a monstrous vortex that grew with each beat of his wings.
"Let''s see how you handle this, Dark Lord!" the dragon roared over the howling wind.
The pull of the vortex was immense, far beyond what Michael had anticipated. Even with his godly strength, he found himself being inexorably drawn towards the center of the storm. The force was so great that any mortal or even a being at the celestial stage would have been torn apart from within, their very essence shredded by the suction.
"Fuck!" Michael grunted, straining against the pull. His eyes widened as he saw trees and boulders being uprooted and sucked into the vortex, pulverized in seconds.
Amidst the chaos, Michael noticed a shimmering barrier surrounding Rowena, protecting her from the devastating winds. Clearly, the dragon had taken precautions to ensure his ''toy'' wasn''t identally destroyed in the crossfire.
Michael''s mind raced as he sought a way to counter the dragon''s devastating vortex. His first instinct was to use shadow teleportation, but as he reached out with his senses, he realized with a jolt that this pocket dimension was devoid of true darkness.
"Clever bastard," Michael muttered, gritting his teeth. The dim light seemed to emanate from everywhere, leaving no shadows for him to manipte. It was a deliberate trap, designed to nullify one of his most potent abilities.
Left with no other choice, Michael summoned his Lightning Dash spell. Crackling energy began to coalesce around him, preparing to propel him at impossible speeds.
"Let''s see how you like this, you overgrown fan," Michael growled.
Normally, the Lightning Dash would render him invisible to the naked eye, leaving only a trail of electricity in his wake. But as he engaged the spell, fighting against the tremendous pull of the vortex, something unexpected happened.
Instead of disappearing in a sh, Michael''s form remained visible, stretched and distorted as he fought against the conflicting forces. Bolts of lightning crackled around him, creating a dazzling disy of power as he inched forward against the suction.
"Come on,e on," Michael grunted, pushing his power to its limits.
The air crackled with tension as god and dragon engaged in this epic tug-of-war. Malevolous''s eyes widened in surprise, clearly not expecting Michael to resist his vortex with such tenacity.
As Michael struggled against the vortex, a wicked grin spread across his face. It was time to show this dragon what he was truly capable of.
"You want to see power? I''ll show you fucking power," Michael snarled.
In an instant, he channeled his full celestial energy, simultaneously activating the arch energy crystals embedded in his suit. The effect was immediate and spectacr.
The red lines etched into his dark armor zed to life, pulsing with an otherworldly glow. Energy crackled around him, the air itself seeming to warp and bend in response to the sheer magnitude of power being unleashed.
Slowly but surely, Michael began to move against the pull of the vortex. His form, wreathed in crackling energy, inched forward with unstoppable determination.
"Impossible!" Malevolous roared, his voice barely audible over the howling winds. "What are you?"
The dragon''s massive form twisted in the air, his wings beating furiously as he tried to increase the vortex''s power. But it was futile.
With a final surge of energy, Michael broke free of the vortex''s influence. The moment he was clear, he activated his Lightning Dash once more. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
In a blinding sh, Michael vanished from sight, leaving only a trail of electricity in his wake. The vast, snow-coveredndscape, once a featureless expanse of white, was now scarred by the titanic struggle. Massive furrows had been carved into the ground, and debris swirled in the air, caught in the dying remnants of the dragon''s vortex.
Malevolous hovered in the air, his head swiveling frantically as he searched for any sign of his opponent. "Where are you, you coward?" he bellowed, rage and frustration evident in every syble.
Malevolous felt an ominous chill run down his spine, an unfamiliar sensation of dread creeping through his ancient bones. As he turned his massive head to look over his shoulder, his eyes widened in shock and fear.
High in the sky, three colossal meteors had materialized, their massive forms zing with hellish fire as they plummeted towards the earth. The sight was both terrifying and awe-inspiring, a testament to the Dark Lord''s immense power.
"No... This can''t be!" the dragon roared, his wings unfurling as he prepared to flee from the meteors'' destructive path.
But before Malevolous could take flight, a dark blur mmed into his chest with bone-crushing force. Michael, his hands wreathed in dark mes, drove his fingers deep into the dragon''s scales, anchoring the beast in ce.
"Going somewhere?" Michael growled, his voice dripping with dark satisfaction.
For the first time in the battle, Michael unleashed his full godly strength. The sheer power radiating from him was staggering, holding the massive dragon in ce despite its frantic struggles.
Malevolous thrashed and roared, his wings beating furiously, but to no avail. Michael''s grip was unbreakable, a force of nature made manifest.
"Let go, you insane bastard!" the dragon bellowed, genuine fear creeping into his voice. "You''ll kill us both!"
But Michael''s eyes zed with determination and a hint of madness. The meteors drew ever closer, their heat already beginning to sear the air around them.
"What''s wrong, Malevolous?" Michael taunted, his voice eerily calm amidst the chaos. "I thought you enjoyed breaking gods. Let''s see how you handle being broken instead."
At that moment, Malevolous felt an ominous chill run down his spine, an unfamiliar sensation of dread creeping through his ancient bones. As he turned his massive head to look over his shoulder, his eyes widened in shock and fear. High in the sky, three colossal meteors had materialized, their massive forms zing with hellish fire as they plummeted towards the earth.
"What in the¡ª" Malevolous began, but his words were cut short.
With a thunderous impact, Michael mmed into the dragon''s chest. His gloves, wreathed in dark mes, buried deep into Malevolous''s scales as the Dark Lord exerted his full godly strength for the first time.
"Going somewhere?" Michael growled, his eyes zing with power.
Malevolous found himself frozen in ce, unable to escape the path of the oing meteors. For the first time in eons, the dragon felt a mixture of emotions he had long forgotten - excitement, thrill, and deep beneath it all, a flicker of fear.
"Well, well," Malevolous chuckled, a hint of nervousness in his voice. "You''re full of surprises, aren''t you, Dark Lord?"
Despite his bravado, Malevolous knew he was in trouble. He had never experienced such raw power before. While the ancient beast knew this spell might not kill him outright - beings like him were not so easily destroyed - he realized with growing dread that this was going to hurt. And pain... pain was something Malevolous hadn''t truly felt in a very, very long time.
"You wanted a god?" Michael snarled, his grip tightening. "Well, you''ve got one. Let''s see how you like being on the receiving end for once."
Chapter 1335 Unleashing Ultimate Spells Once Again
Chapter 1335 Unleashing Ultimate Spells Once Again
The sky erupted in a blinding sh as the meteors made contact with Malevolous. The impact was deafening, a thunderous roar that shook the very foundations of the pocket dimension.
"Fuck!" Malevolous bellowed, his voice drowned out by the cacophony of destruction.
Michael released his grip at thest possible second, propelling himself away with a burst of dark energy. He hovered in the air, watching the spectacle unfold below.
The dragon''s massive form plummeted, a blur of scales and fire. Malevolous crashed into the snow-covered ground with earth-shattering force, carving out a crater that stretched for hundreds of meters in every direction.
Snow vaporized instantly, reced by scorched earth and molten rock. Plumes of steam and smoke billowed upwards, obscuring the impact site. The once pristine whitendscape was transformed into a hellish tableau of fire and devastation.
As the dust began to settle, Michael could make out the edges of the crater. The snow for miles around had melted, revealing barren rock underneath. Fissures spider-webbed out from the impact site, glowing with residual heat.
"Now that''s what I call making an impression," Michael muttered, his eyes scanning the destruction for any sign of movement from the dragon.
The air was thick with the acrid smell of burning and the metallic tang of superheated rock. Waves of heat distorted the air, creating mirages that danced across the scarredndscape.
In the center of it all, partially obscured by smoke and debris,y the crumpled form of Malevolous. The once-mighty dragon was motionless, but Michael knew better than to assume the battle was over. Ancient beasts like Malevolous were notoriously hard to kill. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
As Malevolous struggled to regain his footing, the Dark Lord shot towards Rowena, who remained chained to the solitary pole amidst the chaos.
"Hold on, I''m getting you out of here," Michael called out as he approached.
The moment his foot touched the glowing chakra circle surrounding Rowena, the trap sprung. Ghostly hands, pale and grotesque, erupted from the ground,tching onto Michael''s legs with surprising strength.
"What the¡ª" Michael grunted, feeling the pull of the spectral appendages.
Without missing a beat, he aimed his palms downward, unleashing a torrent of dark mes. The ghoulish hands withered and dissipated under the onught, their unearthly shrieks fading into nothingness.
With the path clear, Michael reached for the chains binding Rowena. The moment his fingers made contact, a sizzling sound filled the air.
"Fuck!" Michael hissed, the magical chains scorching even his godly flesh.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he snapped the chains with a quick, forceful motion. The links gave way with a resounding crack, freeing Rowena from her bonds.
As Rowena stumbled forward, Michael nced at his hands. His gloves were smoking, the material partially melted away to reveal angry red burns underneath. The Automatic Potion Dispenser (APD) in his suit whirred to life, injecting a healing potion directly into his bloodstream. He could feel the cooling sensation as the burns began to heal, but the pain lingered as a stark reminder of the chains'' potency.
"Those weren''t your average restraints," Michael muttered, flexing his fingers. "Anyone else would''ve been toast."
Rowena looked at him with a mixture of gratitude and concern. "Dean... your hands..."
"I''ll live," Michael assured her, his eyes already scanning their surroundings. "But we''re not out of the woods yet. Can you stand?"
Although Rowena wanted to muster her strength and stand without any support on her feet, she stumbled, her legs giving way beneath her. Michael quickly caught her, supporting her weight with his arm.
With a flick of his wrist, a vial of healing potion materialized in Michael''s hand. He gently offered it to Rowena, but her fingers trembled, too weak to grasp the small container. Seeing her struggle, Michael let out an internal sigh.
"Here, let me," he said softly, popping open the vial. Carefully, he raised it to her lips, tipping the contents slowly into her mouth.
Michael watched expectantly, waiting for the familiar sight of wounds closing, bruises fading, and vitality returning to her pale face. But as thest drop of the potion disappeared down Rowena''s throat, he frowned. There was no change - her injuries remained, her skin still sickly pale.
Then, a dark chuckle broke the silence. Michael turned, his arm still supporting Rowena, to see Malevolous rising from the crater, amusement glinting in his eyes.
The dragon spat out a tooth, dislodged by the meteor impact, and grinned wickedly. "Did you really think it would be that easy to take my toy away and repair her?" Malevolous taunted, his voice dripping with cruel satisfaction. "Pitiful god, you have so much to learn about true torment."
Michael''s frown deepened as he realized the extent of Malevolous''s cruelty. This wasn''t just physical torture as the dragon had done something to prevent healing, to prolong Rowena''s suffering indefinitely.
As he was looking at the dragon, his mind raced, already nning their escape and the destruction of Skyhall. He knew that once they were out, he''d have enough badass points to reverse whatever curse Malevolous had ced on Rowena. The real challenge now was finding the exit portal and dealing with this smug dragon.
Suddenly, as if reading his thoughts, Rowena spoke, her voice weak but determined. "I... I can find the exit portal. Don''t worry about me being a burden."
"Are you sure? You can barely stand." Michael looked at her, surprised.
"I''ll find it. Just promise me you''ll make that bastard suffer." Rowena nodded firmly, her eyes zing with resolve despite her weakened state.
Michael studied her face, recognizing the familiar Winston determination. Even in her battered state, she was still the Holy Maiden, still a Winston to her core. He knew arguing would be pointless - her willpower was as strong as ever.
"Alright," Michael agreed, helping her steady herself. "Be careful."
As Rowena limped away, Michael turned to face Malevolous, ready for the next round. To his surprise, the dragon made no move to stop her. Instead, Malevolous chuckled, a sound that sent chills down Michael''s spine.
"Oh, this is delicious," the dragon purred, his eyes following Rowena''s retreating form. "You see, there''s nothing quite like watching my toys realize there''s no escape. When thatst spark of hope dies, when their will finally breaks - that''s the ultimate high."
Michael''s fists clenched, dark energy crackling around them. "You sick bastard," he growled.
Malevolous''s grin widened. "You have no idea. But you will. Oh, you will."
"Enough talking," Michael growled. "Let''s fight."
In a sh, Michael engaged his Lightning Dash, disappearing and reappearing around Malevolous with dizzying speed. He darted between the dragon''s massive limbs, striking with precision and retreating before the beast could retaliate.
Enraged, Malevolous reared back, his chest swelling as he prepared a devastating attack. The air around him began to shimmer and distort, reality itself seeming to bend.
"Taste true power, godling!" the dragon roared.
A beam of condensed energy, swirling with various elemental forces, erupted from Malevolous''s maw. The beam carved a path of destruction across thendscape, vaporizing snow and rock alike. Trees were reduced to ash in an instant, and the ground itself melted into ss where the beam touched.
Michael weaved through the air, narrowly avoiding the brunt of the attack. However, several smaller beams split off, catching him in ncing blows. His armor hissed and smoked, the responsive shield flickering to life and absorbing much of the damage.
"Is that all you''ve got?" Michael taunted, shaking off the residual energy.
In response, Michael raised his hands to the sky. Dark clouds formed overhead, swirling ominously. The air crackled with pent-up energy.
"Now, let me show you what a god can do," Michael snarled.
Suddenly, the clouds erupted in a dazzling disy of power. Hundreds of lightning bolts, each as thick as a tree trunk, rained down upon Malevolous. The dragon roared in pain and surprise as the lightning struck him from every angle.
Scales ckened and cracked under the onught. The air filled with the acrid smell of ozone and burning flesh. Malevolous thrashed, his massive form illuminated by the constant barrage of lightning.
When the assault finally ceased, Malevolous stood panting, smoke rising from his body. Patches of his once-gleaming scales were now charred and broken, revealing raw flesh underneath.
"Impressive," the dragon grudgingly admitted, his voice ragged. "But don''t think this is over. I''m just getting started."
Meanwhile, Rowena limped away from the chaotic battle scene, her every step a struggle against pain and exhaustion. Despite her weakened state, her mind remained sharp, focused on finding their escape route.
She knew the fundamentalws of pocket dimensions: for every entrance, there must be an exit. The portal they had used to enter would have vanished, as one could never leave through the same way they came in. Regardless of who controlled this realm or its nature, this rule remained constant. An exit portal had to exist somewhere, even if it was hidden, masked by illusion, or protected by traps and arrays.
As she trudged through the snow, something caught her eye. A small, inconspicuous boulder sat nestled against a cliff face. It looked perfectly ordinary, and that''s precisely what made Rowena suspicious.
She approached cautiously, her eyes narrowing as she studied the rock. The snow around it was undisturbed, too perfect. And as she focused, she noticed a slight shimmer in the air around it, almost imperceptible.
"Clever," Rowena muttered, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
She reached out, her hand passing through the illusion of the boulder. As her fingers breached the false image, she felt a familiar tingle of magic - the unmistakable signature of a portal.
The illusion was masterfully crafted. Not only did it fool the eyes, but it also masked the magical aura of the portal. Only someone with Rowena''s extensive knowledge and keen senses would have noticed the minute discrepancies.
"Found you," she whispered triumphantly, her voice barely audible over the distant sounds of battle.
Now came the tricky part - figuring out how to activate it and escape this hellish dimension.
On the other hand, Michael and Malevolous continued their titanic struggle. The dragon, growing increasingly frustrated, unleashed a new attack. With a bone-chilling roar, Malevolous fired menacing red beams from his eyes, the energy crackling with destructive intent.
Michael, however, was ready. A smirk yed across his lips as he countered with his own ocr assault, dark beams shooting from his eyes to meet the dragon''s attack mid-air.
The collision of energies was spectacr. Red and ck tendrils intertwined, pushing against each other in a dazzling disy of power. Neither seemed to gain the upper hand, both Michael and Malevolous pouring their strength into the standoff.
But Michael had a trick up his sleeve. While maintaining the beam struggle, he essed his system storage, retrieving two small circr devices he had crafted earlier. The dragon, focused entirely on the beam battle, failed to notice Michael''s subtle movements.
With a flick of his wrists, Michael tossed the contraptions into the air. They whirred to life, emitting low-frequency sound waves that quickly increased in pitch and intensity.
Malevolous''s eyes widened in surprise and pain. The dragon''s sensitive hearing made him particrly vulnerable to the sonic assault. He growled in agony, involuntarily turning his head away from Michael, breaking the beam struggle.
Seizing the moment, Michael shot skyward, positioning himself above the disoriented dragon. Without hesitation, he fired his dark beams directly into Malevolous''s eyes.
The beams struck with pinpoint uracy, prating the dragon''s eyes like obsidiannces. Malevolous let out an earth-shattering roar of pain as the dark energy bored through his ocr defenses. Blood, thick and dark, began to stream from the dragon''s eyes, mixing with the residual energy of Michael''s attack.
"My eyes!" Malevolous bellowed, thrashing in agony. "You''ll pay for this FUCKER!"
Chapter 1336 The utterly devastating Dragons breath
Chapter 1336 The utterly devastating Dragon''s breath
The dragon''s roar of pain and fury shook the very foundations of the pocket dimension. The snow-covered ground cracked and fissured, the tremors rippling outward from Malevolous''s massive form.
Michael, hovering above, activated his X-ray vision just in time to see something extraordinary. Invisible waves of sound pulsed from the dragon''s wounded eyes, bouncing off objects and Michael himself.
"Clever bastard," Michael muttered, realizing the dragon''s strategy. Despite losing his sight, Malevolous was using echolocation to navigate and fight.
But that wasn''t all. Michael''s enhanced vision caught another detail - the dragon''s eyes were slowly, almost imperceptibly, beginning to heal.
"Oh no, you don''t," Michael growled, his resolve hardening. This was his chance to make the dragon pay for Rowena''s suffering, and he wasn''t about to let it slip away.
Without hesitation, Michael dove towards Malevolous, dark energy crackling around his fists. He weaved through the air, avoiding the invisible sound waves as best he could.
"This is for Rowena, you sadistic lizard," Michael snarled as he closed in.
He aimed for the dragon''s most vulnerable spots - the healing eyes, the soft underbelly, the joints of its wings. Each strike was fueled by righteous anger, his godly power intensifying with every blow.
Malevolous roared and thrashed, trying to catch Michael with his ws or tail, but the Dark Lord was too quick, too determined.
As Michael continued his assault, Malevolous''s echolocation suddenly pinpointed his location. With frightening speed, the dragon''s massive tail whipped through the air.
"Shit¡ª" Michael''s curse was cut short as the tail connected with devastating force.
The impact sent Michael hurtling through the air like a rag doll. He crashed into a nearby ice formation, the frozen structure shattering on impact. As he slid to the ground, Michael coughed, a spray of blood staining the pristine snow beneath him.
"Damn," he muttered, wiping his mouth. "That strength... it''s on par with mine, maybe even greater." The realization was sobering. Even as a Greater God, Michael found himself matched in raw power.
Cracking his neck, Michael spat out another mouthful of blood. "I need to upgrade my spells," he mused. "Maybe get some new tricks from the system."
Without further hesitation, Michael engaged his Lightning Dash, bing a blur of motion as he charged towards Malevolous once more.
The dragon, sensing Michael''s approach,shed out with its enormous ws. Michael twisted mid-air, the razor-sharp talons missing him by mere inches. He could feel the rush of disced air as they passed. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Malevolous, growing frustrated, snapped his jaws towards the sound of Michael''s movement. He dropped altitude swiftly, the dragon''s teeth shing together with a sound like thunder directly above his head.
Michael weaved between the dragon''s limbs, a deadly dance of speed and precision. He ducked under a sweeping w, rolled to avoid a stomping foot, and leapt over the dragon''s thrashing tail.
Each near miss was a testament to Michael''s enhanced reflexes and the dragon''s incredible speed despite its size. The air crackled with energy as god and beast engaged in this high-stakes game of cat and mouse.
As Michael darted around Malevolous, he searched for an opening, a weakness he could exploit. The dragon''s healing eyes were still vulnerable, but reaching them without getting caught was proving to be a monumental challenge.
But when Michael leapt towards Malevolous''s head, aiming for the vulnerable eyes, the dragon reacted with surprising speed. One massive w swung towards him, which Michael caught with both hands, the impact sending shockwaves through his arms. Before he could capitalize on this, the dragon''s other w came at him from the opposite side. With lightning-fast reflexes, Michael managed to catch this one as well.
Now, god and dragon were locked in a stalemate, neither willing to give an inch. Michael''s muscles strained against the immense strength of the dragon, dark energy crackling around him as he held his ground.
From her vantage point near the illusion-masked portal, Rowena watched the scene unfold with raised eyebrows. The sight before her was nothing short of surreal - a god and a dragon engaged in an epic struggle of strength and will. She shook her head in disbelief. Just a few years ago, the idea of witnessing such a battle would have been unthinkable. Yet here she was, watching her little brother - a sibling she hadn''t even known existed until mere months ago - fighting a colossal dragon as the God of Darkness.
As she observed the titanic sh, Rowena''s thoughts drifted to her other little brother, Noah. She wondered what he was doing now, how he would react to all of this. But as she pondered this, a strange feeling settled in her gut - an inexplicable sense of unease when she thought about Noah.
Little did Rowena know, the world she once knew had gone through a cataclysm while she was trapped in this godforsaken pocket dimension. If she thought the sight of her little brother fighting a dragon was mind-blowing, it was nothingpared to the storm that had hit the mortal realm.
Her baby brother Noah, the one she''d always tried to protect, was dead. And the kicker? It was Dean AKA the Dark Lord who had done the deed. The consequences of Noah''s death were far-reaching and devastating. The entire mortal realm had been plunged into eternal darkness, like someone had flipped the cosmic light switch to "permanent night." Even the realm of the gods felt the ripples of this event, though they were somewhat shielded by the barrier the previous Dark Lord had put up between the realms.
As if that wasn''t enough, her mother Diana Winston was now a captive of Andohr, the god of space and time. But Rowena stood there, watching the battle unfold, blissfully unaware that her family had been torn apart, that the world as she knew it had been turned upside down and inside out.
Meanwhile, Malevolous and Michael remained locked in their titanic struggle, neither willing to yield an inch.
"Well, color me impressed," Malevolous chuckled, his voice a mix of pain and devilish amusement. "It''s been ages since someone made me bleed. You should be proud, little toy,"
Michael snickered, his muscles straining against the dragon''s immense strength. "You''re not the first dragon I''d kill, and you won''t be thest."
Though Michael knew he couldn''t outright kill this ancient beast right now, that didn''t mean he couldn''t beat the ever-loving shit out of it. As Malevolous''s blind eyes locked onto him, guided by echolocation, Michael saw his chance.
Without warning, he fired his dark beams again, the obsidian energyncing straight into the dragon''s barely healed eyes. The beams prated deep, undoing what little healing had urred.
"Arrrgh! You fucking bastard!" Malevolous roared, his head rearing back in agony. "I''ll tear you apart for that!"
The dragon''s grip on Michael loosened momentarily as it thrashed in pain, giving the Dark Lord the opening he''d been waiting for. But suddenly as though Malevolous sensed Michael''s n, he stomped the ground with earth-shattering force. The impact sent shockwaves rippling through the pocket dimension, the very fabric of reality seeming to tremble.
"Shit!" Michael cursed as he lost his footing, the unexpected tremor catching him off guard.
The force of the stomp sent him flying backwards. He managed to regain control mid-air, twisting his body tond gracefully on his feet. But before he could press his advantage, Malevolous''s voice boomed across the battlefield.
"You asked for this, you little prick!" the dragon roared, his tone dripping with fury and a hint of anticipation.
Michael''s eyes widened as he saw the dragon''s belly and throat begin to glow an ominous shade of crimson. The light pulsed and grew in intensity, like a star about to go supernova.
"Dragon''s breath," Michael muttered, recognizing the telltale signs of a dragon''s most devastating weapon.
The air around Malevolous began to shimmer with heat, the snow at his feet instantly vaporizing.Even from a distance, Michael could feel the scorching heat radiating from Malevolous. The air around him shimmered, distorting his view of the enraged dragon.
"Time to move," Michael muttered, engaging his Lightning Dash.
In an instant, he became a blur of motion, dark lightning crackling in his wake as he shot away from the impending st.
But Malevolous, despite his wounded eyes, sensed Michael''s movement. With a deafening roar that shook the very foundations of the pocket dimension, the dragon unleashed its breath weapon.
A torrent of crimson and electric blue energy erupted from Malevolous''s maw. The beam was massive, easily dwarfing Michael in size. It cut through the air with a sound like reality itself was being torn asunder.
Where the breath touched, devastation followed. Snow instantly vaporized, leaving scorched earth in its wake. The ground beneath liquefied, turning to molten g. Rocks caught in the periphery of the st didn''t just melt - they sublimated, transforming from solid to gas in an instant. The sheer heat of the attack created hurricane-force winds, whipping debris into a frenzy around the battlefield. The sky above seemed to boil, clouds dissipating in the face of such raw power.
On the other hand, Michael, even with his godly speed, felt the dragon''s breath nipping at his heels. The edges of his armor began to glow red-hot as he pushed his Lightning Dash to its limits, desperately trying to stay ahead of the all-consuming beam.
Michael pushed his Lightning Dash to its limits, zigzagging across thendscape in a desperate bid to outpace the dragon''s breath. As the searing heat licked at his heels, he activated the Silenest spell, creating a time-slowing bubble around himself.
Within this temporal sanctuary, Michael watched as the world outside seemed to crawl. The dragon''s breath, still devastatingly fast, now appeared as a slowly advancing wall of destruction. With precise movements, Michael maneuvered through the slowed time, ducking and weaving around tendrils of crimson and blue energy that threatened to engulf him.
Each time he exited a time bubble, he''d immediately create another, staying just ahead of the inferno. It was a deadly dance of speed, timing, and raw survival instinct.
Finally, Malevolous closed his maw, the dragon breath attack ending. In its wake, the once-snowyndscape was transformed into a hellscape. For a mile in every direction, nothing but scorched earth remained, the ground still glowing with residual heat.
Michaelnded gracefully, his dark armor lined with glowing red streaks from the intense heat. He casually brushed a small me off his shoulder, a smirk ying on his lips.
"Not bad," he quipped, eyeing the devastation around him. "But let''s see how you handle this."
With a flick of his wrist, Michael summoned his war hammer, The Doombringer. The ancient weapon materialized in his hand, its icy core a stark contrast to the scorched battlefield.
"Time for you to chill out, lizard," Michael growled, hefting the hammer.
Chapter 1337 The Doombringers Destruction
1337 The Doombringer''s Destruction
Michael surged forward, his Lightning Dash propelling him towards Malevolous in a blur of motion. ck lightning crackled in his wake, scorching the already devastatedndscape.
As he closed in on the dragon, Michael swung the Doombringer in a wide arc. The hammer connected with Malevolous''s scales with a resounding crack, frost energy exploding outward from the point of impact. Ice crystals formed instantly, creeping along the dragon''s hide.
"How''s that for a cool down?" Michael taunted, already moving for his next strike.
Malevolous roared, his echolocation pinpointing Michael''s location. The dragon''s tail whipped through the air, but Michael was ready. He ducked under the attack, the tail passing harmlessly overhead.
Seizing the opportunity, Michael brought the Doombringer down on one of Malevolous''s legs. The impact sent shockwaves through the dragon''s massive form, ice spreading rapidly from the point of contact. Malevolous''s leg stiffened, mobilitypromised by the creeping frost.
The dragon snapped its jaws, guided by sound rather than sight. Michael leapt upward, using the Doombringer''s momentum to vault over Malevolous''s head. As he sailed over, he brought the hammer down on the dragon''s skull.
Frost exploded outward, encasing parts of Malevolous''s head in a thickyer of ice. The dragon thrashed, trying to shake off the debilitating cold.
Michael didn''t let up. He dashed around Malevolous, striking at vulnerable points - joints, wing membranes, the softer scales of the underbelly. Each hit from the Doombringer left a spreading patch of ice, slowly but surely restricting the dragon''s movements.
Malevolous fought back fiercely, ws shing through the air, tailshing out, jaws snapping. But Michael''s smaller size and superior agility,bined with the dragon''spromised vision, gave him the edge. He wove between attacks, always striking, always moving.
"What''s wrong? Feeling a bit stiff?" Michael quipped as hended another devastating blow, this time to Malevolous''s nk.
As the battle raged on, Michael''s keen analytical mind kicked into high gear. He began to notice a distinct pattern in Malevolous''s attacks. With its dragon breath exhausted and Michael moving too swiftly for spell casting, the beast had resorted to brute force tactics.
"Well, well, what have we here?" Michael muttered to himself, a n forming in his mind.
He observed that every fifth attack, like clockwork, Malevolous would open its massive jaws wide, attempting to snap Michael up in one devastating bite. Thanks to his Silenest spell and Lightning Dash, Michael had managed to avoid these potentially fatal chomps. He shuddered to think what those jaws could do to him, even with his godly body and enhanced armor. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Predictable, aren''t you, big guy?" Michael smirked, now easily sidestepping the jaw attacks he knew wereing.
As he ducked under another massive bite attempt, an idea struck Michael like a bolt of lightning. His eyes gleamed with a mix of anticipation and mischief.
"Time to turn your strength against you, lizard," he whispered, readying himself for the next cycle of attacks.
Michael continued his assault, striking with the Doombringer and dodging retaliatory swipes and tailshes. All the while, he counted in his head, waiting for that fifth attack. As Malevolous''s jaws began to open once more, right on schedule, Michael''s grin widened.
"Open wide, scales-for-brains. This is gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me."
As Malevolous''s jaws gaped wide, ready to snap shut on its prey, Michael saw his opportunity. With lightning-fast reflexes, he activated the ancient ice core within the Doombringer to its full, devastating potential.
"Here''s a little snack for you!" Michael shouted, hurling the war hammer directly into the dragon''s maw.
The weapon sailed through the air, its icy aura intensifying as it disappeared down Malevolous''s throat. Michael knew the handle might not survive the dragon''s internal heat and acidity, but the hammer''s head and its precious cargo - the ancient ice core - would remain intact.
"Hope you''ve got a strong stomach," Michael taunted, bracing himself for what was toe.
His true n was now in motion. The ancient ice core, destabilized and primed to detonate, would explode within the dragon''s belly, freezing it from the inside out. It was a necessary sacrifice of his weapon, but Michael had already decided it was time for an upgrade anyway.
As Malevolous''s eyes widened in surprise and pain, realizing toote the trap it had fallen into, Michael prepared for the final phase of his n. Once the dragon was immobilized by the internal frost, he would rip out its heart, ending the life of this ancient beast by his own hand.
"Time to put you on ice, permanently," Michael growled, his eyes fixed on the dragon''s chest, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
As the Doombringer slid down Malevolous''s massive throat, the dragon barely registered its presence. To a beast of such colossal size, the weapon was little more than a splinter, easily overlooked in the heat of battle.
Oblivious to the danger within, Malevolous continued its assault on Michael. Massive ws swiped through the air, jaws snapped shut with bone-crushing force, and its tailshed out like a giant whip. Michael, light on his feet, danced around these attacks, buying time for his n to unfold.
Inside the dragon''s body, the Doombringer began its treacherous journey. The esophagus was a vast, undting tunnel of muscle and heat. Bioluminescent patches along the walls cast an eerie glow, illuminating the weapon''s descent. Acidic mucus coated every surface, bubbling and hissing as it came into contact with the hammer.
The formidable handle of the Doombringer, crafted from materials meant to withstand godly battles, began to sizzle and warp. The acid ate away at its surface, while the intense heat caused the metal to soften and deform. Despite its enchantments, the handle was fighting a losing battle against the dragon''s internal defenses.
The destruction elerated as the weapon traveled deeper, entering the cavernous expanse of Malevolous''s stomach. The hammer''s head, more resilient than the handle, began to glow red-hot. The metal slowly liquefied, dripping away in molten streams. At the core of the melting weapon, the ancient ice core remained intact, protected by its own powerful magic. As thest of the metal casing fell away, the core was exposed to the full fury of the dragon''s internal inferno. It pulsed with an intense, cold light, a stark contrast to the fiery environment surrounding it.
Now freed from its housing, the ice core began to react to the extreme conditions. Cracks appeared on its surface, glowing with otherworldly energy. Meanwhile, on the outside, Michael continued his evasive maneuvers, a knowing smirk ying on his lips as he waited for his trap to spring.
Suddenly, Malevolous paused mid-attack, a look of confusion crossing its massive features. Something felt off, a disturbance from within that the dragon couldn''t quite ce.
Without warning, an eerie blue glow began to emanate from Malevolous''s belly, pulsing with increasing intensity. The light shimmered through the dragon''s scales, casting an otherworldly aura around its massive form.
Michael, seeing the telltale signs of his ning to fruition, couldn''t help but chuckle. "That''s my cue to exit stage left," he muttered, engaging his Lightning Dash to put some distance between himself and the dragon.
As he retreated, Michael''s mind raced. His n was a gamble, and he was only fifty-fifty on its sess. He''d already formted a backup strategy to reach Rowena and escape this realm if things went south. But for now, he''d bet on his original n paying off.
Suddenly, a muffled explosion resonated from within Malevolous''s body. The sound was unlike anything Michael had heard before - a mix of shattering ice and imploding energy.
"ARRRRGHHHH!" Malevolous roared, its voice a symphony of agony and shock.
The ancient ice core''s detonation sent waves of intense cold radiating outward from the dragon''s center. Frost spread rapidly across Malevolous''s scales, transforming the beast into a living cier. Steam hissed from its nostrils as its internal fire fought against the invasive cold.
The area around Malevolous transformed in an instant. The scorched earth from the earlier battle now crackled with ayer of rapidly forming ice. The air temperature plummeted, creating a localized blizzard as moisture in the air instantly crystallized.
Michael watched in awe as his n unfolded before him. The dragon, once an unstoppable force of destruction, now stood paralyzed, its body a battleground between fire and ice. Icicles formed on its wings and horns, and its movements became sluggish and jerky.
"Now that''s what I call an ice dragon," Michael knew he had to act fast. The dragon''s internal heat was already battling the ice core''s effects, and time was running out. He couldn''t let the Doombringer''s sacrifice be in vain.
As Malevolous stomped the ground violently, trying to shake off the frost, Michael sprang into action. He dashed towards the dragon, his movements a blur of speed and grace. Leaping over the thrashing tail, ducking under swiping ws, and weaving between stomping feet, Michael''s agility was on full disy.
Reaching the dragon''s chest, Michael summoned all his power. Dark mes engulfed his fists as he drew back for a devastating punch. The impact was cataclysmic - intense heat met extreme cold, and the dragon''s frozen scales shattered like ss.
But the force of the blow came at a cost. Michael''s arm snapped like a twig, bone protruding grotesquely from his flesh. Yet, through the haze of pain, he saw his goal - the dragon''s exposed heart.
There, amidst the icy innards, pulsed Malevolous''s massive heart. It was a behemoth organ, easily the size of a small house, beating with slow, powerful thuds.
"Fuck... you..." Malevolous roared, his voice a mix of pain and fury.
Michael''s APD kicked in, flooding his system with healing elixirs. But he couldn''t wait. With his good arm, he unsheathed his dark sword.
"This ends now," Michael growled through gritted teeth.
Without hesitation, he plunged the de into the dragon''s exposed heart. The sword sank deep, dark energy pulsing along its length. Malevolous let out an earth-shattering scream, a sound of pure agony that echoed through the pocket dimension.
Michael twisted the de, driving it deeper. "That''s for Rowena, you sadistic bastard," he snarled, watching as the light in the dragon''s eyes began to dim.
Chapter 1338 First Ancient Dragon Slain
1338 First Ancient Dragon in
As Michael plunged his sword deeper into Malevolous''s heart, a torrent of thick, crimson blood erupted from the wound. The liquid was so dark it almost appeared ck, gushing forth with tremendous force.
"Holy shit!" Michael gasped as the blood sshed across his face, nearly drowning him in its volume.
The colossal heart, still beating despite the grievous injury, pumped out gallons of blood with eachbored contraction. Michael found himself struggling to keep his footing, the sheer quantity of the fluid threatening to sweep him away.
Steam rose from Michael''s armor as the dragon''s blood made contact. The heat was intense, far beyond what normal blood should be. Michael''s face felt like it was on fire, the skin blistering and peeling away almost instantly.
"Fuck, that burns!" he growled through gritted teeth.
His Automatic Potion Dispenser kicked into overdrive, flooding his system with healing potions. The device whirred and clicked, working frantically to repair the damage caused by the blood''s intense heat and acidity.
Michael''s flesh knitted back together almost as quickly as it was burned away, but the pain was excruciating. He realized with grim rity that a dragon''s blood, especially that of an ancient beast like Malevolous, was no joke. It was a weapon in its own right, capable of melting through armor and flesh alike.
"Should''ve... brought... goggles," Michael muttered, blinking furiously to clear his vision.
Despite the agony, he maintained his grip on the sword, determined to see this through. From her vantage point, Rowena watched the brutal scene unfold with a mixture of awe and horror. A chill ran down her spine as she witnessed the sheer violence of the confrontation.
Even from a distance, she could feel the intense heat radiating from the dragon''s blood. The sizzling sound of Michael''s armor and flesh being burned filled the air, audible even over Malevolous''s agonized roars.
"My God," Rowena whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
She watched as the massive dragon trembled, its entire body convulsing in agony. Each movement sent waves of scorching blood cascading over Michael, who somehow managed to maintain his position despite the onught.
The ground beneath Malevolous shook with each of its death throes. Cracks spread across the frozenndscape, steam rising from where the dragon''s blood touched the icy ground.
Rowena found herself holding her breath, her heart pounding in her chest. The sight of her brother - this god she barely knew - locked in mortalbat with an ancient dragon was almost too much toprehend.
"Come on, Dean," she muttered, her fists clenched at her sides. "Finish it."
Despite the grievous wound in its heart, Malevolous refused to sumb. With a roar that shook the very foundations of the pocket dimension, the dragon cursed Michael.
"You... insignificant... gnat!" Malevolous bellowed, each word apanied by a spray of scorching blood.
Summoning its remaining strength, the dragon pped its massive wings. The ice encasing them shattered with a sound like breaking ss, raining frozen shards onto the ground below.
Still clinging to his sword embedded in the dragon''s heart, Michael found himself suddenly airborne. From her position on the ground, Rowena watched in disbelief as the titanic struggle took to the air. Her eyes widened as she traced their path across the sky.
"Oh my..." she gasped, her voice barely a whisper.
A trail of ominous ck blood painted the sky, marking the dragon''s erratic flight path. It was a macabre sight - the wounded beast soaring through the air, with Michael, looking tiny inparison, hanging on for dear life.
The ck blood rained down from above, sizzling where it hit the frozen ground. Steam rose in great plumes, creating an eerie fog that added to the surreal nature of the scene. As the dragon and god disappeared into the clouds, leaving only the gruesome trail of blood behind, Rowena couldn''t shake the feeling that this fight was far from over.
Above the clouds, Michael gritted his teeth and snapped his broken arm back into ce with a sickening crunch. The healing potion coursing through his veins immediately went to work, knitting the bone and tissue back together.
"That''s better," he grunted, flexing his newly healed arm.
Malevolous, desperate to dislodge its unwanted passenger, began a series of aerial acrobatics that would have made a fighter pilot envious. The dragon barrel-rolled through the air, its massive body twisting and contorting in ways that seemed impossible for a creature of its size.
"Trying to shake me off, eh?" Michael shouted over the rushing wind. "Nice try, lizard!"
As they spiraled through the sky, Michael''s mind raced. He knew the dragon''s blood could be a valuable resource. With a mere thought, he pulled out arge gourd from his system storage.
Timing his movements carefully between the dragon''s wild maneuvers, Michael began collecting the blood gushing from around his sword. The thick, dark liquid filled the container rapidly.
"Gods, this stuff is hot," Michael muttered, feeling the gourd heat up in his hand.
The dragon roared in frustration, its voice echoing across the heavens. It dove and climbed, banked hard left and right, all in an attempt to rid itself of the persistent god clinging to its chest. But Michael held fast, one hand gripping his sword, the other carefully gathering the precious dragon blood. As the gourd filled, Michael couldn''t help but smirk. Even in the midst of this life-or-death struggle, he was nning ahead, knowing that this potent blood could prove invaluable in the future.
"Thanks for the donation," he quipped, sealing the now-full gourd and storing it safely away.
Michael''s enhanced senses detected the dragon''s heartbeat slowing, each thud growing weaker and morebored. Seizing the opportunity, he channeled his power through the sword still buried in Malevolous''s heart.
"Time to turn up the heat," Michael growled.
Dark mes erupted from the de, streaming directly into the massive organ. The heart sizzled and ckened as the dark mes spread through its chambers.
Malevolous let out an earth-shattering roar that shook the very air around them. The dragon''s body convulsed violently, thrashing about in the sky with renewed desperation.
"Fuck!" Michael cursed, his grip on the sword handle bing precarious.
The dragon barrel-rolled, plummeted, and shot upwards in rapid session. Each movement was more erratic than thest, driven by pure agony and the instinct to survive.
Michael''s world became a blur of motion. Wind whipped at his face as they careened through the air. His arms felt like they were being torn from their sockets as he clung to the sword, refusing to let go.
"Come on,e on," he muttered through gritted teeth, willing the dragon''s heart to give out.
Blood and chunks of charred flesh rained down as Malevolous''s death throes intensified. Michael''s armor smoked and sizzled, the heat and acidity of the dragon''s blood taking its toll.
Despite the chaotic movement, Michael maintained his focus, continuing to pour dark mes into the sword. He knew that to let go now would mean failure, and that wasn''t an option. Then, without a warning, the dragon dived down in thest desperate attempt to shake him off.
As Malevolous plummeted through the sky, their velocity approached the speed of sound. The air around them became superheated, creating a cocoon of blistering heat that enveloped both dragon and god.
Michael''s skin felt like it was on fire, every nerve ending screaming in agony. His godly constitution was being pushed to its absolute limits. Thebination of the dragon''s internal heat, the friction from their insane velocity, and the caustic blood created an environment that would have instantly vaporized any mortal foolish enough to be in his position.
"Fuck, this is intense," Michael growled through clenched teeth, his words almost lost in the roaring wind.
His armor, designed to withstand godly battles, was beginning to warp and buckle under the extreme conditions. Pieces of it were peeling away, unable to withstand the hellish temperatures and air pressure.
If it had been anyone else - even a being at the celestial stage - they would have been ripped to shreds in seconds. Flesh would have been stripped from bone, and bone would have disintegrated into ash. The fact that Michael was not only surviving but maintaining his grip on the sword was a testament to his divine nature.
The world around them became a blur, thendscape below rushing up to meet them at a terrifying speed. Michael could feel the very air molecules splitting around them, creating a visible shockwave as they neared the sound barrier.
"Come on, you overgrown lizard," Michael snarled, pushing more dark energy into his sword. "Just die already!"
As Michael clung to his sword, battling against the incredible forces threatening to tear him apart, a familiar chime rang in his head:
[Ding! The Host is close to ying first Ancient Beast. Sessful ying of the dragon will grant one free spell from the system spell store.]
Despite the excruciating pain and the dire situation, Michael felt a surge of excitement. It had been far too long since he''d added a new spell to his arsenal, and he knew he desperately needed an area-of-effect spell to round out his abilities.
"Now that''s some goddamn motivation," Michael grinned through the pain.
The spells avable in the system were incredibly powerful, and this freebie couldn''t havee at a better time. With the full force of Skyhall looming on the horizon, a new, devastating spell could be the edge he needed.
[Choose wisely, Host. This opportunity may significantly impact future confrontations.]
"No pressure," Michael muttered, redoubling his efforts to finish off the dragon.
With renewed vigor, Michael channeled an even greater torrent of dark mes through his sword. He then unsheathed his second dark sword, plunging it into Malevolous''s heart alongside the first. The twin des tore through muscle and sinew, shredding the massive organ with terrifying efficiency.
Malevolous let out a bone-chilling roar, its voice filled with agony and despair. As more blood gushed from its wounds, the dragon''s strength began to falter. Its ability to cast spells waned, leaving it with nothing but its rapidly diminishing physical prowess.
"This ends now!" Michael shouted, twisting both des.
The dragon''s flight became erratic, then ceased altogether. They plummeted towards the ground, picking up speed with each passing second. Thendscape below rushed up to meet them, growingrger by the moment.
With a earth-shattering impact, dragon and god crashed into the ground. The collision sent out a massive shockwave, ttening the surrounding area and kicking up a thick cloud of dust and debris. A crater, easily a mile wide, formed at the point of impact.
Rowena, having seen the plummeting figures, limped towards the newly formed crater. The ground beneath her feet was cracked and uneven, making her progress slow and painful.
As she approached, she could see nothing but billowing smoke and dust. The air was thick with the acrid smell of blood and scorched earth. shes of residual dark energy crackled through the haze, creating an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere.
Slowly, the smoke began to clear. In the center of the devastation, a massive form began to take shape - the broken body of Malevolous. And there, standing atop the dragon''s head, was Michael.
Chapter 1339 New Spell and Broken Heart
Chapter 1339 New Spell and Broken Heart
As Michael sat atop the fallen dragon, catching his breath, a series of system notifications chimed in his head:
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing Malevolous, the Ancient dragon. The reward is 250,000 Experience points and 2 million Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5 million Badass points]
[Warning! The Host may now choose one spell of choice from the system store for free]
Michael''s exhaustion was momentarily forgotten as he processed these rewards. But before he could fully appreciate them, another notification appeared:
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is Celestial Resonance Realm]
[Warning! The Host can reach this new stage upon return to the realm of gods. The system will go offline for four days during the breakthrough. The host must find a secluded spot for breaking through during these four days]
A mix of excitement and concern washed over Michael. The rewards were substantial, and the promise of a new spell and cultivation level was enticing. However, the thought of the system going offline for four days during a crucial time was worrying.
"Well, isn''t that just perfect timing," Michael muttered sarcastically. He knew he''d have to n carefully to ensure he could safely undergo this breakthrough without leaving himself vulnerable to Skyhall''s machinations.
As he pondered these developments, Michael''s gaze drifted to Rowena, who was approaching the crater. He realized that despite the victory and rewards, their ordeal was far from over. They still needed to escape this pocket dimension and deal with the Skyhall elders.
At that moment, Michael stood atop Malevolous''s massive head, a mix of exhration and fatigue coursing through him. The thrill of ying his first ancient beast was intoxicating, a testament to his growing power as the God of Darkness.
However, amidst the triumph, a pang of loss struck him. The Doombringer, his trusty weapon since he first stepped into the role of Lucifer, was gone. It felt like losing an old friend, apanion that had seen him through countless battles.
"You served me well, old friend," Michael murmured, a moment of silence for the sacrificed weapon.
But he quickly shook off the mncholy. Now wasn''t the time for sentimentality. There were more pressing matters at hand.
"Right, let''s see what new toy I can get," he said, focusing on the system''s spell store.
As he was about to browse through the avable spells, Michael''s mind raced with possibilities. He needed something powerful, versatile, and an area-of-effect spell that could turn the tide against Skyhall.
"Time to upgrade, get the hell out of this pocket dimension, and show Skyhall what happens when you piss off the God of Darkness," Michael muttered and turned to see the colossal corpse of Malevolous. The ancient dragon''s body was a treasure trove of valuable materials - scales, bones, organs, each part potentially useful for potions, weapons, or magical artifacts.
"Damn, what a waste," he muttered, realizing the dragon''s massive size made it impossible to store in his system storage.
With a resigned sigh, Michael decided to leave the dragon''s body behind. As tempting as the resources were, dragging a giant dragon corpse while facing Skyhall wasn''t exactly practical.
"Another time, perhaps," he said, turning away from the fallen beast.
As he shifted his focus back to Rowena, intending to enter the system interface and browse through the new spells, he was caught off guard. Rowena grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong given her weakened state.
"Thank you," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "I knew you or Noah woulde for me. I never lost hope. But where is he right now? Why didn''t hee here?"
Michael''s stomach dropped at Rowena''s question. "Fuck," he thought, his mind racing for a way to answer.
How the hell was he supposed to tell her that he''d killed Noah, the brother she actually grew up with and loved? That his actions had plunged the entire mortal realm into eternal darkness? It was a shitshow of epic proportions.
For a brief moment, Michael considered lying. It would be easier, less painful. But as he looked at Rowena''s expectant face, he knew there was no point. The evidence was literally everywhere - the darkened mortal realm was like a giant neon sign screaming "Noah''s dead, and the Dark Lord did it."
Michael ran a hand through his hair, buying time. Rowena''s love for Noah ran deep, way deeper than any affection she might have for him, the brother she''d only just met. This truth could shatter whatever fragile bond they''d formed.
"Damn it all," Michael muttered under his breath. He''d faced down ancient dragons and gods, but this... this felt like the hardest thing he''d ever had to do. Taking a deep breath, Michael steeled himself. There was no easy way to do this, no sugar-coating the bitter pill Rowena was about to swallow.
"Rowena," he began, his voice heavy with the weight of what he was about to reveal, "there''s something I need to tell you about Noah..."
"What?" Rowena''s voice cracked, her usuallyposed demeanor crumbling. Despite her attempts to maintain her icyposure, panic seeped into her words.
Her eyes searched Michael''s face, desperately seeking reassurance. But what she found there only deepened her dread. Uncertainty clouded his eyes, and she noticed how they flickered when she mentioned Noah''s name. The unnatural darkness that permeated the realm, casting an eerie glow over everything, suddenly felt oppressive and meaningful.
A knot formed in her stomach as the pieces began to fall into ce. The absence of light, Michael''s hesitation, the palpable tension in the air - it all pointed to something terrible having befallen Noah.
"Dean," she said, using the name she knew him by, her voice barely above a whisper, "what happened to Noah? Tell me he''s okay. Please."
Her hands trembled slightly as she gripped Michael''s arm tighter, bracing herself for news she already sensed would shatter her world.
As Michael fumbled for words, trying to find a way to soften the blow - even though he knew there was no way to make "I killed our brother" sound nice - Rowena''s patience finally snapped.
She grabbed the gorget of his armor, her knuckles white with tension, and shook him with surprising strength for her weakened state. "Tell me what happened, damn it!" she demanded, her voice a mix of fury and desperation.
Michael took a deep breath, steeling himself. "Noah is dead," he said, his voice low and steady. "I killed him."
The words hung in the air, heavy and devastating. Rowena''s grip on Michael''s armor loosened, her hands falling limply to her sides. She stared at him, her mind struggling to process what she''d just heard.
"What?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "No... that can''t... you couldn''t have..."
The color drained from Rowena''s face, leaving her ashen and ghostly. Her eyes, wide with disbelief, searched Michael''s face for any sign that this was some cruel joke. But all she saw was grim truth. A maelstrom of emotions whirled within her - shock, disbelief, anger, grief, all crashing together in a devastating tsunami. Her legs felt weak, threatening to give out beneath her as the full weight of Michael''s words sank in.
Noah, her little brother, the one she''d watched grow up, the one she''d protected and loved... was gone. And the one responsible was standing right in front of her, wearing the face of another brother she barely knew.
Tears welled up in Rowena''s eyes, spilling over and streaming down her face. A flood of memories crashed through her mind - Noah''s yful teasing, his unwavering love that pierced through her icy demeanor, shared meals filled withughter, nights spentforting him after nightmares. She remembered cradling him as a child, his small hands clinging to her, his bright eyes looking up at her with pure adoration.
The weight of these memories, now tainted with the knowledge that they were all that remained of her beloved brother, was too much to bear. Something inside Rowena snapped.
With a cry of anguish, she pped Michael across the face. The sound echoed through the pocket dimension, sharp and startling.
But it wasn''t enough. She pped him again. And again. And again.
Each strike was fueled by her grief, her anger, her disbelief. The sound of flesh hitting flesh punctuated her sobs, a physical manifestation of her emotional agony.
"How could you?!" she screamed between ps, her voice raw with pain. "He was our brother! How could you do this?!"
Rowena''s assault continued, her hand reddening from the impact, but she didn''t stop. It was as if by striking Michael, she could somehow undo what had been done, as if she could bring Noah back through the sheer force of her grief and rage.
On the other hand, Michael stood there, epting each p without resistance. He knew this wouldn''t bring Noah back or ease Rowena''s pain, but it was the least he could do. Each strike was a testament to the depth of her grief, a pain he could understand even if he didn''t share it.
Although Michael had never developed the brotherly bond with Rowena or Noah that they shared with each other, he wasn''t blind to their love. He could see it in Rowena''s shatteredposure, in the way her usual icy demeanor had crumbled into raw, unrestrained emotion.
"Why?" Rowena screamed, her palm connecting with Michael''s cheek again. "Why did you kill him?" Another p. "Why?" And another.
Each "why" was punctuated by a strike, her voice growing hoarser with each repetition. Her usuallyposed features were contorted with anguish, tears streaming down her face unchecked.
Michael stood firm, epting each blow. He watched as the normally unppable Rowena broke downpletely, her pain manifesting in this physical outburst. Her fists began to pound against his chest as her energy waned, but still she persisted.
"Why, Dean? Why?" she sobbed, her strikes bing weaker but no less filled with pain.
"It was Skyhall and Salesi''s maniption¡ª" Michael took a deep breath, attempting to exin. His words were cut short by another stinging p from Rowena. Her eyes zed with fury, her weakness the only thing preventing her from unleashing magical fury upon him.
"Were they the ones who put a sword through his heart?" she demanded, her voice trembling with rage. Deep down, she knew only family could have killed Noah, but the question hung in the air, demanding an answer.
Michael''s silence spoke volumes, confirming her worst fears. Rowena''s face contorted with a mixture of grief and disgust as she looked at him.
"I was wrong," she spat, her voice dripping with venom. "I was wrong to believe you weren''t the cursed child, that you weren''t the Dark Lord destined to bring pain and destruction. But that''s exactly what you are. You''re nothing but a curse upon this world, upon our family."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Chapter 1340 Frostbite, New Spell
Chapter 1340 Frostbite, New Spell
Grief and rage twisted Rowena''s face as sheunched herself at Michael. "I wish you were dead!" she shrieked, her voice shredded by pain. Michael didn''t flinch. With a sigh, he raised a hand, a fine mist of knockout potion erupting from his palm towards her. It caught Rowena mid-lunge, her eyes rolling back as she went limp.
Catching her before she hit the ground, Michael scooped her up. His voice was a low murmur. "I''m sorry, Rowena," he said, though she was already unconscious. "For everything."
As he turned, he saw it - a shimmering vortex forming in the distance. Malevolous''s death had ripped a hole in the pocket dimension, its power fading fast. The illusion masking the exit was gone, revealing their escape route.
Cradling Rowena close, Michael started towards the portal. Around them, thendscape rippled and faded, the pocket dimension unraveling without its draconic anchor. He steeled himself, knowing a confrontation with Skyhall awaited on the other side. Onest nce back at the scorched battlefield, a battlefield that held both a in dragon and his sister''s shattered trust, and then Michael stepped into the vortex, carrying Rowena with him.
The vortex spat Michael and Rowena out onto the familiar tform, the starry expanse of the Skyhall realm spread before them. But familiarity turned to shock in a heartbeat.
This wasn''t the Skyhall he remembered.
Thousands of warships, sleek and deadly, blotted out the stars. Cannons roared, fire streaking across the void, each st a miniature supernova. Spells, zing with celestial fire or crackling with emerald lightning, crisscrossed the battlefield, leaving trails of shattered light in their wake.
Angels, their silver armor gleaming under a sky aze with war, were locked in a deadly ballet with...elves? Golden light red around the elves, each parry of their enchanted des a rippling shockwave. These were no ordinary warriors; this was Nithroel''s vanguard, unleashing hell in a symphony of desong and magic.
And then Michael saw them. His own forces. Dark figures, d in ck armor that seemed to devour the light, swarmed through the chaos. Demons with wings of leathery shadow ripped through the air, matching the angels blow for blow. Warlocks on the decks of monstrous, organic ships hurled bolts of pure darkness, each impact detonating in a shockwave of anti-light.
The air vibrated with the sh of power. An angelic legion, wings interlocked, formed a blinding spear of light that punched through a formation of elven ships, vaporizing them in an instant. But before the angels could capitalize, a wave of shadow magic crashed over them, dragging their light down, smothering it in a veil of absolute darkness.
On a colossal warship carved from bone and obsidian, a figure Michael knew well stood at the prow. Lenora. Her crimson eyes zed, reflecting the inferno of battle, as she unleashed a torrent of blood magic, painting the sky crimson.
Every instinct in Michael screamed to join the fight, to unleash his own power on those who dared challenge him. But in his arms, Rowena stirred.
"My lord!"
The voice cut through the symphony of battle, reaching Michael even over the roar of cannons and the shriek of tortured magic. He turned, his gaze sweeping over the maelstrom, and saw him.
Azazel. Even in the midst of this chaotic ballet of death, his demon butler was impably turned out. His dark suit, normally pristine, bore stters of blood, a jarring counterpoint to his starched white shirt. A long gash marred one side of his face, marring his handsome features, but it did nothing to diminish the fierce loyalty zing in his golden eyes.
With a beat of powerful, leathery wings, Azazel alighted on the tform,nding before Michael in a crouch. His gaze fell upon Rowena, still unconscious in Michael''s arms, and his eyes widened. "My lord, you rescued Rowena Winston." It wasn''t a question, more a statement of awed disbelief.
Above them, a squadron of angels, wings zing with fire made of celestial energy, mmed into a formation of Nithroel''s elite guard. Elven des shed, shearing through the angels'' flesh, only to be met by retaliating bursts of silver fire. The smell of ozone and burnt flesh filled the air.
"Where is Elidyr? And the others? What about Jasmine?" Michael''s voice was clipped, each word a demand for information.
"Lady Jasmine''s soul is safe, my lord. I dispatched it to the safehouse with Trista and Saber. They will ensure her protection." Azazel bowed, low and respectful.
"Good," Michael nodded curtly. He had no doubt that the two elder vampires, ancient and powerful, would guard Jasmine''s soul with their lives. His gaze never left Azazel''s face. "Take her to the safehouse," Michael ordered, his voice brooking no argument. He shifted Rowena gently in Azazel''s arms. "Now."
The demon hesitated, a flicker of conflict in his golden eyes. The air around him crackled, the raw power of his demonic nature struggling to break free. The lure of battle, the scent of blood and magic, was intoxicating, even for one as disciplined as Azazel.
Michael knew his demon well. He saw the battle lust warring with Azazel''s sense of duty, the primal urge to fight at his lord''s side. And, perhaps, a sliver of fear for Michael''s safety, a fear the demon butler would never admit to, even to himself.
"My lord," Azazel began, his voice tight, "are you sure...?"
"This is my fight," Michael cut him off, his voice low butced with steel. He ced a hand on Azazel''s shoulder, the gesture both a reassurance and amand. "Rowena needs you. She''s lost enough already. Don''t let her down."
Azazel''s gaze flickered towards the sky, where a vortex of dark energy marked a particrly brutal sh between the dark army and angels. He inhaled sharply, drawing in the chaotic energy of the battle, then let out a slow breath, the scent of brimstone fading as he regained control.
"As youmand, my lord." Bowing his head, Azazel turned, spreading his leathery wings andunching himself back towards the safety of the swirling vortex that led away from the battlefield.
Michael hung in the vastness of the Skyhall realm, the chaos of the battle swirling around him like a storm he was yet to enter. He watched warships burn, saw angels and demons fall in a fiery rain, felt the air crackle with unleashed magic. But he was apart from it, his mind a vortex of memories, each one a brand seared into his soul.
He saw himself as a child, a scrawny, hungry boy on the unforgiving streets of Earth, orphaned before he could even speak. He felt the sting of tears, the gnawing emptiness in his stomach, the bone-deep ache of loneliness. He saw himself, older now, hardened by brutal training, honed into a weapon, an assassin who dealt death with cold efficiency.
And through it all, a single thread of pain ¨C the envy, always buried deep, whenever he saw a family together, a childughing with their parents. A life he was denied. A life Skyhall had stolen from him. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
They had taken everything. His family, his future, his very birthright. They had thrown him into the prison of mortality, stripped him of his power, left him to rot in a world that wasn''t his own.
But they had underestimated him. He had wed his way back, embraced the darkness they feared, be something more than they could ever imagine. He was no longer that scared child, that ruthless assassin. He was Michael, the God of Darkness, and he was here for payback. But first, he had a new spell to acquire. A spell to turn the tide and paint the starscape red with the blood of his enemies. "Time to go shopping,"
As Michael''s consciousness sank into the System interface, the world around him froze. The symphony of battle, the roar of cannons, the sh of steel and magic ¨C all faded into a silent, frozen tableau. Before him, shimmering lines of golden light coalesced, forming the familiar words: SYSTEM STORE. The letters hung in the void, pulsing with power. Michael reached out and mentally clicked on the tab.
Instantly, a seemingly endless list of spells unfurled before him, each one a weapon of unimaginable potential. Names pulsed with arcane energy: Void Eater, Soul Siphon, Temporal Distortion... But Michael had a specific need. He filtered the list, focusing on a single category: Area of Effect.
He had spells for single targets, spells that could obliterate an enemy with a single st. But this war was a tapestry of chaos, a swirling mass of enemies. He needed something more. Something that could paint the stars red with the blood of his enemies.
Ring of mes, a spell he''d learned in the mortal realm, was powerful, but limited. He needed something unique, something born of the System''s power.His gaze drifted further down the list. Ultimate Ignitia ¨C now there was a spell that could turn the tide of a battle. He envisioned it, a storm of fire and lightning crashing down upon the Skyhall fleet, incinerating ships and angels alike.
But the energy cost...even for Michael, a being of near limitless power, casting Ultimate Ignitia more than a handful of times would leave him drained, vulnerable. He needed a spell that could inflict maximum damage without depleting his own reserves.
Size mattered, too. Ignitia, for all its might, was less effective againstrger targets. He needed something that could cripple a warship, shatter a celestial fortress, something that would make the very foundations of Skyhall tremble...
The spells scrolled by, a dizzying array of arcane possibilities. Tendrils of Shadow erupting from the ground to ensnare his enemies...intriguing, but more suited for crowd control than outright destruction. Lava Pit ¨C now that had potential, but its area of effect was limited, and the casting time too slow for the chaos of this battle.
Then a spell shed across his awareness, its description so oundish he almost dismissed it out of hand. Cerberus'' Fury. The image alone was enough to elicit a sardonic chuckle from Michael. Three additional heads, each capable of spewing forth dark beams? It was powerful, certainly, and the imagery would undoubtedly strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. But ultimately, it felt more about style than substance. He needed raw power, not a light show.
His gaze snagged on the next spell. A shiver ran down his spine, a thrill of anticipation mixed with a touch of primal fear.
Frostbite.
Unlike the shy descriptions of other spells, Frostbite''s was chilling in its simplicity. A six-meter radius around the caster would be a zone of absolute zero. Weaker enemies would be sh-frozen, their bodies shattering with a single touch. Stronger opponents would find themselves ensnared, their movements slowed, their very essence crystallized by the cold.
But it was the follow-up effect that truly captivated Michael. Any enemy caught within Frostbite''s icy grip would be left incredibly vulnerable to dark me attacks, their defenses weakened to the point where they''d take five times the damage.
Five. Times. The. Damage.
His lips curled into a predatory smile. Now that...that was a symphony of destruction he could get behind.
Chapter 1341 Devastating Power Of the Frostbite
Chapter 1341 Devastating Power Of the Frostbite
The moment Michael confirmed his purchase of Frostbite, a spike of painnced through his skull. It was the system''s way ¨C brutally efficient, like having a thousand ice shards hammered into your brain. He gritted his teeth, riding out the agony. It always faded as quickly as it came, leaving behind the knowledge of the spell, woven into his very being. Sure enough, as the pain subsided, casting Frostbite felt as natural as drawing breath.
Michael opened his eyes, surveying the chaos unfolding around him. The battle had escted to a terrifying crescendo. His gaze swept over the Skyhall angels, their silver armor no match for the sheer ferocity of his dark army and demons.
But it was the other figures that drew his attention ¡ª the ancestors of SKyhall, the powerful cultivators who had enjoyed centuries of power in the light of the old world. Men and women, their faces etched with the weight of ages, d in armor that gleamed with enchantments older than nations. Each and every one of them zed with the energy of the Celestial Stage, their power a palpable pressure in the void.
They fought with the honed grace of experience, their every movement a testament to lifetimes spent mastering their skills. White robes, the symbol of their once-unquestioned authority, whipped around them as they battled Michael''s forces.
But even their experience couldn''t make up for the raw brutality of his demon army. Looking at the demon army, Michael smirked, a flicker of grim satisfaction twisting his lips. The demon army couldn''t cast spells, not like the other cultivators. But damn, they were a sight to behold in closebat. Massive, hulking figures, their skin as tough as dragon scales, and their strength amplified by battle lust. Every swing of a wed fist connected with bone-jarring force, and those ws¡ those ripped through flesh and steel with equal ease.
And if they went down? Well, death wasn''t exactly a deterrent for the demon army.
He watched, a detached observer for a moment, as a hulking demon, its chest cavity ripped open by a spear of solidified light, simply roared in defiance. Tendrils of shadow, shot through with a sickening purple light, snaked out from the gash, pulling the wound closed in a grotesque mockery of healing. A momentter, the demon was back on its feet, bellowing a challenge as it charged back into the fray.
Skyhall might have outnumbered them, might have had more raw magical power at their disposal, but Michael had a few tricks up his sleeve too. His gaze swept over the battlefield, taking in the ebb and flow of the conflict.
He saw a dwarf, one of his Immortal stage cultivators, unleash a torrent of blue me,incinerating a cluster of Skyhall soldiers. Their screams were choked off as the mes consumed them, leaving behind only wisps of smoke and the acrid stench of burnt flesh.
A little further off, Lenora, a crimson blur against the backdrop of stars, was making a mess of things. She was a whirlwind of blood magic, crimson tendrilsshing out to ensnare angels, ripping them from the sky or bursting them apart in a shower of gore. No delicate flower, that one
But even as Michael reveled in the carnage, a knot of unease tightened in his gut. Skyhall was strong. Stronger than he''d anticipated. They''d held something back, he could feel it. A reserve of power they were waiting to unleash.
But as awe-inspiring as the scene was, all hell broke loose when on of the Skyhall angels noticed Michael. And then he felt it ¨C a shift in the energy of the battlefield, hundreds of gazes turning towards him as one.
"The Dark Lord!"
That single shout of his name, filled with fear and dread, was like a spark igniting tinder. It spread through the ranks of the Skyhall army, carried on the wind of panic. Soon, a chorus of shouts, a blend of disbelief and terror, rose above the battlefield.
"He''s here!"
"Well, well, looks like the party''s starting" Michael murmured with amusement.
Then, ck lightning, crackling with raw power, danced around him, a halo of impending doom. He let the darkness within him rise and he could practically taste their terror like a heady vintage.
"Time to show them what happens," he snarled, eyes zing with cold fire, "when you piss off the God of Darkness."
And with a thought, he unleashed the Death Range.
The world around him imploded into a sphere of absolute ck, swallowing light and sound in its embrace. The stars themselves seemed to vanish, devoured by the encroaching void. The cacophony of battle ¨C the ng of steel, the roar of cannons, the screams of the dying ¨C was instantly silenced, reced by an unnerving hush.
Within the Death Range, Michael was both hunter and architect. He could see everything with a rity that bordered on the supernatural, his senses amplified a thousandfold. He saw the fear in the eyes of his enemies and the way they fumbled for weapons they could no longer see. "Fire!"
On the fringes of the Death Range, a voice boomed over the sudden silence, sharp and clear as a whipcrack. The voice belonged to Commander Lorian, a tall, hawkish elf with eyes like chips of cial ice. Hismand deck, perched atop a warship that was less vessel and more floating fortress, was a testament to Skyhall''s arrogance. Crafted from gleaming whitewood and polished steel, it bristled with cannons, each one long enough to rival a small dragon. Powerful runes, etched onto the hull in lines of shimmering gold, pulsed with restrained power.
This wasn''t just a warship but a statement.
And right now, it was aimed directly at the heart of Michael''s darkness.
Lorian had been trained since childhood for this moment, drilled in the art of warfare against creatures of darkness. He knew, as did all of Skyhall''s elite, that killing a God was next to impossible without the god killing arrows. Their weapons, potent as they were, were mere pinpricks against such beings.
But they didn''t need to kill the Dark Lord. Not yet.
Cripple. Contain. Capture. Those were the objectives. Shatter his physical shell, and his essence, his very soul, would be left vulnerable. And Skyhall was more than prepared to deal with a disembodied god.
"Hold your fire, you fools! Wait for my mark!" Lorian roared, his voice barely audible over the thunderous rumble of the cannons powering up. Celestial energy, drawn from the very air itself, crackled along the rune-etched barrels, building towards a crescendo of destructive power.
"NOW!" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
The world exploded.
Blinding white light ripped through the darkness as the cannons roared their defiance. The first volley mmed into the Death Range, the force of the impact like a physical blow. The very air shrieked in protest as the celestial energy tore through the space, seeking out its target.
But Michael had not be the God of Darkness by being predictable.
Lorian, for all his tactical brilliance, had overlooked a crucial element: even the most impressive disys of light cast shadows. And shadows were Michael''s domain.
He felt the surge of celestial energy building within those cannons, felt the air crackle with anticipatory violence. A lesser being might have been cowed, might have tried to run away or cast a defensive spell.
Michael was not a lesser being but a God, The God of Darkness.
He smiled, a slow, predatory stretching of his lips that did not reach his eyes.
Instead, he used the Shadow teleportation that allowed him to traverse the battlefield in the blink of an eye, to appear wherever his enemy least expected him. And right now, that meant the heart of Lorian''s precious warship, shrouded as it was by its own hubristic shadow.
He vanished from the spot where he''d stood a heartbeat before, the Death Range momentarily faltering as its anchor shifted. One moment Michael was inside the pitch ck darkness away from the ship and the next, he was on the ship''s upper deck.
Lorian, battle-hardened as he was, couldn''t suppress a gasp of surprise. It was reflected a thousandfold across the faces of his crew, their eyes wide with a terror that was almost beautiful.
But there was no time for shock, no time for awe. Not with those cannons about to unleash their fury.
Then, Michael raised a hand, fingers outstretched, and whispered a single word.
"Frostbite."
Soon, the world around him transformed.
A wave of bone-chilling cold, absolute zero made manifest, exploded outwards from Michael''s form. It mmed into the deck of the warship, a six-meter radius instantly encased in a shell of shimmering ice. Steel groaned and buckled under the sudden, catastrophic temperature change. Runes, glowing moments before with celestial energy, flickered and died, their light extinguished by the encroaching frost.
Screams, high-pitched and choked, erupted from the crew. Those closest to Michael, caught in the direct line of the Frostbite, didn''t even have time to scream. Their eyes widened, pupils dting with terror, then zed over as they were sh-frozen, their bodies turning brittle as ss. One moment they were living, breathing beings; the next, grotesque statues, theirst expressions etched in eternal agony.
The air itself seemed to crackle, frost spreading across the deck like a living thing. Those who weren''t instantly frozen found their movements slowing, their limbs growing heavy and unresponsive as the cold seeped into their very bones. They stumbled, their armor, once a source of pride and protection, now a chillingly efficient conductor of the unbearable cold.
"What in the hells¡"
"He''s a monster!"
Fear-stricken cries, choked off into gurgling moans, filled the air, only to be swallowed by the ever-expanding sphere of absolute zero. It was a chaotic symphony of terror, yed out on the faces of those unlucky souls who''d found themselves within Michael''s icy embrace.
Lorian, hisposure finally shattered, stumbled back from the expanding frost, his cial eyes wide with disbelief. "Impossible!" His words were cut short as the frost reached him, creeping up his silver-d legs, encasing his boots in ayer of ice that glimmered wickedly in the fading light of the cannons.
Even the elvenmander, hardened by centuries of warfare, couldn''t suppress a shriek of terror as the cold sank its teeth into him, the feeling like a thousand needles driven into his flesh. He tried to cast a defensive spell that had always protected him, but it was toote.
The frost was relentless. It spread across the deck with terrifying speed, encasing the warship and everyone on it in a tomb of ice. Cannons froze, their deadly payloads rendered inert. Angels, their silver wings now useless appendages of frost-rimed feathers, were frozen mid-flight, their expressions a terrifying tableau of surprise and agony.
In the heart of the frozen hellscape, Michael chuckled, a low rumble that echoed strangely off the ice-covered surfaces. "Damn," he muttered, even he was surprised by the raw, brutal efficiency of the Frostbite spell. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was everything he''d ever wanted in a spell.
Then he remembered the kicker. The follow-up attack.
"Time to turn up the heat," he murmured, lips curving into a cruel smile.
He channeled his power to cast the Rings of mes. It was a spell he''d used countless times before, but now¡ now it would be amplified, supercharged by the lingering chill of Frostbite.
As soon as he cast the spell, dark mes erupted around him, twisting into a pulsating ring of pure destructive energy. He unleashed it and the impact was instantaneous, and spectacrly devastating.
Imagine a frozenke, struck by a meteor made of pure fire.
The air screamed as the heat collided with the cold, the opposing forces reacting with explosive violence. The ice-encrusted warship, once a symbol of Skyhall''s might, shattered like it was made of spun sugar. Shards of whitewood, now ckened and burning, were flung outwards in a chaotic explosion. Frozen limbs, still encased in shattered armor, spun through the air, trailing plumes of blood-tinged vapor.
And the screams¡ the screams were like a chorus from hell itself, echoing through the void as those trapped within the ice were consumed by the mes. A few, their bodies still miraculously intact, managed to w their way free, only to plummet screaming into the abyss below, their forms trailing plumes of smoke and the sickening-sweet aroma of burnt flesh.
Chapter 1342 Something feels off
Chapter 1342 Something feels off
Michael watched the remnants of Lorian''s gship¡ªchunks of burning wood, twisted metal, and bloody shards of frozen flesh¡ªspiral away into the void. He stretched, feeling the satisfying pops and cracks along his spine, and a slow, predatory grin spread across his face.
"Now that''s what I call a warm wee," he murmured, even as the system notifications started to flood his mind.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Skyhall Angel. The reward is 150 Experience points and 10,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Skyhall Angel. The reward is 200 Experience points and 20,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 5,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing--
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Michael muttered, his grin widening as the notifications ticked higher and higher. The experience points were almostughable, a pittancepared to what he''d get from taking down an actual threat. But those badass points? Those were flowing in like a goddamn tsunami.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the Skyhallmander. The reward is 4,000 Experience points and 50,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 50,000 Badass points] "Almost a million already," he chuckled, shaking his head. "This is gonna be fun." He could feel hundreds, thousands of eyes on him now. A mixture of terror and awe. Time to give them a show they''d never forget.
"System, mute those notifications for now," Michael thought, turning his attention back to the battlefield. He had a war to win.
Meanwhile, a hush fell over the battlefield after the disy of Michael''s power. At the same time, high above the fray, on a tform of shimmering crystal, a cluster of figures watched with a mixture of apprehension and cold fury. These were Skyhall''s elite, the true power behind the throne: the Ancestors who were ancient beings at the Celestial stage.
"He grows stronger," a voice rasped, old as time itself. It belonged to Eldrin, the eldest of the Ancestors, his wrinkled face a roadmap of forgotten ages. His eyes, though, were sharp and bright, burning with a cold fire. He watched Michael with a gaze that saw not just the arrogant young God, but the echoes of a past he''d rather forget.
"And more reckless," another figure added, her voice sharp as a whipcrack. Lady Selene, they called her. Her beauty was as legendary as her temper, and right now, her sapphire eyes were narrowed, her lips a thin, bloodless line.
"Recklessness can be exploited," a hulking figure rumbled from beneath his horned helm. This was Baldyr, the warrior-king of a long-dead empire, his very presence radiating an aura of raw, uncontainable power.
But even Baldyr''s usual eagerness for battle was tempered by a sliver of uncertainty. He, like the others, had witnessed the casual brutality of Lorian''s demise. This was not a foe to be underestimated. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Enough talk," Selene snapped, her patience at its end. She raised her hands, her movements mirrored by six other figures nking her. Each of them shimmered, their forms blurring for a moment as they channeled their individual power, their very souls intertwining in a disy of forbidden magic.
"He may control the shadows," she hissed, her voiceced with venom, "but wemand the very fabric of this realm!"
A cold light, bright but somehow muted, erupted from the seven figures. A wave of energy, palpable despite theck of blinding light, rippled across the battlefield. A collective gasp rippled through the ranks of both armies, angel and demon alike, as a new power, something ancient and terrifying, announced its presence.
Where seven figures had stood, there was now¡ a serpent.
Not just any serpent. This one was colossal, its scales a dull, sickly green, its eyes burning with a cold, malevolent fire. Each head, a perfect replica of one of the Ancestors, rose high above the battlefield, surveying the carnage with an air of cold detachment.
"By the gods, what is that thing?" a Skyhall angel whispered, his voice trembling. He wasn''t the only one. Fear, raw and visceral, cut through the ranks of the angels, recing their earlier confidence with something akin to despair.
"Holy shit," a dark army soldier breathed, his eyes wide. "That''s¡ that''s some next-level freaky shit right there."
Even Lenora, usually unppable, couldn''t suppress a low whistle. "Well, well," she murmured, crimson eyes narrowed as she watched the monstrous serpent uncoil, "looks like the old geezers know a few tricks."
But the serpent''s target wasn''t Michael.
With a speed that belied its size, the monstrous creature struck. Seven heads snapped forward, jaws gaping wide to unleash a torrent of venom, the color of liquid moonlight but with an oily, viscous quality that made skin crawl.
The venom mmed into a group of demons who''d been tearing their way through a cluster of Skyhall soldiers. The demons who sensed the danger tried to fly away but the venom st was faster than they could move. When the venom st hit them, there were no screams. Instead, the demons, their famed regenerative abilities no match for thebined might of the Ancestors, simply¡vanished. Vaporized in an instant, their forms consumed, leaving behind only a faint wisp of smoke and the acrid stench of burnt ozone.
Michael, for perhaps the first time in a long time, felt a sliver of genuine surprise.
Then, with a serpentine hiss that echoed across the battlefield, it moved but Its target wasn''t Michael. Not yet.
The Ancestors, their battle experience and power amplified by their fusion, knew a direct assault on the God of Darkness would be folly. He was too powerful, too unpredictable. No, their strategy was far more pragmatic, far more ruthless.
Weaken him. Cut down his forces. Make him watch as his army was decimated before turning theirbined might on him. It was cold, calcted, and utterly chilling to behold.
"They''re going after the troops!" A cry of rm ripped through the ranks of the dark army. On the front lines, a seasoned dark army soldier, his face a mask of terror beneath his hood, threw up a hasty ward of crackling with pale blue energy, but it was too little, toote.
The serpent struck with the speed and ferocity of a viper, its seven headsshing out in a symphony of fangs and venom. Where the venomnded, dark army soldiers simply¡ ceased to exist. It wasn''t fire, it wasn''t ice, it was something far more insidious. A disintegration at the molecr level, leaving not even a speck of ash behind.
"Scatter! For fuck''s sake, scatter!" Lenora shouted at the soldiers. But they didn''t need to be told twice as they were already scattering across the space.
Meanwhile, the demon army, thankfully, didn''t need orders to understand the severity of the threat. With a collective roar that shook the very foundations of Skyhall, they surged back, away from the serpent''s reach. They might have been fearless berserkers in closebat, but even they weren''t stupid enough to stand toe-to-toe with that¡ thing.
The demons immediately ppedtheir wings, taking to the air in a desperate attempt to outmaneuver the monstrous serpent.
As he was watching the scene unfold, a crimson blur swooped down beside him. Lenora, her expression grim for once, hovered effortlessly in the air, a stark contrast to the panicked scrambling of those below.
"We need to do something about that overgrown gecko," she said, jerking her chin towards the monstrous serpent that was systematically tearing through Michael''s forces. "Our boys are dropping like flies over there."
Michael frowned, his gaze not on the serpent, but on the scattered clusters of Skyhall''s elite. He spotted Devdan, his perfect elven features twisted in a mask of cold fury, directing a group of mages in a barrage of lightning attacks against a squad of demons.
And there, hovering near the back, was Erael, the Lady of Skyhall, her gaze sharp and calcting as she surveyed the battlefield. Her hand never strayed far from the sword sheathed at her hip, a de that Michael knew hummed with celestial energy.
Finally, his eyesnded on a figure he recognized all too well: Thorfinn Borgersson. The dwarf, his usually jovial face contorted with a mixture of glee and grim determination, was directing a squad of Skyhall''s elite guard, their rune-etched armor gleaming even amidst the carnage.
"Don''t you find this¡ strange?" Michael murmured, more to himself than to Lenora.
"Strange how?"
"Look around," he gestured at the chaos unfolding beneath them. "This is a good fight, don''t get me wrong. But it feels¡ off."
"Off, how?" Lenora echoed, her brow furrowed.
"Where are the heavy hitters? Besides those three idiots and their soul-merged lizard, it''s like they''re sending amateurs to die,"
Lenora followed his gaze, her crimson eyes scanning the battlefield. "Now that you mention it¡" she trailed off, a flicker of unease crossing her features.
"You feel it too, don''t you?" Michael pressed, his voice barely a whisper.
"Like we''re being¡ watched," She nodded, her lips a thin line. "Exactly," Michael muttered, a chill crawling down his spine. "Like this whole thing is a distraction."
He knew, deep down, that Skyhall wasn''t stupid. Arrogant, sure, but not stupid. They knew he wasing, knew what he was capable of. They wouldn''t just throw wave after wave of expendable soldiers at him. There was a bigger y here, he could feel it in his gut.
"I don''t like it," Lenora murmured, her gaze scanning the skies, searching for an unseen enemy.
"Neither do I," Michael agreed as he had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling. Andohr, that maniptive bastard, was involved somehow, he could practically smell it.
The question was: what the hell were they nning?
Chapter 1343 The Blood of Ancient God Don
Chapter 1343 The Blood of Ancient God Don
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the realm of the Gods, Qin Jiu stared into a mirror, its surface rippling like disturbed water. The room around her was a disaster zone. A king-sized bed, its silk sheets once a pristine white, was now a tangled mess, stained crimson and reeking of stale wine. Empty bottles, their contents long spilled, littered the floor, along with shards of ss that glittered under the dim light.
Qin Jiu, usually the epitome of cold elegance, looked like she hadn''t slept in days. Dark circles ringed her eyes, her usually wless makeup smeared, and her borate hairstyle hade undone, leaving strands of raven hair framing a face etched with exhaustion and something¡ darker.
"About damn time," she muttered, her voice hoarse. The mirror rippled again, and this time, an image solidified within its depths.
A throne, crafted from what appeared to be solid gold, materialized in the mirror. And seated upon that throne, one leg casually crossed over the other, was a man whose very presence seemed to warp the space around him.
Golden hair that flowed like liquid sunlight framed a face that would have been beautiful if it weren''t for the cruel twist of his lips. The man was none other than Andohr, the God of Time and Space himself.
"My lord," Qin Jiu said, her voice a strange mixture of relief and resentment, "are you aware that the Dark Lord is currently waging war on Skyhall?"
Andohr didn''t answer. He simply smiled, a slow, predatory stretching of his lips that didn''t reach those cold, calcting eyes.
It was the smile of someone who''d anticipated every move, someone who controlled the board and all the yers on it.
The history books, at least the ones avable to the people in mortal realm, painted a sanitized version of Skyhall''s founding. A tale of unity, of powerful beingsing together to create a bastion of peace and order in the chaotic mortal realm. They spoke of Qin Jiu''s vision, her mastery of celestial runes and time-bending arrays, her selfless dedication to creating a force for good against the Dark Lord and his darkness.
What those history books failed to mention was the puppet master lurking in the shadows.
Andohr, the true architect of Skyhall.
He''d found Qin Jiu centuries ago, a brilliant but reckless runemaster, dabbling in forces that were never meant to be controlled. Her experiments with time travel, her attempts to rewrite history itself, had drawn his attention. Most gods would have struck her down, deemed her a threat to the delicate bnce of the universe. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
But Andohr saw an opportunity. He saw in Qin Jiu a tool, a weapon to be honed and aimed at a target of his choosing. He''d guided her, whispered in her ear, nted the seeds of what would be Skyhall.
He''d given her the power. And, in doing so, he''d ensured her loyalty.
"Darling, I am the God of Time and Space," Andohr purred. "I may not be able to physically waltz through that ridiculous barrier" His lips curled into a sneer as he continued.
"But I assure you, nothing escapes my awareness."
Hearing Andohr, Qin Jiu frowned, her brow furrowed in confusion. She couldn''t understand it. Andohr was the only one, besides perhaps the fallen Noah, who could hope to match the Dark Lord''s power. And yet, here he sat, on his shadowy throne, seemingly content to watch Skyhall burn.
As if reading her thoughts, Andohr continued, a cold glint in his sapphire eyes. "Skyhall has served its purpose, my dear. A purpose for which it has failed¡ spectacrly,"
Qin Jiu bristled at that. She had poured her life force, her very essence, into creating Skyhall. It was her masterpiece, her shield against the encroaching darkness. To hear Andohr dismiss it so casually¡
"Failed? But Noah¡ we all believed he was the one to stop him. You said¡ª"
"I said many things," Andohr interrupted. "But reality has a nasty habit of defying even the most carefullyid ns. Noah is gone. And the Dark Lord? He''s tasted power now, true power. Skyhall is nothing but a minor inconvenience to him."
Qin Jiu clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. It wasn''t supposed to be like this. She''d trusted Andohr and believed in his vision of a world ruled from the shadows, a world where Skyhall would be the ultimate weapon against the forces of chaos.
"Then why?" she spat, her voice thick with anger and betrayal. "Why create it in the first ce? Why sacrifice so many lives, if all you intended was to make them¡ cannon fodder?"
A coldugh echoed from the mirror, chilling Qin Jiu to her core. Andohr''s smile was gone now, reced by an expression of chilling indifference. He flicked his wrist, a dismissive gesture that spoke volumes.
Suddenly, a hand materialized out of thin air, mming across Qin Jiu''s face with enough force to send her reeling. She cried out, more in surprise than pain, crashing to the ground as the echo of the p reverberated through the room.
"Consider that," Andohr purred, his voice dangerously low, "a reminder of who you''re speaking to. And where your loyalties lie."
The hand, its fingers still tingling with the force of the blow, vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Qin Jiu sprawled on the ground, a mix of fear and fury twisting her gut.
The message was clear: Andohr, the God of Time and Space, could reach her anywhere, anytime, even within the protected domain of Agra, the God of Chaos himself.
But Qin Jiu was no stranger to a p, especially not from a god. Living for centuries as Agra''s "dutiful wife" had a way of toughening a girl up. And Agra, the embodiment of chaos itself, well, pping her around was practically a Tuesday for him. She''d endured worse¡far worse than a backhanded reminder of her ce.
So she picked herself up, dusted off her clothes, and red at Andohr''s reflection with a fire in her eyes.
However, the God of Time and Space seemed more amused than intimidated by her defiance. He cracked his neck as a cruel smile spread across his lips.
"The God of Darkness is having his fun. Let him. It won''tst," Andohr said with a low growl. "You have a n?" she asked, suspicioncing her voice.
"Always," Andohr purred, leaning forward on his throne. "The God of Darkness has upset the bnce. He''s grown too powerful, too reckless. The other gods might not admit it, but they feel it too. The fear," He chuckled, a low, chilling sound.
"They''lle crawling to me, begging for my help. And I¡ I will give it to them."
"You''re uniting the Pantheon," Qin Jiu breathed, finally understanding the scope of Andohr''s machinations.
Andohr nodded, a slow, predatory tilt of his head. "Against amon enemy. This time, there will be no prison, no half-assed attempts at containment. This time," he snarled, his voice dripping with venomous promise. "I end him. Permanently," His gaze, cold and calcting, met Qin Jiu''s through the reflection of the mirror.
"And until I find the weapon," Andohr continued, his voice regaining its silky smoothness, "that little war¡ it''s an eptable distraction. Let the God of Darkness have his fun. Let him think he''s won. It will make his downfall all the more¡ exquisite,"
She''d seen Andohr''s ambition firsthand, witnessed the subtle maniptions, the carefully orchestrated chaos, that had led to the Pantheon''s current civil war. She knew, better than most, the lengths to which he''d go to achieve his goals.
But there was one thing¡
"And what about¡" she hesitated, choosing her words carefully. Even through the mirror, even across the vast gulf of space and time that separated them, she knew better than to question Andohr directly. But this¡ this was too important to ignore. "The blood¡"
Andohr''s smile didn''t falter. He raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, an unspoken question in those icy blue eyes.
"The Ancient''s blood," Qin Jiu rified, her voice barely above a whisper, as though even speaking the words aloud was inviting retribution. "If the Dark Lord gets his hands on that¡"
She didn''t need to finish the sentence. The implications were clear, and they both knew it. The blood of an Ancient God¡ªDon, his name was whispered only in hushed tones, a legend even amongst gods¡ªwasn''t just powerful, it was a shortcut to the next Godhood¡The Prime God level.
Many had tried to harness the blood''s power over the millennia. Fools, all of them. The sheer radiation, the raw chaotic energy it contained, incinerated anything that came within a hundred yards. Only Qin Jiu, guided by Andohr''s whispers, had managed to contain it, building a Skyhall pce around the blood, weaving aplex tapestry of celestial runes and time-bending arrays to hold its power in check.
"Don''t you remember who taught you those arrays, darling?" Andohr purred. "What''s stopping the gods from getting their dirty little hands on the blood of an ancient god?"
"The barrier," Qin Jiu whispered, a chill running down her spine despite the stifling air of her chambers. It was the only reason, the only thing that had stopped the Pantheon from tearing itself apart for a taste of that power. The barrier between realms, erected by the previous Dark Lord, was absolute. "But he¡ª" Qin Jiu gestured at the mirror, her reflection momentarily obscured by a ripple of chaotic energy. "He''s already there. In the mortal realm. If he gets past Skyhall''s defenses, if he reaches the blood¡"
"Rx, darling. Your masterpiece is¡ more secure than you realize." Andohr simply chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that did little to soothe Qin Jiu''s apprehension.
Then, he leaned back on his throne, sapphire eyes gleaming with a hint of smug satisfaction.
"The blood, even contained as it is, radiates chaos. Temporal instability, to be precise. You remember our little¡ safeguards?"
Qin Jiu''s eyes widened. She did remember. With Andohr''s guidance, she''d woven a failsafe into the very fabric of the containment chamber. If anyone, even a God, got close enough to touch the blood without being incinerated by its raw power¡
"It shifts," Qin Jiu breathed, recalling the intricacies of the temporal arrays she''d built.
"Indeed," Andohr purred. "The moment those safeguards are tripped, the blood¡ it ceases to exist in any fixed point in time or space. It could be a thousand years in the past, a million years in the future, on the other side of the universe. Even I can only track its movements in the vaguest sense." He smiled, a slow, predatory stretching of his lips.
"Tell me, darling, how does even the God of Darkness n to collect something that could be anywhere, at any time?"
Andohr, lost in his own machinations, his confidence absolute, didn''t know.
He didn''t know that Michael had something no one else in existence possessed.
He didn''t know about the Badass System.
Chapter 1344 Truly Accepting Diana as his mother
1344 Truly epting Diana as his mother
Meanwhile, back in the heart of the unfolding carnage, the seven-headed cobra continued its rampage. The monstrous creature, its scales a sickly green under the dim light of the dying stars, ripped through the ranks of Michael''s army. Venom, like liquid moonlightced with poison, painted gruesome arcs across the battlefield, leaving trails of disintegrated bodies in its wake.
Michael, watching his forces fall, felt a cold fury build within him. He''d allowed this charade to y out long enough. It was time to remind Skyhall who they were dealing with.
"You want to dance?" he growled, his voice barely audible over the din of battle, yet somehow carrying to every corner of the pocket dimension. "Let''s dance."
He then moved with pure, primal speed. One moment he was a shadow against the backdrop of stars, the next he was a thunderbolt, a ck streak of pure kic energy aimed directly at the heart of the colossal serpent.
The Ancestors, despite theirbined might, despite the arrogance of their borrowed power, weren''t stupid. They''d seen what the God of Darkness could do, had witnessed the casual brutality of his attack on Lorian''s gship.
Staying put? That was suicide.
"EVADE!" Eldrin''s voice, amplified a thousandfold by the serpent''s monstrous form, boomed across the battlefield.
The serpentine creature twisted, bucking through the air with surprising agility for its size, its seven heads snapping this way and that as it tried to anticipate Michael''s movements.
But Michael was a blur. He moved like something out of a nightmare, a whirlwind of shadows and crackling energy. As he closed the distance, his hands crackled with power, bolts of ck lightning,ncing out to sear the air where the serpent had been a heartbeat before. The monstrous serpent, despite its size and power, was clearly outmatched, its movements growing increasingly frantic as Michael herded it, a spider ying with its food.
And below, watching the chase unfold, both armies seemed to forget their own petty skirmishes.
"By the gods, he''s actually fighting it!" a skyhall angel breathed, his voice a mixture of awe and terror. His words were echoed a thousandfold across the ranks of the angels, their earlier confidence reced by a chilling certainty: they were witnessing a battle between titans.
On the decks of a dozen Skyhall warships, cannons roared back to life, their celestial energy aimed not at the monstrous serpent, but at the God of Darkness himself. Blinding white beamsnced through the air, seeking to intercept Michael, to drive him back from his prey.
But this was a tactical error. A fatal miscalction.
Because the moment those cannons fired, the moment they revealed their true target, something shifted in the demeanor of the dark army.
The demon army, their primal instincts honed by millennia of warfare, needed no further encouragement. With a guttural roar that shook the very foundations of Skyhall, they surged forward, no longer fleeing, but attacking. Their wings beat the air, carrying them towards the nearest Skyhall vessels. Their goal wasn''t to fight, not in the traditional sense. It was far simpler, far more brutal: tear the ships apart, cripple their ability to fire, and let the God of Darkness deal with the stragglers.
And beside them, inspired by the ferocity of the demons, the remnants of the dark army surged forward. They''d been outmaneuvered, outgunned, but they weren''t broken. Not yet. They''d tasted Skyhall blood now, and they were hungry for more. But as Michael harried the colossal serpent, a new threat emerged from the chaos.
Thorfinn Borgersson, fueled by a potent cocktail of dwarven ale and burning rage, had finally snapped. The humiliation of their previous encounter, the way Michael toyed with him ¨C it was all too much.
He roared and charged. Even as Michael moved with that terrifying, blurring speed, a part of him registered the dwarf''s movement. Thorfinn wasn''t just blindly charging in a rage; there was a cold, calcting fury driving him, honed by centuries of battlefield experience.
He moved with a speed and agility that belied his stocky frame, his axe¡ªa monstrous weapon that had tasted the blood of a thousand enemies and elves¡ªwhistling through the air in a deadly arc.
Time seemed to distort, the roar of battle fading to a dull murmur as Michael registered the threat. Thorfinn''s axe, a blur of rune-etched steel, was aimed not at his chest, not at his legs, but at his neck.
A clean decapitation. Ambitious¡But Michael activated Silenes as the world around him slowed to a crawl. He watched, a detached observer in his own personal time warp, as Thorfinn''s axe, moving at a snail''s pace now, arced towards him.
Michael simply chuckled, a low rumble in his chest, and sidestepped.
The axe, robbed of its momentum, passed harmlessly before him. He reached out, his hand a blur even within the time dtion, and casually plucked the weapon from the air, halting Thorfinn''s charge as surely as if he''d hit him with a mountain.
The dwarf, caught mid-swing, stumbled, his momentum carrying him forward. Michael simply tightened his grip on the axe, letting the weight of Thorfinn''s charge pull the dwarf off his feet.
He lifted him, holding him aloft by the neck, as the time dtion faded, the roar of battle rushing back in to fill the void.
"You little shit!" Thorfinn sputtered, his face rapidly turning purple as he dangled in Michael''s grip. "Let me go, you bastard! I''ll rip your goddamn head off!"
"Wrong move, Shorty," Michael chuckled, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
"What did you expect?" Michael chuckled, his grip tightening fractionally on Thorfinn''s neck. He held the dwarf at eye level, the tip of his dark sword hovering tantalizingly close to Thorfinn''s throat. "Did you think you could just swing your little toy axe and lop my head off? Heard of something called¡ godhood, Short Round?"
Thorfinn snarled, his face a mask of fury and something else¡ desperation. He kicked out, his boots connecting with Michael''s chest te with a ng, but it was like kicking a mountain. He was utterly outmatched, and they both knew it.
"Let me go, you overgrown bat!" Thorfinn spat, even as his struggles began to weaken. "I''ll gut you like a fish, you hear me?"
But there was a tremor in his voice now, the fear he''d been trying so hard to conceal finally breaking through.
Michael saw it, saw the moment realization dawned in Thorfinn''s eyes. He wasn''t walking away from this. This¡ this was it.
And something about that realization, about the raw terror in Thorfinn''s eyes, must have struck a nerve. Because the dwarf, his face contorted in a mixture of rage and something colder, something more calcting, stopped struggling. He stared up at Michael, a chilling smile spreading across his lips.
"You know," he rasped, his voice barely a whisper now, but every word dripping with venom, "there''s something you should know. Something about the day you were born¡"
Michael frowned, a flicker of unease running down his spine.
"Spit it out, dwarf," he growled, his grip tightening instinctively on Thorfinn''s neck.
"Twenty-eight years ago," Thorfinn began, drawing the words out, savoring the way Michael''s eyes narrowed.
"It was me who ripped you from your dear mother''s arms. You weren''t even an hour old, you little shit. Pathetic."
"What?" Michael stiffened, the amusement fading from his eyes to be reced by a chilling emptiness.
"Oh, we had our fun with the bitch," Thorfinn chuckled, a wet, hacking sound. "Thirty days, we kept her alive. Thirty days of watching her break, knowing we''d taken everything from her. And in the end¡ she practically begged us to throw you into that portal, like the piece of trash you are."
Theughter died on Michael''s lips, his amusement reced by a bone-chilling certainty. Thorfinn wasn''t lying. He could hear it in the dwarf''s voice, see it in the cruel gleam of his eyes. This¡ this wasn''t some pathetic attempt to break his concentration.
This was the truth. And the worst part? He recognized it. Deep in the recesses of his mind, behind the walls he''d erected to keep the pain and confusion of his earliest memories at bay cracked. Like a dam breaking under the strain of a thousand years of pent-up fury, those memories he''d suppressed, locked away in the darkest corners of his being, surged forward.
He saw her then as if through a haze of tears and fading light. Diana. Her face, so young, so much softer than he remembered, etched with exhaustion but still¡ beautiful. She was clutching two bundles close to her chest, her arms a protective cage around¡
Two babies.
Him.
And Noah.
Michael''s grip on Thorfinn''s neck loosened, his own breath catching in his throat as he watched the scene unfold, a detached observer in his own personal hell. He saw the three elders, their faces twisted into masks of cold disdain, their hands moving in a blur of arcane gestures. He felt the tendrils of celestial and arch energy, dark and invasive, as they wormed their way into Diana''s mind, twisting her thoughts, her memories¡
He saw her fight back, and felt the raw, primal strength of a mother''s love as she resisted their attempts to sever the connection, to turn her against her own flesh and blood.
Day after day, they''d tortured her, he realized, his stomach twisting into knots. But she never let go. Not once.
He saw the tears streaming down her face, tasted the salt of them on his own lips as she whispered words of love andfort, a desperate attempt to shield them, to make them smile even as her world crumbled around her. They thought they''d broken Diana. Thought they''d crushed her spirit along with her defiance. But she hadn''t given in, notpletely. She''d fought them, tooth and nail, for him.
Thirty days. Thirty goddamn days she''d held on, enduring their torture, their maniptions, all to protect him, to shield him from the fate they''d nned.
In that moment of soul-crushing revtion, Michael understood. Those faces, etched into his memory since infancy, those bastards who''d ripped him from his mother''s arms and tossed him into earth. The ones who did all of this were none other than Devdan, Erael, and Thorfinn. When Devdan and Erael realized Thorfinn had broken the news to the Dark Lord, Devdan''s usual arrogance was reced by fear. And Erael, her cold, calcting gaze finally cracking, revealing a sliver of something akin to¡ fear?
At that moment, a surge of raw, primal rage, unlike anything Michael had ever experienced, ripped through him. It was a visceral, all-consuming fury, fueled by years of suppressed pain, of betrayal, of the agonizing realization that everything he thought about Diana was wrong.
His eyes, usually a cold, steely gray, turned pitch ck as ck smoke began to snake out from beneath his armor, drawn to his rage like moths to a me.
Despite his bravado, Thorfinn felt a jolt of primal fear run through him. The casual smirk, the air of amused detachment Michael had worn only moments before, was gone. Still, a part of him, the part that was fueled by spite and the bitter dregs of his dwarven pride, couldn''t resist onest jab.
"Oh, she fought alright," Thorfinn rasped with a thin smile ying on his lips. "For a while. Screamed your name, begged us to stop. But in the end¡ she broke. Just like we knew she would. She even helped us toss you into that portal, did you know that? Couldn''t get rid of you fast enough." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"You three are going to die in a way that no one has ever died¡And you are going to wish you had neverid a hand on my mother," Michael said with cold furry and finally admitted with all his being that Diana was his mother¡And he was truly prepared to go to any legnths to save her.
Chapter 1345 Bloody Retribution (Long Chapter)
1345 Bloody Retribution (Long Chapter)
"You pathetic little fuck," Michael growled, his voice dangerously low. He stared at Thorfinn, really stared at him, and for a moment, the dwarf regretted pissing off the Dark Lord.
Thorfinn braced himself, expecting the killing blow. He''d seen what that obsidian de could do, witnessed the way it cleaved through flesh and bone as if they were nothing more than thin paper. But the killing blow didn''te. Not in the way Thorfinn expected.
Michael, with a casualness that bordered on the absurd, simply tossed the sword aside. It arced through the air, a blur of obsidian and shadow, beforending with a soft click in the waiting scabbard on Michael''s back.
"What¡ª? What are you¡ª" Thorfinn sputtered, confusion momentarily overriding his terror.
Michael didn''t answer. Instead, he did something far more unsettling. He smiled.
It wasn''t the cruel, mocking smile he''d worn before. This one was different. Smaller. Cruler. And infinitely more terrifying.
"You want to hurt me?" Michael murmured, his voice barely a whisper now, but every word carrying the weight of a falling mountain. "Fine. Let''s see how you handle a little¡ disappointment,"
He could have killed Thorfinn with a thought. Vaporized him, just like that monstrous serpent had done to his demon army. But that¡ that would have been too quick. Too merciful.
For the first time in perhaps a very long time, Michael wanted to savor this. He wanted Thorfinn to feel every ounce of pain, every shard of bone, every drop of blood.
He drew back his fist. Even with his power restrained, even with the barest fraction of his true strength flowing through his arm, the air crackled with anticipatory violence. Thorfinn, despite his centuries of battle experience, despite the dwarven blood that ran thick and hot in his veins, couldn''t help but flinch back.
But there was nowhere to go. He was suspended in midair, Michael''s grip on his neck as unyielding as the chains of fate themselves.
The blow, when it came, wasn''t precise. It wasn''t surgical. It was a blunt-force trauma, a meteor made of flesh and bone connecting with Thorfinn''s jaw with a sickening crunch. And then Michael, with a roar that echoed the rage of a god pissed off,unched the dwarf straight towards the monstrous, seven-headed serpent.
However, the seven-headed serpent, its reflexes honed by thebined instincts of seven ancient beings, twisted away from the hurtling projectile that was Thorfinn Borgersson. The dwarf, a mangled mess of broken bones and sputtering rage, sailed through the space where the monstrous creature''s head had been a heartbeat before, mming into the hull of a nearby Skyhall warship with a sickening crunch.
The impact reverberated through the air, a sound like a giant''s fist colliding with a ripe melon. The warship, its shields already weakened by the demon army''s relentless assault, crumpled inward at the point of impact. Runes, glowing moments before with celestial energy, flickered and died, their light extinguished like snuffed candles.
Thorfinny in a crumpled heap amidst the wreckage, his once-imposing frame a study in broken angles. Blood, dark and viscous, seeped from between his lips, his chest rising and falling in ragged gasps. Broken ribs, white and sharp, protruded from his chest at unnatural angles, and one arm, twisted at an impossible angle,y ck against the deck. Even the hardiest dwarf couldn''t have survived that kind of force.
"Thorfinn!" Erael cried out, herposure, so carefully maintained throughout the battle, finally shattering. She made to move towards her fallenrade, but a hand, cold and strong, gripped her arm.
"Don''t," Devdan hissed. "He''s done for, and we''re no match for him in this state. We need to go, now!"
"But he''s going to kill him!" Erael spat back, her voiceced with a terror that was as much for Thorfinn as for herself. "We have to do something!"
"And what, pray tell, do you suggest we do?" Devdan snapped, his gaze flickering between Michael''s advancing form and the carnage unfolding around them. He took a deep breath, regaining a measure of control. "Our priority is survival, Erael. We need to get out of here, regroup. The Celestial Cannon¡ª"
"He''ll hunt us down," Erael interrupted, her voice shaking. "To the ends of the universe if he has to. You know this,"
"Then we''ll be ready for him," Devdan said with resolve and decided to use their best weapon against the Dark Lord. "We need to use the Celestial cannon, Erael. It''s our only chance."
But even as they spoke, Michael moved.
"But even the Cannon¡ it might not be enough."
"It will," Devdan said, his voiceced with a chilling certainty. "If we give it¡ the right fuel. We need to use the souls we collected as the fuel to the cannon,"
But even as they whispered their treasonous n, Michael moved.
He floated now, rising from the battlefield as casually as if he was taking a stroll through a park. His eyes, still ck pits of unrelenting rage, were fixed on Thorfinn, and a slow, predatory smile spread across his lips.
Around him, the very air seemed to shudder, the temperature plummeting as he unleashed a wave of absolute zero. .
Frostbite.
It blossomed outwards from him, a ten-meter radius of absolute zero that turned the very air to ice. Skyhall angels, caught within its sudden embrace, froze mid-flight, their expressions locked in masks of terror. They plummeted towards the bottomless void below, bodies as brittle as ss, shattering against the hull of a nearby warship with sickening crunches.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing¡ª]
The notifications, usually a constant stream of morbid encouragement from the Badass System, were silenced with a thought. Michael didn''t need the distraction. Not now.
As he floated towards the dwarf, his expression a chilling mask of restrained fury, Devdan turned to Erael. "Now! Summon the cannon! Use the souls¡ use everything we have!"
Erael, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and grim determination, didn''t hesitate. She closed her eyes and then, with a crackle of disced air, she was gone, vanished from the pocket dimension entirely.
"You¡ you''ll regret this!" Thorfinn coughed, a spray of blood erupting from his lips, painting the wreckage around him a gruesome crimson. "You and that bitch who birthed you! Skyhall will hunt you down! You''ll pay for what you''ve done!"
Michael paused, hovering a few feet from the mangled dwarf. He tilted his head, studying Thorfinn with the detached curiosity of a scientist examining a particrly interesting specimen.
"Regret?" Michael chuckled coldly. "I believe¡ regret is a dish best served cold."
But before he could deliveranother punch, a new sound reached his ears. A chorus of shouts,ced with dwarven curses and the ng of heavy armor.
"For Thorfinn! Kill the bastard!"
A small group of Skyhall soldiers, their loyalty to their fallen elder clearly outweighing their sense of self-preservation, surged towards Michael, their weapons raised in defiance.
"No, you don''t, boys," a familiar voice purred,ced with amusement.
Lenora, a crimson blur against the backdrop of chaos, swooped down from above, intercepting the dwarven soldiers before they could get within a hundred yards of Michael. She left a trail of blood in her wake, a crimson mist that hung in the air like a macabre halo.
"You want to y hero?" she asked, her voiceced with a predatory hunger. "Fine. But don''t me me if it gets¡ messy."
Shended on the upper deck of a nearby warship, her boots striking the polished steel with a ng that was audible even over the roar of battle. Her fangs, usually retracted behind a veneer of civility, descended with a hiss, her crimson eyes gleaming with a hunger that was both terrifying and strangely¡ seductive.
The Skyhall soldiers, momentarily taken aback by her sudden appearance, recovered quickly. They were Skyhall''s finest, trained from birth to face down creatures of darkness. And a vampire, even an ancient one, was still just a creature.
"Go to hell, abomination!" one of the dwarves roared. He mmed his warhammer against the deck, the impact sending out a ripple of force that mmed into Lenora''s chest, knocking her back a step.
Others followed suit. sts of celestial energy and spears of solidified light arced towards her, each one capable of vaporizing a lesser being.
But Lenora simplyughed, a throaty, seductive sound that sent shivers down the spines of the soldiers, despite their best efforts to resist. She moved with a speed and grace that defied her age, weaving through the barrage of attacks as if they were nothing more than gentle snowkes.
"Darling, you do realize," she purred, her voice dripping with mock sympathy, "that magic doesn''t work on vampires?"
And before they could react, before they could even blink, she was upon them.
ws, razor-sharp and tipped with a faint, sickly glow, shed through the air. Soldiers screamed, their cries abruptly cut short as Lenora tore through their armor and flesh with equal ease. Blood, bright crimson against the dull metal of the deck, sprayed in all directions, painting a gruesome painting across the once-pristine surface.
She moved through them like a whirlwind, herughter echoing through the carnage. One moment she was here, the next she was there, a crimson blur leaving a trail of mangled bodies in her wake.
And just when it seemed the Skyhall soldiers might manage to regroup, to contain the blood-drunk vampire with their superior numbers, a new wave of reinforcements arrived.
The demon army, sensing weakness, descended upon the remaining Skyhall vessels with the fury of a thousand storms. They weren''t concerned with elegant tactics or battlefield formations. They were chaos incarnate, a force of nature unleashed.
Lenora, momentarily distracted from her bloody work, grinned at the sight of the demons tearing into her attackers, her fangs glinting in the dim light. "About damn time, boys," she purred.
On the other hand, Thorfinn, his body screaming in protest, tried to pull himself upright. His dwarven blood, usually so quick to mend wounds and knit bones, felt sluggish, the chill of Michael''s magic lingering in his veins like a poison.
He didn''t even have time to scream before Michael was upon him again, his movement a blur of shadow and rage. One moment Thorfinn was staring up at the dim glow of the pocket dimension''s artificial sky; the next, he was back in Michael''s grasp, lifted effortlessly off his feet, his broken body dangling like a child''s forgotten toy.
The seven-headed serpent, sensing an opportunity, changed course. It moved with surprising speed for something so monstrous, its scales a blur of sickly green as it shot towards Michael, jaws gaping wide to unleash a torrent of soul-venom.
But Michael didn''t even spare the creature a nce. His focus, his entire being, was locked on the broken dwarf in his grasp.
And in that moment, Thorfinn knew. He wasn''t just going to die. He was going to suffer. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"These hands," Michael whispered. It was a sound devoid of warmth, of any trace of humanity. Just¡ cold, echoing emptiness. He took one of Thorfinn''s mangled hands in his own, his grip gentle, deceptively so.
"These fingers¡" Michael continued, his gaze fixed on Thorfinn''s face, watching as the realization, the sheer terror of what was toe, dawned in those pale, bloodshot eyes. "They pped her, didn''t they? Struck her, again and again¡"
He squeezed, just slightly, and Thorfinn roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony as bones ground against bone, his mangled flesh protesting the impossible pressure.
"No, please¡" Thorfinn whimpered, his bravado, his dwarven pride, crumbling before the abyss staring back at him from Michael''s eyes. "I¡ª I didn''t¡"
A sharp, cracking sound cut his words short. Then another. And another.
Michael, his expression unchanging, his movements precise and almost¡ delicate, began to peel Thorfinn''s fingers back. One by one. Like someone peeling an overripe fruit.
Blood, thick and dark, welled up between his fingers, painting Michael''s hand a gruesome crimson. But he didn''t seem to notice, or care.
"And this hand," Michael murmured, moving on to Thorfinn''s other arm, his voice as steady and calm as if he was discussing the weather. "This hand¡ this one grabbed her hair, didn''t it? Dragged her across the floor¡"
"Stop¡ please¡ I''ll do anything! Anything you want!" Thorfinn''s voice was a high-pitched whine now, the words tumbling over each other in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.
Hearing the dwarf beg, Michael chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that sent shivers down Thorfinn''s spine. "Pain and fear," he murmured, his voice deceptively gentle. "They have a way of¡ breaking even the strongest resolve. Even a stubborn little shit like you." He leaned closer ad said calmly.
"But you know what''s funny?" Michael continued, and Thorfinn could hear the amusement in his voice now, a chilling counterpoint to the agony that ripped through his mangled body. 22:47
"She never screamed. Not like you, anyway. Not like a pathetic little bitch."
Thorfinn whimpered, a pitiful sound that was swallowed by the ever-growing chorus of screams echoing across the battlefield.
"This shoulder," Michael whispered, his lips barely moving, but every syble dripping with ice-cold venom. "This one¡ it took the brunt of her falls, didn''t it? As she tried to crawl away from you¡"
He squeezed, his fingers digging into the joint with impossible strength, and Thorfinn screamed again, the sound high-pitched and ragged, like a rusty hinge protesting a lifetime of neglect.
"Holy shit!" a horrified voice gasped from somewhere below.
"I can''t look," another voice echoed, tinged with a terror that was almost palpable.
But no one dared to intervene. The sight of Michael, his face a mask of chilling detachment as he methodically dismantled the dwarf, was enough to give even the most battle-hardened warrior pause.
A sickening crack split the air as Thorfinn''s shoulder dislocated, bone grinding against bone with a sound that turned the stomachs of even the most hardened Skyhall angels watching from the sidelines. Blood, a crimson geyser, erupted from the wound, sttering against Michael''s armor, but he didn''t even flinch.
"And this leg," Michael continued, his voice as calm and conversational as if he was discussing the merits of a fine wine. He moved down Thorfinn''s body, his grip shifting to the dwarf''s mangled thigh. "This one¡ this one connected with her ribs, didn''t it? Over and over again¡"
"Fuck¡ you¡" Thorfinn gasped as his vision blurred at the edges.
But Michael wasn''t listening. He twisted his hands, a slow, deliberate movement, and Thorfinn''s leg, already broken in several ces, snapped again at the femur. The sound was like a dry twig breaking under the weight of a falling tree. "Well, I''m a fair god," Michael growled, his voice a guttural roar. "I believe in¡ equal retribution."
Chapter 1346 A Gift from Don
Chapter 1346 A Gift from Don
When Michael finally let go, all that remained of Thorfinn was a mangled, limbless torso, its one remaining eye staring up at the artificial sky with a vacant horror that would haunt the few remaining Skyhall soldiers for the rest of their short, miserable lives.
A hush fell over the battlefield. Even Lenora, usually immune to anything resembling empathy, seemed subdued, her usual bloodlust reced by a primal unease that spoke volumes.
Her hands still dripping with the blood of a dozen Skyhall angels, she stared at Michael with her brow furrowed. She''d seen him angry before, sure. She''d witnessed firsthand the casual brutality he was capable of unleashing on those who crossed him.
But this¡ this was different.
This wasn''t just about winning a battle, or even a war. This was¡ personal. And it scared the ever-living shit out of her.
"Damn, boss," she muttered under her breath, wiping a stray stter of blood from her cheek. "Gaya''s gonna be pissed she missed this."
Everyone knew that Gaya had always enjoyed a good, long torture session. It was practically her trademark. The God of Darkness, on the other hand, had always been¡ efficient. Ruthless, sure, but quick about it. He ended threats before they even had a chance to beg for mercy, let alone suffer.
But this? This disy of calcted brutality, of cold, methodical dismemberment¡
It made Gaya look like an amateur.
And it seemed she wasn''t the only one who''d noticed Michael''s¡ shift.
The seven-headed serpent, its earlier confidence shaken by the raw, primal fury emanating from the God of Darkness, had been circling at the edge of the battlefield, its seven heads weaving back and forth as if trying to decide whether to flee or press the attack.
Now, sensing an opportunity in Michael''s distraction, the monstrous creature surged forward. As Michael stood there, his back turned, his focus consumed by the mangled remains of Thorfinn Borgersson, the monstrous creature lunged.
"NOW!" The Ancestors, their voices a unified chorus of rage and desperation, roared in unison. They channeled theirbined power, their celestial energy converging into a single, pulsating orb of pure, corrosive venom. It dripped from the serpent''s central maw, a globule of liquid moonlight that shimmered with an oily, otherworldly sheen.
A nearby Skyhall warship, caught in the periphery of the venomous st, dissolved as if it were made of sugar, the metal hull bubbling and melting into a g of molten metal and vaporized screams.
Skyhall angels, their silver armor no protection against the corrosive power of the venom, shrieked as their flesh dissolved, leaving behind only skeletal remains that quickly crumbled into dust. Even the demon army, their regenerative abilities pushed to their limits, recoiled in horror as the venom ate away at their flesh.
"Holy shit!" a dark army soldier bellowed, scrambling back from the expanding pool of corrosive goo. "What the fuck is that stuff?"
"It''s¡ it''s eating them alive!" another soldier shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at a group of Skyhall angels who were dissolving before their very eyes, their screams turning into gurgling moans as the venom ate away at their vocal cords.
Even Thorfinn, his mangled body already a testament to Michael''s rage, wasn''t spared. The venom sshed across his exposed flesh, and the dwarf, already on the verge of death, let out a weak, pathetic whimper. The sickly green glow of the venom seemed to intensify as it ate away at him, the smell of burning flesh mingling with the stench of decay. Within seconds, he was gone, his body dissolving into nothingness, leaving only a faint, acrid smell hanging in the air.
"Well, shit," Lenora muttered, watching the carnage unfold with a morbid fascination. "That''s gotta hurt."
But the serpent''s primary target, the God of Darkness himself, was no longer there.
The venom, aimed with deadly precision at the spot where Michael had been standing only a moment before, sshed harmlessly against the cold, metallic deck.
He was gone. Vanished. As if he''d never been there at all.
"Where¡ where the fuck did he go?" one of the remaining Skyhall soldiers stammered, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"He¡ used that damn skill again," another soldier said, his voice barely a whisper. The serpent, its seven heads swaying in confusion, hissed in frustration. The Ancestors, theirbined power focused into that single, devastating attack, had missed.
"Shadow teleportation!" a Skyhall angel spat, his voiceced with venom and fear. "That goddamn cheating skill!"
"It''s not cheating, you idiot, it''s a fucking strategic advantage!" another angel retorted. "And one we should have been prepared for!"
Meanwhile, Devdan watched the spot where Michael had vanished with a mixture of frustration and grudging respect. He''d studied the Dark Lord extensively, pouring over texts and battlefield reports, memorizing every known tactic, every documented ability. He''d known, going into this fight, that shadow teleportation was something he should pay attention to.
Skyhall had even developed countermeasures, ways to use light and celestial energy to disrupt the shadows, to limit the Dark Lord''s ability to teleport at will. But¡
"Damn it all," Devdan muttered under his breath.
Noah''s death hadn''t just plunged the mortal realm into eternal darkness. It had weakened Skyhall''s own power, their reliance on light-based magic now a crippling liability. They could no longer use their most potent weapons since Noah''s death reduced the power of light significantly. But Devdan knew this was not the time to bitch about their disadvantages. Thus, he turned his gaze over to the skyhall mages who specializes in casting support spells.
"Support mages! Form a defensive perimeter around the Ancestors! Now!"
A group of Skyhall angels, their robes emzoned with the intricate runes of protective magic, stepped forward. They raised their hands in unison, their movements synchronized with a precision that spoke of years of rigorous training. They began to slowly cast the spell together,bining all their half celestial stage power. Soon, a shimmering dome of energy, translucent and humming with barely contained power, began to coalesce around the monstrous creature, forming a protective barrier.
"No light, no fire," Devdan hissed, his eyes scanning the battlefield, searching for any flicker of movement, any telltale sign of the Dark Lord''s return. "We can''t risk giving him more shadows to y with."
Then, a tense silence descended upon the battlefield. The sh of steel, the roar of cannons, the screams of the dying ¨C all faded into an unsettling hush.
Every eye, every shadow, every flicker of movement was scrutinized, every breath held in anticipation of the Dark Lord''s next move.
Skyhall angels, their armor gleaming dully under the dim starlight, scanned the battlefield with a mixture of fear and desperation. Even their own shadows freaked them out as they expected the Dark Lord to materialize from their shadows any moment.
"Where the fuck is he?" a Skyhall knight muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible over the pounding of his own heart.
"He''s out there," another soldier hissed, his grip tightening on his spear. "Waiting. Like a goddamn spider in its web,"
The seven-headed serpent, its monstrous form encased in the shimmering barrier of the support mages'' spell, remained motionless, its seven heads swaying slightly as if trying to catch a scent on the wind. The Ancestors, trapped within their monstrous form, were caught in a dilemma. Should they move, risk breaking the protective barrier and exposing themselves to the Dark Lord''s wrath? Or should they remain stationary, sitting ducks in a game of cat and mouse with a predator who clearly held all the cards?
Then, without warning, the silence was shattered.
Michael materialized out of thin air, not in the heart of the battlefield, not amidst the shadows where they expected him, but right next to a massive Man-o-War warship, its hull gleaming with runes and bristling with cannons.
Before anyone on board could even register his presence, he moved. With a casualness that bordered on the absurd, Michael reached out and grabbed the ship''s hull, his fingers digging into the reinforced steel as if it were made of y. Then, with a grunt of effort that seemed wholly out of ce given the sheer size of the vessel, he lifted the damn thing.
"Holy shit¡" Lenora breathed, watching the scene unfold with a mixture of awe and disbelief.
"What the fuck¡?" a Skyhall soldier stammered, his eyes wide with terror.
The Man-o-War, a symbol of Skyhall''s naval might, sailed through the air like a projectile, its cannons still firing blindly, its crew screaming in terror as they were tossed about like ragdolls within its steel belly. It mmed into the seven-headed serpent with a thunderous roar that echoed across the pocket dimension, the force of the impact shattering the protective barrier like a fragile eggshell.
The impact of the warship against the seven-headed serpent sent shockwaves through the battlefield. The monstrous creature, its scales cracked and its seven heads reeling, thrashed wildly, its roars of pain echoing across the ravagedndscape. On the other hand, the Man-o-War, its hull shattered and its crew either dead or dying, spiraled away into the void, a testament to the sheer destructive power of the God of Darkness.
But Michael wasn''t finished. Not even close.
He vanished from his spot beside the mangled wreckage of the warship, reappearing in a blink of an eye directly in front of the serpent. This wasn''t the yful, taunting Michael of moments before. This was the God of Darkness, pissed off to the point that he stopped ying and began killing. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
He then raised his dark sword, coating it with dark mes before swinging. The arc of his sword was a blur and the moment his sword connected with one of the serpent''s heads that bearing the likeness of Lady Selene, erupted in a spray of blood and celestial energy. The scream, a horrifying amalgamation of seven voices twisted into a single, agonizing wail, died abruptly as the head, severed clean from its serpentine body, tumbled through the air, its eyes staring vacantly at the battlefield around.
The remaining Ancestors, their minds still reeling from the sudden loss of one of their own, roared in fury and despair. But Michael was already moving again. He lunged forward as he activated the Soul Eater skill and began to consume her soul. [Ding! Congrattions to the host¡ª]
The system notification died before it even fully formed because something else had caught Michael''s attention. The retractable shield he wore, a gift from a Don, was buzzing intensely with a strange energy.
He nced down, his eyes widening as he noticed a small, ornate key floating in the air where Lady Selene''s soul was a few moments ago. It was a delicate thing, crafted from some unknown metal that shimmered with a faint, ethereal glow.
The remaining six heads of the serpent, their movements now frantic, their roarsced with a new kind of fear, turned towards Michael as he reached for the key.
"Don''t let him get it!" Eldrin''s voice, raspy and strained, echoed from the remaining heads. "That key¡ it unlocks¡!"
His warning was cut short as the serpent lunged again, its six heads snapping at Michael with renewed ferocity.
The key. It was clearly more than just a decorative trinket. It unlocked something¡ something powerful. Something the Ancestors were willing to die to protect.
And Michael, his curiosity piqued, was damn well going to find out what it was.
Chapter 1347 The Keys unlocks....
Chapter 1347 The Keys unlocks....
"Well, well, well," Michael murmured, examining the key in his hand. It was warm to the touch, pulsing with an energy that felt both ancient and¡ familiar. He nced at the remaining heads of the serpent, each one a grotesque fusion of Skyhall''s elite, their faces twisted in masks of fear and rage.
"Looks like we''ve stumbled onto something interesting, haven''t we?"
The way they were acting, the sheer desperation in their movements, told him everything he needed to know. This wasn''t just some random trinket. This key unlocked something. Something big. Something they were willing to die to protect.
Then he felt it. A subtle resonance, a faint hum of energy that echoed the power emanating from the key. It wasn''t justing from the key itself. It wasing from them. From the serpent. From each of the Ancestors fused within its monstrous form.
"Seven keys," Michael muttered, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "Seven keys to¡ what, exactly?"
He nced back at the mangled remains of Thorfinn, the blood and bone sttered across the deck. The rage, the raw, all-consuming fury that had driven him moments before, began to recede, reced by a cold, calcting curiosity.
"No more games," he said, his voice hardening. "Time to finish this."
He could have ended it quickly. A st of dark mes or the ultimate form of the meteor spell, and the serpent, along with its precious cargo of Ancestral souls, would cease to exist.
But where was the fun in that?
No, he wanted them to suffer. He wanted them to scream, to beg for mercy, to feel every ounce of pain they''d inflicted on his mother a thousandfold. He wanted to hear those pleas die on their lips, just as Diana''s cries had died on the cold, unforgiving ground of that damn forest all those years ago.
"Let''s see how you like being on the receiving end of a little¡ dismemberment," Michael snarled.
While Michael''s attention was fixed on the serpent and the tantalizing mystery of the key, Devdan, ever the schemer, was plotting.
He''d never seen a key like that before, never even heard whispers of its existence. But the frantic roars of the Ancestors, the way they''d tried to stop Michael from taking it, and Eldrin''s abruptly silenced revtion¡ it all pointed to something big. Something really powerful.
"Seven keys," Devdan muttered, his sharp mind already piecing together the puzzle. "Seven Ancestors¡ Seven fucking keys to¡ what?"
He watched, hidden amidst the chaos of the battlefield, as Michael toyed with the serpent, his expression a mask of cold fury. He knew, with a sinking certainty, that the Ancestors wouldn''tst long against the God of Darkness in this state. But Devdan wasn''t about to jump into the fray. Not yet. He didn''t know where these keys were supposed to be used, what they unlocked. And unlike those arrogant fools who''d merged their souls into that pathetic excuse for a hydra, he valued his own survival above all else.
"Let the Dark Lord do the dirty work," he murmured, a sly grin spreading across his face.
He knew Michael''s curiosity would get the better of him. The God of Darkness, for all his power, was still young. Still prone to fits of rage and impulsive actions.
And Devdan? He was more than happy to let Michael squeeze the information out of those old fools. After all, once the God of Darkness got what he wanted¡ well, that was when the real fun would begin.
Quietly, subtly, Devdan began to weave a spell. Nothing shy, nothing that would draw attention. Just a simple veil of invisibility, a whisper of celestial energy to cloak him from prying eyes. He followed that up with a quick Duplication spell, creating a near-perfect copy of himself, a decoy to draw attention while he observed from the shadows.
"I should wait for the right time," he chuckled, watching as his duplicate floated confidently towards the fray, shouting empty orders at the Skyhall angels.
Meanwhile, the six remaining heads of the serpent thrashed wildly, their serpentine bodies twisting and coiling in a desperate attempt to regain their bnce. They hissed and spat, their voices a cacophony of rage and fear, but they knew, deep down, that they were outmatched.
"We have tobine our power!" Baldyr roared, his voice booming from one of the serpent''s heads.
"He''s too strong! We can''t hold back!" another head, its features a twisted amalgamation of Lady ra and another ancient mage, shrieked.
They''d already lost Selene, her soul consumed by the Dark Lord''s fucked-up magic. They couldn''t afford to lose another. Not if they wanted to survive this encounter.
A surge of celestial energy rippled through the serpent''s form as the remaining Ancestors pooled their might, their individual wills merging into a single, desperate act of defiance.
As a result, the air around them crackled and hummed, the temperature plummeting as they drew upon the very fabric of the pocket dimension itself, twisting it to their will. Above them, the artificial sky, once a pale imitation of the starry expanse beyond, began to churn and roil.
A vortex of shadows and frost, a swirling maelstrom of pure chaotic energy, formed above the serpent''s six heads. It pulsed and throbbed, growingrger with each passing second, its edges crackling with an eerie green light that seemed to suck the warmth from the air. Within its depths, ghostly images of long-dead creatures, their forms twisted and contorted by the magic that held them captive, flickered and danced.
"By the gods¡" a Skyhall soldier whispered, his voice trembling.
"What the fuck is that?" another soldier stammered, his eyes wide with a terror that mirrored the expressions of the ghostly figures swirling within the vortex.
Even Lenora, who''d seen more than her fair share of horrors in her long, bloody life, couldn''t help but whistle in appreciation.
"Damn, those old geezers still got some juice left in them," she chuckled, her crimson eyes gleaming with a predatory amusement.
But as impressive as the spell looked, Lenora knew it wouldn''t be enough.
They couldn''t kill the Dark Lord. Not with spells, not with brute force, not with anything short of divine intervention. And if they thought this fancy light show was going to change things¡ well, they were in for a rude awakening.
"They just never learn, do they?" she murmured, shaking her head as the serpent unleashed its attack.
As she was looking at the sky, the vortex of shadows and frost pulsed ominously above the serpent''s heads, growingrger by the second. It was a spectacle of raw power, a testament to thebined might of the remaining Ancestors. But before they could unleash their final, desperate gamble, Michael simply chuckled.
"Seriously? You call that a spell?" he mocked, his voice dripping with disdain. "If it takes you that long to get your shit together, you''re gonna die before you can even scratch me."
He raised a hand, fingers outstretched, and whispered a single word.
"Frostbite."
The air around him turned cial, a wave of absolute zero exploding outwards with terrifying speed. The serpent, its six heads momentarily frozen in a tableau of surprise and dawning terror, tried to react, tried to twist away from the encroaching cold.
But it was toote.
A bolt of ck lightning, crackling with raw powernced out from Michael''s hand, striking the serpent in its midsection. The monstrous creature roared in pain, its serpentine body convulsing as the lightning tore through its flesh, disrupting the flow of itsbined magical energies. Its movements, already hampered by its size and the awkwardness of its fused form, slowed to a crawl.
And then the cold hit.
It encased the serpent in a tomb of ice, starting from its tail and creeping upwards with terrifying speed. Scales, once shimmering with a sickly green light, turned a dull, frosted gray. Eyes, burning moments before with defiance and rage, zed over, their light extinguished by the encroaching cold.
Only the six heads, still struggling to break free from the icy grip of Frostbite, remained unfrozen, their expressions a horrifying tapestry of agony and dawning despair.
Michael, hovering effortlessly above the immobilized serpent, smiled.
"Now, where were we?" he purred, his gaze flicking from one frozen head to the next. He held up the key, letting it dangle from his fingertips. "Ah, yes¡ the keys," He let the silence hang for a moment, savoring the terror in their eyes.
"So, here''s the deal, assholes. I want to know what this key unlocks. And I want to know now,"
He leaned closer, his gaze lingering on Baldyr''s frozen visage, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl.
"Whoever tells me what I want to know¡ lives. The rest of you? Well, let''s just say I''m feeling¡ creative."
The six heads exchanged panicked nces, their eyes wide with a terror that went beyond the physical pain of the encroaching frost.
"So, who wants to be the lucky winner?" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Michael watched the Ancestors, their frozen faces a study in conflicting emotions. Fear, obviously. But also¡ calction. Desperation. And, in the depths of a few of their eyes, a flicker of something that looked suspiciously like¡ hope?
He smiled, a slow, predatory stretching of his lips that didn''t reach his cold, calcting eyes.
He knew these types. Arrogant, self-serving bastards who''d wed their way to power on a mountain of corpses and broken promises. They might im loyalty to Skyhall, might spout all sorts of noble bullshit about duty and honor, but at the end of the day¡ they were survivors. And survivors, especially the ones who''d lived as long as these ancient pricks, tended to be more concerned with keeping their own heads attached to their shoulders than with upholding some abstract ideal.
He''d given them a choice. A simple one, really. Talk, and live. Stay silent, and well¡ let''s just say Thorfinn''s little "disassembly" was still fresh in everyone''s minds. A gruesome reminder of what happened to those who pissed off the God of Darkness.
He could practically see the gears turning in their frozen minds. Weighing the options. Loyalty versus survival. Duty versus self-preservation.
"Tick-tock, assholes," Michael purred, his voiceced with amusement. "Time''s a-wastin''."
He knew at least one of them would crack. Probably more. They were old, yes, but they weren''t stupid. They''d seen what he was capable of. And besides, what good was loyalty if you were dead?
But there was always a chance¡ a slim chance that some of them, blinded by pride or stubborn loyalty, might choose to take their secrets to the grave.
And that¡ well, that was almost as entertaining as watching them squirm.
"Let''s see who''s gonna sing," Michael murmured, his gaze flitting from one frozen face to the next, "and who''s gonna die."
For a few moments, silence enveloped the battlefield as the ancestors looked at each other.
"I''ll tell you!"
The words burst from one of the serpent''s frozen heads, the voiceced with a desperate urgency that cut through the tense silence. It was Lady ra, her usually regal features contorted in a mask of fear and something else¡ cunning?
"ra, you fool!" another head roared, its voice a distorted blend of Baldyr''s fury and another ancestor''s indignant gasp. "Silence! You betray Skyhall!"
But Michael was right. Lady ra, for all her haughty demeanor and ims of unwavering loyalty, was a survivor. She hadn''t spent millennia wing her way to the upper echelons of Skyhall, hadn''t endured countless power struggles and backstabbing betrayals, just to throw her life away on a losing battle.
"Betray?" ra spat, her voiceced with a venomous scorn that seemed to crack the ice encasing her head. "Don''t lecture me about betrayal, you sanctimonious hypocrites! You''d all sell your souls for another century of life, given the chance!"
She fixed her gaze on Michael, her eyes pleading.
"I''ll tell you everything you want to know," she hissed. "Just¡ release me from this icy hell, and the key is yours."
"What does it unlock?" Michael pressed, his voice still as cold as the cial air surrounding them, but there was a hint of amusement now, a flicker of predatory interest in his eyes. He enjoyed this. The scramble for survival, the betrayal, the way these ancient bastards were so easily turning on each other.
"The keys¡ all seven of them¡ they unlock a vault," ra rasped, her voice trembling. "A vault that holds¡ something otherworldly. Something far more powerful than anything you''ve ever encountered."
"Get to the point, bitch," Michael growled, his patience wearing thin. He knew she was holding something back, savoring the moment, trying to milk it for all it was worth.
ra''s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, a flicker of her old arrogance returned.
"It unlocks¡ the blood of the Ancient God, Don,"
Chapter 1348 Planning to Outsmart Michael
Chapter 1348 nning to Outsmart Michael
The name, uttered in a hushed whisper by the frozen Lady ra, hit Michael like a thunderbolt.
"Don?" He echoed, his brow furrowing in disbelief. "The Ancient God¡ Don?"
It couldn''t be.
Could it?
He''d met Don. Back in his Shadow Realm days, when he was still learning the ropes of his powers, he traveled through multiple universes and stumbled across Don''s realm. Don himself was practically the main character in his own universe. As far as what Michael learned and observed, Don was a king who ruled a kingdom full of various races and threats that made ancient beasts look like babies.
"What the fuck?" Michael muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. It was one thing to jump between universes and witnessing various beings of power, including that damned asshole of a Dictator Hunter de. But it was another thing entirely to have the name of a being from another universe uttered in this universe, in this goddamn pocket dimension, by a terrified old woman frozen in a block of ice.
It was enough to make even a God of Darkness question the very fabric of reality.
"How the hell¡" he trailed off, his gaze fixed on ra''s terrified face. "How did his blood end up here?"
And why?
He knew Andohr wouldn''t have left something as powerful as the blood of an Ancient God just lying around. That maniptive bastard always had a n, always ten steps ahead of everyone else. There was something else going on here, something bigger than just a petty power grab or a desperate attempt to contain him.
Michael''s curiosity, always a dangerous trait in a being of his power, was piqued.
This¡ this he had to see.
Meanwhile, Devdan who was hidden in invisibility spell, felt a jolt of pure shock run through him.
"Don''s blood?" he whispered, his voice barely audible even to himself. "They have Don''s fucking blood?"
He knew about the Ancient Gods. Knew more than most, in fact. Most people in their world, even among the higher echelons of Skyhall, barely even acknowledged their existence. Ancient Gods were the stuff of legends, whispered about in hushed tones, their stories relegated to dusty, half-forgotten texts guarded by paranoid schrs and reclusive hermits in Skyhall and other organizations.
Not that Devdan med them. Information about the Ancient Gods was scarce, fragmented, often contradictory. Skyhall itself had long believed that Harriet Hunt, the Dark Lord''s mother, carried the blood of an Ancient God in her veins. Arora, Don''s wife, was the name they''d whispered in their secret chambers, the name they''d invoked in their desperate attempts to unravel the mysteries of her lineage.
But they''d found nothing. No trace of Ancient power, no hint of anything beyond the normal, albeit potent, celestial energy that flowed through Harriet''s blood. Most had dismissed the theory, chalked it up to wishful thinking or the ramblings of senile old cultivators clinging to conspiracy theories
Not Devdan.
He''d always believed that just because something couldn''t be proven, didn''t mean it wasn''t true. Especially when it came to matters of power, of ancient magic, of forces that were beyond their current understanding.
But now¡ now he had confirmation. Indirect, sure, but confirmation nheless. The Ancient Gods were real. And their blood¡ their blood was here.
"Those goddamn fools," he hissed, ring at the frozen serpent. "Why the hell didn''t they tell us? Why keep it locked away all these centuries?"
He knew, of course, that there had to be a reason. Something about the blood, something about its power, must have made even those arrogant Ancestors hesitate. But still¡
"If anyone could have stopped the Dark Lord, besides that arrogant prick of a god Andohr, it would have been the blood of a goddamn Ancient God!" He cursed, his voice a low growl of frustration. ording to the few scraps of text he''d managed to acquire, the Ancient Gods were beings of unimaginable power. They existed on a level that dwarfed even the most powerful gods of this realm. Their blood¡ it was practically a legend, a whispered promise of unimaginable power.
And those idiots had kept it hidden away. Wasted it.
"Fucking morons," he muttered, shaking his head in disgust.
On the other hand, ra, desperate to solidify her position as the surviving informant, continued to spill her guts.
"I¡ I don''t know how it got here," she stammered, her voice trembling. "It was¡ it was already in Skyhall''s possession when I joined, centuries ago. Locked away, guarded¡ No one dared touch it."
"What else do you know?" Michael pressed, his gaze boring into hers. "Tell me everything."
"Don''t tell him anything, you treacherous bitch!" one of the other heads roared, its voice distorted by the ice that encased its jaws.
Despite being frozen from the neck down, the serpent thrashed wildly, its six remaining heads snapping at Michael, their fangs inches from his face. But it was a pathetic disy, more akin to a cornered animal''s desperate iling than a genuine threat.
"Still feeling feisty, huh?" Michael, his patience wearing thin, simply chuckled.
He reached out, his hand a blur of motion, and grabbed one of the serpent''s heads. It was Baldyr, the warrior-king, his horned helm now coated in ayer of frost that glittered ominously in the dim light.
"You know," Michael said, his grip tightening on Baldyr''s horns, "I''m starting to think you lot haven''t learned your lesson."
He twisted his hand, a slow, deliberate movement, and Baldyr''s neck, already strained by the contortions of their fused form, cracked.
The serpent''s roar of pain echoed through the pocket dimension, a gut-wrenching symphony of agony and terror. Baldyr''s face, frozen in a mask of horrified disbelief, contorted further as Michael continued to twist, the sound of grinding bone and tearing flesh punctuated by the dwarf''s choked screams.
Blood, a dark, viscous torrent, erupted from the wound, sttering across Michael''s armor and the surrounding ice. The stench of it, metallic and coppery, filled the air, a sickening reminder of the fragility of flesh, even immortal flesh.
Watching the scene unfold with a morbid fascination, ra felt her stomach churn. Her face, already pale from the cold and the fear, turned a ghastly shade of white. She was suddenly, overwhelmingly grateful for her decision to betray Skyhall.
"Holy fucking shit," Lenora muttered, her crimson eyes wide with a mixture of awe and disgust. Even she, who''d indulged in her fair share of bloody carnage over the centuries, found the disy a bit¡ much.
But Michael, his face a mask of cold fury, didn''t seem to notice, or care. He continued to twist Baldyr''s head, the dwarf''s screams growing weaker with each passing second, his struggles less and less pronounced.
"Anyone else feeling¡ uncooperative?" Michael asked and ripped the headpletely off like it was nothing.
"Well," Michael drawled, breaking the silence. "Since ra here was kind enough to spill the beans¡ she gets to live. For now."
He turned his gaze to the remaining Ancestors, his eyes cold and unforgiving.
"The rest of you¡ you have a choice. Hand over your keys, and I''ll make it quick. Refuse¡ and well, let''s just say I have plenty of time to get¡ creative."
He flicked his wrist as the key forming from Baldyr''s dead body floated toward him andnded neatly in his outstretched palm. "Two down, five to go."
Seeing the way Michael''s gaze lingered on the remaining heads, their frozen eyes flickered between defiance and stark terror, ra didn''t hesitate. She squeezed her eyes shut, her face contorted in a grimace of pain, and with a grunt of effort, forced her own key out of her body. It materialized in the air before her, a miniature replica of the one Michael held, pulsing with the same eerie energy.
Without opening her eyes, without even a second thought, she flung the key towards Michael. It was like the damn thing was on fire, and she couldn''t wait to be rid of it.
She''d seen what he''d done to Baldyr. The twisted neck, the blood and bone sttered across the ice, the vacant stare of the remaining eye¡
"Fuck loyalty," she thought, swallowing back a wave of nausea. "Fuck Skyhall. Fuck everything,"
Right now, all that mattered was survival. And if betraying herrades, handing over a key to some ancient power she barely understood, was the price she had to pay¡ well, so be it.
"What about the others?" Michael asked as a thick, deadly silence enveloped them. The elders in the serpent form looked at each other and none of them seemed to take the offer Michael gave them.
"Like hell we will!" one of the serpent''s heads roared.
"You think we''re stupid enough to fall for that shit? Give you the keys and die anyway? Fuck that!"
Michael''s smile widened, a predatory gleam in his eyes. He''d expected this. Hope was a powerful motivator, sure. But when all hope was gone, when the only options were a quick death or a slow, agonizing one¡ well, even the most self-serving bastard would choose to go down swinging.
These were survivors, after all. They''d wed their way to the top of the food chain, had outlived countless enemies, had endured hardships that would have broken lesser beings. And they weren''t about to give up without a fight.
"Thought you might say that," Michael chuckled, shaking his head. "Like a cornered rat, aren''t you? All teeth and desperation."
The serpent, its remaining heads snarling and snapping, lunged at Michael, its frozen body twisting and contorting in a grotesque parody of a strike.
But before they could even get close, ra acted.
With a scream of mingled terror and defiance, she ripped herself free from the monstrous form, her body dissolving into a cloud of shimmering mist before solidifying a few feet away in her human form. The serpent, weakened by her sudden departure, recoiled, its movements even more sluggish now.
Two more figures followed suit and one of them wasa tall, wiry elf with dark eyes and a cruel, thin-lipped smileand the other was a hulking bear like woman with gray hair.
However, they didn''t even nce at Michael. Instead, they simply turned and ran, their bodies blurring as they activated whatever escape spells they could muster, desperate to get the hell out of dodge.
"Cowards!" one of the remaining heads roared, spitting a curse after them.
But Michael simplyughed.
"Running, are we?" he chuckled with amusement. Then, he simply raised a hand, and the air around him crackled with renewed power as he unleashed another wave of Frostbite.
This time, there was no escape. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
The remaining three heads of the serpent, along with the two fleeing Ancestors, were encased in ice, their forms frozen solid, their expressions locked in masks of terror and desperate pleas.
Michael turned to ra, who stood before him, trembling, her eyes wide with a terror that was almostical.
"Where is it?" he asked, his voice deceptively calm. "Where''s the vault?"
ra, her body trembling, pointed a shaking finger towards one of the many floating pces that dotted the ravagedndscape of the pocket dimension.
"There," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "In the heart of the Obsidian Pce. Follow me."
Meanwhile, Devdan who was watching the scene unfold from his hidden vantage point, smiled. He''d been right. The Dark Lord was his key, his unwitting guide to the ultimate prize.
"Lead the way, asshole," he murmured, already plotting his next move. He''d follow Michael, let the God of Darkness do the heavy lifting, break the seals, open the vault¡
And then?
He had to trust himself and hope that his cunning and ruthlessness would be enough outsmart the God of Darkness.
Chapter 1349 One step closer to Dons Blood
Chapter 1349 One step closer to Don''s Blood
"Hold on a sec," Michael said, turning back towards the frozen serpent and the two fleeing figures, his smile fading as quickly as it had appeared. "Forgot about a few loose ends."
He raised a hand, channeling his power once more. Another wave of Frostbite, even more potent than thest, mmed into the serpent, encasing it in a thickeryer of ice. The monstrous creature, already frozen solid, didn''t even have time to twitch before it waspletely immobilized, its two heads locked in expressions of eternal agony.
"Now, where were those little shits going?"
He spotted them, a blur of motion against the backdrop of the ravaged battlefield. The tall, wiry elf and the hulking woman with gray hair. They were almost at the edge of the pocket dimension, their hands glowing with the telltale shimmer of a teleportation spell.
"Nice try, assholes," Michael chuckled, shaking his head. "But you''re not getting off that easy."
He didn''t even bother drawing his sword. Instead, he simply raised a hand, his fingers crackling with ck lightning. Two bolts, shot through with that sickly green energy that whispered of decay and corruption, arced across the battlefield with impossible speed.
Michael''s aim was impable, honed by years of being the number one assassin. The bolts struck their targets with pinpoint uracy, mming into the backs of their heads with a sound like ripe melons splitting open.
Heads exploded, showering the surrounding area with blood and bone. Their bodies, propelled forward by the force of the impact, stumbled for a few steps before copsing in a heap.
Two faint, shimmering lights, the remnants of their souls, began to rise from the mangled corpses, desperate to escape back to the ethereal ne.
"Trying to skip out on the bill?" Michael chuckled, his voiceced with a cold amusement. "Not a chance."
He vanished from his spot, reappearing in a blink of an eye beside the headless corpses.
"Soul Eater," he muttered, opening his maw wide as the two souls, their escape thwarted, drifted towards him.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Celestial stage Ancestor. The reward is 24,000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 80,000 Badass points] [Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing a Celestial stage Ancestor. The reward is 24,000 Experience points and 400 Badass points]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 80,000 Badass points] ¡
[Experience points converted 2000]
[Experience points converted 3000]
[Ding! Congrattions to the¡ª]
He ignored the system notifications. Right now, he had bigger fish to fry. And then, two more keys, shimmering with the same faint golden light, materialized above the corpses, spinning slowly in the air as if reluctant to be parted from their former owners. Michael, with a flick of his wrist, summoned them to his hand.
"Five," he murmured, his lips curving into a predatory smile. "Almost there."
He nced back at the frozen serpent, its three heads locked in expressions of eternal agony, and his smile widened.
"Time to finish this."
With a crackle of shadow energy, he vanished, reappearing a heartbeatter in front of the immobilized serpent. He raised a hand, his fingers crackling with dark energy, and a plume of ck mes, edged with a sickly green that spoke of decay and corruption, erupted from his palm.
He could have ended it quickly. A st of pure power, a Ring of mes unleashed at full force, would have shattered the frozen serpent and its trapped souls in an instant.
But Michael wasn''t interested in quick or merciful. Not anymore. These bastards had allowed the three bastards to torture his mother and had reveled in her pain. If that was not enough, they had ripped him from her arms and tossed him into the void as if he were nothing more than garbage.
So, they deserved to suffer.
Slowly.
The mes, dancing and twisting like spectral serpents, licked at the edges of the frozen form, melting the ice with agonizing slowness. It was like watching a cier melt under a scorching summer sun, only a thousand times more gruesome.
The serpent''s two heads, still conscious despite their frozen state, could only watch in horror as the mes crept closer, the heat searing their flesh, the stench of burning hair and melting flesh filling the air. They tried to scream, tried to beg for mercy, but their voices were trapped behind a wall of ice, their pleas reduced to muffled whimpers.
After a long few moments, the serpent''s form became nothing more than a puddle of melted ice, blood, and charred bone, finally dissolvedpletely. Three faint, shimmering lights, the remnants of the trapped souls, rose from the gruesome mess, their ethereal forms flickering with a mixture of terror and relief.
Michael, without a word, opened his maw and inhaled deeply. The souls, drawn towards him by a force they couldn''t resist, vanished into his mouth, their faint cries swallowed by the darkness within him.
Two more keys, identical to the others, materialized above the spot where the serpent had dissolved, spinning slowly in the air before flying towards Michael,nding neatly in his outstretched palm.
"Seven," he murmured, his gaze sweeping across the ravaged battlefield. "Seven keys."
The death of the Ancestors, the powerhouses of Skyhall, had a profound effect on the remaining forces. Their morale, already shaken by the Dark Lord''s brutal disy of power, shatteredpletely.
"We''re fucked," a Skyhall knight whispered, his voice trembling.
"Those were the strongest among us¡ and he¡ he just¡" another soldier trailed off, unable to even voice the horror they''d witnessed.
"What the hell are we supposed to do now?"
Their faces, once hardened by years of training and battle experience, were now pale with fear. They''d seen what the Dark Lord was capable of, the casual brutality with which he''d dispatched those who had dared to stand against him.
And none of them wanted to share the same fate. N?v(el)B\\jnn
Meanwhile, hidden beneath his invisibility spell, Devdan frowned.
"Where the hell is that sted cannon?" he muttered, ncing around the battlefield, his gaze searching for any sign of Erael''s return.
He''d been waiting, patiently observing from the shadows as the Dark Lord had systematically dismantled the Ancestors. And now¡ now it seemed his patience was wearing thin.
"Don''t tell me that bitch ran off¡" he mused, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. But even as he thought it, he couldn''t help but feel a grudging respect for her cunning, if that was indeed what she''d done.
After all, he was fully prepared to do the same, if the blood of the Ancient God proved unattainable.
"Survival of the fittest," he murmured, his lips curving into a wry smile.
But for now, he had to wait. He needed Michael to lead him to the vault, to break the seals, to do the heavy lifting¡
And then¡ well, then it would be his turn.
On the other hand, Michael''s gaze swept across the battlefield, taking in the scene of devastation. Shattered warships, corpses frozen in grotesque tableaux, the air thick with the stench of blood and burnt flesh. And amidst the carnage, the remnants of Skyhall''s army, their faces pale with fear, their eyes wide with a terror that spoke volumes.
He nced at Lenora, who was watching the scene unfold with a predatory gleam in her crimson eyes. She knew him well enough to anticipate his next move and floated toward him.
"My Lord?" she purred, bowing her head in a gesture of respect that was tinged with a hint of anticipation. "Your orders?"
Michael surveyed the battlefield once more. His gaze lingered on the sleek warships, their hulls gleaming with runes and bristling with cannons. He noted the Skyhall soldiers, their armor once pristine, now stained with blood and grime, their faces etched with a mix of fear and defiance. His eyes swept over the floating pces, their majestic facades marred by the scars of battle, their opulent interiors no doubt filled with treasures umted over centuries of power and conquest.
It was too good to simply destroy.
"Listen up!" he roared, his voice echoing across the pocket dimension. "Here''s the deal. You hand over your space rings, your armor, your weapons, and your ships¡ and you get to walk away from this. Alive. You can go crawl back to whatever shithole you came from, and you never speak of Skyhall again."
He paused, letting his words sink in, letting the fear and desperation build.
"But those who refuse¡" Michael''s smile turned predatory, a chilling sh in the gloom. "Well, you''ll get what those stubborn assholes got. And your precious Skyhall¡ it''ll be nothing more than a pile of burning rubble by the time I''m done with it."
He turned to Lenora, his gaze hardening.
"Make it happen," he said, his voice a low growl. "Leave no one who defies me¡ breathing."
"With pleasure, my lord." Lenora, her eyes gleaming with anticipation, grinned.
Watching the scene unfold, ra felt a chill run down her spine. She''d chosen the right side, it seemed. But even as she breathed a sigh of relief, she couldn''t help but feel a pang of¡ something. Regret? Pity?
She didn''t know.
Lenora, however, was practically vibrating with excitement. She watched the Skyhall soldiers scrambling to obey Michael''smands, their fear palpable, and a cold chuckle escaped her lips.
A year ago, when the Dark Lord was just a mortal, a mere pawn in a game yed by Gods, Skyhall had seemed invincible. An over powered organization that practically ruled the mortal realm, a symbol of unyielding power.
And now?
Now they were being dismantled, their pride shattered, their forces scattered, all because one man had ascended to godhood.
It was almost¡ anti-climatic.
"The difference between a god and mortals¡" she murmured, shaking her head in amusement. While Lenora flew away to impose his order, Michael didn''t waste time watching Lenora and the others get to work. He had what he wanted ¨C the keys, and a guide to the vault that held the blood of an Ancient God. Everything else¡ well, it was just details.
He turned his gaze to ra, who stood before him, her body still trembling slightly, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and¡ was that a hint of relief?
"Lead the way," hemanded, his voice brooking no argument.
He wasn''t worried about her trying to pull any fast ones. She''d seen what he''d done to her colleagues. She knew, better than anyone, what happened to those who crossed him. ra might be an opportunist, a survivor, but she wasn''t stupid.
"Yes, my lord," she blurted out, nodding eagerly. Without another word, she turned andunched herself into the air, heading towards one of the many floating pces that dotted the ravagedndscape of the pocket dimension.
The pce she led them to was a colossal structure of gleaming white stone and polished obsidian, its towers piercing the artificial sky, its balconies adorned with intricate carvings and shimmering crystals. It looked, at first nce, no different from the dozens of other pces that made up Skyhall. A grand, imposing symbol of power and wealth, but nothing that screamed "ancient god blood hidden here."
It was the perfect hiding ce, like hiding a tree in a forest.
But Michael, as he followed ra, felt a growing excitement thrumming through his veins. The keys in his hand pulsed with a faint warmth, their energy resonating with something deep within the pce, beckoning him forward.
Still hidden beneath his invisibility spell, Devdan trailed behind them, his gaze fixed on Michael with a predatory intensity. He didn''t spare a single nce for the Skyhall soldiers because he didn''t give a damn about Skyhall, about its soldiers, about its legacy. Instead, his focus, his entire being, was consumed by a single, burning desire: power. And if the blood of an Ancient God was within his grasp¡ well, he''d be damned if he let some arrogant young god snatch it away from him.
Chapter 1350 Don Is Back I
Chapter 1350 Don Is Back I
Back on the battlefield, the remnants of Skyhall''s once-proud army were being systematically stripped of their dignity, along with their valuables. Heaps of discarded armor, weapons, and space rings glittered under the dim light of the artificial sky, a testament to the swift and brutal efficiency of the Dark Lord''s forces.
"Get those damn boots off too!" a dark army soldier barked, shoving a Skyhall knight to his knees. "And the shirt! The Dark Lord said everything!"
The knight, his face pale with humiliation, fumbled with the sps of his breastte, his fingers trembling as he stripped off his armor, piece by piece. Around him, dozens of hisrades were doing the same, their faces a mixture of shame, fear, and simmering resentment.
They''d been trained from birth to be Skyhall''s elite, the protectors of the realm, the upholders of justice. And now¡ now they were being treated likemon criminals, forced to strip naked before their enemies, their pride trampled along with their fallenrades.
On the decks of the Skyhall warships, simr scenes were ying out. The demon army, their hulking forms casting long, menacing shadows, moved through the captured vessels with ruthless efficiency. Space rings were ripped from fingers, weapons were tossed overboard, and any sign of Skyhall''s insignia was defaced or destroyed.
But not everyone was willing to surrender.
On one of therger warships, a group of Skyhall soldiers, their faces grim, their eyes burning with a defiant fire, stood their ground. They''d formed a circle around their captain, a grizzled veteran with a scar that ran from his forehead to his chin, a testament to countless battles fought and survived.
"We will not yield!" the captain roared, his voice hoarse but filled with a conviction that resonated with his men. "We are Skyhall''s finest! We will die with honor!"
"Yeah! Fuck surrendering!" one of his soldiers shouted, raising his sword in defiance. "We go down fighting!"
Lenora, who was overseeing the disarmament process, raised an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement dancing in her crimson eyes. She''d seen this kind of bravado before. It was almost¡ touching.
Almost.
"Suit yourselves, boys," she purred, her voiceced with a predatory amusement. "Just makes my job easier."
She turned to the nearest group of demon soldiers, their four arms twitching with barely restrained bloodlust.
"Take care of these¡ gentlemen," shemanded, her lips curving into a cruel smile. "No need to rush it. Make them¡ regret their decision."
The demons, their eyes gleaming with a cold, predatory light, surged forward, their ws glinting in the dim light. Their silence was somehow more terrifying than any war cry.
The Skyhall soldiers, their faces hardening with resolve, raised their weapons and charged. They knew they were outnumbered, outmatched, but they''d chosen their fate.
************************
On the other hand, ra led Michael through the heart of the Obsidian Pce, her steps echoing on the polished marble floors. The pce''s interior was a testament to Skyhall''s wealth and arrogance. Hallways lined with shimmering tapestries, grand chambers filled with priceless artifacts, and balconies overlooking gardens that would have put the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to shame.
Michael, trailing behind her, couldn''t help but whistle appreciatively.
"Damn, those Skyhall bastards knew how to live," he muttered, his gaze sweeping over a disy of jewel-encrusted swords and armor. "Not bad. Not bad at all."
He was already mentally cataloging the valuables, making ns to strip the pce bare once he''d retrieved what he came for. No more worrying about gold coins in the mortal realm. He''d be practically swimming in the stuff.
But for now, his focus was on the blood.
ra led him through a maze of corridors and hidden passages, finallying to a halt before an unassuming wall at the end of a dimly lit hallway.
Michael raised an eyebrow, ncing from ra to the nk wall. "What''s the holdup?"
"Another¡ precaution," ra exined, her voice still trembling slightly. "An illusion, woven into the very fabric of the pce. Only those with the keys¡ and the knowledge of the proper rituals¡ can pass through."
She pulled a small, silver dagger from her belt and, without hesitation, sliced her palm. Blood, dark and viscous, welled up from the wound. She pressed her hand against the wall, the blood leaving a crimson stain against the smooth obsidian surface.
Then, using her blood as ink, she began to draw a series of intricate runes on the wall, her movements precise and practiced. The air shimmered, and the wall began to flicker. The runes, glowing with a faint, crimson light, pulsed in unison, their energy resonating with the keys in Michael''s hand.
With a soft groan, the wall crumbled inwards, dissolving into dust and shadows. Behind it, another hallway stretched out before them, this one even more dimly lit than thest. The torches that lined the walls, their mes weakened by the dimming of the light in the realm, cast long, wavering shadows that danced and flickered like restless spirits.
At the far end of the hallway, Michael saw it.
A pir of polished obsidian, rising from the floor like a skeletal finger pointing towards the heavens. And hovering above the pir, encased in a shimmering force field, a single vial, filled with a liquid that glowed with an unnatural, crimson light.
The blood.
Michael and ra started down the hallway, their footsteps echoing in the eerie silence. The vial, pulsing with that unnatural crimson light, seemed to hover just out of reach, its glow casting long, distorted shadows that danced and flickered on the walls.
But as they walked, a strange sensation washed over them. It was as if the hallway itself was stretching, the distance between them and the vial remaining constant, no matter how many steps they took.
"What the¡" Michael began, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"The keys," ra interrupted, her voice a hushed whisper. "You need to use the keys."
Michael frowned, pulling the seven keys from his pocket. They gleamed in the dim light, their ornate carvings and intricate designs catching the faint glow of the torches.
"I don''t see any goddamn keyholes," he muttered, ncing around the hallway.
"Another¡ safeguard," ra exined. "The locks¡ they''re hidden. Concealed."
She moved towards one of the torches that lined the wall, her steps slow and deliberate. She reached out and, with a gentle puff of breath, extinguished the me.
The torch sputtered, a plume of smoke curling upwards from the extinguished wick. The smoke, instead of dissipating into the air, swirled towards the wall, its tendrils twisting and contorting as if guided by an unseen hand.
And there, in the swirling smoke, a faint outline emerged. A keyhole, barely visible, etched into the obsidian surface. The smoke, as if sensing its purpose, coiled around the keyhole, its faint glow illuminating the intricate mechanism within. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Michael stared at the revealed keyhole, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his face. He''d expected traps, sure. He''d expected guardians, maybe even a few pissed-off ghosts thrown in for good measure.
But this¡ this was something else entirely.
He had to hand it to the Skyhall elders, or Andohr, or whoever the hell had designed this ce. They knew what they were doing. Instead of going for the obvious, the clich¨¦ traps and predictable obstacles, they''d integrated the security measures into the very fabric of the pce, hiding them in in sight.
"Clever bastards," he muttered, shaking his head in grudging respect.
Michael chuckled, a low rumble in his chest, and inserted one of the keys into the revealed keyhole. The key clicked, a satisfying sound of metal meeting metal, and then¡ it vanished. Pulled inwards, absorbed into the wall as if it had never been there.
A low rumble, like the growl of a slumbering beast, echoed through the hallway. Dust trickled down from the ceiling, and the torches flickered, their mes dancing wildly as if caught in a sudden gust of wind.
"Uh¡ is that supposed to happen?" Michael asked, ncing at ra, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face.
"I¡ I don''t know," she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "We''ve only read about¡ about how this ce works. None of us ever dared to¡ to actually try and obtain the blood."
"You''re telling me none of those power-hungry assholes ever tried to get their hands on this stuff?" Michael scoffed, gesturing towards the vial, which was still hovering at the end of the seemingly endless hallway. "Seriously?"
He continued walking, his steps echoing on the marble floor, as ra trailed behind him.
"Why the hell not? Seems like exactly the kind of thing those Skyhall pricks would be all over."
"There was¡ an incident. A few centuries ago. One of the Ancestors¡ he tried to¡ to convince the others to use the keys. To obtain the blood." ra hesitated, her gaze fixed on the floor. "And?" Michael prompted, his interest piqued. "What happened?"
"He was¡ found. In this pce. Ripped to shreds," ra whispered, a shiver running down her spine.
"Ripped to shreds?" Michael repeated, frowning. "By what?"
"No one knows. There was no sign of¡ of an attacker. No trace of any creature or¡ or magic that could have inflicted such wounds." ra shook her head. She paused, her gaze meeting Michael''s.
"After that¡ well, we learned. Some things¡ some things are better left untouched. If it could be obtained easily¡ it wouldn''t be locked away, hidden like this."
"Yeah," Michael muttered, nodding slowly. "She''s got a point. If this shit was easy to get, those old farts would have drained it dry centuries ago."
The fact that the blood was still here, locked away in this borate vault, told him everything he needed to know. This wasn''t going to be a simple in-and-out job.
Andohr wouldn''t have made it that easy. The bastard was too damn clever, always ten steps ahead, always ying the long game. There was more to this than met the eye, Michael could feel it in his gut.
"Seven keys¡ a hidden vault¡ a blood that even ancient mages wouldn''t touch¡" He trailed off, a slow grin spreading across his face.
"Sounds like my kind of challenge."
He felt a surge of confidence, a thrill of anticipation that had nothing to do with the promise of power and everything to do with the thrill of the hunt. He was up against a worthy adversary, a puzzle master who thought he''d outsmarted everyone.
And Michael? He loved a good puzzle. Especially when he had a few billion badass points burning a hole in his metaphorical pocket.
He nced at his internal system interface, a flicker of amusement dancing in his eyes. The counter was ticking upwards at an rming rate. Five billion badass points and counting, thanks to his little "demonstration" with the Ancestors and the ongoing looting of Skyhall''s forces.
"Time to spend some of those bad boys," he murmured, cracking his knuckles. "Let''s see what this Andohr asshole has cooked up for us."
One by one, Michael inserted the keys into the hidden locks. Each click, each rumble of ancient mechanisms shifting and grinding, brought them closer to the vial. The air grew heavy, charged with a strange energy that made the hairs on the back of Michael''s neck stand on end.
He watched as ra, her face growing paler with each step they took, started to tremble. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and her eyes, wide with a terror that went beyond their earlier fear, darted around the hallway as if searching for an escape that didn''t exist.
"You alright there, ra?" Michael asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. He''d noticed her difort, but he figured it was just the lingering fear from their little encounter with her former colleagues.
But before she could answer, a harsh, hacking cough ripped from her throat. Blood, a thick, ck stream, sttered onto the pristine marble floor.
"What the¡" Michael began, but before he could finish the sentence, a familiar whirring sound echoed from beneath his armor. His face mask, sensing a threat, retracted with a click, sealing his features behind the cold, skull-like visage of his battle helm.
[Warning! Radiation levels rising!] The system''s voice, usually a calm, emotionless drone, wasced with a hint of urgency.
Michael nced back at ra, who had copsed to her knees, her body wracked by coughs, her hand outstretched towards him in a desperate plea for help.
"Karma''s a bitch, ain''t it?" he chuckled, shaking his head. "I told you I wouldn''t kill you. Never said anything about saving your ass."
He''d made a deal, sure. But as far as he was concerned, she was an ancestor of Skyhall and that was good enough for him to give no single damn about her.
Thus, he watched, detached and cold, as she crumpled to the ground, her coughs growing weaker, her struggles less and less pronounced. Then, with a final, shuddering gasp, shey still.
Michael turned his gaze towards the vial, his eyes hardening.
"Showtime," he muttered, striding forward. The air grew even heavier, the radiation pressing against his shields like an invisible hand, but his armor held, its runes glowing with a faint, protective light.
He reached out, his fingers brushing against the smooth ss of the vial. And in that instant, the world dissolved into a swirling vortex of colors and energy. He was pulled forward, sucked into a tunnel of light and shadow that twisted and spiraled, carrying him towards an unknown destination.
As he hurtled through the vortex, a face emerged from the swirling chaos...
"Don?"
Chapter 1351 Don Is Back II
Chapter 1351 Don Is Back II
After a few long moments and the sudden appearance and disappearance of Don''s face, the vortex spat him out.
"Finally," Michael mumbled, bracing himself against a sudden wave of dizziness, his senses reeling from the abrupt transition. When he opened his eyes, the dim, oppressive atmosphere of the Obsidian Pce was gone, reced by¡ well, by something else entirely.
He was standing on a hilltop, overlooking a sprawling kingdom that could only be described as¡ magical.
The sun hung high in a sky of the most brilliant blue Michael had ever seen. A gentle breeze, carrying the scent of wildflowers and freshly baked bread, rustled through his hair, and the air was alive with the sound of birdsong and distantughter.
The kingdom below was a sight to behold. Buildings, crafted from a mixture of polished wood and white marble, rose in graceful tiers, their roofs adorned with intricate carvings and colorful banners that fluttered in the breeze. The streets, wide and paved with cobblestones, were lined with maple trees in full bloom, their leaves a vibrant shade of green that contrasted beautifully with the warm, golden light of the afternoon sun.
Michael could see fountains, their waters sparkling in the sunlight, and gardens filled with exotic flowers he''d never seen before. Guardians, d in gleaming armor, patrolled the streets, their faces rxed and friendly, their presence more a reassurance than a threat.
And the people¡
Michael''s eyes widened in surprise. Elves and dwarves, their arms linked, strolled through the marketce,ughing and chatting like old friends. Halflings, their faces flushed with merriment, haggled over prices with human merchants, their voices filled with good-natured banter. Orcs, their green skin gleaming in the sunlight, carried baskets overflowing with fruits and vegetables, their expressions surprisingly¡ gentle.
It was a scene that would have been unthinkable in his own universe. In his reality, dwarves and elves hated each other''s guts, and orcs¡, they were more likely to be found buried in a book than wielding a battle-axe. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
But here¡ here everything seemed¡ harmonious. Peaceful.
"Damn," Michael muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. "This is¡ different."
His gaze drifted towards the outskirts of the kingdom, where a giant tree, its branches reaching towards the heavens like weing arms, stood sentinel. A wooden sign, etched with the name "Everlight," hung from one of its lower branches, the letters glowing with a faint, ethereal light.
Everlight. He knew this ce. He''d been here before.
Two years ago, back when he was still trapped in the Shadow Realm, honing his powers and exploring the multiverse, he''d stumbled across this kingdom. It had been smaller then, less¡ developed. But the energy, the sense of peace and harmony, had been the same.
He knew time flowed differently in other universes, that what might be a few years in his reality could be decades, even centuries, in another. This¡ this must be the future of the Everlight he''d seen before.
But something was off.
Unlike his previous visit, Michael couldn''t move. His body felt heavy, as if anchored to the spot. He could see, hear, even smell the sights and sounds of the kingdom below, but he couldn''t interact with it. It was like he was here¡ but not truly here.
And then, as he watched, a figure descended from the sky.
A silhouette, d in ck armornded on a rooftop overlooking the kingdom. The figure''s stance was confident and radiating an aura of power that made even Michael, the God of Darkness himself, feel a flicker of¡ respect. But as the figure turned, revealing a face framed by dark hair and blue eyes, a slow grin spread across Michael''s face.
"Don," he murmured.
Finally, Donnded before Michael, crossing the distance from the rooftop in a blur of motion. Everything about this ce had changed, evolved, blossomed. But Don¡ well, he looked exactly the same. The same stoic expression, the same piercing gaze, the same¡ unnervingly youthful appearance. He looked like he was in histe twenties, not a day older than thest time Michael had seen him. It made Michael wonder if the Ancient God had somehow lost the ability to smile.
"It has been a long time," Don said, his voice deep and resonant, carrying an echo of power that sent a shiver down Michael''s spine.
"You could say that again," Michael chuckled, shaking his head. "Never thought I''d see you again, Don. And I sure as hell didn''t expect to find your blood¡ well, you know."
"The blood¡ it was a calling card. I knew you would find it, eventually." Don nodded, a barely perceptible movement of his head.
"A calling card?" Michael frowned. "Why?"
Don sighed, his gaze sweeping over the kingdom below, his expression unreadable. "There are things you need to know, Michael. Things about the future¡ about the enemies you will face."
"Enemies?" Michael snorted. "What else is new? Seems like every time I think I''ve reached the top of the goddamn food chain, some bigger, badder assholees along to knock me down a peg."
He paused, thinking back on his recent encounters, the constant esction of power, the enemies that seemed to grow stronger with each passing battle.
"It''s like climbing a mountain," he mused, shaking his head. "Every time I reach a peak, I realize there''s another, even higher peak looming in the distance. And those peaks¡ they never seem to fucking end."
Hearing Michael''sint, Don''s lips twitched, the barest hint of a smile. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, but Michael could have sworn he saw it.
"I understand, Ghost. Believe me, I do." He''d climbed his own mountains, faced down enemies that seemed insurmountable, only to discover even greater threats lurking in the shadows. It was the price of power, the burden of reaching for the top of the food chain.
But now, there were more pressing matters at hand. Don took a deep breath, his expression hardening. "The blood¡ it''s not just a calling card. It''s a shield. A way for you to¡ mask your presence."
"Mask my presence? From what?" Michael frowned.
"It''s not about you, Ghost," Don said, his gaze intense. "It''s about¡ the power you carry. The power that''s¡ not your own."
A cold dread began to creep up Michael''s spine. He had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.
"What are you talking about, Don?" he asked, his voice tight. Could Don¡ could he possibly know?
"You need the blood to hide the System, Ghost."
The words hit Michael like a physical blow. His breath caught in his throat, his mind reeling.
The System. His System. His most closely guarded secret, the source of his power. The Badass System was his, and his alone. No one else, not even Gaya, knew about its existence. And yet¡ here was Don, an Ancient God from another universe, casually mentioning it as if it weremon knowledge.
How the fuck did Don know about it? It was impossible. "What¡ how¡" Michael stammered, his mind struggling to grasp the implications. "You¡ you know about the System?"
"Hmm," Don simply nodded. After hearing Don confirm his worst fear, Michael knew bluffing wouldn''t cut it. The cat was out of the bag. "Okay, so you know about the System," he said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "How the hell did you find out? And who are we hiding from, exactly?"
"In my universe, several years ago, we fought together against the Queen and her¡ allies." Don''s expression remained serious. Michael nodded slowly. He knew the Queen. A multiverse-level pain in the ass, she was. Not exactly his enemy, per se, but he''d asionally helped her out¡ªfinding lost soul fragments, tossing them Mugashuku''s way¡ nothing that made him an ally, but not exactly an enemy either.
"The Queen, huh?" Michael mused. "And her allies¡ who were they?"
"They called themselves the Omegas. They were searching for the System, Ghost. And they nearly destroyed my entire universe trying to find it." Don''s jaw tightened.
"Omegas¡" Michael''s mind raced. He vividly remembered the one time the System had gonepletely offline, refusing to answer him. It was after he''d stumbled across a cryptic mention of the Omegas from the system. He''d pushed the System for answers, but it had mmed up, silent as a tomb. Deep down, he knew that there was something out there, something that threatened the very existence of the System, but he''d been too busy dealing with his own shit to worry about some abstract, multiversal boogeyman.
Now¡ now it seemed those boogeymen were about to be very real.
Judging by the fact that Don was talking about a battle that, from Michael''s perspective, was still in the future. In other words, it meant he was destined to team up with this Ancient God and fight the Queen and these goddamn Omegas soon.
"Fucking fantastic,"
As Michael processed this mindfuck of a revtion, Don continued. "The blood I left for you, Ghost¡ it''s from my future self. It''s¡ stronger. Its energy signature will temporarily mask the System, make it harder for the Omegas to track."
"So I gotta use this¡ cosmic perfume to cover up my System''s stink?" Michael sighed. "Damn, this is messed up. But I guess I don''t have much of a choice, do I?"
"No, you don''t," Don confirmed, his voice grim. "You need to use this time, Ghost. Get stronger. Be ready when theye for you. Because they wille."
"But how did you even know about the System, Don?" Michael pressed. "Did the Queen tell you? Or those Omegas?"
"They didn''t tell me." Don shook his head,
"Then who did?" Michael asked as a cold dread settled in Michael''s gut. He had a bad feeling about this.
"He did."
"He?" Michael frowned. "Who the hell is ''he''?"
And then Don spoke a single name, a name that sent a wave of icy fury crashing over Michael.
"Hunter,"
"That son of a bitch!" Michael roared, throwing his arms up in exasperation. "Of course it''s him!"
Chapter 1352 Worship Energy Cultivation ability
Chapter 1352 Worship Energy Cultivation ability
A ghost of a smile, a fleeting flicker of amusement, touched Don''s lips as he watched Michael''s outburst. He remembered, with a rity that spanned millennia, the first time the three of them hade together. Ghost and Hunter¡ they''d bickered like an old married couple, their animosity as palpable as the power that radiated from them.
It had been¡ entertaining, to say the least.
Don, of course, hadn''t known the full extent of their history. He hadn''t realized they were both from the same world, hadn''t understood the depth of their shared past, the tangled web of rivalry and resentment that bound them together.
Now, watching Michael''s face contort with fury, he understood.
"That bastard," Michael growled, pacing back and forth, his fists clenched. "That goddamn snake in the grass! He told you about the System? How the fuck did he even know?"
A terrifying thought struck him then.
"Unless¡" He trailed off, his eyes widening in horror. "Don''t tell me¡ that son of a bitch got a System too?"
The thought of Hunter, that ruthless, power-hungry madman, wielding the same kind of power as Michael¡ it sent a shiver down his spine. He''d seen firsthand the carnage Hunter could unleash, the casual cruelty with which he ruled his own twisted little empire.
And now¡ to imagine him with a System¡
Michael shuddered.
He suddenly felt a surge of sympathy for the poor souls trapped in Hunter''s universe. If they thought he was a handful, well¡ they hadn''t seen anything yet.
At least, Michael thought grimly, Hunter was confined to his own reality. For now.
Michael, if he''d been a character in a book, knew exactly what the readers would be saying. They''d be throwing their goddamn Kindles across the room, screaming about how he never utilized the System to its full potential, how he yed it safe, how he was too hesitant to unleash his full power.
And they''d be right.
But Michael wasn''t Hunter. He wasn''t a power-hungry psychopath, reveling in chaos and destruction. He had limits. Lines he wouldn''t cross.
Hunter, on the other hand¡ well, Hunter was a different story. Giving that bastard a System was like giving a pyromaniac a methrower and a map to the world''srgest fireworks factory.
It was a recipe for disaster. A cosmic-level shitstorm waiting to happen.
At least he''s contained to his own universe, Michael thought grimly. For now, anyway.
"Okay, so Hunter''s being a dick," Michael said with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. "But right now, he''s not the problem, is he?" As unpredictable and dangerous as Hunter was, Michael knew he wasn''t the immediate threat. Hunter was a lot of things¡ª a charming psychopath in ck leather who loved to wreak havoc and leave a trail of broken hearts and shattered skulls in his wake¡ªbut he was also cunning. He knew how to pick his battles. And pissing off a fully powered-up God of Darkness probably wasn''t high on his to-do list. At least not yet.
"Tell me about these Omegas," Michael pressed, turning back to Don. "What else do you know about them? Where do theye from? What do they want?"
Don shook his head, his expression grim. "They are¡ elusive, Ghost. Masters of concealment. They left few traces, and those they did leave were¡ confusing, contradictory. They did not seem to belong to this universe. They were¡ visitors, like you."
Don paused, choosing his words carefully. "If you want to know more, you will have to seek them out. Perhaps your System can offer some insight... or perhaps you will find answers in your own universe, when the timees."
"Great," Michael muttered. "More mysteries."
"For now, your priority is to mask the System''s radiation, Ghost. Absorb the blood. Use the time it buys you to prepare."
Michael nodded, knowing Don was right. But he couldn''t afford to linger here. He had unfinished business to attend to. A crumbling Skyhall to im, a score to settle, and a certain maniptive God of Time and Space to put in his ce.
"Look, I appreciate the advice, Don. But I can''t exactly hang out here forever. I got shit to do." He nced towards the shimmering portal, still swirling faintly in the distance. "How long will this absorption take, anyway? If time flows differently here, who knows what''ll be waiting for me when I get back."
As though Don had read Michel''s mind, he addressed the concern of time flow in different universes.
"Time moves differently within this¡ bubble. It was designed this way, Ghost. A safeguard, of sorts. I knew you woulde here, one day, and I wanted to ensure you had the time you needed."
He gestured toward the vial. "Rx, Ghost. Absorb the blood. By the time you return to your own universe, only a few hours will have passed."
"Well, that''s a relief," Michael said, letting out a breath he hadn''t realized he''d been holding. He shot Don a grateful look. "Thanks, Don. I owe you one."
No wonder the people of Everlight worshipped this guy. And in Michael''s universe, he was practically a legend¡ªan Ancient God spoken of in hushed whispers, a being of immense power and wisdom.
Don was the real deal. A model god, even if he was a bit¡ stoic. Michael had to admit, the guy was pretty damn cool. He couldn''t help but wonder what kind of shit Don had gone through to be the kind of deity who never cracked a smile. Must have been some seriously heavy stuff.
But right now, that vial of blood was calling to him.
"Time to get this show on the road," he muttered, holding the vial up to the light. It pulsed with that eerie crimson glow, the energy within it thrumming against his skin.
"System," he thought, focusing his will. "Absorb this."
Don nodded, a flicker of understanding in his dark eyes. "I will leave you to it, Ghost. Good luck." And with that, he vanished, melting back into the shadows as if he''d never been there.
[Alert: Host has initiated absorption of Ancient God blood.]
[Does the host agree to proceed with absorption?]
[Estimated absorption time: 4 days (local time bubble). ]
Four days¡ Michael frowned. It was longer than he''d hoped, but Don had assured him that time flowed differently in this¡ bubble. He had to trust him on that.
[Additional information: Absorption of Ancient God blood will result in immediate breakthrough to Prime God Level.]
Michael''s eyes widened. Prime God level?
Holy shit.
He''d always figured he''d have to grind his way to that level, slowly umting power by devouring seeds of darkness and battling his way through hordes of increasingly powerful enemies. But this blood¡ it was a shortcut. A one-way ticket to the top of the goddamn power pyramid.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" he said, grinning. "System, proceed with absorption. Let''s do this thing!"
The moment Michael gave the confirmation, the vial in his hand pulsed, the crimson glow intensifying. A strange warmth, a tingling sensation that spread from his fingertips up his arm, washed over him. It wasn''t unpleasant¡ not at first.
Then the blood began to vaporize.
Wisps of crimson smoke, shot through with threads of gold, rose from the vial, swirling around Michael''s hand. The vapor, as if sentient, pulsed and throbbed, seeking a way in.
Michael watched, mesmerized, as the vapor seeped through the gaps in his armor, swirling around him, coiling around his limbs like spectral serpents. He felt a surge of power, a rush of raw energy unlike anything he''d ever experienced.
And then the pain hit.
It was a searing, white-hot agony that exploded in his chest, radiating outwards until it consumed his entire being. He gasped, his vision blurring, his knees buckling beneath him.
It wasn''t like any pain he''d ever experienced. It wasn''t the physical pain of a broken bone or a gaping wound. It was something deeper, something that touched his very essence, his soul. It felt like his entire being was being torn apart, atom by atom, and then reassembled in a crucible of fire.
He gritted his teeth, a guttural roar ripping from his throat as he fought against the overwhelming tide of pain. He tried to stand, to fight back, but it was useless.
The world around him, the vibrant colors of Don''s kingdom, the warm sun, the gentle breeze¡ it all faded, reced by an encroaching darkness that swallowed him whole.
And then, everything went ck.
From the outside, Michael was a still figure sprawled on the grassy hilltop, the vial that once held Don''s blood lying empty beside him. His armor, usually gleaming with dark energy, was dull, the runes etched into its surface flickering weakly, as if struggling to contain the forces raging within.
The first day of his four-day absorption passed in silence, the only sound the gentle rustling of leaves and the distant chirping of birds. But as the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the beautifulndscape, something changed.
A tendril of ck smoke, thin and wispy at first, curled upwards from Michael''s body, twisting and coiling in the air like a restless serpent. It was followed by another, and another, until a swirling vortex of darkness enveloped him, obscuring his form from view.
Deep within the darkness, Michael was lost in a sea of dreams, visions, and sensations. But one thing cut through the haze, a sound that was both familiar and¡ alien. N?v(el)B\\jnn
Voices.
Hundreds, thousands, millions of voices, whispering his name, chanting his titles, pleading for his favor, his guidance, his protection.
The prayers of his worshippers.
He''d felt their presence before when he first came to the realm of gods. But this¡ this was different.
It was a torrent, a tidal wave of raw faith and devotion washing over him, seeping into his very being, filling him with a power that was both intoxicating and terrifying.
[Alert! Worship Energy Cultivation ability unlocking.]
[Initialization sequencemencing: 72 hours remaining.]
Chapter 1353 Andohrs Plan to Deal With Michael
1353 Andohr''s n to Deal With Michael
Meanwhile, in a throne room that shimmered with stolen starlight, Andohr was making his pitch.
"Think about it, Kranar," he purred, his voice a smooth, silken thread that somehow managed to convey both menace and temptation. "Zorian''s power is waning. Noah''s death¡ it left a void. He might be the God of Sun, but even he can''t escape the consequences of that loss."
He leaned back on his throne, crafted from shadows and whispers, his sapphire eyes gleaming with a cold fire. "The mortal realm might be plunged into darkness, but even here¡ even in the realm of the Gods¡ I can feel it. The bnce is shifting. And Zorian? He''s losing his grip."
Kranar, the God of Lightning, shifted uneasily on his ornate, lightning-shaped throne. He stroked his neatly trimmed beard, his brow furrowed in thought. Andohr''s offer was tempting, no doubt about it. A chance to join a new pantheon, one that was on the rise, led by a God whose power seemed to grow with each passing day¡
It was a tempting offer.
But¡
"The Pantheon is still strong," Kranar pointed out, choosing his words carefully. "And they see you as the traitor, Andohr. The one who started this¡ this civil war."
He''d only recently managed to solidify his own power base. Rainar, the God of Rain, had finally kicked the bucket, leaving his worshippers ripe for the taking. Kranar had wasted no time in absorbing them, adding their devotion to his own, feeling the surge of power as their prayers flowed into him.
Gods like Kranar, despite their posturing and ims of divine purpose, craved one thing above all else: worship. More worshippers meant more worship energy, more power, more influence. And they''d do damn near anything to get their hands on it. Even if it meant ignoring a few¡ inconvenient truths.
And being branded a traitor god? That wasn''t exactly conducive to attracting new followers.
Andohr let out augh, a low, chilling sound that echoed through the throne room. "Rainar? That pathetic excuse for a deity? You think his death was¡ natural?"
Kranar shifted ufortably again. He''d been at war with Rainar for centuries, vying for control of the skies, their storms shing in a never-ending battle for dominance. But even he had to admit, Rainar''s death had been¡ sudden. Unexpected.
"The Dark Lord, Kranar," Andohr continued, his voice taking on a harder edge. "He killed Rainar. Ripped him apart like a rag doll. And he won''t stop there. He''sing for all of us. The old pantheon¡ they can''t protect you. Only I can." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Hearing Andohr, Kranar couldn''t deny the truth behind his words. He''d seen it with his own eyes. That goddamn crossbow bolt, appearing out of thin air, piercing Rainar''s skull with sickening precision. The swirling ck void that had opened up, sucking Rainar''s lifeless body into oblivion. It had been a brutal, terrifying disy of power. And it had sent shockwaves through the Pantheon.
Gods could be killed.
It was a truth they''d preferred to ignore, a possibility they''d dismissed as a myth, a story told to scare unruly demigods and ambitious mortals. But the Dark Lord had shattered that illusion, ripped it apart just as he''d ripped apart Rainar himself.
Kranar''s initial instinct had been to deny it, to bury his head in the sand and pretend it hadn''t happened. He''d focused on consolidating his power, absorbing Rainar''s worshippers, telling himself that if he became strong enough, if he amassed enough power, he''d be safe.
But Andohr''s words¡ they struck a chord. The God of Time and Space was a cunning, calcting bastard, a being of immense power and even greater ambition. And if he was taking the Dark Lord seriously¡Kranar couldn''t afford to becent.
He nced at the shimmering portal that led to the old Pantheon''s meeting chamber, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. Zorian, the God of Sun, was a fading light, his power dwindling with each passing day. The old Pantheon was fractured, weakened, embroiled in a pointless war with Dagon, the ruler of hell, and now¡ Andohr.
It was a losing battle. A sinking ship.
And Kranar, for all his arrogance and lust for power, wasn''t stupid. He knew when to cut his losses.
Andohr''s offer, as dangerous as it might be, was starting to look more and more appealing. Siding with a God who controlled time and space¡that wasn''t a bad bet to make. Certainly a hell of a lot better than clinging to a dying regime.
Looking at Kranar''s face, Andohr''s smile widened, a predatory gleam in his eyes. He could practically smell Kranar''s fear, taste his desperation. It was only a matter of time before the God of Lightning caved, another pawn added to his ever-growing army.
But as Andohr savored his impending victory, the doors to the throne room swung open with a resounding boom.
"What the¡ª" Andohr began, his smile vanishing as quickly as it appeared.
He hadn''t expected any visitors. And he''d specifically instructed Salesi to stay the hell out of his way during these recruitment meetings.
Unlike her father, Salesi wasn''t a Goddess of anything in particr. She was¡ a tool. A weapon honed and polished to serve his ambitions. She was cunning, ambitious, and always, always eager to please him. It wasn''t fatherly love he felt for her, not even close, but she was useful. And her loyalty, fueled by a desperate craving for his attention and approval, was unwavering.
She stood in the doorway now, her usually carefullyposed features etched with worry, her eyes darting between Andohr and Kranar.
"Father," she began, her voice hesitant.
Andohr''s gaze narrowed. He could tell, just by the look on her face, that something was wrong. Seriously wrong. For Salesi to disobey a direct order¡she had to have a damn good reason. And for her sake, he hoped she did.
"You''d better have a bloody good exnation for this interruption," he growled
Despite his desire to escape the sinking ship that was the old Pantheon, Kranar wasn''t an idiot. He''d seen that look in Salesi''s eyes before. A look that said shit''s about to hit the fan, a look that screamed abandon ship.
And he wasn''t about to be caught in the crossfire of whatever storm was brewing in Andohr''s perfect little utopia.
"Well," he said, forcing a chuckle, "this has been¡ enlightening, Andohr. I''ll certainly¡ consider your proposal."
He nced at Salesi again, her face still pale, her gaze fixed on the floor. Yeah, definitely time to make a strategic retreat.
"But I can see you have¡ family matters to attend to. I wouldn''t want to intrude." He inclined his head, a gesture that was both polite and a not-so-subtle attempt to get the hell out of dodge.
"I''ll be in touch," he added, backing towards the door.
And then, with a crackle of electricity and a sh of blue light, he was gone.
"Fucking coward," Andohr snarled, watching the spot where Kranar had vanished with a mixture of fury and frustration. "The moment things get a little¡plicated, he runs off like a frightened rabbit."
He turned his gaze on Salesi, his eyes narrowed to slits.
"You," he growled, his voice dripping with venom. "Exin yourself. Now."
Salesi, acutely aware of her father''s displeasure, hurried to appease him.
"Father, it''s¡ it''s about the Dark Lord," she stammered, her voice trembling slightly. "Seraphene¡ she wanted me to inform you¡ that he¡ he has obtained the blood."
Andohr stared at her, his face nk for a moment, as if he hadn''t quite processed her words.
The blood. Don''s blood.
It was impossible. He''d personally overseen the construction of the vault, woven temporal safeguards into its very fabric, ensured that it was inessible to anyone, even a God, without the proper keys and the knowledge of the ancient rituals.
And yet¡
"He has the blood?" he echoed, his voice dangerously low.
A surge of raw fury, unlike anything Salesi had ever witnessed, erupted from Andohr. He mmed his fist against the armrest of his throne, the impact sending out a shockwave of energy that cracked the surrounding floor.
"How?!" he roared, his voiceced with a power that shook the very foundations of the pce. "How the fuck is that possible?"
He''d boasted to Qin Jiu about the vial''s temporal shifts, the safeguards he''d woven into its very existence, confident that no one, not even a God, could circumvent his measures. And he''d been right. No God in this universe could have touched that blood.
But Andohr hadn''t ounted for Don. The Ancient God, operating on a level of power that dwarfed even Andohr''s own, had simply¡ bypassed the safeguards. He''d wanted Michael to have that blood.
And even without Don''s intervention, Michael, with his damn Badass System and an endless supply of points to burn, could have probably brute-forced his way through Andohr''s carefully crafted defenses. But Andohr, blissfully unaware of the System''s existence, remained in the dark, his arrogance blinding him to the true scope of the threat he faced.
"Impossible," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "It''s¡ it''s impossible!"
He mmed his fist against the armrest of his throne again, the force of the blow sending another spiderweb of cracks across the obsidian surface. It wasn''t enough. Not even close. He wanted to scream, to rage, to unleash the full force of his power on something, anything, but even he couldn''t break thews of time and space enough to undo what had already been done.
"That goddamn Dark Lord¡" he snarled, his voiceced with a venomous fury that promised untold retribution.
"Salesi!" he roared, his voice echoing through the throne room like a thunderp. "Get Seraphene in here! Now! And tell her to get her ass to the mortal realm. I want to know where that goddamn Dark Lord fucker is hiding. Every move he makes, every breath he takes¡ I want to know about it!"
He paced back and forth, his shadow stretching and contorting across the floor, a reflection of the chaotic energy swirling within him.
"And send word to every domain in the realm of the Gods," he snarled. "The moment that bastard sets foot outside the mortal realm, I want to know about it,"
He stopped pacing, his gaze fixed on the shimmering portal that led to the old Pantheon''s meeting chamber. A cruel smile, cold and calcting, spread across his lips.
"And Salesi¡"
"Yes, Father?"
"Set up a meeting with Agra. It''s time we had a¡ chat." He chuckled, a low, chilling sound.
"I think the God of Chaos might be¡ interested in what the God of Darkness has been up to."
Chapter 1354 Harriet Hunts State
1354 Harriet Hunt''s State
"Yes, Father," Salesi said, her voice barely a whisper. She didn''t dare linger, not with Andohr in this state. She practically fled the throne room, leaving a trail of fear and uncertainty in her wake.
The moment the doors closed behind her, Andohr unleashed his fury.
He whirled on a nearby statue, a priceless depiction of some long-forgotten goddess, her serene features now mocking him with their calm indifference.
"Damn you!" he roared, his voice echoing through the empty throne room. "Damn you, Dark Lord! You think you can steal from me? You think you can defy me and get away with it?"
Heshed out, his hand crackling with temporal energy, striking the statue with a force that shattered it into a million pieces.
"You took the blood," he snarled, his voice dripping with venom. "But you won''t get away with it. I''ll find you. And when I do¡"
He trailed off, his eyes zing with a cold fury that promised a fate worse than death.
"You''ll beg for mercy,"
As he thought about the uing reckoning, a cruel smile twisted Andohr''s lips. He turned, striding towards a darkened corner of the throne room. Arge, ornate mirror, its surface as ck as obsidian, hung on the wall. With a casual wave of his hand, Andohr channeled his power. The mirror rippled, the darkness within its depths swirling and coalescing.
An image flickered into existence. A cage, woven from thorns that pulsed with a sickly green light, materialized within the mirror''s depths. And huddled within that cage, her body curled into a protective ball, was Diana.
Her clothes were torn, her skin marred with countless cuts and scratches, the thorns digging into her flesh with a viciousness that made even Andohr wince. But she didn''t cry out. She didn''t beg for mercy. Shey there, motionless, her eyes closed, her breath shallow and ragged.
The sight of her, broken and defeated, filled Andohr with a perverse sense of satisfaction.
"Soon, Harriet," he purred, his voice a low, menacing growl. "Soon, I will break you. And your screams¡ your screams will be a symphony of pain, a balm for my wounded pride."
He chuckled, a low, chilling sound, and the image in the mirror faded, leaving only the cold, empty reflection of his own cruel smile.
Andohr had been keeping Diana imprisoned for what felt like an eternity to her. But Andohr, the God of Time, had ways of making even a second feel like decades. He''d been slowly, meticulously breaking her, chipping away at her spirit and her sanity. He''d twisted her perception of time, stretched her memories until they were raw and bleeding, forced her to relive her worst nightmares over and over again.
He''d made her hallucinate, conjuring images of her loved ones suffering, dying, their screams echoing in her ears even when she knew, deep down, that it wasn''t real. He''d forced her to relive the pain of her past, the loss of her husband, the agony of being separated from her children, amplifying those emotions until they threatened to consume her.
And the thorns¡ oh, the thorns.
They were a constant torment, a living cage that tightened its grip with every beat of her heart. He''d imbued them with a sliver of his own temporal power, twisting their perception of time, so that even the slightest graze felt like an eternity of agony.
Diana was strong. Stronger than he''d anticipated. Her will, forged in the fires of loss and hardship, was a stubborn thing, refusing to breakpletely.
But that only made Andohr more determined.
He''d break her. He''d make her scream, make her beg for mercy, make her regret the day she''d ever crossed him.
His anger, instead of fading, only intensified with each passing moment. He wanted more. He wanted to see her crumble, wanted to hear her spirit shatter, wanted to savor her despair. He wanted to make her pay, not just for defying him, but for birthing the monster that was now threatening to unravel his carefully crafted ns.
To be honest, Andohr didn''t harbor any personal animosity towards Diana. She was just¡ coteral damage. A pawn in a muchrger game. If she''d been anyone else, he probably would have tossed her in a cell and forgotten about her.
But she was the God of Darkness''s mother.
And that made her a valuable tool. A weapon to be wielded, a pressure point to be exploited.
If the Dark Lord had a pet puppy, Andohr would have happily tortured that puppy too. It wasn''t about personal vengeance, not really. It was about power. Control. Sending a message.
And the message, in this case, was clear: You hurt me? I hurt yours.
He hadn''t forgotten the humiliation of being imprisoned within his own damn castle. Five thousand years. Five thousand years of staring at the same four walls, listening to the mocking whispers of his enemies, feeling his power dwindle with each passing day.
That kind of resentment, that kind of burning rage, didn''t just disappear. It festered. It grew. It twisted into something dark and vindictive.
And Diana, unfortunately for her, was the perfect outlet for Andohr''s pent-up fury.
As Andohr was lost in his sadistic musings, the doors to the throne room swung open again. This time, it was Seraphene, the Goddess of Information, and Salesi, who''d trailed behind her like a nervous shadow.
Seraphene, the first goddess to defect to Andohr''s side, was the epitome of calm and collected. Her dark eyes, sharp and intelligent, took in the scene before her¡ªthe shattered statue, the lingering crackle of temporal energy, the air thick with barely suppressed fury¡ªand a knowing smile touched her lips.
She understood.
The God of Darkness had a way of getting under Andohr''s skin, of pushing his buttons, of unraveling his carefully crafted facade of control. It was almost¡ amusing.
It had started with that damn prison break, centuries ago. The ease with which the young Michael had escaped Andohr''s meticulously crafted cage, the sheer audacity of his defiance, had left a mark on Andohr''s pride. And it seemed that every encounter since then, every sh of power, every twist of fate, had only served to deepen Andohr''s resentment.
The God of Darkness, whether intentionally or not, seemed to do everything in his power to piss Andohr off.
And Seraphene? She was more than happy to watch the show unfold.
Andohr, his patience already worn thin, didn''t waste time on pleasantries.
"Report," he snarled, his voiceced with barely suppressed fury. "How the hell did that bastard get the blood?"
Seraphene, unfazed by his outburst, simply raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Shouldn''t I be asking you that question?" she countered, her voice smooth as silk. "I seem to recall you boasting about how imprable your little vault was. How you''d personally woven temporal safeguards into its very fabric."
"I did secure it! It''s impossible for anyone to¡ª" Andohr''s jaw clenched.
"Clearly, it wasn''t impossible," Seraphene interrupted, her toneced with a hint of amusement.
Hearing her, it only pissed Andohr more.
"You''re the Goddess of Information, Seraphene. Don''t y coy with me."
"Information, yes," Seraphene retorted, her voiceced with a hint of steel. "Not omniscience. I can''t see everything, Andohr. And frankly," she added, her gaze hardening, "we can stand here bickering about what''s already done, or we can start figuring out what to do next."
Andohr, knowing she was right, took a deep breath, forcing himself to regain a semnce of control. He gestured towards the empty throne where Kranar had been sitting only moments before. "I was... about to make Kranar an offer. But that''s clearly not a priority anymore."
"And what about Agra?" Seraphene asked, her dark eyes watching him intently. "I heard you wanted to bring him into this little¡ endeavor?"
"I did. And I still do," Andohr nodded grimly.
Seraphene frowned. "Andohr, you know as well as I do that Agra is¡ unstable. Unpredictable. The self-proimed God of Chaos. Aligning ourselves with him¡ it''s not exactly a strategic masterpiece. He''s hated by the masses. Feared, even by most of the Pantheon. It''ll make us look¡ª"
"Desperate?" Andohr finished for her, a wry smile twisting his lips. "Perhaps. But desperate times, my dear Seraphene, call for desperate measures."
He leaned forward, his gaze intense.
"And besides, no one has to know we''re working with him. And to be honest, it''s not working with¡ it''s using."
"Using him how?"
"Think about it, Seraphene. The God of Darkness. The God of Chaos. What could be more¡ fitting? We just need to¡ nudge them in the right direction. Pit them against each other. Let them destroy each other while we¡ observe. And reap the benefits."
"And how exactly do you propose we¡ nudge them?" Seraphene asked, her skepticism evident in her voice. "And what ''benefits'' are we talking about, precisely?"
"Simple," Andohr purred, a cruel smile twisting his lips. "Agra''s¡ followers," he spat the word as if it tasted foul, "are a chaotic bunch. Bandits, hooligans, cultists¡ they terrorize the realm in his name. Spreading fear. Sowing discord. They''re a thorn in every god''s side."
He leaned forward, his gaze intense. "And the God of Darkness? Once he absorbs that blood, he''ll ascend. Be a Prime God. And you know what that means, don''t you?"
"Hmm," Seraphene nodded. Prime Gods could connect with their worshippers on a deeper level, draw upon their faith, their devotion, their very life force. It was how they grew in power, how they ascended to the highest echelons of godhood.
"Imagine, Seraphene, if Agra''s¡ disciples were to¡ focus their efforts. Target the God of Darkness''s followers. Disrupt his flow of worship energy. Make his life¡ unpleasant."
He chuckled, a low, chilling sound. "Agra doesn''t y by the rules, my dear. He ys dirty. And when the God of Darkness finds himself constantly harassed, his power base undermined, his followers living in fear¡ he''ll retaliate. It''s inevitable."
"And then?"
"And then¡ we watch. We let them tear each other apart. While we¡ focus on other matters," said Andohr.
"What other matters?"
"The Grimoire, Seraphene. Xyloth, Morbus and Fourcrux are making progress. Once those three fools figure out how to decipher its secrets¡ well, let''s just say we''ll have a more¡ permanent solution to the God of Darkness problem," Andohr grinned.
Chapter 1355 Meet The God Of Chaos, Agra
1355 Meet The God Of Chaos, Agra
"Get a message to Agra, Seraphene. Tell him I have a proposition for him. One that he won''t be able to refuse."
Seraphene tilted her head, a thoughtful frown creasing her brow. "Why not have Qin Jiu arrange the meeting? She''s already¡ close to him, isn''t she?"
Andohr let out a harsh bark ofughter. "Qin Jiu? That pathetic creature? She might have been a big deal in the mortal realm, but here? She''s nothing but Agra''s ything. A glorified concubine."
He shook his head, his lips curled in a sneer. "Don''t waste my time with such trivialities, Seraphene. Go and deliver my message."
A thousand years ago, when Qin Jiu had ascended to the realm of the Gods, she''d been full of ambition, her heart set on protecting the mortal realm from the encroaching darkness. Qin Jiu''s obsession with saving the mortal realm, her unwavering belief in her own destiny, had blinded her to the reality of the situation. She entered a lion''s den, thinking she could tame the beast. At first, Agra had been smitten by her beauty, her intelligence, her unwavering determination.
What had started as a passionate affair, a whirlwind of stolen kisses and whispered promises, had quickly devolved into something¡ toxic.
All Gods were a little unhinged, sure. Centuries, millennia of wielding unimaginable power, of being worshipped and feared, it tended to do that to a person.
But Agra¡Agra was a whole different breed of crazy.
The more power Agra umted, the more unstable he became. His moods were as unpredictable as the storms hemanded, his temper as vtile as a lightning strike. Even the other Gods avoided him, whispering tales of his erratic behavior, his penchant for cruelty, his¡ unhinged nature. He lived up to his self-proimed title of God of Chaos, wreaking havoc wherever he went, his actions often defying logic, reason, and even basic decency.
Qin Jiu, trapped in a gilded cage of her own making, had be his prisoner. His ything. A pawn to be used and discarded at his whim. She was still beautiful, still cunning, but the fire in her eyes had dimmed.
Thus, he wouldn''t trust Qin Jiu to deliver a message. She was too broken, too subservient. He needed someone¡ more capable, like Seraphene.
"You''re the Goddess of Information, Seraphene," Andohr said, his tone brooking no argument. "Set up a meeting with Agra. Can you do that?"
Serapheneughed, a low, melodic sound that held a hint of ¡ something. Worry? Amusement? It was hard to tell with her.
"Oh, I can set up the meeting," she said, her dark eyes twinkling. "The question is, can you handle Agra without losing your shit? Because that guy¡ he''s a whole new level of crazy, even for a god." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
She paused, her gaze turning thoughtful. "I hear he''s building¡ something. A Temple of Chaos, in his domain. Or rather," she added with a wry smile, "the domain he took from Ava."
"Ava?" Andohr frowned. "What happened to Ava? Where is that sanctimonious healer, anyway?"
"No one knows. Vanished. Poof. Even her healing angels haven''t a clue. She just¡ disappeared," Seraphene shrugged.
Andohr rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his gaze turning distant. "Ava¡ vanished, you say? Interesting."
"It is a bit strange, even for a goddess of healing," Seraphene agreed.
"Start looking for her, Seraphene," Andohr ordered, his voice taking on a harder edge. "I want to know where she is, what she''s up to. I''d rather have her on my side¡ or locked away in my dungeons¡ than running around loose, potentially falling in line with that Dark Lord bastard."
He''d seen it happen a thousand times before. Beautiful, powerful women, drawn to the allure of darkness, the promise of forbidden power. It was a clich¨¦, sure, but clich¨¦s existed for a reason. And in his experience, the God of Darkness was exactly the kind of asshole those types tended to fall for.
"Speaking of beautiful women¡" Andohr''s gaze sharpened. "What about Gaya? Any progress on tracking the Dark Lord''s¡ wife?"
"Last I heard, she''s holed up in Seshat''s domain. Under that bitch''s protection. My spies can''t get close, and Seshat isn''t exactly¡ forting with information." Seraphene sighed, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
****************************
Somewhere else, in the heart of what was once known as the Verdant Sanctuary, chaos reigned. Thend, once a haven of peace and healing, now bore the scars of Agra''s reign. Twisted trees wed at the sky, their branches gnarled and ckened. The air crackled with a dissonant energy, the scent of wildflowers reced by the acrid tang of sulfur and decay. At the center of this corrupted paradise, a monstrous structure was rising from the earth.The Temple of Chaos.A monument to Agra''s twisted vision, built with the blood and sweat of ves, a testament to his insatiable hunger for power. Men and women, their bodies emaciated, their eyes hollow with despair, hauled massive blocks of stone, their chains clinking a mournful rhythm against the scarred earth.Overseers, d in dark robes and with faces painted with white powder, their eyes glittering with a manic glee,cracked whips, theirughter echoing across the destendscape. "Faster, youzy dogs!" one of the overseers roared, his voice a guttural rasp.Heshed out with his whip, the leather tip connecting with a ve''s back, drawing a scream of pain that was quickly swallowed by the wind. "Agra demands obedience!Your suffering pleases him!"
Another overseer, his face contorted in a grotesque grin, grabbed a female ve by the hair, yanking her head back. "What a pretty little thing," he chuckled, his breath reeking of rot and stale wine. "Maybe Agra will favor you tonight.If you''re lucky."The woman whimpered, her eyes filled with a terror that spoke volumes. High above the chaos, in a tower that overlooked the construction site, Qin Jiu stood, her gaze fixed on the scene below. Her heart ached at the sight of the ves, their bodies broken, their spirits crushed under the weight of Agra''s tyranny.
She recognized many of them. Healers, once renowned for theirpassion and skill, their hands having soothed countless wounds and mended broken bodies. Now, they were reduced to ves, their white robes stained with dirt and blood, their eyes hollow with despair.
"This¡ this wasn''t how it was supposed to be," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.
When she''d first ascended to the realm of the Gods, she''d been full of hope, full of dreams. She''d believed that her power, her knowledge, her connection to the mortal realm, would make a difference.
She''d been so naive.
Agra, in his madness, had twisted everything she''d believed in, everything she''d fought for. He''d turned Ava''s sanctuary, her haven of healing, into a monument to chaos and despair.
And she¡ she was powerless to stop him.
As she was looking at the scene, suddenly a harsh, cacklingugh, like a hyena choking on a bone, echoed through the tower. Qin Jiu''s body tensed, a shiver of dread running down her spine.
She knew thatugh. Knew it all too well.
And when she turned her head, she saw him standing in the doorway.
Agra.
He was a sight to behold, in all his chaotic glory. His face was painted with a thickyer of white powder, his eyes highlighted with streaks of ck paint that made them seem even wilder, even more unhinged. He wore a robe of dark silk, its edges tattered and frayed, as if it had been wed by unseen beasts. His lips were smeared with a crimson paste that could have been blood or paint¡ªit was hard to tell with him¡ªand his wild, unkempt hair stood out in all directions as if he''d been struck by lightning.
"Qin Jiu, my love!" he called out, his voice a strange mix of honeyed charm and barely contained madness. "Where are you, my beautiful, brilliant queen?"
He bounced towards her, a manic gleam in his wild eyes. He grabbed her by the hem of her skirt, pulling her closer, hisughter grating on her nerves.
"Qin Jiu, my darling!" he eximed, his voice a high-pitched whine. "Tell me, tell me¡ how many ves died today?"
Qin Jiu, knowing resistance would only make things worse, let him manhandle her, her body stiff and unresponsive. She''d learned, through countless painful encounters, that the best way to survive Agra''s¡ episodes was to simply go along with his whims.
"Seven, my lord," she answered, her voice t, devoid of emotion.
Agra''sughter abruptly ceased, his eyes widening in mock disappointment.
"Seven measly souls? That''s an insult to chaos!" Agra shrieked, his grip tightening on Qin Jiu''s skirt, his painted face contorted in a grotesque mockery of a pout. "We need more¡ inspiration! More¡ fertilizer for the garden of chaos!"
He leaned closer, his breath hot and fetid on her face, his eyes glittering with a manic glee.
"Don''t worry, my love," he whispered, his voice a low, seductive purr that sent shivers down her spine. "Once I''m done¡ ying with you, I''ll teach thosezy bastards a lesson they won''t forget. I''ll make them understand the true meaning of chaos. I''ll rip their flesh, shatter their bones, and feast on their screams! It''ll be a symphony of pain, a masterpiece of suffering! And you, my darling," he added, his grip tightening on her arm, his nails digging into her flesh.
"You''ll have the best seat in the house."
************
But just as he was about to rip the fabric, the door to the chamber burst open. A scrawny young man, d in the same dark robes and white face paint as the other cultists, stumbled into the room, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and urgency. His face was smeared with dirt and sweat, and his breath came in ragged gasps, as if he''d run a mile.
Agra paused, his hand frozen in mid-air, a flicker of amusement crossing his manic features.
"Well, well, well," he drawled, his voice dripping with mock politeness. "What a pleasant surprise. To what do we owe the honor, my dear¡ what was your name again? Ah, never mind. Spit it out, boy. What''s so important that you''d dare interrupt my¡ quality time with my beloved Qin Jiu?"
The minion, his knees practically knocking together, stammered, "M-my Lord¡ a message¡ from Seraphene. She requests¡ no, demands¡ an audience with you. Andohr¡ he wishes to speak with you."
Agra''sughter boomed through the chamber, echoing off the stone walls.
"Andohr, Andohr¡" he mused, shaking his head. "Always scheming, that one. Thinks he can control everything, manipte everyone. What a pathetic little control freak." He grinned, a sh of sharp, pointed teeth.
"But... " he mused, tapping a finger against his chin, "perhaps a little chat with the God of Time wouldn''t be so bad. Especially if it annoys that sanctimonious bastard Zorian."
The minion, relieved that he''d delivered his message without incurring his master''s wrath, bowed deeply. "Thank you, my Lord. I will ry your message immediately."
He turned to leave, eager to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Agra''s chambers.
"Wait!" Agra called out, beckoning the minion closer with a crooked finger. "One more thing. Come closer, I have another message¡ for Seraphene."
The minion, his heart sinking, hesitantly approached.
When the minion came closer, Agra leaned in, his lips brushing against the minion''s ear. "Tell that bitch¡" And then, without warning, he grabbed the minion by the back of the head, pulling him close. He nted a wet, slobbery kiss on his lips. And then, with a burst of chaotic energy, he mmed the minion''s head against the wall.
The sound of cracking bone echoed through the tower, followed by a wet, gurgling scream that was cut short as the minion''s skull caved in. Agra continued to m the lifeless body against the wall, again and again, hisughter echoing through the room, each blow punctuated by a spray of blood and bone.
"Privacy, damn it!" he roared, his voice a mix of glee and manic fury. "My minions need to learn some goddamn decency!"
As Agra kicked the lifeless body of his minion, Qin Jiu watched with her stomach churning. Blood and bits of bone sttered across the floor, painting a gruesome tableau of chaos and violence. "Oops," Agra chuckled, wiping a stray bit of brain matter from his cheek with the back of his hand. "Looks like someone needd a little¡etiquette," Then, he turned towards Qin Jiu, his grin widening and his eyes gleaming with a manic energy that made her skin crawl. "Now, where were we?" he purred, taking a step towards her. "Ah, yes¡Andohr. I wonder what that pompous prick wants. To invite me to join his little rebellion?Or maybe he has something¡ juicier in mind."
He pped his hands together, the sound sharp and loud in the sudden silence.
"Either way, darling," he said, his voiceced with a gleeful anticipation, "things are about to get¡interesting. And I have a feeling¡ a *very* good feeling¡ that shit''s about to hit the fan."
Chapter 1356 Cliche that works everytime
1356 Cliche that works everytime
The minion scurried out of the room as fast as his legs could carry him. Agra, with a sigh of exaggerated boredom, turned his attention back to Qin Jiu. He bounced over to the bed, a king-sized monstrosity draped in silks and furs that looked more like a battlefield than a ce of rest, and flopped onto the mattress, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
He grabbed an apple from a nearby bowl¡ªit was bruised and half-rotten, but Agra didn''t seem to notice¡ªand took arge bite, juice dribbling down his chin and staining his already messy robe.
"Speaking of Gods," he mumbled between chews, "hear that the Dark Lord''s been busy. Killed his brother. Snuffed out the light in the mortal realm. Sounds like a real party."
He let out a bark ofughter, spraying bits of apple across the room.
"Gotta say, I''m a fan. Darkness and chaos¡ two sides of the same coin. We understand each other, that Dark Lord and I. More like brothers than he and that goody-two-shoes Noah ever were." He grinned at Qin Jiu, his eyes glittering with a manic gleam.
"And you, my love," he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "Looks like your little prophecy came true after all. All that messing around with time¡ all those grand ns to save the mortal realm¡ and you ended up helping the Dark Lord plunge it into darkness!"
He let out another roar ofughter, clutching his stomach as if he''d just heard the funniest joke in existence.
"But that''s what I love about you, Qin Jiu! You''re a walking paradox! A beautiful disaster! The perfectpanion for a God of Chaos!"
He leaned closer, his breath hot and smelly in her face.
"The thought of all that suffering¡ all that darkness¡ it''s like a continuous orgasm for my soul!"
After hearing Agra''s words, Qin Jiu swallowed hard, her stomach churning. She wanted to scream, to rage, to tell him how wrong he was, how his twisted vision of chaos had only brought pain and suffering. She wanted to travel back in time, to p some sense into her younger self, to warn her about the monster she was falling for.
But she held her tongue. Experience had taught her that arguing with Agra in his current state was like trying to reason with a rabid dog. It would only make things worse.
She remembered Agra, centuries ago, when he''d first swept her off her feet. He''d been wild, sure, but there was a charm to his madness, a spark of adventure that had ignited a fire in her own soul. He was handsome, in a rugged, untamed sort of way, and hisughter, though a bit too loud, a bit too¡ unhinged, had once made her heart skip a beat.
But time, and power, had twisted him. He''d be consumed by his own chaotic nature, addicted to the suffering of others and drowned in chaos juice.
And she¡ she was trapped in her own past mistakes.
The next day, at the crack of dawn, Agra swaggered into the designated meeting ground. It was a deste teau, a barren stretch of rock and scrub that straddled the border between two warring domains. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur and decay, the ground littered with the bones of long-dead creatures. A fittingly chaotic backdrop for a meeting between two of the most vtile gods in the realm.
Agra, predictably, had arrived in style. He''d materialized in a burst of lightning and shadow, hisughter echoing across the destendscape as he surveyed the scene with a manic grin.
"Andohr! You old bastard! Where are you hiding?" he roared, his voice booming across the teau.
There was no immediate answer. Only the sigh of the wind and the distant caw of a carrion bird.
Then, a faint shimmer, a ripple of disced air, caught Agra''s attention. He turned, his eyes narrowing, and saw a sight that made him chuckle.
An ornate, silver-framed mirror, its surface swirling with a hazy mist, had materialized out of thin air. And within its depths, a figure was taking shape.
Andohr, looking as smug and self-satisfied as ever, stared back at him with a cold smile.
"Agra," Andohr greeted, his voice smooth as silk but with an underlying current of steel. "You''ve finally graced me with your presence. I trust you received my message?"
He didn''t bother with pleasantries or small talk. He knew Agra''s temperament, the chaotic energy that simmered just beneath the surface, always threatening to erupt. Better to get straight to the point, to stroke the God of Chaos''s ego just enough to keep him¡ manageable.
Agra, however, was in a yful mood. He sauntered towards the mirror, his movements a strange mix of grace and manic energy, his eyes glittering with a mischievous light.
"Andohr, my old friend," he purred, his voiceced with a mocking charm. "Always a pleasure to see your¡ handsome face." He paused, tilting his head as if considering a particrly intriguing puzzle. "So, what brings you to this¡ delightful little corner of chaos? Couldn''t resist the allure of my¡ unique ambiance?" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Andohr, despite his irritation, maintained a cool fa?ade. Arrogance, he could handle. Insanity, on the other hand¡ that required a more delicate touch.
"I believe we have¡ mutual interests, Agra. Amon enemy."
"An enemy, you say?" Agra''sughter echoed across the deste teau, a harsh, discordant sound. "And who might this¡ enemy be?"
"The Dark Lord." Andohr''s gaze hardened. "He''s grown too powerful, too reckless. He''s a threat to us all."
Agra''sughter subsided, reced by a thoughtful frown. He picked at a scab on his cheek, flicking a bit of dried blood onto the dusty ground.
"The Dark Lord, huh?" He grinned, a sh of sharp, pointed teeth. "Yeah, he''s a real¡ firecracker, that one. I kinda like him."
"Like him?" Andohr''s eyebrow arched.
"Sure," Agra shrugged, his grin widening. "He stirs things up. Creates chaos. I''m a fan."
"A fan?" Andohr repeated, his toneced with disbelief. "He''s a threat to your power, just as he is to mine. He''s a force of destruction, a cancer that needs to be excised."
"Destruction? Chaos? Sounds like a Tuesday night to me," Agra cackled. "Don''t you ever get bored, Andohr? Always trying to control everything, keep everything neat and tidy. Where''s the fun in that?"
He paused, his gaze meeting Andohr''s, a flicker of something¡ calcting¡ dancing in his eyes. "But sure, I''m listening. What''s your proposition?"
"Tell me, Agra," Andohr began, his voice deceptively smooth, "what do you know about the God of Darkness?"
Agra threw back his head and let out a boomingugh. "That guy? He''s like a brother to me! Spreads chaos wherever he goes. Almost as good as me, butcks a certain¡ creativity."
"A brother, you say?" Andohr chuckled, a cold glint in his eyes. "That''s¡ touching. But what if I told you that your dear brother might be crossing paths with you soon? And when he does¡ well, you''ll need allies. Powerful allies. How about¡ we help each other out? Against amon enemy?"
Agra''sughter died in his throat, reced by a calcting gleam in his eyes.
"You think I''m stupid, Andohr?" he asked, his voice suddenly sharp. "I know the history between you two. Five thousand years, stuck in your own damn castle, weren''t you? Ironic, isn''t it? The God of Time and Space, trapped by¡ well, time and space."
He grinned, a cruel, mocking twist of his lips. "Yeah, you two are real close."
Andohr''s hand, hidden beneath the folds of his robe, clenched into a fist. He could feel the temporal energy crackling around him, a storm brewing beneath his skin. If he''d been at his full power, he would have ripped Agra apart, atom by atom, and then put him back together just to do it again.
But he wasn''t at his full power. And right now, he needed this unstable bastard''s help. He needed Agra''s chaos, his unpredictability, to make the Dark Lord''s life a living hell.
Because Andohr hated Michael, hated him with a burning passion that eclipsed even his own thirst for power. And he''d do anything, ally himself with anyone, to bring that arrogant bastard Dark Lord down.
On the other hand, Agra threw back his head and let out another boomingugh, reveling in the flicker of annoyance he''d sparked in Andohr''s carefully controlled gaze. He knew he was poking the bear, but damn, it was fun to watch the God of Time squirm.
What Agra didn''t realize was the depth of Andohr''s cunning. The God of Time and Space was a master maniptor, his mind abyrinth of schemes and counter-schemes, his ability to read and influence others, even Gods, honed to a razor''s edge.
"I''m the God of Chaos, Andohr, not the God of Stupidity," Agra continued, his voice taking on a mocking lilt. "I see what you''re trying to do. You want to pit me against the Dark Lord. Turn us into your little¡ ythings."
He shrugged, his grin widening. "But here''s the thing¡ I got no beef with the Dark Lord. He''s doing his thing, spreading a little darkness, shaking things up. Hell, I''m practically swimming in new worshippers, thanks to your little civil war. Life''s good. Why would I want to screw that up?"
He paused, his gaze turning thoughtful. "Besides, I hear the guy''s actually killed a God. Rainar, wasn''t it? Why the hell would I want to piss off someone who can actually off another god? I might be chaotic, Andohr, but I ain''t dumb."
However, Andohr''s smile didn''t falter. In fact, it widened, a predatory gleam entering his eyes. Agra''s insults, his mockery, had only fueled the fire of Andohr''s carefully crafted scheme. He''d initially nned to use Agra, tossing him a few scraps of power as a reward for his¡ services. But now¡ well, now Andohr had something far more satisfying in mind.
He threw back his head and let out augh, a low, chilling sound that echoed across the deste teau.
Agra blinked, his own manicughter dying in his throat.
"What the fuck¡?" he muttered, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"You misunderstand, my dear Agra," Andohr purred, his voice deceptively smooth. "I''m not here to pit you against the Dark Lord. I''m here to offer you¡ a gift."
"A gift?" Agra''s suspicion was evident in his voice.
"Think about it, Agra," Andohr continued, his voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. "That lovely little Temple of Chaos you''re building¡ the ves you''re using¡ they all belonged to Ava, didn''t they? The Goddess of Healing? Tell me, Agra¡ do you know about Ava''s¡ favorite angel? Fayeth, her name is. A beautiful, mortal woman. Devoted to her Goddess. And guess who crossed paths with her recently? Saved her from Rainar''s minions? Twice, in fact."
Andohr paused, letting the information sink in.
"I know, I know," he chuckled. "It''s a clich¨¦. The dark, brooding hero rescuing the beautiful, helpless damsel. But those clich¨¦s¡ they work, don''t they?"
"Get to the point, Andohr," Agra growled, his patience wearing thin.
"The point, my dear Agra, is this: Fayeth is going toe looking for her Goddess. For her people. She''lle to your domain, to the Verdant Sanctuary, to try and¡ well, heal the mess you''ve made. And what do you think will happen then? She''ll be your¡ guest. A hostage. And the Dark Lord? Once he absorbs that blood, he''ll ascend. Be a Prime God. And Prime Gods, my friend, they have a way of hearing their followers'' prayers. Especially the desperate ones."
Andohr leaned closer, his smile turning predatory.
"Imagine, Agra. Fayeth, praying for her savior. Praying for the Dark Lord. And he''lle, won''t he? To rescue his¡ damsel. To right a wrong. To bring chaos to your little paradise."
"You''re saying¡" Agra''s eyes widened, the pieces finally falling into ce.
"I''m saying," Andohr purred, his voice dripping with venomous sweetness, "that the Dark Lord is going toe knocking. And when he does¡ well, let''s just say your perfect little chaotic world is going to get¡ fucked."
Chapter 1357 Time for an upgrade
1357 Time for an upgrade
"What if I just¡ off the bitch?" Agra mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully while bouncing on the balls of his feet. "No witnesses. No prayers. Problem solved."
Andohr simply chuckled.
"Oh, he''ll figure it out, Agra. Kill her, keep her as a pet¡ hell, maybe even make her your new concubine, like you did with poor Qin Jiu over there. It doesn''t matter. The point is, the Dark Lord ising. Whether you like it or not."
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in.
"But¡ if you help me, Agra, I can give you something¡ you need."
Agra frowned, his brow furrowing. "And what the hell is that supposed to be?"
Andohr didn''t answer right away. He studied Agra, his gaze piercing, his mind dissecting the God of Chaos''s every thought, every insecurity, every buried desire. Andohr knew how to read people, how to exploit their weaknesses, how to twist their desires to his own advantage.
And Agra¡ well, Agra was an open book.
"Respect," Andohr said finally, his voice low and resonant.
Agra''s eyes narrowed. "Respect?"
"All this¡ chaos," Andohr continued, gesturing towards Agra''s mboyant attire, his manic energy, the aura of barely contained madness that surrounded him. "This¡ self-proimed title of God of Chaos¡ all these¡ theatrics¡ it''s all a desperate attempt to gain respect, isn''t it? To make people fear you. Because deep down, Agra, you know they don''t respect you. They fear you. And those are two very different things."
Agra''s hands clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white. He wanted to deny it, tosh out, to unleash a torrent of chaotic energy on this smug, maniptive bastard. But Andohr''s words¡ they struck a nerve. Because deep down, buried beneath theyers of madness and bravado, Agra knew he was right.
"Help me, Agra," Andohr said, his voice softening, taking on a conspiratorial tone. "Help me bring down the Dark Lord. And I will make sure¡ the entire realm¡ respects you. Truly respects you."
****************************
Meanwhile, after four days of agonizing transformation, Michael stirred. Then, finally, his eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes slowly.
He''d expected¡ well, he wasn''t sure what he''d expected. Some grand spectacle, maybe? Lightning strikes, dark clouds parting, a chorus of angels singing his praises¡ the kind of dramatic bullshit that usually apanied a major power-up in those cheesy fantasy novels he''d asionally read back on Earth.
But there was nothing like that.
The world looked¡ the same. The sky was still that impossibly vibrant blue, the sun still warm on his face, the air still sweet with the scent of wildflowers.
He sat up, stretching, and felt a series of satisfying pops and cracks along his spine. He felt¡ good. Stronger. More¡ connected.
But the real change, the one that truly mattered, wasn''t visible. It was a feeling, a sensation deep within him. Like a thousand, a million, a billion whispers, all converging on a single point.
The prayers of his worshippers.
He remembered the first time he''d entered the realm of the Gods. The cacophony of voices, the overwhelming flood of prayers and pleas from his worshippers¡ it had nearly driven him mad. He''d had to shut it out, to build a mental wall to block the noise, the sheer volume of it as unbearable as a thousand broken radio signals all trying to broadcast at once.
But this¡ this was different.
The voices were still there, a chorus of whispers, chants, and desperate pleas, but now¡ now they were clear. Distinct. He could pick out individual voices, understand their hopes, their fears, their pain. It was like listening to a symphony, each voice a different instrument, blending together in a melody that resonated deep within his soul.
"My Lord, protect us from the shadows."
"Dark One, grant us strength in these uncertain times."
"Oh, God of Darkness, avenge us! Strike down our enemies!"
"Please, my lord¡ heal my daughter. She''s all I have left."
He heard stories of hardship, of loss, of despair. He felt their faith, their desperation, their unwavering belief in his power. And it filled him with a sense of¡ responsibility.
As he listened to the symphony of voices, a familiar chime echoed in his mind.
[Congrattions, Host! You have achieved the Prime God Level! ]
[Worship Energy Cultivation ability fully unlocked. Passive cultivation initiated. ]
[The Passive cultivation rate is determined by the strength and number of your followers'' prayers. Answering prayers, spreading your legend, and performing acts of power that resonate with your divine domain will increase the rate of worship energy umtion.]
Michael grinned, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his lips.
"Well, well, well," he murmured, his voiceced with a newfound confidence. "Looks like things just got¡ interesting."
As he was absorbing the whispers, the pleas, the raw energy of their devotion, a notification chimed in his mind.
[Ding! The host has received 40 Worship Energy]
"Forty?" Michael frowned. "That''s it?"
[The current influx of Worship Energy is¡ minimal. Your prolonged absence from the Realm of Gods has resulted in a¡ decline in your followers'' faith. Many have turned to other deities for guidance and protection.]
[The system rmends that the host actively engage with their worshippers. Answer their prayers. Perform acts of power that resonate with your god domain. The more you spread your legend, the more your followers'' faith will grow, resulting in a significant increase in Worship Energy umtion.]
"So I gotta work for it, huh?" Michael mused, a slow grin spreading across his face. "No problem. I''ve never been afraid of a little hard work."
He remembered the Fayeth rescue mission. How he''d used Worship Energy to bypass Rainar''s security measures, to teleport past his guards, to disable the temple''s defenses. It had been a rush, a taste of raw power unlike anything he''d ever experienced.
Back then, he had even asked the System what else he could do with Worship Energy, what kind of cool shit it unlocked. The System''s answer had been cryptic, but memorable.
[You could eclipse the sun, Host]
Yeah, he understood why the Gods were so damn obsessed with this stuff. Why they''d start wars, manipte mortals, even betray each other, to get their hands on more worshippers, more power. In other words, Worship Energy was the ultimate currency in the realm of the Gods. "So basically," Michael muttered, "I gotta get out there and do some PR work. Show those bastards I''m still the baddest god in the universe,"
But before he could decide what to do next, a familiar figure materialized beside him.
"Don," Michael greeted, nodding in acknowledgment. "You''re back."
"I can sense¡ a change in you, Ghost," Don said, his gaze intense. "Subtle, but... significant."
Michael grinned. "Yeah, well¡ let''s just say those four days weren''t exactly a vacation."
Don nodded, then held out his hand. "It is time, I believe, for an¡ upgrade."
Michael''s brow furrowed. "An upgrade?"
"The shield I gave you, Ghost. It has served you well, but¡ it''s time for something¡ more."
Michael nced down at his left wrist, at the retractable shield that had saved his skin more times than he cared to count. It was a simple-looking device, a band of ck metal that looked more like a wristwatch than a piece of divine armor. But its unassuming appearance belied its true strength. The shield, when activated, could withstand blows that would have shattered mountains, could deflect attacks that would have vaporized lesser beings.
Buttely¡tely it had been showing its age. The smooth ck surface was marred with scratches and dents, testaments to battles fought and barely won. The enemies he was facing now¡ they were on a whole other level.
"Yeah," Michael sighed, running a thumb over a particrly nasty gouge in the metal. "It''s seen better days. Been meaning to get it looked at."
He looked back at Don. "And who better to give it a tune-up than the guy who built it in the first ce, right?"
With a soft click, he detached the shield from his wrist, tossing it to Don. The Ancient God caught it effortlessly, his gaze lingering on the device.
"Good design," Don murmured, turning the shield over in his hand. He pressed a button on the side, and the ck, round shield expanded outwards, revealing its full size.
"But¡ it''s time for something¡ stronger."
And with that, Don vanished.
"Wait, what the¡ª" Michael started, but the Ancient God was already gone, leaving Michael standing on the hilltop, staring at his empty hand.
"Stronger?" he muttered to himself, a mixture of frustration and anticipation swirling in his gut. "What the hell does that even mean?"
He paced back and forth, his curiosity piqued. What kind of upgrades could Don possibly make to his shield? Would it be bigger? More powerful? The possibilities were endless, and Michael, stuck in his immobile state, was itching to see what Don had cooked up.
Time seemed to stretch, each second an eternity as he waited. He watched the people of Everlight going about their daily lives, oblivious to the cosmic shenanigans happening on the hilltop above them. He saw children ying in the streets, merchants hawking their wares, lovers strolling hand-in-hand through the park. It was a peaceful, idyllic scene, a stark contrast to the chaos and violence of his own world.
And then, finally, Don reappeared.
"About time," Michael grumbled, his impatience evident in his voice. "What took you so long?" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Don didn''t answer. He simply held out the shield, its ck metal surface now gleaming with a faint, ethereal glow.
"Show me," Michael said, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.
Don, without a word, pressed a button on the side of the device.
Chapter 1358 End of Skyhall War Arc
1358 End of Skyhall War Arc
The shield that sprang forth from the device wasn''t the simple, round disc Michael was used to. This¡ this was something else.
It was still round, still ck as midnight, but the edges¡ the edges were lined with jagged des, sharp and menacing, like the teeth of a giant saw. The ck metal surface was now etched with awork of tiny runes, almost invisible to the naked eye but shimmering with a faint crimson light as they caught the sunlight.
"Holy shit," Michael breathed, his eyes widening in awe. The thing looked like it could cut through steel, let alone flesh and bone.
With a casual flick of his wrist, Don retracted the shield back into the device and held it out towards Michael.
"Try it on, Ghost."
Michael, his excitement mounting, took the device and strapped it onto his wrist. He pressed the button, and the ded shield snapped outwards, , the whirring sound of those razor-sharp edges spinning almost like a goddamn chainsaw, making his grin widen.
"Damn," he muttered, flexing his hand, testing the weight and feel of the upgraded shield. It felt¡ powerful. Dangerous.
"It is¡ enhanced," he said simply.
This was more like it.
With a flick of his wrist, he sent the shield flying. It shot through the air, rotating rapidly, a blur of ck metal and crimson light. It mmed into a distant tree, slicing through the thick trunk as if it were made of butter. The tree, severed cleanly in half, toppled to the ground with a heavy thud.
And then, as if guided by an invisible hand, the shield arced back towards Michael, returning to its housing on his wrist with a satisfying click.
"Now that''s what I''m talking about," Michael chuckled, his grin turning predatory. "Time to test this bad boy out on some real targets."
As he was examining the shield, running his fingers along its jagged edges, Don spoke.
"The shield¡ it is infused with my blood, Ghost. The runes¡ they will enhance its power."
"Enhance it how?" Michael asked, his curiosity piqued.
"It will¡ sever the connection between an Ancient Beast and its power source. If you use it correctly. Strategically. Combined with¡ other potent attacks."
Michael''s brow furrowed. "So, it''s like¡ a specialized weapon? For taking down those oversized lizards?"
Don nodded. "Think of it as¡ a tool. It will not win the battle for you, Ghost. But it will give you an edge. An advantage."
He paused, his gaze meeting Michael''s.
"Weapons¡ items¡ they are important, Ghost. But they are not the deciding factor in a battle against overwhelming power. Your mind is your most powerful weapon."
Michael nodded slowly, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. It was something he''d always believed, even back in his assassin days. He''d relied on his wits, his cunning, his ability to n and adapt, as much as he''d relied on his physical skills or his arsenal of weapons.
And the System¡ well, the System was just a tool. A powerful tool, sure, but a tool nheless.
It was his mind that determined the oue of any battle.
But as Michael was contemting Don''s advice, nodding along internally like a goddamn sage, the Ancient God caught him off guard.
Don''s gaze, usually distant and unreadable, sharpened, focusing on Michael with an intensity that made him shift ufortably.
"One more thing, Ghost."
"Yeah?"
Don took a deep breath, his expression¡ well, it was hard to tell with Don, but Michael could have sworn he saw a flicker of something¡ sympathy? Understanding? ¡ in those dark eyes.
"I''m¡ no stranger to¡plex family dynamics." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Michael frowned. Where the hell was this going?
"You don''t get to choose your family, Ghost. And¡ you don''t get to abandon them. You''re lucky to have a mother who would¡ die for you. Believe me, a mother''s love is the most powerful force in any universe."
Michael stared at him, his jaw ck. How¡ how did Don know? It was like he''d peered into Michael''s soul, witnessed firsthand the messy, painful history between him and Diana. He wanted to ask, to demand an exnation but before he could even process the implications of Don''s words, the Ancient God acted.
With a casual wave of his hand, a vortex of swirling colors and energy materialized behind Michael.
"Your time here is over, Ghost. Go. Deal with your¡ family matters. And be ready. The Omegas¡ they areing."
And then, without another word, without even a chance for Michael to say goodbye, Don shoved him into the vortex.
There was no warning, no gentle transition, just a sudden, jarring sense of discement, of being ripped from one reality and thrown headlong into another.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds, Michael was spat out of the vortex, dumped unceremoniously back into his own universe. Hended on his feet, stumbling slightly, his senses reeling from the abrupt transition.
He was back in the Skyhall pocket dimension, the familiar, oppressive atmosphere closing around him like a shroud. And the first thing that hit him was the smell.
Blood. Burnt flesh. Ozone. A goddamn symphony of carnage.
It wasn''t that he''d never noticed the smell before. It was just¡ after spending time in Don''s universe, with its fresh air and flowery scents¡ well, his own reality suddenly seemed a lot more¡ pungent.
"Damn, this ce reeks," he muttered, wrinkling his nose.
He knew, of course, that Don''s universe wasn''t all sunshine and roses. There were probably plenty of shitty, smelly ces there too. But right now, all he could think about was the stench of death that hung heavy in the air.
He nced around, taking in the scene. The battle was still raging, but the tide had clearly turned. His demon army, a relentless tide of ws and fangs, was tearing through the remnants of Skyhall''s forces. Dark army soldiers, their ck armor gleaming under the dim light of the artificial sky, were systematically dismantling the captured warships, their movements efficient, their expressions grim.
Lenora, a crimson blur against the backdrop of chaos, was overseeing the operation, herughter echoing through the carnage as she directed her troops with a mix of yful sadism and ruthless efficiency.
"Well," Michael chuckled, cracking his knuckles. "Looks like I missed all the fun."
***************************
An hour ago, just moments before Michael had vanished into the swirling vortex, Devdan made his move.
He''d watched, hidden beneath his invisibility spell, as the Dark Lord had systematically dismantled the Ancestors, his heart pounding with anticipation. The blood of an Ancient God... it was a prize beyond imagining. Power beyond his wildest dreams.
And now, it was within his grasp.
He''d seen Michael touch the vial, had seen the sh of light, the distortion of reality that had apanied his disappearance. And as soon as the Dark Lord was gone, Devdan had darted forward, his hand outstretched, his fingers itching to close around the prize.
But the moment he touched the vial, the world dissolved into a blinding kaleidoscope of colors and energy.
He''d triggered Andohr''s safeguard. The very one that had killed the arrogant fool, that ancestor who''d tried to im the blood for himself all those centuries ago.
"Shit!" Devdan cursed, his voice swallowed by the roaring vortex that had engulfed him. He was hurtling through time and space, a helpless passenger on a runaway train.
He saw shes of scenes, snippets of lives lived and lost, entire civilizations rising and falling in the blink of an eye. He felt the weight of millennia crushing down on him, the sheer vastness of time and space twisting his perception, warping his sanity.
"Stop this!" Devdan screamed, his voice raw with terror. "Let me out! I didn''t mean to¡ I just wanted¡"
His words were lost in the chaotic whirlwind, swallowed by the relentless torrent of time and space.
He felt his body begin to¡ change. His skin stretched and tore, his bones creaked and groaned under the strain of temporal distortion. He was growing younger, smaller, his carefully cultivated beard vanishing, his hard muscles softening, his once-powerful form shrinking until¡
He was a baby. A helpless, mewling infant, lost in the blinding chaos of the temporal vortex.
But the journey wasn''t over. The vortex continued to churn, time flowing in reverse, then forward again, then sideways, then¡ well, it was impossible to describe, a chaotic ballet of temporal shifts that defied all logic and reason.
He aged rapidly, his infant form transforming into a toddler, then a child, then a teenager, then a young man, the years shing by in a dizzying blur. His body ached, his mind screamed, and through it all, that cold, creeping madness continued to spread, twisting his thoughts, devouring his sanity.
"Fuck¡ make it¡ stop¡"
***************************
At present, back in the wreckedndscape of the pocket dimension, Michael grinned, taking a deep breath of the stale, blood-tinged air.
"Wonder what happened to that Devdan asshole," he mused, ncing around the battlefield. He''d known, from the moment the elf had cast that invisibility spell and created a duplicate, that Devdan was nning to follow him.
Hell, Michael had practically invited him to.
"Gotta have a backup n, right?" he''d chuckled to himself, as he''d pretended not to notice the sneaky little bastard trailing behind him.
Andohr, that maniptive son of a bitch, was always up to something. Michael had figured if there were any nasty surprises waiting for him in that vault, better to have someone else trigger them first.
He''d felt the ripple of temporal energy, the faint tug of the vortex, as Devdan had reached for the blood. And he''d known, with a grim certainty, that the elf was in for a very bad time.
"Gotta give the guy credit, though," Michael mused, shaking his head. "He almost pulled it off. Clever bastard. Too bad he picked the wrong guy to mess with."
He could only imagine what kind of temporal hell Andohr had unleashed on the poor elf. It probably wasn''t pretty.
"Well," Michael said with a shrug, turning his attention back to the carnage unfolding around him, "that''s what you get for trying to steal from the God of Darkness."
Chapter 1359 Immense Loot I
Chapter 1359 Immense Loot I
Michael chuckled, imagining the temporal hell Devdan was probably experiencing. Andohr, that sanctimonious prick, loved to y with time. Stretching it, twisting it, making people relive their worst nightmares over and over again¡
"Yeah, that''s gotta suck," Michael muttered, a cruel grin twisting his lips. He hoped the elf was suffering, hoped it was a thousand times worse than anything Michael could have inflicted on him. He hadn''t forgotten Thorfinn''s gleeful confession, hadn''t forgotten the thirty days of torture those bastards had inflicted on his mother.
He nced around the battlefield, his gaze searching for another familiar face.
"Where''s Erael, anyway?" he asked, his voice hardening.
She wasn''t among the captured soldiers, nor was she among the corpses that littered the ground. She''d vanished, slipped away while he was¡ elsewhere.
"Clever bitch," he muttered, a flicker of admiration mixing with his anger. "But she won''t hide for long."
He turned towards Lenora, who was approaching, a satisfied smirk on her bloodstained lips.
"Lenora," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Once we''re done stripping these Skyhall fools bare, I have a new¡ project for you."
"Oh?" Lenora purred, her crimson eyes gleaming with anticipation. "Do tell."
"Find Erael," Michael growled. "I don''t care where she''s hiding, I want her found. Skyhall''s gone. I''m the top dog in the mortal realm now. And when I get my hands on that bitch¡ she''ll wish she neverid a finger on my mother."
"Consider her¡ re-educated, my lord," Lenora chuckled, gesturing towards a pile of discarded Skyhall armor.
But just as she spoke, amotion erupted nearby. A group of Skyhall soldiers, their faces contorted with desperation,shed out, their hidden daggers shing in the dim light. They managed to catch a few of the dark army soldiers off guard, stabbing them before they could react. Then, with a shout and a surge of blue light, they activated a speed-enhancing spell, their forms blurring as they bolted towards the edge of the pocket dimension.
"Shit!" Lenora cursed, her hand darting towards the daggers sheathed at her hip. "Those bastards!" Sheunched herself after them, a crimson blur of fury.
"Hold on," Michael said, a hint of amusement in his voice. "Let''s see what this bad boy can do."
He held up his left wrist, the upgraded shield gleaming in the dim light.
"Time for a test drive."
With a flick of his wrist, the shield detached, its jagged des spinning with a whirring sound that echoed the growl of a hungry beast. The air crackled with dark energy as he channeled his power, aiming the shield at the fleeing soldiers.
"Sayonara, suckers," he muttered,unching the shield with a flick of his wrist.
It shot through the air, a blur of ck metal and crimson light, the whirring of its des growing louder, more menacing, as it closed the distance.
The Skyhall soldiers, their backs turned, didn''t even have time to scream.
The shield sliced through them, cleaving their bodies cleanly in half, the force of the impact sending a spray of blood and viscera across the battlefield. Severed limbs, still twitching, tumbled through the air,nding with sickening thuds on the ground. The air filled with the stench of blood and the gut-wrenching cries of those who''d been spared a swift death.
"Holy shit," one of the dark army soldiers whispered, his eyes wide with awe.
Lenora, who''d stopped in her tracks, stared at the carnage, her jaw ck.
"Damn, boss," she breathed, "that''s¡ efficient."
The shield, its bloody work done, arced gracefully back towards Michael, returning to its housing on his wrist with a soft click.
"Damn, boss," Lenora whistled, her crimson eyes fixed on the shield as it slotted back into ce on Michael''s wrist. "That little toy of yours got a serious facelift. Looks like someone''s been hanging out with the cool kids."
She grinned, a predatory gleam in her eyes. "I''m liking this new upgrade. Way more¡ persuasive than the old one."
Michael chuckled, flexing his hand, enjoying the weight of the shield on his wrist. "Yeah, it''s got a bit more¡ bite to it now." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
He nced around the battlefield, at the piles of confiscated weapons and armor, the shattered remnants of Skyhall''s fleet, the terrified faces of the surviving soldiers.
"So," he said, turning to Lenora, "how''s the looting going? Those Skyhall bastards must have been hoarding a fortune in those pces of theirs."
"Oh, we''re just getting started," Lenora purred, her smile widening. "The boys are having a field day. Stripping those pompous asses bare, taking everything that isn''t nailed down. We''ve already finished cataloging the loot from that pce over there," she said, gesturing towards a smaller, but still impressive, floating structure nearby. "Why don''t youe take a look? I think you''ll be pleased with what we''ve found."
"Lead the way," Michael said, following Lenora towards the smaller pce.
"This one''s called the Azure Citadel, ording to those Skyhall snobs we¡ questioned," Lenora exined, a wicked gleam in her eye.
She pushed open the massive, ornate doors, and they stepped inside. The Azure Citadel, while not as grand as the Obsidian Pce, was still a sight to behold. The walls were lined with tapestries depicting scenes of heroic battles and celestialndscapes. The floors were polished marble, iid with intricate patterns of gold and silver. And the air, unlike the battlefield outside, was surprisingly fresh, scented with exotic flowers and incense.
A dozen or so dark army soldiers, their ck armor gleaming in the soft light that filtered through the arched windows, were busy sorting through piles of loot. Gems glittered in open chests, weapons gleamed on disy racks, and scrolls, their parchment yellowed with age,y scattered across a massive oak table.
"Damn," Michael whistled, his eyes widening in appreciation. "Looks like those Skyhall bastards were even richer than I thought."
"They were hoarding a king''s ransom in this ce," Lenora chuckled, gesturing towards a pile of gold coins that reached nearly to the ceiling. "Gems, enchanted weapons, rare herbs¡ you name it, they got it."
"And those scrolls?" Michael asked, his gaze lingering on the table.
"Looks like a bunch of boring historical records, mostly. But," she added with a wink, "there might be a few¡ interesting spells hidden in there. Something to keep our warlocks upied."
"Nice," Michael grinned. "Looks like we''re gonna be set for a while.
Just as Michael was about to dive headfirst into the pile of loot, a familiar voice called out from the doorway.
"Looks like I missed all the fun," Elidyr said, stepping into the Azure Citadel. He nced around the room, taking in the scene with a raised eyebrow. "You guys weren''t kidding about the loot, huh?"
"Elidyr," Michael greeted, turning towards his friend with a grin. "Good to see you in one piece. How''d the rescue mission go? Everyone safe?"
"Jasmine''s soul is secure," Elidyr confirmed, nodding. "Back at the Dark Castle, along with¡ Rowena." His voice faltered slightly as he mentioned her name, a shadow passing over his usually bright features.
"Trista and Saber are keeping watch. They''ll make sure nothing happens to her."
"Good," Michael said, relieved. He hadn''t forgotten thest time he''d seen his sister, the raw pain and betrayal in her eyes. He''d deal with that¡ mess¡ter. Right now, there were more pressing matters at hand.
Like mountains of loot.
"The others?" Michael asked, gesturing towards the chaos still raging outside. "How''s the mop-up operation going in the mortal realm?"
"The Skyhall remnants are scattered, disorganized," Elidyr reported. "Our guys are rounding them up, dealing with any¡ resistance."
His gaze shifted to the piles of treasure glittering under the soft light of the pce. "Looks like we''ll be needing a bigger vault," he chuckled, joining Michael and Lenora as they approached the tableden with scrolls and artifacts.
But as Elidyr drew closer to the loot, a shadow fell over his face. The closer he got, the more those unlocked memories, the horrific visions of Skyhall''s atrocities, rose to the surface. He recognized some of the artifacts, the intricate craftsmanship, the specific styles... They were from Elven ns, Dwarven kingdoms, human cities¡ ces he''d seen destroyed, razed to the ground by the Celestial Cannon.
His Celestial Cannon. The weapon he''d created, the one that Skyhall had twisted and used to inflict so much pain and suffering.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, his hand instinctively reaching for the burn scars that marred his face, a constant reminder of Skyhall''s betrayal.
"Elidyr?" Michael asked, noticing the shift in his friend''s demeanor. "You okay?"
Elidyr forced a smile, but it didn''t reach his eyes.
"Yeah, just¡ a lot to process, you know?" He gestured towards the loot, his voice heavy with a sadness that Michael had rarely heard from him. "All this¡ it was taken. Stolen. From people¡ from ces¡ that are gone now. Because of me. Because of what I helped create."
He looked at Michael, his gaze searching, his voice a low, haunted whisper.
"Will those wounds¡ the wounds I helped inflict¡ will they ever truly heal?"
Michael pped a hand on Elidyr''s shoulder, his gaze understanding. "They''ll heal, Elidyr. The wounds, I mean. Time¡ time heals all wounds. But the scars¡ yeah, those might stick around. But that''s not a bad thing, you know?"
He squeezed Elidyr''s shoulder reassuringly. "Those scars¡ they''re reminders. Of the mistakes we''ve made. And we all make mistakes, Elidyr. The important thing is that we learn from them. That we make damn sure we don''t repeat them. That we stop anyone else from making the same mistakes."
Elidyr''s shoulders slumped slightly, as if a weight had been lifted from them. He nodded slowly, a flicker of hope returning to his eyes.
"Yeah," he murmured, ncing back at the loot, his gaze lingering on a beautifully crafted elven bow that he recognized from one of the fallen ns. "You''re right. They''re¡ reminders. A chance to¡ to do better. To build something¡ something new."
He looked at Michael, a genuine smile finally breaking through the shadows that had haunted him.
"A new beginning."
Chapter 1360 Immense Loot II (Took a week off due to Brothers Wedding)
1360 Immense Loot II (Took a week off due to Brother''s Wedding)
As the three of them stood there, lost in contemtion, a dark army soldier approached. He was older than most of the others, his hair a distinguished silver gray, neatlybed and pulled back into a tight bun. He carried himself with an air of quiet efficiency, a stark contrast to the chaotic energy that still crackled around the battlefield outside.
He stopped before Michael, snapping a crisp salute.
"My lord," he said, his voice clear and respectful. "We have finished cataloging the loot from this... Azure Citadel, as those Skyhall folks called it." He unrolled a parchment, revealing a meticulously detailed list of items, numbers, and valuations.
"We have recovered¡ approximately thirty-two million gold coins," he reported, his voice betraying no hint of excitement, as if reciting the daily weather report. "In addition, we have¡ twelve chests of precious gems, including rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. We''ve also recovered a significant number of enchanted weapons, armor, and¡ well, sir, it''s quite a lot. The Skyhall folks seemed to have a¡ fondness for shiny things." He cleared his throat, consulting the parchment again. "We have also uncovered a library containing several thousand scrolls and books, some of which appear to be¡ quite ancient."
"Thirty-two million, huh?" Michael whistled, his eyes gleaming with amusement. "Not a bad haul for a day''s work."
Lenora, ever the pragmatist, chuckled. "And that''s just one pce, boss. Imagine what we''ll find in the others." She ran a hand over a jewel-encrusted dagger, her fingers lingering on its sharp edge. "Looks like retirement''s looking pretty damn good right about now."
As they were admiring the spoils of war, another dark army soldier hurried into the room. He was younger than the first, his armor still bearing the fresh stains of battle, his face pale beneath his helmet. He carried a thick, leather-bound parchment, its edges frayed, its surface covered in faded ink.
"My lord," he said, his voice a hushed whisper, "you¡ you need to see this."
He held out the parchment towards Michael, his hand trembling slightly. There was a look of¡ fear¡ in his eyes, a raw, primal terror that Michael had rarely seen in his soldiers.
Michael, sensing something was wrong, took the parchment, his gaze skimming over the faded script.
"What is it, boss?" Lenora asked, peering over Michael''s shoulder.
"Code Red," Michael muttered, his brow furrowing as he read the ancient text. "Looks like those Skyhall bastards had a¡ contingency n. In case of¡ well, this."
"Shit," he breathed, his voice barely audible.
Lenora, reading over his shoulder, felt a chill run down her spine. The words on the parchment, written in anguage that predated even the oldest of the Ancestors, were stark, chilling.
In the event of Skyhall''s fall, the Code Red protocol is to be initiated.
"Code Red?" Elidyr frowned, his brow furrowing. "They had a n for¡ their own defeat? What kind of n?"
"Those Skyhall bastards always had a contingency for every damn thing," he muttered, shaking his head. "They were obsessed with control, with nning for every possible oue."
Michael, however, simply chuckled.
"Let theme," he said, his voiceced with a predatory amusement. "It''ll be¡ entertaining. Besides," he added with a shrug, "the army needs to stay sharp. Been getting a little toofortable around heretely. A bit of¡ motivation wouldn''t hurt."
He tossed the parchment onto the table, his gaze shifting towards Lenora.
"You mentioned a library?" he asked, a predatory gleam in his eyes. "Lead the way."
"Right this way, boss," Lenora said with a smirk, leading the way out of the treasure room and deeper into the Azure Citadel. They navigated a maze of winding corridors, passed grand halls hung with faded tapestries, and climbed a spiraling staircase of polished marble. The air grew colder, the scent of incense reced by the musty smell of aged parchment and ancient magic.
Finally, they reached a set of imposing double doors, crafted from dark wood and etched with arcane symbols.
"Here we are," Lenora announced, pushing the doors open with a dramatic flourish.
The library was a vast, circr chamber, its high ceiling lost in shadows. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, crammed with thousands of scrolls, books, and tablets, their surfaces covered in faded ink and cryptic symbols. The air was thick with the scent of dust and decay, the silence broken only by the soft rustling of parchment as a few stray drafts stirred the air.
In the center of the room, two golems, their bodies sculpted from obsidian and their eyes burning with an eerie green light, stood guard. They were imposing figures, their limbs thick and powerful, their faces etched with expressions of eternal vignce.
"Don''t worry about those guys," Michael chuckled, cracking his knuckles. "They''re just here for show."
He raised a hand, his fingers crackling with icy energy. A wave of Frostbite washed over the golems, encasing them in ayer of frost. They froze mid-step, their obsidian bodies now gleaming with ayer of ice that glittered ominously in the dim light.
Michael approached one of the frozen golems, a predatory grin spreading across his face.
"Time to cool down, buddy."
He drew back his fist, his knuckles crackling with dark energy, and mmed it into the golem''s chest. The impact echoed through the silent library, a sharp crack that sent shards of obsidian and ice flying in all directions. The golem, its frozen form shattering under the force of the blow, copsed into a pile of rubble.
He repeated the process with the other golem, its destruction just as swift, just as brutal.
"Now," Michael said, dusting off his hands, his gaze sweeping across the library, "let''s see what secrets these Skyhall bastards were trying to hide."
Michael, Lenora, and Elidyr stepped into the library, their boots echoing on the stone floor. The dark army soldiers, their gazes hungry, lingered near the entrance, their fingers twitching as if yearning to reach out and touch the ancient scrolls.
"My lord," one of the soldiers asked tentatively, "would it¡ would it be permissible for us to¡ peruse the contents of this library?"
Michael chuckled, a genuine smile spreading across his face.
"Go nuts, boys," he said with a wave of his hand. "This is our library now. Learn everything you can."
He wasn''t a hoarder like those Skyhall bastards. He didn''t see knowledge as something to be locked away, guarded jealously, used only for his own benefit. He''d learned, the hard way, that power was meaningless without the loyalty of those who wielded it. And knowledge¡ knowledge was power.
He wanted his army to be the best. The strongest. The most knowledgeable. The more they learned, the more they grew, the better equipped they would be to face the challenges thaty ahead. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Because Michael knew, deep down, that the war with Skyhall¡ it was just a warm-up. A prelude to something far greater, far more dangerous.
The war with the Gods was inevitable.
And he needed his army ready.
"But first," Michael announced, pping his hands together, "we celebrate! We''ve earned it, damn it. Skyhall''s gone, we''re swimming in loot, and it''s time to raise a few sses to the God of Darkness!"
He grinned at Lenora and Elidyr, who were both looking at him with a mixture of surprise and amusement.
"A celebration, boss? Now? Don''t we have¡ you know¡ bigger things to worry about?" Lenora asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
"There''s always something to worry about," Michael countered. "Andohr, the other Gods, the wars¡ it''s never going to end. We''ve been through hell, all of us. We deserve a little fun, a little¡ release. Before we dive headfirst into the next shitstorm."
He paused, his gaze softening as he looked at Elidyr, who was still carrying the weight of his past, the scars of his mistakes, etched onto his face.
"Besides, a little celebration might do us all some good," he added, a hint of understanding in his voice.
"Alright, boss," Lenora chuckled, throwing her hands up in defeat. "You''re the God of Darkness. You call the shots."
"Let''s loot these pces, then we party!" Michael grinned, his eyes gleaming with mischief.
But before they could make ns for their victory bash, Elidyr, who had been browsing the shelves, let out a low whistle.
"My lord, check this out," he said, approaching them with a thick, leather-bound tome in his hands. The book''s cover was dark, almost ck, and etched with strange symbols that seemed to writhe and shift under his fingertips.
"Found this tucked away in one of the back shelves. Looks like¡ some kind of necromancy manual. Lots of juicy rituals and spells." He grinned, flipping through the pages.
"Some of these¡ these could be pretty damn useful."
"Nice find, Elidyr," Michael said, taking the book from him. The leather cover felt dry and brittle beneath his fingertips, the pages stiff and yellowed with age. He handled the book with care, instinctively knowing that even a little too much force could cause it to crumble into dust.
But its age, its fragility, was also what intrigued him. This book, hidden away in the depths of Skyhall''s library, held secrets, knowledge that had been lost for centuries, perhaps even millennia. He carefully flipped through the pages, his gaze scanning the faded ink, the intricate diagrams, the arcane symbols that seemed to writhe and twist on the parchment.
Some of the spells were¡ basic. Run-of-the-mill necromancy stuff. Raising skeletons, summoning ghouls, animating corpses¡ useful, sure, but nothing groundbreaking.
But as he delved deeper, the spells grew moreplex, more powerful, more¡ forbidden. There were rituals for binding souls, for manipting the fabric of life and death, for tapping into the raw power of the afterlife.
One spell, in particr, caught his eye.
Transference of Consciousness.
It described a ritual that allowed the caster to temporarily transfer their consciousness into multiple bodies, controlling them as if they were their own. It wasn''t a permanent transfer, like his Project Phoenix, which was more of ast-resort, soul-shuttling safety in case his main body was destroyed. This was something else. A way to extend his awareness, to experience the world through multiple sets of eyes, to control multiple bodies simultaneously.
"This¡" Michael muttered, tracing the outline of the spell diagram with his finger. "This could be¡ interesting."
A slow grin spread across his face.
This spell, this little hidden gem of necromantic knowledge, could be a game-changer. An ace up his sleeve. A way to surprise his enemies, to outmaneuver them, to strike from multiple angles at once.
The possibilities were¡ intriguing.
The more Michael read about the Transference of Consciousness spell, the more excited he got. He could already picture the possibilities.
Imagine infiltrating a heavily guarded fortress, bypassing all those fancy wards and magical defenses¡ by simply slipping into the minds of the guards themselves. He could walk right through the front gate, gather intel, maybe even sabotage a few key defenses, all without anyone being the wiser.
He had his Spyders, of course. And his drones. Little mechanical eyes and ears he could send out to scout ahead, to gather information. But he knew, with a sinking certainty, that those wouldn''t be enough in the realm of the Gods. Those gods were old, powerful, and paranoid as hell. They''d have defenses against that kind of tech, magical countermeasures that would fry his gadgets before they even got close.
But this spell¡ this was a whole new level of espionage.
No need for fancy gadgets, no risk of detection¡ just a little bit of necromantic know-how and a willingness to get up close and personal with the enemy''s minds.
"Damn," Michael muttered, a slow grin spreading across his face. "This is¡ fucking awesome."
Chapter 1361 Meeting Lailah Alden After So Long
1361 Meeting Lah Alden After So Long
Michael closed the ancient tome, a predatory gleam in his eyes. This library, this entire pocket dimension¡ it was a treasure trove of knowledge, of power waiting to be unlocked. And he was just getting started.
"Lenora," he said, turning to his trusted lieutenant, "change of ns. We''re not taking this stuff back to the Dark Castle. It''s too much, and it''ll take forever to move it all." He gestured towards the library, the piles of loot, the sprawling pce itself. "We''re taking over this whole damn dimension."
Lenora raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Take it over, boss? What do you mean?"
"I mean¡ it''s ours now. This whole ce. The pces, the libraries, the whole shebang. We''ll set up outposts, secure the perimeter, make it an extension of the Dark Castle."
He knew it wouldn''t be easy. There were bound to be hidden traps, magical defenses, maybe even a few pissed-off ghosts lurking in the shadows. But he wasn''t worried. He had an army, a growing stockpile of magical weapons, and a newfound understanding of necromancy.
And a whole lot of badass points burning a hole in his metaphorical pocket.
"Time to turn this ce into a fortress," he muttered, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "A fortress for the God of Darkness."
As Michael started to walk away, his mind already buzzing with ns for his new Skyhall annex, Elidyr''s voice stopped him.
"My Lord," he asked, his brow furrowed, "what about Mazeroth? The students? And¡ Harry? Lah?"
Michael paused, his hand hovering over an ancient scroll that looked particrly¡ explodey. He took a deep breath, a shadow of uncertainty crossing his face.
Damn. He''d almost forgotten about them.
Lah and Harry¡ they were safe now, at least from Skyhall. And technically¡ they coulde live in the Dark Castle. Harry could could be his son.
The thought sent a strange mix of warmth and apprehension through him.
He could already picture Gaya''s reaction. And it wasn''t pretty. She wasn''t some docile, subservient harem member, waiting patiently for her turn in his bed. She was the goddamn Dark Queen. Powerful, possessive, and fiercely loyal¡ to him, and him alone.
The thought of a harem, of multiple women vying for his attention, made Michael shudder. It wasn''t his style. He wasn''t built for that kind of drama.
But Harry¡ Harry was innocent. He''d done nothing wrong. And Michael, despite his ownplicated feelings about family, couldn''t bring himself to punish the boy for the sins of his father. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"They''re safe at Mazeroth," Michael said finally, turning back to Elidyr, his voice firm. "For now. We''ll¡ figure things out. Once Harry''s finished his education. It''s not the right time¡ for this conversation."
There were too many variables, too many unknowns. The prophecy, the Omegas, Andohr¡ and Gaya.
He needed time. Time to think, to n, to¡ prepare for the shitstorm that was about to hit.
Watching the exchange between Michael and Elidyr, Lenora couldn''t help but let out a low chuckle.
"Wife troubles, boss?" she teased, a sly grin spreading across her lips.
Even the mighty God of Darkness, it seemed, wasn''t immune to a little¡ domestic drama. And honestly, she didn''t me him. Gaya was a force of nature. A whirlwind of chaos and destruction wrapped up in a package of dark silk and leather.
The thought of Gaya and Lah trying to coexist under the same roof¡ Lenora shuddered. It would be a disaster of epic proportions. Like mixing oil and water, or fire and gasoline.
Lah was¡ serene. Graceful. A quiet melody in a world of discord.
Gaya was a symphony of destruction. A cacophony of curses,ughter, and blood. She could charm you one minute and gut you the next, and she''d probablyugh while doing it.
Yeah, Lenora understood Michael''s decision to postpone that particr conversation. Some problems were better left¡ unaddressed. At least for now.
"Come on, boys," she said, pping her hands together. "Let''s go check out those books. I''m feeling¡ educational."
Eventually, after hours of sorting, cataloging, and arguing over who got to keep the jeweled skull goblet which Lenora won, the Azure Citadel was secure. Lenora, ever the efficient lieutenant, summoned the rest of Michael''s subordinates, dispatching them to the various floating pces with a list of priorities and a clear set of instructions.
"Loot everything. Secure the perimeter. And for God''s sake, don''t break anything¡ too valuable."
Michael, leaving Lenora to oversee the operation, decided it was time for a change of scenery. He had unfinished business to attend to, conversations to be had, and a certain young¡ son, he needed to check on.
He stepped back into the portal, the swirling colors and energies washing over him, carrying him back to the familiar world of Mazeroth.
He reappeared above the academy, hovering in the air like a dark avenging angel.
The academy, bathed in the soft glow of the starry sky, looked¡ peaceful. Magical. It was a sprawlingplex of towers and turrets, its walls crafted from ancient stone, its windows glowing with a warm, inviting light. Gargoyles, frozen in grotesque poses, perched on the rooftops, their shadows stretching across the manicuredwns. A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves of the surrounding forest, carrying with it the faint scent of pine and magic.
22:01
The academy, bathed in the soft glow of the starry sky, looked¡ peaceful. Magical. It was a sprawlingplex of towers and turrets, its walls crafted from ancient stone, its windows glowing with a warm, inviting light. Gargoyles, frozen in grotesque poses, perched on the rooftops, their shadows stretching across the manicuredwns. A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves of the surrounding forest, carrying with it the faint scent of pine and magic.
It was a stark contrast to the chaotic battlefield he''d just left behind.
As he watched, four figures approached him, soaring through the air with a grace that spoke of years of training and mastery over their powers. Wulfric, his silver hair gleaming in the moonlight, led the way, his expression a mixture of concern and relief. Beside him, Ka, her emerald eyes glowing with a warmth that belied her usual stoic demeanor, kept a watchful eye on Michael.
And behind them¡ Harry and his friends.
Taking a deep breath, Michael allowed himself to descend,nding softly on the frontwn of the academy.
The moment Michael''s boots touched the ground, Wulfric felt a shift in the air, a subtle easing of the tension that had gripped the mortal realm for centuries. It was over. Skyhall, that bastion of arrogance and hypocrisy, was finally gone.
But a part of him, a part that had witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the endless cycle of chaos and order, knew that this victory was only a temporary respite. The void left behind by Skyhall wouldn''t remain empty for long. New powers would rise, new threats would emerge, and the mortal realm, already plunged into darkness, would face even greater challenges.
He had faith in Michael, in the young God of Darkness who''d defied destiny and carved his own path. But even faith couldn''tpletely erase the worry that gnawed at the edges of his mind.
After all, every sunrise is followed by a sunset. And every darkness, no matter how deep, eventually gives way to light.
But before Wulfric could voice his concerns, a smaller figure stepped forward. Harry, his eyes wide with a mixture of hope and trepidation, looked up at Michael.
"Is it¡ is it over, Dad?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Michael nodded, a gentle smile softening his features.
"It''s over, Harry."
A silence fell over the group, the weight of those words hanging heavy in the air. Even though harry and his friends knew it was over, they still needed a moment to process the magnitude of what they''d heard.
The era of Skyhall was gone.
And the reign of the God of Darkness¡ had just begun.
Finally, It was Thrian, Harry''s dwarven friend, who broke the silence.
"So¡ what happens now?" he asked, his gaze shifting between Michael and the towering facade of the academy behind him. "What about¡ all of this? Mazeroth? All the¡ stuff Skyhall used to control?"
Thrian like others had assumed the Dark Lord would dismantle Mazeroth. It made sense, from a strategic standpoint. The academy, with its ties to Skyhall, its lingering loyalties, its potential to breed future rebels¡ it was a threat. A loose end.
But Michael surprised them all.
"Mazeroth," he said, his voice calm, even, "will continue to operate as it always has. I have no intention of¡ meddling in its affairs."
He met their gazes, one by one, his expression unreadable.
"It''s¡ your academy now. Run it as you see fit."
The simplicity of his answer, its unexpected generosity, left them speechless.
Michael knew that trying to control Mazeroth, to impose his will on the academy, would be a mistake. It would only fuel the resentment, the anger, the sense of loss that many of the students, especially those still loyal to Skyhall, were feeling. It would turn them into rebels, into thorns in his side, before he''d even had a chance to consolidate his power.
No, it was better to let them have their autonomy. To give them the illusion of freedom. It would buy him time, allow him to focus on more pressing matters. And besides, he could always¡ keep an eye on things. Make sure they didn''t get¡ out of hand. Of course, that was something they didn''t need to know.
But as Michael finished speaking, a new figure emerged from the shadowy doorway of the academy.
"Ghost"
The voice, soft yet clear, a melody in the stillness of the night, cut through the air, stopping Michael mid-sentence. He froze, his body stiffening since he knew that voice.
Slowly, his heart pounding in his chest, he turned to face Lah Alden, the Wielder of Angel Veena.
The inevitable conversation¡ the one he''d been dreading¡ had arrived. And it seemed fate, or perhaps just really shitty timing, had decided to fast-forward the whole damn thing.
Chapter 1362 Grace of Ava and Trickery of Rin
1362 Grace of Ava and Trickery of Rin
Michael turned, his heart pounding in his chest, bracing himself for¡ well, he wasn''t sure what. Tears? usations? A p across the face? He did not know. But as his gazended on Lah, he froze, a wave of surprise washing over him.
She was still beautiful, of course. Her long, dark hair cascaded down her back like a silken waterfall, framing a face that would haveunched a thousand ships back in ancient Greece. Her eyes, the color of a stormy sea, held a depth, a wisdom. And her figure¡she still had that hourss shape that had once made his heart skip a beat.
But it wasn''t her beauty that surprised him. It was the aura that surrounded her. A subtle shimmer, a faint ripple of power that radiated from her like heat from a forge. She was still at the Immortal Stage of cultivation, he could sense that much. But the power¡ the quality of the energy¡ it was wrong.
It was like looking at a candle that burned with the intensity of a supernova.
She was stronger. Far stronger than any Immortal cultivator had any right to be. Her energy signature was almost¡ godly. It was like she''d tapped into a power source that was¡ beyond the reach of mortals.
He could sense it now, the faint echo of celestial energy, the residual trace of a fallen god''s grace, woven into her very being.
She was more powerful than any Celestial Stage cultivator he''d encountered¡ but not quite at the level of a level one God. The only exnation he coulde up with on the spot was that she had absorbed a fallen grace. It was the only exnation.
Sensing the tension crackling between Michael and Lah, Wulfric the unspoken questions and the weight of their shared history, cleared his throat.
"Perhaps¡ we''ll give you two some¡ privacy," he said, his gaze flickering between Michael and Lah. "Come on, you lot. Let''s go see what''s for dinner."
Ka nodded, gently ushering the students away from the awkward reunion. Harry, however, lingered for a moment, his eyes darting between his parents, a flicker of hope, a yearning for connection, evident in his gaze. It was the first time he''d ever seen them together, truly together, and for the first time he felt like he had a family.
But even he, young and naive as he was, could sense that this wasn''t the time or ce for such a reunion.
With a sigh, he turned and followed his friends, leaving Michael and Lah alone in the moonlit courtyard.
Michael watched them go, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts. He hadn''t forgotten how Harry had been conceived. That whole¡ mess with the First Energy. Lah, in her desperation to contain the chaotic power, had attempted to prematurely absorb it, dragging Michael''s soul along for the ride.
However, Michael, being a gentleman from Earth, had a strict "no physical contact without consent" policy. So he chose the soul walk, having no fucking clue that it would lead to an even deeper, more tangled connection than the physical act ever could have.
It had nearly killed him.
Lah, consumed by the First Energy''s chaos, hadshed out, her power nearly overwhelming his. And when she was freed, she was not in a cuddling mood. And Michael, pissed off and frankly a little terrified, had used the System to ensure that any¡ spirit child conceived during their forced soul-meld wouldn''t inherit any of his powers, his soul DNA, his anything.
But Lah, bless her stubborn heart, had gone and given that spirit child a body anyway, which was Harry. Looking at Lah now, at the power radiating from her, at that subtle, almost godly aura, Michael knew she had pulled another shitty stunt.
While Harry and his friends were walking away from Michael and Lah, they exchanged uneasy nces.
"Well, that was¡ awkward," ra, muttered, adjusting her spectacles. "They seem to have¡ tension, don''t they?"
"No shit, genius. He''s the fucking Dark Lord. She''s¡ well, she''s Lah. They''re practically pr opposites," Thrian rolled his eyes.
Yet, Harry barely registered their words. He kept ncing back over his shoulder, watching as his parents stood facing each other, their figures silhouetted against the moonlit sky. He couldn''t take his eyes off his parents, the two figures standing in the moonlit courtyard. But the moment was fleeting. As he followed his friends into the academy, the imposing stone walls blocking his view, a shadow of sadness fell over his face.
Back in the courtyard, Michael didn''t waste any time. The moment the others were out of earshot, he turned to Lah. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"What did you do?" Michael asked as Lah met his gaze, her expression unreadable.
"So you noticed, " she said, her voice devoid of its usual warmth. It was a statement, not a question.
Michael frowned. She sounded¡ different. Colder. More distant. And there was a definite edge to her voice, a hint of¡ usation.
He had a bad feeling about this.
"You didn''t notice then, did you?" Lah continued, her voice rising slightly. "When I was struggling to raise Harry alone? When I begged you to¡ to stay? When I brought him here, to Mazeroth, and faced all those¡ challenges? You didn''t notice any of it, did you, Michael?"
"I was fighting a war, Lah," Michael interjected, his voice taking on a defensive edge.
He hadn''t abandoned them. Not really. He''d kept tabs on them, through Azazel, through hiswork of spies and informants, through the asional flyby with a cloaked Spyder drone. He''d watched Harry grow, had seen him excel at Mazeroth, had even intervened a few times when things got¡ dicey. But he''d kept his distance. He hadn''t seen the point in¡plicating things.
"You''re always fighting a war, Ghost," Lah shot back, her voiceced with a bitter frustration. "First it was those pathetic sects, then the kings and queens, then Skyhall¡ and now it''s the Gods themselves. Your fight¡ it never ends! Because you don''t care, do you? You don''t care about the consequences, about the effect your actions have on¡ on people! You have no idea what your¡ absence has done to Harry! "
Lah let her words hang in the air, her gaze piercing Michael''s. He didn''t try to interrupt, to defend himself. He knew, from years of experience dealing with¡ strong-willed women¡ that arguing with an angry woman was like trying to wrestle a hurricane. A futile, and potentially dangerous, exercise.
"Look around you, Michael!" she continued, her voice trembling with emotion. She gestured towards the sky, towards the unnatural darkness that had settled over the mortal realm. "Look at what you''ve done! How many Skyhall soldiers¡ how many people¡ did you and your army ughter in this war?"
Her voice cracked, her anger giving way to a raw, aching sadness.
"And it won''t stop, will it? Skyhall''s gone, but something else will take its ce. New powers will rise, new enemies will emerge, and you''ll be right back in the thick of it, fighting, killing, destroying¡ When does it end, Michael? When will Harry¡ when will he finally have a father in his life?"
After listening to her rant, Michael simply chuckled, a low, humorless sound that sent a shiver down Lah''s spine.
"You''re talking to the God of Darkness now, Lah," he said, his voice taking on a harder edge. "Not the Ghost you met two years ago."
As he spoke, the aura around him intensified, the shadows in the courtyard deepening, the air growing heavy with a palpable sense of power. The temperature dropped, a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the night air and everything to do with the raw, primal energy emanating from Michael.
"These¡ new powers you speak of," he continued with a chilling confidence, "even if they were an army of Celestial Stage cultivators¡ all it would take is a snap of my fingers, and they''d be nothing more than a pile of ash."
He took a step towards her as the shadows parted before him like a dark tide.
"But let''s not make this about me, shall we?" he said, his voice softening slightly. "Tell me, Lah¡ what''s the connection between your little rant and the fact that you''re practically glowing like a goddamn supernova? What the hell did you do?"
Despite the pressure of Michael''s presence, the weight of his power bearing down on her, Lah didn''t flinch.
"I did what I had to do," she said, her voice calm, steady, but with an underlying current of steel. "I protected Harry. In every way I could. So I absorbed Ava''s grace," she said firmly.
The words hung in the air, a bombshell that shattered the fragile truce between them. Michael stared at her, his jaw ck, his mind struggling to process what he''d just heard.
"You¡ you what?" he stammered, his mind struggling to process what he''d just heard. She spoke of absorbing a goddess''s grace as if it were¡ a casual Tuesday afternoon activity.
He knew about the fallen graces. Most of them were remnants of those whose bodies had been destroyed, their souls imprisoned by the previous Dark Lord in his temple in the realm of the Gods until Dagon released them all into the mortal world.
But some of those graces¡ they weren''t remnants of shattered souls. They were gifts. Fragments of power, voluntarily left behind by gods and goddesses, for reasons known only to them. And Ava''s grace¡ it was one of those.
Michael was sure of it. He''d never met Ava, the Goddess of Healing, but he knew she was still out there, somewhere. She hadn''t been seen in the realm of the Gods for centuries, but there''d been no whispers of her death, no signs of her soul being shattered, no indication that she''d been¡ destroyed.
Which meant¡Lah had absorbed a grace that had been¡ given. And that¡ that raised a whole new set of questions.
"You idiot!" Michael snapped, unable to contain his anger any longer. "You have no idea what you''ve done! You''ve just painted a target on your back, Lah! Do you even realize what kind of danger you''re in?" He roared.
"How did you even find Ava''s grace?" Michael pressed, his voice tight with worry. "And how the hell did you¡ absorb it? Without, you know¡ exploding?"
He had seen how those graces worked. They were like sentient energy bombs. Looking for a suitable host, a vessel to carry their power like Evan. But Evan''s energy signature was stable and controlled. Lah''s aura, on the other hand, was anything but stable. It flickered and pulsed, the power within her threatening to burst free, like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
Finally, Lah flinched at his words as a flicker of doubt clouded her eyes for a moment.
"I¡ I had help," she admitted.
"Help?" Michael''s gut twisted. "Who?"
He knew, with a sickening certainty, that whatever answer Lah gave him¡ it wasn''t going to be good.
Chapter 1363 Revenge on Rin Arc Begins
Chapter 1363 Revenge on Rin Arc Begins
Michael rubbed his temples, muttering a string of curses under his breath.
"Of all the goddamn¡" he trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief. "That maniptive¡ that¡ Rin! Of course it was her."
But even as he cursed Lah''s stupidity, a part of him, a part he''d only recently begun to acknowledge, understood. He''d seen what his own mother, Harriet, had endured to protect him. The torture, the maniption, the sheer willpower it had taken to withstand Skyhall''s cruelty¡ it had changed his perspective.
He knew, now, that a mother''s love could drive a person to do¡ crazy things. Desperate things. Things they''d never even consider under normal circumstances.
A part of him, the logical, strategic part, the part that had once been the Earth''s deadliest assassin, screamed at Lah''s recklessness. But another part, a deeper, more primal part, the part that was slowly learning to embrace theplexities of family, of love, of the bonds that connected him to others¡ that part understood. He got it.
He might not agree with her decision, but he couldn''t fault her for it.
"How?" Michael asked, his voice tight with a tension that went beyond anger. "How the hell did Rin manage to manifest herself in the mortal realm? I know she''s been taking out Seed Bearers, weakening the barrier¡ but I thought she was busy with¡ other things."
He''d been so focused on Skyhall, on the prophecy, on his own goddamn power struggles, that he''d underestimated Rin. He''d assumed, with the Grimoire in her possession, that she''d be too preupied with her own twisted agenda to bother with him.
He''d been wrong.
The Princess of Murder, it seemed, still had him in her crosshairs. And now¡Lah had met her and that was never a good sign.
Silence fell between them after Lah spoke and the looming threat of Rin, pressed down on them. Michael''s mind raced, trying to grasp the implications, to figure out his next move. He was already mentally bumping Rin up his list of priorities, right alongside Andohr and the other power-hungry assholes gunning for his throne.
But before he could speak, Lah continued, her voice quiet but firm. "I don''t¡ care about this Rin," she said, her gaze fixed on Michael''s. "All that matters is¡ Harry is safe. We''re safe. With this grace¡ I can protect him. From anything."
Michael barely registered her words. He was already plotting, scheming, trying to figure out how to neutralize the Rin problem before it blew up in their faces. He''d deal with Lah''s¡ choicester.
But then she said something that made his blood run cold.
"I¡ I trusted you," she said, her voice breaking slightly. "I believed¡ I hoped¡ that you could¡ turn away from this path. That you could be¡ a part of his life. A father to him." She paused, her gaze hardening.
"But look at what you''ve done. You''ve killed your own brother. Plunged the realm into darkness. Where you go¡ death and destruction follow."
She gestured towards the academy, towards the innocent faces of the students, towards Harry, who was watching them from a distance, his eyes filled with a hope that Michael knew, deep down, he couldn''t fulfill.
"Look at Diana. Your own mother. Captured by a god. God knows what Rowena has gone through. The Winstons¡ decimated. Eve¡ Eve died fighting for you, Michael. If she hadn''t be your¡ friend¡ she''d still be alive."
Lah took a step back, her eyes filled with a sadness that mirrored the darkness in the sky above them.
"We¡ we can''t be a family, Michael. Not anymore."
Until now, Michael listened to her bullshit without batting an eye but the mention of Eve''s death was the final straw. Michael, his grief still raw, his anger simmering just beneath the surface, snapped.
Dark lightning crackled around his wrists, a halo of pure, unrestrained power. His eyes, usually a steely gray, turned pitch ck, the pupils vanishing into the depths of his fury. The mechanisms within his armor whirred, sensing the sudden spike in his heart rate, the surge of adrenaline and rage that coursed through his veins. The red lines etched into the ck metal, usually dormant, began to glow, a menacing crimson that mirrored the bloodlust in his eyes.
"You should care about Rin, Lah," he growled, his voice low and dangerous. The usual calmness was reced by a guttural rasp. "Because Rin is the fucking Princess of Murder. One of the most cruel, sadistic bitches in the entire realm of the Gods. And you just made a deal with someone who''s worse than the goddamn devil himself!"
Lah''s eyes widened, the full weight of his words, the implications of her actions, finally hitting her.
He took a step towards her, the shadows in the courtyard swirling around him like hungry spirits.
"And don''t you dare bring Eve''s name into this," he snarled. "Whether Harry wants me in his life or not¡ that''s his choice. Not yours. And frankly," he added, his voice dripping with disdain. "I''m fucking tired of your holier-than-thou attitude, your self-righteous bullshit,"
He was this close to unleashing his fury. One st of Wind magic, and Lah would be a speck on the horizon, tasting dirt and regretting her choice of words. Michael wasn''t one for double standards. He didn''t care if you were a god, a mortal, or a fucking cockroach - disrespect Eve''s memory, and you paid the price.
The only reason Lah was still standing was¡ Harry. The boy was watching them, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and confusion, and Michael, despite his rage, couldn''t bring himself to traumatize the kid any further.
But before he could utter another word, a blood-red glow appeared in the sky. It started as a faint flicker, a smudge of crimson against the backdrop of eternal night, but it grew rapidly, approaching them like aet, its trajectory aimed directly at the heart of Mazeroth.
Michael didn''t hesitate. He wasn''t about to wait for that godda to crash into Mazeroth, potentially harming Harry or the other students.
"Stay here," he barked at Lah, his voice tight with urgency.
And then, with a surge of power, heunched himself into the sky. He was a cket, a streak of darkness against the backdrop of the starless night, leaving a shockwave in his wake that sent tremors through the academy grounds.
Lah, blinded by the eternal darkness that shrouded the mortal realm, couldn''t see Michael''s departure. But the blood-redet was still visible, a menacing streak of crimson against the ck canvas of the sky.
"How bright it would have been," she whispered, her voice barely audible, "if Noah hadn''t¡" She trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
Up in the sky, Michael soared towards the oinget, his body a blur, his armor humming with restrained power. He activated his X-ray vision, his gaze piercing through the veil of red light that surrounded the object.
A figure, its form wreathed in a sickly green aura, was hurtling towards him at an impossible speed. And the smell¡ the metallic tang of blood, the cloying sweetness of decay¡ it hit him like a physical blow.
"Shit," he muttered, his gut twisting with a premonition of something truly awful.
He pushed forward, his speed increasing, his gaze narrowing as he got closer. The helmet mechanisms in his armor whirred, sensing his rising adrenaline, and the skull-like mask slid into ce, sealing his face behind a cold, impassive barrier.
Just as he was about to collide with theet, it stopped abruptly, the red light around it dissipating like smoke. And there, hovering in the air before him, was Tiberius.
His loyal subordinate. His¡ friend.
But something was wrong.
Tiberius''s eyes, usually a warm brown, glowed with an unnatural crimson light. His lips were curled into a twisted grin, revealing teeth that were stained a sickly yellow. And the smell¡ the smell of blood and decay¡ it wasing from him.
It didn''t take a genius to figure out what was going on.
"Rin," Michael growled, his voice a low rumble of fury.
As Michael stared at the twisted mockery of his subordinate, he activated his night vision, his gaze sharpening. That''s when he saw it.
The red smoke¡ it wasn''t smoke. It was blood.
Tiberius''s body was riddled with stab wounds. Deep, jagged gashes that oozed a thick, crimson liquid that vaporized instantly upon contact with the air, creating that eerie red mist that had surrounded him like a macabre halo.
His armor, once pristine, was shredded, soaked in blood. And his face¡ his face was a mask of agony, his eyes wide and unseeing, his lips pulled back in a silent scream.
"Son of a bitch," Michael muttered, his gut twisting with a mixture of fury and grief.
He knew, with a sickening certainty, that Tiberius was as good as dead. There were too many wounds, too much blood loss. Even his most potent healing potions wouldn''t be enough to save him. Not with those deep gashes in his head, his chest¡ N?v(el)B\\jnn
Rin had done this. She''d possessed him, forced him to turn his own de on himself, used his body as a¡ a goddamn puppet.
He wasn''t technically dead yet. If one of his subordinates died, the System would have notified him. But the moment Rin left Tiberius''s body¡ well, there''d be nothing left to save.
"Did you miss me, Ghost?" Rin''s voice, lilting and yful, yet chillingly cold, echoed from Tiberius''s mangled lips.
Michael''s fists clenched, his knuckles crackling with dark energy. He wanted to rip her soul out, to burn it with his darkest mes, to make her suffer for what she''d done to Tiberius.
But he knew it wouldn''t work. Rin was too smart, too cunning. This¡ possession, whatever the hell it was, was just a sliver of her power, a tiny fraction of her soul, a goddamn puppet show. Controlling a mortal like Tiberius was child''s y for the Princess of Murder. And with the barrier weakened¡ well, she could practically waltz in and out of the mortal realm as she pleased.
He forced himself to remain calm, to keep his anger in check.
"Oh, I remember you, alright, Rin," Michael growled, his voice a low rumble of fury. "You just made damn sure I''ll never forget you. And trust me, being remembered by me¡ it''s should not be on your fucking bucket list."
Rin''sughter, a tinkling sound that was somehow more unsettling than the rasping death rattle escaping Tiberius''s lips, echoed through the night.
"You''ve been gone too long, Ghost," she purred. "Things are getting¡ boring in the realm of the Gods without you."
But Michael remained unmoved.
"You crossed the line, Rin," he said, his voice cold, hard. "This time¡ you''ve gone too far. I''ll being back to the realm of the Gods soon. And when I do¡ I''ll being for you. I''ll find you. And I''ll give you a whole new definition of the word murder. "
Chapter 1364 Eating Rins Soul
Chapter 1364 Eating Rin''s Soul
"Why, Rin?" Michael growled, his gaze fixed on Tiberius''s blood-soaked form. "Why the hell are you doing this?"
Rin''sughter died in her throat. She turned, her crimson eyes, glowing with an unnatural intensity within Tiberius''s ravaged face, fixing on Lah, who stood frozen, a silent observer to the macabre scene unfolding before her.
"And how is dear Lah Alden doing?" Rin purred, her voice dripping with a mocking sweetness. "Managing that¡ unstable grace, is she?"
Lah shuddered, feeling a wave of cold dread wash over her. Tiberius''s gaze, or rather, Rin''s gaze, felt like a physical touch, a vition that sent shivers down her spine. She wanted to run, to hide, but her legs felt like lead, her body rooted to the spot.
"Leave her out of this, Rin," Michael said, his voice tight with warning. "This is between you and me. Don''t drag mortals into our¡ disagreements."
Rin''sughter echoed through the night, a chilling counterpoint to the mournful howl of the wind.
"Oh, Ghost," she purred, her voiceced with a cruel amusement. "You know me better than that. I love to y with my toys. And I always make it¡ personal."
She paused, her gaze lingering on Lah''s terrified face.
"That grace, my dear¡ it''s going to reject her. Eat her from the inside out. Slowly. Painfully." She grinned, a grotesque stretching of Tiberius''s bloodstained lips. "She''ll die¡ little by little. And you¡ you''ll get to watch."
After hearing her, Michael simply chuckled, shaking his head. Rin, in her arrogance, in her eagerness to y her twisted little games, had made a fatal miscalction. She had no idea what he was truly capable of.
He had hundreds of millions of badass points at his disposal. He could reshape continents, rewrite thews of reality, probably even make himself a goddamn cup of coffee that never got cold.
And this bitch¡ she thought she could threaten him? Harm his¡ family?
It was almost¡ughable.
Until now, he''d tried to avoid Rin. She was a loose cannon, a wild card, a force of chaos he''d rather not deal with. But she''d crossed a line. She''d brought the fight to his doorstep, had threatened those he¡ cared about. And now¡ well, now she''d earned his full, undivided attention.
He''d hunt her down. He''d find her. He''d make her regret the day she was born. No matter the cost.
The amusement faded from Rin''s face, reced by a flicker of¡ uncertainty.
"What''s so funny, Ghost?" she snarled, her voice taking on a sharper edge. She was used to seeing fear in her victims'' eyes, a delicious cocktail of terror and desperation that fueled her sadistic impulses. But Michael¡ Michael was just¡ smiling.
"Don''t get cocky because you are in the mortal realm, Ghost," she hissed and continued.
"You''re just an old lion Ghost, trapped in his little forest. No teeth. No ws."
Michaelughed, a low, dangerous rumble that echoed the storm brewing within him.
"A lion is always a lion, Rin," he said, his gaze unwavering. "The forest might change¡ but the lion''s nature¡ its instinct to hunt¡ never will."
For a while, only the sound of the wind, whistling through the skeletal trees surrounding Mazeroth, filled the air. Michael''s smile faded, reced by a cold, calcting fury that made the air around him crackle with dark energy.
"I''ming for you, Rin," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "But I''m not going to kill you. Not yet."
He took a step towards Tiberius, his gaze fixed on Rin''s crimson eyes, gleaming with a mixture of anger and¡ fear?
"First¡ I''m going to pay your daddy a little visit." He chuckled, a cruel edge to his voice. "Xyloth. You know, the real God of Murder. The one you''re so desperate to impress."
He leaned closer, his gaze boring into hers.
"You think he gives a damn about you, Rin? You''re a toy to him. A ything. And the moment you fuck up¡ he''ll discard you like a broken doll."
He straightened up, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
"You called me an old lion, Rin. But you¡ you''re just a dog. A dog with a really bad case of¡ daddy issues."
The moment those words escaped Michael''s mouth, Rin exploded.
A wave of raw, primal fury, like a supernova igniting, erupted from Tiberius''s mangled form. Rin roared, a sound that was both human and beast, a guttural scream of rage that rattled the very foundations of Mazeroth. Her killing intent, sharp and cold as a cier, spiked, radiating outwards like a shockwave.
No one¡ no one¡ spoke to the Princess of Murder, the daughter of Xyloth, like that.
She was used to fear. To trembling obedience. To the groveling pleas of those who begged for a swift, merciful death. Even the Gods, those arrogant, self-proimed rulers of the realm, treated her with a wary respect, a grudging acknowledgment of the power she wielded.
But this¡ this¡ God of Darkness¡
He''d not only defied her, mocked her, but he''d dared to speak of¡ daddy issues?
Unforgivable.
Michael, however, simply grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes. He''d struck a nerve, he could tell. And he wasn''t about to let up now.
"Oh, what''s wrong, Rin?" he mocked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Daddy not giving you enough attention? Is that why you''re acting out? Throwing a little temper tantrum?"
He took another step towards her in the sky, his shadow stretching out to engulf Tiberius''s trembling form.
"Maybe if you were a good little girl, did what you were told, stopped ying with your¡ toys¡ he''d finally give you the approval you so desperately crave."
He leaned closer, his voice a low whisper in her ear.
"But let''s face it, Rin. You''ll always be¡ daddy''s little disappointment."
"You''ll regret this, Ghost!" she shrieked, her voice a guttural rasp. "I''ll tear that bitch Lah and her precious son limb from limb! And then I''ll turn this pathetic little academy into a graveyard!"
Sheunched herself towards Mazeroth, her rage propelling her forward like a missile.
Down below, Harry and his friends watched in horror as the red glow, the figure wreathed in blood-red smoke, descended upon them.
"What¡ what is that?" one of Harry''s friends whispered, his voice trembling.
"It looks¡ it looks like a man," another said, her eyes wide with fear. "But¡ something''s wrong with him."
ra, ever the observant one, squinted, her sharp eyes peering through the darkness.
"It''s¡ Tiberius," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "One of the Dark Lord''s subordinates. The¡ King of War, they call him."
"But¡ he looks¡"
"Possessed," Harry finished for her, his heart sinking. They watched, their bodies frozen in a mix of fear and morbid fascination, as the figure, Tiberius''s body but clearly not Tiberius himself, streaked towards them, his crimson eyes zing with a murderous intent.
Then, just as they braced themselves for the impact, a ck blur shot out from the academy grounds, intercepting the possessed King of War in mid-air.
It was Michael.
He moved with a speed that defiedprehension, grabbing Tiberius''s arm in a vice-like grip and mming his foot into the possessed man''s chest.
The impact sent Rin, still controlling Tiberius''s broken body, flying backwards, tumbling through the air like a kite with a broken string. Rin might have been the Princess of Murder, a force to be reckoned with in the realm of the Gods. But here, in Michael''s domain, her power was a mere shadow of its true potential. She was possessing Tiberius, using a fraction of her strength, and against Michael, fueled by the eternal darkness that nketed the mortal realm, she was outmatched.
But her target wasn''t him. It was Lah. And Harry.
With a snarl, she twisted in mid-air, regaining her bnce with a grace that belied Tiberius''s mangled state. Her crimson eyes, zing with murderous intent, fixed on Lah, who stood frozen on the ground, watching the aerial battle unfold with a mixture of fear and awe.
Rin shot towards her, a crimson blur against the ck canvas of the sky.
But Michael was faster.
He flicked his wrist, and the spiked shield detached, its jagged des spinning with a whirring sound that cut through the air like a chainsaw through bone. Heunched it towards Rin, the shield a blur of ck metal and crimson light, intercepting her just as she was about to reach Lah.
Rin, caught off guard, raised her hand, instinctively trying to deflect the oing projectile. Her fingers closed around the shield''s edge, halting its spin for a moment.
And then she screamed.
The des, razor-sharp and infused with Don''s power, sliced through her hand, shearing off her fingers, sending a spray of blood across the sky.
"You''re just cutting off your little pet''s hand, Ghost!" Rin shrieked, her voiceced with pain and fury. Sheughed, a harsh, grating sound that echoed her own agony.
But Michael''s expression remained cold, unmoved.
"He''s already gone, Rin," he said, his voice t, devoid of emotion. "And you¡ you''re next. I''m going to rip you out of that broken body, and then¡ I''m going to eat your fractured soul. Slowly."
"You talk a big game, Ghost," Rin sneered, yanking her mangled hand back, the severed fingers already regenerating, the bones knitting back together in a grotesque disy of elerated healing. "But can you back it up?"
She lunged at Michael, her movements blurring with unnatural speed. But Michael was ready for her. He sidestepped her attack, his body a fluid shadow, and countered with a lightning-fast jab aimed at her throat. Rin ducked under his fist, herughter echoing through the night as she spun, her leg whipping out in a vicious roundhouse kick.
Michael blocked the kick with his forearm, the impact sending a jolt of pain up his arm. He retaliated with a powerful uppercut, aiming for her jaw, but Rin, anticipating his move, twisted away, her body contorting in a way that would have snapped a normal human''s spine.
They traded blows, their movements a blur of motion, a deadly dance of fists and feet, shadow and blood. Rin, despite her weakened state, was a skilled fighter, her movements fluid, her attacks unpredictable. But she was no match for Michael. Hisbat style, honed over years of training and countless battles, was a blend of brutal efficiency and raw power.
And he was pissed.
Hended a solid punch to her gut, the impact sending a grunt of pain escaping from Tiberius''s lips. A spray of blood, a crimson mist, erupted from the wound, instantly vaporizing in the air.
"Still think you can take me, Rin?" Michael growled, pressing his attack. "Or are you too busy crying to Daddy?"
He shattered one of her ribs with a vicious elbow strike, ducked under a wild swing of her sword, and mmed his fist into her face, the impact sending a tooth flying.
Rin staggered back, blood dripping from her nose, her crimson eyes zing with a mixture of fury and¡ fear. She summoned a de, its edge shimmering with a crimson light, but Michael, with a speed that surprised even her, caught the de in his bare hand. He squeezed, and the metal shrieked in protest, twisting and buckling under his grip.
"What was that about no teeth and ws, Rin?" Michael chuckled, snapping the de in half as if it were a twig.
Then, he unleashed a wave of Frostbite.
The air around them turned cial, the temperature plummeting as a wave of absolute zero encased Rin in a tomb of ice. She froze mid-air, her body contorted in a grotesque parody of motion, her face locked in a mask of horrified disbelief.
Michael hovered before her, his gaze cold, unforgiving. He cupped Tiberius''s frozen face in his hand, his thumb gently brushing away a stray tear that had frozen on the man''s cheek.
"This¡ is for Tiberius," he whispered, his voice a low growl.
He leaned closer, his face inches from hers.
"And this¡"
He opened his mouth, his fangs glinting in the dim light, and unleashed the full power of Soul Eater. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
A ck vortex, a swirling maelstrom of dark energy, erupted from his maw, enveloping Rin''s frozen form. She screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated terror, as her soul, the fragment that had possessed Tiberius, was ripped from its borrowed vessel, drawn towards Michael''s gaping maw.
[Ding! Host has consumed a fractured of Rin. Reward: 250,000 Experience Points. 1,000,000 Badass Points.]
Chapter 1365 Gearing upto take out Rin
Chapter 1365 Gearing upto take out Rin
The moment Rin''s soul fragment was devoured, the crimson glow faded from Tiberius''s eyes. His body, ravaged by the self-inflicted wounds, slumped in Michael''s arms, lifeless. There was no time for healing potions, no chance for ast-minute miracle.
Michael sighed, a heavy, weary sound, and gently lowered Tiberius''s body to the ground before Lah.
"Goodbye, my friend," Michael whispered, his voice barely audible. "Be at peace."
He crossed Tiberius''s arms across his chest, a gesture of respect, a final farewell in ordance with the customs of the Southern Continent, where Tiberius had been born.
Then, Michael straightened up, his gaze hardening as he turned towards Lah.
"Now do you care about Rin?" he asked, his voice a low growl. "That¡ is what the Princess of Murder is capable of. She''s not some¡ circus clown, spouting empty threats. She''s the real deal, Lah. A real piece of work."
Lah stared at Tiberius''s lifeless form, a cold dread creeping up her spine. She''d encountered her fair share of cruel and violent individuals over the years. She''d seen firsthand the darkness that lurked in the hearts of men and women, the depths of depravity they were capable of.
But there was something about Rin¡ something that chilled her to her very core.
It wasn''t just the casual brutality, the gleeful sadism, the sheer joy she seemed to take in inflicting pain. It was the¡ the deception.
Lah remembered, with a rity that made her stomach churn, her first encounter with Rin. It had been about a month ago, just before Michael hadunched his attack on Skyhall.
A kind, elderly woman, her face wrinkled with age, her eyes filled with a gentle wisdom, had approached her. She''d called herself Bai Ming, and she''d seemed¡ concerned. She''d asked about Harry, about Lah''s struggles, about her fears. She''d offeredfort, advice, and¡ a gift.
The grace of Ava.
Lah, desperate to protect her son, blinded by her own fear and desperation, had epted. She hadn''t questioned the woman''s motives, hadn''t suspected¡ anything.
Now, looking back, she realized how foolish she''d been.
Even Michael, a year ago, had fallen prey to her deception. He''d encountered Rin in Eden''s Garden, disguised as a young elven woman, a seemingly harmless salesgirl. Their conversation had been brief, inconsequential.This was Rin''s MO as she was a chameleon who could blend into any crowd, adopt any persona, to achieve her twisted goals. She''d approach her targets, her victims, with kindness, with concern, with a carefully crafted fa?ade of empathy to gain their trust, lower their defenses, and strike when they least expect it. And for Lah, blinded by her love for Harry, desperate to protect him from the encroaching darkness¡,she''d been the perfect target. Easy prey.
For Rin, manipting Lah, convincing her to absorb a vtile, potentially deadly grace, had been child''s y. A game. A way to amuse herself, to exact a little revenge on Michael for stealing the Grimoire from under her nose.
Finally, Michael turned his gaze back to Lah, his anger fading, reced by a cold, calcting concern. He could see it now, the energy fluctuations around her, the way her aura flickered and pulsed, like a candle me in a hurricane. That grace¡ it was tearing her apart from the inside out.
"Damn it, Lah," he muttered, shaking his head. "You really screwed this time,"
He essed the System, his mind focusing on the swirling interface, the endless possibilities it offered.
"System," he thought, "can you¡ stabilize that grace? The one she absorbed?"
[The system can do it. However, Stabilizing the Grace of Ava will require 150 million Badass Points.]
[Does the host wish to stabilize the grace now?]
"One hundred and fifty million?" Michael winced. That was a big chunk of his current reserves. He''d amassed over two billion badass points over thest few months, thanks to his victories over Skyhall and his army''s¡ enthusiastic approach to looting. But even for him, that was a significant expenditure.
He wasn''t usually one to waste points on other people, especially not someone who''d just chewed him out and questioned his parenting skills. But this¡ this was different.
If Lah exploded, if that unstable grace went critical¡she might take half of the Akn Realm with her. And that included Harry.
"Fine," he thought, gritting his teeth. "Do it."
Once Michael agreed and the system took its points, Lah felt a strange sensation wash over her. A coolness, a soothing wave of energy that spread through her body, calming the chaotic storm that had been brewing within her. It was sudden, unexpected, and¡ pleasant. The flickering, unstable aura that had surrounded her moments before settled, the power within her now humming with a steady, controlled energy.
"What¡ what did you do?" she asked, her voice a mixture of confusion and suspicion.
Like everyone else, she had no idea about the System. Its existence was Michael''s most closely guarded secret.
Michael, still fuming over her reckless decision to absorb the grace, red at her, his eyes narrowed.
"Let''s just say¡ I fixed your little fuck-up," he growled. "Consider it a¡ favor. But let this be a lesson, Lah. There are no shortcuts to power. You tried to cheat the system with the First Energy, and you nearly got us both killed. Now this¡ "
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
"Just¡ don''t fuck up again, okay?"
Although Michael used 150 million points, he was d that she wouldn''t explode because he lost enough people as it is. He''d lost Eve. He''d lost Tiberius. He wasn''t about to lose anyone else, especially not someone Harry cared about.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Just¡ keep Harry safe, okay? Until he graduates. Then we''ll¡ figure things out. We can all be a¡ family. In the Dark Castle. It''s¡ safe there."
He hesitated, then added, "I have some things to take care of in the realm of the Gods. And trust me, Lah¡ it''s a shitshow up there. The Gods¡ they''re worse than any evil cultivator you''ve ever met. They''re power-hungry, maniptive, and they don''t give a damn about mortals. They see you all as¡ ants. Insects to be crushed under their heels."
He paused, his gaze hardening.
"Sounds clich¨¦, I know. But it''s true. I''m the only one standing between them and the mortal realm. And if they ever break through that barrier¡ well, they''ll turn this world into their own personal yground. Force you all to worship them, to feed their power. They''re addicted to worship energy, Lah. It''s like¡ crack cocaine for gods. And they''ll do anything to get their fix."
For a few moments, Lah stood there, silent, her gaze fixed on Michael''s face. The anger, the resentment that had fueled her outburst, seemed to have¡ dissipated, reced by a weariness that mirrored the darkness in the sky above them.
"What?" Michael asked, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice. "No lecture? No rant about my¡ destructive tendencies?" He grinned, a sh of white teeth against the backdrop of his dark armor. "Well, at least Rin did some good. Stopped you from being a¡ well, never mind."
Lah''s lips twitched, a ghost of a smile breaking through the shadows that had clouded her face. It was a rare sight, her smile, a glimpse of the warmth and kindness that Michael had once found so captivating. And seeing it now, he couldn''t help but smile back.
"Take care of Harry," he said, his voice softening. "And¡ keep an eye on things at Mazeroth. Make sure those kids don''t¡ go off the rails. No more Skyhall worshipping rebels, okay?"
He waved his hand, and Tiberius''s body, now cleansed of Rin''s taint, vanished in a ripple of shadow energy, transported back to the Dark Castle for a proper burial.
Then, with a surge of power, he began to ascend, rising from the ground like a dark phoenix taking flight.
He paused, hovering in the air above them, and looked back at Lah, his gaze intense.
"I''m¡ trying to be better, Lah," he said, his voice low, sincere. "But I''m still the God of Darkness. And I have¡ limits to my patience. So if Mazeroth starts churning out brainwashed Skyhall loyalists¡They''ll all regret it. Make sure they understand that."
And with that, he shot up into the sky, leaving Lah and the academy behind. But Michael didn''t return to the Dark Castle. He had other¡ priorities. He reappeared in the Azure Citadel, his expression grim, his thoughts a whirlwind of anger and regret. The dark army soldiers were still busy sorting through the loot, their movements efficient, their expressions a mixture of awe and greed.
"My lord," Trista greeted, bowing her head respectfully. "Wee back. Lenora is overseeing the looting operation at the Emerald Pce. Shall I summon her?"
Michael shook his head. He didn''t want to see Lenora right now. He didn''t want to see anyone. He just wanted¡ to be alone. To process what had happened. To n his next move.
"No need," he said, his voice a low growl. "Just¡ show me to the meditation hall. There has to be one, right? Those Skyhall bastards loved their seclusion,"
"Of course, my lord," Trista said, leading him deeper into the pce. They passed through grand halls filled with priceless artifacts, their surfaces now covered in a thinyer of dust, evidence of Skyhall''s hasty retreat.
"Fucking idiots," Trista muttered, shaking her head as they walked past a wall adorned with a massive, gold-framed painting of some pompous-looking Skyhall ancestor. "Spending all that money on¡ paintings. Useless crap."
She stopped before a set of double doors, crafted from polished gold and iid with intricate carvings.
"This is it, my lord. The¡ Sanctum of Serenity, they called it. Where they''d go to¡ seclude themselves,"
Michael pushed the doors open, revealing a spacious, circr chamber. The walls were lined with cushions covered in soft silks, the floor covered in a plush carpet that muffled their footsteps. A single shaft of light, filtered through a circr skylight high above, illuminated the center of the room, where a raised tform, covered in a thick white fur, beckoned invitingly.
It was quiet. Peaceful. A stark contrast to the chaos and carnage that raged outside.
Michael walked towards the center of the room, his boots sinking into the plush carpet, and sat down on the tform, his back straight, his eyes closed.
"Trista," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "Bring me¡ all the gold." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Trista blinked, momentarily confused. "All the¡ gold, my lord? From this pce?"
"All of it," Michael repeated, his eyes still closed.
Trista, despite her confusion, didn''t question his orders. She bowed her head respectfully and hurried off to gather the loot. Soon, a steady stream of dark army soldiers, their armsden with heavy chests overflowing with gold coins, filed into the chamber. They deposited their burdens at Michael''s feet, the clinking of metal against metal a strangely soothing sound in the otherwise silent room.
"That''s¡ that''s all of it, my lord," Trista said, gesturing towards the mountain of gold that now surrounded Michael.
"Good," Michael said, his eyes still closed. "You can all leave now. And¡ no one disturbs me. Understood?"
The soldiers, their gazes lingering on the gold for a moment, nodded quickly and filed out of the room, closing the doors behind them.
Michael opened his eyes, staring at the mountain of gold before him.
He had 1.85 billion badass points, to be exact. But he wanted more. He needed more.
He was going after Rin. And he was going to need every advantage he could get.
He activated the System''s Banker function, his mind focusing on the conversion process. Gold coins, symbols of wealth and power in the mortal realm, were about to be something far more valuable, far more potent.
"I''ming for you, bitch," he muttered, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "And you better be ready."
Chapter 1366 Rowenas Ultimatum
Chapter 1366 Rowena''s Ultimatum
For three continuous days, Michael remained secluded in the Sanctum of Serenity, surrounded by a mountain of gold that dwindled steadily as he converted it into Badass Points. The air within the chamber crackled with energy, the faint hum of the System''s workings a constant backdrop to his meditations.
By the end of the third day, his Badass Point reserves had swelled to an impressive four billion. He''d also mastered the Transference of Consciousness spell, adding its intricate runes and arcane forms to his growing repertoire of magical abilities.
Outside the Sanctum, life went on. The looting of Skyhall''s floating pces was nearlyplete. His subordinates, under Lenora''s watchful eye, were busy cataloging the vast wealth they''d acquired, sorting through the mountains of gold, gems, weapons, and artifacts.
And, in a quiet corner of the Azure Citadel, Tiberius had beenid to rest. A simple ceremony, attended by those who had known him, had respected him, had fought alongside him. There were tears, of course, and solemn vows of vengeance. But there was also a sense of¡ closure. A recognition that the King of War, loyal and fearless to the end, had earned his rest.
Emerging from his self-imposed istion, Michael felt a sense of¡pletion. Skyhall was gone. Rin had been¡ dealt with, at least for now. And he was ready to face the challenges that awaited him in the realm of the Gods.
But there were still two loose ends he needed to tie up before he left the mortal realm.
Jasmine. And Rowena.
Dealing with Jasmine was¡ rtively straightforward. He''d simply order Aria to take care of it. Eliminate the clone, transfer the real Jasmine''s soul back into her rightful body, and bring her home.
Rowena, however¡ that was a different beast altogether. Thest time he''d seen her, she''d been devastated, heartbroken, filled with a rage and grief that mirrored the darkness he''d unleashed upon the world.
He wasn''t sure what to say to her. How to exin¡ everything.
But he knew he had to try. Before he left for the realm of the Gods, before he faced the inevitable showdown with Andohr, the other deities, and the looming threat of the Omegas, he needed to¡ make things right. Thinking about all of this, Michael let out a long sigh, running a hand through his hair.
"Gods, I can handle armies. I can handle ancient beasts. I can even handle those power-hungry assholes in the realm of the Gods. But¡ emotionally unstable women? I''m screwed."
He chuckled, shaking his head at his own predicament. Why was it that the toughest battles were always the ones fought on the¡ rtionship front?
He stepped out of the Sanctum of Serenity, his boots echoing on the polished marble floor. Lenora and Trista were waiting for him, their expressions a mix of curiosity and concern. Azazel, his ever-faithful demon butler, stood beside them, his dark suit impable, his gaze unwavering.
"My lord," Lenora greeted, bowing her head respectfully. "The looting isplete. We''ve secured all the floating pces, cataloged the valuables, and¡ well, we''ve basically cleaned those Skyhall bastards out."
"There are a few¡plications," Trista added, her voice hesitant. "Some of the pces are¡ locked. Protected by ancient runes and wards. Elidyr is¡ working on it."
"He''s¡ drowned himself in work, my lord," Azazel interjected, his voice a low murmur. "He''s barely spoken a word,"
Michael sighed. "Let him be. Everyone grieves in their own way. And after those¡ memories¡ he needs time to¡ process things. Work might be the best distraction for him right now."
"My lord," Azazel asked, his voiceced with a hint of concern. "Now that Skyhall is¡ dealt with¡ what are your ns?"
Lenora and Trista echoed the sentiment, their gazes fixed on Michael, a mixture of curiosity and apprehension in their eyes.
"The eternal darkness, boss¡" Lenora began, her voice hesitant. "It''s¡ well, it''s really messing things up down there. Nithroel''s been sending messages. She says she needs help¡ keeping the world from falling apart."
The eternal darkness wasn''t just a cosmetic change. It was¡ invasive. As the Skyhall elders had warned, with a hint of smug satisfaction that Michael had ignored at the time, Noah''s death hadn''t just extinguished the light. It had¡ changed things. Fundamentally.
Mortals were¡ different. More prone to anger, to violence, to acts of cruelty and selfishness. The darkness, it seemed, was seeping into their hearts, twisting their souls, amplifying their worst impulses.
It was an ironic twist of fate. The God of Darkness, the one who''d been med for centuries for the evils of the world, was now responsible for¡ fixing the mess he''d created.
"We''ll help Nithroel," Michael said, his voice firm. "But it won''t matter if Andohr and his¡ friends¡ manage to break through into the mortal realm."He paused for a second.
"I need to go back to the realm of the Gods. Find a way to fix this mess¡ while keeping those bastards out of our hair," Michael said to them and took a deep breath.
"But first¡ I need to see Rowena. Talk to her. Before I go."
"But¡ but if you leave, my lord¡" Trista began, her voiceced with concern. "How can we¡ deal with this¡ darkness? With the chaos?"
"Nithroel can handle it," Michael said, leaving no room for argument. "She''s strong. Resourceful. And she knows the mortal realm better than any of us. But she''ll need help. All of you¡ Lenora, Trista, Azazel¡ everyone. You''re to assist her in any way she requires. Understood?"
They all nodded, their gazes fixed on Michael, a mixture of respect and apprehension in their eyes. They''d seen what he was capable of, the power he wielded, the ruthlessness with which he dealt with his enemies. They knew, deep down, that the Dark Lord, for all his ws, was the best strategist they had. The only one who could truly stand against the Gods.
"Rowena is¡ at the Dark Castle, my lord," Azazel said with a hesitant voice.. "But¡ are you sure this is the right time to¡ speak with her? Perhaps¡ giving her more time to¡ process everything¡ might be best?"
Michael understood Azazel''s concern. Rowena was still reeling from the revtion of Noah''s death, from the knowledge of Michael''s role in it. But he had to try. He had to exin himself. He owed her that much.
"Let''s go," he said, his voice firm, his gaze hardening with resolve.
Azazel, ever the loyal servant, didn''t question his decision. He pulled a teleportation scroll from his space ring and tore it in half. A swirling vortex of ck smoke enveloped them, and in the blink of an eye, they vanished from the Azure Citadel, leaving Lenora and Trista standing amidst the looted treasures of Skyhall
Soon, the swirling ck smoke dissipated, revealing the familiar, imposing silhouette of the Dark Castle against a backdrop of a bruised, twilight sky. Even from a distance, the scars of the recent battle were evident. Smoke still curled from a few of the towers, and sections of the outer wall bore the ckened marks of magical sts. The dark ocean surrounding the castle, usually a churning, restless expanse, was eerily calm, its surface littered with the debris of shattered Skyhall warships. Splintered hulls, masts snapped like broken twigs, and the ghostly glow of dying runes painted a macabre tapestry on the water''s surface. The air hung heavy with the lingering stench of smoke and burnt flesh, a grim testament to the ferocity of the battle.
Michael surveyed the scene in silence, his expression unreadable beneath his skull-like helmet. He didn''t need to voice his thoughts, his concern. Azazel, ever attuned to his master''s moods, simply nodded, his gaze fixed on the path ahead.
They walked in silence, their footsteps echoing on the stone path that led to the castle''s main entrance. Dark army soldiers, their ck armor dusted with soot and grime, were already hard at work, repairing the damage, clearing the debris, restoring the castle to its former imposing glory.
Azazel led him through a maze of corridors and winding staircases, the air growing colder, the silence deepening, as they descended into the heart of the castle. Finally, they stopped before a set of massive bronze doors, etched with intricate carvings of demonic figures.
"She''s in here, my lord," Azazel reported, his voice a low murmur that echoed in the dimly lit hallway. "She¡ awoke two days ago. But she hasn''t spoken. Hasn''t asked to leave." He paused, his gaze fixed on the closed doors. "I believe¡ she''s waiting for you."
With a heavy sigh, Michael pushed the bronze doors open, stepping into the room beyond. Azazel lingered for a moment, his gaze fixed on his master''s back, a flicker of concern in his golden eyes.
The demon butler knew, perhaps better than anyone, that the battle with Skyhall was just the beginning. The real challenge, the truly daunting task,y ahead. Keeping the mortal realm from falling into utter chaos, from sumbing to the darkness that now nketed the world¡ that was a war that would test even the God of Darkness''s strength.
He bowed his head respectfully. "I''ll¡ leave you two to it, my lord."
And with that, he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing softly in the silent corridor. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The moment Michael stepped into the room, a st of icy air hit him. It was like walking into a freezer. Frost covered the walls, thick and shimmering, its edges sparkling with a faint, ethereal light. He could see the evidence of Rowena''s fury etched onto the surfaces. Fist-sized dents marred the stone walls, deep gouges raked across the heavy oak door.
And there, in the center of the room, stood Rowena.
She looked¡ fragile. Exhausted. Her usual icyposure had shattered, leaving behind a raw vulnerability that made Michael''s heart ache. Her eyes were red-rimmed, puffy from crying, and her hair, usually neatlybed, hung loose around her shoulders, a tangled mess that mirrored the turmoil within her.
However, she didn''t give him a chance to answer. The words, fueled by days of pent-up grief and anger, tumbled out of her, a torrent of usations and despair.
"We¡ we had this conversation before, I know," she continued, her voice cracking slightly. "But now¡ now I need to hear it, Michael. I need to understand¡ why? Why did you do it?"
She finally turned to face him, her eyes, red-rimmed and filled with a pain that mirrored the darkness in the sky outside, boring into his.
"And I need you to fix this. Fix all of it. Find a way to¡ to bring Noah back. Because if you can''t¡ if there''s no way¡ then there''s no reason for me to¡ to even exist in this world. I can''t¡ I can''t be a part of this¡ this darkness. And I''m too weak¡ too broken¡ to do anything about it,"
Hearing her, Michael was actually surprised and slightly felt uneasy. He expected rage, anger and evenshing out at him. But the way she talked, the certainty in her voice, they all sent a chill running down his spine.
"So Dean, you have two choices, watch me die before your eyes or see me live with the hope you will do something to fix the mess you created,"
This was Rowena''s ultimatum and Michael had to choose between promising her and giving her hope about Noah or refusing to give her hope and watch her die. Because he didn''t think she was messing around.
Chapter 1367 Michaels Sneaky Plan
Chapter 1367 Michael''s Sneaky n
Michael met her gaze, his own expression a mixture of weariness and¡ something else. Regret? Guilt? It was hard to tell, even for him.
"What do you want, Rowena?" he asked, his voice a low, steady rumble. "What do you want me to say?"
But Rowena ignored his question, her focus fixed on the one thing that consumed her, the one question that echoed through the empty chambers of her heart.
"Why, Ghost?" she whispered, her voice breaking. "Why did you kill him? Didn''t you¡ didn''t you feel even a¡ a spark of¡ of love for him? Even though¡ even though you never grew up as¡ as family?"
Michael didn''t answer. He couldn''t. The truth, the messy,plicated truth, was tangled up in a knot of guilt and regret, a knot he hadn''t yet figured out how to unravel.
He''d seen the aftermath of Noah''s death. The eternal darkness that had descended upon the mortal realm. The fear. The despair. The way it had twisted people, amplified their worst impulses.
He had felt it too, in the prayers of his followers, in the whispers of the wind, in the very air he breathed. The weight of that loss, the ripple effect of his actions¡ it was inescapable. To be honest, he hadn''t wanted to kill Noah. It had been¡ a necessity. A choice made in the heat of battle, a desperate act of self-preservation.
He wasn''t proud of it.
And he certainly wasn''t¡ happy about it.
Back when he''d been an assassin, a nameless shadow in the mortal realm, he''d made a rule. Never kill innocents. Never kill anyone he¡ knew.
Taking a life was one thing. Seeing the ripples, the consequences, the way it shattered the lives of those left behind¡ that was another.
And Noah¡ Noah had been innocent. Naive, perhaps. A bit too¡ righteous for Michael''s taste. But a good person, nheless. Manipted by Skyhall, twisted into a weapon against his own brother.
He''d believed, with a conviction that Michael had found both admirable and infuriating, that darkness was inherently bad. And Michael, with his growing power, his embrace of the shadows, his ruthless methods¡he''d fit the bill of the viin perfectly.
So Noah had done what he thought was right. Tried to stop him. To save the world.
And Michael¡ Michael had done what he had to do.
He''d survived.
But as he stared at Rowena now, at the shattered remnants of her faith, her love, her hope¡ he couldn''t help but feel a pang of¡ regret.
"Did you even think about his family?" Rowena''s voice, choked with rage and grief, pierced the frozen silence. She stepped forward, grabbing him by the cor of his armor, her fingers digging into the cold metal.
"Did you think about what killing the God of Light would do to this world? To our world?"
She shook him, her own body trembling with the force of her emotions, and then, unable to contain her fury any longer, she pped him. Hard. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"You and your goddamn power! You''ve destroyed everything!"
Michael''s head snapped back from the force of the blow, but he didn''t retaliate. Didn''t even flinch. He simply stared at her, his gaze unwavering, the shadows in his eyes deepening.
It had never been about power, not for power''s sake. His entire life had been a struggle for survival, a constant climb up the food chain. He''d learned, the hard way, that you were either the predator, or the prey. There was no middle ground.
He''d reached the top of the food chain on Earth, be the world''s deadliest assassin, a ghost who moved through the shadows, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
And then¡ he''d been reborn into this world. This world of magic, of cultivation, of gods and demons and ancient prophecies.
At first, he''d thought he could escape his past. Build a new life. Find peace. He''d aimed for wealth, for influence, for afortable anonymity that would allow him to blend into the background.
But this world¡ it had a way of pulling you back into the game.
His enemies had escted, from petty thugs and jealous rivals to powerful cultivators, to Skyhall, to the goddamn Gods themselves. And now¡ the Omegas.
He''d had to adapt. To evolve. To be something¡ more.
"I''m not going to exin myself, Rowena," he said, his voice low, steady, devoid of any trace of apology. "I''m not going to y the¡ victim card. I did what I had to do. To survive."
He took a step closer to her, his gaze intense.
"The light faded when Noah died. But if I had died¡ this entire realm would be a ve factory for the Gods. The great evil, the viin, the Dark Lord¡ I''m the one standing between them and your precious mortals."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"I gave Noah chances, Rowena. So many chances. But he was so hell-bent on being the¡ good guy¡ that he failed to see the gray in the world." He met her gaze, his eyes burning with a cold fire.
"So before you go ming me for his death¡ maybe take a little responsibility yourself. If you, and your precious family, had taught him that the world isn''t ck and white¡ that Skyhall was evil¡ maybe he''d still be alive."
After hearing Michael''s true yet harsh words, Rowena stumbled back as if struck. His wordnded like a thunderp, shattering thest vestiges of her denial. She couldn''t refute the truth in them. Unlike Noah, she''d always known, deep down, that Skyhall wasn''t the shining beacon of righteousness it pretended to be.
She''d yed the role of the Holy Maiden, the perfect, innocent pawn in their game, because she''d had to. Refusing would have put her family, her beloved brother, in danger. And she would have done anything to protect Noah.
She''d believed, perhaps naively, that Noah would eventually see the world for what it truly was. That he''d learn, on his own terms, that good and evil weren''t always so clear-cut. That he''d make his own choices, forge his own path.
But now¡ now she realized the cost of her silence, the price of her inaction.
Memories, fragments of conversations, moments of sharedughter and whispered secrets with Noah, shed through her mind. She saw his innocent smile, heard his earnest voice, felt the warmth of his love, a love that had always shone so brightly, even in the darkest of times.
And a wave of regret, a crushing tide of what-ifs and might-have-beens, washed over her. Why hadn''t she tried harder? Why hadn''t she challenged his beliefs, opened his eyes to theplexities of the world, the evil that lurked beneath the surface of Skyhall''s carefully crafted facade?
To Michael''s surprise, she didn''tsh out. Didn''t scream, didn''t argue.
Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks, freezing instantly in the icy air. She took a step towards him, her body trembling and her legs buckled beneath her.
He caught her before she hit the ground, his arms instinctively wrapping around her, pulling her close.
And for a moment, as she buried her face in his chest, inhaling the familiar scent of leather and metal, she felt¡ safe. Like she was back in Noah''s arms, sheltered from the storm, the weight of the world momentarily lifted from her shoulders.
She clung to him, her sobs wracking her body, her tears soaking through his armor. And Michael, his own anger fading, simply held her, his hand stroking her hair, a gesture offort, of¡ understanding.
As Michael held her, a wave of something¡ different¡ washed over him. It wasn''t just her grief, her despair, that he felt. It was¡ something else. Something darker. Something¡ wrong.
A sharp clink sounded from beneath their feet, like ss shattering on stone. Michael looked down, his brow furrowing, and saw a small, empty vial lying on the frost-covered floor.
He nced back at Rowena, his heart sinking as he noticed the subtle changes in her appearance. Her eyes, usually a vibrant green, were now tinged with a faint, unnatura blueness. Her skin, already pale, was taking on a ghastly, almost translucent quality. And her breath¡ it came in shallow, ragged gasps.
He could feel her heartbeat against his chest. It was erratic, fluttering wildly one moment, then slowing to a dangerous crawl the next.
"What did you do?" he asked, his voice a harsh whisper, his grip on her tightening.
Rowena''s body went limp in his arms, her head falling back against his chest.
He eased her down to the floor, gathering her into hisp, his gaze frantically searching her face for any sign of¡ anything.
He picked up the vial, the empty ss container cold and slick in his hand. He brought it to his nose, inhaling cautiously. The scent that hit him was pungent, acrid, like a mix of rotting seaweed and bitter almonds.
Poison.
"It''s¡ from the deep sea ck serpent," Rowena rasped, her voice weak, fading. "One of the¡ most potent poisons¡ in the realm. The Holy Maidens¡ they''re given a vial¡ in case¡ in case of capture. Ast resort¡"
She coughed, a harsh, rattling sound that made Michael''s heart clench.
"I''m using it¡ as a¡ ast resort," she whispered, her gaze meeting his.
"You''re going to¡ be my brother this time. You''re going to¡ find a way¡ to bring Noah back. I don''t care¡ how you do it¡ but you will fix this. Fix your¡ mistakes. You''re a god now, Michael. You have the power."
Her eyelids fluttered, her breath growing shallower.
"This poison¡ it''ll¡ it''ll kill me¡ in a year. You have¡ a year. To figure it out. And if you can''t¡ if it''s¡ impossible¡ then at least¡ at least bury me¡ as your sister. That much¡ you owe me."
Michael stared down at her, his face a mask of shock and¡ something else. Fear? Despair?
However, what Rowena didn''t know was¡ Michael had a secret weapon.
"System, neutralize that poison. Now,"
[Host, neutralizing Deep Sea ck Serpent venom will require 100 million Badass Points. Do you want to proceed?]
"Do it!" Michael ordered. He lost enough people already and he wasnt willing to lose rowena too. Besides, he had enough badass points to do whatever he wants. Thus, curing her poison wasn''t a big deal to Michael.
[Confirmation received host. Deducting 100 million Badass Points. Neutralization process initiated. Estimatedpletion time will be 72 hours. Subject will experience no noticeable side effects during this period.]
Michael let out a breath he hadn''t realized he''d been holding. One hundred million points¡ it was a hefty price, but a small one to pay for Rowena''s life. And for his own sanity.
He watched as the color slowly returned to Rowena''s face, her breathing bing more regr, the erratic thumping of her heart calming to a steady beat. There were no outward signs of the System''s intervention, no glowing lights, no magical fanfare. Just a gradual, almost imperceptible easing of the poison''s grip.
Rowena, unaware of the miracle that had just urred, continued to mumble deliriously, her words a mix of grief, regret, and desperate hope.
Michael listened patiently, his expression a carefully constructed mask of concern. He''d y along for now, let her believe she was still on borrowed time, that her desperate gamble had worked.
He wasn''t a fool. Bringing Noah back¡ even if it were possible¡ it would be a logistical nightmare. And honestly? Thest thing Michael needed right now was his righteous, judgmental brother running around,plicating his ns and questioning his every move.
Rowena wanted him to find a way. That was all that mattered. He''d¡ figure something out. He could always¡ stall. Pretend he was working on it, searching for some ancient ritual, some lost artifact, some magical loophole that could undo the impossible. He could drag it out, buy himself some time, until he''d dealt with the more pressing threats.
Because bringing Noah back now, before he''d dealt with Andohr, before he''d secured the mortal realm, before he''d faced down the Omegas¡ it would be¡ anticlimactic. Pathetic.
And if his life were a novel, if there were some cosmic audience watching his every move, judging his choices, they would throw the book across the room and curse his name if he brought Noah back now. It would be a betrayal of everything he''d fought for, everything he''d sacrificed.
He had to y the long game. For Rowena. For Noah. For himself.
Chapter 1368 The Agni King
Chapter 1368 The Agni King
He gently helped Rowena to her feet, his touch surprisingly gentle for the God of Darkness.
"Drink this," he said, pressing a vial of healing potion into her hand. "You need your strength."
Rowena hesitated, her gaze flickering between the vial and Michael''s face. She had epted her fate, had embraced the agonizing year that stretched before her. This¡ potion¡ it felt like a betrayal of her sacrifice, a way for him to dy the inevitable. But she was weak, exhausted, and a part of her, a small, stubborn ember of hope, whispered that maybe¡ maybe he was trying to find a way.
She drank the potion, its bitter taste familiar, unpleasant.
"Take me home, Dean," she said, her voice still weak, but with a newfound determination in her eyes. "Please."
He nodded, a shadow of sadness crossing his face. "Azazel will take you."
But before he could summon his demon butler, Rowena stopped him.
"Wait," she said, her gaze meeting his. "What about¡ Sabrina? And Father? Are they¡?"
Sabrina, restless and ambitious, had embarked on a journey of her own. She''d been traversing pocket dimensions, seeking out dangerous beasts and powerful artifacts, determined to forge her own path to power.
Burdened by grief and the weight of his family''s legacy, Ethan Winston struggled to keep the Winston n from falling apart. The other noble families, sensing weakness in the wake of Noah''s death, were circling like sharks, eager to im a piece of the Winstons'' dwindling power. If that wasn''t enough, the Hunt family was pretty pissed off about everything Ethan did and they were seeking blood. The two families were on the verge of full-blown war and Nithroel''s order to the Hunt family not to start a new war was the only thing that stopped them from destroying the weakened Winston family.
"They''re fine," Michael said, avoiding her gaze. He didn''t want to burden her with theplexities of their situation. Not now.
"Azazel will take you home. He''ll¡ exin everything."
But Rowena shook her head.
"I haven''t¡ asked you for anything, Dean," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "I''m even willing¡ to forgive you. For what you did¡ to the mortal realm. To Noah. But¡ you have to fix it. Bring him back. Give me¡ give me a reason to¡ to keep living."
"Easy to say, hard to do," Michael sighed.
"One year, Rowena. One year, and I''ll¡ find a way. I give you my word."
Rowena nodded, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. And then, with a newfound strength, she followed him out of the frozen chamber.
The moment they pushed open the bronze doors and exited the chamber, Azazel was there, waiting patiently, his gaze flickering between Michael and Rowena.
"Azazel," Michael said firmly as his gaze lingered on Rowena for a moment, "take her home. And make sure¡ no one touches the Winston family. Not a single hair on their heads."
Rowena stiffened, her jaw clenching.
"I don''t need your¡ protection," she spat, her voiceced with bitterness.
"It''s not protection, Rowena," Michael interrupted, his tone brooking no argument. "This is my realm now. And I don''t like¡ petty squabbles. Family feuds. Wars between ns,."
Rowena red at him, but she knew, deep down, that arguing was pointless. He was the God of Darkness. He''d won. And the rules¡the rules had changed.
"I''ll¡ send Aria and Saber to¡ negotiate with the Hunts," Azazel said smoothly, stepping between them.
Rowena opened her mouth to protest ¨C a negotiation involving an assassin and an elder vampire? What could possibly go wrong? ¨C but before she could utter a word, Azazel activated the teleportation scroll. A swirling vortex of ck smoke enveloped them, and in the blink of an eye, they were gone.
The scroll, along with a dozen others, a stockpile of healing potions, a few experimental weapons, and a stack of spell scrolls that would make a dragon''s hoard look like a child''s piggy bank, had been found in one of Skyhall''s many treasure vaults.
The looting had been¡ productive, to say the least.
Azazel''s space ring was practically overflowing with goodies. And back at the meeting hall, Michael''s subordinates were still arguing over how to divide the spoils, reward those who''d performed exceptionally well during the battle, andpensate the families of those who''d fallen. Michael, generous to a fault when it came to his loyal followers, had left those decisions to them.
After all, he had bigger things to worry about. While Michael was standing outside the chamber doors, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, a figure materialized before him in a swirl of shadows.
"My lord," Maxine said, bowing deeply. Her voice was low, husky,ced with a barely suppressed grief that made Michael''s heart ache. She''d just returned from the Southern Continent, where she''did Tiberius to rest, performed the ancient burial rites of his people, and whispered a promise of vengeance over his grave.
Every second she''d spent away from Michael, away from the battle with Skyhall, was a moment of regret, a burning ember of anger that she hadn''t been there to fight alongside him, to protect those he cared about. As the Queen of Power, as one of his most trusted lieutenants, she felt responsible for Tiberius''s death. It was her duty to protect him, to stand beside him, to fight for him¡ and she''d failed.
But deep down, Maxine knew that none of them could have stopped Rin. Not truly. The Princess of Murder was a being of immense power, a force of chaos from the realm of the Gods.
It was a losing battle from the start.
Michael saw the guilt, the self-me, that clouded her dark eyes. But he simply smiled, a genuine, reassuring smile that surprised Maxine.
How could he still smile? He''d lost his best friend, killed his own brother, plunged the mortal realm into darkness, and been med for it all. He''d been chewed out by Rowena, and Maxine had heard whispers of a simr¡ confrontation¡ with Lah.
And yet¡ here he stood, calm,posed, a faint hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. He was still the Dark Lord she knew, the alpha, the leader, the one who always seemed to have things under control.
Maxine, caught off guard by his smile, felt her anger and her fear recede. For a moment, she''d forgotten why she''de.
Then, she remembered.
"My lord," she said, clearing her throat. "Empress Nithroel is¡ here. She''s waiting for you in the throne room."
"Let''s go meet her," Michael said, turning towards the throne room. Maxine nodded, falling into step behind him, her dark eyes scanning the corridors, ever watchful, ever vignt.
The throne room, unlike the rest of the castle, was rtively unscathed. Elidyr''s runes and arrays, woven into the very fabric of the structure, had protected it from the worst of Skyhall''s attacks.
The chamber was vast, its high ceiling lost in shadows. Torches, fueled by an unquenchable ck me, flickered along the walls, casting long, dancing shadows across the floor, which was iid with a mosaic of ck marble and polished bone.
At the far end of the room, on a raised tform of obsidian, stood Michael''s throne. It was still a terrifying throne crafted from skulls and bones and a symbol of his power, his ruthlessness, his dominion over the darkness.
Empress Nithroel was waiting for him, nked by two tall, imposing elven guards, their silver armor gleaming under the torchlight. She was pacing back and forth, her hands sped behind her back, her gaze sweeping across the chamber, taking in the details of the Dark Castle''s architecture with a thoughtful frown.
She turned as Michael and Maxine entered, a rare smile softening her usually stern features.
"Dark Lord," she greeted, her voice warm, weing. "I heard you were having¡ a bit of a difficult day. With thedies, that is."
"When am I not, Nithroel?" he sighed, shaking his head. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Let''s¡ sit," Michael said, gesturing toward a cluster of plush, dark velvet sofas arranged near the foot of his throne. They were surprisinglyfortable, considering their macabre surroundings. More like thrones in their own right, fit for a king¡ or a God of Darkness.
Nithroel, with a grace that belied her warrior''s strength, settled onto one of the sofas. Michael took the seat beside her, leaning back, his gaze meeting hers. The elven guards, along with Maxine, discreetly retreated to the edge of the throne room, their presence a silent, watchful backdrop to the conversation.
"What brings you to the Dark Castle, Nithroel?" Michael asked, his voice casual, but his eyes sharp, alert. "Is there¡ a problem?"
Nithroel chuckled, a low, melodic sound. "Let''s just say¡ I''m not here to add to your¡dy troubles,"
She paused, her gaze turning serious.
"But I do need¡ a favor. From you. When you return to the realm of the Gods."
After hearing Nithroel, Michael raised an eyebrow, surprised. Nithroel had never asked him for anything before. She was a powerful goddess in her own right, the Empress of the Awor Continent, a force of nature whomanded respect and fear in equal measure. She''d been a key yer in their n to overthrow Skyhall, a valuable ally, but she''d always maintained a certain¡ distance.
This¡ favor¡ it felt different. There was a weight to her words, a hint of vulnerability that Michael had never seen from her before.
He wouldn''t refuse her, of course. He owed her that much, at least.
"What is it?" he asked, his voice softening slightly.
Nithroel sighed, her gaze drifting towards the shadowed ceiling of the throne room.
"You know¡ I haven''t set foot in the realm of the Gods in¡ well, millennia. I cut all ties. Abandoned my title, my duties¡ everything."
She paused, searching for the right words.
"But¡ there are still¡ loose ends. Things I need to¡ take care of. And one of them¡ is my bow."
She looked at Michael, her eyes meeting his, her voice firm.
"The Agni-King."
The name, uttered in a hushed whisper, sent a shiver down Michael''s spine. He''d never heard of the Agni-King. But he knew, instinctively, that it was something¡ special. Important. Powerful as hell. Who the hell names a bow the Agni-King without a damn good reason?
The Agni-King¡ it was more than just a weapon. It was a symbol. A legend. It had made Nithroel the Goddess of Hunt, had given her the power tomand the beasts of the forest, to reign over the wilds. Without it, she''d felt¡ naked. Vulnerable.
And there was another reason, a deeper, more primal fear that gnawed at the edges of her mind. She''d hidden the bow, concealed it in a secret chamber within her ancient temple, deep in the heart of Larnia, her former domain in the realm of the Gods. But she couldn''t shake the feeling¡ the premonition¡ that it wouldn''t stay hidden forever.
"When you return to the realm of the Gods," Nithroel said, her voice a low, urgent plea, "find the Agni-King. Bring it back to me. Before¡ before someone else finds it."
Chapter 1369 Back in the Realm of Gods
Chapter 1369 Back in the Realm of Gods
Michael knew the bow must be powerful. It had been wielded by the Goddess of Hunt, after all, a being whose strength and skill were legendary. He couldn''t help but wonder what made it so special. Did it shoot ming arrows? Control the beasts of the forest? Grant the user superhuman uracy?
Whatever it was, he knew Nithroel wouldn''t ask for his help unless it was important. She was a proud woman, a warrior who''d carved her own path through the world, and she didn''t like to owe anyone anything. So this request¡ this was a big deal.
He considered it for a moment, weighing the risks, the potentialplications. Then, he nodded.
"Alright, Nithroel. I''ll find your bow."
"Thank you," she said, a flicker of gratitude in her eyes.
"Where is it?" Michael asked. "And¡ is there anything I should know? Any¡ special instructions?"
Nithroel took a deep breath, her gaze turning distant. "It''s in¡ my temple. In Larnia. My¡ former domain."
Michael frowned. Larnia? He''d never heard of it. But he had to admit, hiding a powerful artifact in your own damn temple¡ it wasn''t exactly the most creative hiding ce. If he were trying to stash something valuable, he''d pick a random cave in a nameless forest, or bury it in the middle of a goddamn desert.
But he knew Nithroel. She was a cunning strategist, a warrior who''d spent centuries outsmarting her enemies. If she''d hidden the Agni-King in her temple, there had to be a reason. There had to be¡ safeguards.
As if reading his thoughts, Nithroel continued.
"It''s been¡ a long time. Thousands of years since I''ve set foot in Larnia. Things might have changed. But¡ my temple should still be standing. It was¡ built tost."
She flicked her wrist, and a small, golden arrowhead, its surface etched with intricate runes, materialized in her hand. She held it out to Michael.
"This will¡ open the way. To the chamber where the Agni-King is kept."
Michael took the arrowhead, examining it with a curious frown. N?v(el)B\\jnn
"And this will¡ disable the security measures? The traps? The¡ whatever else you''ve got guarding that bow?"
Nithroel chuckled, a low, throaty sound.
"You''re the God of Darkness," she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "Where''s the fun in¡ making it easy for you? Think of it as¡ a test. A challenge. Worthy of a God."
"And I thought you said you weren''t here to add to mydy problems," Michael sighed, shaking his head with a wry smile.
Nithroelughed again, a genuine, unguarded sound that was rare for her. She realized, with a sudden rity, that she felt¡fortable around Michael. At ease. It was a strange sensation, one she hadn''t experienced in¡ well, perhaps ever. Maybe it was because he was a fellow God, someone who understood the weight of power, the burden of responsibility. Or maybe¡ maybe it was just¡ him.
She was starting to understand why his people were so fiercely loyal to him. Why Eve had spoken of him with such¡ admiration.
Nithroel had often found herself rolling her eyes at Eve''s endless tales of her friendship with the Dark Lord. They''d only met a couple of years ago, and hadn''t spent that much time together, and yet¡ Eve had practically worshipped the ground he walked on.
But now¡ now she understood. There was something about Michael¡ the way he carried himself, the easy confidence, the subtle charisma, the way hemanded a room without even trying¡ It made you feel¡ safe. Protected.
And that smile¡ that charming, slightly crooked smile¡ it could disarm even the most hardened warrior.
"It seems¡ you and thedies have a ratherplicated rtionship," Nithroel remarked, a teasing lilt in her voice.
She rose gracefully from the sofa, smoothing down her silken robe but before she could leave, she had onest thing to say.
"I''ll¡ need your help, Michael," Nithroel said, her gaze turning serious once more. "This¡ eternal darkness¡ it''s changing things. The people are¡ restless. Fearful. And there are whispers¡ rumors of unrest, of rebellion."
"I''m nning to¡ unify the mortal realm," she continued. "Bring all the continents under my rule. It''s the only way to¡ maintain order. To protect the people from themselves."
Michael wasn''t surprised. This was¡ their agreement, after all. He helped her be the ruler of the mortal realm, and in return, she''d helped him dismantle Skyhall. And now that Skyhall was gone, it was only fair that he upheld his end of the bargain.
Besides, ruling the entire mortal realm? That wasn''t exactly Michael''s style. He was more of a¡ delegate-and-chill kind of god.
"You have my full support, Nithroel. Anything you need¡ armies, resources, information¡ just ask Azazel. He''ll make sure you get it."
Nithroel nodded, a thoughtful frown creasing her brow. "Conquering the continents¡ that will be easy. But ruling the people¡ especially now, with the darkness twisting their hearts¡ that''s a different challenge altogether."
"You''ll figure it out," Michael said, returning her earlier words with a knowing smile. "Think of it as¡ a test. A challenge. Worthy of a God."
Nithroel''s lips twitched in amusement. "You''re enjoying this, aren''t you?"
"Maybe a little," he admitted.
"Until next time, Michael," she said, with a final nod. Her elven guards moved to nk her, their expressions stoic, their hands resting on the hilts of their swords. Then, with a wave of her hand, the space around them shimmered, distorted, and she was gone, teleported back to Awor continent.
After Nithroel''s departure, Maxine approached Michael with a respectful gaze and curiosity.
"My lord?" she asked, her voice low. "What are your orders?"
Michael stretched, his joints popping and cracking after days of inactivity. He''d destroyed Skyhall, amassed a fortune in badass points and gold coins, dealt with¡ thedies¡ it was time to move on to the next stage of his n.
It was time to go back to the realm of the Gods. And time to take down Rin. Permanently.
He cracked his neck, a satisfied grin spreading across his face.
"Maxine," he said, his voice taking on amanding edge, "prepare the portal. To the realm of the Gods."
Maxine blinked, surprised. "Now, my lord? So soon?"
"Nithroel and the others can handle things here. But Gaya¡ she''s alone up there. Surrounded by enemies. It''s time I¡ rejoined her. And stopped ying around,"
Still lost in his world of runes and diagrams, Eidyr was no help with the portal.So Michael,apanied by Maxine,headed towards the portal room himself. The portal room was still the vast,circr chamber,its walls lined with glowing runes that hummed as the giant portal gate,crafted from obsidian and etched with runes,stood at the center of the room.The runes, once a brilliant,almost blinding white, were now a dim,flickering amber,a subtle but constant reminder of Noah''s death.
Without a word,Michael approached the control console, aplex array of levers,dials, and glowing runes.He didn''t wait for a grand send-off,didn''t summon his other subordinates for a dramatic farewell. He had ces to be.People to¡deal with. He pressed a series of runes,their surfaces cold beneath his fingertips, and pulled a lever,its gears grinding with a sound that echoed through the hall.
The runes on the portal frame began to hum,their glow intensifying.Standing beside him,Maxine felt the air thicken,the space around them distorting.A faint tug,a pull towards the center of the room,made her brace herself against the console. A swirling vortex of colors and energy began to form within the portal gate,growingrger, and more intense, with each passing second. Michael,without turning,nced at Maxine over his shoulder. "I''ll be back soon," he said calmly. And then, without another word,without a backward nce, he stepped into the vortex,his form disappearing into the swirling chaos, leaving Maxine alone in the portal room.
********************************
After what felt like an eternity of swirling colors and disorienting spatial shifts, Michael was spat out of the vortex. Hended on his feet, staggering slightly as he regained his bnce.
He recognized the ce instantly.
Goldspire.
The sprawling, opulent city, the jewel of Seshat''s domain, stretched out before him. He could see the elegant, towering buildings in the distance, their golden roofs shimmering under the light of the two moons that hung in the sky. The high, ornate walls that encircled the city, crafted from a pale, almost translucent stone, gleamed with a faint, inner light. And just outside the city gates, a massive statue of Seshat herself, her arms outstretched in a gesture of wee¡ or perhaps warning, dominated thendscape.
"Clever girl," Michael chuckled, shaking his head. "Couldn''t even let me arrive at my own goddamn safe house, could you?"
He knew, without a doubt, that Seshat had manipted the portal, ensured that he arrived here, in her domain, rather than at his own discreet hideout. But before he could even take a step towards the city, towards Gaya and Phoenix, a familiar vibration buzzed in his ear.
Click.
Pink''s voice, calm, professional, but with a hint of¡ relief? ¡ echoed through the earpiece she''d given him what felt like a lifetime ago.
"Ghost? Is that you? Are you back?"
Michael grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes.
"Yes, Pink, I''m back," he said, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "And this time¡ we''re going hunting. A high-value target. A real¡ special asion."
Chapter 1370 Michael Died Again...
Chapter 1370 Michael Died Again...
While Michael was heading toward the distillery district to reunite with Gaya, deep beneath the surface of an unknown domain, in a temple dedicated to the worship of Xyloth, a different kind of conversation was taking ce.
The temple was built underground and its walls were stained crimson with the blood of countless sacrifices. There were intricate carvings, depicting scenes of violence and torture, adorned the walls, their details rendered in gruesome, lifelike detail. If that wasnt creepy enough, various skeletons both human and beasts were strung together with thick chains and hanging from the ceiling. On the ground, cells, their iron bars rusted and stained with blood, lined the perimeter of the main chamber. Within those cells, the remnants of¡ unfortunate souls¡y scattered, their bodies mutted, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
Naturally, the air was thick with the stench of blood and incense, a cloying, metallic scent that would make a weakened soul throw up immediately. In the center of the chamber, a group of Xyloth''s worshippers, d in blood-red robes that concealed their faces, chanted in a low, rhythmic drone. Their arms were outstretched, their palms shed open with ritual daggers, the blood dripping onto the stone floor, a crimson offering to their god.
Their voices, though muffled by their hoods, carried a chilling fervor, a desperate hunger that resonated with the darkness within the temple. Their prayers, their chants, their blood¡ it all created a steady stream of worship energy that formed into a ck miasma and drifted toward the ceiling¡toward Xyloth, the God of Murder. His power grew with each sacrifice, each act of violencemitted in his name.
Meanwhile, in a darkened corner of the chamber, two figures, their blood-red robes indistinguishable from the others, huddled together, their voices hushed whispers against the backdrop of the chanting.
"Did you hear that?" one of them asked, his voice a low hiss. "The Princess¡ she''s¡ active."
"Rin?" The other figure chuckled. "Yeah, I heard her too. Sounds like she''s having¡ fun. Who''s the poor bastard she''s ying with this time?"
"Doesn''t matter. Whoever it is¡ they''re screwed." The first figure sighed, his hand flexing as if he were gripping an invisible weapon. "Damn, I wish I had someone to¡ kill right now. My hand''s itching."
They bothughed, a harsh, grating sound that echoed the violence swirling within the temple walls.
This was Xyloth''s domain. A haven for the bloodthirsty, the cruel, the utterly fucked up. And these worshippers¡they were just living up to their god''s reputation.
As they were talking, Rin was within a spacious chamber deep within the temple. It was a grotesque parody of aboratory, a macabre disy of her twisted artistry. ss tubes, filled with a murky, greenish liquid, lined the walls. Within those tubes, the bodies of humans, elves, dwarves, and various other unfortunate souls, all meticulously skinned and preserved, floated, their lifeless eyes staring out into the chamber, their expressions frozen in eternal screams.
The spacious hall was lit by blood-red orbs that hung from the ceiling, casting an eerie, crimson glow over the scene. Skeletons, their bones polished to a macabre sheen, were strung together, forming grotesque chandeliers that swayed gently in the still air. In the center of the room, Rin stood before arge, square tank filled with what could only be¡ blood. And standing before that tank, d in her blood-red armor, her twin daggers glinting in the eerie light, was Rin.
Suddenly, the reflection rippled.
A figure, d in ck armor from head to toe, materialized behind her, dropping from the ceiling with a predatory grace. He wielded two swords, their des as ck as obsidian, and attacked without hesitation.
Rin, without even turning, simplyughed, a cold, chilling sound that echoed through the chamber.
"You''re early," she purred, spinning on her heel, her daggers shing as she parried the swordsman''s attack. "I was expecting¡ a grand entrance. Fireworks, maybe. A chorus of screaming souls,"
She ducked under a sweeping blow, her body a blur of motion as she countered with a thrust aimed at the swordsman''s chest. He deflected the blow with a twist of his wrist, his own sword spinning, the des shing in a shower of sparks.
"You''ve gotten¡ predictable," Rin taunted, herughter echoing through the chamber. "Where''s the fun in that?"
She danced back, her movements graceful, almost¡ yful, as she evaded the swordsman''s attacks. He was fast, strong, skilled¡ but she was faster.
"Show me what you''ve learned. Entertain me." she purred.
While Rin danced with the ck-armored figure, another figure watched from an elevated tform overlooking the chamber. He lounged on a throne of carved bone, a goblet of crimson wine swirling in his hand, a look ofzy amusement on his face.
It was Andohr, the God of Time and Space.
He observed the fight with a detached interest, taking a sip of wine as Rin parried a blow, chuckling softly when the swordsman''s attack missed its mark.
"Come now, Rin," he purred, his voiceced with a mocking impatience. "Surely you can do better than that. This¡ is taking far too long."
Andohr was here to oversee one of his many intricate schemes, a web of maniption and betrayal spun specifically to ensnare his nemesis, Michael. He was ying a dangerous game, a multi-dimensional chess match with the fate of the mortal realm hanging in the bnce. He''d forged alliances with unlikely partners, stooped to levels he once considered beneath him, all to exact his revenge.
Once upon a time, before his encounter with the previous Dark Lord, before the humiliation of his five-thousand-year imprisonment, Andohr wouldn''t have given someone like Xyloth, or his bloodthirsty daughter, a second nce. He''d considered them beneath him, crude, unworthy of his attention. But his thirst for vengeance, his obsession with bringing down the God of Darkness, had changed him.
He was willing to do anything, use anyone, to achieve his goals.
And this n¡ this n was his masterpiece. If it worked, he''d finally have Michael right where he wanted him. Trapped. Vulnerable. Ready to be broken.
Andohr would finally have his revenge.
Hearing Andohr, Rin snarled and ignored his taunts. She''d love nothing more than to wipe that smug look off his face, to carve him up and disy his skin as a trophy in her chamber of horrors. But even she, in her bloodthirsty arrogance, wasn''t stupid enough to cross the God of Time and Space.
Weakened as he might be, Andohr was still a force to be reckoned with. A being who could, with a flick of his wrist, unravel her very existence, scatter her across the timelines, or trap her in an endless loop of agonizing torment.
No, she had to y nice¡ for now.
Besides, the task Andohr had given her¡ it was proving to be far more entertaining than she''d anticipated. She''d lost count of how many lives she''d taken in her pursuit of the¡ ingredients for his ritual. Those who were too slow, too careless, too stupid to gather the necessary artifacts ¨C the blood, the armor fragments, the strands of hair, everything the previous Dark Lord had touched ¨C had paid the price. A swift, merciful death was a rare gift in Rin''s world. She preferred to savor the pain, the terror, the despair in her victims'' eyes.
It was onlyst week that she''d finally managed to gather everything Andohr had requested. And the ritual¡ the ritual was¡ exquisite. A symphony of blood and darkness, a masterpiece of suffering.
She returned her focus to her sparring partner, her crimson eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger. The dark-armored figure, relentless and skilled, was proving to be a worthy opponent. He lunged, his sword aimed at her heart, but she twisted away, the de grazing her armor, leaving a shallow scratch that healed instantly, the flesh knitting back together as if the wound had never been there.
She countered with a vicious sh, aiming for his throat, but he parried the blow, their des locking, the force of the impact sending a jolt of energy through her arm. She grinned, her fangs glinting in the dim light.
"Is that all you''ve got?" she taunted with a mocking amusement.
Then, he grabbed her wrist, his grip like iron, twisting her arm, forcing her to drop one of her daggers. She hissed, a sound of both pain and frustration. He pressed his attack, his sword a blur as he aimed for her heart again. She saw the killing blowing, felt the cold steel against her armor, and with a desperate, almost insane grin, she cut her own hand using the remaining dagger clean off.
The pain, sharp and agonizing, made her vision blur for a moment, but it also gave her the opening she needed. He faltered, his gaze momentarily drawn to the blood welling up between her fingers. And in that split second of distraction, she ducked under his sword, spun, and drove her dagger upwards, the de finding its mark, piercing his armor, his flesh, sinking deep into his neck.
He gurgled, a strangled gasp escaping his lips, his eyes widening in surprise. Then, his body went limp, copsing to the ground with a heavy thud.
After the fight, Rin''s chest was heaving from the exertion of the fight as she wiped a smear of blood from her cheek.
"Hey!" she called out, her voice sharp,manding.
Two figures, their faces hidden beneath the hoods of their blood-red robes, hurried into the chamber.
"Get rid of this," she said, gesturing towards the swordsman''s body with a dismissive wave of her hand. "He''s boring me."
The two minions bowed, their movements swift and silent. One grabbed the corpse by the ankles, the other by the shoulders, and together they dragged it out of the chamber. N?v(el)B\\jnn
They stepped out of the hall, into a corridor that opened onto¡ nothingness. A raging, tempestuous sea of swirling shadows and crimson light stretched out before them, the air thick with death. Directly in front of the doorway, a gaping crater, its edges jagged and unstable, yawned open. And at the bottom of that crater, a mountain of bodies, all d in identical ck armor,y piled, a grotesque testament to Rin''s¡ enthusiasm.
The stench of decay, of rotting flesh and stagnant blood, hit them like a physical blow. Flies buzzedzily around the corpses, their wings a constant, irritating drone.
"Damn it, I hate this part of the job," one of the minions muttered, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
"Shut up, you idiot," the other hissed, his voice a low warning. "Do you want to get us both killed? She''ll hear you."
Then, he heaved the corpse over the edge of the chasm, the body tumbling down tond with a sickening thud on the pile below. The impact dislodged the helmet, sending it rolling away, revealing the face beneath¡
A face that belonged to¡ Michael.
Chapter 1371 An Army of Dark Lords
Chapter 1371 An Army of Dark Lords
Meanwhile, back in the ritual chamber, Rin stood, her chest heaving, her blood-red armor now streaked with sweat and¡ something that looked suspiciously like fear. The fight, though short, had taken a toll on her. She''d been facing a replica of the God of Darkness, a perfect copy imbued with a fraction of his power, and even that had been enough to push her to her limits.
But Andohr, lounging on his bone-carved throne, didn''t look impressed. In fact, he looked¡ bored. Disappointed.
He took a sip of his wine, his lips curling into a sneer.
"That''s it?" he chuckled, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "That''s the best you can do? You couldn''t even finish off a clone of the God of Darkness easily?"
He shook his head, his gaze cold, calcting.
"Tell me, Rin¡ how do you n to survive an encounter with the real God of Darkness, if you can''t even handle a pale imitation? Are you nning to use hostages again? Because that little trick, my dear, won''t work for long."
What Rin had been fighting¡ wasn''t Michael. Not really. It was a clone, a magically constructed replica, imbued with a fraction of the God of Darkness''s power. Those bodies piled in the chasm outside¡ they were failures. Discarded attempts to recreate the real thing.
Rin and Andohr had been experimenting, using the blood, hair, armor fragments, and any other artifact that held a trace of the previous Dark Lord''s essence, to create a perfect copy of the God of Darkness, something Andohr could use as his weapon. But with such limited resources, replicating the peak of his power had been impossible. Still, they''d managed to achieve¡ eptable results. Pale imitations, sure, but strong enough to provide a decent challenge. And with each sessful clone, the fight had be harder, more intense, pushing Rin to her limits.
However, Andohr wasn''t satisfied. He wanted more. He envisioned an army of Dark Lords, an unstoppable force of darkness under hismand, ready to unleash hell upon his enemies. He wanted to push the boundaries of what was possible, to create a perfect replica, a mirror image of the God of Darkness, a weapon that would finally secure his victory against the pantheon.
As Rin listened to Andohr''s condescending remarks, her gaze fixed on the smug look stered across his face, she felt a surge of white-hot fury. She''d give anything, anything, to y him alive, to hear him scream, to watch the light fade from his arrogant eyes.
But she clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms, and forced herself to remain silent. She might be the Princess of Murder, but even she knew better than to openly defy the God of Time and Space.
"If you''re so powerful, Andohr," she snarled with a venomous sarcasm, "why don''t you go after the God of Darkness? Why hide behind these¡ replicas? Why not face him yourself, instead of cowering like a rat in the shadows?"
The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
Andohr simply smiled, a cold, predatory grin that sent shivers down her spine. He flicked his wrist, and a series of tiny portals, swirling with temporal energy, appeared around Rin. Her body twitched, jerked, as an invisible force began to pull her in multiple directions at once.
She screamed, a mixture of pain andughter, her body stretching, distorting, the seams of her armor groaning in protest. Blood, a crimson mist, began to seep from the wounds that opened in her flesh as her body was pulled further and further apart.
Andohr stopped just short of ripping her apartpletely. He rose from his throne, his movementsnguid, almost bored, and descended the steps, his wine goblet still clutched in his hand. He took a slow sip, his eyes never leaving Rin''s contorted form.
"Do not," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "question my methods, Rin. Do not raise your voice to me. Do not¡ disrespect me. I have very little patience for¡ creatures like you."
He paused, letting the weight of his words, the implied threat, hang in the air.
"Xyloth can put you back together, yes. But the pain, Rin¡ the pain you will experience¡ that will stay with you. Through every reincarnation. Every lifetime. You''ll never forget it."
The tiny portals surrounding Rin pulsed and throbbed, miniature vortexes of swirling gray energy that tugged at her flesh, stretching her limbs, distorting her body. Andohr circled her, his wine goblet swirling, a cruel smile ying on his lips.
"You think¡ these clones¡ are meant to fight the original?" Heughed, a low, menacing sound that echoed through the chamber. "You truly are¡ stupider than you look, aren''t you?"
His smile vanished, reced by a look of cold fury.
"I hate to¡ hype up that fucker," he snarled as his gaze burned into Rin''s. "But pathetic little worms like you¡ you don''t evenprehend who you''re dealing with. You know the saying, ''tell me who your enemy is, and I''ll tell you who you are''?"
He paused, letting the question hang in the air.
"The God of Darkness¡ he''s a lion, Rin. A fucking lion. A young lion, perhaps. Still finding his paws. But a lion nheless. You think your little¡ games¡ are a threat to him?"
He chuckled, shaking his head in disgust.
"There''s a story," he continued. "About a hyena who saw a lion sleeping in the sun. A young lion,zy, seemingly harmless. And the hyena, arrogant fool that it was, thought¡ ''I can take him.'' It spent days plotting, scheming, gathering its pack, convinced it could bring down the king. What the hyena didn''t realize¡ was that the lion¡ he was just¡ amused. He''d seen it all before. A thousand times. He let the hyena y its little games, knowing that with a single swipe of his paw¡ he could end it all. And when the hyena finally lunged¡ well, let''s just say it wasn''t the lion who ended up as dinner."
It was clear to Rin that Andohr wasparing her to the hyena in his little story. The foolish, arrogant creature who dared to challenge a lion¡ only to be its dinner. And she did not appreciate the analogy. N?v(el)B\\jnn
She was Rin, the Princess of Murder, the daughter of Xyloth. She was at the top of the goddamn food chain. Andohr''s story, his condescending tone, his implication that she was nothing more than a¡ a scavenger, fueled her rage.
"And who are you in this pathetic story, Andohr?" she snarled with a venomous fury that even the pain of her distended body couldn''tpletely mask. "The¡ wise old storyteller?"
Andohr chuckled, his eyes gleaming with a cold amusement.
"The lion," he growled as he continued, "was indeed the king of his forest. He had no rivals, no enemies who dared to challenge his rule. He was¡ arrogant. Comcent. He''d forgotten¡ that there are always¡ bigger predators."
He paused, letting the silence hang in the air, his gaze fixed on Rin''s contorted form.
"He didn''t realize¡ that a dragon was watching him. A dragon who ruled not just the forest¡ but the skies, the mountains, the seas¡ Wherever the dragon went, it ruled. And this lion¡ this arrogant, foolish lion¡ he had no idea that he was being¡ observed. That one day¡ the dragon would swoop down from the heavens¡ and devour him whole."
Andohr chuckled, taking another sip of his wine.
"These clones, Rin," he said, gesturing towards the mountain of bodies piled in the chasm outside, "they''re not meant to fight the God of Darkness. Not directly. He''s a god, and even a hundred, a thousand of these replicas¡ well, he''d wipe them out in minutes. He already proved that by killing seven Ancestors at once. "
He paused, his gaze hardening.
"I''m building an army, Rin. An army to fight the¡ real enemy. The old Pantheon."
He let out a harshugh.
"Even gods, my dear, use armies. Why do you think we let those pathetic mortals fight our wars for us? It''s not because we''re¡ afraid. It''s because¡ it''s messy. Inefficient. And frankly¡ it''s bad for our image. A god, covered in blood, losing their temper¡ it doesn''t inspire faith, does it? No, it''s much better to let the¡ lesser beings do the dirty work. Keep our hands clean. Maintain the illusion of¡ divine detachment."
He grinned, a cruel, predatory smile.
"But my army, Rin¡ my army will be¡ different. Infinite. Unstoppable. And I won''t have to worry about¡ image¡ or¡ faith. Because these clones¡ they''re not¡ sentient. They''re¡ tools. Weapons."
"Infinite?" Rin scoffed, her voice strained from the pain. "You''re kidding, right? Each of these¡ replicas¡ they require blood. A lot of fucking blood. Flesh, bone¡ it''s not exactly a sustainable business model, Andohr."
Andohr chuckled, his eyes gleaming with a predatory amusement.
"That''s why you''re here, Rin. To¡ perfect the process. Make it more¡ efficient. Imagine, my dear¡ an endless army of Dark Lords. All under mymand. Don''t you think¡ your father would be pleased? "
He knew how to push her buttons. Rin lived and breathed for Xyloth''s approval. She craved his attention, his praise, his¡ love. And Andohr, master maniptor that he was, had exploited that weakness perfectly.
He''d struck a deal with Xyloth. A mutually beneficial arrangement. Andohr would get his army, and Xyloth¡ well, Xyloth would get to¡ y. To unleash his own brand of chaos and destruction upon the world, using Andohr''s creations as his instruments of death.
And Rin? Rin was just a pawn in their game. A tool to be used, discarded when she was no longer¡ useful.
The thought of pleasing her father, of earning his approval, made Rin''s pain recede, reced by a surge of manic energy. Sheughed, a high-pitched, almost hysterical sound, that echoed through the chamber.
Even stretched, broken, on the verge of being torn apart, she couldn''t resist the lure of her father''s¡ attention.
"But there''s¡ another piece to the puzzle," Andohr continued, his voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. "I''ve dispatched one of my¡ agents¡ to search for something¡ special. Something that will¡ create a void zone. Specifically for the real God of Darkness."
He paused, his gaze meeting Rin''s, his smile turning predatory.
"Do you¡ understand what that means, Rin?"
Rin frowned, her brow furrowing as she tried to process the information. A void zone¡ she''d heard whispers, rumors of such ces, but she''d never encountered one herself. They were¡ legendary. ces where thews of reality were¡ bent. Broken. Where even gods could be¡ weakened.
"No," she admitted, her voice a low growl. "Enlighten me."
Andohr chuckled, his eyes gleaming with a cold fire.
"It means¡ he''ll be cut off, Rin. No connection to the celestial energy that fuels his powers. No ess to his¡ godhood. Just¡ a mortal. Trapped. Helpless."
He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"And when I have him¡ in my grasp¡ I can unleash my little¡ replicas. Rip him to shreds. And then¡ I can im his soul. And that, my dear Rin¡ is where the real fun begins."
Chapter 1372 Michael and Gaya Reunited I
Chapter 1372 Michael and Gaya Reunited I
Under the twin moons, the Distillery District of Goldspire was a deste wastnd. Crumbling buildings, their windows boarded up or shattered, loomed like skeletal giants against the backdrop of the night. The air, thick with the stench of rotting fruit, spilled liquor, and something vaguely¡ sewer-like, made breathing a chore. Even the protection array that shimmered around the edges of the invisible barrier that separated the district from the rest of Goldspire seemed¡ rippling. The Distillery District was a stark contrast to the elegant, opulent heart of Goldspire, a festering sore on the city''s otherwise pristine facade.
But hidden beneath the rubble of a copsed warehouse, a group of figures huddled in the shadows. They wore strange, almost otherworldly, gear ¨C tactical vests, knee pads, helmets with integrated night-vision goggles ¨C that looked jarringly out of ce in this world of swords and sorcery. They moved with a precision, a quiet efficiency, that spoke of years of training and experience.
Four of the figures were clearly male, their broad shoulders and rugged features entuated by the tight-fitting green armor they wore. The other two¡those curves, those strategically ced pouches that did little to conceal their¡ assets, left no doubt about their gender. One of the women, her blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, was fiddling with a device that looked suspiciously like a high-tech scanner. The other, her dark hair cropped short, her face adorned with a series of intricate tattoos, was chewing on a piece of gum, her jaw working rhythmically as she scanned the surroundings.
"There," the blonde woman said, pointing towards a faint, red light blinking in the distance. "Looks like our scout found it."
"Hope that bitch Seraphene''s right about this," one of the men muttered, adjusting his helmet. "Heard stories about this ce. No one who goes in¡es out."
"That''s why we''re here," the tattooed woman said, cracking her knuckles. "To see what the hell''s going on in there. And to report back to Seraphine."
"Speaking of which¡" one of the men, who was leaning against a broken wall, a cigarette dangling from his lips, spoke up. "Don''t you think it''s a little¡ weird? This whole thing? Coming straight from Seraphene herself? And all this¡ secrecy? This feels¡ bigger than just some goddamn Phoenix."
The burly man shrugged, his gaze fixed on the blinking red light. "Phoenixes are rarer than dragon shit. And this one''s supposed to be thest of its kind. Makes sense that she''d want to¡ keep it under wraps."
"Yeah, well¡" the smoker muttered, taking a long drag on his cigarette, "I still got a bad feeling about this."
But before anyone could reply, the tattooed woman backhanded him across the head.
"Did you just call Seraphene a bitch?" the blonde woman hissed, her hand shooting out to grab the smoker''s cor. "Are you trying to get us all killed? That woman is the Goddess of Information, you dumb fuck. She probably knows what color underwear you''re wearing right now."
The smoker, his eyes wide with rm, stammered out an apology.
"Sorry, sorry! It just¡ slipped out." He nced nervously over his shoulder, as if expecting a flock of spectral ravens to descend upon them, carrying Seraphene''s wrath. "It''s just¡ she''s so damn secretive. Always lurking in the shadows, pulling strings¡ gives me the creeps."
"That''s because she''s the ultimate spy," the tattooed woman chuckled, shaking her head. "Always ten steps ahead. Knows everything before it even happens."
The group, reassured that Seraphene''s wrath wasn''t about to rain down upon them¡ at least not yet, turned their attention back to the task at hand. They checked their weapons, a strange assortment of high-tech gadgets and ancient weaponry. Sleek, green-tinged crossbows, their bolts tipped with a glowing, pulsating liquid. Tiny, razor-sharp throwing des that seemed to hum with a faint energy. And, nestled within a reinforced metal chest, a device that pulsed with a strange, otherworldly energy¡ their secret weapon for capturing the Phoenix.
One of the men, a burly fellow with a thick beard, hefted a heavy chest, its metal surface etched with arcane symbols.
"Don''t forget this, fes," he grunted. "The Phoenix Snare. Hope this shit actually works. "
They moved out, their footsteps silent on the rubble-strewn streets, their eyes constantly scanning their surroundings.
"Heard about those attacks on the Ironhands'' branches?" one of the men whispered as they made their way through a maze of crumbling buildings. "Sage Spire, Riverhold, even that outpost in the Southern District¡"
"Ever since old man Borgin kicked the bucket, that n''s been falling apart," another man said, spitting on the ground. "Heard there''s a power struggle brewing. Someone''s trying to¡ take over."
"I was at the Sage Spire branch after the attack," the blonde woman said, her voice grim. "It was¡ weird. No bodies. The guards were¡ drugged, I think. Just¡ out cold. And the cages¡ empty. All the beasts¡ gone. Vanished without a trace."
"Same thing happened at the Southern District branch," the smoker said, shaking his head. "Except¡ the guards were¡ well, they weren''t sleeping. They were¡ shredded. Like something¡ ripped them apart. And guess what? The beasts? Gone. Fucking vanished."
He paused, taking a drag on his cigarette. "Whatever''s going on here¡ it ain''t natural."
They moved through the decaying streets, their steps cautious, their weapons at the ready. They were hunters, stalkers, trained to blend into the shadows, to move unseen, to strike without warning.
But what they didn''t realize was¡ they weren''t the only ones hunting in the Distillery District.
At that moment, hiding in the shadow of a crumbling distillery, a woman watched as a group of figures approached. She held a sleek, ck crossbow ¨C the God yer, a weapon that had tasted the blood of more than a few deities ¨C and her gaze, sharp and calcting, swept over the neers, assessing their threat level. Beside her, a red-haired youngster, his eyes glowing with an inner fire, shifted impatiently.
This was none other than Gaya, the Goddess of Monsters, and her¡panion, the Phoenix. She''d been¡ busy. Ever since Michael had left for the mortal realm to confront Noah, she''d been embracing her new role. She''d always had a¡ fondness for creatures, for the misunderstood, the outcast, the monstrous. And now, with her newfound divine status, she had the power to¡ help them.
She''d been liberating the caged beasts from the Ironhands'' branches, one by one, leaving chaos and confusion in her wake. Those "attacks" they''d been talking about¡ those were her handiwork.
The drugged guards, the empty cages, the vanished beasts¡ it was all Gaya.
She hadn''t always been so¡ subtle. In her old life, as a powerful but mortal cultivator, she''d been more of a "smash-and-grab" kinda girl. If she wanted something, she''d tear down walls, break down doors, and take it.
But in the realm of the Gods, she was weak. Vulnerable. She hadn''t yet unlocked the secrets of cultivating worship energy, of drawing upon the faith of her followers to fuel her powers. She had to rely on¡ other methods.
Espionage. Maniption. A little bit of¡ poison here, a strategically ced beast there¡
It wasn''t exactly her style. But desperate times, as they say, called for desperate measures.
She''d already taken out several groups of would-be Phoenix hunters in thest few days. Poor bastards, stumbling into the Distillery District, eager to im their prize, only to find themselves facing a pissed-off Goddess and a creature of fire and legend.
But this group¡ they were different. Their strange armor, their weapons, the way they moved¡ there was something¡ off about them.
Gaya frowned, her mind racing. She''d gotten pretty good at using the Phoenix''s¡ unique abilities¡ to her advantage. He was powerful, yes, but also¡ incredibly literal. She''d learned that if she wanted him to do something, she had to be very, very specific with her instructions.
"Those humans seem to love wearing green," Phoenix remarked, pointing towards the approaching figures. "They''re noting to hunt me, are they? They look friendly."
Gaya rolled her eyes and rapped him on the head with her knuckles. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"They''re here for you, you idiot! How many times do I have to tell you? We''ve taken out like, five groups already! Get it through your thick skull ¨C you''re a goddamn target."
Phoenix winced at the knock, rubbing the back of his head.
"But¡ maybe we can talk to them?" he suggested, his voice hopeful.
"When has that ever worked?" Gaya scoffed. "Last time you tried to ''talk'' to them, they tried to chain you up. And you ended up getting your ass kicked."
As usual, Pheonix aking her words literally, as always, frowned and rubbed his backside.
"They didn''t kick me in the rear," he protested.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Gaya couldn''t help but chuckle. He was like a goddamn duckling, following her around, asking endless questions, always eager to please. They''d killed a half dozen hunters already, and he still acted like these guys were just here for a friendly chat.
But even as she teased him, a knot of unease tightened in Gaya''s gut. This group¡ they were different. They didn''t shout, didn''t boast, didn''t fuck around like the others. They moved with a purpose, a silent efficiency that spoke of¡ professionalism.
That scout, lighting the signal, the way they''d approached in that tight, diamond formation, carrying that chest¡ they were trained. And not just beast tamer trained. This was¡ military-grade shit.
The question was¡ who the hell sent them?
Still struggling to unlock her godly powers in this realm, Gaya knew she couldn''t take them on directly. Not yet. She''d have to resort to¡ other methods. A little poison here, a strategically ced beast there¡
But first, she needed to distract them. Test their defenses. See what they were capable of. Thus, she let out a sharp whistle, a sound that echoed through the derelict buildings, a call to arms. Then, from the shadows, from the cracks in the walls, from the sewers beneath their feet, they came.
Slimes.
Dozens of them, small, gtinous blobs, pulsating with a sickly green light, their forms shifting and rippling as they converged on her position, ready to do her bidding.
It wasn''t exactly an army of dark lords. But it would have to do.
Whiel this was happening, high above the crumbling rooftops of the Distillery District, another figure watched the scene unfold. He sat perched on the edge of a building, his legs dangling over the side, a bottle of something that smelled suspiciously like whiskey clutched in his hand. His gaze, sharp and observant, swept over the gathering slimes, the approaching figures in their strange, green armor, the dpidated buildings..
This was none other than Michael.
He''d arrived moments earlier and decided to¡ observe for a moment.
To be honest, he wanted to see Gaya in action. See how she handled herself in this new realm, with her powers still¡ dormant. And he had to admit, she was doing¡ okay. Not exactly her usual rip-everything-to-shreds style, but she was adapting¡using her wits and cunning.
Then, he took a swig of whiskey voured fruit juice with a wry smile twisting his lips.
"Time for a little¡ family reunion."
Chapter 1373 Michael and Gaya Reunited II
Chapter 1373 Michael and Gaya Reunited II
Having no idea Michael was watching over her like a guardian angel ¨C or a guardian dark lord, Gaya focused on the task at hand.
She whistled again, a sharper, more urgent sound, and the slimes, sensing hermand, began to swarm towards the approaching figures.
Slimes. They weren''t exactly the most intimidating creatures. Low-level, practically mindless blobs of¡ well, slime. Most of them barely even registered on the cultivation scale, stuck at the Initiate Realm ¨C the equivalent of magical toddlers.
But what theycked in brains and brawn, they made up for in¡ numbers. And sheer, annoying persistence.
Slimes could reproduce like crazy. One slime, given enough time could create a hundred more. There were acid slimes, capable of dissolving clothes and armor, though not to the extent those pervy Japanese anime liked to show those scenes where the slime melts the girl''s clothes just enough to make her blush and create some cringeworthy, fan-service bullshit. Then there were watery slimes, which could, shockingly enough, turn into water. Slippery slimes, which could create slippery pools of goo. Digestive slimes, which were great for breaking down garbage, and were often used by alchemists and cultivators for¡ waste management purposes.
Their value, however, was limited. Their abundance, their easy reproduction, meant that they were¡mon. Expendable.
But there was one thing that made slimes¡ useful.
They were incredibly difficult to kill with physical attacks. Sure, you could crush them, stomp on them, hack them to pieces¡ but unless you obliterated thempletely, reduced them to vapor¡ they''d just¡ reform. Most cultivators, faced with a swarm of these gtinous annoyances, simply resorted to¡ spells. A simple fireball, a st of ice, a well-ced lightning bolt¡ that was usually enough to take care of the problem.
And that was exactly why Gaya loved them.
They were the perfect¡ bait.
In the realm of the Gods, gauging an opponent''s strength was a tricky business. You couldn''t just¡ look at someone and know their cultivation level like you could in the mortal realm. Not without some serious artifacts, anyway.
But if you forced them to use their powers¡
Well, that was a different story.
Slimes were practically begging to be sted with magic. And watching how someone reacted to a horde of slimes¡ their first instinct, their choice of spell, their speed, their precision¡ it gave Gaya a pretty good idea of what she was dealing with.
And while her opponents were busy frying slimes, she could quickly stab in the back, fire a poisoned dart and do a strategically ced explosion¡
In simple terms, hit and run. That was her new motto.
Meanwhile, the scout who had nted the blinking red light rejoined the group, his steps cautious as he approached their position.
"Didn''t see any wraiths," he reported, his voice a low murmur. "And¡ no sign of the Phoenix."
"Maybe it''s hiding?" the blonde woman suggested, her gaze scanning the surrounding rooftops. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Or maybe it flew off," the smoker said with a shrug. "Either way, we need to check this ce out. Together. This whole damn district gives me the creeps."
But before he could finish his sentence, one of the men, a tall,nky fellow with a shaved head and a goatee, held up a hand, his expression suddenly alert.
"Shut up," he hissed. "Do you hear that?"
The others, their senses on high alert, froze, listening intently. At first, there was nothing but the usual sounds of the Distillery District ¨C the wind whistling through broken windows, the creaking of decaying timbers, the distant scuttling of rats. A momentter, they all heard it. A faint rustling sound, like¡ like a thousand tiny feet skittering across the cobblestones.
The rustling grew louder, closer, and then¡ they saw them.
A wave of¡ something¡ emerging from the shadows, flowing towards them like a tide of¡ jelly. It was a kaleidoscope of colors ¨C blue, green, orange, even a few that shimmered with an iridescent purple ¨C their forms shifting and pulsating as they moved.
The men''s night-vision goggles, struggling to make sense of the chaotic disy, adjusted their filters, revealing the true nature of the¡ attackers.
"Aw, look at those cute little blobs," one of the men chuckled.
"Cute?" another man snarled. "Those things are dangerous, man! And there''s¡ there''s a shitload of them! Remember what happened to those other hunters? Vanished without a trace! Get your head in the game, rookie!"
They all knew, with a chilling certainty, that this ce¡ this goddamn Distillery District¡ was dangerous. That was the whole reason they were here. Those missing hunter groups¡ they hadn''t just¡ wandered off. Not in this city. Not with those stories.
They knew what "missing" meant in a ce like this.
It meant dead.
The question was¡ how? What, or who, had killed them?
They were all seasoned hunters, except for the wide-eyed rookie who was now staring at the approaching slimes with a mixture of fascination and terror. And they all felt it¡ that prickle of awareness, that feeling of being¡ watched.
But fear was a luxury they couldn''t afford. Not now. Their training, their instincts, took over.
"Split up!" the blonde woman barked, her voice sharp,manding. "Alpha team, take the rooftops. Bravo team, stay low, use the alleys. We need eyes on every angle. And for God''s sake¡ be careful. We don''t know what we''re dealing with."
The group moved with a practiced precision, taking up positions, their weapons trained on the approaching slimes. The two women, armed with crossbows, scrambled up a pile of rubble, gaining a vantage point from which to snipe. The smoker and the burly man, their swords drawn, took cover behind a toppled distillery vat, ready to engage in closebat.
Still looking a bit shell-shocked, the rookie clung to the veteran hunter''s side, his eyes darting around nervously.
"Remember the n," the blonde woman said, her voice a low, urgent hiss. "We hit them hard, hit them fast. Conserve our energy. No point wasting spells on¡ slimes. We use well-ced attacks. Synergy. Fire and wind. Water and lightning. We force whoever''s controlling these things¡ to show themselves."
The blonde woman gestured towards the heavy chest they''d been carrying. "And keep that damn box safe! We''re gonna need it."
The men, grunting with effort, lifted the chest and followed her towards a nearby building, its walls still partially intact, offering a semnce of cover.
The slimes were everywhere. A pulsating, rippling tide of gtinous goo that flowed through the streets, oozing around corners, seeping through cracks in the pavement. They came in a rainbow of colors ¨C electric blue, toxic green, fiery orange ¨C their forms constantly shifting, their movements both mesmerizing and¡ kinda gross.
The rookie, his nerves clearly getting the better of him, raised his crossbow and fired a bolt. It struck a bright blue slime, piercing its gtinous form, but the slime simply¡ absorbed it, the bolt vanishing into its depths without causing any visible damage.
"What the hell are you doing, kid?" the tattooed woman shouted, rolling her eyes. "You could shoot those things all day, and it wouldn''t do jack shit. Wait for my signal. We''re using spells."
The slimes were getting closer now, their pulsating forms almost¡ menacing in their sheer numbers.
"Aqua st!" the blonde woman shouted, her hands glowing with a faint blue light. A torrent of water, crystal clear and surging with a force that belied its seemingly harmless nature, erupted from her fingertips, mming into the approaching slimes, sending them flying.
"Lightning Strike!" the burly man roared, raising his hands towards the sky. A bolt of electricity, crackling with raw power, streaked down from the sky, striking the wet ground amidst the slimes, sending out a shockwave of energy that vaporized a dozen of the creatures in a sh of blinding light.
But even as they were sted apart, vaporized, dissolved¡ the slimes kepting. More and more of them, surging forward as if drawn by an invisible force, their numbers seemingly endless.
And their movements¡ they weren''t random anymore. They were¡ targeted. Deliberate.
"They''re¡ they''reing right for us," the smoker muttered, his eyes widening in rm. "Someone''s¡ someone''s controlling them."
"Be careful!" the blonde woman shouted with a hint of fear. "This is¡ this is no ordinary slime infestation."
The slimes, their numbers growing with each passing second, pressed against their defenses, a pulsating, rippling tide of goo that threatened to overwhelm them.
"Shields up!" the blonde woman shouted, pulling a handful of small, circr devices from her pouch. She tossed them into the air, and the devices, humming with a faint, blue light, activated, expanding outwards to form a shimmering, translucent barrier that halted the slimes'' advance.
The shields, though seemingly fragile, held firm against the onught. They were powered by a unique energy source, a sliver of Seraphene''s own divine grace, woven into the fabric of their armor. It was a workaround, a loophole that allowed them to use magic within the otherwise restrictive confines of Seshat''s domain.
"Take them out!" the blonde woman yelled, her voice echoing through the derelict streets. "While they''re bunched up! Don''t let them get close!"
The hunters unleashed a barrage of spells, fireballs, lightning bolts, and shards of ice, all amplified by the divine energy woven into their armor, crashing into the pulsating mass of slimes, vaporizing them in bursts of light and heat.
But for every slime they destroyed, two more seemed to take its ce.
And then, from atop a nearby building, a scream pierced the air.
The rookie, who''d been perched on the rooftop, firing bolts of lightning with a gleeful abandon, suddenly went rigid, his body convulsing, before tumbling over the edge,nding with a sickening thud on the cobblestones below.
The others, their focus on the slimes, barely registered his fall. They were veterans, trained to stay focused, to keep fighting even in the face of¡ well, death. Stopping now, panicking¡ that was a rookie mistake.
But as they continued their assault, they noticed something¡ off.
A crossbow bolt, its shaft a dark, almost iridescent green, protruded from the back of the rookie''s head, lodged between the gap in his helmet and armor.
Whoever had fired that shot¡ they were damn good.
"Cover your heads!" the blonde woman shouted, her voiceced with a sudden, chilling fear. "Keep your backs to the walls! Who the fuck fired that shot?! Come out, coward!"
For a fleeting moment, as she spun around, her gaze scanning the rooftops, she caught a glimpse of¡ her. A silhouette, dark against the backdrop of the moonlit sky, a crossbow clutched in her hand. Then, just as quickly, the figure vanished, leaping across the gap between buildings, melting back into the shadows.
The blonde woman let out a breath she hadn''t realized she''d been holding. Relief warred with unease.
At least it wasn''t a goddamn wraith. Or some ancient, tentacled horror from the depths of this ce
"It''s a woman," she said, her voice still shaky, but with a hint of¡ annoyance creeping in. "She''s the one who¡ who took out the rookie."
"A woman?" the burly man echoed, frowning. "What the hell''s a woman doing in this shithole? And how the fuck did she get past our perimeter?"
"She''s good," the blonde woman muttered, scanning the rooftops. "Damn good. That shot¡ it was¡ professional. And she knew¡ she knew exactly where to hit him. Where the armor¡ didn''t cover."
She turned to the others, her expression hardening.
"Looks like we''re being hunted, boys. And this bitch¡ she knows what she''s doing."
Chapter 1374 Michael and Gaya Reunited III
Chapter 1374 Michael and Gaya Reunited III
"Heads down! Backs to the wall!" the blonde woman ordered, her voice sharp and urgent.
The men scrambled for cover, pulling their helmets down, their bodies pressed against the crumbling brickwork. They scanned the rooftops, their weapons trained on the shadows, their senses on high alert.
Meanwhile, the slimes continued to advance, their numbers multiplying with an unnatural speed. For every slime they sted apart, two more seemed to ooze out of the shadows, their gtinous forms rippling and pulsating, their colors shifting and swirling like a psychedelic nightmare.
"What the hell¡?" the burly man muttered, his eyes widening in rm. "They''re¡ they''re multiplying! I''ve never seen them do that before!"
They''d never seen anything like it. These slimes¡ they were multiplying at an rming rate, as if they were on some kind of goddamn steroids. No matter how many they sted apart, vaporized, dissolved¡ more kept appearing. It was like fighting a goddamn tide.But they did not know this was because they were not fighting a mortal but a Goddess.
Gaya might not have unlocked her godhood in this realm, but she was still a goddess. And she had a certain¡ influence over the creatures of this world including the slimes.
Watching from her hiding spot, Gaya smirked but she knew these hunters¡ they were good. Too good. Their reaction to the rookie''s death, the way they''d adapted their tactics, their seamless coordination¡ it was impressive. Thus, she needed something¡ stronger.
She leaped from rooftop to rooftop, her movements fluid, silent, her ck armor blending into the shadows. The rooftops of the Distillery District were a treacherousndscape, a maze of crumbling chimneys, broken tiles, and precariously bnced beams. But Gaya, agile and sure-footed, navigated them with ease.
She ducked behind a chimney, her heart pounding, as a bolt of lightning crackled past her head. Close.
Finally, she reached her destination. A crumbling building, its roof partially copsed, its walls covered in a thickyer of grime.
She slipped inside, her boots crunching on broken ss and debris. In the center of the floor, a rough hole, barely wide enough for a person to fit through, had been dug into the earth. Thick, sticky webs, shimmering with a faint, iridescent sheen, covered the opening. And from the depths¡ a low, scratching sound echoed.
Gaya, taking a deep breath, peered into the darkness.
"Hey, you creepy little bastards," she called out, her voice a low whisper. "Time to¡ earn your keep."
She whistled, a sharp, piercing sound that echoed through the empty building. The only response was a pregnant silence, broken only by the distant sounds of battle, the crackle of spells, the thud of bodies hitting the pavement.
And then¡ the ground beneath her feet trembled.
Gaya took a step back, her hand instinctively reaching for the God yer crossbow strapped to her back.
From the depths of the hole, a torrent of¡ movement erupted. Hundreds of tiny spiders, their bodies covered in a thick, ck fur, their eight red eyes gleaming with a malevolent hunger, surged upwards, their legs a blur as they swarmed towards her, their hissing a chilling chorus that made her skin crawl. There were few things that could creep out Gaya who was the Dark Queen, the foul mouthed naga queen and the wife of the Dark Lord. But spiders¡ hose creepy, crawly, eight-legged freaks¡ they were one of the few things in this world that truly¡ creeped her out.
But they were damn useful in a fight.
She sent them out, a silent, deadly wave of furry fury, towards the unsuspecting hunters.
Back on the battlefield, the hunters were starting to feel¡ confident. The slimes, though numerous, were proving to be¡ well, slimes. Easy to dispatch, slow, and not particrly bright.
"This is almost¡ too easy," the burly man chuckled, vaporizing a cluster of green slimes with a st of fire.
"Don''t get cocky," the blonde woman warned, her gaze still scanning the rooftops. "Something''s not right. Where''s the¡ challenge?"
But even as she spoke, a new sound, a faint rustling, reached her ears. She felt a tremor beneath her feet, a subtle vibration that sent a shiver down her spine.
"What the¡"
The scout, who was monitoring their surroundings using a small, handheld mirror that disyed a thermal image of the area, let out a gasp.
"Holy shit!" he shouted, pointing towards the mirror. "Spiders! Hundreds of them!"
On the mirror''s surface, a swarm of tiny, red dots, representing heat signatures, was converging on their position, emerging from the shadows of the surrounding buildings.
He looked up, his eyes widening in horror, as a wave of ck, furry bodies, their eyes glowing with a malevolent red light, surged towards them, their legs clicking against the cobblestones like a thousand tiny drums. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Iing!" he screamed, scrambling back, his crossbow firing wildly.
"That bitch!" the blonde woman cursed, knowing, with a sickening certainty, who was behind this new attack.
"Spiders? Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with that woman?" the burly man groaned, igniting his sword with a st of fire.
But before the scout could react, to fully process the threat, another wave of spiders erupted from the ground beneath his feet, their mandibles snapping, their legs swarming over him, dragging him down into the darkness.
His scream, cut short by the swarm, echoed through the Distillery District, a chilling reminder that this¡ this was no ordinary hunt.
And just like that, out of six, two of them were down.
"Shit! Where the hell did theye from?!" the burly man roared, sting a cluster of spiders with a wave of fire. "We''re surrounded! They''re everywhere!"
"We can''t use any big spells," the blonde woman said, her voice tight with frustration. "We''re in Seshat''s domain, remember? One wrong move, and those goddamn angels will be on us like flies on shit. We''ll be spending the rest of our lives rotting in her dungeons."
They knew the risks. They''d been warned. But the lure of a Phoenix¡ a creature of legend, a prize that could set them up for life¡ it had been too tempting to resist.
"Focus fire on the spiders!" the blonde woman ordered, her gaze darting around, trying to track the movements of their unseen enemy. "Burn those creepy bastards to a crisp! And you," she added, ncing at the remaining hunter, "keep those slimes off our backs!"
"Maybe we should¡ retreat?" the smoker suggested, his voice a shaky whisper.
"Don''t you dare chicken out on me now!" the blonde woman snapped. "We haven''t found the Phoenix yet. And I have a feeling¡ that bitch is holding it. She''s using these¡ creatures to distract us."
She raised her voice, her gaze scanning the rooftops, her anger echoing through the derelict buildings.
"Show yourself, you coward! I know you''re out there! You''re gonna pay for this!"
The spiders, undeterred by the hunters'' attacks, continued their advance. They swarmed over the ground, their furry legs clicking against the cobblestones, their red eyes gleaming with a malevolent hunger.
Fireballs exploded amidst the spider horde, sending charred bodies flying, but for every one that fell, a dozen more took its ce. On the other hand, the slimes, pulsating and rippling, squeezed through gaps in the defenses, adding anotheryer of difficulty to the hunters'' already precarious situation.
"Our priority is to find out what happened to the others!" one of the hunters shouted from his position on a rooftop, where he was unleashing a torrent of fire spells onto the advancing spiders.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" the blonde woman roared back, her voiceced with a mixture of anger and disbelief. She stood in the center of a swirling, green energy shield, conjured swords, sharp and deadly, darting out from the shield''s surface to slice through the approaching spiders.
"The investigation is over, dumbass! We know what happened to them. That bitch killed them! Just like she''s trying to kill us!"
She red at the hunter on the rooftop, her eyes zing with a furious intensity.
"If we retreat now, all of this¡ all of this will be for nothing. We''ll have failed. And those bastards¡ they''ll just keep killing. But if we capture the Phoenix¡" She nced at the heavy chest, now safely tucked away inside the ruined building, its metal surface gleaming with a faint, blue light.
"If we get our hands on that bird¡ Seraphene will pay us enough to¡ retire. To live like kings. The rest of our lives."
But as she was painting a picture of their future riches, disaster struck.
The hunter on the rooftop, his focus wavering for a moment, lost control of his fire spell. The steady stream of mes, meant to incinerate the approaching spiders, veered wildly, engulfing him in a searing inferno.
"Shit!" the smoker shouted, The smoker, battling the slimes and spiders on the ground below, barely had time to react. A metallic shield, activated by a rune etched into his armor, snapped into ce before him, protecting him from the worst of the st. But the heat, the searing intensity of the mes, still singed his skin, leaving a trail of painful burns across his arm.
"Well, well, well," the blonde woman chuckled, her voiceced with a sardonic amusement. "Looks like the smoker got¡ smoked. Guess that''s what happens when you y with fire."
"Shut the fuck up!" the smoker growled, ring at her. But before he could retort, the haywire mes shot upwards, creating a fiery pir that reached towards the sky.
And through that pir of fire, a figure descended..
The Phoenix
A red-haired youngster, his eyes zing with an otherworldly intensity, his wings, made of pure fire, trailing smoke and sparks as he swooped down, grabbing the hunter who cast the fire stream spell by the neck and lifting him high into the air.
"What the hell?!" the tattooed woman shouted, throwing an ice ball at the ascending Phoenix.
"He''s got Marcus! Put him down!" the blonde woman yelled, scrambling for the chest that held their Phoenix Snare.
But she had no idea that the Phoenix took everything literally.
Watching the scene unfold from her hiding spot, Gaya couldn''t help but shake her head in amusement.
"Oh, this is gonna be good," she murmured, a mischievous grin spreading across her lips.
Up in the sky, the Phoenix, obeying the blonde woman''smand, released his grip.
"No!" the tattooed woman screamed, watching in horror as the hunter, his body engulfed in mes, plummeted towards the ground. He scrambled, desperately trying to cast a defensive spell, but it was toote.
Gaya, acting on instinct, grabbed an acid slime from the swarm that had been momentarily forgotten amidst the chaos and hurled it towards the falling hunter. She''d spent enough time with these little bastards to know their¡ quirks. And her aim, honed by years ofbat experience, was impable.
The slime, a wobbly, green projectile, struck the hunter''s face, sttering across his helmet, obscuring his vision. The acid, though not strong enough to melt his armor, was enough to¡ distract him, to dy his spellcasting, to disrupt his concentration.
And it was all the time Gaya needed.
The hunter, his fall uninterrupted, his defenses down,nded¡ badly.
A sharp, wooden stake, protruding from a pile of debris, impaled him through the chest, the impact driving the air from his lungs, silencing his scream. He twitched once, twice, and then¡y still.
Chapter 1375 Michael and Gaya Reunited Final
Chapter 1375 Michael and Gaya Reunited Final
The shock that rippled through the remaining hunters wasn''t solely due to theirrade''s gruesome demise. They were professionals, hardened by countless encounters with death, their minds trained topartmentalize grief and focus on the mission. But the casual, almost yful, way the Phoenix had manipted those mes, the sheer power he''d disyed and the fact that they were facing a Phoenix, a creature of myth and legend, in its human form
It was enough to make even the most seasoned hunter question their sanity.
"What the hell, dude?!" the tattooed woman shrieked, staring at the Phoenix, her jaw ck. "You just you just dropped him!"
Phoenix tilted his head, his fiery eyes wide with a childlike innocence.
"You told me to put him down," he said, his voice calm, matter-of-fact. "So I did."
The hunters stared at him, their minds struggling to grasp the logic of it all. There was no malice in his eyes, no hint of the cruelty they''d expected from a creature of fire and legend. Just pure, unadulterated innocence.
"You¡you little" the tattooed woman sputtered, her anger warring with her disbelief. "You just killed him!"
"But isn''t that what you wanted?" Phoenix asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "To capture me?"
He gestured towards the heavy chest, its metal surface gleaming in the dim light.
"You brought a cage, didn''t you? To keep me in?"
The tattooed woman, who''d been closest to the fallen hunter, let out a roar of rage.
"You''re gonna pay for that, bird!" she screamed, her hands crackling with energy.
But Phoenix just frowned.
"Pay? But I don''t have any coins. I haven''t been to a market in well, a very long time. What are you selling?"
The hunters stared at each other, their expressions a mix of confusion and frustration. They were supposed to be focusing on capturing the Phoenix their ticket to a life of luxury, of freedom from this endless cycle of hunts and dangers. But this conversation was throwing them off their game.
They couldn''t tell if the Phoenix was toying with them, or if he was genuinely clueless. Retarded.
"Are you fucking with me?!" the tattooed woman roared, her patience finally snapping.
Listening from her hiding spot, Gaya almost choked on her ownughter. "Oh, this is going to be gold," Gaya muttered as she knew exactly how the Phoenix would take. that question.
"Fucking with you?" Phoenix repeated, his brow furrowed in confusion. "No, I don''t think mating would be appropriate. Your mate probably wouldn''t appreciate it. And to be honest I don''t find you particrly attractive."
The tattooed woman stared at Phoenix, her jaw ck, her face turning a rather fetching shade of crimson. The other hunters, caught between horror and disbelief, simply gaped at the bird, their minds struggling to process the absurdity of the situation.
"Did did he just?" the smoker stuttered in utter shock.
"He he thinks you want to mate with him?" another man choked out, hisughter bubbling up despite the tension.
The tattooed woman shuddered. The thought of mating with a Phoenix it made her skin crawl. And the fact that he''d called her unattractive, it was humiliating and made her want to lung at him and rearrange his organs
"That feathered little" she sputtered, her fury reignited. "I''m gonna roast him alive! I''m gonna pluck his feathers one by one! I''m gonna¡ª"
"Damn, girl," one of the men chuckled, shaking his head. "You just got rejected by a bird. That''s gotta sting."
"Enough with the jokes!" the blonde woman roared, her patience finally snapping. "We''re losing ground here! Activate the cage! Now!"
The smoker, abandoning his teasing, sprang into action.
"Inferno Whirlwind!" he shouted, his hands glowing with a fiery intensity. A tornado of mes erupted around him, a swirling vortex of fire and wind that ripped through the approaching spiders and slimes, burning them to a crisp. The air filled with the stench of singed fur and the sizzle of vaporizing goo.
He dashed towards the chest, ignoring the heat of the mes licking at his heels, and mmed his hand down on the rune etched into its surface.
The chest whirred as the runes began to glow with a sudden, intense blue light. A swirling vortex of energy began to form above it, growingrger, more powerful, with each passing second.
Phoenix, watching the swirling vortex with wide-eyed curiosity, felt an irresistible pull.
"This is¡ interesting," he murmured, his body tilting towards the vortex as if caught in a strong current. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Gaya, who''d been enjoying the show until now, suddenly realized what was happening.
"Shit!" she cursed, leaping from her hiding spot. She raised the God yer crossbow, aiming it at the chest, and fired.
The bolt, a blur of dark metal, streaked through the air, aimed at the heart of the swirling vortex.
But the tattooed woman, her reflexes honed by years ofbat, reacted instantly. She whipped a silver disc from her belt, tossing it into the air just as the bolt was about to strike.
The disc expanded outwards, forming a shimmering energy shield that deflected the crossbow bolt, sending it ricocheting harmlessly off a nearby wall.
"Nice try, bitch!" the blonde woman snarled, ring at Gaya, who was now standing in the open, her crossbow still raised. "You''re going to regret that! Once I''m done with these¡ pests¡ you''re next!"
Gaya growled, a low, feral sound, and dove for cover as the tattooed woman unleashed a volley of attacks. A shard of ice, sharp and jagged, whizzed past her ear, embedding itself in the wall behind her. Then, a rapid-fire burst of crossbow bolts, their tips glowing with a sickly green light, streaked towards her, forcing her to scramble for cover behind a pile of rubble.
"Shit!" she cursed, clutching her shoulder, where one of the bolts had grazed her, leaving a searing burn.
The blonde womanughed, her eyes gleaming with a cruel amusement, as she watched the Phoenix, his body now halfway into the swirling vortex, struggle against the pull.
With its intricate runes and arcane mechanisms, the chest was a gift from Andohr to Seraphene. A tool, a weapon, designed to capture anything. It worked by creating a pocket dimension within its confines. And once a creature was trapped inside, there was no escape. Not without Andohr or Seraphene''s say-so.
It was a masterpiece of engineering and a testament to Andohr''s mastery over time and space.
"Fly away!" Gaya shouted at Phoenix with a desperate urgency. "Get out of there!"
"I''m trying!" Phoenix yelled back, his voice strained. "But the¡ the pull¡ it''s too strong!"
On the other hand, the blonde woman watching the Phoenix struggle, couldn''t help but grin.
"Gotcha, birdie," she muttered with triumph. "This¡ this is it. Game over."
Looking at Phoenix''s situation, Gaya''s heart sank. She was out of options. Unleashing the other beasts she''d been keeping hidden in the Distillery District¡ it wouldn''t work. They''d just end up trapped in that goddamn chest, along with the Phoenix.
She''d chosen this ce, this crumbling, forgotten corner of Seshat''s domain, because it was safe. No one came here. And fighting was strictly prohibited within the city walls.
But it seemed¡ she''d been outyed.
She watched, helpless, as the Phoenix, his fiery wings beating weakly against the pull of the vortex, was dragged closer and closer to the chest.
And then¡ a miracle.
A wave of bone-chilling cold, a sudden, intense frost, swept through the Distillery District, freezing everything in its path.
"What the fuck!" the tattooed woman shrieked, her voice a strangled gasp as the frost crept up her legs, encasing her boots, her armor, her entire body, in ayer of ice.
The blonde woman, her eyes wide with terror, tried to run, to escape the encroaching cold, but it was too fast. It mmed into her, a wall of absolute zero that froze her mid-stride, her expression a mask of horrified disbelief.
The vortex above the chest sputtered, its energy dissipating, the swirling colors fading, leaving the Phoenix hovering in mid-air, his wings beating slowly, his brow furrowed in confusion.
The frost was relentless. It coated the cobblestone streets, the crumbling buildings, and the shattered remnants of the distillery vats. The slimes, frozen mid-ooze, glistened like grotesque, multicolored jewels. The spiders, their legs encased in ice,y scattered across the ground, their red eyes staring nkly at the frozen sky.
Even Gaya, hidden behind a wall of crumbling brick, felt the chill seep into her bones, a bone-deep cold that made her teeth chatter.
But the sudden silence, the abrupt stillness that had descended upon the Distillery District, was shattered by a new sound. A crackling, buzzing sound, like a thousand wasps let loose in a confined space.
And then the lightning struck.
Bolts of ck lightning mmed into the frozen hunters, their bodies shattering into a million pieces, blood and bone spraying across the frostedndscape.
Gaya, her eyes wide with disbelief, watched as the hunters, now nothing more than a pile of bloody shards, scattered across the ground like broken dolls. She hadn''t recognized the frost but those lightning bolts¡
She knew exactly who wielded that kind of power.
"No¡ it can''t be¡" she whispered, her gaze lifting towards the sky.
And there he was.
Michael.
Chapter 1376 : Meeting Goddess of Wisdom Again
For a heartbeat, Gaya simply stared at him. He always had a knack for dramatic entrances. And usually, those entrances meant she was in deep shit. She wasn''t sure if he did it on purpose, if he enjoyed finding her at her most vulnerable, or if he just had impable timing.
But seeing him now, after almost two months of being alone in this strange, new world it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She hadn''t realized how much she''d missed his presence, his strength, the sense of safety he brought with him.
Without a word, she ran towards the edge of the rooftop and leaped.
She didn''t think about the fact that she couldn''t fly in this realm. Didn''t think about the fall, the impact, the potential for broken bones. All she knew was he''d catch her.
And he did.
Michael, moving with a speed that blurred his form, appeared beneath her, his arms wrapping around her waist, catching her effortlessly before she could even scream. He held her close, his body a solid, reassuring presence against hers.
They hovered there, suspended in mid-air, for a long moment, the silence broken only by the crackling of the frost and the distant sounds of the city.
Watching the reunion with a curious tilt of his head, Phoenix couldn''t help but marvel at the raw power that radiated from them.
"The aura around these two gods," he murmured, his voice barely audible, "it''s intense. Fascinating."
Then, he spread his fiery wings and took to the sky, his gaze drawn towards the spot where the huntery impaled on the wooden stake. Gaya had taught him well.
"Always check the bodies. You never knew what kind of treasures, or information, you might find," Gaya''s words echoed through his mind.
Hended beside the corpse, his wings folding gracefully behind him, and began to inspect the body, his movements a strange mix of childlike curiosity and macabre efficiency.
And he struck gold.
Well, not literally gold. But close enough.
He found the wrist-mounted mirror, its surface still flickering with a thermal image of the surrounding area. He found a pouch filled with things. Little metal gadgets, glowing stones, a vial of something that smelled interesting.
Phoenix grinned, his fiery eyes gleaming with delight. The other hunters Gaya had convinced him to liberate hadn''t been nearly as well-equipped. He was getting tired of finding only spoons and rusty knives. This this was more like it! He was eager to impress Gaya, to show her that he was a valuable partner.
Meanwhile, Michael hadnded softly on the ground, Gaya still in his arms. He held her close, his gaze meeting hers, and then, unable to resist any longer, he lowered his head and kissed her.
It was a long, passionate kiss, filled with a mix of relief, longing, and a desperate need to reconnect. To reassure himself that she was real, that she was safe, that he hadn''t lost her.
A single tear, a shimmering pearl of pure emotion, escaped Gaya''s eye, tracing a path down her cheek, melting the frost that still clung to her skin. Then, with a sigh, she broke the kiss, leaning back to gaze up at him, her eyes shining with a happiness that he hadn''t seen in well, far too long.
And then, Phoenix arrived, his wings beating excitedly, his hands overflowing with gadgets and the wrist-mounted mirror.
"Look what I found!" he eximed, thrusting his treasures towards Gaya. "I liberated all of them!"
Gaya, realizing how incriminating that sounded, gave Michael a sheepish grin.
"He picks up things quickly," she mumbled, her cheeks flushing slightly.
Michael, watching the exchange, couldn''t help but chuckle.
"Gaya," he sighed, shaking his head. "You''re a bad influence on him."
Michael chuckled, and with a casual wave of his hand, collected the gadgets from Phoenix''s outstretched palms. They vanished into his System storage, leaving the Phoenix with only a handful of shimmering red stones and the wrist-mounted mirror.
"Let me see that," he said, taking the mirror from the Phoenix. He held it up, examining it with a critical eye. It was impressive, for a mortal artifact. Not nearly as advanced as his own X-ray vision, of course, but still interesting.
He could see faint ripples of energy emanating from the mirror''s surface, pulsating outwards, searching for heat signatures. The range, however, was limited, confined to a small radius. Which exined why the hunters hadn''t been able to detect him.
He turned the mirror over in his hands, his gaze tracing the intricate carvings on its back. Countless tiny runes, almost invisible to the naked eye, were etched into the metal, their purpose unclear.
Gaya, meanwhile, was praising their aplice.
"Good job, birdie," she said, patting the Phoenix on the shoulder.
Phoenix beamed, his chest puffing out with pride. He might be a legendary creature, a being of fire and rebirth, but he was still, at his core, a beast. And beasts they had a natural affinity for Gaya. She was their goddess, their protector, the one they turned to for guidance,fort, and love.
Even Phoenix, with his childlike innocence and sometimes frustratingly literal interpretation of the world, couldn''t help but feel a surge of worship toward her.
Gaya picked up one of the red stones that Phoenix had collected, holding it up to the moonlight. It shimmered, its surface smooth and polished, its color a deep, rich crimson that seemed to glow from within. It was captivating.
Everyone who was close to Gaya knew that wasn''t usually one for jewelry. She''d rather spend her money on a new weapon, a powerful potion, or a book of forbidden spells, than waste it on frivolous things. But this stone this ruby it was different. It felt warm in her hand, pulsating with a faint energy that resonated with her own. She found herself tempted to keep it and wear it around her neck.
Michael tucked the mirror away in his System storage, his gaze shifting to the ruby in Gaya''s hand. She was holding it up to the light of the twin moons, one eye closed, as if trying to see something within its depths. He knew she wasn''t usually one for jewels, but the way she was captivated by this ruby it told him something was different about these stones.
He doubted those hunters had been carrying them around for their aesthetic value. Those guys hadn''t exactly struck him as the fashionable type.
He reached out and plucked another ruby from Phoenix''s hand.
"I sense a powerful energying from them," Phoenix said, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It''s not like celestial energy. It''s more concentrated. Denser."
Michael was about to ask the System for more information when a prickle of awareness, a sudden shift in the air, made him turn.
Gaya''s hand instinctively went for the God yer crossbow strapped to her back, her gaze sweeping the rooftops, searching for the source of the disturbance. Phoenix, ever the curious one, tilted his head, his fiery eyes scanning the shadows.
And then, she descended.
A young woman, her golden hair cascading down her back like a silken waterfall, d in gleaming silver armor, white, feathery wings folded gracefully behind her. A crest, depicting an open book, was emzoned on her chest, a clear indication of her allegiance to Seshat.
An angel of Seshat.
"Malina," Gaya greeted, her voice a mixture of surprise and annoyance. "You''rete to the party." She gestured towards the frozen tableau, the shattered remnants of the hunters, the slimes and spiders encased in ice. "Looks like we took care of things."
Malina''s gaze swept over the carnage, a flicker of disgust crossing her features. But she didn''t seem surprised. She knew what Michael was capable of. To a God, killing a few mortals it was as easy as swatting a fly.
"Goddess Seshat requests your presence," Malina said, her gaze shifting from the carnage to Michael and Gaya. "Both of you."
"She sensed my return pretty quickly," Michael remarked, raising an eyebrow.
"This is Sagespire, my lord," Malina said, her voiceced with a hint of pride. "Nothing escapes the Goddess Seshat''s awareness."
Gaya snorted. "Yeah, yeah, your goddess is all-powerful and shit. But I''m not leaving without the beasts I rescued. Especially not him." She gestured towards Phoenix, who was now examining one of the hunter''s discarded throwing knives with a curious frown.
Malina, who''d been briefed by Seshat on how to handle this particr situation, smiled.
"Goddess Seshat anticipated your concerns. She gives you her word, Goddess Gaya, that the beasts you have collected will be safe. She will personally ensure they are relocated to a more suitable environment."
Gaya opened her mouth to argue, but Michael, sensing that this was a battle she wasn''t going to win, stepped in.
"We''lle," he said, his gaze meeting Malina''s. "Lead the way."
Gaya sighed, looking down at Phoenix, who was now attempting to pry the broken throwing knife out of the dead hunter''s hand.
"Take care of the other guests, birdie," she said with a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
"And don''t go ying around with that spiderir. No setting them on fire, no trying to ride them like well, you know. If I have to go back and make peace with that idiot spider because of you I''m kicking your ass."
Phoenix, his brow furrowed in confusion, instinctively grabbed his backside.
"Why does everyone keep talking about kicking my rear?"
Malina, who''d been watching the exchange with a barely concealed smile, stepped forward.
"I''m sure Phoenix will be just fine, Goddess Gaya," she said reassuringly. "Now, if you''ll bothe with me"
She closed her eyes, her hand glowing with a faint, white light, and with a flick of her wrist, activated the teleportation spell. Michael and Gaya felt a familiar tug, a sense of discement, as the space around them distorted, the world blurring into a kaleidoscope of colors and swirling energy.
Then, just as quickly, it was over.
They were standing in a garden.
A small, peaceful oasis amidst the chaos of the realm of the Gods. A waterfall cascaded down a moss-covered cliff, its waters feeding a clear, tranquil pond. Maple trees, their leaves a vibrant shade of crimson and gold, lined the banks of the pond, their branches swaying gently in the breeze.
And beneath one of those trees, a woman sat, her silver hair flowing like liquid moonlight, her hands scattering seeds to a flock of cooing pigeons.
Seshat, the Goddess of Wisdom.
She turned, her gaze meeting Michael''s, a warm smile gracing her lips.
"Wee back to the realm of the Gods, God of Darkness,"
"It''s good to be back," Michael replied, returning her smile. "You look serene, as always."
"How''s the civil war treating you, Seshat?" Gaya asked with a sardonic amusement.
Michael frowned. Civil war? What civil war? He hadn''t heard anything about
Seshat, ignoring Gaya''s jab, simply smiled again, her gaze meeting Michael''s.
"Malina, you are dismissed." The angel bowed her head respectfully and retreated, her wings vanishing as she blended back into the shadows of the garden.
"The war is escting, Gaya," Seshat said, her voice quiet, thoughtful. "New yers are emerging. As always, chaos breeds opportunity."
She paused, her gaze turning distant.
"The true cost of war¡It is not the gods who suffer. It is the mortals. The ones who fight our battles. The ones who pay the price for our ambitions."
Gaya sighed. She was getting used to Seshat''s cryptic wisdom.
"You''re going to have to be a little more specific, Seshat," Michael chuckled. "I''d love to hear all about this civil war. But perhaps you could tell us why you summoned us here?" He pulled one of the rubies from his pocket, holding it up for Seshat to see.
"We found these on some visitors. In the Distillery District."
Seshat''s lips twitched, a hint of amusement in her eyes.
"Ah, yes," she said, taking the ruby from Michael, and examining it with a knowing smile.
"These belong to my sister. Seraphene. They''re infused with a diluted sliver of her grace. She grants them to her spies. Her soldiers. It amplifies their power and powers their weapons, armor, and various gadgets," She chuckled softly as she continued.
"Seraphene has always had a ir for the dramatic. These rubies they''re just like her. Beautiful. Powerful. And a little bit dangerous. But as for the reason why i summed you here is rted to self-proimed God of Chaos¡"
Chapter 1377 The Quest To Kill The God Of Chaos
1377 The Quest To Kill The God Of Chaos
Michael was surprised. Agra? That chaotic, unpredictable asshole? He''d crossed paths with Agra''s followers a few times in the realm of gods. Mostly bandits, thugs, and generally unpleasant sorts who seemed to enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on well, pretty much anyone. Michael had dealt with a few of them, permanently. He wasn''t a fan of unnecessary cruelty.
But if Seshat was concerned about Agra, then it must be serious.
"Yeah, what about that asshole?" Gaya interjected, her voiceced with a sardonic amusement. "He finally lose his goddamn mind?"
Seshat chuckled, shaking her head. "Agra has never been one to have a mind to lose, Gaya." But her smile faded, reced by a look of genuine concern.
"He''s be a liability. The civil war, Andohr''s rebellion it has distracted the Pantheon. They''ve lost control of loose cannons like Agra. And now well, someone needs to clean up the mess."
Michael chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "And you think that someone is me?" He raised an eyebrow. "Why the hell would I do that? I have bigger fish to fry."
The "bigger fish" he was referring to, of course, was Rin. And Michael, still fuming over her attack on Lah, her threat against Harry, her casual disregard for lives, wasn''t about to get sidetracked by Agra''s shenanigans. He had a score to settle. And a princess to dethrone.
But hearing Michael, Seshat, ever the wisest of them all, simply smiled.
"Killing Rin is not as simple as you might think."
Michael''s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She''d guessed his target without him even saying a word. He was tempted to ask how she knew but decided against it. Knowing Seshat, she would give him some cryptic, vaguely annoying answer about intuition, or the flow of destiny, or some other mystical bullshit.
"Enlighten me," he said,.
"Rin''s soul, " Seshat began, her voice soft but firm, "is bound to her father. Xyloth, the God of Murder. No one knows where he resides. Where he keeps his treasures."
"So?" Michael frowned. "What''s that got to do with anything?"
"It means even if you kill her, Michael she will return. Xyloth will resurrect her. And each time she dies each time she''s brought back she''ll be stronger. More corrupted.More evil,"
She paused, her gaze meeting Michael''s.
"And Rin, Michael she thrives on corruption. On darkness. On pain. It''s what gives her power. It''s what fuels her father''s influence."
Xyloth and Rin, their existence was intertwined with the darker aspects of reality. The more pain, the more suffering, the more chaos they unleashed upon the world, the stronger they became. Death, for them, was just a temporary inconvenience. A chance to reset. Toe back worse.
"You might defeat her," Seshat continued, "You might even kill her. But she''ll return. And she''ll be worse than before."
Michael just chuckled, shaking his head. He''d heard that kind of talk before. Countless times. Back on Earth, he''d taken out targets that others had deemed "untouchable," "invincible." But Michael well, Michael had a way of making the impossible possible.
He''d killed Rainar, the God of Rain, for fuck''s sake. Rin was just a challenge. A particrly annoying, bloodthirsty challenge, but a challenge nheless.
And Michael? Michael thrived on challenges. Besides, the harder the task the bigger the reward. And those Badass Points well, those were always a good motivator.
"I''ll find her true soul, Seshat," he said as confidence radiated from him. "And I''ll deal with it. Permanently. Theye back because they haven''t been killed by me before."
He cracked his neck, a hint of a predatory smile ying on his lips.
However, Seshat simply smiled with a knowing glint in her eyes.
"Be that as it may, Rin has gone underground. She hasn''t been seen in months. And knowing Andohr well, he''s probably whispering in her ear as we speak."
"So what do you suggest?" Michael asked, his gaze hardening.
"If you want to kill Rin you need to draw her out," Seshat said, her voice taking on a sharper edge. "Which brings me back to Agra."
She paused, letting the silence hang in the air.
"I know a way. A way to draw Rin out. And deal with Agra at the same time. And if you and Gaya knew what that creature was up to well, I think you''d be more than a little inclined to lend a hand." Seshat said and remained silent for a few moments before continuing.
"Agra," Seshat began, her voice taking on a somber tone, "has¡ taken over the Verdant Sanctuary."
Michael''s brow furrowed. The Verdant Sanctuary. Ava''s domain. He''d heard whispers of its beauty, its tranquility, its healing energy. It had been a haven for mortals and lesser beings, a ce of peace and sanctuary.
"He''s¡ enving Ava''s worshippers," Seshat continued, her gaze meeting his. "Turning them into¡borers. Forcing them to¡ build his¡ Temple of Chaos."
"So?" Gaya shrugged. "People get hurt, Seshat. Shit happens. It''s not our problem. If Ava cares so much about her precious worshippers¡ she can deal with it herself."
Seshat, however, shook her head, her smile fading. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"It''s not just the worshippers, Gaya," she said with her voice taking on a sharper edge. "Agra¡ he''s enving the beasts too. All the creatures in the Verdant Sanctuary. And he''s been¡ buying up beasts. From every corner of the realm. I''ve heard reports ofrge shipments arriving from¡ various beast tamers, Goddess Gaya"
The moment Gaya heard that, her whole demeanor changed.
She might be the Dark Queen, the wife of the God of Darkness, the one who reveled in chaos and destruction¡ but she was also¡ the Goddess of Monsters. And the thought of Agra, that chaotic, unpredictable bastard, enving her creatures¡ it filled her with a rage that burned hotter than any dragon''s fire.
She''d never met Agra personally. But she''d heard stories. From Malina. From Pink. Enough to know that the God of Chaos wasn''t exactly known for his¡ gentle treatment of anyone. And if he was enving beasts¡
She could only imagine the horrors those creatures were enduring.
Seshat, sensing Gaya''s growing anger, her protective instincts ring, simply smiled.
"Mortals¡ they can speak, Gaya. They can cry out for help. But beasts¡ they have no voice. And Agra¡ he doesn''t show them the same courtesy that he shows his¡ mortal ves."
"That son of a bitch!" Gaya snarled, her hand instinctively reaching for the daggers sheathed at her hip. "I''m going to rip his goddamn head off!"
Michael, unable to resist the opportunity for a little¡ marital teasing, chuckled.
Watching the exchange with a hint of amusement, Michael couldn''t resist taking a jab at her.
"Someone was just saying¡ ''shit happens,''" he chuckled.
Gaya whirled on him, her eyes shing with a dangerous light.
"One more word, asshole," she growled, "and you''ll be tasting my boot leather human,"
Michael, wisely deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, suppressed hisughter as Seshat continued, her gaze shifting back to Michael, a thoughtful frown creasing her brow.
The Goddess of Wisdom was watching him, a knowing smile ying on her lips.
"I believe¡ a certain¡ friend of yours¡ might already be on her way to the Verdant Sanctuary," she said, her voice a low, conspiratorial whisper.
"Who?" Michael frowned. But even as he asked the question, he knew the answer.
Fayeth.
The angel of Ava. The green-haired beauty who''d helped him when he came to this realm of gods, risking her own life to protect him. He''d saved her from Rainar''s clutches a couple of times since then, but he knew that righteous,passionate angels like Fayeth had a way of finding trouble.
But he couldn''t me her, not this time. She was Ava''s Angel. And any angel worth their salt wouldn''t just sit back and watch while some power-hungry asshole enved her Goddess''s worshippers, desecrated her domain, and tormented innocent creatures. Even if that asshole was the God of Chaos who would do things things that were far worse than just¡ killing her.
As Michael watched Gaya, her hands clenched, her whole body practically vibrating with barely restrained fury, a new notification chimed in his mind.
[The quest "Kill the God of Chaos" hasmenced. Eliminate Agra, the self-proimed God of Chaos, and save your potential allies]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will recieve Ava''s Domain, including all worshippers,andplete the "Unlock the Godhood of the Goddess of Monsters" quest]
[Uponpleting the quest, the host will receive the knowledge to convert Gaya''s cultivation to the realm of gods cultivation and unlock her godhood.]
A slow grin spread across Michael''s face. This¡ this was perfect.
Looks like Agra had just earned himself a spot at the top of Michael''s to-do list.
Taking out Agra¡ it was like hitting three birds with one stone.
First, it wouldplete Gaya''s quest, unlocking her godhood and allowing her to cultivate in this realm. And she needed that. Without it, she was vulnerable, a liability. And Gaya, the proud, fiercely independent Dark Queen, hated being a liability.
Second, it would draw out Rin. Seshat seemed pretty damn sure about that. And once Rin showed her face, Michael could start working on a n to locate Xyloth''s domain, to find a way to permanently deal with the Princess of Murder.
And third¡ well, a domain full of worshippers? That was a lot of potential worship energy. And Michael, now understanding the true value of that¡modity, wasn''t about to turn down a chance to boost his reserves.
"Alright," he said, his gaze meeting Seshat''s, a predatory gleam in his eyes. "Let''s go pay Agra a visit. Gaya? You up for a little¡ chaos?"
Chapter 1378 The Transference of Consciousness spell
1378 The Transference of Consciousness spell
Instead of entertaining Michael or Gaya with any more words, she summoned a small, circr metal te with a flick of her wrist. It was etched with a glowing green rune, shaped like a potion vial.
Michael caught it effortlessly, recognizing it instantly. A travel rune. And that symbol¡ the potion vial¡ it was a dead giveaway. This rune led to the Verdant Sanctuary.
He pulled out his portable divine portal, a cube-sized device that hummed with a faint, inner light. It was a handy little gadget, allowing him to create temporary portals to¡ well, pretty much anywhere, as long as he had the right rune.
Gaya, however, wasn''t ready to leave just yet. She turned to Seshat, her gaze intense, her voiceced with a hint of suspicion.
"What about my beasts, Seshat?" she demanded. "Those hunters¡ they were after the Phoenix. What''s to stop them from¡ing back? What''s your n, exactly?"
Seshat''s smile widened, a reassuring warmth in her eyes.
"The Distillery District is under my protection now, Gaya," she said, her voice calm, soothing. "My angels will patrol the area. Ensure the safety of your guests. And when you return, I will personally escort them to a ce¡ where they can be¡ free. Where they can¡ thrive."
Gaya opened her mouth to argue, to demand more details, to express her concerns but Michael, who''d just finished attaching the travel rune to the portal device, held up a hand, silencing her.
"Seshat''s got this, Gaya," he said, his voice firm, his gaze meeting hers. "She might be¡ cryptic¡ but she''s a good goddess. We deal with Agra first. Then¡ we deal with the beasts. Okay?"
He was¡ impatient. He could feel the power of Don''s blood coursing through his veins, the enhanced connection to his worshippers, the raw potential of his newly acquired Prime God level. He wanted to test his limits, to unleash his full power, to be honest, he kinda wanted to see Gaya kick some ass as a fully-fledged goddess.
"Trust me on this." said Michael.
Gaya hesitated. Leaving the Phoenix, and the other beasts she''d rescued, in Seshat''s care¡ it felt¡ wrong. She didn''t trust that cryptic, bird-loving goddess as far as she could throw her. But she trusted Michael. He might be a pain in the ass sometimes but he always¡ had her back. And if he said Seshat was trustworthy, she would have to take his word for it.
She sighed, a grudging eptance settling over her.
"Fine," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. "But if anything happens to them, Seshat''s gonna have a lot more to worry about than a little civil war."
Michael chuckled, and pressed the activation rune on the portal device. A shimmering vortex of energy, crackling with a faint, green light, erupted from the cube, swirling and expanding until it wasrge enough to step through.
He held out his hand towards Gaya.
"Ready?"
Gaya took his hand, her fingers intertwining with his and together, they stepped into the vortex.
Then in a few seconds, the garden vanished, reced by¡ something else.
They stood on a hilltop, the wind whipping at their clothes, the air thick with the scent of ozone and something rotten. The sky above was a swirling mass of dark, stormy clouds, lit by shes of lightning that crackled and danced across the horizon. There was no rain ¨C Rainar, the God of Rain, was dead, after all. Below them, stretching out as far as the eye could see, was¡ a wastnd. Twisted trees, their branches bare and ckened, wed at the sky. The ground was cracked and barren, scarred with patches of¡ something that looked suspiciously like dried blood. And in the distance, rising from the heart of the destion, a monstrous structure, all sharp angles and jagged edges, dominated thendscape.
"Charming ce," Gaya said, snorting withughter. "Doesn''t exactly scream ''healing sanctuary'', does it?"
They stood there for a moment, surveying the destendscape, their gazes drawn towards the monstrous structure in the distance. It was a safe bet that Agra''s¡ followers, along with their enved workforce and collection of unfortunate beasts, were holed up in that¡ architectural monstrosity. And if they were lucky, they might even catch a glimpse of the Chaos God himself.
But the surrounding area was¡ empty. Deserted. Too quiet.
"We''re not flying," Michael said, his voice a low growl. "We don''t want to¡ advertise our arrival."
He considered their options for a moment. He could teleport them directly to the heart of Agra''s temple, but that felt too risky. Too much like walking into a trap.
"Shadow teleportation it is," he muttered, his gaze scanning thendscape, searching for¡ shadows.
He scooped Gaya up into his arms, ignoring her half-hearted protest, and essed the System.
"System," he thought, "I need to upgrade my shadow teleportation. Temporarily. Include a passenger."
[The system will require 100,000 Badass Points for Expanding Shadow Teleportation parameters to include a designatedpanion . Does the host wants to proceed?]
"One hundred thousand? Damn, you''re getting greedy, System. But¡ fine. Do it."
[Confirmation received. Deducting 100,000 Badass Points. Shadow Teleportation upgrade: Active.]
He grinned, feeling the familiar surge of power, the shadows around him responding to his will, bending to hismand.
"Hold on tight," he whispered to Gaya, his lips brushing against her ear.
And then, with a crackle of dark energy, they vanished, reappearing a heartbeatter in the shadow of a twisted, dead tree, a few hundred yards closer to their target.
He repeated the process, moving from shadow to shadow, thendscape blurring around them, the distance between them and Agra''sir shrinking with each teleportation.
Finally, they reached a hilltop that offered a clear view of the structure, a vantage point from which to observe¡ and strategize.
The sight that greeted them was¡ disturbing.
The structure, a sprawling monstrosity of jagged ck stone and twisted metal, dominated thendscape, its shadow stretching across the barren ins like a w reaching out to im the world. The surrounding ocean, once a vibrant turquoise, was now a murky, stagnant green, its surface choked with debris and¡ something that looked suspiciously like¡ body parts.
Hundreds of figures, their bodies emaciated, their faces etched with exhaustion and despair, toiled under the watchful eyes of Agra''s¡ disciples. They were a motley crew, these cultists, d in tattered robes of varying shades of ck, their faces painted with grotesque symbols, their eyes gleaming with a manic energy that made Michael''s skin crawl.
They cracked whips, theirughter echoing across the destendscape, as they drove the ves ¨C men, women, children ¨C to work faster, harder, their bodies pushed to the breaking point.
The beasts¡ the beasts were even worse off.
They were chained, caged, their bodies twisted and contorted, their eyes filled with a pain and terror that made Gaya''s heart ache. She saw griffons, their wings clipped, their proud heads bowed, forced to haul massive blocks of stone. She saw unicorns, their horns sawn off, their once-pristine coats matted with blood and filth, being used as pack animals. She saw creatures she couldn''t even name, their forms twisted and corrupted by Agra''s chaotic energy, their moans and cries a symphony of suffering.
It was a nightmare.
As Gaya watched, a thin trickle of blood, crimson against the pale skin of her cheek, traced a path down from her nostril. She didn''t even notice it at first. She was too focused on the scene below, on the suffering of the beasts, on the raw, untamed energy of their pain and terror. It was¡ overwhelming. A tidal wave of desperation, of pleas for help, of primal fear¡ directed at her.
The Goddess of Monsters.
Their Goddess.
But she was still¡ human, in a way. Her body hadn''t yet fully adapted to her divine status. She couldn''t channel that energy, couldn''t absorb it, couldn''t¡ help them.
And the frustration, the anger, the sheer helplessness of it all¡ it was too much. Sensing her distress, Michael turned to her, his brow furrowing in concern.
"Gaya¡" he began as he saw the blood.
"Damn it, Gaya," he muttered, gently wiping the blood away with his thumb. He stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the carnage below.
"Don''t¡ don''t look at that. It''s¡ not good for you. Not yet."
He pulled a vial of healing potion from his space ring, pressing it into her hand.
"Drink this," he said, his voice firm.
Gaya shook her head, trying to push past him, to see the beasts, to¡ do something.
"I don''t need¡ª"
"Drink it, Gaya," Michael interrupted, his grip on her arm tightening. "You''re¡ not ready for this. Not yet." He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze.
"Trust me."
Gaya hesitated, her anger warring with a flicker vulnerability. And then she drank the potion, its bitter taste a familiarfort, its healing energy spreading through her body, calming the storm within her.
But even as the potion worked its magic, soothing her frayed nerves and healing her blood vessels, Gaya''s anger simmered just beneath the surface.
"We''re going to take that bastard down, Gaya," Michael said with a low, reassuring rumble. "We''re going to free those beasts. And once we have done that, you''ll be a goddess and be able to do so much more than just¡ run around firing crossbows. You''ll be the real Goddess of Monsters. The badass you were meant to be."
Gaya trusted him. If he said it would happen, it would happen.
"How?" she asked, her gaze fixed on the monstrous structure in the distance. "How are we going to¡ take down a god? And rescue all those¡ creatures?"
Michael didn''t answer right away. He studied the scene below as his mind already worked through the possibilities. He noticed the figures milling around the structure, the guards patrolling the perimeter, their ck robes and painted faces a disturbingly uniform sight.
Then, an idea began to form in his mind. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Infiltration," he murmured, a sly grin spreading across his face. "And what better time to test out that new¡ spell¡ than now?"
The Transference of Consciousness spell. The one he''d found in Skyhall''s library.
He''d start by gathering intel. Slipping into the minds of a few of Agra''s¡ disciples. Learn their routines, their weaknesses, their secrets.
And then, he and Gaya were pretty damn good at disguises. They could blend in, get close to Agra and find out what he was really up to.
"Time for a little¡ reconnaissance," he said, cracking his neck. "Let''s see what those chaotic bastards are really up to."
Chapter 1379 Meeting Qin Jiu
1379 Meeting Qin Jiu
"Transference of Consciousness," Michael whispered. He focused his will, his gaze locking onto one of the ck-robed figures patrolling the perimeter of Agra''s temple.
The world around him seemed to shift. Blur. And then he was there.
He saw through the cultist''s eyes, felt the rough fabric of the robe against his skin, and smelled the stench of blood and incense that permeated the air. It was disorienting. Overwhelming. But also exhrating.
He was in the cultist''s mind, experiencing the world through his senses, controlling his movements.
He walked along the perimeter wall, his gaze scanning the activity below. He saw ves, their bodies emaciated, their faces etched with despair, hauling massive blocks of stone, their chains clinking a mournful rhythm against the cracked earth. He saw Agra''s worshippers, their eyes gleaming with manic glee,ughing and jeering as they cracked whips, urging the ves to work faster, harder.
"Did you see that old man? He begged for mercy! Cried like a little bitch!" one cultist cackled, spitting on the ground. "Agra will be pleased. He loves it when they break."
"I yed that elf girl alive," another cultist boasted, his voice a low growl. "She screamed for hours. It was beautiful."
Michael, listening to their conversations, felt a surge of disgust. These creatures they were monsters. Twisted, sadistic
He watched as a group of new ves, their eyes wide with terror, were herded into the temple grounds, their chains nking. He saw other ves, their bodies broken, their spirits crushed, being dragged away by the cultists, their lifeless limbs trailing through the dust.
"Worthless trash," one of the cultists muttered, tossing a corpse over the edge of a cliff, the body tumbling down to ssh into the murky waters below. "Agra has no use for weaklings."
It was enough to make Michael sick.
"These bastards," Michael growled, his anger simmering but he continued to walk, taking in the details of the temple''syout, its defenses.
"Okay, so we''ve got threeyers of wards," he murmured, his gaze tracing the faint shimmer of celestial energy that surrounded the temple grounds.
"Patrol routes¡ predictable. They change every hour, two guards per shift. Main entrance¡ heavily guarded. But there''s a¡ weak spot. That venttion shaft on the east side¡"
He continued his patrol, his mind working, piecing together the information, building a map of the temple''s defenses, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. As he patrolled the area, he paused momentarily and looked at the cluster of runes etched into the base of one of the towers.
"Those runes¡ they''re interesting. Some kind of spatial distortion," he murmured, studying the intricate patterns, the way they pulsed with a faint, ethereal energy. "Teleportation, maybe? Typical."
But as he was lost in his observations, a voice, harsh and grating, jolted him back to reality.
"Hey! You! What in Agra''s name are you doing?!"
Michael froze, his body stiffening instinctively. He turned, forcing a casual slouch into his shoulders, to see two more figures approaching, their ck robes billowing in the wind, their faces hidden beneath grotesque masks.
"You''re supposed to be at your post, watching those ves," one of them growled, his voice a low rumble. "What are you doing out here, sniffing around the runes?"
He''d encountered plenty of unforeseenplications during his assassin days on Earth. He was good at thinking on his feet, at adapting to changing circumstances and lying.
"Just¡ checking on things," he said, forcing a bored tone into his voice. "Heard a few of those¡ fuckers talking about how these runes weren''t¡ perfect. Figured I''d take a look."
The two cultists exchanged nces, their eyes narrowing behind their masks.
"What did you do to those¡ dogs?" one of them asked, his voice a menacing growl.
"Whipped them, obviously," Michael said with a shrug. "Agra wants this temple built on a foundation of pain. They weren''t working hard enough."
The cultists stared at him for a moment, then burst intoughter, their voices echoing through the night. They pped each other on the back, their masked faces contorted in grotesque grins.
"Good work, brother!" one of them said, pping Michael on the back hard enough to make him stumble. "Agra will be pleased. Those runes were designed by Lady Qin Jiu herself. They''re perfect. Nothing gets in nothing gets out. Now get back to your post, before Agra decides to y you alive for cking off."
"Yes, brother," Michael said in a gruff voice. Then he started to walk back towards the post where he''d¡ borrowed this body. But as he walked, his gaze was drawn to a specific spot on the temple''s exterior.
The venttion shaft.
It was located on the east side of the temple, high above the ground, near the edge of a cliff that dropped off sharply into the churning waters of the corrupted sea below. The shaft itself was a narrow, metal-grated opening, barelyrge enough for a man to squeeze through. And below it, there was nothing. No ledge, no scaffolding, and no safety. Just a sheer drop into the churning abyss.
It wasn''t the most obvious entry point. But it was there. And for Michael, who''d made a career out of exploiting weaknesses, finding those hidden cracks in even the most formidable defenses¡ it was an opportunity.
He continued his patrol, forcing himself to stay focused, to blend in, to act normal. Back at his post, he released his control over the cultist''s body, the connection severing with a faint, mental pop.
"Did I¡ fall asleep?" the cultist mumbled, his eyes blinking open, his head lolling back against the wall.
Michael, back in his own body, chuckled softly. It seemed the Transference of Consciousness spell had a¡ side effect, a temporary ckout for the host.
"Time for round two," he murmured, his gaze shifting to another cultist, this one heading towards the temple entrance, his ck robes billowing behind him.
He cast the spell again, the familiar sensation of merging washing over him, and a momentter, he was back in control, walking through the massive, iron-wrought gates of the temple.
"Construction''s moving along nicely, brother," the cultist beside him said, gesturing towards the rising walls of the temple. "Agra''s pleased. He''s sent out more¡ hunters. To find those rats who are still hiding in the forest. The ones who worship Ava,"
"We''ll find them," Michael growled, forcing a sneer onto the cultist''s face. "And when we do¡ they''ll learn to¡ respect Agra."
He stepped through the temple entrance and took in the details of the temple''s interior. It was a vast, cavernous space, the air thick with the scent of incense and¡ something¡ metallic. Blood. The walls were rough-hewn stone, bare and unadorned. The only source of light came from a few flickering torches, casting long, dancing shadows across the floor. And in the center of the chamber, a massive statue of Agra dominated the space.
It was a grotesque depiction, capturing the God of Chaos in all his¡ glory. His face was painted with that same white powder the cultists wore, his eyes highlighted with streaks of ck that made them seem even wilder, even more unhinged.
There were offerings at the statue''s feet ¨C dark, wilting flowers, smoking incense sticks, a bowl filled with what looked suspiciously like¡ eyeballs.
A group of cultists, their faces hidden beneath their hoods, knelt before the statue, chanting in a low, rhythmic drone, their voices a disturbing counterpoint to the crackling of the torches.
The temple was spacious, its high ceiling lost in the shadows. And a wide, stone staircase, nked by statues of creatures Michael couldn''t quite identify, led upwards towards somewhere, Michael wasn''t sure about except he had a feeling that he would find out soon enough.
But Michael''s focus wasn''t on the grotesqueries surrounding him. It was on a name. A name that had echoed in his mind since those cultists had mentioned it outside.
Qin Jiu.
The architect of the prophecy. The one who''d branded him a viin, a monster, before he''d even been born. The founder of Mazeroth and the mastermind behind Skyhall. She was the reason his family had been torn apart, the reason he''d grown up as an orphan on earth. Thus, his blood boiled at the mere mention of her name. But he forced himself to remain calm, to keep his anger in check. He was ying a role now, wearing a mask, both literally and figuratively.
He had to be¡ smart. Patient.
But despite his hatred for Qin Jiu, he couldn''t deny her talent. She''d been a six-star runemaster back in the mortal realm, one of the most powerful runemasters in existence. And if she was the one who''d designed the runes protecting this temple.
It meant she was still alive. And in cahoots with Agra.
He needed to know more. He needed to understand their connection. What was she doing here? What role was she ying in Agra''s grand scheme?
But before he could dwell on it any further, the cultist beside him nudged him sharply.
"Come on, brother, " he hissed. "It''s time."
Michael, still lost in his thoughts, frowned. "Time for¡?"
"For the prayer, you idiot," the cultist growled. "Get down on your knees. And show some goddamn respect. Agra doesn''t like distractions."
He knelt, lowering his head, his gaze fixed on the rough stone floor. The other cultists, who''d been chanting in a low drone, fell silent, their bodies bowing even lower, their foreheads pressing against the ground.
"Lady Qin Jiu," they all chorused in unison, their voices a mixture of reverence and fear.
Michael, his curiosity piqued, risked a nce towards the staircase.
A pair of feet, d in delicate, silk slippers, appeared at the top of the stairs. They were followed by¡ her.
Qin Jiu.
The architect of his misery.
She descended the stairs slowly, and gracefully, her movements a stark contrast to the chaotic energy that pulsed within the temple walls. She was wearing a deep purple kimono, its fabric shimmering with intricate, embroidered designs. Her long, ck hair, streaked with strands of the same vibrant purple as her robe, was pulled back into an elegant bun, held in ce by a silver hairpin that glinted in the torchlight. She looked like she''d stepped out of a Japanese period drama, a vision of serene beauty amidst the ugliness.
The cultists, their heads still bowed, remained silent, their bodies trembling slightly as she approached. Michael, forced to follow their lead, kept his gaze lowered, his jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists within the folds of his robe. N?v(el)B\\jnn
But her voice, when she spoke, was surprisingly gentle.
"You may rise," she said, and the word echoed through the chamber.
The cultists, as one, raised their heads, their gazes fixed on Qin Jiu with a mixture of awe and fear. Michael, risking another nce, saw her standing before the statue of Agra. He wanted to take her out to make her pay for everything she''d done. But he held back. He needed information. He needed to understand why she was here, what her connection to Agra was, and what role she was ying in this madness.
"Your prayers have been answered," she said, her voice calm, and melodic. "God Agra has heard you. He will descend. In two days. He will grace you with his presence."
Chapter 1380 The Forest Of Ava
Chapter 1380 The Forest Of Ava
The news, delivered in Qin Jiu''s calm, melodic voice, sent a ripple of excitement through the worshippers. Michael, however, felt a different kind of thrill. A thrill of anticipation, of the hunt, coursed through Michael. He wanted to use the Transference of Consciousness spell on Qin Jiu herself, to see whaty at the top of that staircase, to explore the inner sanctum of Agra''s temple. But he couldn''t. Not while he was already¡ upying another body. And even if he could, he wasn''t sure it would work. Qin Jiu, with her rune mastery, her heightened awareness, her connection to whatever the hell was going on with Agra¡ she''d likely sense the intrusion, the ckout, and raise the rm.
No, it was better to stick with the minions. Gather information. Wait for the right moment to strike.
"Agra is¡ pleased with the progress of the temple," Qin Jiu continued, her gaze shifting towards the massive statue beside her.
"But¡ he ising to see¡ thepleted potion. And¡ his statue. He wants to bless it."
She paused, her gaze sweeping across the kneeling figures.
"Those who still follow Ava¡ those who hide in the forests¡ they should return to the fold. Agra is merciful. He will wee them back. With open arms."
Michael almost snorted. Merciful? Right. Agra''s "mercy" probably involved being chained to a rock and forced to work until you dropped dead.
He nced at Qin Jiu, his gaze narrowing. He could see the¡ conflict in her eyes. The disgust. The¡ helplessness. It was like she was ying a role. As if she herself was repulsed by the words she was speaking and knew what awaited those who surrendered to Agra. Like she was disgusted by it.
But Michael wasn''t the kind of guy who''d¡ go soft just because a pretty woman looked a little sad. He''d seen enough maniption, enough betrayal, to know that appearances could be deceiving.
And Qin Jiu¡ she was the architect of his suffering. The one who''d set him on this path, the one who''d branded him a monster before he''d even had a chance to live.
He might have softened a bit towards his mother, now that he understood the truth about her sacrifice. But Qin Jiu? He wasn''t feeling particrly charitable towards her.
With that, Qin Jiu turned and ascended the stairs, her purple robes trailing behind her like a wisp of smoke. She disappeared from view, leaving the cultists kneeling in silent reverence.
"Come on, brother," the worshipper beside Michael said, nudging him with his elbow. "Back to our patrol. Agra demands vignce."
Michael nodded, letting the cultist lead him back outside, his mind racing. He''d learned a few things, but he still needed more information, more details.
As they walked past the venttion shaft he''d noticed earlier, Michael decided it was time to¡ switch things up. He withdrew his consciousness from the cultist''s body, the connection severing with a faint, mental pop.
The world around him blurred, shifted, and then he was back on the hilltop, Gaya standing beside him, her gaze fixed on the temple in the distance.
"What happened?" she asked, her brow furrowed in concern. "You just froze there for a minute. Everything okay?"
"It''s a spell," Michael said, a sly grin spreading across his face. "Found it in a scroll. Back in Skyhall''s library. Transference of Consciousness. Pretty damn handy, if I do say so myself."
Gaya rolled her eyes, punching him yfully on the shoulder.
"You''re such a hoarder. Why do you always get all the cool toys? It''s not fair!"
Michael chuckled. "You''ll have your own toys soon enough. Just wait until you unlock your godhood."
"It better be soon," she grumbled. "So, how does this spell¡ work? What does it do?"
"I can¡ basically¡ jump into someone else''s mind. See through their eyes. Control their body. It''s¡ temporary, of course. And it has¡ limitations. But for recon¡ it''s pretty damn useful."
"Damn," Gaya said, her eyes widening in surprise. "That''s¡ impressive. So what did you learn? Anything useful?"
"The templeyout, defenses, patrol routes¡" Michael paused, his gaze turning distant. "And¡ I saw her, Gaya. Qin Jiu."
Gaya''s reaction was instantaneous. Her hand clenched into a fist, her nails digging into her palm so hard that Michael could see the crescent moons etched into her flesh. She loved Michael, truly loved him. She shared his joys, his sorrows, his anger¡ and right now, the rage emanating from him was palpable.
"That bitch," she snarled, her voiceced with a venomous fury. "I''m going to rip her apart. Slowly."
"Not so fast," Michael said, cing a hand on her arm. "As much as I''d love to see rip her apart, she''s not the priority. Agra is. And Qin Jiu said he''sing in two days."
Gaya''s anger subsided, reced by a thoughtful frown.
"Two days? That''s a long goddamn time in this shithole," she muttered, ncing around the destendscape. "This isn''t exactly a¡ cozy tavern, where we can just¡ hang out and wait."
"We need a ce to hide," she said, scanning the barren ins, the twisted trees, and the churning, polluted ocean. "And I don''t think¡ camping out under a goddamn dead tree is gonna cut it."
Michael chuckled. "Yeah, not exactly five-star amodations, is it?" He nodded in agreement. "But don''t worry, I got this," Michael said, a reassuring grin spreading across his face. He''d learned a few things during his reconnaissance mission. Things that could be useful.
"Those hunting parties they''re sending out¡ the ones looking for Ava''s worshippers? I have a feeling Fayeth might be the one hiding them."
He paused, his gaze meeting Gaya''s.
"And if she''s involved¡ well, we might just have found our¡ sanctuary."
Just as he spoke, a group of Agra''s worshippers, their ck robes billowing in the wind, their faces twisted into manic grins, emerged from the temple gates. They wereughing, chanting, their daggers glinting in the dim light, their voices carrying on the wind.
"Tonight¡ we hunt!" one of them shouted, his voice a gleeful shriek.
"We''ll find those Ava-loving rats and make them pay for their defiance!" another cackled.
"I hear there are¡ beauties among them," a third leered, running his tongue over his lips. "Agra will be pleased with our offerings."
Gaya''s lips curled into a predatory smile, her hand instinctively reaching for the God yer crossbow strapped to her back.
"Seems like we''ve found our¡ guides," Michael said, his gaze following the departing cultists. "They''ll know this ce better than we do. Let''s¡ tag along."
He grabbed Gaya''s hand, and they melted back into the shadows, keeping a safe distance behind the unsuspecting cultists. However, they kept their distance, using the shadows, the twisted trees, and the uneven terrain to their advantage. The ground was littered with rocks and debris, the air thick with the stench of decay. "Let''s hide behind that boulder," Micahel said pointing at arge boulder to hide from the group. The two of them used the darkness created by the storm clouds to their advantage and moved toward the boulder. But when they were behind the boulder, Gaya''s foot caught on a loose twig, the sharp crack echoing through the stillness.
"Shit!" she cursed, freezing, her hand instinctively reaching for the God yer crossbow.
One of the cultists, who''d beengging behind the others, stopped, his head tilting, his gaze sweeping the area.
"Did you hear that?" he asked, his voice a low growl.
Michael, reacting instantly, focused his will, casting the Transference of Consciousness spell on another cultist, one who was walking near the edge of the cliff. Seeing an opportunity, Michael gave the cultist''s body a gentle push. As a result, the cultist, his eyes zing over for a moment, stumbled, his foot catching on a loose rock, sending him tumbling over the edge.
The cultists who''d heard the twig snap turned towards themotion, theirughter echoing through the night as theirrade screamed, his body disappearing into the darkness below. Instead of expressing concern or rushing to help their fallenrade, the other cultists, simplyughed.
"Looks like¡ Agra''s gonna get another sacrifice tonight!" one of them chuckled, shaking his head. "Stupid bastard. Couldn''t even walk straight. "
Gaya, watching as the cultist tumbled to his doom, couldn''t help but let out a low whistle.
"Damn, that was¡ efficient," she said, her gaze shifting from the edge of the cliff to Michael, a spark of admiration in her eyes. "I want that spell. Can it work on beasts, too?"
"Maybe," Michael shrugged and they resumed their pursuit of the cultists, moving silently through the shadows.
Thendscape began to change as they drew closer to the forest. The barren ins gave way to¡ greenery. Actual, living nts. Trees, their leaves a vibrant emerald green, reached towards the sky, their branches intertwined, forming a dense canopy that blocked out the sickly glow of the storm clouds. The air, which had been thick with the stench of decay, was now fresh, clean, filled with the scent of pine needles and wildflowers.
It was a stark contrast to the destion that surrounded Agra''s temple.
But the cultists, as they reached the edge of the forest, spat on the ground, their expressions contorted in disgust.
"Look at that¡ green shit," one of them snarled, wrinkling his nose. "It''s¡ disgusting. Unnatural."
"All that¡ life," another cultist groaned. "It''s¡ an insult to Agra. To chaos. We should burn it all down."
"Where the hell are they hiding, anyway?" a third cultist grumbled, his gaze scanning the dense undergrowth. "Those¡ Ava-worshipping scum. We''ve been searching for days."
"Go find them, Baruk," one of the cultists said, gesturing towards the forest.
The other cultistughed. "Thought you''d never ask!" He raised his hands, his fingers twisting in a series of intricate gestures as he cast a spell. Soon, his body contorted, bones snapping and reforming, flesh rippling until he stood before them¡ no longer human.
He was a dog. A massive, rabid-looking beast, its fur as ck as night, its eyes glowing with a malevolent red light.
Looking at the transformation and the dog, Gaya grimaced.
"Damn, that''s one ugly-ass dog," she muttered.
"Let''s go," Michael said, his gaze fixed on the shadowy form of the transformed cultist as it disappeared into the undergrowth. "We''ll follow him. And¡ we''ll take those bastards out. In the forest. Just like old times."
He smiled, a hint of nostalgia in his eyes. The forest reminded him of their first encounter, back when he transmigrated to this strange world, trying to find his ce. He''d found Gaya then, captured by Nagnd soldiers and her meridians broken. Then, he used the shadows, and the trees, to his advantage, taking out the Nagas one by one, silently, and efficiently.
It was the beginning of their¡ partnership. Their¡ love story.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Chapter 1381 Requirements to Kill Agra
Chapter 1381 Requirements to Kill Agra
"Ready for a walk in the woods, darling?" Michael asked, his voice a low murmur.
"Always," Gaya replied, her lips curving into a predatory grin.
Silently, Michael activated the System, adding Gaya to his Shadow Teleportation upgrade. He winced as a hundred thousand Badass Points vanished from his reserves, but it was a small price to pay for¡ convenience. And for keeping Gaya happy.
He focused his will, targeting a shadow deep within the forest, and with a crackle of dark energy, they vanished.
They reappeared behind a massive oak tree, its trunk thicker than any Michael had ever seen, its bark smooth and polished, gleaming with a faint, green luminescence. He set Gaya down, his gaze sweeping across the forest.
It wasn''t like any forest he''d ever encountered before. It was¡ ordered. Controlled. Almost¡ cultivated. The trees, all towering giants, were spaced evenly, their branches intertwined, creating a canopy of leaves that filtered the sunlight, casting the forest floor in a dappled, greenish glow. The air was clean, fresh, scented with the fragrance of wildflowers and¡ something else. Something¡ healing.
Birds sang, their melodies sweet and harmonious. Small animals scurried through the undergrowth, their movements unafraid, unhurried. And every few trees¡ a hot spring, its waters steaming, its surface shimmering with a faint, opalescent glow.
Gaya, absently rubbing her arm, where a crossbow bolt had grazed her earlier, felt a tingling sensation. She nced down and saw, to her surprise, that the wound¡ was gone. Healed. A single drop of water, dripping from one of the leaves above, hadnded on her arm, and the¡ magic within the forest had done the rest.
"Ava''s power," Michael murmured, his gaze sweeping across the pristinendscape. "It''s¡ strong here. This must be thest¡ untouched part of her domain. A shame¡ that Agra''s about to¡ destroy it."
But Gaya, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword, shook her head.
"Not if I have anything to say about it," she growled, her eyes hardening. She knew Michael. Knew how¡ thorough he could be. Once someone ended up on his shit list, it was only a matter of time. Agra was as good as dead.
Michael, meanwhile, was already consulting the System.
"System," he thought, "analyze that Grimoire. The God-killing one. Find a way to¡ permanently eliminate Agra. And make it¡ efficient."
He knew killing a god wasn''t easy. It required¡ preparation. The right tools. The right circumstances.
Thest time he''d killed a God ¨C Rainar, the pathetic, rain-obsessed bastard ¨C the System had been very specific. He''d needed a special weapon, a ce where the target god''s domain was nullified, and a clean kill shot before they could escape.
That''s why he''d had to hunt down that ancient centipede, harvest its corbone, and craft the God yer crossbow. And he''d been lucky, back then. The Goddess of Luck, Fortuna, had hosted a¡ g. A gathering of the Gods, in a neutral zone where Rainar''s control over rain had been¡ negated. It had been the perfect opportunity.
But he couldn''t rely on luck this time. He needed a more¡ reliable method. He needed to kill Agra quickly, cleanly, and without¡plications.
[Scanning the Grimoire for God-killing methods specific to Agra, the self-proimed God of Chaos, will require 50 million Badass Points. Does the host wish to proceed?]
"Fifty million?" Michael winced. That was¡ a lot. Way more than he''d spent to take out Rainar. But then again, Agra wasn''t some second-rate rain god. He was¡ chaos personified. Unpredictable. Dangerous.
Yet the rewards would be worth it. The experience points, the badass points, the domain full of worshippers¡ it was a goddamn gold mine.
And once Agra was out of the picture, Michael could finally focus on¡ expanding his own power base. Building his following. Utilizing his newfound Prime God status to its full potential.
It was time to level up.
"Do it, System," he thought, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "Let''s see what you''ve got."
The System, as always, delivered.
[The system has sessfully decoded Seshat''s Grimoire of Gods. ]
[Congrattions for unlocking the way to assassinate Agra¡]
[The host can now kill God Agra bypleting the needed requirements. ]
The notifications chimed one after the other, their synthesized tones echoing in Michael''s mind. He closed his eyes, letting the information wash over him, feeling a thrill of anticipation mixed with a healthy dose of¡ dread.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he opened his eyes.
A cold smile yed on his lips.
[To kill God Agra, the host must fulfill the following requirements¡]
A list of requirements, glowing lines of ethereal text, materialized before him, floating in the air like a holographic checklist.
[The target God Agra must be away from his domain.]
Well, that was obvious. And the hardest part. Gods were notoriously difficult to¡ dislodge from their own domains.
[The target must be in a ce where his godly powers are useless.]
Another tricky one. Finding a ce where a god''s powers were¡ nullified¡ it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. A goddamn magical haystack.
[Finally, the target must be killed by submerging the target god in the¡ Pond of Tranquility. Which is the opposite of¡ Chaos. ]
"A pond? Seriously? That was¡ weird, specific, and oddly ironic," Michael thought to himself.
[Fulfilling the three requirements will enable the host to kill God Agra and absorb his gracepletely.]
Michael scanned the requirements again, his brow furrowing in concentration. So, he needed to lure Agra out of his domain, find a ce where he was powerless¡ and then drown him in a pond which he had to find.
"Wonderful," he muttered. "Just fucking wonderful."
But before he could start brainstorming potential drowning locations, he had a few¡ loose ends to tie up.
That goddamn dog-cultist. The remaining hunters. And Fayeth.
If anyone knew where to find a Pond of Tranquility, it would be Ava''s Angel.
The irony of it all wasn''t lost on Michael. The God of Chaos, destined to die in a ce of¡ tranquility.
He chuckled, shaking his head. If Agra had chosen any other domain¡ luring him out, finding a way to weaken him, it would have been a nightmare. Gods rarely left their own domains. They were too attached to their power bases, their worshippers, and thefort and control they exerted over their little fiefdoms.
But Agra¡ Agra had been stupid. Arrogant. He''d invaded Ava''s domain, desecrated her sanctuary, and twisted her power to his own chaotic whims.
And now he was going to pay the price.
Michael had a feeling¡ a gut feeling¡ that the Pond of Tranquility was somewhere¡ here. In the Verdant Sanctuary. The name itself¡ it hinted at Ava''s power, her connection to¡ healing, to peace, to the antithesis of chaos.
He closed the System interface, his gaze returning to the scene before him. The transformed cultist, Baruk, was sniffing the ground, his ck fur bristling, his red eyes scanning the undergrowth. He moved cautiously, his senses heightened, his beastly instincts taking over.
Then, he stopped. His head snapped up, his ears twitching, his nostrils ring. He''d caught a scent. Something¡ alive.
"Shit," Gaya muttered, her hand instinctively reaching for the God yer crossbow. "He''s onto us."
"Let hime," Michael said, a predatory gleam in his eyes. "It''s easier to¡ deal with him¡ up close." n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Gaya grinned, understanding his n.
"Poor bastard''s walking right into a trap," she chuckled, shaking her head.
The dog-cultist, Baruk, began to move towards them, his pace slow, deliberate, his senses on high alert. He sniffed the air, his ck nose twitching, his growls a low rumble that echoed through the silent forest. He paused, his head tilting, his gaze fixed on the massive oak tree behind which Michael and Gaya were concealed.
The forest floor was a carpet of soft moss, the air thick with the scent of wildflowers and the¡ hum of Ava''s healing magic. Sunbeams, filtered through the canopy of leaves above, created a dappled pattern of light and shadow, making it difficult to see clearly. But Michael''s Xray vision allowed him to track the dog-cultist''s every move.
He watched as the beast circled the oak tree, its ck fur bristling, its red eyes darting back and forth, sniffing the air. It paused, a low growl rumbling in its chest, and then¡ it saw them.
Before the dog-cultist could even react, Michael struck.
He moved with a speed that belied his size, his hand shooting out to grab the beast by the throat. With a sickening crunch of bone and a spray of crimson blood, he ripped the creature''s throat out.
Baruk''s body convulsed, his legs kicking wildly, but he couldn''t make a sound. The blood, sttering onto the mossy ground, was instantly absorbed, the forest floor seeming to¡ drink it in. And in its ce, tiny wildflowers, their petals a delicate shade of pink, bloomed, a macabre yet strangely beautiful disy.
"That''s¡ oddly creepy. And kinda pretty," Gaya murmured, her brow furrowed in confusion.
Michael, still holding the dog''s lifeless body, tossed it to the ground. And then, something¡ unexpected happened.
The wound on the dog''s throat¡ it began to heal. The flesh knitted back together, the bones realigned, and the blood that had stained his fur vanished as if it had never been there. The dog whimpered, a low, mournful sound, its limbs twitching, its chest rising and falling with a shallow, ragged breath.
This forest, this sanctuary¡ it was saturated with Ava''s power. Her healing magic pulsed through the very air, the soil, the trees. As long as there was a spark of life remaining, the forest would heal. That was the reason that Michael''s action of ripping his throat out should have been fatal blow. But the beast still had a pulse. Faint but it was there and in this forest¡ that was all it took.
"What the¡ ?" Gaya began, her brow furrowed in confusion.
However, Michael didn''t hesitate as he raised his hand and unleashed a stream of ck mes, a controlled torrent of pure destructive power, that engulfed the dog-cultist. The dark mes roared, consuming the creature''s body, turning flesh and bone to ash in a matter of seconds. This time, there was nothing left to heal.
Chapter 1382 The Story Of Ava, The Goddess Of Healing
Chapter 1382 The Story Of Ava, The Goddess Of Healing
Meanwhile, at the edge of the forest, the remaining cultists were getting¡ restless.
"What''s taking that mutt so long?" one of them grumbled, kicking at a loose rock. "He should have found them by now. Those Ava worshippers can''t have gotten far."
"Maybe¡ he found something¡ more¡ interesting," another cultist chuckled, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "You know Baruk. Always had a nose for¡ thedies."
"Yeah, that''s probably it," the first cultistughed. "He''s probably¡ entertaining himself. While we''re stuck out here, freezing our asses off."
"Let''s go find him," a third cultist suggested, his hand resting on the hilt of his dagger. "If he isn''t dead, he better have a damn good excuse for not signaling us."
They had no idea that their¡ friend¡ was no longer capable of¡ signaling¡ anything. Or that the God of Darkness was now stalking them, a predator moving silently through the shadows, his eyes gleaming with a cold, lethal intent.
Deep within the forest, nestled among the towering trees and shimmering hot springs, was a hidden sanctuary. A small, carefully tended garden, its air filled with the scent of wildflowers and the gentle murmur of a nearby waterfall. In the center of the garden, a pond, its waters crystal clear, teemed with colorful koi fish. Blue flowers, their petals shimmering with a faint, ethereal light, lined the banks of the pond, their fragrance mingling with the sweet scent of the golden maple trees that provided shade from the oppressive sky above.
Beneath those trees, a group of figures huddled together. Men, women, and children, their clothes tattered and muddy, their faces etched with exhaustion and fear.
"Mommy, when are we going home?" a small child whimpered, clinging to his mother''s skirt. "I''m¡ scared."
"Who are those¡ scary men in ck, Mommy?" another child asked, his eyes wide with fear.
The adults exchanged uneasy nces, struggling to find the right words to exin the¡ situation to their children. How do you tell a child that they''re being hunted? That their homes have been destroyed? That their lives are in danger?
But before they could answer, a figure emerged from behind one of the maple trees. It was a young woman, her green hair pulled back into a braid, her eyes kind and reassuring, and a basket filled with fruits and bread clutched in her hands.
"Here you go, little ones," she said, her voice soft, gentle, as she distributed the food among the children. "Eat up. You need your strength."
"Thank you, Miss Fayeth," the children chorused, their faces brightening as they grabbed the food, their hunger momentarily eclipsing their fear.
This was Fayeth, the Angel of Ava and thest hope for those who''d escaped Agra''s wrath.
"Now, off you go and y," she added, her smile widening. "We''ll be going home soon. I promise."
The children, their faces lighting up, scurried off, theirughter echoing through the trees as they chased each other through the undergrowth, their small hands clutching the precious fruits and bread.
The adults, however, remained, their faces etched with worry.
"We shouldn''t¡ give them false hope, Fayeth," one of the men said, his voice heavy with a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion.
"I¡ I can''t bear to¡ shatter their dreams," the mother of one of the children whispered, her eyes filled with tears. "Not yet."
"Ava hears our prayers," Fayeth said, her voice firm, unwavering. "She will not abandon us. Not in our hour of need."
"Tell that to the ones¡ being worked to death in Agra''s temple," another man snorted, his gaze fixed on the ground. "They prayed too, didn''t they? Where was Ava then?"
"We cannot lose faith," a woman said, her voiceced with a quiet conviction. "Ava is our Goddess. She will¡"
"A Goddess we haven''t seen in¡ how long?" the first man interrupted, his voiceced with bitterness. "Centuries? Millennia?"
Fayeth sighed, her heart aching. She knew the doubts, the whispers, that had spread through Ava''s followers. It had been¡ a long time. Too long.
Ava, the Goddess of Healing, had¡ disappeared. Vanished from her domain without a trace, leaving her worshippers and her angels¡ lost. Alone.
There were rumors, of course. Whispers that she''d abandoned them, that she''d grown tired of their¡ imperfections. Some even said she''d joined Dagon, the ruler of hell, seduced by his darkness, his power. Others, more audacious, imed she''d gone to the mortal realm, seeking¡ something. Though how a god could pass through the barrier erupted by the God of Darkness, no one could exin.
But Fayeth¡ Fayeth still believed. She knew, deep in her heart, that Ava hadn''t abandoned them. That she was out there, somewhere, in the vast expanse of the realm of the Gods, doing¡ something.
She didn''t know what her Goddess was doing. Or why. But she had faith. And she wasn''t about to let these doubters crush the spirits of those who''d already lost so much.
"It''s our fault she left!" the woman who''d defended Ava suddenly eximed, her voice filled with a mixture of anger and¡ self-loathing. "We¡ we betrayed her!"
The others shifted ufortably, their gazes fixed on the ground, a flicker of shame in their eyes.
"We¡ harmed her. Didn''t care, didn''t stop our own from harming her. We chased her away," the woman continued, her voice rising. "When she¡ when she healed Morbus."
"Morbus?" one of the men echoed, frowning. "That¡ brought the gue upon us."
"A gue she healed," the woman shot back, her gaze burning with a righteous fury. "She''s the Goddess of Healing, for God''s sake! When someone''s¡ begging for help, even if that someone is¡ Morbus, the God of gues¡ she has to help! It''s in her nature! She''s merciful! Kind! Compassionate!"
She paused, taking a deep breath, her voice softening slightly.
"But we¡ we were so¡ blind. So¡ righteous. We used her of¡ colluding with Morbus. Of betraying us. And in our¡ fury¡ we¡ we asked her to leave."
A heavy silence fell over the group, the weight of their past mistakes, their betrayal, settling upon them like a shroud.
"We¡ we didn''t think," another man said quietly, his voice barely a whisper. "We didn''t¡ consider the consequences. We thought¡ the forest would protect us. That we could¡ survive without her. We were¡ wrong. So damn wrong."
Hearing them, Fayeth felt a pang of¡ something. Pity? Anger? Helplessness? It was a story she knew all too well. A tragedy that had yed out centuries ago and was no secret in the realm of the Gods. The tale of Ava''s betrayal, of her worshippers'' shortsighted fury, had been whispered in every temple, every tavern, every back alley, how Ava, in her infinitepassion, had healed Morbus, the God of gues, only to have her kindness twisted, her mercy betrayed.
It all started when Morbus tried to spread his gues on the worshippers of Rudra, the God of War.Back then, before the Dark Lord''s rise, the death of a god was¡ unthinkable. They were immortal, invulnerable, the apex predators of the cosmic food chain. But even if a god couldn''t be killed¡ at least not by other gods, which was proven false by Michael¡they could still be¡ hurt. And Rudra, in his fury, had done a real number on Morbus. He had left the gue God alive, but barely, his body wracked with pain, his power¡ diminished. Thus, Morbus, desperate for healing, had fled to the Verdant Sanctuary and sought Ava''s aid.
Ava, being Ava, couldn''t refuse his plea for help. She''d healed him, using her divine power and connection to the Verdant Sanctuary to mend his broken body and restore his strength. But in doing so, she''d inadvertently¡ unleashed a gue upon her own domain.
Morbus''s power, his very essence, was tied to disease, decay, and suffering. And as he healed, as his strength returned, that power¡ seeped into the Verdant Sanctuary, corrupting its life-giving energy and twisting it into something¡ toxic.
The gue had swept through Ava''s domain like wildfire, killing countless mortals, ravaging thend. And Morbus, that ungrateful bastard, instead of showing gratitude, had simply¡ left. Vanished, leaving Ava to deal with the aftermath of his¡ recovery.
Ava, despite her immense power, her connection to healing, had struggled becuase although she was the Goddess of Healing, she was fighting a gue spread by a fellow God. Still, she had managed to contain the gue, to heal her people, but the damage¡ the loss of life¡ it had been¡ devastating.
And her worshippers, blinded by grief, by the pain of their loss, had turned on her. They''d used her of¡ conspiring with Morbus. Of bringing the gue upon them intentionally. They''d demanded she leave.
Ava, heartbroken and betrayed, both by Morbus and her own people, had simply¡ vanished, abandoning the Verdant Sanctuary. After Ava''s disappearance, the Verdant Sanctuary had¡ survived. Thend, though scarred by the gue, had slowly begun to heal. The people, though still haunted by their losses, had rebuilt their lives, their faith in Ava¡ wavering, but not entirely extinguished. They''d lived in rtive peace and prosperity for centuries, their connection to thend, to the healing magic that still pulsed beneath the surface, sustaining them.
But that peace was shattered when the civil war erupted in the realm of the Gods. Andohr''s rebellion, his bid for power, had thrown the Pantheon into chaos. And in that chaos, Agra, the self-proimed God of Chaos, had risen.
He''d seen an opportunity in Ava''s absence, a chance to im a domain, to amass power, to spread his own twisted brand of¡ order.
And the Verdant Sanctuary, weakened, vulnerable, ripe for the taking, had be his target.
But as Fayeth was lost in her memories, a sudden chill ran down her spine. It wasn''t a feeling of fear, not exactly. It was¡ a premonition. A sense of¡ recognition. N?v(el)B\\jnn
She''d felt this aura before back in Nimbosia when the orc tried to humiliate her by tearing her clothes off. It was the God of Darkness. The one who''d saved her.
Soon, a slow smile spread across her lips, a glimmer of hope returning to her eyes.
"Ava¡ hasn''t abandoned us," she said, her voice quiet but firm, her gaze sweeping across the faces of the refugees huddled beneath the trees. "She has¡ sent someone. In her stead. He''s not known for hispassion. Or his mercy. But he is known for his retribution."
The refugees, their faces a mixture of confusion and hope, stared at her, their eyes wide.
"Who¡ who ising, Fayeth?" one of the women asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Fayeth''s smile widened.
"The God of Darkness."
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Chapter 1383 The Pond of Tranquility I
Chapter 1383 The Pond of Tranquility I
The cultists stepped into the forest, their faces twisting in disgust as they surveyed the tranquil surroundings.
"Ugh, look at this green shit," one of them snarled, kicking at a patch of wildflowers. "It''s sickening. All this order. It''s an insult to Agra!"
"Yeah, where''s the decay? The suffering?" another cultist grumbled, spitting on the ground. "This ce needs a good cleansing. A little fire."
They spread out, their ck robes rustling against the leaves, their daggers glinting in the dappled sunlight, searching for any sign of Baruk, their transformedrade. They stomped on flowers, and snapped twigs, their movements a deliberate desecration of the forest''s serenity.
Unbeknownst to them, they were being watched. Michael and Gaya, hidden high above in the branches of a towering maple tree, observed their movements with cold, calcting gazes.
"Looks like our friends are enjoying their little nature walk," Gaya murmured, a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Let them enjoy theirst walk," Michael replied, his eyes gleaming with a predatory light.
"There!" one of the cultists, a younger, less experienced tracker¡ªif he''d been any good at tracking, he would have gone after the Ava worshippers instead of Baruk, so luck was definitely on his side today¡ªpointed towards a set of paw prints in the soft earth. "Dog tracks! Fresh. Must be Baruk. Let''s move!"
"That mutt better be dead," another cultist growled, cracking his knuckles. "If we find him ying around when we''re supposed to be hunting he''s gonna pay."
They followed the tracks, theirughter echoing through the trees but they had no idea that the one they were searching for was already dead. Reduced to a pile of ash by the God of Darkness. As they followed the tracks deeper and deeper into the forest, the trees grew taller and the air thickened with the scent of wildflowers and then, they stopped. At the end of the trail of paw prints, a small pile of ashy on the ground, still smoldering, a faint wisp of smoke curling upwards into the air.
They stared at the ash, their expressions shifting from confusion to unease. Ava''s worshippers they weren''t exactly known for their firepower. And a pile of ash well, that wasn''t exactly their style. They were the ones who burned things, not the other way around.
"What the?"
"Is that Baruk?" the tracker asked, his brow furrowed in disbelief.
"Don''t be stupid," another cultist scoffed. "That''s just a pile of ash. Probably some animal. A squirrel, maybe. Those things are always spontaneouslybusting."
"But the tracks"
"There are no tracks from the ashes, you idiot, " the third cultist pointed out, frowning. "It means something or someone stopped here. And then left."
"But what if?"
"There''s no ''what if'', " the first cultist said, shaking his head. "Baruk''s probably just exploring. He''ll be back. Nowe on, let''s find those Ava worshippers before they disappear."
Michael and Gaya watched from the trees as the cultists moved on, theirughter fading into the distance.
"So," Gaya said, turning to Michael, a thoughtful frown creasing her brow, "now that we''ve¡ disposed of the mutt¡ how do we find the¡ survivors?"
Michael chuckled, a low rumble in his chest.
"I already found them," he said, gazing across the forest. "That''s why I¡ took care of Baruk. He was getting¡ close."
"How?" Gaya asked, surprised.
Michael simply pointed towards the sky.
Hovering above the trees, almost invisible against the backdrop of the dark, stormy clouds, was a small, metallic object. A Spyder drone, its camera lens gleaming, its rotors whirring softly.
Gaya''s frown turned into a predatory grin.
"Well, then," she purred, her hand instinctively reaching for the God yer crossbow. "What are we waiting for? Let''s go¡ introduce ourselves to those assholes."
"With pleasure," Michael said, cracking his knuckles.
Having no idea they were being watched, the Agra worshippers continued their pursuit, following the amateur tracker''s¡ expert¡ navigation.
"I¡ I think¡ this way," the tracker stammered, scratching his head, his gaze darting around nervously. "Unless¡ unless Baruk¡ changed direction? Or¡ maybe he¡ flew?"
"If that mutt learned how to fly, I''ll eat my own boots," one of the cultists grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Just¡ keep moving, Gronk. And try not to¡ get us lost."
But as they rounded a bend in the path, a dark shape, a figure of immense power and menacing intent, dropped from the trees behind them. The thud of hisnding, heavy and solid, sent a shiver of unease through the cultists.
They spun around, their hands instinctively reaching for the daggers at their waists.
"Who the fuck¡?" one of them growled with a hint of¡ fear.
Michael stood before them, a figure of dark power and cold fury. His armor, ck as midnight and etched with glowing crimson lines, seemed to absorb the light of the forest, making him appear evenrger, even more menacing than he truly was. The skull emblem on his chest te, along with the skull-like mask that concealed his features made the hair on the back of their necks stand on end.
"By Agra¡ he is¡" one of the cultists whispered, his voice trembling, his eyes wide with terror. The medallion on Michael''s chest pulsed, masking his energy signature. It was a precaution to prevent Raphael, or any other¡ interested parties, from tracking his movements.
Then, Michael didn''t give them time to react. Instead, with a burst of speed that defiedprehension, he was upon them, leaving a trail of crackling ck streak of lightning. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Gaya, watching from the trees, saw the cultists freeze, their eyes widening in horror, before their heads, cleanly severed from their bodies, toppled to the ground. A heartbeatter, their bodies erupted in ck mes, their flesh and bone consumed, reduced to nothing but a pile of smoking ash in a matter of seconds.
This was the real power of a god and the vast power gap between a god and mortals.
Tiny wildflowers, their petals a delicate shade of pink, bloomed in the patterns of the blood sttered on the ground which was a macabre yet strangely beautiful contrast to the killings. The bodies of the cultists, consumed by Michael''s dark mes, were reduced to piles of ash, just like Baruk, the dog-cultist, before them.
Gaya,nding lightly beside Michael after executing a graceful flip from the tree branch, let out a low whistle.
"Damn, Michael," she said, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and respect.
"They didn''t even stand a chance. You made it look¡ easy," said Gaya.
"They''re mortals, Gaya," Michael replied with a shrug. "I''m a god. It''s¡ not exactly a fair fight."
He''d barely broken a sweat. These Agra worshippers, still stuck at the Qi Awakening stage of cultivation¡ªbabies, practically¡ªwere no match for his power. They were so weak, so insignificant, that the System hadn''t even bothered to give him any experience points for killing them. What was the point of getting 100 Experience points, That would be an insult to the system and Michael.
He turned his gaze toward the distant clearing, where his Spyder drone hadst spotted Fayeth and the other survivors.
"Come on," he said, taking Gaya''s hand. "Let''s go find our guests."
They followed the Spyder drone, its tiny camera lens transmitting a live feed of the forest path to Michael''s environmental map, its rotors whirring softly as it led them deeper into the Verdant Sanctuary.
As they walked, the trees grew taller, their branches intertwining to form a dense canopy that blocked out most of the light from the stormy sky above. The air grew warmer, the scent of wildflowers and the steam from the hot springs growing stronger, and soon, a clearing emerged ahead.
In the center of the clearing, a small, carefully tended garden bloomed like a jewel amidst the surrounding wilderness. Michael and Gaya recognized the tranquil pond, its crystal-clear water teeming with colorful koi, the blue flowers that shimmered with ethereal light, and the golden maple trees that offered shade and sanctuary. As they stepped out of the forest and into the garden, Michael saw them. A group of figures, men, women, and children, huddled together beneath one of the maple trees, their faces a mixture of hope and fear.
But before Michael could call out to them, a figure emerged from behind the tree. Fayeth.
Her green hair, usually styled in borate braids, was now pulled back into a simple ponytail, her face pale but determined. Her eyes widened as she saw Michael, and a slow smile, a mix of relief and gratitude, spread across her lips. Tears welled up, blurring her vision, but they weren''t tears of sadness. They were tears of¡ hope.
She knew, with a certainty that the God of Darkness hade to help, end Agra''s reign of terror and restore the Verdant Sanctuary to its former glory and beauty.
He had saved her before, back in Nimbosia, when she''d been at her most vulnerable. And now¡ now he was here again, answering her prayers when she needed him the most. Whatever the Pantheon said about him, whatever stories the mortals whispered about the God of Darkness¡ to Fayeth, he was a true god. A god who answered prayers. A god who¡ cared.
Then, she stepped forward, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and without thinking, took Michael''s hand in hers.
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Thank you for¡ing."
Then, she noticed Gaya.
The woman standing beside Michael was¡ striking. Tall, with raven hair that cascaded down her back like a silken waterfall, and eyes that¡ well, they didn''t exactly radiate warmth and kindness. She didn''t have the¡ aura of a goddess, not the kind Fayeth was used to sensing, but there was a power in her stance, in the way she held herself, in the way her gaze met Fayeth''s with a cool, assessing intensity. And she was¡ tall. Almost as tall as Michael.
Seeing Fayeth practically clinging to Michael''s hand, Gaya rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, do it like his wife isn''t standing right here," Gaya said, rolling her eyes, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Fayeth, startled, released Michael''s hand and took a step back, her cheeks flushing crimson. The mention of ''his wife'' struck Fayeth like a freight train. Of course, who else could it be other than the Goddess of Monsters could stand next to the Goddess of Darkness? Fayeth''s eyes widened as she realized she was standing before not one but two gods, maybe the most powerful couples in the entire universe.
"Oh," she stammered, her eyes wide. "I¡ I''m so sorry, mydy. I didn''t¡"
Gaya simply chuckled, shaking her head.
"It''s okay," she said, her smile softening slightly. "He gets that a lot."
"Seriously, Fayeth," Michael said, turning to her, a teasing grin spreading across his face, "how do you manage to end up in some godforsaken hellhole every time I see you?"
Fayethughed which belied the fear and worry she''d been carrying.
"It seems to be¡ my fate," she sighed. "Maybe Fortuna hates me."
"No," Michael said, shaking his head. "I think Fortuna''s finally smiling on you, Fayeth. Because I''m here to take killAgra. And you you might be able to help."
Chapter 1384 The Pond Of Tranquility II
Chapter 1384 The Pond Of Tranquility II
"Because I''m here to¡ kill Agra. And you¡ you might be able to help." Michael said it so casually. What Fayeth had just heard should have shocked her to her core. The God of Darkness¡ was going to kill another god? Buting from him, it sounded almost mundane. Like he was talking about¡ taking out the trash, or doing theundry. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, her mind struggling to process the¡ casualness of his deration.
She stared at him for a moment, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, before finally managing to find her voice.
Gaya, watching the exchange with a barely concealed smirk, thoroughly enjoyed Fayeth''s reaction. Even she, who''d witnessed Michael''s power firsthand, who''d seen him tear through armies and face down gods, still found it a little¡ surreal when he talked about killing a deity as if it were just another item on his to-do list.
But she knew he could do it. He''d killed Rainar, hadn''t he? Besides, Gaya had a simple philosophy when it came to¡ mortality: anyone could be killed. God, mortal, didn''t matter. If you were clever enough, ruthless enough, motivated enough you could find a way. And Michael¡ Michael was the best there was. And he was definitely¡ motivated. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Fayeth, recovering from her initial shock, gestured towards the pond.
"Come," she said, her voice a hushed whisper. "We can talk¡ over there. Away from¡ prying ears."
The others, watching them go, exchanged awed whispers. It wasn''t often that mortals in the realm of the Gods got to¡ see their deities. Ava, in her kindness andpassion, had been an exception. But since they''d driven her away a century ago, they hadn''tid eyes on an actual god.
They stared at Michael, their gazes a mixture of awe and¡ fear. This was the God of Darkness, the one whispered about in hushed tones, the one they''d been taught to fear, to revile.
But he didn''t act like a god. There was no arrogance in his demeanor, no sense of godly superiority. He spoke to Fayeth as an equal, his voice calm, respectful, even friendly. And the woman with him¡ the beautiful woman with the raven hair and crimson eyes¡ she looked like amortal. They couldn''t sense any divine power radiating from her, couldn''t tell she was the Goddess of Monsters herself. Just¡ a normal, albeit strikingly attractive, woman.
They watched, their eyes wide with curiosity and a touch of¡ fear, as the three figures disappeared behind the trees, their voices fading into the gentle murmur of the waterfall.
As they reached the pond, Fayeth gestured for Michael and Gaya to sit on a smooth, moss-covered rock beside the water. The pond was a small oasis of tranquility, its crystal-clear water reflecting the dappled sunlight that filtered through the leaves of the golden maple trees. Colorful koi fish, their scales shimmering with gold and red, darted and weaved through the water, their movements graceful and unhurried. Beneath the surface, a bed of vibrant corals and smooth, polished stones created a miniature underwater garden.
Michael, leaning against the wooden bridge rails that arched over the pond, studied the water, his expression calm, thoughtful. Gaya settled beside him, her gaze sweeping across the garden, her usual restlessness reced by a quiet stillness.
Fayeth, watching him, couldn''t help but marvel at hisposure. He''d just asked her to help him kill a god¡ and yet, he looked as serene as if he were discussing the weather.
"What do you need?" she asked finally, her voice barely a whisper.
"Tell me about the Pond of Tranquility," Michael said, his gaze never leaving the water. "What do you know about it?"
Fayeth blinked, surprised. She looked from Michael to Gaya, a flicker of¡ something¡ confusion? Amusement? ¡ dancing in her eyes.
"You''re standing above it," she said, her voice a soft whisper.
Gaya frowned, turning her gaze to the pond, her brow furrowing in disbelief.
"This is the Pond of Tranquility?" she asked, her voiceced with skepticism.
"Yes," Fayeth nodded.
Michael, too, felt a surge of¡ disappointment. He''d been expecting something¡ more. A hidden grotto, guarded by ancient spirits, its waters shimmering with a divine light. A ce that felt tranquil. But this was just a pond. A beautiful pond, sure, with its clear water and colorful fish, but a pond nheless. He looked at the water again, searching for¡ something, some sign of the power it supposedly held, but he felt¡ nothing.
"Why do you ask?" Fayeth asked, tilting her head, her gaze fixed on Michael''s face.
"Because I need it," Michael replied, his voice taking on a harder edge. "To¡ kill Agra."
Fayeth stared at him for a moment, then sighed, running a hand through her hair.
"Why do you always ask the most¡ ridiculous questions? Every time you try to kill a god, it''s always something¡ oundish. Last time, it was ''where can I find a giant, ancient centipede?'' And now¡ you need a¡ pond?"
"Are you sure this is the Pond of Tranquility?" he pressed, gesturing towards the seemingly ordinary body of water. "Because ording to¡ a reliable source¡ it''s the only way to¡ permanently get rid of Agra."
"It''s just a pond, Michael, for the goddess sake," Fayeth said, her voiceced with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "Ava she used it for meditation. Her angels we all did. It''s peaceful. Calming. It has no god-killing properties. I can''t believe I just said that out loud."
Michael chuckled, a low rumble in his chest.
"Think about it, Fayeth. The God of Chaos. Killed by¡ tranquility. It''s¡ ironic, isn''t it? Poetic justice, even?"
"Poetic¡ or are you just messing with him?" Fayeth asked, her brow furrowing in suspicion.
Michael chuckled but didn''t offer an exnation. He couldn''t exactly tell her that drowning Agra in the Pond of Tranquility was a requirement for killing the Chaos God, a condition set by the System, his most closely guarded secret, now could he?
He shrugged, his smile widening. "Let''s just say¡ I''m a sick puppy with a weird sense of humor."
Despite her lingering confusion, Fayeth smiled warmly at Michael.
"I''m¡ grateful that you''re here, God of Darkness. Thank you, again for helping me," she said, her voiceced with a sincerity that made Michael shift ufortably. He wasn''t used to¡ gratitude.
"Just don''t make it a habit, Fayeth," Gaya interjected, rolling her eyes. "We''ve got bigger problems to deal with, "
"I''m sorry," Fayeth said, her gaze dropping to the ground. "It''s just without Ava we''re lost. Like a flock of sheep without a shepherd."
Even Gaya, who usually didn''t give a damn about feelings, felt a pang of¡ sympathy for the angel.
Michael, however, was already thinking ahead. He could practically taste the rewards of Agra''s demise. The domain full of worshippers, their faith, their devotion¡ soon to be his. The thought sent a thrill of anticipation, of power, coursing through his veins. The Verdant Sanctuary was about to have a new go and a new shepherd.
"Easier?" Gaya raised an eyebrow. "We still have to get Agra here, Michael. And that''s not gonna be¡ a walk in the park."
They both knew, from experience, that dealing with a god was a whole different ball game than dealing with those arrogant, power-hungry cultivators in the mortal realm. Back there, a few well-ced rumors, a carefully crafted insult, even a simple¡ dare¡ could be enough to lure a powerful cultivator out of their stronghold. They were predictable, easily manipted by their own egos.
Gods, however, weren''t so easily¡ swayed. They were older, wiser, and far more¡ cautious.
"How do you n on luring Agra out of his fortress?" Fayeth asked, her voiceced with a hint of concern. "Last I heard, he''s holed up at the top of that¡ thing he''s building. He rarely leaves."
Fayeth''s gaze drifted towards the distant temple, her expression hardening. The Temple of Chaos. It was a blight on thendscape, a monument to Agra''s twisted vision, built with the blood and sweat of her people.
It stood on the very spot where Ava''s temple had once been. A beautiful, serene garden, filled with fragrant flowers, the gentle murmur of a flowing river, the sweet songs of birds. A ce of healing, of peace, of¡ sanctuary.
Agra''s followers had destroyed it all. Ripped up the flowerbeds, diverted the river, and silenced the birds. And in its ce, they''d erected this monstrosity. This temple of darkness and despair. It made her sick.
"He''s not exactly a shut-in, though, is he?" Michael mused, his gaze fixed on the distant temple. "I hear he''s nning a visit. In two days. Some kind of ceremony. To¡ consecrate his new shrine." He''d gleaned that little tidbit from Qin Jiu herself.. They hadn''t mentioned Agra being holed up in the temple, which meant he was¡ elsewhere.
Fayeth didn''t seem surprised. "Agra is unpredictable. Chaotic. He rarely stays in one ce for long."
"Two days is a long time, Michael," Gaya said, turning to him, her brow furrowed in concern. "We need a n. A way to¡ draw him out. Force him toe here. Because if we try to¡ drag him to that pond¡ he''ll just¡ slip away. Disappear into the chaos. And we might never get another chance."
"Any¡ brilliant ideas, oh wise and powerful God of Darkness?" she asked chuckling.
"What does that¡ temple¡ tell you, Gaya?" Michael asked, his gaze still fixed on the distant structure. "What does it¡ say about Agra?"
Gaya and Fayeth exchanged nces.
"It says he''s a blight on thisnd," Fayeth said, her voice tight with anger. "That he doesn''t deserve to be called a¡ god."
But as Gaya stared at the temple, a slow grin spread across her face. She was starting to understand. That temple¡ it wasn''t just a monument to chaos. It was a statement. A desperate cry for recognition.
Agra, the self-proimed God of Chaos, wanted to be worshipped. Like the other gods. He craved respect, adtion, and the kind of blind devotion that fueled their power. And that temple was his way of legitimizing himself. Of proving to his followers, to the world, that he was worthy.
And if he craved respect, recognition¡ well, that meant he had an ego. A big, fragile ego that could be manipted.
If they yed their cards right, they could use that ego against him. They could bait him. Challenge him. Force him toe to them. To prove his power. His¡ godhood. It was a risky n, sure. But it was their best shot.
Michael saw the understanding dawn in Gaya''s eyes, the predatory grin that mirrored his own. They were on the same page, as always.
"We need to send him a message," Michael said, his voice a low growl. "And what better way to send a message¡ than in blood?"
"What do you mean?" Fayeth asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
"It means," Gaya interjected, her voiceced with a chilling amusement, "we''re going to kill those hunting parties. The ones looking for you and your¡ flock. We''re going to make it look like someone''s challenging Agra''s authority. Someone''s thinning the herd. And then¡ well, he''ll have toe out and y. He''ll have to prove he''s still the top dog. He''ll have to¡ defend his territory."
Chapter 1385 How to draw out Agra?
Chapter 1385 How to draw out Agra?
Hearing Gaya, Fayeth frowned. The idea of killing Agra''s followers¡ it felt wrong. She was an Angel of Healing, after all. Her purpose was to save lives, not take them.
But she wasn''t naive. She''d seen the darkness that had consumed the Verdant Sanctuary, the suffering Agra had inflicted on her people, on the beasts, on the verynd itself. She knew, deep down, that Agra''s death was necessary. A sacrifice that had to be made to restore bnce, to heal the wounds he''d inflicted.
You had to cauterize the wound, before you could start healing. And who better to wield the cauterizing iron than the God of Darkness? He had, after all, a proven track record when it came to god-killing.
Gaya, on the other hand, was practically bouncing with excitement. She''d been itching for a fight, a chance to kick some ass and this n¡ this was perfect. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Ooh, this is gonna be fun," she purred, her eyes gleaming with a mischievous light. "We could¡ hang them from the trees! Like¡ grotesque ornaments! Or maybe¡ send Agra a little gift basket. Filled with body parts! Or better yet," she added, a wicked grin spreading across her face, "We could y them alive! And leave their skins as a message. He''d definitely get the hint then. Or," she continued, her excitement growing with each gruesome idea, "we could capture them, torture them, and make them scream really loud. You know, just to make sure Agra hears us."
Fayeth stared at her, momentarily speechless. Gaya she was definitely a goddess alright. And a perfect match for the God of Darkness. She was the chaos to his calm, the fire to his ice, and the incredibly violent, foul-mouthed sadist to his quietly menacing, stoic badass character.
"I like the hanging them from trees idea," Michael said, a slow grin spreading across his face. "And the gift basket. We''ll send Agra a few heads. That should get his attention,"
But then he paused, his brow furrowing in thought.
"The forest¡ it heals, doesn''t it? If we hang them, they''ll just regenerate,"
He turned to Fayeth, his gaze questioning.
"Can you¡ stop that from happening? Can you¡ prevent the forest from healing them?"
"Stop the forest from healing?" Fayeth repeated, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Why would you want to do that?"
She realized, a moment toote, how¡ naive¡ that sounded.
Gaya chuckled, shaking her head.
"It''s okay to be good, Fayeth," she said, her voiceced with a sardonic amusement. "But there''s a fine line between innocent and fucking stupid. And you, my dear, are about to cross it. It''s like, you see a steaming pile of shit, and you think ''Ooh, that looks warm and inviting, let me stick my hand in it and see what happens.'' It''s calledmon sense. Not everything that glitters is gold. Or, in this case, not every motherfucker who asks for help is as innocent as a newborn babe,"
Fayeth took a deep breath, her cheeks flushing slightly. She was an angel. Kindness,passion, healing¡ it was in her nature. But she wasn''t stupid. Not entirely.
"I can do it," she said, her voice regaining its firmness. "I''m Ava''s Angel. I have a certain influence over this forest. I can stop its healing magic. For them."
"Wonderful," Gaya grinned, pping her hands together excitedly. "Let''s go kill some bitches."
"Not yet," Michael said, holding up a hand. "Let''s give those¡ hunting parties¡ a little time. To regroup. Send out another search party. We want to make sure we catch them all."
"They don''t know that you''ve dealt with the first group, do they?" Fayeth asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
"How did you know about the hunting parties, Fayeth?" Gaya asked, her gaze narrowing slightly.
Fayeth shrugged. "I''m connected to this domain. To its creatures. Just like all of Ava''s angels."
A thoughtful expression crossed Gaya''s face. She nced around the forest, at the towering trees, the shimmering hot springs and the absence of any other angels.
"Speaking of angels" she mused. "Where are the other Angels of Ava?"
Fayeth''s smile faltered as a shadow of sadness clouded her eyes.
"After Ava disappeared they scattered. Some searched for her. Some med her. Said she abandoned us. Some were angry at the worshippers. At their betrayal. They left the domain, said they wanted nothing to do with such ungrateful wretches." She sighed, her voice heavy with sadness. "Others migrated to different domains. To help. To heal. Like me. As for the rest I don''t know. Some converted, they say. Started worshipping other gods."
Converting angels¡turning them to worship another god was a power move. A way to steal not only their devotion but also their connection to the domain, to the source of their power.
Michael knew how potent that connection could be because he had experienced it firsthand. When Ava''s followers had prayed to him, back in Nimbosia, he''d received over 3,000 Worship Energy. A significant boost to his reserves. And those power-hungry gods¡ they were always looking for an edge. A way to increase their influence, their control. A group of¡ godless angels, like Ava''s, ripe for conversion¡ they were prime targets. And Michael knew, without a doubt, that more than a few gods would be more than happy to¡ wee them into the fold.
But Michael, sensing Fayeth''s difort, decided not to press the issue. "Right, then," he said, pping his hands together. "Let''s take a break. Before we get this party started."
He strolled over to one of the golden maple trees and sat down on the ground, his back resting against the smooth trunk. Fayeth stared at him, surprised. He was a god, after all. And gods¡ gods didn''t just¡ sit on the ground. They demanded thrones, altars, sacrifices. But Michael¡ he just sat there, as if he were one of them.
The worshippers, watching the scene from a distance, exchanged awed whispers. They''d never seen a god like this. Even Ava, kind andpassionate as she was, had always maintained a certain distance. She''d sat on a throne, or a raised tform, always above them.
But Michael¡ he was just¡ sitting there. On the goddamn ground like it was nothing. Yet even in his rxed posture, leaning against a tree like some weary traveler, there was a certain¡ badass quality to him, an aura of power thatmanded respect, that demanded attention.
"Who¡ who is that?" one of the children whispered, tugging on his mother''s skirt. "Is he¡ one of the¡ scary men?"
"Is that a god?" one of the women whispered, her eyes wide.
"He''s¡ sitting on the ground," another woman murmured, her voiceced with disbelief. "I''ve never seen a god¡ sit on the ground before."
"Who''s the prettydy?" one of the children asked, pointing towards Gaya. "Is she a goddess?"
"Shhh," his mother hissed, pulling him closer. "Don''t point! It''s disrespectful."
"He looks¡ scary, Mommy," another child whispered, clinging to his mother''s skirt. "Is he¡ going to hurt us?"
Michael, his enhanced hearing picking up their hushed whispers, smiled.
"Hey, kids!" Michael called out, his voice surprisingly gentle. He could see the fear in their eyes, the lingering trauma of their encounters with Agra''s worshippers.
Hearing him address the children directly, the adults,felt a shiver of unease. He was the God of Darkness, after all. Not exactly a¡ child-friendly title. Darkness, evil¡ those words were often associated with things that one did not want their child to meet or stumble upon like monsters under the bed. Things that¡ preyed on innocence.
But Michael''s smile didn''t falter. He held out his hand towards the children, beckoning them closer.
Seeing their hesitation, Fayeth smiled reassuringly.
"It''s okay," she said, her voice gentle. "He''s¡ not scary."
Gaya, overhearing her, couldn''t help but chuckle.
"He''s not scary¡ when he isn''t actively killing things," she muttered under her breath, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
But the children, their curiosity outweighing their fear, began to approach Michael, their steps hesitant at first, then growing more confident as they saw the warmth in his eyes, the gentle curve of his smile.
"Are you¡ alright, little ones?" he asked, his voice soft, kind. "Have you¡ eaten? You look¡ hungry."
He''d always had a soft spot for children, perhaps because his own childhood and most of the life he has been through have been so difficult and painful. He gestured towards the space beside him.
"Come sit,"
The children, drawn to his¡ aura, the calming energy that radiated from him despite his fearsome title and appearance, settled down beside him on the soft grass.
He essed his System store, pulling out a handful of candies, chocte bars and brightly colored lollipops.
The children''s eyes widened, their faces lighting up with a mixture of delight and wonder.
Watching the scene unfold, Gayarolled her eyes.
"Yeah, give the kids candy, Michael," she said dryly. "While dressed in scary ck armor and a skull mask. What could possibly be¡ suspicious about that?"
Fayeth chuckled, shaking her head. "You have a¡ unique sense of humor, mydy."
Gaya grinned, her gaze softening as she watched Michael interact with the children. He was good with them. Patient. Kind. It was a side of him she rarely saw, a glimpse of the man beneath the armor, the god of darkness, the¡ protector.
As she was watching how Michael interacted with the children, she found herself thinking about Cindy. "What is that little dweeb up to now," she wondered, a wistful smile touching her lips.
***********************************
Meanwhile, back in the Temple of Chaos, Qin Jiu was getting antsy.
"They haven''t returned?" she asked, her voice sharp, her gaze fixed on the nervous cultist who stood before her, his head bowed, his hands trembling.
"No, mydy," the cultist stammered. "The hunting party¡ they haven''t reported back."
"Summon Vog," she said, her voice taking on a harder edge.
A momentter, a figure swaggered into the chamber. Vog, the captain of Agra''s elite hunting squad, was a walking embodiment of chaos. He was tall, thin as a rail, with a shock of greasy, unkempt ck hair that stuck out in all directions. His face was a canvas of crude tattoos, depicting skulls, ghosts, and various other unpleasantries. His teeth, yellowed and crooked, were bared in a perpetual sneer, and he had a habit of¡ scratching his butt that spoke volumes about hisck of discipline. He was, in short, the perfect Agra worshipper.
He was also, as Qin Jiu had learned the hard way, a sadist. A cruel, unpredictable bastard who enjoyed inflicting pain¡ for the sake of it.
"You summoned me, mydy?" he asked, his voice a raspy growl, his eyes, bloodshot and unfocused, darting around the room.
"Your hunting party, Vog," Qin Jiu said with suppressed anger. "They haven''t returned. Send another. Double the men. Equip them with¡munication crystals. I have a¡ bad feeling about this."
"Rx, mydy, they''re probably just¡ having a bit of fun. A little¡ extracurricr chaos. But don''t you worry about that, I''ll¡ discipline them. When they get back. y them alive. Just for fun." Vog let out a harshugh, a sound like nails on a chalkboard.
Qin Jiu knew he wasn''t joking. She''d seen him do it before. Seen the way he''d¡ enjoyed it. The screams of the Ava worshippers he''d captured still echoed in her nightmares.
"This isn''t a game, Vog," she said, her voice hardening. "Take this seriously. Karma¡ is a boomerang. And we''ve umted quite a lot of it,"
Chapter 1386 Gift for Agra I
Chapter 1386 Gift for Agra I
After hearing Qin Jiu''s warning, Vog simplyughed before swaggering out, leaving Qin Jiu alone with her thoughts. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
She looked around the room, her gaze sweeping over the chaotic d¨¦cor. A king-sized bed, draped in silks of deep purple and ck, dominated the space, its pillows scattered, its sheets rumpled. The walls were painted in a swirling, chaotic mix of colors, sshes of blood which was Agra''s handiwork stood out against the backdrop of blues, greens, and yellows. It looked more like a deranged artist''s canvas than a bedroom and a chaotic mess.
But the chaos within Qin Jiu''s own mind was far more¡ intense. A gnawing unease, a premonition of something had settled over her, a feeling she couldn''t quite shake. Like someone or something wasing for her.
Agra¡ he was unpredictable. A whirlwind of chaotic energy, his moods shifting as quickly as they appeared. At the moment, he was off doing god knows what or wherever the hell he pleased. But ever since his meeting with Andohr, there''d been a noticeable¡ shift in his behavior. He was more¡ erratic. More violent. More¡ chaotic.
He''d ordered his followers to increase their efforts. To spread chaos and terror throughout the realm. Banditry was on the rise, roads were unsafe, and even the most heavily guarded domains of the pacifist gods weren''t immune to Agra''s influence.
He wasing to the temple in two days. To consecrate his statue, tomune with his followers.
But Qin Jiu had a feeling¡ a bad feeling¡ that his visit wouldn''t be peaceful. He was going to unleash his chaos. And she she was caught in the middle.
Meanwhile, Vog strode into the mess hall, where his troops celebrated.
The hall was¡ a disaster. Long, wooden tables,den with food and drink, were overturned, their contents ¨C roasted meats, piles of bread, gons of ale ¨C scattered across the floor. Ale barrels, their spigots open, oozed a sticky, foaming liquid that mingled with the other fluids that stained the stone floor.
A few of the worshippers, their faces painted with the same grotesque symbols as their leader, were singing and pissing in the corner.
"Hey, Grognak," one of them slurred, his words barely intelligible, "did you see that¡ elf bitch I¡ interrogated? She screamed like a¡ banshee!"
"I bet she tasted¡ divine," another worshipper chuckled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I''m gonna¡ sacrifice this virgin to Agra tonight," a third worshipper announced, grabbing a young woman by the hair, yanking her head back. "He loves¡ the pure ones."
It was a scene of¡ utter chaos. A far cry from the disciplined, orderly ranks of the Dark Army, who celebrated their victories with a lot less vomit and public urination.
Vog instead of shouting and trying to impose some semnce of order on his¡ troops, simply grinned, a cruel, predatory glint in his eyes. He grabbed a nearby ale mug, its wooden surface stained with something and climbed onto a table, his boots crunching on the discarded food.
He spotted a particrly enthusiastic worshipper, who was currently in the process of throwing a handful of mashed potatoes at another cultist.
With a roar ofughter, Vog mmed the mug down on the man''s head.
The sound of shattering wood echoed through the hall, followed by a stunned silence.
"Alright, you drunken bastards," Vog roared, his voice booming across the hall. "Listen up! That¡ hunting party¡ the one we sent to Ava''s forest? They haven''t reported back."
He grinned, a cruel glint in his bloodshot eyes.
"So, I''m sending out another hunting party. To¡ find them. If they''re dead, I want their bodies brought back. We''ll celebrate their ipetence. And if they''re still breathing¡ well, they''re gonna wish they weren''t. They made Qin Jiu worry. And that is not allowed."
The moment he gave the order, the mess hall erupted in cheers. The worshippers, their earlier revelry momentarily forgotten, scrambled to their feet, their eyes gleaming with a bloodthirsty excitement. Even the one who''d just had his head smashed with an ale mug, his face covered in blood and bits of wood, let out a whoop of delight, eager to join the hunt. Discipline wasn''t exactly a¡ priority¡ in Agra''s army.
They surged towards the armory, arge, chaotic chamber piled high with weapons and armor. Swords of varying shapes and sizes, most of them stolen from fallen enemies or looted from conquered viges,y scattered across the floor, their des dulled with age and neglect. Bows and quivers of arrows, their fletchings broken and their tips rusted, were piled haphazardly in corners. Spears, pikes, and axes, some of them still stained with dried blood, leaned against the walls. It wasn''t exactly the most¡ organized¡ armory, but it served its purpose.
Vog watched as his troops armed themselves, a mix of amusement and disgust on his face. He spotted one particrly enthusiastic worshipper trying to grab, everything.
"What in Agra''s name do you think you''re doing, Gorok?" he roared, pping the back of the worshipper''s head. The man, who was attempting to juggle two spears, a bow and arrow, and a pike, stumbled, dropping most of his weapons with a ng.
"Uh¡ preparing for battle, Captain?" Gronk stammered, his eyes wide with confusion.
"With¡ two spears, a bow, and a quiver of arrows?" Vog scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. "Are you nning to¡ juggle those spears while firing arrows with your ass? Because let''s face it, your aim''s so bad, you''d probably hit yourself. Pick one, dumbass, and make sure your tiny ass brain can atleast handle one weapon before our enemies die ofughter!"
He shook his head, a mixture of amusement and exasperation on his face. "Agra give me strength," he muttered. "Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother."
Gronk chastened, dropped one of the spears and grabbed a rusty axe instead. Then, twenty of them, a mix of seasoned hunters and eager recruits, strapped their weapons and with excited shouts left the temple grounds, ready to prove their loyalty to Agra.
*****************************
On the other hand, perched high in the branches of a towering oak tree, Michael, Gaya, and Fayeth watched as the hunting party approached. Night had fallen in the Verdant Sanctuary, casting long shadows across the forest floor, the darkness enhancing Michael''s already formidable power. He didn''t really need the boost, not to deal with these bugs, but he wasn''t about toin.
While Michael remained calm, Gaya was checking their supplies. She''d brought ropes, thick and sturdy, and a few wooden boxes, their surfaces carefully sanded and polished. She tested the tensile strength of the ropes, tugging on them with a satisfied grin. She ran her hand over the smooth wood of the boxes, a thoughtful frown creasing her brow.
"Maybe I should decorate them a bit," she mused, tapping a fingernail against the wood. "A few¡ skulls? Some shapes drawn using blood? What do you think, human? A bit of¡ artistic ir never hurt, right?"
Watching Gaya''s preparations with a mixture of amusement and apprehension, Fayeth couldn''t help but wonder what she''d gotten herself into.
"They''reing," she said, her voice a low whisper, her gaze fixed on the edge of the forest. "I can¡ feel them."
Michael and Gaya followed her gaze, their eyes scanning the trees, the shadows, the spaces between. A group of figures, twenty or more, emerged from the darkness, their ck robes blending with the shadows, their movements cautious, their weapons held at the ready.
"They''ve gotmunication crystals," Michael noted as he spotted the small, glowing crystals attached to the cultists'' belts. "Smart."
"They''re¡ splitting up," Fayeth said, her brow furrowing. "They''re¡ searching. For us."
"Even better," Michael grinned. "They think they''re the hunters. They have no idea¡ they''re the prey."
The irony wasn''t lost on Gaya. These Agra worshippers, these self-proimed agents of chaos, reveled in the hunt, in the thrill of the kill, in inflicting pain and suffering on others. They thought they were the predators. But they were about to be¡ the hunted.
Despite their usual chaotic nature, the cultists, moved with a surprising discipline as they entered the forest. Theirughter and boisterous chatter subsided, reced by a tense silence, their eyes constantly scanning the surroundings. They were¡ cautious. Unlike the previous group, they didn''t underestimate the forest, and didn''t dismiss its dangers. They scanned the trees, searching for any sign of movement, any hint of an ambush.
"Damn," Michael muttered, impressed despite himself. "These guys are¡ trained. Not like those other¡ idiots."
As they watched, Gaya, sensing an opportunity, sprang into action. With a fluid grace, she leaped from the tree branch, grabbing a higher branch, swinging herself upwards, her movements silent, almost¡ ethereal. Michael, scooping Fayeth up into his arms, followed suit, his enhanced strength and agility making the jump seem effortless. Hended softly on a thick branch above, his gaze fixed on the cultists below. Unlike Fayeth, he didn''t need to hide, not really. The darkness provided by the shadows in the forest was his domain, and he could blend into them, be one with the darkness, with a mere thought. Thus, he activated his Eyes of Doom, unleashing two beams of concentrated dark energy that sliced through the trunk of a nearby tree, carving out a hollow space justrge enough for Fayeth to conceal herself within.
"Get in," he said, gesturing towards the makeshift hiding ce.
Without a word, Fayeth stepped into the hollow, her body disappearing into the darkness within. Michael reached out, his fingers brushing against the rough bark of the tree. Then he sealed the opening with the wooden piece he carved out, leaving no trace of the hidden chamber.
Then, he and Gaya turned their attention back to the unsuspecting cultists below.
"Alright," Michael murmured, his gaze scanning the group. "Let''s¡ thin the herd a little. We''ll take out the easy targets first. The stragglers. The ones who wander off on their own."
"Sounds good to me," Gaya purred, her eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger. "I''ve always had a fondness for¡ stragglers."
They studied the cultists'' movements, their patrol patterns, the way theymunicated with each other through hand signals and the glowing crystals at their belts.
"See those two?" Michael said, pointing towards a pair of cultists who''d wandered away from the main group, their gazes fixed on the ground, their attention clearly elsewhere. "They''re not paying attention. And the others¡ they can''t see them. Blind spot."
"Easy pickings," Gaya chuckled, cracking her knuckles.
"Exactly, " Michael grinned. "We take them out quickly, quietly. Before they can¡ raise the rm." He tapped on the tree trunk where Fayeth was hidden.
"Fayeth," he called out, his voice a low whisper. "Stop the healing. In this area. I don''t want these bastards¡ regenerating."
Inside her hidden chamber, Fayeth closed her eyes, focusing her will. She could feel it, the pulse of the forest, the life energy flowing through the trees, the nts, the very air itself. And with a thought, a whisperedmand, she severed the connection.
Soon, a faint breeze, cold and unsettling, rustled through the leaves as though the forest acknowledged hermand.
"Let the hunt begin," Michael said.
Chapter 1387 Gift for Agra II
Chapter 1387 Gift for Agra II
The Agra worshippers continued their search, oblivious to the danger that lurked in the shadows, their eyes scanning the undergrowth, their hands never straying far from their weapons.
"This fucking forest," one of them spat, kicking at a patch of moss. "It''s unnatural. Too green. Makes me want to puke."
"All these goddamn flowers," another grumbled, crushing a delicate blue blossom under his heel. "They''re an insult to chaos. We should burn this whole ce to the ground."
"Where the hell are those Ava-loving bastards hiding?" a third muttered, his gaze darting around nervously. "They can''t have gotten far."
Michael and Gaya, perched high above, watched them with predatory grins.
"Two down, eighteen to go," Gaya purred, her eyes gleaming with amusement.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and let out a series of bird calls. A perfect imitation of a cuckoo, followed by the screech of a hawk, and then, for good measure, the earsplitting shriek of a harpy. Then to give a more confusing touch, she dislodged a good size rock from the canopy as it fell down on the forest floor, hitting nothing but the ground, and distracting the others toward the sudden sound.
The cultists, startled by the sudden cacophony, turned towards the sound, their weapons raised, their gazes scanning the trees.
It was the distraction Michael had been waiting for.
He dropped from the branches,nding silently behind the two stragglers, his movements a blur of speed and shadow. With two swift, brutal movements, he snapped their necks. Then, scooping up their lifeless bodies, he leaped back into the trees, disappearing into the darkness of the canopy.
The remaining cultists, their attention still fixed on the¡ source of the bird calls¡ were oblivious to the fate that had befallen theirrades. They were spread out now, their formation broken, their focus¡ scattered.
"What the hell was that noise?" one of them asked in a low growl.
"Sounded like a fucking zoo," another muttered, scratching his head.
"Forget the birds," a third said, his gaze hardening. "We need to find those Ava worshippers. And that damn dog. Where the hell did he go?"
Back in the trees beside Gaya, Michael pointed towards a group of three cultists who were moving towards a nearby stream.
"Those three next?" he murmured. "They''re isted. But they''re close together. We''ll need to be¡ quick."
"There are two more, over there," Gaya said, her gaze fixed on a pair of cultists who were watching the group by the stream, their hands resting on the hilts of their daggers.
"They''ve got those three in their sights. It''s too risky to approach them directly."
"Can''t you just¡ poof them all away? Like you did with the others?" Gaya asked, her brow furrowed in thought.
"I could," Michael admitted, his gaze hardening. "But I don''t want to¡ risk it. If they''re all taken out at once¡ it''ll raise rms. Whoever''s listening to thosemunication crystals¡ they''ll alert Agra. And he might¡ postpone his visit. Change his ns."
He paused, his eyes gleaming with a cold fire.
"I want him to¡e, Gaya. I want him to¡ receive our¡ gifts. In person."
"But¡ they''ll know," Gaya pointed out. "They''ll know that¡ another hunting party has¡ disappeared."
"They''ll know something is wrong," Michael agreed. "But they won''t guess it''s a god who''s hunting them. They''ll assume it''s¡ the Ava worshippers, fighting back. Or¡ some other predator lurking in the forest. They''ll send more men. More toys for us to y with."
Suddenly, Gaya had an idea. She winked at Michael, a mischievous glint in her eyes, and pressed the God yer crossbow into his hands.
"Hold this for me," she murmured, and with a wink, she dropped from the tree,nding softly on the forest floor. She began to walk towards the two cultists, feigning a limp, her hand pressed to her side.
"Help¡" she called out, her voice a weak, trembling whisper.
The two cultists, their attention immediately drawn to the sound, turned away from the group by the stream. Their eyes widened, their jaws ckening, as they took in Gaya''s appearance. She was, even in her current distressed state, breathtakingly beautiful.
"Well, hello there, darling," one of them purred, licking his lips. "What''s a pretty thing like you doing in a ce like this?"
"Agra has blessed us!" the other eximed, his gaze fixed on Gaya''s¡ assets. "What a¡ reward for our¡ devotion."
"Help¡ me¡" Gaya stammered, her voice barely a whisper.
"Don''t worry, sweetheart," the first cultist chuckled, already reaching for the buckle of his belt. "We''ll take care of you."
While the two cultists were distracted, Michael acted by using the Eyes of Doom. As a result, two beams of dark energy, sharp and precise, shot out from his eyes, striking the three cultists by the stream. Their heads were cleaved cleanly, showering the surrounding area in a spray of blood and bone.
Not wasting a second, Michael used Shadow Teleportation to appear beside the headless corpses. With two swift kicks, he sent their bodies tumbling into the stream. Then, scooping up their heads, he teleported back to his perch in the trees.
He then reappeared behind the two cultists who were still¡ admiring Gaya, their expressions a mix of lust and anticipation.
"Having fun, boys?" Michael growled, his voice a low rumble of thunder.
And at that moment, the look of helpless terror that the two were looking at Gaya shifted, her posture straightened, her eyes hardening, and a slow, predatory grin spread across her lips.
"What the¡?" one of the cultists sputtered, his eyes widening in confusion.
"You lying bitch!" the other roared, his hand reaching for his dagger. "You think you can fool us with your¡ damsel in distress bullshit? You''re one of them, aren''t you? One of those Ava-worshipping¡"
"Look behind you," Gaya purred, her voiceced with amusement.
Before they could turn, Michael unleashed his fury.
A wave of dark mes, erupting from his outstretched hand, engulfed the two cultists, their screams swallowed by the inferno as their bodies were consumed, reduced to nothing but a pile of smoking ash. He didn''t even bother collecting their heads. Not after the way they''d looked at Gaya.
"Twelve left," Michael murmured, his gaze sweeping across the forest, tracking the movements of the remaining cultists. "They''re getting¡ spooked."
Suddenly, a faint, pulsing light, emanating from one of the discardedmunication crystals, caught his attention.
"Looks like someone''s checking in," Gaya purred, a mischievous glint in her eyes. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
They retreated deeper into the canopy, concealing themselves among the leaves and branches, watching as one of the cultists picked up the glowing crystal, holding it to his ear.
The crystal, once a vibrant blue, flickered, its light dimming to a dull gray.
"Vog here," a gruff voice,ced with a hint of impatience, echoed from the crystal. "Report. What the fuck is going on out there?"
"We''re¡ in the forest, Captain," the cultist replied, his voice hesitant. "Still searching for¡ Baruk and the others."
Vog''s voice, amplified by the crystal, boomed through the trees, loud enough for Michael and Gaya to hear every word.
"You''ve been searching for hours, you ipetent imbeciles!" he roared. "What the hell do you think you''re doing out there? Having a goddamn pic?! Did you stop to braid each others'' hair?! Did you build a fucking tree house? Find those idiots, and find them now!"
The cultist, his face pale, stammered a hasty affirmation.
There was a moment of silence, the only sound the crackling of themunication crystal. Then, Vog''s voice, nowced with a chilling menace, echoed through the forest again.
"Because if youe back empty-handed. Agra''s going to y you alive. And I''ll be right there beside him, enjoying the show."
"Agra? But Lady Qin Jiu said¡" "He''s¡ here," Vog confirmed, his voice taking on a strangely gleeful tone. "Arrived earlier than expected. Surprise! That''s what happens when you''re the fucking God of Chaos! Punctuality is for losers!"
Well, that wasn''t exactly surprising. The God of Chaos arriving unannounced? It would have been more shocking if he''d actually stuck to the goddamn schedule.
Michael and Gaya exchanged nces with their eyebrows raised in resignation and tinge of frustration.
"Of course he''s early," Gaya muttered, rolling her eyes. "What did we expect? The guy''s a walking, talking shitstorm."
It threw a wrench in their ns, sure. They''d been expecting to have two days to prepare, to set their traps, to gather their gifts. But Michael simply shrugged as he was used to ns changing and quiet good "Time to improvise," he said, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "We''ll just have to speed things up a bit,"said Michael.
They''d have to prepare the forest, set their traps around the Pond of Tranquility, and deliver their message to Agra now with no time to waste.
************************************
Back in the Temple of Chaos, Qin Jiu was¡ ufortable.
She''d been pacing her chambers, her mind a whirlwind of worry and¡ premonition, when he''d arrived.
Agra.
He''d bounced into the room, his usual manic energy amplified, his eyes glittering with a chaotic light that made her skin crawl. He''d cupped her face in his hands, his touch a little too rough, a little too possessive, and grinned down at her, his painted face a grotesque mask ofaffection and lust but It was hard to tell with him.
"What troubles my beautiful Qin Jiu?" he asked, purring. "Tell me my love, what dark thoughts cloud your perfectly sculpted brow?"
Qin Jiu knew, from experience, that trying to hide things from Agra was pointless. He had a way of sensing her emotions, her fears, her secrets, especially when he is around her. And besides, she couldn''t tell if he knew about the missing hunting party yet.
"It''s the hunters, Agra," she said, her voice a hesitant whisper. "The ones we sent after Ava''s worshippers. They haven''t returned. I sent Vog to dispatch another group¡ but I have a bad feeling."
Agra''s grin widened, transforming into a manic cackle that sounded more like a hyena choking on a bone than actualughter.
"Isn''t it obvious, my brilliant Qin Jiu?" he said, still chuckling. "Someone''s killing them. Those pathetic Ava worshippers¡ they''re not exactly known for their¡ ferocity, are they? That forest¡ it''s full of¡ tranquility. Not exactly a breeding ground for warriors. No, someone or something is hunting my hunters. And that, my love¡ that smells like¡ chaos. "
He began to dance around the room, his movements erratic, unpredictable, hisughter echoing off the walls.
"I can taste it, Qin Jiu!" he shrieked. "The chaos! The fear! The¡ deliciousness! This¡ this calls for¡ a celebration! We''ll open the temple! Invite all my followers! Let my statue¡ stand tall! A beacon of chaos! A symbol of¡ me!"
Qin Jiu waited for him to calm down before speaking again.
"But¡ what about the hunters, Agra?" she asked, her voice quiet, but firm. "Who¡ or what¡ is killing them?"
Agra''sughter ceased abruptly, his gaze hardening.
"I''ll¡ find out," he said with a low growl. "Or¡ my minions will. I''m too busy basking in the glory of impending chaos to go sniffing around for clues. Besides, " he added, a cruel smile twisting his lips, "I have a feeling¡ the chaos itself¡ will reveal the¡ culprit. Sooner orter."
Chapter 1388 Gifts for Agra III (final)
Chapter 1388 Gifts for Agra III (final)
Almost ten hourster, Vog was back in the mess hall, a tankard of ale in his hand, hisughter echoing through the chamber. The mess, the chaos, the overturned tables and spilled food¡ it was all¡ normal.
A crowd of Agra worshippers had gathered, their faces painted with the usual grotesque symbols, their eyes gleaming with a mix of excitement and¡ something else. Fear? Reverence? It was hard to tell with these guys. Many of these were new recruits, eager to prove their loyalty to the God of Chaos. They''d heard stories, whispers of Agra''s power, his¡ unpredictability. And they were¡ fascinated. Terrified, but fascinated.
"So, Captain," one of the younger cultists asked, his voice a mix of awe and apprehension, "what''s he¡ like? Agra, I mean."
"He''s¡ intense," Vog chuckled, taking a long swig of ale. "Unpredictable. You never know what he''s gonna do next. One minute, he''s all charm and smiles, the next¡ well, let''s just say you better hope you''re not standing too close."
"Is it true¡ he can¡ control chaos itself?" another cultist asked, his eyes wide.
"Control it?" Vog snorted. "He is chaos, you idiot. He''s the goddamn embodiment of it. He doesn''t control it, he¡ bes it."
"But¡ how did he¡ be the God of Chaos?" a third cultist asked. "I mean¡ isn''t that title¡ kinda¡ self-proimed?"
The question wasn''t unique to these new recruits. It was a doubt shared by many in the realm of the Gods. Gods without domains ¨C without a specific¡ area of expertise, like War, Healing, Wisdom, Time, or Space ¨C were often viewed as¡ second-ss citizens. They were the gods of¡ nothing, really. And without a domain, without a reason for mortals to pray to them, to offer them their devotion, their worship energy¡ they were¡ powerless.
And power, in the realm of the Gods, was everything. It was what fueled their ascension, what determined their ce in the godly hierarchy. Without worshippers, without that steady stream of worship energy, a god couldn''t climb the ranks, couldn''t gain influence, couldn''t be a proper god. They were¡ irrelevant. And Agra¡ Agra didn''t tolerate irrelevance. He demanded respect. The kind of respect that came with power, with fear, with¡ worship. He wouldn''t ept being a second-ss citizen in the divine hierarchy. He would be a god. Whether the others liked it or not.
"Back in the day," Vog began, wiping a bit of ale foam from his beard, "Agra¡ he was a nobody. A god without a domain. He wandered from ce to ce, like a¡ cosmic hobo, trying to find his purpose. Now, he was a handsome bastard, I''ll give him that. And the mortals well, they loved him. He slept with¡ pretty much anyone who''d have him. Men, women¡ didn''t matter. He broke hearts wherever he went. Left a trail of satisfied worshippers in his wake." n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
The cultists around him chuckled, a mixture of awe and vicarious pride in their god''s sexual conquests.
"But¡ no matter how many mortals he¡ blessed¡ with his¡ divine presence," Vog continued, his voice taking on a more serious tone, "there was always¡ something¡ missing. He wanted¡ respect. He wanted the mortals to worship him. To look at him the way they looked at Seshat, or Fortuna, or Zorian. With¡ reverence. With¡ fear. "
Agra''s actions, his¡ indiscretions, hadn''t gone unnoticed by the Pantheon. They saw him as an¡ embarrassment. A stain on their¡ divine reputation. Thus, Zorian, the God of Sun, the self-proimed leader of the Pantheon, had decided to¡ intervene. He''d sent his angels to¡ retrieve Agra. To bring him back into the fold. To make him¡ behave.
But Agra didn''t like being told what to do. One day, Zorian''s angels had found him engaged in a rather enthusiastic orgy. And Agra, though less vtile back then, still had a temper. A fiery, unpredictable temper. And when those prissy angels had barged in, interrupting his fun, seen him in all his glory, he''d felt¡ humiliated.
They wouldn''t have dared to interrupt another god''s¡ private time. But Agra? He was just¡ Agra. The god of¡ nothing.
And that day, Agra lost his shit. He didn''t try to reason with them, didn''t even bother to cover himself. He just snapped. He unleashed his power, raw and untamed, and ughtered them all. The angels, the mortals¡ everyone who''d been participating in his festivities. He went from horny god to homicidal maniac in the blink of an eye.
"And when the people of Luxor heard themotion¡" Vog continued, taking another swig of ale.
"Luxor?" one of the cultists interrupted. "Isn''t that¡ the God of Wealth''s domain?"
"Yep," Vog confirmed, grinning.
"Shut up, Gork," another cultist said, elbowing his friend in the ribs. "Don''t interrupt. We''re getting to the good part."
Vog chuckled. "So, the Luxor folks, they burst into the room¡ and they see¡ blood. Chaos. Bodies everywhere. Screaming, crying¡ the whole nine yards." He paused, taking another drink. "Now, most gods, especially domainless gods like Agra back then, they would have freaked the fuck out. They would have tried to fix things. Exin themselves. Beg for mercy. But not Agra."
"He liked it. The chaos. The fear. It¡ filled him up. That emptiness he''d been feeling that yearning for something¡ it was¡ satisfied. He wasn''t like Xyloth, that murder-loving prick. Agra didn''t get off on the killing itself. No, it was the chaos that followed that turned him on. The fear in the mortals'' eyes. The screams. The¡ mayhem. It was intoxicating," Vog said taking a slow sip of the ale.
"And that day," Vog finished, his voice dropping to a reverent whisper, "Agra realized¡ he was the God of Chaos. And the rest¡ as they say¡ is history."
But as he was basking in the awed silence of his audience, amotion erupted at the entrance to the mess hall. A figure, d in the standard-issue ck robes and white face paint of Agra''s followers, came stumbling into the room, tripping over an overturned table andnding face-first in a puddle of ale and what smelled like piss..
The mess hall erupted inughter.
"Look at that dumbass!" one of the cultists roared, pointing at the fallen figure. "Can''t even¡ walk straight!"
"He''s probably drunker than a skunk on fermented berries!" another cultist chuckled.
"Get up, you clumsy oaf!" a third cultist yelled. "You''re embarrassing us!"
Even Vog, still perched on the table, couldn''t help but grin.
"What the hell''s the rush, Gribble?" he asked, his voiceced with amusement. "You running from¡ your own shadow?"
The cultist, Gribble, picked himself up, ignoring theughter and jeers, his face pale beneath the white paint. He hurried towards Vog, his voice a shaky whisper.
"Captain¡ there are packages. At the temple entrance. For Agra."
"Packages? Left by who?" Vog''s brow furrowed.
"The note says ''regards from Ava''s worshippers who had enough.'' "
The mess hall erupted inughter again.
"What kind of packages did those tree-hugging pussies leave, Gribble?" one of the cultists yelled. "A bouquet of fucking wildflowers? A strongly worded letter ofint? A gift-wrapped pile of shit?"
"Maybe it''s Ava''s¡ dirty underwear?" another cultist chuckled, his voiceced with crude sarcasm. "Agra always did have a thing for goddesses."
"Or maybe," a third cultist chimed in, "it''s a bomb. You know those Ava worshippers, they love to experiment with¡ organic bombs. Imagine if they sent heads as presents? Heads of their own people, maybe, with their eyes and mouths sewed shut?"
"Well, let''s not keep our lord waiting for his presents, shall we?" Vog cackled, hopping down from the table. "Let''s go see what those tree-hugging pussies left us."
The cultists, their curiosity piqued, followed Vog out of the mess hall and towards the temple entrance.
Outside the temple gates, a group of Agra worshippers were gathered around several wooden boxes, poking and prodding them with sticks, their faces a mix of curiosity and apprehension.
"What do you think''s inside?" one of them whispered.
"Maybe it''s a trap?" another suggested, his eyes wide.
"Don''t be such a pussy," a third scoffed. "What are they gonna do? Send us a singing crystal?"
"Maybe it''s a bunch of rabid squirrels?" another cultist chuckled.
They scattered as Vog approached, their faces a mix of fear and respect.
"What the fuck are you dumbasses waiting for?" he snarled, ring at the boxes. "Open them!"
"But¡ Captain," one of the cultists stammered, "what if they explode? Or some kind of¡ thing jumps out?"
Hearing them, Vog let out a harshugh.
"You know, for a bunch of brain-dead, shit-for-brains morons, you''re surprisingly cautious," Vog said, shaking his head in amusement. "Fine. I''ll do it myself."
But before he could reach for one of the boxes, a voice, booming andced with a manic energy, echoed from the sky above.
"Who left me presents?"
Vog froze, his hand hovering inches from the nearest box. The other cultists, their faces pale, turned towards the sound, their eyes wide with a mix of fear and¡ excitement. At that moment, d in a purple robe and green hair, a figure descended from the sky,nding lightly on the ground before them. Agra.
"My lord!" the cultists chorused, falling to their knees, their heads bowed in reverence.
"Agra! You have returned!"
"We are ready to serve, my lord!"
But Agra ignored them, his gaze fixed on the wooden boxes, a predatory grin spreading across his painted face.
"Presents?" he purred in a seductive rumble. "For me? How¡ thoughtful."
Then, with a dramatic flourish, he picked up one of the boxes, its wooden surface smooth and polished, and ripped off the lid. But the moment, he opened the box, his grin faltered, his eyes widening slightly, as he stared at the¡ contents.
A severed head, its eyes wide and staring, its face frozen in a mask of terror,y nestled among a bed of wildflowers.
Vog, who''d been standing beside Agra, stared at the head with his jaw ck while the other cultists, their gazes fixed on Agra, held their breath, waiting for his reaction.
Then, Agraughed.
"A note!" he eximed, pulling a small, folded piece of parchment from beneath the severed head. "How¡ civilized."
He cleared his throat and read the note aloud.
"''We are fighting back,''" he said, his voiceced with a mocking amusement. "''And we will never surrender to a pathetic¡ joker¡ like Agra.''"
The words, carefully chosen by Michael to ignite Agra''s fury, to stoke the mes of his ego, had the desired effect. Michael knew Agra. Knew his insecurities, his desperate need for recognition, his fragile ego that masked a deep-seated inferiorityplex. Being called a joker by a bunch of mortals¡
It was the ultimate insult and what Agra needed to personally take care of the matters in the forest.
Chapter 1389 The Battle between gods is about to begin
Chapter 1389 The Battle between gods is about to begin
Agra tossed the note aside, his grin widening. "Oh, this is just¡ delicious," he purred, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Looks like someone wants to¡ y."
He reached for another box, ripping the lid off with a flourish. This one contained a severed hand, its middle finger extended in a gesture of¡ defiance. Another notey beneath it, stained with the same crimson blood as the first.
Agra chuckled, but this time, there was no amusement in his eyes. Just¡ cold fury.
"''Fayeth is here,''" he read, his voice a low growl. "''You cannot touch us anymore. We''re taking back the Verdant Sanctuary.''"
The name¡ Fayeth¡ it struck a chord. Andohr had warned him about her. Ava''s angel. The God of Darkness''s¡ friend.
He''d dismissed it at the time, chalked it up to Andohr''s paranoia, his obsession with the Dark Lord. But now¡
"Look!" one of the worshippers shouted, pointing towards the edge of the forest. "There! Someone''sing!"
They all turned, their gazes fixed on the figure emerging from the trees. It was one of their own, d in the familiar ck robes, his face painted with the symbols of Agra''s cult. But he was¡ limping and stumbling. His robes were torn, his face streaked with blood.
He copsed a few feet from the temple gates, his body convulsing, his breathing in ragged gasps.
"Well, well, well," Agra chuckled, his eyes gleaming with a manic energy. "Looks like someone had a¡ rough day at the office. What happened, you useless sack of shit? Did a goddamn squirrel attack you?"
"Vog," he barked, turning to his captain, "wake this idiot up. And find out¡ who sent us these¡ lovely gifts."
Vog, secretly relieved to have an excuse to get away from Agra''s¡ unpredictable temper, hurried towards the fallen cultist. He''d seen Agra in¡ moods like this before. And he didn''t want to be the¡ focus of his¡ attention.
He kicked the cultist in the ribs, hard.
The man groaned, his eyes fluttering open. He looked¡ like he''d been dragged through a meat grinder¡ twice. His robes were torn to shreds, his face was a mask of blood and bruises, and one arm was twisted at an unnatural angle. He blinked, his gaze unfocused, his mind clearly still¡ elsewhere.
"Speak!" Vog snarled, grabbing the man by the throat, and lifting him off the ground. "What happened in the forest? Who¡ attacked you?"
The cultist, his mind still foggy, his body screaming in protest, struggled to remember. He vaguely recalled¡ a woman. Tall, beautiful, with eyes that burned like¡ ice. She''d pped him. Repeatedly. Kicked him. Hard. In the¡ butt, literally. He hadn''t seen how hisrades had died, only heard their screams, their cries for¡ mercy. And then¡ she''d spoken.
"Fayeth," he''d whispered, his voice barely audible. "She¡ she said¡ she''sing for Agra."
What the cultist didn''t know, what none of them knew, was that the woman who had beaten him to a pulp was not Fayeth. Instead, it was Gaya who yed the role of fayeth in Michael''s carefully crafted n. It was the perfect¡ finishing touch. If Agra had any doubts about the¡ gifts, about the message they were meant to convey, this¡ taunt¡ this challenge from a woman¡ it would seal the deal.
Michael knew how these power-hungry assholes operated. Gods, despite their supposed wisdom and power, were easily manipted when their egos were involved. They could see through the most intricate plots, the most devious traps¡ But their egos¡ their egos were their biggest weakness. And when someone poked at their pride, questioned their power, challenged their authority¡, they became dumber than a sack of hammers.
"She said¡ if Agra has any¡ balls between his legs¡ he should¡ face her himself. In the forest. Instead of hiding behind¡ mortals. Like a¡ fucking coward."
And that was it. Agra snapped.
He didn''t think, didn''t strategize, didn''t even consider the possibility that this might be¡ a trap. All he could see were the faces of his followers, their eyes fixed on him, questioning, doubting. His carefully constructed persona, the fear he''d cultivated, the respect he''d demanded¡ it was all crumbling around him.
Someone had dared to send him body parts. Had dared to call him a joker. Had dared to question his¡ manhood.
"That fucking bitch!" he roared, his eyes zing with a manic fury. He stomped on the cultist''s head, the force of the blow crushing the man''s skull like a eggshell. Blood and bone sttered across the ground, painting a gruesome tableau of chaos and violence.
The other worshippers, momentarily stunned by the sudden outburst, quickly recovered. Some, their faces pale with fear, took a step back, their hands instinctively reaching for their weapons. Others, their eyes gleaming with a sick excitement, grinned, eager to witness their god''s¡ power. They lived for this. For the chaos. For the violence. For the sheer, unadulterated madness of it all. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
Agra, his face contorted in a mask of rage, began to stomp on the corpse, again and again, hisughter echoing through the night, a harsh, discordant sound that sent shivers down the spines of even his most hardened followers.
"You think you can mock me, you bitch?!" he shrieked, each word punctuated by a sickening crunch of bone. "You think you can challenge me? I am Agra! The God of fucking Chaos! I''ll rip your guts out and feed them to the dogs! I''ll y your skin and wear it as a goddamn trophy! I''ll¡" He trailed off, hisughter turning into a guttural growl, his gaze sweeping across the faces of his followers.
"I''ll show you¡ what happens to those who¡ disrespect¡ chaos!"
"Now," he snarled, turning towards his followers, his eyes zing with a manic energy, "grab your fucking torches! We''re going hunting! We''re gonna burn that goddamn forest to the ground! And that bitch Fayeth¡ I''m gonna rip her apart! Limb by limb!"
The cultists, their fear momentarily forgotten, erupted in cheers.
"For Agra!" they roared.
"Death to the Ava worshippers!"
"Burn the forest!"
"Let chaos reign!"
They''d forgotten about their fallenrade, the one who''d been crushed to death for simply rying the message. Intead, they were too caught up in the excitement of the hunt, the promise of violence, the thrill of¡ chaos.
Agra, blinded by his rage, his ego bruised, had no idea he was walking into a trap. And Fayeth¡ Fayeth wasn''t the only one waiting for him in the forest.
With shouts of glee and bloodthirsty anticipation, they grabbed torches from the walls of the temple. Then, they followed Agra as chaotic group in ck robes with manicughter, eager to unleash their fury upon the world.
Agra could have teleported. Flown. But he wanted to¡ make an entrance. He wanted to¡ savor the moment. He wanted to show his followers, and that¡ bitch Fayeth, that he wasn''t afraid. That he was the God of Chaos, and he answered to¡ no one.
"Vog!" he barked, gesturing towards the wooden boxes that held the¡ gifts. "Bring those¡ trophies! I want that little bitch to¡ admire our handiwork. Before we¡ return the favor."
Vog, his face pale, his stomach churning, hurried to obey, dragging the boxes behind him as Agra, hopping and dancing like a demented jester, led his followers towards the forest.
Anyone watching could tell¡ this wasn''t going to end well.
Meanwhile, deep within the forest, Michael was preparing.
He knew, of course, that there wasn''t a trap in existence that could harm a god. Not really. But Agra wasn''ting alone. He was bringing an army. A chaotic, undisciplined rabble, sure, but still¡ numbers. And they were armed. And they had torches. And they were nning to¡ burn the forest to the ground.
"Not on my goddamn watch," Michael muttered, his eyes hardening.
He moved with a speed that defiedprehension, a blur of motion as he darted through the trees, using his Lightning Dash spell and Shadow Teleportation to cover vast distances in the blink of an eye. He dug pits, concealed them with leaves and branches. He nted mines, small, metal spheres that hummed with runes. He scattered gas bombs, ss vials filled with a concoction that would knockout mortals.
He wasn''t just preparing for a fight. He was setting a stage and creating a narrative.
Agra, in his arrogance, would assume these traps were the work of¡ Fayeth. Of the Ava worshippers. He''d never suspect a god would resort to such mundane tactics.
And that¡ that was exactly what Michael wanted.
He wasn''t particrly worried about Agra himself. The Chaos God, powerful as he was, was still only a Greater God, a Level 3 on the godly hierarchy. Michael, having ascended to Prime God level after absorbing Don''s blood, had him outmatched. He could take Agra in a straight fight, no problem.
But there were¡ other considerations.
The Pantheon. And Raphael.
The medallion,bined with the lingering effects of Don''s blood, would mask his energy signature, make it harder for them to¡ pinpoint his location. But a battle between gods¡ that was a different story. It was like a cosmic fireworks disy, a surge of celestial energy that would ripple through the realm of the Gods, alerting anyone who was¡ paying attention.
They would sense the fight, even if they couldn''t see it directly.
It was a risk. A calcted risk. But Michael was willing to take it. He needed to kill Agra. Toplete Gaya''s quest, to unlock her godhood, to¡ well, to have her fighting by his side, at her full potential, when the real shit hit the fan. He wasn''t going to face Andohr, the other gods, and those goddamn Omegas, with one hand tied behind his back. He needed Gaya. He needed her power.
Soon, Michael and Gaya rejoined Fayeth, who was waiting patiently by the pond, her gaze fixed on the approaching cultists.
"Ready?" Gaya asked with a predatory gleam in her eyes. "What''s the n?"
Michael grinned, his gaze sweeping across the forest, his mind already mapping out the battlefield, the locations of his traps, the escape routes, the¡ kill zone.
"You¡ make sure those¡ fuckers¡ trigger the traps. And try not to¡ burn the forest down. I''ll¡ take care of Agra."
Chapter 1390 Michael and Agra is about to meet
Chapter 1390 Michael and Agra is about to meet
Agra and his followers marched towards the forest, a chaotic procession of ck robes and flickering torches. From a distance, they looked like a swarm of angry fireflies, their lights bobbing and weaving erratically across the darkenedndscape. There was no discipline, no order, to their march. Some sang obscene songs, their voices raucous and off-key. Others hopped and skipped, theirughter echoing through the night. Agra himself, still clutching one of the wooden boxes containing a severed head, was bouncing up and down like a hyperactive child, his painted face contorted in a manic grin. They were high on chaos, fueled by a potent cocktail of blind faith, religious fervor, and probably some¡ questionable substances. Back on Earth, they''d have been diagnosed with every mental disorder in the book, locked up, and medicated into oblivion.
Watching their approach through the Spyder drone''s camera feed, Michael shook his head. Things had¡ escted quickly. He''d initially nned to infiltrate the temple, use that venttion shaft to get close to Agra, and maybe even pay Qin Jiu a visit. But the System''s instructions had changed everything. The Pond of Tranquility. The irony. The opportunity.
He still might use that venttion shaft, though, he mused, a predatory gleam in his eyes. Qin Jiu¡ she was a loose end. And Michael didn''t like loose ends.
Agra stopped at the edge of the forest, his gaze sweeping across the trees, his grin fading.
"Look at this¡ disgusting disy of¡ order," he snarled, his voice dripping with disdain. "All these¡ trees! So¡ green! So¡ peaceful! It''s making me¡ itch."
"Burn it all down, Agra!" one of his followers shouted, raising his torch high. "Cleanse thisnd with¡ chaos!" n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
"Yeah, burn the fucking forest to the ground!" another yelled, echoing the sentiment.
"We will leave nothing but ashes! Those tree-hugging Ava worshippers will regret defying chaos!"
Agra, basking in the adoration of his followers, let out a boomingugh.
"Excellent!" he cackled, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Let the¡ cleansing begin!"
He resumed his march, leading his followers into the forest, oblivious to the traps thaty hidden beneath the undergrowth. They''d crossed the perimeter, the point of no return, and now¡ they were on Michael''s turf.
Meanwhile, Gaya, perched beside Michael in the branches above, grinned, her eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger.
"Those dumb bastards have no idea what''sing," she chuckled, cracking her knuckles. "They''re in for a¡ treat."
"Fayeth," Michael said, turning to the angel, his voice a low growl, "it''s¡ showtime. Shout. Loudly. Let Agra and his¡ fan club¡ hear you."
"What¡ what do I say?" Fayeth asked, her brow furrowing.
"Ask him¡ if he''s¡ afraid, Fayeth," Michael said, a cruel smile twisting his lips. "Ask him if he needs his¡ minions to¡ protect him. If he''s too much of a¡ pussy¡ to enter the forest alone."
Fayeth hesitated. Taunting a god¡ it felt¡ wrong. Disrespectful. But Michael¡ he was ying a different game.
"There''s no time for¡ politeness, Fayeth," he said, his gaze hardening. "We need to¡ provoke him. Push his buttons. Attack his ego. Make him¡ lose his shit."
Seeing Fayeth''s reluctance, Gaya rolled her eyes.
"Fine, I''ll do it," she muttered, stepping forward. Agra had never met Fayeth or even heard her voice. Thus, he wouldn''t know the difference. Then, she cupped her hands around her mouth, took a deep breath, and shouted.
"Agra, you spineless, shit-eating coward!Do you need your little army of ass-kissing sycophants to hold your hand? Or are you just¡ ipetent? Come out and y, you little bitch! Or are you too scared to face the consequences of your own fuckery you dickless wonder?"
The moment Gaya''s voice, amplified by the magic of the forest, echoed through the trees, a stunned silence fell over Agra and his followers. The cultists, their mouths agape, stared at each other, their eyes wide with disbelief. Had they¡ heard that correctly? Had that¡ angel¡ just¡ said that?
Even Vog, who prided himself on his mastery of¡ colorful¡nguage, was taken aback. It wasn''t that he hadn''t heard worse. He''d spent centuries surrounded by Agra''s followers, after all, a group whose vocabry consisted primarily of curses, insults, and various¡ obscenities. It was the¡ fluency of it. The sheer¡ artistry with which Fayeth had strung those insults together. There was no hesitation, no stumbling, no¡ filter. It was like she''d been born with a¡ dictionary of profanity¡ imnted in her brain.
But more than that¡ it was the audacity. The sheer, unadulterated gall of that¡ woman. To challenge Agra? To question his power? To call him¡ a coward?
She''d just signed her own death warrant.
Despite Agra''s usual mboyant attire, white face paint, crimson lipstick, and shock of green hair¡ he looked¡ dangerous. The yful grin and manic energy that had animated him moments before had vanished, reced by a cold fury that radiated from him like heat from a forge.
"Stay here," Agra growled, his voice low and menacing. "I''ll¡ deal with this¡ bitch, personally. And then¡ we''ll burn this fucking forest to the ground. But not before¡ we have a little fun with our guest. She''ll get to watch as we cleanse her precious sanctuary. And then¡ well, let''s just say¡ she''ll be begging for mercy. Before I''m through with her."
The cultists, their eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger, let out a chorus of cheers. The thought of ying with an angel, of defiling Ava''s chosen was too tempting to resist.
Agra, his ck robes billowing behind him, stalked towards the forest, his gaze fixed on the shadows, his hands crackling with chaotic energy.
Michael and Gaya, watching from the trees, exchanged grins.
"He took the bait," Gaya purred, her eyes gleaming with amusement.
"Just like we nned," Michael chuckled, nodding. "Now, it''s time to split up. You keep those followers upied. Make sure they enjoy our little surprises."
He paused, his gaze hardening.
"I''ll take care of Agra."
As Agra stepped into the forest, a strange shimmer, a distortion of reality, rippled around him. He multiplied, his form splitting into dozens of identical copies, each one d in the same swirling ck robes, each one grinning with the same manic intensity.
"Now¡ where are you, you little bitch?" a chorus of Agra''s voices echoed through the trees, theirughter a cacophony of madness.
Michael, watching from above, frowned. Even his Eyes of Darkness, which could pierce through illusions, through shadows couldn''t distinguish the real Agra from his¡ replicas.
"Damn it," he muttered, his jaw clenching. "He''s a god. Of course his illusions are¡ stronger."
He was about to ask the System for help, to pinpoint Agra''s true location when the army of Agra''s made their move.
They moved with a speed and ferocity that surprised even Michael. Their forms blurred as they dispersed, spreading out through the forest as theirughter echoed through the trees.
"This isn''t going to be¡ easy, that crazy bastard''s¡ ying games." Michael muttered, realizing this was not going to be an easy fight.
He melted back into the shadows as two of Agra''s replicas, their grins wide and unsettling, climbed the tree he was perched on, their movements a bizarre mix of chaotic energy and¡ unexpected grace. They perched on branches above him, their gazes scanning the surrounding trees, theirughter echoing through the forest.
"Where are you, you little bitch?" one of them called out, his voice a mocking singsong. "Come out,e out, wherever you are!"
The other replica, apparently bored with the¡ traditional search methods, decided to¡ express himself. He began to¡ breakdance on the branch, his limbs iling, his body twisting and contorting in a way that defied both gravity and¡mon sense.
Michael, hidden in the shadows, rolled his eyes. "Showoff," he muttered.
"System," he thought, "I need to find the real Agra. Pinpoint his location. Can you do that?"
[Locating the true form of Agra, the self-proimed God of Chaos, amidst his illusory duplicates, will require 5 million Badass Points. Does the host wish to proceed?]
"Five million?" Michael snorted. "You''re practically giving it away, System. Do it."
A pulse of energy, a wave of crimson light visible only to Michael, radiated outwards from him, sweeping through the forest, through the trees, through the very air itself. As the wave passed, a faint, red outline appeared around each of Agra''s replicas. All except one.
One figure, still grinning maniacally, but now outlined in a shimmering blue light, was moving deeper into the forest, towards the center of the Verdant Sanctuary.
The real Agra.
Michael watched as the blue-outlined figure moved deeper into the forest, his mind racing. He had to follow, to intercept, but those two goddamn replicas were still perched on the branch above him, their chaotic energy a constant, irritating distraction.
One of them was¡ singing. Badly. The other, still in his breakdancing phase, was attempting some kind of headspin. It was a sight to behold. A goddamn train wreck of chaotic, uncoordinated movement. Michael almost felt sorry for the trees. Almost.
"And¡ he sticks thending!" the singing replica shouted, pping his hands together with a manic glee. "Ten out of ten for artistic interpretation of a squirrel having a seizure!"
The breakdancing Agra, however, didn''t stick thending. He wobbled, his foot slipping on a patch of moss, and with a shriek ofughter, tumbled from the branch, his limbs iling wildly as he plummeted towards the ground.
"Oops," the singing replica chuckled, peering down at his other part."Looks like someone needs to work on their dismount,"
It was the opportunity Michael had been waiting for.
He activated Shadow Teleportation, vanishing from his spot. He reappeared a heartbeatter on another tree, closer to Agra''s true form. He repeated the process, moving from shadow to shadow, the forest blurring around him, the distance between him and his target shrinking rapidly.
After a few more teleportations, he was directly above the real Agra. Oblivious to Michael''s presence, Agra was strolling through the forest, his gaze fixed on the clearing ahead, where the pond shimmered under the moonlight.
"I found you, you little angel," he chuckled, his voice a low, menacing purr. "You can''t hide from a god,"
Michael grinned.
"Time to make your acquaintance, asshole," he murmured, preparing to drop in.
Chapter 1391 The Fight Begins
Chapter 1391 The Fight Begins
But before he made his grand entrance, Michael decided to¡ take precautions.
"System," he thought, "lock down this forest. No teleportation. No¡ dimensional shenanigans. I don''t want Agra¡ poofing out of here before I''ve had my¡ fun."
[Locking down the Verdant Sanctuary and preventing dimensional travel within its boundaries will require 1 billion Badass Points. Does the host with to proceed?]
"One billion?" Michael raised an eyebrow, but he didn''t hesitate. It was a steep price, sure, but he still had over three billion left after his recent spending spree. And besides, trapping Agra in the forest with him? That was practically a death sentence for the Chaos God. Agra was a Level 3 Greater God, while Michael was a Level 4 Prime God. And when it came tobat skills¡ well, let''s just say it would be like putting a trained MMA fighter against a¡ drunken toddler.
"Do it," he confirmed, and he felt a subtle shift in the air, a faint ripple of¡ something¡ as the System locked down the forest, sealing it off from the rest of the realm.
Agra paused mid-stride, his head tilting, as if he''d sensed¡ something. But then he shrugged, his grin widening, and with a casual flick of his wrist, he crushed a butterfly that hadnded on his shoulder. He hadn''t noticed the lockdown. He''d just wanted to¡ kill something.
Michael, watching from above, shook his head. The guy was a goddamn psychopath.
"Time to end this," he muttered, activating Death Range.
The world around Agra plunged into darkness, the vibrant colors of the forest, the shimmering moonlight, the glowing runes on the trees¡ all swallowed by an imprable ck.
"What the fuck?!" Agra eximed, his voiceced with a mixture of surprise and annoyance. "Who turned off the lights?!"
And then Michael dropped,nding silently behind Agra, his presence a sudden, menacing weight in the darkness.
Agra whirled around, his eyes wide, his hand instinctively snapping up, a pulsating green light, not quite a me, but more like¡ a miniature sun, ring into existence above his palm.
In the eerie green light, Agra saw him.
A figure, d head to toe in ck armor, a skull emblem embedded in the center of its chest, a long, dark cape flowing behind it, and a hood that obscured its face. The figure was¡ tall. Almost seven feet, its frame bulky, imposing. Compared to it, Agra, despite his own considerable height, felt¡ puny.
"Who the fuck are you?" Agra asked, his gaze narrowing. "One of my¡ worshippers? You don''t¡ look like one. Except for the¡ ck, I guess."
Michael chuckled, the sound deep, guttural, almost¡ animalistic, amplified by the voice modtor in his helmet.
"ck doesn''t belong to you, Agra," he said, his voice a low growl. "It belongs to me."
Agra''s eyes widened, a flicker of¡ recognition¡ dawning in them. He''d heard descriptions of this armor, this¡ presence¡ from Andohr. And then it hit him, this was not one of his followers¡ this was another god.
The God of Darkness.
But instead of cowering, instead of showing even a flicker of fear, Agraughed. It was a loud, boisterous sound, full of¡ manic energy. Michael had expected this. Gods¡ they didn''t scare easily.
Agra pped his hands, and the other replicas, the ones that had scattered through the forest, reappeared, materializing out of the darkness to surround Michael, their grins wide, their eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger. They didn''t attack, not yet. They simply stood there, a silent, menacing circle of¡ Agras, hemming Michael in. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The real Agra, still grinning, danced around Michael, his movements erratic, unpredictable.
"Well, well, well," he purred, his voiceced with a mocking amusement. "Look what the cat dragged in. The God of Darkness himself. To what do I owe this¡ divine visit?"
"This isn''t your domain, Agra," Michael said calmly, his gaze sweeping across the circle of replicas, his voice unwavering.
"We''re both gods, right?" Agra chuckled, spreading his arms wide. "Can''t we all just¡ get along? I''m a big fan of yours, by the way. All that¡ chaos you''ve been spreading¡ very impressive. We''re like¡ two peas in a pod. Evil twins, separated at birth!"
"Trust me, Agra," Michael chuckled, the sound a low, rumbling growl that sent a shiver down the spines of the surrounding cultists, "you and I are the farthest thing from¡ twins."
Despite being surrounded by Agra''s replicas, he showed no fear or hesitation. He was the God of Darkness, a Prime God, and these pale imitations were nothing more than puppets¡ toys.
On the other hand, Agra, unfazed by Michael''s disagreement, simplyughed.
"Oh, I''m d you feel that way, Your Darkness," he purred, his voiceced with a mocking sweetness. "Wouldn''t want you to¡ you know¡ kill your own twin, would we?"
The words, though seemingly innocuous, struck a nerve. Michael''s mind shed back to Noah, to the battle, to the¡ necessity¡ of what he''d done. He''d killed his brother and plunged the mortal realm into eternal darkness. And though he showed no outward sign of his¡ inner turmoil, the memory still stung, a raw wound that refused to fully heal.
Agra, mistaking Michael''s silence for anger, grinned, pleased with himself. He''d gotten a reaction. He''d¡ rattled the God of Darkness.
"So," he asked, his voice taking on a more serious tone, "why are you here? I don''t recall inviting you to the inauguration of my glorious temple."
"That temple isn''t going to stand for much longer, Agra," Michael said calmly, his gaze fixed on the real Agra, ignoring the replicas that surrounded him.
Agraughed, a harsh, barking sound.
"And why is that, Your Darkness?" he asked with a manic energy.
"Because¡ there''s no need for a temple¡ to a dead god."
When Agra heard Michael, hisughter died in his throat. He stopped dancing as looked at the God of Darkness with a flicker of anger and fear in his eyes.
"A god cannot be killed, your darkness," he said, trying to hide his unease with a cackle. "Not even by the¡ great¡ God of Darkness."
"Rainar might disagree with you on that, if he were still alive," Michael chuckled, the sound cold and menacing.
The mention of Rainar, the God of Rain, made Agra pause. He remembered Andohr''s words, his warning. "The Dark Lord killed Rainar, Agra. He''ll kill you too, if you''re not careful. Work with me, and we''ll take him down together." He''d believed Andohr, of course, but a part of him, a small, nagging doubt, had lingered. Now¡ hearing the God of Darkness himself admit to it¡
For a moment, Agra''s grin faltered, the bravado he''d been projecting cracking, revealing a flicker of¡ uncertainty. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared, reced by a renewed surge of manic energy.
"You¡ think you can kill me?" he asked, tilting his head, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous light. "The God of Chaos? You can''t kill chaos."
Michael shook his head, a humorless smile twisting his lips.
"I''ve heard worse from assholes like you, before I ended them, Agra," he said. "So let''s skip the chit-chat. Unless you want to add more empty threats to your collection, and get to the¡ main event."
But Agra showed no sign of fighting. He simply shrugged, his grin widening.
"Killing me¡ it''ll just create more problems and more chaos. The Pantheon, they''ll be on your ass like flies on shit. And besides a world without chaos¡ it''s¡ unstable. There needs to be bnce. Good and evil, light and darkness, order and¡ well, me. And my worshippers, they''ll continue my work. They''ll spread chaos, fear, and destruction wherever they go. They''ll kill indiscriminately. "
He paused, his gaze meeting Michael''s, his voice a low, menacing whisper.
"You think killing me will stop the chaos? You''re so naive. Chaos isn''t like rain. It doesn''t just stop when you kill the God of Rain. It''s bigger than that. It''s inside everyone. And I, my friend, I''ll live as long as there''s a single mortal left alive in this realm or any other realm in fact. Even if you destroy my physical body, I will still linger, maybe in a cockroach, or a pig or a rat...who knows...but I''ll be there. Because chaos¡ it''s eternal. Just like me"
To Agra''s surprise, Michael burst outughing. The sound, amplified and distorted by his helm, echoed through the forest, a chilling, almost demonic, roar that made even the bravest of Agra''s followers take a step back.
"I killed my brother, Agra," Michael said, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "The God of fucking Light. I took the light away from the mortal realm. I killed Rainar, and took the rain away from both worlds. So you think¡ I give a damn about¡ chaos? What the fuck does that even mean?"
He cracked his neck, his body radiating a cold, predatory energy that made the surrounding trees seem to¡ lean away from him.
"You''re pathetic!" Agra screamed, his face contorted in a mask of rage and fear. "You think you can¡ you think you can just¡ walk in here and¡" He trailed off, gesturing wildly at one of his replicas.
"Kill him!" he shrieked, pointing at Michael. "Rip him apart!"
The replica, grinning maniacally, lunged at Michael, its dagger shing in the green light, aimed at his throat.
In response, Michael simply chuckled. He didn''t bother with spells, with magic. Instead, he reached out, his hand a blur of motion, and grabbed the replica by the throat, his grip like iron. He squeezed, and the replica''s eyes widened, its grin faltering, as its neck snapped with a sickening crunch.
Michael tossed the head aside, the severed head, its face still contorted in a manic grin,nding with a soft thud on the mossy ground. But Michael, his gaze fixed on the real Agra, didn''t even spare it a second nce.
"I am going to enjoy killing you Agra,"
Chapter 1392 The Chaos Spell
Chapter 1392 The Chaos Spell
He didn''t get any experience points for killing a replica. But he didn''t mind. He''d be collecting a hefty sum when he took down the original.
The real Agra, his eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and respect took a hasty step back.
"Get him!" he shrieked, gesturing towards Michael as the other replicas, their grins widening, swarmed the God of Darkness, their daggers shing in the moonlight.
Seeing an opportunity, Agra raised his arms towards the sky, hisughter echoing through the forest, a chilling sound that made the very air crackle with chaotic energy.
From his outstretched hands, a plume of purple smoke erupted, swirling and coalescing into¡ screams. Not just any screams. These were the screams of Agra''s victims, their voices amplified, distorted, a chorus of pain and terror that echoed through the trees, their faces twisting and swirling within the purple smoke, their pleas for mercy a haunting counterpoint to Agra''s manicughter.
The very ground beneath Agra''s feet seemed to wither. The lush green grass turned brown, then ck, crumbling into dust. The trees, their leaves once vibrant and full of life, drooped, their branches twisting into gnarled, skeletal shapes. The air itself felt heavy, oppressive, charged with a malevolent energy.
On the other hand, Fayeth, hidden in her hollow within the tree in the garden where the pond of tranquility was, clutched her head, her body trembling. The screams, the chaotic energy they carried, were invasive. They wormed their way into her mind, twisting her thoughts, and making her senses reel. Even Michael, his mind shielded by his helmet felt a momentary¡ disorientation, a flicker of unease.
This was the power of a god. Raw, untamed, and utterly terrifying.
He wanted to ask the system to cancel the spell''s effects, but he needed those Badass Points. He couldn''t afford to waste them every time Agra decided to cast a spell. He would need themter, to mask his presence from the Pantheon, to escape them when the need arises. No, the only way to stop this symphony of suffering was to take down Agra himself. And thanks to his earlier investment, he could still see the real Agra, amidst his chaotic entourage of replicas.
"Time to shut you up," Michael growled, unleashing a wave of Frostbite.
The air around him crackled, the temperature plummeting as a wave of absolute zero washed over the replicas, their manic grins freezing in ce as they were encased in tombs of ice. The screams, the chaotic energy that had filled the air, momentarily subsided, the forest sighing in relief as Ava''s healing magic, though suppressed, pulsed beneath the surface.
Michael, seizing the opportunity, dashed towards the real Agra, who was still maintaining the spell, his arms outstretched, his face contorted in a mask of concentration.
But as Michael closed the distance, the screams returned, louder, more intense, their voices wing at his mind, trying to tear him apart from the inside. He felt a strange¡ pull, a draining sensation, as if his very life force was being¡ siphoned away. Any lesser god would have faltered, their focus shattered, their senses overwhelmed. But Michael''s mental fortitude, honed by years of training and controlling his emotions held firm. He gritted his teeth, pushing through the pain, the disorientation, his gaze fixed on Agra.
Seeing Michael''s approach, Agra''s eyes wide with a mix of fear and disbelief, he broke the spell and turned to flee. But he hadn''t ounted for¡ the Death Range. Still shrouded in the imprable darkness of his own making, Michael simply¡ teleported and appeared directly in front of Agra. Without wasting any time, Michael unleashed a punch¡ªa single, devastating blow fueled by the power of a god, aimed directly at Agra''s jaw.
The blow, when itnded, was¡ devastating.
Agra''s body, propelled by the sheer force of Michael''s punch, flew backwards, ploughing through the undergrowth, snapping trees, carving a deep furrow in the earth. Hended with a sickening thud, his body a broken, twisted mess, hisughter reced by a choked gasp of pain.
Meanwhile, Agra''s followers were getting restless at the edge of the forest. They''d been waiting for what felt like hours for their god to return with the promised entertainment¡ now long overdue.
"What the hell''s taking him so long?" one of the cultists grumbled, shifting impatiently.
"Yeah," another chimed in. "Did that Fayeth bitch¡ kill him or something?"
"Don''t be stupid, Gork," a third cultist scoffed. "Agra''s a god. That little angel''s probably¡ begging for mercy by now."
Even Vog, who''d been trying to maintain a semnce of authority, was starting to feel uneasy. He had seen Agra''s power firsthand. And the fact that he hadn''t emerged from the forest, victorious and dragging Fayeth''s lifeless body behind him was concerning.
"Maybe she''s good in bed and he is fucking her brains out?" he muttered, more to himself than to the others.
Gaya, perched on a tree branch overlooking the group, a small, ck remote with a single, red button clutched in her hand, grinned.
"Time to¡ light the fuse," she purred, her finger hovering over the button.
She could feel it, the ripples of power emanating from the forest, the sh of divine energies that sent tremors through the very air itself. Michael and Agra were fighting. And judging by that sudden, earth-shattering boom that echoed through the trees¡ someone was getting their ass kicked.
The cultists, too, felt the tremor, their conversations dying in their throats as they exchanged uneasy nces.
"What the hell was that?" one of them asked, his voice a nervous whisper.
"Sounded like¡ thunder," another muttered, ncing towards the forest, his hand instinctively reaching for the dagger at his belt.
At that moment, Gaya pressed the button. And the moment she pressed the button, all hell broke loose. The ground beneath the cultists'' feet erupted, a series of explosions ripping through their ranks, sending bodies flying, showering the area in blood and gore. The mines Michael had nted, triggered by Gaya''s remote detonator, had done their work.
The scene was¡ chaotic. Horrifying. Limbs, severed and still twitching,y scattered across the ground. Torsos, ripped open and spewing blood, tumbled through the air. Heads, their eyes wide with shock and disbelief,nded with sickening thuds on the blood-soaked earth.
But before they could react, before they could even process the carnage that had just unfolded, a new wave of¡ unpleasantness¡ washed over them. A series of popping sounds echoed through the forest, followed by the hiss of escaping gas. A thick, grayish cloud, its edges swirling and undting like a living thing, began to spread through the trees, its stench acrid, pungent, making their eyes water, their lungs burn.
"Ambush!" Vog roared, his voiceced with panic. He mmed his staff into the ground, a surge of celestial energy erupting outwards, forming a shimmering, translucent barrier that protected him and a handful of others from the encroaching gas.
But those who weren''t quick enough, those who inhaled the noxious fumes, began to¡ change. Their eyes widened, their faces paling, their bodies trembling as a wave of¡ terror¡ washed over them. They clutched at their throats, gasping for breath, their screams echoing through the forest, a chorus of pure, unadulterated fear.
It wasn''t just fear toxin. Michael, ever the pragmatist, had added a little something¡ extra to the mix. A potent knockout gas, designed to¡ well, knock the fuck out of anyone who inhaled it.
One by one, the cultists sumbed, their bodies slumping to the ground, their screams dying in their throats.
"Scatter!" Vog shouted, his voice barely audible over the screams. "Defensive formations! Now!"
The remaining cultists, their faces a mix of terror and confusion, scrambled to obey. Some summoned shields, shimmering discs of energy that deflected the worst of the gas. Others conjured barriers, walls of fire and ice that momentarily held back the encroaching cloud. And a few, desperate to escape, turned and ran, their torches scattering, their ck robes billowing behind them.
"Fucking idiots!" Gaya roared, watching from the trees as a group of cultists, fleeing blindly, stumbled into another of Michael''s traps ¨C a pit concealed beneath ayer of leaves and branches, its bottom lined with sharpened wooden stakes. "Are you seriously trying to run while high on chaos juice? Fucking dumbasses,"
They screamed as they fell, their bodies impaled on the stakes, their blood sttering the forest floor, a gruesome counterpoint to the delicate wildflowers that bloomed around them.
"Come out and fight, you cowards!" Vog roared, his voiceced with fury. "Show yourselves! Face me like¡ men!"
Gaya, perched high in the branches of a nearby tree, chuckled softly. "I''m not a man, you dumbfuck," she muttered under her breath. "And you''re about to be¡ extra dead." She wasn''t ready for a direct confrontation, not yet. She was still too weak in this realm, her powers a mere shadow of what they''d been in the mortal realm. But she could still manipte and more than happy to y the role of¡ pest control.
Then, she leaped from branch to branch and spotted a group of three cultists, their backs turned, heading towards¡ a particrly nasty surprise Michael had prepared. They were just a few steps away from triggering another one of hisndmines. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Gaya raised the God yer crossbow, a cruel smile twisting her lips.
"Time for a little¡ fireworks," she purred, nocking an explosive arrow, its tip glowing with a faint, green light. She aimed carefully, took a deep breath, and released the bolt.
The arrow soared through the air, a silent, deadly projectile, and struck the shimmering barrier, its impact sending out a ripple of energy that made the cultists stumble backward. Their shield held, but the force of the st knocked them off bnce, their feet scrambling for purchase on the uneven ground.
And as they stumbled, they stepped¡ right where Gaya wanted them to.
The ground beneath their feet erupted, not with the clich¨¦d click and hiss of a Hollywoodndmine which was just movie bullshit. Landmines, realndmines, didn''t give you¡ warnings. They would just explode the moment one stepped on, just like thend mines the worshippers stepped on did.
The three cultists, caught in the st, didn''t even have time to scream. Their bodies, ripped apart by the force of the explosion, were flung outwards,nding in a gruesome tangle of limbs and viscera, their blood sttering across the ground.
Deep within the forest, Agra, still reeling from Michael''s earlier attack, pushed himself to his feet.
"You think you can¡ you think you can hurt me, you little¡ "
He didn''t get to finish his sentence when two beams of dark energy, sharp and precise, shot out from the shadows, striking him in the chest. He roared in pain and surprise, as his flesh sizzled and smoked, the smell of burnt skin filling the air.
He was a god, yes. And those dark beams, powerful as they were, couldn''t kill him. But they could¡ hurt.
And he realized, with a sudden, chilling certainty, that the God of Darkness wasn''t just trying to¡ defeat him. He was¡ toying with him. Making him suffer.
And strangely¡ a part of Agra, a deep, twisted part of his being, liked it. The pain, the chaos, and the sheer intensity of the moment fueled him. It made him feel¡ alive.
But he was not going to roll over and die. No, he had more aces up his sleeves and decided to take the chaos to the next level.
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Chapter 1393 : The Black Shield Appears Again
Agra roared, a sound of both pain and¡ exhration. He struggled against Michael''s grip, his limbs iling, hisughter echoing through the trees, a harsh, discordant sound.
"Is that all you''ve got, Dark Lord?" he taunted, spitting a mouthful of blood onto Michael''s armor.
Michael''s response was¡ direct.
He punched Agra, hard, his fist connecting with the Chaos God''s nose, the force of the impact sending a sickening crunch echoing through the forest.
Agra''s nose¡ exploded.
Blood, a crimson torrent, sprayed across Michael''s facete, obscuring his vision for a moment. But instead of crying out in pain, instead of recoiling, Agra simply¡ughed. Louder. More manically.
He raised his hands, his eyes zing with a chaotic energy that made the surrounding trees seem to¡ twist and writhe.
From his outstretched palms, tendrils of ck smoke, thick and oily, began to pour forth, swirling and coalescing in the air above him. The replicas, drawn to the smoke like moths to a me, began to¡ merge, their bodies dissolving, their forms twisting and distorting, until¡
They were no longer individual beings.
They were¡ a chimera.
A monstrous creature, its body a grotesque fusion of flesh and shadow, its limbs twisted and gnarled, its head¡ well, it had several heads. Each one a distorted replica of Agra''s face, their eyes glowing with a malevolent green light, their mouths filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth. From its back, leathery wings, like those of a bat, unfurled, their edges dripping with the same ck smoke that had birthed the creature.
And what was even more terrifying was¡ its tail.
It wasn''t just a¡ tail. It was a fucking cobra, its scales a sickly shade of green, its eyes glowing with the same malevolent light as the chimera''s multiple heads. It swayed and writhed, its fangs dripping with venom, before suddenlyshing out, spitting a glob of hissing, green poison towards Michael.
Still holding Agra by the throat, Michael saw the attacking, but he couldn''t¡ dodge. Notpletely. Agra, despite being held captive, his face contorted in a mask of rage, headbutted Michael, the impact sending a jolt of pain through Michael''s skull, and a¡ crack¡ appearing on his face mask.
The mask, forged from one of the strongest metals in the mortal realm, had withstood countless blows, and had deflected spells that would have vaporized lesser beings. But a direct hit from a god, fueled by pure, unadulterated chaos¡ well, even it had its limits.
Michael staggered back, releasing his grip on Agra''s throat as the glob of venom struck him square in the back.
His cape, a swirling vortex of shadows and dark energy, hissed and smoked as the venom ate through the fabric, the heat of it searing his skin beneath. Michael was sent flying, his body tumbling through the air, the world spinning, his senses reeling.
Hended with a thud, his armor protecting him from the worst of the impact, but the force of the blow, the venom''s corrosive properties¡ it was¡ disorienting. He''d forgotten what it felt like to be¡ hurt, to be¡ outmatched. Thest time he''d felt this¡ disoriented¡ was probably during his¡ encounter¡ with Rudra, the God of War, back when he''d crashed his wedding in the realm of the gods.
But that hadn''t been a fair fight. Michael had still been mortal then, and Rudra possessed a body with a sliver of his grace.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
This¡ this was different. This was a god versus a god.
And Agra¡ Agra hit like a goddamn freight train.
Before Michael could use Shadow Teleportation to regain his footing, the chimera''s cobra tailshed out again. This time, it wasn''t a glob of venom, but a stream, a rapid-fire burst of poison bullets that shot through the air with the force of¡ well, bullets.
"Holy shit," Michael muttered, rolling to the side as a volley of the green projectiles ripped through the tree he''d been standing beside, turning the wood to ash, the leaves to dust, in a matter of seconds.
The chimera, its multiple heads grinning, continued its assault, its tail spitting venom bullets with the speed and uracy of a goddamn machine gun.
Michael, activating Silenes, slowed down time, the world around him shifting into a slow-motion blur. He leaped into the air, dodging the venom bullets, his movements fluid, graceful, even within the time dtion. But the projectiles, even slowed down, were fast, whizzing past him, grazing his armor, leaving trails of smoking, corrosive residue.
He deactivated Silenes, the world snapping back to normal speed, and used Shadow Teleportation, appearing in a blink of an eye beside the monstrous chimera.
He mmed his fist into the creature''s side, putting all his strength into the blow, expecting to feel¡ flesh and bone give way.
But it was like punching a goddamn concrete wall.
The chimera barely even flinched.
He spun around, searching for Agra, but the Chaos God was gone. Vanished.
He couldn''t have teleported. Not with the forest locked down. He was hiding. Lurking. Waiting for the perfect moment to¡ strike.
But Michael didn''t have time to search for him.
The chimera, its multiple heads roaring in unison, raised a massive paw, its ws the size of daggers, and swatted at him with surprising speed.
The blow sent Michael flying backwards, his body mming into a tree trunk with a sickening crunch. He could feel his ribs crack, a sharp, agonizing pain that made his vision blur. He might be a god, but he wasn''t invulnerable. Not to this kind of¡ brute force.
A surge of healing energy, courtesy of the Automatic Potion Dispenser embedded in his armor, flowed through him, knitting the broken bones back together, soothing the burning pain of the venom. Hended on his feet, staggering slightly, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the mossy ground.
"Damn," he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That''s gonna leave a mark."
He pushed back the hood of his cloak and removed the cracked mask, tossing it aside.
The creature paused, its multiple heads tilting, its glowing eyes narrowed as if¡ studying him. The cobra tail, still dripping venom, ceased its attack.
"It''s been a long time," Michael said, his voice a low growl, "since I''ve had a¡ proper workout."
Meanwhile, hidden among the trees, Agra watched the scene unfold, a calcting gleam in his eyes.
"Time to¡ get out of here," he muttered, his gaze fixed on Michael. "Let Andohr¡ deal with this¡ nuisance. We''ll¡ settle the score¡ter."
He closed his eyes, focusing his will, and began to chant the words of a teleportation spell, the arcane sybles rolling off his tongue. He''d go back to the temple, regroup, and then¡ he and Andohr would tag-team the God of Darkness. It would be a glorious, chaotic beatdown.
But¡ nothing happened. He was still there in the forest trapped.
Agra hadn''t realized¡ that Michael had locked down the forest, sealed it off from any dimensional travel. And even Michael hadn''t realized that Andohr, watching the battle unfold through a scrying mirror, had been preparing to¡ intervene. Everything was going ording to Andohr''s n. Agra, manipted and provoked, was facing off against the God of Darkness. Fayeth, the unwitting pawn, was caught in the middle. It was the perfect opportunity for Andohr to¡ make his move. To capture Michael, to finally exact his revenge. But something, some unseen force, was blocking his teleportation spell.
"What the fuck?!" Andohr roared, mming his fist against the scrying mirror, the force of the blow cracking the ss. "What''s happening? Why can''t I¡?"
Back in the forest, Agra, too, was growing increasingly frustrated.
Agra opened his eyes, his brow furrowed in confusion and anger. He tried again, chanting the words with more force, more conviction, his hands glowing with chaotic energy.
Still¡ nothing.
"What the fuck is this bullshit?!" he roared, his voiceced with panic. "Why the hell can''t I teleport?! Is this some kind of¡ joke?!"
The chimera, sensing Agra''s¡ distress¡ resumed its attack. The cobra tailshed out, spitting another volley of venom bullets, forcing Michael to focus his attention on¡ dodging. The damn thing was fast, its movements unpredictable. It could swivel its head a full 360 degrees, tracking Michael''s movements with unnerving uracy. Even with Shadow Teleportation, even with his enhanced speed and reflexes, he was having trouble getting close.
Trees, caught in the crossfire, withered and turned to ash, the forest floor littered with smoking, corrosive residue.
"Enough of this," Michael growled, summoning his shield. The ck metal, etched with crimson runes, whirred to life, its jagged edges spinning with a sound like a chainsaw revving up. He hurled it towards the chimera''s tail, aiming for the base of the cobra, where it connected to the¡ rest of the¡ monstrosity.
The shield flew through the air, a blur of ck metal and crimson light, its des a deadly vortex. The chimera, however, reacted instantly. It leaped, its massive body surprisingly agile, twisting in mid-air, narrowly avoiding the spinning shield.
The Agra heads that formed the chimera''s¡ upper body¡ snickered, their expressions a mix of mockery and¡ triumph.
"Missed!" one of them taunted.
But Michael simply smiled.
The tree''s impact altered the shield''s trajectory. As a result, It ricocheted outwards, its spinning des slicing through the chimera''s tail, severing it halfway through.
The chimera roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, as a geyser of dark green blood, thick and viscous, erupted from the wound, sttering the surrounding trees, the air thick with the stench of¡ something both metallic and¡ rotten.
Michael watched as the severed tail, still twitching, still attached to the chimera''s body by a few¡ strands of¡ something¡ thrashed wildly on the ground. It was¡ disgusting. And distracting.
He was about to activate his X-ray vision, to locate the real Agra, when¡
BAM.
Agra, seemingly appearing out of thin air,unched himself at Michael, tackling him, sending them both tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and armor.
"What did you do, you bastard?!" Agra shrieked, his voice a mix of rage and panic. "My¡ my teleportation! It''s¡ it''s not working! What the fuck did you do to it?!"
He rained blows on Michael, his fists connecting with Michael''s armor, the impacts echoing through the forest like thunderps. He was a whirlwind of chaotic energy, his movements unpredictable, his strength¡ surprising.
Michael, caught off guard by the sudden attack, grunted, his head spinning, his ears ringing. He grabbed Agra''s wrists, his grip like iron, and headbutted the Chaos God, the impact sending a jolt of pain through both their skulls.
Agra stumbled back, releasing his grip, his eyes wide with a mixture of pain and¡ disbelief.
Michael pushed himself to his feet, cracking his neck, a predatory grin spreading across his face.
"What''s wrong, Agra?" he taunted. "Gonna go crying to your mommy? Is Qin Jiu gonnae and¡ kiss it better?" He chuckled, enjoying the look of¡ pure, unadulterated fury¡ that twisted Agra''s features. He was losing it. And Michael¡ well, Michael was just getting started.
Chapter 1394 : The Death of Agra
Michael grinned, enjoying Agra''s outburst. It gave him time to¡ think. To n his next move. To figure out how to deal with that goddamn chimera and its¡ venom-spitting tail.
Sensing an opportunity, the cobra reared back, its fangs dripping with poison, preparing to unleash another volley. Michael waited, his gaze fixed on the creature, his body tense, ready to move.
And Michael acted as the venom bullets erupted from the cobra''s mouth, a blur of green projectiles. He vanished, reappearing a heartbeatter¡ behind Agra.
He grabbed the Chaos God by the shoulders, yanking him forward, using him as a¡ shield. A divine shield.
The chimera''s attack, meant for Michael, struck Agra instead.
"What the fuck, you asshole!" Agra shrieked, hisughter turning into a scream of pain as the venom bullets ripped through his robes, his flesh, his goddamn divine hide. Even a god wasn''t immune to poison, especially not when that poison was¡ god-powered. His upper body, once covered by those swirling ck robes, was now¡ exposed, the fabric vaporized by the venom, his skin riddled with small, smoking holes.
Michael, his grip tightening on Agra''s neck, grinned.
"Oops," he chuckled, his voice a low, menacing growl. "Looks like¡ someone''s having a bad day."
As the venom volley subsided, he released Agra''s neck¡ only to grab him by the ankles. He lifted the Chaos God upside down, his body dangling like a¡ a goddamn pi?ata, and began to m him against the ground, again and again.
"You think you can enve innocent people and escape?" he growled, each word punctuated by a sickening thud as Agra''s body collided with the earth.
Agra, his face contorted in a mask of pain and rage, alternated between screams and manicughter. Michael could hear the sickening crunch of bones breaking, the squelch of¡ something¡ rupturing inside.
The chimera, sensing its¡ creator''s¡ distress, charged towards Michael, its multiple heads roaring, its massive paws pounding the ground, each step sending tremors through the forest.
Waiting until thest possible moment, Michael grinned. Then, as the chimera was almost upon him, he grabbed Agra by the leg, his grip like iron, and swung the Chaos God, using him as a¡ makeshift club¡ against the charging beast.
Soon, Agra''s body collided with the chimera''s chest with a sickening crunch, the sound of bones breaking echoing through the forest. A scream, a mixture of pain and manicughter, ripped from Agra''s throat, followed by a spray of blood that sttered across Michael''s armor.
"This is more like it," Michael chuckled, swinging Agra again, using the Chaos God like a goddamn baseball bat, connecting with the chimera''s multiple heads, one after the other, each impact punctuated by a sickening thud and another of Agra''s¡ unique¡ screams of pain and manic glee.
"Who wants a piece of the Chaos God?"
The chimera, disoriented by the¡ unconventional¡ weapon Michael was wielding, staggered back, its multiple heads roaring in confusion. Itshed out with a wed paw, aiming for Michael''s head, but he ducked under the blow, swinging Agra like a¡ pendulum¡ the Chaos God''s body a blur of limbs and¡ screams.
"Take that, you overgrown gecko!" Gaya shouted from the trees, where she was watching the spectacle unfold with a mixture of amusement and¡ horror.
"Give him a taste of his own medicine!"
The chimera leaped, its bat-like wings beating the air, trying to nk Michael, get behind him, and bite him. But Michael, anticipating its move, spun, using Agra''s body to¡ block the attack. The chimera''s teeth sank into Agra''s leg, a sickening crunch echoing through the forest as the Chaos God let out another¡ unique scream.
"This is fun," Michael grinned.
He swung Agra again, this time aiming for the chimera''s¡ midsection. The impact sent the monstrous creature stumbling backwards, its multiple heads snapping back, its wings pping wildly as it tried to regain its bnce. It roared, a cacophony of snarls and growls, andshed out again, its ws tearing through the air, narrowly missing Michael''s face. He sidestepped, yanking Agra back, and then, with a grunt of effort, hurled the Chaos God¡ skyward.
Continue the scene how Finally agra screamed (write an offensive cuss woded dialogue) and quickly disapelled the chimara spelled and how he said that backfired "Holy fucking shit!" Agra screamed as he sailed through the air, his body twisting and turning, his limbs iling wildly. "What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bastard?!"
He mmed his hands together, dispelling the chimera form, the monstrous creature dissolving into a cloud of ck smoke that dissipated into the night air. Hended with a thud, his body a mangled mess.
"Okay," he groaned, pushing himself to his feet, his face contorted in pain. "That¡ backfired spectacrly."
His robes were tattered, shredded by the venom bullets and Michael''s¡ enthusiastic use of him as a projectile weapon. The wounds, small, smoking holes, oozed a thick, ck liquid that smelled¡ unpleasant. His arms hung at unnatural angles, his bones clearly broken in several ces. And his face¡ well, his face was a masterpiece of¡ chaos. His nose, already broken by Michael''s earlier punch, was now a bloody, misshapen mess. His eyes, usually gleaming with a manic energy, were wide with¡ something that looked suspiciously like¡ fear.
"Time to call in the¡ reserves," he muttered, raising his hands, his fingers crackling with chaotic energy.
"Hey!" Gaya''s voice, amplified by the magic of the forest, echoed through the trees. "No one''sing, asshole!"
Agra frowned, his gaze shifting from Gaya''s hiding spot to Michael.
"What¡ what did you do?" he demanded, his voiceced with a hint of panic.
"They''re¡ gone, Agra," Michael said calmly, dusting off his hands. "And you''re¡ next."
Agra''s eyes widened, the realization of his predicament finally hitting him. He couldn''t teleport. He couldn''t summon his followers. And he was¡ weakened. Injured.
He tried to cast a spell, summon a shield, a barrier, anything to protect himself, but his hands trembled, and the chaotic energy flickered and sputtered like a dying me.
"Take the bastard down!" Gaya''s voice roared from the trees.
Michael, needing no further encouragement, raised his hand, his fingers crackling with ck lightning. Several bolts of pure, destructive energynced out, striking Agra square in the chest.
Agra, weakened, injured, and utterly terrified, staggered back, his gaze fixed on Michael, who was approaching him, his eyes zing with a cold fury.
"I¡ I can give you¡ anything you want!" he stammered, his voice a desperate plea. "Gold! Jewels! Women!"
"I''m not interested in your¡ toys, Agra," Michael growled, his voice a low rumble of thunder.
"I¡ I have¡ prisoners! In my temple! Beautiful women! Virgins! Elves! You can¡ have them all!" Agra babbled, his desperation growing with each passing moment. He had no idea that his offer, his attempt at¡ bribery, was only making things worse.
"I can even¡ give you¡ Qin Jiu!" he blurted out, his eyes wide with a manic desperation. "She''s¡ she''s¡ amazing. You''ll¡ love her!"
"Shut the fuck up, Agra," Michael growled, his patience at an end. He vanished, reappearing a heartbeatter beside Agra, his hand shooting out to grab the Chaos God by the throat. He lifted him effortlessly, Agra''s feet dangling inches above the ground, and began to drag him towards the pond.
"No! Wait!" Agra shrieked, his voice a mix of terror and desperation. "I¡ I can¡ I can give you more! Power! Influence! I can¡ I can make you the most powerful god in the realm! Just¡ let me go!"
He kicked and squirmed, his struggles pathetically weak against Michael''s grip.
"You think you can just kill me and¡ and get away with it?!" Agra roared, his voiceced with a manic fury. "I''m the God of fucking Chaos, you little shit! I''ll¡ I''ll haunt your dreams! I''ll turn your life into a living hell! I''ll¡ I''ll¡"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
He lunged, his teeth sinking into Michael''s leg, but Michael didn''t even flinch.
"You think biting my fucking leg is doing something?"
"You motherfucker! I''ll rip your dick off and shove it up your ass! I''ll¡"
Michael ignored his pathetic attempts at¡ intimidation, his gaze fixed on the shimmering surface of the pond, now only a few yards away.
"What¡ what are you going to do?" Agraughed, his voice a mix of defiance and¡ dawning fear. "Give me a¡ bath? Drown me in your little¡ pond? You can''t kill me! I''m¡ eternal! And killing me¡ it''ll only make things¡ worse! Just like¡ your brother! Just like¡ Rainar!"
Michael stopped at the pond''s edge as his gaze met Agra''s.
"And yet I sleep like a baby,"
Then, he shoved Agra''s head into the pond.
The water, so clear, so tranquil only moments before, rippled, distorted, as Agra''s face, contorted in a mask of terror and disbelief, broke the surface. His reflection, a grotesque parody of his already¡ unique¡ features, stared back at him, his eyes wide with a dawning horror. Michael''s own reflection, a dark, armored figure, loomed over him, a grim reapere to collect his due.
The koi fish, startled by the suddenmotion, by Agra''s screams, darted away, seeking refuge in the shadows beneath the lily pads.
Agra thrashed, his body convulsing, his legs kicking wildly as he fought against Michael''s grip. He wasn''t going down without a fight. But Michael, his face impassive, his grip unyielding, held him down, forcing his head beneath the surface of the water.
"Let me go, you fucking bastard!" Agra gurgled, his voice muffled by the water, his struggles growing weaker with each passing moment. "I''ll¡ I''ll¡ I''ll fucking kill you! I''ll unleash¡ chaos¡ upon your¡ world!"
But Michael didn''t relent. He held him there, his gaze fixed on Agra''s face, watching as the light faded from his eyes, the manicughter dying in his throat, the struggles ceasing as the God of Chaos¡ sumbed to the tranquility.
Chapter 1395 : Gayas Godhood Ascension
The water around Agra''s head began to darken, turning from crystal clear to a murky, inky ck, as the blood oozing from his wounds, thick and viscous, mixed with the water. The koi fish, still huddled in the corner of the pond, their scales shimmering nervously in the dim light, seemed to absorb the darkness, their bodies pulsing with an unnatural energy. Slowly, gradually, the ckness receded, the water returning to its pristine rity, as if cleansed.
Michael felt Agra''s struggles cease, his body going limp, the chaotic energy that had radiated from him dissipating like smoke.
And then¡ a ck hole opened up in the center of the pond, its edges crackling with temporal energy. Agra''s body, his face now a mask of serene¡ emptiness, was pulled towards it, his limbs disappearing into the vortex, one by one.
And as the ck hole disappeared along with Agra, Michael''s mind got riddled with system notifications.
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for killing the God of Chaos, Agra. The reward is 200,000 Experience points and 100,000 Badass points.]
[Ding! Congrattions to the host for sessfully being a badass. The reward is 2,000,000,000 Badass points.]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' forpleting the quest Chaos yer. Reward: Agra''s Domain (including all current worshippers). Rted quest "Unlock the Godhood of the Goddess of Monsters"pleted.]
[Congrattions to host ''Michael'' for leveling up. The current stage is the Celestial Resonance Realm.]
"Holy shit," Michael muttered as his eyes widened in surprise. Two billion Badass Points? That was¡ insane! He hadn''t expected that. He''d known killing Agra would be lucrative, but he did not expect that many points.
He hadn''t even noticed the ck hole disappear, the Pond of Tranquility returning to its serene stillness, the koi fish, their bodies now glowing with a faint, golden light, swimmingzily through the clear water. But Michael was too focused on the numbers, the sheer magnitude of his earnings.
"Jackpot," he chuckled, a slow grin spreading across his face.
"Michael¡" Gaya''s voice, soft and¡ strange, made him turn. She was walking towards him, her hand outstretched, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"What''s¡ happening?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "I¡ I feel¡ weird."
Michael''s grin faded as he looked at her. A faint, white light, a warm, ethereal glow, was emanating from her skin, pulsing and shimmering as if she had a fever and her eyes were¡ glowing.
And then, her legs buckled, and she copsed to the ground.
"Gaya!" Michael shouted, rushing to her side. He knelt beside her, his gaze scanning her face, searching for any sign of¡ injury, of pain¡
She was gritting her teeth, her body trembling, her breathing in ragged gasps.
But even as he worried, a part of him, a deeper, more intuitive part, recognized what was happening.
The quest. He''dpleted it. He''d killed Agra. He''d freed the beasts. And now¡ now Gaya was¡ ascending.
Her godhood was¡ unlocking.
Soon, a ck, oily substance, thick and viscous, began to ooze from her pores, coating her skin in ayer of¡ something that smelled like a mixture of burnt rubber and sulfur. She coughed, a spasm that wracked her body, and a stream of the ck liquid, shot through with flecks of¡ something that looked suspiciously like¡ glitter, erupted from her mouth.
Then, as Michael watched, a torrent of pure and potent celestial energy poured into her, washing over her and seeping into her very being. It was¡ purifying her, restructuring her from the cellr level outwards, transforming her from a mortal, albeit a powerful one, into¡ a goddess.
Michael sat beside her, his hand resting on hers, his gaze fixed on her face, watching as the transformation unfolded. He didn''t flinch as she coughed up another mouthful of that ck, glittery goo, didn''t even seem to notice as it sttered across his armor. He was¡ focused. Concerned.
"Michael! What''s happening?!" Fayeth''s voice, sharp with panic, made him turn.
Fayeth had tried to¡ observe¡ the fight between Michael and Agra. She''d wanted to see the God of Chaos get his ass kicked, to witness the¡ retribution¡ he so richly deserved. But the Death Range, that imprable darkness Michael had conjured, had blocked her view. She''d heard the sounds of the battle, the sh of weapons, Agra''s screams and curses, and Michael''s chillingughter but she''d seen nothing. Until the ck hole had appeared, swallowing Agra''s¡ essence.
And now¡ this. Gaya, lying on the ground, her body convulsing, covered in that¡ stuff, her eyes glowing with an unnatural light.
"What did he do to her?" Fayeth demanded, her gaze fixed on Michael, using.
"She''s¡ ascending," Michael said calmly, his voice a reassuring rumble. "She''s bing¡ a goddess."
Fayeth stared at him, her jaw ck, her mind struggling to process his words. Ascending? Bing a goddess? What the hell did that even mean?
She''d always believed that gods were born, not made. But here, before her very eyes, she was witnessing a miracle. A transformation. The birth of a goddess if she was to believe Michael, anyway. It was unbelievable and a little bit terrifying.
As Gaya ascended, the Verdant Sanctuary began to heal itself.
Fayeth felt it first. A tingling sensation, a warmth that spread through the forest, like the first rays of sunlight after a long winter. The air, once heavy with the stench of decay and corruption, became¡ lighter. Cleaner. Fresher. But the true transformation was happening outside the forest, in the heart of Agra''s deste domain.
The scorched, ck earth began to¡ heal. Tiny sprouts of green, delicate shoots of grass, pushed their way through the cracked soil, nketing the barren ins in a vibrant carpet of life. The bodies, the limbs, and the debris that had choked the ocean around Agra''s temple¡ dissolved, cleansing the water until it shimmered with a clear, turquoise glow. The twisted, ckened trees straightened, their branches reaching towards the sky, their leaves unfurling, their colors vibrant, alive. Even the jagged, ck rocks that had littered thendscape softened, their edges smoothing, their surfaces turning a warm, earthy brown.
And the temple itself¡ the Temple of Chaos¡ began to¡ change.
Vines, thick and green, snaked their way up the walls, their tendrils twisting and coiling around the jagged edges, softening the harsh angles, their leaves a vibrant contrast to the ck stone. Flowers, delicate blossoms of pink and white, bloomed in the cracks and crevices, their fragrance a sweet counterpoint to the lingering stench of¡ well, of Agra.
"What the fuck¡?" one of the cultists patrolling the temple perimeter muttered, scratching his head. "Is this shit¡ growing?"
"It''s those¡ tree-hugging Ava worshippers, I bet," another cultist growled, spitting on the ground. "Trying to¡ redecorate. They''re gonna pay for this. Agra''s gonna be pissed."
"I thought¡ chaos destroyed¡ things," a third cultist said, his voiceced with confusion. "Not¡ grew them."
"Yeah and I thought Qin Jiu''s runes will keep this ce intact, not fucking vines and shit growing," said the other, "This is unnatural."
Inside the cages, within the walls of the temple, the enved beasts stirred. The ones that were still alive, their bodies emaciated, their eyes dull with despair, looked up, their gazes drawn to the sky, as if¡ sensing a change. A¡ presence. They whimpered low, mournful sounds, and then¡ began to¡ heal. Their wounds closed, their fur regained its luster, and their eyes brightened with a flicker of¡ hope.
On the other hand, the emaciated worshippers, their bodies broken by Agra''s cruel regime, felt a surge of something flowing through them. It started as a warmth, a tingling sensation deep within their bones, and then¡ it blossomed.
Once thick with the stench of decay and corruption, the air now carried a sweet, floral fragrance, each breath a balm to their wounded lungs. The aches and pains that had be a constantpanion, a dull throb that never truly faded began to subside. Their skin, once stretched taut over their bones, now regained a hint of color, the wounds, and scars that crisscrossed their flesh slowly fading, as if time itself was being¡ rewound.
"What''s¡ happening?" one of the ves whispered, his voice hoarse, barely audible. He had been hauling stones, his chains digging into his flesh, his body screaming in protest, and now the pain was gone. He looked down at his hands as his skin no longer a sickly gray, but a healthy, warm brown. The cuts and calluses that had marred his palms were fading.
"I¡ I feel¡ stronger," a woman murmured, her eyes wide with disbelief. She had been beaten, whipped, her body a canvas of pain, and now¡ now she felt¡ whole. She touched her face, her fingers tracing the outline of a fading bruise.
"The air¡ it''s¡ clean," a young boy said as he looked around with newfound hope.
"Is¡ is Ava back?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
As thend healed, as Ava''s power flowed back into the Verdant Sanctuary, the caged beasts felt a surge of strength, power, and rage. The energy emanating from Gaya, a byproduct of her ascension, reached them, a beacon, a call to arms.
The chains that bound them, etched with runes that pulsed with Agra''s chaotic magic, began to corrode before breaking. And then¡ all hell broke loose.
The griffins, their wings healed, their eyes zing with a newfound fury, snapped their chains, their talons tearing through the flesh of the cultists who''d been tasked with¡ guarding them.
"What the¡?" one of the cultists shrieked, his eyes widening in horror as a griffon, its massive beak snapping, lunged at him while its talons ripped through his chest, lifting him into the air.
On the other side, the lions, their roars echoing through the temple grounds, pounced on their tormentors, their fangs tearing through flesh and bone, their ws leaving deep, ragged wounds.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Get¡ get these fucking beasts off me!" another cultist screamed, his voice a choked gurgle as a lion, its jaws mped around his throat, shook him like a rag doll.
And the dragons¡ oh, the dragons. Their scales shimmered as the dragons'' breath incinerated everything in its path.
"Run!" a cultist yelled with a terror that went beyond the usual enthusiasm for chaos.
"They''re¡ they''re breaking free!"
But there was nowhere to run as the beasts, freed from their captivity were everywhere. And they were¡ hungry.
They surged towards the forest, drawn to the source of the power that had awakened them. Drawn to their Goddess.
Chapter 1396 : Gaya, The Fledgling God
Meanwhile, Gaya''s transformation was reaching its climax in the forest. The ck, oily substance continued to ooze from her pores, pooling on the ground around her, the stench of it making Fayeth''s stomach churn.
And then¡ the sky¡ cracked.
Bolts of lightning, not the pale blue of Kranar''s pathetic little sparks, but a deep, vibrant purple, shot across the sky, illuminating the swirling storm clouds that were gathering above them. These weren''t normal storm clouds. They were darker, more¡ menacing, their edges tinged with a sickly green that spoke of something ancient and powerful. Despite his armor and power, Michael felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, the static electricity in the air making his skin tingle.
He could sense the celestial energy pouring into Gaya, a torrent of raw power that was¡ reshaping her, transforming her, elevating her to a level beyond mortalprehension.
Fayeth watched, speechless, as the light around Gaya intensified, her body shimmering, her features¡ shifting.
And then, Michael saw them.
Figures, moving in the distance. Shadows flitting through the trees. And above, in the swirling storm clouds¡ more shadows.
Another bolt of purple lightning split the sky, illuminating the figures above, revealing their forms¡ dragons. Griffins. Their wings outstretched, their eyes glowing with an otherworldly light.
"What''s¡ happening?" Fayeth whispered, her voice barely audible over the roar of the wind, the crackle of the lightning.
Michael, his gaze fixed on the sky, didn''t answer.
Fayeth, following his gaze, saw them too. The shadows in the clouds. The¡ beasts.
"Holy¡," she breathed, her eyes widening in disbelief.
And then, theynded.
One of them was a massive dragon with deep crimson scales and two horns protruding from its head like wickedly curved daggers. Its eyes burned with a golden fire, andnded a few feet from them, the ground trembling under its weight. Beside it, a griffin, its feathers a mix of white and goldnded with a soft thud, its wings folding gracefully behind it.
Fayeth, instinctively, reached for the pendant she wore around her neck, a small, silver amulet etched with Ava''s symbol.
But the dragon and the griffin ignored her as their attention was focused solely on Gaya. To Michael''s shock and surprise, they spread their wings, creating a protective barrier around her. And then¡ more came.
Dragons of all shapes and sizes, their scales shimmering with every color of the rainbow. Wyverns, their leathery wings beating the air, their barbed tails twitching nervously. Giant eagles, their eyes sharp as razors, their talons glinting in the dim light.
Not only dragons but a lion''s roar, deep and resonant, echoed through the forest, followed by a chorus of howls, growls, and screeches as more and more beasts, drawn by the power of Gaya''s ascension, converged on the clearing. Michael saw tigers, their stripes glowing with an unnatural luminescence, padding silently through the undergrowth. He saw deer, their antlers entwined with vines and flowers, and a three-headed serpent, its scales shimmering with a rainbow of colors, slithered through the trees. He even saw a bear with wings lumbering towards them.
All of them formed a circle around Gaya as though they were focused and redirecting the celestial energy to her in a more controlled manner.
"They¡ they escaped," Fayeth breathed, recognizing some of the creatures from Agra''s collection. The griffons, their wings clipped, their proud heads bowed¡ the unicorns, their horns sawn off, their coats matted with blood¡ they were here, whole, healed, their eyes zing with a newfound freedom.
"Seems like it," Michael murmured, his gaze still fixed on Gaya. The circle of beasts had tightened, their bodies pressing closer and wings creating a canopy of feathers and scales that blocked out the remaining light from the sky. It was growing darker, colder, within their protective embrace.
At that moment, Gaya coughed again, another spasm wracking her body, but this time, the ck ooze erupted from her mouth was less ck. And the light around her was intensifying.
"She''s almost¡ there," Michael said.
And just as he spoke, a voice, sharp and urgent, crackled in his ear.
Click.
"Ghost! What the fuck is going on in the Verdant Sanctuary?! Seraphene''s spy hubs are going crazy! Energy fluctuations off the charts! What did you do?" Pink shouted.
She had been monitoring Seraphene''swork of spies by hacking into her server crystals, with Vedora''s help and sifting through the endless chatter, the gossip, the intel. But a few minutes ago, all hell had broken loose. The safe house, with its scrying mirrors, and its listening devices had been bombarded with alerts, and warnings of some event unfolding in the Verdant Sanctuary.
And since she knew Ghost and Gaya were there, it didn''t take a genius to connect the dots. Wherever those two went, chaos followed. It was practically their calling card.
Sighing, Michael decided to answer Pinkter, once Gaya''s ascension wasplete. It wouldn''t be long now. The energy fluctuations were stabilizing, the light around her dimming, the ck ooze flowing less¡ enthusiastically.
Then, finally, Gaya''s eyes fluttered open.
[Congrattions to the host forpleting the quest "Unlock the Godhood of the Goddess of Monsters". Gaya is now a Level 1 Fledgling God]
Michael grinned. "Showtime," he murmured, reaching out to help her up.
But before he could touch her, a massive lion, its mane a golden halo in the dim light, stepped forward, nudging Gaya gently with its head, helping her to her feet. She stumbled slightly, her legs still shaky, and a nearby deer, its antlers entwined with flowers, moved quickly to steady her, itsrge, gentle eyes fixed on her face.
Michael stared at the scene, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. A lion and a deer¡ working together? Now that was something you didn''t see every day.
Gaya, her gaze sweeping across the circle of beasts, her brow furrowed in confusion, blinked.
"What the fuck¡ just happened?" she asked, her voice hoarse.
"You became a goddess, that''s what happened," he said, gesturing towards his armor, which was now covered in the ck, glittery goo she''d¡ expelled during her transformation.
Gaya''s eyes widened, the memories of the sudden, overwhelming pain, the¡ expulsion¡ of¡ something¡ the strange, rubbery taste in her mouth¡ing back to her in a rush.
And then¡ the voices hit her.
A thousand, a million, a billion voices, whispering, chanting, roaring¡ all at once. It hit her like a goddamn freight train, a cacophony of sound that made her head spin, her knees buckle.
"Argh!" she screamed, clutching her head and her legs buckling beneath her.
Sensing her distress, a griffin, moved swiftly to her side, its powerful wings wrapping around her, holding her steady.
Michael watched with a flicker of amusement in his eyes. He knew what she was experiencing. The sudden influx of prayers and voices was overwhelming. He''d been there himself and it wasn''t pleasant.
Slowly, Gaya''s trembling subsided, the griffin''s wings still wrapped around her, offeringfort, protection. She looked around, her gaze sweeping over the circle of beasts, her eyes widening as she took in¡ the dragons, the griffins, the¡ bear with wings. She could feel¡ something¡ing from the dragon, a¡ connection, a voice trying to reach her, but it was¡ muffled, distorted. She wasn''t strong enough yet. She needed to level up before she could truly hear creatures like dragons.
But the other beasts¡ they were clear. She could hear their whispers, their pleas, their¡ pain. She met the gaze of the deer that had steadied her, saw the kindness, the gentleness, in itsrge, brown eyes¡ and the¡ sadness.N?v(el)B\\jnn
She reached out, instinctively, her hand resting on the deer''s soft fur.
"What''s¡ happening?" Fayeth whispered with a mixture of awe and confusion.
"She''s¡ talking to the deer," Michael replied, watching the exchange with a knowing smile. He knew, from his own experience, that gods couldmunicate with their worshippers, with those who believed in them. And Gaya''s worshippers¡ they were the beasts. The creatures. The monsters.
And then, Gaya heard it.
The deer''s voice was soft and trembling which echoed in her mind.
"They¡ they hunted us, Goddess," the deer whispered, its eyes filling with tears. "My¡ my family. My mate. My fawns. They¡ they killed them. For¡ sport."
"They chased us," the deer continued, its voice choked with emotion. "Hunted us down. Laughed¡ as they¡ tore us apart. They¡ they said¡ we were¡ abominations. That we¡ didn''t belong in¡ Ava''s sanctuary. They¡ they corrupted the forest¡ poisoned the water¡ turned our home¡ into a¡ a graveyard."
A wave of fury, unlike anything Gaya had ever felt before, surged through her. It wasn''t just anger. It was¡ wrath. A primal, all-consuming fury that made her blood boil, her muscles tense, and her very being vibrated with power.
This was the wrath of the Goddess of Monsters.
"Those¡ fuckers," she growled, her voice low, dangerous, her eyes zing with a cold fire. "They''ll pay. They''ll all pay."
And in that moment, Gaya changed.
She knelt down, her crimson eyes meeting the deer''s, her voice a low, dangerous growl.
"I will avenge you," she whispered, her hand stroking the deer''s soft fur, her touch surprisingly gentle despite the fury burning in her eyes.
"I will wipe those¡ bastards¡ from thisnd. I will paint the ground with their blood. They will¡ suffer, just as you have suffered. They will¡ beg for mercy. And I¡ I will show them¡ none."
Fayeth, watching the exchange, felt a chill run down her spine. It was a¡ different kind of chill than the one she felt when the God of Darkness spoke of killing. There was a primal fury in Gaya''s voice that made even Michael''s threats seem tame.
But she also understood. Gaya wasn''t just a woman anymore. She was a goddess. And those beasts¡ those creatures¡ they were her worshippers and essentially her children. And she had the power to destroy and unleash a vengeance that would make even Agra''s cruelty seem merciful.
With Agra gone, there was nothing, no one, to stop her. She could¡ cleanse this domain, purify it with the blood of those who had¡ defiled it. And Fayeth, though her heart ached for the lost, for the innocent¡ she couldn''t help but feel a flicker of¡ grim satisfaction.
They deserved it. Those bastards. Everyst one of them.
Chapter 1397 : Massacre of Agra worshippers
Immediately, Gaya rose to her feet as her eyes zed with a cold fire.
"We''re going hunting, human," she growled with a menacing rumble. "We''re going to find¡ every single one of those assholes. And we''re going to¡ ughter them."
Michael nodded, a grim smile twisting his lips. Fayeth, hearing the word ughter and the way Gaya had said it¡ felt another shiver run down her spine. Even the God of Darkness hadn''t sounded that bloodthirsty. Gaya''s "normal" killing sprees usually resembled a massacre. If she was talking about ughter, it was going to be like unleashing a horde of starving piranhas on a group of tourists who decided to skinny dip in the Amazon.
But he was also eager to see the boost to her spells, the enhanced power of her Nagini transformation, the one that turned her into a twelve-foot cobra, with scales as ck as midnight and eyes that glowed with a malevolent purple light. He hadn''t seen her true form in months, but he had a feeling¡ tonight was the night.
The beasts surrounding them, sensing Gaya''s¡ intent¡ shifted, forming a protective circle around her, their eyes fixed on Michael and Fayeth with a mixture of suspicion and¡ possessiveness. They even had the audacity to nudge Michael and Fayeth aside, as if staking their im on their goddess.
"Hey, I''m her husband, you know! Show some goddamn respect!" Michael said, frowning.
One of the lions, a massive beast with a mane like spun gold, looked at him and then let out something that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.
"Did that overgrown housecat justugh at me?" Michael asked, turning to Fayeth, his brow furrowed in disbelief.
"I think so," Fayeth said, suppressing a giggle, before turning her attention back to Gaya, who seemed oblivious to the¡ interspecies drama unfolding behind her. She was focused. Her cold and calcting gaze was fixed on the distant temple where the rest of the agra worshippers were.
The crimson dragon, its two horns gleaming in the moonlight, lowered its massive head, and Gaya, with fluid grace, climbed onto its back, settling into the space between its wings.
"Take her with us," she said to the griffin, gesturing towards Fayeth with a nod of her head. The griffin, its gaze fixed on Gaya with an almost worshiful intensity, approached Fayeth, lowering its head so she could climb onto its back.
Fayeth hesitated for a moment, her eyes wide with surprise. She had never ridden a griffin before. They were proud, independent creatures, not exactly known for their¡ domesticity. But Gaya was their goddess now and they would obey.
Then, she mounted the griffin, her hands gripping its feathers, and together, they rose into the air, joining Michael, who was already hovering above the trees.
The dragons, griffins, and other winged beasts took to the sky, their roars and screeches echoing through the night. The other beasts, the ones who couldn''t fly, followed below, their paws pounding the earth as they followed behind.
The Goddess of Monsters, her army at her back, was on the warpath.
As Gaya and her army made their way towards the Temple of Chaos, the Agra worshippers who''d remained behind were confused and a little bit freaked out.
"What the fuck is going on with this ce?" one of them muttered, staring at the vines that were now creeping up the walls of the temple, their leaves a vibrant, unnatural green against the ck stone.
"Is this shit¡ growing?" another cultist asked, poking at a flower that had bloomed in a crack in the pavement. "I thought chaos was supposed to destroy things. Not¡ grow them."
"And those screams¡ they''re¡ gone," a third cultist said in confusion. "Did¡ did Agra¡ leave?"
"Where the hell is Vog and the others?" another grumbled, kicking at a loose rock. "They''ve been gone for¡ hours. What the fuck are they doing out there?"
Meanwhile, deep within the temple, in the dungeons where Agra''s ves were kept chained, the emaciated worshippers of Ava, their bodies healed by the returning power of the Verdant Sanctuary, felt a surge of hope and faith.
They began to chant, their voices weak at first, then growing stronger, more fervent, as they called out to their goddess.
"Ava! Hear our prayers!"
"Goddess of Healing, save us!"
"We have returned to you!"
"Please, Goddess¡ forgive us¡ for our betrayal¡ for our¡ weakness. "
Many wept, their tears a mixture of grief, joy, and¡ terror. They didn''t know what was happening, but they knew something was changing. Soon, their voices, filled with desperate longing, echoed through the dungeons, reaching the ears of Agra''s worshippers above.
"What the fuck is that noise?" one of the cultists growled, his face twisting in disgust.
"Those¡ fucking Ava worshippers!" another spat. "Still¡ praying to their¡ whore of a goddess! They haven''t learned their lesson, have they?"
They stormed down into the dungeons as their torches cast long, menacing shadows and their faces twisted into masks of fury.
"Shut the fuck up, you pathetic worms!" one of them roared,shing out with his whip, the leather tip connecting with a ve''s back, drawing a scream of pain.
"Agra demands silence!" another cultist yelled, kicking a kneeling worshipper in the ribs. "There is only one god in this domain now! And his name is Agra!"
The whips fell, again and again, leaving bloody welts on the ves'' backs.But the wounds¡ the wounds were¡ healing. As quickly as they appeared, they vanished, the flesh knitting back together, the blood¡ disappearing.
"What the¡?" one of the cultists muttered, his eyes wide with confusion. Heshed out again, his whip cracking even harder, but the result was the same. The wounds¡ they simply¡ vanished.
And then¡ they heard it.
A roar.
A deep, resonant sound echoed through the temple, shaking the very foundations of the structure. It wasn''t just one roar. It was a chorus of roars and soon, they also felt the ground trembling beneath their feet.
"What the hell was that?" one of them muttered, his hand instinctively reaching for his dagger.N?v(el)B\\jnn
"Sounded like¡ an earthquake," another said, his eyes wide with a mix of fear and¡ excitement.
"Maybe¡ Agra''s back?"
They rushed towards the temple entrance, eager to see what¡ chaos their god had wrought. But as they rounded the corner of the temple, their eagerness turned to¡ horror.
"Holy shit!" one of them shrieked, staring at the carnage before him. "What the¡ fuck¡ happened here?"
Bodies.
Everywhere.
Theirrades, the ones who''d been guarding the perimeter,y scattered across the ground, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles, their faces frozen in masks of terror. Some were¡ iplete, missing limbs, their torsos ripped open, their entrails spilling onto the ground.
"Those fucking animals!" another roared, his eyes zing with fury. "They were heading for¡ the forest! Where Agra¡ and Vog¡ they''re¡"
"Where the fuck are Agra and Lady Qin Jiu?!" another cultist screamed, his voiceced with panic.
"Someone should¡ go get Lady Qin Jiu," one of the cultists suggested.
"Like hell I am!" another retorted, shaking his head vehemently. "I''m not going anywhere near Agra''s¡ wife''s chambers and end up getting turned into a fucking¡ pincushion!"
"The ves¡ down in the dungeons¡" one of the guards who''d been posted inside the temple, said. "They''re¡ they''re healed. Their wounds¡ they''re¡ disappearing."
"What¡?"
But before anyone could¡ process¡ the implications of that little tidbit, one of the cultists, his eyes wide with terror, pointed towards the sky.
"Look!"
They all looked up, their gazes fixed on the¡ shadows¡ that were gathering above the clouds, their forms¡ immense¡ menacing.
And then¡ all hell broke loose.
The dragons and griffins, their roars and screeches echoing through the night, dived down from the clouds, their wings beating the air, their shadows falling upon the terrified cultists like a dark omen.
"Iing!" one of the cultists screamed, scrambling for cover.
"Defensive spells! Now!" another roared, his hands glowing with a sickly green light.
"Inferno st!" one of them roared, unleashing a torrent of mes towards a descending dragon.
"Stone Spikes!" another shouted, summoning jagged pirs of rock from the earth, aiming them at a diving griffin.
"Shadow Bolt!" a third shrieked, a bolt of dark energy, crackling with power, shooting towards Gaya''s crimson dragon.
But the dragons and griffins were too fast. They weaved through the iing spells, their movements graceful, their scales and feathers shimmering with a protective energy that deflected the weaker attacks. A few of the dragons, their scales thicker, their magic more potent, simply¡ ignored the spells, the fireballs and lightning bolts bouncing harmlessly off their hides.
Gaya''s dragon, its crimson scales gleaming in the flickering torchlight, swooped down, its shadow falling over the terrified cultists.
"Light them up. But¡ go easy on the heat. I want them to¡ scream. For a while."
A stream of fire, not the raging inferno of a full-blown dragon''s breath, but a controlled, focused jet of blue mes, erupted from the dragon''s mouth, washing over the cultists, their screams echoing through the night as their flesh began to sizzle.
Above them, more dragons descended, their wings beating the air, their shadows falling over the temple grounds like a dark omen. Streams of fire, each one a different color ¨C blue, green, orange, even a sickly purple ¨C rained down on the cultists, their screams blending into a chorus of agony and terror. The air filled with the stench of burning flesh and the acrid smell of ozone, the ground littered with charred bodies and the¡ remains¡ of those who''d been¡ less fortunate.
"Run!" one of the cultists screamed, his voice a choked gurgle as the mes licked at his heels. "It''s a trap! We''re¡ we''re fucked!"
"Every man for himself!" another yelled, dropping his torch and his spear and bolting towards the forest, his ck robes billowing behind him.
"Retreat! Back to the temple!"
But as they ran, they found their escape route¡ blocked.
The beasts that had followed Gaya, the ones who couldn''t fly, had arrived.
Lions, their eyes zing with fury, pounced on the fleeing cultists, their ws tearing through flesh and bone while the bears rose up on their hind legs, their massive paws swatting the cultists aside like flies. Even the deer, their gentle eyes now filled with a cold, hard rage, charged as their antlers pierced the cultists'' flesh.
"Fucking hell," a cultist whimpered, his voice barely audible over the snarls and growls of the beasts, his leg trapped beneath a bear''s massive paw. "Get this¡ thing¡ off me!"
"Help me! Someone!"
"Agra! Where the fuck are you?!"
The cultists tried to fight back, their daggers shing, their spells crackling, but they were outmatched, overwhelmed. The beasts, fueled by Gaya''s power, by their own pent-up rage, were relentless.
At that moment, a cultist, his face contorted in a mask of terror, raised his sword, aiming a blow at a young fawn that had just gored him in the leg. But before he could connect, a massive bear intervened. It rose up and with a single swipe, tore the man''s head from his shoulders.
Watching the carnage from the back of the griffin, Fayeth felt a wave of nausea wash over her. This¡ this wasn''t just a battle. It was a¡ cleansing. A massacre. A bloodbath that would send shockwaves through the entire realm of the Gods.
Chapter 1398 : State of Larnia, The Domain of Nithroel
The massacre was swift, brutal, and thorough. Within minutes, all that remained of Agra''s followers were pieces. Piles of ash, charred skeletons, limbs scattered across the blood-soaked ground.
The beasts, their fury spent, their bloodlust sated, turned towards Gaya, their eyes now filled with a¡ reverent awe. They bowed their heads, a silent acknowledgment of her power, their goddess.
Michael, who''d been watching the carnage from above, activated his X-ray vision, his gaze sweeping over the assembled creatures. He could see it now, the energy radiating from Gaya, a faint, golden aura that pulsed and shimmered, connecting her to the beasts, influencing their actions, their very¡ being.
It wasn''t something he''d sensed before, not with this intensity. It was a byproduct of her godhood, of her connection to the monsters of the realm. It made them stronger, more obedient, more feral.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om
And it made her stronger too. He could feel it, the way her power amplified with each beast that came within a certain radius. The more beasts that surrounded her, the more powerful she became.
Hended softly beside her, as Fayeth, her face pale, dismounted from the griffin, her hand still clutching the silver amulet around her neck.
Gaya sweeping over the carnage, spotted a pack of wolves, their fur matted with blood and eyes gleamed with predatory hunger.
"You," she said, her voice a low growl. "Find that¡ Qin Jiu bitch. Bring her to me."
As if understanding hermand, the wolves twitched their noses, turned and headed towards the temple, their movements swift, silent. They seemed to know¡ exactly¡ where they were going.
"They¡ they know her?" Fayeth asked, raising his eyebrows at Gaya, a bit surprised by the scene.
"They can smell her, you idiot," Gaya chuckled, shaking her head. "Besides, she''s been interacting with Agra''s followers. Her scent¡ it''s all over this ce."
Then, she turned to the deer that had spoken to her earlier, itsrge, brown eyes now filled with a¡ grateful warmth.
"Thank you, my Goddess," the deer whispered, bowing its head. "But¡ what about¡ my family? The ones who were¡ taken?"
"You''ll have a new family," Gaya said, her voice softening slightly as she gently stroked the deer''s soft fur. "I''ll¡ see to it. And they¡ they''ll never be hunted again. Not while I''m around."
A few minutester, the wolf pack returned, their muzzles stained crimson, their eyes gleaming. The alpha, a massive beast with fur as ck as night and eyes that glowed with an eerie green light, trotted towards Gaya, a small, rolled-up parchment clutched in its jaws.
"What the¡?" Gaya muttered, taking the parchment from the wolf''s mouth.
"What is it?" Fayeth asked, peering at the note.
"It''s from that bitch," Gaya snarled as she unrolled the parchment.
Michael, sensing¡ something¡ in Gaya''s tone, walked over and took the note from her, his gaze scanning the elegant script.
"She¡ believes in karma," Michael read aloud, his voice a low murmur. "Says Agra¡ umted a lot of it. And that¡ even gods¡ have to pay the price."
He paused, his brow furrowing slightly.
"She says¡ his actions have grown¡ wilder. More unpredictable. Cruel. Especially¡ in thest few weeks. After he met¡ Andohr."
The name, spoken aloud, made Michael''s blood boil. Andohr. That maniptive bastard who held his mother captive. He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white, but he forced himself to remain calm. He had to focus.
"Continue," Gaya said, her voice tight with barely suppressed rage. She sensed his anger, the sudden shift in his demeanor, and ced a hand on his arm, a silent reassurance.
Michael took a deep breath, and continued reading.
"She says¡ Agra wasn''t always like this. That he had¡ good in him.and in another life, he could have been a good god. But she''s thankful that his suffering has ended."
He paused again, his gaze fixed on the words, his voice hardening.
"She says¡ she''s done terrible things. Made wrong choices. And now she''s going to pay for her sins. She says don''t look for her."
Gaya snorted, spitting on the ground.
"That bitch," she snarled, her eyes zing with fury. "She thinks Agra had good in him? That''s like saying¡ a rabid, shit-covered hyena has¡ good in him! He was a monster, Michael! A fucking psychopath! He tortured people! Enved them! Corrupted this entire domain! And she''s¡ thankful he''s dead? What a load of¡"
Even Fayeth, kind andpassionate as she was, a true believer in second chances and redemption, had to admit there wasn''t much good in Agra. He was chaos personified. Cruelty incarnate.
Michael simply chuckled, shaking his head. He knew, better than most, that¡ light wasn''t always synonymous with good. And darkness wasn''t always evil.
"Feeling bad for him doesn''t make her any less culpable, Gaya," he said in dangerous growl.
"We''re still going to find her. And when we do¡"
"We''re sending that bitch straight to hell," Gaya finished, her voiceced with a chilling promise.
"As much as I''d like to do just that," Michael said, crushing the note in his fist, "we need to¡ leave. Before the Pantheon sends reinforcements. And I really don''t want to deal with that Raphael asshole right now. He''s annoying,."
A faint, sweet fragrance, like jasmine and honeysuckle, suddenly filled the air. A gentle breeze rustled through the trees, lifting a shower of flower petals from the branches above. The petals swirled and danced, coalescing into a shimmering, translucent form that solidified into¡ Seshat.
Fayeth, seeing the Goddess of Wisdom, bowed her head respectfully. Michael smiled with a hint of amusement in his eyes. The beasts, however, shifted uneasily, their gazes fixed on Seshat with a mixture of suspicion and¡ wariness. They moved closer to Gaya, forming a protective circle around her.
"There''s no need to be afraid," Seshat said, her voice a soft melody that seemed to¡ calm the beasts, their restlessness subsiding as they settled down, their eyes now filled with a¡ curious warmth.
"What are you doing here, Seshat?" Gaya asked, her voice a low growl. "We took care of Agra, like you asked. Now¡ it''s your turn. Where are you sending my¡ guests?" she asked, gesturing towards the beasts that still surrounded the Distillery District. "And what about these guys?" She waved a hand at the creatures gathered around her with their gazes fixed on her..
"They can stay here, in the Verdant Sanctuary," Fayeth suggested, her voice soft but firm. "It''s¡ free now. Cleansed. Agra''s¡ influence is¡ gone. Ava''s power¡ it''s¡ returning."
"Yeah," Gaya agreed, nodding. "This ce¡ it''s¡ good. For them."
But Seshat shook her head, a gentle smile ying on her lips.
"Gaya¡ you are the Goddess of Monsters now. All creatures¡ beasts¡ they are¡ yours. They will¡ thrive. Multiply. Spread their¡ influence. But here in this sanctuary¡ they will disrupt the bnce. It is not their ce."
"For fuck''s sake, Seshat, just spit it out," Gaya growled, her patience wearing thin. She wasn''t in the mood for cryptic bullshit.
Seshat, unfazed by Gaya''s outburst, continued.
"There is another domain, Gaya. Larnia, the domain of Nithroel. The Goddess of Hunt."
Michael''s eyes widened slightly. Larnia? Nithroel''s domain? He''d just promised Nithroel he''d retrieve her bow, the Agni-King, from her temple in Larnia. He had a feeling Seshat knew about that. But he wasn''t going to ask. He''d get another one of her cryptic riddles and he wasn''t in the mood.
Gaya, however, almost choked on her own spit.
"Larnia?!" she shrieked with disbelief.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Seshat? Send my beasts¡ to Nithroel''s domain? That''s like¡ sending a flock of sheep to a goddamn ughterhouse! It''s like mixing oil and water! Fire and ice! Cats and fucking light beams!"
She was practically sputtering with rage. The Goddess of Hunt, and the Goddess of Monsters? They were¡ opposites. Natural enemies. It would be¡ a disaster. A fucking bloodbath. A cosmic-level shitstorm waiting to happen.
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Ignoring Gaya''s outburst, Seshat simply smiled as her gaze was serene as usual.
"You see¡ hunters¡ and their prey¡ as¡ opposites, Gaya. But the truth is¡ they are two sides of the same coin. Just like everything in this world¡ there must be¡ bnce. Day and night. Life and death. Fire and water. Yin and yang. Hunters and prey."
She paused, her gaze meeting Gaya''s.
"Without the hunters, your beasts¡ they will overrun thend. They will multiply, their numbers growing unchecked. And without bnce¡ without someone to cull the herd¡ they will consume everything. The forests. The rivers. The very air itself. And then¡ they will starve. They will die." She said and turned to Michael, her eyes filled with a gentle sadness.
"Just like in Larnia."
Hearing Seshat, Michael, and Gaya frowned.
"What happened in Larnia?" Michael asked.
Fayeth, who knew the tragic story of Nithroel''s abandoned domain, opened her mouth to speak, but Seshat held up a hand, silencing her.
"After Nithroel left¡ abandoned her domain¡ her hunters, her worshippers were lost. Without her guidance. Without her protection. They became prey." Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"The beasts, driven by revenge, by their natural instincts, turned on the hunters. They ughtered and wiped them out. They thought they were free," She sighed, shaking her head sadly.
"But without the hunters, the beasts multiplied. Their numbers grew exponentially. They fought amongst themselves. For food, territory, and dominance,"
Seshat paused for a moment so her words could sink into their heads. Then, she continued.
"And thend¡ thend without its beasts, without the natural cycle of life and death¡ it withered. The forests grew unchecked, the trees sucking the soil dry, their roots strangling the very earth that had birthed them. The hunters had always culled the old, made way for the new, tended the forests, coexisted with the very nature and creatures of the domain. And without them, and the beasts, thend¡ it became barren. Lifeless. A desert." She looked at Michael and Gaya, her gaze intense.
"Beasts, hunters, and nature itself¡ they are interconnected. A delicate bnce. Remove one and the others will fall."
Bnce wasn''t just some mystical concept. It was aw of nature, like needing both nuts and bolts to build something useful. One couldn''t just have one and expect things to hold up for long. Or like needing both predators and prey to maintain a healthy ecosystem. For instance, if one removed the lions, the gazelles would overpopte, eat everything, and starve to death. And if the gazelles were removed, the lions would starve to death. It was simple, really. But people and gods, they could be really fucking stupid sometimes. They would chase after power, after control, without considering the consequences or the delicate bnce they were disrupting.
Chapter 1399 : A Plan of Alliance with The Pantheon
But before he could activate the travel rune and head to Larnia, Michael needed to make a pit stop. His armor, after that little¡ tussle with Agra and his¡ abomination of a chimera, was looking a little¡ worse for wear. Dented. Scratched. And his mask¡ well, that was definitely in need of some¡ repairs. He also needed to¡ upgrade Gaya''s stealth armor. Now that she was a goddess, radiating celestial energy, the mortal-grade cloaking device wouldn''t work. It would be like trying to hide a goddamn supernova behind a tissue paper.
He nced over at Gaya, who was now holding court with her¡ constituents.
"So," she was saying, her voice a low rumble that echoed through the clearing, "which one of you¡ brave warriors¡ wants to tell me¡ exactly how those¡ assholes managed to clip your wings?"
She was lounging against a giant bear, using its thick, furry back as a¡ sofa, her crimson eyes gleaming with a predatory amusement. A half dozen dragons, their scales shimmering in the moonlight, formed a protective circle around her, their gazes fixed on the forest''s edge, ever watchful. A pack of wolves sat at her feet, their ears twitching, their eyes narrowed, their bodies tense and ready to spring into action at hermand.
"It was¡ those damn runes, my Goddess," a griffin said, its voice a mix of shame and¡ righteous fury. "They¡ they sapped our strength. Our magic. We couldn''t¡ break free."
"And the horns, mydy?" Gaya asked, turning towards a unicorn, whose horn, though regrown, was still¡ smaller than the others. "They¡ sawed them off, didn''t they? Those bastards."
"Yes, my Goddess," the unicorn whispered, trembling. "They¡ theyughed¡ while they¡ while they¡"
Michael watched the scene unfold, a slow smile spreading across his face. She was magnificent, a true Goddess of Monsters and his badass wife.
"Fayeth," he called out, his voice a low murmur. "Go and¡ free the others. The¡ prisoners. In the temple."
Fayeth nodded, her gaze lingering on Gaya for a moment, a mix of awe and surprise in her eyes, before turning and heading towards the temple.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Sensing movement, the beasts tensed as the dragons turned their heads and the wolves let out low growls.
"Easy," Gaya said, raising a hand, her voice a calming rumble that soothed the beasts''¡ anxiety. "They''re¡ friends."
A few minutester, Fayeth emerged from the temple, followed by a group of Ava''s worshippers. Their clothes were tattered, torn, barely clinging to their emaciated bodies. Many were half-naked, their skin bruised and scarred, but even those wounds, thanks to Ava''s returning power, were already beginning to heal. Fayeth, ever the kind andpassionate one, had managed to find some spare robes to cover their indignities.
As they took in the transformedndscape, their eyes went wide with disbelief.
"The forest¡" one of them whispered, his voice hoarse. "It''s¡ green."
"The temple¡" another murmured, her eyes fixed on the vines and flowers that now adorned Agra''s monstrosity.
"What¡ what happened?"
"Where¡ where are Agra''s followers?" a third asked, looking across the remains that still littered the ground. "Did¡ did they¡ leave?"
"Looks like someone had a little fun," another chuckled nervously, pointing towards a pile of body parts that had been scattered across the ground.
"Who¡ who did this?" another whispered with a mixture of awe and terror.
They looked at Gaya, Michael, and the beasts that now surrounded them, a protective circle of ws, fangs, and feathers.
"Is¡ is she¡?"
"The Goddess¡"
"Of Monsters¡"
"Quiet!" Fayeth said, raising her hand, her voice calming, reassuring. "There''s no need to be afraid. Agra is¡ gone. His followers¡ they''re¡ dealt with. Thisnd¡ it''s¡ free again. You are all safe, thanks to these two."
"Gone?" one of the worshippers stammered, his gaze fixed on the scattered¡ remains¡ of Agra''s followers. "What do you mean¡ gone? How can a¡ a god be¡ gone?"
"Mommy," a small child whispered, tugging on his mother''s skirt, his eyes wide with curiosity and a touch of fear.
"who is the scary man and the prettydy with the animals?"
As they were still in shock and murmuring among themselves, Fayeth waited for the wave of disbelief, to subside. Then, she gestured towards Michael and Gaya.
"This," she said with a quiet reverence, "is the God of Darkness. And his wife, the Goddess of Monsters, Gaya."
The moment they heard Fayeth, the worshippers gasped, their eyes widening in shock. Some, ovee with awe and terror, dropped to their knees, their foreheads pressing against the ground.
"Holy shit, it''s¡ him, the actual Dark Lord?"
"The God of Darkness¡ here? In¡ in Ava''s Sanctuary?"
"What''s he doing here?" another one said, "He is going to kill us."
"He''s¡ he''s with the¡ Goddess of Monsters?"
"Are¡ are we going to be¡ sacrificed?"
Fayeth, seeing their fear, raised her hands, her voice calming, reassuring.
"Please," she said, her gaze sweeping over their faces.
"There''s no need to be afraid. The God of Darkness¡ he''s the one who defeated Agra. He saved you. He freed you. Show him and his wife the gratitude they deserve."
As the reality of Fayeth''s words sunk in, the worshippers'' fear began to¡ shift. They looked at Michael, at Gaya, at the beasts that surrounded them, a silent, watchful guard, and they remembered¡ Ava. They remembered their own¡ betrayal. How they''d turned on their goddess, used her, banished her from her own domain. And they remembered the consequences of their actions. The gue. The suffering. The¡ chaos. They''d learned their lesson, the hard way. They''d learned that in this world, in any world, you couldn''t survive without¡ protection. Without¡ faith.
And now standing before them were two gods. Two incredibly powerful beings who had freed them and cleansed theirnd.
The God of Darkness. And the Goddess of Monsters.
It was¡ overwhelming and awe-inspiring to be in the presence of such power and witness the raw, untamed energy that radiated from them. It was humbling to say the least, especially the sight of Gaya, nked by dragons and griffins as their eyes zed with fierce loyalty.
It had been so long since they had felt this sense of safety and hope.
And as they gazed upon their saviors, a new feeling, a flicker of devotion began to grow within them.
Almost immediately, Michael felt a warmth spreading through him, a subtle but steady influx of power.
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[Worship Energy acquired: 30 units.]
[Worship Energy acquired: 80 units.]
[Worship Energy acquired: 150 units.]
The notifications continued, one after the other, the numbers steadily increasing as Ava''s worshippers, their faith rekindled, their hope renewed, turned their devotion towards the God who had saved them. Within minutes, Michael''s Worship Energy reserves, which had been¡ depleted¡ after his recent¡ expenditures, had replenished, surging past 6,000 units. He still had a long way to go before he reached the System''s current cap of 10,000, but this was¡ a good start.
"You may rise," he said, his voice a low rumble that echoed through the clearing. He turned to Fayeth, his gaze meeting hers.
"Fayeth," he said, "bring other Ava''s worshippers¡ home. To the Verdant Sanctuary. And¡ summon the other angels. The ones who¡ remained loyal. Tell them¡ this domain is under my¡ protection now."
Gaya, who''d been watching the exchange with a thoughtful frown, stepped forward.
"What about the Pantheon?" she asked with a hint of concern in her eyes. "They''re not going to like this. You iming another god''s domain."
"The Pantheon has bigger problems right now, Goddess Gaya," Fayeth said, meeting Michael''s gaze.
"They''re at war with Andohr. He''s their enemy now. And you, God of Darkness, you''re his sworn enemy. Perhaps there''s room for negotiation. The enemy of my enemy and all that."
"We''ll see," Michael said, turning towards the assembled worshippers. "Now, if you''ll excuse us¡"
The worshippers, bowing their heads respectfully, retreated back towards the temple, eager to begin the process of reiming their sanctuary.
"Let''s get this mess cleaned up," one of them said, wrinkling his nose at the stench of decay that still lingered in the air.
"Those¡ things¡" another muttered, gesturing towards the remains of Agra''s followers with a shudder. "We need to¡ dispose of them. Properly."
"Gaya," Michael said, once the worshippers were out of earshot, "what''s the n?"
"First," he said, "we go back to Sagespire. I need to fix my armor. And upgrade yours. That stealth suit of yours won''t work now that you''re a goddess. It''ll be like trying to hide a goddamn lighthouse in a dark room."
He paused, his gaze turning thoughtful. "Then¡ we talk to Seshat. See if she can arrange a meeting. With the Pantheon."
"The Pantheon? Are you sure that''s a good idea? They''re not exactly going to be thrilled to see you, human. Not after you¡ you know¡ killed two of their own." Gaya raised an eyebrow.
"They''re not thrilled with Andohr, either," Michael countered.
"He''s dered war on them, Gaya. He''s their enemy now. And like Fayeth said¡ the enemy of my enemy¡" He grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes.
"We have no allies in the realm of the Gods, Gaya. Andohr''s little rebellion¡ it''s given us an opportunity. A chance to negotiate. From a position of strength. We can worry about taking out those sanctimonious bastardster. For now¡ we need allies. We can''t keep hiding in the shadows, relying on Seshat to clean up our messes."
Chapter 1400 : Meeting Rurik Again
"We can worry about taking out those sanctimonious bastardster. For now, we need allies. We can''t keep hiding in the shadows, relying on Seshat to clean up our messes," Michael said, his voice low and steady.
With a nod to Fayeth, they stepped back through the portal, leaving her to deal with the renovation of the Verdant Sanctuary. Read exclusive adventures at empire
They reappeared in a dark, narrow alleyway, the familiar smells of smoke, metal, and something vaguely unpleasant assaulting their nostrils. They were back in Sagespire, the cksmithing capital of the realm of the Gods.
The streets were a hive of activity, the ng of hammers against steel echoing through the air. Rows of smithies, their entrances open to the street, lined both sides of the alley, each one a miniature inferno of sparks and glowing metal. Dwarves with their faces grim and arms thick with muscle, hammered away at glowing ingots, shaping them into weapons and armor, their grunts and curses a rhythmic counterpoint to the ringing of the anvils.
Customers, a mix of elves, humans, and halflings, haggled over prices, their voices a mix of eager anticipation and frugal reluctance.
"Fifty gold pieces for that dagger? You''re out of your goddamn mind, dwarf! I''ll give you twenty. And a slightly used goblin''s ear."
"Twenty gold pieces and a goblin''s ear? You insult me, elf! This is masterwork steel, forged in the fires of Mount Cinder! Forty gold pieces, and I''ll throw in a free sharpening."
Michael and Gaya, their attire a familiar sight in this rough-and-tumble district, passed through the crowds unnoticed. At the end of the street, a tall, imposing building, crafted from polished obsidian, loomed over the surrounding smithies.
The cksmith Guild.
Thest time Michael had been here it hadn''t been pleasant. Rin, that bloodthirsty little psychopath, and her merry band of Xyloth worshippers, had redecorated the ce. They''d ughtered every cksmith in the guild, leaving a trail of bodies and a lingering stench of blood and fire. Thanks to Michael, Rurik was the only master cksmith who survived the massacre.
But now, judging by the steady stream of customers flowing in and out of the Guild''s doors it seemed Rurik had rebuilt.
Michael grinned, a hint of anticipation in his eyes. He''d always enjoyed coborating with Rurik. The dwarf was a master craftsman, his skill with metal unmatched in the the realm of Gods for that matter. If anyone could fix his dented armor, and upgrade Gaya''s stealth suit to her godly specifications was Rurik.
And besides, Michael thought with a chuckle, it was always fun to watch Rurik squirm. The dwarf, despite his gruff exterior, his boasts of dwarven resilience and what not, was always intimidated by gods. And Gaya well, Gaya was a whole new level of intimidating.
At that moment, Michael was d in his usual ck ensemble ¨C long coat, turtleneck, trousers, and boots, with his twin swords crossed on his back ¨C and Gaya, wearing a simr outfit, but with a more feminine cut, and the God yer crossbow slung casually over her shoulder, strolled down the street with their gazes sweeping over the disys of weapons and armor.
"That''s one hell of a crossbow," one of the dwarves whispered, his eyes wide as Gaya walked past.
"Damn, that''s a fine piece of work, " another dwarf muttered, his gaze lingering on the intricate carvings on the weapon''s stock. "Who''s the luckydy carrying it?"
"Looks like trouble, " a third dwarf grunted, shaking his head.
As they neared the entrance to the cksmith Guild, a small, shadowy figure darted out from an alleyway, his movements quick, furtive. He bumped into Michael, his hand reaching for something in Michael''s pocket.
"Not so fast, buddy," Michael chuckled, grabbing the halfling''s wrist in a vice-like grip.
"Fuck off, you little shit," Gaya growled, twisting the halfling''s ear as her crimson eyes narrowed dangerously. "Trying to pickpocket us? You''ve got balls, I''ll give you that. But they''re about to be souvenirs."
The halfling, his face pale, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and indignation, yelped, rubbing his ear.
"Easy there,dy!" he protested. "A guy''s just trying to make a living." He wrenched his hand free and darted back into the crowd, disappearing into the throng of shoppers and haggling dwarves.
"Even Seshat, with all her wisdom, can''t rehabilitate these little bastards," Michael chuckled, shaking his head.
They continued down the street, the sounds of hammering and haggling growing louder with each step, until they finally reached their destination - the imposing obsidian structure of the cksmith Guild. Two tall, stern-faced elven guards, d in gleaming silver armor, stood sentinel at the entrance, their gazes sweeping over the crowd, ever watchful.
Michael and Gaya joined the queue, blending in with the other customers, their presence¡ unremarkable. The mortals around them had no idea they were standing beside¡ gods.
Michael''s medallion,bined with Don''s blood, effectively masked his divine aura. And Gaya¡ well, Gaya''s godhood was a bit more¡ obvious. So Michael had¡ persuaded the System to¡ tone it down a bit. It had cost him a whopping 200 million Badass Points, but it was worth it. He didn''t want to cause a scene, didn''t want every mortal in Sagespire bowing and scraping before them. They''d never get anything done.
Besides, most gods didn''t exactly travel incognito. They arrived with an entourage of armored angels, their clothes shimmering with celestial energy, their presence announced with fireworks and fanfare. But Michael and Gaya? They preferred a more low-key approach.
They entered the Guild, the cool air of the spacious hall a wee change from the heat of the forges outside. ss cases, disying a variety of weapons and armor, lined the walls, their surfaces gleaming under the bright light of the torches that flickered along the walls. Elven women, their movements graceful and efficient, strolled through the hall, attending to customers, answering questions, and asionally¡ flirting with the more¡ attractive¡ patrons.
Michael and Gaya approached a marble counter, its surface polished to a mirror sheen, where a young elven woman, her hair pulled back into a tight bun, her eyes sharp and intelligent, sat, a stack of parchments and a quill pen in her hand.
"We''d like to see Rurik," Michael said casually, meeting the receptionist''s gaze
The elf looked up, surprised. Master Rurik was the most renowned cksmith in the realm, his skills legendary, his creations coveted by gods and mortals alike. She studied Michael''s face, his ruggedly handsome features, the easy confidence in his eyes, and then nced at the woman beside him. There was something¡ unsettling about them. Something different.
"Do you have an appointment?" she asked, hesitating.
"Tell him John is here to see him," Michael said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "He''lle."
John was the name he decided to use in the realm of the Gods because the name "Ghost", though badass, was bing a bit too recognizable. He didn''t need the extra attention, the whispers, the reputation that followed him like a shadow. Besides, "Ghost" wasn''t exactly subtle. And subtlety, in the realm of the Gods, was a valuablemodity.
Recognizing the implications of refusing a request from someone who knew Master Rurik personally, the receptionist wisely decided to cooperate.
"Please, wait here," she said, her voice a hushed whisper, and hurried towards a spiral staircase that led to the upper levels of the Guild, where Master Rurik maintained his workshop, his office, and his personal stash of dwarven ale.
Meanwhile, Rurik was in his office. Which was, as Michael remembered from hisst visit, a chaotic mess. Parchments, covered in sketches and diagrams, were scattered across the floor, alongside tools, half-finished weapons, and empty ale mugs. A small anvil, its surface ckened and dented from countless hammer blows, sat in one corner, beside a half-empty barrel of ale.
At the center of the room, a massive mahogany table, its surface scarred and stained, dominated the space. And behind that table, perched on a stool that looked¡ dangerously close¡ to copsing under his weight, sat Rurik.
He was muttering to himself, his thick, bushy beard practically vibrating with frustration.
"Damn it, where the hell am I supposed to get y? Nimbosia''s dried up. The caravans aren''ting. And these idiots keep breaking their molds."
He''d never thought y would be a problem. It was dirt, basically. You dug it up, mixed it with water, and vo! y. But Rainar''s death had changed things. No rain meant no good y. The stuff from Nimbosia, Rainar''s domain, had been special, fine-grained, malleable, able to withstand the intense heat of the forge without cracking. It was perfect for creating molds, casting intricate designs and pretty much everything a cksmith needed y for.
And without good y,, the molds broke, the weapons warped and customers got pissed.
He drained another mug of ale, letting out a satisfied sigh as the potent brew warmed his belly.
"Master Rurik, there''s¡ someone here to see you, Master Rurik." The elven receptionist said, gently knocking on the door.
"What is it now? Unless you''re here to tell me the rain''s back and I can get my hands on some decent fucking y, I don''t want to hear it!" he grumbled, rummaging through a pile of parchments, searching for something.
"I don''t have time for visitors. Tell them toe back when I''m less busy."
"He said his name is John. And that you''ll want to see him." The elven receptionist''s voice, muffled by the thick wooden door, replied hesitantly.
The name John made Rurik choke on his ale, the liquid spraying across the table, soaking the parchments. He nearly fell off his stool, his face turning a rather rming shade of purple.
John.
The God of Darkness., the one who''d saved his ass from Rin and her bloody massacre that nearly destroyed the guild and the one who''d treated him with respect and friendship, unlike those other arrogant bastards who looked down on mortals as if they were insects. Well, except for Seshat as she was different.
If the God of Darkness was here, it had to be important.
"Give me a minute," he sputtered, wiping the ale from his beard, his mind racing. "Tell him I''ming."
He scrambled to his feet, righting his overturned stool, trying to impose some semnce of order on his chaotic workspace. He smoothed down his beard, adjusted his leather apron, and took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves.
He had a feeling¡ a good feeling¡ that this visit could be beneficial. He might even get a chance to impress the God of Darkness again like he had with that God yer crossbow.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Chapter 1401 Gayas Stealth Suit Is About To Get An Upgrade
Rurik hurried down the stairs, his mind racing, eager to see John and repay the debt he owed.
The other customers, seeing the Master cksmith himself emerge from his office, tried to approach him, their voices a mor of requests and demands. But the guards, loyal to the Guild and even more loyal to coins, held them back. Even the nobles of Sagespire who were used to getting their way, having doors opened for them, and being treated with reverence were forced to wait their turn. After all, a weapon forged by Rurik, by the Guildmaster himself could elevate a family''s status, increase their power, and secure their position in the hierarchy of the city.
"Master Rurik! A word, if you please!"
"I have amission for you, Master Dwarf! A sword! Fit for a king!"
"Master Rurik, my lord requires a new set of armor! And he''s willing to pay handsomely!"
But Rurik ignored them all as his gaze fixed on the two figures standing near the counter, the young man Joh and the woman beside him. The moment he saw her, he sensed something about her. She didn''t radiate any godly aura. But, the intensity in her eyes and a quiet power made the hairs on his neck stand on end.
"John," He approached them, forcing a casual smile onto his face, and greeted Michael with a respectful.
"Master Rurik," Michael nodded, his gaze meeting Rurik''s. "Perhaps¡ we could talk¡ in private?"
"Of course, of course," Rurik stammered, gesturing towards the staircase. "Right this way."
As they followed him, the other customers, their curiosity piqued, exchanged whispers.
"Who are those two?" a noble asked, his voiceced with a hint of suspicion.
"They look important, those two," a merchant murmured, his gaze lingering on Gaya''s form. "And that woman, she''s stunning. "
"Never seen them before," another noble remarked, shrugging. "But that young man seems familiar somehow."
One particrly bold noble even approached the receptionist, who''d just returned to her post with her brow furrowed in thought.
"Who are those two?" he demanded, his voice a haughty drawl. "And why did Master Rurik ignore me? I''ve been waiting for hours!"
The receptionist, her eyes wide, simply shrugged.
"I¡ I don''t know, my lord," she stammered. "They just asked to see him. And he just went with them."
Once inside Rurik''s office, the door closed and locked, the dwarf let out a heavy sigh of relief.
"Your¡ your grace, your majesty¡ your¡" he stammered, his gaze darting between Michael and Gaya as his mind struggled to find the appropriate title for a god.
"We''ve been over this, Rurik, I told you John is fine. No need for big words, I told you before, words don''t impress me," Michael chuckled.
"Right¡ John," Rurik mumbled, still slightly unnerved. Thus, he poured himself a mug of ale, his hands trembling slightly, and took a long swig, hoping the alcohol would calm his nerves. He had never been this damn close to not one, but two gods at the same time. He nced at Gaya, who was watching him with an amused smirk on her lips.
"Rurik," Michael said, his voice taking on a more serious tone, "meet Gaya. The Goddess of Monsters."
The words made Rurik choke almost immediately. He sprayed ale across the table, coughing and spluttering, his eyes wide with shock. The Goddess of fucking Monsters? Here? In his office? He heard whispers and legends about Gaya about how she was one of the most powerful and most feared, goddesses in the realm. And at that moment, he was there standing before her.
"Real ssy, shorty," Gaya said, rolling her eyes.
"Rx, Rurik, she doesn''t bite," Michael chuckled. "We''re here for your¡ help."
Still reeling from the revtion, Rurik managed to wipe the spilled ale from his beard and the table with a shaky hand.
"My¡ help?" he stammered, his gaze fixed on Michael. "What¡ what can I do for you, John?"
"My armor, it needs fixing. And hers needs some upgrades,"
After hearing Michael, Rurik just stared at them with his mind struggling to process the information. Two gods in his office asking for his help? It was an honor, a privilege, and a testament to his skill and craftsmanship. He was just a mortal, for God''s sake, he could not believe two gods were there for him and asking for his help. It suddenly made him feel better and forget about the stupid y supply. Even the gods, it seemed, needed a good cksmith.
"Let me see what I''m¡ working with," Rurik said, puffing out his chest, a hint of professional pride creeping into his voice. He couldn''t help the slight, almost arrogant, smile that tugged at the corners of his lips.
"Show me the¡ armors," he said, gesturing towards the center of the room, where arge anvil, its surface ckened and scarred from countless hammer blows, stood waiting. Your next journey awaits at empire
With a casual shrug, Michael removed the skull medallion from his chest, cing it on a nearby armor stand. With a soft whirring sound, the armor retracted, folding in on itself and stood menacingly on the armor stand.
"Wow," Rurik''s eyes widened as he took in the workmanship. It was a magnificent piece of craftsmanship, fit for a god.
The ck metal, etched with crimson runes that pulsed with a faint, inner light, the intricate carvings and the menacing skull emblem was enough to make a lesser being piss themselves. But even more impressive were the dents, the scratches and the cracks that marred its once-pristine surface.
"What in the hell?" he murmured, his fingers tracing the lines of a particrly deep gouge in the metal. What kind of force could have done that to a god''s armor? And what kind of metal was this, anyway? Could those be ancient centipede scales, incorporated into the design? It was unlike anything he''d ever seen before and so many questions rang inside his head.
He approached the armor, running his fingers over the dented chest te, tracing the jagged cracks with a mix of awe and¡ professional curiosity.
"What¡ what happened to it?" he asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.
"Don''t freak out, Rurik," Michael sighed.
"You just told me she''s the Goddess of freakin'' Monsters, and asked me to make you a crossbow that could kill a god. I don''t think anything you say can ''freak me out'' anymore, John," Rurik snorted.
Hearing Rurik, Michael chuckled as he couldn''t wait to freak out Rurik once again.
"Agra happened, Rurik. Before I sent that crazy bastard to hell, he did his best to make my armor his scratching post, so now it looks like this,"
The words hit Rurik like a physical blow. He stared at Michael as his mind struggled to process what he had just heard.
"Agra?" he stammered.
"The God of Chaos? You¡ you killed Agra?"
His ale mug slipped from his grasp and ttered to the floor.
"We drowned the bastard," Gaya chimed in, grinning. "And then we took care of his little fan club. I personally burned those bastards to ashes, slow and painful, just like roasting bad fucking turkeys,." She relished the look of disgust and fear that flickered across Rurik''s face as she described the festivities.
"You''re a sick puppy, Gaya," Michael chuckled, shaking his head.
But Rurik wasn''tughing. He was still trying to process the fact that gods could be¡ killed. He hadn''t evene to terms with Rainar''s death yet and now Michael just dropped another bomb on him. Another god? Gone? And Agra, no less? The self-proimed God of Chaos, a being whose reputation preceded him like a bad smell.
"I need a drink or two or a damn fucking barrell," he muttered, pouring himself another mug of ale, his hand shaking so badly that he almost spilled it. He downed the ale in one gulp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"So let me get this straight," he said, setting the mug down with a heavy thud. "You fought Agra. And won? And killed him?"
"Not fought, exactly," Gaya said with a smirk. "More like he beat the ever-loving shit out of Agra. Then we drowned him in a pond,"
"Right¡" Rurik said slowly, still trying to process the information. Then he sighed, shaking his head.
"Well, I can''t say I''m heartbroken. I''d heard things. About Agra and his followers. Even Seshat''s domain isn''t immune to their influence. It''s good riddance if you ask me." He looked at Michael, a newfound respect dawning in his eyes. And it made him proud, somehow, to be associated with a god-killer. It proved those smug bastards weren''t invincible and they could bleed and die.
"I can¡ fix your armor, John," he said, turning back to Michael. "Maybe even make a few improvements. But what about hers? You said upgrades?"
Michael nodded, gesturing towards Gaya.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Show him your stealth suit, darling."
Gaya closed her eyes, focusing her will, and her stealth armor, a sleek, form-fitting suit of silver metal, materialized on the armor stand beside Michael''s. It wasn''t as imposing as Michael''s Dark Armor. Instead, it was almost delicate and its surface was etched with countless tiny runes, shimmered with a faint, ethereal light.
Rurik approached the armor, his gaze sweeping over its intricate design, his brow furrowed in thought.
"Nice craftsmanship," he murmured, his fingers tracing the outline of one of the runes. "Let me guess, this turns you invisible?"
"Hmm," Michael nodded.
"It was made for a mortal. But Gaya, she''s a goddess now. And well, let''s just say her godly glow kinda shes with the invisibility thing. We need you to adjust it and make itpatible,"
Rurik rubbed his beard thoughtfully, his gaze fixed on the armor.
"The energy flow of mortals and gods, it''s different, John. Customizing this to suit a goddess will be a challenge. But¡" he grinned, a spark of excitement in his eyes.
"I''m up for it. Give me three days. I''ll turn this into a masterpiece. Fit for a goddess,"
Chapter 1402 Alliance with the Pantheon
"So," Gaya said, her gaze sweeping over the crowds, "what now? Shopping spree? A pub crawl? Or maybe a little demonstration of our newfound power?" She grinned, cracking her knuckles, but Michael shook his head.
"We need to talk to Seshat," he said, his voice taking on a more serious tone.
They made their way through the throngs of shoppers and merchants, their path leading them toward a quieter, less¡ fragrant¡ part of the city.
"That''s a nice axe, dwarf! How much?"
"One hundred gold pieces. And not a copper less. This de''s been kissed by the mes of Mount Cinder, elf! It''ll cleave through a dragon''s hide like butter."
"One hundred gold pieces? Are you out of your goddamn mind?! I''ll give you fifty. And a bottle of my finest dwarven ale."
"Seventy-five. And the ale. And you throw in that pretty little dagger on your belt."
They turned down a narrow alleyway, its entrance hidden behind a stack of discarded barrels, and Michael stopped, looking up at the sky.
"Seshat," he called out. "We need to talk."
He knew she could hear him. She was the Goddess of Wisdom, after all. And in her domain¡ well, nothing went¡ unnoticed.
A faint breeze rustled through the alley, the air shimmering, distorting¡ and then they were¡ elsewhere. The transition was so smooth, so¡ seamless, that even Michael, used to the jarring effects of teleportation, felt a momentary¡ disorientation. Then, they stood in Seshat''s garden, the familiar waterfall cascading down the moss-covered cliff, the pond shimmering under the soft light of the twin moons, the maple trees swaying gently in the breeze. Seshat, her silver hair flowing like liquid moonlight, was scattering seeds to a flock of pigeons, her serene smile as¡ infuriatingly calm¡ as ever.
As always, Seshat was feeding the pigeons, her silver hair shimmering in the sunlight while her expression was serene and peaceful.
"Wee back," she said, her lips curving into that same serene smile that always seemed to irritate Gaya.
But when Gaya saw the pigeons and how they looked happy made her smile and for once she did not roll her eyes at seshat''s annoying smile. It was nice to see those flying rats happy. Even though she called herself Goddess of Monsters, all creatures, big and small, fell under her domain. And those pigeons, strutting around, their feathers gleaming, their little bird-brains filled with joy made Gaya feel a little less murderous.
"Seshat," Michael said, his voice taking on a more serious tone, "I think it''s time¡ we talked to the Pantheon. About an alliance."
"I was wondering when you woulde to that conclusion. It is wise, to seek allies. Especially in times of war," she said, gesturing towards a pair of stone benches beside the pond.
"Shall we¡ sit?"
Even Michael was a bit taken aback by her casualness. He''d been expecting a bit more drama. But this was Seshat, The Goddess of Wisdom. She was always five steps ahead of everyone else, ying 3D chess while the rest of them were still fumbling with checkers. Even he, with his System, Badass Points, unique perspective, he didn''t think he could truly outsmart the Goddess of Wisdom.
"So you''ll be our liaison?" Gaya asked, raising an eyebrow. "You''ll set up a meeting?"n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Yes," Seshat said simply.
"That''s it?" Gaya''s brow furrowed in disbelief. "You just agree? No conditions? No catches?"
Though rtively new to the realm of the Gods, Gaya had learned quickly that it was a different kind of world. The Gods weren''t the benevolent, all-knowing beings that mortals believed them to be. They wereplicated, egotistical and selfish. They made the most spoiled, entitled young masters and mistresses in the mortal realm look like toddlers, throwing tantrums over spilled milk. And unlike those spoiled brats, the Gods had the power to back up their arrogance, their whims, their godplexes. It was a dangerousbination, one that had made Gaya wary and distrustful.
But Seshat was different. She was still cryptic as hell, still spoke in riddles and vague pronouncements. Yet there was an honesty to her andck of malice that Gaya found reassuring. She wasn''t maniptive, like her sister, Seraphene. She didn''t y games. Instead, she was what a god should be. Wise. Calm. And genuinely helpful.
"So, on a scale of one to ten¡ one being ''we''re totally screwed'' and ten being ''it''s a done deal'', what are the chances of me talking to the Pantheon without getting ambushed? You know, considering I kinda killed Rainar?" Michael asked, turning to Seshat.
"I''d say minus ten. They''ll probably roast our asses for offing their colleague starting a dangerous trend, and showing those smug bastards they can be killed." Gaya chuckled, her eyes gleaming with amusement.
Seshat, however, simply smiled.
"I''d say ten."
"Ten?" Michael echoed, surprised. He''d been expecting another one of Seshat''s cryptic pronouncements or a vague, nomittal seven, maybe. But ten? If Seshat believed his chances were that good¡ well, it was practically a done deal.
But Gaya, ever the skeptic, frowned.
"You seem confident, Seshat," she said, her gaze narrowing. "Why ten?"
"The Pantheon is weakened, Gaya," Seshat exined, her voice soft but firm.
"Andohr''s rebellion has divided them. Many gods have defected to his side. Seraphene, with her informationwork has leverage and dirt on practically everyone. In simple terms, the Pantheon is losing ground,"
"So? What''s that got to do with us?" Gaya asked, her brow furrowing.
"Gods are abandoning Zorian, siding with Andohr, hoping to benefit from the chaos. And the Pantheon for all its faults is a necessary force, Gaya. It maintains bnce and keeps the realm from falling apart. Without oversight and rules, the gods will turn on each other. Fight for worshippers, for power¡ it will be¡ a bloodbath. They already do, of course, but imagine, Gaya, if there was no one to stop them."
"And what about Andohr?" she asked with suspicion. "Does he promise peace and harmony? A new world order? A realm of fucking love and light?"
Seshat shook her head, her smile fading.
"Andohr cannot win, Gaya. Not truly. His goal is not peace. It is power and absolute power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. He will discard his allies when they are no longer useful. He will take what he wants through force or maniption. He will rule through fear."
"I kinda like it," Gaya said with a shrug.
"Like my hubby said, Andohr''s created¡ an opportunity for us. A chance to¡ climb thatdder. With you and your¡ serene smile and¡ cryptic pronouncements, I think we can seal the deal. But there''s still the Rainar problem, isn''t there? Even if the Pantheon''s willing to overlook killing Agra since he was a fucking menace. They''re not going to forget about Rainar. He was one of them. A God of the Pantheon. Killing him was a whole different level of fuckery."
"All is fair in love and war, Gaya. And this, my dear¡ this is war," Michael chuckled, shaking his head.
"If the Pantheon is desperate and they are desperate, Gaya. Believe me, they''ll see the opportunity. They want a god-killer on their side. Someone who can take down Andohr. And that someone happens to be me," He grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes.
"Well, I can use that to my advantage. Buy myself some breathing room and a chance to n my next move."
Seshat, who''d been listening to their conversation with quiet amusement, scattered another handful of seeds to the pigeons, her movements graceful, unhurried.
"I will speak with Zorian tomorrow. I will arrange a meeting between you and the Pantheon." She paused, her gaze meeting Michael''s, a flicker of something akin to warning in her eyes.
"But be careful, God of Darkness. Gods are unpredictable. This alliance may benefit you but it will also expose you to new dangers and new maniptions. Do not trust thempletely."
Hearing Seshat, Gaya raised an eyebrow as a slow smile spread across her lips.
"Damn, Seshat, you''re surprisingly forting, I kinda like you, I mean besides your fucking cryptic annoying words and riddles. You''re not so bad, for a goody-two-shoes goddess. You''re honest and I respect that."
"Alright, Seshat. I owe you one or several." Michael said with a genuine smile spreading across his face.
"The armors are being enhanced, as we speak," he continued. "After this¡ meeting with the Pantheon, we''ll head to Larnia to retrieve the agni king. And then¡ well, then it''s Rin''s turn."
But as Michael was preparing to leave, Gaya stopped him.
"Seshat," she said, her brow furrowed. "Why¡ why are you helping us? I mean you''re risking a lot. Siding with god-killers. The Pantheon''s not going to appreciate that, are they?"
As if anticipating the question, Seshat simply smiled.
"Sometimes the darkness must triumph to reveal the true value of light. Just as the night deepens our appreciation for the warmth and beauty of the day."
After hearing her, Gaya rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up in exasperation.
"Forget I asked," she muttered. "It''s a miracle someone hasn''t put an arrow in your ass for being so cryptic all the damn time."
She turned to Michael, grabbing his arm, tugging him towards the edge of the garden.
"Come on, human," she said, her voice a low growl. "Let''s bolt before she melts our brains with her wisdom."
Chapter 1403 Upcoming Meeting Between Gods
Meanwhile, Seshat was on her way to the Pantheon Pce. It was a magnificent structure, a testament to the gods'' power and ego. The pce itself, crafted from white marble and shimmering crystal, was situated on a hilltop overlooking a valley of unnatural beauty. A waterfall, its waters a rainbow of colors, cascaded down a cliff face, feeding a crystal-clear river that wound its way through lush gardens filled with exotic flowers and glowing trees.
She reached the pce gates, a pair of massive, white doors that towered over her, their surfaces etched with intricate carvings depicting scenes of gods. At the door, two figures, tall and imposing, d in gleaming golden armor, stood guard. They were not just run-of-the-mill guards or angels but they were called the Sentinels. These sentinels were not human or elves or mortals but beings of immense power, forged from the graces of gods. Their sole purpose was to protect the Pantheon and they were the equivalent of Level One gods in power.
Seeing Seshat, the sentinals opened the doors as their gazes fixed on Seshat with an unnerving intensity.
Inside, the throne room was a vast, circr chamber, its high ceiling adorned with a mural depicting the history of the Pantheon and how they heroically united all the domain in the realm of the gods and brought order from chaos with their asses as a beacon of purity. It was all propaganda but everyone in the realm of the gods believed.
Zorian, the God of Sun, sat at a massive, round table, its surface polished to a mirror sheen. He looked tired and older. His usually bright, golden aura seemed dimmed, his eyes weary, his long white hair and beard longer than Seshat remembered. Seshat knew that war would take toll on everyone, even on the gods.
When he saw Seshat, he smiled, a small, weary smile.
"Seshat," he greeted, his voice warm, butced with a hint of strain. "Thank you foring."
She took a seat opposite him, the smooth, cool surface of the table a wee contrast to the heat that seemed to radiate from Zorian''s presence since he was the God of the Sun.
"I know you have chosen to remain neutral in this conflict, Seshat," Zorian began, his gaze meeting hers. "But I would ask you to reconsider. We need your wisdom. Your guidance."
He sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly.
"Seraphene¡ she''s using unconventional tactics, Seshat. ckmail. Threats. She''s turning the Gods against us."
After hearing Zorian, Seshat just sighed as she wasn''t surprised, not even a bit. Seraphene had always been ruthless and with her ess to¡ well, to everything¡ she had the power to destroy reputations, topple empires, and break even the most powerful of gods.
Gods weren''t immune to ckmail. Not really. They might be powerful, and immortal but still relied on their image, worshippers'' faith in them, and worship energy. And if their dirtyundry was aired, their secrets revealed, their followers might start to question their divinity and began to worship others instead. And that was a fate worse than death for most gods. It meant a loss of power, a loss of influence, and it would create opportunities for other gods. Gods who were eager to capitalize on the chaos, to absorb the disenfranchised worshippers. It had happened before, and it would undoubtedly happen again.
"Who¡ is it this time, Zorian?" Seshat asked, her voice calm, steady.
Zorian took a deep breath, his face hardening.
"Luxor," he said, the name leaving his lips like a curse. "The God of Wealth. Apparently he impregnated one of his angels. And then he disposed of them both. The angel and the child."
He couldn''t hide the disgust in his voice. And even Seshat, despite her usualposure, frowned, her serene smile faltering. The life of a child was precious and sacred. To destroy was unthinkable and a disgusting act of sin.
Gods weren''t supposed to fraternize with their angels, or with mortals. It was a rule and aw of the Pantheon, designed to maintain bnce and prevent the contamination of the divine bloodline. The offspring of a god and a mortal were unpredictable and dangerous. They could disrupt the delicate equilibrium of the realm of the Gods.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Luxor, however, had broken that rule. And then, to cover up his indiscretion, he''dmitted an even greater sin. He had killed the angel, killed the child and hidden his crime. But Seraphene had seen everything and recorded it all with her little spying crystals. And now¡ she was using that information to control Luxor and force him to join Andohr''s rebellion. Due to the pressure and the fear of losing his domain, The God of Wealth defected to Andohr''s side
Seshat watched Zorian, her gaze thoughtful. She could tell Andohr was gaining momentum. He and Seraphene were ying dirty, using every trick in the book ¨C ckmail, bribery, promises of power, and with Luxor on their side, they now had ess to unlimited funds. They could buy practically anyone and anything.
"If Andohr fought a conventional war," Zorian said, his voice heavy with weary resignation, "we could crush him. But he''s not fighting with armies, weapons, or spells, Seshat. He''s fighting in the shadows. His battlefield is deceit,"
"Shadows, you say?" Seshat smiled, a knowing glint in her eyes. "Then you need someone whomands the shadows, Zorian. To fight him."
Zorian frowned, his brow furrowing as he tried to decipher her cryptic words.
"Exin yourself, Seshat," he said, his voice tinged with impatience.
"You need an ally, Zorian," Seshat said, her serene smile returning. "And I know someone who can turn the tide. "
"Who?" Zorian asked, his gaze fixed on her face.
Seshat paused, letting the silence hang in the air for a moment, before speaking a single name.
"The God of Darkness."
The moment he heard the name, Zorian''s eyes went wide, his jaw ck as his mind struggled to process what he had just heard. The God of Darkness? The one who''d killed not one but two gods?
"Everything is fair in war, Zorian, " Seshat said calmly.
"You said it yourself, Andohr does not y clean, you yourself said that. He''s using every trick in the book. ckmail, lies and deception. So, If you want to win this war, you need to fight fire with fire." She paused, her gaze meeting his.
"And who better to defeat Andohr than the God who imprisoned him for five thousand years?"
Seshat''s words though cryptic made a twisted kind of sense to Zorian. He needed powerful allies and allies who would fight dirty, and the Dark Lord was someone who could match Andohr blow for blow. Besides, he needed someone who wasn''t afraid to get their hands dirty. Someone who understood the darker side of reality. Someone like Rudra and Valoruis might be powerful, sure. But they had morals and their "righteousness" was not much use against cunning and evil like Andohr or even Seraphene. But the God of Darkness? He was a different beast altogether.
"I can arrange a meeting, Zorian," Seshat offered, seeing the conflict in his eyes.
"Between you and the God of Darkness. You don''t have to officially invite him into the Pantheon. Just hear him out ande to an agreement in the shadows. He gets¡what he wants, freedom to operate without interference. And you get a powerful ally. A secret weapon. It could be mutually beneficial. You can think of it as a symbiotic rtionship. "
It was exactly what the Pantheon needed. A way to fight fire with fire, without tarnishing their own pristine image.
After thinking about it for a brief moment, and weighing the potential benefits and the risks, Zorian finally made a decision.
"Very well, Seshat," he said, his voice firm. "I trust your judgment. Arrange a meeting. It''s time the God of Darkness and I had a conversation."
"Excellent," Seshat smiled, her eyes gleaming with a knowing light. "Perhaps you coulde to my domain, Zorian? It would ensure a certain neutrality. "
Zorian considered her proposal. Seshat''s domain, Sagespire, with its strictws, and its pacifist atmosphere was a safe choice. No chance of unpleasant surprises. No risk of ambushes. And more importantly, if Seshat was arranging the meeting, it would be discreet. Seraphene, for all her spies, for all her information gathering wouldn''t see thising. After all, if anyone could outsmart the Goddess of Information, it was her sister, the Goddess of Wisdom.
"So be it," Zorian said, a hint of a smile touching his lips.
"I will attend this meeting. Andohr has made his bed. He''s chosen to fight in the shadows. With¡ unconventional tactics. It''s time we returned the favor,"
Pleased with the oue of the meeting, Seshat rose gracefully from her seat, her gaze lingering on Zorian''s face for a moment.
"The God of Darkness¡ he is not like the others, Zorian," she said, her voice soft, but firm. "He does not y by the usual rules. But he is a man of his word. Do him a favor, and he will stand by you. Even against the whole world."
Zorian sighed, rubbing his temples wearily. "I understand, Seshat. But¡ it still worries me, making a deal with a¡ god-killer. He''s¡ unpredictable. Dangerous."
To his surprise, Seshat chuckled, a genuine, unguarded sound.
"You see him as a killer, Zorian. But I see him as necessary, as a force of bnce." She paused, her gaze turning thoughtful.
"A garden if left untended bes overgrown. The weeds choke the flowers, the vines strangle the trees. There must be pruning, Zorian. Weeding. A cleansing. The God of Darkness is that cleansing force. Perhaps, it is time for the Pantheon to return to its roots. And he may y a significant role in that rebirth,"
With that, Seshat walked out of the hall, leaving Zorian to ponder about the uing meeting with the God of Darkness.
Chapter 1404 Next Stop, Larnia
The next day, Michael and Gaya found themselves back in Seshat''s garden. This time, a round, marble table had been set up near the waterfall,den with a steaming pot of tea and delicate porcin cups.
Michael and Gaya sat, waiting. Gaya, never one for patience, poured herself a cup, then one for Michael. She took a sip, her eyes widening in surprise.
"Not bad," she murmured, taking another sip. "You know, Seshat, if this whole Goddess of Wisdom gig doesn''t work out you could always open a tea shop."
Seshat simply smiled, a serene, enigmatic expression that made Gaya want to throw something at her.
"And where is Zorian?" Michael asked, breaking the silence.
"He wille," Seshat replied calmly.
And as if on cue, a brilliant orb of light, brighter than the sun itself, appeared in the garden. A figure stepped out of the light, his form solidifying, his features godlike.
It was Zorian.
He looked like a god, every inch the part. Tall, powerfully built, with long, flowing white hair and a beard that reached his chest. He looked like those Greek god statues Michael had seen in museums back on Earth. He was like Zeus but with a tan.
He stood there for a moment, his gaze sweeping over Michael and Gaya, a flicker of something in his eyes. It had been a long time. Five thousand years, to be exact. Thest time he''d seen them they''d been different. The previous Dark Lord and the previous Goddess of Monsters.
Finally, he approached the table and took a seat opposite them as his gaze was fixed on Michael.
"Shall we begin?" Seshat asked, pouring a cup of tea for Zorian.
Michael and Zorian nodded.
"So," Zorian began, his voice a low, resonant rumble that seemed to vibrate the very air around them. "I hear you killed Agra. Drowned him in the Pond of Tranquility. Poetic justice, wouldn''t you say?"
Michael chuckled. "You could say that."
"More like fucked up justice," Gaya added, her lips curling into a smirk. "But justice nheless."
Zorian didn''t press the issue. He wasn''t here to rehash the past. He was here to forge an alliance. A fragile, uneasy alliance, but an alliance nheless.
Sensing the shift in the conversation, Seshat interjected, her voice smooth, calming.
"Perhaps," she said, her gaze sweeping over the three of them, "we should focus on the matter at hand. Shall we?"
Both Michael and Gaya nodded in agreement. Despite her aversion to authority and rules, Gaya understood the necessity of this alliance. She didn''t like the idea of making a deal with the holier-than-thou pricks of the Pantheon, but their survival, their ability to operate freely, depended on it. Michael had exined it to her, patiently, logically. They couldn''t grow stronger, couldn''t amass power, if they were constantly looking over their shoulders, dodging Raphael and Pantheon enforcers. This alliance, this truce would buy them breathing room. And besides, it wasn''t like they were going to be best friends with the Pantheon. This was a strategic alliance, a temporary truce was a way to level the ying field. And maybe, just maybe, they could use this arrangement to get their hands on some goodies like resources, information and other things they needed.
"So," Zorian began, his gaze fixed on Michael. "Why did you agree to this meeting? I have a feeling you two don''t particrly enjoy answering to anyone."
Michael nodded, a slow, deliberate movement.
"It''s true," he said, his voice a low rumble. "We like our freedom. But desperate times, Zorian. Desperate measures. We like our freedom but it''s not freedom if we''re constantly looking over our shoulders. For Raphael and his dogs."
When he heard Raphael''s name, Zorian smiled. It had been his order, after all, that had sent Raphael after the God of Darkness. He had to admit, he''d underestimated Michael. He''d expected the capture to be swift and decisive. But he also understood the God of Darkness''s annoyance. Raphael was persistent and a bloodhound. Once he caught your scent, he wouldn''t rest until he''d apprehended his target.
"So," Zorian said, leaning forward.. "You expect the Pantheon to call off the dogs in exchange for your help?"
Michael grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes.
"You haven''t said what you need help with, Zorian," he pointed out. "We both know you have an Andohr problem. But how big of a problem is he? Really?"
But before Zorian could answer, Seshat interjected.
"Andohr is yourmon enemy. He is not someone who can be easily dealt with."
"Oh, I agree," Michael said, his smile widening. "He''s a slippery bastard. Like a bad penny. Always turning up when you least expect it. And always surviving,"
"He''s like a fucking cockroach," Gaya added, snorting in derision.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
Seshat smiled, unfazed by Gaya''s colorfulnguage.
"Then you understand. You need each other. Use this animosity towards Andohr asmon ground."
Seeing the logic and the wisdom in her words, Michael nodded and turned to Zorian.
"Let''s put our differences aside, Zorian. For now. Focus on Andohr. He''s only as strong as his allies. We can''t take him down. Not yet. He''s the fucking God of Time and Space, after all. But we can weaken him. I help you eliminate his allies and in exchange, you call off your dogs. And assist us when we need it. A partnership." Continue your adventure at empire
"And what things do you have in mind?" Zorian asked, his brow furrowed.
"Oh, you know," Gaya said, waving her hand dismissively. "Little things. Here and there. Nothing that''ll hurt your righteous ass. Too much."
Despite his reservations about the two of them, Zoriantrusted Seshat''s judgment. And besides, he was desperate. He would take help where he could get it, even if it came from the God of Darkness. He would prefer to have an enemy he could seeing. And as much as he distrusted Michael and Gaya they were enemies. Andohr, on the other hand, was a traitor, a snake who''d betrayed them all.
"And what kind of help are you willing to lend?" Zorian asked, his gaze fixed on the God of Darkness.
Michael chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that sent a shiver down Zorian''s spine.
"The kind of help you need, Zorian," he said, his voice a soft purr. "The kind of help that will clean up the Pantheon. I can help you get rid of trash. Gods who abuse their power. Gods who hurt the mortals."
He leaned forward, his gaze intense.
"We both know Rainar and Agra weren''t exactly model gods, were they? One was a dictator. The other a fucking psychopath. I did you a favor, Zorian. The Pantheon is losing the faith of the people. You need to purge the corruption. Clean house. And I can help you do that. Be worthy of your titles again."
As much as Zorian disliked the idea of allying himself with the God of Darkness, he had to admit that Michael had a point. Rainar, with his tyrannical rule over Nimbosia, Agra, with his chaos, they had been liabilities. They''d given the Pantheon a bad name. And there were others, too. Gods who''d growncent, corrupt and forgotten what it meant to be a god.
And perhaps¡ perhaps having the God of Darkness cull the herd wasn''t such a bad idea. He could use the God of Darkness''s talents to cleanse the Pantheon. And then he could im the credit. Portray himself as the savior of the realm of the Gods, the one who had restored order. The mortals would love it. He could manipte the narrative, turn the God of Darkness into a hero and a secret member of the Pantheon, working from the shadows.
His worship energy reserves would skyrocket.
"And what''s in it for you?" Zorian asked, his voiceced with suspicion. "Why help us?"
"Let''s just say I have my own reasons," Michael said with a shrug. "And a few enemies of my own. Enemies who''ve made a habit of interfering in my affairs. Enemies who happen to be allied with Andohr."
After a long moment of silence, Zorian nodded slowly with a thoughtful look on his face
"Very well," he said, his voice firm. "We have a deal. But I expect results. I expect loyalty. And I expect you to deal with Andohr''s allies. One way or another."
Michael simply nodded, a knowing glint in his eyes. He didn''t have to exin his motivations. Killing gods was beneficial to him because each god-killing quest came with a hefty reward like experience points, badass points, and a reduction in the number of obstacles standing in his path.
"As for our first order of business," Zorian continued, his gaze hardening. "There''s a data center in Luxor. Belonging to Seraphene. I want you to destroy it. Consider it¡ a test of yourmitment."
Michael smiled. It was a perfect chance to weaken Seraphene, disrupt her informationwork, and acquire some valuable intel for Pink to analyze. It was a win-win.
"Consider it done," he said, his voice a low purr.
"I will contact you when the task isplete," Zorian said, his gaze lingering on Michael for a moment. Then, with a sh of golden light, he was gone.
After Zorian disappeared, Michael stood up, stretching his limbs with a satisfied smirk ying on his lips.
"Well, that went better than expected," he said, turning to Gaya. "Ready to get your upgraded armor? And then we have a bow to retrieve. And a certain Princess of Murder to deal with."
Chapter 1405 Arriving at Larnia
Michael and Gaya made their way back to the cksmith Guild, the bustling streets of Sagespire a stark contrast to the deste silence of the Verdant Sanctuary. They entered Rurik''s office, finding the dwarf standing proudly before two armor stands, a smug grin on his face, a hammer casually perched on his shoulder.
The armors were magnificent.
Once dented and scratched from his battle with Agra, Michael''s Dark Armor now looked pristine and brand new. The dents, cracks, and scorch marks from Agra''s attacks were gone. Rurik had used a mixture of melted dragon scales ¨C a rare and incredibly expensive material ¨C and some other metal, forged it into a paste, and used it to mend the armor, making it even stronger, and more resilient, than before. The ck metal gleamed under the light of the forge, the crimson runes etched into its surface pulsing with a faint, inner light. It looked menacing, intimidating, and fit for a God.
On the other hand, Gaya''s armor was a different story. It had been reforgedpletely. Rurik had dismantled it, piece by piece, and sent the individualponents to the Runemasters'' Guild, with very specific instructions. He had to pull in a few favors, call in a few debts, to get it done discreetly. The runes he requested were rare and powerful as well as dangerous. Only the most skilled of runemasters, the six-star elites, could handle them. The runes, etched into the silver metal of the armor, now shimmered with a faint, ethereal light. They would absorb celestial energy more efficiently, allowing Gaya to channel her own power without interference. They would also protect her from the radiation that came with godhood. And Rurik had taken the liberty of enhancing the armor''s stealth capabilities.
"Wee back," Rurik said, gesturing towards the armors with a flourish. "Take a look. Tell me what you think."
Gaya approached her armor, her hand hovering over the smooth, cool surface, her eyes wide with appreciation.
"So, shorty," she said with a teasing amusement. "What kind of magic did you perform on my suit?"
Rurik grinned, puffing out his chest with pride.
"Magic?" he scoffed. "This isn''t magic,ss. This is craftsmanship. This is dwarven ingenuity! I had to pull some strings and call in some favors to get this done. Those pointy-eared bastards at the Runemasters'' Guild¡ they''re a pain in the ass to deal with. They think they''re the shit, you know? With their fancy tools and their delicate little runes. They wouldn''t even give me the time of day, not at first. I had to persuade them. Remind them who forged their precious little hammers. "
He paused, taking a swig from a nearby mug of ale.
"But I got it done. Your armor, Goddess, is enhanced, stronger, and more resilient. And those runes, they''ll protect you from anything this realm can throw at you. And it''ll still vanish. Like¡ poof." He snapped his fingers, a wide grin spreading across his face. "Just the way you like it."
"Alright, alright, enough with the suspense, shorty," Gaya said, rolling her eyes. "Get to the main point. What''s the special sauce?"
Rurik grinned, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
"This armor, mydy," he said, taking on a dramatic tone, "it doesn''t just vanish you anymore. It makes you intangible. Like a fucking ghost. Arrows, swords, spells¡ they''ll just pass right through you. For a few seconds, mind you. But in a fight, a few seconds can be everything."
When she heard him, Gaya''s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She hadn''t expected that. Intangibility. The ability to phase through attacks. It was a game-changer. Both she and Michael knew the value of such an ability. They''d both been in enough battles to know that a few seconds could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Between life and death. It would allow her to dodge a fatal blow, reposition herself, and strike from an unexpected angle.
And the applications¡ they were endless.
Even as a goddess, she knew she wasn''t invincible since Michael had shown them that gods could be killed. And if he could do it, who else was out there, plotting, scheming, hunting for a way to end a god?
She needed every advantage she could get.
Seeing the interest in her eyes, Rurik continued with a proud smile spreading across his face.
"And that''s not all, mydy. I acquired a special ingredient. Blood of a lightning eel. From the Veran Sea. Nasty buggers, those. I infused their essence into the armor. Now, when you deactivate the invisibility, you''ll release a shockwave, a burst of lightning. It would stun anyone within a few feet of you."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over her.
"It won''t do much to gods, of course. But cultivators? Up to the Elemental Attunement realm? They''ll be shitting themselves. Literally."
Gaya''s eyes widened. She remembered the cultivation realms in the realm of the Gods. Initiate, Qi Awakening, Spiritual Embryo, Elemental Attunement, Celestial Resonance, Soul Ignition, Ethereal Fusion, Void Transcendence, and finally, Divine Ascendancy.
"It''s a significant upgrade, mydy," Rurik continued, puffing out his chest with pride. "The invisibility, it''llst as long as you keep quiet and don''t run into a furnace. Or a god-level fireball. Intense heat or powerful spells will disrupt the energy flow. Make the armor flicker. And it''ll take¡ five minutes to recharge before you can vanish again." He paused, his gaze meeting hers.
"But in the right hands, this armor is a game-changer."
"Let''s¡ test it out," Michael said, a grin spreading across his face.
Gaya nodded, tapping the armor''s surface. The metal, cool to the touch, seemed to hum with a faint energy. Then, the armor opened, a section of the chest piece sliding back to reveal a space within.
Gaya stepped into it, and the armor closed around her, the pieces fitting together seamlessly, as if they were molding themselves to her body.
"That''s more like it," She cracked her neck, a satisfied smirk ying on her lips.
With a flick of her wrist, she¡ vanished.
Michael, even with his enhanced senses, could barely perceive her. He activated his X-ray vision, and even then, her thermal signature was¡ vague, a faint outline against the backdrop of the room.
"Not bad, shorty," Gaya''s voice echoed, seeming toe from nowhere. "Not bad at all."
"Rise the heat, " she whispered, her voice barely audible.
After hearing Gaya, Michael knew that she wanted to test the limitations of the armor. To be honest, he himself was curious to see. Thus, Michael conjured a ball of dark fire in his hand as the mes licked at his fingers and the heat radiated outwards.
Rurik, instinctively, took a step back, his eyes wide.
Stepping towards the me, Gaya reappeared, her form flickering into view as the heat disrupted the armor''s energy field.
"Well, that''s¡ expected," she said, shrugging. "Can''t be invisible to a fucking primordial me."
She chuckled, her gaze shifting towards Rurik.
"What else have you got, short stack? I wanna try everything." She paused, her gaze lingering on the dwarf for a moment. "But maybe not here. Don''t want to identally fry you."n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
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Despite his stature and the way she addressed him, Rurik managed to puff out his chest with a surprising amount of dignity.
"There''s more, mydy," he said, his voice gruff but respectful. "On your wrist. Take a look."
Gaya, her curiosity piqued, examined her forearm. She hadn''t noticed it before, but there it was. A small, almost unnoticeable mechanism, built into the armor, with a series of tiny gears and reels. She raised her hand, flicked her wrist.
At that moment, a thin, silver line, almost invisible to the naked eye, shot out from the device,tching onto a nearby wall.
Michael, testing its strength, pulled on the line. It was strong and unbelievably so. He could feel the power within it, the potential. This could decapitate a man easily.
"It''s spider silk, mydy," Rurik exined with a pride that only a master craftsman could understand. "From an Ancient Spider. Stronger than any metal. Can hold your weight. And you can strangle someone if you wish,"
"I like it. I like it a lot." Gaya grinned, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous light before turning her gaze toward Michael.
"Your turn, big guy," she said, gesturing towards his armor. "Let''s see what surprises Rurik has installed for you."
Rurik, beaming, approached Michael''s armor stand.
"Well, John, the wings were a bit damaged so I took the liberty of fixing that. And I reinforced the armor. With dragon scales. Should hold up a bit better now. Against you know the gods and monsters and things." Rurik finished, clearly proud of his work.
Michael nodded, impressed. He tapped the center of the skull medallion. The armor retracted, the pieces folding in on themselves, the runes dimming as it shrunk back into its dormant state. He then unsped the chain from the armor stand and fastened it around his neck, the medallion resting against his chest.
Then, with another tap on the skull, the armor sprang forth, covering his body. He shrugged, testing the weight, and the feel of the enhanced armor. The metal wings, repaired, reinforced, extended outwards, and sliced through a few chairs that had the misfortune to be in the way.
Despite the coteral damage, Rurik simply grinned, his eyes gleaming with pride.
"Feels lighter," Michael remarked, flexing his arms, testing the armor''s movement. "More responsive."
"Dragon scales will do that," Rurik said, nodding. "Light, but strong. Stronger than anything in the mortal realm."
"We owe you one, Rurik," Michael said.
After exchanging a few more words with the dwarf, they left the cksmith Guild and stepped into a secluded street of Sagespire. Then, Michael activated the travel rune Seshat had given him through the portable portal. Soon, a shimmering portal opened before them.
They stepped through, leaving the familiar sights and sounds of Sagespire behind, and arrived in Larnia.
A vast, barren desert stretched out before them, its sands a sickly, yellowish hue, its air thick with dry, oppressive heat. The sky above was a zing inferno, dominated by the two suns, their light harsh and unforgiving. In the distance, a tall, imposing pagoda, its form shimmering in the heat haze, rose from the desert floor. It was Nithroel''s temple and where the Agni-King was.
"Well, ain''t this charming," Gaya muttered, shielding her eyes with her hand. "What a shithole."
"Let''s go get that bow," Michael chuckled. But as they began their trek across the destendscape, they had no idea that the traps set by Nithroel weren''t the only things waiting for them in the temple.
Chapter 1406 Rins Army I
Michael and Gaya walked across the scorching sands, the twin suns beating down on them with an unforgiving intensity. The pagoda, their destination, shimmered in the distance, its long shadow the only respite from the relentless heat. There were no snakes, scorpions, or a life of any kind. Just sand, rock, and the oppressive silence of a dead world.
"This ce looks fucked up," Gaya remarked, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. "Like some god''s abandoned sandbox."
Even as gods, they felt something. The heat, perhaps? Or maybe it was just the emptiness. The utterck of anything.
"Why aren''t we flying?" Gaya asked, after another hour of slogging through the sand.
"Conserving energy," Michael replied, his gaze fixed on the horizon. "And we don''t want to attract unwanted attention. If there''s anyone or anything in that temple we don''t want to announce our arrival."
"I''m getting tired of walking," Gaya grumbled, kicking at a loose rock. "Give me that." She snatched a water bottle from Michael''s hand, unscrewed the cap, and took a long, deep swig.
Michael activated his X-ray vision, trying to prate the temple''s walls, to get a sense of what awaited them inside. But the structure remained opaque, his vision unable to prate the material or the magic that protected it.
"Damn," he muttered. "This is going to be interesting."
When they finally reached the base of the pagoda, they were both impressed and a little intimidated. It was massive. Several times taller than the tallest skyscraper back on Earth. Its walls, crafted from a smooth, white stone, soared towards the sky, disappearing into the shimmering heat haze.
Standing before it, Michael and Gaya felt insignificant. Like ants at the foot of a mountain. The pagoda''s shadow, stretching out across the destendscape, seemed to engulf them. The entrance was a pair of towering doors, each one easily fifty feet high, crafted from some kind of dark wood, their surfaces intricately carved. On one door, a menagerie of beasts, their forms fluid, graceful, and powerful, seemed to leap and snarl. On the other, figures of archers, their bows drawn, their arrows aimed, their faces stoic, determined.
Hunters and prey.
The temple was silent. Eerily so. No birds sang. No insects buzzed. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
"This ce gives me the fucking creeps," Gaya muttered.
Michael nodded, his gaze fixed on the doors. "Yeah, well let''s see what''s inside."
He then reached out, cing his hand on the cool, smooth surface of one of the doors. He pushed but it didn''t budge. He pushed harder, gritting his teeth, putting his full godly strength behind it. The door creaked, and groaned, but didn''t open.
"Shit," Gaya cursed. "How the hell did mortals even open this thing?"
"There''s probably a mechanism," Michael said, his voice strained as he continued to push. "We''re just brute-forcing it."
At that moment, a familiar vibration buzzed in his ear.
Click.
"Ghost, you there?" Pink''s voice,ced with a hint of urgency, echoed in his mind.
"I''m here, Pink," Michael replied, still pushing against the door. "What''s up?"
"I''ve been doing some digging," she said, her voice a rapid-fire burst of information. "Through Seraphene''s data crystals. That temple it''s bad news, Ghost. There are records old records of people going in. Looking for the bow. None of them ever came out."
Gaya rolled her eyes. "Well, that''s fucking ominous. It''s not like anything we do is ever easy."
"You got anything useful, Pink?" Michael asked, grunting with effort as the door finally began to move.
"Of course I do, dummy," Pink retorted. "There are sixty-four floors in that thing. Each one''s supposed to have its own trial. If you''re just passing through, on your way to the top, the trials they don''t activate. Apparently, the hunters used to parade up there, all the way to the top, to pay their respects to Nithroel. But you guys, you''re there for the bow. Which means well, you''re gonna have to earn it. Unless you want to you know just go up there and pray."
"Any details on these trials?" Michael asked, his muscles straining as the door finally swung open, revealing the darkness within.
"Working on it," Pink said. "But it''s fragmented. Iplete. Like no one''s ever bothered to document the whole thing. Probably because you know they all died. I''ll keep digging. Call you back."
The connection severed.
"Well, that was helpful," Gaya said dryly, peering into the darkness beyond the doorway. "Sixty-four floors of unknown bullshit. Sounds like fun."
Finally, with a grunt of effort, Michael pushed the massive door open, revealing the temple''s interior. The hall beyond was vast. And empty. The floor, crafted from polished emerald stone, stretched out before them, its surface gleaming under the faint light that filtered through the open doorway. Intricate carvings, depicting scenes of hunters and their prey, covered the walls, their details rendered with an almost obsessive precision. And at the far end of the hall, a statue, at least thirty feet tall, dominated the space. It was the statue of Nithroel holding a crimson bow¡the deptiction of the Agni-King.
Michael and Gaya stepped inside, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. The door, as if with a will of its own, swung shut behind them, the sound a heavy thud that reverberated through the hall.
"Shit," Gaya muttered, her hand instinctively reaching for her god yer bow. "There goes our easy exit. You know what they say, right? When a fucking door closes on its own in a creepy-ass ce like this it''s never a good sign. And it''s never just closed. It''s fucking locked. "
Michael chuckled, his gaze sweeping across the hall. "We''ll manage. "
Then, he started walking towards the staircase, his hands sped behind his back, his movements casual, almost leisurely. As if he were taking a stroll through a fucking park, not infiltrating a temple filled with unknown dangers.
On the other hand, with a flick of her wrist, Gaya activated her invisibility, her form vanishing from sight. The runes, newly etched into her armor, hummed with power, making her truly invisible. Even her god-yer crossbow, strapped to her back, disappeared, leaving no trace of her presence. She moved silently behind Michael, a silent shadow, ready to strike if necessary.
The first floor was different. The walls were crafted from a dark, red obsidian, ss-like in its smoothness, reflecting the faint light that filtered through the nonexistent windows. The floor, a deep crimson marble, was cold beneath their feet. And unlike the empty ground floor, this one was popted.
There were statues, dozens of them. Soldiers, frozen in various poses of attack. They were life-sized, crafted from the same red obsidian as the walls, their features detailed, their expressions fierce. Each one held a spear, its tip pointed outwards, a silent threat that made the hairs on the back of Michael''s neck stand on end. They looked eerily simr to those terracotta soldiers of ancient China.
Swinging from the high ceiling using a strand of her newly-enhanced spider silk, Gaya muttered, "These statues they give me the fucking creeps. The whole damn temple gives me the creeps."
Michael, seemingly unfazed, strolled casually through the hall, his gaze sweeping over the statues. He couldn''t, however, spot any stairs or a way to ascend to the upper floors.
"Looks like the trial''s already started," he murmured, more to himself than to Gaya.
As if in response, the statues shifted. Their heads, carved from the same red obsidian as their bodies, turned, their gaze following Michael''s movements.
Gaya, sensing the change, activated her earpiecem.
"They''re moving, Michael," she hissed, her voice barely a whisper.
"Yeah, I noticed," Michael replied as calm as ever.
Suddenly, the statues stomped their feet in unison, the sound echoing through the silent chamber, and broke formation. They raised their spears, their movements jerky, unnatural, and charged.
Michael cracked his neck, a faint smile ying on his lips. "Showtime."
But before he could unleash a Frostbite spell, one of the statues lunged, its spear thrusting towards him with surprising speed. Michael, his reflexes honed by years ofbat, reacted instantly. He grabbed the spear, yanking the statue forward, off bnce, and with a brutal punch, shattered its head into a million pieces.
The other statues froze, their movements halting abruptly.
"Well, that was easy," Gaya said, her voiceced with sarcasm. "Too easy."n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
As if on cue, the floor beneath them lit up, awork of runes, in the shape of a shield, glowing with an eerie, crimson light. And the shattered statue it began to reform. The broken pieces, as if drawn by an invisible force, flew back together, reattaching themselves to the statue''s body, until it stood, whole again, as if nothing had happened.
"Shit," Gaya muttered, her eyes widening.
More statues lunged at Michael, their spears thrusting, their movements faster now. More aggressive.
"Shield up, Michael!" Gaya shouted, her voice urgent.
Michael, anticipating the attack, raised his left arm. The ck shield, its jagged edges whirring like a circr saw, extended from his wrist, deflecting a spear thrust aimed at his chest. He spun, mming the edge of his shield into another statue, shattering it into pieces. This time, however, the statue stayed broken. The shield seemed to negate the temple''s regenerative magic.
"Well, that''s convenient," Michael said, a predatory grin spreading across his face.
But even as he spoke, Gaya felt a chill run down her spine. This was just the first floor. There were sixty-three more to go. And if this was just the beginning
"This is gonna be a long fucking day," she muttered, her gaze fixed on the statues, her mind racing, trying to anticipate their next move. "A very long fucking day."
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Chapter 1407 Rins Army II
1407 Rin''s Army II
After Michael destroyed all the stone statues with his shield, the scattered stones reassembled themselves, forming a staircase leading upwards. The ceiling above them opened, revealing a passage to the next floor.
"Well, that''s convenient," Michael murmured, his gaze fixed on the newly formed stairs.
He and Gaya ascended the staircase, their footsteps echoing in the silence. The second floor was different. It was a vast, circr chamber, its walls lined with white marble, its floor a mosaic of polished stone. Statues, not of soldiers this time, but of schrs, stood in alcoves with their hands holding scrolls or strange, unidentifiable objects. It was pristine. Untouched.
But as they reached the top of the stairs, they saw him.
A figure, d in ck robes, stood in the center of the chamber, his back to them.
Michael narrowed his eyes, studying the figure. He activated his Eyes of Doom, trying to gauge the figure''s power, to see his aura. But there was nothing. No green, no yellow, no red. Just blue. A cool, steady blue that was unfamiliar.
"Who''s this guy?" Gaya whispered through thems. "He''s giving me you vibes."
"Yeah," he murmured. "I see it too."
And as if on cue, the figure turned.
Michael felt a jolt, a shock of recognition, as he stared into the face of himself.
"Is this an illusion?" Gaya''s voice,ced with a hint of unease, echoed in his ear. "Like that thing we faced in Luxor?"
Michael remembered that encounter. The doppelganger, a creature that had mimicked his every move, his every attack, with terrifying precision. They had only managed to defeat it by unleashing the full force of his primordial mes, a power the doppelganger couldn''t replicate.
But this this felt different. This wasn''t some mindless copy, some reflection. This felt real.
"I don''t think so," he whispered back, his gaze fixed on the figure. "This this feels different."
The figure chuckled, and the sound it was his voice.
"Hello, Michael," the figure said, a slow, sinister grin spreading across his face. "It''s nice to finally meet you."
This was none other than the one of many clones, created by Rin and Andohr, using the remnants of the previous Dark Lord. A weapon, forged in Michael''s own image, designed to fight him. But they weren''t perfect. Not yet. They were iplete. But they were getting better and stronger with each iteration.
And this one this one was the closest yet.
The figure before him moved, a blur of motion, a flicker of ck lightning, and Michael reacted.
"Watch out!" Gaya''s voice, sharp and urgent, echoed in his mind. "That bastard''s fast! As fast as you!"
He''d already realized that, of course. The clone had cast Lightning Dash, his signature move, the one he had used in over countless battles.
Michael cast Silenes, attempting to slow down time, to give himself an edge. But the clone it did the same. The two spells, identical in their power, their execution, collided, canceling each other out, the world around them snapping back to its normal flow.
Michael, a hair''s breadth from being impaled, bent backward, his spine arching, his gaze fixed on the clone''s swords.
He''d expected something different. Not those.
They were crimson red, the color of freshly spilled blood, their edges shimmering with an unnatural, almost living light. He''d seen that metal before. On Rin''s daggers.
"Cool des, you got there," Michael said with a low growl as his eyes narrowed. "But you know what? You''re just a cheap fucking knock-off of the real deal."
The clone chuckled, the sound a chilling echo of Michael''s own.
"No, no, no I''m the upgrade." n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
And then it moved.
It vanished, reappearing a heartbeatter behind Michael, a flicker of shadow, a whisper of disced air. It plunged the crimson swords towards Michael''s back, aiming for his heart.
Michael''s wings, reacting on instinct, snapped open, the metal feathers deflecting the blow. The des shed against the reinforced metal, a shower of sparks erupting from the point of impact.
The clone, its attack thwarted, vanished again, reappearing on the other side of the chamber, its movements fluid, graceful, a mirror image of Michael''s own.
But Michael was faster.
He activated Shadow Teleportation, his body dissolving into the darkness, reappearing behind the clone, his swords a blur of motion as he attacked. But the clone, with his own damn reflexes, his own damn agility, his damn everything it dodged, twisting away from the blow, its movements a chilling echo of Michael''s own.
From Gaya''s perspective, it was like watching a shadow y. Two figures, identical in their movements and in their power, appearing and disappearing, a blur of darkness and crimson light, the only sound the hiss of their des cutting through the air. It was impossible to keep track of them.
But she didn''t intervene, not yet. They were only on the second floor, after all. This fight it was just the appetizer. And besides, the clone, though impressive, didn''t seem to be overpowering Michael. Not yet, anyway.
Gaya watched as the two figures, mirror images of each other, shed again. The clone, with a speed that matched Michael''s, parried a blow, his crimson swords a blur of motion. He spun, kicking out with a leg, aiming for Michael''s head, but Michael ducked, his own swords shing as he countered, the des slicing through the air, narrowly missing the clone''s arm.
They moved like shadows, a whirlwind of ck and crimson, their movements so fast, so precise, that it was almost impossible to follow their individual attacks. One moment they were here, the next they were there, the only sound the hiss of their des, the crackle of dark energy, the asional grunt of pain as a blownded.
The clone, leaping back, creating some distance between them, raised his hands, his eyes glowing with a familiar, sinister light.
Eyes of Doom.
Two beams of ck energy, sharp and precise, shot forth, aiming for Michael''s chest.
But Michael, anticipating the attack, mirrored the clone''s movements, his own eyes glowing with the same power.
Eyes of Doom.
The two beams collided in mid-air, a blinding sh of energy that made Gaya shield her eyes. The force of the impact, the sheer power of it, sent both Michael and the clone flying backwards, their bodies mming against opposite walls, the stone cracking under the force of the impact.
They both pushed themselves to their feet, shaking their heads, their gazes fixed on each other.
After standing up to his feet, the clone chuckled as a trickle of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
"For a pale imitation of the real deal," he said, his voice a distorted echo of Michael''s, "you''re doing good."
Michael, wiping a smear of blood from his own lip, grinned.
"I gotta give it to you, for a fucking clone or whatever the fuck you are you put up a good fight," he said, his voice a low growl. "But don''t forget I''m not even taking this seriously."
The moment Michael said this, a flicker of doubt and fear crossed the clone''s face.
"Don''t look so surprised, me," Michael continued, his grin widening. "I can''t bear to see it."
He paused, his gaze hardening.
"So tell me who created you?" he asked, taking on a dangerous edge. "Because those crimson swords they give me a pretty good idea. But I want to hear it from you. Did Rin send you?"
The clone''s reaction was telling. A flicker of surprise crossed his face, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly. He might have looked like Michael, might have moved like Michael, might have even sounded like Michael. But he was still just a copy. A replica. And he had the same tells as the original.
Michael knew, with a chilling certainty, that he''d hit the mark.
"So, Rin''s making moves, huh?" he said, his voice a soft purr. "But why here? Unless she''s after the bow too."
The clone, however, didn''t answer. He simply stared at Michael, his gaze unreadable.
"I''m not the only one, you know," he said, his voice a chilling echo of Michael''s own. "She has more. An army." He grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes. "You can take one of me. But can you fight a hundred? A thousand?"
Michael felt a chill run down his spine. An army of himself. It was a terrifying thought.
Even Gaya, listening from her perch above, felt a flicker of unease. An army of Michaels. It was a goddamn nightmare scenario. She had faced him in battle and seen what he was capable of. One Michael was bad enough. But a hundred? A thousand?
Killing Rin, taking her out permanently, had always been a daunting task. But this this was a whole new level of fucked up.
"No matter how many clones you have, I''m the real deal." Michael cracked his neck as the sound echoed through the chamber. Then he took a step forward locking his gaze with the clone.
"And this is gonna sound cheesy as fuck. But let me tell you something. No army, not even an army consisting of my clones can kill me," he said, his voice dripping with a confidence that was both terrifying and strangely reassuring. "Because I''m the one who decides who lives and who dies, got it? Including the fucking gods."
Chapter 1408 Astrology Puzzle
1408 Astrology Puzzle
"You can''t kill Xyloth, or Rin," the clone chuckled, his voice a chilling echo of Michael''s own. "They''re death incarnate. You can''t kill what''s already dead."
Michaelughed, a harsh, grating sound that echoed through the chamber.
"Last time I checked, the God of Death was well, Death, not Xyloth or Rin," he said, his voice dripping with a mocking amusement. "Enough of this shit. Let''s end this."
He vanished, reappearing a heartbeatter beside the clone, a blur of motion, a flicker of shadow. The clone, anticipating the move, reacted instantly, his crimson swords raised, ready to parry.
But he hadn''t anticipated Gaya.
"I''m ready," Gaya''s voice echoed through Michael''s earpiece, sharp and clear. "Just give the word."
Michael grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes. "Now, Gaya!"
As the clone focused on Michael, he clenched his fist. The whirring shield, a dark disc of razor-sharp edges, shot out from his wrist. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om
The clone, sensing the new threat, tried to deflect the shield with his swords. But Michael activated the shield''s rotation, the jagged des spinning with a high-pitched whine, a sound like a chainsaw tearing through flesh.
Michael, with a burst of speed, mmed the clone against the wall, his hand mping over his mouth, muffling his scream.
"Frostbite," he whispered.
Soon, a wave of absolute zero, a surge of pure, icy energy, erupted from him, encasing the clone in a thickyer of frost. But the clone, its body imbued with something some kind of power, was resisting. It pushed against the shield, its crimson swords scraping against the metal, its eyes zing with a furious light.
And then Gaya''s arrow struck.
A bolt of pure lightning, crackling with energy, shot through the air, impacting the ice that encased the clone. The effect was instantaneous. The electricity, amplified by the ice, coursed through the clone''s body, a blinding sh of light that made even Michael shield his eyes.
The clone convulsed, his body arching, a silent scream of agony etched on his frozen features.
It was only a few seconds, but those few seconds were all Michael needed.
He pushed, forcing the spinning shield against the clone''s face, the jagged edges tearing through flesh and bone. The clone screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, as blood, a dark, viscous fluid, sprayed outwards, sttering the walls, the floor, Michael''s armor.
He pushed harder, the whirring of the shield growing louder, more intense, as it ground through the clone''s skull, mangling his face into a bloody pulp.
And then silence. The clone''s body, its life force extinguished, went limp, the crimson swords ttering to the floor.
The hall trembled, the walls shaking, the ceiling cracking. Above them, a section of the ceiling opened, revealing a staircase made of light, leading upwards.
Ignoring the staircase, Michael retracted his shield, his gaze fixed on the remains of the clone. He picked up the crimson swords, their surfaces still slick with blood, and with a flick of his wrist, stored them in his System inventory to analyze themter.
Gayanded beside him, her boots crunching on the debris that littered the floor. She looked at the mess that had once been a clone of Michael, and then at the empty space where its contents had been.
"Fucking hell," she muttered, her voice a mix of disgust and disappointment. "Not even a souvenir? That''s just rude." Gaya said, kicking at a stray piece of something that had once been part of the clone. She looked up at the staircase of light, her expression unreadable. "Up we go, then?"
"Let''s see what other bullshit Nithroel cooked up for us." Michael nodded.
They ascended the staircase, their footsteps silent on the ethereal steps. The light, soft and warm, seemed to guide them, leading them upwards, towards the next challenge.
The third floor was different.
Gone were the statues, the obsidian, thebat as this floor was a puzzle.
They stood in a circr chamber, its walls, floor, and ceiling a seamless expanse of polished, white marble. The room was empty except for a few marble statues and a series of symbols etched into the floor, their shapes intricate, unfamiliar, pulsing with a faint, inner light. There were twelve of them, arranged in a circle, each one unique, each one glowing with a different color.
"What the hell is this?" Gaya muttered, her gaze sweeping over the symbols. "Some kind of cosmic game of hopscotch?"
Michael crouched down, examining the symbols more closely.
"It''s a lock, I think," he said, his brow furrowing in thought. "Abination. We need to activate them. In the right order."
"And how the fuck are we supposed to figure that out?" Gaya asked, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "There''s no instruction manual. No hint. Just glowing squiggles."
Looking at the symbols, Michael began to analyze them. He could feel something emanating from them. A faint energy. A pattern.
"They''re connected," he murmured, tracing the outline of one of the symbols with his finger. "To something. To each other. There''s a logic to it. A sequence."
He stood up, his gaze sweeping across the circle.
"We need to figure out the order, Gaya. The correct sequence. Or we''re stuck here."
"And how do you propose we do that, oh wise and powerful God of Darkness?" Gaya asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You got a magic decoder ring hidden in that fancy armor of yours?"
Ignoring her jab, Michael began to experiment. He pressed his hand against one of the symbols, a blue, swirling vortex, and felt a jolt of energy. The symbol pulsed, its light intensifying, but nothing else happened.
"Wrong," he muttered, moving to the next one, a crimson triangle.
He pressed his hand against it, and again, felt that jolt.
"Also wrong," he said, his voiceced with frustration. "Damn it, Nithroel. Why couldn''t you just leave a note?"
"Maybe she did," Gaya said, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. "Maybe it''s invisible. Or written in invisible ink. Or maybe it''s a riddle."
She began to pace, her movements restless, her eyes darting around the chamber, searching for something. Anything.
"What''s the stupidest most obvious thing she could have done?" she muttered, more to herself than to Michael. "Where would I hide a clue if I were a goddess trying to protect a bow?"
She stopped as her gaze fixed on one of the statues, a figure of a woman holding a scroll.
"Maybe" she said, her voice a low whisper. "Maybe it''s that."
She started towards the statue, her movements purposeful, her gaze fixed on the scroll clutched in the statue''s hands.
"It''s too obvious, Gaya. It''s probably a trap."
"Well, it''s better than nothing," Gaya retorted with a hint of defiance. "And besides, what''s the worst that could happen? Another statuees to life? We''ve dealt with worse."
She reached the statue, her hand hovering over the scroll. She hesitated for a moment, her gaze flickering towards Michael, then snatched the scroll from the statue''s grasp.
She unrolled it, her eyes scanning the surface.
"It''s nk," she said, her voice a mixture of frustration and disappointment. "Of course it is." She crumpled the parchment in her hand, cursing under her breath.
But as she turned away from the statue, walking past the circle of symbols, Michael noticed a flicker of light and a reflection. On the polished surface of the God yer crossbow, slung across Gaya''s back, he saw it. A reflection of one of the symbols on the floor. But it wasn''t quite the same.
It was different. The symbol, a swirling vortex of blue on the floor, was reflected as a constetion on the crossbow''s surface. A cluster of stars, arranged in a familiar pattern.
Pisces.
The zodiac.
"Gaya, wait," Michael said, his voice urgent. "The reflections. Look at the reflections."
He pointed towards the crossbow, his gaze fixed on the altered symbol.
"The symbols they''re not what they seem. The reflections they show their true form."
He looked at the other symbols, his mind racing, trying to decipher the puzzle.
"They''re astrological," he murmured, more to himself than to Gaya. "Zodiac signs. But iplete. We need to find the missing pieces. The order."
He looked at the symbols again, his gaze sweeping across the circle.
"Pisces that''s water. What follows water? What''s the next sign?"
Gaya, however, was not impressed.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Michael?" she asked, her voiceced with exasperation. "Astrology? Zodiac signs? You think Nithroel based her divine trials on some star signs?" She rolled her eyes. "Just pretend I''m retarded, which, frankly, at this point, isn''t that far from the truth, and exin it to me. Slowly."
Michael sighed. He gestured towards the symbols on the floor.
"Look at them, Gaya," he said patiently. "They''re not just random squiggles. They''re constetions. See that one? The swirling vortex? That''s Pisces. The fish."
He pointed towards another symbol, this one a crimson triangle.
"And that one that''s Aries. The ram. It''s fire. And this one" He moved to another symbol, a blue circle with a dot in the center. "That''s Aquarius. The water-bearer. It''s air." said Michael before turning his gaze at Gaya.
"They''re astrological signs, Gaya. But they''re iplete. The reflections they show us the missing pieces. The order. We need to activate them. In the right sequence."
"And what''s the sequence?" Gaya asked, her brow furrowed. "And what the fuck does this have to do with Nithroel? She''s the Goddess of the Hunt, not the Goddess of Horoscopes. Why would she put a zodiac puzzle in her temple?"
Michael chuckled. "Maybe she liked astrology. Or maybe it''s a metaphor. A representation of something else." He shrugged. "Who knows? But it doesn''t matter. We need to solve it. To get to the next floor. To get to the bow."
"But how?" Gaya asked with frustration. "You said the reflections show the true form. But which reflection? We don''t have a mirror."
Michael smiled, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face.
"We don''t need one," he said, his gaze fixed on Gaya''s crossbow. "We have the God yer and its time to solve this puzzle and get to the next level,"
Chapter 1409 The Riddles (Write your answers in the comment section)
1409 The Riddles (Write your answers in thement section)
"Why the crossbow?" Gaya asked, her voiceced with suspicion. "And don''t tell me you don''t have some fancy mirror stashed away in that space ring of yours. You''ve got everything in there."
"It''s not just any mirror, Gaya," Michael said, a hint of amusement in his voice. He reached into his inventory, pulling out a small, ornate hand mirror and held it up, reflecting the symbols on the floor.
But the reflection was normal as the symbols remained unchanged.
"See?" he said, tossing the mirror back into his inventory. "It has to be a weapon. Something imbued with power."
He unsheathed one of his swords, the obsidian de gleaming in the dim light, and held it up, angling it towards the symbols.
And there it was, the reflection and the true form of the symbols.
"Okay," he said, his gaze fixed on the reflected images. "Now we''re getting somewhere."
The first symbol, the swirling vortex of blue Pisces was reflected as a fish, swimming in a circle.
"Water," Michael murmured. "Whates after water, in the zodiac?"
"Earth," Gaya said, after a moment''s thought. "Taurus. The bull."
Michael scanned the symbols on the floor, his gaze settling on a brown square.
"There," he said, pointing. "That must be Taurus. Activate it."
Gaya, trusting his intuition, pressed her hand against the brown square. The symbol glowed, a warm, earthy light emanating from it, and then shifted. It was no longer a square. It was a bull, its horns lowered, its form solid, powerful.
"Okay," Michael said, his mind racing. "Whates after Taurus?"
"Gemini," Gaya replied, her eyes scanning the other symbols. "Air."
They found a yellow circle with two lines and activated it. The symbol transformed, revealing the twins, their forms shimmering, ethereal.
"Cancer," Michael said, his voice a low murmur. "Water again. Then Leo. Fire."
They continued, working together, their movements synchronized, their minds focused on the task at hand. They activated the symbols, one by one, following the order of the zodiac. Soon, the symbols changed, revealing their true forms which were creatures and objects that represented each sign.
A crab. A lion. A maiden. Scales. A scorpion. An archer. A goat.
"What''s after Capricorn?" Michael asked, his gaze fixed on thest symbol.
"Aquarius, the water-bearer. We''vee full circle. It''s air." Gaya replied.
Michael pressed his hand against the final symbol, the blue circle with a dot in the center. The symbol pulsed, its light intensifying, and then it transformed. The water-bearer, its form shimmering, ethereal, its hands holding a jug from which water seemed to flow.
And then the floor trembled. The symbols, their true forms revealed, their order corrected, began to sink into the floor, disappearing beneath the marble surface. A low rumbling sound echoed through the chamber, and the statues that lined the walls shifted, their forms changing.
They were no longer schrs but warriors. Their hands, once holding scrolls and strange objects, now gripped weapons such as swords, spears and axes. If that was not enough, their eyes began to glow with a cold, malevolent light.
"Oh,e on!" Gaya groaned, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Seriously? This is getting fucking old."
16:55
"Oh,e on!" Gaya groaned, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Seriously? This is getting fucking old."
But the statues, instead of attacking, simply moved. They advanced, their movements slow, deliberate, until five of them stood before Michael and Gaya, blocking their path. The one in the center, a tall, imposing figure with a sword raised in a salute, stepped forward.
Suddenly, the ground beneath Michael and Gaya shifted. Golden chains, shimmering with ethereal light, erupted from the floor, wrapping around their wrists and ankles, binding them in ce.
Gaya struggled, pulling against the chains, her face contorted in a snarl.
"What the fuck is this shit?!" she roared, straining against her bonds. Even Michael, with his enhanced strength and godly power, couldn''t break free. The chains, imbued with Nithroel''s grace, were strong and designed to hold anything. Even a Level Five God, probably.
"I don''t think they''re going to attack," Michael said, his gaze fixed on the statues. "It''s a test. We solved half the puzzle. This is the other half."
The statue with the sword stepped forward, its voice a low, resonant rumble that echoed through the chamber.
"Answer and proceed," it said, its gaze fixed on Michael. "Fail and perish."
It raised its sword, the de gleaming in the dim light.
"I have a de, but I draw no blood. I have a spine, but I have no bones. I have a shaft, but I shed no tears. I''m wielded by hunters, but I have no hands. I''m a weapon, but I have no will. I''m a tool, but I have no skill. I have a point, but I am not a spear. I have a fletching, but I am not a bird. What am I?"
"Oh, fuck this," Gaya snarled, her eyes zing with fury. "I hate riddles. Riddles are for nerds."
And before Michael could even begin to process the riddle, a hand, sculpted from the same red obsidian as the statues, shot up from the ground and punched her. Right in the crotch. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Gaya doubled over, a strangled gasp escaping her lips, her face contorted in a mixture of pain and outrage.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Michael couldn''t help but chuckle.
"Good thing I didn''t get punched in the nuts," he murmured, shaking his head.
"I hate you" Gaya growled, her voice a low, menacing hiss.
The statue with its sword still raised, remained motionless, waiting. Meanwhile, the chains around Michael''s wrists tightened, a subtle reminder that they were on a clock. Ignoring the difort, Michael focused on the riddle as his mind raced to find the answer.
"A de but it draws no blood," he muttered, repeating the words of the riddle. "A spine but no bones. A shaft but no tears. What could it be"
He ran through the possibilities, discarding them one by one. A sword? No, it draws blood. A spear? No, it has a point. A metaphorical de? No, that''s too abstract.
"Hurry up, Michael," Gaya hissed, her voice strained. "That thing is getting ready to strike."
The statue''s sword, its tip glowing with an eerie, red light, was slowly descending, inching closer and closer to Michael''s head.
And then it clicked.
"An arrow," Michael said, his voice a sudden burst of realization. "The answer is an arrow."
The moment the words left his mouth, the sword stopped its descent, hovering inches from his head. The statue stepped back, its movements jerky, unnatural.
"Correct," it rumbled, its voice devoid of any inflection.
One of the chains that bound Michael, the one around his right ankle, vanished, dissolving into motes of golden light.
When Michael noticed Gaya muttering something under her breath and squirming due to the punch to her crotch, he decided to tease her.
"So don''t you have some words of wisdom darling?"
"Fuck you, asshole. You are enjoying this too much," Gaya grunted, her eyes still watering from the impact. "I''m not getting punched in my non-existent balls again."
Ignoring her jibe, Michael turned his attention to the statue with the spear. It stepped forward with its spear held before it and its gaze fixed on Michael.
"Tell me the riddle," Michael said calmly.
"I have a mouth but cannot speak. I have a bed but never sleep. I have a body but do not breathe. I have no life, but I can grow if fed. What am I?" The statue''s voice, a low, resonant rumble, echoed through the chamber.
Still reeling from the below-the-belt attack, Gaya muttered a string of curses under her breath, too quiet for even Michael to hear. She was more angry and embarrassed than hurt. . Furious, actually that the fact that it had happened at all was..
Michael, however, seemed unfazed. He was focused on the riddle with his mind already racing through the possibilities.
"I have a mouth but cannot speak," he murmured, repeating the riddle''s words. "A bed but never sleep. A body but do not breathe"
The statue, its spear held before it, slowly withdrew the weapon, pulling it back, preparing to strike.
Michael''s eyes darted around the chamber, searching for something. A clue. A hint.
"A book?" he guessed.
This time, the spear didn''t stop. Instead, it plunged forward, piercing Michael''s armor, sinking deep into his shoulder.
"Argh!" Michael grunted, his body jerking from the impact. Blood, dark red against the ck of his armor, welled up around the wound. Gaya, seeing Michael get hurt, let out a furious roar.
"You fucking piece of shit!" she screamed at the statue, her hands crackling with energy. "I''m gonna break you! I''m gonna shatter you into a million pieces!"
Another hand, this one made of stone, erupted from the ground, striking her in the stomach, and knocking the wind out of her. She gasped, doubling over, her face pale. As she was growling in pain, the statue with its spear still embedded in Michael''s shoulder, slowly withdrew the weapon, the motion agonizingly slow.
"Wrong answer," it rumbled, its voice devoid of any emotion.
Michael gritted his teeth in pain and tried to focus as the spear started to move again. Despite the pain, Michael''s mind raced and finally, it clicked.
"A river!" he shouted before the spear stopped inches from his chest.
"Correct," the statue said in its voice monotone. As a result, the chain around Michael''s left ankle vanished. Afterward, Michael answered the next riddle correctly, and the chain around his right hand disappeared. Then another, and his left hand was free. With each correct answer, another chain vanished, and another statue stepped back.
Finally, only one statue remained. Thest one. It stood before Michael, its form imposing, its bow drawn, an arrow nocked and aimed directly at Michael''s head.
"Answer and you may pass," it rumbled. "Fail and you will lose your head."
It was a threat and a promise.
"I have many eyes, but cannot see. I hunt in darkness but fear the light. I fly on silent wings but have no feathers. What am I?"
The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and
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Chapter 1410 Michael in Horror Movie
1410 Michael in Horror Movie
Michael knew, with a sickening certainty, that he couldn''t fuck this one up. He could feel the weight of the arrow, the power that radiated from it. It wasn''t just a weapon. It was something more.
Even if the arrow couldn''t kill a god, getting shot in the head by an arrow charged with Nithroel''s grace would ruin his day. It would probably destroy his physical body, forcing his soul to retreat to one of his backup bodies in the mortal realm. It would mean losing his current cultivation, and his connection to the realm of the Gods. It would set him back months. Maybe even years.
And he wasn''t sure what other effects it might have on his soul. Thus, he needed to get this right.
"System, give me the answer. Now."
[Providing the answer to the riddle will require 10 million Badass Points. Does the host wish to proceed?]
Michael knew that ten million for a single answer was day light robbery. The System was expensive. But he couldn''t afford to guess. Not now. Not with everything on the line.
"Do it," he thought, gritting his teeth.
[The answer to the statue''s riddle is a bat ] said the System.
"A bat," Michael quickly said without losing his calm despite the pressure of the situation.
When he uttered the answer, the statue remained motionless for a moment with its arrow still aimed at Michael''s head. Then, slowly, it lowered its bow.
"Correct," it rumbled, its voice devoid of any inflection. "You may pass."
And after a moment, the final chain, the one binding Michael''s left hand, dissolved into motes of golden light. The statues, their taskplete, stomped their way back to their original positions, standing in perfect allignement, still as stone once more. As they moved, a set of stairs, crafted from the same red obsidian as the statues, emerged from a corner of the room, and a section of the ceiling slid open, revealing a passage to the next level.
"Fucking finally," Gaya groaned, stretching her limbs, her invisibility flickering for a moment as she moved. "Those fucking statues were giving me the creeps. Bunch of stone-cold weirdos." She looked at the statues pointedly before spitting on the ground.
Michael''s wound, the one inflicted by the spear-wielding statue, was already gone. The APD in his armor, had taken care of it. The spear had gone through his shoulder, piercing flesh, bone, and even armor. Even his enhanced armor hadn''t been enough to stop the attackpletely.
Noticing the absence of the wound, Gaya reached out, her fingers brushing against the spot where the spear had pierced him.
"You okay?" she asked, her voiceced with concern.
"I''m fine," Michael said, shrugging off her touch. "Let''s go. I don''t know what kind of shit awaits us up there. But I''d rather face it sooner rather thanter."
Gaya, activating her invisibility again, nodded in agreement.
They ascended the stairs, their footsteps silent on the cold stone. The third floor was different as there were no statues, or riddles but just bones.
The floor was a sea of skeletons. Human, elf, dwarf, even creatures Michael couldn''t identify. Their bones, bleached white by time, were scattered across the floor, a macabre carpet that crunched under their feet. The walls were a dull, gray, the ceiling lost in the shadows.
"What the fuck" Gaya whispered, her invisibility flickering as she stared at the remains.
Michael, his gaze sweeping across the chamber, felt a chill run down his spine.
"I don''t like this," he murmured, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of his sword. "What the fuck happened here?"
Suddenly, the opening they''de through mmed shut, the sound echoing through the chamber, plunging them into absolute darkness.
"I don''t like this," Gaya said, her voice tight with unease.
Michael, his senses on high alert, activated his night vision. But even with his enhanced vision, he could barely make out the shapes in the room. The darkness here was different. It was thick. Oppressive. Like a physical entity.
And then he heard a voice¡a woman''s voice to be precise. The voice was singing a soft, melodious luby that seemed to drift through the darkness.
"Sleep, my child, the world''s unkind. Close your eyes, and leave it all behind. Beauty fades, and youth takes flight. Embrace the darkness, and eternal night."
Despite being gods, both Michael and Gaya felt a chill run down their spines. There was something wrong with the voice. Something off. It was too perfect and too soothing to the point it made them want to sleep and surrender.
At that moment, Michael felt the temperature in the room drop. He could feel something watching him from the darkness behind him.
"Gaya," he said, his voice a low growl. "Is there something behind me?"
"Can''t see shit in this darkness, Michael," she replied, her voiceced with nervousness that he had rarely heard from her. He knew she didn''t have his X-ray vision, his ability to see through the darkness.
Then abruptly, the singing stopped. The silence that followed was deafening. The only sound was the rustling of bones under their feet and the whisper of the wind that seemed to seep through the walls. It felt like he was trapped in a horror movie and he was the star.
A goddamn clich¨¦. Then, the silence was shattered.
"This is my ce!" the voice, the same soft, melodious voice that had been singing moments before, shrieked. The sheer force of the shout, amplified by the something in the darkness, mmed into Michael, throwing him backward as his body crashed into the bone-strewn floor.
"You cannot leave, my child," the voice continued, its tone shifting, bing possessive. "Mommy needs you. Stay here with me forever."
Michael, his head spinning, pushed himself to his feet as he unsheathed both his dark swords and covered them with the dark mes. At that moment, he could feel something cold on his shoulder. A hand. He spun around, shing with his sword, but the hand was gone.
"I don''t like it, human," Gaya''s voice,ced with a rare hint of fear, echoed through the darkness. "I don''t like this at all. Never thought I''d say this but I prefer the fucking statues and the riddles to this freaky horror shit."
Michael, his senses on high alert, began to move, using Shadow Teleportation to shift from one point of darkness to another, trying to locate the source of the voice.
"A god" the voice, soft and melodious, whispered, seeming toe from everywhere at once. "How beautiful. Come to mommy"
But the voice, once soothing, was changing. It was growing deeper, harsher, and more distorted.
"I can''t see shit, Michael," Gaya''s voice said, her frustration evident. "Can''t you just dispel this darkness? You''re the God of fucking Darkness, aren''t you?"
"I''m trying," Michael growled, his gaze darting around, his hands gripping his swords. "But this this isn''t natural darkness. This is something else. A spell, maybe. Or a mind trick."
Then, a new scent reached his nostrils. Sulfur. Faint at first, but growing stronger, more pungent, with each passing second.
"Do you smell that?" he asked, his voice low.
The voiceughed, a chilling, echoing sound that seemed to surround them.
"I have a god for a child," it said, its tone shifting, bing possessive. "And a goddess You will both stay with me. Forever."
Despite her invisibility, Gaya felt a sudden chill running down her spine. The voice knew she was there and she was a goddess.
"I know you''re here, little one," the voice purred with a sinister amusement. "You''re a naughty girl. And naughty girls need to be punished."
Before Gaya could react, a sharp, stinging pain, like a whip made of ice,shed across her cheek. She cried out, her invisibility flickering for a moment, as she was thrown from her perch on the ceiling, her body crashing into the bone-strewn floor below.
As Gaya''s body hit the floor, the impact jarring her bones, she scrambled to her feet, her hand flying to her cheek, where a thin, red welt was already beginning to form.
Michael, reacting instantly, teleported to her side, his form a blur of motion in the darkness.
"It''s me," he said, grabbing her arm.
Gaya, startled, instinctivelyshed out, her fist connecting with his jaw.
"Fuck!" she yelped, jumping back. "Don''t do that! You scared the shit out of me!"
Michael, his hand flying to his jaw, simply chuckled.
"Sorry, my bad," he said and handed her one of his Dark Swords. "Here. Stay on guard."
"That bitch pped me," she snarled, her voice trembling. "She fucking pped me, human. Across the damn face! And it hurt."
Gaya growled, tightening her grip around the hilt of the sword. They stood back-to-back, their gazes scanning the darkness, trying to prate the illusion.
"I''ve had enough of this shit," Gaya growled, raising her hands, her fingers crackling with fire. "Let there be fucking light!"
She unleashed a torrent of mes, a fiery st meant to illuminate the chambe and reveal their attacker. But the darkness absorbed the mes, swallowing them whole, leaving them blind.
"Naughty, naughty," the voice purred, a hint of amusement in its tone. "Mommy doesn''t like light. And children shouldn''t y with fire."
"Who the fuck are you, you bitch?!" Gaya roared, her voice echoing through the darkness. "Show yourself, you coward! I''m gonna rip you apart! I''m gonna tear you limb from fucking limb!"
The voice suddenly shrieked with anger
"Filthy mouthed child! Mommy needs to teach you some manners!"
Sensing something was moving towards them, Michael activated Silenes, his time-slowing spell and swung his sword with fluid, precise movement despite the slowed down time.
The de connected with something.
A screech, high-pitched and filled with pain, echoed through the darkness. And for a moment, just a fleeting moment, Michael saw her. @@novelbin@@
An old woman, her face a mask of wrinkles and fury, her eyes glowing with a malevolent green light. Her hair, long and stringy, hung around her face like cobwebs, her teeth, crooked and yellowed, were bared in a snarl. Her breasts, sagging and disturbingly bare, swayed as she moved. And then she was gone.
Vanished back into the darkness, leaving Michael and Gaya alone, surrounded by bones. And the lingering echo of her scream.
It was one of the most fucked up, disturbing things he had seen in his entire life. And considering some of the things he''d witnessed that was saying something.
Chapter 1411 Gayas Disease
1411 Gaya''s Disease
"System," Michael muttered under his breath. "What the fuck are we dealing with here?"
The System, for once, was less than helpful.
[The system suggests the host investigate further. Be badass and earn some badass points instead ofe running to the system for every single thing.]
"You''re a real goddamn help, you know that?" Michael growled, more to himself than to the System. He remembered, with a flicker of annoyance the times the System had refused to assist him. It was the System''s way of pushing and forcing him to adapt, ovee, and be badass.
After all, it was called the Badass System, wasn''t it? Not the Hand-Holding, Let-Me-Solve-All-Your-Problems System.
Oblivious to his internal conversation, Gaya was scanning the darkness, her senses on high alert.
Michael, deciding to take a different approach, activated his earpiecem.
"Pink," he said in a low murmur.
"Well, well, well," Pink''s voice,ced with amusement, crackled in his ear. "Look who''s finally decided to call. What floor are you on now, Ghost? You got the bow yet?"
Michael could hear the faint, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of Vedora''s snoring in the background.
"We''re on the third floor," Gaya interjected, her voice tight with frustration. "And we''re getting our asses kicked by some freak with a mommy kink."
Pink chuckled. "Alright, alright, tough guys. Spill it. What''s going on? And how can I assist?"
But before Michael could answer, a presence a cold, heavy weight, settled upon them. He felt it moving towards him, a ripple in the darkness, a shift in the air. He reacted instantly, channeling his power, casting Ring of mes. A circle of ck fire, imbued with the raw power of his godhood, erupted around them. The bones, the remains of countless victims, were reduced to ash in an instant, the air filling with the stench of burnt bone and something else. Something foul.
"Children should not y with fire," the voice hissed, its tone a mix of anger and pain.
"Oh, that bitch is pissed," Gaya growled, her hand instinctively reaching for her crossbow.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Pink''s voice crackled through thems. "What the fuck was that? Did I just hear that right? Did someone say mommy?"
"We''re dealing with something, Pink," Michael said, his gaze scanning the darkness and his senses were on high alert. "Some kind of entity. With a mommy kink. I saw it, briefly. It''s old. Ugly as fuck. Really fucking ugly. Pale, wrinkled skin. Long, stringy hair. And tits. Long, saggy, disgusting tits. Trust me. You don''t want to see it." @@novelbin@@
"I what?" Gaya stammered, her voice a mix of disgust and disbelief. "Did you just say saggy tits? What the fuck is going on here, Michael? And that thing it it pped me! Across the fucking face!"
"Just give me a minute, guys," Pink said, her voice strained. "I''m processing. And checking the data crystals. See if I can find a match. Try not to die in the meantime, okay?"
"Gee, thanks, Pink," Gaya muttered, her gaze fixed on the darkness around them. "Really helpful."
The ring of mes, Michael''s only defense against the thing that lurked in the shadows, was starting to flicker.
"We need to stay within the circle, Gaya," he said, his voice low, urgent. "And try to figure out how to kill that bitch."
But as he spoke, something wetnded on his face. He froze, his body tensing, his senses on overload.
Slowly, he raised his hand, his fingers brushing against something sticky. Viscous.
He turned his head, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, and saw the entity.
It was hanging upside down, its form barely visible in the darkness, its breasts dangling inches from his face. The wetness was saliva¡a blob of drool, dripping from its mouth. But before Michael could react and move, the entity attacked. It dropped from the ceiling, its weight mming into him, its hands wsshing out.
It punched Gaya, a brutal blow that connected with her shoulder, sending her sprawling across the bone-strewn floor. Then, it turned on Michael, its hand a blur of motion as it pped him, the force of the blow staggering, even through his armor. He managed to dodge most of it, his sword deflecting part of the impact, but the force of it still numbed his hand, throwing him off bnce.
As a result, the Ring of mes flickered and died.
"You bitch!" Gaya screamed, scrambling to her feet, her God yer crossbow raised, loaded with an explosive bolt. "I''m gonna fucking kill you!"
She fired, the bolt streaking through the darkness, a blur of crimson light. It struck the ground where the entity had been a moment before, exploding in a shower of dirt and bone fragments.
The bolt, meant for the entity, struck the ground where it had been standing only a moment before, exploding in a shower of dirt and bone fragments.
But the entity was fast. Too fast. It reappeared behind Gaya, its hand, a blur of motion, pping her across the hand, sending the God yer crossbow flying. The weapon ttered across the floor, disappearing into the darkness.
Michael, reacting instantly, teleported to Gaya''s side, cing himself between her and the thing. He kicked out, his foot connecting with the entity''s chest, sending it skidding backward, a low growl rumbling from its throat.
"You dare raise your hand against your mother?" it shrieked, its voice a distorted, guttural rasp.
Michael chuckled, a cold, menacing sound. "It wasn''t my hand, bitch. It was my boot."
Gaya, shaking off the surprise attack, grinned, a predatory gleam in her eyes.
"And soon," she purred, her voiceced with a deadly promise, "you''ll be tasting my crossbow. Up close. And personal. I''m gonna shove it so far up your ass, you''ll be coughing up bolts for a fucking week."
The entity recoiled, its form flickering, as if uncertain. Then silence. A heavy, oppressive silence that pressed down on them, making it hard to breathe.
Click.
"Ghost?" Pink''s voice crackled through Michael''s earpiece. "You there? I''ve been researching. And I think I know what you''re dealing with. You lucked out, finding it in these crystals."
"Spit it out, Pink," Michael growled, his gaze scanning the darkness, his senses on high alert. "What the hell is it?"
"It''s called a Mater Lacrimosa," Pink said with a hesitant voice. "At least that''s what the records call it. Created by Morbus. The God of Famine. Or gue, depending on who you ask. It''s a byproduct of his experiments. A twisted corrupted soul. A mother."
"A mother?" Gaya muttered, her brow furrowing.
"Yeah," Pink said, her voice grim. "A mother who watched her children die. Slowly. Painfully. From disease. Starvation. The gue. Morbus he twisted her grief, her pain, her despair. Turned her into that. A monster. Driven by a perverted motherly instinct."
"And when the mother dies her soul it lingers," Pink continued, her voice a low, urgent whisper. "Corrupted by Morbus''s power. It merges with the body. Twists itand transforms it Into the Mater Lacrimosa."
"Enough with the fucking history lesson, Pink," Gaya snapped, her voiceced with impatience. "How do we kill this bitch?"
Michael, his gaze still scanning the darkness, his senses on high alert, listened intently. The silence, the absence of the entity''s presence, was unnerving. He knew it was still there, lurking, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
"About that," Pink said, her voice hesitant. "That''s where it gets tricky. ording to the data crystals you can''t kill her. Not in the traditional sense. Not until she stops. And to make her stop you need to well appeal to her motherhood. Remind her of her children."
"Appeal to her motherhood?" Gaya repeated, her voiceced with disbelief. "What the fuck does that mean?"
"The crystal says you''ll only get one chance. To put a de through her heart. If you miss or if you hesitate well, it says you''ll be infected. With the gue she carries."
Pink paused, her voice taking on a graver tone.
"I know you two are you know gods. But if I were you I still wouldn''t want to test that theory. I wouldn''t want to find out if a god can get infected by that."
But before Michael could respond, the entity shrieked again, a sound of pure, unadulterated rage. He felt a presence, something cold grasping at his legs. He kicked out, his boot connecting with something but the presence remained.
"Michael!" Gaya shouted. "It''s¡it''s got me!"
He turned, his eyes widening in horror as he saw it. A hand, skeletal and pale, reaching out from the darkness, its fingers wrapped around Gaya''s ankle. When Michael saw this, he reacted instantly, casting Ring of mes. A circle of ck fire erupted around them, pushing back the entity. But this time, the entity didn''t scream. Itughed. A cold, chilling sound that echoed through the chamber.
Michael, his gaze fixed on Gaya''s leg, saw it. The spot where the hand had touched her the armor it was corroding. Rusting. Disintegrating.
His armor, forged from the strongest materials in the mortal realm, reinforced with dragon scales and enhanced with dark ore was built forbat,resistance andprotection against physical attacks. But Gaya''s armor was designed for stealth and infiltration as it was light, flexible and vulnerable to whatever the fuck this Mater Lacrimosa was doing to it.
And beneath the corroding metal he could see veins. Green, pulsating veins, spreading across Gaya''s skin, like a disease.
"You''ll join my children soon," it whispered with a seductive purr.
Chapter 1412 Gaya is Pregnant?
1412 Gaya is Pregnant?
"This is gonna hurt," Michael said, his voice tight with urgency. He conjured a lick of dark mes, carefully adjusting the intensity, and lowering the power until it was a controlled burn.
"What''s gonna?" Gaya began, her voiceced with confusion. But before she could finish the question, Michael grabbed her foot, his hand, wreathed in dark mes, mping around her ankle.
"Motherfucker!" Gaya screamed, her body convulsing as the mes burned her skin, searing away the corruption, the disease.
It was agonizing but necessary. He could feel her pain, her agony, and it fueled his anger. He red into the darkness, his eyes burning with a cold fury. This thing this Mater Lacrimosa had hurt her. And for that, it would pay. Then, he gently poured a healing potion over her foot, the liquid hissing as it came into contact with the burned flesh. The green veins receded, vanishing as the potion worked its magic, restoring her skin, and healing the damage.
But they weren''t safe. Not yet. Mater Lacrimosa was still out there lurking in the darkness and waiting for another chance to strike.
And then it lunged. A blur of motion, a flicker of something in the darkness, aiming straight for Gaya.
Reacting on instinct, Michael pushed her out of the way, a surge of power that sent her stumbling backward. He met Mater Lacrimosa head-on, his handshing out, connecting with something solid.
He pped it.
Hard.
Mater Lacrimosa recoiled, its form flickering, its shriek a mix of pain and surprise.
Recovering from her near-death experience, Gaya stared at the spot where Mater Lacrimosa had been, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"Don''t hit me!" she blurted out, her voice a desperate plea. "I''m I''m pregnant!"
Mater Lacrimosa it froze. Mid-air. Its form flickering, its movements hesitant. Its eyes if you could call them that widened, a flicker of uncertainty within their depths. And was that doubt?
"You''re going to be a mother?" Mater Lacrimosa''s voice, no longer a shriek but a soft, melodious whisper, filled the chamber. Then, it moved closer to Gaya, its form flickering in the darkness and its movements hesitant.
Gaya, thankfully, couldn''t see the thing. Couldn''t see the horror of its face. But she could feel it touch, cold and mmy like death. She felt it its hand on her stomach. A gentle touch but unsettling.
"Motherhood" Mater Lacrimosa whispered, its voice raspy. "It''s a beautiful thing. To create. To nurture. To love."
"Yeah, it''s fucking great," Gaya said through gritted teeth, trying to hide the grimace on her face, trying to ignore the nausea that rose in her throat.
"You will cherish this child," Mater Lacrimosa continued, its voice taking on a dreamy quality. "You will protect it. With your life."
"Damn right, I will," Gaya said, her voice strained. "So, why don''t you just fuck off back to whatever hellhole you crawled out of, and leave us the fuck alone?"
Having teleported behind the thing, Michael watched the exchange with a mixture of disgust and fascination. He expected a fight but not this. Not whatever the fuck this was.
"You will love this child," Mater Lacrimosa said insistently. "More than anything."
"Yeah, sure," Gaya said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I''m gonna love it so much. Now seriously. Fuck off."
On the other hand, Mater Lacrimosa''s hand was still resting on Gaya''s stomach. And then it recoiled as if burned.
"You''re lying," it hissed, its voice cold and menacing. "You don''t want this child."
10:38
Michael''s grip on his sword tightened as he twisted the de, the ck mes searing Mater Lacrimosa''s essence. On the other hand, Gaya, her own de a whirlwind of motion, hacked and shed as Mater Lacrimosa''s screams grew weaker. Soon,its movements became more sluggish, until finally, it stopped moving. As a result, the darkness that had shrouded the chamber receded, fading away like smoke, revealing the full extent of the horror.
The chamber was exactly as they''d left it. The bones of Mater Lacrimosa''s victims still littered the floor, a grim reminder of the suffering that had taken ce within these walls. But the presence of Mater Lacrimosa was gone.
"Is it over?" Gaya asked, heaving for breath.
"Seems like it," Michael replied, his gaze sweeping across the chamber but his senses were still on high alert. "But good thinking. With the pregnant talk. You almost caught me off guard with that one."
"Yeah, well," she muttered. "You''re not the only one who can improvise. Besides, you''re the asshole who doesn''t want kids." Gaya rolled her eyes.
Michael sighed. It was a conversation they''d had many times before. Gaya wanted a family and children. A normal life. Or as normal as it got for the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Monsters. But he couldn''t. Not with everything that was going on. He had too many enemies and too many responsibilities. Bringing a child into this world, into this chaos would be irresponsible and even cruel.
He''d always been honest with her, at least about that. He didn''t want kids. Not now. Maybe someday. When things were different. When the world was safer. But not now. And Gaya epted that as she had never pressured him or demanded anything. Instead, she had always been supportive and understanding.
And that''s what made him feel even worse.
He was the God of Darkness, the viin of this story, the one who''d killed his own brother, who''d plunged the mortal realm into eternal night. He was selfish. Ruthless. He did what he had to do to survive and win. But Gaya Gaya deserved better. She deserved more. She was a goddess, for fuck''s sake. She deserved the world. And he was what? A shitty husband, dragging her through his messes, not giving her what she truly wanted.
"It''s not no forever, Gaya," he said gently. "It''s just not now. Not with everything that''s going on. It''s too dangerous."
"That''s what you said in the mortal realm," Gaya pointed out, her voiceced with a hint of resentment.
Michael winced as he knew she was right. He had been postponing and avoiding the issue. Back in the mortal realm, it was the sects, the kingdoms, and Skyhall. He always had an excuse and a reason to wait.
And now it was the Gods. The Pantheon, Andohr, Rin, and The Omegas. It never ended. There was always some new threat and some new crisis.
He understood her frustration and her longing. If their roles had been reversed, if she''d been the one refusing, he knew he would have felt betrayed and resentful.
Despite her own desires, she epted his reasons. She was a great wife, and he was trying. But it didn''t change the fact that he was being a shitty husband.
Fortunately, the awkward silence that had settled between them was broken by a low, rumbling sound. The ceiling above them shifted, a section of it retracting to reveal a staircase, crafted from the bones that littered the floor. They rose, twisting and turning, forming a path to the next level.
Eager to escape the emotional minefield he had just stumbled into, Michael seized the opportunity.
"Up we go," he said, his voice a little too cheerful, as he started towards the staircase. He would take a dozen Mater Lacrimosas over a guilt trip from Gaya any day. At least the physical wounds healed.
Gaya, watching him go, sighed. It was amusing, in a way. The great God of Darkness, the Dark Lord himself, practically fled from a conversation about feelings.
She knew, deep down, that his reluctance to have children wasn''t because he didn''t want them. It was fear. He grew up as an orphan, tossed aside, and abandoned. He had seen firsthand the cruelty of the world and the pain that came with loss. He was afraid. Afraid of failing as a father and inflicting the same pain he''d endured on someone else. @@novelbin@@
But she also knew he would be a great father because he was protective, loyal, and fierce. He would do anything for those he cared about.
She shook her head, a small smile ying on her lips.
For now, though she had other things to worry about. They had a bow to find and deal with a whole lot of unknown bullshit waiting for them on the next floor.
Chapter 1413 Plan to capture Death himself II
1413 n to capture Death himself II
Andohr considered his options for a moment. He was many things, but stupid wasn''t one of them. Messing with Death it wasn''t something to be taken lightly. Death was different. A solitary figure, ancient, powerful, a being who existed outside the squabbles of the Pantheon. He didn''t crave worship, didn''t seek power, didn''t y their games. He simply was.
Death had created the Three Horsemen and tasked them with maintaining bnce. A necessary function, perhaps, but one that had corrupted them over time. They became obsessed with their duties, with their power, and with death itself. And when Death had cast them out, their resentment and thirst for revenge had festered, grown into something monstrous.
And now, they wanted to capture him, imprison him. To be honest, it was madness as far as Andohr was concerned.
But Andohr wasn''t about to interfere. Not directly, at least. He would help them as promised and create a cage around Death, a temporal barrier that would prevent him from escaping to his domain and summoning his full power. A few minutes. That''s all they would need as Morbus had said.
And if they seeded well, then Andohr would have three allies. Powerful allies, if a bit unhinged. It wasn''t ideal, not by a long shot. But it would strengthen his position against the Pantheon, against the God of Darkness. An enemy of my enemy was a friend and all that bullshit.
And if they failed if Death escaped well, then that was their problem, wasn''t it? He would have fulfilled his end of the bargain. And he would be rid of three potential headaches. Three liabilities. Three fucking loose cannons.
It was a win-win, really.
"Very well, Morbus," Andohr said, his voice smooth, his expression carefully neutral. "I will assist you. I will contain Death. Prevent him from escaping. For a few minutes. But that''s it. That''s all you get."
Morbus chuckled, a dry, rasping sound that made Andohr''s skin crawl. @@novelbin@@
"That''s all we need, Andohr. Just a few minutes."
"And after that," Andohr continued, his gaze hardening, "our deal is concluded. You''ll owe me nothing. And I''ll owe you less than nothing."
Morbus grinned, his yellowish teeth gleaming in the dim light.
"Agreed."
Just as Andohr was no fool, Morbus was neither. He knew what Andohr was. He knew how the God of Time and Space operated. He was using them, just as they were using him. And this alliance was temporary, a marriage of convenience and nothing more.
As far as Morbus was concerned, Andohr''s obsession with the God of Darkness clouded his judgment, making him reckless and unpredictable. Thus, the Three Horsemen didn''t trust Andohr. Notpletely. And they were eager to be free of him and pursue their own goals.
This capture of Death was their priority and Their obsession. And once it was done well, they would have no further use for Andohr.
Once the deal was struck, Morbus vanished through the portal which he arrived, leaving Andohr alone in the Moonlit Valley. He stood there for a moment, his gaze fixed on the spot where the gue God had been, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. Then with a swirl of shadows and a distortion of time, he too vanished.
**************************
Several minutester, Morbus reappeared in his own domain, a realm of decay and despair. It was a deste wastnd, a vast expanse of barren ins and fetid swamps, where the air hung heavy with the stench of death. Flies, their bodies grotesquely swollen, buzzed in thick swarms, their incessant drone a constant, irritating hum. Skeletons, their bones bleached white by the harsh suns,y scattered across thendscape, their empty sockets staring up at the sickly, greenish sky. And bodies in various stages of dposition, littered the ground, their flesh oozing a foul-smelling liquid that formed pools of putrid, bubbling goo. It was a ce where life withered. Where hope died.
Morbus, however, felt at home. He breathed in the fetid air, his senses reveling in the decay. He made his way across the destendscape, towards a lone, twisted tree that stood silhouetted against the horizon. It was a gnarled, ancient thing, its branches bare and ckened, its trunk covered in festering sores.
He tapped the trunk of the tree in a specific pattern, and a section of the ground before it shifted, revealing a hidden passageway, leading downwards into the earth.
He descended into the darkness, the stench of death growing stronger with each step. The passageway opened into a vast, cavernous chamber, its walls lined with skulls, their empty sockets gleaming in the flickering light of torches that burned with a sickly, green me.
And in the center of the chamber, seated on a throne crafted from bones human bones was Fourcrux.
The God of Necromancy.
He was a skeletal figure, his form draped in tattered, dark green robes, his skull-like face devoid of any flesh, and humanity. His eyes, two points of malevolent, green light, fixed on Morbus as he approached.
"Well?" Fourcrux asked, his voice a dry, rasping whisper that echoed through the chamber. "Did Andohr agree?"
"Of course, he fucking did," Morbus chuckled, sinking into a nearby chair, his body oozing a viscous, greenish fluid. "He''ll cage Death for us. Keep him trapped. For a few minutes. Just as we asked."
"Good," Fourcrux rasped, a faint, green light flickering in his empty eye sockets. "And Xyloth? Will he be joining us?"
"He''ll be there," Morbus said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Wouldn''t miss it."
Among the three of them, Xyloth, the God of Murder, was the most powerful. He''d turned murder into a business. A goddamn franchise. He''d created a cult, a following of worshippers who killed in his name. They had ranks, titles, and even benefits. The more they killed, the more favored they were by Xyloth. And the more favored they were, the more they worshipped him. It was a vicious cycle, a self-perpetuating machine of death and devotion. And it made Xyloth strong.
Rin, his daughter, his Princess of Murder, stood at the top of that twisted hierarchy. His most devoted follower. His most efficient killer.
Fourcrux, while not as shy as Xyloth, was still a force to be reckoned with. He didn''t have the numbers that Xylothmanded, but he had quality. His followers, and his Reapers were specialists in the dark arts, necromancy, and the maniption of life and death.
He targeted the vulnerable. The grieving. Those who had lost loved ones. He would whisper in their ears, promising them reunion and resurrection. After finding suitable targets, Fourcrux and his reapers would guide them, providing them with knowledge, rituals, and power.
They would show the poor souls how to dig up graves, stitch together body parts and breathe life back into dead flesh.
In other words, he would hook them, reel them in and make them dependent on his magic. And in return, they would worship him, serve him, and be his eyes and ears throughout the realm. His agents of death. It wasn''t as widespread as Xyloth''s operation, but it was effective. And it made Fourcrux very powerful.
And then there was Morbus. The God of gues. The sickness made manifest.
He was different from his brothers. He didn''t have Xyloth''s business acumen or Fourcrux''s morbid charm. He didn''t crave followers. Or power. Not in the same way, at least. Instead, he simply enjoyed his work as he reveled in disease and suffering. He wasn''t interested in building anything but wanted to spread his gifts. To infect. To corrupt.
"Fourcrux," Morbus said, his voice a low, guttural rasp, "is everything in ce? To capture our dear brother?"
He wasn''t helping his brothers out of any sense of loyalty or brotherly love. Instead, he just wanted to survive, live long enough to spread his gues and watch the world wither. And he knew with the God of Darkness on a god-killing spree his chances were slim. After all, he was there in Fortuna''s domain when Rainar had fallen. He saw the crossbow bolt, heard the scream, and felt the shift in the bnce of power. To be exact, He felt the fear and the certainty that gods could die. He didn''t want to experience that sensation ever again.
So he had joined his brothers to help them. Because trapping Death was the only way. The only way to ensure their survival and escape that primal fear that had gripped him ever since Rainar''s assassination.
"Fourcrux," Morbus said, his voice a low, guttural rasp, "is everything in ce? To capture our dear brother?"
He paused, his gaze fixed on Fourcrux.
"We''ll only get one chance at this, brother. If we miss well, let''s just say we''re fucked. Royally."
Fourcrux remained silent for a long moment, his skull-like face unreadable, his empty eye sockets staring into the distance. He was weighing the risks. This was a gamble. A big one. If they seeded, they would have control over Death himself and be untouchable even by the God of Darkness.
Chapter 1415 The State of Mortal Realm and Zariel
1415 The State of Mortal Realm and Zariel
Meanwhile, back in the mortal realm, Elidyr and Lah sat in a dimly lit room within the Dark Castle, the flickering torchlight casting long, dancing shadows across the walls. Even the brightest mes seemed diminished, their light struggling to pierce the gloom that had settled over the world since Noah''s death.
Harry, now fourteen, a young man on the cusp of adulthood, sat beside them, his gaze fixed on the floor, his expression troubled. Wulfric, his face etched with worry, stood near the window, his gaze fixed on the darkness that nketed the world outside.
The eternal night had changed things. It wasn''t just the absence of light. It was more than that. The darkness it seemed to seep into people''s hearts, twisting their emotions, amplifying their worst impulses.
As the SKyhall elders mentioned, violence was on the rise, crime rates had skyrocketed and people were edgier and more aggressive. They would snap at the slightest provocation, resorting to fists, knives, and magic to settle even the most trivial disputes.
In addition, even the simple act of telling time had be difficult. Days blurred into nights, nights into days, with no sunrise to mark the start of a new day and no sunset to signal its end. In other words, people were losing it. For instance, farmers couldn''t tell when to nt their crops and merchants couldn''t tell when to open their shops. Even the animals were confused, their instincts scrambled by the endless night.
It was chaos. And it was wearing on everyone.
Elidyr broke the silence, his voice a low rumble in the dimly lit room.
"The Dark Army has established checkpoints," he said, his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the castle walls. "In every major city. Every vige. In every continent. They''re patrolling. Maintaining order. Or trying to."
He paused, his brow furrowing.
"Corey''s been patrolling the seas," he continued, a slight smile touching his lips. "Keeping the pirates at bay."
The seas were particrly hit hard by the eternal darkness. The instability, the fear, and the desperation had driven many to piracy. They formed crews, raiding coastal towns, and attacking merchant ships, their greed fueled by the chaos. They were operating outside the Dark Army''s control, independent, unpredictable, and increasingly aggressive.
Big Bertha, Michael''s gship, under Corey''smand, was patrolling the seas, trying to contain the pirate threat. But it was like trying to bail out the ocean with a bucket.
"And Nithroel," Lah said, her voice barely above a whisper. "She''s requested our aid. In Awor."
Elidyr sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"I''ve sent more men," he said. "But we''re stretched thin. We''re not fighting an organization, Lah. We''re fighting the darkness. In people''s hearts."
Harry, who''d been silent until now, spoke up, his voice filled with a grim determination.
"What about Zariel?" he asked. "Has anyone seen him?"
The name Zariel hung in the air, a chilling reminder of the threat that still lurked in the shadows.
The former Reaper, once a servant of Fourcrux, now a rogue agent, was loose. He was a phantom and a monster who could possess the living, haunt the dead, and vanish without a trace. He had left a trail of bodies in his wake, each one a testament to his cruelty and power.
They all remembered, with a shudder, what he did to Cindy, how he possessed her and forced them to release him.
But Cindy, despite her youth wasn''t a victim. She had grown. She was almost fourteen now, but she was different. After all, she was raised by Gaya and trained by Michael and Eve. To be precise, a mini Dark Queen, as Elidyr had once jokingly called her.
"Cindy''s hunting him," Elidyr said, a hint of pride in his voice. "She''s close. "
"Isn''t that dangerous?" Lah asked, her brow furrowing in concern. "She''s so young. She shouldn''t be doing this. We should be doing this."
Elidyr shook his head.
"Cindy she''s different, Lah. She''s Raylene''s daughter. But she''s also theirs," he said, gesturing towards the ceiling, towards the realm of the Gods. "She grew up with them. With Gaya and him. She mes herself, you see. For freeing Zariel. For the deaths he''s caused. She''s hunting him. And she won''t stop. Not until she''s finished him. She needs to prove herself. To them. And to herself."
"Has he sent any messages?" Lah asked, her voice hesitant, her gaze shifting towards Elidyr.
They all knew who she meant by ''he'', The God of Darkness¡The Dark Lord.
When Elidyr heard her,he just sighed, running a hand through his hair. He had been busy dealing with the memories that Wulfric unlocked and trying to keep the mortal realm from falling apart. He hadn''t had time to even think about contacting Michael. And even if he had the time, he wouldn''t have contacted them because Michael and Gaya entrusted the mortal realm with him and the others. It was their responsibility and burden.
Besides, he could only imagine what kind of shit Michael was dealing with in the realm of the Gods.
"No," he said, his voice heavy. "Nothing."
"I should help Cindy," Harry said with a firm voice. "She shouldn''t be alone. Not with him out there."
Elidyr sighed. "I''ve tried to talk to her, Harry. Many times. I even offered to send Aria with her, for backup. But she''s stubborn. Just like her godmother."
Harry chuckled, a faint, humorless sound.
"Yeah," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "She''s something."
From the moment Harry saw her, he was drawn to Cindy. She was different, special. Beautiful, yes, but also courageous, a badass. She wasn''t like the other girls he met because Cindy wasn''t afraid of anything or anyone.
He admired her loyalty, and the way she worshipped the Dark Lord and Gaya. He had witnessed her annihte a group of older students at Mazeroth who dared insult Michael. The professors had to intervene, restraining her furious rage. He admired that intensity in her.
Sometimes, at night, he would see her standing on the balcony of the Dark Castle, talking to the sky, as if she truly believed the Dark Lord and Gaya could hear her.
Even her mother, Raylene, teased her about it, saying she loved the Dark Lord and Gaya more than anyone else.
"She''s dedicated," Harry said softly. "She''s going to find him and stop him."
"You should help her, Harry," Lah suggested gently, her gaze fixed on her son. "She''s too proud, just like your father, to ept help. But she needs it, and you care about her."
Lah saw the way Harry looked at Cindy ¨C the admiration, affection, and longing. It was amusing, in a way, to see young love blossom even in this chaos. She felt happy for her son. And Cindy was special, a firecracker like Gaya, but with a good heart, a kind soul.
But before Harry could reply, Wulfric, who had been silent, finally spoke.
"We need to talk to Rowena," he stated calmly.
Everyone in the room froze. They all knew about Rowena, her connection to the Dark Lord and their shared history. She had been living in the Dark Castle with her father and sister since Noah''s death, keeping to herself, spending most of her time meditating, barely leaving her room.
"What do you mean, Wulfric?" Elidyr asked, his voiceced with apprehension. "What does Rowena have to do with this?"
Wulfric turned to face them, his expression serious.
"Rowena''s mother, Diana, possessed the blood of Arora, an Ancient God. I believe Rowena inherited this blood, this power."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over their faces.
"What we''re doing is temporary, band-aid solutions. We''re just prolonging the inevitable. The only way to truly fix this, to bring back the light, is to rece the darkness. And I believe Rowena is the key." @@novelbin@@
He took a deep breath.
"We need to utilize this blood, Rowena''s aid, to fight the darkness."
Everyone stared at Wulfric with a mix of shock and disbelief. It seemed impossible, yet if it was true, it could change everything.
"How?" Lah began hesitantly. "How do we do that?"
Wulfric took a deep breath, his gaze fixed on some distant point.
"There are records," he whispered. "In Mazeroth''s archives. Ancient texts. They speak of rituals, spells, ways to utilize the blood of an Ancient God. It''s dangerous magic, powerful and unpredictable. But I believe if we can convince Rowena to help us, we could build something, something to mimic Noah''s light, a beacon, a substitute."
However, Elidyr remained skeptical.
"What records, Wulfric?" he asked, doubt in his voice. "And why do you think they''re true? Skyhall was obsessed with power. They collected texts, artifacts, schemes. Most were useless, or worse, dangerous, more trouble than they were worth."
Lah nodded in agreement.
"We can''t risk Rowena''s life, Wulfric," she said firmly. "She''s been through enough."
Wulfric shook his head, his gaze resolute.
"Even if Skyhall is gone, she''s still the Holy Maiden, Lah," he said steadily. "She won''t stand by and watch the world suffer. She has a duty, a responsibility."
"And if something happens to her," Elidyr interjected with a hint of anger in his voice, "the Dark Lord will have our heads. He''ll destroy us. We can''t risk it, not with her. If there are any records, we need to find another way, a safer way, without hurting her."
They were about to continue their debate, when a dark army soldier, his face pale and sweaty, burst into the room, stumbling to a halt before them.
"My lords," he gasped, his breath ragged. "A message. From Lady Cindy. She''s found him. She''s found Zariel."
Chapter 1416 Cindy vs Zariel I
1416 Cindy vs Zariel I
On the Elon continent, a castle wed at the perpetual night sky. Had light existed, its architecture might have inspired awe. Gray stone towers, tall and imposing, pierced the darkness. Thick, sturdy walls were broken only by narrow, arched windows, their ss long shattered, leaving empty sockets staring nkly outwards. A withered garden, strangled by the absence of sunlight, clung to the castle walls, its once vibrant hues now a depressing monochrome. Once grand, it was now a vacant shell.
A figurended with barely a whisper on the overgrown path leading to the castle gates. Even in the smothering darkness, she radiated power, a presence that seemed to push back the shadows themselves. Her dark hair, unbound, cascaded down her back, a stark contrast to the pale baster of her face. A sword was strapped across her back, its hilt catching the faint, ambient light. A sleek, deadly crossbow was clutched in her hand.
With a snap of her fingers, a spark red to life, a tiny ember of fire that twisted and morphed, taking the shape of a miniature dragon. No bigger than a raven, its scales shimmered with an inner luminescence as it circled her head, casting a warm glow that illuminated her face.
Cindy.
She had grown, her frame taller, her muscles stronger. Yet, a hint of baby fat still clung to her cheeks, a whisper of her childhood. Fourteen now, almost a woman, but still a child in so many ways.
A sharp crack echoed in the stillness as she rotated her neck. Then, she started towards the castle, her boots crunching on the brittle, dead grass.
She''d tracked Zariel to this forsaken ce. The Reaper, for all his vaunted power, possessed a weakness. A penchant for luxury, a desire to live like some fucking king. He preyed on the wealthy, the powerful, the influential. Castles like this were where he''d spend his weekends, wallowing in pleasures unbing of a reaper.
Tonight, Cindy was going to snatch him. Tonight, he would pay for everything. For possessing her. For using her like a goddamn puppet. For hurting the people she loved.
She''d make Ghost and Gaya proud.
"Diddle diddle," she murmured, the words a soft whisper in the oppressive darkness, a twisted luby that sent a shiver down her spine. "Life is so little."
It was a rhyme from Ghost, a strange little ditty that somehow calmed the storm inside her, sharpening her focus.
She reached the castle gates, two colossal iron structures, their surfaces eaten away by rust, their hinges screaming in protest as she heaved them open.
The courtyard beyond was a wilderness, the once-manicuredwns choked with weeds and thorny overgrowth. Even in the darkness, she saw them.
Flowers.
Or rather, what was left of them. Dead. Their petals, once vibrant with life, were now withered and ckened, as if their very essence had been sucked dry.
A sign. A fucking calling card.
Wherever Zariel went, life withered and died.
He was here. The air hung heavy with the cloying stench of sulfur, the unmistakable odor of decay. Death. He was definitely here.
The castle was eerily silent. No guards patrolled its decaying ramparts. No servants scurried through its dusty halls. No sign of life stirred within its ancient stone walls.
Zariel was thorough in his grotesque way. He didn''t just possess his victims; he consumed them, their lives and the lives of those around them, extinguished without a second thought. He reveled in ying house, a twisted lord of a rotting manor, killing anyone unfortunate enough to serve his phantom reign.
Cindy, her hand instinctively resting on the hilt of her sword, pushed open the massive wooden doors leading into the castle''s main hall.
The interior whispered of past opulence, now choked by neglect. Faded, moth-eaten tapestries, once vibrant with color, hung limply from the walls. Chandeliers, their crystals cracked and clouded with years of dust, swayed precariously overhead. The air was thick and stale, heavy with the cloying scent of decay and something else, something metallic and sharp. Blood.
The heavy doors, groaning as if in protest, swung shut behind her, the sound echoing through the oppressive silence. Cindy didn''t even flinch, her hand remaining firm on her sword hilt. She unsheathed her de, the polished metal catching the dim, ambient light, and stepped forward, her boots crunching on the scattered debris that littered the cold stone floor.
She could feel it, a prickling sensation on her skin, the distinct weight of a presence. Watching her, assessing her.
But fear was a luxury Cindy couldn''t afford, not after being raised by Gaya, trained by Michael.
A smirk yed on her lips, a sh of defiance in her eyes. "I know you''re here, Zariel," she called out, her voice cutting through the silence, bouncing off the aged stone walls. "Your big sister''s here, you little shit. Soe out,e out, wherever you are. And die like a good little dog."
The temperature in the hall plummeted. A sudden, bone-chilling cold washed over her, making Cindy''s breath puff out in a white cloud. She caught a glimpse of a figure standing behind her, its reflection shimmering in the dusty surface of arge, ornate vase. Tall. Gaunt. Its eyes burned with a malevolent, green light.
She didn''t turn. "I''m not gonna turn around, you idiot," she stated, her voiceced with mocking amusement. "That''s clich¨¦ as fuck. Predictable. And boring."
The vase exploded. Shards of porcin, sharp and deadly, ripped through the air, whistling past Cindy''s head by a hair''s breadth.
A chuckle echoed through the hall, cruel and cold, a sound that seemed to seep into the very stones.
Even Cindy, for a fleeting moment, felt a flicker of unease, a sharp prickle of fear. But she mmed it down, crushing it, burying it beneath a thickyer of defiance. "The darkness doesn''t scare me, Zariel," she dered, her voice firm, unwavering. "Because my big brother? He''s the God of Darkness. So your pathetic little tricks don''t work on me."
Silence descended once more. A heavy, oppressive silence that seemed to press down on her chest, making it harder to draw breath.
She knew, with a certainty that settled deep in her bones, that her words had struck a nerve. Zariel might be a monster, a reaper, a creature of the fucking darkness, but even he had to recognize his ce in the food chain whenpared to Michael or Gaya.
19:10
But Cindy knew she had to do this alone. A fierce determination burned within her. She had to prove herself. To Gaya and Michael. To herself. She couldn''t be the damsel in distress, the one who always needed saving. She wouldn''t be a burden. She would be strong, independent, powerful, just like Gaya.
As if the castle itself responded to her thoughts, the floorboards groaned under some unseen weight, the sound echoing through the oppressive silence of the hall. Cindy''s senses sharpened. Her grip tightened on her sword hilt. She began to move, her footsteps, though light, echoing through the emptiness. She headed towards a grand, sweeping staircase crafted from a dark, almost ck marble. The banister was ornate, intricate, carved with figures that seemed to writhe in the flickering light.
The air grew colder as she ascended, the silence heavier, more suffocating. The metallic tang of blood was stronger now, fresh blood mingling with a foul, decaying odor that made her stomach churn. Crimson stters marred the walls, shimmering wetly in the light cast by her miniature dragon.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she entered a long, dark corridor.
And then she saw it.
A portrait hung on the wall, its frame gilded and ornate. The painting itself was illuminated by the flickering light of her dragonpanion. @@novelbin@@
A tall, gaunt man in golden robes stared out from the canvas, his features sharp and angr, his gaze intense and unsettling. He was stick-thin, almost skeletal, yet undeniably tall, imposing. Nearly seven feet, she guessed. Recognition struck her.
Edgar Crosswood.
The merchant who owned this cursed castle. The man Zariel was currently inhabiting.
A dark, menacing shadow flickered across the wall beside the portrait. Cindy''s hand clenched on her sword hilt. She spun around, her body tensing, ready to strike.
A shadow. Tall. Distorted. Stretched across the opposite wall, its form shifting and unstable, like smoke in a breeze.
A chuckle, cold and cruel, echoed through the corridor.
"Looking for me, little one?" a voice whispered, raspy and distorted, seeming to slither from the very walls themselves.
Zariel.
Cindy recognized the voice instantly. A shiver traced its way down her spine despite her best efforts to remain calm. But the source remained elusive, hidden within the dancing, flickering shadows.
She continued down the corridor, her senses on high alert, her hand never leaving the reassuring grip of her sword hilt. The silver armor she wore, a gift from Michael, shimmered faintly, the protective runes etched into its surface glowing with a soft, blue light. Elidyr''s work, a masterpiece of defensive magic, designed to ward off possessions, to prevent things like Zariel from worming their way into her mind, her soul.
And the de¡ a coborative effort. Wulfric, with his knowledge of ancient, forbidden magic, had provided the runes. The professors at Mazeroth, with their expertise in enchanting, had helped her imbue the de with the power to repel and harm Zariel.
It was a weapon designed for a single, terrifying purpose: to capture the elusive Reaper.
If she could somehow force him out of Crosswood''s body, if she could stab him with this de, she could, theoretically, trap him. Not kill him, not permanently, but contain him. Imprison him within the cage Wulfric had designed, a prison of intricate runes and powerful wards that would, hopefully, hold him long enough for them to figure out a way to destroy him.
For good.
Chapter 1417 Cindy vs Zariel II
1417 Cindy vs Zariel II
The ancient castle groaned around Cindy like a dying beast, each creak of timber and mournful sigh of wind through shattered ss a stark reminder of its age and decay. The cold bit deeper with every step upward, a damp, insidious chill that seeped through her armor, rattling her teeth.
Atst, the second floor. A long corridor stretched before her, swallowed by shadow, lined with doors whose warped and cracked wood whispered stories of neglect. Now she heard it clearly ¨C a faint, heart-wrenching whimpering, a child''s voice, thin and desperate, calling for help.
Trap, her mind screamed the word, a sharp, urgent warning. Zariel was a master of deception, a puppeteer of the soul. He relished in exploiting weaknesses, in twistingpassion into a weapon.
But a stubborn flicker of hope, a desperate refusal to believe the worst, burned in her chest. What if it wasn''t a trick? What if, against all odds, it was a real child, truly in need?
She moved down the corridor, her footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence like a drumbeat of dread. Ignis, the tiny dragon perched on her shoulder, provided the only light, his flickering mes painting dancing shadows on the aged walls. She passed several doors, each one silent, unyielding in its secrets, before halting abruptly before another. This was it. The source of the desperate cries.
Her hand trembled slightly as she reached for the doorknob. The metal was icy slick beneath her fingers. Taking a breath, she pushed the door inward.
Darkness. The room was a void, the feeble light from Ignis barely piercing the gloom. Shapes emerged slowly from the shadows ¨C hulking forms draped in white sheets, like silent, watchful ghosts. Empty chairs, their cushions ripped and torn, squatted in the dusty corners. Thick, suffocating cobwebs hung from the ceiling, macabre decorations in this forgotten space.
And in the center of the room, a shape. Tall, almost six feet in height,pletely shrouded in a white sheet. The child''s whimpering, faint but undeniably there, seemed to emanate from beneath it.
Cindy approached with cautious steps, her hand instinctively finding the familiar grip of her sword''s hilt. She reached out, her fingers brushing against the cold, rough fabric, and with a swift tug, pulled the sheet away.
A mirror. Tall and ornate, its frame carved with intricate, dust-choked designs. Its surface, clouded with years of neglect, reflected her own image back at her ¨C distorted, shadowy, a stranger in a strangend.
A breath escaped her lips, a weary sigh that held a bitter mixture of relief and self-directed annoyance. A damn mirror. Of course. Should''ve bloody known.
She turned, ready to curse her own gullibility and resume her search, when a flicker in the reflection snagged her attention.
For the briefest of moments, she''d seen something else. A figure. Small. Indisputably child-sized. Standing directly behind her in the reflection.
She whirled around, sword raised in a sh of polished steel, her heart hammering against her ribs. But there was nothing there. Just the dustden furniture and the oppressive silence.
A frown etched itself onto her face. Zariel was toying with her, the maniptive bastard. But why? What was the point of this cruel little charade?
Then, with a sudden, sharp rity, the memory surfaced. The day she''d stood, a desperate, pleading child herself, before the hardened faces of the adventurers in the guild, begging them to help her save her mother, Raylene. The way they''dughed, their callous mockery echoing in her ears. Dismissed her as nothing. Except for one person.
Ghost. @@novelbin@@
He hadn''t hesitated. Hadn''t questioned her sanity or her motives. He''d just helped. A hand outstretched in the darkness.
And that day¡ that day had irrevocably altered the course of her life. He''d be more than just an ally. He''d be family. Her stubborn, infuriating, fiercely loyal big brother.
She couldn''t ignore a child in need. Not after that. Not ever. The memory solidified her resolve, pushing back the gnawing suspicion.
But she wasn''t a fool. She''d seen the portraits lining the walls on her way up. The family. The smug-looking merchant Zariel had chosen as his puppet. And the son. Hostages, more likely than not. The pieces clicked into ce with chilling certainty.
She had to be careful. Terribly, brutally careful.
Cindy''s gaze remained glued to the mirror, a knot of unease tightening in her stomach. She spun around, her eyes raking the room, but the space behind her remained stubbornly empty.
Turning back to the ss, there he was. A little boy, no older than five, dressed in striped pajamas, stood beside her reflection. He hadn''t been there a moment before. She nced beside her, to where he should have been, but again, nothing. Just empty air.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she shifted her focus back to the mirror. The boy was still there, his reflection smiling up at her. And then, behind him, a figure materialized. Tall and unnaturally slender, a wide grin stretched across its face from ear to ear. The sight of this reflection sent a jolt of icy fear down Cindy''s spine, stealing her breath. She whirled around almost instantly, her sword leaping into her hand, but the room remained stubbornly vacant. The figure, the thing, was gone.
Then, a sudden, unseen force mmed into her back, propelling her forward. She stumbled, her body crashing through the mirror with a deafening shatter. "Fuck!" she cursed, scrambling back to her feet, her gaze whipping around the room, searching for the unseen assant. The figure was gone, but the sound ofughter, cruel and mocking, echoed through the ancient stone walls, seeming to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once.
She knew she had to move, had to find the source of the torment. Without hesitation, she ran, her boots pounding a frantic rhythm on the stone floor. Ignis, perched on her shoulder, cast long, frantic shadows that danced and writhed across the walls, mirroring the chaos in her own mind. To her astonishment, the objects within the castle seemed toe alive, shifting and flying of their own ord. Zariel, the maniptive bastard, is toying with me, she thought, her jaw clenching. But backing down wasn''t an option. Not now.
A chair came hurtling out of a side room, wood splintering as it mmed against the opposite wall. She dodged it by a hair''s breadth. A heavy oak table slid across the floor towards her, its legs scraping against the stone with a screech. She ducked low, narrowly avoiding the collision.
She bolted for the stairs, taking them two at a time, her movements fluid and honed by years of brutal training. Leaping onto the banister, she vaulted over it, her body twisting in mid-air, her gaze locked on the shadowed corridor above. She was fast, but the disembodiedughter, a constant, taunting reminder of her quarry''s elusiveness, suggested he was faster.
"Come out,e out, wherever you are," she muttered under her breath, her voice low and ragged. "Or are you too much of a pussy to fight me face to face?!"
After what felt like an eternity spent chasing the phantomughter and flickering shadows, Cindy saw a fleeting glimpse of the figure darting through a set of massive, double doors. She reached them a momentter, her breathing in ragged gasps, her hand gripping the cold metal of the doorknob.
She pushed the doors open. They groaned in protest, their hinges stiff with age and neglect. Stepping through the threshold, she found herself in a vast throne room.
Imposing. The high ceiling vanished into the shadows, the walls adorned with faded tapestries depicting scenes of ancient battles and long-forgotten conquests. A long, crimson carpet, its color dulled by time and dust, stretched towards a raised dais where a throne sat, its dark, unidentifiable surface exuding an aura of cold power.
And on that throne sat the merchant. Edgar Crosswood.
Or rather, what was left of him.
He was still tall and slender, but grotesquely twisted, distorted as if seen through a warped lens. His skin, once smooth and unblemished, was now pale, almost translucent, stretched taut over the sharp angles of his bones. His eyes glowed with a malevolent green light, and his lips were pulled back in a grin that was too wide, too knowing, too inhuman.
Zariel.
Cindy, her gaze locked onto the grotesque figure on the throne, kept her sword at the ready, its de catching the meager light. Her other hand moved deliberately behind her, fingers wrapping around the familiar grip of her crossbow. A sharp crack echoed through the silent throne room as she rotated her neck, loosening the tense muscles.
"Nice parlor tricks, asshole," she drawled, her voice steady, betraying none of the frantic pounding of her heart.
Theck of fear in her demeanor seemed to momentarily short-circuit Zariel''s smugness. A flicker of surprise, quickly reced by annoyance, crossed his distorted features.
Ignoring the shift in his expression, Cindy began to move, circling the throne room with a deliberate, assessing gait, taking in every detail as if conducting a leisurely inspection of her own property.
"You know," she continued, her voice casual, almost conversational, as if discussing mundane affairs rather than confronting a homicidal, body-snatching fiend, "it wasn''t exactly a walk in the park tracking you down, Zariel. You''re slippery. Like a greased-up eel. In a sewer."
She paused, her gaze lingering on a tapestry depicting a faded battle scene, its colors muted by age, its threads frayed and worn. "But I''m persistent. And I had help. See, I''ve learned a few things about you. Your habits. Your¡ preferences."
Coming to a stop before a dusty table, she ran a finger across its surface, leaving a clean streak through the grime. "You like expensive things. Castles. Mansions. You enjoy ying the lord of the manor. Living out your pathetic little fantasies."
She turned, her eyes meeting Zariel''s, her gaze hard and cold. "You always leave a mess. A trail. It wasn''t easy, but I followed it. From Kethen to Pen town, all the way to this shithole." A sharp, predatory smile touched her lips. "And now, here we are."
"You think you''re smart, don''t you, little bitch?" Zariel growled, the merchant''s voice warped and distorted. "Think you''re tough? Is that it? Because of that fancy armor? Those little runes?"
A dry, humorless chuckle escaped Cindy''s lips. "I was taught to use every advantage I have, Zariel," she countered, her voice even despite the electric tension in the air. "And this armor, this sword¡ªthey''re advantages. Over you."
Zariel''s grin faltered as he slowly rose from the throne, his possessed form a grotesque mockery of the man he''d stolen. Seven feet tall, gaunt and skeletal, his eyes burned with a malevolent green light.
"Where is the boy, Zariel?" Cindy''s voice was hard, devoid of emotion. "What did you do with him?"
A dry, rasping chuckle echoed through the throne room. "Perhaps I''ll tell you, little bitch. If you beg me. Nicely."
Cindy''s lips curled into a predatory smile. "I don''t beg, Zariel," she said, her voice soft butced with steel. "I make others beg. And soon, you will be begging."
She raised her crossbow, the bolt aimed directly at Zariel''s heart, her finger tightening on the trigger. And she fired.
Zariel, his arrogance blinding him, didn''t even flinch. He simply stood there, a smug grin stered on his distorted face, as the bolt hurtled towards him.
The grin vanished as the bolt pierced his flesh. He staggered backward, his eyes widening in shock and pain. The runes etched into the bolt red with a fierce, white light. It wasn''t just piercing him; it was burning him, agonizingly. Not just the stolen flesh, but something deeper. Zariel himself. His very soul.
"You think you can hurt me, little bitch?" he gasped, his voice strained, the grin twisting into a grimace of agony.
A cold, merciless chuckle was Cindy''s only reply. "Did you really think I''de here unprepared, Zariel? Bitch, I grew up with the God of fucking Darkness and the Goddess of fucking Monsters. I''ve got ns for my ns. And backups for my backups. You''re not the first monster I''ve hunted, you fucking asshole. And you sure as hell won''t be thest."
Chapter 1418 Cindy vs Zariel Final
1418 Cindy vs Zariel Final
"What what did you do?" he gasped, clutching at the bolt embedded in his shoulder, his body convulsing in protest. Each bolt, a masterpiece of anti-possession engineering from the depths of the cksmith Guild, was crafted from a rare, earth-mined metal. Nithroel''s own divine energy pulsed within them, the intricate runes etched by Wulfric himself gleaming faintly. The Dark Army, since Skyhall''s fall, had amassed a chilling arsenal ¨C ancient texts of forbidden knowledge and powerful forges humming with so many resources one could only dream of. These bolts were more than weapons; they were keys, specifically designed to unlock a possessed body.
Zariel''s arrogance had been his downfall. He''d dismissed Cindy as just another mortal¡ªweak, vulnerable, ripe for maniption. He was, quite demonstrably, wrong.
His possessed fingers, thick and clumsy, scrabbled for purchase on the bolt. The moment his skin grazed the metal, a sizzle echoed in the dim room, drawing back with a sharp intake of breath, surprise, and a flicker of raw fear twisting his features.
"It''s imbued, you fucking idiot," Cindy''s chuckle was a low, cold caress of sound. "With runes. Designed to hurt things like you. You can''t pull it out. Not without consequences."
A roar ripped from Zariel''s throat, pure, unadulterated fury shaking the very air. He charged, a blur of motion, impossibly fast.
But Cindy was ready, a coiled spring about to unleash. She leaped back, fluid and graceful, his grasping hand missing by a hair''s breadth. Her sword shed in the air, a spinning arc of steel caught effortlessly in her other hand. Simultaneously, another crossbow bolt snaked from her quiver. The loading, aiming, firing ¨C a single, unbroken movement.
"Cool move, for a brat," Zariel snarled, the merchant''s voice warped, a grotesque echo.
A smirk yed on Cindy''s lips. "Thanks. Yours isn''t bad, either. For an old-ass, washed-up Reaper." She aimed. Fired.
Zariel, his senses screaming with preternatural awareness, reacted instantly. He moved, a ripple in the fabric of reality, and was suddenly there, right in front of her, hand outstretched, ready to strike. Even for a Reaper, the speed was terrifying. The merchant''s body, unassuming as it had been, pulsed with unnatural strength.
But Cindy was quicker. The familiar weight of her sword settled in her grip as she raised the de, its surface shimmering in the meager light, meeting his attack with a jarring ng. The impact vibrated through the weapon, numbing her hand, sending her stumbling back a step.
He didn''t allow her a moment to recover. His hand glowed with a sickly, green light as he ripped a portrait from the wall, the heavy frame hurtling towards her like a deadly projectile.
Reflexes honed through countless hours of training kicked in. Cindy leaped, her body a twisting arc of controlled motion, bringing her sword down in a clean sweep. The portrait split in two with a satisfying crack.
A low chuckle rumbled in Zariel''s chest, surprise widening his eyes. "Not bad, little bitch," the voice a disturbing blend of the merchant''s and something ancient and cruel. "You''ve gotten stronger. Faster. Since thest time we met."
He was attempting to unnerve her, dredging up the memory of theirst encounter, of possession, of vition.
But Cindy just smirked.
"I learned a few things, Zariel," the words, sharp and cold, sliced through the tension. "About possession. About Reapers. About you." She paused, her gaze unwavering. "You''re in a mortal''s body, Zariel. And that body''s cultivation level? That''s all the power you''ve got. You''re masked. Hidden. But you''re not strong. Not here."
The truth in her statement hung heavy in the air. Despite Zariel''s theatrics, his power was leashed, tethered to the limitations of the mortal realm, specifically to the cultivation stage of his host. This merchant, this Edgar Crosswood, was a weakling, barely past Core Strengthening, a cosmic nobody. Zariel had projected an aura of terrifying invincibility, a clever deception, but Cindy had pierced the illusion. He was fast, undeniably. Strong, for a mortal. But not the unstoppable force he pretended to be.
The realization seemed to physically dete him. The smirk wavered, a flicker of uncertainty betraying his eyes. He lunged then, his movements now frantic, desperate. And the room itself seemed to turn against Cindy. The portraits on the walls ¨Cndscapes, still lifes ¨C stirred, animated by dark magic. Frames became airborne missiles, canvases tore free, swirling around her like razor-edged ghosts.
A roar, small yet fierce, erupted from Cindy''s shoulder. The tiny dragon, usually content as a miniature tattoo, expanded abruptly, its scales zing with fiery light. A torrent of lightning-infused fire erupted from its maw, incinerating the attacking portraits in a sh of ash and smoke.
Cindy moved with the dragon''s fury. Her sword left her hand, a spinning disc of silver death aimed unerringly at Zariel. Simultaneously, her hands glowed with a soft, white light, and shimmering, translucent duplicates of herself sprang into existence around her. Each one raised a crossbow, each one loaded a bolt, each one aimed.
Zariel, his concentration shattered by the dragon''s explosive attack, barely had time to register the multiple threats. He twisted, his body contorting in an unnatural manner, narrowly evading the whirring sword, though the de still grazed his shoulder, leaving a thin, crimson trail. Heunched himself into the air, attempting to escape the barrage of crossbow bolts raining down from her ethereal clones.
Cindy, however, was already in motion, rising to meet him, her fist crackling with golden energy ¨C a spell learned from Michael. She punched him. The force of the blow, amplified by the magic, connected squarely with his jaw, sending him hurtling backwards with bone-jarring force. He mmed into the stone floor, the impact creating a crater where hended, the resounding crash shaking the very foundations of the chamber.
"Not so tough now, are you, Reaper?" she snarled, her voice dripping with venom.
Zariel''s power was rooted in fear. He thrived on it, fed on it, used it to control, to manipte, to break. He could possess even powerful beings at the Half Immortal stage if fear held them in its grip. But Cindy? Cindy wasn''t afraid. Not anymore. And her armor, enhanced by Elidyr''s runes, stood as an imprable barrier against his insidious touch. He''d lost his advantage. His edge.
His control over the merchant''s body fractured. Zariel flickered, his form bing translucent, unstable. Then, with a frustrated snarl, he abandoned his failing host, his essence a wisp of smoke, darting towards the door.
As Zariel neared the doorway, an invisible force mmed into him, an unexpected gust of pure power that sent him reeling. His smoky form scattered, struggled for purchase, then coalesced once more.
Harry stepped into the throne room, a faint blue light emanating from his eyes, his outstretched hand still extended. Relief mingled with determination etched on his face.
"Took you long enough," Cindy called down from her hovering position, a yful edge to her tone. "Waiting for the dramatic entrance, were you?"
Harry''s cheeks warmed. He shrugged, a sheepish gesture. "Sorry," he mumbled, his gaze fixing on Zariel, who was solidifying back into the merchant''s form, rage zing in his eyes.
"You made a mistake, boy," Zariel''s growl resonated with the merchant''s distorted voice, his hands clenching into fists.
"Don''t even think about it," Cindy warned, descending to stand beside Harry, her voice hardening. She gestured towards the armor beneath Harry''s shirt. "See those runes?" she directed at Zariel. "Same ones on my armor. They prevent possession. So don''t even try it."
Despite the looming danger, a flush crept up Harry''s neck. He could feel his pulse quickening, a rapid thump-thump-thump against his ribs. He''d faced down monsters, survived battles, but this was different. This was Cindy. Her chin lifted in defiance, her eyes zing with a fierce light that sent a shiver down his spine. Fearless. A badass. A warrior. And he was smitten. Back at Mazeroth, girls had flocked to him, blushing, giggling, whispering his name, vying for his attention. But Cindy was different. No swooning, no flirting. Just challenges, pushes, inspiration. An alpha, and he was drawn to her like a moth to a me. The way she''d stood against Zariel, a creature of nightmares, without a tremor ¨C it made his heart do a little dance, a frantic skip-beat-skip.
Enraged, and insulted, Zariel roared, a sound ripped from the depths of pure fury. He surged towards Harry, his movements jerky, unpredictable, the possessed body a violent blur.
Harry, reacting instantly, thrust out his hand, unleashing a spell learned from Elidyr. "Leo''s Roar!" he called out, his voice ringing with newfound confidence. Three ethereal lions, shimmering with golden light, materialized and lunged at Zariel, their roars shaking the chamber.
Simultaneously, Cindy moved with fluid grace, a deadly dance across the floor, evading Zariel''s iling attacks. Shended behind him, her sword glinting in the gloom. Harry, however, held his ground. He wouldn''t attack directly. The lions served their purpose ¨C distraction, diversion. They couldn''t risk harming the host, not yet.
Cindy hovered a few feet above the ground, her feet barely touching the floor, her sword aimed at Zariel''s exposed shoulder, her stance precise, calcted. Just as the lions engaged, she fired. A crossbow bolt,unched with deadly uracy, streaked through the air and struck Zariel squarely in the shoulder.
He froze, the runes on the bolt ring to life, their power stunning him, immobilizing him for a precious few seconds. "I''ll be back!" he shrieked, the merchant''s voice warped with pain and fury, his body convulsing as he abandoned his host. A wisp of smoke, ck as midnight, shot towards the ceiling, seeking escape.
But they were ready this time. A melodious ding echoed through the castle, a single, pure note that vibrated in the very air, striking Zariel''s escaping essence like a physical blow. The smoky form flickered, and dispersed as if caught in a sudden hurricane.
Acting on instinct, Harry flung a metal card etched with glowing runes toward the weakened Reaper. Cindy, never missing a beat, followed suit, her aim unerring. A cage of brilliant blue light sprang into existence, trapping Zariel within its shimmering confines.
Then, she appeared. Lah stood in the center of the throne room, her veena held delicately in her hands, her fingers still resonating from the note she had just yed. It was her music, her power, that had weakened Zariel, thwarting his escape. After all, thanks to Skyhall''s resources, she had ascended to the Half Celestial stage. And her music? It was more than just melody; it was unadulterated power..
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Chapter 1419 Eve is not dead?
1419 Eve is not dead?
The arrival of Lah brought a guttural roar tearing from Zariel''s throat. Trapped within the luminous cage, the Reaper''s form flickered like a guttering candle me, his rage a tangible presence in the air. He mmed his fists against the shimmering bars, each impact sending ripples through his essence, but the light held, unyielding.
Harry edged closer to his mother, his gaze flickering between her and the furious spectacle of the imprisoned Reaper. "What are you doing here, Mom?" he asked, concern etching lines around his eyes.
Lah offered a small, reassuring smile. "Just watching over you two." Her voice, though soft, possessed an undeniable firmness. Since Michael''s departure for the realm of the Gods, a heavy mantle of responsibility had settled upon her. For Harry, undoubtedly. But also for Cindy. The girl was a miniature echo of Gaya ¨C sharp, quick-witted, undeniably cunning. Yet, that very brilliance was twinned with an unsettling impulsiveness, a recklessness born of a desperate need to prove herself, an eagerness to leap headfirst into the maw of danger.
Lah had to admit, Cindy''s n was impressive. She had stalked Zariel, anticipated his every move, andid traps for his inevitable tricks. She''d made it look almost effortless. Too effortless. And then she''d informed them of her intentions, a surprising act of inclusion. She had coordinated with Harry, looped in the Dark Army. This wasn''t a spur-of-the-moment decision; this was a meticulously crafted strategy.
Lah''s gaze swept over Cindy as she approached, taking in the gleam of the sword at her hip, the taut string of the crossbow slung across her back, the sturdy lines of her armor. "Youngdy," she began, her tone a careful blend of admonishment and undeniable pride. "I''m impressed. Truly. With your n. But you should have taken someone with you. You could have been injured. Or worse."
Cindy''s chin lifted, her dark eyes zing with youthful defiance. With a toss of her head, she sent her hair cascading over her shoulder. Sheathing her sword with a practiced flourish, she then holstered the crossbow with a familiar click, the very movement an echo of Gaya. Crossing her arms over her chest, she met Lah''s gaze head-on. "Pfft," she scoffed. "I had this handled. I had this." She tapped a gauntleted finger against her breastte, the runes etched into the metal glowing faintly. "And I had training. I''m not some helpless damsel, you know."
Amusement flickered in Lah''s eyes, but she shook her head, her expression sobering. "That''s no excuse, Cindy, for rushing into danger," she countered, her voice remaining gentle yet firm. "You should not underestimate your opponents. What if he''d had a way to bypass your armor? To possess you? Despite the runes, despite the protections?"
Sensing an opening, Harry stepped forward. "She captured him, Mom," he pointed out, a defensive edge creeping into his tone. "Can you justy off a bit?"
Lah turned towards her son, her gaze softening as itnded on him. But a single look, a flicker in her eyes, was enough to send Harry recoiling slightly. Harry was brave but he was not brave enough to push his luck when Lah gave him a ''mom look''.
Cindy, witnessing his reaction, couldn''t suppress a snort ofughter. "Mommy''s boy," she teased, her voice light and yful.
"I am not," Harry protested, a flush rising in his cheeks.
"You are," Cindy retorted, a wide grin splitting her face.
Lah smiled, a warmth unfurling in her chest as she watched them bicker. It was normal. Familiar. A scene ripped from a lifetime ago. She could almost hear Michael''s dry chuckle echoing in her mind. "Cringe," he would likely mutter or perhaps, "Double cringe." And Gaya? Gaya would probably just roll her eyes and walk away, feigning indifference. @@novelbin@@
But for Lah, this perceived "cringe" was precious. A tangible reminder that despite the encroaching darkness, the endless war, the ever-present threat, a spark of light still flickered. Hope persisted.
"That''s enough, youngdy," Lah said, turning back to Cindy, her voice now firmlyced with affection. "You captured him. You seeded. I''ll let this slide. But no more reckless actions. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mom," Cindy mumbled, rolling her eyes with exaggerated teenage drama, fully aware she''d gotten away with it, again. She sauntered away, her steps light with youthful confidence, then muttered just loud enough for Lah to hear,
"She''s got a stick way up her ass. I wish big sister Gaya was here. She''d throw me a goddamn parade for kicking so much ass."
Lah simply shook her head, a smile ying on her lips. She couldn''t help but wonder just how much of a questionable influence Gaya had been. At least, she was fairly certain Cindy hadn''t inherited that particr brand of colorfulnguage from Gaya. Michael was the prime suspect there. Still, Cindy was her responsibility now. At least until Michael and Gaya finally returned.
Her earlier trepidation banished, reced by a surge of reckless confidence, Cindy swaggered toward Zariel''s cage. A sharp crack echoed through the silent hall as she kicked the bars with unnecessary force. "What''s up, asshole?" she drawled, her voice dripping with mocking cheerfulness. "Ready to talk?"
A roar, pure and unrestrained, tore from Zariel. Still flickering within the cage of light, heunched himself at the bars, his hands mming against the energy field with a force that made the entire structure shudder. "You dare!" he snarled, the words a distorted echo of the merchant''s voice. "You dare imprison me? I am Zariel! A Reaper! I am death!"
Cindy simplyughed, the sound chillingly cold and merciless. "Not so tough now, are you?" she taunted, her gaze unwavering as it locked onto Zariel''s glowing eyes.
Watching from a safe distance, a surge of admiration coursed through Harry. She was fearless. Defiant. Badass. She was antagonizing a Reaper, a creature plucked straight from the darkest corners of nightmares, and she wasn''t even flinching. She was enjoying it, relishing the Reaper''s impotent rage.
A knot of unease tightened in Lah''s chest. Experience had taught her that a cornered beast was the most dangerous kind. And Zariel, trapped and incandescent with fury, was far more than just a beast. "Cindy," she said, her voice sharp with urgency. "Step away from the cage. Now."
But before Cindy could react and before she could even register themand, a group of figures appeared at the entrance to the hall. Elidyr, his face etched with worry lines, led the way, a squad of Dark Army soldiers filing in behind him. They carried orbs of light, their glow faint and flickering, yet enough to pierce the oppressive darkness that clung to the edges of the hall.
Relief washed over Elidyr as his eyesnded on Cindy, then on Zariel, shimmering and contained within the cage of light. "Cindy!" he called out, his voice echoing in the vast space. "You caught him."
Cindy, her attention stillser-focused on the caged Reaper, grinned. "Uncle Elidyr!" she eximed, her voice bright and cheerful. "Look! I got the bitch!"
Lah sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Language, youngdy."
Ignoring her mother''s mild reprimand, Cindy turned back to Zariel, her smile vanishing, her eyes hardening to chips of obsidian.
"Don''t think this is over," Zariel growled, the merchant''s voice twisted into something guttural and menacing. "You can''t kill me. You can''t hold me. I''ll escape. And when I do, you''re all going to wish for death."
Cindy chuckled, a low, dismissive sound. "Don''t get your hopes up, idiot. We''re going to research how to kill you permanently, so enjoy the little bit of time you have."
Harry, emboldened by Cindy''s confidence, joined in. "She''s right. We have tons of resources and texts. It''s only a matter of time before we figure out a way to kill you." Even as the words left him, a flicker of doubt crossed his face.
Trapped. Caged. These mortals had outsmarted him. He had underestimated them. Especially her. Cindy. He''d been so certain of his power, his ability to manipte, to terrify. He was Zariel, a Reaper, a harbinger of death. But now, a cold knot of fear tightened in his chest. He had betrayed Fourcrux, his god, his creator. He''d escaped one cage, only to blunder straight into another.
And this one¡ this one felt different. Final. He doubted he could escape this time. Not again. His usual tactics, threats and intimidation, felt hollow, empty. They wouldn''t work here. Not against them. He needed another approach. A different strategy. He needed to think.
His gaze darted around the chamber, cataloging the faces of his captors. The angel. The boy. The woman. And behind them, barely visible in the flickering shadows, the soldiers. He needed information. Leverage. Something he could use. Suddenly, an idea, a spark of twisted inspiration, ignited within his mind. A way out. A chance. He forced a smile, a grotesque imitation of human warmth stretching the merchant''s features into something unsettling.
"Eve," Zariel purred, the merchant''s voice nowced with a low, unsettling seductiveness. "Your Dark Lord''s best friend. She''s dead, isn''t she? But I know a way. A way to bring her back. And I know who she really was."
Despite his istion from Fourcrux, Zariel still possessed awork, a web of whispers and shadows. He had heard the rumors, the hushed tones discussing Eve. He knew about her, about her true nature ¨C that she was an Incarnation, a mortal vessel for Death itself. A secret that even the God of Darkness had not fullyprehended. The Three Horsemen had struck her down, a calcted move to weaken Death. But even in their arrogance, they had underestimated the entity they sought to diminish. They had shattered the mortal shell, but Eve''s essence, a fragment of Death, still lingered, tethered to him. And he, Death, could potentially draw her back, should he choose to. The irony of the situation was a darkly delicious prospect.
The mere mention of Eve''s name, the insidious suggestion that he held the key to her return,nded with the desired impact. They froze, their attention snapping to him, their faces reflecting a mixture of shock, disbelief, and a flicker of desperate hope. Even Lah, usually an embodiment of stoicposure, seemed visibly shaken. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, her lips parting in a silent gasp. Cindy''s jaw went ck.
"Don''t y games with me, Zariel," Elidyr growled, his voice low and dangerous, the initial shock giving way to suspicion. "She''s dead. And no one, not even the Dark Lord, can bring her back."
A dry, rasping chuckle escaped Zariel. "She''s dead, but not truly dead," he countered, his gaze sweeping across their stunned faces. "You have no idea who she was. She was an Incarnation. A vessel. For Death himself."
Chapter 1420 Eve Again
1420 Eve Again
The audacity of Zariel''s im hung heavy, a suffocating nket in the tense air. A stunned silence gripped the group, each mind grappling with the outrageous implications.
Lah, usually an ind of calm, could only gape at Zariel. Herposurey in shattered pieces around her, reced by a raw mixture of disbelief and something akin to longing. Gazing into those unnervingly bright eyes, she found no flicker of deception. He was desperate and undeniably cunning, but beneath it all, a sliver of truth resonated. There was no advantage to be gained in a lie of this magnitude, not about her.
Cindy, however, felt a dangerous tendril of temptation uncoil in her gut. Eve had been more than a friend; a sister in the trenches. The thought of seeing her again¡ "Exin yourself, Zariel," Cindy pressed, the words a low, controlled demand edged with a sliver of hope.
Sensing a crack in their resolve, Zariel''s lips curled into a predatory grin. "I know Eve was an incarnation of Death," he hissed, the words slithering through the silence. "If you want to see her breathing again, you need to parley with Death himself. And that, my dears, requires a bargain."
"And what in the nine hells," Harry cut in, suspicion sharpening his tone, "do you want, Zariel? Nothing slips through your grimy fingers for free." He knew the rhythm of the Reaper''s game far too well.
A dry, rasping chuckle escaped Zariel. "You''re a sharp one,d." His gaze locked onto Harry. "You can''t simply waltz up to Death. He''s a slippery bastard, always out of reach. Even if you could corner him, you can''t just demand a bloody favor. But I can help. Death owes me. And through me, I can resurrect Eve. The price? You loosen these irritating little restraints."
Cindy''sughter burst forth, a harsh, brittle sound that scraped against the silence. "You think we''re daft?" she snarled, knuckles whitening around the worn leather of her sword hilt. "You think we''ll just unlock your cage based on some bullshit story you just vomited up? After you crawled inside my head and butchered innocents for shits and giggles?" Trusting Zariel was akin to handing your newborn to a rabid wolf. Like expecting a politician to actually deliver on a goddamn promise. Only aplete moron would unshackle Zariel. Only a blithering idiot would swallow a single syble that oozed from his lips. He was cornered, desperate enough to promise the moon on a silver tter to escape his predicament. He was desperate. He''d say anything and do anything to escape.
Zariel, however, wasn''t naive. He knew empty words wouldn''t spring the lock. He needed to dangle something real, something they couldn''t resist. If their positions were reversed, he''d keep himself caged, a valuable pawn in a deadly game. Survival was his immediate focus. He needed to buy himself time, and weave an escape from this suffocating prison.
"Just hear me out," Zariel pressed, the earlier snarl reced by a disconcertingly smooth, persuasive tone. "I can prove it. Prove she can be drawn back. There''s a ritual. An ancient path to connect with Death. To demonstrate her link to him."
Elidyr''s brow furrowed, skepticism etched deep into his weathered face. "A ritual?" he questioned, the word thick with doubt. "Such a thing has never crossed my ears."
"Naturally, you decrepit fool," Zariel shot back, a sh of his old arrogance igniting his eyes. "It''s ancient, buried, forbidden. Known only to a select few." He paused, letting the words hang before turning his attention to Lah. "Her blood. A single drop will suffice. Perform the ritual, and you will see. You will know. She will stir."
"And I presume," Harry interjected, his voiceced with cynicism, "this sudden generosity isn''t sprouting from the goodness of your ck heart, Zariel? What''s the hook?"
That rasping chuckle returned. "You are a quick study,d." The grin stretched wider, predatory and knowing. "I''ll give you the ritual, freely given. But you must swear. None of you will attempt to end me. Not until the final word is spoken."
It was a long shot, a desperate throw of the dice. But in Elidyr''s mind, gears were already turning, weighing the impossible. What if this ritual was a fabrication? A cunning ploy to weaken their defenses, to slip through their fingers?
"And how do we enact this ritual, Zariel?" she inquired, her tone steady despite the turmoil within. "What assurance do we have that your forked tongue isn''t weaving another lie?"
Anticipating the doubt, Zariel offered a sly smile. "You possess resources, Lah. Ancient texts. Schrs steeped in forgotten lore. You can verify the ritual''s authenticity. Ensure it isn''t some parlor trick. As for guarantees¡" He paused, letting the suspense build. "The final incantation, the words that bind Eve''s spirit to Death''s realm and back, they muste from me. I am a Reaper, a creature born of the divine. Think of me as your bridge,"
Elidyr inhaled deeply, the gears in his mind whirring as he dissected Zariel''s proposition. The risks were obvious, the potential for a colossal fuck-up palpable. Yet, the whisper of a chance to see Eve again was a siren song against their better judgment. If there was even a goddamn sliver of truth tangled in the Reaper''s lies, they couldn''t afford to ignore it.
"Alright, Zariel," Elidyr conceded, the words measured, betraying none of the storm raging within. "I''ll bite. Lay out this ludicrous ritual of yours."
A predatory glint ignited Zariel''s eyes as his smile widened. "It must be conducted at the stroke of midnight," he began, the words a low, gravelly rasp that sent a shiver down the spine. "Under the veil of the darkest hour. And you''ll needcertain ingredients. Rarities, to be sure." He paused, those unnerving eyes sweeping over each of them, lingering as if assessing their worth in the grand scheme of his n. "The heart of a nightmare beast, Petals of a moonflower, plucked from the treacherous ocean. And, of course, three drops of Eve''s lifeblood." Another pause, letting the weight of his pronouncements settle in the air. "Combine these delightful morsels within a silver chalice. Recite the incantation I''ll provide. Then, touch the concoction to her lips."The grin returned, a chilling disy that prompted an involuntary shudder from Cindy. "And then, my friends, you''ll see her. Just a flicker. A fleeting glimpse. Proof, undeniable, that she lingers."
Despite the ingrained skepticism gnawing at him, a sliver of hope snaked through Elidyr''s chest. The ingredients were challenging to collect, yes. A bastard of a quest to procure them. But not impossible. Not with the resources they nowmanded, the spoils gleaned from Skyhall''s plundered vaults. A silent exchange passed between him and Lah, a brief meeting of eyes that spoke volumes. They would pursue this. They would undertake this perilous endeavor. For Eve. Ignoring her barb, Zariel''s gaze fixed on Lah. "Ready for your little reunion, are we, dear?"
Lah offered no reply, her eyes locked on Eve''s lifeless figure.
The past three days had been a frantic scramble. Wulfric, tapping into his vast knowledge of forgotten lore, had buried himself in the forbidden texts salvaged from Skyhall''s depths. He''d unearthed something ¨C a fragmented whisper of a ritual echoing Zariel''s description. A fucked-up way, perhaps, to test the tether between an Incarnation and their god. Obscure as hell. Dangerously so. But it was something tangible.
Preparations had been meticulous. They''d reinforced Zariel''s cage,yering runes and wards, a magical straitjacket designed to smother his power. Just in case the son of a bitch tried anything.
Elidyr, his hands glowing with a soft blue light, began to trace intricate runes onto the cold stone floor, his movements precise, his concentration absolute. Lah, pale but resolute, arranged theponents of the ritual. The nightmare beast''s heart pulsed faintly in a silver bowl, a grotesque, organic clock. Moonflower petals shimmered with an otherworldly, silver light. And Eve''s blood ¨C a few precious drops, drawn from her preserved body, rested in a small crystal vial.
"Now," Elidyr dered, the word echoing in the chamber''s heavy silence. "We begin this shit."
They followed Zariel''s instructions, each step deliberate. The bizarre ingredients werebined in the silver chalice, the mixture swirling, emitting an unnatural luminescence.
"Smear it on her lips," Zariel instructed, the words a guttural rasp. "Then, the magic happens. I speak the words. The key to unlocking the connection."
Lah''s hands trembled almost imperceptibly as she unsealed the ss cylinder. The preserving fluid around Eve''s body retreated, revealing her still, pale lips. Taking a steadying breath, she carefully applied the glowing concoction.
Zariel''s eyes closed. His voice shifted, deepening, taking on a strange, rhythmic cadence. "Kad''hal''ash''tr ven''r as''zhal''a. Vash''no''gal''dar, mal''ak''zarthus," he chanted, the ancient words resonating with an unsettling power.
They held their breaths, every gaze fixed on Eve, waiting, hoping against hope for some goddamn sign.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity stretched thin and taut, a gasp ripped through the chamber''s silence. @@novelbin@@
Eve''s eyes snapped open.
nk at first, like empty canvases. Then, slowly, a flicker of awareness, a pinpoint of light that widened, bringing focus.
Cindy, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs,unched herself at the ss cylinder. Her palms mmed against the cold surface. "Big Sister Eve!" she yelled, the words a messy tangle of relief and disbelief. "You''re alive!"
Eve blinked, her gaze drifting around the chamber, her expression utterly lost. "Where¡ where am I?" she whispered, the voice rough, barely a thread of sound. "Why am I¡ in the¡ water? Where''s¡Ghost?"
Elidyr, shaking off the initial shock that had rooted him to the spot, stepped forward cautiously. "Tell us something only Eve would know," he demanded, the words firm, though a tremor betrayed the anxiety wing at him.
Eve frowned, her brow furrowing in concentration, a familiar gesture. "Elidyr¡you have a secret stash of wine," she murmured, her voice thin as spun ss. "Behind the¡ bookshelves. In your¡ workshop, you sneaky bastard."
Elidyr''s eyes widened. He''dpletely forgotten about that hidden cache. It was true as only she could have known about that. She had caught him pilfering a bottle, years ago, and never let him live it down.
"Eve¡" he breathed, a wave of pure, unadulterated relief washing over him, almost knocking him off his feet.
But before he could find the words to express the sudden surge of hope, before Cindy could bombard her with a million questions, Eve''s eyelids fluttered closed. Her body went ck, and all the newfound light was extinguished. She slumped back into the viscous fluid as the fragile connection, so briefly established, had snapped.
Chapter 1421 Getting The Agni King
1421 Getting The Agni King
While Elidyr and the others grappled with the fleeting return of Eve, Michael and Gaya, bone-tired but stubbornly pushing forward, finally stumbled onto the sixty-third floor of Nithroel''s temple. Their armor, once gleaming symbols of their dedication, now sported a roadmap of their grueling journey ¨C dents, scratches, scorch marks ¨C a testament to the sheer ridiculousness of their trials. They''d wrestled with goddamn vampires, cracked moronic puzzles, and, unbelievably, even cooked for a gaggle of chattering squirrels. A right fucking circus, it had been.
This floor, however, felt different from the rest. A vast, circr chamber opened before them, the walls, floor, and ceiling crafted from a smooth, white stone that seemed to swallow the light, creating an unsettling sense of serenity. And in the chamber''s center, a pond shimmered.
Beautiful, yes. Eerily still and silent, reflecting the nkness of the ceiling like a perfect mirror. But both Michael and Gaya had learned not to trust pretty facades in this godforsaken ce.
"I''m fucking tired," Gaya dered, copsing onto the floor, her back against the cool stone, legs stretched out like she''d been strung up and left to dry. "I''d bet a hundred gold pieces a giant, mutated fish is gonna leap out of that pond and try to swallow us whole."
Michael chuckled, leaning against the wall beside her, his gaze fixed on the deceptively tranquil water. "I''ll take that bet," he offered. "My money''s on some kind of riddle. Or maybe we have to stare into the water and confront our deepest, darkest sins. You know, some tree-hugging bullshit like that."
"Yeah," Gaya snorted, the soundced with exhaustion. "Sounds exactly like something that tree hugging bitch would pull."
As they sat there, the heavy silence of the chamber pressing in on them, the pond¡ shifted. The water''s surface rippled, disturbed by something unseen.
But no fish broke the surface.
Slowly, gracefully, the water began to rise, coalescing into a silhouette of a woman. She was tall, and slender, with waves of blonde hair cascading down her back. She wore leather armor, worn and scuffed, but radiating strength. Her eyes, one brown, one green, fixed on them, unreadable. And in her hands, she held a bow. A crimson bow that seemed to hum with contained power.
The Agni-King.
"Congrattions," she spoke, her voice a soft, melodic hum that echoed through the chamber. "You have reached the final trial. Only one test remains."
Gaya rolled her eyes so hard Michael thought they might pop out of her skull. "Oh, goody," she muttered. "Another fucking test. Color me thrilled. Is it a riddle this time? A bloody fight? Or do we have to bake a goddamn cake?"
The woman, this spectral echo of Nithroel, simply smiled.
This wasn''t the Nithroel they knew, the empress who ruled Awor. This was something else, a fragment, a memory. The Goddess of the Hunt, frozen in time, a guardian of the Agni-King. Even as a sliver of her former self, Michael could feel the raw power radiating from her. But beneath it, he sensed something else, a weariness, a resignation. As if she was tired of the endless godly games, the relentless cycle of conflict and chaos. It was understandable, even rtable. It offered a glimpse into why Nithroel had retreated to the mortal realm and abandoned her divine domain.
Michael broke the heavy silence with a sigh. "Alright, Nithroel. Spill the beans. What''s the bloody test?"
Gaya, bracing herself for another nonsensical riddle or some equally absurd challenge, was caught off guard when Nithroel simply posed a question. A straightforward, no-bullshit question.
"Why do you seek the Agni-King?" the shimmering shade of Nithroel inquired, her gaze unwavering on Michael. "What purpose drives you?"
Michael''s eyebrow shot up. Not a riddle? No trickery? Just a in fucking question. He paused, considering the tangled mess of motivations that had dragged him to this point.
He opened his mouth to answer, toy out his grand n, but Nithroel raised a hand, silencing him.
"Not you, God of Darkness," she corrected, her voice soft yet firm. "Her. The Goddess of Monsters. I ask you, Gaya. Why do you crave my bow?"
Gaya blinked, surprised as hell. Me? She hadn''t seen thating. Why did she want the damn bow? She actually thought about it, a rare urrence. It wasn''t about power. Not really. She had that in spades. And prestige? Please. She couldn''t give a rat''s ass about that nonsense.
Then, like a bolt from the blue, it hit her.
Larnia.
Seshat''s words echoed in her mind, clear as day. "Where there is will, Gaya¡ there is life."
The beasts. Her creatures. They needed a home, a safe haven. And Larnia, that deste wastnd, could be reborn. With the Agni-King, she could make it bloom again.
She needed that bow. Not for herself, but for them, her unruly, terrifying, precious monsters.
"I¡ need it," Gaya affirmed, her voice solid, locking eyes with Nithroel''s. "For them. For the beasts. For the monsters. For the ones who can''t bloody well speak for themselves. And for this fucked up ce."
A genuine, warm smile softened Nithroel''s ethereal features. "Very well," she conceded, her voice gentle yet resonating with formidable power. "You may pass. Go. Retrieve the Agni-King."
And with that, she vanished, dissolving into shimmering motes of light that faded into the pond''s still surface. The water rippled for a fleeting moment, then settled, once again a perfect mirror reflecting the empty chamber above.
A low, grinding sound then filled the silence as the pond''s water level began to recede. A spiral staircase, carved from the same white stone as the chamber walls, emerged from the diminishing water, winding downwards. Simultaneously, a section of the ceiling above them slid open, revealing a circr aperture bathed in a soft, golden light.
Michael and Gaya exchanged stunned nces, surprise and relief warring on their faces. That was¡ it? After sixty-three floors of insane trials, relentless battles, and mind-bending puzzles, they''d expected¡ more. A final boss fight. A cataclysmic showdown.
"Well," Michael stated, breaking the spell, a shrug lifting his shoulders. "Let''s go, then."
"That was¡ suspiciously easy," Gaya remarked, a hint of suspicion clinging to her voice. "Am I the only one who was expecting a giant, fire-breathing something to jump out and try to eat us? Or another bloody riddle?"
Michael chuckled. "It was a different kind of test, Gaya. And you nailed it. You wanted the bow for the right reasons. Not for personal glory, not for more power. But to build something, to fix things, to protect. That''s what she wanted to hear."
Gaya sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. "I''m just bloody d we don''t have to fight anything else. Or cook for any more fucking squirrels," she muttered, heading towards the newly revealed staircase. "That whole squirrel-chef situation was seriously fucked up. Even for us."
The staircase deposited them in another chamber, smaller, more intimate than thest. Emerald stone formed the walls, polished to a mirror sheen that reflected the soft, golden light emanating from some unseen source. Intricate carvings depicting scenes of hunters and beasts adorned the walls, the details rendered with breathtaking artistry.
And in the center of the room, resting on a pedestal of white marble,y the bow. @@novelbin@@
The Agni-King.
It was magnificent. A masterpiece of divine craftsmanship. Its limbs, curved and graceful, were fashioned from a wood that seemed to shimmer with an inner fire. The string, a cord of pure energy, pulsed with crimson light. Ancient, powerful runes were etched into the bow''s surface, their shapes shifting and changing like mes in a hearth.
Even from a distance, Michael and Gaya could feel its power ¨C a raw, untamed energy that hummed in the air, making the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end.
"Well," Gaya breathed, her voice low with awe. "There it is. The Agni-King. Let''s grab it and get the fuck out of here before something else jumps out at us."
Michael nodded, his gaze fixed on the bow. "You take it, Gaya," he affirmed. "It''s yours. Nithroel''s blessing, not mine."
Gaya''s heart pounded in her chest as she took a deep breath and approached the pedestal. Her fingers trembled slightly as they closed around the smooth, warm wood of the bow.
But as soon as she touched the bow, a searing, burning agony shot up her arm, making her gasp and recoil as if she''d been branded. The bow was rejecting her. Nithroel was the Goddess of the Hunt; Gaya, the Goddess of Monsters. They were opposites, antithetical. And the bow knew it.
But Gaya was stubborn, and determined. She wouldn''t be denied. "Fuck you," she snarled, her voice a low growl, her eyes zing with fury. She reached out again, her fingers closing around the bow, her grip tightening despite the pain and pulled.
The bow resisted, vibrating in her hand, its power pushing back against her will. But she held on. A primal scream of defiance, determination, and rage tore from her throat.
And then, slowly, gradually, the bow yielded. She lifted it from the pedestal, her arms trembling with the effort, her body shaking with the strain.
Outside, thunder rumbled, and lightning shed as the storm intensified.
Then, fire.
mes, not destructive but warm, gentle, and cleansing, erupted from the bow, spreading across Gaya''s body, and enveloping her in a cocoon of light. It was a blessing, a gift from Nithroel.
Chapter 1422 Bring Life Back To Larnia
1422 Bring Life Back To Larnia
Finally, the transformationplete, Gaya stood tall, the Agni-King firm in her grasp, a raw power surging through her veins like she''d never known. She felt stronger, faster, and more intensely alive than ever before.
A quiver, seemingly crafted from dragon hide, materialized on her back, its surface shimmering with a subtle, golden light. Before her eyes, arrows appeared within it, filling the quiver to the brim. Their shafts were made of various materials, their tips glinting with different, potent energies.
Curiosity piqued, Gaya reached back and plucked one of the arrows from the quiver. She examined it with a critical eye, noting its unfamiliarposition. This was something else entirely.
She nocked the arrow, the Agni-King humming in response beneath her touch. As she drew back the string, the arrow crackled with lightning, bolts of blue energy dancing along its shaft, sparking and eager to be unleashed.
"Wow," she breathed, her voice filled with genuine awe. "A lightning arrow. But this¡ this feels different, like I''m holding pure lightning in my hands."
Michael, observing her, nodded in understanding. He''d crafted arrows for her before ¨C fire arrows, ice arrows, poison arrows ¨C using various ingredients,ponents, crystals, and potions. But this was something else entirely. The Agni-King was creating the arrows, drawing upon Nithroel''s power and imbuing them with raw, elemental energy.
A grin spreading across her face, Gaya aimed the bow towards a nk section of the far wall. Her movements were fluid, graceful, and undeniably deadly as she released the arrow.
It soared through the air, a streak of brilliant blue light, leaving a trail of crackling energy in its wake. Upon striking the wall, it exploded in a blinding sh of lightning, the sheer force of the st shaking the very foundations of the temple.
"Well," Gaya eximed, her eyes wide with excitement, a predatory grin now firmly in ce. "I think I''m going to like this bow."
She reached back and selected another arrow. This one shimmered with a soft, ethereal, silver light. She nocked it, drew back the string, and fired.
The arrow streaked through the air, but this time it left a trail of shimmering stardust in its wake. It struck the opposite wall, not with explosive force, but with a gentle impact.
Then, it bloomed.
Where the arrow struck, a flower appeared ¨C beautiful and delicate, its petals a soft, silvery white, its stem a vibrant green. It unfurled in mere seconds, its fragrance a sweet, intoxicating perfume that quickly filled the chamber. And then, more flowers appeared, spreading outwards from the initial point of impact, covering the wall in a breathtaking tapestry of silver blossoms. They climbed the walls, wrapped around the statues, and bloomed even in the cracks of the floor. It was magical, powerful, and undeniably beautiful.
"Flowers?" Gaya''s voice dripped with disdain. "Fucking flowers? What am I supposed to do with flowers? Give my enemies a bouquet? Write them a goddamn love poem on a greeting card?" She tossed the silver arrow aside, her expression a mixture of annoyance and disbelief.
Michael, however, remembered Seshat''s words about the potential of the bow. An arrow, fired from the Goddess of Hunt''s bow but wielded by the Goddess of Monsters could reawaken this destend. "I don''t think those are just flowers, Gaya," he countered, his gaze fixed on the wall where the silver blossoms continued to spread. "Remember what Seshat said about restoring Larnia?"
Gaya followed his gaze, her frown deepening. "Yeah, she said I could breathe life back into this ce or something with this bow." She paused, a skeptical edge to her voice. "But how? By decorating it with bloody daisies?"
"We should test it out," Michael suggested, a hopeful note in his voice. "Outside. Let''s see what this thing can really do."
Gaya, however, gestured around the chamber, her frown bing more pronounced. "And how exactly do you propose we get outside, genius?" she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "There are no doors, no windows, no stairs. We''re trapped. And there''s no fucking way I''m climbing all the way back down and risking another one of those fucked-up trials."
Michael, too, scanned the chamber, his gaze sweeping over the smooth, unblemished walls and the empty ceiling. They''d arrived via a staircase of light, but that was now gone. 09:33
Michael, too, scanned the chamber, his gaze sweeping over the smooth, unblemished walls and the empty ceiling. They''d arrived via a staircase of light, but that was now gone. "I think," he announced, a slow grin spreading across his face, "we''re going to have to st our way out." @@novelbin@@
A predatory gleam lit up Gaya''s eyes. "Now you''re speaking mynguage," she purred, her hand reaching for the quiver on her back. Her fingers brushed against the shafts of the arrows, searching for something specific.
She found it. An arrow, heavier than the others, its shaft a dark, obsidian ck, its tip glowing with a fierce, red light. "This one looks promising," she dered, nocking the arrow to the Agni-King. The bow hummed in response, as if anticipating the destruction toe.
She turned towards the outer wall of the pagoda, the one facing the endless desert, aimed carefully, and fired.
The arrow, a streak of ck and red, shot through the air, leaving a trail of smoke and sparks in its wake. It struck the wall with a deafening roar, exploding on impact in a congration of fire and raw energy.
The wall shattered. A gaping hole,rge enough to walk through without even ducking, appeared, revealing the stark, barrenndscape beyond.
"Well," Gaya said, letting out a long, slow breath, a hint of genuine satisfaction in her voice. "I never thought I''d say this, but I''m d to see some fucking desert."
"That was fun," Gaya remarked, her gaze fixed on the newly created hole in the temple wall. "Shall we?"
Michael nodded, and together they leaped through the opening, their figures briefly silhouetted against the zing light of the twin suns beforending on the scorching sand below. The impact sent up a cloud of fine dust that swirled around their ankles.
"I take it back," Gaya groaned, shielding her eyes with a hand against the intense re. "I fucking hate this ce."
Michael chuckled. "What are you waiting for? A formal invitation? Fire the damn arrow, Gaya."
"Yeah, yeah, hold your horses," Gaya muttered, already ascending into the air, her movements effortless as she floated upwards. "But if this doesn''t work, I''m ming you for wasting a perfectly good arrow."
She retrieved the silver arrow, the one that had bloomed into flowers within the temple, and nocked it to the Agni-King. She pulled back the string, the bow humming in response, the silver of the arrow shimmering in the harsh light of the twin suns. She took a deep breath and fixed her gaze on the barrenndscape stretching below them.
"Let there be life," she whispered, her voice low and intense, before releasing the arrow.
It soared downwards, a silver streak against the monotonous yellow of the sand, and struck the ground.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The arrow simplyy there, its silver surface glinting in the sunlight.
Then, it vibrated.
A faint, green light emanated from the point of impact, a tiny beacon of hope in the deste expanse. And then, life erupted.
A tiny sprout, green and fragile, pushed its way through the parched earth. Then, more followed, delicate flowers with vibrant, colorful petals unfurling around the arrow. Lush, emerald green grass spread outwards, quickly covering the sand in a soft, inviting carpet of life. Trees, their branches bare and skeletal moments before, suddenly sprouted leaves in a riot of green and gold.
And then came water.
Clear and sparkling rivers carved their way through the transformedndscape, their banks now lined with swaying reeds and colorful wildflowers. Waterfalls cascaded down newly formed rocky outcrops, feeding into crystal-clear pools. The dry, cracked earth softened, bing rich, dark soil teeming with unseen life. Bushesden with berries sprung up, their sweet scent carried on the gentle breeze that had begun to stir. Where only moments before there had been a silent, deste wastnd, a vibrant ecosystem now thrived. Birds with plumage as bright as jewels flitted between the newly grown trees, their songs filling the air. Small, furry creatures darted through the undergrowth, and the sound of buzzing insects reced the oppressive silence of the desert. The transformation rippled outwards, a wave of vibrant green washing over the yellow sands, turning the barren wastnd into a lush forest teeming with life.
Soon, the dry, oppressive heat that had baked the desert receded, reced by a cool, refreshing breeze that rustled the newly formed leaves. Michael, his gaze still fixed on the transformedndscape, approached the newly formed river, its waters sparkling under the twin suns. He knelt down, cupped his hands, and scooped up a handful of the clear liquid. It was cold, pure, and invigorating against his skin.
He sshed the water on his face, the coolness a wee relief from the relentless heat and the lingering tension of the past hours. He took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh, clean air, feeling his exhaustion slowly begin to dissipate. The trials hadn''t just tested his physical limits; they had drained him mentally and emotionally.
Gayanded beside him, her boots crunching softly on the newly formed grass. "Not bad, huh?" shemented, a satisfied smirk ying on her lips. "Looks a hell of a lot better than that shithole Agra called a temple."
She knelt down, mirroring Michael''s actions, and sshed the cool water on her face, letting out a sigh of pure satisfaction.
But their respite was short-lived. A reflection in the water caught Michael''s eye. It was none other than Rin with her trademarkpredatory and cruel smile.
Michael and Gaya whirled around, their weapons instinctively raised, their bodies tense and ready to strike.
And there she was. Perched on a branch of a newly sprouted tree, her legs dangling casually, her crimson eyes gleaming with a malicious light. She looked different,plete, not a fragmented echo or a mere projection.
"I think," she purred, her voice a sibnt whisper that echoed unnervingly through the newborn forest, "that bow belongs to me."
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